Is 3 a crowd?

Following on from the specials that have been posted herewith is the week I played all songs for two hours with the word three in their title:-

Coheed & Cambria - Three Evils
Matchbox Twenty - Three AM
Ever We Fall - Three Wires In
The Cure - Three Imaginary Boys
Autolux - Twenty Three Watt Apple Juice
Catch 22 - 9mm & A Three Piece Suit
Eric Clapton & B B King - Three O'Clock Blues
Meatloaf - Two Out Of Three Aint Bad
Billy Connelly - Three Condoms (comedy)
The Wallflowers - Three Marlenas
U2 - The Three Sunrises
Valencia - Three Thousand Miles From Here
Janes Addiction - Three Days
Lynard Skynard - Gimme Three Steps
The Starting Line - Three Is A Charm
Fenix TX - Threesome
FM Static - Three Days Later
Mayday Parade - Three Cheers For Five Years
Finch - Three Simple Minds
Swing Kids - Forty Three seconds
Jamie Foxx - Three Letter Word
The Chemical Bros - Three Little Birdies Downbeats (instrumental)
Terri Clark - Three Mississippi
Randy Travis - Three Wooden Crosses

If you want to know more about any of these artists I always head for www.allmusic.com, possibly one of the best music data bases on offer.

What I really like about Alt-Country (whatever that is..?) is the Alt

When I started listening to this stuff back in the late 90's I was a pretty dedicated punk rocker, and if you'd have told me at that time that in 10 years I'd be hosting a country music oriented show I'd probably have choked on my beer and told you to p*ss off. But, to quote Bob Wills among others, "Time Changes Everything". What I really like about Alt-country though is still actually the punk parts of it, where the same ingredients; the sex, drugs, death, loss, longing and alienation, are all rolled in together with a touch of twang and a DIY ethic that even the best of punk rockers would have to nod along to.

One of those punk rockers has been John Doe, who's solo career after the seminal LA punk band X has had all those ingredients and often explored country styled genres most notably in the Knitters an early attempt to blur the punk rock / country divide. Doe's most recent solo offering "Forever Hasn't Happened Yet" released in 2005 is a bluesy, country-folk album with Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf in mind and one that pulls on a number of substantial musical guests (Dave Alvin, Grant-Lee Phillips, Neko Case, Kristin Hersh, Doe's daughter Veronica Jane, Excene Cervenca) to make one of the top CDs of last year. I've been playing selections off this CD for quite some time now, including the track I played last night called "Twin Brother" (for a full playlist see Casa de Country Mike.)

You can find out more about Doe and listen to a couple of tracks from Forever Hasn't Happened Yet here: http://www.theejohndoe.com/

I've Been Everywhere: A Musical Journey From the North to the South of New Zealand

On Sunday June 18 Counting the Beat will feature the long promised place name special. The deal is that all songs on the show have a New Zealand place name as their title. As you may imagine the result is an eclectic array of musical styles, from folk, to electronica, to punk and more. This post highlights a few of the artists, songs and locations featured.

Auckland Tonight - The Androidss
One of two songs about Auckland comes from The Androidss (sic), a band that actually hail from Christchurch. You can read a short bio on the excellent thebigcity site, an essential for your favourites list if you are into alternative kiwi acts.

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu - Peter Cape

One of the reasons this show took so long to put together was because I had to learn how to say the name of this place. The song is by Peter Cape, a cleric, broadcaster, and folk singer with a very interesting history. Believe it our not the song title is an abbreviation of the actual place name.

Cape Turnagain - The Warratahs and Sam Hunt
Named by Cook on his inaugural visit to these shores, Cape Turnagain became the subject of this fantastic song written by Barry Saunders and Sam Hunt. Here's Barry with the Cape in the background.

Otaki - The Fourmyula
Not much to say about this one. All you need to know is here on another essential kiwi music website.

Wellington - The Mutton Birds
Don McGlashan has a new solo album out called Warm Hand. I haven't heard it yet, but reviews are good. The Mutton Birds still have a site you can check out.

Christchurch (In Cashel St I Wait) - The Dance Exponents
Brilliant, Naming not only the city, but the specific street. Are there any kiwi songs with an actual address? If so, I want to hear about them.

Purakanui - Jetty
One of my favourite places in the world. I was very excited when I discovered someone had recorded a song about this beach on the Otago coast. Incidentally the band Jetty are also named after a place. The band name came about because their practice rooms were on Jetty St, down by the wharf area in Dunedin.

I've Been Everywhere - John Hore
John Hore gave John Denver his name. He later changed his own name to John Grenell. Who knew? More info here.

There you go; a musical journey from North to South. Of course, there'll be more songs featured on the broadcast. Putting this show together has been a real labour of love and I'm pretty rapt with the result. Be sure to listen on Sunday at 6pm.

there is always life on the beach

Well my first official blog on this site is meant to be about the unofficial history of this eccentric little radio station located offshore of New Zealands major city Auckland in the Hauraki Gulf.
But as luck would have it I'm still debating just exactly where I should start that journey because once I do I'm afraid I wont know where to stop.
So in the interim I thought it would be nice to post some of the music that I have been playing on the Monday night BOB FORMAT DRIVE SHOW (BOB stands for Brilliant or Bad or whatever else you might want to attach to those 3 initials, just remember to keep it nice or if you cant be nice then be funny).

Here is a list then of tracks played Monday 5th Queens Birthday Weekend here in NZ.

Echo Beach - Martha & The Muffins
Widespread Panic - Airplane
Electra Made Me Blind - Everclear
Sunshine - The Outlaws
Girls Got Rhythm - AC DC
Best Looking Boys - The Promise Ring
You're All I Have - oops forgot the band
Five Women - Prince
Eyes Without A Face - Billy Idol
Us - Inxs
Obsession - Sugababes
We Run This - Missy Elliot
Phoenix Ignition - Thrice
Some Girls - Rolling Stones
Basketball Jones - Cheech & Chong
Lonely Street - Eddie Kirkland
Freedom Fries - Robert Plant & The Strange Sensation
Pearl Necklace - Z Z Top
Singers With One Name (comedy drop) - George Carlin
Finding You - The Go Betweens
Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams - The 69 Eyes
Music Is The Victim - Scissor Sisters

That finished the first two hours and at this point I then went into the next hour with one of my BOB specials, to date there have been 3, and the track listing that follows is Pt 2 of a special started the previous week that was songs that had the word one in their title and there was such an overwhelming amount of songs with just such a word, that I decided to make it a two parter with creative licence to come back to it with more parts as desired.
This series of specials over the next few weeks will be trying to play songs with the numbers one to nine in their titles and hopefully fill up an hour with good radio songs.

Part 1B Monday 5th June

One - Johnny Cash (God Rest His Soul)
The Lucky One - Alison Krauss & Union Station
One Room Country Shack - Johnny "Guitar" Watson
One More Song The Radio Won't Like - Kathleen Edwards
One Monkey - Gillian Welch
One Night Away - The Delays
One In A Million - Thomas Parkes (Kiwi)
One - Thievery Corp.
One In Ten - UB40
One Good Reason - The Swingers (Kiwi)
All Hands On The Bad One - Sleater-Kinney
One By One All Day - oops forgot the band
One Step Too Far - Faithless
One Note Song - Tenacious D

Counting the Beat - The Hunt Brings Us Life

The feature album on this weeks Counting the Beat is The Hunt Brings Us Life, the new solo album from Samuel Flynn Scott of the Phoenix Foundation. Scott is the second PF member to release a solo album; Luke Buda also put out a good CD, Special Surprise, earlier in the year. Download tracks from the Buda album here.

Samuel Flynn Scott has been busy. As well as recording and releasing the solo album, he has been touring with The Phoenix Foundation and playing with his other band Bunnies on Ponies. Bunnies don't have any releases but there is video footage of them playing live. For more info on Scott, check out this television interview or this great spoof press release for The Hunt Brings Us Life by Russell Brown.

