Alby's Latest Posts
Song of the Day 7/4: Bruce Springsteen, “Independence Day”
No, the song doesn’t have anything to do with the holiday, but it is one of Bruce Springsteen’s most personal songs, the one that most directly addresses the tension with his father that led him to stay behind in New Jersey when the rest of his family decamped for California. It was released on 1980’s […]
DL Open Thread Sunday, July 4, 2021
Today is worthy of celebration — it’s been a full week since Chris Coons last sold out his constituents. It’s pretty clear to anyone paying attention that the Jan. 6 insurrection was a two-pronged attack — 90% or so delusional goobers with lots more time and money than common sense, providing cover for a core […]
Song of the Day 7/3: The Doors, “Break On Through (to the Other Side)”
Fifty years ago today, Jim Morrison’s common-law wife found him dead in the bathtub of their Paris apartment, bringing to a close the singer’s years-long campaign of self-destruction and pretty much ending the career of one of the most popular American bands of the ’60s. Though frequent attempts have been made over the years to […]
Song of the Day 7/2: Chicago Transit Authority, “Poem 58”
For the past 40 years, people have thought of Chicago as an easy-listening band that played lots of mushy ballads, because that’s how they wasted the bulk of their existence — raking in the bucks by pumping out gruel. The public mostly has forgotten that the band, known as the Big Thing when it formed […]
Song of the Day 7/1: Counting Crows, “Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)”
Before Counting Crows became famous, the band circulated a demo tape that set off a bidding war among record companies. Most of the songs were rerecorded with T-Bone Burnett at the controls and appeared on their breakout 1993 LP “August and Everything After,” but this one was left out, apparently because upbeat jangle-pop didn’t fit […]
DL Open Thread Thursday, July 1, 2021
The Biden presidency has been a crisis for the media — without a daily Fresh New Hell, ratings and readership are in the tank. Everybody’s web traffic is down, but it’s been especially bad for the most partisan sites on both the left and right. Remember this when you read of this week’s newest threat […]
Top Lobbyist for ExxonMobil Says Coons Is in Their Pocket
Channel 4 in the UK carried an investigative report from the British branch of Greenpeace based on a sting interview with Keith McCoy, a top lobbyist for ExxonMobil. McCoy spoke frankly to people he thought were headhunters searching for a D.C. lobbyist for a client. He said a lot of things he would never say […]
Song of the Day 6/30: Todd Snider, “Can’t Complain”
Like his onetime mentor John Prine, Todd Snider’s songs, built from simple chords and clever lyrics, fall into a category between folk and country that the label “Americana” doesn’t quite capture. He’s been recording since 1994, but I only learned about him because Spotify informed me that, given my love for Prine, I’d probably like […]
Song of the Day 6/29: OMC, “How Bizarre”
This was the song of the summer 24 years ago, when it was inescapable on radio and MTV. Despite never being released as a single, it topped Billboard’s airplay chart in summer 1997, after reaching No. 1 first in the group’s native New Zealand, then in Australia and several European countries. OMC was started as […]
Song of the Day 6/27: Mumford and Sons, “Hopeless Wanderer”
Mumford and Sons, the British band that soared to popularity a decade ago by dressing up like farmers and playing Americana, hit the news this week when their banjo player left the band because, basically, he’s a right-wing dude-bro, and fans weren’t happy about it. Winston Marshall, 33, the group’s co-founder and a self-described “trustafarian,” […]
DL Open Thread Sunday, June 27, 2021
It’s been six years since the Supreme Court ruled that laws forbidding same-sex marriages were unconstitutional, and the warnings that it would destroy marriage seem to have melted into nothingness, just like most right-wing boogeymen. While some LGBTQ activists are disappointed that the ruling didn’t improve much else where rights are concerned, the just-completed census […]
Song of the Day 6/24: Tom Cochrane, “Life Is a Highway”
In honor of the Senate’s infrastructure deal, which apparently will be confined to not much more than highways. This one pops up all the time on classic rock radio, and to be honest I never knew when it was released. I don’t recall it ever being a new song — it just started showing up […]
DL Open Thread Thursday, June 24, 2021: The Sellout
Enough Democrats in the Senate have sold out their party to come up with a skinny infrastructure bill that won’t raise any taxes to fund $600 billion worth of repairs, which means rich fucks skate again thanks to Chris “I’m a rich boy, how ’bout you?” Coons. A couple of former NRA honchos got the […]
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