Radio Free California Episode 2623, a story from my own past, a few words about the music and a bit of blogging

 

New music this week from Evanescence, Death cab for Cutie, Doublespeak, Lola Bates, Mercury Teardrop, Prince, Stanley Simmons, Europe, The Beaches, Pete Yorn, Folk Bitch Trio, A.A. Williams and much more. 59 songs all told. Enjoy!

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The new Evanescence album is out and boy does it ever sound like an Evanescence album. Their latest, "Sanctuary", is what we've come to expect from them and they're very good at it. This is the band that many other hard rock bands fronted by women copy, after all. I have added a few of their songs to the playlist this week.

The new Death Cab For Cutie album is probably their best since they broke through into the mainstream. "I Built You a Tower" feels like a true successor to "Narrow Stairs" even if it sounds more mature than that breakthrough. It should, that was 18 years ago now. Sorry to make you feel old. Again, I've added more than one of their songs to the playlist.

For the third (!) week in a row, "The Professor" Nick Harrison has released a new album of soul covers of alt-rock staples. This time around he covers The Verve, Harvey Danger, Evanescence, Cake and much more. He's good at this so of course I've added yet another track.

If you're looking for a flashback to the 80's and 90's synth music - and to the best of it - I recommend you discover Doublespeak. Vince Clark (the other guy in Erasure) and Blancmange's Neil Arthur have put together a new band and revisited their own catalogs, producing something both nostalgic and brand new. They also visit the catalogs of other artists, and shown by their cover of "Rock On".

It's been a very long time since a new artist came out of the Laurel Canyon/Coldwater Canyon sound, best known for artists like Joni Mitchel, but I must introduce you to Lola Bates and her debut album, "Love and Power". This is a set of well-crafted pop songs well worth your time.

And as we have a new single from Prince, we are all reminded of just how damned good he was, and that we're practically starving for more and more material to be released from that vault of his.

I'm not really into rap so I missed a lot of this, but Eminem has been releasing diss track after diss track for weeks now, but has no new album on the horizon. That's really a shame, because even I think he's doing career-defining work right now. I'll add a video at the end of this post with an example.

Those of you who have been coming around here for a while might have noticed that I add Japanese artists from time to time. This week I've added the new single from B'z (whom I've been a long-time fan of) and also Yonige. All 4 songs on the EP that I've added the song "Don't" from are all featured in an anime called "Kamiina Botan, Yoeru Sugata ha Yuri no Hana" about a group of women living in a boarding house and their tastes in alcohol. It's a fun slice-of-life anime and the music fits in well.

Finally, I have to address the opener for this week, a new song from Stryper. You have to understand that I'm not a fan of Stryper. For the most part I find them to be just another bland hair metal band, even with their Jesus-ing up of their lyrics. Yeah, maybe they were the first Religious front and center hair metal band, but they weren't all that good in their heyday. The new song isn't bad though, and it does bring back a memory from my own past.

Back in the mid 1980's, my band ASK was rehearsing in a run-down rehearsal space in Van Nuys, California. None of us lived there, but it served as a compromise as our drummer lived in the north valley while the rest of us were west L.A. This was a converted space with barely cardboard between rooms, and we were this small pop/rock band without top of the line gear. One week we were rehearsing and perhaps the loudest band I had ever heard started practicing next door. Great guitars, Marshal stacks... you get the idea. They had gear that probably cost more than the building they were renting in.

This was WASP. Not as they eventually became, but as they started. They were loud and talented and very raw. During a break in practicing I got to talking with one of them and voiced a complaint about how loud they were. He laughed and said, "At least we're not Stryper." We eventually relocated to a different rehearsal space as they eventually took over a residential spot in the Van Nuys building.

I think they eventually bought that rehearsal space but don't hold me to that. They did get signed pretty quickly, part of the hair metal Los Angeles wave. So did Stryper. Although we got lots of label interest, we didn't. The record labels hadn't yet figured out that there were other scenes in Los Angeles.

Anyway, any time I hear about either of these two bands I remember that laugh and "At least we're not Stryper."

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To the people upset about the rainbow integrated into Pink Floyd's logo on social media; Y'all are aware, aren't you, that there has ALWAYS been a rainbow on the cover of Dark Side of the Moon? Aren't you?

I'm guessing that someone forgot to make Scott Pelley sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement. Amateurs.

I wonder how all of the bars around Madison Square Garden are taking the closure of all the streets to pedestrian traffic today?

FIFA selected the first referee from Somalia as one of the officials for the World Cup. Somalia gave him a diplomatic passport to help him navigate the restrictions on Somali passport holders to traveling to the US. The US prohibited him from entering anyway. Same thing happened to the team photographer from Iran. We do not deserve to be the host/

Oh hey guess what? The White Trash anniversary of our nation (250 years, apparently) will only be available on streaming.

There has been a serious effort to make Graham Platner the face of the Democratic Party by everyone who isn't a Democrat. It's obvious why; he has a few red flags and a troubled past. When people confront me about it (and believe you me they do all over Social Media) I have a simple reply that I have found to be successful. "I don't live in Maine." If you live in Maine and are reading this, best of luck to you.

Sorry Mr. Bovino, I don't think you're going to be President. We haven't had a short President in a long time now.

Quick fact check for you: The Crime Administration wants to blame the Biden Administration for the Screwworm outbreak in our cattle supply. The fact is that in 2024 Biden stopped all live cattle imports when a single case was discovered. The current administration reopened live cattle from South America in February of this year in an effort to get beef prices down. Not only didn't it work, but given that the screw worm's life cycle is only 24 days there is simply no way this could have happened prior to mid March of this year. Sorry gang, this one's on the Crime Administration.

If you're gonna blame Biden you have to also acknowledge that he might be a time traveler. 

I'm concerned that Mike Johnson has a terrible pastor. He doesn't seem to know that lying is a sin. Or have the schools gotten so bad that Republicans no longer realize that counting takes place over time?

And because I love you, here is the first 2026 Emenem Diss track I discovered: