Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for September 16, 2017

As I said, I had three weeks to put the show together, but didn't finish it until almost 11.

The usual mix of jazz and what-have-you, with a few pop songs in the middle. The Cassini space probe is mourned, as are John Abercrombie, Grant Hart (through a third party) and the Cambridge nightclub Nightstage (which actually closed decades ago.) Plus "a genuine example of Socialist Realist 'machine music.'"

Mixcloud, for some reason, is not accepting my playlists when I enter them. I tried twice only to have them rejected because of unspecified errors, throwing all the work away. Sorry. (I'm not trying to drive extra traffic to the blog.)

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playlist after the break...

Webcast info for September 2, 2017

The Somerville Media Center is closed for Labor Day weekend, so unfortunately you will not be able to rest your weary weary bones to a live presentation of Unpopular Music.

Update: It was a big "if."

If all goes as planned, the episode from October 03, 2015 will be rebroadcast. This is the same one which was to rebroadcast back in July, but didn't due to some studio renovations taking place that day.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for August 26, 2017

This week my habitual walking around shuffle play music brought up a few things that made me want to go back and take a closer listen, as it often does. And as it often does, that led me to add them to the potential Unpopular Music playlist. However, this week some of those tracks were really long.
The instinct was not to do this. But otherwise lacking inspiration (again, this week, I know...) I went ahead.

Is it too lazy to do this? Why not, it's your program. They're all music that rewards the attentive listener, so, yeah, three tracks for the second hour.

I'll be off the next two weeks, so hopefully I'll use the time to recharge. (or at least stack up some music to play.)



See the playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for August 19, 2017

When I came around to put the week's program together, I really wasn't up to it. So the first half of the program is a what played on my phone's shuffle play this past week. It also skews a bit towards the "difficult listening" side of things.

The second hour stands as my contribution to the voices against today's "free-speech rally" on Boston Common. It's mostly culled from previous episodes where I felt the urge to make a statement through other people's music, like my pre-election program, 4th of July etc.

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See for yourself after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast - August 12, 2017

A set for (or rather, from) a hot lazy day. A bunch of long tracks in the first hour. More or less normal in the second. I wish I'd kept that metallic percussion segment going a little longer.

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See for yourself after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for August 5, 2017

Is it just me or does August always look like it's misspelled?

A mostly jazzy, somewhat lazily-compiled set today, although with a couple of curve balls.

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See for yourself after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for July 29, 2017

Mostly the program prepared for July 15, so I could get to bed early last night.

A pretty jazzy first hour leads to a freeform second hour with a few poppy things, followed by a trip through the renaissance and then to a bluesy ending.

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The archive will be posted later than usual this weekend,

see the playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for July 22, 2017

In a program completely reassembled this morning, we try to break up the usual formula. So on offer we present, among other things, tracks from two of the essential jazz albums of 1993, summer jams (and remember these are my summer jams (one of which breaks the Unpopular Music Manifesto, but also is the Unpopular Music Manifesto)), some early music, and some electronic doo-dads.

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See for yourself after the break...

Webcast info for July 15, 2017

Due to some problems with the computer at BFR central control, there will be no webcast today.

Webcast info for July 8, 2017

Please note - this is not my family, nor am I in France. There are cows nearby though.

Update: or not. As you were.

There's a family to-do out of town this weekend, so today we are presenting an episode from the archives, specifically the episode from October 3, 2015. The original posting described this program as "quite possible to enjoy"

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for July 1, 2017

No festive holiday programming for 4th of July (or Canada Day for that matter, not even Paul Bley), just the usual jazz and other for the last full day of the first half of the year.

We do pay a brief tribute to the late Geri Allen, who unfortunately is one of those musicians who always impressed and intrigued me, but whose work I've never gotten around to exploring in depth.

There is some accidental continuity throughout. In most of the first set selections, fours and eights are traded with the drummer in various ways. The selections for the second hour's set feature many quotations.

