December 14, 2009 - All Rob Fetters...All The Time!

This show was our last show of the year and I guess you could say we saved the best for last! Rob Fetters was the guest and we had so much great music to play that we stayed on an extra hour. That meant over two and a half hours of Rob Fetters!

For those that don't know, Rob Fetters is an amazing talent and one of my favorite musicians! He's been a member of The Raisins, The Bears and Psychodots and has released two solo albums. For his "day job" he does commercial music. He is the third and final member of Psychodots to be interviewed on the show. Chris Arduser was first up back in April. That was a live interview and is still probably the best one John has ever done. Bob Nyswonger was next when he appeared in October. And now we complete the 'dots trifecta with Rob Fetters. Both the Nyswonger and Fetters interviews were pre-recorded and edited but John has made the unedited interviews available through the various psychodots pages.


John started the interview about 8:15 and it ran for about an hour, along with three of his solo songs. Then I came on and for the next 100 minutes or so, played many songs highlighting the songwriting, singing or playing of Mr. Fetters. Here is a list of everything that was played.


Rob Fetters - Heaven
Rob Fetters - I Like Girls
Rob Fetters - Try
The Bears - Kiss It Goodbye
Psychodots - Who's Gonna Clean Up The Mess I Made
Raisins - Dr. Robert
Psychodots - My Red Truck
Raisins - Quarters
Psychodots - Jingle Bells Of The Cossacks
Psychodots - Christmas On The Isthmus
Rob Fetters - Retrofit
Rob Fetters - Salamander
Raisins - Interspecies Love
Psychodots - Stella
The Bears - Zelda Fitzgerald
Benj Clarke & Bill Brandenburgh - He's My Best Friend
Raisins - Perfect Crime
The Bears - Nobody Knows
Psychodots - Artichoke
Psychodots - Not A Pretty Face
Rob Fetters - Age Of Miracles
Raisins - Clive
The Bears - None Of The Above
Rob Fetters - Everything's Gonna Be Alright


When I first started putting my list together I had about 65 songs that I wanted to play. I managed to get that cut down to thirty. Of those 30, we got to play 24 of them. Not bad at all. I hope that the Fetters fans that were listening enjoyed the selection and I hope that everyone else who was listening liked what they heard and may want to check out more!


The six songs that we didn't have time for were:
The Bears - Aches And Pains
The Bears - Under The Volcano
Psychodots - Help Yourself
Psychodots - Joy And Madness
Rob Fetters - Career Move
Rob Fetters - Zero


In Addition, I would have liked to have played the Raisins song Porkopolis but since it is almost eleven minutes, I decided to play three shorter songs instead of this opus. Maybe John will let me play it some day.


This was our last show of the year which means that this is also my last blog of the year. The plan right now is to come back on January 11, 2010. If all goes well. I will be in the studio for that show, which will be one long Donohue's Music Den. I hope everyone has enjoyed listening and reading. Enjoy the holidays and we'll see you next year!

December 7, 2009 - Does Humor Belong In Music?

A couple weeks ago, I got a request from Ron Cianciaruso to play some Zappa on the show. John Campbell is not a Zappa fan so I've always had to try to sneak a Zappa song in at the end of a show when he wasn't paying attention. I've been able to do that twice. But for this week, he told me we should play three Zappa songs. The Zappa request I received all came from his 1974 album Apostrophe, so I limited myself to that album.


