J's Indie/Rock Mayhem - 16th January 2008

[Ah, another week and another J's Indie/Rock Mayhem. This is a unique show in that we were off the air until I started the station up for the show. We're still on temporary schedule while school is getting started back at Guilford and we had some gaps in the schedule. So you'll get to hear me go through the sign-on statement and all that stuff. Thrilling, I know.

Congrats to Dave who named three Drive-By Truckers albums in order to win this week's $15 gift certificate from BB's New and Used CDs and DVDs. We give that away every week at the beginning of the third block of music, so tune in for your chance to answer and win.

I'll be conducting a phone interview with Darin Wald of Minneapolis, Minnesota's Big Ditch Road tomorrow night. Look for that to broadcast probably the week after next in conjunction with a review of their new EP. Now, in the meantime, let's go. Onward.]

J's Indie/Rock Podcast: 16th January 2008 Show

Theme Song - Peaches - "Rock Show"
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Oakley Hall - "Rue the Blues" [from 2007's i'll follow you. a really great rambler of a song. that album is really growing on me even more - it's a definitely sonic step-up for the band from the excellent twin releases that preceded it.]
Son Volt - "Drown" [from trace. ah, the mid-late 90s - a time when songs like this could actually get play on 'alternative' rock stations. and indeed that was the first place i ever heard son volt - on 106.5, the very commercial alt-rock station in charlotte. now it's a 'modern rock' station (whatever that means). but this song is still great. as is the album.]
Georgie James - "More Lights" [from places. thankfully i live out in the rural/suburban part of the county where 'more lights' are definitely not necessary. in fact, it's one of the reasons why i moved out here. i actually like it to get dark at night. go figure. this song, however, is wonderful.]
They Might Be Giants - "Don't Let's Start" [from their self-titled 1986 album. the first show i ever went to at the now-closed location of ziggy's was this band. a hellacious show. and this song, one of the videos i remember seeing on 120 minutes in days of yore. catchy stuff.]
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the Whigs - "Right Hand on My Heart" [from mission control which is out next week. they'll be at local 506 in chapel hill on wednesday, january 30th. i probably won't be there, sadly. you can check out their myspace page to stream this and three other songs from the new record as well. they all sound amazing.]
the Breeders - "The She" [by request. from title tk, their reunion record from 2002. the word on the street is that kim deal is working on a new breeders album, though when it'll come out, i have no clue. still - gotta love that. i honestly haven't heard a kim deal project (pixies, breeders, the amps) that i've ever disliked.]
the Replacements - "Anywhere's Better Than Here" (live) [this is from a radio-only single of "i'll be you." it has a set of live tracks after the studio single. the live version of their cover of "another girl, another planet" that's on the second disc of the all for nothing/nothing for all compilation is from this same radio sampler and the same show that this song was recorded at. i love when the band drops out and the audience sings along - as a really sincere fan of this band, moments like that give me chills.]
the Graves of Fairmount - "Ignore the Forecast" [from calendars and casualties EP. great, great indie-rock in every sense of the term.]
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Drive-By Truckers - "The Righteous Path" [from the forthcoming brighter than creation's dark, due out next week on january 22nd. look for my review of it next monday. i can already tell i like this record more than the woefully disappointing a blessing and a curse. patterson's songs are uniformly pretty strong, as are cooley's, and shonna tucker's songwriting debuts for the band are pretty stellar as well. you can read and hear more next week in the review.]
Swirlies - "BELL" [from blonder tongue audio baton. i'm going to be doing this album as the return trip feature sometime in the next few weeks. it's been on my 'to-do' list for that feature for awhile. i love this kind of indie-rock - noisy, catchy, cataclysmic. people complain about the 90s as a wasteland of music, but just below the surface there was some serious stuff going on.]
Geraldine Fibbers - "You Doo Right" [from butch. this is their cover of the can song that i meant to play last week. so, i fixed it. very good stuff.]
