Radio Free California Episode 2306, thoughts on Turkey/Syria, and cheap shots.

 

A shorter week for new music but a solid one just the same, featuring Peter Gabriel, The Winery Dogs, Kat Robichaud, Koshi Inaba, Theo Katzman, a great remake from Powerwolf, and a monster prog rock song from Canada's Crown Lands, plus much more! Enjoy!

If you want to follow these artists through social media, might I suggest you look at their artist profiles on Spotify? Most artists link to their socials from there.

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Before we get into cheap shots let me blog a moment about the Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. I sometimes think that we westerners don't have a real idea of just how devastating all of this is, so allow me to point out that according to a friend of mine, who is from Turkey and is an architect, Building codes are fairly strong in Turkey, because it is as active seismically as California or Japan. But strong comes at a price, and most building are only built to withstand up to about a 5.5 Magnitude quake at best because it's just too expensive to build better. In California they're built to withstand an 8.0. In Japan it's even stronger.

But if your country isn't as financially well off as an America, a California or a Japan, you make do with what you can. So when a 7.8 is followed up within a few hours by a 7.2, This region of the world doesn't stand a chance.

There are thousands dead and that number is going to climb, probably a great deal. My architect friend is already on a plane and will get there sometime tomorrow.

If you want to help, here's where to start.

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Cheap Shots:

To see the other side of it, just about anything is funny when you're on a cocaine binge.

Grow the... House of Representatives?

Can we please deflate this story now?

Who da Queen? Bey da Queen!

Breaking my own comment just two sentences previous, this is a great example of how little the US Military actually trusted Trump and his administration.

That was quick.

Ch ch ch ch changes.

I know there's a long tradition of taunting the opposing team's players during sportsball, but this is a dick move.

How do you say "Florida Man" in Portuguese? 

I kind of feel like quoting SNL's Church Lady.

Bargain Basement Voldemort speaks.

Beggars can't be President.

I should point out that the pointy-headed fucks at Faux News are blaming this on a construction project that hasn't started yet.

Why do these Nazi morons always believe that the power grid can be crippled by a couple of fuck-ups with guns?

A good boy in Portugal. 

Ron DeSantis is a motherfucking groomer.

Sick fuck.

Speaking of grooming.

And because I love you, have some VoicePlay and yes, their bass can sing that low:

Radio Free California Episode 2305, a few cheap shots and swears, and a new gin

 

Queue up the end of January with lots of new music! This weeks features Nickel Creek, Maaya Sakamoto, Kiffie, Ergo, Bria (the comma is part of the name), Kimbra, King Tuff, a wild remix of an old Yes song, and much more. Enjoy!

I used to link to the artists in my playlists' social media sites, with a preference towards twitter. Well, twitter is a hellscape (okay, more of one) and I don't really do Facebook, Instagram or TikTok so what I recommend you do if you find that there's an artist on my playlist you want to follow, click on their name and open their Spotify Page. If you look at their bio they usually post their preferred social media spots, with links.Some don't, but most do. Give that a shot.

In my opinion this is one of the better lists of new music I've put together.

Cheap shots:

Tr8or!

He defied a subpoena...

Apparently the windmills are also killing airplanes and oceans now.

And we mourn.

It keeps looking more and more like all the motherfuckers who claim the election was stolen actually stole one themselves.

About fucking time.

A wall, eh? Seriously? What a bunch of hosers.

Scorpion disbanded, arrested, and I notice no police unions are defending these officers. They always seem to do so when the officers are white.

Tr8tor!

Goodbye to the OG, first, and best Wednesday Addams

And he speaks from experience.

Oh by the way, in case you haven't noticed it, COVID-19 is still as bad as ever. Mask up, motherfuckers.

Reverend Bra Cruise speaks.

I must admit, the phrase "This is some Bakersfield B.S." made me laugh.

Ever notice that people who use the word "Woke" as a pejorative are almost always assholes?

California. Picking up the slack when Republicans fail.

Don't call her Shirley. Well, fuck.

And because I love you, here is the very striking video by Kimbra, featured in this week's episode.

Oh and finally - this is not an ad. This is a recommendation. I tried this stuff this past weekend and fell in love with it. You have to buy it online, or buy it at the distillery on Treasure Island like I did, but it's amazing.

Radio Free California Episode 2304

 

Another busy week for new music, from long-standing artists like Metallica and Jethro Tull to indies like AmaltheuS, MOULE,  Benjamin Russell with Rob Stuart, Softcult, The Nude Party and much more. Enjoy!

Most artists post links to their social media platforms in their biographies on Spotify. If you want to know more about an artist, I'd start there.

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It seems to me that school kids in Florida aren't going to be able to meet college entrance requirements with just the education they get in public schools.

And because I love you, here is a live performance of one of the tracks from this week's RFC:

Radio Free California Episode 2303, plus my favorite MLK quote

 

The logjam has broken and we have a TON of new music. New tracks from Everything but the Girl, PIL, Prophets of Rage, Fear 2 Stop, The Subways, Billy Nomates, Belle and Sebastian, Daughter, U.S. Girls,  New Town, Babebee and much much more. 50 songs over nearly 3 hours. Enjoy!

It's MLK day today so I'm not going to do cheap shots. I will instead just point out my favorite Martin Luther King Jr. quote, which is about one of the many topic other than race relations that he was pretty liberal and radical about:

"We have guided Missiles and Misguided men"

And because I love you, Bill McClintock has given us another genius mashup of Wham! and Black Sabbath, with a touch of Van Halen thrown in.

Radio Free California Episode 2302, some thanks about the new single, and a few cheap shots

 

Week 2 for 2023 and we have new music from Chris Reed and the Anime Raiders (aka me), Kiffie, Peter Gabriel, The Winery Dogs, Quiet Houses, Somebody's Child, lovelytheband, All Them Witches and much more. Enjoy!

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The opening track is my latest, "Elusive Green". Much to my shock, it's the fastest out of the gate performing single of my career so far. Over 5,000 views of the video, and nearly 20,000 plays of the song in less than a week. Crazy thing is, I've been promoting the radio edit and it's the full-length version of the song - the "album version" in the old days - that's gotten more play.

You can never know which of your songs is going to grab the fancy of the listening public - if you try to engineer it you're almost always going to fail. Today's tendency is towards shorter tracks to fit into TikTok videos and I do not find that appealing. A song is as long as it needs to be. What a song needs to be is honest to itself, and that's what I've always gone for.

This is my first real intentional dance track, and people have been listening/watching. Who am I to argue? Given that I'm not really on any social media platform with a lot of followers this has been a welcome surprise.

So thank you everyone. It's appreciated.

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Cheap Shots:

The Linder Letter, not the lawless right.

Isn't it funny how this story has changed over the past couple of days? "From "6 year-old shoots teacher" to "Teacher shot while trying to confiscate gun brought to school" to "Accident?" Sometimes the immediacy of our news cycle is a grotesque failure.

What's the over/under on how many votes this will take?

Step by step, Inch by inch...

Can some of our thugs be arrested for this insurrection?

I asked a former Tank driver (U.S. Army) and I can pass along that Elon doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.

One liar hires another.

Speaker TFG.

So who is this guy really?

And because I love you, here's a song that Led Zepplin never was able to pull off live, done by Jimmy Page and The Black Crowes:

Radio Free California Episode 2301, plus a few words about the new single Elusive Green

 

Lots of indie music to start 2023, including Robot! Attack!, YI, Sirimiri, Kiffie, MOULE, houjean, Kink Artist Big Woman and much more, and oh yes, new albums from Vulfpeck and Weezer, yet another new mix of Tom's Diner, and a whole lot more. Enjoy!

