Alby's Latest Posts
Song of the Day 6/5: Edgar Winter’s White Trash, “Cool Fool”
Here’s how hard up Trump is for acts willing to play his big birthday party for America: He’s enlisted Lee Greenwood, of “God Bless the USA” fame, to warble that 1984 hit again, as he has at various Trump rallies since 2016. If Trump wants old white guys who sing and play saxophone (early in […]
Song of the Day 6/4: The Rolling Stones, “Slipping Away”
As El Somnambulo keeps pointing out, Trump has entered the lame duck portion of his presidency. With more court decisions going against him and more Republican lawmakers going rogue, he can feel his grip on power, his stranglehold on the GOP throat, slipping away. They have always been the only potential check on his demands, […]
Song of the Day 6/3: The Black Crowes, “She Talks to Angels”
Well, that was awkward. The Black Crowes were playing a show in Tampa and were just about to launch into their signature song, “She Talks to Angels,” when the video screens showed one of the band’s logos, a cartoon crow in an Uncle Sam costume. The crowd responded with a chant of “USA, USA!” Big […]
Song of the Day 6/2: Phil Collins, “I Missed Again”
You probably heard about the Enhanced Games, an Olympics-style athletic competition that allowed participants to use whatever performance-enhancing drugs they cared to. Organizers promised that doped-up athletes would shatter world records. Spoiler alert: They didn’t. After months of hype, billionaire backing and promises that performance-enhancing drugs would redraw the limits of human ability, the event […]
Song of the Day 6/1: The City w/ Carole King, “Snow Queen”
Guest post by Nathan Arizona After the pop hits Carole King wrote at the Brill Building that made stars of other people, and before the singer-songwriter fare on “Tapestry” that made her a star in her own right, King recorded an album that most people have never heard of. But many who have rank it […]
Song of the Day 5/31: Dr. Hook, “The Cover of Rolling Stone”
H/t Mike Dinsmore, whose comment yesterday alerted us to the death two weeks ago of Dennis Locorriere, co-frontman of Dr. Hook. No, not the guy with the eyepatch. That was Ray Sawyer, who died in 2018. Sawyer took the lead on the band’s signature song, “The Cover of Rolling Stone,” and his antics during their […]
Song of the Day 5/29: Sonny Rollins, “Moritat”
Jazz giant Sonny Rollins died Monday at age 95, nearly 70 years after the release of an LP that gave him a lasting sobriquet, “Saxophone Colossus.” He was 26 but already had been recording since graduating from an East Harlem high school a decade earlier, first as a sideman for the likes of J.J. Johnson […]
Song of the Day 5/28: Milli Vanilli, “Girl You Know It’s True”
Trump’s cheesy idea of class comes out in myriad ways – gold-colored plastic trim in the Oval Office, a triumph-free triumphal arch – but nothing drives it home like his plans to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The tackiness of holding UFC bouts on the White House lawn isn’t even the […]
Song of the Day 5/27: Ray Wiley Hubbard, “Screw You, We’re From Texas”
They say everything’s bigger in Texas, and that includes the assholes. Given the choice between the old-school conservative Cornyn and the amoral MAGAt Paxton, of course Texas Republicans overwhelmingly chose Paxton. Democrats are happy about it because it seems to give James Talorico a shot at the impossible dream of winning a statewide race. This […]
Song of the Day 5/26: Tom Waits, “Step Right Up”
Every time I hear Trump’s latest promise of a peace deal with Iran I remember the old halls on the Atlantic City boardwalk where hard-sell pitchmen like Ed McMahon sold the kind of products that later made Ron Popeil famous. It was like a live as-seen-on-TV ad combined with a religious tent show – once […]
Song of the Day 5/24: Pharoah Sanders and Leon Thomas, “The Creator Has a Master Plan”
Guest post by Nathan Arizona If there really is a creator, and he really does have a master plan, look around these days and you might think this is surely not it. But the 1969 plan by jazz sax player Pharoah Sanders and vocalist Leon Thomas to write a spiritual-jazz song called “The Creator Has […]
Tulsi Hits the Bricks. Who’s Next?
Once again DL’s crowdsource choice as the next henchman to go survived. Our voters thought Kash Patel, exposed as treating his job like an extended frat party, would be sent back to podcasting on the Bongino Express. Instead it was Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, whom voters previously predicted would precede Pam Bondi […]
Song of the Day 5/22: Meat Loaf, “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)”
For more than 10 years Republicans have done anything for Trump, but sign off on a crooked deal to give him a $1.7 billion slush fund? They won’t do that, at least not yet – though rather than give the White House a flat no, they skedaddled into recess. I don’t harbor much hope their […]
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