It's only funny if you're in the audience...

Welcome to 2016, and Happy New Year! Out with the old and in with the new: after 5 years (!!!) on the radio, The Dollar Bin and my follow-on attempt at a show Doing It On The Cheap are no more, but please welcome The Passionate Friar to CKCU’s airwaves. Same host, same timeslot, but a (hopefully) very different show. Sandwiched as it is between talk programming (The Tic Show... err, Wednesday Morning Special Blend, and Hans’ CKCU Literary News) and music programming (Permanent Waves with Erik Stolpmann), the show aims to make that transition over its hour. It will start with a chat, some news, and sometimes interviews on the twin (and generally, but not entirely, exclusive) topics of feminism (and social issues and social justice) and science (the backbone of our civilization, with an emphasis on physics, the most fundamental science) — both of which are the subjects of undergraduate honours degrees that I am working on at the moment (a year and a half to go, ugh). There will be some music between the talk segments at the start, and the show will transition to just music by the end... found music mostly, where I will play music that I did not specifically set out to find, but have wandered across anyway (in that regard, The Dollar Bin lives on). P.S. I’m looking for correspondents on all three topics (feminism, science, and music) going forward, drop me a message if you are interested!

From the show’s new home page (this will be the blog associated with it, that was easy):

An hour of feminism/social issues, physics/science, and music...
News, reviews, interviews, ideas, engaging audio, and the Oxford comma!

This is a show for everyone who is passionate about more than one thing, and anyone that loves the simple, small joys of forever encountering new ideas, and having new experiences. While specific passions are going to be presented — simply because it is what moves this Friar in the moment, oh and time limitations, let’s not forget that — the intent is to do so in a way that is accessible to all, to get your creative juices flowing, to make your day more varied, and hopefully even provide inspiration for whatever your particular passions might be.

While what is presented here will truly be only the tip of the iceberg for this Friar’s passions, and the passions of those whose voices and works and actions are featured, the topics are sufficiently broad that it will take years to even get started exploring them. Specifically, this show will be focusing on three primary subjects: feminism and social issues, physics and science, and music and more music. Where, along with a foundation in feminist studies, comes the more general topics of social justice, aboriginal issues, issues of migration and human rights, intersectional identities (don’t worry, terms will be explained as we go), LGBTQ+ issues, globalism and neoliberalism, accessibility and disability issues... the list goes on — in short, social issues in general will be covered. And then way over here, we have the so-called natural sciences, which study the natural processes of the world around us and provides the underpinnings needed for the successful development and deployment of technologies, which then forms the functional backbone of our many societies. There will be an emphasis on physics because it is the most foundational of the natural sciences, but not a single field of science does not touch us somehow in our day to day lives: biology, chemistry, Earth sciences (geology, meteorology, ecology, oceanography, etc.), space sciences, and again the list goes on.

Why feminism and physics? Well, the simple answer is that I am in my last year and a half of independent honours degrees in both of those subjects: officially, I’m working on a B.Sc. Honours Physics (Theory Stream) degree, but I have also been collecting all the credits I need for a B.A. Honours Women’s and Gender Studies degree (I should be done that process this year, where I will not be done with physics until 2017, sigh). I came to Carleton as a “mature” student to finally study physics after a career designing and building electronics and software, and doing international project management on technical projects, while raising my children as a mostly single parent (by far, the hardest thing I’ve ever done... they are adults now, which is why I was finally able to go to university for the first time). Decades ago, I had a flash of inspiration/realization that synthesized much of what I read about the nature of the universe. I assumed I was wrong because I was ignorant in some critical way about it, but the more I read, the more it looked like I might be onto something, and the more evidence there was that there was value in the approach I had envisioned. I further assumed that someone else would come up with the same approach, but that apparently didn’t happen either, thus when my offspring were old enough, I quit my (very well paying, waaaah) day job and became a full-time student (mmmm, Kraft Dinner, sure I’ll have another bowl). The summer after my first year I took a course that aligned with several of my other passions: Feminist Disability Studies. I was hooked. Badly hooked. I have always been a social activist, and this wasn’t my grandmother’s feminism: it was new and exciting and inclusive and raw and full of dangerous pitfalls and irreconcilable differences. I took all manner of feminist studies, indigenous studies, language courses, and political science courses, and one day went into the Women’s and Gender Studies Department where they stared at me like I had two heads and announced that I was, randomly, most of the way to a minor in the subject. By taking the remaining courses for the minor and one more core course, all I needed to do was chip away at getting qualifying feminist studies credits in parallel with taking my physics degree (which was taking me longer than I had planned... that stuff is hard!), and I ended up with enough credits for a full major, and then an honours degree. I can assure you that nobody is more surprised than me! Due to university regulations, I need to graduate from my physics program before I can apply to the women’s and gender studies program, but I will just need to sit around with my thumbs up my butt and wait for the end of that semester because I will have all the credits I need already (okay, I won’t be sitting around, I’ll probably be doing physics research, but I won’t need to take courses).

Music? Well, if there is one language that is shared by all people, it is the language of music. Music is also at the core of everything I do (yes, including physics). Over the course of five years of doing The Dollar Bin on CKCU, I have learned much about how to find and present found music. For the most part, the music I played on the show was on CDs I had purchased for $3 or less in “dollar bins” wherever I travelled, and were by artists that I had never heard of before. Every show was the presentation of the outcome of the series of adventures I had listening to these previously unknown-to-me artists. I blissfully ignored genre boundaries and mixed music of all styles and origin and time period to create (what I have been told by others) was a challenging and engaging hour of music. Some of the songs I will be playing will be specific to topics I will cover, but I will continue the strong tradition of bringing intriguing found music to the airwaves (without the limitations I imposed on myself with The Dollar Bin — it’s all fair game now!).

Feedback is always welcome, along with music and topic ideas (especially if I can interview you or you can suggest someone to interview). I am also looking for correspondents (every/anywhere, and every/anywho) to do research, interviews, and produced segments on the topics covered by this show. You can reach me at dafriar23@gmail.com.


_{Photo credits... Top: “In The Body Of A Dragon”, a view of the curving tunnel of the decommissioned HERA superconducting particle accelerator/synchrotron at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg, Germany. Photo by me, 2014. Bottom: “Don’t Let A Label Silence You”, a student group feminist activism project I participated in on ways to destigmatize mental health issues done as part of the Activism, Feminisms & Social Justice (WGST2801) course at Carleton. Photo by me, 2013. As a note, the radio segment done with my classmates as part of that campaign (we took over The Dollar Bin that week to do it) ended up with the, now defunct, CKCU feminist radio show Femme Fatale being created by one of the participants, Lilith (they had never heard of CKCU before then).}

It's all fun and games until you break out the Ruthenium-106 (¹⁰⁶Ru)... then it's a party. Okay, maybe not so much. 3.56MeV electrons anyone? It's all about radiation badges and locked rooms and Geiger-Muller counters these days. It also means that what was once a student office is again a fully commissioned laboratory and there will be no more eating and drinking there. Meh... it's still pretty cool to be using all this stuff :).