While trying to figure out what else I wanted to play, I kept going back to "comedy music" or at least songs that will make you smile. That made it a whole lot easier to narrow things down but still difficult to pick songs. I ended up choosing 3-song "mini suites" from Zappa, Moxy Fruvous and The Rutles. In addition to that, I chose individual songs from several acts. Then, in the middle of the show, John decided to play a song by the new band Third Of Never. It wasn't a "comedy song" but it was a damn good cover of Pete Townshend's Let My Love Open The Door. Here is what we played:



Frank Zappa - Saint Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast
Frank Zappa - Father O'Blivion
Frank Zappa - Cosmik Debris
Moxy Fruvous - Kick In The Ass
Moxy Fruvous - The Greatest Man In America
Moxy Fruvous - I Love My Boss
The Rutles - Hold My Hand
The Rutles - Ouch!
The Rutles - Cheese And Onions
Third Of Never - Let My Love Open The Door
The Beat Farmers - Big Rock Candy Mountain
Guadalcanal Diary - Vista
The Dead Milkmen - Brat In The Frat
King Missile - Cheesecake Truck
Fountains Of Wayne - Laser Show


The one song that I wanted to play that didn't make it was Ducks On The Wall, from the 1974 Kinks album, A Soap Opera. When I saw Ray Davies last month, he teased the crowd by saying that he would be doing that song. Unfortunately, he didn't play it and neither did I.


From the feedback we received both during and after the show, it seemed like people enjoyed the comedy aspect of my segment. Third Of Never even posted on their facebook page that they were being played between Zappa and Guadalcanal. Cool stuff!


Next week is our last show of the year. We will be going out in style by completing the Psychodots trifecta. Rob Fetters will be the guest next week and practically the entire show will be devoted to Rob's music. After that show, we will be taking a few weeks off and won't return until January 11, 2010. Next week promises to be a great show and I'm looking forward to it.

November 16, 2009 - The Music of Ray Davies

The original plan for tonight's show was for me to go on right at 7:30pm and go until John's guest, Justin Trawick arrived. Unfortunately for John, Justin Trawick wasn't feeling well and cancelled. Because of the cancellation, John decided to play music for the first hour and then have Donohue's Music Den on at 8:30pm.


My theme for this week was the music of Ray Davies. Ray just released an interesting new album. It is an album of Kinks songs with a full choir backing. It definitely puts a new spin on the old music. I am going to see Ray Davies on Friday night at Town Hall in NYC so I figured this would be a good time to play some cool Kinks covers. Since I'm going to see Ray, I decided to pick only Ray Davies compositions, which left several very good Dave Davies songs out of the mix, but maybe I'll take care of them at a later date. Anyway, here is what was played, starting with my theme music:


Lou Luca - ONniversary Theme
Ray Davies & The Crouch End Festival Chorus - You Really Got Me
Fastball - Till The End Of The Day
Fountains Of Wayne - Better Things
Beat Farmers - 20th Century Man
Minus Five - Get Back In Line
Camper Van Beethoven - I'm Not Like Everybody Else
Steve Wynn - This Strange Effect
Thoughts - All Night Stand
Heather Duby - The Way Love Used To Be
Matthew Sweet - Big Sky
Jon Auer - Fancy
The Smithereens - The World Keeps Going Round
Damon Albarn & Ray Davies - Waterloo Sunset


Half of what I played tonight came from two Kinks Tribute albums, This Is Where I Belong and Give The People What We Want. If you are a Kinks fan, you should check these out. There is a lot of great stuff on them.


There will be no show for the next two weeks. We will be preempted for George Mason Women's Basketball. We will be back on the air on December 7th for the penultimate show of 2009. John's guest on December 7th will be Tony Gamble and then for the final show of the year on December 14th, it will be an entire show of Rob Fetters music. Enjoy your Thanksgiving and I'll be back on the 7th!

