Tag: The Lonesome Organist

The Ghoulies from Perth, Australia look like regular blokes caught out grocery shopping, but the sound they make is an urgent, insistent punk rock howl with a frenetic keyboard bubbling through.

There are voices so distinctive that their timbre is an instrument onto itself. This is the case with Josh Caterer, who was first heard singing for a band called The Smoking Popes. He has a wildly diverse solo career now, but tonight we play his reworked version of a Popes song.

Sometimes rock and roll seems to get stuck in a rut, but The New Madness bring fresh life to a sound that was old before they were born.

“Batu means ‘rock’ in Malay” said the photographer, for the third time in a week. The sous-chef ignored the comment, also for the third time, and tried squinting in the darkness at the cribbage board. They had been wise enough to purchase a glow-in-the-dark deck after all these midnight assignments, but had yet to extend their ingenuity to the board. Tapping a foot in irritation, they knocked over the thermos full of hot cocoa set on the steps, and it would have rolled down several long flights of guano-covered stairs had it not been stopped by the tandem bike’s wheel leaning against the statue’s pedestal. Above them, Lord Murugan stared stonily into the dark.

A listener suggested I slip in Wham!’s “Last Christmas” but as someone filled with old-fashioned Lacking Integrity, I politely declined. That said, your host survived the season unscathed. In this episode, we dedicate the Middle Hour to some fine covers. Shout out to Robin in Atlanta for hanging out in the late-night post-holiday gulch.

This is HOUSE MUSIC, a special one-hour mixtape from yours truly featuring songs about homes, residences, possibly apartments, and other locations of abode. I ran out of time and didn’t get to play “Stranger In The House” with Elvis Costello and George Jones, but surely it will fit into a future show.