Sunday, May 5, 2024

Session 0230 - Dreams Never End (Airdate: 5/5/24)

 



It's our final show! Special guest Joey DeCrescenzo joined us (when his microphone was working) as we played more old favorites and new discoveries. Gimmicks were well-represented, as we threw in a cover of one of our new-to-us favorites, The Moon Is Blue by Colourbox, as part of a double shot of one of our favorite bands, Future Islands. Towards the end, we played some songs about endings. It was a bittersweet sendoff.

Thanks so much to our listeners for joining us on this two-year adventure!


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Friday, May 3, 2024

Session 0229 - Up The Down Escalator (A Chameleons Primer) (Uploaded: 5/3/24)

 


The Chameleons were formed in Manchester, England in 1981, and while they failed to achieve the levels of industry success as many of their Mancunian colleagues of the era (see Joy Division/New Order, the Buzzcocks, etc.), they made up for it with a high-quality creative output.

The band: the dual leading guitars of Reg Smithies and Dave Fielding, and the strong rhythm section of bassist/vocalist Mark Burgess and drummer John Lever. Soaring guitar tones mix with atmospheric synthesizers, while Burgess' haunting vocals characterize the anxiety, alienation and loss of innocence experienced in the Thatcher-era.

While their first album, 1983's Script of the Bridge, failed to make a dent with the British press, it proved to be a dramatic statement for those who paid attention. The band continued to cultivate this cult following on their follow-up, 1985's What Does Anything Mean? Basically. It's Mike's favorite of their discography (though Script and 1986's Strange Times are in a tie for second).

Strange Times brought a move to Geffen Records, where the darkness and complexity of the album went basically unnoticed. The sudden death of their manager, Tony Fletcher, in 1987 left the band in disarray and led to their breakup. Spin-off bands were even less successful, and the band would briefly reform in 2000 to release the acoustic-rework album Strip, and an album of new material, Why Call It Anything. Following the release of another acoustic album, This Never Ending Now, the band once again imploded in 2003.

Burgess and Lever formed the offshoot band ChameleonsVox in 2009 for touring purposes, though Lever would later leave the band and pass away in 2017. Burgess and Smithies dusted off the Chameleons name in 2021, and are currently touring to this day.

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Wednesday, May 1, 2024

Session 0228 - The Gary Numan Experience (Uploaded: 5/1/24)

 


Gary Webb got his start fronting his very own punk band called Tubeway Army, but it wasn't until he was in the studio recording their first album - where he found and became enamored with a synthesizer left by the previous band renting the space - that Gary Numan was born. This chance encounter completely changed the direction of the band, and set the tone for the rest of his career.

Tubeway Army released two albums, a self-titled debut and the very successful follow-up Replicas. Being the creative heart of the band, Numan would release subsequent albums under his new name with essentially the same band. The first of these, The Pleasure Principle, introduced the essential track "Cars" and gave him musical immortality. The follow-up, Telekon, may have been less financially successful, but was a very strong album overall. Subsequent albums led to diminishing returns, and by the mid 80s Numan was utilizing a sax player and chasing trends instead of innovating them. This would precipitate a gear change in the 90s to an industrial sound inspired greatly by Nine Inch Nails (Trent Reznor himself had been hugely influenced by Numan's prime output), a musical direction he continues with to this day. However, he has been known to tour on his Tubeway Army and early Numan material on occasion, to great success.

Gary Numan is rightly hailed as a visionary and legend in the world of synth rock, post-punk, electro...all the Auto Reverse-approved genres. Below is a selection of some of what we feel to be some of his best work, and a few samples of his later output at the end of the playlist for context.

Tubeway Army - Listen To The Sirens
Tubeway Army - Something's In The House
Tubeway Army - Are You Real?
Tubeway Army - Me! I Disconnect From You
Tubeway Army - Are "Friends" Electric?
Tubeway Army - Down In The Park
Tubeway Army - You Are In My Vision
Tubeway Army - Replicas
Tubeway Army - It Must Have Been Years
Tubeway Army - Do You Need The Service?
Tubeway Army - We Have a Technical
Gary Numan - Metal
Gary Numan - Films
Gary Numan - M.E.
Gary Numan - Tracks
Gary Numan - Conversation
Gary Numan - Cars
Gary Numan - Engineers
Gary Numan - This Wreckage
Gary Numan - Telekon
Gary Numan - Remind Me To Smile
Gary Numan - Sleep By Windows
Gary Numan - We Are Glass
Gary Numan - I Dream of Wires
Gary Numan - The Joy Circuit
Gary Numan - I Die: You Die
Gary Numan - You Are, You Are
Gary Numan - White Boys and Heroes
Gary Numan - Music For Chameleons
Gary Numan - From Russia Infected
Gary Numan - Dominion Day
Gary Numan - Crazier
Gary Numan - I Sing Rain
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Monday, April 29, 2024

Session 0227 - Radiohead B-Sides (Uploaded: 4/29/24)

 


Radiohead is one of the greatest bands to come out of the 90s alternative scene. During the period after the success of their debut album Pablo Honey (led by their albatross of a hit single, "Creep"), the band had what is probably their most creatively productive era. However, the album that would come from this effort, The Bends, only had a handful of the almost 40 songs generated from those sessions. While a few would appear on their next album, the legendary OK Computer, many songs ended up as b-sides on singles and EPs throughout the mid to late 90s. 

B-sides have a long history in the music industry, but by the 90s they typically became a dumping ground for whatever songs rejected from the album a band would have lying around. But the situation with Radiohead was different - collected together, the b-sides in this era would have produced another album as strong or stronger than The Bends.

Collected here is a selection of b-sides and other non-album tracks from Radiohead's entire discography, in chronological order.


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Sunday, April 28, 2024

Session 0226 - The Edge of Forever (Airdate: 4/28/24)


 

For our penultimate episode, we started the show a bit early with a few instrumentals we never found a place for in any of our playlists. This night was a combination of old favorites we haven't played in a while and favorites we hadn't gotten around to before now. Our final show, next week, will be similarly themed (if that is even a theme).

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Friday, April 26, 2024

Session 0225 - The Spirit of Radio (Uploaded: 4/26/24)

 


A love letter to the medium. We will miss the format, but not the schedule :)


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Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Session 0224 - Soundtracks (Uploaded: 4/24/24)


Mike tasked Keith with curating a playlist of his own, and here it is! Some of your favorite songs from popular film soundtracks of the past. 


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