The Ledge (mp3)

The summer is the real rock and roll season. From the very beginning of Chuck Berry and our other musical grandfathers, these three months have inspired a ton of great tunes. Since summer officially began just two days ago it was only natural that I bring back that theme for tonight’s broadcast. There are so many songs dedicated to this time of year that I easily put together a playlist that...

This week’s episode is another show consisting of material I’ve been a bit obsessed with around the Hudson compound. The first half is primarily new or new-ish material. The tribute to Justine Covault continues with tracks off the brand new Justine and the Unclean album, The Signal Light, along with new tunes by Lydi Loveless, Kate Redgate, Tommy Stinson’s Cowboys in the Cam...

This week’s show was all set when some tragic news changed a good portion of the broadcast. Yes, there was still the mix of old and new tunes that had been originally planned. But I could not help but make room for a couple of remembrances of fabulous artists who had passed away in recent days. The first death was Jack Lee, who got his start in The Nerves, a band that also featured Paul Coll...

The first Friday of June means we have nothing but new releases on The Ledge, and it’s quite the lineup tonight. There are artists from all over the world, ranging from just a mile or so from my home (Thought Patrol) to Germany (Hamburg Ramones, Berlin Blackouts), with additional stops in Italy, Norway, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries). There’s the return of a ton of...

“Shambolic” maybe an overused word when it comes to my favorite band, The Replacements, but it’s an apt term for tonight’s show. Or at least the first ten minutes. Yes, it’s a mini-disaster. After airing this week’s selection for the “52 Weeks of Teenage Kicks” series by The Vibrators, I talked about the fact that you can now purchase the version I w...

When I conceived the “52 Weeks of Teenage Kicks” project late last year one of the first things I did was to contact artists that I considered friends of the show. I’ve been blessed over the years to have some wonderful musicians regularly send me their latest projects. One of those friends was Jeremy Porter, leader of Jeremy Porter & The Tucos. For almost the entire time I’ve been producing T...

After last week’s special Record Store Day edition of the monthly “new release” show, we’re back this week with the more traditional type of broadcast devoted to brand new tunes. And, like usual, we’re all over the place when it comes to genres. There’s some great power pop. There’s a little bit of punk. A tad here and there of garage rock. And, yes, there...

Thanks to last week’s unseasonably chilly weather, I found myself hooking up a turntable to my podcast mixer. Over the course of the next few hours I dgitized the pile of records I had picked up on Record Store Day a few weeks ago. (Why do they no longer include download codes?) Once finished, I decided that this wonderful pile of music deserved it’s own show, and since the start of ev...

Tonight unveils a new sort of theme for a Ledge episode – Twofers! Everybody loves a twofer deal at the bar, so why not transfer the idea to rock and roll. (Yeah yeah yeah, I know radio stations have done this for decades. But it’s new to The Ledge!) The inspiration was a handful of great records that I’ve been paying a lot of attention to in the last few days. Last Saturday, for...

This week is another show devoted primarily to music I’ve been listening to around the house. The first half is dominated by new tracks recently sent to me by various labels, and sometimes the artists themselves. There’s a new tune from Sioux Falls’ own Thought Patrol. There’s Big Stir’s latest projects featuring former Standells leader Tony Valentino. There’s t...

Was 1988 a good year? Well…it wasn’t if you followed mainstream culture. But that’s a given in each and every year. If you didn’t participate in that sort of nonsense, 1988 was a fabulous year. The great years in music is always the year or two before the mainstream discovers a new trend, and 1988 is that sort of year. Alternative, punk, and indie were creeping up the chart...

Here we are with another new release episode. Just over two hours of brand new tunes that everybody should check out. A little bit of garage rock, quite a bit of power pop, and a few other genres mixed in for fun. As for the “52 Weeks of Teenage Kicks”, I do have a brand new entry but it’s not actually a submission. Last week, The Waco Brothers put out a fabulous new record, The...

