August 13, 2012 - Is There Anybody Out There Listening?

Last week John made a mention that I had yet to play any Bears or Psychodots (two of my favorite bands) yet this year. I told him I would make sure that I remedied that. Not only did I play Bears and Psychodots, but I also played some Raisins instead. I completed the trifecta!

The Luca Boys are still working on their new album. One of the songs that will be on their is a song called Josephine, originally written and recorded by Lou Luca in the 80's. Since that was from the 80's I decided to choose a few other songs from the 80's. Throw all those together and add a few other great songs andyou've got my playlist for the week, except for one last thing.

I had two songs that I wanted to play together. Actually they were the same song, done by different artists. The song is You Remind me and it was written by Dave Matheson and released on his post-Moxy Fruvous eponymous solo album. Ten years later, Marti Jones and Don Dixon covered the song. I was going to play them together, but John decided he wanted to play Don & Marti's version. So he played that version right before my segment started. Including that song, here is what was played:

Marti Jones & Don Dixon - You Remind Me Lou Luca - Josephine True Believers - Tell Her D.L. Byron - Listen To The Heartbeat The Raisins - A Little Discipline David Matheson - You Remind Me Hindu Rodeo - Pledge Bryan Shumate - Close My Eyes (To See) The Van Delecki's - A Photograph Psychodots - Help Yourself The Plimsouls - Oldest Story In The World House Of Freaks - Remember Me Well The Bears - Success

I had wanted to play the House Of Freaks song When The Hammer Came Down, but John played Remember Me Well instead. Thinking about it, that would have been the perfect way to end the show, but instead we went out with the Bears rocker Success instead. Kinda like mellowing you out to go home, then jacking you back up right before you leave.

We're getting near the end. Only two shows left before our next hiatus. John will be on vacation next week so there will be no show. That means we only have August 27th and September 3rd (Labor Day) as our final two shows. I hope someone will tune in before the end.

August 6, 2012 -Things that fell through the cracks!

John started doing this show in March of 2008. I joined him in May of 2008. What started out as 3 songs a week quickly morphed into much more. Now we split the show between his choices and mine. We ended the original version of the show back in February of 2011 with plans to start a podcast. That never happened, but John decided to bring the show back for the summer of 2012. We started right after Memorial Day and plan to end on Labor Day. John is talking about bringing it back in the winter for a quick month of shows around the holidays. We'll see if that works.

Anyway, when I started putting music together for this week, I decided to concentrate on things that came out after the original show ended but before the current show began. That gave me about a year and a half of music to work with. For the most part, I stuck to that.

The Soundtrack Of Our Lives released their 6th studio album in June and announced that it would be their final album. This band is my favorite band of the that 15 years and I'm very sorry to hear that they are splitting up. I hope that whatever comes next for them will be as good as what has come before. I plan to play several songs from this record before we end our summer run.

About five years ago, Mike Keneally and Andy Partridge started talking about making an album together. This album finally came out last month. I've been an Andy Partridge fan since I discovered the band when I was 15 years old. I've been a Mike Keneally fan since I saw him playing with Frank Zappa back in 1988. When I heard about the project, I was very excited and was ecstatic when I heard that it was finally being released. The album has twelve tracks, eight of which were co-written by Keneally and Partridge. Unfortunately, Andy chose not to take part in the recording of the album. I think the album is great and would highly recommend it to everyone, but I still wish I could have heard their two voices together. Ok, enough of me rambling. Here's what I played on the show this week:

