Theme: Big and tall and short |
| The theme for this show was Big and Tall and Short (after a sign I saw for a store in Hamilton) so all the songs I played were either over 6 minutes or under 2 minutes long. I think it went OK, but it was difficult to mix the two different song lengths, as in general the shorter songs were happy indie pop while the longer ones were more groovy laid back songs. I made sure to note the lengths of each of the songs in the setlist. I got a couple of suggestions of songs to play, but I couldn't justify playing Onita's suggestion of Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant, as at 18 minutes it would have taken up too much of the show. The last song (Abe Vigoda's dead) was 15 seconds short of 6 minutes but I let it go as it was my tribute to Halloween. However do note that Abe Vigoda is indeed alive, this is confirmed by the website www.abevigoda.com where the current state of Mr. Vigoda is displayed (you can also get this as an add-on to Firefox). I still remember the Letterman episode where they quelled the original Abe Vigoda is dead rumour by having him in the show's control room. Does anybody still watch Letterman anymore or has everybody moved to Stewart/Colbert? And although I had to play a first song I'm not considering it my top song of the week. It was a busy time for me before the show with being in Saskatchewan for a week and a couple of birthdays so I couldn't find a song that had that something something that it needs to be my top song. TALK - Theme Nicole Willis and the Sound Investigators - No One's Gonna Love You (6:05) Bran Van 3000 - Astounded (C) (5:56) Ivana Santilli - Sun + Moon = Tomorrow (C) (6:01) The Pipettes - I Love You (1:38) The Diskettes - Art (C) (1:42) TALK The Bicycles - Sure Was Great (C) (1:35) Arcade Fire - No Cars Go (C) (6:02) The Doers - We're Open (C) (1:55) Yo La Tengo - Heard You Looking (7:01) **Suggested by Chris D Chixdiggit - Getting Air (C) (1:33) **Suggested by Chris D TALK Dengue Fever - 1000 Years Of A Tarantula (6:43) Cassius - The Sound Of Violence (7:13) Junior Boys - Like A Child (C) (6:07) Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass - Butterball (6:18) TALK CUB - Your Bed (C) (1:32) The Sin-Tones - Trailer Park Sadie (C) (1:43) Unrest - Cath Carroll (10 cc mix) (7:13) King Curtis - Memphis Soul Stew (7:36) The Pipas - Riff Raff (1:51) TALK spinnwebe.com - Abe Vigoda's Dead (Premorteum mix) (5:45) (C) Denotes Canadian Content |
October 27, 2006
October 13, 2006
Theme: Accordion Fever |
The accordion themed show went very well, and again before I scare anybody off from listening to the show, I only started off each set with a song that contained some accordion. As well during each talking break I read some selections from the Geoff Berner booklet: How to be an Accordion Player, get more information about it here: http://www.geoffberner.com/introduction.htm Note that unlike the Corrine Bailey Rae song, I am aware that the Lilly Allen song "Smile" is a popular song, but I played it anyway. The third set came from music that I had recently purchased from the great indie pop website: www.poppolar.com After the side projects set I was made aware that I had done a great injustice by not playing the band Dump after playing Yo La Tengo (Dump is a side project of Yo La Tengo's James McNew), I corrected this great injustice during this show. TALK - Theme The Rascals - Groovin' Amp Fiddler - Right Where You Are Lily Allen - Smile Bic Runga - Say After Me Hawksley Workman - You Me And The Weather (C) TALK Wet Spots - Blitzkrieg Polka (C) **See Note 1 The Snow Fairies - The Life Of A Total Square The Besties - Prison Song Sandro Perri - Circles Axel Yngvell - The Great Big Saturday Nils Folke Valdemar - The Taking Off Of Pants TALK (poppolar.com set) The Cajun Ramblers - Venez A Louisianne (C) **Digital Tape The Pipettes - One Night Stand Cats on Fire - The Smell of An Artist The Tidy-ups - Death To The Tidy-ups Pipas - Basements Lake Holiday - Don't Stay Forever (C) TALK They Might Be Giants - Istanbul Not Constantinople Wax Tailor - Que Sera Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye (C) Memphis - In The Cinema Alone (C) Two Hours Traffic - Jezebel (C) TALK Jens Lekman - Julie (Remix) Square Root of Margaret - The 3-D Breeze (C) Yo La Tengo - Point and Shoot Dump - Erotic City The Reverb Society - Shake Don't Stir (C) TALK Geoff Berner - We All Gotta Be A Prostitute Sometime (C) Note 1: The show was during the annual Oktoberfest festival in Kitchener-Waterloo and this song mentions the festival. (C) Denotes Canadian Content |
