Tag: Stereolab

Mind your fingers when Surprise Chef is in the kitchen, because the knives are sharp and the burners are hot.

Another daylight arrival! I brought the wrong headphones! We started out with an AM anthem from Albert Hammond (Sr) in the quite capable hands of White Hassle. This song is also the reason Hammond gets a writer’s credit on Radiohead’s “Creep” which is a story for a separate time. Broncho in Salt Lake City tomorrow night!

Imagine Stereolab emerging from their pastel spaceship, eyes a-glitter with wonders witnessed in far-off galaxies.

Every early June, I’ll hit the first day of the year where it’s still light when I get to the radio station. It’s a few weeks before summer officially begins, but it always feel like the starting gun for the season. Tonight! We start out with Mhaol, who would just as easily cut you as they would kiss you, and proceed from there.

Is it the analog synthesizer flourishes, or the gentle delivery with an aggressive intent, or the seamless shuttling between disparate elements that shouldn't work together? The band sounds perfectly familiar, yet completely its own thing.

Disappearer sit right on the edge of scratching that itch too little and too much.

It was a globe-spanning show, with listeners checking in from the Grand Valley, the Florida swamps, and as far as Japan, where it was already Wednesday lunchtime. Meanwhile, The Libertines are up to their old antics again, at least the ones where they sound like a recently unfrozen cadre of British Invasion troglodytes. Also fun: playing a track called “We Will Not Apologize” and following that up with “Stop Apologizing”. Sounds about right.

Mimi Parker, vocalist and drummer and half of the Minnesota band Low, passed away a couple of weeks ago while I was traveling. It’s a shocking loss and an abrupt end to a musical career that was still unfolding; the band’s last two albums, coming at the tail end of a discography that spans decades, showed a blossoming new direction for an act that was famed for their quiet and glacial approach. We open the show with Low’s rendition of a Bee Gees classic in tribute.

Sure, we’ve all heard of the Eiffel Tower, but what do we know about the architect whose name it bears? April March breaks it all down on this version of the Pixies’ song. Also in this show, a special-delivery track from Planets in the Ocean, a new project from one of my favorite vocalists, Robb Benson.

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.