Self Help Radio 051823: Telegraphy

(Original image here.*)

During research for this show, I discovered that "telegraphy" means "the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message." (Wikipedia definition.) This means things like semaphore, signal fires, drumbeats - whereas initially I had thought it just meant the telegraph. So I focused on those songs rather than other possibilities. Which now seems like a missed opportunity.

But! The show was (I think) fun nonetheless. At least I had fun putting it together & doing it. You may not feel the same way. The only way to know is to go listen to - it's now at the Self Help Radio website! Remember to use the username SHR & to pass the password selfhelp. All the songs & the interviews that happened are listed below.

& yes, "... . .-.. ..-. / .... . .-.. .--. / .-. .- -.. .. ---" is Morse code for Self Help Radio.

Self Help Radio Telegraphy Show

"Telegram" Charles Kelley _Rhythm & Blues Goes Rock 'N' Roll Volume 2_

"The Telegram" Bobby Sherman _Found In The Basement Vol. 5_

"Telegram" Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames _The Whole World’s Shaking (Complete Recordings 1963-1966)_

introduction & definitions

"Télégramme" Edith Piaf _The Complete Recordings 1946-1963_

"Un Telegrama" Eydie Gormé _I Feel So Spanish_

"Telegram Tuesday" Blossom Toes _We Are Ever So Clean_

"Telegram For Miss Marigold" The Rokes _Let's Live For Today: The Rokes In English 1966-68_

interview with telegram company operator Leaton Lee

"Hey Western Union Man (Send A Telegram)" Cliff Bennett _Into Our Lives: The EMI Years 1961-1969_

"Telegram Sam" T. Rex _The Slider_

"Telegram Of Love" The Hues Corporation _I Caught Your Act_

"Telegraph Your Love" Pointer Sisters _Break Out_

interview with author Erlene Fanning

"Telegraph Line" Jaime Aff & Christine Langner _Schoolhouse Rock_

"Telegraph" Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark _Dazzle Ships_

"Gifts & Telegrams" Patrik Fitzgerald _Gifts & Telegrams_

"A Telegram, The Telegraph" Vitesse _Chelsea 27099_

interview with telegraph museum owner Arlo Wareham

"Last Telegram (Demo)" Walking Floors _Messthetics #102: (D.I.Y. 77-81 London II)_

"Telegram" No-Song Kutkotz _Personal Anarchy_

"Heart Telegraph" Divinyls _What A Life!_

"Overseas Telegram" Mick Harvey _Intoxicated Man_

interview with Samuel Morse descendent Cody Morse

"Don't Telephone - Don't Telegraph (Tell A Woman)" Tex Williams _Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! 25 Greatest Hits_

"Grandpa Was A Telegraphist" Peter Denahy _Dyamberin_

"The Telegram" The Medallions _Speedin'_

"Telegraph" The Frampton Brothers _I Am Curious (George)_

conclusion & goodbye

"I Guess I'll Have To Telegraph My Baby" George J. Gaskin _The 1890's Vol. 1: Wipe Him Off The Land_

"Telegraph Melts" Jandek _Telegraph Melts_

"Telegramme" Telegram _Operator_

* original image is Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0). Image manipulated by me to add Morse code & SHR logo.

Whither Telegraphy?

(image from here)

This is going to seem unbelievable, but I recently discovered that the idea for this show came from a very unexpected place. A couple months back I decided to tackle The Sound & The Fury again. William Faulkner's novel begins with a daunting stream-of-consciousness narrative from a mentally challenged 31-year-old man who doesn't seem to be able to distinguish between now & then. The book also has characters who share the same name which requires you to pay very close attention to context. I re-read the first chapter after I read the next two, which are narrated (still rather confusingly) by the first narrator's brothers.

The third brother is named Jason (like his father) & he's a petty man, incredibly racist, indulgently so, who desperately wants to make money because of a lost opportunity from his youth. In some scenes he's at a telegraph office wanting to find out the latest information from the New York Stock Exchange. He has some choice words about how the telegraph is used by Eastern elites to screw the little guy in Mississippi.

