Self Help Radio 122823: Indiepop A To Z # 73

(most images found at Discogs)

It was the last Self Help Radio of 2023. It was the seventy-third installment of the Indiepop A To Z series. The letter R as complete as I could get it, I moved into the letter S. Where I'll probably be for a while.

You can listen to the show at the Self Help Radio website. You will need a username (SHR) & password (selfhelp) to listen. But it can be downloaded! There are many other episodes of the series & while I keep promising to upload them all, you can find out which ones are available (it's episode # 14 on) by just going down the list here. I will try to get to the rest at some point.

Everything I played is listed below. Thanks for listening if you listened to Self Help Radio this year. More of the same next year!

Self Help Radio Indiepop A To Z # 73

"Sunday" Rote Kapelle _These Animals Are Dangeroos_

"Welt Rollt Vorbei" Röttger/Goldstein _Eine Kleine Stadtmusik_

"More Than This" Roxy Music _Avalon_

"I Can't Remember" Royal Carter Show _Royal Carter Show_

"Clean" The Royal Landscaping Society _Means Of Production_

"Sun Shines Down On You" Rubber Orange _Rubber Orange E.P._

"Because..." Ruby Blue _Because..._ 

"Girl Store" Ruby Pins _Ruby Pins_

"Arachnidphile" Ruck Rover _Good People's Highway_

"One In A Million" Nick Rudd _One In A Million_

"Flowers" The Ruling Class _Tour De Force_

"That's What You Say" Rumblefish _1234 - The Early Singles (1986-1989)_

"Your Big Brown Eyes & My Big Broke Heart" The Russian Futurists _The Method Of Modern Love_

"I Would Have Saved You" The Ruth Ellis Swing Band _Something's Burning In Paradise_

"Nowhere Town" Sabrinas _Jigsaw_

"The Girl Who Stole The Eiffel Tower" Die Sache _The Girl Who Stole The Eiffel Tower_

"Love Bomb" The Sacred Hearts _Love Bomb EP_

"Such A Waste" Sad Day For Puppets _Pale Silver & Shiny Gold_

"Find Me The Pulse Of The Universe" Laetitia Sadier _Silencio_

"Travel In Time" Safe Home _Travel In Time EP_

"If I Should Die" Safe Houses _If I Should Die_

"Silence Is The Safest Thing" Sage _Love Song_

"Say What You Feel" Said Liquidator _La-Di-Da... So Far..._

"Ate The Most" The Sainsburys _My Favorite Colour_

"Only Love Can Break Your Heart" Saint Etienne _Foxbase Alpha_

"Moments Are Moments" The Saint Valentine State _Between Two Waves: The Second Wave_

"Look Right" Salako _Musicality_

"Seven Steps Down" Salem 66 _Strum & Thrum: The American Jangle Underground (1983-1987)_

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 73?

(A twee kitty named Bluto)

In February of 2003, during the first year of Self Help Radio, I thought of an occasional series of radio shows involving the genre of indiepop. I had been listening to it for years - from the C-86 movement on - but hadn't known it was a thing until it was named as such by the show Ear Candy on KOOP radio. Being not a little OCD, it seemed a nice way to organize a show. That year, my show being an hour at the time, I did three episodes of the series.

A couple of years later, when I subbed the actual Ear Candy show, I resurrected the idea (& started over). Sometimes on Self Help Radio, sometimes on Ear Candy, I made fourteen episodes through 2008, when I left KOOP. I got to the letter C. I remember doing the show one time with one of the Jennifers who hosted Ear Candy, maybe it was the third or fourth show, & she was already tired of it. "Will this never end?" she asked on the air.

The series continued as I moved across the country & from radio station to radio station. In 2011 I decided to return to it every four months - the last shows of April, August, & December. You can see links to almost all seventy-two (72) episodes on the show's website. The first episode is strangely missing but I found the cassette recording of the show this past summer, dated November 4, 2004. I need to digitize the show & put the playlist on my website. I haven't done that yet.

