Left of the Dial

I’ve often credited my diverse musical taste to the years I spent in college volunteering at the university radio station—WUSC-FM 90.5 in Columbia, SC. It was there I discovered many of the bands and genres I still enjoy to this day. Every year for the school’s Homecoming weekend, they let alumni DJ’s like me get back on the airwaves for a few hours.

This past weekend I put together a set of songs from the late 1980’s era when I was a student DJ, and while it doesn’t show the tremendous diversity of programming that included reggae, punk, afropop, dance, hip-hop, and more, my playlist for the evening (Which I’ve listed below) does read like a preview of the then-nascent “alternative” music boom.

While some of these names may be familiar from their later work, many of them are as obscure now as they were then. Curious? Search the band names on Google, YouTube, and Myspace; there is a lot of material out there posted by others who remember this music as fondly as I do.

Tommy Keene, Places That Are Gone
Marshall Crenshaw, Mary Jean
Waxing Poetics, Walking on Thin Legs
The Broadcasters, Hole In My Heart
The Godfathers, Birth School Work Death

The Catheads, Power Love and Pizza
The Royal Court Of China, It’s All Changed

American Music Club, Firefly
The Silos, A Few Hundred Thank You’s
David Sylvian, Let The Happiness In
Billy Bragg, Must I Paint You A Picture

Big Pig, I Can’t Break Away
Stump, Charlton Heston
Fetchin Bones, A Fable

The Swimming Pool Q’s, Big Fat Tractor
Translator, Un-Alone
The Walkabouts, Jumping Off
Thin White Rope, Elsie Crashed the Party
The Dream Syndicate, Halloween

Green On Red, That’s What Dreams
Rain Parade, Mystic Green
The Wygals, Passion
Bobby Sutliff, Small Town Romance
Easterhouse, Nineteen Sixty-nine
The Waterboys, We Will Not Be Lovers

Close Lobsters, Too Bloody Stupid
The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy, Too Much Falling In Love
True Believers, The Rain Won’t Help You When it’s Over
The Del-Lords, The Cool and the Crazy
EIEIO, Andy Warhol’s Dead But I’m Not
Dash Rip Rock, Endeavor
The Reivers (Zeitgeist), Blue Eyes
The Saints, Music Goes Round My Head
Jennifer Warnes, Bird on a Wire
Marti Jones, The Real One
The Rainmakers, Spend It On Love
Paul Kelly, Before the Old Man Died
Dumptruck, Back Where We Belong
Died Pretty, As Must Have
Washington Squares, New Generation
Andy White, Things Start to Unwind
Syd Straw, Hard Times
Peter Case, Horse & Crow
Antiseen, Ruby Get Back to the Hills

Fluid, Fools Rule
The Buck Pets, Hammer Valentine
Splatcats, Surfin Hearse
Droogs, Jack Of Trades
Scruffy the Cat, My Baby She’s Allright

Wenesday Week, I Wonder What We Had
Brian Setzer, Three Guys
Uncle Green, Vulnerability
Wild Seeds, I’m Sorry (I Can’t Rock You All Night Long)
Sister Double Happiness, Sister Double Happiness

Chances Are, Five For Fighting Will Make You Cry

There’s an emotional resonance to the songs of John Ondrasik, who performs as Five For Fighting, and it’s the kind of depth that may sound like greeting card sentiments on the surface but once the words sink in and you relate them to your own experiences, tears well up.

Slice, the new album from Five For Fighting, has one of those moments with the last song, Augie Nieto. It’s about a man many of us have never heard of, who has ALS but who did some things with it that helped a lot of others suffering with the same disease. The clip below from Ondrasik’s performance of the song at this year’s Jerry Lewis telethon has more of Augie’s story in the notes; this version’s even better than the one on the album–perhaps because Augie himself is sitting on stage listening.

As the song says, “It’s not the breaths you take, it’s how you breathe.”

Get Some Classic Mojo, Free

Mojo Nixon, of “Elvis Is Everywhere” fame, has decided to put forth his own “Stimulus package,” and for once that’s not a tongue-in-cheek anatomical reference but a real deal for fans–For the next few weeks you can download Nixon’s entire back catalog for free here on Amazon.com.

(Disclaimer and a warning–if you’re not familiar with Nixon’s music, it can be offensive, vulgar, etc…not for kids, in other words.)

Unfamiliar with much of it other than the Elvis song parodies? My recommendation is to go directly to the very first album when Skid Roper was still playing with him, Mojo & Skid. It’s musically the rawest of the bunch and has “I’m In Love With Your Girlfriend” as well as a killer cover of an obscure Springsteen song, “The Big Payback.”

After that, get Frenzy, which is more of what later Nixon fans would find familiar, though listening now, he sounds positively prescient on songs such as “I Hate Banks.”

Thanks Mojo, for “keeping it up” all these years.

Music For the First Monday In October

In the USA, the first Monday in October is the start of the Supreme Court’s session, which for some reason had me thinking tonight about the Georgia band The Supreme Court, which featured the legendary guitarist Glenn Phillips and also Jeff Calder of the Swimming Pool Q’s. I don’t think it was the primary band for any of the members even when the group was performing fequently, as Phillips has a long string of indie guitar albums and Calder, of course, has his own main gig.

Had the chance to see them live a few times back in my collegiate days and they were always a blast of improvisational musical mayhem, pulling out everything from blues/jazz fusion to classic rock covers. Check out a more recent clip below, of Calder and Phillips running through a rocking take of “Route 66″ with guest guitarist Peter Stroud of Sheryl Crow’s band.

The Future is Just Like the Past (But Shinier)

The last time I mentioned my favorite internet blogger Seth Godin, I had to take something he said about marketing and apply it to the music business-this week, he did it for me:

The future is just like the past (but shinier)

Of course, it’s not true.

The record business, for example, is fundamentally altered by easily sharable, zero-incremental-cost digital files. It’s not just vinyl but shiny.

Your industry has been completely and permanently altered by the connections offered by the internet. Your non-profit, your political campaign, your service business. Not a little different, not just email enabled or website marketed, but overhauled.

Unfortunately, that’s hard to embrace. But it’s still true. What are you going to do about it? If you were starting your business today, knowing what you know now, how would you do things (very) differently?

(The original post is here, btw)

So, if you were starting to play music today, and you wanted to do it professionally, how would you do things differently?

The old model was one of woodshedding, getting things right or at least as right as you could, then doing everything you could to grab for that brass ring, the major label record deal that would ensure you’d be a star. Problem was, there were only so many per year that ‘made it’ and the rest were forgotten, if they were ever even heard in the first place. For them, there wasn’t much they could do other than get straight jobs and join the rest of the work force in punching a clock.

Now, of course, anyone can write a song, post a version on Youtube, and be a viral sensation in a matter of days. That still doesn’t mean they can make any money at it, however.

I know good music when I hear it, and I could probably tell you a few ways to get that music heard by the right people, in the right way, at the right time, but even that won’t guarantee anything like the old “success” story.

Where’s the happy medium, and where does it go from here? dunno, but sooner or later somebody’s going to figure it out, and as much as music is a part of people’s lives, they’ll be bigger than Google.