Nihil sub sole novum - 2/29 show

Leap day!

One of the fun things about having an iPod shuffle is that in presenting random music, you're attention is drawn to songs you might not have have noticed otherwise. I can't say that the first track from Bobby Conn's 2007 album King for a Day would have caught my ear. Listening to the album as a whole, you're much likelier to notice the more single-like songs, like "Anybody" or "Love Let Me Down". However, heard out of context (and with the intimacy of headphones), "Vanitas" is a thrilling, nearly operatic torrent of rock. The lyrics are in Latin and taken from Ecclesiastes; need I say more? "Nihil sub sole novum": "Nothing is new under the sun". I've been wanting to play this song for a while, but wasn't sure how to fit it into the show. My solution? Make it the opening tune. (It's also a long song, which is useful for a day in which I got to the station a little later than I like, since I had to shovel snow again.)

So how do you follow a song like "Vanitas"? Not an easy question. I don't want to inflict too much sturm und drang on my listeners at 6am. What I needed was to carry forward some of that drama, while at the same time dialing it down a bit and introducing just a little more pop sound. Solution? Morrissey... specifically, his most fabulously over-the-top piece of drama, "November Spawned a Monster".

Rounding out the set, something from the new Magnetic Fields album. The silliness of the lyrics, over the heaviness of the feedback-laden style of the new album (Distortion), combined with Stephin Merritt lugubrious baritone... I think it was the perfect ending to the set.

I played a couple of tracks off vinyl today, as well. Years ago, while shopping at a local records store (Reckless, most likely), I ran across a record from 1984 by a man named Robert Görl, with the amusingly tacky name of A Night Full of Tension. What caught my eye was the little hand-written sticker on the front: "featuring additional vocals by Annie Lennox". Sold! I haven't listened to the whole album in a while; I remember it as dark technopop and largely forgettable. (Now that I've written that I'll have to give it another listen; maybe I'm wrong?) In any event, I did remember one song that's particularly good: "Darling Don't Leave Me". Annie Lennox is well-featured in this one &151; sort of a featured-backing-vocal, like Helen Terry in Culture Club — and the song has that edgy, off-kilter quality that made early Eurythmics so great.

The other track played off vinyl is my favorite by The Flying Lizards. They are almost exclusively known for their cover of the song "Money" (a song that was used between news items during todays "Democracy Now", which followed my show), but there's much more to their work than that. Their self-title album begins with their aggressively shrill version of Kurt Weill's "Mandalay Song", almost daring you to turn off the stereo. Perseverance is rewarded with track two, the lovely "Herstory". The song has a slow sexy groove, with sardonic lyrics about sexism. The accented singspiel of Money and the nasal shrillness of "Mandalay Song" are replaced with earnest and soft female vocals intoning "You can still make money by singing sweet songs of love", complimented by spoken cockney men's voices repeating "I own you | You don't own me | You are my territory". This song made it onto many mix tapes I made in college.

I almost lost that record, actually. I found it in a record store in Montreal; it's not an easy album to find. I lent it to my friend Mark so that he could get a copy made for himself on CD (a trick that needed very specialized equipment at the time, which I could now do at home if I had the time). I left it with him in Providence for a while, and I think we both forgot about it. Then Mark moved, I think, and decided to unload most of his possessions before doing it. Before selling (or throwing out, I forget which) his records, he let a friend go through them and pull out anything he wanted. When I heard about this, I thought, oh hell, he still had my Flying Lizards album. Hell. So I met this friend of Mark's (someone I didn't yet know), probably at Fellini's Pizzeria on Wickenden in Providence where we all hung out that summer, and it turned out that yes, he had pulled The Flying Lizards. He saw it and knew it was something rare and worth having, and he kept it — and then, when he found out it was mine, he gave it back to me. It's been many years since then, and I still feel thankful (even if I rarely listen to the album). I think his name was Damian. Thanks, Damian.

