Radio Playlist from February 5, 2009

Shit I played

Your Subterranean Homesick Life

1. Franz Ferdinand – Ulysses
2. Gangsta Blues – A R Rahman
3. Los Lobos – Mas Y Mas
4. Nas Ft. Olu Dara – Bridging the Gap
5. Burial – Untrue
6. Quantum Soul Orchestra – Pushin’ On
7. Wilco – I Got You (At the End of the Century)
8. The Stamp Collectors – Never Too Late
9. The Bad Plus – Feeling Yourself Disintigrate
10. Jake Shamukuro – While my Guitar Gently Weeps
11. Claude Debussy – Reverie
12. She & Him – Why Do You Let Me Stay Here
13. The Cat Empire – The Night that Never Ends

WONY In Green

1. Charles Mingus – Moanin’
2. Cab Calloway – St. Infirmary Blues
3. David Fiuczinski - Moonring Bacchanal
4. Joe Zawinul and the Zawinul Syndicate – Scarlet Woman
5. The Bad Plus – Variations d’Apollon
6. Oscar Peterson & Joe Pass - Soft Winds
7. Tom Gavornik – Nocturne
8. Charlie Parker – Compulsion
9. Terence Blanchard & Friends – Simplemente Simon


I came across a video I'd been looking for a while in preparation for last night's show. During New Orleans Brass practice one afternoon, we were trading YouTube videos and Art Falbush showed this incredible performance from Cab Calloway and the wonderful tap dance duo the Nicholas Brothers.

It goes something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8yGGtVKrD8

How those two fully grown men manage to keep their bright and upbeat composition while they jump down those stairs, I'll never know. They don't make feet like them no more.

-DJ Scarecrow

P.S., if anyone wants to tell me how to make that video actually appear in my blog post, it'd be much obliged.

P.P.S, for those of you interested in learning more about The Stamp Collectors (and their affiliates:
http://www.myspace.com/stampco

The original postscript could apply here as well.

Radio Playlist from January 29, 2009

I'm running a little late with this one, but I'm getting it done. That's all. Let's get to it!

Here's what I played:

Your Subterranean Homesick Life

1. Gogol Bordello - Not a Crime
2. Digable Planets - It's Good to Be Here
3. Devendra Banhart - Chinese Children
4. David Fiuczynski - Shiraz
5. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Albert Goes West
6. Busdriver & Aceyalone - Jazz Fingers
7. Jimmy Herring - One Strut
8. Drazy Hoops - I've Got to Admit I've Got a Problem
9. A Tribe Called Quest - Check the Rhime
10. Benyaro - Feelin' Low

WONY in Green

1. Dizzy Gillespie - A Night in Tunisia
2. Billet-Deux - Four on Six
3. Tom Beckham - Parting the Water
4. Billie Holiday - Guilty
5. Bud Powell - Ornithology
6. The Spencer Hoveskeland Trio - Bumbershoot
7. Roy Hargrove - April in Paris
8. Sonny Rollins - St. Thomas
9. David Grisman - Neon Tetra
10. Thelonious Monk - Monk's Dream
11. Jeff Coffin Mu'Tet - One In, One Out
12. Brad Mehldau - Exit Music (For a Film)

Radio Playlist for January 22, 2009

It was a weird edition of Your Subterranean Homesick Life, probably one of the weirdest ones I've had since I've started doing the show. It still felt smooth though, which I take as a sign of growing comfortable in my skin as an on-air personality. Hooray!

I love having a dual format show. Maybe next semester I'll stop overloading my schedule and get two shows.

Here's what I played:

Your Subterranean Homesick Life

1. Prince - Musicology
2. Derek Trucks Band - Get What You Deserve
3. Mary Mary - The Sound
4. Fela Kuti - Zombie
5. Bootsy Collins - I'd Rather Be With You
6. The Dismemberment Plan - One Too Many Blows to the Head
7. Caetano Veloso - Um Canto De Afoxé Para O Bloco De Ilê (Ilê Ayê)
8. Tom Gavornik
9. Kronos Quartet - El Llorar (Crying)
10. Andy Scott - Who Doesn't Call
11. Buena Vista Social Club - Chan Chan
12. Animal Collective - My Girls

WONY in Green

1. Rebirth Brass Band - Freedom
2. Boogaloo Joe Jones - Poppin'
3. Jay Jay Johnson - Coffee Pot
4. Lisa Hilton - Melt Down
5. Dexter Gordon - Love For Sale
6. Zen Zadravec - Quest for Truth
7. Kenny Burrell w/ Coleman Hawkins - Out of this World
8. Brian Patneaude Quartet - Exit
9. The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Everybody's Jumpin'
10. Chet Baker - I'm Old Fashioned

