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