On Friday morning, driving down Olympic, I noticed that the marine layer was conspicuously thick and gray. I had been out of town for the fires last month, so I…
Jeff Giles and Jason Hare
4 Min Read
Day Two! And it’s even worse than Day One! Jim Nabors: O Holy Night (download or stream below) From Jim Nabors Christmas Amazon iTunes [audio:http://www.wwmmd.net/tunes/mellowmas/Jim Nabors – O Holy Night.mp3]…
Jeff Giles and Jason Hare
2 Min Read
Day one, everybody! Are you ready? (You’re definitely not ready. Too bad!) Teddy Pendergrass: Happy Kwanzaa (download or stream below) from This Christmas (I’d Rather Have Love) Amazon [audio:http://www.wwmmd.net/tunes/mellowmas/Teddy Pendergrass…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
A person unfamiliar with Kitchens of Distinction might hear them today and mistake the swirling, moody melodies for Interpol, The Editors or a less synth-y She Wants Revenge. All the…
Jeff Giles and Jason Hare
1 Min Read
I know that this website has been quiet over the past few months. But that’s all about to change. And boy, are you going to be sorry. You may recall…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
In 1985, a bunch of my best fag hags and I went to see Adam Ant in concert at the Cleveland Music Hall. It was far from a sold-out show,…
Zack Dennis
1 Min Read
It was recently reported (by Fox News, of all places) that Clear Channel radio stations had been instructed not to play tracks from Bruce Springsteen’s new album, Magic. It’s been…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Like the vast majority of Americans in 1983, I had no idea Spandau Ballet existed before True, much less were funky New Romantics embracing disco and fashion, having paved the…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Is getting married young a mistake? Do we really know what we want when we’re only 17? Those are questions posed in Fun Boy Three’s single, “Tunnel Of Love”. After…
Jason Hare
1 Min Read
I know, I know: where the hell have I been? Where the hell is your Mellow fix? I understand your pain, and I thank you for your continued patience as…
John C. Hughes
2 Min Read
After years of singer/songwriter musings, several albums and hit singles for Elektra Records, Carly Simon changed paths in the early ’80s, signing to Warner Brothers Records. Her first album for…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
The ’80s started off pretty rocky for Rockford, Illinois power-pop combo Cheap Trick. After watching their first chart entry of the decade, “Voices”, struggle to #32 on the charts, the…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Speaking of Talking Heads… The band reconvened in 1986 to record a sort of soundtrack for David Byrne’s directorial debut, True Stories. I say “sort of”, since the album mostly…
Jason Hare
1 Min Read
You see? You see? I told you I wasn’t gone forever! Well, if I’m going to make you wait a couple of weeks for a new Friday post, I might…
John C. Hughes
2 Min Read
25 years ago, no one expected a little side project from the bassist and drummer of art-rock/New Wave combo Talking Heads to be much of a hit, much less become…
Scott Malchus
1 Min Read
I have to be upfront and tell you that I sat down to watch “Cavemen” because my close friend, Tony Gardner, designed the makeup for the cavemen characters both in…
Zack Dennis
1 Min Read
Why am I rooting for the Red Sox in the World Series? Because I grew up in New England. That should be all there is to it, right? I could…
Scott Malchus
1 Min Read
I’m sure you can look anywhere this week and find a major publication reviewing the new Bruce Springsteen album, “Magic”. A.O. Scott wrote an excellent article for the NY Times…
John C. Hughes
2 Min Read
A funny thing happened to Todd Rundgren in the ’80s – his commercial solo work get progressively more experimental and inaccessible, while Utopia, formerly his outlet for his more prog-rock,…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
And now, here’s Anthony Geary, TV’s Luke from General Hospital, with a message from our sponsor:
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Oh, Livvie. Talk about misguided choices. Nearly an unstoppable pop juggernaut as the ’80s dawned, thanks to hits from Xanadu and Physical, Olivia Newton-John stumbled a bit as the decade…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Here’s one that someone requested in the comments section waaaaaaaayyy back, but I held out, trying to scrape together some more info about it. No luck. This one’s a bit…
Jason Hare
1 Min Read
No worries, everybody: I may slow down, but I can’t quit the Mellow. Dan Fogelberg & Tim Weisberg – The Power Of Gold (download) (A word before I start: I…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Dave Edmunds took a few years off between hits. Like, 12 of them. Rockabilly fueled guitar twanger Edmunds hit the Top 5 in 1971 with his cover of “I Hear…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Before they found multi-platinum success with The Raw & The Cooked and its smash singles “She Drives Me Crazy” and “Good Thing”, the Fine Young Cannibals took their post-English Beat…
Jason Hare
1 Min Read
One of our readers, Shawn, has pointed me over to his blog where he’s posted the extremely rare demo of Charlene’s "I’ve Never Been To Me," covered back in Mellow…
Scott Malchus
1 Min Read
Julie and I were getting ready for work when her mother called from Cleveland. “Turn on the news” she said in a worried tone that immediately sent chills down my…
John C. Hughes
2 Min Read
“¢ Their debut album featured a #1 smash, the video of which won eight MTV Video Awards.“¢ It eventually sold eight million copies worldwide, a million of that in the…
Scott Malchus
1 Min Read
We had a custom in 76 Rodgers my first year at Bowling Green. That year I roomed with my cousin Dave and nearly each night we’d slap an LP on…
Beau Dure
2 Min Read
It’s time for another one of our guest CHART ATTACK! posts – and I’m truly psyched to feature a Top 10 rundown from none other than Beau Dure, the man…