KTUH Playlist for 06/202012, 9 PM-12 AM

Here's a picture of my best friend's son taken during their recent tip to China. He's posed to be future leader...

Rain, rain go away. I'm sick and tired of getting wet when I ride. It only rains when I ride!
I had a pretty good show of post rock and post hardcore. No one called in to get the tickets I was giving away.
C U Next Tuesday, Bitches! 9PM-Mid (HST) on KTUH Honolulu, 90.3 FM | ktuh.org live stream.


Artist                      Song                    Album                        Label

Japandroids – Evil’s Sway – Celebration Rock – Polyvinyl *

Japandroids – For the Love of Ivy – Celebration Rock – Polyvinyl *

Japandroids – Adrenaline Nightshift – Celebration Rock – Polyvinyl *-

Explosions in the Sky – The Magic Hours – How Strange, Innocence – Temporary Residence

SIANspheric – Radiodiffusion – Sounds of the Color of the Sun – Sonic Unyon

For Against – Clandestine Holy High – December

Serena Maneesh – Sapphire Eyes

65daysofstatic – The Conspiracy of Seeds – The Destructors of Small Ideas (Monotreme)

Jakob – Malachite – Solace

British Sea Power – Spearing the Sunfish – Man of Aran

-10PM-

Jesu – Star – Silver – Hydrahead

Sissy Mena – Young Girl – Young Girl

Butterfly Explosion – Next Year – Turn the Sky

Modest Mouse – Life Like Weeds – The Moon & Antarctica

Built to Spill – Don’t Try – Ancient Melodies of the Future

Mew – Vacceine – No More Stories are Told Today, I’m Sorry, They Washed Away

Asobi Seksu – New Years – Citrus

Polvo – Fast Canoe – Exploded Drawing

And So I Watch You From Afar – The Voiceless – This is our Machine

-11PM-

Tomahawk – God Hates a Coward

Faith No More – Midlife Crisis –

The Melvins – A Growing Disgust – Freak Puke

Hella – Ungrateful Dead – There’s No 666 in Outer Space

Unwound – December – Leaves Turn Inside You

Drive Like Jehu – Here Come the Rome Plows – Yank Crime

Rites of Spring – For Want Of

Fugazi – Turkish Disco

…And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead – The Rest Will Follow – Worlds Apart

Shellac – Steady as She Goes

Big Black – He’s a Whore

* New Release (will be charted for CMJ) 

KTUH 90.3 FM Playlist for 06/12/12, 9 PM - 12 AM

The above picture is a cake that my sister made. She's a pastry chef and had made some pretty fantastic cakes.
All the tracks in bold below are bands from Hawaii and are on the Flux Hawaii Summer 2012 mixtape. It's a free download available at http://fluxhawaii.com/mixtape/

Artist                       Song                    Album                        Label

Japandroids – Younger Us – Celebration Rock – Polyvinyl *

Japandroids – The House That Heaven Built – Celebration Rock – Polyvinyl *

Japandroids – Continuous Thunder – Celebration Rock – Polyvinyl *

Alice in Chains – Rotten Apple – Jar of Flies

Gnarwal – Gold

GRLFRNDS – Your Angst is Fake

Shindig and LFA’s Thunder Owl Remix - Talisman (Clones of the Queen)

Stephen Augsten and The Fourth Wall – The Second Hand

Maryanne – Waking Up (Produced by Slapp Symphony)

Anton Glamb – Another Rave

Pink Mist – We Are the Stars

Witch Baby – Kaleidoscopes

Welwing – Halfway Around

-10 PM-

Travis Wiggins / Dream Dragon – You Are A Cool Person!

Pinkwing – Stand Still

The Ukus – Heart Street

I Tramonti – Pliable as Water

Megaphone – Surfanholdhands

Clones of the Queen – Braided (Demo Version)

Guided By Voices – Forever Until It Breaks – Class Clown Spots a UFO – S/R *

Animal Kingdom– The Art of Tuning Out - The Looking Away – Mom & Pop *

Jeans Wilder – Dog Years – Totally – Ever Loving *

Motion City Soundtrack – Everyone Will Die – S/T – Epitaph *

Giant Giant Sand – Forever and a Day – Tuscon – Fire Records *

Soul Savers – Gone Too Far – Soul Savers – Mute *

Grey Turns Blonde – Brown Paper Bag

The Drones – Jezebel

The Temper Trap – London’s Burning – S/T – Glass Note/Columbia *

Hot Chip – Night & Day – In Our Heads – Domino *

-11PM-

Kimbra – Come Into My Head – Vows – Warner Bros *

Is/Is – Lie Awake – III – S/R*

Kindness – It’s Alright – World, You Need a Change of Mind – Casablanca *

Electric Guest – American Daydream – Mondo – Downtown *

Beck – I just Started Hating Someone Today – S/T – Thirdman *

Bear in Heaven – Sweetness and Sickness – I Love You, It’s Cool – Dead Oceans *

Exitmusic – The Modern Age – Passage – Secretly Canadian *

The Magnolias – Hello or Goodbye – Off the Hook – Alias

Broken Water – Underground – Tempest – Hardly Art ***

Daughter – Medicine – The Wild Youth – Glassnote

Ava Luna – No F – Ice Level – Infinite Best *

The Dandy Warhols – Slide – This Machine – Beat *

Electrelane – Gone Under Sea – The Power Out

The Drones – River of Tears ***

* New Release (will be charted for CMJ) 

*** Recommended!

KTUH Playlist for 06/05/2012, 9 PM-12 AM

Today I saw the Transit of Venus so hooray for me and fuck you.

