Alby's Latest Posts
Song of the Day 8/29: The Clovers, “Love Potion No. 9”
If it smells like turpentine and looks like India ink, Trumpers would probably take it before they’ll take that commie socialist vaccine. Though it’s been covered by scores of groups, the best version remains the first. The Clovers debuted this Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller classic in 1959, when they took it to No. 23 […]
DL Open Thread Sunday, August 29, 2021
We can now definitively state that Joe Biden was wrong when he predicted that the Republican fever would break once Trump was out of office. A nation in which Republican governors push experimental antibody treatments but shun vaccines and masks and the public responds by consuming large-animal dewormer, causing an enormous spike in poison control […]
Song of the Day 8/27: They Might Be Giants, “I Can’t Remember the Dream”
There aren’t all that many ’90s bands still making new music, and fewer still sound like they did back then. The Johns, Flansburgh and Linnell, have a new album — actually some sort of album/book project — coming out soon, and this is one of the tracks. It’s pop tunecraft that would fit right into […]
DL Open Thread Thursday, August 26, 2021
RWNJ martyr Ashli Babbitt is the answer to the question, “How many of these kosplay kkkomandos have to die before the rest stand down?” and finally someone in the mainstream media has put a fine point on it: Her death was a turning point in the Jan. 6 Putsch. Babbitt crossed a line that had […]
Song of the Day 8/25: Charlie Watts Quintet, “What’s New”
Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, who died yesterday at age 80, was the unlikeliest rock star ever. He was the opposite of every rock cliche, which is more amazing when you consider that his bandmates were the ones who set the template for every form of excess that became associated with the music. Watts was […]
Song of the Day 8/23: The Everly Brothers, “Cathy’s Clown”
The Everly Brothers were the greatest duo in rock ‘n’ roll history (Hall & Oates had more Top 40 singles than the Everlys’ 26, but c’mon). They helped establish some foundational elements of rock ‘n’ roll, among them close harmonies, a country twang — and brother acts who don’t get along. Don Everly, who died […]
Song of the Day 8/22: Crabmeat Thompson, “Small Wonder”
Readers of the News Journal might not know this, but Delaware folksinger and raconteur Jerry “Crabmeat” Thompson died in June. I first heard this from friends who saw it on social media, but the only obituary I could find ran a month later in the Middletown Transcript. Back in the days when I worked the […]
DL Open Thread Sunday, August 22, 2021
The hypocrisy of the media’s war cheerleading sure is coming a-cropper, with every pom-pom-waving “military analyst” shitting on Biden as their always-questionable usefulness comes to an end. No, you’re not imagining it — talking-head shows weren’t interested in booking anyone who agreed with Biden. If this doesn’t convince people to turn off the infotainment TV, […]
Song of the Day 8/21: Grace Vonderkuhn, “Rock and Roll Gary”
Guest post by Nathan Arizona Newarkâs Grace Vonderkuhn rips headlong through her garage/psych/power-punk songs, but her burgeoning career hit a speed bump during the Covid shutdown. Her band, a trio known just as Grace Vonderkuhn, earned good reviews for its its debut album in 2018 and turned heads on the national club tour that followed. […]
Song of the Day 8/19: Bo Burnham, “Welcome to the Internet”
Bo Burnham is usually classified as a comedian, but he’s just as easily categorized as a musician, one in the tradition of Tom Lehrer with a tad of Kurt Weill thrown in. (Song of the Day featured his songs about Jeff Bezos last month.) Listen to how accurately he skewers what we’ve done to ourselves […]
DL Open Thread Thursday, August 19, 2021
Why would a guy, a Florida governor let’s say, dissuade people from getting vaccines or wearing masks, but go all-out on a treatment for people once they come down with Covid? Why do you think? Um…could it be that his second-biggest political donor owns a big chunk of the treatment company? Didn’t have to turn […]
Song of the Day 8/18: Elvis Costello, “Blame It on Cain”
From Elvis’ first album, with Clover backing him. John McFee’s jazzy guitar and Costello’s delivery of his cryptic lyrics dominate the track. Nobody’s ever come up with a satisfying explanation of the song’s meaning, and I can’t find any record of Costello ever having said, but it’s pretty clear somebody is passing the buck. The […]
Song of the Day 8/17: The Felice Brothers, “Jazz on the Autobahn”
WXPN has had this tune in heavy rotation since it dropped two months ago, but I didn’t hear it until this weekend. The Felice Brothers, who began with a trio of upstate brothers who moved to Brooklyn to busk in the subways, made their national mark with their first album in 2008. Their sound got […]
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