October 2008 Archives

When it comes to my Hallowe'ens, half of the chills and thrills arrive in the form of spills.

As I prepared this week's show — all about spooky music with a mix of some campiness and some outright horror — I was getting frustrated with trying to fill 90 minutes of airtime, which usually comprises of 75-80 minutes of music. I fretted over the final cuts on Sunday and set myself up for a pretty solid show. I figured I had a reasonable backup plan in the form of the Dawn of the Dead soundtrack — graciously provided to me by a co-worker on his original vinyl — in case I wanted to swap a few songs, though that score wound up somewhat less ethereal than I was expecting.

Never did I expect to jump on the air a half hour early though, as the previous host never made his shift this week (I should email him and check to see how he's doing). Once I arrived at the station, I found out what the deal was and dove right into the show at 7pm. The basic plan I had was to run with the show as it was and then somehow come up with the last half hour based on my extra tracks and those that were left off.

Whatever my intentions were...well, you can hear that the seams were roughly sewn, especially as I juggled around my tracklist during the last hour and switched sloppily from my iPod to the laptop when I ran out of the homebrew. (Please don't ask what I was thinking when I started snapping my fingers, or tried to snap said fingers, ugh.) There was a quick fade-out of the Throbbing Gristle song halfway through as I finally clearly heard the rather gruesome story being told, which would generally fly all right on a campus radio station though not during primetime. Actually listening to the lyrics, or at least reading them beforehand, is going to be a new habit to learn, considering I was already slightly leery about the Golden Palominos song later on, a track that has bolted me awake one night as I heard Nicole Blackman's eerie tale of a kidnapping.

One thing I wish I had done was feature the original song by Delia Derbyshire I had selected; a long piece featuring a woman talking about the ocean. A quirky tale would have provided a little break from the increasingly ominous latter half of the show, though Derbyshire's an artist who deserves her own profile very soon.

All in all, this episode should definitely raise the hair on the back of your neck, intentionally or not. I had reluctant expectations going into this show, and I adequately met them at times.

I present to you now your playlist. Please inspect each song for possible razors and other spikey objects before listening.

Up until late Sunday, this show was going to be mostly blues-related, but since I wasn't feeling in a blues mode, I shelved that program and came up with this one, featuring plenty of music from one of the old guard in electronic music: Underworld.

Based on their regular lengthy songs, Underworld easily took up half the show — including their songs from Trainspotting and Batman & Robin — along with the recent discovery within the station archives of the soundtrack to the film Breaking and Entering, whom they wrote along with Lebanese composer Gabriel Yared, a man I should dig up more music for a future episode.

The rest of the show fell into place quite quickly, although relying on the obituaries can appear to be an instant tribute that approaches distastefulness. Still, Neal Hefti's theme to the original (yet very campy) Batman television series is one of those unlikeliest of gems that will never go away. And the Four Tops' Levi Stubbs wasn't someone that immediately struck a chord, but then you listen to Bernadette, as heard in the background during this scene in Madhouse, or just Stubbs himself as the voice of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors, and you realize what a powerful voice he had. And as referred to on air, during one of my fill-ins for Shake a Tail Feather, I played their song from Shaft Goes to Africa.

Wire and Crystal Castles provided an unconventional theme as they both had recently cancelled shows in the Vancouver area; I would have fit The Breeders in but time didn't permit. And further in concert tie-ins, I had tickets to give away to Wednesday's sold-out show by Dengue Fever, but no takers. It's a shame; from what songs of theirs I spun during my Asian themed show, their Cambodian songs should sound delightfully exotic. Maybe I should have landed tickets myself...

Otherwise, Mr. Walker called during the early part of the show, indicating that he wouldn't be able to appear tonight after he recovered from surgery. He was relaying some graphic details about the procedure as a segment ended, hence the brief silence towards the first third of the show as I quickly wrapped up the call and prepared one of his older shows for rebroadcast. To conclude all the campy Batman antics — and to soothe the way to the Jazz Show — I wanted to find a quality version of Count Basie's defining take on Hefti's Li'l Darling, but I settled for the The Ray Brown Trio's version, which has a nice languid feel to close the ceremonies.

That's mostly it, save for the playlist, which follows.

It's been some time since I've done a fill-in, but as Anita B was unavailable this week, I stepped into the comfortable shoes that is Samsquantch's Hideaway, the Wednesday evening Canadiana program. And for reference purposes, the Samsquantch appeared on the Trailer Park Boys.

There was no major theme for the show, though the program was bookended by non-Canadian bands making Canadian references; the fact that there's band out of Italy called Vancouver amuses me to no end, though they sound pretty good. Naturally, relying partially on the station's catalogue meant that most of my nationally selected music veered towards indie, though I had a few wild cards in my deck, ranging from folktronica to the noble yet cheesy Rock Encouter, which WFMU brought to the world's attention. I had some other selections for Hayden and Boards of Canada before finding replacements from the station library.

