Stuck In Thee Garage #604: October 31, 2025

Some people don't like Halloween: Too commercialized, too scary, too whatever. I'm not one of those people. I love it. I don't love it so much that I'm going to join the throngs of people in Salem tonight, but I enjoy the general vibe of the season. And part of that is putting together two hours of Halloween-adjacent songs for Stuck In Thee Garage. There's a wide assortment of songs about ghosts, goblins, evil and assorted other mayhem. Best enjoyed with a nice chianti and some fava beans.

Check out the playlist, Clarice:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

X - Devil Doll/More Fun in the New World

The Gun Club - Ghost on the Highway/Fire of Love

The Jam - Ghosts/The Gift

Eldridge Rodriguez - The Ghost of Emily Post/Atrophy

Hallelujah the Hills - Confessions of an Ex-Ghost/Bootleg: Live 12/15/23 at the Sinclair

Boeckner - Ghost in the Mirror/Boeckner!

Ghost Party - Ghost Moves/Ghost Moves

TV On the Radio - Let the Devil In/Return to Cookie Mountain

Concrete Blonde - The Beast/Bloodletting

Peter Murphy - The Line Between the Devil's Teeth (And That Which Cannot Be Repeat)/Deep

Alien Sex Fiend - Now I'm Feeling Zombified/Curse

The Raveonettes - Dead Sound/Lust Lust Lust

L7 - Ouija Board Lies/Scatter the Rats

Queens of the Stone Age - The Evil Has Landed/Villains

Hour 2:

Black Sabbath - N.I.B./Black Sabbath

Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden/Live After Death

Dio - Don't Talk to Strangers/Holy Diver

Metallica - Am I Evil?/Garage Days Re-Revisited

Howlin' Wolf - Moanin' at Midnight/My Baby Walked Off (Sun Records 1951-1953)

Johnny Cash - Rusty Cage/Unchained

South San Gabriel - Of Evil/For Evil /Dual Hawks

Thee Oh Sees - Withered Hand/Mutilator Defeated at Last

Faith No More and Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. - Another Body Murdered/Judgment Night soundtrack

Soundgarden - Beyond the Wheel/Ultramega OK

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown - Fire/The Crazy World of Arthur Brown

Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar Babies/Billion Dollar Babies

The Afghan Whigs - Tonight/Congregation

Crank up the soundtrack and howl at the moon or something!

Stuck In Thee Garage #603: October 24, 2025

Every so often, it's fun to look back at a year in the distant past and see what was going on. It's scary to think that 2010 qualifies as one of those years, but it was 15 years ago! Among the new developments that year were the iPad, Game of Thrones and Angry Birds. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs from 2010 in hour 2 and they're as kickass as I remember, so that's good, right?

Prepare for battle with the playlist:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

Weird Nightmare - Forever Elsewhere/Single

They Are Gutting a Body of Water - The Chase/LOTTO

Steel Beans - Throwin' Stones/Steel Beans

Katy and the Null Sets - F*** Me!/Troublemaker

Militarie Gun - Fill Me With Paint/God Save the Gun

Weakened Friends - NPC (ft. Buckethead)/Feels Like Hell

Snooper - Relay/Worldwide

Geese - Trinidad/Getting Killed

Phantom Wave - Wanton/Echoes Unknown

The Telephone Numbers - Scarecrow/Scarecrow II

Jeff Tweedy - KC Rain (No Wonder)/Twilight Override

Trapper Schoepp - Mad, Mad, Mad (Sweet Salvation)/Osborne

Wednesday - Pick Up That Knife/Bleeds

KISS - Strutter/Alive!

KISS - Detroit Rock City/Destroyer

Ace Frehley - New York Groove/Ace Frehley

Hour 2: 2010

Los Campesinos! - Romance is Boring/Romance is Boring

Grinderman - Worm Tamer/Grinderman 2

Les Savy Fav - Let's Get Out of Here/Root for Ruin

Superchunk - My Gap Feels Weird/Majesty Shredding

Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - Gimme the Wire/The Brutalist Bricks

Black Mountain - Let Spirits Ride/Wilderness Heart

The Henry Clay People - Switch Kids/Somewhere on the Golden Coast

The Hold Steady - Rock Problems/Heaven is Whenever

The Gaslight Anthem - American Slang/American Slang

The New Pornographers - Your Hands (Together)/Together

Wintersleep - Encyclopedia/New Inheritors

Wolf Parade - Ghost Pressure/Expo 86

LCD Soundsystem - Drunk Girls/This is Happening

Spoon - Got Nuffin/Transference

Drive-By Truckers - Drag the Lake Charlie/The Big To-Do

Titus Andronicus - No Future Part Three: Escape from No Future/The Monitor

Dude, this thing claims I have mail and/or a playlist.

Bringing It All Back Home

I've been pretty distracted today. Sure, I've been working, but I'm still riding high from the Toronto Blue Jays' amazing ALCS Game 7 win last night that has propelled them into the World Series. They're underdogs against the well-heeled LA Dodgers, but there's a reason they don't just award the championship to a team without playing the games.

The Jays' success this year has reinvigorated my interest in baseball. It had been waning in recent years thanks to lackluster Jays performances, culminating in 2024's horrendous last-place finish. Add to that my rapidly shrinking attention span, which made watching a full baseball game a very rare occurrence. I watched parts of the World Series last fall between the Dodgers and Yankees, but if you're not a fan of those teams, you tend to get sick of seeing them spending their way to success every season (moreso the Dodgers than the Yankees, who haven't won a title since 2009).

I paid more attention to hockey, which has always been my favorite sport, and football. But this season, after a slow start, the Jays started to play better and by midseason, were starting to make some noise in the AL East. I've been a subscriber to MLB.tv for years so I could watch Jays games and in June, I started paying closer attention to the team and actually watching full games. On Canada Day (July 1 for the uninitiated), the Jays beat the Yankees 12-5, with George Springer hitting a grand slam in the 7th to put the Jays ahead. They swept the four games in that series and took over first place in the division, which they managed to hold onto for the rest of the season.

The team was different than past editions. Even though they had stars like Springer, Vlad Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, the Jays received contributions from players up and down the lineup and were winning in different ways. New hitting coach David Popkins helped them become a much tougher team at the plate, striking out less and wearing down pitchers. The pitching staff, while not flashy, was efficient and effective. At the trade deadline, the big acquisition was former Cy Young winner Shane Bieber (who was coming off Tommy John surgery) and high-leverage relievers Louis Varland and Seranthony Dominguez. Manager John Schneider ran the team calmly and confidently and the players seemed to have a closer bond than past editions.

In the East, the Jays were battling the Yankees and the Red Sox, who were also armed with strong pitching staffs and potent offenses. After a September swoon, the Jays finished the season with four straight wins, including a sweep of Tampa Bay, to hold onto first; they had the same record as New York but held the head-to-head tiebreaker. 

That earned them a bye in the Wild Card round. Toronto played the Yankees in the best-of-5 AL Divisional Series and despite having a week off, their bats pounded the NY pitchers into submission. The Jays won the series 3-1 and played the Seattle Mariners in the AL Championship Series. The M's, who entered MLB in the same year as Toronto (1977) but had never been to the World Series, started strong by completely shutting down the Jays offense in the first two games on Toronto's home turf. But the Jays, led by their superstar Guerrero, went to Seattle and took two of three. They still came back to Toronto for game 6 trailing 3-2 in the series, but they won the last two games to win the right to play the Dodgers. 

Game 7s are rare and important since they're do-or-die situations. The Jays had only been in one before, losing the 1985 ALCS to the Kansas City Royals. Last night's game didn't start much better, as Seattle's pitchers didn't allow much after the first inning and the M's held a 3-1 lead going into the 7th. But then the Jays were able to put runners on second and third for Springer, who was limping after getting hit in the kneecap by a 96-mph fastball in game 5. He then turned the game on its head by drilling a 1-0 pitch into the left field stands for a 4-3 Jays lead as the stadium exploded. One of the biggest homers in team history and the Jays made it hold up, with closer Jeff Hoffman striking out the side to finish the game in the 9th.

