Completely Conspicuous 368: In a Simple Rhyme

Part 1 of my conversation with author Greg Renoff about his upcoming book about the early days of Van Halen. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:
- Check out Greg's Van Halen Rising page
- Book is out Oct. 1
- Greg's a college professor
- Fan of arena rock and guitar as a kid
- In grad school, wrote his disseration and a book about a traveling circus
- Many parallels to a rock tour
- Wanted to learn more about VH's beginnings
- Interviewed people around the scene starting in 2009
- Eventually talked to Michael Anthony, Ted Templeman, Donn Landee
- Started at the bottom and worked up
- Dug into the myths around VH's major label signing
- Eddie's beginnings on guitar
- VH hit a lot of dead ends along the way
- The first big tour really made the band
- The fine art of choosing opening acts
- Getting a book publisher isn't easy
- Putting together the book proposal
- Finished writing in summer 2014
- 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 #74: March 27, 2015

Sleep is a valuable commodity in life, especially as you get older. You can never get enough and yet there's always so much to do, or so it seems. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about sleep in hour 2. I tried to steer clear of songs about dreams, because there are so many of those, they can go in another show.

The "those aren't pillows" playlist:

Hour 1
Artist -  Song/Album
Speedy Ortiz - Raising the Skate/Foil Deer
Nai Harvest - Drinking Bleach/Hairball
Sallie Ford - Oregon/Slap Back
Courtney Barnett - Small Poppies/Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
St. Vincent - Birth in Reverse/St. Vincent
Mexican Slang - Double Trouble/Twerp EP
Natural Velvet - Mirror Stage/Salome with the Head of John the Baptist
Los Campesinos! - There Are Listed Buildings/Romance is Boring
Purling Hiss - Mercury Retrograde/Water on Mars
Hot Snakes - Think About Carbs/Audit in Progress
Squirrel Bait - Hammering So Hard/Squirrel Bait
Dinosaur Jr. - Pierce the Morning Rain/I Bet on Sky
Velvet Crush - Time Wraps Around You/Teenage Symphonies to God
O Positive - In the Light/Cloud Factory EP
Matthew Sweet - Divine Intervention/Girlfriend

Hour 2: Sleep
The Beatles - I'm So Tired/The White Album
Neil Young - Tired Eyes/Tonight's the Night
Olivia Tremor Control - A Sleepy Company/Black Foliage - Animation Music - Volume One
The Boomtown Rats - Up All Night/Mondo Bongo
Mike Doughty - Sleepless/Circles Super Bon Bon...
R.E.M. - I Don't Sleep, I Dream/Monster
The Fiery Furnaces - The Old Hag is Sleeping/Widow City
Wugazi - Sleep Rules Everything Around Me/13 Chambers
Masters of Reality - Sleep Walkin'/Masters of Reality
Japandroids - Avant Sleepwalk/No Singles
The Night Marchers - In Dead Sleep (I Snore ZZZZ)/See You in Magic
Mondo Generator - I Never Sleep/Dead Planet
Danko Jones - Sleep is the Enemy/Sleep is the Enemy
Big Black - Sleep!/Racer-X
Jay Reatard - You Were Sleeping/Matador Singles '08
Mink DeVille - Let Me Dream If I Want To/Live at CBGB's
World Party - Sweet Soul Dream/Goodbye Jumbo
Jonny Polonsky - It's Good to Sleep/Hi My Name is Jonny
Jane's Addiction - Thank You Boys/Nothing's Shocking

Stuck In Thee Garage #74 by Koomdogg on Mixcloud

Stuck In Thee Garage #73: March 20, 2015

It's strange to think that 2005 was a whole decade ago, but it was. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played music from that year in hour 2, as well as a set in honor of March Madness at the end of the first hour.

It was a year that jumped the couch.

The crazy-go-nuts playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Modest Mouse - The Best Room/Strangers to Ourselves
Made Violent - Two Tone Hair/Made Violent EP
NEEDS - Rescue Don/Needs
Sleeping In - Sink In Yr Skin/Sink In Yr Skin
Swervedriver - Last Rites/I Wasn't Born to Lose You
Jeff Rosenstock - You, In Weird Cities/We Cool?
Split Single - Waiting for the Sun/Fragmented World
Boss Hog - I Dig You/Boss Hog
The Kinks - Destroyer/Give the People What They Want
The Faces - Stay With Me/A Nod is as Good as a Wink...to a Blind Horse
Firehose - Herded Into Pools/Mr. Machinery Operator
El-P - Run the Numbers/I'll Sleep When You're Dead
Julian Plenti - Games for Days/...Is Skyscraper
Iron Maiden - Can I Play With Madness?/Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
Chixdiggit! - I Hate Basketball/Safeways Here We Come

