May 2008 Archives

Any show of mine that follows a concept show always comes across as slight, through no fault of its own. After last week's Asian fandango, episode twenty of rfg felt like it spun its tires despite the overall easy flow.

This time around, I had no rush to prepare since the two preceding shows tonight were offline, meaning that for two hours, listeners to CITR FM heard episode 49 of the Funky 16 Corners podcast, which resonated deeply since I took a few calls before I went on air as people were asking what show was playing.

I had hoping to start a show with the Kronos Quartet's El Sinaloense for weeks, but I hadn't found my copy of the album given to me until recently. I always love how the strings are compressed to the point where they sound like brass. The rest of the show went all right, though my iPod reversed the order of Cut Off Your Hands and Pumice — which brings to mind, and blows two additional tracks, for a future concept: an all New Zealand episode — then the matter of the Petroleum By-Products song buzzing a lot, at least in the studio. I'm going to need verification on a higher-powered sound system than the one I currently have at home (laptop speakers = the suck) but I was able to cut over to their MySpace page for a clearer sounding version. Maybe I had a demo all this time?

This week's feature was Henry Mancini's soundtrack to the 1966 film Arabesque, which still isn't out on DVD in North America for reasons unknown to me. I found a used copy of the soundtrack (in mono!) at Zulu Records during the Record Store Day a few weeks back, which was a weird twist. Admittedly, the movie isn't a super important example of the cinematic style of that decade, but it has a certain charm that's highly unique.

Tracklist follows:

At the 20 minute mark of this show, I thought that things were going weird.
At the 40 minute mark, I knew things were weird.
By the 60 minute mark, things were well past weird and were approaching bizarre.
By the end, it was certified loony.

I still need to sit down a properly listen to the entire episode, but when I set out to do my Asian Heritage Month show, I didn't expect it to transform into a piece of radio art, or a snapshot of my usual iTunes shuffle playlist. Nevertheless, the rough template of the show was pretty flexible, to the point I ditched the original opener with Ramasutra's classic song, before going straight from the Ensemble Georgika spooky choral number into two bits of radio collage from the Sublime Frequencies record label from what was captured on the frequencies heard in Thailand (which was a last minute addition) and Indonesia.

This would be the approximate twenty minute marker, from which we veered into more experimental-sounding roots music like the gamelan from Indonesia and whatever Khac Chi plays. By the time DJ Onra kicked in with Vietnamese-sampled songs, I was wondering if the plot was completely lost.

The Japanese sequence worked pretty well, though it was another perpendicular within the entire playlist. The Katamari set was something I had planned for a while, though I had hoped to do an entire episode to video game music (which is still doable but I have serious collecting to do to come up with 90 minutes that won't induce a sugar rush headache). The Lupin the 3rd sampler was a little clunky, mostly since I should have flipped the songs around so people unfamiliar with the theme could have heard it first from the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, then hear where the punky remix came from. But at this point, with my substitutions, I already knew I was approaching a time crunch, especially with the next major focus of the show yet to come.

Hopefully, not lost in density of all the different styles of music (remember: Asia = huge) was the look at Cambodian music of the 1960's and 1970's, which was inspired by a Metafilter thread on the pre-Khmer rouge scene. It's hard to convey the sense of what was lost without reading a lot into the stories of all the musicians involved, but hopefully, you don't find the music corny or sappy; knowing that most of those people were killed by a fearful regime just for singing innocent songs about life and love induces a tragic irony to their delightful songs. I had another two or three tracks lined up after Dengue Fever, who revive a good chunk of that history with a Californian jazz-rock approach. However, although I could've split the Cambodian spotlight onto another show, listening to too much of that music at once and without proper guidance would've been overwhelming to the already erratic flow. And somehow, the Dead Kennedys snuck in before that, along with Pizzicato 5 and Shonen Knife to provide a familiar beacon to the average Western listener.

Hopefully, in time, this episode proves to be a creeper, in that it'll resonate greater upon either repeated listening or allowing time to give separation to all my running around in the stuffy studio. (Summer is approaching and the fan in the back is already mandatory, though prone to making my papers fly.)

Playlist follows:

Folk wouldn't be the first thing most people who know me think of as a genre I know much about. Generally, that's a fair assessment of my collection, but I do have some minor background in folk, mostly from a Finnish perspective with all the songs I remember my family singing amongst the other pop and classical songs from either the radio or stereo. I even play an instrument called the kantele, though it's not something I carry around regularly.

However, I filled in on Wednesday for Val on CITR's Folk Oasis (Podcast) for two hours of vaguely roots and folk music, though filtered through my global travels, peculiar tastes and wicked humour. I can play it straight too, as evidenced by the Robert Plant & Alison Krauss song that began the show, plus great lesser-known acts like Calico Horse, Epic45 and Katie Dill.

