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!

September 14, 2009 - Bobby Guida Tribute and 70's Power Pop

I got a little sidetracked this week and forgot that I had never written this thing. So here goes, better late than never....

For this week's show, I decided to go back to the 70's. In the early 90's Rhino Records released a 9-cd series called DIY. There were discs covering UK Punk, UK Pop, American Power Pop and the New York, Boston and Los Angeles music scenes from the mid-70's to the early 80's. These discs have been out of print for many years, but if you can find them, check them out.


In addition to these, we also paid tribute to Bobby Guida, who passed away back in March. There was a memorial concert for him on Sunday in Brooklyn and John Campbell decided that we should also do something to honor him. His good friend (and frequent Independents Uncovered visitor) Lou Luca called in to tell us a little about Bobby and we played several songs from the album Let's Go To Huntin': The Return Of The Otis Brothers. The Otis Brothers was the name of the band that he had with Pat Conte and they specialized in recording old blues songs, and they did it very well. The playlist for Monday was as follows:


The Otis Brothers - Forty-Four
The Otis Brothers - Relax Your Mind
The Otis Brothers - Ezekial's Wheel
The Otis Brothers - Bald Headed



Holly And The Italians - Tell That Girl To Shut Up
Bram Tchaikovsky - Girl Of My Dreams
The Nerves - Hanging On The Telephone
Piper - Can't Wait
The Cars - You're All I Got Tonight (demo)
Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love?
The Skids - Into The Valley
The Jags - Back Of My Hand (I've Got Your Number)


Next Wednesday I'm off to the Bowery Ballroom to see The Steve Wynn IV, The Minus 5 and The Baseball Project (in this instance all three bands have the same 4 members). It should be a very good show and John may be going to see them next Friday in Virginia. Since we may both be seeing them, I think it is a good week to play music from the collective that includes Steve Wynn, Scott McCaughey, Peter Buck and Linda Pitmon. In addition, John will be interviewing Dennis Diken, the Smithereens drummer(who I saw play with The Minus 5 several years ago) and will be playing songs from "Late Music" the brand new album by Dennis Diken With Bell Sound. It should be a great show. Hopefully you can tune in!

August 31, 2009 - Brought To You By The Letter F!

Back in January, for the first show of the year, I chose artists that begin with the letter A. This week I chose to continue that with the Letter F! What happened to letters B-E? I'll probably get around to them at some point, but this time I decided to go with F.


Last week I was having major computer problems and was not able to listen to the show. Those problems seem to be solved, but last night there were phone problems. At first I couldn't dial in to the station. The reason for that was because John had received a call earlier in the evening and had forgotten to hang up when it was over. Once he hung up the phone I was able to call in, but we had a lousy connection. It sounded like I was speaking from underneath a waterfall. Oh well, it seems to be something different every week.


John's guest was Ed Neenan from E Joseph and the Phantom Hearts. He brought his guitar into the studio and played several songs live in the studio. He sounded great! I definitely want to hear more of his music. John accompanied him (badly) on shaker. I think John was listening to a different song while "shaking". Because Ed was so great to listen to and because of the phone problems, I didn't get on the air until 9:45pm. John felt like running late, since it is most likely the last week he'll be able to go past 10pm, so we didn't say goodnight until 11pm. That allowed us to play sixteen of the eighteen songs that I had chosen for the show. Here is what was played:


Rob Fetters - I Don't Fit
Firewater - The Song That Saved My Life
Fossil - Moon
The Figgs - The Trench
Frisbie - Lather
Fury In The Slaughterhouse - Dead Before I Was Born
Foxboro Hot Tubs - Ruby Room
Jennifer Foster - Charlie
The Fame - Get On The Beat
Francine - Set Of Dune
Mike Ford - Late Of October
Fatima Mansions - The Loyaliser
The Forty-Fives - Backstage At Juanita's
Jason Falkner - I Live
Four Eyes - Take It
The Feelies - The Final Word


John eventually found the "Donohue Theme" and played it between Fetters and Firewater. The only songs that I had chosen that didn't get played were What's The Point by Josh Fix and Cold Night by Folk Implosion. Without John realizing it, I managed to sneak in some "non-indie" music with The Foxboro Hot Tubs. For those of you that don't know who they are, they are actually Green Day using a garage rock alter-ego they created last year. I also heard some nice, positive feedback from Kevin Tapee, Lou Luca and Evil Demented Bunny. I'm glad they liked what I was playing.


Next Monday is Labor Day so there will be no show. We will be back on the air on September 14th. School will be in full swing by then, which means Mark Zito will probably be back on the air at 10pm, which means the show will not be running late anymore. I will scale back on the number of songs I send each week and hopefully John will give me more than 10 minutes each week. I guess we'll have to wait and see how everything works out. See you on the 14th!