My Trivia team has a theme song. We even have a outside source to confirm it: Okay, so that Wikipedia edit is long gone, but I swear it was accurate. Since that song holds a special hold on me and my cohorts, a version of it is shared in this space on the Friday on the day The Only Trivia Contest That Matters (my phrasing) kicks off. For years, I scoured the web for covers or other alternate takes that existed so I had something to put in this space without sharing the original, chart-topping recording. Then last year I … Continue reading One for Friday Encore: Mollie Donihe, “Come On Eileen (Cover)”

When I trace my foundational knowledge of the music I eventually immersed myself in at my college radio station, I usually have to cite either Rolling Stone or, more rarely, the keepers on the airwaves in my hometown. When it comes to Laurie Anderson, though, I’m fairly confident I was introduced to her by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. While the Chicago film critics dutifully covered the major studio releases on their weekly movie review program, they also committed themselves to highlighting the smaller, independent, even oddball films that weren’t likely to play at a theater near me, not just … Continue reading One for Friday: Laurie Anderson, “Babydoll”

This is how I saw it: Liz Phair needed to reclaim some of the energy that surrounded her out-of-nowhere indie sensation debut, Exile in Guyville. By most measures, her follow-up effort, Whip-Smart, was an even greater success, climbing higher on the album charts, selling more copies (at least initially, though Exile in Guyville has outpaced it by now), and yielding a couple of decent modern rock radio hits. But her coolness quotient took a pretty sizable hit. She became a Rolling Stone cover girl instead of a Village Voice icon. That’s not inherently bad — and there are plenty of indications … Continue reading One for Friday: Liz Phair, “California”

One of the things I appreciated about my particular era of college radio was the sense that we were still allowed to reclaim artists. I get a sense — perhaps incorrectly — that the denizens on the left end of the dial, few as their number may be these days, no longer view that as part of the mission. Once an artist crosses over to more commercial terrain or otherwise falls out of favor with college radio programmers, they seem to be gone forever. The notion of college radio acts still had just a little lingering wisp of that new … Continue reading One for Friday: Joe Jackson, “Stranger Than Fiction”