Arts and Entertainment
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’ […]
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 […]
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 […]
Song of the Day 2/21: 10cc, “Art for Art’s Sake”
Is this the nightmare of every art gallery visitor? At a VIP art fair in Miami last weekend, a woman knocked over a glass sculpture by Jeff Koons, destroying it instantly. The story at the link included this sentence: “The shiny blue sculpture, one of Koons’ famous ‘balloon dog’ series, was valued at $42,000″. That […]
Song of the Day 2/20: The Presidents of the United States of America, “Mach 5”
As is traditional on Presidents Day, today’s song is by the Presidents of the United States of America, the three-piece Seattle band that scored a triple-platinum debut album in the mid-90s on the strength of the singles “Lump” and “Peaches.” They were notable at the time because they were the only Seattle band of the […]
Song of the Day 2/19: Radiohead, “Paranoid Android”
The Media Freakout of the Week is … drum roll, please … no, not spy balloons, that was last week … Chatbots! (cymbal crash) A lot of tech journalists have interacted with Microsoft’s new AI-powered Bing search engine, powered by ChatbotGPT, and have reported that we should be afraid, very afraid, of the coming Chatbot […]
Song of the Day 2/17: Hall & Oates, “It’s Uncanny”
Not long ago I heard something I didn’t think was possible — a song by Daryl Hall and John Oates I didn’t know. And I don’t mean some 21st-century recording (I’m sure I’ve missed some of those) but a tune from their early years on Atlantic Records. After the duo’s third LP, “War Babies,” flopped […]
Song of the Day 2/16: The Kinks, “Lola”
We all know Twitter has been experiencing lots of problems since boy genius Elon Musk bought it, but this one is more funny than ominous — though not to Dave Davies. It seems an over-reliance on algorithms in lieu of humans has led the site to flag all the band’s tweets as “sensitive content.” As […]
Song of the Day 2/15: De La Soul, “Eye Know”
Unless you were a rap fan back in the golden days of the genre, before copyright laws reined in free-for-all sampling and the creativity it inspired, you probably don’t know De La Soul, so you might not have noticed the death Sunday of David Jolicoeur, aka Trugoy the Dove, aka Plug Two. He was only […]
Celebrate Mardi Gras With Shamarr Allen & The Underdawgs!
One of N’Awlins’ greatest party bands will get you out of your seats and onto the dance floor this Saturday, Feb. 18 at the Arden Gild Hall. Why, you may ask, are Shamarr Allen & The Underdawgs escaping the Crescent City during Mardi Gras Week? The answer is that, when they remain in N’Awlins, they […]
Song of the Day 2/14: The Troggs, “Love Is All Around”
The Troggs didn’t quite fit into the second wave of the British Invasion. Their version of Chip Taylor’s “Wild Thing” hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1966, but the band never invaded — they didn’t tour the US until 1968. “Wild Thing” was made even more famous in 1967, when Jimi Hendrix […]
Recent Comments