August 16, 2002

8:49 AM

KCRW'smorning radio show, Morning Becomes Eclectic has some of the best live in studio performances from a broad range of excellent musicians. And better yet, all of the performances are archived and streamed online. Recently they have had Flaming Lips, Morcheeba and Cousteau. Some of my favorites from the past are the Coldplay show (as well as a solo appearance by singer Chris Martin), Starsailor and DJ Shadow. I know there are plenty of other resources similar to this, but I think it's hard to find a better collection than this for live recordings. (Search the archives here)
posted by jonah (33 comments total)

Oh, god. The Flaming Lips? Aimee Mann? Sonic Youth? This IS a good list! Man, looks like I have a new radio station...
posted by tweebiscuit at 8:59 AM on August 16, 2002

Why this: www.metafilter.com/trash/morning_eclectic.html

That said, it's an excellent show, worthy of many mentions.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 8:59 AM on August 16, 2002

I keep meaning to start a separate blog just for Morning Becomes Eclectic (MBE) shows with a review of the show and the sound quality of the recording (some vary, particularly the old ones pre-G2).
posted by jonah at 9:04 AM on August 16, 2002

morning becomes eclectic is definitely a morning staple for me. kcrw also puts out a great series of cd compilations called rare on air that's worth a look.

oh and sonic youth are going to be playing at the sunset street fair in los angeles if anyone's in town the end of august, the 25th i think?
posted by soundslikequiet at 9:11 AM on August 16, 2002

Looks like SY are playing on the 24th.
posted by jonah at 9:14 AM on August 16, 2002

Brave New World is the best radio program ever! I recommend everyone to check it out tomorrow.
posted by deathofme at 9:18 AM on August 16, 2002

Several amazing ladies have promising albums on the way: Aimee Mann's Lost in Space, Neko Case's Blacklisted, and Kelly Willis's Easy. All the links feature some audio and Lost in Space is entirely streamable.
posted by kirby1 at 9:19 AM on August 16, 2002

oops! I retract my statement about Brave New World. I was thinking of a radio program called Brave New Waves. Sorry. :/ But hey, you can still check out Brave New World. :)
posted by deathofme at 9:30 AM on August 16, 2002

Brave New WAVES
posted by deathofme at 9:32 AM on August 16, 2002

soundofsuburbia, I posted that once because their search engine was timing out, and I just wanted a copy of a page to go to each day to listen to old broadcasts. I would revist that cached page once every couple days for six months, and I never did hear everything there.

My personal favorite appearances were Ozomatli and Ben Folds.
posted by mathowie at 9:54 AM on August 16, 2002

This is an excellent link - much appreciated since I've been going into new music withdrawl after the death of Napter and Audio Galaxy.
posted by rks404 at 10:01 AM on August 16, 2002

mathowie: Thanks, now I know.

My personal favorite: Beulah.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 10:03 AM on August 16, 2002

Unfortunately you picked a time during a pledge drive to post this. The first time I heard of The Soundtrack of Our Lives was when they performed an incredible live set on Morning Becomes Eclectic. Built to Spill has played the show twice. Their evening shows, Metropolis and Chocolate City, are also worth a listen and have archives online. Streambox, a neat tool for recording Real streams, works on their older stuff but not the newer G2 shows.
posted by euphorb at 10:14 AM on August 16, 2002

I just have to recommend P3 Pop. It's on Swedish Radio every monday night between 10 pm and 12 pm (local time) and they leave the whole show for you to stream for a week. Take a look at the playlist for this monday's show. Great stuff, right?
Pointer: "lyssna" means "listen".
posted by soundofsuburbia at 10:33 AM on August 16, 2002

I'm psyched about this program, especially since some of my favorite internet radio stations have disappeared as of late.

My personal favorite appearances were Ozomatli and Ben Folds.

As a sidenote, I saw Ben Folds on tour recently. I didn't know much of his music (the tickets were a gift for a friend), but the show was excellent. I highly recommend.
posted by kelperoni at 10:44 AM on August 16, 2002

*ahem* smugly points at previous mention of how great kcrw is...

now allow me to get off my high horse for a minute. i've been listening to kcrw for a good two and a half years now and i'm completely in love with it. it's opened me up to so many new things that it's hard to keep up with finding and purchasing [or downloading] all that wonderful music at times. if there wasn't a pledge drive going on, i'd be pulling down the kcrw music stream right now.
posted by boogah at 10:44 AM on August 16, 2002

What kills me is that they were a thousand times better 11 years ago ...
posted by chuq at 10:47 AM on August 16, 2002

God, I love internet radio threads. Thanks, everyone!
posted by tweebiscuit at 10:54 AM on August 16, 2002

