Back in December, during the week before Christmas, we decided to be a little cheeky and counterprogram the usual slate of cheerful holiday music that you hear all over the radio with a set of dark and gloomy tunes we dubbed Sad, Dark, and Depressing (And So, So Good). After all, the holidays may be cheerful for some people, but not all. And as the "and so, so good" addendum suggests, we here at The Way Out quite enjoy the gloomier side of rock and pop music anyway. So, this theme gave us an opportunity to play a bunch of musical styles that don't often make it into our playlists on a regular basis: goth, darkwave, horror punk, psychobilly, deathrock, doom, melancholic folk and country, and a bunch of other sullen, brooding, sinister and/or mournful tunes.
We came up with quite an extensive playlist and ended up splitting the show into a pair of 2-hour long sets. The first set was broadcast on Friday, December 20, 2013. It focused a bit more heavily on goth and post-punk. Here's the playlist for Part 1:
Depeche Mode - "Black Celebration"
The Damned - "The Shadow of Love"
Bauhaus - "Stigmata Martyr"
The Jesus and Mary Chain - "Nine Million Rainy Days"
The Gun Club - "The Fire of Love"
Pleasure Forever - "Curtain Call for a Whispering Ghost"
Johnny Cash - "Hurt"
The Black Heart Procession - "It's a Crime I Never Told You About the Diamonds in Your Eyes"
The Rock*A*Teens - "All That Death Jazz"
The Cramps - "Sunglasses After Dark"
Xiu Xiu - "I Luv the Valley OH!"
Death in June - "Torture By Roses"
Crime and the City Solution - "Six Bells Chime"
Killing Joke - "The Wait"
Harvey Milk - "The End"
Swans - "Big Strong Boss"
Christian Death - "Romeo's Distress"
The Cure - "Doubt"
The Smiths - "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want"
The Birthday Party - "Nick the Stripper"
Misfits - "Last Caress"
Joy Division - "Isolation"
The Faint - "The Conductor"
Siouxsie and the Banshees - "Sin In My Heart"
These Immortal Souls - "Marry Me (Lie! Lie!)"
The Sisters of Mercy - "Lucretia My Reflection"
The Mission (UK) - "Serpents Kiss"
Big Star - "Holocaust"
It took us a few weeks to get back around to it, but the second set was broadcast last night, Thursday, January 16, 2014. This time the focus shifted more to roots rock and downbeat indie rock. Here's the playlist for Part 2:
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - "Song of Joy"
Lou Reed - "Oh Jim"
Arab Strap - "Soaps"
The Dream Syndicate - "Weathered and Torn"
The Twilight Singers - "Martin Eden"
Sparklehorse - "Sad and Beautiful World"
Nick Drake - "Harvest Breed"
Elliott Smith - "Pitseleh"
Tom Waits - "I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You"
Dirty Three - "Hope"
Sigur Ros - "Sigur 1 (Untitled)"
Black Tape for a Blue Girl - "Memory, Uncaring Friend"
Vic Chestnutt - "Flirted With You All My Life"
Hefner - "Goethe's Letter to Vic Chestnutt"
Calexico - "Trigger"
The Twilight Sad - "That Summer, At Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy"
I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness - "When You Got Out"
Cold Cave - "Hello Rats"
A Place to Bury Strangers - "The Falling Sun"
Arbouretum - "Ghosts of Here and There"
Pinetop Seven - "At His Kitchen Table"
Shearwater - "(I've Got a) Right to Cry"
Shipping News - "Bad Eve"
Steve Earle - "I Still Carry You Around"
Hallelujah the Hills - "The Might Come Back Club"
Retsin - "Dog and a Butterfly"
Songs: Ohia - "Hold On Magnolia"
[No archived audio available.]