Of Scott's and Buda's albums my pick is Scott's The Hunt Brings Us Life, although I would recommend both to any fan of the Phoenix Foundation. Incidentally, I will also be featuring a rare PF track on the radio show. Buenos Dias is a cut from a little known EP the band put out in 2001 titled China Cove. That EP came out on Lovely Horse Recordings. The equine theme has continued, the fist PF album was titled Horse Power, while the second, Pegasus, featured a horse on the cover. The Phoenix Foundation have a nice website with both video and audio downloads.

Watch out for future posts - there are some great Counting the Beat specials on the way this month.

Hauraki Hoedown Highlights - The Old Ceremony

Actually two highlights from tonights show one of which was following on from Bob's awesome 45 minute review of the Uncle Tupelo/Wilco/Son Volt ouvre. I added a track by Tweedy's side project Loose Fur into that mix and a couple of rarities from Uncle Tupelo (I Wanna Destroy You - Gun 7") and a live Wilco that I got off the net. Bob had done his research and was filling in the history of the bands as he went along.

The song that really made an impression on me from tonight though was something that I'd only just listened to about an hour before going on air by a band called The Old Ceremony. Self described as "a pop-noir musical association from Chapel Hill, North Carolina figureheaded by songwriter/raconteur Django Haskins" the song was called "Blood and Oil". Lyrically reminiscient of a Nick Cave or Tom Waits composition it was a little out of the theme of my show but sufficiently Americana to warrant inspection. You can grab a copy of Blood and Oil from here.

Playlist for tonights show is posted on my blog, Casa de Country Mike.

Hauraki Hoedown Highlight - Neko Case

Neko Case's offerings are getting progressively more refined as well as progressively more cryptic in some respects. Rather than letting her growing alt-country stardom go to her head (ala Ryan Adams), Case appears to be on a solid path of songwriter maturation backed up by collaborations with artists of notable caliber in her 'solo' offerings as well as in her side projects like The New Pornographers. "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood" is her latest offering and features such artists as Bloodshot Records artist Kelly Hogan on backup vocals, Howe Gelb formerly of Giant Sand, and tracks with backup bands such as Calexico and the Sadies. This record is an ambitious and lyrically reflective statement by Case, a follow on from her critically aclaimed CD "Blacklisted" from 2002, the CD contains some incredible narrative flourishes from thinly veiled personal insights to deeply metaphorical meditations. I played a couple of tracks this Monday, Star Witness and Hold On, Hold On.

You can download a recent live Neko Case performance from NPR.org here or grab both Hold On, Hold On or the title track Fox Confessor Brings the Flood from this post over on the Aquariam Drunkard Blog.

Live on The Beach

Our live NZ Music Month series has got off to a great start. First up was Katy Soljak (thats her in the picture), one of the island's most accomplished musicians. She played two new songs that she has written to accompany a screenplay about a kiwi songwriter running off to Texas. Her set was great, despite the fact that she was suffering from a nasty white tailed spider bite, that had caused her to be hospitalised the week before the show. Katy was joined by Genevieve Cohen, a student from Waiheke High. Genevieve has a great voice, and they sounded particularly good together on a cover of the crazy hippy anthem All Around the World, originally performed by Blerta. You can read all about Blerta on this fantastic site about NZ music of the 60s and 70s.

Genevieve was back for the second week of Live on The Beach for a solo performance. Ocne again she was fantastic. My sound engineer skills, however, are far from outstanding. Despite my failings Genevieve pulled of a cracking set, concluding with a Neil Finn cover. Look out for her at the Waiheke Jam at Cats Tango on Sundays.

What's coming up? Who knows! Organising musicians is like herding cats. Check this site and the station for details.

We are recording the Live on The Beach performances and replaying them on Island Life the following Saturday morning so you all have a second chance to hear these great acts.