Val, host of Folk Oasis, the show after the Hideaway (and a show I've filled in for in the past), would often hang out as she prepped her show that night and we caught up on what was going down as of late. As her show started, I managed some banter that may have been caught on air, but I excluded from the download since any chicanery came later in the show and may have somewhat inaudible (I'll check and if there's anything good, I'll append or make a separate download).

Compared to Monday's regular show, I sounded far healthier and since work had me on the phone a lot today, my voice was well primed for mischief. It's nice to have a looser time on the radio now and then, since fun is not only a key objective, but it's also infectious. Of course, this led to a minor gaffe or two, especially since I was juggling a lot of CD changes this time around, along with a few records. That and the cart requirements being completely different made for a different challenge in the background as I fumbled quickly to fit certain bits onto the air. The advert at the end should've come a few minutes before but at least I didn't completely forget it altogether.

All in all, it was a blast – a nice respite from the federal election mayhem from the night before. Or downer, depending on your political leaning.

And now, for something that's never been done before: the playlist.

Sorry for the delay in getting this entry posted — one factor has been my increasingly unreliable internet connection at home. The new coaxial cable is helping with giving my speeds slightly over dial-up but speeds remain less than optimal.

The other factor for those of you who listen closely is that I had the sniffles, which I tried to obscure on air but failed often. Symptoms later deteriorated to the worst runny nose I ever had that night. My headspace drifted at times, which accounted for the occasional misread bit as I tried to figure out what I had meant when things were written earlier. The iPod had its own little fits, skipping ahead in songs whenever I wasn't looking, though that problem abated after the first half hour.

Kid Koala kicked things off with a song that one of the CBC Toronto folks use when filling in on one of the national morning programmes on Radio 1. After some disco, house and some demo music, the next highlight was the little profile on Monkey: Journey to the West, a Chinese opera that features the main Gorillaz duo with a heavy Oriental feel. One of the Gorillaz, Damon Albarn, led into a segue into Central African music as his recent production work for Amadou & Mariam allowed a sensible change of gears.

I played some Stereolab too, though I debated using the old tour single song versus a song off Stereolab off-shoot (and 2008 tour opener) Monade. Now that most of my 45's are up from Brooklyn, I could've gone with the latter after all. Alas...

The Lalo Schifrin soundtrack to Enter the Dragon was a recent acquisition, perfectly located after reading The AV Club's mixlist on "songs from and inspired by classic cult films" and some comments there. Though there are parallels to my recent bout of blaxploitation scores, Schifrin's score retains its own character, much like his work for the original TV series Mission: Impossible.

Somehow, I had more wiggle time this week, so I managed to fit pretty much everything in, though nailing the timing of the PSA's and adverts still needs to be perfected, especially more so now as placement of these carts is more closely monitored. Those things are going to fairly consistent going forward, just so you know.

On with the playlist.

Time to padlock the basement and rock the garage.

Episodes like this one form organically as I sort through my increasing cachet of planned songs and notice little trends. I can't say whether as of late, I'm intentionally working on creating more focused shows for certain genres or styles, but the past month's worth of programming definitely mark their territory. This one specifically goes for that ramshackle guitar sound, either from a garage, punk, psychedelic, rockabilly or otherwise loud standpoint.

And I kidded you not when I said that I had just arrived back in Vancouver from New York: I landed just before 3pm and needed to go home, unpack and come up with the show, which had been a loose amorphous state during my travels, but I had to buckle down and streamline things. Upon reaching the studio with only a few minutes to spare, I combed through a few replacement songs, which proudly meant including local act (with station connections) the Tranzmitors, though I had to bump the freaky Peruvian song I had lined up.

Admittedly, I used a few too many cues for the Brian Tyler profile, since I had to talk over one of the Red Elvises tracks and forced the Czerwone Gitary to get a quick fade out before cutting over to Gavin — I'll keep that song on reserve for future usage, mind you. Bubba Ho-Tep is such a quirky film stylistically and the soundtrack works itself well with the horror clichés along with satirizing them, much like a mummy that is only quick enough to attack the elderly. Six String Samurai relies heavily on the score to compensate for the low budget placed otherwise on the visuals, though there's enough chutzpah everywhere to give that movie an energy you can power a large city for days.

The set on the Shangri-Las seemed natural to throw into the proceedings, especially since Mary Weiss still manages to convey that same sassy vibe after all these years. I wanted to preserve that as the rest of the short songs kept fluctuating, though I managed to luck out on Canadian content after discovering Diet Cola and The Von Zippers were representing the true north strong and freak.

Now, before I collapse from exhaustion triggered by jet lag and cold medicine, let's give you some playlist love: