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Archive for the ‘Radio’ Category

Melissa Pritchard–“The Carnation Milk Palace” [The 2019 Short Story Advent Calendar #21] (2015)

Posted in Canadian Content, Champagne, Christmas, Christmas Album, Christmas with Weezer, Drinking, Hingston & Olsen, Melissa Pritchard, New Year's, Parenting, Religion, Sex, Sexism, Short Story, Tap Tap, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Video Games, Weezer, WRFF 104.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA on December 21, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WEEZER-Christmas with Weezer (2008).

I heard a Weezer Christmas song this weekend when WRFF in Philadelphia was playing a Christmas takeover weekend–rock bands playing Christmas songs.

When I looked up the song, I found out that Weezer released this EP in 2008.  It had originally been released for a video game called Christmas with Weezer (?!).  Evidently the game was Tap Tap which featured 18 band-specific versions!

This EP has six songs in under 13 minutes.  Each one of the tracks is pretty straight-ahead Weezer guitar rock.  They are bouncy and short, with nothing weird or crazy in them.

“We Wish You A Merry Christmas” starts out with a quiet guitar and then just rocks out when the lyrics come in.  The song is quick and to the point–no messing around.  There’s figgy pudding, there’s a short guitar solo, there’s a key change and its all done in a minute and a half.

“O Come All You Faithful” moves along at a nice clip.  This song is often done rather slowly and this is a fun change of pace.  The back half has a part where the guitars fade out and its a quiet verse before they all come back in to rock the finish.

“O Holy Night” is two times longer than anything else on the EP.  It’s a 4 minute, quiet version with a simple, picked electric guitar melody.  That is until the Weezer guitars kick in after about 40 seconds.  The song is still respectful and very catchy

“The First Noel” starts with an unexpected four note heavy guitar riff before the song resumes it faithful lyrics.

“Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” has a rocking intro before a bass slide kicks the song into high gear.  This song romps through in 90 seconds.

“Silent Night” is a slower song with no drums, just tambourine.

This is a pretty ideal alternative collection of Christmas songs–nothing too crazy, but a nice change from the familiar.   Although it did not actually contain the song I was looking for.

[READ: December 21, 2019] “The Carnation Milk Palace”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my fourth time reading the Calendar.  I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable.  Here’s what they say this year

The Short Story Advent Calendar is back! And to celebrate its fifth anniversary, we’ve decided to make the festivities even more festive, with five different coloured editions to help you ring in the holiday season.

No matter which colour you choose, the insides are the same: it’s another collection of expertly curated, individually bound short stories from some of the best writers in North America and beyond.

(This is a collection of literary, non-religious short stories for adults. For more information, visit our Frequently Asked Questions page.)

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check back here to read an exclusive interview with the author.

Want a copy?  Order one here.

I’m pairing music this year with some Christmas songs that I have come across this year.

This story is set in 1964 and concerns fourteen-year-old Charlotte.  She and her family were invited to the Halden’s house for a New Year’s Eve party.

The Haldens were the richest people her parents knew.  They lived in a mansion that her father liked to call The Carnation Milk Palace.  Charlotte’s family couldn’t even afford new things. It was quite a disparity.  Her mother painted things to try to make them current (which meant avocado green). (more…)

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The HU (Theatre of Living Arts (TLA), Philadelphia, PA, November 13, 2019)

Posted in From Ashes to New, Mongolia, Philadelphia, PA, The HU, Theatre of Living Arts, WMMR 93.3 FM--Philadelphia, PA on November 13, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 13, 2019] The HU

The HU are from Mongolia.  I first heard about them when their video for “Wolf Totem” was getting some buzz.  I loved their heavy sound and their gorgeous instruments.  I wish these pictures did justice to the intricate detail and coloring of these traditional(ish?) instruments, but the lighting was just awful the whole night.

There are technically four guys in the band, but for the tour they had four extra guys supporting them.  It’s hard to know how “necessary” the other four guys were, but honestly, the songs are so percussion-heavy, there’s no way that they could have made these songs without at least one drummer (two were even better).

The band has only one album out (so its pretty amazing that they headliners)  They played the whole album and jammed out some of the songs longer than on record.

The most surprising thing though was that the DJ from WMMR came out and introduced them saying that they played their songs on the station.  Is that possible?  That’s pretty amazing if they do.  He also made a pretty funny comment about talking to them all day (they speak almost no English), although they posted a picture showing that they took them axe-throwing which is pretty hilarious).

