Obscure Films Of 1989

(image from the IMDb)

This week's show featured some of my favorite music of 1989. In-between some of the songs, our resident cinephile Chuck highlighted a few movies from 1989 he enjoyed which he felt were overlooked or needlessly obscure. Hey! Go listen to the show now if you haven't. His bits appear in-between the songs.

Once you've done that, have a look at these helpful links:

YouTube playlists of films & trailers

Full Movies

Trailers Pt. 1

Trailers Pt. 2

Letterboxd list

(Chuck says: I put the links to available videos in the notes for the films plus where they are available to stream for free.)

Letterboxd reviews

IMDb search list

Chuck adds: I posted* about some of the films on Bluesky.

(*It's just the same links that are here for now, but go ahead and give me a follow. I usually follow back.)

Get to it! There are lots of films made in 1989!

Self Help Radio 011425: 1989

(all album/single covers from Discogs)

Here's a selection of music I enjoyed from 1989. As discussed too many times on this blog, I don't really think in terms of "best of." Ultimately what let me to pick these over the dozens of other releases I liked from this year is that I listened to these a lot. Like, I can recite the words to all the songs I played on this show. Just get me drunk first & dare me to do so.

You can listen to this show whenever. It's at the KBOO website. It's at the Self Help Radio website. For the latter, use the username SHR & password selfhelp. Please. The songs I played are below. Sorry you have to wallow in my past for a while. Feel free to share with me your favorite releases of 1989!

Self Help Radio 1989 Show

"I Wanna Be Adored" The Stone Roses _The Stone Roses_

"Most Of The Time" Bob Dylan _Oh Mercy_

"Debaser" The Pixies _Doolittle_

"Interesting Drug" Morrissey _Interesting Drug_

"Brassneck" The Wedding Present _Bizarro_

"Radio Ass Kiss" The Wonder Stuff _Hup_

"Devil's Roof" Throwing Muses _Hunkpapa_

"Amazing" Tin Machine _Tin Machine_

"God's Comic" Elvis Costello _Spike_

"House" The Psychedelic Furs _Book Of Days_

"Empire Of The Senseless" The Mekons _Rock & Roll_

"Falling" Julee Cruise _Floating Into The Night_

"Secrets" The Primitives _Pure_

"She Knows" The Hummingbirds _LoveBuzz_

"Bitter" Lush _Scar_

"Monsterpussy" The Vaselines _Dum-Dum_

"Got Apprehension" Close Lobsters _Headache Rhetoric_

"Blues From A Gun" The Jesus & Mary Chain _Automatic_

"You Keep It All In" The Beautiful South _Welcome To The Beautiful South_

"The End Of A Perfect Day" Kirsty MacColl _Kite_

"Love & Anger" Kate Bush _The Sensual World_

"I Can't Make Love To You Anymore" Felt _Me & A Monkey On The Moon_

"Shaftesbury Avenue" Momus _Don't Stop The Night_

Whither 1989?

(Me in 1989)

Every year around the time of my birthday - which happens six days from when the show airs - I play a lot of my favorite music from the year of my birthday, which was 1968. I do this each year & have made my way to 1989, when I was 21. There was a lot of music I loved from that year so it's been very, very hard for me to pick. I'm not even sure if all the stuff I chose for tonight will be my favorite. But I have two hours to share music I loved from back then - almost all of which I was actually listening to at the time - & those two hours are from midnight to 2am on 90.7fm in town - that's KBOO - online at kboo dot fm.

That's gotten out of the way so you don't have to read me rambling on a little bit more about me in 1989. You can skip all this.

Yesterday I mentioned that I feel like in 1989 my relationship with music changed. Up until that point, it would not be an exaggeration to say that music was the most important thing in my life. It was certainly a part of the many creative things I absorbed, including literature & comics, but it was the most immediate & certainly the thread that connected lots of my relationships. My friend Russell, for example, was never quite as interested in comics or sci-fi as I was, but we could always talk about music.

Once I was in a relationship - even if the one I was in for most of 1989 was one-sided & something of a sham - it seemed to me I was somehow involved in a creative process myself. I was never a musician, & though I wanted to perhaps one day be a writer, I knew deep inside that I didn't have the talent or skills. I think I also knew that I was too lazy to work hard enough to develop whatever artistic capabilities I might have been able to nurture. Certainly suddenly finding myself in a relationship gave me a sense of being involved in creation - in a way, playing pretend.

