Episode 11 – “I don’t need to read a horoscope to know you’ll die alone”

Welcome to Songs That Don’t Suck, with your host, Mark Bradbourne.

What’s up everybody? Welcome back to Songs That Don’t Suck. My name is Mark, I am your Gen X Forest Gump, and whether through determination or sheer dumb luck, I am going to lead you to songs that hopefully don’t suck.

A little bit of a format change this week. I’ve got a story to tell here at the beginning, and then I’m going to get into the new music, so hang with me.

I got a chance this weekend to see one of the bands that I featured on a prior episode. The band that I featured was White Reaper. They were rolling through Cleveland. It was a three band bill, and I thought it was a great opportunity to actually see a band that I had discovered through the podcast live and in the flesh.

Great idea.

What I saw of the show was fantastic, so let me explain.

When I showed up to the venue, I realized very quickly that on my keychain, there were no earplugs. I usually have a small case that sits on my keychain that has earplugs in it for when I go to shows or when I find myself in noisy situations. I am someone who marched on drum lines in high school and college, and when we were rehearsing inside, I would wear earplugs because it is deafening. I never wore them at concerts so much until probably around 1995, I went to the Odeon here in Cleveland and saw Dream Theater. The band that was opening was called Big Rec. Great band. Not great music, but I was standing front row center, directly in front of the lead singer slash guitar player’s amp. He had apparently purchased Nigel Tufnell’s amp and had it cranked to 11. After I walked out of that show, I had a raging case of Tinnitus for four days where I could not hear much of anything.

It was pretty scary.

Since then, I’ve been fairly faithful in wearing earplugs to shows. Outdoor shows not so much because the air movement, it’s not as deafening, especially if you’re not right up at the stage. But indoor shows, absolutely, I wear them all the time. That’s why the problem came in. Standing in line realizing I had no earplugs, I had a decision to make. Do I go back to the car and get my earplugs because they were in the car? Or do I risk it? I decided to risk it because I was going to the show alone. I didn’t have anybody to wait in line for me. Like I was going to lose my spot if I left.

So went inside. First band was okay, weren’t too loud. Not really my thing, half listened, kind of like I do for all opening acts. Second band, probably less of my thing, but my Apple Watch decided to let me know that the decibel levels had reached 90 decibels. This is getting into the unsafe area and I’m like, ah, crap. I’m like, as long as it doesn’t go over 90, I probably will be okay, but it’s going to, I’m going to feel it tomorrow. So second band finished waiting for White Reaper to come on stage and it was loud. And by the third song, my watch went off again and it was over 100 decibels. By the end of the fourth song, I made the executive decision that I had to leave. I’m not sure if it’s the venue to blame or the sound engineer or if that’s what the band wanted, but that room is not that big. It does not need that much volume.

So to give you an idea, the World Health Organization says that you should not experience 100 decibels for more than 20 minutes a week. Yeah, 20 minutes a week, but after the fourth song, that was about 15 minutes and I could feel the pressure in my head from the volume. So my guess is it was probably closer to 110 decibels. So unfortunately, I made the decision to leave. Now I will say the four songs that I caught, they were fantastic on stage. I really, really wish that I would have had my earplugs because it would have been fantastic to hear.

Me being disappointed is putting it mildly. Like I hate to walk out of live music and because of something that I did, basically I blame myself for not remembering my earplugs. It’s just sad. So if White Reaper happens to be coming to your town, go see them. They are fantastic. The first two bands, I’m gonna, yeah, I can’t recommend them. They were not my favorite thing, but there you go. Wear your earplugs, kids.

All right, let’s just jump into some new music. Now if this is your first time listening to the show, let me run it down. I listened to a metric ton of songs. Just to 500 songs in a weekend as I get ready for the show. I listened to each one for at least 30 seconds. There is a lot of garbage and I just, after 30 seconds, I’m like, okay, this has not caught my ear. I’m done. The ones that do catch my ear, I add them to a playlist and then I review that for the rest of the weekend and just kind of pick out things that I like and kind of whittle it down trying to get to five and those are the five that end up on the podcast. This week, there’s actually seven. Those two I’ll probably tweet out through the week. So if you aren’t following me on Twitter, now’s a good time to do that.

So the first song this week comes from Nadia Sheik and this is Quiet.

That was Quiet from Nadia Sheik and I’m gonna apologize if I am butchering your name, Nadia, and I love this song. I love the way it starts with that kind of very deep, reverby, you know, almost AM radio quality intro. It’s a nice little effect to bring in the song and just really love her voice and the structure of this. She is very unknown at this point, to be quite honest. Just looking at her Spotify profile, she’s got like 1300 monthly listeners, which most of the bands that I’m finding are generally in the five figures, but I don’t think that’s gonna be the case for long. She’s released a few singles here and there since 2019, but she’s been on some decent stages with some larger bands. I peaked at the song credit. Looks like she is the solo composer and writer, so bravo. And just overall really like the aesthetic of the song. So I hope you dug that.