*: new stuff
(r): requests

artist	song	album	label
Bobby Conn	Vanitas	King for a Day	Thrill Jockey
Morrissey	November Spawned a Monster	Bona Drag	Sire/Reprise
*The Magnetic Fields	Zombie Boy	Distortion	Nonesuch
*Bon Iver	Skinny Love	For Emma, Forever Ago	Jagjaguwar
(r)Volt	Testbild	Volt	In the Red
Romeo Void	Talk Dirty to Me	Warm, in Your Coat	Columbia/Legacy
Patrick Wolf	The Magic Position	The Magic Position	Tomlab
*No Kids	For Halloween	Come into My House	Tomlab
*Vashti Bunyan	Coldest Night of the Year	Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind	Dicristina
Toms	Sun	Yellow Pills: Prefill	Numero Group
*British Sea Power	A Trip Out	Do You Like Rock Music?	Rough Trade
The Returnables	Teenage Imposters	The Returnables	Dirt Nap
Papas Fritas	I Believe in Fate	Buildings and Grounds	Minty Fresh
The Polyphonic Spree	Section 22 [Running Away]	The Fragile Army	TVT
Robert Görl feat. Annie Lennox	Darling Don't Leve Me	A Night Full of Tension	Mute Records
The Whitsundays	Already Gone	The Whitsundays	Friendly Fire
*The Way It Is	Fell in Love with a Carbomber	Be Still My Beating	Bull Independence
Camille	Baby Carni Bird	Le Fil	EMI
Amy Winehouse	Back to Black	Back to Black	Island
The Flying Lizards	Herstory	The Flying Lizards	Polygram
*Cat Power	Aretha, Sing One for Me	Jukebox	Matador
(r)Johnny Cash	Orange Blossom Special	Live at Fulsom Prison	Columbia
*Liam Finn	Energy Spent	I'll Be Lightening	Yep Roc
(r)The Books	An Animated Description of Mr. Maps	Lost and Safe	Tomlab
*Burial	Etched Headplate	Untrue	Hyperdub
The Eternals	This Mix Is So Bizarre	Heavy International	Aesthetics
Billy Bragg	Never Had No One Ever	The Smiths Is Dead	Les Editions Indépendents/Les Inrockuptibles
Bettye LaVette	Sleep to Dream	My Own Hell to Raise	Anti-/Epitaph
Yazbek	Son of a Gun	Damascus
Ushuaia Rocks!	Pink Moon	Un Fro Infierno
*Mahjongg	Tell the Police the Truth	Kontpab	K
Pansy Division	Luv Luv Luv	The Essential Pansy Division	Alternative Tentacles
*Sons & Daughters	Chains	This Gift	Domino
Emotional Rescue	Nostalgia	Emotional Rescue	Think Tank Records
*The Helio Sequence	Lately	Keep Your Eyes Ahead	Sub Pop
*Valet	Fire	Naked Acid	Kranky
(r)The Anniversary	Shu Shabat	Designing a Nervous Breakdown	Vagrant
The Aerovons	Say Georgia	Resurrection	RPM
*Kelley Stoltz	To Speak to the Girl	Circular Sounds	Sub Pop
Josephine Baker and the Supposed	Who Will Feel Bitter at the Day's End?	All the Leaves Are Gone	Locust
REM	Superman	Life's Rich Pageant	I.R.S.
I'm from Barcelona	We're from Barcelona	Let Me Introduce My Friends	Mute

Labels: music, playlists

posted by Tony at 10:18 AM | 0 comments

Nobody's off the hook

I think that's the name of a song, but I can't think of who it's by.

Anyway, this week it's a comic: Finn and Charlie are HITCHED... coming to you one day late.