Komeda had a cool appearance on Morning Becomes Eclectic.
posted by stifford at 11:03 AM on August 16, 2002

boogah- you can only sit on your high horse if you've made contributions to kcrw over those last 2.5 years. I'm a longtime subscriber and the Fringe Benefits card is enough to be worth the $50.
posted by jonah at 11:06 AM on August 16, 2002

Funny you say that boogah - I actually have kcrw in my set of internet radio bookmarks, thanks to that thread. But I ended up getting hooked on inmono, the subject of the thread. Sadly enough, inmono recently stopped broadcasting.
posted by kelperoni at 11:07 AM on August 16, 2002

Forgot to mention, it's great to cruise the playlists as well. Metropolis is another favorite show of mine from KCRW; if you like the electronica, itsa for youa.
posted by jonah at 11:09 AM on August 16, 2002

Well, I'm glad jonah submitted this link during a pledge drive. If you guys are fans as you claim, let me challenge you to support the station.

KCRW whips a pony's ass with a belt!
posted by mathporn at 11:21 AM on August 16, 2002

jonah yessir, i've been a subscriber for the past year, and it's almost time for me to resubscribe. i would have subscribed sooner, but i've only really been able to afford it for the past year. it has been the best seventy.five dollars i've ever dropped tho....
posted by boogah at 12:05 PM on August 16, 2002

KCRW is/was also the home (until earlier this year) of Joe Frank.
posted by Grangousier at 12:41 PM on August 16, 2002

The Jurassic 5 episode was excellent.

Zoom zoom zoom, zoom za zoom za zoom...
posted by El_Gray at 12:50 PM on August 16, 2002

One of my personal favorite music-minded radio shows is Chicago's Sound Opinions, the self-proclaimed "World's Only Rock-n-Roll Talkshow" hosted by two of the best working rock critics out there, the Tribune's Greg Kot and the Sun Time's Jim DeRogatis (who also moonlights as drummer for the political rock band Vortis and caused some controversy over at Rolling Stone).
posted by pfafflin at 1:43 PM on August 16, 2002

The Drop, Chocolate City, and Metropolis are all great shows on KCRW. I'm definitely renewing my subscription. Jonah's right...the $50 is worth it for the Fringe Benefits card and alllll the great music and shows they bring.
posted by rio at 5:54 PM on August 16, 2002

I used to listen to those shows in mono on my old 56k dialup. My favs:

John Wesley Harding

Danny Elfman and his pre-war Chinese cabaret music.
posted by planetkyoto at 6:00 PM on August 16, 2002

Yes...please support KCRW if you have the ability...

besides, if you call at the right time during the pledge drive you can talk to me and I give great pledge phone...especially if you talk dirty to me about limited premiums...

I'm a volunteer and a subscriber so I'm going to use 'we' -- not only do we have morning becomes eclectic and metropolis and chocolate city and pop secret and cafe ole (all amazing music programs) but we also have harry shearer on sundays, warren olney's which way LA and we are the home of marketplace, the only stocks & business program on any media that has ever been able to hold my interest.

Besides...you could win a nice ibook with a combo drive.
posted by negroplease at 6:27 PM on August 16, 2002

I have been lobbying for years for a decent radio program that features Texas music. Finally KERA 90.1fm has done it, but unfortunately they're not archiving episodes online. I can't even find a webpage at their website that does more than offer the press release.

Rio Grande Mud used to be an internet radio station dedicated to Texas rock but when the shit came down from the government insisting on charging, the guy behind the site couldn't keep it up. He didn't do it for profit. He was doing it because he loves the music and he believes that there's an emptiness in this area. He wanted to fill it. The laws made by the government which are supposed to protect the artist, actually make it harder for independent artists to excel to the benefit of those pushed by mainstream media.

"...especially since some of my favorite internet radio stations have disappeared as of late."

And I'm afraid that's just gonna keep on happening. =(
posted by ZachsMind at 6:42 PM on August 16, 2002

What about eklectikos on KUT for Texas music? Lots of Texans-come-lately from LA say John Aielli is just a pale imitation of Morning Becomes Eclectic, but I disagree; John does very interesting interviews and tends to add an idiosyncratic point of view to music - for instance, in about 1997 he discovered Queen, of all bands, and played it every day, sometimes over and over again. (Okay this may tell you never ever to play this show, but it was fun at the time because he was so enthusiastic.) He has a strong classical/choral background and uses it to explore how certain totally dissimilar songs by genre have the same beat or same melody. He is one of the main reasons I've stayed in Austin for fifteen years, but now that I can get him online I suppose I can move.
posted by pomegranate at 5:22 AM on August 17, 2002

KEXP has been mentioned in threads like this before. It's association with the Experience Music Project and the UW make it one of the most unique college/community stations in the country. You can find charts and mailing lists as well as reviews and local events throughout the site. The uncompressed and compressed audio are great and now these two Amazon API implementations make the real-time playlist even more valuable.
posted by yonderboy at 12:55 PM on August 17, 2002