The next song this week is from Megan Maroney and this song is called Lucky.

That was Lucky from Megan Maroney. I do love a good country song when I can find one. This is a good one. She’s got a really distinctive voice and fairly new to the scene, but she’s got quite a few listeners in looking at her profile as I’m starting to do now through the research portion of what I’m doing for prep. I love the, okay, I’ve never gone back to, actually that’s not true. It’s not a good idea to go back to an ex and there have definitely been nights when I was younger before I was married that you have those moments when you’re three or four drinks in and you’re like, I should call her, don’t, don’t do it, but I love it when a song kind of reminds you of moments in life and you just get that moment where it’s very relatable. So very good stuff from Megan Maroney here. Hope you dug that one.

The next song is from Koritini and this song is called Long Overdue.

That was Koritini with Long Overdue and when I first heard that opening riff, I just kind of blinked and I was like, that is swampy. Like just good, call it Southern Rock, maybe it’s just, I don’t know, just felt really good in the ear. There’s some really tasty musical things happening on that song. The guitar playing is outstanding. And the drummer is doing this disgusting shuffle and it’s so good, so, so very good. I cannot find much about this band, other than the fact they have a French Yahoo account for the band. So I’m assuming they’re from France. That is not where I put them as I was listening to this song, but good on you. That was a good find this week and I’m excited to actually listen to a little bit more. I’ve got quite a few releases out going back to 2007. You don’t see longevity like that very much anymore, so good stuff.

All right, we’ve reached the point in the show where I like to do a little bit of housekeeping. So I’m going to encourage you to like, follow, share, review the podcast. Go ahead and pause it right now if you have to. Read where the stars are and just review it. It helps get more ears on the show and I very much appreciate it. The Monday episode is the full version that has the music embedded. On Wednesday’s episode, it’s pretty much the same content generally, but no music. We call it the Cliff Notes version.

Website, songsthatdontsuck.net, it’s where you can go submit your top five songs. You can see show transcripts and links to all the things.

Social media, the songs that I’ve embedded in the show, like all that stuff can be found there. Speaking of top five, I am currently looking for your top five songs that mention color. You can do one of two things. You can go to the website and fill in the form. You don’t have to put five in. You can put one in and submit it. It’s fine, but I give you options to put five in. Or the other option is if you’re following me on social media, reply to one of the tweets where I’m asking for your songs about color and just let me know what it is. I’ll grab it off there. I’ll put it in my little sheet and at the end of the month, the first episode in April, we will share our springtime playlist that’s all about color. Got some good entries so far, so thanks for those who have submitted and for those who haven’t. What’s up? Let’s go. I’ve been on social media a couple of times. Twitter is kind of where I am. I do post a Facebook and Instagram and every now and then I post a TikTok, but I feel like that’s kind of a waste of time and I’m probably going to stop doing it because TikTok is not my target audience. Like there’s, yeah, I just don’t think they’re there. Maybe I’m wrong. If I’m wrong, tell me I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am.

All right, the fourth song this week comes from the Summer Set and the song is called Under the Influence(r).

That was the Summer Set with Under the Influence(r) and this is not normally something that I get into. I was never big into kind of the emo pop punk kind of thing that happened. This band started back in, well, they got signed in 2008 and they took a hiatus around 2017 and then came back and as I was listening to this song, I was like, oh man, there’s some really like just clever things happening lyrically here that I just really enjoyed. You know, it’s easy to write a song, I think that’s, you know, about how hurt you are about a relationship or the way you’ve been treated, but kind of twisting it just that little bit just makes it a little bit new and refreshing. So I hope you enjoyed that one. They’re going to be in Cleveland next month. So I might take another stab at the Beachland Ballroom and remember my earplugs this time and check out the Summer Set.

The fifth and final track this week, the featured track is from my boys, The Bites. So I featured them a few episodes ago with a song called Do Me a Favor and I fell in love with them. They are back, this is their second single and it’s called Squeeze.

That was The Bites with Squeeze. Squeeze is the title of their forthcoming release, which is coming out in July and it’s probably the most excited I’ve been for new music in a long time. So when I saw the name as I was going through the playlist, I was like, oh yes, the second song, I was tentatively nervous because I love the first one. Do Me a Favor has become a very standard song for me to listen to when I’m driving around. And this one hit and I got the same feeling. I was just like, this is what music has been missing. This is good time rock and roll. There’s a retro feel to it, but it’s not retro. It just feels very, very modern. You know, it’s obviously it’s steeped in kind of the good times that was the 80s, but man, I just love what they are doing. If you feel the same way, please let me know because if I’m on an island on this, I’m going to feel really bad because I just cannot get enough of these guys and I cannot wait until July when this album drops. It’s going to be incredible. So yeah, The Bites, yay, The Bites.

Okay, that is it for this week. Thank you for listening. I appreciate it. Please tell your friends, like, share, review, as always. And we will see you right here next week.

Thanks for listening. Until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck.