"Rock Box" Track of the Day: Tony Lucca, "Devil Town"

Song: "Devil Town" by Tony Lucca
Released: 2007
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: This frequently covered, Daniel Johnston-penned tune is featured in several Friday Night Lights episodes, including the first-season FNL eps "Eyes Wide Open" and "State" and this week's ep "Texas Whatever." It was also used in FNL's season 3 promos on DirecTV's 101 Network.

Because the Super Bowl is this Sunday, and then three days later, FNL--the best scripted drama series about football ever made, even though season 2's forced "Landry kills a guy" storyline was a huge fumble--is airing its final ep, today's "Rock Box" post is focused on "Devil Town."

The song, one of many great finds by FNL music supervisor Liza Richardson, has been as much of an essential part of the TV incarnation as Explosions in the Sky's instrumentals were in the 2004 FNL film. Johnston's lyrics are a perfect match with the bleakness of FNL ("All my friends were vampires/Didn't know they were vampires/Turns out I was a vampire myself/In the devil town"). The show already used up its "Devil Town" card in the penultimate ep this week (the tune was a fitting farewell to the East Dillon Lions), so I doubt the track will resurface in the series finale, but I'm sure Richardson has picked some equally striking tune for the occasion as we hear "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose!" chanted one last time.



All the other "Rock Box" Tracks of the Day from this week:
Cameo, "Candy"
Beastie Boys, "Shambala"
Vampire Weekend, "A-Punk"
The Blind Boys of Alabama, "Way Down in the Hole"

Name of the Year? More like Name of the Millennium

I didn't know there's an actual contest for Name of the Year until angry asian man blogged that a Pinay named Iris Macadangdang (pronounced macka-dong-dong) is competing in it. She instantly got my vote.

You know what would be really cool? If she wins, I think Iris Macadangdang should meet up with Texas state Rep. Betty Brown to discuss names that are "easier for Americans to deal with."

I have a special attachment to the name "Macadangdang." In high school, there was a guy with that last name who would elicit snickers from douchey white kids whenever his name was read over the PA. As a shout-out to that poor Filipino kid--had I ever met him when I did time at that school, I would have told him, "Be proud of that billboard space-hogging indigenous Filipino name and tell them fools to eat your 'dangdang"--I have used "Macadangdang" repeatedly in my writing, particularly in A Fistful of Soundtracks Halloween Special sketches back when I was on terrestrial radio. I plan to continue to slap that last name onto Filipino characters, in much the same way Wonderland and Friday Night Lights creator Peter Berg continues to name hot female characters after Lyla Garrity, a girl he had a crush on when he was a kid.

Go Macadangdang!