And in the end . . .

Hey, looks like tomorrow will be my last show of the summer, so I thought I might feature "last songs" -- the best last songs on albums. Got any suggestions?

Back to the Afrofuture

I had asked for some assistance with an Afrofuturist set from my friend Mike, but he didn't get back to me in time (in truth I gave only a couple of days). But after the last show he sent me a list of 103 songs I could use! So I needed to revisit it.

I mostly used his setlist. I made specific rules for which songs I would use (play them in order, don't play an artist I did last week, only one song per artist, etc.) and then through the rules out the window once I became desperate to find the next track. I need to work on my music sleuthing skills -- I often find bands I like to be in between two categories -- seems like Funkadelic should be in Rock and Parliament in Soul/R+B? Or what about the folk rock I like -- which category? What is experimental and what is electronic? I often wish we could just categorize all music together alphabetically and be done with it.

So here's my setlist for my July 17 show, which is basically all Mike:

Brides of Funkenstein	Mother May I?
The Jackson Five	Dancing Machine
Sly and the Family Stone	Spaced Cowboy
Miles Davis	Sanctuary
Alice Coltrane	Radhe-Shyam
Herbie Hancock	Ostinato (Suite for Angela)
McCoy Tyner	fly with the wind
Lee Scratch Perry & Full Experience	Disco Devil
King Tubby	African Roots
Culture	Black Starliner Must Come
Earth Wind & Fire	Fantasy
Herbie Hancock	Rockit
Model 500	Milky Way
Newcleus	Jam On It
Digable Planets	TIme & Space (A New Refutation Of)
bernie worrell	flex
De La Soul	Transmitting Live From Mars
theesatisfaction	eathseed
janelle monae	BabopbyeYa
DJ Spooky	Anansi's Gambit
Flying Lotus	Do The Atral Plane
zomby	mozaik
Flying Lotus	Computer Face/Pure Being
Funkadelic	Electric Spanking of War Babies
Funkadelic	Eulogy and Light
Marvin Gaye	A Funky Space Reincarnation
labelle	black holes in the sky
blood sweat and tears	ride captain ride
TV on the Radio	Satellite
Sun Ra	Astro Black

Afrofuturism?

This picture of Minneapolis-based funk band Flyte Tyme inspired me to try to investigate the genre of Afrofuturism in music. But, while I really wanted this band to be the weird underground brothers of Parliament-Funkadelic, turns out this was just their awesome Halloween costumes, circa 1980.


Only really did a surface look at a few artists who would fit in the Afrofuturist category, before moving onto other things on my July 10 show. 

Here are  the ten songs I picked . . .

Sun Ra	Space is the Place
Parliament Funkadelic	Mothership Connection (Star Child)
Axiom Funk	Pray My Soul
Flyte Time	It's The Things That You Do
Starship Commander Woo Woo	Master Ship (excerpt)
Shuggie Otis	XL-30
Curtis Mayfield	Future Shock
Guitar Red	Disco From a Space Show
Dr. Octagon	Earth People
Deltron 3030	Mastermind

Next week? I dunno!

Journey Through the Setlist

The Orb	Slug Dub
Bill Fay	Garden Song
Roots of Oak	Donovan
XTC	Summers Cauldron
Genesis	I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
Animal Collective	Grass
Ashra	Sunrain
Forest	Bluebell Dance
Linda Perhacs	Chimacum Rain
The Move	Flowers in the Rain
Arbouretum	Waxing Crescents
Vashti Bunyan	Glow Worms
Barclay James Harvest	Pools of Blue
Agalloch	Odal
Beau Brummels	The Wolf of Velvet Fortune
The Strawbs	Witchwood
The Bevis Frond	Cries from the Inner Marshland
Genesis	Stagnation
Pressurehed	Bluff Creek, and Beyond
King Crimson	Nuages (That Which Passes, Passes Like Clouds)
Farflung	Silver Shrooms
Chad VanGaalen	Monster
Edward Ka-Spel	Swamp Thing/Simone Is/Red Letters/Katha
Blur	Swamp Song
The Bogmen	Englewood
Mermen	Blue Xoam
Pink Floyd	Obscured By Clouds
Dungen	Satt Att Se
Roberty Wyatt	Sea Song
Amorphous Androgynous	Opus of the Black Sun
Hawkwind	Time We Left This World Today
The Beatles	Across the Universe
Tom Lehrer	We Will All Go Together When We Go

Journey Through the Inner Marshland

Tune in tomorrow (July 3, 2014) to wcbn.org noon-3 p.m. EST to hear the latest Boojum Pudding show. This week I'm inspired by various British folk, psychedelic and progressive rock songs (though not exclusively) to create a fantastical journey from the home garden over green hills through forests and swamplands and finally to the sea. We might even meet some monsters, which may or may not be metaphorical. In fact the entire journey may in fact be an elaborate analogy. But for what? FOR WHAT?

Still looking for suggestions, so send them in. Many thanks to Mike and Dave who've helped me with the playlist.


Remember: The greatest adventure is what lies ahead. Today and tomorrow are yet to be said.

