And the 2014 Squawkatiel Madness Champion is...

After three weeks of voting and 64 Flight of the Squawkatiel artist competing for the title of the 2nd annual Squawkatiel Madness Champion, one band remains. Who did you vote as your favorite Flight of the Squawkatiel artist of the year?

And the winner is...

Congratulations to Sigur Ros! They are your 2014 Squawkatiel Madness champions, and received the second hour of this Wednesday's show dedicated to their music, side projects, and a remix. Honorable mention to runner-up Real Estate, who fought very hard to make it this far in the competition.

Thanks to everyone who voted! Be sure to listen to Flight of the Squawkatiel every Wednesday night from 8-10 on 90.1 WRUV or online at wruv.org

Squawkatiel Madness 2014: Voting Opens!

The madness has begun! The time has come to vote for which artists you want to move on to Round 2 of Squawkatiel Madness, and which artists you want to give a chance to win a special April 9th edition of Flight of the Squawkatiel dedicated to their music. Click here for details on which artists are in the running (and more info on Squawkatiel Madness).

CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR ROUND 1!

The above link will take you to a survey where you can vote for all 32 matches in Round 1. This time, you don't have to vote for every single match, just the ones you care about. But please do vote for as many matches as possible!

Voting for Round 1 ends at 10 pm on Saturday, March 22nd. Please only vote once per round.

Below, you can listen to a Soundcloud playlist of all 64 artists in Squawkatiel Madness, in case you're unfamiliar with any of them.

Squawkatiel Madness Delayed Due to Winter Storm

Bad news - today was supposed to be day the voting would begin for the first round of Squawkatiel Madness, but a bad winter storm has hit vermont and Burlington is expected to get up to 2 feet of snow between Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon, and I am unable to get to WRUV to do my show.

Flight of the Squawkatiel will return on March 19th, and you will be able to vote for the first round of Squawkatiel Madness that night.

The return of Squawkatiel Madness!

Flight of the Squawkatiel presents the 2nd annual Squawkatiel Madness! In honor of NCAA's March Madness, 64 artists who have been played on Flight of the Squawkatiel in the past year will go head to head in a similar style tournament for the title of your favorite Flight of the Squawkatiel artist of the year. The winner will get a special show dedicated to their music on the April 9th episode of Flight of the Squawkatiel (plus a cool banner that will be displayed on this blog).

Last year's inaugural Squawkatiel Madness was a success and you, the listeners, voted Beach House as your Squawkatiel Madness champion for 2013. This year, Beach House is not in the running since they didn't release any new music, so who will your winner be for 2014?

The first round matches are:

Beach Fossils (1) vs. Tera Melos (16)

Foals (8) vs. Sleigh Bells (9)

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin (4) vs. Superchunk (13)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs (5) vs. Frankie Rose (12)

The Strokes (2) vs. CocoRosie (15)

Arctic Monkeys (7) vs. Dum Dum Girls (10)

They Might Be Giants (3) vs. Shout Out Louds (14)

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks (6) vs. Enter the Haggis (11)

Vampire Weekend (1) vs. Still Corners (16)

Washed Out (8) vs. Youth Lagoon (9)

Kurt Vile (4) vs. Marissa Nadler (13)

Of Montreal (5) vs. Speedy Ortiz (12)

Real Estate (2) vs. Minks (15)

Bibio (7) vs. Cheatahs (10)

Tycho (3) vs. Poliça (14)

Wild Nothing (6) vs. Iron & Wine (11)

Broken Bells (1) vs. Saturday Looks Good to Me (16)

Surfer Blood (8) vs. Minus the Bear (9)

Los Campesinos! (4) vs. Warpaint (13)

Tennis (5) vs. The Notwist (12)

Phantogram (2) vs. The Melodic (15)

Phoenix (7) vs. Frank Turner (10)

Dr. Dog (3) vs. Generationals (14)

Franz Ferdinand (6) vs. Frightened Rabbit (11)

Gogol Bordello (1) vs. Man Man (16)

Queens of the Stone Age (8) vs. Pretty & Nice (9)

Arcade Fire (4) vs. Adrian Roye & the Exiles (13)

Sigur Ros (5) vs. Kitten (12)

Daft Punk (2) vs. The Appleseed Cast (15)

The Fratellis (7) vs. Delorean (10)

Rubblebucket (3) vs. Home by Hovercraft (14)

Bombay Bicycle Club (6) vs. Portugal. The Man (11)

Click here for the Challonge bracket.