& I think that's what got me thinking about the telegraph. It's almost unimportant to the narrative. But as someone who's never sent nor received a telegram I made me think about working in a telegraph office. & that led to today's show.

Which is on from noon to 2pm Portland time on 90.3+98.3fm here in town & online everywhere at Freeform Portland dot org. Lots of music & talk about telegraphy - but this is the last time probably you'll hear about The Sound & The Fury, at least from me.

Preface To Telegraphy: Telegraph Line

One thing I wonder is, when I first saw this Schoolhouse Rock video, "Telegraph Line," if I knew what a telegram was. I was eleven when it first aired, so probably. But maybe this little video not only taught me what a telegraph was, but also the nervous system too!

A Nice Thing Happened Today

My hounds seemed very excited today about something under our shed. My wife thought it was a raccoon. It turns out it was a very handsome Siamese cat. I went out to feed it, took a picture of it, & posted it to Next Door. That turned out to be a good thing because within the hour I had received word from someone who claimed to be its human.

& she was! She came to the house & there was this wonderful moment where she talked to the cat hiding under the shed & the cat came to her. I fucking love that, I love proof that there's a connection. The cat didn't like being put into a carrier, but what cat does? It went home with its human.

The cat went missing two days ago, it lives a half mile away & crossed a very busy street & traversed nine blocks to make its way to our shed. I'm glad it did! Every missing cat poster I see makes me very sad.

The Siamese's name is Beau. This was also a poignant moment for me. Earlier this year we said goodbye to my cat Bolan, whom I often called Bo. The idea that I might rescue a cat called Beau (pronounced "Bo") stirred up in me all the feels. At least I rescued one cat called Bo this year. God damn it.

Beau is happily back with his humans & we get a win on the scoreboard that increasingly favors sadness & tragedy. & speaking of sadness & tragedy - thank you Next Door. You enable unhappy people, racists, & reactionaries, but you are good at reuniting people with their pets. Maybe you should have stopped at that?

Rita Lee

(from her Wikipedia page)

It was a sadness to hear of the passing of Rita Lee about a week ago. As a strange coincidence, my wife was recently doing research in Edinburgh & one of her collaborators was a Brazilian who asked her, when she told him I did radio, if I knew who Rita Lee was. I guess he was in the room while we were talking on the phone. I said, "Sure, from Os Mutantes." He seemed pretty impressed.

My own experience with her music was with the Mutants plus her 1970s solo records. I didn't really pay much attention to her work in the 1980s, which was when she became a superstar & earned the title of "Brazil's Queen Of Rock." It's something I'll try to remedy in the future.

For now, I will pay tribute to her with the music I do know, & will play about an hour of her work solo, with Os Mutantes, & with Tutti Frutti, tonight on KBOO on my show Corporate Standardized Programming. It'll be a poor tribute but that appears to be the only sort of tributes I am able to give.

That's midnight to 3am Portland time on 90.7fm in town & online everywhere at kboo dot fm.

Self Help Radio 051123: Tilt

Here's a confession: this week's Self Help Radio was not live. I would've loved to do it live. I had planned to do it live. But. We got a new puppy. & the wife is out of town. & he does not like to be left alone. "But Gary," you say, "he probably needs to learn to stay in his crate yadda yadda blah blah." No he doesn't. He deserves every happiness & I couldn't enjoy two hours on the radio knowing he was barking & crying the whole time. There will be plenty of challenges in his future, I will not be one of them.

Anyway, I recorded the show Thursday. While I was editing, he & I were often playing tug-of-war. He needs to stay with me at all times because he is not potty trained. & that's another thing!

What? Radio show? Oh yeah. It's at the Self Help Radio web page (username SHR, password selfhelp). You can listen any time. The theme was "tilt." Lots of folks helped out. You can see their contributions below.

Please enjoy. It was all for the puppy.

Self Help Radio Tilt Show

"Tilt" The Howling Hex _Knuckleball Express_

"Tilted" Kristian North _Passion Play_

"Tilted" Sugar _Beaster_

introductions & definitions - featuring the Definition-O-Tron 3000!