Labels: comic

posted by Tony at 11:53 PM | 3 comments

Like a wheel inside a wheel - 2/22 show

No notes this week

*: new stuff
(r): requests

artist	song	album	label
Talking Heads	Slippery People	Once in a Lifetime box set
The Polyphonic Spree	Section 29 [Light to Follow]	The Fragile Army	TVT
Office	Paralyzed Prince	A Night at the Ritz	Scratchie/Newline
*Rafter	zzzpenchant	Sex Death Cassette	Asthmatic Kitty
Hey Willpower	Phenomenon	P.D.A.	Tomlab
Army of Lovers	The Particle Song	Massive Luxury Overdose	Giant
Chromeo	Tenderoni	Fancy Footwork	Vice
The Smoking Popes	Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart	The Party's Over	Double Zero
*Cat Power	New York	Jukebox	Matador
*Liam Finn	Lead Balloon	I'll Be Lightning	Yep Roc
*The Magnetic Fields	Three-Way	Distortion	Nonesuch
Frank Zappa	Cosmik Debris	Apostrophe	Rykodisc
Aesop Rock	Coffee	None Shall Pass	Definitive Jux
Nina Simone	Sinnerman (Felix da Housecat's Heavenly House Mix)	Verve Remixed²	Verve
Elvis Costello	Accidents Will Happen	Armed Forces	Ryko
Laurie Anderson	Smoke Rings	Talk Normal Anthology	Rhino
*Ruckus Roboticus	When I Grow Up	Playing with Scratches	Grease
*Ghislain Poirier	Hit & Red	No Ground Under	Ninja Tune
*Hot Chip	Ready for the Floor	Made in the Dark	Astralwerks/DFA
The Race	Ice Station	Ice Station	Flameshovel
Haale	Floating Down	Paratrooper	Darya
*Ungdomskulen	Modern Drummer	Cry-Baby	Ever
The Fiery Furnaces	The Vietnamese Telephone Ministry	Bitter Tea	Fat Possum
*The Whitsundays	Antisocial	The Whitsundays	Friendly Fire
Mark Ronson feat. Santo Gold	Pretty Green	Version	RCA
They Might Be Giants	Take Out the Trash	The Else	Idlewild
Grace Jones	Demolition Man	Private Life: The Compass Point Sessions	Island

Labels: playlists

posted by Tony at 8:06 AM | 0 comments

Busted

This week's Finn and Charlie, for your amusement.

Labels: comic

posted by Tony at 12:27 AM | 0 comments

In Vienna we sit in a late-night café - 2/15 show

No notes today...


*: new stuff
(r): requests

artist	song	album	label
Kraftwerk	Trans-Europe Express	Trans-Europe Express	Capitol
Kelley Polar	Chrysanthemum
*Mary Möör	Pretty Day	Bippp: French Synthwave 1979/85	Everloving
*Ghislain Poirier	It's a War War War	No Ground Under	Ninja Tune
eX-Girl	Venus vs. Gas Onna	Endangered Species	Alternative Tentacales
*Bon Iver	Lump Sum	For Emma, Forever Ago	Jagjaguwar
*Ruckus Roboticus	Here We Go	Playing with Scratches	Grease
Van Morrison	The Way Young Lovers Do	Astral Weeks	Warner Brothers
Sarah Vaughn	Whatever Lola Wants (Gotan Project Remix)	Verve Remixed²	Verve
Martha and the Muffins	Whatever Happened to Radio Valve Road?	Danseparc	One Way
*Cat Power	Blue	Jukebox	Matador
Joni Mitchell	Amelia	Hejira	Asylum
Quasar Wut-Wut	Thankful Hank and the Guzzard	Taro Sound	Glorious Noise
Canasta	All This Dust	We Were Set Up	Broken Middle C
Rufus Wainwright	The Art Teacher	Want Two	Geffen
Eurythmics	For the Love of Big Brother	1984 (For the Love of Big Brother)	RCA
Pit Er Pat	Solstice	Pyramids	Thrill Jockey
*L'ocelle Mare	#5	L'ocelle Mare	Sick Room
*Rafter	Love Time Now Please	Sex Death Cassette	Asthmatic Kitty
The Futureheads	Meantime	The Futureheads	Sire
*Mahjongg	Problems	Kontpab	K
Tom Schraeder & His Ego	The Whiskey Song
The Judybats	Our Story	Down in the Shacks Where the Satellite Dishes Grow	Sire
*Spiller Whale	Dark Horse Flame	Fresh Tables EP	Uncle Grandpa
*The Aluminum Group	Beautiful Eyes	Little Happyness	Minty Fresh
The Shangri-La's	Out in the Street	The Myrmidons of Melodrama	RPM
The Cells	They Don't Know	Self-released EP	Self-released

Labels: playlists

posted by Tony at 11:11 PM | 0 comments

Foot-in-mouth disease

I'm tired. I just posted Finn and Charlie, a day late. You should go read it. Totally.

Labels: comic

posted by Tony at 11:46 PM | 0 comments

The very young need the sun - 2/8 show

We have been having miserable, miserable weather lately. We'll have a big snowstorm, then a little more snow, and then a little more snow, and then a rainstorm, and then snow again. This week we had sleet, which collected in the form of slush, which then turned into snow. All around the city there was an inch of ice adhering to sidewalks, streets and what-have-you. It is time for an escape!

One way I used to escape from winter, in college, was to listen to Haircut One Hundred. The sunny, Caribbean-influenced pop makes me feel like I'm in Florida, somehow. So I played them on today's show, and tried to pick a number of other sunny, summery-or-warm-climate tunes.

I wanted to start with "The Tide Is High", by Blondie, but it turned out we don't have that album at the station (though we have four others), so I played "Pretty Baby", from Parallel Lines — a very sunny song, though it lacks the Caribbean/Reggae influence of "The Tide Is High".

"Bubbles", by Free Design, is also not specifically a summer-or-warm-climate song, but it has a cheerful sunny sound. Free Design was a jazz-pop group from the late 60's and early 70's, made up of 5 brothers and sisters. "Bubbles", about the pleasures of bubble gum (seriously), shows strong jazz-vocal influences, while being, at the same time, almost saccharine sweet. It would be a bit much to listen to a whole album, but they are awfully fun mixed in with other music.

Sergent Garcia, on the other hand, is really warm-climate music. This Paris-based group (which I discovered in 1999) mixes Afro-Cuban sounds with Hip-Hop. The lyrics are mostly in Spanish, and the beat is infectious — you've just got to move your body when you listen. "Jumpi" is one of my favorite songs from the album, and it features raps in both French and Spanish.

Ojos de Brujo is a band I discovered more recently, while in Spain. They describe their music as "Nuevo Flamenco", and it combines Flamenco with various modern pop and dance sounds. "Color" is particularly wild, with funky, jerky beats.

Josephine Baker's "Don't Touch Me Tomatoes" is a song I found on a compilation I bought for Eric years ago, called Divas Exotica. The quality of the sound in this song is much better than on the Josephine Baker boxed set we also have, and her voice is deeper as well; I think it must have come from one of her later performance, in the 60's or 70's (when she was, herself in her 60's). It's got great Caribbean flair.

The The B-52s' 1989 album Cosmic Thing is, to me, very much a summer album. In an interview, one of them explained the album by saying something along the lines of, "some people stay in Athens, Georgia and write about living in New York; we were in New York and writing Athens, Georgia." Any number of songs on it have a real hot summer feel. "Junebug" is by no means the best song on the album, but it's fun, and a really good party tune. (Sample lyric: "go go go go go-go-go, whoah whoah whoah whoah whoah-whoah-whoah!")

