Jughead’s Double Digest #54 (October 1998) contains a Jughead story entitled “Winner Takes Almost All” as well as a Betty & Veronica story entitled “Loser Takes All.” Other stories include “Rejected,” “The Gamblers” and “Prize Fool.” The competitive spirit has always persevered in Archie comics.
For Tomorrow We Shall Die: Diary of a College Chum #266:
The club was OK, but we have decided not to go back and start our own club instead.
Scribblers Music Review
Miniature Tigers’ hysterical, glossily overproduced yet understated soul pop anthem “You Used to Be the Shit” has a video accompaniment. It’s basically a song about old romance and lost youth, augmented with references to once-hot items such as laser disks. The video, which came out last summer, ramps up the retro with clips of everything from Jerry Springer and Urkel to Michael Jackson’s Bad and Friends to pogs and AOL. “We used to be free,” the harmony group intones, “but now she’s just used to me.” The song’s on the most recent Miniature Tigers album Cruel Runnings.
January 7, 2015
Magic number: 11433
Magic word: coolth
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Magic number: 74326
Magic word: fringe
The Ice Cream Dream
When I learned they had 102 ice cream flavors, I had to try 17 of them. That was about six sundaes, plus toppings. I would have been embarrassed to ask for so many taste spoons.
The flavors:
• Chocolate Chocolate Chips Ahoy Ripple
• Frozen Cheese
• Shoe Sherbet
• Low Hanging Fruit
• Vanilla Monkey
• Curry Couscous Swirl
• Friends of Moose Tracks
• Sprinkle City
• Yellow
• Black Bubblegum Burst
• Mice Cream
• Vegetable Medley
• Plain Ice
• Cruller ’n’ Cream
• Batman & Raisin
• Stinging Nettle
• Taste-o-saurus
Rock Gods #315: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene
Matthew, Mark, Luke & Bink—the local supergroup made up of members of The Subcharge and Porchlight Marauders, distinguish themselves from their rockier main projects by writing issue-laden folk-rock anthems. The songs aren’t acoustic, but they do have harmonies. They also have old-fashioned sing-along choruses. Not shouty modern-day mosh chants but multisyllabic messages such as “No eruption of corruption” or “Traction for Environmental Action.”
“We start with those choruses, says Lou Stackridge (“Luke” in the title line-up) “and build the rest of the songs from there. It’s like a term paper or something. The chorus is the thesis. The rest of the lyrics are arguing that thesis.
“We could just do shouting songs—commandments, I call them—but that’s too easy. We like the songs to contain the reasoning behind the protest that’s implicit in the song.”
Bandmate Bink (Ben Kleinman, aka Cliff Clitsnit from the Subcharge) is more succinct: “Lou does all that. I don’t know what he’s talking about. I play drums.”
Thesis/protest slogan: Follow your own beat.
Tonight: Evolution of Horse Teeth at the Bullfinch. The bar is offering free wings… Allegheny Spurge at Hamilton’s (more folk rock)… The Bourgets and Zoofest at D’ollaires. Behold! Some actual contemporary bands at the recently retro-happy club!…
Riverdale Book Review
Archie has an official podcast. It’s hosted by a young man whose physique, manner and stripey shirts are reminiscent of the querulous boy Bruce MacDonald used to play on Kids in the Hall.
The podcast is nearly 150 episodes old, but has only recently—eight or nine episodes ago—been designated the “official” Archie podcast.
The podcasts are basically news-based, structured around new releases and special announcements (like the new Archie #1 and the revamped Kevin Keller). There’s not a lot said about the content of the books: no reviews, just an airing of the main credits (“…with a cover by Fernando Ruiz….”).
More authoritative Archie analysis would be appreciated.
For Tomorrow We Shall Die: Diary of a College Chum #265:
We are most of the club—the guy who runs it was ecstatic to have us.
Scribblers Music Review
Savant, Zion. Ferocious 75 minutes of samples and concepts, keenly and leisurely developed by ace mixer Aleksander Vinter (aka Savant). Zion’s separated into 16 songs, but I’ve heard it several times through and appreciate it most as a cohesive album-length suite. A lot of it is dance-friendly electro/dubstep stuff, but I don’t dance and find it great background music to write to. Middle Eastern sounds rise up in Zion regularly (sometimes very cleverly, as in “Shazam”), and the beats are generally very frisky, but my favorite bit is probably “Outcasts,” a slowish soul scream right in the middle of the thing. It reminds me of the magic performed with a short sample of The Beatles’ “Yesterday” on his 75 minute Underground mixtape.