Some more great WOXY folks out there sporting their gear for the camera, here are a few of our favorites this week.

Message boarder Paul (Euro60) takes his WOXY to Shanghai!

The whole family gets into the act.

Kurt catches Mike for a photo during SXSW.

And be sure to keep the photos coming everyone. Starting very soon we will be giving away a new WOXY t-shirt here on The Futurist for some of our favorite photos! Email them to me, joe@woxy.com…..

Today we dive into another post to give you an inside look at the WOXY.com studios. One of my favorite things about the studio is the large pieces of drywall that bands made their mark on. It’s a tradition for us here to have bands sign or draw or really write whatever before they leave, and we now have three sheets of signatures that are all almost full. The story behind the drywall sheets is that bands would sign the actual walls when the station was in Oxford, OH and since our current space in downtown Cincinnati is not something we own, we brought pieces of drywall for the signatures instead. Today we focus on the sheet for sessions during the dates of October 2004 through September 2005.

Matt Beringer of The National Leaves a fitting Alligator

Neko Case really liked Buster

Not sure who drew this guy, but J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. signed his ass

The Fiery Furnaces self portrait

Joseph Arthur does a signature painting

(more…)

Headlights have made 2 stops to the WOXY.COM Lounge in the past year. They even got to share a pretty special day with us as their second performance at the station was on the day that we relaunched our broadcast thanks to lala.com!

This trio from Champaign, IL are pretty much ALWAYS out on the road and are currently out doing shows with Page France. They’ve got a brand new 7-song EP that is only available at live shows and through Polyvinyl’s website. The disc is called “Keep Your Friends and Loves Close. Keep the City You Call Home Closer.”

The EP features 3 performances from their WOXY.COM Lounge Act sessions including “Lions”, “Tokyo” and “Put Us Back Together Right.”

You can order the “Friends and Loves” EP from Polyvinyl right here!

Headlights get cozy with Buster

And this week here on The Futurist, we will be giving away three copies of the EP! In order to qualify for this giveaway, just leave a thoughtful comment on any Futurist post. It’s that easy. I will begin tracking comments today after this post goes live and will select the winners based on the comments that are left.

Headlights - Put Us Back Together Right (Live On WOXY.com)
Headlights - Live On WOXY.com (full session, May 5, 2006)

There isn’t a whole lot I can say about Yo La Tengo that has not already been said. The band has an incredible 12 full length albums under their belt and are indie rock legends. One of the most impressive things is that the band seems to get better with age. Their most recent album, I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass is not only really fun to say but is one of their strongest records to date. So it would be a bit of an understatement to say that we are excited to welcome them into the lounge today. I’ll use the quote from the news item Mike posted related to today’s session to sum things up.

Sometimes we’re able to schedule Lounge Acts weeks in advance and sometimes discussions go right down to the wire before we can make an appearance happen. This is definitely a case of the latter…. We’re happy to announce that Yo La Tengo will be stopping by the Lounge this (Monday) afternoon for a live session at around 2:45pm EDT. Don’t miss this one!

Agreed, this one is not to be missed…….

Yo La Tengo - Beanbag Chair

Much has been said in the past couple months regarding the Internet Radio Royalty decision that was announced and how it could affect WOXY.com. We have been sought out by some media outlets as a result and I wanted to highlight two of those today here on The Futurist.

The Digital Savant himself, Bryan Jay did an interview with the Dayton Daily News recently. You can find the article here.

“We do think artists should be compensated for their work,” said Miller, a Dayton native. “But you could go from collecting some royalties now to collecting no royalties, because you just killed off the whole industry.”

And this from a Wall Street Journal article from last month gives a more in-depth look. You will need to login to view the entire article, but I have some quotes below.

“The annual cost of running WOXY could more than double to around $2 million, far exceeding the station’s $500,000 to $1 million in annual revenue. The board’s decision could still be appealed or rescinded by Congress, but WOXY manager Bryan Jay Miller says, “I don’t see the situation getting any better.”

“Sue Busch, head of radio promotions at Seattle’s Sub Pop Records, says most radio executives she knows rarely play new, independent music, relying on business consultants to tell them which songs are likely to be most popular. The WOXY DJs, she says, play songs they enjoy themselves.”

There are also brief WOXY mentions in recent editions of The Observer, and The Washington Post. See WOXY in the news? Send me an email at joe@woxy.com with a link and I will be sure to credit you here if we mention the article.

Portland’s 31Knots just released their 5th full-length album, “The Days And Nights Of Everywhere Anywhere”, which is their 2nd album for our friends at Polyvinyl Records.

Just a few weeks before launching an extensive European tour, the band stopped into the Lounge for a blistering performance of 3 tracks off the new record. You’ll also hear “Chain Reaction”, a choice cut from their previous album “Talk Like Blood”.

Track Listing:
Savage Boutique
Sanctify
- interview -
Chain Reaction
Beauty

Check out the entire photoset here.

