Webcast info for December 29, 2018

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I'm still out of town for the Holidays, so to close out Unpopular Music for 2018, we are repeating the program which closed out 2017.

Feel free to ignore any references to the weather, as today is about 40° warmer than last December 30. The tunes are still hot though. This was program came mostly from the BFR library, which is rare for me, mostly jazzy and upbeat, with a too on the nose ending.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for December 22, 2018

On a grey and drizzly Saturday before Christmas, we bring you a set of Unpopular Christmas music, at least not what they're playing at the mall. It's been a couple of years since I've done a full Christmas program, and now I remember why - Christmas songs are short! There's a lot of pieces to put together.



The program is bit more broken up by genre than is typical. We start with jazz a, as usual, but there's also a sort of Americana set, a bit more jazz followed by an upbeat set, before we bring you, on what is often a busy run-around day for may people, a bit of a chill-out, or contemplative set in the middle of the second hour.

See the playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for December 15, 2018

Music for a balmy mid-December afternoon (but not, you know, late-December - there's plenty of that music elsewhere.) There's a bunch of upbeat jazz in the first hour. I inadvertently follow the Verve Records rule and make the second song a ballad. The second more freeform hour gets a bit more contemplative before building back up.



See the playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for December 8, 2018

Definitely a variety show for you today. A couple of leftovers form last week. A few selections from my fallback artists. Some engaging bits of filler.

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See the playlist after the break...

No. 1 for December 1, 2018

John Payne plays along with Slim Slow Slider at the Cambridge Public Library

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that there has been no super-deluxe reissue of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. There has however been much other commemoration, particularly in written form.

One such item is local musician Ryan Walsh's book Astral Weeks: A secret history of 1968. Walsh led a presentation today at the Cambridge Public Library featuring most of the musicians from the band Morrison led in the Boston area in 1968 which first played the songs that ended up on the album, only to be replaced at the record company's insistence by studio cats for the recording.

The panel consisted of Walsh and three of the Boston musicians - John Payne (flute), Tom Kielbania (bass), Joey Bebo (drums). It was an enjoyable, but pretty standard panel discussion, but something amazing happened at the end.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for December 1, 2018

A broad century-spanning program featuring few items from the German jazz label MPS, and a couple of items from the soon to be (or maybe not) lamentably late Free Music Archive.

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See the playlist after the break...