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So I may have mentioned that I have a new single out January 3rd. It's leaked in a few places, like Radio FM, YouTube, a number of radio stations in Europe and North Africa, Jango radio in the US but the actual official release date is tomorrow. Let me tell you a bit about it.

This is a dance track originally inspired by the videos of the Japanese dance troupe World Order, and my desire to write a song about environmentalism. 

It was originally planned for summer of 2022, but then I caught COVID. Twice. Recovery took longer than I would have thought, but I finally got back on track just in time for every radio station to start playing Christmas Music and compiling end of year lists. So we pushed it back to January 2023.

Once everything was complete, we realized that we had enough material to make all kinds of different mixes, so we did.

Elusive Green - 1 song 4 mixes

The original mix of the track is nearly 7 minutes. The single mix, which is what's getting the radio airplay, is 2 minutes shorter. There is a 6 minute mix that I call the "Oontz Oontz" mix, which is meant for dance clubs, and the "No Oontz" version, which is just vocals and keyboards.

The video has one more mix, which is basically the single mix with the opening of the original mix added in. If you purchase the single from bandcamp you can get all five mixes but otherwise most outlets will only have the 4.

Please, just follow this link to my linktree and go to the site of your choice. As of the publication of this blog a few sites won't have the new single yet, depending on your time zone.

And because I love you, once again here is the video, full of dancing and raving robots, which already has a couple thousand views.

Radio Free California - 2022 on Random Play and a few final thoughts for this FRUSTRATING year.

 

I thought about making a "best of" list, but I realized that I'd come up with something different every time I tried. So here is a highlight reel, cultivated from all of the 2022 RFC's. Feel free to put together your own list. I recommend putting this on random play for the best possible experience - I just went through all 51 episodes for 2022 and picked the ones that tickled my fancy at that moment. If I tried again tomorrow I would probably pick 246 different songs than are on this list. 

You should subscribe to my weekly playlists to get the full experience.

So what was your 2022 like? I usually do a recap of the previous year as my last blog post but I'm really not feeling it this time around. Face it folks, 2022 SUCKED. I had a decent career year with a couple of hit singles and videos plus my improvised piano album, and I got to see both Roger Waters and Bjork live (not on the same night), but overall...?

I mean, social media imploded and fragmented, led by the Chief Twit. The Previous Motherfucker is STILL hanging on all our necks instead of in prison where he fucking belongs. Far too many Americans embrace Fascism, Racism, and a large portion of the country is now a Hee-Haw version of The Handmaid's Tale.

I can't even imagine how weird it must be to be young in this country. My children grew up in one country and as of this year it no longer exists. They're not like those of us who are old enough to remember how it used to be. 

And just what the ever-lovin' FUCK is it with wanting to destroy power stations? This is supposed to start a race war? How fucking STUPID is that? It's like saying 1+2=Licorice. The sum is less than the parts.

Strangely enough, the Pandemic has put me in a position to leave, and I just might. I'm incredibly fortunate to live in one of the remaining pockets of sanity in this country and I don't want to leave, but I don't want to live in an isolated exception to the rule either. I'd rather the whole country be sane than just my little corner of it with with fascist fucks encroaching from all sides.

I have family in Canada, New Zealand and Spain - so I have options (although I don't speak Spanish). I also have possibly misplaced hope, so I have to admit that the decision isn't an easy one. I haven't made it yet, and there are other's I'd need to convince to come with.

The craziest part about all of this is that on a whole lot of specifics America had a great year. It's just that the terrible parts are so bad that they overwhelm the good parts.

I don't think there is a "best of" 2022 to be had. I think that this has been example after example of wasted talent, potential, and ability. I think of 2022 as a squandered year. There ain't no best to be had.

Now, there's two ways to look at that: To be depressed about it or to be determined to do better. I am choosing the second option.

Taking a step back from Social Media has given me something I hadn't even noticed I had lost: TIME. I reclaim my fucking time.

I have a new single coming out the first week of January and I'm going to focus on it for a bit, but then I'm going to hunker down and fucking FINISH this album that's been percolating for the past decade. Those of you who follow my music career have heard snippets of it, but only small snippets of it. I expect that promoting and performing that album is going to take up a lot of my time in 2023. I have tickets to see Arcade Fire on my birthday, so I'll take that day off.

And then I'm going to gear up for 2024, which I want to be my busiest and most productive year musically ever. There's a couple of reasons for that - a big birthday is coming up in 2024; one my own father didn't reach. Now I don't have his issues and expect to go on for decades yet, but I'm going to fucking CELEBRATE. I hope that the country will still be here for it. Another reason is that I have set a challenge for myself and it's a difficult one, but I damned well want to TRY.

I am absolutely awful at predicting the future, but I still want to try.

So let's shake off this past year, bury it, and roll up them sleeves and get to it. I fucking HATE Hee-Haw.

See you next year.

And because I love you, I leave you with my new single.

Radio Free California Episode 2251, plus a video preview of the new single and few cheap shots.

 

Roger Waters opened his shows with the opener for this week, so I'm doing the same. Not a ton of new music out this week, but here's a few you might want to hear, including Vulfpeck, Magaziine, The Ceys, Iggy Pop and more for your listening pleasure. Enjoy! 

This is likely to be the last RFC of 2022. My next one of these will be a "best of" for the year. Most people don't release new music this week because radio is mostly just playing "best of" lists, so they hold back. Hell, even I'm doing it - my next single comes out next week.

Anyhoo, enjoy this shorter list and I'll have more for you soon!

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Why are American Terrorists so convinced that causing power outages will bring about a white uprising?

This is awful, but at least they're not in Texas anymore.

Fuck Elon. Then he backed down, but still, Fuck Elon.

Full speed ahead, please.

Speaking for those of us who live in the Bay Area, stay the fuck out.

I know that everyone is jumping about hyping Mastadon, but I personally don't see the appeal. You know what I've gained in leaving twitter? TIME.

As the headline reads, what the FUCK is WRONG with these people?

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

And because I love you, here is the video for the single I'm releasing next week. You can see it in HD on YouTube.

Radio Free California Episode 2250, plus some cheap shots.

 

Mainstream artists tend to not release new music in the second half of December, so it's time for indie artists to shine! New music from The Winery Dogs, Dezit, For Tracy Hyde, Ainsley Costello, the moss, Barry Spring, Annahstasia and so much more. Enjoy!

I used to post all of the social media links for the artists, but after twitter's implosion I have decided to stop doing that. Follow them wherever you wish.

Cheap Shots (Monday is Rum day!):

"Father" no more. (Faith no More?)

Does anyone actually know who Congressman-Elect George Santos actually is?

Who even needs to follow his airplane? 

What's not in the article is that should Democracy hold then Snoop Dogg now runs twitter.

Want to fight climate change in the US? Too fucking late.

Too fucking late.

Some thoughts from a candidate who has actually performed abortion care.

1) Obstruction, 2) Conspiracy, 3) Conspiracy to lie, 4) Incite, aid and/or give comfort, or assist in an insurrection - a disqualifying charge, 5) Possibly other charges, up to the DOJ, implying that people who didn't testify should also be charged, and referring 4 congresscritters for House Sanction.

The introduction is 154 pages. The Introduction.

My big takeaway from this is that he doesn't seem to have a plan for the girl to say "no".

So weirdly enough, this might either be the thing that kills, or saves, his potential Speakership.

That's guilty, guilty, guilty!!!

And because I love you, something you may have never seen before - a traditional Spanish Christmas song from an unlikely source:

Radio Free California Episode 2249, plus a few cheap shots

 

Pretty good week for new music, from the funk of Vulfpeck to the hard rock of The Winery Dogs to the sounds of Lana Del Rey to modern punk of Blondshell to one of the most unlikely remakes ever, plus so much more. Enjoy!

