November 24, 2006

Theme: Knock, Knock, Ginger Interview On Air: Frank and Knock, Knock, Ginger

This was a very special show as I was joined by most of the members of local band Knock, Knock, Ginger to preview their upcoming EP release show at the Starlight on Thursday, December 7th. The topics of conversation included: the origins of the band, their experiences traveling to and performing at this year's Halifax Pop Festival, the songwriting process, and of course their new EP. One cool thing we also got to do was to play a few songs that came from a contest the band held in conjunction with the Starlight. As part of the contest people could suggest up to 3 songs that the band should cover during their show at the Starlight, the band got an anonymous list of the songs and the person who suggested the song they pick will get a prize pack. So for the show we played some of the suggested songs (which may or may not have been the songs that I suggested), I have marked the songs appropriately below. Once more I would like to thank Milosz, Matt, Lisa, and Owen for coming out to the show and doing such a great job. See more info about the band here: http://www.myspace.com/knockknockginger TALK - Theme Kings of Convenience - I'd Rather Dance With You The Diskettes - Art (C) The Pipettes - It Hurts To See You Dance So Well Blondie - Hanging On The Telephone **See Note 1 TALK (mostly a Milosz set) Acid House Kings - This Heart Is A Stone ** Decemberists - Yankee Bayonet Henry Faberge and the Adorables - Out Of Your League (C) **See Note 2 The Bicycles - Australia (C) Catatonia - Dead From The Waist Down (C) TALK (Matt's set) Ratatat - Wildcat **See Note 3 The Sourkeys - Gossip (C) Two Hours Traffic - Stuck For The Summer (C) Hot Chip - The Warning TALK Knock, Knock, Ginger - Virginia Black (C) ** New Order - Fine Time ** Diana Ross and the Supremes - Love Child ** The Lemonheads - If I Could Talk I'd Tell You TALK Knock, Knock, Ginger - Love Renee (C) TALK Knock, Knock, Ginger - Tragic Love Affair Of Kasey and Jaime (C) **Song that was suggested as part of the contest Note 1: Even after almost 30 years this song really holds up well Note 2: Both of these bands played a show with Knock, Knock, Ginger at the Grad House a few months ago, unforunately they didn't have as good a time as when the other bands played Vancouver: http://radio3.cbc.ca/blogs/2006/11/Take-Your-Shirt-Off Note 3: Matt likes this song so much he has it has the ringtone on his phone, which we proved on the air. (C) Denotes Canadian Content

November 10, 2006

Theme: Money and Gambling On Air: Frank and Deep Space Wayne

For this show Deep Space Wayne was my guest and he was celebrating his poker victory the night before by playing a few songs about money or gambling (I can't believe he beat me not once but twice when I had a straight). Before he got there I played some of the songs that I had built up over the last little while since I had theme for the last few shows. The second set started with Lloyd Cole whom I recently saw in Toronto at the Mod Club. It was a great show where he concentrated on a lot of his earlier solo material and songs that he did with the Commotions, not being a fan of his most recent album "Antidepressant", this was quite alright with me. However, the song I played during the show is the best from Antidepressant. I ended the show with The Jolly Llamas who were playing that night at the the inaugural Sonic Boom Awards. These were CKMS sponsored awards for both programmers and local artists, just like those track and field events in public school where everybody got a ribbon, I tied for Most Memorable Voice (not best or coolest, but most memorable, I don't know if that is a compliment or not). TALK - Theme Irene - Into the Sun Little Name - How To Swim And Live Cats On Fire - Draw In The Reins Shade Tree - Where Do We Go From Here Lovejoy - In The Rain TALK Lloyd Cole - NYC Sunshine Great Aunt Ida - Little Voice (C) Stuart Staples - There Is A Path **Note 1 Young and Sexy - Satellite (C) Carolyn Mark - Chumpville (C) TALK Ohbijou - St. Francis (C) De Novo Dahl - Shout El Perro Del Mar - God Knows (You Gotta Give to Get) The Lovely Feathers - Photocorners (C) Howe Gelb - But I Did Not TALK Bocce - Bicycle Cop Bears (C) **See Note 2 Shout Out Out Out - Self Loathing Rulz (C) Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor (DSW) The Rapture - Get Myself Into It The Beta Band - Outside (DSW) TALK Tokyo Police Club - Nature Of The Experiment (C) (DSW) The Thermals - A Pillar of Salt Jesus and Mary Chain - Far Gone And Out (DSW) The Cliks - Start Leading Me On (C) Sonic Youth - Reena (DSW) The O'Jays - For The Love Of Money (DSW) TALK The Jolly Llamas - Jenna's Vegan Docs (C) (C) Denotes Canadian Content (DSW) Denotes song picked by Deep Space Wayne Note 1: This song features the former lead singer from Lambchop who has one of the most distinct voices in music. Note 2: The second last set started out with a couple of bands that I caught at the Starlight a few days before the show, Bocce and Shout Out Out Out. Although their website says that SOOO has 4 bass players; I only saw 2 of them along with 2 keyboardists, 2 drummers, and a singer. They were almost as high energy as the local opener Bocce.

