The Sugarplastic "Montebello"

A Throwback Thursday post:

I was driving through Virginia during April vacation, and saw a sign for Monticello. 

From the deep recesses of my brain, popped this tune, which I'm sure I haven't thought about since the 90s.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Goldfinger "Here In Your Bedroom"

A Throwback Thursday post:

I did a post about journal entries yesterday, and that lead me to some other ideas for upcoming posts, featuring other things I found during my research.

So for Throwback Thursday, I was looking for a 90s song about being holed up in my bedroom . . . and what's more 90s than that Pop/Ska revival?


Hear the song on Youtube.

Sloan "I Hate My Generation"

Here's another Weekend Post:


Like a Canadian Pavement, with multiple singers . . .


Hear the song on Youtube.

Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show.  They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are fun to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.

The Odds "Heterosexual Man"

Here's another Weekend Post:
Is there anything more 90s than a clever, Canadian, riffy rock song with a video featuring Kids In The Hall?


Hear the song on Youtube.

Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show.  They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are fun to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.

Hepcat "Can't Wait"

Here's another Weekend Post:

In the midst of the 90s ska revival, it was great that some truly authentic-sounding Jamaican-style ska broke through the surface . . .


Hear the song on Youtube.

Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show.  They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are fun to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.

Royal Crown Revue "Zip Gun Bop"

Here's another Weekend Post:
More from the 90s swing revival . . .


Hear the song on Youtube.

Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show.  They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are fun to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.

Brian Setzer Orchestra "September Skies"

Here's another Weekend Post:


Had to put this one up, due to the month . . .

Before he scored a major hit with his cover of "Jump Jive And Wail," and launching an era of Swing-revival, the Brian Setzer Orchestra concept was a little closer to a Frank-Sinatra-with-a-Big-Band thing . . . 


Hear the song on Youtube.

Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show.  They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are fun to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.

King Missile "Detachable P****"

Here's another Weekend Post:

An entertaining video, from the 90s, when having an entertaining video (and saying the "P" word) meant you might be seen on the tee-vee.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show.  They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are fun to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.

Girls Against Boys "The Diamond Life"

I've said it many times before, we're not here to play what we want to hear, we're here to play what you want to hear.

This was kind of a bummer, way back in the day.

When I started at mvyradio, you had your airshift, and that was pretty much it.  And during your airshift, you played the kind of music that people would expect to hear from mvyradio.

And you did not play songs that weren't a part of the playlist, just because you liked them.  At least not without repercussions.

Sure, you could go off the playlist, but that was the kind of infraction that was likely to get you in trouble with the boss.  If you did it, it was a clear act of rebellion.

That was a bummer, because, while all the DJs at mvyradio like the kind of music mvyradio plays, we all like lots of music that mvyradio would never play.

So there was never an opportunity to share your love of punk rock or hip hop or classic rock or roller disco or whatever.

Today, it's different.

Today, we have altered how we do business a bit.  Now, every DJ on the station has the chance to host The Hot Seat, during which you can play pretty much any style of music you want.  And we have shows like The Lunch Hour and Uncharted Waters for an opportunity to stretch.

Off air, there are even more opportunities.  We have the specialty show stream, where we can play 4 hours worth of Grateful Dead every week, or Barnes Newberry can dig into obscure folk songs of the 60s.

DJs can share things that they are excited about on Facebook or on a blog.

There is nothing stopping you from featuring a song you are excited about, somewhere, even if it doesn't fit into mvyradio's mainstream programming.

Which is why, now that I'm the boss, it is infuriating when one of the DJs goes off the playlist.

Back in the day, I understood why it would be upsetting for the boss to have a DJ go off the page---its the Program Director's job to protect the integrity of the station's sound---but I also sympathized with the DJ who was looking for a place for personal expression.

Now, if a DJ goes off the page, it's not an act of rebellion, or an act of expression.  To me, it's simply an act of total laziness and lack of imagination.  With all the opportunities available to share your music and your opinions, what other explanation is there?

Which brings me to this Girls Against Boys song.  I totally dug this band back in the 90s and was super-psyched to hear they are making new music.  But one listen tells me that this is not a song that we'd play in regular rotation.  It's even a pretty big stretch for a show like Uncharted Waters.

