John Richards

Good morning, happy Friday, and welcome to The Morning Show with John Richards! Remember that you are not alone. --- The Hidden Cameras are a Toronto band. Fronted by singer-songwriter Joel Gibb, the band consists of a varying roster of musicians who play what Gibb once described as "gay church folk music".: www.thehiddencameras.com -- Read the rather grim lyrics to the 2003 song, "Day Is Dawning": genius.com

This week, in honor of KEXP's 50th anniversary, we're spotlighting the music of 2003! -- Death Cab for Cutie's fabulous fourth album was released that year. -- They'll probably play many songs from "Transatlanticism" at The Paramount on Thursday, October 27th.

In 2017, The Long Winters' John Roderick performed "Cinnamon" live for KEXP listeners at Little London Plane during Upstream Music Fest. Roderick was joined by Sean Nelson (KEXP, Harvey Danger), former Long Winters drummer (and 4AD head) Nabil Ayers, and musician, engineer, and longtime Long Winters member Eric Corson (Perfume Genius, Los Campesinos).: www.youtube.com

Seattle's The Fire Theft was composed of three-fourths of Sunny Day Real Estate. They released a debut self-titled album in 2003. -- KEXP's Dusty Henry wrote about The Fire Theft's debut self-titled album back in 2018: www.kexp.org -- Check out the music video for "Chain" here: www.youtube.com

Another 2003 classic! Enjoy an oral history of The Wrens' wonderful "The Meadowlands": bit.ly -- See The Wrens perform "This Boy Is Exhausted' live in 2009: www.youtube.com

Thanks for The New Pornographers this morning, John! I think I may have just woke up the rest of the household with my spontaneous "na-na-na's"! :-D --- "Introducing for the first time Phil on the microphone, Sing all hail, what will be revealed today? And we appeal to the great unknown from the land of the throne.” Phil? That's Neko Case on lead vocals.: bit.ly -- Check out several sessions with The New Pornographers live in the KEXP studio: www.youtube.com

"Morning bad. John good." -- This 2003 song pines for an older age of ska music and the "rude boys" who represented its most dedicated fans. A “Rude boy” in this context is a performer or enthusiast of ska music, like “Walt Jabsco”, the guy in the 2-Tone Records logo…Additionally, the song is thoroughly laced with references to The Specials, The Selecter, The Beat (British band) and other ska bands.: genius.com -- See a live version from 2007: www.youtube.com

hey good morning john! I'm just waking in an overcast Los Angeles morning and would love to hear 2003’s cheerful ‘golden’ by my morning jacket if it wasn’t playing yet! happy Friday my brother! cheers! Rik -- American Songwriter looked at this fine song in depth: "'Golden,' the third cut on My Morning Jacket’s third album, puts Jim James in the company of great metaphysical poets like John Donne, and raises questions that it doesn’t care to explicitly answer." Read the entire essay: americansongwriter.com

Heather from West Seattle here. Thank you so much for the show yesterday, to all of the dj's. I am the daughter to a father who passed away from cancer, a healthcare provider to folks affected by cancer in all the ways, and now a person with cancer. Eff cancer! Processing through people's stories and the music... let's just say that my therapist thanks you! Looking forward to yell singing and dancing it off this morning. If NAD grey cell green fits, could we hear that? Love and peace always! --- "Ah, sweet lovin' Christ...that's a grrreat song!" -- Did you know that there's a Gray Cell Green climbing route in Joshua Tree National Park?: www.mountainproject.com

“You Get What You Give” became the signature song of the New Radicals, released as the lead single from their only album Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too. The song received critical acclaim, with Rolling Stone calling it one of the greatest One Hit Wonder songs and later calling it one of the best songs of the 90s. In an interview, U2 lead guitarist the Edge is quoted saying "You Get What You Give" is the song he is "most jealous of. I really would love to have written that." -- See the official music video: www.youtube.com

John!!! happy Friday, we made it through another week. Congrats the you & the Radioheads on your Ragnar relay. I ran the VT100K last weekend, & I appreciated having a variety of random songs stuck in my head throughout the day, many from your runcast...Camp Cope's running with the hurricane got me through some low spots in the race...hope you have a great weekend. --Scout -- Camp Cope will be at The Crocodile on Saturday, July 30th. -- "The only way out is up..." See them perform this song live: www.youtube.com And, then get it for yourself as a free KEXP Song of the Day: www.kexp.org

