Stuck In Thee Garage #135: June 24, 2016

Everybody loves a good villain. Indeed, some of the most memorable characters in pop culture are villains. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about villains (or at least characters with villainous qualities) in hour 2. It's more fun than walking through a parking lot full of rakes:

The dastardly playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Beck - Wow/Single
Colleen Green - U Coulda Been an A/Colleen Green
The Kills - Whirling Eye/Ash & Ice
Black Mountain - Florian Saucer Attack/IV
Mountains & Rainbows - See How They Run/Particles
Today Junior - Blunt Breath/Blunt Breath
The Sun Days - Don't Need to be Them/Album
50FOOTWAVE - Bath White/Bath White
Thin Lips - No Obituary/Riff Hard
David Bazan - Both Hands (Over My Eyes)/Blanco
Modern Baseball - Wedding Singer/Holy Ghost
The Tragically Hip - Hot Mic/Man Machine Poem
Left and Right - Ladder Guy/Pivot Foot
The Joe Jacksons - It's a Sin/It's a Sin
PAWS - No Grace/No Grace
STFU - A Thousand Cuts/What We Want

Hour 2: Villains
The Beach Boys - Heroes and Villains/The Smile Sessions
Franz Ferdinand - I'm Your Villain/You Could Have It So Much Better
The Beatings - Villains/Holding on to Hand Grenades
Neil Young - Revolution Blues/On the Beach
The Black Angels - Bloodhounds on My Trail/Passover
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Curse of Millhaven/Murder Ballads
Alice Cooper - No More Mr. Nice Guy/Billion Dollar Babies
The Afghan Whigs - Blame, Etc./Black Love
My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges/Evil Urges
AC/DC - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap/Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
Motorhead - I'm So Bad (Baby I Don't Care)/1916
Black Sabbath - Evil Woman/Black Sabbath
Black Mountain - Evil Ways/In the Future
Queens of the Stone Age - Christian Brothers/Sick, Sick, Sick

Completely Conspicuous 427: Reeling in the Years, 1981 (Part 3)

Part 3 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we look back at the music of 1981. Listen to the episode below or download directly.
 

Show notes:
- Recorded via Skype
- Check out Brian's podcast Input/Output
- Brian's #3
- Prince starts pushing the envelope
- Prince in the '80s was nearly untouchable
- Jay's #3
- A childhood favorite
- Moving Pictures encapsulated everything Rush had been working toward
- Side 1 was killer
- Brian's #2
- Kraftwerk ran with robotic sounds
- A version is touring again
- Jay's #2
- The Police start to become a commercial success
- Stewart Copeland's drumming was revolutionary for the time
- Should Brian drop big coin to see Sting and Peter Gabriel live?
- Brian's #1
- Damaged is close to the definitive Black Flag album
- Jay's #1
- Van Halen's creative peak
- Angrier sounding
- Next up: 1995

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 #134: June 17, 2016

Product placement in entertainment has been a common practice for decades. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs that featured product placement in hour 2. Actually, the show was recorded to air last week, but some sort of computer trickery at BFF resulted in the auto DJ playing instead both last Friday and today. But I didn't want to hold the show over for another week, so here it is in all its rock glory.

The "All I Wanted was a Pepsi" playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Lisa Prank - Starting Again/Adult Teen
Cerise - To Go Away/Smoke Screen Dreams
A Giant Dog - Hitchhike Love/Pile
Faye - Ancient Bones/Faye
DRINKS - Time Between/Hermits on Holiday
Halfsour - Mood Monster/Tuesday Night Live
Hallelujah the Hills - The Mountain That Wanted More/A Band is Something to Figure Out
Great Hare - A Second Chance/A Second Chance
Lacing - Moss/Honey Glow
Black Beach - Shallow Creatures/Shallow Creatures
Zip-Tie Handcuffs - Out of Reach/BFFs
Idiot Genes - Weird Being/BFFs
Today Junior - Leaving Easy/Single
Arcade Fire - Games Without Frontiers/Scratch My Back and I'll Scratch Yours
Elvis Depressedly - New Heaven, New Earth/New Alhambra
Game Theory - What the Whole World Wants/Two Steps from the Middle Ages

Hour 2: Product placement
Yo La Tengo - Little Honda/I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One
Modest Mouse - Black Cadillacs/Good News for People Who Love Bad News
The Clash - Brand New Cadillac/London Calling
Camper Van Beethoven - Where the Hell is Bill?/Telephone Free Landslide Victory
Sex Pistols - EMI/Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols
Blue Oyster Cult - Cities on Flame with Rock 'n Roll (live)/Tyranny and Mutation
Run DMC - My Adidas/Raising Hell
Arctic Monkeys - A Certain Romance/Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Future of the Left - Drink Nike/Travels With Myself and Another
The Who - Odorono/The Who Sells Out
Swervedriver - Son of Mustang Ford/Raise
Art Brut - DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshake/Art Brut vs. Satan
Ava Luna - Sears Roebuck M&Ms/Electric Balloon
Guns 'N Roses - Nightrain/Appetite for Destruction
Max Webster - Hangover/Live Magnetic Air
Jason Isbell - Super 8/Southeastern
R.E.M. - The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite/Automatic for the People

Completely Conspicuous 426: Reeling in the Years, 1981 (Part 2)

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we look back at the music of 1981. Listen to the episode below or download directly.
 

