Self Help Radio 021517: Are You Ready?

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How many of Self Help Radio's themes have been questions?  I count seven, if you include this one, with such probing inquiries as: Are you sure?; At what cost?; Does it matter?; What happened?; What o'clock is it?; & most recently, Who's the boss?

Oh, & I didn't mention yesterday why this theme was explored - I had intended, actually, to simply do a "ready" show.  But early on I titled it "are you ready" & as I started listening to stuff, I thought it might be more fun - & more challenging - to do a show in which I narrowed the idea somewhat to the phrase "are you ready."  (I know most people don't think this show is fun, but I gotta get my kicks somewhere.)  The result, of course, is something you can listen to now!

The show is ready for you at the Self Help Radio website.  Please remember username/password info, available on the page.  Are you ready to listen?  What?  You want to know what songs I played first?  Okay, okay.  They're below.

Now are you ready?

(part one)

"Are You Ready" Henry Wilson _Record Hop_
"Are You Ready" The Dixie Hummingbirds _A Christian Testimonial_
"Are You Ready" Sly & The Family Stone _Dance To The Music_

"Are You Ready" Dave Davies _Hidden Treasures_
"Are You Ready?" Pacific Gas & Electric _Are You Ready?_
"Are You Ready" Bruce Ruffin _Rain_
"Are You Ready" The Chambers Brothers _New Generation_

"Are You Ready" Gruppo Sportivo _Back To 78_
"Are You Ready" Crispy Ambulance _The Plateau Phase_
"Are You Ready" James _Strip-Mine_
"Are You Ready?" Fatty Gets A Stylist _Fatty Gets A Stylist_

"Are You Ready?" Wire _Object 47_

(part two)

"Are You Ready" Mercury Rev _The Light In You_
"Are You Ready For It" Holograms _Night Of 1000 Ex-Boyfriends_
"Your Fucking Sunny Day" Lambchop _Thriller_

"R U Ready (R U Freddy)" Tania + Holy Worm _R U Ready (R U Freddy)_
"Are You Ready For The Sex Girls?" Gleaming Spires _Songs Of The Spires_
"Are You Ready For This" Jackie DeShannon _The Complete Liberty & Imperial Singles, Vol. 2_
"Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?" Lloyd Cole & The Commotions _Rattlesnakes_

"People Are You Ready" Prince Mohammed _People Are You Ready_
"Are You Ready To Dance?" Dirt Bike Annie _Hit The Rock!_
"Are You Ready To The Party (ft. Nicole Willis)" Mr. Comicstore _SoulShaker Vol. 4_
"Are You Ready For The Country?" Neil Young _Harvest_

"(Are You Ready) Do The Bus Stop" Fatback Band _Raising Hell_
"Are You Ready For This" Bill Deal & The Rhondels _The Best Of Bill Deal & The Rhondels_

Whither Are You Ready?

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Are you ready for a show with the theme "Are You Ready"?  If you answered yes, then, cool!  The show's on tonight!  If you answered no, then, well - might you be ready in around eleven hours?  If you answered yes, then, yay!  The show will be on then!  If you answered no, then, rats!  If you're not ready then, the show will have to go on without you.  I hope that doesn't bother you.  Does it bother you?  If you answered yes, then, hey!  Maybe try to be ready at eight pm central, nine pm eastern!  If you answered no, then, ah, I see, you don't care about the show, & that's all right.  I understand there's much, much better radio out there, & I am certain you at least care about some radio, right?  Do you care about some radio?  If you answered yes, then, I knew it!  It's good to care about something!  If you answered no, then...

What the hell am I doing?  This has become like some kind of "choose your own adventure" of an unwell mind.  I just wanted to let you know about the show tonight, not quiz you constantly about your motivations.  Anyway, the theme is "Are You Ready," it's not a question for you to answer but rather a question for the show to answer.  You see.

The show's on tonight from 9-11pm eastern, 8-10pm central, airing in Lexington on the radio at 93.9 fm & online everywhere at the Lexington Community Radio website.  I hope you can listen.

Also I hope you can handle hearing the question "are you ready?" asked over & over without feeling the need to respond.  I couldn't.  I'll screaming "I'm not ready!" at myself all show long.

Preface To Are You Ready: Mercy Dash

Happy Valentine's Day!  I am done with sharing old Valentine's Day shows.  I am sure you're relieved.

If there has been a criticism of Self Help Radio I've had to hear over the years, it's that the show focuses on the theme being "in the song's title" rather than just what the song's about.  It's a fair criticism, & I have no defense - I generally wanted to make sure that the songs I play follow the show's theme & the easiest way to do so is to have it as obvious as the song's title - though if the song is called the theme but doesn't actually talk about the theme, I usually reject it.

There's just so much music!  In the gathering process I must rely upon a dumb old database & my worse old brain.  So - in my zeal to gather music related to this week's theme "Are You Ready" - I focused more on titles than on content, & I forgot about - until this afternoon - a Shriekback song I totally would have played.

But wait, Gary!  Your show is tomorrow!  Can't you play it then?

Alas, the show is prerecorded, since I no longer live in Kentucky.  I sent it to the station today, as I do every Tuesday.  I was in the shower, singing to myself, when I thought of this song, which constantly asks, "Are you ready?"

In my embarrassment I play it for you hear.  Enjoy.  & hope that one day Self Help Radio can be live again!

Valentine's Day Approaches

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Here's another bit of the past: a Self Help Radio Valentine's Show from 2007.  It's the second-oldest Valentine's Day show I currently have a copy of that is digitized, although I think I have the earlier shows on cassette (if they survive at all).  There was apparently no Valentine's Day show in 2006, & I have no idea why.  But I resumed in 2007 with a show about crushes.

