This week’s Melting Pot Radio Hour was pushed back because of the start of the school year at CSU-Long Beach, and getting into new work routines. Additionally, KCRW is having it’s winter subscription drive, and since I was at the studio helping out with some behind the scenes work, I was able to record the [...]

The MC5 – Looking At You
The MC5 – Teenage Lust
The MC5 – Let Me Try
In my book you’d be hard pressed to find a better year than 1970 in American Rock’n’Roll. That year saw a lot of mighty fine releases, including Loaded, the final Velvet Underground record and Lick My Decals Off, from Captain Beefheart, [...]

Driving home from work today, for whatever reason, this song from Jeff Buckley came to mind and I started thinking about it. Though it’s fairly clear what the subject of the song is, a man reflecting on a love he wishes he hadn’t lost, there have always been a couple of unanswered questions for me [...]

Midlake – Bring Down
Midlake continues to deepen their sound on this their third record. Mostly acoustic and atmospheric with a smattering of electric guitars on a few tracks, it’s mostly reminiscent of English groups like Fairport Convention and the Incredible String Band, and quite lovely.

Sugar Billy – Super Duper Love
Sugar Billy – Too Much Too Soon
Sugar Billy – Love Bug
The weekly love fest for San Francisco’s Groove Merchant continues here with this rare gem picked up there during a birthday induced shopping trip last year. To my knowledge (which is admittedly very limited) this is the only full-length record [...]

Here’s the second edition of the Melting Pot Radio Hour, this time the show is broken up into individual sets (Right click and “Save Target As” to download each one). In addition to a set of new music (pretty mellow one at that, I guess inspired by all this rain in SoCal), I spend [...]

Here’s the full version to a recent post on KCRW’s 5 Things Blog.  Melting Pot Radio Hour this week will pay tribute to #1 on this list, the venerable Groove Merchant…
Happy hunting,
Michael
Top 5 Record Stores To Cultivate Your Complete Addiction To Vinyl
My name is Michael, and I am a (mostly) recovering vinyl junkie.  There was [...]

Spain – Hang Your Head Down Low
Yes the rumors are true. Josh Haden and Spain are back together and may very well have a full-length record out in 2010. For now we have this luscious single featuring two songs, the upbeat title track and this slow burner.

Leigh Stephens – Another Dose of Life
Leigh Stephens – Drifting
Leigh Stephens – Joannie Mann
Our first dig deep entry of 2010 is this legendary record from Leigh Stephens. Stephens put out this record after his acrimonious split from Blue Cheer in 1968. I first heard this record pretty recently while at Records L.A., the owner was [...]

Ada Richards – I’m Drunk & I’m Real High
T.L. Barrett – Like A Ship
Gospel Storytellers – Peter & John
Numero strikes gold once again (which gets me thinking, is there a more consistently inspiring independent label out there right now than this one?). This time, as part of their “Good God” series they mine funky [...]

Here’s something new, given that I’m taking a little break from KCRW, I thought I’d do a little something here on the blog and thus…The Melting Pot Radio Hour. On this maiden webcast there are a number of records forthcoming here in 2010, including Jose James, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Broken Bells feat. James Mercer from [...]

Beak – Backwell
Here’s one that slipped under my radar in 2009, a new project from Geoff Barrow of Portishead, along with with Billy Fuller (Fuzz Against Junk) and Matt Williams (Team Brick). From the sound of that latest Portishead record, you might have surmised that Geoff had been listening to a lot of Neu! and [...]

Here’s the final post in this series, looking back at the year in the music for Melting Pot. You’d think given the 1,000s of songs heard over the course of a year that this would be the most difficult list to come up with, but for some reason there are certain songs that stick out [...]

2009 was a pretty good year for me on the digging front, got a number of records that I used to own and had been kicking myself for parting ways with and got turned on to a lot of things I’d never heard of before. Unlike past years, virtually all of my time spent in [...]

As I implied in yesterday’s post, 2009’s new releases left me wanting. There were some very good records, there always are, but as a year’s worth of music, this was the easiest time I’ve had in putting together my “Best of 2009” show on KCRW out of the last three years. No tough decisions at [...]