fillin: 2008 Archives

The quick recap: I have no memory whatsoever whether I mentioned this on prior episodes, but I was a guest on Shake A Tail Feather during the station fund drive (which is still going strong for a few days more). He proposed that we cover an introductory show about soul and R&B music, exploring the early roots of both genres and giving examples of what soul music is.

We figured out early on that our ambitions could barely be wedged into our two hour show, especially as we talked plentifully about music along with the ever-so important donation information. We had each brought in a wide selection of music; I brought most of the Southern and New Orleans music whilst Jason focused on earlier works.

The show flew by quickly; we had waited in the lounge, listening to a bit of the collegiate sports broadcast with the other volunteers before tuning into Linda Bull's selection of modern Italian soundtrack and orchestral music (Linda hosts Give'em the Boot on Tuesday mornings, along with a bluegrass show on Co-op Radio, CFRO 102.7 FM Vancouver).

By midnight, we got the call from the next host that he would be 15 minutes late, so I took over the controls quietly as Jason packed and scrambled to catch the last express bus. I wound up taking a very delayed local one myself.

Not sure what else to write up here, since I still have to prepare my actual show, so here's the playlist.

Eli "Paperboy" Reed and the True Loves: (Doin' The) Boom Boom (MOJO Presents: The New Dictionary of Blues and Soul)
Ruth Brown and Her Rhythmakers: I Want to Do More (Blowing the Fuse: 1956)
Roy Montrell: (Everytime I Hear) That Mellow Saxophone (Blowing the Fuse: 1956)
Huey "Piano" Smith: Free, Single and Disengaged (New Orleans Funk, Vol. 1)
The Mar-Keys: Last Night (Stax 50th Anniversary)
Booker T and the MGs: Green Onions (Stax 50th Anniversary)
William Bell: You Don't Miss Your Water (Stax 50th Anniversary)
The Chantels: Maybe (Blowing the Fuse: 1958)
Sam Cooke: I'll Come Running Back to You (Blowing the Fuse: 1958)
Jerry Butler and the Impressions: For Your Precious Love (Blowing the Fuse: 1958)
Ray Charles: What'd I Say (Blowing the Fuse: 1959)
Isley Brothers: Shout (Blowing the Fuse: 1959)
Chuck Jackson: I Wake Up Crying (The Look of Love: The Burt Bacharach Collection)
Mary Wells: You Beat Me To the Punch (Sweet Soul Music: 1962)
Allen Toussaint: Gotta Travel On (What Is Success)
Otis Redding: A Change Is Gonna Come (The Definitive Soul Collection)
Al Green: Back Up Train (Back Up Train)
The Radiants: Voice Your Choice (MOJO Presents: Chess Classics)
The Fifth Dimension: Stoned Soul Picnic (The Very Best of ...)
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings: Tell Me (100 Days, 100 Nights)
The Fifth Dimension: Love's Lines, Angles, and Rhymes (The Very Best of ...)
James Brown: Funky President (People It's Bad) (Make It Funky - The Big Payback: 1971-1975)

You can download Soul 101 as an MP3, though I threw on this on my podcast for those of you who don't always read the blog [120.3 Mb, 131:23]

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.

After Darren filled in for my regular show, it was time for my turn for the first-ever/best-ever CITR Show Swap Week by taking the reins of a show I've done twice before: the soul/R&B wonder that is Shake A Tail Feather. In many ways, I was hoping to land a show I hadn't done before along with a format I had no hope in tackling, but I didn't envy the programming co-coordinator's task this week of working with everyone's schedules. That and some of the DJ's have tight schedules outside of radioland, meaning that not every host could participate. There's been some delights throughout the week and I'm hoping someone's compiled a list of which person tried which show after it's all done on Sunday.

As I found out when I showed up for the show, the programming co-coordinator, show swap organizer and host of Tuesday mornings' Third Time's The Charm Bryce Dunn took over DJ B-FAD's Rainbow Groove, trading his garage rock crunch for classic 80's-inspired dance. In fact, I wound up speaking with him for a good chunk of the middle half of the show, hence the possible wonderful side-effect of an invisible DJ for at least a 20 minutes. That forced me to really quickly identify the seven songs you heard in a row, and unfortunately, I let my tiny profile on the Daptone singles collection go unnoticed as it was in the midst of the epic set.

