Category: Dizzy Heights

No talkie bits this week. First day of school for the kids, birthday celebrations, picking the boy up at camp, blah blah blah.

This idea is definitely a one-shot thing, at least in its current form. I went after song titles that were two words, each starting with the same letter. And I went A to Z, almost literally (with apologies to the letters Q and X). Of course, I broke my own rules twice, when I used a song with an ampersand (hey, it was the letter U, I got desperate), and in one instance, I used a title that was the same word twice, which is not alliteration but repetition (again, letter Y, got desperate).

Multiple people asked me to use “Disco Duck.” And believe me, I thought about it, then thought better of it.

Artists making their Dizzy Heights debut this week: Ben Folds (solo), Burning Sensations, Elvis Costello (WHAT), The Go-Betweens, The Go-Go’s, Guided by Voices, k.d. lang, The Kinks (this cannot be happening), Neurotic Outsiders, Stone Poneys, Tasmin Archer, and Tom Petty. Seriously, thank goodness for Tom Petty, or I don’t have a ‘Z’ song.

Bands coming back for another tour of duty: Basement Jaxx, Franz Ferdinand, The Housemartins, The Jezabels, Joe Jackson, Pet Shop Boys, Propaganda, The Rolling Stones, Squeeze, The Ting Tings, The Trashcan Sinatras, and Tribe. Speaking of Tribe, I pull a segue that my 1993 self would high-five.

Thank you, as always, for listening.

Started this show late last Saturday after spending the entire day driving back home from Wisconsin. I only had a handful of song ideas. And then BOOM. The show was basically finished before I went to bed.

That has never happened before.

Today’s word class is the preposition! There are TONS of songs that start with them, and I’ve included 25 examples here. And I’m going to do something a little different. I’ve tried keeping my set lists secret, but I was asked to list the bands played, and that seemed harmless, so here we go.

Making their DH debut: Billy Squier, Fleetwood Mac, Green Day, INXS (wait, WHAT?!), Joseph Arthur, The Outfield, Propellerheads, Tin Machine, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Veruca Salt, and The War on Drugs.

Coming back for another tour of duty: Blur, The Boomtown Rats, Cheap Trick, Daft Punk, Depeche Mode, The Divine Comedy, Kirsty MacColl, R.E.M., Robbie Williams, Roxy Music, Simple Minds, Sugarbomb, The Tubes, and Underworld.

Thank you, as always, for listening.

Big, super-ultra-mega show this week, as there are scores of song titles that are also questions. And of course, what do I do but practically lead off with a song that I’ve already played. I keep a list of songs played to prevent this very thing from happening, but here we are.

I also also lucky enough to secure a couple of liners/bumpers/whatever those in the biz call them from Dizzy Heights-friendly artists. I’ll give you a hint: one of them, like Jim Kerr, is a fellow Scotsman.

Tons of artists making their DH debuts this week, including The Lonely Island, Jesus Jones, a (killer) brand new song from former Thompson Twin Tom Bailey, Zebra, The Three Degrees, Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway, Tower of Power, Monaco, Love Spit Love, Ben Folds Five (wait, what?), Band of Horses, and Travis (wait, WHAT?).

Thank you, as always, for listening.

Once I started soliciting song suggestions for shows, suggestions for show ideas soon followed. When two friends of mine who had never met sent the same idea within a matter of hours (maybe days), that felt like a sign. Songs that name-check famous people. There are tons of those!

Here’s the funny thing, though: there are indeed tons of those and their suggestions were so good and so varied that I only had a handful of them. Leave it to your friends to remind you just how much you have left to learn about whatever it is that you think you know a lot about. This was an exercise in humility, to be sure.

Bands making their Dizzy Heights debuts this week: Van Morrison, The Replacements, MIKA, Gorillaz, Mojo Nixon, Eurythmics (!!!), Donna Summer, Bananarama, and Barenaked Ladies. And I’m pretty sure you know exactly which songs I played from each artist.

Thank you, as always, for listening.

Those who played along when I ran Popdose’s “Name That Tune” roughly a decade ago (*pauses, kneels over, takes a breath when he contemplates that those days were nearly a decade ago*) may see similarities with some of these theme shows that I’ve been doing lately. Yep, I’m recycling, but hey, it’s been ten years or so. I’d like to think that the statute of limitations has long since expired.

Much like the previous shows, I now have at least two more shows’ worth of ____ and ____ material already at my disposal, thanks to my awesome (read: much more knowledgeable) Facebook friends. I am not afraid to admit that the themed shows are better because my friends’ song suggestions are better than mine.

Many of the artists making their Dizzy Heights debuts this week, well, embarrass me, because they should have been played weeks/months ago. See if you can guess which ones I’m talking about: Adam & the Ants, Capital Cities, Death Cab for Cutie, Elle King, Joan Jett, John Mellencamp, The Ramones, Voice of the Beehive, Walter Egan, and XTC. That’s right – nearly all of them.

Thank you, as always, for listening.

Time for another edition of Take Your Child to Work Day, though curiously, my employer is not celebrating it this year.

The kids have been itching to do another show, and they’re bringing all of the big hitmakers with them. Demi Lovato, The Weeknd, Muse, Grace VanderWaal and Panic! At the Disco all return to rub elbows with Selena Gomez, P!nk, Portugal. The Man, Charlie Puth, The Chainsmokers, Fergie (God help me), Julia Michaels, and a certain mega female pop star whose name I’m afraid to mention. Listen as the kids re-enact their favorite internet memes, with varying degrees of success. Though it turns out Garrett can do an awfully good Schwarzenegger impression, and his Tommy Wiseau isn’t bad, either.

Continue reading

I am not kidding when I say that I have over 150 suggestions for this theme that I can use in future shows. And that’s now; when the time comes to do a sequel show, I will have even more.

The show’s title speaks for itself: these are songs with numbers in their titles, run through my strange Midwestern Angiophile filter. Lots of early MTV material here, but at the same time, lots of stuff from other eras as well.

Bands making their Dizzy Heights debut this week include Wire, Stereophonics, Robert Plant, Bob Marley, Brewer & Shipley (had to do it), The Clash (!!!!!), George Thorogood, Jack White, The Plimsouls, Prince (!!!!@%^&*@%^&$), and one band that I would like to keep secret until the very end. But that’s enough clues about what lies ahead.

Thank you, as always, for listening.