Thursday, December 31, 2015

notmovingpictures Episode 036: Alone Doesn't Mean Lonely

It's the last day of the year and I've been wondering if I'll get this out in time. Once again it's a solo conversation this time about spending the Christmas holidays by myself while I muse on the idea that alone doesn't mean lonely. Then I delve into the latest Star Wars movie The Force Awakens and why all of the whiners and complainers out there are just wrong about it. Is it a perfect movie? No, but then what is? It is a very good movie in my opinion and it had to bridge the old with the new. It does that very well. There were moments that had me.......well, just listen to the podcast and you'll understand.



Opening Music: Alloy - Live To See The Day
Closing Music: Supernova - Chewbacca

Email: notmovingpictures@gmail.com
Twitter: @notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Ten For Tuesday Episode 086: Heavy Holidays

The last show of the year is a heavy one for me. It just felt like the time to do it.



Anthrax - Evil Twin
Clutch - X-Ray Visions
Farmikos - Scapegoat
AC/DC - Rock Or Bust
Quiet Riot - Backside Of Water
Scorpions - Going Out With A Bang
Foo Fighters - Saint Cecilia
Motor Sister - Beg Borrow Steal
Iron Maiden - Death Or Glory
Megadeth - Fatal Illusion

Ten For Tuesday is a podcast dedicated to playing the music I couldn't find anywhere else. The music I like varies from style to style, genre to genre and era to era. You will hear punk, ska, rock, Americana, metal, country, rockabilly and more from all over the world. It doesn't matter if it's a major label or indie as long as I like it then it gets played. The motto is Less Talk More Music which means you won't hear me waxing poetic for fifteen minutes between songs. At TFT its all about the music...and me of course.

Email: tenfortuesday@gmail.com Twitter:@notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com
Old Episodes can be found by going to www.archive.org and searching for Ten For Tuesday.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Ska Beat Tape 11-22-98 WMUL, Marshall University

This is tape from the show one week after the one year anniversary show. The ever present hum is there in full force while I talk and a few songs skip. I doubt they ever got those things worked out. It is what it is though. Click on the link to the Internet Archive to stream or download.

11/22/98 Setlist

The Agents - Gratidao (song skips)
Checkered Cabs - Walk Right In
Bluebeat Stompers - I Won't Cry For You
Isaac Green & The Skalars - High School
Stubborn AllStars - Back With A New Batch
Mobtown - Coming To Get You
Neville Staples - Simmer Down
Ian Hearn & Strange Tennants - Washington Via Kingston (song skips)
Prince Buster - Blackhead Chinaman
Adrian Miller - Rude Boy On The Bus
Los Hooligans - Wrong Side Of The Tracks
Deals Gone Bad - Pirates
Magadog - Pipeline
Undercover S.K.A. - March Slob
Punch The Clown - Sweaty Betty
Hepcat - Bobby And Joe
The Incredible Casuals - Let's Do Better
tape switches
Laurel Aitken - Mad About You
The Skoidats - Skinhead Hop
Inspecter 7 - Agent 86
Voodoo Glow Skulls - Los Hombres No Lloran
The Pilfers - Dr Kervorkian
Spider Nick And The Madddogs - Spider On My Bed
Spring Heeled Jack - Running Man (Lookin' Thru The Mirror)
 Fishbone - Ugly
The Slackers - Have The Time
Skinnerbox - Hepcat Season
The Rudies - Forget It
The Jumpstarts - This Is What I Do
Dion Knibb & The Agitators - Turn Your Lamps Down Low
Dance Hall Crashers - He Wants Me Back
Kampo Viejo - Libre
The Offbeatniks - Superhero
The Specials - Guns Of Navarone
The Pietasters & The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Ocean (cuts off)

Ska Beat was a show I did in the latter part of the 90s as a community volunteer for 88.1 WMUL, Marshall University's radio station, in Huntington, WV. The show ran for almost three years, mostly in the Sunday noon to 2PM timeslot before shifting to a Thursday evening 8-10PM shift. It was a great time to see live music as many ska bands came through the Huntington area on their way to somewhere else.

Be forewarned, I have chosen to include all of the Public Service Announcements, weather updates, mistakes and whatever else was recorded along with the music. Yeah, I am that lazy. Also, these shows were taped on cassettes and as such may suffer from sitting around for all of these years. Additionally, WMUL had an ongoing issue of a loud hum that would periodically present itself when I was talking but normally it went away when the music was playing. Often I forgot to hit record or to turn the tape over at the midpoint of the show so there will be gaps in songs as well as some being omitted entirely. I have tried to annotate when that happened.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Ska Beat 1st Anniversary Show 11-15-98 WMUL

This is the tape from the One Year Anniversary of the Ska Beat Show. It aired live on 11/15/98 on WMUL, Marshall University, Huntington, WV. At the very beginning you cannot hear me talking and the show is plagued by the seemingly constant buzzing sound when talking. Other than that the music is great and you hear lot's of show i.d.s from a lot of great bands. Click on the link here to listen to the show.

setlist:

Hepcat - I Can't Wait
Ocean 11 - Stop That Train
Laurel Aitken - Rudy Got Married
Bob Marley & The Wailers - Simmer Down
Checkmate - Jericho
The Allentons - Fallen
SeeSpot - Man Smart, Woman Smarter
The Silvertones - True Confessions
New York Ska Jazz Ensemble - Love And Affection
Justin Hinds & The Dominoes - True Confessions
Dr Ring Ding & The Senior Allstars - My Sound
Deals Gone Bad - The Elephants
The English Beat - Ranking Full Stop
The Selector - Too Much Pressure
The Specials - Gangsters
Madness - One Step Beyond

tape change

Bim Skala Bim - Wandering Soul
The Skoidats - Rootsawalkin
Inspecter 7 - Brother Vs Brother
The Checkered Cabs - Honor Your Mother And Father
The Stubborn Allstars - Friend
Dion Knibbs & The Agitators - Welcome You Back Home
Bluebeat Stompers - I Need Your Loving
The Slackers - Manuel
Doreen Shaffer - Holding On
Mobtown - Jump Up
The Pietasters - Without You
The Agents - Scully
Let's Go Bowling - Spy Market
The Scofflaws - Nude Beach


Ska Beat was a show I did in the latter part of the 90s as a community volunteer for 88.1 WMUL, Marshall University's radio station, in Huntington, WV. The show ran for almost three years, mostly in the Sunday noon to 2PM timeslot before shifting to a Thursday evening 8-10PM shift. It was a great time to see live music as many ska bands came through the Huntington area on their way to somewhere else.

Be forewarned, I have chosen to include all of the Public Service Announcements, weather updates, mistakes and whatever else was recorded along with the music. Yeah, I am that lazy. Also, these shows were taped on cassettes and as such may suffer from sitting around for all of these years. Additionally, WMUL had an ongoing issue of a loud hum that would periodically present itself when I was talking but normally it went away when the music was playing. Often I forgot to hit record or to turn the tape over at the midpoint of the show so there will be gaps in songs as well as some being omitted entirely. I have tried to annotate when that happened.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Ten For Tuesday Episode 085: All Alternative Tentacles



All of the music from this episode was downloaded for free from the record label Alternative Tentacles. All you have to do is click on the mp3 tab and go through the many pages of artists they have and you can download several songs for most of them. It's a great way to let people try out the songs to see if they like them then they can buy the whole album. Makes sense. On another note I've also downloaded some free samplers, almost have enough songs for a metal/rock episode and have a bunch of songs in mind for one or two 80s roots/rock/punk kind of show. So there should be plenty of new episodes in the weeks to come.

The Eat - Communist Radio
Flaming Stars - Like Trash
The Ex - They Shall Not Pass
Sibling Rivalry - On The Beach
Black Kali Ma - Remain Awesome
The Pattern - Sunned Things Speak
False Prophets - Overkill
No WTO Combo - Let's Lynch The Landlord
Fleshies - Yes I'm Starting Shit
Turn Me On Dead Man - The Hale Bopp

Ten For Tuesday is a podcast dedicated to playing the music I couldn't find anywhere else. The music I like varies from style to style, genre to genre and era to era. You will hear punk, ska, rock, Americana, metal, country, rockabilly and more from all over the world. It doesn't matter if it's a major label or indie as long as I like it then it gets played. The motto is Less Talk More Music which means you won't hear me waxing poetic for fifteen minutes between songs. At TFT its all about the music...and me of course.

Email: tenfortuesday@gmail.com Twitter:@notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com
Old Episodes can be found by going to www.archive.org and searching for Ten For Tuesday.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

My Review of Beyond Birkie Fever by Walter Rhein




At first I wasn’t sure I wanted to read Beyond Birkie Fever. After all, I’m not the most athletically minded person around so would I really find a book written about an extremely difficult cross country skiing event even remotely interesting? But since I had already read and thoroughly enjoyed Walter Rhein’s most recent memoir, the fantastic book Reckless Traveler, I decided to give it a go. Turns out that was a very wise decision to say the least.

