While late 1970s and early 1980s punk and hardcore music is regularly featured on The Way Out, we recently realized it's been a little while since we dug deep into these genres on the show, especially with a focus solely on the U.S. scene. For instance, last semester we did a whole series of shows dedicated to U.K. post-punk and indie-pop. We also did another run of shows focused on the "classic" indie/college rock era of the late 1980s and 1990s that emerged out of the first couple waves of punk and hardcore (Sonic Youth, Husker Du, Beat Happening, et al).

So, we decided to kick off this Spring semester with a few shows dedicated to late 1970s and early 1980s U.S. punk and hardcore. And we've chosen to focus on some of the more obscure artists from this movement, by which we mean no Black Flag, no Minor Threat, no Bad Brains, no Dead Kennedys, no Germs, no X, and so on. We love those bands but we play their music fairly regularly, as do a few other DJs on WSUM. Thus, we thought we'd give some other bands their due. (And certainly, if you know this period of music well, many of these artists below are hardly "obscure." But we think it's safe to argue that they definitely don't receive the attention of Black Flag and the other handful of groups named above.)

We're dubbing this series of shows Destroy All Music - a nod to terrific The Weirdos song, which indeed kicked off the whole series. Part 1 was broadcast on Thursday, January 23, 2014, and at least a couple more sets will follow in the weeks to come. Here's the playlist for Part 1:

The Weirdos - "Destroy All Music"
Black Randy and the Metrosquad - "Idi Amin"
Articles of Faith - "Bad Attitude"
The Zero Boys - "Civilization's Dying"
Flipper - "Living For the Depression"
The Fix - "Vengeance"
Deep Wound - "I Saw It"
The Fiends - "Asian White"
Redd Kross - "Pseudo-Intellectual"
The Embarrassment - "Celebrity Art Party"
White Flag - "Face Down"
False Prophets - "Scorched Earth"
The Pagans - "Not Now No Way"
Void - "War Hero"
Ignition - "Anger Means"
Alice Donut - "Burlesque"
Wipers - "Alien Boy"
No Trend - "Without Me"
The Avengers - "The American in Me"
Big Boys - "Fun Fun Fun"
The Dils - "You're Not Blank"
Really Red - "I Was a Teenage Fuck Up"
Nihilistics - "You're to Blame"

[No archived audio available.]

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.]

This week we wrapped up our two-part, four-hour long 2013: Year in Review - a rather scattershot rundown of some of the more interesting and exciting new sounds to come out during the past year. Here's the playlist for Part 2, which was broadcast on Thursday, January 9, 2014:

These New Puritans - "Fragment Two"
Bill Callahan - "The Sing"
Bed Rugs - "Yawn"
Disappears - "Power"
Crocodiles - "Heavy Metal Clouds"
Lee Noble - "Covers"
Cough Cool - "Keeping Perfect Time"
Psychic Ills - "Might Take a While"
Black Hearted Brother - "(I Don't Mean To) Wonder"
No Age - "C'Mon, Stimmung"
Bill Orcutt - "Zip A Dee Doo Dah"
Fuzz - "Raise"
Purling Hiss - "Mercury Retrograde"
Teardrop Factory - "Vanity Unfair"
The Sufis - "Most Peculiar Happening Cat"
Jail Weddings - "It's Not Fair"
Milk Music - "I've Got a Wild Feeling"
Implodes - "Scattered in the Wind"
Tim Hecker - "Virginal II"
Akron/Family - "Sand Talk"
Omar Souleyman - "Ya Yumma"
Bass Drum of Death - "Way Out"
Unknown Mortal Orchestra - "Swim and Sleep (Like a Shark)"
Forest Swords - "The Weight of Gold"
Superchunk - "Staying Home"
Polvo - "Light, Raking"
Girls Against Boys - "It's a Diamond Life"
Wire - "Eels Sang"

[No archived audio available.]