Stuck In Thee Garage #456: December 30, 2022

Another year has come and gone, filled with moments of splendor and total WTAF confusion. As is my wont, I'm taking a look back at my favorite music from the past year. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played music from the first half of 2022. It's the perfect soundtrack if you're being chased by a homicidal motorcycle gang on the LA freeway.

The pedal-to-the-metal playlist:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

Fontaines D.C. - Jackie Down the Line/Skinty Fia

Yard Act - Dead Horse/The Overload

Superchunk - Refracting/Wild Loneliness

The Smile - You Will Never Work In Television Again/A Light For Attracting Attention

Destroyer - Tintoretto, It's For You/Labyrinthitis

Eldridge Rodriguez - Have I Gone Too Far/Single

PUP - Waiting/The Unraveling of PUPtheBand

Kids On a Crime Spree - When Can I See You Again?/Fall In Love Not In Line

Reptaliens - Do You Know You Are Sleeping?/Multiverse

Grave Flowers Bongo Band - Tomorrow/Strength of Spring

Elvis Costello and the Imposters - Magnificent Hurt/The Boy Named If

Eels - Amateur Hour/Extreme Witchcraft

Pedro the Lion - First Drum Set/Havasu

Savak - Trashing the Ghost/ Human Error/Human Delight

Pink Mountaintops - Lights of the City/Peacock Pools

Sasami - Make It Right/Squeeze

Hour 2

Wet Leg - Ur Mum/Wet Leg

Oceanator - The Last Summer/Nothing's Ever Fine

Just Mustard - Still/Heart Under

Spoon - The Hardest Cut/Lucifer on the Sofa

The Afghan Whigs - I'll Make You See God/How Do You Burn?

50 Foot Wave - Staring Into the Sun/Black Pearl

METZ - Demolition Row/ METZ/Adulkt Life

Adulkt Life - Book of Curses/ METZ/Adulkt Life

Howless - Fade Out/To Repel Ghosts

Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - Runes of Abandonment/Andy, Come Out EP

Papercuts - I Want My Jacket Back/Past Life Regression

Guided By Voices - Never Mind the List/Crystal Nuns Cathedral

Jon Spencer and the HITmakers - Junk Man/Spencer Gets It Lit!

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - The Way It Shatters/Endless Rooms

Eddie Vedder - Rose of Jericho/Earthling

Listen to the big show HERE, mofo.

Completely Conspicuous 601: Your Favorite Thing

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling as we discuss our favorite music of 2022. Listen to the episode or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:

- Recorded at Clicky Clicky/Parcheesi Redux East HQ

- We've been doing this for 13 years!

- Kumar: Went to some more shows this year

- Breitling went to zero shows in 2022

- Things to look forward to in '23: The Cure returns, Drop Nineteens, Hallelujah the Hills' DECK project, Johnny Foreigner, Fucked Up, Blue Ocean, Peter Gabriel

- Kate Hudson is supposed to be releasing an album

- The varied talents of Fred Armisen

- In '22, the music industry continued to struggle

- Fewer revenue streams, fragmented audiences, content glut

- Diaper payola

- Even established acts can't sell new albums anymore

- Artists are selling directly to their audiences through Patreon, etc.

- Breitling's honorable mentions: Photon Band, Flyying Colours, Bitchin' Bajas, Kal Marks, Sun Airway, S.C.A.B., They Are Gutting a Body of Water, Kiwi Jr.

- Kumar's HMs: Kal Marks, Built to Spill, Wet Leg, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Alvvays, Superchunk, Spoon, Jon Spencer and the HitMakers, Archers of Loaf, Black Angels, OFF!

- Albums that came out early in the year feel like they came out much longer ago

- To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through the Apple Podcasts 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 #455: December 23, 2022

 

It's that time of year again. You know, where the lines are long and the weather is cold and people are annoying. And the music is Christmas-themed, as it was for the entire two hours of this week's installment of Stuck In Thee Garage on BFF.fm. So dress up like a Christmas tree and crank it up, won't you?

