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Thursday, Feb 2 2023, 7AM
Folks gathered at Gobbler's Knob this morning to see whether Punxsutawney Phil, Pennsylvania's most famous groundhog saw his shadow or not. He did so six more weeks of winter.
Yesterday Punxsutawney Phil was officially inducted into the Weather Discovery Center's "Meteorologist Hall of Fame" joining other notable figures such as Dr. Louis Uccellini, the former director of the National Weather Service and former assistant administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Dr. Joel Myers, the founder of AccuWeather, and Weather Channel meteorologist Jen Carfagno.
Talk Talk was fronted by Mark Hollis and signed to EMI in 1981. The label sent them on tour with another one of their acts, Duran Duran, and commissioned a slick video for their single "Talk Talk." Both bands had a new-wave synthesizer sound, but that was about all they had in common. Hollis did the required promotion but didn't enjoy it; interviews were clearly a work obligation. Musically, he was not going to be swayed by popular taste or record company pressure, and for the second Talk Talk album, which didn't appear until two years later, he included "It's My Life," a manifesto of sorts where he asserts his independence. bit.ly
Today! Today! Celebrate Groundhog Day with KEXP on Thursday, February 2nd as part of our first ever Twofer Tuesday-Thursday. From 5am to 7pm we'll rock double shots of all your favorite artists. So, turn it all the way up, rip off the knob, and join your four-thousand-watt blowtorch, KEXP where every day is Rocktober.
This 1983 single was written on an omnichord by Matt Johnson, lead singer of London post-punk band The The. In an interview, Johnson talks about the making of this beautiful song: www.dazeddigital.com
Duran Duran released "Planet Earth" 42 years ago today!
When the song started getting support in Australia, Duran Duran decided that they needed to get some television presence down there, so it was suggested that they make an accompanying promo. John Taylor admitted to The A.V. Club, "that was the primary motivation for doing that video… to support the song in Australia."
www.songfacts.com
“‘Anniversary’ is a special song for us,” John Taylor said in a statement. “Obviously we were conscious of our own impending 40th anniversary of making music together, but we wanted the song’s meaning to be inclusive in the broadest possible way. After playing and working together for so long, we very much appreciate what ‘being together’ and ’staying together’ can really mean, it’s not something we would have thought song-worthy 40 years ago but we do today! It was also fun to build a track with hints of previous Duran hits, they’re like Easter eggs, for the fans to find.”
Vocalist Katie White states that the song was written by "playing a D chord on the guitar for hours, because that's all I could play. And then I put my finger on the wrong string, and got what I discovered was an augmented chord. And that was the riff!"
This track is having a resurgence in popularity thanks to TikTok where it was recently used by by stars like The Rock, Will Smith, Christina Aguilera and Drew Barrymore to soundtrack a celebrity challenge.
www.bbc.com
Go-Go's Kathy Valentine talked about the meaning of the lyric. "This is one where I had a lot of phrases I'd written down, and they started connecting. Things like 'One hand is reaching out, and one's just hanging on,' and 'Seems like my weaknesses just keep going strong' were really about self reflecting and a dawning awareness that the band and certain areas of life were getting kind of out of control."
Go-Go's bass player Kathy Valentine wrote this song in 1978 when she moved from Texas to Los Angeles to pursue music. She was living in a ramshackle apartment with dim prospects when she took out the guitar and came up with the song, which is about not giving up.
It was the first song she ever wrote.
The Linda Lindas are playing next door along with Paramore and Foals at Climate Pledge Arena on July 24th!
The Linda Lindas are playing next door along with Paramore and Foals at Climate Pledge Arena on July 24th!
In 2021, The Linda Lindas chatted with KEXP's Janice Headley about self-care; racist, sexist boys; and the joys of being a Linda Linda.: www.kexp.org
In October of 2021, Django Django performed Live on KEXP at Home, in a session recorded at Octagon Studios in London: www.youtube.com
Django Django's self-titled debut release from 2012. Django Django started off their 2013 live session in the KEXP studio with "Hail Bop." Watch the full performance here: youtu.be
TMBG are playing TWO nights at the Neptune in April, the 20th & 21st. Nice to see them sticking with the theme today.
John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants spoke with Emily Fox on Sound and Vision last fall: bit.ly
Can't make the two nights at the Neptune? TMBG are also playing TWO nights in Portland in April!