President - "Light Magus" [from take music. this is the missing piece of the 'where'd everyone from q and not u go?' puzzle. this actually shows up in randomocity on friday, so i'll wait to talk about it then.]
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Citified - "KL Gala" [another from the forthcoming the meeting after the meeting. you can stream it along with some others from the EP at their myspace. one of my very favorite greensboro bands.]
Kurt Wagner - "Slipped Dissolved and Loosed" [from kurt, released last year. one of the more gorgeous songs on this very spare release which i touched on in the debut of the singled out feature last week.]
the Posies - "Love Letter Boxes" [from frosting on the beater which i reviewed this week. this was one of the songs that narrowly lost out for me to feature as part of the review, so here it is. it's a fantastic album.]
Brad Laner - "From Inside" [from neighbor singing. more gorgeous, layered (and layered) pop music.]
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the Magnetic Fields - "California Girls" [from distortion. this stephin merritt's first album under the magnetic fields moniker since 2004's i, and it's an amazing return from all i've heard. the av club gave it kudos and you can read their review and listen to this song while you do at their site.]
Josh Rouse - "Nothing Gives Me Pleasure" [from under cold blue stars. this album is arguably the beginning of rouse's high water mark (with the subsequent 1972 and nashville winding it up) and is still probably my favorite of his. i saw him at a house show on tour for this record - sitting in a living room (the old pine hill farm in durham, nc) no further from him than a few feet. a really magnificent night.]
That Petrol Emotion - "A Million Miles Away" [from manic pop thrill. now i normally don't play return trip features on back to back weeks, but this album is so chock full of great songs, i had to at least play one more before i retire it again for a bit. plus, i wanted to see if my theory played out for anyone listening. you can read more about my theory in the next song's description.]
Spacehog - "Almond Kisses" [from the chinese album. i'm convinced that this and the that petrol emotion song sound a lot alike. so i played them back to back. no one commented when i put them both up for download in the review of manic pop thrill, so i'm begging for comments about this. am i crazy?]
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Big Ditch Road - "All the Way to Idaho" [from the jackson whites. like i mentioned above, i'll be doing an interview with big ditch road member darin wald tomorrow evening and i will probably broadcast it week after next. their new EP is really nice and should be available digitally pretty soon.]
Iron Maiden - "Losfer Words (Big 'Orra)" [from powerslave. one of the great metal instrumentals. and of course, whenever i play metal on QFS, the requests start coming in. i don't know if metal fans just listen to QFS waiting for someone to hint that they might be open to playing metal or what, but they're on it like nobody's business.]
Matthew Sweet - "I Don't Wanna Know" [from kimi ga suki*raifu, the album sweet originally only released in japan, but later capitulated (thankfully) into giving a stateside release. re-uniting the girlfriend-era studio band and cutting a set of songs almost as quickly as they were written, it was the most off-the-cuff and immediately enjoyable records sweet had recorded in some time.]
Heartless Bastards - "Gray" [from stairs and elevators. this came up on random (thank you, mp3 player) and just bowled me over. i do so love this band.]
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Marah - "Angels of Destruction" [the title track from their new album which i reviewed this week. it's a really solid record from a really solid band. sadly 2008 seems to be the year of 'hey, let's play north carolina shows on wednesday nights so j. can't come see us play!' both marah and the whigs are playing wednesday shows. blah.]
Megadeth - "Symphony of Destruction (Edited Gristle)" [by request. this is a re-mix of the classic megadeth song, from countdown to extinction, done by trent reznor. an interesting proposition and it pays off alright. still, i enjoyed the unintentional pairing of songs with the word 'destruction' in the title.]
Verbena - "Baby Got Shot" [from into the pink. this is just a raucous and awesome song. end of story.]
XTC - "Respectable Street" [from black sea. bouncy, XTC pop is always a great way to go out.]

That'll do it for J's Indie/Rock Mayhem this week. Check back in on Friday for Notes From Underground and next week for new album reviews and next week's show. Until then, take care.