College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 32 and 31
32. Love Battery, Straight Freak Ticket It often seemed that playing grunge music and being from Seattle basically combined up to create a golden ticket for qualifying bands in the early-to-mid-nineties, but the crossover success wasn’t uniformly distributed. Love Battery had the right sound and the correct zip code. What they didn’t have was a label that knew how to market them. Straight Freak Ticket was the band’s fourth album overall and their first full-length since jumping from Sub Pop Records to Atlas Records. It obviously did pretty well with at least one batch of college kids. As far as I can … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 32 and 31
From the Archive: Life with Mikey
I’m well aware that not every movie that hits screen in the warmer months is expected to turn into a marauding blockbuster, but I’m still occasionally taken aback by how small-scale some of the summer releases were back in the early-to-mid-nineteen-nineties, when I was still one-half of a weekly movie review radio program. One week before Jurassic Park opened in 1993, one of the two wide release openings was Guilty as Sin, a lousy courtroom drama directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Rebecca De Mornay (who had at least had a surprise hit with the thriller The Hand That Rocks the Cradle the year before) and Don … Continue reading From the Archive: Life with Mikey
One for Friday: Eugenius, “Flame On”
There were all sorts of reasons for me to play songs off of Oomalooma, the debut album from Eugenius, when it arrived at my college radio station, in 1992. First and foremost, there was the presence of Eugene Kelly as the band’s chief creative force. Kelly was one of the key members of the band the Vaselines, a group Kurt Cobain, recently installed as the voice of my generation, couldn’t stop talking about. Eugenius could also claim personnel, at one point or another, from buzzy bands like Teenage Fanclub and BMX Bandits. Then there was the helpful hook of the … Continue reading One for Friday: Eugenius, “Flame On”
Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty
#30 — She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford, 1949) One of the pleasures of examining the long swath of Hollywood film history is considering the ways in which the long-lasting masters of the form adapted to the technological changes that came their way. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon was not John Ford’s first film in color, but it virtually quivers from the great director’s efforts to construct his film visually with all the possibilities that Technicolor had to offer as the nineteen-forties were drawing to a close. Like few of his contemporaries, Ford used the screen the way a master … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty
Top 40 Smash Taps: “Love Rollercoaster”
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. This feature has gone on far longer than I expected. Just look at all those songs underneath the Previously… down there. When I started this, almost four years ago, I had a nice, tidy list of singles that peaked at #40. As I poked around for other writing, I kept stumbling on other songs that qualified, enough so that I eventually decided I … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Love Rollercoaster”
Beers I Have Known: 3 Sheeps Hello, My Name is Joe
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. I have been vociferous in my praise and appreciation for the tremendous craft brewery scene in the city I currently call home. It’s robust enough that I can sometimes lose sight of the fact that similar bounties are being brewed up all over the place, including my native state, which has its own storied history with beer, after all. Luckily, I’ve had regular trips to my dairyland homeland every spring and a batch of … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: 3 Sheeps Hello, My Name is Joe
Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-One
#31 — Edge of Darkness (Lewis Milestone, 1943) Sometimes the quality that really distinguishes a film is commitment. The bigger the concepts and the more intense the conflicts within the film, the more tempting it is to default to the counterbalance of restraint. Edge of Darkness takes the opposite tack, heartily embracing its own heightened emotions with a acceptance of the natural floridness of the tale. Trafficking in the fervid narrative grammar of wartime propaganda, director Lewis Milestone’s film ratchets up the tension at every opportunity, at times threatening to push the material into a sort of perversely grounded fever dream. … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-One
College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 35-33
35. The Rugburns, Taking the World by Donkey I have no recollection of the Rugburns. While there are plenty of acts on this list that barely registered for me because I was insulated from some of the more adventurous picks by working for a commercial “new rock alternative” station at the time, I think there may have been other things dissuading me from looking into this band’s musical oeuvre. Like their name, and the name of their album. And the name of their preceding full-length, which was called Morning Wood. It seems their records were dominated by acoustic-guitar based, mildly … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 35-33
From the Archive: Little Children
Strange as it might seem, this week’s From the Archive selection is by request. Out of the blue, I was asked by a friend, “Have you seen In the Bedroom and Little Children?” I answered in the affirmative, then sheepishly noted … Continue reading From the Archive: Little Children
One for Friday: Flesh for Lulu, “Decline and Fall”
When I was still on the outside of it, Flesh for Lulu both sounded and looked like college radio to me. Launched as a band during the heyday of MTV and when the aftershocks of the nineteen-seventies punk explosion still shook the firmament, Flesh for Lulu simply looked the part on those occasions when they slashed across the television screen as I fulfilled my duty as an eighties teen and watched music videos as if it were the earned spoils of a social justice movement. The band had the necessary teased up hair and elaborate outfits, not to mention the immediately identifiable … Continue reading One for Friday: Flesh for Lulu, “Decline and Fall”
Coffee for Two 