The pixel "telescope" is set up and working (minus a couple of irksome software bugs, but that's not too surprising, we'll eventually sort those out), and we've figured out how to run the data acquisition and analysis software chains (not that we have fully grasped any of what it's doing under the hood, but at least we can operate it). I'm still setting up the cooling system (it's a bit trickier than I had anticipated because of the flow issues through so many tiny channels, but I'll sort that out as well), and will be mounting the chiller on the wall so it doesn't have to fight gravity. It's not needed to run the detector (it doesn't need to be cooled to keep from overheating), but rather is used to stabilize the temperature sufficiently below room temperature so it's constant between data taking runs (somewhere around 10°C to 15°C or so, we have yet to decide exactly and probably won't until some more testing is complete). The photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) to use as triggers arrived a couple of weeks ago, but we had to wait until last week for the connectors needed to hook them up to the Trigger Logic Unit (TLU) and I'm waiting for the work to be done by the department electronics guru (he'll be able to do the job properly in a few hours where it would take me a couple of days since I haven't worked with these sort of connector before and he has). We also need to modify the TLU since the PMTs we had to get are aren't the ones the TLU was designed for because the ones it was made for are no longer being made by Hamamatsu... that won't be a huge job and I can do it myself if need be (I've already figured out what exactly needs to be done, it's just a matter of replacing a few parts). Once the PMTs and TLU are ready, I will try to affix some scintillating plastic detectors to the PMTs (and light-tight the assembly) so we can use them as triggers for our testing with the... ¹⁰⁶Ru source (see what I did there?). In about two weeks we should have the custom plates back (that I designed) that will allow us to turn the telescope on its end so we can use cosmic ray muons which are mostly between around 1GeV and 5GeV and come pretty much straight down from space (well, they have a cos²θ angular distribution if you are concerned about such things, and a sadly low flux of roughly 1 muon min^-1 cm² steradian^-1).

It is rumoured that I will be doing my undergraduate honours project on the calibration, alignment, and general characterization of the telescope this coming year (and maybe even assist somewhat with the work being done at Carleton on the next generation Atlas experiment muon detectors at the Large Hadron Collider, or even Higgs-related data analysis... we shall see). Given the problems I've had with the physics department in the past, I'll believe it when I see it, but there's been a changing of the guard so it's possible this time around. If it does come through, I'll have to drop a couple of the courses I've already signed up for to make space for it. I have started studying this month for the computational physics course I'll be taking with a couple of former classmates this coming year as well. It's a very difficult course because it's the first time we see real statistical analysis and the ROOT framework. It's crosslisted as a Master's level course, but the only difference is that actual post-graduate students get two extra assignments... everything else is the same :P. I'll also be taking two extremely brutal mathematical physics courses with one of the most brutal teachers in the department (the person responsible for my previous failed attempts at doing my honours project... I suspect she actually has it in for me since I don't tend to tow the party line, so this isn't likely going to go well for me).

In less doominous news, as announced a few posts back, my friend Lilith has completed her radio training (some of which was on my show, The Dollar Bin). I was to be her first guest (which is pretty spiff) and, in fact, was. Her show now properly shows up on the CKCU web site and you can listen to her shows "on demand" if you don't manage to tune in live. It is a feminist show called Femme Fatale. As she says on the page: Femme Fatale is a feminist radio program that dives into different feminist topics from various perspectives in the hope of breaking pre-conceived sterotypes about who is a feminist and what a feminist topic is. Having fun and titillating discussions with guests and listeners that opens the conversation on topics not talked about anywhere else. While also playing music and ending with an event calendar, Femme Fatale is a feminist radio program with a punch.

Lesseee... I had my 2nd ever "movie afternoon of doom" weekend last weekend (it seems like a month ago already... and a special thanks to kweenbee for helping me get the house ready beforehand!). I played the following flicks to a mostly stunned, occasionally shouting in confusion, sometimes cheering in celebration, and often jeering in amazement hearty few who were able to come. I had announced that the lineup was going to be:

01:00PM – Bubba Ho-Tep (Elvis and JFK battle evil forces at the Shady Rest retirement home)
02:30PM – Akira (a landmark Japanese animated feature portrays a cyberpunk/dystopian future)
04:45PM – Insignificance (a true classic of contemporary cinema, plus Einstein meets Monroe)
06:30PM – Funky Forest (from the trailers I've seen, this is going to be seriously messed up)
09:00PM – The Guy With Secret Kung Fu (great costumes, fights, and locales... but... so bad!)
10:30PM – Deer Woman (John Landis and son doing a bizarre tongue-in-cheek horror movie)
11:30PM – Paprika (Satoshi Kon's animated masterpiece: brilliant, poingant, and beautiful)

I had planned to show Roadkill if anyone was still functional after all that, but decided (wisely) against it, heh. I'll show it at a future one. I also picked up Pontypool recently (which I have not seen) which is by the same director, and which I am told is an excellent movie.

One of the big surprises was how much everybody enjoyed Bubba Ho-Tep (I'd seen it before once many years ago)... it's a pretty whack piece of cinema but it has social commentary and is just plain-up unabashedly what it is (starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis). Akira was received pretty much as expected (pretty much universally: "wtf?")... I had not seen it since it came out in the theatres, so it was a real treat for me as well (and it blows me away that it was all hand drawn... mind blowing). Insignificance was the serious movie of the day. I had seen it several times myself and had ordered the Criterion Collection edition of the movie (it had been impossible to find earlier) and had not watched it yet. There are still scenes in the movie that I consider to be some of the most powerful ever captured and I notice new things every time I watch it (at least one person has reported being haunted by it, but in a ponderance way, not a nightmare way). Then there was Funky Forest. One of Beep's friends I think said it best: "how could such a thing possibly even exist?". It was in turns sweet, strange, messed up, all out bizarro, and hilarious... and nobody who saw it will ever be the same again (seriously, it's a one way ticket). I didn't know what to expect (although I had seen the director's previous movie The Taste of Tea and it was a beautifully shot and poingant and twisted and funny movie as well... definitely more art house and less gonzo than Funky Forest), but I will definitely sit and watch it again soon (even though it's two and a half hours long... it didn't feel like it). The Guy With Secret Kung Fu is a classic Hong Kong martial arts period piece movie... I bought it for $1 new from a bin of cheapo movies put out Digiview Entertainment (bought along with bad monster movies and a "documentary" about Area 51... also all for $1 new), presumably because nobody had copyrights on them anymore (or nobody cared). The costumes and settings and fight scenes and much of the acting was beautiful and brilliant, but... the dub was nightmarish, the sound effects during the fights were the sort of thing that is made fun of in spoofs of the genre, and foley work was almost random (jet noises, frog sounds, whip cracking sounds, and dive bombing sounds during the fight scenes... so bad!). It's a family favourite and it's almost as fun to watch the people watching the movie as the movie itself ;). Deer Woman is hilaribad (and intentionally so, fyi)... it's part of the "Masters of Horror" series and was directed by John Landis (American Werewolf in London) and written by his son... but it's more of a dark comedy (and there are many laugh-out-loud moments) than a horror movie. Again, enjoyed by all. So many great one-liners! I should mention that Deer Woman was the movie that finally got me lifetime-banned from picking the movie to watch when friends got together when I lived in North Carolina ;). I was on probation after showing them the film Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (made in Ottawa, and looong before the current round of Lincoln and stuff movies, and probably made for 5000 times less money, literally). Oh, as a note, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter will be shown at my next movie night later in August ;). For all the howling they did about those two movies, they borrowed them and never returned them before I moved back to Canada, heh. Finally... Paprika. I'm not even sure I have anything to say except it's really one of the few movies I'd actually recommend to everyone to see (and that's saying quite a bit).