"Tilt-A-Whirl" Leo & The Prophets _Flashback - Volume 4_

"Tilt-A-Whirl" Trapper Schoepp _Bay Beach Amusement Park_

"Tilt-A-Whirl" Glo-Worm _Glimmer_

"Tilt A Whirl" Piney Gir _Mr. Hyde's Wild Ride_

"Tilt-A-Whirl" Alyeska _Crush_

interview with tilt-a-whirl enthusiast Aubrey Tanner

"Tilted Crowd" Packs _Woah_

"Tilt" Scott Walker _Tilt_

"Full Tilt Boogie (Pt. 1)" Uncle Louie _Uncle Louie's Here_

"The Tilt" 7th Wonder _Thunder_

interview with jousting/tilting booster Sir Toby Dwyer

"Don Quixote" Gordon Lightfoot _Don Quixote_

"Tilting At Windmills" Weddings, Parties, Anything _Roaring Days_

"Tilting At Windmills" Tree Fort Angst _Last Page In The Book Of Love_

"Tilting Windmills" The High Llamas _Cold & Bouncy_

interview with Tilt Collective founders Dobbin & Bacon Tyler

"Tilt-A-Whirl" The New Duncan Imperials _Loserville_

"Tilt-A-Whirl Girl" The Push Stars _Meet Me At The Fair_

"Tilt-A-Whirl" Slobberbone _Crow Pot Pie_

"Tilt-A-Whirl" Burnside Project _The Networks, The Circuits, The Streams, The Harmonies_

"Tilt-A-Whirl" Bright Eyes _Down In The Weeds, Where The World Once Was_

a visit from our resident cinephile Chuck
+ conclusion & goodbye

"Tilt" Joe Jackson _Colour Collection_

"Tilt" Edward Ball _Catholic Guilt_

"Tilt You Up!" Enon _Lost Marbles & Exploded Evidence_

"Full Tilt" The Not-Its! _Kidquake_

"Tilt" The Monochrome Set _Charade_

Whither Tilt?

("Dream Of The Rarebit Fiend" Sunday strip by Winsor McCay, March 9, 1913 found here)

Yes, the theme of this week's show is "tilt." Not "tilting." "Tilt" can be a noun, you know. It just feels more like a verb. Oh look! It just now occurs to me that italics is tilted text. Wow. Um. Where was I?

In discussion with someone recently, I breathed a sigh of relief that I don't have to fill three hours with songs about a particular theme anymore. However, I do seem to be choosing themes which might not even fill two hours. & so it is with "tilt." I of course have two hours of songs which involve that word. But I couldn't have filled three hours. Not even close.

Why the theme? You might want to blame Edward Ball, since I was listening to his album Catholic Guilt a lot recently. Or maybe Scott Walker, whose album Tilt kind of haunts me. Or maybe I'll never know why I chose the theme "tilt." I just know it's happening today.

It is? Yes! From noon to 2pm Portland time on 90.3+98.3fm in town & online at Freeform Portland dot org. Lots of music! Lots of talk! Lots of tilting!

Preface To Tilt: Jousting Around

(from the Wikipedia page on jousting)

These past few days I've been a single dad & am trapped in a house with a puppy who hasn't been potty trained. It's been exhausting. So I have nothing to really say about tilting vs jousting, whether they're synonyms, or whether tilting is a form of jousting or vice versa. I do like this, from the Wikipedia entry linked above:

They met each other roughly with spears, & the French squire tilted much to the satisfaction of the earl: but the Englishman kept his spear too low, & at last struck it into the thigh of the Frenchman. The earl of Buckingham as well as the other lords were much enraged by this, & said it was tilting dishonorably; but he excused himself, by declaring it as solely owing to the restiveness of his horse.

If you had to have a subtitle for tomorrow's show, it would doubtless be "tilting dishonorably."

Four Years Ago, In Idaho

Four years ago today, we were on the road from Twin Falls, Idaho, to Portland, Oregon. My wife had a minivan with lots of stuff crammed in it - including three dogs. I had our little Prius with three cats. I documented that drive here on the blog, starting with this post. If you're curious.

So today is the four-year-anniversary of arriving in Portland. I have no regrets. I love it here. I love the people, I really love the food, I really really love the radio stations that let me help out. It's funny, I thought I might not be able to make the drive - we drove five hundred miles a day - but now I really don't think I could make that drive. But it's cool - I don't plan on going anywhere.