31 Knots - Sanctify (Live On WOXY.com)

31 Knots - Savage Boutique (Live On WOXY.com)

31 Knots - Live On WOXY.com (full session)

Another week, another slew of good music that has zoomed through our hands here at The Futurist. Here are our respective choices for the week of April 13th.

Mike Taylor - Joan As Police Woman - “Real Life”, from the CD Real Life

Joan Wasser is a talented multi-instrumentalist who used to be with 90’s alt-rockers the Dambuilders prior to becoming an in-demand musician, playing with the likes of Joseph Arthur, among others. In fact, she played with him during one of our earliest Lounge Act sessions in November 2004, signing our autograph wall JOAN AS POLICE WOMAN, giving us an indication that she wasn’t planning to stay in the background for long.

Released last year to rapturous reviews overseas, Real Life is the Maine native’s debut full-length, an intimate and candidly personal record that highlights her smoky voice with lyrics that lay it all out there. On the title cut, she implores her desired to match her intentions:

It’s true what they say about me
That I’m out of my mind but I think that you like it
So take the chance
Be reckless with me

Guests include Arthur and recent Mercury prize winner Antony Hegarty (of the Johnsons). Real Life will be released in the US on June 12th.

Joan As Police Woman - Real Life

Matt Shiv - The Dead Bodies - “In Heaven, We All Are”, from the CD Mr. Spookhouses Pink House.

Groups like Canada, The High Strung and Mason Proper have been representing the Michigan indie rock scene here on the WOXY airwaves for awhile. I want to introduce you to another great band from the Great Lakes State called The Dead Bodies that we’ve recently started playing. Their new disc is called Mr. Spookhouse’s Pink House and it is one of the most original albums to cross my desk in some time. This song would fit in on the soundtrack to a David Lynch movie. I don’t know if the guys in the band are fans of his flicks, but something tells me that this track has a little “Eraserhead”
inspiration in it.

The Dead Bodies - In Heaven, We All Are

Joe Long - The Twilight Sad - “That Summer, At Home, I Had Become The Invisible Boy”, from the CD Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters.

There is just something about the way a Scottish accent rolls over top of a song. Especially when that song has a pounding percussion heartbeat, haunting accordian and moving lyrics. This is what you get from the tune with a very long name from The Twilight Sad. “That Summer” begins innocently enough, with soft and reflective lyrics, only to explode in a wave of instrumentation and emotion that begs for repeated listens. The entire album, Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters has a very Mogwai like feel due to the heavy wall of sound and of course, the similar country of origin. But overall, this track stands above the rest for me. The full album will be in stores stateside next week on April 17th.

The Twilight Sad - That Summer, At Home I Had Become The Invisible Boy

Shara Worden, also known as My Brightest Diamond, was kind enough to stop by the WOXY studios last Friday for an early morning “breakfast session” with us. Shara took a break from opening for The Decemberists to be a part of the MusicNOW festival with labelmate Sufjan Stevens. Shara performed two songs from her debut album, “Bring Me The Workhorse” and also treated us to two cover tunes. The first was a Roy Orbison cover of “It’s Over” and the set finished with her rendition of Prince’s “The Beautiful Ones.”

To avoid any legal issues the cover songs are not part of the full session download but are available to hear at the station. So don’t hesitate to request one of them tomorrow during our favorite friday WOXY tradition, “Request The X.”

Track Listing:
Golden Star
- interview -
Freak Out

Check out the entire photoset here.

My Brightest Diamond - Golden Star (Live On WOXY.com)

My Brightest Diamond - Live On WOXY.com (full session)

A couple nice photos today on this Wear Your WOXY Wednesday. Thanks to those that have sent in submissions. Very soon we will be centering a weekly giveaway around WYWW. How about that, it has it’s own acronym! Also, a new WOXY shirt is on it’s way, but if you want to purchase the green “Phoenix” tee, you can do so by following this link.

John, (”Hunta”) with Keith Murray of We Are Scientists

Paul wears his WOXY shirt to work.

Don’t forget, to get your photos here on The Futurist, email me at joe@woxy.com and attach the pics! Thanks to John and Paul for submitting this week!

Another Saturday session to recap today, this one coming from the UK band 65daysofstatic. I think we were all won over after hearing their album, “One Time For All Time” here at the station and it was exciting to learn that they would be a part of our roster of performances while in Austin. The band is getting some excellent exposure overseas and we feel it is only a matter of time before the buzz heightens here in the states as well.

Check out the entire photoset here.

65daysofstatic - When We Were Younger And Better (Live On WOXY.com)
65daysofstatic - The Distant And Mechanised Glow Of Eastern European Dance Parties (Live On WOXY.com)
65daysofstatic - Live On WOXY.com (full session)

Be sure to check out all of our other SXSW session recaps by clicking the logo below.