John Peel's historic "Punk Rock" show

What a great find! The always excellent Gloom and Doom From the Tomb has posted a recording of John Peel's original punk rock–themed special of December 10, 1976. Listen and learn, little aubadelings.

New destinations

Greetings, loyal fan.

(hi, Mom!)

I have created two new blogs, based on my crate-digging adventures, for your delectation and edification.

The first is North of Wherever. It is to be a trove of Canadian goodness for all to share.

The other is ... and Sharon, a candy-box of international delights.

I trust you will watch them patiently for new content.

That is all.

Andrew Bird live

A quick one. A good show from Andrew Bird, virtually identical to the set he played at the Calgary Folk Fest a couple of years back. The Roger Whittaker of our generation... naw, just kidding. It was a really good shoe, and so is this.

Spread the love

Please allow me to introduce you to a heroic blogger, someone who should be given the Order of Canada: Beau Levitt of Toronto, whose blog 5 Bucks on By-Tor chronicles constant listening to the almost-unheard, the always-ignored, the has-beens, the never-wases, the couldn't-have-beens and other relics of the vinyl era in Canada. Where else are you going to find tracks by Thorsby, Alberta's Bob Ruzicka?

As a casual collector of weird, under-the-radar Canadian vinyl myself, something I really appreciate is Levitt's tolerance for musical genres outside the rock-country-folk axis. (A tolerance I lack. A lot.) He's a generous listener and a good writer, and if there's a blog heaven he's assured a place in it.

Be sure to check out his other websites: It Came From Canada and The Thrifty Digger.

Aubadecast 1.4: The Good Times Are Killing Me

While you were driving around trying to avoid that damn Kid Rock song all summer, I had this playlist on deck at all times. The songs I'd randomly selected for it seemed to arrange themselves naturally into a kind of Pilgrim's Progress storyline (don't ask me what Kara Keith and Arthur Alexander did to horn themselves into the sequence; I'm just the conduit).

Ladies and germs, The Good Times Are Killing Me.

Good Times Charlie Robison
Kick This City Kara Keith
Something For The Weekend Super Furry Animals
Please Go Home The Rolling Stones
Paisley Pattern Ground The Black Hollies
Crash Pad Number Marc Carroll
Heaven The Gerry Alvarez Odyssey
Sunday morning Pet Politics
Rock Bottom, Pop. 1 Robbie Fulks
O.K. With My Decay Grandaddy
Orphans Wooden Stars
Take Care Of Us The Star Spangles
Pretty Girls Everywhere Arthur Alexander
If Looks Could Kill Camera Obscura
Death of the Life of the Party Drag The River

option+click & "save as" to download Aubadecast 1.4.

or listen and download at podomatic.

A little love

I begin to lurch back into the land of the internet people

After a summer of trauma, much relieved by Clint's generous loan of his laptop, we stagger into autumn on a G4 tower upgraded with memory galore but creaking through a newer, bigger OS on a slow and remarkably unreliable 1999 processor. But we are up and ... if not running, at least walking, ladies and germs. Thank you for your patience.

Aubadecast 1.4 is mere days away from being posted. In the meantime, feel free to visit Aubade at http://aubade.podomatic.com where you can glom onto an RSS feed of this 'cast and even request its presence at iTunes. Which I'm pretty sure will violate every RIAA regulation going.

In the meantime: Do you want commentary on these things, as though I'm your late-night FM radio host, or do you prefer the "traditional mixtape" feel of the uninterrupted sequence? Please let me know your preference in the comments section. Gold stars for robot boys and girls who drop a line.

No news. Not good.

A friendly piece of advice for all you out there in computerland. If you don't have an external hard drive that backs up all your important stuff -- and I mean all your files -- then please go out & get one immediately.

Something we often forget (I do, anyhow) is that our computers are designed to fail eventually. They're not made to go the distance. We don't buy them so much as rent. Etcetera.

You can intuit the reason I haven't posted new mixes in a while, eh?

I have one ready to go as soon as I can recover all my files. It won't be too long now, I don't think, but I don't have a grand to throw away on another Mac just at the moment. If anyone knows someone with a used Mac laptop for sale, you know where you can find me.

Aubadecast 1.3

A themed 'cast, of a sort; at least, one that stays within a mood rather than leapscotching and hopfrogging all around the stylistic chessboard. It was created as the soundtrack for the gloomy months of March and April.

So of course I publish it as the sun and green buds emerge, and when Zephyrus with his sweete breth eek remarke on ev'ry holt and heath...

This'll be up for about a week or so (direct-linked, I mean; the Megaupload one will be semi-permanently archived there), then I'll post May's "party-time" podcast.

Aubadecast 1.3

Fall Into The Night Eliza Gilkyson
Taps Reversed Christine Fellows & John K. Samson
song for the angels (miracle version) Great Lake Swimmers
Doctor Blind Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
Crooked Legs The Acorn
Santa Clara The National
Hope For Us All Nick Lowe
Falling For Catriona Al Tuck
Billy Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
The Ballad of Love and Hate The Avett Brothers
Beautiful Way Beck (feat. Beth Orton)
Little Waltz Basia Bulat
Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) Nancy Sinatra
If Silence Means That Much To You Emma Pollock
Here We Are Patrick Park
Old Song AM
Hail, Mary Shearwater
Quiet Creek Old Man Luedecke

option+click & "save as" for the streaming single-file version

Click here to receive a zip file containing the individual songs (via Megaupload; ignore the purdy gals, enter the code, wait 45 seconds and download)