Dan Zanes "House Party Time"

The Life Is Good Festival happens in Canton, MA this weekend. So this week's blog posts feature artists appearing on the bill.

How important is Dan Zanes in my house?

(Well, first, if you don't know Dan Zanes, then you probably don't have young children, so I'll fill you in. Dan Zanes was in the very hip Boston roots rock band, The Del Fuegos, in the late 80s/early 90s. In the mid-90s, he had a kid, and started looking around for good records to play for a small child. Not happy with what he was finding in record stores, he starting making home recordings, featuring songs that adults might know, but that kids could enjoy. These homemade tapes became a neighborhood sensation, leading Dan to start making studio albums and to tour. He's recorded multiple albums, with cool guest turns from Lou Reed, Aimee Mann, Matthew Broderick, Bob Weir and dozens more. It's not twee or cute or cartoony. It's rock n roll for families. All this to say, he's big with the kids.)

So it was the last day of President Obama's visit to Martha's Vineyard. And I was saying to my 2 1/2 year old:

"Let's keep an eye out for helicopters flying over our house today."

"Why?"

"Because The President will be flying over our head today."

"Who is the President," she asked.

"Well, he's the leader of our country. He's the big boss. He's, like, the most important person in America."

"Oh," she said, "is Dan with him?"


Dan Zanes plays this weekend at the Life Is Good Festival

Hear Dan in concert and check out this interview and performance from the mvyradio studio, both available in the mvyradio archives.

Soul Coughing “Unmarked Helicopters”

I had two little moments converge last Thursday, and a song popped into my head.

Funny how that happens. If just one, or the other, thing had happened, the jukebox in my mind might not have kicked out the song.

I was in the studio, and I had a long set of music on. Usually, at about 2:30 or so (I’ve been in since 9am), I get a little hungry. Pull out a snack and put on a longer set of music. And I turn my mind off for a few seconds, by reading something non-music/radio related.

I check out the site The AV Club pretty much every day. And I enjoy its TV Club page, which feature many, many blogs by the AVC staffers, devoted to TV shows. I kept up with Treme and Lost, by reading along. And they have TV Club Classic, where a reviewer goes back and watches an entire series on DVD.

So I was checking in with the X-Files blog, because they were writing about one of my favorite episodes, "Jose Chung’s From Outer Space." Just reading quietly.

Around the time I had decided I was hungry, unbeknownst to me, President Obama was boarding Marine One, the Presidential Helicopter, just across Vineyard Sound, in Falmouth at Otis Air National Guard Base.

As I was reading about Men In Black and government conspiracies and shadowy figures, above my head I heard Thwump Thwump Thwump Thwump of helicopters above the mvyradio studios.

We’re in the flight path of the Martha’s Vineyard Airport, just a mile or so from the runway. It’s not unusual to hear planes overhead.

But these were helicopters with sidewinders. They were flying in formation. The President was on one. The others were diversions, decoys and/or protection.

I was thinking about the weird world of Presidential security, and all the logistics of keeping our leader safe, while reading about The X-Files.

And I remembered this track from the X-Files soundtrack.

It’s hard to imagine that there is a perfect song to go along with reading an X-files blog while the President of the United States flies over your office in a heavily armed helicopter. And yet, there is.

The Duhks "It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding"

Everyday, the main page of mvyradio.com has The Lyric Of The Day. It's something we've been doing for years on our site. Just giving you a little thought, as you load up our page, explore the archives, see what's new.

I'm usually the one who posts the lyric, and, like so many things in life, doing the first several was really easy. We all have our favorites. But putting up a thoughtful, insightful and/or relevant lyric, every day, can be a challenge. You always keep your ears open for a great line. Especially if it's something that makes you hear the song differently, or that is hard to hear in the context of the song, but is potent on the page.

Today's lyric was written by Bob Dylan. Bless those Dylanophiles---his website contains every lyric he has ever published, and you can search by key word. So you can now answer the burning question, "How many songs by Bob Dylan, use the word chicken?" Three!

I was thinking of this song a couple of weeks back, when President Obama was visiting Martha's Vineyard. I always try to pick a lyric that relates to something that's happening in our world. A lyric from The Album Of The Week. A lyric relating to the weather or the holiday.

There's a great line in "It's Alright, Ma" that goes "But even The President Of The United States must sometimes have to stand naked." It's a pithy lyric about how, at the end of the day, we're all just fallible humans.

I thought about putting that line up, during the Obama visit, but I worried that, out of context, it sounds a little weird. Creepy even. Asking you to picture something you maybe weren't planning on picturing during your visit to mvyradio.com. So I skipped it.

But this past weekend at the Rhythm & Roots Festival, The Duhks did a fantastic version of it, so I had to go back to the original lyrics, and post a line from this tremendous song, for Wednesday's lyric of the day.

Was I too prudish, to hold back on the nude President line?

Hear The Duhks version "It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding," recorded at Rhythm & Roots 2009.

Hear the whole set from The Duhks, plus other sets from Rhythm & Roots 2009, in mvyradio's Archives

See young Dylan perform the song, here