The ElectroLounge | Within's Within: Scenes from the Psychedelic Revolution

"Within's Within: Scenes from the Psychedelic Revolution with DJ Soulard"
can be heard weekends on SpiritPlants Radio:

Saturdays 11am-2pm | Repeats on Sundays 8pm-11pm & the following Saturday 8pm-11pm [Eastern US Time]
Click here for other time zones

Next Show: #869 | 07 December 2024

Featured New Rock Album: The Cure, Songs of a Lost World (2024) . . . It's been 16 years since this legendary rock group has released an album . . . Leader Robert Smith composed all the songs solely, & it feels like he has been deep-deep-deep in his own depths . . . yet what emerges is a haunting dark beauty of a record . . . one that feels mixtured of dawn & dusk both . . . a marvelous reward for the waiting . . .

Featured Classic Rock Album: Sonic Youth, Sister (1987) . . . New York City noise rock band that came into its own with this fouth album, a trippy, jittery, sonic treat, loosely inspired by the brilliant SF writer Philip K. Dick . . . like the Velvet Underground before them, their nearest antecedent, SY knew how to find melody in any kind of chaos, & twist things round till something strangely beautiful emerged . . .

Storybook Time: Chapter 10 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .

Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's 22nd annual Season of Lights broadcast arrives as many brood & worry . . . this surely is a beautiful world, so full of promise for all who lucky dwell on it . . . the question coming soon again is: do some deserve more of its pleasures than others? Or does each who arrives deserve a seat at the table? Are you ready to step up & give your answer?

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Show Archives:

2024

November 30, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Bright Eyes, Five Dice, All Threes (2024) . . . It's been a few years since this legendary Omaha indie rock band put out a new LP . . . worth the wait, this is a really good one . . . regarding its theme, band leader Conor Oberst says: "Life is a game of chance and a metaphorical street brawl, so that is what we are putting out there" . . . rarely hear a better brawl than this one . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Harry Nilsson, Aerial Ballet (1968) . . . On his third album, this American folk-rocker really comes into his own . . . a quirky, passionate, darkly funny artistic genius . . . these songs range widely around this brilliant musical mind, & what a ride to hang on!
Storybook Time: Chapter 9 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are still even more tunes from Billboard Magazine's Hot 100 of 2010 . . . Another Thankee-Thankee-Thankee Day come & gone, & this one passes with new-old fucking fears . . . past-future President Clusterfuck is coming for you, whoever you are . . . so better, like the old Phish song says: "keep what's important, and know who's your friend" . . .

11.30.2024 show

November 23, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Cage the Elephant, Neon Pill (2024) . . . The great Kentucky indie rock band comes roaring back with a delightful new LP . . their deeply felt, deeply smart music is deceptively bouncy, but rewards the attentive ear as well as the dancing feet . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Harry Chapin, Portrait Gallery (1975) . . . I remember long ago being 17 & particularly loving this record of all my beloved Chapin LPs . . . funny, dark, sweet . . . loved it then & now & always . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 9 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are still more tunes from Billboard Magazine's Hot 100 of 2010 . . . tis the 21st anniversary weekend of SpiritPlants Radio . . . I just needed a place back then for my own show to land new . . . so grateful we're both still around . . .

11.23.2024 show

November 16, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, "No Title as of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead" (2024) . . . Wikipedia says, "The title refers to the reported number of Palestinian deaths by Israeli strikes between 7 October 2023 and 13 February 2024 during the Gaza genocide, according to the Gaza Health Ministry" . . . tis a powerful dirge in a time that needs powerful Art like this, very, very much . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Syd Barrett, The Madcap Laughs (1970) . . . Barrett had recently left Pink Floyd, somewhat by mutual consent with his bandmates . . . that said, David Gilmore & Roger Waters helped him to make this debut solo record . . . not quite like anything else . . . its weird musical charms run quite deep . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 9 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more tunes from Billboard Magazine's Hot 100 of 2010 . . . The Crisping time of year continues, reminding best it can that all is not human doom & gloom . . . thankee much for that . . .

11.16.2024 show

November 9, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Nada Surf, Moon Mirror (2024) . . . Ever welcome is a new LP from this great New York City indie rock band . . . their music is deep, strange, & beautiful, pulls one in, slowly or less so, & one becomes less the listener to the record & more a hidden, happy participant within it . . . wonderfulness!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Neil Young with Crazy Horse, Broken Arrow (1996) . . . Neil & his band of grizzles jump in deep, as they do, never looking up or back . . . their noise is a melodic one . . . their share with all who care to come & listen . . . please do . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 9 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are a first batch from Billboard Magazine's Hot 100 of 2010 . . . we fought, we didn't win, this time . . . Would-be King Lunatick returns again . . . but, in the words of the great Frederick Douglass: "If there is no struggle, there is no progress" . . . time to struggle, my friends, time to progress . . .

11.09.2024 show

November 2, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Smile, Cutouts (2024) . . . Is this a not-so-secret stripped down Radiohead? Or some kind of close cousin of that legendary rock band, with Thom Yorke & Jonny Greenwood (with drummer friend Tom Skinner) trying out new tricks to bring back to their rock-n-roll homeland? I am not positive either is the case, but their third LP is a great grand wonder, & whatever they may be, may sort of be like, or may not be at all, they are a terrific band!
Featured Classic Rock Album: eil Young (with Pearl Jam), Mirror Ball (1995) . . . Though the record companies would not allow their band's name to appear on the album, the joining together of the young Seattle band with Mr. Young yields much rocking delight . . . came together organically, made from plans & jams . . . not to be forgotten in the back catalogues of any of those involved . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 9 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is the great Leonard Cohen, & some tracks from his appearance at the 1970 Isle of Wight UK Festival . . . saying it one last time, sharing the hope in many, many hearts: Vote Harris / Walz 2024!

11.02.2024 show

October 26, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Pixies, The Night the Zombies Came (2024) . . . Power punk gods Pixies return with new bassist Emma Richardson, & their new album kicks down more doors with guitars, harmonies, & weirdness . . . enter their strange world, all willing are welcomed . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: U2, Achtung Baby (1991) . . . U2 had topped the world of rock music by the end of the 1980s, but were restless for something better, reaching for what seemed out of reach . . . what they returned with is this vast, varied, powerful LP that cleared the air up high & deep inside for them . . . no looking back . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 9 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is U2, & a few non-album sweets to enjoy . . . Colors blow this way & that, crunch under foot, will beauty every which way . . . Vote Harris / Walz 2024!

10.26.2024 show

October 19, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Dawes, Oh Brother (2024) . . . This brilliant Los Angeles folk-rock band, currently now a duo, Taylor & Griffin Goldsmith, has created from the scattered fragments of love & weirdness & a deep humor another great record . . . a slyly brilliant band, whose songs may show casual on top, but then run on down a thousand miles deep . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Mazzy Star, She Hangs Brightly (1990) . . . Another California band, one of the architects of the Paisley Underground sound of the 1980s, & this, their brilliant debut . . . already making music for well past dusk . . . music for the shadows . . . music for the spaces between here, & what one nears . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 9 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is U2, & one more group of songs from their career-spanning musical re-imagination, Songs of Surrender . . . Autumnal colors hang high above the moving masses, inviting the few who wish to look up, & see more . . . nobody can do it for you, but open hands may inspire . . . Vote Harris / Walz 2024!

10.19.2024 show

October 12, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Nathan Bowles Trio, Are Possible (2024) . . . The brilliant North Carolina multi-instrumentalist, a man of many groups & musics, arrives with a brand new trio, & wow, are they good! . . . folk music with the power to heal, to comfort close . . . wildly gifted players . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: T. Rex, The Slider (1972) . . . this was the year when this British rock band reached its highest heights of popularity, & this album landed, then & now, amazingly wild & well . . . there is a sweetness midst all the glitz . . . the power of Art raw & naked to the touch . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 9 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is U2, & even still more songs from their career-spanning musical re-imagination, Songs of Surrender . . . Hope begins in a moment, in the heart, neath the quicking breath . . . nobody can do it for you, but open hands may inspire . . . Vote Harris / Walz 2024!

10.12.2024 show

October 5, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Snow Patrol, The Forest Is the Path (2024) . . . This great Scottish rock band is slimmed down to a trio for their new album, but their big, beautiful sound remains . . . vast canvas for desire, regret, sweet, sweet musics . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Black Crowes, Shake Your Money Maker (1990) . . . Debut album by this southern rock juggernaut led by the Robinson bothers roars out of the gates to announce that rock & roll is here to stay! . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 8 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is U2, & still more songs from their career-spanning musical re-imagination, Songs of Surrender . . . the cooler wind, the colored leaves, yes, yes, sir & miss, tis autumn again, time of the Crisping . . . Vote Harris / Walz 2024!

10.05.2024 show

September 28, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Black Keys, Ohio Players (2024) . . . Funky rock duo dial up Beck & Noel Gallagher to join in the delights of making their new LP . . . The Black Keys prove that every kind of music, old & new, can be mixed into something unique, serious motha' fuggin' fun . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Bob Dylan, Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964) . . . Though he was still making his records solo, just him & his various instruments, Dylan was leaving his protest song hero persona behind, at least in ways it limited him . . . There are songs of passion, songs of anguish, funny-ass songs & yes, a protest song or two, of sorts . . . then & now, this LP befuddles some . . . being in the lab of a brilliant genius at work is not for everyone . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 8 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is U2, & more songs from their career-spanning musical re-imagination, Songs of Surrender . . . a rare show being recorded days in advance, because a trip to the White Woods of Maine . . . Vote Harris / Walz 2024!

09.28.2024 show

September 21, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Woodland (2024) . . . This brilliant folk-rock duo's new album is named after their Woodland Sound Studios in Nashville, Tennessee, which was destroyed by a tornado in 2020 . . . It is thus strange, raw, beautiful, haunting . . . an orphaned visitor, in a way, welcomed in, with many wishes to stay . . . so happy to hear their new LP . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Son Volt, Trace (1995) . . . Naming itself in honor of the legendary bluesman Son House, & rising from the ashes of the defunct alt-country legends Uncle Tupelo, Jay Farrar's new band faced two challenges: try to make a great album, & try to make it better than former bandmate Jeff Tweedy's debut in Wilco . . . I think it's a draw between this album & Wilco's A.M. . . . both great, really . . . this record is darker, folkier at times . . . lures listeners into a warm, sometimes weird, musical shade . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 8 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is U2, & songs from their career-spanning musical re-imagination, Songs of Surrender . . . some extra time away to attend Burning Man 2024, from the pandemic-safe Bungalow Cee . . . so glad of it . . . Vote Harris / Walz 2024!

09.21.2024 show

August 24, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Travis, L.A. Times (2024) . . . Great Scottish rock band's first new LP in four years delivers their warmth, their wit, & their fine new slew of songs . . . there's a wrapped in a warm blanket feel to their music, intimations of autumn soon to come . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Gin Blossoms, Congratulations I'm Sorry (1996) . . . Second record from this terrific Arizona indie rock band roars out of the gate with guitar blasts of defiance, & never really lets up . . . recorded in the aftermath of their estranged guitarist Doug Hopkins dying by suicide (hence the darkly ironical title), the band finds a way to make new music, great new music, maybe the only solace for such tragedy . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 8 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are the last of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 04.July.2009 . . . & a loving sayonara to Casey K. . . . seems hope is again an option to choose in this world . . . glad enough of us are remembering this . . . Harris / Walz 2024!

08.24.2024 show

August 17, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Wilco, Hot Sun Cool Shroud (2024) . . . Not often an EP-length album features here, but this legendary Chicago indie rock band has just released an amazing one, a record that fills vastly its short running time . . . a real gem not to be missed . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Wilco, A.M. (1995) . . . Reaching back nearly 30 years for Wilco's debut LP, rising from the ashes of Uncle Tupelo to begin a new journey hinted at here . . . pushing from where they'd been to something new, no longer so folky, weirdly rocking at times . . . already something special to hear . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 8 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are even still still more of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 04.July.2009 . . . hope has come back into the world because hopeful people are speaking up again, & ain't gonna be stopped . . . Harris / Walz 2024!

08.17.2024 show

August 10, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Phish, Evolve (2024) . . . There are some bands that a listener feels far more deeply & vastly about . . . it's more than the music, though that is certainly where it begins & continues . . . I've been a fan & a follower of Phish for a lot of years, feel like I belong to a phamily built by them & their many fans . . . but this morning I listened to this new album as a band's new record, trying to catch up to their current moment . . . they rock hard, at times, like always, but are sweeter than candy too, at times . . . threads of hope & melancholy braid through their work . . . beautiful new record, in sum, their kind of happy unique magick in this world . . . thank you, always, Trey, Mike, Page, & Fishman . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Black Crowes, By Your Side (1999) . . . Brilliant record . . . rocks like everything matters in the world, & it's all at stake . . . & I love these words especially to share: "'Cause I can say it once / Or I can shout it twice / All there really is / Is virtue and vice / Virtue and vice . . . " Oh fuck yah . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 8 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are even still more of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 04.July.2009 . . . there's hope back in the world . . . the kind that is tough to survive all sorts of days . . . the kind we won't be loosing from any time soon . . . Harris / Walz 2024!

08.10.2024 show

August 3, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Decemberists, The Blackest Thing on the Menu (2024) . . . And thank goodness! This wonderful Portland indie rock band has a new LP to delight anyone coming across it . . . wildly tuneful songs, no way to really sum their lyrics . . . strange, sad, dark, fun, begin an endless list . . . & they conclude this album with a great 20 minute epic, because they can!
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Beatles, Hey Jude (1970) . . . Released in the year The Beatles broke up, full of songs that had not been on albums, this record nonetheless has its own groovy flow . . . like a kind of storytelling in song of the group from early years to final . . . never regarded by many for much, I like it a lot . . . got it with the rest of their albums when I was young & delighted by anything Beatle, its charms have stayed with me . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 8 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are still more of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 04.July.2009 . . . it's hot, hot, hot! here, but the comfort is in believing hope is again on the horizon . . . wild to think possible, & yet so! Kamala Harris for President 2024!

08.03.2024 show

July 27, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Gangstagrass, The Blackest Thing on the Menu (2024) . . . A fantastic new release by Brooklyn's own inimitable hip hop bluegrass geniuses . . . their musical delights are untold in number . . . what a great new LP!
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Smithereens, A Date with The Smithereens (1994) . . . Happiness is mine to feature this legendary New Jersey rock band . . . playing music like it's still about 1966, & doing it so wonderfully well . . . wild wild wild fun!
Storybook Time: Chapter 8 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 04.July.2009 . . . Vote Kamala Harris 2024! When we fight, we win!

07.27.2024 show

July 20, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Blitzen Trapper, 100's of 1000's, Millions of Billions (2024) . . . Indie rock band out of Portland, Oregon is back with a new LP, & it's another great one . . . clever, lyrical, sly, played fiendishly well . . . this band is laid back & means some serious business, both . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Church, Gold Afternoon Fix (1990) . . . Coming two years after this legendary Australian psychedelic rock band's masterwork, Starfish, this album shares some of the same Dreamland mood & ringing guitars, but also restlessly pushes elsewhere, harder, darker . . . a more obscure treat of an album . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 8 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are a first bunch of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 04.July.2009 . . . so happy to be back after several needed weeks away . . . the microphone & the music beckon!

07.20.2024 show

June 22, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Buffalo Tom, Jump Rope (2024) . . . Been 6 years since this great Boston indie rock band's last LP, but what a delightful return . . . songs of love & loss, songs that wander deep into strange living & odd survival . . . epic treat of a record!
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Sting, . . . Nothing Like the Sun (1987) . . . A few years removed from his times with The Police, Sting's second album is a different sort of beautiful beast . . . musically adventurous, lyrically gorgeous . . . & an amazing cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing" as well . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 8 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is singer-songwriter Terry Reid, & some of his lovely tunes sung at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival . . . will be a few Saturdays turned to matters of pen & notebook, but back to this beloved show again soon!

06.22.2024 show

June 15, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Albums: Wyatt Flores, Life Lessons EP (2023) | Half Life EP (2024) . . . I was casting around for a new voice to feature on this show, & run with the best of luck into this brilliant young singer-songwriter from Oklahoma, & his gifted band . . . this pair of EPs shows the amazing range of his voice, his lyrics, & & group's sound . . . Together, I think they form a splendid introduction!
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: The Police, Synchronicity (1983) . . . This legendary British rock band made it into the studio for a fifth & final LP . . . working with themes of lorn love & Jungian philosophy, they produced a final triumphant LP . . . I was a young fellow when this record came out, & I worshipped it, end to end . . . happy to feature what feels like an old friend, as fresh, wild, & powerful as those many years ago . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 8 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is also The Police, a smattering of great songs that were not featured on their LPs . . . Walking in the Woods with my dear one today, dreaming of effective nasal vaccines soon, of returning to the human world safely, & letting go these sad & heartbreaking Pandemic years . . .

06.15.2024 show

June 8, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Richard Thompson, Ship to Shore (2024) . . . British folk rock legend returns with his first LP in 7 years, & it is a dandy one . . . dark, dark ponderings set to brilliant music, sung to take no prisoners . . . what a real treat when a brilliant genius like Thompson comes back around . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: The Police, Ghost in the Machine (1981) . . . Fourth album by this great UK rock band . . . also a dark record, presaging the dark decade just arriving . . . was this The Police's peak? I'd say this & their final album in 1983 for sure . . . maybe . . . the first 3 were great too . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 7 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Blind Faith & terrific songs from their debut concert at Hyde Park in London on 07.June.1969 . . . such a green beautiful world to behold, when one looks & if wise, one looks again, & again . . .

06.08.2024 show

June 1, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Mavericks, Moon & Stars (2024) . . . Americana? Country Rock? Tex-Mex? Check, check, check, & more . . . when the The Mavericks from Miami, Florida get to playing their wonderful music, best not to try parsing it all out, & just dance!
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: The Police, Zenyatta Mondatta (1980) . . . Third album by this legendary British rock band keeps upping their own game . . . an album whose many kinds of musics could lead one happy lost for days & longer . . . & regarding the album's title, The Police's drummer Stewart Copeland said, "It means everything. It's the same explanation that applies to the last two. It doesn't have a specific meaning like 'Police Brutality' or 'Police Arrest,' or anything predictable like that. Being vague it says a lot more. You can interpret it in a lot of different ways. It's not an attempt to be mysterious, just syllables that sound good together, like the sound of a melody that has no words at all has a meaning."
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 7 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Bob Dylan, & a few more great tunes from his legendary 1975 "Rolling Thunder Revue" show . . . Walking around upright again, & grateful for it, & this week's broadcast dedicated to the dozen great folks who this week bravely & rightly said "GUILTY" 34 times to X-President Clusterfuck!

06.01.2024 show

May 25, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Cage the Elephant, Social Cues (2019) . . . This album won this American rock band a Grammy Award, & it's easy to know why . . . rowdy, restless, sweet, fun . . . music these guys play the hell out of with equal parts mastery & joy . . . a real delight . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: The Police, Outlandos d'Amour (1979) . . . Speaking of Grammy awards, back in 1980 this legendary British rock band landed one (among many others they would win) for the instrumental title track to this, their second album . . . rock critics note that the band did not come into the studio with an overload of songs to record, but they opted for a lower budget arrangement, & so kept their artistic autonomy to experiment . . . the record is like being with them, listening as they try this, try that, hit some out of the park, move on when they don't . . . . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 7 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Bob Dylan, & songs from his second 11/21/75 "Rolling Thunder Revue" show . . . Missing the spring days a bit, laid up with a temporarily bum knee . . . so green outside right now, won't stay away long . . .

05.25.2024 show

May 18, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Old 97's, American Primitive (2024) . . . Monster new LP from this awesome Texas indie rock band . . . baker's dozen of great songs . . . old school rock & roll, played like everything is on the line, & only the best players can take the stage . . . great record!
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Police, Outlandos d'Amour (1978) . . . Debut album by this legendary British rock band . . . rooted some in punk, some in reggae, but not really any one thing, their great sound from the start their own . . . too good to do anything but leave the rest in their dust . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 7 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Bob Dylan, & songs from his 11/21/75 "Rolling Thunder Revue" show . . . Always a thrill to be back in the DJ's seat after a break . . . ready to roll on & on anew!

05.18.2024 show

April 20, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Elbow, Flying Dream 1 (2021) . . . Members of this great British indie rock group composed this album remotely from each other, keeping safe in the Pandemic, & then gathered to record it in an empty theater . . . a quiet album, deeply quiet, as though seeking deepest musical sanctuary from the dark world out there . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Yes, Close to the Edge (1972) . . . One of the legendary British prog-rock's best albums . . . including two amazing four-part suites . . . visionary rock, deep down in the cosmic musical bones . . . cosmic, trippy fun . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 7 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Bob Dylan, & more songs from his 11/20/75 "Rolling Thunder Revue" show . . . closest to my birthday coming, so glad this magickal show is part of my ongoing days . . . happy to share with all who listen . . .

04.20.2024 show

April 13, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The SteelDrivers, Tougher Than Nails (2023) . . . Most recent album from this great Nashville bluegrass band . . . & its their long-planned gospel album . . . heretic as I am, I love this record . . . they play the wonderful hell out of this sacred music . . . Featured Classic Rock Album: The Freeborne, Peak Impressions (1968) . . . Sole LP from this Boston psychedelic rock group . . . deep, beautiful, lysergic glory . . . enjoy on your own, or take with a friend . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 7 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Bob Dylan, & songs from his 11/20/75 "Rolling Thunder Revue" show . . . Buds springing up in every direction . . . our world showing us its beautiful, simple way . . . is it so hard to listen & heed?

04.13.2024 show

April 6, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Church, Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars (2024) . . . Legendary Australian psychedelic rock band, musical magicks ever unfolding new . . . a long beautiful trip . . . strange & funny & unknown . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Eastfield Meadows, Eastfield Meadows (1968) . . . Solo LP from this long-forgotten California psychedelic pop band . . . gems of perfection of all kinds . . . both of a time & timeless to love as well . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 7 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Bob Dylan, & songs from the rehearsals & first show of his "Rolling Thunder Revue" . . . into April, feels like arrival . . . feels like a time to pass better through then to hereon . . .

04.06.2024 show

March 30, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The American Analog Set, For Forever (2023) . . . It's now been 18 years since this Austin, Text indie rock band released a new record . . . so this new LP's been simmering awhile . . . & does it burst forth, wow! And never lets go till the grooves run out near an hour later . . . wonderful return . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The American Analog Set, Know By Heart (2001) . . . And to complete the return of the band to action, & to this show as well, let's dip back into one of their early records & find the same brooding, melodic brilliance, & wonder at how time in Art passes, & how it somehow does not . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 7 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some last of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 08.March.2008 . . . Beloved & I will be, careful, out in the world, like Saturdays of old, movies & walks & the whole journeying pleasure . . . not too often these Pandemic days, & way more cautious than then but, still, grateful, grateful . . .

03.30.2024 show

March 23, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Black Crowes, Happiness Bastards (2024) . . . WOW! These guys are BACK! And WOW! is this a great record! They rock every tune right, wild, full of gleeful abandon . . . I LOVE THIS RECORD! THANK YOU!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Fine Young Cannibals, The Raw & The Cooked (1989) . . . British band that was around for barely an instant, yet this album surges with soulful, carnal brilliance . . . so glad they came, so sorry they didn't stay longer . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 6 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are still more of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 08.March.2008 . . . Spring rolling in, bud & bloom ready . . . hope insists, no matter human failures . . . this world still waits better, deserves better . . .

03.23.2024 show

March 16, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Toad the Wet Sprocket, Starting Now (2021) . . . Been eight long years since this great indie rock band's last release . . . they've lost nothing for the wait . . . their new songs are still full of great long & quiet fury . . . still wrap around the listener's heart & soul, softly, for a warm, melancholy while . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Built to Spill, Perfect From Now On (1997) . . . Legendary rock band's first fully-formed burst into the beautiful noise they have made many times since . . . best enjoyed with a pipe, or something equally nice, near to hand . . . but any which way will do . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 6 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 08.March.2008 . . . spring creeping in again, warming, greening, a day at a time . . . hope in her grasp as she comes, as always . . .

03.16.2024 show

March 9, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Steeldrivers, Bad for You (2020) . . . Been awhile since this show featured this great Nashville Americana band . . . as inspired in their masterful bluegrass playing as they are in their rousing, melancholy, & strange tunes, this is another album of sweet & salty treats to enjoy . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Toad the Wet Sprocket, Fear (1991) . . . Early album by this California indie rock band, & already their moody, beautiful music is in place . . . like music is the only escape from ever-nearing worry & woe . . . reaching, reaching songs, closer & closer, yet never quite there . . . & try again . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 6 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are a first bunch of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 08.March.2008 . . . This world is vaster & more beautiful than any being on it can ever fully know . . . it is gift, wildly amazing gift . . . any day, hour, minute not spent in cultivating aware gratefulness of this truth is likely misspent . . . & try again . . .

03.09.2024 show

March 2, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Steel Wheels, Sideways (2024) . . . Legendary Americana band returns with a new album . . . beautiful as always, masterfully played, but the deep melancholy runs throughout its songs . . . feels for these current sad times . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Lindsey Buckingham, Out of the Cradle (1992) . . . Having left for a time the role of Fleetwood Mac's brilliant lead guitarist, Buckingham focussed his artistic inspirations into this brilliant solo record . . . filled with fury, regret, longing, buoyed time & again by his brilliant acoustic playing, this album rewards many listens, deepens in time . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 6 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Feelies & some last great tunes from their recent live Some Kinda Love: Performing the Music of the Velvet Underground release . . . Some time away from this show only builds my delight in resuming . . . it matters to happen . . .

03.02.2024 show

February 10, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Dead South, Chains and Stakes (2024) . . . Canadian bluegrass group returns with another beautiful, deep, melodic record . . . art & craft blended to wildly, wonderfully played songs . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Love & Rockets, Earth, Sun, Moon (1987) . . . Third LP by this British rock band . . . gets somewhat psychedelic folk here, at times, & funny, ever sometimes funny . . . weirdly, nicely lingers . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 6 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Feelies & some more great tunes from their recent live Some Kinda Love: Performing the Music of the Velvet Underground release . . . end the slaughter in Palestine . . . PEACE NOW!

02.10.2024 show

February 3, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Smile, Wall of Eyes (2024) . . . This is Thom Yorke & Jonnny Greenwood (both of Radiohead)'s other band . . . like Radiohead, this band pushes into darker spaces . . . spacier? funkier? let the listening passenger on this trippy voyage decide . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Love & Rockets, Express (1986) . . . Second LP by this British rock band . . . slides deeper into musical vision . . . smooth, pushing . . . sometimes a little funny too, slyly . . . really nice follow-up to debut . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 6 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Feelies & some great tunes from their recent live Some Kinda Love: Performing the Music of the Velvet Underground release . . . world is full of grim news . . . hard trick neither to turn away nor drown in it all . . .

02.03.2024 show

January 27, 2024 show:
Featured Album: The Cure, Disintegration (1989) . . . Though songs from this great British rock band have featured occasionally on this show, never a full album . . . time to rectify that . . . this LP emerged from the struggles with fame & mortality that lead singer & lyricist Robert Smith was dealing with at the time . . . recorded in a very concentrated burst late in autumn in the English countryside, during a time when Smith with deep-diving with LSD, the record pulls one ever within & within with its changing musical beauties . . . a rock masterpiece to share . . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 6 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . it's weird & wonderful to have come along 25 years with this radio show, through travels of space & time, heart & heart & soul . . . I ever carry memory of the little studio in the back of an art gallery, now long gone, where this show began . . . & happy to do this new episode, & ever on & on to more!

01.27.2024 show

January 20, 2024 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Green Day, Saviors (2024) . . . This legendary pop-punk-rock-whatever-they-want-to-call-it band returns with a FANTASTIC new album . . . pissed off, wanting, sentimental, rocking for the pure joy fuck of it . . . WOW! what a treat for this first show of this new turn of the calendar!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Love & Rockets, Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven (1985) . . . I'd known this great British rock band for its later great albums, but something today told me to dig deeper . . . this, their debut album, is psychedelic sublimity itself . . . wow, again . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 6 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Derek & The Dominos, & some awesome tracks from their October 1970 shows at the Fillmore East in NYC . . . so good to be back! Ready to rock soft & hard both into 2024, not let up, not for a second . . . !

01.20.2024 show

2023

December 16, 2023 show:
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Leonard Cohen, You Want It Darker (2016) . . . Cohen's final album was released just 17 days before his death . . . his infirmities caused him to have to work on it in his living room, emailing with collaborators . . . yet he said at the time: "in a certain sense, this particular predicament is filled with many fewer distractions than other times in my life and actually enables me to work with a little more concentration and continuity" . . . the songs are dark, of course, richly, strangely musical, poetically masterful in a way only a poetical master could render them . . . yet it is a delight, a gift of a work, an open-eyed yet blissfully idealistic conclusion to his body of work . . . brilliant genius, indeed . . .
Featured New Rock Album: Leonard Cohen, Thanks for the Dance (2019) . . . But then, several years later, a bit more of a gift . . . a posthumous album brought to finish by Cohen's son Adam, as well as friends like Beck, Daniel Lanois, & Sharon Robinson . . . songs Cohen & Adam had discussed completing, but which Cohen entrusted his son to finish . . . it's like the bewitched listener wished for the 2016 album to go on a bit longer, & wow, happily, it does . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 5 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's 21th annual Season of Lights broadcast arrives near the end of a calendar where people suffered, the world suffered, so much of it unnecessarily . . . yet the next day comes, & the next, & each one invites us to do better, try harder, love more subtly, empathize more deeply with all . . . best wishes to everyone!

12.16.2023 show

December 9, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Steel Wheels, Everyone a Song, Vol. 2 (2020) . . . A second volume of songs from this great Americana band, made during the depths of the ongoing Pandemic . . . as with the previous volume, lead songwriter Trent Wagler wrote the lyrics, & the music got passed from one member to the next, via song & video files . . . the second LP is as good as the first one!
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Leonard Cohen, Popular Problems (2014) . . . Cohen continues his darkling ruminations about desire, war, religion . . . his gravelly old voice sometimes shouts with authority, sometimes retreats in fear . . . his music is strange, beautiful, & lasting . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 5 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is The Who, & more songs from their 1971 compilation, Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy . . . thinking of my dear friend JBIII as always, & especially in December . . . thinking of the suffering world tonight . . .

12.09.2023 show

December 2, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Steel Wheels, Everyone a Song, Vol. 1 (2020) . . . This great Americana band came up with a brilliant idea to keep making music in the worst opening days of the pandemic, the band members far from each other, & not touring . . . their invited their fans to send them stories about their families and friends, their relationships, their lives. Listeners did just that, commissioning works for everything from weddings & anniversaries to dedications to lost loved ones. Lead songwriter Trent Wagler wrote the lyrics, & the music got passed from one member to the next, via song & video files . . . that's a great back story, & not the least needed to enjoy this beautiful, inspired, magickal LP!
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Leonard Cohen, Old Ideas (2012) . . . Second time this program has featured this amazing album, last time was 6/3/2017 . . . but this time in the context of playing all of Cohen's discography in 2023 . . . having done that, this album seems even more of a crowning achievement, recorded when Cohen was 77, coming off a years-long tour, undertaken because his manager stole everything from him . . . yet Cohen's deep, weird musical poetics are better than ever . . . no bounds, no borders, just beauty & beauty & more beauty . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 5 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is The Who, & songs from their 1971 compilation, Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy . . . as always, remembering my dear brother JBIII & his favorite band, around the 12/1/11 date when Jim moved on to the Stars . . . every in my heart, on my mind, moving me to live better days as I am able, old friend . . .

12.02.2023 show

November 25, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Daughter, Stereo Mind Game (2023) . . . English folk trio working their collective muse in realms of yearn & dream . . . near the familiar world at moments, then drift off, not simply elsewhere, but surely elsewhere . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Leonard Cohen, Dear Heather (2004) . . . Cohen continues to challenge himself & his Art in this album . . . including songs with lyrics by Lord Byron & F.R. Scott . . . old poetry dug up for a second working over . . . & even a country standard like his live rendition of "Tennessee Waltz" thrown in for fun . . . back to his music, & charging ahead . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 5 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is another of my long-time great musical heroes, Billy Joel, & deep cuts from his brilliant 1973 LP, Piano Man . . . this weekend marks 20 years of SpiritPlants Radio . . . what a travel in time & space . . . what gratefulness to be here traveling still . . .

11.25.2023 show

November 18, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Tyler Childers, Rustin' in the Rain (2023) . . . Great new album by Americana wunderkind Childers . . . like the best of current Americana artists, such as Billy Strings, Sturgill Simpson, & Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Childers reaches far back, widely around, & deep into imaginary future realms to concoct his music's magicks . . . brilliant, beautiful, sometimes sober, sometimes fun . . . a delight of a new LP . . . . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Leonard Cohen, Ten New Songs (2001) . . . By 1993, Cohen was burned out from booze & depression, & decided to take a little break from records & tours to visit his Zen Master Joshu Sasaki, or Roshi, at the Mt. Baldy Zen Center near Los Angeles . . . said visit took five years . . . he emerged slowly, collaborating with the multi-talented musician Sharon Robinson, song by song by song, to produce a sweet, darkling, funny, gem of a record, to explain some things on his mind, obfuscate more, as was his way . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 5 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Harry Chapin, one of my early & ever heroes, tis November, my time to listen to him especially every year, & this time songs from his second 1972 masterpiece, Sniper and Other Love Songs . . . wishing all everyone some form of Happy Thankee-Thankee-Thankee Day this autumn!

11.18.2023 show

November 11, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Mighty Poplar, Mighty Poplar (2023) . . . . This great new Americana group features Andrew Marlin of Watchhouse, Noam Pikelny and Chris Eldridge of Punch Brothers, bassist Greg Garrison (from Leftover Salmon) and fiddler Alex Hargreaves (Billy Strings's band) . . . playing like a bunch of brilliant musician friends on a long, lovely, star-wild night . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Leonard Cohen, The Future (1992) . . . Running nearly an hour, responding to riots in LA, & the wall falling in Berlin, among many other topics, Cohen creates another strange, gorgeous, inimitable thing of beauty . . . his records tell his story, but in a language no translation can truly reveal . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 5 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Harry Chapin, one of my early & ever heroes, tis November, my time to listen to him especially every year, & this time songs from his 1972 masterpiece, Heads & Tales . . . well, got myself a good position again, three months of looking, seems the year is turning a good corner, but man! wishing more good corners for everyone else too!

11.11.2023 show

October 28, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Mosses, Speaking Mountain (2019) . . . . Another great band to emerge from New York's Black Dirt Studio . . . Duo consists of Ryan Jewell & Danette Bordenkircher . . . trippy, friendly, weird funky climb up a surreal mountain, till the top appears & all wild comes to view . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Leonard Cohen, I'm Your Man (1988) . . . Cohen finds some kind of weird beautiful footing in his later 1980s albums . . . they sound ever more like him uniquely, & like maybe he's having his own kind of dark good times . . . going crazy, too drunk for his own good sometimes but, wow, these freakishly wonderful songs emerge from it all . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 4 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist & this week's featured artists are those Bad Boys from Boston, Aerosmith, & some of their many brilliant singles from the 1980s and 1990s . . . The Masters of War do not see the beauty of this world, only its pain & struggle . . . there's more than enough beauty, & room, & everything for all . . . carry this sentiment along on hard days . . .

10.28.2023 show

October 21, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Rolling Stones, Hackney Diamonds (2023) . . . . Been near 20 years since the Stones put out a new album . . . something to prove? not really but, yah, proved it . . . they are still the greatest rock & roll band in the world . . . fucking wonderful record . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Leonard Cohen, Various Positions (1984) . . . Cohen's career hit a nadir with this album, which his own record company refused to release in the US . . . yet it contains at least two classics in "Dance Me to the End of Love" & "Hallelujah" . . . the latter of which has become one of the most beloved cover songs of all time . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 4 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Gordon Lightfoot, who passed from this world back in May 2023, & some great classics of his . . . War goes on, at that Masters of War who make it are rarely caught or held accountable . . . thinking of Jude, Gadi, & all the other victims of governments & profit-mongers . . .

10.21.2023 show

October 14, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Velvet Meadow, Velvet Meadow (2022) . . . . Most recent release from this Florida psychedelic group, pursues fantastical themes in lyrics & music . . . deep beautiful trippy vibe . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Leonard Cohen, Recent Songs (1979) . . . Sounding more like himself after his strange times with Phil Spector, Cohen chases farther into matters of the heart, the flesh, the yearning, praying, lonely, persistent-as-fuck pilgrim of the world . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 4 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are the last of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 15.September.2007, including the #1 song! . . .

10.14.2023 show

October 7, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Wilco, Cousin (2023) . . . . Sometimes one follows a band for years & years hoping make albums again "like they used to" . . . I did not realize I was somewhat in this boat with Wilco, enjoying whatever they try really . . . but this album feels like a digging deep into their musical ago . . . what a treat!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Leonard Cohen, Death of a Ladies' Man (1977) . . . Wow, this is the infamous album Cohen made with Phil Spector, with lots of guns lying around the studio, tis said . . . woozy, boozy, but Cohen's strange, brilliant light is in there . . . & while he seemed dissatisfied somewhat with the whole affair, he never quite disowned it . . . never denied its weird, darkling charms . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 4 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 15.September.2007 . . . Away a week from the DJ chair, up with my beloved & other lovelies in the Great State of Maine . . . autumn followed us back here . . . welcomed old friend . . .

10.07.2023 show

September 23, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The String Cheese Incident, Lend Me a Hand (2023) . . . . Legendary jam band back with a new album after a few years . . . quieter, sweeter . . . gives no quarter for feeling despair, for asking kindness . . . lovely work . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Leonard Cohen, New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974) . . . Cohen's fourth LP . . . weirder . . . funnier . . . darker . . . lots more kinds of instruments in the mix . . . Cohen sings a little more than less . . . thinking of the year it was released, the tired & ravaged remain of hippie joys . . . makes perfect sense . . . what a record . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 4 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 15.September.2007 . . . care in this life? good . . . think it won't hurt at times to do so? . . . ha . . . give a fuck anyway . . . give a few . .

09.23.2023 show

September 16, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Kristin Hersh, Clear Pond Road (2023) . . . . Hersh's music, whether loud or acoustic, mostly acoustic here, bears from so deeply in her, is the Art of her skin & marrow . . . lingers with neither threat nor kiss . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Leonard Cohen, Songs of Love and Hate (1971) . . . Cohen's third album furthers into his strange, dark, lyrical poetics . . . sung amongst spare & haunting music . . . everything useless left out, every mystery left in . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 4 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are a first bunch of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 15.September.2007 . . . strong winds blowing through New England today, taking & leaving as they will . . . neither vengeful nor hesitant like men . . .

09.16.2023 show

September 9, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Last Revel, Dovetail (2023) . . . . New record from this brilliant Minnesota Americana trio . . . songs that settle snug in the heart, linger in the ear . . . a few funny moments too, because they can . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Leonard Cohen, Songs from a Room (1969) . . . Cohen's second LP deepens into his strange vision, fracturing it into songs about war, love, memories of the misfits he has known . . . there is an austere yet kindly warmth to this music . . . the room is dim, there is just one candle, the night is very long . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 4 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is The 3 Clubmen (Andy Partridge, Jen Olive, & Stu Rowe) & their self-titled debut EP of beguilingly bent pop confections . . . leaving a war zone, a place of damage, & those who did the damage, is a slow process, works on many levels . . . yet happens, surely happens . . . the heart is an amazing engine for renewal . . .

09.09.2023 show

September 2, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Old Crow Medicine Show, Jubilee (2023) . . . . Legendary Americana band back with a new & delightful LP . . . funny, sweet, quietly angry at times . . . them Crow boys bring along some friends too, to add to the fun!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Leonard Cohen, Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967) . . . Debut album by this brilliant Canadian singer-songwriter feels vaguely in the regions of Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Phil Ochs, & other early great folk-rockers . . . but also pointing in other directions, other scents he will long follow . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 3 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are a mix of songs I call my "Jobhunt Happy Mix 2023" . . . Autumnal air drifting in like an old friend, a balm from out of time, unregarding struggle . . . endlessly drifting melancholy dreaming music . . . ahhhh . . .

09.02.2023 show

August 26, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Velvet Meadow, Colored Seas (2020) . . . . Debut album by songwriter/multi instrumentalist Kris Heironimus . . . this record is a brilliant psychedelic voyage in hardly 30 minutes . . . timeless & so . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Bob Dylan, Desire (1976) . . . While traveling the lands with his Rolling Thunder Revue, Dylan stopped along the way to record this beautiful, powerful LP . . . his collaborations with Jacques Levy & others creates a loose, open feel to these songs . . . the inspired troubadour & his many brilliant minstrels along the way . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 3 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are a variety of those who have covered the brilliant genius Leonard Cohen . . . been near a month since this show's last episode, kicked both boots out the payjob door . . . but . . . like Sir Elton John sings . . . I'M STILL STANDING YAH! YAH! YAH!

08.26.2023 show

July 29, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: John Mellencamp, Orpheus Descending (2023) . . . . Been 20 years or so since this show featured a new album by legendary American folk-rocker Mellencamp . . . This new album marks the great moment of return . . . his 1980s fiddler Lisa Germano is back . . . his voice has even more gravel in it . . . but the man & his music at core are in tact, fierce, beautiful, tuneful . . . wow . . . this record matters, & I am so grateful for it . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Grateful Dead, In the Dark (1987) . . . The Dead emerged from 20 years of countercultural obscurity with their ragged Top 40 charmer, "Touch of Grey" . . . salve for the absolute depths of the 1980s. . . & the rest of this album is just as fun . . . if many folks back then at most bought & heard this record as their Dead musical knowledge, they got lucky . . . it's really good . . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 3 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is again XTC's resident genius frontman, Andy Partridge, & a last batch of songs from his Fuzzy Warbles series . . . some weeks like hot coals beneath the feet . . . walk 'em, walk 'em fast . . . get on to better, cooler days . . .

07.29.2023 show

July 22, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Milk Carton Kids, I Only See the Moon (2023) . . . . New LP from this California folk-rock duo . . . their music is both delicate & intense . . . lyrically beautiful, musically sweet . . . but deep bones to spare, deep soul . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, The Distance (1982) . . . There are so many great well-known & little-known songs on this album it amazes me . . . Seger is one of rock & roll's biggest, best-kept secret . . . fills the good listener's heart & mind with gift after gift . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 3 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists all were inspired to record songs from the 1967 musical Hair . . . anger & sorrow have started to coalesce into action, as they best do in many circumstances . . . strange new days, finding new ways . . .

07.22.2023 show

July 15, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Black Pistol Fire, Look Alive (2021) . . . . This rocking Canadian duo punches out another great LP, lively, strange, & smart . . . its driving power never quits from first song to last . . . electric charms just won't quit . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Byrds, Mr. Tambourine Man (1965) . . . Amazing debut album by this legendary folk-rock band out of California . . . some Dylan covers & some great original tunes invent a new sound in rock & roll that has lasted the decades . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 3 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band & a few last songs from their 2002 collaboration of love, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Volume III . . . this week I took a deep breath & committed to finding daylight again . . . however hard . . . it's nearer . . .

07.15.2023 show

July 8, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Black Pistol Fire, Deadbeat Grafitti (2017) . . . . Catching up with this Canadian duo, & their not quite-punk-nor-quite-rock sound . . . this LP is full of energy, music to get off your sack & bounce around the room too!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Family, Family Entertainment (1969) . . . Second album from this English rock band . . . full of weird beauties . . . come charming at ya, sunk into your ears before you know it . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 3 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band & more songs from their 2002 collaboration of love, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Volume III . . . some days it gets hard, stumble, wonder . . . hang on a moment more, clouds clear, music kicks in again . . . patience . . .

07.08.2023 show

June 24, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Deer Tick, Sempronia (2021) . . . . This amazing Rhode Island indie rock band comes high rolling back with a great sack full of new tunes . . . an LP that jumps into its rocking business from moment one & does not let up . . . wow!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Shawn Phillips, Contribution (1970) . . . Friend of Donovan in the 1960s, even collaborated with him on some songs, Texas-born Phillips ups his own album game enormously with this strange, lovely, deep album . . . gets a little help from those boys in Traffic, by the by . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 2 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band & more songs from their 2002 collaboration of love, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Volume III . . . Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the fly . . . here's to everyone getting a turn at each . . .

06.24.2023 show

June 17, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Jantar, Sempronia (2021) . . . . This UK psych-rock band is back with a groovy dream of a record . . . not one to hold on tight for . . . just let go . . . flow down stream . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Sting, Ten Summoner's Tales (1993) . . . Sting is in his great inspired glories, with a band to match his ambitions . . . songs about love, politics, religion, each flowing one to the next seamlessly . . . a funky, smart, delightful album that never lets up, end to end!
Storybook Time: Chapter 2 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band & more songs from their 2002 collaboration of love, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Volume III . . . the unknowingness of the next moment, some weeks hits harder than others . . . thinking all good things for my friend GK, & what new adventures await him . . .

06.17.2023 show

June 10, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Temples, Exotico (2023) . . . . This UK psych-rock band is back with a groovy dream of a record . . . not one to hold on tight for . . . just let go . . . flow down stream . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Donovan, Sunshine Superman (1966) . . . This was the album where the Scottish folk-rocker finally came into his own . . . the amazing title track, the enthralling "Season of the Witch," & many more on this LP . . . trippy delights . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 2 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band & more songs from their 2002 collaboration of love, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Volume III . . . watching the Chipmunk speed like a blur, slow to stop, stop, then speed again . . . nothing is impossible for anyone . . .

06.10.2023 show

June 3, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Great Lake Swimmers, Uncertain Country (2023) . . . . Several years on, this great Canadian indie rock band returns with a beautiful meditation on doubt, on turns in the road, on what beautiful might yet await any, each, & all of us . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Paul Simon, Graceland (1986) . . . At the time Simon made this album, his career fortunes were on the way, & he was battered by conflicts & doubts . . . a chance encounter with some music foreign yet lovely to his ears led him far, as far as apartheid-riven South Africa, not in search of politics, but rather a sound, & the fellow brilliant musicians who would help him realize it in this awesome record . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 2 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band & their 2002 collaboration of love, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Volume III. . . I believe in Art, its goodness & power, more than what staggers the world to damage & derange . . . no simpler way to put it . . .

06.03.2023 show

May 27, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Paul Simon, Seven Psalms (2023) . . . Just when it seemed like one more brilliant genius has retired to his own private hours, here comes this wonderful surprise . . . Simon's dreams told him there was more music for him to make, & he listened, & wrote in the middle of many nights to compose this amazing suite of songs . . . pure happiness to listen . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: T. Rex, Electric Warrior (1971) . . . This album snaps, crackles, & pops with delight, weirdness, cackling ecstasies . . . sweet talks to the playground in every heart, just waiting to be played in again . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 2 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, & some final great songs from their 1997 residence at the Fillmore in San Francisco . . . Wow, took a fair break, traveled, safely, to the far mountains & forests, call it rest, call it fine, call it over . . . ready to roll again!

05.27.2023 show

April 15, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Wood Brothers, Heart Is the Hero (2023) . . . . Brothers Chris & Oliver, with their multi-instrumentalist partner Jano Rix, release another brilliant LP . . . a kind of spiritual balm to the many in need these often dark days . . . offer hope as a solid rock to build from, to see the world better, to love it by . . . funky fine music too . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: T. Rex, T. Rex (1970) . . . Wild & weird genius Marc Bolan, who had led the UK psychedelic folk group Tyrannosaurus Rex through four brilliant albums since 1967, decided to chase a more electric path . . . shortened his band's name, turned on, even more, & thus this, his re-invented group's wonderful re-debut record . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 2 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, & some more great songs from their 1997 residence at the Fillmore in San Francisco . . . warm weather suddenly arrived here for a stretch this week, a reminder that the next season is always awaiting in the shadows . . .

04.15.2023 show

April 8, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The New Pornographers, Continue As a Guest (2023) . . . This new LP by the legendary Canadian indie rock supergroup has a warm, weird feel to it . . . like a party that continues till dawn for several days past when anyone knew it was a party too . . . easy, slow, enjoy . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Ultimate Spinach, Ultimate Spinach (1968) . . . Debut album by this Boston acid rock band is a direct read into a time & a place . . . live news from then-there . . . if you feel the yen for a strange, groovy trip, come on along . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 2 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, & some more great songs from their 1997 residence at the Fillmore in San Francisco . . . buds budding here & there . . . luring into the sun again . . .

04.08.2023 show

April 1, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Steve Gunn & David Moore, Let The Moon Be A Planet (2023) . . . Gunn, the guitar wizard, & Moore, the pianist for the group Bing & Ruth, come together to craft a strange, beautiful, soothing sonic journey, to places unreachable save by ear & imagination . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Bob Dylan, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963) . . . For his second album, Dylan writes all but two of the songs . . . classics like "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" & "Blowin' in the Wind" . . . he's already up there where ain't nobody was before, but with a sly invitation to follow along . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 1 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, & some more great songs from their 1997 residence at the Fillmore in San Francisco . . . springtime still looking like wintertime in New England, for awhile more, buds ready to be burstin' all over!

04.01.2023 show

March 25, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Nickel Creek, Celebrants (2023) . . . Legendary American bluegrass returns after 9 years with a new LP . . . & it is an epic . . . roams the musical landscape, soft, fierce, wild & wilder . . . making music, making Art, on a level all their own . . . such a brilliant delight . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan (1962) . . . Dylan's first album, made not long after arriving in New York City . . . full of all the folk music he'd been absorbing, & the lessons he'd picked up from visiting the ailing folksinger legend Woody Guthrie . . . yet, already, Dylan's voice & music are unique . . . off on his own road, no direction home . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 1 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, & some more great songs from their 1997 residence at the Fillmore in San Francisco . . . New England & everywhere crossed a few days ago into springtime . . . the earth & the flora & the fauna on, in, & above it, already, happily, knew . . .

03.25.2023 show

March 18, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Church, The Hypnogogue (2023) . . . This legendary Australian psychedelic group returns with leader Steve Kilbey & a crew of now-all-recent band members . . . the band's sound is still deeply trippy, weird & wild . . . maybe a little softer, more ambient soundscapes . . . According to popmatters.com, this fascinating new concept album "traces the life and career of a rock star 30 years from now who falls in love with a Korean scientist, who developed a device called the Hypnogogue, an apparatus that pulls thoughts from one's head and transforms them into music" . . . epic rock & roll dreamscape . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Tommy James & the Shondells, Cellophane Symphony (1969) . . . Weird & wonderful record . . . treats of the pop-psych kind, & others comical . . . other sweet bouncy tunes to enjoy . . . this was one of those magickal bands that never stopped evolving their musics & talents . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 1 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, & some more great songs from their 1997 residence at the Fillmore in San Francisco . . . there was a brilliant moment, passing the grey winterscape, I saw the brilliance of everything about me, wow . . .

03.18.2023 show

March 4, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Lucero, Should've Learned By Now (2023) . . . Catching up with this Tennessee indie rock band's newest release . . . this is a great rock & roll record! . . . Lucero makes the kind of records just more fun to listen to again & again . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Moby Grape, Wow/Grape Jam (1968) . . . Legendary San Francisco band's second album, actually a double-album of sorts . . . Wow is trippy & wild, all kinds of fun musical games . . . Grape Jam is the full rocking LP, even featuring guests Al Kooper & Mike Bloomfield . . . quite an epic ride in all!
Storybook Time: Chapter 1 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, & some more great songs from their 1997 residence at the Fillmore in San Francisco . . . tis Art that salves my worst moments, brings me back to level ground . . . wishing it for you too, always . . . back to level ground . . . wishing it for you too, always . . .

03.04.2023 show

February 25, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Lucero, When You Found Me (2021) . . . Great Tennessee indie rock band delves into the dark corners of these dark times, mining for brooding melodies, strange revelations when they come . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Free, Fire and Water (1970). . . British rock band mostly known for the classic hit "All Right Now," from this album, but tis also packed with a lot of other great rock & roll tunes . . . discover their treasures a little more with me . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 1 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, & some more great songs from their 1997 residence at the Fillmore in San Francisco . . . tis Art that salves my worst moments, brings me back to level ground . . . wishing it for you too, always . . .

02.25.2023 show

February 18, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Yo La Tengo, This Stupid World (2023) . . . Wow! Every few years, this indie rock band appears nearly from nowhere again to drop another great, strange, delightfully weird new album on everyone who will lock in, perk up, & listen . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Supergrass, Supergrass (1999). . . This UK band is so much fun, they are like windblown-spray-tossing-dreamdiving-down-&-up-&-down-again wonderful . . . enjoy! . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 1 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, & some more great songs from their 1997 residence at the Fillmore in San Francisco . . . chill to the bones means them bones get a nice needed cleansing too . . .

02.18.2023 show

February 11, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, New Fragility (2022) . . . Here comes the 6th LP by this Philadephia indie rock band . . . compelling, sweet, sad . . . such strange & beautiful musics . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: BoDeans, Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams (1986) . . . Classic rock revivalists Milwaukee band's debut album . . . this one is such a whole lot of fun . . . this record is effortlessly brilliant . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 1 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, & some more great songs from their 1997 residence at the Fillmore in San Francisco . . . deep in the winter, where the air is clear & everything reveals . . .

02.11.2023 show

February 4, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Nada Surf, Never Not Together (2020) . . . Have not checked in with this New York City indie rock band . . . this most recent LP rings with hope, with melancholy, with many & a-many beautiful songs . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Beatles, Let It Be (1970) . . . y the beginning of 1969, The Beatles were barely a cohesive group any more . . . yet they fought their individual & collective demons to write & perform the hell out of these great songs . . . let nobody say they were not swinging for the fences up to the end, just ain't true . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 1 of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, & some more great songs from their 1997 residence at the Fillmore in San Francisco . . . show #800, what a strange & lovely thing . . .

02.04.2023 show

January 28, 2023 show:
Featured Rock Album: The Rolling Stones, Exile On Main St. (1972) . . . This is a beautiful mess of a double-album . . . recorded in France, while the Stones were avoiding high taxes in the UK . . . rockers, ballads, other weird tunes in there too . . . maybe the last of their classic albums . . . what a way to go out . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 38 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . near a quarter-century of this show, every single week is fresh & new & fun . . . so happy I came along into doing this back in 1999 . . . & here's to the silver run! And a deep thank you to all who have listened!

01.28.2023 show

January 21, 2023 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Dead South, Easy Listening For Jerks, Parts 1 & 2 (2022) . . . These rascally Canadian folk-bluegrass boys have tossed out a baker's dozen cover song treats, ranging madly from Early Scruggs to The Doors . . . whole lotta fun at this new turn of the calendar!
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, Déjà Vu (1970) . . . Dear, wild, unrepentant hippie-genius David Crosby recently passed on from this world, at the age of 81 . . . But let's harkon back to his earlier glory days with his best musical mates, & the album they made from on top of the world . . . it's a wonder of a record . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 38 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, & some great songs from their 1997 residence at the Fillmore in San Francisco . . . snow in New England, new calendar page still just recently turned . . . here's cheers & health to all, empathy, kindness, humor, understanding, forgiveness . . .

01.21.2023 show

2022

December 24, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Dead South, Sugar and Joy (2019) . . . Self-described as a "rockin' stompin' bluegrass band," these Canadian boys know how to rear up & have a good time . . . they make a good case for Canadiana music setting nicely along fellow bands to the south of the border . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Go-Betweens, 16 Lovers Lane (1988) . . . I may have heard a tune or two from this Australia indie rock band back when, but it was only recently I stumbled upon them again, & wow! This time I paid attention . . . haunting, strange, sweet music . . . another Aussie rock band making the case that they kick out the jams Down Under as well!
Storybook Time: Chapter 38 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's 20th annual Season of Lights broadcast will bring to Grand Finally a year tis beautiful to have survived, & tis sobering for the many who didn't . . . Be well! Peace & love! Safety First!

01.21.2023 show

December 17, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Billy Strings, Me / And / Dad (2022) . . . Strings & his father Terry Barber, who taught Strings how to play when Billy was just a boy, team up to play some favorite classic country & bluegrass songs, & play them brilliantly! What a treat!
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Joni Mitchell, Shine (2007) . . . Years after she was considered retired from music, Mitchell shows up with one more great album . . . beautiful, dark, letting hope in at the edges . . . if this proves her final record, & I hope it does not, it is nonetheless a wonderful farewell . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 37 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is also Joni Mitchell, some treats from her 1969 & her 2022 appearances at the Newport Folk Festival . . . walked me some humble path this week, learning what I am good, & what I still have long to go on . . .

12.17.2022 show

December 10, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Neil Young & Crazy Horse, World Record (2022) . . . This legendary rock & roll band returns with another amazing LP . . . full of idealist fires & blazing rawness . . . "Chevrolet" is an awesome, epic finale . . . thank you, Neil & crew!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Travelogue [Part Three] (2000) . . . A final run of songs from this epic overview re-imagining of Mitchell's work . . . it's amazing to see a genius take her crazy-good pieces & work them over new . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 37 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is folk-rocker Chris Pureka & songs from her great new EP, The Longest Year . . . now slipping into the Season of Lights . . . more people getting sick though . . . the beautiful & the tragic ever braid these days . . .

12.10.2022 show

December 3, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Goose, Dripfield (2022) . . . Still pretty young jam band, from Connecticut, & their new LP . . . funky & sweet & fine . . . a friend mentioned this band to me, I took a jump in, delighted, & hope you do too!
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: The Who, Who Are You (1978) . . . Every early December, around the December 1 anniversary of my dear friend JBIII, aka The Traveling Troubadour, I like to play the brilliant music of his favorite band . . . this was The Who's final album as a quartet, & it shows them ever & ever expanding outward & deeper down in themes & sounds . . . still wows me . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 37 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are also The Who, & a few live tracks from their final days in '78 as a quartet with their late, great drummer Keith Moon . . .

12.03.2022 show

November 26, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: White Denim, Crystal Bullets / King Tears (2021) . . . This Austin band rocks out of the gate with this great new LP . . . surprise LP at that, since it was originally announced as an EP (hence the title) . . . trippy fine fun for all!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Travelogue [Part Two] (2000) . . . More songs from Mitchell's orchestral review of her career . . . early ones, later ones . . . & her very many different styles re-imagined . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 37 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists some of those who have covered songs by the late great singer-songwriter Harry Chapin . . . autumn bares & reveals to coming winter . . . beauty in every new & familiar forms . . . giving thanks for 19 years of SPRadio, & moving on toward 20 . . .

11.26.2022 show

October 29, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Sloan, Steady (2020) . . . Legendary indie rockers from Canada find many ways to balance their fine & familiar beautiful music with these dark days of the Great Pandemic . . . listening to this record is salve to worry, reminder that great Art ever goes on being made . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Travelogue [Part One] (2000) . . . Mitchell continues in the orchestral pop vein of her 2000 covers album Both Sides Now, but this time focussing on the breadth of her own work in this style . . . she is fearless in reinventing her own work, finding new sounds & surprises in it for listeners willing to follow her strange pathways . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 37 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readingsfrom Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts! . . . Sometimes it's easy to forget the world's struggles within the grasp of Nature, her gorgeous colors, her passing wisdoms . . . at least for a nice while . . .

10.29.2022 show

October 22, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: White Denim, World as a Waiting Room (2020) . . . This great Austin indie rock band decided, as the Great Pandemic was breaking out in early 2020, to make an album in a month . . . looked around at the world shutting down, dug in, & made a great LP of rocking sounds live from the world's descent . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now (2000) . . . The best description for this terrific album of mostly traditional pop standards comes from the album's co-producer, Larry Klein: "a programmatic suite documenting a relationship from initial flirtation through optimistic consummation, metamorphosing into disillusionment, ironic despair, and finally resolving in the philosophical overview of acceptance and the probability of the cycle repeating itself" . . .

10.22.2022 show

October 15, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Smithereens, The Lost Album (2022) . . . Until now, this album was a secret gem for this legendary New Jersey band members only, hidden in boxes with other random materials . . . recorded & produced by themselves, back in 1993, between record contracts . . . with the passing of singer Pat DiNizio a few years ago, the rest of the band decided to polish this secret up a big & loose it upon the world . . . & it is a wonderful, unexpected, rock & roll treat!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Taming the Tiger (1998) . . . Mitchell continues to brood her poetry & explore sounds to set it to . . . her music gets warmer & sadder with each release, as she is clear-eyed about the passage of time . . . & yet there is something else going on too, a deeper love, a kinder release, things her strange, wonderful music only hints at . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 37 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists is the Nitty Gritty Dirty Band, & still more songs from their great 1989 Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Volume Two . . . autumnal colors in the trees, cool air on the skin . . . knowing the world is dangerous right now, yet not every inch of it, not in every moment . . .

10.15.2022 show

October 8, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The House of Love, A State of Grace (2022) . . . This English rock band appears every so often with a great album (2013 was their previous album's release; 2005 before that; 1993 before that) . . . & they do it again this time, with lead singer-songwriter Guy Chadwick assembling a new band of players around him . . . their music shimmers, sometimes blithely, sometimes darkly . . . beautiful LP . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Turbulent Indigo (1994) . . . Inspired by the Dutch artist genius Vincent Van Gogh, & moving through tales of personal & historical suffering, playing some of her prettiest jazz guitar in awhile, the music's moods prettied by Wayne Shorter's saxophone, this album won a Grammy Award for Best Pop Album, & wow, did & does it deserve such acclaim!
Storybook Time: Chapter 36 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists is the Nitty Gritty Dirty Band, & more songs from their great 1989 Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Volume Two . . . the air gets cooler, & the world a little more melancholy, & strangely more interesting too . . . a mystery in this . . .

10.08.2022 show

October 1, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Pixies, Doggerel (2022) . . . Legendary Boston band rocks its ways through many kinds of moods & styles . . . exciting, endlessly exciting . . . If you ain't heard them, wow, get on board!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Night Ride Home (1991) . . . Mitchell moves from style to style, tone to tone . . . the sounds of a searching, searching soul . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 36 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists is the Nitty Gritty Dirty Band, & songs from their great 1989 Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Volume Two . . . getting cool . . . autumn comes again . . . dangerous this go-round, yes, but cool, so cool . . .

10.01.2022 show

September 24, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Built to Spill, When The Wind Forgets Your Name (2022) . . . This Idaho band returns with a hard-charging LP of new songs . . . a record that grabs & never lets up!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm (1988) . . . There's more of an organic feel to this record then in her recent releases . . . but Mitchell is still feeling her way to new sounds, new words . . . . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 36 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are one more bunch of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 26.August.2006 . . . the Pandemic isn't over, whatever careless fools say . . . get your new vaccines . . . make it through . . .

09.24.2022 show

September 17, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Spiritualized, Everything Was Beautiful (2022) . . . This great new album emerges from the same sessions that produced 2018's And Nothing Hurt . . . a companion album then . . . & its vast, mysterious, weirdly optimistic vibe is the same . . . a wide sonic palette . . . what a treasure to have both records now . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Dog Eat Dog (1985) . . . Enlisting the help of techno-wiz Thomas Dolby, Mitchell dives into the strangely beautiful rock sounds of the 1980s, wherefrom Peter Gabriel, The Police, & the best of Pete Townshend's solo work . . . her unique voice survives this immersion, becomes a kind of same/other entity . . . fascinating, compelling transformation . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 36 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are still more of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 26.August.2006 . . . yes, cooler weather is coming, as it always does, & with it a kind of darkling hope for the world, despite itself . . .

09.17.2022 show

September 10, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Spiritualized, And Nothing Hurt (2018) . . .First album in six years for this British rock band . . . sounds of them bouth reaching back toward their earlier, visionary music, as well as carrying on to new directions . . . the band sounds full of raucous inspiration . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Wild Things Run Fast (1982) . . . Mitchell began her 1980s output with this album that, while still jazzy at time like her recent releases, mixes in some pop sounds too . . . & a great cover of the old Buddy Holly hit, "(You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care" . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 36 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 26.August.2006 . . . had some days off from the pay-job work stream . . . some writing, some editing, some hours just elsewhere . . always fine . . .

09.10.2022 show

August 27, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Dawes, Misadventures of Doomscroller (2022) . . . New LP by this great indie rock band . . . they take on the hunger & the sickness of these times we are living in . . . & they do it with some fiercely beautiful rock & roll . . . these days will pass to others, easily, eventually, but this great record will live on . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Mingus (1979) . . . Mitchell was invited by the jazz legend Charles Mingus into a collaboration that resulted in a delightful group of folk-jazz songs . . . it is a bittersweet project, being produced in the final year of Mingus's life, as he was dying of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) . . . yet its sweetness predominates, & its great jazz players include Gerry Mulligan, John McLaughlin, & Stanley Clarke, among others . . . a special record in Mitchell's discography . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 35 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 26.August.2006 . . . some cooler days, bits of autumnal color here & there . . . Nature rolls on through its cycles, whatever the follies obsessing & distracting the mass of moving men & women . . .

08.27.2022 show

August 20, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Black Keys, Dropout Boogie (2022) . . . This Ohio rock duo, with some guest help, have released yet another terrific LP . . . rocking hard & bluesy, tapping the toes, shaking the booty . . . up high & out in under 34 minutes, not a wasted moment in any of it . . . wow!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (1977) . . . Mitchell cut loose from anyone's expectations of what she might do next . . . clocking in at just seconds under an hour, this double-album roams the wild musical landscapes of Mitchell's & her collaborators' minds (collaborators such as Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius, members of Eagles, & of Weather Report, among others) . . . an beautiful epic, an hour with a brilliant musical genius & her brilliant musical friends . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 35 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 26.August.2006 . . . worst of summer heat has passed here in New England, even as the scorch of its effects linger, & autumn can't come soon enough!

08.20.2022 show

August 13, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Spoon, Lucifer on the Sofa (2022) . . . Lost the line with this great Texas indie rock band for awhile, as their last couple of albums had a few two many coats of sheen on them . . . this new record simply rocks the fuck out, filled with great songs, great energy, great playing! . . . so happy to be featuring these guys again!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Hejira (1976) . . . Sometimes in disguise, Mitchell travelled the US, with friends, ex-lovers, looking, listening, finding her new musics here & there & elsewhere . . . what came of it all is a brilliant album, one of her best ever . . . this LP is simply a thrill to share on this show . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 35 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, & more songs from their delightful 1972 bluegrass epic, Will the Circle Be Unbroken . . . been a month away from this show, had to get my black pen to paper, & often, & a lot . . . did so, & here comes a fresh one of these, & a long roll of them for awhile . . .

08.13.2022 show

July 9, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Endless Rooms (2022) . . . Third album by this Aussie indie rock band . . . midst the jangle, there is a sad loneliness to this music . . . how close enough is never really close enough . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, The Hissing of the Summer Lawns (1975) . . . Mitchell continued to experiment with many kinds of sounds, including African drumming, in her restless search for music attractive to her own ear . . . her lyrics mull high Art, selling out, betrayal, & relentless questions about how a woman may be happy . . . the music broods, the lyrics sometimes gentle, sometimes attack . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 35 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, & more songs from their delightful 1972 bluegrass epic, Will the Circle Be Unbroken . . . there are still many wearing masks in this endless pandemic, trying to be safe & smart . . . never enough . . .

07.09.2022 show

July 2, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Dream Syndicate, Ultraviolet Battle Hymns and True Confessions (2022) . . . Another great album by this Los Angeles band that helped to architect the Paisley Underground sound of the 1980s . . . their music is still trippy at times, but they are a restless group, & move among various styles fluidly . . . a real treat . . . electric orange juice recommended, but not required . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Court and Spark (1974) . . . Wow, this is such a good album! . . . Mitchell's music is fresh, exciting, funny at times, always yearning, yearning, yearning . . . its great hits "Free Man in Paris" & "Help Me" are the great lead-ins into a whole record of fine treats . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 35 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, & more songs from their delightful 1972 bluegrass epic, Will the Circle Be Unbroken . . . getting hot now, summer coming on . . . thinking of how the open air of unpeopled places are the safest ones right now . . . they lure . . .

07.02.2022 show

June 25, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Wilco, Cruel Country (2022) . . . The great Chicago band returns full-force with a sprawling epic . . . It's exciting to hear them letting loose on a grand Americana scale again, sounding ever more like their best selves . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, For the Roses (1972) . . . Mitchell's fifth LP continues the synthesis of her music between her folk-roots origins & her jazz explorations . . . a brilliant genius chasing her next new sounds . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, & more songs from their delightful 1972 bluegrass epic, Will the Circle Be Unbroken . . . dreaming of days to come when being out in the world again is not such a profound risk to life & limb . . .

06.25.2022 show

June 18, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Drive-By Truckers, Welcome 2 Club XIII (2022) . . .Another great LP by this legendary indie rock band . . . stories of troubles, & desire gone wrong, regrets, fears . . . & some of it hilarious, & some of it tragic . . . fantastic new record!
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Joni Mitchell, Blue (1971) . . . this is a masterpiece of an album . . . chronicles yearn, breakdown, loss, redemption . . . this record is like a strange land one visits, & the rest of the universe falls away for a little while, & always amazing to return from it back to the world . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are one more group of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 28.May.2005, including the #1 song! . . . hope sometimes hard to keep near these strange days, comes & goes by its own timeless lights . . . yet always around . . . always a welcoming open hand . . .

06.18.2022 show

June 11, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Arcade Fire, We (2022) . . . Sixth LP by this great Canadian indie rock band . . . made during the pandemic, about the pandemic . . . beautiful, brash, sometimes wonderfully loud . . . the album takes its name from the Russian dystopian novel We by Yevgeny Zamyatin . . . great to hear this new record!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Clouds (1970) . . . Third knockout album in a row! Folk-rock classics like "Big Yellow Taxi," "Woodstock," & "The Circle Game" . . . & every song on this record is just as good!
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 28.May.2005 . . . greener & sunnier as the summer nears . . . the pandemic is not over yet . . . be safe, please, be safe!

06.11.2022 show

June 4, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Smile, A Light for Attracting Attention (2022) . . . Radiohead members Thom Yorke & Jonny Greenwood wanted to find a way to make music during the pandemic . . . working with Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner, & their long-time producer Nigel Godrich, they made it happen on this, their debut album . . . the Radiohead vibe is very much here, with maybe the looser freedom that comes with this not being the next new Radiohead album . . . a really good record, & one to keep Radiohead fans in particular happy till the full group next gets together . . . . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Joni Mitchell, Clouds (1969) . . . An amazingly good follow-up to her already amazing debut album a year before . . . I'm pretty sure this was the first album of Mitchell's I'd bought, & heard, back in my ago grad school days, & I loved it, & its charms have not dimmed for the many calendars passing since . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 28.May.2005 . . . the green of spring reaching its full glories . . . hard to stay home more than usual, for a third spring running, but thinking of the many to come when this will no longer be necessary . . .

06.04.2022 show

May 28, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Waterboys, All Souls Hill (2022) . . . Mike Scott & his legendary Irish band continue to pursue the mythologies of love, desire, power, & mortality . . . their music continues to vary styles, trying what they have not yet tried . . . this is a fascinating album, fun, wicked intelligent . . . Art at its heightless heights . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Song to a Seagull (1968) . . . Joni Mitchell is a strange, brilliant, beautiful singer-songwriter from Canada . . . this, the first of her many albums, introduces her early folksinger phase . . . pretty music, sometimes dark, sometimes brooding . . . her voice ringing high, diving low . . . her restless path, as kept on LPs, begins here, & does so very, very well . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 28.May.2005 . . . back to the microphone after a time off to re-charge . . . now very very re-charged, & here we go again!

