Category: Music

Music4 Comments

College Countdown: The Gavin Report Top 20 Alternative Chart, October 1992, 17 – 14

Dan Seeger

17. The Darling Buds, Erotica I don’t really remember if the Darling Buds ever had a college radio hit, the sort that commands such broad-based and intense affection from kids in broadcast booths coast to coast that it feels intrinsic to the era. They were one of the bands that defined my personal haul as a student deejay, thanks in part to the convenience of the calendar. Their debut release, the glistening Pop Said…, arrived when I was a freshman, and their final effort, Erotica, hit the Heavy Rotation shelf as I embarked on my last year in college, grumpily resigned … Continue reading College Countdown: The Gavin Report Top 20 Alternative Chart, October 1992, 17 – 14

MusicLeave a comment

One for Friday: Venison, “Forward”

Dan Seeger

I am still adjusting in my return to my native state of Wisconsin. Certainly spending a day indulging in gluttony while the wind blew briskly outside was a helpful reminder of the cultural terrain of the dairyland to which I’ve boomeranged, especially since we managed to place ourselves within a restaurant that is most accurately reviewed with the phrase “Lots of meat!” There were plenty of things giving me that seems-like-old-times feeling yesterday, from a glass of beer at The Great Dane to Brett Favre in Lambeau Field. And then there’s the blaze orange I’ve seen out an about the past … Continue reading One for Friday: Venison, “Forward”

Music5 Comments

College Countdown: The Gavin Report Top 20 Alternative Chart, October 1992, 20 – 18

Dan Seeger

20. Too Much Joy, Mutiny As I’ve noted before, Too Much Joy was our band. To the degree that every college radio station has a single artist that most clearly represents them — preferably an artist that is woefully underappreciated elsewhere, upping the sense of special discovery — the quartet out of Scarsdale, New York were the beer-loving, smart-alecky, boisterous, and endearingly cunning mascots of Stevens Point’s WWSP-FM. The bond began with their 1988 release, Son of Sam I Am, and was cemented one album later, with 1991’s Cereal Killers. By the time Mutiny landed in the mailroom, Too Much … Continue reading College Countdown: The Gavin Report Top 20 Alternative Chart, October 1992, 20 – 18

MusicLeave a comment

One for Friday: Shelby Lynne, “Your Lies”

Dan Seeger

At around the time the calendar odometer took its might spin from 1999 to 2000, I was extremely anxious about all the music I was missing. I’d graduated some seven years earlier, meaning I’d left the constantly rushing stream of college radio behind (I stuck around the station for another year-and-a-half as a community volunteer deejay, but the immersive quality of being a leader there meant exposure to new music didn’t feel quite the same). I deluded myself into thinking that working at a “new rock alternative” commercial station kept me connected, but I now realize the ratio of truly exceptional … Continue reading One for Friday: Shelby Lynne, “Your Lies”

Music3 Comments

The New Releases Shelf: Art Angels

Dan Seeger

(photo source) I really liked Visions, the album released by Grimes in 2012. But I also found it to be a little uneven, prone to digressions that didn’t quite spin into full-fledged, satisfying tracks. Peaks and valleys are to be expected (and the peaks were absolutely glorious), but it’s nice when the valleys are worth strolling through, too. Still, every indication was there that Grimes was poised to make an album that could be deemed great without reservation. All she needed to do was take another artistic step forward. Turns out that step I hoped for is more of a … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Art Angels

Music6 Comments

College Countdown: The Gavin Report Top 20 Alternative Chart, October 1992, An Introduction

Dan Seeger

I’m going to concede up front that this chart is presented as something as a place-holder. I have a much more significant countdown all cued up on one of the theoretical turntables, but I need a touch more time to get ready for it. Looking for something to carry this feature through to roughly the end of the calendar year, I landed on a chart from the fall of 1992. This isn’t purely random. For reasons not entirely unrelated to the next chart we’ll use, I was thinking a lot about my last year as a student in college radio. … Continue reading College Countdown: The Gavin Report Top 20 Alternative Chart, October 1992, An Introduction

MusicLeave a comment

From the Archive: Hocus Pocus

Dan Seeger

This is another one of the record reviews I wrote for the short-lived but dandy Central Florida publication The Independent Journal. Enon was a band I hadn’t heard of — to my recollection, anyway — before becoming the General Manager and Staff Advisor for the campus radio station at Rollins College, but they were a favorite of some key staff members. The students even got the band to come into the station and play a live, on-air set. I carried around a CD copy of that performance for ages. It was my actual favorite Enon album. I’m selecting this for … Continue reading From the Archive: Hocus Pocus

MusicLeave a comment

One for Friday: John Lydon interviewed by WPRK

Dan Seeger

So I’m going to do something a little different today. Usually I reserve this Friday feature to share an MP3 from some bygone record that I treasured in my college radio days, with the occasionally foray into music that was released after I got my paper and I was free. But the college radio experience was about more than the actual records to me. It was also about making connections with the performers that I enjoyed so much. While I didn’t have the opportunity to do it all that often, I retain a tremendous affection for those instances when I … Continue reading One for Friday: John Lydon interviewed by WPRK

Music8 Comments

Top 40 Smash Taps: “It Should Have Been Me”

Dan Seeger

These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. Amazingly, Gladys Knight and the Pips never had a chart-topping single for Motown Records. As towering as the act was, the closest they came was with their version of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” which was passed around to all of the label’s stars, including Smokey Robinson. Of course, it was Marvin Gaye who owned that particular number. His take was recorded … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “It Should Have Been Me”

MusicLeave a comment

College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 1

Dan Seeger

1. Marques Bovre and the Evil Twins, Flyover Land Though I wasn’t at the station at the time, I can provide all sorts of reasons as to why Flyover Land predictably landed at the top spot of 90FM’s year-end chart. The simplest explanation involves the radio station’s biggest event of the year. A weekend-long affair modestly billed as The World’s Largest Trivia Contact takes place every April. Throughout much of the nineteen-nineties the weekend prior was marked by a couple of “Kickoff” programs: a midnight movie and a concert. In 1995, the movie was an indie crowdpleaser that likely challenges the sensibilities … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 1