Self Help Radio 071115: Sense & Nonsense

(original image here)

A show about sense + nonsense doesn't make any sense!  Should it?  Make sense I mean?  Or not?

I dunno.  Here it is though.  Trying to make sense of things.  You know how it is.  Still.  There's some nonsense too.  You have been warned.  Or, should I say, nonsensically, you have been warmed.

The show is where you expect it to be: at Self Help Radio on the web.  In addition to the music played, listed below, there's a conversation with our man in Hollywood, Mark Miller, who's trying to make sense of that industry, & a professor in New Mexico who teaches, & he says this himself, nonsense.  Do pay attention to the username/password stuff there.  It's how you get to listen to the show!

Sense?  Nonsense!
Thanks for listening!

(part one)
"Sense & Nonsense" Adorable _Vendetta 7"_
"It Don't Make Sense" Fiestas _Oh So Fine_
"It Don't Make Sense" The Carpettes _The Early Years_

"Nothing Makes Sense" Jennifer Gentle _Valende_
"Several Thousand Light Years Of Talking Nonsense" The Crimea _Secrets Of The Witching Hour_
"The Sense" Crippled Pilgrims _Down Here (Collected Recordings 1983-1985)_

"You Make No Sense" ESG _Come Away With ESG_
"No Sense" New Model Army _No Rest For The Wicked_
"Make Sense Of It" Split Enz _Time & Tide_
"Makes No Sense At All" Hüsker Dü _Flip Your Wig_

"Common Sense" John Prine _Common Sense_
"Empire Of The Senseless" The Mekons _The Mekons Rock 'n' Roll_

(part two)
"You Stopped Making Sense" The Radio Dept. _Clinging To A Scheme_
"Logic Makes No Sense To Me" The Would Bes _Silly Songs For Cynical People_

"Treasury Of Nonsense" New Christy Minstrels _Tell Tall Tales! Legends & Nonsense_
"No Sense Nonsense" Jeremiah _USA Garage Greats 1965-1967: Hypnotized!_
"Sense Sickness" Del Amitri _Scared To Get Happy: A Story Of Indie Pop 1980-1989_
"Senseless" The Sullivans _The Sullivans_
"Sense" Terry Hall _Home_

"We Make Sense" Noise Problems _Emma Acs Live At The Festival Of Endless Gratitude_
"Only The Sea Makes Sense" Gorky's Zygotic Mynci _Gorky 5_
"Makes No Sense" Soundpool _Mirrors In Your Eyes_
"No Sense" Bailterspace _Strobosphere_

"Songs Of Fun & Nonsense (with Martyn Green)" Julie Andrews _Once Upon A Time_

Whither Sense & Nonsense?

There are a few things to say about this show, which I will enumerate in Roman numerals because I am reading a book about Romans right now.

I. I have no idea why I thought about doing a show about sense & nonsense.

II. I don't normally do shows about opposites like this.

III. I think I thought I couldn't find enough songs about one or the other.

IV. But it turns out there were many more songs about making sense than songs about nonsense.

V. Which is not to say nonsense songs.

VI. Like, I was going to play the song "O Susannah."  That song delighted me as a child.

VII. I only picked a couple for the show.

VIII. Every time I do a show with two things - if I've ever done a show with two themes…

IX. I can't remember if I ever have.

X. I'm too lazy to go check.

XI. Anyway, I thought I could do a sense song, then a nonsense song, then a sense song, etc.

XII. There weren't enough nonsense songs.

XIII. There were tons of song about "the senses," though.

XIV. I eliminated them.  That's a whole other show!

XV. Not to mention the individual senses!

XVI. Has it rained every day this summer?

XVII. Uh, I've lost my train of thought.

XVIII. You don't expect me to make sense anyway, right?

XIX. Anyway, I'm moving the show to Tuesdays after this next show, you know.

XX. So listen!

That made no sense.  Appropriately.  Self Help Radio's last Saturday morning show, at least for now,
on 7-9 am, wrfl.fm / 88.1 fm.  You know the drill.

Preface To Sense & Nonsense: Homecoming

My wife has been in Spain for the past three weeks.

Ooo, you might say to yourself.  Ooo, Spain.  Well!  What a terrible wife, not to take her lonesome husband to the beautiful & ancient old country, to visit its beautiful beaches, its museums, to partake of its culture, its sangria, its siestas in the hot, dry summer!

