Psych! Folk! Revival!

This show was inspired by some discussion on a forum after the recent death of Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary fame. Someone claimed that folk music died in the mid-60's when Dylan went electric. I don't pretend to have a good definition for folk music, but it seems to me that folk music is alive and well, thank you very much! In fact there's whole new wave of young musicians who are experimenting with folk music in very personal and inventive ways. Let's see a sample:

There must be something in the water in Nevada City, California! Here's two artists from that city:



I was lucky to see Mariee Sioux in concert last summer. She played in an open air concert in the middle of a park, surrounded with trees and moths. A magical evening for sure.

Here's a couple of bigger names from the new psych folk scene, starting with Devendra Banhart, whom I like to compare to a young Marc Bolan, from his Tyrannosaurus Rex period.


Here's one that requires some open-mindedness: Joanna Newsom, with her harp and her unusual vocals...


This show wouldn't be complete without a mention of the godmother of this movement, the one who inspired many of these new artists: Vashti Bunyan, who has made a successful comeback recently. She hasn't lost her touch, as you can see in this video. Pure bliss.

Reminiscing the Pretty in Pink Era

Just watched Pretty in Pink, the excellent John Hughes movie, and it made me want to revisit that era. I wish I'd seen that movie at the time, as I would have completely related to the teenage angst, the class struggle aspects, and especially the sitting alone and listening to the Smiths and feeling miserable parts. We're talking about 1985-1986, that is the end of the new wave, cold wave, post-punk era. Most of those kind of bands (except the Cure and U2, of course) had reached their expiry date by then, but some of them were lucky enough to have one good last gasp in them, and that's what I'm going to share with you now! There's some nice videos on YouTube that I hadn't seen at the time.

Let's start with the Psychedelic Furs then. Even though Pretty in Pink the movie was released in 1986, the eponymous single dates all the way back to 1981, so it would be cheating to post it here today, and besides, you, i.e., the knowledgeable EasyTV fan and musicologist, already know that song all too well! Instead, let's check out their very good single from 1984, Heaven, from their Mirror Moves album:



Another band that by 1985 had been around for a long time, with various line-up changes, is Ultravox. Here's their single from around that time, with a video guaranteed to give you a chill:



(the above single in from 1984, I think. There will be many more shows about the year 1984, as it was a pretty pivotal year for me, personally and musically speaking)

For whatever reason, critics usually don't like Killing Joke. But here's a single from 1985 that really turned me on to the whole scene (yep, I was too young to know that stuff before then!): (embedding the original video was disabled, so here's a live version instead)



Alright, that's it for today! Whether you loved or hated the show, please leave your comments, or at least take the little vote that I've added at the bottom of each post! 'later!

Tea Time for J-Yo!

Today's show is for J-Yo! Here's some reggae riddim that'll go well with your new tea and cookie recipes!

Let's start with a couple of songs that I discovered thanks to Mojo's excellent Trojan Explosion compilation. Here they are, in full vinyl glory:





John Holt's voice reminded me of Horace Andy, a guy I discovered (very late!) thanks to his vocal contributions to Massive Attack's fantastic Mezzanine album. Here's one of his old songs:



Enjoy!

DESTROOOOOYYYY!!!

Today's show is brought to you by Mme Easy. I was looking for some punk bands that weren't necessarily the ones the critics liked (you know who I mean: the Buzzcocks, the Clash etc.) but the ones the average punk dude liked to slam dance to. It turns out Mme Easy was one such average punk dudette! Here's a selection she made:

Here's what she had to say about the Exploited: "WHAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH"



Apparently the following song by the Subhumans formed Mme Easy's views on religion:



Alright, I actually like and approve of the following song:



Mme Easy kept trying to convince me that GBH has some awesome songs. We went through plenty of videos, and the songs all sounded the same to me. As I'm typing this, she is still looking for that elusive interesting song. But I think I'll just end the show here. See you later!