The weekly chart for wcbn just came out (entitled “humongous infant on American Bandstand”, for reasons which aren’t imeadiately obvious but I’ve learned it’s best just to accept and enjoy these things). Unfortunately for the state of modern music, “Sexual Healing” by the Hot 8 Brass Band did not make the top 50. You have to play a song more than 3 times a week to get it on the charts around here? What is this, like, top 40?

The Hot 8 were somehow surpassed by konono no. 1 “live at couleur café” (#1), peter brotzmann “the complete machine gun sessions” (#24), and talibam! “ordination of the globetrotting conscripts” (#49), among others.

I tried.

The folks who fix things at WCBN have fixed them, and the audio archives for the full week are available. I’ve added audio to Monday and Wednesday’s radio posts.

I may actually be beginning to satiate my brass band fetish (not that I’m going to stop listening to or playing them, just not over and over and over), and thanks to Kristin for driving that to it’s logical extreme with the Fanfare Savale track. And dj BC for driving it to its illogical extreme with the Wu Orleans remixes. Sometimes you have to go over the top first before you can settle down a little.

I was struck once again by how good so many of Vampire Weekend’s (as yet limited number of) songs are. That’s the first time I’ve gotten around to playing A-Punk, and it was as amazing as the rest. Also, I’m glad I screwed up and played the live Born To Be Wild track. I don’t have to hope I wasn’t the only white guy frantically air guitaring through that one because I know I wasn’t.

Playlist.

The .mp3 archive is working again!

:

Part one (download):

Part two (download):

Part three (download):

:
:

I was stupidly assuming that I was only on till midnight, and hadn’t really planned anything for the third hour, so it’s pretty random.

Kleptones website for downloads: www.kleptones.com
Daniel Kitson’s (abandoned) podcast: web.mac.com/dk27/Site/l/l.html
dj BC’s Wu Orleans album: www.djbc.net/mashes/wu/
Hard n’ Phirm’s website, and here’s where you can get Rodeohead from them.
(That’s just a track listing, no longer a download site. The album is still floating around as a torrent)

I’ll find out next Monday night when my new time slot will be.

• wcbn-2008-01-10-220001-EST.mp3
• wcbn-2008-01-10-230001-EST.mp3
• wcbn-2008-01-11-000001-EST.mp3

Shannon Brines, aka dj Local guested on my radio slot on Monday. He’s got a post up about the experience including a couple of photos. WCBN is so photogenic.

conflict of interest disclosure: dj Local is my lab manager and occasionally sells me organic greens from his hoop house.

Here’s the audio:
3pm:

Part one (download):

Part two (download):

Part three (download):

4pm:
5am:

Shannon started around 3:30

And here’s what he/we played.

• wcbn-2008-01-07-150001-EST.mp3
• wcbn-2008-01-07-160001-EST.mp3
• wcbn-2008-01-07-170001-EST.mp3

Well, the .mp3 archive is still busted so I can’t link to the audio from today’s fill-in show, but it doesn’t really matter because I’m pretty much going to play every song again soon. Here’s the playlist, for my future reference.

I really enjoyed the Ian Dury request (sex+drugs+rock+roll). I also liked that someone called in to double check the name of the Kleptones song, which they were very appropriately looking up on their phone internets. And of course, the Hot 8 cover of Sexual Healing is smoking smoking smoking. That one got everyone in the station excited. Maybe I’ll play that twice tomorrow and see if I can get it into the station’s weekly chart. I suspect it doesn’t take a lot of plays to get a song into the charts around here.

As of right now I’m duping some Dirty Dozen Brass Band cd’s which were recommended to me. More of that tomorrow night too I bet.

12pm:

Part one (download):

Part two (download):

1pm:

• wcbn-2008-01-09-120001-EST.mp3
• wcbn-2008-01-09-130001-EST.mp3

The WCBN line-up is all screwy until next week when the schedule for the new term will be finalized, but if anyone is looking for something to listen to, I’m on and off intermittently. I’m on tomorrow (Wednesday) noon to 2 and Thursday 10 to midnight. The .mp3 archive is busted so I wont be posting the results here. The rest of the time I’ll be off, but don’t let that stop you, there’s been some great radio going on down there lately. Frankly my shows are poor compared to some of the amazing material that gets generated by the larger CBN crew. Tune in 24 hours a day, every day. Stay awake just so you can listen.

An extendo radio spectacular today. The sun is barely up and I’ve already got 4 hours of music out of me. This is how to live a longer life: start early every day.

5am:

Part one (download):

Part two (download):

Part three (download):

Part four (download):

(Mom, skip the 5am part)
6am:
7am:
8am:

Playlist.
Here’s the link to the Santastic site, including downloads of DJ John’s The Christmas Massacre of Charlie Brown and dj BC’s The Nutbreaker. While you’re there, click around to find this year’s Santastic comp (Clausome!) and “Challaback Girl”, which I should have thought to play before the 6am swear curfew came around.

Special Ed Xmas 2006 (The Story of the Naivete) can be had at the WFMU blog among other places, just in time to get jazzed up for whatever Ed has in store for this christmas. While you’re at it, why not check out the full blown versions of Special’s shows from 2005 and 2006, all of which are here for the taking. That’s like 14 hours of mind pummeling festive themed radio.

Thanks to everyone who listened and called in, or just listened and lurked, all semester long. It has been 56 hours of my dream coming true. That’s a long dream.

Next week it’s Ross until 7 and then the Revered Andrew is covering the show, the week after that Ross till 7 and then Alex.

• wcbn-2007-12-17-050001-EST.mp3
• wcbn-2007-12-17-060001-EST.mp3
• wcbn-2007-12-17-070001-EST.mp3
• wcbn-2007-12-17-080001-EST.mp3

This was supposed to be a lazy show full of very long songs to accommodate my lack of time to prepare. It mostly was. But some fast short stuff somehow got worked in there too. Gorilla Stomp from Tijuana Bibles got played for the first time, and sounded pretty fine on my end. Likewise Shout Out Out Out with Chicken Soup for the Fuck You, but I think I’ve played that before.

The Daniel Kitson/Explosions in the Sky combo hung together pretty well I thought, with the exception of the remarkably jarring effect of the cd skipping. Damn it’s cdy little soul. But there was Tom Waits to settle it all out. Sort of. You know, when the devil gets wedged in, you have to blast him out with a hydraulic system. True words Tom, true words.

Here’s the playlist.

And here’s the audio.

6am:

Part one (download):

Part two (download):

Part three (download):

7am:
8am:

Next week may or may not be my last show in the monday morning slot. I have a hunch I’ll still be kicking off the weeks come next semester, and that would still be okay by this dj. In any case, next week will be my last show for a couple of weeks. Some other kind dj will be covering for me while I wander around the world for a while. Or there will just be horrible dead air and the angry sound of the FCC’s too-loud heartbeat. Won’t somebody cover my shows?

• wcbn-2007-12-10-060001-EST.mp3
• wcbn-2007-12-10-070001-EST.mp3
• wcbn-2007-12-10-080001-EST.mp3

Playlist for the show.

Audio:

Part one (download):

Part two (download):

Part three (download):

or download hours .

Bubblyfish’s homepage, where you can download some music, and curse bands for using clumpy interactivity-breaking flash interfaces that make it nigh impossible to say, download some music to play on the radio. (But never completely impossible, so what’s the point?). While we’re at it, check out the Protomen website, which wins the award for most effort spent to obscure the content from the user. And, for example, the Gillian Welch website, which demonstrates why music websites don’t have to be so preciously clever (although even that site feels the need to have a gratuitous “intro” screen. Yes yes, very nice.)

The Daniel Kitson website including podcast. In addition to his standup-ish bits, Kitson also has some great fictional and nonfictional story-ish bits.

Had a call asking about music played on last week’s show, during which the playlist database was broken, which stymied the listener’s efforts to look up what she had heard. Apparently she sat in her car in the parking lot listening through to the end, then memorized the time she heard it so she could look up the name later. I’ve done that. I was at first confused because she said she normally doesn’t like Christmas music. Christmas music, on my show? But we iteratively sorted out that it was Iron and Wine, “Freedom Hangs Like Heaven”. Which, now that I think about it, probably is Christmas music.

Playing Mexican Radio on the radio from vinyl was so much fun that I’m going to have to do it again. My DJ colleagues have now and then made it clear that playing the same song twice is just not done. But hey, it’s experimental radio right? I think I’ve played the same song twice on the same show more than once now. “I Hate Music” by the K-Tels is going on the short list of candidate theme songs for when it’s time to retire Crazy. Fantastic.

• wcbn-2007-12-03-060001-EST.mp3
• wcbn-2007-12-03-070001-EST.mp3
• wcbn-2007-12-03-080001-EST.mp3

Even more random than usual this week, and I suppose that’s saying something. The playlist machine is broken so I can’t offer the textual blow-by-blow, but the audio is still good to go.

A couple of people have mentioned the Flanders and Swann. Here’s some more info on those wild and crazy guys. The only other background I can offer is that in Peter Ustinov’s autobiography (or maybe it was Alec Guinness’) he mentioned that of all his Oxford buddies , Flanders and Swann stayed the most like themselves over the years. Whatever that means. In retrospect I don’t actually know them from my dad’s vinyl copy of At the Drop of Another Hat. Rather, I grew up listening to a cassette tape copy I suppose he made to keep me away from the record player. When we were packing up to move houses I was surprised to come across the original vinyl copy, but I don’t know if I ever heard it played. I wonder where it is now. The tracks I’ve been playing came from the internet.

Part one (download):

Part two (download):

Part three (download):

The new improved player should play out all three hours in sequence, and I figure it’s more intuitive to skip around using this version than the old one. Or you can download hour .

Leave a comment damn you.

• wcbn-2007-11-26-060001-EST.mp3
• wcbn-2007-11-26-070001-EST.mp3
• wcbn-2007-11-26-080001-EST.mp3