I would never expect to start May 2011 on an awesome level because I had the opportunity to see The Rural Alberta Advantage again. This was a unique one because I had my co-host, Erica go to the show and it couldn’t have made me happier to finally have a radio co-host join me at a concert. Prior to their performance, Erica and I had the opportunity to chat with Amy and Paul of The RAA and it was the usual funny interview and the first for my co-host in interviewing a band. Overall, it was a great show at Ritual Nightclub and the opener, Hooded Fang really surprised me with their set and I literally enjoyed it. Even though it was on a Sunday night, there was a good turnout for The RAA.
Mother’s Day – Cantopop Songs
It’s the second year that I decided to do a Mother’s Day theme segment as I chose Cantopop tracks that are linked to Mother’s Day. Hope you will like it and a Happy Mother’s Day!
Don’t forget to listen to the interview and the show on the bottom.
Audio/Podcast
The May 4th show – press play to listen
The May 4th live broadcast at CKCU-FM – press play to listen and the playlist is at this link.
The Rural Alberta Advantage Interview (2011 Edition)
Merry Christmas to all!
In case you can’t check all of the four entries, I have decided to post up the four Christmas editions from my radio show. Plus, the guest co-host from Christmas Eve.
Audio from December’s Radio Show
December 1st – press play to listen. View playlist.
December 15th with guests, Digory, Hilary and Tiffany – press play to listen from the two parts. View playlist.
Part 1 – Christmas songs and past Christmas number one songs in the UK.
Part 2 – The final Wild 10 Countdown of 2010
December 22nd with guests, Erica and Marzia – press play to listen. View playlist.
December 24th – Guest co-host on The Friday Special Blend, Christmas Eve edition. Press play to listen. View playlist.
Happy Holidays!
The Year End Show – My Top 50 Canadian Songs of 2010
As we end 2010, I had a special extended show for my radio show on CKCU-FM. It was 3 in a half hour as I counted down my year end countdown in Canadian music for 2010. Even though, I didn’t play the whole 50 songs as I played forty out of the fifty Canadian songs. It was due to time but saving it for January 5th, 2011. Saving the best for last.
To check out the forty Canadian songs of 2010, go to this link. Also included on the playlist and the audio were my non-Canadian music picks of 2010. Various radio shows have been playing Beach House and Vampire Weekend for their year end picks.
Near the end of the radio show, it’s this time of year to play Anita Mui songs as December 30, 2003 was when she passed away.
Audio/Radio Show – The Year End Countdown Aired on December 29, 2010
Press play to listen
The Christmas edition, show #4 for 2010 was a bittersweet one because I had enough time to play all kinds of Christmas songs. Started the show with the 2010 UK Christmas #1 song as it’s now become a tradition for my radio show to find out what’s happening elsewhere in music. I was supposed to play part of my year-end countdown but it’s been pushed back. Unlike the last radio show, I didn’t have too many guests on, but my co-host who joined my radio show for the 2nd season (current) made her farewell appearance because she’s going back to her country. I like to say to Marzia (pictured with me) that she’s been a great co-host and making my radio show interesting and also broadening some non-Canadian music as I got hooked on it. The example being The Temper Trap, Delphic and Hundred In The Hands, which I got to see at Pop Montreal. The best part for her joining my show at a unique time was playing Arcade Fire a lot. I forgot to mention that I have an American listener usually listening to my show and she enjoyed hearing my co-host and having a cute voice.
It’s going to be tough without you as I will be back to hosting alone which is sometimes tough when no one is around the on-air studio.
How can I not forget another guest and former host of Horses Spilled Milk, Erica, as she dropped by to help me play some Christmas tunes. I got to play Coldplay’s Christmas song, which I have been hooked until Christmas ends and then playing various versions of Fairytale of New York.
Another shout-out goes to AJ “Oh So Nice” Thompson of The New Midnight Jamz because I kept mentioning him on-air as he was listening in as I played a few R&B and Hip-Hop Christmas tunes for the humour and enjoyment.
For all the Christmas songs I played, you can check the playlist out at this link.
Thanks to Marzia for enjoying my music selection and even your music recommendations. Farewell to you.
Last, but not least, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!
Christmas Eve update, I decided to go on as a guest co-host for the Friday morning show on CKCU-FM. I kind of had some loose ends in playing some Christmas songs. You can listen from it here if you missed out.
