Fountain of Mis-Spent Youth (The Soundtrack)

My first experience as a radio DJ was 20-odd years ago...I filled in for a friend of mine at a local college station during her summer vacation. It was fun, but I wasn't really involved in the station in any significant way, I was just a substitute. I had no idea that one day I'd be doing important stuff at a radio station...by important stuff, I mean pogo dancing in the broadcast booth while I inflict my record collection on an unsuspecting public.

When my friend (the same one who trained me twenty years ago and , by remarkable coincidence, had the show directly after mine today) showed up for her shift, she told me that I "sounded happier."

"Happier? That's all?", I replied with feigned hurt, "I am the happiest!"


THE NEW BREAKFAST SNOB, June 7, 2008

Pixies- Wave Of Mutilation
Lets kick off with 121 seconds of good memories.

Steve Hillage - Motivation
The title of the LP is Motivation Radio. It's about flying saucers, crystal vibrations and other New Age healing energy gobbbledygook. I should hate it, but it's actually one of my all-time favorite albums, mainly due to Hillage's beautifully fluid psychedelic guitar solos..,I have had this copy since 10th grade, so pardon me if it is a bit scratchy. If I'd known I was going to live until 40, I'd have taken better care of my records.

Wipers- Window Shop For Love
Another blast from my own past. Believe it or not, I have been somewhat moody in the past and there was a point in my life where a friend felt compelled to tell me to: "stop listening to the Wipers", the Wipers being the most depressing punk rock band of all time.

I feel like a piece of cold ice forming inside a chamber of lost illusions or something very much like that, he sings...gloomy, yeah, but with wonderfully savage guitar outbursts.
Wiper guitarist/leader Greg Sage built his own amps and electronics; he has a guitar sound that is both simple and unique. Rockin'!
The record is pressed on clear vinyl and it's hard to see where the space between songs ends and begins...holy shit, my eyes are bad. I'm getting old.
I don't care.
I'll have my mid-life crisis on the radio and love every minute of it.

The Frames- Angel at my Table
I'm fairly new to this Irish band but I'm catching up. Emotional, wrenching stuff. Great.

Nouvelle Vague- Heart of Glass
I wish I could play their rendition of the Dead Kennedys' Too Drunk To Fuck, but I can't. Still, ya gotta love this...well I do.

Mothers of Invention- Happy Together
From the Mothers Live at the Filmore East, 1971...another relic from grade school. It's a Turtles song, ya know?

XTC- The Smartest Monkeys
What can be said? This band is highly evolved.

Badfinger- Carry On Till Tomorrow
Oh, it's so sweet and hopeful. I'm so fat, stupid and happy that I am actually groovin' on this...go figure.

Suicidal Tendencies- How Will I Laugh Tomorrow (When I Can't Even Smile Today)
This band isn't as cheerful as Badfinger but the guitar playing is much more interesting.

Now excuse me for a moment while I read a Public Service Announcement for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.
Seriously.
I'm very civic-minded, you know.

Damien Dempsey- Marching Season
Have I mentioned how much I like Damo? It's a lot.

Warren Zevon- Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead
Are pretty much like the things to do when you are not. Even when I drank, I eschewed all things Coors... I sure do wish WZ was still alive. He's my second-favorite dead musician with a last name that starts with Z.

King Missile- Detachable Penis
Dude wakes up, can't find his dick...same old story.

UB40- One in Ten
By request.

Pogues- Rainbow Man
Another nod in the same direction.

Built to Spill- Big Dipper
I've lived through this song before.

Steeleye Span- Blacksmith
I think this song is about sex and anvil-banging.

Gong- Tried So Hard
Yet another High School holdover. The other kids were into Def Leppard. I liked Gong. No wonder I never had many friends my own age.

Dread Zeppelin- Heartbreaker Hotel
This is so much fun...it's the lyrics toElvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" sung to a psycho-reggae/metal rendition of Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker" and a prime example of why you should listen to my show. It'll make you happy.

Wire- Lowdown
No kidding.

Beatles- Dear Prudence
This was dedicated to my pseudonymous friend, Prudence, who is very dear to my heart.

Lucinda Williams- Those Three Days
You have no idea how much pain the current price of travel is causing me. Ok, maybe you do.

Atomic Rooster- Black Snake
What is it in the darkness that makes you so wild?

William Shatner- Common People
Captain Kirk's latest solo record, Has Been, is the best album ever.

Captain Beefheart- Party Of Special Things To Do
It wasn't hard to find Elixir Sue.

Tom Waits- Misery Is The River of The World
Tom waits for no one.

Funkadelic- Into You
Who says a funk band can't play rock music? George, Bootsy and Co. have been jammin' and slammin' for over 40 years...

Frank Zappa- Inca Roads
I get to play Zappa on the radio! Yet another High School fantasy has come to fruition!

So, my show is over, right? My friend shows up with her signature milkcrate of 1980's records and starts cueing up her first song while I do the top-of-hour announcing...she looks at me as if she wants to say something, so I turn her microphone on and she tells the audience that it was many, many years before she knew "Dear Prudence" was a Beatles song...for a long time she thought that Siouxie and the Banshees wrote it. We both laugh.

And then she starts her show with the Siouxie version.

It is a truly splendid moment.