Tonight’s local music radio show on WBKM.ORG will run from 9-11pm US Eastern time and can be streamed here: WBKM It will go as follows.
Song before: It Was A Very Good Year – Frank Sinatra
intro
From our small city to the great big world, these are the Sounds Of Burlington. Last night I went to Radio Bean and saw a wonderful performance by this band.
We’ll skip the Parts for a moment. That’s the next song on the album I’m playing all the way through, song after song. Great work making that Sabbath song sound like Surf rock. Cool song form Submerged who play all over Vermont all the time. The Druids played a beautiful version of that song last night. So, last Saturday was Radio Bean’s 17th birthday party and they did the usual thing where 80 or 90 bands played from 8am to 2am with 15 minute sets. The Parts kicked off the show. Most of the rest of the show is made of a few of the many bands who played.
Silver Bridget opened their set with a little bit of (When I Was Just Seventeen) It Was A Very Good Year then dropped it into Paint It Black. It was great. I missed Cricket and Milton but assume their sets were amazing. Ivamae was great and played a couple of new songs. This next band gave us a choice of this song or one that I did not know. They played the latter so I will play this song that they did not.
I missed Eames and the two Ryans when I was in the other room seeing other bands but did catch the full Gators set. I just barely missed this next artist.
Joe and the Rangers put on a brilliant set. I want to send that out to my brother Ken and all of my brothers and sisters, ie you. Great songs from Binger, Kat, and Francesca. So, when Swale played they did mostly covers and opened with Amanda Gustafson singing the heck out of this song.
21.) Rebel Girl – Bikini Kill
22.) Popular Crowd – SWALE
23.) Trans Am – Barbacoa
24.) Juliet – Cave Bees
The Bees played a powerhouse version of that song. The tiny amount of Barbacoa that I caught was brilliant. If you listen to Popular and imagine that band singing Rebel you will have an idea of how Swale’s set started. This next band played an amazing version of this one.
25.) Destroying Everything They See – Blue Button
26.) Local Lore – Savage Hen
27.) Song About The Ocean – Dino Bravo VT
28.) Purple Rain – Prince
On Saturday WBKM is turning 10 years old and celebrating at Nectar’s. Seth Yacovone will be there, Aaron Flinn will be there, The Full Cleveland will be there and a bunch of local artists will play Prince songs and be lead by Craig Mitchell. I hope you can stop by. Dino finished off the Bean birthday party. Hen played in the afternoon and Button were as amazing as always. Well, I hope you enjoyed checking out the music of our town. Let’s do it again next week, shall we?
Songs after
All Loved Up (live) – Fish
Last American Exit – The Tragically Hip
Faeries Wear Boots – Black Sabbath
The Old And The Young – MIDLAKE BAND
The Ghost In You – The Psychedelic Furs
Marriage Song – Satori Bob
Who Are These Gods? – Dam Kat
Heaven And Hell – Dio
Ninjas Vs Zombies – Phil Yates
100 Years (Of Tears On The Wind) – Masters Of Reality
On The Air – Peter Gabriel
Lily (live) – Kate Bush
The Red Telephone – Love
I Am Sunday – The Red Telephone
Still Life Scene – Envy
Seeds And Stems – The New Siberians
Break – Slingshot Dakota
What’s In California? Joshua Glass Music
regular programming
John Fugelsang “Some people, like Bob Harris, had other ideas. A successful TV writer, who’s job writing for ForbesTraveller.com gave him the chance to review some of the most luxurious locations around the world. Bob hit it big as a contestant on Jeopardy, winning over $350,000, but rather than sit at home, Bob decided to get active, investing in more than 5,600 business in 67 countries through micro loans…..”
Fugelsang “What drove you to try to meet the people who’s lives you’ve touched?
Harris “I wanted to know if it worked.”…….
Fugelsang “What was one of the crazier experiences you had, actually going out there to meet people?”
Harris “The most important experience I had, came down to 5 words that a guy told me in Lebanon. He had his whole business destroyed in the war where Hezbollah and Israel recently went to war. He’d lost everything, and I asked him if he was angry at Hezbollah, at Israel, at anyone? And, he looked at me and he said, this was his absolute truth, and these are 5 words that, if there is anything that this book is about, this is what stuck with me. He looked at me and said, ‘you love more, you win.'”
Easter’s always a special time; a time when parents teach their children the story of Jesus by convincing them a rabbit entered their home to leave teeth-rotting candy. It’s a time when pro-death penalty Christians can mark the execution of anti-death penalty Jesus and it’s all irony free.
But whether you regard the Bible as ancient poetry, literal fact, parable — like the way Jesus spoke — the Easter story does have relevance for all of us. It’s a story of pain and suffering, of death and rebirth.
In the story of course, Jesus shows up in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, gets a hero’s welcome. Over the course of the week he preaches love, drives the money-changers who are exploiting the poor out of the temple.
The conservative religious bosses, the Pharisees, get very nervous and conspire with the occupying European imperial government to have him arrested. And by Friday, the very people who welcomed him have been spin-doctored into demanding his death.
And almost everybody abandons him. He’s locked up by the soldiers, sold out and abandoned by his friends. He’s executed by the state, a naked, bleeding, humiliated, outcast, criminal loser.