Hour 2: 2005
Kaiser Chiefs - Everyday I Love You Less and Less/Employment
Bloc Party - Banquet/Silent Alarm
Art Brut - Modern Art/Bang Bang Rock & Roll
Sleater-Kinney - Entertain/The Woods
Greg Dulli - Cigarettes/Amber Headlights
Queens of the Stone Age - Little Sister/Lullabies to Paralyze
The Mars Volta - The Widow/Frances the Mute
Brendan Benson - Spit It Out/Alternative to Love
The Hold Steady - Your Little Hoodrat Friend/Separation Sunday
Okkervil River - For Real/Black Sheep Boy
Spoon - I Summon You/Gimme Fiction
of Montreal - Requiem for O.M.M.2/The Sunlandic Twins
The White Stripes - Blue Orchid/Get Behind Me Satan
The New Pornographers - Sing Me Spanish Techno/Twin Cinema
Wolf Parade - Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts/Apologies to the Queen Mary
Black Mountain - Druganaut/Black Mountain

Stuck In Thee Garage #73 by Koomdogg on Mixcloud

Completely Conspicuous 367: I Wanna Be Your Dog

The latest installment of Driving with Kumar as I discuss the joys and travails of having pets. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:
- Driving to Ric Dube's to record for our web series Trust Fund Challenge
- We got a puppy almost two years ago
- As a kid in Canada, we got a German Shepherd puppy but she got too big for us and was adopted by someone else
- Got a smaller dog a year later
- Sammy moved with us to Washington state and New Hampshire
- We also got a black lab puppy, Caesar
- Tough junior prom was followed by bad news the next day
- Fighting off marauding pit bulls
- Sammy lived for another eight years
- I lived with a girlfriend who had a cat
- Didn't have any pets for the next 20 years
- New puppy, Charlie, lived downstairs for nine months before moving up with us
- The Poopsplosion
- A Very Charlie Christmas, aka Tree Scares Dog
- Getting drenched on walks
- Hard to work from home with Charlie here
- He sometimes snaps at us if he's cranky

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 #72: March 13, 2015

Friday the 13th has been built up over the years as a day on which horrible things happen. Curses and bad luck and all that. Well, there was no such bad luck on this week's installment of Stuck In Thee Garage, which featured an hour of music dedicated to Friday the 13th. Although I tried to upload the show to Mixcloud last night several times and it wouldn't work, so...take it away, Jamie Lee!

The thrice-damned playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Jeff Rosenstock - Novelty Sweater/We Cool?
Pile - The World is Your Motel/You're Better Than This
Radiator Hospital - Just May Be the One/Torch Song
Descendents - Bikeage/Milo Goes to College
They Might Be Giants - Birdhouse in Your Soul/Flood Live in Australia
Swervedriver - Autodidact/I Wasn't Born to Lose You
Chastity Belt -  Joke/Time to Go Home
Palehound - Holiest/Kitchen 7-inch
Twin Peaks - Good Lovin'/Mind Frames
Germ House - Over-Under/Showing Symptoms
Estrogen Highs - Argyle Enthusiast/Hear Me on the Number Station
Doug Tuttle - Leave Your Body/Doug Tuttle
Death From Above 1979 - Always On/The Physical World
Mexican Slang - Fever/Twerp
METZ - Wet Blanket/Metz
Fucked Up - Touch Stone/Glass Boys
PUP - Reservoir/Pup

Hour 2: Friday the 13th
Rye Coalition - Hard Luck/Hard Luck
Pointed Sticks - Out of Luck/Part of the Noise
Calories - The Curse-Daylight/Calories III
Elliott Smith - Thirteen/New Moon
Pixies - Number 13 Baby/Live in Indio, CA 5/1/04
Mission of Burma - 13/The Obliterati
Black Flag - Room 13/Damaged
Sloan - 13 (Under a Bad Sign)/Commonwealth
Weezer - My Name is Jonas/Weezer
R.E.M. - Bad Day/In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003
Echo and the Bunnymen - The Killing Moon/Ocean Rain
The Black Angels - Bad Vibrations/Phosphene Dream
Primus - Mr. Krinkle/Pork Soda
Black Sabbath - Hand of Doom/Paranoid
OFF! - Wrong/OFF!

Stuck In Thee Garage 72 by Koomdogg on Mixcloud

 

Trust Fund Challenge #10: "Starbuck and Face Drive a Helicopter"

Cop shows were de rigeur in the '70s, much as they are now. Apparently, helicopter-dominated shows became a thing as we found out this week on Trust Fund Challenge when we watched the pilot episode of "Chopper One." The 1974 show didn't last long, and for a good reason, it's about 90% shots of a helicopter flying around. The half-hour drama starred a young Dirk Benedict, pre-Battlestar Galactica and The A-Team, and character actor Jim MacMullan as two cops who, uh, fly around in a helicopter and solve crimes. Not exactly scintillating stuff, but we have fun with it.

