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Our funk punk soul rock Thursdays is in full effect after a much-needed week off for Danno, with Dan Lloyd doing the heavy lifting with the rock stars and smashed guitars in hour 2, and Danno keepin it funky for hour one.
"The Drop with Danno" on GFN 광주영어방송 98.7FM in Gwangju & 93.7FM in Yeosu, Korea. An eclectic radio curation of all things musical spanning the spectrum every week. Broadcasting 8-10pm KST nightly.
May 19, 2022
The Drop with Danno
Syreeta – I Love Every Little Thing About You
Sisters Love – Give Me Your Love
Alice Clark – Don’t You Care
The Diddys feat Paige Douglas – Intergalactic Love Songs
Monophonics – Sage Motel
Monophonics – Love You Better
Robohands – La Em Cima
Surprise Chef – Spring’s Theme
Sam Smith – Stay With Me
Little Beaver – Get Into The Party Life
Mica Millar – Heaven Knows
Charly Brown – The Sub Club pt. 1
I.
It is 20 hours past midnight as the haze of today is taken over by the darkness of nighttime, and we hope you had a good one today. Naturally, tonight with it being Thursday is our Sampled & AMPED funk punk soul rock showcase, with this bit hazy but still clearly visible in spacetime as May 19, 2022. This is Danno, remember me? We’ve been doing a bit of replay action here of late as I’ve been on vacation since later last week, and big up to Sean Walker down at the Haenam House for some much-needed mental health recuperation, however short, as I haven’t had time off in like 3 years now. That being noted, we have lots of stuff to explore tonight with Monophonics out with their new album Sage Motel along with a big birthday to celebrate and new tunes from some of our favorites like Robohands, Surprise Chef, and Mica Millar along with some old school smatterings in the process, especially in part 1. Dan Lloyd once again joins us to run down what’s come out and what’s up next in the rock world for the finality of the show’s 2nd hour. However, as to what’s going on right now, we gotta go to the past with our TIGHT (or) feature and start things right, and we’ll let Syreeta start things then we’ll get into the combustible details after the romance dies down. THIS is The Drop.
Syreeta – I Love Every Little Thing About You
The Drop has lit up the audio tent this evening and started beaming into space on our Sampled & AMPED Thursday evening. Danno here, doing the thing from studio 2, GFN HQ on our funk punk soul rock chapter 4 of the laborious stuff, and Dan Lloyd of course comes up later with his bag of rocks.
As to how we just started, that was Syreeta with I Love Every Little Thing About You for our TIGHT (or) feature to let you know a bit about the history. And that is because it was on this date in 1973 that Stevie Wonder’s You Are The Sunshine of My Life went to #1 in the US. The song was actually about his wife at the time, Syreeta Wright, who was also his co-writer on a good few of his tunes at the time and frequent collaborator during his time previously at Motown.
However, at the time was in the end a very short one, as the two were divorced after just a couple of years as man and wife. The two did not end the relationship acrimoniously though, and remained friends for life. Funnily enough, while it seems the two were in a hurry to get divorced, Stevie was in no rush to actually get married, as he was actually late for his own wedding.
Syreeta Wright unfortunately passed away back in 2004, may she rest in power.
#9870, @gfnthedrop, pod.
So we started old school and we’ll keep it in that vein of heart-pounding heartbreak in the next block. Up next we got tunes from Sisters Love, Alice Clark, and The Diddys along with Paige Douglas, all of which we’ll break down but not up with side opposite the soundings. THIS is The Drop on your Sampled funk & soul Thursday night.
______
The Drop is back on the mic as we start winding up our first fourth of this evening’s programming. For those just now getting with the program maybe for the first time, this is Danno in studio 2 GFN HQ, and we’re going through our Sampled funk & soul first hour tonight, while Dan Lloyd is up shortly after we finish part 2 with his weekly AMPED rock and/or roll bidness. So let’s get to the recap of what we just heard for now...
Sisters Love – Give Me Your Love (…this is a band formed with former members of the Raelettes, who’d just quit working as backup for Ray Charles and his band. Active until 1973, the band recorded an album called With Love in 1972, but broke up the following year with the album still unreleased. Give Me Your Love would later be a rather notable hit released as a standalone in 1973 but the album as a whole went unreleased until 2010.)
Alice Clark – Don’t You Care (…this is another artist whose professional career was not that long during the same era, working from 1968 to 1972, and this was Clark’s lone album, which was self-titled. A commercial failure at the time, it has become regarded as a great release later on by music afficionados and critics.)