Show notes:
- Recorded via Skype
- Check out Brian's podcast Input/Output
- Elvis Costello released two albums in '81
- Solo albums from Phil Collins, Debbie Harry, Ronnie Wood, Peter Cetera, Lindsay Buckingham
- Bands formed: The Alarm, Anthrax, Metallica, Bangles, Beastie Boys, Butthole Surfers, Run DMC, Sonic Youth
- Broke up: Bay City Rollers, Steely Dan, Wings, Buzzcocks
- Bubbling under albums
- Brian: Ramones, Kinks
- Jay: Phil Collins, The Who, Tom Petty, Billy Squier
- A few years later, Squier kills his career with "Rock Me Tonite" video
- Brian: Lounge Lizards debut, Tom Tom Club, Replacements, Pretenders
- That time Brian pissed off Lurie on Twitter
- Jay: Gun Club, Black Sabbath, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Gang of Four
- Brian's #5
- Byrne and Eno basically invent sampling
- Jay's #5
- The Stones bounce back with odds and sods collection that hits big
- The last time they weren't considered a nostalgia act
- 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.

Completely Conspicuous 425: Reeling in the Years, 1981 (Part 1)

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we look back at the music of 1981. Listen to the episode below or download directly.
 
Show notes:
- Recorded via Skype
- Check out Brian's podcast Input/Output
- In 1981, Jay was 13 and Brian wasn't born yet
- Jay: Lived in Canada for most of the year, then moved to U.S.
- Listened to a lot of hard rock and AOR
- Toronto radio was cool but a few years from becoming heavily formatted
- A lot of solo albums
- Beginnings of indie rock
- Lots of soft rock on the charts
- The Stones had a resurgence in '81
- Old rockers were in their 30s and 40s then
- Death of Lennon hung over the music scene
- Hall and Oates left a strong legacy of pop hits
- The puzzling Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame selection process
- The strange popularity of Steve Miller
- "Under Pressure" has become bigger as years passed
- MTV's debut in August 1981
- USA Network premiered "Night Flight"
- REO Speedwagon's one breakout year
- Ozzy's comeback continues
- 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 #133: June 3, 2016

Anger is an energy. Or so I'm told. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about anger in hour 2. After a long (or short) week, a certain amount of anger can build up, so it's good to be able to vent with some quality rock jams.

The trigger-happy playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Wolf Parade - Floating World/EP 4
The Coathangers - Make It Right/Nosebleed Weekend
A Giant Dog - I'll Come Crashing/Pile
Thin Lips - DEB/Riff Hard
White Reaper - I Don't Think She Cares/White Reaper Does It Again
Radiator Hospital - 181935/Torch Song
Radiohead - Identikit/A Moon Shaped Pool
Sonny & the Sunsets - The Hospital Grounds at Night/Moods Baby Moods
The Spook School - Everybody Needs to Be in Love/Try to Be Hopeful
Nancy - Midnite/Nancy
Champion Lover - How Will I Know/Champion Lover
PUP - Never Try/PUP
Ty Segall - The Picture/Mr. Face
British Sea Power - Carrion/The Decline of British Sea Power
The Breeders - Too Alive/Title TK
Okkervil River - A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene/The Stage Names
Urge Overkill - Somebody Else's Body/Exit the Dragon

Hour 2: Anger
Ben Folds Five - One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces/Whatever and Ever Amen
The Gentlemen - Shakin' Mad Baby/Ladies and Gentlemen...
Medium Medium - Hungry, So Angry/The Glitterhouse
Barrence Whitfield and the Savages - Angry Hands/Under the Savage Sky
Neil Young - Angry World/Le Noise
Drive-By Truckers - Hell No, I Ain't Happy/Decoration Day
Pearl Jam - Gimme Some Truth (live)/2001 Christmas single
The Posies - Hate Song/Amazing Disgrace
XTC - Don't Lose Your Temper/Black Sea
Elvis Costello - I'm Not Angry/My Aim is True
David Bowie - Look Back in Anger/Lodger
Public Image Ltd. - Rise/Album
Iggy and the Stooges - Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell/Raw Power
McLusky - What We've Learned/McLusky Do Dallas
Faith No More - Midlife Crisis/Angel Dust

Stuck In Thee Garage #132: May 27, 2016

Let's face it, when the robots become self-aware, we're all screwed. But until then, we can enjoy some of the many songs about robots, some of which I played today on Stuck In Thee Garage. So when your Roomba turns against you, you can at least remember back to the good ol' days.

