Stuck In Thee Garage #206: December 29, 2017

Here we are, with a new year upon us, so it's time to reflect upon what happened in the last 12 months. Fortunately, Stuck In Thee Garage is about rock music, so I don't need to dredge up the massive shite sandwich that 2017 brought us. Instead, I played two hours of my favorite indie rock. It was such a good year for music that I'll have two more hours of 2017 goodness for you next week.

Well, at least there's no reason for paranoia or anything, right?

The hacktastic playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
The Afghan Whigs - Demon in Profile/In Spades
The New Pornographers - High Ticket Attractions/Whiteout Conditions
Ron Gallo - Kill the Medicine Man/Heavy Meta
Cloud Nothings - Enter Entirely/Life Without Sound
Japandroids - North East South West/Near to the Wild Heart of Life
Snowball II - CR-VUC/Flashes of Quincy
Melkbelly - Off the Lot/Nothing Valley
Ty Segall - Break a Guitar/Ty Segall
Ride - Charm Assault/Weather Diaries
Slowdive - Star Roving/Slowdive
Jay Som - 1 Billion Dogs/Everybody Works
Bash & Pop - Anything Could Happen/Anything Could Happen
Spiral Stairs - Dance (Cry Wolf)/Doris and the Daggers
Jeff Rosenstock - Dramamine/Single
Spoon - Can I Sit Next to You/Hot Thoughts
The Besnard Lakes - Laura Lee/The Besnard Lakes Are the Divine Wind EP
Los Campesinos! - I Broke Up in Amarante/Sick Scenes

Hour 2
Diet Cig - Tummy Ache/Swear I'm Good at This
The Courtneys - Silver Velvet/The Courtneys II
Imaginary People - Mr. Hesitance/October Alice
Pile - Texas/A Hairshirt of Purpose
Top Down - The Tunnel/Rough Roads
The Feelies - Gone, Gone, Gone/In Between
At the Drive-In - Incurably Innocent/inter-alia
Christian Fitness - Bruce Hated Puppies/Slap Bass Hunks
Mastodon - Show Yourself/Emperor of Sand
Filthy Friends - Any Kind of Crowd/Invitation
Froth - Passing Thing/Outside (briefly)
Sinai Vessel - Ramekin/Brokenlegged
Boss Hog - Ground Control/Brood X
Thurston Moore - Smoke of Dreams/Rock 'N Roll Consciousness
Washer - Tooth & Fist/All Aboard

Completely Conspicuous 483: Turnkey End-to-End Best-of List Solution

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling about our favorite albums of 2017. Listen to the episode below or download directly.


Show notes:
- Recorded at Clicky Clicky world HQ
- JB's #10
- Tommy Stinson can still bring it
- JK's #10
- A welcome return after 17 years
- JB's #9
- A turnkey post-shoegaze solution
- JK's #9
- Double LP return for the great Ted Leo
- JB's #8
- A different sound for She Sir
- JK's #8
- Strong effort marred by bizarre on-stage incident
- When artists you like do bad things
- JB's #7
- Breitling digs on the ambient music
- JK's #7
- Mixing hooks in with blistering rockers
- JB's #6
- Juana Molina continues to explore
- JK's #6
- Strong career progression from consistently interesting artist
- JB's #5
- Former schoolteacher turned electronic artist
- JK's #5
- Double album recorded while the artist was dying
- Each song was about a person in his life
- To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Stuck In Thee Garage #205: December 22, 2017

Sure, the Christmas season can get to be a bit much, what with the constant annoying commercials and the parking lot traffic and the deadline pressure. But this week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I celebrated the season with two hours of great holiday rock jams.

Trading playlists:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Lilith - Merry Simsmas/A Very Allston Christmas, Vol. 3
Birdwatching - 2,000 Miles/A Very Allston Christmas, Vol. 3
Jake & Derek of Fucko - Father Christmas/A Very Allston Christmas, Vol. 3
Ween - Roses Are Free/Chocolate & Cheese
The Flaming Lips - Christmas at the Zoo/Clouds Taste Metallic
Julian Casablancas - I Wish It Was Christmas Today/Phrazes for the Young
The Dollyrots - Last Christmas/Single
Kristin Hersh - Christmas Underground/Wyatt at the Coyote Palace
The Hives and Cyndi Lauper - A Christmas Duel/Single
Future of the Left - The Real Meaning of Christmas/How to Stop Your Brain in an Accident
Run the Jewels - A Christmas Fucking Miracle/Run the Jewels
Run DMC - Christmas in Hollis/Tougher Than Leather
The White Stripes - Candy Cane Children/Merry Christmas from the White Stripes
The dBs - Christmas Time/Christmas Time Again
R.E.M. - Merry Xmas Everybody/Single
The Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)/Brain Drain
Pearl Jam - Santa God/2007 Christmas Single
Jeff Richardson & Steven Drozd - Do They Know It's Christmas?/Single

Hour 2
James Brown - It's Christmas Time (Part 1)/Single
The Jackson 5 - Santa Claus is Comin' to Town/Jackson 5 Christmas Album
Donny Hathaway - This Christmas/Single
Bob & Doug McKenzie - Twelve Days of Christmas/Great White North
Elves Presley & His Buddies Holly - Sketti 'N Meatballs Bounce/A Very Allston Christmas, Vol. 3
Dirty Sidewalks - It's Xmas (And Everyone is Miserable)/Single
The Kinks - Holiday/Muswell Hillbillies
Papas Fritas - Holiday/Pop Has Freed Us
The Pink Mountaintops - Holiday/Outside Love
Hard Left - Holiday/We Are Hard Left
Broken Social Scene - Handjobs for the Holidays/Broken Social Scene
Pixies - The Holiday Song/Come On Pilgrim
The Hush Now - On Holiday/Single
The Beach Boys - Little Saint Nick/The Beach Boys Christmas Album
Neko Case - Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis/New Coat of Paint (Songs of Tom Waits)
Weezer - Holiday/Weezer
Lubec - Holiday Traffic/Wilderness Days
My Morning Jacket - One Big Holiday/It Still Moves

 

Completely Conspicuous 482: Runnin' Down a Dream

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling about the year in indie rock. Listen to the episode below or download directly.


Show notes:
- Recorded at Clicky Clicky world HQ
- Eighth annual year in review
- Rock isn't part of the top 40 conversation anymore
- Apple is going to stop selling downloads and iPods
- Music as a service
- Does higher quality audio really matter?
- People who died
- Pat DiNizio recently passed; the Smithereens had a fine career
- Other notable deaths: Petty, Downie, Cornell, Berry, Domino, Allman, Hart
- The Year of Punishing Bad Behavior
- Albums that didn't make our top 10 lists
- Breitling: The War on Drugs recalls mid-80s classic rock
- Also dug St. Vincent, Lali Puna, Wet Trident, Lubec, Charly Bliss
- Kumar: War on Drugs, LCD Soundsystem, Wolf Parade, Protomartyr, Ron Gallo
- Lots of music to like this year
- To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Stuck In Thee Garage #204: December 15, 2017

As we get ready to say goodbye to 2017, I spent hour 2 of this week's installment of Stuck In Thee Garage playing music from a decade ago. It's kind of amazing when you think about how much has changed, and what's about to change, since then. I'm pretty certain that nobody back then, including him, would have predicted who our president would be now. Strange days, indeed. Well, don't stop believing, I guess.