In this way I didn't rely on music as much. I still wanted to listen to it, & I still wanted to share it, & I still felt it was something I needed in my life. Just - not as much.

Two things happened to also affect how I interacted with music. One was obvious - I was with another person most of the time, so when I listened to music, I wasn't alone. Up until that point my relationship with music was entirely personal. Now I deferred to her when it came to listening to things. At least once in our relationship I took her to a concert I really want to see, & she hated the musician. She said, "Why would you take me to this?" & basically made me leave. In 1989, one of my favorite musicians, Elvis Costello, released a new record. I remember being very excited about buying it & bringing it home. But she didn't like Elvis Costello & didn't want me to listen to the record around her.

Being alone that summer was probably very good for me to catch up on records I wasn't allowed to listen to on my own! But the second thing that happened was that a couple of releases I was really looking forward to were deeply disappointing to me. These were from bands I greatly admired. I don't want to call them out now but if you look at "best of 1989" lists & you cross-check it with what I play tonight, you will noticed some glaring exceptions. Eventually I listened to & came to appreciate some of the songs on the records but I never truly came to love them as I had loved their previous releases. So too I listened to some releases just out of loyalty more than enjoyment. I have never been able to entirely reject an artist even after long periods of disappointment.

When I thought about my life in 1989, I didn't think I'd find much music I liked back then. When I took the time to look over releases of the year, I found something like 150 records & singles. & that's just in the rock/indie rock/postpunk/indiepop categories. I haven't yet looked into hip hop or electronica or jazz. It means that tonight's show will just be a snapshot - 25 or so songs out of a possible 150. I have decided though not to revisit 1989 later in this year. I will do it during sub shows when I have the chance.

Anyway. I have to go now & decide how I will put this show together. I hope we share some of the same loves of the year!

Preface To 1989: Young & Maybe Even A Little Pretty

(me in 1989)

It has become something of a tradition for me to talk on the blog about the year I am exploring for my birthday show. Around the time of my birthday, I play music from a particular year in my life - the first Self Help Radio around the time of birthday, in 2003, I played my favorite music from 1968, the year of my birth. This year I've made it up to 1989.

In 1989, I turned 21 years old. Imagine that. I was in my third year of college into my fourth. There is a part of me that thinks I may have taken the spring semester off - I took off two semesters of college so didn't graduate in 1990 as I was supposed to, but instead in 1991. But I don't think I had discovered that I could take time off yet. After all, you couldn't do that in high school!

The year was dominated by first real relationship, which, it turned out, wasn't much of a relationship at all. The signs were all there - when we returned from holiday break, in January, I really wanted to see her but she wasn't too excited to see me. I was pretty persistent tho, & at some point in the spring I guess we were a couple. I should stress that she never really loved me, & it was only something like codependence that kept us together until she could find a way out. In most every possible way I existed to support her & she - well, she deigned to allow me to be in her presence.

She came from a very conservative family who was not white. At some point in the spring, she introduced me to them, & they told her later that she was not allowed to date me. So she lied to her family & continued to date me. It should have been a red flag that she could deceived her parents so easily - she after all thought the world of them. But I was very much in love. & I would do anything for her. Perhaps defying her family made the relationship more exciting. What happened that spring is that we spent a lot of time together & the codependent bonds were tightened.

When summer came along, she went home to her family & I stayed in Austin. I had been working at a department called The Language Lab at UT but not enough to pay for me to stay in my little efficiency. I wrote about that place here. Instead of going home to the Dallas area for the summer, which had been a disaster the previous year, I got a job that summer working nights at 7-11. It was a weird summer to say the least but I spent most of it sleeping during the day & working at nights. I didn't have a whole lot of friends & didn't see many people. & because I was not supposed to be dating her, I couldn't call my "girlfriend" at her home.

We devised a stupid solution. She would call me collect. It's very hard to explain to folks today who pay for a cell phone plan how the phone company could gouge you back then. A collect call was very expensive. A collect call from another city was very expensive. & she & I would talk hours. I was not allowed to call her back - her parents would hear the phone ring. & I did want to talk to her. Though I imagine those phone calls, if I had a recording of any of them, had very little content that I would find interesting today.