The Diddys feat Paige Douglas – Intergalactic Love Song (…this is a cut that is from the Gilles Peterson Digs America compilation, released via Ubiquity in 2007. The Diddys were a band out of Philly who put this tune out in 1977 on their lone LP release, titled Agony & Exstacy (note sp).)
Okay, so now that we got all that heartache and pain outta the way, it’s time to check into the Sage Motel, which is the latest LP from Kelly Finnigan and The Monophonics, that just dropped last Friday. We’ll play the title track to the record then one of the singles released in the lead-up called Love You Better, and that is gonna do it for tonight’s first stanza, fair listener. This is The Drop on your Sampled funk & soul Thursdaze.
Monophonics – Sage Motel
Monophonics – Love You Better
II
The Drop returns and the simmering second quarter has been opened with no words here on our Sampled funk & soul first hour. Danno here, this is what I do, coming at you but not for you from studio 2 downtown Da Ju. We just rocked a couple of instrumental newbies to begin the simmer of the sauce for tonight’s broadcast, so let’s get specific on those before moving on ...
Robohands – La Em Cima (…not sure if I’m pronouncing this correctly, but this tune features Aleh on some minimalist vocals, the title meaning the top in Catalan I believe. This is the latest installment from the artist’s Violet LP, which will drop this summer but no specific date announced just yet.)
Surprise Chef – Spring’s Theme (…the band from down under newly signed to Big Crown Records in Brooklyn are out with their 2nd single since making a new home. It’s also the b-side on a 7” single with previous release Velodrome, which is out in physical format tomorrow, so go support one of our favorites out of a very strong soul scene in Melbourne.)
#9870, @gfnthedrop, pod.
Continuing along tonight, we’ll start with the birthday boy Sam Smith this evening then continue with joints from Little Beaver and Mica Millar. We’ll explain ourselves on the non-birthday front after the audio candles are blown out, but for now THIS is The Drop on your funk & soul Thursday.
___
Back to it here on The Drop and rocking the final lengths as we run towards the finish line of the first half this evening. Danno here once again and Dan Lloyd is in shortly for our AMPED feature to rock out and finish strong tonight. As to what just went up and came back down, let’s get to that…
Sam Smith – Stay With Me (…happy 30th birthday to a famed exponent in the pop and soul realms. Born on this date in 1992, in London, Smith has really risen to prominence in the past 10 years with massive hits like that tune Stay With Me, and I’m Not The Only One, here’s hoping we have many more to come for a tremendous voice out of England.)
Little Beaver – Get Into The Party Life (…a bit of advice from way back on the timeline that somewhat ironically enough many young people of any generation take to heart. This tune was released by true name Willie Hale in 1974 on the Party Life LP, which is a great listen front to back if you’ve never done so.)
Mica Millar – Heaven Knows (…this is the latest, I believe the 3rd single to the Manchester soul star’s debut album, and is in fact the title track. Mica Millar’s Heaven Knows LP will drop shortly but we do have to wait a bit longer, as it drops in full on June 10.)
Alright, so that’s it for the new tunes at least for the first half, and we’re gonna go with a long player from 1997 on Guidance Recordings by Charly Brown that samples Fantasy by The Aquarians, and that’s gonna do it for this evening’s fun with a k. Stay tuned Gwangju’s guy on the kit joins us shortly to rock and/or roll, but for now THIS is The Drop and we are at halftime.
Charly Brown – The Sub Club pt 1
III & IV AMPED
My Chemical Romance – The Foundations of Decay
Viagra Boys – Troglodyte
Death Cab For Cutie – Roman Candle
Sports Team – The Game
Cave In – Reckoning
Dune Rats – Melted Into Two
Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers – Girl Sports
Spinal Tap – Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight
Weird Nightmare – Wrecked
Lake Malice – Magic Square
Bayside – Strangest Faces
My Chemical Romance – The Foundations of Decay
After an eight-year wait, My Chemical Romance are finally back with a new song, “The Foundations of Decay.” It’s a vintage blast of MCR — a sprawling, six-minute epic that blends to-the-rafters emo rock with clever twists and turns into hardcore and prog.
The arrival of “The Foundation of Decay” comes as My Chemical Romance prepare to finally launch their long-awaited reunion tour. After disbanding in 2013, the group announced their return in fall 2019 and played a single show that December, but the first wave of Covid-19 forced them to put their touring plans on hold. The dates were initially rescheduled for 2021 but pushed again because of ongoing Covid concerns. The band is now set to launch a U.K. and European tour this month, with a North American leg beginning Aug. 20 in Oklahoma City.
