adrian is rad

Here’s my show today if you want to listen.

I Once was Canadian - 4-15-08(mp3)

And here’s the playlist.

My radio show has now been scheduled for Tuesdays 3-5pm PST, that’s 6-8pm Eastern.

You can listen at 90.1FM or online.

Also of note: those streams have been updated so that you should be able to listen from behind firewalls and the such. Try them again if you haven’t in a while.

I’ll be on the radio at KZSU on Tuesday mornings 6-9am (Pacific), doing my show “I Once was Canadian”, starting tomorrow.

You can listen at 90.1FM or online.

I’m trying to transcribe an interview and I can’t get this right. Maybe someone can help: I’m looking for a car make or model that sounds like prevos, prevost, prebos, frebos or something like that. It’s most likely fast and expensive and probably glamorous. It would fit into this sentence:

You want to be in a Prebos* driving 150 miles per hour while people are shooting heroin.

I don’t think it’s “Enzo”–that’s too far from what it sounds like on the recording, though it does fit the description. Prevost make car carriers but not cars, from what I can tell. Anyone?

update: mp3. Listen for yourselves.

double update: from the source: Prevost, as in a motorcoach or band tour bus. I was wrong in thinking it was a fast car–just a fast tour bus I guess!

I did a radio show for the first time in three weeks last night.

Here’s the playlist.

I played it pretty loose and I was pretty happy with the results. I’ve found a lot of great music in the last few weeks and I got to share that.

Now for the musak:

I Once Was Canadian - KZSU - 7.11.07 (mp3)

Here’s my playlist from this week.

here’s the mp3 of the show which you can download and listen to if you wish (mp3).

Local folksy band Beatbeat Whisper appeared on the show and play a live set.

Here’s the playlist. Here’s the mp3 NEWSPECIALFUN.

Here’s the playlist of tonight’s show. I am a bit sick and loopy, but I think the music, at least, didn’t suffer.

There’s just so much good music out there right now. I’ve been picking about 1.5 hours too much music for my show pretty regularly.

I got multiple calls asking about the One AM Radio track, “Lest We Forget”. It’s a good track. (And it’s streamable at his myspace.)

I Once was Canadian, KZSU - 4/25/07 (mp3)

I forgot to post my playlist from this week’s show.

Also, here’s the mp3
I Once was Canadian (KZSU) - 4-18-07 (mp3)

I really liked the last set: Andrew Bird->Sigur Ros->Adem.

My radio show will be at the same time this quarter: Wednesdays 10p-midnight (PST (or PDT?)).

Meanwhile, if you want to read me ranting about music in a different forum, you can check out my music blog.

Update: Here’s this week’s playlist

And here’s the NEWSPECIALFUN:

I Once was Canadian - 4-12-07 (mp3)

Last night’s playlist is there.

The mp3-rip (NEWSPECIALFUN) had problems and got split up into a bunch of small pieces.

I Once was Canadian - 4-4-07 (mp3, first hour)

I once was Canadian - 4-4-07 (mp3, last hour and change).

I’ve been doing this in stealth for a couple days, but I feel like it’s time to announce my other blog. It’s a music blog.

I’ve felt for a while that I was writing too little about music for this to be a music blog and too much about music for this to be a personal blog. In one case, outside readers see too much personal ranting and in the other, friends get alienated by the constant music talk , so I’ve split it off.

I’ll still be blogging here. I won’t be posting here about music, unless it’s related directly to me, like music I write/ record, radio playlists or if it’s a mixtape. I’ll be co-posting the last two of those.

I feel a bit weird about it—I’m always written this for myself and maybe a couple friends, but writing about any specific x is an admission that someone wants to read that. Now I have a whole blog where I pretend that people want to read my writing about music.

I had a 3 hour slot–from 6-9pm tonight. Playlist.

The streamripper had to reconnect so it split the mp3 into two parts for this week’s NEWSPECIALFUN:
I once was Canadian, KZSU - 3/28/07 [1/2] mp3
I once was Canadian, KZSU - 3/28/07 [2/2] mp3

For the record, it appears it split it right in the middle of Spanish Harlem.

My radio show will be on early tomorrow and next Wednesday, from 6-9pm Pacific (a reasonable hour for you east coasters!) on KZSU. You can even Listen online.

I might have a special guest tomorrow, Adem, a great indie folk artist out of England. It’s still a bit up in the air so check back here frequently for updates.

I did my radio show last night (with some help). Here’s the playlist and the NEWSPECIALFUN:
I Once was Canadian - KZSU 3/21/07 (mp3)

Also, I never posted my playlist/ mp3 from last show. Part of it was there were some problems with the mp3. It was half Irish music (for St. Paddy’s Day) and the rest indie. Anyway, if you’re interested:
playlist
NEWSPECIALFUN
I once was Irish - KZSU 3/15/07 (mp3)

The mp3 has two bad edits where it was split up before and one part where there was a chunk of maybe 10 minutes missing (just showed up blank in the recording) so I just cut out all that dead space.

playlist

NEWSPECIALFUN:
I Once was Canadian - 3.7.07

yup

that’s it.

Last minute^H^H^H^H^H^Hfew hours, I’ll be filling in for a sick DJ tonight from 6-9pm PST on the KZSU. Listen in!

Give it a listen—it’ll actually start at a reasonable time for you east coasters. Also, I won’t be on tomorrow in my normal slot because of the aforementioned Sebadoh concert.

[Update:] playlist

I haven’t talked about music much lately. I’m about to unleash a slew, so steady yourselves.

NPR has Arcade Fire’s performace from last Saturday at Judson Memorial Church in NYC both streaming and download. The first few minutes are a bit rough fidelity-wise because the band starts the show in the audience for the first song.

Also heresay has mp3’s from the Friday Judson show, all split up nicely.

I’m back on the radio.

the playlist

and the NEWSPECIALFUN
I Once was Canadian - 2-21-07 (mp3)

(yes, I’m clever: the first song on Ash Wednesday was Ash Wednesday)

Here’s the playlist for tonight’s show.

NEWSPECIALFUN:
I Once was Canadian 1 -18-07 (mp3)

I didn’t talk much tonight on my show because I’m tired and lethargic. Here’s the playlist.

Also, I once have the NEWSPECIALFUN, in mp3 form (for a limited amount of time):
I Once was Canadian - 01/10/07 (mp3)

KZSU’s 60 hour 60th Anniversary Marathon starts tomorrow at noon PST and runs through Saturday night at midnight PST. It’s even doubly famous (and a small blurb here. You can listen online.

There’s an hour for each year from 1947 to 2006. I’ll be DJing 1963 and 1964 which will run from 4-6am PST (7-9am EST!) on Friday morning. I’m really about all the music that is from those years that I’m going to play. Tune in.

There will also be 25 or so alumni DJs that will be coming back on the air for the first time, in some cases, in 58 years. Some of them went on to professional careers in radio and media.

My New Year’s Eve activities included seeing Pan’s Labyrinth and later the Light Footwork at the Hotel Utah.

I was intrigued by Pan’s Labyrinth because it had one of the highest ratings I’d seen for a movie on metacritic. It also has a pretty interesting description in some of the reviews: it’s a fantasy movie and a war movie and a love story and… It seems like there’d be a lot going on but while you’re watching it, it doesn’t. It’s a fairy tale of sorts, but it’s possibly the most gruesome fairy tale you’ll see this year.

Post-Spanish civil war, mid-World War II, Ofelia and her very pregnant mother travel to the mountains of Spain to join the new husband/ step-father. He is a captain whose mission is to eliminate the remaining resistance in the area. We quickly learn that he’s not a nice guy. Ofelia is fascinated with fairy tales. During her first night at the mill, a fairy comes and leads her to a labyrinth on the premises. A faun explains to her that she is the long lost daughter of the underground king and that to return to her throne she must complete three tasks before the full moon (in a few days).

The rest of the movie is her trying to complete these tasks, the struggle of the resistance, a love story between one of the resistors and one of the people working under the captain, the struggle between her and the captain, etc.

I still don’t know quite what to make of it. It’s still swimming around in my head. It’s a light fairy tail and, yet, it’s heavy and affecting.

Later in the evening, Gumbeaux and I went over to the Hotel Utah. I’ve known the guys from the Light Footwork for a while and recently heard them live for the first time. They were playing their first gig “out”. The Hotel Utah is small venue which has apparently been around forever.

They put on a fun set full of their signature indie pop songs. Lots of energy. The one area I think they could work on is the banter. (Without some talented DJ leading the banter, it fell a little flat.) Gums and I weren’t in the mood for more, so we left after the Light Footwork.

I did my top dozen albums of 2006 show last night. My picks and start-with-these tracks:

1. Fionn Regan The End of the World
   • Be Good or Be Gone
   • Put a Penny in the Slot
2. Beirut Gulag Orkestar
   • Postcards from Italy
   • Scenic World or Mount Wroclai
3. the Long Winters Putting the Days to Bed
   • Fire Island, AK
   • Seven
4. Bishop Allen Month EPs
   • Corazon [from January]
   • Flight 180 [from April]
5. Sufjan Stevens Avalanche
   • The Mistress Witch From McClure
   • No Man’s Land
6. Girl Talk Night Ripper
   • Hold Up
   • Too Deep
   • Smash Your Head
7. Damien Jurado And Now That I’m in Your Shadow
   • Hoquaim
   • Denton, TX
8. Cat Power The Greatest
   • The Greatest
   • Willie
9. David Bazan Fewer Moving Parts
   • How I Remember
   • The Devil is Beating his Wife
10. Eric Bachmann To the Races
    • Home or Genie, Genie
    • Lonesome Warrior
11. Hold Steady Boys and Girls in America
    • Chips Ahoy!
    • You Can Make him Like You
12. Elvis Perkins Ash Wednesday
    • While You were Sleeping
    • Good Friday

A little bit about each album after the jump.

(more…)

Just a reminder that the Light Footwork will be playing live on KZSU tonight at 9pm PST. It’s the first live gig of this blog-acclaimed band. You can listen at 90.1FM or online.

Update: If you missed it, check this out (and the playlist). It starts a couple minutes in.

A couple weeks ago, I finished Body Piercing Saved My Life by Andrew Beaujon (named after the “clever” shirt.) (Amazon, , one review, two mp3-blog like posts by the author about Christian music)

It’s a look at Christian Rock, capital C, capital R, by an outsider. Beaujon is a writer for Spin so he comes from the mainstream rock criticism side of things. I’ve never been really involved in the scene he talks about although I stood at the edge of it a couple years, so I’m a bit of an outsider to it as well. (Which reminds me of a post about an article of the same topic and perspective…)

He spends chapters looking at aspects and events in the Christian music world. He looks at particular bands and people as well as other cultural forces like Mars Hill Church and Tooth and Nail Records. There are various people that come off earnestly and then there are some more slimey people. I’d heard some negative things about T&N (that they don’t give their bands a fair shake) and they were sort of confirmed in this book.

Perhaps my favorite section is the chapter about David Bazan (at the time of the interviews, still in Pedro the Lion). Where a lot of interviewees seem to sidestep questions that might result in controversial answers, Bazan seems to take any and all questions head on without flinching. Sufjan denied the interview request, apparently, so there’s only a brief section on him, which was a bit disappointing.

Overall, it’s an interesting, informative and well-written book about a large cultural phenomenon (Christian records easily outsell jazz records currently). I’d recommend it if you are curious about the scene or genre.

I’ve since moved on to the Dave Eggers editted The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2004.

Here’s my radio show’s playlist.

Also, I got it started late and my show went on late as well (Wednesday Night Live ran late) so it’s a bit short this week, but I have the, as I’m calling it, NEWSPECIALFUN:

11 29 06 - I Once Was Canadian (KZSU) (mp3)

There are a couple entertaining videos that I found or ran across in the recent times:

Aries Spears impressions while freestyling. This is a guy doing impressions of LL Cool J, Snoop Dog, DMX and Jay Z while freestyling. It’s pretty dang impressive, though I’m not familiar with DMX at all and only somewhat familiar with the other three. I’m still very impressed. (A couple things of note: a) that’s Live 105, in SF and that’s the same studio where I did the college dj of the week thing and 2) it appears Woody, one of the hosts, is a Steelers fan as he’s sporting a hat and a Willy Parker jersey). (via stereogum)

Peyton Manning Mastercard Priceless Ad. I can see how you might not like Peyton Manning, but man, I love this commercial which started running last year. They have a second, similar one this season but it’s not as good. I laugh every time I see this one.

[Update:] Oh man, I found another Peyton priceless commercial and it’s hilarious too. Also, there’s a blooper commercial from the first Peyton video and the making of (including the actual commercial at the end) a third in the series.

My radio show, I Once was Canadian will be on in its old time slot this week: Thursday 6-9am PST, due to a visitor.

So, all you east coast people can listen live. I’ll be tired and it’ll be early, so you can listen to my deep, groggy just-woken-up voice on the radio. Tune in!

I’m pretty excited to say that super-local (Redwood City) blog favorite the Light Footwork will be performing live on KZSU’s Wednesday Night Live, its live local band show, on Wednesday December 13 at 9pm (PST). I’m going to be hosting the program. Let me know if you have any burning questions for the band; I can ask them between song.

If you don’t know the Light Footwork yet, check out some mp3s. (Or check out any of the aforelinked blogs.)

Also, Jay (of tLF) and I hit up the Bishop Allen show at BoCA in SF last night. Good show. I’ll write more about it later. Something I was pretty amused by: someone took one of those ‘Visitor’ stickers and filled out the rest ‘to the hipster indie world (please by nice)’.

Once again, tune in to KZSU (90.1FM or online) on December 13, 2006 at 9pm (PST) to hear the Light Footwork. (I’ll see what I can do about putting an mp3 up of the show after the date, but no guarantees.)

Here’s my playlist for tonight’s show.

Also! my NEWSPECIALFUN seems to be working so I have a recording of the show:

I Once Was Canadian - November 8, 2006

Grab it now! It’ll be gone in a couple weeks.

My radio show’s playlist for this week. Captain Dee co-hosted this special ‘folk’ show.

Also it appears the cron job or as I call it “SUPERMAGICSPECIALFUN” worked and recorded my show automagically:

I Once Was Canadian November 1, 2006 (mp3)

My show starts maybe 30 seconds in.

The mp3 will be up for about two weeks so grab it now while you still can!

I did my radio show tonight. Playlist.

And!!! the SPECIALNEWFUN: I recorded it and thanks very much to mim who’ll be hosting the mp3s.

I Once Was Canadian October 25, 2006 (mp3)

The recording starts a bit into the show this week (and might, actually, cut off a little bit before the end–ack!). I am trying to get it to automagically record it, but there was a hiccup this week. I’ll try again next week!

do you see this? Such a good playlist. I’m really good at this.

I’m still catching up from my crazy week last week.

On Thursday, I hung out with the nicest man in indie rock, John Vanderslice for a few hours and saw him play a solo gig at the 750 Pub at Stanford.

A couple weeks ago I talked to JV after the Rogue Wave show and since he played on my show we’ve had some rapport. I mentioned that it was cool that he was playing at Stanford and he asked if I wanted to hang out before the show. Well, yes!

I showed up at the 750 around 5:30. It’s kind of weird describing hanging out with someone, so maybe I’ll just skip most of that part. I met Chris, the guy from Pattern is Movement who was also on the bill, as well and he was pretty cool. JV is still just about the nicest person I’ve met.

A bunch of cool people showed up at the show, including KZSU DJs galore: Matt, Kirstle, Eel, and Megan, who helped organize it. Jay and much of his band, the Light Footwork also showed up and we got to hang out a bit again. I also met a few new cool people at the show.

First up on the bill was Pony Pants. They were sort of math-rocky with some classic rock influences and drum machine drums (played off an ipod) with female vocals. They were entertaining. The lead guitarist pulled out all the stops, playing being his head, standing on his amp and up in the face of an audience member.

Next up was JV. He was playing solo, acoustic. The room actually (somewhat surprisingly) got pretty packed. At some point during the show he said that earlier he was walking around Stanford with his “friend Adrian” and I felt pretty cool. He played a handful of new songs and a bunch of old ones. He got us all clapping along for a great version of “Pale Horse.” He is apparently doing a 7″ and wrote the B-side two weeks ago and recorded it the same morning as the show. He was saying that he’s never written a b-side before and he kept worrying that it was too good or that he was spending too much time on it. He played it and it was good.

Pattern is Movement was last; I missed most of their set chatting outside with JV.

All in all a great evening. Fun chatting with JV and a great set.

My playlist for tonight.

John Vanderslice also did a little call in (mp3) to promote a show he’s doing on Stanford’s campus next Thursday, October 12. We ended up chatting on the air for a bit.

My radio show is going to be staying on at the same time, Wednesdays 10pm-midnight (Pacific time) at KZSU until at least January.

I was on the ray ray radio.

New show assignments go out next Tuesday. I’ll let you know if my show changes times. Big changes may be in the future. Stay tuned!

playslist from tonight.

[Update] The playlist may look a little strange; I am trying out a new radio show format: mixing indie and oldies. I traded off ~20 minute sets between sets. I’m also thinking of making the move to the morning again, particularly Friday morning. I don’t know if it’ll happen or if I’ll stay at my old slot. I’d kind of like to do a Friday AM oldie and indie rock morning show, completely with self-awaredly stupid schtick. Recorded sound effects!

Here’s my playlist from last night.

Sort of a pleasant last minute addition was the Light Footwork, a local indie pop band (from Palo Alto!), who came and guest DJed the first hour and change. I’d invited them on a while ago, but they only took me up on the offer yesterday. Turns out they’re fun guys (er, guy + girl). You can check out their new video, too.

Last night’s playlist for your glancing.

Incidentally, if you’re on the radio or otherwise DJing at some point, do not try to follow Thom Yorke’s “Harrowdown Hill” with Jens Lekman’s “Happy Birthday, Dear Friend Lisa.” The transition does not work and is quite jarring.

Two time co-host wicked child was back in town and he cohosted once more. It was a fun time. We are almost entirely non-sensical when we’re on the air.

(Andy, note that Band of Horses was formed out of the broken up bits of Carissa’s Weird.)

Last night’s playlist. it turned out alright.

(Andy, note the Kleenex Girl Wonder.)

(Note the appearance of the full length from Night Rally.)

This week’s playlist.

I used to post my playlists almost every week. Did people like that or not? Yay or nay?

I’ll be on tomorrow morning from 6-9am PDT as a fill-in for Matt. Listen live if you’re so inclined.

I plan on saying, repeatedly, “People of the morning rush hour, I have returned! Rally to me!”

Update: here’s the playlist.

I did a pretty good show tonight. Here’s the playlist.

I’ll be making a return to the Lunch Special as the host on Monday, Memorial Day. The guest will be Ed Carryer, an old prof of mine. It starts at noon PDT.

The other week when Nedelle was on my show, she had a guy named Chris playing some additional guitars. At one point she said to me “He plays in the Curtains and he just quite—well, I shouldn’t say.” And then, I saw this and it all came together. That was Chris from Deerhoof. Not only am I hosting Nedelle, I’m schmoozing with rock stars here people!

Nedelle played on my radio show last night. It went pretty well. One minor problem: it seems I had some mic distortion here and there—mainly on ’s’ sounds. Any thoughts on that one? Just a mic placement? Popper stopper? I was pretty pleased with out it sounded otherwise—the guitars and the mix both sounded good to me.

The mp3’s online:
Nedelle - Live at KZSU

Her setlist:

• The Last Thing I Do
• I Hate a Mountain
• Spell the Night Right
• Heatstroke
• Blueberry Mineshaft

The rest of my playlist.

I’ve been pretty slow on the posts recently, large because I’ve been busy doing stuff that is sort of not-interesting-in-the-blog-way.

So I decided I’d turn all this stuff into a post.

One time things and whatnot:

• Nedelle’s pretty rad. She’s going to be playing on my radio show this Wednesday at about 10:15pm PDT. I’m pretty excited. I’ll see if I can get a copy of the show up for you east coast people to listen to.
• I’m getting ready for the Tahoe Century ride in about a month. I’ve been trying to ride a lot in preparation. I rode today and yesterday, but I’ve also been having problems with getting an inordinate number of flats, so I need to resolve that. But my goal over the next three weeks is 3 rides/ week: 2 x 30 miles and 1 x 15 miles, including at least one trip up Old La Honda or King’s Mountain per week. At this point, I alternatingly feel I’m screwed and that I’m doing fine.
• I’m going to be in Philadelphia/ DC, NYC and Pittsburgh for about 10 days total in late July for a couple weddings. It’s pretty exciting. I’m thinking about Rye Playland and Kennywood among so many other things. I might also try to catch a taping of Conan, try to catch a Buc’s game and, of course, see some fantastic friends and take lots of pictures with too many cameras.
• I just now found a weird and kind of interesting acoustic cover of Sigur Ros. I never considered that someone could cover Sigur Ros. They’re no Sigur Ros, but it’s cool.
• I’m going to South Africa again next February. February 2007, that is for my mom’s birthday. I’m going to spend a week in Cape Town, but I’m also going to try to spend 1-2 weeks on the road driving around South Africa. I’m looking forward to going back to South Africa.
• It looks like my laptop (Proud Owner of Brand New Canada) is near its end. Unless something changes about the situation, I’ll probably be getting a new one in the next few weeks/ couple of months.

Everyday stuff:

• I’m still taking spanish at the Palo Alto Adult School. It’s about 2 hours a week and the pace is slow, but I’m learning stuff so, yeah, it’s good.
• Lots of KZSU stuff. I’m doing my indie show. I’m not longer hosting the the Lunch Special but I’m still acting as the producer. Lots of interesting guests bringing their music. A schedule is on that page I linked up there. I’m also the Promotions Director, so I try to organize tickets for concerts for on-air giveaways. As the promotions guy, I’m also writing a custom PHP web app. This stuff is not obvious and not easy, at least not for me, the mech e. I’m getting the hang of it, but I’m also pretty much sick of writing this app.
• I’ve been challenged by lawn bowling and recently applied for membership at the place I’ve been bowling, the Palo Alto Lawn Bowling Club. The green is closed until the end of May, though, so no bowling for now.
• The BoSox are tied for lead in their division. The Pirates are a couple steps away from the bottom of the league. The Steelers got what look like a couple good WRs in the draft.

I did a night of only music on vinyl (LP’s, 7″s, 10″s, etc) on my radio show tonight. Here’s the playlist. I ended up having way too much stuff, like usual and there was some stuff I wish I had time to play. I think I’ll have to play more vinyl on my show on a regular basis.

Tonight’s playlist.

I played all of In the Aeroplane over the Sea after my recent reading of the book of the same title.

Man, what an absolutely amazing album. I restrained myself from listening to any NMH while reading it or since: I wanted the first time I listened to it to be all the way through, undistracted.

Yeah, I’m just a little obsessed with that album. Thank you, Colin Ashe.