The four guys stood at the front of the stage. (more…)

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Steven Page Trio (Levitt Pavilion Steelstacks (Musikfest Cafe), Bethlehem PA, November 6, 2019)

Posted in Aerosmith, Barenaked Ladies, Bethlehem, PA, Craig Northey, Kevin Fox, Musikfest Cafe, Odds, Steven Page, World Cafe Live on November 6, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 6, 2019] Steve Page Trio

I saw the Steven Page Trio about a year ago in Philadelphia.  When he announced that he was touring some more and coming to Bethlehem, I grabbed tickets for me and S. right away.

S. doesn’t really know his solo stuff at all, but she is a fan of BNL and has always said how much she liked his voice, so I thought it would be a fun, relaxing, seated event.

We were so close, we were literally right next to the stage.  When you’re standing, its a coveted spot, but when you’re seated, it’s terrible!  Luckily, they moved Dean Friedman’s giant monitor out of my way so I could actually see them all.  But in hindsight, sitting a few seats back would have been far preferable.

The weirdest thing is every time he picked up or put down his water bottle I thought he was going to talk to me (he didn’t).

I love being up close, the angles were just all wrong.  Any pictures I took were going to be of Steven’s crotch (!).   Fortunately, the vocals sounded fine.

I have learned from past experiences that seeing an artist a few months apart often means the same or a similar setlist.  And that’s what happened here.  Although when I look at other recent shows I see that he seems to have a kind of rotating setlist of some of the songs.  I saw that the night a few nights before us was amazing with “Alternative Girlfriend” (the song I really wanted to hear!) and “Someone Who’s Cool” an Odds cover!  They also played “Manchild,” my favorite new song of his and “Break Your Heart” both of which I have heart before but, come on, they are awesome.  Incidentally Odds opened for Steven Page in Canada.  Once again I wish I was above thee border not for political reasons. (more…)

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Terry Blas, Molly Muldoon & Matthew Seely–Dead Weight: Murder at Camp Bloom (2018)

Posted in Cigarettes, Food, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Halloween, LGBTQ, Matthew Seely, Molly Muldoon, Murder, Oni Press, Summer, Summer Camp, Superstitions, Technology, Terry Blas, The Chicago Tribune, The Hooters, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA, YA Books on November 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE HOOTERS-“All You Zombies” (1985).

WXPN played this song on the day after Halloween and the DJ said she couldn’t believe they hadn’t played it as part of their Halloween show.

It made me laugh about what people consider a Halloween song (and I know I need to let up on this).  Like so many other songs, the simple fact that there’s a monster reference in the title does not make the song a Halloween song.

Indeed, this song is about as far from a Halloween song as you can get.

The song itself is catchy as anything.  A great guitar riff and some tension-building synths support these rather dramatic lyrics:

Holy Moses met the Pharaoh
Yeah, he tried to set him straight
Looked him in the eye,
“Let my people go!”
Holy Moses on the mountain
High above the golden calf
Went to get the Ten Commandments
Yeah, he’s just gonna break ’em in half!
Interestingly, there’s no real chorus to the song.  The “All you zombies” part follows the same musical and vocal pattern.  The third verse is, like the first, Biblical.
No one ever spoke to Noah,
They all laughed at him instead
Workin’ on his ark,
Workin’ all by himself
Only Noah saw it comin’,
Forty days and forty nights,
Took his sons and daughters with him,
Yeah, they were the Israelites!

The Hooters guys say there was no explicit message to the song.  A 1985 interview with the Chicago Tribune, co-writer Eric Bazilian (with Rob Hyman) said

We really weren’t thinking at all when we wrote it. We were working on something else, and, true to the spirit of the song, it just came to us, like a vision. We were sitting there working on another song, and all of a sudden we started singing, ‘All you mmm-hhhmm-mmm.’ Then I heard something about Moses in my head, and I started singing, ‘Holy Moses.’

We just chased it down. We stopped what we were doing to go after this thing, and an hour later, the song was written, start to finish. We’re still trying to really understand the song. People ask us what it’s about, and while there’s a lot of heavy stuff in there, the weird thing is we didn’t consciously put it there. Who knows? Maybe in some bizarre way it came from somewhere else through us.

Interestingly, it got banned on several stations and there were some Christian stations that refused to play it.

So, not Halloween-related at all, but super catchy and lyrically unexpected.

Also interesting is that Hyman and Bazilian went on to work with Joan Osborne on her album Relish, with Eric writing “One Of Us” another religiously themed song.