The title of the track came from an experience the Johns had when they found a substantial number of Ng's listed in a phone book. Linnell: "I think I was collecting possible song ideas and, for some reason, I ended up looking in the phone book, and there were about four pages of this name that contains no vowels, Ng. I was fascinated because it's a name I didn't know about before, and it was filling up a large chunk of the Manhattan white pages. I called up some of the numbers kind of experimentally to find out how it was pronounced, and I got the phone machine of a Dr. Ng and I was kind of relieved. The message said, 'Dr. Ng is not in,' and I had my material."
Big Lizard in my Backyard was the first album released in 1985 by The Dead Milkmen.
Nobody in the band has actually owned a Camaro.
Joe Genaro says that fans often point out a presumed error in the line "And someone played a Beach Boys song on the jukebox, it was California Dreamin'." The song is, in fact, by The Mamas and Papas, not the Beach Boys. Genaro says that he was aware of this when he wrote the "Punk Rock Girl," but that the Beach Boys had recently released a popular cover version.
So don't @ him!
Way back on this day in 1981 (That's 42 years ago!) Talking Heads released "Once In a Lifetime" as the first single from their fourth studio album Remain in Light.
“Sax and Violins” is one of the lesser known Talking Heads songs, appearing as it did as the main title for the little seen Wim Wenders noir/science fiction film, "Until The End of the World."
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Here's Gilda Radner as Emily Litella, giving an editorial response about parents objecting to violins on television, on SNL's Weekend Update in 1976: www.youtube.com
Nick Cave said: “Though the love song comes in many guises – songs of exultation and praise, songs of rage and of despair, erotic songs, songs of abandonment and loss – they all address God, for it is the haunted premises of longing that the true love song inhabits. It is a howl in the void, for Love and for comfort and it lives on the lips of the child crying for his mother. It is the song of the lover in need of her loved one, the raving of the lunatic supplicant petitioning his God. It is the cry of one chained to the earth, to the ordinary and to the mundane, craving flight; a flight into inspiration and imagination and divinity. The love song is the sound of our endeavors to become God-like, to rise up and above the earthbound and the mediocre.”
Watch Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds doing this one live at Brixton Academy in London in 2004 here: www.youtube.com
www.nickcave.com
For the Kick album, INXS tried a different approach, with Michael Hutchence and Andrew Farriss doing all the songwriting. They wrote "Need You Tonight" and a few other tracks on the album at a studio in Hong Kong, where they worked for two weeks. Farriss came up with the rhythm track on a Roland 707 drum machine in a flash just before leaving for the airport - he was still working on it when the cab driver arrived, so he had the cabbie wait while he recorded a quick demo on cassette.
The album "Songs from the Big Chair" takes its name from the 1976 American TV drama series Sybil, in which the title character, suffering from psychiatric problems stemming from child abuse, seeks refuge in her therapist's "big chair."
In Frank Moriarty's Seventies Rock - The Decade of Creative Chaos, it is noted that "The clever melding of disparate elements that characterized 1978's The Cars led to an astonishing success for the band, chiefly because the stodgy album-oriented radio stations - which had in large part attempted to ignore punk and New Wave - finally were confronted with new music that they couldn't help but play."
"Moving In Stereo" isn't just a title, this song uses various studio production techniques to explore the stereo spectrum as the sound goes back and forth between the speakers.
You are listening with headphones, right?
Is there even a mediocre, let alone bad song on this album? NO! I mean, look at this track list:
1. "Good Times Roll"
2. "My Best Friend's Girl"
3. "Just What I Needed"
4. "I'm in Touch with Your World"
5. "Don't Cha Stop"
6. "You're All I've Got Tonight"
7. "Bye Bye Love"
8. "Moving in Stereo"
9. "All Mixed Up"
On Tuesday, February 7th, 2023 KEXP celebrates International Clash Day! This year we are focusing on The Clash's message of "Know Your Rights." DJs Gabriel Teodros, John Richards, Albina Cabrera, Larry Mizell Jr., and Kevin Cole will each explore The Clash's message, legacy, and influences as well as exploring new and old artists who share the anti-racist, anti-fascist message that sits at the center of their ethos as a band.
www.kexp.org
“We’re anti-fascist, we’re anti-violence, we’re anti-racist, and we’re pro-creative. We’re against ignorance.” — Joe Strummer
www.kexp.org
"Earthquake, tsunami, there's still no place I'd rather be!"