Those of you who have been following this for a while now know I used to list all of the artists by twitter handle. However, now that twitter is a mere hateful shadow of its former self I'm not going to do that anymore. Each of these artists deserve a follow on Spotify, or the listening platform of your choice.

I'm pretty much staying away from Social media these days, except for CounterSocial.

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Cheap Shots:

If you had done this, you'd be dead you silly bitch. Shot by Capital Police and/or the National Guard.

Could it be that the thing that finally brings him down is something this small and petty?

I have never seen any proof that there is such a thing as a free speech absolutist.

But then again, this is comedy gold.

So they're saying that he can be beaten by nobody? I mean, they're not wrong...

And thus ends the Special Master Saga. This time.

Oh, Angelo.

Well this is going to bring out the conspiracy people.

This is also Comedy Gold.Or should I say silver?

And because I love you, here is your prompt to find a new guru:

Radio Free California Episode 2248, plus cheap shots, JesusMaryandJosephandtheweedonkey, and why I've gone dark on twitter

 

Big week for new music (2 1/2 hours!) especially from indie artists! New music from Project Ember, half-alive, Julia Pratt, crepe girl, Cigarettes after Sex, B'z, Saturn 17, Stormzy and so much more. Enjoy!

I used to list all the artists by twitter handle, but I'm staying away from twitter for the time being, so if you want to know the artists just look at the list above. Lots of good artists!

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A couple of notes about why I'm not active on twitter for the foreseeable future. Here are 5 quotes for you, and I warn you, they're awful:

1. "Shut your pie hole you fucking cunt."
2. "It would have been better if your mother had slit her throat than give birth to you."
3. "When I come to burn your house down I hope you're inside."
4. "Someone should kill your children. I can be someone."
5. "I'm going to find your daughter and rape her until she bleeds. Then rape her until she's pregnant. Then sue for custody and win because she a pervert."

Believe it or not, all 5 of the above quotes are from people on twitter, directed to ME, a dude with less than 500 followers. All five people were blocked. All 5 people were reported. All 5 were suspended.

All 5 claimed to be Christians. Like hell.

All 5 were reactivated when Elon gave all the trolls amnesty. I have the receipts because I downloaded my twitter history.

So dear Elon Musk, go fuck yourself. I don't fucking need twitter.

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Cheap shots (Monday is Rum day):

Religious Freedom, bitches.

A terrorist attack because some dudes wore dresses for an adults-only crown? What the fuck is wrong with these people?

I case you haven't notices, the previous "President" is a traitor.

I am reminded of an old comedy routine, where the punchline was "Drain Brammage."

The banner question of this blog is "What the fuck is wrong with you!?". Welp, someone attempted to get the answer.

I have said from day one, that no one fucking cares.

You must all remember that despite her seeming words of sanity, she is still a Republican, and tends to vote for the things they want.

RIP Neighbor Bob.

So we're saying that we're going to allow discrimination over a pretend business?

Shorter Blackburn: Sign up to defend the nation, the constitution, and we'll supply your ventilator when you get sick. (Ventilator coverage may not be applicable if you're a veteran instead of active duty).

Sisters in miscarriage. 

And there is a fairly active rumor that some people are going to offer this man as an alternative to be the new Speaker of the House. He wasn't very good at it last time, but he'd be better than McCarthy.

I don't think you can call a ratio of 44:1 "Both Sides".

Did you rush to get one of these? Well - take a deep breath.

Striking back.

I know they're miseducated and probably just stupid, but this is child abuse.

Some details on the upcoming trial of human traffickers.

The greatest takeaway from this, other than the phrase "JesusMaryandJosephandtheweedonkey", is that he's a fucking traitor.

And because I love you, here's a song you might not have heard in a while...

CounterSocial