A note on how these song picks get made, since it applies every week: the sets favor album cuts and live recordings over an artist’s best-known singles. Expect deeper tracks rather than the obvious choices.
Friday, September 18 is the shared birthday of three artists connected to this day in rock history. Acid Flashback Friday with DJ Uncle Steve (noon ET) opens each hour with a track from that hour’s honoree before moving into a standard Acid Flashback set.
The noon hour features Kerry Livgren (b. 1947), the Kansas songwriter behind “Carry On Wayward Son” and “Dust in the Wind.” Rather than those songs, this hour plays “Belexes” from Kansas’ debut album and a live recording of “Song for America.” The rest of the hour includes Supertramp, Jackson Browne, the Velvet Underground, Led Zeppelin, Simple Minds, the Grateful Dead, the Doors, and the Eagles.
Hour two starts with Dee Dee Ramone (b. 1952), co-founder of the Ramones, and the third and final hour begins with music from The Human League featuring vocalist Joanne Catherall (b. 1962), known for her work on “Don’t You Want Me.”
Our Saturday programming begins with Psychedelic Psaturday, hosted by DJ Kaigem, at 1 pm ET. Eric mixes three flavors of psych each week. The Psychedelic tier covers classic-era artists whose songs are pure psych or cross into the genre, this week including Dragonfly, Ten Years After, The Pretty Things, and The Troll. Psyche Nuggets spotlights touchstone artists of the era, from one-hit wonders to deeper cuts, whose work didn’t leave a lasting mark on the larger story of rock, this week including Love Sculpture and The Syn. Psyche New brings in current and emerging acts carrying the genre forward, paying homage to its roots, or expanding on it, including Pearl & the Oysters, Post Animal, The Froot, and Aux Portes. The Flower Power Hour with Ken & MJ follows in three parts.
The first hour is dedicated to Stephen Stills, featuring his solo work along with Buffalo Springfield, Manassas, Judy Collins, and Crosby, Nash & Young, plus supporting sets from It’s A Beautiful Day, Santana, Jesse Welles, and White Witch.
The second hour marks the show’s 700th episode, featuring Dylan, Janis Joplin, Traffic, and the Rolling Stones, along with Ten Years After, Willie Dixon, Bob Seger, Mark-Almond Band, Brewer & Shipley, King Crimson, and Aphrodite’s Child.
Hour three is dedicated to Journey, along with Pete Townshend, The Doors, Dr. John, Rickie Lee Jones, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, and Jackson Browne.
Sunday’s block of long form programming runs five hours starting at 3 pm ET.
Bart Shore’s Sunday Time Warp Show (3 pm ET) draws from the AM-radio era, including Iron Butterfly, the Beatles (“Eight Days a Week”), Johnny Cash (“A Boy Named Sue”), the Turtles, Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels, Brenda Lee, JJ Cale, Arthur Conley (“Funky Street”), Neil Young (“Southern Man”), Graham Nash, Chicago, the Dramatics, the Drifters, the Cryan’ Shames, Jackie Wilson, and Todd Rundgren (“Can We Still Be Friends”).
Psychedelic Time Warp Show #46 airs from 4 to 6 pm ET, part of the ongoing “Sun and Moon” series. Bart Shore handles the voiceovers; I produce and engineer it. This week’s episode is the “Sun” half, built around songs with a sun or sunshine theme: Richie Havens, the Beatles, the Neville Brothers, Jonathan Edwards, the Doobie Brothers, the Violent Femmes, Al Stewart, Elton John, the Doors, Yes, Camel, Pink Floyd, Traffic, Jethro Tull, Grand Funk, Fifield Pink, the Police, Soundgarden, Madness, Eddie Vedder, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Godley & Creme, Weezer, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, the Grateful Dead, and Live Cream. The “Moon” half is still in development.
The 6 pm slot is a rotating one, and this week brings a debut: Analog Hand Mixed Vinyl, hosted by Bill Fitzhugh, formerly aired on Sirius XM’s Deep Tracks, joining the Acid Flashback lineup for the first time. The idea is music mixed the way FM rock DJs were free to do back in the day, all about the transition from one song to the next: segues, mash-ups, plunderphonics, songs you may or may not know played in ways you’ve never heard. Sometimes there’s a theme, sometimes it’s just a sequence that sounds exactly right, and it’s mixed live off vinyl with no digital editing platform smoothing anything out, the way an on-air DJ actually had to do it.
The Grateful Dead Hour, hosted by David Gans, airs at 7 pm ET in two parts this week. The first is from the Grateful Dead’s February 17, 1979 performance at Oakland Coliseum Arena: “Looks Like Rain,” “Jackaroe,” and “Lazy Lightning” into “Supplication.” The second is from Dead & Company’s June 7, 2023 performance at Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre near St. Louis: “Eyes of the World,” Jerry Garcia’s solo recording “Garcia” (Round Records), and “Sugaree.”
The Zecom Hour, hosted by Bart Shore, closes the day at 8 pm ET. This week’s episode features a rare George Harrison studio recording along with music from David Bowie, The Stories, The Byrds, and JJ Cale.
Acid Flashback Radio streams at internetfm.com/music/acid-flashback. Friday’s programming begins at noon ET, Saturday at 1 pm ET, and Sunday at 3 pm ET.
Related: Psychedelic Psaturday · DJ Kaigem · Bill Fitzhugh · Pearl and the Oysters · Psychedelic Time Warp
