Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for October 25, 2014

More writing soon, I promise (not that anybody's really waiting for it, but for my own good)

Unpopular Music - October 25, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

Anyway here's today's playlist for a particularly noisy edition of Unpopular Music, after the break....

Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for October 18, 2014

In which I give myself an absurd amount of non-English titles to announce.

Break out the Berlitz tapes after the break

Unpopular Music - October 18, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

Banzai! ...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for October 4, 2014

 

Happy National Taco Day everyone!! I am fortunate enough to do the webcast across the street from a fine Mexican restaurant, but how will you be celebrating? Were you able to get through yesterday's cognitive dissonance of it being both the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) and National Smile Day? Did you attempt, like I did, to make your co-workers atone for celebrating National Smile Day in the first place? Were you even aware of National Smile Day? Lucky you.

Anyway, this is one of those kitchen sink kind of shows, a whole enchilada, if you will (no, no, National Taco Day), where styles shift dramatically from song to song and back again. But it's all good and I trust you, the listener, can appreciate it all.

Unpopular Music - October 11, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

Find today's playlist después de la ruptura.... (FYI, there is no taco related music in today's webcast)

Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for September 27, 2014

Greetings blog visitors!!

Continued apologies for not having much to offer lately.

Unpopular Music - September 27, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

There is however this week's playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for September 20, 2014

I'd always been amused since I'd first learned that John Coltrane, Ray Charles and Bruce Springsteen all have the same birthday, September 23rd. But, then I did a little digging, I found there were many other musicians, if not as significant as those above, with that same birthday. A quick scroll through IMDB, only because it's easy to look people up by their birthday there, turns up the following - Les McCann, Julio Iglesias, Jermaine Dupri, Ani Difranco,  folklorist John A. Lomax, the guy who wrote "The Sidewalks of New York" James W. Blake, sometime musical theater performers Mickey Rooney and Jason Alexander and the owner of CBGB's Hilly Kristal. There's plenty more.

We only hear from a select few of them in the program (you're welcome), and while I give no credence to astrology (you may if you like), this is kind of amusing.

Unpopular Music - September 20, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

Blow out the candles after the break...

Bottom 2 for September 13th, 2014

The iCloud

I hate the iCloud. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

Sure, it's nice to have the possibility of recovering lost files, but the lack of user control over it just increases the feeling that Apple can't relinquish ownership of whatever it sells to you, or let you use it in an a way in which they don't approve. Especially from the iTunes store. I've never been a fan of the iTunes store. I find it difficult to browse, and am still stung by the early days when you were stuck only being able to play it on the computer that downloaded it, or approved devices, and its unique file type that you can't edit of mess around with. There are a few songs from the DRM era that I can't play anymore because I've gone through that many computers.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for September 13, 2014

Alas, another week where the only post is the playlist.

Unpopular Music - September 13, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

Here's this weeks show without the panic in the studio, after the break ...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for September 6, 2014

Your tomatos and potatos are after the break... (although spell check says tomatoes and potatoes)

Unpopular Music - September 6, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

Top 4 for September 4, 2014

Short and sweet today, little if any explanation --

Bad Mango - Dave Douglas and Sō Percussion

from album of the same name, Vol. 3 of Dave's GPS set.

Let's Call This - Thelonious Monk 

from the famous Friday the 13th, 1953  session. One of your better bebop French horn solos. I always confuse this song with "Let's Cool One". This is the trickier and less often played one.

Top 5 for September 3, 2014

She Cries Your Name by Beth Orton

The majestic opening to the Trailer Park album, the haunting voice and the eerie ominous strings, plus a nice dancy beat.

Don't Ever Let Me Know - Bobby Fuller Four

Super catchy pop song bliss. Tambourines and hand claps, six against four, catchy melodies. Nice.

No. 1 for September 2, 2014

I had toyed with the idea of doing a Labor Day themed program for last weekend, as I had done for Memorial Day and the 4th of July, but I ironically got lazy or too distracted to put together a tribute to the working man (and ladies, too). Have no fear, the wonderful DJ Therese over at WFMU put together a fine Labor Day playlist. I've only had a chance to listen to the very beginning (I'm assuming Sonic Youth's "Swimsuit Issue" is a request from Senator Gillibrand), but perusing the list, it's far better than what I would have presented (and that's why she's there and I'm here)

No. 1 for August 31, 2014

tUnE-yArDs In Concert

From NPR's Front Row series, Merrill Garbus and her current associates recorded at June 13, 2014 Washington DC's 9:30 club. A fine performance, mostly drawn from her new album Nikki Nack. It made me wish we wish I was there.

Check it out here. 

Webcast info for August 30, 2014

Since the SCATV building is closed and I'll be doing some traveling, today's webcast will be a rerun of the June 7th program. You can find the playlist here. This program apparently ran a little bit short, so I was able to squeeze in a Labor Day bonus track from Billy Bragg, There Is Power in a Union from the mystery live set that replaces the DVD's when you download the Billy Bragg Vol. 1 box set from emusic.

Enjoy your holiday weekend!

Labor Day Weekend preview

Market Basket on Somerville Ave, at 2:30, Saturday afternoon August 9, 2014

Labor Day has a bona fide labor victory to celebrate this year. Lost in coverage of the seeming cult of personality around "Artie T." was that one of the things apparently at stake here is a good old-fashioned defined benefits pension program. So congratulations are in order to the workers and also the store-level management (who, let's face it, probably have a better shot at said pensions) for standing up to the corporate greed mongers. The picture above is one result of their action, the much-beloved Somerville Ave Market Basket, that on a Saturday afternoon would normally be overflowing with cars and shoppers. looking pretty much barren.

UPDATE - This, of course, doesn't mean they get to take Labor Day off.

The larger point being, Boston Free Radio's home base, Somerville Community Access Television, closes up shop for the holiday weekend, so this Saturday, no live show, and this time no pre-recorded show either but a rerun of the June 7th episode.

Top 6 for August 28, 2014

Don't know how long I can keep this up, but here goes...

Dvorák's Slavonic Dance Op. 46 No. 1 played by Rafael Kubelik and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks

I've often referred to this very vigorous performance of these Romantic Era chestnuts as "the Slavonic Slamdances". A good way to get the blood pumping early in the morning, I tells ya.

Lula - Barney Brigard, Benny Carter and Ben Webster

From BBB, this group of 30's jazz legends recorded in the 60's, playing in the past and present tenses simultaneously, that is, playing old school without nostalgia.

Jodi by The Dodos

A rockin' little tune I downloaded off a free sampler somewhere.

Dart Night at the Willow by the Charlie Kohlhase Quintet

Commemorating the loss of their weekly gig at the Willow Jazz Club to said activity, some furious blowing by the horns in the band - Matt Langley on alto, John Carlson on trumpet and the leader on baritone.

Semi-Simple Variations by the Bad Plus

A knotty piano piece by Milton Babbitt (although far from his knottiest) arranged for jazz piano trio. From the album For All I Care. There's a video, too!

The Rock Concert: Madison WI, April 9, 2005 by the Jazz Passengers

Sponsored by  the University of Wisconsin-Madison Geology Museum to celebrate the Univeristy's possesion of one of the oldest pieces of rock known to exist, this hour long works tells a very shaggy-dog story about the rock's origins in 1950's Brooklyn. A randomly found edition of WFMU's Miniature Minotaurs program. Check it out here.

Top 3 for August 27, 2014

Again today, because consist... oh shut up about that.

Bud Powell  - Chick Corea and Gary Burton

From In Concert - Zurich, October 28, 1979. Recorded, oh... right
Chick's knotty little tune to one of bebop's greats gets a cool but swinging performance in cool but swinging Zurich.

Top 5 for August 26, 2014

Haven't done this in a while, but, you know, ... last refuge, blah, blah, blah.

Red Planet  - Eric Dolphy 

from The Illinois Concert, 1963  with a young Herbie Hancock on piano and an Africa Brass type brass ensemble.

Abe Lincoln - Best Friends Forever

from their self titled album. Always intrigued by this band's naive and rough vocals (some dawgs would call it pitchy), but really tight instrumental skills and arrangements.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music web cast for August 23, 2014

I once heard the pianist Larry Willis make a zen-like remark about how when you are playing jazz, you are playing a song, but also not playing it at the same time. Think of that while listening to the second hour of the program.

Unpopular Music - August 23, 2014 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

If you want the playlist, you can find it after the break...

liner note nostalgia

While making an mp3 from this record for today's show, I reread the liner notes for Branford Marsalis' Random Abstract written by his younger brother, album producer, and one-time down-the-hall-neighbor of the blog Delfayo Marsalis, and was reminded, not without nostalgia I'll admit, of the self-confident bullshit one can pour out regarding a subject one feels strongly about when one is in his or her early twenties. (not that he's wrong, necessarily, about any of this.) The paragraph below is a typical example of an attitude common around Famous Music College (site of said hallway) at this time (the late 80's). (At that time your opinion on fusion could either bond or antagonize people the way your opinion on, say, Obamacare for example, will today.)

preview for Saturday's webcast

Oscar Wilde once said "Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative." Will tomorrow's webcast be more consistent than its usual ad hoc nature? Possibly yes, possibly no.