The Roots of Shoegaze

A couple weeks ago we presented a shoegaze-themed broadcast to celebrate Slowdive's reunion announcement. The response to that show was overwhelmingly positive, and so we thought we'd revisit shoegaze music again and provide a sequel of sorts. But we also didn't want to repeat ourselves, and therefore this time we choose to explore some of the various influences on the shoegazing bands, in a show we titled Roots of Shoegaze. (A prequel, perhaps....)

We wanted to highlight an array of artists from the 1960s through the 1980s who influenced shoegazing in significant ways: from the lush psychedelia of The Byrds and Love, to the hypnotic drone of The Velvet Underground, to the atmospheric, ethereal new wave of Cocteau Twins and The Cure, to the mopey, jangling pop of The Smiths, to the distorted noise-pop of The Jesus & Mary Chain and Sonic Youth, and ultimately the narcotic dissonance of My Bloody Valentine. As is the case with most themed shows like this one, fitting in everything that deserved attention was impossible in only an hour-long program (bands like Bauhaus, Echo and The Bunnymen, The La's, Ultra Vivid Scene, Dinosaur Jr., and Husker Du had to get cut, just to name a few). But to the best of our abilities, this is the pre-history of shoegaze in 15 songs.

Here's the playlist for our Thursday, February 13, 2014, show:

The Beatles - "Rain"
The Velvet Underground - "Sunday Morning"
The Byrds - "I See You"
Love - "She Comes in Colors"
Syd Barrett - "Dark Globe"
Cocteau Twins - "Lorelei"
The Cure - "M"
The Chameleons - "Thursday's Child"
The Smiths - "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore"
The House of Love - "Love in a Car"
The Jesus and Mary Chain - "Just Like Honey"
Spacemen 3 - "So Hot (Wash Away All of My Tears)"
Galaxie 500 - "Blue Thunder"
Sonic Youth - "Tom Violence"
My Bloody Valentine - "Sueisfine"

Archived streaming audio of this show can be heard here now (playable in Chrome, Firefox, Explorer, Opera, and Safari browsers):

Note: The archived recording inexplicably cut off after The Chameleons song. We've dubbed in audio of the songs from The Smiths onward, but unfortunately the voice breaks in the second half of the show have been lost (and hot damn were they good voice breaks - Andrew was really on a rock critic history lesson trip that night!).

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About The Way Out

The Way Out is a weekly radio show hosted by Andrew and Diana Bottomley on WSUM 91.7 FM in Madison, Wisconsin. We feature a wide range of punk, post-punk, indie rock, garage rock, psychedelica, no wave, noise rock, and other rock’n’roll esoterica. We're drawn to anything that's adventurous, different, and "out there." We've even been known to throw in a set of modern classical, prog, or country from time to time. Mostly, we play “classic” material from the 1960s through the 1990s, though we also mix in some newer music here and there. Following a "no hits, all the time" philosophy, we emphasize overlooked and otherwise unheard of artists, or lesser-known songs from more popular artists.

About WSUM

WSUM, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s licensed student radio station, is an award-winning station with over 200 members. Following a handful of different incarnations that operated between 1952 and 1993, WSUM officially began broadcasting on February 22, 2002, from Vilas Hall and has been going strong ever since. The station can now be found at 333 East Campus Mall, Suite 4100, in the new Student Activities Center. WSUM is a proud and active member of the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association and College Broadcasters, Inc., and has won myriad statewide and national awards for its dynamic music and talk programming, live sports broadcasts, and news coverage.

The Way Out