The Beat Frequency - April 9, 2010

Hello hello! Welcome to my musical musings.

The Blow is awesome, and I think I heard this song "Hey Boy" on my friends and radio neighbors' show Victory Sweater a few month back. Good stuff.

I'm From Barcelona's "Treehouse" is adorable. Nada Surf covering "If You Leave" and You Say Party! We Say Die! covering R.E.M.'s "Nightswimming," which is one of my favorite R.E.M. tunes.

"There Goes My Love" was probably an iPod commercial song and "Bye Bye Bye" was on Chuck. I love television and music. Pavement's "Gold Soundz" was for my sister, who loves that song and is always surprised when I like it too.

Oh snap, Janis Joplin. When I was way little (it came out when I was 6), I used to love the Faith Hill version of this song. Now that I'm older and know the Janis Joplin version, I like it a lot. I didn't actually know that Janis Joplin's version was a cover as well. Thanks Wikipedia.

The next three were all requests from my friend Lilly. My favorite of these tracks was Ha Ha Tonka's "Close Every Valve To Your Bleeding Heart" which is fantastic for times when you are down. It has incredible lyrics too. Here are some of my favorites:

Thick skinned, hard headed, better off
you're closing every valve to your bleeding heart
Does it hurt too much?
Are you just fed up?
Or is it something else entirely?

When I ask you why
you reply the death of hope hit you hard too

Only Dostoevsky could kill off a pair like us.

Holy cow. Just listen to the song.

Kate Nash's "Do Wah Doo" uses the word "bitch" in such an adorable way.

Next a mini science themed set of We Are Scientists, Dandy Warhols, and Guided by Voices.

I had the opportunity to attend the Florence + The Machine concert with The Temper Trap the Tuesday before this show. Florence Welch, the lead singer with Florence + The Machine, drunkenly sang the Etta James song "Something's Got A Hold On Me" to her now manager in a bathroom. I love Etta James, so that was a cool piece of trivia. Then we played "I'm Not Calling You A Liar" a song that appears to be about taking someone for who they are without considering their baggage or their past.

1		The Blow	Hey Boy
2		I'm From Barcelona	Treehouse
3		Nada Surf	If You Leave (OMD cover)
4		You Say Party! We Say Die!	Nightswimming (REM cover)
5		The Blue Van	There Goes My Love
6		Plants and Animals	Bye Bye Bye
7		Pavement	Gold Soundz
8		Think About Life	Sweet Sixteen
9		Janis Joplin	Piece of My Heart
10		Ha Ha Tonka	Close Every Valve of Your Bleeding Heart
11		Neko Case	This Tornado Loves You
12		Lhasa	My Name
13		Kate Nash	Do Wah Doo
14		We Are Scientists	After Hours
15		The Dandy Warhols	Scientist
16		Guided by Voices	I Am A Scientist
17		Etta James	Something's Got A Hold On Me
18		Florence + The Machine	I'm Not Calling You A Liar
19		Matt Pond PA	Ruins
20		Boston	More Than A Feeling
21		Devo	Fresh
22		Joanna Newsom	Easy
23		The Presidents of the United States of America	Video Killed The Radio Star
24		Phantom Planet	Dropped
25		Weezer	My Name Is Jonas
26		The Beatles	The Fool On The Hill

The Beat Frequency - April 2, 2010

Greetings! Welcome back to another installment of me rambling on about the music I like.

I found out that Regina Spektor had done a John Lennon cover and I had to hear it. And of course it was amazing.

We played some Tally Hall who I had seen a week before, and then some new Frightened Rabbit "Skip The Youth", which is very good, and has an intriguing intro. I was seeing Florence + The Machine the next Tuesday and played some "Hurricane Drunk," which I didn't like initially but now really enjoy. Daniel Zott's "Living A Lie" was on Chuck in early March.

Right about this time of early April, I was obsessed with Joanna Newsom's "Good Intentions Paving Company." It's an elegantly and intricately constructed song.

"How I said to you, 'honey, just open your heart', when I've got trouble even opening a honey jar"

That's just a half stanza. The whole song is full of excellence. Lyrics here.

Also Joanna Newsom is dating Andy Samberg of Saturday Night Live fame. So we played some music by The Lonely Island right afterward.

Fun fact: The song I played by Washington is called "Teenage Fury." For some reason, my computer switched the titles of that song and her song "Halloween."

More awesome Fanfarlo. Cyndi Lauper retro jam. Yello's "Oh Yeah" from Ferris Bueller's Day Off and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, better known as "Day Bow Bow". The video is so trippy.

Then some old favorites with "The Frug" and "Karma Police." :)

1	Regina Spektor	Real Love (John Lennon cover)
2	Tally Hall	Taken For A Ride
3	Frightened Rabbit	Skip The Youth
4	Florence + The Machine	Hurricane Drunk
5	Daniel Zott	Living A Lie
6	Joanna Newsom	Good Intentions Paving Company
7	Lonely Island	On A Boat
8	Angus and Julia Stone	Big Jet Plane
9	Washington	Teenage Fury
10	The Antlers	Kettering
11	Fanfarlo	Drowning Men
12	The Shins	Pressed In A Book
13	Cyndi Lauper	She Bop
14	Yello	Oh Yeah
15	Cloud Cult	Chain Reaction
16	Paramore	The Only Exception
17	Rogue Wave	Permalight
18	Muse	Micro Cuts
19	Rilo Kiley	The Frug
20	Radiohead	Karma Police
21	Black Diamond Boy	Brothers In Exile

The Beat Frequency - March 12, 2010

Cake's "Love You Madly" is in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, one of the funniest films I've ever seen. I watched it again with my roommate before spring break happened.

Washington's "How To Tame Lions" is easily my favorite new track off of the SXSW torrents. You should listen to it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBSqgCZWavc. To get this, and a ton more songs from this year's SXSW festival, check out the following site here.

Band of Horses' "I Go To The Barn Because I Like The" gets the award for most incomplete song title and it was also on the season finale of Psych this past week. Broken Bell's "The High Road" is a new one from the collaboration between Danger Mouse and James Mercer from The Shins. We then played "Rules Don't Stop" by We Are Scientists, a new track from them, which is pretty catchy.

We also had a lot of fun with the record player playing "We've Got The Beat" by The Go-Go's for absolutely no other reason than playing with the record player.

PS22 doing "Lisztomania" was the best thing ever. Click here for the video. Be prepared to think it is the most adorable thing ever. I want the director's job. Continuing with our Phoenix theme we played "If I Ever Feel Better" which has some fantastic lyrics in it. Next we had Yael Naim (you might remember her from "New Soul" which was in a lot of Mac commercials) doing a cover of Britney Spears' "Toxic", which I guiltily love (both versions actually).

More music in there followed by the new song from OK Go, which has a sweet, sweet music video with a Rube Goldberg machine that took the team involved 4 months to make. It was worth it. Check out the video here. It's even cool to watch silently.

Also, I'd been on a binge of The Smiths this week, which was most of the reason for playing the She & Him cover of "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" (featured in (500) Days of Summer) and "How Soon Is Now?" earlier.

