StickY! RadiO!

Sordid, wretched, checkered lives.

2005-08-04T16:25:00.000-07:00

(This post by Yosha.)

The new Decemberists album, Picaresque, is most enjoyable, especially if you've got a thing for songwriters who have turgid vocabularies, like Colin Meloy. For no goddamned good reason, I've compiled a list of every three-syllable word on the album. I have excluded words that are pronounced with three syllables despite not actually having three syllables, like "military" and "tramp". I think Meloy manages to fit five syllables into "air" at one point. Anyway. Here's the list.

palanquin
elephant
concubines
Infanta
pachyderm
canopied
passengered
duchess’s
baroness
barrenness
camelback
a-waving
betrothèd
innocence
parapets
multitude
coronets
melodies
folderol
chaparral
coronal
beginning
together
veranda
Miranda
marigolds
tamarac
candlewax
corduroy
commotion
deafening
emotion
relations
condescend
athletic
lemonade
capitol
photograph
horribly
government
National
greenery
documents
microfilm
tenement
telephone
Petrograd
suspicious
loyalties
bureaucrat
embassy
uniform
resurfaced
motorcar
natural
thirty-two
seventeen
company
solution
moderate
liberal
cannibal
wondering
powerlines
sensation
gadabout
palaver
contagious
runaways
colonnades
waterfront
enclosure
enfolding
mariners
survivors
carpeting
remember
histories
interweave
roustabout
debonair
consumptive
disappeared
magistrate
priory
overheard
exchanging
penitent
privateer
providence
a-drowning

2005-07-09T12:59:00.000-07:00

Stay away from me, Johnson! I don't want no goddamn pinkeye!

We're back!

2005-07-08T17:39:00.000-07:00

Not only is the station on the air after a brief outage, but I have finally rotated all the musical selections to newer, fresher offerings. Enjoy... I really have nothing else to say.

2005-07-07T08:14:00.000-07:00

I've just been informed that sticky radio is off the air. It seems that live 365 suffered some kind of catastrophic hardware failure, and all the music I'd uploaded is gone.

Which is a good thing really, because now I will be forced to upload a NEW playlist. Not that much of it won't be stuff you heard months ago on earlier playlists, but hey, you'll like hearing it again. And much of it will be completely new to the station indeed. So... await further news!

2005-06-23T21:24:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't updated the station in so long.

Sweating to get dry.

2005-05-06T17:05:00.000-07:00

Last night, Kev gave me one of the greatest presents I've ever received. The pretext was National Teacher Appreciation Week, and the occasion was a Gomez concert.

Kev introduced me to Gomez not long after we first reconnected post-university, via the first mix CD he ever made me. The song was "Blue Moon Rising", which remains one of my favorites. Since then, my appreciation of their music has grown slowly and steadily the more I hear of it. But you know (as well you should, being a StickYradiO listener), I hear a lot of good music. Muchly thanks to Kev. I hear a lot of good music that I listen to in my car, and Gomez has always been just one of many really good bands filtering through my consciousness. Nothing particularly special.

Well.

But wait. Back up. The concert was at the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma, formerly the site of the Plaza Theater back in the 70s and 80s, when I was a wee nipper and it showed movies instead of stage shows. I used to go there every year to see Harold and Maude, my all-time favorite movie, with mom when I was a kid. Being there again after nearly a quarter of a century was rather mindbending; it's much smaller now than it was then, though I'm fairly certain that's only a matter of perspective.

Anyway. The opening act was That One Guy, who was awesome. Really, really freakin' good. I'd happily go see an entire show of his stuff. He plays a variety of bizarre homemade instruments, chiefly the Magic Pipe, which as near as I could make out was a twisted 15-foot length of metal pipe with a violin string and several electronic drum starts attached. There was also an electric boot, and something resembling a double-pronged heating element on a leather belt. He was quite the funkster. Kev opined, and I concurred, that he was well on the way to being the best opening act ever seen by, uh, us. I leaned over and shouted: "Gomez is gonna have to be pretty goddamned good to top this guy!"

And then Gomez came out.

And BLEW MY MIND.

I am not the sort of person who goes to shows often. It's one of the primary reasons why I am not hip. I like to listen to music in private, at a volume I have chosen, with the option of fast-forwarding or rewinding or pausing or replaying at any time. Live shows tend to be too loud, too hot, too long, too late, too crammed with strange sweaty bodies for me to ever truly enjoy myself. Standing up for two hours straight is not my idea of a good time.