05.28.2022 show

April 30, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Pelt, Reticence / Resistance (2021) . . . Pelt is a drone Americana group from Virginia . . . their sounds emerges from something like a musical group dream-state, & invites listeners into the spaces created . . . weird, beautiful, very fine . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Born in the U.S.A. (1984) . . . The Boss & his crackerjack band put out an amazing album, smack in the middle of Reagan's AmeriKKKA . . . angry, progressive, sad, yearning . . . filled with confusion, wonder, regret . . . this album has stood the test of time as one of the best LPs ever, from an era in some ways as hard as the current one . . . it remains vital & alive these many years later . . . & so much damned fun!
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, & more songs from their delightful 1972 bluegrass epic, Will the Circle Be Unbroken . . . The pandemic is not over, & so ignoring it creates greater peril for all . . . wear your mask when around others in public . . . help the world to live beyond these challenging days . . .

04.30.2022 show

April 23, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Old Crow Medicine Show, Paint This Town (2022) . . . Legendary Americana band return with new fires in their bellies, & a drummer to boot! . . . them Crow boys are always finding a way to play harder & better, & care more . . . a delightful LP!
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks (1975) . . . Last heard on the 7/4/2004 broadcast of this show . . . maybe this masterpiece of a record is the story of Dylan's failing marriage . . . but maybe it is, as he claims, all based on Chekhov's short stories . . . don't matter a whit . . . a tour de force end to end . . . one of Dylan's best . . . one of the best rock records ever, period.
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, & more songs from their delightful 1972 bluegrass epic, Will the Circle Be Unbroken . . . keep your mask on when you go among others . . . heed the common sense gained from two years of pandemic, not the idiocy of impatient fools . . .

04.23.2022 show

April 16, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Calexico, El Mirador (2022) . . . This Arizona Tex-Mex indie rock band has been making beautiful albums of their own kind for a while now . . . they are a musically adventurous group, fearless, gifted, & a lot of fun . . . great new record . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Rolling Stones, It's Only Rock'n Roll (1974) . . . The sleazy beauties of this LP cannot be denied . . . their sneering philosophy summed as "I know it's only rock 'n' roll but I like it, like it, yes, I do . . . " Standing on the mountaintop, these boys growl & snap with delight . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, & more songs from their delightful 1972 bluegrass epic, Will the Circle Be Unbroken. . . two years & running of pandemic, yet it lingers . . . people are still getting sick . . . better days coming, be safe, arrive to them!

04.16.2022 show

April 9, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Band of Horses, Things Are Great (2022) . . . This Seattle rock band wandered down a few strange musical roads in recent years . . . on this new LP, they return to their earlier indie sound, & it works . . . their sound hits deep, deep, well . . . a great record of a band finding itself anew . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: John Hiatt, Walk On (1995) . . . Epic, terrific album by this legendary singer-songwriter from Indiana . . . a passionate, brilliant LP, fully twisty musical tales . . . Bonnie Raitt, even members of the Jayhawks & Tom Petty's Heartbreakers show up . . . what a great one!
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are a final batch of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 06.March.2004 . . . man alive, get your shots, if you haven't, & wear your mask out in the world! Survive these strange times, help others too . . .

04.09.2022 show

March 26, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: John Hiatt with The Jerry Douglas Band, Leftover Feelings (2021) . . . Legendary American singer-songwriter teams up with the wonderful Jerry Douglas Band to produce an amazing album . . . bluegrass, Americana, all sorts of sweet treats await ears perked to listen . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Bob Dylan, Oh Mercy (1989) . . . After a pretty bad decade of musical output, Dylan hooked up with producer Daniel Lanois & recorded this nocturnal masterpiece in New Orleans . . . at times angry, furious, but then lonesome, then quiet & blue . . . it's the kind of album that "Dylan used to make" (as the saying went back then) . . . happily, he would go on to make more great ones in the years to come . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 06.March.2004 . . . when in doubt or dark wonder, think of our Ukrainian brothers & sisters defending their homeland against a monster's great armies . . . anything good is still possible in this world . . .

03.26.2022 show

March 19, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Low, HEY WHAT (2021) . . . This Minnesota indie rock band follows up on their great 2018 LP Double Negative with another great record of pretty harmonies & strange noise . . . like a beautiful afternoon in a murky dream . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Damn the Torpedoes (1979) . . . Early record that shows that Petty & the boys had their jingle-jangle classic rock sound down from the get-go . . . fulla great hits, fine deep cuts, terrific rock & roll end to end . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 06.March.2004 . . . here comes spring to the world, & a hope that good new things can occur, amidst the familiar bad . . . we all need some!

03.19.2022 show

March 12, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Low, Double Negative (2018) . . . Catching up with this Minnesota indie rock band, & they have seem to taken a turn into deep trippy art-noise . . . this LP is mesmerizing from beginning to end . . . wow, what a weird nice treat . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Strangefolk, A Great Long While (2000) . . . This Vermont jam-band is another kind of mesmerizing . . . rocking long sweet harmonies . . . the kind of record that leads one into smoky hours & deep trippy spaces . . . call this show now a double-treat . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 20 with Casey Kasem," back on 06.March.2004 . . . so maybe, if fully vaccinated, the masks can come off more often these days? Two years along in pandemic world, maybe hints of daylight ahead?

03.12.2022 show

February 26, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Dead Can Dance, Dionysus (2018) . . . Been a few years since the last release by this ambient-dance duo . . . As noted by one online reviewer: "The album's seven movements, in the form of an oratorio, represent different facets of the Dionysus myth and his cult." It's a beautiful work, bounces the blood deep . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: The Jayhawks, Smile (2000) . . . Last played on the 3/11/2001 broadcast of this show, this is a brilliant, ecstatic work of Americana . . . "Smile when you're down and out (Find something inside you)" . . . wow, a happiness of music . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, & songs from their delightful 1972 bluegrass epic, Will the Circle Be Unbroken . . . All thoughts are of the embattled people of Ukraine . . . wishing all of you peace, safety, & liberty . . .

02.26.2022 show

February 19, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Steel Wheels, Over the Trees (2019) . . . This delightful Americana band based in Virginia brings a lot of power & grace to their songs . . . there is a sweet melancholy to this LP . . . & their playing is just masterful . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy (1970) . . . Early album by this country rock legends . . . playing deep into the bluegrass & country sounds, but something with a pop twinkle in their eyes . . . great record!
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those featured on the great 2021 tribute album, Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine, Vol. 2 . . . Getting this show recorded ahead of time, taking a long weekend with my beloved to share hearts together long & ever anew . . .

02.19.2022 show

February 12, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Lumineers, BRIGHTSIDE (2022) . . . Wonderful new LP by this Colorado folk-rock band . . . exciting songs with swerve & swoon . . . & a brooding melancholy down low that stays & stays . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Umphrey's McGee, Local Band Does O.K. (2002) . . . Originally from Indiana, this progressive jamband is as great on record as in concert . . . these songs friendly their deep funky grooves into ya, don't let go soon . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on the great 2021 tribute album, Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine, Vol. 2 . . . Maybe this spring will bring days of returning to the world, & to each other . . . seems surely possible . . .

02.12.2022 show

February 5, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Greensky Bluegrass, Stress Dreams (2022) . . . Brilliant Americana group returns with an album full of urgent, beautiful music . . . masterful playing . . . songs of wonder & worry & hope . . . this is what 2022 music sounds like at its best, most masterful . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: John Cougar Mellencamp, Lonesome Jubilee (1987) . . . Midwest roots-rocket kept getting rootsier, & better as he & his band went . . . a hard rocking album of the late Reagan years, songs of anger & defiance for what the 1980s had devolved to . . . this is a great fucking rock & roll record . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on the great 2010 tribute album, Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine . . . The winter is long . . . but our days can always improve . . . hope can always prove true . . . up to each of us . . .

02.05.2022 show

January 29, 2022 show:
Featured Rock Album: Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life (1976) . . . This album can be called Wonder's progressive soul apotheosis, an epic two-record masterwork that even comes with an additional EP, A Something's Extra . . . features wonderful hits like "I Wish" & "Sir Duke" . . . Wonder worked on this project with over 100 people . . . didn't eat & sleep many nights, when the inspiration was high in him . . .the songs range from the personal to the social to the cosmic . . . just an amazing listening experience to share . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . it is always an amazing pleasure to reach this show's anniversary each January . . . to revel in the moment for a lingering, remembering moment . . . & then carry on . . . thank you all those who have listened . . . more to come!

01.29.2022 show

January 22, 2022 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Punch Brothers, Hell On Church Street (2022) . . . Fantastic Americana band's new album brings the beautiful bluegrass to ya every-which-a way . . . & a few more too . . . they even take on an old Golden Lightfoot tune, as it takes their masterly mood . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: T2, It'll All Work Out in Boomland (1970) . . . Sole album but this British prog-rock band . . . gets loud, gets epic, but finds some subtler, smaller musical space to work in too . . . with there had been more LPs from this promising group, but this is the magick we are gifted . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on the great 2010 tribute album, Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine . . . Into this new year, & glad of it . . . hope more, fear less, work harder, love better, live smarter!

01.22.2022 show

2021

December 18, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Barn (2021) . . . Every new LP from Neil & his boys is a gift & a miracle . . . they rock for the moment, they rock for the ages . . . theirs is the many messages of music & love . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour (1967) . . . This album is actually a double-EP, one part soundtrack to their movie of that title, the other part singles released during this year . . . there is psychedelic apotheosis & parting in these songs . . . what they did next would be different . . . but what a beautiful way to bid adieu . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's 19th annual holiday broadcast will bring you joy & laughter & comfort from deep in the Season of Lights!

12.18.2021 show

December 11, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, CARNAGE (2021) . . . Long-time bandmates in the Bad Seeds, & oft-times collaborators on film soundtracks, this is the first non-soundtrack duo outing for Cave & Ellis . . . a dark, beautiful quasi tale of spirituality, love, & mysticism, it needs no film to complete its art . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Dire Straits, On Every Street (1991) . . . Last album for this great British rock band, coming half a decade after their worldwide masterpiece, Brothers in Arms. . . first to say, this album is a different kind of album, & did not land well with fans & critics at the time . . . second to say, it is its own gorgeous, strange thing . . . mixing rock, horns, country sounds in a powerful hour-long flow . . . they missed out on this in 1991 . . . its time for rediscovery & such pleasures is ever on . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Neil Diamond, a last batch of the great entertainer's great tunes . . . grey, rainy day . . . world worries on in pandemic . . . hard times get better, they do . . . they always have, always do . . .

12.11.2021 show

December 4, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Hayes Carll, You Get It All (2021) . . . I credit my beloved KD for pointing me in the direction of this terrific Texas singer-songwriter . . . some compare the sharp wit & lazy humor of his songs to the late, great John Prine, & there is something to that . . .but Carll is also very much his own musical artist with his unique set of gifts . . . a dandy record! Thanks, KD!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Pete Townshend, Who Came First (1972) . . . This album part of my annual tribute to & remembrance of my dear departed brother JBIII, who passed up to the Stars on 12/1/2011 . . . Townshend his musical hero of heroes . . . this was Townshend's first solo album, much of its music in nascent form toward what would become full-blown songs by his band The Who . . . others on the record written in tribute to his guru & master Maher Baba . . . sweet album, just a lovely thing . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 33 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Neil Diamond, some great raucous tunes . . . pre-recording this show for play at its usual times . . . got a weekend date with my black pens & notebooks that I simply cannot miss!

12.04.2021 show

November 27, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Santana, Blessings and Miracles (2021) . . . Carlos S. & his wonderful band invite all sorts of guests into this wildly varied & delightful record . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Fairport Convention, Liege & Lief (1969) . . . The great, subtle voice of Sandy Denny is highlighted in this LP full of traditional tunes, worked over to modern perfection by this legendary British folk-rock band . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 33 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Neil Diamond, more dandy musical delights . . . autumn's colors are brief, magickal, suggestive of a wider lens possible to see the world . . .

11.27.2021 show

November 20, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Raise the Roof (2021) . . . The second collaboration between these two brilliant artists took 14 years to happen, but happen, happily, it has . . . all sorts of older & new songs are covered . . . are re-imagined . . . become new . . . like its 2007 predecessor, Raising Sand, this album has a dreaming magick to it, like a welcome to a weird new land of charms & mysteries . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Andy Kim, Rainbow Ride (1969) . . . This Canadian pop singer's second album comes blowing out of the doors fulla' harmonies & reverb, & never really lets up end to end . . . sweet tunes, yet they have a dark underbelly . . . paisley melancholia, at times . . . a real treat to discover . . .
< Storybook Time: Chapter 33 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Neil Diamond, more wild & wonderful tunes . . . this show has now been on SPRadio for 18 years . . . & it is with thrill & delight I ready it every time, & broadcast it out . . . woot!

11.20.2021 show

November 13, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, 662 (2021) . . . The Mississippi wunderkind blues guitarist returns with a second album searing with great songs . . . Now 22 years old, Ingram has the usual love troubles, but he's looking deeper in himself for a better kind of self-honesty, & out to the world, calling for a better one with his beautiful artistry . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Billy Joel, Piano Man (1973) . . . The album that made Joel something of a star, with its awesome title tune . . . this one is great end to end though . . . last played on this show 11/18/2006, but I've been loving this album since I was 17 & looking for worlds beyond what I saw around me . . . Joel was one of my beloved guides out . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 33 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Neil Diamond, gonna spin a lot of his great tunes this show & some coming . . . three weekends off this show, bout as much as I would want! Back at the mic, back to the music!

11.13.2021 show

October 16, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, Kingfish (2019) . . . Lucky enough recently to discover this preternaturally talented young Mississippi blues guitarist on the TV show Luke Cage . . . age has never been a factor in the emergence of genius, it just happens when it happens . . . all of 20 years old, Ingram has already arrived to where blues greats like Eric Clapton & B.B. King dwell . . . a happy, welcomed addition to these heights . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Smithereens, Green Thoughts (1988) . . . These New Jersey rockers tear it up on this great old school rock & roll album . . . playing like 1969 is still yet to come . . . the 1980s were a dark time for most everyone, & this LP was one of the treasured ones that kept a lot of us up & going back then . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 32 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Daryl Hall & John Oates, more great hits from their 1983 mid-career review, Rock 'N Soul Part 1 . . . get your vaccine, get ready for another when needed, wear your mask when indoors among others . . . better days are coming, yours to make it to by your actions now . . . be smart! stay well!

10.16.2021 show

October 9, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Billy Strings, Renewal (2021) . . . Americana wunderkind Billy Strings returns with a bluegrass epic of an album . . . this music taps your soul's fingers & dances your heart's mind . . . close your eyes, & just fall on in . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Ike & Tina Turner, Nutbush City Limits (1973) . . . The back story of this legendary duo is dark & sad, but the music they made together is amazing, incendiary . . . as they used to say in high praise, this LP cooks with gas!
Storybook Time: Chapter 32 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Daryl Hall & John Oates, songs from their 1983 mid-career review, Rock 'N Soul Part 1 . . . KD & I were up in the wonderful Woods of Maine, by its lovely Sea, keeping our masks on despite the many careless crowds . . . wishing to stay well & return there again many times . . . keep yours on too, for your favorite people & places . . .

10.09.2021 show

September 25, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Felice Brothers, From Dreams to Dust (2021) . . . Wonderful New York indie rock band returns with a new LP of classics . . . funny, dark, cynical, yet strange believers in the possibles of a strange world . . . delightfully fine music!
Featured Classic Rock Album (R.E.M. Project 2021): R.E.M., Collapse Into Now (2011) . . . Final album by one of the greatest rock & roll bands ever . . . choosing to stop making music together while they were still making it great . . . it was September 21, 2011 when they announced this news . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 32 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is R.E.M. & a variety of their songs, including the last three they recorded as a band . . . Lead singer Michael Stipe said at the time of their breakup that "all things must end, and we wanted to do it right, to do it our way." They always did. Much love ever from many, many of us to you boys . . .

09.25.2021 show

September 18, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Lindsey Buckingham, Lindsey Buckingham (2021) . . . New LP from former lead guitarist of Fleetwood Mac . . . he sounds energetic & inspired & his songs are a wonderful thing to enjoy . . . glad you're still rocking well, Lindsey!
Featured Classic Rock Album (R.E.M. Project 2021): R.E.M., Accelerate (2008) . . . This would prove to be R.E.M.'s penultimate record, thought at the time it was about them getting back down to business . . . the songs are sharp, impassioned, matter . . . they give a fuck again, for real, & a great album results . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 32 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is R.E.M. & songs from their 2007 show at the Olympia in Dublin, Ireland . . . cool days come with blankets of soft moving air & lively colors of passing . . . life is a gift to discover what it might be, & might otherwise be, & might otherwise be again . . .

09.18.2021 show

September 11, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Elektric Voodoo, Animal (2018) . . . This San Diego rock band is not that well known yet, but I am betting they will be . . . they bring a jamband vibe to their songs of struggle & hope, mix in some horns, keyboards, & yearning vocals . . . exciting music, delightful to souls & dancing feet!
Featured Classic Rock Album (R.E.M. Project 2021): R.E.M., Around the Sun (2004) . . . The now-trio's third album (13th in all) continued to explore different sounds than they had, experimenting, some of it worked wonderfully, some not so much . . . as much, likely more, in competition with their own past musical accomplishments as any other music out there . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 32 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is R.E.M. & the songs they performed--as a briefly re-united quartet!--at their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction on 17.March.2007, in New York City . . . as President Biden said this past week, there are no more excuses: GET THE VACCINE!

09.11.2021 show

September 4, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Steve Gunn, Other You (2021) . . . Brooklyn singer-songwriter returns with a moody, beautiful record . . . one reviewer called it a perfect Sunday morning kind of album, & that might be true . . . but I think Gunn in the far past midnight hour comforts too . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album (R.E.M. Project 2021): R.E.M., Reveal (2001) . . . Second album as a trio, Michael Stipe's favorite of the band's records (he said recently . . . less experimental that Up, but still so full end to end of great songs . . . the band finding its footing again, or at least trying really hard to . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 32 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are from the 2002 R.E.M. R.E.M.IX (songs remixed from Reveal!) . . . this is show #750 . . . nothing but gratefulness in it all . . .

09.04.2021 show

August 28, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Sturgill Simpson, The Ballad of Dood & Juanita (2021) . . . A rocking bluegrass opry of an album . . . wildly good playing . . . Simpson sees no limits on the horizon of his music . . . brilliant, mad stuff . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album (R.E.M. Project 2021): R.E.M., Up (1998) . . . R.E.M. debuts as a trio in this album, drenched in electronics & melancholy . . . their challenge to move on from their retired bandmate & drummer Bill Berry . . . it's an album crackling with questions & energy . . . worth your listening, for sure . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 32 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are from the delightful 1992 R.E.M. tribute album, Surprise Your Pig . . . summer diminishing, moments of cool appear, full of balm & humor . . .

08.28.2021 show

August 21, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Blues Traveler, Traveler's Blues (2021) . . . Legendary veteran jamband takes on blues classics by the likes of Jimmy Reed & Son Seals, brings along guests like Warren Haynes & Keb' Mo, & comes out with a burning good time for all!
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Turtles, The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands (1968) . . . Taking on the concept album challenge The Beatles had laid down in 1967 with Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, this American pop band comes up with an LP of fictional groups, all sorts of musical styles (psychedelic, bluegrass, surf music), & ends up with something pretty special . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 32 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are one more batch of the greats who performed at the Woodstock Art & Music Fair, back on August 15-18, 1969 in Bethel, New York . . . thinking of the brave people marching in the streets of Afghanistan . . . wishing them safety & freedom & love . . .

08.21.2021 show

August 14, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Wolf Parade, Thin Mind (2020) . . . The Canadian indie rock band comes out swingin' with an album of beautiful rock & technophobia . . . well-place phobia for that matter . . . mysterious LP, stories & music unsettling & enigmatic . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Crazy Elephant, Crazy Elephant (1969) . . . A Welsh psych-pop band that came & went, beautiful trippy organ-driven rock & roll . . . a fun, fun record . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 31 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of the greats who performed at the Woodstock Art & Music Fair, back on August 15-18, 1969 in Bethel, New York . . . high summer, hot as hind quarters, pandemic still around . . . mask up, get your shots, hang on awhile longer . . .

08.14.2021 show

August 7, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Gangstagrass, American Music (2015) . . . Another album from this brilliant New York City rap-grass group . . . preachin' loud-n-proud with fiddles-a-plenty . . . hand you your dancin' ass with a nice, slow smile . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Guess Who, Wheatfield Soul (1969) . . . This Canadian band began to get their sound fully together on this album, putting Burton Cummings up front, playing with inspired hippie rock abandon . . . so fine & so fun . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 31 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . .& this week's featured artists are some of the greats who performed at the Woodstock Art & Music Fair, back on August 15-18, 1969 in Bethel, New York . . . this show, & this SPR weekend, is dedicated to the recently-passed DJ Frogs, aka Paul Finch, host of the 2011-2021 SPR show In The Window . . . hope you find that endless record store in the Stars, my friend, & forever enjoy . . .

08.07.2021 show

July 31, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Au Pair, One Armed Candy Bear (2015) . . . Gary Louris of The Jayhawks & Django Haskins of Old Ceremony team up for an album of strange delights . . . a mixture of inspirations, & a kind of delight in trying for new songs . . . good ride to join in . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album (R.E.M. Project 2021): R.E.M., New Adventures in Hi-FI (1996) . . . This is the tenth & final R.E.M. album with their quartet in tact . . . they lay it all out & roar through this set end to end . . . coming off a world tour where most of the members suffered health issues, they play with the joy & abandon of inspired musical genius . . . just wonderful . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 31 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is R.E.M., & more songs from their Complete Rarities . . . wonderful to see the green rising high this summer . . . hope always in Nature's path . . .

07.31.2021 show

July 24, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Old Ceremony, Sprinter (2015) . . . This North Carolina band is a delight, full of jangling fury & lyrical treats . . . this LP of theirs features R.E.M.'s Mike Mills on bass & harmonies, so just an added bit of beauty in the sweet mix of this record . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Blood, Sweat, & Tears, Blood, Sweat, & Tears (1968) . . . Classic New York City jazz-rock group's second record . . . fulla horns & guitars & good vibes . . . gets melancholy, gets high . . . wonderfully high . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 31 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is The Box Tops, a wonderful Memphis blue-eyed soul band from the late 1960s . . . this episode is dedicated to the recently passed Paul Finch, who was DJ Frogs of In the Window on SpiritPlants Radio from 2011 till this year . . . I am still processing his passing, & hope to make more tribute to him . . . a good man, & boy! did he love music!

07.24.2021 show

July 17, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Gary Louris, Jump for Joy (2021) . . . Frontman for the legendary Jayhawks steps out solo this turn . . . his LP's title makes a promise upon which it delivers . . . beautiful, sweet, melancholy, wonderful music to share . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album (R.E.M. Project 2021): R.E.M., Monster (1994) . . . The Athens boys follow up their masterpiece Automatic for the People with a left turn into brash garage rock . . . this record has some charming tunes, some dark ones . . . good tricks still left in their sack . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 30 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is R.E.M., & more songs from their Complete Rarities . . . good to be back after a break . . . good to know the mic ever waits resuming . . .

07.17.2021 show

June 26, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Sleater-Kinney, Path of Wellness (2021) . . . Now a duo, these Washington State punker grrls return with some fantastic new music . . . they play with inspiration, great art, deep craft, & like they are having so much fun making their music the rest can fuck off if they ain't into it . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera, Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera (1967) . . . This British rock band was only around a few years, & fully together only for this self-titled debut LP . . . swishes & swirls in many directions . . . were they on the bus? did they drink the elixir? Oh hell yah . . . yah . . . yah . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 30 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Toad the Wet Sprocket & great songs from their excellent 2015 EP, Architect of the Ruin . . . some Saturdays arriving to the mic is especially sweet, balm, reward, question & its answer in one . . .

06.26.2021 show

June 19, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Black Twig Pickers, Friend's Peace (2021) . . . Wonderful Appalachian old-time band returns with a new LP of deep toe-tappers . . . strange music drones into the blood . . . nicely stays & stays . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album (R.E.M. Project 2021): R.E.M., Automatic for the People (1992) . . . This is R.E.M.'s masterpiece, end to end perfect . . . love, rage, fear, empathy, & many other themes play through these songs . . . for those who look for albums as good as The Beatles' Abbey Road & Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon & The Who's Who's Next, this is one to get a good listen to as well. . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 30 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . .& this week's featured artist is R.E.M., & more songs from their *Complete Rarities* . . . summer solstice coming, feeling more & more like this is The After . . .

06.19.2021 show

June 12, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Black Keys, Delta Kream (2021) . . . This great Ohio indie rock band's new LP is a covers album, of hill country blues songs, tunes full of what some call "hypnotic boogie" . . . oh lordy day, are they!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Paul Revere & the Raiders, Midnight Ride (1966) . . . This was the fifth record from this classic pop band, lotta fun, & featuring songs by all the band members . . . under 30 minutes & kicks major ass!
Storybook Time: Chapter 30 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . .& this week's featured artist is Coldplay, under cover as Los Unidades, & songs from their excellent 2018 Global Citizen--EP 1 . . . last weekend's show delayed, technical issues, these now solved . . . good to be at the mic again this weekend!

06.12.2021 show

May 22, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Lord Huron, Long Lost (2021) . . . Wonderful new LP from this idiosyncratic indie rock band from Los Angeles . . . . near a hour in a beautiful fever dream . . . all invited . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album (R.E.M. Project 2021): R.E.M., Out of Time (1991) . . . Just a wonderful album, the rockers, the ballads . . . "Losing My Religion" was a wonderful single to lure many in . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 30 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . .& this week's featured artist is R.E.M., & more songs from their Complete Rarities . . . a week off next weekend, to fly out to see kin, been a long time since a plane ride, since many good things . . . happy returnings . . .

05.22.2021 show

May 15, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Travis, Ten Songs (2020) . . . This English indie rock band comes up with a variety of sweets for what ails ya . . . some of it of a nice Coldplay-ish variety . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Kristin Hersh, Hips and Makers (1994) . . . Throwing Muses leader issues an amazing solo album . . . weird & passionate & wildly literate . . . her music is brilliant . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 30 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . .& this week's featured artists are one last bunch of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 03.January.2004 . . . KD & I got our second vaccine shots for COVID-19, couple weeks now to all clear!!!

05.15.2021 show

May 8, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Waterboys, Good Luck Seeker (2020) . . . Latest LP from this legendary Irish folk-rock band . . . a carnival of sounds & stories! These boys get better & stranger & more delightful as they carry on . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album (R.E.M. Project 2021): R.E.M., Green (1988) . . . The band continued on a roll of amazing albums, each one re-inventing them anew . . . each one expanding on their talents . . . salve for the soul . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 30 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is R.E.M., & more songs from their 1987 odds-n-sods LP, Dead Letter Office . . . lovely knowing that each person's arm shot full of the vaccine is leading the world step by step away from the recent nightmare . . . new dreams await . . .

05.08.2021 show

April 10, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Waterboys, Where the Action Is (2019) . . . Some bands mature into a sound rich, & ever unpredictable, & thus delightfully surprising . . . the Irish Waterboys will never release an album without at least one fiddle stomping tune . . . & they will rock out for certain . . . Leader Mike Scott will tell funny, weird, touching stories of fact & fiction . . . will there be hip hop too? rapping? Sure, maybe, probably . . . tune in to find out!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Throwing Muses, House Tornado (1988) . . . Legendary indie rock band originally from Rhode Island . . . a vague comparison for reference might be if Patti Smith fronted Sonic Youth . . . but, really, they are their own fierce firestorm of rage & beauty . . . this, their second album, is a whirlwind to lift up & blow off with . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 30 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 03.January.2004 . . . beautiful April has arrived, with local chipmunks & squirrels & cardinals all out & about & back to the business of living . . . we people-folks seem to be, at last, following their lead. . .

04.10.2021 show

April 3, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END! (2021) . . . This Canadian group makes deeply spiritual, weird, & moving instrumental rock music . . . drones to glories . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album (R.E.M. Project 2021): R.E.M., Document (1987) . . . This was the album that put R.E.M. on a bigger map, in terms of hits . . . which is nice for many reasons if you're a band trying to make a living . . . from an artistic point of view, which matters more, it's a fantastic album, a classic rock LP for the ages . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 30 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is R.E.M., & songs from their 1987 odds-n-sods LP, Dead Letter Office, including some great Velvet Underground covers . . . world is finding it's footing again, after the Trump nightmare, & remembering how much good there is yet to do for all . . .

04.03.2021 show

March 27, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Waterboys, Out of All this Blue [Part Two] (2017) . . . Second half of this epic double-album . . . much of it seem inspired by leader Mike Scott's new romance & marriage to a Japanese artist . . . a romp for sure, & a delightful one!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Maroon 5, Songs About Jane (2002) . . . This Los Angeles indie pop band has touches of Backstreet Boys, Michael Jackson, Coldplay, & even Phish in this debut album, but it is largely & wonderfully their own . . . a brilliant debut record!
Storybook Time: Chapter 30 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 03.January.2004 . . . spring come, green sprouting here & there . . . good to feel the world coming on again . . .

03.27.2021 show

March 20, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: The Waterboys, Out of All this Blue [Part One] (2017) . . . This legendary Irish band rocks, souls, pops & otherwise galavants through this lovely, fine, strange, sometimes funny epic album . . . a treat for new listener & long-time fan alike . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album (R.E.M. Project 2021): R.E.M., Lifes Rich Pageant (1986) . . . There is a beautiful drive to this album, from its wild & powerful opening to its sweet & light finish . . . a free floating power & beauty to be lifted up upon, soared with, open arms, open eyes . . . just gorgeous . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 29 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this weekend's featured artist is R.E.M. & more great hidden songs from Complete Rarities 1988-2011 . . . first day of spring! Do you remember a year ago? The sounds of shutting doors & rising panics? We're getting free of all of that! Get your vaccine! Soon back into the sunshine!

03.20.2021 show

March 13, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Jeff Tweedy, Love is the King (2020) . . . Wilco's frontman puts out another moody, brilliant solo LP . . . there's a sweet darkness to these quiet tunes . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Ragged Glory (1990) . . . Surviving the 1980s, barely but, figuring his way back to better days, master rocker Neil called up his old dear Crazy Horse pals & said, "Let's rock the garage on down! But good!" & they did!
< Storybook Time: Chapter 29 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . this week's featured artists are one last bunch of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 25.January.2003 . . . spring's coming, vaccine shots getting in arms . . . betters days, brothers & sisters!

03.13.2021 show

March 6, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Sturgill Simpson, Cuttin' Grass, Vol. 2: The Cowboy Arms Sessions (2020) . . . This cowboy genius madman brings us another volume of his classic songs, recast in bluegrass style . . . just a platter of delights!
Featured Classic Rock Album (R.E.M. Project 2021): R.E.M., Fables of the Reconstruction (1985) . . . Wow this is one fantastic album! . . . rocking wild, subtle, sweet . . . brilliant singing & playing . . . a shaking sugar treat for those sheltering in place, waiting for their shots, & needing a boost!
Storybook Time: Chapter 29 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . this week's featured artist is R.E.M. & more early fine obscurities . . . birds been comin' round more lately, millions getting their COVID medicines . . . special spring not far away . . .

03.06.2021 show

February 27, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Sturgill Simpson, Cuttin' Grass, Vol. 1: The Butcher Shoppe Sessions (2020) . . . Simpson isn't quite country, nor is he quite bluegrass either . . . & yet these bluegrass-style remakes of his songs works really nicely . . . like he was someone else entirely, but still great . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: AfterGlow, AfterGlow (1968) . . . This California psych rock band was led by Native American Tony Tecumsah . . . their music is trippy & sugary & weird, of its time . . . but a real pleasure, really nice LP . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 29 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 25.January.2003 . . . lotta suffering still going on from Trump's Nightmare . . . but daylight's coming, like it does, slowly . . . slowly . . . with grace . . .

02.27.2021 show

February 20, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Drive-By Truckers, The New OK (2020) . . . Just in time to salve, the new LP by these Georgia/Oregon boys . . . when a record grooves you from bouncing feet to dancing mind, there's surely something special playing . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album (R.E.M. Project 2021): R.E.M., Reckoning (1984) . . . Second album by this most wonderful of rock bands . . . one song on it, "Pretty Persuasion," is enough to lift one clear off the ground in bliss . . . & the rest aren't far behind . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 29 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is R.E.M., some delightful tunes from their Complete Rarities 1988-2011 . . . all sunny & snowy here this morning . . . world is arriving slowly to better days, one by one by one . . .

02.20.2021 show

February 13, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Tyler Childers, Long Violent History (2020) . . . There is nothing need be known ahead of time to enjoy this brilliant work . . . an Americana masterpiece . . . thank you . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: John Prine, Sweet Revenge (1973) . . . Such a brilliant album by this American legend . . . funny, dear, strange . . . a wonderful LP . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 29 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 25.January.2003 . . . damn, US Senate, take that dirty shit, & flush the hell out Trump & his lingering loons!

02.13.2021 show

February 6, 2021 show:
Featured New Rock Album: Gangstagrass, No Times for Enemies (2020) . . . This New York City band merges hip hop & bluegrass into something magickal . . . one of the most original bands I have heard in years . . . what a delight!
Featured Classic Rock Album (R.E.M. Project 2021): R.E.M., Murmur (1983) . . . Debut album by this Georgia quartet shocked everyone . . . before college rock, before indie rock, there was R.E.M., making music like it was the next year after 1967, not 16 years later . . . still a brilliant bolt of an LP . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 29 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is R.E.M., songs from their 1982 EP, Chronic Town, oh yah! . . . the world is deciding better for itself, slowly, but yes, getting there!

02.06.2021 show

January 30, 2021 22nd anniversary show:
Featured Album: R.E.M., Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011 (2011) . . . The best band in the world broke up in September 2011 . . . they released their coda in November of that year . . . here it is in its glorious entirety . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 28 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . 22 years ago today I walked with my notebooks & my sack of vinyl LP records into Radio Free Cambridge, & began a wonderful project that has traveled with me since, years, miles, lives . . . I am grateful beyond easy words for it, & for those who have, do, & will listen . . .

01.30.2021 show

2020

December 19, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Ray LaMontagne, MONOVISION (2020) . . . This great American singer-songwriter shifts his focus from trawling the trippy edges in his recent LPs to a kind of sweet acoustic clarity . . . down deep with the great trees, the blowing wind, the ever hmmm of the Wide Wide Sea . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Highwaymen, Highwayman (1985) . . . Back in the mid-1980s, country superstars Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, & Kris Kristofferson, old friends one & all, decided to make an album together . . . some great cover tunes, some originals . . . their brotherhood & love of music shines through this record beginning to end . . . such fun!
Storybook Time: Chapter 28 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Neil Young, fine songs from his new EP, The Times . . . Last episode of this show for 2020, damn what a year . . . stay safe, make it full & ready to 2021!

12.19.2020 show

December 12, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Calexico, Seasonal Shift (2020) . . . Just in time for whatever holiday or solstice or remembrance you might celebrate or commemorate, this lovely Tex-Mex indie rock band gifts up a lovely bouquet of new & classic tunes . . . friendly, fine, musically beautiful . . . a medicinal LP for a year that needs many as it can get . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Snow Patrol, Eyes Open (2006) . . . Scottish band will wrap you in a dark poetry of music, a record for the dim lights . . . for the yearning hours later in the evening . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 28 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's 18th annual holiday broadcast will give you a needed smile or several in this tough year's Season of Lights!

12.12.2020 show

December 5, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: The Pretenders, Alone (2016) . . . Time to catch up with Chrissie Hynde, first album in 8 years for her group . . . she rocks from the heart, the head, the loins, the spirit . . . her voice is a gift to her listeners . . . her wanting, & wishing & despairing make beautiful songs . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Who, The Who Sell Out (1967) . . . Every December, this show honors the life & passing o my beautiful friend JBIII in 2011 by featuring music by his favorite band The Who (or its members) . . . hard to believe this great early album has never been played before . . . but here it is, raucous, brilliant, crazy, genius music to dance, fall, & rear up again by!
Storybook Time: Chapter 27 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's & this week's featured artists are Pearl Jam, & tunes from their wonderful 1992 appearance on MTV Unplugged . . . snow is falling in New England, so a bit more looking like the Season of Lights here . . . the new year beckons with hope . . . listen! It's calling every one of us!

12.05.2020 show

November 28, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Pearl Jam, Gigatron (2020) . . . Been awhile since this show has checked in with these Pacific Northwest boys . . . new LP they sound together, fierce, melodic, pushing every boundary a great rock band will push . . . there's excitement in this music . . . a deep brotherly pulse . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Monkees, The Birds, The Bees, & The Monkees (1968) . . . This was the last Monkees' album made during their TV show heyday . . . lots of cool, psych-pop tunes on it . . . they were coming apart as a band in 1968, but still throwing down great songs amidst the splinters . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 27 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are a final batch of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 02.November.2002 . . . Vaccine's-a-comin', just believe it & tell your neighbors . . . vaccine's-a-comin'!

11.28.2020 show

November 21, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Blitzen Trapper, Holy Smokes Future Jokes (2020) . . . Wonderful Portland, Oregon indie rock band comes up with a new LP quirky, sweet, dark, strange, & a pleasure to hear . . . a journey in voice & sound, to salve these struggling hours . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: King Crimson, Larks' Tongues In Aspic (1973) . . . This was the 5th record by this legendary progressive rock UK band . . . dreamy to other worlds . . . the smoke in the room shifts colors . . . the walls & ceiling give way . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 27 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 02.November.2002 . . . Hang tough for the end of King Loon's reign . . . it's coming . . . he lost . . . Joe & Kamala are readying to go . . .

11.21.2020 show

November 14, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: The Way Down Wanderers, Illusions (2019) . . . This strange & lovely American band from Illinois came to my attention from my beloved who dived deep in their music & invited me to join . . . fool I'd be to decline!
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Billy Joel, The Nylon Curtain (1982) . . . Last played this great LP on the 8/14/2010 broadcast of this show . . . BJ wanted to make an album about the Reagan years, & the feelings of despair creeping into the world as a decade of selfishness deepened its hold . . . he sought to create a sonic masterpiece, using the studio & his long-time band in the process . . . I loved this album when I was a freshman in college & it was newly released, & I loved it just as much these years later . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 27 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 02.November.2002 . . . GO JOE & KAMALA!

11.14.2020 show

October 24, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: The Flaming Lips, American Head (2020) . . . Weird wonderful rock band releases another weird wonderful record . . . just in time to salve for awhile during pandemic days . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Neil Young, Harvest (1972) . . . Classic early album by NY, as he dives down into many strange places in his mind to see what's there to be found . . . gets a lot of deep mileage out of an acoustic guitar . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 27 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Fleetwood Mac, & one more batch of songs from their brilliant live 1997 album The Dance . . . this is my last show before US Election Day on November 3. My ballot just got cast today. I could not more sincerely hope that we are days away from rejecting the stupid horrors of the past 4 years, getting the fuck on to better days. Vote Biden/Harris!

10.24.2020 show

October 17, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: The Avett Brothers, The Third Gleam (2020) . . . The Avetts return to this series some years later & with such delightful results . . . their beautiful musical magicks hold strong . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Van Halen, 1984 (1984) . . . Eddie Van Halen died recently . . . he was an amazing guitarist, & seemed to love playing music more than almost anyone else ever . . . this album is terrific fun . . . glad to share it . . . RIP, Eddie . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 27 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Fleetwood Mac, & more songs from their brilliant live 1997 album The Dance . . . clock ticking down for the Clown King . . . world needs to get well again, & soon . . .

10.17.2020 show

October 10, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Dawes, Good Luck With Whatever (2020) . . . New LP from this terrific Los Angeles indie rock band . . . bright & brooding? check . . . lead singer sounds like Jackson Brown? check . . . whips in & around mad & beautiful, melancholy & fine? check, check, check, & check!
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Avett Brothers, The Second Gleam (2008) . . . Second of a trilogy of so-called "quieter" albums . . . the Avett boys know how to dive down deeper & darker into a "quiet" beautiful sound than most nearly anyone else around . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 27 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Fleetwood Mac, & songs from their brilliant live 1997 album The Dance . . . King Loon is walking around sick, in mind, in body, making everyone else feel like shit too . . . it's like 4 years devolving intensely down to these few autumnal days . . . VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

10.10.2020 show

September 26, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Throwing Muses, Sun Racket (2020) . . . Haven't spun this band on this show in some years, good to have them back on . . . Their music as noisy & provocative as ever . . . weirdly reassuring . . . they are who they are, very good at it too, like nobody else . . . great new LP . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Avett Brothers, The Gleam (2006) . . . First of a trilogy of so-called "quieter" albums . . . as intense here as anywhere in their best music . . . more exposed, if anything, & great to hear what reveals . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 27 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are a last bunch of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 15.August.2001 . . . this election feels cataclysmic, not like they should feel . . .

09.26.2020 show

September 19, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Doves, The Universal Want (2020) . . . Been a decade since this brilliant, brooding UK band put out a new LP . . . worth the wait! . . . older, wiser, more melancholy than ever maybe . . . but these boys know how to rock high, low, soft, smooth, loud, all which ways . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Rolling Stones, Tattoo You (1981) . . . Said to be the work of getting the brawling Glimmer Twins to put out a new platter, old odds n sodz mostly . . . but these old fuckers turned up, again & again . . . this is one great record!
Storybook Time: Chapter 27 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 15.August.2001 . . . RIP RBG . . . you held out as long as you could . . . now we have to bring this the rest of the way home . . .

09.19.2020 show

September 12, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Bright Eyes, Down in the Weeds Where the World Once Was (2020) . . . Been 9 years since Conor Oberst & his crew released a new LP . . . worth the wait, this album is so good, & feels like it . . . wonderful to hear, for new fans or old ones . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: John Forgerty, Centerfield (1985) . . . CCR's resident genius took years to find his own road, sans his old brilliant crew . . . this album arrives him to himself, fully & finally . . . he is CCR, & he isn't, & this is no longer a war in his heart or his Art . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 27 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 15.August.2001 . . . Drifting into autumn, careening toward Election Day . . . nobody knows what the next chapter will bring, though many are laboring on the coming tale . . . start crawling from this Trump nightmare . . .

09.12.2020 show

August 29, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Billy Strings, Home (2019) . . . Most recent LP by this Michigan-born bluegrass phenom . . . beautiful playing, passionate music . . . it's a powerful record for such a young musician, but brilliance is brilliance, no matter the age . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Bobbie Gentry, The Delta Sweete (1968) . . . Second album by this gifted Mississippi country singer-songwriter . . . a song-cycle recounting times from her growing up in a rural place . . . funny, sweet, sad, endlessly endearing music . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 27 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Mercury Rev & the singers they play with on their delightful 2019 tribute album, Bobbie Gentry's the Delta Sweete Revisited . . . summer's waning, pandemic isn't yet, Election Day is when we start crawling from this Trump nightmare . . .

08.29.2020 show

August 22, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Billy Strings, Turmoil & Tinfoil (2017) . . . This Michigan-born bluegrass phenom brings a wild magick to his music that won't quit from end to end of his record . . . best to hang on tight, but with room for your toes to tap!
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Creedence Clearwater Revival, Cosmos's Factory (1970) . . . This classic LP was last featured on the 12/24/2005 broadcast of this show . . . CCR bursts this one out the gates with the massive "Ramble Tamble" & just don't slow don't for nothing . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 27 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are one final bunch of tunes from those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 29.July.2000, including #1! . . . Biden/Harris is what we got to bring down Trump in November, a great team, & ready to go!

08.22.2020 show

August 15, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Bob Dylan, Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020) . . . Been a few years since this old Traveling Troubadour come up with a bunch of new tunes . . . percolated 'em well . . . scary, funny, sweet, weird, timely, timeless bunch, wow . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Bob Dylan, Nashville Skyline (1969) . . . Dylan went full country, even had Johnny Cash along for a tune . . . him & The Byrds & The Band & a few others inventing Americana long! before anybody knew what it was or could be . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 27 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are even still some more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 29.July.2000 . . . Biden/Harris will be the next US leaders . . . this hope is what we have to deal with now by . . .

08.15.2020 show

August 8, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: The Jayhawks, XOXO (2020) . . . Wonderful Minnesota alt-country band brings harmonies & ringing guitars & songs of hope & others of melancholy to a world that is feeling a good deal of the latter & not nearly enough of the former right now . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: 1910 Fruitgum Co., Indian Giver (1969) . . . Bubblegum pop band out of New Jersey had found a heavier sound by the time of this album . . . still as groovy groovy as it can be . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 27 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are still some more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 29.July.2000 . . . summer here is hot as always, don't give a damn 'bout no human plague . . . 86 days, 13 hours, 21 minutes, 42 seconds, & counting, to 2020 US elections . . . what more needs to be said?

08.08.2020 show

August 1, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Simon Posford, Flux And Contemplation: Portrait of An Artist In Isolation (2020) . . . Shpongle mastermind debuts solo record perfectly beautiful for this summer of isolation & rage . . . this album just hits the spot . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Tom Waits, Swordfishtrombones (1983) . . . Tom Waits is a very strange character, & it's been a long time coming this show playing some of his music, but pandemics give one maybe a bit more time to roam around the records in the world . . . landed on this brilliant LP, happy to share the prize of its songs . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 27 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 29.July.2000 . . . Jobless again, pandemic going . . . just gotta keep on rolling, urge others on too . . .

08.01.2020 show

July 25, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, All the Good Times Are Past and Gone (2020) . . . Long-time brilliant musical partners got restless cooped up in the pandemic, so they started fiddling around with old tape machines & favorite Bob Dylan songs, Johnny Cash too, & others, & come out from nowhere with this charming record to cheer up others staying safe & out of the way at home . . . a real delight!
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Simon & Garfunkel, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, & Thyme (1966) . . . Last spun on the show on 6/12/2010, this LP loses none of its bite nor sweet . . . damn half century old & these fierce folk-rock gems shine just as brilliant!
Storybook Time: Chapter 27 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 29.July.2000 . . . 101 days to US Election Day 2020 . . . should be plenty time enough for me to find another job, & every damned one of us in this country to register to vote!

07.25.2020 show

June 27, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: The Rolling Stones, Blue & Lonesome (2016) . . . The World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band (or one of them for sure) had not released a new album in over a decade when this blues covers album appeared . . . reaching into their own musical roots, covering songs by blues greats like Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, & Willie Dixon, the Stones come up with the goods, sounding dangerous, committed, & like they are in their own special musical place of joy . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Neil Young, Homegrown (1975) . . . Unreleased at the time it was made, a time when NY was deep in romantic woes, this album sees the light of day 45 years later, & sounds fresh as this morning's dawn . . . it's sad at times, but funny other times . . . it's NY letting his hair down, his heart show, & it's a great lost treasure revealed. . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 26 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are one more great bunch featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 05.June.1999 . . . the momentum toward pushing President Pandemic out the door in November is building day by day, helped by his own lack of brains, heart, or even common sense to see the world around him as it is, not as he would will it . . .

06.27.2020 show

June 20, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Jeff Lynne's ELO, From Out of Nowhere (2019) . . . The core genius of the Electric Light Orchestra is still around, & again making music under the ELO banner . . . this album sounds like classic ELO records, but time has passed, & Lynne's music has survived & evolved with the years . . . a wonderful rock & roll record . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Gábor Szabó, Spellbinder (1966) . . . Jazz-rock guitarist from Hungary, escaped penniless the oppression of his beloved country to make his art in California . . . his music is beautiful, full of love & yearning & excitement . . . it is my pleasure to share this great LP with you . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 26 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some even more still of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 05.June.1999 . . . Are these weird-ass days really the ones waited for, for so long? Can we finally kick the bastards to the curb & make this world the good place it could be for all life? I don't know, but I'm hanging on, a bit hopeful, paying a lot of attention . . .

06.20.2020 show

June 13, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Sideways to New Italy (2020) . . . Second great album by these Aussie rockers . . . their music is charming, melodic, strange, & staying . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002) . . . Last heard on this show back on 2/14/2004, amazing not since . . . just a brilliant beautiful work from start to finish . . . I remember having it on my headphones during some struggling days, & it would always lift me up, promise me life was more just waiting . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 26 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some more still of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 05.June.1999 . . . US Election Day 2020 cannot come too soon . . . the world is eager to start healing . . .

06.13.2020 show

June 6, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Hope Downs (2018) . . . Debut LP by this Aussie trip rock band, makes a lotta good moves out of the gate . . . compared to The Church, to R.E.M., they ain't up there yet, but maybe they're on the path . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: John Prine, The Missing Years (1991) . . . John Prine was a funny, sweet, rambunctious, aw-shucks genius of an artist . . . this album he's got Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers with him . . . I'm sure they were as much students as side-kicks on this release . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 26 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some more still of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 05.June.1999 . . . the protests in the US and worldwide continue . . . the pandemic rolls on . . . RIP George Floyd, among many others extinguished by those who wield power like a right, like it makes them better . . . it doesn't . . . getting plainer to see that, ain't it, Would-Be King D?

06.06.2020 show

May 30, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: The Felice Brothers, Undress (2019) . . . This New York American band has charms to spare . . . quirky, sometimes dark, great players . . . this record makes great dancin' round the room in the dark till you fall down music . . . try it with me!
Featured Classic Rock Album: Talking Heads, Naked (1988) . . . It was 11 years after their great debut, more great albums, some crazy films & shows, that the TH story came to a finish with this album . . . still funny & weird, still in love with world music, still letting their unique thing rip in their unique way, they go out with a blast!
Storybook Time: Chapter 26 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 05.June.1999 . . . Seems the pandemic is getting worse in that those suffering most from it are now in the streets shouting loud . . . feels like the wolves are ever closer to your door, eh, Would-Be King D?

05.30.2020 show

May 23, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: The Wood Brothers, Kingdom in My Mind (2020) . . . This is a beautiful record . . . beautifully played, sung, written . . . let its medicine comfort you in these hard times . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Talking Heads, Talking Heads: 77 (1977) . . . Debut album by this strange, weird, wonderful band, like no other . . . straight outta New York & stuck into your head a long time tunes . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 26 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Labyrinthine, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 05.June.1999 . . . Back in the DJ's seat after a few weekends off, ready to roll in & give some good to everyone holding tight to home for now . . .

05.23.2020 show

April 25, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Coldplay, Everyday Life (2019) . . . This LP is a beautiful thing . . . it chronicles times before the pandemic, but I think its message is heavy enough to carry through these current days . . . help carry us through & beyond . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: The Church, Priest = Aura (1992) . . . This deep psychedelic album has haunted me since I purchased it on vinyl LP when it came out, put it on a cassette for Walkman-listening, & have listened ever on . . . it is a surreal musical novel of dreams awake . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 26 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Matchbox 20, wonderful band to bounce to . . . spring is coming despite our struggles . . . Nature can survive what we have done to it, & we can survive what we have done to each other . . . tough hope . . .

04.25.2020 show

April 18, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: The Dream Syndicate, The Universe Inside (2020) . . . I heard this album today, hours before this show, for the first time, & it's some deep swimming . . . so I'll be swimming again in its dark, beautiful waters again tonight . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Association, The Association (1969) . . . Every rock band light & heavy was caught up in trying to make new, fine music that mattered in 1969 . . . the challenge was there for all . . . The Association took it up, & took their lighter pop fare into some new, groovy territory . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 26 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are a last buch of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 28.March.1998 . . . it's hard staying apart & indoors, but that's what there is to do smartly now . . . just keep on doing . . . we'll get through this . . .

04.18.2020 show

April 11, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Phish, Sigma Oasis (2020) . . . Suddenly there is a new Phish album . . . it was debuted at a listening party online on April 1 . . . that's cool . . . the music is really good, digging deep into the jam as only Phish can . . . it's a great record to try out during a time when everyone is at home, hunkered down . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: John Prine, John Prine (1971) . . . I did not know this singer-songwriter's work at all when I heard that he passed away a few days ago from coronavirus . . . I was sorry to be late to appreciate his music, but have to say: it's great . . . sweet, funny, groovy, weird . . . his debut album is ALL sorts of good . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 26 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 28.March.1998 . . . these days fuzz together, but hang on, keep along . . . better ones will come eventually . . .

04.11.2020 show

April 4, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Temples, Hot Motion (2019) . . . Third great LP from this English psychedelic band . . . a journey with some hidden humor, a lot of dreaming music . . . wonderful record for leaving the world's worries behind for a just a healting stretch . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: R.E.M., Monster (1994) . . . Best rock band ever (along with The Beatles) is what I call R.E.M., yet I had not made good on spinning this album . . . found my way in via the videos the band made for this record . . . the electric groove in the tunes got to me . . . I'm in . . . here now to share . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 26 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 28.March.1998 . . . if you're not a doctor or a nurse, or someone who has to be out in the world, I hope you are home right now, a lot, & that this show helps you through these strange days . . .

04.04.2020 show

March 28, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Green Day, The Father of All Motherfuckers (2020) . . . These legendary pop-punk boys return with another classic, down & dirty & done in less than 30 minutes, but what a great ride!
Featured Classic Rock Album: R.E.M., MTV Unplugged NYC (1991) . . . Best rock band ever (along with The Beatles) bring their acoustic instruments to the TV studio, the cameras roll, & bliss is for all to enjoy through a dozen perfect tunes . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 25 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 28.March.1998 . . . Another week of pandemic sheltering-in-place . . . watching the world grapple with this crisis, its heroes & its jerks . . . the heroes will win, is my faith . . .

03.28.2020 show

March 21, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Sleater-Kinney, The Center Won't Hold (2019) . . . These Oregon rock grrrls come back again with another LP of beautiful harsh noise . . . aggressive, funny, sensitive, furious, so fucking good every damned record!
Featured Classic Rock Album Redux: Pink Floyd, Soundtrack from The Film "More" (1969) . . . Still figuring out what their group was, post-Syd Barrett's collapse, The Floyd did a lot of soundtrack work, this record the first major one among them . . . I don't think seeing the film is needed, though I would at some time out of curiosity . . . but this music is so trippy good, just hit it with your favorite accompaniment, & go . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 25 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is also Pink Floyd, the music they played on July 2, 2005, when Waters/Gilmour/Mason/Wright got onto one stage, first time together in 24 years, & rocked beautifully one last time . . . some of this show will be about the pandemic we as a human world are enduring right now, & some of it will not be about that . . . be safe, be well, take care of yourself & others!

03.21.2020 show

March 14, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Drive-By Truckers, The Unraveling (2020) . . . Georgia's mighty alt-rock indie rockers' 12th LP rolls & thunders through the troubled American landscape . . . they can be loud & angry sometimes, subtly poetic at others . . . but brilliant & committed always . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Big Star, 3rd (1978) . . . Memphis rock band's third record, kinda, given that it was never fully finished, & the group disbanded during its making . . . dark, beautiful, strange disintegration, captured & kept on vinyl, released finally in 1978, worshipped thereafter . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 25 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is also Big Star, & additional fine songs from their 3rd sessions . . . got a job, hey! Pandemic sweeps the world! What next?

03.14.2020 show

March 7, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: DIIV, Deceiver (2019) . . . Only the third LP from this Brooklyn indie rock outfit in 7 years . . . dark, gorgeous rock music meant for head-bobbing & brooding & dancing a little bit & a little bit more as it takes its hold . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Big Star, Radio City (1974) . . . Memphis rock band's second record, even better than the first, a slew of rowdy, moody, jangling tunes to enjoy . . . this record flew way under the radar in its own day, but has since become a favorite of anyone lucky enough to spin it . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 25 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Three Dog Night, & some of their classic radio hits from the 1970s . . . job hunting, got a shitty cold, but it's been a decent run of days . . . feeling happy to arrive to this show in OK shape . . .

03.07.2020 show

February 22, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: Beck, Hyperspace (2019) . . . LA trickster-genius returns with another great LP of musical delights . . . some songs rock, some hip hip, some do many things at once . . . deep strange fine fun to be had be all . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Big Star, #1 Record (1972) . . . Memphis rock band not around very long originally, but wow their music lived down through the years to influenced other great bands like R.E.M. . . . their debut record is full of power-pop treats, but a sound too varied & searching to be easily summed . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 25 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, & more of their wonderful songs from Woodstock 1969 . . . job hunting, press work, radio work, & my pen moving as often as I can . . . this show a balm to do, as always . . .

02.22.2020 show

February 15, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: The New Pornographers, In the Morse Code of Brake Lights (2019) . . . Newest LP from this great Canadian indie rock band . . . whether paring back to a relatively simple sound, or pushing all their musical chips onto the table, this group is smart, impassioned, elliptical, & a real delight . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Cat Stevens, Catch Bull at Four (1972) . . . Stevens draws you in with his smooth, find voice, then wraps you into his strange lyrics & beautiful music . . . he takes you through his weird mind lands, keeps you close, shows you a different exit by album's end . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 25 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, & some of their wonderful songs from Woodstock 1969 . . . laid off job, it was a poison, but still hurts me . . . show shifts back to live in early evening . . . keep on working, keep on loving . . .

02.15.2020 show

February 8, 2020 features:
Featured New Rock Album: The New Pornographers, Whiteout Conditions (2017) . . . One of the best albums the Porns have released . . . a smart, bouncy, weird thing, & full of funny, fine songs . . . had to listen to it over & over to believe how good it is, like their albums of old . . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Camper Van Beethoven, II & III (1986) . . . It has been 30 years since I had seen the brilliant CVB, when KD & I saw them recently at the Middle East in Cambridge . . . it was an hour of timeless bliss, beautiful & potent & maybe better than 30 years ago . . . still here, still swingin' . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 25 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Crosby, Stills, & Nash, some of their great songs from Woodstock 1969 . . . didn't do my show last week, couldn't make it . . . back & back & back to it this week!

02.08.2020 show

January 25, 2020 features:
Featured Album: The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Electric Ladyland (1968) . . . Nobody knew, at this time of this third album's release by the band, that the Experience would soon be no more, & Jimi himself would soon be passed, less than two years later . . . So it's good to revel in the glories of their final & fullest flower together . . . a beautiful, rocking, subtle, visionary group, one of the best of all time . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 25 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine, Many Musics, & Bags End News . . . it was January 30, 1999 that I first showed up at Radio Free Cambridge with my sack of LPs to DJ a two-hour radio show I named after a line from my poetry . . . whenever I have to be away from it for awhile, I miss it a lot . . . maybe that's one of the tests of affection for anything in this world . . . this show has led me to some wonderful places to make it good, & I hope that those who do or have listened to it have felt happy about their shared hours with me, the words, the fantastic music!

01.25.2020 show

2019

December 21, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Tyler Childers, Country Squire (2019) . . . Brand-new LP by this Kentucky singer-songwriter, a record full of a lot of great tunes, funny, tender, rocking . . . Childers brings so much passion & intelligence to his music, & a sense of deep commitment to do great work . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: Badfinger, Wish You Were Here (1974) . . . Last great album by this British band . . . they had been ripped off by the music business, on the brink of being broke despite so many hit records . . . yet they put all this turmoil into their music, & transformed it into a fantastic record . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 24 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Reading from Bags End News . . . & this week's 17th annual holiday broadcast concludes this year's run of shows . . . thank you for listening & enjoy this Season of Lights!

12.21.2019 show

December 14, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Tyler Childers, Purgatory (2017) . . . this Kentucky singer-songwriter is one fierce talent, & his band on this record (including the great Sturgill Simpson) really kicks out the bluegrass jams . . . Childers' voice is powerful, sweet, sometimes plaintive, & his songs are both simple & smart . . . here's hoping he stays around a long while, because his music is special . . .
Classic Rock Album: Crooked Still, Hop High (2004) . . . We saw this brilliant progressive bluegrass band in Cambridge last night, & they put on an amazing show, including some great songs from this, their first record . . . magic on vinyl . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 24 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist is The Who & some bonus tracks from their great new LP, Who . . . nearing the end of another year with some beauty & some wither . . . 2020 is setting up to be a crazy ride . . .

12.14.2019 show

December 7, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: The Who, Who (2019) . . . Pete Townshend & Roger Daltry return with their first full Who LP since 1982, & it's a wowser . . . no slow in their go . . . angry, passionate, brilliant singing & music . . . musicians who would survive with their best intact for the long haul, & everyone else, should see how these men have come to where they are now . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Who, Tommy at Woodstock (1969) . . . Fifty years beffore their new LP, The Who played their then-brand-new seminal rock opera, Tommy, to half a million people waking up on Sunday, August 17, 1969 . . . brilliant, beautiful, fucking WOW . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 24 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist is The Who & still more from their amazing gig at Woodstock '69 . . . this show is for my brother, Jim Burke III, gone 12/1/2011, & yet here with me always, rocking out & on & on & on. Long Live Rock!

12.07.2019 show

November 30, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Sturgill Simpson, Sound & Fury (2019) . . . This Kentucky country-Americana-indie-rocking mad genius musician returns with his fourth LP, angry, beautiful, wondering why as ever . . . lonely, longing, loud, sweet . . . his work defines itself as it goes along, roaming ever wider & deeper . . .
Classic Rock Album: George Harrison, Thirty-Three & 1/3 (1976) . . . Harrison was half a decade into being an ex-Beatle when he cut this record, his 7th solo platter . . . his unique sound emerges from a wonderful braiding of his spiritual lyrics yearningly sung, a bit of old Beatles humor, & his beautiful slide guitar playing. . . there is Beatle in him yet, always will be, but giving his solo tunes a good listen pays well the listener's pleasures . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 23 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artists are many of those featured during the 10/16/1992 Madison Square Garden celebration of Bob Dylan's 30 years as a recording artist (including here Clapton, Petty, Harrison, Young, McGuinn, & Dylan himself) . . . New job begun, & with it my responsibility to make good on those many jobless time promises I made . . .

11.30.2019 show

November 23, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: The Pixies, Eyrie (2019) . . . Wow! This LP is so much creepy awesome fun from this legendary band . . . when The Pixies are on, they make the crazy good music like nobody else around . . . this record is on! . . .
Classic Rock Album: Splinter, Splinter (1974) . . . Debut album by this English duo has a very nice early '70s rock & roll feel . . . oh, yah, Beatle George Harrison produced the album and played a variety of instruments, including electric and acoustic guitars, dobro, bass guitar and harmonium . . . fun record!
Storybook Time: Chapter 23 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist artist is The Band, some great live cuts from Woodstock 1969 . . . been a bit of a struggling week, as I get used to a new job, & dig out of the jobless sludge in my mind . . . slows going . . .

11.23.2019 show

November 16, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Elbow, Giants of All Sizes (2019) . . . It's been awhile since this show has featured this English indie rock band . . . their last few albums did not hit me square, as their earlier ones had . . . but this new LP starts out dark & sinuous & insistent & never stops . . . got into my blood & bones from first spin & resides there yet . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: Harry Chapin, Verities & Balderdash (1974) . . . being it's November, quite often Harry Chapin's music comes on this show . . . this album was last played on the 11/14/2009 broadcast . . . but it's been in my ears & heart since about 1981 . . . Chapin's music is rough cut, sometimes edgy, sometimes sentimental, sometimes funny . . . his spirit is warm, open, & welcomes anyone who has the time for some story songs true & otherwise . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 23 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Reading from Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist artist is more of the very rocking Jefferson Airplane, live from Woodstock 1969 . . . new job starts Monday, even includes travel soon to train . . . hoping to believe it will be good, no reason not to think so . . . keep taking swings till the bat connects & the ball sails far away . . .

11.16.2019 show

November 9, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Colorado (2019) . . . The old Master & some of his dearest brothers rock out in the best way . . . straight & true . . . for artists of any kind who want to know what it's like to make & walk one's own path, & do it wonderfully, give this LP a few spins . . .
Classic Rock Album: Ringo Starr, Ringo (1973) . . . Beatles' drummer decided to make his first rock & roll solo album, & many came along to help, including his Fab Four brothers . . . though not all on one song . . . Ringo is an old school entertainer at heart, & this record delivers the goods!
Storybook Time: Chapter 23 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist artist is Jefferson Airplane, live from Woodstock 1969, some rocking tunes . . . going back to the day job wheel again soon, been near four months of damned trying, fucking ready, Freddy . . .

11.09.2019 show

October 12, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Wilco, Ode to Joy (2019) . . . Legendary Chicago indie rock returns with more deep, hard, ethereal music, rocking music, that no other band could make . . . dreamy, contemplative, but sometimes loud & wild . . . not a quick meal for the ears, but a really great one . . .
Classic Rock Album: Quill, Quill (1970) . . . Quill was a Boston band that made it to Woodstock, but not to the film of the event, & so disappeared from view, unlike so many other bands at that festival . . . this, their sole album, came out shortly after, & its wierd trippy & wonderful to behold . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist artist is Sly & the Family Stone at Woodstock '69, where they funked the place down . . . my job hunt goes on, still walking upright, getting closer, loving the autumnal cool coming to these parts . . .

10.12.2019 show

October 5, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Ray LaMontagne, Part of the Light (2018) . . . New England singer-songwriter LaMontagne's most recent record . . . warm & weird . . . his work here seems like that of a brilliant singer-songwriter with a lot of Nick Drake & Pink Floyd in his head as he sets about making his next LP . . .
Classic Rock Album: John Lennon, Imagine (1971) . . . Solo Beatle finding his new path in the strange harsh world of the early 1970s . . . how to make the music honest & good . . . sing straight & true . . . fiercer than shit . . . fantastic album . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist artist is John Lennon, since I had a lot of his music in my head already . . . job hunt goes on & on & on . . . as does Art & hope & love too . . .

10.05.2019 show

September 28, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Ray LaMontagne, Ouroboros (2016) . . . This album is something amazing . . . New England singer-songwriter LaMontagne creates a sound that finds a common space between James Taylor & Pink Floyd . . . a strange, powerful record, & this artist someone whose work I want to know much better . . . here's a start . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Mekons, The Mekons Rock and Roll (1977) . . . These British punk-folksters make amazingly fun music! . . . Angry, political, & dancey to the exxxtreme . . . funny, endearing too . . . great, well-named LP . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist is Creedence Clearwater Revival, live from Woodstock 1969, some nice cuts . . . back after a weekend off & gosh it's always good to be on the mic & away we go with the music!

09.28.2019 show

September 14, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Old 97's, Graveyard Whistling (2017) . . . This time a recent album by this great Texas indie-rock band . . . funny, sweet, rocking, weird, a really good time to be had by all . . .
Classic Rock Album Reudux: Steely Dan, Aja (1977) . . . Great rock albums sound nothing like each other, or like anything else . . . it's a pleasure to play this record again . . . it has no story but does feel like a journey being taken . . . great, great music . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist is Incredible String Band at Woodstock '69, lovely music for all . . . another big fish/job got off my hook, so time to re-group, take a breath, cast out again . . .

09.14.2019 show

September 7, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Spirit Family Reunion, Ride Free (2019) . . . Brooklyn alt-country band's 4th LP, & all of them great . . . there's a kind of weird power to their music, a deep rumble to it . . . a dreamy sweetness . . . One listen & I was hooked to this one as easily as their other three . . .
Classic Rock Album: Old 97's, Satellite Rides (2001) . . . Texas indie rock band's been around a long time, & somehow I missed them until now . . . this album tastes a little of Wilco, by way of comparison, but primarily it's its own rocking, delightful, sad self . . . a very cheering album for those in need of some . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist is Incredible String Band at Woodstock '69, lovely music for all . . . another big fish/job got off my hook, so time to re-group, take a breath, cast out again . . .

09.07.2019 show

August 31, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Thom Yorke, ANIMA (2019) . . . This LP really sounds like Thom Yorke made a Radiohead album without the rest of the band . . . & it's a great, weird, dark, beautiful one! A soothing electronic dreamland into the abyss . . . Now his band together have to figure out how to cut & run somewhere new . . .

Classic Rock Album: The American Dream, The American Dream (1970) . . . This Philadelphia group made one & only one great fucking album . . . & that was that . . . but it's a beautiful deep trip of an album that stands tall with the best of its kind & time . . . any time really . . .

Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .

Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist is Santana at Woodstock '69, where they blew many minds & become legends . . . job hunt seems close to over, shore seems near, still reaching though . . .

08.31.2019 show

August 24, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Deerhunter, Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared? (2019) . . . Indie rocking enigma of an album . . . imagine you drop into a peaceful afternoon dream & you listen to a rock band whose music makes perfect sense as you float & fly & multiply & disappear into new & ancient colors . . .
Classic Rock Album: Paul & Linda McCartney,, Ram (1971) . . . What would do if you were a newly minted ex-Beatle, with a hopefully long life ahead of you, & no idea what to do with it? You might hole up somewhere in the country with your loved ones, & do the one thing you are sure of . . . make as much good music as you could . . . this is that kind of album . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artists are a last bunch of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 21.February.1998 . . . & Arlo Guthrie at Woodstock '69, for fun . . . my job hunting maze of names & voices & beggings may soon be done . . . hoping beyond hope for this . . .

08.24.2019 show

August 17, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Santana, Africa Speaks (2019) . . . Brilliant legendary Carlos Santana & his band gift this epic rocking work, beautiful, funky, mysterious . . . this LP is made more special by the singers he works with, Laura Mvula & Buika . . . Carlos Santana is 72 years old & he still plays incendiary, gorgeous guitar like he & his band of tigers never quite left the Woodstock Music Festival back in August 1969 . . .
Classic Rock Album: Yo La Tengo, President Yo La Tengo (1989) . . . A record that flashes by cooly & full of fun, weaving, indie-licious songs . . . 31 minutes of enigmatic, energetic, swing ya higher tunes!
Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artists some more of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 21.February.1998 . . . job hunting & thinking about Woodstock, that's me rolling along these recent days . . .

08.17.2019 show

August 3, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: The Black Keys, "Let's Rock" (2019) . . . The Ohio indie rock duo been away a few years, but come roaring back now with a soulfully rocking new album . . . there's a warmth to their music, a kind of sweet confidence . . . an album for dancing around, for headphones, for forgetting the when & where of it all . . .
Classic Rock Album: U2, The Unforgettable Fire (1984) . . . These Irish boys were just getting warmed up with this album, lighting up the world with a kind of deep grooving passion . . . rocking from hearts deep, sometimes dark, sometimes hopeful for everyone . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 21.February.1998 . . . fell down hard this week, blood everywhere to be seen . . . made it home, KD patched me up, been clearing the dark strands from my eyes since . . .

08.03.2019 show

July 27, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Calexico and Iron & Wine, Years to Burn (2019) . . . Been 14 years since these talented players first released in EP together, but here they are back for a longer record . . . the acoustic playing is gorgeous, the singing is wonderful, & there is enough experimentation in the sound to show these guys were loose together in the studio & let good things happen . . .
Classic Rock Album: R.E.M., Dead Leter Office (1987) . . . This is a B-sides & obscurities album from one of my favorite bands ever . . . the stuff they threw away other bands would have built whole careers on . . . but it's a great album & the many Velvet Underground covers alone make it worth a good listen . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 21.February.1998 . . . wow, just like that, I'm jobless again . . . fucking weirdly amazing to be vulnerable, but now in Trump's weird Amerika . . .

