Reports of mysterious drones in New Jersey and beyond prompted a handful of songs with drones in the title, at least. There were far more songs, of course, about flying saucers and UFOS, from Jefferson Airplane to Jimmy Durante to Hüsker Dü, among others. This led to a Flaming Lips connection of space to Santa,
Succumbing to the holidays starts with putting up the tree, so there was a 21-song salute on today’s Capital Radio to growing, cutting , trucking, choosing, lighting, decorating and otherwise trimming them, as they say. There were tunes about tiny trees, topping trees, and getting stuff beneath them, too. There was time for a half
We turn to the last leaf on the wall calendar and consider aspects of December minus the holiday dominance at its end. There were a lot of metaphors relating to the month’s fleeting snow and especially its cold. Which was exactly what hit hereabouts recently. So a lot of songs about chill — and four
We paid tribute to rocker and producer Andy Paley, who died last week at 72, with some work from his band The Paley Brothers as well as some of the songs he produced, from Brian Wilson and Elton John to NRBQ and Jonathan Richman. We began the show by noting the passing of guitarist Vic
The death of influential producer Shel Talmy last week at 87 brought a wealth of music from the bands whose sound he helped shape – from The Kinks and The Who to The Creation, The Damned and Perpetual Langley. This week’s Capital Radio also remembered the legacy of longtime jazz drummer Roy Haynes, who died
A bumper crop of birthdays today means two hours of great music from Marshall Crenshaw and XTC’s Andy Partridge, both turning 71, to Dave Alvin, 69; Chris Dreja of The Yardbirds, 79; Narvel Felts, 86; and Jon Batiste, 38. Also, LaVern Baker, born this day in 1929; and Mose Allison (1927). Lesser known early works
News this morning of the death of the Quincy Jones at 91 had us scrambling to find a handful of his tracks showing the breadth of his work over the decades. But there were some other recent passings to note, too, from figures ranging from Phil Lesh to Jack Jones and Barbara Dane. Today’s birthday
Cutting into the annual 24 Hours of Christmas programming for my own holiday edition of Capital Radio, I tried to concentrate on somber, more solemn numbers appropriate for the day rather than dazzle dazzle of jingle bells. Themes of “Christmas Day is Here” were much favored over “Christmas time is coming.” Nice to have Coltrane
The last show before Christmas warrants the annual avalanche of holiday songs, starting with the Bosstones, Aimee Mann and Nick Lowe, shifting to ’60s oddities from Bobby Goldsboro and Brian Hyland, and enduring rokcers from the Kinks and the Ramones. There was so much Yuletide, there wasn’t time for the usual birthday salutes, except for
Things don’t always go right when you pre-record a show. Sometimes, last week’s show repeats by mistake, which it did today. And as happy as I was with that show, I’m sadder that the today’s Shane MacGowan-dominated show didn’t go live. But here it is, a few hours later, in archived form. Besides our full-bodied
