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Category Archives: Material Issue

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Cristy, William, and Baby Chaos identify their favorite stand-out debut albums from 1962 through the present, playing tracks from the greatest first albums released between 1976-1996. All accompanied by astute analysis, personal anecdotes, factual misunderstandings, and a rambunctious toddler. Listen to the first hour here.

They are then joined by Chelsea Bandita and Milkwagon, and help co-host Surfabilly Freakout in a human mash-up called Freaks and Geeks. Surf and rockabilly music old and new, some from places with no beaches whatsoever.

Appetite for Stupidity

This is the best-selling debut album of all time, according to Wikipedia this morning. #2? Boston. Neither made our list. An oversight? On whose part? Ours or the world’s?

Up up and away! One more hour of music about comics and cartoons, loaded with soundbites as tasty as marshmallows in your Saturday morning cereal. Put on your pajamas, download, and enjoy.

Cristy vs. William.

Cristy vs. William.

Sputnik Lullabye, a wonderful CD by Paul Kotheimer.

Sputnik Lullabye, a wonderful CD by Paul Kotheimer.

Songs About Satellites Part 2. William is alone in the capsule for this tight hour-long orbit. Featuring an entire block of songs about Soviet Satellites (and space dogs). Listen.

As Rock Genre Directors at WEFT 90.1 FM, once a month we would set about opening our mail, criticizing the type treatment used by the mostly micro-label CDs we received, and digging for buried musical treasure. All on the air, with envelopes ripping and bubble wrap popping. And lots of playing songs that were new to us, even if they might be stale to others.

Send your CD to Rock Geek Enterprises, P.O.Box 91, Urbana IL 61803.

28 February 2009: Vampire Weekend, Davis Schneiderman, Robyn Hitchcock, &c.

20 June 2009: Martin Newell, The Bird and the Bee, Robyn Hitchcock, &c.

1 August 2009: Common Loon, Paul Kotheimer, &c.

19 September 2009: Phoenix, Electric Tickle Machine, Apples in Stereo, Vivian Girls, &c.

15 January 2010: Surprises both fresh and rancid.

12 April 2010: Broken Bells, Gorillaz, MC Frontalot, &c.

14 June 2010: Dead Weather, Seth Augustus, Karen Elson, &c.

19 July 2010: Wolf Parade, Hot Hot Heat, Black Keys, Sadies, Dark Night of the Soul, &c.

16 August 2010: An attempt to work through the entire alphabet: new releases by bands starting with letters A—Z…

30 August 2010: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Wavves, Aloe Blacc, &c.

20 September 2010: Of Montreal, Philip Selway, &c.

18 October 2010: Janelle Monae! (Followed by a live performance by Community College on the WEFT Sessions)

15 November 2010: Decemberists, and what else do you need, really?

13 December 2010: John Steinbacher joins William while Cristy takes a holiday

17 January 2011: with Todd Hunter

7 March 2011: Chain and the Gang, Bare Wires, &c. Wow.

18 April 2011: Dopestylevsky, Mammals of Zod, Paul Kotheimer, Gary Heidt, Shipbuilding Company, Deerhoof, &c.

6 June 2011: Raphael Saadiq, Chad VanGaalen, &c.

20 June 2011: Fist of Kindness, Five-Eight, Wombats, the Head, Hammer No More the Fingers, &c.

18 July 2011: Bloc Party, Mike Watt, &c.

22 August 2o11: Rome, Material Issue, &c.

12 December 2011: We were late and called in to ask a baby boomer to start our show, with predictable results. Thanks, Mick.

 23 January 2012: They Might Be Giants, The Asteroid Galaxy Tour, &c.

inbox3

Data is elastic.

Data is elastic.

Here’s what we have for phone numbers so far:

  • 867-5309, Jenny (Tommy Tutone)
  • 853-5937 (Squeeze)
  • 834-5789 (Wilson Pickett)
  • 911 Is A Joke (Public Enemy)
  • 777-9311 (The Time)
  • Beechwood 4-5789 (The Marvelettes)
  • Promised Land (Chuck Berry)… unless we find the Meatloaf version
  • …and did you know that AC/DC’s phone number is 362436? Presumably that needs an Australian country code to work. Why not give AC/DC a call? They have a good offer on dirty deeds.

Early results for dates and addresses are less encyclopedic.

Freelance rock scholars, unite in the name of research sharing! Here’s the show on MP3.

Tentative title: Songs with Data.