This year, there are seed rankings so you are more likely to know at least one of the artists in each match. Seeds were determined by a score of 2x who people are most likely to vote for + 1x my personal preference.
Stay tuned for details on how to vote: on this blog, on Facebook, and on Soundcloud.

VOTE FOR ROUND 1 HERE!

Playlist for 1/22/14: Global Grooves

This week's playlist had a theme I'll call "Global Grooves", electronic music with good beats and sounds from all over the world (plus a few other things mixed in I thought would sound good).

In other news, Flight of the Squawkatiel will be returning for the Spring semester on WRUV at the same time, 8-10 pm on Wednesdays. I have lots of great new stuff planned for you, including the return of Squawkatiel Madness in March - it will be even bigger and better this year! Also, stay tuned for a new feature on this blog called "Squawkatiel's Dozen" - this will be replacing Soundcloud Artist of the Week. On Squawkatiel's Dozen I will post 6 free downloads from Soundcloud that I really like and hope you will too, and 6 songs that aren't free downloads but are great songs you should check out.

If you missed this week's show, you can listen online at http://wruv.org/thisweek?2014-01-22_2000h_Wed-Flight_of_the_Squawkatiel_with_McSquawk.m3u or http://wruv.org/schedule/wednesday

Here is the playlist:

Time ∧	Title	Artist	Album	Label	Genre
08:02 pm	Thunder Clatter	Wild Cub	WRUV Rock Singles Jan Mix #2 2014	Mom + Pop	Rock
08:06 pm	Too High	Painted Palms	Forever	Polyvinyl	Rock
08:09 pm	Cybernautic	Low Frequency in Stereo	Pop Obskura	Long Branch	Rock
08:15 pm	Gold	James Vincent McMorrow	Post Tropical	Vagrant	Rock
08:19 pm	Drank and Kites and Tomorrow	Perth	What's Your Utopia	Hidden Shoal	Rock
08:22 pm	Lead Me Home	HeadShy	La Belle Epoque	Medicina	Rock
08:25 pm	Moon & Tide	Morning Arms	Moon & Tide EP	s/r	Rock
08:32 pm	Tough Crowd	Dios Mio	Tough Crowd	s/r	Rock
08:38 pm	Rotten Driver	Upstairs Downstairs	Upstairs Downstairs	20 Sided	Rock
08:40 pm	Blue Eyed Hexe	Pixies	WRUV Rock Singles Jan Mix #1 2014	Artemis	Rock
08:43 pm	Cannibal	Silversun Pickups	The Singles Collection	Dangerbird	Rock
08:48 pm	Hot Tonight	Tokyo Police Club	WRUV Rock Singles Jan Mix #2 2014	Mom + Pop	Rock
08:51 pm	Cherry On Top	Oh Land	Wish Bone	Federal Prism	Rock
08:55 pm	Ransom	Son Lux	Lanterns	Joyful Noise	Rock
09:07 pm	Mr. Brown	Ikarus	The Angkor Sessions	s/r	RPM
09:11 pm	Objet Petit A	Harouki Zombi	Objet Petit A	Polyvinyl	Rock
09:14 pm	Ready On The Line	Big Sir	Before Gardens After Gardens	Rodriguez Lopez Productions	Rock
09:18 pm	Zephyr	Photay	Photay	s/r	RPM
09:22 pm	No Time	Gaudi	No Prisoners	Six Degrees	International
09:27 pm	Fortress Europe	Asian Dub Foundation	Enemy of the Enemy	Naive	RPM
09:31 pm	Birthday	Dubstepler	Blot!	Vdoh/Lunateka	RPM
09:36 pm	Detroit Part 1	Shigeto	No Better Time Than Now	Ghostly	RPM
09:41 pm	Transistors	Isaac Delusion	Early Morning	Cracki	Rock
09:46 pm	The Hop	Radio Citizen	Berlin Serengeti	Ubiquity	RPM
09:50 pm	Bohemian Rhapsody in Blue (Guillotine Cuts Remix)	Federico Aubele	No One EP	ESL Music	RPM
09:54 pm	Ambient India	Zeropage	Ambient Pills	s/r	RPM

Free Music: Squawk Tunes

If you are looking for some free music downloads (100% legal!), here is a collection of my favorite songs on Soundcloud that are available to download for free. You may have heard some of these songs on my show. The list is in alphabetical order by artist, in case there is anyone you heard on my show you're looking for. This list covers a wide variety of genres, from indie rock to pop to electronic, and even some metal and Celtic rock! Maybe you'll discover a new favorite.

Enjoy, and if you like what you hear, please support the artists by buying an album or seeing them live.

The return of Soundcloud Artist of the Week!

After a brief hiatus, I will be bringing back my "Soundcloud Artist of the Week" feature on Flight of the Squawkatiel, where I play you a song from an unsigned/independent artist that has a bunch of great music on Soundcloud. I have been sent tracks from a few different bands on Soundcloud so I will continue this feature through the end of 2013, and I have some great stuff to play for you.

Listen to this week's show on Wednesday from 8-10 pm to find out who the next Soundcloud Artist of the Week is!

As always, tune in at 90.1 FM in the Burlington, VT area or listen online at http://wruv.org/wruv128.m3u

Fall Semester - New Old Time Slot!

Flight of the Squawkatiel will be at the same time slot for the fall semester! Tune in every Wednesday from 8-10 pm, starting with this week's show on September 11th.

As always, you can stream the latest show at http://wruv.org/schedule/wednesday

Help choose the music for Flight of the Squawkatiel!

I've had a lot of fun discovering new music online and sharing it with you, but I would also like to hear what music you've been enjoying lately. I don't usually take requests during my show because I choose my playlists in advance, but you can help choose the music that gets played.

Please answer these two quick questions (both are optional).

Your input is appreciated, and will help make Flight of the Squawkatiel more enjoyable for all!

New time slot: 8-10 PM on Wednesdays

Starting tonight, Flight of the Squawkatiel moves to a new time slot for the summer semester! Tune in every Wednesday from 8-10 pm. I will still be bringing you an hour of the best new music followed by an hour of music from my collection. Listen live at wruv.org/wruv128.m3u or on 90.1 WRUV FM in Burlington, VT. You can stream the latest show for up to a week at http://wruv.org/schedule/wednesday (currently the show listed for my time slot is The Fowl Hour with Chickadeejay, but clicking that show will play my show. The schedule should be updated in a week or two.)

DJ of the Month/Squawk Tunes April 2013

Flight of the Squawkatiel's very own DJ McSquawk has been named the April DJ of the Month at WRUV! You can read the interview at http://wruv.org/news/n199

Also, Flight of the Squawkatiel is doing a special new feature starting this month. Each month, I will be presenting "Squawk Tunes", a digital mixtape of 12 of my favorite free downloads that are available on Soundcloud. This month's set includes great tunes from Enter the Haggis, Youth Lagoon, Loveskills, Javelin and more! Listen to the tracks and download them below:

Enjoy, and if you like what you hear, be sure to support the artists by buying an album or seeing them live!

And the winner of Squawkatiel Madness 2013 is...

Congratulations to Beach House on winning Squawkatiel Madness 2013! It was close, but in the end they beat The Strokes by just one vote.

