Here’s an audio sample of this week’s Rock Geek FM show. The theme is “Songs that Refer To Other Bands.” You can hear the show in its entirety tomorrow morning from 8 to 9 a.m. on WEFT-90.1 FM, or streaming online at weft.org.
Thanks for listening. I hope Neil Young will remember…
Promo w/music: http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/9/25/2114682/RockGeekPromoWMusic.mp3
Promo: http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/9/25/2114682/RockGeekPromo.mp3
William: This Saturday at 8 a.m. on WEFT – 90.1 FM, Champaign…
Cristy: Rock Geek FM.
W: You’ll hear our theme of the week: “Songs That Refer to Other Bands.” That’s right, songs that include the name of a band other than the ones that performs them. It’s a big topic.
C: It’s a huge topic. It’s so difficult to narrow this down.
W: So what we did, first of all, we threw out any song that mentioned Bob Dylan. Out the window!
C: No Bob Dylan! There are so many of them, oh my god.
W: No “Talking Bob Dylan Blues” by Loudon Wainwright III.
C: No “Like Dylan in the Movies” by Belle and Sebastian.
W: No Syd Barrett singing that song about Bob Dylan.
C: No Dylan.
W: We also decided that songs whose central topic is a song or music artist is a theme for another show. No tributes. That means, for example, the Robyn Hitchcock song about Arthur Kane or the one about Arthur Lee are not appropriate for this show. But the one that mentions David Byrne, is.
C: Or, Ben Folds’ “Late,” which is a tribute to Elliott Smith: inappropriate. However, what is appropriate is when Ben Folds mentions the Cure.
W: That is appropriate. And surprising. It’s always a little bit jarring to hear a band mention another band because it takes me out of the world inside the song into the world of other songs.
C: What?
W: It takes me to a different diegetic level, as a narratologist would say.
C: What’s diegetic?
W: It refers to a level of story, like in Hamlet, where there’s a play within a play.
C: I hated Hamlet.
W: Those are diegetic levels. It’s intertextual; it’s a reference. An intertextual reference to another song.
C: Uh, I just think when bands refer to other bands in songs, it’s cool.
W: It is cool. It freaks me out. It freaks me out to hear the Red Hot Chili Peppers mention Men at Work. Why would those cool guys from LA mention that dorky Australian two or three-hit wonder band?
C: I don’t know, and I totally don’t know what you’re saying about another world or this 50-cent intellectual gobbledygook. It’s just rock, man.
W: It’s cool when Steely Dan mentions “Hey 19,” that’s Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul. They’re playing their dues with that.
C: And it’s cool when Bad Company says, “Johnny was a young boy, when he heard his first Beatles song.”
W: And it kicks ass when Lynryd Skynryd says, “I hope Neil Young will remember a Southern man don’t need him around anyhow.” Neil Young’s not from Alabama, is he.
C: Neil Young’s Canadian.
W: Well, a Southern Man don’t need him around him anyhow.
C: Pssh.
W: Tune in Saturday at 8 a.m. on 90.1 FM
C: Rock Geek FM.
W: Community radio, or streaming online at weft.org.
C: You can look forward to great songs, great news and great theater.
W: That’s right.