Dizzy Heights #76: The Cuervo Gold, The Fine Colombian – Songs with Greetings and Salutations

Hello! Goodbye. Welcome! Hey. Goodnight. Bye! One of those six words appears in every song in this show (and in three cases, two or three of them appear). It is that simple.

I am not deep.

Yes, it’s true: I talk about editing one of these songs down from its monstrous run time, then listened to it again, and realized I could cut another 35 seconds and create a better edit, even though the “better” edit still sticks out like a sore thumb to me. It’s my “Strawberry Fields Forever.” Beatles fans nod knowingly. So does my wife, who gets that reference against her wishes.

Thank you, as always, for listening.

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Dizzy Heights #75: Zipperhead – ‘Girl’ Songs

No joke, I’ve been sitting on this idea since my last Name That Tune quiz at Popdose, which was *checks notes* a little over 11 years ago. So, this idea is slightly younger than my youngest child. Who’s in middle school. Man, I think I need to lie down for a minute.

My apologies for the delay. This show was originally supposed to go live the week of January 14, but…some things happened. Disappointing things, which I will explain, possibly to my detriment. I regret nothing.

Thank you, as always, for listening.

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Dizzy Heights #74: ‘Boy’ Songs

Not to be confused with Show #70, Alt-Rock Songs About Boys. Those songs referred to people by name. This one is just songs with ‘Boy’ in the title.

I’ve been sitting on a ‘Girl’ show since Show #1, but decided to put it off one more time and, um, do the boys instead. Now that it’s end of my fourth year doing this, it felt like it was time to finally pull the trigger.

Also, these are really easy shows to research.

It starts off a bit predictably, but by the sixth song or so, it starts to go sideways, as my shows often do.

My apologies to Pete Townshend, whom I completely forgot to mention when talking about the first set.

Thank you, as always, for listening.

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Dizzy Heights #73: Songs About Songs

Features Ben Folds Five, Dan Wilson, R.E.M., The Candyskins, Joe Jackson, and more

*wakes up from three-month slumber* So, what did I miss?

You know what, don’t answer that.

This is an idea I’ve been knocking around for years. I’m sure my friend Ed came up with it, but Mike is the one who reminded me. I’m also sure that The Show About…did this, and better, but I’m too scared to look. Maybe I’ll take a peek at his library now that I’ve finished my show. Can’t cheat off of him after I’ve turned in my test.

Thank you, as always, for listening.

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Dizzy Heights #72: Good/Better/Best

Features Basement Jaxx, Utah Saints, Was (Not Was), Stardust, Daft Punk, and a bunch of other stuff that doesn’t remotely resemble those five acts. Like, Arctic Monkeys are after that.

Aaaaaaaand we’re back! Well, for now, anyway.

I’ll be honest, I don’t think I will be keeping any sort of reliable schedule while we’re in lockdown, but this idea, surely given to me by my friend Ed, was too good to sit on for long. I had some free time, so I went for it. I am clearly out of practice on a mic, though, that much is clear. So why didn’t I just re-record the bits, then? Excellent question. *walks away*

Thank you, as always, for listening.

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The Karen Mixes, Part 4: More Beats

Includes The Cure, Thomas Dolby, Captain Sensible, Tom Tom Club, Sinead O’Connor, and more

You might recognize some of the segues here. I’ve used several of them before in other mixes for other people (my wife’s high school reunion mixes, mainly), but I’ve never done them for Karen, so they seemed like fair game.

If you liked Karen Vol. I: Beats, odds are you will enjoy this one, too.

There will be a Volume 5, but I may not finish that one for a while, ‘cuz, you know.

Thanks for listening!

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Dizzy Heights Live 6/6/20: The 1985 Show

Dizzy Heights has been quiet, but it has not been idle.

In late April, I received my own Zoom account through work, and hatched a plan: I will host a night of music, take requests, and spin tunes. The first night was a free-for-all (I’ll be posting it soon), but the most fun shows so far were time-specific. First I did 1987, then I did 1981-1983 (but cheated like crazy). Then I thought about 1985, and what a dramatic shift it was for modern rock. I had another 90 minutes worth of music to play when I ended it.

The requests are what made this show so good. My friends threw fantastic ideas at me, things that were not at all on my radar.

The set list here is the same, but I used different mixes in some instances (and added Ian McShane to the front of the Grace Jones track, where he belongs). This is far better than what I did live.

Thank you, as always, for listening.

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Dizzy Heights Live 5/16/20: The 1987 Show

Features The System, Frozen Ghost, Bourgeois Tagg, Rock & Hyde, Julian Cope, The Other Ones, and more.

Hang a sign up on the door, indeed.

This was the third live show I had done, and the first one to be time-specific. The original plan was that I’d start in 1987, and see where it went from there. But after a while, I committed to the idea, which would explain why the end gets a little weird.

I also had to get creative. A few of these songs were released in album form in 1986, but not released as singles in the US until 1987 (ahem, Level 42). I also used a mix of a song that wasn’t released until 1988. Following on the heels of the previous song, it would have been negligent to do otherwise.

Thank you, as always, for listening. Next up: 1979-1982. Think First Wave, but adjacent to First Wave, mostly.

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The Karen Mixes, Vol. III: Chill

This is the first of two mixes (so far) that were made for this year’s (postponed) get-together at the Cabin in the Woods. I made this specifically for Saturday morning, as we recover from the night before and plan the next day’s adventure/day drinking. I was sitting on a ton of downbeat songs that I knew Karen would like, but worried that they might kill the vibe, so I thought, “Morning, when this IS the vibe.” Towards the end, I started to ramp things up a little so the next mix wouldn’t be so jarring. Or at least that was the plan.

Artists include Le Flex, Dubstar, Howard Jones, Ellie Goulding, Jagwar Ma, Hatchie, Metric, Bryan Ferry, Duran Duran, Massive Attack, Arcade Fire, Icehouse, Heaven 17, China Crisis, Immaculate Fools, The Bluebells, ABC, Lightning Seeds, Aztec Camera, Franz Ferdinand, Trashcan Sinatras, The Feeling, Prefab Sprout, Romeo Void, Propaganda, Everything but the Girl, White Lies, Tom Bailey, Spandau Ballet, a-ha, Florence + the Machine, and Sheppard.

Thank you as always, for listening. Next up: Vol IV: More Beats.

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The Karen Mixes, Volume II: The Beast

I made this in early 2019. Karen had invited our crew to stay at a cabin she rented, and I wanted to make the music more personal. The previous year, I played a bunch of old Dizzy Heights shows with my talkie bits cut out, and that was fine because most of them covered the time period we shared together, but I wanted there to be something hand tailored to this group of people, particularly Karen, because she pays for this cabin every year, never asks us for a cent, and refuses to take money when we offer. This seemed like a small price to pay in return.

The first Karen mix was a beat mix. This one is a rock mix. I took two other mixes I had made for her (one classic rock, one alt rock) and threw them together, along with some newer stuff that either fit the vibe or appeased my kids for five seconds. There are dozens of songs from those two mixes that will appear on Volume 5. Wait, did you say Volume 5? Yes, I did. I’ve already made two others before compiling the unused tracks from those two mixes.

Artists include Icehouse, Donnie Iris, The Kinks, The Kings, The Tubes, Kim Mitchell, Honeymoon Suite, David + David, Bourgeois Tagg, Crowded House, The Call, Stabilizers, Art in America, Marillion, Rush, Pete Townshend, Robert Palmer, The War on Drugs, Daft Punk, The System, Simple Minds (twice), The Art of Noise, Electronic, Naked Eyes, Gary Myrick, Cheap Trick, ELO, Tears for Fears, Panic! At the Disco, Queen, Muse, The Producers, INXS, Pete Yorn, The Airborne Toxic Event, Ultravox, Gary Numan, David Bowie, Depeche Mode, The Ting Tings, Alphabeat, The Feeling, Attic Lights, The Divine Comedy, The Stranglers, The Damned, The Republic Tigers, a-ha, New Order, Duran Duran, Sinead O’Connor, Julian Cope, The Stone Roses, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, Kirsty MacColl, Twenty One Pilots, and Talk Talk, because Mark Hollis had just passed away when I made this, sigh.

Thank you, as always, for listening. Next Up: Volume III, The Saturday Morning Chill Mix.

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