As promised, here are the audio files of some of the talking, songs and performance from my time with Becky Stark on KXLU. Just click the links to stream the audio. I sincerely hope you enjoy listening to this as much as I did being part of it.
Part 1: The Living Sisters
The Living Sisters are Becky Stark, Inara George (The Bird and The Bee & Solo) and Eleni Mendell (Solo) singing the most lush three part harmonies Los Angeles has heard in decades. It's a project of love for the three who each have successful careers, either solo or with other bands, and may be my favorite thing that any of them do. They finally decided to make a record together. It is currently unreleased, but that should change soon. Enjoy the recordings above.
Becky Stark backstage at Botanique in Brussels From Lavender Diamond/Decemberists tour 2007 Picture by me
Wow! Yesterday's show was more fun than I've had in ages. Especially considering how sick I am and how easy it would have been to sleep in. Instead, I drank NyQuil at 9pm and tried to get a full night's sleep. I still haven't adjusted to my new time slot so I must have hit the snooze button 8 times or so.
The real excitement was having my first in studio guest at the new time slot (Marnie was over the phone). Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond, The Decemberists (who's album was released on Tuesday), The Living Sisters (who's record will be out soon, but you can hear some songs here along with parts of Becky's interview) and the LA Women's Choir was my guest. She performed with an acoustic guitar (which can also be streamed above).
Special thanks to Becky for guest DJing the final hour (and then some). For some reason I played a lot of covers today. Let's play a game and count them in the commentary. Here's the playlist:
1) Eumir Deodato - Also Sprach Zarathustra Cover #1 Richard Strauss I had thought about making this the opening theme to the show. It's great to wake up to at 6am; it's 9 minutes long, so I have the time to set myself up at the booth; it has the magical combination of Rhodes and congas; but there has been something odd about it. I couldn't quite escape comparing it to "A 5th of Beethoven" from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack in my mind. I had a feeling it would only be a matter of time before someone who knew more then I did would call me out about this track. Then it happened: I got a call from my father this morning saying that back in the 70s this song was played to death and anyone who actually knew shit about music back then grew to despise it. Oops.
2) Desmond Dekker - Get Up Edina 3) Stiff Little Fingers - Doesn't Make It All Right Cover #2 The Specials
4) Specials - Concrete Jungle 5) Wall of Voodoo - Ring of Fire + Cover #3 Johnny Cash That's right, Wall of Voodoo did more than just "Mexican Radio"! Thanks again to Ludlow at FedEx for the request.
6) Black Angels - Deer-Ree-Shee Come on, psych rock with sitars? Of course I'm going to play that! Of course, Black Angels aren't close to the first band to drag a sitar into psych, nor will they be the last. Dig! Brian Jonestown Massacre @ The Viper Room
7) Galaxy 500 - Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste Cover #4 The Modern Lovers
8) Old Dirty Bastard - Shimmy Shimmy Ya (Instrumental) 9) Mr. Chop - Zoid 10) Abe Vigoda - Wild Heart * Cover #5 Stevie Nicks
11) Bruce Springsteen - Dream Baby Dream Cover #6 Suicide I've already written about this song and how much I love it. You can click here if you want to read it.
12) Next Door Neighbors - Cultural Revolution * Holy crap, it took a few listens to get in to, but I am now in love with these guys! Quirky minimalist beats hugged by synthesizers and topped off by a meek voice that knows the exact right places to crack. This is the soundtrack to the girlfriend you once had who wanted to stay in every night and do things like knit or make bread from scratch.
13) Jeffrey Lewis - I Ain't Thick It's Just A Trick Cover #7 Crass This was my first ever attempt to edit out the curses on a track live by sitting with my finger on the volume and sliding it down over every swear. It's not easy.
14) Mount Eerie - In Moonlight 15) Mynah Birds - Big Time Okay, here's the story behind this band: The band's singer who went by the name Big Jimmy was skipping out on weekend training in the U.S. Naval Reserve and decided to bail completely and fled to Toronto. He links up with Nick St. Nicholas (later of Steppenwolf) and forms The Mynah Birds. They decide that they want to be on the Motown label (this was 1966). Eventually, the guitarist doesn't like how Motown treats the band so he quits and is replaced by another unknown Canadian named Neil Young. I should also clarify, Big Jimmy would later change his name to Rick James. What I'm saying is, this song is Neil Young and Rick James in a band together on Motown years before Rick James would see any success with the label. Their manager pocketed the Motown advance so they fired him. To retaliate, he reports Big Jimmy to the Navy as a deserter and Rick James went back to the boats.