Some things to note about this show:

1) The show was recorded on a failing cassette player which sped up my voice because it recorded things too slowly.  But the music sounds fine, so maybe my voice was a little higher back then?
2) The show is 90 minutes long.  I think I had moved to Fridays at this point.
3) There's a special appearance by a woman named Lisa who went on the air as "Miss Novak" for reasons I never asked about.  I believe she did the show before mine, which is why she sticks around for an airbreak.  Later on, she came to dislike me because of arguments on the station's Programming Committee, so it's strange to me to hear us so cordial.  I haven't seen nor heard from her since I left KOOP in 2008, barely a year later.  (Looking at the KOOP web site, I don't see her show's name, so perhaps she no longer deejays at the station.)
4) Two features of old Self Help Radio: the "Self Help Radio minute," an attempt to be funny that I never spent too much time on, so I apologize in advance; & haikus.  I used to ask listeners for haikus (& yes, I know the plural of haiku is "haiku" but I still prefer "haikus") & didn't get many submissions, so I wrote them myself.  Eventually I gave them up, though for months afterwards people said they loved the haikus on my show.

The show is now at the Self Help Radio website.  It's in two parts, so you'll need to go there to get it.  What's in the parts are below!

(& remember, this year's Valentine's Day show (about sweethearts) & last year's Valentine's Day show (about heartbreak) are still available if you wanna listen!)

(part one)

"Crush" CJ Buchanan _Whom To Love?  Whom Not?_
"I've Got A Crush On You" Petra Haden & Bill Frisell _Petra Haden & Bill Frisell_
"The New Teller" Jonathan Richman _Beserkely Chartbusters_
"1-2 Crush On You" The Clash _Clash On Broadway_

"Crush On You" Little Girls _The Podolor-Cooper Sessions_
"Teenage Girl Crush" Angelica _Teenage Girl Crush_
"Crushed" Girlfrendo _Surprise, Surprise It's Girlfrendo_
"Nerdy Boys" Candypants _Alright, This Time Just The Girls Vol. 2_

"I Don't Really Love You Anymore" Magnetic Fields _i_
"Oops! I Did It Again" Richard Thompson _1000 Years Of Popular Music_
"You Little Fool" Elvis Costello _Imperial Bedroom_
"The Saturday Boy" Billy Bragg _Back To Basics_

"Mix Tape" Michael Shelley _I Blame You_

(part two)

"Denis" Blondie _Plastic Letters_
"Since You Stole My Heart" Saturday Looks Good To Me _Every Night_
"Crush Lasts Nearly An Entire Bus Ride" Onion Radio News _Onion Radio News_
"Grape Crush" Dirt Bike Annie _Hit The Rock_
"Bewitched" Beat Happening _Jamboree_

"Kylie's Got A Crush On Us" BMX Bandits _Life Goes On_
"Josh Has A Crush On A Femme From Reed" New Bad Things _Freewheel!_
"Crush Whatever" Manhattan Love Suicides _The Manhattan Love Suicide_
"Secretest Crush" Casiotone For The Painfully Alone _The First Two Records On One CD_

"Krush" Stars _The Comeback EP_
"Secret Crush On Third Trombone" Fosca _Diary Of An Antibody_
"Crushed" Cocteau Twins _Lonely Is An Eyesore_

Valentine's Day Past

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Feeling a little guilty about a Valentine's Day show so far in advance of Valentine's Day, I thought to myself, hey!  Maybe I can share an old Valentine's Day show with you!  (Last's year's show, about heartbreak, is still available to listen to as well.)  So I dug up the oldest Self Help Radio VD episode I could find, which, it turns out, was also way too early for Valentine's Day, so I did a show not about love, but about hate.

It may be strange to listen to now; it was for me!  I don't announce the theme at the beginning of the show.  There's no background music for me to rely upon if I need to pause.  It's really just me talking off the top of my head & trying to be funny.  Listening now, I think I sound much more self-confident than I do these days.  But you can be the judge of that, should you listen.

One day I'll re-do a show about hate, but just until Valentine's Day you can listen to what Self Help Radio sounded like a mere twelve years ago, back before either of us was born.  It's available now at the Self Help Radio website or directly linked here.  You'll need to remember username SHR & password selfhelp in either case.  The quality isn't so good - in those days I recorded my shows on cassette & then digitized them.  A hiss is prominent.

Here's what I played, though the last song fades out:

"I Hate You" Monks from _Black Monk Time_
"I Hate You" Damien Youth from _Damien Youth_
"Today I Hate Everyone" Killjoys from _Starry_
"We Hate All The Same Things" Mr T Experience from _...And The Women Who Love Them_

"Hate" Cinerama from _Va Va Voom_
"All You Need Is Hate" Delgados from _Hate_
"Hate Is The New Love" Mekons from _OOOH!_
"Let's Fall In Hate" Michael Shelley from _I Blame You_

"I Hate Myself" Anita Lane from _Sex O'Clock_
"Hate My Way" Throwing Muses from _Throwing Muses_
"I Am Hated For Loving" Morrissey from _Vauxhall & I_
"The Mill Hill Self Hate Club" Edward Ball from _Creation Records: International Guardians Of Rock & Roll_

"Love & Hate" Crabs from _What Were Flames Now Smolder_
"I Hate Milk" Air Miami from _Me, Me, Me_

Maybe another old Valentine's show tomorrow?  What do you think?