The Mosher Pit

Not an 80s set! Been broadening my horizons lately, and these are some relatively new tunes (modern alternative, I think) I’ve been digging of late, put together into a somewhat coherent set. Enjoy!

Posted in Music, Playlists by: Helen
No Comments

Since I’m lame and don’t have a rig anymore, I have to resort to social music sets to get my earbugs out. I love blip.fm — it’s the service I use to embed a tune on the top-right corner of my blog. I haven’t been using playlist.com as much, but that’s more a function of not being in myspace so much ever since most of my missed connections are now on Facebook.

However, I have to dismantle old playlists on blip before I can put together a new one, and since I’ve had a request to restore my Cellar Door set to the current one (those crazy high school friends I’m back in touch with!) I really want to archive the set I chose for my apocalypse party, in case I ever have a chance to spin it real time.

So, without further ado, Helcat’s economic meltdown party from Sept. 16. Actually, it’s been a month, about frigging time for me to post a new one!

Until The End Of The World – U2
It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) – R.E.M.
1999 – Prince
Love Shack – B-52s
Groove Is In The Heart – Dee Lite
Love Is Noise (DM/DS Death and Glory Mix – The Verve
No One Lives Forever – Oingo Boingo
Til The End Of Time – DeVotchka
Once In A Lifetime – Wolfsheim
What You Feel – The Cast Of Buffy The Vampire Slayer
True Faith – New Order | play
Welcome Tomorrow – Love and Rockets
All Tomorrow’s Parties – Bryan Ferry
Come Tomorrow – Chicane
Ordinary World – Simon Le Bon & Pavarotti
Save a Prayer – Duran Duran
Let the Day Begin – The Call
Final Man – Covenant
Dead Man’s Party – Oingo Boingo
All You Zombies – The Hooters
Somnambulistic – Information Society
I will survive – Cake

My favorite discovery during this was Come Tomorrow, by Chicane, typically known for being an ibiza trance act. While you can hear the trance influence in the music, it’s considerably more organic.

Join me any time on blip at http://blip.fm/djhelcat!

Posted in 80s, Blip.fm, Music by: Helen
No Comments

Light. Lifting. Toe-tapping in the most unsung-hero kind of way. That’s how we felt last weekend in Annapolis when we ran across Laura Brino playing outside an art gallery at the annual Fall Festival there. The lovely thing about Music from the Streets, or my Found Music series as I call it on YouTube, is that is the randomness of discovery that makes this what it is. But it’s now officially a series, and I’m really delighted to bring you this piece from one of Annapolis’ own. Sorry for the abrupt ending — I like to include a short interview when I can but my batteries were low (and my iPhone seems determined to make a cameo in the bottom of the screen). So, without further ado, enjoy the jazz-indie-folksy stylings of Ms. Brino here:

Learn more about her music at laurabrino.com.

Posted in Music, Music from the Streets by: Helen
No Comments

I’m really happy to announce that I’ll be collaborating with Mark Clay in the near future to actually put out some live music again. Good chance that we’ll produce some originals, too, as we both are songwriters. But we’ll also be putting our imprint on some music from the 80s.

Posted in Music by: Helen
No Comments

Usually, among my faithy colleagues, I’m the early adopter for most new toys. Being a DJ in my former life, it’s hard to let the control go, so I’d never given Pandora a look until the Very Rev. Nick Knisely, who’s oh-so-very VERY (heh, had to!) asked me why I hadn’t told him about its musicky goodness. I was caught clueless, and sheepish. See, I use Playlist.com to build embeddable playlists, Blip.fm to microblog my various earworms, iLike.com (via Facebook) to get updates from bands I like, and Last.fm to explore music (and I still use gnod, so there). So, I really didn’t think I needed another music tagging service to keep track of.

Nick+ had mentioned Pandora had iPhone integration so I decided to give it a whirl. Oh, Lord. See, I’m a woman of many genres, and finally I have a way to broadcast all of them on separate channels, tune into whichever I want, and share the results in all their crazy mishmoshedness.

So far I’ve set up Radio Helcat 80s, Radio Helcat Industrial, Radio Helcat Bluegrass and Radio Helcat Modern. And I’m quite sure I’m going to have to set up a Baroque channel, a movie score channel, and .. hmm. Eventually they’re going to have to cut me off.

But they, like every other social music service, totally lack any songs by Modern English other than that one we shall not name. That’s going to be the barometer, for me, of how fabulous a service is, because I will not rest until “Someone’s Calling” gets the love it deserves. (And for that matter, becomes my ring tone.)

Posted in 80s, Bluegrass, Goth/Industrial, Music, Social Media by: Helen
1 Comment

Now that I have a Flip camera, one of the ways I’m most empowered to share things I discover with you is through video. Now, I’ve always been a journalist of the writerly kind, so this kind of media is a bit new to me, but I think I’ve got a strong first entry for you: a bluegrass band called Bear Down Easy. According to their MySpace page:

Bear Down Easy was forged in October of 2006 by five ambitious musicians eager to explore the realms of acoustic music. Our original members included Cole Sigmon on bass, Lucas Nelson on lead guitar and banjo, Andy Burke on mandolin, Paul Stroebel on fiddle, and Ian Mulrenin on guitar. When our talented bassist skipped town to work on a fishing boat, his position was quickly filled by Jonah Freedman. As such, our original vision remains, combining original tunes with traditional bluegrass, folk, gospel, and blues. Bear Down Easy lives and performs in Asheville, NC and looks forward to taking its act on the road in the future.

So not only am I a come-lately fan of bluegrass (in the past 2-3 years), I’m well-connected in the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, and our bishop has a real love of bluegrass, and while I missed his bluegrass festival this year, I’m going to be sure to tag this in such a way that hopefully he’ll check this out, and lots of other folks will as well. Because even though my specialty is 80s alternative music, I loves me some bluegrass when I’m in country girl mode. This song is called “I Never Got My Dear John” (with an “allrighty” from your truly). We’re standing in front of an office building on Haywood Ave. in Asheville, where the band had set up to play an evening set, and Chris and I wandered up and… welllll…….quite the crowd gathered round by the end.

So, without further ado, a new feature here at helenmosher.com: music from the streets, with Bear Down Easy:

Posted in Bluegrass, Diocese of Virginia, Music, Music from the Streets, North Carolina, Out and About by: Helen
2 Comments

I haven’t been able to take a decent road trip in a long time. I spend so much of my “vacation” downtime in Philadelphia that even the backchannel routes I take to get there are becoming overly familiar. In those cases, it’s easy to take for granted the journey, especially when the destination has so much energy.

I’m presently in semirural North Carolina, just far enough outside of Charlotte, talking up all our creative pieces. from Etsy and knitting to comedy to public speaking and radio broadcasting with Xiane. I’m here while my son is hanging out in Chapel Hill with his friend.

It’s great hanging out with another retired DJ who’s contemplating going back behind the decks in a virtual environment. I just wish I had a better mixer than i-Tunes at the moment. While my focus remains primarily 80s alternative music (in fact, I registered http://dontyouforgetabout.me yesterday during the .me domain rush while everyone else was trying to get meme.me and aweso.me and all those other .me puns), I there’s a lot of other music I really love, everything from trip-hop and dub to bluegrass and old-timey. Plus I’ll always be just a touch of gothy punky gothpunk because, well, I am, even if I’m showing up in Good Housekeeping next month.

Oh, yeah, I’m showing up in Good Housekeeping next month, speaking of strange places.

And strange places brings us back to the point of this post: When I go to Philadelphia, the path is well-worn in my memory, soothing and comforting. In particular, some portions of the journey still trigger the memory of my journey out of Virginia in 1999, of learning to walk and fly on my own, and it’s a feeling of victory, of redemption. Those are good feelings, but nostalgic; and the drive to Philadelphia is mostly a chore to get to the only place that loves me as much as I love it.

But random road trips like the one I’m on now, where on a whim I decided to visit a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time (and last night, also on a whim, landing in BeckySays’s living room where we chatted until the sun had nearly gone down), and where every turn brings new discoveries–and I didn’t have the camera out today to catch such gems as the dollar store version of a car dealership where no car is more than $995–it’s trips like this where the journey is the destination, and as such, are the best kind.

Follow me on Utterz for media posts tomorrow as Xiane and I visit Asheville, NC.

Posted in Music, North Carolina, Out and About, Travel by: Helen
2 Comments

This will be a recurring feature in which I take two songs and debate which is the better song. It occurred to me in a twitter moment when I had Bizarre Love Triangle earworming me and it took me a second to parse that it was not my favorite New Order song, which is True Faith. Then it occurred to me that Bizarre Love Triangle is the one with a pop song legacy, while True Faith has gotten shorter shrift.

So in this pop song death match, I think True Faith wins on musical strength. But others might disagree. Curious to see if it gets any Twitter feedback; I’ll keep you posted.

Posted in Music by: Helen
No Comments

Been a while. I really need to get DJ gear and start spinning at unconferences, given the reception these things have been getting among my social media friends. I have several more that I’ve been working on and hope to get to soon, including one of … gasp! current pop music that catches my ear. It does happen from time to time.

Posted in Music, Playlists by: Helen
3 Comments

Enjoy.

Posted in Music, Playlists by: Helen
1 Comment