The joyful playlist:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

Chaki - Christmas Funk/Single

Titus Andronicus - Drummer Boy/Single

Chubby and the Gang - Violent Night (A Christmas Tale)/Single

Zip-Tie Handcuffs - Santa's a Creep/A Very Allston Christmas, Vol. 5

Halfsour - Child's Christmas in Wales/A Very Allston Christmas, Vol. 5

Future Teens - Wonderful Christmastime/A Very Allston Christmas, Vol. 5

Beeef & GIFT - I Wish It Was Christmas Today/A Very Allston Christmas, Vol. 5

Pronoun - 12.23.95/Simply Having a Wonderful Compilation

Routine - Wait/Simply Having a Wonderful Compilation

Bacchae - This Will Be Our Year/Simply Having a Wonderful Compilation

The Ramones - (Merry Christmas) I Don't Want to Fight Tonight/Brain Drain

Slade - Merry Xmas Everybody/Single

The Kinks - Father Christmas/Single

The Minus 5 - Your Christmas Whiskey/Dear December

Sloan - December 25/Kids Come Back Again at Christmas

Greg Dulli - Candy Cane Crawl/Live at Triple Door

The White Stripes - Candy Cane Children/Merry Christmas From the White Stripes

 

Hour 2

David Byrne - The Fat Man's Comin'/Single

James Brown - Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto/Soulful Christmas

The Beach Boys - Little Saint Nick/The Beach Boys Christmas Album

Chaki - How to Hanukkah/Christmas Funk

Thurl Ravenscroft - You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch/How the Grinch Stole Christmas

George S. Irving - Heat Miser/The Year Without a Santa Claus

Letters to Cleo - It Sure Don't Feel Like Xmas Time/OK Christmas

Dirty Sidewalks - It's Xmas (and Everyone is Miserable)/Single

The Raveonettes - The Christmas Song/Maybe This Christmas Tree

The Flaming Lips - Christmas at the Zoo/Clouds Taste Metallic

Calexico - Gift X-change/Aerocalexico

R.E.M. - Christmas Time is Here/Single

Run DMC - Christmas in Hollis/Tougher Than Leather

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Annunciation Day/Born on Christmas Day / Living With the Living

T. Rex - Christmas Bop/T. Rexmas!

The Pursuit of Happiness - All That You Got Me For Christmas/Love Junk Deluxe

The Hives & Cyndi Lauper - A Christmas Duel/Single

LCD Soundsystem - Christmas Will Break Your Heart/Single

Spinal Tap - Christmas With the Devil/This Is Spinal Tap

 

Ho ho ho, listen to the SHOW! 

Completely Conspicuous 600: Meet Ze Monsta

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey about the music of 1995. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:

- Jay's non-top 5s: Mike Watt, Bjork, Guided By Voices, Boss Hog, Rancid, The Amps

- Phil's #5: Bjork's second album embraces the quirkiness

- Jay's #4: Jawbreaker's major label debut was a total bust, but it's really good

- "Selling out" was a big deal back then

- Phil's #3: The debut of Elastica was fully formed, but band disappeared a few years later

- Jay's #3: Pavement's followup to their big break was dismissed as too weird, but now is considered a classic

- Phil's #2: Neil Young teams up with Pearl Jam for strong release at the peak of PJ's fame

- Jay's #2: Horn-powered kickass blast of an album from Rocket From the Crypt

- Phil's #1 and Jay's #5: Dave Grohl emerges from Nirvana's shadow with first Foo Fighters album

- Jay's #1 and Phil's #4: PJ Harvey changes up her sound and goes theatrical and atmospheric

- Favorite songs: "Meet Ze Monsta" (Jay), "Alone + Easy Target" (Jay)

- Next: Best of 2022 with Jay Breitling

 

Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. 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 #454: December 16, 2023

 

Selling out doesn't have the same negative connotations it once did for musicians. Now it's one of the few decent revenue streams available to artists, so it's not surprising you're hearing rock songs advertising everything from soda to banking to Cadillacs. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs that have appeared in commercials in hour 2. It's so good, you can spread it on your toast.