Otherwise, fun transpired as the turntables were previewing fine and misbehaving live, making for a couple madcap moments as I dove to recover off the iPod, which earned its stripes this week. Towards the end, I sorted it out as I checked the console settings when using the mixer and remembered to check the headphones, but hey, what's campus radio without the occasional blown cue? Oddly enough, I finally ran into the notorious Chris Dryden, host of the genre-blending I Like the Scribbles, as I spilled over the midnight hour and he showed up earlier than usual.

Next week – or more specifically, on Monday – everything turns back into a pumpkin and all the shows turn (more or less) back to normal. All signs point to a successful first deconstruction of regular programming, with increased ambitions for future attempts.

Playlist follows:

Another fill-in for Shake A Tail Feather, the soul and R&B show, on CITR, which airs Friday nights from 10:30pm to midnight. This time around, there was a week's notice instead of a couple hours, so I was able to sketch out this show well in advance, along with picking up a few new albums to flesh things out.

In an effort to combat any possible sluggishness – mostly due to a broken smoke detector somewhere in my building awakening me for two hours the night before but partly due to the creaky studio chair – I did this show standing up. My informational content spoken word bits sound different as a result; I'll say they're more brash than usual.

I kicked the show off with DJ Shadow's This Time (I'm Gonna Do It My Way), which is an aberration on his recent hyphy-inspired album The Outsider. After that, it was into Here Come Da Judge and mostly seven inches that I've collected on my iPod.

I caught up with DJ B-Fad and his show Rainbow Groove before airtime; we know each other through mutual friends and in fact, he used to work at the company where I started recently. Also bumped into Jonathan of Shameless, who was preparing some interview material for his Sunday show. Still haven't met Chris, the host of I Like the Scribbles, who is supposed to start at midnight (and by the time I biked home, I did wind up hearing him on air, so I spun until about 12:20am, mostly playing Isaac Hayes' astonishing soundtrack to Truck Turner, which I picked up on vinyl a few weeks ago and was floored to finally figure out it was the source of three of my favourite samples (including a brief bit in my promo, which I gave a quick spin). (And if you haven't seen it, here's Truck Turner meets the animated Star Trek.)

One highlight was a prolonged call from a listener, who was asking about half of what I played, including the Bay Area Funk compilation and the Twinight Records track from the Numero Group. He pointed out a few labels I need to check out soon, including Ace Records and a defunct subsidiary of theirs called Kent.

This was a commanding show and hopefully you get to enjoy listening to it as much as I had bopping around to it.

Playlist is as follows and I quote:

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:

Did another fill-in, again in the Friday late afternoon slot after the news, though with sports done for the year, there's 90 minutes to fill until the start of African Rhythms.

Nothing spectacularly ambitious here, just some good tunes well-timed for the start of full-on spring. As luck would have it, it was also the last day of classes at UBC, so the student population was set to let loose, particularly with the nice weather and the move of the AMS Block Party to the "Grassy Knoll" by the Bus Loop, where a few days ago there was a protest against its possible redevelopment. There were thousands of partiers soaking up the vibes, with a concert, a mini donut factory and the ever-popular beer tent keeping everyone happy.

The mood in the station was ebullient as well. It was the interim station manager's last day in the office and for a lot of students, it was the last full week of some shows. The music director was prepping for a major trip to Europe and some Stanley Cup playoff action was playing in the news room. There was beer and pizza lying about, with a good view of the action down in the Grassy Knoll.

My show was fun and relatively loose, since it was sketched out the night before. The only error was that the second last song was wrong, though I can't blame the iPod/iTunes tag team when I wrote down a sequence wrong. So instead of Digikid-84, you in fact heard Air as remixed by the Teenagers, who swing into town April 18th at Richard's on Richards.

Playlist follows:

Did a quick fill-in for what used to be the program The Great Canadian Way, which had recently fallen off the schedule. In between the news programming and special sports programming (semi-final AAA high school basketball action), an hour need to be filled on Friday afternoon, so I stepped in, in one of my last days with ample time to spare. (The big news in the background is personal; after months of searching, I finally landed a job.)

