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Monday, Dec 4 2023, 7AM
Good Morning and welcome to the Morning Show with John!
The Long Winters played the SMooCH benefit this past weekend.
This song from the album “Ultimatum” is about the destruction on reentry of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003.
www.thelongwinters.com
On this record, Oasis legend Liam Gallagher provides backing vocals on Come On and handclaps on Space and Time.
You can go enjoy the classic 1972 music video for "Space Oddity" here: bit.ly
This track was the first and only single released in advance of Bowie's 1969 self-titled second album.
The Church were recently in the studio here at KEXP! Subscribe to our YouTube Channel to be notified when the full performance drops:
www.youtube.com
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The Church also previously performed live for KEXP listeners back in February 2015. Watch the full performance here: www.youtube.com
Tranquility Bass was the stage name of Michael Adam Kandel. Kandel was born and raised in Chicago, and he learned to play the guitar and keyboards at age 12. By age 15 he had begun to record experimental electronic music in his bedroom. He passed away in 2015.
7:28 AM
2nd spin
After uncovering a mysterious artifact buried beneath the Lunar surface, a spacecraft is sent to Jupiter to find its origins - a spacecraft manned by two men and the supercomputer H.A.L. 9000.
What could possibly go wrong, Dave?
This track celebrates the first human orbit of the Moon by NASA's Apollo 8 mission from December 1968 -- the mission which produced the famous image "Earthrise", called the most important environmental photo ever. en.wikipedia.org
The Race for Space is the second studio album by British alternative group Public Service Broadcasting. Working with sound samples from the British Film Institute, the album relives the story of the American and Soviet space race from 1957–1972. This track features the speech by John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1962 at Rice University. --- Here's Public Service Broadcasting performing live in the KEXP studio in 2017: www.youtube.com
“Bowie‘s music certainly means a lot to us, and that song in particular is one of them where it’s hard not to tear up thinking about that track,” explained Trent Reznor. “The thought of doing a cover, how could we possibly mess with that?” After realizing that "Watchmen" creator Damen Lindelof was only interested in an instrumental version, the pair [Reznor and Atticus Ross] gave it a try. “Everyone who heard it responded positively to it, and when it came out it got more attention than probably anything else in the series. It felt good to get that recognition and now when we listen to it we’re not filled with anxiety.”
This song, which questions the very nature of human existence, was partly inspired by the sudden death of a Japanese friend of the band.
www.songfacts.com
Earth, Sun, Moon is the third studio album by English alternative rock band Love and Rockets, released in 1987 on Beggars Banquet.
More Earth and Sun and Moon!
The band's James Moginie has said that this song "...was inspired by a TV show I saw about NASA astronauts who have gone into space looked back down on earth. You can see the outline of the continents, the rivers, the weather patterns and of course you see the stains, the oil spills in the gulf or whatever else is wrong."
'Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space' is the third studio album by English space rock band Spiritualized. The album's title is from the philosophical novel "Sophie's World" by Jostein Gaarder. The excerpt reads, "Only philosophers embark on this perilous expedition to the outermost reaches of language and existence. Some of them fall off, but others cling on desperately and yell at the people nestling deep in the snug softness, stuffing themselves with delicious food and drink. 'Ladies and Gentlemen,' they yell, 'we are floating in space!' But none of the people down there care."
www.spiritualized.com
Get taken away to space and watch Radiohead perform this live from the Hammerstein Ballroom in 1997.
www.youtube.com
Like the rest of the landmark concept album, “Starman” sees Bowie paint the picture of a steward from another planet sent to our world to free our minds, hearts, and dancing feet. "Let the children lose it, Let the children use it, Let all the children boogie,” he sings in the iconic song that has lasted decades in pop culture.
Chock full of life lessons, going down easier with the adage of the other worldly character, the song comes from the perspective of someone listening to Starman through the radio, hoping to make the future brighter than their past.
americansongwriter.com
Penned by Elton John’s songwriting partner Bernie Taupin, “Rocket Man” appeared on John’s fifth album Honky Château and has since become one of the most iconic songs in the Elton John discography.
Produced by Gus Dudgeon, who also produced David Bowie’s 1969 intergalactic hit “Space Oddity”, the two songs have often been compared, with many considering “Rocket Man” to be inspired by the former.