November 9, 2009 - Back To Normal

It was a long, hard, emotional week and I had no time at all to think about what to play on this week's show. Fortunately, I had enough left over from the previous week that I did not have to worry about anything. The show started at 7:30pm with my segment and we went until about 8:20pm, when the members of the band Honor By August showed up. Here is what we played tonight:



Badfinger - Baby Blue
The Thorns - Blue
Michael Carpenter - Thinking Of You
Paul Collins Beat - Rock & Roll Girl
The Spongetones - Better Luck Next Time
John Hiatt - Washable Ink
Jamie Hoover & Steve Stoeckel - Between The Lines
Beat Farmers - Road Of Ruin
The Skeletons - Trans Am
Morphine - Cure For Pain



I was thinking about going to see Drivin-n-Cryin(who are playing NYC for the 1st time in 10 years) this weekend, but at this point that is up in the air. However, I am definitely going to see Ray Davies next week, so I think that means next week's show will be a good time to play some Ray Davies songs. There have been so many great covers of Kinks songs that I don't know where to begin, but I'm sure I'll find some good stuff. Oh yeah, this week's pictures were taken on my trip to Hallstatt, Austria in 2008.



Just one more thing. I received so much love and support from all my friends last week and it was very touching. But Lou Luca, Rich Tully, John Campbell, Chuck Campbell and Adam Bramwell really went above and beyond with all of their help. Thanks to you and to everyone else! You're the best!!!

November 2, 2009 - A Heavy Heart

We were all set to go on the last Monday in October. I had a brand new song from Johnny B Irizarry that I was going to play and Johnny B had a listening party set for the broadcast. Then the show was canceled and everything was pushed back to November 2nd. Johnny B had another listening party planned for this show, but unfortunately he had to listen without me. I was not available to do this show because my mother had passed away very late the night before. I'm told John said some very nice things about me and my family. He also went ahead and played the music that I had planned for the show. He played the Lou Luca ONniversary theme, then he played these:


Continental Drifters - The Rain Song
The Thorns - I Can't Remember
Squeeze - Goodbye Girl (Rockabilly Version)
John Irizarry - Save You, Save Me
Lou Luca, John Irizarry & Wayne Marone - Photograph
Lou Luca - I Met A Girl
The Bears - Mr. Bonaparte
The Raconteurs - Old Enough
John Hiatt - Have A Little Faith In Me
Jamie Hoover & Steve Stoeckel - English Afternoon


I feel very honored to be a part of this show and to have John Campbell as a friend. He dedicated this week's show to my mother and my whole family and I am dedicating this blog to her. Sleep well Patricia Donohue, I will miss you!

October 26, 2009 - Show Postponed

Everything was all set for this week's show. John's guest was going to be Tony Gamble. I had some great music lined up including the premiere of a brand new song by Johnny B Irizarry and a very old song by Lou Luca. Johnny B had gotten all his friends to listen in and it was going to be a great show!

10 minutes before airtime, I check my email and see one from John Campbell. His car broke down again and he was being towed. The show would have to be postponed! Now I had to scramble to inform everyone that the show would not air. I got most of the people. but I'm sure I missed a few. Hopefully there won't be any problems next week and we can do then what we couldn't do now. One change for next week is that I will be on earlier. For the month of November, I will be on from 7:30-8:15pm.

(Since I don't have any pictures of John's car, I decided to use waves crashing on the Maine coast as today's picture since that image should convey how John feels about his car right now.)

October 19, 2009 - What's New???

This week's show almost didn't happen. As we know, the show starts at 7:30pm. John called me at 7:45 to tell me that he was circling the parking lot looking for a place to park and was about to give up and head home. Fortunately for all of us, he did one more lap and found a spot. But from where he was parked, he had no idea how to get to the radio station. He found his way and was on the air around 8pm.


John had forgotten to bring his usual opener (The Radio Song by Des & Nicola Coffield)so he went back in time and played the song that opened the show for most of its' first year (The Boxer by Carbon Leaf). Since he was so late, he jumped right into the Charlotte Hatherley interview, which was pretty good. Then at 9pm it was time for Donohue's Music Den!