Gomez was so good that for the first time in my life, none of that mattered. Nothing mattered. Nothing at all mattered in the least except for the music. I was totally present, completely enchanted, utterly mindblown by the sheer ROCK and FUCKING ROLL that was Gomez.

I was one tall dreadlocked white guy away from the stage, jumping and thrashing through clouds of pot smoke and gazing up at Ben Ottewell, who, speaking as a 100% heterosexual married man, is just about the sexiest guy I've ever seen in my life, and the serenely smiling Michael-Caine-meets-Mike-Mills visage of Tom Gray, galvanized like the victim of the sweetest electrocution ever into effortlessly rhythmic contortions of kinetic joy.

Dude. If Gomez ever comes anywhere near your town, sacrifice whatever you must to go see them. I ain't even kidding. I have never had an experience like this one, and if I'm able to nudge even one person in the direction of a Gomez show, then I'll die a happy man.

Finally!

2005-04-09T11:35:00.000-07:00

Well, I have *finally* done a job on the station. Nothing is held over -- it's all new! (Or, uhh, well, recycled from older playlists. But who's paying THAT much attention, anyway?)

We are currently spinning hot fresh yummy tracks from Bright Eyes, Neil Young, Johnny Cash, Morphine, Green Day, Air, The Clouds, Ben Folds, Billy Bragg, Spoon, Archer Prewitt, Hem, Guided By Voices, The Soundtrack Of Our Lives, The Weakerthans, Beck, Clem Snide, Sam Phillips, Hayden, Andrew Bird, and ... ahhh, well, a shitload more!

And in celebration of her NEW ALBUM NEW ALBUM NEW ALBUM coming out in only 3 1/2 weeks, the featured artist this week is AIMEE MANN. We're playing a couple of your favorites plus a couple of brand new songs you may not have heard. Don't even think about not listening!

It has happened!

2005-04-06T21:28:00.000-07:00

Tom, of uberwald.com, has successfully listened to StickY RadiO in his CAR!

I've got a new playlist lined up. I'll be uploading it soon! Sorry for the long delay. Oh, and by the way, who all is out there? Say hi -- damn it!

Holy shit

2005-03-14T23:27:00.000-08:00

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the release of THE BENDS. Wow. Ten years. Jesus.

You take away the breath I was keeping for sunrise

2005-03-13T12:22:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!

Late last night I updated the station -- another massive update. Sticky Radio is now better than ever. Enjoy tracks by Camper Van Beethoven, Call and Response, Ivy, Tim Easton, Kings of Leon, Joe Strummer, Fiery Furnaces, A.C. Newman, Hayden, the Weakerthans, Nirvana, Super Furry Animals, Pernice Bros., Future Bible Heroes, Ben Lee, Jem, The Zombies, Velvet Underground, and tons more.

In honor of the release of "Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sells Out", we are now spinning one track from this release, as well as one from the original Who classic. And the featured artist this week is GOMEZ.

(Yosha tells me there's a Gomez track in the new movie "Robots". That rocks.)

How are y'all enjoying the new mix?

Run a carbon black test on my jaw.

2005-03-05T14:04:00.002-08:00

(This post is by Yosha)

This is a post about R.E.M., a band I resisted listening to for years and then suddenly discovered that I loved, and that has now become unbearable to keep up with any longer.

R.E.M. is one of those acquired tastes that many people will never acquire simply because they refuse to try. Or, as in the case of my cohost, because listening to Michael Stipe's voice has the same effect on them as eating bad clams. There's no question that his voice is at the center of the music; to dislike one is to dislike the other. But, like Stilton cheese -- which I recently discovered tastes fantastic after many years of shuddering at it from a distance -- what may seem repugnant to the uninitiated (eww! you're actually eating BLUE MOLD?) often turns out to be a pungent delicacy if you give it a chance.

It didn't help that my first exposure to R.E.M. was the execrable "Shiny Happy People", which remains one of their most serious blunders (and serves as the nth reminder that popularity on mainstream radio is a piss-poor yardstick of quality). That piece of crap was enough to keep me away for a long time. Then, shortly before I graduated from high school in 1992, I relaxed enough to listen to a tape of Automatic For The People that my first girlfriend left behind at my house one weekend. I can pinpoint the exact moment I shifted from just barely tolerating R.E.M. to going "Okay . . this is good." The song was "Sweetness Follows", the last number on side one and still one of my favorites. Stipe sang "It's these little things, they can pull you under/ Live your life filled with joy and thunder." It was the kind of moment that I think all good art is ultimately about: the shock of recognition. I understood exactly what it meant, because I'd felt it too -- even if I didn't have the words before. Now I did. I had the words and the melody and the stormscape of guitar and organ. Yeah!

From there, it was a very steep slope down into fandom. The more of their stuff I heard, the more impressed I was. I'd never heard anything like it. Still haven't. The originality impressed me, and so did the fearlessness -- they didn't seem to be concerned with what other people wanted or expected. The language they used, both lyrically and musically, seemed drawn directly from intuition rather than reconstituted into a more socially accessible form. It was, in other words, authentic.

Most people will tell you that Automatic is their finest hour, and it may be; I place it near the top, certainly, but for me their best album will probably always be Green. Their intuitive accuracy is breathtaking; it feels like it's drawn directly from my dreams and childhood visions. Songs like "Hairshirt" and "The Wrong Child" use the English language in entirely new ways, and Stipe embraces all the peculiarities of his voice without reservation. You may listen to the same music I did and not feel the power of it in the same way; I wouldn't be a bit surprised. An acquired taste, to be sure. That's okay. I'm fine with having this experience be a personal one.

The last good album they made was Up, which got slammed by the critics for being chilly and depressing. I thought it was brilliant. They handled the absence of drummer Bill Berry with a grace I wouldn't have thought possible. The album is almost entirely free of percussion except for drum machines, and they don't try to cover up the difference of the sound; instead, they embrace the change, while maintaining their clarity and originality of voice. And yes, the waters get dark. That's not a bad thing at all. The mid-album trifecta of "The Apologist", "Sad Professor" and "You're In The Air" is overwhelming in its power. Like all R.E.M. albums, there is at least one dud; a byproduct, perhaps, of fearless experimentation. Up has several, most notably the treaclefest of "Why Not Smile". Still, it's an amazing album.

After that, something went horribly wrong. Reveal was a mistake, plain and simple. They rehashed their old melodies behind trite lyrics that held no mystery, no ache or real feeling. It was so embarrassing that I actually returned the CD to the store for two dollars rather than keep it. And on the Future Soundtrack for America benefit compilation, their contribution ("Final Straw") was almost the most painful moment (only the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were worse). It's beyond sad for a fan like me to hear Michael Stipe reduce himself to letter-to-the-editor-style political oration, dreadfully earnest and coherent and clich�d. So that's it. That's all for me. I'm sticking to the back catalog from now on, and screw this Bono shit.

I felt so ugly before

2005-03-01T16:56:00.000-08:00

Well, it took a while, but I finally got around to refreshing the station!

Since you've all been so patient, I made a complete and total update, out with all the old, and in with the new.

Well, half of it is stuff we played earlier and are now returning to the airwaves, but half of it is stuff never before heard on Sticky Radio, from artists including Scissor Sisters, Ed Harcourt, Guided By Voices, Universal Hall Pass, Phoenix, Rogue Wave, Kasabian, The Posies, Okkervil River, Aqueduct, Bright Eyes, Matthew Sweet, Ambulance LTD, Damien Jurado, The Delgados, The Finn Bros., and that song from Donnie Darko, and -- can you believe it? -- more!

The featured artist is the Mountain Goats! Expect to hear a fabulous M.G. track every couple hours or so.

Dial in and keep listening, folks!

The Oh Crap

2005-02-20T13:05:00.000-08:00

Ok, I have never seen this "O.C." show, but check out the tracklist for their next "mix cd" they're releasing:

01 Futureheads: "Decent Days and Nights"
02 Imogen Heap:"Goodnight and Go"
03 Pinback: "Fortress"
04 A.C. Newman: "On the Table"
05 Sufjan Stevens: "To Be Alone With You"
06 Flunk: "Play"
07 Beck: "Scarecrow"
08 Modest Mouse: "The View"
09 Aqueduct: "Hardcore Days & Softcore Nights"
10 Reindeer Section: "Cartwheels"
11 Bell X1: "Eve, the Apple of My Eye"
12 Matt Pond PA: "Champagne Supernova"

Question: WHAT THE F---?

I'm having another experience like when I saw In Good Company. I feel desperately unoriginal in my musical tastes and as a music programmer.

I mean, FIVE of these songs we already play on sTickyRaDiO (1,3,4,5,7) and another one (9) is from an album I was listening to, picking out songs from, at the very moment I came across this news. (Well, I wasn't going to pick that song off it anyway. That song is not that good.)

Anyway, I guess I never started this station with the goal of being unique!

See ya. I'm off to listen to more O.C. compilations. Thanks for listening to O.C.Radio!

2005-02-10T23:10:00.000-08:00

My new friends on the Blogger team have fixed things so that you can now leave comments as yourself, not anonymous, without needing a Blogger account. Thanks, friends.

Root out the wine-dark honeyed center

2005-02-09T01:21:00.000-08:00

The Mountain Goats are working up album #15. See Pitchfork.

And here is a short, but very interesting Wired article by Lawrence Lessig entitled Why Wilco Is The Future Of Music.

Last night I traded my soul's innermost for some pickled fish

2005-02-07T14:29:00.000-08:00

Actually, that's not exactly right -- what I really did was I updated the station playlist.

It was a HUGE update! A ton of brand new songs are now playing for your listening pleasure. I put a special emphasis on stuff that came out in 2004, much of which you may not have heard yet.

And this week's featured artist is Kings of Convenience, in honor of the fact that yesterday tickets to their San Francisco date went on sale! (Hell yeah, I got mine!)

Please listen and tell us your opinion on the new mix!

The clanking of crystal and explosions off in the distance.

2005-02-05T17:50:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here at my computer, having just inserted Death Cab For Cutie's Transatlanticism, which I just bought today and have never heard before. I've just finished the opening track, "The New Year", and I like it pretty good fine. Kev was the one who turned me on to DCFC, and I still haven't heard much, but what I have heard I've really liked.

[You should know that I tend to lag well behind the pack when it comes to new music. I realize this album is far from new.]

In particular, I really liked "This Temporary Life", which you can find on the Future Soundtrack For America compilation. An excellent compilation, by the way, and well worth paying for. And "This Temporary Life" is one of the best tracks. And then there's the Postal Service, which I also like a lot (although they'd be even better if they went for a more subtle approach with the electronic theme). Good stuff.

-- Yosha

Makes you lie awake all through the night

2005-02-02T07:57:00.000-08:00

An article about Kings of Convenience! Yay.

I was watching Almost Famous a few weeks ago, and during the scene when Anita, sister to our hero William, has her Simon & Garfunkel record confiscated by her mother, I couldn't help but think of the Kings of Convenience. How many "impressionable" minds have been opened to music through the gentle strains of Norway's almost-famous harmonizing duo? Most likely all those not claimed by the country's notorious black metal output.

One thing this article doesn't mention is that many of the folky, acoustic songs on Quiet is the New Loud ended up getting remixed by various people and released as a compilation called Versus, which, contrary to what you might think, came out *really* well. It's from that album that this week's two Kings tracks are taken. If you haven't heard them yet, well, you know what to do! :-)

I cannot wait until March 8 for my first chance to see them perform! That'll be one worth making the drive to the city for!

Old marquees with stupid band names

2005-02-01T21:38:00.000-08:00

Christoph--I mean, Questec, says

I think I just heard Sheep go to heaven twice in about 2 hours tops. Can you check your log and verify?

Weeeeeell, first off, I don't really have a log. Not like that.

Second off, I'm not really surprised. The way the station works, since I actually have a job and can't just DJ all day long, is that I upload a whole ton of mp3s and then it just picks them randomly. It's like picking a card out of a deck, then returning it, shuffling again, and picking another card. Because you always return the card, you could end up getting the four of spades twice in a row. Or, in Chris's case, twice within two hours.

The alternative is that I could tell it to just shuffle the deck once, and play all the cards -- songs -- in that order. However, this would suck. When it finished, it would go back and play them again in the same order. Imagine if you tuned in tomorrow and heard the exact same songs that you heard today, in the same order and everything! Pretty lame. So I'd have to keep remembering to come in every day, or more, and reshuffle the playlist again and again. And then you'd be back to the same problem -- it could play the same song both shortly before and shortly after I do the shuffle.

But, if you have to hear the same song twice in two hours, you're lucky if it's as great a song as "Sheep Go To Heaven!"

It's always great to hear from our listeners!

Adonde vayas?

2005-02-01T21:28:00.000-08:00

Says the Friggin New York Times...

What I've heard of the new album -- due in March on Geffen -- is unmastered, untitled, unsequenced and totally amazing. After the melancholy of "Sea Change," Beck seems older and wiser, but also more ready for fun. But this isn't a "party record" like "Midnite Vultures" either -- it doesn't feel like a stunt. The song "E-Pro" announces Beck's return to the good times, and it's as cool and grooving as anything on "Odelay" (No wonder, since it samples "So What'cha Want" by the Beastie Boys). "Girl" feels like Brian Wilson, if you could do the robot to "Pet Sounds." "Guero" sounds like a Brooklyn block party, with Beck rapping in English and Spanglish (about what I have no idea, but it doesn't really matter when Beck is free-styling). He sounds inspired, reinventing himself on every track.

So, now that you've heard a few new tracks, what do you think of them? I'm pretty diggin' em, but I'm not necessarily as blown over as this guy.

Your popsicle's melting

2005-01-31T13:36:00.000-08:00

(I don't know why that line sticks in my mind...)

Station update: done! Four brand-new Beck tracks: on-line! I hope you like them. New Ben Folds single, hopefully tomorrow.

Please feel free to leave us a li'l comment now and then!

An update

2005-01-30T11:09:00.000-08:00

Hey stickylisteners! I'm way overdue with the station update, but I hope to get to it tonight. To reward your wait, I'll have four brand-new Beck songs, most or all of which will be showing up on his new album Guero out in March. You'll like 'em!

Last night I saw In Good Company. Point one: that was a damn good movie. Point two: it made me feel like reconfiguring our STicKyRaDIO playlists a bit, so that not every single song in the movie is one that we play. Seriously, it was bizarre. There were two songs by Iron & Wine, two by the Shins, two by the Soundtrack of our Lives -- and not just any two, but almost always it would be the two that are Yosha's and my favorites. Even the decades-old Peter Gabriel song they used is one of the few that we happen to play. And we've been meaning to get some Damien Rice on.

So I guess, hey, whoever did the music for that flick has some good taste. If you hear any of your friends say, "I love the In Good Company soundtrack," tell them about Sticky, would you? :-)

Garden State and Igby Goes Down also had good soundtracks, as I recall. Any others you want to tell us about?

Finally, it seems that there has been additional Ben Folds news which I cannot miss passing on to you.

The first single, "Landed," should be out Tuesday -- even if we've already done our station update (which I hope we have), you can be assured that I will inject this additional track into the mix without delay! Listen for it.
They are apparently remastering BF5 classic Whatever And Ever Amen, and adding seven bonus tracks! I wonder how many of those will be previously unheard. And I do hope they keep the very special "hidden track" intact. :-)
Ben is going to be a guest on Steve Earle's program on Air America Radio tonight at 10pm EST! I believe this means it will air at 10pm also in other time zones, but I'm not sure.

(All this comes from benfolds.com.) That ought to be enough Ben news for a while, don't you think?

Please keep listening!

--Kev

There's always someone cooler than you...

2005-01-27T08:29:00.000-08:00

... and that someone, my friends, is Mr. Ben Fucking Folds.

... Who will have a new album out April 26!

Having just stunned the music world by producing a William Shatner record that one can listen to twice without wanting to chew one's own ears off, Ben Folds is getting ready to release Songs For Silverman, his second full album since the dissolution of Ben Folds Five, on April 26. The record will be almost entirely different from the three Internet-released EPs that have acted as teasers for it, with only one song making a reappearance -- "Give Judy My Notice", re-recorded for Silverman.

Folds went into detail in an interview with Rolling Stone about one song: "Late", written in memory of Elliott Smith. "I was playing all the same shitholes he was," Folds said. "The lyrics of the song are about people who are sharing your experience too -- 'Oh, Elliott Smith did this club last night, and he sat in that same room and read all the shit about dicks and asses on the wall.' Poets like to talk about how they look up and see the same stars, and I think rock musicians all look up and see the same dicks on the walls. I played [basketball] with him and Beck one time, and Elliott was just fucking throwing elbows like there was no tomorrow."

Hahaha. ROCK ON. Well, I'll see about throwing the original version of "Judy" into the next mix, which I, like, SWEAR is coming soon, and is going to also include a couple songs off the upcoming Beck LP due in March.

Until then -- I hope the existing playlist hasn't worn thin on you yet!

Cancel all operations, tell your friends to cool it

2005-01-17T22:15:00.000-08:00

All right, I'm a day late, but I've got the station freshly updated now for the week!

A few dozen songs have been held over from last week, from artists like Ani DiFranco, Beck, Eels, Franz Ferdinand, Moxy Früvous, Talking Heads, Tom Waits, and Weezer!

