Next week is the pledge drive, meaning all of you should tune in to my show from 10pm to midnight PST on Friday, April 12 and pledge your support for independent radio. For my April 5 show, I returned to playing primarily new tunes, opening with the stellar new track by Sweden’s Lars Bygdén, dropping in a pair of tunes by San Francisco post-rock outfit Tartufi, and crossing the pond to Spain for an amazing track by Soledad Vélez. (more…)

Continuing the countdown to my favorite record of 2012, today I present numbers 11 through 20. (more…)

2012 has been a great year for new bands, and in the top three or so is a group I’ve covered a few times already this year: Trails And Ways. They have two descriptions on Facebook. One is Brazilian shoegaze and the other is bossa nova dream pop. Both are fairly accurate. (more…)

I discovered Oakland band Trails And Ways back at the end of April, when I covered their song “Tereza”. Since then, the band has dominated my playlist, adding a tune a month. The latest to grace our ears is “Mtn Tune”, a track whose video features great retro-ish bicycles, rock climbing, and, as the Ian from the band notes, a concert on top of a 40-foot volcanic rock. (more…)

Andi and I went to the beach this past weekend. And now we’re engaged, around five years and five days after our official first date. We’re pretty excited and have been talking to all our old friends about the plans (completely unofficial at this time); most likely a June 2013 wedding. I sense a show packed with love songs coming up in the near future. (more…)

Last weekend Andi and I visited Anacortes and walked around the dock, discussing our future as polo-shirt-wearing yacht owners and shopping for the ideal water home. Sure, this fantasy may never come to pass, and while I may find myself in a polo shirt now and again, that doesn’t mean the boat life is for me. Still, seeing middle-aged to retirees playing cards on the stern and barbecuing sure made the life seem relaxing. (more…)

Damn. The Bimmer done broke down. Once it warms up, it refuses to hold an idle. I did some research over at BMW 2002 FAQ and found that it could be one of a number of things: a faulty ignition coil, a fuel mixture issue, the carb needs tuning, the timing is off… the list goes on. So yesterday I took it to the shop to get a once-over. Hopefully the damage to my pocketbook won’t be too extensive. (more…)

Last weekend I did something a bit taboo. No, nothing that bad. What I did was this: I took my email inbox, and I cleared it. I archived everything — over 15,000 unread messages. It had just gotten a bit too out of control. Then, this week, I checked ALL my emails, filtered out what I wanted to cover, and pulled some select ones to add to my radio show. (more…)

Trails And Ways is a dream pop outfit based in Oakland. “Tereza” is a just-released single off their forthcoming debut LP, called Trilingual; there is meaning behind the name, as Trilingual will feature Spanish, English and Portuguese vocals. With “Tereza”, they stick with English. (more…)