Sarah Jarosz "Over The Edge"

I was on the fence on this track when I first heard it.

I like Sarah Jarosz, and mvyradio has played tracks from her first two records.

But this song had stepped beyond what I initially liked about what Sarah does, which has been a clear-voiced, impeccable approach to roots music.

One of the folks working the record to radio asked me what about this track had me on the fence.

"I dunno.  It seems like she's trying to make a Patty Griffin sounding record."

His response:  "Is that a bad thing?"

We added the song.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Prince "Cindy C"

There it was.  A little piece of legend wrapped in plastic.  And I didn't have the money to buy it.

I headed back to my college dorm, knowing who I had to talk to.

"You aren't going to believe what I saw downtown."

"What?" he said.  He was the kind of guy who believed he was cool, so he acted cool, nonchalant.  But I knew his interest was piqued.

"The fucking BLACK album!"

He knew what I was talking about, immediately.  And he knew what it meant.

I'd gone straight to him, because he was a fan of Prince, like me.

And we'd talked about the mythical Black Album before.

Word was that just weeks before its intended release, it was pulled from production.  Few copies existed.  Some stories said that Prince thought the record was too dark.  Other stories had it that the record label had found it too vulgar.

Whatever the reason, it was not in stores.  Until now.

Trolling through the import LPs at a downtown Amherst record shop, I found it.  Like the Spinal Tap record that shares its name (and predates it by several years), the record was as black as black could be, with only a small sticker to indicate that this was a Prince release.

It was an "import" suggesting that it had been released in Europe.  But more likely it was a bootleg.

And it cost $30.

I didn't have thirty dollars.  But I knew someone who would want the record as badly as I did.

"And there's only one copy," I told him.

We made our way back downtown, post-haste, ready to split the cost of owning a rare and profane piece of art.


Neither of us actually owned a record player.

But a guy down the hall did.

He let us sit in his room and listen, so long as we did it one at a time, using headphones so he could keep studying.  I got to go first.

I'd heard a few things about the contents of the record.  Like, there was a dirty tune about his lust for Cindy Crawford.  And that it was funkier than anything he'd released recently.  And that he was dabbling in rap.  And he'd done all kinds of crazy things to electronically alter his voice.

Like in the song "Bob George," where he talks (rhythmically) to a woman he suspects is cheating on him, with Prince.

I listened as the beats flew by and his voice was amped up, lyrics tumbling by at an over-caffeinated pace.  I could hear him saying some nasty shit, but a lot of it was too altered and garbled for me to pick out.

As side one was drawing to an unrelenting close, my co-owner stuck his head in the door.

"How's it sound?" he asked coolly, but with an undertone of eagerness.

"Great," I enthused.  "But he's doing some crazy stuff with his voice.  And its short too.  Side One is about to end and I've only been listening for 10 minutes."

My friend looked at the turntable, and, trying to remain cool and nonchalant, while injecting a slight tone of both disdain and glee, said:

"You don't play an LP at 45.  You're listening at the wrong speed."

Skeleton Key "Scratch"

Here's another Weekend Post:

A 90s obscurity . . .

Like yesterday's track, there is something very distinctly New York about this.  Never a hit, not even in its day.  But I always loved the rhythmic nature of the 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 fun to revisit.

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

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion "Bellbottoms"

Here's another Weekend Post:

Nearly 20 years later this song is still pretty incredible.  Is there anything, anything, like this mix of dirty blues and strings?

Also . . . if you happen to be making some kind of retro-Run/DMC-type rap record, you should definitely take guitar-riff-with-strings section from the one-minute-mark and loop it.  No need to thank me when you have a monstrous hit on your hands.


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.

They Might Be Giants "What's That Blue Thing Doing Here?"

There's a Youtube video that's appeared on my Facebook feed a number of times in the last few days, featuring a comedian delineating the difference between couples who don't have kids, and couples who do.  A number of times, he repeats the phrase, "You have no idea."

I'm sure there is also a rich comedy vein to be tapped by a married person, explaining to unmarried folks that they also have no idea what actually happens in a marriage.

Please examine the picture below.

I can tell you what's on the left.  It's a LL Bean tote bag, with my son's name on it.  We use the bag for when he does at overnight at Grandma's house.  In it, is his coat.  The bag is on the floor of my bedroom.

Not terribly unusual.

It's the object center-right that is confounding.

It is a large metal bowl.  Normally, I would use that for food preparation.  For instance, if I am making meatloaf, this particular metal bowl is excellent for mixing up ground beef and bread crumbs.

Occasionally, this bowl will be appropriated by the kids to house a bunch of Legos or Little People.  Or be used as a drum.

Back to the picture:  Inside the bowl is an thin old sweatshirt belonging to my wife.

I noticed this bowl-n-sweatshirt combination about a month ago.

Honestly, it didn't really register the first couple of times.

I live with an artist and two small children.  And I am pretty slobby.  Between us, the house is always in some level of disarray and disorganization.  If not outright chaos.

