Caught on the In Between Playlist 09-23-08

So I broke my first FCC law tonight. About midway through the show, I jumped into Ron Wood's Act Together (a great song that was covered by Band of Horses when they played Higher Ground a couple years back). A minute and a half into the song, during the first chorus, he sings the word "shit" and it totally caught me off guard b/c I forgot that he said that, otherwise I wouldn't have played the tune. The Radiator may be a small, low-frequency commercial free station, but we still have to follow The Man's laws. Can't ever escape that man, can we? That guy's reach stretches far and wide.

So after the "shit" went down, so to speak, I slowly faded the song out and read the disclaimer, which basically frees the station of any responsibility, and jumped right into the Whiskeytown tune Turn Around. I was a bit flustered by the "shit", as it threw me off course a bit in my show, however I was ready to get it back on track. Well, even though I was on track, the cd was off track and started skipping on that song. Awesome. Flustered further, I stopped that song and crossed my fingers and jumped into some 2 Live Crew. Just kidding. I put on a little Husker Du ditty called Never Talking To You Again and got the show rolling again.

Later on in the show, I played my favorite three songs of the night. It was a local set that included the three all-stars of the Burlington scene in my opinion--Lowell Thompson, Kelly Ravin, and Paddy Reagan. I've been really immersed in some local tunes lately through the Radiator, the Bands of Burlington show, Art Hop shows (Blowtorch specifically), and some Monkey House shows.

The first song was Kelly Ravin's Those Days and I can't write enough about this song. I downloaded it from his myspace page, so check it out. I don't know much about him, but downloaded a live set by him, Paddy Reagan, and Lowell at the Monkey House from this website http://www.vermontlivemusic.com/Paddy%20Reagan,%20Lowell%20Thompson%20and%20Kelly%20Ravin/2008-05-13%20-%20Monkey%20House/MP3%20Format/
and it's such a great, full set of awesome tunes by these guys. Check it out and download it. Kelly's song in this set stood out immediately--especially the "drive fast cars" lyric about a 2 minutes in. Check it out.
The next to stand out is the next song I played and is Fortunate to Sing by Paddy Reagan. Paddy is the booking guy at The Monkey House and is responsible for turning that place around and making it the best hang out in the area by far. They have great beer, awesome music, and always a cool crowd. The shows they've been pulling lately (thanks to Paddy) have really filled a void in the area for me. The bands aren't limited to the usual singer songwriter--although there's nothing wrong with that--but they branch out to punk bands, rock bands, electro-trash bands, salsa night, etc. They also hold a lot of the Tick Tick promoted events which are always guaranteed to be awesome. And best of all, it's only about 5 stumbling blocks from my house. So back to Paddy's song, it makes some great VT references and is a solidly crafted tune with a good vocal melody over the top.

I finished off the local trio with my guy Lowell Thompson's tune called You. He finger picks his way through this slower ballad of a song and impresses me, as always, with his song writing ability. I'm surprised that he is not bigger than he is, but am kind of happy he's not, in a very selfish way b/c I like being able to see him in smaller environments. His set at the Bands of Burlington event at Nectar's/Metronome last Thursday was the first time I'd seen him play with a full band since the very first time I saw him a couple years ago and it was an incredible set of rocking tunes ala The Stones, Kings of Leon, rockin' Boss, etc.

There were a bunch more tunes that I threw into the show tonight that I love and next week I think I'm going to speed it up a bit and get some more hard rocking going on, so tune in.

1. Tombstone -- Barbacoa -- Barbacoa
2. Self-Destructive Zones -- Drive By Truckers -- Brighter Than Creation's Dark
3. 7 Months, 39 Days -- Hank Williams III -- Lovesick, Broke, & Driftin'
4. Stop the World -- Dwight Yoakam -- Dwight's Used Records
5. Standin' -- Vetiver -- Thing of the Past
6. Turn Around -- Whiskeytown -- Stranger's Almanac
7. Never Talking to You Again -- Husker Du -- Zen Arcade
8. Those Days -- Kelly Raven
9. Fortunate to Sing -- Paddy Reagan, Lowell Thompson, & Kelly Raven -- 5/13/08 Monkey House Winooski, VT
10. You -- Lowell Thompson w/ Lowell Thompson & Kelly Raven -- 5/13/08 Monkey House Winooski, VT
11. I Must Be In a Good Place Now -- Vetiver -- Thing of the Past
12. Bury Your Burden -- Oakley Hall -- Gypsum Strings
13. I Was A Stranger -- Smog -- Red Apple Falls
14. Swimming Song -- Loudon Wainwright III