Like a Bullet to the Ocean - 12/28 show

Continuing from last week, I played a set of some more of my absolute favorite tracks from 2006:
"Boy with a Coin" by Iron and Wine; "Postcard from Nina" by Jens Lekman; "Section 29 [Light to Follow]" by The Polyphonic Spree; "Burn the Liars" by The Earlies. Whereas last week's best-of set was danceable, this week's was more mellow (though still generally uptempo).

Next week: my top albums of 2007! Yow!

*: new stuff
(r): requests

artist	song	album	label
Blondie	11:59	Parallel Lines	Chrysalis
The Smoking Popes	No More Smiles	Destination Failure	Capitol
*The Hives	T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S.	The Black and White Album	A&M
*Daft Punk	One More Time/Aerodynamic	Alive 2007	Virgin
Deee-Lite	Power of Love	World Clique	Elektra
*Sally Shapiro	Anorak Christmas	Disco Romance	Paper Bag
The Husbands	Tell Me Your Love Is Only Mine	There's Nothing I'd Like More than to See You Dead	Swami
Joe Clay	You Look Good to Me	Get Hot or Go Home: Vintage RCA Rockabilly '56-'59	Country Music Foundation
Gruppo Romm Dracula's	Tradizional	Gruppo Romm Dracula's	Romm
The Sugar Cubes	Cat	Life's Too Good	Elektra
Zerostars	Sleeping In	2nd album preview	Self-released
*Blur	Tracy Jacks	Selections from the Brit Box	Rhino
Scritti Politti	Road to No Regret	White Bread Black Beer	Nonesuch/Rought Trade
Laurie Anderson	It Tango	Big Science	Warner Brothers
*Tom Brosseau	Committed to Memory	Cavalier	FatCat
Talking Heads	Good Thing	More Songs about Buildings and Food	Sire
Fazzini	Duplex	Sulphur, Glue the Star	Locust
(r)Patti Smith	Because the Night	Easter	Arista
*Cass McCombs	Crick in my Neck	Dropping the Writ	Domino
Frank Zappa	No Not Now	Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch	Barking Pumpkin Records
*White Williams	I Want Candy	Smoke	Tigerbeat6
*Tokyo Police Club	Be Good (RAC Remix)	Smith EP	Paper Bag
Iron and Wine	Boy with a Coin	The Shepherd's Dog	Sub Pop
Jens Lekman	Postcard from Nina	Night Falls Over Kortedala	Secretly Canadian
The Polyphonic Spree	Section 29 [Light to Follow]	The Fragile Army	TVT
The Earlies	Burn the Liars	The Enemy Chorus	Secretly Canadian
*The Mary Onettes	The Companion	The Mary Onettes	Labrador
Konrad	Canyon Blue	First Disguised as Last	Radical Turf
*Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti	An Appeal from Heaven	Scared Famous	Human Ear Music
James Brown	Give It Up or Turnit A Loose	Sex Machine (Live)	Polydor
Martha and the Muffins	You Sold the Cottage	This Is the Ice Age	EMI/Virgin
*Moving Units	Wrong Again	Hexes for Exes	Metropolis
*Joe Lally	Skin and Bone	Nothing is Underrated	Dischord
(r)Peter Bjorn and John	Young Folks	Writer's Block	Wichita
*Pedro	I Am Keeping Up	You, Me & Everyone	Mush
OK Go	Here It Goes Again	Oh No	Capitol
The Blow Monkeys	It's Not Unusual	Wildflower 12"	RCA
*The Dragons	Cosmosis	BFI	Ninja Tune
*Richard Youngs	Low Bay of Sky	Autumn Response	Jagjaguwar
The Read Letter feat. Nate Van Allen of the Siderunners	Can the Circle Be Unbroken?	Live on WLUW	WLUW
Orange Juice	Rip It Up	The Very Best of	Polydor
Gilberto Gil	Bat Macumba	Tropicalia: Ou Panis Et Circensis	Universal
The Smiths	William It Was Raally Nothing	Louder Than Bombs	Sire

Labels: music, playlists

posted by Tony at 1:49 PM | 0 comments

Happy Holidays from Finn and Charlie

I spent a lot of time today wrangling a gimpy hotel scanner to bring you this comic. Why? Because I love. So enjoy.

Finn and Charlie are HITCHED!

Labels: comic

posted by Tony at 12:01 AM | 1 comments

We Found You Lying - 12/21 show

Happy Winter Solstice! In honor of the solstice I played "Solstice" by Pit Er Pat, which is a local Chicago band. The song has nice off-kilter rhythms, and if probably my favorite off that album (which was I think from last year).