07.27.2019 show

July 20, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: G. Love, Fixin' to Die (2011) . . . Somehow I missed this great Boston singer-songwriter till this week when my beloved & I saw him live, with his friends Blues Traveler & moe. . . . G opened the show solo, sans his band Special Sauce . . . wonderful performer! This is his most recent solo album, a brilliant, fun joint with The Avett Brothers . . . it will make you happy!
Classic Rock Album: Camper Van Beethoven, Camper Van Beethoven is Dead, Long Live Camper Van Beethoven (2000) . . . CVB was inactive most of the later 1990s, but they came together again to create a kinda sorta compilation of rarities, & got restless to do new work, so this album came out a hybrid of old material played with new . . . happy with the good results, they came back for more . . . Thank goodness!
Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist is the 1960s Japanese trip-rock band Apryl Food, & their predecessor The Floral . . . ready to roll ready to roll ready to roll!

07.20.2019 show

July 6, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Various Artists, 3 x 4 (2019) . . . This album features four of the Paisley Underground bands--The Bangles, Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade, and The Three O'Clock--each covering a classic song by the three other bands . . . it's a wonderful collaboration, a great LP, great bands!

Classic Rock Album Redux: Phish, Billy Breathes (1996) . . . This was Phish's first really great record, when they finally caught the magick of their music in the studio, as they have done so many times on stage . . . their sound is rock & roll, lots of acoustic treats too . . . yet they are like nobody else out there, special, wildly special. . .

Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .

Readings from Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist is Michael Jackson, some more of his great radio singles. . . off to see Phish this weekend, work on press projects, so this show was recorded in advance!

07.06.2019 show

June 29, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: The Dream Syndicate, These Times (2019) . . . This is this legendary 1980s Los Angeles Paisley Underground band's brand new LP . . . they rock trip-happy hard . . . let the good stuff loose with guitars & drums & lyrics that run wild & soft . . . lysergic musical bliss . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Byrds, Ballad of Easy Rider (1969) . . . Roger McGuinn's latter-day Byrds are not so well-remembered, but give this record a listen & re-think the matter . . . some great originals, some great cover songs . . . the album's title song is a strings-ier version of what was in the film, but cool, & their cover of Woody Guthrie's "Deportee" feels eerily & sadly current still . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist is Michael Jackson, he of countless great singles on the radio . . . building up this show in the early hours this morning was happiness itself, & now the happy doing of it . . .

06.29.2019 show

June 22, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: The Dream Syndicate, How Did I Find Myself Here? (2017) . . . This legendary 1980s Los Angeles Paisley Underground band returned to action in 2012, & released this LP five years later . . . if anything, they are better than ever, their music deeper grooving, funnier, subtler, better rock & roll for the time off . . .
Classic Rock Album: Deadeye Dick, A Different Story (1994) . . . New Orleans rock band that had one hit song, "New Age Girl," featured on this album, but happily the friendly door into a record full of great songs . . an LP of many moods, silly, wistful, loud, fun . . . worth digging up & taking a fresh listen . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine, Many Musics, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are one last batch of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 07.June.1997 . . . hope is in the work one values, the people one loves, & the mysteries one acknowledges the world has countless of . . .

06.22.2019 show

June 15, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: The Flaming Lips, King's Mouth (2019) . . . Wonderful new rock opera by The Lips, a psychedelic myth inspired by an art exhibit created by Lips' frontman Wayne Coyne . . . the music is devastatingly pretty & the tale gets stranger & more awesome as it goes on . . . I heard this album first on my Polly iPod, soaring through Cambridge one smiling Saturday recently . . . what a treat!
Classic Rock Album: Don McLean, American Pie (1971) . . . The epic title track of American singer-songwriter Don McLean's second LP owned the year as a single on the radio, gave the sadness many were feeling a sound, some words to carry along . . . the rest of this fine album has the same feel, that of elegy, yearning, vague wishes . . . McLean had been around long enough by 1971 to deserve the success this album gave him, even though he did not near such commercially successful artistic heights again . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine, Many Musics, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 07.June.1997 . . . keepin' on keepin' on, wondering how to get better, subtler, ever more manifesting . . .

06.15.2019 show

June 8, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Olden Yolk, Living Theatre (2019) . . . This trippy dreamy New York City folk-rock band returns with a second great LP of nocturnal urban psychedelia . . . a weird sweet wonder sheens over & through these songs . . . come join the journey . . .
Classic Rock Album: Don Henley, Building the Perfect Beast (1985) . . . Not far from his Eagles' days, Henley's record stakes out a mostly adjacent territory to his old band's sound . . . fewer harmonies, more synthesizers . . . that said, the romantic yearnings a-twist with cynicism persist . . . great rock album in a decade when few were as liked as this one . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine, Many Musics, & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 07.June.1997 . . . back from two weeks off, ready to roll into a slew of new broadcasts this month . . . ready, ready, Freddy!

06.08.2019 show

May 18, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: White Denim, Side Effects (2019) . . . Third great LP in a row since this Austin, Texas band reconfigured with new members . . . the best kind of trippy rock music with depth & passion & weird fun to its soul . . . get high with this music, or let it take care of this for you!
Classic Rock Album Redux: Rush, Roll the Bones (1991) . . . Wonderful Canadian power-rock trio & one of their very best albums . . . existentially dark & yet hopeful, yearningly, romantically hopeful . . . last heard on this show back on 11/15/2008, & so welcomed back for another spin . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist Linda Ronstadt, a last bunch great songs from this wonderful artist . . . the green world is rising up again, friendly & beckoning & instructive for those who pay attention . . .

05.18.2019 show

May 11, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: White Denim, Performance (2018) . . . Great follow up to their record Stiff by this Austin, Texas indie rock band . . . one of those great bands that let the music of its heroes seep into its own, but then they are restless & gifted enough to pack some new ideas on their journey . . .
Classic Rock Album: Odds, Nest (1996) . . . I came aware of this great Canadian indie rock band via their theme song for the tripped-out comedy , Corner Gas . . . this LP reveals one of Canada's great 1990s' bands to rival Gin Blossoms, Toad the Wet Sprocket, & the like . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News, Many Musics, & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist is Linda Ronstadt, more great songs from this wonderful artist . . . challenge in life is to keep grasping the wheel, learning better how to & how not to steer . . .

05.11.2019 show

May 4, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: White Denim, Stiff (2016) . . . Great Austin, Texas indie rock band returns with two new members & a roaring sense of focus, purpose, & fun . . . get their Badfinger on here & there . . . some classic Motown soul influence . . . what a nice restart for them!
Classic Rock Album: Beth Orton, Central Reservation (1999) . . . this English singer-songwriter goes to this house with this LP . . . pretty, brooding, strange music at times . . . a friend of mine long ago said listen to her &, years later, here I am saying: I did, thank you!
Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist is Linda Ronstadt, wonderful artist getting long due good attention from this show . . . back in the DJ seat after some time off, wow! ready to roll . . .

05.04.2019 show

April 6, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Better Oblivion Community Center, Better Oblivion Community Center (2019) . . . Conor Oberst finds in fellow singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers a musical soulmate who shares his sweet, dark, funny, musically compelling vision . . . together, they sound like a band that's been around for years, with a half a dozen great albums to their name . . . nope, this is this wonderful debut together . . .
Classic Rock Album: James Taylor, James Taylor (1968) . . . Famed singer-songwriter from Boston debuted his solo career with this splendid album . . . his cool & charisma already showing, his songs those of a gifted young man who is delighting in what he can do with words & music . . . only 20 years old, recently in a hospital for mental health struggles, his first band not long ago broken up, these songs come on with a force . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 21 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are are a final bunch of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 16.March.1996 . . . spring is pushing into New England . . . my pen pushes me more urgently to go, go go!

04.06.2019 show

March 30, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Blues Traveler, Hurry Up & Hang Around (2018) . . . New Jersey jamband with its amazing new record . . . full of fierce passionate music & playing . . . John Popper's harmonica playing mews & roars amazingly . . . wow . . ..
Classic Rock Album: The Stone Poneys, Evergreen, Vol. 2 (1967) . . . This was Linda Ronstadt's first band, much more trip-folk-rock than her later music . . . this LP shows she was talented right from the get-go, & a path she might have kept along, but didn't . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 21 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 16.March.1996 . . . my path is my pen . . . here I go . . .

03.30.2019 show

March 16, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Deer Tick, Mayonnaise (2019) . . . Lovely grab bag of tunes from this Rhode Island indie rock band . . . some alternate versions of songs from recent albums, some nice covers, & a couple of new tunes . . . the wonderful sounds of a band playing so finely with deep subtle feeling . . .
Classic Rock Album: Rod McKuen, Listen to the Warm (1967) . . . Rod McKuen was a California poet & sing-songwriter, especially popular in the 1960s . . . this album features his poetry set to music . . . sweet, mellow sounds, but the melancholy in many of these songs runs deep . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 21 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 16.March.1996 . . . another week survived, maybe a little better than expected . . . thinking I just need to spend many hours today with black pen & notebook & Polly iPod . . . shroomy & deep down . . .

03.16.2019 show

March 9, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Patty Griffin, Patty Griffin (2019) . . . Wonderful legendary singer-songwriter returns with songs that are by turns pretty, contemplative, funny . . . all sung in her crystal-clear magick instrument of a voice . . . she survived cancer, her music is more beautiful & free than ever . . .
Classic Rock Album: Patti Smith, Horses (1975) . . . Patti Smith's first album hit like a punker-poet Dylan-Kerouac force, produced by John Cale no less . . . she wanted to & did, make a record "that would make a certain type of person not feel alone. People who were like me, different . . . " Nothing quite like it, then or since, for raw, dark, powerful, affirmative beauty . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 20 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 16.March.1996 . . . some weeks to get to this show have more of the brawl in them than others . . . but then arrive & it's splendid & splendid & splendid as always . . .

03.09.2019 show

March 2, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Steve Gunn, The Unseen In Between (2019) . . . Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter comes back around with a great new record . . . the playing is stellar as always, & the songs themselves are fine, more traditional than Gunn has done in the past, but just as good . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: R.E.M., Automatic for the People (1992) . . . One of my favorite albums ever, this Athens, Georgia band hitting new heights of subtlety & delight . . . a sort of harmonizing & acoustic beauty to it all . . . R.E.M. created a sound of its own, wonderful thing indeed . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 20 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Andy Partridge & more of his great Fuzzy Warbles series . . . spring is coming but, for now, the snow keeps falling & falling . . .

03.02.2019 show

February 23, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Greensky Bluegrass, All for Money (2019) . . . Every new album by this Michigan Americana band is a wonderful treat . . . their playing is passionate & stellar . . . their songs ramble, ruminate, yearn & yearn . . . so happy to share their new LP . . .
Classic Rock Album: Morrissey, Your Arsenal (1992) . . . Once the legendary Smiths quit, some like myself gave up on its ex-members, save only for hoping a band reunion might happen one day . . . but their lead singer & songwriter Morrissey has kept going, making records like this one that have a sweet jumpy Smiths-like sound, but a good bit of their own goodness too . . . finally gave the man a chance, & have to say that this record is really good . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 20 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Hookworms, featured much this month on this show, this time songs from their 2011 self-titled EP (re-released with more songs in 2016), already tripping out uniquely themselves . . . winter gets as wintry as possible round about February . . . like the snow & cold always was & always will be . . . tis, but only part of the year . . .

02.23.2019 show

February 16, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Hookworms, Microshift (2018) . . . Third & most current LP from this English psychedelic rock band . . . this music lays insistent along one's skin, bounces one up at times too . . . further into Dreamland, the light sweet enough to nibble, the hmmm guiding the way . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Cranberries, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? (1993) . . . Never quite noticed this Irish band until recently, then discovered their debut record, a brilliant thing from beginning to end . . . if you haven't, or if you have & want to again, come listen to this beautiful music with me . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 20 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are one final batch of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 04.February.1995 . . . Dreamland's Dreamland, a black pen, paper, & the wish to balance daylight's shallows with how far, how deep, how in . . .

02.16.2019 show

February 9, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Hookworms, The Hum (2014) . . . Second LP from this English psychedelic rock band even deeper than the first . . . Dreamland's Dreamland . . . the musical story of the musical story of the music story . . .
Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Blue (1971) . . . JM sings pretty songs sometimes so dark it's like the stars & skies above are inverted in their colors & intentions . . . yet then again songs of sugar heaven sweetness other times . . . this album, once heard, will not leave you . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 20 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 04.February.1995 . . . Dreamland's Dreamland, a black pen, paper, & something deeper than daytime's shallows . . .

02.09.2019 show

February 2, 2019 features:
New Rock Album: Hookworms, Pearl Mystic (2013) . . . Found this English psychedelic rock band recently & wow! just fantastic! Musics to seep into, lose among . . . dark, dreamy, fall away from the earth music . . . this debut record is just wow . . .
Classic Rock Album: Sliver Apples, Contact (1969) . . . Second LP from this American electronic rock band . . . like a different kind of dreaming . . . where the boxes bleep noisily & the buttons on the crazed computer are too loud & bright both . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 19 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 04.February.1995 . . . into this show's 21st year & ready steady go for more!

02.02.2019 show

January 26, 2019 20th anniversary show features:
Featured Album: The Beatles, The White Album (1968) . . . The greatest rock & roll band the world will ever know had just gotten back from a retreat to India, where they'd gone to cohere themselves, get a better grounding between reality & illusion . . . had a sack full of songs written on acoustic guitars . . . went to work making an album that was so big, so grand, so messy, it would nearly destroy them . . . it was not their last album together, but maybe it was the last one where the ground still stood somewhat firm beneath their feet . . . it is an amazing achievement & a great fucking run of songs, rock & roll & otherwise . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 19 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News & Labyrinthine. . . it was January 30, 1999 that I first showed up at Radio Free Cambridge with my sack of LPs to DJ a two-hour radio show I named after a line from my poetry . . . I could not have imagined the path from there & then to here & now, nor that there would be a path at all . . . & yet here is 20 years of this show & still high-stepping . . . gonna have an extra long one this time to celebrate, nod with love to it all, & then get going along furthur . . .

01.26.2019 show

2018

December 22, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: Ola Podrida, Ghosts Go Blind (2013) . . . Texas indie rock band led by film composer David Wingo . . . moody, chiming music . . . this feels like the kind of winter music good to include in this show's final 2018 episode . . .
Classic Rock Album: Al Stewart, Love Chronicles (1969) . . . Great early album by this English folk-rock troubadour . . . the sound of a young artist in love with life, wondering how much his music could encompass about the world & about his own life . . . very very much . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 19 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's 16th annual holiday broadcast concludes this year's run of shows . . . thank you for listening, enjoy your Season of Lights, blessed be now & always to you :) Begin again, & again, & again . . .

12.22.2018 show

December 15, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: Jeff Tweedy, WARM (2018) . . . Wilco mastermind's first solo LP . . . can't say it sounds all that different from his regular group, but it's awfully good . . . there's perhaps a sweeter feel to this album than some of Wilco's records but, in all, it's a really good album, period . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: The Doors, L.A. Woman (1971) . . . Jim Morrison's swan song with his great band, before leaving for Paris, poetry, & parts unknown . . . & what a swan song it is! crystallizing everything that was ever good about The Doors on one more platter . . . the raunch, the spookiness, the humor, the wish & want . . . like The Beatles of just a couple of years before, these boys saved their very best for last . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 19 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist is The Decemberists, & songs from their great new EP, Traveling On . . . Like Chris Pureka sagely sings, "Put the gloves back on, get back in the ring / Hit the ground, nothing comes easy" . . . but sometimes it does, indeed, come . . .

12.15.2018 show

December 8, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: Gin Blossoms, Mixed Reality (2018) . . . first new album in 8 years by this long-time jangle-rock group from Arizona . . . the challenge with a long-lived band is to build from what was to what they are becoming, & catch these efforts in new songs . . . GBs do it well on this LP, showing the loving fury still in their hearts to create & play good new music . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Jayhawks, Blue Earth (1989) . . . Second LP from this venerable Minnesota alt-country band . . . the sound is more traditional, if one is thinking of their brilliant, beautiful idiosyncrasies to come . . . but the harmonies are deep, the melancholic yearning in every lovely young note . . . the music arrives & stays & stays . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 18 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artists are one last bunch of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 12.November.1994 . . . some weeks feel like specters & a wonder where they passed on to . . .

12.08.2018 show

December 1, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: Thom Yorke, Tomorrow's Modern Boxes (2014) . . . second solo LP by the Radiohead lead singer & one of its masterminds . . . this album especially for those who are fans of the band's Kid A& Amnesiac LPs . . . serves as a kind of third installment . . . music that works deep into the lonely electronics of the mind & heart . . . beautiful, startling, obsessive . . .
Classic Rock Album: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Songs and Music from the Motion Picture "She's the One" (1996) . . . This album does not need its film to stand finely as a great record . . . I admit I have not seen the film . . . yet I have listened to this album many, many times . . . it is a kind of melange of older songs not before on LP, cover songs (Lucinda Williams, Beck), & songs written for the film . . . it's so good, so-Heartbreakers good in its hard rocking & softer moments, that the film becomes something like a thing of the imagination than real . . . might see it sometime, might not . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 18 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 12.November.1994 . . . twisted & bruised my ankle recently, not too bad, but laid me up a bit . . . somehow calmed, focussed me, feeling a bit more appreciative & focussed . . . weird, huh?

12.01.2018 show

November 24, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: Nathan Bowles, Plainly Mistaken (2018) . . . brilliant North Carolina multi-instrumentalist, sometime of the equally brilliant Black Twig Pickers, Pelt, & Black Dirt Oak . . . new solo album full of his strange, fiery magic . . . wonderful music to lose deep into . . .
Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Clouds (1969) . . . I have loved this singer-songwriter for so long, & especially this early album of hers . . . pretty, acoustic, sweet, sometimes dark, despairing . . . I was in love with her trills & sighs from the first moment . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 18 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 12.November.1994 . . . the landscape is bare branched & brown & begs the senses to look closer, listen closer, feel closer . . . 15 years of this show on SPRadio . . . wow, awesome . . .

11.24.2018 show

November 17, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: The Milk Carton Kids, All The Things That I Did and All The Things That I Didn't Do (2018) . . . this California folk-rock duo returns with an album as pretty as their others, in some ways even more personal, sad, sweet, a record to wrap in like a well-known old blanket on a snowy day . . .
Classic Rock Album: Billy Joel, The Bridge (1986) . . . I was such a obsessive fan of BJ's 1970s work when I was young . . . but by when this album came out, I felt like his music, while still great, had moved away from me . . . then happened to see a disparaging review of this album recently, & decided to give it a long overdue second chance . . . it's really good! end to end . . . the best of the best is his duet with Ray Charles, "Baby Grand," but it's just fine every song . . . nice to really get it . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 18 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 12.November.1994 . . . so good to be back on air after a month off, traveling, press work, writing . . . november's perfect cool days . . .

11.17.2018 show

October 13, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: Lucero, Among the Ghosts (2018) . . . This Memphis alt-country band keeps putting out great LPs . . . records of passion & pathos, wit, roughed up & deeply musical tales of love & loss, regret & tension . . . another beautiful record by them . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: Stevie Wonder, Innervisions (1973) . . . Stevie's been on my mind lately, & so time to revisit this album last played on this show 1/23/2005 . . . funky, sweet, funny, genius imp musician with a conscience & the finest of souls . . . this record shows him at his peak . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 18 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist is again XTC's resident genius frontman, Andy Partridge, & more songs from his Fuzzy Warbles series . . . pre-recorded show this week, going to see my beloved band the Jayhawks, so this one is being created in the early AM for its broadcast time . . .

10.13.2018 show

October 6, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: Richard Thompson, 13 Rivers (2018) . . . Venerable old mad genius folk-rocker English gent puts out yet another classic LP, been doing it for decades now . . . the stories are dark, sometimes funny . . . the music is beautiful, torrid, awesome . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Smithereens, Blow Up (1991) . . . Talk about your trip candy, & this record came out in a time period where most hope was otherwise lost . . . longhair guitar music inspired by long ago days of pretty colors, & here years later still doing its own inspiring . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 17 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist is again XTC's resident genius frontman, Andy Partridge, & more songs from his Fuzzy Warbles series . . . yellow leaves, red leaves, orange leaves, brown leaves, still some green leaves . . . autumn loveliness . . .

10.06.2018 show

September 29, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: The Devil Makes Three, Chains Are Broken (2018) . . . Santa Cruz Americana trio make writing great songs & playing furious good look easy . . . funny songs, sad songs, songs of warning & regret . . . a new LP overstuffed with lucious sonic treats . . .
Classic Rock Album: Lyle Lovett, Pontiac (1987) . . . Too long getting around to this brilliant country-jazz-rock brilliant weirdo . . . this album goes down so easy & sticks so nicely I am thrilled that, though late to its party, I have finally come . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 17 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artists are one more bunch of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 04.September.1993 . . . into autumn for real now, work & wonder pending . . .

09.29.2018 show

September 15, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: Paul Simon, In the Blue Light (2018) . . . Master artist revisits some of the lesser known songs from his catalogue, with intent to tweak their original arrangements, harmonic structures, & lyrics, see what comes of this . . . some of the guest collaborators on this LP include Bill Frisell & Wynton Marsalis . . . It seems like, or feels like, Simon is looking for something hidden in these songs, something new? secret? lost? now found? It's a beautiful record, whatever it is . . .
Classic Rock Album: Bob Seger & The Last Heard, Heavy Music (1966-1967) . . . These are "The Complete Cameo Recordings" that Seger & this early band of his recorded . . . a collection of 45s, some serious & dark, some out to mock the Beach Boys & Dylan & others, lovingly of course . . . you could say these songs are from the days that Seger seemed to long for in song after song later in his career . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 17 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 04.September.1993 . . . wonderful autumn coming . . .

09.15.2018 show

September 8, 2018 show features::
New Rock Album: Saintseneca, The Waves, Pillar of Na (2018) . . . This is the fourth LP by this strangely delightful indie rock band from Ohio . . . their new record is beautiful, rocking, subtle, croaking sweetness, & one not to be missed . . .
Classic Rock Album: Cracker, Cracker (1992) . . . Debut album from what was known at the time as David Lowery's "other" band than everyone's favorite, Camper Van Beethoven . . . heard from a distance, & knowing CVB would re-unite eventually, this debut shines in its own funny, tender, crookedly weird light . . . a treasure to be shared . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 17 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 04.September.1993 . . . coolness slowly wafting in, & the long hope of strange years insists anew, again . . .

09.08.2018 show

August 25, 2018 show features::
New Rock Album: Great Lake Swimmers, The Waves, The Wake (2018) . . . This is the seventh LP by this great Canadian folk-rock band . . . a beautiful, ethereal record . . . one to slow for, give full ears to . . . let wash over you, & the rest all away for awhile . . .
Classic Rock Album: Camper Van Beethoven, Key Lime Pie (1989) . . . I love this California band of weird, literate, cracked Americana punky rockers . . . musically brilliant, funny, dear, ribald, strange, charming off any charts . . . this was the last album they made before breaking up for some years . . . dark, sad, when not wonderfully silly or sweetly moving . . . i recently gave it a really good listen for the first time in years, & have listened & listened again & again since . . . now to share . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 17 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist is again XTC's resident genius frontman, Andy Partridge, & more songs from his Fuzzy Warbles series . . . a long-time friend of mine at my job left for other attractions . . . life is about loss & loss & loss unless one works at balancing the ledger . . .

08.25.2018 show

August 18, 2018 show features::
New Rock Album: Punch Brothers, All Ashore (2018) . . . Chris Thiles' prog-bluegrass crew serves up another great platter of tunes, swinging passionate & fine . . . they call it a nine-movement thought about "committed relationships in the present day," but you can also just groove along as you will . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Grass Roots, Let's Live For Today (1967) . . . Trippy folk-rock by this many-hits-wonder from the late '60s & early '70s . . . the lyrics are sweet & yearning, & sometimes searching, but it's the music that really makes this record stick so nicely . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist is again XTC's resident genius frontman, Andy Partridge, & more songs from his Fuzzy Warbles series . . . weather's gotten wrapped-in-plastic hot here in New England & elsewhere . . . yet a few colored leaves, here & there, are reminder of the cool to come . . .

08.18.2018 show

August 4, 2018 show features::
New Rock Album: Dawes, Passwords (2018) . . . Sixth LP by this Los Angeles rock band . . . moody, pretty, yearning . . . troubled . . . the music froths with feeling & grasping . . . intense yet often soft, mellow . . . more enigma than it may seem at first . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere (1969) . . . Last heard on the 9/19/2004 broadcast of this show . . . NY wrote several of these songs in one day in a high fever . . . the whole album is a fevered rock & roll dream . . . a loud-soft groping in what felt like end-times . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artist is XTC, some of their final songs together, some of these while wearing their secret Dukes of Stratosphear costumes (shhhh!) . . . just passed anniversary of me as a boy long ago first diving deep into worlds of my own mind . . . still doing that . . . still it's nearly enough . . .

08.04.2018 show

July 28, 2018 show features::
New Rock Album: Squeeze, The Knowledge (2017) . . . this is the 15th LP by this long-lived UK rock band . . . it jumps & jives as sweetly as all their records do, but there are messages & urgings throughout this one, maybe more pronounced than sometimes . . . a sad awareness to some of the ways of these days . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Bats, Daddy's Highway (1987) . . . This was the debut album by this New Zealand rock band, & it set the high bar for their many records since . . . the music kicks, the lyrics are strange yet often delightful . . . just over half an hour & fun to jump back into again & again . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine . . . & this week's featured artists are one last batch of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 18.July.1992 . . . high summer, hot so many places in the world . . . trying to find the cool swishing surf within, whatever it may be . . .

07.28.2018 show

July 21, 2018 show features::
New Rock Album: The Jayhawks, Back Roads & Abandoned Motels (2018) . . . Wonderful & brilliant Minnesota alt-country band is back! With a record full of songs that bandleader Gary Louris originally wrote for other performers . . . decided that these songs would make good Jayhawks' songs too, & they do . . . sweet, sweet new LP . . .
Classic Rock Album: Squeeze, East Side Story (1981) . . . Despite their fantastic singles I somehow missed the great records this UK rock band makes . . . this album just crackles with clever, fun, jangly tunes . . . catch ya & then catch ya some more . . . a record to bounce to!

Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are another batch of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 18.July.1992 . . . been at the wheel goodly lately & this show tells obscurely this happy tale . . . a bump, a bruise, get up, get along . . .

07.21.2018 show

July 14, 2018 show features::
New Rock Album: The Last Revel, Hazard & Fate (2017) . . . This Americana trio from Minnesota has a tough, sweet, growling sound all its own . . . their playing is great & this powers their passion to produce an album sometimes dark, sometimes tender, sometimes even a bit funny . . .
Classic Rock Album: XTC, Drums and Wires (1979) . . . This show has featured many albums by this brilliant English rock band, but this one reaches farther back than previously, into their post-punk early days as a quartet . . . the sound is far less Beatlesque but there's a musical firepower that is the same . . . these boys obsess in & around & over & through every lyric, every chord . . . equally brilliant at the serious & the silly . . . great album . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 18.July.1992 . . . back to the mic after a couple of weeks off, weather's turned summer-high, now into its long maw . . .

07.14.2018 show

June 23, 2018 show features::
New Rock Album: The Bats, The Deep Set (2017) . . . Been 7 years since the last LP release by this legendary New Zealand indie rock band, but worth the wait . . . their sweet harmonies & fine jingle-jangle sounds remains intact & delightful . . . & their subtle, weird, playful sense of humor too . . . very nice new release . . .
Classic Rock Album: Fountains of Wayne, Utopia Parkway (1999) . . . This show returns for a second helping this year of this great New York City band, this time their second album . . . FOW are not a joke band, being too great the musicians for that, but some of their songs are very funny . . . & some of their songs are not . . . it takes some time to figure out their twisty vibe, but many the pleasures for doing so . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artist is Andy Partridge, one of the three main architects of the brilliant English band XTC, & songs from his Fuzzy Warbles collection of home recordings & demons, some great songs to be discovered in it . . . halfway through this strange, strange year, needing some better strange to balance some of what's come so far . . .

06.23.2018 show

June 16, 2018 show features::
New Rock Album: Old Crow Medicine Show, Volunteer (2018) . . . This is the ninth LP by this magickal bluegrass-country-rock-punk-roots-weird-wonderful Nashville band . . . some groups, though all come from somewhere, end up in their own musical lands . . . these Crows are like that, are as special as can be, & their newest record fresh testament to this . . .
Classic Rock Album: Paul Simon, Rhythm of the Saints (1990) . . . This was Simon's South American-influenced album, in its sound & feel, but the songs, the words, the way the brew mixes to its platter of wonderful results, is what he orchestrates with the sounds & the great players he works with . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artist is Mazzy Star, & their exciting 2018 EP, Still . . . Just hours from seeing the above-mentioned Mr. Simon at the Boston Garden, on his Farewell Tour . . . him & his gang of players didn't play like goodbyes, more like whatever eternal feeling in the heart good music can conjure . . .

06.16.2018 show

June 9, 2018 show features::
New Rock Album: Lord Huron, Vide Noir (2018) . . . Third LP by this great Los Angeles indie rock band, whose title means "Black Void" . . . a wandering through night city streets, come to the ocean, lift off & into the universe, in search of meaning to grasp & hold within . . . so frontman Ben Schneider tells it . . . I call it as well the soundtrack to Dreamland itself . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: R.E.M., Document (1987) . . . last featured on this show on 12/15/2007, an LP that shows these Georgia boys at the fullest height of their powers, rocking, strumming, beating back the Reagan nightmare with all fists . . . beautiful, angry, funny, brilliant, sweet, fine music. . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on the 2007 tribute Endless Highway: Music of the Band . . . love this moment thinking of these three wonderful hours to come soon, deep deep deep in Art . . .

06.09.2018 show

June 2, 2018 show features::
New Rock Album: Snow Patrol, Wildness (2018) . . . Been some years for Gary Lightbody & his crew in putting out a new record . . . Lightbody walked some rough days, giving up drink, finding new inspiration . . . & this beautiful LP tells that story, & many others . . . fierce & good as their older albums, rough with the years passing . . . love & loss braid through . . .
Classic Rock Album: Hem, Funnel Cloud (2006) . . . Brooklyn folk-rockish band & their album of short strange beautiful musical stories . . . soaring, subtle vocals, wonderful playing . . . I credit my beloved Kassandra & her friend DJ Blue for getting my ears to pay attention to Hem, & so glad of it . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on the 2007 tribute Endless Highway: Music of the Band . . . green green green & other colors everywhere! Spring surely is a happy raver girl at an all-night festival!

06.02.2018 show

May 19, 2018 show features::
New Rock Album: The Decemberists, I'll Be Your Girl (2018) . . . A very long-time favorite of this show, this Portland, Oregon indie folk-rock band returns with another carnivale of musical delights . . . their sounds merry & dark, twisted & novel . . . listening to them is like sinking into a sweet strange sea of musical myths . . .
Classic Rock Album: Van Morrison, Astral Weeks (1968) . . . There is a very good new book by Ryan H. Walsh about the Boston counterculture in 1968 which takes its title, & much of its inspiration, from this classic LP by the Irish bard . . . turns out that Van the Man was in Boston for much of the gestation of this great record . . . what's it like? Think perhaps of WB Yeats visiting Neil Young for a fruitful long afternoon & evening . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are one final batch of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 04.May.1991 . . . been some nice nice spring days of late, when the air is perfectly poised between cool & warm . . . nothing to do but smile & walk on . . .

05.19.2018 show

May 12, 2018 show features::
New Rock Album: Sloan, 12 (2018) . . . This Canadian power pop band sometimes phases into some very trippy spaces . . . they have a sort of Badfinger-feel to a lot of their music, which in my book is really good . . . their lyrics are strange, charming, sometimes very moving . . . a sweet dish of tunes. . .
Classic Rock Album: The Church, Seance (1983) . . . This third record by this legendary Australian psychedelic rock band is one of the few I have not played of theirs on this show . . . their early sound was unruly, a sort of visceral mysticism that hits & hits & hits again, high & low . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 04.May.1991 . . . down in my old stomping grounds south of here the last few days . . . scrubbing off the worst, tightening back up to the good work . . .

05.12.2018 show

May 5, 2018 show features::
New Rock Album: Current Swell, When to Talk and When to Listen (2017) . . . Found this Canadian indie rock band just by chance, by noticing an ad online a local show of theirs . . . their name sounded intriguing . . . their music even more so . . . rings guitars, pretty piano, sometimes gets a fire in its belly & revs up pretty wild . . . there's a charming sweetness to this music, strange starry autumn nights, magickally cool summer ones, the returning hope of spring yet again, a walk in the metallic cold brilliance of winter . . . fine & fine . . .
Classic Rock Album: Counting Crows, August and Everything After (1993) . . . This Berkeley, California rock band jumped out the gates hard with this debut album, & its wonderful first single, "Mr. Jones" . . . there is a synchony about the sound of this band, its music & vocals & lyrics, like one moody, restless, sometimes melancholy / hopeful voice braided up to one . . . always a lovely pleasure when a band arrives to its first LP fully cooked & on its way. . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 04.May.1991 . . . this show is back to its roots, again broadcasting live on Saturdays from 11am to 2pm . . . what a happy way to begin my favorite day of the week!

05.05.2018 show

April 14, 2018 show features::
New Rock Album: The Church, Man Woman Life Death Infinity (2017) . . . In 2013, this legendary Australian psychedelic rock band, one of my top 10 favorite rock bands ever, parted ways with its brilliant lead guitarist, Marty Willson-Piper, for reasons never really explained publicly . . . new lead guitarist is Ian Haug . . . I did not like the first album by this reconfigured band, & was bitterly sad for Willson-Piper leaving . . . but their new album is good, feels like something worked hard to a really good result . . . I didn't have to try to like it . . . it's just a really fine record . . .
Classic Rock Album: Herman's Hermits, Blaze (1967) . . . Part of the British Invasion, but not taken as seriously as The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, more simply great pop hit-makers, the Hermits nonetheless kept evolving their own sound until they arrived to this album . . . ten songs, under 30 minutes in all, fully of lyrsergic bubblegum wonderfulness . . . though not many noticed this album at the time, it's great, lovely, try it!
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are Herman's Hermits again, singles they recorded in 1968 & 1969, their music sweet delights to hear . . . haven't done a Sunday show in years & years, but here is one, & then a break till May, & then back in the morning time!

04.14.2018 show

April 7, 2018 show features::
New Rock Album: Buffalo Tom, Quiet and Peace (2018) . . . New album by this legendary Boston band, brooding but sometimes light in touch, epic in sweep, but intimate in detail . . . a melancholy but not unhappy album . . . lotta beauty in its seeming contradictions . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: Nick Drake, Pink Moon (1972) . . . Previously featured on the 12/8/2007 episode of this show . . . Third & final album by Drake prior to his suicide a couple of years later . . . him, guitar, a bit of piano . . . dark strange lyrics, yet the sound of a man powerfully dancing with his demons, seeing what he needs to see, questioning, deciding, perhaps questioning some more . . . a strange & lovely work . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are Buffalo Tom again, some bonus tracks from their new album, & a couple of other nice songs . . . winter & spring in their close embrace right now, not yet parting their annual argument . . .

04.07.2018 show

March 31, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer, Little Blue Egg (2012) . . . One more record from this brilliant duo, this one being a collection of songs Dave Carter had recorded between 1997 & 2002, but never released . . . Tracy Grammer discovered the tapes of these songs & finished them . . . they are wonderful & fine, & give one more series of experiences of their shared musical beauty . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Monkees, The Monkees (1966) . . . Debut record by a make believe band that became a real band . . . these psych-candy-gems just the beginning of their evolution into something great & wonderful . . . the boys only sang on these, but their songwriters were good from the beginning, shiny treasures from the first note . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are & this week's featured artists are The Monkees also, some tunes they recorded early on but that never made it onto their albums . . . & suddenly, spring!

03.31.2018 show

March 17, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: Crooked Still, Still Crooked (2008) . . . Another visit this late winter with this brilliant Americana group, songs for the chill below, for the feet to tap, for the mind to widen in smile . . . such fine music . . .
Classic Rock Album: Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer, Seven is the Number (2006) . . . Fourth record by this indie folk-rock duo, this one released four years after Carter's untimely passing in 2002 . . . they'd re-recorded the songs on Carter's early solo album back 2001-2002, & to this group Grammer added a couple of additional songs they'd recorded . . . if you like your sweet music sometimes dark, sometimes joyful, always moving to something deep inside you, listen along. . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are a last helping of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 03.March.1990 . . . well, the weather got a little less crazy this week, just a more usual winter's time . . . the recent blackouts in this area made this so much easier to appreciate . . . what's shoveling some snow versus a totally darkened street at dusk?

03.17.2018 show

March 10, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: Fountains of Wayne, Sky Full of Holes (2011) . . . Another band I missed out on in their prime, but catching up fast . . . from New York City, great rock & roll, sometimes dear, sometimes funny, tender, insightful . . . this possibly their last album & a beautiful apotheosis . . .
Classic Rock Album: Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer, Drum Hat Buddha (2001) . . . Third record by this indie folk-rock duo, last released before Dave Carter passed way too soon . . . their playing, their lyrical brilliance, their sweet dark shared world set to music &, happily, shared with others . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 03.March.1990 . . . got hit by a nor'easter in Olde New England this weekend, lucky to have power to broadcast this show live tonight!

03.10.2018 show

March 3, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: Olden Yolk, Olden Yolk (2018) . . . Shane Butler of the wonderful psych-rock outfit Quilt, featured several times on this show, teamed up with Caity Shaffer & a few mates to produce this strange, dreamy, weirdly moving new LP . . . it has the compelling feeling that all great Art has or tends toward . . . a delightful work . . .
Classic Rock Album: Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer, Tanglewood Tree (2000) . . . Second record by this indie folk-rock duo . . . their playing is hypnotic as they tell their sometimes-funny-sometimes-crazy tales of fools, their loves & lusts, & others along the way . . . unbelievably good . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 03.March.1990 . . . got hit by a nor'easter in Olde New England this weekend, lucky to have power to broadcast this show live tonight!

03.03.2018 show

February 24, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: Calexico, The Thread That Keeps Us (2018) . . . Classic Tex-Mex indie rock band took a trip to California, came back with some rocking tunes, some pleas for sanity, healing, love, some great music to add to the many albums of great music they have produced already . . .
Classic Rock Album: Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer, When I Go (1998) . . . This indie folk-rock duo was only together for about five years before Carter's way-too-soon death . . . they made a whole lot of great music, sweet voices, ringing guitars, lyrics to puzzle & move you . . . this was their first LP together & already they are wonderful . . . Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artist is Cage the Elephant, & more nice-nice tracks from their 2017 live album, Unpeeled . . . this show also features a new Sound Collage I made in the weaker hours the night before this live broadcast . . . what fun to be alive & trying to make something good!

02.24.2018 show

February 10, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: The Wood Brothers, One Drop of Truth (2018) . . . Been several years since this Nashville alt-folk rock's last release, & the new one is a winner . . . good players, singers, they write songs that are both mellow & intense, that feel to range deep down whatever their mild-seeming landscapes . . . & the further along into this LP you travel, the headier the brews you try . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1 (1988) . . . Hugh Jampton writes: "The original Wilburys were a stationary people who, realizing that their civilization could not stand still forever, began to go for short walks—not the "traveling," as we now know it, but certainly as far as the corner and back. They must have taken to motion, in much the same way as penguins were at that time taking to ledges, for the next we hear of them they were going out for the day (often taking lunch or a picnic). Later, we don't as yet know how much later, some intrepid Wilburys began to go away for the weekend, leaving late Friday and coming back Sunday. It was they who evolved simple rhythmic forms to describe their adventures" . . . This is their first, amazingly wonderful, LP record . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artist is Cage the Elephant, & some nice-nice tracks from their 2017 live album, Unpeeled . . . deep in the winter to burrow deeper into the warm, shadowy places rather than to freeze with what's exposed . . .

02.10.2018 show

February 3, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: Django Django, Born Under Saturn (2015) . . . Second LP by this English rock band, one I had lost track of for a few years until recently . . . they remind me of the psych rock band Temples in the best of ways, trippy candy fun . . . both bands bite deep, though, somehow, more than just lysergic ear pretties . . .
Classic Rock Album: Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Daylight Again (1982) . . . I was a freshman in college when this record came out, & used to play the hit single from it, "Wasted on the Way," over & over on the local pizza joint jukebox, after college classes over for the day . . . it was a difficult album to make for CSN, as David Crosby was half-gone in his addictions . . . yet they persevere to make a really beautiful record anyway . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artist is Gary Wright, & some psych gems of his from the 1970s . . . half awake right now, dreaming of my pen moving wet across paper for hours on end tomorrow . . . hours & hours, then this show to celebrate upon arrival back home . . .

02.03.2018 show

January 27, 2018 19th anniversary show features:
Featured Album: Shpongle, Are You Shpongled? (1998) . . . I was lucky to hear this album in the lingering years of its brand newness . . . its gorgeous, fierce, dangerous psychedelic vision . . . its plain statement that music can be, is, a beautiful power to move souls deeply, permanently . . . there is little else needs be said by way of introduction save that if you are new to the psychedelic lands, or nearing them, & wish to get a sense of their wide, weird glories, take this record for a spin, with friends, in silent darkness, with a trip tool, or even without . . . revel, dance, be changed . . . [note from 2/3/2018: I didn't realize till happened to check later that this album also featured on 3/24/2002 broadcast of this show]
Storybook Time: Chapter 15 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & arrive to 19 years of doing this radio show . . . happy both with many words & without word one about this . . . each one like an arrival after a long week of traveling up hills & into shadows . . . it is each time familiar, it is each time new . . . thank you to all who listen . . . you are loved beyond knowing . . .

01.27.2018 show

January 20, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: The Shins, The Worm's Heart (2018) . . . A "flipped" version of last year's LP, Heartworms . . . this meaning Shin mastermind James Mercer took the songs on that album, sped up the slow ones, slowed down the fast ones, played around with them . . . the result being what he calls an "alternate version, opposite version" . . . strange conceptual trickery aside, it's a really good album, warm & weird & sweetly odd in a Shins-y way . . . stands well as a companion, or on its own solidly . . .
Classic Rock Album: Crooked Still, Shaken By a Low Sound (2006) . . . This progressive Americana bluegrass band began in Boston, when its original members met at the New England Conservator of Music . . . this, their second LP, rivals the best contemporary Americana bands, such as Old Crow Medicine Show, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Alison Krauss & Union Station, & the few others that are as good . . . amazing, inspired, beautiful playing & singing. . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 14 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on the first "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 21.January.1989 . . . winter passing rough & pretty, moody Beast, deep heart's fine shadowy truths . . .

01.20.2018 show

January 13, 2018 show features:
New Rock Album: Bob Seger, I Knew You When (2017) . . . The old time rock-&-roller returns pretty quickly with a new album . . . rocks, rolls, some deep darkness, a little light . . . some cool cover tunes like Lou Reed's "Busload of Faith" & Leonard Cohen's "Democracy" . . . some say, or used to say, that rock & roll is a young person's game, but some, like Seger, prove this foolishness . . .
Classic Rock Album: R.E.M., Reckoning (1984) . . . Second LP from one of the greatest rock bands ever, & they just didn't stop writing great songs for a second in those heady early days . . . while the country was going to hell, again, & most pop music was fake saxophone synthesizer crap, these boys were blowing out their speakers with psychedelic sugar nuggets . . . wow! so good . . . listen over & over . . . it gets better . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 14 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on the first "Casey's Top 40 with Casey Kasem," back on 21.January.1989 . . . into a new year with what's passing & what's possible, & what new mysteries await . . .

01.13.2018 show

2017

December 9, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Neil Young + Promise of the Real, The Visitor (2017) . . . NY & his recent band put out a great end-of-the-year LP . . . NY has all sorts of things on his mind, rocking hard & soft . . . mostly that Trump is a dangerous monstrous asshole from the hell of men's worst fears . . . and that the environment is in grave peril . . . but the music is inspired & fun & the record is a winner . . .
Classic Rock Album: R.E.M., Murmur (1983) . . . Debut LP from one of the greatest rock bands ever, & they arrive fully formed . . . they slur, they jangle, they bip & bop & rock & roll all over you . . . sounded new & wonderfully strange then, & still does all these moons later . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 14 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine. . . this week's 15th annual holiday broadcast concludes this year's run of shows . . . thank you for listening, enjoy your Season of Lights, blessed be now & always to you :) Carry on, or be carried off!

12.09.2017 show

December 2, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: U2, Songs of Experience (2017) . . . Imagine you've been one of the biggest & best rock bands on the planet for decades, & it's time to group up & make new music . . . you want to say everything, like you always have, honest & passionate & funky & true . . . it's a struggle at times, at others it's gorgeously familiar . . . you take more time than you plan to, but the songs begin to come together, an album begins to emerge that is your artful truth, here & now, like you've always done it . . . that's about what it took this legendary Irish rock band to pull together this new LP . . . took me a few listens to be sure, but I am now . . . it's a really good album . . .
Classic Rock Album: Idlewild, 100 Broken Windows (2000) . . . This Scottish rock band is strange at times, cryptic lyrics, weird musical moves . . . but there's something really good here to be found & enjoyed . . . this an early record by this band, could be more featured on this show in times to come . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 14 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are some of those on the Coco original soundtrack, Pixar's newest film classic . . . Saturday & Pixar & the juice & the late season & my pen moving gives me hope, the kind that sinks deep & stays awhile . . . here's to you having some too . . .

12.02.2017 show

November 25, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Blitzen Trapper, Wild and Reckless (2017) . . . This LP derives from a musical these Portland rockers created & produced in 2017, what Paste magazine described as a "rock opera about love, science fiction and the golden era of Portland" . . . knowing that, it's possible for the listener to tease out a story, but I don't think it matters so much, as it's a great group of trippy country-rock songs, & a dandy record emerges from all these details . . .
Classic Rock Album: Suzanne Vega, 99.9℉ (1992) . . . A great record by this New York folk-rocker . . . a full on band sound, eclectic, dark, light, fun . . . I've always thought Vega to be the one legitimate heir in lyricism & tone to Paul Simon . . . same deep, cool, feeling-full-ness . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 14 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artist is Stevie Nicks & some classic songs from her solo work . . . thankfulness begins with what is closest to my heart, lover, pen, home, & swirls out to include each & everyone one of you . . . thankee, thankee, thankee . . .

11.25.2017 show

November 18, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: The Saw Doctors, The Further Adventures of . . . (2010) . . . I stumbled into this Irish band because of their association with The Waterboys, one of my favorite Irish folk-rock bands . . . their music rings & cries, soulful & sweet & wonderful . . . a delightful find . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: Harry Chapin, Sniper & Other Love Songs (1972) . . . Tis November & my thoughts turn to long ago days, long long ago, when scratchy Harry Chapin albums played on my portable phonograph . . . & his words & music gave me comfort like little else in my sad youth . . . he understood pain, loneliness, yet still sang funny songs as well . . . this LP is one of my favorite of his bunch . . . happy to share again, first time since 4/10/2005 show . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 14 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are some of those who performed fine live tributes to Mr. Tom Petty, after his death in early October . . . some weeks are just trod on through, step after step, & then arrival to a fresh one . . .

11.18.2017 show

November 11, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Luciferian Towers (2017) . . . This Canadian experimental group has created all sorts of sound & noise & music over the years . . . this is the second full LP of theirs featured on this show. . . . their music is aggressive, dreamy, weird, beautiful . . . rock & rollers in strange get-ups, but true nonetheless. . .
Classic Rock Album: Count Five, Psychotic Reaction (1966) . . . Sole album by this California psychedelic outfit, with the outsized title track . . . listen a little deeper & find a full album of pop-lysergic treats . . . worth the trip . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 14 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on the great 2012 album, Tribute To Fleetwood Mac - Just Tell Me That You Want Me . . . getting cold here in Olde New England . . . sharpens the mind, helps cleans out the deep soul-muck . . .

11.11.2017 show

November 4, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Beck, Colors (2017) . . . The master chameleon returns with his first album in 3 years, & it's a dandy, bouncy & vibrant . . . does not escape darkness or yearn at points, but it's a heavy dose of fun all the way . . . not been so much so in awhile . . . inspired delight . . .
Classic Rock Album: U2, War (1983) . . . Third album by this Irish rock band really hits it out of the park, end to end . . . angry songs, songs of desire, rocking madly good . . . musically transcendent . . . the hits were "Sunday Bloody Sunday" & "New Year's Day" . . . but it has the feel of a full-on suite . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 14 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are a final batch of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on August 6, 1988 . . . back to the wheel after a couple of weeks off, ready to roll & roll & roll . . .

11.04.2017 show

October 14, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Lindsey Buckingham & Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie (2017) . . . This is the closest we have gotten to a full-on Mac album in years . . . with Mick Fleetwood & John McVie holding down the rhythm section as great as they usually do, Buckingham & McVie veer nearer & further away from the Mac sound, perhaps ranging a little more freely because it is not officially a Mac album . . . whatever, I say, it's a really good record & it really seems like they had a good time making it . . . & we can hope that Stevie Nicks will soon find in her elusive witchy ways the path back to the studio with her old mates . . .
Classic Rock Album: Neil Young, Hitchhiker (1976) . . . Though it has gone unreleased for decades, this LP is finally seeing the light of day . . . recorded in California on August 11, 1976, Young runs through a slew of songs like "Powderfinger" & "Pocahontas" that he would take from these rough acoustic sketches to full-on psychedelic roars . . . but not that night, not yet . . . pretty much him & his guitar, & his producer David Briggs, & a lot of drugs . . . it's a great listen . . ..
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 13 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on August 6, 1988 . . . rolling from this show into a short break, but every minute of it is fun, & I always look forward eagerly to resume . . .

10.14.2017 show

October 7, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Deer Tick, Deer Tick, Vol. 2 (2017) . . . This is the rocking platter of the two this band just released . . . rocking & at times funny, & at other times sweet . . . 32 minutes of fun, fun, fun . . .
Classic Rock Album: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Greatest Hits (1993) . . . Tom Petty died earlier this week, at the age of 66 . . . he was a great musician, fronted a great rock band, & made a lot of great records . . . I was lucky enough to see him & his band three times over the years, & they were always great in concert . . . he remains a hero for me . . . I chose this album as a primer for listeners new to his band's music, but also as a reminder to everyone else of how GREAT The Heartbreakers were . . . peace, Mr. Petty . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 13 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on August 6, 1988 . . . finally autumn come again, the colored leaves, the sweetish melancholy, the slow ride into the winter white . . .

10.07.2017 show

September 23, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Deer Tick, Deer Tick, Vol. 1 (2017) . . . Been six years since this show has featured this Providence indie rock band, but now they are back with two new LPs . . . the first volume is the acoustic set, & it is pretty, strange, intense, funny, under forty minutes in all, but an epic good session of new music . . . second volume next show . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: Fleetwood Mac, Rumours (1977) . . . Been ten years since this album was featured on this show, & time for a re-visit . . . here are the beautiful sounds of a band imploding over love, fame, friendship, but churning their anger, want, & griefs into great, great music . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 13 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artist is Sheryl Crow & a nice batch of her classic songs . . . getting used to earlier schedule, to trying to ride the road better . . . it's a challenge but a good show every time is the goal . . .

09.23.2017 show

September 16, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Michael Chapman, 50 (2017) . . . Chapman is a British folk musician who commemorates his fifty years as a performing artist with this Americana sounding album, produced by the great Steve Gunn, & recorded & mixed at the venerable Black Dirt Studio . . . it's a beautiful album, great playing, gritty at times, rocking at others . . . I found this LP because of my love for so many Black Dirt Studio-associated artists like Gunn (Nathan Bowles plays on this one too), & lucked into discovering an artist who could not have made this deeply grooved an album if he hadn't fifty years of music-making behind him . . . hope many more too . . .
Classic Rock Album: Tim Buckley, Blue Afternoon (1969) . . .Singer-songwriter Buckley's fourth LP is a kind of beguiling folk-jazz synthesis . . . moody, as its title hints, & often breathlessly beautiful . . . each song a continuance of the last one, but a shift as well . . . a young master at his good work . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 13 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artist is Lord Huron, & cuts from their great early EPs Into the Sun (2010), Mighty (2010), & Time to Run (2012). . . will be now starting this show at 8 pm New England time, diving in a little earlier in the evening, see what new & old magicks come on . . .

09.16.2017 show

September 9, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Black Pistol Fire, Don't Wake the Riot (2016) . . . This Canadian duo sounds like a much bigger band with its big rocking sound . . . rooted in the classics, like Led Zep, but then burning through with Southern furor & glee . . . fun & fun & more . . .
Classic Rock Album: Badly Drawn Boy, The Hour of the Bewilderbeast (2000) . . . Weirdly charming indie rock project of Damon gough, debut LP has all sorts of obsessive, sweet, strange musical treats in it . . . some records seem to create the lovely odd worlds they then abide in . . . this is one . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 13 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artist is Saintseneca & their delightful 2016 EP, Mallwalker. . . Glad to be back after a week off, gonna try & do a good one . . .

09.09.2017 show

August 26, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: The Accidentals, Odyssey (2017) . . . This Michigan indie folk band is pretty young & their music is a wild mix of bluegrass, rock, classical, & jazz . . . their lyrics can go quite deep & poetical too . . . found their music one late night, half in a dream, & hooked into it since . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Glitterhouse, Color Blind (1968) . . . This New York City pop-psych band issued one LP, & it's a dandy . . . has a kind of proto-soul-psychedelic sound that would turn up around the same time with the Temptations and Sly & the Family Stone, among others . . . it's a fun LP, dug up from the shadowy depths for this show . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 13 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artist is Coldplay & music from their 2015 LP, A Head Full of Dreams, & 2017 Kaleidoscope EP . . . My thoughts all with my beloved & her employment crisis, one door closing, another opening, but right now just closeness & love . . .

08.26.2017 show

August 19, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Arcade Fire, Everything Now (2017) . . . Been awhile for this Canadian indie rock band, but here they are again & able, as few current indie bands are, to tap into a kind of funky '80s sound, mess it around for their own likes & quirks, & come up with an LP fresh & fun & deep as it wants to be . . .
Classic Rock Album: Steve Winwood, Back in the High Life (1986) . . . Traffic's main man went solo in the 1970s, but it was not until this mid-1980s album that he really merged his sound, his vision, & his musical genius into an LP that matches that albums he'd put out with that old band years & years before . . . this one hit it . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 13 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are one more batch of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on August 8, 1987. . . I think about my pen & its possibilities all the time . . . this show is a part of that thinking, a piece in what I intend, important & good & part of the bigger picture in my mind . . .

08.19.2017 show

August 12, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: David Rawlings, Poor David's Almanack (2017) . . . Wow! Suddenly Rawlings & his partner Gillian Welch release a new LP, seeming out of the blue . . . & it's a wonderful new platter of their quirky, charming & fine version of Americana, the sounds & the stories only they could tell . . . sweetness & deeply fine musical grit. . .
Classic Rock Album: Paul McCartney & Wings, Band on the Run (1973) . . . McCartney the ex-Beatle was struggling to get his mojo back when he & his Wings mates when to Nigeria to make their new record . . . what emerged was a fantastic new LP with enough Beatles-y magic lingering about it to make the convincing case that he, & his great music, was back . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 13 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Many Musics, Bags End News, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on August 8, 1987 . . . I want my pen to not cease for hardly a moment ever hereon, & projects like this radio show to emerge from this constant black pen shining out . . .

08.12.2017 show

August 5, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Roger Waters, Is This the Life We Really Want? (2017) . . . This show has not previously featured any of this former Pink Floyd frontman's solo releases, but this record harkens wonderfully back to the Floyd's heyday in the 1970s, while also looking bluntly around at the state of affairs right now . . . great record. . .
Classic Rock Album: Ween, The Mollusk (1997) . . . It was DJ RawSushi's recent all-Ween episode of his SPRadio show Heart of the Sunrise that finally got me to dig deep into the many LPs of this cool Pennsylvania rock band . . . this was their sixth LP, & its trippy nautical-themed voyage struck home . . . one song does not anticipate the next & yet there is a sweet, weird continuity to the record . . . fine, fine music . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 13 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on August 8, 1987 . . . been away for a month on break, super happy to be back & rolling along anew . . .

08.05.2017 show

July 08, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Jagwar Ma, Every Now & Then (2016) . . . Second LP by this psychedelic dance band . . . one review says it expands on everything their first album did well, & that's a good take on it . . . they dive into a groove & ride it hard & happy for a long stretch, & then the next song like that, & the next one after that . . . they are a still young & very talented band that will very likely only keep getting better over time . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) . . . Played this album last time 10/22/2005, & another happy round with it because it's been given a 50th anniversary edition that features a new stereo remix by Giles Martin, son of original producer George . . . on headphones, it sounds really really nice . . . & so it's time for this show to honor again this brilliant, crazy, miracle of an album . . . fun, dark, wise, foolish . . . thank you, John, Paul, George, & Ringo . . . & George, & Giles!
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 12 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine. . . & this week's featured artist is Tears for Fears & music from their great '80s work . . . a beautiful rainy evening is coming . . . I'd love to turn you on . . .

07.08.2017 show

July 01, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, The Nashville Sound (2017) . . . Like his old band, Drive-By Truckers, Isbell writes full-out Americana songs of love, beauty, pain, doubt . . . his current band backs him up well, every soft or raucous note . . . the lowly petulant rat in the White House could learn a lot from the kind of masculine strength on display here . . . willingness to express sorrow, to forgive, to find miracles in the smallest gesture or being . . .
Classic Rock Album: Bruce Springsteen, Tunnel of Love (1987) . . . The Boss had just hit the peak of fame in '84 and '85 with his Born in the USA LP, & then even went on to marry himself a pretty blonde actress . . . happiness? Maybe, for a bit . . . but this record chronicles rawly & beautifully the aftermath of that happiness, the crumbling into doubt, deceit, & a kind of melancholy acceptance . . . a bold, honest, deeply moving set of songs, fiercely vulnerable, wonderfully redemptive . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 12 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine. . . & this week featured artist is Simple Minds & music from their great 1985 album, Once Upon a Time (plus an extra from the same time period) . . . heating & heating up as summer moves fully in, & Art on my mind always & always . . .

07.01.2017 show

June 24, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Skeleton Tree (2016) . . . Toward this end of the recording of this album, Nick Cave's teenage son Arthur died in an accident . . . Cave & his main collaborator Warren Ellis did some additional work on the album to deal with the emotional devastation of this tragedy . . . It is very difficult to separate this horrible event from the music that emerges . . . yet Cave's grief is his own, & it would be unfair to judge his album solely by his family's tragedy . . . this all said, this is a beautiful album, a deeply strange & moving album . . . a thing of nocturnal beauty . . . wow . . .
Classic Rock Album: Bob Seger, Seven (1974) . . . Bob Seger was not yet a star when this album was released, but he was on his way . . . he had recently assembled his Silver Bullet Band, & he was writing moving, funny, endearing, rocking music . . . his dues paid as he worked out who he was, & how he wanted his music to sound . . . this LP shows him & his band billowing out full sail, under way . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 12 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine. . . & this week featured artists are one last batch of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on June 7, 1986 . . . this is show #600 of this program, coming 18 1/2 years into its run . . . as a remembering treat, it includes a sound collage from back in 2000, the beginning of including the shinier bits & pieces of old shows . . . but most this show is for this weekend, for now, as always . . . it's a strange number, magic in a way . . . so praise, thankee, praise more, thankee more, keep the wheels rolling, the pen moving, the music ever on . . .

06.24.2017 show

June 17, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Pull the Sky Away (2013) . . . Like Leonard Cohen, this show had not gotten around to featuring the music of Nick Cave . . . &, like Cohen, time to rectify that . . . Cave's music is dark, moody, brooding . . . it's beautiful & weird, sounds powerfully ancient . . . "If you got everything and you don't want no more/ You've got to just keep on pushing, keep on pushing/ Push the sky away . . . "
Classic Rock Album Redux: Grateful Dead, American Beauty (1970) . . . Featured previously on this show on both 8/12/2001 & 6/16/2007, time to dig into this classic again . . . a psychedelic rock album with acoustic guitars, with an Americana feel to its sound, lyrics that tug & elude, again & again . . . especial proof, though there are others, that the Dead could make the recording studio their beautiful instrument as much as the live stage . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 12 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine. . . & this week featured artists are more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on June 7, 1986 . . . my pen calls me to do more, do deeper, make art now, Make Art Now, MAKE ART NOW . . .

06.17.2017 show

June 10, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Slowdive, Slowdive (2017) . . . Slowdive was a British dreampop band around in the early 1990s, made a splash for awhile, disbanded in 1995 . . . then in 2014 they reunited, toured, & eventually released this new album of music . . . they are a band best enjoyed at night, somewhere relaxed, maybe soft . . . then their hypnotic tunes best work their magicks . . . their old albums are pretty good, but the new one is just a happy strange joy of a thing . . .
Classic Rock Album: Nirvana, MTV Unplugged in New York (1994) . . . Seattle band Nirvana played this popular, & quite good, MTV show in November 1993 . . . their leader, Kurt Cobain, killed himself in April 1994 . . . the album of this show was released in November 1994 . . . so the show existed as a great thing on MTV for a few months, & then as a sad testament as a record thereafter . . . Nirvana was becoming something more than its grunge roots, something even more powerful & beautiful . . . had Cobain beat his demons, who knows how good . . . as it stands, this record, of a show occurring after their three albums, gives us this band at its apex creatively, before the fall . . . its unbelievably good . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 12 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News, Many Musics, & Labyrinthine. . . & this week featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on June 7, 1986 . . . long summer is creeping into New England, even as the green everywhere here has enjoyed a sunny rainy spring so fine . . . time to dig in against the heat . . .

06.10.2017 show

June 3, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Leonard Cohen, Old Ideas (2012) . . . Can't seem to get away from the late Leonard Cohen's late work . . . it's raw & funny & weird . . . it's beautiful & tender & powerful . . . there's a potent force to his songs that pulls one's ears along, a powerful water-like current, the temptation to jump in, ride along . . . no reason not to . . . let's go!
Classic Rock Album: Patty Griffin, Living with Ghosts (1996) . . . It was my beloved KD who has brought me into Griffin's sphere of music over the years, & I think at last I've paid the right amount of attention to her debut album . . . mostly just her big, beautiful voice, acoustic guitar, & passionate, deeply, feelingly, smart words, autumnal lyrics of the heart . . . finally arrived to her high hills of thought & feeling . . . what a view!
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 12 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News. . . & this week featured artist is Don Henley, & a few golden nuggets from his 1980s work . . . several weeks off, so SO back in action now, & ready to roll straight through many weekends of late spring & summer . . . here goes!

06.03.2017 show

May 6, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Leonard Cohen, Popular Problems (2014) . . . It was Cohen's brilliant final album, 2016's You Want It Darker, that found me my way into his weird & wonderful music . . . this, his penultimate LP, is just as good . . . his lyrics are vividly twisted, his music deeply evocative . . . it's a fine, deep, murky well . . .
Classic Rock Album: Joe Henry, Short Man's Room (1992) . . . Originally from North Carolina, although he moved to Brooklyn to pursue music, it was this, his fourth record, that caught my attention because members of The Jayhawks play with him . . . the music is proto-Americana, with acoustic & bluegrass flourishes . . . lots of classic Jayhawksy harmonies sugar it nicely up as well . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 12 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week featured artists are one last batch of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on April 6, 1985 . . . long grey raining weekend, one good for walking & work & loving the green everywhere . . .

05.06.2017 show

April 29, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Old Crow Medicine Show, 50 Years of Blonde On Blonde (2017) . . . These crazy punky Americana boys shift gears to give their tribute to a hero of theirs, culled into this album from a couple of live shows . . . moments when seems like Dylan is young & unbridled again, moments when the Crows reinvent him for their own purposes . . . great, fascinating stuff . . .
Classic Rock Album: Peter Gabriel, So (1986) . . . It was just for a short time really that the brooding, strange art-rock of Peter Gabriel & pop radio criss-crossed . . . kind of like he showed us all he could write a hard-driving, finger-snapping pop song, when he wished . . . on this album, he wished, wonderful the results, & back elsewhere he skittered . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 12 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week featured artists are more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on April 6, 1985 . . . budding every tree and bush and leaf, budding wild & quiet & free, and look and look and look, what do you see?

04.29.2017 show

April 22, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Spoon, Hot Thoughts (2017) . . . Spoon is great, no matter their music scorching soul, loud rock, or dipped elegantly in electronica . . . their new album is no exception . . . exciting music, gets the blood jumping . . .
Classic Rock Album: Eric Clapton, 461 Ocean Boulevard (1974) . . . Clapton was gone from the world for three years, deep in the junk . . . kicked the junk, gathered a great group of musicians, & poured himself back into his music . . . the resulting LP is a great work, & wonderful to have his genius back to the wheel . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 11 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on April 6, 1985 . . . wow, another birthday due soon, & doing this show is like an ongoing present to have . . .

04.22.2017 show

April 15, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: The Feelies, In Between (2017) . . . Obscure guitar gods from New Jersey, & their second LP since reuniting in 2008 . . . there's a quietness to this album that is new to these boys, but a pretty lure in it . . . & they do raise up the dust on a few of the tracks, especially the raucous 9+ minutes closer . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: The Rolling Stones, Let It Bleed (1969) . . . Played this great album on the 3/27/2004 broadcast of this show, hear it again, dirty & sexy & rootsy & evil & beautiful as ever . . . telling the story of 1969 & thereabouts in just under 43 minutes . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 11 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week featured artist is The Troggs, one last visit with these boys, this time in 1992 as they teamed up with 3/4 of R.E.M. to create a kind of garage-jingle-jangle update on their classic sounds . . . warmer weather, harder work, higher hopes, nice motto to carry around . . .

04.15.2017 show

April 8, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: The Jesus and Mary Chain, Damage and Joy (2017) . . . This noisy melodic Scottish rock band was big in the 1980s and 1990s before breaking up in 1999 . . . revived by the core Reid Brothers in 2007, they've released their first album in 19 years, & it is a dandy . . . noisy melodic as ever, but the new twist are duets with various female vocalists that add a ragged charm to the LP . . . glad the brothers have joined up again & are rocking new . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Wipers, Silver Sail (1993) . . . Venerable Portland, Oregon punk band that my friend Hartlee introduced me to recently . . . the album I chose of theirs is more of an alt-country / Americana-sounding record, but I just dig its Neil Young / R.E.M. feel . . . really good music . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 11 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News, Labyrinthine, & Many Musics . . . & this week featured artist is The Troggs, another heaping helping from their noisy garage o'tunes . . . thinking also of Hartlee for our night 20 years ago, my first time walking through Miss Lucy's doorway, never to return . . .

04.08.2017 show

April 1, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: The Shins, Heartworms (2017) . . . James Mercer is The Shins now, & works with who he likes . . . so it's mostly on him to orchestrate how good the band's albums will be . . . this time around, he & his current mates have put together a really good LP . . . full of sweet, strange, dark, funny Shins-y goodness . . . nice to have such a good new record from them . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Guess Who, Share the Land (1970) . . . This Canadian band lost their co-frontman & lead guitarist Randy Bachman just before making this album, but they recruited two new players & pull of a pretty good LP despite all . . . beyond the title hit & "Hand Me Down World," there are a lot of treats to be found on this record . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 10 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News, Labyrinthine, & Many Musics . . . & this week featured artist is The Troggs, more treasures from their troves . . . snowing today, melting quickly, spring is coming inevitably, & welcomed as always . . .

04.01.2017 show

March 25, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Tourist (2017) . . .Been six years since this Philly indie rock band was featured on this show . . . their first three albums were great, but the last one sub-par . . . their new one is back to business fine . . . their music is a kind of angular, nervous, poppy-ish sort of sound . . . lyrics are strangely delightful . . . good to be spinning them again . . .
Classic Rock Album: Randy Newman, Sail Away (1972) . . . While some know this Los Angeles singer-songwriter more for his film soundtrack work, he has many good studio records to his name . . . this was his third LP, & it is a melange of wit, brood, & wish . . . the music is mellow, but intense . . . listened to it on headphones last night after midnight . . . & kept putting it back on . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 10 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News, Labyrinthine, & Many Musics . . . & this week featured artist is The Troggs, continuing our voyage through their garage of treasures . . . tis springtime come, a time of hope & renewal, & these ideas are very human ones but, still, they count, they matter, we can do good with them . . .

03.25.2017 show

March 18, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Grandaddy, Last Place (2017) . . . It's been over a decade since this American indie-rock band last released an album, but it was incredibly worth the wait . . . beautiful acoustic, rocking, orchestral music full of sadness & weird computer noises . . . a wonderful return, easily one of the new year's best albums . . .
Classic Rock Album: Thunderclap Newman, Hollywood Dream (1969) . . . Thunderclap Newman was a British one-hit wonder band that Pete Townshend of the Who and Kit Lambert formed around New Year 1969 in a bid to showcase the talents of John "Speedy" Keen, Andy "Thunderclap" Newman and Jimmy McCulloch (Wikipedia) . . . though they were together hardly long enough to release one LP, what a release it is . . . "Something in the Air" was its big one-hit, but there are 11 other great tracks that rock out, some at delicious length . . . worth recovering, remembering, hearing again . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 10 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News, Labyrinthine, & Many Musics . . . & this week featured artist is The Troggs, again, another helping of their trippy treats from the garage . . . now, I suppose, though snow covers the ground, spring is making its way to New England at last, soon . . .

03.18.2017 show

March 11, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Temples, Volcano (2017) . . . Been waiting three long years for this English psychedelic band's second release . . . it's a winner . . . they build on the delicious trippy music of their first record, add in more organ, deeper layers of sound, move along in their sweet lysergic sounds . . .
Classic Rock Album: Snow Patrol, When It's All Over We Still Have to Clear Up (2001) . . . This show has featured the last four LPs from this Northern Irish/Scottish band's six total records, all of them great . . . this time dig a little deeper to their second album, & it's terrific too . . . their sound is still sweet, but its rocking moments are rawer, sounds of a still-young band processing through its heroes to find its own music . . . this album shows this happening . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 10 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News, Labyrinthine, & Many Musics . . . & this week featured artist is The Troggs, a great '60s garage band with a couple of big hits & a lot of lesser known treats to discover . . . it was warm in New England for a stretch, way too spring for Feb/March, but now the snow is coming back en masse . . . want green green grass in summer? Gotta have lots of snow now . . . what a cycle . . .

