Alby's Latest Posts
Song of the Day 3/6: Wayne Shorter with the Miles Davis Quintet, “Footprints”
Guest post by Nathan Arizona From Miles to the Multiverse. That’s the trajectory Wayne Shorter took as he established himself over a 67-year career as what the New Yorker called “the world’s greatest living jazz composer” and as maybe the finest saxophone player since the 1960s. Shorter, who died last week at 89, made his […]
Song of the Day 3/3: The Ramones, “Punishment Fits the Crime”
I suppose there’s a reason America’s laughably labeled “news” channels covered some South Carolina ass clown’s murder trial as if it were OJ 2.0 — I didn’t experience this first-hand, but I’ve seen plenty of bitching about it on political blogs whose readers couldn’t figure it out either. I can’t account for it, other than […]
Song of the Day 3/2: Big Louisiana, Willy Rafus and Arthur Davis, “Let Your Hammer Ring”
A bunch of millionaires known as “U.S. senators” have been sitting around in their Washington, D.C., offices pretending that the richest country in the history of the world simply can’t afford to take care of its retirees if they stop working at 67. They want you to keep swinging that hammer until you’re 70. As […]
Song of the Day 3/1: Laura Jane Grace, “Lolo 13”
If drag shows freak Republicans out, I wonder how freaked they’d be by an actual transgender performer like Laura Jane Grace. Born Thomas James Gabel, Grace came out in 2012 as a transgender woman while she was fronting a fairly successful punk band called Against Me! that she formed in 1997 after dropping out of […]
Song of the Day 2/28: Aerosmith, “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)”
As anyone who follows the news knows, Republicans have a hard on for drag queens — uh, maybe I should rephrase that. Or maybe I shouldn’t. Southern states must be hotbeds of drag shows, because many of them are trying to curtail them or ban them outright. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has been particularly vocal […]
Song of the Day 2/27: Albert Hammond, “It Never Rains in Southern California”
The weather in the USA has been weird lately — 50-degree temperature swings, February tornadoes and snow in Southern California. Maybe the lyrics of this song need an update — it never rains, but it snows. Albert Hammond OBE moved from London to Los Angeles in 1970 as a singer-songwriter. By the time he released […]
Song of the Day 2/26: Iris DeMent, “Goin’ Down to Sing in Texas”
Singer-songwriter Iris DeMent isn’t usually described as a folk singer, I suppose because much of her work sounds like country music, but some of her compositions are as pointed as any of the protest songs that came out of the Great Folk Music Scare of the early ’60s. Her first album in eight years, “Workin’ […]
The Straight Dope on Masks
For some reason, a few MAGAts got tired of buffing their muskets and decided to weigh in on scientific matters that they don’t understand. Don’t be too hard on them — many journalists are clueless, too, which is why so many reported that a recently released meta-analysis concluded “masks don’t work.” That’s not what the […]
Song of the Day 2/25: The Breeders, “Cannonball”
Andrew C. is right — it’s unlikely I’ll ever get another chance to hang a song about a cannonball on an actual news peg, so here’s his choice for the honor. When it was released as a single in 1993 it reached No. 44 on the Hot 100, which is better than it sounds — […]
Song of the Day 2/24: Damien Rice, “Cannonball”
The wanderings of the Lewes Cannonball have come to a happy end. Whoever pried it loose from the Cannonball House apparently thought better of it and placed it on the sidewalk outside the nearby Zwaanendael Museum. Irish folksinger Damien Rice released “Cannonball” as a single in Ireland in spring 2002 as the second single from […]
News Journal’s Pro-Cop Bias Is Showing
Meredith Newman didn’t just bury the lede in her story about Delaware’s highest-paid employees, she left it out entirely. The story, based on data from 2021, focuses on the high pay rate of some of the top officials at Delaware State University. It never mentions that nobody from the University of Delaware is on the […]
Song of the Day 2/23: The Business, “Drinking and Driving”
Would-be politician Scott Walker, the guy who runs for office by setting up home-painted campaign signs along Delaware roads, has never come close to being elected, but his odd behavior makes it obvious that isn’t his goal. Like the guy who fell into a lens grinding machine, he’s making a spectacle of himself. He’s in […]
Song of the Day 2/22: Stevie Ray Vaughan, “Say What!”
Marjorie Taylor Greene has caught on to how to become MAGAWorld famous — say outrageous shit and count on the mainstream media to play it up under the category “Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid.” Of course, she has to fight for space in that lane with a gaggle of unsavory dripdicks, and given that she’s […]
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