John Richards

The Verve released "The Verve EP" on this day in 1992! 'Verve' was the first studio release by the English rock band. The cover was shot in Richard Ashcroft's flat in Wigan, England. The blurred person on the cover is Ashcroft's then-girlfriend, Sarah Carpenter.

Following the release of Laughing Stock in 1991, Mark Hollis decided to retire from the music business to focus on his family, effectively bringing the Talk Talk era to a close. 'Laughing Stock' turned 30 years old this year!

Hi John! My name is Nina and my family listens to the morning show religiously. My sister Maddie is turning the big 24 today and I'm requesting I Only Said by My Bloody Valentine for her. == The 6th track on 'Loveless,' guitar-driven and accompanied with the good old feeling of nostalgia for events that never happened. Oh, the wonders of shoegaze. During the recording process for 'Loveless', the band hired nineteen different studios and several engineers during the album's prolonged recording, with its final production cost rumoured to have reached £250,000 (equivalent to £480,000 in 2021). And it was worth every penny! (Or is it pence?)

Happy birthday to Catherine Wheel guitarist, Brian Futter! -- In a 2006 interview, Rob Dickinson described "crank" as British slang for an odd or eccentric person. When he sings "call me crank," he's actually referring to how he views himself, and that he's comfortable in acknowledging that he's a bit unusual. These days, Rob spends his time restoring classic Porsches: bit.ly -- Watch Catherine Wheel perform "Crank" live on MTV's 120 Minutes in August 1993: youtu.be

'Spooky' is the second studio album by English rock, shoegaze band, Lush. The album was produced by Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins, released in 1992!

'Makthaverskan don’t sound at all like they belong in this era. Heavily inspired by mid-'80s post-punk and baroque pop, they sound like they should be a Factory Records-signee alongside Joy Division rather than their (albeit great) home of Run For Cover. Even the slight crackle in their recordings make them sound like a long-lost cassette import your cousin sent you when they went to Sweden for the summer." -- KEXP (bit.ly) För Allting is out now! makthaverskan.bandcamp.com

The War on Drugs will be at The Paramount Theatre on February 21st and 22nd, 2022. bit.ly -- 'I Don't Live Here Anymore' is the 5th album by The War on Drugs, released earlier this year. The record was recorded at seven different studios over the course of three years! (bit.ly) www.thewarondrugs.net

Happy birthday to Tim Butler, bass player and songwriter of The Psychedelic Furs (and Love Spit Love)! Official Music Video Here: youtu.be

Aeon Station is the latest project of The Wrens’ Kevin Whelan! Observatory will be out December 10th (this Friday!) on Sub Pop. 'Whelan describes his writing on Observatory as “fastball,” plainspoken and direct, motivational without being cloying, the sort of pep talks people usually wish they’d get from a higher-up at the office.' bit.ly

“This song really hits home for me after what we’ve gone through with the pandemic. But even before then, it felt like so many of us were trading real life for social media, trading our own stories for the storylines on TV, trading our consciousness for drugs. We need to help each other wake up to real love before it’s too late.” --Jim James of My Morning Jacket. (bit.ly) Official Video: www.youtube.com My Morning Jacket (Self-Titled) is out now! - www.mymorningjacket.com

Double requests for Kate today! "Hey, hi, hello:) my name is Hilari, and it is my best good friend, Gabby’s, 40th birthday today. She has had a rough year and deserves some Kate Bush this morning. Thank you for all that you do and reminding us, each and every day, that we are not alone." And happy birthday to Susie, who requested Hounds of Love! ======= The music video for Hounds of Love (which was directed by Kate Bush herself) was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's film The 39 Steps. Check it out here: www.youtube.com

We've just got our hands on a new Superchunk singled called “Endless Summer” featuring the harmonies of Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley. The track is the first offering from their new album Wild Loneliness. Recorded at home in North Carolina during lockdown the new album arrives February 25th via Merge Records. In addition to Teenage Fanclub, Wild Loneliness features guest spots from Sharon Van Etten, R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, Wye Oak’s Andy Stack, Tracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura, Owen Pallett, Kelly Pratt, and Franklin Bruno. Superchunk embark on a North American tour in support of Wild Loneliness in late February, and tickets go on sale this Friday, December 10, at 10am local time. 04-04 Seattle, WA - Neumos

As requested by Dave... -- "... I vowed to myself that I would write less comic narratives and try to express my sentiments in a more forthright way. I feel I succeeded with "Bittersweet" though at the time I didn't think that a) the band would want to play it and b) our audience would want to hear it. I was happily wrong on both counts." - wrote Dave Faulkner. Bittersweet is about a relationship that didn’t work out, though they both have fond memories and obviously still care for each other. Although they grow older and apart, it’s clear that they still remain in at least some contact with each other, and it’s difficult for them to reconcile the feeling of having these fond memories mixed with the pain of the break-up. The song is, indeed, bittersweet!

