Chuck Eddy dusts off his old vinyl and scratches his head. We all win.

Greetings, BLURT readers. This column's theme is fairly simple: Basically, I sort alphabetically through my shelves for dusty old 7-inch vinyl indie singles from acts that aren't household names, and try to figure out why I wound up keeping them in the first place. This is the 12^th installment (first two appeared at Idolator.)

***

THE MT. ST. HELENS "North By Northwest"/"Unlucky"/"Dialtone" (MOC, 1998)

Midwestern foursome repeats surfish riff, um, repeatedly; hoarse singer gets excited; rhythms turn staccato. Lots of stops and starts, twists and turns. Structure feels precise but ultimately cold - Fugazi probably deserves some blame for inspiring such stuff, but it's also very Chicago (where the band's from), which is to say it keeps its top button buttoned like such ‘80s bands as the Effigies and Naked Raygun used to, though less efficiently. Somewhere, there's a line about "the western surburbs."  Sleeve has pictures of a city and a mountain (why not a volcano?) that look as blurry as the music sounds. (http://www.myspace.com/mtsthelens)

THE MUSIC TAPES "Why Is The President Crying?"/ DAD "Untitled" (Cosmic Debris Ltd., 2000.)

Split single, apparently released with an issue of Stop Smiling magazine, whatever that was. Hand-numbered release from the Cosmic Singles Club, which I never joined, yet I somehow got # 980 out of 1000 anyway.  Picture disc - bottom half of a simple robot made out of wood on one side, black and white photo of a bespectacled man and unbespectacled boy on the other. Song titles nowhere to be found, but at least the A-side's is discoverable on line; B-side goes nameless even there. Guy from Music Tapes (New Yorkers with some sort of Elephant Six connection) sings in a little-boy voice, precious to the point of extreme annoyance, kinda like that man-boy Stuart on Mad TV. Sound ridiculously piddly and twee: Maybe the president is crying because somebody forced him to sit through this awful crap, who knows. I know nothing about Dad; if you google "myspace Dad," the great Copenhagen hair-metal band D-A-D wind up in the top spot, and this is definitely not them. Music is some sort of generic guitar instrumental, flamenco or Segovia or whatever. Hard to imagine 1000 people would want this thing. (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=69564406)

NECROPOLIS "Stalking Mark E. Smith Around NYC"/"I Love Cinnamon" (Columbia Discount, 2005) 

You read its title and want the A-side to sound like a northern Ohio version of the Fall, and actually, the hard clattering jangle of a groove underneath almost pulls it off; marching-band drums at the start don't hurt, either. But the singing is a cutesy little-girl voice, with occasional "hey! woo!" interjections from a dude; and yeah, sadly, these are probably the kind of kids who would stalk Mark E. Smith, when you think about it. B-side crosses the cutesy line - she likes cinnamon on her head, see -- and so do the little puppies and kitties and dollies strung up on the clothes line on the sleeve, and so definitely does the computer robot-reading voice ending each song. But the B-side's rhythm clatters below too, and Mark E. and cinnamon are two of my favorite things, and this song introduced some sort of aesthetic that fellow Columbus kids Times New Viking would take the bank (or at least take to Pitchfork) a few years later. So I'll cut it slack. (http://www.myspace.com/necropolisrocks)

THE NECROS "Tangled Up"/"The Nile Song" (Gasatanka, 1986)

Northern Ohio (Maumee to be exact) version of early ("Free For All"-era) Ted Nugent, and one of the best (and most rock) indie rock singles of the past quarter century. (Maybe the best.)  Definitely the only time (tempo-wise, rhythm-wise, riff-wise, song-wise, singing-wise, catchiness-wise) that an indie band has ever pulled off the Nuge thing - Even the very good Necros themselves never again came anywhere near this close, and I should know if anybody should seeing as how I was at least a passing acquaintance with dammit-doll-like frontguy Barry Hennsler at the time (even saw a couple shows with him - White Zombie and Guns N Roses before they achieved stardom for instance, if I remember right. Letting his red hair grow ‘70s long, he'd shout "get a Mohawk!" out the window at Ann Arbor punk rockers back in those days -- unless I just dreamed that up in my head since, but pretty sure I didn't. Later, he wound up on Sub Pop, in the band Big Chief.) Anyhow, absolutely world-class song: "There's a noose around my life that strangles every day/Tangled up in a web of lies, mistakes I never made." One of the best hard rock/punk/metal singles of the ‘80s, on any label level. B-side's a quality cover of a 1969 Pink Floyd song also covered seven years later by the great Quebec cyber-thrash band Voivod. Record label Gasatanka is a parody of Casablanca, maybe because Redd Kross had covered Kiss's "Deuce" on Teen Babes From Monsanto two years before. After this music, punks could never again honestly pretend ‘70s rock wasn't cooler than they were. Which means it was partly responsible for grunge. But some sins are worth forgiving. (http://www.necroscentral.com/)

THE NEIN "Auto-Destructive Dance Routine"/CANTWELL GOMEZ & JORDAN "To Love The Unlovely" (Sit-N-Spin, 2005)

Another split single. The Nein from North Carolina put extravagant whining (about "Palestine" at one point I think) over post-punk-revival stiffened funk beats and alleged (I read on the web somewhere) "found sounds"; toward the finish line, the guitars thicken and vocals overlap and whips and spanks substitute for basslines. Somehow, especially given the icky era that this was released in, it all basically adds up to "electroclash" -- which might be justified if the Nein sounded as German as their name, but they don't. The also-North Carolinian Cantwell and Co. do more hands-in-pockets pogo-funk, fronted by a gal yelping like she wishes she was old enough to have been in the Delta 5 or Essential Logic. But she wasn't, which makes this a lot less interesting than if she was. She turns dirgey toward the end, and I still slightly prefer her to the Nein guy, I guess. Both sides of the pic sleeve present quaint and kitschy depictions of a man and a woman - dancing and necking with heads and limbs falling off and teeth falling out, framed by footprints on the dancing side and lipstick smears on the necking side. If that's somehow supposed to be amusing or transgressive, I don't get it. (http://www.myspace.com/thenein; http://www.myspace.com/cantwellgomezandjordan)

Chuck Eddy is the former music editor of the Village Voice and the author of several books, including the greatest book on heavy metal ever written, Stairway To Hell. He won't admit it, but he knows more about rock ‘n' roll than the entire accumulated BLURT brain trust.

