KWVA Playlist for Friday, Feb 3, 2006

There are days I leave the station tired, cranky and wondering why I drag myself out of bed at 3:30 in the morning for this junk. Then there are days like today when I get to hear some new great music, I get to talk to some listeners, and I just feel all around great about life. This morning was the latter of those two scenarios. It was just a fun morning to be awake and playing music. I learned this morning that there are people who work that early and listen to the show. I figured my common listener was still awake from the night before and most likely drunk or otherwise stoned. Little did I realize. I misjudged y'all, I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive.

If you missed them, here's the show in for parts. I apologize for the third part, which is excessively long because I didn't cut it off at the appropriate moment. I try to keep these short for easy download.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

And here's the set list. I'm sorry that I can't break down the list by section, because I just don't remember:

Cat Power – After It All
VHS or Beta – You Got Me
Subways – Oh Yeah
Beastie Boys – Funky Boss (by request)
The Clash – Career Opportunity (by request)
Dead Kennedies – Take This Job and Shove It (yeah, this one too)
Lifesavas – Happiness
We Are Scientists – Inaction
Dangerdoom – Old Skool
The Flaming Lips – The Wand
His Name Is Alive – After I Leave You
MIA – Pull Up The People
Petra Haden – God Only Knows
Teenage Fanclub – Save
Cake On Cake – Lonely Song
Devandra Barnhardt – Queen Bee
Minus 5 – Cemetery Row
Aeroplane Pageant – He Is Fire
Tender Forever – Then If I’m Weird I Want To Share
Raconteurs – Steady As She Goes
Supastition – that Ain’t Me
Colossus – You A Grown Man
Belle and Sebastian – Act of the Apostle
Bonnie Prince Billie and Tortoise – Daniel
Laura Cantrell – Letters
Arab Strap – Don't Ask Me To Dance
Catfish Haven – Madelin
Antony - Fistful of Love

Highlights: We had a lot of really great music come through today. I've been sitting on Devandra Barnhardt for a long time and I must confess I'm a big fan. Teenage Fanclub was a pop masterpiece. The Raconteurs is as great as can be expected and Belle and Sebastian was better than I expected. The Lifesavas track "Happiness" is off the tribute albums To: Elliott, From: Portland and I played it out of confusion and fascination. How would Elliott Smith sound, I wondered, covered by a hip hop act? It sounded, I must confess, pretty durn good. Shows me for questioning that. But I draw your attention to two tracks this week.

Cake on Cake is swedish, and until this morning I knew nothing about her. Comparisons to Mirah are entirely appropriate, but she's a little more beat happy than that. But they are both equally expirimental. I haven't digested the entire album yet, but every track I've sampled has been really nice. It's long, trackwise, boasting a full 20 tracks, but hardly any of them reach past two minutes. Give it a listen:

Cake on Cake - Lonely Song

The Flaming Lips. New track. Nuff said? Well, almost enough said. I should comment that I am really excited about the new album after hearing this track. I think they're really moving towards a traditional psychedelic sound. The vocals are layered in a very Queen-esque way (which is no surprise since they just covered "Bohemian Rhapsody." The leading guitar has almost a Kinks quality to it. I'm really impressed that they're keeping things fresh and interesting album by album. At no point do I feel like they're just regurgitating the same sound of their previous works. It's orchestrated and layered beautifully. Mostly I'm glad it doesn't sound too much like Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. No disrespect to the album, because I really do like it, it's just not the vein I wanted them to follow. I'm not sure how the rest of the album will proceed, but the layering is a really interesting way to present Wayne Coyne's vocals. A lot of people are turned off by the Coyne's voice, and that's really not noticable here. I personally like Coyne's voice, but that's just me.

The Flaming Lips - The Wand

Requests: I received without a doubt, the best request I have ever received in my life. A listener here in Eugene suffers from a horrible boss. He wanted to hear some music to reflect the awfullness (yeah it's a word... lemme alone!) of his boss. That was such a great request I granted it three times over, with the row of songs about bad work from The Beastie Boys, The Clash and The Dead Kennedies. I also, upon the recommendation of Daniel from Tennessee, gave Catfish Haven a second chance. This new track grabbed me more and compelled me to listen further to the rest of the EP. I still need to listen to the entire thing, but I'm definately more interested now. It's good to open up the mind and give things another listen.

Next Show: Next Friday at 4 in the morning. The next day, Saturday Feb. 11 I'll be filling in for an absent DJ from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Can I tell you how excited I am to do something for an audience that is a little more awake? Good times. Somewhere down the line, in February I'm going to do a One Band / One Hour for Petra Haden. Woot! Details will appear as they are solidified.