Brown Bird "Bilgewater"

How do you walk the line of being respectful without being opportunistic?

David Lamb of the band Brown Bird passed away this week.  He had been battling leukemia and had received tremendous support from the Rhode Island (and beyond) music community.

When listeners started letting us know that Lamb had passed away, I remembered that we have a Brown Bird performance in our archives.  And my first thought was to post it on Facebook, or make it this week's MVY Live.
But something about doing that felt like it would be too self-serving, too self-promotional, too opportunistic.

When Lou Reed passed away, we did many a tribute to him on the air.  But even before his passing, not a day had gone by where we didn't play a few Lou Reed/Velvet Underground tracks.

The same isn't true for Brown Bird on MVY.

So would promoting it, just be co-opting a tragedy?

These are the weird, unexpected questions that they never teach you to answer in DJ School.


For a really beautiful rememberance of David Lamb, read this.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Bright Eyes "First Day Of My Life"

My wife didn't know the name Monsters Of Folk.  So when they played at Newport Folk a few years ago, she didn't realize that Conor Oberst was going to be on stage.

When he started singing "First Day Of My Life" it caught her off guard.  She knew the song, but to hear him singing it live, sincerely and unexpectedly, it brought out a well of emotion.  She still ranks Conor-Oberst-making-her-cry as one of her all-time concert highlight.

And if I didn't already associate the song with mushy, touching love-stuff, I saw the video for the first time ever, this week.

Maybe you'll have your own Conor-Oberst-making-you-cry moment.

Happy Valentine's Day.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Lord Huron "She Lit A Fire"

Sometimes, the case for a song it made quickly.  "It's a one-listen song" is a line employed by promo folks when they know a tune is going to be quick to win people over.

Sometimes, the case for a song is made slowly.

The Lord Huron record has been out for a year, and folks have been talking to me about it for a year.

I liked the first single, "Time To Run," but we didn't add it.  I felt like the beat was a little on the modern side.  And that very contemporary thing of making the vocals seem very far away and church chorus-y, while popular, is quite the opposite of the voice-up-front-and-clear folk roots of MVY-core artists like Dylan and John Lennon and Gregg Allman, etc, etc, etc.

Lord Huron was at Newport Folk, and I did catch a good chunk of their set.  In short, they were super-impressive.  And the singles, including the second one "She Lit A Fire" sounded strong.

And Jess Phaneuf has been lobbying for this band.

Now, so have a few listeners.

Getting emails asking "Why don't you play more polka?" isn't going to get MVY to play more polka.

But when we're on the fence about an artist, then hearing that listeners are excited about a band, is helpful.

We're passed the time of year when we're going to get any singles from major artists, so now is the time we can go a little farther afield, and add a track like "She Lit A Fire."


Hear "She Lit A Fire" on Youtube.


Hear "Time To Run" on Youtube.