[READ: September 2, 2019] Dead Weight

I haven’t read a graphic novel by Oni Press in a while.  They were once my go-to comic book publisher.

Then they stopped doing single issues and started publishing only graphic novels.  Nothing wrong with that but I had been collecting single issues back then, not books, so they fell off my radar.  I have to get them back on my radar because I really do enjoy their books.

I didn’t know what this was about, but the title and cover art appealed to me, so I grabbed it.

This story is set at a fat camp–Camp Bloom.  We meet many of the kids who are there for the summer as well as the counselors who are there to help them get through the summer. (more…)

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Des Ark (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, October 3, 2019) [TEAM DRESCH]

Posted in Des Ark, Pg. 99, Philadelphia, PA, Pinkwash, Screaming Females, Team Dresch, Union Transfer, Waxahatchee, WXDU 88.7 FM--Durham North Carolina on October 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 3, 2019] Des Ark

I had never heard of Des Ark.  This show was a double bill of Screaming Females and Team Dresch and I had kind of forgotten there was another opening act.  So I didn’t look into them at all.

I was amused when the drummer came out and was texting on his phone before their set began.

Turns out that drummer is Ashley Arnwine who I had seen play with Waxahatchee (that band was fantastic, too).  He is also in the band Pinkwash.

The other two guys in the band were brothers Chris Taylor and Mike Taylor who were both in Pg. 99.

But these three guys are just with the band for this short (5 day) tour.

Des Ark is really the creation of singer/guitarist Aimee Argote.  Des Ark has three albums out Loose Lips Sink Ships (2005), Battle of the Beards (2007) and Don’t Rock the Boat, Sink the Fucker (2011).   In between these she released three live albums from Durham, North Carolina radio station WXDU: WXDU v. 1 (2006); WXDU v.2 (2007) and Live at WXDU Vol. 3 (2013).  On these she plays new songs which may or may not make the next record.

Note the dates. That last WXDU record was from 2013.  And, it turns out that Des Ark hasn’t played live (despite being amazing) for over three years.  Why is that?

 because main member Aimee Argote quit music for the past three years. She posted a lengthy statement explaining on her hiatus on Instagram, which reads in part: “I left music because I felt unsafe, exhausted, unsupported, poor as shit, and my body was super, SUPER fucking broken. I had no plan, no health insurance (w/ chronic health issues), no stability, and I knew I would never have consistency in my life or in my relationships if I was going to keep touring as much as it would take for me to make a [pretty shitty] living.” She also later added, “Being talented isn’t enough. It simply isn’t enough to keep me or others safe in an industry that tries to destroy women, POC, and queers at every turn.”

But I didn’t know anything about this when Aimee came out on stage and started playing and singing. (more…)

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Man Man [Philly Music Fest @ World Cafe Live [downstairs], Philadelphia, PA, September 28, 2019)

Posted in Cyrus Ghahremani, Honus Honus, Man Man, Philadelphia, PA, Philly Music Fest, World Cafe Live on September 28, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 29, 2019] Man Man

I saw Man Man open for Gogol Bordello back in 2014.  I really enjoyed them and at that time I wrote:

It was an insane and wild show from start to finish from crowd to band and I would absolutely see them again.

It took five years for Man Man to play anywhere near where I was again and there was no way I was missing this show–seeing them headline in their home town was the icing on the cake.

I had assumed that Man Man would be the wildest act on the bill.  So it was amusing that they followed Sun Ra Arkestra–who has been doing wild for over fifty years.

Like Sun Ra, the guys in Man Man were all wearing decorative ponchos.  But unlike the Arkestra, all of their ponchos matched–indeed, so did all of the clothes under the ponchos, down to the fact that they were all wearing the same shoes. (more…)

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Louise Erdrich–“The Stone” (New Yorker, September 9, 2019)

Posted in Laura Marling, Louise Erdrich, Marriage Trouble, Musicians, New Yorker, NonComm, Short Story, Stones, Supernatural on September 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LAURA MARLING-NonCOMM (May 18, 2017).

I enjoyed listening to the sets from NonCOMM back in May, so I dug into the archives and found out that a lot of sets are still available.  I was especially happy to see this one from Laura Marling.  The end of the blurb says:

You’ll have another chance to witness this fixating performance when Laura Marling comes to the TLA tomorrow night.

And that’s the show I saw.

After a hearty introduction from Bob Boilen, Laura Marling and crew swan-dived right into debut single, “Soothing,” off of her latest album, Semper Femina.