Not that we never clean up.  It's just that the speed of disorganization is much greater that the speed of organization.

In my daily bit of cleaning up and clearing up, I'd walk by that bowl and think about taking it to the sink to be cleaned.  I'd think about grabbing the sweatshirt and tossing it into the laundry basket.

But for some reason, the sweatshirt in the bowl began to intrigue me.

WHY was this sweatshirt in a bowl?  And who put it there?

I decided to wait it out.

Could this be the work of my wife?

Certainly.  She often runs art lessons and camps out of our home, and one of the more popular projects she does, is tie-dying with the kids.  Maybe that's why she needed the metal bowl, as a plastic one would stain.

If I threw the sweatshirt in the laundry, the process she had started would be broken, and might even fall off the checklist.  Maybe this bowl was on the floor because she was going to get to it, when she found some time.

I let days pass.  The sweatshirt remained in the bowl amongst other chattel on the bedroom floor.

Another thought occurred to me.  Maybe this was the work of the kids.

Imaginative play is huge in our house.  Sacred, practically.

I do think this comes from living with an artist.

Our basic parenting philosophy is that as long as it isn't dangerous or permanently damaging, the kids can use most anything in the house, to create their visions.

This is why it is not uncommon to find a number of building blocks attached to the bottom of a pair of shoes using hair elastics.  They're homemade stilt-stompers!  Or to find a zoo's worth of stuffed animals laid out across their bedroom floor, each one covered with a face cloth or dishtowel.  "They're having a sleepover in their tiny sleeping bags!"

Was this a part of some child-created vignette?  The sweatshirt was a baby, and this was a crib?  It was a lizard and the bowl was a terrarium?

I left the bowl alone, more curious than ever.

Weeks passed.

Oh sure, any of the thousands of times I passed by the bowl, I could have said, "Honey/Kids, why is this sweatshirt in this bowl?"  But I was more curious to know what would become of this bowl-n-sweatshirt combination.

Nearly a month went by.

The thought occurred to me that maybe no one put the sweatshirt in the bowl.  I mean, no one put the sweatshirt in the bowl with intention.  The sweatshirt just ended up in the bowl.

And if that were the case, then were my wife and kids also passing by the bowl multiple times a day, wondering like I was, "Why is that sweatshirt in that bowl?  I don't know, but I'm sure whoever put it there, they had their reasons.  I'd better leave it alone."

When you live alone, you know where everything is, and why you put it there.  And if you don't, you only have yourself to blame.

But for those of you who are not married/don't have kids . . . you have no idea.

I learned to accept this early on in marriage/parenthood.

For instance, I barely flinch when, on Thanksgiving, I ask "Where is the potato masher?" and receive the answer, "With the print-making art supplies."

And when you have kids, you just acclimate to the condition of finding things where they don't belong.  We even made up a little song about it, called "Why Is That Pea On The Bathroom Floor?"

One day a week or so ago, I noticed that the bowl was in the sink.  And I saw the sweatshirt come out of the laundry.

I didn't ask why.

Sometimes things just appear where you wouldn't expect them to.  And they disappear just ask quickly.  It's just part of marriage/parenthood.


Epilogue:

I had resisted asking anyone in my family about the sweatshirt in the bowl.  But after spending last night writing this post . . . well, the curiosity has overwhelmed me.

As I was sending my wife out the door to work, I corralled her and had her look at the picture for this post.

"Did you do this?"

"Yes.  It has a big stain on it, so I was going to dye it."

Mystery solved.



Hear the song on Youtube.


Hear the whole "Fingertips" suite on Youtube.

Amos Lee "Chill In The Air"

Every year around this time, I complain/note that record releases slow down.

Years ago, this would mean that the labels would effectively shut down for the couple of weeks around Christmas.

As the Christmas-sprawl spread earlier and earlier into the season (instead of just being the week or two before Christmas), so did the spread of Christmas music taking over the airwaves.  It got harder to get a new record going after Thanksgiving.  So the labels pretty much stopped releasing things then.

November became a place where only "safe" releases would be put out.  "Best Of" albums, or records by artists so famous that the record didn't have to win over a listening audience because it would sell on name alone.

Now the Christmas season pretty much starts the day after Thanksgiving, so releasing anything in November, even marquee-act records, is pretty much a mistake.  Paul Simon's new boxed set came out in October, for instance.

This movement has made the MVY playlist (and I'm sure this is true at other stations) hard to manage.  Normally, songs run their course, and there are new songs to replace them.  But in recent years, as tracks have burnt out in December or early January, there have been slim pickings in terms of new songs to replace the old ones.

In recent years, indie labels have had some success by releasing strong records in this gap.  So last year there were a few new great albums from artists like Calexico, Bettye Lavette and David Wax to help us in the "off"-season.

This year, whether by luck or by strategy, November and December and into January should go a little more smoothly.

