Tonight on the radio

SUNGLASSES AFTER DARK

TONIGHT! 10PM-MIDNIGHT!
PUNK, GARAGE, & ROCKABILLY!

LISTEN TO IT ON KJHK 90.7FM
OR STREAM IT ONLINE

Due to a sickness running through my family and the need to get stuff accomplished for finals week, I’m opting to play two full hours of Johnny Cash rather than the usual myriad stuff that I usually knock out. I’ll be playing covers and tunes related to Johnny, as well, so it ought to be a fucking blast. Tune in, bitches.

Delia’s Gone

Returning

We here at Rock Star Journalist would like to apologize for the longer-than-expected hiatus. There’s the idea of plactating you, the reader, with excuses ranging from holiday woes, family business, or work-related blahs. The sad fact of the matter is that we’ve just been too damn busy enjoying not having school to get anything accomplished.

That being said, we’d like to announce the return of RSJ on February 2. Yes, Groundhog Day. When you see a post from us, you’ll know it’s time for another year’s worth of poorly-thought-out musical rantings and awful puns.

You should also soon be able to use a much simpler address to tell your friends all about us: we dropped the seven bucks and registered rockstarjournalist.com. So, as soon as DNS updates across the world, you should be able to right click right here and bookmark the fuck outta us.

And, lest we forget, Sunglasses After Dark returns to radio on January 19. Starting that Friday, and every Friday afterwards, turn into KJHK 90.7FM from 10pm-midnight central standard time for the finest in punk, garage, and rockabilly.

Gene Autry – “Back in the Saddle Again

Ghoul’s night out

Halloween parties are par for the course this weekend. Looking to liven yours up? First, you should tune into this tonight at midnight, Central Standard Time at 90.7FM (for those of you in the Kansas City / Lawrence area) or listen online at KJHK’s web site….

halloween flyer

Failing that, there are scads of mp3 blogs willing to help you with your spooky partytime fun. Scar Stuff has Sounds to Make You Shiver for download. Coincidently, this is the same music I’ll be using for background on Sunglasses After Dark tonight.

Oddio Overplay has two compilations for download, both of which are guaranteed to get your party rocking from dusk ’til dawn. There’s Calling All Fiends, whichis “frightening, damaging, and disturbing” Halloween music or Ghouls With Attitude, a slightly more traditional, “fun” mix.

Dave’s Free Halloween Sounds is loaded with .wavs for your mix cd pleasure. Plenty of creepy, oddball, and fun shit.

Failing that… you can always download a shitload of Misfits bootlegs and spend your evening getting your scare on like that.

the Misfits – “Monster Mash” (live)

Thanks to Nuthousepunks you have the soundtrack for your Halloween party, now all you need are wicked costumes to wear. Get creative and go as the Misfits with a kill devillock, some black leather and plenty of white make-up. There are so many adult costumes that you can wear that run the gamut from strange to sexy, or horrifying to goofy. If you happen to be throwing a party, turn your place into a haunted
house with some killer Halloween decorations that will surely be remembered by everyone who attends.

Podcast up – sunglasses after dark

So, I apologize for the one-month podcast hiatus. I’ve been crazy busy with school and work and familial obligations. This is to say nothing of the hectic nature of running a two-hour radio program every week and working music staff for the radio station. Basically, I’m so overwhelmed with music, it was a chore to even begin thinking of doing this. The few times I sat down to get started, it pretty much either ended in an accidental deletion or WinAmp crash.

However, being as I had some playlists from my show lying around, I figured I could give you all a taste of what I do every Saturday morning on Sunglasses After Dark. Rock out to the music that made generations of parents nervous; the music that only allowed Elvis filmed from the waist up. Spinning rockabilly, psychobilly, screamin’ garage, and anything else scandalous enough for your Friday night.

Track listing:
Sunglasses After Dark intro
Dwight Pullen – Sunglasses After Dark
the Cramps – I Ain’t Nothing But a Gorehound
Misfits – Hybrid Moments
Johnny Cash – Ballad of a Teenage Queen
the Rock ‘n’ Roll Soldiers – Funny Little Feeling
HorrorPops – Where They Wander
the Nerve Agents – Jekyl and Hyde
Cleopatra Jones trailer
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – Frenzy
Rancid – Something In The World Today
Moțrhead РJailbait
Nekromantix – Dead Girls Don’t Cry
Curtis Gordon – Draggin’
Sicko – Closer To Fine
Dillinger Four – Doublewhiskeycokenoice
Blitz – Someone’s Gonna Die
Dr. Tarr’s Torture Dungeon trailer
Mad Sin – London Dungeon
Fear – The Mouth Don’t Stop (The Trouble With Women Is)
the Gun Club – Preaching The Blues
Vernon Taylor – Mystery Train
Reagan Youth – Reagan Youth
Johnny Rivers – Midnight Special
the Oppressed – We’re the Hooligans
Sham 69 – If The Kids Are United

Download at the podcast page.

Bonus mp3: the Stray Cats – “Stray Cat Strut

Tonight on the radio

Tonight on Sunglasses After Dark, I should (in theory) be hosting an interview with Springman Records artists the Phenomenauts. Now, Joebot Twopointoh has lost his phone, and even though I’ve left him a message, he hasn’t gotten back to me yet.

There’s also the possibility that since the band is now headlining this tour (as Left Alone dropped off to open the Bouncing Souls tour), they might be playing at the Granada while the show’s going on. Soooo… I may have to wander down to the venue and do it all tape-recorder style and broadcast that instead.

Either way, I intend to have some space-age rockabilly interview goodness for you all tonight. The interview will probably end up archived here at some point, but if you’d like to hear it (as well as some other truly awesome garage / rockabilly / punk), you can tune in tonight via KJHK 90.7FM at midnight central standard time. The request line is always open at 785-864-4747. Hope to hear from you all.

Earth Is the Best
I Am Robot” (live)
Rocket Roll” (live)

Many musicians started their careers with music lessons so don’t feel like they’re only for children.

Tonight at midnight (central standard time)!

Tonight also begins the archiving of the show. So, if you folks can’t listen, then you can add Sunglasses After Dark as a MySpace friend and get it a couple days later. Tonight’s show looks to be heavy on covers. Expect me to focus in on the Hypstrz Live At the Longhorn,as well as its Nuggets-derived source material.

There may also be three versions of “You’re Gonna Miss Me”, as well as “96 Tears.” I’m sick like that.

You can listen online at KJHK. If you’ve got any garage / rockabilly / punk requests, you can call ’em in at 785-864-4747. I await the phone to be a-ringin’.

the Hypstrz – “I’m Gonna Make You Mine
the Hypstrz – “Not Talkin’

Sunglasses after dark

Starting Saturday morning, August 19, at midnight… that being when Friday the 18th turns into Saturday the 19th… you will be able to catch me every Saturday from midnight until 2am on KJHK 90.7FM here in Lawrence, and most the way into Kansas City.

The program is called “Sunglasses After Dark.” Rock out to the music that made generations of parents nervous; the music that only allowed Elvis filmed from the waist up. I will spin rockabilly, psychobilly, screamin’ garage and anything else scandalous enough for your Friday night. I look forward to bringing you all the finest in rebellious rock this school year and beyond.

Expect live performances, interviews, me being fairly well hammered on whiskey, and as much music as I can cram into two hours. To get a taste, you can download the show’s intro below…

“Sunglasses After Dark” show intro

On my radio

Just so you all know, I’m doing training at KJHK today from noon-4pm (Central Standard Time). So, feel free to tune in and listen to me being an idiot on the radio. That’s 90.7 on your FM dial, or kjhk.org to listen online. The request line is 785-864-4747, if you feel inclined to call and request anything. I plan on playing whatever stuff pops into my head.

Prior to that, I need to get a shower taken and a shave done, otherwise I’m gonna feel like ten different kinds of ick come 4pm. A large quantity of caffeine would be a nice touch as well… god, it’s been six years since the last time I was up there at the shack. Here’s to hoping I can figure out what I’m doing, and that I actually have enough fun to want to be up there at 2 in the morning in a week and a half. Speaking of that… well, I’ll explain further when it gets closer. Suffice it to say, there’s going to be at least one radio-show related post every Friday.

Rush – “The Spirit of Radio
Elvis Costello – “Radio, Radio

Barren of Barrett

On March 22, Dicky Barrett, former front man for the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, was fired from his position as host of Indie 103.1‘s morning program, The Mighty Morning Show. The reason for the firing, according to Indie 103.1 station GM Dawn Girocco:

“We have been working with Dicky for the past five months trying to get the show to the next level.. We invested a lot into not only the show, but in promoting and coaching him. Unfortunately it takes a lot of work to build and grow a morning show as well as develop interesting, compelling content. This was not Dicky’s priority, as he had other commitments with Jimmy Kimmel Live, which was, in his words, ‘his bread and butter.’ Everyone at Indie has a tremendous commitment to the station and to the audience. We need to have a morning show that is able to make Indie their #1 priority.”

Barrett disgrees with this statement, and had the following to say in rebuttal:

Jimmy Kimmel is a great guy who supported the Mighty Morning Show, and loved it, even though he helped to build the Kevin and Bean Show on KROQ and is the Producer of the Adam Carolla Morning Radio Show.

The man hired to “coach” me “trying to get the show to the next level” Dan Kieley said “Dicky is a true talent and a radio star” and “it’s a great Morning Show.” I was fired for being unwilling to be, in Dawn Girocco’s words “more mainstream.” It was a great morning show. It is unfair to let people think I walked away to put more work into loudly reading twenty to thirty words a night on Jimmy’s T.V. show. I worked hard on the Mighty Morning Show. I along with Stacey, Chuck, and Liz, built and grew it to what it was. You could count on it (for the most part) to provide you with interesting, compelling content and better music then any other show on the air in the morning.

