Alby's Latest Posts
DL Open Thread Monday, Feb. 5, 2024
The FBI didn’t bother opening a locked closet at Mar-a-Lago when it searched for stolen documents. Trump’s White House pharmacy handed out drugs like a pill mill. Stories that once would have caused days of outrage now rush by with hardly a nod, such is the pace of the Great Unraveling as Trump and the […]
Song of the Day 2/4: Wayne Kramer, “Jail Guitar Doors”
Wayne Kramer, who died last week at 75, is in the Rock Hall of Fame because he was the lead guitarist for the MC5, icons of the late ’60s counterculture and punk progenitors. But his most impressive legacy might be Jail Guitar Doors USA, the music program for inmates he founded with Billy Bragg. The […]
Song of the Day 2/2: Talking Heads, “Road to Nowhere”
Coachella, the festival where bands go to reunite, this year will feature shows by Gwen Stefani’s old band No Doubt and Sublime, now fronted by the son of long-dead frontman Bradley Nowell. So SoCal’s 30-year-old ska-punk craze will be well represented. Rock might not be dead, but it’s sure getting old. One act organizers couldn’t […]
Song of the Day 2/1: Bruce Hornsby, “Circus on the Moon”
It doesn’t get a lot of coverage, but there’s an international space race going on. Target: the Moon. The most recent inductee to the League of Lunar Landers, Japan, joined the club in triumphant yet slapstick fashion last month. On the plus side, they managed to plunk their SLIM lander with unprecedented accuracy, just 55 […]
Song of the Day 1/31: Joni Mitchell feat. Neil Young & The Stray Gators, “Turn Me On I’m a Radio”
Joni Mitchell is going to sing at the Grammy Awards on Sunday, the first time she’s ever performed at the ceremony, and I admit to mixed feelings. It’s great that Brandi Carlile has coaxed Mitchell into making her first public appearances in years, and I’m sure the fans will be thrilled to see her, just […]
DL Open Thread Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024
Less money, mo’ problems for the world’s richest man. Yesterday Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick called Elon Musk’s Tesla pay package “unfathomable” and voided the deal. And this just days after some Frenchie overtook him as the “world’s richest person.” This helps explain why the inveterate hypester announced that Neuralink had implanted its first device in a […]
Song of the Day 1/30: Alice in Chains, “Lab Monkey”
The residents of a small town in Georgia are about to be outnumbered by monkeys, and they’re not happy about it. Bainbridge, Ga., population 15,000, recently approved construction of a $396 million facility to breed macaques for medical research that will eventually house 30,000 of the creatures. Laboratories have been scrambling for monkeys since China […]
DL Open Thread Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024
Right-wing radicals billing themselves the Army of God took to the road yesterday in a border-bound trucker convoy. They departed Virginia Beach and planned to attract participants along the way, claiming they’d arrive at the Rio Grande with 700,000 people. So far they’re about 699,900 short, partly because – cue Admiral Ackbar – IT’S A […]
Song of the Day 1/29: Prince, “Check the Record”
Prince Rogers Nelson did not have a will when he died of a fentanyl overdose in 2016, so his estate went into probate and was awarded in equal shares to his six half-siblings, who split into two camps. After six years in court the sides agreed to a 50-50 split and promised to share decision-making. […]
DL Open Thread Monday, Jan. 29, 2024
Did Hamas intend to set off a region-wide war with its Oct. 7 attack? It seems they did whether they meant to or not. Now three U.S. soldiers in Jordan have been killed in a drone strike. Biden has vowed retaliation “at a time of our choosing” against the Iranian-backed militia that took credit for […]
Song of the Day 1/28: P.D.Q. Bach, “Missa Hilarious, S. N₂O”
I admit I don’t listen to as much classical music as I once did, and I think it might be because I heard so much of it as the score for cartoons. Or maybe it was early exposure to PDQ Bach, who made the solemn reverence surrounding the classical canon seem rather ridiculous. PDQ Bach, […]
Song of the Day 1/26: Tina Fabrique, “Reading Rainbow” theme
Voters scrubbed Meatball Ron DeSantis from the presidential race, but the residents of Florida have to put up with him for three more years. I’m sure he’s fuming inside his tiny shoes, and since I’m not a nice guy when it comes to dealing with assholes, I think people should push his buttons at every […]
Song of the Day 1/25: Melanie, “Look What They’ve Done to My Song Ma”
Melanie Safka, a coffeehouse folk singer thrust into stardom with her set at the original Woodstock Festival, has died at age 76. Her popular success lasted just a few years, from 1970 to 1974, but she started singing in her teens and remained active until her death. Safka was singing in small New York clubs […]
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