I’ve always had a soft spot for The Band… My parents were big fans and my Dad gave me his vinyl copies of Music From Big Pink and The Basement Tapes when I was very young. Plus, my Grandmother still lives in up-state New York, not too far from Big Pink… Dylan’s work with the band always puts a smile on my face, so I hope you enjoy today’s Dylan feature, written and produced by Michele Myers. This is the story of Big Pink, the big house in the country where Dylan worked with the Band. The Band’s Robbie Robertson reveals one of the secrets to Dylan’s songwriting.

Listen to a First-Hand Story from Robbie Robertson, set to “The Weight” by The Band - (WMA, Real)

Listen to more of Honest With Me.

My Current Obsession is Under Byen, “Samme Stof Som Stof”

As a regular listener to the afternoon show, you know I’ve been playing lots of Scandinavian and Nordic bands lately. Not sure what’s going on up/over there, but damn, there’s lots of great new music coming out of that part of the world recently, like Sigur Ros, Mugison, and Emiliana Torrini out of Iceland; Love Is All, David & the Citizens, Radio LXMBRG, and Nicolai Dunger from Sweden, Mi and L’au from Finland (and France); Norway’s Serena-Maneesh; and from Denmark, the Figurines and my current obsession Under Byen.

Under Byen create a sound unlike any other band…sure, you’ll notice a little Bjork in the vocal, and a little Sigur Ros in the musical moods and glacial time shifts, but like much of the best music, Under Byen defies classification and comparison. Violin and cello melt into synthesizers colliding with metallic percussion. Bells, chimes, and otherworldly saw take you to new highs only to be grounded by raw feedback and noise. Sweet and comforting, then metallic and brutal. Beautiful and distinctive. Words fail, so enough with them, listen for yourself:

Af samme stof som stof - (MP3)
Den her sang handler om at få det bedste ud af det - (MP3)

Let me know what you think…

Hope you’re well. Today debuted French band Prototypes. It’s sweet, will be playing a lot of it but not out until August. Also the new Fleet Foxes record, local band, VERY promising. Speaking of local, debuted a new Common Market remix you should hear if you missed it. Also played Black Angels and Ghostland Observatory again today. BIG surprise there. If you haven’t heard, August 13th the GLO will play the KEXP BBQ! More details soon….

Some other new things today include the new Keane, Silversun Pickups, Phoenix and Lansing-Drieden….plus a bunch of old REM…..good times.

Here’s my morning

4:15AM - Slept in until 4:15AM
4:15:01AM - Realize that if you’re “sleeping in” until 4:15am something is wrong with you.
4:25AM - Wonder if I want to spend the 2 or 3 minutes shaving my face
4:30AM - Still no decision and realize I stood there for 5 minutes wondering if I should spend 2 or 3 minutes shaving
4:45AM - Put on new shirt
4:45-5AM - Drive to station, stop at a light that the city changed so it always is red when I get there. No cars are ever going the other way when I sit there. Picture some evil man watching me every morning on some camera sitting at the light like a dumb ass laughing while he eats a donut and says every day “I wonder if he’ll run it today?” I never do, I know I’m being watched.
5:01AM - Realize I might be paranoid
5:02AM - Realize that my shirt is too long. Wearing a “medium” sucks. It is always too long. Or maybe I’m too short? I tuck it in the front of my belt American Idol style
5:03AM - Realize I thought the words “American Idol style” outloud.
6AM - Start show
6-9AM - Drink around 18 cups of coffee
9:45AM - A delegation who work in radio from Nepal stop by and tour the booth
10AM - Cheryl and I talk about Jug bands

Those of you who bother to download our Music That Matters podcasts know that John likes to make fun of me. He also makes fun of me on the air. And that’s fine with me. I can take a joke. If I couldn’t take a joke, John wouldn’t make fun of me. If there is anything positive I can say about John it’s that he’s not a mean person. But what I take issue with are things that are not true. Here are some things that are true about me, that are very easy to make fun of:

1. I am going bald
2. I am a little too into the Simpsons
3. I am not good with women
4. I was Santa at the Yule Benefit and I was really that hammered
5. My beard is pretty weak

And these are just the first few things that come to mind. I’m sure there are a ton of things that I’m missing. Does John call me baldy? No. Does he openly wonder why I only show up at KEXP events with dudes? No. Not at all. He makes shit up!! And that’s what chaps my ass. Let’s get this straight: I have never in my life played Dungeons & Dragons. In fact, I’m sure John knows more about the game than I do. I’m not saying I’m not a geek. But I’m just not THAT kind of geek.

