After ten years at a National Public Radio station in Chicago, Mike Lidskin returned to California in 1997 and created Twirl Radio, a weekly two hour radio program which features the finest independent music and artists from the rock era. Mike’s on a mission to not “just spin rock music, but to educate listeners about this vital art form.” Indeed, he doesn’t just announce the songs, but gives histories about some of the artists, the albums, and the songs themselves.
You can catch Twirl live each Saturday afternoon, from 4:00 to 6:00 PM PST on Sacramento’s Voice, KUBU 96.5 FM, and archived right here, as well as at http://www.twirlradio.com. If you haven’t headed into your Saturday night with an earful of Twirl, you’re doing it wrong!
Artist | Track | Album
The Orange Peels | Grey Holiday | Sun Moon
Dana Countryman | Cabaret Of Love | Cabaret Of Love
Little Tin Frog | I’m In Pain | The Pain And Pleasure Machine
Edward Rogers | She’s The One | TV Generation
Maxi Dunn | Don’t Look Back | Welcome To Soonville
Michael Simmons | No More Girls | First Days Of Summer
Karen Haglof | Palomino Steady Rocking | Palomino Steady Rocking
Nelson Bragg interview
Nelson Bragg | Forever Days | Day Into Night
Nelson Bragg | She Used To Love Me | We Get What We Want
Nelson Bragg | Baby Let Your Hair Grow Long | We Get What We Want
The Cherry Bluestorms | Make Every Day A Holiday | Single release
Melissa Phillips | Little Pieces | Both Ways
Sunshine Boys | Only A Million Miles | Blue Music
Dara Ackerman | A Million Flowers | Partially True Stories
Tawny Thiele | Happy Together | The Fowl Tone Sampler
The JAC (Featuring The Christmas Crew) | December | Single release
Lannie Flowers | Doin’ Fine | Single release
Sean O’Brien and His Dirty Hands | Sleeping With Me | Mistakes
THIS WEEK’S GUEST:
This week’s show was a real treat. It had been a good while since I’d had Nelson Bragg on the show. A quick check of the Twirl archives showed that it was exactly 6 years ago–to the day–when he was last on! So it seems that we probably had a lot to catch up on since that show of December 8, 2012. And boy, did we ever. We had a wide ranging, freewheeling conversation for the better part of an hour, punctuated with a few of his perfect, melodic pop songs.
Nelson had been the percussionist in Brian Wilson’s band for a lot of years, while at the same time, pursuing his own music career. But leaving the Beach Boys mastermind’s band has not left him without opportunities to travel and make music. He recently toured the UK with Anny Celsi and Duncan Maitland, and has been constantly gigging around Los Angeles. He dropped a massive hint that he’s working on his next record, as well as promoting music by others on his own Steel Derrick Music label. My favorite part of the conversation was Nelson emphatically reminding us how easy and wonderful music discovery is these days–and how easy and important it is to support the artists you like. Both I and several listeners were inspired and moved to action by this. Nelson is truly a music fan first, before anything else. For more info, check out nelsonbragg.com.
We also dug into some of the indie rock ‘n’ roll that’s made 2018 such a banner year, and we even threw in a few of the cooler holiday songs I’ve got in my collection. Enjoy the show!