1	MGMT	Flash Delirium
2	Cake	Love You Madly
3	Washington	How To Tame Lions
4	Family of the Year	Chugjug
5	Band of Horses	I Go To The Barn Because I Like The
6	Broken Bells	The High Road
7	We Are Scientists	Rules Don't Stop
8	Discovery	Slang Tang
9	The Smiths	How Soon Is Now?
10	Will Smith	Gettin' Jiggy Wit It
11	The Go-Go's	We've Got The Beat
12	Prince	Kiss
13	Of Montreal	We Were Born the Mutants Again with Leofling
14	Jarvis Cocker	Don't Let Him Waste Your Time
15	PS22 Chorus	Lisztomania (Phoenix cover)
16	Phoenix	If I Ever Feel Better
17	Yael Naim	Toxic (Britney Spears cover)
18	Fleet Foxes	Mykonos
19	TV on the Radio	DLZ
20	Madcon	Beggin'
21	Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton	Nothing and Nowhere
22	The Magnetic Fields	Nothing Matters When We're Dancing
23	Barenaked Ladies	I'll Be That Girl
24	Radiohead	High and Dry
25	Frou Frou	Psychobabble
26	No Doubt	Sunday Morning
27	OK Go	This Too Shall Pass
28	Bob Dylan	Mr. Tambourine Man
29	The Stone Roses	I Wanna Be Adored
30	She & Him	Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want (The Smiths cover)

The Beat Frequency - March 5, 2010

Hello readers! Another lovely post from your friend here at The Beat Frequency. Here's our playlist with explanations, if not vague ones, about why I played some of these songs on our radio show here at WMUC.

I was talking with a friend about staying hungry or ambitious, and "Hungry Like The Wolf" popped immediately into my mind. Also, this lovely Old Spice Commercial. No, not this one. (But it's good too.)

Also, another friend of mine requested "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)" which is a ridiculous Beatles tune, along with "Strawberry Fields Forever."

We played The Kissaway Trail because they are opening for The Temper Trap and Florence + The Machine at their show that I'm seeing in April. (WHICH I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT)

The Tom Waits and Townes Van Zandes tunes were covered by Norah Jones on an album I owned a long time ago. I needed to hear the originals.

Bob Dylan is awesome. Enough said.

Bruce's "Dancing In The Dark" was related to the hungry theme. Lyrical quote: "They say you gotta stay hungry. Hey baby, I'm just about starving tonight."

"Debaser" is a great song. Shouting the lyrics makes my day.

The Blow's "Parentheses" goes out to my sister on her 20th birthday, which was later the next week, because she showed it to me and I love it.

Billy Joel's "Vienna" goes out to anyone who has ever been overwhelmed with trying too hard. "Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true." Kills me every time.

"Ambitions" by Donkeyboy was a special request from my good friend who now lives in Norway. It was a good song too.

Spoon's "Is Love Forever?" was part of Transference, the album of theirs that I was reviewing for the station (and finally finished.) The review is here at the WMUC music blog.

"Next Year" by the Foo Fighters was the theme song to the television show Ed (2000-2004), where I first started listening to music as an integral part of television. Unfortunately, due to outrageous royalties, Ed may never come out on DVD, which makes me terribly sad. Bowling alley lawyer? Come on, that's classic television. Also, it had the Mac guy in it, and Michael Ian Black. (If you don't know that I like cheesy television by now, you don't know me very well.)

"Abel" by The National was played for the line "my mind is not right" which I had the pleasure to see screamed by the lead singer back in August at the Virgin Free Fest in Columbia, MD.

Rogue Wave's "Good Morning" now has a special place in my brain after I heard it on the drive back from a roadtrip to Wisconsin at around 3am in North Eastern Ohio (on the radio! I know, I was excited too). The great folks at Ohio's Alternation played it, along with a few more tunes I'll share on the March 26th show. Anyway, I couldn't place the song until I got home, but it felt pretty cool to have played it earlier.

And we closed out with a remix of the remix of the cover of "You Got The Love." Yeah, try to wrap your head around that.

