Theme: Derek Weiler (1968-2009) |
| This was at the same time the easiest show to do and the hardest. As most of you probably heard my very good friend Derek Weiler passed away in April. I felt that just playing a set or two in a regular show wasn't enough thus this entire show is about Derek. It contains songs that had special connections between me and Derek from the first day we met to the last time I saw him. His influence on my musical tastes (and those of countless others) will be evident in the music I listen to for the rest of my days. If Derek thought that you had even a hint of interest in music you were sure to receive a mixed CD or back in the day a mixed tape. And it wasn't just about the music, but it was about the handwritten linear notes, with special notations for the songs he thought you would really like. Since meeting Derek at a Johnny Cash concert back in the fall of 1991, I can't count the number of bands that I first heard of from him, be it from a mixed tape, mixed CD, in a car, or being dragged to a concert by a band I had never heard of but ended up loving. Apart from going to countless concerts together we also co-hosted a weekly radio show for a little over a year (Jan 1993 to April 1994) called Wackyland, this was the real start of my musical education. This education never stopped as I played a song he recommended on my last podcast and finally got to another recommendation on this show. Every once in a while in the past month I've heard a tidbit about a band and I think "I should really e-mail that to Derek", but then I realized that I can't do that anymore, and that's something I'm going to miss every single day. Again most of you probably know about this, but if not you can see all the things that people have written about Derek on the Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=69655274189
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May 8, 2009
April 6, 2009
Theme: Back in action |
| Yes it has been a while since the last show, sorry about that. The good news is that I managed to submit my PhD thesis this week, the downside was that I wasn't able to put out a show for over 2 months. Hopefully I should be able to keep a regular schedule from now on. The thing is that I never stopped accumulating music over the past 2 months so I really have enough material for about 4 shows, but I didn't think that putting out a 6 hour show was a good idea. So I kept it down to its usual 2 hours and just took a small dent of the backlog. Apart from playing all the pent up songs from the last 2 months I also did a spotlight on Wee Pop records ( www.weepop.net ). This is a record label out of England that specializes in TWee pop on the format of mini-CDs so each one can only hold about 20 minutes of music. Each release has a very limited edition and the liner notes are all handmade, this combined with the size just makes each release really cute. But they do pose a storage problem as they don't fit well with regular CDs. I got a delivery of 5 releases from Wee Pop just after the last show. Hopefully it won't be such a long break before the next show. Fireball XL5 Setlist - April 6, 2009 TALK-Theme My Teenage Stride - Ears Like Golden Bats Young Rival - Your Island Hooded Fang - Land Of Giants (C) Cuddle-pop - You Moustache of Insanity - I Need MORE!!! TALK Dent May and His Magnificent Ukulele - Meet Me In The Garden Nickel Eye - Brandy Of The Damned The Very Most - April Is The Kindest Month FemBots - My Hands Are A City (C) Ezra Furman & The Harpoons - Take Off Your Sunglasses TALK (Wee pop records spotlight) One Happy Island - Temporary Tattoo Horowitz - Drop The Hat Megamoog - Icicle Little My - Sellotape My Hands The Endless Bummer - Boring But Beautiful (C) TALK The Dodos - Winter **See Note 1 The Magnetic Fields - I Don't Really Love You Anymore Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career Red Sleeping Beauty - Don't Say You Love Me The Killers - Spaceman TALK Suburban Kids With Biblical Names - 1999 The Sound Of Arrows - M.A.G.I.C. Lowood - Crash Niels Nielsen - It's All In My Head Architechture In Helsinki - That Beep TALK Black Kids - Listen To Your Body Tonight **See Note 2 Mates Of State - My Only Offer Note 1: The banjo and voice on the song by the Dodos reminded me a lot of Stephin Merrit, thus the reason for playing the Magnetic Fields right after Note 2: I went to see The Black Kids and Mates of State in Toronto just after the show (C) Denotes Canadian Content |
January 30, 2009
Theme: Lots of new music |
| Between my Best of 2008 and the Christmas show, it has been a while since my last show of new music. And of course you have to remember that most of the music I play is stuff that I've been introduced to in the past month or so as well as some familiar songs sprinkled in. So it was nice to get back to playing some of my recent finds along with one set of music from CDs that I picked up from other people during the holidays. So thanks to Derek, Sari, and Michelle for their contribution to the show. In that set I also played a song that I found out from the resurrection of a great show that used to be on CKMS called "The Brown Couch of Liesure". Karim, the host of that show, finally got his act together and is now putting out a weekly podcast from his website ( silenttalkie.com ). He is always listening to great music and I recommend that everybody listen to his podcast and of course I'm sure I'll be stealing lots of stuff from his playlists in the future. Fireball XL5 Setlist - January 30, 2009 |
Welcome to The Coolest Thing About Love
After each show I hope to post a setlist of what I played, when the show is going on live, you can follow the twitter feed.