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See the playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for June 24, 2017

So this is the episode where I break one of the primary rules of programming Unpopular Music. It was a situation where I was looking for a track of a certain length of a certain character and it was a FM classic rock staple that ended up fitting the bill.

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Otherwise, we have a wide ranging program featuring some of the tracks I felt didn't fit together two weeks ago, now joined by more compatible music. The jazz is somewhat front-loaded, the second hour is a bit string heavy, before acquiring a quasi-African vibe. More in the Unpopular Music tradition we have musicians from the jazz and early-music worlds jamming on common ground, a punk band with a jazz drummer sitting in playing an Ethiopian song, a jazz interpretation of a baroque aria, free-jazzers playing a hard bop classic, and more.

See the playlist after the break...

Webcast info for June 17, 2017

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Due to a work obligation, and the closure of the Somerville Media Center (located at the bottom of Prospect Hill) for Bunker Hill Day, we will be rebroadcasting the episode from February 27, 2016.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for June 10, 2017

Take two.

A kind of chaotic morning. Then when I get to the studio, instead of a film crew blocking the studio door, there was a large gathering of preteen girls filling the Somerville Media Center for some sort of event put on by the Nepali Women's Global Network.

As for the show, it's okay I guess. Mostly jazz, with a few curveballs, I didn't have a lot of time this week to work on the show, and what I had left in my "holding pen" playlist didn't really hang together. Hopefully this show hangs together well enough.

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See the playlist after the break...

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for June 3, 2017

Kind of a jazz heavy program, featuring some new(ish) acquisitions to the Unpopular Music library. However, we also visit Bach and Björk. There are some sotto voce mic breaks as a crew from the 48 film project had taken over the Somerville Media Center lobby.

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And of course, just because I had three weeks to prepare doesn't mean I didn't throw it together at the last minute. I also ended up giving myself he last minute challenge of finding something 3:10 - 3:20 that could bridge Coltrane and Björk.

See the playlist after the break...

Webcast info for May 27, 2017

Seeing as the Somerville Media Center is closed for the holiday weekend, today we are rebroadcasting the program from April 16, 2016. You may also be interested in the Memorial Day/potty-mouthed Sun Ra centennial episode from May 24, 2014.

Webcast info for May 20, 2017

I'm out of town this weekend, so in place of a live show, we will rebroadcast the episode from February 4, 2017.

Take a trip back to the early days of the Trump administration. I spent the first part of the morning at Somerville's sanctuary city rally. Listening back earlier this week, my little spiel about the event possibly makes it sound like I, myself, am an immigrant, which is not the case, although my grandfather was. I just think the vast majority of these folks are just trying to make a life for themselves, and mostly don't cause any real trouble, and should be given a chance, and the  average American, even the above or below average American as well, have nothing to fear..

As for the music, it's one of the better of my recent episodes, some folks on Mixcloud think so, too. Like America, it draws on a far flung variety of sources, somewhat influenced by the issues of the day.

We'll be back next week with a new program.

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for May 13, 2017

Having heard the Neil Young song "Hey Hey, My My" earlier this week (in the version presented in the program) I decided to start describing the program as "the more of the picture that doesn't meet the eye." Clever, no? Well, we'll see.

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As for the program itself, it starts out jazzy and the winds down other paths, culminating an FM classic rock radio staple played on toy instruments.


Peruse the playlist after the break....

Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for May 6, 2017

Here we are once again. I actually felt worse after last week's show, not better, but ended up listening to a lot of music in that low energy time and came up with an easy list of things to play. It's a mostly (but not exclusively) jazz show, but within the wide range of sounds that word provides.

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See the playlist after the break....

Down the memory hole with Dave's Record Collection

Having named the webcast "Unpopular Music", several people have assumed this is the sort of thing I play. (Look right for the true explanation. I mean, I have played one of the records in the first segment, and there some things I would play (like Lawrence Welk playing "Don't think twice, it's alright", Sam the Drummer, or those generic radio commercials) if I had them, but it's not what the program's about.