John Richards

Good morning! It's the first Friday of the New Year and you're here! Thanks for listening to The Morning Show with John Richards! Welcome! -- R.I.P., Jannis Noya Makrigiannis, founder and core member of Copenhagen's Choir of Young Believers, who died just before New Year's Eve at the age of 39.: www.stereogum.com:

Gabriel wrote this 7-minute track about the difficulty he had communicating with his daughter Melanie, with whom relations had become strained after he moved out of the family home into a nearby cottage with Rosanna Arquette. The song is an invitation, asking her to "unlock this misery" and come talk to him. -- Sinéad O'Connor is the female voice on this track.

Peter Gabriel has just released a new single called “Panopticom," featuring Brian Eno on synthesizer and bells. It's the first song from his forthcoming album "i/o," his first album of new songs in 20 years! In a press release, Gabriel says: "(This) is based on an idea I have been working on to initiate the creation of an infinitely expandable accessible data globe: the Panopticom. We are beginning to connect a like-minded group of people who might be able to bring this to life, to allow the world to see itself better and understand more of what’s really going on."

Elbow's Guy Garvey said of this song, “It was about falling in love or actually the morning after falling in love specifically, you know, pondering it. It’s semi-autobiographical, I was single for a bit then I got together with the girl I was with for almost a decade, Emma Jane Unsworth and that’s when I wrote the song which I came up with in the bath. In the flat I was living in at the time, the shower was broken so I had a bath every day. I used to sit there and put my Dictaphone on record and sing in the bath. Even though the lyrics are quite bleak, I’m saying ‘I’m not having a good time most of the time but today is great.'” -- Our wonderful Owen Murphy interviewed Elbow in 2019 about staying hopeful: tinyurl.com

When Edge and Bono were being interviewed and were asked what they felt was the greatest song not by U2, Edge responded with “You Get What You Give.” “When I first heard that on the radio, we were in the studio working on something, and I was like ‘What?’” he said. “And I promptly went and wrote a song that I thought was mildly influenced by that tune. It turned out that like within an hour of playing it, everyone was going, ‘What are you doing? That’s the same as the New Radicals,’ so it never saw the light of day.”

Go back more than a decade to enjoy (Alan Palomo) Neon Indian's live performance in the KEXP studio: www.youtube.com -- "Don't sleep, won't be you when I'm awake so just Don't sleep, in the morning this'll all seem fake so..." Here are the lyrics: genius.com

"Released on their 2008 album ‘In Ghost Colours‘, this tune was released at the peak of the bloghaus era, when electronica and pop began their long, fruitful relationship." What (you may ask) was "bloghaus" or "blog house"? Learn more here: www.factmag.com

Bowie described this Eddie Cochran-inspired single in a 1987 interview as "a piece of sexist rock 'n roll. [laughs] It's about picking up birds. It's not very cerebral, that piece." -- See a blonde Mr. Bowie in the official video: www.youtube.com

"‘Please’ is full of optimism and ready to be played in a place where we can all be together and flirt, dance, touch, and kiss, A wonderful excuse not to stop the party from ending.” Jessie Ware said. This terrific song was produced by Simian Mobile Disco’s James Ford and co-written by Ware with Ford, Shungudzo, and Danny Parker. -- Watch the video for this banger, which features a pregnant Ware singing the song as projected on a curtain in a club while various dancers move to the track.: youtu.be

"Dancing on My Own" starts with one of the most visceral, propelling four-to-the-floor beats of the past few decades. The tempo is perfectly situated right around 118 beats per minute, pretty close to what scientists say is the preferred walking tempo for humans. The one-five-four chord progression is immediately familiar, like it's been around since the beginning of time. Everything about it is meant to make you smile and move and dance." Read this NPR tribute to this emotionally powerful song: www.npr.org

Wow, three in a row!! (Jessie, Robyn, and Kylie) -- Kylie wrote "Say Something" in September 2019 with longtime collaborators Biff Stannard and Ash Howes, plus Jon Green, who worked on her previous album, Golden. She told Apple Music how the song spilled out of them that day: "I knew that the three of us would do something different, but I didn't know it would be this. It started as a beat, and we were all just singing into a microphone to capture everything."

