Radio Free California Episode 2339, cheap shots, radio station notes and more!

New music this week from Los Lonely Boys, The National, Dream Wife, Pretenders, Baroness, Teenage Fanclub, Kylie Minogue, Hiromi and much more. Enjoy!

yeule is the musical project of Singaporean songwriter and producer Nat Ćmiel (born Natasha Yelin Chang). Formed in 2012, Yeule incorporates elements of ambient, glitch and Asian post-pop.The name Yeule is derived from the Final Fantasy character of the same name (spelled differently), as well as their middle name. She refers to herself as "4th Generation Goth" on her Spotify profile. Her new album is called "softscars" and we're going to feature the album this week.

The Album Show will run this Thursday September 28th at 9am and 9pm Pacific Standard Time.

For those of you who stay away from Spotify this playlist will be played this Wednesday September 27th at 2am, 6am, 10am, 2pm and 6pm PST. All of the songs I feature on Radio Free California are played as part of the regular rotation.

One last programming note: Every Sunday at 10am and again at 10pm we will feature our new show "10 at 10", where we play 10 (and sometimes 11) songs from a year we pick at random. Again, all times are PST.

Cheap shots:

I do believe he just committed the exact same felony that Hunter Biden has been indicted for.

Okay, maybe one.

The claim that the Republican Party is the party that supports our military is a fucking lie.

"Spectator Speaker."

This motherfucker is getting people killed. (Full disclosure: I already got the new COVID Booster shot).

I'm no expert on these things but if you're looking for an equivalence wouldn't he be The Golden Calf? I mean, gold tan, gold toilet, gold letters on his buildings... how many fucking hints do you need?

Parody account on a parody of a social media site.

Like putting out a Christmas Tree for Easter.

You would think a dentist would have better teeth.

Rich, I tell you! Rich! Wealthy Misers!

Ain't it funny how all the people who say that we should live under certain values never do it themselves?

I really hope this guy becomes President someday.

So the DeSantis campaign will end on November 30th?

And because I love you, well, can you name all of the people playing his backup band?

In the beginning, God told Adam and Eve NOT to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, and Evangelicals have been avoiding knowledge ever since.

~ Ben Tousey

Radio Free California Episoce 2338, radio station notes, and what is a satirist supposed to do?

New music this week from Vagabon, Olivia Rodrigo, Mickey Dolenz, Copperstone, Stephen Marley, Woods, Brian Setzer and much more! Enjoy!

Laetitia Tamko, better known by her stage name Vagabon, is a Cameroonian-American self-taught multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and music producer based in New York City. She and her family relocated to the US when she was 13 so that her monther could attend Law School. She got a guitar as a present at age 17 and the rest is history. Her third album, "Sorry I haven't Called" is out now and I added three songs from that album to the rotation this week, so of course it's a natural for The Album Show.

The Album Show will run this Thursday September 21st at 9am and 9pm Pacific Standard Time.

For those of you who stay away from Spotify this playlist will be played this Wednesday September 20th at 2am, 6am, 10am, 2pm and 6pm PST. All of the songs I feature on Radio Free California are played as part of the regular rotation.

One last programming note: Every Sunday at 10am and again at 10pm we will feature our new show "10 at 10", where we play 10 (and sometimes 11) songs from a year we pick at random. Again, all times are PST.

No cheap shots this week. Between the former guy continually confessing his sins over and over again, MItch McConnel shorting out twice, Ms. Boebert picking exaqctly the wrong line of an Alanis Morrisette song to base her life on, the guy who owns twitter blaming his troubles on the Jews, every elected Republican of note strenuously dfending the 2nd ammendments of anyone not named Hunter Biden, NBC apparently letting their new Meet the Press host swing in the wind with an agreement to not fact-check a known liar, the same liar claiming he can beat Obama and prevent World War Two, A Presidential Candidate with a "Canadian Girlfriend",  The chief medical official in one of the more populous states in the country telling people not to get vaccinated, a church picking up the cirriculum for AP African American Studies, the Senate dropping its dress code (but for Senators only), several people tryhing to restart talk shows only to back out because they were shamed back into reality, people claiming that abortion after birth is actually a thing, and a freakin' fighter jet just going missing...

How the hell is satire supposed to keep up with all this shit?

And because I love you, I once again present a single of mine I'm really proud of, which will be a Spotify pick for the month of October:

Radio Free California Episode 2336 & 2337, Radio Station Notes, Social Media.

 

I took a week off so we have a two week batch of new music for you this time, including Peter Gabriel, The Rolling Stones, The Killers, Love is Noise, Dezit, Prince, Katy Kirby, Royal Blood, The Coral, Sarah Jarosz, William Shatner (!!!) and much more. Enjoy!

