Garbage "I'm Only Happy When It Rains"

I'm going to make a terrible, shocking professional admission.  One I have never uttered outside the walls of a sound-proof studio.

I DETEST playing requests.

Really.

I'm not saying I won't do it.  If you call up and want to hear something, there is a chance I'll play it.

But there is also a chance that I won't play it.

Now to be clear, even though I am the Program Director, this is not mvyradio policy.

In fact some of the DJ's, like Laurel, enjoy requests.  Jess actively seeks requests.

But not me.  I think requests are fascist.

Seriously.

"I want to hear this song, so everyone now has to hear this song."

Some people call up and request some deep album track.  And while the requester might be totally excited that we are playing some song that was the b-side to an import-only single . . . most of the listening audience is sitting with a question mark above their head wondering what the hell we are playing.

You really, really want to hear Dave Matthews "Ants Marching"?  Well, we played it two hours ago.  I know you missed it, but everyone else who's listening doesn't want to hear it twice.

Then there are the people who call every day and request the same song.  Same song, every day.  Listeners would think I was nutty if, every day, I played "Treetop Flyer" at 2pm.  Every day.

It doesn't help that it seems like an unusually large percentage of the folks who call in requests, are either drunk or off their meds.

At some point on my old radio station, I just stopped playing this damn song by Garbage.  Not because I disliked it.  But because there was this guy who'd always call and request it.  And not only would he request the same song every time we had bad weather, he'd say the same creepy thing in the same creepy way.

"Can I make a request?"

"Sure.  What would you like to hear?"

"Well . . . you know . . . I'm enjoying the storm tonight . . . " he'd say in a low mumble-y gravel, "and I'm only happy when it rains . . .


Hear the song on Youtube.

Garbage “Vow”

Thinking about last week’s Neko Case post, and the YouTube video that went with it, brought me back a decade and a half, to the Orpheum in Boston.

We had gone to a WFNX (the alternative station in Boston) event. You know, one of those throwdowns where the local radio station twists the arm of a few labels, to put on a free show featuring some of their bands. The shows are usually an eclectic mishmash of artists---you go for one particular band, and end up seeing some others you might not have otherwise.

We were hanging in the front row of the balcony, enjoying Black Grape and our faves, Letters To Cleo. We figured since we were there, we’d watch the headliner, Garbage.

“We” was me, my sister, her then-boyfriend (and now husband) and my girl friend. Not my girlfriend. Just a friend. You know how that goes.

I liked Garbage’s records well enough, though I don’t know that I would have gone out to see them specifically.

But seeing them live, there was certainly much more going on. Maybe it was the really understated, ace playing of Steve Marker and Duke Erikson. Or maybe it was the near mechanical precision of drummer Butch Vig. Or maybe . . .

“Uh, PJ. Maybe you want to close your mouth . . .” my friend suggested.

Yeah. Shirley Manson. In big boots and a short skirt. Red hair whipping around. Moving, strutting, grinding, vamping in a way that I couldn’t take my eyes off of.

“C’mon. Her moves are so cliche, it's practically scripted. You’re really falling for that?” she asked.

Umm. Yes.

After a minute of back and forth, I had to bring in my sister and her boyfriend.

“Is Shirley Manson really sexy, or fake sexy?”

My sister said something dismissive. I don’t remember her exact words, but they were along the lines of, “She’s dancing like a woman who’s doing a performance of what some man told her a sexy woman should look like.”

There was a pregnant pause, and then my future brother-in-law said:

“It worked on me.”

Me to.