Despite all the tour plans, My Chemical Romance hadn’t expressly said whether or not they would be releasing new music (an ostensibly new instrumental track was featured in a Jan. 2020 teaser for the initial reunion shows). Still, frontman Gerard Way did reveal in an interview last year that he’s been working on songs, though he didn’t specify whether they were for MCR, a solo project, or something else entirely.
“[W]hat’s been working lately is sitting with [engineer] Doug [McKean], working on the music, and then I’ll just go over to my office — which used to be Marion Peck’s painting studio, and I love that room — and I will sit while Doug mixes, tweaks, edits, programs more drums . . . I’ll literally sit there and I will write as close as possible to what I think are gonna be either the final lyrics, or at least what I’m comfortable singing at that moment,” he said.
Viagra Boys – Troglodyte
Stockholm post-punkers Viagra Boys captured Paste’s hearts with their hilarious single “Ain’t No Thief” back in April. They’ve now arrived with another single off of Cave World (July 8, YEAR0001), “Troglodyte.”
Anchored in a much more psychedelic sound than some of their other material, “Troglodyte” sets an adrenaline-filled scene as a disgruntled office worker contemplates a mass shooting. The chorus, which taunts the man by saying, “You ain’t no ape / You’re a troglodyte,” slows down into discordant chaos as the man’s world slowly comes crumbling down, and he falls victim to disinformation and violence.
Frontman Sebastian Murphy notes:
People look down at apes as primitive life forms, but we’re just this horrible, lazy society killing each other and starting wars, while they’re able to love and feel. Does that make them the true ape or us?
Death Cab For Cutie – Roman Candle
The last time Death Cab For Cutie released a full-length album was 2018’s Thank You for Today, but they’ve kept plenty busy since then. In the early COVID-19 lockdown days, frontman Ben Gibbard offered a daily source of comfort with his “Live From Home” livestreams, which raised more than $250k in donations and supplies for Seattle-area relief organizations. Death Cab also shared 2020’s The Georgia EP as a 24-hour Bandcamp exclusive in advance of the Georgia runoff elections. Gibbard also organized this year’s birthday tribute to Yoko Ono, Ocean Child: Songs Of Yoko Ono.
Now, Death Cab are circling back with news of their tenth album, Asphalt Meadows, which is produced by John Congleton and will be out Sept. 16. They’ve also shared a lead single, “Roman Candles,” which has a lyric video designed by Juliet Bryant. Speaking on “Roman Candles,” Gibbard says: “The lyrics were cobbled from a couple of different songs dealing with my general sense of anxiety; the feeling that the fabric that weaves a functioning society together was crumbling during the pandemic.”
Death Cab are also headed back out on the road in support of Asphalt Meadows. The tour will feature Low and Yo La Tengo on select dates.
Sports Team – The Game
In July, British band Sports Team are releasing their new album, Gulp!, their first since they experienced a massive boost in popularity. They shared lead single “R Entertainment” a little bit ago, and today they’re back with another new single, “The Game.”
“It’s a mantra for a nation of landlords… Something to mutter to yourself behind the electric gates as the world burns around you,” the band said in a press release. “It’s that bunkered, island mentality, where someone has allowed themselves to believe that the news is what happens to other people.”
Cave In – Reckoning
This week Cave In are releasing a new album, Heavy Pendulum. They’ve already shared a handful of tracks from it — “New Reality,” “Blinded In A Blaze,” and “Blood Spiller” — and today they’re back with one more. “Reckoning” is the first track to be solely written by the band’s guitarist Adam McGrath. “‘Reckoning’ started as a demo I sent to the band for consideration while mapping out the track list for Heavy Pendulum,” McGrath explained, continuing:
It was inspired by the idea of adding a song to the acoustic/electric live sets Steve and I had been performing on and off for the last 20 years. A fresh song with that set-up (acoustic/electric guitar) seemed exciting to pursue. Somewhere between Led Zeppelin’s ‘Battle of Evermore’ and Mad Season’s ‘Long Gone Day’ is the birth of ‘Reckoning,’ a song about digesting huge loss and forging paths into unknown futures.
Dune Rats – Melted Into Two
Australia’s Dune Rats have unveiled a romantic video for their new song “Melted Into Two,” which is premiering exclusively via Heavy Consequence. The tune will appear on the band’s upcoming album, Real Rare Whale, arriving on July 29th.