Ahhh....the Friday song! ("That's not screaming, Dad." The playlist thanks you, Henry!) -- You can listen to yesterday's "Music Heals: Beyond Cancer" day-long programming on KEXP's streaming archive for two weeks: www.kexp.org

Like this? Jessie Ware will be at The Neptune Theatre on Tuesday, November 15th, 2022 -- “‘Free Yourself’ is the beginning of a new era for me,” Ware said in a statement. “I’m so excited for people to have this song for the end of their summer; to dance, to feel no inhibitions, and to feel joyful because that’s how I’ve been feeling recently being able to tour again and being able to sing again. Enjoy yourself, Free Yourself!”

"Say Something" was written by Kylie in 2019 with Jonathan Green and long-time collaborators Ash Howes and Richard Stannard. She stated that the song "is about all of our eternal quest for love" and searching for "something or someone out there that you can relate to." -- Portraying Kylie as a Space Age Hollywood actress, the "inter-galactic" video was inspired by 1970s psychedelia and The Great Gatsby (1925).= It depicts the singer travelling through the universe whilst mounted upon a golden horse sculpture, shooting lasers from her hands and flying on a hovercraft.: www.youtube.com

Hi John & Morning Show Crew- Amelia Rose is 9 today! This girl loves Dolly Parton, (she even has a chicken named Dolly Peepin) so if you could play something for her, that would be amazing! Thanks so much! Liz, Amplifying from Missoula, MT

That's Dolly Parton's duet partner, Kenny Rogers, on lead vocals on this song written by Mickey Newbury. Before The First Edition, the song was first recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis.

Introducing this song in concert, Jimi Hendrix said: "We'd like to do a frustrating kind of song for you. It's called 'Manic Depression' - it's a story 'bout a cat wishin' he could make love to music, instead of the same old everyday woman." -- This is one of the more unusual songs performed in 3/4 waltz time. The loping time signature gives the song a very unusual feel and contributes to the feeling of disorientation.

2003! -- Jack White referred to Elephant as his “guitar album”. Elephant is teeming with wild, combative guitar playing courtesy of White’s Airline ‘JB Hutto’ Res-O-Glass through an EHX Big Muff Pi then a DigiTech Whammy, and Fender Twin and Silvertone 1485 amps.: guitar.com

“Something to entertain you whilst social distancing,” reads McClintock’s video caption. See "Raining Lobsters": www.youtube.com

Bill McClintock has combined Danzig's "Mother" with Donna Summer's "Bad Boys" to create Donzig's "Bad Mother."

Enjoy this mystery Frankenstein track: a mash-up of the originally cathartic and meditative "This Year" off of The Mountain Goats' "Sunset Tree" with the Quad City DJs-composed theme song to the iconic Warner Brothers film Space Jam.

"With their Wugazi mash-up project, Midwestern producers Cecil Otter and Swiss Andy paid sharp tribute to two iconic acts, punk titans Fugazi and hip-hop superheroes the Wu-Tang Clan." Here's a track-by-track breakdwon of the songs on this album: bit.ly

"Bleed Out" was inspired by action movies from the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, in which Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle found comfort toward the end of 2020. Darnelle writes: "Thanks to the actors and directors in the dozen or so action movies from the 60s, 70s, and 80s that I devoured while writing these songs, a practice similar to the one I used in the early days of the Mountain Goats and which was a joy to revisit. May your blood stain the concrete, the asphalt, the Miami streets, and the carpet of the banquet room in the upstairs of a Little Italy restaurant forever." themountaingoats.bandcamp.com

"Great rock’n’roll is like drinking two hundred espressos in two minutes, whether it’s 'God Save The Queen' or 'Motor City Is Burning' or 'Street Fighting Man.' That’s what you’ve got to reach for. You have to play each concert as if it was your last." - The Godfathers described what rock and roll is to them in a 2017 interview: bit.ly

This song is notorious for the line, "Kick out the jams, motherf--kers," shouted by lead singer Rob Tyner before the music kicks in. This line appears on the uncensored version of the album; a clean version where it is replaced with, "Kick out the jams, brothers and sisters," was used on the single and later made available on censored versions of the album. -- Watch a black-and-white film of this great Detroit band performing this song live in, where else, Detroit in 1970: www.youtube.com

This song was actually released in 2002 when the band was known as Caesar's Palace in their native Sweden and Twelve Caesars throughout the rest of Scandinavia.

They named themselves Inspiral Carpets after a clothing shop in their hometown of Oldham in Greater Manchester. Here's a biography of this fixture in the "Madchester" scene: www.amoeba.com -- That's Clint Boon playing his Farfisa organ on this track: devorahostrov.blogspot.com

Hmmm....Pixies? Have we heard them before? -- This weird and aggressive song was inspired by the cruel and surrealistic movie Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) by Spanish moviemaker Luis Bunuel. The song is about the movie "debasing" morality in the art world. -- "Debaser" has many features of a Nirvana song (opens with a bass solo, start/stop rhythms, lurching and noisy guitar solo, and loud/soft dynamics). This is because the Pixies were one of Kurt Cobain's main influences. Cobain said that when writing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" he was trying to imitate "Debaser" musically and lyrically. The guitar riffs of the two songs are very similar.

According to Kurt Cobain, this song was a throwaway song - just a bunch of random poetry lines thrown together. The title is a reference to the Nirvana song "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and its slick, radio-friendly sound. The original title for the song, "Four Month Media Blackout," is a reference to late 1991 and 1992, when "Teen Spirit" was on the charts. -- See Nirvana playing it loud in Seattle in 1993: www.youtube.com

This song (and its namesake EP) was named and written for Racer X, the mysterious masked rival and secret brother of Speed Racer. From the liner notes: The guy was just plain cool, see. He was Rex, Speed Racer’s brother, but nobody knew it. It was a big secret. Really big. Speed Racer was a pansy-ass wimp next to Racer-X. Speed, spying, machinery, little beads of sweat — he had it all. He was hooked on the excitement. Hooked on the speed. Hooked.

“Dammit Beavis,” opined Butthead in 1995, “this chick loves me. And I love her.” "Though Whale vocalist Cia Berg was already thirty when the video was shot, she sported fake braces, lasciviously licked her lollipop, and showed off her granny panties. Babydoll dress and stunning good looks aside, her voice was sultry, her lyrics evocative, her vibe geek chic bizarre.": bit.ly The video from this Swedish trio won the first MTV Europe Music Award for "Best Video" in 1994.: www.youtube.com

Bronx native Paul Daniel "Ace" Frehley is best known as the original lead guitarist and co-founder of the rock band Kiss. -- This song was written by Russ Ballard and originally released by the English band Hello in 1975. In 1978, each member of KISS released a solo album, and this was the highest-charting single of any of the songs released from those albums. Here's the story of the song and how it became a surprise hit for Frehley: www.loudersound.com

This song by Black Sabbath is consistently ranked as one of the greatest heavy metal songs of all time (and...it's a pretty good running song.). Maybe the biggest hit of Ozzy’s group, along with “Iron Man.” The lyrics were written by and about bassist Geezer Butler, whom the band often called paranoid, even though he didn’t know what the word meant. They are about Butler’s feelings as a depressed teenager and him thinking he was going insane. According to the band, the song only took 20 minutes to write. It was supposed to be just a filler song and the album was supposed to be called "War Pigs." When they released it as a single and it got very popular, however, the record label wanted them to name the album "Paranoid."

If I were you I'd play rage against the machine --Kelli in West Seattle -- There are aliens, presidents, and the band in the video: www.youtube.com

Brian Eno produced this great album. --- When asked, why Manchester’s often overlooked lyrical heroes James has survived all of these years, lead singer and lyricist Tim Booth responds with two words—and his name is Brian Eno. Booth explained his reasoning when he said, “When you’ve got Brian Eno you’re not going to give up. Everywhere I went, Michael Stipe would say ‘How did you get to work with Brian Eno, I’ve been trying to work with him for years’. Flea would say ‘How did you get to work with Brian Eno for five albums?’ We had that. Brian, God bless him, says we were his favorite band. We had an amazing time with him. He’s definitely the fifth Beatle. And we miss him!”

Owen is right (as usual)! The La's sound good! -- The La's performed this one live from Venice Beach, California in 1991: www.youtube.com

Especially after yesterday's "Music Heals: Beyond Cancer" day, it's good to be reminded that you are not alone.