// Category Archive for: Retrovirus

Music Review: Nat King Cole, The Christmas Song

By Melissa Bratcher

Nat King Cole’s album The Christmas Song is a masterpiece. Year after year, Cole’s dulcet tones fill the airwaves, kindling warm feelings of nostalgia through his tracks. The songs on The Christmas Songs are (save one, the little-heard “A Cradle In Bethlehem”) classics, and Cole’s performances are easy, understated treasures.

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Music Review: David Essex, Rock On; David Essex; All The Fun Of The Fair (Reissues)

By Hanna

With his own jukebox musical and sold-out comeback shows, David Essex has no need of a revival, though by now his career is so long that there are always parts of it that could use extra attention. A documentary from Alan G. Parker is slated for release soon, which is a good enough reason for Cherry Red to re-release Essex’s first three albums on CD: Rock On (1973), David Essex (1974), and All The Fun Of The Fair (1975). All three reissues are fairly straightforward, with the original album art, some informative liner notes by Phil Hendriks, and a couple of interesting bonus tracks.

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Today In Pop Culture: Crosby Meets Bowie

By Jeffery X Martin

Pop quiz, hot shots.

Who was the biggest selling musical artist of the twentieth century? We’ll make this multiple choice, just to make it easier.

A) Elvis Presley
B) Madonna
C) Perry Como
D) Bachman-Turner Overdrive

If you guessed Bachman-Turner Overdrive, bless your heart.

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Music Review: Love, Reel to Real

By Melissa Bratcher

Love’s 1974 album Reel To Real doesn’t sound how you might expect Love to sound. It lacks the psychedelia and heavy rock of their best known work Forever Changes, and instead could be considered an Arthur Lee solo record. It’s funky. Super funky. And it’s fascinating.

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The Official Popshifter Podcast, Episode #04: Texas Gators

Welcome to Episode 4 of The Official Popshifter Podcast. This one is titled “Texas Gators, Violent Pornography, and Tales from the Pit.”

Already, you should be enticed. It’s another fascinating discussion of American pop culture with Less Lee and X! Please enjoy. Preferably with a nice glass of cold Bosco.

Reviews:

Blu-Ray Review: Eaten Alive

DVD Review: The Farmer’s Daughters

Blu-Ray Review: The Beast (from Dirge Magazine)

Music Review: Hulaland: The Golden Age of Hawaiian Music

Music Review: Fuzz, II

Concert Review: Fuzz at The Hoxton

Music Review: Lee Michaels, Heighty Hi

By Melissa Bratcher

Is there a more intriguing story than an enormously talented, rock and roll recluse? The kind of artist that is so gifted, with a vision and unique sound, and he (or she) just walks away? Don’t you want to know why? What did they do after they stopped being famous? Does it make that person more exciting?

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Retro Review: Wayne’s World

By Tyler Hodgkinson

Let me bring you up to speed: if you can’t recite nearly every line from Wayne’s World, you are living life wrong.

The cult classic is as relevant today as it was when released in 1992. And, of course, it’s just as hilarious. Schwing!

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Music Review: Buck ‘Em! The Music Of Buck Owens, Volume Two (1967-1975)

By Melissa Bratcher

“Would we still be talking about Buck Owens if it weren’t for Hee Haw?” I was asked recently and have spent an inordinate amount of time mulling over the answer. The answer, of course, is maybe. Hee Haw was an amazing music delivery system, imbuing Buck’s image with a family-friendly, easily accessible shorthand: he’s that smiling guy on TV every week with his Buckaroos and the pretty girls and Grandpa Jones and Roy Clark, and he’s kind of funny with his dad jokes, and he makes some catchy tunes. You think (if you’ve spent time watching Hee Haw) about what Buck Owens looked like, which, in an pre-MTV/CMTV videos era, is pretty spectacular. You can conjure up what he looks like playing his American flag striped guitar, you know what the Buckaroos look like, you can see Don Rich smiling in your mind’s eye.

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Blu-Ray Review: Eaten Alive

By Less Lee Moore

Tobe Hooper’s legendary status as a director began with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in 1974. This gritty, grisly chunk of cinema has influenced countless films and spawned numerous imitators, including the entire subgenre known as “backwoods horror.” Hooper followed The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with 1976’s Eaten Alive; even those who worshipped at the previous film’s bloody, chicken-bone altar must have felt spiritually annihilated after enduring one of the most grueling film experiences in 1970s horror.

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Music Review: Hulaland: The Golden Age Of Hawaiian Music

By Melissa Bratcher

I don’t know that a lovelier box set than Hulaland: The Golden Age Of Hawaiian Music has ever crossed my desk. Four discs of carefully curated tracks (105! 105 tracks of Hawaiian music! Your luau could go on for ages!), collecting a vast range of music from the 1920s to the ’70s, are housed in a gorgeous, hardbound book. The book serves as liner notes, written by James Austin, as well as a collection of memorabilia from a time when the States went tiki crazy, and reproductions of vintage sheet music covers from the Hawaiian heyday. It’s compulsively readable, showcasing notable Hawaiian musicians, a brief history of the ukulele, and all kinds of lagniappe wrapped in a candy-colored package. It’s worth the price of admission alone.

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