16) Wavves - I'm Bored * 17) MI AMI - The Man In Your House * 18) Sunset - Loveshines II * 19) The Raincoats - In Love + If I had been intentionally doing a covers theme, I would have played their cover of Lola. I think I'm going to see if I can do a whole 4 hour show of nothing but covers at some point.
20) Velvet Underground - Lady Godiva's Operation 21) Mars - Hellen Fordsdale * 22) Brother - Track 5 23) Fourtet - No More Mosquitos 24) Broadcast - Come On Let's Go 25) Pram - The Owl Service 26) Serge Gainsbourg - Pauvre Lola 27) Dent May - I'm An Alcoholic * 28) Beirut - The Akara * 29) Talking Heads - This Must Be The Place 30) Beach Boys - Never Learn Not To Love You Cover #8 Charles Manson...yes, that Charles Manson. The original song was called Cease To Exist. This is from back in the days when Manson was working on his record with Dennis Wilson.
31) The Books - Lost and Safe 32) Caliphone - Michigan Girls 33) Charles Spearin - Vanessa This song gets the award this week for biggest response. I even got emails asking who this was. A song created around the natural melody of a deaf woman speaking. Absolutely beautiful!
34) Mum - Cosmic Singalong +
And then Becky arrived! Becky picked almost all of the rest of the songs and talked about each of the many projects she was working on, with the glaring omission of Lavender Diamond - but rest assured, there is more Lavender Diamond to come...we just ran out of time. Audio available for streaming on the blog post above.
35) Crypticize - Cosmic Sing-a-long ++ Chris Cohen, formerly of Deerhoof, is in this band along with Nedelle Torrisi and Michael Carreira. Here's the video for this song: Cryptacize: Cosmic Sing-a-long
36) Trio Bulgaria - ??? ++ 37) Dolly Parton - Wildflowers ++ 38) Living Sisters - How Are You Doing++ 39) Living Sisters - Ferris Wheel ++ The Living Sisters are Becky Stark, Inara George (The Bird and The Bee & Solo) and Eleni Mendell (Solo) singing the most lush three part harmonies Los Angeles has heard in decades. It's a project of love for the three who each have successful careers, either solo or with other bands, and may be my favorite thing that any of them do. They finally decided to make a record together. It is currently unreleased, but that should change soon. Enjoy the recordings above.
40) Harper Simon - The Audit ++ See Harper with Becky at Largo on March 31.
41) Entrance - Grim Reaper Blues ++ 42) The Decemberists - The Wanting Comes in Waves ++ 43) The Decemberists - Isn't It A Lovely Night ++ 44) The Decemberists - Hazards of Love ++ As you probably know by now, Becky is one of the lead vocalists on the new Decemberists rock opera, Hazards of Love which was released earlier this week. I can't explain the plot as well as she does in the stream above.
45) Colin Meloy - Oh No Cover #9 Lavender Diamond. The Decemberists/Lavender Diamond connection has to be credited to Laurel Sterns who was with the Decemberists at Capitol records and is now with their management firm. Laurel had her own record label, Cold Sweat Records who put out the first Lavender Diamond recording, a split 7" with The Queens of Sheeba (with Devendra Banhart). She then played Lavender Diamond for the Decemberists which turned into a support slot on their US and then European tour (see photo at the top of this posting). Between tours Colin would sing Oh No to his newborn son at night. In the meantime, Rough Trade Records needed a B side for "Open Your Heart" so Colin agreed to cover it as a favor. Unfortunately, the record can only be found in the UK. Colin Meloy has a masterful ear for covers, by the way. His cover of Joanna Newsom's "Bridges and Balloons" is what convinced me to like his music.
46) Lavender Diamond - Rise In The Springtime + Peter Choyce request
47) Becky Stark - Oh My Beautiful World +++ 48) Becky Stark - Ocean and Ground +++
Well, that was it. I hope everyone can listen in next week and I hope you enjoy the recordings.
