It's the end of another semester. And, in many ways, the end of The Way Out. For personal reasons, we won't be renewing the show for the Spring semester. Meaning that, for the first time in nearly 4 years, The Way Out won't hold a regular weekly slot on WSUM. We'll still be in Madison for at least the next 6 months and we'll drop in for pop-up broadcasts from time to time (follow us on Twitter to get notices about future shows). However, the days of regularly scheduled Way Out broadcasts are over.

For our final proper show, we decided to return to one of our favorite music scenes, the New York no wave movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Here's the playlist for our No Wave (Goodbye) episode, which was broadcast on Sunday, December 13, 2015.

Liquid Liquid - "Cavern"
Suicide - "Cheree"
Teenage Jesus & The Jerks - "The Closet"
Theoretical Girls - "Polytonal"
Massacre - "Legs"
James Chance & The Contortions - "Dish It Out"
Kid Creole & The Coconuts - "Mister Softee"
Bush Tetras - "You Can't Be Funky"
The Lounge Lizards - "Do the Wrong Thing"
Mars - "11,000 Volts"
DNA - "Size"
Lizzy Mercier Descloux - "No Golden Throat"
Certain General - "Back Downtown"
Dark Day - "Arp's Carpet"
Material - "Reduction"
Y Pants - "The Shah Song"
ESG - "Erase You"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

We figured we'd join everyone doing their year-end best-of lists, albeit with a twist... We turned the clock back 30 years and played some of our favorites from 1985.

Here's the playlist for our (Some Of) The Best of 1985 episode, which was broadcast on Sunday, December 6, 2015.

Killing Joke - "Eighties"
The Jesus and Mary Chain - "Never Understand"
The Damned - "Shadow of Love"
The Cure - "Sinking"
New Order - "Sub-Culture"
Beat Happening - "Foggy Eyes"
The Replacements - "Left of the Dial"
Husker Du - "Terms of Psychic Warfare"
Rites of Spring - "For Want Of"
Black Flag - "Drinking and Driving"
Descendents - "Silly Girl"
The Dead Milkmen - "Tiny Town"
The Fall  "Barmy"
Felt - "The Day the Rain Came Down"
The Smiths - "I Want the One I Can't Have"
The Pogues - "A Pair of Brown Eyes"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

Here's the playlist for Part 7 of our Sunday Mornings series, which was broadcast on Sunday, November 22, 2015.

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - "She's Leaving"
Josef K - "Chance Meeting"
The Cure - "Object"
Wire - "Fragile"
Modern English - "Smiles and Laughter"
Swell Maps - "Secret Island"
Gang of Four - "In the Ditch"
Pylon - "Cool"
Subway Sect - "Stop That Girl"
Roxy Music - "2 H.B."
Sparks - "Here in Heaven"
T. Rex - "Metal Guru"
Orange Juice - "Salmon Fishing in New York"
The Psychedelic Furs - "Heartbeat"
Wipers - "When It's Over"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

Here's the playlist for Part 6 of our Sunday Mornings series, which was broadcast on Sunday, November 8, 2015.

Television Personalities - "Very Dark Today"
Big Star - "Thank You Friends"
The Replacements - "Sixteen Blue"
The Gun Club - "Mother of Earth"
Townes Van Zandt - "Tower Song"
The Kinks - "Picture Book (Stereo Version)"
The Byrds - "Goin' Back"
Lee Hazlewood - "I Am a Part"
Leonard Cohen - "There is a War"
Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers - "Affection"
Dead Meadow - "At Her Open Door"
The 90 Day Men - "When Your Luck Runs Out"
Can - "Mary, Mary So Contrary"
Nick Drake - "Sunday"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

Here's the playlist for our Sunday, November 1, 2015, broadcast, which extended our annual Halloween show to a second week.

Angelo Badalamenti - "Twin Peaks Theme"
The Cure - "Fear of Ghosts"
Joy Division - "Dead Souls"
Tones On Tail - "Burning Skies"
The Sisters of Mercy - "Poison Door"
Virgin Prunes - "Pagan Lovesong"
The B-52's - "Planet Claire"
The Fleshtones - "Screaming Skull"
Superchunk - "Night Creatures"
The Gun Club - "Death Party"
The Walker Brothers - "Archangel"
Lydia Lunch - "Spooky"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

Here's the playlist for our annual Halloween show, which was broadcast on Sunday, October 25, 2015.

The Walker Brothers - "The Electrician"
The Cure - "Cold"
The Damned - "The Eighth Day"
Bauhaus - "The Sanity Assassin"
Joy Division - "Day of the Lords"
Siouxsie & The Banshees - "Spellbound"
The Mission - "Serpent's Kiss"
The Sisters of Mercy - "Possession"
Echo & The Bunnymen - "Nocturnal Me"
The Kinks - "Wicked Annabella (Stereo Version)"
X - "Devil Doll"
The Cramps - "What's Behind the Mask"
Rocket From the Crypt - "I Drink Blood"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

Here's the playlist for Part 5 of our Sunday Mornings series, which was broadcast on Sunday, October 18, 2015.

Blur - "Sunday Sunday"
Swell Maps - "Border Country"
Magazine - "Sweetheart Contract"
Josef K - "Heart of Song"
Happy Mondays - "Performance"
The Go-Betweens - "The Sound of Rain"
Tall Dwarfs - "Bob's Yer Uncle"
Television Personalities - "Someone to Share My Life With"
Aztec Camera - "The Boy Wonders"
Devo - "Gut Feeling/(Slap Your Mammy)"
The Modern Lovers - "Modern World"
Mission of Burma - "Einstein's Day"
Liquid Liquid - "Push"
The Au Pairs - "Set-Up"
Lou Reed - "Lady Day"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

Here's the playlist for Part 4 of our Sunday Mornings series, which was broadcast on Sunday, October 11, 2015.

Spiritualized - "Step Into the Breeze"
Loop - "Aphelion"
Love and Rockets - "Haunted When the Minutes Drag"
Wooden Shjips - "Home"
The Warlocks - "So Paranoid"
Galaxie 500 - "When Will You Come Home"
The Cure - "In Your House"
Big Star - "Kangaroo"
Syd Barrett - "Terrapin"
Television Personalities - "I Know Where Syd Barret Lives"
The Brian Jonestown Massacre - "Telegram"
The Black Angels - "Sunday Afternoon"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

Here's the playlist for Part 3 of our Sunday Mornings series, which was broadcast on Sunday, October 4, 2015.

Sonic Youth - "Sunday"
Love - "The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This"
Van Dyke Parks - "Occapella"
John Cale - "Andulucia"
Jonathan Richman - "My Love is a Flower (Just Beginning to Bloom)"
Felt - "There's No Such Thing as Victory"
R.E.M. - "Catapult"
Bedhead - "Haywire"
The Warmers - "Poked it With a Stick"
Swirlies - "Pancake"
The Jesus and Mary Chain - "Down On Me"
Television Personalities - "The Painted Word (Part Two)"
Teenage Fanclub - "Pet Rock"
The Pastels - "Nothing to Be Done"
Pentangle - "A Maid That's Deep in Love"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

Here's the playlist for Part 2 of our Sunday Mornings series, which was broadcast on Sunday, September 27, 2015.

