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”

Let us momentarily sing the praises of indie performers targeting college radio with quasi-ironic covers of big hit pop song. Back in 1989, a copy of Madonna’s Like a Prayer, on vinyl, sat in the top drawer of the filing cabinet in the office I occupied as the Program Director of WWSP-FM. I’m not even sure why Warner Bros. even bothered to send it our way, except that the label was big enough that it probably wasn’t worth their time to discriminate about shipments of promotional copies to radio stations. Everything went everywhere. While my station was a little more … Continue reading One for Friday: John Wesley Harding, “Like a Prayer”

Elvis Costello wrote the song “45” on the day he could officially and honestly claim that number as his age. After debuting it in a 1999 appearance on The Tonight Show, he recorded it and released it as a track on his 2002 album When I Was Cruel. That album arrived towards the end of my first year back in college radio, now serving as an advisor rather than a student programmer. I was just into my early thirties at the time, and that age — 45 — still seemed so distant, almost unthinkably far into the future. Not any more, … Continue reading One for Friday: Elvis Costello, “45”

I’ve written about Ed Haynes’s debut album, Ed Haynes Sings Ed Haynes, in this space previously, bit it’s been a while. In my recollection, this was one of those albums that arrived during the late winter/early spring of 1989, a blessed time that I’ve only partially elevated in grandeur because it coincided with my first semester in a leadership role at my college radio station. Though Haynes had mighty competition in our new music rotation, this album was one that I and my fellow deejays returned to repeatedly, the comic-tinged, upbeat folk songs provided a nice little breather in the … Continue reading One for Friday: Ed Haynes, “I Want to Kill Everybody”

Sometimes you just fall in love with a band. I don’t mean a band comes along and are so great that they are immediately elevated to the level of favorite. I mean genuine, unexplainable head over heels affection that is roughly akin to that first swelling of puppy love when that cute guy or girl made eye contact across the crowded middle school classroom. It’s not love that’s meaningful or long-lasting, nor is grounded in a instinctual need for lifelong commitment. But it also helps define every similar swelling of the heart that follows. From the moment I first heard … Continue reading One for Friday: Pipettes, “Pull Shapes” (Live on NPR)

  A debate flared up from time to time at my radio station regarding the relative merits of digging into albums versus concentrating on the singles. It was more of a jabbering-over-beers debate than an almost-coming-to-blows one, but still it was there. Generally, I opted for the deep cuts argument, feeling it was what most differentiated us from just about everyone else on the dial. Especially in an era that found some of the most unlikely college rock bands and tracks crossing over (seriously, how on earth does “I Touch Myself” become a Top 5 song?) sticking to what the labels … Continue reading One for Friday: The Shaking Family, “Tic Toc”

This is a extremely busy time for me at work. Not only am I basically in charge of the fast approaching graduation ceremony at the small, liberal arts college that cuts me a monthly paycheck, but the biggest program of the year, a spectacle we simply call Circus, takes place this weekend and has been properly exhausting me during the extensive lead-up to it. Plus, next week we’re bringing the extraordinary Nikki Giovanni to campus, and I’ve got a lot of heavy lifting associated with that event. I barely have time to blink, much less tap out a little flurry … Continue reading One for Friday: Kimya Dawson, “I Like Giants (live)”

My Trivia team has a theme song. We even have a outside source to confirm it: Okay, so that Wikipedia edit is long gone, but I swear it was accurate. Since that song holds a special hold on me and my cohorts, a version of it is shared in this space on the Friday on the day The Only Trivia Contest That Matters (my phrasing) kicks off. For years, I scoured the web for covers or other alternate takes that existed so I had something to put in this space without sharing the original, chart-topping recording. Then last year I … Continue reading One for Friday Encore: Mollie Donihe, “Come On Eileen (Cover)”

When I trace my foundational knowledge of the music I eventually immersed myself in at my college radio station, I usually have to cite either Rolling Stone or, more rarely, the keepers on the airwaves in my hometown. When it comes to Laurie Anderson, though, I’m fairly confident I was introduced to her by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. While the Chicago film critics dutifully covered the major studio releases on their weekly movie review program, they also committed themselves to highlighting the smaller, independent, even oddball films that weren’t likely to play at a theater near me, not just … Continue reading One for Friday: Laurie Anderson, “Babydoll”

This is how I saw it: Liz Phair needed to reclaim some of the energy that surrounded her out-of-nowhere indie sensation debut, Exile in Guyville. By most measures, her follow-up effort, Whip-Smart, was an even greater success, climbing higher on the album charts, selling more copies (at least initially, though Exile in Guyville has outpaced it by now), and yielding a couple of decent modern rock radio hits. But her coolness quotient took a pretty sizable hit. She became a Rolling Stone cover girl instead of a Village Voice icon. That’s not inherently bad — and there are plenty of indications … Continue reading One for Friday: Liz Phair, “California”