As I’ve recounted, there were many discoveries I made after I arrived at the campus radio in the late-eighties. Among them were a series of records with a distinctive cover design, just the name of an artist atop a big black box with a dizzying array of other bands and performers listed within it. In small print at the very top of the jacket sat three simple words: “The Peel Sessions.” To the best of my knowledge, I hadn’t heard of John Peel, the British radio personality and indefatigable music fan who was the namesake for the records. We didn’t … Continue reading One for Friday: Billy Bragg, “Valentine’s Day Is Over” (Peel Session)

As is often the case when Friday comes around this space, it’s time for another tale of the 90FM “C Stacks.” When I arrived at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, the greater music library was divided into three sections, the bands placed in them sorted roughly by notoriety: the A,B and C Stacks. Obviously the C Stacks was where the most obscure music went to live out its days at the radio station, until some college kid a generation later pulled it out, muttered, “What the hell is this?” and relegated it to the deep storage in the … Continue reading One for Friday: Cruel Story of Youth, “You’re What You Want to Be”

If the tag tally on my dashboard is correct, this is the 201st edition of One for Friday. I was properly trained by my time as a fervent comic book collector to find great significance in recurring publications hitting the big round numbers, but last week’s 200th go-round with the feature is less momentous than this week’s comparatively clumsy number. The reason is simple: with this point, One for Friday officially outlives the weekly Friday distraction it originally spun off from. Back when all my digital words were dispensed exclusively via a different platform, I spent the end of every … Continue reading One for Friday: The Weeds, “Better Now”