Radio Free California Episodes 2412, 2413 & 2414, plus things that make me laugh.

 

See what happens when I miss a couple of weeks? Such a backlog! New music from Envy of None, My Morning Jacket, Lucy Ducas, Orchards, Avi Kaplan, Little Feat, The Darkness, Uwade, Tetrarch and so much more it boggles the mind. Enjoy!

This is by far the longest playlist I've ever done, so take your time with it - stream in batches if you need. It's 129 songs and runs for hours and hours. I picked one hell of a time to move and not have internet access, eh?

Back to normal next week. Whatever the fuck that is.

By the way, track 114 by Marlon Williams is sung in the New Zealander's native Māori language.

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I don't really have anything to add to the whole tariff's story that you haven't already heard, although I do find it funny that we have imposed tariffs on penguins and a US Army base. Almost as if the list the picked to use was based on internet domains. I will admit to surprise that tariffs against Denmark weren't higher.

I hope your retirement fund survives this. I've handled money for a lot of my life, and this is a mistake of unmeasurable proportions. Yet.

All the protests this past weekend were great to see, and I support them without reservation. I find it hilarious that the right-wing fathom or conceive that such a thing could happen without someone bankrolling it.

I also find it hilarious that these people cannot fathom or conceive that people won't be upset about missed Social Security checks, missed payroll, erased history, Its as if they have no concept of what it's like not to be rich.

Another thing I find funny is how they all fail to understand that we on the left simply don't think like they do - they have convinced themselves that we do think exactly like they do but act differently not because we think they're wrong, but just to be divisive.

Sorry folks, I do believe, in all my heart, that you are the villains. That you are wrong.

It all makes me laugh. To quote a comic I am fond of, "Someday we will look back on all of this and laugh. It will be one of those laughs that builds slowly to an Earth-shattering scream, but still it will be a laugh."

But for now, because I love you, here is the new video by The Darkness:

Radio Free California Episode 2511, why I've been quiet for a couple of weeks, and an important anniversary for my career...

 

A little bit late but finally here, new music from Chris Trapper, The Doobie Brothers, Lot's Wife, Envy of None, Kings & Pills, Ainsley Costello, The Antinomy Insurgency, Swervedriver, Florence + the Machine, Beach Youth, a reissue from Vazz and much more! Enjoy!

Sorry I forgot to publish this - it's been one hell of a few weeks. I moved, for the first time in 20 years. How did I wind up with so much shit?

I filled two industrial sized dumpsters with just trash and things I was getting rid of, and I'm still up to my eyeballs in boxes in the new house.

I used to live 8 blocks from the ocean. I now live ONE. Next time I move it's going to be to a Quonset hut sitting off a dock extending into the ocean. Like in The Maldives or something.

I will do my best to make the next Radio Free California a real doozy, but this delay brings me up to something that happened that jump-started my music career.

Four years ago this week I released a single called "He Takes a Knee". It was my third single of the year 2021 - while we were all in lockdown. The first got some play because it was part of a fundraiser/charity album, but the second one dropped like a stone in a river.

As you might recall, a lot of terrible happened aside from the pandemic. There was the murder of George Floyd. The murder of Brianna Taylor. Black Lives Matter. Say their names. The anniversary of the Murder of Emmit Till. And a football player in my adopted home town benched for properly protesting while respecting veterans.

A dear friend of mine and former writing partner back in the day sent me a few lines of lyrics about it all, inspired by all of this. I already had a piece of music that demanded some rage to go behind it, so I put the two of them together and put it out in the world. I commissioned a truly bizarre video, rapped for the first (and hopefully last) time. I'm not a very good rapper, but the lyrics were smart and I think that saves it.

I again unleashed it to an indifferent world. Then something remarkable happened.

A football (i.e. soccer for the Americans) player for Manchester United took a knee before a game. Boy, you've never seen football fans like British Football fans, especially for their beloved Man U. There was both outrage and support, and it got the press to talk about anything aside from COVID. A local radio station decided to do a theme show about the protest, and my song "He Takes A Knee" probably got found through a google search. However it happened, it wound up on the show.

All of a sudden I'm doing radio shows - interviews. The video gets thousands and thousands of views (the one for my previous single only had 70 at that point). Manchester radio plays it again, and again. It winds up on a mix-tape show. The replays on British radio dies down, but the match was lit.

I get nominated for best alternative artist by the Radio Music Awards. I won. I got nominated by the Indie Music Channel as best artist. I won. For the first time in over a decade I get a royalty check. It wasn't a big check, but I still got one!

Everything changed for the better for me, all while locked into my apartment. I met other musicians, a couple of which I've collaborated with. I released better songs, got more radio play, won a few more awards, but it was "He Takes a Knee" that really got me going. I don't think it's even the best song I did during that whole stretch - it was just in the right place at the right time.

I did my first "producer for hire" work in over 2 decades. This year two of those bands also won trophies at the Radio Music Awards. I've won another SEVEN.

All kinds of crazy, all because I put together a song about events so far outside of my control that even with my meager conribution the needle didn't move at all. But my own life got better.

I've always followed the advice of Porky Pine, from the comic strip Pogo all those years and years ago: Don't take life so serious: it ain't nohow permanent.

But when life is good enjoy it. Far too much out there is trying to actively take joy away from you. Preserve the joy you have, if you have it. It's kind of amazing how important that is.

Here's that crazy video and song that got the ball rolling. See ya Monday.