Show Notes – Oh Messy Life February 17, 2023
Track 1: Love – My Little Red Book
I fell in love with this song via the soundtrack to Almost Famous. I played it here in honor of it’s composer, Burt Bacharach.
Track 2: Abbie from Mars – Tap Dance Interlude
I saw that Abbie from Mars was playing an event hosted by Stanford’s CCRMA, so I checked out some of her music. Those tap dance classes I took in elementary school meant I had to play this one.
Track 3: Abbie from Mars – Travel
The previous track from this album blended so nicely into this one I decided to play both.
Track 4: Dorothy Ashby – By the Time I Get to Phoenix
My two favorite Dorthy Ashby albums are Afro-Harping and The Rubáiyát Of Dorothy Ashby, so I took a look to see what else she had recorded around that time period and found the amazing Dorothy’s Harp album.
Track 5: Lola Martin – Femme Martinique Dou
I think I found this one via Bandcamp promo email.
Track 6: Orti, Mayorga y Chiriboga – Muñequita Blanca
Another Bandcamp find.
Track 7: Cumbias En Moog – Cumbia Del Sal
I tried to make a history of Cumbia mix a little while ago and came across this mind blowing gem.
Track 8: Real Cumbia Activa – Cumbia Nocturna
One more Bandcamp promo find.
Track 9: Vic Spencer & Small Professor – Pitfall Music (feat. Flee Lord & DJ Revolution)
Someone I follow over on Mastodon went on a big shopping spree last Bandcamp friday, and posted links to all their purchases. This one caught my ear.
Track 10: Sister Nancy – Bam Bam
I saw taht Sister Nancy was touring and had to pull out this all time classic. Still sounds so amazing, some 41 years after it was recorded.
Track 11: YaM – Window
Improvised guitar via this demo from Alex Yeung, guitarist for many many bands including These Bastards, Say Bok Gwai, VOCO, Conquest For Death, Morbid Life Society…
Track 12: Life Without Buildings – The Leanover
I never heard this band when they came out, but I saw some folks on Mastodon chatting about off-kilter lyrics and it caught my ear.
Track 13: Charlotte Adigery & Bolis Pupul – Esperanto
From the KZSU A-File. Unrelated to this song, I have memories of hearing many many years ago that Mike Lucas from the Phantom Surfers was taking Esperanto classes.
Track 14: Hawaiian T-Shirt – Degradation
Something about the previous track made me think about the Hawaiian T-Shirt song where they yell “Chantelle” over and over, so I went back and listened to more of their stuff.
Track 15: Dumb – 77
Another one from the KZSU A-File
Track 17: The Messthetics – Serpent Tongue
From their earlier release on Discord.
Track 18: Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp – We Can Can We
I’m still very much in love with this band so I dug up another track for this show.
Track 19: Avail – March
Jen Angel, an Ohio zinester and organizer turned publisher turned bay area cupcake baker, recently passed away, and her loss is greatly felt. Many folks have written amazing things about Jen, including this piece from Sam Levin in the Guardian.
My first memory of Jen was attending the 1996 More then Music fest in Columbus which she helped organize. True to the festival name, in between the many bands that played, attendees from the event took a brief ride to join a nearby union picket line, which I always thought was a pretty cool bit of organizing.
Years later, when Jen was publishing Clamor magazine, she came by my day job to talk about the publishing biz. At the end, the conversation turned to music and we both reminisced about that magical time in the 90s where it seemed for a brief moment like all of the strife in the punk/hard-core scene might be solved by a near universal love for the band Avail. So I thought I’d play a track of theirs in her memory.