"After moving to Austin, TX, I still miss KEXP and stream it everyday. No other radio station will do! I love the shoe gaze this morning! Can you please play my favorite Austin, TX dream pop band - Blushing?" Gretchen == Austin shoegaze 4-piece, Blushing have just released a new single featuring Miki from Lush/Piroshka from their forthcoming LP “Possessions” out February 18, 2022 KEXP quite recently premiered this track, which you can still view here: www.kexp.org weareblushing.bandcamp.com

Happy birthday to singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, legend, Tom Waits! 25 Things You Might Not Know About Tom Waits: bit.ly

In lieu of PJ Harvey's sample of Instanbul (Not Constantinople) in that last track, here's They Might Be Giant's version of this The Four Lads' track.

Possibly the best song written about punk rock girls asking for tea at Philly Pizza Company and driving stolen cars.

This is the first song on the first Violent Femmes album, introducing the band with the famous guitar riff and snare hits. The band made inroads with songs like this one about adolescent insecurities delivered in a deprecating tone. Lead singer and song writer Gordon Gano was just 19 when the album was released. A cover by mxmtoon of this song was featured in the new 2021 game, Life is Strange: True Colors!

"I never thought that Take the Skinheads Bowling would become a Hit. If someone had traveled from the future and told me we would have a hit on our first album I would not have picked this song as being the hit. Not in a million years. I would have more likely picked Where the Hell is Bill." -- songwriter, David Lowery

This was the opening song from the "opening album" by R.E.M. R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry once noted about this song, "Most fans may not realize that for two years before Murmur was released, we barely made financial ends meet by playing tiny clubs around the southeast. Our gasoline budget prevented us from venturing further. Put simply, our existence was impoverished. College radio and major city club scenes embraced this song and expanded our audience to the extent that we moved from small clubs to medium-sized venues and the additional revenue made it possible to logically pursue this wild musical endeavor. I dare not contemplate what our fate would have been had this song not appeared when it did.”

Once upon a time, the band called themselves 'The Salvation Army' before changing it due to the obvious conflict with the actual organization of the same name. They were thereafter known as The Three O'Clock. Following it's release, "Jet Fighter" became a national college radio hit.

In a recorded interview in the 1990s, guitarist Marc Moreland, who was the first to start writing the song, stated, "It was basically just me singing 'I'm on a Mexican radio' over and over again". Moreland added that, when he played it for his mother, she hated it because of his repetitious lyrics.

The band's first album, Life's Too Good, was an unexpected hit in 1988. It cemented the Sugarcubes as the Iceland's biggest international breakout musical act. The Sugarcubes were often touted as pioneers or saviors of British independent music, but they considered themselves a distinctly Icelandic band separate from the British scene. "We don't see ourselves as part of the British independent scene," Örn said. "Same as we don't see us as part of the mainstream. We see us as very much removed from that." bit.ly

On Channel Z: “Probably our most straightforward political song up until then,” says Fred Schneider of the B-52's in a 2008 interview. “It was about the state of the country. And who knew nearly 20 years later it’d be worse?” (bit.ly) And who knew that 13 more years later... never mind.

'Left of the Dial" is, in fact, a love song. Not only to college radio (the low-wattage, non-commercial stations found at the lower end of the FM spectrum), but to a specific person. Westerberg has revealed in interviews that the song was directed towards Angie Carlson, guitarist in Let's Active, whom Westerberg met and became smitten with on tour. (bit.ly)

A song Costello wrote after his frustration with the BBC's censorship of the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen." In 2003 he told Rolling Stone: "There's a real skill to programming in an intelligent way, but nobody does that anymore. It's all done by computer, by committee. Radio is absolutely the enemy of music. They are my sworn and mortal enemy, and I will have nothing to do with them."

Keeping the radio theme going today on the radio! This song was purposefully omitted from the band’s debut LP "Unknown Pleasures," because of their adamant belief in keeping albums and singles separate. Not unlike the artwork on the album, which features a wave plotting of pulsar CP 1919 on its cover, the 7-inch sleeve for “Transmission” originally featured the Orion Nebula, that was in 1880 the first celestial object of its kind to ever be photographed. --- Bassist Peter Hook on playing this song for the first time: "We played the new song, which was ‘Transmission’ – and everyone in the whole place stopped literally what they were doing to listen and to turn round and watch us. It was an absolutely bizarre moment. It really made the hair on your arms stand up and shivers down your spine.” -www.youtube.com

This 1981 single was first issued in 7-inch format, and later in 12-inch format and on cassette. This track is not featured on any of The Clash's original studio albums, however, it is included in multiple compilations. The first public performance of the song was on Tom Snyder's Tomorrow show on June 5, 1981. Watch that performance here: youtu.be

This song by Siouxsie and the Banshees was inspired by the book The Three Faces of Eve by Corbett Thigpen and Hervey Cleckley, a story about a real life woman named Christine “Chris” Costner Sizemore, who was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID) at a young age. bit.ly Official Music Video here: youtu.be

Found on the third album from Concrete Blonde, this hit single from the L.A. band is not actually about a Joey, but Marc Moreland from Wall of Voodoo.