The delicious playlist:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

The Bellwether Syndicate - Beacons/Single

Osees - Funeral Solution/A Foul Form

Sparta - Kill the Man Eat the Man/Sparta

Field School - Jennifer Valentine/When Summer Comes

The Mountain Goats - Guys On Every Corner/Bleed Out

TV Priest - It Was a Gift/My Other People

Dry Cleaning - Conservative Hell/Stumpwork

OFF! - Murder Corporation/Free LSD

Dead Meadow - Valmont's Pad/Force Form Free

...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - Field Song/XI: Bleed Here Now

S.C.A.B. - Beige and Green/S.C.A.B.

Built to Spill - Fool's Gold/When the Wind Forgets Your Name

Dendrons - Wait In Line/5-3-8

Preoccupations - Recalibrate/Arrangements

Ovens - Everything's the Same/Ovens

PUP -  PUPtheBandInc. is Filing For Bankruptcy/PUP Unravels Live in Front of Everyone They Know

Hour 2: Ads

Sloan - Money City Maniacs/Navy Blues

The Hives - Hate to Say I Told You So/Veni Vidi Vicious

The Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop/Ramones

The Walkmen - We've Been Had/Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone

Brendan Benson - What I'm Looking For/Alternative to Love

Spoon - The Underdog/Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

INXS - Never Tear Us Apart/Kick

The Rolling Stones - She's a Rainbow/Their Satanic Majesties Request

The Faces - Ooh La La/Ooh La La

Pixies - Here Comes Your Man/Doolittle

The Cure - In Between Days/The Head on the Door

Sonic Youth - Teenage Riot/Daydream Nation

Gang of Four - Natural's Not In It/Entertainment!

Funkadelic - Can You Get to That?/Maggot Brain

Parliament - Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker)/Mothership Connection

Listen to the rock show HERE.

Completely Conspicuous 599: Army of Me

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey about the music of 1995. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:

- First show in quite a while

- In '95, Phil turned 26, Jay turned 28

- We both saw a lot of concerts that year

- Big deaths: Jerry Garcia, Eazy E, Shannon Hoon

- Musings on Cleveland, where the Rock Hall of Fame opened in '95

- Jay saw a doubleheader of a Bruins game and a Chris Whitley show

- Singles charts were leaning toward pop and lighter fare

- Is band loyalty still a thing?

- It's okay to not listen to every album in a band's catalog

- Phil's non-top 5 albums: Belly, Garbage, Alice in Chains, Mad Season, Phish, Elliott Smith, Radiohead, RHCP, Sonic Youth, Matthew Sweet, Pavement, Ben Folds Five, Morphine, No Doubt, Throwing Muses, Green Day, Natalie Merchant, Son Volt, Smashing Pumpkins

- It's a rare double album that can't be cut down to a single album

- To be continued

 

Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. 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 #453: December 9, 2022

Nostalgia is ubiquitous. Everywhere you turn, there's a reboot or a remake or a retread of something that came before. The danger of looking back so much is you can forget to look ahead. All that said, it's fun every so often to explore the past. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs from 1997 in hour 2. It's a fun trip through what I was listening to the year I hit the big 3-0 (!). It's devilishly fun!

The scenery-chewing playlist:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

Martha - Hope Gets Harder/Please Don't Take Me Back

Hammered Hulls - Written Word/Careening

Blacklisters - Why Deny It?/Leisure Centre

Osees - Perm Act/A Foul Form

Mission of Burma - Get Off/Split Single With METZ

METZ - Good, Not Great/Split Single With Mission of Burma

TV Priest - The Breakers/My Other People

Alvvays - Belinda Says/Blue Rev

Fever Ray - Carbon Dioxide/Radical Romantics

Rob Munk - Slumber/Phased Out

Sloan - She Put Up With What She Put Down/Steady

Quasi - Queen of Ears/Breaking the Balls of History

King Tuff - Smalltown Stardust/Smalltown Stardust

Viagra Boys - Baby Criminal/Cave World

Ian Blurton's Future Now - The Power of No/Second Skin

Teen Idles - Sneakers/Four Old Seven Inches

S.O.A. - Gate Crashers/Four Old Seven Inches

Government Issue - Sheer Terror/Four Old Seven Inches

Youth Brigade - Barbed Wire/Four Old Seven Inches

 

Hour 2: 1997

Guided By Voices - I Am a Tree/Mag Earwhig!

