A New Life (TOTR 201)

 The Black Keys – 10 A.M. Automatic “You've got pains/Like an addict/10 A.M. automatic”
 Kings Of Leon – The Bucket “I’ll be in the lobby drinking for two” 
 Green Day – A Little Boy Named Train “I'm always lost and nothing will change/Give me directions and I'll get lost again”
 Green Day – Amy “Now you're too young for the golden age 'Cause the record bin’s been replaced 27 gone without a trace And you walked away from your drink”

 John Mayer – Whiskey, Whiskey, Whiskey “Whiskey, whiskey, whiskey/Wake up, shake it off/And repeat It's just a phase/It's not forever/It's just a phase/But I still might have a ways to go”
 Moon Taxi – Whiskey Sunsets “Drink it in, oh drink it in/Feel the shine upon your skin/Drink it in, oh drink it in/ Get ready for the night to begin/With those.. Whiskey sunsets/An extra pack of cigarettes/I know that I’m gonna be up all night”
 Punch Brothers - Rye Whiskey “Rye whiskey makes the band sound better/Makes your baby cuter/Makes itself taste sweeter/ Oh, boy/Rye whiskey makes your heart beat louder/Makes your voice seem softer/Makes the back room hotter, oh, but/Rye thoughts aren't good thoughts, boys/Have I ever told you about the time I.../Rye whiskey wraps your troubles up/Into a bright blue package/Ties a bow around it/Oh, boy!”  

Jake Bugg – Two Fingers “I drink to remember, I smoke to forget/ Some things to be proud of, some stuff to regret/ Been down some dark alleys in my own head” 
 Ceann – The Need for Mead 
Rodney Crowell – I’m a Mess “God gave me wisdom, but the devil’s got style/I’m a mess/Nothing less/I confess” 
 Lee Ann Womack – Momma’s On a Roll “Momma plus Daddy equals trouble when they start to drink/Me and my sister pouring liquor down the kitchen sink” 

The Deep Dark Woods – The Ballad of Frank Dupree 
 Trampled By Turtles – Codeine “Well you can keep your dusty bottle on your shelf/You can keep your words of wisdom to yourself/I love you darling so/Why can't you let me go” 
 The Dresden Dolls – My Alcoholic Friends “I'm trying hard/Not to be ashamed/Not to know the name/Of who is waking up beside me”
 Barenaked Ladies – Alcohol “Alcohol, would you please forgive me? For while I cannot love myself I’ll use something else” 
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Under The Bridge “I don’t ever wanna feel/Like I did that day” 

 Bruce Springsteen – Rocky Ground “Forty days and nights of rain have washed this land Jesus said the money changers in this temple will not stand Find your flock, get them to higher ground Flood waters rising and we're Caanan bound” 

 U2 – Wake Up Dead Man
 U2 – Hawkmoon 269 
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – Otherside (feat. Fences) 
 Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – Starting Over (feat_ Ben Bridwell of Band of Horses) 
My Morning Jacket – Victory Dance 
Jim James – A New Life 
Fun – Carry On

Mixtape: Hope (TOTR 200)

Sweet Honey In The Rock – Hope

Cold Specks – Restless

Beta Radio – Either Way

Horse Feathers – Belly of June

The Paper Kites – Bloom

Fionn Regan – Be Good Or Be Gone

Passenger – Life’s for the Living

Samantha Crain – Somewhere All the Time

Snow Patrol – Somewhere a Clock Is Ticking

The Cave Singers – Canopy

Robert Hunter  – Franklin’s Tower

Ryan Adams – Oh My Sweet Carolina

Iron & Wine – Sundown

Train – Sunshine On My Shoulders

Michael Franti – The Sound Of Sunshine Going Down

Baz Luhrmann – Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

C2C – Happy featuring Derek Martin

India Arie – There’s Hope

TV On The Radio – Will Do (Xxxchange Dancehall Mix

City and Colour – Hope For Now

Glen Hansard – High Hope

Joseph Arthur – In The Sun

Ed Sheeran – Party to The Son/Sun

Billy Bragg – Do Unto Others

Switchfoot – Only Hope

The Ragbirds –  Moribayassa (I’ll Fly Away)

The 200th show & last LIVE broadcast on WTTU.

