Arts and Entertainment
Song of the Day 9/11: Shawn Colvin, “Viva Las Vegas”
Today marks a memorable anniversary. I speak, of course, of Sept. 11, 1991, the date The Dude writes a 69-cent check to pay for a quart of half-and-half at Ralph’s in “The Big Lewbowski.” Music is integral to many of the Coen brothers’ films, especially “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “Inside Llewyn Davis,” but […]
Song of the Day 9/10: Sunny War, “Whole”
Venice Beach-based singer-songwriter Sunny War got a big media push when her latest album, “Anarchist Gospel,” dropped back in February, but the song that WXPN picked up didn’t catch my ear the way this one did when it popped up on a Spotify list the other day. Sydney Lyndella Ward’s bluesy folk has won her […]
Song of the Day 9/8: Bobby “Blue” Bland, “I Wouldn’t Treat a Dog (The Way You Treated Me)”
It’s impossible to satirize the stupidity of MAGAts because they’re stupider than any smart person can pretend to be. How else to explain the results of the recent poll of 2,200 dog owners found that 37% of them consider canine vaccines unsafe because – I’m not making this up – they might give their dogs […]
Song of the Day 9/7: The Rolling Stones, “Angry”
The grandpas are alright. As if to prove that not all geriatrics are as decrepit as America’s politicians, the Rolling Stones are releasing an album of new material Oct. 20. They announced it yesterday along with the release of a single, “Angry.” The song is a rehash of familiar Stones tropes, and Mick doesn’t sound […]
Song of the Day 9/6: Gary Wright, “Love Is Alive”
Gary Wright, the rock keyboard player best known for his 1975 solo LP “The Dream Weaver,” died Monday at age 80 after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease and dementia. Along with Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman, Wright helped pioneer the use of synthesizers in rock. Wright was from New Jersey, but he launched his […]
Song of the Day 9/5: Smash Mouth, “All Star”
Steve Harwell, the longtime lead singer for Smash Mouth, died Monday of liver failure brought on by years of alcoholism. He was 56 years old and had been in bad shape for a decade, several times appearing inebriated and disoriented on stage. He quit the band after a particularly ugly incident in 2021. Smash Mouth […]
Song of the Day 9/4: Aretha Franklin, “Muddy Water”
When the news broke about Burning Man 2023 turning into a soggy hellscape, did anyone feel anything but schadenfreude? Like most things that start out being the province of the cool kids, this annual gathering in the Nevada desert had long since become bogged down with rich people pretending to be cool kids, so it […]
Song of the Day 9/2: Jimmy Buffett, “A Pirate Looks at 40”
Summer’s over, all right. Jimmy Buffett, who founded a billion-dollar fortune with a humorous break-up song featuring a popular cocktail, died yesterday at age 76. Along the way he founded two restaurant chains, wrote two novels and a memoir, topping both the fiction and nonfiction New York Times best-seller lists, and lent the Margaritaville moniker […]
Song of the Day 9/1: Len Barry, “1-2-3”
Here’s some blue-eyed soul one for your Friday night dance party. Len Barry was the lead singer for the Dovells, the Philadelphia doo-wop group who reached No. 2 in 1961 with the “Bristol Stomp.” He left for a solo career in 1963 and scored another No. 2 hit in 1965 with this tune by John […]
Song of the Day 8/31: Graham Nash and David Crosby, “Frozen Smiles”
Mitch McConnell’s freeze-up yesterday seems like a gift for all those people who wished something would shut him up, but it’s also a reminder – and old people need them often – of what you get with a Government of Grandpas. When Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young broke up in 1971, each of the quartet […]
‘Bulo’s Fave Tunes: August, 2023
Quality and quantity. Let a few good ones go since I didn’t want this to be too unwieldy: Betcha weren’t expecting this. I wasn’t: Power pop doesn’t suck: A great artist–and a reassuring presence. He’s been away too long, thrilled he’s back: This music soothes me: Kids, before even WMMR, there was a brief period […]
Song of the Day 8/30: The Wonder Stuff, “The Size of a Cow”
I swear this isn’t a reference to Donald Trump, though it could be. Not because he’s the size of a cow – hey, give him his due, he’s a 6’3″ monument to unearned male vanity – but because, like the song’s narrator, he’s blown up his problems that big. The Wonder Stuff came out of […]
Song of the Day 8/29: Big Star, “The Ballad of El Goodo”
Power pop was, in a way, the first alternative rock. In the early ’70s, a time when the heavy rock of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple was ascendant, three bands assembled power pop from the discarded sounds of the second British invasion and the Byrds. Badfinger and the Raspberries actually sold some records at the […]
Recent Comments