Artist                       Song                    Album                        Label

Japandroids – The Nights of Wine & Roses – Celebration Rock – Polyvinyl *

Japandroids – Fire’s Highway – Celebration Rock – Polyvinyl *

Japandroids – Evil’s Sway – Celebration Rock – Polyvinyl *

Japandroids – For the Love of Ivy – Celebration Rock – Polyvinyl *

Japandroids – Adrenaline Night Shift – Celebration Rock – Polyvinyl *

Johnny Guitar Watson – Space Guitar

Pete Drake – The Spook

The Rogers Sisters – Your Littlest World – The Invisible Deck

-10 PM –

The Raveonettes – I Wanna Be Adored

Serena Maneesh – Drive Me Home the Lonely Nights – Fixations

Speck Mountain – Back Sliding (Some Sweet Relief)

Wye Oak – Dog Eyes – Civilian

Free Electric State – The Black Sea – Caress

School of Seven Bells – Bye Bye Bye – Disconnect Desire

Eluvium – Perfect Neglect in a Field of Statues – An Accidental Memory In the Case of Death- Temporary Residence

Yamantaka / Sonic Titan – Reverse Crystal

The Pineapple Thief – Private Paradise – Abducting the Unicorn

Smashing Pumpkins – Raindrops & Sunshowers – Machina

Silversun Pickups – Busy Bees – Neck of the Woods *

-11 PM-

Sigur Ros – Agaetis Byrjun – Hvarf/Heim

The Sky Drops – Hang On – Bourgeois Beats

Ghostwood – Red Version – S/T

Soundgarden – Black Hole Sun – Superunknown **

Kinski – Hiding Drugs in the Temple (Pt. 2)

The Poison Arrows – For Lack of an AK – Newfound Resolutions

A Shoreline Dream – Mid-Decembers – Recollections of Memory

A Place to Bury Strangers – A Shoreline Dream – S/T

* New Release (will be charted for CMJ) 

** Request

Train Spotting

Hawaii used to have several functional rail systems, the most extensive of which was on Oahu. For those that don't know, Oahu is the island where the capital, Honolulu, is situated and it is the most densely populated of all the islands. Something like 2/3 of our population live on Oahu. The rails were mainly used in territorial days as a means of transporting agricultural products, mainly sugar cane. As alternate modes of transportation became available the rail began to be phased out. The and the rails have largely disappeared from the islands. There are a couple places where the trains run on a short span of tracks, mostly for the entertainment of tourists. On Oahu, the Hawaiian Railway Society is an organization that is committed to preserving what is left of Oahu's railway history. They refurbish old engines and cars and they run trains once a week, I think. I haven't ridden on a train here, but I've been to the yard several times to poke around in the old cars. I've posted 5 of my pictures here, the full set can be viewed on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fightingforward/sets/72157625954560463/with/5455923684/  They do not charge admission to the yard and it's worth going to check out if you're ever in the neighborhood. The ramshackle old cars are really something to see and have a lot of history. There's also the Waianae Mountains in the background for scenery. Also, the surrounding area of Barber's Point and Ewa are FULL of weird abandoned military sites (beware, some have been refurbished for civilian use and there is an active Coast Guard post in the area).

For awhile now there has been an ongoing debate about building a new light rail system on Oahu. We have some pretty ridiculous traffic over here. Basically, there are a lot of jobs in Town (aka Honolulu) and not so many jobs in other parts of the island so a whole lot of people commute. In the morning all the traffic is heading toward town and in the evening it's all headed out. Our freeway infrastructure is pretty lousy and has some major bottlenecks that create huge traffic jams. Other arteries and surface streets are much as you would expect in any other major metropolitan area during rush-hour: slow and treacherous. The freeway, however, is more like a parking lot. So, there has been a lot of talk about how to alleviate that traffic congestion and a rail system is one of the possibilities. There is always a lot of argument both for and against and it always gets shot down. Well, until recently. Now it's supposed to be built, but the nae sayers are still fighting it. Chief reasons of dissent are typically cites as cost inefficiency and system ineffectiveness (i.e. rail would not alleviate congestion). Of course, there are many ways that a train system could be a great success or an even greater failure and it's tough to know what would really happen. There are so many special interests involved (and probably a lot of corruption as well), so who knows how this thing would work out. Another big debate is where to put it. Space is very limited which is part of the reason for congestion. There isn't much space to expand infrastructure and there is more or less only one route to get anywhere due to the giant, jagged, impassible mountains that make up the center of the island.
I have included two articles in this post. One was a recent entry in an issue of AAA Hawaii about the history of the railway in Hawaii entitled, "Iron Giants." Unfortunately, there were a lot of cool vintage pictures and various diagrams in the magazine that were not published online. The second article is an editorial piece from the latest issue of the Honolulu Weekly  written by a professor of Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Hawaii. It's the best argument that I've seen to date that is anti-rail and actually seems to have been based off actual scientific data. I've always been a proponent of the rail, but I know how government can muck things up and I'm afraid they'll do a half assed job. If it isn't built right it will be worthless. We'll see what happens. Change (usually) occurs very slowly in Hawaii...