I have a feeling I would have really disliked The Voyager had it arrived ten years earlier. My basis for this is my dwindling appreciation of the music of Rilo Kiley as they got more polished and poppy on More … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: The Voyager
1. The Who, Who Are You Let’s start with the bloke seated in the chair there, the one turned around backwards with the instructional message “NOT TO BE TAKEN AWAY” stenciled on it. Keith John Moon celebrated his thirty-second birthday … Continue reading College Countdown, The First CMJ Album Chart, 1
When I was in college, North Carolina seemed as distant as a foreign land. Hell, we were in central Wisconsin so at least one foreign land was significantly closer. But there was something else about the state that made it seem even further away somehow. Maybe it was simply that it was one of those areas that I’d never had much cause to think about before. When waves of records showed up from Georgia or Seattle, it didn’t strike me an exotic (and all the albums from nearby Minneapolis were like letters from home). A sudden influx of material from … Continue reading One for Friday: Satellite Boyfriend, “Bam Bam Bah”
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. Ernest Evans was overweight, but just a little. Just enough, in fact, that he was nicknamed “Chubby” by one the bosses at a low-level job he worked. As the story goes, Evans had just done a Fats Domino impression during an audition when he was asked his name. When he responded to a question about his name, he replied with the nickname related … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Lazy Elsie Molly” and “Let’s Do the Freddie”
2. Van Morrison, Wavelength I saw Van Morrison play live once, as the capper to a day-long festival of mostly Irish artists sponsored, of course, by Guinness. This was towards the end of the nineties, so Morrison was well past … Continue reading College Countdown, The First CMJ Album Chart, 2
“Cinematic” by the A-Sides is the first song listed in my iTunes. When I start it up at the beginning or the day or slip over to the “Music” list on my iPod, that’s the first song I see. It is the only song I have from the band, a group of indie rockers from Philadelphia. It’s off of Silver Storms, their sophomore effort and sole release for Vagrant. One year later, they announced the dissolution of the band (on their MySpace page, to put the moment in music business history in proper perspective). I like the song, but I’m … Continue reading One for Friday: The A-Sides, “Cinematic”
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. Back before he became the poster boy for Branson, Missouri milquetoast schtick and one of the more famous doddering parrots of Fox News petrified nonsense, Andy Williams was a velvet-voiced singer with a string of hits, a sort of safe alternative to those who were were likely to clutch their metaphorical (or, indeed, actual) pearls whenever they heard the raw, reckless sounds coming … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Ain’t It True”
3. Yes, Tormato The very first lyrics heard on the Yes album Tormato are “In the fountains of the universe: Set time in accord/ Sits the boychild Solomon: Every turning round and round,” sung over electronic trilling that sounds heavily … Continue reading College Countdown, The First CMJ Album Chart, 3
I’ve featured a selection from Firewater’s Psychopharmacology one before in this space. As I noted at the time, the album was one of the first I bought from the finest local, independently-owned record store in my new hometown at the time. Even though I owned it and it was circulated through my CD player with some regularity, I was still reminded of the way that being involved in a college radio station had the blessing of prolonged, collaborative discovery. The Firewater album did all right for us, with most deejays (myself included) gravitating to the snaky, catchy title cut. Then … Continue reading One for Friday: Firewater, “She’s the Mistake”
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. The quartet comprised of Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle, Keith Moon, and Pete Townshend, known collectively as the Who, first reached the Billboard Top 40 with their 1966 single “Happy Jack.” They made it into that portion of the chart a total of sixteen times, doing so as late as 1982, by which point dearly departed drummer Keith Moon (who, as much as anyone … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Call Me Lightning”
Coffee for Two 