One for Friday: The Mr. T Experience, “So Long, Sucker”
Like a lot of my cohorts in college radio, I saw music as serious stuff. I adamantly clung to the notion that the songs we played on our end of the dial were revolutionary, transformative, and deeply important as compared to the frivolous nonsense all the other stations were playing. Even when one of our favored artists indulged in comparative silliness about, say, mass transit smooching, we knew deep down that it really represented a deep expression of existential agony. Bubble gum fun was for the helpless sheep, lulled into complacency by the repetitiveness of Top 40 radio and MTV. … Continue reading One for Friday: The Mr. T Experience, “So Long, Sucker”
Jesus can swing, Jesus has skills, go on and try it if you don’t believe he will
Sixty-sixth in a series…. Continue reading Jesus can swing, Jesus has skills, go on and try it if you don’t believe he will
Laughing Matters: Eddie Izzard, “Cake or Death?”
Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too.. As I recall it, the first time I ever encountered Eddie Izzard’s name was in a piece at the online magazine Salon, when online magazines were still the height of novelty. The comedy performances touted in the article were still devilishly hard to come by, so I simply filed the name away, deeply intrigued by the excited celebration of a comic mind that approached … Continue reading Laughing Matters: Eddie Izzard, “Cake or Death?”
Now Playing — Alien: Covenant
In space, it is said, no one can hear you scream. While I watched Alien: Covenant, I started to wonder if it was possible to hear aggressive eye-rolling into the middle of a booming movie theater. The latest attempt to wring a few more dollars out of enduring nostalgia for the 1979 sci-fi/horror film — or, more likely, the inferior 1986 sci-fi/action sequel — returns Ridley Scott to the director’s chair, continuing the eradication of goodwill that he began with Prometheus. That prequel effort to the franchise Scott inadvertently launched a lifetime ago trafficked in pretentious, exploratory mumbo jumbo and disconnected … Continue reading Now Playing — Alien: Covenant
Beers I Have Known: Burial Beer Co. Tin Cup Camp Stout
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. Although it wasn’t necessarily all that great for either my waistline or my wallet, I greatly enjoyed my time as a beer drinker in Asheville, North Carolina. During the eight years or so that I lived there, the craft beer scene expanded from a boomlet to a full-on craze. I naturally had my favorites, and it was difficult to bid them farewell when I moved back to the frigid, friendly North. While I … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Burial Beer Co. Tin Cup Camp Stout
College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 43 – 41
43. R.E.M., “Fall on Me” Sometimes when focusing on singles released in the nineteen-eighties, it is illuminating to look at their music videos. By the time R.E.M. released their fourth album, Lifes Rich Pageant, in 1986, MTV was approaching the peak of its powers as the tastemaker for U.S. music charts. Although R.E.M. had a somewhat strained relationship with the promotional art of music videos, lead singer Michael Stipe took the lead on creating a clip for the album’s lead single, “Fall on Me.” Its cryptic imagery was in line with the band’s image as inscrutable icons of college rock, but … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 43 – 41
From the Archive: Wild at Heart
I know I saw Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me when it was released in the summer of 1992, but I don’t recall if I wrote a review of it. That task probably fell to my partner on the movie review radio show, leaving me to simply announce I hated it when it was my turn to pipe in. I was, however, charged with writing about Wild at Heart in the fall of 1990, early in our program’s run. It was a nerve-wracking assignment. I was still learning how to write reviews and here I had to grapple with one … Continue reading From the Archive: Wild at Heart
One for Friday: Soundgarden, “Ugly Truth”
In 1989, thunder came to my college radio station. It’s possible there was a copy of Soundgarden’s 1988 debut, Ultramega OK, floating around the station, but I don’t recall it. Given the sound, I suspect it went straight into the heavy metal stacks. But the band’s sophomore effort, Louder Than Love, arrived on a bed of raves from the college rock press. This wasn’t something to be relegated to a specialty show, we were assured. This thing needed to be heard. Before Nirvana’s Nevermind shoved a big, grungy pushpin into Seattle on the rock ‘n’ roll map, Soundgarden was representing … Continue reading One for Friday: Soundgarden, “Ugly Truth”
The New Releases Shelf: What Now
I have previously confessed to having a weakness for songs about songs. The inherent meta-based tomfoolery is enjoyable, but I think there’s another layer to it. Responses to pop songs — great pop songs, anyway — tend to run deep, tapping into emotions that shiver beneath the surface, anxious for an outlet. When a song directly acknowledges that abiding desire, it is asserting the value of its purpose in the most automatically convincing manner. If the song also manages to be catchy, enticing, disarming, then it approaches the realm of the pop culture magic. What Now, the sophomore album from … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: What Now
The New Releases Shelf: Humanz
Damon Albarn sure has a funky, groovy id. It’s now been about twenty years since the frontman of Blur created a decidedly strange side project: an Archies for the then-looming new millennium. Working with comic book artist Jamie Hewlett, Albarn fashioned an animated quartet (comprised of lead vocalist and keyboardist 2-D, guitarist Noodle, bassist Murdoc Niccals, and drummer Russel Hobbs) that unleashed loose, lithe dance tracks. I don’t recall if Albarn ever explicitly noted that the “virtual band” was a means to more playful expression musically, but it definitely seemed that way to me, especially as Blur moved toward increasingly dense and ponderous … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Humanz
Coffee for Two 