Play List - Monsters From The Id

I again guest-hosted for Susan Brown's show Punk and Hardcore on December 30 (technically the 31st), 2003 from 3:30 AM to 6:00 PM. And again co-hosting with me that day was Frank Mancuso.

I opened with Comic Book Heroes by The Tearjerkers, the song we usually played at the opening of 'Nuff Said!, the show I did (with Ed Menje then Mercy Van Vlack) for nine years, interviewing writers and artists in the comic book field. Originally, we alternated with Susan's show then got a new time slot twice until Bernard White cancelled the show in June, 2002.

Then came an hour-long live interview with Brian Pulido, the creator and writer of the independent comics characters Lady Death, Evil Ernie and several others. Then we played music until Wake Up Call, hosted by Program Director Bernard White, came on at 6:00 AM. We opened the music part of the night with the same song Ed Menje played at the opening of Monsters from the Id, the music show we did before we did 'Nuff Said!

If I play it, I say it. Even if I weren't playing a lot of obscure music, I would still announce the name and artist of each song because someone might be hearing it for the first time or might need their memory refreshed. Therefore, I tend to play four-song sets. Too long a set and it's hard to figure out which song is which. Too short and the flow of the show slows down. In the following list, the artist comes first then the song title and I skip a line between sets. You'll notice we played a lot of humor. Possibly because it was New Year's Eve, I don't know.

The Damned are one of the first bands of the Punk Era and the two songs have a different style - it seemed right to play two songs by that band to start the punk and hardcore part of the night. False Prophets are one of Ed Menje's favorite bands and I wanted to dedicate the night to Ed, the man who brought me into radio.

The U2 song is off an import single and hasn't appeared on any albums. Plus it was appropriate to New Year's Eve. As was the next song because they were performing in NYC on New Year's Eve and someone I met at a Women's International League for Peace and Freedom holiday party was going to see them and must have been a mere toddler when they were first touring. So obviously punk is not dead.

One advantage of doing radio in the middle of the night is the ability to play songs the FCC wouldn't let us play during the day because of "naughty words," providing it's done with a disclaimer, of course. So we did the following set, opening it with my favorite version of the Elvis Presley classic then my favorite satire of punk rock.

That first song is a brilliant satire of the South Park song that ended the previous set and of the presidential election debaucle of 2000. The next three bands all feature mixed-race personel. In music, it seems we can all get along.

As Monsters From The Id winds down, the music is a little less hard so it blends in better with Wake Up Call. The first song of the last set is a great updated version of the wonderful Phil Ochs song of the same name and we closed with a version of Manu Dibango's song which came out about a decade before the hit version of the mid-'70s.