I employed a lot of methods to try to keep up with new music once I’d graduated from my college radio station to “the real world,” which, I assure you, was, if anything, less real than the noncommercial broadcast outlet that I’d left. It was in the days before a countless number of online purveyors typed out everything any living soul could possibly want to know about every band out there so I relied on magazines, newspaper articles (this is band when the Chicago Tribune was actually a genuine newspaper) and what little I could glean from the fairly rare … Continue reading One for Friday: Rocket From the Crypt, “Lipstick”

My favorite record store had a glass case that was filled with magic. In the days before a skilled Google search could kick up just about any music a heart and ear might desire, there was all sorts of material out there which enticed with its sheer elusiveness. Some of this was old stuff that was out of print and some of it was the flotsam and jetsam that bands released on b-sides and compilations. But the hidden gems that intrigued me the most were those albums that were clearly bootleg releases. Some of this was undoubtedly because of the … Continue reading One for Friday: The Replacements, “Within Your Reach” (live)

I saw the actor Michael Jeter in a movie the other day, and it just made me sad. It wasn’t because of the quality of the film or the performance–although the movie was certainly one that came to define what ludicrously-budgeted Hollywood junk looks like–but simply because it was a reminder that he was gone. Jeter died in 2003 at the age of fifty, no kid but still too young. Though he won both a Tony and an Emmy, his opportunities in movies were spottier, usually relegated to something a little odd over on the fringe of the plot. Jeter’s … Continue reading One for Friday: Michael Jeter, “Everything’s Coming Up Videos”

When I’d transitioned from the exploratory freedom of college radio to the stifling monotony of commercial radio in the mid-nineteen-nineties, I worked very hard to keep myself reasonably well-versed in music that was distinctly different from the jackhammer awfulness I was charged with lobbing out onto the airwaves. I used every resource at my limited disposal, leaning especially heavy on the monthly magazine that had recently been launched as a companion to CMJ, the trade journal of college radio. I’m fairly certain it was within the pages of one of those issues that I first read about Ben Lee. More … Continue reading One for Friday: Ben Lee, “How Can That Be?”

Lone Justice was supposed to be huge. Admittedly, there’s no shortage of bands that fall into that category from the era of burgeoning college radio influence from the mid-eighties to the early-nineties, but Lone Justice has long struck me as one of the more perplexing near-misses. They surely had the industry support with major figures like Tom Petty and Linda Ronstadt extolling their virtues and a major label plucking them from the L.A. club scene to make the band a showcase act on their roster. The press, too, lined up to celebrate the band, reserving special praise for the rich, … Continue reading One for Friday: Lone Justice, “Shelter”

I have an instinctive aversion to band reunions, a trait that has manifested in all sorts of snippy little comments in this space. I have no good reason to feel this way, although I suspect it comes from essentially being part of the second generation to grow up with rock ‘n’ roll and therefore associated most bands from the distant past as relics who did little more than play the burgeoning casino circuit, often with a line-up of session musicians recruited to fill in for deceased or disinterested band members. I remember reading a Rolling Stone cover story about George … Continue reading One for Friday: The Velvet Underground, “I Heard Her Call My Name” (live)

It was about artists not songwriters. Certainly there were those bands that we gravitated to because of a very strong affinity to the songwriting craft they regularly displayed, and within those bands there were sometimes individuals–Andy Partridge in XTC, Paul Westerberg in the Replacements–who were usually elevated above their fellow members as uniquely gifted at matching words and music. But, by and large, we didn’t expect the songwriting talents of those individuals to get shopped around. Their songs were on their records, and that was that. Of the individuals who regularly snuck onto college playlists back in the late eighties … Continue reading One for Friday: Reckless Sleepers, “If We Never Meet Again”

As I’ve mentioned before, I had two different and separate spins through college radio. When I returned to the left of the dial as an advisor in 2001, I felt like I had to relearn the music all over again. (Though not entirely: the number one album of the year in 2002 was by Sonic Youth.) I didn’t have to know if backwards and forwards; that was the job of the students who were actually programming the station. I did want to have a working knowledge of it. I wanted to know what the station was playing and give good … Continue reading One for Friday: Dylan Hicks, “All the Rock Star Jobs Are Taken”

One of the unique results of complete immersion in the music of college radio is a skewed perspective on which songs and bands have become long-term staples. I’m constantly having to remind myself that certain songs that were huge smash hits in our little corner of the world aren’t as universally known as some Madonna song from roughly the same period of time. That’s compounded when it comes to the bands that I was actually a little perplexed at the time as to why they weren’t enjoying greater commercial success. Rock radio was fairly robust in the late-eighties and early-nineties … Continue reading One for Friday: Meat Puppets, “No Longer Gone”

By American legal definition, I was barely an adult when the song “I’m an Adult Now” was released, which naturally made me the perfect target for its rapturous celebration of all things reckless and young. Well, that’s not quite true. When the song was first released in 1986, I was stick a couple years away when I could jump pell mell into all sorts of mature decisions, like voting, getting married or, scariest of all, joining the military. When its rerecorded version was released on the Love Junk album in the fall of 1988, with the attention-getting imprimatur of producer … Continue reading One for Friday: The Pursuit of Happiness, “I’m an Adult Now”