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Month: August 2018
DJ set list for August 30, 2018.
Thanks to all who listened to my show early this morning until 2am EST. It was a fun show with some good input from you folks. Here’s my set list:
- Welcome Back to the Drive-in (vintage drive-in welcome announcement)
- The Beths – Future Me Hates Me
- Crystales – Agrias
- Asobi Seksu – Transparence
- CHAI – HiHi Baby
- The Black Crowes – Horsehead (requested)
- Morphine – Honey White
- Bear in Heaven – Dust Cloud
- Ancient River – Electric Jesus
- Baris Mancho – Little Darlin’ (We’ll Be Kissing)
- LCD Soundsystem – Beat Connection
- The Crestones – vintage 1960’s radio jingle for Tackle skin cream
- Bjork – Earth Intruders
- Drive-in intermission spot
- Radiohead – Ceremony
- Earth, Wind, and Fire – Shining Star
- Robin Trower – Daydream (requested)
- Miss Red – Shock Out
- Lady Frankenstein vintage radio ad
- Matisyahu – Jerusalem
- De La Soul – Transmitting Live from Mars
- Blood Mania vintage radio ad
- The Velvet Underground – Oh Gin
- Gang of Four – Unburden, Unbound
- Eagles of Death Metal – I Gotta Feelin’ (Just Nineteen)
- The Coyote Men – Who Rattled Your Cage?
- Bloody Mama vintage radio ad
- Bangs – S.O.S.
- Black Sabbath – Fluff (requested)
- The Donnas – 5 O’clock in the Morning
- The Corin Tucker Band – Doubt
- Screaming Females – Extinction
- Gary Wilson – I’m Going to Take You to a Thousand Dreams
See you next week for my last show of the summer.
Keep your mind open.
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The Beths – Future Me Hates Me
Coming in with possibly the wittiest album title of the year (Future Me Hates Me), New Zealand’s the Beths show up with some much-needed pop-punk and joie de vivre right now.
The fun fuzz that opens “Get No One” is somehow topped by the delightful rhythm guitar that follows it. You’re tapping your feet right away and wanting to blast the album’s opener out of your car as soon as possible. The title track is as fun as you’d hoped it would be as lead singer Elizabeth Stokes tells us about how she’s setting herself up for “future heartbreak, future headaches,” but she’s still going through with a relationship. “Uptown Girl” isn’t a cover of the Billy Joel song (although I’m sure they’d have fun with that), but it is a raucous salute to partying all night and the aftermath that often brings.
“You Wouldn’t Like Me” has Stokes warning a potential lover about the hazards of dating her. “You wouldn’t like me if you saw what was inside me,” she sings, but the peppy nature of the song leads us to believe that was she thinks are faults are in reality charms. “Not Running” has an urgent energy to it (despite the title) with Jonathan Pearce‘s guitars constantly moving forward and not looking back.
“Little Death” is a rocker about orgasms. “Happy Unhappy” has Stokes both lamenting and loving the start of a new relationship and how its going to break her out of her comfortable rut. “River Run: Lvl 1” might refer to a video game I’ve never played, but the theme of a lovers’ game seems to run through the whole tune. The groovy grooves, rock anthem drums (by Ivan Luketina-Johnston) and vocal harmonies of “Whatever” make it one of the catchiest tracks of 2018 (and I love the subtly heavy bass by Benjamin Sinclair on it). The album ends with “Less Than Thou,” another love song in which Stokes gets in her own way when it comes to love, but powers through it with shining guitars and happy beats.
Future Hates Me is one of the peppiest and most clever albums of the year. It’s a perfect summer rock record, or a perfect record for breaking your winter blues if you’re in New Zealand this time of year.
Keep your mind open.
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Thom Yorke’s “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes” solo tour starts November 23rd.
Radiohead front man Thom Yorke has announced a bunch of U.S. tour dates this fall to promote and play his solo material. Joining him will be producer (and frequent Radiohead collaborator) Nigel Godrich and visual artist Tarik Barri. Oliver Coates, a London-based cellist, will be the opening act.
