Saturday, September 05, 2020

Preface To Patience: Thinking Ahead To The Anniversary

It is rather impatient of me, but I try to plan my shows out a month ahead of time, & the show that will happen four weeks from Monday will happen on October 5.  Which will be four days shy of October 9.  Which is the anniversary of when Self Help Radio started.  The show began in Austin, Texas, on a Wednesday afternoon at 2pm.  It was October 9, 2002.  The show will officially be eighteen years old.  It would have been off to college if it weren't for the damn virus!

What I have been doing the past few years on the anniversary is revisiting old themes, usually finding newer songs, of course having interviews, stuff like that.  Last year I revisited the theme "1969" from 2005.  (That's a weird sentence to look at.)  I went back to 2005 & found four themes that could bear a second look.  Those are:

Dinner
Dresses
Hate
Lions

Which one would you like the show to re-do?  You can tell me in a comment here, or on the Facebook page, or in a second I'll make a poll on Twitter.  Okay, I just did.  Let me know.

Thanks!

Friday, September 04, 2020

Just Watching Videos Of Rain

When there's rain on the brain.  & you check the weather vane.  The one that's not a bird, it's a Great Dane.  You wait for it to explain.  Why it's so dry it's profane.  You wish to give free reign.  To some magic airplane.  Seed the clouds into a hurricane.  All the water they contain.  No more would remain. Unleashed upon this parched plain.  You know how people maintain.  It's always wet here's their refrain.  A cliché so inane.  Yet passed off as witty & urbane.  But the skies do abstain.  What do they have to gain.  Selfish in their domain.  It give me a migraine.  It seems inhumane.  To cause so much pain.  Until the heavens drain.  I'll sip some warm champagne.  Hope there's something to gain.  Just watching videos of rain.

Thursday, September 03, 2020

Photographs Of Places I've Lived # 2: The Lockwood Arms

 
(Image from Google Maps.)

This is a place where I used to live, as it looked like in 2019, many decades after I lived there.  When I lived there, it was called The Lockwood Arms.

While I have some vague memories about living in the apartment complex then-called Kingsley Manor, which I talked about last week, I have many more memories about the Lockwood Arms, where I lived most probably during my first & second grade years, from 1973-1974.  In fact, one of the earliest pictures of me that I have was definitely taken there:


That's what the inside of the place now called "Spanish Stone" looked like when I was six or seven years old.  I've actually talked about the Lockwood Arms on this blog before, so that rather than try to remember anything more about the place, you can read what I've previously written here.  I can't say if where I am standing in this picture was our apartment or not, but I suspect it wasn't.

Something else interesting - when I wrote about this almost ten years ago, the place was called "Orchard Square."  How many names has it had in the forty-five-plus years since I've lived there?  I could swear it was the Lockwood Arms for many years after we left - well into the 1980s.  Who knows?

Tuesday, September 01, 2020

Self Help Radio 083120: Indiepop A To Z # 63

(I think I got all the images here from Discogs.  Maybe one from Bandcamp?)

Hooray!  We've finished the Indiepop O!  On to the Indiepop P!  I'll never finish this, will I.

My apologies for this post-show announcement happening the day after the show.  I am usually quite busy on Mondays with my KBOO show, I figured it could wait.  I know you don't care, but I am generally an apologetic fellow, so in case someone was like, Why the fuck isn't this posted on Monday afternoon like it's been for the past few months?  Is Gary dead?  Did he die?  Oh shit he's dead!  Things like that escalate quickly without an explanation.

Anyway, the show's now at the Self Help Radio website.  Remember the username (SHR) & the password (selfhelp).  It's mainly music, not a whole lot of me talking, so, you know, probably a better show than usual.

La la.

Self Help Radio Indiepop A To Z # 63
"Crystal Nights (Seven Inches Version)" Ornamental _Crystal Nights_
"Something Big" Jim O'Rourke _Eureka_
"Once" Ortolan _Time On A String_

"Only Friend" Oscar _Cut & Paste_
"Torn Lovers" Other People's Children _Delete.Control.Escape: The Selective Memory Of OPC (2000-2003)_
"Is It Any Wonder" The Other Side _Is It Any Wonder_
"Innocence" The Other Two _The Other Two & You_
"She Walks Down" Other Voices _She Walks Down_

"One Wish Too Many" Our American Cousins _One Wish Too Many_
"Burning" The Outskirts _Heaven's On The Move_
"Keep It Together" Oval-Teen _A Million Shades Of Oval-Teen_
"The Daily Oblivion" Overlord _In Soviet Russia, My Heart Breaks You_
"Left Blue" Owl & The Pussycat _Owl & The Pussycat_
"Isaac Bashevis Singer" The Owls _Daughters & Suns_

"Jetstream" Pacific _Sea Of Sand EP_
"The Rain Comes Down" Pacific Radio _Pacific Radio_
"You're My Kind Of Girl" Page Boys _Whaam! Bam! Thank You Dan! A Whaam! Records Compilation 1981-1984_
"Everything With You" The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart _The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart_
"Where The Railtracks Met" Paint _Transatlantic Pop Explosion_

"Cradle" Paint In Watercolour _Glare_
"Hatebomb" Paintbox _Split 7" with the Ammonites_
"Until Goodbye" A Painted September _Summer Escape_
"Lovelife" The Painted Word _Lovelife_
"Lilac Car" Painting By Numbers _Mit Sonnenschirmen Fingen Wir Den Blütenzauber 12"_

"Brighter Than The Sun" The Pale Corners _Split 7" with the Gresham Flyers_
"(Don't Let Your Love) Start A War" The Pale Fountains _(Don't Let Your Love) Start A War_
"4 O'Clock In The Morning" Pale Lights _Before There Were Pictures_
"Sight Of You" Pale Saints _Barging Into The Presence Of God_

Sunday, August 30, 2020

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 63?

(I found this on the Tumblr somewhere.  I don't recall where.  It has nothing to do with the show.  It just seems like the most true thing about me I've ever seen.)

Yes, this week it's the 63rd installment of the Indiepop A To Z series.  I was going to try to collect all the Indiepop A To Z series - almost all of which you can listen to on the Self Help Radio archive page - onto one handy web page, but I ran out of time today, as I am trying to make three radio shows at the same thing.  It can get complicated!

So instead I'll tell you that I believe we will finish the letter O & start the letter P.  & it'll happen from 8-10am (the usual time) on 90.3+98.3fm Freeform Portland, online at freeformportland.org.  Lots of indiepop goodness, not a lot of my regular nonsense, thank goodness.

That is all.