03.11.2017 show

February 25, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Flaming Lips, Oczy Mlody (2017) . . . More than many groups that have been around for decades, the Flaming Lips are one you have to keep up with . . . they make great music, they don't look back too much, & then they make more great music . . . this is a happy weird dark album from one of the coolest bands around, great music . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: The Church, Starfish (1988) . . . This album was the one I discovered this Australian psychedelic band by, & it remains one of my favorites . . . First played on the 4/8/2006 broadcast, here it is again . . . the lyrics densely swirl, the ringing guitars like tabs of aural Hofmann . . . the whole thing a dream &, once heard, the wish to hear it again & again . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 10 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News & Labyrinthine . . . & this week featured artists are one final selected bunch of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on February 11, 1984 . . . my true love is in NYC, seeing movies all night with her friend, & me pre-recording this episode so I can stay out all night with pens, notebooks, & Polly iPod :)

02.25.2017 show

February 18, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Jantar, Panisperna (2016) . . . I know of this band because of the split EP they made with Black Dirt Oak, called Presage, back in 2015 (this great EP recently featured on this program) . . . their new album was recorded at the famed Black Dirt Studio in southwestern upstate New York . . . it is dreamy, triply, but something else too, a real bite to it down below . . . they are a mysterious & really good group . . .
Classic Rock Album: Black Crowes, Amorica (1994) . . . This was the Crowes' third album, continuing their winning ways . . . maybe even darker than their previous ones . . . there's an ancientness to their music that is hard to describe, but it feels wrought down in the old darknesses of the world . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 10 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week featured artists are some more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on February 11, 1984 . . . my dear friend Eurydice is back from a long period of repair, & this has me happy as almost anything . . .

02.18.2017 show

February 11, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Cracker, Berkeley to Bakersfield (2014) [Part Two] . . . From the "Berkeley" platter, punky edged, to this, the "Bakersfield," more California countrified side . . . but this is Cracker country, so it's a bit skewed, well-played, often funny, & sweet as these smartass boys can be . . . "play it weird, this ain't Nashville" . . .
Classic Rock Album: Cracker, Greenland (2006) . . . It was this album that caused me to give recent Cracker records more attention . . . their sound has evolved to ever-more-Americana but, as with the more recent release above, Cracker twists whatever traditional or modern sound they take on their own ends . . . and they always rock out sooner or later . . . "everybody gets one for free . . . everybody gets one, everybody, 'cept for me" . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 10 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on February 11, 1984 . . . snow coming and coming as Herr Clusterfuck rages and rages . . . the Resistance won't quit, get it?

02.11.2017 show

February 4, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: Cracker, Berkeley to Bakersfield (2014) [Part One] . . . This week's show begin's a long-needed catching up with the work of Cracker, a great American indie-freak-folk band that emerged in the early 1990s when David Lowery's wonderful former band, Camper Van Beethoven, broke up . . . Lowery partnered up with his childhood friend Johnny Hickman to form a band with a somewhat more conventional rock sound, but still fantastic . . . they have been going every since, even when Camper Van Beethoven happily reunited in 1999 . . . this record is the first half of their most recent effort, called the Berkeley record, full of Cracker-y goodness, funny, sweet, weird . . . .
Classic Rock Album: Cracker, Kerosene Hat (1993) . . . Stepping back some two decades to the band's second record, we find Cracker in full flight, a bunch of tripster Lokis, with hits even, "Get Off This" & "Low" . . . fun, satirical, serious at moments . . . great end to end . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 10 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week featured artists are Black Oak & Jantar, who in 2015 split sides on a great EP called Presage . . . deep in the winter, cold, mostly snowless, just wanting pen to move & radio show to be good as it enters its 19th year . . .

02.04.2017 show

January 28, 2017 18th anniversary show features:
R.E.M., New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996) . . . JThis was the 10th & final album released by this legendary rock band as a quartet (their drummer Bill Berry retired the following year, and the band continued on for 14 years and 5 albums as a trio) . . . I remember when it came out being annoyed by its double-LP length, and the feeling that it was poorly sequenced . . . then they continued on as a trio, despite having said they never would continue if someone quit . . . well, these years later, I tried this record again, and was totally wowed at how good it is . . . as a final album for the original, and best version of, R.E.M, one of the best rock bands in history, this stands very very tall . . . I wasn't ready for the "new adventures" of this album back then . . . happy to say I am now, and to share with all as well . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 10 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & here is another radio show anniversary, and thankful for passing through it . . . I have a feeling that this year this show will be again on the barricades, up against what the new King Clusterfuck will be trying to pull off . . . so be it, rock on . . .

01.28.2017 show

January 21, 2017 show features:
New Rock Album: The Monkees, Good Times! (2016) . . . This album was recorded to celebrate the band's 50th anniversary, & it is a delight . . . featuring songs by the band, plus great songwriters like Harry Nilsson, Andy Partridge, Ben Gibbard, Noah Gallagher, and Boyce & Hart . . . it's bouncy, fun, dear, & great music . . . like a final love letter from a great band . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Zombies, The Zombies (1965) . . . Several years before their classic album Odessey and Oracle, this British band released their debut LP, & it is a beauty . . . catchy, a bit Beatles-y, the kind of lovely classic rock sugar that sticks around happily awhile in your ears . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 10 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is The Monkees & bonus tracks from their 2016 Good Times! LP (even the bonus tracks are great!) . . . new year, & the new Sheriff Clusterfuck has rid into town & bamboozled the masses into relyin' on him to save th' world . . . don't believe it . . . just stick your post in the ground & say, "I don't believe it" . . .

01.21.2017 show

2016

December 17, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Neil Young, Peace Trail (2016) . . . This could be called "News from Neil," as many of the songs are topical songs . . . but there is an underlying urge to love & conciliation, a willingness to tough out the hard times, & just a plain beauty to this LP that makes it so good . . .
Classic Rock Album: Black Crowes, The Southern Harmony & Musical Companion (1992) . . . This album joins Phish's Farmhouse & Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here as the only albums this show has featured 3 or more times . . . this LP was played previously on the 5/22/1999 & 7/8/2006 shows . . . hard rock Georgia band's second album crunches out of the gate & does not slow till its 10th acoustic comedown song . . . wildly good rock and roll, like Led Zeppelin with a drawl . . . wonderful record . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 10 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week's 14th annual holiday broadcast concludes this year's run of shows . . . thank you for listening, enjoy your Season of Lights, blessed be now & always to you :) And, as the hippy girl once said to me, long ago, "eat good food! listen to happy music!"

12.17.2016 show

December 10, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Green Day, Revolution Radio (2016) . . . It's been four years since these California punkers have put out a new record . . . & it's worth the wait . . . not so much a concept album like recent releases, yet it is very focussed on these troubled times, both for society & personally for the band members . . . no matter the topic, these boys know how to write great tunes, & their playing is top-notch . . . good LP to bounce & jump along to . . .
Classic Rock Album: Men at Work, Cargo (1983) . . . This Australian band was around for way too short a time in the early 1980s . . . this, their second record, is jammed full of good songs . . . dark fantasias, funny ones, paranoid ones . . . for those that only know the back-when hits on the radio, here's a chance to deeper dive for many more goodies . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 10 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Nathan Bowles & some fine bluegrass chestnuts from his new release, Whole and Cloven . . . another year drawing to a close, trees are still bare of snow here, but I think it's a-comin' soon . . .

12.10.2016 show

December 3, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Drive-By Truckers, American Band (2016) . . . Been awhile since this show has caught up with these Georgia indie rockers . . . their new album is powerfully good, both musically & thematically . . . political rage & remorse twine through the dozen songs, timely observing an American landscape fraught with bitterness & fury . . . the Truckers know how to channel all this into beautiful, moving rock & roll, like they've been doing a long time . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Who, The Who Sings My Generation (1966) . . . Every early December since 2011, when my friend JBIII suddenly passed from here to the Stars, my show & SPRadio has featured music by his favorite band, & one of my favorites too, The Who . . . this year's entry on my show is their debut album, which includes such classics as "My Generation" & "The Kids Are Alright" . . . also some early songs more in the R&B mode . . . they were just starting out, still figuring out their path, but were getting great fast . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 10 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are a last few of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on November 5, 1982 . . . some days rocket out of their chute & never stop their good flights till the end . . . some fall over the starting line . . . trying to have more of the former than latter . . .

12.03.2016 show

November 26, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Leonard Cohen, You Want It Darker (2016) . . . It was only recently that I heard this final album by this Canadian singer-songwriter, featured in full on DJ Frogs' "In the Window" program on SPRadio . . . I admit it's the first album of his that I've really liked, having casually listened to others . . . not all that much though . . . but it's compellingly moody & funny & weird . . . the singing & lyrics & music are kind of otherworldly . . . it shares a vibe with latter-day Bob Dylan . . . & like many of Dylan's recent records, is very very good . . .
Classic Rock Album: Harry Chapin, Living Room Suite (1978) . . . This was one of Chapin's last albums, released in a time of punk rock, when old folkies like Chapin were not getting much attention or radio airplay anymore . . . yet he's still doing his thing, singing his story-songs, playing music composed with all his heart & soul . . . feels good & true to me now as it did when I first heard it when I was 17 . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 10 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Bags End News . . .& this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on November 5, 1982 . . . the autumn is in its high November loveliness . . . cool air, bare trees, the landscape powerful yet melancholy . . . a sweet deep time of the year . . .

11.26.2016 show

November 19, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Conor Oberst, Ruminations (2016) . . . Conor hasn't really stripped down his sound this much before, & played his musical truths this passionately . . . this is a wonderful record . . .
Classic Rock Album: John Cougar Mellencamp, Scarecrow (1985) . . . This was the album that made people rightly take Mellencamp seriously . . . he's rocking out like nobody else, past the times of kneeling to the classic rock gurus of his youth . . . wonderful album, & '85 like the coming year had ./ will have people worth crying out against . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 10 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Bags End News . . .& this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on November 5, 1982 . . . went to NYC & managed to do myself an injury, been a hard work of recovering . . . good to be ready & able to go on mic like always . . .

11.19.2016 show

November 12, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: The Devil Makes Three, Redemption & Ruin (2016) . . . Once more with this brilliant punky-folk Americana band . . . feeling the songs in this album especially given this week in geopolitics . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Into the Great Wide Open (1991) . . . Last heard on this show on the 7/15/2006 broadcast . . . we were fighting a bastard too, rocking out & fighting him . . . new day, new bastard . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 10 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on November 5, 1982 . . . a rare instance of a show being pre-recorded for broadcast this coming weekend . . . maybe the numbness & exhaustion of Election Night will have worn off a bit, revealing the fight revving up again . . .

11.12.2016 show

November 05, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: The Devil Makes Three, I'm a Stranger Here (2013) . . . You could call this group a hybid alt-country / trad bluegrass / quasi-punk band . . . or something like that . . . a terrific drummer-less trio that makes great, wild, dancey music made to tumble out of your seat & onto whatever kind of dance floor you have to hand . . . exciting music, full of awesome playing & high fun energy . . .
Classic Rock Album: Gordon Lightfoot, Don Quixote (1972) . . . Still fairly early in his career, this album has all sorts of folk-rock treats on it, not the least of which is the title cut, which may-kinda-sorta be about the famous fictional character . . . Lightfoot is so nimble with his guitar playing, & so delightful with his story-telling, it's time to flip the platter back to side 1 before you know it . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 10 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on November 5, 1982 . . . back on air after a couple of weekends off, well into the autumn by now . . . just cool beauty everywhere to be seen . . .

11.05.2016 show

October 15, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: The Pixies, Head Carrier (2016) . . . Sixth album by this legendary Boston band, plays around with their history a bit, looking back some at who & what they were . . . but mostly they take their new bassist Paz Lenchantin along & move ahead into their raucous future . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Wild Swans, Space Flower (1990) . . . This Liverpool post-punk's second album was a kind of ripped-up 1960s homage of sorts, playing with the sounds from that earlier era, but warped along the passage of years . . . it's charming, funky, & a hidden treasure worth sharing . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 10 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Go-Go's, & some of their golden nuggets of yore . . . wow, it's autumnal pretty out right now, doesn't last very long, but it's a happy thing for it's short while . . .

10.15.2016 show

October 08, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Phish, Big Boat (2016) . . . Only two years since Fuego, the Vermont boys are back with another big new record . . . their jammy phunk, their sweet sad songs, their green philosophies, their gorgeous playing is good as ever . . . a baker's dozen of sonic pleasures, harmonies, goofiness, & Phishy fineness :)
Classic Rock Album: John Denver, Back Home Again (1974) . . . John Denver was a hugely popular folk-rock singer in the 1970s, had many great hit singles, but what wasn't so much appreciated was how good his albums were as whole records . . . he can get as deep & dark as any into the weirdnesses of life on Earth at one moment, then at another jam out a song the Muppets will want to sing with him . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 9 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Beach Boys, as we conclude this many-shows-long appreciation of their 50 years of wonderful music-making. . . October's lovely colors & sweet feelings are seeping in, softly, like a sky of many hues where you can't quite tell where or how one blends into the next . . .

10.08.2016 show

October 01, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Greensky Bluegrass, Shouted, Written Down and Quoted (2016) . . . Their new record starts out slow, songs that burn almost melancholy . . . then the band hits its stride with "Living Over," & everything breaks loose . . . the record just won't stop thereon . . .
Classic Rock Album: Love, Da Capo (1966) . . . Hearing Love's 2003 Forever Changes Concert led me to give a fuller listen to this, their second album, & it's really good, lotta trippy treats to it . . . its 19-minute closer, "Revelation," is well named . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 9 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Beach Boys, as we continue a weeks-long jaunt through their many years of music-making (slipping a bit past the summer to finish it up) . . . Cooler, cooler days, so sweet into October. . .

10.01.2016 show

September 24, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Kurt Vile, b'lieve I'm goin down... (2015) . . . Kept running into musicians, like Steve Gunn, who were associated with this guitarist, so finally dived into his newest release . . . damn and wow, it's an hour of beautiful guitar hero broodings & lyrical flourishes . . . Vile is kind of a weird underground cousin to Neil Young, Tom Petty, & a few others . . . his music is very much his own, & rests heavy & light in the mind's ears . . .
Classic Rock Album:Arlo Guthrie, Washington County (1970) . . . Folk-rock songwriter best known for the epic "Alice's Retaurant," & his happy high performance at Woodstorck 1969, as well as being son of legendary folkie Woody, the younger Guthrie holds his own well with albums full of songs that are heavier & more darkly funny than their light tones suggest . . . this album finds him in deeply spiritual spaces, singing & playing his way to daylight . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 9 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Beach Boys, as we continue a weeks-long jaunt through their many years of music-making (slipping a bit past the summer to finish it up) . . . Autumn's come, some cooler weather, a relief, a welcome returning beauty . . .

09.24.2016 show

September 10, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Wilco, Schmilco (2016) . . . These Chicago boys come up with a mostly acoustic winner, pretty, delightful, & likely to weirdly warp at any, at many, moments . . . a golden LP . . .
Classic Rock Album: John Fogerty, Blue Moon Swamp (1997) . . . Fogerty sounds best when he sounds like his old band CCR . . . he sounds most powerful, happiest, like his musical magics are sourcing from the deepest places in him . . . that's how this record works, end to end . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 9 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Beach Boys, as we continue a weeks-long summertime jaunt through their many years of music-making . . . time to take a break from the airwaves, just for a week, & voyage northward, to sea & green, to see better & clearer again . . .

09.10.2016 show

September 3, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Bastard Mountain, Farewell, Bastard Mountain (2012) . . . A sort of one-off droney Scottish underground supergroup, each player bringing a variety of songs to the table, to sing or let others in the band sing . . . it's like waking up in the night in a mysterious Woods, not knowing how you got there, & listening to the sounds all around you, somehow trusting you will make it to morning . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: Creedence Clearwater Revival, Willie & the Poor Boys (1969) . . . Previously broadcast on the 7/16/2005 episode of this show, one of CCR's several brilliant, not to be topped, LPs . . full of dark rocking hippie anger at war, but then lighter with UFO tall tales & stories from the street corner . . . till they burned out from too much work & pressure, CCR was one of the greatest rock bands ever, & this is among their albums which proves it . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 9 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Beach Boys, as we continue a weeks-long summertime jaunt through their many years of music-making . . . arrived at last to September, the cooler, finer months are getting near at last . . .

09.03.2016 show

August 27, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Meursault, Something for the Weakened (2012) . . . Scottish folk-tronica band led by the big--voiced Neil Pennycook . . . because Scottish, & a kind of passionate dark rock in their music, I think of them alongside of Frightened Rabbit . . . but a good listen to this, possibly their final album, reveals a band moving far & wide by its own musical muses . . .
Classic Rock Album: Throwing Muses, Hunkpapa (1989) . . . Get musicians from The Jayhawks, Wilco, Soul Asylum, & their like into a studio, & come out with a debut album something like an Americana Wilburys . . . pretty, shambling, catchy as hell . . . treat for every set of ears . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 9 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Beach Boys, as we continue a weeks-long summertime jaunt through their many years of music-making . . .it's slowly getting cooler, & my foot's cast coming off in a few days . . . & my pen just itches to write a lot & read it eventually on this show's airwaves . . .

08.27.2016 show

August 20, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Steve Gunn, Eyes on the Lines (2016) . . . Gunn is an old fashioned rocker, lead guitar master, writing songs that make one think of him like Clapton or Neil Young . . . his new album continues his evolution as a musician, composer, bandleader, & is a sweet hazy pleasure . . .
Classic Rock Album: Golden Smog, Down By the Old Mainstream (1995) . . . Get musicians from The Jayhawks, Wilco, Soul Asylum, & their like into a studio, & come out with a debut album something like an Americana Wilburys . . . pretty, shambling, catchy as hell . . . treat for every set of ears . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 9 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Beach Boys, as we continue a weeks-long summertime jaunt through their many years of music-making . . .this week I have a cast on my left foot, getting an injury healed up over the next few weeks . . . limping up seen & unseeable hills . . .

08.20.2016 show

August 13, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Radiohead, A Moon Shaped Pool (2016) . . . This album does not often rock hard, but it does have a beautiful heaviness to it . . . flows like of one piece, yet is not, some of its songs sourcing years back . . . does not threaten, yet its musical comforts feel like mortal blankets warming against an infinitely cold night . . . recent Radiohead albums I've loved as much but liked a little less . . . this record discontinues that trend . . .
Classic Rock Album: Rolling Stones, Aftermath (1966) . . . Considered the Stones' first major album, with great songs like "Lady Jane," "Under My Thumb" &, on the US version of the LP, "Paint It Black" . . . also closes with an 11-minute blues workout, called "Going Home" . . . the dirty beautiful music of the Stones' classic period is in full force here . . . rockin' ya bad . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 8 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Beach Boys, as we continue a weeks-long summertime jaunt through their many years of music-making . . . feeling like over 100F recent days, what does that mean? . . . I don't know, but hope for a snowy winter to come, thinking of this even now . . .

08.13.2016 show

August 6, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Honeysuckle, Honeysuckle (2016) . . . Came across mention of this self-described "progressive folk" Boston band in a newspaper found on the subway one morning . . . they are a trio of top-notch players & singers, & their debut LP is fantastic, pretty, haunting, powerful . . . acoustic as they are, they rock quite nicely . . .
Classic Rock Album: Steve Earle and The Del McCoury Band, The Mountain (1999) . . . Steve Earle has been a rowdy folk-country-rocker since the 1980s . . . The Del McCoury Band has been a great bluegrass outfit since the 1960s . . . in 1999 they got together to record this amazing album that blends their talents & touches seamlessly . . . a delightful 14 songs written by Earle, rocking bluegrass classics start to finish . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 8 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist are The Beach Boys, as we continue a weeks-long summertime jaunt through their many years of music-making . . . laid up with a healing foot this week . . . glad the week ends on the high notes of this show . . .

08.06.2016 show

July 30, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: The Felice Brothers, Life in the Dark (2016) . . . New record by this New York Americana band, who started out playing on subway platforms in New York City . . . pretty, rocking, charming, funny . . . & these boys can play up a storm when of a mind to do so . . . an album more than worth its time in pleasure . . .
Classic Rock Album: Rusted Root, Welcome to My Party (2002) . . . Pittsburgh band once previously featured on this show . . . this album has a kind of passionate funk to it that is irresistible . . . it's a sweet record, rooted in acoustic delights & Michael Glabicki's beautiful voice . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 8 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist are The Beach Boys, as we continue a weeks-long summertime jaunt through their many years of music-making . . . still hot, still humid, still too dry in New England . . . I understand now what snowless winters mean in a way I never did before . . .

07.30.2016 show

July 23, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: The Avett Brothers, True Sadness (2016) . . . These boys have put together another really great record . . . seems to emerge from a sad time of breakup, like Dylan's Blood on the Tracks or Beck's Sea Change . . . like those albums, beautiful, moving music . . . as KD says, they are so stinkin' talented . . .
Classic Rock Album: XTC, Skylarking (1986) . . . Last heard on the 12/19/2004 broadcast of this show, one of my very favorite albums, by one of my very favorite bands . . . tis a classic pop-rock song-cycle, from the burst into life's light to the shrivel into fire . . . an old friend of mine, managed a bookstore-record store back when, labeled this album thusly: "For those awaiting the next Beatles, here they are, wait no more" . . . amen . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 7 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist are The Beach Boys, as we continue a weeks-long jaunt through their many years of music-making . . . fucking hot this week, nights a panting relief, glad this show is on late . . .

07.23.2016 show

July 16, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Paul Simon, Stranger to Stranger (2016) . . . Paul SImon's albums are a big & sudden treat every few years . . . they always seem like he took his time brewing them up, getting the sound & the lyrics & the feel of each song just right . . . new album is a familiar mix of the tender & the smartass & the wise . . . each listen opens up new crevices & pathways into its strange & fine lands . . .
Classic Rock Album: Neil Young, Freedom (1989) . . . After spending the 1980s putting out all sorts of experimental, & not very good, albums, Neil Young returned to Reprise Records, where he had made so many good disks, & let this album come whispering & roaring out the door . . . NY sounds hungry again, wanting to make great & needed music, committed to it . . . I first heard this album on the radio, in full, as everyone was saying, "Neil's back!" . . . I was new to his music back then, but I loved being a fan's part of his renaissance . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 7 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist are The Beach Boys, as we begin a weeks-long jaunt through their many years of music-making . . . been awhile since at the mic, wow ready to be back! :)

07.16.2016 show

June 11, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Mudcrutch, Mudcrutch 2 (2016) . . . Mudcrutch was Tom Petty's band before he & his mates formed the Heartbreakers . . . the two bands share several of the same members . . . Petty resurrected the Mudcrutch name a few years ago, & invited some of his old mates & some Heartbreakers to join together . . . the sound is very often great Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers & their friends music . . . but some songs sound a little different . . . this album is both a labor of love among old friends, & something else . . . & really really good too . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Partridge Family, Up to Date (1971) . . . Like The Monkees before them, The Partridge Family was both a TV show & a rock group . . . with this group, only two of the TV Partridges actually played & sang on the albums . . . backed up by crack studio musicians . . . that all said, this album is a fantastic pop-rock treasure . . . I think a group conceived in 1971, backed by the money to get really good musicians & songwriters involved, could not help but produce songs like these . . . it's a real treat from first to last tune . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 7 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are a final few of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on May 29, 1982 . . . this show the last before a break for me to ready for the Firefly Festival in Vermont in a few weeks . . . back to the Burning Man world, here I finally go . . .

06.11.2016 show

June 4, 2016 show features::
New Rock Album: The Jayhawks, Paging Mr. Proust (2016) . . . This Minnesota band has long been a favorite of mine, & I'm happy to say their new album is them in all their hippie-style Americana glories . . . the pretty songs, the rockers, even something just really weird & fun thrown in to show they aren't slowing down or looking back . . . a real delight . . .
Classic Rock Album: R.E.M., Reveal (2001) . . . This show has featured most of R.E.M.'s 15 studio LPs, but not this one . . . when drummer Bill Berry left the band in the late '90s, I felt like my version of The Beatles was at an end . . . R.E.M. had been my favorite current band for over a decade at that point . . . I so resented (unfairly) the whole thing, Berry leaving, the others carrying on, that I never truly gave the 5 LPs they released as a trio a real chance . . . now I have, including this one & I recall how much I liked this album when it came out, how it sounded like MY R.E.M., despite everything . . . yet till recently, never featured it . . . it's a great album, they were a great band, even sometimes when they were a trio . . . finally doing right by all of their work . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 6 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on May 29, 1982 . . . nice to have beloved KD back from her travels, good juju for DJ'ing a good show!

06.04.2016 show

May 28, 2016 show features::
New Rock Album: Frightened Rabbit, Painting of a Panic Attack (2016) . . . This show has been featuring the albums of this great Scottish indie rock band for some years now . . . their new record is a dandy too . . . dark, delicate, rough, sweet, pissed off . . . a strange careen through frontman Scott Hutchison's psyche to what light to be found on the other side . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Dandy Warhols, Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia (2000) . . . Bands with joke names sometimes put me off a bit, but then I heard the amazing track "Sleep" from this Portland, Oregon band's third album & I was on board no matter what . . . they can be funny, nasty, sweet, strange . . . another album that rides wild along . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 6 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on May 29, 1982 . . . turned out this show was off for three weekends so crashing the doors to get back on the air & back into the radio thang!

05.28.2016 show

April 30, 2016 show features::
New Rock Album: Black Rivers, Black Rivers (2015) . . . Twin brothers Jez & Andy Williams, most well-known from being in Doves, have released quite an album together during that band's hiatus . . . trippy, strange, a delightful record that sometimes sounds like Doves, can't help it, but often warps & trips into more elastic territory, & is all the more fascinating for this . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: The Shins, Chutes Too Narrow (2003) . . . First played on this show on its 3/11/2006 broadcast, this album is a kind of pop-rock perfection . . . bright, brooding, full of deep candy-sounding yearning . . . this New Mexico band has never come close to matching this album, but I think this possibility always exists . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 5 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists is River Whyless & the gorgeous American gems from their 2015 self-titled EP . . . blooms is everywhere in olde New England . . . winter's said fare-thee-well, swim in the colors now awhile!

04.30.2016 show

April 23, 2016 show features::
New Rock Album: Jimi Goodwin, Odludek (2014) . . . First solo album from the sometime Doves member . . . album title means loner or pilgrim in Polish . . . sometimes sounds like Doves, sometimes has a kind of whimsical unique sound . . . strange, delightful, rewarding to spin . . .
Classic Rock Album: Tyrannosaurus Rex, A Beard of Stars (1970) . . . Last of quarter of albums the band recorded under this name . . . more electric than the previous ones, but still the same psych-freak-folk feel as the others . . . front man Marc Bolan had other ideas on where he was going, but this is perhaps his fond goodbye to a wonderful persona he'd worn well awhile . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 5 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are one more helping of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on November 7, 1981 . . . my friend E is close to being repaired, maybe just a few days till back in my loving grasp . . .

04.23.2016 show

April 16, 2016 show features::
New Rock Album: Chris Pureka, Back in the Ring (2016) . . . This Massachusetts born folk-rocker has been putting out great albums for years now, & it's about time one was featured on this show . . . with her low, lonesome voice, tunes sometimes warm & sweet, sometimes harrowing, a ride on record with her is a long, strange journey through wants, dreams, mysteries . . .
Classic Rock Album: Tyrannosaurus Rex, Unicorn (1969) . . . Third great album from this band formed early in Marc Bolan's career, forgotten by most . . . worth finding, songs that are sort of creepy fantasy play-things, delightful to know in the half-shadows, but somehow not quite there in the common light . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 4 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on November 7, 1981 . . . my friend E is getting better help to health, as I am able to find it, & I am more hopeful for her better days again . . .

04.16.2016 show

April 9, 2016 show features::
New Rock Album: The Mavericks, Mono (2015) . . . Tex-Mex-flavored Americana band originally out of Florida, been around since the 1990s . . . broke up for awhile, then came back in the past few years with a sound much more eclectic & Mex-flavored than before . . . their new album is a classic, fun, pretty, smooth, wild . . . treat of a record . . .
Classic Rock Album: Tyrannosaurus Rex, Prophets, Seers & Sages: The Angels of the Ages (1968) . . . Second album in a span of months by this band, more of the beautifully idiosyncratic music sounding like nobody else then or since . . . sweet, weird conjurations . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 4 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on November 7, 1981 . . . I'm thinking about my friend E right now, & how to help her in every way I am able . . .

04.09.2016 show

March 26, 2016 show features::
New Rock Album: James, Girl at the End of the World (2016) . . . Great UK band featured several times on this show, & their new album is another winner . . . James' sound seems ever on an upward cascade of melody, always about to reveal everything music could possibly reveal . . . exciting, pretty, rhythmic, deep feeling music . . .
Classic Rock Album: Tyrannosaurus Rex, My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair . . . But Now They're Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows (1968) . . . Completely captivating & totally original debut album from Marc Bolan & his partner Steve Peregrin Took . . . the two create a sort of hippie nether land of music & lyrics that sweets the ear more with each listen . . . a wonderful lysergic platter of tunes . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 3 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Iron & Wine and Calexico, & their 2005 EP collaboration, In the Reins . . . the green is budding everywhere in New England, & elsewhere, embodying hope & perseverance for those paying good heed . . .

03.26.2016 show

March 19, 2016 show features::
New Rock Album: Umphrey's McGee, The London Session: A Day At Abbey Road Studios (2015) . . . I remember around 2000 happening upon this Indiana jam band playing on a makeshift stage in the parking of a midwest US Phish show . . . last year they recorded a whole album in one day at the Beatles' old workplace . . . quite a journey, & they are quite good . . . rock a little heavier & harder than most jam bands, but with a deep sense of the tune & the groove . . . their new LP is worth many spins . . .
Classic Rock Album: Felt, Felt (1971) . . . Sole release by this youthful Alabama band has the jazzy feel of a proto-Steely Dan, while still be quite rooted in late '60s rock sounds . . . nice bluesy touches to it as well, with some sweet harmonies to fill in the nicest places . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 2 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are one more dose of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on March 1, 1980 . . . now snow's coming, followed by days in the 70s . . . tis a freakish country that brings out some of the best & the worst & the weirdest in men & in weather . . .

03.19.2016 show

March 12, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Quilt, Plaza (2016) . . . Third brilliant album by this Boston psychedelic folk group (& third featured on this show) . . . acoustic guitars, strings, harps, & a sense of wide & restless movement . . . a band still young yet eager to sink their musical teeth in deeper . . . somehow . . . into something . . . another great record from this group & no ho-hum about it . . .
Classic Rock Album: Supergrass, In It for the Money (1997) . . . Charming Brit rockers have been featured several previous times on this show . . . this time reaching back to their second album . . . their sound mixes '60s harmonic tunefulness with a sort of punk jumpiness . . . & funny at times too . . . so easy to like, a listener may never notice the crafty subtleties of their work . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 2 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on March 1, 1980 . . . the weatherman is saying throw out the calendar, winter's over . . . more importantly, the buds n birds are saying it too . . matters more to them . . .

03.12.2016 show

March 5, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Cage the Elephant, Tell Me I'm Pretty (2015) . . . Fourth album from these trippy indie rockers from Bowling Green, Kentucky, who often rock like it's about December 1966, though not always . . . fun, sometimes thoughtful, groovy & fine . . .
Classic Rock Album: Richard Thompson, Mock Tudor (1999) . . . This legendary folk-rocker has put out countless great albums over the course of many years, & I find myself dipping into his deep catalogue now & again, always to find an unheard-by-me treasure . . . this album is a pretty hard rocker at times, its loose theme about suburban living & alienation . . . Thompson can be pissed, can be tender, can be weird . . . & his great music backs his moods & mullings . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 1 & into Chapter 2 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on March 1, 1980 . . . spring is not yet quite in the air here, ice often sheets the ground, but it's a-comin' soon, the Green getting ready to roll out . . .

03.05.2016 show

February 27, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: DIIV, Is the Is Are (2016) . . . This Brooklyn band led by Zachary Cole Smith falls kinda-sorta into dream pop or shoegazer style, but that's not where it ends . . . this hour-plus album is kind of a shadowy excursion into the beauties & terrors of Smith's soul, with a very able band decorating the musical path . . .
Classic Rock Album: Moby Grape, Moby Grape '69 (1969) . . . this San Francisco band lost its way a little with its previous album Wow, but comes out swinging here with a proto-country-rock record that features all sorts of tunes lighter & heavier . . . less than half an hour, but big on treats. . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 1 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are from the 2015 compilation, The Magical Mystery Psych-Out (A Tribute to The Beatles), all sorts of great songs . . . couple weeks away from the mic, now back in business & ready to roll, roll, roll!

02.27.2016 show

February 6, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: Koolaid Electric Company, Random Noises And Organised Sounds (2011) . . . This English psychedelic band reminds me of another recent one, Temples, both neither psych-revivalists per se, nor somehow remixing that genre into something else . . . they simply play amidst their contemporaries in acid sound, like Cream, like the Beatles, like Traffic . . . speaking of which . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: Traffic, John Barleycorn Must Die (1970) . . . First featured on this show's 7/11/2004 broadcast, time to feature again this English psychedelic classic . . . Steve Winwood & his mates created an electric sound that felt created & broadcast from somewhere deep & fine within the ancientest of Woods . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 1 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are one more batch of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on January 13, 1979 . . . it's a snowy wonderland once again in these parts, & they say more to come . . . happy to have my friend Lucy back for her continued long-time participation in this show's broadcast!

02.06.2016 show

January 30, 2016 17th anniversary show features:
Featured Album: Miles Davis, Bitches Brew (1970) . . . Jazz trumpeter genius & High Imp Miles Davis released in 1970 an album that still sounds both ancient & from the future . . . 94 glorious minutes of fanatical playing, fast & slower, improvising, studio tricks, softly barked directions to the likes of Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, John McLaughlin (among other great players) . . . like the Beatles' later albums, this double-LP can be dissected intellectually for days on end, or you can just put side one of the first platter on your turntable, & go, go, go! . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 1 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & arrived again to this anniversary broadcast, so unbelievably grateful to be at the mic this many years for this show, & hopeful of many more to come . . . but the one at hand is always the most important one . . .

01.30.2016 show

January 23, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: The SteelDrivers, The Muscle Shoals Recordings (2015) . . . another great album from this Nashville bluegrass band to begin this show's 2016 right . . . most of the songs are downer-themed, but the music is so awesome that at least the story-song tragedies take comfort in that . . .
Classic Rock Album: July, July (1968) . . . This delightful English psychedelic band pulled together one LP back in '68, & it's a classic of the genre . . . best advice is to sit back with headphones on & let Indian vibes, the crazy guitars, & the often trippy lyrics flow you somewhere away . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 1 of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on January 13, 1979 . . . lots of snow on the Eastern US seaboard, & I say it's a good time to hunker down among your candles with your radio blasting :)

01.23.2016 show

January 16, 2016 show features:
New Rock Album: The SteelDrivers, Hammer Down (2013) . . . this awesome Nashville bluegrass band ply their wares without plugging in . . . really play it hard & pretty . . . some personnel changes actually improved this band on this, their third album . . .
Classic Rock Album: Purple Overdose, Reborn (1999) . . . this Greek acid rock band played like 1970 had never come around, & they did it really well . . . a really beautiful, fairly obscure album, worth hearing, loud . . .
Storybook Time: Conclusion of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on January 13, 1979 . . . first show of the new year, really glad to be back at the mic, ready for a new one!

01.16.2016 show

2015

December 12, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Jason Isbell, Something More Than Free (2015) . . . New LP by this former Drive-By Truckers guitarist is pretty fantastic . . . he's a storyteller, funny, tender, vulnerable . . . & he rocks like nobody's business . . . this record is an Americana classic . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Feelies, Crazy Rhythms (1980) . . . Debut album by this guitar frenzy New Jersey band gets them onto vinyl great, including really cool Beatles & Rolling Stones covers . . . fun, rollicking tunes . . .
Storybook Time: Appendix & conclusion of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's 13th annual holiday broadcast concludes this year's run of shows . . . thank you for listening, enjoy your Season of Lights, blessed be now & always to you :) keep the music ever grooving near ya!

12.12.2015 show

December 5, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: James McMurtry, Complicated (2015) . . . Just found this Texas singer-songwriter, & wow is he good . . . sings stories of all sort of wastrels, strugglers, dreamers, in a sweetly dark voice, with all sorts of pretty music going on . . . this record is just lovely, fine, & delightful, one & all . . .
Classic Rock Album: Pete Townshend, Empty Glass (1980) . . . Another December 1 passes, another anniversary of my friend Jim Burke III's death . . . & with the pain & sadness comes turning to the music he loved, & sharing some of it anew . . . Townshend's 1980 LP is dark, twisted, funny, hopeful, rocks like hell & glad to be spinning it this time 'round . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 46 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Billy Joel & the best tracks from his 1983 retro-'50s album, An Innocent Man . . . deep into the ending time of year, trying to do good new work, trying to remember clearly & plainly . . .

12.05.2015 show

November 28, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Patty Griffin, Servant of Love (2015) . . . I've long been a fan of Griffin's work, both as a singer-musician & as a songwriter for herself & others . . . but this new album just knocks my socks off . . . very dark indie folk-rock, mystical, carnal, beautiful, wild . . . a wonderful new LP . . .
Classic Rock Album: Jackson C. Frank, Jackson C. Frank (1965) . . . Sole album by this folksinger legend . . . produced by Paul Simon while both were in England . . . very classic folkie yet in a sort of Nick Drake/Phil Ochs kind of way . . . dark, occasionally funny . . . a good obscure treasure to unearth . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 46 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is The Velvet Underground & some tasty tracks from their November 1969 dates at the Matrix in San Francisco . . . some weeks one flies easier, some weeks one just has to gut it out and flap the harder . . .

11.28.2015 show

November 21, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: The Wood Brothers, Paradise (2015) . . . Brothers Chris & Oliver Wood, & their friend Jano Rix, have the most bluesy Americana band around . . . their songs are weighty things, whether lighter or darker in theme . . . playing is peerless, lyrics can be weird, funny, sentimental . . . a great new LP by them . . . by the way, Chris also plays in the brilliant jazz-rock-fusion trio Medeski, Martin, & Wood . . . once, while living in Seattle, I went to see MMW live, & got the bonus of seeing the Wood Brothers open for them . . . some nights are just good . . .
Classic Rock Album: Al Stewart, Time Passages (1978) . . . This album by the Scottish-born Stewart begins with its wonderful title track, & then digs further into its twisted historical tales, philosophical ruminings, & then waters even further down . . . lovely, tough record . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 45 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist are more of the great ones from the "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" countdown of 11.November.1978 . . . twas 12 years ago this weekend that my show jumped online, thanks to SpiritPlants Radio . . . then 7 years ago this weekend, having no choice, I took over the station & started building it into what it is now . . . a labor of love & Art for many . . . thank you to all who have joined in, & make this station more than my show & a lot dead air . . . 24/7, as it should be :)

11.21.2015 show

November 14, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Saintseneca, Such Things (2015) . . . This Ohio indie rock band is back with another great record, not sounding quite like anyone else, & really good for what they are . . . sweet, potent, inspired on every track on this new LP . . .
Classic Rock Album: Bill Wilson, Ever Changing Minstrel (1973) . . . The story of this Indiana singer-songwriter is that he showed up on the doorstep of Bob Johnston, Bob Dylan's producer, asking for an audition . . . somehow this led to an album, & the album is brilliant . . . a folk-rock masterpiece lost over the years . . . give a listen, it's wonderful . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 45 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist are some of the great ones from the "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" countdown of 11.November.1978 . . . it was 1981 this weekend when a pretty girl raised my hopes for a bit, though it didn't last but a couple of days . . . still, I remember, & view the path back from here to there . . . hope she's well tonight, I did OK too with the girl who stayed . . .

11.14.2015 show

November 7, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Junip, Junip (2013) . . . Junip is a Swedish indie rock band & this is their second LP . . . it's a melancholy album, slow & pretty at times, but then it rocks out . . . lyrically dark & passionate . . . like one of those long strange nights in a dark club, where the music is sweet & sometimes weird, & you think about that night for a long time thereafter . . . . . .
Classic Rock Album: Love, Forever Changes (1967) . . . last played album on 11/5/2005 broadcast (almost 10 years to the day!) . . . there's no album quite like this one, with its combination of pretty trippy rocking songs, horns & strings, surreal, paranoid, psychedelic lyrics . . . Per Wikipedia: "The title of the album came from a story that Lee had heard about a friend-of-a-friend who had broken up with his girlfriend. She exclaimed, 'You said you would love me forever!," and he replied, 'Well, forever changes.'" . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 44 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Norah Jones & some of the great songs from her 2002 debut album, Come Away With Me . . . November is my favorite month of the year, with its big grey clouds & colored leaves everywhere . . . ending time of year, without actually being over, so time still to ponder, & act . . .

11.07.2015 show

October 17, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Blitzen Trapper, All Across This Land (2015) . . . The eighth LP by this Portland, Oregon indie rock band finds them harking back with their own unique skew to sounds of '70s rock . . . some of the songs rock old school, some are nostalgic or sentimental . . . for a band that can be as complex musically or lyrically as any, this album seems deceptively simple at time . . . but the music is warm & good, & the invitation is there to share in these often melancholic tunes . . .
Classic Rock Album: Electric Light Orchestra, A New World Record (1976) . . . The song "Telephone Line" off this UK rock band's sixth album has always been a favorite of mine, going back to its long stay on Casey Kasem's American Top 40 . . . but only recently did I give a good listen to the other eight songs on this LP . . . the whole suite of them is delightful . . . a sort of gleaming rush of songs that stay in the mind, deep groovy tunes . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 44 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of the great ones from the "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" countdown of 15.October.1977 . . . autumn in full bloom here in New England, every day prettier than the last . . . sure, the winter comes soon, but the miracle of now is awesome . . .

10.17.2015 show

October 10, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Lucero, All a Man Should Do (2015) . . . It was hardly a month ago that this Tennessee Americana band was featured on this show, yet here they are with a new record, & it's as good as the last one . . . their sound is luringly simple, then you climb inside & find it's not really simple at all, & really good . . .
Classic Rock Album: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Volume 3: A Child's Guide to Good & Evil (1968) . . . This is the fourth record by this California band featured on this show over the years . . . found myself recently walking many blocks in Manhattan with this one going on my beloved Polly iPod . . . it's a weird album, the whole band is weird, but they've got a compelling music, like many kinds of sounds & ideas welded together, then melted over for good measure . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 43 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of the great ones from the "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" countdown of 15.October.1977 . . . been writing like a madman lately, & trying to excavate my better health from years of neglect & inconsistency . . . & the autumnal colors coming on just salve & salve . . .

10.10.2015 show

October 3, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Dave Rawlings Machine, Nashville Obsolete (2015) . . . When the brilliant beautiful duo of Dave Rawlings & Gillian Welch have Rawlings sing lead, they call it the Dave Rawlings Machine . . . second album under this moniker is just awesome . . . sort of a rocking high bluegrass of odd stories & mysterious figures & feelings . . . wow, and thankee . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Monkees, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd(1967) . . . With the band now firmly in control of their music with their last album, Headquarters, the boys try all sorts of sounds & it's a delightful melange . . . for anyone who was confused as to who the Monkees were & how good they were, give a listen . . . they were very, very good . . .

Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 43 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is The Decemberists & tunes from their fine new EP, Florasongs . . . away for a long long week traveling to the Big Apple & thence Maine, feeling all sorts of excited for tonight's show, let's go!

10.03.2015 show

September 19, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Buffalo Killers, Heavy Reverie (2014) . . . Just found this great Cincinnati indie rock quartet . . . they're a rough bunch, sound-wise, raw & pretty in all the right ways, & their song "January" is a killer finale . . .
Classic Rock Album: Neil Young, Comes a Time (1978) . . . This is a mighty pretty album by any standards, with all sorts of classic NY treats . . . helps even more that Nicolette Larson adds her gorgeous twitter to many of the songs . . . for those who wonder why NY is worshipped as a rock god even now, this album is a really good answer . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 42 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is The Association, & some known & lesser known great songs from them . . . there's starting to be leaves to crunch, & a sweet chill to the air, here comes perfection . . .

09.19.2015 show

September 12, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Punch Brothers, The Phosphorescent Blues (2015) . . . This is the fourth album from Chris Thile's acid bluegrass group, & by far its best . . . Thile has finally achieved an artistic mastery & beauty with this band of brothers that he & his partners have in his other major project, Nickel Creek . . . the music ranges everywhere from fierce to gentle to a blindingly gorgeous finale called "Little Lights" . . . just wonderful . . .
Classic Rock Album: Van Morrison, Saint Dominic's Preview (1972) . . . This was the Irish singer-songwriter's sixth album & it just bounces & flows end to end, shorter punchier songs alternating with long beautiful mediations . . . strange, pretty, fun . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 42 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is beloved Old Crow Medicine Show & a few gems from their recent EP releases, 2013's Carry Me Back to Virginia& 2015's *Brushy Mountain Conjugal Trailer . . . the autumn in colors & cooler air is moving in . . . still a blend of seasonal colors . . . the year in its maturing glories . . .

09.12.2015 show

August 29, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Lucero, Women & Work (2014) . . . Ben Nichols is the leader of this Arkansas-rooted band, playing some hard country rockers, some ballads, & a lot of fun tunes all around . . . Nichols is also the brother of brilliant young director Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter, Mud) & adds some great music to his brother's films . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: Sea Ray, Stars at Noon (2003) . . . This Brooklyn band came & went in just a few short years, but left behind this gorgeous psychedelic masterpiece . . . first played on the 9/19/2004 broadcast of this show, here again in all its obscure beauties . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 42 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are a final bunch of the great ones from the "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" countdown of 14.August.1976 . . . summer's getting its last bites in . . . autumn will be nosing around soon again . . .

08.29.2015 show

August 22, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Saintseneca, Dark Arc (2014) . . . First heard this Columbus, Ohio indie rock band in a coffee house in Western Massachusetts . . . their sound is pretty, plaintive, nicely weird . . . only two albums in, they are a band to keep close watch for . . .
Classic Rock Album: Incredible String Band, Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (1968) . . . Finally found a way into the music of this legendary psychedelic folk rock band . . . the music is strange, cryptic, ethereal . . . like a concert given on another planet on a warm many-sunned night . . . . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 41 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of the great ones from the "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" countdown of 14.August.1976 . . . some weeks I arrive to this show just so . . . ready . . . to . . . go . . . like tonight . . .

08.22.2015 show

August 15, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Wilco, Star Wars (2015) . . . This album came out of nowhere, given away free initially . . . it's raw & rocking & a lot of fun . . . I've heard it a few times & think Wilco just wanted bypass everything that divides musicians from their fans . . . it feels free . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Beatles, Let It Be . . . Naked (2003) . . . This record was originally released in 1970 when the Beatles were no more, the sort-of soundtrack of a film showing them falling apart . . . decades later, Paul McCartney initiated a remix of this album without the Phil Spector-izing of the original . . . the songs are now as they were intended, a Beatles getting back to basics, at least for one more album . . . its pretty fucking awesome . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 41 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of the great ones from the "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" countdown of 14.August.1976 . . . it's really hot in New England this weekend, as August is supposed to be . . . passing, passing . . .

08.15.2015 show

August 8, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Flaming Lips, 7 Skies H3 (2014) . . . this excellent 50-minute album derives from a 24-hour song the Lips released "in a limited edition of 13 copies, on flash drives encased in real human skulls, for Halloween 2011. Each skull cost $5,000" (Wikipedia). What's important, though, is that the album doesn't need its strange origin to be enjoyed. Its sound is in the same dark, dreamy vein as their later 2013 classic, The Terror. Never know how a great album like this will come along, but joy when it does . . .
Classic Rock Album: Gordon Lightfoot, Summertime Dream (1976) . . . The legendary Canadian folk-rocker was in his artistic & commercial prime when this album came out . . . the music is both smooth & exciting . . . the story-songs strange & absorbing . . . end to end of record, Lightfoot beguiles . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 40 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . . <> Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is again The Milk Carton Kids, & some terrific songs from their new album, Monterey . . . the summer again is beginning to pass, as August rolls on . . . the nights showing the way to the splendidly cooler fall days to come . . .

08.08.2015 show

July 25, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Neil Young + Promise of the Real, The Monsanto Years (2015) . . . After two shitty albums last year, NY returns with a fresh fury & beauty . . . makes this rocker into a folk-topical blast of glory . . . it's so FUCKING wonderful to have the man rocking true again . . .
Classic Rock Album: Bruce Palmer, The Cycle is Complete (1971) . . . Palmer was with Buffalo Springfield in the 60s, on & off, but this trippy jam beauty came later on . . . his only solo work, just sounds free jazz-acid rock as hell . . . a treasure to share . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 40 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of the great ones from the "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" countdown of 19.July.1975 . . . it was a beautiful spring day in the middle of humid ol' summer . . . so sweet to enjoy and thankee thankee . . .

07.25.2015 show

July 18, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Mountain Heart, That Just Happened (2010) . . . This progressive bluegrass band is surely cut in the same mold as Old Crow Medicine Show, Alison Krauss & Union Station, & Sturgill Simpson . . . rocking out well on the acoustics, fiddles, and banjos . . . wonderful stuff . . .
Classic Rock Album: Elliott Smith, Figure 8 (2000) . . . last album completed before his death, & Smith leaves with a winner . . . short songs, leap in & out, done before you know it & onto the next, but a feeling of yearning in them all . . . churning of anger & loss & regret, it's among his best records . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 40 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of the great ones from the "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" countdown of 19.July.1975 . . . when the world is humid, it is drinking you, and reminding you that you are its flesh . . .

07.18.2015 show

July 11, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Richard Thompson, Still (2015) . . . Thompson is a grainy old motherfucker and he can sure still fucking play guitar . . . he's got an album full of great new songs, especially the one about the pirate!
Classic Rock Album: Mercury Rev,, See You on the Other Side (1995) . . . This magical band is set to release its first new album in quite a few years . . . in the meanwhile, let's step back to when its peculiar sound was just starting to come into full flower . . . fearless and strange, this album, full of bending wonders . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 39 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Temples, & their live 2014 Mesmerise EP . . . Back to the 'waves after several weeks off, ready & ready & ready to get into some good summer shows . . . here goes . . .

07.11.2015 show

June 13, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Sleater-Kinney, No Cities to Love (2015) . . . been a freaking decade since this band's brilliant The Woods album & here they storm back with a furious barely-30-minutes musical swirling scirocco . . . just fuck yah . . . FUCK YAH!
Classic Rock Album Redux: Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002) . . . debuted on the 12/6/2003 broadcast of this show, returned tonight for an encore . . . Wilco lost a band member, a record label, but never the belief that this album fucking matters . . . it's 13 years later and this album STILL sounds crazy good & all sorts of rambunctious . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 39 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are a last bunch of the wonderful ones on the "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" countdown of 08.June.1974 . . . some weeks you just head down, plow into the line, again & again, looking for the daylight in your heart to rush through . . .

06.13.2015 show

June 6, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Mumford & Sons, Wilder Mind (2015) . . . Want to figure this album out? Don't start with the instruments, start with the singing . . . it's the same intense beautiful crazy talented band they've always been . . . they can do it all & they do . . .
Classic Rock Album: Traffic, When the Eagle Flies (1974) . . . Last of this legendary band's original albums, somewhat forgotten by now . . . but Steve Winwood rallies his troops one more time to put out a beautiful, trippy, deliciously something else album . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 38 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of the wonderful ones on the "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" countdown of 08.June.1974 . . . wrote for hours tonight, poem upon poem . . . thank you, Universe, for letting me put wild pen to wild paper ever still . . .

06.06.2015 show

May 30, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Dawes, All Your Favorite Bands (2015) . . . This LA band returns with another winning record . . . like Built to Spill reminds of Neil Young, Dawes reminds of Jackson Browne . . . and it's a fine and complimentary comparison . . . lyrics deep, thoughtful, passionate, music that makes the emotional connections stick . . .
Classic Rock Album: Paul Simon, One Trick Pony (1980) . . . soundtrack to a film Simon starred in . . . I've loved this record for years and years and years and not yet seen the film . . . should I? Yes, it'll happen sometime . . . love that Paul . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 38 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, all sorts of jumpy boogie rock goodies . . . trying to do this show good every time, it's a sort of brilliant, crazy work . . . trying again tonight . . .

05.30.2015 show

May 23, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Spirit Family Reunion, Hands Together (2015) . . . Excellent sophomore album by this New York Americana band . . . high energy tunes mixing with some darker, more elegaic songs . . . a really sweet, fun new record, genuine delight . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Beatles, Rubber Soul (1965) . . . Tis said this was the album when the Liverpool lads finally took over their own sound and began to bust over any and all walls of what rock and roll could sound like or what its lyrics could be about . . . this record is sweet brilliance itself . . . with the Byrds, Dylan, & the Beach Boys, history was happening live on record!
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 38 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are one last bunch of the great ones on the "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" countdown of 24.March.1973 . . . I found myself writing tonight almost to the exclusion of this show, then pulled up, twisted around, dived in, and here it is, in every glory I can dress it in . . .

05.23.2015 show

May 16, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Built to Spill, Untethered Moon (2015) . . . Just in time with a whole gorgeous fucking batch of new rock-and-roll tunes, first album in 5 years for these Idaho boys . . . singing lot Neil Young, jamming like every truly great rock band ever . . . thank you so much . . .
Classic Rock Album: Silver Jews, The Natural Bridge (1996) . . . This NYC indie folk band is a revelation to me . . . their songs very strange, very funny sometimes, and very tuneful always . . . I find their second album just all sorts of off-kilter delightful . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 38 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of the great ones on the "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" countdown of 24.March.1973 . . . I wrote & wrote today & tonight, by a secret lake, in a coffee joint later, I wrote & wrote & everything else good comes from me from it, from this writing & writing . . . JOY! Writing & writing . . .

05.16.2015 show

May 9, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Great Lake Swimmers, A Forest of Arms (2015) . . . Back after three years, these Canadian folk rockers are bigger and brighter than ever, the rockers, the waltzes, the funny kind of songs . . . such a great new album . . .
Classic Rock Album: Procol Harum, Procol Harum (1967) . . . Yes, it has "Whiter Shade of Pale" but that is the beginning of this great UK band's great debut album . . . lots of solid tunes, rockers, and even some Brit music hall-style, as every UK acid rock band felt compelled to include back then . . . so, great single? yes! . . . great album? yes!
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 37 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of the great ones on the "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" countdown of 24.March.1973 . . . back after a break, always the delight of put on the suit, tapping into the stream, and going!

05.09.2015 show

April 11, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Calexico, Edge of the Sun (2015) . . . Pretty much will be true that when this Tex-Mex indie rock band releases a new album, it will show up on this program . . . their music is pretty, sad, fun, full of harmonies, guitars, & horns . . . just sweetly delightful . . .
Classic Rock Album: Mandrake Memorial, Mandrake Memorial (1968) . . .about a year ago, this program featured this Philly acid rock band's third & final album . . . time to dig a little deeper into their work & check out their debut . . . sparkles as lysergically as one could wish . . . trip-i-licious :)
Storybook Time: Chapter 37 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Gandalf, whose sole album featured last week on this show is followed this week by a few choice cuts from the odds-&-sods years 2007 collection, Gandalf 2 . . . sixth weekend of shows in a row . . . don't do that too often . . . sort of a dizzy delight . . .

04.11.2015 show

April 4, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Lord Huron, Strange Trails (2015) . . . Three years in the making for the follow up to this Los Angeles indie rock band's wonderful debut, Lonesome Dreams . . . worth the wait! More delightfully tuneful and harmonic wonders await ye, dark dark lyrics if you listen past the hand claps . . . great stuff . . .
Classic Rock Album: Gandalf, Gandalf (1969) . . . this New York band probably never had much of a chance, no record company support for unknown reasons . . . that all said, this album is delightful, a sort of Beatles-ish sound and flow to it . . . the kind of record that should have reached a lot more ears that would have been happy to have received it . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 36 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is The Earlies, and some sweet tunes from their debut 2004 album, These Were the Earlies . . . green's coming ever on, as it do, as thank goodness it do . . .

04.04.2015 show

March 28, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Sloan, Commonwealth (2014) . . . This Canadian band not heard on this show since 8/15/2009 broadcast of the excellent Parallel Play . . . this new one is quite fine too, being a double album in which each member wrote a side . . . adds up very nicely to all sorts of pop and rock and roll goodness . . .
Classic Rock Album: New York Rock & Roll Ensemble, New York Rock & Roll Ensemble (1968) . . . this band came out of Julliard in New York, and fused rock and classical music pretty before anyone but the Beatles . . . this album I discovered today and just delight in it . . . now to share . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 36 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists were some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on February 5, 1972 . . . sometimes one has to roam one's own native-most lands to be sure, and keep moving . . .

03.28.2015 show

March 21, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: The Minus 5, Dungeon Golds (2015) . . . Last heard on this show's 8/8/2009 broadcast, this great American pop collective led by Scott McCaughey & Peter Buck is back with its usual, unique treats . . . funny songs, rock-out songs, sweet songs . . . a pleasure of an album to hear . . . a delight . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Verve, A War in Heaven (1993) . . . Before they hit it big with their anthem "Bittersweet Symphony," this UK band released a great, trippy debut album . . . long beautiful rocking songs, not very similar to what they would do later . . . worth a good visit . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 36 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists were more of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on February 5, 1972 . . . now it's getting warm in New England, or warmer, see the green things everywhere began to poke up, heard the birds, they are sure ready . . .

03.21.2015 show

March 14, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Mingo Fishtrap, On Time (2014) . . . This Austin, Texas band parties like it's 1971 and they're on a triple bill with Chicago and Blood Sweat & Tears . . . rockfunkjamming, dancy exciting music from start to finish . . . great one to discover . . .
Classic Rock Album: Sister Hazel, Sister Hazel (1994) . . . Debut album by these Gainesville, Florida rockers . . . before they got famous, they were already a fully-going jamming rock band & this debut has all the charms of a young band going with all of its lights out . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 36 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists were some of those featured on "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" back on February 5, 1972, my my my . . . after weeks of snow: rain, and a few birds, and some buds here and there . . . go figger, spring is coming again . . .

03.14.2015 show

March 7, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Steve Gunn & Black Twig Pickers, Seasonal Hire (2015) . . . This Brooklyn guitar wizard & these Virginee drone-bluegrass fellas just go together unbelievably . . . hypnotic leading up to the 16 minute glory-be of the title track . . . as AllMusic.com calls it, and rightly, this record is "excellent country and Eastern" . . .
Classic Rock Album: Fynn McCool, Fynn McCool (1970) . . . sole album by a band that was part English, part, er, else . . . named after Finn McCool, originally Fionn mac Cumhaill in Gaelic, a figure in Irish mythology . . . there's all sorts of treats on this album, heavy stuff, rocking stuff, light and fluffy . . . it's a shame it's been hid in obscurity all these years, time to let it shine its treasures out . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 36 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those on the 2014 Art of McCartney tribute compilation . . . these shows are made one at a time, prepped and 'cast . . . keeps me happy in this wonderful moment, letting the rest be took care of in their own times . . .

03.07.2015 show

February 21, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: The Howlin' Brothers, Howl (2013) . . . This Nashville bluegrass/string/Dixieland/jazz/rock combo roars and lulls in the waters traveled by the likes Old Crow Medicine Show and Greensky Bluegrass . . . which is to say, damn fine waters, indeed . . .
Classic Rock Album: Badfinger, Wish You Were Here (1974) . . . Say again: Badfinger WAS the next Beatles . . . and this album, the last the original quartet recorded together, was their Abbey Road . . . gorgeous, heartbreaking rock and roll . . . a desperate beautiful cry . . . one of the best rock albums ever made . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 35 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those on the 2014 Art of McCartney tribute compilation . . . at one point tonight me and my notebooks were stuck in the snow, but fought on out to get home to the beautiful mic . . .

02.21.2015 show

February 14, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Toad the Wet Sprocket, New Constellation (2014) . . . It'd been 16 years since the Sprocket's last new album . . . worth the wait . . . like they saved up their prettiest melodies and harmonies . . . it's a gorgeous and happy reunion and here's to more albums from this bunch . . .
Classic Rock Album: Badfinger, Straight Up (1971) . . . Tis a rare-if-ever thing that I play two weeks in a row the same band, but I have discovered Badfinger and they are really awesome . . . this was their third album and if it doesn't clog up your ears happily with electric guitars and harmonies, you . . . be . . . deef . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 35 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are a last bunch from the 1/9/1971 broadcast of "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," delightful treats . . . blizzards coming to ye Olde New England, be warned! be ware! All be ware!

02.14.2015 show

February 7, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: The Hold Steady, Teeth Dreams (2014) . . . last heard on this show on 8/9/2008, the delightful Stay Positive . . . some personnel changes and a couple of albums later, these Minneapolis rockers have come around to a kind of country rocking sound, not quite like anyone else, two-guitar attack . . . they sound like they've figured their sound and their shit out and are going very strong again . . .
Classic Rock Album: Badfinger, Magic Christian Music (1970) . . . It was a challenge to pick a Badfinger album to play this week, they have half a dozen or so great ones . . . this was the first album they released under the Badfinger name, having been previously been called The Iveys . . . and some of the songs on this album come from The Iveys' sole album from 1969 . . . others from the soundtrack to The Magic Christian film soundtrack . . . and there are indeed Beatles touches among these tunes, as they worked with Paul McCartney and were on the Apple label . . . but what stands out is a great band that can make great rock, great ballads, a few quirky songs, anything they want . . . this album is a gem . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 35 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those from the 1/9/1971 broadcast of "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," delightful treats . . . New England is so snowy right now, so deep in its winter, and best to find the beauty in these days as much as in the springy green and autumnal melodies . . .

02.07.2015 show

January 31, 2015 16th anniversary show features:
Featured Album: Pete Townshend, Lifehouse: The BBC Radio Play (1999) . . . Lead guitarist & genius master mind of The Who Townshend 'rassled with this narrative vision for 30 years, from about 1969 on, wishing to follow up The Who's rock opera Tommy with something even more ambitious . . . his basic idea: we could ALL become the music, each of us contributing his or her unique note to a moment of cosmic revelation . . . in 1999, BBC Radio invited Townshend to transform his vision into a 2-hour radio play, and this anniversary show shares what he and his collaborators produced . . . Lifehouse permeates Townshend's solo work and his work with The Who . . . it is filled with both hope and despair for the future of the world, and it is a profoundly inspiring work . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 35 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . Here it is, another late January weekend, another radio show anniversary, plus show #400 on SpiritPlants Radio . . . the days are deeply snowy, quite cold, & I could not be happier looking forward to hosting this episode . . .

01.31.2015 show

January 17, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: The Decemberists, What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World (2015) . . . our strange superheroes are back, led by the inimitably beautiful and wonderfully verbose Colin Meloy . . . all manner of acoustic and electrical treats this time . . . just wonderful to have them back . . .
Classic Rock Album: Townes Van Zandt, The Late Great Townes Van Zandt (1972) . . . twas my friend Jamie turned me onto this strange old tyme Americana cowboy . . . this album of his is some kind of acoustic folk rock and roll magical stuff . . . hard to tell otherwise . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 34 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those from the 1/9/1971 broadcast of "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," so gooooood . . . I think the Decemberists' new album is right on . . . terrible world, beautiful world . . .

01.17.2015 show

January 10, 2015 show features:
New Rock Album: Greensky Bluegrass, If Sorrows Swim (2014) . . . This band takes its wildly wonderful place among other great Americana bluegrass rockers like Old Crow Medicine Show & Sturgill Simpson . . .they have a song called "Kerosene" on this album that just fucking FLOORS me . . .
Classic Rock Album: Warren Zevon, Sentimental Hygiene (1987) . . . this album is so fucking awesome AND mr. zevon has R.E.M. as his backing band . . . just beautiful . . . cynical, sad, bitter, funny, & beautiful . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 34 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Bob Dylan & The Band, & more cuts from the legendary Basement Tapes sessions . . . new year under way, happy to be at it again . . . will do my best to make it a good year of shows . . .

01.10.2015 show

2014

December 13, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Camper Van Beethoven, El Camino Real (2014) . . . Took me maybe two spins to fucking love this album, love this band as I have since the late '80s, & be so glad they are around still, rocking beauties . . .
Classic Rock Album: They Might Be Giants, Lincoln (1988) . . . probably the last one to jump on this band's wagon, and glad to be aboard . . . this early album catches them playing strong, funny, endearing, really good way to slide into their world . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 33 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's 12th annual holiday broadcast concludes this year's run of shows . . . thank you for listening, enjoy your Season of Lights, blessed be now & always to you :)

12.13.2014 show

December 6, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Calexico, Algiers (2012) . . . Took me awhile to warm up to this Arizona indie rock band's most recent release . . . but did . . . warm vocals, nice rocking songs . . . and some horns for a little bit different . . . this band's better each release . . .
Classic Rock Album: Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Sleeps with Angels (1994) . . . NY was dealing raw and new with his friend Kurt Cobain's suicide, and looking around everywhere and seeing death and darkness . . . but he and the Horse made beautiful music of it all, the salving kind . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 33 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists is Bob Dylan & The Band, and some nice cuts from their 1967 Basement Tapes recordings . . . dreary rainy day in late autumn New England . . . my love smiles at such a day as this one . . . glory be :)

12.06.2014 show

November 29, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues (2011) . . . I was slow to pick up on this Seattle band, yet kept hearing songs here & there from this second album of theirs, & liking them . . . finally dove on in one more time, hung on, & wow, yes, this is a goody, indie guitars & harmonies a-blazin' high & low . . .
Classic Rock Album: Crosby, Stills, & Nash, CSN (1977) . . . This is a mellower sounding album than the CSN albums of the early '70s, but the songs cut just as deep, if not more so for the subtle changes of age & time . . . & the harmonies are as gorgeous as ever . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 33 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Temples, a UK psych-rock band I can't get enough of, & cuts from the remix of their amazing 2014 debut album, Sun Structures . . . spent the cold cold night near my beloved, & writing for my life . . . it was sooo good :)

11.29.2014 show

November 22, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Pink Floyd, The Endless River (2014) . . . The Floyd's last chapter, a tribute to their passed mate, keyboardist Richard Wright, some older material, some new . . . here's the news: this is a WONDERFUL Pink Floyd album, and should be heard by all . . . just damned beautiful . . .
Classic Rock Album: Phil Ochs, Tape from California (1968) . . . Ochs looked around 1968 and saw nothing but the troubles of his times, and he crafted a dark masterpiece for those, then and now, who listen . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 33 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are a few last of those featured on the inaugural "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," broadcast back on 7/4/1970 . . . twas this weekend 11 years ago that my show resumed after over a year's hiatus, now online on SpiritPlants Radio . . . didn't know what these years since would bring, but this show and station have been steady along . . . and I am so happily grateful . . .

11.22.2014 show

November 15, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Thurston Moore, The Best Day (2014) . . . Known most famously for his work with Sonic Youth, Moore has many solo projects and collaborations as well (including a great 2013 album with John Zorn) . . . this new solo album is a good rocker, and is similar to Sonic Youth in being smart, fun, interesting, great listening . . .
Classic Rock Album: Harry Chapin, Sequel (1980) . . . This was Chapin's last completed album before his tragic death in 1981 . . . aside from the hit title song, it is his usual mix of folk rockers, ballads, and protest singer politics . . . it's a good last statement, he sounds happy and vigorous in many of the tunes . . . goes out swinging . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 33 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on the inaugural "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," broadcast back on 7/4/1970 . . . I was at a party this weekend in 1981 that changed my life . . . what a world away to try and remember . . .

11.15.2014 show

November 8, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Bob Seger, Ride Out (2014) . . . Seger hasn't released an album in 8 years, and he hasn't released one this good in a lot longer time than that . . . does cover songs by the likes of Woody Guthrie and Steve Earle . . . does his share of original rockers and ballads . . . does them all with the fire and craft and intensity of his old, classic work . . . this album is the man again riding high, wonderful . . .
Classic Rock Album: Billy Joel, 52nd Street (1978) . . . It's November again and so to Joel's '78 album, his late '70s rock star status at its height, probably never again sounding this confident and carefree both . . . a treat to revisit . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 33 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on the inaugural "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem," broadcast back on 7/4/1970 . . .gorgeous autumn, thankful to exist within its passing . . .

11.08.2014 show

October 18, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: John Fullbright, From the Ground Up (2012) . . . Like Parker Millsap last week, this young man is from Oklahoma and very very talented . . . this debut album is just a dandy of bluegrass, Americana, & blues all mixed up nicely . . .
Classic Rock Album: Seals & Crofts, Summer Breeze (1972) . . . This Los Angeles duo had a hit with the title hit, but this album is a delight from start to finish . . . pretty guitars, harmonies, spiritual yearnings & poetical mullings . . . just heavy loveliness . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 32 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, & songs from the Snow on Albuquerque collection of live covers songs . . . the world is deeply beautiful, & yet broils wildly & we struggle till we fly till we struggle till we fly again . . .

10.18.2014 show

October 11, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Parker Millsap, Parker Millsap (2014) . . . This young Oklahoma singer-songwriter comes whirling out of the dust with a batch of rockabilly wonders, some from his Godfearin' years, some come since . . . he is special . . .
Classic Rock Album: Buckingham-Nicks, Buckingham-Nicks (1973) . . . Before they were the golden lights of Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham & Stevie Nicks released this record . . . the Big Mac sound much emanated here . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 32 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Mason Williams, & cuts from his strangely beguiling 1968 Mason Williams Photograph Record . . . for fun, saw Nolan's Inception again today . . . hours still in the wonderful recovery . . .

10.11.2014 show

September 27, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: U2, Songs of Innocence (2014) . . . this Irish band hasn't made an album that matters in a long time . . . they finally realized this & did something about it . . . this one puts them on the line again, & it's really good . . .
Classic Rock Album: Gillian Welch, Hell Among the Yearlings (1998) . . . Welch & her partner Dave Rawlings were out of the gate wonderful . . . this, their second album, shows them already ranging their territory of outlaws, crazies, & lost loves, music wonderful, subtle, brilliant. . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 31 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is John Fogerty's covers project, second helping, 2009's Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again . . . spent the day with my love nearby, at the business of my pen for hours & hours . . . a good day's vibes to share on this show tonight . . .

09.27.2014 show

September 20, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Avi Buffalo, At Best Cuckold (2014) . . . second album but this young but amazingly gifted and inspired band . . . this is the real thing, if ye seek it, beautiful and psychedelic and thank ye thank ye thank ye . . .
Classic Rock Album: Albert Hammond, It Never Rains in Southern California (1972) . . . the title song was a hit, but just one of a wonderful group of songs, funny, touching, and beautiful . . . this is a lost rock classic and should be heard again . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 31 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is the Oxford Circle, a San Francisco psychedelic band whose music we only have because of one fantastic live recording circa 1966, and thank ye recordists . . . this is show 500 & I am so happy to be doing this tonight :) thank you.

09.20.2014 show

September 13, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Sturgill Simpson, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music (2014) . . . this Kentucky man is a fucking miracle . . . as old school country as Waylon and Willie and Johnny Cash, but as much a good head as stood next to me this summer at Phish in Great Woods . . . wow . . . fucking wow . . .
Classic Rock Album: Melanie, Stoneground Words (1972) . . . I missed out on Melanie till recently, heard her belt out at Woodstock '69, and wow, WOW, and here's more, a lot more . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 31 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists is John Fogerty's secret wonderful album, 1973's Blue Ridge Rangers . . . . next week, 500 of these, that's one mighty pecular thing to be on the cusp of . . .

09.13.2014 show

August 30, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Spoon, They Want My Soul (2014) . . . Austin, Texas trio returns with a hot new album, funny, touching, grooving, & a great listen . . . classic rock and roll made fresh once again, as the great records do . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Byrds, Byrds (1973) . . . It had been 7 years since the original five Byrds had been together . . . expectations of this reunion were high, though what resulted was far more country rock '73 than jingle jangle '66 . . . what remains are the great harmonies, wrapping around the electrics & acoustics . . . that these musicians were able to get it together one more time, & put out one more good LP, is testament to a caring they'd never lost for their band or each other . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 29 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are a final few from the 1969 Woodstock Art & Music Festival, so good . . . it's been four weeks running of shows, what a dandy stretch of good music & crazy words . . .

08.30.2014 show

August 23, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: James, La Petite Mort (2014) . . . since I discovered them, this Brit rock band has featured several times on this show . . . they are so good . . . their new album is strong & its first song, "Walk Like You," is one of the best album lead-off songs EVER . . .
Classic Rock Album: Roger McGuinn, Back from Rio (1991) . . . Perhaps he was only back for a little while, but he brought along some Byrdsy friends, some Heartbreakers, some other good pals, & made a Byrds album circa 1991 that beat most of that year's competition by miles & miles & miles . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 29 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more from the 1969 Woodstock Art & Music Festival, so good . . . just happy to be doing it, playing the music, sharing the groove, reading the words, thank ye, thank ye, thank ye . . .

08.23.2014 show

August 16, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Hypnotic Eye (2014) . . . been awhile for these boys, but they come blazing back with their drawling rock & roll glory . . . just fantastic to hear their new high jams . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Feelies, Only Life (1988) . . . this Jersey band got compared to the Velvet Underground, & yah sorta, kinda, but not really . . . they did end this fantastic third album with a Velvets' cover, though, just for fun . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 29 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are from the 1969 Woodstock Art & Music Festival, the one we all wish we'd been at . . . good, high night, grateful for being at it hard, pen, micophone, every which way . . .

08.16.2014 show

August 9, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Nickel Creek, A Dotted Line (2014) . . . wonderful, first new album in 9 years by this legendary bluegrass group . . . they bring everything to the table, sort it out amongst themselves, & gift us with a gorgeous new album in their catalogue. . .
Classic Rock Album: Rolling Stones, Goats Head Soup (1973) . . . this is a new discovery to me, just a damned wonderful album, dark, mystical, dirty rock and roll, the Stones sounding like we still now remember they sound like . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 29 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Ramones, a last glorious helping of their rock and roll madness . . . glad it's happening tonight . . . glorious music . . .

08.09.2014 show

July 26, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Quilt, Held in Splendor (2014) . . . wow, this Boston band is even more beautifully trippy this second time out . . . 1966 caught in amber . . . yet it's new music, it's made now . . . eternal eternal eternal . . .
Classic Rock Album: James, Laid (1993) . . . every once in awhile I run into another album by this Brit-rock outfit . . . & it's rocking & delightful, and here it is for all of you to enjoy as well . . . loudly . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 29 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Ramones, another helping in tribute to their punk glories . . . fucking blessed this hours prepping this show & 'casting it . . . like a wonderful finale to my work-week . . .

07.26.2014 show

July 19, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Old Crow Medicine Show, Remedy (2014) . . . These boys keep getting better and better, album by album . . . then see em in concert, see bluegrass blow all your rock and roll towers down . . . wow and wonderful. . .
Classic Rock Album: Bob Dylan, John Wesley Harding(1967) . . . Dylan sings & wheezes & blows of life & death & art & other matters passing on his strange genius mind . . . get on the boat, here's the ride again . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 28 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Ramones, all of whose four original members are, Kerouac's words, safe in heaven dead . . . but their music is ours & fuck yah to that . . .

07.19.2014 show

July 12, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Phish, Fuego (2014) . . . . . . Ahh, Phish . . their best album since 2000's Farmhouse . . . starts with the titanic title track & never lets up . . . they are on tour right now, we were lucky enough to see them locally recently . . . wow . . . wonderful band . . . great album . . . got me collecting LPs again for real. . . . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Decemberists, Her Majesty the Decemberists (2003) . . . Colin Meloy & coherts were themselves from the get-go, brilliant, crazy, fun . . . their second album boasts all sorts of characters & dramas & just dive in with gleeeeee . . . . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 28 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Flaming Lips & cuts from their great 2013 EP, Peace Sword . . . back after a month, and here's what I think I know: the world is my gift and my thank you is my art . . .

07.12.2014 show

June 14, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Lone Impala, Lonerism (2012) . . . This Australian band didn't strike my ears deep at first . . . but I gave this, their second album, a good listen this time around, & it stuck . . . there's lots of sweet lysergic goodness here, lots of touches that shows this young band has good ears & a lot of talent . . .
Classic Rock Album Redux: Simon & Garfunkel, Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970) . . . Last played this album on 9/26/2004 broadcast, bringing it around again . . . as a swan song, only its own contemporary Abbey Road would compare . . . Simon would hit these wonderful rock poet heights again & again solo, but not often with his brother at his side . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 27 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Mamas and The Papas and their show-closing performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival . . . happy to be doing this show tonight, happy & wanting to share the music however I can . . .

06.14.2014 show

June 7, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: The Pixies, Indie Cindy (2014) . . . It's been 13 years since the Pixies have released a new LP . . . the challenge in reuniting, in addition to the loss of bassist Kim Gordon, was both to acknowledge & ignore the passage of time . . . to resume & discover in the process what it means to do so . . . I like this album a lot, not for upholding a legacy or at least not tarnishing it . . . No, I like it as a well-made record that reminds me why I like the wiley genre-bending Pixies, & also makes me glad they are resuming their band's path ahead . . . good stuff . . .
Classic Rock Album: Seatrain, Seatrain (1970) . . . Easiest way to describe this California roots-rock band is to say they grew out of other bands from the 60s, more bluesy oriented, into something that made this beautifully played & harmonized album, produced by George Martin (his first post-Beatles production, & a good one) . . . they know how to play, they know how to sing, they have a good sense of humor, & time spent with them is sweet indeed . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 27 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Jimi Hendrix Experience and their name-making performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival . . . keep turning that corner, again & again, see the sun, love the clouds, keep a nose for water, tender many, sing, sing, sing . . .

06.07.2014 show

May 24, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Coldplay, Ghost Stories (2014) . . . Lead singer Chris Martin's heart breaks and the band makes an album as sadly beautiful as Sea Change and Blood on the Tracks . . . this is the sound of a band playing its collective heart out, and we are lucky to have it recorded for our sad pleasures . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Temptations, Psychedelic Shack (1970) . . . Legendary Motown band deep in their lysergic phase, inventing psychedelic soul for later comers like Prince to learn much from . . . so sweetly funky too . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 27 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Who and their blow-out performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival . . . turn a new corner, see what good comes, try it, again, till it sticks . . .

05.24.2014 show

May 17, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: The Black Keys, Turn Blue (2014) . . . I heard the lead track on this album last Sunday, song called "Weight of Love," and knew it would feature this weekend . . . this duo from Ohio keeps getting better and better, and more and more lysergically free . . . <
Classic Rock Album: XTC, Black Sea (1980) . . . Still kind of punky, or at least post-punky, this UK wonder of a band was already pointing toward acid rock spaces they alone would create and then come to inhabit . . . just a miracle of a band . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 26 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are Jefferson Airplane, and many of their great tunes, sung young and hungry from the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival . . . Some nights it has to be fought for, the beauty, the music, the meaning, and it is, and behold . . .

05.17.2014 show

May 10, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: String Cheese Incident, Song in My Head (2014) . . . Been a long stretch since this show featured this wonderful Colorado jam band . . . their first new album in awhile is a beauty, brilliant music and jams and good high spirits . . . dance and be happy!
Classic Rock Album: The Church, The Blurred Crusade (1982) . . . Wow and wonderful, this Aussie psychedelic band as good as the best of them, and this album an early example of their jangly lysergic perfections!
Storybook Time: Chapter 26 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are The Byrds, and many of their great tunes from the 1966 Monterey Pop Festival . . . it was thunder storming tonight, and my love and I were by the river side, beautiful and grateful . . .

05.10.2014 show

May 3, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Spirit Family Reunion, No Separation (2012) . . . This New York City band is so easy to love, I love them . . . that rock and roll bluegrass of Old Crow Medicine Show, Gillian Welch, Union Station, this band takes its place among them . . . what a joy!
Classic Rock Album: R.E.M., Fables of the Reconstruction (1985) . . . For those wondering what rock and roll sounded like in the depths of the evil 1980s, look no farther . . . these Georgia boys were making it and making it wonderful . . . a miracle sound in a dark time . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 25 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist are Big Brother & the Holding Company, the first of many great bands this show will feature in May and June from the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival . . . been awhile since the last show, so glad to be back and carry on and carry on . . .

05.03.2014 show

April 12, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: GHQ, Crystal Healing (2007) . . . Again, like last week, an album featuring Steve Gunn, this one a group effort & a damned fine one . . . mix great musicians among all sorts of in-studio voodoo (especially Black Dirt Studio in New York) and strange chemicals and something wonderful will sometimes, as with this album, bubble up . . .
Classic Rock Album: The B-52's, Cosmic Thing (1989) . . . This album is known for "Love Shack" and "Roam," hits that helped put this Athens, Georgia high into the charts, but this record is end-to-end great tunes, & all sorts of charms of harmonies & guitars & good times along the way . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 25 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist are Rhyton, another Black Dirt Studio-associated band, & some nice cuts from their 2012 eponymous album . . . this is the last show before I have me another birthday, and I can only say that doing this show is part of the reason I will gladly keep having them . . .

04.12.2014 show

April 5, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Steve Gunn, Time Off (2013) . . . Aside from playing a crucial role in the Black Dirt Oak supergroup recently featured on this show, Gunn releases his own great solo albums . . . this, his second release, is full of sweet & bite & snarl in many fine varieties . . . a confident, lyrical inspired musician at work . . .
Classic Rock Album: Supergrass, Life on Other Planets (2002) . . . Alas the breakup of this wonderful, beguilingly good UK band, in 2010 . . . some comfort in reaching back to their older material & coming up with this absolute gem of an album . . . fun, brilliant, beautiful . . . trippy gold . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 25 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist are D. Charles Speer & The Helix, another great Black Dirt Studio band, & cuts from their brand new album, Doubled Exposure . . . there is indeed some spring in the air in recent days, a deep salve to what ails the mortal . . .

04.05.2014 show

March 29, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Black Twig Pickers, Rough Carpenters (2013) . . . Another great production from Black Dirt Studio in upstate New York . . . The Pickers are an old-time Appalachian band & their sound is timeless & a joy to listen to . . . if you ever wondered about the tangled roots of rock & roll, you will find some of them in this glorious playing . . . One of their members, Nathan Bowles, plays in the Black Dirt Oak supergroup (whose debut album was featured on this show last week) . . .
Classic Rock Album: Sting, The Dream of the Blue Turtles (1985) . . . Sting left the safe but combustible confines of legendary rock band The Police to make his own kind of albums . . . it was a risk, but this debut solo album shows he had all sorts of good musical ideas in hand . . . rocking, moody, jazzy . . . he tried many things, and many things worked . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 25 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist are the brooding rockers Psychic Ills, another one of the fantastic Black Dirt Studio bands this show is currently featuring . . . "To dwell is to leave a trace"--Jorie Graham . . .

03.29.2014 show

March 22, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Black Dirt Oak, Wawayanda Patent (2014) . . . This is a supergroup of players whose bands are associated with the Black Dirt Studio in New York . . . it is genius, mad fucking genius . . . I listen to it with awe, & am delighted to say that the players all have their own great bands which this show will feature tonight & coming shows . . . wow! . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Gurus, The Gurus (2004) . . . This Barcelona band sounds like mid-60s London, just as inspired & good, lots & lots of show trippy blasts of sound . . . they love the sound & they do it so well . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 25 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist are Pigeons, another one of the fantastic Black Dirt Studio bands this show is featuring . . . wonderful stuff, & more of it to come!

03.22.2014 show

March 8, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Jagwar Ma, Howlin' (2013) . . . Debut album by this Australian psychedelic band . . . they have a deep sense of the groove, which makes anchors their bouncy melodies & trippy lyrics very well, & bodes well their future . . .
Classic Rock Album: Paul Simon, Hearts and Bones (1983) . . . Originally called Think Too Much, this was the Simon & Garfunkel reunion album that didn't happen, after their successful live show in Central Park New York City in 1981 . . . what it is otherwise is another great Simon solo album, & climaxes profoundly with his tribute (with Philip Glass) to John Lennon . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 24 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are one more batch of those who had great rock hits on the radio in 1972, including America, David Bowie, Elton John, Gilbert O'Sullivan, & Neil Young! . . . the shrooms said to me, years ago, a train crossing the Charles, Art is an open door, will never turn any away who have once walked through . . .

03.08.2014 show

March 1, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Beck, Morning Phase (2014) . . . I'm not sure if Beck is going backward or what . . . but I'm willing to indulge genius a bit . . . this isn't Sea Change . . . but it's pretty and mellow and there are moments when the genius looks from under heavy lids, and something new seems to occur . . .
Classic Rock Album: Old Crow Medicine Show, Old Crow Medicine Show (2004) . . . This is the Crows' first full-length LP . . . it's simple and pretty and shows the promise of so much to come . . . "Wagon Wheel" was just the beginning for these Crow boys . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 24 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those who had great rock hits on the radio in 1972, including Lou Reed, Steelers Wheels, Stevie Wonder, The Eagles, and The Moody Blues! . . . some weeks I am just so happy to make it to this show, feels like shore, brilliant shore . . .

03.01.2014 show

February 22, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Richard Thompson, Electric (2013) . . . From his first solo album last show to his most recent, 41 years between them, Thompson has stayed great & gotten even better . . . this was my album on Polly iPod to shovel lots of show while listening to, of late . . . a treasure to share . . .
Classic Rock Album: Mr. Flood's Party, Mr. Flood's Party (1969) . . . This obscure band recorded one album of wild & varied psychedelic kinds . . . there's a sweetness to the hard rocking, & the softer tunes . . . a deep love of music & yearn that it connect & heal . . . such is the desire always . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 23 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those who had great rock hits on the radio in 1972, including Jackson Browne, Jim Croce, Loggins & Messina, Paul Simon, & Rick Nelson! . . . Snowed like madness in recent weeks, now milder hours, grateful for both, for loved ones, & for the pen in my hand that moves & moves . . .

02.22.2014 show

February 8, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Temples, Sun Structures (2014) . . . Fitting that this UK psychedelic band's debut album would be the first 2014 release featured on this show . . . as old school psychedelic rock as these fine youths can make it . . . and 1967 never did end, by the way . . .
Classic Rock Album: Richard Thompson, Henry the Human Fly (1972) . . . Having left the security of his legendary band Fairport Convention, this British singer-songwriter strikes out with many a strange tale of odd passions and wandering freaks . . . these kinds of compellingly beautiful songs would become the man's calling card for decades, and still. . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 23 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is The Pixies, & brand new cuts from their just-released EPs 1-2 . . . art is the open door and welcomes anyone who has, again, and again, and again . . .

02.08.2014 show

February 1, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Lord Huron, Lonesome Dreams (2012) . . . This Los Angeles based indie rock group has a kind of sweet, yearning lyrical bent . . . but their music is muscular, played with confidence & inspiration . . . like honey, sticky & gladly staying . . .
Classic Rock Album: Mason Proffit, Wanted! (1970) . . . This show featured this country rock band's second album Movin' Toward Happiness on its 9/6/2008 broadcast . . . now back to the well for their debut album . . . this band tells all sorts of compelling roughneck stories . . . their dark tune about the hangmen will probably stay with you awhile . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 22 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Richard & Linda Thompson, & wonderful tunes from their November 1975 tour . . . into this show's 16th year, & I hope & intend to make it as good as the rest . . . will try again & again . . .

02.01.2014 show

January 25, 2014 15th anniversary show features:
Featured Album: Esbjörn Svensson Trio, Leucocyte (2008) . . . It was nearly two years ago that I happened upon this Swedish trio, & was taken with them right away . . . they reminded me some of Medeski, Martin, & Wood, in the sense that their music ranged from beautiful jazz to wild rock to chaos, & remained exciting to me no matter how often I listened to them (& I have listened to them often in that time) . . . a few months ago, their posthumous album 301 was released (which this show featured on its 8/3/2013 broadcast), showcasing more pieces from the sessions that had produced their last finished album, Leucocyte . . . shortly after those sessions, the trio's leader, pianist and composer Esbjörn Svensson, died in a scuba diving accident . . . 301 is a brilliant coda to Leucocyte, a wonderful companion piece, but it is Leucocyte that is the masterpiece . . . this album illustrates everything one would want in a psychedelic album: masterful playing, danger, adventure, sweetness, endless hopeful horizons to bring one's curiosities, on & on & on . . . it is just a wonderful pleasure to share this album with you on this anniversary show . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 22 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . here comes another anniversary of this show, & I never take them lightly, hoping for many more without knowing for sure . . . I offer a kind remembering thank you to Radio Free Cambridge, & to Allston-Brighton Free Radio, & to SpiritPlants Radio, for keeping this show a home to call its own as it has wandered its stranger ways over the years . . . it's good to remember, & then nod, & then keep working, keep moving along . . .

01.25.2014 show

January 18, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Arcade Fire, Reflektor (2013) [Part Two] . . . Come along for more of this epic rock cycle as it dips into the Greek myth all artists try sooner or later, & then science, & death, & whatever else it encounters along the way . . .
Classic Rock Album: Hot Tuna, Burgers (1972) . . . Jefferson Airplane members Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, and Papa John Creach formed this folkier rock offshoot, & showed the mothership a run for its money by the time of this third release . . . the heart & the soul are kindred, of course . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 22 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is Galliard, & sweet cuts from their 1970 album, New Dawn . . . Every new year's as much as chance as every other, just a matter of how much grab one makes, & the luck in the air . . .

01.18.2014 show

January 11, 2014 show features:
New Rock Album: Arcade Fire, Reflektor (2013) [Part One] . . . I hated this Canadian band's last album, it was trite & sold millions & left me very disappointed . . . this new one makes up for that one in spades, it's heavy, it rocks, it contemplates death & it rocks! . . . all is forgiven . . .
Classic Rock Album: Janice Ian, Between the Lines (1975) . . . I've just arrived to this album, knowing the song "Seventeen" but none of the others, & wow! this is an album full of twists, turns, & many delights . . . musically delicious, Ian is also a great lyricist & tis a pleasure to feature her work, first of many times, no doubt . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 21 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is The Ventures, a largely forgotten guitar combo from long ago, & tasty cuts from their 1967 Super Psychedelics . . . oh into the new year & see what comes, why not the best more often than not? Why not?

01.11.2014 show

2013

December 14, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: The Black Crowes, Before the Frost . . . Until the Freeze (2009) [Part Two] . . . here is the second half of this terrific album . . . it's the kind of record that quickly becomes familiar & loved in one's ears . . . glad to be sharing this music as the last new offering of 2013 . . .
Classic Rock Album: Pete Townshend, White City (1985) . . . Now if Townshend had released this as a Who album, it would have been hailed as the amazing rock album . . . as it was, it had a moment, a brief hit or two, came & went . . . but truth be told, it is a fierce, musically wild quasi-concept album that starts big & only gets bigger . . . happy to play this one for my passed-on friend JBIII, he'll be rocking in the stratosphere!
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 21 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's 11th annual holiday broadcast concludes this year's run of shows . . . thank you for listening, enjoy your Season of Lights, blessed be now & always :)

12.14.2013 show

December 7, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: The Black Crowes, Before the Frost . . . Until the Freeze (2009) [Part One] . . . I missed the boat on this fantastic double album, until recently . . . this week's show features the first half . . . many many delights . . . the Crowes are a band that put on one of the finest parties around, smart, funny, heartfelt, great jamming . . . the album was recorded before a live audience at Levon Helm's Woodstock, New York studio . . . what a lucky bunch those listeners were!
Classic Rock Album: The Feelies, The Good Earth (1986) . . . This show recently featured this New Jersey band's great reunion album from 2011 . . . now a deep dive into their catalogue brings this, their second album, the one I first heard them by . . . it's a great big guitars album, wonderful, & its highlight of many is "Slipping (Into Something)," a song so vast it matches the best work of their heroes, the Velvet Underground . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 21 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is The Cure, another helping of their great tunes (first helping came on this show back on 6/17/2006!) . . . oh & a couple of tunes for the season, though next week's last show of the year will get way more into the seasonal music!

12.07.2013 show

November 23, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: The Feelies, Here Before (2011) . . . This Jersey band was big on the college charts in the '80s before disbanding . . . recent years there's been a reunion & this album is the fine result . . . they still rock in their enigmatic way, charging guitars, sugary harmonies . . . welcome back, boys . . .
Classic Rock Album: Tommy James & the Shondells, Travelin' (1970) . . . Known for such great rock hits as "Mony Mony" & "Crimson & Clover," this band out of Michigan put out some fine full albums as well . . . this album was their last, their heaviest, & one of their best . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 20 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artist is It's a Beautiful Day, & some prime cuts from their 1970 album Marrying Maiden . . . This show started in 1999 on Boston underground radio, where it lasted until 2002 . . . 2003 was its return to the air, but of cyberspace this time, & a worldwide audience potential . . . I enjoy doing it as much as I did ten years ago, & am far more grateful, in some ways . . .

11.23.2013 show

November 16, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: The Head & the Heart, Let's Be Still (2013) . . . Second release from this Seattle band, & I was slow warming to it . . . but there is a warmth & flesh to this body of songs that eventually envelopes the patient ear, & rewards many times over . . . so now I share its beauties . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Police, Reggatta de Blanc (1979) . . . Oh, I loved me some Police back in their heyday, smart, sensual, sometimes pissed off postpunk that just fucking rocked no matter what it was called . . . this second album finds the Brit trio trying all sorts of things on to see what fits, & discovering they can be funny, empathetic, whatever they want to be in a given hour . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 20 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those bands on tour who on or about October 27 took the time to express their love for the passing of Lou Reed by rocking the hell out in his honor . . . the sweet smell of this season is as fine as its soft feel in the air . . . blessed to pass through . . .

11.16.2013 show

November 9, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: The Avett Brothers, Magpie & the Dandelion (2013) . . . The songs on this album were recorded in the same sessions that produced 2012's wonderful The Carpenter album . . . sequel, continuation, whatever word, the music is sweet & stellar, the lyrics are strange, high, sad, playful . . . another happy success from the North Carolina brothers & their mates . . .
Classic Rock Album: Billy Joel, The Stranger (1977) . . . Surely this album leapt Joel into the status of rock superstar, where he would remain for at least a decade . . . there are both better-known & more obscure treats to be found . . . "Vienna" is where I found much comfort in my youth . . . And I recall with memory's pleasure seeing Joel & his band play out "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" on stage some 25+ years ago . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 20 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems & Bags End News . . . & this week's featured artists are some of the groups from 1994's Fifteen Minutes: A Tribute To Velvet Underground . . . The Velvets' Lou Reed just passed on October 27, but his music with VU & beyond will remain for a long, long time . . .

11.09.2013 show

November 2, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Blitzen Trapper, VII (2013) . . . Raucous new release by this alt-country band featured many times on this show . . . Pretty music at times, bluegrassy, then rocking, then hicksy country-ish . . . all so well played there's no doubt of the musical firepower blowing out . . .
Classic Rock Album: Harry Chapin, On the Road to Kingdom Come (1976) . . . Come November, come time for a Harry Chapin album . . . I remember being 17 & fascinated by the strange narratives on this record . . . I still find them compelling but also realize just how fine the music itself is, Chapin & his band being in fine form on every cut . . . the music you hear young begins the path of your later listening, no matter how tangly it gets . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 20 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Clouds, a late-'60s Scottish band who never quite made it, & cuts from their two albums . . . I've often felt November to be my most native month, the colors, the cool air, the sense of endings . . . pleasurable melancholy . . .

11.02.2013 show

October 19, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Cage the Elephant, Melophobia (2013) . . . The 1/22/2011 episode of this program featured some really cool songs by the Kentucky band . . . now comes their third album & this time to showcase the whole album . . . worked up, passionate, fun, bouncy rock and roll, clever, blowing out doors in all directions . . . funkeee!
Classic Rock Album: Warren Zevon Warren Zevon (1976) . . . Most know this Los Angeles singer-songwriter from that fun but silly "Werewolves of London" song, but his music goes far beyond that song's simple charms . . . dark, smart, cynical, & surrounded by a fantastic supporting cast on this, his debut album . . . delicious stuff . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 20 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those who had great rock hits in 1974, including Wings, Gordon Lightfoot, the Rolling Stones, the Eagles, and ELO! . . . some hours are like pushing that rock up that old hill, others are a view from beyond rock, hill, & sky itself . . .

10.19.2013 show

October 12, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: The Veils, Time Stays, We Go (2013) . . . This is the third album featured on this show from this bouncy UK band . . . their music is full of intimate atmospheres & big venue shouts . . . delicious & mind-swallowing . . . every time I hear new music of theirs I'm reminded how good they are . . .
Classic Rock Album: Lou Reed, New York (1989) . . . Back in '89, I was hanging around & sometimes working in a used bookstore and record store and comics store and porn store and headshop, housed in a great big barn . . . the manager seemed to know everything about rock music and I think he was the one who got me into the Velvet Underground . . . we were lucky at the time that Lou Reed was deciding to rock in Velvets-like ways on his new album . . . literate, profane, funny, tender . . . this one will charm you on down . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 19 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those who had great rock hits in 1974, including Eric Clapton, Steely Dan, Elton John, BTO, & David Essex! . . . I think if one cannot enjoy the brilliant colors & air of autumn, all that's left is the bare biting come of winter . . .

10.12.2013 show

September 28, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Mazzy Star, Seasons of Your Day (2013) . . . This duo's last album was 1996's awesome Among My Swan . . . so it's been awhile . . . their new album shows no rust or wear or really any passage of time for this band . . . its many beauties & mysteries resume & carry along
Classic Rock Album: The Decemberists, Castaways and Cutouts (2002) . . . First album by this Portland, Oregon band & they arrived fully fleshed to the unique, strange, charming, wonderful band they are . . . return to these early songs & love them again, or meet them the first time & see if their spell lures you . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 19 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Billy Bragg & Wilco & one more batch of songs from the legendary Mermaid Avenue sessions . . . Art saves my life & sanity again & again & again . . .

09.28.2013 show

September 21, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Tribes, Wish to Scream (2013) . . . Ah, this lovely British band, last heard in 2011 with their delicious debut album Tribes . . . now back and goodness me are they full of fresh new tunes! Tasty and tastier song after song . . . what a treat! . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Waterboys, Fisherman's Blues (1988) . . . Last played on this show on 10/15/2005, this legendary Irish band celebrates the album's 25th anniversary by touring it around Europe later this year . . . my beloved and I were lucky enough to catch the Boston leg of their current tour . . . so wonderful . . . playing this magical work again in thanks and thanks and thanks to Mike Scott and his traveling musical companions . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 19 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Billy Bragg & Wilco and more songs from the legendary Mermaid Avenue sessions . . . just to make Art forever and ever and thank ye thank ye . . .

09.21.2013 show

September 14, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Annuals, Time Stamp (2013) . . . This North Carolina band hit some hard times in the last few years, losing their record contract & commercial way . . . but they reconvened to make these songs & they are brilliant, beautiful, heartbreaking, & we can hardly be as thankful as they are that before they hung it up, they let them pour forth . . . Thank you, Annuals, thank you . . .
Classic Rock Album: Manfred Mann's Earth Band, The Roaring Silence (1976) . . . Featuring the 70s FM staple "Blinded by the Light," this album is pretty, prog-ish, tripsy, & feels like walking through an autumnal forest, high enough to be paying attention to every passing moment . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 18 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Billy Bragg & Wilco who decided in 2012 to drop another full album of brilliant songs from the legendary Mermaid Avenue sessions . . . Sing away, sing away, sing away & give thanks . . .

09.14.2013 show

August 31, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: The Dodos, Carrier (2013) . . . Last featured on this show 10/10/2009 with the brilliant A Time to Die, this band's new album is moody, sometimes nicely loud, & just plain enigmatic, playing, in short, to all their strengths as a band . . .
Classic Rock Album: George Harrison, Cloud Nine (1987) . . . Harrison took some years off from recording, & came back fresh & full of new tunes, especially benefiting from his work with Jeff Lynne . . . The song "When We Was Fab" is worth the ticket admission alone, but the whole album is full of goodies . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 18 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Dan Fogelberg, & another helping from his classic 1981 double-LP, The Innocent Age . . . "And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you" -Nietzsche. . .

08.31.2013 show

August 24, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Rogue Wave, Nightingale Floors (2013) . . . Been awhile since this Oakland band's been featured on this show, since the 11/17/2007 broadcast . . . their new album, which features several recently joined members to the band, is one of their best yet, rocks & rings with the urgency of a group who have to be making the music they are making, right now . . . in other words, the only kind worth making or listening to . . .
Classic Rock Album: U2, The Joshua Tree (1987) . . . This was the pinnacle of classic U2, the righteous, brilliant Irish band, looking around the world & having a lot to say, with loud, loud guitars on hand . . . they owned the rock and roll world at this moment & knew it, & tried to do some good with their fame & influence . . . while they would travel many strange, & increasingly mediocre, paths later, return for awhile to when they pretty much could do no wrong . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 17 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Dan Fogelberg, & a first helping from his classic 1981 double-LP, The Innocent Age . . . sometimes you stumble for a long moment, clear your head, look around, find worth in getting up & getting along . . .

08.24.2013 show

August 17, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Mother Mother, The Sticks (2012) . . . This Canadian band's new album flies out of the speakers from the first song, & never really quits . . . jumping, rocking, harmonies crashing in every which-a-way, I think the song "Infinitesimal" is about the craziest good poppy song I've heard in a long while . . . fun music with a good deep bite . . .
Classic Rock Album: Dream Syndicate, Medicine Show (1984) . . . Continuing along in this month's exploration of the Paisley Underground comes another helping from this Los Angeles band . . . their second album was less trippy, more country-ish rocking but it didn't really matter because the songs are all strong and fine & hit the ears smooth and sweet . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 17 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are those Paisey Underground band members (including Dream Syndicate, The Three O'Clock, Rain Parade & The Bangles) who recorded the 1984 Rainy Day tribute to their '60s rock heroes . . . ended up finishing this announcement from the Eastern Donutshop in ZombieTown, Mass, my old stomping grounds . . . how nice when the remembered & the current moment twist up new . . .

08.17.2013 show

August 10, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Shpongle, Museum Of Consciousness (2013) . . . Oh, it's good to welcome this unique group back, & to hear them making their unique sounds of the dancing shaman . . . there is a moment in this terrific album where they tease a little bit of the Twin Peaks theme, just for fun . . . not many groups could do that, just for fun, that is . . .
Classic Rock Album: Gillian Welch, Soul Journey (2003) . . . Gillian & her partner David Rawlings make music for the ages, conjure stories of desire & struggle & bereftness . . . sometimes called bluegrass, sometimes called Americana, & these are not unhelpful descriptors . . . yet, just listen, let time fall away, worry & gadgets . . . they sing what must be sung . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 17 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the Three O'Clock, another helping of their trip-candy tunes as part of this month's attention to the Paisley Underground . . . August is my magic month from my youth & tapping into that magic anew this time around . . . hoping to share some around too . . .

08.10.2013 show

August 3, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Esbjörn Svensson Trio, 301 (2012) . . . I discovered E.S.T. last year, some years after their leader died in a tragic accident. . . their music is what you could call jazz-rock-electronic fusion, or something else . . . I'd say think of Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis, or groups like Medeski, Martin, & Wood (who I think of as their American soul brothers) & Phish . . . in other words, many genres or just no genres whatsoever . . . I did not know about this 2012-released album until very recently . . . it is a companion piece to their brilliant 2008 release, Leucocyte (being music from the same sessions, but not released until now) . . . am choosing to introduce this show's audience to E.S.T. by starting at the very end of their career, then moving backwards into it over time . . . this album is beautiful, magical, sweet, harsh, brilliant, & I am happy it exists, & I am happy to share it on this episode . . .
Classic Rock Album: Green on Red, Gas Food Lodging (1985) . . . Thus begins another swoop into the Paisley Underground . . . This Arizona band twists together a kind of country-punk sound many years before most anyone else did . . . their songs are fun, rowdy, dark, leave you with a sense of having been somewhere strange but worth the trip . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 17 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Don McLean, most well known for the classic single "American Pie" but with a whole slew of other golden nuggets in his sack . . . August is for me a time to look back into the depths of my self-lava, but I keep it balanced by making sure my steps keep moving along too . . .

08.03.2013 show

July 20, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Surfer Blood, Pythons (2013) . . . These Florida pop-punksters are back with an album of jumpy, rocking tunes, rife one way and another with relationship troubles and angst . . . they make the sadness of broken romance sound much more musically appealing than it is . . .
Classic Rock Album: Jefferson Airplane, Takes Off (1966) . . . Before there was Grace Slick, there was Signe Toly Anderson, and the band belonged to Marty Balin . . . It's a jangling delight, worth it alone just to hear the Airplane do its take on "Get Together" . . . more mid-Beatles than LSD, but worth hearing . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 15 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Gordon Lightfoot, a second helping from the Canadian troubadour . . . wow, it's been hot lately . . . drink water, find shade, Nature rewards the self-preserving . . .

07.20.2013 show

July 13, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Beady Eye, BE (2013) . . . Liam Gallagher & his mates have released a second fine album, really fine . . . no brother Noel, it's not quite Oasis, but it is very very good. . . I don't know if Oasis will ever play again, but I do know that if Beady Eye was any other group of musicians, nobody would be griping . . . give this musical goodness its chance & decide . . .
Classic Rock Album: Donovan, Barabajagal (1969) . . . I've always liked Donovan's singles from the '60s a lot, but never found a full album I could embrace, until I stumbled on this one . . . on a few songs he jams with the Jeff Beck Group, a plus of course, but overall it seems he goes for a heavier sound & hits it song after song . . . a complete pleasure . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 15 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Postal Service, & tracks from their excellent 2003 album, Give Up . . . lately been delving into old notebooks to see what's in that murk . . . come away with refreshed memories & happiness to be here now . . .

07.13.2013 show

July 6, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Vampire Weekend, Modern Vampires of the City (2013) . . . Been trying to like this New York City band for awhile & not quite . . . until this record . . . still a bit cartoonish & hipsterly weird at times, but much more of a powerful musical statement where the ambitions are higher & the victories of finally getting it right come again & again . . . this is a really good record . . .
Classic Rock Album: Neutral Milk Hotel, On Avery Island (1996) . . . Another band I kept in mind, & here they are, in an album I can't hype enough & say WOW this is good . . . a bit of Syd Barrett, Nick Lowe, even Elliott Smith . . . some good acid . . . & a lot of great musicianship & craft . . . now I get the deep fondness people have for Jeff Magnum's records . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 14 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is John Mellencamp, another helping of some of his best tunes . . . like Seattle some years ago, doing the show again at night, see how it flies this way . . .

07.06.2013 show

June 15, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Milk Carton Kids, The Ash & Clay (2013) . . . Been following this California folk duo since seeing them open for Old Crow Medicine Show in Maine last year . . . this, their third album, builds & continues their brightly musical, darkly lyrical work . . . some compare them to Simon & Garfunkel, apt if one does not press it too hard . . . each's path is its own . . .
Classic Rock Album: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Hard Promises (1981) . . . Wow, rock and roll, Tom & the boys are in fullest form here, whether romantic laments or strange tales, they blow out every willing speaker, give it all, with a fine sneer of good humor . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 14 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Temples, a young UK psychedelic band I lucked into with just a couple of great EPs to show so far . . . summer comes on with hot breath & teeth, will do what it can whilst it's here, lets up slowly . . . dig in . . .

06.15.2013 show

June 8, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Boards of Canada, Tomorrow's Harvest (2013) . . . It's been 7 years since this Scottish band's last EP, the great Trans Canada Highway & 8 years since their last full album, the wonderful Campfire Headphase . . . some groups release albums that one must get to know over time, like a new land or an elaborate set of clothing . . . their new album sounds like them, like a continuity of their sound, while at the same time its sounds are novel, are interesting for having just arrived . . . this is what they call a headphones album, for the greater attention one gives, the more there is in there . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Church, Heyday (1986) . . . This show has featured many albums by this great Aussie psychedelic band, but this one is the earliest so far from from their long discography . . . the brooding jingle jangle is in its lovely exuberant youth . . . I remember happily when I first found The Church's music in the late '80s I would roam from record store to record store scrounging for every last LP with their name on it . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 14 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the Holy Mackerel, a bright bouncy psychedelic pop band that released one album in 1968 . . . some days you wake up & know things will only be better by the shaping of your hand & your mind, & that little bit of luck the Universe sometimes grants out . . .

06.08.2013 show

June 1, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: moe., What Happened to the La Las (2012) . . . I've long known of this New York jamband, but somehow not given them good attention till now . . . they are jammers, but they are even more rockers, bringing a heavy but melodic sound to their songs, lyrical deftness, & a finely made artistic spirit . . . good stuff to discover & keep an ear out for more . . .
Classic Rock Album: Heatmiser, Mic City Sons (1993) . . . This was Elliott Smith's Portland, Oregon-based band before he went solo . . . had he stuck with them, they likely would have made it big as indie rockers as they make deftly tuneful songs & know how to bring the hard stuff as well as the softer . . . this album was their third & last, showing off best how good they were, & teasing what might have been . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 13 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the short-lived but boogie-filled UK band Juicy Lucy, some of whose members had previously been in The Misunderstood (featured on this show's 6/6/2012 broadcast) . . . the heat has come to New England, the green of spring giving way in turn to the hard browning of summer . . . Bungalow Cee settles digs in for long days of sun . . .

06.01.2013 show

May 18, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Teenage Fanclub, Shadows (2010) . . . Been since the 7/23/2005 show that this Scottish band has been featured here . . . somehow I missed their 2010 release but here it is & it's fine as fine can be . . . sweet rockers, sweet harmonies, the dark undertow that keeps the music rooted & makes it even better . . . what a fine, fine record . . .
Classic Rock Album: Built to Spill, Ultimate Alternative Wavers (1993) . . . This show has featured a number of this great Idaho band's recent albums, but this time around it's their first album that gets the spotlight . . . an hour long, yet only ten songs, yet this album just blows me out the doors! messy, loud, pretty in a scruffed up sort of way, a garage-y punkish glory of a thing, surely the result of many bongs, many shrooms, & a great deal of talent & vision . . . behold its wonders . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 13 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Elton John, more fine tunes from his glory years . . . lucky me, I spent the morning at a table once driftwood, looking out to morning trees & flowers, readying this show in complete calm, fine focus . . .

05.18.2013 show

May 11, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: The Mountain Goats, Transcendental Youth (2012) . . . I missed out on this California band until recently when a chance listening to this new album floored me, a romping, delightful time, all sorts of treats to be enjoyed on this record. . .
Classic Rock Album: Oasis, (What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995) . . . It took me awhile to give the early Oasis records some attention, which I have, & this album stands out for its energy & artistry beginning to end . . . Oasis is a band that deserves the attention they get . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 13 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Fleetwood Mac & songs from their just-released EP. . . this is show number 450, which is a perplexing number of shows to have done, & yet there are so many more to come . . .

05.11.2013 show

May 4, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Flaming Lips, The Terror (2013) . . . On their 13th record, the Lips peer into the abyss & reports what is peering back . . . a sonically lovely work, one of those rarities that makes existential mullings into rock & roll bliss . . . the Lips bring the power every time out . . .
Classic Rock Album: Grateful Dead, Wake of the Flood (1973) . . . The Dead had lost Pigpen, their beloved bluesy keyboardist, but kept along with Keith & Donna Godchaux coming on board . . . among the classics on this record are the gorgeous "Eyes of the World" (favorite of my acid guru Hartlee), & the epic "Weather Report Suite" . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 13 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is a second helping (the first was back on 3/25/2006) of rocking sweets from the Electric Light Orchestra . . . there are greening things all around Bungalow Cee, the springtime compelling one to look & love & yearn . . .

05.04.2013 show

April 20, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: The House of Love, She Paints Words in Red (2013) . . . This British indie rock band has been around since the mid-80s, & their new album shows them still pushing hard at mysterious heart of rock music . . . their music is sweet, spicy, & moves the hips around . . .
Classic Rock Album: Radiohead, OK Computer (1997) . . . This was the album that first made Radiohead a rock legend . . . a cybernetic rock masterpiece that both coalesced & anticipated 21st century's fusion of music & machine . . . yet be not confused: this album thumps from hands & hearts, deep dreams & hard wants . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 12 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & the week's featured artists are some of those featured on the fine 1990 anthology Where The Pyramid Meets The Eye: A Tribute to Roky Erickson . . . 4/20, ahh, & so much hope that lighting up with the green goddess will one day soon be a free play for all . . .

04.20.2013 show

April 13, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Dawes, Stories Don't End (2013) . . . This Los Angeles band is back with a pretty, moody, smartly emotional new record . . . they are a band that conjure their songs with passion's crafts, & the many pleasures these tenderings to the details result . . .
Classic Rock Album: Simon & Garfunkel, Sounds of Silence (1966) . . . S&G were one of the pioneers of folk-rock, which came on powerfully in the mid-60s, combining the strengths of poetical folk song lyrics & the deep drive of rock & roll . . . this album was their second, & their wings were already extending wide & wider . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 12 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & the week's featured artists are some of those featured on new collection The Music Is You: A Tribute to John Denver . . . this show from a new locale, with a train visible out the window, but intended to be what it is as always . . .

04.13.2013 show

March 23, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Impossible Shapes, Impossible Shapes (2008) . . . This Indiana psychedelic rock band called it quits in 2009, just after released their fine, & final, & eponymous, album . . . their songs are strange, & fun, rock out sweetly, & let it roll with the best of them . . .
Classic Rock Album: Mercury Rev, Deserter's Songs (1998) . . . This album is delightful, otherworldly, a dream suite of tunes that passes as though in a mere breath . . . renewing my listening to this album after many years, I had to spin it through three times, just to be sure . . . yes, its lovely mysteries hold . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 12 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Susan Christie, & wonderful trippy nuggers from her sole album, 1970's Paint a Lady . . . yes, spring has come, yes, snow remains on the ground, yes, there is burgeoning green everywhere!

03.23.2013 show

March 16, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend (2012) . . . This album marks the first time I have been happily swallowed whole by a "post-rock" band . . . this Montreal band creates an epic 4-song record that pounds & strokes, sweeps widely over the sonic landscapes . . . quite an amazing work . . .
Classic Rock Album: XTC, Mummer (1983) . . . This album came just after Andy Partridge had a breakdown, & the band had retired from tour . . . it marked their turn from postpunkers to classic rockers, though their music is so their own that the labels are only so helpful . . . Partridge is a master lyricist & his band in great form . . . this mostly-acoustic confection ends with "Funk Pop a Roll," one of the loudest, angriest, best songs XTC ever released . . . you boys are still missed . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 12 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & the week's featured artist is Stevie Wonder, & a selection of tunes from his great 1972 album, Talking Book . . . oh so close to spring & a release to the green, the world ever & ever & ever moving along . . .

03.16.2013 show

March 9, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Frightened Rabbit, Pedestrian Verse (2013) . . . Every few years, these Scottish boys put out a new album of big & soft anthems, aggressive, sensitive, sometimes pretty tuneful, sometimes they pound away . . . they give their news of matters close to their hearts, things they see & feel . . . a heavy delight . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Jayhawks, Hollywood Town Hall (1992) . . . Reaching back to the early of these great Minnesota alt-rockers . . . easy to lose happily in the harmonies, the lyrics, the music, or a far-spreading cocktail of all three . . . this is a band to discover or re-discover for the uplift their music will bring . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 11 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & the week's featured artist is Bruce Damer, a good friend of mine, and the "Conscious Universe" rap he did at Burning Man 2003 . . . ah, those old days in the desert . . .

03.09.2013 show

March 2, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Atoms for Peace, Amok (2013) . . . This album is Radiohead's Thom Yorke plus Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, & a few others, but it is a Radiohead-sound vision with Flea thumping low . . . some say the atmosphere is what is important here, I'm not sure . . . maybe it's more than Yorke is working out some Radiohead ideas for albums to come. . .
Classic Rock Album: Yo La Tengo, Painful (1993) . . . I knew little of this New Jersey band with the funky name until recently, but have since found them to be a rocking delight . . . noise & melodies mixed on this album gives them, to my ears a Velvet Underground feel . . . beautiful feedback time occurs often . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 11 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Forever Amber & songs from their delicious 1969 sole release, The Love Cycle . . . it's leaving winter time soon & there's more leaving than that going on . . . good kind though . . .

03.02.2013 show

February 16, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Green Day, ¡Tre! (2012) . . . The conclusion of Green Day's trio of albums released last fall & winter . . . the boys know how to rock and roll with the best of them, but there is in their recent music a lure to the mellow, the ballad, the sweet, & this is as good a trend as that they can turn up the amps still & go . . . Green Day are finding their own path as always, & one worth following them as they go . . .
Classic Rock Album: Richard & Linda Thompson, Pour Down Like Silver (1975) . . . At this time the Thompsons were pursuing interest in Sufism, & there are stories that some in their faith did not like their pursuits of music, particularly Richard's electric guitar . . . from this distance, one can only dismiss the tales & say this album is a brilliant, beautiful piece of work & thank them for it . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 11 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Rainbow Ffolly, a short-lived psychedelic pop English band, & cuts them their only album, 1968's Sallies Fforth. . . the snow remains, more comes, & New England is as deep & lovely as ever below it . . .

02.16.2013 show

February 9, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Camper Van Beethoven, La Costa Perdida (2013) . . . CVB did not have to get together & make new music, they have many albums' worth already . . . but they did, & the love of playing with each other, & chasing new spaces, is happily evident . . . they are the rare band that in their music both acknowledge the long time between albums (their last new one was in 2004), & yet pick up the slack easily, readily, & masterfully . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Mandrake Memorial, Puzzle (1969) . . . The third & last of this Philadelphia-based acid rock group, & it is their best . . . their songs are still sweet at heart, but have now become at times so deeply psychedelicized that one is left deeply, & happily, adrift at times . . . a real treat, & one worth finding its way into the next century from its origins . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 10 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Mortimer, one of those brief poppy flashes from long ago, & cuts from their self-titled (& only) 1968 album . . . New England is buried in snow right now, & it is lovely, & primal . . .

02.09.2013 show

January 26, 2013 14th anniversary show features:
Featured Album: Harry Chapin, Dance Band on the Titanic (1977) . . . This was Harry Chapin's seventh studio album, a double-album, like a great grand building of songs . . . stories of disintegrating relationships, lonely souls of many kinds, struggling to survive, prosper, understand . . . When I was 17, & my idols were Harry & Billy Joel, this was an album I listened to many, many times . . . listening to it even now brings me back years & miles to those hours . . . yet now I see more into this music, the ways in which Chapin's artistry integrated his own life's struggles into the stories he sang . . . he was famous, yet fame could taste metallic . . . yet he strived to do all he could to shape musical meaning & comfort from mortal chaos . . . it's his late masterpiece, & worth your time . . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 10 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . so this is my show's 14th anniversary broadcast, & it is a marvel to have reached such a milestone . . . reassuring that the task each time is the same, & I know the tools & the path to complete it . . . & I do so with gratefulness for these lovely hours spent . . .

01.26.2013 show

January 19, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Robbers on High Street, Hey There Golden Hair (2011) . . . These Brooklyn boys knows how to spin out tunes made of the strangest luring sugar, songs surreal to the touch, but toe-tappy as all . . . another indie rock success for Brooklyn USA . . .
Classic Rock Album: Yes, Relayer (1974) . . . Despite the absence of Rick Wakeman, replaced by Patrick Moraz, Yes beautifully churns out three epic pieces, a little mad, a little sweet, a lot of good rocking and rolling . . . this is prog rock in its first glories . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 9 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those to be found on the delightful More Oar: A Tribute to Alexander "Skip" Spence from 1999 . . . this broadcast completes the 14th year of this show . . . how much of the world has come & gone & changed in that time . . . anniversary episode next time around! . . .

01.19.2013 show

January 12, 2013 show features:
New Rock Album: Band of Joy, Band of Joy (2010) . . . I overlooked this album upon its release, but some recent listening to Led Zeppelin led me back to it . . . wow, such a treasure . . . Plant collaborates with Patty Griffin & Buddy Miller, among others, to create a Zep-ishly-spooky-at-times Americana trove of old covers & traditional tunes . . . Plant is still chasing his muse, both in full flower, & the paths ever more varied, strange, & wonderful . . .
Classic Rock Album: Tages, Studio (1967) . . . You would not know this band is from Sweden, so artfully do they create this mid-Beatles-era record . . . & they do it well, with all manner of pretty harmonies & trippy flourishes . . . there seems no end to the brilliant but forgotten bands of those years, dig a little deeper, more shine to find . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 9 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those to be found on the delightful More Oar: A Tribute to Alexander "Skip" Spence from 1999 . . . here is the first show of 2013, closing in on 14 years of doing this show, still the flutters, still the delights . . .

01.12.2013 show

2012

December 8, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: The Flaming Lips, The Flaming Lips & Heady Fwends (2012) . . . Them crazy boys got together over recent time with some famous and sorta famous folks to eventually compile this long, fascinating album . . . with help from artists like Bon Iver, Yoko Ono, & Jim James, not to mention stranger but no less successful collaborations with Ke$ha & Biz Markie, this album presents an epic ride worth taking where them Lips fellers go . . .
Classic Rock Album: Camper Van Beethoven, Telephone Free Landslide Victory (1985) . . . Speaking of crazy boys, CVB was doing the crazy long, long ago, & as well & often better than anyone since . . . their debut album packs every weird musical & lyrical idea they could fit into one LP, leaving spill over for future releases . . . wonderful, wonderful . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 8 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's 10th annual holiday broadcast concludes this year's batch of shows, gosh, fun as always . . . fun to do it if nobody tuned in, glad some do, enjoy your own Season of Lights, do :)

12.08.2012 show

December 1, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Green Day, ¡Dos! (2012) . . . This is the second album of a three-album run from America's favorite power punkers . . . they are as bouncy & foul-mouthed as ever, with a nice dose of acoustic melody . . . looking forward to the third helping soon . . .
Classic Rock Album: R.E.M., Green (1988) . . . Back at the time of its release, this album was controversial as hell . . . R.E.M. had jumped to a major label, & it seemed as though they had abandoned their neo-Byrdsy sound . . . in truth, this album bears the songs of a band coming into its fullest maturity, making songs totally its own, and enjoying every last minute of doing it . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 8 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist The Who, & choice cuts from their 1981 album, Faces Dances . . . It's been a year since the Traveling Troubadour travelled on, I miss him every day, even as I hear him among the stars . . .

12.01.2012 show

November 17, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Patti Smith, Banga (2012) . . . Patti Smith is a great artist, she makes moving & mysterious music, and her new album is worth many listens . . . she taps into mythology while always remembering to rock out . . . her voice is pristine, and her band is top-notch . . . a record worth lots of attention . . .
Classic Rock Album: Billy Joel, Cold Spring Harbor (1971) . . . This is Joel's first solo album, & it's a good one. Some songs are sweet, some are cynical, all are the work of a very young man with a lot of talent to learn to harness . . . but there is no fluff here . . . Joel is determined to make good songs, & one day make great ones . . . he's on his way . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 8 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is is the Black Crowes, and songs from their 2010 unplugged set, Croweology . . . it's been 9 years my show has been on SpiritPlants Radio, didn't know back then I'd be running the joint one day, glad for all those who have collaborated and listened . . . here's to many more years . . .

11.17.2012 show

November 10, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Psychedelic Pill [Part Two] (2012) . . . Neil & the Horse finish this massive release with some shorter songs, full of remembering and onriness, the rockin' goes on . . . sure hope he and his mates have many more records in them, but this is a good way to catch up with them & their current noise . . .
Classic Rock Album: Harry Chapin, Heads and Tales (1972) . . . This record has "Taxi," which made Chapin famous for a little while, & its treasures just go on from there . . . song tales of losers & lonelies, told with Harry's crack band squeezing for every detail & emotion . . . an album to just get lost in awhile. . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 7 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Jerry Douglas & cuts from his fine new release Traveller. . . this time of year makes me remember long ago years & wonder at their deep effect, their echoes wanted & unwanted still & on . . .

11.10.2012 show

November 3, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Psychedelic Pill [Part One] (2012) . . . Neil & the Horse have released two very different albums this year, this new one being a gigantic jam of a thing . . . Neil is in fine form, a little bitchin', a little rememberin', a lot of rocking out . . . the Horse just lock in magically & follow right along . . . wonderful work . . .
Classic Rock Album: Joni Mitchell, Mingus (1979) . . . Joni Mitchell recorded this album with jazz master Charles Mingus in the months before his death . . . he did not live to see it completed . . . but it is a quirky, sweet, well-made collaboration that brings out a wonderful spirit in both musicians . . . & a good record to hear for fans of either . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 6 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are from the 1967 acid pop compilation With Love: A Pot of Flowers . . . November is my heart's month, a time of beauty & passing, & I hope to enjoy its lovely melancholy vibe in best hope . . .

11.03.2012 show

October 20, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Green Day, ¡Uno! (2012) . . . These punky California boys have came a long way, sonically, lyrically, & this first of an expected trilogy of new albums is their next fine statement . . . still riled, still longing, still in love, still making noise, some of the best kinds . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Smiths, The Smiths (1984) . . . Debut album by this UK band, lays out the blueprint for their great jangly pop licked over with mopey lyrics, a band like no other before or since . . . they get it right the first time & kept on getting it right often for the next several years . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 6 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the '60s UK band Plastic Penny, & a few choice tunes from their 1969 album, Currency . . . this being the annual Halloween show, look out for spooks & spectres . . .

10.20.2012 show

October 13, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Mumford & Sons, Babel (2012) . . . These UK boys are back with more songs that are passionate, beautifully played, many troubles of the wild heart . . . epic toe-tappers . . . mandolins, banjos, dobros, accordions, they're all here in a mighty stew of music to enjoy & again . . .
Classic Rock Album: Dr. Strangely Strange, Kip Of The Serenes (1969) . . . It's hard to know what to say of this Irish folk group, they don't quite sound like anyone else . . . whimsical, pretty, dark, as serious as you please at times, & yet something else lying beneath, unsaying mystery despite all the dandy songs . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 6 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is America, & some of their great cover songs from their 2011 Back Pages release . . . the nights are getting chilly as they do, even in early October in New England, a pleasurable transition, unnegotiable in any event . . .

10.13.2012 show

October 6, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Beady Eye, Different Gear, Still Speeding (2012) . . . This is Oasis, minus one brother, & it is really good . . . got that Oasis swagger, Oasis sweetness, Oasis sound . . . I was doubtful, but after a couple of listens, I am a believer that one Gallagher brother with the rest of his mates can lead a really good band . . .
Classic Rock Album: Mott the Hoople, Mott the Hoople (1969) . . . Although these UK lads became much more famous later for their work with David Bowie & Lou Reed, from the get-go they rocked hard & well, bit of a Dylan twist to their noise, much melody, really good stuff . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 5 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Milk Carton Kids, a fine duo we had a chance to see up in Maine when they opened for Old Crow Medicine Show . . . Some weeks a bit more of a struggle than others, but hard work & dogged devotion to Art, however ragged, wins out . . .

10.06.2012 show

September 22, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Bob Dylan, Tempest (2012) . . . The old croaking master is back with an epic, ten songs that add to 68 minutes, & surely one of the highlights is his re-imagining of the Titanic disaster . . . but many a rollicking tune is to be found, the man just keeps rocking the fuck on his own way . . .
Classic Rock Album: John Martyn, Bless The Weather (1971) . . . This British singer-songwriter is new to me, but was around for decades touring & releasing albums, till his death in 2009 . . . this is an early album of his, full of tales & lovely playing, & ending with the sweetest little cover song . . . what a treat . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 5 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are a final helping from the epic Occupy This Album collection . . . yes, the fall is finally arrived, on the calendar, & its melancholy loveliness is not far behind . . .

09.22.2012 show

September 15, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: The Avett Brothers, The Carpenter (2012) . . . The brothers are back, with all manner of prog-bluegrass-folkie tales of love & loss & vision . . . their plaintive stories are underpinned by simply gorgeous music-making, such that one can be overwhelmed by the beauty of it all on first listen . . . so a second & third & so on are needed . . .
Classic Rock Album: Humble Pie, Town and Country (1969) . . . This UK band featured former members of the Small Faces, Spooky Tooth, & of course future '70s solo superstar Peter Frampton . . . their second album is a lovely British thing, that rocks down deep but often gentle, often sublime . . . their cover of Buddy Holly's "Heartbeat" is worth the visit alone, but tis among many other gems as well . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 4 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Orpheus & Eurydice: Making the Lyre poems . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those on the epic Occupy This Album collection . . . there are a few colored leaves on the lawns here, as autumn begins its peeping 'round that is customary in September . . .

09.15.2012 show

September 8, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Blues Traveler, Suzie Cracks the Whip (2012) . . . Formed in New Jersey back in 1987, this great jam band has travelled a lot of miles & made a lot of great music . . . their new album is just a high beautiful thing, led by John Popper & his crazy mouth harp, a crack band keeping pace every step of the way . . . this one is a treat among treats . . .
Classic Rock Album: Quintessence, In Blissful Company (1969) . . . For fans of the psytrance band Shpongle, here is Raja Ram many years earlier, playing in an Indian-influenced psychedelic rock outfit . . . their debut album sounds a bit like Shpongle in the Eastern influences & vibe, but they have their own driving fine sound & vision . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 3 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Orpheus & Eurydice: Making the Lyre poems . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those on the epic Occupy This Album collection . . . the autumn is slowly approaching again, & this is a sweet thing to anticipate, amongst all the ruckus of any day . . .

09.08.2012 show

August 25, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Django Django, Django Django (2012) . . . Debut album by this hyperkinetic young UK band, who bring the charms of wildly talented youth to their first record, a love of '80s-ish sounds, keyboards & so on, but so mixed & washed through with other influences & native idiosyncrasies that they end up with something not quite like anything else, something really good indeed . . .
Classic Rock Album: Fairport Convention, Full House (1970) . . . I'd been looking for a door into the world of Fairport Convention for years, & then I crossed paths with songs from this album, bing! I'd call it folkie rock, if anything, a love of the traditional squalled through by the times they lived in . . . sharp, wonderful, funny, a delight . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 2 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Orpheus & Eurydice: Making the Lyre poems . . . & this week features artists from the utterly cool 1969 rock sampler You Can All Join In . . . made it through the first week of new job, now what more can I do, having gotten the job wish . . . how do I better join in?

08.25.2012 show

August 18, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Dead Can Dance, Anastasis (2012) . . . This is a wonderful return to action after 16 years for the Aussie/English band . . . Allmusic.com categorizes their music as indie rock / dream pop / ethnic fusion / alt-pop-rock, & I think that indicates just how widely they range . . . simply put, Dead Can Dance sound like no other group . . . their new album builds from previous efforts, as though no time at all had elapsed, & yet there is also a maturity in it indicating the band's members have lived on . . .
Classic Rock Album: If, If (1970) . . . This UK jazz-rock band found some success in the early '70s, though not as much as fellow jazz-rock bands Chicago and Blood, Sweat, & Tears . . . on their debut album they meld hippie rock and jazz seamlessly, creating a sound that makes horns in a rock band seem as natural as lead guitar . . . their lyrics are of the time, but not time-bound, looking for connections, doors, freedom, love . . . this is a very pleasurable album, over way too soon, but better for it . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter 2 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Orpheus & Eurydice: Making the Lyre poems . . . & this week's featured artists are from the great (and first of its kind) The Rock Machine Turns You On from 1968 . . . I'm done with couch-sitting jobless or contracted, come Monday stepping onto I hope more solid ground & doing better work!

08.18.2012 show

August 11, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: The Lumineers, The Lumineers (2012) . . . What a treat to have found this Denver band opening up for Old Crow Medicine Show the other night up in Portland, Maine . . . strange, sometimes sweet songs of love & loss . . . a sort of rock and roll acoustic sound with a beautiful cello like a heart in the center . . . a really good debut album, & promising toward what might come . . .
Classic Rock Album: Gillian Welch, Time (The Revelator) (2001) . . . There are a few albums in every person's collection that set a bar few others top for that person . . . that every other album gets compared to . . . these albums do not come along very often, but when they do, suddenly one's ears are changed thereafter . . . Welch's 2001 release was a great glorious monster in my ears when I heard it just last year for the first time . . . suddenly the word bluegrass meant something to me . . . at the same time, Welch & her partner Dave Rawlings don't make just the usual bluegrass, they shoot it through with enough rock & roll restlessness to light up the skies . . . give this album a chance & it likely won't leave you . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter 1 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Orpheus & Eurydice: Making the Lyre poems . . . & this week's featured artists are a selection of those on the new Just Tell Me That You Want Me: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac . . . Come back from a long stretch up days up in Maine & New Hampshire, peeking toward the fall's cooler weather & so many kinds of work to do . . .

08.11.2012 show

July 28, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Old Crow Medicine Show, Carry Me Back (2012) . . . Wow! OCMS returns with their best album yet, hard-driving bluegrass prettiness, & tales of the lost, the obscure, the forgotten, many suffering, but not all . . . they play with virtuosity, heart, warmth, a good sense of humor . . . after some uncertain times for the band, the boys return & they done really good . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Posies, Frosting on the Beating (1993) . . . This Seattle band's grunge-era classic isn't close to being grunge . . . they rock both before & ahead of their times, as this great, beautiful, electric-high album could fit most nicely in the late '60s, or the late 2010s for that matter . . . slide in & stay a fair while . . .
Storybook Time: Preface & Chapter 1 of The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History & Use of LSD by Christopher Gray. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Orpheus & Eurydice: Making the Lyre poems . . . & this week's featured artists are a last dose of those featured on the great 1970 Island Records rock compilation, Bumpers . . . Got it! Four years plus in the contracting wilderness until just a day ago when someone finally decided I'm worth hiring full out . . . Thank you, Universe, & loved ones along my humble way . . .

07.28.2012 show

July 21, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Americana (2012) . . . It's been nearly a decade since Neil hooked up with the Horse, & what do they do? Record an album of covers of old folk songs . . . Sound strange? It works, amazingly well, songs you've heard so many times they don't even sound like real songs anymore suddenly take on a new rock and roll guise, loud, raw, fun, but renewed in meaning as well . . . their roaring take on Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" is worth the time to listen alone, & it sits alongside a whole album of tunes just as good . . .
Classic Rock Album: Spooky Tooth, Spooky Tooth Two (1969) . . . This bluesy British band flourished for about a half dozen years in the late '60s & early '70s . . . their second album catches them sometimes in jamming mood, sometimes in gospel, sometimes rocking all out . . . it is the kind of great psychedelic blues so common then, & yet resonates wonderfully down the years . . .
Storybook Time: Concluding Epilogue to The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Orpheus & Eurydice: Making the Lyre poems . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on the great 1970 Island Records rock compilation, Bumpers . . . Maybe closer to the goal of solid ground under foot again, trying to keep an unwobbling head in the meantime . . .

07.21.2012 show

July 14, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Rush, Clockwork Angels (2012) . . . Rush makes big albums, no doubt, & every time . . . this time around, they're going for even bigger ideas than usual . . . here is how sci-fi writer Kevin J. Anderson describes this album: "In a young man's quest to follow his dreams, he is caught between the grandiose forces of order and chaos. He travels across a lavish and colorful world of steampunk and alchemy, with lost cities, pirates, anarchists, exotic carnivals, and a rigid Watchmaker who imposes precision on every aspect of daily life." . . . rock & roll does not get any better than when Rush, like here, it at their best . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Lemonheads, It's a Shame About Ray (1992) . . . This Boston band had its greatest success in the '90s, with the title track to this album being one of its hits . . . the whole album is a gem, however, worth getting to know or know again . . . Evan Dando's voice is a husky, emotive miracle of an instrument, & he fronts a crack band able to follow many musical paths . . . a short but powerful piece of Art . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Epilogue to The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Orpheus & Eurydice: Making the Lyre poems . . . & this week's featured artists are more of those featured on the great 1970 Island Records rock compilation, Bumpers . . . deeper into the jobless summer, & learning some both good & hard lessons about time . . . & sometimes getting the hours right, & sometimes not, vowing to do better . . .

07.14.2012 show

July 7, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Quilt, Quilt (2011) . . . This new Boston band is all sorts of fun, they rock it well, their songs are strange & sometimes even funny . . . they're what a friend calls a headphones band, where it takes that close a listening to lose into their music & suck up all the pretty little details of their sounds . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Church, Priest=Aura (1992) . . . Surely one of my favorite records of all time, this Aussie band made a psychedelic masterpiece, spooky, pretty, terrifying . . . as inspired an album as you will find . . . this is one to shut off the lights, light up the pipe, burrow into your best comfort, & take the epic ride . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Epilogue to The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Orpheus & Eurydice: Making the Lyre poems . . . & this week's featured artists were some of those featured on the great 1970 Island Records rock compilation, Bumpers . . . this week, newly jobless, I learned anew the ways that bureaucracy can go from bad to worse without much real effort, or protest from anyone . . . onto a new week, a better one . . .

07.07.2012 show

June 23, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Tribes, Baby (2012) . . . This English band plays with the kind of wild fun desperation that sometimes results in the best sort of rock music . . . there are hints of a seriousness beneath the bright sounds, the guilt of betrayal, despair of an absent God . . . another record to spin for your cranky friend who says rock and roll long ago disappeared from view . . .
Classic Rock Album: Mazzy Star, So That Tonight I Might See (1993) . . . Not like any other band you will hear, Hope Sandoval & David Roback produce a dark, dreamy landscape of evaporating figures & lingering wants . . . this was their second album, & produced the hit song "Fade Into You" . . . the full reward is in taking the whole record in . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Epilogue to The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Works Progress Administration--a supergroup with members from Nickel Creek, Toad the Wet Sprocket, & others--, & cuts from their self-titled 2009 debut . . . coming is my last week of work, maybe for awhile, maybe not, so I've been casting in many directions for the succor one needs to move well . . .

06.23.2012 show

June 16, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Aufheben (2012) . . . It's been half a decade since this California band was on this program, and that was with their 2003 album This is Our Music . . . their new album is flat out great, a kind of tribal, ambient, psychedelic melange of songs, each tastes good, and the better for hearing them all . . .
Classic Rock Album: Phish, Farmhouse (2000) . . . This is my favorite Phish record, it is perfect from start to finish, & its songs are great to hear in concert too . . . some fans of the band think they are best only live, in fact, but I would argue that they approach their album-making very seriously, & great results like this are a result of devotion to art & craft, nothing random in it . . . high, inspired work . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Epilogue to The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the little known or remembered Misunderstood, a mid-to-late '60s California band with a deep underground reputation . . . facing another jobless period soon, trying my best to carry on with the good work, & keep the deep music churning well . . .

06.16.2012 show

June 2, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Great Lakes Swimmers, New Wild Everywhere (2012) . . . Been a couple of years since these pretty folkie Canadian rockers were featured on this show, back with a lavish dish of banjos, fiddles, guitars, and all sorts of wanting, wishing, obscure and plain lyrics . . . what a treat . . .
Classic Rock Album: Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, Against the Wind (1980) . . . Seger's one of a kind, when young had a trouble getting a record deal because nobody could quite figure him out . . . this album finds him doing what he does best, yearning the past, laughing and crying a little at the varieties of the human condition . . . and rocking out fine like it matters more than anything . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Epilogue to The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists is Deer Tick and their delightful recent EP, Tim . . . rainy June weekend, cool & fine . . . music laying its balm as always . . .

06.02.2012 show

May 26, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Spiritualized, Sweet Heart Sweet Light (2012) . . . It was about eight years ago (12/19/2004 broadcast) that this show featured Spiritualized's 1997 masterpiece Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space . . . It is a delightful thing to know that a recent tour featuring that album live helped inspire their new album, which reaches up to such ambitions again, and hits the mark again and again . . . they know how to make vast albums, great ones, then and again now . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Monkees, Headquarters (1967) . . . This was the album (their third) when the Monkees finally got control of their band's music and material, and the end result is a rock and roll delight, the sound of a band trying out all sorts of sounds and styles, playing around, having fun, making really good music . . . as a bit of trivia, the album was #1 on the charts before The Beatles' Sgt Pepper pushed them out . . . it then hung in at #2 for 11 weeks, all through the Summer of Love, just behind the band that inspired them in so many ways . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Epilogue to The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists is The Mystery Trend, a San Francisco band from the late '60s who never quite got an album out, but had their songs many years later collected together, some really good songs too . . . it's getting hot, though the evenings still please & salve . . .

05.26.2012 show

May 19, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Super Furry Animals, Dark Days / Light Years (2009) . . . Not sure how I missed the most recent release by this fantastic Welsh outfit, but what . . . a . . . treat . . . how it rocks, how strange it gets, how funny, how tender . . . stretch after rolling stretch of inspiration, musical places few bands ever get to, or with such odd, mocking ease . . .
Classic Rock Album: Amboy Dukes, Journey to the Center of the Mind (1968) . . . Before he was a gun swinging nut with an outsized opinion of his own mouth noises, Ted Nugent was a pretty good guitarist in this seminal Detroit band . . . the Dukes play very high, also very blues, & a close listen reveals all manner of trippy word-games . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Epilogue to The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are part of the 2011 tribute album Rave On, Buddy Holly . . . the weather hereabouts is spring lovely, the air at night like a dear one's kiss while falling asleep . . .

05.19.2012 show

May 12, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Ian Anderson, Thick as a Brick 2 (2012) . . . Subtitled "Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock?", Jethro Tull frontman Anderson returns 40 years later to the 8-year-old boy of the original classic album, and gives him five possible paths through life . . . what else to know is that the record sounds like classic Tull, rocks and rolls in the best way, Anderson is clearly inspired and has a crack band with him . . . a sequel of high worth . . .
Classic Rock Album: Steely Dan, The Royal Scam (1976) . . . This is just one damned delightful album from the Dan boys . . . funny, satiric, imaginative, tender, if you know this band, you know these many aspects all play in, and the music itself is idiosyncratically gorgeous . . . just a plain and complex delight of a record . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Epilogue to The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are some more of those featured on the two Moody Bluegrass Nashville tribute albums to the Moody Blues . . . "just play through" is written on my old chalkboard, by way of advice, and I find myself learning what this means in new ways . . .

05.12.2012 show

May 5, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: The Long Winters, Putting the Days to Bed (2006) . . . Somehow missed this third album by this heartfelt, funny, rocking Seattle band . . . those are fairly rare adjectives for bands this good, but they pull it off, the rocking and the humor, and sometimes the pathos too . . . a genuine pleasure & grower of a record . . .
Classic Rock Album: Toad the Wet Sprocket, Dulcinea (1994) . . . This California band mixes a driving indie rock sound with a twisty spiritual yearn, resulting in a sound like no other . . . their concerns run large and small, from the here and now to the hereafter . . . sometimes their sound is just out and out pretty, sometimes you gotta take the ride awhile to find the inmost groove . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Epilogue to The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on the two Moody Bluegrass Nashville tribute albums to the Moody Blues . . . & suddenly it is May, how did it get so far into the year? ah well, the green is coming from all angles now & welcome welcome to it . . .

05.05.2012 show

April 14, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: The Shins, Port of Morrow (2012) . . . It's been five years since the last Shins album, and longer since their masterpiece, Chutes Too Narrow (2003) . . . James Mercer fired all his bandmates and, for this album, took on a new crew, though it's hard to say how long they will stick . . . that all said, this album is good, really good, renders the years and drama took to make it irrelevant for the listeners . . . for whatever Mercer had to go through, or put himself through, and others, the end result is a beautiful work of Art . . . . . .
Classic Rock Album: Bob Dylan, Desire (1976) . . . Dylan collaborated with many musicians and writer Jacques Levy to create this dazzling record, bursting with epic tales, funny songs, pretty ones, his clear eye and biting humor all here in abundance . . . a rich work, rewarding for many listens . . . Dylan wide awake and dangerous is a wonderful thing . . . . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Epilogue to The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are a final dose of those featured in the great new Bob Dylan tribute album, Chimes of Freedom . . . this is the program's 300th episode on SpiritPlants Radio . . . wow, and I can only think this time around as I do: I hope it goes well, since it's always a fun time to do . . .

04.14.2012 show

April 7, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More (2010) . . . Another great band I somehow missed, with the beautiful subtleties of the Avett Brothers & the grand theatricality of U2 mixed in with their own lovely freakiness . . . this album is the special kind that maybe sounds odd in the ears at first but when one settles in, it just keeps getting better & better . . .
Classic Rock Album: Paul Simon, Graceland (1986) . . . I am not sure how this latter-day masterpiece of Simon's had not yet been played on this show, but taking care of this matter right now . . . Simon mixes African sounds, Zydeco, Tex-Mex into an esoteric broth that is still his & his alone, his brilliant mind & poetic heart in all its dark humor and deep feeling . . . Just wonderful . . .
Storybook Time: Epilogue to The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are another dose of those featured in the great new Bob Dylan tribute album, Chimes of Freedom . . . feels like spring in New England again after a nasty preview of summer, the coolness swirls, the blooms & birds continue their slow sweet arrival . . .

04.07.2012 show

March 24, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Bruce Springsteen, Wrecking Ball (2012) . . . This album is flat-out great, seems like the one Springsteen has been aiming for, for awhile now . . . it's big & brash at times, small & dear at others . . . full of anger at the easy cruelties of the world, the ones that are not new, yet never go away . . . The Boss, despite the fury of his lyrics, sounds happy, sounds like he is doing well what he loves most doing . . . good for him and his band . . .
Classic Rock Album: Aerosmith, Toys in the Attic (1975) . . . They were called Boston's Bad Boys back when, and this album is one of the reasons . . . Aerosmith has never been simply a metal band, more like a hard rock band in the old sense, the Led Zeppelin sense . . . there are too many subtle touches & tricks to confuse this record with one of the many imitations that came later . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty-Five of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured in the great new Bob Dylan tribute album, Chimes of Freedom . . . here came spring, a few strangely hot days and what did they mean, and now today grey and rainy as often sometimes in New England . . . here's to more & let the summer wait its honored turn . . .

03.24.2012 show

March 17, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Greensky Bluegrass, Guns (2011) . . . This Michigan band knows how to raise up the dancing dust with their rollicking sounds . . . what makes them even better is that their songs have grit and poetry to them . . . loss, desire, the toil of the years in love & want . . . add in the banjos & fiddles & what-not, it's irresistible . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Grass Roots, Feelings (1968) . . . This Los Angeles band had a lot of hits in the late 60s and early 70s, and this album captures them stretching out, plenty of love songs mixed with a desire to really rock the studio and get to that major somewhere place musicians seek . . . sweet stuff indeed . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty-Five of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured in the great new Bob Dylan tribute album, Chimes of Freedom . . . Feeling the spring thaw in just about every step taken of late, you feel it too? That chance to love the next hour better, walk it with happier intent . . . It's there, waiting . . .

03.17.2012 show

March 10, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Delta Spirit, Delta Spirit (2012) . . . Featured multiple times on this program (most recently 2010's History from Below LP and The Waits Room EP), this San Diego band returns with a new, fine, twisty album, a tale of two halfs, the first stretch of songs generally slower and more pensive, eventually giving way to a spate of great rockers . . . another of many bands one could offer up as refute to any who think rock and roll ain't alive and well . . . . . .
Classic Rock Album: Sting, . . . Nothing Like the Sun (1987) . . . It was sad seeing The Police break up in the early '80s, I was a great fan . . . then Sting stepped up and began releasing great solo albums to fill the gap . . . this, his second album, is just all sorts of good and powerful, loaded with pretty songs, funny songs, political cries, mysterious love songs, and a great Jimi Hendrix cover . . . a great album in a string of great albums . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Twenty-Five of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured in the great new Bob Dylan tribute album, Chimes of Freedom . . . good to be back after a week off . . . ready to roll this shambling audio caravan straight into spring . . . right straight in . . .

03.10.2012 show

February 25, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Sonic Youth, The Eternal (2009) . . . Read the news recently that this legendary New York City band is calling it quits, maybe for good . . . so revisited this most recent release and if it is their last, it's a high point to leave on . . . twisted songs of despair, anger, tenderness, lots of rock and roll roaring . . . maybe this time it's true, better to burn out (like this) than fade away . . .
Classic Rock Album: Harry Nilsson, Nilsson Schmilsson (1971) . . . Saw a recent documentary on this singer-songwriter and decided to look into his records . . . this album is considered his creative and commercial peak . . . and it sounds like both, like an artist well-versed in his craft, on fire with inspiration, ranging around among romantic disputes and morning hangovers and weird situations of all kinds, and setting it all to the great sounds and words in his head . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty-Four of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Men at Work, an '80s Australian band with more than just a few hit songs in its pocket . . . seems like it's not just me struggling some days to feel the connection all yearn, and I think more and more that the way to top that feeling is to tend healing toward others and myself . . . take back my mind, show others how . . .

02.25.2012 show

February 18, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: The Black Keys, El Camino (2011) . . . Last heard on the 5/22/2010 broadcast of this program, these funky Ohio boys are back with an album that does a little bit of everything, high rock, deep soul, gets in and out of the whole matter in under 38 minutes . . . great grooving artistry, a pure pleasure . . .
Classic Rock Album: Tom Petty, Wildflowers (1994) . . . This was Petty's second "solo" album though most of the Heartbreakers were on it . . . yet there is to it a deeply personal feeling, songs of loss, promises broken, yearning for good feelings & better days . . . heard with attention to the lyrics, a melancholy picture reveals . . . and the music itself does the usual Petty thing, rocks hard & high & sweet & slow & deep & oh so well . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty-Four of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Surfer Blood & cuts from their bouncy little 2011 EP, Tarot Classics . . . spring nears, slowly, I guess just the old yearn that comes always this time of year . . . the wish twisted of old longings & ready barks for the next & new . . .

02.18.2012 show

February 11, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: The Head and the Heart, The Head and the Heart (2010) . . . This Seattle band comes out of the gate with a great indie rock record, kicks up the guitars and goes, but then there are fiddles and dogs barking, funny moments and those of weird dark pathos . . . even Coldplay-like moments of sweetness . . . hope these guys stay around for the long haul . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Eagles, One of These Nights (1975) . . . Strange album, full of great hits like "Lyin' Eyes" and "Take It to the Limit" but dig a little deeper and the experimental nature of the band emerges, most notably in a long instrumental some may know from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe BBC radio program . . . So enjoy the familiar songs & where they lead . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Twenty-Four of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Led Zeppelin & cuts from their 1975 massive opus, Physical Graffiti . . . There is snow drifting out the window, though this winter has been mostly snowless . . . still the winters are long here in all manner of ways, physical and metaphysical . . . it's nice to feel at home these days . . .

02.11.2012 show

January 28, 2012 13th anniversary show features:
Featured Album: XTC, Apple Venus, Volume 1 (1999) / XTC, Wasp Star (Apple Venus, Volume 2). . . After seven years tied up in legal wranglings, this brilliant English band returned with a deep sack of great new songs, so deep that two volumes were required . . . a friend of mine once said that XTC was the band that people longing for the "next" Beatles were looking for . . . their songs rock, run over with melodies, cleverness, pathos, weirdness . . . since their decision to break up, some of us have spent some time waiting for the "next" XTC as well . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty-Three of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from old fixtion & old poems . . . so this is my show's 13th anniversary broadcast, & the pleasure I can report is that I found a bin of old show cassettes, & will mix bits of them in & out of new shows, thus tying all together a little closer . . . grand project, so happy to be doing it . . .

01.28.2012 show

January 21, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Snow Patrol, Fallen Empires (2012) . . . This Scottish band returns with a strong new album, mixing some light electronica touches into their classic rock sound . . . the result is the next mile along their smart, melodic, melancholy path . . . winter is a good time to be tangled up in their music . . .
Classic Rock Album: Serge Gainsbourg, Histoire de Melody Nelson (1971) . . . Somewhat forgotten these days, or relegated to the oldies bin, Jackson Browne's art & empathy shine a plain & lovely light through the grooves of this record . . . It is a live album of new songs, recorded on stage, in hotel rooms, back stage, and on the band's tour bus . . . fine & lasting work . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty-Three of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is R.E.M., and previously unreleased songs from their new anthology Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage . . . Boston is snowy, New England is snowy, elsewhere is snowy . . . this morning I slipped twice on the ice, and thought at least my old musician friend won't be slipping this winter . . . it was a strange thought . . .

01.21.2012 show

January 14, 2012 show features:
New Rock Album: Nickel Creek, Why Should the Fire Die? (2005) . . . I wish I'd discovered this California progressive acoustic trio years ago . . . their music is magic, pure & simple . . . flying wild guitar, bouzouki, ukelele, mandolin and fiddle, crazy passionate lyrics, there are so many stellar moments of perfection throughout this record . . .
Classic Rock Album: Jackson Browne, Running on Empty (1977) . . . Somewhat forgotten these days, or relegated to the oldies bin, Jackson Browne's art & empathy shine a plain & lovely light through the grooves of this record . . . It is a live album of new songs, recorded on stage, in hotel rooms, back stage, and on the band's tour bus . . . fine & lasting work . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Twenty-Three of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Decemberists & songs from their excellent 2011 EP Long Live the King (including songs penned by Garcia/Hunter & Dante Alighieri!) . . . First show of 2012, & maybe a chance this year will bring the world to fruition despite the clashing wills of many men . . .

01.14.2012 show

2011

December 10, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Dave Rawlings Machine, Friend of a Friend (2009) . . . When Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch get together to make music, whoever else shows up, a kind of dark funny magic is going to break out all over the place . . . there will be songs about death, regret, maybe one about candy, some monkeys too . . . dark funny magic and be lucky your place and ears at their table . . . just gotta show, just gotta listen . . .
Classic Rock Album: Nick Drake, Bryter Layter (1970) . . . Nick Drake's second album, his, er, happier-sounding one, his shot at the title, or whatever you might think such a strange, twisted soul would be going for . . . it's a beautiful work, and it didn't sell much, and Drake went on lower down his road . . . but it's a fascinating stop to behold . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty-Two of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's 9th annual holiday broadcast brings the year's three dozen shows to their completion . . . I mark it sad, my friend Jim is among the stars, Occupy Boston's camp is a memory . . . 2012, however, is going to rock the world and I CANNOT wait . . .

12.10.2011 show

December 3, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Poor Billy, Brother Wake Up (2011) . . . This Danish band, sounding beautifully punk-rootsy to its bones, should pack up their gear, get on a jet plane, and come on over to any given Occupy site they like, or tour them . . . theirs are the songs of the working folk, loud, brash, full of rough-hewn poetry, sweat, smiles . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Rolling Stones, Between the Buttons (1967) . . . Mick n Keith n the boys decided to follow The Beatles and Dylan into trippier places than they'd been, and the result is like nothing any other band produced . . . they are bad boys, indeed, but sharp-eyed and deep-hearted too . . . this album is a classic and a delight . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty-Two of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are the final bunch from the Dark Was the Night anthology . . . Show number 400 comes, which is a fine thing, and I dedicate it with deep sadness and deeper love to the memory of my friend James Burke III . . . Peace Love Dove, my brother . . .

12.03.2011 show

November 26, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Lindsey Buckingham, The Seeds We Sow (2011) . . . Keeping track of the Fleetwood Mac's mastermind's solo work is a wise thing to do, for it is in his solo albums that he simply will not set his guitar down for a moment . . . his albums come out every few years, and each one shows the effortless deep craft of a great artist . . . news is that LB has left the major record labels for more home-grown environs . . . he loses not a step in his brilliance, perhaps gains one or two for his freedom . . .
Classic Rock Album: James, Gold Mother (1980) . . . Having played this British band's most recent album on the 11/13/2010 show, I thought it was time enough passed to dip into their back catalogue . . . James writes clever, twisty lyrics & grooves them into the catchiest of rock and roll melodies . . . easy to enjoy, but the music gets stuck in your happy ears . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Twenty-Two of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are a third helping from the excellent Dark Was the Night compilation . . . this weekend SpiritPlants Radio celebrates its 8th anniversary, which I date back to my show's first broadcast on the station . . . & my show remains for me the heart of the matter even as the land about it has grown vast with other great radio productions . . .

11.26.2011 show

November 19, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: The Bats, Free All the Monsters (2011) . . . Last played these New Zealand dream popsters on the 8/1/2009 broadcast, their excellent Guilty Office . . . their new album is just as perty & strange, & I'd say fits the sweeping autumnal colors & cool of this hemisphere . . . guitars & harmonies, can't beat it . . .
Classic Rock Album: Billy Joel, Glass Houses (1980) . . . I was a pimpled youth when this album came out, and it helped begin my deep love of Joel's music . . . he was long past being just the Piano Man at this point, but his love of basic good rock and roll was intact in the funny songs, the dark ones, and the ones full of want . . . fine, fine tunes . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty-One of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are again from the excellent Dark Was the Night compilation . . . this is the time of year I feel most close to, swim natively within . . . & tonight, to bring these good feelings to others, plan to spend some time Occupying Boston . . . whoot! . . .

11.19.2011 show

November 12, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Coldplay, Mylo Xyloto (2011) . . . These Brit boys have put together another album of gorgeous tunes, and it seems like there's still a lot on Chris Martin's mind . . . some put down his songs of happiness, as though such things are lesser than those of gloom or despair . . . give a good listen, there's sadness in these songs too, but it's not enough to whelm them, their joys are solid and earned . . .
Classic Rock Album: Harry Chapin, Portrait Gallery (1975) . . . It must be November because I find myself drifting the years to a melancholy youth spent listening to Harry Chapin LPs again and again . . . and the years pass but his music still moves me with its empathy, its humor, its grit, the fineness of his band's playing . . . it was, in fact 30 years ago that he died, and I cried when I heard, and that was when I began to listen . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Twenty-One of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on the excellent Dark Was the Night compilation . . . I think of November as one of my nearest friends among the months . . . the autumn maturing by the colors above and below, the air chilling perfectly . . . things getting prettiest before they part . . .

11.12.2011 show

October 22, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: The Waterboys, An Appointment with Mr. Yeats (2011) . . . Recently, lead Waterboy Mike Scott realized a long-desired wish, to put his music to the poetry of the great Irish poet W.B. Yeats, on stage, & now on record . . . the result is a sort of Robert Hunter-Grateful Dead relationship, for it surely sounds like Yeats wrote these poems as lyrics for the Waterboys to set to folk-rock tunes . . . a wonderful collaboration across time . . .
Classic Rock Album: Country Joe & the Fish, I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die (1967) . . . Continuing the recent run of shows featuring bands who comprised the San Francisco Sound of the late '60s, come to those rowdy Berkeley boys, who it must be said about foremost had a lot more in their arsenal than dark funny pieces about war . . . great musicians, lyrics hard, sweet, strange, they deserve more attention for their fine, fine music . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Steve Earle, a great musician who I discovered during his classic turn as a street singer on the wonderful TV show, Treme . . . The voices are growing for a better country, a better world . . . join them . . . these days hold great promise if we try . . .

10.22.2011 show

October 15, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Deer Tick, Divine Providence (2011) . . . Been hardly a year since this program featured this Rhode Island indie rock band (the fine Black Dirt Sessions on the 8/14/2010 show) . . . their new album is a rollicking, barroom bash-it-out work at times, but not entirely, featuring also some graceful slow numbers, shiveringly good . . . a smart, fun album, a rocking delight . . .
Classic Rock Album: Quicksilver Messenger Service, Happy Trails (1969) . . . On their second album (this program spun their cool debut album from '68 back on 11/7/2004), Quicksilver just rips the loving shit out of the old Bo Diddley classic, "Who Do You Love?"—and then delivers another album side of trippy-liciousness, just for good measure . . . for those who wonder what it was like to be at one of those Fillmore East/West shows back in the day, tune into this one, the high, grooving shouting crowd feels very close . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Snow Patrol & cuts from their new Called Out in the Dark EP (prelude to their new record coming in November . . . here in the Boston area, and down on Wall Street in New York City, and across the US, and round the world, there is a rowdy shout going on toward peace and justice, the kind those with the big guns and big power and big money just HATE to be hearing . . . and it's a shout getting louder . . . and don't think anything good is going to come easily, but neither that hope and united voices aren't a powerful weapon . . . exciting, terrifying days, the best kind . . .

10.15.2011 show

October 8, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Hysterical (2011) . . . Returning after a four-year hiatus (you can hear their first two excellent albums in this show's archives, check 12/24/05 & 2/3/07 broadcasts), these Brooklyn boys come on strong in their third album . . . there is a strange yet compulsive flow running through this album that sums very likably, and yields more sonic pleasures upon further listens . . . good to have them back . . .
Classic Rock Album: Santana, Caravanserai (1972) . . . The title of this fourth album from Carlos & his changing crew means "an inn built around a large court for accommodating caravans," & there is a sense that they are playing for weary, interested listeners . . . comprising mostly instrumentals, this album consumes the listener with shaped, rhythmic musical power, leaving a feeling of emptiness & satisfaction . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist are some of the singers & bands who contributed to the Kerrang Presents Nevermind Forever album tribute to the classic 1991 Nirvana album . . . The cool air takes over, the colors shift & shift & shift . . . the closely watching eye still misses most, but not all . . .

10.08.2011 show

September 24, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Wilco, The Whole Love (2011) . . . It's a never-know situation coming face-to-face with a new Wilco album . . . frontman Jeff Tweedy will try anything once, and their new album especially reflects that . . . I find it a challenging record to get a full hold on, but worth the effort, and there are some strong rocking songs that stand out immediately . . . holds up well against their previous work . . .
Classic Rock Album: R.E.M., Lifes Rich Pageant (1986) . . . R.E.M. announced recently their break-up after 31 years together . . . they stand with The Beatles and Phish as one of my three all-time favorite rock bands . . . I started following R.E.M. during their late '80s college rock days, and into their days of mainstream success in the '90s, and their work as a trio over the past decade . . . I think they suffered in recent years from the loss of drummer Bill Berry to retirement . . . while still often making excellent music, including this year's Collapse Into Now, they seemed to flounder a little for direction . . . the album featured this week is one of their early ones, and legendary, showing them fearless and funny and deep and strange, just fucking wonderful . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Twenty of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Phil Ochs, & cuts from his under-appreciated last album, Greatest Hits, from 1970 . . . finally into the autumn, and one can decide the turn in seasons can be a turn of luck or will too . . . push a little harder, push again, and again, see what reveals . . .

09.24.2011 show

September 17, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Blitzen Trapper, American Goldwing (2011) . . . This is the third album by this Portland, Oregon band featured on this show . . . for all the talk of a laid back West Coast sound, the truth of the matter is more like this: great bands like BT walk into the studio with such a vibe, but are all business in making their records . . . BT makes some heady, big-hearted, funny, rocking music, they love what they do, they're really good at it, and listeners are the recipients of these gifts in song . . .
Classic Rock Album: Grateful Dead, Blues for Allah (1975) . . . Some say the Dead were only at their best in concert . . . this album is among a number (including earlier releases Workingman's Dead and American Beauty) that belie this assertion, as the Dead again work their wild deep magic in studio confines . . . a great album in its harder, softer, and weirder moments, from a band that stands rightly alongside the great rock bands of all time, live or on vinyl . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Nineteen of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the Brooklyn band Beach Fossils, and tracks from their beguilingly jangly 2011 EP, What a Pleasure . . . while autumn is still about a week away on the calendar, the air is cooling in preparation, the nights are chilling nicely, the trees are even now readying their costumes . . . beauty is a-borning already . . .

09.17.2011 show

September 10, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: The Jayhawks, Mockingbird Time (2011) . . . Wow! the 'hawks are back, and co-founder Mark Olsen is returned (he'd left in '95) . . . the result is what I would call a transitional album from the trippy bluegress sounds of the three post-Olsen albums, through a harkening back to his years with the band, toward I think something else . . . the results this first time back show a band stretching out, trying things, even a bit of guitar soloing along the way . . . I like this progression, indeed call it a work-in-progress, and await further results to come . . .
Classic Rock Album: Jefferson Airplane, Bark (1971) . . . This is the first of two late-period Jefferson Airplane albums, much maligned by critics . . . The facts, I believe, are these: singer Marty Balin and drummer Spencer Dryden had left the band, replaced by drummer Joey Covington and, most importantly, Papa John Creach . . . so the album lacks Balin's romantic ballads, but gains from the addition of Creech's ethereal fiddle . . . the band is also strengthened by the Hot Tuna side-project work of guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Cassady . . . in short, this is a different Airplane, but not less good . . . heavier, but the tunes remain true . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Nineteen of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Warm in the Wake, & cuts from their fine 2008 EP, Speak Plainly (& hoping they are cooking up new tunes for release soon) . . . now that the hurricane has passed through, and done its damaging deeds, the autumn is readying to take the stage for a long, lovely solo . . . bring her on!

09.10.2011 show

August 27, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Gillian Welch, The Harrow & the Harvest (2011) . . . Recently discovered this amazing singer-songwriter, whose work in its weird depths & musical loveliness reminds me of Bob Dylan . . . with her partner David Rawlings, Welch tells beautiful stories of the weird ways of love, of the heart, of the hand . . . medicine for much of what ails . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Jayhawks, Tomorrow the Green Grass (1995) . . . This Minneapolis band has long been a dear favorite of mine, though their music is not until now been so prominently featured on this show . . . but news of their recent reunion & pending album is cause for playing one of their best albums, the first one I heard many years ago . . . their music is called alt-country, perhaps indie rock, whatever, it is pretty, spritely, sad, funny, dear, endlessly memorable in the blood once heard . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Nineteen of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Fredric, a Michigan band that produced one marvelous album in 1968 . . . a hurricane approaches local shores, & people stock food & hurry around . . . this a prayer to all those who will face the sober, unbridled power of Nature this weekend . . .

08.27.2011 show

August 20, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Old Crow Medicine Show, Big Iron World (2006) . . . Stumbled across this Nashville Americana band not long ago, and WOW . . . they rock the bluegrass vibe hard, again, WOW . . . this album was their second, and picked because, of the three so far, it best represents their range of strengths & charms . . . hoping to be featuring a new album of theirs soon . . . WOW . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Church, Hologram of Baal (1998) . . . This is the ninth album this show has featured by this legendary Australian psychedelic rock band . . . their music is pretty, shimmers, flows, bangs & bops . . . their lyrics are trippy as fuck, smart, crawl into the blood . . . their albums are strong from start to finish . . . they carry on with psychedelic rock like it's the most natural thing in the world to do . . . it is of course . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Eighteen of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Great Society, Grace Slick's really good pre-Jefferson Airplane outfit, & some excellent cuts from a 1966 show of theirs . . . Recent run of days rising determined to meet the day with high expectations & see them through . . . it's the right way to live . . . dug deep in my head is the hard wish to continue on like this perpetually . . .

08.20.2011 show

August 13, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Dawes, Nothing is Wrong (2011) . . . We were lucky enough to see this Los Angeles indie-rock band when they recently opened for Alison Krauss & Union Station in Boston . . . blown away by a number of their songs . . . their new album, their second, is a leap ahead from their debut . . . strong, lovely, music, & the power of poetic lyrics makes them a band to hear now, & keep track of in the future . . .
Classic Rock Album: The La's, The La's (1990) . . . This Liverpool band made one album, two decades ago, yet unlike a million other bands who've done the same, or made more than one album, they are not forgotten . . . indeed, their announced appearances at a couple of festivals later this year has enflamed talk of a second album arriving . . . their sound is raw, acoustic-y kinda, punkish folky, yet pristine, precise for all its scuff . . . and it grows on the listener over time, until by golly you realized you've heard their one damned album 20 times or more . . . it's that sneaky and good . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Eighteen of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Jim Croce, the great singer-songwriter of the early '70s whose gifted life was cut short at age 30 by a plane crash . . . happy to be back on the airwaves, always the renewed hunger after a week off . . . may it always be . . .

08.13.2011 show

July 30, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Arctic Monkeys, Suck It & See (2011) . . . Saw this English band a few years ago at the Sasquatch Festival near Seattle, didn't like them much, too much snot, not enough rock . . . but their new album is really good, musically tight & various, lyrically solid, sometimes subtle & lovely . . . fine stuff . . .
Classic Rock Album: Steeleye Span, Parcel of Rogues (1973) . . . Wow, this English folk-rock group has it all, excellent players & singers, great material, a jaunty, high spirited jamming vibe . . . listen & you will be very charmed too . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Seventeen of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Alison Krauss & Union Station, lucky enough to see them this past week . . . some great cuts from this bluegrass band full of virtuoso players . . . another job of mine has endeth . . . put best this way, as a buddy said, one door closes, another window opens . . .

07.30.2011 show

July 23, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: White Denim, D (2011) . . . Some say this Austin band sounds like the Grateful Dead, because they jam, but then add they don't jam too much as though this is a compliment . . . their vibe is old-school rock and roll, but they're playing for the new century, & really finely . . . oh, and fuck you to the jam band haters . . . enough is NEVER enough . . .
Classic Rock Album: Paul Revere and the Raiders, Collage (1970) . . . A band that made some really good music but never gained much of the respect they deserved . . . this album is a heavy sonic snapshot of its time, and a really good one . . . worth more than one listen for sure . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Seventeen of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Coldplay, and cuts from their excellent new EP, Every Tear is a Waterfall . . . Well blast my soul if I ain't gonna be jobless again soon . . . maybe a chance to get the next one right finally?

07.23.2011 show

July 16, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Avi Buffalo, Avi Buffalo (2010) . . . First of two California bands featured on this episode, Avi Buffalo is strange and charming, trippy in an often Shins-y kind of way . . . songs of love, desire, loneliness, a flow not quite like any other, a powerful sweetness at work . . .
Classic Rock Album: Toad the Wet Sprocket, Coil (1997) . . . Another great 90s band, one I've finally given some good listening attention to . . . this album was their 5th & last, & what a way to go out . . . they rock brilliantly, their lyrics are as deep as elliptical, their passions in every note played and sung, a lovely, fine work . . . and happily for their old and newer fans, the band is back together and touring and making a new album . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Seventeen of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Queen, some of their early monster hits . . . I keep learning that if the world isn't its loveliest in your view, turn your head, or change your mind . . .

07.16.2011 show

July 9, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: The Donkeys, Born With Stripes (2011) . . . This California band sounds both classic & contemporary, their music sometimes swamped happily in a late '60s vibe, but not in a retro or ironic way . . . simply put they make music like this year is 1967 on & on & on & on . . .
Classic Rock Album: Camper Van Beethoven, Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart (1987) . . . What a freaking miracle of an album to have come out while Ronald Reagan was still vaguely president . . . mad swirls of fiddles among nutty rock guitars and songs about terrorists, cowboys, et cetera . . . funny & serious as hell . . . nearly 25 years after its release, it's still better than most anything before or since . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Sixteen of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Turquoise, a cult UK band, friends of the Kinks, some delightful old-timey pop nuggets . . . simply put: wonderful to be back after a needed break . . . here goes the summer run of shows . . .

07.09.2011 show

June 11, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Death Cab for Cutie, Codes and Keys (2011) . . . This Washington State band makes records that reward multiple listenings . . . not as rocking an album as some of their previous releases, with some electric highlights, just not as many . . . nor as easily poppy, but they've been moving away from that too . . . possible to call it a transitional album but I think every one of their albums could be called that . . . repeatedly listen, that's the truest statement . . .
Classic Rock Album: Blues Section, Blues Section (1967) . . . This Finnish rock band has a lot going for it, though they lasted only one album . . . they can rock out, they have solid harmonies, & some funny songs too . . . their album is a treasure trove of experiments & styles, well worth the un-earthing . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Sixteen of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the Mystic Astrologic Crystal Band, a ludicrously (& wonderfully) named Los Angeles band, & some nice cuts from their 1967 self-titled record . . . some weeks test a soul, & show him what he's got . . . sometimes this news is welcome, not always, but sometimes . . .

06.11.2011 show

June 4, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album:Viva Voce, The Future Will Destroy You (2011) . . . We saw this Portland, Oregon indie rock band some years ago open for Bright Eyes in Seattle, & were very impressed . . . now getting around to spinning their record on this show . . . I'd call them most closely psychedelic folk, since they will use the strange fx of psychedelic rock, & the electric attack, mixed in with the prettiest of guitars . . . a band I will keep an eye on hereon . . .
Classic Rock Album: Strawbs, Bursting at the Seams (1973) . . . This UK prog-rock band came at me from weird angles . . . had heard their name, for years, then just days ago jumped into this album & was so pleased . . . tis prog-rock but there are many things going on here, not like anyone else . . . a sort of insistent idiosyncracy that is delightful to experience . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Fifteen of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Eddie Vedder & some nice tracks from his just released Ukelele Songs album . . . june, june, a feather & a spoon, the glories of night & the biggest moon . . . happiness far, happiness soon, happiness here, happiness swoon . . .

06.04.2011 show

May 28, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album:My Morning Jacket, Circuital (2011) . . . not spun this Kentucky band since the 10/22/2005 broadcast of their excellent album, Z . . . this new one surprised me, there is a finer swoop & subtlety both to these songs, they are more muscular & more tender . . . one can only wonder & hope over the ways they came to be, full of heart's harder, secret roads, & how these travels emerge sometimes, like this, in great music . . .
Classic Rock Album: Horslips, The Táin (1973) . . . This roaring, rollicking Irish band took an early Irish myth involving a war over a white bull, & turned it into a broad rock & roll epic . . . as Celtic as one could wish, fiddles, flutes, ballads, squeeze boxes, electric guitar furies, just delightfully high & higher . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Fifteen of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Herman's Hermits, a charming British band with many sugar treat pop hits from them hippie days . . . Just this, this time: if you don't embrace the beauty, the lightness, the dearness to the world, when these things come to you, you will drown lungs full of the bullshit . . . simple & hard as that . . .

05.28.2011 show

May 14, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Beck & Friends, The Velvet Underground & Nico (2009) . . . Beck's online Record Club sets out to cover a chosen classic rock album over the course of a single day's recording (their cover of Skip Spence's Oar was featured on this show's 3/27/2010 broadcast) . . . best I can say about this album is one's great or little curiosity about seeing one peculiar rock legend cover the music of another (equally peculiar one) will determine one's interest . . . knowing the original album, surely one of the most astonishing debut albums in all of rock history, gives one a somewhat useful place to start, at least to see how Beck & his mates decide song by song where to remain close to the original, & where to deconstruct . . . I like especially where he deconstructs, Beck-ifies the music, turns something dark into something funny, or turns a different weird corner from the one the Velvets turned . . . in sum, get on the bus for Mr. Hansen's strange ride, or just wait: an express will be by soon . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Kinks, Lola Versus Powerman And The Money Go Round, Part One (1970) . . . What brought me round to checking out this album were its several tracks included on the very fine 2007 Wes Anderson film The Darjeeling Limited . . . the album itself is a righteous raging rocker pitting Ray Davies against the powers-that-be, whether the record industry or music critics or a number of other targets . . . a fun, smart, focused album that deservedly brought the Kinks back to the attention of many . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Fourteen of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Cyrkle, an American band best remembered for its 1966 hit, "Red Rubber Ball" (penned by Paul Simon), but with more to offer than just that song . . . I see daylight ahead, a chance to resume meaningful pay-work soon, & like the old saying, hoping it's indeed the sun & not an oncoming train . . . wait & wait . . . keep hope cupped close . . .

05.14.2011 show

May 7, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: The Smithereens, The Smithereens 2011 (2011) . . . This New Jersey band never really left or broke up but it's been a long stretch since they have released an album of new songs . . . this one is so good, I was shocked, rocks in a way only the Smithereens do, like it's 1966 & everyone has a broken heart & a need to rock all night . . . lovely . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Listening, The Listening (1968) . . . One of the many Bosstown Sound acid rock bands that flourished around Boston in the late '60s, less generally known than the San Francisco bands of the same time . . . Listening knows how to jam high & good, & how to slow it down for a pretty spell . . . their sole album cover depicts the Hatch Shell in Boston, where they performed with other Bosstown bands one memorable day . . . the story continues that the elders of the city decided after that that the Shell would return to Boston Pops concerts for a long time . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Thirteen of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Buckinghams, a late '60s Chicago band that put a couple of hits on the national charts but had way more goodies to offer for those who went looking . . . finally arriving into May, when New England heats by day, cools by night, & bursts all over with colors & scents . . . always a good time to pay more attention, to start up again . . .

05.07.2011 show

April 30, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Paul Simon, So Beautiful or So What (2011) . . . There are very few who are on the same level of mastery as rock poet Paul Simon . . . his poetry & his music are what the apex looks like . . . he is funny, profound, self-deprecating, humble . . . sharing what he sees without the ego or artifice of any so-called master . . . this album is astounding . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Guess Who, Canned Wheat (1969) . . . This Canadian band had some years when they could do no wrong, & their jams were beyond heavenly . . . this album swings through all the right notes & the ride throughout is high & happy, even when the songs get dark in thinking of their times . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Thirteen of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the Appleseed Cast & tracks from their excellent new EP, Middle States . . . my birthday came & went this week, but I can think of so many more important dates, & people, & trees, & sweet Creatures of music, that I simply nodded & was glad the day blew sunny with breeze . . .

04.30.2011 show

April 9, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Tapes 'n Tapes, Outside (2011) . . . Been nearly five years since this show featured this Minnesota band's excellent debut album, The Loon . . . this, their third album, bounces around the room delightfully, rocks out weirdly & wonderfully, leaves a deep yet impish impression when it's done . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Mamas & the Papas, Deliver (1967) . . . This third album by the famed quartet works their best strengths of harmony, melody, & lyric sometimes playful, sometimes dark, & keeps the flaws & indulgences of their lives sunk down in the harmless back wash . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Thirteen of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are some of the obscure but lovely bands featured on the Marijuana Unknowns anthology . . . the weather continues to warm & to green, & human beings continue to match the beauty of nature with the subtlest, kindest acts, & the stupidest fucking ones . . . there's no deducing anything from this that can help, yet better days for most, if not all, are still possible . . . this is a statement of faith, no more, no less . . .

04.09.2011 show

April 2, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Low, C'mon (2011) . . . This is a strange, majestic wonderful rock album by this Minnesota band, riddled with magic, dreams, specters of the human & inhuman kind . . . slow, intense, beautiful singing, the varied sounds of a band working at fiercest devotion to its musical art . . . a delight, a surprise, a treasure . . .
Classic Rock Album: Jethro Tull, Aqualung (1971) . . . Twas said when this album came out that it was a rock opera or or concept album of some kind, & there are characters who appear in more than one of its songs, but it feels more like an orchestral suite, meant to be heard of a piece as it runs its 45 minutes or so . . . there is a dark beauty to the songs, the underside of society & the human heart explored with a wonderful empathy . . . a classic . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twelve of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the Humblebums, a late '60s folk-rock duo with a penchant for charming, pretty tunes . . . tis April & my birthday month, the warming days, my eager pens to fill pages . . . healing is hereon . . .

04.02.2011 show

March 26, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Cake, Showroom of Compassion (2011) . . . Cake is a Sacramento, California band with 6 albums over 17 years . . . their music is smart & quirky but, more than that, it's made with care, it matters, they are sharing something dear to them . . . their new album shows an artistic maturation that moves on while leaving nothing important behind . . . beautiful weirdness that counts . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Waterboys, This is the Sea (1985) . . . Early on, this Irish band made what its leader Mike Scott called "the Big Music," a sprawling soundscape of instrumentation & visionary lyrics . . . this was the third of these albums & it shows a focus & a joy that in undeniable . . . Scott points to the sky, to the sea, to the forests, to the magic of skin touching skin & what fires within, nods, & his fine, tight band begins to play for glorys . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twelve of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the Fourmyula, a delightful late '60s band that ruled their native New Zealand's pop music charts with cheerful tunes sweet as magical sugar cubes . . . I keep thinking 'circulation salves distress' over & over, & trying better to learn what this means . . .

03.26.2011 show

March 19, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Wye Oak, Civilian (2011) . . . This show is clearly a great fan of this Baltimore band, having aired both of their previous albums, 2007's If Children & 2009's The Knot, as well as their 2010 EP, My Neighbor / My Creator . . . Their new album works wildly around a dreaming map of wishes, curiosities, obscure beauties of the soul . . . a 38-minute sojourn down a kaleidoscopic river beneath funhouse mirror skies . . . too soon over . . .
Classic Rock Album: Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home (1965) . . . This was one of the key albums in building Dylan's legend, created in a fever of inspiration, with a desire to shed his constricting folkie-protest roots, & aided benignly by a nice deep haze of marijuana smoke . . . maybe a tab or two of Lucy too . . . each song rings with fearlessness & fervor, the sounds of a man assessing what he's got in hand, a guitar, a pen & paper, a troubled heart, a harmonica, some willing band mates, a few key books of poems . . . assessing, nodding, & setting forth like it's all new & this is the first time . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Twelve of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Flaming Lips & some nice cuts from their 2009 epic double-album, Embryonic . . . this weekend we part the winter & arrive in the springtime . . . breathe & praise, find something to be grateful for & say thank you to whomever or whatever brought it into your life . . . breathe & praise, breathe again, remember how to be glad, & be glad . . .

03.19.2011 show

March 12, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: R.E.M., Collapse Into Now (2011) . . . For 13 years now, the legendary Georgia band R.E.M. has been releasing albums as a trio, minus their retired drummer Bill Berry . . . the results have been mixed, as though sometimes the band was genuinely exploring new musical spaces, & sometimes listening to fans who feel the band should have broken up in 2000 (as they had once joked they would) . . . their fifth album as a trio (up to half of what the original quartet released) shows them finally establishing solid ground for newer- & older-sounding music—& for the length of an entire album . . . the guitars ring, the harmonies swirl, lead singer Michael Stipe's lyrics again show his gift for the heartfelt, the deep, & the silly . . . it adds up to an album the band should feel proud of . . . newer fans & older alike should give this one a good listen, & then a few more . . .
Classic Rock Album: Elliott Smith, XO (1998) . . . Somehow this enormously gifted artist hadn't hit my radar until very recently . . . but I didn't find my way into his work until I heard this, his fourth album . . . I am reminded, in the best of ways, of the later albums of Phil Ochs, where a folkie goes electric, adds some players, & gains a deeper, wider voice for his songs . . . dark, catchy, Smith's talent, & that of his band, is of prime order, his music both honest & powerful . . . wonderfully worth hearing . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Eleven of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Royal Guardsmen, a late '60s band from Florida that recorded a delightful series of "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron" songs . . . yes, it's spring coming again, there are days that hint or even briefly shout it . . . not yet but soon . . . I think the birds out the window have been singing of spring all winter long . . .

03.12.2011 show

February 26, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Radiohead, The King of Limbs (2011) . . . It's been four years since this UK band released the excellent In Rainbows . . . this new album came out last week with almost no advanced notice, initially a digital-only release, causing mayhem among rock music lovers . . . the music is often a kind of ambient rock, as much of their recent work has been . . . but as one reviewer noted insightfully, Radiohead makes music only Radiohead can make . . . the only fairly certain reaction I can give to it right now is that it might bear its best fruit from an undisturbed & fairly elevated place . . .
Classic Rock Album: XTC, Nonsuch (1992) . . . Like Radiohead, XTC is one of my favorite latter-day British rock bands . . . in spirit & sound, the two form almost a kind of yin & yang . . . this album came as XTC was cohering their sound into a kind of high art 1960s-never-ended vibe, a smart, timeless, visceral suite of songs . . . much of is powered by the brilliant song-writing of Andy Partridge, with a few well-placed tunes by his mate Colin Moulding . . . a wonderful album, a wonderful band, just the thing to sweep the existential blues out the door . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Eleven of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Lemon Drops, a Chicago band around from 1967 to 1969, they cut a bunch of sweet trippy songs but never had the luck to release a proper album . . . existential blues indeed, & yet the knowledge that mind & two good hands, walking upright still, loved as much as any deserves to be . . . looking toward a springtime in heart as much as on the branches of nearby trees . . .

02.26.2011 show

February 19, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Iron & Wine, Kiss Each Other Clean (2011) . . . Last heard on the 12/1/2007 broadcast of this show with the excellent The Shepherd's Dog, Iron & Wine (the stage name for Sam Beam) from Texas returns with a beguiling, funky, sometimes electric, sometimes beautifully soft, new album . . . lyrically as powerful as the music, which is not a widely common pleasure in rock music new or old . . . tales that are not merely strange nor merely intimate . . . a special album, a lingering one . . .
Classic Rock Album: Blossom Toes, If Only For a Moment (1969) . . . Fairly obscure UK band around for several years in the late '60s . . . this second & final album of theirs rocks beautifully in that late '60s way, with its feelings of rage & wonder criss-crossing wildly . . . the funny thing to note here is that the Blossoms had more commercial success with their first album, 1967's We Are Ever So Clean, a more poppy, less acid rock, affair, but the band itself hadn't liked it, the session musicians forced on them, outside arrangers, & so on . . . they only made two albums, but their second album sends them out on high notes of artistic freedom . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Eleven of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Clash & cuts from their classic 1979 rock epic, London Calling . . . tonight the sky broke up with heavy thunder & brilliant lightning, rain pounding down on the streets lined with high piles of dirty snow . . . beautiful, & without the least needed explanation . . .

02.19.2011 show

February 12, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Bright Eyes, The People's Key (2011) . . . Last heard on this show on 4/7/2007, with their excellent Cassadega album, Conor Oberst & his crew return with an even harder rocking release . . . there is palpable anger & sadness in this album over the state of the world, & if there is hope, it is what is found on the hard road of experience & failure . . . there are moments, gorgeous & weird, of a kind only Oberst could conjure, when this album bursts wildly with beauty & magic . . .
Classic Rock Album: Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, Night Moves (1976) . . . A deeper visit with this fine Michigan band, building (somewhat belatedly) on this show's 8/13/2005 broadcast of the Bullet's Greatest HIts album . . . Seger thinks deep & subtly, then lets some of his thoughts out in songs, some rockers, some ballads . . . for a long stretch in the '70s & into the '80s, he was tuned into the times, his albums, this one among his best, broadcasting the news not seen on the TV . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Eleven of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Delta Spirit, & cuts from their 2010 EP, The Waits Room . . . waits, wait, waiting, sometimes it seems like life becomes waiting more than living, & one wishes to direct a complaint but where? to whom? There's more to this world than waiting, even in its worst moments, a puzzle worthy of a brain, mine & yours, millions of years in the making . . .

02.12.2011 show

January 29, 2011 12th anniversary show features:
Featured Album: Pete Townshend, Psychoderelict (1992) . . . From the ashes of The Who's abandoned 1969-1970 Lifehouse project emerges many years later this tour de force, a legitimate sequel to Tommy & Quadrophenia . . . it tells the story of Ray High, a veteran cosmic rocker trying to sort through his middle age doubts & obsessions to produce once again work to rival his own previous masterpieces . . . if it sounds autobiographical, that's because it is, & isn't, like many of the best works of Art . . . it rocks as hard as anything ever has, confesses as rawly, & lays forth the artist's powerful scarred mind & battered but still-beating heart for any who care to know these . . . this album is a rock classic that should be heard & known so much better than it is . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Ten of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . so this is my show's 12th anniversary broadcast, the first anniversary broadcast to come again from the Boston area since 2002, when the show was just 3 years old . . . through all the struggles of my days, I am thrilled to be doing this show from the area I left awhile in body, but never in spirit . . .

01.29.2011 show

January 22, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Guster, Easy Wonderful (2010) . . . This Boston band's third consecutive release on this program, although it's been since 6/17/2006 when Ganging Up on the Sun was spun . . . their new album rocks prettily, Guster raises the good vibes easily & smartly . . . the kind of album that hits the sticking spot from the get-go & keeps finding new ways to stick upon subsequent listens . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Dream Syndicate, The Days of Wine and Roses (1982) . . . This Los Angeles band had been together less than a year when this album came out & made their name on the college rock scene of the day . . . many compare them to the Velvet Underground because lead singer Steve Wynne shares Lou Reed's deadpan snarl . . . similar, not the same, just as post-punk LA & Andy Warhol's New York City do not quite mirror each other . . . the Syndicate is a little more rocking, less nihilistic, also swing for far fences but with a different bat . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Ten of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Cage the Elephant, & cuts from their beguiling first two albums, built equally from exposed hearts & punky snot . . . this week I felt my cold fragment & dissipate, & health return day by day . . . the snows fell & fell, I beggared work in many directions but, still, health, sweet health . . .

01.22.2011 show

January 15, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: The Decemberists, The King is Dead (2011) . . . Long time favorites of this show, this Portland, Oregon band returns with a lower key album than recent releases, pretty & fine as ever, but with a sheen of simple happiness in many of its songs . . . it was recorded in the spring of 2010 on a farm near Portland, Oregon, & its R.E.M.-like spirit can be explained in part by the presence of Peter Buck on several songs . . . a nicely unexpected turn in the road for a great band . . .
Classic Rock Album: Golden Dawn, Power Plant (1968) . . . Led by George Kinney, this Austin, Texas band was contemporaries of the Thirteenth Floor Elevators . . . similar fine bands but not the same . . . Golden Dawn's songs are more spirituality, less pure anarchy . . . that said, when it's time to rock, they definitely know how to rock! Alas, another cool band with one album come & gone . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Ten of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the Gin Blossoms, starting to catch up with their recent work, this time around cuts from their 2006 reunion album Major Lodge Victory . . . I spent this week flat on my back from a crappy cold, watching as a blizzard swallowed Boston, & then left without a word . . . can't wait for that first day of post-cold bliss . . . can't wait!

01.15.2011 show

January 8, 2011 show features:
New Rock Album: Delta Spirit, History from Below (2010) . . . Last heard on the 10/3/2009 broadcast of this program, with their excellent debut album, Ode to Sunshine, this California band returns with another classic, as musically delicious as the last, with some added politically-themed bite, & an even deeper lyrical depth . . . another record to spin for any "rock is dead" mopey-dopes you happen across . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Knack, Round Trip (1981) . . . This Los Angeles band had hit it big back in 1979, with the dirty rock ditty "My Sharona" from their debut album, but then a backlash sank their sophomore release . . . This third album is a classic, rocks, pops, grooves, is fine as fine gets . . . & yet the reviews were so bad, the band broke up (until 1991) a few weeks after its release . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Ten of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are some of the many featured on the Treme HBO TV original soundtrack from 2010 . . . if you have not seen this brilliant, beautiful TV show, I advise finding it now . . . tis a new year, & we carry into it our same seeds & stinks, & wonder as always whether some good can grow from this mixture . . .

01.08.2011 show

2010

December 11, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Okkervil River, The Stand Ins (2008) . . . This album is the companion piece to this Austin, Texas outfit's great 2007 release, The Stage Names (spun on this program one week ago) . . . the songs on this album mine various angles of culture—high, low, & weird—to produce songs of timeless beauty . . . ballads, rockers, big epics, fragments . . . the lesson between the lines is that beauty can be chased into any patch of woods with great return . . .
Classic Rock Album: Mountain Bus, Sundance (1971) . . . This great Chicago jam band had the misfortune of getting sued for using the word "Mountain" in their band name, even though their use of it predated the band Mountain by several years . . . the good news is that all these years later their music remains as fresh & beautiful as it was back then . . . their scorching version of the Grateful Dead's "I Know You Rider" is only one of many treats on this great rock album . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Ten of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion . . . & this week's 8th annual holiday broadcast brings this show's activities to a conclusion for another year . . . I can only hope that the new year brings the beginnings of a powerful cohesion among disparate people tired of the ways that leaders of men continue to use the fist & the bullet & the threat in lieu of the imagination of the mind & the empathy in every human heart . . . I do not blame one man or woman for the suffering in this world . . . I blame the systems erected in lethal combination with the helplessness so many of us feel as we acquiesce day by day . . . is there hope? There's always hope . . . where there's life, there's hope . . .

12.11.2010 show

December 4, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Okkervil River, The Stage Names (2007) . . . This is the first of two related albums this show will play this month by this fine Austin, Texas band . . . this week's album is a frenetic rocking drive of what singer Will Sheff calls a "universe of reference of signals, signs, and bullshit" . . . the intense melodicism of this band's music reminds me in the most positive way of the Avett Brothers . . . not many bands can reach so deep into the heart's hidden places & pull up such essential musical poetry . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Move, Looking On (1970) . . . The third album from this British rock band pulses with exciting sounds, with ideas, with hard charge after hard charge of music . . . a bit funny, a bit dark, musically labyrinthine . . . it is no wonder that Move members Roy Wood, Jeff Lynne, & Bev Bevan were by the release of this album already planning the launch of the prog-rock supergroup Electric Light Orchestra . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Nine of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion . . . & this week's featured artist is Eric Clapton, & sly bluesy delights from his 2010 album, Clapton . . . there is so much unnecessary struggle in the human world, so much that humans inflect on each other with no reference to Nature, the Universe, or any external compulsion . . . yet we do live in Nature, a hope that bides close every day, & we do have music, a magic that all but the most lost cannot avoid. . .

12.04.2010 show

November 27, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Wolf Parade, Expo 86 (2010) . . . This Montreal band makes frenetic, driving, darkly fun music, and is yet another example of the fertile ground that Montreal continues to be for indie rock . . . they do indeed rock and roll, but with a pretty, pretty heart buried in each song, nearer or not so near to the surface of the sounds . . .
Classic Rock Album: Family, A Song for Me (1970) . . . This UK band, featured once previously on this show (their excellent 1968 debut Music in a Doll's House was heard on the 1/6/2007 broadcast), makes a kind of weird pretty British folk-rock . . . often the sounds of a deep, half-remembered dream, that cries hoarsely to be born as it fades . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Nine of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion . . . & this week's featured artist is Blues Traveler, a New Jersey jam band that has traveled its many roads on the strength of long jaunty songs, and John Popper's ability to wring many worlds from a harmonica . . . winter is creepin' & crawling' into New England, the leaves have done their dance & scatter the ground, trees are bare, the wind is raising ever stronger, more cold, less light . . . fine times indeed!

11.27.2010 show

November 20, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: A Sunny Day in Glasgow, Autumn, Again (2010) . . . This Philadelphia band's dream pop fuzzes your mind but good, a warm & weird sound . . . sometimes sounds like a rock band with '80s leanings (they recently did an excellent cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Everywhere"), but more often not . . . a well-named record leading one to think of walking strange paths at dusk, humming with the sounds that criss cross nearby . . .
Classic Rock Album: Fastball, The Harsh Light of Day (2000) . . . This Austin, Texas band hit it big in the late '90s with the delicious slacker epic, "The Way" . . . on this follow-up album the band chose to challenge themselves & make more complex, often darker, songs . . . the results are fantastic, showing a band following its inspiration & best ideas . . . an album for frequent listenings, newly rewarding each time . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Nine of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion . . . & this week's featured artist is American Breed, a late '60s band from Illinois that hit it big with a few trippy nuggets such as "Bend Me, Shape Me" . . . some days I sit watching out the window, the trees, the patch of sky in view, the wind pushing branches around, or strangely absent . . . I watch for only a few minutes at most, but there's some mystery & wisdom in this I wish I could better cup, & carry away . . .

11.20.2010 show

November 13, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: James, The Morning After, The Night Before (2010) . . . I'd not picked up on this long-lived Manchester UK band until the release of its newest work, a double EP set . . . James is an idiosyncratic band, their music is a weirdly pretty rock, their lyrics a kind of tangled poetry, their sound in sum addicting & fine . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Merry-Go-Round, The Merry-Go-Round (1967) . . . This Los Angeles band put out one brilliant acid pop record before disintegrating . . . some compare their sound to that of fellow LA rockers Love, but I think it's less dark & more of the lovely melancholic folk-rock of the time . . . another lysergic treat from a year with seemingly endless treasures . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Nine of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion . . . & this week's featured artist is great '70s British glam rockers T. Rex . . . some weeks trip up early & hardly find a balance all the way through . . . but life keeps luring with its good things, its music, its trees, those who smiling offer their love . . . why resist?

11.13.2010 show

November 6, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Bad Books, Bad Books (2010) . . . Turns out this band is a collaboration between Brooklyn folk/indie artist Kevin Devine & Atlanta indie rock band Manchester Orchestra (whose great 2009 Means Everything to Nothing album was heard on this show's 5/30/2009 broadcast) . . . I liked the album a lot before I knew who had made it, & then knowing explained this liking further . . . moody, jangly, oddly poetical, an autumnal aural treat for those who love acoustic guitars (& sometimes electric) on grey, grey days . . .
Classic Rock Album: Harry Chapin, Short Stories (1974) . . . I discovered Harry Chapin on the day he died, in 1981, I was 17 . . . a friend on the phone mentioned his death, & I broke down crying, strange since I'd only known of him from a few songs on the radio . . . yet I began to collect his LPs, nearly a dozen of them, & discovered a full grown man still carrying the hopes & ideals & vulnerabilities of youth . . . trying to figure how to put his work, his music, to the task of understanding the world & trying to better it . . . the years pass, the power passes from hand to hand, yet the change of name from Caesar to Hitler to Nixon to Bush means little in how one man will stomp another in reaching past him . . . romance & sex still twist in ways mysterious, excruciating, sublime . . . every living soul still struggles for how to live, how to live, how to live, & why . . . Chapin's music shines a light on life's hidden & not-so-hidden chambers of ferment, & he sings of what is revealed . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Nine of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion . . . & this week's featured artist is obscure trippy rockers Crazy Elephant & cuts from their sole album from 1969 . . . November is dreaded by many, loved by a few, summer long gone, winter still at a distance . . . the fall leaves are nearly all down . . . but not any year without a few perfect colorous days of still, cool air, & moments when the human world is rendered the much & mere thing it is, indeed, amongst the world as a whole . . .

11.06.2010 show

October 16, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: The Posies, Blood/Candy (2010) . . . An indie rock band from Washington State, been around & gone & now back & yet here I am late on finally catching their wave . . . what pretty rocking fun music . . . shiny music, jingles, harmonies . . . but then the tear of the lyrics . . . these boys sing & play like a lot depends on them getting it right . . .
Classic Rock Album: Yes, Close to the Edge (1972) . . . Deep in the big belly'd time of progressive rock's heyday appeared this record . . . for lovers of the hugely ambitious rock epic (three songs comprise this work), this fits the bill . . . there is no holding back in grandness of design nor musical virtuosity . . . a master work of its kind . . . Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Eight of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion . . . & this week's featured artist is Santana & cuts from their fine new rock covers album, Guitar Heaven: The Greatest Guitar Classics of All Time . . . nights of late have gotten blustery, the kind when every blanket in the house must be found & set to work . . . the leaves are showing their secrets, & ready for the last, best party of the year . . .

10.16.2010 show

October 9, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Belle & Sebastian, Belle & Sebastian Write About Love (2010) . . . An impossibly catchy album, yet at moments grotesque & sweetly dark . . . this Scottish band comes across sometimes as delicate, fragile, otherworldly, but their bite is underneath, & their lyrics are often merciless & unsentimental . . . a strange group, a really, really good one too . . .
Classic Rock Album: Pink Floyd, A Saucerful of Secrets (1968) . . . the Floyd's second album, & the last to feature Syd Barrett on some of its tracks . . . a spooky record, especially the title track, & as a whole a psychedelic masterpiece . . . there is madness & dark beauty all over this one . . . the pain is plainly evident too . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Eight of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion . . . & this week's featured artist is the Lovin' Spoonful & some prime cuts from their late '60s work . . . the air cools, wraps 'round fingers & minds . . . the city is a stark study in shapes & angles at night . . . even the geese are hanging around the Public Garden for a little while longer before their departure hour comes . . . loveliness, in all directions . . .

10.09.2010 show

October 2, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Neil Young, LeNoise (2010) . . . Neil pairs up with producer Daniel Lanois (hence the playful album title) to produce a loud rock album in the old, simple vein, but with some nifty arty flourishes . . . with a couple of dark acoustic tunes along the way . . . when NY shows up with intent, & plugs on in, it can still be beautiful . . .
Classic Rock Album: Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin (1969) . . . The power of this debut album loses nothing with the years . . . LZ was out of the gate fantastic, & it's not just their influence that matters, it's the actual music . . . they played like rock gods because that's what rock bands aspired to . . . mount the high cliffs & shout down . . . happens even these days, just not always as many down below listening . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Eight of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & various poems . . . Joy Division, a UK post-punk band that made some cool & creepy rock music in the late '70s . . . the leaves are turning, October arrives, with its rain & cooler days, the year rolling through the long colors till all turns white . . .

10.02.2010 show

September 25, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: The Zephyrs, Fool of Regrets (2010) . . . This Scottish band has weird, charming ways, electric rocking it out at times, bringing in boy-girl harmonies at others . . . they had me with the album's opening song, "Creative Faith," a trippy number as one could wish, but won my heart forever with a later song about working for the recruitment agency . . . 'slavery under another name,' indeed . . .
Classic Rock Album: Paul Simon, There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973) . . . Getting to be autumn & them's Paul Simon days . . . there are so many charming winners on this, Simon's third solo album . . . but the song that runs through my head of late is "One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor" . . . I think of it when I hear pounding from the apartment below . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Eight of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & various poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Eagles & cuts from their excellent farewell (for awhile) 1979 album, The Long Run . . . yes, tis autumn, the daylight hours are fewer, the heat is letting up on its months-long hold . . . the leaves in northern New England are already changing colors, & soon this transition comes to Boston . . .

09.25.2010 show

September 18, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Dead Heart Bloom, Strange Waves (2010) . . . debut album by this New York dream pop band . . . there's a feel of Beatles, CSN&Y, the Velvet Underground, & Fleetwood Mac in these tunes, but their influences comprise their launching pad, not their nocturnal destination . . . sweet music, melancholy, sometimes darker than that . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Litter, Distortions (1967) . . . debut album of beloved Minneapolis, Minnesota garage rockers . . . known for their fuzzy classic "Action Woman," these boys also did killer covers by The Who, the Yardbirds, & Small Faces . . . fun stuff that bites, hangs on . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Eight of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & various poems . . . & this week's featured artist is North Carolina's Megafaun & cuts from their excellent new Heretofore EP . . . I am feeling that pull of autumn more & more as it nears . . . sometimes riding my bike home in the dark I am grateful beyond all named & known . . .

09.18.2010 show

September 11, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Menomena, Mines (2010) . . . Part of the delight to listening to these Portland, Oregon rockets is knowing—& not caring—or not knowing at all, that they use a computer program as part of their album creation process . . . it is completely irrelevant to the enjoyment of this work, a restless, frothy, smart rainbow of rocking tunes . . . however a band gets to making music this good, praise be . . .
Classic Rock Album: Morning Dew, Morning Dew (1967) . . . There is a timeless magic to the debut album of this acid rock band from Topeka, Kansas . . . a beauty in the male & female voices, separate & when they twine . . . in the way an excellent band will bring a breathless looseness to their songs while leaving listeners wonder how they can be that good song after song . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Eight of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & various poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Mighty Lemon Drops, & cuts from their excellent & rocking late-'80s work (the '80s did indeed rock, despite the shit on commercial radio) . . . the weather has turned in recent days from summer's endless bite to fall's transient splendors . . . a greater weight in the air, leaves changing colors, all changing & changing again, time moving along . . .

09.11.2010 show

August 28, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Lower Dens, Twin-Hand Movement (2010) . . . Amazing debut album from this Baltimore quartet . . . band leader Jana Hunter was on the folk circuit for a decade when she decided to change course & form a rock band with some of her friends & tour mates . . . the result is a brooding, dreamy rock confection which rides 40 intensely pleasurable minutes along its own waves of reaction & reflection . . .
Classic Rock Album: Phil Ochs, Rehearsals for Retirement (1969) . . . In a year of amazing albums (including Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left, played on this show last week), Ochs' 1969 masterpiece stands as one of the best of them . . . a desperate, beautiful cri de coeur from a man who had fought the good fight for the betterment of society & was now left among his ruins, this album is both plain in its beauty & complex in its mysteries . . . summed like: how is it that an Ochs, or a Van Gogh, or a Cobain, can find in their darkest hours the materials & the will to make works of genius? And how do you thank a dead genius?
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Seven of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Smiths & some great cuts from their 1986 album The Queen is Dead . . . the summer is going & some souls wish it linger, & others bid it a quick adieu . . . or maybe it's all one season & naming four of them is a try, & a fail, to nature against itself as men, amongst themselves, daily, do . . .

08.28.2010 show

August 21, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Annuals, Count the Rings (2010) . . . This delightful North Carolina indie-rock band has expanded their Sweet Sister EP (from March of this year) into a full-blown third album . . . by turns whimsical, oddly trippy, pensive, I find their hippie-ish sound beguiling & enjoy how album by album they continue to branch & leaf out wonderfully . . .
Classic Rock Album: Nick Drake, Five Leaves Left (1969) . . . British folk-rock singer Drake's debut album landed from seemingly nowhere in longhair 1969, & still sounds like it's arriving from both the past & the future . . . Drake's voice is the lead instrument of an excellent band, his lyrics the stuff of an intimate, sometimes secret poetry . . . all cumes to a 39 minute land of melancholy magic that one wishes to visit again & again . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Seven of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Golden Smog, the alt-country supergroup led by the Jayhawks' Gary Louris, & cuts from their excellent 2007 EP, Blood on the Slacks . . . there were moments here in Boston this week when autumn-tinged coolness slipped in for a few hours . . . soon more, & then more still!

08.21.2010 show

August 14, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Deer Tick, The Black Dirt Sessions (2010) . . . This Providence, Rhode Island indie rock band plays an earthy early-'70s rock that still sounds more contemporary than throwback . . . they know how to hit it hard, jam wildly, & also how to slow it down & still keep the intensity . . . a challenging, delightful, gifted young group I hope continues to play out its great potential . . .
Classic Rock Album: Billy Joel, The Nylon Curtain (1982) . . . This is the fourth Billy Joel album featured on this show . . . his early-'70s albums profoundly helped me make it to September 1982 when this new album was released & I was free of high school hell, starting college . . . his eighth album, it finds him more ambitious than ever to make an album inspired by his deep love of the Beatles . . . as John Lennon had just recently been murdered, one could even call this his homage . . . all that said, it is a plainly great rock record, a beautiful suite of songs that runs a perfect course start to finish . . . as one who disdains the indulgent album lengths that digital technology currently allows, I say: this album is about 36 minutes long & very few can challenge it . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Seven of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Nice, a fine late-'60s UK prog-rock group later remembered primarily for being keyboardist Keith Emerson's launching pad to fame . . . books from the deep to the dishwater say change your mind & change the world, & there are days, sometimes just hours or moments, when I believe this & campaign the braid of voices in my head to heed its hope . . . you too?

08.14.2010 show

August 7, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Tired Pony, The Place We Ran From (2010) . . . A kinda-sorta country-tinged indie rock supergroup including Gary Lightbody from Snow Patrol & R.E.M's Peter Buck . . . country by intention but rock & roll by result, balladish to lysergical . . . fine, fine work . . .
Classic Rock Album: Spirogyra, Bells, Boots and Shambles (1973) . . . This was a British folk/prog band for a few years in the early '70s . . . their third album is rangy melange of pretty folk, rocking out moments, & acid lunacy . . . an amazing roller coaster in sound . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Seven of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Wye Oak & cuts from their excellent new EP, My Neighbor/My Creator . . . the summer days are drippy with heat, & the cooler autumn seems quite far off . . . but nothing is ever as far off as it seems . . .

08.07.2010 show

July 24, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Nada Surf, If I Had a Hi-Fi (2010) . . . Third time this New York band has been featured on this show, & this time out the boys have made a really fun covers album (I think of other good ones such as Rush's Feedback & The Church's Box of Birds) . . . their takes on songs by artists such as Depeche Mode, the Moody Blues, & Kate Bush show a love for the originals & a fine creative restlessness to make the songs their own . . .
Classic Rock Album: Emerson, Lake, & Palmer, Trilogy (1972) . . . been four years since this UK progressive rock outfit was on this show . . . this album, their third, is a number of things: strange, pretty, funny, & by its culmination a bit of new musical land has been visited, one more strange morning in a youth's lifetime has passed, & it was a good one . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Six of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those featured on the excellent Cold Mountain (2003) original soundtrack . . . I think of July & sometimes simply remember the July of my 17th year when I would walk along the low wall in front of the local museum, & dream simply toward all that might be . . .

07.24.2010 show

July 17, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Shout Out Louds, Work (2010) . . . Swedish indie rock band with their third release, pull out all the stops . . .this album is a hard pretty pretty ride . . . its bright, moody, acoustic charms can be attributed at least in part to producer Phil Ek, who previously worked with Band of Horses & the Shins . . . gets better & stronger, track by track, listen by listen . . .
Classic Rock Album: Taste, Taste (1969) . . . This Irish power trio featured guitarist/vocalis Rory Gallagher, 20 years old & at the start of his long career . . . they sound cut from the mold of Cream, and in fact opened for them on their farewell tour . . . raw, bluesy, & very likable psychedelic work, the kind that lingers in the ears a long while . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Six of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the Wallflowers, selections from their excellent work . . . feeling like this is the fourth phase of my living in Boston (when I visited here from Connecticut, when I moved here, when I lived far but remembered here fondly, & hereon), & I believe in these early days it may be the best one of them all!

07.17.2010 show

July 10, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Mojo (2010) . . . It's been 8 years since Petty & the Heartbreakers' last release, & this time out they have opted for a run at the blues . . . the result is a sprawling, ambitious, frequently exciting record that shows this band hasn't slowed down or begun to rust . . . some songs hit the first time around, some after a few listens, but either way, it's a great & welcomed return by a legendary rock group . . .
Classic Rock Album: Bow Street Runners, Bow Street Runners (1970) . . . This Fayetteville, North Carolina band put out just one relatively obscure album that has, happily, resurfaced in the past few years . . . take some fuzzed-out guitars, classic organ, a few horns (even a few backward loops), throw in some trippy lyrics & good rock singers, male & female, and you have a record worth recovering from the dust of years gone by . . .Storybook Time: More entries from my "Road Diary," kept along the long road from Portland, Oregon to Boston, Massachusetts . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Five of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Sting, a selection from his many, many great songs . . . finally returned to Boston, finally moved into a new place, finally settling in, finally getting to the business of resuming this radio program. The word "gratefulness" comes to mind again & again of late. What newly possible . . . indeed . . .

07.10.2010 show

June 12, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Blitzen Trapper, Destroyer of the Void (2010) . . . Suddenly this band from Portland, Oregon has a new album out, & it's as charming & rocking as their previous releases . . . good music, smart lyrics, a twist of the weird darkness life sometimes tosses up, & here is another winner!
Classic Rock Album: Simon & Garfunkel, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, & Thyme (1966) . . . Talk about classic rock albums . . . S&G never touched the ground during the making of this one . . . roars & purrs both with beautiful, funny, dear, tender, sometimes furious music . . . SO GOOD!
Storybook Time: More entries from my "Road Diary," kept along the long road from Portland, Oregon to Boston, Massachusetts . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Radiohead, & cuts from their excellent 2001 live album, I Might Be Wrong. . . this is the second of two shows produced while traveling in Boston & not yet moved in here, so recorded live but broadcast later . . . good feelings all around for moving back here, resuming, renewing . . .

06.12.2010 show

June 5, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Widespread Panic, Dirty Side Down (2010) . . . this veteran Georgia jam band has put together quite an epic . . . songs that reflect joy, weariness, and a long fascination with the strangeness of life and how it can be transmitted to music . . . deep and beautiful jamming . . .
Classic Rock Album: Creedence Clearwater Revival, Creedence Clearwater Revival (1968) . . . one of this show's most favorite bands, always good to get their music on air . . . this album was their first, and shows them rocking good and hard right out of the gate first time around . . . and they got even better!
Storybook Time: Entries from my "Road Diary," kept along the long road from Portland, Oregon to Boston, Massachusetts . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Coldplay, songs from their brilliant 2002 album, A Rush of Blood to the Head . . . this weekend a road show of sorts from the Boston area, the usual mix with some odd new dashes . . .

06.05.2010 show

May 22, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: The Black Keys, Brothers (2010) . . . this Ohio duo is a big discovery for me, though they have been around for nearly a decade (again confirming my faith that not only is there good current rock music, but that there is a LOT of it!) . . . their new album is nearly an hour in length, usually a red flag in my book as most bands releasing albums that long could use someone to help them cut their work down to about 45 minutes, gaining tightness over indulgence . . . but this album works over a lot of territory and justifies its length . . . their music is often called blues-rock, which fits well enough but not comprehensively . . . there are quite a few blues numbers but the band moves restlessly and fluidly into soul, hard rock, psychedelic rock, and does not shy from ballad-y or funny moments either . . . this album is a major achievement . . .
Classic Rock Album: Ultimate Spinach, Behold and See (1968) . . . Continuing this show's recent review of the late '60s "Bosstown Sound" out of Boston, the Spinach made some very pretty, trippy music for a couple of years running, some shorter acoustic pieces and longer electric jams . . . worth recovering from their obscurity (oddly, it is said that a band with this name, but no original members, and little musical relation to the original band, has toured around Oregon since 1970). . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Five of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Wilco, and music from their several albums up to their 2001 release Yankee Hotel Foxtrot . . . this week's broadcast marks the last one to come from Portland, and also the last one from the West Coast, where I have been situated since 2004 . . . soon, the first broadcast from the East Coast since 2004, and the first from Boston since 2002! Thank you, Portland, Seattle, West Coast . . . I return East more of a fully realized person for having lived out here . . .

05.22.2010 show

May 15, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Great Lake Swimmers, Lost Channels (2009) . . . This Canadian band has several previous releases but this is the first one where their melodies & their melancholy marry perfectly in a luscious folk-rock atmosphere . . . this album realizes their potential . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Plastic Cloud, The Eyes of The Plastic Cloud (1968) . . . Part of the "Bosstown Sound" (as opposed the "Haight-Ashbury Sound") that also featured bands like Ultimate Spinach & Orpheus . . . marketing ploys aside, this album lets it all out, mostly melodic acid rock but with a few oddities thrown in too . . . serious shit, but with a light moment's touch here & there . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Five of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the Jayhawks, a band I loved on high starry nights in Boston many trips ago, & plan to love again when returned there soon . . . been a year since I hit the bricks, scrounging for work in hard times, but soon the bricks will be far more familiar, & I think my hopes will rise . . .

