Beneath the Backstreet Light: July 30th, 2017 Playlist

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I played several themed or connected blocks this week. I opened with a trio of New York punk (but not quite punk) artists - the Dictators, Blondie, and David Johansen. Then I tried an experiment that failed on several fronts. I was a teenager in the late seventies and early eighties, and much of the music I loved was, if not Top 40, popular radio tracks. My plan was to play several songs not usually heard by various bands. The primary failure was in my basic intent. There's no real reason to play bands you can hear on any rock station around the world on pretty much any given day. So, Boston and Styx will probably never show up again unless I can really argue it out with myself and make sense. As to Supertramp and ELO, well, definitely, but in a different context, most likely as part of a prog set. The second failure came when I couldn't play the Supertramp song ("Oh Darling" for you who care), and I stepped all over the end of the Styx song. Total crap performance on my part. 

The short folky set was drafted to surround Y'all's "Mamaw." They were a folk/country/gospel duo who lived and played in NYC back in the 90s whom I saw several times and contributed money to releasing one of their albums. Their songs make me incredibly happy when I play them, on their own, and as links to a past in NYC before 9/11 and insane gentrification and overbuilding.

Next came the Mod/Modern block. Paul Weller and others in the nineties were moved to create some great music with roots in the Mod and freakbeat sounds of sixties London. So, I several tracks from the Small Faces and similar bands followed by Weller and several similar artists. It was easily the tunes I've loved putting together and playing most of all so far at Music I Like. Those who know me know I ain't no dancer, and yet I found myself bopping along to these songs. 

Finally, before ending the show with a Broadway-style track from Alice Cooper's School's Out, I mixed things up with funny songs and very British songs. A mixed and enjoyable lot I have to say. 

Keep tune in every Sunday - 4-6pm at www.MakerParkRadio.nyc and let me know what you think.

Music I Like, vol 1, #5 - Beneath the Backstreet Light

1	New York, New York	Manitoba's Wild Kingdom	And You?	1990
2	Fan Mail	Blondie	Plastic Letters	1978
3	Frenchette	David Johansen	David Johansen	1978
4	Something About You	Boston	Boston	1976
5	Oh Darling	Supertramp	Breakfast in America	1979
6	Haven't We Been Here Before	Styx	Kilroy Was Here	1983
7	Since You've Been Gone	Rainbow	Down to Earth	1979
8	Rockaria!	ELO	A New World Record	1976
9	Brand New Cadillac	Vince Taylor	single	1959
10	Please Don't Touch	Johnny Kidd & the Pirates	single	1959
11	Mull of Kintyre	Wings	single	1977
12	Be Still	Los Lobos	The Neighborhood	1990
13	Mamaw	Y'all	The Next Big Thing	1994
14	Waiting for the Great  Leap Forward	Billy Bragg	Workers' Playtime	1988
15	All Her Favorite Fruit	Camper van Beethoven	Key Lime Pie	1989
16	Song of a Baker	Small Faces	Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake	1968
17	Coloured Rain	Traffic	Mr. Fantasy	1967
18	Butchers and Bakers	Les Fleur de Lys	single (as Chocolate Frog)	1968
19	Changingman	Paul Weller	Stanley Road	1995
20	Timeless Melody	The Las	The Las	1990
21	The Riverboat Song	Ocean Colour Scene	Moseley Shoals	1996
22	Mankind	Cast	All Change	1995
23	Goodbye, Eddie, Goodbye	case	Phantom of the Paradise	1974
24	Rubber Bullets	10CC	10CC	1973
25	Vicky Verky	Squeeze	Argybargy	1980
26	See Emily Play	David Bowie	Pin Ups	1973
27	It Must Be Love	Madness	single	1981
28	Prince of the Punks	The Kinks	single	1977
29	Girl of My Dreams	Bram Tchaikovsky	Strange Man Changed Man	1979
30	Rat Patrol	Naked Raygun	Throb Throb	1985
31	Still There's Hope	Young Fresh Fellows	This One's for the Ladies	1989
32	Grande Finale	Alice Cooper	School's Out	1972

Speak To Me Of Summer: July 23rd, 2017 Playlist

I did not expect this playlist to sound so trippy and heavy when I put it together. I never listened to it in its entirety, just bits and pieces, at best two or three songs in a row. Following along with all four listeners this past Sunday, I got to hear it in its raw, ragged glory. I'm really happy with it. Stylistically it's all over the place - Jim Carroll to Graham Nash to Yes to Funkadelic - but it all fits together seamlessly (mostly). 