The Mighty Morning Show ran for about a year, from March of 2005, until last week. Barrett has been the announcer for Jimmy Kimmel live since 2003, which was about the time the Bosstones went on extended hiatus. I never got a chance to hear what the Mighty Mornign Show sounded like, as I’m usually at work when it aired in LA, or out running errands if I’m off. From what I’ve read, though, it seems like the show was pretty popular. Sad to see something like what Dicky describes below happen at what I’ve always found to be a cool radio station. Now, I can’t say I listen to Indie 103.1 as much as I would were it on the air out here in the midwest, but when I’ve tuned in (especially to shit like Jonesy’s Jukebox), it’s been as cool a station as I could have hoped for.

The full story of what happened, according to Dicky:

The station was built to fuck with KROQ (Infinity) by people from KISS-FM (Clear Channel) it was just supposed to be a short lived pain in the ass that that took away a few ratings points, and talked some shit about KROQ – Inadvertently (and you can credit Steve Jones and the other celebrity DJ’s) it became good, and got a lot of national attention, and credible press “the coolest station in America” rolling stone etc. At that point the FCC said Clear Channel who operated Indie 103.1 out of the Entravision offices could no longer do so – All business ties on paper we’re severed – It became a full Entravision property – But the hard right leaning Clear Channel program director and station manager (along with a lot of the behind the scenes technical employees) were already firmly in place – It is in Clear Channel’s best interest that Indie 103.1 exist – the PD, Michael Steele (who brags about “breaking Britney Spears”) and the station manager, Dawn Girocco (a long time radio sales women) are believing their own hype and considering themselves radio geniuses who masterminded the Indie 103.1 phenomenon, so it’s now time to implicate their superior “radio wisdom” and conventional “radio strategy” – #1) Morning shows need to be musically formatted and the music needs to be heavily rotated – #2) All guests must be approved by Michael Steele (Dawn Girocco really, she’s Dick Cheney, Steele’s George Bush) “no guests to controversial soccer moms are listening in the a.m.” – There were other things that were more annoying, then actually detrimental to the show “say the time, and call letters till your blue in the face” – I reluctantly, and unhappily against my better judgment went along with all this for about two weeks, hoping they would come to their senses – During this time they brought in a longtime radio guru, to consult (he also worked at one point for Clear Channel) – His assessment was the show was “really good” and I was a “legitimate talent and a potential radio star” – Not the information these people wanted me to have – When I made an on air remark about not liking the new overplayed Morrissey track I was marched into the President of Entravisions office (Jeff Lieberman, a fan of Mighty Morning show) – In front of me, Jeff told Dawn he was not prepared to “strip Dicky of his opinion” she was obviously and visibly embarrassed – Then he asked her if she gave me the book about morning radio that he gave her to give to me “no, it’s at home” she said, “why the hell, is it there” he asked, she looked humiliated – This was the beginning of the end for me, and the writing was most likely on the wall – Two weeks after that I had a substantial, unauthorized, pro-choice conversation on the air with a South Dakota disc jockey and a few callers, the straw that broke the camels back – This is not the direction supporters of the current administration want the station going in.
– I was fired that day
-I loved doing the show and loved the people who loved it

Thank you,
Dicky

Contact Indie 103.1 and express your disappointment call #877.900.1031 or or e-mail Michael Steele (program director).

the Mighty Mighty Bosstones – “Everybody’s Better
the Mighty Mighty Bosstones – “Another Drinkin’ Song

Learning from your mistakes

The lovely ladies of the Sad Dog Kansas City concert e-mail list were kind enough to turn me on to a new form of Internet radio today. Courtesy of the folks at the Music Genome Project, there is now Pandora.

The MGP is a group of folks who’ve spent the past five years quantifying songs and artists on specific qualities- much like the rankings and qualifiers you see over at the Allmusic Guide. However, rather than applying it to musical reviews, they’ve created an intuitive radio station.

You start out by inputting an artist or song that you like. It’ll then play a song by that artist, and based on the qualifiers that apply to that artist, branch out. Sometimes it doesn’t work so well. They didn’t have the Meteors in their database, so the psychobilly station I wanted to get going had to start with the Nekromantix, which sent it off in this weird branching based on “vamping.” I suppose I should count myself lucky that it picked dirty rockers the Cherry Valance and Throw Rag (both of whom I like quite a bit), rather than some mascara rock like My Chemical Romance.

However, were Pandora to pick something like MCR, you can tell it that you don’t like it, and it’ll move on and not play that song ever again. Which would be nice if the actual radio worked that way. Still, if you have a yen to try something new, and don’t mind a little interaction, you might end up with something that you really like- which I imagine is what they want, because you can get it ad-free if you pay…