Ben Folds Five - Battle of Who Could Care Less/Whatever and Ever Amen

Superchunk - Nu Bruises/Indoor Living

Radiohead - Lucky/OK Computer

Elliott Smith - Ballad of Big Nothing/ Either/Or

Pavement - Shady Lane/Brighten the Corners

Yo La Tengo - Little Honda/I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One

Built to Spill - I Would Hurt a Fly/Perfect From Now On

Sleater-Kinney - Dance Song '97/Dig Me Out

Cornershop - Sleep On the Left Side/When I Was Born For the 7th Time

Cheap Trick - Baby No More/Cheap Trick (1997)

The Hellacopters - Where the Action Is/Payin' the Dues

Foo Fighters - Hey, Johnny Park!/The Colour and the Shape

Paul Weller - Peacock Suit/Heavy Soul

Ween - Buckingham Green/The Mollusk

Faith No More - Last Cup of Sorrow/Album of the Year

 

In case you hadn't noticed the last few weeks, I'm not posting shows to Mixcloud; they're pushing people to pony up for the premium level and I'm not doing that. So just put putting the link here to the archived shows on BFF.fm. Alas, the player isn't embeddable, so there's just the URL. Go listen to the show here.

  

Stuck In Thee Garage #452: December 2, 2022

 

The brain is a powerful organ. It controls so many functions and impulses. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about the brain in hour 2. They're enough to keep your cranium crackling.

The eye-opening playlist:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

Weird Nightmare - So Far Gone/Single

Osees - Too Late For Suicide/A Foul Form

Fucked Up - One Day/One Day

TV Priest - I Have Learnt Nothing/My Other People

Viagra Boys - Punk Rock Loser/Cave World

Dry Cleaning - Kwenchy Kups/Stumpwork

Alvvays - Tom Verlaine/Blue Rev

Archers of Loaf - In the Surface Noise/Reason In Decline

Sparta - Mind Over Matter/Sparta

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Gondii/Changes

Ancient Shapes - Bird With an Iron Hand/Split Single with Weird Nightmare

Ovens - Cows/Ovens

Kal Marks - Who Waits/My Name Is Hell

Rob Munk - Heavy Shoes (to Kill the Blues)/Phased Out

The Beths - Expert In a Dying Field/Expert In a Dying Field

Kiwi Jr. - Downtown Area Blues/Chopper

Hour 2: Brains

New Bomb Turks - Id Slips In/Information Highway Revisited

King's X - Human Behavior/Dogman

Superchunk - Lost My Brain/What a Time to Be Alive

Oceanator - Bad Brain Daze/Nothing's Ever Fine

Bully - Brainfreeze/Feels Like

Tracy Bonham - Brain Crack/The Burdens of Being Upright

Beck - Cold Brains/Mutations

The Pursuit of Happiness - Back of My Mind/The Wonderful World of...

The Bevis Frond - Brain Fatigue/Little Eden

Joanna Gruesome - Psykick Espionage/Peanut Butter

Talking Heads - Mind/Fear of Music

Krill - Brain Problem/A Distant Fist Unclenching

Titus Andronicus - I Lost My Mind/The Most Lamentable Tragedy

Fiddlehead - Get My Mind Right/Between the Richness 

Alice In Chains - Check My Brain/Black Gives Way to Blue

Soundgarden - Mind Riot/Badmotorfinger

Listen to the episode here.