Open Water

Mike Peters of The Alarm in a career-spanning, hourlong interview

does the vocal this week throw off a bit of a we-have-your-daughter-and-we-want-our-money vibe? that’s what you get with a B-grade Guitar Center mic and a glass desk, and a room more suitable to shooting a YouTube video on how to bedazzle your prom dress, than it is to recording. somebody get Marc Maron on the line. also, new stuff from Car Seat Headrest, Ty Segall, Small Drag, B Boys and … leave the money in a sack behind the dumpster. no cops!

it’s all for, Damien. spanking new stuff from Weaves, Wolf Parade & Lemon Twigs, along with some rough stuff from the ‘Mats and the Smiths, and Jarvis Cocker genuflecting graciously to Scott Walker. all for the low, low price of nada.

a special 2-hour edition of the Water brings some classic reggae, a double-dose of Daddy Issues, new ones by Teen Vice, See Through Dresses, Japans Breakfast & Brightness, plus a temperamental turntable and a host who doesn’t even have the excuse of having shown up half in the bag.

I’m not here this week, but I’ve left this life-like approximation of my sensibilities, soundtracked to the best low-budget music a nonprofit station can afford. David Nance channels Merle Haggard, GBV have yet-another-album coming, and otherwise it’s a lotta stuff from 6 to 9 months ago because I didn’t have time to listen to all the new releases this week. did you know i have kids & a job? not necessarily in that order?

the morning after their local date at the Wayfarer, I get to sit in with Cymbals Eat Guitars as they record a live session for KX, at the famed Laguna Sound Studio. glory be.

Ted Leo arrives 10 seconds before I do, which is why I sound breathless and even more incoherent than usual. the 405 is a trickster fox — one minute, forgiving and seductive; the next, … just never mind. PILL & Protomartyr are back. all the best bands start with “P.” except Poco.

I couldn’t take life’s often pallid soundtrack, without some skronking sax. so thank gods PILL is back. and it’s guitars on all sides, what with the likes of American Lips, Jason Loewenstein and King Gizzard giving the goods. I dusted off an old R.E.M. boot and found a pricey Superdrag set to light the turntable on fire. you were warned.

when I was 11, I couldn’t get a girl to talk to me, to save my life. now, in the humbling throes of middle age, I’m surrounded by them. here’s a few of them talking at me, in the first half. their perspective is clear, their concerns are real, and their interests are our future. but today they really just wanna talk about what they did this afternoon. also Buttertones, PILL, Rips, and an embargo’d track from the persona non grata PWR BTTM

know what? there’s not enough disk space on the drive in the studio. know what else? that’s why the show intro and the first break now live out in the ether with Richey Edwards, all of my family photos, and the digital Star Wars watch I left in Orlando in 1981. the rest is intact (but no better simply for existing).