The hotly debated playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Ron Gallo - Young Lady, You're Scaring Me/Heavy Meta
Big Bill - Trick Everybody/Stand By Your Bill
Savak - Sick of War/Cut-Ups
Chad VanGaalen - Mind Hijacker's Curse/Light Information
Makthaverskan - Vienna/III
LCD Soundsystem - tonite/American Dream
Palehound - Silver Toaster/A Place I'll Always Go
William Patrick Corgan - Processional/Ogilala
Wolf Parade - Am I An Alien Here/Cry Cry Cry
Gold Class - Rose Blind/Drum
Dead Stars - Erase Me/Perfect Patterns
Living Colour - Glass Teeth/Shade
White Reaper - Daisies/The World's Best American Band
B Boys - Walking/Dada
Girlpool - Corner Store/Powerplant
Two Inch Astronaut - Play to No One/Can You Please Not Help
Milked - White Punks/Death on Mars

Hour 2: 2007
The Good, the Bad & the Queen - Kingdom of Doom/The Good, the Bad & the Queen
Bloc Party - The Prayer/A Weekend in the City
Kaiser Chiefs - Everything is Average Nowadays/Yours Truly, Angry Mob
Arctic Monkeys - Balaclava/Favourite Worst Nightmare
Art Brut - Direct Hit/It's a Bit Complicated
Marnie Stern - Every Single Line Means Something/In Advance of the Broken Arm
The Stooges - Idea of Fun/The Weirdness
El-P - Run the Numbers/I'll Sleep When You're Dead
Tim Armstrong - Inner City Violence/A Poet's Life
Spoon - Don't You Evah/Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Andrew Bird - Fiery Crash/Armchair Apocrypha
Okkervil River - A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene/The Stage Names
The New Pornographers - Myriad Harbour/Challengers
The Fiery Furnaces - Navy Nurse/Widow City
LCD Soundsystem - Time to Get Away/Sound of Silver

Completely Conspicuous 481: Dig for Fire (Solo Beatles-Living Colour, Part 1)

This week, it's part 1 of my discussion with Brian Salvatore about musical blindspots with Brian listening to Living Colour while I dig into early solo Beatles records. Listen to the episode below or download directly.
 

Show notes:
- Brian listened to Vivid, Jay listened to John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
- Adventures in Skype
- Jay: Wasn't familiar with much of this album
- Very raw, exposed album for Lennon
- Lennon didn't release many albums before he died
- Yoko plays "the wind"
- Embarrassment of riches after Beatles broke up
- The Living Colour/In Living Color conundrum
- Brian: Not a misplaced note on this album
- Impressed with the political content
- Jay: Saw videos on MTV and taped a concert off the radio back in '88
- Vivid was out for over a year before "Cult of Personality" hit big
- Living Colour confounded expectations
- Mick Jagger helped get them a record deal
- Next: Jay listens to McCartney's Ram and Brian checks out LC's Time's Up

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Stuck In Thee Garage #203: December 8, 2017

'Tis the season to think about getting gifts for your loved ones. Today on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about gifts in hour 2. There was much rocking and/or rejoicing to be had. Tell a friend!

The playlist in a box:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
L7 - Dispatch from Mar-A-Lago/Dispatch from Mar-A-Lago
No Age - Soft Collar Fad/Snares Like a Haircut
Martha - Fix My Brain/Winter Fuel
Buffalo Tom - All Be Gone/Quiet and Peace
The Hold Steady - A Snake in the Shower/Entitlement Crew
Ted Leo - Can't Go Back/The Hanged Man
OCS - The Chopping Block/Memory of a Cut Off Head
U2 - American Soul/Songs of Experience
LCD Soundsystem - i used to/American Dream
St. Vincent - Sugarboy/Masseduction
Quicksand - Fire This Time/Interiors
Big Heet - Failure at Work/On a Wire
Guided By Voices - Boy W/How Do You Spell Heaven?
Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile - Let It Go/Lotta Sea Lice
A Giant Dog - Get Away/Toy
EMA - Blood and Chalk/Exile in the Outer Ring

Hour 2: Gifts
Bullet Lavolta - The Gift/The Gift
Gang of Four/Return the Gift/Entertainment
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Gimme the Wire/The Brutalist Bricks
Black Flag - Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie/Damaged
Helmet - Give It/Meantime
Queens of the Stone Age - First It Giveth/Songs for the Deaf
The Tragically Hip - Gift Shop/Trouble at the Henhouse
The Men - Get What You Give/Tomorrow's Hits
Spinal Tap - Gimme Some Money/Back from the Dead
Gordon Downie - The Never-Ending Present/Coke Machine Glow
Magnolia Electric Co. - Give Something Else Away Every Day/What Comes After the Blues
Calexico - Gift X-Change/Aerocalexico
Sloan - Gimme That/Action Pact
The Cars - Gimme Some Slack/Panorama
The Kinks - Give the People What They Want/Give the People What They Want
David Bowie - Sound and Vision/Low
Ween - Bakersfield/B-Sides, Demos & Rarities

Stuck In Thee Garage #202: December 1, 2017

We're used to seeing a lot of warning signs, whether it's on the road, on products or movies. We're also used to ignoring those warnings. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs with warnings in hour 2. Whether you pay heed is up to you, friendo.

The forewarned playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Ty Segall - The Main Pretender/Single
The Hold Steady - Entitlement Crew/Entitlement Crew
Alex Lahey - Every Day's the Weekend/I Love You Like a Brother
LCD Soundsystem - change yr mind/American Dream
Martha - The Winter Fuel Allowance Ineligibility Blues/Winter Fuel
Protomartyr - Male Plague/Relatives in Descent
Savak - Natural Light/Cut-Ups
Daniele Luppi & Parquet Courts - Memphis Blues Again/MILANO
Wet Trident - Capricorn One/Double Exposure
Deer Tick - Sloppy/Deer Tick, Vol. 2
Destroyer - Cover From the Sun/ken
OCS - Cannibal Planet/Memory of a Cut Off Head
Ovlov - The City/Greatest Hits
Big Ups - Contain Myself/Live at Shea Stadium
Tall Friend - Small Space/Safely Nobody's
The Replacements - I Will Dare/For Sale: Live at Maxwell's 1986
Husker Du - Do You Remember? (demo)/Savage Young Du
Husker Du - Everything Falls Apart/Savage Young Du

Hour 2: Warning
Pylon - Danger/Live
Wake Oooloo - Final Warning/Stop the Ride
Matthew Sweet - Warning/Kimi Ga Suki Raifi
Los Campesinos! - I Warned You: Do Not Make an Enemy of Me/Romance is Boring
The Libertines - Don't Look Back Into theSun/Single
Jarvis Cocker - Don't Let Him Waste Your Time/Jarvis
Frank Zappa - Don't Eat the Yellow Snow/Apostrophe
Electric Six -  Danger! High Voltage/Fire
Eagles of Death Metal - I Want You So Hard (Boy's Bad News)/Death By Sexy
The Pretty Things - Don't Bring Me Down/The Rhythm & Blues Years
The Remains - Don't Look Back/The Remains
George Harrison - Beware the Darkness/All Things Must Pass
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Kindness of Strangers/Murder Ballads
David Bowie - 1984/Diamond Dogs
Public Enemy - Don't Believe the Hype/It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Pearl Jam - Don't Gimme No Lip/Lost Dogs
Against Me! - Don't Lose Touch/Searching for a Former Clarity

Stuck In Thee Garage #201: November 24, 2017

The death of AC/DC's Malcolm Young means we lost possibly the greatest riff creator of all time. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I paid tribute to Malcolm and helped blast away the post-Thanksgiving doldrums with songs featuring big riffs in hour 2. Guaranteed to clear up even the heaviest of Tryptophan-induced food comas.