As per last Monday's regular radio free gak, I had gutted one of my running themes, so I resurrected part of it and fleshed it out with a handful of other songs I could find on the subject of happiness, which fit topically (for me anyways). Every song either had "happy" or "happiness" in the title, though one had "joy" and one act had "happy" in their name. Other possibilities would've been; "robots", "burning", the moon, best songs from my shows, clips from my dreadful demo, and uh, good songs I guess.

I was told that the show could have run anywhere from 50-75 minutes, so flexibility was required. Naturally, the more obvious and well-known songs were left off, though unintentionally since I found out I didn't have any Partridge Family in my collection as of airtime (which remain like that for a while). I was hoping to close with Boards of Canada with Happy Cycling but it turned out I only needed 55 minutes.

One technical problem: the news team moved all the microphones around, so I initially was talking into Mic 2 thinking it was Mic 1. I didn't realize what was going on until the next song started playing, though I really cranked the levels thinking there was a technical problem that suddenly popped up. The sports host came in later with an update about the start time of the first basketball game and apologized for leaving the studio in a different configuration. I really have to take a bit more time to cursorily check to see what state things are before going on-air. But hey, campus radio and production values have always had a tenuous relationship.

Nothing ground-shaking but there was enough diversity for listeners. I normally loathe shows that hinge upon a titular theme, but I've done similar mixes in the past for friends, involving concepts for "space" or "monkeys". I could tackle another topic for future sets, but I would leave themes for desperate times.

Update: you know, for someone who finally found an MP3 of Cheech & Chong's Basketball Jones, you would've thought that it would be the perfect setup for the high school tournament broadcast. Me too, after the fact. I'm not sure when I'll lead for another game again, so I guess I can place that idea in the vault for a while. Dammit...

Playlist follows:

At 3pm Friday, the message went out that the host for CITR's soul and R&B program Shake a Tail Feather [Podcast] had fallen ill. I agreed to fill-in for Jason, which gave me about six hours to prepare for airtime at 10 o'clock. Fortunately, one of my vaguely planned ahead shows had a small soul segment, which I fleshed out by combing my soul archives to fill out the entire two hour show.

So, for regular (?) listeners to my show, this fill-in was my first foray into one specific genre, and one that I'm sure few suspected that I dabbled in. There has been the odd soul song through past shows of mine, though they tended to be either heavily funky or super light. According to iTunes, I have enough material to cover a few more shows if need be, though I have to comb through some of the miscategorized albums to fully figure out what's what.

And overall, the show was solid, despite the tight deadline imposed on myself (somehow, I didn't include Booker T & the MG's song Time is Tight). Threading the show together was relatively straightforward once the songs were pared down to the 30+ that aired; since a lot of soul acts used the same musicians, either through the various labels' house bands or through travel, it was easy to spot commonalities.

The only major technical snafu involved my iPod locking up between Bettye Swann and Aretha Franklin, which required some on-the-fly troubleshooting. Thankfully, the laptop was ready to act as the backup, so a brief verbal segue covered up the change in cabling (though a bit of studio noise can be heard). Aside from that, there was a point where I had to wing together enrichment when I dug up the only Canadian soul album I could find in the station libraries (Wayne McGhie & the Sounds of Joy, which is a sweet little treasure from the past) to ensure I didn't utterly hose the Canadian content regulations.

However, one programming challenge arrived when the host for the next show showed up late (or at all?). Fortunately, I had some extra songs lined up since I had prepared for some overtime, though not an extreme amount. Since my regular show is only 90 minutes long, dealing with 120 minutes required some overcompensation on the usual programming. However, as you'll see in the MP3, the show went for 140+ minutes, which took more energy than I had left at that late hour. For the record, I'll state that two hours feels more complete than an hour and a half, since I'm usually still jazzed for more airtime at the end of any regular Radio Free GAK episode. But, naturally, 90 minutes is much better than 60 minutes, which is similar much better than no minutes at all, so I remain lucky enough as is.

Anyways, way too much blathering here. As I've said repeatedly through the broadcast, I wish Jason a speedy recovery and I didn't scratch the car up too horribly (I hope).

Playlist follows: