June 20

This week’s edition is unusually long because I covered the first part of the next DJ’s slot while he was off on a chivalrous mission. As a feminist, by the way, I say LONG LIVE CHIVALRY!

If you haven’t already gathered, I am a big fan of drums. Beginning the show are typically rhythmic tracks by Soul Coughing, followed by plenty more percussion.

Also, I spent last week in Toronto with Paul and Heidi, friends and fellow DJs at WCBN-FM Ann Arbor. We attended NXNE (aka “North By Northeast”, or “North By”, for the initiated and/or lazy among us), a music and film festival that recently added media workshops and also includes comedians. The folks at NXNE generously have offered free tickets to WCBN listeners and DJs for the past couple years; we enthusiastically took advantage of the opportunity. I caught a fantastic performance at the festival by the PitchBlak Brass Band. Some backstory is in order to emphasize how great this band is: As a music festival, NXNE boasts about 800 bands on its roster, and those bands play at over 50 venues around the city of Toronto. It can be a logistical challenge for people like me to hit up a night’s worth of music at multiple venues that are spread across town, so I appreciated that the festival was run with military precision this year. In general, an artist played for 30 minutes, allowing the subsequent artist 30 minutes to set up for their show; I could expect to use those 30 minutes of setup to travel to the next venue and catch the next band on my personal itinerary at the top of every hour. Now. PitchBlak is a nine-piece band. There’s a woman on drums, a woman on the sousaphone, 3 trombones, 2 trumpets, a saxophone, and a guitarist/french horn player. Which perhaps justifies the fact that they took so long to set up that they began the show 20 minutes late. They proceeded to play for almost an hour, with. an. encore. Unprecedented! Though perhaps unavoidable. I mean, there were trombone solos and trombone solo battles. One of the trombonists and one of the dudes on trumpet rapped every once in a while. The audience pressed to the front of the stage and danced from beginning to end. We weren’t about to allow the band to wrap up their show. The point of this story is that their performance reinforced my love of brass-band music, and you’ll hear some brassy bands in this show (though since I wasn’t able to snag a PitchBlak Brass Band CD, you’ll have to seek them out yourself to quell your curiosity).

I may eventually write more about our time at NXNE, but in the meantime, you can explore Heidi’s account of her experience at the festival, beginning with Part I on the WCBN blog.

Oh, and Lily Tomlin shows up in this here show! She is always welcome to stop by the radio station while I’m around.

This show was described by separate callers as “strange” and “weird”, comments which I bent and sculpted into compliments. I hope that your listening experience is similarly positive.

(3.5 hours)
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Playlist
Artist = “Song title”, Album title. [Notes.]
1. Soul Coughing = “City of motors”, Ruby vroom
2. Soul Coughing = “Disseminated”, Irresistible bliss
3. Kodo = “Jang-gwara”, Ibuki
4. Will Guthrie = “Sticks”, Sticks, stones & breaking bones
5. Kodo = “Kashira”, Mondo head. [composed by Kodo, Greg Ellis, Zakir Hussain and Mickey Hart]
6. Rebirth Brass Band = “You know you know”, Rebirth of New Orleans
7. Chicago Afrobeat Project = “bscg2”, (A) Move to silent unrest
8. Miriam Makeba = “Pata pata”, Reflections
9. Niobe = “Sanoukiki”, Tse tse
10. Camera Obscura = “The sweetest thing”, My maudlin career
11. The Right Now = “Can’t keep running”, Gets over you
12. Marisa Anderson = “Singing in many voices”, The golden hour (12 improvisations for guitar and lap steel)
13. Caetano Veloso = “Perdeu”, zii e zie
14. Pesnyary = “Mowed Yas Konyushin”, Vocal and instrumental ensemble
15. Grand Duchy = “Two lies and one truth”, Let the people speak
16. Kwes = “Honey”, Meantime
17. Spoek Mathambo = “Let them talk”, Father creeper
18. Basketball = “Suspiros de Chile”, Maw. [45 rpm played at 33 rpm]
19. Buzz = “Petite poupee Japonaise”, See you sioux. [33 @ 45]
20. Joe Sample = “Black and white”, Old faces old places
21. The Sea and Cake = “Lightning”, Everybody
22. Dinosaur Feathers = “Certain times”, Whistle tips
23. Radio I-Ching = “Judgment day”, No wave au gogo
24. Curumin = “Paris vila matilde”, Arrocha
25. Caetano Veloso = “Tropicalia”, Live in Bahia
26. Thinking Plague = “Sleeper cell anthem”, Decline and fall
27. Brian Eno = “Third uncle”, Taking tiger mountain (by strategy)
28. Penguin Café Orchestra = “Cutting branches for a temporary shelter”, Penguin Café Orchestra
29. Lily Tomlin = “Tell Miss Sweeney goodbye”, On stage
30. Autechre = “Slip”, Amber
31. Nellie McKay = “Zombie”, Obligatory villagers
32. Caethua = “Wrecks & rescues”
33. Jana Hunter = “Oracles”, There’s no home
34. Howard Hello = track 2, Howard Hello
35. The Hunting Accident = “As you choke”, Trees and parks
36. Oberhofer = “Haus”, Time capsules II
37. sound = ducks
38. Sam Cooke with the Soul Stirrers = “Jesus, I’ll never forget”, The gospel soul of Sam Cooke with the Soul Stirrers, Vol. 1: 12 magnificent performances featuring the irreplaceable voice of Sam Cooke
39. Sam Cooke = “I gotta right to sing the blues”, Sam Cooke interprets Billie Holiday