Taking a break from the New Wave casualties of the ’80s (and there are more to come), let’s get something truly decent and sadly Lost in the “Ëœ80s”¦former Undertones lead…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
We Are Scientists – With Love and Squalor (2006)purchase this album Recipe for a Rockin’ Good Time Morning: 1 box donuts 2 cups coffee We Are Scientists’ With Love and…
Jeff Giles
9 Min Read
So. When last we left Billy Joel, he was riding high on the back-to-back, world-beating successes of The Stranger and 52nd Street. You’d think that would mellow a guy out…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
How could I have possibly missed this? Captain Video breaks down your favorite and not so favorite videos from the ’80s in hilarious detail.
John C. Hughes
2 Min Read
Okay, this one might sting a bit. The Steve Miller Band was riding high after the huge success of 1982’s “Abracadabra” LP and single — the single was just about…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
It was the spring of 2001 — May, to be exact — but I remember it like it was yesterday: My good buddy Rahul and I were spending a week…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Sam Bisbee – Oxygen (2006)purchase this album Things seem to be heating up for Sam Bisbee, which is a good thing: Music this charmingly square doesn’t often bubble up from…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
The following is an FOJ (Friends Of Jefitoblog) Television Alert! First: Our good pal Amir Talai will be starring in Campus Ladies, the new Oxygen Network sitcom, starting January 8th….
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
The following is an FOJ (Friends Of Jefitoblog) Television Alert! First: Our good pal Amir Talai will be starring in Campus Ladies, the new Oxygen Network sitcom, starting January 8th….
Jeff Giles
4 Min Read
I wasn’t going to do one of these “year in review” things — they’re a lot of work and nobody ever agrees with you anyway — but when I sat…
John C. Hughes
2 Min Read
Things weren’t really happening for Donna Summer in 1980. The Queen of Disco and the sound she and producer Giorgio Morodor ushered in had fallen out of favor, replaced by…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Hey, hey, it’s Big Star Day here in Bootleg City! Presented for your downloading pleasure: What’s Goin’ Ahn, twenty-three tracks of demos, outtakes, and various other detritus left over from…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Hey, any Buffalo Tom fans out there? I’ve never been the most passionate of fans — and my favorite BT album is Big Red Letter Day, which I imagine most…
Jeff Giles
2 Min Read
Anthony Hamilton – Ain’t Nobody Worryin’ (2005) purchase this album After a long string of nowhere deals and disappointments, Anthony Hamilton has been on a hot streak lately — starting…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
“Secret Oktober”, the flip side of Duran’s “Union of the Snake” is truly a buried gem, a song that would have considerably brightened the overblown and overly bloated “Seven and…
Jeff Giles
13 Min Read
[One of the most polarizing features of jefitoblog, I think, is my tendency to give more-or-less equal time to music I hate. Lotsa music blogs are proselytizers for certain artists,…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (2005)purchase this album The critical consensus I’m hearing seems to point to this as 2005’s Album of the Year….
Jeff Giles
2 Min Read
Various Artists – Our New Orleans: A Benefit Album for the Gulf Coast (2005)purchase this albumVarious Artists – Higher Ground Hurricane Benefit Relief Concert (2005)purchase this album Disaster. Relief album….
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Now here’s a band we haven’t discussed yet — Squeeze. Today’s Bootleg City consists of live cuts from 1980 and 1981, the period leading up to and around East Side…
Jeff Giles
3 Min Read
Beckley-Lamm-Wilson – Like A Brother (2000) purchase this album One of the commenters on our look at Dennis Wilson’s Bamboo mentioned Beckley-Lamm-Wilson’s Like A Brother, and it got me to…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
The BoDeans – Joe Dirt Car (1995) purchase this album They seemed poised to make the jump on several occasions, but Waukesha’s finest (otherwise known as The BoDeans) never quite…
Jeff Giles
6 Min Read
When last we left Nick Lowe — at the end of Part One last week — he was mired in a sales slump and battling the bottle. After the commercial…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
To many people, they’ve never been more than a hokey novelty act, but I am in no way ashamed to admit that I fell in love with the gritty, deep-fried,…
Jeff Giles
2 Min Read
Radney Foster – See What You Want to See (1999)purchase this album As the bespectacled half of the late-’80s country duo Foster & Lloyd, Radney Foster was the logical choice…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
One of Thomas Dolby’s earliest singles (even before THAT song, I believe) was the incredible “Airwaves,” a song I think was tough for him to equal — it’s mellow and…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
“Rollercoaster” was the b-side of the Bunnymen’s most aggressive stab for a U.S. hit, the immortal “Lips Like Sugar”. While the a-side was an instant alternative classic, the b-side….welllllll… With…
Jeff Giles
8 Min Read
Doesn’t look like the godfather of punk, does he? Well. Maybe not the godfather, but perhaps a kindly uncle. Either way, Nick Lowe’s footprint on punk — hell, on all…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
One of the joys of scrounging through sorely neglected vinyl bins in used record shops is stumbling across something that you didn’t even know you were looking for. Such is…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Nicole Krauss, The History of Love (2005)purchase this book The grass was slippery with mud. In the distance I could see a rowboat tied to the dock. I looked out…
Jeff Giles
2 Min Read
Dennis Wilson – Bamboo Here it is, as promised: Dennis Wilson’s second and final solo album, the unreleased Bamboo. And actually, if you want to get right down to it,…