Bob Marley "3 Little Birds"

There are a number of artists that we go really deep on.

In regular rotation on MVY, you can find upwards of 20 songs by The Allman Brothers, The Band, Talking Heads and U2.  And more than 30 by The Grateful Dead, Van Morrison, The Rolling Stones and a handful of others.

Because we cover these artists really well, it's not uncommon to take some of the most famous songs by these artists, like "Casey Jones" or "Ramblin' Man" and put them in a very, very low rotation.

On the surface, that might be counter-intuitive.  The most popular songs should be played the most, right?

But these are also the songs that you are likely to hear elsewhere.  Classic Rock stations have been grinding these tunes for years, so just occasional play on MVY goes a long way because you are likely to hear these songs elsewhere.

It's pretty rare that something about the MVY library surprises me.

I've been Program Director/Music Director since 2005.  And I've been doing work with our song library database for over a decade.

But last week, something really surprised me.

I was out somewhere and I heard "3 Little Birds" by Bob Marley.  And I thought, "Gee, I haven't heard this on MVY in a while.  Did I take it out of rotation and 'Rest' it?"

I'll do that sometimes.  "Rest" a song, by pulling it from rotation for a few months, or a year.  The idea is that when it returns to rotation, the listener may not have realized it was gone over the course of the year, but hears it and says, "Oh, I haven't heard this in a while."

So was "3 Little Birds" resting?

I went to the database.  No "3 Little Birds."

The database was created in 1999.  So any song that has ever been in regular rotation at any point since then, is in the database.  Songs that maybe we have the CD for, and might play but request but are otherwise not in regular rotation are not there.

"3 Little Birds" not being there means we haven't played it as a regular part of rotation for at least 15 years.

I realized there might be some other Marley songs missing from rotation.  So I went to iTunes to see his most popular songs.

I was shocked to see that there is a whole list of Marley tunes, not in regular rotation on MVY:

"One Love"
"Could You Be Loved"
"Buffalo Soldier"
"Redemption Song"
"Rock My Boat"

These are all songs that you can hear any day of the week on your local classic rock station, or at a party, or out in public somewhere.

So it's not that I hadn't heard any of these songs since 1999.  I was hearing them.  And I was hearing them enough that I hadn't even noticed that MVY wasn't one of the sources.

I don't know if our listeners have noticed.  But I will remedy this by getting all these songs into rotation.  Albeit a low, low rotation.

If I can go 15 years without noticing they are missing, they probably only need an occasional spotlight.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Bob Marley "Ambush In The Night"

Here are some things that happened while I tried to "get out the vote" and "get of of my house," yesterday morning . . .

My wife had to leave the house super-early, because she remembered last-minute that she had an early meeting.  This meant I was completely in charge of getting the kids ready to leave the house for the day.

My 2 year old loves peanut butter.  So I asked him if he wanted peanut butter on a bagel for breakfast.  He said yes, so I put peanut butter on a bagel.  He protested.  "Not peanut butter on top!"  It took me a few tries, but I figured out what he wanted.  He wanted an sandwich.  He didn't want the peanut butter on top, he wanted it in the middle.  Being the practical sort, I just took the two halves, squished them together and made a sandwich.  Unfortunately, he had seen that the peanut butter was actually on top, and could not unsee this horror.  He sobbed for 10 minutes, saying "Not peanut butter on top!"  I was unable to convince him that the peanut butter was now in the middle.  In his mind, it was forever on top, and he could never eat such an abomination.

Not only did my wife have to work early, she was going to have to work late.  So late, that she was not going to be able to pick up our almost-5 year old at her pre-school at pick-up time.  The solution was that I would take my daughter to work Tuesday.  The night before, Mom and daughter had gone shopping, and had spied a heavily discounted Halloween costume.  For 5 bucks, why not?  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  But on Tuesday morning, my daughter insisted that only suitable outfit for "Going To Work With Daddy" Day, was a cupcake costume complete with a cherry-on-top hat.  Did I really want to get in a yelling/crying standoff with a giant rainbow sprinkle covered cupcake?  "Choose your battles," the saying goes.

Amid these two mini-dramas, the friggin' cat was driving me crazy.  She's 18 years old (though she doesn't look it), and I was wondering if she was having senior moment.  Inside.  Outside.  Inside.  Outside.  She kept coming in and out of the kitchen slider, each time letting stiff morning chill shoot through the room.  And she kept meowing, Meowing, MEOWING!  "What is your beef, kitty!?"  I kept asking her.  On the shopping trip that yielding the cupcake costume, my wife had also bought some fancy-shmancy catfood---the kind that comes in gravy that actually looks kinda good---and I figured kitty was agitating for another bowl after she'd inhaled the first.  Hey, at least someone ate breakfast, right?  But what's with all the meowing and discontent?