It's okay - she's not really a terrible wife - she's actually there to work.  She's spent the past few days holed up in what I can only assume is a refurbished Inquisition-era torture room dissecting animals for her next big scientific paper.  She's an anthropologist, you see.  She's told me things about the animals she's cut up that would've led to divorce papers from a weaker spouse.

I do throw up all the time when she talks about her work, though.

She comes back tomorrow.  So I've been working on Saturday's show all day today so I could spend maximum time with her tomorrow.  There!  You thought I wasn't a crazy romantic fool.  But you were wrong!

Update: just got a text from her.  It just says "plastered."  It's after midnight in Valladolid.  She's having way more fun than I am, that's for sure.

Whenever It Rains A Lot I Think Of The Novel "One Hundred Years Of Solitude"

It's been raining a lot here.  It reminds me of a story.  A long time ago, maybe even ten years ago now, I was fortunate enough to see The Lucksmiths, the best indiepop band ever, live at Emo's in Austin, Texas.

I don't remember what year it was but the Lucksmiths were supporting an Elephant Six band like Olivia Tremor Control or Ladybug Transistor.  I wasn't there to see that band (whichever one it was, or another I'm forgetting), & I'm not suggesting the bands are interchangeable, as I enjoyed them, but I had discovered the Lucksmiths by reviewing a CD for KVRX in 1999 & never thought this Australian band would make its way to the United States.

(They made it back to Austin one more time, probably around 2007, & I also saw them three times in San Francisco, trips I made specifically to see the band.  I loved them so much.)

Honestly, I had never seen a band win over a group of people who didn't know about them before.  & this was at Emo's, where people were only allowed in if they were sufficiently jaded.  I overheard later on that the band sold an amazing amount of merchandise after their short set, & I also talked to people who wanted to know more about them.

But my favorite comment about the band was this: "Where they come from, it must rain a lot."

I hadn't thought of it before, but they do in fact sing a lot about rain.  To people in Austin, Texas, in the middle of a hot summer, it seemed noteworthy.

Where are they from?  Brisbane, I believe.  Does a rain a lot in Brisbane?  This website (which is metric!) doesn't seem to suggest that it does.  (I translated it.)  25 inches a year?  That's about half what Lexington gets.  Even less than what Austin averages!

But rain is thoughtful, rain is poetic.  Rain sets the mood.  & rain makes me a lonesome boy.  Who's going to go listen to the Lucksmiths right now.

Sugar Substitute # 163

Here's another episode of the one-hour "free-form" radio show I do before my regular show, Self Help Radio, on Saturday mornings.  It turns out this is the next-to-the-last Sugar Substitute for a while, because, as you know, Self Help Radio is moving to Tuesday afternoons next week & I won't have that extra early-morning hour to play around with like I do now.

This week's show features a three-song tribute to the newest member of our household, a ridiculous chihuahua girl we called Yoko, who is, I am happy to say, fitting in tolerably well.  Beagles are notoriously accepting, cats are notoriously aloof, & she is notoriously sweet & cute.  It's working out better than I could have expected.  So she deserves some songs!

You can listen to the show now at this link, & if you don't know the username/password combo, I can only say like I am whispering SHR + selfhelp.  Otherwise you're on your own.

The songs I played are below.  Hope you enjoy!

"Why" Yoko Ono _Plastic Ono Band_
"Oh Yoko!" John Lennon _Imagine_
"Be My Yoko Ono" Barenaked Ladies _Gordon_

"Song Will" Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin _The High Country_
"Aquarium" Robyn Hitchcock _Eye_
"Foolin' Around" Crocodiles _Boys_
"Los Testigos No Descansan En Domingo" Clint _Alegrame El Dia_

"Bad Love" Summer Camp _Bad Love_
"Anywhere" Interpol _El Pintor_
"Young Girls" Pins _Wild Nights_
"Digital" Joy Division _A Factory Sample_
"Powder Keg" Church Girls _Church Girls EP_

"Mark & John (Bring On The Glitter Kids)" The Secret History _Desolation Town_
"Zoo Music Girl" The Birthday Party _Drunk On The Pope's Blood_
"Where's Sweetboy" Purling Hiss _Weirdon_