Guest post this week from co-lead singer Philip Price of Winterpills, who I shamelessly adore, as you know. dear hole in my head through which the foul winds of winter blow [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

Get Rhythm... and Get the Fuck Out: A long black night of the soul.

By COCO HAMES

I got a scholarship to the University of Florida, a big state university where I felt like a total freak and was so overwhelmed I'd get panic attacks, so I took solace as resident sad sack country singer at a small dive bar near campus. There were never very many people in there, and if there were, they were just the kind of run-of-the-mill creeps you'd find at any north Floridian shithole.

One night, after my set, a guy came up to me and asked if he could buy me a drink. I was 18 and took every opportunity not to have to show my weak fake ID, so I accepted. The guy was small, tiny even, and was on crutches. He had a scraggly beard and a cowboy hat. I figured his age to be somewhere in the early 30s.

 
We sat down, got to drinking, and talked about country music. He said he had an amazing vinyl collection, stuff no one else had, and asked if I'd like to come over and listen to some records. After a few pitchers of beer, that sounded like a great idea. He said I could ride with him, but I'd brought my car and would need to move it anyway, so I said I'd follow behind him.

 
We drove for about 15 minutes, way past the interstate and into what we old Floridians call "a place where nothing good happens." It was beyond rural. I was evenly weirded out by now, just about to turn around and bail, when he signaled and turned into a patch of burnt land with a tiny trailer on it.

For some reason, I turned in behind him.

 
He got out of his rusty truck and assembled his crutches, then led the way into the trailer. I was nearly laughing by this point because I was thinking, this is such a very, very bad idea. But I was kind of stuck now.

To say that the place was a mess would be an idiotic understatement. Save for a sunken-in, cushionless couch, there was no furniture in the main room. The window was broken. There was no kitchen. The floor was littered with beer bottles and newspaper, and a shower curtain hung over a doorframe that evidently led to the bedroom. That just so happened to be where he-and by default, I-was headed.

Sleeveless LPs were strewn about the floor. He produced a small record player and set it among them. I didn't know what to do so I kind of perched on the broken sofa arm. That's when I noticed the hypodermic needles all over the floor and, propped against a rickety shelf opposite the door, a small black handgun.

Before I could react to these discoveries, Johnny Cash's baritone filled the room. I looked over at the guy. He was balancing on one crutch, pointing the other at the spinning, wobbling LP.

 
"Name it."

 
"What?"

 
"Name it-name this song."

 
"Uh... ‘Long Black Veil,' I said.

 
"RIGHT!"

He knocked the arm off the record and picked up another one, setting it on the player. Another Johnny Cash song swelled up, and I was asked to name it, too. This went on for a couple of songs, all Johnny Cash, all songs I knew. I started to notice, every time he'd ask me to name a song, he'd glance at the gun. If I guess wrong, I thought, is he gonna shoot me?

At some point, he ducked into the bedroom to look for more records. I got the fuck out of there.

*****

Blurt "co-co-editor" Coco Hames fronts The Ettes, whose latest album Look At Life Again Soon (Take Root) is still a hot item-but look out for a new EP, "Danager Is," and a Dan Auerbach-produced limited-edition single in March 2009. And catch ‘em at SXSW, too.

Incidentally, we had to ask Coco what the hell was up with the photo, above. She advised us that it's of her having just won "the coveted "best performance" award at the punk rock night at the Melody Inn in Indianapolis, one of our favorite sweat boxes!  So proud!" We're proud of ya too, Coco.

It was the invasion of the sleazoids in deadly dull black and white, and I have the flyer somewhere. If it ever shows up, I will scan the damn thing, and post it on this blog. I’ve looked all over the web, but can find neither hide nor hair evidence of this grand event that occurred in downtown Wilmington somewhere in 1975.

The filthiest bunch of skum ever descended upon the incredibly dead city of the Chemical Capital of the World to romp and barf in mindless abandonment under the banner of the First Annual World Sleaze Convention. (Not really the first, fact hounds: Tokyo had several before this one, usually with Ultraman look-alike contests and various Mothra color slide shows, and once, Johnny Sokko of Albany, NY, showed sleazee snapshots of his mom’s undies for 50 cents a peep, AND, if you want to stretch a point, every flea market worth its weight in garbage is a first-class sleaze con minus the pretensions of cult fondling), but like all conventions, whether it’s for babyfat Trekkies or Beatle mop tops, its spells CON, and the fix is for the hustlers. In Wilmington, the dada was squelched as the wares were foisted on every burned-out creep who flopped near each “bizarro bazaar.” Actual moolah was exchanged for stuff best left near Rover’s daily dump.

Apocalyptic Productions were the hoodlums responsible for this three-day gathering of sleaze. The gyp was so well-conceived that you could even purchase a two-dollar Convention Kit for not attending (although the kit did not include anything swell like an old tampon, chewed pizza, snot, or mangled Bazooka Joe).

The agenda was centered on what seemed like a 24-hour loop of and anything associated with this subversive crass moment in cinematic history. Of course, nothing as arty as the appearance of John Waters was ever promised, but Pink FlamingosEdith Massey did arrive to sit on her flabby butt. (Divine never made it to gobble her own poopoo as was rumored by certain bored spectators.)

Other phooey films were unmentionables such as House of Horrors, Not of This Earth, Little Shop of Horrors, The Dianne Linkletter Story, Zsa Zsa GaGa Bore as a Venusian Queen of Outer Space, and the forgivable Plan 9 from Outer Space. Lotsa good flicks were shown, yessirree!!

In fact, a tremendous list compiled from those 2-am horror/sci-fi jokes which were once beamed into the homes of insomniacs and offbeat scuzz puds everywhere just after the late-great Tom Snyder’s Doo Dah Theater snooze. Better to watch that slop in the privacy of your own bedroom, though, just you and the tube (before you and the You Tube), without all the crud who call themselves “human beings” picking their noses and bums, smelling like rotten tins of Sea Hunt.

Yes, those were the days….long before the freak show of reality TV.  Of course you can do your own Virtual Sleaze Convention anytime with social networking to boot.  But nothing beats face-to-face witnessing of the cultural debris, and I am proud to say I was there at the onslaught.  It’s kinda like saying you first heard Bruce as a garage band on the Jersey Shore. 

How To Enhance Your Listening Experience By Stealing The Music You Love

Ever since I can remember, I've loved music. I don't mean loved so much as I mean I NEEDED music. Being an only child, music and books were my best friends.

My parents quickly realized that I could be placated with a weekly trip to Standard Drug Store, which sold a wide variety of 45 rpm records and even a few of the top-selling LPs of the day. The first thing they bought me was Deep Purple's version of the Neil Diamond tune "Kentucky Woman." My folks likely thought it was a "safe" record to buy their young son because it was a Neil Diamond-penned song, but my incessant listening to Purple's brutally loud and cool take on the song nearly drove my dad crazy.

After that, it was a steady diet of Creedence Clearwater Revival 45s. CCR seemed to have a new #1 single every month in those days, and it was a form of rock n' roll that my folks deemed non-threatening, at least compared to the mind-warping acid-rock of Deep Purple.

Soon, I inherited a box of 45s from a family friend who was being shipped off to fight in Vietnam and wanted me to have his collection. The gift was a goldmine: The Who, Sly & The Family Stone, The Turtles...not to mention other assorted one-hit wonders like The Bubble Puppy and the 1910 Fruitgum Company!

As my fierce desire for new music grew, my parents decided that it was time I graduated from the Mickey Mouse turntable - where Mickey's little arm served as the tone arm of the turntable - to an actual stereo system. The door was opened for the LP, and so began my endless journey from the Beatles to Led Zeppelin and beyond.

By the time I was 12 or 13 years old, my appetite for new music had outstripped my allowance, and I was forced to get creative. A paper route seemed like a sensible method of earning some money as I wasn't yet old enough to be a bag boy at the local Safeway. I lived in a compact neighborhood consisting mostly of little old ladies who paid up on time and sometimes gave the polite, young paperboy an extra tip. At the end of every week, I pooled my hard-earned cash from the paper route for my weekly bike ride to Gary's Stereo and Record shop in Willow Lawn.

Gary's was an amazing place, a stereotypical ‘70s multi-purpose cultural establishment. Upon entering the store, the customer was greeted on the right by a lengthy glass display counter filled with a rainbow assortment of what was then called "paraphernalia." Behind this counter lurked a couple of not-so-helpful sales clerks in the classic "too-stoned-to-help-you-yet-too-snobby-to-care-about-your-decidedly-unhip-needs" mode.

Every square inch of the walls at Gary's were lined with vinyl and posters proclaiming the newest major label releases. It was something beautiful to behold. To the left were the newest the Top 40 45s displayed in racks, six feet high. On the other side were the shelves where the LPs resided. Beyond the records, the store opened up into a much larger showroom that housed the stereo department.

Gary's was a wonderland to me: a place where I could go and just dig through the 12 x 12 inch pieces of art to my heart's content. I would go back and forth from one end to the other like a typewriter working my way from bottom row to top, repeating the process on the other side of the shelves until I'd zeroed in on just the right album to buy. I always stopped before I got to the Classical music section...that was for the old folks.

I was a huge Pink Floyd fan, having been turned onto them a few years earlier by my camp counselor, Klaus, who had come to Camp Greenbriar from Germany with tapes he recorded off of Berlin radio stations that were filled with "The Pink Floyd Sound" and other strange kraut rock.

The gap between Floyd releases was interminable to their fans, usually two or three years. It was during the period between Wish You Were Here and the release of Animals that I discovered and became enchanted by the cover of a Floyd LP that I had never seen before: Ummagumma.

Ummagumma was a much-sought-after double LP containing both a studio album and live show recorded in the U.K. in June 1969. My paper route earnings, when combined with my allowance, only amounted to enough cash to purchase a single LP for $5.99. Ummagumma was a bargain priced at $10.99, but it was still too pricey for my wallet. But I needed that music NOW. There was no way I could wait for two weeks and actually save up the money needed to purchase it, so I devised a plan to STEAL the record.

I always had a few extra copies of the evening paper in my shoulder satchel and would often take them into Gary's after my route to give to the guys who worked in the store. Over time, they warmed up to me as I became a regular and faithful customer. My loyalties wouldn't allow me to go to Peaches Records; besides, Peaches was way out on Broad Street, far beyond my bike-riding range.

Testing out the size of my paper satchel with a record or two at home, I discovered that if I slipped the record between the extra copies of the paper, no one would be the wiser. I planned to wait until a day when the papers were thick and heavy with advertisements - usually Wednesdays or Fridays - in order to smuggle the double record out of the store.

The days crept by until that next Wednesday afternoon when I nervously began the bike ride from the end of my paper route to the Willow Lawn shopping center with a few extra copies of the Richmond News Leader in my bag. I excitedly entered Gary's, said my hellos, slipped the extra copy of the paper to the guys at the register, and began my usual routine of perusing the record shelves.

Having spent so much time there, I knew the layout of the store fairly well and had found a few blind spots where I could stand and pretend to look at records while performing the "lift." No store employees would be able to see me, especially if I waited until the guy in the stereo department was busy with a potential customer. He loved to tell his customers stories about his days as a roadie in the 60s, as if this would somehow soften even the toughest buyer into purchasing a new hi-fi system.

I picked up a copy of the double live Status Quo record and carried it to where the Pink Floyd records were located. Pretending to be fascinated with the liner notes, I placed it on top of a copy of the coveted Ummagumma LP, which I had put in the front row for easier access earlier that week.

As the moment of truth approached, the FEAR began to grab hold of me. I hadn't even smoked pot yet in my life, but suddenly for the first time, I understood paranoia. The bottoms of my feet went numb, and I was engulfed in a cold sweat. My ears felt hot and I could feel my face, red and glistening. Surely the clerks at the front counter knew what I was up to and were calling the cops!

Peering cautiously at them over my shoulder, I could see that one clerk was reading the comics section of the paper while the other was demonstrating to a pair of older teenage girls the proper use of a waterpipe that had several hoses extended from its barrel and what appeared to be a detonator type plunger attached to its top. They giggled at the clerk's suggestion that they should go to his van so he could show them how to use the thing for real.

I slowly turned my head back to the stereo department, where my eyes met those of the ex-roadie salesman. Was I caught? How could I be? I hadn't done anything wrong...yet. I took a deep breath and made eye contact with him once again as if to disarm any possible suspicion. He was glassy-eyed and staring right through me, bored (and likely stoned) out of his mind with not a customer in sight. I decided quickly that I was going to have to make the five-finger discount over by the dreaded Classical music section. It was the only place where I was completely covered from view from both ends of the store. It was probably designed that way....after all, who shoplifts classical albums anyway?

I made my way over to the classical rack with both the Status Quo and Pink Floyd records stacked together and feigned interest in the London Symphony's rendition of "Swan Lake." Holding my breath, I quickly slid the Floyd LP into my satchel while keeping the Status Quo record visible to anyone who might be looking. While this was truly a remarkable performance of sleight of hand, my paranoia screamed that the satchel was bulging with my stolen booty, but my common sense counseled that it looked exactly the way it always did.

As quickly as I could without attracting any undue attention, I returned the Status Quo vinyl to its proper place and, turning, steeled myself for the real moment of truth: the walk past the guys at the cash register. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I felt as if I was going to faint at any moment. There was a loud buzzing in my ears as the clerk who'd been reading the comics said, "Not buying anything today?" It was all I could do to simply mutter something about having to meet my mom for dinner before I lurched clumsily through the doors and out into the freedom of the fresh air.

Mounting my trusty Schwinn 10-speed, I turned back to the store to make sure no one was coming after me before peddling like the wind for home, nearly being mowed over by a speeding car on Monument Avenue that was in even more of a hurry than I was. I did the usual teenaged zombie walk past my mom and went straight upstairs to my lair, pulling the brilliantly smuggled treasure from my satchel and into the light where I could admire it.

Carefully, I slit the album's shrink-wrap and looked wide-eyed upon the iconic image of the members of Pink Floyd that adorned the cover. It was so beautiful. I slid the black vinyl platter from its protective white sleeve and placed it on my turntable. As the needle caught the groove and the first pulsing beats of "Astronomy Domine" began, I dimmed the lights and prepared myself for what was surely to be the greatest moment in my music-listening career.

But something was wrong. As the music flowed freely from the speakers with absolute clarity and Waters and Gilmour sang the line, "floating down the sound resounds around the icy waters underground," I realized what it was: my conscience was catching up to me. Guilt was picking apart my new favorite Pink Floyd song before I even realized how great it was!

I was a teenage shoplifter.

I couldn't make it through the entire song. I wanted to confess, to turn myself in to the Gary's police, but I knew what the store manager did to shoplifters....THEY TOLD THEIR PARENTS!! And as far as I was concerned, any jail was better than having to face that look of disappointment in my mother's eyes.

In these days of downloading gigabytes of music in the blink of an eye, "stealing" doesn't really seem like that harsh of a word. Hell, even I've downloaded music without paying for it. Granted, it was an obscure live track of Radiohead performing "The Spy Who Loved Me" downloaded via a freshly installed version of LIMEWIRE, but Karma justly rewarded my offense with a fantastic array of malware and spyware that permanently crippled my PC and forced my timely leap of faith into Mac Nation. Still, I loved the fact that I had this glorious cover version of a song from my childhood performed by one of my favorite modern bands.

The moral dilemma was far more clearly delineated when I returned to the scene of the crime all those years ago, pedaling back to Gary's after a few days cooling off period spent hiding my guilty expression from my mom.

There was no yellow police tape cordoning off the Pink Floyd section. No one seemed overly suspicious. The front display guys were doing their usual shuck and jive with the paraphernalia, and the glassy-eyed stereo salesman was regaling a customer with the story of how he'd once been the guitar tech for Iron Butterfly guitarist Erik Braunn and how Braunn wore black gloves that he only took off to perform. Since my life had deviated into the criminal dark side, I bought a copy of Black Sabbath's Master Of Reality and hastened home.

A few months later, I was caught by my mom after having smoked weed for the first time while listening to "Sweet Leaf" with the kid down the street. His name was Skippy, and he shot squirrels off the power lines with his pellet gun. He also had a really hot older sister. It wasn't too long before I could enjoy all four sides of Ummagumma (although you have to be REALLY stoned to fully enjoy Roger Waters' "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave and Grooving with a Pict"), but in listening to the album over and over again, I can tell you that the weeks of craven guilt and shame I felt for having stolen it only served to enhance the alienating and dark music that lay etched into its vinyl grooves. Ummagumma became the soundtrack to that period of my life as I tested the limits of the law and my mother's patience, nothing too out of the ordinary for a teenager in the late 70's.

Despite my criminal history, I'd like to think that I've cleared my karmic debt with Pink Floyd by purchasing every conceivable repackaging of Dark Side of The Moon they've issued over the years. Hopefully, I'm free and clear with Gary's, too - having bought the vast majority of my vinyl collection, stereo equipment and first Tokemaster bong there.

Sure, times have changed and stealing music has become the norm. Can you imagine what it might have been like had today's tolerance of music theft been present in the 70s? Thousands of music lovers would have been literally carting away the entire recorded histories of their favorite artists! And guilt free at that. I think I'm jealous!

I truly believe today's music lovers have no clue about the theft of music. In their minds, it's not stealing at all. It's as if the digital frontier is akin to the land grabs of the Old West, ready for the taking by those savvy enough to navigate the uncharted territory. But besides breaking the law, are today's digital music lovers robbing themselves of a vital experience in music enjoyment? Maybe the music thieves of today are missing a crucial ingredient from their collections: guilt.