So as I'm running out of time to get out the door, get the boy to daycare and get to work, plus squeeze in voting before the drop offs, the full on chaos begins as my daughter has decided to fulfill my request to "bring a toy you'd like to play with" by picking out, I dunno, an anvil or something insanely heavy and my son is furious because he sees his sister packing a backpack and realizes HE'S not packing a backpack and hell if I know where his Elmo backpack is and as I'm stomping through the house looking for it I'm muttering "why is it my responsibility to know where you throw your shit?" . . . I step in shit.  Or vomit.  I'm not sure.

Yeah, I misread the cat's issue.  Not a senior moment.  Diarrhea.  She was meowing because she was in gastro-intestinal distress.  And I stepped in it barefoot.

So yeah, I lost my cool and it took another 10 minutes to clean up, marshal all the kids' shit (not the literal kind of shit, just the kind of shit you put in a backpack) and hope that I could get in and out of the polling place so I was not late for everything else that I had to do that day.


Monday evening (the night before) . . .

As I've mentioned in previous posts, mvyradio has a trade with Adam Cab, for various reason, you might find a staffer catching a ride in one of their vans.  As I have also mentioned, a number of their drivers are Jamaicans.

So I was riding with one of the Jamaican drivers on Monday evening, and he was talking about how this was his last week---it's that time of year on the Vineyard, when our foreign workers are coming to the end of their visas.  They'll depart over the course of the next month, ready to return in April or May for another season.

I asked him what he'd be doing in Jamaica for the winter, and he said, "nut-ting to speak uf."  I asked if he'd come back for another season on the Island and he said, "I 'ope so.  We see what 'appens tomorrow."  He expressed concern that if Romney were elected, he might place tighter restrictions on Visas to protect American jobs.

As we drove through the darkened, quiet daylight-savings-is-over and the-season-is-over empty streets, he marveled, "The streets are quiet tonight, sir.  The night before an election?  Is not like this at home . . ."

I asked him what it is like.

"Tense.  Vera tense."  He went on, "People with guns go into neighborhoods of the opposition.  Try to intimidate 'em.  Lotta lives lost."

He paused, and then he said it again to make sure I heard it, "Lotta lives lost . . ."


Back to Tuesday morning . . .

I had slept soundly the night before.  There were no hazards to navigate, inside or outside the polling place.  I chose candidates that I have confidence in.  I left and went about my day.

Daycare schedule changes, peanut butter sandwiches, missing backpacks, sartorial dessert-orial decisions and cat diarrhea---these were first world problems, not anything to get hung up about.

I voted Tuesday.  And I felt lucky.


Here's a lesser know Bob Marley song, in which he address being shot in 1976, possibly for political reasons.  Go to the Youtube page to see the lyrics.


Hear the song and read the lyrics on Youtube.

Finley Quaye "Sunday Shining"

Here's another Weekend Post:

Like yesterday's post, here's another Brit who seemed poised for a late 90s breakout, by appropriating a style (yesterday: American Gospel; today: Bob Marley's "Sun Is Shining") into a strong, more danceable slice of UK Pop.

Alas, despite critical praise and some alterna-radio attention, it remains a lost hit/artist of the 90s . . .


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.

Dead Milkmen "Instant Club Hit"

I was thinking about other people's record collections---I do that sort of thing.

You can often learn a lot about someone from the contents of their record collection. That is, if they are the kind of person who buys a fair number of albums.

But what about the folks who don't buy a lot of music---generally, they are somewhat inscrutable via their record collection, because a) there's not a lot of data to be mined, and b) they tend to have the same handful of albums.

I mean, if you are my age and you went to college in the late 80s/early 90s and you had a friend who only had 10 CDs, odds are pretty good that their record collection contained, several, if not all of the following:

Bob Marley/Legend
Boston/Boston
Steve Miller Band/Greatest Hits
Paul Simon/Graceland
R.E.M./Out Of Time or Green
Something by The Beatles
U2/The Joshua Tree
Van Halen/1984
Prince/Purple Rain
INXS/Kick

In other words, they probably owned some pretty conventional, crowd-pleasing, easily-consumed records.

Which is why my girlfriend's best friend was a bit of a mysterious anomaly.

She literally only had about 10 cassettes, but they were the kinds of albums that you weren't going to run into by accident. Hip stuff that you didn't really hear on the radio, or blasted from speakers at a frat party. Music that you would have to dig to find.

And if you were the kind of person who would dig to find music, in theory, you'd have to be passionate enough about it, to want to get more than just 10 cassettes worth.

Her entire music collection didn't fill a shoebox, but it was through her that I learned the phrase, "You'll dance to anything by The Communards!"


Hear the song on Grooveshark.

Bob Marley "No Woman No Cry"

PJ is taking some time off for the birth of his second child. Guest Blogger (and Dad) Bill Eville, former mvyradio employee, freelancer writer and Vineyard resident fills in.