After spotlighting Bob Nyswonger last week, and doing 60's 70's & 80's themes in the last few weeks it was time to come back to the present. So this week I decided to go with music that I had picked up in the last month or so. Most of it was brand new, but there were a couple things that were a little older, including one that went all the way back to 1980! John started us off with Lou Luca's ONniversary and then I followed with these:


D.L. Byron - Listen To The Heartbeat from the album This Day And Age
The Offbeat - She Can Make The Sun Shine from the ep To The Rescue
The Resonars - Sister Sally from That Evil Drone
Jason Falkner - Emotion Machine from All Quiet On The Noise Floor
Coconut Records - Microphone from Davy
Dreaming In Stereo - Misery Loves Companies from Dreaming In Stereo

Chris Church - Bombast, Verbatim from The Heartbreaks You Embrace
George Cunningham - The Upturned Face from Stumblingham
The Black Hollies - Run With Me Run from Softly Towards The Light
Grant-Lee Phillips - Violet from Little Moon
Jon Auer - Pop Music For The Future from the split ep Two For The Money
Cheap Star - Not My Friend from the split ep Two For The Money


I need to thank Johnny B. Irizarry for reminding me that Listen To The Heartbeat existed. It is one of his all time favorite songs and has finally been released on cd. I hadn't heard the song in at least 25 years, but as soon as I heard the song again, I was transported back to 1980 and being 14 years old again. Thanks John!

The George Cunningham track is from 2005 and I was planning on buying it back then. For whatever reason, I never did and didn't get it until a few weeks ago. Very good record! The rest of the material is from 2009 (with one from 2008) and at least half of what I chose was originally recommended to me by Bruce Brodeen from Not Lame records. If you are a power pop fan and have never checked out Not Lame, you don't know what you are missing. Check em out at www.notlame.com.


It's still too early in the week to figure out what I'll be doing next week, but I'm sure it will be interesting and most of it will be stuff that John has never heard before. I do know that I will be playing a brand new, unreleased song by John Irizarry. The first time I heard the song I knew I was going to have to play it on the show. Hopefully you'll like it as much as me. Tune in next Monday to give it a listen.

October 12, 2009 - Bob Nyswonger.....Come On Down!

This week on Independents Uncovered we went back to the same musical well that gave us our best show back in April. Back in April, the guest was Chris Arduser. This time it was his longtime bandmate Bob Nyswonger. For those that don't know who Bob is, shame on you! The fact that Bob Nyswonger isn't a household name shows one of the things that is wrong with the music industry. Bob is an outstanding bassist and a talented songwriter and I chose tonight to show as much of that as I could.

Bob has been or is still a member of The Raisins, The Graveblankets, The Bears, Psychodots, Bucket and Tickled Pink. If you are from the Cincinnati area you probably know every one of those bands. But if you aren't, you probably have never heard of any of them, except maybe The Bears. John interviewed Bob several weeks ago and the interview was the centerpiece of this week's show. During the interview these songs were played:


Tickled Pink - Alright, Already (from their soon to be released debut cd)
Bob Nyswonger - Catherine The Great
Bob Nyswonger - Interlude
Bob Nyswonger - Water Song (all from his solo debut Deposition)
Psychodots - Don't Bury Me (from the Official Bootleg live cd)
Tickled Pink - Standing 8 (also from the new Tickled Pink cd)


At 9pm, after the interview ended, Donohue's Music Den began with the ONniversary Theme. You may remember this as the song Lou Luca put together for my 1st anniversary show back in May (which John played about 5 TIMES that night). Lou did a great job taking the basic music from the Adrian Belew/Bears song ON and writing his own lyrics about the show. Great stuff! Thanks again Lou!