October 27, 2006

Theme: Big and tall and short On Air: Frank

The theme for this show was Big and Tall and Short (after a sign I saw for a store in Hamilton) so all the songs I played were either over 6 minutes or under 2 minutes long. I think it went OK, but it was difficult to mix the two different song lengths, as in general the shorter songs were happy indie pop while the longer ones were more groovy laid back songs. I made sure to note the lengths of each of the songs in the setlist. I got a couple of suggestions of songs to play, but I couldn't justify playing Onita's suggestion of Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant, as at 18 minutes it would have taken up too much of the show. The last song (Abe Vigoda's dead) was 15 seconds short of 6 minutes but I let it go as it was my tribute to Halloween. However do note that Abe Vigoda is indeed alive, this is confirmed by the website www.abevigoda.com where the current state of Mr. Vigoda is displayed (you can also get this as an add-on to Firefox). I still remember the Letterman episode where they quelled the original Abe Vigoda is dead rumour by having him in the show's control room. Does anybody still watch Letterman anymore or has everybody moved to Stewart/Colbert? And although I had to play a first song I'm not considering it my top song of the week. It was a busy time for me before the show with being in Saskatchewan for a week and a couple of birthdays so I couldn't find a song that had that something something that it needs to be my top song. TALK - Theme Nicole Willis and the Sound Investigators - No One's Gonna Love You (6:05) Bran Van 3000 - Astounded (C) (5:56) Ivana Santilli - Sun + Moon = Tomorrow (C) (6:01) The Pipettes - I Love You (1:38) The Diskettes - Art (C) (1:42) TALK The Bicycles - Sure Was Great (C) (1:35) Arcade Fire - No Cars Go (C) (6:02) The Doers - We're Open (C) (1:55) Yo La Tengo - Heard You Looking (7:01) **Suggested by Chris D Chixdiggit - Getting Air (C) (1:33) **Suggested by Chris D TALK Dengue Fever - 1000 Years Of A Tarantula (6:43) Cassius - The Sound Of Violence (7:13) Junior Boys - Like A Child (C) (6:07) Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass - Butterball (6:18) TALK CUB - Your Bed (C) (1:32) The Sin-Tones - Trailer Park Sadie (C) (1:43) Unrest - Cath Carroll (10 cc mix) (7:13) King Curtis - Memphis Soul Stew (7:36) The Pipas - Riff Raff (1:51) TALK spinnwebe.com - Abe Vigoda's Dead (Premorteum mix) (5:45) (C) Denotes Canadian Content

October 13, 2006

Theme: Accordion Fever On Air: Frank

The accordion themed show went very well, and again before I scare anybody off from listening to the show, I only started off each set with a song that contained some accordion. As well during each talking break I read some selections from the Geoff Berner booklet: How to be an Accordion Player, get more information about it here: http://www.geoffberner.com/introduction.htm Note that unlike the Corrine Bailey Rae song, I am aware that the Lilly Allen song "Smile" is a popular song, but I played it anyway. The third set came from music that I had recently purchased from the great indie pop website: www.poppolar.com After the side projects set I was made aware that I had done a great injustice by not playing the band Dump after playing Yo La Tengo (Dump is a side project of Yo La Tengo's James McNew), I corrected this great injustice during this show. TALK - Theme The Rascals - Groovin' Amp Fiddler - Right Where You Are Lily Allen - Smile Bic Runga - Say After Me Hawksley Workman - You Me And The Weather (C) TALK Wet Spots - Blitzkrieg Polka (C) **See Note 1 The Snow Fairies - The Life Of A Total Square The Besties - Prison Song Sandro Perri - Circles Axel Yngvell - The Great Big Saturday Nils Folke Valdemar - The Taking Off Of Pants TALK (poppolar.com set) The Cajun Ramblers - Venez A Louisianne (C) **Digital Tape The Pipettes - One Night Stand Cats on Fire - The Smell of An Artist The Tidy-ups - Death To The Tidy-ups Pipas - Basements Lake Holiday - Don't Stay Forever (C) TALK They Might Be Giants - Istanbul Not Constantinople Wax Tailor - Que Sera Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye (C) Memphis - In The Cinema Alone (C) Two Hours Traffic - Jezebel (C) TALK Jens Lekman - Julie (Remix) Square Root of Margaret - The 3-D Breeze (C) Yo La Tengo - Point and Shoot Dump - Erotic City The Reverb Society - Shake Don't Stir (C) TALK Geoff Berner - We All Gotta Be A Prostitute Sometime (C) Note 1: The show was during the annual Oktoberfest festival in Kitchener-Waterloo and this song mentions the festival. (C) Denotes Canadian Content

