Completely Conspicuous 325: Ride Like the Wind

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Ric Dube as we try to figure out how Christopher Cross became a pop star. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").



Show notes:
- Recorded in at More Lost Time world HQ
- All about the shrews in Shrewsbury
- Record fairs are back
- Where did Christopher Cross come from?
- Went from San Antonio cover band to stardom
- Produced by Michael Omartian
- Omartian worked with lots of big artists, including Rod Stewart and Donna Summer
- Lots of big names helped out on Cross' debut: Henley, Michael McDonald, Nicolette Larson
- Cross didn't have a particularly great voice
- Jay's Christopher Cross album
- Pre-MTV fame
- First single was "Ride Like the Wind," second was "Sailing"
- Theme from Arthur was his biggest hit
- Couldn't escape it on the radio for a while
- Ric: Played plenty of music like this at Strawberries
- "Think of Laura" was written for General Hospital
- To be continued

Music:
Bedroom Eyes - Wild Sins
Hymnals - When You're Away
Kinski - Conflict Free Diamonds

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

The Bedroom Eyes song is a single available for free at Bandcamp.
The Hymnals song is a single available for free at Bandcamp.
The Kinski song is on the Kill Rock Stars compilation Crazed MP3 Fans Vol. 1. Download the comp for free at Bandcamp.

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 #33: April 25, 2014

Music can be a magical thing. It can transport you from your everyday, humdrum existence to another place that's infinitely more interesting. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played an hour of songs about or inspired by magic. And there really could only be one proper representative of all things magical:

The magically delicious playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Sunny Day Real Estate - Lipton Witch/SDRE-Circa Survive split
Andrew Jackson Jihad - Temple Grandin/Christmas Island
Carsick Cars - 15 Minutes Older/Live on WFMU's 100% Whatever
Total Control - Flesh War/Flesh War
The Afghan Whigs - Algiers/Do to the Beast
Thee Oh Sees - Encrypted Bounce (A Queer Sound)/Drop
Cloud Nothings - Just See Fear/Here and Nowhere Else
Chain & the Gang - I'm a Choice (Not a Child)/Minimum Rock 'n Roll
Nothing - In Metal/In Metal
Corin Tucker Band - I Don't Wanna Go/Kill My Blues
Marnie Stern - Year of the Glad/Chronicles of Marnia
The Raveonettes - Forget That You're Young/Raven in the Grave
Kinski - Conflict Free Diamonds/Cosy Moments
The Thermals - I Don't Believe You/Personal Life
Grinderman - Kitchenette/Grinderman 2

Hour 2: Songs about magic
Ben Kweller - Magic/Ben Kweller
Lilys - Black Carpet Magic/Everything Wrong is Imaginary
De La Soul - The Magic Number/3 Feet High and Rising
The Kills - Last Day of Magic/Midnight Boom
Jarvis Cocker - Black Magic/Jarvis
Jason Isbell - The Magician/Siren in the Ditch
Queens of the Stone Age - Burn the Witch (UNKLE remix)/Burn the Witch
Bloc Party - Hunting for Witches/A Weekend in the City
Thurston Moore - Wonderful Witches/Trees Outside the Academy
Robert Pollard - Love is Stronger Than Witchcraft/From a Compound Eye
Sloan - Witch's Wand/Parallel Play
Dio - Rainbow in the Dark/Holy Diver
Black Sabbath - Voodoo/Live Evil
Tenacious D - Dio/Tenacious D
Black Mountain - Evil Ways/In the Future
Fu Manchu - Evil Eye/The Action is Go

Stuck In Thee Garage 033 by Koomdogg on Mixcloud

Stuck In Thee Garage #32: April 18, 2014

Due to technical difficulties, this week's show was unable to air in its new time slot. But thankfully, you can hear it here. Normally, I would have saved it for next week, but this one was time-sensitive since hour 2 is full of songs from Boston artists in honor of the Boston Marathon on Monday.