The Jays are now going to their first World Series since 1993, when they beat the Phillies on a walk-off 3-run homer by Joe Carter for their second consecutive championship. I was watching it by myself in my rented room in a house in Middleton. The Jays had a dominant team that season and I thought it would just keep going. I was 26 at the time. They didn't make the playoffs again until 2015! And now they're finally back in the World Series. 

I know that given what's going on in the world right now, sports can seem pretty trivial to get worked up over. But I've always been a huge sports fan and dammit, it's a good distraction. I'm not getting overconfident about the Jays' chances against Shohei Ohtani (who they famously courted a few offseasons ago before he signed with LA) and crew, but I've seen stranger things happen. There have been plenty of major upsets over the years, so why not now? Hopefully I'll be in a good mood about this stuff in a week's time; game 1 of the World Series is Friday in Toronto (they actually had a better record than LA). Hope springs eternal!

Stuck In Thee Garage #602: October 17, 2025

I'm more of a letters and words person myself, but numbers are important for many reasons. I don't buy into all that numerology stuff, but I did play songs with numbers in hour 2 this week on Stuck In Thee Garage. But don't tell Mr. Roper because he tends to frown on that sort of thing (and also just about everything else).

This playlist will come and knock on your door:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

Weakened Friends - Tough Luck (Bleed Me Out)/Feels Like Hell

Steel Beans - Big Dumb/Steel Beans

Snooper - Star*69/Worldwide

Sharp Pins - I Wonder Where You Hide All Your Love/Single

Peel Dream Magazine - Seek and Destroy/Taurus

Neko Case - Destination/Neon Grey Midnight Green

Geese - Bow Down/Getting Killed

Wednesday - Bitter Everyday/Bleeds

The Telephone Numbers - Pulling Punchlines/Scarecrow II

Rocket - Another Second Chance/R is for Rocket

Cardinals - Masquerade/Masquerade

Sloan - Congratulations/Based on the Best Seller

Emerald Comets - Lost Books/Dreamnight

SONS - Magic Mirror/Hallo

Pynch - Microwave Rhapsody/Beautiful Noise

Sprints - Need/All That is Over

Hour 2: Numbers

Lupo Citta - 1-2 Zero/Lupo Citta

The Kills - 103/God Games

Topographies - 1959/Interior Spring

Fugazi - Joe No. 1/Repeater

Protomartyr - 3800 Tigers/Formal Growth in the Desert

Jeff Rosenstock - 9/10 /POST-

METZ - 99/Up On Gravity Hill

PJ Harvey - 50ft Queenie/Rid of Me

Mister Goblin - Six Flags America/Four People in an Elevator and One of Them is the Devil

The Twilight Singers - Forty Dollars/Powder Burns

Mission of Burma - 13/The Obliterati

Shudder to Think - 9 Fingers on You/Pony Express Record

The Foxboro Hot Tubs - 27th Ave Shuffle/Stop Drop and Roll!!!

A.C. Newman - 35 in the Shade/The Slow Wonder

Misfits - 20 Eyes/Walk Among Us

Spacemen 3 - 2:35 (Feedback Version)/Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs to

Brainiac - 70 Kg Man/Hissing Prigs in Static Couture

Queens of the Stone Age - 3's & 7's/Era Vulgaris

Rock the playlist on the ones and twos, homeslice.

Stuck In Thee Garage #601: October 10, 2025

It may feel like time has no meaning anymore, but in reality, we have plenty of ways to mark the passage of the years. Music gives us plenty of mile markers, so this week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I've got decade-specific rock blocks in hour 2 (and plenty of new music in hour 1). Put your ear to the door!