Completely Conspicuous 366: Reeling in the Years, 1993 (Part 3)

Part 3 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we look back at the music of 1993.
Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").
 
Show notes:
- Recorded via Skype
- Check out Brian's radio show Unsolicited Mixtape
- Brian's #3
- Frank Black's first solo effort was a sign of greatness to come
- Some songs were written for the Pixies
- Jay's #3
- PJ Harvey's blistering second album
- Brian's #2
- A "pretty perfect album" from the Lemonheads
- Reality Bites really does bite
- Jay's #2 and Brian's #1
- Nirvana followed up Nevermind with a raw, seething album
- Easy to read a lot into Cobain's state of mind at the time
- Jay's #1
- Jay's intro to the Afghan Whigs
- Already differentiating themselves from their peers
- Dulli's lyrics were really in your face
- Whither Rick McCollum?
- Next up: 1982

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 #71: March 6, 2015

It was inevitable that one of these weeks, I was going to play an hour of songs about radio for my second-hour theme on Stuck In Thee Garage. That turned out to be this week; I mixed in some classics with some lesser known odes to radio.

The long-distance dedication playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Never Young - Ur a Front/Never Young EP
Pile - #2 Hit Single/You're Better Than This
Krill - Foot/A Distant Fist Unclenching
The Districts - 4th and Roebling/A Flourish and a Spoil
Kingdom of the Holy Sun - Getting Higher/Return of the Sun Kings
The Sidekicks - Deer/Runners in the Nerved World
St. Vincent - Bring Me Your Loves/St. Vincent
Colleen Green - Deeper Than Love/I Want to Grow Up
Velocity Girl - Tales of Brave Aphrodite/Fortune Cookie Prize
Firehose - Flyin' the Flannel/Flyin' the Flannel
Ladyhawk - My Old Jacknife/Ladyhawk
Destroyer - Foam Hands/Trouble in Dreams
David Bowie - Moonage Daydream/The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
The Stone Roses - I Wanna Be Adored/The Stone Roses
Jarvis Cocker - Pilchard/Further Complications

Hour 2:  Radio radio
Joe Jackson - On Your Radio/I'm the Man
The Kinks - Around the Dial/Give the People What They Want
The Replacements - Left of the Dial/Tim
R.E.M. - Radio Free Europe (Hib-Tone version)/single
The Modern Lovers - Roadrunner/The Modern Lovers
The Sports - Who Listens to the Radio?/Don't Throw Stones
Fishbone - ? (Modern Industry)/Fishbone
Nirvana - Radio Friendly Unit Shifter/In Utero
Jesse Malin - Broken Radio/Glitter in the Gutter
Mr. Airplane Man - C'mon DJ/C'mon DJ
Ex Hex - Radio On/Rips
New Bomb Turks - Radio Beat/Switchblade Tongues, Butterknife Brains
Elvis Costello - Radio, Radio/This Year's Model
The Hold Steady - Most People Are DJs/Almost Killed Me
David Bowie - D.J./Lodger
James Brown - Fight Against Drug Abuse (Public Service Announcement)/Funk Power - 1970: A Brand New Thang

Stuck In Thee Garage 71 by Koomdogg on Mixcloud

 

Completely Conspicuous 365: Reeling in the Years, 1993 (Part 2)

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we look back at the music of 1993. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").
 

Show notes:
- Recorded via Skype
- Check out Brian's radio show Unsolicited Mixtape
- Brian saw his first concert in '93, Paul McCartney
- Sir Paul dropped f-bombs galore on "Big Boys Bickering"
- Billy Joel hasn't released a new album since '93
- Jay: Saw Dino Jr., Mudhoney, Nirvana, Tragically Hip, Living Colour, Urge Overkill
- Saw Lollapalooza '93 in Rhode Island with Primus, Alice in Chains, Fishbone
- Jay: Became aware that 8-year-olds liked the same music I did
- Brian helped out at a record store as an 11-year-old
- Flaming Lips showed up on Beverly Hills 90210
- Jay: Saw Buffalo Tom on MTV's 120 Minutes
- Matthew Sweet's Altered Beast was underrated and depressing
- Brian: Got into Tribe Called Quest years later
- Morphine had a completely different sound
- Cracker had a quintessential '90s song in "Low"
- Radiohead's big rock debut
- Brian's #5
- Primus hit #7 on the charts with Pork Soda
- Jay's #5
- Urge Overkill got a lot of listens
- Brian's #4
- The Breeders broke through in '93
- "Cannonball" was another classic '90s tune
- Jay's #4
- Siamese Dream is a massive-sounding album
- Billy Corgan went for broke with guitar army sound
- 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.