One day in August I was wakened by a phone call - remember, I worked nights so I slept from around noon to eight pm every day - & it was a person from the phone company who kindly told me that my next phone bill - they wanted me to be prepared - would be around $1500 dollars. (A web site told me that's equivalent to nearly four grand today.) I remember being cool about it - I had been asleep - & saying thank you & hanging up. Then it hit me & I called the person back.

To put things into perspective, my efficiency cost me $165 a month. It was going to be nearly impossible to pay that off any time soon. So they put me on a payment plan & I lost my phone. I remember having to get the last collect call from the "girlfriend" & explain it to her. One might say I was lucky that summer was ending & school would start soon.

That summer (I think) I had gotten a twenty-hour-a-week job at the Language Lab, soon to be called Liberal Arts Media Center. In 1993 I think I got a full-time job there & worked there until I left Austin in 2009 - so basically twenty years. But until the end of the year I kept my job at 7-11 & so my days were very much like this: Wake around 9pm. Shower & drive (my "girlfriend"'s car - in the summer I bussed) to 7-11. Work from 11pm until 7am. Come home, eat, go to school. All of my classes for the fall of 1989 were scheduled between 8am & noon. Meet the "girlfriend" at noon for lunch. Work until 5pm. Go home & go to sleep. Repeat the next day.

As a person about to turn 57, I can't believe I did that for months. To give you a sense of some of the difficulty I had to endure, one day the "girlfriend" got mad at me for not being around. "We never do anything anymore," she told me. I tried to explain the reason I had this nightmare schedule was because of the phone calls during the summer. She had gotten an apartment very close to mine & I had basically moved in - & I used her phone number though I could never answer the phone - but kept my efficiency probably until the end of the year. But the fact that she contributed nothing to the financial bind I was in - & I would never have asked her to - but she never even offered - & still expected me to keep her entertained while working two jobs & going to school - it's a snapshot of how little what I was in was a committed loving relationship.

There were many great adventures at 7-11. Maybe one day I'll recount some of them. I was robbed at knifepoint. I had beer stolen from me just once - though folks tried again & again. I interacted with some funny characters - cops who came to grab all the day-old donuts when the donut guy came, a super tall chick named Monet to whom I gave hot dogs when she was drunk, a homeless man who distracted me with a puppy while he opened & drank several bottles of Nyquil with astonishing speed. I had worked nights at a 7-11 in Garland two years earlier, & I basically grew up in a convenience store, so it was a gig I liked. I drank way too much soda though (for the caffeine) which was very bad for my teeth. & I was too young to be so exhausted all the time.

My job at the Language Lab/Liberal Arts Media Center was a pleasant change, it was salaried & I got insurance & all that. I worked in a room with a real character who was in charge of duplicating language tapes which I sold at my office's dutch door. I decorated the door with stuff I clipped out of magazines & newspapers. I don't know if anyone told me I could do it, I just did. & no one told me to stop. & also one day I may write about the people with whom I worked. I wanted them to like me. I liked being a student who interacted with students. But boy that fall I was falling asleep at my desk like all the time.

Wait a minute though. Isn't this a blog about a radio show? It is. & tomorrow I will talk about how my relationship with music changed in 1989. But I appreciate having a chance to write a little bit about a year in which I was very young & maybe even a little pretty.

Coming Up Tomorrow On The Dickenbock Report: National Pharmacist Day

(image by Mohamed Hassan from PxHere)

January 12 is National Pharmacist Day. If you're unlucky enough to have a pharmacist in your family, like I do, you know how insufferable they are. You really don't want them to know they have a national day! All the bragging after that, ugh.

But we'll be discussing pharmacists & playing musical reports about pharmacists tomorrow on the Dickenbock Report on XRAY FM. Gosh, maybe just don't tell them. You've got enough to deal with.

Noon to 1pm Sunday on 91.1+107.1fm in Portland, xray dot fm everywhere. All that knowledge & they still get mad if you ask them a question about your health. Sheesh.

This Week In Self Help January 3 5 + 7

Do you know why I picked that picture for this post? Me neither! I took it in 2017. So. There's that.

