Arts and Entertainment
The Claudettes Coming To Arden!!
WHO, you might ask… My kind of band. First concert I’ve booked since the pandemic took live music away from us. Why tell you when I can show you?: And the opener? The most-in-demand keyboard player in Chicago, who just HAPPENS to be the chief songwriter and the keyboard player for the Claudettes, Johnny Iguana. […]
Song of the Day 6/21: Blue Cheer, “Summertime Blues”
The year: 1968. The place: San Francisco, home to the blues-rock hybrid that came to be known as psychedelic or acid rock. The band: Blue Cheer, named for one of Owsley Stanley’s LSD recipes. The song: “Summertime Blues,” the biggest hit (Billboard No. 8, 1958) for rockabilly pioneer Eddie Cochran, who had a knack for […]
Song of the Day 6/20: Nat King Cole, “Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer”
Has there ever been a summer better suited to nostalgia than this one? After the Year Without a Summer, people are going to appreciate every little pleasure a good bit more. Nat King Cole was more TV star than singer by the time this jolly number reached No. 6 on the Hot 100 in 1963. […]
Song of the Day 6/18: Bowling for Soup feat. Hanson, “Where’s the Love”
How’s this for postmodernism in practice: A punk-pop band popular in the ’00s covers a hit by a ’90s boy band, gets them to sing back-up on the single, then sets the whole thing to a video featuring animation in the ’70s style of “Scooby Doo.” Bowling for Soup’s sense of humor always distinguished them […]
Song of the Day 6/17: Boz Scaggs, “We Were Always Sweethearts”
This one’s for El Somnambulo, the biggest Boz Scaggs fan I know — and not just of the “Silk Degrees” tunes that remain in classic-rock rotation today. This song led off 1971’s “Moments,” Scaggs’ second solo album after leaving the Steve Miller Band, but it was his first-ever single. You’d think its Latin rhythm and […]
Song of the Day 6/16: Steve Miller Band, “Space Cowboy”
Jason330 posted a photo of Jeff Bezos’ mighty Space Dildo the other day, which drove home the fact that we’re now in the age of the space cowboys — not real cowboys, just play-acting rich guys with egos as big as their dreams. Beats Disneyland, I guess. This song dates back to the original Steve […]
Song of the Day 6/15: Lisa Loeb, “Stay (I MIssed You)”
Using popular hits in TV ads is nothing new, but I’m frequently surprised at the songs that turn up in commercials. This tune, for example, an inescapable hit in 1994, and singer/songwriter Lisa Loeb are now peddling car insurance for Geico. The connection to car insurance is tenuous — Loeb sings the song’s first line […]
Song of the Day 6/13: The Band, “Up on Cripple Creek”
For no other reason than this video from the Ed Sullivan Show of Nov. 2, 1969, popped up on my YouTube feed. “Up on Cripple Creek” had just been released as a single, with what’s clearly a video, not a live performance, to promote it. The song was a mainstay of The Band’s concerts, and […]
Song of the Day 6/10: Cab Calloway, “The Reefer Man”
With Delaware lawmakers debating a marijuana legalization bill, it seems worthwhile to remind them that cannabis wasn’t always illegal, and its effects weren’t considered dangerous until a wave of refugees from the Mexican Revolution in the 1920s prompted anti-immigrant forces to agitate against the “marihuana” they brought with them. When Cab Calloway, a guy whose […]
Song of the Day 6/9: The Posies, “Solar Sister”
In popular memory, grunge is the rock genre that represents the ’90s, but that obscures the reality — the ’90s were rock’s last hurrah in large part because multiple genres still sold enough records (and there still were “records” to sell) to land recording contracts. One genre that thrived was power pop — well, thrived […]
Song of the Day 6/8: Gene Chandler, “Duke of Earl”
Americans seem fascinated with British royalty, but they don’t understand much about it. Consider, for example, the “Duke of Earl.” There is, of course, no such thing — in the hierarchy of British peerage, a duke is below only a prince, while an earl is a separate title two ranks lower. That fact did nothing […]
Song of the Day 6/7: Bing Crosby, “Swinging on a Star”
Does this song still turn up on children’s albums? When I was a kid, back in the Pleistocene, you heard it frequently because its sarcastic lyrics encourage little ones to go to school, exhibit good manners and not be a sneak. As an adult, I identify more with the last verse, especially when I read […]
Song of the Day 6/3: Paul McCartney, “Another Day”
When the Beatles broke up in 1970, fans blamed Yoko Ono first and foremost. But the band member who took the most heat was Paul McCartney, mostly because he was the first one to publicly announce his departure. Critics soon made him a whipping boy because his first solo album, a low-key, mostly acoustic set, […]
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