Theme: Italy review and Hillside Preview |
| If I sound a bit tired during this show, it is because I woke up that morning in Rome, got on a plane to Toronto, got back to Waterloo, had half an hour at home, and then had to get on my bike for the radio show. So when the show ended it was the equivalent of 2 am for me. I didn't pick up any CDs during my recent trip to Italy and Poland however I did see a very unique show as the conference I was attending was happening in the same city as Umbria Jazz festival. It turns out this is a pretty major jazz festival in Europe and it made certain aspects of the conference pretty cool in that there was live jazz music on one of the free stages from noon to midnight. On the bad side it made finding a place to stay difficult, I ended up finding a place way out of town that required a bus ride and then calling the B&B owner to pick me up. The last day I was there, I noticed that both Solomon Burke and Sly and the Family Stone were playing as part of the jazz festival so I had to get a ticket (even though it meant getting back to my B&B at 12:30 am and having to wake up the owner). Nothing like a couple of Hillside preview sets to boost up that Canadian Content. For those who don't know, Hillside is an annual festival in Guelph that features great music, great food, and just a great vibe. For this show I previewed some of the bands that were playing Hillside and next week I'll have my Hillside review TALK-Theme Note 1: Venice was referred to as the "Most Serene Republic" |
Friday, July 20, 2007
July 20, 2007
Friday, July 6, 2007
July 6, 2007
Theme: More Calvin Johnson than you can stand |
| Another week another show. Between the Denver set (where I purchased the latest Calvin Johnson album) and the set of music highlighting his recent shows, there was a definite Calvin Johnson bent to a lot of the show. After seeing him at the Music Gallery last Saturday with Julie Doiron I found out that he was playing a backyard show in Guelph on Wednesday. I liked him so much the first time I had to see him the second time. It is a good time for the new release section at CKMS with lots of good stuff to play including a couple of surprises such as Code Pie and the Immaculate Machines. There was also a new album by Carolyn Mark, there used to be a time when I would have been very excited by this, but I don't know if I have been all that excited by her recent stuff. However, she and Geoff Berrner are playing the Jane Bond in September and I'll probably go and see them. The second last set had a mish-mash of ideas: - the Rubinoos song (thanks Dan) that is the centre of the controversy with Avril Lavigne (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/308830/avril_lavigne_sued_over_girlfriend.html ) - the original of the song that was my top song last week - and a small feature on a recent great commercial song for Maynard's candy, the one with the girl in the red polka dot dress walking along a street and then splits into different versions of herself. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ7pGMfVNVg ) After much research I think I am correct that the band is a Canadian band called Major Maker and the song was written for the commercial and there are no plans to create a full version of the song. However, one of the members of Major Maker is Lindy, so perhaps I will one day be able to ask him as he plays the Jane Bond every once in a while.
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Friday, June 29, 2007
June 29, 2007
Theme: Halifax a go-go |
| This was my first show in over a month so of course I had lots of music to play and not enough time. As such, it wasn't just a top song to start the show but more of a top set as any song in the first set could have been the top song of the week. If you are an Amy Whinehouse fan do yourself and favour and check out the first song, Amy Whinehouse covering the song "Valerie" originally by the Zutons, hear it once and it will be in your head all day. I was out east at the beginning of June, and as this was the first show since then, I finally got to play all of the music that I collected out there. Only two of the artists were actually from Eastern Canada, the rest I just happened to buy out there. I was very surprised to see the "I'm From Barcelona" CD in a used record store in Halifax (well actually Michelle found it) also surprising is how much I like the songs on the album that I had not already heard. The Smokey Robinson CD was a from a bargin bin in Wolfville just to have something to listen to in the car, and I'm surprised with how many of the songs I recognize and enjoy. My usual routine is to play 5 songs in each set (maybe something to do with my engineering mind always wanting order in the world) but for this show the sets just worked out better having 6 songs. There was also a weird coincidence in that there was a streak of about 10 songs between Brideshead and The Stolen Minks of songs that featured female lead singers.
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Friday, May 25, 2007
May 25, 2007
Theme: Clever Girls and Cleverer Boys |
| I had three songs that were neck and neck for my top song this week, in the end "Summer 2005" by Seymore Saves The World was the one that won by a nose. I first heard it on CHRW, the campus radio station in London, which by the way this was the station that gave me my start in radio during high school so many years ago. The second contender was a song by Pelle Carlberg that has the best (and longest) title of any song I know: Clever Girls Like Cleverer Boys Much More than Clever Boys Like Cleverer Girls. Unfortunately I was away when he played Toronto recently, but I heard it was a great show. The third song was a cover of a Kaiser Chiefs song done by Mark Ronson featuring Lilly Allen, but I'll say more about him on the next show. During my previous show, I ran out off time before playing another set of "strange" music so I finally got to it this show. The reason for the set was that I found an off-beat song by Robert Forster (formerly of the Go-Betweens) on a children's album and I needed somewhere to play it. The album looks cool, it is called "Songs for the Young at Heart" and also has songs from Bonnie Prince Billy, Jarvis Cocker, and Stuart Murdoch. The set ended with a great cover of "We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off" by Kids on TV. A few days before this show, I went to see the Joel Plaskett Emergency and Peter Elkas at the Starlight, it was a great show albeit very uncomfortable with the hot temperature that day and the sold out energetic audience. I followed their songs with a set of music of bands from the Maritimes. This was timely as right after the show I went to both Newfoundland and Nova Scotia for a couple of conferences. This was also the reason that I ended the show with Rawlins Cross, the only band from St. John's that I know. TALK - Theme Seymore Saves The World - Summer 2005 Pelle Carlberg - Clever Girls Like Cleverer Boys Much More Than Clever Boys Like Cleverer Girls Mark Ronson (Featuring Lily Allen) - Oh My God The Bird and the Bee - Again and Again Young Galaxy - Calendar Girl (C) TALK Joel Plaskett Emergency - True Patriot Love (C) Joel Plaskett Emergency - Snowed In/Crusin' (C) Eric's Trip - Girlfriend (C) Jale - Nine Years Now (C) Plumtree - I'm Not Moving (C) TALK Peter Elkas - Party Of One (C) The Earaches - Not The Kinda Man I Am Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - The Unwanted Things Lonnie James - Piano In The Sand (C) Los Campsinos! - You! Me! Dancing! ** See Note 1 TALK Robert Forster - Uncle Sigmund's Clockwork Story Sage Francis - Broccilude Eleni Mandell - Girls Kids On TV - We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off TALK Don Lennon - My Resume Pistepirkko - I Know The Album Leaf - Always For You Electrelane - At Sea The Bravery - Bad Sun (C) The Faintest Ideas - You're Beautiful The Sea and Cake - Lightning TALK Rawlins Cross - Open Road (C) Note 1: I swear that during the past week I've heard this song a couple of times a day on CKMS. (C) Denotes Canadian Content |
Friday, May 11, 2007
May 11, 2007
Theme: Arrivals and Departures |
| My favourite album for the year so far is one that came as a direct result of the show I did a few weeks back on commercial music, when I got reacquainted with The Icicles and ordered their new album called "Arrivals and Departures". I also went to see them in concert the week before the show and keeping with the title of their album, the women in the band dressed like stewardesses and the male member was a pilot, they also covered the song "Leaving on a Jet Plane". Needless to say I loved it. Thanks to everybody who sent in suggestions for the "Arrivals and Departures" set, even if for some of them I only sort of got the request correct. Doing research for the set I found out that there are tons of covers of "Getting on Jet Plane", in fact even the most famous version by Peter, Paul, and Mary is a cover of the original by Bob Denver. I ended up playing a version by Lisa Loeb. |
Friday, April 27, 2007
April 27, 2007
Theme: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin |
| No overall theme to this show, just a lot of random ideas strung together: - I had to play the band "Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin" after Boris Yeltsin passed away last week. I also played The Russian Futurists for the same reason. - The Stephin Merrit songs comes from a release called "Plague Songs" that has "10 Songs - 10 Plagues - 10 Artists". - When I found a song called "Sideways" by American band Let's Go Sailing I had to play the song by Men Without Hats with the same name (but it wasn't a cover song like I had hoped). - Both Peter Elkas and Joel Plaskett are playing the Starlight on May 24th. - Memphis is one of the bands playing this year's Hillside Festival, more on this later TALK - Theme The Sweet Homewreckers - Wild America (C) The Salteens - Time You Have Been Wasting (C) The Yokocasinos - Loose Cannon Hera - Don't Play This Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Oregon Girl TALK Skeeter Davis - Let Me Get Close To You Francoise Hardy - On Dit De Lui Lucky Soul - One Kiss Don't Make A Summer Belle and Sebastian - Legal Man Stephin Merrit - The Meaning of Lice TALK The Russian Futurists - The Science Of The Seasons (C) LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great B. Fleischman - Le Desir Wally Jericho - Kuryakin (C) TALK Ladybug Transistor - Her Words Hang In The Air Leopold - Work You/Me - To Live Morning Bride - Time Delay Thomas Dybdahl - A Love Story TALK Let's Go Sailing - Sideways Men Without Hats - Sideways (C) Lapko - All The Best Girls Peter Elkas - Fall Apart Again (C) Joel Plaskett Emergency - Nothing More To Say (C) TALK The Sea and Cake - Too Strong Sondre Lerche - Airport Taxi Reception Elbow Beach Surf Club - Our Hood (C) The Icicles - Crazy TALK Memphis - A Little Place In The Wilderness (C) (C) Denotes Canadian Content |
Friday, April 13, 2007
April 13, 2007
Theme: Commercial Music |
| It seemed like I did a lot of talking this show, but I was happy with how it went, as I think I had pretty interesting things to say. Thanks for the suggestions on the commercial music set and as always the site www.adtunes.com was an invaluable resource. I have tried to put in links to web versions of the commercials the best one is for Axe that uses the Israel Kamamawin'ole version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". IZ as he was known, was a very large Hawaiian man who looked very strange playing this tiny ukulele, unfortunately he passed away in 1997 of health related problems. Another band that I was happy to find out about doing research for the set was the song "Suger Sweet" by the Icicles, not only is it a great song but I also realized that I have played them before doing their song "Snowman". I have now ordered both of their CDs, going to prove that getting a song played on a commercial can pay dividends. After the show I couldn't get the song "Do the Freddie" out of my head, it was a novelty song back in the 60s by a British band called "Freddie and the Dreamers". It reportedly did start a bit of dance craze, but the Wikipedia description of the dance itself seems pretty boring "stand in place, then in rhythm with the music first extend the left leg and left arm, then the right leg and right arm. Repeat until the song's conclusion". Apparently there was a reference to the dance in the movie "Troop Beverly Hills" that I'm intrigued to see now. TALK - Theme I'm From Barcelona - Treehouse The Legends - Lucky Star Bermuda Triangle - It Feels Good Sissy Wish - DWTS Midlake - Young Bride TALK Hot Hot Heat - 5 Times Out Of 100 (C) **Request for Laura Firefly - Unsinkable (C) The Wooden Stars - Microphone (C) Elbow Beach Surf Club - Surf Theme (C) Elbow Beach Surf Club - The Letter (C) TALK Freddy and the Dreamers - Do The Freddie Caribou - Handelschnapp (C) Bullfrog - Ya-Ya (C) Quadra - Grey Something (C) Reality Sandwich - Blue (C) TALK (commercial music set) Israel Kamamawin'ole - Somewhere Over the Rainbow/Wonderful World (Rice Krispies) link to ad Nouvelle Vague - I Melt With You (GMC) **Suggested by Garth link to ad Beck with The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize (Mitsubishi) **Suggested by Stephen P Royksopp - Remind Me (Geico) link to ad The Jam - Start (Cadillac) can be seen on this site The Salteens - Nice Day (C) (Zellers) **Sort of suggested by Derek link to ad **See Note 1 Icicles - Sugar Sweet (Motorola) link to ad TALK The Besties - Rod'n'Reel California Snow Story - Suddenly Everthing Happens Sonic Youth - The Diamond Sea Marit Larsen - Under The Surface TALK Marmoset - Sky Phenomenon **See Note 2 Note 1: I love the fact that this song has the lyric "I know you think that I'm gay", of course that part isn't used in the commercial. Note 2: This is from a compilation out of the American record label Secretly Canadian, to celebrate their 100th release they had their artists cover each other's songs. This is a cover of a song originally by Jens Lekman. (C) Denotes Canadian Content |
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