Dirty Business: a women in rock show

During my show on Monday I realized that only have a handful of shows left. I don’t think the reality of this statement has really sunk in for me yet. I have spent the past four years tied to the station and sometimes I felt like my show was the only thing keeping me sane. It is going to be difficult to let go of that and move on.

I can remember not too long ago when Marisa (the old station manager and my dear friend) had her last shift. This was also the last show in the old station which was in itself an emotional event. I saw how much Marisa loved the station, the large part in her life that it filled, how much she was going to miss it. Witnessing that made me realized how hard it would be for me and I have been expecting this for some time, but I don’t really know how I am going to handle it.

In other news, I went to a really rockin’ show on Saturday. Dressy Bessy played a show and I scored a sweet interview with Tammy Ealmon. I am still working on transcribing the interview, but once I do it will be posted on this blog. You can check out Dressy Bessy’s myspace here and while you are checking out some links you should mosey on over to the new Kirksville Rocks page.

Keep checking back for that interview, I promise it is going to be very entertaining. Here is the playlist from this week:

The Dresden Dolls – Truce

Cat Power and Karen Elson – I Love You (me Either)

Billie Holiday – Gee, Baby, Ain’t I Good to You?

Lisa Loeb – Do You Sleep?

Rebekah – Little Black Girl

Black Box Recorder – Sex Life

Cowboy Junkies – State Trooper

Jill Sobule – I Kissed a Girl

Matson Jones – He Means Nothing Dear

Natalie Merchant – In the Ghetto

Aretha Franklin – In Case You Forgot

Dressy Bessy – She Likes It

The Ettes – To Arms

All Girl Summer Fun Band – Not the One for Me

Amanda Palmer – Another Year

The Andrew Sisters – Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

The Capricorns – The New Sound

Emmylou Harris – Two More Bottles of Wine

Sinead O’Connor – Success Has Made a Failure of Our Home

Annie Lennox – Here Comes the Rain Again

Cyndi Lauper – Time After Time

Cyndi Lauper and Minus Five – Midnight Radio

Le Tigre – Deceptacon

L7 – Wargasm

Liz Phair – Polyester Bride

Liz Phair – What Makes You Happy

Amanda Palmer – Runs in the Family

First, I want to apologize for getting into the bad habit of posting so late. I have been sick lately and that generally does not produce a mood conducive to blogging (or staying off of the topic of self-pity). But here I am, finally updating. This week I had a good show. I had a handsome visitor in the station, one who was not my usual successor Scottie Turner, who, unlike my cutie-cute visitor, cannot manage to keep quiet while I am speaking on air.

Second, I want to encourage you to consider some of the artists I played this week on my show as muses for your Halloween costume this year. You will notice there is no short, pleated-skirt Brit-Brit or every-woman Spice Girl here. So, before you resort to the usual slutty pop idol, take a second look into being Karen O this time around. You know, I heard she didn’t wear a damn thing (sans some strategically placed glitter) for her first performance with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. But, I understand the urge to dress with skanky irony for Halloween, and for your enjoyment, here is a picture of me a couple of years ago dressed as Courtney Love.

This year I will be going as Doc Brown from the Back To The Future movies. I don’t have my costume completed yet, but I imagine it will look something like when I dressed up as Albert Einstein, which you can see below.

The Dresden Dolls – Mrs. O

The Raincoats – 57 Ways to End it All

Garbage – Androgyny

Allison Kraus and Gillian Welch – I’ll Fly Away

Arcade Fire – In the Backseat

The Cardigans – Iron Man

The Dollyrots – Brand New Key

Pretenders – Brass in Pocket

Fiona Apple – Sleep to Dream

Fiona Apple – O’Sailor

The Breeders – Invisible Man

Erykah Badu – Back in the Day

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Gold Lion

Tilly and the Wall – Falling Without Knowing

M.I.A. – Paper Planes

Bikini Kill – Rebel Girl

Magneta Lane – Teenage Boyfriend

Jack Off Jill – American Made

Mirah – Jerusalem

Gossip – Standing in the Way of Control

Peaches – Boys Wanna be Her

Luscious Jackson – Naked Eye

Sleater-Kinney – All Hands on the Bad One

Carla Bruni – Rapheal

Tori Amos – Cornflake Girl

Madonna – Borderline

B-52’s – Funplex

Neko Case – John Saw That Number

Hey y’all! It has taken me a couple of days to update since the show this week, but I finally found time to do it. This week’s show went really well and it held up to the standard set in the previous post…I inevitably get a phone call for something that doesn’t fit into the context of my show. It wasn’t as bad as last week’s caller, it actually turned out pretty well. The caller requested “I Want Candy” by MC Chris (an insanely catchy song featured on Aqua Teen Hunger Force) and instead I played “I Want Candy” by Bow Wow Wow. Here is the playlist from this week’s show:

