Tuesday, May 22, 2007

5/21/07 Show - Rarities

All songs by many of the classic post-punk artists that never made it onto a proper album. Proper meaning an album of superior breeding, manners, and gentlemanly gamesmanship. These songs only existed on albums of ill repute. Boorish albums of the lower class. Dickensian urchins, not really our sort, you know? While the popular tunes played croquet and went yachting, some of these tracks generally remained unheralded as B-sides, outtakes, demos, and whatnot. Maybe some of them were slightly heralded. I'm not really sure how you herald something in the first place but I would like to learn.

Maybe just by playing the songs and talking about them, I may have heralded them. I hope so because they're good. Or at the very least, interesting. Some people just like things because they're lesser-known, lesser appreiated. Some people think that bowling alleys got big lanes. I'm not either of those people. MP3 link is below:

http://www.box.net/shared/static/g3v0sgp2vk.mp3

I declare this playlist heralded:

Ice Machine - Depeche Mode
Gutz - Warsaw (Joy Division)
Fireworks - Siouxsie and the Banshees
Anaconda (surf version) - Sisters of Mercy
Are You Receiving? - Killing Joke
4JG - The Future (Human League)
Space Girl Blues - Devo
Strange 9 to 9 - Xymox
Metro MRX - Soft Cell
Tupperware Party - Soft Cell
Waiting - Ultravox
Basic J - Gary Numan and Tubeway Army
My Mind Ain't So Open - Magazine
Ever After - The Chameleons
Boys - Bauhaus
Fall In - Adam and the Ants
Her Body In My Soul - OMD
Boy/Girl - U2
What Do You Know? - The Buzzcocks
Lester Sands (Drop in the Ocean) - The Buzzcocks
Looking For Footprints - XTC
Straighten Out - The Stranglers
Play With Me - The Cure
Mesh - New Order
Slipaway - The Cars
Out in the Streets - Blondie
Let The Right One In - Morrissey

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

5/14/07 Show - Women

My first Monday show was dedicated to the women of the punk/post-punk world. To further honor their legacy - or should I say lega-SHE, Oprah - I will abandon the usual irreverence of my blog posts and speak seriously for a few seconds: As I said last night, women like the ones below are too few and far between. Most musicians are men. The women that are involved with music are, more often than not, singers. Few of them play instruments. Even fewer of them write the music they perform. Almost none of them produce or engineer their work. All of them operate within a much more constrained box than their male counterparts. To me, that all really sucks. And not because I'm Mr. Sensitive or anything, more because I'm Mr. Self-Indulgent Pleasure Seeker. Actually Mr. Self-Indulgent Pleasure Seeker was my father. You can call me Alex. But the point is, I just want more good music. I will never be able to get enough good music. If over half the population isn't contributing as much as they could, that sucks for me. For all of us, really, but especially me.

So why is this? Why haven't women been able to contribute musically as much as men? I may be wrong on this but I honestly think the answer right now, at least in our western society is: It doesn't matter. People can either let history hold them back or let go or maybe just eat a sandwich. As much as I love sandwiches and even more, eating them, I still say we go with letting go. Sure, it's easier said than done but if you're a woman and you want to make music, there's no reason you have to play bass or keyboards instead of guitar or drums. There's no reason you can't write songs and there's no reason that those songs have to be a certain way. If the music is good, they will like it. Even if it's not good, they may like it but it's probably better to be good. That's one of the many things I love about music in the first place. It's the bottom line. People are more willing to drop their prejudices and preconceptions when they hear a damn good song than in just about any other scenario. Rock 'N' Roll itself was pretty much founded on that principal.

Anyway, here's a link to the show's mp3: http://www.box.net/shared/static/g0qjbzm4b9.mp3 Give it a listen and let me know what you think. That's bloggery at its finest.

Thee playliste doth thusly:

My Mother, The War - 10,000 Maniacs
Kung Fu Girls - Blondie
C30 C60 C90 Go! - Bow Wow Wow
Typical Girls - The Slits
You - The Au Pairs
Dig Me Out - Sleater-Kinney
Generator - Elastica
Lust to Love - The Go Gos
Cherry-Coloured Funk - Cocteau Twins
Suspended in Gaffa - Kate Bush
Pleasure Victim - Berlin
Hybrid - Siouxsie and the Banshees
Frederick - Patti Smith
Nausea - X
Show Me - The Pretenders
Bonjour Baby - The Motels
I Love Playing With Fire - The Runaways
Epitaph of Ivy and Woe - Shellyhan Orphan
Don't Talk To Me About Love - Altered Images
Gigantic - Pixies
Kool Thing - Sonic Youth
Identity - X-Ray Spex
No One's Little Girl - The Raincoats
Hazy Shade of Winter - The Bangles
Girl Anachronism - The Dresden Dolls
You Suck - Yeastie Girlz with Consolidated

Friday, May 11, 2007

Time Slot Changing! Now Mondays from 10 to Midnight

That's right, post title, you are completely correct. Starting Monday, May 14th my show - which abbreviated would look like this: PPFPP - is moving to Monday nights, 10 to Midnight. 10PM to Midnight, that is.

But what really is time? Websters defines time as: the system of those sequential relations that any event has to any other, as past, present, or future; indefinite and continuous duration regarded as that in which events succeed one another. And now that I think about it, they are completely right. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that nothing else will change and since you are looking at this blog, you probably don't listen to the show while it's live anyway and that's probably better for all of us.

If you do ever feel like listening live though, just point any music playing software to the url of: http://rs8.radioserver.co.uk:8220/listen.pls That's our latest webstream. Otherwise visit this space again after Monday night, which I can tell you will be Ladies Night, for the downlow on the download.

Saturday, May 05, 2007

5/4/07 Show - Rain

Last night, I did a show where all the songs had to do with rain in some way. This morning, I am drinking coffee trying to think of what to say about that show about rain. What is rain? Rain comes from clouds. Clouds are our enemies, yet me need rain to survive. Why would clouds, our enemies, want to help us then? The answer is simple. Clouds are stupid. If you've ever argued with a cloud, you'd know this. Clouds think we don't like rain. We do bitch about probably more often than we don't. We refer to rain as bad weather. Of course we also know that we need it but that's really a much more boring thing to talk about than say, how it totally fucked your hair for the day. The plants however, NEVER bitch about rain. They realize that they will die without it and they don't have any hair or any reason to drive. They are also our friends and don't want to to let the clouds in on the real truth.

Rain has inspired a lot of great music too. Clouds don't even listen to music though. I told you! They're so lame! But if you want to listen to some of that music, please download this mp3 via the link:

http://www.box.net/shared/static/vhu0svn2o0.mp3

And into every blog entry, a little playlist must fall:

Happy When It Rains - The Jesus and Mary Chain
Tinseltown is in the Rain - The Blue Nile
Rain - Tones on Tail
The Sun and the Rainfall - Depeche Mode
Hold Back the Rain - Duran Duran
Rain Dance - Big Country
Well I Wonder - The Smiths
Rain - The Cult
Rain in the Summertime - The Alarm
1000 Umbrellas - XTC
Cloudbusting - Kate Bush
Rain - Dream 6
Here Comes the Rain Again - The Eurythmics
Singing in the Rain - Mint Royale
Don't Rain On My Parade - Japan
Waiting For The Flood - Love & Rockets
Rainbird - Love & Rockets
So. Central Rain - REM
Swamp Thing - The Chameleons
About the Weather - Magazine
Rainfall - Apples in Stereo
Stormy Weather - The Pixies
Walking in the Rain - Flash and the Pan
Riders on the Storm - The Doors