Bernie Taupin spoke on this as well as the actual inspiration behind “Rocket Man” in an interview posted on Youtube in 2016:
"It was inspired by a story by Ray Bradbury, from his book of science fiction short stories called The Illustrated Man. In that book there’s a story called ‘The Rocket Man,’ which was about how astronauts in the future would become sort of an everyday job. So I kind of took that idea and ran with it."
extrachill.com
The lead single from 18, Moby explained during a performance of the song at the 2003 Glastonbury festival that he wrote it in New York after the September 11 attacks to express a sense of hopefulness.
The lyrics were inspired by the scientific principle that all matter in the universe is essentially made up of stardust.
During a Reddit AMA session, Moby said the song is relatively accurate, scientifically speaking.
"Apart from two elements (hydrogen and helium?) everything else on the periodic table of elements (with which we're comprised) came from the furnace of a star somewhere," he wrote. "Just remember: there's not a single part of you that wasn't present in the first 1/2 second of the big bang. Technically, we're all 13,600,000,000 years old." bit.ly
Duran's third studio album and their last with the band's most famous line-up until their 2004 release 'Astronaut'.
Vocalist Simon Le Bon shared that the album "is an adventure story about a little commando team. 'The Seven' is for us—the five band members and the two managers—and 'the Ragged Tiger' is success. Seven people running after success. It's ambition. That's what it's about." bit.ly
Travel back to 1983 to watch a live version of "New Moon on Monday": www.youtube.com
The Moon & Antarctica is the third studio album by American rock band Modest Mouse. The album's title is taken from the opening scene of the 1982 film Blade Runner, where the main character (Rick Deckard) reads a newspaper headlined "Farming the Oceans, the Moon and Antarctica".
Modest Mouse is an American rock band formed in 1993 in Issaquah, Washington, and currently based in Portland, Oregon. The founding members were lead singer/guitarist Isaac Brock, drummer Jeremiah Green and bassist Eric Judy. With Green's death in 2022, Brock remains the only active original member of the band.
www.modestmouse.com
"The The songs are not so much time-less, as time-full; packed with an awareness of precious moments, vanishing hopes, urgent social pressures, fervent memories, so that they might better be thought of as melodic time- bombs, primed to go off in any century." www.thethe.com
The Waterboys were not fans of of synth-based pop, but when Mike Scott heard Prince's "Purple Rain", he realized it could work—if done right.
Read about an interview with Scott where he talked about "Purple Rain's" influence: www.songfacts.com
"Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons," was originally written by Frank Black, and Pixies released it on the album Trompe le monde in 1991.
Watch them perform the song live: youtu.be
French electronic music duo Air released their debut studio album, Moon Safari in 1998.
Writing in Mixmag, Alexis Petridis called it a "superbly inventive" album that "creates a soundworld in your living room, a world where everything's more shiny, chic and sophisticated than reality"
From French electronic duo, Air's debut album, "Moon Safari." The duo had a longstanding relationship with filmmaker Sofia Coppola--they composed the score for "The Virgin Suicides," were featured on the soundtrack of "Marie Antoinette," and their drummer Brian Reitzell put together the soundtrack for "Lost in Translation."
This track features a sample of Alan Parsons Project’s “Eye in the Sky” and is inspired — like the album itself — by the story of astronomer Carl Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan capturing their romance on tape and sending it into space as part of the Voyager’s Golden Record. - bit.ly
Mike Score, the Flock frontman revealed the meaning behind this song. "'Space Age' was just about intimacy, if you'd like. When you meet somebody there is an instant eye contact if the chemistry is right. If everything is right, you catch their eye... that whole 'across the crowded room/caught your eye' thing.
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The hair, the hair!: www.youtube.com
Liz Phair has described 'Whip-Smart' as a chronicle of the beginning, middle and end of a relationship: "a rock fairy tale, from meeting the guy, falling for him, getting him and not getting him, going through the disillusionment period, saying 'F**k it,' and leaving, coming back to it." - bit.ly
Sting has said that he wrote the song when he was drunk one night after a concert in Munich. The following morning, he remembered the song and wrote it down.
"I was drunk in a hotel room in Munich, slumped on the bed with the whirling pit when this riff came into my head. I got up and started walking round the room, singing 'Walking round the room, ya, ya, walking round the room'. That was all. In the cool light of morning I remembered what had happened and I wrote the riff down. But 'Walking Round the Room' was a stupid title so I thought of something even more stupid which was 'Walking on the Moon'."
