Altrok Radio FM Showcase Playlist 3/16/2012

This week's show went off into the stratosphere for a bit, which is always a goal.  Also, as of this week, we've added 1900 songs to The Grinder (those are the ones we're trying to grind into your ears - at least we're upfront about it.) The classics we chose shouldn't disappoint, either.

Check it out...

Now, Now - Thread - Threads
Simple Minds - I Travel - Empires And Dance
Bear In Heaven - The Reflection Of You - I Love You, It's Cool
Arthur, Joseph - Travel As Equals - Redemption City (Grinder 1900)
Let's Active - Every Word Means No - Afoot
Bird, Andrew - Near Death Experience Experience - Break It Yourself

DeLong, Robert - Just Movement - Happy EP (Grinder 1899)
R.E.M. - Strange - Document
We Were Pirates - Better Off Without You - Change

Miike Snow - Paddling Out - Paddling Out [Single] (Grinder 1898)
U2 - Wire - The Unforgettable Fire
Gold Fields - Treehouse - Treehouse EP
School Of Seven Bells - Scavenger - Ghostory
XTC - Living Through Another Cuba - Black Sea
Said The Whale - Heavy Ceiling - Little Mountain

Horrors, The - I Can See Through You - Skying (Grinder 1897)
Adverts, The - Gary Gilmore's Eyes - Crossing The Red Sea With The Adverts
Brixton Riot, The - Ocean Avenue - Palace Amusements
Secret Music - T.O.Y.S. - T.O.Y.S. [Single]
Breton - Interference - Interference [Single]

Ritter, Josh - Love Is Making Its Way Back Home - Bringing In The Darlings
Anti-Flag - This Is The New Sound - This Is The New Sound [Single]
Pailhead - Don't Stand In Line - Trait
Deer Tick - Let's All Go To The Bar - Let's All Go To The Bar [Single]
Wombats, The - Jump Into The Fog - Jump Into The Fog [Single]
Wild Belle - Keep You - Keep You

Rose, Frankie - Daylight Sky - Interstellar (Grinder 1896)
Saints, The - Big Hits (On The Underground) - All Fools Day
Big History - Wardrum - All At Once
Morning Parade - Youth - The Hated And The Loved EP (Grinder 1895)
Lowe, Nick - Cracking Up - Labour Of Lust
Lucero - Women & Work - Women & Work

Just about everything here made it into the playlist at Altrok 90.5 HD2 last night, so if you missed their premieres on the FM Showcase, you'll hear 'em throughout the day if you tune in. So...do that.

Obscure? Not Anymore.

Regular listener Andrew writes:

You're playing Thomas Dolby doing obscure Joni Mitchell. How amazing is that!

In fact, I was - and the Dolby cover itself was pretty obscure, too, given that it was available only as the B-side for the One Of Our Submarines single in the UK. But then I remembered that it was also featured on Dolby's "Live Wireless" embellished concert video. Note that I say "embellished" because the entire show is presented as though it's Dolby, playing a projectionist, presenting the concert as though what's on stage is the thing being projected. At one point, the film even gets stuck, causing all participants on stage to freeze.

"Since it's a video," I mused for about a nanosecond, "it must be available on the net..."

It is. Officially. Courtesy Dolby's old label.

Here it is.


And that's why I like the Intartubes.

Miles And Matt, From The Cheap Seats

I keep meaning to get around to digitizing some of the video I've shot - here's a nice one with three great things in it: Miles Hunt, Matt Pinfield and The Melody Bar.

Altrok's Top 30, 2/28/2012

You keep listening, we'll keep playing - here's the top 30 releases on Altrok 90.5 HD2 we played in the past week...

