Detonation Radio five: The Desire for an Aquatic Life: Watercraft in Popular Song.

AKA the dreaded BOATMIX. As I struggle to get Detonation Radio onto the schedule it's supposed to be on, I proffer the latest installment in record time. Originally intended as a mix CD, instead it goes out on the podcast, a mix CD for the world. If you don't know how to work the podcast by now, you never will, so I'm going to stop explaining it. Commentary for some or all of these tracks will probably arrive sometime when it's not almost 3:00 AM.

1. The Golden Arm Trio - "Swift Ship Sailing"
2. Centipede E'est - "Sinking Boats"
3. The Monorchid - "S.S. Hopeless"
4. Wire - "Marooned"
5. Elvis Costello and the Attractions - "Shipbuilding"
6. Brian Eno - "The Big Ship"
7. The Golden Arm Trio - "Late Ship Wandering"
8. Charlie Johnson and His Paradise Band - "The Boy In the Boat"
9. Country Teasers - "Prettiest Slave On the Barge"
10. The Philistines Jr. - "The Voyage of the S.S. Danehower"
11. Bedhead - "Liferaft"
12. Palace Music - "Ohio River Boat Song"
13. Galaxie 500 - "Tugboat"
14. Polvo - "Fast Canoe"
15. Hanatarash - "Boat People Hate Fuck"

Next time around, Detonation Radio lives up to its name. Oh the plans I have.

Yeah.

The fabulously irrelevant Detonation Radio podcast is now available via the iTunes Music Store podcast directory. Fame, fortune, and all that, just around the corner. Also just around the corner, a new DR installment, probably later tonight.

Detonation Radio four: Some business with a Black & Tan.

New podcast up now, downloadable in the usual ways, as seen to the right. Tracklisting below, rambling to come later, maybe. No theme, just thrown together from stuff I've been listening to lately. Lazy, I know.

1. Jackie-O Motherfucker - "Hey! Mr. Sky"
2. Alvarius B - "Mister 786": Two tracks from late 2005 releases, both from artists chopping, screwing and recombining traditional American musics for their own rapturous or nefarious purposes. A year or more after the "New Weird America" wave crested, Jackie-O return with, go figure, their best album¹; this track reminds me of both "Sympathy for the Devil" and the Velvets' "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" so it's alright by me. Alvarius B, aka Alan Bishop of Sun City Girls, released Blood Operatives of the Barium Sunset as a limited vinyl release of 1000 copies, exactly the sort of audience-limiting move that utterly infuriates me. Granted, there are probably only about 1000 people who really need an Alan Bishop solo record² and most of them will have turntables, but it's principle that I'm talking about. That's right, principle. Anyway, the first time I heard Mr. Bishop solo was on a split with the Cerberus Shoal, who appear later on this very podcast.

3. Disco Inferno - "Second Language": Bomb Squad sampling on a collision course with guitar playing that assumes the aspects of Vini Reilly and The Edge, with morose '90s British vocals providing fuel for the inevitable, unforgettable fire. Title track from one of the five EPs DI released between 1992 and 1994, which collectively outshine their full-lengths and are infuriatingly out of print.

4. Bellafea - "Tara"
5. Cocteau Twins - "Feathers-Oar-Blades": Or, "Just because I don't like Sleater-Kinney doesn't mean I dislike all female musicians."

6. Glitter Pals - "Unleash the Compassion": Title track from EP on the tragically-named and even more tragically-logoed Lovepump United record label.

7. Cerberus Shoal - "Ding": I figure this is where I lose some of you, although I have it on good authority that this track "ownes". Is my including a nearly twenty-minute track on a one hour podcast that is, at best, bi-weekly a sign of laziness or perversity? I like to think that the sheer, nonsensical majesty of the whole thing vindicates me, but you, as always, are free to make the call. From The Vim and Vigour of Alvarius B and The Cerberus Shoal split CD.

8. Bruce Haack - "Song of the Death Machine": HAL 9000 sings a creepy lullaby from Bruce Haack's epic religious freakout The Electric Lucifer.

9. Young People - "Where the Streets Have No Name": From a split with Friends Forever. One of my favorite covers ever.

10. Art Gillham - "You May Be Lonesome": I originally stumbled onto Mr. Gillham's work via this wonderful John Kuramoto animation of a Kim Deitch comic strip. Google led me here, from whence I downloaded the track heard here. As far as I can tell, Gillham's work is out of print. Personally I feel like Gillham's voice has more depth than that of the average crooner, but that could be the whiskey talking.

Have a good Friday, dearies.

Edit: Comments added early Sunday morning, keeping warm while the snow does its thing outside.

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¹ Flags of the Sacred Harp.
² Although, of course, in a just world there'd be way more.

Rock, rot, rule.

Listening to "pop culture guru" Mo Rocca on David Lee Roth's otherwise terrible radio show is like listening to Tom Scharpling and Jon Wurster on The Best Show on WFMU in a Bizarro World where Scharpling isn't in on the joke.

"He got more booty than a toilet seat" is probably the most loathsome expression I've ever heard. I actually miss listening to Howard Stern in the mornings.

By request from a ghost.

This house is so haunted with dead men I can't lose, and the James Frey saga takes a mildly interesting turn as today and yesterday marked the first two days in which customers have attempted to return James Frey's A Million Little Pieces. Wednesday's child was a woman while Thursday's was a man, but I wonder if they were returning the same book; in both instances, it was a nasty, yellowed, beaten-up copy of the book¹. The milestones come fast and furious at my little store; the other day, Interpol bassist Carlos D. graced the customer service desk with his presence. The enterprising hipster reading this blog will have already made his or her own joke about Mr. Dengler looking for books on herpes, so I will refrain from stepping on your toes, you savvy scenester.

I don't know why I insist on acting like anyone cares, but a new Detonation Radio, surely the most half-assed installment yet, should be up within 24 hours. Wheeeeeee.

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¹ My theory is that the woman who tried and failed to return the book on Wednesday got her spouse or a male friend or relative to make a second attempt, under the often correct (in my experience) reasoning that a man is more likely to get a refund than a woman is. It didn't work this time, in part because BN's James Frey policy is to accept returns of the book only under the normal circumstances for a return (i.e. within two weeks with a receipt) and in part because the book was completely jacked-up.