Alex Drumm – Soul Asylum “Misery”

So I fully intended this section to be all about new things we are checking out but I couldn’t help myself this week; Chicago is being run over by 90s alt-rock bands. Festival gigs by Rusted Root, Soul Asylum, Toad the Wet Sprocket and Dave Matthews Band have taken the summer of 2011 by storm. (Yes, DMB is a 90s band no matter how much you liked Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King.) These bands take me back to a simpler time. Riding around in my parent’s minivan begging my dad to rewind songs like “All I Want” and “Send Me On My Way.” Back before words like “auto-tune,” “emocore” and “Ke$ha” were the norm. Maybe it wasn’t when a smoke was a smoke and groovin’ was groovin’ but looking back, it was a pretty damn great.

Amy Dittmeier – Misfits season 1

Hulu Plus has been on my case about watching Misfits. It’s always recommending it to me, telling me that this one episode is the most popular on Hulu today, throwing it’s British writing in my face every time I log on. Wednesday night was finally the day where I caved. And I’m glad I did. Misfits follows five juvenile delinquents who, through strange circumstances, are granted super powers. None of their powers are on par with Heroes – these kids can’t fly or punch through walls or any crazy comic book powers. One girl can hear people’s thoughts. Another’s touch renders any man a blubbering mess of hormones. They’re powers that are always at the bottom rung of your wish list and these kids got them. My hesitation in watching this show stemmed from the fact that I thought it would be like Skins – a mellow dramatic teenage drama hopped up on uppers and sexual deviancy. But once people started bashing people’s heads in and having unabashed sex, I knew Misfits was a different caliber of show altogether. Now that’s my kind of show.