1       FRANKIE ROSE    Interstellar    Slumberland
2       LITTLE BARRIE   King Of The Waves       Tummy Touch
3       YOUNG REBEL SET Curse Our Love  EMI
4       POLICA  Give You The Ghost      Totally Gross National Product
5       CLOUD NOTHINGS  Attack On Memory        Carpark
6       TREMOR LOW      Kingmaker EP
7       WHITE RABBITS   Milk Famous     TBD
8       VARIOUS ARTISTS Please Please Please: A Tribute To The Smiths  American Laundromat
9       YOUNG KNIVES    Ornaments From The Silver Arcade
10      VARIOUS ARTISTS Ready Set Go!   Defend
11      PORCELAIN RAFT  Strange Weekend Secretly Canadian
12      ISLANDS A Sleep And A Forgetting        Anti
13      TING TINGS      "Hang It Up" [Single]   Columbia
14      SOFT SWELLS     Soft Swells     Modern Outsider
15      KAISER CHIEFS   "On The Run" [Single]   Universal
16      NADA SURF       The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy  Barsuk
17      GRIMES  Visions 4AD
18      MAGIC WANDS     "Space" [Single]
19      JOHN FOXX AND THE MATHS Evergreen
20      ASTEROIDS GALAXY TOUR   Out Of Frequency        BMG
21      SAN CISCO       Awkward Self-Released
22      NEW CASSETTES   Winterhead      Hype
23      CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG    Stage Whisper   Elektra-Because
24      SANTIGOLD       "Disparate Youth" [Single]      Downtown
25      ARIANE MOFFATT  MA
26      VALERY TRAILS   Ghosts & Gravity
27      FANFARLO        "Shiny Things" [Single]
28      JOHN K. SAMSON  Provincial      Epitaph-Anti
29      SLEIGH BELLS    Reign Of Terror Mom And Pop
30      THE DO  Both Ways Open Jaws     Six Degrees

If you want to know what'll make the chart next week (or just want to hear a lot of good music) tune in at Altrok 90.5 HD2...

All Alone At The '64 World's Fair? Hopefully Not

Outside of a connection to more than one They Might Be Giants song/video, there's not much to say about Altrok's kind of music in this post, but maybe that's enough.

I was born a New Yorker in 1964, lived in The Bronx until 1970, and have near-memories of having been brought to the 1964 World's Fair in its second season by my parents.  I'd have been one year old, give or take, and that's why I say "near-memories", because I think what memories I have are really my parents pointing out the scenes from "It's A Small World" as they played during the opening for Walt Disney's Wonderful World Of Color and saying "you saw that when you were a baby".  Of course, back then they told me I was a model for Carter's, so I guess I peaked early.

(Truth? I actually was a model for Carter's when I was a baby, and my contract with the Marge McDermott Agency expired when I turned 18. So, hey, apparently I was a cute kid, and I can say with some level of truth to my wife that she's married to a male model. Aheh.)

But I've harbored a lingering fascination with the World's Fair and the diaspora of its attractions as I've stumbled across them as they've moved from their original installations (The Skyride at Six Flags Great Adventure! The whole "It's A Small World" ride at Disneyland in California and the Carousel Of Progress at Disney World! Etc.) and whenever I get the opportunity to stumble across ephemera from the time, well, that's pretty much a day I'll be spending doing more stumbling.

So, feeding this fascination, I've collected a few conveniently uploaded videos from YouTube, but I have a yearning for more. Like, for instance, it'd be nice to see something that audiences saw in the egg-shaped IBM pavilion. All I can find is the folk trio (made up of IBM employees - my father, a former IBMer himself, remembers the woman on the left from Personnel) at about the 6 minute mark in the clip below.

There is much more video to post, but I've probably given you enough links to enough related videos to keep you busy a while.

But what about what I can't post?  Some thirty million people went to the fair, surely there's a pile of home movies out there...

Enter the folks behind this here Kickstarter project:


So they've apparently put many thousands of dollars of time and effort into collecting and shooting film and video of the before-and-after of the Fair, and I'd like to see it - and if you're here, you might, too.  Follow this link to kick in if you're interested...I have.

When it's done...well, it'll be another little something to distract me from keeping Altrok 90.5 HD2 up to date, but since Altrok 90.5 HD2 is a distraction all its own...not for long.