College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 28 – 26
28. Big Country, “In a Big Country” When trying to introduce a band to an international audience, there are worse strategies that releasing an anthemic single that has the group’s name right there in the title. “In a Big Country” wasn’t the first single from the Scottish band Big Country, but it was the first to get them significant attention in the U.S. (Its predecessor, “Fields of Fire (400 Miles),” was a Top 10 hit in the U.K., a level “In a Big Country” didn’t reach.) Officially considered the third single from the band’s 1983 debut album, The Crossing, the … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 28 – 26
From the Archive: Bay Day
Nine years ago today, I conducted an experiment in masochism. The particulars are explained well enough below, so I’ll not offer no additional retrospective preamble. Enjoy my pain. In the summer of 1998, my partner-in-all-things and I were vacationing in Colorado. As we’re prone to do, we took some of our spare time to go and see a movie. Since we were in the mood for something fun and light–a junk food movie, if you will–we ventured to a nearby theater and saw Armageddon, Michael Bay’s third feature and his follow-up to the flawed-but-mindlessly-entertaining The Rock. My old colleague in … Continue reading From the Archive: Bay Day
One for Friday: The Woggles, “Get Tough”
Any travel is full of the unexpected, I suppose. It comes with traversing unfamiliar terrain. But my recent jaunt to the Pacific Northwest brought an especially jarring moment, although certainly not an unpleasant one. While walking past one of the many makeshift kiosks wallpapers with club fliers, a familiar band name jumped out at me. It wasn’t some flannel-clad band of scruffy misfits I associated with my college radio years — that certainly would have been understandable given I was in the geographic corner of the nation that came to dominate left of the dial playlists when I was helping … Continue reading One for Friday: The Woggles, “Get Tough”
Playing Catch-Up: The Hot Rock, Krisha, Tiger Shark
The Hot Rock (Peter Yates, 1972). This adaptation of a Donald Westlake novel — featuring a screenplay that was William Goldman’s first produced work following his Oscar win for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid — is a lithe and cheeky heist film. Robert Redford plays John Dortmunder, a professional thief freshly released from his latest stay is prison. Mere minutes pass before he’s roped into a new scheme involving the theft of an African gem on display in the Brooklyn Museum. What follows is a series of setbacks — all smartly plausible — that require Dortmunder and his assembled … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up: The Hot Rock, Krisha, Tiger Shark
The Art of the Sell: Moon Knight
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. I’ve long held an affection for Moon Knight, both the character and the nineteen-eighties comic book series preside over by writer Doug Moench and artist Bill Sienkiewicz. And yet every time I’ve gone back and perused an issue or two — with an entry in the “My Misspent Youth” feature in mind — I’ve found it to be difficult sledding. Even though I read a bunch of those comics back in my heavy-duty collecting days, the old … Continue reading The Art of the Sell: Moon Knight
Bait Taken: 5 of the Best Stephen King Adaptations Ever
There are many building blocks of the internet, but the cornerstones are think pieces, offhand lists, and other hollow provocations meant to stir arguments and, therefore, briefly redirect web traffic. Engaging such material is utterly pointless. Then again, it’s not like I have anything better to do. It almost seems unkind — or maybe foolish — to take umbrage with the vaguely defined list of Stephen King adaptations recently published at New York magazine’s Vulture site. For starters, it’s obvious advertorial nonsense, released in conjunction with Spike’s needy attempt at cashing in on the lucrative market for genre-driven television. There’s also a … Continue reading Bait Taken: 5 of the Best Stephen King Adaptations Ever
Beers I Have Known: Heater Allen Pils
This series of posts is dedicated to the many, many six packs, pony kegs and pints that have sauntered into my life at one point or another. Dear Portland, Back in the earliest years of the Beer City USA online voting competition, I saw you as a disliked rival to my modest little mountain town. I was living in Asheville, North Carolina, which regularly took the top spot in the competition, much to, as we were made to understand, the chagrin of residents of Oregon’s most populous city. At the time, I took some puffed up local pride in our … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Heater Allen Pils
College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 31 – 29
31. Adam and the Ants, “Antmusic” “We name our music ‘antmusic’ to prevent classification and bracketing from other people,” Adam Ant told Tom Snyder when he appeared on Tomorrow to promote the 1980 album Kings of the Wild Frontier. “I don’t think that’s pretentious considering it’s taken four years to get the sound.” Besides the stretch of time identified by the singer, Adam and the Ants had gone through quite an ordeal on the way from their first to their second album, including the collapse of the band itself. Following a first flush of minor success — and some pigeonholing … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 31 – 29
From the Archive: Smart People
When I was reviewing films for a weekly radio show, I had to see practically everything that came through our modest little college town. In the few years after I had a diploma and no regular responsibilities for writing about the latest titles to grace the multiplex, I still saw nearly every major release that hit theaters. After that I was far more selectively, which sometimes leaves me wondering why I saw a particular film while it played in first-run theaters. I believe the outing that led directly into this review was because our household briefly — and occasionally to … Continue reading From the Archive: Smart People
One for Friday: The Replacements, “Portland”
It was one of those Replacements shows. Towards the end of the band’s tour in support of the album Pleased to Meet Me, the Minneapolis quartet was booked into the Pine Street Theatre in Portland, Oregon. Regional heroes the Young Fresh Fellows opened the show. Surely, it was a hot ticket, or at least a warm one, just a little uncomfortable to the touch. By this point in time — 1987, to be precise — the Replacements had plenty of people lining up to declare them the best rock band in the U.S. They also had a deserved reputation of … Continue reading One for Friday: The Replacements, “Portland”
Coffee for Two 