Audio – Radio Shows on December 22nd and 24th
December 22, 2010: The Very Merry Christmas Edition – WildWorks on CKCU-FM
Press play to listen.
December 24, 2010: Fill-in on The Friday Morning Special Blend – The Christmas Eve Show.
Press play to listen
December 15th Radio Show
What an awesome day for my radio show because I had guests helping me and enjoying their time with the songs I played to get into the festive spirit with some 80s flashback and charting history from the United Kingdom. I had DJ Digs, Hilary Duff (not the celebrity) & Tiffany Yam come in to guest co-host the radio show. Out of the three, only the two made their first time to be on live radio. DJ Digs already has a radio show on CKCU-FM but he’s on during for one of the overnight shows and he’s on bi-weekly. What was also crazy was that I had an extended edition for my radio show because the other show that’s on from noon is on a Christmas hiatus. It was totally hectic for the 3.5 hours worth of music and hilarious talk.
You can check the playlist by clicking on this link.
The second half of the show was the final Wild 10 Countdown for 2010 and the entry for the top ten is at this link.
Thanks to Tiffany for helping out and get excited for the top 10 songs.
Pies Pies Pies
After my show, I decided to stick around for Both Kinds of Music as they had a 2nd annual pie baking contest and a 3rd annual all-vinyl show. I was added as a last minute to being a pie tasting judge. The pies they had were cherry pies. It was marvelous trying out the pies as it wasn’t very sweet and tangy. Although, I got stuffed after the second pie.
Props goes out to Dick Altavista, Martha Walsh, Patricia Lever, Ron Steeds, Steve Stacey, and Steph Clementine for all the great fun.
To end things, I posted photos on the bottom of this entry. It was great to be with the people who enjoy music and food close to the holidays.
Audio to Listen
There are two parts for the December 15th show. The first part was from the regular timeslot of WildWorks on CKCU-FM.
The second part was the final Wild 10 Countdown for 2010. Apologies on the quality of the audio as I had to switch computers to record.
Part 1 (Xmas tunes and past Christmas #1s in UK) – Press play to listen.
Part 2 (The Wild 10 Countdown) – Press play to listen. Note: quality during the host break may not be great.
The WildWorks radio show on CKCU-FM continues on with the Christmas edition as I had been playing a lot of various holiday tunes from Canadiana to the mainstream ones. I know it’s a bit early but I got loads of Christmas songs to choose for the next couple of shows leading to Christmas. As mentioned from the previous blog entry, I had the opportunity to see The Mountains & The Trees again in Ottawa. The photo shown above has me with a new fashion wear and with a sense of fashion almost similar to Jon Janes (The Mountains & The Trees). I’m going for the holiday spirit with the cardigan. It was taken outside of the CHUO studios.
Speaking of CHUO-FM, here’s the link provided, Now Playing with The Mountains & The Trees. It’s not on my blog but I provided Emma Godmere (host of Now Playing), the recording of The Mountains & The Trees playing a cover of Already Yours by Bahamas.
I was fortunate to record a segment with The Mountains & The Trees after his session at CHUO. My segment with him had to do with a song on my countdown. What I also didn’t realize from last year that I got a Christmas song from Janes because I did not know he had a track in 2009 and I knew about music in 2010. It’s been great to support his musical endeavor as he’s had an exciting year from the touring and releasing his full length album, I Made This For You.
Onto what I played on the show, the first was the Wild 10 Countdown and in the second hour, I played a bunch of new Christmas tracks from one album called Light Organ Records: Our First Christmas. It’s a compilation of musicians and bands from Vancouver playing their favourite Christmas songs. One song that caught my interest was Nat Jay’sGreen Trees Red Hearts. When I was commenting on someone’s Facebook not too long ago, I did not check the profile of Nat Jay until I found out it’s a she. I was left speechless with her beauty and looks when I added her on Facebook. I mentioned on-air that she looks like Karen O. of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I got tweet reply that it was sweet of me to say it. I also played a Christmas song from adaline. There was another compilation Christmas album by The Line of Best Fit. It’s their second year to release Ho! Ho! Ho! Canada, this time it’s Deux. I quickly had to download from the station’s computer and played new Christmas songs by Leif Vollebekk and Basia Bulat.
Here’s the music video to Green Trees Red Heart by Nat Jay.
Lastly, I decided to give a shoutout to another CKCU-FM show as I played them, Christmas In Hollis by Run-DMC.
Without further ado, you can check the playlist at this link. The Wild 10 Countdown for December 8th entry is posted up.
Audio – Radio Show for December 8, 2010
Press play to listen.
This is a first of sorts to live blogging at a concert venue. Saturday night almost didn’t happen for Ottawa’s The Acorn as there were low advance ticket sales which was in danger of being cancelled for December 4th. So far, there’s a good turnout at Capital Music Hall. It’s good of me to take a spot from the balcony (pictured on top). As live as it gets, it’s close enough for live blogging. The opening acts for The Acorn’s homecoming show were Pat Jordache and Jim Guthrie.
To my own surprise, current CBC Bandwidth host, Adam Saikaley is helping out on the keyboards. Also back with the band is Howie Tsui.
What a great homecoming concert for The Acorn. They have playing some of the tracks from No Ghost and a few from Glory Hope Mountain.
Lots of hilarity coming from Rolf Klausener.
Here are some photos (being posted as live as possible)
The Post Live Concert – Not The Live Blogging Aspect
After missing one of the encore (Blankets), I had to rush over to Florence Garden for the after party. I was not going for the grilled cheese sandwich due to stomach reasons. Stayed at the after party until 3am.
I forgot to mention that earlier on Saturday, I headed to “rival” station, CHUO to check out The Mountains & The Trees for a pre-recording for a particular radio show on Wednesday afternoons. It was great to see Jon Janes. Another nice guy in Canadian independent music.
Overall, it was an awesome Saturday for excellent music. There were so many live events happening on Saturday night. It was great to see the usual people at The Acorn show and the after party.
Apologies for the formatting for this blog entry as I was using the WordPress app on the iPad. There were issues with uploading the images as it crashed several times and it kept duplicating.
What a way to kick off the first of December with a bunch of awesome music and holiday tunes. I will be using tunes from A Charlie Christmas for the next couple of Wednesdays leading to Christmas. I still love The Peanutsand the classic cartoon. The worse part was using the 2006 remaster version. Next week, I should use the pre-2006 version of A Charlie Brown Christmas.
December 1st happened to be World AIDS Day. I started off with the famous Marvin Gaye cover of What’s Going On by the Artists Against AIDS Worldwide. Even though the song came out in 2001, I decided to play it in tribute of the people who’ve lost their lives to AIDS.
I won’t explain much on the Wild 10 Countdown as it will be on the other blog.
The second hour of the show had The Balconies taking over for the first half hour. It was pre-recorded and during the time when they competed for the finals of The Big Money Shot. Even though it had some interview elements, I had the trio request their favourite songs. This is considered the final music interview of 2010.
The final half hour of the show was the start of the Christmas show as I played Christmas tunes by Canadian indie artists & bands as well as the usual Christmas pop tunes. For this set, I included two Christmas songs that are not in English. One was in Japanese (Utada Hikaru) and the other in Mandarin (Mavis Fan). I played a new Utada Hikaru song because she recently released her 2nd Single Collection compilation album. This is considered her last for the time being as she will be going on an indefinite hiatus starting in 2011.
Without further ado, you can check the playlist at this link.
The Wild 10 Countdown for December 1st is at this link.
Audio & Extras – Radio Show for December 1st and The Balconies Takeover Show (Segment)
Press play to listen
The Balconies Takeover Show
Press play to listen or you can download it.
Since I had mentioned Utada Hikaru, here’s the music video to Goodbye Happiness. The new song from Utada Hikaru Single Collection Vol. 2.
Due to a slight delay on not posting up Wednesday’s radio show right away for the blog. The reason was that the playlist for the November 24th edition was being incomplete. It was the on-air studio’s computer causing itself to restart and I had my entries from the top 4 songs and the second hour to be gone. You can check the countdown at this linkand the playlist is now posted up at this link (via CKCU-FM’s website).
On the show itself, I had a surprise guest on the show as I predicted of hosting on my own and almost having a trainwreck. My co-host was unavailable due to being sick and tons of assignments.
In the second hour of the show, I finally decided to play Hallelujah for the fourth time as I was slightly pressured to play the original version of the song.
