Friday, March 28, 2008

4 Stellar Guests in 24 hours

"Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot, PAUL POTTS!And it's a holiday in CambodiaWhere you'll do what you're toldA holiday in CambodiaWhere the slums got so much soul."


As awesome as it is to do the box everyday and listen to Jonesy create an amazing two hours of music/radio, I think everyone would agree with me (including Jonesy) that its always a blast when we have guests come on the show. Between yesterday and today we had four different amazing guests come by.

Yesterday we had Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman who are both comedic geniuses in my book. Its crazy how fast two hours goes by when you have two great funny guests who are given two whole hours to riff off each other and Jonesy. Honestly, Jonesy's Jukebox is the ONLY radio show where that can happen. *ALERT!* *ALERT!* Jonesy's Jukebox INSIDER INFO! (If this was an audio or video blog I would have some awesome cheesy sound effect here with lots of sirens and whistles). As you may or may not know the Sex Pistols are doing a huge summer festival tour in the summer, which rules. The only problem is Jonesy will be gone for 3 months. We are currently coming up with a bunch of different cool ideas to fill in for the time he is away. One of them being a popular solution we have done in the past...having guest hosts. You all seem to love this. We have had some great guest hosts in the past and this summer will be no different. Both Jonah and Jason said they are down to do it. Schwartzman was so excited...to the point where he would have done the entire 3 months if we gave him the option.

Another sidenote from yesterday. Jonesy went to have lunch with Jonah and Jason after the show. When leaving the restaurant they were bombarded with Paparazzi. This is funny because Jonesy actually said on the air that he wasn't going to say where he's going to eat lunch, then proceeded to say "not that anyone would show up anyway." Clearly he was wrong. There is no avoiding those Paparazzi crazies. They found them even without Jonesy saying it on the air. One of the paparazzi guys who showed up actually Myspace messaged Jonesy last night to apologize because he is a fan of the show! I found this hilarious. If anyone has come across any pictures or video on these here internets of Jonesy, Jonah, and Jason from yesterday please send them along.

One more note on yesterday before we move on. We played Jason Schwartzman's record on the show. The band is called Coconut Records. I say band, but it's really Jason playing everything and then him and a bunch of his friends on all the vocals. The song "West Coast" is the greatest. Go pick up the record at Amoeba, your ears will love you for it.

Alright, on to today...

We had another jam packed show. In the first hour we had The Breeders in the studio. They were fun and very animated. I was really happy they played Cannonball because of how they set it up. "We are going to play Cannonball because its a fun song and people like it and like to hear us play it." I love them so much for this. I absolutely hate when bands are "too cool" or "too pretentious" to play the hit that everyone knows. I'm looking at you Strokes (don't get me wrong I love the Strokes, but really?...you're not going to play Last Nite...really? C'mon! Play your hits). The Breeders will be playing Coachella in about a month...the desert, scorching hot temperatures, and The Breeders...get excited!

In the second hour we had the phenomenon that is as Paul Potts. No, not the communist Cambodian killer, that is Pol Pot. If you do not know the story of Mr. Paul Potts just watch THIS CLIP and let the crying ensue. Party Girl Stacey crys every single time she watches it.

Unfortunately, he did not sing on the show today. He has a show tonight at The Wiltern and had to rest his voice, which is totally understandable after hearing him wail. Jonesy and I thought it would have been epic if he could have sung Anarchy In the U.K. Opera style.

The highlight was when Jonesy played the Dead Kennedy's Holiday In Cambodia which reference Pol Pot. At first you could tell Paul didn't really get it then once he heard the final lines of the song repeating "Pol Pot" which sounded exactly like his name, he started laughing pretty hard. I suggested that he should open his show tonight by playing that last 45 second section of the song that chants his name. Oddly enough, I don't think that would connect with the crowd that will be in attendance tonight at the Wiltern.

What a great guy Mr. Potts was. I wish him all the best. He deserves it.

Tomorrow Jonesy we have Justin Long and Jonathan Togo coming on the box. This is a guaranteed 2 hours of comedy so make sure you tune in at 12 bells!

Thanks for reading!

Cheers!

Begley

Thursday, March 20, 2008

And now back to your regularly scheduled program.