Lastly... a while back, I mentioned I was going to a series of wine tastings that are being run as fundraisers for CKCU. Word got around pretty quick and they sold out of the limited seating very quickly earlier this summer. Again, these are being given by food and wine expert Rod Phillips who is really making the events worth going to. Not only is he witty and great to listen to, he has an amazing breadth and depth of knowledge on the subject (he's an actual professor of alcohol... and he tours the world tasting wines and food professionally... this guy has figured out how to live!). Most importantly, he's not all stuck up and knows how to share his enjoyment with others. For the overall series, he chose four grape varieties that grow consistently well in Ontario's climate (cold with a short growing season), and then features four diverse wines made by Ontario wineries made with that month's featured grape. I've been to two tastings since I last updated on the subject: Gamay on June 27th, and Chardonnay on July 25h (uh huh, I've been too busy to really update, thus the posting of essays and short bits). I'll hold off on the Chardonnays until a future post, but here are my notes on the Gamay...

Firstly, Rod believes that Ontario should declare itself home to Gamay grape wines (no other region lays claim to this title) as it grows consistently well here and is used to produce several excellent wines. Gamay got a bad rap because it actually grew well compared to other grape varieties controlled by certain medieval French aristocratic landholders, and so was banned and ordered torn up by the peasants and middle-class growers of the grape (and not before being seriously badmouthed by the aristocrats in question, I might add). From Wikipedia: In contrast to the Pinot noir variety, Gamay ripened two weeks earlier and was less difficult to cultivate. It also produced a strong, fruitier wine in a much larger abundance. In July 1395, the Duke of Burgundy Philippe the Bold outlawed the cultivation of the grape, referring to it as the "disloyal Gaamez" that in spite of its ability to grow in abundance was full of "very great and horrible harshness", due in part to the variety's occupation of land that could be used for the more "elegant" Pinot Noir. 60 years later, Philippe the Good, issued another edict against Gamay in which he stated the reasoning for the ban is that "The Dukes of Burgundy are known as the lords of the best wines in Christendom. We will maintain our reputation". Jerky jerks ;). It's now grown extensively in Beaujolais and in the Loire Valley, and pretty much every cool weather grape region in the world. The first wine we had was Cave Spring from the Niagara Peninsula. I liked it quite a bit and found it spicy, somewhat acidic with a clean taste and short finish, and thought it would make a good wine to have with food. Rod suggested it would go great with stew, ragu, pizza, and pasta. I thought it tasted somewhat Italian in style as well and he said that Italian wines are usually quite acidic because it helps them stand up to tomatoes. I'd never really liked Italian wines, but that's probably because I'd sit down to drink a bottle at it wouldn't be pleasant... I understand now that they are more for having a meal with than having on their own. The second one was Angel's Gate (Niagara Peninsula). I thought this one had a somewhat acetone smell, but it tasted fine. It was definitely drier than the first and had quite a bit of tannin as well. Rod suggested it would be lovely with fruit and crème fraiche, which I agree with. We then moved on to a Château des Charmes (from Niagara-on-the-Lake) which was quite dry and had obviously been oaked quite a bit. I didn't make any other notes on that one... And the last one was Grange of Prince Edward County (from where it says). It was a 2010 (the others were 2011 I think) and I made a single comment for later reference: "weird... fish?". I can't remember exactly why I said that... whether it tasted weird and would go well with fish, or whether it made me think of fish (heh). It's also possible that the wine listed fish as an ingredient because some wineries still use isinglass to clarify wines (because it's not a chemical clarifying agent). I'll have to leave it to your and my imagination with respect to why I wrote that comment :). All the wines were around $12 to $14 a bottle. Overall it was a great experience (again) and I get to do it one more time near the end of August. It also set me to thinking that I would replace soda in my diet (at least for dinner, maybe lunch on the weekends) with wine. Too much pop is one of the issues I have with my diet and moving to something that I would drink much less of would be a huge help to me in reducing my caloric intake (and no, I'm not dieting, but I am trying to eat, and drink, better... I was pretty harsh to my digestive system last year because of all the stress).

I will leave you with a song I'm quite fond of... by Canadian singer/songwriter Sarah Harmer:

Here's the playlist, etc. for my eleventh show (Apr. 25, 2011). However, despite the fact there is apparently no host for "Mid-Day Mind Control" which runs after "The Dollar Bin", I was only able to do my show because I had a doctor's appointment lined up (I did something to my foot... nothing serious, but I wanted it looked at). Since nobody showed up, and dead air is not acceptable in my books, I threw on the Delerium album "Poem" on continuous play and repeat in hopes that there was enough diversity to catch the attention of anyone tuning in that hour before I headed off. As a reminder, my show is broadcast live and prone to random chaos every Monday (woot!) from 2PM to 3PM (Eastern Time) on 93.1FM in Ottawa or streaming audio on http://www.ckcufm.com/. You can always go here to find out when the next show will be (or read my playlists). Of this show, I wrote:

The show was divided mostly into funk and electronica with some Charlatans 'UK' and off the beaten path Sugar Ray tossed in for seasoning. Glad I finally got to play some Neotropic on one of my shows, it just didn't fit into any other mix so I jumped at the chance to sandwich it between a couple of Cygnus X tracks.

I did the "distributed spotlight" thing again where I have tracks for the spotlight band spread over the course of the show. I thought it worked out well, and as I said, finally allowed me to play some Neotropic. The show started with a track off one of the albums that started me on my fascination with dollar bin albums: Greazy Meal's "Digitalize World Greaze". When I lived in Charlotte, North Carolina for a year, I found a record store called Manifest Disks that had an awesome used CD section... everything from 808 State to Sarah MacLachlan for awesome prices... and their new CD section was one of the most eclectic and diverse I've ever seen. They also got indie acts to play in the middle of the store every few weeks... the sort of thing that Ottawa is sorely lacking, I might add. Along the side of the used section, they had half a dozen tables, several square metres, of used CDs for between 1 and 5 dollars. I decided to flip through them (I was a bit broke at the time and was hankerin' for new music), and I figured with prices like that at worst I was buying some coasters, so I picked up five albums for a dollar each, and one for 2 dollars. I was surprised that some of the albums were excellent, and that all of them were good. All of the albums were from artists that I would not have pulled off the shelf new because I didn’t know any of them at all. I also played a track off a little gem I found: Hal, off their "Extremis" single, which features the voice of Gillian Anderson (Agent Scully from the X-Files). And I also decided to play another of my favourite tracks on the "wtf" section of the show: "Buffalo Wing Pizza" by Greazy Meal, where they recorded a guy trying to order that from a pizzeria. Very funny!