* KXLU New Add + Request ++ Becky Stark Pick +++ Performed Live in Studio
I'm very excited about my show tomorrow. Becky Stark from Lavender Diamond, the new Decemberists album, The Living Sisters (with Eleni Mendell and Inara George) and countless other projects will be in the studio with me. She is bringing records to play and an acoustic guitar...also to play. Hope you can tune in.
Sorry this is coming a day late. So much going on, I had no time to write this out yesterday.
I am really excited about the new time slot as well as the new show concept, which you can read about in my last entry. I barely got any sleep on top of everything because Trail of Dead was in town playing the Echoplex on Tuesday night. I wound up hanging out with all of them until about 1am and watching Conrad wring the sweat out of his shirt as if he had been thrown in a pool with his clothes on. The show was good. The sound was a bit weird in the room, but the energy was high. Mostly, I was happy because they played "A Perfect Teenhood" intercut with Patty Smith's version of Gloria, which is my favorite song to watch them play (with the exception of the time that the power cut off in the middle of Caterwaul when we were at Sasquatch Festival and Jason got the entire crowd to chant the song until the power came back on...amazing!).
Anyway, going to bed at 1am and setting my alarm clock for 4:30 was no fun especially since my sleep was filled with nightmares about the show. Kind of sad to admit this, but I still get stage fright. My dreams were about turntables not working, playing the wrong tracks, dead air and every conceivable problem a radio show can have. By the end of the dream I was so frustrated that I trashed the studio (maybe being around Trail rubbed off on me somehow).
Okay, so by the time I got to the station for real, things went significantly better. The highlight, of course was my interview with Marnie Stern, which I will post shortly. Everyone needs to come out on Wednesday to see her at the Echo. Anyway, here is the set list and commentary:
1) Iron Maiden - Aces High Thanks to Dustin Sussman (Link) for helping me narrow down the perfect Maiden song for 6am. After I played this I went on air and claimed that the new Wednesday 6-10 slot is called "Maiden Voyage: Eddie, Set, Go!" 4 hours a week of Iron Maiden Songs, Iron Maiden covers, Iron Maiden side projects and Iron Maiden news. To me, this is funny.
2) Eumir Deodato - Also Sprach Zarathustra A Rhodes-heavy '70s Jazz fusion version of the song by Richard Strauss. Prominently featured in the film "Being There" with Peter Sellers.
3) Olivia Tremor Control - Memories of Jacqueline 1906 4) Abe Vigoda - Don't Lie 5) Liars - Sailing To Byzantium 6) Andrew Bird - Not a Robot But A Ghost * This track sounds like Radiohead. I love it.
7) The Bran Flakes - Stumble Out Of Bed * Seriously? Sampling 9-5 by Dolly Parton? I feel awkward about how much I enjoy this song.
8) Madlib/Beat Konducta - No More Time * 9) Odd Nosdam - Top Rank * 10) Amon Tobin - Chomp Samba 11) Squarepusher - Love Will Tear Us Apart 12) Kid 606 - Catstep/My Kitten/Catnap Remember when Kid 606 was the craziest most innovative DJ you had ever heard? Every track made you pull your car over and say "what the fuck?" like it was the first time your parents ever heard "A Day In The Life"? What happened? Why is he putting out mediocre Techno albums now like Pretty Girls Make Raves? I miss IDM Kid 606.
13) Trail of Dead - Bells of Creation 14) Animal Collective - Everyone Whistling From the oft overlooked album, Spirit They've Gone Spirit They've Vanished.
15) Fuck Buttons - Ribs Out 16) MI AMI - The Man In Your House * 17) Little Teeth - Between My Ears I love this band so much! More people need to buy this record. Grating, moody and pretty at the same time.
18) Geraldine Fibbers - Lilybelle Speaking of moody pretty music...
19) Dent May - The Girls in the Square 20) Pterodactyl - First Daze Former members of Ex-Models. Also, Zach and Matt played a few shows as Marnie's backing band.
21) Melt Banana - Picnic in Panic 22) Lightning Bolt - Ride The Sky 23) Dan Deacon - Get Older This is not a new add, but mark my words it will be soon. If KXLU doesn't add this record you, listener/reader, should riot. This album will wind up on so many best of lists come December. It sounds like the missing link between Animal Collective albums where they discover warmth. This record is a big deal.
