adrian is rad

I’m going to tell you a story every day for the week.

How I came to talking to the agitated man on the other end of the phone at 2am starts three years earlier in a fourth floor rock club in Pittsburgh that–no joke–had a chain-link fence around the bar.

That bar was Club Laga where Andy’s dad had dropped us to go see Bonnie Prince Billy. I hadn’t heard of the band or the frontman Will Oldham, besides Andy’s warbly voiced impersonation of his song “I am a Cinematographer”, which he mostly used to poke fun at my own uncertain singing. But I watched the band, backlit with moody blue light, and enjoyed the show.

“That one song was really good”. Andy knew what I meant. “It’s ‘I See a Darkness’ and Johnny Cash recorded a cover of it.”

Three years later and I, like many other indie rockers–oh fine, I’ll say it, hipsters–had ‘discovered’ Johnny Cash, so when American IV came out, I was playing it on my new radio show.

I played “Personal Jesus”; the phone rang. The caller seemed agitated, almost irate. “Why are you playing Johnny Cash?!”

I wanted to defend my selection but suddenly I wasn’t sure. “Um, I dunno, because I like it,” I mumbled. “Because he’s good I guess?”

“Damn right he’s good! He’s fucking great!”

The day’s come and gone and I haven’t made any mention of my annual charitable giving. I’m not donating money this year, at least not yet. I will be returning to Ingwavuma, in rural Zululand for a couple weeks this time.

A family friend works there for an NGO and I’ll be helping out with the Children’s Radio Project through that organization. As you may have guessed, I was tapped for this because I am/ was a radio star.

I’ll be returning to Cape Town on September 18 via either St. Lucia or Hluhluwe plus Durban.

I have my malaria pills, bug spray, sun block, and a charged camera with an empty memory card. Bucket showers, here I come.

I’ll probably have intermittent internet up there, so I might not be posting a lot. Feel free to email me in the meantime to get the scoop.

I’ve done college radio for a long time now, starting September 2002 on WMBR and moving to KZSU shortly afterwards. But it’s coming to an end. Tomorrow (Tuesday June 23) will be my final show (for the foreseeable future at least). If you’d like, you may listen online or on 90.1FM in the Bay Area from 3-6pm PST.

A few days ago some DJs at my radio station ran a fake NCAA Magic the Gathering tournament broadcast. It was pretty hilarious and nerdy.

Here’s a snippet.

KZSU – NCAA Magic the Gathering Tournament (mp3)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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.

It was fun. Played some music, got some calls. Got some crazy calls. But I’ll leave those off the internet.

As I mentioned before, I got to pick about 1/3 of the music.

The music I did pick:

• Seam “Get Higher”
• Johnny Cash “Hurt”*
• Jose Gonzalez “Heartbeats
• the Smiths “This Charming Man”*
• Jens Lekman “Maple Leaves”
• John Vanderslice “Up Above the Sea”+
• Oh No! Oh No! “I Have No Sister”
• Ted Leo “Since U Been Gone”
• Flaming Lips “Do You Realize”*
• Sufjan Stevens “Chicago”
• Rogue Wave “Love Lost Guarentee”
• Pedro the Lion “Magazine”
• Arcade Fire “Haiti”*
• Kings of Leon “Bucket”*
• Mogwai “Auto Rock”

* Songs from their collection. I had to pick one of my selections an hour from their collection.
+ I got at least five calls and an email about this song. So way to go for JV.

One reassuring thing was that I got probably fifteen or so calls on the songs I’d picked and maybe one or two calls on songs that they’d picked. And I have like four girlfriends from all the calls.

and so I did mostly irish music for the last 3/4 of my show last night in preparation for the day.

I was chosen as the college radio DJ of the week (showing they don’t actually have criteria) by live 105 which means I’ll be on a big 1 trillion watt* station this Sunday morning 8am-noon.

That’s the good news.

I get to pick about 1/3 of the music (badish news).

They even have streaming so all you east coast people can listen. 105.3 FM for you SF people.

* Actually 16.5KW

I haven’t posted a playlist in a while, mostly because they’ve been crap and also because I don’t think people really care.

But this latest one, from two nights ago, was pretty good. I’m pretty happy with it.

The first song, the A Silver Mt. Zion one, is a gorgeous piece I hadn’t listened to in probably three or so years and it popped up while I was playing music at work. So much of it is just seemingly random, unmelodic sounds, but the overall effect is so moving.

This quarter’s KZSU program guide has a lot of me in it.

Perhaps of note is that I’m in there as both “canuck,” my DJ name, and “adrian” which is the name I do Breakfast Special under.

here’s this week’s playlist, made up completely of covers.

A reminder: I’m on the radio on wednesdays these days. 10pm-midnight. Tomorrow will be my first day at that slot. I’ll be doing a special program consisting of only cover versions of songs. I’m really excited; I have some great stuff picked.

A request: anyone that is super 31337 out there: can you find Aqueduct’s cover of “Damn It’s Good to be a Gangsta”? I loved their version and would love to play it tomorrow, but I have had zero luck finding it online. It’s likely going to be off of a live recording because I don’t think they’ve recorded a studio version out there. I’ll post it if anyone can find it. Thanks!

Both of my radio shows (on KZSU of course) moved slots in the schedule for the next quarter.

I Once Was Canadian, my indie rock show, will now be on Wednesdays 10pm-midnight. That sort of sucks, I know, for you East Coast people. Maybe in the comments people can suggest tools for ripping the stream.

Breakfast Special, formerly the Lunch Special, will be on Wednesdadys from 9-10am. The show brings on Stanford professors and they play some music they bring and between songs they are interviewed. I will still be producing the show and hosting some of the shows, but I’m handing off most of the hosting duties to a veteran DJ at the radio station, Byrd.

So be advised!

playlist.

check it out bitches!

NPR has a nice recorded interview/ performance with my favorite Swedish crooner, Jens Lekman.

Iron & Wine and Calexico were pretty good on the Late Late Show last night., I was pretty tired by the time they came on, though.

In other news, I think I write too much about music.

I did my Christmas radio show today. It had all tracks that were Christmas songs, mentioned Christmas, had a titled including the word “Christmas”, by a band called The Christmas, or had a musical quote of a Christmas carol.

Here’s the playlist.

I started with Johnny Cash, the best way to start, then went into a nice wind band Christmas song, then the indie Christmas music, to the Motown/ early R&B Christmas music, and back to the indie before I did a couple “by request” and novelty songs to finish up.

I also managed to put some 30 seconds or so of dead air before the first Sufjan track. You’d think I’d be pretty good at this stuff after being on the radio over three years. Not so!

I also have a special treat for you: the show in mp3 form! Thanks once again to Jesse for hosting it.

Merry Christmas all.

I did my radio show this morning. I went through my top 15 albums of 2005, from number 15 to number 1. The playlist is here.

Here’s the list:

1. Illinois Sufjan Stevens
2. Takk Sigur Ros
3. All Day [EP] Mates of State
4. Pixel Revolt John Vanderslice
5. The Sunset Tree The Mountain Goats
6. Veneer Jose Gonzalez
7. Dignity and Shame Crooked Fingers
8. All Harm Ends Here Early Day Miners
9. Woman King [EP] Iron & Wine
10. Plans Death Cab for Cutie
11. Tiny Cities Sun Kil Moon
12. I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning Bright Eyes
13. s/t 13 & God
14. The Great Destroyer Low
15. Devils and Dust Bruce Springsteen

I made the list four times and it was different every time. This was the last. So it’s more like my top 15 albums of 2005 for December 14-15, 2005. Something like that.

Albums that were close: Set Free American Analog Set, Bodies and Minds Great Lake Swimmers, Set Yourself on Fire Stars.

Slightly disappointing albums that would have made the list if they were as good as I’d expected them to be: On My Way to Absence Damien Jurado, Stubbs the Zombie Sountrack, What Comes After the Blues Magnolia Electric Company, In the Reins Calexico and Iron & Wine.

here’s my playlist for this week’s radioshow.

My plan for the following weeks:
December 15: I’ll run down my top albums of the year.
December 22: Good Christmas music.

Speaking of which, I’ve found a few more indie “Christmas mixes” with lots of songs to download (mostly via brooklynvegan).

• Test Pilot Holiday Mix
• Krismus Karols at Sounds are Active, with some songs by Half Handed Cloud and more
• Indie Christmas Mix at Gorilla vs. Bear

Anyone know of any other ones?

I’m on the radio in about 45 minutes. I have no idea what I’m going to play.

Meantime, here’s where the playlist is going to be.

I’m going to do a radio show of good Christmas music for my last show before Christmas, December 22, 6-9am.

I’m looking for suggestions for songs or albums. Requirements: Christmas songs, mentions Christmas, otherwise appropriately themed. Genre’s not as important, but it’ll mostly be rock.

So far, my list looks something like:

• “Christmas Card” Jimmy Eat World
• Sufjan Steven Christmas EPs
• the Motown Christmas album
• the Phil Spector Christmas Album
• the Low Christmas EP
• the Pedro the Lion Christmas 7″’s (I have one and I’ll hopefully get the new one at the David Bazan concert on Sunday)
• “Brick” by Ben Folds Five
• “Happy Xmas (The War is Over)” Polyphonic Spree version
• Alfred Reed’s Russian Christmas Music (likely the recording by USC HS, ha!)
• “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by Death Cab for Cutie
• “Christmas Song” by Mogwai
• the Vince Guaraldi Charlie Brown Christmas Music (like just “Skating”)
• “Run Away with Me” Jens Lekman

Any other suggestions? In this case it’s equally important that it be “good” and “Christmas.”

I did an awesome Thanksgiving day show with my mom. The playlist had a ton of Motown and oldies music and we talked about our thanksgiving and read some of our recipes that we always use.

This week I’m back to normal—the Lunch Special with a guest (George Houle from the Music Dept.) Tuesday noon-1 and indie rock on Thursday morning.

[Update:] Jesse’s nice and has offered to host the mp3 of the Thanksgiving show. It is here. I’ll only leave it up for about a week or two. It’s a big file, approx 218 MB.

I am finally having the opportunity to write up the John Vanderslice (the nicest guy in indie rock) at the Independent a week and a half ago.

When JV was on my radio show in August, he said he’d put me on the guestlist (plus a guest nogal!) if I emailed him about a week before the show. I did and he did. (He also sent me Pixel Revolt following the show, so I figure I owe him at least $30 for the tickets and that.)

I went down with Bokoch and Tom-I-guess-his-name was (a friend of Mike’s). We drove around for a while looking for parking (which always happens when I go to the Independent). We wanted to have some dinner right near the club and we found Brother-in-Law’s BBQ #2. They were out of brisket and some other stuff, but we got the ribs and they turned out to be good. It’s a very no-nonsense type of place, which I liked. I’d recommend it if you’re down in that area. I gave Gumbeaux a call as we headed over to the Independent and he met us there. We met a couple nice people in line because we had some extra tickets (Gums and Bokoch both bought tickets (Bokoch three) and I had my extra) so we gave our tickets to them and they bought us beers. Not a bad trade…

I’m not going to waste any writing on the openers, just to say that they were something to bare rather than enjoy. I had seen John Vanderslice before, but only as an opener for Pedro the Lion and, of course, solo on my radio show. This was my first time seeing him for his band and since I bought albums and became familiar with some of his music.

(Before JV even came on, I saw that Ian Bjornstad would be playing a converted Wurlitzer 206A with the top removed from the base. After the show I saw him outside of the club and as I was walking past I pointed to him and said “Nice 206A!” He laughed.)

JV and co. (they were calling themselves John Vanderslice and the Photographs for this tour) went only pretty late, I guess close to 11:40. I was a bit restless by then, but the music settled me down pretty quickly. One thing that I noticed immediately was how good it sounded, which other people have noted. He toured with his own sound engineer and religiously does sound checks at every venue. They were also finishing up a 20-some date tour so they were really tight. JV and the rest seemed to be just so happy to be home. Dave Broecker, the bass player, sang harmonies and was spot on in both pitch and matching JV’s voice. It basically sounded like JV was doing his own harmonies. Matt Cunitz who plays a lot of the crazy keyboards like mellotron and celeste on JV’s records was not touring with the band, but brought a few keyboards and played with them for the night.

They played a marathon set. Not Bruce Springsteen-marathon, but 24 or so songs and 1.5 hours. JV announced quite a bit through the set that he didn’t like encores so he was just going to play every song the band new and then stop playing. They played a wide range of songs, but a lot from the last two, so I was familiar with most of them. I’m having a hard time at this point recalling which were my favorites of the night. He didn’t play what are quite possibly my two favorites from Pixel Revolt, which are “Peacocks in a Video Rain” and “Dead Slate Pacific.” That might be the only negative point of the whole night.

Besides the concert being awesome the big bonus for the night was that they were recording the show that night and that it’d be up on JV’s site sometime in December. I’ll link to it once it’s posted.

I’m on the radio. I have a playlist and a link for you with which you may listen to the radio station on the internet.

Don’t forget to listen to the Lunch Special today at noon PST. Prof. Tim Stearns of Biological Sciences and Genetics is on today. Should be quite interesting.

I prerecorded a show with Mehran Sahami last night. It went pretty well. That show will air probably December 13.

When we have parties we have music playing just about everywhere, including the bathroom. Up until now, we’ve had Motown in the bathroom, the playlist for which I’ve written about before.

This time we decided to change it up a bit. Indie rock was the thought. I made a pretty awesome playlist of songs people might know along with some they’re guarenteed to not know. Not too hard, not too soft. Some old, some new. I stayed (mostly) away from the depressing songs I sometimes play on my radio show. This is a party after all! I think this is sort of what my radio show would sound like on the best day if I decided to not play any depressing music and wasn’t worried about over-playing songs that you can hear on commercial radio.

Well here it is:

• Man-Revolutionary! by Rogue Wave
• Evil by Interpol
• Hard to Find by American Analog Set
• Peacocks in the Video Rain by John Vanderslice
• Scenic Pastures by Archers of Loaf
• Marching Bands of Manhattan by Death Cab for Cutie
• The Party by Matt Pond PA
• All of November, Most of October by P:ano
• Penelope by Pinback

(more…)

As a bit of warning: I’m trading my radio show this week on the KZSU. I’ll be on Thursday 9pm-midnight for the indie rocking. To fit in the format of the normal show that’s there, Lick My Moody Guitar, I will be playing guitar-based music only. Lots of mogwai and indie rock! here we go!

In my place on Thursday (6-9am) Red West will be doing my show. (Red West doesn’t host Lick My Moody Guitar show; this is a three-way trade that would make major league baseball teams jealous.) He’s going to have a guest host from Pittsburgh (that’s good), doing some 80s indie rock (that’s good) and some obscure gothy stuff (not so good). Should still be a decent show if you want to tune in.

Part of the reason I switched is that I found out that I could get a staff ticket to see Iron & Wine and Calexico at the Warfield on Wednesday night. I don’t want to be super tired on Thursday after staying late-ish for the show on Wednesday.

I’m on the air right now.

Check out the playlist.

The first real show of the Lunch Special goes on tomorrow at noon. I’m quite excited about it. You can give it a listen online. The show is me with a Stanford professor or other community member. They bring music. We chat.

Tomorrow’s guest is Robert Harrison, Professor of Italian and Italian Literature. He’s bringing a bunch of an album by Gentle Giant. I don’t know that band, but it’ll prove to be interesting.

The schedule’s filling out quite nicely for the quarter. I’ve asked a few people for the open dates in December, so hopefully we can fill the rest of the quarter out nicely as well.

• October 11, 2005: Prof. Robert Harrison, Italian and Italian Literature
• October 18, 2005: Jim Burch, Mayor of the City of Palo Alto
• October 25, 2005: Prof. Tim Stearns, Bioligical Sciences and Genetics
• November 1, 2005: Prof. Sheri Sheppard, Mechanical Engineering (tenative)
• November 8, 2005: Bernard Barryte, Chief Curator Cantor Arts Center
• November 15, 2005: “Dean Julie” Lythcott-Haims, Assistant Vice Provost and Dean of Freshmen & Transfer Students
• November 22, 2005: Dr. William Dement, “the sleep guy”, Psychiatry
• November 29, 2005: Prof. George Houle, Music

These roundup posts are pretty lame.

Two weekends in a row, I went to music festivals for no cost to me. I’m a big winner!

Last weekend I went to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 5 last weekend in Golden Gate Park and this Saturday (the 8th) I went to the Download Festival at Shoreline Ampitheater in Mountain View. The first is an annual free festival. The latter I got a staff ticket to from KZSU. This is the first year of the American version of the Download fetsival; it’s been over in the UK for a few years and it’s yet to be seen whether it’ll be annual here.

I went up last Saturday for the first day of HSB. I ran a bit late and it took me a while to find parking, so I got there just before Earl Scruggs went on. He was pretty fantastic. Classic bluegrass and some hot playing on all the instruments. Gillian Welch played a great set after that. She and Dave (Rawlings?) both played mostly guitar, but Gillian (Welch, not Amrhein, which I have to specificy because Amrhein seems to be confused about these things lately) also played some banjo (girl banjo players? so hot!) and harmonica. The crowd went nuts for her excellent cover of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

(I tried to go to HSB last Sunday too for Ralph Stanley, Ricky Skaggs and JD Crowe, but drove around for an hour and some not finding parking before I headed back. I lose!)

Saturday (the 8th), I went to the Download festival. There were a bunch of bands playing, but I showed up just before the Arcade Fire and stayed for Modest Mouse. Shoreline is sort of like a lot of those outdoor ampitheater places, with regular seating and lawn seating behind that. It’s not nearly as big as Starlake, for those of you who are familiar with it, but it can handle a good number of people (25,000, says the webpage). The Arcade Fire came on and did a thoroughly entertaining set. The people in the band seemed really energized, but, in a place that big, it’s hard to project the energy, I think. I’d like to see them again—this time in a small club, like the Great American Music Hall. (If you haven’t heard the Arcade Fire or need proof that their performances can just about bust open with energy, listen to this show from KEXP. These five songs are the first I heard from Arcade Fire and I’ve listened to this recording enough that I still think of these versions over the album versions in my head.) Modest Mouse came on and did a pretty good set. They didn’t seem to be really into it and I was feeling a bit tired so I left about 45 minutes into their set. They do a decent set, but I’ve seen them twice now, both times fairly similar, so I’ll probably won’t see them again.

I’m going to have two shows this quarter (which runs until early January):
I Once Was Canadian is my indie rock show. It’ll be Thursdays 6-9am PST again. Tune in.

Adrian’s Lunch Special is music-and-talk show with members of the Stanford community bringing in music to play and chatting with me. That page has a schedule as its shaping up for the quarter. Some interesting people sofar. It’s on Tuesdays from noon-1pm PST. Here are some of the guests so far:

• October 18, 2005: Jim Burch, Mayor of the City of Palo Alto
• October 25, 2005: Prof. Tim Stearns, Bioligical Sciences and Genetics
• November 22, 2005: Dr. William Dement, “the sleep guy”, Psychiatry
• November 29, 2005: Prof. George Houle, Music

So I’m entering my fourth year of being on college radio, first on WMBR and then KZSU, having started in December 2002, with notable gaps (Fall 2003 and Summer 2004). It’s something I think about stopping sometimes, but even when it’s a difficult time slot (Thursdays 6-9am, alarm goes off at 4:30am), I enjoy it. I missed it both times I was off the air so I worked to get back on the air.

I’ve done some fun things and crazy show themes in the past three years:

• Cohosted some crazy late night shows with Devin (of Night Rally) (and Farhad and Austin). I’d often do my indie show called Tonight I Will Retire followed by an old-timey/ field recording show called Maple’s Lament, which would stretch past 4am. Devin would say hilarious stuff (me: the phone number here is 253-xxxx, him: oh man, that’s a great number) and we’d generally be total idiots.
• Playing the entirety of In the Aeroplane over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel at about 3am.
• An hour of “crushingly beautiful music” (starting with the one am radio).
• an ill-thought-out attempt at “chamber pop two-fers” (from Matt Pond PA to Sufjan Stevens).
• an hour of indie rock songs featuring banjo (through Preston School of Industry, I think).
• almost three hours of oldies when I was so sick I’d asked for, but couldn’t secure a sub DJ.
• my patented 1/1/1 format show. (1 hour indie, 1 hour old-timey, 1 hour motown).
• a show I called “canuck goes totally whack on irish (and some cape breton) music in preparation for st. paddy’s day so break open a guinness or maybe a murphy’s and listen while relaxing with your friends”.

I just applied for a show (or two, actually) for the fall programming schedule. I’ll still be doing my indie format show, but I might be adding a 1 hour slot of a different format. I’ll say more about that later.

I don’t usually rant here, but some people are really dumb.

I run an email list for a friend that’s on Peace Corps so that she can email her updates to just one address rather than 120. People somewhat regularly email this list address rather than her directly, thinking it’s her address. Great. Way to go, pal.

But someone did something pretty spactacularly stupid this morning: he tried to send a 12 MB photo as an attachment to the list. Mistake 1 was noted above. Mistake 2 is don’t try to email enormous files!, especially to lists or people you don’t know.

After this, I sorted my email by size and noticed that multiple people, who I didn’t know, cold (uninvited) sent me things related to my position at the radio station, with attachments over 1.5MB. I realize that that’s nothing these days, in the age of gigabytes and terabytes, but that still bogs down servers and makes things slow. Most email is <15KB, so something at least 100 times larger than that is not good. I take a bit of a offense to this. It’s sort of like someone putting a broken wheel chair on my doorstep; sure, I might want it, but I certainly didn’t ask for it, and most likely, I just have to worry about putting it in the trash.

Okay. Enough ranting. I don’t think it’s becoming.

this could quite well be the longest I’ve had between posts. lack of laptop and being busy have kept me away.

but seriously, did you miss me?

anyway, here’s the playlist for this week.

I played a lot of 90s indie rock on my radio show this week.

this is a playlist for a radio show.

It turns out that I’m a bit of a liar. I said last week that I’d be taking a bit of a break from my radio show for a few weeks. It’s true that I won’t be doing the Thursday 6-9am slot, but I won’t be taking a break. The opportunity came up to do the 10-midnight (PST) show on Wednesday nights for the next three weeks and I’ll be doing that.

I’m excited to give the evening slot a chance and to not be amazingly tired on Thursdays. I suppose it means that all you east-coasters probably won’t listen online, or might only listen to the first bit.

a) I’m doing a radio show tomorrow, Thursday. It came up quick this week because of the holiday.

b) it’ll probably be my last show for a few weeks. I am going to take a bit of a break, I think.

c) I’ll put my playlist here when I have a link to it.

d) Listen here.

The playlist for this week.

And, of course, like always, you may listen on the internet.

A reminder to listen today because John Vanderslice is playing on my show in the 8am (PST) hour. woo!

The playlist for the rest of the show.

I’m doing a different show this week, a world music show.

right now I’m playing this awesome dhrupad by the Dagar Brothers.

this is the playlist and you may listen here

my radio show is indirectly mentioned on tiny mix tapes today.

check the second show under the “tour.”

I confirmed today that John Vanderslice will be playing on my radio show in the 8am hour on August 25th, 2005. I’m really excited.

In the meantime check out this track from his new album, Pixel Revolt, coming out August 23rd.

Trance Manual – John Vanderslice

There is this part about 2/3 the way through where there’s this awesome plucked string part that adds to the hand bell part and then another string part on top of it.

I’m on the radio currently.

How’s it going? Pretty good. Check the playlist.

Sufjan Stevens wrote a song about Brinkley, Arkansas at the request of some people at NPR. Together the song and interviews with locals makes a nice story, which was broadcast on NPR and can be heard here. Much of it centers around the town and its economy and the recent discover of a woodpecker near there that was thought extinct since 1944.

One can listen to the NPR piece and download the song at the NPR site. I think the song might only be available for download for a short time so download it now.

this week’s playlist. I’m doing an hour of indie, an hour of old-timey and an hour of motown. special edition of the show!

and if you read this before 9am PST, you can listen.

So during my radio show on Thursday, I set a new record for callers with 8 (only two of which were friends of the hosts).

We had lots of good music. Good flow.

I’d heard this song a few times (well parts of it, I’d usually switch the station or whatever) where there’s this sort of drunken shout frat boy anthem that goes “Beverly Hills! That’s where I want to be!”

I don’t pay attention to the pop music that much, so I just figured it was some one-hit crap band that makes crap music like that and for some reason the big radio stations played it because they do that.

Well! Turns out it’s Weezer. Oh man. Where have “My Name is Jonas” and “The World Has Turned And Left Me Here” gone?

My normal cohost was out of town, so I did a radio show by myself.

This is what is looks like when I pick all the music.

With less than 5 minutes notice, I did a radio show from 7-9PM last night. It was kind of fun, rushing around and grabbing stuff.

Here’s the playlist.

I’ll be DJing my first show in a few weeks tomorrow. It’s the Spring programming season so we went through a new lot of scheduling. I’m on from 6-9am PST (PDT?) on Thursdays still, but this time I applied for a show with a cohost, Tyler aka bedlam (like I am aka canuck). He’s another mech e doing the same program I did last year. He did college radio at Princeton.

The whole cohosting thing should be interesting. I’m in my third year of being on the radio and have never cohosted. I’ve let other people guest host and things but never let someone else pick music that went on my show. I’m just a little possessive.

The title of the show, “one tall canadian and one short american” comes, in part, from Vince, the guy who announced Palo Alto City Council for KZSU. We were talking on the phone and he was asking what my show was called. I said “I Once was Canadian” and he said “One Tall Canadian?” I liked it so much: “Yeah, that’s good. One Tall Canadian.”

So tune in tomorrow if you’re around.

The title is me singing along to a Rachel’s song.

Because I’m on the radio, as I type this!

playlist.

rock n roll.

I did a short show today entitled the above.

It was fun.

but the playlist URL will build as my show goes (just keep hitting that ‘refresh’ button) and eventually it will show the entire playlist, for those of you who are not checking every few minutes.

dang! I’m tired!

this week’s playlist for my radio show.

if anyone was listening, the dead air and awkwardness in the later part of my show weren’t my fault. I had a dj trainee sitting in on my show.

hey andy, remember when we’d have mike glasser “sit in” with our band? and all he’d do would be to sit on a chair amongst the band? that was good stuff.

did you know that?

I did a radio show this morning.

Did you know that?

Some good stuff in there.

Did another show today at ye ol radio stationne. Dave (”dj f”) cohosted. It was a good time.

playlist.

The phone-in from Andy was probably the best part of the show. It started off with him gargling his listerine and not realizing we were on the air yet and just got funnier from there with our traffic report (and Andy describing how the cones in the left turning lane were like they were ambling but without the walking). It was at about 7:05 in the am, so I’d be surprised if that many people heard it.

Flow: decent, a little forced at times
Music selection: solid, if a bit stale
Banter: excellent

I went to see the Evens last night at the Terman Middle School auditorium. What kind of band plays in a middle school auditorium besides one that was put together for a talent show? I’ll tell you. It’s Ian McKaye from Fugazi playing baritone guitar and Amy Farina playing drums. They both sing.

It was a tiny show. Three rows of 15-20 folding metal chairs and a few people in the back. I sat down in an empty seat at the front (about 6 feet from where Ian sat while playing) and almost immediately the dad sitting next to me asked if I’d gone to MIT. He’d seen my WMBR shirt. We talked about WMBR for a little bit, then he went on to explain to his 10 year old daughter that MIT was a nerd school and that she could go there for grad school but not for undergrad because he couldn’t afford it unless she got a scholarship. They also talked about internships for a while and somehow got on the topic of a spinning-talking-sensing pumpkin. The girl, quite amazingly, described a pretty good way to make this thing that would be nice to kids and try to scare adults. She was 10 years old (give or take, I never asked)! At age 10, I was trying not to cry into the paste I was eating.

There were too many amusing things to tell you all of them, but here’s a short list:

• Ian repeatedly asking if the people in the back if they were comfortable and if everything was under control.
• they finished a song with a hard vocal part. Ian: “How was that?” Amy: “Alright.” Ian: “Let’s try it again.” They do it a second time. Ian: “No, still not right. One more time.” A third try. Ian: “That was better, right?” Amy: “Yeah, that was good.”
• Ian went to Terman Middle School for 9 months in 1974-75 (I think) and told some stories about a school dance (in that very auditorium) and making a heart in wood shop with a torqoise inlay. It was stolen on the last day of school before he could give it to his crush.
• The aforementioned dad next to me at some point volunteered his 7th grade yearbook and Ian asked where he went to school. Dad: “I went to Paul Revere Middle School in LA.” Guy 1 (behind us): “I went to Paul Revere.” Guy 2 (in the back): “I I went to Paul Revere.” Ian: “See? We’re bringing people together.
• Ian asked people to sing along to a song. Ian: “Are you ready to give it a try?” The first person to say yes was Ian’s dad, who turned out to be in the back row.

It was an enjoyable and cheap ($5!) evening.

Oh and there was a girl there that looked like Emily Warman with long redish brown hair. There was a striking resemblance in facial features.

Other quick things:
I just found out that I’m missing Cat Power saturday. Dave’s coming today. We’re going on my company’s trip to this place in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

You know the drill.

Playlist.

I’m currently about half way through the show, the point at which I panic and think I don’t have enough music to fill the next hour and a half.

Ah!!!

[Update: I'd also like to note that like two days after I spent a while figuring out the phone-in system at KZSU, the chief engineer hardwired the phone-in connections (rather than having to use the patch bay for them). I just thought it was ironic.]

Today’s playlist. I did a good show. Nice flow. Started with some post-rocky sort of stuff and that seemed to work well.

But the big news of the day was that I got a caller (Jon Werberg—I tried earlier in the show with Jesse but failed) on the air. He gave a traffic report of one corner in the Bronx. Pretty exciting stuff. It’s not an easy process at KZSU (it was just about impossible to do in the A-Studio of WMBR when I was there and since I basically only broadcast out of A, I didn’t learn), but I figured it out. I’m so proud of myself.

The original plan was to get Dale to call in from the traffic on the 101 and give an “in-the-action traffic report” (and say how all those stations that use helicopters or cameras are totally in the past—why be in the air when you could be in the action! those guys in the chopper can’t see what’s really happeneing.)

Maybe next week on that one.

This week’s playlist.

A pretty good flow, I think. It’s sort of hard to make a good cohesive show that people are waking up to after years of doing shows that people were falling asleep to.

You might notice a particular number of bands that begin with A and B. I didn’t get far in the music library before gathering enough music to fill the time.

I’m tired now, but I was roaring through most of the day. I had my first 6-9am show today. I woke up at 4:45 and was at the station at 5:15 (showered last night). I pulled some music and then did a three hour show, including such greatest hits as the “motown song of the week” and my “100% unofficial traffic report” which went something like this:

If you’re going from the City to the Peninsula…yeah, good luck. If you’re going from the Peninsula to the City, good luck. If you’re going from the Peninsula to the East Bay or the East Bay to the Peninsula, good luck. If you’re going from the East Bay to the City or the City to the East Bay…well don’t try that. If you’re going from the East Bay to the South Bay, the South Bay to the East Bay, the East Bay to the North Bay or the North Bay to the East Bay, you might be alright, but I can’t promise anything. South Bay to the Peninsula, Peninsula-South Bay, Peninsula-Peninsula or South Bay-South Bay, good luck. And don’t even try East Bay near the Peninsula to the East Bay near the North Bay.

I also got like four phone calls today, which is totally sweet!@#!

Today’s playlist is here.

Andy tells me the band the Kissing Book would go well with my show. I’m going to check them out.

We had our schedule unveiling tonight at KZSU. I got a bit of a surprise in my new slot. I wanted something that wasn’t as late as my previous show. I got 6-9am Thursdays. It’s got some good points: drive-time listenership, people on the east coast will be awake, and I’ll lose less sleep than with a midnight-to-three show. We’ll see how it goes. I start this week.

You can listen to our streams (and therefore my radio show) on the interweb here

I am on the rah rah rahdio.

Playlist!

This is probably my last time doing this slot. I’ve applied for an earlier slot. Let’s hope. This one makes me tired.

I won’t be on the air tonight. I’ve been working on stuff at work fairly late and I’m going in early tomorrow to finish up, so the thought of getting <3 hours of sleep was not appetizing so I offered it up for subs and someone took it. Off to bed!

I opened up one of the Wurlitzer’s last night and re-wired the power (the 206A was a student model so they were all powered from the Teacher model). It was pretty painless. I powered it up and it worked first try. This particular one sounds really good. The bass is heavy. I’ll try to record some stuff so you can hear how it sounds, but I won’t be able to get that online until after Christmas.

I’m flying to Pittsburgh tonight. I’ll arrive early tomorrow morning and I’m leaving on the 28th fairly early. I’ll probably blog some at home. We have wireless so it’s so easy!

As I will be home, I won’t be doing a radio show tomorrow night. I’ll be back on the air December 31st from 0000 to 0300.

I got some sandals made out of tires from Lauren Owens (a friend of mine that’s doing Peace Corps in Tanzania). She’s back in America for the holidays. I tried to get a pair of these sandals in South Africa but they wanted R150 for them. That’s about $25. In Tanzania they apparently go for 150 shillings, which is about 15 cents. These ones are pretty skillfully made and fit pretty well.

My playlist for this week.

I am feeling a bit under the weather so I asked for a sub. No one wanted my prime slot, so I decided that if I was going to do it, I wasn’t going to do my normal show. I’d pick a bunch of oldies beforehand and then just basically sit back while my show happens.

As it turns out it’s been grueling. A bunch of 2 minute songs means I always have to be on the ball and ready with the next song. As to illustrate: I normally do about 41 to 43 songs in my 3 hour show (sometimes as few as 35, from further investigation). I did 44 oldies songs in the last 2.25 hours alone.

It’s been good, though.

I said I’m give you some pocket reviews (so concise you can fit them in your pocket) for some of the CDs I am reviewing for kzsu. Well, here they are:

Adem Homesongs: a surprisingly good album of indie-folk. it’s probably most comparable to Devandra Banhart, but without the annoying. home recorded by Brit Adem (pronounced AH-dem) Illah, this uses normal sounds and sort of strange sounds together to make a nice blend of listenable but not always expected music.

the Mendoza Line Fortune: this sounds a lot like Wilco at times. At other times it sounds like country pop (aka mainstream country). By no means a bad album. This is listenable and there are even some pretty decent songs on it.

Jens Lekman When I Said I Wanted to be Your Dog: I was really surprised by this album as well and I’ve been liking it more since I turned in my review for KZSU. He’s a swedish crooner of sorts. He’s got some great instrumentation/ orchestration on this album, from piano-voice ballads to songs with clips of afro-latin bands or 70s theme music complete with crazy brass parts. It’s also got a miss of a track in “Do you remember the riots” which reminds me a lot of “How fucking romantic” from the Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs and is just as annoying. In the end, it’s probably most comparable to the Magnetic Fields or Belle and Sebastian.

American Music Club Love Songs for Patriots: Mark Eitzel’s band comes back after 10 years. Honestly it sounds pretty much like his solo stuff. It’s got a lot of varied types of songs on it and it’s pretty consistently pretty good. No great tracks from first listen.

Elizabeth Cotten Shake Sugaree: North Carolina African-American traditional/ folk guitar and banjo, some instrumental, some with vocals. Elizabeth Cotton is of a similar class to Leadbelly or Woody Guthrie—like them she started in the folk tradition but also wrote her own songs in that style; she also was “discovered” and did many concerts around the country during her lifetime. self-taught, she played right handed guitars (and banjos) lefty, just flipped around upside down so her thumb hit the high strings and her fingers plucked out the bass line. Thorough liner notes and the recording quality throughout is good. This is worth checking out if you like this sort of music.

Guided by Voices Half Smiles of the Decomposed: The one trillionth and last album by indie rock legends Guided by Voices. Robert Pollard has been quoted as saying “We are the kings of indie rock. When we quit, indie rock will die.” Might be a slight hyperbole. A listenable album, but not great. I’m not the biggest Guided by Voices fan. I always thought they were alright. If you are a big fan or used to be, this is probably worth checking out. They have been important, no doubt, in the last twenty years of indie rock; time will tell whether this album will be important as well.

So, in summary, I’d recommend checking out the Jens Lekman and Adem discs. The other discs are worth checking out if you’re into those bands or that sort of music.

I’m currently doing my radio show on KZSU. This week has some serious rock at the top of the show, then I’ll slow and soften it down before doing some post rock and maybe some electro-indie.

I’m completely rockin’ out to the Arcade Fire ‘No Cars Go’ right now. This is serious stuff, people.

So, if you’re up and reading this, check out the show. Otherwise, check out the playlist.

I’m currently doing my show this week. It’s album week on KZSU so I’m playing large parts of Our Endless Numbered Days by Iron & Wine, Seven Swans by Sufjan Stevens and the Grey Album by Danger Mouse as they are some of the best/ most-significant albums of 2004. I’ll probably compile a best of 2004 show for the early morning of Dec. 31.

In other news, I’ve decided I like the Arcade Fire. A trillion other bands do the same thing and I don’t like them, but I like the Arcade Fire.

Holy crap. Forget KCRW’s Morning Becomes Electic on-air music archive (actually it’s definitely worth checking out if you haven’t) because I’ve found the KEXP Live Performance Archive. It has some sweet stuff. Two Sufjan performances. And how about this? A Ben Gibbard live perfomance where he does both “You remind me of home” and an acoustic cover version of “This is the Dream of Evan and Chan” (DNTL song with Gibbard–a line-up which later became the Postal Service).

I was recently finishing a mix CD for Lauren Owens to tide her over in her Peace Corps music vacuum. I had too much music for one CD and too little for two, so I quickly added some more for the second CD and sent it off. I’ve been listening to it the past few days and it is seriously good. It starts with some softer acoustic-like indie stuff, then transitions to indie rock, then to classic indie rock (mid-90s), then to indie pop, then to some (melodic) hip hop and finishing with an old-timey field recording.

Here’s the list:

1. Red House Painters “Michigan” from Old Ramon
2. Mark Kozelek “Metropol 47″ from Rock ‘N’ Roll Singer
3. Detachment Kit “Ricochet” from Of This Blood…
4. Modest Mouse “The World at Large” from Good News for …
5. Seam “Something’s Burning” from The Problem with Me
6. Sebadoh “Magnet’s Coil” from Bakesale
7. Superchunk “100,000 Fireflies” from Incidental Music 1991-1995
8. Belle and Sebastian “Expectations” from Tigermilk
9. Magnetic Fields “All My Little Words” from 69 Love Songs
10. Beulah “Emma Blowgun’s Last Stand” from When Your Heart Strings Break
11. Polyphonic Spree “One Man Show” from Together We’re Heavy
12. Outkast (Big Boi) “Unhappy” from Speakerboxxx
13. Flobots “Onomatopoeia” from Onomatopoeia
14. Flobots “The Last Straw, Pt. 2000″ from Onomatopoeia
15. The Alabama Sacred Harp Singers “Hallelujah/ Amazing Grace” from Southern Journey Vol. 10, And Glory Shone Around – More All Day Singing from the Sacred Harp

I also got 7 CDs from KZSU to review; the goal is to finish them by the end of the weekend. Some really good ones from first listen:

• Guided by Voices Half Smiles of the Decomposed [Matador]
• American Music Club Love Songs for Patriots [Merge]
• Jens Lekman When I Said I Wanted to be Your Dog [Secretly Canadian]
• Adem Homesongs [Domino]
• The Mendoza Line Fortune [Bar None]
• Elizabeth Cotten Shake Sugaree [Smithsonian Folkways]
• The Late BP Helium Amok [Orange Twin]

I’ll probably get small sample reviews of each up here when I finish them.

I did my show on Thursday. Here is the playlist. I started with some real indie rock, then went onto some softer stuff (indie pop, indie folk) and ended with a whole lot of old-timey music, mostly field recordings.

Last week I was making a mix CD last week for Christian Hiner, a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer of Lauren Owens’ that I met while I was in Tanzania, of old-timey field recordings because he is interested in ethnomusicology and the process got all this music into my head. So I took it out on the radio public.