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Tuesday, Feb 14 2023, 7AM
It's a wonderful feeling when you know people love you.
Happy Valentines Day. Today's show theme is Songs of Love & Hate. But first and foremost, the love.
The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered is a 2004 Gammon Records two-disc set. Despite what the title and cover art may suggest, Johnston lived to see the album's release; he passed away fifteen years later in 2019.
Mark Mulcahy cover.
Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs of Mark Mulcahy is a tribute album to former Polaris and Miracle Legion front man Mark Mulcahy. After his wife Melissa died suddenly in 2008, 21 artists contributed exclusive tracks to the album to help Mulcahy continue making music while he was raising his three-year-old twin daughters
The music video for this song premiered on MTV in late October 1993, several weeks after the album's release. The video features the band performing in front of a projection screen depicting white clouds in a black sky, and is interlaced with slow-motion footage of the band in various locales in the Mojave Desert. Portions of this video were filmed at the same location U2 shot the artwork for The Joshua Tree.
www.youtube.com
Prince wrote and recorded this song in 1984, but didn't release it. Instead, he gave it to The Family, a band that was signed to his Paisley Park record label. The Family released the song on their 1985 self-titled album, which ended up being their only LP. Their version was never released as a single and the song was seldom heard until Sinéad O'Connor covered it five years later.
This album was nominated for four Grammy Awards in 1991, including Record of the Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, and Best Music Video, Short Form for "Nothing Compares 2 U", winning the award for Best Alternative Music Performance. However, O'Connor refused to accept the nominations and award.
I'll talk, but you won't listen to me /
I know what your answer will be.
The Helio Sequence is an American Indie Rock duo formed in Beaverton, OR in 1996.
This album was recorded spontaneously in bedroom closets and living rooms, which may explain the haunting urgency you hear in Brandon Summers voice. The band also took its time on the album. After the bulk of official recording was completed, a listen through all the demos and snippets on Summers' hard drive convinced bandmate Benjamin Weikel there were more gems in the rough, and more songs were added.
theheliosequence.bandcamp.com
Harmacy is the band's sixth album, released in 1996. The album cover features a photograph of a pharmacy in Cashel, Ireland, taken by band member Jason Loewenstein on tour. The missing "P" gave the album its title.
www.sebadoh.com
Here's Sebadoh performing live in the KEXP studio in 2019 - www.youtube.com
Viva Last Blues is the third studio album by Will Oldham. It was released under the moniker Palace Music on Drag City in 1995.
Oldham is known for his "do-it-yourself punk aesthetic and blunt honesty", and his music has been likened to Americana, folk, roots, country, punk, and indie rock.
palace-music.bandcamp.com
Rough breakups are rough.
Watch Buffalo Tom playing live in the KEXP studio back in 2018:
www.youtube.com
www.buffalotom.com
From The Wrens' oral history of The Meadowlands, the band said of Happy:
"The track (Happy) speeds up and slows down as the band struggles to remain in the pocket — guitar, bass and vocals all vying at length to resolve into something like a common groove. However, when that finally occurs around the final minute of the song, the feeling is transcendent — like a compelling argument ultimately resolved on the best possible terms."
Read the full album breakdown here: www.stereogum.com
"Living alone, I don't need you anymore."
Brandon Summers of The Helio Sequence performed "Lately" live in the KEXP studio in 2018. Watch the full session here:
youtu.be
theheliosequence.bandcamp.com
The Tree of Forgiveness is the 18th and final studio album of John Prine, released in 2018. He passed in 2020.
Originally from Illinois, In the late 1960s, while Prine was delivering mail, he began to sing his songs (often first written in his head on the mail route) at open-microphone evenings at the Fifth Peg on Armitage Avenue in Chicago. The bar was a gathering spot for nearby Old Town School of Folk Music teachers and students. Prine was initially a spectator, reluctant to perform, but eventually did so in response to a "You think you can do better?" comment made to him by another performer. After his first open mic, he was offered paying gigs.
johnprine.bandcamp.com
Carlile shared that while making the video for this song in her hometown of Maple Valley there was a major wind storm the day they were shooting and many lost power. Carlile and her crew hiked out into the cold to the inside of a tunnel on a hiking trail, and the sun came out for just a few minutes. Full story here: bit.ly
You can watch that video here:
www.youtube.com
Originally released in 1981, this song was written and first recorded by Ned Sublette. 25 years later, Willie Nelson released his own spin of the track.