At some point outside of Boise - where we stopped & ate - I was falling asleep & my wife noticed & she called me (she was in front I think). It probably saved my life - or kept me from a dumb accident. But look at that road up there! Until we made it to the mountains of eastern Oregon it was a little dull. At least you could drive terrifyingly fast!

The Nicest Thing

We recently adopted a kitten & a puppy. I might have mentioned them already. We have three other animals - two dogs & a cat - all around the age of ten. The old dogs don't like the new cat but have had experiences with cats so don't mess with him. The old cat is fond & protective of the new cat. But the new puppy is generally disliked by all three of the Old Guard. So what happens?

The new puppy (Pete) & the new kitten (Bluto) become buddies, that's what happens. It's the nicest thing. They play too - it seems Pete is a little rough, but when I try to pull Bluto to safety, he goes back to play.

Last night I needed to check on Pete, & discovered him in the living room:

They just like each other. Again - it's the nicest thing! I hope it lasts.

Self Help Radio 050423: Get A Grip

Here's a caveat about this week's show as it appears on the Self Help Radio website: it's not exactly how it aired. There were technical difficulties which caused me to delay the first airbreak. I played an instrumental track while I got help. What I have shared on the website removes that instrumental track (since I talk over it during the first airbreak) which shortened the show, so I added a song at the end that was not broadcast originally.

What was important is that the funny people who add so much to my otherwise bland show got to be heard. I was afraid I wouldn't get to share their contributions. & they were great this week! If you listen at all, it should be for their creative additions.

The show is available to be listened to now at the Self Help Radio website. Remember, you'll need a username (which is SHR) & a password (which is selfhelp) to listen. Below is a list of the songs I played & a brief description of what happened during the airbreaks. For a show whose host barely has a grip on things other than the occasional whiskey glass, it could've turned out much, much worse.

Self Help Radio Get A Grip! Show

"Your Love's Got A Grip On Me" Nick Todd _Rockin' At The Hop_

"I'm Losing My Grip" The Rivingtons _The Liberty Years_

"Devil's Grip" The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown _The Psychedelic Years Revisited_

"Monkey Grip Glue" Bill Wyman _Monkey Grip_

introduction & definitions & focus group flashback # 1

"Don't Lose Your Grip On Love" Brinsley Schwarz _Nervous On The Road_

"Get A Grip On Yourself" The Stranglers _Stranglers IV (Rattus Norvegicus)_

"The Grip Of Love" Tom Verlaine _Tom Verlaine_

interview with martial arts master of many grips Jeff Piper

"Their Grip" Elti-Fits _Messthetics # 106 The Manchester Musicians Collective 1977-1982_

"Get A Grip On Yourself" Pearl Harbor & The Explosions _Pearl Harbor & The Explosions_

"The Grip Of Love" Ghost Dance _Gathering Dust_

"Grip Of Fear" The Blanche Hudson Weekend _Standing On The Lift To The Scaffold: 2009-2013_

interview with Todd Mattel, inventor of the GI Joe Kung Fu Grip
focus group flashback # 2

"Grip It" Trouble Funk _Saturday Night Live From Washington D.C._

"Grip The Mic" Ultramagnetic MC's _New York What Is Funky_

"Break The Grip Of Shame" Paris _Tommy Boy Greatest Hits_

"Grip Like A Vice" The Go! Team _Proof Of Youth_

interview with clinical psychologist Dr. Leonard Dirt

"Grip" Inspiral Carpets _The Beast Inside_

"Thorn In Yer Grip" The Ecstasy Of Saint Theresa _Susurrate_

"Get A Grip" Spectrals _Bad Penny_

"Get A Grip" B Boys _No Worry No Mind_

"The Grip" Chris Knox _Almost_

conclusion & goodbye & focus group flashback # 3

"Get A Grip" A Certain Ratio _ACR Loco_

"Don't Let Go Of Me (Grip My Hips And Move Me)" Mike & Brenda Sutton _Don't Hold Back_

"Thighs High (Grip Your Hips & Move)" Tom Browne _Phat Trax - The Best Of Old School, Vol. 2_

Whither Get A Grip?