Now, I could put this tune in the What's New For Lunch slot today.  But I won't, because it doesn't serve the station.  That's why it's here on my blog.

So that's where I started.  By saying "I should do a post about Girls Against Boys!  What should I say?"

And it has turned into a post about all the reasons not to play Girls Against Boys . . .


Hear the song on Youtube.

Super 8 "King Of The World"

Here's another Weekend Post:

Another song that had completely escaped my memory, but was actually a good sized alterna-hit . . .


Hear the song on Youtube.

Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show.  They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are wonderful to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.

Possum Dixon "Watch That Girl Destroy Me"

Here's another Weekend Post:

A while back, my friend Lori TB sent me a link to a site that has archived old playlists from "120 Minutes," the Alternative Music Video show on MTV that hit its peak in the 90s.  I go trolling their on occasion when I need a good Weekend Post.

I assume it is a function of my age that there are bands that I have totally forgotten about.  I mean, I looked at the name Possum Dixon about a dozen times, thinking, "Do I know who that is?  I don't.  Do I?  It sounds vaguely familiar."  Finally, I looked up the video, and yeah, I remember this.  This was a minor hit.  Like it might've even approached the Top 40.  But I'd totally forgotten it.  Maybe you never heard it.  Or maybe you've forgotten it too . . .


Hear the song on Youtube.

Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Moden Rock radio show.  They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are wonderful to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.

Belly "Feed The Tree"

Here's another Weekend Post:

This song reminds me of my friend Teri, who was never shy about voicing her opinion.  I remember getting a letter from her that contained the usual, "Here's what's going on in my life" kind of stuff that people used to write in letters.  Then, apropos of nothing, she wrote, "And I can't stand that damn 'Feed The Tree' song!"


Hear the song on Youtube.

Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show.  They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are wonderful to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.

Letters To Cleo "Awake"

Here's another Weekend Post:

In the 90s, when I was single/dating, I liked a good Power Pop break-up song, and this was another fave.

I was a little disappointed to find out that she doesn't say, "Baby, I'm leaving out the ironing," which is a great "F-U, I'm outta here" line.

She says she's leaving out the "irony," which is a good line too, and more 90s-ish, I suppose.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show.  They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are wonderful to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.

Greenberry Woods "Adieu"

Here's another Weekend Post:
Of those lost Power Pop hits of the 90s . . . this is one of the great kiss-off songs of the period.  A very happy sounding F-U.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show.  They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are wonderful to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.

Eels "Novocaine For The Soul"

Here's another Weekend Post:

One of the things that I loved about the 90s was the quirky, even bizarre music was embraced by the mainstream.  And what would be a cult band in another era, was an MTV/mainstream hit band.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show.  They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are wonderful to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.

Sublime "Santeria"

I was aware I led a pretty sheltered youth.  But being aware of it and being confronted with it are two different things.

I should note that I recognized that I am a statistical anomaly.  I grew up in a happy, two-parent home.  And the large percentage of my closest friends also grew up in stable, happy two-parent homes---at least to the best of my knowledge . . . if those homes were not stable, happy, violence-and-major-tragedy free, I was not aware of it.

My Mom did drive this point home many times throughout my youth, that I would go out into the world and meet people whose experience growing up would be very very different from my own.


There was no real antecedent in my dating life, to this girl.  She was blonder than anyone I had previously dated.  She wore more make-up than anyone I had previously dated.  She'd been previously married and she had a kid.  And she had less formal education than anyone I'd previously dated.

On that last count, she was trying to catch up.  Now that she was nearing thirty, and the son she'd had as a teenager was a pretty responsible Middle Schooler, she was going to college.  She was a great writer, but she often asked for me to proofread her English papers.

"What's the topic?" I asked.

"We had to write about a song with controversial lyrics, and defend them, or not."

"What song did you pick?"  Being a DJ, this was of course interesting to me.

"'Santeria' by Sublime."

"And you defended them?

"No."

At the time (the mid-90s, when I was in my late 20s), Sublime was hugely popular and I was a big fan of their self-titled record.  I was am (and still am) a pretty staunch Free Speech advocate.  So I was a little put off by the idea that she would be arguing the other side of the coin in her paper.

But I read it.  And it made me think.