Scores of songs that we'd played weeks ago have been brought back, from the likes of A.C. Newman, Ivy, Jack Johnson, Modest Mouse, The Shins, Soul Coughing, Splashdown, Sufjan Stevens, and Zero 7!

We've also nearly four dozen NEW tracks which have not yet graced the airwaves of our station, from artists such as Billy Bragg, Cake, Camper Van Beethoven, Elliott Smith, Gomez, Morphine, The Mountain Goats, and TMBG!

And, in honor of their winning that contest thingie, the featured artist this week is Belle & Sebastian! We've got a song from their '95 debut, something from the flawed but way underrated "yellow album", and two FANTASTIC B-sides from just a year back!

(By some strange twist of fate, the new playlist made it on-line without a single Built to Spill (or Doug Martsch) cut. If for some reason you don't like them, I guess now is the time to listen, 'cause that's not likely to happen again. Ever.)

As if all this fabulosity was not enough -- I've also taken your advice and converted the station's internet feed to a higher quality signal. It sounds a LOT better! It sounds GOOD. I hope you will notice the difference and enjoy it.

We're having fun running this station. We sure hope you're having fun listening. Please tell us what you think!

Everyone wants to hear that groovy thing

2005-01-13T23:17:00.000-08:00

Wow.

Pennsylvania-based MultiMedia Three label is set to release a They Might Be Giants tribute album this May or June, according to Philadelphia musician David Miller, who is curating the project. Confirmed contributors include The Wrens, Frank Black, Steve Burns, Hotel Lights, This Radiant Boy, Recepter, and the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players . . . .

Most of the acts are still deciding which TMBG tune to cover, but we do know the following: Steve Burns will cover "Dead" ("He's a good fit because he knows what it's like to be stigmatized," Miller says. "If the guy gets one more record under his belt, they'll forget all about Blue's Clues"), the Trachtenburgs will take on the 19-part mini-epic "Fingertips", and This Radiant Boy will dare to address "Don't Let's Start", one the band's earliest and best-loved singles. The Wrens, meanwhile, have their eyes on the Flood classic "Birdhouse in Your Soul", though that could still change.

Wicked. Link

If it's not... it's crap

2005-01-13T08:49:00.000-08:00

Could this news come as a surprise to anyone?

"Belle & Sebastian have been named the best Scottish band of all time after a three month-long public poll." (Link)

Well, DUH.

Look for a few excellent B-sides from their latest batch of singles in the next station update!

Three quick things

2005-01-11T20:59:00.000-08:00

1. The iPod Shuffle is cool as shit. Sure, it'll only fit 100+ songs, and has very few of the standard iPod features, but, I mean, a hundred bucks?!?! Sheeeeeyitt!

2. HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE. Hilarious. Rent. Now.

3. I'm thinking about switching from low quality to high quality audio for the station. Is anyone really listening over a dial-up connection? Cause, you'd be screwed. But for everyone else, the music would sound a lot less crappy.

Would you say I'm on the rebound?

2005-01-09T09:34:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah! Almost forgot to mention that I finally refreshed the playlist a few days ago. I kept about half of it intact, but threw in "new" songs by the likes of Wilco, Scissor Sisters, Jolie Holland, Iron & Wine, XTC, The Elected, Death Cab, Air, Madness, Joe Strummer, Rilo Kiley, Spoon, Kings of Convenience, and a cool live track of Aimee Mann covering Coldplay(!).

The featured artist this week is The Apples In Stereo.

Click to Listen

So, what are you enjoying? ("Everything" is not a valid answer... but... oh heck, I'll take it.) :-)

--Kev

You should know by now: it's a small sound that holds you down

2005-01-09T09:29:00.000-08:00

Anonymous asks:

I'm loving the tunes - but for the unfamiliar, how do I know what is what and who is who? I listen through iTunes and there doesn't seem to be any identifying information. Help!

Hi anonymous! Thanks for listening! Who are you? :-)

I listen in iTunes as well, and it's a bummer that it won't show the titles and artists there. But, when you clicked on the link that launched the station in iTunes, this should have also opened a "Live365 Player Window" in your browser. That's where the artists and titles appear, so you want to keep that open somewhere while you listen.

Another great thing in this window is the "buy" link by each song. I wish they wouldn't call the link "buy" because it really discourages people from clicking on it who don't feel like opening their wallets at the moment. But it's useful even if you don't want to spend a dime, because it can take you directly to the Amazon page for the album, where you can read reviews, or even straight to the song in the iTunes Music Store, where you can listen to a high-quality sample of the song! (And yes, even buy it, if you can afford the $.99!)

