Brad Barrish

At the suggestion of a friend, I decided to make a Back-To-School mix for this month, which of course has nothing to do with me. I left school five years after I started, having completed enough hours to be a sophomore. How does that work, you ask? All I really wanted to do was college radio and start my own label. KJHK was one of the top college stations, the first radio station of any kind to transmit a contunuous live signal over the Internet and was to be the place where the seeds of my dreams started sprouting a bit.

I started college in 1993, which was a damn good time to be involved with college radio. It was right at the beginnning of the signing [record contracts] frenzy for which Nirvana was largely responsible. Indie rock was starting to break and some of the more talented folks to which people are still listening today started seeing their careers take flight in the early nineties (read Elliott Smith, Beck, Wilco, Mercury Rev, Urge Overkill, Guided By Voices, etc).

Now, you may not believe this, but Spin Magazine actually caled Lawrence, Kansas the next Seattle. The local music scene, including Kansas City, was thriving with bands like Paw, Stick, Kill Creek, Butterglory, Vitreous Humor, Shiner, Season To Risk, Tenderloin and tons of others. Ed Rose was just starting his engineering/producing career and was doing it all at Red House Recording Studio (now Black Lodge Studio, co-owned by The Get Up Kids) and William S. Burroughs was reason enough to have Sonic Youth stop by for a visit.

Needless to say Lawrence was a good place to start a record label, or so I thought. Barber’s Itch Records was born and would live for just shy of five years. During that time I worked at KJHK doing everything from production to hosting Plow The Fields (a three-hour local music show), worked as an assistant engineer at Red House Recording Studio, hung out with Burroughs a few times and saw some of the best live shows of my life at The Bottleneck and Liberty Hall. I could probably write a book about those five years, but that’s for a later date.

To those going back to school (and those not), here’s a mix of stuff I was listening to and feeling inspired by. I left out a lot of the obvious stuff, but there were a few I had to leave (no, Nirvana isn’t on here). I’ll be back next month with more new music.

NOTE: Due to bandwidth constraints (that didn’t take long) I am unable to continue offering the files this month.

01 Supersuckers . Creepy Jackalope Eye from the album La Mano Cornuda

02 The Figgs . Slow Down from the album Lo-Fi At Society High

03 Drive Like Jehu . Golden Brown from the album Yank Crime

04 Girls Against Boys . Cruise Your New Baby Fly Self from the album Cruise Yourself

05 Jennyanykind . Windchimes from the album Etc…

06 Heatmiser . Temper from the album Cop And Speeder

07 Superchunk . Driveway To Driveway from the album Foolish

08 Archers Of Loaf . Plumb Line from the album Icky Mettle

09 Seam . Hey Latasha from the album Are You Driving Me Crazy?

10 The Dambuilders . Slo-Mo Kikaida from the album Encendedor

11 Shudder To Think . Red House from the album Hit Liquor

12 Dinosuar Jr. Feel The Pain from the album Without A Sound

13 Buffalo Tom . Tangerine from the album Sleepy Eyed

14 Kill Creek . Fruit Pie from the album St. Valentine’s Garage

15 Vitreous Humor . Squares Of Squares from the album The Vitreous Humor Self-Titled EP

16 Urge Overkill . Positive Bleeding from the album Saturation

17 Swell . Kinda Stoned from the album 41

18 The Afghan Whigs . Debonair from the album Gentlemen

19 Mike Watt . Chinese Firedrill from the album Ball-Hog Or Tugboat?

20 Poster Children . He’s My Star from the album Junior Citizen

21 Sebadoh . Ocean from the album Harmacy

I feel like I need to apologize for the amount of stuff I can’t make available. I would be lying through my teeth if I said it didn’t matter. Frankly, I was on the fence about whether to even post something this month, but something is better than nothing, right? Is it any consolation that, were it not for my job, I would make everything available? But you know, if it weren’t for my job, I wouldn’t have heard a lot of this stuff. Enjoy what’s here and hunt around for the others.

