Skipping and Silence

The last couple of shows have been live broadcasts - my first attempts - so plenty of clunking, skipping, stuttering and silence.  For last night's show (22 September), I tried to muddle through as many different styles of music as possible going from Bilja Krstic to the Pixies to Tennessee Ernie Ford to the Black Crowes to Gonzales to Death in Vegas to Coco Rosie to LCD Soundsystem to Ananda Shankar to Bob Dylan to Charlie Mingus to Feyd to Amerie to Nirvana to Freska to Deadbeat to Go Home Productions to John Martyn to Hank Ballard and the Midnighters to the Herbaliser featuring Fabian to The Magic Flute to Smokey Robinson to Low to Metallica to Hank Williams to Billy Bragg taking in soul, reggae, lo-fi, metal, jazz, electro, opera, country and lots more along the way.  Next week I'll be back to pre-recording, due to timing rather than a general sense of surrender, so the show will be downloadable once again.

Air Guitar, Pt.2

For those who like their widdle, here's the second hour of my Air Guitar show.  There's an eruption, a sweet dream, a motherkiller, and some Ratatat.  Download the show by clicking on the title above.

Air Guitar, Pt.1

Late August is my favourite time of the year.  Not only is it my birthday, it's also my mate Raj's birthday, and Michael Jakson's as well.  But more than that, it's the Air Guitar Championships every year in Oudu, Finland.  This year was an incredibly special event with the first female winner since the championships began.  In anticipation, I hosted this two-hour show devoted to all things guitar.  We go from Steve Vai to Steve Howe, Peter Green to Paul Gilbert, John Frusciante to Jimmy Page.  There's also ten minutes of howling and wailing on Funkadelic's Maggot Brain (Alternate Mix).  Looking up the song on Wikipedia, it gives the name's origins as either guitarist Eddie Hazel's nickname, or a reference to singer George Clinton's decomposed dead brother.  So there you go.  The show can be downloaded by clicking on the title above.

On Fire, Pt.2

Like an eternal flame, the show keeps on burning.  For another hour and ten minutes anyway.  Download the second half of the show by clicking on the above title.  No Eternal Flame on the playlist, but there's some Noisettes, Nirvana and Flotation Toy Warning, and the show closes with LCD Soundsystem's version of Jump into the Fire, the penultimate song of their final ever gig.

On Fire, Pt.1

Fire season begins in Moranbah around the beginning of August.  For two months of the year, there are more burn offs than burn outs as the local fire fighters create breaks in the local scrubland.  To promote fire safety awareness, I dedicated this two-hour show to songs about fire with songs from L7, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Elvis, Daft Punk, Geno Washington, Wolf Parade, Bruce Springsteen and the ridiculous Fire, Inc.  If you want to find out if the show's smoking, or merely deadwood, then click on the title above to download the first part of the show.

4RFM - The Lowdown

My Off the Record show is broadcast every Thursday between 8pm and 10pm on 4RFM.  This is our local station out here in mining-town, Queensland.  Established back in 1998, the station broadcasts to Moranbah, Dysart, Glenden and Nebo and it supports a wide variety of DJs and music.  You can tune in one minute and it's country, the next minute blues, and then a few minutes later there's a heavy metal band covering Andrew Lloyd Webber.  Whatever the case, there's a quality control to all the output.  Not through tight guidelines or anything, but rather as a direct result of the station's free-spirited nature.  The DJ's get to play the music they love - no restrictions - and the end product is good music all day long.  If you go to the station's website by clicking on the link above, there are instructions for streaming the station live.http://www.rockfm.com.au/

Salut France, Pt.2

Part two, or part deux, starts with some Eurovision, finishes with Nouvelle Vague, and there's some new electronic music from KZA and Remain in between.  Click on the title above and you will be taken to the download.

Salut France, Pt.1

With my second show coinciding with Bastille Day, it was time to get out the old Charles Trenet and Django Reinhardt records (with the help of itunes) and devote the show to French music, old and new.  Befitting an event where a scaled-back prison was stormed and seven prisoners released, there is some mild revolutionary music from Francoise Hardy, Praline, Daft Punk and DJ Cut Killer (my token two-minute nod to French hip-hop).  Mr Oizo also makes an appearance and I cheat a little, playing some Errors, Arcade Fire and Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  Clicking on the title above will take you to the download.   

A-Z of Music Pt.2

For the second part of the show, there's one song with two letters (Ug by Mr Scruff), one song with the same word repeated twice (Pata Pata by Mama Africa), a bootleg, some gospel, some soul, and some Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.  Not much talking on this, my first show, because: a). I was scared; and b). I had to get to Z before the two hours were up. 

A-Z of Music Pt.1

My first show for 4RFM and I thought I should give it some kind of theme.  For a while I considered debuting with a show themed around beginnings.  It didn't take long to realise how bad an idea that was.  After playing Start Me Up and Like A Virgin I'd begin to hear the barrel being scraped pretty quick.  So, eventually I chose to compile an A-Z of songs I thought could act as an introduction to the boutique, bespoke (?) style of music I'd be playing on future shows.  The show begins with a New York-based Israeli group playing vaguely Balkan music and it finishes with the faintly Irish-sounding Melbourne group Dirty Three playing a tune dedicated to the zither.  Download it by clicking on the title above.