Tonight’s show kicks off with a long overdue hour of Version Control 10 — our special blend of songs that you might call “covers”. About a year ago, I filled three hours with covers, which leads me to believe something is messing with the covers ecosystem, and I have my theories. The middle hour was a regular Mixtape (if such a thing can be allowed), and the Final Hour was its usual rocketride mindtrip, a big thank you to all that came aboard.
Listen to The Bug Club sing about marriage, and you will instantly know marriage.
I believe this is the first time we’ve hit four exclamation marks for a playlist’s name, courtesy of Australia’s Psychedelic Porn Crumpets and their very doge-titled track. Elsewhere tonight, a special themed segment that attests to the powers of random selection!
“New music from Sparklehorse” sounds like something from a fever dream, and it sounds like something from a fever dream.
Always a special treat to be back on the air after missing a show. This is the third show in a year that I’ve started with a Fugazi cover, in this case Failure taking on “Waiting Room” with their trademark grinding, implacable approach. The power of these songs, its distinctive musicality and lyrical content, is undiminished in the hands of any band bold enough to take on the material. Tonight also featured the confluence of several loyal listeners, including James in California, Underdog in Georgia, and Charley who is on South Korea time and got to take benefit from the time zone.
I meant to write the notes for this show sooner than a month after the fact, but travel plans got in the way and here I am struggling for an intro. I can tell you that hearing Sparklehorse take on Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians’ “Listening to the Higsons” for the first time, mere weeks ago, felt like someone became obsessed with the same cassette as I did thirty years ago, but actually got around to letting the hen out.
The mysterious Snapped Ankles are descended from the forest people, though it seems they took a detour through some harsh industrial spaces to bring their stuttering electro-strangulation to our ears.
If The Wedding Present were the traditional sort, they would be bringing coral to the festivities. This one is from earlier in their career, closer to the wood years, but the Velvet Underground never goes out of style. This is from another good VU tribute album, Heaven and Hell from 1991 or so.
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