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One for Friday: Eugenius, “Flame On”

Dan Seeger

There were all sorts of reasons for me to play songs off of Oomalooma, the debut album from Eugenius, when it arrived at my college radio station, in 1992. First and foremost, there was the presence of Eugene Kelly as the band’s chief creative force. Kelly was one of the key members of the band the Vaselines, a group Kurt Cobain, recently installed as the voice of my generation, couldn’t stop talking about. Eugenius could also claim personnel, at one point or another, from buzzy bands like Teenage Fanclub and BMX Bandits. Then there was the helpful hook of the … Continue reading One for Friday: Eugenius, “Flame On”

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Top 40 Smash Taps: “Love Rollercoaster”

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. This feature has gone on far longer than I expected. Just look at all those songs underneath the Previously… down there. When I started this, almost four years ago, I had a nice, tidy list of singles that peaked at #40. As I poked around for other writing, I kept stumbling on other songs that qualified, enough so that I eventually decided I … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Love Rollercoaster”

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 35-33

Dan Seeger

35. The Rugburns, Taking the World by Donkey I have no recollection of the Rugburns. While there are plenty of acts on this list that barely registered for me because I was insulated from some of the more adventurous picks by working for a commercial “new rock alternative” station at the time, I think there may have been other things dissuading me from looking into this band’s musical oeuvre. Like their name, and the name of their album. And the name of their preceding full-length, which was called Morning Wood. It seems their records were dominated by acoustic-guitar based, mildly … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 35-33

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One for Friday: Flesh for Lulu, “Decline and Fall”

Dan Seeger

When I was still on the outside of it, Flesh for Lulu both sounded and looked like college radio to me. Launched as a band during the heyday of MTV and when the aftershocks of the nineteen-seventies punk explosion still shook the firmament, Flesh for Lulu simply looked the part on those occasions when they slashed across the television screen as I fulfilled my duty as an eighties teen and watched music videos as if it were the earned spoils of a social justice movement. The band had the necessary teased up hair and elaborate outfits, not to mention the immediately identifiable … Continue reading One for Friday: Flesh for Lulu, “Decline and Fall”

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The New Releases Shelf: Holly Miranda

Dan Seeger

These Holly Miranda albums take time. After the 2004 debut release that she hawked at shows, the by-then former Jealous Girlfriend released a proper solo bow in 2010. That didn’t even have a quick turnaround time from studio to record store, with it sitting idly on the shelf until Miranda signed with XL Recordings in 2010. That pairing of artist and label wasn’t meant to last, though, and Miranda started working on her next album on her own, eventually connecting with Dangerbird Records. The result is technically her third album, and yet it bears her own name. Like all self-titled releases … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Holly Miranda

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Top 40 Smash Taps: “Spinout” and “Until It’s Time For You To Go”

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. Elvis Aaron Presley had a few hits during his career. According to Joel Whitburn, who is as definitive of an expert as the field of counting chart hits gets, say he made the Top 10 thirty-eight times and claimed the coveted #1 position on eighteen occasions. For our purposes, what’s important is that two singles out of over one hundred peaked at #40. … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Spinout” and “Until It’s Time For You To Go”

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 38-36

Dan Seeger

38. The Gufs, Collide Evidently, Milwaukee’s the Gufs took their name from a Demi Moore, and I don’t there are many bands that can claim that. The band formed in 1988, the same year as the Moore-starring horror thriller The Seventh Sign, which puts forward the term as the place babies’ souls are stored before they’re born. As source material goes, this is certainly not as cool as, say, nicking a band name from a Don Delillo novel. Still, the Gufs were one of the bigger Wisconsin bands at the time, earning the 1992 Album of the Year WAMI award (the Wisconsin Area … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 38-36

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One for Friday: John Wesley Harding, “Like a Prayer”

Dan Seeger

Let us momentarily sing the praises of indie performers targeting college radio with quasi-ironic covers of big hit pop song. Back in 1989, a copy of Madonna’s Like a Prayer, on vinyl, sat in the top drawer of the filing cabinet in the office I occupied as the Program Director of WWSP-FM. I’m not even sure why Warner Bros. even bothered to send it our way, except that the label was big enough that it probably wasn’t worth their time to discriminate about shipments of promotional copies to radio stations. Everything went everywhere. While my station was a little more … Continue reading One for Friday: John Wesley Harding, “Like a Prayer”

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Top 40 Smash Taps: “Love Will Find a Way”

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. Jackie DeShannon had three Top 40 hits. Two of them made it all the way into the vaunted Top 10 and have basically became standards. Her first, “What the World Needs Now,” was written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach and first recorded by DeShannon for the 1965 album This is Jackie DeShannon. The next hit, released about four years later, was the … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Love Will Find a Way”

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 41-39

Dan Seeger

41. The Pooh Sticks, Optimistic Fool The Pooh Sticks were one of those bands that received lavish praise from certain quarters, but rarely made much more than marginal headway with anyone other than music critics. That’s probably chiefly attributable to the annoying little detail that the band were little more than an elaborate put-on, the brainchild of Fierce Recordings co-founder Steve Gregory. The music indulges in tried and true rock posturing, tugging the the tropes through a filter of Pavement-style self-satisfied arch mockery. I suppose that’s great for some (there are an awful lot of Pavement devotees, after all), but i … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 41-39