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Watch a KEXP live version of "I Love Seattle" in Tacocat's 2018 performance at The Little London Plane during Upstream Music Fest: youtu.be
Don't miss this live performance of "Bridge to Hawaii" by Tacocat in the KEXP studio circa 2014: www.youtube.com
This track contains samples of 18 songs including Metallica, A Tribe Called Quest, Kurtis Blow, and a couple from Grandmaster Flash.
www.whosampled.com
This collaboration between DJ Shadow and De La Soul features a sample from The Belmonts and another from Steam's "Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye). "
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Read about how DJ Shadow discovers these samples: read more on DJ Shadow's web site: djshadow.com
Back in 2016 KEXP celebrated 3 Feet High and Rising with 12 hours of programming featuring songs sampled on the album, rarites and interviews! www.kexp.org
"No hip-hop album since perhaps L.L. Cool J’s Mama Said Knock You Out or De la Soul’s first outing has arrived so sonically crafted by personality and musicianship as De la Soul Is Dead." - Rolling Stone
www.rollingstone.com
"Cities in Dust" was the lead single from the seventh studio album, "Tinderbox." This track describes the fate of the city of Pompeii, buried during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
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"That was really inspired by a visit to Pompeii," Siouxsie Sioux said. "There's quite a lot of tourism there, but the place itself transcends all that. You can think you're the only person there. It's quite immense, and at the end of the day, seeing the petrified bodies, it had a strong effect on me. The song was written, the music was written, when we got back from Italy, I wrote the lyrics. It was dedicated to one of the petrified bodies. It almost looked as if there was someone underneath this kind of plaster cover. I almost expected it to get up and move."
Siouxsie Sioux explained in an MTV interview that this song is about "the way that women are portrayed in our Fascist media." She stated that "Peek-a-boo" is a reaction against the conformist images that the media puts on women and equates it to The Stepford Wives film.
New music from Iggy! "Morning Show" by Iggy Pop from his recently released 19th solo album, Every Loser. - iggypop.com
Iggy was inspired to write his only Top 40 hit after reminiscing about his teenage girlfriend, Betsy, and realizing that the complexity of their relationship could only be captured as a duet. "I thought, 'Let's be fair. Let the girl have her say,'" he said in an interview at the time.
To articulate Betsy's side, he called in Kate Pierson of the B-52's, a group that had recently become bigger than ever with the success of "Love Shack." "I wanted a girl who would sing with a small-town voice," Iggy explained, "and Kate has a little twang in her voice that sounds slightly rural and naïve."
Background vocals on this one come from Kate Pierson of The B-52's!
Ned : [recognizes Phil and runs up to him on the street] Phil? Hey, Phil? Phil! Phil Connors? Phil Connors, I thought that was you!
Phil : [thinking Ned's just a watcher of the local news] Hi, how you doing? Thanks for watching.
[Starts to walk away]
Ned : Hey, hey! Now, don't you tell me you don't remember me because I sure as heckfire remember you.
Phil : [bemused] Not a chance.
Ned : Ned...
[takes off his hat revealing his completely bald head]
Ned : Ryerson. "Needlenose Ned"? "Ned the Head"? C'mon, buddy. Case Western High. Ned Ryerson: I did the whistling belly-button trick at the high school talent show? Bing! Ned Ryerson: got the shingles real bad senior year, almost didn't graduate? Bing, again. Ned Ryerson: I dated your sister Mary Pat a couple times until you told me not to anymore? Well?
Phil : [not even a smidgen of recognition] Ned Ryerson?
Ned : Bing!
Phil : Bing. So did you turn pro with that bellybutton thing, Ned?
Ned : No, Phil, I sell insurance.
Phil : [deadpan] What a shock.
Ned : Do you have life insurance? Because if you do you could always use a little more. Am I right or am I right or am I right? Right? Right?
Phil : [feigning politeness and failing] Ned, I'd love to stand here and talk with you... but I'm not going to. See you.
Ned : [laughs] That's okay! I'll walk with you!
[does so, to Phil's annoyance]
Ned : See, whenever I see an opportunity, I charge it like a bull. "Ned the Bull", that's me now. You know, I have friends who live and die by the actuarial tables and I say, "Hey! It's all one big crap-shoot anywho!" Tell me, have you ever heard of single premium life because I think that could really be the ticket for you.
[stops Phil in admiration]
Ned : Oh, God! It is so good to see you! Tell me, what are you doing for dinner?
Phil : Something else. It's been great seeing you, "Needlehead". Take care.
[Phil steps off the curb into a deep, watery puddle. Ned laughs obnoxiously]
Ned : Whoa-ho-ho! Watch out for that first step! It's a doozy!
[as Ned continues to cackle, Phil stomps away]
Watch Live Video from The Dismemberment Plan's 2013 performance at the Triple Door, as part of KEXP's VIP Club concert series: bit.ly.
That 2013, Triple Door concert for KEXP VIP Club members with The Dismemberment Plan included "You Are Invited": www.youtube.com
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."