It is now over twenty years since I started the series. Today I'll broadcast the 73rd installment. It will end the letter R & start the letter S. The aforementioned Jennifer recently told me that she doesn't listen to much indiepop anymore. I've heard this from some people. Like they're vaguely embarrassed about it. I am not. I wish there were much, much more.

There'll be two hours of it on the radio today. Noon to 2pm on Freeform Portland, which is at 90.3+98.3 fm here in town & online everywhere at freeform portland dot org. My last Self Help Radio of 2023! I hope you'll tune in.

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 73: Goodbye Letter R

(taken from this YouTube clip)

At this point I'm going to stop drawing attention to how weird & OCD it is to spend over seventy episodes on a musical subgenre playing artists in alphabetical order. Or maybe I just did which means I won't. I don't know!

What I do know is I'll finish the letter R on this week's show. I started the letter R on the 69th episode of Self Help Radio, which aired in August 2022. Those shows - on KBOO - were three hours long so I could cover a lot of ground. That has changed since I'm back at Freeform Portland. So I suspect I'll be in the letter S for a little while.

A little while! I'll probably die before I finish it! Look how many bands are on the S list at twee dot net! I will be adding to that!

This week's show is, incidentally, my last Self Help Radio of 2023. I did in fact do 52 episodes of Self Help Radio this year - although I'll save that tally for later.

Two Years Ago On This Day It Snowed

Proof.

The wife said, "People are telling me it's been very unusually warm here this year & that we should have had snow by now."

Personally I don't know if I've lived here long enough to know what is usual or not. Especially when three of the years I've been here I've been dealing with covid.

Snow's very pretty in pictures. It's sometimes not much fun to walk dogs in. & it sometimes makes it hard to get to radio stations to do shows. So it's a mixed blessing to be sure.

Christmas

Boy, Christmas used to be exciting for me. Not for any of the religious stuff - that was never emphasized in our home & I was never forced to go to church or anything like that - it was the presents. I wanted presents. Lots & lots of presents. What an amazing thing! It's dark out & you get lots of presents?

That's probably why I kept liking Christmas tunes for as long as I did: the memories of those magical moments when you'd mention something you wanted & improbably a fellow called Santa brought it to you.

But you get older. For much of my young adulthood I wasn't in a relationship. I had enough money to buy the things I wanted. My large family - I have six siblings - would draw names & inevitably I would stress about what to get them & they - when they drew my name - for some reason would almost never buy me what I wanted but something adjacent (usually cheaper). I got several different versions of books I already owned as well as a couple of box sets I already had. & they never really wanted what they asked me to get them - they had spouses to get them the expensive stuff.

When I was in a relationship, it was never with someone who prized such things. I don't think I would've been good at it anyway. Eventually I would just go home for Christmas - my mother wanted me there - but not give or get gifts. & then, having moved out-of-state, I just stopped going home.

When I would do my Christmas shows, I would say "the only thing I do to celebrate Christmas is make these shows." Over time I began to feel quite hypocritical. The songs about both the materialism & the religiosity reflected no values of mine. Even the "peace on Earth" parts seemed tied to a belief system I didn't have.

Finally, upon reflection, I couldn't in good conscience play Christmas music anymore. It didn't hurt that in the recent past I've known some people - remarkably dumb & dishonest folks - who called themselves "Christians" & thought it amusing that I, a non-believer, still glorified their world view in this way. I don't care what people believe, but I do care that I myself don't misrepresent what I believe.

Without the religion or the gifts, there was no more reason to have anything to do with Christmas. The wife & I hung out today, walked the dogs, made dinner together, in all respects an average Monday. I saw the lights on people's houses, the trees in the front windows, & all I could think was, wow, it has been a long time since I've cared about any of that.

So on my KBOO show tonight, no Christmas music. Anyway, by that time, Christmas will be over.