NBC "Brotherhood Of Man"

In case you missed this one last year, I think the "Brotherhood Of Man" certainly extends to this year's Super Bowl.

And speaking of extended, make sure you watch the Extended Version all the way to the end, for one last cameo.

(Fun game, see if you can count all the shows that have been canceled/stars who've left the network in one short year!)

U2 "Bad"

I read two books in the early Spring, Tina Fey's "Bossypants" and Chuck Klosterman's "Fargo Rock City."

Both books spend quite a bit of time in awkward adolescence, and both books stirred up a bunch of musical memories.  I would write down a note every time some anecdote popped in my.  I've got a good 15 to 20 upcoming posts that stroll down awkward avenue.

"Fargo Rock City" in particular made me think a lot about the music I listened to during high school, as it's part autobiography, part treatise on listening to Heavy Metal in the 1980s.

I was not a Heavy Metal kid.

But Metal, or at least Hard Rock, seemed to be the default position for popular kids in my high school.

Basically, you either liked Van Halen, or you were a fag.

That was the dividing line.  Which side were you going to be on?

(I'll say, that I think this was only really a necessary choice for boys.  Girls could like a much wider range of music and still be cool.)

So I came down on the side of "Yeah, Van Halen is cool."

But I have to admit, that I didn't really get it at all.

"Running With The Devil"?

Guys would go on and on about how great that song was.

I mean, I liked it as much as I liked any dumb rock song.  And I understood why my guitar playing friends were so crazy about "Eruption."  But I just wasn't there, otherwise.

I was a Sophomore in 1984, and while I could fake really liking certain things, to fly under the radar, I was really more interested in all the new music I was ingesting on MTV.

There was this up-and-coming band from Ireland that I and a few of my friends were excited about.  But it wasn't terribly cool to say you liked them.

I can remember being in homeroom, getting ragged on by kids were were cooler (and let's face it, tougher) than we were, for liking U2.  "The Unforgettable Fire" had just come out, and it was starting to get some attention, which, in retrospect, I think rattled these kids and their worldview a bit.

The band was gay.  We were fags for liking them.  It was stupid, fad music that would have no staying power.  It wasn't real Rock N Roll.

It's one of those moments where I wish time travel existed, so someone from the future could have popped into my 1984 homeroom to pass on the information that U2 turned out to be one of the biggest, most popular, most successful, most enduring Rock N Roll bands of the last 30 years.



See the video on Youtube.

Travis "Selfish Jean"

Here is a (partial) list of things that I enjoy, that my dear wife doesn't have any particular interest in, but still indulges my desire to discuss, listen to, search online for, obsess over, follow and otherwise geek out on:

Arrested Development
This American Life
Big Star
The Onion/AV Club
Battlestar Galactica
Tina Fey
pulled Pork Barbeque sandwiches
Flight Of The Conchords
Wait Wait Don't Tell Me
Dr. Demento
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
The Wire
Cadbury Eggs
Parks & Recreation
Louie
Emmylou Harris
Watching American movies on Telemundo even though I don't speak Spanish

My wife is not immune to nerding-out, herself. But about things that interest her---for instance, graphic design elements. Like fonts (yes, I'm talking about a particular typeface). She's crazy about fonts. In fact, she once went gaga for one particular font.

And not just any font, but a font based on a video by the band Travis, featuring one of her favorite comedians, Demetri Martin, who designed the font on the t-shirts in the video below.

This is so graphic-geeky. But she is generally accepting of my foibles, so it would have been wrong of me to tease her about font-passion.

Well, I did tease her, of course, but that just makes me an annoying geek.


See the video on Youtube.

Tina Fey "A Mother's Prayer For Its Daughter"

My kid has hit this phase where she'll start giggling, getting silly, bouncy and she'll run out of the room.

Mere milliseconds later, seemingly to defy the laws of physics and time, she comes tearing back through the room, 100% naked, screaming, laughing hysterically, totally hoop-a-doop out-of-control.

And I smile, knowing that this is a phase that kids go through, and I'll miss it when it's gone.

Because it's a phase. Right?

There is that little corner of my brain (it's little, but loud) that whimpers, "God, I hope this is just a phase, not a sign that I will have a totally out-of-control hoop-a-doop about-to-be-nude-any-second teenage, one decade from now."

I think that's why this reading by Tina Fey has been making the internet rounds, among my parents-of-young-children peers.

It's not a song, but Tina Fey's audio book version of "Bossypants" is nominated for a Spoken Word Grammy.

She has my sympathetic, whimpering vote.

Join mvyradio this Sunday, as we live cover the Grammys on our Twitter page.


Hear the reading on Youtube.

Tina Fey & Christopher Cross "All My Nights I've Been Waiting"

Are we about to witness the poisonous side-effects of the success of Glee?

Glee is a hit in the ratings, which is a lovely success story. But they are also an amazing music sales story. They now have more Billboard Hot 100 Chart Hits than the freakin' Beatles!

When CSI became a hit, what did we get? CSI Miami. CSI New York. Criminal Minds. NCIS. And other attempts to cash in on the crime procedurals.

When Lost became a hit, what did we get? Fringe. Jericho. The Event. Surface. Invasion. And other attempts to cash in on the mythology-rich psuedo-supernatural series.

So now that Glee has hit, expect plenty of knock-offs. And soundtracks. Even from unlikely places.

30 Rock?

Definitely one of my favorite shows, but not one that I'd think was ripe for its own CD. Let alone a double-CD.

And yet, here we are.

Full versions of songs shared in snippet form on the show, like "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah," "Muffin Top" and the fictional-when-mentioned-on-the-show-but-now-real "All My Nights I've Been Waiting." (Right click on the last one, for a free download)

Okay, so this might be fun.

But I DON'T want to hear the CSI double-disc.

Buy the 30 Rock Soundtrack here.



And somehow, THIS song IS NOT on the CD!?!?