It had been a beautiful spring day on the island, one of our first of the season. All day we played outside. The sun and the warm wind had felt wonderful. And now that evening was upon us and dinner finished Hardy and I felt pleasantly tired. At a play-date that afternoon a mom friend had lent me a Bob Marley VHS tape. This was the 1978 One Love Peace concert held in Jamaica where Bob brought together the two feuding political party leaders, Prime Minister Michael Manley and Edward Seaga, in an effort to bring about peace. Bob Marley’s music and his message felt perfect for this evening’s mellow vibe.

We didn’t have much work to do tonight, either. Just a small reinforcement to yesterday’s spear. A bit more cardboard about midway up the lance where earlier that day, during a crucial moment while playing pirates, it had failed me, folding in on itself and forming a deep crease where none should of been. As a result, Hardy had escaped walking the plank.

We brought ice cream down into the man cave, mint chocolate chip, Hardy’s new favorite. When I set it down in front of him he asked if I had remembered a spoon. “Of course,” I said, handing it to him.

“Good,” he said. “Because this is serious. The man cave is serious. We are serious about the man cave.”

I had no idea why bringing a spoon to eat ice cream made something more serious, but I liked that my boy was developing a respect for life in the man cave. We turned on the concert.

There were many performers,; Toots and the Maytals, Jimmy Cliff, Joe Higgs singing a beautiful rendition of There’s A Reward in front of his old Trenchtown home. But, of course, the highlight belonged to Bob. Hardy was mesmerized and he peppered me with questions and insightful nuggets.

“Hey dad, why’s he sweating so much?”

“Hey dad, I know what he means by, hit me with music. That’s when someone shouts in your ear.”

We continued to groove on the music, just a couple of guys bobbing their heads and smiling. But then the baby monitor squawked loudly. Cathlin was away at a meeting. Hardy looked at me worriedly. “It’s Pickle,” he said. “What do we do?”

“Well,” I said. “I think we’ll have to introduce Pickle to the man cave.” To my surprise Hardy smiled.

Pickle is almost two, a small, curly headed girl with a second child’s personality. By this I mean she’s mellow and tough. She hardly ever cries but if you cross her, try to suggest she stop eating all the fishy crackers say, she will turn snapping turtle and bite your finger off.

I explained to Pickle that Hardy and I were watching Bob Marley. She seemed to take delight in his name as much as his music.

“Bob Marley, Bob Marley, Bob Marley,” she chanted. It felt good, having both of my children in the basement with me watching this great man. The concert was nearing its end now and just before Bob was to bring out Michael Manley and Edward Seaga, he sang War. “War in the east. War in the west. War up north. War down south.”

“He sing about war,” Pickle said. She was smiling and laughing, not having a clue what this meant. Hardy was not smiling, though. He loves to play war, there is no stopping this it seems when it comes to a five year old boy. But it appeared he could tell that the war Bob was singing about was no plaything.

After this last song, Bob brought out the two leaders to shook hands. This image was overlaid with images of Jamaican poverty - Trenchtown and other shanty towns, the houses made of scrap metal on dusty back lots, people picking through massive mountains of garbage for food.

“Why are they doing that?” Hardy asked.

“Well, they are hungry and looking for food,” I said.

Pickle smiled. “Fishy cracker snack,” she said.

I nodded and brought my children upstairs for a bedtime snack. I opened the cabinets, noticing anew how full they were with food. The refrigerator too. I thought about the words to "No Woman No Cry." “And then Georgie would make a firelight. Log wood burnin’ through the night. Then we would cook cornmeal porridge. Of which I’ll share with you.”

After snack I escorted Hardy and Pickle upstairs to bed. I kissed them both good night, patted their backs, and brushed their heads with my fingers for a very long time. “No war,” I whispered while standing above them. “No war.”

Johnny Cash & Joe Strummer “Redemption Song”

What do DJ’s do in their free time? They DJ, of course.

Long before I worked at mvyradio, I was the guy who spent most of the Party fiddling with the stereo (which meant I was rarely the guy who took the girl home).

On the Saturday night of Newport Folk in 2008, the station hosted a House Party in Newport, featuring live music from Kate Taylor and Red Rooster and JP Jones. A really fun, loose time.

But by 2am or so, all the guests and bands and friends had gone to bed (or to other parties), and just a few of us hung on---Barbara, Nark, Jane the weekend DJ, Marianna from the office, and Joe, our President. And I sat in front of the stereo, trying to get the gang to dance (Naughty By Nature? No. Johnny Hoy? Yes.)

And when even this fighting few was worn out, I started spinning some wind-down tunes, to ease us out of a long, long day and night.

That’s when I played this cut, and I’ll always think of how Joe just nodded when the first notes hit, and he said the title, just the title, but with a weight that said way more than two words. His inflection said, “Yeah, this is the song. This is the song we need right now.”

Hear Johnny Cash & Joe Strummer “Redemption Song”


See the video Here