The joy of subbing for Joy! Regular host of The Dream Machine, our DJ Joy, was unavailable this evening, so I grabbed the reins.
This show is worth listening to, if only for the new Santigold and new Grass Widow tracks…along with George Carlin’s classic sketch about dirty words and TWO doses of Reggie Watts. Rest assured that there are plenty of reasons why this episode is worth listening to. But beware–the first 12 minutes or so are NSFW. What can I say? I get really excited when I get to play music on the radio after 10pm, when the FCC‘s asleep!
All that comes out of the Black Pope’s mouth is rudypoops! You know what I mean? I am a human radio station! I am the greatest radio personality in the worrrld!
This one’s listener-approved. As a listener, do you approve?
Playlist
Artist = “Song title”, Album title. [Notes.]
1. George Carlin = “Seven words you can never say on television”, Class clown
2. Reggie Watts = “F@<% $#!+ Stack”, Why $#!+ so crazy?
3. Lushlife (ft. Shad [and Erik Satie sample]) = “Gymnopedie 1.2”, Plateau vision
4. Hawthorne Headhunters (feat. Rockwell Knuckles & Tef Poe) = “Collage”, Myriad of now
5. Santigold = “Disparate youth”, Master of my make-believe
6. Spoek Mathambo = “Dog to bone”, Father creeper
7. Reggie Watts = “Humans”, A live at Central Park
8. Quakers (Lyric Jones) = “R.A.I.D.” Quakers
9. Dream Warriors = “My definition of a bombastic jazz style”, And now the legacy begins
10. Radioinactive = “What it do”, The Akashic record
11. David Thrussell = “Turn muzak on it’s [sic] head”, The voices of reason
12. The Real Apocalypse News = #1, Rhythm, riots, and rebellion among the nations
13. Bruce Haack = “Poppies”, The electronic record for children
14. The Black Pope = “I’m a human radio station”, WFMU: Radio archival oddities, Vol. II
15. Wilco = “Art of almost”, The whole love
17. Rosa de Sangue = #5, Lula Cortes
18. P’ansori = “Kayageum Sanjo”, Korea’s epic vocal art & instrumental music
19. Fil Fla = “Morse Mall”, Flip Tap
20. R. L. Crutchfield’s Dark Day = “Arp’s carpet”, Exterminating angel
21. Nick Waterhouse = “Say I wanna know”, Nick Waterhouse
22. Joan of Arc = “Many times I’ve mistaken” [45]
23. Johnny III Band = “Matt Larson”, In the wintertime single. [Tirade against a friend because he went to college]
24. Kid Rock = “My Oedipus complex (remix)” [45]
25. The Kills = “U.R.A. fever” [45]
26. Grass Widow = “A light in the static”, Internal logic
27. Martha Dumptruck Massacre = “Matches”, The atomic plains
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.
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
I subbed for the DJ who regularly does this show, which he describes as “music of communism”. Have a taste and listen in…
Playlist
Artist = “Song title”, Album title. [Notes.]
