It's another egg in the face kinda morning at WPKN with a 7-9AM Shake 'n' Vibrate Radio THURS 12/4. TUNE IN locally at 89.5FM or stream from anywhere via wpkn.org or our fabulous free apps. A two-hour expedition with nothing, but me at the controls setting the daze rock 'n' roll, funk, soul, punk tone. For those keeping score, I'll be giving away pairs of tix to Saturdaze holiday Levees extravaganza at SHU Theatre in Fairfield, Saturday, 12/6, 1PM matinee baby! And, WPKN Presents: Del Water Gap at College Street Music Hall in New Haven, Monday, 1/26.
Like they say - you can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but surely you can't pick Paul McCartney's nose...
The second hour of Thursday's Shake 'n' Vibrate Radio brings special guest Tracey Santa, who with DJ B The T Jr. will explore the world of Jerker Emanuelson and Sound Asleep Records.
Living an obscuro rockers dream, Jerker has been releasing music on Sound Asleep Records since 1994. 69 releases in 31 years. Single artist LPs/CDs, a couple of singles, dozens of compilations. All financed by the meagre revenue stream from small batch releases and his 36 years running a hardware store in a small town in southern Sweden. Jerker spent a junior year abroad in Nashville in the mid-80s and caught the Americana bug, befriending some of the major underground figures in the garage-country-pop sphere. These folks still populate his catalogue and releases, but Sound Asleep have released songs on everyone from the Incredible Casuals to Doug Yule (Velvet Underground) to Roy Loney (Flamin' Groovies).
Our guide Tracey Santa has been writing, recording, and playing over the past four decades in a number of guises: as a founding member of the Exploding Pintos and 84 Rooms in San Francisco, as a solo artist in Boston and New Orleans, as a mandolinist in the Cletus Butterfoam Experience, a bassist in Warren Zanes Lady Costume, and most recently on Colorado’s Front Range with the Wild Hares. Santa and the Wild Hares most recent recording Naugatuck Valley Boy is available on BandCamp
Santa has released over a dozen recordings in the U.S and abroad and been described as a country crooner, a garage rock minimalist, and an acolyte of Nick Lowe and the Flamin’ Groovies. Melody Maker once suggested that he sounded “like R.E.M. recorded in a telephone kiosk in the Nevada desert.”
A native son, Santa began his musical misadventures in the Nutmeg State. He eagerly awaits royalties accruing from folksinger Al McKnight’s version of his song “What You Going to Do (If the Earth Breaks Down),” performed and broadcast on New Haven’s WTNH-TV when Santa was 15. These and other tales unfold in his memoir The Tompo of the Ringing, one of Pop Matters Best Books of 2022, and described by Greil Marcus in 2023 in a Real Life Top Ten Column: “as entertaining a music life book as I’ve ever read.”
In this WPKN fundraising madness (wpkn.org/donate if you are so inclined), DJ B The T Jr. calls on the pros.
Bill Tobelman, founder of https://goodhumorsmile.com/ - this website presents a theory about the Beach Boys' SMiLE album that is based upon comments Brian Wilson made in 1966 regarding the spiritual nature of the project. If you want to know where Brian Wilson's head was at in 1966-67, and why he thought SMiLE was too experimental, you may have come to the right place.
This website was started in 1998 and has gone through a few changes over the years.
And hip hop pioneer TONY TONE of the Cold Crush Brothers and Gee's Records presenting an all-vinyl smoke show of a SLY & THE FAMILY STONE/ SLY STONE tribute.
THURS 10/9, 7-10am its a final @shake_n_vibrate for a few weeks, but with fave dance floor raver (back when this was a live event @cafenine) JENN D of @ponybirdmusic @wearebison and more! We talk Jenn’s new album while she selects the 8AM hour. Beyond that, expect the usual rock n roll nonsense you've come to know and love on @wpkn89.5
Go to the WPKN GOLD SOUNDS podcast for the Katy Pinke audio. Amazing.
Orig HYPE:
THURS 9/18, 7-10AM on @ join us for the wild ride of another SHAKE 'N' VIBRATE RADIO. First hour features the usual rock 'n' roll, junk, and funk you've come to expect from this ruffian.
Second hour features (above) the premiere of the WPKN Gold Sounds broadcast/podcast featuring New York based multidisciplinary artist and musician Katy Pinke. Katy performs in the WPKN Community Room with collaborator Nico Osborne; recorded beautifully by Chris Ruggiero and assistant engineer Chris Miller. Dig the tunes and fascinating convo/interview led by the one and only DAN SOTO!
Hour three it's my pal GARY LIPPMAN guest-spinning tunes, talkin' his new book, and his artistic/writing journey having graced the pages of The New York Times, The Paris Review, VICE, Fodors, Upstate Diary, Open City, Sex And Design, and 8 By 8.
Sweet Pete spins, rocks, and jives!
Can't you hear that rooster crowin?
A music and memory tribute to my friend, the late David Johansen. A bon vivant, most-elegant-guy-in-the-restaurant kinda guy.
New Haven's hottest underground techno collective takes to the WPKN airwaves ahead of their BUDDY CITY EP vinyl release.