Garland Jeffreys "Any Rain"

Have you ever had this experience at one of those buffet restaurants?

You start filling your plate with things that really look good.  And when you get back to your table, you realize that your meal consists of a slice of prime rib, lasagna, a crab leg and some Brunswick stew?

You were just thinking about what looked good.  You weren't thinking about balance.

That happens from time to time, while programming the station.

I think most people who don't do this job just assume . . . you pick the best couple of song each week and that becomes your playlist.

But if you do that, without consideration of the bigger picture, you can end up with an unbalanced and awkward plate.

Coming out of the summer rush into some clearer-headed fall consideration, I felt that the station's list of new songs had started leaning toward the modern/alternative a little too heavily.

The playlist is full of Avett Brothers and Vampire Weekend and Neko Case and Elvis Costello & The Roots.

But the MVY tradition is rooted in singers and songwriters.  And I realized that the plate was really lacking in artists the huat more closely to the folk roots that are the baseline of MVY.

And that's when, as a programmer, you worry less about the best song, and more about the right song.

It was great to see Garland Jeffreys new record come in, because I knew it was the first step in speaking to the missing part of the current playlist.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Tift Merritt "Broken"

I was looking at the list of Newport Folk artists, to see if their names jogged any memories that would make good blog posts.

And when I saw the name Tift Merritt it made me smile, and blush just a little.

At Merlefest 2008, our set up was right in the middle of the Community College campus, in pretty much the geographic center of the 14 stage sprawl.  They had us, believe it or not, in an actual old caboose, which they'd outfitted with power and internet.

And if you stood on the back of the train, you were overlooking the table where artists would be scheduled to autograph CDs and meet with fans.

It was pretty revealing and entertaining, to note what the crowd in that autograph line looked like, based on which artist was at the table that hour.

When legendary pickers like Jorma Kaukonen were seated behind the table, the line was filled with middle aged guys with pot bellies, holding their own guitar to have it signed, ready with their technical question.

When young rebel bands like The Avett Brothers sat there, the line was made up of young hipsters, sporting tattoos and fashionable but perhaps inappropriate gear, like wool caps (it was April).

I watched Tift Merritt coming across campus, headed to her turn to meet and greet.

She was wearing a sleek little dress, that had a plunging neckline and stopped short at the knees, to give full view of her kick-ass boots.

She strutted right up to the table.  Looked at the chair set out for her.  Then back at the table.

And then she jauntily hopped herself right onto the table itself, crossing her legs, ready to meet her fans.

Oh, and looking at those guys just made me laugh.

I mean, look at those awkward 40-something-year-old guys in line.  In their jeans and their band t-shirts.

Look at them shyly, awkwardly, try to talk to the cool, pretty singer.

And watch the cool, pretty singer just charm these guys into a puddle.

What dorks!  What losers!  What . . . wait.

Pretty much every guy in that line, looks like me.

(Sad trombone)

Tift Merrit performs this weekend at the Newport Folk Festival.  For artist previews and mvyradio's Newport Folk Channel, visit the mvyradio Bloggers page.  And hear full coverage of the Festival, with live sets from the stage, on mvyradio.com.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Son Volt "Hearts & Minds"

Sometime shortly after I have become Program Director at MVY, I was down at the Pub where I hung out.  One of my buddies was saying to a third guy:  "Did you hear that PJ got promoted at MVY?"

The third guy shrugged.  "MVY?  I stopped listening to them since they went country."

Went country?

The previous month, we'd done an On The Road trip to Merlefest, the premiere East Coast Americana music festival hosted by Doc Watson.

We gave it massive coverage on the air, playing cuts from bluegrass, country, roots and Americana artists not typically found in large supply on our station.

Was it wall-to-wall country?  No.  But here in the Northeast, a little country goes a long way.

It's always important to keep a good balance, and air only a moderate supply of songs that push away from the center-boundary of what is mvyradio.

If you look back at the old entry about how we choose songs for mvyradio, you'll see that I expressly mention that we're okay when we have a couple of Country-leaning songs.  Anything over that, and we risk sounding "too country."

So what do you do when there's a plethora of great, mvy-friendly country music out there?

We're suddenly deluged with great albums that can't really be ignored, by Son Volt, Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale, Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell, Steve Martin and Edie Brickell, and Steve Earle.  Not to mention the banjo and dobro inflected likes of The Avett Brothers, Mumford & Sons and Jerry Douglas.

I guess the answer is, you go with it. 

We can't not play the Steve Earle.  Or the Emmylou & Rodney.  It would be weird for MVY, long-time Earle and Harris supporters, to suddenly ignore a critically-praised major release of theirs.  And the curiosity factor of the Steve & Edie record alone is reason to play it---it's the kind of oddball release that listeners expect to have a place on our eclectic indie station.

I say this all the time to listeners who complain about hearing too much of one new song or another:  Songs come and songs go.  If you don't like this one, don't worry, it will run its course and fade. 

Three months from now, many of these songs will be gone from our "current" playlist, and the balance of the station will be restored, or will perhaps lean in another direction that we'll have to course-correct for.

In the meantime, we haven't "gone country."  We're just enjoying the twang.


Hear Son Volt on Youtube.


Hear Buddy & Jim on Youtube.


Hear Emmylou & Rodney on Youtube.


Hear Steve & Edie talk about their record on Youtube.


Hear Steve Earle on Youtube.

Calexico "Splitter"

I had mentioned earlier this year, that there was a pretty good chance the two of the biggest records of the year, would be led by the banjo.

Years ago, such a thing would be unthinkable.

Banjos were country music instruments.  And any band that deployed a banjo would be consigned to operating within the country world, regardless of how "country" they truly were.

I think it speaks well of 2012, the time we're in and the people that we are, that we have become so musically accepting of mash-ups and mix-ups and cross-genre sounds.

It makes the success of Calexico's new song possible.

When was the last time you heard a mainstream song with Mariachi horns in it?  Was it "Ring Of Fire" for crying out loud?

Calexico has included Mexican-style horns on their records, and the song "Splitter" is perhaps the most commercially accessible tune they've ever released.

Will "Algiers" break through in the way that The Avett Brothers and Mumford & Sons are breaking through?  Perhaps not.

But it's pretty amazing just how natural it sounds to have Southwestern-tinged horns tucked neatly into a song that seems to fit mvyradio perfectly.


Hear the song on Youtube.


Hear a live version on Youtube.

Avett Brothers "Live And Die"

I remember when Mumford And Sons broke through a couple of years ago, with their banjo-led rock-and-roots approach, I heard more than a few people say:

If I were The Avett Brothers, I'd be pretty irritated.

So here we are, over 2 years since "Sigh No More" and nearly 3 years since "I And Love And You," and The Avetts are on the verge of releasing a new album, and Mumford And Sons has a new one due in the September.

Both records stand to garner a lot of attention, press, airplay and ear-time.

I just can't think of a time when the banjo had the chance to move to the fore-front of music in such a way . . .


Hear the song on Youtube.

G Love "Fixin' To Die"

Yeah, I'm still in holiday mode. Over-stuffed, disarrayed, wiped out, "fixin' to die" (but super-grateful).

While I get back on track, here's a free mp3 from G Love. The new record is produced by The Avett Brothers!!!

The Avett Brothers "Kick Drum Heart"

I need your help on this one . . .

As a long time fan of the Avett Brothers, I'm happy to see that they are succeeding with this current album.

But it's a little weird that the successful songs off the record have been lush, ballady affairs. Great songs, but not why I fell in love with this band in the first place.

I'm psyched that their current single is a little more in the mode of the rollicking and energetic dynamic that I enjoy.

The simple trouble I have now, is to decide if mvyradio should play the original studio version, the live version off their new "Live, Volume 3," or both.

Opinions?



Album version


A Live version

The Avett Brothers “Talk On Indolence”

Five songs I’m looking forward to hearing again, in Newport.

With every artist, there is a dividing line.

There’s a line between the people who get it and the people who don’t.

There’s a line between the people who are passionate, and the people who are ambivalent.

There’s a line between the people who will pay up and the people who will stand up.

That night from the main stage at Merlefest 2008, The Avett Brothers made a point to say that Merlefest was a huge part of who they’d become, for better or worse.

I remember the buzz in 2006, when the band played one of the small, out-of-the-way Merlefest stages, drawing a small but really raucous, enamored crowd.

They were tapped to open the 2007 Festival, giving the prominent position of First Band On The Main Stage, which, ultimately, is a small honor since, on Thursday at 5pm, only a fraction of the weekend concert-goers have arrived.

But it earned them the plum spot in 2008. They were the Saturday night headliners. THE time slot.

I remember being in the mvyradio On The Road studio (okay, it was a caboose, actually), listening to Gary, a broadcasting veteran, have a back and forth with Nick, a recent college grad, about the Avetts.

The long and short of it was that Nick thought they were amazing, and Gary felt like they weren’t doing anything he hadn’t heard before. Nick thought the crossbreeding of punk and americana was brilliant, Gary didn’t seem to think that the combination did service to either genre.

And this conversation was being played out, across the Merlefest campus.

The Main Stage area is set up with seats in front. You have to pay extra to sit in the first 50 rows at Merlefest. And most folks who held those tickets were older. They were looking forward to seeing Doc Watson and other heritage artists.

After the rows of seats, is wide open field, and you can be anywhere, right up to the point where the seats start, and security checks your ticket. That line was teaming with young, enthusiastic Avett fans, who were jumping, craning, to get a better view of their favorite band.

As the Avetts kicked in to “Talk On Indolence” I watched the people in their seats decided that they’d seen enough. Clusters of couples rose to their feet, gathered their blankets and bags of sunscreen and amenities, and headed for the gate, leaving behind large bald patches of seating, as if the band were playing to a poorly attended house.

But at the same time, behind the line, this song put the young folks into a tizzy. The raucous fan-favorite was sending spasms of musical joy through the passionate portion of the audience.

I’m sure the kids didn’t get why the adults were leaving, and the adults didn’t get why the young folks were staying. And the balance of the musical universe, which had tottered on that line through Elvis and The Beatles and Punk Rock and Metal and Alternative and Hip Hop . . . remained in check.




Here's the full 60 minute performance from Merlefest 2008, as mentioned in the post.