Four! -- The song was co-written with Isabella "Machine" Summers and recorded in a studio which Florence claimed was "the size of a loo". Florence wrote it after seeing a huge art piece by the Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone as she bicycled every day in London. The words DOG DAYS ARE OVER were written in large, rainbow colored letters on the side of the South Bank's Hayward Gallery.: bit.ly

"A Little Respect' was written by Vince Clarke and Andy Bell. Andy Bell was one of the first openly gay pop stars and he would sometimes introduce this song on stage by saying: "When I was a little girl, I asked my mummy, 'Can I be gay when I grow up?' She replied, 'Yes, if you show a little respect." This song is known for the very high note Andy Bell hits toward the end, which gives you an idea of why Vince Clarke chose him from a long queue of applicants after he placed an ad in Melody Maker looking for a vocalist. bit.ly -- Here's Andy Bell in a wonderful live performance of "A Little Respect": www.youtube.com

Speaking of Vince Clarke.... The former Depeche Mode keyboardist formed Yazoo (known in America as Yaz) with Alison Moyet. Clarke wrote this one. -- The music video for the song features Moyet and Clarke in a sort of haunted mansion with Clarke cast in the role of Victor Frankenstein. Watch the video here: www.youtube.com

Did you know that vocalist Shay Jones co-wrote this hit from Ministry's 1983 debut album with Al Jourgensen? Jones grew up in a musical family in Cincinnati and moved to Chicago in 1972. Here's a brief biography: www.chicagotribune.com

This was a British New Wave band founded in 1982 in London by former Generation X bassist Tony James. Sigue Sigue Sputnik is a supposed reference to a Russian street gang, meaning, in rough translation "burn, burn satellite" ("sigue" coming from a form of the Russian verb сжигать, meaning burn, and Sputnik referencing the first man-made satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1957). -- The inspiration for the music video was the 1962 sci-fi featurette La Jetée. Watch it here: www.youtube.com

"On the floors of Tokyo Or down in London town to go, go With a record selection and a mirror's reflection I'm dancing with myself…" -- “Dancing With Myself” was originally recorded and released by Gen X, Idol’s punk-rock group, in 1979 but it failed to gain commercial success in the UK. When Idol left for a solo career, he remixed and re-released the song in the United States on his first EP, Don’t Stop in 1981. Then it was re-released in 1983 after the success of “Hot In The City” and “White Wedding” and this time it reached #2 on Billboard’s Bubbling Under Chart, which tracks songs that have almost made it onto the Hot 100. Despite not making the Hot 100, the song remains one of his best known.

"Blush" is the debut full-length from this London trio. This review says that these "London dance pop maestros are impossible to ignore.": www.nme.com -- PVA performed on KEXP Live at Home - you can watch the recording here: www.youtube.com

See TR/ST (Robert Alfons) performing "Destroyer" live in the KEXP studio in 2019: www.youtube.com -- You must not miss dancer Ryan Heffington in the video for "Destroyer": www.youtube.com

While recording the "Disintegration" album, Robert Smith created a strange restriction: He wouldn't speak during the sessions. To communicate, he passed notes to his bandmates, sometimes when they were in the middle of playing. He was trying to foster a kind of nonverbal communication. -- See Temple of the Dog cover this song in San Francisco in 2016: www.youtube.com

Maybe Robert Smith of The Cure decided that "words are very unnecessary...they can only do harm..." -- The song was written by the group's primary songwriter, Martin Gore, with lead vocals by Dave Gahan. Gore recalled: "The original demo of Enjoy the Silence was very slow and minimal, just me and a harmonium, and Alan (Wilder) had this idea of putting a beat to it. We added the choir chords and (producer) Flood and Alan said, 'Why don't you play some guitar over the top?' That's when I came up with the riff. I think that's the only time in our history when we all looked at each other and said, 'I think this might be a hit.'"

Olympia, WA-based Waves Crashing will be live Mar 02 at the Spanish Ballroom, McMenamins Elks Temple Tacoma, WA. -- Go here to purchase the "high/low" EP: wavescrashing.bandcamp.com

Ride and Charlatans come to the Showbox Tuesday, February 14th! We loved it when Ride graced the KEXP studio for a live performance in 2017! That session included "Vapour Trail": www.youtube.com

In all, 34 Beatle hours went into “A Day in the Life,” compared with the 585 minutes required for the whole of the album "Please Please Me." One tricky bit was Lennon’s vocals, which required a number of attempts, in part because, according to engineer Geoff Emerick, “John was hearing that echo in his cans as he was singing. It wasn’t put on after. He used his own echo as a rhythmic feel.” -- 1n 2017, fifty years after the release of "Sgt. Pepper's....," The Atlantic published a feature about how The Beatles wrote "A Day in the Life": www.theatlantic.com

In all, 34 Beatle hours went into “A Day in the Life,” compared with the 585 minutes required for the whole of the album "Please Please Me." One tricky bit was Lennon’s vocals, which required a number of attempts, in part because, according to engineer Geoff Emerick, “John was hearing that echo in his cans as he was singing. It wasn’t put on after. He used his own echo as a rhythmic feel.” -- 1n 2017, fifty years after the release of "Sgt. Pepper's....," The Atlantic published a feature about how The Beatles wrote "A Day in the Life": www.theatlantic.com

The recent animated video for “Lost At Birth” transforms the members into colorful cartoons and sets them up in a battle to reclaim a city: www.youtube.com

Ahhh....the Friday song. Join KEXP for the 23rd annual Expansions MLK Unity Party and live broadcast on Sunday, January 15th! : www.kexp.org

"Checked out, I'm waiting for the weekend..." -- Skate punk band Fidlar -- formed by Elvis and Max Kuehn, sons of Greg Kuehn, the keyboardist for punk legends T.S.O.L. The band's name is an acronym for "F**k It Dog, Life's A Risk." -- Take a drunken tour of West Coast clubs when you watch the official video for this song: www.youtube.com Go back to 2015 and watch Fidlar perform Live in the KEXP Studio, hosted by Cheryl Waters: youtu.be

Palindromic band Tacocat performed "I Love Seattle" live for KEXP listeners in 2018 at The Little London Plane during Upstream Music Fest: youtu.be

Good Friday morning, KEXPers! Any way to sneak in '52 girls' by the B-52's for my daughter Willoughby, heading back to school in Colorado Springs from Los Angeles this morning?! Love you guys, happy new year, and welcome back johno! (missed ya man!) 🤘🏼 rik in echo park (LA), california! -- The B-52s began in 1976 in Athens, Georgia with Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson, Cindy Wilson, Ricky Wilson, and Keith Strickland -- a quintet of mostly gay, party-loving, college-town dropouts -- after a night of drinking exotic cocktails at a Chinese restaurant.: www.amoeba.com -- They have extended their farewell tour with a 2023 Las Vegas residency.: americansongwriter.com

Good morning, Morning Show Crew! TGIF, huh? I hope you and yours are well. If you can fit it into the mix, I'd like to request "Shake Your Rump" by Beastie Boys. One of my all-time favorite BB tracks. As always, please and thank you. Always, always appreciated, and always a pleasure. I'm looking forward to the show, a highlight of my week. ---Matt in San Diego -- "Shake Your Rump" is built on a melange of samples, mostly bits of bass-heavy funk. The opening drum break comes from a 1974 song called "Funky Snakefoot" by Alphonse Mouzon; the "That's The Joint" line is from a song that influenced Beastie Boys' style: "That's the Joint" by Funky 4 + 1. Here's a list of the 13 songs sampled on "Shake Your Rump": www.whosampled.com

Yay, Friday Dance Party! How about some Big Audio Dynamite on this delightful first Friday of '23? Thanks for the good vibes 💖 --Chris -- This track samples several musical compositions, including the keyboard component of The Who's song "Baba O'Riley," the organ from the introduction to the Deep Purple song "Child in Time," a drum break from Tommy Roe's "Sweet Pea," drums and guitars from a break in Pigmeat Markham's "Here Comes the Judge," a line from The Sugarhill Gang's song "Rapper's Delight" where Big Bank Hank raps "a time to laugh, a time to cry," and a vocal sample from Peter Sellers in Fred Flange's song "You Keep Me Swingin,'" where Sellers talks about "rhythm and melody."

Hmmm....didn't we just hear this organ riff? -- When The Who perform this live, the processed organ is played from a recording, since it would be nearly impossible to replicate on an instrument. The guitar doesn't come in until 1:40, giving Pete Townshend some time to reflect on his work. "There is this moment of standing there just listening to this music and looking out to the audience and just thinking, 'I f**king did that. I wrote that," he said. "I just hope that on my deathbed I don't embarrass myself by asking someone, 'Can you pass me my guitar? And will you run the backing tape of 'Baba O'Riley'? I just want to do it one more time."

"This is Radio Clash" was released as a single in 1981. The song is based on the idea of The Clash transmitting from their own pirate radio station. It is considered by the American music critic, Eric Schafer to be the first British hip-hop record, following the bands pioneering use of rap (with a straighter disco beat) on The Magnificent Seven. --- Joe Strummer admitted in an interview with Melody Maker in 1988 that he had nicked the bassline from the Queen hit "Another One Bites The Dust" (which in itself shares many similarities with another disco classic, Chic's "Good Times").

Speaking of pirate radio stations.... this song was inspired by the high-wattage, unregulated AM border-blaster Mexican radio stations with signals that traveled well into America, and the occasional interjections in Spanish in the song were recorded off a real Mexican radio. -- Wall of Voodoo lead singer Stan Ridgway said: "We used to go to rehearsals in my old '67 Mustang. And I used to get on the AM radio there on the console and try to find a Mexican radio station that was wafting in from the border over at Tijuana. This was like 1980, '81 or something. So when I would find one, I would say, 'Oh, hey look you guys, I'm on a Mexican radio.' And so, 'Okay, I'm on one. I'm on a Mexican radio.' And that was the germ of what started to develop, and then it just kind of developed, and a lot of planets were aligning at that point..."MTV was getting going and what they called the “new music” was making some headway into people’s ears. Radio still was not playing it, but when MTV became as popular as it did, radio had to play it."

Hello, my sister Joni's birthday is this weekend, same day as David Bowie and Elvis. I'd like to send some "Happy Day" wishes to her. Can you please play something from U2's Joshua Tree? It's one of her all-time favorite albums.. Thanks! --Matt @ Mountlake Terrace -- Brian Eno co-produced this and played the organ intro. The Edge did a D-chord delay arpeggio on his 4-track recorder at home to create the rest of the track. -- So much time had been spent on (this recording) that producer Brian Eno thought it would be best to start from scratch. His idea was to "stage an accident" and have the song's tapes erased to trigger a fresh performance. At one point, Eno had the tapes cued up and ready to be recorded over, but engineer Pat McCarthy returned to the control room, dropped the tray of tea he was carrying and physically restrained Eno. Co-producer Daniel Lanois recalled the song's tricky birth: "It was a bit of a tongue-twister for the rhythm section, with strange bar lengths that got everybody in a bad mood. I can remember pointing at a blackboard, walking everybody through the changes like a science teacher. There's a part of Eno that likes instant gratification. He'd rather throw something difficult away and start something new." bit.ly

Watch a live performance of this great song by Mark Hollis and Tim Friese-Greene.: www.youtube.com

Remember that you are not alone. Brandon Summers was in our studio with The Helio Sequence in 2015: www.youtube.com

This 1972 song was inspired by Mozart's "Piano Concerto No. 21." Diamond said, "This is one to which I never paid too much attention. A very basic message, unadorned. I didn't even write a bridge to it... I had no idea that it would be a huge hit or that people would want to sing along with it." -- While Diamond didn't think this song had hit potential, Russ Regan, who ran his record label Uni, was a believer, telling Diamond it would be his "biggest copyright ever." Said Diamond, "Although the lyric says everything I wanted it to say, there's not much meat to it, but it turned out to be a major, major copyright."

Excellent suggestion, Amy! -- The late Jim Steinman produced this track. He used the 40-piece New York Choral Society to get a grand sound. Steinman worked on all of Meat Loaf's hits as well as "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" for Bonnie Tyler. R.I.P., Jim Steinman, who died last year of kidney failure at age 73: www.theguardian.com

Hey! It would be super awesome if you could play George Michael's Faith this morning! Thanks for all you do. --Colleen --- Here's that super awesome song, Colleen! thanks! -- This title track to George Michael's debut album begins with an organ fanfare that was actually the music to Wham!'s "Freedom" played as if in a cathedral. Wham! was an English pop duo featuring both George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. -- Want to see the official video?: www.youtube.com