Thursday, October 29, 2009

THIS SUNDAY: CAMPFIRES

[pic courtesy of Campfires' Myspace]


As I mentioned before, Chicago-based musician Campfires will stop by the station this Sunday, November 1, 2009 to play some of his recently released tapes and MP3s on THALASSIQUE. He has a 7-Inch coming out on Mexican Summer and tapes expected on Leftist Nautical Antiques and As Above, So Below Tapes. It will be awesome to have some of Campfires' super-fuzzy bedroom tapes in the WNYU library--but it will be even nicer to hear Jeff Walls (Campfires) and I talk about them, and the world of water as a muse, AND to hear a special new track recorded by Jeff for the show, setting a short story by his friend Ben from Philadelphia to his jangly and distorted riffs in the vein of the Velvet Underground's "The Gift."

So make sure you tune in this Sunday, November 1 for the goods. I'm sorry if you tuned in last week and heard only dead air. That was inexpressibly retarded and won't happen....ever....again.

BEACH FOSSILS SET ARCHIVED ON WNYU.ORG

http://wnyu.org/2009-10-25_Thalassique

Sunday, October 25, 2009

BEACH FOSSILS LIVE ON THALASSIQUE

Shen, Chris, John and Dustin of BEACH FOSSILS at WNYU

Tonight Beach Fossils played a live set of 5 songs off their forthcoming full-length debut from Brooklyn based labels Captured Tracks & Woodsist. During the interview we learned that Beach Fossils creator Dustin Payseur hates the beach, but likes the fossils you can find there, which I have yet to really learn about in my underwater explorations on the Internet. We also learned that the band was assembled after Payseur sent home recordings to a bunch of labels and heard back from Captured Tracks---then sprang to Missed Connections, er, the Internet to find a live band for the dates he booked. Shen, their current drummer, only joined Chris, John and Dustin last week for CMJ to jump in and play the songs off the cuff but it's been going pretty well. They've played shows with Air Waves, the Smith Westerns, Woods, Titus Andronicus and Here We Go Magic (and that's just counting some of the 5 CMJ dates they did last week), and the first ten people to see the following link will get to hear them play on Thalassique before we archive it on WNYU.ORG:

http://rapidshare.com/files/298015214/01_BEACH_FOSSILS_Live_Set_and_Interview.m4a.html

LIVE SET LIST:
7:02 PM Beach Fossils "Vacation" Live @ WNYU!
7:05 PM Beach Fossils "Daydream" Live @ WNYU!
7:08 PM Beach Fossils "Sometimes" Live @ WNYU!
7:15 PM Beach Fossils "Lazy Day" Live @ WNYU!
7:16 PM Beach Fossils "Twelve Roses" Live @ WNYU!

- - - -


After the set and during the interview Dustin and Chris brought along some of their favorite tracks including:
"Funeral" - McCarthy
"Horizontal" - 100 Flowers / the Urinals
"What Went Wrong This Time" - Siddleys
"Nice Time" - John and James (from John and Dustin of Beach Fossils.... Dustin's first name is in fact James, but to distinguish him from his dad James Payseur senior, he has gone by Dustin).
"Sorry to Embarrass You" - Razorcuts
"Smashing Time" - Television Personalities
"These Things Happen" - Action Painting!
"Solar" - Blitz
(from Dustin)
&&&& songs from Captain Beefheart and BK garage band PC Worship (from Chris), whose titles I didn't catch but will fill in as soon as i have a minute.

- - -

Before all that fun stuff, I played:

6:03 PM The Terminals "Black Creek" Little Things (Last Visible Dog) CD [N]
6:08 PM Beach Fossils "Daydream" Daydream 7" (Woodsist/Captured Tracks) CD {Coming out later this fall}
6:08 PM Amazing Baby "The Narwhal" Rewild (Shangri la) CD
6:18 PM Brilliant Colors "Should I Tell You?" Brilliant Colors EP CD 2008 [N]
6:20 PM The Shangri-las "It's Easier to Cry" The Complete Collection (Goldenlane Records) CD 1992 [N]
6:22 PM Tamaryn "Return To Surrender" Led Astray, Washed Ashore (Troubleman Unlimited) CD 2009
6:26 PM M. Ward "Neptune's Net" Post-war (Merge) CD
6:35 PM Joy Division "Dead Souls" Still (London/Rhino) CD
6:36 PM Little Girls "Growing" Concepts CD
6:41 PM A Sunny Day In Glasgow "Hybrid Moment (Misfits Cover)" CD
6:42 PM Box Elders "Death of Me" Alice and Friends (Goner) CD [N]
6:47 PM Dum Dum Girls "Jail La La" Jail La La 7" CD
6:50 PM Strange Boys "Heard You Wanna Beat Me Up" The Strange Boys And Girls Club (In The Red) CD
6:52 PM Gary War "Please Don't Die" New Raytheonport LP (Shdwply/Disaro) CD
6:54 PM Coasting "Coasting" (self -released) CD


But sometimes, retarded shit happens to the recording of the first half of your show, and you don't have it available for archiving or download. As the Action Painting song goes, 'these things happen.'

Also after the live set was caUSE co-MOTION's "And You Wonder" from the Because Because Because EP from Slumberland, and at the end of my show I played "Portsmouth Daydream Supper" by Campfires, who will be on my show NEXT WEEK! Doing really cool stuff!


ADIOS JULITAS!
(i get called julita when i go to delis, is that bad? i'm like 'do you have salami?' and they are like 'que?' '...julita julita julita,' and 'wait here julita,' '$tres.50 julita.' But isn't Julita a name?)

Friday, October 23, 2009

PLAYLISTS AND SUCH

Here is a look at what I have been playing these past weeks!

10/18/09

6:04 PM Dash Jacket "Coastal Sang" MP3
6:04 PM The Babies "Meet Me In The City" Meet Me In The City (Self-Released) CD [N]
6:06 PM Mogwai "Travel Is Dangerous" Mr. Beast (Matador) CD
6:14 PM Girls "Hellhole Ratrace" Album (True Panther Sounds) CD [N]
6:19 PM Sunnybrook "Waving Hands" Water Me Glow (self -released) CD
6:24 PM Portishead "Deep Water" Third (Island) CD
6:25 PM Monsterism Island "Magic Morning" The Psychedelic Guide to Monsterism Island (Self-Released) CD
6:30 PM Department Of Eagles "Floating on the Lehigh" In Ear Park (4AD) CD 2008
6:34 PM The Walkmen "On the Water" You & Me (Gigantic) CD
6:38 PM The Horrors "Sea Within a Sea" Primary Colours (Beggars XL) CD
6:54 PM Beach Fossils "Vacation" forthcoming 7" (Woodsist/Captured Tracks) MP3 [N]
6:56 PM Sea Ray "Revelry" Stars At Noon (The Self-starter Foundation) CD 2003
7:01 PM William Shakespeare "The Tempest [Excerpt]" The Tempest (Unabridged) Audiobook (Audio Holdings, LLC) CD
7:04 PM Mum "Oh, How the Boat Drifts" Summer Make Good (Fat Cat) CD
7:08 PM Elfin Saddle "The Ocean" Ringing For The Begin Again (Constellation) CD
7:19 PM Sonic Youth "Leaky Lifeboat (for Gregory Corso)" The Eternal (Matador) CD
7:25 PM Beachniks "Coney Island" Slumberland/Cake Shop SXSW Mix (Slumberland) CD
7:26 PM Billy J Kramer "Do You Want to Know A Secret?" Wonderful World of the 60s (K-tel) CD 2008
7:27 PM Frightened Rabbit "Swim Until You Can't See Land" forthcoming single (Fat Cat) MP3 {single out 11/16 with B-side "Fun Stuff"}
7:32 PM The Fresh & Onlys "Fog Machine" The Fresh & Onlys (Castle Face) CD
7:35 PM Cocorosie "Tahiti Rain Song" La Maison De Mon Reve (Touch And Go) CD
7:42 PM Pens "Networking/I Sing Just For You" hey friend! what you doing (De Stijl) CD [N]
7:43 PM Surfer Blood "Swim (To Reach the End)" (Kanine) MP3
7:49 PM Takka Takka "Lion in the Waves" Migration (Ernest Jenning) CD
7:52 PM The Thermals "At the Bottom of the Sea" Now We Can See (Kill Rock Stars) CD


LITERARY ADDENDUM

An excerpt from the Audiobook of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, played over Múm's "Oh, How the Boat Drifts." As well as me going on about penguins, if I remember correctly. Not quite literary. But literal, which is half as good.


- - - - - - - - -

10/11/09

6:08 PM Best Coast "Sun Was High (So Was I)" Sun Was High (So Was I) b/w That's The Way Boys Are 7" (Art Fag) CD [N]
6:08 PM Black Tambourine "Throw Aggi Off The Bridge" Complete Recordings (Slumberland) CD
6:10 PM Ten Kens "Y'all Come Back Now" Ten Kens (Fat Cat) CD 2008
6:18 PM The King Khan & BBQ Show "Truth or Dare" Invisible Girl (In The Red) CD 2009 [N]
6:20 PM Duane Eddy "Because They're Young" Twang Thang: Anthology (Rhino) CD 1993
6:22 PM The Pastels "Crawl Babies" Truckload of Trouble (Seed) CD
6:25 PM The Cure "Jumping Someone Else's Train" Boys Don't Cry (Elektra/WEA) CD 1980
6:36 PM The Love Language "Lalita" S/T (Bladen County) CD
6:37 PM Male Bonding "Pumpkin" Male Bonding/Old Blood/Grafitti Islands/Rapid Youth split 7" (Paradise Vending) CD
6:40 PM The Mummies "Test Drive" Death By Unga Bunga!! (Estrus) CD
6:42 PM Continental Divide "Golden Throat" Golden Throat EP CD
6:44 PM The Sticks "On The Sea" Split w/Hands On Head (Upset The Rhythm) CD {will appear on their upcoming full-length in November 2009}
6:48 PM Beta Band "Liquid Bird" Heroes To Zeros (Astralwerks) CD 2004
6:50 PM Ganglians "Blood on the Sand" Captured Tracks 7" (Captured Tracks) CD {features Jarvis from Woods}
7:01 PM Christmas Island "Bed Island" Blackout Summer (Midheaven) CD {http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/water-scarcity-index}
7:06 PM Ratatat "Tropicana" Classics (XL) CD
7:08 PM The Troggs "With A Girl Like You" Wild Thing (Atco) CD 1966
7:10 PM Brown Recluse "Contour and Context" Soft Skin EP (Slumberland) CD
7:20 PM Campfires "Daytime TV" (self -released) CD
7:21 PM TV Ghost "The Recluse" Cold Fish (In The Red) CD 2009 [N]
7:23 PM Jesus & Mary Chain "Kill Surf City" Barbed Wire Kisses (Blanco y Negro Records) CD 1988
7:26 PM Obits "Lillies In The Street" I Blame You (Sub Pop) CD
7:31 PM The Hunches "Fall Drive" Exit Dreams (In The Red) CD
7:44 PM Suckers "Out on the Water" Make Mine 7" (Make Mine Music) CD
7:45 PM Husker Du "Pink Turns To Blue" Zen Arcade (SST) CD
7:48 PM Wendy James "You Tell Me" I Came Here To Blow Minds CD
7:50 PM Spectrals "Leave Me Be" Leave Me Be 7" (Captured Tracks) CD
7:58 PM Thee Fair-Ohs "I'm A Woman I'm Your Wife" CD
7:59 PM Graffiti Island "Demonic Cat" Split Cassette w/Pens, Male Bonding CD
8:00 PM The Soft Hands "Harbor" Hours Pass By CD


ADDENDUMS

This week we talked about water scarcity and, fitting with the horror theme ("Demonic Cat" by Graffiti Island, "Truth or Dare" by KK&BBQ, TV Ghost and the Mummies), a brief tale about a sick penguin attacked by zombie seals who found revenge on his fiercely critical penguin community via spread of the disease.

UPCOMING GUESTS ON THALASSIQUE

Check out these upcoming live performances, interviews and Thalassique exclusives from guests on the show in the next two weeks.
THIS SUNDAY OCTOBER 25, 2009

Beach Fossils aka Dustin Payseur and friends are set to release a 7-Inch from awesome Brooklyn label(s) and Thalassique cornerstone(s) Woodsist/Captured Tracks this year, and I am pleased to announce that after they finish up their remaining shows in the CMJ Music Marathon in NY, they will perform on THALASSIQUE this Sunday, October 25, 2009. Tune in for a live set and interview around 7 PM in the middle of the show. Check out "Vacation" and "Daydream" on http://myspace.com/beachfossils.

NEXT SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2009
Campfires is the project of one Jeff Walls, a sound-collagist/multi-instrumentalist and museum employee from Chicago whose creative endeavors have been heavily influenced by the Great Lakes. He has a 7-Inch coming out on Mexican Summer and a tape on Leftist Nautical Antiques to follow. Campfires has agreed to do a special interdisciplinary/literary sound collage for Thalassique which we hope to debut on the show during his visit. Check out interviews and stuff on www.campfiresmusic.com.


