A.V. Club Blog
Clarence Reid
Dancin’ With Nobody But You Babe
Atco Records, 1969
Format: LP
File Under: Funky, funky foreplay
Key track: “Nobody But You Babe”
“Clarence Reid?!? BLOWFLY don’t like CLARENCE REID!!!”
That was the response I got...
read moreGeeky list time: Pick an album for every year you've been alive
Here’s something I saw recently on Idolator that’s apparently been making the blog rounds lately: You’re supposed to pick a favorite album for each year you’ve been alive. You can pick a record based on what you like now, or what you would have picked that year assuming you were old enough to care. It sounds simple, but this damn list pretty much dominated my spare thoughts all of July 4th weekend. Now, hopefully, it will speed along the dreaded post-holiday-weekend Monday.
My list of favorites, which I’m sure will be completely different if I ever do this again, is below. Obviously some years are stronger than others. 1981 yielded few familiar faces after scanning Wikipedia’s handy list of records released that year, which is how my fourth or fifth favorite U2 record (with my least favorite U2 record cover) ended up being the representative pick.... read more
Lead Belly (you’ll often see the nickname as one word, but since he preferred to spell it as two words I’ll follow that) was more than just a blues musician, he was a living library of all kinds of music—work songs, hollers, children’s play songs, pretty much anything he ran across. Though blues was a large part of what Lead Belly did, you really have to use the wider label “folk” to describe him because only the broadest label even begins to fit. In his later career he played for all kinds of audiences, from college campuses to small children. (My wife, who used to be a schoolteacher, assures me that Lead Belly is still a big hit among the 3-7 age bracket.) Discovered by folk archivists John and Alan Lomax in jail in the mid-1930s, he became a touchstone for the burgeoning folk movement, which hailed him as a... read more
(Not long ago, A.V. Club editor Keith Phipps purchased a large box containing over 75 vintage science fiction, crime, and adventure paperbacks. He is reading all of them. This is book number 41.)
I’m not one of those people who goes around Wikipedia dropping “citation needed” warnings on every assertion without a footnote, but sometimes I sympathize. The entry for this week’s book, Space Opera by Jack Vance, contains this note: “[Vance] has stated that the title was not his choice: he was commissioned to write a book with that title, and this was what he came up with.” That seems unlikely to me. Space opera was a well-established, if often sniffed at, subgenre by 1965. The only reason to call a book Space Opera is to subvert expectations. So is Vance having us on with this assertion? Did he even make the... read more
Intro music: "Cantaloupe Island" by Herbie Hancock, available on the album Empyrean Isles.
Outro music: "Rockit" by Herbie Hancock, available on the album Future Shock
Download MP3 (right-click and...
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Over the weekend I caught up with 2005’s Two For The Money, a terrible, terrible movie I enjoyed tremendously. Though based on a true story, it plays like an unintentional parody of Tom Cruise movies where the world’s craziest Scientologist (that’s really saying something) plays a slick, arrogant young dude who’s insanely gifted at something (flying, mixing drinks, racing cars, agenting, businessy type stuff, being a secret agent, football) learns humility and valuable life lessons at the hand of a mentor/father figure and finds love with a strong, sexy woman who sees behind the cocky façade to the wounded little boy underneath.
In Two For The Money the Tom Cruise figure is a former college football stud played by Matthew McConaughey, his super-power is being really good at picking the winners in football games (until he becomes very bad at picking the winners in football games) and the mentor/father figure is played by Al Pacino in full-on “Hoo-Ah, look at...
read moreWhere have you gone, Eagle-Eye Cherry?: A tribute to terrible late '90s hits
Last week I caught an episode of PBS’ American Experience on the 40th anniversary of The Summer Of Love. I’ve already written about my love-hate relationship with baby boomers, so I probably should have known better than to watch this, for the second time no less. But there was no way I could turn away. I might have come of age three decades later, but gushing retrospectives about the boho ’60s make me nostalgic for my own crazy, mind-expanding, “you shoulda been there!” college years in the late ’90s.
True, when I was going to college in Eau Claire, Wis. during the Clinton era, wanton sexual exploration meant learning how to masturbate without disturbing your roommate sleeping a mere five feet away. And when we did drugs, we were not spiritual pilgrims in search of God, we were just fucked up on drugs. But, sweet Jesus, were we fucked up! And I’m sure getting supremely stoned and watching The Gong Show is... read more
Intro music:
"Green Power" by Quasimoto, from the album The Unseen (Stones Throw)
Outro music:
"Wanted Man" by Johnny Cash, from the album The Essential Johnny Cash (Sony)
Download MP3 (right-click and...
read moreSam Hopkins was born in Centerville, Texas, in 1912, and seemed destined for a life as a musician. He came from a musical family: His brothers both played, and his older cousin Alger “Texas” Alexander, one of the major figures in early Texas blues, was one of Hopkins’ important partners in the first part of his career. At age 8, Hopkins also formed a significant bond with another great Texas guitarist, Blind Lemon Jefferson, when he met him at a party. Eventually, Hopkins became Jefferson’s guide, and the older man became his mentor. (Here’s a short clip of Hopkins read more
The Field Mice
“Sensitive” b/w “When Morning Comes To Town”
Sarah Records, 1989
Format: 7-inch single
File Under: A kinder, gentler wimpiness
Key track: “Sensitive”
Some songs are just songs. Others are...
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