In honor of Christmas I played a Christmas tune — I meant to play more, but sort of forgot. The song I played was Sufjan Stevens' "Get Behind Me Santa", which is a fun and silly song he wrote for his 2006 Christmas Album (he has produced a short Christmas album every year for the past five).

(A little secret: whenever I begin a show with a Siouxsie and the Banshees remix, it means I was running a little late, and wanted an extra-long first song so I could get settled. I'm never late, but I like to get there 15 minutes early; if I only have 5 I feel a little stressed.)

I also played set of some of my absolute favorite tracks from 2006:
"Coffee" by Aesop Rock featuring John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats; "Someone Great" by LCD Soundsystem; and "Heart It Races" by Architecture in Helsinki. All three are uptempo and danceable; "Coffee" and "Heart It Races" have quirky rhythms, while "Someone Great" is more standard electro. Interestingly, "Someone Great" rather faded between the two other songs, which I did not expect, since it really is a stand-out track.

Three more stand-out tracks next week!

*: new stuff
(r): requests

artist	song	album	label
Siouxsie and the Banshees	Cities in Dust (Eruption Mix)	The Best of Siouxsie and the Banshees	Polydor UK
Pit Er Pat	Solstice	Pyramids	Thrill Jockey
*White Williams	New Violence	Smoke	Tigerbeat6
*The Dragons	Your Way Too	BFI	Ninja Tune
The Judybats	Pain Makes You Beautiful	Pain Makes You Beautiful	Sire
Jamie Lidell	Multiply	Multiply	WARP
*Ween	Blue Balloon	La Cucaracha	Rounder
Quasar Wut Wut	Thankful Hank and the Guzzard	Taro Sound	Glorious Noise
The Shangri-La's	Give Him a Great Big Kiss	The Myrmidons of Melodrama	RPM
*Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffitti	Are You Gonna Look After My Boys	Scared Famous	Human Ear Music
*Bonnie 'Prince' Billy	Am I Demon	Ask Forgiveness EP	Drag City
Woody Guthrie	Pretty Boy Floyd	Worried Man Blues	Special Music
Luciana Souza	Corcovado	North and South	Sunnyside
Sufjan Stevens	Get Behind Me Santa	Songs for Christmas Vol V: Peace	Asthmatic Kitty
Adam and the Ants	The Magnificent Five	Kings of the Wild Frontier	Columbia
*Moving Units	Crash 'N' Burn Victims	Hexes for Exes	Metropolis
Office	Big Bang Jump!	A Night at the Ritz	Scratch/New Line
*Daft Punk	Around the World/Harder Faster Stronger	Alive 2007	Virgin
*Wire	Our Time	Read & Burn 03	Pink Flag
*Antony and the Johnsons	Knockin' on Heaven's Door	I'm Not There OST	Columbia/Sony
(r)Mahjongg	THE rRABBITT	Raydoncong	Cold Crush
(r)Alkaline Trio	Metro	Singles	Asian Man Records
Aesop Rock	Coffee	None Shall Pass	Definitive Jux
LCD Soundsystem	Someone Great	Sound of Silver	DFA/Capitol
Architecture in Helsinki	Heart It Races	Places Like This	Polyvinyl

Labels: music, playlists

posted by Tony at 6:07 PM | 0 comments

Finn is always right

He can't help it, it's just how he was built.

Finn and Charlie are HITCHED!

Labels: comic

posted by Tony at 12:28 AM | 0 comments

To Keep Our Dazed Lives Going - 12/14 show

Does anyone know how to pronounce "Brakhage"? This is the name of the first song I played today, by Stereolab (and a song I discovered when it was used in a commercial, I think for Volkswagen). Stan Brakhage (the namesake of the song) was an American experimental filmmaker; you can find all kinds of information about him online, but not the pronunciation of his name.

Browsing through the WLUW catalogue this morning, I found an Afrika Bambaataa album from 2004. I don't know Afrika Bambaataa all that well; to me, he's mainly a name from the student-painted murals in my high school (mostly painted in the late 70's and maybe the early 80's — other artists honored included Jethro Tull). I knew he's a well respected name in the music industry; I didn't realize he was still producing music, though. I also hadn't realized Gary Numan was still active as well, though I knew he'd had a full career beyond his 1981 hit "Cars". So I pulled the CD to play, and ended up playing the track that the two collaborated on, along with MC Chatterbox. It was a fun track, and Gary Numan's sound came through loud and clear (not always the case with collaborations like that).