Party on, Garth.

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Playlist 
Bully - Feel the Same/Losing
L.A. Witch - Baby in Blue Jeans/L.A. Witch
Sleigh Bells - Favorite Transgressions/Kid Kruschev
The Darts - Gonna Make You Love Me/Me.Ow
Squeeze - Rough Ride/The Knowledge
Haley Heynderickx - Oom Sha La La/I Need to Start a Garden
St. Vincent - Fear the Future/Masseduction
Frightened Rabbit - Roadless/Recorded Songs EP
Gord Downie - Safe is Dead/Introduce Yerself
Broken Social Scene - Mouth Guards of the Apocalypse/Hug of Thunder
Quicksand - Under the Screw/Interiors
Beach Slang - Hard Luck Kid/Live on KUTX
B Boys - Fear It/Dada
Ted Leo - Used to Believe/The Hanged Man
Savak - I Don't Want to be Defended/Cut-Ups
Hot Snakes - Plenty for All/Automatic Midnight
Hot Snakes - LAX/Thunder Down Under

Hour 2: Riffage
AC/DC - It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock n' Roll)/T.N.T.
AC/DC - What's Next to the Moon/Powerage
AC/DC - Shake a Leg/Back in Black
T. Rex - Buick Mackane/The Slider
Led Zeppelin - Out on the Tiles/Led Zeppelin III
Black Sabbath - The Wizard/Black Sabbath
Fu Manchu - Mongoose/California Crossing
Living Colour - Middle Man/Vivid
Van Halen - Sinner's Swing!/Fair Warning
Rocket From the Crypt - Suit City/Scream, Dracula, Scream!
Superchunk - Saving My Ticket/Foolish
Smashing Pumpkins - Cherub Rock/Siamese Dream
PJ Harvey - Meet Ze Monsta/To Bring You My Love
Ty Segall - Feel/Manipulator
Queens of the Stone Age - Little Sister/Lullabies to Paralyze
Jeff Rosenstock - Planet Luxury/WORRY.

Stuck In Thee Garage #200: November 17, 2017

Two hundred shows is nothing to sneeze at. That's 400 hours of hott rock over the last four-plus years on the mighty BFF.fm. This week, I played music from 1992 in hour 2, and yeah, there's some of the so-called grunge sprinkled in. But there was a lot of other stuff going on that year as well. Still, you can't forget The Grungies:

Smells like great playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Quicksand - Warm and Low/Interiors
Big Heet - Mirror/On a Wire'
METZ - Sink/Strange Peace
Shout Out Louds - Porcelain/Ease My Mind
Destroyer - In the Morning/ken
Bad History Month - A Warm Recollection/Dead and Loving It: An Introductory Exploration of Pessimysticism
Danielle Luppi & Parquet Courts (feat. Karen O) - Flush (Clean)/MILANO
Male Gaze - If U Were My Girl/Miss Taken
U-Men - Gila/U-Men
Wolf Parade - Who Are Ya/Cry Cry Cry
The War on Drugs - Up All Night/A Deeper Understanding
Alvvays - Lollipop (Ode to Jim)/Antisocialites
Faith No More - We Care a Lot (2016 Mix)/We Care a Lot (Deluxe Band Edition)
Dead Moon - 54-40 or Fight/Killing Me/What a Way to See the Old Girl Go

Hour 2: 1992
Sugar - The Act We Act/Copper Blue
The Afghan Whigs - Conjure Me/Congregation
Sloan - 500 Up/Smeared
Faith No More - Everything's Ruined/Angel Dust
Sonic Youth - Drunken Butterfly/Dirty
Kyuss - Green Machine/Blues for the Red Sun
Alice in Chains - Got Me Wrong/Sap
Nirvana - Dive/Incesticide
Pearl Jam - State of Love and Trust/Singles soundtrack
Pavement - In the Mouth a Desert/Slanted and Enchanted
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Son of Sam/Jukebox Explosion
Beastie Boys - Gratitude/Check Your Head
Peter Gabriel - Digging in the Dirt/Us
Buffalo Tom - Taillights Fade/Let Me Come Over
R.E.M. - Nightswimming/Automatic for the People

Completely Conspicuous 480: Lost But Not Forgotten

This week, it's part 2 of my discussion with Phil Stacey about how we deal with losing musicians we love. Listen to the episode below or download directly.


Show notes:
- Replacing a beloved band member is tough
- Tom Petty's legacy
- Steely Dan's interesting catalog
- The problem with hearing the same songs over and over
- The lighter side of Prince
- Prince's prolific later years
- A master of any style
- Jay: Downie's loss hits harder now because I'm around the same age
- Making the most of your last years on Earth
- The real shockers are the younger ones
 
Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Stuck In Thee Garage #199: November 10, 2017

It's easy for music fans to fall under the sway of nostalgia. The temptation to rely on old favorites is great. Hence the popularity of classic rock radio and package tours. Here at Stuck In Thee Garage, I like to focus on plenty of new music, but this week, I played songs about nostalgia in hour 2. It's not bad to think about the past, but there's no need to get dazed and confused.

This playlist is alright, alright, alright:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Savak - I Wanna Exist/Cut-Ups
Danielle Luppi & Parquet Courts (feat. Karen O) - Talisa/MILANO
Bad History Month - Being Nothing/Dead and Loving It: An Introductory Explanation of Pessimysticism
Destroyer - Sometimes in the World/ken
Ted Leo - Anthems of None/The Hanged Man
Protomartyr - Corpses in Regalia/Relatives in Descent
Washer - The Crow/All Aboard
St. Vincent - Los Ageless/Masseduction
French Vanilla - Social Trappings/French Vanilla
EMA - Fire Water Air LSD/Exile in the Outer Ring
A Giant Dog - Making Movies/Toy
Gold Class - Get Yours/Drum
Infinity Girl - Taking Your Picture/Somewhere Nice, Someday
Wet Trident - Coast Mirroring/Double Exposure
Dead Stars - Happy or Sad/Perfect Patterns
Gord Downie - You Me and the B's/Introduce Yerself
Guided By Voices - King 007/How Do You Spell Heaven?
Deer Tick - Mr. Nothing Gets Worse/Deer Tick, Vol. 2

Hour 2: Nostalgic
Talking Heads - Memories Can't Wait/Fear of Music
Public Image Ltd. - Memories/Second Edition
fIREHOSE - Choose Any Memory/Ragin', Full On
Sloan - Autobiography/One Chord to Another
The Kinks - Do You Remember Walter?/The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society
Ray Davies - Working Man's Cafe/Working Man's Cafe
David Lee Roth - Damn Good/Skyscraper
Aerosmith - Remember (Walking in the Sand)/Night in the Ruts
Drive-By Truckers - Let There Be Rock/Southern Rock Opera
Superchunk - I Guess I Remembered It Wrong/On the Mouth
Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Memory Lane/Primary Colours
Fauna Shade - No Nostalgia/Floral Hall
Redd Kross - 1976/Third Eye
The Ramones - Questioningly/Road to Ruin
The Vaselines - I Hate the '80s/Sex With an X
Nirvana - Sliver/Incesticide

Completely Conspicuous 479: Gone Too Soon

This week, it's part 1 of my discussion with Phil Stacey about how we deal with losing musicians we love. Listen to the episode below or download directly.


Show notes:
- Gord Downie died a few weeks ago
- Many high-profile music deaths in last few years
- Musicians are getting older, but also some tragic deaths
- Phil: Elvis Presley's death was memorable
- Lennon's death was shocking
- Phil: Cobain and Jerry Garcia's deaths hit hard
- Jay: The plane crash that killed Randy Rhoads stands out
- Lemmy, Bowie and Prince all died within a few months of each other
- Chris Cornell's death earlier this year came as a surprise
- Many big-name musicians died this year: Gregg Allman, Tom Petty, Chuck Berry, Grant Hart, Walter Becker
- You tend to dig into the back catalog
- Bowie's death kicked off a rough 2016 for music fans
- Losing Prince was a gut punch
- Jay: Saw the Tragically Hip many times over the years
- Downie released a posthumous double album
- Very captivating live performer
- Watched a lot of concert videos and documentaries on YouTube after he died
- Downie focused on indigenous people's rights in his last few years
- To be continued
 
Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Stuck In Thee Garage #198: November 3, 2017

This is America. We're all about excess. Some of us more than others, but there's definitely a whole lot of excess going on. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about excess in hour 2. It'll make you want to shout.

The excessive playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Ty Segall - Alta/Single
Superchunk - Mad World/Break the Glass
Big Heet - On a Wire/On a Wire
Gord Downie - Love Over Money/Introduce Yerself
Destroyer - Tinseltown Swimming in Blood/ken
Wolf Parade - Artificial Life/Cry Cry Cry
Danielle Luppi and Parquet Courts - Soul and Cigarette/MILANO
St. Vincent - Masseduction/Masseduction
Weaves - Walkaway/Wide Open
Charly Bliss - Scare U/Guppy
Makthaverskan - Witness/III
Alvvays - Your Type/Antisocialites
Holiday Ghosts - Paranoia/Holiday Ghosts
Madeline Kenney - Always/Night Night at the First Landing
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings - Matter of Time/Soul of a Woman
Stag - The Bedazzler/Midnight Sizzler
Protomartyr - The Chuckler/Relatives in Descent
Electric Six - Sex With Somebody/How Dare You?

Hour 2: Excessive
The Feelies - Too Much/Only Life
The Electric Prunes - I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)/The Electric Prunes
The Selecter - Too Much Pressure/Too Much Pressure
Death From Above 1979 - Too Much Love/Heads Up
A Giant Dog - Too Much Makeup/Pile
Les Savy Fav - Excess Energies/Root For Ruin
Drive-By Truckers - Aftermath USA/A Blessing and a Curse
Slingshot Dakota - Too Much/Break
Lou Barlow - Too Much Freedom/Goodnight Unknown
The Twilight Singers - The Lure Would Prove Too Much/A Stitch in Time
Rollins Band - Right Here Too Much/Weighting
Motorhead - Over the Top/Bomber
Motley Crue - Too Fast for Love/Too Fast for Love
The Fall-Outs - One Thought Too Much/Summertime
The Who - Too Much of Anything/Odds & Sods
The Hold Steady - Chillout Tent/Boys and Girls in America
Pavement - Serpentine Pad/Wowee Zowee

Completely Conspicuous 478: The Soundtrack of Our Lives

This week, it's part 2 of my discussion with Phil Stacey about albums that changed our lives. Listen to the episode below or download directly.
 

Show notes:
- Jay: Was a nerdy kid who listened to music all the time
- Phil liked college rock, but never got the Violent Femmes
- Jay: Loved Red Hot Chili Peppers back in the day, but can't stand them now
- Back and forth on the Eagles and Doors
- Of Linda Ronstadt and Barney Gumbel
- Grunge makes an impact
- Alt-rock: Peter Gabriel, R.E.M., U2
- Phil: Big Smiths fan
- The first Pretenders album is a classic
- Neil Young's '80s odyssey
- Phil loves the Dead
- Jay: Got into funk and jazz in late '90s (P-Funk, James Brown, Miles Davis, Coltrane)
- Phil: Listened to Beck's Sea Change a lot after getting divorced
 
Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Stuck In Thee Garage #197: October 27, 2017

Halloween's always a fun occasion here at Stuck In Thee Garage. It's a great excuse to play songs that are creepy, spooky or just plain weird. This year's edition features one of the creepiest songs of all time, Suicide's 10-minute opus "Frankie Teardrop," as well as a song that was influenced by it, Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska." So enjoy those blood-curdling screams, everyone! Probably don't play it front of your kids, though.

Prison Mike speaks highly of the show:

The haunted playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
The Sonics - The Witch/Here Are the Sonics
Sloan - Witch's Wand/Parallel Play
Black Mountain - Old Fangs/Wilderness Heart
Jane's Addiction - Sympathy/Jane's Addiction
Primus - Mr. Krinkle/Pork Soda
David Bowie - We Are the Dead/Diamond Dogs
Faith No More - Black Friday/Sol Invictus
Blue Oyster Cult - The Revenge of Vera Gemini/Agents of Fortune
Alice Cooper - Ballad of Dwight Fry/Love It to Death
Judas Priest - Dying to Meet You/Rocka Rolla
Joy Division - Heart and Soul/Closer
Arctic Monkeys - Pretty Visitors/Humbug
Radiohead - Climbing Up the Walls/OK Computer

Hour 2
Fu Manchu - Evil Eye/The Action is Go!
Black Sabbath - Wicked World/Black Sabbath
Entombed - Wolverine Blues/Wolverine Blues
Soundgarden - Beyond the Wheel/Ultramega OK
Peter Gabriel - The Family and the Fishing Net/Security
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Lovely Creature/Murder Ballads
Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska/Nebraska
Suicide - Frankie Teardrop/Suicide
The Cult - Black Angel/Love
The Black Angels - River of Blood/Phosphene Dream
The Twilight Singers - The Killer/Blackberry Belle
The Misfits - Horror Hotel/3 Hits from Hell

Completely Conspicuous 477: The Early Days

This week, it's part 1 of my discussion with Phil Stacey about albums that changed our lives. Listen to the episode below or download directly.


Show notes:
- Phil: At age 6-7, hearing older kids listening to Aerosmith
- Heard a lot of easy listening music
- Had a music-loving uncle who introduced him to the Who, Hendrix, Talking Heads
- Jay: Listened to AM rock station in Toronto
- Bought 45s of Queen, Cheap Trick, Joe Jackson
- Phil: U2's Boy was a huge album for me
- Jay: Got Glen Campbell's Rhinestone Cowboy
- Zeppelin got me into rock
- B-52s were revolutionary
- You can't make your kids love your music
- Jay: First rock album I bought was Supertramp's Breakfast in America
- Phil: Revolver was a pivotal Beatles album
- Jay: Got into early '80s hard rock
- Rush's Moving Pictures was a big one
- To be continued
 
Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

The Inevitability of Death

The inevitability of death. Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip sang about it back in the early '90s when the phrase became a song title on their 1994 album Day for Night. I first saw the band play it in 1993 at the Middle East in Cambridge and loved it immediately. Of course, at the time I was 25 and unaware of the impact that death can have on your life. Nearly a year later, Kurt Cobain put a shotgun in his mouth. That death hit an entire generation pretty hard, even though it seemed inevitable for a while. A few years later, my father died and that too, while seriously depressing, did not come as a shock because he was really ill for a while.

Now I'm 50 and death seems like a fairly common occurrence in the world. I mean, it was in '93, too, but it's more real to me now. So when Downie died this week after close to a two-year battle with brain cancer, it wasn't a shock, but it still hit me hard. Certainly, the death has been a major event in Canada, where Downie has become the pre-eminent rock chronicler of Canadiana.

The Hip never broke big in the U.S., where they've had success in bigger cities, especially ones with a lot of Canadians. I'm pretty much American through and through, having moved from Canada when I was 14. But when I heard the song "Blow at High Dough" on Boston's WBCN in 1989, I was hooked. I picked up the album, Up to Here, and enjoyed it thoroughly. A year later, I was visiting Toronto and watched a live Hip concert on MuchMusic (the Canuck MTV), and I was REALLY hooked. The studio stuff is great, but live was where the Hip and Downie were especially captivating. Sweating profusely right off the bat, he would seemingly go into a semi-trance, moving in herky-jerky motions, play-fighting with the mic stand and often going off on tangents. Early on, Downie would go off on epic mid-song rants about killer whale tanks or failed suicide pacts. Later, he would debut snippets of new songs within other ones. No two Hip shows were alike, thanks to Downie's elastic and magnetic personality.

I saw the band for the first time in 1991 at the Paradise in Boston and even though the club was nearly empty, the show was incredible. Downie looked a lot different than he did in recent years: longish hair, thick beard, flannel shirt, jeans and shitkickers. As the years passed, he began to resemble two singers he was often compared to: Michael Stipe and Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil (the shaved head was mainly responsible for that). I saw the Hip pretty much every time they came through Boston, and saw Downie solo on at least three occasions.

Going through the vast catalog he left behind (13 Hip studio albums, 5 solo albums), it really is amazing how much great material Downie left behind. And indeed, there's one more album, Introduce Yerself, that is due out next Friday. And I've got several excellent bootlegs of classic live performances over the years that I've been digging into as well.

Like David Bowie, Downie's response to his cancer diagnosis was to stare death in the face and keep working. But unlike Bowie, Downie not only toured, he used the platform and attention he received to spotlight Canada's need to reconcile with the indigenous people it displaced and abused over the years. That he was able to accomplish so much while struggling with the debilitating effects of glioblastoma (which included memory loss) is goddamn inspirational.

Now we remember his legacy. I've been watching some old videos and documentaries that are up on YouTube. A new documentary about the Hip's final tour is set to go up on Netflix next month, so that will no doubt be an emotional experience.

So yeah, death is inevitable. Make the most of life while you still can. Gord sure as hell did.

Stuck In Thee Garage #196: October 20, 2017

Seems as though these days the rock n' roll deaths are hitting us faster and furiouser. Just when we come to grips with Grant Hart, Charles Bradley dies. Then Tom Petty. And then this week, Gord Downie passed away of complications from brain cancer. Downie's death hit me particularly hard because I've been a fan of him and the Tragically Hip since '89 when I first heard the single "Blow at High Dough" from their first full-length, Up to Here. Last year, the band announced Downie had cancer and went on a farewell tour of Canada, culminating in an emotional farewell show in the band's hometown of Kingston, Ontario last August. We knew it was coming, but his death was still a shock and utterly heartbreaking.

This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I pay tribute to Downie in hour 2 with a combination of Hip, solo and rare tracks. He left an exceptional body of work for us to enjoy, including one final album he recorded with Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene that will be out next week. R.I.P., Gord.

This playlist wears a Canadian tuxedo:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
St. Vincent - Pills/Masseduction
Worriers - The Possibility/Survival Pop
Versing - Body Chamber/Nirvana
Superchunk - Break the Glass/Single
Deer Tick - Jumpstarting/Deer Tick, Vol. 2
Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile - Fear is a Forest/Lotta Sea Lice
EMA - Always Bleeds/Exile in the Outer Ring
Wet Trident - Eclectic Boogaloo/Double Exposure
Lubec - Many Worlds/Concentration
Lubec - Hard Potential/Cosmic Debt
Wolf Parade - Flies on the Sun/Cry Cry Cry
Infinity Girl - Anything/Somewhere Nice, Someday
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Falling Apart So Slow/The Echo of Pleasure
Great Grandpa - Grounded/Plastic Cough

Hour 2: Gord
The Tragically Hip - My Music at Work/Music@Work
Gord Downie and Andrew Cash - Hey Maria/Live at Kumbaya '93
Gord Downie - Haunt Them, Haunt Them, Haunt Them/Secret Path
Gordon Downie - Yer Possessed/Coke Machine Glow
The Tragically Hip with Sarah McLachlan - Emergency/Unreleased from Day for Night sessions
The Tragically Hip - Heaven is a Better Place Today/In Between Evolution
The Tragically Hip - It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken/In Violet Light
Gord Downie and the Sadies - It Didn't Start to Break My Heart Until This Afternoon/And the Conquering Sun
Gordon Downie - Figment/Battle of the Nudes
The Tragically Hip - New Orleans is Sinking/killerwhaletank/Live in Los Angeles 5/3/91
The Tragically Hip - Cordelia/Road Apples
Gordon Downie - Canada Geese/Coke Machine Glow
The Tragically Hip - Boots or Hearts/Live in Kingston, Ontario 8/20/16
The Tragically Hip - Fiddler's Green/Road Apples

Completely Conspicuous 476: Dig for Fire (Maiden-Zappa, Part 3)

This week, it's part 3 of my discussion with Brian Salvatore about musical blindspots. Brian will learn about Iron Maiden while I dig into Frank Zappa. Listen to the episode below or download directly.
 

Show notes:
- Brian listened to Somewhere in Time, Jay listened to Sheik Yerbouti
- Deja vu all over again
- Brian: Somewhere in Time is the most dated, least raw of the three albums I listened to
- Band didn't play to its strengths
- Victim of mid-'80s production
- Dickinson vs. Di'anno
- The disappearance of metal in the '90s
- Bon Jovi has thrived over the decades
- Not their best, but some Maiden classics
- Jay: Saw Maiden live a few months ago
- Zappa's Sheik Yerbouti finds him exploring the wackier subject matter in depth
- Released three albums in '79 alone
- Musicianship is incredible, feat. Adrian Belew on rhythm guitar
- Zappa released a ridiculous number of albums
- Xenochrony technique took parts from different songs and spliced them together
- Brian: Not in his top 10 albums, but close
- Went even more off the rails on Joe's Garage
- Next, Brian will listen to Living Colour while Jay will explore solo Beatle albums
 
Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Stuck In Thee Garage #195: October 13, 2017

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, or so they say. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about power in hour 2. It was a powerful experience; well, it rocked, anyway.

This playlist will get your suspenders in a twist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Wolf Parade - Incantation/Cry Cry Cry
Protomartyr - Up the Tower/Relatives in Descent
Shake Some Action! - Waiting for the Sun/Crash Through or Crash
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Don't Bring Me Down/Here Comes My Girl
The Replacements - Black Diamond/For Sale: Live at Maxwell's 1986
Sonic Youth - Psycho Mafia/4 Tunna Brix
Rainer Maria - Blackbird/Rainer Maria
Queens of the Stone Age - Un-Reborn Again/Villains
METZ - Common Trash/Strange Peace
Wolf Alice - Yuk Foo/Visions of a Life
Jen Cloher - Kinda Biblical/Jen Cloher
Land of Talk - Macabre/Life After Youth
Male Gaze - Pyramids/Miss Taken
A Giant Dog - Hero for the Weekend/Toy
Maneka - Dracula (feat. Katie Capri)/Is You Is

Hour 2: Power
Iggy & the Stooges - Raw Power/Raw Power
Living Colour - Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothing/Biscuits
Jane's Addiction - Standing in the Shower...Thinking/Nothing's Shocking
The Clash - The Guns of Brixton/London Calling
Krill - Infinite Power/Lucky Leaves
Ringo Deathstarr - Flower Power/God's Dream
Soundgarden - Power Trip/Louder Than Love
Monster Magnet - Powertrip/Powertrip
Iron Maiden - Powerslave/Powerslave
Pavement - Unseen Power of the Picket Fence/No Alternative
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Bleeding Powers/Tell Balgeary, Balgury is Dead
Thin Lizzy - Rosalie/Fighting
Eagles of Death Metal - Got the Power/Zipper Down
Electric Six - Danger! High Voltage!/Fire
AC/DC - High Voltage/T.N.T.
OFF! - Vaporized/OFF!

Completely Conspicuous 475: Ignorance is Bliss

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss our uncertain world. Listen to the episode below or download directly.


Show notes:
- Check out Matt's book Echo and the Sea
- Escapism is tempting
- Shopping by alcohol content
- Is ignorance bliss?
- Dumb and happy
- Cynical about politics at all levels
- Corruption is rampant
- Appearances count
- Politics have never been this divisive...or have they?
- Internet comments are the worst
- Social media enables morons to spout off
- Journalism burnout
- Shooting a guy in the face is quaint now
- Does uncertainty = depression?
- We haven't given up yet
- We solved nothing
 
Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Stuck In Thee Garage #194: October 6, 2017

It's easy to look back a few decades wistfully, especially when the world is as nuts as it is right now. Take 1997, for example. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs from '97 in hour 2. It's hard not to love a year that brought us movies as ridiculous as Face/Off, Con Air, The Fifth Element and Lost Highway. Oh, and if you don't listen to this week's show, the bunny gets it.

The Bruckheimer-esque playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Washer - Shortcut to a Sore Throat/All Aboard
Protomartyr - Don't Go to Anacita/Relatives in Descent
Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile - Continental Breakfast/Lotta Sea Lice
Ted Leo - The Little Smug Supper Club/The Hanged Man
Deer Tick - S.M.F./Deer Tick, Vol. 2
Guided By Voices - How to Murder a Man (In 3 Acts)/How Do You Spell Heaven?
METZ - Lost in the Blank City/Strange Peace
White Reaper - Tell Me/The World's Best American Band
Dead Stars - My Teeth/Perfect Patterns
EMA - Down and Out/Exile in the Outer Ring
Alvvays - Hey/Antisocialites
Rips - Vs./Rips
Gold Class - Bully/Drum
The Wedding Present - Lead/Going, Going...
Froth - Petals/Outside (briefly)
A Giant Dog - Night Terror/Toy
Girlpool - She Goes By/Powerplant

Hour 2: 1997
Ween - Buckingham Green/The Mollusk
Jonathan Fire*Eater - No Love Like That/Wolf Songs for Lambs
Ben Folds Five - Steve's Last Night in Town/Whatever and Ever Amen
Pavement - Shady Lane/Brighten the Corners
Radiohead - Let Down/OK Computer
Paul Weller - Heavy Soul, Pt. 1/Heavy Soul
David Bowie - Little Wonder/Bowie's 50th Birthday Concert, NYC, 1/9/97
Built to Spill - I Would Hurt a Fly/Perfect From Now On
Sleater-Kinney - Turn It On/Dig Me Out
Foo Fighters - Wind Up/The Colour and the Shape
Faith No More - Ashes to Ashes/Album of the Year
Portishead - Only You/Portishead
Elliott Smith - Cupid's Trick/Either/Or
Guided By Voices - Portable Men's Society/Mag Earwhig!
Guided By Voices - Hollow Cheek/Mag Earwhig!

Completely Conspicuous 474: Age of Uncertainty

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss our uncertain world. Listen to the episode below or download directly.


Show notes:
- Check out Matt's book Echo and the Sea
- Recorded before the Las Vegas incident and Trump's visit to PR
- Everything's uncertain
- Don't know what to expect from the news
- Trump: Savvy or master of chaos?
- Twitter as distraction
- Social media amps up the anxiety
- FB as the center of vitriol over every conceivable public issue
- The weather is slamming us with unpredictable events
- Selling the BS
- Clickbait's gonna get ya
- Much ado about kneeling
- Scandal recovery
- Controversy du jour
- Punisher fans can be scary
- Twitter roulette
- Ah, the threat of impending nuclear war
- The relentless news cycle
- The difficulty of just enjoying life
- To be continued
 
Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Stuck In Thee Garage #193: September 29, 2017

They say music is therapeutic and laughter is the best medicine, so that must mean music about laughter is doubly good for you. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about laughter (and a few songs inspiring laughter) in hour 2. Nothing from comedy acts, but definitely some not-so-serious stuff in there.