The trippiness takes off with the Monkees' track, "Admiral Mike" and Deep Purple's "No One Came." The CSNY block has two straight ahead rockers and Nash's romantic pop tune, but Crosby's and Young's are heavy duty stoned madness. Coming out of those songs into Julian Cope's "If You Loved Me at All" only seems a release for the first minute or so, but then it veers into wonderfully craziness.

From the Bolero-esque soloing of Steve Howe on "Starship Trooper," to heavy riffing of Eddie Hazel on "Super Stupid" and Alvin Lee on "Going Home," the rest of the show is a showcase for loud, often droning, guitars. I don't know how well my handful of listeners took it, but for me, it was like a bolt was drilled into my head and filled up with stuff weird and wonderful.

Music I Like, vol 1, #4 - Speak to Me of Summer

Song	Artist	Source	Year
Wicked Gravity	Jim Carroll	Catholic Boy	1980
How Low is Low	The Godfathers	More Songs About Love and Hate	1989
See No Evil	Television	Marquee Moon	1976
Admiral Mike	The Monkees	Justus	1996
No One Came	Deep Purple	Fireball	1971
Everybody I Love You	CSNY	Deja Vu	1970
Cowboy Movie	David Crosby	If I Could Only Remember My Name	1971
Right Now	Manassas	Manassas	1972
I Used to Be a King	Graham Nash	Songs for Beginners	1971
Revolution Blues	Neil Young	On the Beach	1974
If You Loved Me At All	Julian Cope	Peggy Suicide	1991
Satellite of Love	Lou Reed	Transformer	1972
Spanish Stroll	Mink DeVille	Cabretta	1977
Just Another Night	Ian Hunter	You're Never Alone With a Schizophrenic	1979
Back in the Night	Dr. Feelgood	Malpractice	1975
I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight	Richard/Linda Thompson	I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight	1974
Starship Trooper	Yes	Yes Album	1971
Decline and Fall	Atomic Rooster	Atomic Rooster	1970
Enter the Riffian	Wo Fat	Psychedelonaut	2009
Sin's A Good Man's Brother	Grand Funk Railroad	Closer to Home	1970
Medusa	Trapeze	Medusa	1970
Cherry Red	The Groundhogs	Split	1971
Super Stupid	Funkadelic	Maggot Brain	1970
I'm Going Home	Ten Years After	Undead	1968

Inflammable Material: July 16th, 2017 Playlist

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Loudest show yet. Sure, the week before's show had all that early metal - Sir Lord Baltimore, Death, etc. - but the show was broken up with some mellow, rootsiness from the likes of Tedeschi Trucks and Little Feat. This, my third show, started wild and never let up until the final few songs.

My favorite song this week is Queen's "Sheer Heart Attack." It's bloodier and heavier than almost any punk song from 1977. Drummer Roger Taylor had written it for the album Sheer Heart Attack in 1977 but wasn't able to finish it then. By the time it came to record News of the World the punk scene had exploded across the UK. It may not have been intended as a response to the punks, but it sure sounds like a rejoinder to all the younguns bitching about big arena acts like Queen.

One of my favorite rock stories is about Queen and the punks. I hope it's true. As the story goes, Sid Vicious was in the same recording studio as Queen. He walked up to Freddie Mercury and said "Still bringing ballet to the masses?" Mercury promptly responded, "Ah, Mr. Ferocious, well, we're trying our best." If that's not true, it's definitely in the spirit of Mercury and company.

Among the last batch of songs are a few loosely linked by the lyric "I'm a" or "I'm an." I hadn't intended to do that but once I noticed it, figured, what the heck, and went for it - "I'm glad all over," "I'm the man," "I'm an upstart," and "I'm a rocker."

Music I Like, vol 1, #3 - Inflammable Material

01. (Ain't Nothin' But A) House Party - J.Geils Band - Bloodshot - 1973

02. Too Bad - Faces - A Nod Is As Good As A Wink... - 1971

03. Hot Love - Cheap Trick - Cheap Trick - 1977

04. How D'You Ride - Slade - Slayed? - 1972

05. I Saw Her Standing There - The Beatles - Please Please Me - 1963

06. Sheer Heart Attack - Queen - News of the World - 1977

07. Stiff Little Fingers - The Vibrators - Pure Mania - 1977

08. The Day the World Turned Day-Glo - X-Ray Spex - Germ Free

      Adolescents - 1978

09. Suspect Device - Stiff Little Fingers - Inflammable Material - 1979

10. Stranglehold - U.K. Subs - Another Kind of Blues - 1979

11. Breakdown - Buzzcocks - Time's Up - 1976

12. Bomber - Motorhead - Bomber - 1979

13. Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers - ZZ Top - Tres Hombres - 1973

14. Give Him a Great Big Kiss - The Shangri-Las - single - 1964

15. Looking For a Kiss - New York Dolls - New York Dolls - 1973

16. I Wanna Know Why - Aerosmith - Draw the Line - 1977

17. Rip It Out - Ace Frehley - Ace Frehley - 1978

18. Space Station No. 5 - Montrose - Montrose - 1973

19. Razamanaz - Nazareth - Razamanaz - 1973

20. Steeler - Judas Priest - British Steel - 1980

21. Lightning to the Nations - Diamond Head - White Album - 1981

22. Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden - 1980

23. Hard Ride - Raven - Rock Until You Drop - 1981

24. Wheels of Steel - Saxon - Wheels of Steel - 1980

25. Green Manalishi - Fleetwood Mac - single - 1970

26. Hurdy Gurdy Man - Donovan - Hurdy Gurdy Man - 1968

27. All Strung Out Over You - The Chambers Bros. - The Time Has Come -

      1967

28. I'm Gonna Love You Too - Buddy Holly - single - 1958

29. Glad All Over - Dave Clark 5 - single - 1964

30. I'm the Man - Joe Jackson - I'm the Man - 1979

31. I'm An Upstart - Angelic Upstarts - Teenage Warning - 1979

32. Rocker - AC/DC - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap - 1976

33. I'll Be Back - ? and the Mysterians - demo - 1966

History Lesson Part II

My musical tastes took a wild turn for the loud in high school. After deriding the Sex Pistols to a friend without having actually heard them, I heard them, thanks to Vin Scelsa. He played "Holidays in the Sun" and it was like a door in my brain was kicked open. Suddenly, there was a whole new world of sounds opened to me.

During my sophomore year I heard even more stuff that moved my tastes away from the regular rock radio songs I was listening to. At some point, again on Vin Scelsa's show, I heard "Sister Ray" by the Velvet Underground. For the uninitiated, it's a seventeen and half minute long mess of wailing guitars and droning keyboards telling the story of smacked out drag queens and murder. Then my friend Gordon played the Dead Kennedys for me. Then I started playing D&D with some older guys who played Tuff Darts and all sorts of bands from Stiff Records. Jethro Tull, Boston, even Led Zeppelin, all that sort of stuff dropped out of my music rotation.

The same time this was happening, the late, great WLIR radio out of Long Island was playing lots of New Wave and related stuff long before it made it to MTV. They also had a weekly hardcore and punk show. That's where I first heard the Angelic Upstarts, the UK Subs, Black Flag, and many, many more bands I'd become a fan of during high school.

Even more than all my friends and WLIR, it was Uppsala College's WFMU that truly turned my tastes upside down. Like today, there was all sorts of cool, far-out music on the station, but it was the two (more or less) hardcore shows that grabbed my attention. The first, and more serious, was Pat Duncan's show. The second, and the one I listened to whenever I got the chance, was Paul Cavanaugh's. Cavanaugh played a less severe mix of music than Duncan and had a studio full of characters, particularly an obnoxious curmudgeon by the name of Morbid and a Dead Head engineer. I've never been sure if they were real people or Cavanaugh doing voices. Either way, the show was a blast.

By the time I finished high school in 1984, listened to almost nothing from before 1977, the year Never Mind the Bollocks and The Clash were released. 

The Folly of Men: July 9th, 2017 Playlist

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Yeah, so my initial brief to myself to only play music from before 1991 (the year I graduated grad school) went out the window on my second show. I didn't blow it off completely. Most of this show's songs are from before 1980, but there's one song from 1993 and another from only last year. Putting the list together, seeing what music I had, it just made sense. The Tedeschi Trucks Bandfits in perfectly, both musically and historically between the Band, Little Feat, Delaney & Bonnie and the rest. And it sounded great.

The standout tracks from this list are the proto-metal tracks (#5-#9). Snake Bitefrom Stone Axe is the first of several mind blowing discoveries I've made during building setlists. A one-single band, it is louder and heavier than most of the heavy music released in 1971 when it appeared. The same goes for the tunes from the rest of the bands in that set. I'm really happy I finally heard Death (thanks to the awesome musical director of Ash vs. Evil Dead). There was no way Freakin' Outwasn't going to make it into one of the first Music I Like shows - and it did.

The second show was mostly fun, but I forgot how to load my MP3s into the the board and had to wait for one of the station directors to show up. Felt stupid and started fifteen minutes late. Fortunately, DJ Thrilla carried on, playing his usual killer cuts of old school disco, hip hop and soul. Then he ended with a Billy Joel song, which worked out perfectly.



Music I Like, vol 1, #2 - The Folly of Men
01. Let Me Out - The Knack - Get the Knack - 1979
02. Hard Way - The Kinks - School Boys in Disgrace - 1975
03. She's the One - Ramones - Road to Ruin - 1978
04. Boom Boom - The Animals - single - 1964
05. Freakin' Out - Death - ...For the Whole World to See - 1975
06. Snakebite - Stone Axe - single - 1971
07. Shylock - Buffalo - Volcanic Rock - 1973
08. Helium Hound (I Got a Love) - Sir Lord Baltimore - Kingdom Come -
     1970
09. Raceway - Pink Fairies - Kings of Oblivion - 1973
10. Life Is a Carnival - The Band - Cahoots - 1971
11. Dixie Chicken - Little Feat - Dixie Chicken - 1973
12. Delta Lady - Leon Russell - Leon Russell - 1970
13. Don't Know What It Means - Tedeschi Trucks Band - Let Me Get By -
      2016
14. Well, Well - Delaney & Bonnie - D&B Together - 1972
15. Keep On Growing - Derek & the Dominoes - Layla and Other Assorted
      Love Songs - 1970
16. Dog Eat Dog - Adam & the Ants - Kings of the Wild Frontier - 1980
17. The Jungle Line - Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns - 1975
18. Watching the Detectives - Elvis Costello - My Aim is True - 1977
19. When the Levee Breaks - Led Zeppelin - IV - 1971
20. Gigantor - The Dickies - single - 1980
21. Godzilla - Blue Oyster Cult - Spectres - 1977
22. Tyrant - Judas Priest - Sad Wings of Destiny - 1976
23. Someone to Talk To - Screaming Blue Messiahs - Gun Shy - 1986
24. From Your Girl - The Muffs - The Muffs - 1993
25. Morning Will Come - Spirit - Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus - 1970
26. Just Another Punk - Edgar Winter Group - Edgar Winter Group
      w/R.Derringer - 1975
27. It's All Over Now Baby Blue - The Byrds - Turn!Turn!Turn! - 1965