The dates are as follows:
November 2018
23rd Electric Factory – Philadelphia, PA
24th Wang Theatre-Boch Center – Boston, MA
26th Kings Theatre – Brooklyn, NY
27th Kings Theatre – Brooklyn, NY
30th John F Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts Concert Hall – Washington, DC
December 2018
1st Keybank State Theatre – Cleveland, OH
2nd Masonic Temple Cathedral Theatre – Detroit, MI
4th Chicago Theatre – Chicago, IL
5th Riverside Theater – Milwaukee, WI
6th Northrop at the University of Minnesota – Minneapolis, MN
8th Stifel Theatre – St. Louis, MO
9th Arvest Bank Theatre at The Midland – Kansas City, MO
11th Paramount Theatre – Denver, CO
13th The Union – Salt Lake City, UT
15th Bill Graham Civic Auditorium – San Francisco, CA
17th The Observatory, North Park – San Diego, CA
19th Orpheum Theatre – Los Angeles, CA
20th Orpheum Theatre – Los Angeles, CA
22nd The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas – Las Vegas, NV
Tickets will surely sell out for most, if not all, of these shows. Don’t wait too long to score some.
Keep your mind open.
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Luaka Bop to reissue rare Preacherman album on October 12th.
Luaka Bop Announces Preacherman Reissue, Universal Philosophy: Preacherman Plays T.J. Hustler’s Greatest Hits, Out October 12th
Listen To “Feel It”
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Wharf Cat Records has brought us a new post-punk supergroup -Public Practice.
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Live: The Flaming Lips and Le Bucherettes – August 16, 2018 – Clyde Theatre – Ft. Wayne, Indiana
It was a grey night. Rain had been falling. My wife was on the phone with her boss and trying to sort out work drama that had been bothering both of them for a week. She and the whole Ft. Wayne area, it seemed, needed a boost of love and fun. They got it from the Flaming Lips and Le Bucherettes at Ft. Wayne’s Clyde Theatre on August 16th.
My wife had never been to a Flaming Lips show. All I told her was that it would be wild and there would be balloons and confetti. I didn’t want to spoil anything for her.
We walked in just at the start of Le Bucherettes’ set. I’d heard of them somewhere before and made a note to check out their stuff, and this was my first full exposure to their work. It was a wild mix of psychedelia and art punk fronted by a wild Latina (Le Bucherettes hail from Mexico) who seemed to be the child of Iggy Pop and Poly Styrene after they’d had sex in an Aztec temple. They threw down a wild set that even had Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips crouching at stage right to take photos of them. My wife and I thought they needed to play next year’s Levitation Music Festival in Austin. They’d fit in perfectly there, and we picked up their last album at the merch table not long after their set.
The beginning of the Flaming Lips’ set began with their cover of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” and then “Race for the Prize” off The Soft Bulletin, which included the following (of course):
My wife was already grinning by this point, and the grin never left her face the entire night. She laughed in disbelief at the giant inflatable robot that stood at center stage over Wayne Coyne during “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” – which Coyne described as a song not just about a young, female Japanese karate master fighting evil robots, but more about “Your friend who tells you they’re going to do something impossible, but they don’t know it’s impossible, and instead of you telling them it’s impossible, you tell them…Yoshimi you won’t let those robots defeat me.”
“Fight Test” is always a welcome addition to their sets, and the “Golden Throat” microphone version of the national anthem was a weird treat. This show was the first time I heard “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song” as well as “The Castle,” which Wayne Coyne described as a sad song, but it doesn’t feel overwhelmingly sad when he sings it. It still sounds hopeful to me.
Coyne then put on rainbow wings and jumped on a light-up unicorn that was pulled through the audience while he sang “There Should Be Unicorns,” which took on a near deep-house beat and feel live. It’s cool on Oczy Mlody, but it’s better live.
They busted out “She Don’t Use Jelly,” which was well-received by the crowd (and was one I’d hoped they’d play), and “The Captain” after that. There was a small temporary stage in the middle of the crowd, and I figured it was for when Coyne stepped into a giant plastic sphere and crowd surfed to it during their cover of “Space Oddity.” I’d seen him do it at the inaugural Middle Waves Music Festival two years earlier. I was right, and my wife, a big Bowie fan, nearly cried when she realized what song was coming.
They wrapped up the set with “How??”, “Are You a Hypnotist?”, “The W.A.N.D.”, and “A Spoonful Weighs a Ton” before coming back for “Do You Realize?”
“That made me happy,” my wife said afterwards. “I needed that.”
We all did. Thanks, Flaming Lips.
Keep your mind open.
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Wrecka Stow: Skully’z Recordz – New Orleans, LA
Located in the New Orleans’ famous French Quarter (907 Bourbon Street), Skully’z Recordz is one of those wrecka stows you could miss if you weren’t paying attention or stumbling around drunk, but is a music lover’s oasis from the Louisiana heat and / or intoxicated revelers.
It’s a small store, just one room, but they pack a lot of great stuff in it.