Bert Jansch - "Fresh as a Sweet Sunday Morning"
Soft Machine - "Why Are We Sleeping?"
Television Personalities - "My Very First Nervous Breakdown"
Mercury Rev - "Something for Joey"
Tim Buckley - "Once I Was"
The Byrds - "Everybody's Been Burned"
The Rain Parade - "What's She Done to Your Mind?"
Beachwood Sparks - "Old Manatee"
Serge Gainsbourg - "Sous Le Soleil Exactement"
Pulp - "Babies"
The Church - "Reptile"
The Chameleons - "One Flesh"
Lou Reed - "Turn to Me"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

As we noted last week, the show has moved to Sunday mornings for the Fall 2015 semester. This week we kicked off a new series (if you can even call it that) which will continue for at least the next few weeks. In it, we're mixing together 1960s-70s folk and psych rock with 1980s indie-pop and college rock and 1990s shoegaze, post-rock, and slowcore. We'll surely slip in some other genres and eras from time to time, too. In other words, these'll be much more loosely themed shows than you may expect from us here at The Way Out. Nevertheless, it's all music that we think will make for a nice Sunday morning soundtrack, whether you're just rolling out of bed late, cooking up some breakfast, getting ready for an idle day of football watching, running errands around town, or catching up on email and other work for the week ahead.

Here's the playlist for our Part 1 of our Sunday Mornings series, which was broadcast on Sunday, September 20, 2015.

The Velvet Underground & Nico - "Sunday Morning"
Ride - "Here and Now"
Unwound - "Lifetime Achievement Award"
Fugazi - "Strangelight"
Codeine - "Second Chance"
Scott Walker - "30 Century Man"
Brian Eno - "I'll Come Running"
Can - "Sing Swan Song"
Television - "Glory"
The Verve - "Gravity Grave (Edit)"
The Telescopes - "In Every Sense"
Nick Drake - "One of These Things First"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

The Way Out has moved to Sunday mornings, 9-10 AM CT, for the Fall 2015 semester. Ostensibly, not much about the program will change, except we'll probably focus more heavily on lighter fare. (We're also losing the language protections of the late-night safe harbor hours. So, you know, don't expect any hardcore punk sets any time soon.)

Our first official show in the new time slot was a loosely themed indie-pop set that Diana put together. Here's the playlist for our Sunday, September 13, 2015, broadcast.

Lilys - "Ginger"
Heavenly - "Pet Monkey"
Beat Happening - "Hot Chocolate Boy"
The Pastels - "I Wonder Why"
Television Personalities - "The Painted Word"
Scott & Charlene's Wedding - "Fakin' NYC"
The Loft - "Your Door Shines Like Gold"
McCarthy - "Red Sleeping Beauty"
Close Lobsters - "Just Too Bloody Stupid"
The Field Mice - "Sensitive"
14 Iced Bears - "Falling Backwards"
Echo & The Bunnymen - "Silver"
The Wedding Present - "Corduroy"
Meat Whiplash - "Don't Slip Up"
Comet Gain - "Hideaway"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

Here's the playlist for Part 5 of The Synth Show, which was broadcast on Sunday, September 6, 2015. 

Depeche Mode - "See You"
The Human League - "WXJL Tonight"
Soft Cell - "Soul Inside"
Cabaret Voltaire - "Talking Time"
Tuxedomoon - "59 to 1"
Visage - "Blocks On Blocks"
Fad Gadget - "Luxury"
Ministry - "I Wanted to Tell Her"
Devo - "Red Eye"
The Metronomes - "The World is My Oyster"
Ruins - "Short Wave"
Telex - "Dance to the Music"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

Here's the playlist for the 2-hour set Ambient 2: Music for Studying, which was broadcast on Tuesday, May 12, 2015:

Steve Reich - "Pulses" (Music for 18 Musicians, 1996 revisited version)
Brian Eno - "An Ending (Ascent)"
Tony Scott - "Satori (Enlightenment)"
Paul Horn - "Agra"
Cluster - "Im Suden"
J.D. Emmanuel - "Part I: Attaining Peace"
Don Slepian - "Awakening" (excerpt)
Peter Maunu - "Out of the Red Mist"
Aeoliah - "Tien Fu: Heaven's Gate" (excerpt)
Deuter - "Call of the Unknown"
Steve Roach, Kevin Braheny & Michael Stearns - "Cloud of Promise"
Richard Souther - "The Long Riders"
David Lanz - "Cristofori's Dream"
Constance Demby - "Part II" (Novus Magnificat)
Weather Report - "Morning Lake"

Check out Ambient 1 here.

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

It's final exam week here at UW-Madison. Technically, this show fell on "study day"; the university gives students an entire day off between the last day of classes and the first day of exams. Can you believe that, one whole day to prepare for your exams?! Whatever the case, we figured we'd offer the students some soothing sounds for their study sessions (holy alliteration, Batman!). What started off mostly as a joke - I (Andrew) thought it'd be funny to do a whole set of super chill new-age music - turned into a fairly serious set of classic ambient music from the 1960s-1980s.

Most of this music (though maybe not all of it... I'm looking at you, Michael Jones) is actually very good and well worth your listening attention. I'll spare you my "in defense of new-age" lecture for another time, in part because this set ended up leaning a bit more heavily on electronic, progressive, minimalist, and other ambient music styles that evade the "new-age" tag. (We've got plenty more of this music set aside, so expect an Ambient 2 set in the very near future - that one will likely delve more deeply into the heart of the 1980s new-age music genre/movement.)

By the way, this was our last show of the Spring semester and our last show for awhile in our regular Saturday night slot. We're not able to keep to a normal schedule this summer. But we'll still host some broadcasts over the next few months, they'll just be a bit sporadic - follow our Twitter for announcements about future appearances.

Here's the playlist for the 2-hour set Ambient 1: Music for Studying, which was broadcast on Saturday, May 9, 2015:

Vangelis - "Hymne"
Iasos - "Formentera Sunset Clouds"
Steven Halpern - "3rd Chakra: E"
Patrick O'Hearn - "Malevolent Landscape"
Kitaro - "Silk Road Theme (Shichu No Michi)"
Steve Roach - "Towards the Dream"
Popol Vuh - "Ah!"
Ashra - "Deep Distance"
Tangerine Dream - "Phaedra"
Terry Riley - "Across the Lake of the Ancient Word"
Andreas Vollenweider - "Hall of the Stairs/Hall of the Mosaics (Meeting You)"
Harold Budd & Brian Eno with Daniel Lanois - "Late October"
John Fahey - "View (East from the Top of the Riggs Road B&O Trestle)"
William Ackerman - "The Impending Death of the Virgin Spirit"
Michael Hedges - "Spare Change"
George Winston - "Sea"
Michael Jones - "Morning Mist"
Mark Isham - "Raffles in Rio"
Jean Michel Jarre - "Oxygene (Part II)"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

Here's the playlist for Part 4 of The Synth Show, which was broadcast on Saturday, April 25, 2015. 

The Cure - "The Walk"
Silver Apples - "Oscillations"
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - "Joan of Arc"
Depeche Mode - "Shake the Disease"
Japan - "Quiet Life"
The Human League - "Only After Dark"
Heaven 17 - "The Height of the Fighting"
Cabaret Voltaire - "The Operative"
Soft Cell - "Chips On My Shoulder"
Tom Verlaine - "The Scientist Writes a Letter"
Martin Rev - "Mari"
Wire - "In Vivo"
New Order - "Your Silent Face"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

Here's the playlist for Part 2 of Coldwave (1980s French Post-Punk & Underground Rock), which was broadcast on Saturday, April 18, 2015. 

Martin Dupont - "Just Because"
Exces Nocturne - "L'ennemi"
Opera Multi Steel - "Regret Qui S'Ecaille"
Lucie Cries - "Clara"
Guerre Froide - "La Chanson D'Ian"
Modernes - "Ver L'est"
Les Garcons - "Les Deux Amants"
Act - "Ping Pong"
Polyphonic Size - "Je T'ai Tojours Aimee"
Indochine - "Miss Paramount"
Orchestre Rouge - "Je Cherche Une Drogue (Qui Ne Fait Pas Mal)"
Opera de Nuit - "Invitation"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

Here's the playlist for our Saturday, April 11, 2015, broadcast, which was a loosely themed 1980s-1990s (but mostly 90s) Britpop and U.K. indie-pop show (with a few Kiwi tracks thrown in). 

