Where else did she get these ideas from?ĬARLSON: Her whole life was music. This also got me thinking - how did Deirdre learn about these independent artists? You said she was traveling and, like, finding records. There's such community and, like, closeness in that example. THE BLUE AEROPLANES: (Singing) Send instructions. And she thought he was always saying, send instructions.ĬARLSON: And so when The Blue Aeroplanes played that song, he changed the lyrics to Deirdre's version. And there's a line in a song where he says, bring structures. (SOUNDBITE OF BLUE AEROPLANES SONG, "AND STONES")ĬARLSON: There was a band called The Blue Aeroplanes, which is also one of my favorites, and their full-on electric session was like, an event.ĬARLSON: Deirdre used to mishear the lyrics. And so she would bring them back and play them here when they weren't even out yet. You would hear things you couldn't hear anywhere else because Deirdre - you know, she would take trips to London and Dublin and - just to buy records. 'Cause, you know, now, where you can basically hear any song you want to hear ever, at any time, here, you would discover things. NADWORNY: There are also less well-known artists - like groups that Deirdre made famous because of the show, with her community, but never really made it kind of, like, mainstream into big pop.ĬARLSON: Yeah, I mean, and that's, again, you know, a different era. WEISKOPF: And there's a version of her song "Undertow," in particular, that I think is really just ravishing. VEGA: (Singing) I am friend to the undertow. I mean, she had this really mystical, kind of understated sound that was really, you know, I mean, entirely unique in a lot of ways. And, you know, early Suzanne Vega was really kind of a spectral presence. WEISKOPF: Her record hadn't even come out yet. SUZANNE VEGA: (Singing) I believe right now, if I could, I would swallow you whole. WEISKOPF: I'm going to choose one that, I guess, maybe, falls more in the publicity tour end of things, but it's - Suzanne Vega came in for her second-ever radio appearance anywhere in the world. UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST #2: (Singing) "Well, I'm going to tell you how it's going to be." Almost off the top of their head, they're coming up with what they're going to play next - just as they go, almost - even, like, creating sort of medleys on the fly. One that comes off the top of my head is the Meat Puppets.ĬARLSON: One of the performances that you can hear online is them just going through a bunch of stuff.
So we invited Mike and Bob to come and tell us about some of their favorite finds.ĬARLSON: The ones that I remember are the ones that where people come in and they try something new. NADWORNY: KCRW is about to release more than 50 of these remastered live performances to the public. You were part of this, you know, living room party with some of the coolest bands in the world. It was a scene there in the studio as much as, you know, a radio program. Bob Carlson was the studio engineer for a lot of those late-night performances.īOB CARLSON, BYLINE: It almost felt a little bit like the adults had left, and now it was time to have this party. NADWORNY: Some of those artists were or were soon to be big names, like R.E.M., Meat Puppets, Tom Waits and Sarah McLaughlin. WEISKOPF: She was very devoted to underground music - music that hadn't, at that point, received a wide exposure, if any exposure at all. NADWORNY: SNAP! often brought in bands to play live in the studio. UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST #1: 'Cause I sound - I'm really rubbish. UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST #1: But don't turn me guitar up too loud. UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST #1: And I'm going to be singing quite loud. Now what I need you to do - we have to do a little on-air sound check here. He has spent the last few years, along with KCRW producer Bob Carlson, digitizing and remastering recordings of Deirdre's shows. NADWORNY: That's KCRW producer Myke Dodge Weiskopf. MYKE DODGE WEISKOPF, BYLINE: Deirdre would describe herself in SNAP! as playing, quote, "new, unusual, imaginative, inventive and bent music."
NADWORNY: Before streaming, before the internet, Deirdre O'Donoghue hosted a popular late-night radio show on member station KCRW in Southern California back in the '80s and early '90s. I'll be your host once you pour yourself a drink and think about dancing. Our next story is about an influential radio deejay that you've probably never heard of.ĭEIRDRE O'DONOGHUE: Hello.
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