(Wikipedia says "OK Grip")

"Get a grip" is one of those themes that says to the hypothetical listener "Is Gary all out of ideas?" To which a Gary might reply, "Oh yes! A long time ago!" But this extremely hypothetical listener might press on, saying, "It's an idea, though, isn't it? Even if it isn't a good one." To which Gary almost certainly will say, "That's the tagline for Self Help Radio!"

While I can't be sure what reason I have for this theme, I believe it began with a Stranglers binge which led me to look for songs that used the phrase "get a grip," which is an idiom that one online dictionary defines as "to control one's reactions or emotions; often used as an imperative urging someone to calm down." Naturally, I didn't find enough songs I liked to make an entire show with just "get a grip" tunes, so any song featuring the word "grip" filled out the playlist. & when I thought I had enough, a show was planned.

That show airs this afternoon 12 to 2pm Portland time on 90.3+98.3fm & online at Freeform Portland dot org. & I had fun making it. That might mean it's worth a listen.

Preface To Get A Grip: (Parenthetical Titles)

(image from Discogs)

It's interesting to me that the original single for the very famous Stranglers song "(Get A) Grip (On Yourself)" (which is pictured above) listed the song title as "Grip." Technically, that's true - if there are words in parentheses in a song title, you don't have to say them - which begs the question, why put them there in the first place?

This article attempts to answer the question of why that is. It points out that the Simple Minds song "Don't You (Forget About Me)" can simply be referred to as "Don't You," which I think is just dumb. Someone did compile a list which they put in their subjective "order of parenthetical charm." I'm sure you have favorites.

What was the first song to do this? I couldn't find out but I suspect it first became common in the 1960s. Some theorize it was a way to draw attention to the song if the title wasn't repeated in the song. Or perhaps it made it easier to find on a seven-inch record sleeve economically - you could just write "Sweet Dreams" instead of "Sweet Dreams Are Made Of These." A time saver of a sort. But what do I know?

One thing that has happened occasionally is that people act like some songs have parenthetical titles when they just don't. As someone who has looked at a lot of playlists over the years, I am a little surprised by this. To take two examples:

A person at one station who regularly played a certain Depeche Mode song always listed it as "(Your Own) Personal Jesus." It turns out they had downloaded the song with that title. They never bothered to check if that were the case.

A person at another station (& I've been told this is quite common) always referred to the Joy Division song as "Control." Apparently they thought the original title was "(She's Lost) Control." This is almost certainly because of the movie of the same name, which doesn't have that song on the soundtrack, but a quick look at the tracklisting of both the "Atmosphere" single (which has "She's Lost Control" as a b-side) & the album Unknown Pleasures (on which the original version exists) will note there are no parentheses in the title of that song. Still, on playlists, that person wrote that they played the Joy Division song "Control."

Personally, I just write the whole song name. Most of the time. I just noticed that last week I wrote the Rexy song as its title "(Don't) Turn Me Away." Probably just copying & pasting. I generally write "Don't You Forget About Me" or "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" without the parentheses. & when I play the Stranglers tomorrow, I won't be playing "Grip." I'll play "Get A Grip On Yourself."

New Intro Time Again Again Again Again Again Again Again Again Again Again Again!

(There's a sample from this movie in this year's intro! Image from IMDb.)

There's a good reason to make an "intro" for your radio show - it automatically separates your show from the previous one. It may also include a legal ID - you gotta have one of those - & it may show off (or cast in a bad light) your audio editing skills. I have a generic intro for the Dickenbock Report, & I play a George Carlin bit at the beginning of Corporate Standardized Programming (which is where the show gets its name) but every year, around the beginning of May, I make a new intro for Self Help Radio.

Why the beginning of May? I think it's because that's when the schedule changed at KOOP - the station in Austin where the show originated - but also probably because when the show was on a college station, like WRFL, it marked the end of the spring semester & the beginning of the summer.  Sometimes I don't get to it at the beginning of May - last year it was the middle of May, the year before that it was June - but I had some time yesterday & here it is - the new intro:

Ta-da! The 2023 Self Help Radio Intro!