Hefner - "The Greedy Ugly People"
Television Personalities - "Smashing Time"
The Pastels - "Comin' Through"
Comet Gain - "Movies"
Heavenly - "Pet Monkey"
The Clean - "Beatnik"
The Bats - "Made Up in Blue"
The Pooh Sticks - "Time to Time"
The Soup Dragons - "Slow Things Down"
Supergrass - "Lose It"
Suede - "Moving"
Sultans of Ping F.C. - "You Talk Too Much"
Spare Snare - "As a Matter of Fact"
Adorable - "Still Life"
The Charlottes - "Liar"
The Chills - "Singing in My Sleep"
The Family Cat - "Pass Away"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

Here's the playlist for our Saturday, March 21, 2015, broadcast, which adhered to no particular theme. It's just a good batch of songs for a Saturday night in late March in Wisconsin:

Can - "I'm So Green"
Ride - "Close My Eyes"
Swervedriver - "Duel"
Sonic Youth - "The Sprawl"
Suicide - "Girl"
Moon Duo - "Slow Down Low"
The Brian Jonestown Massacre - "Vacuum Boots"
Bedhead - "Haywire"
Christie Front Drive - "Lot"
Tom Verlaine - "At 4 A.M."
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - "Inside the World of the Blues Explosion"
Destruction Unit - "Slow Death Sounds"

[Archived audio of this show is currently unavailable. Check back soon.]

This episode of our I'm a Rock'n'Roll Star series - the seventh so far - is a little different than most, in that it focuses on a man, Alan McGee, best-known as a record label owner, not a musician. McGee was in fact a musician (pictured above right with his 1980s indie-pop band Biff Bang Pow!) but he made his name as the notorious, outspoken head of the U.K. label Creation Records, which introduced the world to many of the best indie-pop, shoegaze, and Britpop bands of the 1980s and 1990s: The Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride, Felt, The Pastels, Teenage Fanclub, and Oasis, to name but a few.

Here's the playlist for "Alan McGee's Creation Stories: Riots, Raves and Running a Label," which was broadcast on Saturday, March 14, 2015:

Swervedriver - "Red Queen Arms Race"
Biff Bang Pow! - "Love's Going Out of Fashion"
Slaughter Joe - "I'll Follow You Down"
The Loft - "Up the Hill and Down the Slope"
Television Personalities - "Part Time Punks"
The Jesus and Mary Chain - "In a Hole"
My Bloody Valentine - "Feed Me With Your Kiss"
Slowdive - "Slowdive"
Ride - "Drive Blind"
The House of Love - "Destroy the Heart"
Felt - "September Lady"
Teenage Fanclub - "What You Do to Me"
Primal Scream - "Higher Than the Sun"

Here's the playlist for "Kim Gordon's Girl in a Band" - the sixth installment in our I'm a Rock'n'Roll Star series - which was broadcast on Saturday, March 7, 2015:

Sonic Youth - "Shaking Hell"
Theoretical Girls - "You Got Me"
DNA - "Blonde Red Head"
Destroy All Monsters - "Vampire"
Lydia Lunch - "Lazy in Love"
Sonic Youth - "Tunic (Song for Karen)"
Royal Trux - "Up the Sleeve"
Free Kitten - "Revlon Liberation Orchestra"
Big Nils - "Cuba Swag"
Pussy Galore - "Yu Gung"
Ciccone Youth - "Addicted to Love"
Sonic Youth - "Little Trouble Girl"
Body/Head - "Last Mistress"
Public Image Ltd. - "Flowers of Romance"

Here's the playlist for "Alex James's Bit of a Blur" - the fifth installment in our I'm a Rock'n'Roll Star series - which was broadcast on Saturday, February 28, 2015:

Blur - "Go Out"
New Order - "Blue Monday"
The Teardrop Explodes - "Reward"
The Clash - "Bankrobber"
Blur - "Country House"
Oasis - "Roll With It"
Elastica - "Never Here"
The Sugarcubes - "Delicious Demon"
Blur - "Threadneedle Street"
Fat Les - "Vindaloo"
Françoise Hardy - "To the End"
Graham Coxon - "R U Lonely?"
Assembly Line People Program - "Noise Vision 80"

Here's the playlist for "Neville Staple's Original Rude Boy" - the fourth installment in our I'm a Rock'n'Roll Star series - which was broadcast on Saturday, February 14, 2015:

The Specials - "Gangsters"
Desmond Dekker - "Rudy Got Soul"
The Skatalites - "Guns of Navarone"
Ray King Soul Band - "So Tired of Dreamin'"
The Clash - "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais"
Elvis Costello - "Watching the Detectives"
The Specials - "Ghost Town (12" Version)"
The Bodysnatchers - "Let's Do Rock Steady"
The Selecter - "On My Radio"
The (English) Beat - "Ranking Full Stop"
Madness - "The Prince"
The Specials - "Rat Race"
Fun Boy Three - "The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Asylum)"
The Go-Go's - "Our Lips Are Sealed"
The Toasters - "Too Hip to Be Cool"

Here's the playlist for "Iggy Pop's I Need More" - the third installment in our I'm a Rock'n'Roll Star series - which was broadcast on Saturday, February 7, 2015:

The Stooges - "1969"
Harry Partch & Gate 5 Ensemble - "Eleven Instrusions II: Study on Archytas' Enharmonic"
Bob Dylan - "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)"
The Velvet Underground & Nico - "Heroin"
Iggy & The Stooges - "Shake Appeal"
MC5 - "The Human Being Lawnmower"
Alice Cooper - "Reflected"
Destroy All Monsters - "Bored"
Iggy Pop - "Dum Dum Boys"
David Bowie - "TVC 15"
Iggy Pop & James Williamson - "Kill City"
Minutemen - "Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs"

Here's the playlist for "Wolfgang Flur's Kraftwerk: I Was a Robot" - the second installment in our I'm a Rock'n'Roll Star series - which was broadcast on Saturday, January 31, 2015:

Kraftwerk - "The Robots"
The Who - "My Generation"
The Beatles - "Don't Pass Me By"
David Bowie - "Heroes (Single Version)"
Tangerine Dream - "Sunrise in the Third System"
Kraftwerk - "Pocket Calculator"
The Human League - "Only After Dark"
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - "Statues"
Depeche Mode - "Lie to Me"
Cabaret Voltaire - "Spread the Virus"
Kraftwerk - "Showroom Dummies"

For this Spring semester, we've decide to focus on a new themed series that we're calling I'm a Rock'N'Roll Star. The basic premise is that every week we'll take a musician's autobiography or memoir and soundtrack it, playing songs or artists that are central to the author's narrative in some way. (This is similar to the "Rock Lit" series we did a few years ago, where we soundtracked notable books about rock/punk history. That's always been a favorite series of ours, and one that we continue to receive comments and questions about to this day. Eventually we'll get audio of those shows posted to the archives, too.)

Here's the playlist for the first installment in our I'm a Rock'n'Roll Star series, "Peter Hook's Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division," which was broadcast on Saturday, January 24, 2015:

Joy Division - "Warsaw"
Sex Pistols - "No Fun (Live)"
Iggy Pop - "Funtime"
David Bowie - "Warszawa"
Throbbing Gristle - "We Hate You (Little Girls)"
Kraftwerk - "Trans Europe Express"
Joy Division - "Exercise One"
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - "Electricity"
The Buzzcocks - "You Say You Don't Love Me"
The Stranglers - "5 Minutes"
Joy Division - "Digital"
Section 25 - "Girls Don't Count"
New Order - "Ceremony"