Greetings from Laurel Canyon!
Blind man running through the light of the night / With an answer in his hand, / Come on down to the river of sight / And you can really understand, / Red lights flashing through the window in the rain, / Can you hear the sirens moan? / White cane lying in a gutter in the lane, / If you’re walking home alone.
Don’t let it bring you down / It’s only castles burning, / Just find someone who’s turning / And you will come around.
When I started DJing on the “radio,” I loved the idea of visualizing a muse to play for. My first theme was driving through the desert at night. Along these past seven or eight years, I’ve based most of my Idelic Hour playlists off some kind of a theme—it’s often a hunch or just a loose concept that briefly enters my conscious being.
Making these radio hours has been an interesting mental exercise. I’ve always wanted the sets to be unpredictable, loose, and spontaneous. In the beginning on KCRW I was far from this, but part of my growth as a “selector” has been to understand what this hour of music means and how to manage it.
What you’re hearing is my week entered into my public journal. The ongoing tales of lil’ ol’ me, Jon Sidel, told through new records and through the music that runs through my psyche like blood running through my veins. Among my list of criteria when making the show is an essential concept, “don’t take myself or the Idelic Hour too seriously.” Oh, and of course in the past I have, but I am glad to report today is just another Friday with a great hour of songs.
Like many of my best playlists and “themes,” this one is very simple but hard to describe. A notion hit me about “bringing together” a “delivery.” I wanted to be delivered—not from evil like in the biblical sense. Just brought on…
Here’s an hour of songs trying to do just that.
The Idelic Hit of the Week: Ron Gallo – Kill the Medicine Man