After the opening theme, the last hour of the show was used to showcase songs that Bob has written for all of the bands he has been in. Bob said that he had never heard a full hour of his songs on the radio before. I'm glad we were able to do this and I'm glad he was able to listen to the entire show. During my segment these songs were played:

The Raisins - A Little Discipline (from their lone studio album)
Psychodots - Sad Little Monkeys (from the 1st Psychodots cd)
Bucket - Trust (great version of the song from their most recent cd Hunch Dancer)
The Bears - We Never Close (from the latest Bears cd Eureka!)
The Bears - Caveman (from Car Caught Fire)
Bam Powell - Possum In The City (from the 2000 release Bam Powell & The Troublemakers and featuring a reunited Raisins)
Psychodots - More To Life (from Awkwardsville)
The Bears - Rabbit Manor
The Bears - Robobo's Beef (both from the 2nd Bears album Rise & Shine)
Psychodots - Copy Machine (from On The Grid)


There were so many great songs that didn't get played because we ran out of time, including Let Us Prey and The Bottom Line from The Raisins, Bed Of Nails and You Will Never Be Satisfied from Psychodots, Neighbors and Victory By Attrition from Bucket and When She Moves and Veneer from The Bears.


If you enjoyed what you heard, please support Bob Nyswoner (and Chris Arduser and Rob Fetters and Bam Powell and independent music in general). Many of the things that I played can be purchased at cdbaby.com or artist-shop.com or even itunes. If you missed the interview, David Ash will be posting it on the Psychodots Google Group as a download. Thanks a lot Dave! And thanks again Bob and have a great birthday!!


Next week John will be interviewing Charlotte Hatherley who played in Ash for many years before going solo. During my segment, I will be playing some new music from Jason Falkner, The Offbeat, Chris Church, Josh Fix, Coconut Records and a few others. It should be another good one.

October 5, 2009 - Murray Attaway and a trip back to the 60's!

Murray Attaway was the guest on this installment of Independents Uncovered. For those that don't know, Murray Attaway was the lead singer of Guadalcanal Diary. I was a big Guadalcanal Diary fan back in the late 80's and I found the interview to be very interesting. We even found out that Guadalcanal Diary may be reforming for a few shows in 2010. Who know? Maybe that will lead to something more!

However, the best thing about the interview was that Murray Attaway gave John ELEVEN unreleased songs to play! In the mid-90's he recorded a solo album for Geffen Records. The album has never been released and Geffen owns the masters so there is a good chance it will never see the light of day. This could have been the only chance to hear these songs, and I was very impressed with them. They were all quite good! When I get the song listing from John, I will post it here!


For my section of the show, I had originally planned to continue the Murray Attaway theme by playing songs off his first solo album as well as some lesser known Guadalcanal Diary songs. However, since all of my songs from the previous week had gone unused, John decided to use those instead. That meant that instead of Guadalcanal Diary/Murray Attaway songs from the 80's & 90's we were going to go all the way back to the 60's. Several weeks ago I had done garage rock from the 80's. I had followed that up with power pop from the 70's, so it only seemed logical to continue the trip in the "way back machine" and go for garage rock from the 60's. The majority of songs that I chose came from the many different "Nuggets" compilations from Rhino records. Here is what we played:


The Outsiders - Time Won't Let Me
The Syndicate Of Sound - Little Girl
The Blues Magoos - (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet
Status Quo - Pictures Of Matchstick Men
The Move - I Can Hear The Grass Grow
Marmalade - I See The Rain
Davy Jones & The Lower Third - You've Got A Habit Of leaving
Lyme & Cybelle - Follow Me
The Beau Brummels - Just A Little
The Merry-Go-Round - Live
Love - Alone Again Or
Paul Revere & The Raiders - Just Like Me
The Mothers Of Invention - Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance

There were an additional four songs that I had tried to play, but for whatever reason, they never made it. Those four were:


The Knickerbockers - Lies
The Music Machine - Talk Talk
The Cyrkle - Red Rubber Ball
The Grass Roots - Let's Live For Today


John's guest next week will be Bob Nyswonger. Bad Bob is a talented songwriter and an amazing musician. He is the bassist for many of my favorite bands, including The Raisins, The Bears, The Graveblankets, Psychodots, Bucket and Tickled Pink! I will be playing several Nyswonger penned tunes on next week's show (and maybe even some he didn't write). I'm definitely looking forward to this interview and who knows? Maybe we'll get an extra treat and get a track or two from the soon to be released Tickled Pink record. See you next week!