Celebrating Nick Drake's birthday (with birthday guests!)

Had my kids come down June 19 to the station to sit in on the show which was fun. They picked a few tracks and I used the sound off their video games as a bed for announcements.

I played an okay Nick Drake cover and had a caller ask for some real Nick Drake because it was his birthday! I'm an avid Nick Drake fan -- at the top is the picture I took in 2000 of his "shroud" which was on display in a record store in Dublin. So I just had to dedicate an entire set for Drake. Here was the complete setlist:

Boards of Canada	music is math
john lurie	freezing guitar
Monkey Mafia	Ward 10
Buckethead	Speed Flux Quadrant
Eskimo	Happy Home
Hans Reichel	Le Bal
Tom Lehrer	Poisoning Pigeons in the Park
MGMT	Future Games
Daniel Johnston	True Love WIll Find You IN THe End
Anna Kendricks	Cups (Pitch Perfect's "When I'm Gone"
Scott Matthews	Place To Be
David Bowie	The Bewlay Brothers
Joanna Newsom	Peach, Plum, Pear
Dj Qbert	Redworm
	Science is Fun
DJ Spooky and Karsh Kale	Variation Cybernetique rmx
C418	Minecraft
Nick Drake	Way to Blue
Nick Drake	Things Behind the Sun
Nick Drake	One of These Things First
Lisa Hannigan	At the Chime of the City Clock
Nick Drake	Hanging on a Star
Lucinda Williams	Which WIll
Nick Drake	From the Morning
Mr. Scruff	Feel free
Napolian	Incursio
Sam Amidon	He's Taken My Feet
Linda Perhacs	Intensity
The Eels	Mistakes of My Youth
Chad Van Gaalen	Cut off My Hands
The War on Drugs	Red Eyes
Wye Oak	Before
Blk Jks	Zol!
Caetano Veloso	Terra
Gashcat	Til the Morning Comes
Death	We Are Only People

There will be a sub for me on June 26, but I'll be back July 3rd. Have been working on a setlist of marshy, boggy, swampy, moist, mushy, fungus songs. Probably fantastical, so psychedic/progressive rock would probably work pretty well. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

Marxist Minstrels Setlist

Below you'll find the setlist for my June 5, 2014 Marxist Minstrels show -- it went pretty well. I had some station matters to attend to but had planned everything out enough that I could go on autopilot for a little while.

The interesting thing I noticed about what Rev. Noebel had to say is that most of it was not inaccurate -- his facts were pretty solid! Now, what you interpret from those facts is, where you might differ. . .

So here's the list -- I took out some electronica I played as a bed for soundbites (and most of the songs I played after the main content was over.)

Lulu Belle and Scotty	I'm No Communist
The Almanac Singers	Talking Union
Pete Seeger	Solidarity Forever
The Weavers	Pay Me My Money Down
Pete Seeger	Waist Deep in the Big Muddy
Woody Guthrie	This Land is Your Land
Malvina Reynolds	Little Boxes
Sis Cunningham	No More Store Bought Teeth
Ewan MacColl	Dirty Old Town
Chad Mitchell Trio	Moscow Nights
Earl Robinson	Black and White
Joan Baez	Blowin in the Wind
Bob Dylan	Ballad of a Thin Man
New Lost CIty Ramblers	When First Unto this Country
Guy Carawan	We Shall Overcome
Cisco Houston	The Tramp
Phil Ochs	I Ain't Marchin Anymore
The Serendipity Singers	Beans in My Ears
Phil Ochs	Draft Dodger Rag
Dave Van Ronk	Willie the Weeper
New Christy Minstrels	Hallelujah I'm a Bum
Bessie Smith	Careless Love
Burl Ives	Foggy Foggy Dew
Earl Robinson	Joe Hill
Long Haired Preacher	Harry McClintock
Mats Paulson	Should I Ever Be a Soldier
Alexander Zelkin	Meadowland
Woody Guthrie	Jesus Christ
Barry McGuire	Eve of Destruction
Ani DiFranco and Utah Phillips	The Internationale

Bonus Track: Antiflag 1914

June 5, 2014 -- Marxist Minstrels!

For my June 5th WCBN show, I'll be examining "the Communist Subversion of AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC" using Rev. David Noebel's 1966(?) spoken word album "The Marxist Minstrels" as a guide.

From the very first issue of Pete Seeger's People's Songs in February 1945, to the latest album by Bob Dylan, Noebel shows us the continue presence of the far-left in folk music.

The spoken word excerpts I'll feature from the album will give history and context to the music -- I've already picked over 70 minutes of songs so I may be able to almost make a complete three hour show of this. If not, I'll turn the show over to requests so the listeners can help me keep the mood going.

Or if I get a lot of angry callers I have this Orrin Hatch album which I'll just put on repeat.

Thursday 12-3 pm on wcbn.org.

Boojum Pudding is My New Weekly Show

Noon-3 pm every Thursday on WCBN with me, Candle-Ends, aka Old Man of the Sea, aka Neil.

It's Freeform. Because you love it?