Wanna hear the previous ones? No? Oh. Well, here they are in case you change your mind.

You can listen to the 2002 intro (my first!) here.

You can listen to the 2003 intro here.

You can listen to the 2005 intro here.

You can listen to the 2006 intro here.

You can listen to the 2007 intro here.

You can listen to the 2008 intro here.

You can listen to the 2009 intro here.

You can listen to the 2010 intro here.

You can listen to the 2011 intro here.

You can listen to the 2012 intro here.

You can listen to the 2013 intro here.

You can listen to the 2014 intro here.

You can listen to the 2015 intro here.

You can listen to the 2016 intro here.

You can listen to the 2017 intro here.

You can listen to the 2018 intro here.

You can listen to the 2019 intro here.

You can listen to the 2020 intro here.

You can listen to the 2021 intro here.

You can listen to last year's intro here.

It's a little weird to call this final intro on the list "last year's intro" when I played it last week. But I suppose one should think of the intros like television seasons.  That was the 2022-2023 intro; the new one is the 2023-2024 intro. But. It's too late to go back & change everything!

Belafonte

(Image from the Wikipedia*)

Harry Belafonte seemed a larger-than-life performer when I was a child. I remember how delighted I'd be when he showed up on television shows - like the Muppet Show. Later I found out more about him & it turned out he was also an awesome human being. When I was able to find & listen to his records, I loved how much he loved exploring music. As you know, he died on April 25 at the age of 96 - an extraordinary life well-lived.

On Monday nights/Tuesday morning, I have a show on KBOO. I record it over the weekend & it's mainly a chance for me to play lots of music separated from the silliness & theme-focus of Self Help Radio & The Dickenbock Report. It also gives me the ability to celebrate & remember artists we've lost like Belafonte. So for the first hour of the show tonight, I'll be playing some of my favorite Belafonte tunes from his first decade of recordings.

It's on midnight to 3am Portland time on KBOO - 90.7 fm in town kboo dot fm everywhere. I know I cannot really capture his talent in a few songs, but I did want to take the time to play his music. He was, as I've said, extraordinary.

*By Carl Van Vechten - Van Vechten Collection at Library of Congress, Public Domain,

Self Help Radio 042723: Indiepop A To Z # 71

(all images from Discogs)

Here it is! Installment number seventy-one! From Reiner to Riverhead! Lots of groovy indiepop tunes for you!

It's been a bit of a relief (sorry if this is a broken record) to not have to program three hours of this show. Had I stayed in the three-hour block, I would've finished this series sooner (I mean, I probably won't finish, but I could've thought I was moving closer to the goal faster than I will now) but there's a lot of prep & research that goes into this kind of show. The breathing room I suddenly had with filling only two hours was quite welcome.

In any event: show is on the Self Help Radio website. Make sure you note: username is SHR & password is selfhelp. It's downloadable! It's almost all music this week. Next week the dumb interviews return.

Will we finish the letter R next time? I can't wait to find out!

Self Help Radio Indiepop A To Z # 71

"Emily" Kai Reiner _Kai Reiner_

"Autumn" Reinheitsgebot _The Complete R.S.C. Recordings, Volume 1: December 1984_

"If..." The Relations _Patrick._

"My Divorcee" The Relationships _Trend_

"Lovely" The Release Party _The Release Party_

"I Saw Your Eyes" The Relict _Tomorrow Is Again_

"Train Journeys" Remember Fun _Train Journeys_

"Give To You" Remington Super 60 _Happy As We Were_

"Butcher's Daughter" Reserve _The Sound Of Leamington Spa Volume 2_

"She Drives My Train" Resque _Life's A Bonus_

"Flowers In The Sky" The Revolving Paint Dream _Flowers In The Sky: The Enigma Of The Revolving Paint Dream_

"Just Ask Why" The Revs _Buzz EP_

"(Don't) Turn Me Away" Rexy _Sharon Signs To Cherry Red_

"Top Of The Pops" The Rezillos _Can't Stand The Rezillos: The (Almost) Complete Rezillos_