Headphone Devotionals (TOTR 199)

All Songs by U2

Twilight

3 Sunrises

Miracle Drug

Crumbs from Your Table

Kite

Bullet the Blue Sky

Running to Stand Still

Wave of Sorrow

Trip Through Your Wires

God, Pt. 2

Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses

The First Time

Zooropa

Drowning Man

Magnificent

Unknown Caller

FEZ-Being Born

Gloria

All Because of You

If God Will Send His Angels

Loose Ends (TOTR 198)

Richie Havens – I’ve Gotta Go

Taj Mahal – Leaving Trunk

Al Green – So You’re Leaving

Aretha Franklin – I Can’t See Myself Leaving You

Otis Redding – I Can’t Turn You Loose

James Brown – Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose

Rebirth Brass Band – (I Feel Like) Busting Loose

Alabama Shakes – Hang Loose

Amos Lee – Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight

Dan Fogelberg – Loose Ends

The Rolling Stones – Let It Loose

Grateful Dead – Loose Lucy

Son Volt – Loose String

My Morning Jacket – Leaving on a Jet Plane

R.E.M. – Turn You Inside-Out

Erick Baker – From the Inside Out

Cat Stevens – The First Cut Is The Deepest

Waylon Jennings – I’ve Been A Long Time Leaving (But I’ll Be A Long Time Gone)

Everybodyfields – Leaving Today

Steve Earle & The Dukes (& Duchesses) – Down The Road Pt II

The Cave Singers – At The Cut

Paul McCartney – Cut Me Some Slack

Iron and Wine – Free Until They Cut Me Down

Time Sawyer – Cut Loose

Lord Huron – Ends Of The Earth

Kings Of Leon – The End

The Doors – The End

Longer (TOTR 197)

Of Monsters and Men – Slow And Steady

Van Morrison – Slim Slow Slider

The Lumineers – Slow It Down

Erick Baker – Slow the World Down

Dawes – Stories Don’t End

The Dirty Guv’nahs – The Country

Brandi Carlile – Take Me Home, Country Roads

Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors – Tennessee

Jake Bugg – Broken

Bob Dylan – Slow Train

Ray Charles – The Long and Winding Road

Al Green – As Long As We’re Together

Dire Straits – How Long

Crosby, Stills & Nash – Long Time Gone

Doobie Brothers – Long Train Runnin’

Dave Perkins – Long Eleven Road

The Band – Long Distance Operator

Casey Neill – Long March of the Exiles

Dr. Dog – How Long Must I Wait

Andrew Bird – Too Long

Bonnie Raitt – Too Long At The Fair

Dan Fogelberg – Longer

Billy Joel – The Longest Time

Supertramp – Take The Long Way Home

"We Are The Revolution": Get to the Backdoor Playhouse for Marat/Sade (but please don't sit in the front row)

The spring production this year at Tennessee Tech’s Backdoor Playhouse under the direction of Mark Harry Creter leans towards the loony agitprop of the avant-garde. Creter seems to have devised a rotation, alternating classic, cheesy, crowd-pleasers with dark, message-oriented downers that really let the fringe-flag fly!

This year the pendulum swung too far into the perverse and absurdist territory, as though the ghosts of modernism have crawled from the 20^th century into our postmodern present to push all our buttons and bomb our comfort zones. 

They’re doing Marat/Sade by Peter Weiss (it has a longer, wordy, more pretentious title, too), and both metaphorically, suggestively, and somehow literally, the lunatics appear to be running the asylum. It's no accident that Technical Director Colin Forsyth put a cage around the stage. Things are just that weird. 

Taking place inside an asylum, accentuated by the metal bars that separate the cast from the crowd, this play attacks the senses from start to finish. In the minutes building up to curtain time, inmates appear to lounge and fidget on the stage while some ambient Sigur Ros pipes through the theater speakers. A foreboding door at the back of the stage must open to let the rest of the cast in, making an obnoxious cranky sound.