Hopefully your Roomba doesn't look like this:

This playlist has come from the future:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Thin Lips - Total Separation/Riff Hard
Car Seat Headrest - 1937 State Park/Teens of Denial
A Giant Dog - Sleep When Dead/Pile
Nothing - Vertigo Flowers/Tired of Tomorrow
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Gamma Knife/Nonagon Infinity
Desert Mountain Tribe - Feel the Light/Either That or the Moon
Speedy Ortiz - Emma O/Foiled Again EP
Adia Victoria - Dead Eyes/Beyond the Bloodhounds
Left and Right - Ringer/Pivot Foot
Future of the Left - White Privilege Blues/The Peace & Truce of Future of the Left
Gordon Downie - Canada Geese/Coke Machine Glow
Gordon Downie - Figment/Battle of the Nudes
The Tragically Hip - No Threat/Yer Favourites
The Tragically Hip - At Transformation/Now for Plan A
The I Don't Cares - Dance to the Fight/Wild Stab
Bob Mould - Daddy's Favorite/Patch the Sky
David Bowie - I Can't Give Everything Away/Blackstar

Hour 2: Robots
Kraftwerk - The Robots/The Man-Machine
Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part 1/Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Andrew Bird - Not a Robot, But a Ghost/Noble Beast
Red Red Meat - Robo Sleep/Red Red Meat
Phinedroids and Ferbots - Phinedroids and Ferbots/Phineas and Ferb
Flight of the Conchords - Robots (Live)/The Distant Future
Riverboat Gamblers - Robots May Break Your Heart/Underneath the Owl
The Redwalls - In the Time of the Machine/The Redwalls
The Saints - Do the Robot/(I'm) Stranded
Queens of the Stone Age - These Aren't the Droids You're Looking For/Queens of the Stone Age
Rush - The Body Electric/Grace Under Pressure
Four Tet - Iron Man/Everything Comes & Goes: A Tribute to Black Sabbath
Gary Numan - M.E./The Pleasure Principle

It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken

Too often of late I've been blindsided by horrendously shitty news. Just a month ago, it was the sudden death of Prince and before him, it was Bowie and Lemmy. This morning, I saw a Facebook post from The Tragically Hip, which I presumed was to announce more information on their upcoming album and tour. Instead, it was just about the worst possible news imaginable: Frontman and Canadian icon Gord Downie has terminal brain cancer. Holy fuck.

The guy's only 52 and has been very active in the last few years. The last Hip album, Now for Plan A, came out in 2012, followed by Downie's excellent collaboration with the Sadies in 2014 and then a Hip tour playing the band's 1992 classic Fully Completely front to back. The new record, Man Machine Poem, is due out next month and as part of today's sad announcement, the Hip said they would do one last tour with Downie this summer. A press conference was held a few hours later at which Downie's physician said the singer's brain tumor has been reduced in size after radiation and chemotherapy, which means while he'll be able to tour, at some point the cancer will return. It could be a few years, but the diagnosis is still terminal.

It sounds as though the tour will be in Canada only (dates will be announced tomorrow), which is disappointing, but jeez, it's hard to complain given the circumstances. I've been lucky enough to have seen the Hip nearly every time they came through town since 1991, everywhere from the Orpheum and House of Blues to the tiny confines of the Paradise and Bill's Bar on Lansdowne. And I've seen Downie play solo at the Sinclair and TT's. His yelping vocals, herky-jerky dance moves and abstract lyrics are ingrained in my brain like signposts as I moved through my adult life. Downie and the Hip are so Canadian that they appeal to that part of me that will always remain a Canuck, even though at this point I've spent more than two-thirds of my life in the U.S.

This isn't a eulogy. The man's not dead yet. For now, we celebrate his accomplishments and gifts and enjoy his forthcoming album and tour. And like anyone we know who's been dealt such a unfortunate hand, we try not to think about that inevitable time when he's gone.

Here's my introduction to Gord and the Hip:

Stuck In Thee Garage #131: May 20, 2016

Fifteen years isn't a long time in the grand scheme of things, but when you think of 2001, things were very different in the world. The day September 11 had no major significance before that year. Most of us relied on shitty dial-up Internet to download music verrrrrrry slowly. And the red Adidas tracksuit sort of came back in style.