Guilt is so wrapped up in my feelings towards Ummagumma that I don't know if it would sound the same without it. It's part and parcel of the burden of enjoyment I have to bear while listening to this great recording. I'm not sure if listeners in the digital downloading era understand the full appreciation that develops as a result of bearing that burden. And let us not forget the actual physical burden of having to carry all that vinyl around!

The guilt of stealing music shouldn't be as easy a burden to carry around as the weight of an iPod. I often ponder the remarkable reality that my entire 44-year history of collecting and devouring music - encompassing more than 30,000 songs - can now fit into a portable device no bigger than a pack of cigarettes. It seems kind of sad, especially if you consider the hoops that a child of the vinyl era had to jump through in order to achieve a decent record collection. It's just too easy to slip my iPod into my pocket and go.

But when I do, "The Spy Who Loved Me" just never sounds as heavy as "Astronomy Domine."

Widespread Panic's Dave Schools regularly gathers together with all sorts of furry musicians - sometimes in caves, even - and grooves with more than just a pict in the process....

(Photo Credit: Chris Wilson (www.christopherwilsonphoto.com) 

a Youtube History of Black Flag, lineup x lineup:
There's been alot of Black Flag video uploaded in the last year.  Many of these clips are mislabelled or undated.  My information is corrected as best as possible given Spot hasn't written his book yet:

keith/greg/chuck/migdol, I Don't Care, probably wurm-hole, strand, hermosa bch, Dec. 1977
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isLyhyK7kDY&feature=related

keith/greg/chuck/robo, White Minority, polliwog park, manhattan bch, July 22, 1979
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIJEuMfBHZk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7morSTRYVR0&feature=related

ron/greg/chuck/robo, Revenge, The Church, hermosa bch, Jan. 1980
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5mjoN0SKoc&feature=related

dez/greg/chuck/robo, Padded Cell, mabuhay gardens, sf, Jan. 9, 1981
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjm39HldqYk&feature=channel

henry/greg/dez/chuck/robo, Thirsty and Miserable, target video, sf, prob. Aug. 30, 1981
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aczKB1yUzAs&feature=related

henry/greg/dez/chuck/bill  no video found of bill stevenson filling in for three weeks after robo was not allowed back into the states. dec. 23, 1981 to march 5, 1982

henry/greg/dez/chuck/emil, What I See, eastside club, phi, June 4, 1982
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oJp1MK8xrQ

henry/greg/dez/chuck/biscuits, I Can't Decide, Sept. 1, 1982, ritz, ny
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzX4JfpsOLA

henry/greg/kira/bill, Rat's Eyes, Dec. 15, 1984, u.mass, amherst, ma
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIctI25viWs

henry/greg/kira/anthony soundcheck Loose Nut/Annihilate, June 8, 1985, vic & bill's, knoxville, tn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-5PguvYJ3U

instro. greg/kira/anthony, untitled, prob. july 19, 1985 detroit tv:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmeg3HqBpRQ&feature=related

henry/greg/c'el/anthony, Gimme Gimme Gimme/Louie Louie, July 27, 1986, detroit, mi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SydfD6paev8

greg interview by william duvall (comes the fall/AiC), fall 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkNUZNbJ9Ek

Joe Carducci is a hell of a writer, record producer, and former A&R executive, formerly most closely associated with the influential LA-based record label SST Records. His most recent book Enter Naomi: SST, L.A. and All That, chronicles his time at the infamous label and the life and death of famed SST photographer Naomi Peterson--a supreme talent who I had the priveledge of working with on many occasions--and whose laugh I still miss. -Scott Crawford

So it's off to Austin, Texas for me this Saturday. Going all-out this year for a 10 day stint, covering interactive, film & music at SxSW. If you've been before, you get that this is a fairly brave undertaking. Which is why I've got tons of Emergen-C, Tylenol, and eye-cream ready to go with. And I purchased an iPhone over the weekend to make it easier to navigate all those texts, etc., I feel so 21st century! God damn [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

The Moody Blues: when did they get hip? Are they hip? When did I get hip to them?

As a young rock'nroll guy we all just assumed that these guys were total squares, and were instinctively dismissive. When your musical world is bracketed by Alice Cooper on one side and The Allman Brothers on the other, it's easy to make those kind of judgments about anyone whose ambitions we couldn't comprehend. So, other than occasionally hearing "Nights in White Satin" or "Ride My See-Saw" on the radio, I tuned out The Moody Blues for a few decades or so.

Somewhere along the recent way I ended up with three releases from their golden era of the late 60s, Days of Future Past, On The Threshold of a Dream and In Search of the Lost Chord. It was revelation time. The revelation was, essentially, how intoxicating the Moodies could be at their best, while still being a bit wanky or fussy at other times. Most of side two of Days of Future Past is seductive, although  "Nights in White Satin" is a little creepy, and side one is overburdened with concept and too much of The London Festival Orchestra. On The Threshold of a Dream has several terrific songs, a lovely psychedelic cover (all 3 of these have great covers) and an impressive display of mustached sartorial splendor on the inner sleeve. But the capper was In Search of The Lost Chord; specifically side one of 1968's In Search of The Lost Chord.
 
These five tracks and the mood-setting spoken intro are top-shelf late 1960s British egg-head psych pop. This is heady stuff: cosmologically romantic, richly evocative and other-worldly. Along with the sophisticated arrangements and dreamy vocals, the sweetener that makes all the difference is the mellotron that Mike Pinder and Justin Hayward used to evoke that lovely, imagistic other-worldliness. Remember the mellotron, the lush, symphonic sounding cross between an organ and an early synthesizer? It was uniquely suited to the Moodies forte. Other than the Moody Blues and the Rolling Stones on "20,000 Light Years From Home," early King Crimson were probably the most well known act (that I can remember) to use it liberally, and it was quickly eclipsed by the more versatile synthesizer. But here on "House of Four Doors," "Legend of a Mind" with it's "Timothy Leary's theory" refrain, "The Best Way to Travel" from side 2 and other tracks, The Moody Blues succeed at creating or portal to another dimension in sound, a doorway to step back and forth between worlds through. This is tricky to pull off, and if they don't always succeed, at least they always aim high and seem honest and thoughtful.

Even at their most sublime The Moody Blues have The Academy wafting off them like tweedy pipe smoke. Perhaps they got together in art school, like so many other British bands of the 60s? But while the Rolling Stones, The Who and The Kinks would have been slumming it and ditching school, The Moodies would have been the serious, probably older guys who dressed up not down, had steady girlfriends, read music, rehearsed like mad and took it all seriously.
Visual clues to that end show in the inner sleeve of On The Threshold of a Dream. Other British bands at the time were preening in rock star boots and loud shoes from from Carnaby Street or King's Row, but the five guys in the Moody Blues, dressed to kill in leather jackets and tasteful dark velvet, are all sporting shiny loafers. With buckles. Expensive, stylish loafers, for sure, but still loafers. The loafer wearing Moody Blues didn't seem dangerous or revolutionary or any threat to the status quo back in the day; perhaps our parents might even have liked them. Well, I still like Alice Cooper (and Black Flag and Sonic Youth and Smegma), but it sure was a relief to grow up and out and be open to anything across the board, regardless of the strict dictates (as we perceived them) of rock'nroll, which now looks more restrictive and status quoted than the adventurous, tuneful  psychedelia of The Moody Blues. Or maybe that was just adolescence predictably throwing an elbow into the ribs of middle age, because that's what adolescence does.

And, just as I'm finishing this I'm listening to On The Threshold of a Dream and thinking that it might be as good as In Search of The Lost Chord. It's still revelation time. 

Carl Hanni is a music writer, music publicist, disc jockey and vinyl archivist living in Tucson, AZ. He  hosts the vinyl-only Scratchy Record Show every Tuesday night at the Red Room in downtown Tucson, and spins records wherever and whenever he can. He believes that in a better (all analog) world all records would be released on vinyl, but takes good music from wherever he finds it--even on CD. His feature piece on legendary bass player/record producer Harvey Brooks was recently published in Goldmine.

¡Eso Si Que Es!: On Gloria Estefan and wearin' someone else's socks.

By COCO HAMES

Almost Anything for You

When I first moved to LA, I got a job singing backup vocals on karaoke tracks. I'd go into the studio, the guy would tell me which track we were doing, and I'd sing the song.  We'd record one side of me singing all the vocal tracks (lead and backup) and one side of just the backup. When you sing karaoke and some random ghost harmonies come out of nowhere, that's the backup vocal track. 

So one day, we were set to do Gloria Estefan's "Anything For You," and it was completely out of my range. I tried singing it low, and then high, and I just couldn't do it! I didn't want to lose the job, so I kept asking to start over, but the killer part was the "...you know you made me strong!" I absolutely couldn't hit it.

And so, I did lose the job. But next time you're singing karaoke and you hear some prerecorded vocal accompaniment coming in, it could be me, singing along.

Socks

Because we don't have a lot of time or money on the road, and because Poni and I wear almost the same size shoe, we get our socks in bulk. Usually at Target, usually just functional white sports socks. And invariably, when we do laundry, whether at a friend's house or in a hotel bathtub, the socks will get mixed up. Same socks, same amount of usage but, at the same time, we always know when we're wearing the other's socks. 

It's not a good feeling. It's disquieting and disconcerting to know, in your heart of hearts, that the socks you have on are not your socks.

*****

Blurt "co-co-editor" Coco Hames fronts The Ettes - Hames on guitar, Jem Cohen on bass and Poni Silver on drums - whose latest album Look At Life Again Soon (Take Root) is still a hot item-but look out for a new EP, Danger Is, on April 7 (already out digitally, www.myspace.com/theettes), and a Dan Auerbach-produced limited-edition single this month. And catch ‘em at SXSW, too.

Stop her if you've heard the one about John Mayer and the red umbrella before....

By COCO HAMES

Once in New York, at Mercury Lounge, we played a show with our friends the Friggs, and during soundcheck, the engineer goes, "Oh, by the way, John Mayer is doing a secret set after your show."  And we were like, "Why?" And the always friendly engineer said, "He does that sometimes."  So we said, "Okay, well... he'll be saddling up on the butt-end of a raucous punk rock night, but whatever."

It was an awesome show, Debbie Harry was there, Little Steven Van Zandt was there, and we brought our new album to the mean streets of the LES. And I say mean streets because some punk ass teenagers decided to use some Bond-level pneumatic lock exploder to break into the van, but guess what, morons?  If the band is in the venue, PROBABLY so is their gear.  Idiots.

As it goes, I didn't MEAN to heckle John Mayer, but it kind of, like, happened.  I mean, for the most part, I don't really have a problem with him or people like him. They suck and are super boring, but I don't, like, sit around fuming with hatred for them. I just don't listen to their music. I carry on with my struggle-to-get-up-in-the-morning-demons-are-out-to-get-me-trichotillomaniacal-Franzia-soaked-punk-rock life, etc.

But what a douchebag! He just kept telling these boring twatty stories, and I'm like, dude, you are on another planet, no one here has a sailboat, what the hell are you talking about?  What is this? 

Back in my solo country days, a boyfriend once told me not to tell boring twatty stories up on the mic, and while he was a total dick and READ MY DIARY, it's advice I've pretty much adhered to, because I don't know about everybody else, but I don't go see a show to hear your holy boring self-important stories unless you're Bob Dylan. And John Mayer is not Bob Dylan.

So he gurbled into the mic, "Let me give you some advice..." and I couldn't help myself, it just slipped out, I said, "Please don't..." and I was cracking up. I was like, whoops that was loud, that always happens to me, I am always that guy, we should go back downstairs.  And he got totally flustered and was like, "Yeah, well... You're, like, you're a red umbrella in, like, a bunch of black umbrellas..." And this guy behind me shouted, "What does that even mean?"

I was just dying laughing. I was like, we gotta get out of here before I engage with John Mayer, I don't even care! Because you know, if I HAVE to fight someone I will, trouble and I are just good friends, but in general, I'd rather not.  Or I would... I just thought it was so funny!  I'm like, dude, if what you're going for is, like, a red umbrella in a bunch of black umbrellas means I stand out because I'm not like your fans, or anyone else in the room, I mean... you're right?  Thanks for the propers?

Anyway, my friends kept egging me on to keep hassling him, but I -- being super smart and savvy -- said, "Y'alls, I know people like him, and they ALWAYS travel with bodyguards, especially when they go slumming, and I really can't deal with bodyguards." 

So they called me a wimp, but as John Mayer slummed his way out past my merch booth -- big black bodyguards fore and aft -- I still win!

*****

Blurt "co-co-editor" Coco Hames fronts The Ettes - Hames on guitar, Jem Cohen on bass and Poni Silver on drums - whose latest album Look At Life Again Soon (Take Root) is still a hot item-but look out for a new EP, Danger Is, on April 7 (already out digitally, www.myspace.com/theettes), and a Dan Auerbach-produced limited-edition single this month. And catch ‘em at SXSW, too.

Day 2 for me here in Austin, surviving fairly painlessly thus far. Let's just say that the interactive folks are perhaps a little less wild and crazy then the music crowd. Case in point, this year's festival goodie bags: Highlight item in the interactive bag, a mysterious petite blue keychain-sweat sock --- in the music bag, let's cut straight to the chase [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

THE MOON MAN CONNECTION

In the late '70s, disco video was all the rage. TV programs such as Kicks, Hot City, and Soap Factory Disco marred the broadcast airwaves. As long as folks had the desire to celebrate their beautiful brawn on the set of some sleazy soundstage, the ecstasy prevailed and became perfect visual wallpaper for the winking TV eye.

But for sheer spunk, no disco program ever approached Moon Man Connection which I first experienced on UHF Channel 20 in Washington DC. This low-cost program was visual wallpaper so extreme that its very insubstantiality became hypnotic.

Filmed in a rat-infested basement, Moon Man opened with a blast from an echo chamber. Ten years after Neil Armstrong strolled on the moon, Mr. Moon Man milked the scratched footage of the NASA moonwalk, splicing it in at random intervals. Moon Man was a true trash auteur from Scuzzville.

Moon Man's backdrop scenery was a moonscape painted on cardboard sprinkled with glitter and Day-Glo.  Compared to other disco programming of this era, Moon Man's dance floor seemed nearly vacant; the dancers, puppets on Sleep-eze. Tipsy camera angles, cheap simulcasting, color filters, "psychedelic lighting"-all combined to create the best example of dope TV ever made.

After months of indulging in Moon Man Connection, I began to notice several similarities between supposedly different episodes:

--Moon Man always seemed to play the same ten records (he was the only cat who ever misspelled Rod Stewart as "Rot Stuart")

--The regular dance sequence, where couples are paired according to their astrological signs (to the strains of Danny Pearson's "What's Your Sign?"), always featured the same couple.

--Every time the dancers did the "Moon Walk" (which could only be performed to a Bohannon record), it was the same bunch.

Finally, I realized that, not only did Moon Man Connection contain similar sequences merely rearranged for each show, but that it was actually the same show repeated endlessly! (Boy, Moon Man, what a card!)

Nothing could explain the Moon Man phenomenon at a time when disco video supplied an endless stream of visuals illustrating the physical dynamics of going tapioca with one's limbs. I mean, Moon Man-and his whole stupid show-just sat there.

Hey, Moon Man!  How bout that...he got away with something!! Give him a hand or a hand job or whatever you wanna do....the guy deserves it.

BUT HERE'S THE OTHER PERSPECTIVE FROM THE INNER DC CONNECTION:
What a trashy review from a true playa hater...

Moonman provided the ‘real connection' that was missing from the hyped Soul Train broadcast. The so-called ‘endless repeat of shows' was genius, and I laugh... LOL.

You misrepresent information of a genre of Go-Go Playas (not gender specific) who know the truth about Channel 20 and The Moonman Connection. They funked and rocked old school and new beats and rhymes without fail. Perhaps your town could only afford to pay for cut and pasted shows... In D.C., it was real and they dealt funk on a regular.

I watched the show comfortably in my B-More attic (The Playas Clubhouse), with no less than room fulla honeys and some Espirit. The dancers were a bit repetitive, but they danced like no other place, except for maybe a house party.
D.C. and B-More are cousins down south (south of the Big Apple)...we are not ashamed of our funk and you will never find us spinning on our heads or swimming out of water. We funk, we rock, we connect.

To all the playas back in the day, I gotchya back!

Moonman, thanks brother... Thank you for keepin' it real.

Good lord, perhaps the longest week of my life. It's kind of like camp. With no sleep. And lots of drinking. Predominant thoughts for me this year were: 1. Ach, my back is killing me... who knew that a top-tier hotel like the Driskill would have the worst beds ever. I slept on the floor all week. 2. Where is Glasvegas playing? (I saw them three times. Super-fan alert!) 3. Crap, I forgot to eat [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

By Martin Bisi


On the way to an event last night called "Dances Of Vice," I was planning this blog post about irony, and trying to define the different possible threads of irony in music.
 
So the event is themed, with most people in Victorian or fantasy clothing, and all the musical performances involve cellos, violins, and harps - everything very baroque. I walk to the side of the stage and I see a Flying V guitar. I think, OMG, how ironic ! The Flying V is a staple of hard rock/metal -almost the opposite of what the event was about. Then i see a capo clipped to the guitar. (A capo is a common accessory of folk music, and metal guitarists as a rule will not use them.) So the irony pleasure-center in my brain goes into double, triple overload. I ask the people around me about the guitar, excitedly pointing out the irony. The guitarist (for performer Fern Knight) is somehow summoned, and he says "don't see one of those (a capo), on a Flying V too often, huh". I think that might have been a first in history actually.

 So that's almost a textbook definition of irony - something being in a context outside of how it's normally defined. But something about our use of the word with music, has always suggested to me the assumption that it was a new phenomenon.
 