24) The Mae Shi - I Get (Almost) Everything I Want 25) Glenn Branca - Lesson No 1 * 26) Surf City - Records of a Flagpole Skater * Played at the recommendation of Milk Man Miles. That dude is on top of it! Listen to his show before mine at 2-6am (my old slot).
27) BlackBlack - Skulls I got more calls asking who did this song than any other song I played all morning. This song is so pretty. The effect of the gentle yet disaffected vocals of Diva intertwined with Alex (AKA Clark Schädelkopf) pushing The Misfits' words like "And the blood drains down like devils rain, We'll bathe tonight" is so wonderfully eerie yet totally engaging. I never play this song without having it stuck in my head for at least 3 hours.
28) Bauhaus - Antonin Artaud Kind of a cheap follow-up song as Diva and Lola from the above BlackBlack incarnation are the daughters of Kevin from Bauhaus. On the other hand, this is my favorite Bauhaus song and I play it all the time so it was going to show up on the program at some point, might as well put it next to BlackBlack.
29) Flesh Eaters - Digging My Grave 30) 999 - Homicide 31) Marnie Stern - The Crippled Jazzer
Interview with Marnie Stern: I will post the interview on my blog shortly. Highlights include: -Missing a strip club because they were stuck in line for fast food. Apparently, at this very special strip club exists a stripper named Blondie who "crushes beer cans in her boobs and her butt". -Marnie explaining how she feels 30 years older while smoking Capri cigarettes and is becoming the eccentric elderly rock 'n roll aunt at the family picnic. -Marnie's likes and dislikes about travel...okay, just dislikes.
Listen to the interview and then come out on Wednesday to see her play at the Echo.
32) Marnie Stern - Shea Stadium 33) Marnie Stern - Healer 34) Wavves - Sun Opening My Eyes * 35) Man Man - Top Drawer 36) Belle and Sebastian - Me and The Major Live at Barbican thanks to Zoe Davis
37) Arthur Russell - Love is Overtaking Me 38) Yes Please - Love Probe * 39) Beach House - Wedding Bells 40) Lavender Diamond - When You Wake For Certain Becky Stark will be guest DJing on my show soon. More details to come.
41) New Order - Blue Monday + This was a request. I was asked to play a song for a friend of the caller at CAA. I figured, since the song Blue Monday is rumored to be about the bombing of the Falkland Islands, a largely senseless and violent war. I imagine that this is a comparable experience to working at CAA.
42) !!! - Take Ecstasy With Me 43) Liquid Liquid - Optimo *
* KXLU New Add + Request
Okay, that's it for this week's show. Hope you enjoyed it! Hope we see you tonight at The Little Joy for this
Decor determines gestures: we will build passionate houses -Situationist International Slogan
My new radio show, running on KXLU 88.9 is called "Fanfare For The Playing Man". While I enjoy saying it, it also has a very personal meaning for me.
The "Fanfare" portion is an obvious reference to composer Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man". The immediate point of this reference is to create a sense of celebration for each of us. My show, as opposed to Copland's composition, is a celebration of an urban existence: isolated while perpetually surrounded. The use of Copland also creates a uniquely American experience, separating itself from the very French Situationst International reference found in the term "playing man".
To the Situationists, the city is designed around the working man. Each structure makes human capitol more efficient, from roads, to bus stops to cramped apartment complexes, every aspect of the city is made to accommodate work. Some artists of the movement decided to design cities of their own, not to cradle the working man, rather modeled for the playing man.
It is for this reason that modern graffiti and skateboarding are still two activities that are kindred spirits to the Situationist movement in France in the late 50s. The two activities take a city, designed for work, and rob it of its seriousness; they transform pre-laid objects of work into platforms for play.
It is this concept that guides my show during drive-time. To transform a morning commute, the cattle march to the office, into a time of play is all I can hope to do while celebrating each anonymous individual.
I used to be really into Russian Literature before I moved to the west coast. For some reason, it's much more difficult to relate and submit to the concept of bleak emptiness and soul crushing gray when you live in Southern California. Now I just read The Great Gatsby over and over. Everyone knows LA is the real West Egg.
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