About this time, you’re wondering why you’ve wasted 2 hours of your time and perhaps twelve dollars, too. For the rest of the night, you’ll be verbally assaulted by local acting sensations Andy Davis, David Davidson, and Josh Rapp. Only the younger Rapp (as The Herald) is fully-dressed, looking like someone who has spent too much time watching Moonrise Kingdom or Time Bandits.  

Davis as Jean Paul Marat and Davidson as the Marquis de Sade duel half-naked,  hurling rhetorical barbs and verbal violence that unpack the true meanings and social criticisms of the play. Both are such fiercely capable actors and deeply creative individuals that you can really feel them indulge themselves and us with these roles, even as you wish they were a little more covered up.

There’s absolutely nothing respectable and plenty offensive and off-putting about the script. The cast’s delivery of the questionable material contains some comic relief, more than welcome given the generally chaotic macabre of the whole miserable vibe.

Frightfully, the play’s message gets to you despite yourself. You get swept-up in the 19^th century rhetoric about the benefits of revolution and a questioning of religion. We somehow manage to see our contemporary world through the lunatic lens of this text and begin to question everything. 

Is our everyday decency a mere façade to paste over our indecent urge to conform, submit, and generally abide by all external authority, no matter how unfair and fatuous that authority might be? Are the people in prison actually freer than those of us who walk around dutifully in the pseudo-freedom of middle-class acquiescence?

This play doesn’t fit conservative little Cookeville, which is of course why Cookeville needs this play. Creter’s visionary direction of the Playhouse continues to take us where we don’t want to go, yet once we are there, we’ll thank him for pushing us over the edge. The layers of meaning in Marat/Sade are multifaceted, but they return us again and again to some harsh realizations and heady revelations.

At the core of these swirling interpretations is the sobering but obvious observation that the prevailing social-order shows the real sickness and insanity of our world. The so-called pragmatic reality, the gross inequality of haves versus have-nots, of “power-over” others, of financial and military corruption—you know, the usual order of things—all these factors remain so outrageous that we ignore them, even though we see injustice all around.

But not everybody goes along meekly. People today in social movements describe a reality that some characters in this play suggest, where the only solution is a revolution, and as one of the members of asylum-cast declares, “We are the revolution.” We need not agree with the playwright or the characters about the exact details of such a possible (or impossible) revolution, but any person who is prescient to present reality can acknowledge the root causes of why people still call for one.

You can see Marat/Sade every day this week except for Wednesday; Thursday night is the late show. Saturday also includes a matinee. 


The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton 

under the Direction of The Marquis de Sade.

A play by Peter Weiss

Directed by Mark Harry Creter

April 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 2013 at 8:00 p.m. April 18, 2011 at 10:00 p.m. and April 20, 2013 at 2:00 p.m.

Tickets are $12 general admission, $10 senior citizens and $5 for non-Tech students. Tech students are FREE with their ID.

Go to tntech.edu/bdph for more information.

You (TOTR 196)

Sam Cooke & Soul Stirrers – I’ll Come Running Back To You

Al Green – You’ve Got A Friend

Ben Harper – Waiting For You

Aaron Neville – You’ve Got To Move

Alabama Shakes – On Your Way

Matisyahu – Shine on You

Rodriguez – I Think of You

America – I Need You

Erick Baker – You Won't Cry Alone
Wilco – You Are My Face
Erick Baker – You Won't Cry Alone

The Lone Bellow – You Never Need Nobody

Marcus Foster – You My Love

Reindeer Section – You Are My Joy

The Raconteurs – Top Yourself

A Perfect Circle – Thinking of You

Nirvana – Come As You Are

Peter Gabriel – Lay Your Hands On Me

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals – How Do You Keep Love Alive

My Morning Jacket – Look at You

Mumford & Sons – Where Are You Now

Of Monsters and Men – Your Bones

Sufjan Stevens – We Are What You Say

All Saved Freak Band – You Haunt My Mind

Jars Of Clay –Show You Love

Gungor – You Are The Beauty

Keith Green – You Are The One