And finally, I did choose Le Tigre's "Dyke March 2001" on the grounds that the Dyke March is in June. The version I played is perhaps a bit repetitive (I should check out the original, non-remixed version), but it's still pretty amusing. It's a techno-dance beat, with a sample of a woman saying, somewhat earnestly, "I like to come to the dyke march because I like to be surrounded by..."; the sentence is alternately finished with "women", "naked ladies", and occasionally "feminist fury". (I'm not sure if the original version's lines are mixed up the same way.)

*: new stuff
(r): requests

artist	song	album	label
Blondie	Pretty Baby	Parallel Lines	Chrysalis
Free Design	Bubbles	Kites Are Fun (The Best of Free Design)	Varese Saraband
*Hello Blue Roses	St. Angela	The Portrait Is Finished and I Have Failed to Capture Your Beauty	Locust
Keep feat. Yukimi Nagano	Summer Sun	Waltz for Koop	Quango
Count Basie	Love Me or Leave Me	The Essential Count Basie Vol 1	Columbia
*Dengue Fever	Sober Driver	Venus on Earth	M80
Haircut One Hundred	Love Plus One / Pelican West	Arista
*Ghislain Poirier feat. Ambitieux, DJ Netik	Ladies & Gentlemen	No Ground Under	Ninja Tune
Sergent Garcia	Jumpi	Un Poquito Quema'o	Virgin
Josephine Baker	Don't Touch Me Tomatoes	Divas Exotica	Capitol
*Spiller Whale	Raptures & Drynesses	Fresh Tables EP	Uncle Grandpa
Royce feat. Robust	Girls on Bikes	Tuff Love	Galapagos4
*The Whitsundays	Antisocial	The Whitsundays	Friendly Fire
Ojos de Brujo	Color	Techarí	Diquela
The Dials	Nothing but Crazy	Flex Time	Latest Flame
The B-52's	Junebug	Cosmic Thing	Reprise
The Gossip	Standing in the Way of Control	Standing in the Way of Control	Kill Rock Stars
Le Tigre	Dyke March 2001 (Reid's Afro-Dykey Mix)	Remix	Mr. Lady
*Ungdomskulen	Modern Drummer	Cry-Baby	Ever
Frank Zappa	Valley Girl	Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch	Barking Pumpkin Records
(r)Out Hud	The Stoked America	Let Us Never Speak of This Again	Kranky
*Rafter	Chances	Sex Death Cassette	Asthmatic Kitty
*Yeasayer	Forgiveness	All Hour Cymbals	We Are Free
*Sam Shalabi	Jessica Simpson	Eid	Alien8
Mucca Pazza	Alarm!	A Little Marching Band	Self-released
*Valet	Fire	The Second Marriage Records Compilation	Marriage Records

Labels: music, playlists

posted by Tony at 5:23 PM | 0 comments

No twinks!

This week's Finn and Charlie are HITCHED strip is up.

This one ended up going in a different direction than I'd originally intended.

Labels: comic

posted by Tony at 10:54 PM | 3 comments

Hear the cavemen singing - 2/1 show

This morning was a snowy one — the snow started yesterday in the afternoon and continued straight through my show, tapering off around noon. In the morning there were great piles of snow all over the place. I had shoveled my own walk last night at 6:30 and 10pm, and I did it again this morning at 5am; it will need to be done again.

So I thought I'd try to focus my show on playing songs that made people feel like getting up. You know, on a day like this you need an extra nudge. I invited listeners to all in with suggestions, and I got quite a lot of requests.

My first request was for "something by Tom Waits", and I chose one of my favorites, "Eggs and Sausage (in a Cadillac with Susan Michelson)" — it's technically a late-night song, but it works exceptionally well as a morning song (and I also got a call commending me on that choice, from a man who'd just spent half an hour digging his car out of the snow, and was getting in to drive to work).

The next request was for something that was recently in rotation here: Bonnie "Prince" Billy's mellow cover of "Am I Demon?" by Danzig. (The caller couldn't remember the song exactly, and I think he actually asked for a cover of Fugazi by Uncle Tupelo, but I'm pretty sure this is what he meant.) I haven't heard all of this Bonnie "Prince" Billy EP, but I liked this song the most.

Next I got a call for Sonic Youth... not a real wake-up-and-get-going song (like maybe "Kool Thing"), but rather the more experimental, spoken-word-over-instruental-drone "Tom Violence" from Evol. The story it tells is a bit disturbing, and it's not particularly melodic; I might not have chosen it myself for a day like today, though it's quite a good piece of music ultimately. It's sort of arresting.

Next request? Something completely different from the last: a band I'd not heard of called Death by Chocolate, which turns out to be very entertaining and silly spoken word over electronic melodies reminiscent of video games.

Rounding out the day's requests was the Groove Armada, requested by a listener who had just failed to win concert tickets from me. His voice was familiar; I think he may be a regular caller I have, from Brazil. This song also closed out my set.

Meanwhile, yesterday Julio gave me a couple of CDs he'd reviewed, and asked me to drop them off at the station. One of them didn't sound too appealing, but he convinced me to give it a listen on the way home. It surprised me completely: I loved it. Ungdomskulen comes out of Norway and plays very heavy, hard music. I'm not especially a fan of Metal, or even lots of guitar, and I expected something along those lines. And I think there is some Metal in this music, and certainly a lot of guitar; but there's also good bass and drum, and non-screaming vocals, and hooks, and musical complexities. There's a little bit of the Rapture's punk-disco, and a little of Frank Zappa's jazz-rock-guitar, and it's all happening at once. Relentless, but in a good way. So I played a song, and left the CD for the Music Department. They may chose to put it in rotation; I hope they do.

*: new stuff
(r): requests

artist	song	album	label
Echo & the Bunnymen	Seven Seas	Ocean Rain	Sire/Rhino
Troubled Hubble	Nancy	Penturbia	Latest Flame
*Dengue Fever	Seeing Hands	Venus on Earth	M80
*Ween	Blue Balloon	La Cucaracha	Rounder
Os Mutantes	Panis et Circenses	Tropicália ou Panis et Circenses	Universal
Selda	Yaylalar	Selda	B-Music/Finders Keepers
*Bob Mould	Return to Dust	District Line	Anti-
*The Aluminum Group	Post It	Little Happyness	Minty Fresh
The Smiths	There is a Light That Never Goes Out	Singles	Reprise
(r)Tom Waits	Eggs and Sausage (in a Cadillac with Susan Michelson)	Nighthawks a the Diner	Asylum
Lady Sovereign	At Little Bit of Shhh	Publis Warning	Island/Def Jam
The Wolfgang Press	Louis XIV	Queer	4AD
(r)Bonnie "Prince" Billy	Am I Demon?	Ask Forgiveness	Drag City
*Hello, Blue Roses	Scarecrow	The Portrait is Finished and I Have Failed to Capture Your Beauty	Locust
Elliott Smith	Baby Britain	XO	Dreamworks
The Shangri-Las	Give Him a Great Big Kiss	The Myrmidons of Melodrama	RPM
Martha and the Muffins	Obedience	Danseparc	One Way
*Yeasayer	No Need to Worry	All Hour Symbols	We Are Free
(r)Sonic Youth	Tom Violence	Evol	SST Records
*Ungdomskulen	Witches Mate in the Undeground	Cry-Baby	Ever
*Spiller Whale	Dark Horse Flame	Fresh Tables	Uncle Grandpa Records
(r)Death by Chocolate	The Land of Chocolate	Death by Chocolate	Jetset
*Sam Shalabi	End Game	Eid	Alien8
*Pedro	Hallelujah	You, Me & Everyone	Mush
Wild Sweet Orange	I'm Coming Home
*Saint Bernadette	I Own the City	In the Ballroom	Exotic
(r)Groove Armada	Purple Haze	Lovebox	Jive Electric

Labels: music, playlists

posted by Tony at 12:20 PM | 0 comments