The Gary Files # 15: Gary Sandy

(I found this image here.)

An explanation: Since the name Gary is going extinct, I thought it incumbent upon me to celebrate more notable Garys than myself.  This is the fifteenth of a series!

Gary Sandy is an American actor most famous for his portrayal of Andy Travis on the television show WKRP In Cincinnati.  He was mostly the straight guy for a radio station full of wacky characters - a role I myself have played in my life many times.

When did you first become aware of him?  Duh, WKRP In Cincinnati!

May he have been the most famous Gary you knew as a child?  Maybe!  I loved the show a lot, & of course I had a love of radio from the get-go.  But to see the name "Gary" during the opening credits of the show - & his name was the very first - well, it was fun as a kid.

The show makes you a little nervous now, though, doesn't it?  Yes, because I've had to deejay with only two turntables, & I am very anxious when I watch the show & the deejays - Johnny Fever or Venus Flytrap - are so easygoing while something's playing on the air.  They hardly ever cue up another record after one has been started.  They have no fear about dead air.

Does it impair your enjoyment of the show?  Oh, probably not.  I haven't seen it in a while, & when I do see it, I remember the episode like it was yesterday.  I must've watched some of the those episodes dozens of times.  I think I even tape-recorded - not videotaped, but tape-recorded - some episodes & listened to them over & over.

Do you know him from anything else?  Sadly, no.  But!  He does have a website, & he seems to have stayed very busy acting his entire life.  Good for him!  Good for the name Gary!

Was his name really Gary?  Both his website & Wikipedia say his name is "Gary Sandy."  It sounds like an actor-y name, though.  But I have no reason to doubt him.  Even in the 1970s, the name Gary wasn't terribly cool.

Do you know why he was named Gary?  He was born in 1945, so it was (sigh) probably Gary Cooper.

Self Help Radio 122915: Indiepop A To Z # 49

 (I found all the album covers here at discogs.com.)

The last show of the year is bound to be something of a letdown.  While I don't exactly plan for that - it seems pretty obvious, I think, that themes are presented with almost no sense of why they're happening when they're happening - I am aware that at the end of the year, with a lot of people at home, with family, & not driving around, not forced with finding something on the radio to occupy their time getting home in traffic, that there are going to be less listeners.  Hell, the station itself is deserted - I saw Tyler, the deejay before me, & James, the deejay after me, & no one else yesterday.

So I retreat to a show that's slightly easier to do - I still have to listen to a lot of records, scrunch up my face & ask myself "does this qualify as indiepop?" - around this time of year (& near the end of the spring semester, & at the end of the summer semester).  I very much enjoy doing it, & I wonder where I'll be with the show at the end of my life - maybe the letter S? - but I understand that, one, it's not like most of the other Self Help Radio shows I do, & two, it's going to only appeal to a certain group of people who like this sort of music, or who are curious to hear sounds they may not have heard before.

That being said, hey!  I finished the letter K!  & hey!  I started the letter L!  The show is now at the Self Help Radio website & you can listen to it whenever you please.  There's username/password information on the website if you need it.  The songs I played - in glorious alphabetical order - are listed below.

& that's it for 2015!

(part one)

"Tattva" Kula Shaker _K_
"I Am Always With Him" Kumari _Beikoku-Ongaku # 11_
"I Can't Swim" Miles Kurosky _The Desert Of Shallow Effects_
"A Perfect Life" Kyoko _Viva Mobstar_

"Galaxy High School" L.A. Tool & Die _Fashion For The Evildoer_
"Fix My Wagon" LMNOP _Camera-Sized Life EP_
"In A Blue Balloon" Labrador _Goodbye Susanne_
"We Are Kids" Lacrosse _Bandages For The Heart_
"Like A Summer Rain" The Ladybug Transistor _The Albemarle Sound_

"Giving & Receiving" Lake _Giving & Receiving_
"Shrewsbury Girl" Lake Holiday _Send Off The Summer_
"Faking The Books" Lali Puna _Faking The Books_
"Heartbreak Bombardier" Land Of Ill Earthquakes _Heartbreak Bombardier_
"Good Weather" Gerard Langley & Ian Kearey _The Great Fire Of London_

(part two)

"If It's Not You" Language Of Flowers _Songs About You_
"End Credits" Laptop _Opening Credits_
"All Or Nothing Girl" The Larks _All Or Nothing Girl_
"I'll Beat Myself Up Tonight" Larz _What You've Missed So Far_
"Way Out (Single Version)" The La's _Callin' All_