-DJ Scarecrow

Radio Playlist for January 15, 2009

First show of the year!
We lost two great musicians last December, and in an effort to put together my own last minute tribute, I played a large block of music from the great folk guitarist Davy Graham during Your Subterranean Homesick Life and devoted the whole of WONY in Green to the legendary bop trumpet player Freddie Hubbard. It's a damn shame, but the world is a better place because of these phenomenal artists.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and so on. Here's what I played:

Your Subterranean Homesick Life

1. Daedelus, Busdriver, and Pigeon John - Something Bells
2. A R Rahman and M.I.A. - O…Saya
3. Erykah Badu - Soldier
4. Davy Graham - Moanin’
5. Wes Montgomery - Caravan
6. David Byrne and Brian Eno - Life Is Long
7. Davy Graham - Take Five
8. Feist - Inside Out
9. The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist
10. Big Blue BallBurn You Up, Burn You Down
11. Lake Street Dive - As Much As I Do
12. Madness - Nightboat to Cairo
13. Devo - I Can’t Get No Satisfaction
14. Familiar Noise - Get it Started
15. Davy Graham - Lotus Blossom
16. Davy Graham - Anji
17. TV on the Radio - Lover’s Day

WONY in Green

1. Tony Williams and the Super Star Quintet - You Don't Know What Love Is
2. Thermo – Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
3. Plexus - Freddie Hubbard
4. Greensleeves - John Coltrane (No, Freddie Hubbard was not in this particular rendition of the tune; yes, I felt like a jackass. It was still a great song).
5. Osie Mae - Freddie Hubbard
6. Red Clay - Freddie Hubbard
7. Alone and I - Herbie Hancock

-DJ Scarecrow

They Cooked a Fucking Ostrich Egg: Iron Chef America and the 2008 Christmas Experience Tour

That's what we in the culinary world call an ostrich egg. An eccentric Italian chef cooked it on Iron Chef America just now during the Battle "Cobia," which is apparently some kind of fish. Simply awe inspiring.

And yes, I would say that this week marked my official entry into the culinary world, as I did cook two roasts with varying but generally successful results. For those who attended the shindig Monday, first of all, thank you for making it a success. Second, I'm sorry, because the second one I made was certainly better. I only apologize because I'm the only one who gets to eat the delicious roast beef sandwiches I'm sure will be made out of the left-overs.

I would post pictures of the roasts if I had any; instead, I'll create a segue.



It's a Jesus Cow!

Speaking of Jesus, it was his birthday yesterday (See? Segue. Awesome.), or so popular consent would indicate. I mean, of course Jesus wasn't actually born on the 25th of December, but who am I to want ruin a tradition that creates a sense of a true, divinely pure joy in so many people over a technicality? At the very least it's worth it to see the Snoopy dance every year.

Ultimately, the Christmas season seemed to fizzle out without much of splash this year. Maybe it was the impending apocalypse of the economy, or maybe it was just that I didn't watch as much television this season, but something seemed...subdued? I didn't even realize I hadn't done any holiday shopping until Christmas Eve afternoon, the point when it was impossible for me to get anywhere near the local shops until after Christmas (because I'm doing all local shopping this year. Support your community people! Best Buy/Wal-Mart/Big Box Store #A004D2 doesn't need that much help). I'd like to get over to Lark/Jay Streets.

Maybe my unusually mellow reaction to this king of holidays is due to the fact that I'm just getting older (my back was killing me whilst skiing the other day; oy vey). It's a ritual I suppose for people to remorse over the realization of their wilting, and any ending is a good trigger for this feeling (it's December; O hai, OhNine!), but I never really look back on my youth with the same sense of innocence and wonder that is found in your favorite song of general nostalgia (see: Vitamin C's "Graduation Song;" can you find any song less committal or more vague about the ideals of childhood than that one?). Some would say it's because I act like I'm half my age, but I think it's more my outlook on the future. As Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello said: "There were never any good ol' days, they are today; they are tomorrow; it's a stupid thing we say, cursing tomorrow with sorrow".

Ultimately, there was something rather special in the subtlety with which Christmas arrived for me this year, and I do think it symbolizes a change in my perception from last year. I don't think it's maturity really, just a change in perception.