1	Duran Duran	Hungry Like The Wolf
2	Led Zeppelin	Misty Mountain Hop
3	The Beatles	You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)
4	The Beatles	Strawberry Fields Forever
5	The Kissaway Trail	Beat Your Heartbeat
6	Thao Nyguen	Tallymarks
7	Tom Waits	The Long Way Home
8	Townes Van Zandt	Be Here To Love Me
9	Bob Dylan	Don't Think Twice, It's Alright
10	Bob Dylan	It Ain't Me
11	Massive Attack	Dissolved Girl
12	Air	Playground Love
13	Bruce Springsteen	Dancing In The Dark
14	David Bowie	Life on Mars?
15	Elliot Smith	Jealous Guy (John Lennon cover)
16	Pixies	Debaser
17	The Blow	Parentheses
18	Billy Joel	Vienna
19	The Proclaimers	Over and Done With
20	Built To Spill	Distopian Dream Girl
21	CSS	Cannonball (The Breeders cover)
22	Donkeyboy	Ambitions
23	Spoon	Is Love Forever?
24	Foo Fighters	Next Year
25	of Montreal	Cato As A Pun
26	Band of Horses	Our Swords
27	The National	Abel
28	Rogue Wave	Good Morning
29	Portishead	Sour Times
30	Florence + The Machine	You Got The Love (The Very Best Remix)

The Beat Frequency - February 12, 2010

Hello, hello! Today was our first show back after the blizzard which canceled February 4th's show. Everyone in College Park was getting some serious cabin fever. We played some Leonard Nimoy (yes, that's Spock) and a few awesome songs my sister told me about (Gold Motel's "Perfect in my Mind" is fantastic.) Frightened Rabbit's "Nothing Like You" was also on the list. You can check out the video here.

Steve Perry's "Strung Out" was featured in a recent Psych episode and Datarock's "Amarillion" was played in Chuck. Why yes, if you've figured nothing out from any of these blog entries, I get a lot of my new music from television shows.

We also had a cabin fever section of the show featuring the Muppets, R.E.M. and Bon Jovi. My own personal snowed-in song was "Aside" by The Weakerthans. The line "and I'm losing all these stupid games that I swore I'd never play" was stuck in my head all week. TV on the Radio's cover of Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Modern Romance" was new to me and I really enjoyed it.

Oh yeah, and it was two days before Anna Howard Shaw Day so we played a few songs for all the lovers out there. Ok, so maybe they were just songs that mentioned love of various varieties. The Magnetic Fields' "The Book of Love" off of their 69 Love Songs and Bloc Party's "This Modern Love" are fairly old favorites for me, and added with the newer "Cosmic Love" from Florence + the Machine started off the bit, with the classic "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division and then the epic "Elephant Love Medley" from Moulin Rouge.

Oh, and then Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" because I was heading out to New Jersey after the show. I should've played "Atlantic City" but I like "Born to Run" better.

Playlist for February 12, 2010:

1	Friday Mile	Lives of Strangers
2	Eisley	Silver Springs
3	Gold Motel	Perfect In My Mind
4	Leonard Nimoy	Highly Illogical
5	Patrick Watson	Overture
6	Frightened Rabbit	Nothing Like You
7	Steve Perry	Strung Out
8	The Weakerthans	Aside
9	Datarock	Amarillion
10	R.E.M.	It's The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
11	Muppets	Cabin Fever
12	Bon Jovi	Livin' on a Prayer
13	Spoon	Written In Reverse
14	Buddy Holly	Everyday
15	TV On The Radio	Modern Romance (Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover)
16	Fleetwood Mac	Go Your Own Way
17	Phoenix	If I Ever Feel Better
18	Flight of the Conchords	I'm Not Crying
19	John Mayer	Love Song For No One
20	Elliott Smith	Clementine
21	Death Cab for Cutie	I Was A Kaleidoscope
22	The Strokes	What Ever Happened?
23	of Montreal	Gronlandic Edit
24	Architecture in Helsinki	Like It or Not
25	Loney, Dear	I Was Only Going Out
26	Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin	Modern Mystery
27	The Magnetic Fields	The Book of Love
28	Bloc Party	This Modern Love
29	Florence + The Machine	Cosmic Love
30	Joy Division	Love Will Tear Us Apart
31	Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman	Elephant Love Medley
32	Bruce Springsteen	Born To Run