The Smithereens - Nobody Lives Forever from 2011 The Soundtrack Of Our Lives - Reality Show from Throw It To The Universe Fountains Of Wayne - Song Of The Passaic a bonus track from Sky Full Of Holes Mike Keneally - Your House from Wing Beat Fantastic Jamie & Steve - Can We Start Again, Girl from The Next Big Thing Marti Jones & Don Dixon - Feels Like 1972 from Living Stereo Alex Chilton - If You Would Marry Me Babe from Free Again: The 1970 Sessions Sloan - It's Plain To See from The Double Cross Cake - Sick Of You from Showroom Of Compassion The Jayhawks - She Walks In So Many Ways from Mockingbird Time Mike Keneally - Wing Beat Fantastic from Wing Beat Fantastic Mars Classroom - Man, Wine, Power! from The New Theory Of Everything Jamie & Steve - Seaside Sparrow from The Next Big Thing Sloan - Beverly Terrace from The Double Cross Cake - War Pigs from B-Sides And Rarities

Everything I played was released in 2011 or 2012 except War Pigs. That is something I had on my computer for at least a couple years but hadn't listened to. I finally listened to it last week and decided that it NEEDED to end the show, so it did. I"m already thinking about next week's show. I haven't picked all the music yet, but I do know that we will be getting in the time machine for at least part of the show. See you next week........

July 30, 2012 - What would we do without the Ladies?

Another Monday Night, Another Independents Uncovered and Another Donohue's Music Den! This week John's guest was Alex Wong. John had interviewed Alex a couple years ago, along with Amber Rubarth as The Paper Raincoat. This time, he concentrated on Alex's other work. It was a good interview but seemed a little choppy and I'm sure there was a lot cut for time.

My segment came up at 9pm and this time all my songs had a female name in the title. What would music be without Girl Songs, right? It's always a good fallback when I need one. To change things up a little bit, John went right into the first song after the BB's Donohue Show Theme, rather than bringing me on and talking first. This way we had something to talk about, for a change. We also had another work in progress from the Luca Boys. I can't wait till their album comes out!

So, what did I play? Here is what I played: The Hollies - Dear Eloise Something Happens - Esmerelda Brian Charles - Cinny Monkeeman - Crazy Ann The Luca Boys - Dorothy (song cut at 43 seconds) Lou Luca - Dorothy Rick Altizer - Amy And Her Baggage Foo Fighters - Dear Rosemary All Day Sucker - Camila Rose Ruth Ruth - Turning To Eva dada - Mary Sunshine Rain The Beach Boys - Caroline No Morphine - Sheila The Graveblankets - Claudia Robyn Hitchcock - Sally Was A Legend Alejandro Escovedo - Rosalie

For the 2nd week in a row, the song from The Luca Boys didn't download properly and we didn't get to hear the whole thing. Last week we hear most of the song, but last night we only heard 43 seconds of Dorothy before it stopped. Fortunately, we had an older version of the song(MUCH older) that we were able to play. The version we played was done in the 80's and sounded like it, but there's nothing wrong with the 80's!

As usual, I have no idea what I will be playing next week. I do know that I will be playing at least one song from Wing Beat Fantastic, the brand new album from Mike Keneally. On this album, Keneally collaborated with XTC's Andy Partridge. They co-wrote eight songs together. Unfortunately, Partridge chose not to participate in the recording of the album, but it still sounds great! I hope you tune in to hear it.

July 23, 2012 - New Music

We were supposed to have a show last week but John wasn't feeling well and cancelled the show. That pushed back what I had planned for last week until this week. We've been doing this for over a month, and I had not played much in terms of new releases. So this week I decided to play nothing but songs released in 2012.

John had no guest scheduled for the first hour of the show, so instead he played music and rambled on for an hour like only John Campbell could. Then at 9pm he brougth me on. I had promised Lou Luca that I would play a new song that he has been working on, called Happy. John, however, didn't have the song downloaded before the show. It took him about 20 minutes to get everything working, but he finally did play the song, albeit and abbreviated version of the song. I think it's a great song and I hope to play more "works in progress" from the upcoming Luca Boys release in the coming week.