(Now you'll have to forgive me---I don't have that paper today to reproduce actual quotes from her, and everything I'm about to say was not in the paper---some of the information came from the discussions that followed)

Tell Sanchito that if he knows what is good for him he best go run and hide,
Daddy's got a new .45,
And I won't think twice to stick that barrel straight down sancho's throat,
Believe me when I say that I got somethin' for his punk ass.

Her basic argument was that the song had a casual approach to violence that was highly offensive to anyone who had actually been a victim of violence.

Yes, she herself had been a victim of domestic violence.

As a baby, she had been essentially abandoned by her parents, to be raised by her grandmother.  Tall, shy and awkward, with an unhappy, fractured childhood, she left home after high school, with the first man who gave her the opportunity.

Unfortunately, that man was a troubled human being.  Prone to mood swings, alcohol abuse and suicide attempts, he extended his self-hatred onto his new wife in the form of physical abuse.

She told me stories of awful, scary, creepy and manipulative things he did.  Stomach turning stuff just to hear.  Unimaginable to live through.

These episodes culminated in a day where he forced her at gunpoint into their yard, put the barrel to her head and told he would kill her first and then himself.

Ultimately, he did not carry through with his promise on that day.  She did escape the marriage, with her son and her life.  Sadly, her ex-husband made numerous further suicide attempts, and finally did achieve his goal to leave this Earth.

And somehow she managed to defy . . . shit, everything . . . by turning out to be a gentle, kind, sane, thankful, drama-free adult.  She had every right to be a sad, fucked-up mess of a human being.  But she wasn't.  In fact, you wouldn't ever guess she had been through such horrors if she didn't come out and tell you.  She didn't wear it on her sleeve.

But when it came to this subject, the subject of violence, she was not calm or casual or ambivalent.  She found this song disgusting.

If I could find that heina and that sancho that she's found,
Well I'd pop a cap in sancho and I'd slap her down. 

From that point forward, I had a really different relationship with Sublime.  I couldn't sing along to this, or "Wrong Way."

Quentin Tarantino was huge at this time, and I, like so many of my friends, watched movies like "Pulp Fiction" with ironic detachment.

But I couldn't anymore.

I won't say that I never watch a violent movie or listen to a song with violent lyrics.  But I have never looked/listened the same.

Being confronted with the reality of violence in the life of someone you know, makes you aware how stomach-turning even fictitious casual violence actually is.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Semisonic "FNT"

Here's another Weekend Post:


Here's another under-appreciated Power Pop band from the 90s.


Of course, leader Dan Wilson is much appreciated these days as a songwriter, having won Grammys for his work with The Dixie Chicks and Adele.  Fascinating.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show.  They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are wonderful to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.
 

Afghan Whigs "Going To Town"

Back in my 20s (in the early 1990s), I was dating a woman who worked for an Oldies radio station.  I accompanied her to a station event, at some kind of fair.

A reconstituted version of The Turtles, with a few of the original members and some other hired hands, were trotting out the classic hits of 25 years prior.

I was young, but I knew the music, via my parents.

The song "Happy Together" now crosses my mind any time a long-defunct band reunites.

Are their guys in their 20s, who now regard the early 90s alt-rock explosion here in 2012, the same way I regard the hits of the late 60s?

Is "Going To Town" an angry, alt-rock "Happy Together"?

The Afghan Whigs have reformed and are touring again.  And they've even recorded some new music.

You can refresh your memory of the very awesome songs "Going To Town" and "Gentleman" plus hear the new track.  And if you like it, you can get a free download at the Afghan Whigs website.


Hear "Going To Town" on Youtube.


Hear "Gentleman" on Youtube.


Hear "See And Don't See" on Youtube.

Tin Machine "Under The God"

Here's another Weekend Post:

By the time I was hosting "What's The Alternative?" (in the mid-90s), this David Bowie side project was an already largely forgotten anomaly.

But I thought it kinda rocked.


Hear the song on Youtube. Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show. They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are wonderful to revisit.

Local H "Bound For The Floor"

Here's another Weekend Post:

Before The Black Keys had the guitar/drums duo thing---even before The White Stripes---Local H was there . . .


See the video on Youtube.

Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show. They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are wonderful to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.