All work and no play leaves Jack with a dull playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Protomartyr - My Children/Relatives in Descent
Alvvays - Plimsoll Punks/Antisocialites
Infinity Girl - Derail Me/Somewhere Nice, Someday
Ghostpoet - Immigrant Boogie/Dark Days + Canapes
Death From Above - Outrage! Is Now/Outrage! Is Now
Living Colour - Freedom of Expression (F.O.X.)/Shade
METZ - Mr. Plague/Strange Peace
EMA - Nihilistic and Female/Exile in the Outer Ring
Gold Class - Thinking of Strangers/Drum
Deer Tick - Card House/Deer Tick, Vol. 1
Benjamin Booker - Right on You/Witness
The War on Drugs - Pain/A Deeper Understanding
Dot Comet - Shut Eye/Dot Comet
Rainer Maria - Communicator/Rainer Maria
Waxahatchee - Brass Beam/Out in the Storm
Milked - The Cosmos/Death on Mars

Hour 2: Laugh
R.E.M. - King of Comedy/Monster
Queens of the Stone Age - I'm Designer/Era Vulgaris
Jarvis Cocker - Leftovers/Further Complications
Bob Mould - Nemeses are Laughing/Beauty & Ruin
Mission of Burma - Laugh the World Away/Vs.
Pere Ubu - Laughing/The Modern Dance
Ween - Mister, Can You Please Help My Pony?/Chocolate & Cheese
The Beau Brummels - Laugh, Laugh/Introducing the Beau Brummels
Van Halen - Could This Be Magic?/Women and Children First
The Germs - Now I Hear the Laughter/M.I.A.: The Complete Germs
Jawbreaker Reunion - Laughing Alone Eating a Salad/Lutheran Sisterhood Gun Club
The Child Ballads - Laughter from the Rafters/Cheekbone Hollows
Titus Andronicus - Funny Feeling/The Most Lamentable Tragedy
Frank Black - Whatever Happened to Pong?/Teenager of the Year
Chixdiggit! - Henry Rollins is No Fun/Chixdiggit!
Rollins Band - Earache My Eye/Sub Pop Singles Club
Descendents - Everything Sux/Everything Sucks
Electric Six - Gay Bar/Fire
Eagles of Death Metal - I Want You So Hard (Boy's Bad News)/Death by Sexy

Old Bones

A half century, man. Five decades. I hit the big 5-0 a few days ago. There was no blinding flash of realization or wisdom, no sudden descent into oldness, no onslaught of depression. Just another year going by.

That doesn't mean it's not significant, of course. The strange part for me is how quickly the years have gone by. Seems like I just celebrated my 40th. Now I've got two teenagers and a few more gray hairs. In five short years, I'll have two kids in college and life will be really weird.

It's odd to think of myself as being this age. When my dad turned 50, it was 1990, I was 23 and he seemed much older than he actually was. It didn't help that he was both an alcoholic and a diabetic, both of which had ravaged his body and made him look like he was 70. I know I'm in much better shape than he ever was, so I don't feel like an old man. Of course, I'm definitely dealing with some old guy stuff, like a sore back and various aches and pains, but that's part of the price I pay for staying physically active. I'll take that over being a flabby blob any damn day.

Unlike my 40th, which came and went with little fanfare, we did things up big for the 50th celebration. We had a big gathering at the Notch taproom last night, with about 50 friends showing up to toast to my geezerdom. It was a great time, reminiscent of the big parties we routinely threw in the days before kids. And yeah, I was a little hung over this morning, but it was nothing compared to some of those old party days.

So here I am, into a new decade of existence. The future is unwritten, as Joe Strummer once said. It's hard to know what to expect, but I've got some good role models in terms of friends who have already traversed this territory, so I think I'll be okay.

Stuck In Thee Garage #192: September 22, 2017

Weather can be pretty unpredictable in general, but lately things have been pretty crazy. Hurricanes have been pounding the hell out of the Caribbean, Texas and Florida; earthquakes have been slamming Mexico and extremely dry conditions out West have led to some scary forest fires. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about stormy weather in hour 2. It's okay, though. I don't think the heavy stuff's coming down for quite a while.

This playlist is having the game of its life:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Washer - Tooth & Fist/All Aboard
Gold Class - Twist in the Dark/Drum
A Giant Dog - Angst in My Pants/Toy
Infinity Girl - Don't Believe/Somewhere Nice, Someday
Deer Tick - Don't Hurt/Deer Tick, Vol. 2
Noah Gunderson - The Sound/White Noise
Ted Leo - Run to the City/The Hanged Man
Death From Above - Statues/Outrage! Is Now
Dead Stars - Friends/Perfect Patterns
Male Gaze - Wha Do Wha Do/Miss Taken
Beaches - When You're Gone/Second of Spring
The Feelies - Been Replaced/In Between
Guided By Voices - Paper Cutz/How Do You Spell Heaven?
Living Colour - Always Wrong/Shade
At the Drive-In - Pendulum in a Peasant Dress/inter-alia
Queens of the Stone Age - Head Like a Haunted House/Villains

Hour 2: Stormy
Minutemen - Storm in My House/Double Nickels on the Dime
Mission of Burma - Weatherbox/Vs.
Pixies - Stormy Weather/Bossanova
Pavement - Rain Ammunition/Peel Session 12/16/92
A.C. Newman - Thunderbolts/Get Guilty
Dinosaur Jr. - Pierce the Morning Rain/I Bet on Sky
Ava Luna - Hurricane/Takamatsu Station
The Wildhearts - Stormy in the North, Karma in the South/Riff After Riff
Black Mountain - Stormy High/In the Future
The Replacements - Dose of Thunder/Tim
The Cult - Rain/Love
Thin Lizzy - Thunder and Lightning/Thunder and Lightning 
The Police - Shadows in the Rain/Zenyatta Mondatta
Stevie Ray Vaughan - Couldn't Stand the Weather/Couldn't Stand the Weather
Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Like a Hurricane/Live at Fukuoka 3/8/76

 

Stuck In Thee Garage #191: September 15, 2017

Persistence can be good or bad depending on how you use it. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about persistence in hour 2...so that was good. Maybe not as good the persistence of getting a robot butler to serve you beers on the regular, but still pretty damn good.

The bleep blorpity playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Infinity Girl - The Winner Always Talks/Somewhere Nice, Someday
Ted Leo - Moon Out of Phase/The Hanged Man
Dead Stars - Happy or Sad/Perfect Patterns
Death From Above - Never Swim Alone/Outrage! Is Now
Oh Sees - The Static God/Orc
Rainer Maria - Possession/Rainer Maria
Palehound - Room/A Place I'll Always Go
Maneka - Tiger Baby (feat. Jordyn Blakely)/Is You Is
Darto - Character Study/Human Giving
A Giant Dog - Bend Over/Toy
Great Grandpa - Pardon My Speech/Plastic Cough
The Stevens - My New Hideout/Good
Jen Cloher - Strong Woman/Jen Cloher
The National - Turtleneck/Sleep Well Beast
The Afghan Whigs - The Spell/In Spades
The War on Drugs - Holding On/A Deeper Understanding

Hour 2: Persistence
David Bowie - Boys Keep Swinging/Lodger
Sloan - Keep Swinging (Downtown)/Commonwealth
Bleached - Keep On Keepin' On/Welcome the Worms
PJ Harvey - Rid of Me/Rid of Me
Eddie Kendricks - Keep on Truckin' (Part 1)/Eddie Kendricks
The Night Marchers - And I Keep Holding On/See You in Magic
The Afghan Whigs - I Keep Coming Back/Gentlemen
Max Webster - Drive and Desire/Universal Juveniles
Led Zeppelin - I Can't Quit You Baby/Led Zeppelin
Queens of the Stone Age - You Can't Quit Me Baby/Queens of the Stone Age
OFF! - I Need One (I Want One)/OFF!
Husker Du - Keep Hanging On/Flip Your Wig
Bob Mould - Keep Believing/Silver Age
AC/DC - It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n Roll)/T.N.T.