I am also not a drunk. The Yule Benefit notwithstanding, I drink in moderation. In fact, John has never seen me drunk because he always leaves shows early to go to bed. Even on the weekends. Yes, it’s true that I ask Cheryl to bring me tequila on her frequent trips to Mexico, but that’s because Petron is ridiculously expensive. And it’s not like any of you send me the occasional bottle of Don Julio. So what’s a man to do.

I also take issue with him referring to my dog as “the devil dog”. He is a very sweet dog. But John’s son Arlie is afraid of him. So John makes him out to be a mean dog. In fact, during a recent pledge drive a volunteer was
afraid of my dog because of John’s near-constant fabrications. And my dog is a PUG!! He’s tiny. How could anyone be afraid of a pug? It’s like being afraid of ice cream or pillows…there is nothing inherently scary about a pug.

So the next time you hear John badmouthing the KEXP webmaster you’ll know that there are two sides to every story.

-JD

Today, our Northwest Music Spotlight is on Velella Velella!

Read an excellent record preview, show preview, and an ‘Imaginary Interview’ from Three Imaginary Girls that was published just prior to the release of Velella Velella’s newest record in 2005, The Bay of Biscay.

Listen to a few songs from The Bay of Biscay…

Do Not Fold/Do Not Bend - (MP3)
Hunter - (MP3)
The Bread Is Hard As Crackers - (MP3)

KEXP is proud to present Velella Velella this Saturday, June 3 at High Dive as part of the Audioasis Live Remote Broadcast. It’s a benefit for Fare Start, featuring Cancer Rising, Mercir, Mountain Con, and The Saturday Knights. Tickets are still available at Brown Paper Tickets.

John and Cheryl are back at it… We’re excited to deliver another installment of our Music That Matters podcast. It’s loaded with great stuff! Here’s the tracklist with MP3s from some of the artists…

Vol. 16 Track Listing

1. Head Like A Kite - A Dime & A Cigarette
2. Grand National - Talk Amongst Yourselves (MP3)
3. Point Juncture, WA - Seven
4. Brief Candles - So Long
5. Asobi Seksu - New Years (MP3)
6. Mountain Con - Apocalyptic (MP4)
7. Memphis Radio Kings - I Want You To Fall (MP3)
8. Alpha Rev - Stuck In A Crowd (Prufrock Among the Cannibals)
9. The Elephants - Golden Sun (MP3)
10. The Ms - My Gun
11. Tourist - Etcetera (on and on)

For more, visit the KEXP Live Performances Archive to listen to exclusive in-studio performances from:

Asobi Seksu, 6/14/04 - (WMA, Real)

Learn more about podcasting and subscribe to this podcast. Check it out and let us know what you think!

Check out the next Audioasis live show from High Dive this Saturday! I know Cheryl is going to be there and if Cheryl is going to be there you know what that means right? Right?! Seriously, what does that mean?!

I hope you survived the three day weekend alright. I know many a MF are recovering from the hail at Sasquatch. That’s the yeti for you, never can count on them to bring the nice weather. It’s often said that the yeti wait for the first hail storm of the year to mate with unicorns. Then when the Columbia River rises in the Fall they give birth to My Little Ponies…which are then eaten by an army of Gobots, the sad distant cousins of the Transformers. I got beat up once for having a gobot and not a transformer. WTF is wrong with people? Although my gobot transformed from a truck to a guy that looked like a truck. Not so good. Feel free to send your sasquatch stories to the list for the Morning Faithful section.  We’ll be posting some stories and photos on the blog in the next day or so…
Someone just requested the band Steaming Wolf Penis on Cheryl’s show. I never thought I’d be able to get my high school’s mascot on this list but it happened. The Ferris Saxon Steaming Wolf Penises. You should have seen our uniforms! Seriously, a band named themselves that. Think about their mom explaining to a friend what they do for a living. Awesome.

Totally different from that, Arlie stopped by the station during the show today. He was totally rocking out in the booth and then almost set off the Emergency Alert System. He might have crapped his pants so that kind of was an emergency but still….we didn’t design that thing for a 21 month old. Tickets are selling FAST for the Kid’s Dance Party on Father’s Day at Chop Suey! We dads needed an event and why not make it a club with three of the best djs out there, Darek, Riz and Kevin. Not to mention the break dancing. I thought I could moon walk when I was a kid, turns out I was just walking backwards. I’ve seen the footage on the moon by the way, there was none of that going on. Now if you designed a dance where you drove a little sweet moon car in some dust and then hit a golf ball 10,000 miles or something then we’re talking moon dance….walk, whatever.

Remember Moon Raker on the Atari 2600? BEST GAME EVER. After Pitfall of course. I saw a Atari 2600 II for like 30 bucks at Fred Meyer the other day. I also saw the ugliest computer desk ever made next to a palm tree lamp. I felt like putting up a sign saying “You Don’t Have to Buy This! You Have the Power To Choose Something Else!”

