Author: Steel Wagstaff

  • Show 16: The Colors of the Rainbow: Blue

    Show 16: The Colors of the Rainbow: Blue

    There are some colors that just demand to be treated and loved on their own. Musically, blue is one of those colors. We didn’t even touch the blues (future show alert), and even left out Miles Davis, but still strung together a pretty compelling hour of music.

  • Show 15: The Colors of the Rainbow: Cool Edition

    Show 15: The Colors of the Rainbow: Cool Edition

    This week’s show featured songs in a generous mood, as their titles came from the GIV segment of the visible spectrum [Green, Indigo, Violet]. We had the same studio problems as the week previous, but here’s a mostly complete Spotify playlist:

  • Show 14: The Colors of the Rainbow: Warm Edition

    Show 14: The Colors of the Rainbow: Warm Edition

    How else can you follow three weeks of LGBTQ music than by moving into the rainbow? In preparing for this show, I learned that Harry Chapin was right: There are so many colors in the rainbow.” We took a look at ROY songs, songs whose titles corresponded to the warm end of that spectrum [Red,…

  • Show 13: LGBTQ Music of the 00’s and 10’s

    Show 13: LGBTQ Music of the 00’s and 10’s

    The theme continued one more week (and could have gone on and on). Great music from LGBTQ artists making compelling sounds largely outside of the commercial mainstream. Part 1: Part 2: http://open.spotify.com/user/steelwagstaff/playlist/5zn9fU2NMaFvZhRHpwyGrG

  • Show 12: LGBTQ Music of the 70’s, 80’s, & 90’s

    Show 12: LGBTQ Music of the 70’s, 80’s, & 90’s

    Carrying on from the previous week, I broke the remaining songs into rough chronological periods. Here’s some amazing music made LGBTQ artists from the 1970s through the 1990s.

  • Show 11: LGBTQ Music, Part 1

    Show 11: LGBTQ Music, Part 1

    I started out thinking I’d just do one show on music made by artists who identified in some way as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgedendered, and/or queer. And then I started listening, and listening, and listening, and couldn’t trim the list down to one brief show. So this is the first part in what ended up…

  • Show 10: Street Musicians, Eccentrics, and Outsiders

    Show 10: Street Musicians, Eccentrics, and Outsiders

    We gave a loving listen to some of the more colorful and under-celebrated figures making sonic stylings in the recent world of music. Part 1: Part 2:

  • Show 9: School Subjects

    Show 9: School Subjects

    To celebrate the beginning of a new school year and welcome thousands of new Badgers to town, we dropped some knowledge on them. We came at them HARD with Skool Subjectz. Pow. Part 1: Part 2:

  • Show 8: Upbeat Summer Music

    Show 8: Upbeat Summer Music

    It was the end of August and we had much to rejoice about. Including these songs.

  • The Objectivists: Carl Rakosi

    I’ve spent the last two weeks getting serious about my dissertation. It’s been two years now since I successfully completed my prelim exams, and I have almost nothing to show for that time, dissertation-wise. It’s tremendously embarrassing, and even a little painful. By getting serious, I mean that I’ve been diving into the primary sources…

  • Show 7: Depression

    Show 7: Depression

    Sometimes we are profoundly sad. We can’t always explain it, or point to a proximate cause. And still, there is music.

  • Show 6: The Konami Code

    Show 6: The Konami Code

    Remember Contra? Remember hurriedly entering the Konami Code [U, U, D, D, L, R, L, R, B, A, B, A, Select, Start] right before the credit screen loaded to get a whole bunch of extra lives? We do. We musically recreated the Konami Code and it was (unsurprisingly) awesome.

  • Show 5: School’s Out!

    Show 5: School’s Out!

    I finished teaching summer school earlier in the day, so we celebrated the end of another semester with this jubilant songs.

  • Show 4: The Year 1968

    Show 4: The Year 1968

    We traveled back in time to 1968 to drink in some of the year’s finest sounds.

  • Show 3: Island Music

    Show 3: Island Music

    We took a musical tour of the world’s islands, from the Caribbean to Southeast Asia. It sounded beautiful.

  • Show 2: Betrayal

    Show 2: Betrayal

    Our second show. Our theme for this week was Betrayal.

  • Show 1: Superstition

    Show 1: Superstition

    This was my first ever show. The theme for the week was Superstition. Enjoy!

  • I’m going to be a radio DJ!

    When I was in 6th grade, and living in Oklahoma, one of the DJs on a local radio station moved into my family’s neighborhood. I think his name was something terrible, something like Jimmy Rocket. I was really pumped, especially when I’d see him pulling his car into the garage every couple of weeks. I…

  • #7: Wedding Clothing

    They say that clothes make the man. Mark Twain concurred, adding helpfully that “Naked people have little or no influence on society.” While nudity is certainly the preferred mode for celebrating a wedding, we decided to conduct that part of the celebration in private and to wear clothing to our wedding and reception. We were pretty…

  • How to Write a Letter to the Editor

    I know I keep writing about Oppen and his letters, but I just can’t help it. Today I was typing up my notes from his mid-60s letters, and remembered a pretty tremendous letter he wrote to Lita Hornick, then the managing editor of Kulchur, in response to Kulchur‘s decision to print “Soirées,” a Felix Pollak poem…