Another thing you can do to find out what's what and who's who is to post a comment here and say, "dude, what's that song that goes like this blah blah blah?" :-)

We would certainly love to know what people out there are enjoying... even if you do already know what it is. :-)

--Kev

Here's to your dying days

2004-12-30T14:48:00.000-08:00

If you've been enjoying the song "Greetings in Braille", you can download it for free from the band.

Whatever I want it to be

2004-12-28T01:15:00.000-08:00

This just in:

SticKy raDio is still on the air.

That's all. Hope you all had a merry merry merry.

Who do you want to be? Billy Idol or Kool Moe Dee?

2004-12-23T17:08:00.000-08:00

Okay then! Kev here.

One of the things that makes StIcKyRaDiO destined for record-shattering success is that Yosha and I are very different. In fact, I'd say we're different in all the ways that two people can be different in, with the one exception of all the ways in which we're the same.

Sameness: We were both really skinny in college.

Difference: Yosha is skinny.

Sameness: We both think that "Possum Kingdom" is one of the greatest songs that corporate radio ever accidentally gave airtime to.

Difference: he's an English teacher in Sonoma County. I'm a software engineer in Silicon Valley.

Sameness: he's got ten fingers and ten toes. I also have ten fingers and ten toes.

Difference: but they're MY ten fingers and ten toes.

Actually, what I'm really trying to say, Yo-dog already said better when he said

My bias is for the language; I can forgive a lot for lyrics that are literate, articulate, original and risky. Kev balances me out with his ear for rhythm and sound, favoring the sort of "jungle boogie" influence that I fear has a dangerously sexual, "buck wild" subtext. Not the sort of thing that should be made available to children, or indeed to anyone who believes in law and order in this great country of ours.

This last part reminds me of the fact that we eventually made the call to go ahead and play songs that feature the F-word in them, because (a) there are too many good songs that use it, and (b) the way things are going, before long we won't be allowed to anyway. So remember that in office and kid situations.

'sall for now! Keep listening, everyone!

--Kev

Picking up the field mice and bopping 'em on the head.

2004-12-23T16:26:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, there was a cute little bunny. His name was Fuzzy McFurkins. Fuzzy McFurkins loved to run and laugh and play and make up stories about sunshine, lemonade and rainbows. But more than anything else, Fuzzy loved MUSIC! Sweet beautiful music was Fuzzy's number one fave rave.

"Gosh!" Fuzzy thought to himself one day as he sat listening to Shriekback on the stereo. "I reckon this music is so gosh-darned beautiful that other people might like to hear it, too!" So Fuzzy went to the store and bought a big enormous ice cream cone, the biggest in alllllll the land. And Fuzzy ate that ice cream and he ate that ice cream, and he slurped and he licked it all up, but he left the cone untouched, except for at the bottom, where he ate the tip. Then he spoke into his waffle microphone.

"Hey everybody!" said Fuzzy, his voice now amplified a thousandfold. "I hope you're all having a real good day! Say, if you like to hear music, listen to this! It's NICE!" Then Fuzzy put the small end of the cone down to the subwoofers in the back of his tractor. And pretty soon, the sweet mumble of Doug Martsch came wobbling up through the trees, cocooned in a thrashing net of guitar feedback. And Bruce the Bear heard the music, and Francine the Flying Squirrel heard the music, and Ashley the Moose heard the music, and Elvis the Bad-Ass Dung Beetle heard the music, and one by one they all stopped what they were doing and just listened to it. At first they were all like "WTF, dude, there's this weird sound and I'm like, whoa." But after a while they were like "dude, Built To Spill rocks, man, this track is tight."

So everything was cool. And everyone listened to the nice, nice music while they sipped their mugs of hot cocoa, and then they brushed their teeth and went to bed. And when they dreamed, they dreamed of indie benefit compilations stacked as far and as high as the eye could see.

And all was well and happy and funny and bright in the Magical World of Tunes.

We know of an ancient radiation.

2004-12-22T18:09:00.000-08:00

Greetings, one and all! Well, one and one, probably. Kev claims that a few people besides him and me have listened to SYROtickadi (free toaster for the third lucky listener who calls in with the correct anagram!), and he may well be right.