The Dresden Dolls – Necessary Evil

The Ettes – Two Shakes

The Ettes – Dead and Gone

Horrorpops – Walk like a Zombie

Hole – Rock Star

PJ Harvey – Rid of Me

Melissa Etheridge – Like the Way I Do

The Dresden Dolls – The Jeep Song

Eisley – My Lovely

Bonnie Raitt – Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About

Cyndi Lauper – True Colors

Blondie – Call Me

Bjork – Army of Me

Tori Amos – Barrons of Suburbia

Bow Wow Wow – I Want Candy

Kate Bush – King of the Mountain

Cat Power – Could We

The Casual Dots – Bumble Bee

The Cranberries – Salvation

Lisa Loeb – Do You Sleep?

Mosquitos – Blue Heart

Natalie Merchant – In the Ghetto

Poe – Hey Pretty

(Ode to Middle School Set)

The Cardigans – Love Fool

Sixpense None the Richer – Kiss Me

No Doubt – Just a Girl

Letters to Cleo – Cruel to be Kind

Every show, it never fails. There is always a call on the request line who has no idea what show they are listening to. This week it went something like this:

Jess: The Edge.

Caller: What’s this song you are playing on the radio right now?

J: “We’re both so sorry” by Mirah. (I said proudly thinking I had pleased their listening pallet.)

C: Oh. Well, could you play something more upbeat? We are at work and need something to keep us going.

J: Do you have anything in particular you would like to hear?

C: Play some AC/DC (“or some Led Zeppelin!” shouts another rowdy worker in the background).

J: OK, actually, you are listening the Women in Rock show, I play female artists and…

C: That’s too bad.

J: OK… where are you working tonight?

C: Golden Eagle (the local Anheuser-Busch distributor).

J: Well, I will try to play something catchier for you…

C: – hangs up-

After these calls I never know what to say or do. I, of course, am always polite on the phone telling the caller about the show and kindly asking them to request something by a woman, and many times they do, by very reluctantly and always struggling to name a female artist. Sometimes, I just want to screech at them “Have you been listening at all?!” I don’t really get angry at the ones who don’t know better and in their strain to request a female musician come up only with Alanis Morrisette…week after week. But, it is discouraging to think that these people don’t care about what I am playing or saying on air. My show is not doing anything it is meant to do: make even the slightest dent in the boys’ club that is rock music and the college radio airwaves. Do people only listen to my show impatiently waiting to hear the hip hop show post-dirty business?

Here is the playlist from this week, in case you missed it:

The Dresden Dolls – The Kill

Sleater-Kinney – One-beat

The Butchies – She’s So Lovely

The Andrews Sisters – Rum and Coca-Cola

The Sounds – Living in America

Mirah – We’re Both So Sorry

The Pipettes – Judy

The Shangri-las – He’s a Rebel

Suzanne Vega – Tom’s Diner

Hello Saferide – High School Stalker

Tilly and the Wall – Bessa

Sweet Honey and the Rock – Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around

The Mamas and the Papas – Dedicated to the One I Love

Dolly Parton – 9 to 5

The Capricorns – Teenage Boyfriend

Madeline Peyroux – Dance Me to the End of Love

Kathryn Williams – Spit on a Stranger

Magneta Lane – Ugly Socialite

Bikini Kill – Rebel Girl

The Cardigans – I Need Some Fine Wine and You, You Need to be Nicer

Fuzzbox – Spirit in the Sky

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Gold Lion

TAM – No Cars Go

The Raincoats – Lola

The Bobettes – Mr. Lee

Gwen Stefani – Cool

Carla Bruni – L’excessive

The Shangri-las – Leader of the Pack