Greazy Meal, Digitalize World Greaze, "Vitamin U (The 8th Essential Remix plus Iron)"
Hal, Extremis (CD single), "Extremis (Qattara Remix Edit feat. Gillian Anderson)"Cygnus X, Hypermetrical, "Kinderlied Part I"
Neotropic, 15 Levels of Magnification, "Laundry Pt. 3"
Cygnus X, Hypermetrical, "Hypermetrical"
Greazy Meal, Digitalize World Greaze, "Buffalo Wing Pizza (Bonus Track)"
Green Room, Funk It Up For The Universe, "New Mother"
The Charlatans UK, The Only One I Know (CD single), "The Only One I Know"
Sugar Ray, 14:59, "Personal Space Invader"
Cygnus X, Hypermetrical, "Inda Kasa"

Cygnus X began as a collaboration between Matthias Hoffmann and Ralf Hildenbeutel, who later left and everything after was just Hoffman. Other projects of the pair include A.C. Boutsen, Brainchild, and Dee.FX. Their first release was "Superstring" in 1993. Their third trance track, "The Orange Theme", released in 1994, was the project's best received track. Their releases "Positron" and "Hypermetrical" became also well known hits of the genre. Pretty much a one gig wonder, although they released a “collected works” album in 2003. A the UK electronic music artist Riz Maslen with as Neotropic off her 1995 album "15 Levels Of Magnification". She has released almost a dozen recordings under the Neotropic moniker and another half dozen as Small Fish With Spine, and appears to be still active in making and recording music. Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, she also makes films. I really liked Green Room, but could not find much info about them other than they were Canadian and from the west coast. Good funk!

And that was it this time around. I like the lyrical hook in this one after about 2:20!

And how about a bit of Can-Con? Not Sugar Ray, but rather Big Sugar (notice what I did there? lol)... love this song, and they have the coolest bass player of all time!

Here's the playlist, etc. for my ninth show (Mar. 28, 2011)... which also went for a double shift because there is apparently no host for "Mid-Day Mind Control" which runs after "The Dollar Bin". Now, I have to come clean here... it's the end of the term and I've been seriously fried. So fried that I forgot that I had to do my show until an hour before it was time to go on air! Praise be to Harris (a co-op über student from Waterloo [Engineering] that I've been working with over the past few months in the labs at Carleton) for loaning me his USB stick so I could pull the show together as well as I did. Thankfully I'm also a techno wienie and have an Internet server in my living room that I use as my web and file server that I was able to pull MP3 off of (I rip my CDs as I get them so I can listen to them easily for pleasure and for picking for the show, but use the CDs themselves when I go to air). This show was all MP3s... and all things considered, I thought it turned out pretty well. Instead of a spotlight per se (I had some of the show already picked out), I did a mini-spotlight where I played two songs (by Canada's Crash Vegas and Iceland's The Sugarcubes) that always reminded me of each other (even thought they don't really sound the same). They do lead nicely from one to the other though: "Moving Too Fast" to "Motorcrash", heh. As a reminder, my show is broadcast live and prone to mind-altering chaos every second Monday (until April 25th, then it will be going WEEKLY, woot!) from 2PM to 3PM (Eastern Time) on 93.1FM in Ottawa or streaming audio on http://www.ckcufm.com/. You can always go here to find out when the next show will be (or read my playlists). Of this show, I wrote:

From art house to a full punk set and songs that kinda sound the same to songs that are radically different. More music less talk today and awesome music from end to end.

Now, to my credit, I'd already picked the Skirt, Speedbumps, and Pablo's Eye tracks to play and had the punk set pretty much together with The Marshes, 7 Seconds, and O-Matic (loooove that track!), and had flagged the Chimera tracks for eventual play (they just got lumped in because it was easier)... but I had to put the rest of the tracks together from memory and then had to do the "research" for the tracks "on the fly" as I did my show... yikes! Live radio indeed! Without further ramblings, here is the playlist for The Dollar Bin:

Pablo's Eye, Grass of '96, "Les Larmes du Tigre"
Pablo's Eye, Grass of '96, "Gone By Night"
The Marshes, Grass of '96, "Offshore"
Suicidal Tendencies, Join The Church of Suicidal, "War In My Head"
7 Seconds, The Music The Message, "The Kids Are United"
O-Matic, Grass of '96, "No Pinky, No Leather"
Crash Vegas, Red Earth, "Moving Too Fast"
The Sugarcubes, Life's Too Good, "Motorcrash"
Skirt, Choking On Sugar, "Speed Under Her Feet"
Cosmik Connection, Electrojazzset, "Rootsman"
Baba, Mind Music, "Mind Music"
Chimera, Grass of '96, "Catch Me"
Chimera, Grass of '96, "Night Song"
Speedbumps, Crayon Box, "Thursday's Chicken"

The Pablo's Eye tracks were particularly interesting... beautifully arthouse/creative. I tried to look for tracks on the Intertubes to listen to, but nothing was quite as good as the ones that were on the Grass Records label sampler. The Cosmik Connection track, "Rootsman", was pretty sweet as well! And then my spontaneous (read: panicked) play list I put together for "Mid-Day Mind Control" on the fly:

Paddy Ryan, Chain Link Fence, "Rise"
Kurt Swinghammer, Vostok 6, "Dark"
Pomplamoose, Pomplacovers, "La Vie En Rose"
Pomplamoose, Pomplacovers, "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)"
Jarett Norton and Danny Dodge, N/A, "Death Metal Friday"
Triptaka, Second War, "Suspended"
Ancient Obliteration, A Menacing Reality, "Radiated Overlords"
Voivod, Nothingface, "Astronomy Domine"
Beautiful Nubia and Roots Renaissance Band, Sun No Dey Sleep, "Eyes Always Open"
Tru Rez Crew, I'm A Lucky One, "I'm A Lucky One"

Now, I was a little punchy I think and played a few wtf tracks for sure (notably "La Vie En Rose" and "Death Metal Friday", lol... and threatened listeners with more of the same if they didn't call in with requests... nobody did so either: nobody was listening, or people actually enjoyed that shit, heh). There was a bit of a "prog rock" opening to the show. I wanted to allow Paddy Ryan to redeem himself after the "throw me on the floor and group fuck me" incident when we played a track at random off his album (eep... the only track on they album like it, of course). Kurt Swinghammer's album "Vostok 6" is one of my favorite albums of all time (a tribute concept album to cosmonaut Валентина Терешкова [Valentina Tereshkova]) and it was great to play a track off of it. My friend Robotika pointed out "Death Metal Friday" and it was too good (read: bad) not to inflict share with people (look it up on YouTube... well worth the visit, heh). I am also glad I played Tru Rez Crew (awesome aboriginal band) and you can't go wrong with Montreal's Voivod. The Triptaka, Ancient Obliteration, and Beautiful Nubia and Roots Renaissance Band were all new Canadian CDs that I pulled at semi-random (I didn't know what they sounded like before I played them)... awesome stuff as usual! The Ancient Obliteration album was particularly wack with track titles like "Pagan Rape" and "Seeking the Slimegod" I read the lyrics for the track I played at least before I spun it ;). Well, always eager to promote Canadian bands... I'll leave you with one Ancient Obliteration track ("Portal Beast (live)" ... maybe this will help dispel the notion that Canadians are "nice") and one from The Dollar Bin band Chimera, "Night Song"... there are so many bands and albums and tracks named "Chimera" that this stuff is almost impossible to find in the noise ;).