The song is about a married couple who find that the "fire" has gone out of their relationship. It relates the desire of both partners to travel to "Jackson" to seek new horizons. "Jackson" was written in 1963 by Billy Edd Wheeler and Jerry Leiber but achieved its most notable popularity when performed by Johnny Cash and June Carter,
There has been much speculation regarding which city of Jackson the song is about, but Wheeler said: "Actually, I didn’t have a specific Jackson in mind. I just liked the sharp consonant sound, as opposed to soft-sounding words like Nashville."
This is not a love song in the conventional sense; Parton wrote it for a close friend. In 1967, she was invited by the country star Porter Wagoner to co-host his TV show, where they became famous for their duets. She wrote the song for him to show her appreciation for the time they had worked together.
Parton performed this song to Porter Wagoner on May 19, 2007 during his Porter 50th Anniversary Celebration at the Grand Ole Opry. "This was my goodbye song to Porter," Parton said before singing to him. Wagoner was suffering from lung cancer at the time and died on October 28, 2007.
Hootenanny was mostly recorded from October 1982 to January 1983 at the Stark/Mudge Mobile Unit warehouse in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, which was described in the liner notes as "a warehouse in some godawful suburb north of Mpls".
This was featured in the 1989 movie Say Anything in a scene where John Cusack plays this from a Boom Box he holds over his head to win the heart of Ione Skye. Cameron Crowe, who directed the film, was going to use Billy Idol's "Got To Be A Lover," but it didn't work with the scene. Crowe got the idea to use this when he played a tape from his wedding which had the song on it. Because it was a deeply personal song, Gabriel did not want to let him use it, but when Crowe called and sent him a tape of the movie, Gabriel loved it and gave his approval.
bit.ly
Tom Bailey reflected on this track, made famous after being featured in the film Sixteen Candles: "If You Were Here," and it's a song which originally addressed an unsureness about honesty in relationships. But when I looked at it again, I recognized a hidden meaning, as well, which was going back to this song after 30 years - nearly 32 years in this case. I thought, Well, what's happened in that time? What have we become? What have we done? It has that sense of optimism about the world being destined to be a better place. Has that borne fruit, or are there any disappointments to confess?"
www.songfacts.com
"If You Leave" is a 1986 song by English electronic band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, recorded for the soundtrack of Pretty in Pink.
"Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club.."
Keith Forsey and Steve Schiff wrote this song specifically for "The Breakfast Club." According to Keith Forsey, Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music was his first choice to record this song, but Ferry turned it down. Forsey was also a big fan of Simple Minds, so he tried to get them to record the song by delivering a cassette demo to the band. Initially, the band didn't want to do it, but were persuaded after they saw a screening of the film with John Hughes.
The Fiery Furnaces are an American indie rock band, formed in 2000 in Brooklyn, New York. The band's primary members are Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger. The siblings are originally from Oak Park, Illinois, a near-western suburb of Chicago.
thefieryfurnaces.bandcamp.com
The music video of this song takes place in some kind of dystopian future where everyone conforms. It opens the "Burger Klone," where smiling, lobotomized customers get their meals. Lauper finds herself a bad boy with a motorcycle and rides off in an animated landscape (a coy reference to the song's meaning: when they stop a a gas station marked "self service"). By the end of the video, she has apparently gone blind. bit.ly youtu.be
The Hot Toddies are an all-girl band from Oakland, CA who wrote this about Seattle.
thehottoddies.bandcamp.com
Flight of the Conchords is a New Zealand musical comedy duo formed in Wellington in 1998. The band consists of multi-instrumentalists Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. Bret sings this song to his then girlfriend, Coco. He is trying to serenade her, and Jermaine keeps interjecting himself into their relationship
www.flightoftheconchords.co.nz
Here is The Vaselines performing this song Live on KEXP in 2009:
www.youtube.com
Love Plus One was Haircut One Hundred's only hit in the US despite being well-loved in their native UK.
Here's what the very handsome Nick Heyward (of Haircut One Hundred) is up to now: nickheyward.com.
