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The New Releases Shelf: No Cities to Love

Dan Seeger

I believe I officially have to rethink my standing policy of greeting all band reunions with unyielding skepticism that extends to the point of preemptive dismissal. I’ll admit it’s been outdated for a while, a vestige of the time when I and many of my fellow college radio-reared music snob cohorts measured artistic credibility beginning with a consideration of distance from anything that could be termed selling out. Decisions seemingly made on the basis of readily available dollars rather than following some fictitious muse were commonly met with peak animosity, and getting the band back together was one of those … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: No Cities to Love

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 79 – 77

Dan Seeger

79. G. Love & Special Sauce, Coast to Coast Motel I don’t have very many distinct memories relating to the Philadelphia act G. Love & Special Sauce, which makes it all the more clear which one is my favorite. I was having a spirited conversation with a friend of mine about the state of radio, particularly the quality of the student broadcasters stewarding the airwaves at our shared alma mater. While acknowledging that we were all novices once and generosity is called for, he shared that one deejay caused him special dismay whenever she was on the air. As an example, he … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 79 – 77

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 82 – 80

Dan Seeger

82. Oasis, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? In the mid-nineteen-nineties, there was no shortage of music critics who were ready to declare Oasis the next major band, the one that would endure for years and years, delivering one masterpiece after another. This was somewhat driven by the ever-excitable U.K. music press, although authoritative co-signers rushed in from all quarters. Oasis were enormously successful in their homeland, basically from the very beginning (their first single, “Supersonic,” charted in the Top 40 on the British charts, although peaking at a surprisingly modest #31). Songs from their debut album, Definitely Maybe, garnered healthy modern … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 82 – 80

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One for Friday: Lily Allen, “Don’t Get Me Wrong”

Dan Seeger

I believe I’ve used this exact phrasing previously in a One for Friday post, but it’s useful enough to be worth repeating: some days you just need a damn good cover. Even as I acknowledge covers can be cheesy and overly opportunistic, devoid of any evident meaningful connection between the appropriation artist and the original song, I have a level of helplessness when confronted with one. This is especially true when it’s a song for which I have an outsized fondness (like, say, the Pretenders single “Don’t Get Me Wrong”) performed by an artist at at time when they are … Continue reading One for Friday: Lily Allen, “Don’t Get Me Wrong”

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 84 and 83

Dan Seeger

84. Letters to Cleo, Wholesale Meats and Fish About the only things that’s really worth knowing about Letters to Cleo these days is that fictional municipal executive Ben Wyatt is a fan. The band, fronted by Kay Hanley, had a solid radio hit with “Here and Now,” a song that appeared on their debut release, the unfortunately-titled Aurora Gory Alice. The band and their label clearly hoped to leverage that tantalizing taste of success with the release of their sophomore album, Wholesale Meats and Fish, and it initially seemed they might be able to develop some reasonable longevity. “Awake,” the … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 84 and 83

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One for Friday: The Del Fuegos, “Don’t Run Wild”

Dan Seeger

The Del Fuegos was one of the important band names I carried with me when I first started at my beloved college radio station in the fall of 1988. I’m not precisely sure how I’d heard of them. Since I don’t believe I’d actually heard a note of their music by that point in time, it was probably through some effusive praise printed in the pages of Rolling Stone, my deeply imperfect but still useful peephole through the fence that held me apart from the realm of better, bolder music than what was being played on local radio stations where … Continue reading One for Friday: The Del Fuegos, “Don’t Run Wild”

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 87 – 85

Dan Seeger

87. The Freddy Jones Band, North Avenue Wake Up Call At the time North Avenue Wake Up Call was released, the Freddy Jones Band included the following members: Jim and Rob Bonaccorsi, Wayne Healy, Simon Horrocks, and Marty Lloyd. According to Wikipedia, others who can claim one-time membership in the group are Jeff Duffy, Mark Murphy, and Scott Larned. Not a single “Freddy” or “Jones” among them. Evidently, the band has never revealed the derivation of the moniker that gives them their name. This is exactly the sort of generic roots rock that expect to flourish at my broadcasting alma mater … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 87 – 85

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One for Friday: Possum Dixon, “Emergency’s About to End”

Dan Seeger

When I worked commercial radio, toiling at a “new rock alternative” station in the mid-nineteen-nineties, I desperately appreciated those handful of artists that reminded me of my time in the woolier sonic lands of a student-run part of the FM band. I don’t really mean those major college radio bands that had decisively crossed over by that point, like R.E.M. and U2. Nor am I referring to the bevy of grunge rock bands that were the beneficiaries of Nirvana’s success, those groups that largely made college radio a mere pit stop before going on to massive record sales and monstrously … Continue reading One for Friday: Possum Dixon, “Emergency’s About to End”

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 90 – 88

Dan Seeger

90. The Falling Wallendas, The Falling Wallendas The Falling Wallendas were a power-pop outfit out of Chicago, close enough to 90FM’s Central Wisconsin home base that there was surely a little regional affection and pride for many of the deejays that played their self-titled debut. After an admittedly cursory search, I wasn’t able to find any music from this album readily available on the interweb for open listening. The closest I got was a live version of the song “Porn,” which appears in its studio version on their sophomore effort, Belittle. That second outing was also their last. Besides having an aces band … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 90 – 88

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One for Friday: The Dazzlers, “Lovely Crash”

Dan Seeger

As must periodically happen, the One for Friday space this week is devoted to carrying the baton forward for the late, beloved (by me, anyway) blog Little Hits. The online space that shared notably obscure songs from a certain era — basically the power pop, post-punk, modern rock tsunami from the late nineteen-seventies to the late nineteen-eighties — was one of my favorite destinations when I first started assembling a pile of music onto a hard drive, building the automated radio station of my most blissful dreams. Besides admiring the taste of the blog’s creator, his selections spoke to a favorite … Continue reading One for Friday: The Dazzlers, “Lovely Crash”