September 29, 2006
Theme: Side Projects |
| The side projects theme really got people thinking so I got lots of suggestions for bands to play. A great suggestion was made by Chris F. who remembered that I had told him about seeing NoMeansNo before the show and came up with the Hanson Brothers a side project of NoMeansNo. Also topical as hockey season started the week after the show. Deep Space Wayne suggested that I could have just done the whole show based on Broken Social Scene which is pretty much a band that is a side project of people from other bands. I made an impulse buy the night before the show and picked up the acclaimed and influential album "Colossal Youth" by the Young Marble Giants. I first heard of Stuart Moxham of the band because of his involvement with the Stephin Merrit project The 6ths as well I have heard lots of people praise him so I decided to go for it. So far I'm really liking it. I also played songs from few other CDs I picked up right before the show. TALK - Theme Peter Bjorn and John featuring Victoria Bergsman - Young Folks Cats On Fire - Higher Ground ^^ Jim Noir - Key of C Dyrdin - Popp & Co ** Young Marble Giants - Salad Days TALK ## The Stars - Reunion (C) ++ Amy Milan - He Brings Out The Whiskey In Me (C) ++ ** Memphis - Incredibly Drunk on Whiskey (C) Violet Lyal - To You Leaving (C) TALK ## NoMeansNo - I Need You (C) **Suggested by Chris F. ++ The Hanson Brothers - 100 + 10% (C) ## New York Dolls - Personality Crisis **Suggested by Karen M. ++ Buster Poindexter - All Night Party TALK ## Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Chicken Dog **Suggested by Chris D. ++ 20 Miles - Mend Your Heart Ladyhawk - The Dugout (C) **Suggested by Rick W. ^^ Sound Team - Your Eyes Are Liars Yo La Tengo - Watch Out For Me Ronnie TALK ## Metric - Combat Baby (C) **Sort of suggested by Chris D. ++ Emily Haines - The Lottery (C) Those Transatlantics - The Other Cheek Great Aunt Ida - We Say No (C) ^^ The Icicles - Snowman TALK ## New Order - Regret ++ Electronic - Late At Night ** Junior Boys - In The Morning (C) TALK Jonathan Richman - Since She Started To Ride **See Note 1 Harvee - No One Here **See Note 2 ## Original band ++ Side Project ** Bought the day before the show at Soundscapes ^^ Doesn't mean anything but I just really wanted to make the setlist really, really, confusing Note 1: Dedicated to Mike and Jackie, I decided to play the song because of a conversation I had with them and Jackie talking about spending a lot time at the barn looking after horses |
September 15, 2006
Theme: No Theme |
| Not a lot to say about this show, I think I played lots of great songs, but not much of an overall theme even within individual sets. There were a couple of notable new releases by both Yo La Tengo and Memphis, I was really excited by both of them so I played a set of double shots so I could hear more of each album. I talked about Yo La Tengo in the last mailout while Memphis is a side project of Torquil Campbell of the Stars. From this initial listen it sounds much more developed than the first Memphis album and more my style than Amy Milan's solo effort. Another song of note was by the Shakers, a band that featured Dave Rave, formerly of Teenage Head and many other bands. He has just released a great Anthology featuring songs from his long career. Find more about him here: www.dave-rave.com . For the rest of the show I played lots of other great songs, a few from some CDs in the new release section that I had never heard of before the show: the aforementioned Violet Lyal, The Golden Dogs, and The Balling Jacks.
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September 1, 2006
Theme: No Theme |
| I just loved both of the first songs I played, I could have just put them on repeat for the rest of the show. I still don't know why I like Regina Spektor so much, on paper I shouldn't, she is a solo piano player who does a lot of vocal gymnastics which is generally not my thing, also I have never been a big fan of Kate Bush, Tori Amos, or Ani DiFranco all of whom she has been compared to, yet something about her songs make them catchy and beautiful. The second song was by New Buffalo and featured Jens Lekman and thus was a no-brainer as far as me liking it. In the first set I also played a song by a band called The Repomen, so I had to play a song off of the soundtrack to the cult classic Repo Man. That album has so many great songs, but I decided to play the Burning Sensations version of the Jonathan Richman song Pablo Picasso. The Yo La Tengo song is from their new album "I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass", related to this is the website http://www.iamnotafraidofyouandiwillbeatyourass.com/ where you can see many different people saying the line, you can even submit a video of you saying it and maybe it will be added to the video wall. The Circus Room set featured songs by some of the great bands I saw at the Circus Room the Sunday before the show, not only were the headlining Mega-Haunches great (with their Bizarro twins from Knock Knock Ginger and go-go dancers) but the opening acts were also quite good. The Reverb Society lead singer (like me) obviously watched a lot of TV in the late 70s and 80s as they have song titles like "I Am The New Number 2" and "Zis is KOAS!" they also played the theme to "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." during the set. So during the show I played song from a vinyl EP I bought many years ago solely because of the title "Illya Kuryakin Looked At Me", as the two agents from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. were Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin. Got to love the Magic Numbers doing a cover of the Beyonce song "Crazy in Love", the only reason I know the song is that they used it as the Raptor intro song this past season. I ended the show with a song by trumpet player Maynard Ferguson who passed away before this show. He is best known for playing the trumpet part in the Rocky theme "Gonna Fly Now", find out more about him here: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=2352609
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August 18, 2006
Theme: Advertising Music |
The advertising music set didn't go that well, of course I should realize by now that if I want to make sure that I will be able to play a song I have to bring it myself. I wanted to play some more songs in the set but I didn't have them. I also should have remembered that the song by Joel Plaskett I was looking for is only available as a mini-CD included in his DVD. I did manage to find a good website that lists music used in commercials (adtunes.com). The best part of the site is the searchable forum section, so you can look up a song, artist, or product you want to know about and usually somebody has started a thread about it. As I missed doing the previous show, there were 4 weeks of songs vying for the top song of the week, you can see the winner and other contenders in the setlist below. A few songs from the first set (and the top song) came from a great new podcast I found this week called indiepopradio ( http://indiepopradio.blogspot.com/ ), there are only 5 of them on the site but they are all very good. He also has a live365 site that plays a new set of 50 songs every week. And I swear I had not heard of Corinne Bailey Rae before I played the song during the show, but a few days after the show, I was driving to Montreal and flipping around stations when I heard the song on America's Top 20 with Kasey Kasem (yes he is still doing the show and it is 20 now instead of 40). I have also seen stories on Bailey Rae in various newspapers and on-line. That is the danger of not listening to commercial radio, I can hear a song on somebody's podcast and I think that nobody else knows about it but it turns out to be a popular song. There was also the "bands that sound like Franz Ferdinand" set, especially the song by Cribs which could have been a Franz Ferdinand cover, some people don't agree with me about the concept of the set, but listen to it and decide for yourself. Speaking of sound-a-like songs, I ended with a song by the band "Boys" that sounds exactly like Morrissey, check below to see to whom the song was dedicated. TALK - Theme
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July 21, 2006
Theme: Hillside Preview |
I got the party started with the first set of danceable music, starting off with my top song by the Pipettes who released their debut album in England this week, unfortunately I haven't seen a North American release date. The second set featured some of the acts that are going to play the Grad House the Thursday night following the show. Along with great local act Knock, Knock, Ginger the evening features Henry Faberge and the Adorables as well as the Bicycles. I remember the Bicycles from when I saw them with Derek open for I am the World Trade Centre a few years back in Toronto. Even back then I thought the Bicycles were something special and now they have come out with a great debut album. The Hillside preview highlighted a few of acts that I was looking forward to seeing in Guelph at the Hillside Festival the next weekend. As well as the musical acts I also tried to touch on the various workshops and other things that make the Hillside Festival so enjoyable. On the festival theme, Michael T e-mailed me that him and Garth were going to see Sonic Youth and the Go! Team in August. Also in that set, the song by the Submarines sounded so much like the Stars that I had to play them next. I ended the show with a song from the movie Clerks II that I saw at a free preview the night before the show, the Talking Heads song played over the opening credits. I enjoyed the movie, it wasn't as good as Chasing Amy or the original Clerks, but it was a good return to form. |
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