A week ago - January 3 - I was on KBOO playing lots of music from Africa (mostly). Sadly, since it was a sub show, it was not archived on the KBOO website. You can listen to it - even download it - on the Self Help Radio website, though - as long as you remember the username SHR & the password selfhelp.

Over on the Dickenbock Report, I celebrate George Reeves' birthday by playing lots of songs about Superman. You can listen to that show on the XRAY website & also on the Self Help Radio website - where, you'll recall, you need to remember the username SHR & the password selfhelp.

The first Self Help Radio of 2025 was a peculiar show. It really was. You can listen to that show on the KBOO website or on the Self Help Radio website - please remember the username SHR & the password selfhelp!

The KBOO show above contains this week's episode of Corporate Standardized Programming which was my attempt to play lots of new releases from October to December 2024 I hadn't got to yet. If you'd like to listen to that show by itself, you can do that on the Self Help Radio website. Blah blah username SHR password selfhelp.

Maybe I thought that picture up there was peculiar? I dunno.

Self Help Radio 010725: A Peculiar Show

(original image from Gooble Maps)

Let it be known I'm not terribly happy with my terrible Photoshop job above. It's just that I don't have the time to do any better. There is a town in Missouri called Peculiar & the sign was from Google Maps & I think I like the idea - next 2 hours instead of next 2 exits - but I wish I had the time - not to mention the skill - to do a better job. Sorry about that.

Apologies all around! It's 2025! Perhaps we'll have less energy to get anything done as the year wears on! Whee! Radio will be so fun!

Anyway. The show. You can listen at the KBOO website. You can listen at the Self Help Radio website. You need the username SHR & password selfhelp at the latter. Everything that happened on the show is mentioned below. Yeah, it's all pretty peculiar.

So it goes.

A Peculiar Self Help Radio Show

"Peculiar" Chewy Marble _Chewy Marble_

"Peculiar" Twerps _Twerps_

"Peculiar" The Slackers _Peculiar_

introduction & definitions - featuring the Definition-O-Tron 3000

"Life Is So Peculiar (with Louis Armstrong)" Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five _Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five_

"A Most Peculiar Man" Simon & Garfunkel _Sounds Of Silence_

"Ain't That Peculiar" Bettye Swann _Don't You Ever Get Tired Of Hurting Me?_

"How Lucky You Are (aka Miss Peculiar) (Demo)" David Bowie _Divine Symmetry_

"It's Not Peculiar" Hüsker Dü _Warehouse: Songs & Stories_

interview with Ron Wilson, winner of the Most Peculiar Person In Portland 2024 contest

"Peculiar Guy" Lee Hazlewood _Trouble Is A Lonesome Town_

"Most Peculiar Girl" Larry & Lynda _Most Peculiar Girl_

"Peculiar Girl" The Feelings _Darla 100_

"Friends Peculiar" April March _In Cinerama_

"Peculiar, Missouri" Willi Carlisle _Peculiar, Missouri_

interview with Carter James, runner-up for the Most Peculiar Person In Portland 2024 contest

"Funny Peculiar (feat. Cathy Davey)" The Divine Comedy _Foreverland_

"Funny Peculiar" The Hollow Men _Twisted_

"A Peculiar Noise Called 'Train Director'" The Olivia Tremor Control _Black Foliage: Animation Music Volume 1_ 

"My Own Peculiar Way" Timi Yuro _Today_

"Something Peculiar" Julianna Raye _Something Peculiar_

the etymology of peculiar

"Peculiar Situation" The Hollies _For Certain Because..._

"Peculiar Hole In The Sky" The Valentines _The Sound Of The Valentines_

"Two Peculiar People" Weather _Piccadilly Sunshine Volumes 1-10 (A Compendium Of Rare Pop Curios From The British Psychedelic Era)_

"I Never Thought It Peculiar" The Monkees _Changes_

"A Peculiar Hallelujah" Papercuts _You Can Have What You Want_

"Old Peculiar" Vomit Launch _Dogeared_

conclusion & goodbye

"Peculiar Man" The Gaylads _Understanding_

"Peculiar Number" The Abyssinians _Forward_

"(I Know My Baby Loves Me) In Her Own Peculiar Way" Leon McAuliffe _Take It Away Leon: 1946 Big Band Sides, 1947-48 Live & Majestic Recordings_

Whither A Peculiar Show?

(This seems mean. Image from here.)

From nearly the very beginning of Self Help Radio I have not been entirely content having shows about things. I liked also to have shows about words & phrases. This is one of them.

Why peculiar? Is that a word used to describe me at one time? Perhaps - but certainly not from many of the people growing up. Too many syllables. They were content with "weird."

Nothing peculiar led me to make a show with the theme being the word peculiar. I'm pretty sure it's because of a song I'll play tonight that I discovered & really loved. It made me go down a rabbit hole of songs featuring the word peculiar. That's usually how these themes come about. I wish I had a better story!

Tonight! Midnight to 2am on 90.7fm & kboo dot fm! The first Self Help Radio of 2025! Peculiar but in a way not peculiar!

Preface To Peculiar: Is This Show Peculiar?

The image above is the Peanuts strip from January 9, 1963. It was scanned by me from the Fantagraphics collection. I chose it because, well, it uses the word peculiar. & the word peculiar is the theme of this week's show.

Which is the first show of 2025. It's not an auspicious sign of the creativity of the program this year.

But the question is asked - is this show peculiar? Or - hold on - is it trying to be peculiar? After all, there are plenty of people who like to say "I'm so weird!" but they're not really weird. Maybe Self Help Radio really wants to be peculiar but really isn't. It may be painfully normal. Or just bland.

What do I think? I think I've been doing this show so long I have no idea what I'm doing. So I let it be the show is wants to be. Or what it is in spite of what it wants to be. Anyway. The comic above is awesome. That's the only reason to look at this.

Coming Up Tomorrow On The Dickenbock Report: George Reeves' Birthday

(image from the Wikipedia)

George Reeves - the most famous actor to play Superman until the movie in 1978 - was born on January 5, 1914 - over 110 years ago! With the new Superman movie coming this summer - as well as the new documentary about Christopher Reeve on Netflix - it seemed a good time to talk about the beloved superhero & play musical reports about the comic sensation.

Tomorrow, Sunday, January 5, on 91.1+107.1fm in Portland, online everywhere - maybe even Smallville, Kansas - at xray dot fm.

This Week In Self Help December 29 + 31

(from Poorly Drawn Lines, of course)

Boy, 2024 ended poorly. One of the worst endings of any year since 2016-2019. & to make matters worse my voice was the last voice on KBOO in 2024. I'm sure that means the station is cursed now or something. To add insult to injury, I did other shows at the end of the year too.

The Dickenbock Report celebrated the cello on International Cello Day. Not with pieces written for the cello, but with songs about the cello. Still wanna listen? Really? You can do so at the XRAY website or at the Self Help Radio website. Remember: username SHR + password selfhelp.

Self Help Radio continued the neverending Indiepop A To Z series. Episode 76. Still near the beginning of the letter S. You can listen to that show at the KBOO website or at the Self Help Radio website. Remember: username SHR + password selfhelp.

Speaking of not finishing something, I spent the month on the show Corporate Standardized Programming paying tribute to artists we lost in 2024. I made it to the middle of October. That show is appended to the Self Help Radio recording on the KBOO website, but if you'd like to hear it as a self-contained show, you can do that at the Self Help Radio website. Remember: username SHR + password selfhelp.

Finally - I played music I like to dance two on the last two hours of 2024 on KBOO. The file is currently on the KBOO website - the link is right here - but since it's not the regularly scheduled show, I suspect the programmers will delete that soon enough. But if you'd like to have a New Year's Eve dance party any time of the year, you can of course listen at the Self Help Radio website. & remember: username SHR + password selfhelp.

That's how 2024 ended! I don't imagine 2025 will be any better & in fact I think it will be much, much worse but let's keep having fun on the radio, okay?

End-Of-The-Year Accounting

(original image here)

This is a boring & self-serving blog entry so feel free to stop reading right here. I actually took the time this year to keep track of all the radio I did. I'm not 100% sure it's completely accurate but it's as close as I can get. Off by a show here or an hour there probably. This is the grand total of radio I did in 2024:

193 radio shows. 98 of them live in the studio, 95 of them recorded, for a total of 295.5 hours.
(That's like 12 days of radio!)