That’s some choice vinyl in the first picture. That soundtrack to Akira alone would be worth a trip if I were a vinyl collector. How about those racks of CD’s? This place has a lot of obscure, alternative, rare, and essential albums for sale, both old and new artists share shelf space. The stuff for sale here is curated with knowledge of music history and emerging new bands that are making quality sounds.
They have a good collection of music DVDs, too, as seen above. My cousin was stunned to see that DVD of rare Devo footage and videos.
The CD racks above look like they’re in a bigger store, don’t they? Trust me, this place isn’t much bigger than a living room, but it doesn’t feel cramped and it’s well-maintained. It’s not dingy or overflowing with dusty record bins either.
There’s also a great section of local artists and legendary New Orleans artists, too. Trust me, you need to find this store if you’re in the French Quarter. I will visit it anytime I’m in the city. Among the gems I scored there were CDs by Captain Beefheart, Ladytron, Television, Electric Wizard, and Ennio Morricone. It’s probably a good thing I don’t live in New Orleans, because I’d be at Skully’z every couple weeks spending money.
Keep your mind open.
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Rewind Review: Thin Lizzy – Jailbreak (1976)
It’s easy to forget that Jailbreak was Thin Lizzy‘s sixth album because Jailbreak was their commercial breakthrough and is so good that it often overshadows some of their earlier work.
The title track kicks off the album, and it’s essentially a line in the sand for every rock album that came after it. If you’re a rock band currently practicing in a garage or basement, you need to hear “Jailbreak” and realize that you had better come up with an opener with as much fire as this or your band is already doomed. Good luck with that, by the way, because matching the crunchy groove of it is nearly impossible. The groove on “Angel of the Coast” is almost as jaw-dropping. Drummer Brian Downey doesn’t screw around on this or any other track. The slight bluesy sound of “Running Back” (with nice keyboard additions by Tim Hinkley) is a nice switch-up by the band.
The way Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson‘s guitars play off each other on “Romeo and the Lonely Girl” is impressive in its subtlety and talent. “Warriors,” a song about drug addicts, has vocalist / bassist Phil Lynott singing and playing with swagger. I can’t figure out how he keeps up his killer bass line while singing like Iggy Pop, and the guitar solo on it is a thing of beauty.
“The Boys Are Back in Town” is, of course, their biggest hit in the United States (and pretty much everywhere else). It shouldn’t surprise anyone, really. The beat is straight-up rock, Lynott sings about guys everyone knows, and Gorham and Robertson’s guitars play for the cheap seats. “Fight or Fall” could almost be a Steely Dan track with it’s jazz guitar and drum touches. “Cowboy Song” is a rocking ode to rodeo riders, cattle wranglers, and heartbreak. The closer, “Emerald,” has enough guitar shredding for two albums, let alone one song. Remember how I suggested you should try to match “Jailbreak” when opening your album? It wouldn’t hurt to close with something as excellent as “Emerald” either.
Jailbreak is a classic that actually wasn’t heralded much in its time until “The Boys Are Back in Town” won the NME Award for Best Single in 1976. It has since grown to influence hundreds, if not thousands, of other bands, and to blast out speakers around the world.
Keep your mind open.
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Imarhan – Temet
Algerian musicians Imarhan are expanding the range of Tuareg music by including touches of psychedelia, surf, and rock on their new album Temet.
Opener “Azzaman” (“The Times / Time”) has beats that are both trance and dance-inducing, and the guitar is fiery when it kicks into gear. The guitar work on “Tamudre” is psychedelic funk, and the hand percussion is like a bubbling pot of hearty stew. “Ehad Wa Dagh” (“A Covenant and an Argument”) will get you moving. Seriously, put this on any exercise playlist you have. The band cooks through the whole thing and will have you burning calories faster than any spin bike or kickboxing instructor can manage. I love how the guitars on “Alwa” move from subtle to brash and back again in an instant.
The opening of “Imuhagh” is positively hypnotic. The guitars soar like a hawk overhead, the vocals seem to call to you from a distant dune, and the drums prowl like a cat on mouse patrol. They shred “Tumast” almost beyond belief, with guitars that come at you like a freight train and percussion like a landslide. It’s one of the hottest tracks I’ve heard all year. “Tarha Nam” is the calm after the storm of “Tumast,” and “Tochal” is another guitar showcase that would make Lindsey Buckingham jealous. “Zinizjumeg” and “Ma S-Abok” end the album a calm that’s much appreciated in this day and age.
I fell in love with Tuareg music a few years ago. It never ceases to bring me joy, make me dance, or ground me in the present. Imarhan’s Temet is another fine piece of art in the genre.
Keep your mind open.
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