Of course I named the show after the great album by the Smittens and I pay homage to the band by ending every night with their song 11:11 which contains the line "That's the coolest thing about love".
Januray 2, 2009
Theme: Best of 2008 |
| As usual not much to say about this show, simply my best singles and albums from the past year. It shouldn't be much of surprise that my number one album from the past year was Lykke Li's Youth Novels, a great album from top to bottom that I never get sick of listening to. I was also happy to have seen her twice during the year, once in Seattle and then in Toronto for my birthday. It is also not surprising that just like Lykke Li, Black Kids (my second favourite album from 2008) also had a single on my list from 2007. I had to put Black Kids on as number two as every time I was listening to my MP3 player on shuffle and a song came up that I didn't recognize that I liked when I looked it up it was often by the Black Kids. You can listen to my reasoning for my other picks from the show. On the setlist I have tried my best to remember how I found about the bands on the setlist. Fireball XL5 Setlist - January 2, 2009 |
December 19, 2008
Theme: Christmas show 2008 |
| This was my annual Christmas show and as usual I didn't play your typical holiday songs. I kept the show short to reflect the amount of really good new Christmas songs I found this year, but still had time to add a few Fireball XL5 Christmas classics. The best new holiday song I heard this year was by The Wedding Present featuring Simone White with Holly Jolly Hollywood. I've had to listen to it a few times every day because it is that good. The video is also incredibly fun and insanely cute (well at least Simone is insanely cute), do yourself a favour and watch it from the link below. Merry Christmas Everyone! Links to some of the things I mentioned during the show Fireball XL5 Setlist - December 5, 2008 |
December 5, 2008
Theme: Back to the indie pop with lots of new stuff |
| It was good to finally get back to a regular show that wasn't all about me. As I had not done a show like this in a while I had a large backlog of new music to play, as evidenced by the fact that this show clocks in at a little over 2 hours and even then I cut out two entire sets that I was originally going to play. I'll just highlight one of the things I talked about on the show: Every year the BBC asks a list of music critics and broadcasters to find out which bands will they think will make it big in the next year. They did pretty good last year as the 2008 list included The Ting Tings, Adele, Vampire Weekend, The Black Kids, and MGMT. You can check out the BBC Sound of 2009 site using the link below. In the third set I played a couple of songs to commemorate those who recently passed away: Odetta and Levi Stubbs (see links below for more information) Links to some of the things I mentioned during the show: Link to BBC Sound of 2009: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7758169.stm Link to Pitchfork review of Black Kids http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/51246-black-kids-partie-traumatic Link to Wee Pop records http://www.weepop.net/releases.php Link to Heaven's Just A Kiss Away http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=235058564 Link to information about Odetta: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odetta Link to information about levi Stubbs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Stubbs Fireball XL5 Setlist - December 5, 2008 TALK (Theme) The Ting Tings - Be The One Masonic - Lifetime of Deception Marching Band - Gorgeous Behaviour Detektifbryån - Neonland TALK (recent CD set) Black Kids - Look at me (When I Rock Wichoo) Vancouger - unmanned (C) Los Campesinos! - Ways To Make It Through The Wall Don Lennon - Really Dave Matthews Herman Dune - On A Saturday TALK (lo-fi) The Endless Bummer - Baseball in China (C) Kevin Ayers - Girl On A Swing Tvärvägen - September Charles Douglas - Where Did I Go The 6ths (with Odetta) - Waltzing Me All The Way Home Billy Bragg - Levi Stubbs' Tears TALK (Female voices) Firefox AK - City To City Santa Maria - Lalalalalaaa Point Junction WA - Melon Bird Minisnap - Leave It To You The Passions - I'm In Love With A German Film Star TALK BlueJuice - Vitriol (Pious Edit) **See Note 1 Japanese Motors - Better Trends Salut!machaut - Tom and Joanna The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Everything With You TALK Lizards From Afar - Just A Girl **See Note 1 +/- - Snowblind We and Lisa - Ana The Lovekevins - Private Life Of A Cat TALK Firefly - Love (Is Gonna Be On Your Side) **See Note 2 Note 1: Both of these songs were sent to me. Note 2: This is not the Waterloo band Firefly but one from a compilation CD of Italian Disco songs. (C) Denotes Canadian Content |