KEXP Suggests… Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped (SYR/Geffen)

“The legendary New York rockers celebrate their 25th anniversary with one of their strongest albums in quite awhile. In some ways, it’s one of their most conventional releases: The songs are concise and almost poppy, with no extended noise jams (though there are still plenty of noisy bits). Nevertheless, it’s still very much Sonic Youth – the odd guitar tunings, the tension/release structure and loud/soft dynamics are all still there, but it’s all in more compact song form. And it’s the consistently strong quality of the songs that puts the album a cut above.” - Don Yates

Rather Ripped is due out June 13, but you can listen to the entire record… Check it out!

1. Reena - (WMA)
2. Incinerate - (WMA)
3. Do You Believe In Rapture? - (WMA)
4. Sleepin’ Around - (WMA)
5. What A Waste - (WMA)
6. Jams Run Free - (WMA)
7. Rats - (WMA)
8. Turquiose Boy - (WMA)
9. Lights Out - (WMA)
10. The Neutral - (WMA)
11. Pink Steam - (WMA)
12. Or - (WMA)

Visit the KEXP Live Performances Archive to listen to an in-studio performance from Sonic Youth on 7/14/2004 - (WMA, Real)

Catch Sonic Youth at The Moore on June 30 with Awesome Color.

Last week was Bob Dylan’s 65th birthday, and all this week we continue to post a series of Dylan features, brilliantly produced by our own Michele Myers. This is one of my personal favorites… Blues legends Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters influenced Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. This feature outlines the connection between Dylan and the blues. Written and told by Larry Starr and Michele Myers.

Listen to Michele and Larry talk about some of Dylan’s biggest influences, set to “Highway 61 Revisted” by Bob Dylan - (WMA, Real)

Listen to more of Honest With Me.

We’re going Old-Timey with Jug bands, County Blues & Southern Gospel, and Fonotone (78 RPM only) Records…

Joe Bussard is from Frederick, Maryland. He is a collector. Of most things really, but for our purposes, he’s into old-time American music. Pretty much anything before 1955 - but that’s stretching it. He mostly swears off anything past the “golden-age” of recordings (1927-1932) as modern trash. Ya know, if it ain’t on 78 RPM, it probably sucks. As a teenager, in the 1950s, he’d go door-to-door (trying to spot signs of old folks residing) asking if he could take home their old records. “I could look at a house and tell there were records inside”, says Joe. “I could smell them”. Over the years, he has amassed over 25,000 records. There’s been a documentary film made about Joe called “Desperate Man Blues”, articles written like “Joe Bussard Parties Like It’s 1929″, and a Village Voice piece comparing him to the Steve Buscemi character in Ghost World “..times a thousand”.

In 1956, Joe Bussard started a label (78 RPM only, of course) from his parents basement, and called it Fonotone (it sounded good). He recorded himself, friends, and eventually a young John Fahey, who recorded some of his earliest music (and only vocals, ever) with Joe under the pseudonym Blind Thomas. Mike Seeger recorded too, as Birmingham Bill. In the basement, Joe had a mic, a reel-to-reel recorder, and a record cutter - essentially a studio and manufacturing facility for his label of 78s. The label lasted from ‘56 until 1969, trying to preserve the old way and the old sound. The records didn’t go far beyond the Maryland border, and many in this day have never heard of Fonotone.

But now, the music has surfaced again, and all that revival spirit, a kinda of faux universe of old-time music in The Bussard’s basement, has been re-issued in a box-set. And who of course, would release 5 such CDs in a time-capsule of packaging - cigar box, photos, 160 page booklet, and a bottle-opener? Dust-To-Digital, who else? The same label that put together the incredible box set (that I play all the time!) Goodbye Babylon. The collection of southern gospel ranging from 1902-1960, which also is a marvel of packaging and product. And when DTD label chief, Lance Ledbetter was assembling the source material for what would become Goodbye Babylon, he noticed that this guy Bussard had about 70% of the material from his personal collection of 25,000 records. Soon, Lance was helping with Joe’s 78 RPM-only radio show “Country Classics” on WREK-FM, and then the idea was realised to re-issue the Fonotone catalogue. This is the kind of stuff The Roadhouse lives for. And why you listen to community, member-supported radio, right?

Listen to the second hour of my show this week and check the feature set on Joe Bussard and his Fonotone Records. And read more about this eccentric, and his vision of what good music really is “…jazz died in 1934″ and “…country music is hillbilly music - when they stopped calling it that, there were no more barns, hay or chicken, just ballrooms with crystal chandeliers!”