14. Golden Smog, Down by the Old Mainstream Golden Smog has a longer history than their best-known recorded history suggests. First formed in 1989 by a batch of Minneapolis musicians with pretty good day jobs (like the Replacements and Soul … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1996, 14 and 13
We’re winding down to the end of the year at Spectrum Culture, so there’s a lot going into prep for that. I’m spending so much time trying trying to assemble my various lists–mostly extensive listening and re-listening to the most interesting music of the year–that keeping up with the new stuff week to week becomes kind of dizzying. For example, I have to keep reminding myself that I’ve got a late contender for the Best Albums list in the latest from White Denim. This also represents one of the few times (maybe the first time) that I’ve returned to a … Continue reading Spectrum Check
I guess we can’t have nice things. I remember the very moment I found out about Wild Flag. I was in my community’s finest record store, indulging in my usual practice of compulsively checking the Sleater-Kinney section, even though my collection was basically complete (I’m still lacking the self-titled debut in case anyone is looking for a holiday gift-giving idea). As I forlornly muttered about the demise of the band and my own inability to ever see them play live, the gentleman behind the counter gently directed me to a flyer on the front door of the shop. Sure enough, … Continue reading One for Friday: Wild Flag, “See No Evil”
16. Various Artists, William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet soundtrack Yet another soundtrack, but this time I get it. And not just because a copy of this one still sits on our household CD shelf. Like a lot of director Baz Luhrmann’s films, his kinetic adaptation of Romeo and Juliet is such a melange of music and imagery, essentially the culminating cinematic product of the heavy MTV influence from the prior decade, that getting the soundtrack comes across as almost a necessity, a way to openly acknowledge the fingerprints Luhrmann has left on the mind, for good or ill. Surely it … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1996, 16 and 15
Considering it was a short week, I had a lot of material up at Spectrum Culture. The most challenging piece to write was my “Revisit” on Lawrence Kasdan’s The Big Chill, part of my ongoing attempt to exhaust all of my pop culture touchstones for the site. I suspect the result reads as a little more unkind towards the film than my actual, official stance on it, but I went where the writing took me. The other film I wrote on was a new documentary on Bettie Page. I picked it up because of the promise that the famously private … Continue reading Spectrum Check
For all the fondness and pride I have when I look back at my college radio years, I’m also amused by all the instances when my alma mater station proved to be far from prescient. Given the span of years when I happily toiled as an undergrad in the poster-laden studios, I’d love to be able to report that we were truly among the first to play the bands that would eventually become a sacred part of the indie firmament. But I don’t actually remember us giving a whole lot of airtime to, say, Bleach before Nevermind. For a college … Continue reading One for Friday: Dream Warriors, “Wash Your Face in My Sink”
18. Rusted Root, Remember Surely I’m not the only one who assumed that Rusted Root didn’t exist much past their fine breakthrough single, “Send Me On My Way,” right? Of course, there’s also no real reason I should have jumped … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1996, 18 and 17
When trying to find films and records to write on each and every week, there are time when the material is going to be extremely unmemorable, neither good enough to stir genuine excitement nor bad enough to engender the flush of resentment for the time given away to it. That’s basically where I landed this week with Spectrum Culture. For instance, the film I reviewed had some promising elements, especially when it came to the performances. It was nice to see skilled performers who don’t usually land particularly worthwhile roles getting the chance to dig into some meaty material and … Continue reading Spectrum Check
This weekend I’ll sit down to write about one of my truly formative films, a cinematic effort that helped define my notions of adulthood and especially friendship that endures past the easy cohesion of school years and across the years. All I’ll elude to in the piece, when I first saw the film I was young enough that the portrait of a bond freighted with history was as foreign to me as, say, an archeology professor engaged in feats of borderline implausible derring-do. And yet it struck a chord with me, as if I knew I’d have touchstones that roughly … Continue reading One for Friday: Luka Bloom, “An Irishman in Chinatown”
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. By my rough count, the Temptations made thirty-seven visits to the Billboard Top 40, not counting an early nineteen-nineties collaboration with Rod Stewart at the precise moment he gave up all pretenses of being anything other than treacly hack. Of those, four actually made it all the way to #1, beginning with the sweetest of romantic tributes and ending with with a funk … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Plastic Man” and “Happy People”
Coffee for Two 