05.15.2010 show

May 8, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (2009) . . . The lighter, prettier charms of this New York band are weighed to a heavy electric sound . . . music that drops deeper into the ears & mind with each listen . . . I didn't think so, then was unsure, then yah & yah & yah!
Classic Rock Album: The Beacon Street Union, The Eyes of The Beacon Street Union (1967) . . . Part of the "Bosstown Sound" (as opposed the "Haight-Ashbury Sound") that also featured bands like Ultimate Spinach & Orpheus . . . marketing ploys aside, this album lets it all out, mostly melodic acid rock but with a few oddities thrown in too . . . serious shit, but with a light moment's touch here & there . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Five of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the Grateful Dead, some live cuts from the early '70s, my mind remembering high Hartlee nights a decade ago when just about all that made sense some nights were these songs . . . the sunny days take a longer nibble on the skin, & change is all, & the bravest, simplest view is that change is good . . .

05.08.2010 show

May 1, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: El Goodo, Coyote (2009) . . . It was fellow SpiritPlants Radio DJ Catfishrivers who hooked me into this deeply addictive Welsh band, one that plays vintage 60s music on vintage instruments . . . sounding like the last four decades or so were just someone's bad joke or a creepy dream that has gone on too long, El Goodo rocks it out, every great song leading to the next great song, and the conclusion leading to the necessity of flipping the platter over and starting again . . .
Classic Rock Album: Rush, Counterparts (1993) . . . this program is a long-time fan of this Canadian trio (this is their fifth album to be broadcast) . . . this album came out during a time of ever-rising popularity, but they play it out their way as always, existential lyrics wrapped within music both tight & expansive . . . there is no other band in the world quite like Rush, & glad they keep making their magic their way . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Four of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Doors & cuts from their 1971 album Other Voices, released just months after lead singer Jim Morrison's demise . . . back after two weekends off, part of it spent re-connecting to old & deep roots in New England . . . soon time to return & build, continue, contrive new among the fresh & the remembered . . .

05.01.2010 show

April 10, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Titus Andronicus, The Monitor (2010) . . . This New Jersey band has released a pretty amazing new album, an ambitious punky rock 65-minute set that reminds me in a very favorable way of Green Day's 2004 American Idiot . . . moody, funny, odd, just a splendid piece of work that bears many enjoyable listens . . .
Classic Rock Album: The David, Another Day, Another Lifetime (1967) . . .Wonderful obscure Los Angeles band's sole album beautifully excesses in rocking tunes, horns, strings, sentiments both romantic & hippie . . . another wonderful find courtesy of the blogs hid in crevasses 'cross cyberspace . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Four of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Annuals, & cuts from their charming brand new EP, Sweet Sister . . . the weather warms in the Pacific Northwest and, despite new job woes, I am smiling right now, and looking east again with curiosity soon to be pursued . . .

04.10.2010 show

April 3, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Frightened Rabbit, The Winter of Mixed Drinks (2010) . . . It's been two years (5/3/2008) since this show has featured this great Scottish rock group . . . their new album is emotionally deep & powerful, & rings again & again with musical beauties . . . there is release in these songs, a blowing out of anguish, hands gesturing to sea & sky newly after a long darkness . . .
Classic Rock Album: Skip Spence, Oar (1969) . . . last weekend's show featured Beck & Friends' recent terrific full-length cover version of this classic record . . . now return to the original, a brilliant, haunted, funny, released after the sometime Moby Grape guitarist had spent six months in a psychiatric hospital . . . those six months of confinement led to less than a month in a Nashville studio recording, by himself . . . clarifying, if only for himself, that bad hours gone (and those to come) need not own him for a little while anyway . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Blitzen Trapper, a great Portland band, & songs from their fine 2009 EP, Black River Killer . . . tis April, one of my favorite months, the month I was born in, & a push to find the best blooms deep in to ride it, ride it high, ride it ever on, & again, & again!

04.03.2010 show

March 27, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Beck & Friends, Oar (2009) . . . rock master Beck's newest project is called the "Record Club," wherein he recruits a variety of musicians to cover an entire classic album in one day's worth of recording . . . for the third entry in this series, he teams up with Wilco, Jamie Lidell, Brian LeBarton, James Gadson, & Leslie Feist to record a cover of Alexander "Skip" Spence's legendary 1969 album Oar. . . Beck and his crew create a new work from the old, a deeply focussed, deeply funky re-interpretation that stands as much as a love letter as it does as a powerful, stand-alone work. . . the trippy grooves they conjure are most potent!
Classic Rock Album: Steely Dan, Pretzel Logic (1974) . . . the Dan is an old favorite of this show, this being the fifth time their music is featured . . . their third album continued their exploration of a jazz-rock sound nobody has replicated in the decades since . . . a masterful sound, by turns sad, serious, funny . . . they know how to rock, how to blow out the horns, how to run wide their own special, weirdly smiling ground . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Three of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists are some of those whose music is featured on the fantastic soundtrack to the Coen Brothers' fantastic 2000 film, O Brother, Where Art Thou?. . . spring has arrived, and hope is stretching out and showing her potency in the greening and blooming of the trees, and in the actions of men and women who sometimes do believe in the better road ahead & act on these beliefs . . . enough to make a soul walk a little taller, look around with clearer eyes . . .

03.27.2010 show

March 20, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Drive-By Truckers, The Big To-Do (2010) . . . great Georgia band last featured on this show 3/15/2008 (cuts from their double album Brighter Than Creation's Dark), & now they are back with a combustible slew of rocking tales . . . death, infidelity, and Dixie-flavored lunacy . . . dark, funny stuff . . . as they say down there, "turn it up . . . "
Classic Rock Album: Cat Stevens, Teaser & the Firecat (1971) . . . this British folk rocker had many hits back in the '70s, and then nothing but controversy when he converted to Islam and left the music business . . . happily, he seems to have his faith and his music now . . . this album is one of his classics, an intense, pretty, deeply questioning album that leaves one gasping at its beauty time & again . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Three of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Fapardokly, a California band that only existed by way of a 1966 album of songs cobbled together from various sources, featuring most of the same players, but some trippy nuggets on it nonetheless . . . after a couple of weekends off to re-charge, it's good to be back on air and spending Saturday morning among all this good music, these fine words, & what I bring to the table as well . . .

03.20.2010 show

February 27, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Wye Oak, The Knot (2009) . . . This Baltimore indie rock duo's 2008 debut album, If Children, was played on the 4/19/2008 broadcast of this show . . . their follow up is darker, and just as good . . . between the trippy rock fuzziness of the music, and the rich weirdness of Jenn Wasner's lead vocals, the band sounds like cousins to the legendary Mazzy Star . . . they are approaching that level of greatness as well . . .
Classic Rock Album: Dan Fogelberg, Phoenix (1980) . . . Fogelberg made too many great rockers in the 1970s and 1980s to be cast simply as another singer/songwriter of the time . . . this album finds him during that time of artistic and commercial success, releasing hit singles backed by great albums if one went looking . . . his vision is romantic, poetic, visionary, but there is in the man too a solidity, be the song sweet and lovely or rocking hard . . . I was around 17 or so when I first heard this album, and returning to it years later I better hear its suffering and its joys . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Two of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Pisces, an obscure rock trio from Rockford, Illinois, and some sweet cuts from A Lovely Sight, best described as a recent compilation of their songs which back in 1969 were not released as an album . . . it's still February, which in the Northern Hemisphere means cold, and in the Pacific Northwest means wet and grey most of the time . . . still, the buds outside my window are starting to appear, and I will look at them gladly when broadcasting this show . . .

02.27.2010 show

February 20, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Spoon, Transference (2010) . . . This Austin, Texas's third appearance on this show (following up 6/18/2005's Gimme Fiction & 7/28/2007's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga) . . . I'll admit it took me a few spins to warm up to their new album but I did . . . Spoon's style is somewhat roundabout, drawling, but their sound keeps sticking deeper in . . . first one song, then a few, then all of them in a flood . . . they damned well know how to rock . . .
Classic Rock Album: Can, Monster Movie (1969) . . . One of the first so-called "Krautrock" bands that came into being in Germany in the late 1960s, Can's debut album is an amazing journey, at times droney, at times thumpingly mad, it climaxes with the 20-minute long psychedelic epic "Yoo Doo Right" which, the Wikipedia tells us, was edited down from a six-hour improvisation . . . this one is for the hardcore travelers in the further realms, lysergic & otherwise . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Two of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Steve Winwood, a long-time favorite of this show, & some great cuts from his 1970s & 1980s solo work . . . once upon a time, not long ago, this show was the lone bloom in SpiritPlants Radio's fields . . . now it stands happy & fine among a wide-ranging bouquet . . . sweet smells all around . . .

02.20.2010 show

February 13, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Rusted Root, Stereo Rodeo (2009) . . . somehow I missed this legendary jam band from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, until now . . . funky multi-instrumentalists with the ability to go deep, serious, then turn it around fine & funny . . . their new album is a groovy flowing treat . . . they even take a turn at covering an old Elvis Presley song & rock it out. . . I'll be keeping an ear out for this band for both future records and tour dates!
Classic Rock Album: The Open Mind, The Open Mind (1969) . . . this UK band released one impressive album, a nearly-forgotten psychedelic gem that is worth reviving . . . there are some trippy nuggets here, as tales of time machines, magic potions, & greek gods intertwine with songs of love & longing . . . a lysergic dream voyage for drifting on a Saturday afternoon or evening . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Two of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the Marshall Tucker Band, some of their finest country-rock classics from the 1970s . . . starting this program's 12th year with some very exciting music & texts, a pathless passing through the hours . . . come along . . .

02.13.2010 show

January 30, 2010 show features:
Featured Rock Album: The Who, Tommy (1969) . . . Tommy is one of rock & roll's landmark events, like the jazz milestones of John Coltrane's 1964 A Love Supreme or Miles Davis's 1970 Bitches Brew . . . a rock opera, Tommy tells the story of Tommy Walker who journeys from the abuse of his childhood through encounters with doctors and shamans to his final state of enlightenment . . . it is funny, it is profane, it is beautiful . . . were it not for the titanic musical prowess of The Who as a band, it would be long forgotten, as are most other attempts that have been made over the years to create a rock & roll epic . . . four decades come & gone since its release (and subsequent film, and Broadway show), & yet the original has diminished none in power or effect . . . it is a dangerous, wild, visionary treasure, a work of High Art to play for anyone who doesn't yet get what rock & roll can do, or how it can swallow whole & happy so many brilliant musicians (this spinning of Tommy is for my friend JBIII, who has played every song on this album a thousand times, at least) . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter One of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . it is now 11 years to the day that I began this radio show on Radio Free Cambridge (R.I.P.), a pirate radio station located in a large closet in the back of an art gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts . . . I can think of a lot of things that have come & gone (& sometimes come again) in my life since that day . . . every time I go on air I do with the gratefulness of a person once a boy who broadcast radio shows in his head while delivering the morning newspaper every day of the week before dawn . . . here's to many more shows to come!

01.30.2010 show

January 23, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Blind Pilot, Three Rounds (2008) . . . this Portland, Oregon band makes very big acoustic rock music . . . bright guitars are colored by horns, strings, banjo, vibraphone and the like . . . lyrically, they are obscurely sharp, again & again . . . one wonders what their future albums will sound like if they expand their simple palette even more . . .
Classic Rock Album: Relatively Clean Rivers, Relatively Clean Rivers (1975) . . . It is amazing sometimes to find a lost gem of a record and realize yet again that greater quality does not always equal greater fame . . . this trippy jewel is just delightful, made by a tight, high beautiful group of California players . . . another treasure floating through cyberspace to be luckily found by some . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter One of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artists recorded songs for the excellent 2001 I Am Sam film soundtrack . . . it seems as though societal hope has recently turned to cynicism, a kind of snarky darkness . . . and it's easy to fall into it . . . resist the worst of these times, it's difficult, but do, and I will too . . .

01.23.2010 show

January 16, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Surfer Blood, Astro Coast (2010) . . . 'Tis said this Palm Beach group recorded this debut album in their University of Florida dorm room . . . their sound is that of mature indie rock, makes me think of them as similar to the Shins (a great rock band, indie or no). . . pretty, driving, melodic rock that wears well even after multiple listens . . .

Classic Rock Album: Stray, Stray (1970) . . . This London prog-rock outfit never quite hit the big-time, so their story goes . . . but, that question of success aside, they made a hell of a debut album for musicians not yet even in their 20s . . . their sound fuses an acid rock propulsion with expansive ambitions suggesting the coming era of Yes, ELP, and King Crimson . . . a nice platter of grooves, be they boogie, acoustic, or flat out loud . . .

Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter One of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .

Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Lemon Pipers, enough songs of theirs to show that their 1968 #1 hit "Green Tambourine" was a popper aspect of a very talented rock band . . . it feels like a different year already, though some of the struggles are the same, it feels more like the future than the past, and I do now know fully what that means . . .

01.16.2010 show

January 9, 2010 show features:
New Rock Album: Brakes, Touchdown (2009) . . . This English band is led by the same brothers, Thomas & Alex White, who front the Electric Soft Parade, whose excellent 2003 release, The American Adventure, was featured on this show on 1/13/2007 . . . Brakes is a much punchier outfit, with a trippy punk sensibility that is hard to resist . . . their new album is a fast, frenzied delight, rocking head candy . . .
Classic Rock Album: Stone Harbour, Emerges (1974) . . . This duo from Youngstown, Ohio recorded one dandy psychedelic album together that, in its own time, never saw much attention, but has since become a genuine favorite among acid rock collectors in the cyberspace age . . . Stone Harbour's Ric Ballas and Dave McCarty make some amazingly sweet lysergic music together . . . their trip is worth sharing . . .
Storybook Time: Opening & Chapter One of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler & David May. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the Ramones and cuts from Acid Eaters, their classic 1993 cover album of '60s classics . . . 2009 gave everyone a hot painful shower of reality, a frank view of how bad things have gotten . . . a new year beginning and things don't seem quite so bad, the world is still here, there are still all sorts of chances for things to go right, and while maybe there isn't much excitement right now that they will, I am hopeful there will be . . . and hope is something every last one of us needs . . .

01.09.2010 show

2009

December 12, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Ganglians, Monster Head Room (2009) . . . Sacramento's Ganglians are new & out of the box exciting . . . their debut album starts harmoniously soft and sweet, then builds out, filling in its spaces with odder instrumentation, idiosyncratic lyrics, an enveloping atmosphere smoky with late-night hashish pipes and half-lit studio rooms . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Teardrop Explodes, Kilimanjaro (1980) . . . this was the debut album from the legendary English neo-psychedelic band (led by Julian Cope), and it is killer from first track to last . . . limitless energy, a sort of literate trippy music good for dancing or dosing, or both . . .
Storybook Time: Conclusion to Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's 7th annual holiday broadcast brings to close this year's run of shows . . . 2009 was the first full one without the Idiot King, and yet it was proven that restless humans will forget bad days quickly, find their way into new challenges quickly, for better or worse . . . wishing everyone all the best of the Season of Lights . . .

12.12.2009 show

December 5, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Megafaun, Gather, Form and Fly (2009) . . . this North Carolina band offers a beguiling album that ranges from front porch folky jamming to trippy electronic darkness . . . lyrically strange & powerful & moving . . . for those looking for the rock music experimentation of the 1960s carrying on today, Megafaun is a group to hear and to keep track of . . .
Classic Rock Album: Phil Ochs, Pleasures of the Harbor (1967) . . . Ochs began his career in the early 1960s as a folk singer, a very good one . . . when Dylan went electric in �65, and the Beatles turned the recording studio into a new kind of instrument, Ochs decided to widen his palette, and this album resulted . . . a dark album, the work of a man whose heart took in closely the ills of his world, its wars, its brutalities, its quieter kinds of suffering . . . a beautiful album, not quite anything else in its own time or since . . .
Storybook Time: Epilogue to Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Bauhaus, a seminal post-punk rock band from the late '70s and early '80s . . . sometimes a soul lies in its own darkness, its worst murk of fears & regrets, and time leaves and time is gone . . . but time is an illusion, and so is any claim that hope does not seed any hour . . . remember this . . .

12.05.2009 show

November 21, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: The Cave Singers, Welcome Joy (2009) . . . this fairly new Seattle band has gotten the tag "indie folk" but what I hear is some fine, fine rock and roll with an acoustic angle at times . . . their sound is rich with warm and varied, their lyrics strange & moving . . . lifting music to raise a spirit or two when the drizzly days in the Pacific Northwest (and elsewhere) go on too, too long . . .
Classic Rock Album: Grant Lee Buffalo, Mighty Joe Moon (1994) . . . this Los Angeles band made rockers and ballads comparable to their more well-known 1990s contemporaries R.E.M. (with whom they toured) but they did not receive as much praise nor did they last as long . . . this album rattles deep the soul & ears, full of haunted sounds & strange figures . . . night time music, music for woods & stars & movements not quite real flashing by . . .
Storybook Time: Epilogue to Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Monks (a group of wild American soldiers serving in Germany in the mid-1960s) & cuts from their raw, funny, gorgeous 1965 release, Black Monk Time, a lost underground classic worth reviving . . . this month lays back the odd lights & mystery heats that gird the daylight hours, sit underneath, powerful & unshackled . . . check your dreams more often . . .

11.21.2009 show

November 14, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: The Avett Brothers, I and Love and You (2009) . . . I've been following this North Carolina band for awhile now, waiting till they released an album that floored me from start to finish . . . their new one does that . . . it is haunted music, haunted by love, by loss, by guilt, by life's mysteries . . . beautiful music, with many acoustic highlights mixed in with some rockers . . . holds nothing back, exhausting, exhilarating . . .
Classic Rock Album: Harry Chapin, Verities & Balderdash (1974) . . . aside from being another album whose music & maker I idolized in my late youth--in a recent run of them on this show--a deep bag of stories of the lonely & wanting--this album also poses to me a question: what is psychedelic music? Can it be as simple as music that strives for clearer vision, for empathy, for more kindness and deeper understanding? And if this music moves the soul, its melody sticking deep, its lyrics sharp, how can this not be psychedelic music? I leave it an open question. . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Thirty-eight of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Sopwith Camel, & songs from this nearly forgotten San Francisco band's 1967 trippy debut album . . . mid-November is a time of inward looking, sweet melancholy, the leaves fall, the years pass, the faces change, come and go, and sometimes come again, and at best there is gratefulness in reminisce, and hope yet for days to come . . .

11.14.2009 show

November 7, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Built to Spill, There Is No Enemy (2009) . . . its been 3.5 years since this show featured BTS's last album, the fine, fine You in Reverse . . . this Idaho band's new release is every bit as good and, frankly, the song "Things Fall Apart" is one of 2009's best rock songs, period . . .
Classic Rock Album: Billy Joel, Streetlife Serenade (1974) . . . Joel's follow-up to his smash album Piano Man, this one is fairly well forgotten 35 years later, yet it is a beautiful rocking experience, and shows Joel still forming his ideas about fame, music, romance, and the world he sees around him . . . personally, this was one of several LPs of Joel's that as a teenager I played till they wore out . . . so i've LONG known it's good . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Thirty-eight of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Troggs, the '60s UK band that gave the world "Wild Thing" have a few other fine tunes to offer . . . the days crawl toward year's end . . . the air cools, deepens, the pockets way in soul open up for the mulling, if one wishes and wills and dares . . .

11.07.2009 show

October 17, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Monsters of Folk, Monsters of Folk (2009) . . . call them the "Indie Rock Wilburys," a brand new supergroup consisting of Jim James from My Morning Jacket, Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis from Bright Eyes and M. Ward . . . their eponymous debut album is a grand delight of rocking, folking, idiosyncratic treats . . . one of 2009's especial treats . . .
Classic Rock Album: Love and Rockets, Earth, Sun, Moon (1987) . . . this British band had a run on the college rock charts in the late 1980s . . . this album was a peak of this period, an acoustic deliciously trippy album, at odds with so much of the rock of the period . . . yet twenty-plus years later it holds up and still shines . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Thirty-eight of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Monkees, cuts from the soundtrack to their 1968 psychedelic cult classic film, Head . . . the autumn has arrived in the Pacific Northwest, a familiar gorgeous music, new, timeless . . . a happiness in colors no human hand has wrought . . .

10.17.2009 show

October 10, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: The Dodos, Time to Die (2009) . . . it was just a month ago that this show featured this California band's 2008 album, Visiter, & I did not know at the time that they had a new one about to come out . . . that album was great but this new one is amazing, as in fuck-ing amazing . . . an acoustic-driven, quirky-instrument decorated, darkly lyrical, flat-out psychedelic rock masterpiece, easily one of the best albums of 2009 or really any year . . . period . . .
Classic Rock Album: Manfred Mann's Earth Band, Manfred Mann's Earth Band (1972) . . . a previous incarnation of this band from the '60s, known simply as Manfred Mann, scored a few big hits, including a cover of Bob Dylan's "The Mighty Quinn" . . . a shift in style & moniker in the early '70s led to this self-titled album . . . musically it taps into R&B, folk, straight-ahead rock, but there is something else going on here, a brew that comes out humorous, sad, visionary, an album that has creates its own path & drives it with fury & kindness . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing hapter Thirty-eight of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the Eagles, a quartet of excellent songs from their 1994 Hell Freezes Over reunion album . . . from deep in the autumn a stirring to hope & to action, toward the easiest, brightest of things, and toward the harder ones . . . a wish to range bravely across the map of human possibilities, and fear nothing, nothing at all . . .

10.10.2009 show

October 3, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Delta Spirit, Ode to Sunshine (2008) . . . this new San Diego band effuses a sweet, sometimes sharp, Southern California wit & ethos . . . their lead singer Matthew Vasquez has a voice that really gets into the best of a song's potential & coaxes it out, time after time . . . and as a group they punch out the old-time rock-and-roll values: liberation, tolerance, curiosity, fun . . .
Classic Rock Album: Skip Bifferty, Skip Bifferty (1968) . . . this British band was only around for about a year or so in the late '60s but managed to produce a tight, trippy, smart as fuck psychedelic album . . . their music is classic acid rock, both hard and soft . . . their lyrics return again and again to the struggle of the working man and woman, to life's traps, to the freedom many found and still find in rhythms & melodies . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Thirty-eight of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Loose Fur, (a band whose members include Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche of the band Wilco, and Wilco collaborator Jim O'Rourke), and cuts from their amazing 2003 self-titled debut album . . . sweet autumn travels along, spreading, deepening, a multitudinous beauty to be drunk quietly alone, or noisily in great bunches!

10.03.2009 show

September 26, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: The Clean, Mister Pop (2009) . . . back in August this show featured a classic album by this great New Zealand band one week, and a new album by Clean spin-off band The Bats another week . . . now The Clean themselves are back together and with a fucking great new album . . . it's an record full of beautiful psychedelic rock, sweet at times, funny at times, a most endearing new release, and one that adds proudly to their great catalogue of records . . .
Classic Rock Album: Tom Petty, Full Moon Fever (1989) . . . speaking of great albums, great great albums, this is one of Tom Petty's pure classics . . . he made it with most of his Heartbreakers band, so it reflects their jingle jangle sound, and he made it during the peak of his Traveling Wilburys days, so it contains songs with gorgeous harmonies & longjawed humor . . . so load your bowl full of good green ganja, kick back, and get on this ride . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Thirty-seven of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck...
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Charlatans (a fine '60s San Francisco band that never quite made it big like the Dead or the Airplane), and cuts from their 1969 self-titled album & an equally cool album of 1966 demos . . . the leaves are falling and scattering all over this city, and the cool air is sweet as fresh cream . . . this time of year is short and precious, and urges the soul to lift, to watch, to listen, to praise . . .

09.26.2009 show

September 19, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Phish, Joy (2009) . . . when Phish called it a day in 2004, they'd been touring together and making records for over 20 years . . . they were tired, they were not having as much fun anymore . . . they'd grown from boys to men as a single unit, and it was time to move apart for awhile . . . they had some personal issues to work out too, especially lead singer/guitarist Trey Anastasio . . . then time passed, and there was a recurring sense in each of them that it might be time to resume their musical travels again . . . this album is part of that reunion that occurred this year . . . I am happy to say, as a deep lover of their music, that it's an honest, at times great, album . . . tells bits and pieces of their time away, and expresses, as beautifully as can be done, their happiness as being a band of brothers again, on the road, renewing nights with their phamily . . . I look forward to the next show I can be at, and I know I'll be smiling and crying at the same time . . . for all that has gone by, and everything to come . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, The Great Conspiracy (1968) . . . this Los Angeles band made some beautiful rock music for a short stretch in the late '60s . . . a bit in the mold of Big Brother and the Holding Company, with a fine female lead singer and a crackerjack band . . . definitely a band to lift from the muck of forgetfulness and bring to light again . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Thirty-seven of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck...
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Yes, and cuts from their classic 1973 live album, Yessongs . . . the autumn is seriously setting in, and its weighty loveliness affects the hours and one's thoughts . . . time an illusion, yet time a truthful presence in the heart . . .

09.19.2009 show

September 12, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Fanfarlo, Reservoir (2009) . . . this UK band's debut album is a combustible mix of ballads and rockers, weird instrumentation, and a range of charming, strange moments . . . their sound is kin to that of indie rock heroes the Arcade Fire, but their group spirit is their own, and a fine one indeed . . . it will be exciting to hear the work they do in the future as they mature in their art and craft . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Rolling Stones, Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967) . . . partly inspired by their then-rivals the Beatles, and their recently released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Stones came out with their own version of psychedelic rock, and it sounds like no other album of the time . . . playful, bleak, awash in lyrsergic instrumentation . . . after this album, the Stones went back to the hard-edged bluesier songs they were known for, but try this one . . . it shows a rare, and compelling, side of their talents . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Thirty-six of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck...
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Beatles, cuts from their 2003 remixed version of 1970's Let It Be, re-titled Let It Be... Naked . . . this show is back on the air after a desert festival hiatus . . . the autumn is arriving slowly to the Pacific Northwest, and with it all the possibilities of a sharper, deeper time . . . here's to its coming . . .

09.12.2009 show

August 22, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: The Dodos, Visiter (2008) . . . this California band makes moody, noisy, beautiful music that shifts from sun to shadow to storm and back again . . . imagine a cavernous club . . . a hookah at every table . . . a band on stage that will play till sunrise if let to . . . a music that insists on being heard, and no other place you would rather be than in that place, listening to every note and word . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Hollies, Evolution (1967) . . . Graham Nash's more pop-rock-oriented band before he joined Crosby, Stills, and sometimes Young . . . like just about every other band of the time, however, this UK group was turning on and making music more warbley than a few years previously . . . one can best say this is soaring, harmonious pop-rock arriving at your turntable via the courtesies of a special sugar cube . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Thirty-six of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck...
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is The Unfolding, a project of David Dalton, which recorded in 1967 one album, both memorable and self-describing in title, How to Blow York Mind and Have a Freak-out Party . . . every notice how dull & dumb things get toward the end of August? The summer sun seems to whip the brain out of most people . . . this show will be off for two weekends while its DJ and his beloved choose to go deeper into the summer sun, where is shines unfiltered on the desert . . . and a 21st century freak-out party, er, unfolds . . .

08.22.2009 show

August 15, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Sloan, Parallel Play (2008) . . . this Canadian band has been around some years now, but I did not pick up on their bright, jangling sound until very recently . . . what differentiates bands and albums like this from many others is a set of uniformly good songs well sequenced to flow like one experience . . . the simple and hard truth that flow is all . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Clean, Modern Rock (1995) . . . The Clean helped to created a rock scene in New Zealand where there had been none before . . . this album finds them noisily channeling the Velvet Underground, one of their obvious touchstones, but in ways that eschew imitation for new turns, steps far into other lands . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Thirty-six of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck...
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is a variety of lovely and obscure British acid rock bands featured on the Psychedelic Scene (1967-1969) anthology . . . the call of the desert is greater as the month passes along . . . the dream art, phantom smiles, eventual immolation . . . and yet the many beautiful hours to live until then too . . .

08.15.2009 show

August 8, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: The Minus 5, Killingsworth (2009) . . . The Minus 5 are Pacific Coaster Scott McCaughey's brother band to his Fine Young Fellows, whose new album was featured on this show about a month ago . . . this is a a folk-rockier album than the Fellows' new release, and features as a bonus many kinetic members of the Decemberists . . . there are some ridiculously charming songs on this album, but charm with a latent hard bite . . . be warned . . .
Classic Rock Album:Blur, Blur (1997) . . . UK-britpopsters Blur were superstars by when this, their fifth album, was released . . . what makes it stand out is its propulsive ambition, confidence to rock in a dozen and more different directions . . . this is the sound of a band meeting the challenge of making challenging, exciting rock music for a huge and hungry audience . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Thirty-five of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck...
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Sly & the Family Stone, on stage & funking down the house at 3 a.m. at the Woodstock Festival in 1969 . . . moving into August, and my thoughts turn to the desert, its week-long imaginary city, its endless art and horizon, its perennial burn . . . coming soon . . .

08.08.2009 show

August 1, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: The Bats, The Guilty Office (2009) . . . this New Zealand band is charming as hell . . . pretty music that sometimes rocks out . . . moody music that sometimes drifts in sweet sentiments . . . music that sometimes drifts further into warning, portent . . . I was unsure of how much I liked their music but I kept listening and liking them more as I did . . . they've got great jingle jangle light and dark . . .
Classic Rock Album:XTC, The Big Express (1984) . . . a brief story . . . I was introduced to this amazing UK band about 20 years ago, by my boss at a used bookstore I worked at in Connecticut . . . he'd put a sticker on one of their albums for sale in the LP bins which read something like: "in a fairer world, this band would have been the next Beatles" . . . yes, XTC is the kind of band one gets obsessed with, follows their music from its new wave origins in the '70s to its psychedelic apex in the early 2000s . . . this album is along the way, a bit angular still, but clearly the more lysergical days are nigh . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Thirty-five of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck...
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the Jefferson Airplane and their great performance at the Woodstock Festival in 1969 . . . 40 years later, many of us still pursue the music groove for what truths we can't find another way, and so keep the path, from the murks of creation to the hereon of hyperspace, clear and welcoming to those that would wake and walk it . . .

08.01.2009 show

July 18, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: The Eels, Hombre Loco: 12 Songs of Desire (2009) . . . It is not so often that an album of love songs works its music in ways as magical as this one does . . . think of Beck's Sea Change from 2002 . . . this American band led by singer/songwriter E has produced an album of ballads and rockers that flows seamlessly from start to finish, laying out in lovely music and artfully simple words the dark, sticky, sometimes beautiful, sometimes grotesque facts and fugues of human want . . .
Classic Rock Album: Camper Van Beethoven, Camper Van Beethoven (1986) . . . hsuch a glorious relic from an often dark and charmless time, CVB seem interested in playing every esoteric instrument they can find, and coupling their music with the good times trippy cracked goofiness of lead singer David Lowery's lyrics . . . you may not understand every scene through the window, but the ride will have you tapping toes and smiling . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Thirty-four of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck...
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is Santana and cuts from their incendiary performance at the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969, what turned them from an obscure Latino band into rock legends . . . past halfway of this truly strange year and most of us are still here, still making our ways forward a step and another and a few more at a time . . . we're still on the big path, wherever it is bound . . .

07.18.2009 show

July 11, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Young Fresh Fellows, I Think This Is (2009) . . . this Seattle band rocks it old school, what with the bright, banging guitars and the warped lyrics. . . a warm, strange, funny, and dear sound . . . I wonder how I could have lived in Seattle for years and missed out on them, but they haven't had an album out in 8 years, so maybe that's why . . . feeling lucky to have found them . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Fuzztones, Lysergic Emanations (1985) . . . holy cow! what a week for discovering musical treasures! This NYC band rocked the mid-80s like it was the mid-60s . . . their debut album roars breathlessly through a dozen crunching, crying, wildly unbalanced songs that could charm the shit from a corpse, and probably tried back in the day . . . ridiculously good! . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Thirty-four of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck...
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is World of Oz, cuts from their 1969 self-titled sole album, an obscure, loopy psychedelic pop release . . . and here's a pointed observation: this show has finished celebrating its various milestones (anniversaries, numbers of shows), & I am glad to say this particular broadcast has nothing more or less going for it than some fucking hot tunes and whatever else I can toss into the fire! heh . . .

07.11.2009 show

July 4, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest (2009) . . . the new album by this Brooklyn band did not hit me at first, but I think that is because I had to learn how to listen to it . . . dance with its music . . . at times slow, and strange in its ways . . . move with it as though each dance step has never been taken before, as though no dance step had been taken before . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Byrds, Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde (1969) . . .coming upon the defection of many of the original members, this album has all sorts of surprising treats on it . . . what makes the Byrds a compelling band is they take their stellar musicianship in all sort of directions . . . they make music that sometimes takes its place at acid parties, and sometimes on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry . . . they're just that great . . .
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Thirty-four of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck...
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the Dukes of Stratosphear and cuts from their legendary 1985 psychedelic album 25 O'Clock (psst . . . if you know the secret of the Dukes, don't tell!) . . . this week's broadcast marks this show's 200th on SpiritPlants Radio since coming on board in 2004 . . . I don't know what big numbers like that mean, since each show is built from the ground up and let fly one at a time . . . I do know that my gratefulness to everyone who has supported my show and the station over the years is boundless . . .

07.04.2009 show

June 20, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Wilco, Wilco (the Album) (2009) . . . this is, flat out, Wilco's best album in years . . . they sound like they give a shit again, the loud songs rock, the soft songs sink deep, and there's even some especially weird ass Jeff Tweedy obsessional songs toward the tail end...for those who wondered if this great band could tighten up and fly high again, wonder not a second longer...they are back and they MEAN IT . . .
Classic Rock Album: The Grateful Dead, The Grateful Dead (1967) . . . the Dead were a long time ago one of a group of great San Francisco bands . . . they became something unique unto themselves, of course, but this first album catches them when they were part of a scene, with a sound not dissimilar from Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and the like . . . this is near to where the long, strange journey began, and it's a really good record . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Thirty-four of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck...
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems . . . & this week's featured artist is the Long Ryders, another great band from the Los Angeles Paisley Underground movement, a latter-day Byrds-y powerhouse . . . the weather in the Northwest has been cool and grey well into the late spring months . . . cool like what is needed for the human world to calm the fuck down and do right by itself . . .

06.20.2009 show

June 13, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Harlem Shakes, Technicolor Health (2009)....debut album from a very good young band from New York...quirky, bouncy, & fun...but then something else too...I listened to this album on and off for some weeks before realizing I was listening to it over and over...hoping this band is together for many albums to come...
Classic Rock Album: The Police, Zenyatta Mondatta (1980)...this was the legendary UK band's third album, the one that put them over the top with the hit single "Don't Stand So Close to Me"...it's a strange album, has a couple of instrumentals, some forays into contemporary politics, and lots of strange, snappy, delightful music only these three players for a short time could make...
Storybook Time: Chapter Thirty-three of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist s are Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood, cuts from their amazing reunion show at Madison Square Garden in New York City on 26th February 2008...it's one crazy fucking world out there, people shooting in every direction, but as a friend of mine said to me today: music is a damned miracle...hallelujah, brother! . . .

06.13.2009 show

June 6, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Green Day, 21st Century Breakdown (2009)....last heard on this show 2/13/2005 with their 2004 masterpiece protest album, American Idiot, Green Day is back with a follow up that matches its predecessor...ambitious, rocking, punky, soft, smart, haunted...Green Day took their time to make this album, brought all their demons and angels into the process, and have come up with a new and exciting work of art...
Classic Rock Album: The Doors, An American Prayer - Jim Morrison (1978)...a little late this year with the show's annual Doors album, and this one a little bit unusual too...five years after Jim Morrison died, the remaining trio of Doors recorded backing music to some of Morrison's '60s poetry, added other bits of music and dialogue, and produced a kind of homage to their old friend that stands, strangely and validly, as a Doors album...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Thirty-two of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Badfinger, a fine rocking band that Paul McCartney helped to bring to prominence in the late 60s and early 70s...with President Obama in the Middle East trying to bring peace to long-time combatants, and maybe the worst of economic days passing for much of the world, slowly but passing, one can't help but hope to hang on, better days coming not so much by prayer or luck, but with the ingenuity, imagination, and persistence humans can show when they decide to give a damn, not let the bastards inside and out run the ship...here's to ya if you're helping!

06.06.2009 show

May 30, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Manchester Orchestra, Means Everything to Nothing (2009)...this indie rocking band from Atlanta, Georgia is charming as fuck, whether they are blasting it out or pulling back slow and acoustic...they are strange, they are great musicians, and they are worth a listen by everyone...
Classic Rock Album: Opal, Happy Nightmare Baby (1987)...Opal was a Paisley Underground band featuring David Roback and Kendra Smith...this was their sole album, a dark, dirty, beautiful, lysergical treat...while touring to promote it, Kendra Smith quit Opal, and Hope Sandoval took her place as singer...the band renamed itself Mazzy Star (another Paisley Underground band featured on this show, back in Feb 2009)...Opal's album stands brightly as Mazzy Star, if a little more obscurely...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Thirty-two of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Better Than Ezra, a New Orleans band with a luring '90s college rock band sound...it's been several weeks since this show was on the air, and SpiritPlants Radio had some rough days to pass through, but it's back on the air, and it is coming on strong with the summer taking over the Pacific Northwest...

05.30.2009 show

May 9, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Bob Dylan, Together Through Life (2009)...the old bard's last new album was 2006's sprawling Modern Times (heard on this show 12/2/06)...he's back with a stomping blues-rocker...cranky, obscure, funny as ever, what makes this album burn high is that Dylan has a world class band backing him...no rust, no sentiment, Bob and his band mercilessly scorch through ten new tunes...his music is vital as ever...
Classic Rock Album: The House of Love, The House of Love (1988)...powerful debut by this UK outfit...driving psychedelic rock, in both its subtle and its rocking moments...amazing that it clocks in at barely over half an hour...this band reminds me favorably of another trip rock band, Australia's The Church (whose newest album featured on this show just last week)...both these bands prove that the 1980s produced rock music as great as times before then and since...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Thirty-two of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Gang of Four--a post-punk UK band that flourished especially in the late '70s and early '80s--and cuts from their amazing debut album Entertainment...the springtime around these parts pushes hope to the fore, insists that positive action can be fruitful...that, moreover, there being no fixed moral grounding to this world, no action or belief that girds all else, one can come at things in countless ways...why not hope? why not try? Why believe the book or person preaching despair?

05.09.2009 show

May 2, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: The Church, Untitled #23 (2009)...I've been a fan of this legendary Australian psychedelic rock band for 20 years, and this show has featured their music more than half a dozen times, most recently their 2005 album Beast With Two Backs on the 12/6/2008 broadcast...their songs are literate, elusive, sometimes hard and fast, sometimes dirge-like...one joins in their lysergic dream and finds amazing lands and secrets within...
Classic Rock Album: Tangerine Dream, Electronic Meditation (1970)...debut album by this long-lived German band, considered one of the originators of the experimental underground "Krautrock" musical genre...named for a line in a Beatles song, this band came out of the gate with this delicious, terrifying musical collage...strangely enjoyable, wordlessly deep...this will likely be the first of many TD albums featured by this show in times to come....
Storybook Time: Chapter Thirty-two of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Fleetwood Mac and tracks from their fine 2003 double album Say You Will...I keep thinking lately: why the continuous rise and fall of the times? Why take it for granted that good times won't last? Is this the best we can do, reach for days when fewer of us are needlessly suffering? Can something happen this go-round that will break the cycle of feast & famine? I think it can, and it will involve many souls, and a lot of hard work. But some door is opening, again...

05.02.2009 show

April 25, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: The Tragically Hip, We Are the Same (2009)...last heard on the 3/17/07 broadcast of this show with their excellent 2006 release, World Container, this Canadian band is back with a great new album...their music rings and harmonizes but at its heart is often very dark, haunted, often shatteringly beautiful...it's a pleasure to have new music by them to spin...
Classic Rock Album: Tea & Symphony, An Asylum for the Musically Insane (1969)...this short lived acid folk band released only two albums in their time...this album, their first, is pure lysergical loveliness...a vintage example of a rock band not giving a fuck for hit singles or commercial accolades, instead diving deep as possible into its instruments, its collective thoughts and hard-fueled imagination...another obscurity worth new appreciation...
Storybook Time: Chapter Thirty-one of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Phish and cuts from their March 6, 2009 show at Hampton Coliseum in Hampton Virginia, their return to touring after five years off the road...so many of us not there that night were listening from afar, and thrilled to our bones that TreyMikePageFish are again roaring across the land...listening to Phish riles my heart and memories more than almost any other band heard on this show and, if lucky, many more of us will be soon again on some concert lawn grooving high to their tunes...bring back the Meatstick!! Whoa, shocks my brain!

04.25.2009 show

April 11, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: The Doves, Kingdom of Rust (2009)...this UK band is an old favorite of this show, their previous three releases having been featured in 2004 and 2005...their new album took me a few spins to catch into...more groove, less melody, is one way to put it...the lyrics are often harsh and dark...but it drives deeper and deeper upon each listen, how following it length produces a obscure cartharsis...
Classic Rock Album: Palace Brothers, Days in the Wake (1994)...this album was an early project of the strange musical soul known as Will Oldham, who these days records and performs as Bonnie "Prince" Billy...this album is under 30 minutes, and feels very kin to Nike Drake and Iron & Wine...essentially, a poetical spirit alone with his demons and his guitar...his images & stories are haunted with sin, blood, pain, evil...one is left feeling cleansed rawly...
Storybook Time: Chapter Thirty-one of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is yet another L.A. Paisley Underground band to be featured on this show, the Three O'Clock, and cuts from their bells-high 1983 debut album, Sixteen Tambourines...we are come into the spring, the re-greening of the northern hemisphere...I believe there are green shoots of hope pressing out from the dark twists of the collective human psyche as well...hope is powerful and who would oppose it after awhile...who?

04.11.2009 show

April 4, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: The Veils, Sun Gangs (2009)...last heard on this program 5/5/2007 with their bright, brooding release, Nux Vomica, this British band is back, and good as ever...when they dirge, they dirge hard...when they rock, everything flies up into the air...they remind me of U2 in a way, having a singer with a flamboyant style and a band behind him that can play anything, but I'd say their new release easily outdoes U2's most recent effort...the Veils are a band that should get more recognition with the kind of impassioned music they make...
Classic Rock Album: David Gray, White Ladder (1999)...I had vaguely known this British singer/songwriter from his worldwide hit "Babylon," which I had mistakenly thought was sung by a woman of African descent...I was wrong!...the happy news to report is that "Babylon" is one of eleven great songs on White Ladder...Grey brings an amazing lyrical depth & breadth to his songs, & they are fleshed out by his own stellar musicianship and that of his band...a really delightful find, one who I'd recommend to anyone...
Storybook Time: Chapter Thirty-one of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Death Cab For Cutie, songs from their excellent new EP, Open Door (which contains songs left off their recent Narrow Stairs album)...if one sniffs the zeitgeist right now, one would find a growing hope failingly held back by an old fear...to say better days are coming is not so much a simple faith in human decency or ingenuity as a belief that humans are restless and times move on, again and again, better to worse, worse to better, always moving on...

04.04.2009 show

March 28, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: The Decemberists, The Hazards of Love (2009)...a long time favorite band of this show, this Oregon band was last heard on the 1/17/2009 broadcast with their excellent EP, Always the Bridesmaid...this time around, front man Colin Meloy and crew have fashioned a sort of indie rock opera about, as AllMusic.com puts it: "a girl named Margaret, shapeshifters, forest queens, and fairytale treachery"...simply put, another delight from this band on an even grander scale...musically gifted, funny, odd, obsessed...and look for them on tour, they put on a great show!...
Classic Rock Album: Status Quo, Pictures Matchstickable from the Status Quo (1968)...this British band once hit the heights with their song "Pictures of Matchstick Men" (so wonderfully covered decades later by indie rock heroes Camper Van Beethoven)...this album is their first, trippy sweets to make the mind wander golden, glaring lands, and the hand reach for pipe, bong, or that special Alice in Wonderland sheet...a somewhat obscure classic that deserves new listeners...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Thirty-one of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is the Pacific Northwest US band The Lolipop Shoppe (originally called, more appropriately, The Weeds), and cuts from their sole 1967 album Just Colour, a vintage blast of hippyish punk devilry...spring 2009 has come, and the world is still shambling along, can't say the year is more sunshine than shadows yet, but there's lots of work left for each of us to do toward that goal...come, get some music in ya, it'll feel good!...

03.28.2009 show

March 14, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: New Rock Album: U2, No Line on the Horizon (2009)...It's been over four years since U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, (broadcast on this program 11/14/04) arguably the weakest album of their catalogue that somehow won 8 Grammy Awards (another indication of the uselessness of such awards for actually honoring the best in any art form . . . Emmys, Oscars, etc. they're all media-driven crap)...the Irish boys took their time to follow up, realizing that a lot of people felt they had lost their long-time edge...their new album is a promising return to form, not to the level of Joshua Tree or All That You Can't Leave Behind but it does show them writing & playing with some real fire again...perhaps they are spending less time endorsing iPods and more in the studio with their instruments and each other...
Classic Rock Album:Eric Burdon & the Animals, Every One of Us (1968)...this was the last album by the original Animals and it is a good one, standing squarely in the flaring excitement and danger of its times...a trippy blues-rock that Burdon and his mates had been working deeper for years...people talk about how the best rock music reports the front-line news of the day, giving large events the humanizing perspective of individual hearts and souls...this album is one of that kind...riven beautifully with hope, anguish, sentiment, humor, and great music....
Storybook Time: Chapter Thirty-one of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is the New York band Ambulance LTD, some tasty trip-rock tracks from their 2004 debut release, LP...there seems more than ever a disconnect between the widespread terror the mass media is saying has gripped the US and the world, and the growingly evident truth of the matter: down but not out, working anew toward better ground, knowing it will take time and believing it will happen...times have been bad long enough, and it's a long path ahead, but that is daylight up there, sure as the gift of life, that is daylight...

03.14.2009 show

March 7, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Cotton Jones, Paranoid Cocoon (2009)...Cotton Jones is a new band from Baltimore whose members come from another psychedelic band, Page France...the two bands share a love of jingly music and beautiful harmonies...AllMusic.com says Cotton Jones' sound has more of a rainy, Pacific Northwest US sound to it, perhaps similar to the Decemberists or the Shins...perhaps, but what's more pointed to say is that this album is quite a sugary treat with some lyrical bite to it...
Classic Rock Album: The Doobie Brothers, The Captain and Me (1973)...this classic album features such hits as "China Grove" and "Long Train Runnin'" but the whole album is worth hearing...the Doobies lay out eleven tracks that range from pretty instrumentals to flat-out rockers...for whatever one thinks of their later, slicker successes (I think much of it is good too), their early music is certainly off the leash..
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Thirty of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Simon & Garfunkel, cuts from the live album of their January 22, 1967 show at Lincoln Center in New York, a delicious, deep, sweet, acoustical delight...it took 10 years and about 5 weeks to reach this program's 300th show...the world has been in trouble more so recently than usual, and hope gathers against cynicism, nihilism, and interests that make good coin from the suffering of many...I'd like to think that this is what the nadir looks like and the light just down the road there is the sun, not the neon of one more closing shop...

03.07.2009 show

February 28, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: The Snake The Cross The Crown, Cotton Teeth (2007)...another band I found per chance, this indie rock group from Huntsville, Alabama makes dark, catchy music...their music gets folky and plain, then it busts out in psychedelic glory...weirdly classic and new both, surely a band to hear now and keep an ear out for in the future...
Classic Rock Album: The Music Machine, (Turn On) the Music Machine (1966)...led by singer/songwriter Sean Bonniwell, this California band enjoyed a brief fame with the Top 20 hit "Talk Talk," and their debut album fulfills the promise of this song...ranging between bright covers by the Beatles and Neil Diamond, and delightful trippy originals, it's only sad that this album was not the first of many (it was the first of only two)…
Storybook Time: Chapter Thirty of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is the Bangles, a pick inspired by DJ Loro's '80s show on SpiritPlants Radio last weekend, and the fact that the Bangles were the one band from the Los Angeles Paisley Underground movement that hit it big...spring is nearing again, and if the fresh air cleaning out Washington D.C. doesn't cheer you, then the coming green days should!

02.28.2009 show

February 21, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: The Annuals, Such Fun (2008)...this North Carolina band was last featured on this show on 12/16/06, with their excellent debut album, Be He Me...their sophomore release sounds smoother, deeper, and darker, as though the band members had been out in those vast Carolina woods, up in them strange Carolina mountains, or staring out to the sea from the craggy Carolina shores...beautiful music from a beautiful land…
Classic Rock Album: Mazzy Star, Among My Swan (1996)...it was another DJ on SpiritPlants Radio, Loro, who turned me onto this band...its roots lie in the 1980s Paisley Underground as its guitarist, David Roback, had been a member of the the seminal Rain Parade...Roback eventually ended up with the smoky-voiced, mesmerizing singing Hope Sandoval...this album was their third and, alas, final release...they are so deep in the Mystery here, so far and so fine, that any word but "listen" is irrelevant...
Storybook Time: Chapter Twenty-nine of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Paul McCartney & Wings, a band which embodied McCartney's sometimes successful efforts in the '70s to make great music without his brother Beatles...so there was that 10th anniversary show back end of January, and a two-weekend break since, now ready to storm back onto the airwaves & begin this show's 11th year, crack the ground & the raise some dust!

02.21.2009 show

January 31, 2009 show features:
Featured Album: Phish, A Live One (1995)...Phish culled together a number of songs from their 1994 summer/fall tour, and it flows like a really great show from the hundreds they did in the 1990s...it brings back to me many happy memories of standing in outdoor ampitheaters, grooving as the band grooved, as the audience grooved, as we for awhile grooved as one big mysterious thing...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty-eight of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...it was January 30, 1999, that this show begin in a closet-sized room in the back of an arts studio in Cambridge, Massachusetts....now it's 10 years and nearly 300 shows later...it's been three radio stations, four states, hundreds of albums and many books featured on the air...from the end of the Clinton era through the Bush nightmare to the dawning of Obama's better America...extra long show to have an expansive celebration...join in, please!

01.31.2009 show

January 24, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Sparklehorse, Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain (2006)...Sparklehorse is driven primarily by Mark Linkous, who creates much of the band's music from his home studio in Virginia...atmospheric, moody, raucous at times, there is a sweet, persistent charm to this record, one that culminates in the 10+ minute instrumental finale...
Classic Rock Album: The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Markley, A Group (1970)...this band's first release, 1967's Part One, was played on this show back on 2/3/07...the current show's album was their fifth and last, and not originally marketed as a WCPAEB album, but as one by Markley, namely Bob Markley, the group's strangely charismatic leader...the short and the long of this band is that they make some really fine rocking music and marry it to Markley's obsessions with money and sex...their final release bears every one of their charms and quirks, and is something of a lost classic...
Storybook Time: Chapter Twenty-eight of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, cuts from their seminal 1972 country rock triple-album Will the Circle Be Unbroken...this week the world finally began to change, hope took on the mantle of power, the test of how much humanity really wants peace and long-range survival begins anew...nobody knows what is going to happen, but the choice is in each of our hands, our fates waiting our making every hour...

01.24.2009 show

January 17, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Blitzen Trapper, Furr (2008)...this album came to me via my beloved KD's suggestion...the band from Portland, Oregon, nice to be playing some local boys this week...their sound is rooted comfortably in the early '70s, which is to say it rocks prettily, but there is an ambient tint to the music which indicates that these musicians have heard and enjoyed more recent music, and let their sound be inspired by it as well...
Classic Rock Album: Them, Time Out! Time In for Them (1968)...this band started out in Belfast, Ireland before moving to England, they featured Van Morrison before he went solo, and their sound was more R&B before it turned decidedly psychedelic after Morrison left...with its whirling sitars, raw instrumentation, and trippy lyrics, this album embodies the psychedelic rock of its time, a sugary musical treat for those who love such lysergical sounds....
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty-seven of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is The Decemberists (also a Portland band albeit a more well-known one), cuts from their 2008 Always the Bridesmaid singles series, such a delight any time to play new music by them! Tell me, if you can, any way you'd like, can you feel a bit of the stress on the world lifting a little as that demented cowboy lunatic departed the White House for the last time? Honest, did you feel it? The talk of diplomacy again in the world, of bringing relief and comfort to the poor and desperate? Do you feel it coming? Things do need to get worse, and in fact have gotten better. Look around, listen within, discover if you feel this too...

01.17.2009 show

January 10, 2009 show features:
New Rock Album: Patti Smith, Twelve (2007)...Patti Smith came to prominence in the mid-1970s with such punk-poet-rock classic albums as Horses & Easter...her debut on this show, with more albums to come no doubts, is her most recent studio album, all cover songs, including tracks covering Hendrix, Nirvana, The Beatles, The Rollings Stones, The Doors, Stevie Wonder...she respects them, then she re-invents them...this album is one of a very few all-covers albums that have been featured on this show (joining Rush's Feedback, broadcast 8/1/04, & The Church's Box of Birds, broadcast 9/23/06), but it is compelling listening...
Classic Rock Album: Lou Reed, Berlin (1973)...a classic early solo work by Lou Reed, hardly a few years removed from his time in the Velvet Underground...a loosely conceptual album about a doomed couple that deals with drug use and depression...Reed uses much orchestration for the songs, while he sings and plays guitar...there are funny moments, as in any Reed work, and moments breakingly beautiful...a powerful work...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty-seven of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Medeski, Martin, & Wood, cuts from their beguilingly charming 2008 album of children's music, Let's Go Everywhere...well, well, here is 2009, and hardly over a week til O takes office as US president...finding at the White House door a thousand-foot-high pile of horse manure with a sign stuck in it that says "Gon Fishin"...it will be a time pushing it out of the way, and a longer time forgetting the stink...but hope, meaningful hope, is found foremost in that first moment of doing all this...soon, very soon...

01.10.2009 show

2008

December 20, 2008 show features:
New Rock Album: Ryan Adams & the Cardinals, Cardinology (2008)...Ryan Adams was in the short-lived but very successful alt-country band Whiskeytown in the 1990s...since about 2000 he's been releasing albums on his own and with the Cardinals...a hard one to pin down, as his music ranges from acoustic melancholia to flat-out rock...this new album reflects Adams' new-found sobriety...moody, at times brilliant, he and his band is one to catch up on if you haven't yet, and to follow for years to come...
Classic Rock Album: Mighty Baby, Mighty Baby (1969)...another great lost acid rock band, this one came to be when the George Martin-discovered band The Action disintegrated in 1968 or thereabouts...this self-titled album was the first of two they released as Mighty Baby...full of long sweet guitar jams, sweetened by horns, by reflective, sometimes mystical lyrics...a real lysergic treat for all...hehe...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty-seven of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week marks this show's 6th annual holiday broadcast (with Cheech & Chong, Simpsons, South Park, Ramones & more) ending a year that crescendoed in hope & disaster both...many people bet on hope on November 4, and there is as of yet no reason to believe that we as individuals, as nations, and as one world can't fundamentally change for the better the way millions, or even billions, of lives are lived by the end of 2009...repeat the mantra, now and always: YES WE CAN!

12.20.2008 show

December 6, 2008 show features:
New Rock Album: The Church, Back With Two Beasts (2005)...this album is part of this legendary Australian psychedelic band's "Jammed" series...a full-blown lysergic treat that climaxes with the surreal 20-minute masterpiece "Night-Sequence"...21st century psychedelic rock for those looking for it...
Classic Rock Album: The Youngbloods, Elephant Mountain (1969)...this American band hit big in 1969 with the re-release of the seminal hippie anthem "Get Together" but that year was also the year of this release...playing as a trio, this group puts on a stellar musical performance...they ride between folk and rock jamming, excelling at both...no one-hit wonder, many riches to be re-discovered here...
Storybook Time: Chapter Twenty-seven of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Tommy James & the Shondells, a band also known for a very small portion of its music, the Top 40 pop hits, but one that could break out the acid...rock...and carry it far along...call me one of the lucky ones this week, I managed to score some short-term work and with news of hundreds of thousands of lost jobs on the news, I don't think lucky is the nearly quite the word...grateful! ecstatic!

12.06.2008 show

November 22, 2008 show features:
New Rock Album: Springhouse, From Now to OK (2008)...this New York band released two albums in the early 1990s, well-received but few sales...broke up for a few years...reunited about ten years ago and have been working on this new album since...much of their music is acoustic though they can go electric at times, and let out with orchestral flourishes too...dreamy, trippy, warm, sweet music...
Classic Rock Album: Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac (1975)...the Mac became another band when mad genius Lindsey Buckinghand and blonde enchantress Stevie Nicks joined up...their music blossomed and their lyrical power blew up...this album marks their rise to superstar band, something each of their members earned, and suffered for in the years to come...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty-six of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is The Jimi Hendrix Experience, a tribute to their recently passed drummer Mitch Mitchell...anyway, this week I job-hunted, a draining, depressing effort when the news is all about more lay-offs, and I also readied SpiritPlants Radio for its 5th anniversary and re-launch weekend...strange the two efforts in tandem...both necessary, and strangely supporting each other...no job yet, but the radio website looks wonderful!

11.22.2008 show

November 15, 2008 show features:
New Rock Album: The Pretenders, Break Up the Concrete (2008)...when the 4/7/07 broadcast of this program featured The Pretenders' 1983 masterpiece, Learning to Crawl, I did not suspect that a new Pretenders album as good as this new release was due any time soon...happy surprise, this new album is full of the kind of muscular rock songs and cool plaintive ballads that made Ohio native Chrissie Hynde and crew a great rock group in the first place...happy return to form...
Classic Rock Album: Rush, Roll the Bones (1991)...one of the Canadian power trio's indisputably great albums...this album catches them at a moment when they are most deeply infusing their hard rock with raw existential lyrics...drummer Neil Peart said of this music's philosophy: "But the bottom line...is to take the chance, roll the bones, if it's a random universe and that's terrifying and it makes you neurotic and everything, never mind. you really have to take the chance or else nothing's going to happen."...
Storybook Time: Chapter Twenty-six of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Elton John, a selection of his early songs, no doubt prelude to more of his work being featured on this show in the future...I've been a week hitting the bricks for work and it's been tough...it's still Bush's America for a little while longer, which means everyone has to hang on for that while...so much unnecessary trouble and suffering caused by one world-class buffoon...that said, the autumn in the Pacific Northwest is breathlessly sweet...nature's compensation for men's follies...

11.15.2008 show

November 8, 2008 show features:
New Rock Album: Snow Patrol, A Hundred Million Suns (2008)...there is a pantheon of current UK rock bands among which Snow Patrol resides (with Radiohead, Coldplay, Oasis, The Verve, Travis, Elbow, the Doves, among others)...their new album continues their breach into deep sugar veins of music...exciting, memorable for those who chance a listen...
Classic Rock Album: Steely Dan, Aja (1977)...this is the Dan's cool jazz-rock masterpiece, a long, smooth, clean-smoking doobie of an album...the cut "Deacon Blues" is on my list of top rock songs of all time...I remember some gone year ago riding the highway with some lost friend, blasting it on the stereo, its long-blowing freedom...
Storybook Time: Chapter Twenty-six of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Kaleidoscope, a (mostly) late-60s folk-psychedelic band from Los Angeles, cuts from their debut album, 1967's shambling freak-fest *Side Trips*...what a difference a week makes...the world greets Barack Obama as he celebrates with all his landslide victory for US president...and, on a personal note, I was laid off from my job the morning after Election Day, one I'd had only about six weeks....before Bush's nightmare years, I'd never been laid off from a job...in the past 8 years, it's been half a dozen times...I was thinking that Obama's path to his current victory was marked by many setbacks, yet he kept his cool and kept his faith, and here he is...a lesson in this...if I am brave enough to heed...

11.08.2008 show

November 1, 2008 show features:
New Rock Album: The Verve, Forth (2008)...Aside from familiarity with the ubiquitous and wonderful Verve tune "Bittersweet Symphony," I had not known this band before recently...their body of work includes three great albums from the 1990s and this new one just released...a complex, moody, deep rock band, one to get to know over a long time...their new album brings them back with mucho gusto...they shake off the rust like there never was any...here's hoping their second life lasts years and years...
Classic Rock Album: Deep Purple, Deep Purple (1969)...an early release from this long-lived UK band, it catches them at a moment when they were working the border between progressive and heavy metal musics...at times lushly orchestrated, and at other times rocking fierce, this album harks back to a period in the late '60s when genres had first broken down and whatever worked, whatever sounded exciting and moving, was what the good and great bands would go for...a real treat and discovery for those who don't already know this album...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty-five of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Steppenwolf, a band known back in the '60s for its major hits "Born to Be Wild" and "Magic Carpet Ride" but with a lot more variety and depth to offer than just these two great songs...Election Day in the US is next Tuesday and, like back in 1968, the whole world is watching...message to the world: there are millions of us here who are determined to get OBAMA elected and this country and the world onto a better path than in years...we're doing it!!

11.01.2008 show

October 18, 2008 show features:
New Rock Album: Travis, Ode to J. Smithl (2008)...Travis last appeared on this program on the 2/28/04 broadcast with their excellent 12 Memories. While their 2007 album was a sub-par effort, their new one is very fine. A work that powers through on songs worth their music and lyrics. The band notes that "the album is called Ode to J. Smith partly giving a heads up to the key song and partly because all the songs are written about nameless characters or to nameless characters"...
Classic Rock Album: R.E.M., Out of Time (1991)...Coming of age in the '80s rather than the '60s, the closest I could come to waiting for new Beatles records was waiting for new R.E.M. records...I was lucky that the '80s and '90s was this Georgia band's heyday...this album shows their countless strengths with electric and acoustic music, gorgeous harmonies, guest vocals and those awesome lyrics by Michael Stipe...great music like this is always of its time and out of time too...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty-five of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is the Greek psychedelic band Aphrodite's Child, and cuts from their 1972 double-LP visionary epic, 666 (The Apocalypse of John, 13/18)...this is the seventh consecutive weekend broadcast, and I've been loving this run every high and low of it...next weekend a break before the pre-Election Day broadcast!

10.18.2008 show

October 11, 2008 show features:
New Rock Album: Oasis, Dig Out Your Soul (2008)...the Gallagher brothers and crew were last heard on this program on 6/25/05, with their excellent Don't Believe The Truth...they're back, rocking harder than ever...there has always been a trippy vibe to their music, and they are pushing it this time...a musical confidence and a lyrical maturity...this band has hit its stride and is riding higher...
Classic Rock Album: War, The World is a Ghetto (1972)...one of the finest albums from this seminal '70s funk band...like the best work of Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye of the same period, this album taps into the frustration and yearning of raging city days and nights, turns ache and hope into deeply grooving music...exciting musicians at work here...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty-five of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Eddie Vedder, in particular the Pearl Jam front man's excellent soundtrack to Sean Penn's wonderful 2007 film, Into the Wild, the story of a young man who left behind his family privilege and the sick society he could no longer abide, hiked up to Alaska, and never came back..."society, have mercy on me/I hope you're not angry if I disagree/society, crazy and deep/I hope you're not lonely without me..."

10.11.2008 show

October 4, 2008 show features:
New Rock Album: Lindsey Buckingham, Gift of Screws (2008)...last heard on the 11/4/06 broadcast of this program with his excellent acoustic-leaning Under the Skin release, the sometime Fleetwood Mac guitar hero is back, rocking harder this time out, still twisting up that deep thinking mind of his into lyrics sometimes furious, sometimes beautifully subtle...as much as the Mac is missed, Buckingham is continuing to make and release records on his own that are highly vibrant and worth many listens...
Classic Rock Album: Traffic, Welcome to the Canteen (1971)...the seminal psychedelic rock band caught live on tour in the UK in 1971, featuring the last appearances of Dave Mason before his final break with the band...some Traffic songs, some Mason solo work, and even an oldie from Steve Winwood's time with the Spencer Davis Group...it's coherent, lovely, rocks, runs far in...Traffic at a strange moment of transition in its too-short career...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Twenty-five of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Fifty Foot Hose, another obscure San Francisco band from the late '60s, cuts from their sole album, the 1968 jazzy/electronic treat Cauldron...well, the damned election is creeping closer and closer, could it be only a month away? Hoping the beauty and talent portion of the contest is over and that soon the grownups will be again in charge of the castle...Portland is getting grey and cool, it will be good to launch all sorts of fine music and crazy words from its environs!

10.04.2008 show

September 27, 2008 show features:
New Rock Album: Mercury Rev, Snowflake Midnight (2008)...it's has been three years since this upstate New York band's last release, the amazing Secret Migration...always something of a psychedelic rock band, the Rev this time goes all out this time, with a nine-song cycle that rides electric currents of melody to a place very on high...
Classic Rock Album: The Who, Who Are You (1978)...This was the last Who album with the original quartet of Townshend/Daltry/Entwistle/Moon...drummer Keith Moon's hard-living years ended not long after this album came out...& if it contained nothing more than its title track, easily one of the top ten rock songs of all time, it would be worth having and cherishing...but this album's other songs shows a band both feeling its age and the changing times while still rocking out like few others have, before or since...masters at work...
Storybook Time: Chapter Twenty-four of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Bubble Puppy, a good but fairly forgotten hard-rocking psychedelic Texas band (label mates with the legendary 13th Floor Elevators) who scored a Top 20 hit back in 1969 with their song "Hot Smoke and Sassafras," from their sole LP, A Gathering of Promises...what to say this week with the American financial markets crashing and a crazy old man who wants to be President running around stoking fire-fights where none existed...just this: the world will genuinely be at least a little better off, a little safer, a little more hopeful when newly-elected President Barack Obama smiles at the world next January...YES WE CAN!!!

09.27.2008 show

September 20, 2008 show features:
New Rock Album: Conor Oberst, Conor Oberst (2008)...Oberst is the young musical lion at the center of the indie rock band Bright Eyes...his fine new album is one he recorded with a set of musicians down in Mexico, saying: "There were pigs and wild dogs in the street; lots of people on horseback. We took our gear up two dirt tracks into the mountains and we had this piano that we bought in Mexico City out on the patio. My whole modus operandi for the project was that it should be stress-free. If we got stuck on a song we'd just stop, light a fire, drink beer and watch the fireworks down below." It is strangely lighter, and just as heavy, as his Bright Eyes releases, catches the ear, hooks the mind, taps the heart...
Classic Rock Album: Giles, Giles & Fripp, The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles, & Fripp (1968)...one way to look at this album is that it is a King Crimson precursor group (two of its members went on to form that band)...another way is to place its in its own time, when musicians could make a single album of both serious and silly music, could crack deep into strange sounds one moment, and the next speak in foolish tongues...this is a delightful, mostly forgotten, relic of that time, and worthy of another spin and listen...
Storybook Time: Chapter Twenty-four of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist artists is Suzanne Vega, a folk-rocking dynamo who first got famous in the late '80s making music pretty & solid as the best of that time, and poetical as the lyrics of Paul Simon & Bob Dylan... Well, I been one week on my job and all well, but watching the financial institutions of AmeriKKKa crash everywhere, & I'm glad to be drawing a check...scary times, it can get worse or we can change things...we can...YES WE CAN!

09.20.2008 show

September 13, 2008 show features:
New Rock Album: Calexico, Carried to Dust (2008)...I was waiting for a long time to connect with this Arizona band�s music, to become a big fan, and this new album is it! Beautiful, sometimes electric, sometimes acoustic rock with lovely Hispanic touches�this wonderful album deserves this band many more fans...
Classic Rock Album: The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground (1969)...this was the Velvets� �quiet� album the one following the departure of John Cale from the band, the one Lou Reed determined would not sound like 1968�s White Light/White Heatquieter, yes, but no less full of the Velvets twisted, grotesque beauty...amazing how hidden they were back then given what fantastic music they were making...
Storybook Time: Chapter Twenty-four of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist artists is The Flow, an obscure psychedelic band making fuzztone classics in obscurity back in New York City circa 1972...good news to share, people, is that I am again taking the wheel at a job, come upon some good luck in these shitty eco-nomic times...so no more bitching, time to get to the preaching of hope to come for all if we are brave enough, hopeful enough...

09.13.2008 show

September 6, 2008 show features:
New Rock Album: Minus the Bear, Planet of Ice (2007)...this Seattle band rocks classic and strange both, their album is a long flow, a pleasure, runs along the place where electronica and rock & roll bop & groove...a new discovery for me, and a wonderful one...
Classic Rock Album: Mason Proffit, Movin' Toward Happiness (1971)...one of the pioneers of country rock in the early 1970s, this Chicago band makes some amazing music, in both their lyrical and musical power...spirituality & beauty caught on tape for all..
Storybook Time: Chapter Twenty-four of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. . .
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist artists is Kansas, a seminal prog-rock band, their songs the soundtrack to many a night of shared bongs & tabs...wow, it's been nearly a month since the last broadcast, had a long travel deep into the desert...come back to the world's wheel and burden...time to turn anew and lift and go...

09.06.2008 show

2007

April 21, 2007 show features:

New Rock Album: The New Year, The End is Near (2004)...Texas band, emerged from the defunct slowcore band Bedhead...this, their second album, is one great atmosphere of brooding lyrics and death and the cosmos, and what hope can there be...it is beautiful and, if grooved with on its own ground, mesmerizing . . .
Classic rock album: The Doors, The Doors (1967)...what a way to introduce yourselves to the world, this album set a bar this Los Angeles band would seek to match for every other album they made, and many other bands too...trippy, visceral, mind-blowing work, even all these years later...
Storybook Time: Chapter Five of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Stone Circus, an obscure Canadian group who put out one self-titled album in 1969, a melodic, sometimes cranky rocking loud effort, very pretty, very...um...stoned...and there will be words from David Lynch, laughs from Doug Stanhope...Planet Earth, are you ready to rock??...

04.21.2007 show

April 14, 2007 show features:

New Rock Album: The Waterboys, Book of Lightning (2007)...welcome return after four years, this album is more the rocking Waterboys than the Celtic charmers, but its gifts slowly seduce, lyrical brilliance, burning musical intensity, as personal and sometimes very dark as their previous album, Universal Hall, was spiritual and light . . .
Classic rock album: The Pretenders, The Electric Prunes (1967)...not the album with the hits, this one came next, but the one that shows the Prunes even more plainly to be a beautiful, strange band of cats...some albums shimmer a moment more than others, this one glows with the diamonds and mud that was the summer of '67...
Storybook Time: Chapter Five of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Peter Gabriel, in particular music from his 1986 album, So, released in a time not even dreaming of the world music Gabriel knew and made so well...some weeks lead into the show trudging, looking for a bit of sky in the grey spaceless murk...this one's looking hard, promising to find...

04.14.2007 show

April 7, 2007 show features:

New Rock Album: Bright Eyes, Cassadaga (2007)...Bright Eyes' last album, 2005's I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, was so damned good that fears of a disappointing follow-up would be understandable...but turn out groundless...Conor Oberst leads his band through new territory beautiful and unsettling, sometimes lets the horns and strings do the talking, makes another great album, praise be . . .
Classic rock album: The Pretenders, Learning to Crawl (1984)... this album rocked hard and wild and well in a time when rock music was spitting out its own past and trying to go straight...fuck that...Chrissy Hynde has never sounded so cool, so in control, so ready to bust the walls down any moment as she so often does here...delicious sounds from start to fini . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Five of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Boston, music from their heyday long ago, and a kind of remembrance for their singer Brad Delp, who died this past March! Speaking of which, last week I took the musewife to my old stomping grounds in Boston, found some old, lots of old, a bit of new, made some peace with past sadnesses, and return to a sunnier month ready to put everything out there and see what flies up to the sky!