“Wild Fire” is an amazing example of her incredible voice as she speak-sings, whispers, coos and soars all over the verses which come together in the beautiful harmony of “meeeeeee” in the chorus.  This song has a bunch of curses in it, but she kept it clean for this performance.

With a piercing yet still somehow soft gaze cutting through the crowd (I don’t know how she does the thing, but it’s true), Marling unleashed her otherworldly vocals — flawlessly ebbing and flowing with the track’s funkier rhythm.

“Always This Way” is a beautiful song off of Semper Femina.  The guitar melody is delightful and, of course, her voice is outstanding.

“Next Time” has a simple, quiet, guitar melody which allows her voice to just wend all over this song.  When the backing vocals come it it’s quiet angelic.

“Nothing, Not Nearly” has some wonderfully fast vocals that are as fun to try to figure out as they are to sing along to.  It ends Semper Femina and is my favoirte song on the record.  From the main melody to her wonderfully high notes this song is amazing.

She ended the set with “Once” from Once I Was an Eagle, the album that introduced me to her.

This song is very different from the others, but it still sounded great.  When I saw her I wished she’d played ten songs from each album.  Maybe some day I’ll see her do everything.

[READ: September 7, 2019] “The Stone”

This was an otherworldly story about an earthly object.

As a young girl, the main character’s family drove to an island in Lake Superior every summer.  She was wandering in the brush one day when she felt sure someone was looking at her.  There was no one there, but then she saw the stone.

It was smooth and black, half the size of a human skull and rain had carved what looked like two eye holes in it.

She was spooked at first but then was drawn to it.  She brought it back to the vacation home and put it where she slept.  But then she was sure one of her siblings would try to take it, so she hid it in her sleeping bag.

She brought home after the summer and put it in her room. Her mother saw it as she was getting them ready for school in September. Her mom asked if she’d found the rock the summer.  She nodded and, after dinner, hid it in her room. (more…)

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Kate Walbert–“To Do” (New Yorker, September 2, 2019)

Posted in Canadian Music, Eating Out, Feminism, Kate Walbert, Nü Sensae, New Yorker, Orville Peck, Parenting, Sex, Sexism, Short Story, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA on September 8, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: EATING OUT-Burn 7″ (2013).

Orville Peck has been getting a lot of attention lately.  In his act, he is a masked cowboy and his identity was (for a time) unknown.

It was fairly recently revealed that Orville Peck is actually Canadian musician Daniel Pitout (those tattoos will always give it away).

Pitout is in a couple of bands including Eating Out and Nü Sensae.

Eating Out plays a noisy grunge.  They have a bunch of one-song singles on bandcamp and this 7″ collects three of them.

Pitout is the singer (and he sounds NOTHING like Orville Peck).  I’ve felt like Orville Peck is a joke character because of the insane way he sings.  Hearing this, I’m evening more convinced of it.  But I’m glad he’s in on it.

“Burn” opens with a clean guitar intro followed by the biggest most distorted guitar around.  It’s certainly grunge and not metal and it runs through the verse and chorus.  The middle reintroduces the opening guitar riff and then the big distortion returns.  The song ends with that same clean guitar–it’s reall catchy–before crashing to a conclusion.

“Come Around” has two lead guitars (nicely fuzzed out) and a big fuzzy sound.  The sound reminds me of an updated version of SST bands.

“That’s My Man” closes the 7″ with a quiet intro.  Echoed vocals and a simple guitar melody.  It’s a poppy, almost do-wop melody with a bit of reverb drenched over the whole thing.  The song doesn’t change much, it just gets bigger as it goes along.  It’s probably the least interesting of the three, but it certainly shows Pitout looking to stretch beyond punk and grunge way back in 2013.

[READ: September 2, 2019] “To-Do”

This is a story about feminism, sex, and a woman’s relationship with her mother.

Constance is in front of a crowd of women at Antler’s Bar for Storytelling Wednesday.

She is telling them that her mother had been a beauty.  She had gotten a degree and was successful in a typing pool in New York City.  Although her boss told her that she had to cut her long hair and adopt the stylish updo of the time.  When she refused, her boss called her hysterical.  I can imagine her telling the audience: Do you know the origin of the word hysterical is the belief that the uterus could reach up through the body and and grip the throat.

The women in the audience seem agitated and bored.  Constance tries to win them over by reciting her mother’s to-do list, something she found in her mother’s effects after she died.

She tries to convince them of the significance of post its and to do lists in a woman’s life.

