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A night with Better Call Saul

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Day 23 of the "post-a-day" marathon. I'll give everyone a temporary respite from 1984 albums. Just spent an hour or so watching the show Better Call Saul (the prequel to Breaking Bad , duscussed over a decade ago in this blog), as older son is making his way through the series. Damn, I almost forgot how intense the show is: in particular the episode arc I which Saul Goodman collects a drop of seven million dollars in the New Mexico desert to bail Lalo Salamanca out of jail, and nearly dies in the process. (Lalo is one of the scariest television villains I've ever seen. He is both charming and terrifying at the same time. Actor Tony Dalton should have been nominated for an Emmy or two). Lalo Salamanca (portrayed by Tony Dalton) Now we are on the episode in which Lalo, having threatened Saul and Saul's wife Kim (in a super tense scene), splits from Albuquerque and Saul and Kim sequester themselves in a hotel to avoid Lalo's associates. Okay, back to...
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1984 album in review: Van Halen--1984

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I am currently reading Alex Van Halen's memoir Brothers , so I have VAN HALEN on the brain right now. And guess who released an album in the year of our lord 1984? And not only released an album that year, but actually named it 1984 ? Yep, that would be Van Halen. How do I approach writing about an album that sold over ten million copies, peaked at #2 on the Billboard charts, and produced a massive #1 single in "Jump"? I'll just start off with a personal approach. It's impossible to over estimate what a big deal Van Halen was in the early and mid 1980s, especially if one attended a small town Midwestern high school like I did. VH was voted favorite band by my 1986 senior class. (I voted for U2). If all or most of the kids in my school liked something, I was naturally skeptical, and Van Halen seemed a bit dim and dumb. A lot of flash with no substance. I mean, U2 was an "important" and "serious" band. They'd played at Live Aid an...
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Saturday potpourri

Older son is home and we just spend about an hour this morning watching a YouTube video about comically bad AI depictions of Jesus. This is the type of content I'd never see if he wasn't home. This post will just be a potpourri of different subjects. On a whim, I checked out of the library Alex Van Halen's new memoir Brothers , which is primarily about his relationship with his kid brother Eddie Van Halen. Perhaps you've heard of him. I am only about 1/4 of the way through the book, but am enjoying it so far. Alex, along with bassist Michael Anthony, always seemed like the quiet guys in Van Halen (the band), so I didn't know what to expect from this book (though I had heard Alex Van Halen interviewed on NPR's Fresh Air and I found him pretty engaging. He comes across as thoughtful and conversational in the book, and clearly loved his little brother. Expect a "1984 albums in review" about Van Halen's appropriately titled 1984. I will try to get that...
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1984 album in review: The Replacements--Let It Be

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Former Replacements guitarist Bob "Slim" Dunlap died on December 18 after many years of ill health. Though Slim didn't join the Replacements (aka the 'Mats) until 1987, this seems the perfect time to write about the band's 1984 album Let It Be , and thus continue with this little series on 1984 long players. Let's rewind to that magical year of 1986, the year I have rhapsodized about so often in this blog. I don't remember exactly how this happened, but sometime in autumn '86, Ron P.--an older guy who lived on my dorm floor--let me borrow his vinyl copy of Let It Be . I assume this has to do with the R.E.M. factor. Ron may have thought that Let It Be was similar enough to R.E.M. that I'd like it, and maybe it also had to do with R.E.M.'s Peter Buck being guest guitarist on the opening track, "I Will Dare." (All roads lead back to R.E.M.). Allow me to digress for a moment and say a retrospective "thank you" to all the peop...
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1984 album in review: Depeche Mode--Some Great Reward

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From San Pedro, California, we now travel across the continental United States, fly over the Atlantic Ocean, and make a stop in Basildon, England. The next album in my yearlong looks at '84 releases is from the pride of Basildon: Depeche Mode, and their 1984 LP, Some Great Reward . Depeche Mode were among a crop of "synthesizer bands" that emerged, mainly from the UK, in the early '80s. This includes Human League, Tears For Fears, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), Talk Talk, and Yazoo (to name a few). I'm sure scholarly works have been wriiten discussing this phenomenon, so I won't delve into that here, and in any case, I'm not educated enough in the subject to take a stab at it. Of all the so-called "synth bands" of the '80s, Depeche Mode is the one that has evolved, thrived, and soldiered on to the present day. They have released consistently good-to-great material every other year or so since 1981, and not taken decade-long breaks. ...
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Wednesday the 18th.

I'm steadily working on something that I hope will be entertaining, but I won't have it finished tonight. I am so close, though. In the meantime, I"ll shoot off this missive for the obligatory daily post. 
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I got nothin' (or at least, very little)

The worst part of this "31 posts in 31 days blog-as-advent-calendar" approach is that some days, I got nothin'. Well, I don't have anything too interesting, anyway. It was just a bland day at work, followed by a trip to Home Depot (or "Home Despot," as I like to call it) to pick up patching caulk and mollies for some home fix-it. Then I was home to bring in the trash and recycling bins, cursing that it's pitch black outside by 5:30 PM. I watched college basketball from 7-9 PM, and then worked on another 1984 album revisitation that I hope to post  in the next few days. No spoilers, but they are nice British lads. And now, I have to check and see if my FitBit is recharged because I have to get my 10,000 steps in.
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