The price is wrong, but the playlist is right:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
The Afghan Whigs - Parked Outside/Do to the Beast
Chain & the Gang - Devitalize/Minimum Rock 'n Roll
The Men - Going Down/Tomorrow's Hits
What Moon Things - Astronaut/What Moon Things
Ringo Deathstarr - Chainsaw Morning/God's Dream
Johnny Foreigner - Wifi Beach/You Can Do Better
Courtney Barnett - Avant Gardener/The Double EP: A Pair of Split Peas
Future of the Left - How to Spot a Record Company/How to Stop Your Brain in an Accident
Panthers - Goblin City/The Trick
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Get Ready for Love/Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus
Plastic Bertrand - Ca Plane Pour Moi/An 1
Gord Downie and the Sadies - Crater/And the Conquering Sun
Ladyhawk - Fear/Shots
Patterson Hood - Heavy and Hanging/Murdering Oscar (and Other Love Songs)

Hour 2: Boston rock
The Hush Now - Marathon Day/single
RIBS - Alarms/Russian Blood
Bearstronaut - Painted in the Dark/Paradice
Krill - Sweet Death/Steve Hears Pile in Malden and Bursts Into Tears
Young Adults - Let Us Out/Black Hole
Buffalo Tom - Velvet Roof/Let Me Come Over
Gigolo Aunts - Mr. Woods/Safe and Sound: A Benefit in Response to the Brookline Clinic Violence
Bullet Lavolta - Trapdoor/The Gift
Lump - Thirteen/Live on Pipeline! WMBR 3/2/93
AM Stereo - The Way I Say Hello/When You Wish Upon a Bar
The Kickovers - Black and Blue/Osaka
Mission of Burma - Weatherbox (live)/The Horrible Truth About Burma
Volcano Suns - Greasy Spine/Sea Cruise single
Consonant - That Boston Life/Consonant
The Real Kids - Senseless/Senseless: Live at Cantone's 1982
The Modern Lovers - Roadrunner/The Modern Lovers

SITG 032 by Koomdogg on Mixcloud

Completely Conspicuous 324: Future Tense

Part 2 of my conversation with guest James Gralian as we discuss the future of podcasting. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:
- Recorded via Skype
- Check out James' show The Avs Hockey Podcast
- Old media (radio, newspapers) is struggling
- Radio stations need to think differently
- Boston was once a great radio town
- College radio is still going
- Jay: Playing DJ on BFF.fm
- Apple helped grow podcasting with iTunes
- Talk radio is still popular
- James' podcast has nothing to do with sports talk radio
- Mo' money, mo' problems
- Everything revolves around smartphones
- Podcasting is about as DIY as it gets
- Still having fun with it
- James: There will be massive dropoff in conventional podcasts
- Hard to keep up with all the shows
- Similar to the amount of good TV out there
- This American Life was originally rejected by NPR, went to PRI
- It's not about SEO, it's about making good shows

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

Music:
Courtney Barnett - Avant Gardener
What Moon Things - Astronaut
Mattress Financial - I Do That Good

The Courtney Barnett song is on The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas on Milk! Records. Download the song for free at Amazon MP3.
The What Moon Things song is on the band's self-titled album. Download the song for free at Soundcloud.
The Mattress Financial song is on the Mattress Financial/Fond Han single Private Split. Download the song for free (in exchange for your email address) as part of Exploding in Sound's EIS Sampler 2013-2014 on Bandcamp.

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 #31: April 11, 2014

I've always been an aficionado of all things sci-fi and fantasy; maybe not to the extent as some nerds, but I generally dig that stuff. And there's plenty of cool music influenced by sci-fi over the years, so I highlighted a very small portion of it in hour 2 of this week's show.

In other news, this was the last week of SITG's 3 p.m. Eastern/12 Pacific time slot. Starting next week, the show is moving to Fridays at 11 a.m. Eastern/8 Pacific. This was necessitated because BFF has so many live shows on the schedule now, which is a great thing indeed. As a result, I'm changing the format to a wacky morning zoo, complete with sound effects and zany banter.

Sure I am.

The horrific playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Ringo Deathstarr - Flower Power/God's Dream
EMA - So Blonde/The Future's Void
Soccer Mom - Hideaway Sands/Soccer Mom
Swirlies - Tree Chopped Down/Blonder Tongue Audio Baton
Mean Creek - Johnny Allen/Local Losers
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - The Janitor Revealed/Wig Out at Jagbags
Foxy Shazam - Brutal Truth/Gonzo
Nothing - Bent Nail/Guilty of Everything
Cloud Nothings - Now Hear In/Here and Nowhere Else
Thee Oh Sees - No Spell/Floating Coffin
Wand - Screaming Eye/LAMC 11
Wolf Parade - Call It a Ritual/At Mount Zoomer
Sunny Day Real Estate - Seven/Diary
Magnolia Electric Co. - The Dark Don't Hide It/What Comes After the Blues
Destroyer - This Night/This Night

Hour 2: Sci-fi songs
David Bowie - Moonage Daydream/The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
Gary Numan - Metal/The Pleasure Principle
Man or Astro-Man? - The Carbonated Comet/Cocktail Companion 7-inch
The Flaming Lips - Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell/Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Misfits - Astro Zombies/Walk Among Us
Iron Maiden - The Evil That Men Do/Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
Mastodon - Divinations/Crack the Skye
Black Sabbath - Symptom of the Universe/Sabotage
El-P - Habeas Corpses (Draconian Love)/I'll Sleep When You're Dead
Gorillaz (feat. Gruff Rhys and De La Soul) - Superfast Jellyfish/Plastic Beach
Del the Funky Homosapien and Dan the Automator - Mastermind/Deltron 3030
Genesis - Cuckoo Cocoon/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Rush - 2112 Overture/Live in St. Louis 1980
Rush - The Temples of Syrinx/Live in St. Louis 1980
Styx - Mr. Roboto/Kilroy Was Here

Stuck In Thee Garage 031 by Koomdogg on Mixcloud

Young Livers

Things have been a little nuts around here lately, coinciding with a concert drought over the winter. The last show I saw was in November when the Smithereens played in Salem, but I had April Fool's Day circled on my calendar because I managed to procure a ticket to the sold-out Rocket From the Crypt show at Brighton Music Hall.

I saw RFTC at the Middle East downstairs in the fall of '95 on the Scream Dracula Scream tour and then a few years later when they were opening for Foo Fighters at Avalon and at the State Theatre in Portland. The band has been on hiatus for several years while frontman John "Speedo" Reis toured with Hot Snakes and the Night Marchers, but when they announced a short tour, I acted fast. And I'm glad I did.


Opening the show as Ex Hex, Mary Timony's new band now that Wild Flag is no longer a going concern. The all-female trio traffics in '70s glam rock sounds, with a 7-inch out and an album on Merge due out later this year. Ex Hex embraced the rock, with Timony breaking out big riffs and hot solos and bassist Betsy Wright high-kicking all over the place. Just fun, big rock that kicked ass and made me excited for that new record.

RFTC was resplendent in their matching outfits and wasted no time blowing the roof off the club. Reis mixed in some funny stage banter between songs, riffing on the "Beantown" moniker, April Fool's and coyotes and doing some tongue-in-cheek crowd baiting, but primarily the band was all business. Reis and lead guitarist Andy "ND" Stamets laid down some seriously heavy riffage, while the two-man horn section wailed and provided backing vocals and Mario Rubalcaba (who has been playing with OFF! in recent years) thundered on the drums.

The band's 18-song set (give or take a few) was peppered with music from throughout their catalog, but the biggest response was from material from their classic Circa Now and Scream Dracula Scream albums. The mid-set trio of "Middle," "Born in '69" and "On a Rope," which lead off SDS, was mind-blowingly awesome. So furious was the set that a decent mosh pit was raging just to my right; don't see those much anymore. For the encore, Reis went into an extended intro about how the band was going to play a new song that was going to be available as a free download...and then RFTC launched into "'Glazed" from Circa Now. It was perfect.

Completely Conspicuous 323: Talking Loud and Saying Nothing

Part 1 of my conversation with guest James Gralian as we discuss the future of podcasting. Listen to the episode below or download it directly (right click and "save as").


Show notes:
- Recorded via Skype
- Check out James' show The Avs Hockey Podcast
- Also produces podcast for Denver Symphony Orchestra
- We last spoke on this topic four years ago
- 10th anniversary of podcasting
- Tools are more accessible than ever
- James: Don't see as many quality podcasts as I expected
- Apple has played big role, positive and negative
- James listens to Radiolab, Welcome to Nightvale, Definitely Not the Opera, 99% Invisible, among other podcasts
- There are many "two white guys talking" podcasts
- Waiting for the next interesting thing
- Most podcasters aren't in it for the money
- James: Not sure whether sponsors are getting a good return
- Trying to have fun and be creative with Avs Hockey Podcast
- Professional podcasters vs. hobbyists
- Marc Maron is a podcasting success story; turned his entire career around
- Commercial radio is much less interesting these days
- Parallels with late night TV and Letterman's retirement
- More freedom on basic cable for Stewart and Colbert
- Are podcasters using their voice?
- Having guests can bring new energy to a show
- What constitutes success in podcasting?
- To be continued

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

Music:
Mean Creek - Johnny Allen
Foxy Shazam - Brutal Truth
Nothing - Bent Nail

The Mean Creek song is on the album Local Losers on Old Flame Records. Download the song for free at Soundcloud.
The Foxy Shazam song is on the self-released album Gonzo. Download the album for free (in exchange for your email address) at Noisetrade.
The song by Nothing is on the album Guilty of Everything on Relapse Records. Download the song for free at Amazon.

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 #30: April 4, 2014

Much has happened in the music industry over the last 30 years, but there's no denying that 1984 was a banner year for rock music. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played an eclectic mix of new and old in hour 1 and then focused on rock from 1984 in hour 2. (For a more in-depth discussion of 1984's music, check out the last two episodes of the Completely Conspicuous podcast: parts 1 and 2.)

I have it on good authority that the Stay Puft marshmallow man is a fan.

The playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Cloud Nothings - Quieter Today/Here and Nowhere Else
Johnny Foreigner - The Last Queens of Scotland/You Can Do Better
Soccer Mom - In Mirrors/Soccer Mom
Hallelujah the Hills - Pick Up an Old Phone/Have You Ever Done Something Evil?
Pixies - Greens and Blues/EP 2
Art Brut - DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshake/Art Brut vs. Satan
Joe Jackson - One More Time/Look Sharp!
The Hold Steady - Spinners/Teeth Dreams
Screaming Maldini - Abyssinia/single
Mikal Cronin - Soul in Motion/L.A.M.C. #11
Kurt Vile - Jesus Fever/Smoke Ring for My Halo
The Creation - Making Time/Our Music is Red - With Purple Flashes
Wild Flag - Something Came Over Me/Wild Flag
Rocket From the Crypt - Middle/Scream Dracula Scream!
Rocket From the Crypt - Born in '69/Scream Dracula Scream!

Hour 2: 1984
Prince - Darling Nikki/Purple Rain
Van Halen - Girl Gone Bad/1984
The Replacements - Unsatisfied/Let It Be
R.E.M. - (Don't Go Back to) Rockville/Reckoning
Iggy Pop - Repo Man/Repo Man soundtrack
Minutemen - Themselves/Double Nickels on the Dime
Husker Du - Never Talking to You Again/Zen Arcade
Meat Puppets - Lake of Fire/Meat Puppets II
Deep Purple - Perfect Strangers/Perfect Strangers
Dio - The Last in Line/The Last in Line
Motorhead - Killed by Death/No Remorse
Spinal Tap - Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight/This is Spinal Tap soundtrack
Stevie Ray Vaughan - Cold Shot/Couldn't Stand the Weather
Violent Femmes - Country Death Song/Hallowed Ground
The Cult - Spiritwalker/Dreamtime

Stuck In Thee Garage 030 by Koomdogg on Mixcloud

Completely Conspicuous 322: Reeling in the Years, 1984 (Part 2)

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we look back at the music of 1984. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").


Show notes:
- Recorded via Skype
- Check out Brian's comics podcast The Hour Cosmic
- Brian's #5
- Pretenders are very underrated
- Chrissie Hynde got a late start in rock
- Jay's #5
- Saw R.E.M.'s first national TV appearance on Letterman
- Brian's #4
- Minutemen covered a wide range of styles
- Mike Watt's interesting career
- Scott Asheton, R.I.P.
- James Williamson went from playing with Iggy to become a Silicon Valley exec
- Jay's #4
- Van Halen inadvertently helped create hair metal
- Brian's #3
- Meat Puppets created a unique sound
- Most people became aware of them a decade later
- Jay's #3
- Replacements' sound evolved from punk to more mature rock
- Brian's #2 was his #1 when we started talking
- Jay's #2
- Husker Du was coming into its own in '84
- So much good music on SST in the early to mid-'80s
- Brian's #1
- Gordon Gano wrote first two Violent Femmes albums while in high school
- Serious gospel undertones
- Jay's #1
- Purple Rain was a masterpiece
- Jay chronicled 1984 in a diary reprinted on Kumar's Blizznog
- Next up: 1986

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

Music:
Hallelujah the Hills - Pick Up an Old Phone
Feral Jenny - Law & Order
Red Sea - Down with the Crown

The Hallelujah the Hills song is on the album Have You Ever Done Something Evil? on Discrete Pageantry. Download the song for free at Stereogum.
The Feral Jenny song is on the EP Bedrooms. Download the song for free at Bandcamp.
The Red Sea song is on the EP Yardsticks for Human Intelligence. Download the song for free at Bandcamp.

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.