Christmas is an event. It brings things that no other day can. But then again, so is Friday; so was last Sunday. Every day is an event, it has it's share of occupational and emotional events that make up a 24 hour span; 7 of these make up one week, and approximately 4 of these makes up a month, and 12 of these make up a year, and so on. What's the point of this old man's rambling? Mostly, to say that I'm looking forward to tomorrow just as much as I was looking forward to Christmas. I'm diving headfirst into a world unknown.

Basically, I'm looking forward to my days of wilting.

There's a man in Oneonta named Chuck (I don't want Pushing Daisies to die either. Mostly because I'm in love with Olive Snook. But I digress). If I had to guess, I would say he's something around the age of 300, and yet the man acts with more youth and vitality than most people I know in my generation. The man started playing the trombone a few years ago and is currently playing in every college ensemble he finds interesting with a trombone he got on a trip to India he bought for a pack of cigarettes a long time ago. I see him at the gym, staying in shape. He's about town, walking around with glasses the size of ostrich eggs, always with a purpose. He's an inspiration in that he's not trying to be great, he's just indulging in fundamental human curiosity, which too often gets lost after basic adulthood is reached.

I like that.

But I digress.

-Scarecrow

P.S. Gogol Bordello is playing in Philly on New Year's Eve for $38. The kicker? Special guest: the West Philadelphia Orchestra. A necessary show to attend? I think so.

Finals and Fizzy Fruit, a veritable combination!

This entry in my currently desolate weblog is something of a curios for me, if only for the fact that it's the first entry I've made that is entirely designed to fulfill the obligations of the blogger, mainly being to engage in the wonderful full-contact sport of self-indulgence. Up until now, it's acted well as my log for playlists for my radio show (which has officially been moved to Thursday, Midnight to 2 AM, starting next semester), a purpose that at least I feel has been a noble cause. Of course, it can never be too long after that initial taste of creating yet another outlet of identity management, one so specific and detailed it has to be fattening. before the allure of the blog's siren song to indulge in the sorting out of the inner-machinations of my mundane day-to-day life is too much for any child of the Internet generation to resist. What once was a rare sight of purity in function and form, so rare in that vast landscape of commercialism, self indulgence, and tits (often all three at the same time), that place we call the "Internets," has once again devolved into a pointless exercise in the organization of the minutia of the modern pre-adult/post-adolescent white male at the age of 20 in a world super-saturated with such identity masturbation.

So here I am, 3:30 in the AM, and like any good blogger, creating out of the need to do anything but what I'm supposed to (music theory final in 4 and a half hours). What was so important that it prompted this need to postpone my education until the wee hours of the morning before the biggest, most important exam in this class for this semester?

Fizzy fruit.

That's right, Fizzy Fruit. I saw it on Unwrapped. It's basically fruit that's been "fizzified" with carbonation to get kids to eat healthier. It comes in grape (seen above), orange, and...other flavors. I don't really know if this is an abomination of nature's candy or the greatest addition to fruit since steroids; all I know is I want some now.

On a final note, weasel biscuits.

-Scarecrow

Radio Playlist for December 7, 2008

Shit I played this past Sunday

Your Subterranean Homesick Life (it was a funky hour indeed)

1. Curtis Mayfield - "Freddie's Dead"
2. Marvin Gaye - "Right On"
3. Boogaloo Joe Jones - "Right On (Single Version)"
4. Booker T. and the MG's - "Soul Limbo"
5. T.S.U. Tornados - "Play the Music Tornados"
6. Stephen Colbert - "Another Christmas Song" (off an awesome Christmas album, by the by)
7. The Meters - "Stretch Your Rubber Band"
8. Parliament - "Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication"
9. Stevie Wonder - "Golden Lady"
10. James Brown - "Night Train"
11. Lake Street Dive "Be Cool" (great band, check them out )
12. Tom Waits - "Better Off Without a Wife"

WONY in Green

1. Cannonball Adderley - "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy"
2. Gilfema - "Question of Perspective"
3. Herbie Hancock - "The Maze"
4. Jeff Coffin Mu'Tet - "Move Your Rug"
5. Lisa Hilton - "Sunny Day Theory"
6. Mosaic - "Hikaru's Dance"
7. Charles Mingus "Haitian Fight Song"
8. Roy Hargrove - "Laura" (or at least about 10-15 seconds of it)
9. Stan Getz - "La Fiesta"

Incidentally, my show is probably going to be switched to late at night during the week (so my songs can swear more and I can have my weekends freed up). Just a head's up.

Also, I will not be on the air this upcoming Sunday due to complications in my schedule concerning an event that I cannot afford to miss (first skiing trip of the season), so as far as the radio is concerned, I'll see ya'll next semester!