"And one thing's for sure, one thing's for certain. That if you get behind the velvet curtain, you'll see, there nothings as sweet as it looks on my TV"

Howdy!

I realize that in my last blog I said that we would talk Monday and it is now Thursday. I'm sure all three of you noticed and were concerned that I got abducted by serial killing cowboys on my way back from SXSW. Fear not, I made it back to L.A. safely.

SXSW was very exhausting but in a good way. I saw so many awesome bands and met a bunch of cool people. It was a great time. I hope I get to go back next year.

Alright, back to reality...We have some pretty rad guests today. The ever popular Paul Cook will be coming by in the second hour, and he won't be alone. Make sure you listen to find out who's coming with him.

Talk soon. Thanks for reading.

Cheers!

Begley

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Greetings From SXSW!.....Finally.

If any of you ever find yourselves in Austin, TX at SXSW never commit to writing a daily blog.

As you know, I made this mistake this week. Between all the hipster madness that is SXSW I thought I would be able to get away for a little while each day to write a blog. Obviously I was dead wrong. Since we landed at the beautiful Bergstrom International Airport (really, it's beautiful. One of the nicest airports I've seen) on Wednesday it has been absolutely non stop go go go all the time. To Party Girl Stacey's delight, I have to confess that I did sneak away on Thursday and took a much needed nap. I will never hear the end of this from Stacey but I had only slept four hours in two days. It was less about my choosing to take a nap and more about my body saying to me "Dude, seriously I'm done. I don't care about your stupid SXSW adventure, I'm crashing for three hours."

The broadcasts have been going awesome. The usual technical problems here and there, but for the most part it's been a success. (I'm literally knocking on wood right now because we are going on the air in an hour.) If you've been keeping up on our website I'm sure you've seen the pictures. We've had Moby, Daryl Hall & T Bone, Steve Lillywhite, The Duke Spirit, The Republic Tigers and Shepard Fairey all stopped by over the past two days. Today we have some more great guests coming by so make sure you listen at 12 bells.

It is an impossibility to catch all the bands and shows that you want to see here at SXSW. So many bands so little time. Between working all day at our broadcast and there being 8,000 venues and a million bands, I honestly didn't think I was going to see any of the bands I wanted to. There are some bands I missed that I wish I had been able to check out, but I have seen some amazing shows.



Here are some highlights:

R.E.M. @ Stubbs Wednesday Night:

This was the first night we were here. There was tons of buzzthroughout the streets about the R.E.M. show. There is always thosecouple shows that everyone is talking about at SXSW...this was one ofthem. They sounded great. Personally, I would have liked to here morehits, but the new songs sound pretty good. The atmosphere was electricat Stubbs. We have spent a lot of time at Stubbs. It is a fantasticvenue, one of the best here. Picture a giant backyard party with astage and about five bars. The sound is surprisingly really good too,even though it's outdoors.

The Wombats @ Cedar Street Courtyard Friday afternoon:

This is the venue we are doing our broadcast from and also where our INDIE 1031 showcase is taking place tonight. This is the second best venue at SXSW. There is this little alley type courtyard in the middle of two buildings/bars with the stage at the end of it. Such a great spot to hang out for the day. A friend of mine had sent me some tracks from The Wombats a couple weeks ago. These dudes are the future...young, British, energetic, really fun band, tons of hype right now. I knew they were playing here at SXSW. They were even on my "bands I NEED to see" list but, I had no idea when or where they were playing. Then from our little secluded broadcast cave I hear "EELLLO south by southwest, WE ARE THE WOMBATS!" I actually yelled and ran out to the middle courtyard where the stage is, and they absolutely KILLED IT! Great band....great show...believe the hype!

Some other bands that I found a way to see and were great:

MGMT last night @ Stubbs
Electric Feel is the best song of the past 6 months.

The Ting Tings last night @ Stubbs
This girl is crazy hot and an awesome performer.

Nada Surf last night @ Cedar Door
They are always great. They went on at 1am in a giant tent. Gotta love SXSW.

My Morning Jacket Thursday night @ Austin Music Hall
They played for for 2 hours! One man can only take so much My Morning Jacket (I mean R.E.M. only played for an hour 45 minutes) but they put on a good show.