"Last One Standing" The Last Names _Wilderness_
"Barbecued" Last Party _The Sound Of Leamington Spa, Volume 1_
"This Is Pop" Latimer House _All The Rage_
"Paul McCartney" Laugh _CD86: 48 Tracks From The Birth Of Indie Pop_
"Wouldn't You" The Laughing Apple _Whaam! Bam! Thank You Dan! A Whaam! Records Compilation 1981-1984_

"Sacred Heart" Laurel Music _Labrador 100: A Complete History Of Popular Music_
"Ride" The Lavender Faction _Take Down The Walls_
"What If You" Leaving Mornington Crescent _Corners EP_
"I'm Always Home" Jack Lee _Trophy Life_
"Walk Away Renee" The Left Banke _There's Gonna Be A Storm: The Complete Recordings 1966-1969_

"Red Roses" Lefties _Pop American Style_
"Big Bluff" The Legendary Bang _Big Bluff EP_

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 49?

Yes, this last Self Help Radio of 2015 continues the series that I began way back in Austin many moons ago.  It is based on a list I found on the internet, at a site called twee dot net, but of course I am not content to just follow a list.  I had to add more.  Bands I thought deserved to be on the list.  Bands I felt should be represented because of their influence on indiepop.  Even bands that were kind of proto-indiepop.

This has made the list long, & because I do the shows only three times a year, it makes it easy to add bands that have just appeared on the scene in the intervening years.  Is that a wise way to be doing it? Does it make any damn sense at all?

Probably not.  But I'm committed!  You can listen to me finish the letter K & start the letter L today from 4 to 6pm on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington, wrfl dot fm online.  I will archive it tomorrow at the show's website, & in fact you can listen to almost every previous episode of Indiepop A To Z by looking at this list.

The show will be a globespanning experience!  I hope you listen!

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 49: Reckoning

For the record, the show will finish the letter K tomorrow.  It will start the letter L tomorrow.  It will not finish the letter L tomorrow.

This may seem like coded information directed to a small, perhaps elite group of people who enjoy a small, elite subgenre of independent music.  This is not so.

This is accounting by & for someone who has what some might call an obsessive need to continue a program of musical tabulation that will never be finished, & which interests virtually no one but the person doing the work.

Still, there's bound to be some good tunes.  How could there not be?

Some Thoughts Near The End Of The Year

As the year comes to a close, as one's eyes begin to close, one thinks to one's self (or is it oneself?) (it would sound better as "one's self," but oneself is a perfectly fine adjective & perhaps even preferable) (a matter of opinion, certainly), "My, what a year it has been, & perhaps, since I am already sitting here with a snifter of something & a well-oiled suit, I may spend a moment or thus opining & surmising, with one hand on my stumbling memories, & another in the cookie jar."

For example, one might recall that the year started, as most years do, in early January, & no one had any idea that there might be relocation in the air.  Relocation!  The movement of one life in one place to a not dissimilar life in another, stranger place!  Boxes must be packed, books must be sold, furniture of questionable taste must be placed on the curb for the strange men in the beat-up pick-ups to take when no one is looking!  Relocation has not written on the inches & inches of snow that covered three whole months of this year.  But the word was uttered!  The decision was made!  Then it was unmade!  & yes, then came the rue.  The bitter, bitter rue.

Must one always look back upon the year with rue?  What happened to the nepenthe of youth that served as the antidote for rue?  Must rue accrue as the years pile up behind one?  & why is it so enjoyable to say the word "rue."  One sometimes wishes one had children, about whose mental & social conditions one didn't care, such that one could name them fun words like "rue."  Please, one might say, let me introduce you to my children.  This is Rue.  This is her sister, Woe.  This is Little Ruin, & of course you know our eldest, Scourge.

Ew.  It suddenly appears that one is writing some kind of rip-off of a Neil Gaiman story.  One should quit while one is quite far behind.  In fact, one should forego writing until one can more comfortably employ pronouns in a much more readable manner that that heretofore displayed.

But wait!  One has some pseudo-poetic lines that one has not yet incorporated.  For example, this was written on a scrap of paper stored under a salt & pepper shaker: "Can one truly have thoughts for such a thoughtless year?"  Isn't that a fabulous line?  Isn't that worth having to slog through all the turgid prose thus far exercised in these purple paragraphs?

No?  Well, shoot.  One kind of feels like 2015 was exactly like that.