Playing: Songs for Lost Highway

Bird Stealing Bread Iron & Wine The Creek Drank The Cradle 4:23
Islands In The Stream Philippa Nihill Dead Sad 3:21
Harry Was A Bad Bugger Tex, Don And Charlie All Is Forgiven 5:21
I'm Holding You Ween 12 Golden Country Greats 4:04
Sorry Song Tiddas Show Us Ya Tiddas 3:02
(Untitled 3) Warren Ellis 3 Pieces For Violin 6:29
San Quentin Johnny Cash Johnny Cash at San Quentin 4:09
Chelsea Hotel #2 Leonard Cohen The Essential Leonard Cohen [Disc 1] 3:08
Roscoe Midlake The Trials Of Van Occupanther 4:51
Guenevere And The Fire Penelope Swales Justifying Your Longings To The Doctor 3:22
Wedding vows Sam Evans Brown Couch Soundtrack 2:55
Heart Of Gold Neil Young Decade [Disc 2] 3:08
Terrified The Devastations Coal 4:54
Blood Red River Beth Orton Central Reservation 4:17
The Lonely Goth Mick Thomas And The Sure Thing Dust On My Shoes 4:30
Stagger Lee Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Murder Ballads 5:17
Tale Of The Bull The Spoils Hurtsville 3:50
Make It Count Barb Waters & Kim Salmon Rosa Duet 3:37
Pink Moon Nick Drake Pink Moon 2:08
Angels Of Warrandyte The Beautiful Few Metal For Melbourne 2:06

Playing: Songs for Lost Highway

Bird Stealing Bread Iron & Wine The Creek Drank The Cradle 4:23
Islands In The Stream Philippa Nihill Dead Sad 3:21
Harry Was A Bad Bugger Tex, Don And Charlie All Is Forgiven 5:21
I'm Holding You Ween 12 Golden Country Greats 4:04
Sorry Song Tiddas Show Us Ya Tiddas 3:02
(Untitled 3) Warren Ellis 3 Pieces For Violin 6:29
San Quentin Johnny Cash Johnny Cash at San Quentin 4:09
Chelsea Hotel #2 Leonard Cohen The Essential Leonard Cohen [Disc 1] 3:08
Roscoe Midlake The Trials Of Van Occupanther 4:51
Guenevere And The Fire Penelope Swales Justifying Your Longings To The Doctor 3:22
Wedding vows Sam Evans Brown Couch Soundtrack 2:55
Heart Of Gold Neil Young Decade [Disc 2] 3:08
Terrified The Devastations Coal 4:54
Blood Red River Beth Orton Central Reservation 4:17
The Lonely Goth Mick Thomas And The Sure Thing Dust On My Shoes 4:30
Stagger Lee Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Murder Ballads 5:17
Tale Of The Bull The Spoils Hurtsville 3:50
Make It Count Barb Waters & Kim Salmon Rosa Duet 3:37
Pink Moon Nick Drake Pink Moon 2:08
Angels Of Warrandyte The Beautiful Few Metal For Melbourne 2:06

Tuning in: to Lost Highway - 9.30 - 11pm Thurs 2XXfm 98.3

So I didn't mention this last week (couldn't stand the pressure of thousands and thousands of extra people tuning in I suppose ;) but last Thursday night my mate Jerry and I kicked off our new latenight radio show, Lost Highway. I mentioned it in passing last Wednesday but from there gears and wheels started turning rapidly in the 2XXfm behemoth and before we knew it we were being parachuted in to the slot.

I have to say, it was a lot of fun. Jerry has a phenomenal knowledge of music in this genre (primarily the North American stuff not surprisingly as a Canuck, but still...) and an enthusiasm to match and in many ways it was just like an extended chat which just happened to involve playing a whole bunch of music in a "have you heard much of these guys" kind of way.

Co-presenting was pretty cool, it can get a little boring sometimes doing a radio show ( for those who came in late, I also present Monday Sunset on 2XXfm - 4 to 6pm) but having someone to chat to during tracks - particularly when you're able to share a bit of info about a new artist - is great.

(Incidentally, I was chatting to the Pussycat last night about the possibility of some kind of weekly radio serial for Sunset, stay tuned for more on that down the road.)

The response to the debut show was encouraging - well Pussycat said she really liked it - and it was fun (and my musical repertoire is slowly growing) so it's all good.

We haven't entirely worked out who will be on when - Jerry is out of town a bit and I've been caught up with the joys of study (2 down and 1 to go :) but we'll either alternate or co-present when possible.

I can't remember what Jerry played - I don't think I'd really heard much of many of the artists (there was some Neko Case I'm pretty sure and a bit of Lucinda Williams) but my contributions included:

• Woke up this morning(acoustic)-Alabama 3 (the opening track for the show)
• Shark Fin Blues - The Drones
• Chinito Chinito - Ry Cooder
• My Tennessee Mountain Home - Dolly Parton
• Make it count - Barb Waters and Kim Salmon
• Ramblin' Man - The Beasts of Bourbon
• California Stars - Billy Bragg and Wilco
• Smokin' Johnny Cash - The Black Eyed Susans
• My Margherita - The Cruel Sea
• Ring of fire - Ed Kuepper

If you like your tunes with a little twang (or blues/roots/etc - probably not a lot of synth or sampling) then why don't you flick on the wireless tonight and check it out. (No streaming as yet I'm afraid - one day though I'm assured)

Talking about: a new radio show

I met up with 2XXfm music afficionado and all round good guy Jerry Schwab last night to chat about working together on a new show.

Apparently there is a slot on Thursday nights between 9.30 and 11pm that the current presenters are having trouble filling and we're looking at moseying on in if they decide to give it up.

There are a number of gaps in the 2XXfm programme, somewhat surprisingly when you think about it, so if you've ever had a hankering to do a bit of radio and share your musical tastes with the ACT community, the time is right.

Here are some of the finer details from an email Jerry has sent to station management

Provisional title: Lost Highway

It's hard to categorise the music we want to play but some of the terms that I've run across include: alt.country, americana, insurgent country, neotraditional, cowpunk,lo-fi country, roots rock, ...the list goes on and on.

I suspect we would have very little overlap with current 2XX programming.

Colin and I have different (though I think complimentary) tastes and my knowledge of music in this stream is probably North American focused; I think Colin will be able to extend my knowledge and the shows content to include more Australian artists. Some of the types of artists that I would play include Steve Earle, Paul Kelly, Lambchop, Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch, The Handsome Family, Kathleen Edwards, Wilco, Son Volt, Be Good Tanyas, Neko Case, Calexico, Iron&Wine, Dave Alvin, Arcade Fire, Blue Rodeo, Kelly Joe Phelps...

Types of labels we would try to build links to: Lost Highway, Anti, YepRock, Nonesuch, Bloodshot.or their Australian distributors.

Stay tuned for more details - it could be interesting though - Jerry has a good ear for music and while this isn't the only type of music I like, there is a lot of interesting stuff in this scene that hopefully there is an audience for.