I had some older songs from Beach House and Forest City Lovers lined up, but I was pleased to find both their recent albums on the station's playlist, so substitutions were found. Finland's Kemialliset Ystävät was an act I've been struggling to fit into my past shows, but despite their more difficult sounds, they fit in quite nicely. New Zealand's Flight of the Conchords were a last minute addition, which should have been obvious to me earlier.

Before the show, I hung out with Anita briefly during her show, catching up as she had recently become a mother for the second time last month. On air, we talked about what I was planning to spin during the show and off air, being fans of Hayden. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to meet any of the hostesses of Juicebox Radio, who took this week off, meaning I had to queue up (or still have to as I type this) a repeat broadcast. I could've played through their hour, all the way to the insanely genius Hans Kloss' Misery Hour (Podcast), but I declined. My days are getting longer and longer already, especially during the weekdays. One day in the near future, I'll aim for three hours. Maybe more.

Playlist follows:

The future ain't what it used to be. This episode had a vague nostalgic feel, mostly since part of it covered a range of space age-inspired themes, though not in a super kitschy way.

The spotlight on the soundtrack to Forbidden Planet by Louis and Bebe Barron provided the main highlight, featuring primitive electronic sounds from a movie now over half a century old. Those harsh analog tones remain spooky to this day, though the sound textures sound warm now in this fairly digital age. The death of Bebe Barron recently allowed for the parts of the soundtrack to drift again through the mp3 blogs, which was a pleasant surprise. Between this and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, you can see how electronic music developed as a soundtrack.

You can probably detect part of that influence in bands like Broadcast, Stereolab and Boards of Canada, who are doggedly retro in spirit. However, in continued nostalgia, these were the bands I was heavily listening to ten years ago, along with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds and DJ Shadow. Seriously – if I had a radio show back in 1998, I'm sure I would've spun all those acts to death.

Aside from that: the lethal combination of Parliament and Basketball Jones brought a flurry of phone calls, I can no longer identify or pronounce "ineligible" and with the host of the previous show Some Sound out recovering from oral surgery, fill-in and computer maintainer Ben allowed me to briefly chat on air before airtime, though I wound up speaking into the wrong microphone. I could check the podcast server to see if anything was audible during that time, but I'm skeptical. Expect bad levels and echoing if I do find it.

Playlist follows:

Coming after last week's full-length South American episode, this show had the potential to suffer in comparison as it strove for more eclectic sounds. As well, to counteract the almost total lack of Canadian content, I had to beef up my Cancon requirements this week, which always makes me a little uncomfortable since I don't necessarily always think about nationally qualified music at first.

However, after we kicked off with the scrappy Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip track I've been holding for an opener for a long time, the show leapt to life off the script as the setlist went by. The two tracks by The Coral have been kept for a while to be timed with the Portishead album release, due to the production work on one of their tracks. And the Bobby Cole track was always ready to be the closer.

The Parkas were always a band I always held in reserve for some great Canadiana, though in the matters of full disclosure, I went to high school with two of the guys, who are brothers. From another section from our home and native land, Danny Michel was an act I caught on Thursday at the Railway Club. I lucked out after a casual work outing for darts and drinks and ran into one of my four-pitch softball teammates, who was there catch him live. Michel is a natural performer, unaccompanied save for his guitar and pedals. And yes, if you were there, that was me howling falsetto through his cover of Peter Gabriel's Games Without Frontiers, either showing my prowess in French or just plain showing my age.

I had three calls during the show, two of which come to mind immediately. The first came from the guy leaving work asking about MSTRKRFT, who have entered my mind as a mandatory act to see either live or as a DJ set based on what I heard from one morning Pacific time (hence, one night Australian time) from Triple J's show The Club a few weeks ago.

The other call came on the wings on figuring out the Elbow Beach Surf Club song, but wound up being yet another first: a request. After a quick search through the archives, I found Whitey, which I admittedly hadn't heard of before but I dug the tracks I quickly scanned through and spun one. Naturally, I had to ditch a song along the way, so expect some Sonic Youth in the near future. Another victim from the playlist due to the length of the show was Panda Bear, since the show ahead of me went into overtime, though gloriously as Radio!! Radio!! ended with some vintage radio transmissions from the 1970's.

To think: on paper, this show looked to be a bit of clunker, but it turned out to have a life of its own, as though I didn't fully understood what I created. I guess that makes it art then. From what I thought were failed hands, it took flight. Awesome show, great job!

Playlist follows: