One hundred years ago, musicians didn’t have record labels — they had patrons. A patron was a single wealthy individual who made a hobby of supporting the artistic efforts of composers or other artists they liked who seemed promising to them. Such a one was the Princesse de Polignac, which sounds quite grand until you […]
There are weeks when we’re less inspired by the Bubble Wrap playlist options than others, but we always try to put together a good mix of old and new, warped and accessible, or at least entertaining… This week, we dug back in the archives for forgotten gems like “Man in the House” by Greenskeeper and […]
Northampton’s Winterpills have been around for over a decade now and in that time, they’ve laid down an impressive body of work, stretching the boundaries of pop with their enigmatic lyrics and the harmonic convergence of their vocals. Their latest release, Love Stories, cements their growing reputation as masters of their craft, again stretching convention […]
It’s hard to do a radio show in a vacuum, which is why this autumn’s media mayhem is great for sparking interesting musical choices. The interesting new artist of this week’s Bubble Wrap show was Chicago Farmer, aka Cody Dickoff (pronounced Dee-cough! — you can see why he calls himself Chicago Farmer.) The record, Midwest […]
This week on Bubble Wrap we focused on new music again with no particular theme in mind. There were a few chestnuts in there — accordion virtuoso Brent Buswell’s Pennsylvania Polka provided a rousing opening. In honor of hurricane Matthew, we tossed in Hurricane by Crooked Fingers, a perennial favorite of mine. We enjoyed a […]
No theme, no thought, just raw, unravelled rock and pop, also hip hop, spoken word, and a show tune, Bubble Wrap is past redemption, and we don’t care! Playlist below. September 28, 2016 The Way We Play Grandmaster Flash – The Adventures of GMF on the Wheels of Steel * Dirty Projectors with Bjork – […]
There were more police killings of black men this week, including Keith Scott and Terence Crutcher, bringing a sense of frustration and grief that can’t go away because they don’t stop happening… This week’s Bubble Wrap show featured lots of funk, r&b, hip hop, and even some disco (imagine that), mostly addressing the black experience, […]
Our discovery this week was The 1975. We’re sorry we didn’t bother to listen to them sooner. Despite occasionally sounding like a boy band, there’s an undercurrent of coolness to their ultra-pop. “Love Me,” the track we played, is killer dance pop. Hard not to like. Ditto for Angel Olsen whose My Woman album seems […]
On Bubble Wrap this week, we realized once again why sets of one person’s musical selections alternating with another person’s selections leads to chaos, both aurally and emotionally. Just when you’re ready to get out the bourbon, a comedy number comes on. Next we’re making you get your dancing shoes on, then we’re telling you […]
Composer, musician, and brother Bill LePage joined us on June 22 for a different sort of Bubble Wrap show, taking the concept of independent music far from the bounds to which the term is usually applied. Playing everything from Pogo to Ravel, Bill approached the sounds of the 20th century in a genre-agnostic way, mixing […]
Considering that we practically live in their backyard, it’s surprising that we never noticed Signature Sounds Recordings until now. Signature Sounds is a label out of Northampton, Massachusetts, originally focused on folk, Americana, and singer-songwriter music, and more recently branching out into rock and indie. Folk is not usually my thing but recently I discovered […]
Poetry and hip hop are an obvious pair – the rapper and her rhymes — but while most rappers are poets in their own way, not as many poets are rappers. Jamila Woods has the skills to do both. She’s a recognized poet in the tradition of Lucille Clifton and Gwendolyn Brooks, and now has […]
Usually our Bubble Wrap shows are an assortment of tracks from near to far and then to now, but recently whole chunks of related music have been falling into our laps, and this week, we decided to showcase some of it. It gave us a chance to acquaint people and ourselves with indie labels and […]
John Cage, 20th century composer and innovator, is probably best known for his piece 4’33”, consisting of the sounds of 4 minutes and 33 seconds of “silence.” Audiences were confounded and not altogether pleased. Cage continued to pioneer an entire method of music composition based on “chance operations,” such as tossing coins or pulling slips […]