2020-2021 winter stage mix
2020-2021 fall stage mix
2019-2020 summer stage mix
2019-2020 spring stage mix (yeah, i forgot winter)
2019-2020 fall stage mix
2018-2019 summer stage mix
2018-2019 Spring stage mix
2018-2019 WINTER Stage mix
2018-2019 Fall Stage mix
2017-2018 summer stage mix
2017-2018 Spring Stage Mix
2017-2018 Winter Stage Mix
2017-2018 FALL STAGE MIX
It's not exactly Later...with Jools Holland, but it's my own show kinda.
2016-2017 SUMMER STAGE MIX
2016-2017 SPRING STAGE MIX
2016-2017 WINTER Stage mix
2016-2017 FALL STAGE MIX
2015-2016 Summer stage mix
2015-2016 Spring stage mix
For this year’s spring stage mix, I’ve brought in a special guest curator/DJ. He could probably run the 4SOH course faster than I can ride it.
In this rare, archival photo you will notice 1) Beet Juice (left) rocking a single speed all those years ago and 2) Brian rocking early 35080 style via butt cut and sleeveless T.
He counts Mountain Dew, Ramen and beef jerky (“meat gum”) among those few foodstuffs that don’t cause him GI distress at whatever mile it is when it’s dark again. He has started the Leadville 100 Trail Race 10 times and finished all 10 times. Let that sink in. He can keep an orange in the air for long periods of time using only the backs of his hands. He once threw a golf cart into a quite-audible skid on the back 9. He once bandaged his own head because the staff on duty at the hospital were inept. He has weird tattoos that I’m guessing mean something. The music he’s chosen for you makes up the area outside the football of our music’s Venn diagram. He’s known yours truly since we were 7…ladies and gentleman, all the way from the Southern Empire town of Chattanooga, TN, the musical stylings of Rock/Creek Race Team's Brian Costilow.
So if you run or whatever, you can follow Brian and his ultraperambulations on Twitter here or Instagram here.
2015-2016 Winter Stage Mix
I just finished reading Marlon James's Brief History of Seven Killings and was inspired to dig up some of my favorite rocky steady/reggae tunes for the Winter Stage Mix. The book, which centers around the assassination attempt of Bob Marley in 1976, just won the Man Booker Prize. The mix is unapologetically heavy on the Lee Perry and the Upsetters. Enjoy.
2015-2016 Fall Stage MIx
No themes for this stage's installment, just some good tunes by bands that I seem to "discover" long after they have made it big or flamed out. I am the Christopher Columbus of music.
2014-2015 SUMMER STAGE MIX
Three months between stages and mixes is a lot of time to think about what to unleash on those not asking for anything but I have to say the summer stage is a no brainer. This summer marks the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead. I am an unabashed Deadhead and it seems like you either loath them or like them. My wife actually grew up in Mill Valley, CA and went to one Grateful Dead concert....to see opening act Tracy Chapman and then left.
This article in The New Yorker by Nick Paumgarten a few years back is probably the best I've seen at trying to explain the phenomena.
While the mix below does have a lot of songs I like, I tried to go for some of the more obscure and very early ones. There is nothing here after 1978. Unfortunately, a lot of the video has some truly awful "psychedelic" imagery/editing so just minimize the thing and listen if you can't take it. I know they are not everyone's cup of tea but they are the soundtrack to some pretty formative years for me.
If you just can't take it or would rather celebrate a 60th anniversary, then I'd invite you to check out Glenn Gould's 1955 recording of JS Bach's Goldberg Variations - BWV988 (more BJ symmetry!). You don't have to like piano or Bach to appreciate this nutty Canadian's brilliance. Gould re-recorded (including video) it in 1981 and the ludicrous Variation #5 is below.
2014-2015 Spring Stage Mix
Based on the last few mixes, you might find it hard to believe that Beet Juice is a clawhammer BanJo player (more BJ symmetry!). For the spring mix I thought I'd offer all you banjo troglodytes out there a bit of a primer on this great American (via Africa and the Caribbean yes but we get to claim that 5th string) instrument's history. If this stuff doesn't have you smiling up Southridge, you're insides are probably dead.
You'll find the low plunking of fretless minstrelsy, the eccentric two-finger Peagram style, shit-kicking banjo/fiddle combos, the funk of Dan Gellert that would make George Clinton smile, the rollicking tune Half Past Four which is supposedly, and inconceivably given how happy it is, the hour the composer Ed Haley's first born son died in childbirth, the greatest stringband, the Freighthoppers, I've ever seen live and the spikey-haired genius of Adam Hurt. I end on some 3 finger Scruggs-style including Bill Keith and his melodic banjo revolution, which isn't clawhammer, but whatever. For a great history from someone who actually knows what they are talking about, check this out. I left out the early 19th century parlor music (aka Classic banjo) because, well, I don't like it.
And lastly, for something really awesome, check out the photos of the banjo my dad made me starting with a log. Thanks Pa!
It's gonna be a great Spring Stage!