Not all Canadians are "nice":

These people are nice, but they're not Canadian:

Here's the playlist, etc. for my eighth show (Mar. 14, 2011)... which also went for a double shift because there is apparently no host for "Mid-Day Mind Control" which runs after "The Dollar Bin". Once again, I was joined by my younger daughter Laura who was off from school that day. Again, she proved remarkable in her adaptability to a live radio environment and comported herself with a professionalism that belies her age (she just turned 15, fyi, earlier in April!). As a reminder, my show is broadcast live and prone to mind-altering chaos every second Monday from 2PM to 3PM (Eastern Time) on 93.1FM in Ottawa or streaming audio on http://www.ckcufm.com/. You can always go here to find out when the next show will be (or read my playlists). Of this show, I wrote:

Most tracks chosen by Laura who is on March Break from Canterbury HS... from the emo to the more emo and plenty of pop and rock. Nana korobi, ya oki. Our thoughts and prayers went out today to the people of Japan reeling from a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, tsunamis, over 10000 dead, and the meltdown of multiple nuclear reactors.

Yes, the Great Northeast Earthquake had just occurred and the initial reports of scores dead from the earthquake itself (which was amazing and hopeful given the power of the thing) was giving way to reports of tens of thousands likely dead from the tsunami that followed (some of which were found to have been over 37 metres (!!!) high as they swept inland). In parallel with the devastation of entire cities, was a further tragedy what would evolve into the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl because of the failure of the Fukushima Daichi nuclear station (which is a situation still out of control as I write this). We dedicated the last track of The Dollar Bin to the victims in Japan, and Laura said a few words in Japanese to the effect of "fall down seven times, get up eight times". The "fromage" track (Landscape) did talk about the nuclear issue, but more from a Cold War perspective. With regards to the show's overall contents, from the written part of the script (critical for when there are more than one, even if it's sparse in places, it keeps us on track and we can fill in on the fly), I had the following to say:

Reading Week has come and gone at Carleton, but it was pointed out to me a few days ago that it’s March Break for the high schools in Ottawa this week. To that end I'm joined again by Laura Kurosakura, a Canterbury High School student, who will be co-hosting the show today. Welcome back Laura [Laura says hello]. I've invited her back because she did a bang up job last time and she has demonstrated her appreciation for the musically unexpected. I asked her to pick a few tracks off my dollar bin collection and she came back with two-thirds of the show, including a spotlight on Plexi. To her credit, as she searched through the collection, she randomly ran across it, and although she'd never heard the band before, after listening to a few tracks and doing some research on this rather unusual band, she asked if we could do the spotlight on them. Well, sure I say! I'd listened through it myself a while back and liked what I heard, but didn’t know anything about the band. [...]

Now I have to say I had absolutely nothing to do with the choice of music, I wasn't even there when she was doing it, and I don't think she heard my last show... but Laura somehow chose the song that I kicked my last show off with. Well, not this version of the song, rather it was the 4-track demo for it that I found on a compilation. Yes, none other than London, England's Elastica. Together from '92 to 2001 with two album releases. They were a mainstay of indie and alternative radio at the time, and remain one of my favourites. I had been planning to play this particular track myself on one of my shows, but apparently, out of the thousands of songs you could have chosen, you picked "Blue" by Elastica. "You're a little scary sometimes, you know that? Brilliant... but scaaary."

Heh. Without further delay or ramblings, here is the playlist for The Dollar Bin:

Soul Coughing, Songs In The Key of X, "Unmarked Helicopter"
The Hunger, Cinematic Superthug, "Phoenix"
Elastica, Elastica, "Blue"
Boo, Oh Yah! Records Sampler, "Johnny"
Downstroke, Distorted Sunshine, "Wednesday Again"
Plexi, Cheer Up, "Forest Ranger"
Plexi, Cheer Up, "Dayglo"
Plexi, Cheer Up, "Fourget"
Landscape, Electricity: 18 Synth Pop Hits, "Einstein A Go-Go"
Mosquitos, Planet Buzz, "Boombox"
Jane Siberry, No Borders Here, "Mimi On The Beach"
Machete Avenue, Make Trade Fair, "Cut To Pieces"

We then spontaneously put together what I thought was a great show for Mid-Day Mind Control:

Filter, Songs In The Key of X, "Thanks Bro"
Ultravox, Electricity: 18 Synth Pop Hits, "The Thin Wall"
Goldfrapp, Winter Chill 2, "Utopia"
The Verve, Urban Hymns, "Bittersweet Symphony"
The Cure, Galore, "Pictures Of You"
Foo Fighters, Songs In The Key of X, "Down In The Park"
Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton, Knives Don't Have Your Back, "Crowd Surf Off A Cliff"
Our Lady Peace, Gravity, "Innocent"
Garbage, Absolute Garbage, "The World Is Not Enough"
Daft Punk, Harder Better Faster Stronger 2008 (Alive Club Mixes), "Harder Better Faster Stronger 2008 (Alive Club Mix)"
Great Big Sea, Play, "Ordinary Day"
Goodnight Nurse, Our Song, "Milkshake"

The Emily Haines and Great Big Sea were both requests (woot! callers!) and Laura picked the last song of the show, and I just about pissed myself it was so funny (2 hours in "the booth" and I gotta go pretty bad... especially since I usually buy a coffee just before going in, heh). And on that note, I hope you find it as funny as I did... warm it up, the boys are waiting... hahaha they didn't even change the lyrics, ftw!

Here's the playlist, etc. for my sixth show (Feb. 14, 2011)... which also went for a double shift because there is apparently no host for "Mid-Day Mind Control" which runs after "The Dollar Bin". This particular show was special because it was both a Valentines Day show and because I was joined by my older daughter Morgan for her radio debut!!! Now both of my offspring have now co-hosted my show... just to show I don't play favourites — who went first was simply a matter of timing and convenience (Laura had a day off from school Jan. 31st, so she went first). Both did awesome jobs, each in a different way, and both took to their airwaves like they were meant to be there! Morgan's advantage over her sister, albeit a temporary one, is that she has a much more mature sounding voice (Morgan is 17 and Laura is 14) and could easily do professional radio or voice work (and I'm trying to convince her to at least explore voice work).