"On Bus #9" The Rhinos _Year Of The Rhinos_

"American Boys" The Rhythm Sisters _Road To Roundhay Pier_

"Stone Heart Blue" Ribbon Stage _Hit With The Most_

"That Summer Feeling" Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers _Jonathan Sings!_

"Drive Blind" Ride _Ride_

"It's Not Easy" Rik Rak _Illuminated_

"Keep Smiling" The Rileys _The World & His Wife_

"Caprice" The Ringing _The Sun Shines Here: The Roots Of Indie-Pop 1980-1984_

"Swallow" A Riot Of Colour _Swallow_

"We're All Trying To Get There" Ripe _Just A Taste: A Summershine Records Compilation_

"Tomorrow's Tears" The Riptides _Tales From The Australian Underground Vol. 2: 1977-1990_

"Let Me Stay" River _...Is The Postman_

"Innocent June" River Roses _Each & All_

"Looking At The Sky" Riverhead _Alpharetta_

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 71?

(image from Discogs)

Hey yeah! We've gotten to the Indiepop A To Z episode where we'll play Jonathan Richman!

But wait Gary! Didn't you also play the Modern Lovers at the Indiepop Ms? Yes I did! But I would argue that solo Jonathan Richman - or when his name was before "& The Modern Lovers" - was a somewhat different beast than the first incarnation of the Modern Lovers. If I wanted to argue. & I don't want to argue.

Listen to the show today on Freeform Portland from noon to 2pm Portland time. On the air in town at 90.3+98.3fm & online at freeform portland dot org.

Even if you're feeling argumentative.

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 71: Bluto & Pete

There's really not a lot to say about my silly series of indiepop artists in alphabetical order that I haven't already said in seventy other posts (or more) but to share something twee - here is our new puppy Pete (he's almost twelve weeks old) saying hello to our new kitten Bluto (just over six months old). Pete has gotten a chilly reception from our older girl dogs & our older boy cat (all of them are around ten years old) but Bluto & he will play & hang out. So far they haven't commented on my radio show though Bluto does occasionally jump on my desk & rename files now & then. He perhaps fancies himself a poet.

Anyway. The show is tomorrow! I better get to listening!

Mark Stewart

(image from Mark Stewart's Twitter page)

This morning on KBOO I played a couple of hours of music made by Mark Stewart, whom we lost on April 21st. I confess I found myself drawn to his music less because of its fiery left-wing rhetoric & more because I could get lost in it - although surely his lyrics & singing had something to do with it. I loved how voraciously creative he was - & I remember being absolutely thrilled when I played something from Citizen Zombie in the past & he commented on Twitter - probably just to say thanks.

Anyway, it's mainly the music, the first two hours of the show. You can listen here.

Sad he's gone, glad he left so much for us to listen to.

Movies On Another Planet

(image from the IMDb)

If you were off-planet or something, & didn't listen to this week's Self Help Radio, hey, you really should! Do it at the show's website, self help radio dot net! The theme was "planet" & among the guests we had, our resident cinephile Chuck stopped by to talk to us about movies which took place on a planet other than our own. Here are the links he's like you to know about to supplement his segment:

Chuck now has a Substack! Check it out!

Here is his YouTube playlist of films, clips, & trailers for sci-fi films with an alien or aliens (not all are on other planets tho):

Part 1 (1913-1979)
Part 2 (1980s)
Part 3 (1990-2005)
Part 4 (2006-2015)
Part 5 (2016-present)

Here is the IMDb keyword list he used.

Here is the Letterboxd list of sci-fi films with an alien or aliens.
Chuck tells us: "Click on the 'read notes icon - I have put links to the YouTube videos, where the film may be streaming for free, & the occasional bit of other information."

Here are his Letterboxd reviews:

https://letterboxd.com/robotcat/tag/alien-sci-fi-/films/
https://letterboxd.com/robotcat/tag/shr-planet/films/

Here is the IMDb list of sci-fi films with an alien or aliens that are available to stream for free elsewhere.

Chuck continues to tweet about some of the films he watched or may watch in the future - that list is at his Twitter account.

Chuck did a lot of work for this show! Go listen! & then watch some movies!