As this is the last show of the first quarter of 2023, and even airing on the last day of the month, it’s only natural that we take a look back at some of the stunning new records released so far thsi year. It has been quite a year, especialy if you are a fan of guitar-driven music. Power pop, in particular, has made a great comeback this year, highlighted by the likes of The Whiffs, Local D...

Just like last week, this episode is primarily based around what I’ve been listening to in the Ledge home base over the last few days. Some of it is brand new material. Much of it has been old faves that span almost 60 years of great rock and roll. Overall, though, this show is primarily a showcase for old and new power pop. In the new category, there are fabulous new tracks by The Whiffs, S...

This is another of those shows that really has no format. It’s pretty much a rundown of the music I’ve been listening to around the house the last couple of weeks. There’s some great reissued vinyl by Thee Headcoats, Beat Happening, Bottle Rockets, and others. There’s old faves pulled out of the stacks by the likes of Jason and the Scorchers, Hypstrz, Curtiss A, and (shocki...

The second part of this month’s new release series sees no drop off from last week’s extravaganza. In fact, it makes the case that 2023 is shaping up to be yet another great year of music. There are long-awaited returns by The Reverend Horton Heat, Chickasaw Mud Puppies, Cheater Slicks, and Shonen Knife. There are great new bands such as Civic,  Strange Neighbors, and The Circulat...

Once again, there is so much great new music coming out that this month’s new release show is forced to be split into two separate episodes. Tonight’s first part not only features the usual great tunes from labels such as Rum Bar Records and Big Stir Records, but is highlighted by an extended set from a record that will undoubtedly end up towards the top of my best recor...

It’s always shocking when you stumble upon tweets or articles noting the anniversary of beloved albums. You can’t help but wonder how something that seems like it came out yesterday is actually…well, old! That’s the case with tonight’s show. Every single song you hear is 25 years old. It’s just insane to me that some of my favorite Americana (Son Volt, Golden Sm...

This week’s show is once again a mix of old and new. There’s quite a few brand new releases highlighted, accompanied by quite a few records that I’ve found myself playing in my free time.  Which leads me to a question to my lovely listeners. For as long as I’ve done the show, the presence of “themes” has been a constant. Honestly, that’s how my brain...

Once again we have a show devoted primarily to material I’ve been listening to around the house. Honestly, since it was announced that Television’s Tom Verlaine had passed away on January 28, 2023, I have wanted to do a little tribute to him on The Ledge. So tonight you can hear a handful of his classic Television and solo tunes. RIP. There’s also a wide variety of tunes that com...

Everybody knows the drill by now. The first Friday of the month means it’s new release night at The Ledge headquarters (aka my bedroom). Somewhat weirdly, though, is that this February episode is technically the first new release show of the year. But that’s due to the Teenage Kicks subtheme necessitating a December 30 airing of the January new release show. Make sense? Speaking of &#8...

Every now and then it’s nice to have a show without any real theme, and that’s what we have tonight. Instead, it’s really just a collection of records I’ve been listening to over the last few weeks, and interesting collection of various genres that represent over 50 years of great rock and roll. There’s a handful of recent releases side by side with all time classics....

With my brain focused on “Teenage Kicks” covers these days, it seems natural for me to put together another show of nothing but covers of classics tunes from the past. And tonight’s show could not have been timed better, as today Kepi Ghoulie of the Groovie Ghoulies put our a fabulous covers record, Full Moon Forever. Plus I’ve uncovered a number of other great new remakes...

I have to admit that tonight’s show made me feel like an old man. Sure, I’ve done shows devoted to individual years on a regular basis, but I’ve fully understood that the songs featured on a broadcast like last week’s 1978 tribute were nostalgic looks at the past. But tonight’s show featuring (almost) nothing but tunes from 1993 didn’t feel like a nostalgia trip...

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been hinting that I’ll be starting 2023 with a big announcement. Well, tonight’s the night! In my eyes, “Teenage Kicks” is a perfect pop song; the greatest punk-inspired single of all time. Two minutes and 27 seconds of rock and roll at its finest. The sentiments are the same youthful expressions of the original rock and roll explosion of the 1...