A number of really strong albums were released at the end of the summer, timed in such a way that the first single is peaking now, and the second single is ready to roll out.

Much easier than trying to bring attention to a new release, the folks who promote records are able to pick up the phone, call guys like me and say "The first Paul McCartney single had a great run on your station.  Are you ready to switch tracks to 'Queenie Eye'?"

Other recent adds include second single from Frank Turner and Valerie June and third singles from The Lone Bellow and Bonnie Raitt.

When we got this new Amos Lee song in, I didn't have to think too hard about it.  We'd already been listening to the album, I had heard the song a number of times already, the record had already been well received by critics and by our audience.  So it's an easy add, and a strong song that can help anchor the station's playlist through until new releases start picking up again in mid-January.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Delicate Steve "Butterfly"

My friend Scott pointed me to a 2011 NPR story about Delicate Steve and the press release that came with his record.

Read it here.

For those who don't like to click through, I'll summarize.  The reporter received a press release with a new album from Delicate Steve, and the press release was soooo over the top and intriguing, she had to find out more.  It turns out that the release was actually written by none other than the great rock writer Chuck Klosterman, who was offered the gig and told that he could write whatever he wanted and didn't even have to listen to the record.  The NPR story goes on to point out that many venues that booked Delicate Steve would post the ridiculously hyperbolic release on their websites, and many writers would lift lines directly from the writing, without knowing that much of it was complete fiction.

My first thought was:  Yeah, I'm glad I don't waste my time on that stuff.

We get a ton of new releases into the station.  And with most every CD that comes in, there is a "one sheet" accompanying it.

If I'm the one opening the mail, I throw the paper out without looking at it.

I feel terribly guilty about this.

For one, it's such an F-N waste of paper, mailed half-way across the country, to go directly in the trash, unread.

Secondly, these releases are often written by people I know, and interact with professionally.  I know they spent hours writing and preparing these releases, thinking through the angle they were going to write about, often fighting with the band over even a sentence or a word about how they were going to be "portrayed."  All that, and it goes directly in the trash, unread.

So I feel terribly guilty, but I also feel like they are a big waste of time.

With hundreds of releases coming into the station, can one release really say anything that makes a CD rise to the top of the stack?

Clearly, the NPR story suggests that only a one-sheet piled sky-high with bullshit is capable of standing out.

So why let the information, or the grasping attempt to describe sound with words (sometimes successful, often not), sway my opinion of a band when I can simply put the disc that's in the same envelope, right into the CD player?


Hear the song on Youtube.

Alternate Routes "Nothing More"

Sometimes I feel guilty about not playing a song.  Like this one.

It's nice enough.  Even a bit catchy.  But on its own merits, I don't think it rises above, among the many songs in the new pile.

But it's a charity single, with half the proceeds going to an organization called "Newtown Kindness."  The band is based near the town of Sandy Hook, where last year's terrible school shooting occurred.

Not playing a song, is kinda like "voting down" a song.  So is not adding "Nothing More" kinda like saying No to kindness and children?  Enough to play a song that I don't think is that great?

No.  But the guilty feeling does still kinda hang there.

Read more about the song and the charity.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Bruce Springsteen "Born In The USA (Acoustic)"

Today is Veteran's Day.  Maybe you've thanked a Veteran.  But is there something more you could do?


My father-in-law passed away this fall.  In making arrangements to have him buried at the National Cemetery at Otis National Air Guard Base, we visited the V.A. in Plymouth, as they were helping with his funeral expenses.

In talking with the very kind-hearted V.A. Administrator, and in looking over his affairs, she realized that they could have helped him so much more when he was alive.

"He was eligible for a number of other benefits."

While he had gone to V.A. hospitals for his health benefits, he hadn't explored his options beyond that.  Maybe he hadn't known about them.  Maybe he was too proud to ask.  I don't know.

My father-in-law was hardly a war hero.  He spent his entire time in the service, stationed in New York.  As a photographer.

BUT, he served his country in the way that they had asked him too.  Those benefits were there for his asking.

Since that day that the V.A. we have tried to reach out to the other veterans in our life---including my wife's step-father who is a Vietnam-era combat veteran---and encourage them to visit or call the V.A.

Veterans can be eligible for assistance with supplemental income, life insurance, housing, medical and prescription expenses, home loans, education help, job placement, and yes, burial.

They may not know of the benefits available.  They may be too proud to ask.

Push them to do it.  Do it for them.  Take them down to the V.A. yourself.

Contact your local V.A. or at least start with the Veteran's Affairs website for details.

Saying "thank you for your service" is great.  Serving them as your way of saying thanks, is even better.


Hear the song on Youtube.

MC 900ft Jesus "If I Only Had A Brain"

Here's another Weekend Post:

I thought this guy might have a little more of a shelf life.  There were some good songs, some good narratives.  But not long after this record, he basically stopped making records because he felt he'd taken his style as far as it was going to go.  Which, I guess, is a smart thing to do, rather than flog mediocre material.


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.