// Category Archive for: Music

Top Five Ideas For Life After The Swineflu Apocalypse (As Gleaned From ’80s Music Videos)

By Hanna

1. In the future, David Bowie will flirt with black men and we will do experimental dance. ALL DAY.

David Bowie, “Time Will Crawl” (1987)

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Conway Twitty, Lost In The Feeling

By Danny R. Phillips

Growing up in a family of country music fanatics I have always been quite aware of the legendary status surrounding one Mr. Conway Twitty. His classic country “slow jams” have been favorites of cover bands, drunken karaoke singers, and honky tonk jukeboxes from Lubbock, Texas to Osaka, Japan.
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My Life in Fishnets: A Personal Rocky Horror Story

By Christian Lipski

It’s amazing to look back and really see how much of my life was dedicated to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I’m sure it’s the same for people who were really into sports or D&D or any other life-consuming hobby. At the time, though, it was just Rocky, and that was it. It was just what I did.
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B.B. King, Live In Africa ’74 DVD

By Adam McIntyre

If pressed about my blues preferences, influences, or interests, I’ll stammer for a moment, name some greats, and whatever single, obscure guitarist I can vaguely pluck from my past to show that maybe we have common interests, and that I’ve educated myself a little deeper than your average blues wanker.

It’s much simpler, actually, than naming a few names once I think about it; I’m mostly a blues racist and an elitist. Oops, yeah, did I just call myself a blues racist? That’s weird, definitely, but here’s the deal: I stopped playing blues because I became increasingly self-conscious about coming across as some angsty white kid in a tie, absentmindedly regurgitating legitimately black licks.
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Top Five Post-Neutral Milk Hotel Bands

By Chelsea Spear

If In the Aeroplane Over the Sea were a child, that child would be entering middle school right now. That the landmark album turned eleven in February of this year is a bit unbelievable. It certainly doesn’t sound as though it’s been around for that long. Some of the album’s elements, like its tarnished brass-band arrangements and intoxicating, passionate vision sounded out of step with the detatched irony of indie rock in 1998, while others—like the evocation of Anne Frank and the rich melodies—were simply timeless.
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Michael Hurtt and His Haunted Hearts, Come Back To Louisiana

By Less Lee Moore

When first heard Michael Hurtt and His Haunted Hearts, I was dazzled. I’d seen Hurtt play with The Royal Pendletons dozens of times when I lived in New Orleans, but this was something altogether different.
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The Passions, Thirty Thousand Feet Over China

By Chelsea Spear

The Passions first came to me on a cloud of cinema nostalgia, flickering with maroon-tinted images of Laboratory Aim Density Girls and smelling faintly of vinegar. John Heyn, best known for co-directing the infamous Heavy Metal Parking Lot, had cut a short film of China Girl images to the tune of “I’m In Love with a German Film Star.” The images and footage of China Girls left me gobsmacked (more about that here), but the song lingered in my mind long after I first viewed the short. Though the British band’s albums were elusive on this side of the pond, a copy of Thirty Thousand Feet Over China surfaced in a bag of donations my boyfriend received at his job in a library.
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Top Five Cover Versions That Will Never Happen

By Less Lee Moore

5. INXS, “Some Kind Of Wonderful” by Grand Funk Railroad

I grew weary of the Hutchence/Geldof/Yates love triangle drama in the ’90s, so I wasn’t completely shocked by Michael Hutchence’s death. But when the remaining band members subsequently devised a reality show to find a new lead singer, I was offended on behalf of Hutchence as well as my own ’80s INXS fandom. His voice was sensual and bluesy, yet perfectly poised for pop songs. I didn’t realize how much I missed it until he was gone. Which is why the fact that he’ll never be able to cover “Some Kind Of Wonderful” (or sing and perform ever again, for that matter). makes me so very sad. In addition, INXS was one of the rare bands who utilized saxophone judiciously rather than embarrassingly and that would have been a great asset in a reimagining of this song.
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Nothing Can Stop Us: Anti-Thatcherism and Anti-Conservatism in Music, 1980 – 1987

By Emily Carney

With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls
—Elvis Costello, “Shipbuilding” (performed by Robert Wyatt)

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John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band, Live In Toronto ’69 DVD

By Less Lee Moore

“It gave me a great feeling, a feeling I haven’t had for a long time. It convinced me to do more appearances, either with or without the rest of the Beatles. Everything went down so well.”
—John Lennon, as quoted on the Ottawa Beatles Site

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