Portland artist Cyrus Nobipoor has given us a beautiful piece of music for everyone, but especially for those of us who— like this thoughtful version of an old song— survived the 80s and lived on to mellow with age into something more beautiful and more low key. It’s a fantastic trumpet cover of The Smiths’, …
When I hear this song, I can smell the 80s. I can taste it. You can cut the wistfulness with a butter knife; the Beatles of my generation. Now I know why my mom would get so “weird” when a particular Roy Orbison or Everly Brothers song would come on the stereo. – Steve Stav
I’m reading a book right now, Red or Dead, a fictionalized biography of Bill Shankly, the maniacal manager of the Liverpool football team who made it a dynasty in the English soccer league in the ’70s. I believe the Smiths were slamming him in the song “Frankly, Mr. Shankly.” Being from Manchester, which has had …
I remember driving around with a good friend in her old VW bug, in the summer evenings after work. She had broken up with her longtime boyfriend, I wasn’t seeing anyone… just bored. And feeling left behind. Everyone was elsewhere. Very little money, and we were already too well-trained by our upbringing to figure out …
In the fall of 1983, a group of classmates from the Moody Bible Institute went to see The Resurrection Band play a live show at the Odeon, a suburban Chicago venue that often featured the latest in Christian contemporary bands. At the show my friend John and I ditched the group and headed to the …
More than Thriller or Sledgehammer, this is the 80s vid to which I keep returning. Not because it’s good. Or beautiful. Heavens no. It makes me sad to report that this troupe of costumed hipsters and rhythmless dancers are well past 50. As kids they were English. They’re British now. They’d never heard of Starbuck’s …