I hate radio. Here's why:

1. Radio stations are businesses, and they want to make a profit. So they tend to play only "safe" music that they know will be popular, so that lots of people will listen and advertisers will have a reason to write their paychecks. In a way, this is democratic; what the majority of people like to hear will be played on the air. Vox populi!

2. Only it's really not, not as long as the airwaves -- which are the property of the people -- continue to be dominated by private businesses. Because the seamy flipside of this "majority rules" approach is about money. Money talks, and musicians with money behind them sing in a much louder voice. Where does popular opinion come from? How do so many people decide to like one band over another? Could it possibly have something to do with how much exposure certain music achieves? We choose from the options that are made available to us, and if we see only two options (republicandemocratcoughcough), we'll choose one of the two -- probably never stopping to consider whatever else might be out there. The reduction of variables: that's the goal of fascism. Predictable stimulus/response. Much better for business. End result? Much more . . . efficient . . . music.

3. I prefer art of the "this is what I felt inspired to do, and I hope you like it" variety to art of the "this will make me rich" variety. Those who see art as a necessary sprocket in the guts of a money machine are my enemies. I am not saying that the honest exchange of goods and services is a bad or contemptible process; I am saying that it has been overemphasized in nearly every aspect of our culture, and that we are seriously out of balance.

4. In the interests of restoring balance, I do my best to resist The Pitch at every turn. The Pitch is everywhere. It's in your TV, your radio, your newspapers and magazines, billboards, cold calls, pop-up screens, spam. The easiest response to The Pitch is inaction -- letting it wash over you because you haven't got the energy to filter it out. They're counting on that. That's why they're so successful -- most people don't even bother to put up a fight.

5. If you're interested in resisting The Pitch, there are two ways: active and reactive. Examples of the reactive mode include asking telemarketers to remove your name from their lists (rather than hanging up on them), subscribing to a spam filter, getting TiVo or just tossing your TV, listening to CDs instead of the radio . . .

6. Well, that's been my approach, pretty much. Reactive. I don't watch TV, and I never, never, NEVER listen to the radio. Why should I? Twenty punk-ass songs in heavy rotation, sandwiched by loathsome advertisements, moronic deejays and superficial soundbites? Versus all the quality tuneage I can burn to a CD and enjoy ad-free? No contest, my friend.

7. It ain't about the money. Kevin and I ain't makin' diddly on StickY RadiO. And it ain't about the fame; there's a distinct possibility that only a few of our friends will ever hear this stuff. So why do it? Because the concept of radio is fantastic, even though the reality of it is dismal. Kind of like communism. We like the notion that we can listen to a whole bunch of music, weed out the crappy stuff, put it up on the internet, and maybe hep a few cats out there to some solid grooves with which they are unfamiliar. And maybe a few of those newly hep cats will dig the grooves so much that they'll lay forth some shekels in the direction of the artists. Maybe. It could happen. Or maybe they'll just listen and dig the tunes and they'll feel better for a minute, or they'll feel more of something they need to feel, or maybe the sound of the music will spark an idea in their skulls and they'll race off to create art of their own. There are so many possibilities. The worst possibility is that Kev and I listen to a whole bunch of music, spend a bunch of time picking our favorites, and waste a little money sharing it with the world at large. Gotta say: not such a bad scenario.

Welcome to StickY RadiO. I am your co-anchor, Bernhard Veeblefetzer.

Before I sputter out.

2004-12-21T22:35:00.000-08:00

Not even a week has gone by and already I've had to take the station off the air!

Well, just to change playlists. It seems that they won't let you exceed your file quota even temporarily while you're making a switch. Grr.

When it comes back up, a whole bunch of new songs. Our goal is to refresh the playlist, at least partially, every week. I hope that will be enough!

I was hoping Yosha would be able to make his first post here by now, but he is apparently having some combination of technical difficulties and busyness.

Who's out there? Try leaving a comment!

--Kev

At least you know you were taken by a pro.

2004-12-20T22:26:00.000-08:00

StickY RadiO went live in the early morning hours of Thursday, December 16th.

Its launch follows months of backbreaking labor by your co-hosts, Yosha and myself, scouring our catalogs and those of our friends, neighbors, and also random strangers who connected their computers to the Internet.

We are proud of where it's going. When we sit back and look at our playlists, the sight gives us shivers of pleasure. This is some damn good music, man. And the beauty of this setup is that we know you'll agree, because if you don't, you'll leave, and so who cares about you anyway?

But seriously.

Good music.

But don't take my word for it.

--Kevin