Beach House received a one hour special on last Saturday's episode of Flight of the Squawkatiel, which you can listen to here.

To celebrate their victory, here is their latest video for their song "Wishes":




Thanks to everyone who voted and made Squawkatiel Madness a success! Tune in next March for Squawkatiel Madness 2014!

Squawkatiel Madness: Final Round!

So here we are! We started out with 64 Flight of the Squawkatiel artists competing for the grand prize, and now we are down to just 2. One of these bands will get the second hour of this Saturday's episode of Flight of the Squawkatiel dedicated to their music, their side projects, remixes, covers of their songs by other artist, songs by similar artists, and more!

The first band in the final is of course, Beach House. They have dominated most of their matches, with the only close call being their match against Dirty Projectors in the 3rd round which they won by one vote. Beach House won their match against Beach Fossils by a landslide once again, with 100% of the vote.

The second match, however, was a lot closer. The Strokes and The Shins were only separated by one vote in this round, but in the end, it went to The Strokes.

Now it is time for you to decide which of these two bands will win the grand prize. Will it be The Strokes or will it be Beach House? Place your vote at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HDRND9W

Beach House seems to be the favorite to win at this point. But don't count The Strokes out just yet. Luckily for them, their latest album, Comedown Machine, was released today. Will that work in their favor?

This time, we're doing something special. You will have until 7 pm on March 30 to vote, so that means there will be live voting during the first hour of the show, and call-in votes will be counted as well. I will prepare two different playlists for the second hour. The one that gets played will be the one for the winning band! Please only vote once.

If you need help making up your mind, check out this Soundcloud set which features music from both The Strokes and Beach House.

Squawkatiel Madness: The Feathered Four!

The votes are in, and the four artists moving on to the semi-finals in Squawkatiel Madness 2013 are:

The Strokes
The Shins
Beach House
Beach Fossils

Three of these matches were decided by one vote. You can see how it has all gone down so far at http://challonge.com/squawkatiel2013

All four of these artists have won at least one of their matches by one vote, so every vote counts! Vote here for who you would like to move on to the finals, where either The Strokes or The Shins will be facing Beach House or Beach Fossils for the championship title. The overall winner will get an hour of next week's show dedicated to their music, their side projects, and more fun stuff related to them.

Please only vote once per round.

While you're voting, you can listen to music from all four of the remaining bands at this Soundcloud set.

Squawkatiel Madness - Round 3: The Squawky Sixteen!

And the votes are in! Thanks to everyone who voted, there were twice as many votes for this round compared to the first one. The artists who advanced to the Squawky Sixteen are:

Smile Smile
Yo La Tengo
The Strokes
Cloud Nothings
Dinosaur Jr.
The Shins
Ducktails
Jens Lekman
Beach House
Dirty Projectors
Reptar
Stars
Deerhoof
Minus the Bear
Japandroids
Beach Fossils

CLICK HERE TO VOTE for who you would like to advance to Round 4. Please only vote once per round.

You have until 8 pm on Tuesday, March 19th to vote, and then Round 4 will begin.

If you are not sure who to vote for, you can listen to tracks from all 16 remaining artists at https://soundcloud.com/flight-of-the-squawkatiel/sets/squawkatiel-madness-2013

You can also check out the tournament bracket at http://challonge.com/squawkatiel2013

The votes are in, Round 2 begins!

Thanks to everyone who voted in the 1st round of Squawkatiel Madness! The votes are in and the 32 artists who are moving on to Round 2 are:

Cheers Elephant, Smile Smile, Husky, Yo La Tengo, Savoir Adore, The Strokes, Pretty & Nice, Cloud Nothings, Rubblebucket, Dinosaur Jr., Thao & the Get Down Stay Down, The Shins, Ducktails, The Helio Sequence, Jens Lekman, Tanlines, Beach House, Wild Nothing, Dirty Projectors, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Reptar, State Radio, Stars, Toro Y Moi, Deerhoof, Yeasayer, Minus the Bear, Japandroids, Tennis, Beach Fossils, and Sleigh Bells. Congrats to all!