N.E.R.D. last night @ Stubbs
what can I say...I mean, it's N.E.R.D. They bring down the house where ever they play. They could have played the Iron Works BBQ joint on Red River Street and would have killed. If I could switch lives with Pharell Williams of N.E.R.D. I would.

I'm really looking forward to our showcase tonight. We have some rad bands playing. Should be a great time.

Party Girl Stacey and I got some bad-ass cowboy hats for ourselves and Jonesy this morning. We are now officially cowboys...and cowgirl.


Jonesy and I are getting on our horses tonight and riding off into the sunset back to Los Angeles.

Jonesy just got here, we are about to go on the air so I have to get going.

Thanks for Reading!

Begley

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Today, approximately 18 million people live in Texas, only slightly outnumbering its 15 million cattle.

"Pleased to meet you...Hope you guess my name"

Gabriel Byrne was the guest host on Jonesy's Jukebox today. He played some great songs and told some fantastic stories. He also put me on the spot and asked me some questions on the air about Jonesy and the state of Independent radio. If you missed it you can listen to it on the Jonesy's Jukebox Podcast. Make sure you check him out on his new show, In Treatment Monday-Friday at 9:30pm on HBO.

I will be getting on a plane in less than 13 hours en route to Austin, TX for SXSW.

We will be doing the show live Thursday-Saturday from Cedar St. Courtyard on 4th St. Make sure you listen! In addition to the usual radio magic that is Jonesy's Jukebox, we have some awesome special guests lined up.

I will be blogging from the road the whole time we are at SXSW, so keep checking back here to find out what's going down on the streets of Austin.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers!

Begley

Monday, March 10, 2008

Next Stop...Austin, TX

I guess this is my first official blog. The last one I posted was kind of a greeting just to let you all know what the hell was going on. I decided I am going to start each blog entry with a quote from a song that we played on the show that day. I know what you all are thinking. The answer is no, you do not get a prize for knowing the answer. Reason being that it is much to easy these days to just copy and paste the quote to a google search. But, If you want to have some good old fashion trivia fun then leave a comment in the comments section with what you think the answer is and I will give a shout to anyone who got it right in the next blog. Here is today's:

"Now my reputation has been one of the fastest men alive So I'm gonna see how good you are when I count to five"


Jonesy hit the road right after the show today to make the two day trek to Austin, TX. For anyone who has been living under rock recently, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday we are doing Jonesy's Jukebox live from SXSW. We already have some awesome special guests lined up for all the days so make sure you tune in! If you are going to SXSW make sure you come by and say hello. We'll be at the Cedar Street Courtyard on 4th st. This is also where our INDIE 1031 showcase will be. For all the info on that go HERE.

I'm pretty pumped for SXSW. I would have loved to drive out there like Jonesy but instead I will be getting up at the ungodly hour of 4am on Wednesday to catch an early morning flight with Party Girl Stacey. I'm convinced the human body is not meant to be awake between the hours of 4am and 8am. I have never been to SXSW or even to Texas at all for that matter. The First thing I am doing when I get there is purchasing a bad-ass cowboy hat. Yes I am going to be "That Guy" who wears a cowboy hat the whole time he's in Texas. You know what, I may even wear it when I get back to L.A.. Jonesy thinks I should dress like this guy:

I think that would be a bit much.

Since Jonesy will probably be waist deep in Arizona by 12 bells tomorrow, we will be having guest host Gabriel Byrne taking over. You know him from one of the greatest movies of all time, The Usual Suspects. I am Keysey Soze. He also has a new show on HBO called "In Treatmeant". Check it out.

We'll talk tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

Cheers!

Begley

Friday, March 7, 2008

God Save The Blog

Hey! How are you?

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I am Kevin "Big Head" Begley, the producer/pseudo sidekick/the other random voice you hear on Jonesy's Jukebox. Maybe you know me as "that kid on Jonesy's Jukebox who knows nothing and can't get laid" (you laugh, but I've actually heard someone refer to me as that...words hurt).

Anyway, I will be blogging from here to let you know about everything that goes on before and after the show, on the air, off the air, in our office, on the road...you get the idea.

Hopefully this doesn't turn into a disaster of biblical proportions.

Thanks for reading.

Welcome to Begley's Blog!

Cheers!