This playlist will see you on the Lido Deck:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

SONS - Somehow/Hallo

Snooper - Guard Dog/Worldwide

Sprints - Descartes/All That Is Over

Bass Drum of Death - Can't Taste You All/Six

Trapper Schoepp - Satan is Real (Satan is a Sackler)/Osborne

Garbage - Chinese Fire Horse/Let All That We Image Be the Light

The Telephone Numbers -Be Right Down/Scarecrow II

Peel Dream Magazine - The Band from Northampton/Taurus

Frog - Spanish Armada VAR. XV/The Count

Geese - Taxes/Getting Killed

Midlake - The Ghouls/A Bridge to Far

Jeff Tweedy - Lou Reed Was My Babysitter/Twilight Override

Tony Molina - FC '23/On This Day

White Reaper - Freakshow/Only Slightly Empty

Guerilla Toss - When Dogs Bark/You're Weird Now

Absolute Losers - You Never Say That You Love Me/In the Crowd

Sloan - Capitol Cooler/Based on the Best Seller

Hour 2: Decade-specific rock blocks

2010s

Savages - Evil/Adore Life

Ovlov - Nu Punk/am

Fucked Up - Ship of Fools/David Comes to Life

2000s

The Hold Steady - Navy Sheets/Stay Positive

Sleater-Kinney - The Fox/The Woods

Elvis Costello - 45/When I Was Cruel

1990s

Rocket From the Crypt - Eye On You/RFTC

Helmet - Wilma's Rainbow/Betty

A Tribe Called Quest - Scenario/The Low End Theory

1980s

Beastie Boys - Shake Your Rump/Paul's Boutique

The Smithereens - Behind the Wall of Sleep/Especially for You

The B-52s - Song for a Future Generation/Whammy!

1970s

The Police - Truth Hits Everybody/Outlandos D'Amour

Blue Oyster Cult - This Ain't the Summer of Love/Agents of Fortune

War - Me and Baby Brother/Deliver the Word

T. Rex - Telegram Sam/The Slider

Check out the playlist, exciting and new!

Completely Conspicuous 664: Time Stand Still

This week, I'm joined by fellow podcast pioneer Brian Salvatore as we discuss the first 20 years of podcasting. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:

• Brian: First heard about podcasts in 2004
• Started making the FrankBlack.net Podcast in 2006
• Jay: Got my first iPod in 2004 and then learned about podcasts
• Brian: The internet was so much better 20 years ago
• Great for digging into niche interests
• Jay and Brian met through the Frank Black podcast in 2010 and realized that Brian lived near Jay's brother-in-law
• Jay: The start of CompCon in 2006
• Always loved radio but never worked at the college station
• First few years were just me talking about pop culture
• Eventually started bringing on guests after a few years
• Podcasting got an early boost when Apple started a podcast directory
• Early podcasts I listened to were by Adam Curry, Ricky Gervais
• Marc Maron started his podcast in 2009 and is airing his last episode next week
• Now everybody's got a podcast
• Brian: Before podcasts, blogging was a thing
• Brian produces podcasts for other people in addition to his own
• Podcasting never became a career for us, just a hobby
• But some people have made lots of money from them
• Brian: Not much innovation in the podcast space lately
• Music podcasts were hampered by copyright issues
• Podcast networks started popping up
• Conan O'Brien created a great podcast after his TV talk show went away
• Podcasting is much more interesting than commercial radio these days
• Brian: Grew up loving radio, especially WFMU
• Jay: College radio is still good, but commercial radio blows
• DJs used to be dependable arbiters of taste
• Now everything's heavily formatted
• Jay: Been doing my own radio show on BFF.fm for the last 12 years
• Brian co-owns a sports podcast company
• People have trouble committing to a show once they start it
• Listening habits have changed
• Jay: Currently listen to WTF, The Best Show, sports shows about Toronto teams, The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers
• Brian: Election Profitmakers, Song Exploder, Never Not Funny, Conan, Indiecast, Who Cares About the Rock Hall?, Mets podcasts
• So much content to wade through
• Just like with music; it's much easier to release an album now but there's so much out there
• Tough to make it as a musician now
• Podcasts have gone beyond a niche thing
• Jay: I love listening to audio
• The value of playing songs people haven't heard a zillion times
• Every celebrity has a podcast
• Will podcasts go back to the indie days at some point?
• Jay: I do two podcasts for work
• The bubble will burst at some point
• AI could have a strange, negative effect
• Connections formed via podcasting
• Brian: Start a podcast, people

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 #600: October 3, 2025

Milestones can be fun. Sticking it out for 600 episodes over the course of 13+ years is an accomplishment. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played new music from Sloan, Neko Case, Jeff Tweedy and Trapper Schoepp in hour 1 and songs about emptiness in hour 2. Keep riding, Danny.

The shiny playlist:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

Sloan - Baxter/Based On the Best Seller

Absolute Losers - Kiss of Death/In the Crowd

Tony Molina - Violets of Dawn/On This Day

White Reaper - Blink/Only Slightly Empty

Geese - Half Real/Getting Killed

GANS - I Think I Like You/Good for the Soul

Trapper Schoepp - Wildfire/Osborne

Neko Case - Wreck/Neon Grey Midnight Green

Jeff Tweedy - Forever Never Ends/Twilight Override

Wednesday - Wound Up Here (By Holdin' On)/Bleeds

Bass Drum of Death - Pick Em Up Put Em Down/Six

Guerilla Toss - Life's a Zoo/You're Weird Now

Shame - Screwdriver/Cutthroat

The Hives - The Path of Most Resistance/The Hives Forever Forever the Hives

Gouwzee - Faulty Vessels/Gouwzee

Duncan Lloyd - I'm On It/Unwound

Algernon Cadwallader - Revelation 420/Trying Not to Have a Thought

Hour 2: Emptiness

The Bevis Frond - Empty/Focus on Nature

Daniel Romano - Empty Husk/Finally Free

TVOD - Empty Boy/Party Time

Savak - Empty Age/SQUAWK!

Ratboys - Empty/The Window

Ekko Astral - Head Empty Blues/Pink Balloon

Superchunk - Void/I Hate Music

Mary Bell - Empty Puppet/Mary Bell

Radiator Hospital - Half Empty/Play the Songs You Like

Bethlehem Steel - Empty Room/Bethlehem Steel

Family Video - Empty Bed/Places to Sleep

Sunset Rubdown - The Empty Threats of Little Lord/Shut Up I Am Dreaming

Eric's Trip - My Chest is Empty (Part 2)/Live at Vermonstress 1992

Los Campesinos - Hung Empty/Sick Scenes

Trashlord - Empty Cloud/ Trashlord/Strange Mangers split

Those Pretty Wrongs - Empty City/Those Pretty Wrongs

Shearwater - Empty Orchestra/The Great Awakening

Bonk the link for rock awesomeness!

Completely Conspicuous 663: Shadow Dancing

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

Show notes:

• Our top 10 songs we hate to love in no particular order
• Phil: A song from the infamous Great White
• One of the many bands who tried to sound like Zeppelin
• Jay: Rupert Holmes somehow got cheesier than the "Pina Colada Song"
• Classic AM gold shizz
• Phil: A big hit for the Carpenters
• Originally written for a bank commercial
• Jay: Monster disco one-hit wonder from Patrick Hernandez
• Phil: Britney with an earworm
• Jay: Raspy pop smash from Kim Carnes
• Crossed over to MOR stations that our parents listened to
• Phil: Digging into the Jefferson Starship ballads
• Marty Balin got on the wrong side of the Hell's Angels at Altamont
• Jay: Phil Collins did a lot of soundtrack music in the '80s in addition to everything else
• A patented Collins Angry Ballad
• Phil digs that calypso beat in one of Lionel Richie's biggest hits
• Richie was one of the driving forces behind "We Are the World"
• Jay: A synth pop cover of "Lean On Me"
• Phil: Secretly loved the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack as a kid
• Yvonne Elliman sang backups on several Clapton albums
• Jay: Non-English hit by Falco
• Only German-language #1 song in America
• Phil: Frankie Valli's disco song in Grease
• Written by Barry Gibb, who was unstoppable in the late '70s
• Jay: Early '70s soft rock jam from Albert Hammond
• Phil: John Mayer's wuss rock moment
• More familiar with his work in Dead and Co.
• Jay: Rediscovered recently his love of Little River Band
• Australian purveyors of catchy dad rock
• Original members lost the rights to the band name
• Phil: Shout out to the Weather Girls
• Catchy and co-written by Paul Shaffer
• Jay: Another huge hit from the Queen of Disco, Donna Summer
• Phil: An apparently ironic love ballad from the Captain and Tennille
• Jay: Another hit from the Gibb family, this time younger brother Andy
• Too much cocaine, apparently

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.