TUNE IN, SUNDAYS 6-8 PM ON WNYU.ORG

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

CMJCMJCMJCMJ

Sooo on Sunday I said I would be posting my CMJ picks...we're one day in but here we go:

10/20 Subba Cultcha at Cake Shop (was awesome)
Best Coast/Surf City/Male Bonding= highlights; also caught Small Black from the Poptarts Suck Toasted showcase, very good. (Review here).

Tonight
10/21 Oh My Rockness Showcase @ Santos Party House
Real Estate, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Beach Fossils and moooore

And don't forget
10/22 WNYU Party @ Market Hotel (Obviously)
Fluffy Lumbers, Gary War, Expo 70, Eric Copeland

Sunday, October 18, 2009

ON AIR




Holler if you are visiting this blog by some haphazard result of surfing the internet, you should know that i am on air RIGHT NOW: wnyu.org . Playing Sunnybrook currently.

Friday, October 16, 2009

WHALE-WATCHING: Field Guides to the latest trend in band names/&& SLEEP WHALE MP3s

While I didn't play each and every one of these multitudinous new bands with 'whale' in the title, I sort of called this trend a couple weeks back on my second show.

[via Stereogum] Here is an alphabetized field guide to the ocean of new 'whale' bands: Letters A-O here, and the rest here.

Of these bands I'd like to introduce you to:
SLEEP WHALE
I played Sleep Whale on Thalassique on 10/4. Their whole album Houseboat is quintessential thalassic music so I feel obligated to direct your attention to it. From rain samples and slower, ambient tracks to upbeat pop songs where melodies make their way through hazy layered sounds, it's a good listen and I'll be playing them again in a month's time.

In the meantime check out these Sleep Whale Mp3s floating around the internet:
"Josh Likes Me" MP3
"Cotton Curls" MP3
"We Were Dripping" MP3 (as heard on Thalassique)

Bon week-end!
See you Sunday on WNYU.ORG.

IROQUOIS CREATION MYTH


"The world was formed on the back of a giant turtle. First Woman fell from the sky and lived with the help of the animals. She had one good grandson and one bad grandson from which stemmed the conflict of good and evil among humans."
Iroquois Creation Myth [mukto-mona]

Sunday, October 11, 2009

PLAYLIST 10/11/09

Pumpkin Fish

Tonight's Thalassic Adventures were frightening and autumn-twinged to say the least. Too bad there's no fall leaves out at sea.

I played Best Coast's "Sun Was High (So Was I)" for the millionth time (third?) in my WNYU career... I love that song; then in rolled a whole roster of recent surf-twang garage/punk releases and some quality throwbacks like Hüsker Dü and Jesus & Mary Chain. Yay!
Jesus & Mary Chain