None of the women see it. (more…)

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Michie Mee–“That Summer, This City” (West End Phoenix: That Summer Feeling, Summer 2019)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, CBC Radio 3, Essays, L.A. Luv, Michie Mee, Summer, West End Phoenix on July 13, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MICHIE MEE & L.A. LUV-“Jamaican Funk, Canadian Style” (1991).

I only know about Michie Mee because she has written pieces for the West End Phoenix.  I knew she was a rapper, but I had no idea she has been rapping since the 1980s!

I watched this profile about her and found out her first album came out in 1991.  The video for the title track “Jamaican Funk, Canadian Style” is so perfectly 1991–the backgrounds, the dance moves, the little kids, the kinda story.  It’s a perfect time capsule.

I like that Michie raps part of the song in her Jamaican patois and the rest of the song sounds pretty straight up feminist (she found it tough to break into the biz being A) Canadian B) female and C) very young.  I’m not sure what was the biggest impediment.  But she was the first Canadian rapper to get a U.S. record deal.

So good on her.  And she’s still going strong.

[READ: July 1, 2019] “That Summer, This City”

The Summer 2019 issue of The West End Phoenix was a special all comics issue with illustrations by Simone Heath.  Each story either has one central illustration or is broken up with many pictures (or even done like a comic strip).

Each story is headed by the year that the story takes place–a story from that particular summer.

Michie is a rapper who has written pieces in a number of the WEP issues.  This is a story about her 2007 summer (and if you read the blurb above, you’ll see she has been rapping for over fifteen years by then). (more…)

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Elamin Abdelmahmoud–“Radio Summer” (West End Phoenix: That Summer Feeling, Summer 2019)

Posted in Canadian Content, CKVI 91.9 FM--Kingston Ontario, Elamin Abdelmahmoud, Erin Rae, Essays, NPR/PRI/PBS, Radio, Simone Heath, Summer, Tiny Desk Concert, West End Phoenix, Work on July 12, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ERIN RAE-Tiny Desk Concert #867 (July 12, 2019).

Lars Gottrich is one of my favorite NPR personalities.  He picks some of my favorite loud music but he also loves a lot of quiet music.  So even though I have never seen Erin Rae, he has apparently seen her many times.

Every time I’ve seen Erin Rae live, she transforms her quiet storms into different hues of squalling introspection.

She opens with “Bad Mind.”  But before that,

Her performance at the Tiny Desk opens with a soft tide of ambient tones — both a way to ease into the song but also understand that life’s unease is ever-present.  Then a lilting acoustic melody introduces “Bad Mind,” a stunning statement of identity from a Nashville singer-songwriter who shares the secrets we keep close.

She’s joined here by Jerry Bernhardt, a treasured collaborator and a guitarist who knows how to play decorative but unobtrusive figures. He and drummer Dom Billet both appear on Putting On Airs, taking those arrangements and stretching them out at the Tiny Desk with Mellotron/Rhodes piano player Ben Tanner and bassist Joe Garner.

It’s a lovely melody and she avoids the dreaded country twang when she sings. In fact when Bernhardt and Billet sing along, their voices are pure folk gold.  Bernhardt introduces a quiet buzzing guitar solo which, along with the organ adds all kinds of neat sounds to this simple song.

Before the second song she says she and her sister used to make their own radio shows.  They were a big NPR family but she thought it meant Nashville Public Radio.

“Can’t Cut Loose” is a song about letting go of things that aren’t good for you anymore.  Its’a quiet slow song with a pretty chorus.

The Tiny Desk closes with “the summer jam,” as Erin Rae jokingly calls “Love Like Before,”

She says it’s their most upbeat song, although that is all relative.  It’s about learning to be content wherever you may be.

It’s definitely a bit more upbeat but it’s still a slow and thoughtful song.

I won’t be going to see Erin Rae, but I did enjoy this mellow little Concert.

[READ: July 1, 2019] “Radio Summer”

The Summer 2019 issue of The West End Phoenix was a special all comics issue with illustrations by Simone Heath.  Each story either has one central illustration or is broken up with many pictures (or even done like a comic strip).

Each story is headed by the year that the story takes place–a story from that particular summer.

2003:  Here’s another summer job story.  But this one is actually a happy summer job story.

Abdelmahmoud says that normally you want a summer job that starts in the evening so you can sleep in.  But there was one job worth getting up at 8AM for: being the summer DJ at CKVI 91.9 FM in Kingston.

It was part of a school program and for the summer he was the only DJ there from 8AM to 4PM.  You want jazz? Sure! A ska show from 2-3? Sure!

This was a dream job and one lucky person got it each summer. (more…)

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