Left of the Dial Radio Playlist - 2/10/12

Thanks to everybody who tuned in to my radio show last night on WNHU. It was great to see you guys being so responsive. Be sure to catch my next broadcast next Friday from 6 to 8 PM. Here’s the full playlist from last night’s show with attached links to stream each song.

• 1. Dum Dum Girls - “Bhang Bhang, I’m A Burnout”
• 2. Bomb The Music Industry! - “Why, Oh Why, Oh Why (Oh Oh Oh Oh)”
• 3. Big Star - “September Gurls”
• 4. The Darkness - “I Believe In A Thing Called Love”
• 5. Free Energy - “Free Energy”
• 6. Real Estate - “It’s Real”
• 7. LVL UP - “APOCALYPTOPHOBIA”
• 8. Sunny Day Real Estate - “Seven” (Requested by blueshadedays)
• 9. Hostage Calm - “The “M” Word”
• 10. The Good Life - “The Beaten Path”
• 11. Desaparecidos - ”$$$$”
• 12. The Dismemberment Plan - “The City”
• 13. Self Defense Family - “All Fruit Is Ripe”
• 14. Have a Nice Life - “The Future”
• 15. Cap’n Jazz - “Little League”
• 16. The Replacements - “Kids Don’t Follow”
• 17. Reatards - “I’m So Gone”
• 18. The White Stripes - “Hello Operator”
• 19. Slow Warm Death - “Alone”
• 20. Leonard Cohen - “Going Home”
• 21. Tom Waits - “Chicago”
• 22. The Rural Alberta Advantage - “The Breakup”
• 23. Neutral Milk Hotel - “King Of Carrot Flowers Pt. One”
• 24. Neutral Milk Hotel - “King Of Carrot Flowers Pts. Two & Three”
• 25. The Clash - “(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais”
• 26. Widowspeak - “In The Pines”
• 27. Dum Dum Girls - “Coming Down”
• 28. Weezer - “Only In Dreams”

Left of the Dial Radio Playlist - 6/17/11

Last night’s show was a success, coming on right before I went to The Space to see The Antlers with Little Scream. The playlist is below, complete with youtube links to each song when available. 

1. 1. Radiohead - “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box”
2. 2. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - “Contender”
3. 3. Cults - “Abducted”
4. 4. Japandroids - “Wet Hair”
5. 5. Sufjan Stevens - “Come On! Feel the Illinoise! Part I: The World’s Columbian Exposition / Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me in a Dream”
6. 6. Castevet - “Chilsen”
7. 7. Algernon Cadwallader - “Pitfall”
8. 8. The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die - “Six Seeds”
9. 9. Into It. Over It. - “Pontiac, MI”
10. 10. American Football - “Never Meant”
11. 11. Everyone Asked About You - “Paper Planes, Paper Hearts”
12. 12. The Antlers - “French Exit”
13. 13. Free Energy - “Dream City”
14. 14. The Replacements - “Raised in the City”
15. 15. Reatards - “Memphis Blues”
16. 16. Eddie Golden III - “Fish Hook Frank”
17. 17. Spider Bags - “Bad Complexion”
18. 18. Bob Dylan - “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”
19. 19. Jonsi - “Go Do”
20. 20. The Antlers - “Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out”
21. 21. The Library of Congress - “Doctor Faustus”
22. 22. Hallelujah The Hills - “The House Is All Lit Up”
23. 23. The Hold Steady - “Stevie Nix”
24. 24. The Mountain Goats - “First Few Desperate Hours”
25. 25. WHY? - “Gemini (Birthday Song)”
26. 26. Thurston Moore - “Benediction”
27. 27. Nick Drake - “River Man”
28. 28. Titus Andronicus - “Waking Up Drunk” (Spider Bags cover)

Remember to tune in next Friday from 6-8 PM on WNHU!

Summer Albums Project #9: Reatards - Teenage Hate

Year: 1998

Genre: Garage Punk

The Reatards were a punk band founded in Missouri in the late 90s and fronted by James “Jay” Lindsey, now better known by his stage name Jay Reatard. Prior to hearing Teenage Hate, the Reatards’ debut album as a trio, I had never actually listened to a full Jay Reatard record. When I heard that the album was being reissued last month, I realized that this would probably be as good a place as any to start with him. 

For those of you who don’t know, Jay Reatard was a prolific punk rocker from Lilbourn, Missouri who began making music at the age of 15. He died in January 2010, just months after releasing his final album Watch Me Fall. Although his death was sad and unfortunate, it offered people like me a chance to explore his body of work, which is what I started to do today with this album. The Reatards recorded Teenage Hate in 1998, when Jay Reatard was only eighteen years old. In the liner notes, he is credited with “Guitar, screaming, and pounding”, and this description could not be more apt. Although it’s by no means the most original thing in the world, Teenage Hate is an incredibly universal punk rock record, with Reatard himself embodying the role of the archetypal punk frontman as if he had been born to do just that. His maniacal voice and frightening/endearingly shitty guitar playing defines the record and gives it that fuck-all personality that makes so many punk records great. His angsty teenage lyrics aren’t really that special, but the way that he sells them with his razor sharp voice makes them seem believable and honest. On the opener “I’m So Gone”, a pre-packaged high tempo anthem that could have been a generation defining hit in another era, Reatard does that classic sneer as if he had invented it himself. On “Memphis Blues”, he howls like a wolf having been shot in the leg, and makes the listener hate Memphis Tennessee almost as much as he clearly did at the time. While not incredibly versatile, his voice is more than capable of conveying the relatively short range of moods that Teenage Hate deals with. Mostly, he hates things and he’s a teenager. A lot of what he’s angry about is expressed through the song titles themselves — ”Out of My Head Into My Bed”, “You Fucked Up My Dreams”, “Not Good Enough For You”, etc. — leaving little to the imagination, but at least preparing the listener for the sonic onslaught that lies behind the names.

Of course, Jay Reatard himself wasn’t the only force behind Reatards. As a trio, the Reatards were also supported by Steve Albundy and Elvis Wong, who both also took the surname Reatard in the band. On guitar and drums respectively, they bring an essential steadiness to the table on Teenage Hate, figuratively reeling Jay Reatard back in every time he shouts too loudly or solos for too long. That said, it’s Jay who was the real center of attention on this album.

I make no claims to know what the punk scene was like back in 1998, but I feel like it almost doesn’t matter. Teenage Hate could have essentially been released at any time between 1977 and now with little variation and nobody would be the wiser. Musically, the album is most reminiscent of groups like The Replacements, whose early records laid the template for much of the garage punk music that came out subsequently. On their early records such as Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash, the Replacements blended the rock & roll music of the ’50s with the chaotic hardcore punk sound that was emerging around them. The Reatards do largely the same thing here with their short and emotive bursts of punk rock, but they have the advantage of hindsight and a grasp of the historical context of their music. That really isn’t such a bad thing, but if you’re looking for adventurous, progressive punk music, don’t bother with this album. I can’t speak for the rest of Reatard’s work though, with or without the band.

Download HERE

Check out previous Summer Albums Project entries HERE