As I write this, the Dow-Jones is breaking 10,000, and the economy looks to be coming out of a slump — even though nobody’s hiring just yet. Most folks who still have jobs are hanging on by their fingernails, but the privileged classes are already talking about bonuses. A popular Democratic president is trying to pass meaningful health-care reform, and the postideological spoilsports of the Right are pitching a hissy fit. Holy crap, it’s 1993 again! And right on cue, the Squirrel Nut Zippers are back together!
To ease into this reunion thing — and to whet your appetite for new material — they’ve released a live album this week, culled from one hot night in Brooklyn late last year. It’s called Lost At Sea, but a better title might be Testing the Waters. Because, really, of all the 1990s bands that might make a go of it in this transformed pop landscape, I’ve gotta ask: the Squirrel Nut Zippers? C’mon.
All right, that’s not exactly a question. But still; it’s a mystery how these guys got big in the first place, let alone how they might have a comeback. The Great Swing Scare of the 90s remains one of those vaguely mystifying moments in the popular culture. Sure, yuppie scum have never lacked for any number of idiotic pastimes to separate them from their money — but really: A-line skirts? Lindy Hop lessons? What possessed us? (more…)
While Mr. Dunphy’s upcoming Friday Mixtape is one of the most esoteric tributes to All Hallow’s Eve that you will ever see, I chose a more commercial (read: lazier) path to celebrating my second-favorite holiday of the year. Now dance, you fuckers.
Ministry – Everyday Is Halloween
I hope your dancing shoes are comfortable, because this puppy is ten and a half minutes long. I couldn’t believe it when I moved to Chicago and people told me that “Halloween” was used locally to promote Miller Lite or something else anathema to everything Alain Jourgenson later stood for. Jourgenson has since dismissed this song, along with everything that came before Twitch, but I’m sure he doesn’t dismiss it enough to send back the royalty checks. (more…)
There was a moment in the mid to late ’90s when I passed an invisible line from young adulthood — where you crave new and exciting things and your mind is generally open to cultural changes — to adulthood, where more staid things like parenthood, owning a home and, alas, feeling like you’re just culturally out of it tend to creep in. And so it goes with the neo-swing revival of the ’90s –well as far as yours truly is concerned. By the time this type of music became popular again, I was in that latter category where the excitement of dressing up in a zoot suit and learning some new dance steps sounded fun, but my energy level for such things was pretty much nil as my wife and I were raising our daughter and, it seemed, the most culturally connected to new music came when I could sit in a rocking chair with my toddler and watch the VH1 Top 20 Countdown. Flash forward 10 years and what do we have? A Mix Six, naturally! (more…)
For this special edition of Bootleg City, I’m spotlighting the top 17 songs of the ’90s, a decade we can all officially start nostalgicizing on January 1, 2010. Until then we’re in limbo, if you’ll pardon the expression — the untimely deaths of Michael Jackson and JohnHughes in the past six weeks have put a damper on the last blast of ’80s nostalgia in this decade. But life goes on, of course, as does pop culture’s never-ending look backward.
Because I’m in a giving mood (and because no one, and I mean no one, ever comes to our house for candy on Halloween), I thought I would load up the musical candy bowl and liberally hand out the goodies to those who come knocking at the Popdose door.
Well, as an albino who’s also a rocker, Edgar was pretty much made to create a song called “Frankenstein.” I’ve never really been a fan of this group, and know very little about them, but our friends at Wiki had some nice tidbits: 1. Winter loves his Scientology; he’s made no public comments on what he thought of John Travolta’s performance in Battlefield Earth. 2. Dan “I Can Dream About You” Hartman was in the band at one point. 3. This song was featured in Guitar Hero — which I’ve never played. (more…)