September 29, 2006

Theme: Side Projects On Air: Frank

The side projects theme really got people thinking so I got lots of suggestions for bands to play. A great suggestion was made by Chris F. who remembered that I had told him about seeing NoMeansNo before the show and came up with the Hanson Brothers a side project of NoMeansNo. Also topical as hockey season started the week after the show. Deep Space Wayne suggested that I could have just done the whole show based on Broken Social Scene which is pretty much a band that is a side project of people from other bands. I made an impulse buy the night before the show and picked up the acclaimed and influential album "Colossal Youth" by the Young Marble Giants. I first heard of Stuart Moxham of the band because of his involvement with the Stephin Merrit project The 6ths as well I have heard lots of people praise him so I decided to go for it. So far I'm really liking it. I also played songs from few other CDs I picked up right before the show. TALK - Theme Peter Bjorn and John featuring Victoria Bergsman - Young Folks Cats On Fire - Higher Ground ^^ Jim Noir - Key of C Dyrdin - Popp & Co ** Young Marble Giants - Salad Days TALK ## The Stars - Reunion (C) ++ Amy Milan - He Brings Out The Whiskey In Me (C) ++ ** Memphis - Incredibly Drunk on Whiskey (C) Violet Lyal - To You Leaving (C) TALK ## NoMeansNo - I Need You (C) **Suggested by Chris F. ++ The Hanson Brothers - 100 + 10% (C) ## New York Dolls - Personality Crisis **Suggested by Karen M. ++ Buster Poindexter - All Night Party TALK ## Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Chicken Dog **Suggested by Chris D. ++ 20 Miles - Mend Your Heart Ladyhawk - The Dugout (C) **Suggested by Rick W. ^^ Sound Team - Your Eyes Are Liars Yo La Tengo - Watch Out For Me Ronnie TALK ## Metric - Combat Baby (C) **Sort of suggested by Chris D. ++ Emily Haines - The Lottery (C) Those Transatlantics - The Other Cheek Great Aunt Ida - We Say No (C) ^^ The Icicles - Snowman TALK ## New Order - Regret ++ Electronic - Late At Night ** Junior Boys - In The Morning (C) TALK Jonathan Richman - Since She Started To Ride **See Note 1 Harvee - No One Here **See Note 2 ## Original band ++ Side Project ** Bought the day before the show at Soundscapes ^^ Doesn't mean anything but I just really wanted to make the setlist really, really, confusing Note 1: Dedicated to Mike and Jackie, I decided to play the song because of a conversation I had with them and Jackie talking about spending a lot time at the barn looking after horses Note 2: Bonus song because the person on after me was a few minutes late. (C) Denotes Canadian Content

September 15, 2006

Theme: No Theme On Air: Frank

Not a lot to say about this show, I think I played lots of great songs, but not much of an overall theme even within individual sets. There were a couple of notable new releases by both Yo La Tengo and Memphis, I was really excited by both of them so I played a set of double shots so I could hear more of each album. I talked about Yo La Tengo in the last mailout while Memphis is a side project of Torquil Campbell of the Stars. From this initial listen it sounds much more developed than the first Memphis album and more my style than Amy Milan's solo effort. Another song of note was by the Shakers, a band that featured Dave Rave, formerly of Teenage Head and many other bands. He has just released a great Anthology featuring songs from his long career. Find more about him here: www.dave-rave.com . For the rest of the show I played lots of other great songs, a few from some CDs in the new release section that I had never heard of before the show: the aforementioned Violet Lyal, The Golden Dogs, and The Balling Jacks. TALK - Theme The Gresham Flyers - Shiftwork Irene - Little Things (That Tear Us Apart) The Ballet - In My Head Peace In Our Time - Everyone or Anyone Serenade - The Sweetest TALK (Double Shot Set) Yo La Tengo - I Feel Like Going Home Yo La Tengo - Mr. Tough Memphis - I Dreamed We Fell Apart (C) Memphis - In The Cinema Alone (C) Violet Lyal - Camera (C) Violet Lyal - Ready To Go (C) TALK Those Transatlantics - In Your Neighbourhood The San Marios - Half A Million The Tidy Ups - Dizzy Hieghts Acid House Kings - That's Because You Drive Me TALK The Shakers - Let's Face It (C) Pointed Sticks - Marching Song (C) The Skatomatics - Pop Song (C) The Balling Jacks - Going Insane (C) Wax Mannequin - The Price (C) TALK Annemarie - Apple (Suicide On Your Stereo) Klavey Y Kongo - Ay Candela! Mary Margaret O'Hara - Dream I Had (I) (C) Regina Spektor - Hotel Song The Dears - Whites On Party (C) **See Note 1 The Golden Dogs - Construction Worker (C) **See Note 2 The New Pornographers - Sing Me Spanish Disco (C) TALK Elliot Brood - Second Son (C) Note 1: This song was dedicated to the new edition of Survivor where the initial split of contestants is along racial lines. Note 2: The Golden Dogs reminded me a lot of The New Pornographers, so I had to play them next. (C) Denotes Canadian Content

