Month: June 2024

WSND DJ set list – Throwback Thursday – June 06, 2024

It was another fun Throwback Thursday at WSND. Thanks to all who listened. Here’s the set list:

  1. Aretha Franklin – Rock Steady (1972)
  2. Pilot – Magic (1975)
  3. MC5 – Miss X (1971)
  4. Robin Trower – Too Rolling Stoned (1974) (request)
  5. Quicksilver Messenger Service – What About Me? (1970)
  6. Thin Lizzy – Running Back (1976)
  7. Led Zeppelin – Immigrant Song (live) (1972) (request)
  8. Blondie – Heart of Glass (1978)
  9. The Cars – Moving in Stereo (1978) (request)
  10. Queen – Fat Bottomed Girls (1978)
  11. Television – Marquee Moon (1977) (request)
  12. Gerhard Heinz – Lolita und der Teddy Bear (1980)
  13. Neil Young – The Old Homestead (1980) (request)
  14. Naked Eyes – Always Something There to Remind Me (1983)
  15. X – Your Phone’s Off the Hook, but You’re Not (1980) (request)
  16. Pet Shop Boys – Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money) (1986) (request)
  17. Midnight Oil – River Runs Red (1989)
  18. Concrete Blonde – God Is a Bullet (1989) (request)
  19. Devo – Shout (1984)
  20. A Flock of Seagulls – I Ran (So Far Away) (1982)
  21. Hüsker Dü – I Don’t Know What You’re Talking About (1985)
  22. The Cramps – Human Fly (1983)
  23. Romeo Void – Never Say Never (1982) (request)
  24. 45 Grave – Partytime (1983) (request)
  25. Roxy Music – More Than This (1982)
  26. The Fixx – One Thing Leads to Another (1983)
  27. Paula Cole – Mississippi (live) (1998)
  28. Pantera – Walk (1992) (request)
  29. Public Enemy w/ Anthrax – Bring Tha Noize (1991)
  30. Deana Carter – Strawberry Wine (1996) (request)
  31. Sass Jordan – High Road Easy (1993) (request)
  32. Failure – Pro-Catastrophe (1992)
  33. Bad Company – Holy Water (1990) (request)
  34. Depeche Mode – Personal Jesus (1990) (request)
  35. The Crystal Method – Busy Child (1997)
  36. Living Colour – Love Rears Its Ugly Head (1990) (request)
  37. The Damned – Running Man (1996)

Throwback Thursday returns June 20th!

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe!]

Review: Punchlove – Channels

Every now and then, you hear a new band described as arriving “fully formed” on the scene. It’s actually true in Punchlove‘s case, as they sound like they’ve been making shoegaze since at least 2010. You hear their debut album, Channels, and think, “This can’t be their first record.”

Yet, it is, and opening track “Breeze” hits you as heavy as any track Hum would’ve put out in their heyday with roaring guitars and crushing drums. The album was created not only post-pandemic, but also post-move from one continent to another. Jillian Olesen and Ethan Williams landed back in NYC after being forced out of Prague by the COVID-19 lockdowns. They met up with other NYU music technology students and Punchlove was born.

So were songs like “Screwdriver,” which sounds like The Cure meeting Failure in a battle of the bands. The ethereal fuzz of “Pigeon” is wondrous to behold. “Dead Lands” might be about Jillian Olesen’s feelings about returning to the U.S. to find it shut down and essentially empty thanks to the pandemic. It’s a lovely track.

“Apartment” is warped and weird. Every guitar and vocal in it sounds like it was partially melted in a studio fire that almost got out of control. “Birdsong” flies back and forth between bursting guitars and subtle chords. “Guilt” takes those bursting guitars and somehow pushed them further until it feels like you’re racing downhill with the band in a tour van without brakes.

I don’t know which is louder on “Elapse,” the driving guitar riffs or the drums hit and cymbal crashes that sound like Godzilla kicking over a power line tower. The album closes with “Corridor,” which could be thematically interpreted as a song beginnings or endings depending on where the corridor leads. It’s the softest song on the record and probably the most haunting as well.

This is all fine shoegaze stuff from Punchlove, who are already far ahead of other current bands in the genre. A lot of people are scrambling to catch up while Punchlove is making it look easy.

Keep your mind open.

[Punch your e-mail address into the subscription box while you’re here. I’d love that.]

[Thanks to Tom at Terrorbird Media.]