Deep Dance Party
S. and the girls have a new evening routine. She opens up her computer, pulls up the YouTubes, and they watch fun music videos. The vids run the gamut from our favorite kid music singer Laurie Berkner to the Black Eyed Peas and Beyonce. Their favorite song, though, is Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA.” No surprise, I think most…
Review: Pearl Jam – Ten, The Legacy Edition
In advance of Pearl Jam’s new album, due next month, I offer a review of their recent remastered and remixed release of their debut album, Sometimes I wish that we could access all the information in our brains as computers would, so we could track the metadata of our lives. Am I the only one who wants to know what…
Going Out On A Limb
I haven’t written much about controversial issues since the election. There are many reasons for that, many of which are related to our pathetic media, which is focused on partisan screamfests and the TV version of shockjocks rather than interesting and intelligent debate of actual issues that matter. I’m not sure if the fact that the best place to get…
“I Want To Live, Breath. I Want To Be Part Of The Human Race.”
I’m kind of fascinated by the coming copyright wars. That may be a bit dramatic, but there’s no doubt that the digital age and the explosion of the Internet are ripping apart all the current copyright laws. The old media companies take their heads out of the sand only long enough to entrench themselves deeper in the old system and…
Casey Hangs Up His Mic
Even a long-time Casey Kasem fan like me was surprised by this news. Not the fact that he was retiring his countdown show(s), but that he was still even doing a countdown. Casey Kasem ending his run on radio this weekend – “Hosting various versions of my countdown program has kept me extremely busy, and I loved every minute of…
Another Classic (With Bonus U2 Bashing)
So much for last year’s Wimbledon men’s final being unmatched. Sunday’s Federer – Roddick final was pretty damn epic as well. The 16-14 fifth set was one for the ages and the perfect ending to a fantastic match. Yet, I kept thinking it didn’t quite match the drama of a year ago. Last year had the rain and the race…
Genius Social Experiment
Give a 13-year-old a Walkman for a week and see what happens. I remember my first Walkman well. It was actually a knock-off, since those early Walkmans were quite expensive. And it was the obvious knock-off: had some crazy decals on it and, worse, a pull-out antenna for the AM/FM tuner. But I loved that thing. Giving up my iPod…
Radio Thoughts
A couple thoughts related to radio that have nothing to do with Casey Kasem.* (I’m still listening to the American Top 40 replays, although for some reason there wasn’t one last weekend. Just haven’t had any good stories from one for awhile.) First, three times in the last week I’ve heard songs and thought, “Is that U2?” The answer was…
This Week With Casey
A brief American Top 40 The 80s update.* (Don’t worry, an extensive basketball post is coming.) This week’s show was from 1981, making it the first repeat year countdown since I began listening in January. It was fun to track where songs I heard six weeks ago were in the latest chart. At least for this amateur music historian. Two…
Kickin’ It With Casey
I owe my fellow music geeks some AT40 updates. So a couple items from the last two weeks are below. Last week’s show was from 1986. I only caught the last 15 songs or so, and it was a rather unremarkable collection of music. Sure, I loved a lot of the songs at the time, but with the exception of…