September 28, 2009 - BUMPED!

If anyone tuned in to hear Donohue's Music Den tonight and was wondering what happened, you're not alone! John was late getting to the studio and started the show 45 minutes late. He started his interview right away and the interview was still going at 10pm when the next dj came in for their show. John was done and that meant that there was NO TIME for me!

I had planned to play some classic 60's garage rock. I guess that will have to wait for a future show. Hopefully John will be able to manage his time better in future weeks. Next week's guest will be Murray Attaway, former leader of Guadalcanal Diary. Then on October 12th, John will be interviewing legendary bassist Bob Nyswonger. Bob has played in The Bears, Psychodots, Bucket, Tickled Pink, The Raisins and many others. I'm definitely looking forward to these two interviews. Hopefully I'll actually get on the air next week! See ya then!

September 21, 2009 - Dennis Diken Interview plus The Baseball Project et al

Monday night's show turned out to be a pretty good one. John's guest for the evening was Dennis Diken. As most of you should know, Dennis is the drummer in The Smithereens. He is also a noted rock historian and seems to be a really great guy! Next week he will be releasing his first solo album. The album is called Late Music and it is credited to Dennis Diken with Bell Sound. The interview was quite good and John played five songs off his new record. Here is what he played:


Dennis Diken with Bell Sound - The Sun's Gonna Shine In The Morning
Dennis Diken with Bell Sound - Standing In That Line
Dennis Diken with Bell Sound - Tell All The Fools
Dennis Diken with Bell Sound - Let Me Fall Into Your Arms
Dennis Diken with Bell Sound - I've Been Away (which John played twice)


This week's theme for Donohue's Music Den was The Baseball Project and related bands. The Baseball Project consists of Steve Wynn, Scott McCaughey, Peter Buck and Linda Pitmon. They have one cd of baseball themed music out called Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails and have just recorded the follow-up which will be released early next year. The Baseball Project, The Minus 5 and The Steve Wynn IV are currently out on the road (with all four members being the same in each band). They are playing The Bowery Ballroom in NYC on Wednesday night and are at Iota's In Arlington Va. on Friday night.


I was planning on going to the NYC show and was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, I blew out my knee on the softball field over the weekend and will be unable to stand all night at the Bowery. I'm sure it will be a great show and I'm very upset that I'm missing it. Hopefully John will be able to check them out at Iota's on Friday.


To celebrate the music of these four talented musicians, I sent John music from The Baseball Project, The Minus 5, The Young Fresh Fellows, The Dream Syndicate and Steve Wynn (with and without The Miracle Three). I also could have sent Gutterball, Danny & Dusty, The Suspects, Tuatara, REM and many others, but I had to cut it somewhere. By the end of the evening we had played 12 songs. Here they are:



The Minus 5 - Shut Them Out
Steve Wynn - Why
The Baseball Project - The Yankee Flipper
The Baseball Project - The Ballad Of Mike Keckich And Fritz Peterson
Young Fresh Fellows - Go Pilots Go
The Minus 5 - Popsycle Shoppe
The Dream Syndicate - Let It Rain
The Baseball Project - The Death Of Big Ed Delahanty
Steve Wynn - That's Why I Wear Black
The Minus 5 - Ghost Tarts Of Stockholm
Steve Wynn and The Miracle 3 - California Style
The Baseball Project - Sometimes I Dream Of Willie Mays


There were a couple other songs I wanted to play (particularly some more Young Fresh Fellows) but John had some trouble with the music I send and didn't get all of it. On next week's show John will be spotlighting the Detroit Power Pop scene. Should be a good show. Since I am unable to get to most of my music (because of my injury) I will most likely revisit a theme that I have used before. Which one will it be?? Hmmm.....tune in to find out!