For the curious let me get this out of the way now: of the 9 nominations I won exactly ONE. Best Alternative Artist for "Woke AF". It was the first award of the night. I have to tell you, watching other people win in your categories for the rest of the night is humbling AND annoying. There was a very Jesusy feel to the evening, and that's not me. Anyway, it's over and let's move on.

Soft Science has a new album out called "Lines" and we will be featuring it on this week's Album Show. From their Spotify page: "Hailing from Northern California’s Sacramento Valley, Soft Science fuse melody, sound and texture of '60s pop and '90s shoegaze like molecular gastronomists blend physics and chemistry to transform food. Together this 5-piece band has managed to create their own sweet blend of modern pop music with a sonic edge. Their music is influenced by bands ranging from the Zombies and Beach Boys to Lush, Teenage Fanclub, Ride, Pale Saints, New Order, and Jesus and Mary Chain, along with newer artists such as Beach House and Frankie Rose. Current members/collaborators: Katie Haley, Ross Levine, Matt Levine, Tony Cale, Becky Cale, and Hans Munz." I don't know about all that but I listened to the album and found myself going back to relisten to tracks, so it's this week's pick.

The Album Show will run this Thursday September 14th at 9am and 9pm Pacific Standard Time.

For those of you who stay away from Spotify this playlist will be played this Wednesday September 13th at 2am, 6am, 10am, 2pm and 6pm PST. All of the songs I feature on Radio Free California are played as part of the regular rotation.

One last programming note: at 10am and again at 10pm next Sunday the 17th we will feature our new show "10 at 10", where we play 10 (and sometimes 11) songs from a year we pick at random. Again, all times are PST.

As a reminder, you can also download the Radio Free California app at the App store.

Finally, we now have a Facebook Page for Radio Free California. You can find updates there and links to the artists we cover.

It's the anniversary of one terrible day. No cheap shots today.

And because I love you, have Prince doing Zepplin:

The Indie Music Channel Awards for 2023: About the Nominations part 5 (the grand finale) - Hatey

 

I have been nominated for a total of 9 awards by the Indie Music Channel, the premiere source for indie/alternative music in North America, and I'm going to talk about the songs that have been nominated. Now I will talk a bit about the final nomination and probably the longest of longshots to win: Album of the Year, for Hatey.

As mentioned in a previous post I had intended to fully write and record the EP in May of 2023, and while the writing got done the recording did not and as such the release of the EP got pushed back to mid July. It's a protest album from start to finish from the moody synths and sample of rioters on the opening track, to the moody, sweary punch in the face that is the 2nd track, to the environmental dancability of the 3rd track, to at last the slow burn attempt at some hope in the final track. The holw thing weights in at 4 songs and just under 28 minutes.

The EP opens with my very stark reworking of Nick Lowe's "I Love the Sound of Broken Glass". It's the exact same song, but every time Nick Lowe played a G Major chord I substituded E Minor. All of the riot samples come from the footage released by the January 6th committee of Congress. I didn't change a single lyric of the song, but producing it the way we did the song now becomes the Miscreant Badge of Honor instead of a song about displaced and frustrated youth. The only thing I really changed was the tone and the meaning completely shifts.

And yes, I do owe a debt of gratitude to Gary Jules' version of the Tears for Fears song "Mad World". His re-working of that song gave me the idea to do this in the first place. I also owe a bit of inspiration to Roger Waters' remake of his own song "Comfortably Numb". Despite what the man himself has degraded himself into, the new version is awfully damned good.

I've talked about WOKE AF and Ordinary Life in previous posts, but on this release I created a new mix of Elusive Green. I sampled video and audio from Green protests all over the world and added that into the mix of the song I made for the video, which until this point had only been in the video and not any official release.

I'm truly pleased with the results - I mean the guyzos really put a lot of effort into their parts and I'm pleased that I could release it at all given the struggles we went through to even get it finished. Is it the best indie album out this year? I don't know.

It's always struck me that if you think you've found the best of anything, then maybe all you've done is settle. There's always amazing stuff out there but you do have to go looking for it.

I was always going to call this project "Hatey". I no longer remember who said it, but I heard (or read) someone say that he couldn't stand it that the Governor of Florida was turning the State into Hatey. That struck a chord with me. As for the cover art, All I did was reverse and turn upside down a map of the USA. It has always struck me as funny that when English letters are positioned like in this way that it looks kinda/sorta Russian.

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Well, that's everything. My next post will come after the awards ceremony. I might win nothing. I might win big. I might some down somewhere in the middle. In any case it's an honor and quite humbling to be recognized by my peers in this way. I've been doing this music thing for a long time now and to be recognized for my work - our work - is special and gratifying.

Thank you all, and love to you all.

You can find Hatey at all the usual places, and you can even stream it right here.