1. Eduard Khil = “Mr. Trololo”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oavMtUWDBTM. [RIP]
2. Eduard Khil = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlJ91pu_Ox4. [what a silly dancer and lip syncher he is! RIP]
3. Eduard Khil = “Ballade about soldier”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOWxhnumHQs. [RIP]
4. Andrei Codrescu = “Sibiu, Romania”, No tacos for Saddam
5. Regina Spektor = “The prayer of Francois Villon”, [Record Store Day 2012 EP]
6. Andrei Codrescu = “Everybody suffers”, No tacos for Saddam
7. Regina Spektor = “Old jacket”, [Record Store Day 2012 EP]
8. Andrei Codrescu = “Two possibilities”, No tacos for Saddam
9. Regina Spektor = “Apres moi”, Begin to hope
10. Evgeny Masloboev & Anastasia Masloboeva = “Bird”, Russian folksongs in the key of rhythm
11. Osman Pehlivan = “Arif sag”, Obsession
12. Habkuk = “Mury”, Polska rootz: Beats, dubs, mixes & future folk from Poland. [compiled by ZONIC]
13. Gogol Bordello = “Smarkatch”, Multikontraculti vs. irony
14. Gogol Bordello = “Balkanization of amerikanization”, Gogol Bordello vs. Tamir Muskat
15. Gogol Bordello = “Madagascar-Roumania”, East Infection EP
16. U.S.S.R. Russian Chorus conducted by Aleksander Sveshnikov = “The Tartar captives”, The white birch tree & other Russian songs
17. Volga Choir = “Singing in the Choir”, The folk songs of old Russia
18. Muzsikas and Marta Sebestyen = “A song from Madocsa”, Morning star
19. The Karlian Folk Music Ensemble = “Swallow waltz”, The Karlian Folk Music Ensemble. [State University, Karelia, Russia]
20. The Ukrainians = “Europa”, Kultura
21. Goran Bregovic = “Yeremia”, Best of
22. Derdiyoklar Ikilisi = “Yodoy”, Disko folk
23. Sto Zvirat = “Everyone’s got it different”, Double chin
24. Vagtazo Halottkemek = “Confuring up the wonder stag”, Galloping coroners
25. Dos-Mukasan = “Betpak dala”
26. Dos-Mukasan = “Ahau bikem”
27. Beatles = “Back in the USSR”, the white album
28. Tarantella Dei Baraccati = “Tarantella of the squatters”, Avanti Popolo! Revolutionary songs of the Italian working class
This show contains copious amounts of bizarre jazz.
The show begins with lots of music from all over the world, all danceable.
Do you hear that? During a long guitar solo, I played around with some records in the studio. The long guitar solo came from a CD, while the odd sounds–chords of some sort–mixed with the guitar. That was me, interrupting the guitar solo at random intervals by playing tiny snippets of a record on which Art Tatum tinkled at the piano keys.
Later on, you can hear what it would’ve sounded like if Art Tatum had used 30 fingers to play the piano.
There’s a lot of great poetry in this show, including Allen Ginsberg, arwulf arwulf, and Ken Nordine.
Playlist
Artist = “Song title”, Album title. [Notes.]
1. Youssou N’Dour = “Set”, Set. [Senegal]
2. Chancha Via Circuito = “Prima”, Future sounds of Buenoas Aires. [Argentina]
3. La Chiva Gantiva = “Cosmeticos”, Pelao. [Recorded in France, mixed in Colombia, mastered in UK, Caribbean + African instruments!]
4. MC Solaar = “La musique adoucit les moeurs”, Qui seme le vente récolte le tempo. [France]
5. Mr. Ebbo = “Mi mmasai (remix)”, Bongo flava: Swahili rap from Tanzania
6. Important = “Origin”, Sembeh ma fa fe: Revisits volume. [Guinea]
7. Seu Jorge = “Chatterton”, Cru. [Brazil]
8. Jack de Johnette & Foday Musa Suso = “Ocean wave”, Music from the hearts of the masters
9. Matt Haimovitz with the Pittsburgh Collective Big Band = “Scherzo Grosso (part 3)”, Vinyl cello
10. Big Satan = “Deadpan”, souls.savedhear
11. New And Used = “Cows”, Souvenir
12. Allen Ginsberg (with Marc Ribot, Bill Frisell, et al.) = “Complaint of the skeleton to time”, The lion for real
13. Jonathan Richman = “I eat with gusto, damn! you bet”, Jonathan Richman
– mixed with –
14. Otto Luening = “Invention in twelve notes (1952)”, Pioneers of electronic music
15. arwulf arwulf and the sonnenlicht project = “Turtle peace”, Reproductive rights for all women
16. Frank Pahl & Klimperei = “Dainties”, Music for desserts
17. Ken Nordine = “Maroon”, Colors
18. Art Tatum = several tracks from several volumes of Solo Masterpieces. [all mixed together; 30 fingers playing the piano]
19. Mice Parade = “The lonely lounge piano player’s lost in his little world”, Ramda
20. Joe Zawinul & the Zawinul Syndicate = “Zanza II”, 75
21. Afel Bocoum, Damon Albarn, Toumani Diabate and Friends = “Spoons”, Mali music
22. Gilberto Gil e Jorge Ben = “Nega”, Gil e Jorge
l i z w a s o n 