Bob Barr may have become Libertarian (as noted in yesterday’s entry, in lieu of a debate this week — this month’s will be on the 22nd), but Kathryn Lopez noted recently that John Taylor of Duran Duran (a band she may well like even more than I do) says he’s become pro-Obama (albeit British).
I hope […]
Heading to New Hampshire to see college pals and their spouses tomorrow naturally turns a man’s thoughts to the music of his college years — and so it strikes me that everything that was new then is around twenty years old now. Take the first Tin Machine album, for example, with the song “Under […]
– all the more thrilling for seeming to start in the middle, chaos and conflict already in full bloom! It often works in telling stories. It has become almost a cliche in popular history books — start with some poignant, reflective moment late in [whoever]’s career and then flash back to tell us […]
Emir Kusturica’s “Pitbull Terrier.”
Some glimpses of rock across the ages:
•I mentioned Meat Loaf yesterday, and speaking of rockstar weight-gain, here’s Ann Wilson with sister Nancy in the 70s and three decades later (here looking better than she sometimes does, I think), again with Nancy. One half of Heart, still fabulous, the other, a living simulacrum of […]
It’s all connected: I think we knew songwriter/producer Jim Steinman’s songs (such as Meatloaf’s best-known stuff) are Wagnerian. What I didn’t realize is that he got his start in college actually writing an updated version of a Wagner opera. Since then, his stuff has been distinctive enough that I correctly guessed the man […]
Though I eagerly await news from this week’s Libertarian Party nominating convention, I will say this for the Republican candidate, McCain: he’s not an annoying Bible-thumper. Indeed, religious former Bush advisor Marvin Olasky (the UT Austin journalism prof who popularized “compassionate conservatism,” a slogan now largely abandoned in the U.S. but newly-popular with UK […]
Talk of minor political parties inevitably turns one’s mind to thoughts of ballot access and voting irregularities.
And that reminds me that I thought during the 2000 election, the most entertaining presidential election ever, that if on-the-spot music distribution were more common (YouTube and online music not quite having become big then), Weird Al Yankovic could […]
Today — May 16, 2008 — moviegoers are getting a small dose of Christian allegory along with more blatant forms of fantasy via the movie The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Five and a half years ago, I was getting a big dose of Christianity in the small form of girlfriend Dawn Eden.
Dawn is […]
Much as I love the nerdy New Wave music genre, I’m often reminded, with wistfulness and nostalgia, that some of the greatest 80s songs didn’t quite fit the New Wave niche nor other obvious categories like classic rock and thus have not been remembered as vividly as they should be. For example:
•“Voices” by Russ […]
For me, the grand slam is connecting my four favorite topics (which readers must sometimes fear are the only four topics I like): (1) libertarianism, (2) science, (3) sci-fi-type stuff, and (4) rock n’ roll. I’m delighted, then, to notice a bit of trivia that connects the four, just in time for this, my […]
Well, last time I checked, I failed to find any clips of Wild Record Party (a short-lived, insane cable access show here featuring stuffed animals and puppets dancing to various old garage-rock-type numbers in front of album-cover backdrops) on YouTube, but, as it happens — since I don’t have cable and just watch the handful […]
In plugging tonight’s Jen Dziura/Molly Crabapple event, I chastised the general depravity of the City — but unlike your average depravity-chastiser, I am aware that popular culture didn’t just get naughty in the past decade or two. If someone said to you that there is a catchy song likening a woman’s sexual prowess to […]
This story may sound hard to believe, but if studied in detail, it might unlock vast, heretofore unexplored secrets about the inner workings of the human mind.
Background first: I have noticed before that there is a big, sometimes disturbing chasm between short-term memory and long-term memory — something very important that only makes it into […]
After last night’s karaoke, I find myself thinking about David Bowie’s “China Girl,” another monotone classic I can handle, and I’m reminded that Bowie once said that one of his biggest influences was Anthony Newley, the man behind the songs from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, including “The Candy Man.”
Given Bowie’s Newley influence, his […]