Stuck In Thee Garage #190: September 8, 2017

Birthdays are things to be savored. In the case of Stuck In Thee Garage, today's episode marked the fourth birthday of the show and of BFF.fm, the station that has hosted it. Thanks to Amanda and Forrest Guest, the masterminds behind BFF, for their perseverance and drive to make the station the success it has become. I love doing the show every week.

I celebrated with the traditional birthday meal:

The jerky playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Ted Leo - The Future (Is Learning To...)/The Hanged Man
Wolf Parade - You're Dreaming/Cry Cry Cry
Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile - Over Everything/Lotta Sea Lice
Death From Above - Holy Books/Outrage! Is Now
Oh Sees - Animated Violence/Orc
METZ - Mess of Wires/Strange Peace
A Giant Dog - Photograph/Toy
Cults - I Took Your Picture/Offering
Loud Sun - Teen Pyramids/Sea Grave
Queens of the Stone Age - The Evil Has Landed/Villains
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Cure for Death/The Echo of Pleasure
EMA - Down and Out/Exile in the Outer Ring
Kevin Morby - City Music/City Music

Hour 2: Four
Mondo Generator - Four Corners/A Drug Problem That Never Existed
Nine Inch Nails - The Four of Us Are Dying/The Slip
Temple of the Dog - Four Walled World/Temple of the Dog
Titus Andronicus - Four Score and Seven Part One/The Monitor
Bright Eyes - Four Winds/Four Winds EP
Drive-By Truckers - The Fourth Night of My Drinking/The Big To-Do
The New Pornographers - Three or Four/Twin Cinema
Los Campesinos! - Here's to the Fourth Time/Sick Scenes
The Tragically Hip -  Toronto #4/Music @ Work
Okkervil River - The Next Four Months/Black Sheep Boy
De La Soul - 4 More (feat. Zhane)/Stakes is High
The Blood Brothers - 1, 2, 3, 4 Guitars/Young Machetes
Rollins Band - Volume 4/Weight

Stuck In Thee Garage #189: September 1, 2017

Australia may be half a world away (or more), but it's made a major impact on the world of rock music. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs from Australian artists in hour 2. It's better than a bloomin' onion.

This playlist is back in black:

Hour 1:
Artist - Song/Album
Dead Stars - Smarter/Perfect Patterns
METZ - Drained Lake/Strange Peace
Queens of the Stone Age - Feet Don't Fail Me Now/Villains
A Giant Dog - Fake Plastic Trees/Toy
EMA - I Wanna Destroy/Exile in the Outer Ring
Warm Digits - Growth of Raindrops (feat. Sarah Cracknell)/Wireless World
Current Swell - It Ain't Right/When to Talk and When to Listen
Gibraltar - Cold/Let's Get Beautiful
Fotoform - I Know You're Charming/Fotoform
Maneka - My Boy Seth (feat. Sam Rosenberg)/Is You Is
The Stevens - Thristy Eye/Good
Great Grandpa - Expert Eraser/Plastic Cough
The War on Drugs - Nothing to Find/A Deeper Understanding
Broken Social Scene - Skyline/Hug of Thunder
Darto - I Am/Human Giving

Hour 2: Oz
AC/DC - Dog Eat Dog/Let There Be Rock
The Angels - Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again/The Angels
Hoodoo Gurus - Tojo/Stoneage Romeos
Split Enz - I Got You/True Colours
Radio Birdman - We've Come So Far (To Be Here Today)/Zeno Beach
Midnight Oil - Beds Are Burning/Diesel and Dust
The Saints - No Time/(I'm) Stranded
Grinderman - Love Bomb/Grinderman
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Red Right Hand/Let Love In
The Church - The Unguarded Moment/The Church
The Living End - Long Live the Weekend/State of Emergency
Eddy Current Suppression Ring - I Don't Wanna Play No More/Primary Colours
Courtney Barnett - Dead Fox/Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
Tame Impala - The Moment/Currents
Beaches - Bronze Age Babies/Second of Spring

Forget That You're Young

Oh, hi there. It's been a while. I always get great ideas for posts and then I see a shiny object and suddenly, it's two weeks later. I've definitely been meaning to write a post about the great European vacation we took this summer, but wanted to get some photos ready and then...you know. Anyhoo, there I was today minding my own business and sifting through the mail when I saw something addressed to me that said it had a card enclosed. Figuring it was some sort of credit card offer, I opened it out of curiosity and pulled out this abomination:

The dreaded AARP card! It didn't come out of the blue. I'm three weeks away from the big 5-0 and I knew someday they'd start hitting me up to join. Still, it was a bit jarring to hold it in my hand. I mean, I'm not looking for senior discounts just yet. I know life is flying by as I see my girls get older and I notice my body getting creakier. But that doesn't mean I'm giving in to age just yet. I'm still running and working out and playing hockey and listening to the rock music and doing all the other stuff I've been doing for the last few decades. I don't need to certify my geezerdom by joining an association, especially one that my mom is an active member of.

And besides, I've got three whole weeks of my 40s left. Back off, oldsters! I've gotta live my life, which means doing stuff that those AARP buzzards wouldn't dream of, like cliff diving and mountain climbing and running with the bulls. But first, I need to get some sleep. Yeah.

Stuck In Thee Garage #188: August 25, 2017

Saying goodbye is never easy, but goodbyes can inspire plenty of art. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about goodbyes in hour 2.

This playlist should live long and prosper:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Ted Leo - You're Like Me/The Hanged Man
Downtown Boys - Lips That Bite/Cost of Living
Rainer Maria - Suicides and Lazy Eyes/Rainer Maria
The Church - Another Century/Man Woman Life Death Infinity
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Falling Apart So Slow/The Echo of Pleasure
Oh Sees - Jettison/Orc
Mark Lanegan Band - Beehive/Gargoyle
Beaches - September/Second of Spring
She Sir - Mirror, No (We're the Same)/Rival Island
Nine Inch Nails - The Lovers/Add Violence
Male Gaze - African Ripoff/Miss Taken
At the Drive-In - Continuum/inter-alia
Black Lips - We Know/Satan's Graffiti or God's Art?
Lo Tom - Covered Wagon/Lo Tom

Hour 2: Goodbye
Split Single - Last Goodbye/Fragmented World
Drive-By Truckers - Goodbye/A Blessing and a Curse
The Black Crowes - Bad Luck Blue Eyes Goodbye/The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion
Mexican Slang - Goodbye/Demon
Tom Vek - I Ain't Saying My Goodbyes/We Have Sound
Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye/Grace
Soul Asylum - Endless Farewell/Hang Time
O Positive - Say Goodbye/Only Breathing-Cloud Factory
Ty Segall - Wave Goodbye/Slaughterhouse
Ozzy Osbourne - Goodbye to Romance/Blizzard of Ozz
Grinderman - Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man/Grinderman 2
Queens of the Stone Age - Long Slow Goodbye/Lullabies to Paralyze
Van Halen - Happy Trails/Diver Down