Beyond Birkie Fever is more than just a sports book. It does more than tell the history of the Birkiebiner, which as it turns out is the largest cross country ski marathon in North America. Indeed, it does both of those things quite well. The thing that drew me in though, besides Rhein’s writing style, was the story of how he became a reckless traveler. How he grew from a young child not caring at all for skiing and then suddenly gets completely consumed by it. From reading his two memoirs the path of his “all or nothing” approach to life is clearly delineated.

You have to be reckless (as well as in the thralls of youthful stupidity) to just decide to enter a cross country skiing race with basically no preparation but from that Rhein learned to persevere. After all, out on those hills and mountains you can’t depend on help coming, you have to have the willpower to finish what you started. . He also learned the value of training which he took up in earnest. It wasn’t about beating somebody else but to see how far he could push himself and how much he could improve. Still, he continued to jump into marathons and bike races with little advance notice and learned as he went.

With his knowledge and passion he improved, he met people from other countries and then traveled outside of his comfort zone to other countries where he met further challenges. Through all of this Rhein developed a desire to experience life by attacking it even if that meant just jumping into something without a plan. After reading both Beyond Birkie and Reckless Traveler I feel safe in saying that his approach has served him well. He’s had a life full of enough adventures to fill two books and probably more.

Beyond Birkie Fever is so good it almost convinced me that even at my advanced age of fifty I could whip myself in something that resembles decent shape and go out and challenge myself to start and finish the Birkiebiner. Almost. Let’s not get carried away. After all, I am who I am. At least with Walter Rhein I can read about it and you should too. I can’t wait to see what his next memoir will be like in a few years.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Friday, December 11, 2015

notmovingpictures Episode 035: It Took Me Long Enough



After about a four month gap I've finally recorded another solo episode of the podcast. I keep waiting, hoping that Tommy and I can get together or that I'll find someone that I find interesting enough to do an episode with but it never seems to happen. Maybe when I see my brother-in-law again but we'll see. I actually did record an episode about two months ago but scrapped it, I just wasn't happy with how it sounded. Speaking of, while recording today my wife had something playing in the living room that she could listen to in the kitchen so that will explain the faint background noise. I also decided not to do any editing and hope that while I rambled I didn't stutter too much or pause for too long but if I did sue me.

So what did I rant about this time? Getting my zine reviewed in two magazines, one which was favorable and one which wasn't. The song that I did with my friend Aaron that you will find at the end of this episode as well as a personal dilemma (somewhat) that I am having about an upcoming event and what my attire will be as opposed to what others want. Finally I close with a little bit about a certain Republican presidential hopeful espousing fascistic and exclusionary views. You know, same old same old. Until next time, let's hope it won't be so long.

Opening Music: Alloy - Live To See The Day
Closing Music: Stationary Nomads - Conflict Registered

Email: notmovingpictures@gmail.com
Twitter: @notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Older episodes can also be found by searching for notmovingpictures @ www.archive.org

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Thrown Into A Holiday - New Lyrics

Well I got inspired at work and off of one phrase I ended up with the first draft of a some new lyrics. It shouldn't take a major effort to understand what this one is about although there are a few subtle nods to other things hidden away. I always say creativity spawns creativity and it continues to be true for me. There is still work to be done, especially when I can get someone to start on the music for it but it's not bad for a first draft if I don't say so myself.

          Thrown Into A Holiday
 
False feelings of utter cheer
Turned into commercial sneer
Feel like I’m being thrown into a holiday
It’s just another day
 
Just down the national store
Looks the same no matter where
I go searching in vain but
Question and answer remain the same
 
Strangled throughout by boredom
Originality fades into tedium
Keep the smile plastered on
Gotta make my appearance stun
 
How long can this go on
My gaze only rests upon
A better time
A better place
How long can this go on
Thousand yard stare rests upon
A better time
Out of this space
 
Every year it starts earlier
Every year it goes longer
To voice it is too political
Better to live and yet yearn
 
Plaster on a smile insincere
Make the small talk clear
My hearts does palpitations
At the thought of being shunned
 
I need to be the person I am
False fronts tired old scam
Bring nothing to the table
My story fades into another fable


Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.