As a reminder, my show is broadcast live and prone to mind-altering chaos every second Monday from 2PM to 3PM (Eastern Time) on 93.1FM in Ottawa or streaming audio on http://www.ckcufm.com/. You can always go here to find out when the next show will be (or read my playlists). Of this show, I wrote:

Music chosen by Morgan. Although we played Bobby McFerrin, the condition was that we NOT play *that* song. Sadly, since that conversation the song was stuck in my head... hopefully you faired better than I... Other than that, this was a wonderfully diverse and varied show with music from country to straight up punk.

I was particularly surprised and interested by her choice of Bobby McFerrin for the "spotlight". He is certainly a brilliant musician, but not too many people appreciate that fact or have heard anything but his "one hit song". Frankly, his rendition of "Sunshine Of Your Love" is truly a thing of wonder! Without further adieu, here is the playlist for The Dollar Bin:

Magnapop, Rubbing Doesn't Help, "Down On Me"
Llama Farmers, El Toppo, "You Bore Me"
Ohm-G, Voodoo Roux Deux, "Coming Down"
Mad At Gravity, Resonance, "Time And Time Again"
Speedbumps, Crayon Box, "Street Sign Man"
Dead Roses, I Hate It Here, I Never Want To Leave, "I Death You To Death!"
Butch Willis, 1996 Teenbeat Sampler, "Mummies Don't Die"
Bobby McFerrin, Simple Pleasures, "All I Want"
Bobby McFerrin, Simple Pleasures, "Drive My Car"
Bobby McFerrin, Simple Pleasures, "Sunshine Of Your Love"
The Cosmos, Sort Of, Kind Of, Not Really, But Badly Executed By..., "What's Black And White"
Left Front Tire, 42 Ways To Lose A Friend, "For What It Means"
Downstroke, Distorted Sunshine, "You Might Like It"
Monostar, The Airport, "Bahamas Heavy!"

We started out the show by my talking about the problem of racism we faced living in North Carolina and how it was much more overt there than it is here (it's still a problem here, it's just more subtle and subversive) and how Morgan had a vision for a short film that used the Magnapop song as its soundtrack (the film was to be more of a music video with a story). She then read: Imagine a slave woman on a plantation working in the field with her baby wailing from the hot sun on it's tender skin. She hears the baby wailing but cannot comfort it for fear of stopping her work and being whipped for it. Later she expresses her growing hatred and frustration by burning down her master's house and walking away from all of the pain. "You Can't See My Anger/You Can Only Feel It." I can't find a link to the song anywhere, so you'll have to take my word that it works really well as an idea and that it's powerful to hold that image listening to the music.

And then, the spontaneous playlist for Mid-Day Mind Control... this is where Morgan's creativity really came to the fore when she spontaneously suggested after playing the B-52's song "Juliet Of The Spirits" (my request) and Sister Soleil's "Liar" (her request) that we had embarked on an exploration of relationships and that we would continue the rest of the show examining various aspects of that theme. As I wrote on the playlist notes: We did all the facets of valentines: from love to breakup, from creepy to the innocent, from the stalker to the couple. From the passion of relationships to the passion of art and creativity. A wonderful moment of spontaneous radio (and a kickass set of music to boot)!

B-52's, Funplex, "Juliet Of The Spirits"
Sister Soleil, Soularium, "Liar"
Art Of Noise, The Seduction of Claude Debussy, "The Holy Egoism Of Genius"
Evelyn Evelyn, Evelyn Evelyn, "Elephant Elephant"
Don Felder, Heavy Metal Soundtrack, "Heavy Metal (Takin' A Ride)"
Seal, Seal, "Show Me"
Pomplamoose, Pomplacovers, "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)"
Kurt Swinghammer, Vostok 6, "Valentina"
Pomplamoose, Pomplasongs, "If You Think You Need Some Lovin"
Neutralizing Force, This Is What We Do!!!, "Two Plus Two Makes Four"

We actually had two separate and independent requests for Pomplamoose (?!?!) and played ones that tied into the theme of the show. I was also blown away by Morgan's decision to play the extremely flippant "Elephant Elephant" song immediately after the very serious "The Holy Egoism Of Genius", but she explained it (on air) as being an amazing example of the holy egoism of genius in the guise of Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley. It was also funny in that when the next host came in shortly before 4PM, the song "Two Plus Two Makes Four" was playing. It's a "chip music" composition (I'm a huge fan of chip music!!!) and he asked what 70s album it was from... well, it's off a 2005 compilation that a friend of mine had a song on (Ad·ver·sary)... ah, the old is new again :).

And here's a video of a live performance of "The Holy Egoism Of Genius" (and if you want to follow it up with "Elephant Elephant", it's here, heh).

Here's the playlist for my fourth show (Jan. 17th, 2011)... which also turned into a spontaneous back-to-back (2 hour long) show because the next host didn't show up again. As a reminder, my show is broadcast live and prone to error every second Monday from 2PM to 3PM (Eastern Time) on 93.1FM in Ottawa or streaming audio on http://www.ckcufm.com/. You can always go here to find out when the next show will be (or read my playlists). Of this show, I wrote:

Kinda went techno on this show even if that did include fiddles in place of synths doing covers of The Grid tunes. Jumped a little back to pop in places to dust off the palate and played some gorgeous Sloan Wainwright just to keep folks off balance.

This show, I did a spotlight on Andrea Parker. Not to be confused with the actress of the same name, this is the dark/deep electro-trance DJ from England, and her groundbreaking 1999 album Kiss My Arp. Kiss My Arp was meticulously stitched together at longtime studio compatriot David Morlay's studio, a world away from her London home, deep in the Bavarian countryside over the course of four years, and one of my prize finds in the dollar bins. I played two tracks to start. The second harkened back to the previous show: "Acoustic Frontiers" in that it’s composed with a particular found sound, thus it’s title "Sneeze".

Sneeze was the first track Andrea recorded for the album. In addition to the electronics in her music, she uses found audio, like the sound samples that form the backbone of "Sneeze". That's actually her sneezing, she says, chopped up into a four-bar loop. She says she took an approach like the Art Of Noise used to take; just finding as many mad sounds as you can possibly find and sticking them together. She remembers going out for the day and leaving her DAT machine recording for 24 hours. Just stuffing tape after tape into it and recording things like the sound of her car tires driving over those reflective cats eyes in the road.

I played one more track called "Return of the Rocking Chair" definitely a dark and emotional piece with vocals reminiscent of Portishead, and if you feel as though you know the musical style that wouldn’t be surprising because it was spectacularly orchestrated by Will Malone — whose strings have graced everything from horror soundtracks to Massive Attack's "Unfinished Symphony", which is where I recognized the sound from. She recently signed to the Aperture label and has released tracks on various compilations. Here’s hoping she does another full-length album sometime soon.