Voting has now opened for Round 2. You can vote at http://kwiksurveys.com/s.asp?sid=m5y7rn2eodgrcge110818

You have until 4 pm on Saturday, March 16th to vote, and then the "Squawky Sixteen" will be revealed on that night's show.

You can listen to tracks from the 32 remaining artists at https://soundcloud.com/flight-of-the-squawkatiel/sets/squawkatiel-madness-2013 and view the tournament bracket at http://challonge.com/squawkatiel2013

Please only vote once per round.

Last chance - vote for Round 1 of Squawkatiel Madness!

Today is the last day you can vote for the first round of Squawkatiel Madness, so be sure to get your votes in!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE.

You have until 8pm tonight to get your votes in, and then the votes will be counted and the 32 artists moving on to Round 2 will be announced.

If you're not sure who to vote for, you can check out tracks from each of the 64 artists in this Soundcloud set.

Flight of the Squawkatiel presents Squawkatiel Madness 2013!

This month, Flight of the Squawkatiel will be holding a little tournament in honor of March Madness called "Squawkatiel Madness", where 64 artists who have been featured during the new music hour on Flight of the Squawkatiel will go head to head and you will decide who moves on. The winner will get an hour of my March 30th show dedicated to their music, any side projects if applicable, similar artists, artists who are on the same record label or they have toured with, etc.

The artists who will be competing for the title are:

A.C. Newman, Animal Collective, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Beach Fossils, Beach House, Bloc Party, Cat Power, Cheers Elephant, Circa Survive, Cloud Nothings, Coheed & Cambria, Darlingside, David Byrne & St. Vincent, Deerhoof, Deftones, DIIV, Dinosaur Jr., Dirty Projectors, Ducktails, Foals, Frank Turner, Freelance Whales, The Gaslight Anthem, Gold Motel, The Helio Sequence, Husky, Japandroids, Jeff the Brotherhood, Jens Lekman, Jonquil, Kitten, Local Natives, Manicanparty, Matt & Kim, Memory Tapes, Metric, Minus the Bear, Orbital, Pinback, Pretty & Nice, Reptar, Rubblebucket, Savoir Adore, The Shins, Silversun Pickups, Sleigh Bells, Smile Smile, The Spinto Band, Stars, State Radio, The Strokes, Sun Airway, Tanlines, Tennis, Thao & the Get Down Stay Down, This Town Needs Guns, Toro Y Moi, Twin Shadow, Veronica Falls, Wild Nothing, Wintersleep, Yeasayer, Yo La Tengo, and Yppah.

This is just for fun and to find out which artists listeners would like to hear more of on the show.

CLICK HERE TO CAST YOUR VOTES FOR THE FIRST ROUND

You have through Tuesday, March 12 to vote, and then voting for Round 2 will begin on Wednesday, March 13. Please only vote once.

If you are unfamiliar with any of the artists listed, I have compiled a Soundcloud set where you can hear songs from all the artists who are in the running, in order they appear on the bracket.

Good luck to all, and have fun!

Flight of the Squawkatiel - Now on Soundcloud!

Flight of the Squawkatiel now has a profile on Soundcloud! I will be using this to share the latest music I'm enjoying in the set "FOTS - 2013", which will be updated every Saturday night after my show. Listen to the latest mix below:

You can also check out other sets which feature my favorite music from years past here.

Also, you can listen to the first episode of the spring semester here (the 6-8 pm time slot) and view the playlist here.

New time slot for Spring 2013

Flight of the Squawkatiel has moved to a new time slot for the spring semester. Tune in every Saturday from 6-8 pm for the latest episode. I will still be bringing you one hour of new music, followed by an hour of music from my collection. My first show will be on February 2nd and the theme will be "Remixes and Mashups". Listen to it on 90.1 WRUV FM Burlington, VT, where you can stream it live here or listen to the most recent show here.