Other shows include:


13 September 2010: Doug Hoepker joins us to play more than twenty power pop classics, launching his new online collaborative mix project Mixtured. 20 rock geeks each selected a song from the power pop idiom, and we manage to spin most of them. A massive collaboration.

Cristy’s pick for the mix and what she wrote about it:

Material Issue, “Renee Remains The Same”

I always think of power pop as a rock junkie’s amazing discovery. The bands seem to shine in eras in which they’re most unfashionable. The prog-drenched ’70s: Oh my gosh, there’s this band, Big Star, who sound like the Beatles! The synthy ’80s: Whoa, there’s this band, the dB’s, who sound like Big Star! The autotune-crazy ’00s: Sweet, there’s this band, Generationals, who sound like the dB’s!

In the early ’90s, it was Material Issue, who sounded like Cheap Trick. Most late Friday nights in junior high, I watched MTV, slogging through videos by Queensryche, Poison, and Cinderella. Cut to a black-and-white video featuring lanky clean-cut boys with a singer in a striped t-shirt who played a jangly guitar and sung with a (fake) English accent. I got the cassette as fast as I could, memorizing every two-minute song, every shout-along chorus about girls. Then a few years later, as it happens with these bands, Material Issue were gone. “But melodies, harmonies, and skinny ties never die. They’ll be back up when the pretty blue lights come on.

William’s pick for the mix and what he wrote about it:

“And Your Bird Can Sing,” The Jam

“Powerpop?” I asked, “what’s that?” He didn’t answer right away. Smoothing his moustache as he put the top down, tapped the cassette into the dash, and dropped the convertible into gear.  Easing out of the parking lot, slowing to admire the waitresses on roller skates, he checked his sunglasses in the rearview mirror, and said, “It all starts with the Beatles.” I sense we are in for a long ride.

One facet of the Beatles is a preverb of powerpop, except the Beatles escaped the curse of obscurity, that bad paradox by which songs crafted to be so commercially perfect, pleasing, single-sized, compressed, and seemingly radio-friendly are resigned to the box of shrugs, not played in the sports car but left in the garage to be rediscovered at the yard sale by people like us. So I choose this cover, one degree removed from the Fab Four. No disrespect intended. To me the song has the characteristics of my favorite gems of the genre: an overly melodic guitar line (more net than hook—I’m thinking “Shake Some Action,” “Baby Blue,” “Starry Eyes”), a certain bratty exuberance to the lyrics, and, of course, those loud lollipop vocals: if it’s worth singing, it’s worth harmonizing.

Musical meta-radio. Well, there’s a lot of songs about radio, most of them pretty damn cheerful. Are we postmodern yet? Download this fun if effortless mix.

Serious about fun music.

Serious about fun music.


Thanks again to our entire facebook rock geek advisory panel for the assistance identifying songs that refer to other bands. This show worked out well. Scott liked it much better than he did songs that refer to their own bands.

For Valentine’s Day Cristy and I are going to dedicate a show to songs named after women, especially songs named after Judy or Caroline, as we have found enough songs about these two ladies to make a collage. We’ll be getting caught up with the Myshkins requests with “Mimi LaValley.” We’ll finally get around to Phil Ochs with “Celia.” We will not play “Cecilia.” And we will play some things by bands other than Material Issue.

We even recorded a short promo so you can try before you download.

As we hope to organize these songs in alphabetic order, we are in dire need of songs named after women whose names begin with Q, X, and Z. Rock geek scrabble, anyone?

Flawedcasts of those two shows are downloadable here: A-MN-Z

Next Saturday we are going to devote an hour to newly-released music. Last year saw a new album by some band called Radiohead, and this week saw me finally get my pre-ordered LP of Goodnight, Oslo, by Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3. Future Clouds and Radar, a Texas band that sounds British, completed a concept album about Peoria, Illinois, for reasons that remain obscure. And Ben Folds titled his latest after Normal, Illinois, and wrote a song about Effingham, even if he got the name wrong. Downstate Illinois is the new Tobacco Road, apparently.

Were there any new records last year (or this) that struck your fancy? As music snobs stuck in the 1990s and 1980s, respectively, Cristy and I will rely on your suggestions.

Tune in to Rock Geek F.M. Saturday mornings from 8-9 a.m. CST on http://weft.org. Or at a more reasonable hour in the Nordic countries. Or, if you’re reading this now, listen to the MP3 on the wayback machine.