September 2008 Archives

Based on a substantial internet outage at home and an imminent flight out tomorrow, I'll make this write-up brief.

This show was mostly hip hop, something that initially was going to a small segment in the usual random episode but grew organically into a full-fledged show as I took bits and bites from my collection, then rounded it out with a few classics (well, to me) in the station archives.

Naturally, this week had to start with a song from Paul Newman, who passed away the Friday before. I had hoped to find a few vintage clips from his films to play, but time was tight as usual, more so as the guys in the show before me were running late, playing Clint Black's vilely misguided Iraq and Roll with vested irony. (The podcast will ideally have it surgically removed.)

After a wonderful RJD2 cut, it was the new Q-Tip single, which features a lovely sample from Black Ivory's You & I and struck me dumb when I first heard it. A pleasant surprise arose when it came time for Hugh Le Caine, who I stumbled by accident, finding out during research that not only was he Canadian but from Port Arthur, the northern half of what eventually became my hometown of Thunder Bay.

Originally, Masta Ace was supposed to follow Edan, mostly since the former track invoked Masta Ace's old Juice Crew in the lyrics. However, I need to throw Ugly Duckling into the mix and had very little option otherwise. Of course, screwing up the song title with the album title didn't help matters, but such is the case with the quick replacement.

Finding the Wayne & Shuster sketch Frontier Psychiatrist via WFMU's blog was an utter godsend, exposing the genius that the Avalanches deployed when sampling it into their song Frontier Psychiatrist and bringing the joy of connecting another link to the comedy duo with the Australian DJ act (and just when is the next Avalanches' album due???) after the obvious W&S sample in Radio.

Rounding most things up was the soundtrack to the lost film Brotherman. I hadn't wanted to do another blaxploitation album after the recent wave I've profiled, but the story behind what happened to Brotherman, along with the general urban theme, made it a nice fit. I definitely have to step back from another one for a while, despite my professed love to the genre, but there are a few genres I have to explore and I've set up my future playlist a bit more devotedly in hopes for a quicker turnaround.

All right, this note wasn't brief at all. Let's hit the playlist.

We'll see if anyone reads this anytime soon after this latest blog software upgrade. Nothing like having HTML templates fail with meaningless errors for no particular reason. Anywho... Okay, this site is mostly back to normal, with some even new features like proper categories and monthly archives, which will look prettier when I have time to look at it when not frantically playing "guess what this error means". Wordpress, your day comes soon...

This week cleaved the coconut since the first hour and the last half hour don't seemingly fit together. Featuring a heavy electronic remix set, whereby the higher bitrate songs pumped out and I mixed the vocals higher for then whispered my interludes, there was a solid groove.

Then the show veered to seventies jazz-pop with the classy Roy Budd, including a good profile of his work for the film Get Carter (take a look at the North American trailer and Stereolab's cover). I had hoped to have a profile on Budd for a while, mostly in inspiration from the ever brief snippet of the theme from The Sandbaggers, the ruthlessly professional British TV series about intelligence. One Mr. Kent introduced me to this series during one of my then frequent layovers in Toronto and the reality of the actual battles within a ministry, along with the complete lack of glamour in the spy game, leaves its mark. In many ways, Budd's theme to the series shows his compositional strengths in applying the minimal amount of music required to convey the subtext: the less said, the better. You can apply your own rationales and emotions in the actions of Carter and Burnside as they battle a bleak future on their own terms.

Approaching the segues with a lower volume will take some adjustment time. Some of the other DJ's were talking about their "talk" and how the difference in volume in voice conveys more intimacy. I still have to figure out my usual range of vocal dynamics and tone, but it's an experiment. Naturally, this means the microphone is more in my face, which makes it easier for me to lose place in the script, which makes for a less robotic time as I trip over the odd phrase — "Boy bud's rest" took the cake easily.

Lay on the playlist action:

Salut, mes amis! Comment faites-vous? Qu'est-ce qui passe? Allons-y!

That'll be the extent of my conversational French this week, so for the true Francophone experience, you'll have to listen to the songs.

Nevertheless, it's funny being able to quantify the sheer amount of French music in my collection so that I could explore much further if I wanted to in future shows. Part of the inspiration behind this was the main feature, taking Serge Gainsbourg's work behind his concept album Histoire de Melody Nelson along with his orchestral collaborator Jean-Claude Vannier and his ambitiously insane L'enfant assassin des mouches, both recently re-released and powerful examples of muse-chasing. I found Vannier's album at a local record store, with the sticker overtop stating "HOLY SHIT". The first track you heard was what turned me onto the album and sadly, I had to leave the one epic track I wanted to spin off the playlist, since time was short after the show prior to me went into deep overtime.

Incidentally, I left part of the preceding show near the beginning, since Henry (and guest Steve) played another French track I was saving for next week: part of Justice's proggy electro song Planisphère for Dior Homme's Summer 2009 Fashion show.

I've played Gainsbourg in the past, but it was a delight to dig up some of the earlier songs he wrote for the pop market, which provided the first major feature on the show: yé-yé. I wanted to go with the 1970's disco versions, which are epic tales of heartbreak, but I couldn't find my collection of songs, so I settled on the light soul numbers from the sixties. It's not all candy gloss as the guitars squeal at times and the rhythm can veer towards something sinister, but the sweet French girls sing their words with little detectable irony about life whilst young. (Though the territory marked by Jordy enters another depth that dooms us all.)

And I can't believe I'll say this, but I'm floored how good (or not craptacular) Carla Bruni's album is. Perhaps it's the usual mesmerizing charm of the French language (though she definitely looks like someone you don't kick out of bed), but the lyricism inherent in the words along with that perfect level of detachment towards passion always appeals.

I have to admit that another reason I wanted to try to tackle a French show was to aim for some programming diversity, since there's seem to be less variety in music on the radio and there's currently no French show on CITR (our compatriots in arms at CJSF up the hill and CFUV across the strait do provide, though). Not that I could tackle such a show on a regular basis; besides, I'm not Jodie Foster with her perfect Parisian accent – if I ever get close to a proper Parisian accent, my Finnish kicks in and I sound Niçoise with un accent Marseillais, or so I've been told. Not Québecois at the very least.

I'll find more production music from France in the 70's and 80's the next time I try this, along with some actual prog music to offset any future sugary confections.

Et maintenant, le playlist:

This was the show destined to be prior to me falling ill, so this show was mostly in the can for a couple weeks before airtime. There were naturally a few tweaks as time marched on, so the Walkmen/Beck set lost its poignancy as the concerts passed.

Fortunately, having this show prepared worked well since I had spent most of the week before travelling: three days with my folks and then a weekend in wonderful Winnipeg for a friend's wedding. I returned to Vancouver five hours before the show with very little to worry about. Since classes at UBC officially started this week, the campus had liveliness for the first time since early April, which gave the station a bit of a jolt as new volunteers provided evidence of wanting their first taste of radioland wonder, mostly in the form of sign-up sheets filled with phone numbers and random doodles.

The Bruce Haack/Fantastic Plastic Machine segment was one of those things that was less of an accident and more just a bit of whimsical fortune that had been residing in my collection waiting for a moment to shine. Haack remains one of those enigmatic individuals that made music on his own terms, so despite how eerie his repetoire is — especially when you consider that children were his target audience — the charming quirkiness provides so much character that you wouldn't otherwise readily find.

Instead of a specific soundtrack feature this week, aside from the experimental flair with the two tracks from the Extracted Celluloid compilation, the scores used had been piling up in my cache for a while and didn't readily fit into earlier shows on their own, but the variety invoked did flow into each other quite quite naturally. After the ersatz opening, with weird electronics, German new wave and precocious Canadiana, allowing songs from widely-known films to shine grounded the ceremony.

The only main excitement behind the scenes were the various asynchronous clocks, giving the actual time a delta spanning 10 minutes, which led me to avoid stating the time that often this week, which benefits the podcast listener over those using the dials and the coils.

Gaze upon yonder playlist:

This is an example of campus radio.

After missing last week's show due to illness, I placed that planned playlist on hold and went with what was scheduled for this week: a tribute to shoegazing. Exclaim!'s article on shoegazing was the primary inspiration, which itself was apparently created as news of the reunion tour by My Bloody Valentine sets hold in North America. (New York's concerts are sold out, could I make it to Toronto's?) After missing The Jesus & Mary Chain's recent tour stop in Seattle, I figure seeing Kevin Shields again live would be equally abrasive (I caught Shields during a tour he did with Primal Scream several years ago, which was more riotous than gazy).

However, part of the show was sketched out with temporary tracks to be replaced with other songs from the station library. So I rifled through about 40 albums and singles to come up with suitable replacements, which somehow didn't skip in the preview studio but started causing problems in the booth when live. Hence, the rescue by Adorable at the start of the show after the J&MC disc started to stutter away in the player. Same thing happened with the Lost in Translation soundtrack, though I managed to rely on the cart and the backup tracks to save me.

Adding to all the fun was that this week's show was timed to land during the mandatory SOCAN tracking, meaning I had extra paperwork to fill out during the show. Sticking with the iPod would've been ideal during times of additional forms, but since SOCAN helps pay Canadian artists for any of their performances, I spent some more time locating dream pop from my home and native land to complement the Guitaro and Southpacific tracks I had; hence, An April March and Sianspheric.

Sadly, all this shifting around bumped a few acts off the playlist, so acts like Panda Riot, the Swirlies and M83 will need their own time to shine later. As well, the Mogwai profile was truncated, which cast aside some of their wilder songs along with leaving only one track from their soundtrack to Zidane: a 21st Century Portrait.

Overall, I should have spent more time on this show, just to better flesh out the entire shoegaze movement from the precursory elements to the second wave acts. It didn't help that I worked most of the Labour Day weekend, and when not working, celebrating about five birthdays in the wee hours of the morning. Still, the show developed its own ramshackle charm, almost like seeing the Jesus & Mary Chain live in their unpredictable prime.

Playlist commences: