For our Christmas show this year, we were joined in the studio by our good friend and winter holiday music aficionado Christopher Cwynar. Below is the playlist for the Thursday, December 12, 2013, broadcast.

Run DMC - "Christmas in Hollis"
The Fall - "Jingle Bell Rock"
Wild Billy Childish - "Ho Ho!"
Paul Revere & The Raiders - "Rain, Sleet, Snow"
The Kinks - "Father Christmas"
Tony Rodele Larson - "Cool Yule"
El Vez - "Feliz Navidad"
Fucked Up - "David Christmas"
The Dickies - "Silent Night"
The Sonics - "Santa Claus"
Ramones - "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)"
Fear - "Fuck Christmas"
Reigning Sound - "If Christmas Can't Bring You Home"
Suicide - "Hey Lord"
Low - "Just Like Christmas"
Nick Lowe - "Christmas at the Airport"
The Flaming Lips - "A Change at Christmas (Say It Isn't So)"
R.E.M. - "Deck the Halls"
The Beach Boys - "Auld Lang Syne (Alternate Mix)"

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

As we explained in our Halloween post, the holidays are a big deal here at The Way Out. Or at least, they're a good excuse to dig through our record collection and choose songs based around a central theme. There might not be a whole lot of Thanksgiving-specific songs out there. But there are A LOT of great songs about food. And at this point in modern civilization, apart from discount retail, what's Thanksgiving all about, really? Eating obscene amounts of food.

So, for our Thanksgiving show this year - a special 3-hour broadcast on Saturday, November 30, 2013 - we put together a mammoth playlist of Songs About Food. The biggest difficulty was narrowing the set down to songs that are actually about, well, food (or eating, cooking, et al). That is, a lot of musicians use food as a metaphor for sex, dancing, or whatever else. For the most part, the following songs are actually about cuisine.

Descendents - "I Like Food"
Descendents - "Weinerschnitzel"
Beck - "Satan Gave Me a Taco"
The Who - "Heinz Baked Beans"
The Beatles - "Savoy Truffle"
Pink Floyd - "Candy and a Currant Bun"
The Razorcuts - "Big Pink Cake"
The Beach Boys - "Vegetables"
Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention - "Call Any Vegetable"
Gang of Four - "Cheeseburger"
Spinal Tap - "Cups and Cakes"
Shonen Knife - "Rock 'n' Roll Cake"
Y Pants - "Beautiful Food"
Six Finger Satellite - "Hot Food"
Bob Dylan - "Country Pie"
Tom Waits - "Eggs and Sausage"
Robert Johnson - "They're Red Hot"
Hank Williams - "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)"
Jerry Lee Lewis - "Jambalaya"
The Marathons - "Peanut Butter"
The Flaming Lips - "She Don't Use Jelly"
Camper Van Beethoven - "All Her Favorite Fruit"
Southern Culture On the Skids - "Eight Piece Box"
Modest Mouse - "All Night Diner"
They Might Be Giants - "Dinner Bell"
Weird Al Yankovic - "Eat It"
Black Flag - "Black Coffee"
James Brown - "(Do the) Mashed Potatoes, Pt. 1"
The J.B.'s - "Pass the Peas"
A Tribe Called Quest - "Ham 'N' Eggs"
Titus Andronicus - "Food Fight!"
Fat Boys - "All You Can Eat"
The Dead Milkmen - "Filet of Sole"
The Kingsmen - "Jolly Green Giant"
Peter Sellers - "Bangers and Mash"
Blondie - "Eat to the Beat"
Sugarcubes - "Eat the Menu"
The B-52s - "Butterbean"
Nirvana - "Beans"
Beastie Boys - "Egg Man"
Monty Python - "Spam Song"
Rocket From the Crypt - "He's a Chef"
Lou Reed - "Egg Cream"
The Kinks - "Maximum Consumption"
The Turtles - "Food"
Elijah & The Ebonites - "Hot Grits!!!!"
The Ink Spots - "Pork Chops and Gravy"
The Band - "Home Cookin'"
Paul McCartney - "Eat at Home"
Wynonie Harris - "I Like My Baby's Pudding"
The Isley Brothers - "Cold Bologna"
X-Ray Spex - "Junk Food Junkie"
Harry Chapin - "Thanksgiving Hunger Drives"
The Smiths - "Meat is Murder"

[No archived audio available]

Here at The Way Out we take holiday music very seriously - and there's no holiday with better music than Halloween. We take a liberal approach to Halloween music, including a wide range of songs that deal with monsters, the supernatural, dementia, horror, et al. Selecting a Halloween playlist is probably the longest and most grueling endeavor in Way Out programming each calendar year, but also amongst the most fun. We try never to repeat ourselves. And in line with our usual "no hits, all the time" motto, we aim to pick more obscure, unusual, and unexpected songs that aren't likely to pop up on your usual Halloween playlist.

The playlist below is from our Thursday, October 31, 2013, show - the second year in a row that we were lucky enough to broadcast on Halloween night itself.

Vic Perrin - "The Outer Limits [Control Voice Introduction]"
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - "She Said"
The Cramps - "Goo Goo Muck"
King Khan & The Shrines - "Shivers Down My Spine"
Screamin' Jay Hawkins - "I Hear Voices"
The Damned - "Grimly Fiendish"
Siouxsie and the Banshees - "Halloween"
Ministry - "Everyday is Halloween"
Dead Kennedys - "Halloween"
The Misfits - "Halloween II"
Lake of Dracula - "Dracula Killed Frankenstein"
Naked City - "Demon Sanctuary"
The Birthday Party - "Release the Bats"
Rocket From the Crypt - "I Drink Blood"
Sonic Youth - "Halloween"
Lou Reed - "Halloween Parade"
Tom Waits - "The Black Rider"
Napoleon XIV - "They're Coming to Take Me Away"

[No archived audio available]

Welcome to the new blog for The Way Out, a weekly show on University of Wisconsin-Madison student run radio station WSUM. This site is currently under construction. Beginning in 2014, however, this site will host our weekly playlists and, eventually, archived streaming audio of our live broadcasts, as well as news and other info related to the program.

In the meantime, please listen to The Way Out every Thursday night from 10-11pm (CST) on WSUM 91.7 FM in Madison, or streaming online at wsum.org.