Well, now is the time of year when I put together my best-of-the-year list, which is always hard. There was a lot of good stuff this year — my short list for the top 10 albums ended up with about 20 albums on it. I'm whittling it down, and I should be settled on it by my 1/4 show, maybe even my 12/28 show.

*: new stuff
(r): requests

artist	song	album	label
Stereolab	Brakhage	Dots and Loops	Elektra
Throwing Muses	Fish	Lonely is an Eyesore	4AD
*White Williams	The Shadow	Smoke	Tigerbeat6
(r)Sondre Lerche	Two Way Monologue	Two Way Monologue	Astralwerks
*The Dragons	Food for my Soul	BFI	Ninja Tune
*Cass McCombs	That's That	Dropping the Writ	Domino
Van Morrison	Spanish Rose	Bang Masters	Epic/Legacy
Neko Case	Train from Kansas City	The Tigers Have Spoken	Anti-
*Daft Punk	One More Time	Alive2007	Virgin
*G&D	Time	The Message	Uni Versa
The Aluminum Group	Be Killed	Happyness	Wishing Tree
Martha and the Muffins	Women Around the World at Work	This is the Ice Age	EMI/Virgin
The La's	Feelin'	The La's	Go!
Tom Waits	Train Song	Frank's Wild Years	Island
Haale	This High	Paratrooper	Darya
*Six Organs of Admittance	Jade Like Wine	Shelter from under the Ash	Drag City
*A Place to Bury Strangers	Breathe	A Place to Bury Strangers	Killer Pimp
Blur	Ther's No Other Way	Leisure	SBK Records
*Push-Pull	Brain Fever	3 EP	Joyful Noise
Madness	Shame and Scandal	The Dangerman Sessions	Live & Intensified
Har Mar Superstar	Bird in the Hand	The Handler	Record Collection
Afrika Bambaataa featuring Gary Numan and MC Chatterbox	Metal	Dark Matter Moving at the Speed of Light	Tommy Boy
Walter Meego	Through a Keyhole Tour	Through a Keyhole Tour EP	self-released
*Malcom Middleton	A Brighter Beat	A Brighter Beat	Full Time Hobby
Zerostars	Fearless	The good Can't Escape	self-released
The Shangri-La's	Give Him a Great Big Kiss	The Myrmidons of Melodrama	RPM
(r)Asian Dub Foundation	Strong Culture (Juttla & Charged remix)	Frontline 1993-97	Beggar's Banquet

posted by Tony at 5:47 PM | 0 comments

Elegance is Refusal

This week's Finn and Charlie is up now.

Labels: comic

posted by Tony at 11:24 PM | 0 comments

Don't Point That Gun at Me - 12/7 show

I can't help it; whenever I hear a song from disc 2 of New Order's early best-of Substance, it reminds me of sitting in a restaurant in O'Hare airport in 1991. I'd gotten the tape of Substance a few years earlier, and knew all the songs well; I bought the CD in the fall of my sophomore year of college, which doubles the amount of music by adding disc 2. So it was at Christmas of 1990 that I was just getting to know the music on this second disc. On this particular trip, I'd bought my tickets way in advance, and the airline had changed the departure time by some 5 hours. I didn't find out till I got to the airport; it had been my travel agency's responsibility (remember them?) to inform me of the change, and for whatever they just hadn't. So I found myself waiting at O'Hare for 5 hours, killing time having lunch and listening to music, and this is the CD I remember.

"1963" is an odd song; it's basically a ballad (in the strict definition of a song that tells a story), which is unusual for New Order (whose lyrics typically are only barely meaningful). It tells the story of a man who kills his wife, told from the point of view of the wife, sung by a man. I don't expect to feel anything from New Order songs, except perhaps from the quality of the music itself (minor keys, arpeggios, staccato beats, etc), but somehow I do find myself affected by this song when I listen to it. This refrain, sung without passion by Bernard Sumner, "Johnny, don't point that gun at me | there's so many ways our lives have changed | but please I beg don't do this to me". It's the lack of passion that makes the song poignant. Words that should be of terror are sung with resignation, as if the main character is already dead when she sings, just looking back at the time when it all ended.

So that song started my show today.

Today was the first day I played LPs, starting with "Aeroplane City Lovesong" by the Blow Monkeys, which was maybe an odd first choice. The Blow Monkeys started our as a jazz-punk band, but by the time of this second album (Animal Magic) they were more jazz-pop; in later albums they made pop, dance-pop, and more jazz-pop, but never returned to the early punk edge. I also played something from the first album by Underworld. Underworld's first two albums are of a style very different from their later career (and they have a new album I haven't heard yet). The Underworld of "Glory! Glory!" and the Underworld of "Born Slippy" are essentially two different bands with the same name. The third LP was the Tourists, the power-pop band Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox were in before they started Eurythmics. The Tourists' music is more raw than the early Eurythmics music that Stewart and Lennox produced right afterward. It lacks the oversampled harmonies and crooning vocals; vocals instead are handled mostly by Peet Coombes and Annie Lennox singing together. It's interesting to compare the music to the later music by Eurythmics, and my Lennox and Stewart on their own, but also, it's good music on its own.

