Today is a birthday, they're smoking cigars: 8/31 show

Hey, people, it's my BIRTHDAY, and I get to be on the radio. Woooot.

On my 17th birthday, or maybe 18th or even 16th, I called my favorite local station (WBRU) to request "Birthday" by The Sugarcubes, in honor of my birthday. But did they play it? Noooo. So today is my birthday and I get to chose my own birthday songs, and I chose to start it all out with "Birthday". "Today is a birthday...." Yes it is. Damned appropriate. Meanwhile, at WLUW we do in fact usually play people's requests, but with the album Life's Too Good not in the catalogue, a request for "Birthday" would be met with an apology, and in its place a selection from "Stick Around for Joy" (their last album). I had to bring in my own copy.

In fact, I played a lot of selections from my personal collection today, much more than usual. Most are CDs that I think should be in the collection, and eventually I will get them in there.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch — the soundtrack. We have the tribute, "Wig in a Box", but the actual soundtrack is notably missing. It's a great soundtrack, and a great musical. The songs are all rock songs, of various styles, and good for radio play.

(Conversely, today I brought in Little Shop of Horrors, as I have done before, and decided not to play anything from it, as I have also done before. In terms of musicals, aside from my frequent playing from Hedwig and the Angry Inch, I have played a couple of songs from Hair, stage version and at least one song from Cabaret, movie version, and one song from Assassins. As a DJ, I do enjoy giving people some "what the hell?" moments, but I think they should be good "what the hell?" moments, so I tread carefully.)

Martha and the Muffins. It is seriously one of my goals to get as much of the Martha and the Muffins catalogue as I have on CD (which is all but two albums, one of which never came out of CD) into the WLUW catalogue. Mary Nisi has egged me on, though she may well have forgotten. I had intended to play "You Sold the Cottage", which is a great homage to summer cottage life (and since after the show we drove up to Michigan), but I brought the wrong CD. Ah, me.

Red Hot + Blue. I can't say it's a goal to get this into the catalogue, but I do kind of think it should be there. Debbie Harry and Iggy Pop turn "Well Did You Evah" into a real party song.

Uztaglote — La libération des corps. I bought this in France this year, and realized while there that it was a recent independent release, and as such appropriate for the library and even rotation. But though I think the album is quite good, I didn't do anything about it, and getting it into the library is not at all a priority for me. I did get a called asking about the song, though. I had to spell the name for him carefully. I forgot to mention that he could find the playlist online.

Shirley Bassey. Yeah, that's right, Shirley Bassey. You got a problem wit' dat? This is not one I plan on getting into the collection. The story behind this CD is that I saw it in a store, and bought it as a lark. I figured it would serve any Shirley Bassey needs we might have for the rest of our lives. Then, to my surprise, I found it to be a very enjoyable album. Bassey sings with high drama, and once she'd done "Goldfinger", you can detect a tongue-in-cheek quality to everything she sings. She's having fun, and I love it.

My interest in Shirley Bassey, while it does in some sense begin, as so many things do, with The Muppet Show, really dates from the late 90's and the song "History Repeating", by The Propellerheads featuring Miss Shirley Bassey (as the credit reads). I bought a single of it, containing three very different versions of the song. I considered buying the whole Propellerheads album (which only feautures Miss Shirley Bassey on one track). I listened to bits of it online, and realized that the awesomeness of that song lies not with The Propellerheads (though they are good enough), it lies with Miss Shirley Bassey. She brings an amazing dose of cool to the song. Certainly she benefits from good producers and quality backups (as did, for example, Johnny Cash in "When the Man Comes Around"), but at the core is her interpretation of the song (as can also be said for Johnny Cash in "When the Man Comes Around"). (Maybe Shirley Bassey needs to do an album with Rick Rubin, who produced "When the Man Comes Around".)

Eurythmics. I don't think the station really needs any Eurythmics in the catalogue, though they are one of my favorite bands. In any event, 1999's Peace was a little, oh, not what I wanted it to be. Not adventurous enough, too light-rock-ish. But the songs "Forever" is really great. I got a call about it, too; the listener was surprised to hear what it was. Eurythmics never got all that much play in the US after their early hits. They were too alternative for mainstream radio, and too mainstream for alternative radio. In the UK, though, their fortunes apparently only increased, with 1989's "We Too Are One" being, I think, their highest seller (though I find it to be very much a second-tier album).

World 2003 is an album I bring in and play from occasionally, though I don't think it needs to be in the catalogue. "Youm Wara Youm" is a excellent dance track.

Meryn Cadell is another artist whose entire catalogue I intend to get into WLUW's catalogue. I have all three of Cadell's albums on CD. "Secret" is from the first album, and it's a gorgeous, spare, 1-minute song. Meryn Cadell is still writing but not singing, in part due to the havok on vocal cords that is wrought by taking testosterone as part of sex change. (I do not know the best way to talk about this. "Sex change" is the common way to say it, but not the preferred way. "Transitioning" seems to be the term of art, but it's a little ambiguous. Suffice it to say, Meryn was a woman and now is a man.) I do hope that one day he'll be able to sing again.

Benny Goodman ended my show. This was from a CD put out by the Smithsonian that I bought cheaply at the WLUW record fair last spring. Does it get any better than "Sing, Sing, Sing"?

*: new stuff
(r): requests

artist	song	album	label
Sugarcubes	Birthday	Life's Too Good	Elektra
Hedwig and the Angry Inch	Random Number Generation	Hedwig and the Angry Inch	Atlantic
*Balkan Beat Box	Joro Boro	Nu-Med	JDUB
*St. Vincent	Human Racing	Marry Me	Beggars Banquet
W.W. Lowman	Batie	Plain Songs	Arbouse
Uztaglote	Je vair mourir jeune at seule	La libération des corps	R100
*Architechture in Helsinki	Heart It Races	Places Like This	Polyvinyl
David Bowie	Wild is the Wind	Station to Station	RCA
Sufjan Stevens	For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti	Michigan: Greetings from the Great Lake State	Sounds Familyre/Asthmatic Kitty
*Bat for Lashes	Trophy	Fur and Gold	Echo
*Aesop Rock	None Shall Pass	None Shall Pass	Definitive Jux
Martha and the Muffins	Boys in the Bushes	Danseparc	One Way
Zerostars	Like the Daylights	Self-released www.zerostars.com
Debbie Harry & Iggie Pop	Well Did You Evah	Red Hot + Blue	Chrysalis
Shirley Bassey	Big Spender	Goldsinger: The Best of Shirley Bassey	EMI Records
*Imperial Teen	Sweet Potato	The Hair, the TV, the Baby, and the Band	Merge
*Frisbie	Lather	New Debut	Appendix
Canasta	Chicago Slow Down	We Were Set Up	Broken Middle C
Eurythmics	Forever	Peace	BMG
Haale	Floating Down	Paratrooper	Darya
*Justice	Waters of Nazareth	†	Ed Banger/Vice
Samira Sa'id with Cheb Mami	Youm Wara Youm	World 2003	Narada World
*Datarock	See What I Care	Datarock Datarock	Netwerk
*Mirah and Spectratone International	Love Song of the Fly	Share This Place	k Records
Meryn Cadell	Secret	Angel Food for Thought	Bongo Beat
Quasar Wut Wut	Thankful Hank and the Guzzard	Taro Sound	Glorious Noise
Benny Goodman and his Orchestra	Sing, Sing, Sing	Big Band Jazz Vol II	The Smithsonian Collection

Labels: music, playlists

posted by Tony at 3:19 PM