The Ledge (mp3)

 I’m sure plenty of veteran Ledge listeners are confused right now. A new release episode at the end of the month? Aren’t those shows scheduled for the first Friday of the month? What’s going on here? Well, here’s the deal. I’ve come up with a sub-theme for 2023. This will be a yearlong theme that will affect every single show, and I have a main theme set up to i...

The annual Ledge holiday special is probably the easiest show of the year to put together…but not for the reasons you probably assume. Yes, it would be a breeze to just cull tracks from the same favorite Christmas albums year after year. Nobody would even notice if I ever repeated a song or two. But I’m thrilled that year after year there is a plethora of new holiday tunes to check out...

Once again, this obsessive mind spent weeks and weeks overthinking this year’s list. Notes were taken. Records were spread out all over the living room. iTunes searches revealed some forgotten gems. But I can once again say that this was a fabulous year for music, as evidenced by this countdown show. Veteran bands made comebacks. New bands made big splashes. Multiple genres revealed new life...

The process of compiling my annual list of the year’s best albums rarely varies. It usually begins in mid-November with a combination of notetaking and mental obsessing. Then over Thanksgiving weekend I begin putting ideas into various categories that I couldn’t even try to explain. Finally, the first couple of weeks of December sees this list finally coming together. As you may expect...

I am proud to present to you the final new release episode of The Ledge of 2022. It’s been quite a year, full of fabulous new punk, power pop, garage, and indie rock. I’m now in the process of creating my “best of 2022” list that will be unveiled in two weeks. Tonight’s episode is truly a wordwide collection, as not only are there fabulous new tunes from the usual Ame...

Last week’s show featured classic power pop tracks from the past. This week, we take a look a the current state of the genre with 40 tracks of fabulous guitar-driven pop music. In fact, the vast majority of these tracks are from 2022, with a handful of tunes from 2021 and 2020. The oldest song of the bunch dates back to 2014, and that tune from The Cry! was selected to be paired with the bra...

On a fairly regular basis I’m asked what type of music I most enjoy. It’s a pretty tough question to answer, to be honest. The standard answer I hear in return is “I love all kinds of music”, which to me is code for “I only like what’s popular”. Sorry, but having a playlist on Spotify that includes both Drake, Meghan Trainor, and Luke Bryan isn’t the...

As always, first Friday means nothing but new releases, and tonight it’s an extended show featuring almost 2 1/2 hours of fabulous new rock and roll. And like always, it’s a wide mix of styles. There are bands that were formed just a few months ago mixed with the returns of legends from the past. There are both supergroups and bands that would probably not be recognized in their home t...

I may say this every year but it is worth repeating. Halloween is the ultimate rock and roll holiday. Like truly great rock and roll, Halloween is dangerous, controversial, and noisy. Religious idiots for decades have claimed both are associated with Satan.  For the most part, tonight’s show is full of new or recently-released Halloween-themed tunes. Many tracks have been released withi...

It’s no secret that I’m a sucker for box sets and other repackages of previously released material. I may be new release oriented, but I love a good set of odds and ends. Give me those unheard demos. Let me hear those old concerts.  Tonight’s show compiles those types of records. There’s unreleased material by a forgotten band that were contemporaries of the New York D...

As I said last week. this is another month where there is so much great new music that it couldn’t be contained to one new release episode. So this is part two of this month’s series, and it’s dominated by veteran artists. Pixies, Off!, Cockney Rejects, Built To Spill, Buzzcocks, and a trio of Irish rock and roll bands (The Mahones, Dropkick Murphys, Flogging Molly). But there ar...

First off, my apologies for now show last week. We had a little issue with our servers so it was impossible to do a show. But we are back this week with our monthly new release episode. Actually it’s the first part of a two part series, and this episode consists of primarily tracks submitted by bands and labels. So please listen to my weekly plea to purchase anything you enjoy during ths sho...

After the success of last month’s series on SST Records, it was only natural that I took a look at doing a similar series featuring another of my favorite record labels of the 80s. I’d actually been thinking about a Twin\Tone Records episode for a long, long time, so why not do it now? Many people think of only bands such as The Replacements, The Suburbs, and Soul Asylum when thinking...

As I have stated quite often during these cover tune broadcasts, I have a special folder where I place remakes as I come across them. Once that folder is full, it’s time to do a show. This time around, that folder grew at a pretty rapid pace. Of course I’m going to air Ultrabomb’s version of “Sonic Reducer”. I don’t think anybody is surprised by the inclusion of...

Once I heard the news of Queen Elizabeth’s death on Thursday morning, I knew I had to dump my planned broadcast for this week. Surely I could put together a show that both celebrates and criticizes not only the monarchy but the entire country. For me, the quintessential British rock band is The Kinks. There may be better bands from that country (name them!) but nobody captures that country l...

You guys all know the drill by now. The first Friday of the month means it’s nothing but new releases! Yes, two hours of nothing but great new tunes, and we jump all over the place from power pop to post punk to garage rock to synth rock to…well, I’ll stop there. Let’s just say there’s a little something for everybody, and there are not only great debut records but, i...

Part two of The Ledge’s look at SST Records focuses on the second half of the 80’s. There are a few big names involved, including Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, Buffalo Tom, and future grunge major label heroes Screaming Trees and Soundgarden. There’s a look at the last few Black Flag albums, along with the Greg Ginn solo project Gone. There are also a few veterans of the music scene...

When I was informed there was a new book about one of my favorite labels of the 80s, I just had to have it. Jim Ruland’s Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records is every bit as great as I hoped. It really tells the controversil tale of not only label founder Greg Ginn, but the entire circus of bands and staffers that ran a label that launched the careers of dozens of legendr...

I may have called part one of this month’s new release series the “friends of the show” episode, but that mentality continues in part two as we have a nice set of tracks from our friends at Big Stir Records. We also have brand new tracks from a new collaboration between Rum Bar Records artists Natalie Sweet and Brad Marino which I’m sure every Ledge listener will love. Ther...

Once again, the wealth of new material being released each and every month “forces” me to expand my new release episode into a two part series. Tonight’s episode focuses primarily on “friends” of the show. Bands that have so nicely regularly sent their new projects to The Ledge. Great labels such as Rum Bar Records, Dirtnap Records, and Stardumb Records. Fabulous Minn...

We may be entering the last month of the summer, but it’s never too late to put together a show of songs about the hottest months of the year. Rock and roll has always had a fondness for the sun, and everything else that goes with the season. So tonight you get nothing but songs about not only the season, but girls, bikes, surfing, and the beach. It’s also almost a complete set of rece...

A few weeks ago, fans of The Replacements noticed that a new live record was starting to appear on vinyl distribution lists. Most at first assumed this was a bootleg, but it turns out tht the Live At Riot Fest Toronto was in fact a legitimate live album. Or sort of, as many rumors starting floating around. Tommy Stinson had reportedly made a deal with a distributor to release it, but som...

Yes, the new release episode was delayed a week this month, but it’s pretty much the same show you would have heard if it was aired in its normal time slot. And, as always, it’s a mix of old and new bands from all over the world. In fact, this one may be a bit more worldly than ever. A twangy Kraftwerk cover from Japan? Yep, that’s The Routes. An Italian Ramone-ish band covering...

When the news broke that swaggering rock and rollers Low Rats were hitting my little city of Sioux Falls I immediately began begging the band to make a stop at my house before the show for a Ledge interview. Although final plans were up in the air until the last minute, lead singer Michael Meyer promised me that he would definitely show up in time for my Friday night broadcast. Unfortunately, I ha...

This show ended up being quite different than originally planned. The initial idea was another “odds and ends” show where I aired tracks from some records that I had been playing around the house. I suddenly realized, however, that I’ve been listening to quite a few compilations in the past few weeks. And that I’ve been digging into the archives quite often for some of my o...