I'm glad you liked it! Thanks for coming! I'm so glad you liked it!
Well hello again, podcast fans. Welcome back to our regularly scheduled program.
First of all, thanks to everybody who checked out the last couple of episodes. Those "Best Of" shows are some of my favorite shows to do each year. Counting things down is fun as hell.
2016, however, is now done. On to 2017.
This week's show features some hip-hop instrumentals, classic pop-punk, some old man rap, a nice dose of new Twin Cities music, a lost Twin Cities gem, a tribute to a fallen prog legend, Scottish indie rock... shit. Lots of stuff. All that plus the Cover Of The Week & the Flatbasset Flatclassic all lovingly assembled into a coherent, enjoyable mix by yours truly.
As always, Flatbasset Radio is completely free. I've finally set up a decent downloading site, so if you'd like to download Flatbasset Radio: Episode #91 (with all the appropriate iTunes tagging), just click here.
If you don't have the time or desire to download the show, just click the Mixcloud player below and you're good to go.
Here's how Flatbasset Radio: Episode #91 plays out:
01. A-Plus - Happy New Year
A-Plus is a producer hailing from the Hieroglyphics collective out in Oakland. Back in 2014 he dropped this outstanding beat tape Think Tank for free!?! What a country! I figured this was the best place to start off the first mix of the new year. I'd like to be happy this year.
02. The Florists -Lake Of The Aisles
I already wrote a bit about this one back in my 50 Most Played Albums Of 2016 column, but it's worth reiterating - check out this band. You can hear it in this track alone. Melodic post-pop-punk (?). That's how I'd describe it. The Minneapolis punk sound with just a dash of Saddle Creek. Great stuff.
03. King Crimson - Moonchild
R.I.P. Greg Lake. King Crimson is a stone-cold classic.
04. Felt - Corey's Interlude
I'm sorry. I had to.
05. The Afghan Whigs - Regret
I think this is the third time I've featured Greg Dulli for the Cover Of The Week. I know I played his cover of "When Doves Cry" a while back and I'm pretty sure I played his take on "Paper Thin Walls" at one point as well. Hmmm... y'know, someone should probably stop by Bernard Sumner's house & check on him.
06. Green Day - One Of My Lies
And we come to our first anniversary of this week's show. Happy 25th to Kerplunk.
Green Day's run from 39/Smooth - American Idiot will always have a special place in my heart. Like many children of the 90's, I was absolutely enchanted the the pop-punk sound of Dookie back in '94. Once I decided I needed another hit of that sound I started going back into Green Day's catalog and fell for Kerplunk. Not only is it a great document of a band that had the tools to go big, but it opened up the wider world of indie/punk labels to me. Back in those days you had to mail away checks to labels to order their wares. With each album I bought from Lookout! I was treated to a little catalog of all their other releases. As somebody raised on MTV & 93.7 The Edge it was like a glimpse into an alternate universe where bands like The Mr. T Experience & The Queers were the biggest bands in the world.
07. Mux Mool - Eyebrow Dandruff
I've been a fan of Mux Mool ever since seeing him with Big Quarters at the Turf Club back in 2008. His music has seemed to mellow a bit with age and that's never been more true than on last year's Implied Lines beat tape. It's refreshingly unhurried, finding a sweet spot between melody & pace.
08. Face Candy - Life Jacket
A ten year anniversary from back in December that I skipped over as I got bogged down in other stuff, Face Candy's This Is Where We Were still stands as a fascinating document of the Twin Cities hip-hop scene as Rhymesayers established enough clout to let its artists follow their muse.
For those who don't remember, Face Candy consisted of Eyedea, Kristoff Krane, Carnage, & Matza I on the mics backed by J.T. Bates on drums & Casey O'Brien on the bass. The group was entirely improvisational with Bates & O'Brien working out grooves in real time while the MC's freestyled. In the wake of Eyedea & Abilities success people didn't know exactly what to make of the group. Allegedly they were booed frequently & left audiences confused. Listening back to This Is Where We Were it's fascinating not only to hear these guys assemble the pieces in real time, but to think about the stones it must have taken to get up onstage and play stuff like this to an audience that may have been growing more disappointed by the moment.
09. Deleter - Start To Watch
Oh shit! New Deleter EP! Out tomorrow!
I love Deleter because, while they're extremely talented musicians in their own right, they manage to write songs that resist devolving into post-punk schlockery. Rather than bizarre time signatures & instrumental breakdowns, they find more subtle ways to grown their sound. As you can hear on "Start To Watch," they can still roll on like a Mack truck, but this new EP finds them working in female backing vocals & dark, mid-tempo numbers. It's only six songs, but they cover a lot of little twists & turns.
10. Lou Reed - Last Great American Whale
Given the events of this week, something about this one seemed appropriate.
11. Masta Killa - Therapy (w/Method Man & Redman)
The last of the 31(!) songs released as part of 2016's Adult Swim Singles Program, Masta Killa, Method Man, & Redman team up to make some old man rap about the therapeutic power of hip-hop. As an old man who spends his time making mixes that nobody listens to, I can definitely appreciate the sentiment.
12. Why? - This Ole King
Nothing in this world can take away from the truly awkward beauty that is Alopecia & Eskimo Snow, the twin pillars of Why?'s catalog. In the same way that a new generation of teenagers drift to Zeppelin, Metallica, & The Cure every year, they are the kind of specific-yet-universal albums that generations of confused 20-somethings will be finding solace in for years.
Their follow-up to Eskimo Snow, 2012's Mumps, Etc... didn't quite land in the same spot. It's a fine album, to be sure, but it didn't seem to hit that same spot (at least not for me, which may be a product of me aging out of my 20's). The band have put out a couple of EP's since then (and singer Yoni Wolf has started a podcast & collaborated with a number of different artists), but Moh Lhean (out March 3rd) is their proper follow up. "This Ole King," its debut single, is a solid tune, but I'm reserving judgement until I hear the whole thing front-to-back.
13. Dem Atlas - In The Mud
"In The Mud," the new single from Minneapolis's own Dem Atlas, is a fascinating listen. In the song we find Dem Atlas hitting the bottle to help him through some tough times. In & of itself that's something that I'm sure a lot of people can relate to.
More interesting, however, is the fact that, while Dem Atlas's star continues to rise, he seems to be expressing his troubles through his music. His last release, 2016's MF Dem, found him revealing plenty of concern, vulnerability, & anger over a batch of MF Doom's beats. While I may be playing keyboard psychologist here (or simply finding autobiography where none exists), the fact that he chose this batch of well-known beats from a big name gave him a bit of cover should anybody try to break down his lyrics too closely. It's almost as if he chose a project like this so that, should the conversation ever steer to close to his personal issues, he could change the conversation to how much he loves Doom's beats (they are fantastic).
"In The Mud" is like the opening 20 minutes of a conversation with a friend that begins with you asking, "Hey bud, you doing alright?" This is his typically Minnesotan reply of, "Not really, but whatever, it's fine." Now that he's gotten this one off his chest, hopefully he can find his way out.
14. Vital Idles - My Sentiments
Here's a very modern example of how we got here: Radio K gave away the brilliant single "Heart Attack" by Glasgow's The Pooches back in February of 2016. I loved it so much that I made it my number one song on Flatbasset Radio: Ep. #90's countdown of the Top Radio K Track Of The Day songs of 2016. I tweeted to The Pooches that I'd played their song on the show. They were kind enough to retweet said tweet. That retweet was then seen by a Glasgow-based blogger known on Twitter as "The Brogues," a notification that appeared on my feed. I checked out the profile link to a blog called Not Unloved. After reading through some of the posts I found out that Not Unloved is also a record label with only one single to its name so far - Vital Idles' My Sentiments. And here we are. What a time to be alive.
15. Willie Murphy - Somewhere Down The Line
I was down at Cheapo the other day (shocking, I know) and I saw this compilation in the "Local" used bin at the entirely reasonable price of $0.95. Even though I didn't know the label or any of the bands on the compilation (though I suppose I'd heard the name Boiled In Lead somewhere over the years) I thought, "Welp, for $0.95 you may as well see what it's all about."
It turns out Atomic Theory Records traffics mainly in the type of roots/country/Americana music that I've spent most of my 34 years on this Earth actively avoiding. It's just not really my scene. However, near the end of this compilation I came across "Somewhere Down The Line" by Minneapolis legend & Atomic Theory co-founder Willie Murphy. Holy hell! This song sounds like it was beamed in from outer space. If Vini Reilly & John Oates decided to write a song on the moon, this is what it would sound like.
16. David Bowie - Always Crashing In The Same Car
I'll spare you a re-hashing of my overly-complicated relationship with David Bowie and get right to the point.
Last week marked the 40th anniversary of David Bowie's Low and, as such, I'm playing "Always Crashing In The Same Car" as this week's Flatbasset Flatclassic.
Low was the first album of what's come to be known as his "Berlin Trilogy." Recorded as he was sobering up in Berlin with Brian Eno, it's less a coherent album than two excellent EP's. The second half of the record, a collection of mostly instrumental work composed under Eno's watchful, tasteful eye is enjoyable, to be sure, but the first half of the album is probably my favorite work in all of Bowie's career. Those seven songs found his band deep in the pocket while Bowie through out pop song fragments as if he were picking up the pieces of his drug-addled past. It's a tremendous piece of work that, to my ears, is some of his most coherent, cathartic work. I know I'm probably in the minority on this one, but with the notable exception of the songs "Heroes" & "Ashes To Ashes," these seven songs are Bowie's high-water mark.
There you have it, folks. Have a good weekend!
For more of my rantings you can give me a follow on Twitter (@TCDroogsma). Previous episodes of Flatbasset Radio are archived on my Mixcloud page. Stop by Flatbasset Radio's Facebook Page & give it a "Like" if you have the time.