PLAYLIST
6:08 PM Best Coast "Sun Was High (So Was I)" Sun Was High (So Was I) b/w That's The Way Boys Are 7" (Art Fag) CD [N]
6:08 PM Black Tambourine "Throw Aggi Off The Bridge" Complete Recordings (Slumberland) CD
6:10 PM Ten Kens "Y'all Come Back Now" Ten Kens (Fat Cat) CD 2008
6:18 PM The King Khan & BBQ Show "Truth or Dare" Invisible Girl (In The Red) CD 2009 [N]
6:20 PM Duane Eddy "Because They're Young" Twang Thang: Anthology (Rhino) CD 1993
6:22 PM The Pastels "Crawl Babies" Truckload of Trouble (Seed) CD
6:25 PM The Cure "Jumping Someone Else's Train" Boys Don't Cry (Elektra/WEA) CD 1980
6:36 PM The Love Language "Lalita" S/T (Bladen County) CD
6:37 PM Male Bonding "Pumpkin" Male Bonding/Old Blood/Grafitti Islands/Rapid Youth split 7" (Paradise Vending) CD
6:40 PM The Mummies "Test Drive" Death By Unga Bunga!! (Estrus) CD
6:42 PM Continental Divide "Golden Throat" Golden Throat EP CD
6:44 PM The Sticks "On The Sea" Split w/Hands On Head (Upset The Rhythm) CD {will appear on their upcoming full-length in November 2009}
6:48 PM Beta Band "Liquid Bird" Heroes To Zeros (Astralwerks) CD 2004
6:50 PM Ganglians "Blood on the Sand" Captured Tracks 7" (Captured Tracks) CD {features Jarvis from BK darlings Woods}
7:01 PM Christmas Island "Bed Island" Blackout Summer (Midheaven) CD {http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/water-scarcity-index}
7:06 PM Ratatat "Tropicana" Classics (XL) CD
7:08 PM The Troggs "With A Girl Like You" Wild Thing (Atco) CD 1966
7:10 PM Brown Recluse "Contour and Context" Soft Skin EP (Slumberland) CD
7:20 PM Campfires "Daytime TV" (self -released) CD
7:21 PM TV Ghost "The Recluse" Cold Fish (In The Red) CD 2009 [N]
7:23 PM Jesus & Mary Chain "Kill Surf City" Barbed Wire Kisses (Blanco y Negro Records) CD 1988
7:26 PM Obits "Lillies In The Street" I Blame You (Sub Pop) CD
7:31 PM The Hunches "Fall Drive" Exit Dreams (In The Red) CD
7:44 PM Suckers "Out on the Water" Make Mine 7" (Make Mine Music) CD
7:45 PM Husker Du "Pink Turns To Blue" Zen Arcade (SST) CD
7:48 PM Wendy James "You Tell Me" I Came Here To Blow Minds CD
7:50 PM Spectrals "Leave Me Be" Leave Me Be 7" (Captured Tracks) CD
7:58 PM Thee Fair-Ohs "I'm A Woman I'm Your Wife" CD
7:59 PM Graffiti Island "Demonic Cat" Split Cassette w/Pens, Male Bonding CD
8:00 PM The Soft Hands "Harbor" Hours Pass By CD
I keep discovering new bands (new to existence, and new to me) that fit for Thalassique. If you think your band fits in and you want to send me your music go ahead! It's pier@wnyu.org.
Lookout: for next week I've got The Tempest in audio-book form.

[Pumpkin Fish photo courtesy of http://www.scottandjamie.com]

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Grrl Groups

[above: the Shangri-Las]

This evening's Thalassique will pay tribute to the girl groups responsible for some of sound and shit that you hear from new lo fi bands each week. Sorry for the inarticulate phrasing... I kind of have the flu. Anyway, it will be a tribute SORT OF, because I will be playing other cool stuff too.

TUNE IN 6-8PM KTHX.
<3 Pier

LITERARY ADDENDUMS 9/27

moby dick Pictures, Images and Photos


The following were read on the 9/27 emission de Thalassique:

A selection from Moby Dick by Herman Melville:
"Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea; but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grew still more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves; seemed a noon-meadow, so serenely it spread. At length the breathless hunter came so nigh his seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling hump was distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated thing, and continually set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy, greenish foam. He saw the vast, involved wrinkles of the slightly projecting head beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkish-rugged waters, went the glistening white shadow from his broad, milky forehead, a musical rippling playfully accompanying the shade; and behind, the blue waters interchangeably flowed over into the moving valley of his steady wake; and on either hand bright bubbles arose and danced by his side. But these were broken again by the light toes of hundreds of gay fowl softly feathering the sea, alternate with their fitful flight; and like to some flag-staff rising from the painted hull of an argosy, the tall but shattered pole of a recent lance projected from the white whale's back; and at intervals one of the cloud of soft-toed fowls hovering, and to and fro skimming like a canopy over the fish, silently perched and rocked on this pole, the long tail feathers streaming like pennons...."

"Lobsters and crabs once lived together in harmony, and even interbred, in a remote crustacean colony off the coast of Labrador. Then, a horrible plague of displaced orca whales beset their waters, blocking out the sun with their ominous, circling presence. The crustaceans began to quarrel over food and mates, which led to a mass genocide of the Labrador crabs by the lobster clans. Thus the species is no more, but as fate would have it, the Northwestern Atlantic region is the prime hunting grounds for lobster fishermen to this day."
A Thalassique original fable

"A whale once decided to live among mammals so he swam into the harbor and climbed ashore. He was received cordially and began to walk around on his tail fins. So well-received was he that the mayor invited him to walk in the annual parade. So down 5th Avenue he strut, waving graciously with his flipper at the smiling crowds. The Washington Square arch was barely in sight before a harpoon flew suddenly through the air, through his skin, through his blubber and muscle tissue and pierced his heart. The sound of his massive flesh against the ground was drowned by the roar of the crowd, who descended upon him. Weeks later his remains were returned to the Atlantic, and the dissembling island of Manhattan had new oils, perfumes and scented candles for their one bedroom apartments in the sky."
A Thalassique original fable