The interview I aired was Nat Baldwin in the band, The Dirty Projectors. This was considered my second music interview who’s not from Canada. With Baldwin, what interested me to interview him was that he collaborated with a well-known band, Vampire Weekend. For Baldwin, he was on tour for his solo music. It was a great opportunity to interview him and I should thank, Adam Saikaley (host of CBC’sBandwidth) for putting on the show at Raw Sugar Cafe.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a photo of Nat Baldwin for this blog entry.
Without further ado, you can listen to the November 24th edition of WildWorks on CKCU-FM.
Press play to listen.
The interview with Nat Baldwin
Press play to listen or download it.
This weekend was totally fun because it started with CKCU‘s 35th Anniversary weekend. It was the concert on Friday night and then the anniversary party on Saturday. The Friday concert consisted of The Steve Adamyk Band, The Flaps, The White Wires, Mike Essoudry’s Mash Potato Masher & The Mighty Popo. I was unfortunate to miss out on The Mighty Popo due to time. Then the party was held the day after (Saturday) and there was excellent food as I just loved the grilled chicken. It was an entertaining night as there were panels consisting of each time period (the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s & 2000s/noughties).
Both events were at Porter Hall in Carleton University. It’s been awhile that Porter Hall was used for live music.
It was great to see the usual hosts and staff at the events. There are photos that I posted but it’s on Facebook, go to the public link. The link should work if you not logged on Facebook.
Onto the nice and warm Sunday afternoon, I went to Raw Sugar Cafe for Grant Lawrence’s book reading event. I finally got to meet Lawrence as I was unable to go to events in Toronto with my brother. As you see the photo on top of the entry shows proof that I finally got to see him.
Overall, he was there to promote his book, Adventures in Solitude. It’s not about music if anyone thinks that Grant Lawrence is all about music (actually, Canadian music0. Adventures in Solitude deals about his childhood going to his parent’s cottage in Desolation Sound. Lawrence read a few chapters in the book and his experience being in Desolation Sound brings a lot of humour. Andy Swan performed a couple of songs as a break in between Lawrence’s book reading.
I also did an audio interview Mr. Lawrence and expect it to be aired for Wednesday’s radio show.
Last thing, how can I not forget Arcade Fire’ssecond appearance on SNL. Good thing I got back home right after CKCU’s 35 Anniversary Party. I was surprised that the band performed Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).
The November 17th Radio Show and The Grant Lawrence Interview
I was solo hosting and I made it through the 2 hours. Starting the 2nd hour, I played a 3rd Hallelujah and it’s from the 2008 winner of Britain’s The X Factor, Alexandra Burke. I had a few tweets that they prefer Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah and to burst your bubble, I played it two weeks on the Funding Drive Show #2.
You can listen to the radio show by pressing play. The playlist is at this link.
The Grant Lawrence interview was light-hearted at best and hope you will enjoy it.
Press play to listen or download it.
It’s great to finally resume regular programming as the Funding Drive for 2010 was a successful one. The station reached its goal of $110,105. I would like say thanks to the people who pledged on my radio show as I was pretty nervous that I wouldn’t get any as my show is still new. At least my radio is making progress. How can I not forget about CKCU’s 35 Anniversary, that will be explained in a future entry.
The November 10th edition of WildWorks on CKCU-FM had songs leaning towards the Techno/Electronica realm. Overall, my co-host, Marzia did a good job helping me out after being absent for one show. It was an entertaining show. The first hour as usual was The Wild 10 Countdown and yes, Arcade Fire is still #1 on the countdown. The Wild 10 Countdown entry is at this link.
In the second hour, I played another version of Hallelujah and it’s by Rufus Wainwright. I am totally hooked on Communion by Maximum Balloon & Karen O. (of Yeah Yeah Yeahs). There was a blast from the past song I played and it was due in part to The X Factor in the UK. One of the contestant sang Stay by Shakespears Sister on the show and it got some buzz from the UK singles chart.
The interviews aired on the radio show were Diamond Rings and the all girl Weezer cover band, Sheezer. Just good timing for Diamond Rings as he’s the X3 Artist of the Month.
Don’t forget to check the playlist by going to this link.
Radio Show and Interviews The November 10th radio show – press play to listen.
The Diamond Rings Interview
It was recorded on October 29, 2010, outside of Raw Sugar Cafe. Press play to listen or download it.
The Sheezer Interview
It was recorded at Zaphod Beeblebrox with two of the members. Press play to listen or download it.
WildWorks 