And of course, as the story goes, he rises from the tomb on Sunday and does not seek any kind of revenge, just keeps talking about love.
Now we’ve just witnessed what may have been the most powerful few days in the history of the struggle for LGBT rights in America — and it happened during Easter week.
With not one, but two anti-gay laws going before the U.S. Supreme Court, an American public decidedly on the side of gay marriage, and a seemingly endless procession of politicians from both parties who once opposed equality, but have now come to view it as an essential human right.
And none of this would’ve happened without the unspeakable tragedy of the AIDS crisis.
Kids born after the mid ‘90s have no memory of those awful first few years of AIDS, when people suffering from HIV were targets of scorn and cruelty and ignorance. Scientists begged for funding, politicians did nothing and thousands of people died. And if you’ve ever been close to someone who died of HIV-related disease, you know it’s a painful, degrading and demeaning way to go.
But gay people didn’t give up. They organized. They came out of the closet. The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP, was formed and began leading demonstrations designed to make the rest of America very uncomfortable. People didn’t wait for their rights; they demanded them.
And as more people came out, more Americans realized they didn’t really hate gay people. They already knew some.
In 2012, the first openly gay and openly bisexual Americans were elected into Congress and that same fall the president of the United States came out in favor of marriage equality before an important election. No doubt the White House had focus-grouped this thing to death and they knew the reality: that America was ready to be on the right side of decency and the right side of history.
And what did we see through this revolution of culture, this evolution of the heart? The greatest, swiftest advancement for civil rights for any minority group in the history of the human race. And all this good happened because of a plague.
That’s the story that led us to this particular Easter week. And that’s the story of Easter
President Obama made history in his inaugural address today mentioning the word “gay” and the issue of gay rights for the first time in a speech at the presidential swearing in.
“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well,” Obama said in his address on the Capitol steps after his swearing in.
Obama also mentioned the word Stonewall when citing milestones of the civil right struggle. It was a reference to a riot and subsequent protests over a police raid in June 1969 of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village. The president mentioned it along with the first women’s rights convention held in Seneca Falls, N.Y., in 1848 and the civil rights march in Selma, Ala., in 1965.
“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth,” Obama said.
Brian Ellner who led the successful campaign to make same sex marriage legal in New York state called the speech “historic.”
“The president placed the fight for gay equality alongside the struggles for women’s equality and civil rights. He made it clear that he would continue to fight for marriage equality because all love is equal,” Ellner said.
I woke up early and caught a ride with Mike Luoma down to Radio Bean to catch Dino Bravos opening set. They rocked hard and blisteringly loud, then it was over and I went to work. I worked 8 hours, stopped at home for a quick dinner then headed back to the Bean. They were running a bit behind schedule, and I walked in as Anders Parker was loading out. Rats! He’s really good, and I missed him. Rats.
Anna Pardenik came on next and played a stunning song on electric piano. She was joined by a drummer and guitar player for the next two. She played guitar on the first and piano on the second. Her set soared and I loved every moment of her songs! They had a nice sweep to them and reached up from earth to just soar.
Next up, Mickey Western jammed some country with his band. Not my thing, but they rocked it pretty hard and were fun.
Lowell Thompson and friends followed with some tough country rock. It was cool, and great to see Steve Hadeka play drums.
They followed that by clearing the dance floor for tango sessions, where a bunch of couples danced the tango for 3 songs. It’s like a concert was happening and a dance broke out. It kind of worked.
Brett Hughes and Kat Wright came on next and played a few old style country songs with one guitar and two voices. They really sing well together. They sang a song about being on a wire, the saddest song ever, and it was stunningly beautiful. During the set, one of my roommates, Joel, and my friend Christopher Larrow walked in. What a nice surprise. And they got there just in time for Swale!
Swale came on and did a set of covers. They were joined by Kat and a guy who did a killer rap for Empire State of Mind. They followed with Let’s Have A Toast for the Douchebags, and kept the party rolling. Amanda left the keys to be frontwoman for a seriously funky C’est La Vie. They followed by asking Lee to come to the stage with an empty glass and dishrag and asked him to keep wiping it for the whole song. They asked me to sit on an amp and had someone else lean on the keyboard with a beer. They played the theme to Cheers, and it was great.
Immediately after their set Vedora hit the other stage. They unleashed a blistering Terrarium, Promises, Maria, and In the Pines with the end section of Chain. The energy was through the roof.
Next up a poet read a bit and the Eames brothers came on. We stepped outside to get a bit of air. The Eames guys sounded nice and played some bluesy rock.
Craig Mitchell and Soulmints followed with a rocking soul set. Purple Rain was especially nice. From there on it gets a bit blurry.
The Honky Tonk crew played a few and while I was not stunned, it was great to hear Marie Claire Johnson sing and play keys. Actually she co-played keys as there was someone else playing the same keyboard with her.
Shelly Shredder rocked pretty hard. I should really try and catch them again sometime.
Blue Button came on a unleashed a fury of blistering punk rock. It got pretty wild on the floor. Thanks Eric Olsen Rebekah Whitehurst and the rest for such a fun time.
Lendway came on next and were cool and wonderful as always. Kevin Lynam and the boys really know how to play! After that I headed for home. After all, it’s my Tuesday. Thanks to Radio Bean and all the wonderful performers that I caught and missed. I love you all, and you know that.
