Stuck In Thee Garage #217: March 30, 2018

The world is a crazy place. Chaos seems to be the watchword these days. Every day seems to be nuttier than the preceding one. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about chaos in hour 2. It's wilder than Ox in a mud wrestling ring:

The playlist will be all that it can be:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Guided By Voices - Colonel Paper/Space Gun
The Breeders - Blues at the Acropolis/All Nerve
Superchunk - Dead Photographers/What a Time to Be Alive
EMA - Moptops (Twist While the World Stops)/Outtakes from Exile
Shopping - Wild Child/The Official Body
Camp Cope - Sagan-Indiana/How to Socialise & Make Friends
Shell of a Shell - Rotten Plan/Already There
Moaning - Useless/Moaning
The Hold Steady - Esther/Eureka
Buffalo Tom - Slow Down/Quiet and Peace
Soccer Mommy - Last Girl/Clean
Palm - Forced Hand/Rock Island
Screaming Females - Black Moon/All at Once
Dream Wife - F.U.U.  (feat. Fever Dream)/Dream Wife
Lo Tom - Bubblegum/Lo Tom
B Boys - I/Dada
Ron Gallo - Why Do You Have Kids?/Heavy Meta

Hour 2: Chaos
Camper Van Beethoven - Take the Skinheads Bowling/Telephone Free Landslide Victory
R.E.M. - Disturbance at the Heron House/Document
Grant Hart - Out of Chaos/The Argument
The Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop/Ramones
Rancid - Disorder and Disarray/...And Out Come the Wolves
Fucked Up - Ship of Fools/David Comes to Life
OFF! - Upside Down/1st EP
Slayer & Ice-T - Disorder/Judgment Night soundtrack
Public Enemy - Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos/It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Radiohead - Kid A/Kid A
PJ Harvey - The Ministry of Defence/The Hope Six Demolition Project
David Bowie - Breaking Glass/Low
Fishbone - Party at Ground Zero/Fishbone
The Beatles - Helter Skelter/The White Album
Sonic Youth & Lydia Lunch - Death Valley '69/Bad Moon Rising

Completely Conspicuous 488: Dig for Fire (Solo Beatles-Living Colour, part 3)

Part 3 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we discuss musical blindspots: I dig into George Harrison's Brainwashed and Brian checks out Living Colour's Stain. Listen to the episode below or download directly.


Show notes:
- Jay: George Harrison's posthumous release
- Never heard anything from this on the radio
- Took repeated listens for it to click
- Ends with George and his son chanting together
- Harrison's solo work after first album is noticeably flawed
- Harrison worked on this album for 14 years
- Jeff Lynne production doesn't overwhelm Brainwashed
- Jay: All three solo Beatles albums I listened to were good
- Brian: The third Living Colour record is more aggressive
- Very angry, dark album
- Timely lyrical themes that would work today
- Doug Wimbish brings a different sound to Living Colour
- Industrial sounding, lots of sampling
- Band split up in '95
- Album was out of print for years after a lawsuit over its name
- Watching rock stars age is strange
- Robert Plant's stayed true to himself
- Next up: Jay will explore the Mountain Goats catalog, Brian will check out Buffalo Tom

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 #216: March 23, 2018

The explosion of interesting new bands that occurred in response to the bloat of '70s stadium rock and the emergence of punk resulted in a very diverse number of bands bringing new sounds to the forefront. While some of those bands are classified as post-punk, the term new wave was also used as a catch-all for some very different-sounding acts. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs by new wave artists in hour 2. Some never transcended their look or initial sound, while some became among the biggest rock bands of all time. And some played really weird instruments.

This playlist won't stand so close to you:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Dream Wife - Act My Age/Dream Wife
Ama - Love Demons/Trilogy
Camp Cope - The Omen/How to Socialise & Make Friends
The Spook School - Less Than Perfect/Could It Be Different?
Go Fever - Nobody's Business/Go Fever
Pugwash -  Make It Yourself/Silverlake
Shell of a Shell - Already There/Already There
Hot Snakes - I Need a Doctor/Jericho Sirens
Ty Segall - 5 Ft Tall/Freedom's Goblin
Moaning - Don't Go/Moaning
Melkbelly - Middle Of/Nothing Valley
Shannon & the Clams - Onion/Onion
The Hold Steady - Eureka/Single
Titus Andronicus - Mass Transit Madness (Goin' Loco)/A Productive Cough
Wye Oak - The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs/The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs
Long Neck - Elizabeth/Will This Do?
Caroline Rose - Bikini/Loner

 Hour 2: New wave
XTC - Making Plans for Nigel/Drums and Wires
Gary Numan - Metal/The Pleasure Principle
A Flock of Seagulls - I Ran (So Far Away)/A Flock of Seagulls
Joe Jackson - Look Sharp!/Look Sharp!
Elvis Costello & the Attractions - Goon Squad/Armed Forces
Nick Lowe - American Squirm/Labour of Lust
Graham Parker - Local Girls/Squeezing Out Sparks
Blondie - Dreaming/Eat to the Beat
The B-52's - Rock Lobster/The B-52's
Missing Persons - Walking in L.A./Spring Session M
The Police - Driven to Tears/Zenyatta Mondatta
Talking Heads - Cities/Fear of Music
The English Beat - Save It For Later/Special Beat Service
Adam & the Ants - Antmusic/Kings of the Wild Frontier
ABC - Poison Arrow/The Lexicon of Love
Duran Duran - New Moon on Monday/Seven and the Ragged Tiger

Found Object: Spin the Black Circle

Editor's note: Found Object is a new recurring feature that's part writing exercise, part old guy reflections. Each entry is about a different piece of detritus that I've collected at some point in my life.

My love for rock music has been a constant in my life since the late '70s, when I started listening to the radio regularly. As a young tween in the Toronto burbs, the first station I really listened to (besides listening to Blue Jays games on CKFH 1430 AM) was 1050 CHUM AM, which played a wide swath of popular music. This included rock (1979's top 100 songs list included Led Zeppelin, Cheap Trick, Styx and Foreigner) disco (Bee Gees, Village People, Donna Summer), new wave (Blondie, the Knack, the Cars, Boomtown Rats), pop (Billy Joel, Linda Ronstadt, Rod Stewart) and middle-of-the-road (Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Anne Murray, Dionne Warwick). Each week, the station published a chart of its top 30 songs (and its FM counterpart did the same with a top albums chart) in the Toronto Star; I used to cut them out and still have a pile of them in the basement somewhere.

But it was around this time that I started buying 45s. I only picked up a handful at the time; they were cheap (under $1, I believe) and fun, but I soon started buying albums instead. Still, I picked up "Let's Go" by The Cars, "The Logical Song" by Supertramp, "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen, "Heartache Tonight" by the Eagles, "Weekend" by Wet Willie, "Dream Police" by Cheap Trick and this classic, Joe Jackson's "I'm the Man":

I can even remember when I bought this...sort of. I don't remember the exact date or anything. I do remember that I was with my mom at an Eaton's department store in the Toronto area in late '79 and while she was off shopping for whatever boring stuff she needed, I was in the record section perusing through the stacks. I was obsessed with this song from the first time I heard it on the radio. Couldn't get enough of it. Still can't, really. I got into Jackson a year earlier when "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" came out, but this song was so uptempo and catchy, it made me a fan for life.

As I mentioned, I had also started buying albums and they became the focus of my music obsession. I started getting singles again in the mid-'80s as a way to get B-sides: I've got a bunch of 45s from Iron Maiden, U2, and Def Leppard for that purpose. I would add them to cassettes of the albums they came out with. In the late '80s, I picked up a few random 45s of pop hits when I knew I didn't want to necessarily get the album. By that point, the cassingle started to pop up in stores so I picked up a few of those for B-sides. Then by the early '90s, it was CD singles. And then, of course, MP3s. Now, everything's getting pushed aside in favor of streaming. But me, I still like to own music.

Stuck In Thee Garage #215: March 16, 2018

A dare is a funny thing. It's usually someone challenging you to do something you don't want to do, or shouldn't do. And a lot of times, you end up doing the dumb thing. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about dares in hour 2. I triple dog dare you to check it out.

The coup de grace of playlists:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Sloan - Have Faith/12
Shopping - The Hype/The Official Body
Shame - Friction/Songs of Praise
Shell of a Shell - Problem/Already There
Screaming Females - Fantasy Lens/All at Once
The Breeders - Archangel's Thunderbird/All Nerve
Judas Priest - Lightning Strike/Firepower
Fu Manchu - Intelligent Worship/Clone of the Universe
Wo Fat - Riffborn/Midnight Cometh
MGMT - Little Dark Age/Little Dark Age
A Tribe Called Quest - Melatonin/We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service
Danielle Luppi & Parquet Courts - Lanza/MILANO
Yo La Tengo - Polynesia #1/There's a Riot Going On
Jeff Rosenstock - TV Stars/POST-
Special Explosion - Fire/To Infinity

Hour 2: Dares
The Clash - Police on my Back/Sandinista!
The Replacements - I Will Dare/For Sale: Live at Maxwell's 1986
Iggy & the Stooges - Gimme Danger/Raw Power
The New Pornographers - Challengers/Challengers
Great Grandpa - Teen Challenge/Plastic Cough
Franz Ferdinand - Eleanor Put Your Boots On/You Could Have It So Much Better
Material Issue - Chance of a Lifetime/International Pop Overthrow
The King Khan & BBQ Show - Truth or Dare/Invisible Girl
Aztec Camera - Jump/Knife
Richard and Linda Thompson - Wall of Death/Shoot Out the Lights
The Tragically Hip - Daredevil/Day for Night
Drive-By Truckers - Lookout Mountain/The Dirty South
The Misfits - Where Eagles Dare/Misfits
UFO - Shoot Shoot/Strangers in the Night
Black Sabbath - Supernaut/Vol. 4
Pink Floyd - Astronomy Domine/The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Guided By Voices - Mag Earwhig!/Mag Earwhig!

Stuck In Thee Garage #214: March 9, 2018

Things move quickly these days. Blink and before you know it, a year has passed. Or a decade, or two. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs from 1998 in hour 2. There's something about it that really works.

The painfully awkward but ultimately cool playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Soccer Mommy - Your Dog/Clean
Remember Sports - Up From Below/Slow Buzz
Mien - Earth Moon/Mien
Titus Andronicus - Above the Bodega (Local Business)/A Productive Cough
Eels - The Deconstruction/The Deconstruction
Stove - Dumb Phone/Is a Toad in the Rain
Painted Doll - Hidden Hand/Painted Doll
Ty Segall - Despoiler of Cadaver/Freedom's Goblin
Marvin Gaye and Ratt - I Heard It Round and Round the Grapevine/Mashup by Bill McClintock
Superchunk - Bad Choices/What a Time to Be Alive
Partner - Comfort Zone/In Search of Lost Time
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Mainland/Mainland
Moaning - Artificial/Moaning
Vundabar - Acetone/Smell Smoke
Thunder Dreamer - Capture/Capture

Hour 2: 1998
Sloan - She Says What She Means/Navy Blues
Neutral Milk Hotel - Holland, 1945/In the Aeroplane, Over the Sea
Buffalo Tom - Rachael/Smitten
Queens of the Stone Age - Regular John/Queens of the Stone Age
Pulp - Party Hard/This Is Hardcore
Girls Against Boys - Park Avenue/Freak*On*Ica
Cat Power - Cross Bones Style/Moon Pix
Beck - Tropicalia/Mutations
Spoon - Reservations/A Series of Sneaks
The Afghan Whigs - 66/1965
Rancid - Bloodclot/Life Won't Wait
Rocket From the Crypt - Eye On You/RFTC
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Attack/Acme
The Tragically Hip - Poets/Phantom Power
Frank Black & the Catholics - Suffering/Frank Black & the Catholics
Jerry Cantrell - Cut You In/Boggy Depot
Pearl Jam - Brain of J./Yield

Stuck In Thee Garage #213: March 2, 2018

Humans are nosy by nature. We're untrustworthy. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about spies and spying in hour 2. Whether it's espionage, private detectives or just plain stalking, this week's playlist runs the gamut.

The top secret playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Courtney Barnett - Nameless, Faceless/Tell Me How You Really Feel
Speedy Ortiz - Lucky 88/Twerp Verse
Screaming Females - I'll Make You Sorry/All at Once
Hot Snakes - Death Camp Fantasy/Jericho Sirens
Superchunk - Reagan Youth/What a Time to Be Alive
Fu Manchu - (I've Been) Hexed/Clone of the Universe
Robert Plant - New World.../Carry Fire
Pugwash - Everyone Knows That You're Mine/Silverlake
Buffalo Tom - Cat vs. Mouse/Quiet and Peace
The Spook School - While You Were Sleeping/Could It Be Different?
Palm - Heavy Lifting/Rock Island
Bethlehem Steel - Finger It Out/Party Naked Forever
Infinity Girl - Redder/Somewhere Nice, Someday
Makthaverskan - Siren/III
Alvvays - Saved by a Waif/Antisocialites
Jen Cloher - Great Australian Bite/Jen Cloher

Hour 2: Spies
Pavement - Embassy Row/Brighten the Corners
Protomartyr - Clandestine Time/The Agent Intellect
Idle Bloom - Some Paranoia/Some Paranoia
Peter Gabriel - Intruder/Melt
Elvis Costello - Watching the Detectives/My Aim is True
Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton - Detective Daughter/Knives Don't Have Your Back
Poster Children - Detective Tracy/Toreador Squat
Big Boys - Detectives/Recorded Live at Raul's Club
Fugazi - Public Witness Program/In On the Kill Taker
Beastie Boys - Sabotage/Ill Communication
Judas Priest - Electric Eye/Screaming for Vengeance
Frank Black - The Vanishing Spies/Teenager of the Year
Kristin Hersh - Secret Codes/Wyatt at the Coyote Palace
The Hush Now - Spyglass/Sparkle Drive
The National - Secret Meeting/Alligator
Talking Heads - Life During Wartime/Fear of Music
Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues.Bringing It All Back Home