Stuck In Thee Garage #646: August 21, 2026

Siblings are pretty great, usually. But being that close to someone can also lead to, let's say, disagreements. Things can get interesting. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played new music from Kiwi Jr., Evil Island and Phoebe Bridgers in hour 1 and songs about siblings in hour 2. These two know what's up.

Guess who's got two thumbs and a kickass playlist? This guy!

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

Kiwi Jr. - Blowin' Up/Blowin' Up

Sweeping Promises - Cocoon/You Say I Romanticize

Evil Island - T-Hexx (feat. Guy Picciotto)/Terraform the Afterlife

Phoebe Bridgers - Lost Boys/Lost Weekend

Radiator Hospital - Wall Between Us/Distorting Time

Porch Light - Under/Porch Light the Band LLC

Public Opinion - I Pay Everyone I Still Talk to/The Curse of Public Opinion

Yard Act - Thrill of the Chase/You're Gonna Need a Little Music

Feeble Little Horse - Doorway/bitknot

Jack White - All Alone Again/Frozen Charlotte

Knitting - Photocopy/Souvenir

Ecca Vandal - Molly/Looking for People to Unfollow

Josh da Costa - Cordelia/New Wave Graveyard

Read Yellow - Association/Radios Burn Faster

Consonant - Blissful/Consonant

Mission of Burma - Einstein's Day/Vs.

Hour 2: Siblings

War - Me and Baby Brother/Deliver the Word

De La Soul - Big Brother (feat. Mos Def)/Stakes is High

Public Enemy - Brothers Gonna Work It Out/Fear of a Black Planet

Savak - My Book on Siblings/ Human Error/Human Delight

PUP - Sibling Rivalry/Morbid Stuff

Jale - Brother (Komoda Mix)/Brave New Waves: Jale

Elliott Smith - Christian Brothers/Elliott Smith

Queens of the Stone Age - White Wedding/Era Vulgaris B-side

Protomartyr - Half Sister/Relatives in Descent

Mark Lanegan Band - Sister/Gargoyle

Iggy Pop - Sister Midnight/The Idiot

Fleetwood Mac - Sisters of the Moon/Tusk

The White Stripes - Sister, Do You Know My Name?/De Stijl

The Cult - Brother Wolf Sister Moon/Love

Clink the link to hear two hours of the good stuff!

Videodrone #25: Letter from an Occupant

Videodrone is a weekly(ish) feature looking at music videos from the last half century. 

Letter from an Occupant (2000)

What happens when you write a perfect pop song and nobody hears it? Did it actually happen? Well, in the case of "Letter from an Occupant" by the New Pornographers, yes, it did happen and we are all better for it.

Of course, I'm being hyperbolic to say nobody heard it. The song was on the band's debut album, Mass Romantic, which was released on Mint Records in Canada in November 2000. The album got good notices (indeed, the NPs won a Juno for Alternative Album of the Year for it), but it didn't chart and "Letter from Occupant," which was released as a single in April 2002, didn't make much of a splash on radio or MTV. (Although I just discovered it was included on the soundtrack to the movie Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back in 2001.)

But dammit, it sure deserved to. The group was referred to as a Canadian indie rock supergroup, more as a joke than anything else since none of its members had any real success prior to joining. Head songwriter Carl Newman was previously in Zumpano, Dan Bejar was in Destroyer, John Collins was in the Evaporators, Kurt Dahle came from Limblifter and Blaine Thurier later became a filmmaker. Honorary Canuck Neko Case was already an alt-country solo artist, but her career didn't take off until later.

Case sang lead on "Letter from an Occupant," which was an upbeat power pop gem that was very different from Case's usual repertoire. There was a lot going on in the song, Newman told Pitchfork: "I remember 'Letter from an Occupant' was a pretty belabored song. It ended up being almost minimal, but I remember there's so much shit we put on it. There's a psychedelic 12-string guitar solo, a backwards guitar, there's a really cool synth that's in there but buried. At some point, you have to choose. That was the hardest part about mixing the thing: just making that judgment call. I only feel at peace with the record now because people seem to like it."

Newman's lyrics are also excellent. "The time that your enemy gives you/Good times are not the ones you want/I've cried five rivers on the way here/Which one will you skate away on?/The tune you'll be humming forever/All the words are replaced and wrong/With a shower of 'yeahs' and 'whatevers'/You traded me away long gone."

The video was directed by Michael Dowse, who went on to direct feature films including the beloved cult comedy FUBAR, the hockey comedy Goon, and several others. The video features the NPs performing the song in different locations with a screen in the background that jumps to the next scene. It likely got plenty of play on MuchMusic in Canada; if it got any MTV airplay, it was on 120 Minutes. I certainly never saw the video until YouTube came along years later.

I never heard the NPs on the radio, but rather discovered the band the way I learned about a lot of music in the early 2000s, through MP3 blogs. It was around 2003 when the band's second album, Electric Version, came out, that some of the blogs I followed started hyping the New Pornographers. I went back and discovered the greatness of Mass Romantic. 

The early '00s was a great time for Canadian indie rock: The New Pornographers, Broken Social Scene, Metric, Wolf Parade, Stars, Arcade Fire, Death from Above 1979, The Dears, Joel Plaskett Emergency, Hot Hot Heat, Black Mountain, Land of Talk and on and on. 

The NPs just released their 10th album earlier this year. Newman remains the band's leader and Case continues to work with the group, even though her solo career has really blossomed. The rest of the lineup has fluctuated over the years, but the band's output remains strong. Still, Mass Romantic and "Letter from an Occupant" was a hell of a launching-off point.

Stuck In Thee Garage #645: August 14, 2026

When you think about it, we spend most weeks wishing the days would fly by, and then before we know it, we're wondering where the time went. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played new music by Sweeping Promises, Public Opinion and Today Junior in hour 1 and songs about days of the week in hour 2! All that said, TGIF!

The guy in the gorilla suit is down with the playlist:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

Sweeping Promises - Shooting Shadows/You Say I Romanticize

Public Opinion - Balloon Man Running/The Curse of Public Opinion

Today Junior - Werewolves of Boston/Single

Ceremony - Prograde/Tell Me Your Dream

SSK - Quincy is a Punk/Suitcase

Joudy - Bow/Permanent Maintenance

Sparkle Blood - The Fridays of Our Lives/ZIP ZAP

Earth Tongue - Body of Water/Dungeon Vision

Telehealth - Villain Era/Green World Image

Quicksand - Moving Forward/Bring On the Psychics

Guitar Wolf - Coelacanth Galaxy/More Jet

Sparta - Without Your Hands/Cut a Silhouette

Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Ulterior Motives/In Light of Recent Events

Social Distortion - Don't Keep Me Hanging On/Born to Kill

Broken Social Scene - The Call/Remember the Humans

The Laughing Chimes - He Never Finished the Thought (4-track)/Behind Your Blue Fields

Parking - Lantern/Portraits

Hour 2: Days

New Order - Blue Monday/Power Corruption & Lies

Chime School - Negative Monday/The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel

The Posies - Ironing Tuesdays/Failure

M.A.G.S. - Wednesday/Destroyer

Shellac - Wednesday/To All Trains

Near Beer - Thursday/Near Beer

Run the Jewels - Thursday in the Danger Room (feat. Kamasi Washington)/RTJ3

Sharp Pins - Friday Night/Mod Mayday 23

The Lemon Twigs - Friday (I'm Gonna Love You)/I've Got a Broken Heart

Hallelujah the Hills - Friday I'm in Love/Puritan Garage Howlers - Covers 2022-23

Chandeliers - Big Shot Weekend/Big Shot Weekend

Lightheaded - Still Sitting Sunday/Combustible Gems

Soundgarden - Black Saturday/King Animal

Fishbone - Sunless Saturday/The Reality of My Surroundings

Speedy Ortiz - The Sunday/Rabbit Rabbit

Iggy Pop - Sunday/Post Pop Depression

Bonk the link and blow off some steam! 

Completely Conspicuous 683: The Island Life

Part 2 of my conversation with Phil Stacey about choosing 10 artists to listen to for the rest of your life if you were stranded on a desert island. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:

• Bowie would pivot from one persona to another
• Phil: The Stones, but leaning heavily on the 1965-1981 period
• The Stones and the Who have so many compilations out
• In the Stones vs. Beatles argument, the Stones have the edge as a live band
• Jay: The Clash are one of the most important bands
• Not a huge catalog, but there's still plenty there
• The US Festival was the last gasp for the original lineup
• Phil: Repping for the Tedeschi Trucks Band
• Cover a wide range of styles and genres
• Jay: Another artist with a changing style and persona, PJ Harvey
• Not afraid to tackle new sounds 
• Lots of great, interesting stuff to check out
• Jay: Would enjoy digging further into the Cure's catalog
• So much to delve into
• Output has slowed down since the '90s
• Phil: His one-time favorite band, U2
• Early material remains strong
• Hit or miss the last two decades
• U2's legacy has diminished because they hung around too long
• It's tough for legacy acts whose new material will always be compared to their classic stuff
• You won't hear recent music from legendary bands on the radio
• The fans want the hits
• Jay: R.E.M. has a lot of parallels to U2, except they stopped
• They had a dip in quality for a few albums, but stopped performing in 2011
• Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy have done a great job paying tribute to classic R.E.M. albums
• Reminding people how great the band was
• They haven't reformed other than a few impromptu songs 
• Many bands are playing their classic albums front to back
• Bands like Sloan and Iron Maiden will alternate touring classic albums and new ones
• 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 #644: August 7, 2026

Everybody seems to be in a hurry nowadays. The need for speed is all around us. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played new music from Joudy, Sparkle Blood and Quicksand in hour 1 and songs about speed in hour 2. It'll get you amped up!

You guys have got nothing to worry about. This playlist is a professional:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

Joudy - Nail/Permanent Maintenance

Yard Act - Fiction/You're Gonna Need a Little Music

Bondo - Strummer/Bondo

Graham Coxon - Alright/Castle Park

Sparkle Blood - In Real Life/ZIP ZAP

Quicksand - Crystallize/Bring On the Psychics

Jack White - Thick as Thieves/Frozen Charlotte

Knitting - Shuffle/Souvenir

Drakulas - Head in the Clouds/Midnight City

The Creem - Rushing/Taste of Cherry

Bantom Woods - Bail Polish/Bend

Piebald - Gentlemen Callers/Tales for the Rages

The Bevis Frond - Animal Man/Horrorful Heights

Sad 13 - Third Rodeo/1331

Heavenly - Good Times/Highway to Heavenly

Metric - Wild Rut/Romanticize the Dive

The Sheila Divine - The Apocalypse Sells/The Middle Ages

Hour 2: Speed

Fu Manchu - Hell on Wheels/King of the Road

Militarie Gun - Do It Faster/Life Under the Gun

PJ Harvey - The Faster I Breathe the Further I Go (4-Track Version)/B-Sides, Demos & Rarities

Teenage Dads - Speedracer/Majordomo

Trapper Schoepp- Three Speed Queen/Osborne

Daiistar - Speed Jesus/Good Time

Guided By Voices - Are You Faster?/Mag Earwhig!

Enumclaw - Fast N All/Jimbo Demo

Wye Oak - The Louder I Call, the Faster It Runs/The Louder I Call, the Faster It Runs

Girlpool - Fast Dust/Powerplant

Purling Hiss - Rat Race/Water on Mars

Ovlov - Fast G/TRU

Chubby and the Gang - Speed Kills/Speed Kills

Girls Against Boys - Speedway/Freak*On*Ica

Bob Mould - Racing to the End/Blue Hearts

Ric Ocasek - A Quick One/Beatitude

The Specials - Rat Race/More Specials

Pixies - Nimrod's Son/Come On Pilgrim

Bad Brains - Pay to Cum/Single

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Completely Conspicuous 682: (I'm) Stranded

Celebrating TWENTY YEARS of podcasting with part 1 of my conversation with Phil Stacey about choosing 10 artists to listen to for the rest of your life if you were stranded on a desert island. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:

• Started this show in August 2006!
• Instead of Desert Island Discs, we each chose 10 artists that we'd be limited to hearing on a desert island
• Mixing up genres
• Jay: I ruled out a lot of classic rock acts that I've listened to all my life
• Limiting artists to music that came out under their name, not in other groups
• This magical island has killer WiFi
• Phil's honorable mentions: Bowie, Phish, Ella Fitzgerald, Drive-By Truckers, Tom Petty, Pearl Jam, Billie Holliday, Talking Heads, The Who, Joni Mitchell, Kinks, Pretenders, Nirvana, Sleater-Kinney
• Jay's HMs: Kinks, Pavement, Pixies, QOTSA, Afghan Whigs, Peter Gabriel, XTC, James Brown, PJ, Spoon, Superchunk, Tragically Hip, Yo La Tengo, Sloan, Elvis Costello
• Island picks
• Jay and Phil: Neil Young
• So much NY material out there
• Neil has a varied catalog of styles 
• Phil: The Beatles, naturally
• Incredibly influential and wide-ranging catalog in a handful of years
• Jay: Going outside the box with Fugazi
• Total DIY operation, only charged $5 per concert and album
• Only played non-traditional venues like school gyms and small clubs
• Phil: Not a jazz aficionado, but John Coltrane makes the cut
• Drugs are bad, mmkay?
• Jay: Drive-By Truckers have close to 30 years of hard-driving rock, alt-country and everything in between
• Not much in the way of popular attention
• Phil: He loves the modern jam band stylings of Goose
• Jay and Phil: The massive legacy of Prince
• The best Super Bowl halftime performance
• Prince could do everything well
• Phil: The Grateful Dead built a huge following under the radar
• Survived decades of trends and change
• They're still popular 30 years after they stopped making music
• Jay: The collected works of Parliament-Funkadelic
• They were two different bands with a rotating roster that eventually merged
• Combined rock with funk and soul
• George Clinton and a cast of thousands
• Phil: The mighty Led Zeppelin
• Embraced different sounds
• There are still Zep albums that are underplayed
• Jay: Bowie's chameleonic career
• Is Madonna the most successful female artist of all time?
• Incredible string of great albums from the '70s to the '80s
• 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.