01 Black Rebel Motorcycle Club . Six Barrel Shotgun from the album Take Them On, On Your Own

02 Elbow . Fallen Angel from the album Cast Of Thousands

03 Ocean Colour Scene . Oh Collector from the album North Atlantic Drift

04 Longview . Nowhere from the album Mercury

05 Travis . Re-Offender from the album 12 Memories

06 Jem . Finally Woken from the album It All Starts Here

07 The Black Eyed Peas . Hey Mama from the album Elefunk

08 Outkast . Ghettomusick from the album Speakerboxxx: Love Below

09 Grandadbob . Killed By Sweets from the album Waltzes For Weirdoes

10 Chungking . Making Music from the album We Travel Fast

11 Josh Rouse . Comeback (Light Therapy) from the album 1972

12 Athlete . Beautiful from the album One Quiet Night

13 Fountains Of Wayne . Little Red Light from the album Welcome Interstate Managers

14 Jet . Are You Gonna Be My Girl from the album Get Born

15 Spiritualized . She Kissed Me (And It Felt Like A Hit) from the album Amazing Grace

16 The Kills . Hitched from the album Keep On Your Mean Side

17 British Sea Power . Fear Of Drowning from the album The Decline Of British Sea Power

18 Rooney . Stay Away from the album Rooney

19 Paloalto . Breathe In from the album Heroes And Villians

Would someone please explain this to me?

Science is shedding light on the darnedest subjects.

The long list of nominees for the Shortlist Music Prize have been announced. Man, they aren’t kidding around when they say “long list.” It’s a venerable who’s-who of coolness, and a lot of stuff of which I’ve not heard. On some level it’s frustrating that I don’t know everything, but it’s all the more reason to make a visit to Amoeba in the very near future. They’ve got some damn fine tastmakers as well. It’s nice to see Cameron Crowe’s name among them.

Of course I can’t let an opportunity like this pass by without putting in my two cents as to who should make the final list of 10 (in alphabetical order).

Bright Eyes - Lifted Cave In - Antenna Damien Rice - O Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights Iron & Wine - Creek Drank The Cradle Mogwai - Happy Songs For Happy People The Postal Service - Give Up Sondre Lerche - Faces Down Soundtrack Of Our Lives - Behind The Music Turin Brakes - Ether Song

My vote is for Turin Brakes, which I think is one of the finest albums of the year. Now it’s your turn. Comment away.

And so does his taste in music. As a side note, I actually like the guy’s writing, but he’s such a dickhead. I want to like him and give him the beneit of the doubt, but then I read something like this. [4th paragraph]

Thanks to the Annals of Improbable Research, I can now sleep better at night. It is now scientifically proven that Kansas is flatter than a pancake.

Gay couples adopting children = “doing violence.”

I poop on you, Pope.

How about all of the violence you do [sic] by spouting such hateful words? People listen to you and you should be ashamed. I’m afraid you’re bound for hell.

I woke up yesterday to President Bush’s press conference, which because it was not totally scripted, made him sound like the complete moron he is. I find it not only terribly offensive that he would be looking into banning gay marriage or civil unions, but it’s just the kind of close-mindedness that I have come to expect from our president. If there’s someone out there that could give me an answer to how a gay marriage or civil union harms you, I would love to hear it.

Apparently our president isn’t hip to what people are watching on television.

In somewhat related news, Israeli parliment passed a measure that would essentially banish any Palestinian that marries an Israeli to “prevent terror attacks.” That’s fucking brilliant. No, really. I have a novel idea…stop fighting. Yeah yeah, I know it seems like a no-brainer, but there is choice, is there not? And don’t someone go mounting their high horse telling me I don’t understand what’s going on there or that there’s some rational reason to keep bombing the shit out of one another. There’s isn’t.

Over the last week, I’ve been reading and hearing stories about how the hole in the ozone layer is recovering. I mean, who wouldn’t be happy about this, right? In some cases no news is good news, especially when it comes to environmental news, such as this. I can’t help but think that someone, perhaps in the current administration, will use this as fuel to ease up on the restrictions that have been put into place with regards to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). See what I’m getting at here?