Currently I have three shows - which I had at the beginning of the year, too, though on different stations & at least one in a different format. I ended the year with two shows in a three-hour block so perhaps they should be counted as the same show. I am not doing that tho!

This year there were:

53 episodes of Self Help Radio

52 episodes of The Dickenbock Report

51 episodes of Corporate Standardized Programming

Two episodes of Self Help Radio were repeated - the show started 2024 on Freeform Portland & is now on KBOO, but twice this year I repeated a Freeform Portland episode on KBOO. As well, one of the episodes (the one on Election Day) wasn't really an episode of Self Help Radio - it was just me playing music because I was a little too worried about the election - & it turns out my fears were justified!

One episode of The Dickenbock Report was subbed by my friend Mark. I didn't count it toward my hours on the radio but I did count it as one of my radio shows, since he gave me the recorded airbreaks & the song list & I put the show together.

Both Self Help Radio & the Dickenbock Report are theme-based but I have (in case you didn't know) repeated old SHR themes for the Dickenbock Report. Having said that, I did explore on both shows 71 unique themes this year (including four shows that were tributes to a particular artist). In addition, for both Self Help Radio & the Dickenbock Report I did two shows each about a particular year (1988+1924 respectively). For Self Help Radio, I had four episodes of Howard Gently in honor of my dear friend Russell, three Indiepop A To Z episodes, an anniversary episode where I repeat a theme (for this year, 1971), the annual birthday episode for my wife, & my end-of-the-year favorites episode.

Below I'll list all the unique themes but there's one more stat that brings the number up to 193 - shows I subbed! I subbed 37 shows this year. Mostly on KBOO, but I did a couple of XRAY & I made a fundraiser show for Freeform Portland.

Okay. The last thing. The original themes I explored this year. I alphabetized them & I indicated which ones were for the Dickenbock Report by marking them with an asterisk (*). Here you go:

The Alphabet, Arrested, Badgers*, Barns*, Belgium*, Brooms
Can't Wait, Catastrophe, Cellos*, Chaos, Chefs*, Cocktails*, Corvettes*

Dandelions, Death Valley, Delirium, Drain, Eagles, Eiffel Tower*

Falling In Love (Valentine's Day show of the year), Fudge*, Guts

Helicopters, Hiking*, Hitchhiking, Hobos, Irish Things*

Kaleidoscopes, Kazoos*, Kiss & Make Up*

Lemonade*, Libraries*, Lucy*, Loneliness

Macaroni*, Magnets, Mangos, Miami*, Newspapers*, 1924*, 1988

One More, Oysters, Pandas, Paradise, Parasites, Providence, Purpose

Quiet*, Rotten, SOS*, Sandwiches*, Scarecrows (Halloween show of the year)

Shotgun, Small Town, Skirts*, Spirals, Squirrels*, A Steady Show, Suitcases

Sunglasses, Superheroes*, Sweaters*, Telescopes, Tired, Typewriters*

& Unicorns

The artists I paid tribute to this year were Ennio Morricone, Cole Porter, & Paul Simon (on their birthdays) & John Lennon (on the anniversary of his death).

You can listen if you want to any or all these shows over at the Self Help Radio website you know.

Is that it? I think so. It's the most radio I think I've ever done in a year & while it almost certainly wasn't all that good I had a good time doing it. Eventually someone will realize how ridiculous it is that I am allowed to do it & put a stop to it but until then... I'll keep having fun.

Self Help Radio 123124: Indiepop A To Z # 76

(all images from Discogs)

For the last Self Help Radio episode of 2024 - happening on the last day of 2024 - I present the 76th installment of the Indiepop A To Z series. In the letter S - Sedgemorons to Sharesprings. I have nothing to add to this - lots of indiepop in alphabetical order. What you might expect.

Listen to the show either at the KBOO website or at the Self Help Radio website. For the latter, use the username SHR & the password selfhelp. The list of songs is below. I really hope I didn't screw up with alphabetizing. The ghost of my third grade teacher would haunt me well into February. Enjoy & happy new year!

(Please remember most of the previous episodes are archived at the Self Help Radio website. Maybe find them on the page where I list all the themes I've explored.)

Self Help Radio Indiepop A To Z # 76

"Drop Dead Darling" The Sedgemorons _Drop Dead Darling_

"Why Now Girl?" The Sedgwicks _September EP_

"Nothing Lasts Forever" See Venus _Hard Times For Dreamers_

"Hold Me" Sekiden _Sound Instincts_

"Pamela" Robert Sekula _Under The Bridge 2_

"Som Pa Film" Semester _Debut EP_

"Learning French" Send No Flowers _Learning French_

"Beautiful Morning" Sensation _Burger Habit_

"Go To Work" Sensible Jerseys _Two-Way Radio_

"Heartbeats" September Girls _Cursing The Sea_

"Something Better" Septembers _Something Better_

"The Sweetest" Serenaide _The Other End Of The Receiver_

"Come Back Kitty Cat" The Serenas _Winter's Mist_

"Here Come The Popes Part 3" Sergeant Buzfuz _High Slang_

"The Sun, A Small Star" The Servants _Reserved_

"Clever, Charming" The Service Economy _Hey! Where'd The Summer Go?_

"Heaven's Spell" 7 Roberts _Heaven's Spell_

"Sisters Are Forever" Sexy Kids _Sisters Are Forever_

"I Know You Well" Shack _I Know You Well_

"My Pal Foot Foot" The Shaggs _The Shaggs_

"We Will Rise" The Shaky Hands _The Shaky Hands_

"Hyper" Shallow Soundwave _A Chance To Shine: A Dorian Records Compilation_

"Real Tears" Shame _The Sound Of Leamington Spa Volume 8_

"Something About You" The Shamen _Scared To Get Happy (A Story Of Indie-Pop 1980-1989)_

"Pearls In Vinegar" Shampoo Tears _Pearls In Vinegar_

"Give Him A Great Big Kiss" The Shangri-Las _The Best Of The Shangri-Las_

"Call You On The Telephone" Sarah Shannon _Sarah Shannon_

"Do You Know" The Shapiros _The Shapiros_

"Fix Your Eyes On" Sharesprings _Popkiss Single_

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 76?

(image of The Sedgemorons from here)

Many years ago - seventy five episodes ago, at least - I began a series called "Indiepop A To Z." No one wanted me to do this. No one has ever really mentioned to me that they enjoy it. It's just been a personal exploration of a small subgenre of popular music that mostly noone knows anything about - the genre I meant not the shows, although that is true too, since of course very few if any people know about my dumb show.

When I started I didn't really think I'd finish it. I still might not. But I've made it to the letter S, & in fact the show tonight will start with the band pictured above, The Sedgemorons, who were from the southwest of England. Where it will end will depend upon how much I yap in-between the sets. But it's absolutely certain I'll still be playing bands/artists whose names begin with the letter S. I do agonize a bit over choices. I mostly make the list myself.

In any event, that's all you need to know, really. The last Self Help Radio of 2024 is on the last day of 2024. It's happening tonight at midnight on 90.7fm in Portland & online all over the world - even in the southwest of England! - at kboo dot fm.

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 76: Three Times A Year

Here's a picture of my cat Bluto, with a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Ziggy Bowie. Bluto is often twee but on this day was feeling a little glam. I said to him, "You're supposed to be modeling my 'indiepop a to z' blog post! You should be twee!" He just stared at me & said, "I'm an alligator. I'm a mama-papa coming for you."

This is my reminder that I return to my Indiepop A To Z series three times a year, at the ends of April, August, & December. Since it's the end of December, I will be returning to the series this week. I am currently in the letter S where I suspect I will be for a very long time. I am beginning with The Sedgemorons & who knows where I'll end.

In the early days I didn't schedule this project with such regularity. It seems I started doing it thrice a year in 2011. I first started doing it on the show Ear Candy in Austin until the host, Jennifer, said to me, "Will this ever be finished? It's boring!" At which point I would do it when either I subbed her show without her or, later, after I left KOOP, on my own show. I think the indiepop scene is somewhat more subdued these days - or else there's just so much music out there now that it's impossible - or very difficult - to keep up. So though I try to be as comprehensive as I can, I am sure I am leaving some artist or bad out.

These are things I tried to explain to Bluto Bowie. But instead he told me, "Keep your mouth shut. You're squawkin' like a pink monkey bird!" Then he went to see if there was any kibble around in the places I normally leave it for him.

Maybe he'll be more agreeable tomorrow.