This was inspired by the late comedian Andy Kaufman. When he was a teenager, R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe saw Kaufman on Saturday Night Live, and has cited him as a huge influence ever since.
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"I never thought I was going to write a song about Andy Kaufman and the Moon Landing, but it ended up being a song about faith, timelessness, spirituality, time and space, death and darkness."- Michael Stipe in an interview with Aftenposten in October 2017
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Eddie Vedder performed this with R.E.M. during the band's induction into the Rock Hall of Fame: www.youtube.com
This 1992 song is about a magical, albeit lonely character called Kiko, who comes out at night to "dance and dance." bit.ly
www.loslobos.org
In 1997, on the Howard Stern Show, Perry Farrell talked about his belief in aliens and then performed an acoustic version of "Pets": www.youtube.com
In their 1981 track "Rapture" Blondie leveraged their celebrity to shine a spotlight on hip-hop; appearing on TV's "Solid Gold" Debbie Harry introduced the song, “Using our new single, ‘Rapture, Blondie and some of our friends put together a number to show you what rapping in the street scene is like.”
nypost.com
Check out the Video!
youtu.be
KEXP revisited the track in our 50 Years of Hip Hop podcast:
www.kexp.org
Prior to its being released as an official single, "Stars" received heavy airplay on the Los Angeles radio station KROQ-FM. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "KROQ jumped on the song so soon that RCA had to rush release the song nationwide, a full month before the scheduled release of [the] single." Hum's drummer Bryan St. Pere credited KROQ with making the song so popular, saying in an interview, "Yeah, I think [KROQ] helped us out the most, because from what I gather, that's the station in the country, and when they decide to add a song, all the other stations kind of follow suit."
Gotta love radio
Young Liars is the first major release by the New York City band TV on the Radio. Released in 2003 on Touch & Go Records, the EP helped establish the band's distinctive blending of electronica, doo wop, post-rock, and avant-garde styles.
David Bowie produced this track and that's his magnificent backing vocal, a lovely counterpoint to Lou Reed's singing-speaking.
In his 2003 interview with Performing Songwriter magazine, Bowie explains that the song "Inchworm," which was sung by Danny Kaye in the 1952 movie Hans Christian Andersen, was a big influence on "Ashes To Ashes." Said Bowie: "I loved it as a kid and it's stayed with me forever. I keep going back to it. You wouldn't believe the amount of my songs that have sort of spun off that one song. Not that you'd really recognize it. Something like 'Ashes to Ashes' wouldn't have happened if it hadn't have been for 'Inchworm.'
www.songfacts.com
Late and beloved songwriter Chris Cornell said of this song:
"I wrote it in my head driving home from Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, a 35-40 minute drive from Seattle. It sparked from something a news anchor said on TV and I heard wrong. I heard 'blah blah blah black hole sun blah blah blah'. I thought that would make an amazing song title, but what would it sound like? It all came together, pretty much the whole arrangement including the guitar solo that's played beneath the riff."
"I spent a lot of time spinning those melodies in my head so I wouldn't forget them," he continued. "I got home and whistled it into a Dictaphone. The next day I brought it into the real world, assigning a couple of key changes in the verse to make the melodies more interesting. Then I wrote the lyrics and that was similar, a stream of consciousness based on the feeling I got from the chorus and title."
bit.ly
Watch the video here:
youtu.be
Brandi Carlile covering Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun".. with members of Soundgarden. Brandi first performed this with the group at the Chris Cornell tribute "I Am the Highway" in January 2019.
A "classic" recording by Beastie Boys... Rachmaninoff's "Prelude C-sharp Minor," sampled from a recording by Les Baxter played on a synthesizer, is blended into the verses. The piece of classical music at the beginning of the song is "Night on Bald Mountain" by Modest Mussorgsky. Also sampled is "Love is Blue" by The Jazz Crusaders.
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This won a Grammy in 1999 for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group.
“A Day In Space”, from Ballboy’s Club Classics 2001 album, is a wondrous and incredulous song. Over a Wedding Present-like mid-tempo two chord thrash, the spoken lyrics proclaim how fantastic a trip to space would be, and decry those who lack the imagination to dream of such a thing. The full lyrics are here: genius.com