In the late 1990s I became smitten with a Welsh psychedelic pop band, the Super Furry Animals. I first saw them in Boston, then a couple years later in Seattle, where I’d moved, and then a few times in New York City, where I’d moved again. I’d stand in the crowd and imagine a conversation …
Tag Archives: Music
Hub of the Cosmos
I saw Nick Cave the other night at the Wang Theatre. He asked the audience if Boston was a worthwhile place to live. He said his son wanted to know, so he’d promised to inquire. He then handily narrowed the crowd’s responses from “best place in the world” to a considerably less inaccurate “best place in …
Bonne Digestion
My friend Steve came to visit last weekend. He’s been living in the Congo for years and speaks French really well. Me… comme ci, comme ça. So when, after Sunday’s lunch, he broke into song, I wasn’t sure I’d heard properly, for as best I could tell it went: I have eaten well / I …
Thanksgiving
When I get home from school I empty my pockets of the day’s accumulation: notes, paper clips, pens, etc. Sometimes I think about an interview I read with the drummer of the Rolling Stones. It was a questionnaire-type thing, a mix of serious and silly questions. One was “What do you have in your pockets?” …
Boogie Wonderland
Maria Mendiola, who has died aged 69, was one half of Baccara, whose Eurodisco anthem Yes Sir, I Can Boogie reached No 1 in the UK in 1977 and is claimed to be the best-selling single ever by a female duo; latterly, it had been adopted by the Scotland football team as their unofficial song …
RIPQ
Editor’s note: this post is about a British music magazine. If you think it’s about something else, take your tin foil hat back to Facebook. Last year I went into Harvard Square to look for the final issue of Q. I figured the Coop might have it. Nope. As the manager explained, magazines were sold …
March Madness
Having ordered the twins to load the car, I took a look and thought: this looks like something from a movie called The Samoan Job. The rest of the day I had this in my head: Of course, per geography, we were laden not with Samoas, but Caramel deLites. So every time I …
Ode to Billy Joe
Due to a risotto mishap, a few mornings ago I was unable to use my kettle. Well, I could have used it, but I would have had to have first scrubbed it, and I was in no mood for labor. So I walked up to the Target, where there’s a Starbucks. I went in and …