The first time I was confronted with the issue of irony, was in the very early days of 80s indie rock, around the time I was recording bands like Live Skull and Sonic Youth. A friend of mine who specialized in Middle Eastern string instruments, and worked with Bill Laswell, said to me disparagingly: "there's a whole lot of irony going on" —in reference to indie rock. I thought he meant that elements, primarily lyrics, were going into the music for the sake of being funny. I'm sure you can find funny songs in every culture. And all cultures have at least 2 distinct musical disciplines - sacred, and social music. In social, popular music -music for the people- you will have had humor, for as long as people had a sense of humor. So maybe when a type of humor in music is old and established, we just wouldn't call it ironic. Somehow Johnny Cash singing "A Boy Named Sue", or "I killed a man in Reno.." isn't ironic, but Sonic Youth singing "We're gonna kill the California girls.." is. (And that's ironic in itself)

The other type of irony is using an instrument or method that is normally considered bad, and suggesting that it's actually good, and doing it consciously. The way I just described it, you'd think we'd encourage that, and we do - when it works. But when it doesn't work, we can dismiss it as a fad, or a pointless, vacuous attempt at irony. So when you add a kazoo solo in a rock song you're ironic, but when you add distorted guitar to polka beats it could be the record of the year - hello Gogol Bordello.
 
Very recently, I threw the irony card at someone. I said to Amanda Palmer (from Dresden Dolls) who has been doing more songs on ukulele, that the ukulele was an "ironic instrument". I asked: "where is the Jimi Hendrix of ukulele ?"—"why hasn't Philip Glass composed for ukulele ?". For those who've missed this, using a ukulele has been falling into a sub-genre called Steam Punk - people with a punk attitude who use non-electric instruments, such as one would find during the time of steam engines. (Can I write irony in all caps here ?) Well innovation wouldn't be innovative, if it made sense to everyone at first, and what if the steam-punks prove punk doesn't need loud guitar ? A little more time might tell.

 I've suggested that traditional music is insulated from being thought of as having irony. Same holds for so-called serious music. In my young engineering years, I worked with Fred Frith who is a notable avant garde innovator, viewed by many as serious. He once said to me: "sometimes when music is really good, it's funny". And Frith is well known for laughing copiously during sessions. I think it's because of the combinations of things he would try—and when they'd sound good to him, it was like the irony in a good joke.

I think if he had found that the right choice in a piece of music was a Flying V guitar with a capo on it, he would have laughed his ass off.

Martin Bisi is an American producer and songwriter. Visit him at www.myspace.com/theendcredits.
 

...for those who want to be extra-afraid of Coco....

By COCO HAMES

The computer game The Sims was released in the spring of 2000, the same year I left for my first semester at the University of Florida.  I am an unapologetic Luddite, so when I received this game for my birthday, I figured I'd never play it.  How very wrong I was.  Nine years later, it is still the only game on my computer, and I am still involved.  With the original.  I've been told new versions have come on the scene, but they don't interest me, mostly because I can't be bothered to learn new technology.  I barely use a telephone.  These "apps" you speak of intrigue me, but I wouldn't know the first thing about using one.

When I write songs, as I'm currently expected to, as we're working on our third album, I have to have complete privacy.  I have to be completely alone.  So everyone knows, when Coco gets her Sims out and nestles down into bed, she'll be infuriatingly impossible to reach for a day or two, but my time in the Sims k-hole will yield, usually, about two or three new songs.

It's not just that I enjoy building houses, furnishing them, designing landscaping, and controlling everyone's every move.  It's not just that I have all of the original expansion packs, so my Sims are wizards, animals, and movie stars.  There are stories.  There are lives!  There are long running undercurrents of love, loss, frustration, anxiety, and despair.  Sim neighbors gaze upon Sim neighbors and lament never making a move before the mustachioed doctor got married, etc.

One of the most intriguing story lines running through my current Sims world is that of Rome Bidgert.  And yes, part of the fun is naming them.  Rome is a simple, time traveling conduit of magical energy, placed in these modern times, currently in the form of a big black guy with an eye patch.  Luckily, there exists a magical village where the magic-at-heart can get away from all mod cons and go shopping for dragon scales and participate in wizard duels.  It was in this very magical village that Rome heard tell of a strange cat, a stray that had wandered into town and been picked up by -- who else! -- the Sim community's most powerful wizard, Charles Moribund.

Rome made his way to Charles' home and knew, from the very moment he laid eyes on the cat, that it wasn't a cat at all, but the age old time traveling spirit of the legendary witch Minuit!  Rome convinced Charles to cast a spell on the cat, a spell which would restore it to its true form, that of a tall, pale mocha skinned woman.  Charles was reluctant, but cast the spell, and lo and behold, the cat turned into an elegant, bespectacled lady: Minuit!

Initially, Minuit was confused and cagey; she didn't know where she was or who the people were around her.  Rome left Charles' house discouraged, but hopeful that Minuit would return to herself in time.  But Charles -- being the experienced and resourceful Sim wizard that he is -- brewed her a strong potion that inverted her personality, and Minuit instantly remembered who she was!  BUT THEN!  When Rome returned on a visit to check up on her that she recognized the soul of the love of her life, deep behind Rome's eyes, the eyes that had of course instantly recognized his beloved Minuit in the guise of a stray feline.  Um, eye.  Because of the eye patch. . 

So now Rome and Minuit live together in a compound on the edge of the magical forest where they raise children and send them off to magical "military" school one by one to form a dark army in preparation for the battles they know are coming.

Poni says I can't go near the World of Warcraft.

*****

Blurt "co-co-editor" Coco Hames fronts The Ettes - Hames on guitar, Jem Cohen on bass and Poni Silver on drums - whose latest album Look At Life Again Soon (Take Root) is still a hot item-but look out for a new EP, Danger Is, on April 7 (already out digitally, www.myspace.com/theettes), and a Dan Auerbach-produced limited-edition single this month. They tore it up at the Hold Steady showcase At SXSW in Austin, by the way. The real Austin, not the Sims-world Austin.

As always, the idea is that what unites us is more than music, an axiology that extends from the music to our music-lover lifestyles: how we vote, what we drive, what we eat, what we wear, etc. The point is, we’re a tribe connected by vibe… hence, this month’s compendium: 1. Nerdcore [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.