So, what exactly did I play? Here is the list. Drivin' N' Cryin' - REM Onward, Soldiers - Monsters The Soundtrack Of Our Lives - Where's The Rock Alejandro Escovedo - Common Mistake Jack White - I'm Shakin' The dB's - I Didn't Mean To Say That Rhett Miller - Love Grows The Luca Boys - Happy Flying Colors - Love Is What I'm Waiting For Jellyfish - Calling Sarah (Live) Guided By Voices - Blue Babbleships Bay Squackett - Divided Self

What have I got in mind for next week's show? I think I'll go back to one of the old stand-bys. I'll do an entire hour of songs with a girl's name in the title. How does that sound? Hope you'll listen next week......oh who am I kidding? No one is reading this blog. I'm doing this strictly as a record of what I've been playing. Maybe someone will stumble on it some day and check out some of the songs. Anyway, thanks for stopping in!

July 9, 2012 - John interviews Kurt Reil, etc.

Now that I'm actually updating my blog again, I'm going to try to update it each week in a timely manner. We'll see if that actually happens, or if I get lazy again!

This week's show included John's interview with Kurt Reil of the Grip Weeds. During the interview he played three songs from the brand new live Grip Weeds cd, Speed Of Live. The songs that he played were Salad Days, The Law and Close To The Sun. I had a couple Grip Weeds songs lined up to play, but it was decided to go in a different direction.

When I was putting the music together for this show (which was actually about three weeks ago), I wasn't sure if I liked my selections. I thought I could have done better. Then after not thinking about these songs for almost three weeks, I went into the show thinking the same thing. Once the show started, I liked my choices more, but John told me I picked some great stuff this week. Does the fact that John Campbell liked my selections mean that I was correct in my original thinking? Maybe! Anyway, here are the songs that we ended up playing:

The Rooks - Down The Doughboys - Nobody's Girl Guided By Voices - Roll Of The Dice, Kick In The Head The Bongos - The Bulrushes The Rooks - Do You Have God? Richard X. Heyman - Branded In The Sky The Wyld Olde Souls - Give It To You Butterfly Jones - Wonder Throwback Suburbia - Setting Sun The Oohs - Saturday Morning Dream Possum Dixon - Executive Slacks Black Hllies - Paisley Pattern Ground

Originally, the Wyld Olde Souls song was supposed to be I Talk To The Wind (the King Crimson cover), but John misplaced that one so we played Give It To You Instead. I also suggested to him THREE TIMES that we playe Mr. Sad from the band True Love, but that never happened either. Maybe later in the summer these will see the light of day.

We do have a show next week. I know, it seems like we haven't been on two weeks in a row. We've only had 3 legitimate shows in our first 6 weeks back. But next week we will be here and we should be here for the rest of the summer. To change it up a little bit, I'm thinking of playing nothing but new stuff. Tune in next Monday to see if I follow through on that. Hope to see you then!

June 25, 2012 - NO SHOW TONIGHT!

We were all set to do tonight's show. John had an interview with Kurt Reil. I had some good tunes picked out to play. John got to the studio and the board was not working. I guess some things never change. So instead of doing the show, John went home in a rather unpleasant mood. We were both looking forward to the show and we were going to have many Grip Weeds fans tuning in. Next Monday, John will be in New Jersey and I will be on my way back from Ohio (where I will be seeing PSYCHODOTS for the first time since 1994), so there will be no show on July 2nd. Our next show will be July 9th and we hope to air our planned show from tonight on that day. Enjoy your July 4th Holiday!

June 18, 2012 - Cover To Cover

Tonight's show took place on Paul McCartney's birthday as well as John Campbell's birthday. One of them turned 70 and the other one turned 43. A couple years ago we did a show on my birthday and now John gets his due. As a special treat, Paul Weller recorded a version of The Beatles Birthday and made it available for purchase for just that one day. I told John that he should be honored to have Paul Weller do that for his 70th birthday. Then John reminded me that it was that OTHER GUY who turned 70. Oops! My bad. Either way, it was kinda cool to be able to play this song on the day of its release.

I had a couple songs that I wanted to play and they turned out to be cover songs. To make it easier on myself, I decided to play nothing but cover songs. It wasn't as easy as you might think. I started out with about 90 songs. I whittled that down to 50, and then took it down to 20. Of those 20, we played 16 of them. We got that many in because we ran over about half an hour. Here is a list of what we played, with the artist and song, along with the original artist in parentheses:

Paul Weller - Birthday (The Beatles) The Continental Drifters - I Can't Let Go (The Hollies) Blood Sugar - Manic Depression (Jimi Hendrix Experience) Def Leppard - Rock On (David Essex) Eddie Money - When I Come Around (Green Day) Styx - Find The Cost Of Freedom (Crosby, Stills & Nash) Whip - White Wedding (Billy Idol) The Wallflowers - Lawyers, Guns & Money (Warren Zevon) Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs - Second Hand News (Fleetwood Mac) Neal Morse, Mike Portnoy & Randy George - Lido Shuffle (Boz Scaggs) Juliana Hatfield & Tanya Donnelly - Josie & The Pussycats (Josie & The Pussycats) The Knack - I Knew The Bride (When She Used To Rock & Roll) (Dave Edmunds/Rockpile) Damone - Just What I Needed (The Cars) Pat DiNizio - For No One (The Beatles) Michael Carpenter & The Cuban Heels - Nature's Way (Spirit) Johnette Napolitano - Hurting Each Other (The Carpenters)

Next week John will be interviewing Kurt Reil from The Grip Weeds. I'm sure I'll come up with a few things that are directly related to Kurt and some other stuff that just sounds good. Hope you can tune in!

June 11, 2012 - Our First New Show of the Summer that COUNTS!

After last week's fiasco, things could only get better, right? John made sure to avoid the same problems by putting everything he was going to use onto cd's. That included his interview with Lori Diamond and Fred Abatelli and all the music that I sent him for the week.

I was told the show went well. We were back to our familiar roles. John being a complete idiot and me having no tolerance for him. Isn't that what good radio's all about? The music that I played was the same basic stuff that I had planned for the previous week. Here's what we played.

dada - Dorina The Red Button - Running Away The Luca Boys - Sunset Island Music Flying Colors - Kayla The Atlantics - Lonelyhearts Pousette-Dart Band - Amnesia Nancy Sinatra - Run For Your Life Frank Ciampi - Little Girl The Sugarplastic - Radio Jejune The Deadbeat Poets - The Truth About Flying Saucers

I was very happy to be able to play a new song from The Luca Boys and can't wait until they have more for me to play. After that, it was a hodgepodge collection of new and old, going all the way back to the "interesting" Beatles cover from Nancy Sinatra.

Next week John's interview will be Doug Yowell and I will be playing something, but I have no idea what that will be. Things are starting to feel normal again so hopefully next week will be good too.

June 4, 2012 - False Start!

Welcome Back (if anyone is actually reading)! It's been 15 months since John and I have done a show and yes, we did actually miss it. A lot has happened in those 15 months, but most importantly, John decided that we should resurrect the show for the summer of 2012. After a couple half-hearted threats, I agreed to continue the show with him and we decided that June 4th would be the 1st show. John went to the studio in May and was excited about the brand new board and the other "upgrades" that had taken place in the previous 15 months. June 4th arrived and we were ready to begin again.......... Unfortunately, the first show was a complete trainwreck. John couldn't get anything to work. He could only play music from cd's. His interview was unable to be played and none of the music that I selected was able to be played. I thought about letting him suffer, but I decided to call in and share in his misery. We played off each other as good (or bad) as ever. John played some music, but it wasn't anything that I picked. I don't even remember what was played. I'm pretty sure there was some Foo Fighters and some Chris Richards but other than that, I've tried to block it out. It's really too bad that we had a fairly large audience for our first show back and they didn't get to hear what we are all about. Oh well. With a start this bad, we can only go up, right? Please tell me we can only go up! See you next week!