04.07.2007 show

March 17, 2007 show features:
New Rock Album: The Tragically Hip, World Container (2006)...long-beloved in Canada, but little known outside of their country�s borders, the Hip return with another run of excellent songs, rocking hard at times, often propelled by heartbreak & loss...I found out about this album just days ago & here it shall be on this show�s air...
Classic rock album: Arzachel, Arzachel (1969)...another mysterious record from the first golden era of psychedelia...a British band called Uriel made this album in one day and credited the band�s name and member�s names to pseudonyms...it�s said that it hardly sold a dozen copies in its day, but was later kept in circulation via bootlegs. . .only important point: it rocks magnificently...
Storybook Time: Chapter Five of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is R.E.M., including a new track featuring the return of drummer Bill Berry!...plus wisdom from David Lynch, funny talk from Doug Stanhope, and the usual run of echoey weirdness and springtime freak excitement!

03.17.2007 show

March 10, 2007 show features:
New Rock Album: Arcade Fire, The Neon Bible (2007)...three years of waiting for this Montreal band to ready its second album yields high expectations. . .and happy rewards. . .their first album, Funeral, was shocking and exciting, and this follow-up bears out its promise, taking sorry stock on the landscape and blowing out soaring, weird beautiful sonic replies. . .
Classic rock album: The United States of America, The United States of America (1968)...this California band released just this one album, but an amazing one it is, at times sweet, solemn, enigmatic, then it rocks out, then it gets goofy as fuck. . .news of its times better than most history books tell it...
Storybook Time: Chapter Five of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Funkadelic, grooves from their early albums, deep tasty stomps not quite like anything else rock had then or since produced. . .springtime is so close, even in the wet Pacific Northwest, blooms n eggs n warmer fancies 'bout to burst!...

03.10.2007 show

February 24, 2007 show features:
New Rock Album: Karate, Pockets (2004)...the last album by this Boston outfit is a moody, sometimes jazzy affair, musically obsesses on relationships, the struggles of daily life, the hours that wear, and sometimes produce great music...
Classic rock album: Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II (1969)...Led Zeppelin came out of the box fully formed and roaring...this second album of theirs is a hard rocking masterpiece, but one that does not lose moments of brilliant, beautiful subtlety for all the lovely crunch going on...
Storybook Time: Chapter Five of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist are the Rain Parade, one of the so-called "Paisley Underground" bands out of Los Angeles in the early '80s, and a sweet, chimey discovery of mine in the past week, charming, catchy stuff, sometimes deeper too...plus some words to taste and know from David Lynch, Tim Leary, and Terence McKenna...a great show is brewing for you right now!...

02.24.2007 show

February 17, 2007 show features:
New Rock Album: The Broken West, I Can't Go On, I'll Go On (2007)...on their first this Los Angeles band sports glowing harmonies and chiming guitars with enough grit to keep it interesting and unexpected...not to mention naming this first album after a line from Samuel Beckett's fiction...
Classic rock album: The Electronic Hole, The Electronic Hole (1970)...his obscure California band released one album of magical, strange, engrossing rock music, droning, pretty, at times a fearsome trip that lingers in the ears...
Storybook Time: Chapter Five of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist are the Chocolate Watchband, a dark jingling acid rock band who peaked out in the mid-'60s...plus there will be some Leary, and some David Lynch, and moments that come tonight in twisted dreams and continue on air on the morrow...

02.17.2007 show

February 3, 2007 show features:
New Rock Album: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Some Loud Thunder (2007)...this American east coast band released a fuck-nutty treat of a first album in 2005, played on this show late last year when I discovered it, but this new one is even better, full of wild rock moments and disturbing quieter ones...this album is, I think, one of those whose delights grow with greater familiarity...
Classic rock album: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Part One (1967)......a somewhat forgotten Los Angeles band, their first major release album spills over with treats, a bit at times like the fellow LA band Love of the same period in marrying trippy acid rock to dark, twisted lyrics...candy to enjoy in the shadows, grooves to lean on and fall into...
Storybook Time: Chapter Five of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist are the Strawberry Alarm Clock, best known for their only big Top 40 hit, "Incense & Peppermints," a great trip-pop song, but not the only lysergical delight in their grab-bag, a few more will get dusted off for the airwaves this week...still deep in winter here in the US Pacific Northwest, but there will be sunny vibes crossing through cyberspace to listeners far & wide, maybe a little smiling Leary, maybe other nuggets of cheer by word and chord...

02.03.2007 show

January 27, 2007 show features:
New Rock Album: The Beatles, Love (2006)...I did not know what to expect from this album; I'd simply heard there was a new Beatles' "re-mix album"...I first heard it while sitting in the Denver (Colorado, US) airport at Xmas time...I was floored, below-floored...Beatles' producer George Martin and his son Giles were contracted by Cirque du Soleil to create a soundtrack for their show of the same name. They received permission from Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr (and Yoko Ono Lennon, and Olivia Harrison, the latter two representing John Lennon and George Harrison, respectively). McCartney and Starr responded very favorably, and there is good reason to see why. The music is its perfect self, and yet re-imagined, it is drenched in fervent art & love, and stands its strong chance of pleasing both the oldest Beatles' nut and someone who's never heard of them...just beautiful...
Storybook Time: Chapter Five of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...8 years ago this weekend, this show began in a tiny pirate DJ radio booth in the back room of an art gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts...now coming from a tiny apartment in Seattle, Washington...8 years, 3000 miles have passed...same old hippy shit, heh. . .

01.27.2007 show

January 20, 2007 show features:
New Rock Album: The Earlies, Enemy Chorus (2007)...This British/American combo is very impressive in this first proper album release (they previously had an amazing compilation of EPs)...their music is tinged with all sorts of influences, from '60s psychedelia to '70s horn-driven bands like Chicago...yet their sound is fresh, rooted deeply...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Country Joe & the Fish, Electric Music for the Mind & Body (1967)...Joe McDonald and the boys were powerful, funny, freaky, balls out rocking out of the gate...their songs can be sweet, nasty, chug along til the album is over and you're wanting to hear it all over again...released in January of 1967, this album began an amazing in rock and roll history...
Storybook Time: Chapter Five of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Harry Chapin, a singer dear to my heart, selected songs from his fantastic 1976 live album, Greatest Stories Live...there will be some grooving words from Dr. Leary, too, maybe Robert Anton Wilson, now like Kerouac, safe in heaven dead, and other moments none can foretell...

01.20.2007 show

January 13, 2007 show features:
New Rock Album: The Electric Soft Parade, The American Adventure (2003) . . . This British band has not yet gotten enough attention in the US, but certainly deserves it. . .its bright, brooding psychedelic palette is wide, moving, intelligent. . .lyrically rife with fears, questions, hopeful gestures. . .a genuine pleasure to behold. . .their time will come...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Mad River, Paradise Bar & Grill (1969)...there are so many delights in hearing this San Francisco band�s second & last album. . .the guitar playing is sweet when it does not trouble & yowl. . .the lyrics are sometimes sad, sentimental, but then bark, rouse up fierce. . .a lost classic, timeless fine...
Storybook Time: Chapter Five of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is America, a band that makes dark, deceptively pretty music...the new year is less than two weeks in, but can you feel the swells of raised energy, how liberty and control are jiving a little more seriously, how those in power are smiling more brittly, and those advocating for another world better for all are not backing down any more? Less backing down, feel it, feel that hope, put it on, it�s a stranger, it will feel good in time. . .

01.13.2007 show

January 6, 2007 show features:
Featured New Rock Album: The Shins, Wincing the Night Away (2007)...three year wait for their new album, no looking back with this band, I had to listen to this album many times to climb within it, find what had kept along and what broke new...it's really good, maybe even better than that...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Family, Music in a Doll's House (1968)...this British band was overlooked in its day, no reason why, their sound is dense and deep, their groove is over the horizon and out, theirs is a music that comes fresh and whole from its time, and arrives completely ready in any given hour...
Storybook Time: Chapter Five of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux...
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, a band I've seen blow houses down with their high sounds, laugh, pack up, onto the next town...it's a new year, boys n girls, what will it bring? Let us all vow toward healing, and better survival...

01.06.2007 show

December 16, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Annuals, Be He Me (2006)...this brazen band of strange rocking youths endears, funny, dark at moments one would not quite expect. . .I tried them, again, again, & then their charms caught & held, & I was taken in further...
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown (1968)...some weeks finding just the right album to play is more of a trying trick than others...this album fell into my lap just tonight, a tip from AllMusic.com, musical fucking weird shit fine...
Storybook Time: Chapter Five of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's & this week's 4th annual holiday broadcast concludes this year's run of shows...2006 drawling to a close with some hope blooming up that the screwy fools are at last losing their grip to saner, calmer hands who know how to sail, & how far the boat may go with clear thought & fresh heart...

2006

12.16.2006 show

December 9, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: The Dears, Gang of Losers (2006)...this band sounds a little like the Smiths, a little like the Cure, a little like Love, but a deeper listen and their strong, idiosyncratic, pretty sounds emerge, their push to something open & true, their way of music, none other's...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Emerson, Lake, & Palmer, Brain Salad Surgery (1973)...another prog-rock band new to me, but I have come to like them a lot, long tunes, epic, roads to everywhere, so much music that each ELP album consumes lifetimes for good attention to it...
Storybook Time: Chapter Five of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poem...& this week's featured artist is the Grateful Dead, some tasty live cuts found here & there in their great art of jamming...some rants in this show, like others, bringing in some heroes who rail against the Empire in smart, funny ways, it will be a good'un, f'sure!

12.09.2006 show

December 2, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Bob Dylan, Modern Times (2006)... This album finds BD in a bluesy, world-weary mood, lonesome, yearning, and rocking hard and slow by turns...burns strange, insistent good...
Featured Classic Rock Album: King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King (1969)... KC are relatively new to my ears, and this first album of theirs I find blithely mysterious, an enigmatic delight, prog-rock at its trippy origins... Storybook Time: Chapter Five of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Neil Young, some tunes from his recently released Live at the Fillmore East 1970 album...the year's last month begun, what a year, heavy with history & blood...

12.02.2006 show

November 18, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Eric Clapton & J.J. Cale, The Road to Escondido (2006)...this album by Clapton and one of his biggest influences is a sneaky one...laid back, then it reaches up & bites...strange in being like this, intense mellowness, and then something too fierce at moments to be called mellow at all...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Billy Joel, Piano Man (1973)... Joel was pretty obscure when this album came out, the beginning of a run that would make him famous & burn him down...but, again, this was the beginning, he was wild, he loved making music, he didn't care so much for what happened next...I was 18 listening to this work, and learning lessons I would keep a long time... Storybook Time: Chapter Five of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Steely Dan, tricky manic jazz-rock music that kicks in deep & then laughing goes deeper...this show should be a sweet one, strange hungers will whip it up high...

11.18.2006 show

November 11, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: The Who, Endless Wire (2006)... It's been 24 years since The Who have released a new album, and they have now lost two of their original four members...that said, this album rocks, it is brash, sweet, yearning, and tuneful...the second half is a mini rock opera, to boot, as my Who fanatic friend JBIII said to me, if this is their finale, what a great way to go...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Big Brother & the Holding Company, Cheap Thrills (1968)... marry a free-swinging, demon-laden blues singer to her hard rocking psychedelic combo and you have a band that has never been equaled for their raw, deep, moving sound...
Storybook Time: Chapter Five of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is John Mellencamp, an old favorite of mine whose rock and roll noise is still a fine pleasure...WE WON WE WON WE WON! THE KING IS NOW A LAME DUCK! LONG LIVE THE DUCK!!!

11.11.2006 show

November 4, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Lindsey Buckingham, Under the Skin (2006)... Fleetwood Mac's sometime guitar god releases yet another solo work so rocking and tuneful it's amazing he remains somewhat of an obscure figure on his own...personal, sweeping, full of high musical food...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska (1982)... when this album came out, nobody much knew the Boss could take a single guitar and blow your world away with it...since then he has done it often, but this remains arguably his most intense acoustic statement...I heard this album when I was 18, my first intro to Springsteen, and its pleasures and mysteries have stuck with me all these years...
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is The Who, some of their best known and some of their obscure best before next week's show when their brand new music comes to this show...it's cold, it's autumn, there are deeper thoughts to go swimming with all around...and the election to sweep All the King's Thugs away is at hand!

11.04.2006 show

October 21, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Trey Anastasio, Bar 17 (2006)... the former lead guitarist of late-lamented Phish does not make Phish records by himself, but does sometimes make records possessed of the same kind of greatness...rocks, shines, dims, there are moments when one could forget the year and the passing of time, and be grooving with the boyz again...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Traffic, Traffic (1968)... an album that starts out rowdy, soars, and higher, rocks a little, then a lot more, & leaves you wanting to ride its ride many times more...brilliant grooves....
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Pink Floyd, some delicious live tracks...some Jon Stewart too, maybe some Huxley, maybe some political fires stoked, as the little King is soon to be swept to the curb of history!!

10.21.2006 show

October 14, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Rum Diary, We're Afraid of Heights Tonight (2006)... this California trip-rock band makes pretty, dangerous sounds, some slow & soft, some loud, some crash, this album flows & you go, & where you arrive is an uncertainty...
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Rolling Stones, Beggar's Banquet (1968)... now they are old men, some say cartoonish, some wait for their clearer moments, which do come, and remember albums like this one from '68, when they roared, when they murmured, when they mattered...
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Radiohead, a band many are waiting & waiting on for new music...the autumn is sweetly arriving, leaves showing us all how to leave best & brightest for whatever worlds await from this one...

10.14.2006 show

October 7, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Beck, The Information (2006)...he's been away for a couple of years, but busy, KD & I saw him, his band, & their puppets rock the Sasquatch fest this summer, full of new album energy...new album is grand, ambitious, as varied as one could hope, pretty, bouncy, laden & weightless...the strange master walks again in public...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Cream, Fresh Cream (1966)... debut album by one of the seminal British rock bands, sweeps into the world & watch trees, gods, & men stand aside...amazing to observe genius arrive fully formed...Cream pretty much invented the rock trio, so much would follow their steps...
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Why? fixtion (starting this one this week!) & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist are the Jayhawks, singing pretty, melancholy notes of sugar, bearing any heart high or low...more Robert Anton Wilson, more Jon Stewart, more reverb than anyone could know, maybe some Huxley, maybe something else...

10.07.2006 show

September 30, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: The Decemberists, The Crane Wife (2006)... so...this is the deal...neither Kassi nor I have heard this album but we are so into the Decemberists that it is going to go on air still unheard...so the reaction will be utterly fresh...I'm betting it will be awesome...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Buffalo Springfield, Buffalo Springfield Again (1967)... great album by a folk-rock band too short-lived, but their reach is long...especially that of Neil Young & Stephen Stills...return to their youth & see their promise in early bloom...
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Things Change fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Wilco, wild poet boys from Chi-town USA...some other goodies, like Robert Anton Wilson, Jon Stewart, maybe even some more Huxley...this is show number 100 since being on SpiritPlants Radio!...jack in, hummmmmmmmmmmm!!

09.30.2006 show

September 23, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: The Church, Box of Birds (2006)...this Australian band has been a favorite of mine for many years, but I was not able til recently to find this all-covers album of theirs. Mmm mmm, what a treat, reminds me of Rush's recent Feedback album, songs loved and re-invented both...delights from Bowie, Neil Young, George Harrison, the Monkees, Hawkwind, Ultravox, Television, and more...again: mmm mmm...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Crosby, Stills, & Nash (1969)... pretty much the perfect hippie rock jam album, full of sky-high harmonies, blissed-out guitars, longing, idealism, desire, and moments untellably beautiful but by hearing them...surely one of the places to begin teaching anyone what the psychedelic revolution is like at its best...
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Things Change fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is Phish, one of this show's deepest favorite icons...a little Jon Stewart too, a little Robert Anton Wilson, a little Huxley, what a brew, sip with care & vivacity!

09.23.2006 show

September 16, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Thom Yorke, The Eraser (2006)...this album from Radiohead's front man took me a number of listens to catch with...not a Radiohead album, yet not unrelated...quiet at times, yet furious...pretty but with little sentimentality...it stays in some nether place between mind and heart...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Paul Simon, Still Crazy After All These Years (1975)...Paul Simon is a great musical poet, one whose songs often pretty & familiar are also some of the darkest meditations on human love & loneliness & existence...then on occasion a silly one for no damned good reason and every one of them...
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Things Change fixtion & Many Musics poems...& this week's featured artist is XTC, lovely, British, so sweet, so high...also expect Robert Anton Wilson, Jon Stewart, and unknown other voices & noises & melodies, jazz, electronica, to appear...just like that!

09.16.2006 show

September 9, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Tapes 'n Tapes, The Loon (2006)... this strange band from Minnesota sounds like indie rock but not like any other band making indie rock...a shaking, quaking odd run of pleasures, something more going on here...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Tim Buckley, Goodbye and Hello (1967)...Buckley is a lysergic troubadour, neither a lone peak like Dylan nor a quadrophenic Beatles...yet shares the qualities of both of these contemporaries...from a single soul a massive awesome noise...
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Things Change fixtion & Many Musics poems, & this week's featured artist are the Pixies, sneering down the years from their ranting, rolling subterranean...back on air after a month traveling to the desert...revved up, both ready and Freddy!

09.09.2006 show

August 5, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Tom Petty, Highway Companion (2006)...Petty and a clique of guitars shows up every few years, full of broods & musings, rings the old hippie bell, finds some new sounds again, lyrics leave something to think on, "rust or run"...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Jefferson Airplane, After Bathing at Baxter's (1967)... the Airplane was highest for just a few years, a few albums, but what stories they told from up there, what lovely electric harmony tales of lysergia...
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Things Change fixtion & Many Musics poems, & this week's featured artist is the Talking Heads, a beguiling bag of funky nuts for those around wanting to reach a hand in...days now from the festival in the desert, vibes on this broadcast will blow hard & dusty no doubts!

08.05.2006 show

July 22, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Golden Smog, Another Fine Day (2006)... Indie rock supergroup finally makes good on its own promise, the sound of Wilco, the Jayhawks, and Soul Asylum comes together and trips the beautiful noise high, very high...this is the album the seals them as good as their constituent sources...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bayou Country (1969)... CCR never made an album less than stellar, with moments smoky acoustic soft and others yowling lovely...they come on with albums half the length of some of the bloated messes released nowadays, and depart having said so much more in their brief time...
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Things Change fixtion & Many Musics poems, & this week's featured artist is Camper Van Beethoven, an indie rock band of old that caught its odd moment perfectly and splintered it out into a million groovy nuggets...listen to Jack Kerouac, for Jon Stewart, for Aldous Huxley, and for other moments too weird for lingua...

07.22.2006 show

July 15, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Band of Horses, Everything All the Time (2006)... Seattle band with a country chiming flavor, enough enigma to keep it grooving, enough tune to sweet the listening ears, adds up to even more, and much promise too...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Into the Great Wide Open (1991)... On the eve of Petty's new release, take a flight back to this early '90s trippy jangling powerhouse, Petty & his guitar partner Mike Campbell both opening up the doors wide on the jam...
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Things Change fixtion & Many Musics poems, & this week's featured artist are punk greats The Ramones, how great their cartoon music show shined in its time...and noise from Kerouac, Huxley, Jon Stewart, three hours thick of frivolity & deeper diggings!

07.15.2006 show

July 8, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Drive-By Truckers, A Blessing and a Curse (2006)...Heavy sounds from this Georgia based outfit, songs of regret & redemption, loud and soft alike, from the land of stiffly hot summers & violent artistic passions...
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Black Crowes, Southern Harmony and Musical Companion (1992)... Another heavy Georgia band, story says they recorded this album in just a few days, and it sounds like a band locking the doors and turning up the amps, closing off the world while picturing it in thick chords and desperate words...
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Things Change fixtion & Many Musics poems, & this week's featured artist is rock guitar god of gods Chuck Berry...and there will be more, Kerouac pining and Jon Steward irony...each show bears its past kin along while trying to reinvent everything for a moment or two...

07.08.2006 show

June 24, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Guster, Ganging Up on the Sun (2006)...this band ripples up and down stretches of melodies, and their new album creates its own land of ringing mountains and quiet shadows, come in and visit...
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Moody Blues, Days of Future Passed (1967)...no band up til this album had created a concept rock canvas completely suffused with full classical orchestration...none have surpassed it since...a thousand thousand journeys into the sun began by dropping the needle on this one...
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Things Change fixtion & Many Musics poems, & this week's featured artist is The Jesus & Mary Chain and their squalling bag of electric sweets...sometimes what to play seems such a vast question hardly seems possible the answer, but found one!

06.24.2006 show

June 17, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Grandaddy, Just Like Fambly Cat (2006)... one last barrel of trippy nuggets from this West Coast band as they call it a day...a sweet, strange music, the kind a group of friends in smoky Saturday shadows might sink into the night listening to...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Grateful Dead, Anthem of the Sun (1968)... this album grooves torchingly along, ripping out gapes in simple daylight beliefs, and replacing them with surreal nocturnal complexities...sweet & dangerous, a trip inviting for endless re-visits...
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Things Change fixtion & Many Musics poems, the latter begun again & again til one day it hooks, maybe this time...& this week's featured artist is The Cure, rocking weirdo rock that dips in many mindpools and shimmers from below...Every show a treasure, every single one, I do not know where this one will go but am eager for its rise...

06.17.2006 show

June 10, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Snow Patrol, Eyes Open (2006)... this Scottish band rocks it pretty pretty and well, lodges high and comfortably among the dozen or so great UK rock bands carrying the flag in the early 21st century (among them Radiohead, Coldplay, Oasis, Belle & Sebastian)...
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Police, Ghost in the Machine (1981)... speaking of great British bands, it was a quarter century ago that The Police both carried and owned the flag of great rock, and for too short a time...Ghost was their fourth and penultimate album, mixing the longing and paranoia of those lost Cold War years with music bouncy, growly, strange & great...this music owned me back then, I was 17 and eyes like wide open doors...
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Things Change fixtion & Many Musics poems, the latter begun anew & ready to reveal...& this week's featured artist is Crosby, Stills, & Nash, focusing on their later 1970s/1980s work, gorgeous stuff often neglected...show's been away since late May, too long, bouncy to be back!

06.10.2006 show

May 20, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Paul Simon, Surprise (2006)... the great poet/musician returns with an album whose strange & striking words are his own, but whose exotic soundscape he crafted with Brian Eno. . .Simon means business every time he releases an album, of the serious & comical kind both. . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Who, Who By Numbers (1975)... The Who rock hard & soft in this one, released after two successful rock operas & one aborted one. . .yet the ambition is no less here, and the results no less fiercely moving...
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Things Change fixtion & Many Musics poems. . .& this week's featured artist is R.E.M. & their first release, back in 1982, the gorgeous head candy EP, Chronic Town...the warm weather arriving, can its embedded hope be wholly untrue?

05.20.2006 show

May 13, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Built to Spill, You in Reverse (2006)...it seems like this band was dismissed by many after their underrated 2001 album...no matter...their new one rocks fierce, no quarter...soft, hard, harder, a return stamped very good. . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Santana, Santana III (1971)...this album is 35 years old yet excites the ears like it came out last week, fresh twin guitar frenzies, wild rhythmic rolls, carlos santana's original band showing why they still haunt the rock landscape...
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Things Change fixtion & Many Musics poems. . .& this week's featured artist is Rush, a run of songs from their decades of sonic genius...show number 200, took nearly 7 1/2 years to arrive!

05.13.2006 show

May 6, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Neil Young, Living With War (2006)... another war has finally pushed ol' Neil's ire over the edge, & he has responded with a great, beautiful fury. . .it's been a long time since a major rocker has launched this mighty an attack on the Empire's easy, righteous destruction of life. . .
Featured Classic Rock Album: Pink Floyd, Animals (1977)... The Floyd are a dark band, and this album finds them down in the deep chasmic spaces they prefer. . .loosely based on George Orwell's novel Animal Farm, there are obscure moments of light to be found if one listens to each track in the whole. . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Things Change fixtion & some shards from the poem-beast Many Musics...& this week's show features the blistering hearts of U2. . .spring arriving on the West Coast. . .the dark days their grasp's annual loose...

05.06.2006 show

April 22, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: The Church, Uninvited, Like the Clouds (2006)... Australian psychedelia, pretty in moments, melancholy and terrifying at others...it wasn't but a couple of weeks ago that this show played their 1988 album Starfish as a classic album...now's time for their current news of the cosmos...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Supertramp, Breakfast in America (1979)... Supertramp was a long skyrocket of progressive pop sensibility...sweetness with a shadowy undercoating...nursery rhymes stretched into surreal lengths...rock light then heavier and deeper and watch their melodic staircase roar far & away...
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Things Change fixtion. . .& this week's show features the Smithereens, a Jersey band who rocked the late '80s like they were the late '60s and nothing bad had yet happened...this a show near to my birthday, what of it, the music smiles & does not care...

04.22.2006 show

April 15, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Placebo, Meds (2006)...this band took awhile to convince me of its various musical prowesses, and did, and its sliding lyrical truths, and did...they mean what they say and play, and do it finely...
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Byrds, Younger Than Yesterday (1967)...The Byrds' first six albums came out in three years and bore a fury of fine harmonies, nutty sweet guitars, and high, near lyrics...this album rings with some of their best songs of that period...
Storybook Time: Chapter Four of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Things Change fixtion...& this week's show features Prince, a one-man planet of funky erotic psychedelic explorations...maybe some answers this week, or some better questions, or something neither and both, that deeper dwelling place of calm...

04.15.2006 show

April 8, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Flaming Lips, At War With the Mystics (2006)...the Lips return after several years away, & jump into the current nutty buddy world, send out their melodic strangenesses in all directions & hit walls, ceilings, floors, clouds with all manner of splatters...
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Church, Starfish (1988)...I remember walking into a record store in Connecticut about '89, long bus trips to get to this store, & buying this Church LP, it took me more than I took it...saw them live twice that year...taught me psychedelic truths long before I hit the dots-n-drops myself...
Storybook Time: Chapter Three of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from random pomes and Things Change fixtion...& this week's show features Buddy Holly, one of the first to push rock-n-roll further than the sock hop, one of its first to die much too young...back to the mic after a break & its visits with some Dadaist lunacies, ready to tell on 'em...

04.08.2006 show

March 25, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Rum Diary, Poisons That Save Lives (2003)...this music runs into dark, electric spaces, the deep places where a pipe rests on a teak table, sweet smoke rising, rumbles beyond the walls, crazy acoustic full moon yowling through the darked tinted windows...
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Doors, Morrison Hotel (1970)...it's spring again and time for this show's annual Doors' album offering, this year the so-called "comeback" album...blood on the rise and it's following me...mmm...
Storybook Time: Chapter Three of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine and Things Change fixtion...& this week's show features the Electric Light Orchestra, their great crescendoes of melodic cyclones...maybe something else too...what the weekly rants raise up with them, what carries along into the live & unbound...

03.25.2006 show

March 18, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Built to Spill, Ancient Melodies of the Future (2001)... this music cuts through the decades & the miles & arrives at the place where the guitars have always led you up & up & up...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Yes, The Yes Album (1971)... this band travels the long wispy spaces that few bands conceive, much less put into music & words...the sweet & far away...
Storybook Time: Chapter Three of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from Labyrinthine and Things Change fixtion. . .& this week's show features the Monkees, a band only LSD & the last decadent phase of capitalism could have produced...hehe...

03.18.2006 show

March 11, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: The Shins, Chutes Too Narrow (2003)...This band's second album charms, is strange, charms strangely, lingers in a spill of bright light, of twangy guitars, of possibilities when music opens out raw & high...
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Smiths, Strangeways, Here We Come (1987)...the Smiths were a trippy rock band in the middle of the Reaganomics era, and so this earned them few, but fanatical fans...Morrissey moans sincerely, though a twinkle is suspected...Marr and the rest of the group rock it out behind him...rarely a stranger combo of personalities in one band...
Storybook Time: Chapter Three of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from New Songs poems and Things Change fixtion...& this week's show features the Traveling Wilburys, a dear little group of superstar buddies who joined up for just a bit to create a bunch of sly, dear, memorable songs...

03.11.2006 show

February 25, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Impossible Shapes, Tum (2006)...This past and future release is a cherry bowl of trippy little nuggets...they splat your tongue with strange goodness, then poof and here comes the next...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited (1965)...Dylan was not walking on mortal ground when he penned these songs, they surely came from other ethers and landed in his hands by chance and luck...
Storybook Time: Chapter Three of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from New Songs poems and Things Change fixtion...& this week's show features the evilly delicious Smiths mmmm...yowzaaa & have another! Time to rave for the new world coming before it's gone again!

02.25.2006 show

February 18, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Long Winters, When I Pretend to Fall (2003)... Long Winters perform songs that rock with guitars, horns, strings, swooping lyrical shine...they hit it hard & harder, then soft and softer, and that plumbs even further...a Seattle band and a pleasure to feature on this show...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin IV (1971)...one of the reassuring miracles about life is that someone today, and tomorrow, and beyond, is listening to this album for the first time, getting took by its power, its push toward liberation of mind & music...loveliness, sheer awe...
Storybook Time: Chapter Three of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from New Songs poems and Things Change fixtion. . .& this week's show features the singular swirling singing mists of Fleetwood Mac...these are long, chilly days but how we insist on walking on, how the sunshine is somewhere & here we come...here we come...as many of us as we can....

02.18.2006 show

February 4, 2006 show features:
New Rock Album: Rogue Wave, Descended Like Vultures (2005)... this band tosses off the harmonies like butterflies in the breeze...then the guitars hit & everyone goes ohhhhhhhhh...
Featured Classic Rock Album: The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)... this album's release year was full of higher profile classics by the Doors & the Beatles, to name just two...but decades along only a very few have shown the staying grit of this set of dark street sirens & pretty pleasings...
Storybook Time: Chapter Three of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from New Songs poems and Things Change fixtion. . .some hefty lefty rants for yer pleasure & chagrin...& this week's show features some tasty grooving sugar all over your brain tunes from the Gin Blossoms...taste it...you wanna...

02.04.2006 show

January 28, 2006 show features:
Featured Album: Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Live Rust (1979)... a seminal work from a rock god, capturing him & his long-time band near the end of their first golden era (there would be more)...Neil rocks, wails, croons, rants, lets it all out there & brings it all home again...
Storybook Time: Chapter Three of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from New Songs poems and Things Change fixtion. . .It was seven years ago around this time that i began hosting this show in the back room of a small gallery in cambridge, massachusetts, where a rudimentary pirate FM station had been set up...good days, though little audience, a year of that, and two years at the low power AM/web station Allston-Brighton Free Radio in Boston...then a long while no show...finally come to SpiritPlants Radio in Nov 2003...a good run & ready to carry into the 8th year of shows!

01.28.2006 show

January 21, 2006 show features:
New rock album: Belle & Sebastian, The Life Pursuit, (2006)...i did not like this band at all...then i tried this album...now i think this band is so...fucking...good...weird high brit rock at its finest...
Featured Classic rock album: Steely Dan, Katy Lied, (1975)...this band inhabits its own world of smooth jazzy rock deep discontent...they are fine, they are addictive, you have been warned...
Storybook Time: Chapter Three of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from New Songs and Things Change. . .& this week's show features a few clear rock nuggets from the mountain top which Eric Clapton plays...mmm...God knows how to rock!

01.21.2006 show

January 7, 2006 show features:
New rock album: Nada Surf, The Weight is a Gift, (2005)...this band is beguiling...they sometimes rock sly & sweet, sometimes they hit the chords hard & go...nice surprise when I discovered em & here they are for you too...
Featured Classic rock album: R.E.M., Automatic for the People, (1992)...surely one of the great rock albums of all time, & one of the highest of high points for this band...i used to walk through the boston common with a cassette of this record blasting through my walkman...over & over & over...
Storybook Time: Chapter Three of The Long Trip: A Pre-history of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux . . .
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...& this week's show features the odd, beautiful music of David Bowie...here goes another year...just now...this moment...here goes!

01.07.2006 show

2005

December 24, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (2005)... strange, strange band, but song by song they rock, their lyrics gain a weird hold in the mind, they are good musicians & tell the old tales new...took awhile, but I got convinced...
Featured Classic rock Album: Creedence Clearwater Revival, Cosmo's Factory (1970)...one of my favorite American rock bands, I could listen to them for days, deeply funky & melodic, lyrics that purr & singe...this album features among its highlights a long explosive version of "Heard It Through the Grapevine"...none other quite like CCR...
Storybook Time: Chapter Three of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...& this week's show celebrates the holiday season, sort of, hehe hehe...

12.24.2005 show

December 17, 2005 show features:
New rock album: The Tragically Hip, In Between Evolution (2004)... Canada's own rock supergroup, less known elsewhere, been around a couple decades now...they rock this one hard, electric fury, hard groove, freak lyric charms...this album took me over slowly, now arrived, staying...
Featured Classic rock Album: Tomorrow, Tomorrow (1968)...this album is drenched in the good acid rock rolling high through the UK in '68, shares the same trippy air as Pink Floyd & the Soft Machine, crazy fun for you nutty hippie kids of all ages..hehe...
Storybook Time: Chapter Three of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...& this week's featured artist is Donovan & his high vibey acoustic troubadour delights...

12.17.2005 show

December 10, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Supergrass, Road to Rouen (2005)... A new discovery for me, though this Brit band has been around awhile...rock a little like the oldies, punk a little too, a luring way with melody & rhythm, great new album...
Featured Classic rock Album: The Grateful Dead, Live/Dead (1969). . .ok, so you hit Dead shows back then or you missed em, either way, tune this album in, puff a little something good, lay back, it's all present now like always again, & here you go...
Storybook Time: Chapter Three of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...& something of a tribute to John Lennon, have you been gone that long? Why do you still seem so present, almost waiting for the rest of us?

12.10.2005 show

November 26, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Death Cab for Cutie, Plans (2005)...this album flies so deep in the fabric of rock-n-roll that trying to figure out what it did not influence since '73 when it came out would be impossible...still every bit the classic it's long been...
Featured Classic rock Album: Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon (1973)... this album flies so deep in the fabric of rock-n-roll that trying to figure out what it did not influence since '73 when it came out would be impossible...still every bit the classic it's long been...
Storybook Time: Chapter Three of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...thankful for many beautiful people & things in the world, & for SPF Radio indeed!

11.26.2005 show

November 12, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Boards of Canada The Campfire Headphase (2005)... the Scottish duo BoC works a special ground between electronica & rock...move a listener with melodies & weirdness that sticks deep & good...this third album is their finest, trippiest yet...
Featured Classic rock Album: The Zombies, Odessey & Oracle (1968)... this brit band sings high & sweet, lyrics sometimes lush & romantic, but sometimes in a place not quite like any other's...easy to fall within their music, harder to find a reason to leave...
Storybook Time: Chapter Three of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...ready for this one? are you sure? it is coming fast atcha...

11.12.2005 show

November 5, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Neil Young, Prairie Wind (2005)... NY returns with what looks to be the third in his Harvest/Harvest Moon series of acoustic, reflective albums...this one takes awhile to reveal its rare, special bite, then it does, & makes a lot of sense thereafter...
Featured Classic rock Album: Love, Forever Changes (1967)... a weird album in a year of weird albums...horns, strange hippie wisdom, rocks some even...worth its path....
Storybook Time: Chapter Three of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...a week off always makes this show crazy revving to resume...

11.05.2005 show

October 22, 2005 show features:
New rock album: My Morning Jacket, Z (2005)...this Louisville, Kentucky band rocks into all sort of places, soft, raucous, weird, sublime, their album takes you up & along & never forgets to keep you in mind no matter how upside down sideways the view gets...
Featured Classic rock Album: The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)...chuck berry & buddy holly pretty much invented rock-n-roll...the beatles & dylan listened closely & reinvented it in their turn...this album is the sound of the beatles announcing that reinvention...it is also their proclamation that acid can drive art even wilder in genius hands...
Storybook Time: Chapter Two of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...bits of books, bits of pomes, bits of the moon at noon...bits of high building up higher...

10.22.2005 show

October 15, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Elbow, Leaders of the Free World (2005)... once called a Coldplay clone, this UK band has developed a sound odd & compelling & all its own...sweet, sometimes groovy, & over & over compelling new rock...
Featured Classic rock Album: The Waterboys, Fisherman's Blues (1988)... the best album to date by one of Ireland's best rock bands, there is folk in it, loud guitars, soft poetry, sweetness & bawdiness too...
Storybook Time: Chapter Two of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...the world a strange tangled place & music one of its few constant paths...come along...

10.15.2005 show

October 8, 2005 show features:
New rock album: New Pornographers, Twin Cinema (2005)...this album builds slowly in the mind until it moves in, takes over, & re-creates the interior in high colors & bouncy floors & walls...delicious stuff...
Featured Classic Rock Album: Small Faces, Ogden's Nut Gone Flake (1968)... this is surely a strange record, britishly endearing, trippy R&B that makes its musical place in the world...
Storybook Time: Chapter Two of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...back after a week off and ready to jump up, up, up! and in...wheeee...

10.08.2005 show

September 24, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Grandaddy, Sumday (2003)... this California band goos into one's pores with its strange keys & freak lyrics. . .and stays & stays. . .watch, listen, see how they stay & stay. . .
Featured Classic rock Album: Paul Simon, Paul Simon (1972). . .Simon had a tall reputation with Simon & Garfunkel to leap. . .and with this album he simply took a breath & walked straight through. . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Two of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change. . . new, change, all that is & matters, all that comes & goes, all that is. . .

09.24.2005 show

September 17, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Super Furry Animals, Love Kraft (2005)...this Welsh band brings out a new luscious soundfeast slipping into the rockier and softer terrains...still weird, still lovely, still jamming...
Featured Classic rock Album: The Pretty Things, S.F. Sorrow (1968)... called by many the first rock opera, this also is a delicious picnic of pipers drawing you higher & higher, laughing & laughing...
Storybook Time: Chapter Two of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...some shows suggest themselves, some just open the door and say AHHHHH...

09.17.2005 show

September 10, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Guster, (2003)...this Boston band offers a bouquet of pop grooves, sweet, staying tunes, fine in the mind & booty...
Featured Classic rock Album: Pink Floyd, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967)...anyone wanting to find the roots of acid rock must soon or sooner stop off at this debut release from one of the most vital bands ever...ever...
Storybook Time: Chapter Two of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...returned from the desert in more or less the same form, ready to lift up into the autumn and the several possible elsewheres related...heh...

09.10.2005 show

August 27, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Thirteen Senses, The Invitation (2005)...this UK band has it going from the start, moody, bright UK rock that leans toward even more...leans hard...
Featured Classic rock Album: Big Brother & the Holding Company, Big Brother & the Holding Company (1967)...This San Francisco band roared out of the gate on Janis Joplin's yowl carried on a sea of trip n funk n bluesy rock...yowwwwwwww...
Storybook Time: Chapter Two of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...leaving for the Great Burn not too many hours from now, & no clue as ever, & every hope stands high...

08.27.2005 show

August 20, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Snow Patrol, Final Straw (2003)... I didn't connect with this band at all. . .figured them for another UK wimp rock band...then came on their music on my computer by chance this week...bang, wow! they goooood...
Featured Classic rock Album: The Allman Brothers Band, Idlewild South (1970)...A southern rock band I'd never too much noticed, & then this week I did...and, again, bang, wow!...
Storybook Time: Chapter Two of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...nearing the great Burn in the desert, heart points toward it true, what will it teach this year? What can it be offered?

08.20.2005 show

August 13, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Gomez, Split the Difference (2004)... I had heard this band's name but not their music until this late evening, and even as this show is hours away, I'm grooving with this Brit powerhouse brand new...
Featured Classic rock Album: Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, Greatest Hits (1994)...Seger & his boys rocked harder & smarter than most bands of his prime in the '70s or since...this album recalls & deepens the truth of this man's wildly good rock'n'roll music...
Storybook Time: Chapter Two of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...returning to the air after a couple of weeks in some weird tangled places...happily, ready to take the mic again & raise it up again & here goes again!

08.13.2005 show

July 23, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Teenage Fanclub, Man-Made (2005)...Scottish group rides deep into themes of love & loss...sometimes sweet, sometimes terrifying...music that gets hard at the beauty & sadness of living...
Featured Classic rock Album: The Who, Quadrophenia (1973)... talk about your long trips, & bands that lived before they got old...this double-album proved this band could do nearly anything...anything, really...rock of ages...
Storybook Time: Chapter Two of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...sometimes music is all that's left for comfort & instruction...hang on to it...when the words come along, they will be truer...hang on to them too...til letting go comes easily...

07.23.2005 show

July 16, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Sleater-Kinney, The Woods (2005)...the hard-rocking girls from the Pacific Northwest return on an even more ambitious plane this time, & going along with them is a challenge to the most open mind...but, yah, they still shake asses. . .
Featured Classic rock Album: Creedence Clearwater Revival, Willie & the Poor Boys (1969)...CCR shake asses too, push the cerebral into the swamps to face the deep funk there, & stay, & move further in...
Storybook Time: Chapter Two of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...singing & singing higher, here goes another, so many shows have come along & yet new & dangerous & only matters by being such & moreso...

07.16.2005 show

June 25, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Oasis, Don't Believe the Truth (2005). . .I used to hate this band as a blatant, bad imitator of the Beatles, but I tried this album out for ha-has, and damned if I didn't spend half an evening listening again & again...they have found their sound at last, and tis good!
Featured Classic rock Album: Traffic, Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (1971)... Steve Winwood & his crew set another album alight & drift ever upwards pretty & further than pretty...happiness in its many songs...
Storybook Time: Chapter Two of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...spreading the truths & whatever they are embedded in far & wide!

06.25.2005 show

June 18, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Spoon, Gimme Fiction (2005) ...dark, compelling new psychedelic rock, potent & controlled when not loose & unleashed...rocks and rocks and rocks...
Featured Classic rock Album: Neil Young, After the Gold Rush (1970)...on the LP cover, a tripped out image of glowering Neil is passing a tiny little woman, he is going to the studio to record loud noise & sweet murmurs...she is going home to cower from the menace of tall glowering hippies in the street...heh...
Storybook Time: Chapter Two of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...it will extend out as far as it can go, from pools to strands to bits, & what comes back will be...

06.18.2005 show

June 11, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Coldplay, X&Y (2005), FINALLY...their last album hit me one fine Saturday a couple of years ago while journeying in my old hometown far from here, and it's not stopped hitting since...their new one resumes their high, sweet course and leads to more pretty, dark places...
Featured Classic rock Album: The Byrds, Fifth Dimension (1966)...their jingle jangle guitars and harmonies upheld some witheringly hopeful sentiments...memorable, scarring music...from many miles up...
Storybook Time: Chapter Two of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...guest noises and yawps...tales of freaks from then, now, & henceforth!

06.11.2005 show

June 4, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Shpongle, Nothing Lasts . . . But Nothing is Lost (2005)...FINALLY...i got introduced to shpongle years ago and have been waiting like countless others for their next musical bomb...all i can say is...BOOM!!!....
Featured Classic rock Album: Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers (1971)... from its Andy Warhol real zipper-n-all cover to its ten dirty pretty tracks, this is one of the albums that keeps people showing up at the old geezers' shows...heh...
Storybook Time: Chapter Two of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change... roars & rants from saturday's high noon high, what new, what next, whither bound? indeed!

06.04.2005 show

May 28, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Elbow, Cast of Thousands (2004)... this album resembles coldplay, pink floyd, and other rock giants, and then...delightedly...it doesn't anymore....
Classic rock album: Led Zeppelin, III (1970) the test of every really heavy rock band since LZ is can they go acoustic and make it beautiful? learn how the masters led the way, and lead it still...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter Two of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change . . . roars & rants from saturday's high noon high, what new, what next, whither bound? indeed!

05.28.2005 show

May 14, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Yes, Keystudio (2001)...if any '60s band emerged in the new century still playing to the cosmic source as cleanly as ever, it was Yes, and a very few others...
Classic rock album: The Beatles, Revolver (1966). . .beatles turn on, tune in, rock out harder and higher than ever, invite everyone along...
Storybook Time: Chapter Two of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change. . .i stayed up half the night readying this show, and i'm DELIGHTED...hehe...

05.14.2005 show

May 07, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Beck, Guero (2005)...funky white boy returns to his roots and finds the groove but no comfort there...thumps darkly...
Classic rock album: Bob Dylan, Blonde on Blonde (1966). . .godgurunutgenius can't stop making music when young so lets it all roar out til the record stops and you pass out to happy delusions...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter One of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change...& letting it all roar out til something somewhere responds in kind, and we laugh & laugh & laugh...

05.07.2005 show

April 30, 2005 show features:
New rock album: The Doves, Some Cities (2005)...brit rock alive and further along in the new century...strange album, difficult moments til it's easy and righteous...
Classic rock album: Grateful Dead, Aoxomoxoa (1969)...early Dead, some pretty, some roaring, freedom and terror in the days around them, they blew it all out...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter One of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs, Things Change, & once again on saturday mornings like this show was when it was a tiny one on pirate FM in boston a long ago, long long...

04.30.2005 show

April 17, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Broken Social Scene, You Forgot it in People (2002)...jammy lovely wonder from a many membered collective making music to excite your groove and incite your hope...
Classic rock album: Billy Joel, Turnstiles (1976)...when i was 17, i'd sit at my kitchen table with this LP blasting on my portable turntable, and i'd play along the piano parts, my fingers tapping along, and i'd sing in my cracked voice first song to last, but especially the second side of the record...another classic and personal favorite unearthed from the back-when...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter One of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change, & efforts as always to go a step further along in webcasting & cyber-connections. . .

04.17.2005 show

April 10, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Arcade Fire, Funeral (2004)...this first album from AF is a strange wonder, mourns, exults, is a hyper-overflow of creative excitement...
Classic rock album: Harry Chapin, Sniper & Other Love Songs (1972)...this album was the soundtrack to my life some years ago when i was green...i hear it now and love it anew...sad, thoroughly loving...happy to unearth it from obscurity...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter One of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs, New Period, and a jump up and out to see what is possible in aural cyberspace...what is possible?...heh...

04.10.2005 show

April 3, 2005 show features:
New rock album: The Decemberists, Picaresque (2005)...a carnival of words & sounds & delight...a strange candy eaten with your ears to fall onto a breeze out to somewhere really weird & good...
Classic rock album: The Doors, Strange Days (1967)...jim morrison & his crew pick up where they left off at the end of their first album, continuing to tale by beauty, hypnosis, grotesque conjurings, the pretty & dirty & unknowable corners of their time & other times & no times...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter One of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs, New Period, a praise for coming green days, whatever it will be, will be, & elsewise too...heh...

04.03.2005 show

March 23, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Low, The Great Destroyer (2005) ...pretty & strange, rocks up and off the cliff at moments, then breaking lovely harmonies cause flight not crash...sweet bites of melody...
Classic rock album: Velvet Underground, White Light/White Heat (1967)...the Velvets rock as hard as anyone in the universe when they've a mind to, and then slow, stop, offer a grotesque trinket of acoustic, and raise it up again...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter One of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs and Things Change, and chants for peace and sweetness and fresh wind among trees & souls...etc etc etc...

03.23.2005 show

March 7, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Bright Eyes, I'm Wide Awake It's Morning (2005) ...protean folk-rock work from a very exciting young voice in rock...his music resembles yesterday, lifts today, and gestures toward tomorrow...
Classic rock album: Pink Floyd, Atom Heart Mother (1970)...early Floyd rocked high, hard, and strange like there was no yesterday, today, or tomorrow...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter One of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs, Things Change, new rants, new season here it comes...

03.07.2005 show

February 20, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Mercury Rev, Secret Migration (2005) ...It's been four years since this brilliant art rock band has been around, and the beautiful new music they have percolated has proven the wait for their return very much worth it...
Classic rock album: 13th Floor Elevators, What's Going On (1967)...hard rocking acid group from Austin, Texas, with music that kept the attention of my acid guru years back when we met...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter One of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs, Things Change, and random, intentional, accidental, and dreamy too...

02.20.2005 show

February 13, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Green Day, American Idiot (2004) ...The little band that finally could...a punk rock opera for the ages busts this group out of the pack & shows the limitless possibilities of punk rocking while young maturing into full blown rocking later on...think of how XTC matured, Costello, Talking Heads, Pretenders, Blondie, and that is the excitement Green Day has finally generated...the music kicks ass...
Classic rock album: Marvin Gaye, What's Going On (1971)...After some years singing classic soul music, and getting to feel more and more bored and restrained, Gaye finally forced Motown to let him sing the truth of his times as he saw it...this brilliant record was the result...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter One of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux...
Readings from New Songs, Things Change, and plenty of yawping, ranting loveliness all 'round...

02.13.2005 show

February 6, 2005 show features:
New rock album: John Fogerty, Deja Vu All Over Again (2004) ...The genius behind CCR has been firing out great solo albums every so often for many years ago...this one renews his musical potency, and is a gladly welcomed gift
Classic rock album: The Kinks, Something Else (1967)...The Brothers Davies made this album from their unique musical space, somewhat English, somewhat comical, somewhat tender, loveliness...
Storybook Time: Continuing Chapter One of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux...
plus new lingual songs, fresh shouts into the ether, & other things unforeseeable...

02.06.2005 show

January 30, 2005 show features:
Featured album: Woodstock, 3 Days of Peace, Love, & Music, original motion picture soundtrack (1970)...to celebrate the 6th anniversary of this show going on air, the full triple album of glorious music...turn on, tune in...
Storybook Time: Chapter One of The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
plus new poetry, new pleas, new meanderings, six years along now...

01.30.2005 show

January 23, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Throwing Muses, Throwing Muses (2004), Boston band from years back comes roaring along again with new beauty & bite sharpened...
Classic rock album: Stevie Wonder, Inner Visions (1973)...maestro funk man letting out his cries for love & praise of matters flesh, high, & fanciful...
Storybook Time: continuing Introduction to The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
plus new poetry, new strangeness, old bleeps, odd hours...hehe. . .

01.23.2005 show

January 9, 2005 show features:
New rock album: Pearl Jam, Riot Act (2002), hard rockers with a deep love of melody & groove, this album something especially special among their releases...
Classic rock album: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Deja Vu (1969)... folk rock love high chorus, a beat, a beat, a beat, chorus, mmmmm......
Storybook Time: continuing Introduction to The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
plus new poetry, and fresh rant, and music clear and music strange...hehe. . .

01.09.2005 show

2004

December 26, 2004 show features:
New rock album: Sonic Youth, Sonic Nurse (2004), SY make pretty high noise with strange instrumentation & biting words, memorable & odd both....
Classic rock album: Jimi Hendrix Experience, Are You Experienced? (1967)... rock god blows minds with music nice & nasty by turn & mood...spaceshot farther than most ever get...
Storybook Time: continuing Introduction to The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
plus readings from the resistance, much greater than they say...

12.26.2004 show

December 19, 2004 show features:
New rock album: Spiritualized, Ladies & Gentlemen We are Floating in Space (1997), a hard, high, amazing journey into the musical wilderlands of sadness...
Classic rock album: XTC, Skylarking (1986)...this album is high with no hard, amazing with no sad, lovely counterpoint of rock blissed...
Storybook Time: continuing Introduction to The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
plus readings in wild & sadness, and ether, and other...

12.19.2004 show

December 12, 2004 show features:
New rock album: Medeski, Martin & Wood, End of the World Party (Just in Case) (2004), jammying acid jazz trio chase their strange flow further along, hard, soft, twisting where they will & join them please...
Classic rock album: The Yardbirds, Roger the Engineer (1966)... this album catches this British blues-rock band at a still-point of artistic frenzy, popjamtrip loveliness..
Storybook Time: continuing Introduction to The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
plus readings in chaos & magick, time to find something more to the Universe than human mewlings...

12.12.2004 show

November 28, 2004 show features:
New rock album: Red Hot Chili Peppers, By the Way (2002), the Peppers have kept their punk intensity while finding other kinds of beauty & power to infuse their music...hard, smooth, goes, goes...
Classic rock album: Blind Faith, Blind Faith (1969)... from the ashes of Cream & Traffic grew this Clapton/Winwood-led supergroup to burn impossibly high for a moment & then gone...
Storybook Time: continuing Introduction to The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
plus green magick in word and melody for a world not lost despite the Empire's tries...

11.28.2004 show

November 22, 2004 show features:
New rock album: Yes, Magnification (2001), some bands find some deep music sound to call their own and they chase after it over many years, and Yes is one of those bands, this music is high, sweet, and righteous...
Classic rock album: Sly & the Family Stone, Stand! (1969)... mannnn, this album is so many kinds of things, trippy, funky, high, quiet, thoughtful, angry, hoping, just amazing work from vintage days...
Storybook Time: continuing Introduction to The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
plus tales from the Underground Reader...letting up and out all the goodness within to a human world in need of it...

11.22.2004 show

November 14, 2004 show features:
New rock album: U2, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (2004), the Irish band of the world springs forth new visions set to high electric guitars, riven with tough, lasting ideals...
Classic rock album:The Moody Blues, In Search of the Lost Chord (1968)... a lovely trippy rave-out, sung, strummed, fluted...
Storybook Time: continuing Introduction to The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
plus tales from the Underground Reader...let's go as far as we can in three hours in hyperspace...

11.14.2004 show

November 7, 2004 show features:
New rock album: Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002), a Sgt Pepper like candy rocking trip into outer space where good and evil confront each other in rhythm and melody...sweetness...
Classic rock album: Quicksilver Messenger Service, Quicksilver Messenger Service (1968)... another San Francisco band that knew how to coax lovely high beauty from electricity and steel...
Storybook Time: continuing Introduction to The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
plus tales from the Underground Reader...and whatever else can happen...

11.07.2004 show

October 24, 2004 show features:
New rock album: Camper Van Beethoven, New Roman Times (2004), return to the world from a long slumber, to present a loosely connected semi-rock opera telling the story of a Texas teenager who joins the military after a 9/11-like event, becomes disillusioned, and joins an anti-government militia...guitar and fiddle freakouts along the way too, of course, heh...
Classic rock album: Buffalo Springfield, Buffalo Springfield (1966)... his album is one of the key sources of all the high lovely scary dark hippy jamrock that came later...mmm mmm...
Storybook Time: Introduction to The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia Paul Devereux...
plus tales from the Underground Reader...poem kisses & other sweet noise...it gets better & better....

10.24.2004 show

October 17, 2004 show features:
New rock album: Stereophonics, You Gotta Go There to Come Back (2003), rocking hard smarts from yet another welsh band out to keep three chords and the truth alive...hehe...
Classic rock album: Jefferson Airplane, Volunteers (1969)...San Francisco hippy jammers get hard and loud...lovely noise...
Storybook Time: Conclusion of The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment by Thaddeus Golas...
plus all manner of word wows and trance strangeness, just loud til soft and then somewhere else indeed...

10.17.2004 show

October 10, 2004 show features:
New rock album: Super Furry Animals, Phantom Power (2003), this welsh band rocks high low and sometimes strangely angular, their album a journey into tuneful mazes among artful high noise...
Classic rock album: Santana, Abraxas (1970)...rock god carlos santana leads his latin-tinged group up and up and then further away...lovely mind melt guitars and organs and so on...
Storybook Time: Chapter Nine of The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment by Thaddeus Golas...
and wordy music and musical yipes and yawps, rants electronic and acoustic both...hehe...this show delayed by a week by a potent journey cost its bit, and a mix made to respond...called "cry (ayahuasca mix)"...

10.10.2004 show

2003

December 31, 2003 show features:
Cyber Vision Quest 2003 album #1: The Beatles, Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
Cyber Vision Quest 2003 album #2: Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here (1975)
Cyber Vision Quest 2003 album #3: Phish, Farmhouse (2000)
Storybook Time: Acid Dreams by Martin Lee & Bruce Shlain..
Reading from 36 Nocturnes & Cyber Vision Quest brilliance!

12.31.2003 show

December 27, 2003 show features:
New rock album: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, The Last DJ (2002), plays what he wants to play . . .
Storybook Time: Acid Dreams by Martin Lee & Bruce Shlain..
Reading from 36 Nocturnes . . . Season of Lights, softness in a hard time . . .

12.27.2003 show

December 13, 2002 show features:
New rock album: Radiohead, Hail to the Thief (2003), wow . . . darkest hope of all . . .
Storybook Time: Acid Dreams by Martin Lee & Bruce Shlain
Reading from 36 Nocturnes & doing America, heh-heh-heh . . .

12.13.2003 show

December 6, 2003 show features:
New rock album: Willco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2001), wow . . . when the bombs are falling, hide in this music . . .
Storybook Time: Acid Dreams by Martin Lee & Bruce Shlain
Reading from 36 Nocturnes & waves of beautiful madness . . .

12.06.2003 show

November 29, 2003 show features:
New rock album: The Jayhawks, Rainy Day Music (2003), save it for a . . .
Storybook Time: Acid Dreams by Martin Lee & Bruce Shlain
Reading from 36 Nocturnes & more adventures uner the Beyondworld!

11.29.2003 show

November 22, 2003 show features:
New rock album: Phish, Round Room (2002) . . . take care of your shoes . . .
Storybook Time: Acid Dreams by Martin Lee & Bruce Shlain
Reading from 36 Nocturnes . . . back after so so so long!

11.22.2003 show

2002

January 27, 2002 show features:
New rock album: Mercury Rev, Deserter's Songs (1998), wow . . . an album like no other . . .
Storybook Time: Chapter Six of Acid Dreams by Martin Lee & Bruce Shlain..
Reading from 36 Nocturnes & fine fine madness high & low!

01.27.2002 show

2001

January 28, 2001 show features:
Rock album: B.B. King & Eric Clapton, Riding With the King (2002), two great bluesmen get together & romp & stomp it up
Storybook Time: Chapter Ten of Food of the Gods by Terence McKenna...
Reading from 36 Nocturnes & tons of crazy noisy fun!

01.28.2001 show

2000

January 29, 2000 show features:
Rock album: Phish, Hampton Comes Alive! (1998), Second part of this awecome live album by this great band!
Storybook Time: "How to Change Behavior" by Dr. Timothy Leary.
Reading from Two Vessels, & lots of great music!

01.29.2000 show

1999

December 25, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Album: Phish, Slip, Stitch, & Pass (1997)
Storybook Time: Dan Wakefield, “The Hallucinogens: A Reporter’s Objective View,” from LSD: Consciousness Expanding Drug
Featured Artists: Grateful Dead
Plus RS poetry, Two Vessels (for Samantha)

12.25.1999 show

December 18, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Album: Phish, Billy Breathes (1996)
Storybook Time: Dan Wakefield, “The Hallucinogens: A Reporter’s Objective View,” from LSD: Consciousness Expanding Drug
Featured Artist: The Doors / Rolling Stones
Plus Mondo Beat: Masters of Percussion
Plus RS poetry, Two Vessels (for Samantha)

12.18.1999 show

December 11, 1999 show features:
Storybook Time: Dan Wakefield, “The Hallucinogens: A Reporter’s Objective View,” from LSD: Consciousness Expanding Drug
Featured Artist: Phish
Plus Berta Rojas, Concierto Latinoamericano
Plus RS poetry, Two Vessels (for Samantha)

12.11.1999 show

December 4, 1999 show features:
Storybook Time: Dan Wakefield, “The Hallucinogens: A Reporter’s Objective View,” from LSD: Consciousness Expanding Drug
Featured Artists: The Doors / Phish / Grateful Dead / Bob Dylan / Neil Young & Crazy Horse / Creedence Clearwater Revival
Plus Drums of the Nation
Plus RS poetry, Two Vessels (for Samantha)

12.04.1999 show

November 13, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Album: Phish, Hoist (1994)
Storybook Time: Aldous Huxley, “Culture & the Individual,” from LSD: Consciousness Expanding Drug
Featured Artists: The Doors / Velvet Underground / Grateful Dead / Kinks / Jimi Hendrix Experience / Donovan
Freak Narrative: Joe Ciccone, Poetry
Plus Tribal Fires: Native American Music / Charles Mingus / Narada Guitar / Ryuichi Sakamoto

11.13.1999 show

November 6, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Album: Phish, Rift (1993)
Storybook Time: Aldous Huxley, “Culture & the Individual,” from LSD: Consciousness Expanding Drug
Featured Artists: The Doors / Velvet Underground / Grateful Dead / Kinks / Jimi Hendrix Experience
Freak Narrative: Renee Byrd, “11/3/99 Shroom Narrative”
Plus Drums of a Nation / Mondo Beat: Masters of Percussion / Tribal Fires: Native American Music!

11.06.1999 show

October 23, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Album: Phish, A Picture of Nectar (1992)
Storybook Time: Dr. Humphrey Osmond, “Psychopharmocology: The Manipulation of the Mind,” from LSD: Consciousness Expanding Drug
Featured Artists: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers / U2 / R.E.M. / Joni Mitchell / Bob Dylan / The Who / The Doors / XTC / Neil Young / Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young
Freak Narrative: Spare Change, 7/29-8/11/1999
Plus JBIII & *MLS* [Live in studio]

10.23.1999 show

October 16, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Album: Phish, Lawn Boy (1990)
Storybook Time: Dr. Timothy Leary, Introduction to LSD: The Consciousness-Expanding Drug
Featured Artists: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers / The Byrds / Kansas / Grateful Dead / Sly & the Family Stone / Harry Chapin / Joni Mitchell / Neil Young / The Beatles
Plus RS poetry, Two Vessels (for Samantha), & RS fixtion, New Period
Plus Robert Fripp & Didgeridoo music!

10.16.1999 show

October 9, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Album: Phish, Junta (1988)
Storybook Time: Dr. Timothy Leary, Introduction to LSD: The Consciousness-Expanding Drug
Featured Artists: Bob Dylan / Grateful Dead / The Who / Steely Dan
Plus Ric Amante [Live in Studio] & Tibetan chants & Islamic music!

10.09.1999 show

October 2, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Album: Grateful Dead, Aoxomoxoa (1969)
Storybook Time: Dr. Timothy Leary, Introduction to LSD: The Consciousness-Expanding Drug
Featured Artists: XTC / Phish / The Church
Plus RS poetry, Two Vessels (for Samantha)

10.02.1999 show

September 18, 1999 show features:
Storybook Time: Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception
Featured Artists: Phish / The Byrds / Grateful Dead
Freak Narrative: Phish newsletter
Plus RS poetry, Two Vessels (for Samantha)

09.18.1999 show

September 11, 1999 show features:
Featured Artists: Pink Floyd / Traffic
Freak Narrative: On the Road to Burning Man 1999 #3
Plus RS poetry, Two Vessels (for Samantha)

09.11.1999 show

September 4, 1999 show features:
Featured Artist: The Beatles
Freak Narrative: On the Road to Burning Man 1999 #2
Plus Sounds of Black Rock City, Nevada

09.04.1999 show

August 28, 1999 show features:
Storybook Time: Scranton Tribune
Featured Artists: Grateful Dead / Phish / Pete Townshend / AM-FM Radio / Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young
Freak Narrative: On the Road to Burning Man 1999 #1

08.28.1999 show

August 14, 1999 show features:
Storybook Time: Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception
Featured Artists: Grateful Dead / Phish / Yes / Sly & the Family Stone
Freak Narrative: Burningman.com Theme Camps / Big Cypress announcement
Plus RS fixtion, New Period

08.14.1999 show

August 7, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Albums: Pink Floyd, Meddle (1971) / Traffic, John Barleycorn Must Die (1970)
Storybook Time: Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception
Featured Artists: Grateful Dead / Phish / Yes
Freak Narrative: Spare Change, 7/29-8/11/1999
Plus RS poetry,Variations of Muse, Uncoiling

08.07.1999 show

July 31, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Album: Grateful Dead, Blues for Allah (1975)
Storybook Time: Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception
Featured Artists: Phish / Yes / The Beatles
Freak Narrative: Burning Man postcard / A7, 7/30/1999 email

07.31.1999 show

July 24, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Album: Grateful Dead, From the Mars Hotel (1974)
Storybook Time: Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception
Featured Artists: Yes / Phish / Jefferson Airplane
Freak Narrative: Ann Powers, “A New Variety Of Flower Child In Full Bloom; Music and the Internet Nourish a Counterculture,” New York Times, 7/21/1999
Plus RS fixtion, New Period

07.24.1999 show

July 10, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Album: Grateful Dead, Wake of the Flood (1973)
Storybook Time: Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception
Featured Artists: Phish / The Beatles / Jefferson Airplane / The Byrds / Cream
Freak Narrative: Phish newsletter / Ric Amante, poetry
Plus RS poetry, Untitled Poems

07.10.1999 show

July 3, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Album: Grateful Dead, Workingman’s Dead (1970)
Storybook Time: Dr. Albert Hofmann, “Natural Science & the Mystical Worldview”
Featured Artists: Neil Young / The Beatles / Jefferson Airplane / Yes / Cream
Freak Narrative: “What is Burning Man?” pamphlet
Plus RS fixtion, Phalanx letter

07.03.1999 show

June 19, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Album: Grateful Dead, American Beauty (1970)
Storybook Time: Paul Devereax, The Long Trip
Featured Artists: Emerson, Lake, & Palmer / Cream / The Byrds / The Beatles
Freak Narrative: Burning Man Newsletter
Plus Barbara Brannon [Live in Studio]

06.19.1999 show

June 12, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Album: The Grateful Dead, Anthem of the Sun (1968)
Storybook Time: Dr. Albert Hofmann, “The Message of the Eleusinian Mysteries for Today’s World” / Sam Keen, Interview with John Lilly, Voices & Visions / William Braden, The Private Sea: LSD & the Search for God / Stephen Gaskin, Haight-Ashbury Flashbacks [fragments]
Featured Artists: moe. / Phish / The Moody Blues / XTC / Robert Plant & Jimmy Page / R.E.M. / John Fogerty / Neil Young with Pearl Jam / Pete Townshend / The Beatles / Everly Brothers / Jerry Lee Lewis / Chuck Berry
Freak Narrative: Burning Man Quotation
Plus RS poetry, "Consolations of Ecstasy"
Plus Joe Ciccone [Live in Studio] / *MLS* [Live in Studio]

06.12.1999 show

June 5, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Album: The Who, Who's Next (1971)
Storybook Time: “LSD” by Alice Dee (Drugpeace.org)
Featured Artists: Grateful Dead / Velvet Underground / Electric Prunes / Strawberry Zots
Freak Narrative: Ric Amante, Poetry / Robert Frost, Poetry / *MLS*, Poetry
Plus RS poetry, Millennial Artist's Survival Guide

06.05.1999 show

May 29, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Album: The Velvet Underground & Nico, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)
Storybook Time: Stephen Gaskin, Haight-Ashbury Flashbacks
Featured Artists: The Who / Bob Dylan / The Moody Blues / Neil Young & Crazy Horse / Jefferson Airplane
Freak Narrative: “Steal This Radio Broadcasters Sue the Government”
Plus Burning Man 1999 Newsletter
Plus RS fixtion, New Period

05.29.1999 show

May 22, 1999 show features:
New Rock Album: The Black Crowes, Southern Harmony & Musical Companion (1992)
Storybook Time: Stephen Gaskin, Haight-Ashbury Flashbacks
Featured Artists: The Who / R.E.M. / The Beatles / Santana / Rush / Cream / Neil Young / Jimi Hendrix Experience
Freak Narrative: “Steal This Radio Broadcasters Sue the Government”
Plus Jamband announcements
Plus RS poetry, Boston Common at Dreamtime, & RS fixtion, New Period

05.22.1999 show

May 15, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Album: The Beatles, The White Album (1968)
Storybook Time: Stephen Gaskin, Haight-Ashbury Flashbacks
Featured Artist: Bruce Springsteen
Freak Narrative: “Steal This Radio Broadcasters Sue the Government”
Plus Markus Anonymous [Live in studio]
Plus RS poetry, Club Paradiso Confessions, & RS fixtion, New Period

05.15.1999 show

May 8, 1999 show features:
New Rock Album: Pete Townshend, Psychoderelict (1993)
Storybook Time: David Pichaske, A Generation in Motion: Popular Music and Cultures in the Sixties
Featured Artists: The Beatles / The Byrds / Jefferson Airplane / Yes
Plus Jim Burke III & *MLS* [Live in studio]

05.08.1999 show

April 24, 1999 show features:
New Rock Album: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Echo (1999)
Storybook Time: William Braden, The Private Sea: LSD & the Search for God
Featured Artist: The Beatles

04.24.1999 show

April 17, 1999 show features:
Featured Artists: Neil Young & Crazy Horse / Jimmy Page & Robert Plant / The Who / Pink Floyd / The Beatles / Bob Dylan

04.17.1999 show

April 10, 1999 show features:
Classic Rock Album: The Byrds, The Notorious Byrd Brothers (1968)
Storybook Time: William Braden, The Private Sea: LSD & the Search for God
Featured Artists: The Doors / Led Zeppelin / Santana / Sonic Youth / Steely Dan / Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young / Jimi Hendrix Experience
Freak Narrative: Burning Man listserv

04.10.1999 show

April 3, 1999 show features:
New Rock Album: R.E.M, Up (1998)
Storybook Time: Sam Keen, "Interview with John Lilly," Voices & Visions
Featured Artists: The Who / Camper Van Beethoven / The Slip / Joni Mitchel / Blind Faith
Freak Narrative: Ric Amante poetry
Plus RS poetry, The Millennial Artist's Survival Guide

04.03.1999 show

March 20, 1999 show features:
New Rock Album: Phish, Story of the Ghost (1998)
Storybook Time:“The Message of the Eleusinian Mysteries for Today’s World” by Dr. Albert Hofmann
Featured Artists: Pink Floyd / Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young / Arlo Guthrie / Jonathon Lamaster
Freak Narrative: Weekly World News
Plus Joe Ciccone [Live in studio]

03.20.1999 show

March 13, 1999 show features:
New Rock Album: XTC, Apple Venus, Volume 1 (1999)
Storybook Time: “The Message of the Eleusinian Mysteries for Today’s World” by Dr. Albert Hofmann
Featured Artists: Bob Dylan / Inasense / Throwing Muses / The Church / Grateful Dead
Freak Narrative: Weekly World News
Plus Alan Nidle [Live in Studio]

03.13.1999 show

March 6, 1999 show features:
New Rock Album: The Church, Hologram of Baal (1999)
Storybook Time: The Long Trip by Paul Devereux
Featured Artists: R.E.M. / Jewel
Freak Narrative: Weekly World News
Plus RS poetry & *MLS*'s “Sophie’s Sestina” [Live in studio]

03.06.1999 show

February 27, 1999 show features:
Storybook Time: The Long Trip by Paul Devereux
Featured Artists: XTC / Velvet Underground / Neil Young & Crazy Horse / The Who
Plus “Consolations of Ecstasy”

02.27.1999 show

February 20, 1999 show features:
Debut of Storybook Time: The Long Trip by Paul Devereux
Featured Artists: Grateful Dead / The Who / Traffic / Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young
Freak Narratives: Burning Man Announcement / Ric Amante, Cenacle 32-33 poetry

02.20.1999 show

January 30, 1999 show features:
Lots of great music on the debut of this show, including album sides from Pink Floyd, Yes, & the Jefferson Airplane. Readings from Soulard. Lots of technical errors, & some cussing. Made it through. Came back the next week for more.

01.30.1999 show

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