Finally, I got a request today for The Soft Pink Truth, which is essentially a house music project by Matmos' Drew Daniel. Matmos' music is always interesting, and I enjoyed the song by The Soft Pink Truth that I played. But, in the further adventures of "how funny is the world", I was looking at the liner notes, and there's a picture of Blevin Blectum (who plays on one of the other tracks on the CD). Who's that? The stage name of a classmate from high school. I didn't know her well, but we were in advanced English together for a few years. Her cousin is Gavin Russom, who, with Delia Gonzalez, had an CD that was in rotation at WLUW last year; I went to high school with him, too, though he was a few years younger. So I googled Blevin Blectum and found reference to her brother, who was a friend of mine; it turns out he records under the name Kelley Polar. Check out the song "Chrysanthemum". It's good.

*: new stuff
(r): requests

artist	song	album	label
New Order	1963	Substance	Qwest
The Art of Noise	How Rapid?	In No Sense? Nonsense!	China
Carmen Miranda	Mama Eu Quero	Divas Exotica	Capitol
The Fiery Furnaces	Tropical/Iceland	EP	Rough Trade
*White Williams	New Violence	Smoke	Tigerbeat6
*The Mary Onettes	Explosions	The Mary Onettes	Labrador
Charles Mingus	Boogie Stop Shuffle	Mingus Ah Um	Columbia/Legacy
Curtis Mayfield	Superfly	Superfly	Rhino
The Blow Monkeys	Aeroplane City Lovesong	Animal Magic	RCA
*Cass McCombs	Pregnant Pause	Dropping the Writ	Domino
*The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir	Broken Front Teeth	The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir	Bloodshot
Underworld	Glory! Glory!	Underneath the Radar	Sire
Laurie Anderson	Strange Angels	Strange Angels	Warner Brothers
*White Rabbit	Dinner Party	Fort Nightly	Say Hey
Squirrel Nut Zippers	Gift of the Magi	Christmas Caravan	Mammoth
Lena Horne	'Deed I Do	Some of the Best	Stanyan
Ronnie Whitehead	Begging You	Eccentric Soul: Mighty Mike Lenaburg	Numero Group
*Morning Recordings	Sugar Waltz	The Welcome Kinetic	Loose Thread
*Muscles	Ice Cream	Guns Babes Lemonade	Modular
Les Negresses Vertes	Hou! Mamma Mia	10 Remixes	Razzia Disques
The Tourists	Don't Say I Told You So	Luminous Basement	Epic
*Prefuse 73 feat. School of Seven Bells	The Class of 73 Bells	Preparations	WARP
*The Hives	Tick Tick Boom	The Black and White Album	A&M
(r)The Soft Pink Truth	Media Truth/Vampire State Building	Do You Want New Wave or Do You Want...	Tigerbeat6
Os Mutantes	Quem Tem Medo de Brincar de Amor	A Divina Comedia Ou	Omplatten
(r)José Gonzalez	Teardrop	In Our Nature	Mute
Barenaked Ladies	Hannukah Blessings	Barenaked for the Holidays	Desperations Records
*Malcolm Middleton	We're All Going to Die	A Brighter Beat	Full Time Hobby

Labels: music, playlists

posted by Tony at 11:34 AM | 0 comments

There's a fine line between kitschy and tacky

Or maybe not... this week's Finn and Charlie

Labels: comic

posted by Tony at 11:46 PM | 0 comments

Backposting, catching up.

So I have a bad habit of sitting on posts I'm still working on, and then posting them finally, dated as though they hadn't been released late. So for example, my playlist from Friday is dated 11/30, but actually I put it up about 5 minutes ago.

The only thing that regularly goes up on time is Finn and Charlie. So if you are interested in my music writing and playlists, you might want to check out the last few posts, in case you missed something.


Also, you may have noticed that while writing about our trip to Italy, I stopped about halfway through. There were a couple of days in the middle where my diary was little more than notes that needed fleshing out, and that delayed me (that and lots of business trips, and Thanksgiving, and, you know, life). Anyway, the full trip has been posted, and you can read it all here.

posted by Tony at 10:57 PM | 0 comments