'Til Tuesday on a Tuesday. There is debate over the subject of the inspiration for this song. One claim says that an argument between Michael Hausman and bandmate/former girlfriend Aimee Mann inspired the song's lyrics, but producer Mike Thorne disputes this and states the lyrics originally had Mann singing to another woman and that the gender was changed due to pressure from Epic Records. In his 2013 autobiography, Ministry: The Lost Gospels According to Al Jourgensen, Ministry frontman Al Jourgensen made the claim that the song is based on a brief relationship he had with Mann while living in Boston. bit.ly

The Emperor's New Clothes was a fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1837. As the story goes, an emperor orders fine clothing, is given nothing, yet told that what he is wearing is magnificent, though invisible to underlings. When he parades naked down the street, the people pretend to marvel at his clothes until a child points out that he is naked. In O'Connor's song, she sings about her own personal tribulations amid oppression and judgement.

'Tuesday Morning' on a Tuesday morning on the Tuesday Morning Show. #grammar

"Though "So Alive" fully launched Love and Rockets into the American public consciousness, it was "No New Tale to Tell" which first got them noticed beyond their fanbase and that of eighties alt-rock. In contrast to Daniel Ash's relaxed, straightforward T. Rex swing on "So Alive," "No New Tale to Tell" is David J.'s number for the most part, letting him indulge his gift for bemused lyrical wordplay and observation with a crisp arrangement." (bit.ly)

Closing track found on 1987's 'Come On Pilgrim'. In the book “Fool the World”, John Murphy gives some insight on the process of recording the song, and on why this is one of the Pixies songs with the most songwriter credits on it: On “Levitate Me,” the chorus at the end where is like, yelling – Charles was asleep, and they did their recording in seventy-two hours of rolling time, freezing cold, so while some people were sleeping they were still working. Somebody came up with the idea and Dave and Kim were the ones doing the vocals to that while Charles was sleeping, and then when he woke up they played it for him and he was like, “Oh, that’s cool, let’s keep it.” Charles gave credit to everybody in the world who wrote that song, too. His girlfriend Jean came up with a couple of words, he threw her in as a songwriter credit." (bit.ly)

Mission of Burma played Live on KEXP back in 2009. You can still watch some of that that session here: youtu.be missionofburma.com

The name 'Galaxie 500' was inspired by a friend of the band's car. Though criminally overlooked in their own lifetime, Galaxie 500 later emerged as one of the pivotal underground groups of the post-punk era; dreamy and enigmatic, their minimalist dirges presaged the rise of both the shoegaze and slowcore movements of the 1990s. (bit.ly) galaxie500.bandcamp.com

Former Faith No More frontman Chuck Mosley co-wrote their parody of the Live Aid generation of rock superstars. In an interview, Mosley said: “Roddy had this song [We Care a Lot] he had come up with overnight. My initial response… To be perfectly honest, it was the least challenging to me. It was a little bit more commercial than what I was used to being part of. Especially after all of a sudden being in a position where you had a single, and you had to make sure you’d play it every night. I’m a punk rock rebel, so I had to complain about it – ‘God dang, this is so commercial!’ I thought I was above that, and it was below me. It was fun to sing for a while, then it started feeling kind of silly to me. But it was Roddy’s song, and Roddy has a total taste and ear for catchy hooks. Coming from that perspective, I totally respect anything he does, but I felt it was a little soft.” Read more about the story behind this song and album here: www.loudersound.com

Throwback to 2015 when Seattle's The Stranger interviewed "still angry" John Lydon of The Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd.: www.thestranger.com

"Left of Center" is a song written by Suzanne Vega and Steve Addabbo, which was released as part of the soundtrack to the 1986 film Pretty in Pink. It features Joe Jackson on piano!

Good morning, happy Tuesday, and welcome to the Midday show with the ebullient Cheryl Waters! Thank you so much for listening! -- Meg Duffy (Hand Habits) will be at The Tractor Tavern on February 18th, 2022. --- Their lovely new song, "More Than Love," was chosen by Cheryl as today's KEXP Song of the Day: www.kexp.org