September 1, 2006

Theme: No Theme On Air: Frank

I just loved both of the first songs I played, I could have just put them on repeat for the rest of the show. I still don't know why I like Regina Spektor so much, on paper I shouldn't, she is a solo piano player who does a lot of vocal gymnastics which is generally not my thing, also I have never been a big fan of Kate Bush, Tori Amos, or Ani DiFranco all of whom she has been compared to, yet something about her songs make them catchy and beautiful. The second song was by New Buffalo and featured Jens Lekman and thus was a no-brainer as far as me liking it. In the first set I also played a song by a band called The Repomen, so I had to play a song off of the soundtrack to the cult classic Repo Man. That album has so many great songs, but I decided to play the Burning Sensations version of the Jonathan Richman song Pablo Picasso. The Yo La Tengo song is from their new album "I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass", related to this is the website http://www.iamnotafraidofyouandiwillbeatyourass.com/ where you can see many different people saying the line, you can even submit a video of you saying it and maybe it will be added to the video wall. The Circus Room set featured songs by some of the great bands I saw at the Circus Room the Sunday before the show, not only were the headlining Mega-Haunches great (with their Bizarro twins from Knock Knock Ginger and go-go dancers) but the opening acts were also quite good. The Reverb Society lead singer (like me) obviously watched a lot of TV in the late 70s and 80s as they have song titles like "I Am The New Number 2" and "Zis is KOAS!" they also played the theme to "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." during the set. So during the show I played song from a vinyl EP I bought many years ago solely because of the title "Illya Kuryakin Looked At Me", as the two agents from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. were Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin. Got to love the Magic Numbers doing a cover of the Beyonce song "Crazy in Love", the only reason I know the song is that they used it as the Raptor intro song this past season. I ended the show with a song by trumpet player Maynard Ferguson who passed away before this show. He is best known for playing the trumpet part in the Rocky theme "Gonna Fly Now", find out more about him here: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=2352609 TALK - Theme Regina Spektor - Fidelity New Buffalo featuring Jens Lekman - Inside (the Corrections) Modern Boys Modern Girls - Oleander (C) Mica - Stitch Repomen - Lights Out Burning Sensations - Pablo Picasso TALK Yo La Tengo - I Should Have Known Better Subhumans - Celebrity (C) Forbidden Dimension - Tonight I Paint In Flesh Colour (C) **See note 1 The Grates - 192020 The Clash - Police On My Back **See note 2 TALK The Skatomatics - Burning Bush (C) Planet Smashers - Mighty (C) Hidden Cameras - Lollipop (C) Little Name - For The Attention Of April Fools Day - My Avenue TALK (Circus Room Set) The Haunches - Crush On Friend Ends In Tragedy (C) Hexes And Ohs - Whaddya Know? (C) The Reverb Society - I Am The New Number 2 (C) Cleaners From Venus - Illya Kuryakin Looked At Me **Digital Vinyl TALK The Dears - You And I Are A Gang Of Losers (C) Dirty On Purpose - No Radio The Southern Alps - Tuesday Morning The Mountain Goats - Half Dead Tobias Froberg - When The Night Turns Cold Good On Paper - The Message TALK The Magic Numbers - Crazy In Love Maynard Ferguson - I Love You Note 1: The Forbidden Dimension features the former lead singer of one of the greatest Canadian Bands ever - Colour Me Psycho Note 2: I played the Clash song because it was briefly played on the Emmy's as Conan O'Brien was running on to the stage after his gag opening. (C) Denotes Canadian Content