And here's the playlist for The Dollar Bin:

Charm Farm, Pervert, "Superstar"
BKS f. Ashley MacIsaac, Astroplane, "Swamp Thing"
King Missile, King Missile, "Socks"
Andrea Parker, Kiss My Arp, "Going Nowhere"
Andrea Parker, Kiss My Arp, "Sneeze"
Andrea Parker, Kiss My Arp, "Return of the Rocking Chair"
Romania, Teenbeat 1996 (Sampler, "My Eyes Burn"
Atomic Babies, Breuklen Heightz, "Catch Da Donkey"
Sloan Wainwright, Cool Morning, "Ready or Not"
Transister, Transister, "Head"
Blast Off Country Style, Teenbeat 1996 (Sampler), "Bedtime Bandit"

And the spontaneous playlist for Mid-Day Mind Control:

BKS, Astroplane, "Astroplane"
Anthony Marinelli, f. Ozomatli, Herb Alpert Re-Whipped, "Love Potion #9"
Transister, Transister, "Look Who's Perfect Now"
Mocean Worker, Herb Alpert Re-Whipped, "Bittersweet Samba"
Transister, Transister, "Dizzy Moon"
John King (Dust Brothers), Herb Alpert Re-Whipped, "A Taste of Honey"
The Hunger/Robotiko Rejecto, Cinematic Superthug/Robotiko Part 2, "Shock/Injection (live mashup)"
Hole, Tank Girl Soundtrack, "Drown Soda"
Knive Eight, Inconvalescent, "Pop Song '09"
Knive Eight, Inconvalescent, "La Ville Ou J'Habite"
The Rabid Whole, Autraumaton Remixed, "The Strings Inside (Psykkle Mix)"
Pomplamoose, Videosongs, "Telephone"
Pomplamoose, Videosongs, "Expiration Date"

Had lots of fun playing all sorts of whacky stuff I had, as well as stuff I randomly pulled out of the "New Canadian Content" shelves of CKCU's music library. I particularly liked Knive Eight if you get a chance to listen to him.

And here's the original version of "Swamp Thing" by The Grid... doesn't sound like the Ashley MacIsaac, but it's still pretty good ;).

Here's the playlist for my second show (Dec. 20th, 2010). As a reminder, it's broadcast every second Monday from 2PM to 3PM (Eastern Time) on 93.1FM in Ottawa or streaming audio on http://www.ckcufm.com/. You can always go here to find out when the next show will be (or read my playlists). Of this show, I simply wrote:

From garage to spaghetti westerns to Poland, all manner of glorious finds can be had in The Dollar Bin.

I did a spotlight on one of my favourite finds ever from a dollar bin: Dr. No. From my “show notes” to myself (ganked from various web sites):

Spotlight on one of the great surprises I’ve had in recent dollar bin dives. I picked up the album because it had a picture of a woman flinging her dreads on the cover and it was from Sony Music Entertainment “Polska”. Always on the lookout for the new and interesting, I thought I’d give it a try. Wow, I seriously love this band. We’ll start out with two tracks, “I Will” and “Light”... really interesting instrumentation and lyrics... They did release a video for “Light” if you’d like to see the face behind the voice (there’s also one for a song I’ll be playing later, “Zanim”).

Dr. No was formed by Marcin Orlowski (bass, keyboards, samples) and Michal Orzel (keyboards, samples) at the end of 1999. People got to know the band thanks to popular youth radio station called “Radiostacja” and it’s music festival Pepsi Faza. Two of the early Dr. No tracks “Funky fashion, funky beats” and “70's” were placed on Pepsi faza compilations. At that time Marcin and Michal cooperated with vocalist Wit Dziki.

In 2003 U-zek, owner of Sissy Secords (BMG sub-label) invites Dr. No to take part in his new compilation called “Projekt Si 031” where the band gets the chance to introduce a brand new track “Dziesiatka/Free me” recorded together with a new vocalist Karolina Kozak. The track is picked to be the first single to promote the whole album. Thanks to that, Dr. No shoots the first video. At the same time Karolina joins the band and all three start to work on the debut album with producer Bogdan Kondracki.

Dr. No debut album called “Almost done” is released on 9th of August 2004. It contains music based on swaying rhythms and spacy sounds enhanced with Karolina’s melodical, warm voices. Apart form typical electronic sounds one can find live instruments such as acoustic guitar, violin or trumpet. The whole material might be described as music alternative to pop. Ms. Kozak does appear to have gone on to do bunches of solo work and this does appear to be only album released so far (although they’ve done a couple of singles and contributions to compilations). Here’s hoping they do something new.

And how about something from them in Polish, just to show they’re the real deal and can do this in multiple languages too? Going to follow that up with another track with a harder edged, more electronica sound to it... but still with Kozak's distinctive vocals through it all.

My “Fromage” set featured one of my favourite composers, but these ones stand out because they're so odd:

From the master of the Italian western soundtrack, Morricone himself... the guy who brought us the sublime theme for “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” (which still gives me goosebumps to this day). Off of the soundtrack Il Ritorno Di Ringo (The Return of Ringo). Sung by Maurizio Graf (there must have been some sort of graft getting him on there). There’s tons of good music on this compilation, but there’s more than one that left me wondering what the heck he was thinking.

Off the We’ll Be Back, Isn’t That Fate? Title track. Don’t know why, but it has a sort-of Japanese feel to it. It makes me smile and raise my eyebrow at the same time... which is fine unless you have a headache, in which case it hurts. But maybe one shouldn’t listen to that sort of thing with a headache... just sayin’...

And here's the playlist (I'll toss up the audio sometime in the next few weeks):

1000 Mona Lisas, New Disease, "Maybe It's All Forgiven"
1000 Mona Lisas, New Disease, "New Disease"
Bonesugar, Human Cattle For The Greys, "Pleiadian"
Ashley MacIsaac, Hi(tm), How Are You Doing?, "Brenda Stubbert"
Crash Vegas, Red Earth, "Moving Too Fast"
Plague of Ethyls, Starball Contributions (Compilation), "Warped And Twisted"
Ennio Morricone, Spaghetti Western, "Il Ritorno Di Ringo (The Return Of Ringo)"
Ennio Morricone, Spaghetti Western, "Ci Risiamo, Vero Provvidenza (We'll Be Back, Isn't That Fate?)"
Dr. No, Almost Done, "I Will"
Dr. No, Almost Done, "Light"
Dr. No, Almost Done, "Zanim"
Dr. No, Almost Done, "Think"
Nelly Furtado, Whoa. Nelly!, "Legend"
Llama Farmers, Dead Letter Chorus, "PVC"

And there ya have it. I leave you with some Dr. No:

Here's the playlist from my inaugural show of "The Dollar Bin". It will be broadcast live every second Monday (starting December 6th) from 2PM to 3PM on 93.1FM in Ottawa or streaming at www.ckcufm.com on the Internet. You can always get this and other playlists from the program entry on the CKCU web site (mentioned above). From the short description I wrote:

I’m here to bring you my latest and greatest finds from diving in the dollar bins at record shops from here to the Florida panhandle and everything in between. I'll play music from hardcore to folk, ambient to noise, from high falutin' to gutter trash, profound to moronic, fast and slow, from here and from there. The rules are simple: it’s gotta be for sale in a retail store I walk into, it’s gotta be $3 or less but it can't be free (and it can't be given/sold to me specifically to play, it has to be a random find on my part), and it doesn’t make it to the air on this show unless it stands out from the crowd. A little edgy, a little unique, and a little fun!

Feel free to call for requests, but since I only come to the show girded for airplay with a bagful of the random stuff I've found, I usually won't be able to play specific bands or songs (unless you've heard it on the show before, and even then only if I happen to have it on me) — but what I can do is head in the direction of a musical style or maybe spin it on the following show if I can't wedge it into the mix right away. Feedback is always welcome, and you can reach me at dafriar23@gmail.com.

Of this particular show I wrote:

All the albums I played on this show were picked up in record stores in Charlotte or Winston-Salem (wonder what they make there?), North Carolina. The show had a mini-spotlight on the electro-bugglegum band Hyperbubble. Promise there'll be more "can con" in coming shows!

And here's the playlist (Note: if you want copies of the audio after the fact, send me a private message here or at the email address I give in the show description):

Magnapop, Rubbing Doesn't Help, "Come On Inside"
Gloritone, Cup Runneth Over, "Halfway"
Groovenics, Groovenics, "She's A Freak"
Earatik Statik, Feelin' Earatik, "Smile Poem (f. Denise Ruiz)"
Elastica, Elastica, "Waking Up"
Monostar, The Airport, "Under Disco Lights"
Flight 16, Flight 16, "It's A Shame"
Vallejo, Vallejo, "Boogieman"
Matt Malloy, Pyloric Waves, "Traffic Lights Cause Accidents"
Hyperbubble, Airbrushed Alibis, "Rollerboogie Babydoll"
Hyperbubble, Airbrushed Alibis, "Non-Biodegradable Hazardous Waste Disposal"
Letters To Cleo, Wholesale Meats and Fish, "Demon Rock"
Toxic Popsicle, Pyloric Waves, "American Dream"
Mad At Gravity, Resonance, "Burn"

All in all, I fell flat on my face a couple of times, but was pleased with the fact I was able to stumble back onto my feet fairly well and keep moving. Could have been better, but could have been a lot worse! I am actually looking forward to my next show and have started sifting through the debris for more valuables to put on the air :).

P.S. Did I mention they gave me a mofo radio show?!?!?! OMGWTF!!! :)

Okay... back to work (just got up after pulling an "all nighter" to finish an assignment)! Studying for exams: a 4th year CompSci course on parallel programming (multi-core CPU, networked computing clusters, and GPU chips) tomorrow at 9AM (14 hours away as I post), and my 2nd year physics on special relativity and intro to quantum physics Friday at 2PM (43 hours away). And no, I'm not prepared properly for either XP.

Stereo serenades your mind with Candy Apple Daydreams (swoon... electro-bubblegum pop... my guilty pleasure). Mmmmm...

Here's the playlists from the two shows I did "fill in" for "The Mixtape" on CKCU FM, a bi-weekly show Monday/Tuesday overnight (midnight to 2AM Tuesday... it's offically listed as "Monday overnight"). I'm very happy with some of my mixes and got calls on my first show asking about Iszoloscope and Galactic (not bad for a first "from scratch" solo gig, I had no template). I got one pledge for the second show (it was during the funding drive), heh, but no calls about the music.

http://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/57/2780.html

Artist, Album Name, "Song Name"

Iszoloscope, Beyond Within, "The Sum Of Us All (Esa Remix)"
Ministry, The Matrix Soundtrack, "Bad Blood"
Clay People, The Iron Icon, "Pale God"
Nash The Slash, In-A-Gadda-Da-Nash, "Astronomy Domine"
Ad·Ver·Sary, A Bright Cut Across The Sky, "Exit (Sartre Wasn't Kidding Remix by Candle Nine)"
Neckrosis, Demo, "Bloody Saw"
Stendeck, Faces, "The Day I Saw You Cry For The First Time"
Stendeck, Faces, "Beneath Wonderland's Decay"
Stendeck, Faces, "Like Falling Crystals"
Evelyn Evelyn, Evelyn Evelyn, "The Tragic Events of September, Part I"
Good Charlotte, The Chronicles Of Life And Death, "Once Upon A Time: The Battle Of Life And Death"
Rage Against The Machine, The Matrix Soundtrack, "Wake Up"
Earatik Statik, Feelin' Earatik, "Smile poem feat. Denise Ruiz"
Earatik Statik, Feelin' Earatik, "Smile feat. Zulu"
Galactic, Vintage Reserve, "Quiet Please"
Morcheeba, The Antidote, "Antidote"
Money Mark, Push The Button, "Push The Button"
Dirty Vegas, Dirty Vegas, "Candles"
Dirty Vegas, Dirty Vegas, "All Or Nothing"
Dr. No, Almost Done, "Think"
Enigma, Enigma 2: The Cross Of Change, "Age Of Loneliness (Carly's Song)"
Delirium, Euphoric, "Decade"
Fatal Flying Guilloteens, I Hate It Here, I Never Want To Leave, "Cobra Pills"

http://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/347/2888.html

Artist, Album Name, "Song Name"

Flight 16, Flight 16, "If All The World Hated Me"
Front Line Assembly, Epitaph, "Krank It Up"
The Clay People, The Clay People, "Awake"
Hed Pe, Agroactive Tuneup No 7, "Serpent Boy (Remix)"
Captured! By Robots, The Ten Commandments, "Nefritiri Sex Jam"
Pomplamoose, The Covers, "Beat It (Michael Jackson)"
Snagglepuss, The Country Club Sessions, "Action Figure"
The Ting Tings, We Started Nothing, "Shut Up And Let Me Go"
Soundgarden, Down On The Upside, "Burden In My Hand"
Max Webster, The Best Of..., "Battle Scar"
Herbie Hancock, The Best Of (The Hits!), "Rockit!"
William Shatner, Has Been, "It Hasn't Happened Yet"
Chumbawamba, Readymade, "Sewing Up Crap"
Sarah McLachlan, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, "Fear"
Robert Fripp, Exposure, "Water Music I"
Robert Fripp, Exposure, "Here Comes The Flood"
Moby, 18, "Great Escape"
Sister Soleil, Soularium, "Hit Me"
Kate Bush, The Dreaming, "Get Out Of My House"
Plastic Bertrand, Tout Petit La Planete (EP), "Tout Petit La Planète"
Foo Fighters, Songs In The Key of X, "Down In The Park (Gary Numan)"
Nash The Slash, And You Thought You Were Normal, "Vincen't Crows"
Holy Fuck, Latin, "Red Lights"
Dead Roses, I Hate It Here, I Never Want To Leave, "I Death You To Death"
NARC, This Is What We Do!!!, "555-1212"
Kidneythieves, Agroactive Tuneup Number 7, "S+M (A Love Song)"

Since I played Money Mark on the show, I figure it'd be appropriate to share one of my favourite songs of all time (by Money Mark, surprise). It's called "Information Contraband" and has one of the coolest videos I've ever seen. The graphic arts direction in it is revolutionary (it's from 2001 and precedes several videos that use the same techniques that people might be more familiar with). Sadly, the only copy I can find on the 'net is small and too dark... but it's worth it for the glimpse and for the music. Hopefully I can find a proper version of it for my collection some day!