Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Flight of the Squawkatiel's final show!

The day has come...January 27, 2016 will be the final edition of Flight of the Squawkatiel. It has been awesome doing this show for the past 4 years but it is time to try something new. Tune in tonight from 8-10 pm on 90.1 WRUV or listen online at wruv.org - I have one more hour of great new music plus an hour of some of the best songs you've heard on the show in the past four years. But fear not - I will be back at the same time next week with a brand new show called Squawkin' Good Radio! This show will air every Wednesday night from 8-10 pm and instead of an hour new music + an hour themed set, I will mix in the new music and older stuff together over the course of two hours (about 2/3 of it will be new music). I will be featuring more artists I discover on Soundcloud/Spotify, as well as old favorites from my collection. You'll still hear the same kind of music you've enjoyed on Flight of the Squawkatiel over the past few years. There may be a new, revamped edition of Squawkatiel Madness this spring as well! This new show will coincide with a new blog/Facebook/Twitter/Soundcloud profile called Squawkin' Good Tunes. If you are already following me on Facebook, Twitter or Soundcloud, those will change over to the new one. I will be using this to share all my favorite new musical discoveries with you in addition to my weekly show. This is meant to be a unique music blog for those of you who are tired of the music Pitchfork/Stereogum/etc have been pushing lately and want something a little different yet familiar. I don't know how much longer I will be doing a show at WRUV, but I plan to be there through the spring and most likely the summer as well. I will be leaving Burlington in the near future for work/life reasons but I do plan on keeping the music blog throughout, and this new show is meant to ease that transition. I do hope you continue listening because I have some great stuff to share with you this year! -McSquawk

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Flight of the Squawkatiel's Top 20 Songs of 2015

2015 has come to an end, and as always, it's time to look back at all the great music came out this year. It seemed a lot of big names came back and released new albums in 2015, yet a whole bunch of new (or just new to me) artists put out a lot of good stuff.

If you missed this week's show, you can listen online here (until 10 pm on Wednesday, January 6th.

Here are Flight of the Squawkatiel's 20 favorite songs of 2015:

#20: Jamie xx feat. Romy - Loud Places

You may have seen Jamie xx's album In Colour on a lot of year end lists, and for good reason.



#19: Blur - Ong Ong

The Magic Whip, Blur's first album in 12 years doesn't disappoint, and if that wasn't enough, they added another classic tune to their catalog with "Ong Ong".



#18: The Mountain Goats - The Legend of Chavo Guerrero

A song about a sports hero you'll enjoy even if you're not into sports.


#17: Grimes - Flesh Without Blood

Claire Boucher aka Grimes got off to a good start early this year with a demo version of her song "RealiTi", and topped it with her critically acclaimed album Art Angels featuring this song.


#16: Wild Nothing - TV Queen

My favorite of the two singles released from Wild Nothing's forthcoming album Life of Pause, the album I'm looking forward to most in 2016.

#15: Chadwick Stokes - Prison Blue Eyes

My favorite whistling song that came out in 2015, from an artist my girlfriend Althea and I agree on.


#14: Chromatics - In Films

From an album that is yet to come out, we were treated with a few Chromatics singles in 2015, this being the best one of the bunch.


#13: Mt. Wolf feat. Alexa Harley - VII

This song seemingly came out of nowhere, but for sure one of the most haunting songs I heard in 2015.



#12: My Morning Jacket - In Its Infancy (The Waterfall)

My Morning Jacket returned with a very strong album The Waterfall, including this song which captures the glory of my favorite My Morning Jacket song "One Big Holiday".


#11: Craft Spells - Our Park By Night

Craft Spells followed up last year's album Nausea with this single where he experiments with a fresh new sound.


#10: Hibou - Dissolve

If this band has a familiar sound to you - that's the former drummer of Craft Spells, bringing a distinctively Captured Tracks sound to Barsuk Records.


#9: Warehouse Eyes - The Same Dream

Another Soundcloud discovery that went on to become one of my favorite songs this year. Amazing production on this song as well as Warehouse Eyes' Prisms EP.


#8: San Fermin - Jackrabbit

I saw San Fermin live at Signal Kitchen this summer, the title track off their great sophomore album was one of my early favorites of 2015 and remained through the rest of the year.



#7: Little Children - We're Falling

While this song basically sounds like a combination of The War on Drugs' "Red Eyes", Real Estate's "It's Real" and Wild Nothing's "Golden Haze", it's an addicting song that's just as good and arguably better than any of those.


#6: DTCV - Miley Cyrus Wins the Race

DTCV are a duo including a former member of Guided By Voices, with my favorite noise-pop song of the year. Definitely check this out if you liked that Alvvays album from last year.

#5: The Velvet Teen - GTRA

The Velvet Teen's 2015 album All Is Illusory was one of my favorites of this year. They have been around for over 15 years, but this album was my introduction to them after I reviewed it for WRUV. Lots of good songs but my favorite was the final track "GTRA" - the best way to describe this song is to imagine you're hearing "Hey Sandy" by Polaris (you know, the theme song from The Adventures of Pete & Pete) for the first time again.


#4: Waterstrider - Calliope

Waterstrider were one of my favorite new discoveries of 2015. Their debut full length Nowhere Now was one of my favorite albums of this year, with many great songs, but "Calliope" especially stands out.


#3: Mew - My Complications

Mew came back with a great new album in 2015 + -, but this song, which adds Bloc Party guitarist Russell Lissack to the mix, puts it over the edge.


#2: Pocket Panda - Riptide (Album Version)

Seattle band Pocket Panda was another of my favorite new artists of 2015. They bring a fresh take on folk-pop with a wide variety of instruments. I discovered them reviewing their album This Arrangement of Molecules for WRUV. This is a reworking of a song that appeared on their Find Yourself a Stranger EP.


#1: Darlingside - Go Back

This is the second time an artist I first discovered at Radio Bean claimed the #1 spot on one of my year end lists - Darlingside had a great year in which their sophomore album Birds Say (my favorite album of the year) garnered critical acclaim. Album highlight "Go Back" is my favorite song of the year. Those vocal harmonies!