This is (probably) the most popular song featuring a marimba as a lead instrument.
The song exemplifies "synth-pop's spaced-out loneliness" and yearning for imagined, absent lovers.
The band played this song on the road long before they recorded it, tweaking it along the way. At various stages, the song was also called "Broken Promises" or "Broken Guitar Strings."
"Love to Hate You" is a 1991 song by English synth-pop duo Erasure. The synthesizer melody in the chorus is an interpolation of the string break from Gloria Gaynor's disco-era classic "I Will Survive"
Lead singer Dave Gehan explains why the song wasn't banned by BBC: "[We] even had problems with ‘Master And Servant’ when the BBC called for a copy of the lyrics to check them out, but only one guy thought they were obscene, and he was away on holiday when the final decision was taken!"
Come On Pilgrim is the debut EP by the American alternative rock band Pixies. The artwork was conceived by Vaughan Oliver, with photography from Simon Larbalestier. The man in the "hair shirt" on the cover was a friend of Larbalestier's and the photograph was from a series of work Larbalestier was making based on The Temptation of Saint Anthony by Gustave Flaubert.
Frank Black co-wrote "Gigantic" with Pixies bass player Kim Deal, who was using the stage name Mrs. John Murphy at the time. The song made a big impression on Kurt Cobain. He said in 1992, "I wish Kim was allowed to write more songs for the Pixies, because 'Gigantic' is the best Pixies song and Kim wrote it." Kim Deal reacted modestly, "Well, it's better than somebody saying, 'Oh God, you suck.'"
bit.ly
"La La Love You", sung by the band's drummer David Lovering, is a love song—though with its "first base, second base, third base, home run" break, it's been referred to as "a dig at the very idea of a love song". Francis gave it to Lovering as a song to sing, "like a Ringo thing"; Lovering at first refused to sing, but Norton said that soon he was unable to "get him away from the microphone". As well as lead vocals on "La La Love You", Lovering played bass guitar on "Silver", with Deal playing slide guitar; this arrangement did not occur again." bit.ly
"Velouria" is written and sung by the band's frontman Black Francis. It is essentially a love song about a girl named after velour, a soft furnishing fabric. Francis said of the song: "It's folklore based; the Rosicrucians of 1920s San Jose California had some pretty interesting ideas."
www.songfacts.com
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Pixies performed Live on KEXP in 2014: www.youtube.com
The song from Pixies' "Trompe le Monde'" was frontman Black Francis' take on Chuck Berry's song "Memphis, Tennessee."
The boy said:
"Do you want to take my hand?"
And the girl said:
"Take it where?"
And although he afterwards thought he should have said:
"Everywhere,"
Up a Tree is the debut studio album by Looper, released in 1999
looper.bandcamp.com
This song was originally going to be part of a four-track EP. However according to songwriter Charlie Fink, when they took it to their record label, they said: "You should probably do more with this."
Title says all.
Eagle Seagull was an American indie rock band from Lincoln, Nebraska, United States that singer/songwriter Eli Mardock formed in 2004.
We're all currently sharing our "Sometime Around Midnight" stories behind the scenes of the Morning Show.
The House of Love! The band's frontman Guy Chadwick told New Musical Express in 1990, "I didn't think [it] was going to be a hit. Phonogram were disappointed but I wasn't. I did tell them! It was the first decent thing we'd done for a year but it didn't sound contemporary to me."
The title Stoneage Romeos is taken from a Three Stooges short film. The Australian LP, designed by Yanni Stumbles, sported a cartoonish nod to the 1966 caveman flick One Million Years B.C., all menacing dinosaurs and Day-Glo colors, whilst in America, consumers got a stylized sleeve featuring arty renditions of the giant reptiles.
On the change of covers, the band's frontman Dave Faulkner would later recall, "Bad coffeetable art, very anonymous and boring. On the U.S. tour fans are bringing up the Australian copies for us to sign—they were all getting them on import! Yet at the end of the tour, A&M says to us, ‘Oh well, we don't really think the cover will affect sales at all.’ Like, when they’re right, they’re right, and when they’re wrong, they’re still right." bit.ly
Happy Valentines Day! You are not alone! x