Fun is the name of the game for this punk trio, and “Melted Into Two” perfectly captures their upbeat vibe. The band’s sing-along power pop is driven by earnest vocals and big garage-rock chords in the vein of Ty Segall and Redd Kross.
Considering Dune Rats propensity for tongue-in-cheek shenanigans, the video for “Melted Into Two” is actually quite adorable. It follows a real-life couple — Kell and Ellie — who’ve fallen in love.
Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers – Girl Sports
Canberra-via-Melbourne-via-Wollongong outfit, Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers, release their debut EP, Pretty Good For a Girl Band, today via Domestic La La Records.
The EP includes the Jean Teasers’ 2021 release, ‘AHHHH!’, and the more recent singles, ‘Miss Your Birthday’ and ‘Girl Sports.’ The music video for ‘Girl Sports’ premiered on the eve of the record’s release. The clip pays homage to the band members’ favourite teen flicks: Clueless (1995), St Trinian’s (2007) and Twilight (2008). Watch it below.
“While the song encapsulates a lot of frustration and anger, we wanted to create a visual element that brought a more light-hearted feel to a song that touches on some pretty frustrating experiences a lot of women and non-males would relate to,” the band said in a statement.
Spinal Tap – Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight
They're getting the band back together. Deadline reports that This is Spinal Tap, the iconic, influential and endlessly quotable 1984 hard rock mockumentary, is getting a sequel, with Rob Reiner returning to direct and original stars/writers Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer reprising their roles as Nigel Tufnel, David St Hubbins and Derek Smalls.
The news broke at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where the original Spinal Tap is set to screen next week. Reiner, who will also be back in front of the camera as documentarian Marty DiBergi, told Deadline that the plan is to have it ready for the 40th anniversary of the first one. “For so many years, we said, ‘nah.’ It wasn’t until we came up with the right idea how to do this. You don’t want to just do it, to do it. You want to honor the first one and push it a little further with the story.”
So what's the right idea? “They’ve played Albert Hall, played Wembley Stadium, all over the country and in Europe,” Reiner told Deadline. “They haven’t spent any time together recently, and that became the premise. The idea was that Ian Faith, who was their manager, he passed away. In reality, Tony Hendra passed away. Ian’s widow inherited a contract that said Spinal Tap owed them one more concert. She was basically going to sue them if they didn’t. All these years and a lot of bad blood we’ll get into and they’re thrown back together and forced to deal with each other and play this concert.”
When This is Spinal Tap was released in 1984, there was really nothing else like it, but so much of it has since entered the public lexicon, from "this one goes to 11" to "Puppet show and..." and "What's wrong with being sexy?," to name three. The sequel has a lot to live up to, something their two-hour 1992 The Return of Spinal Tap television special promoting the band's "comeback" album, Break Like the Wind, failed to do. But Guest, Shearer and McKean are all smart, funny guys who have spent a lot of time working in the mockumentary format -- including playing folk group The Folksmen in 2003 film A Mighty Wind -- so here's hoping this one goes to at least an 8.
Weird Nightmare – Wrecked
This week, Metz’s Alex Edkins is releasing his first album as Weird Nightmare, and he’s shared two songs from it already, “Searching For You” and “Lusitania.” Today, he’s sharing another new single, the soaring “Wrecked,” which features guest vocals from Bully’s Alicia Bognanno.
“‘Wrecked’ is about missing someone,” Edkins said in a statement. “For me, it’s about missing my wife and son while on tour. Being away has become harder and harder to do. I think most people can relate to it. Feeling impossibly far away from the ones you love and coming to the realization that you won’t feel whole again until you return. I was really happy to collaborate with Alicia on this song and I love what she adds to it. Alicia has a one in a million voice. A voice that you recognize immediately and she really lifts the song way up.”
Lake Malice – Magic Square
Brighton alt.metal duo Lake Malice, have unleashed a huge, genre-bending new single, Magic Square.
Accompanied by a horrifying video and with lyrics like, 'Human nature's cold brutality / Dive head in into weird mentalities' and, 'The taste of blood
Now give me more cause it's never enough', vocalist Alice Guala explains that the track is has a “dark, yet ironic, take on the rise of true crime documentaries that unfurled during the pandemic, and the intricate duality of human nature in feeling entertained and horrified at the same time.”
Bayside – Strangest Faces
Bayside are back with a new single, "Strangest Faces," and it finds them delivering their grim emo-pop-punk with an added dose of metallic riffage. They also added three July shows with Pinkshift and Save Face happening after their tour with Thrice and Anxious.