This week on Bubble Wrap radio show, we vowed a return to normalcy. Did we succeed? Let’s see…. Obligatory Prince track? check. Unknown 80s Italo funk cut? got it. Interesting new music from Chicago? Yup. Ok, we’re back at least for the moment. The Italo funk was “Living” by Island and Holiday, a 1980s remix […]
Radio
Be Thankful For What You Got… November 23, 2016
The holiday season is upon us. First up: Thanksgiving. Are we feeling thankful? Maybe not entirely but I think this year more than some others, we were in the mood for a good old fashioned, comforting family Thanksgiving with all the trimmings. This week on Bubble Wrap, we attempted to fit the mood of the […]
Standing On Shakey Ground – November 16, 2016
OMG It’s Trump – the Post Election Show
We were looking forward to doing the Bubble Wrap show the day after the election, figuring Hillary would win and we could play upbeat pop songs with just a touch of whimsical sarcasm…. And then the unthinkable happened — Donald Trump won! How is this even possible. On one days notice it was back to […]
Pre-Election Encouragement – November 2, 2016
Since the election was all anyone was thinking about anyway, we decided to provide some musical encouragement on Bubble Wrap this week. But we threw in someunrelated new stuff too, just to keep it interesting. First off, apologies in advance to purists who think Bruno Mars is too pop for an indie show. I agree. […]
Stronger Than Witchcraft – The Bubble Wrap 2016 Hallowe’en Show
Doing a Hallowe’en show on the radio is always fun — it brings out your inner ham and suddenly you’re playing sound effects records of haunted mansions and wishing you had Monster Mash on your iPad… This year’s Bubble Wrap Halloween playlist consisted of two types of Halloween song. There are the songs that are […]
All Over Town: October 19, 2016
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 […]
Moonlight People: Playlist for October 12, 2016
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 […]
Wild Nothings: Playlist for October 5, 2016
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 […]
The Way We Play – September 28, 2016
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 – […]
Summer of Black Lives Ending – September 21, 2016
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, […]
Adventures in Radio – September 14, 2016
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 […]
The Pitfalls of an Unintegrated Set List – September 7, 2016
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 […]
Twentieth Century Sound Survey – with Guest Host Bill LePage
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 […]