The Royal playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Left and Right - Next Winter/Pivot Foot EP
Leapling - Alabaster Snow/Suspended Animation
SWMRS - Drive North/Drive North
Guided By Voices - Kid on a Ladder/Please Be Honest
Hallelujah the Hills - Spin Them Atoms/A Band is Something to Figure Out
Those Pretty Wrongs - Thrown Away/Those Pretty Wrongs
Hit Bargain - Song for Fainting/Hit Bargain
Parquet Courts - One Man No City/Human Performance
Ava Luna - Crown/Electric Balloon
Hinds - Bamboo/Leave Me Alone
Hop Along - Texas Funeral/Painted Shut
Radiohead - Ful Stop/A Moon Shaped Pool
The Posies - Please Return It/Amazing Disgrace
Belly - Puberty/King
Pavement - Old to Begin/Brighten the Corners

Hour 2: 2001
Spoon - Me and the Bean/Girls Can Tell
Stephen Malkmus - Black Book/Stephen Malkmus
The White Stripes - Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground/White Blood Cells
Frank Black and the Catholics - Robert Onion/Dog in the Sand
Ben Folds - Rockin' the Suburbs/Rockin' the Suburbs
Drive-By Truckers - Let There Be Rock/Southern Rock Opera
Sloan - If It Feels Good, Do It/Pretty Together
Gorillaz - M1A1/Gorillaz
Rocket From the Crypt - Heart of a Rat/Group Sounds
Fu Manchu - Squash That Fly/California Crossing
Tenacious D - Tribute/Tenacious D
Fugazi - Full Disclosure/The Argument
Built to Spill - Trimmed and Burning/Ancient Melodies of the Future
Destroyer - The Sublimation Hour/Streethawk: A Seduction

Completely Conspicuous 424: Time the Avenger

Part 3 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey as we discuss how our musical tastes have changed over the years. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").
 

Show notes:
- Artists we missed at first but now love
- Phil's #2
- Dismissed Phish initially, focused on the Dead at first
- Jay's #2
- Got into Bob Mould and Sugar first, then backtracked
- Husker Du: Great catalog, bad production
- Phil's #1
- Overlooked because of constant radio play
- Classic rock stations don't play new music by classic artists
- Jay's #1
- Always a Bowie fan, but started really getting into him in the last few years
- Bands we never got into
- Phil's #3
- Never a big metal guy
- Metallica never did it for Phil
- Jay's #3
- Never understood popularity of Dave Matthews Band
- Phil's #2
- Respect the Boss but never got into him
- Don't compare him to Mellencamp
- Jay's #2
- STP seemed like they were ripping off other bands
- Phil thought Nine Inch Nails were dumb
- Phil's #1
- What's the big deal about Radiohead?
- Jay: Hated "Fake Plastic Trees"
- Jay's #1
- Van the Man never appealed to me

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 #130: May 13, 2016

It's Friday the 13th, but this week's installment of Stuck In Thee Garage didn't focus on that. Instead, I played songs about guitars in hour 2 of the show. But when you have a photo of Jason Voorhees wielding a Flying V...well, you have to use it.

The six-stringed playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Radiohead - Burn the Witch/A Moon Shaped Pool
Speedy Ortiz - Death Note/Foiled Again EP
Parquet Courts - Paraphrased/Human Performance
Chain of Flowers - Death's Got a Hold on Me/Chain of Flowers
Hooded Fang - Dead Battery/Venus on Edge
Black Mountain -  Mothers of the Sun/IV
TV Colours - Running with the Creeps/Purple Skies, Toxic River
Uranium Club - The Collector/Human Exploration
Hard Left - In a Crowd/Economy EP
Halfsour - Pop Art Pop Tart/Tuesday Night Live
A Sinclair - They Breed and Say Hello/Get Out of the City
Sonny & the Sunsets - Moods/Moods Baby Moods
Ty Segall - Candy Sam/Emotional Mugger
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Ballad of the Sin Eater/Hearts of Oak
The Gories - Rat's Nest/Outta Here
Brainiac - I am a Cracked Machine/Hissing Prigs in Static Couture

Hour 2: Guitar songs
David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust/The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Talking Heads - Electric Guitar/Fear of Music
Sleater-Kinney - Words and Guitar/Dig Me Out
Sloan - G Turns to D/One Chord to Another
The Blood Brothers - 1, 2, 3, 4 Guitars/Young Machetes
Sleigh Bells - Infinity Guitars/Treats
My Morning Jacket - Mahgeetah/It Still Moves
Frank Zappa - Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar/Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar
Van Halen - Little Guitars (Intro)/Diver Down
Van Halen - Little Guitars/Diver Down
The Rolling Stones - Torn & Frayed/Exile on Main St.
Drive-By Truckers - Guitar Man Upstairs/Southern Rock Opera
Brendan Benson - Good to Me/Lapalco
The Beatles - While My Guitar Gently Weeps/The White Album
Eddie Vedder - Sheraton Gibson/Live in NYC 1994
The Who - Pure and Easy/Odds & Sods