One of the best things about returning to Marmalade Falls is being able to listen to Dandy Doug’s Moonlight Music Show every night from 12-4am. Dandy Doug has been doing the show for over 50 years and has a great ear for music. (He also does this weather reports in his hysterical character, Mike Wetterman, the Microscopic Weatherman. Who, as the name suggests, is a weatherman who is microscopic. He speaks in this really high pitched voice. It’s hilarious. “Oh no!” he says, “The rain is up to my waist!” But that just means a light drizzle because he’s microscopic. It actually can get very confusing. But when the Blizzard of ’86 came through and the school roof collapsed, it was “Mike Wetterman’s” squeaky voice that brought us solace as he provided the weather updates and reported on the progress of the search for corpses in the snow.)
Here are some of my favorite songs from 2020 that I heard on the Moonlight Music Show…
Favorite Vocal Harmonies – Dirty Projectors
The Dirty Projectors put out 5 EPs this year. The first four highlighted different aspects of the band’s style: folk, soul, bossa nova, and glitchy orchestral music. The 5th EP was a combination of styles. Dirty Projectors don’t always have the most lush harmonies, but they’re often the most interesting.
The first song below, No Studying, is one I’ve been grooving to lately. The harmonies cut through in the chorus. Below that song are a couple other favorites from earlier in the year.
Favorite Bop – Pull the Chute by Tijuana Panthers
At some point every evening I like to take 15 or 20 minutes and have a little dance party. The best songs to dance to by yourself are those with a bopping beat to them. You don’t want to slow dance with yourself, you weirdo. One of my favorite songs to bop to this year was Pull the Chute by the Tijuana Panthers. They’re known for their garage/surf music, although I don’t know if this song would fall into that category. For me it just falls into the category of songs to jump around to.
Favorite Pop-Punk – PUP
They’re the best band doing it these days. Their “This Place Sucks Ass” EP which came out in October was great. Here’s the opening track.
They also had my favorite drumming of the year, Zack Mykula’s part on the song Anaphylaxis.
Favorite Psychedelia – Shadow Show
These ladies channel the 60s garage-psychedlic sound beautifully on their debut LP, Silhouettes.
Favorite Clever Lyrics – Cheekface
I don’t like funny songs, per se, but I do appreciate clever/interesting lyrics. Cheekface’s songs are pretty much only clever/interesting lyrics strung together with a catchy chorus thrown in.
- “I am eating like it’s Thanksgiving, but without the gratitude.”
- “Venmo me when you get home so I know you are safe.”
- “I am young, dumb and full of… psychiatric medication.”
My Most Listened to Song of 2020
Just for mathematical reasons, my most listened-to song of any year is almost always going to come from the previous year. In 2020 that song was Just My Luck by Ages and Ages, a choral-pop band from Portland. The verses have a lilting, up and down, stream of conscious quality that I always found very soothing. Enough so that, according to my Apple Music play count, this was my most listened to song of 2020.
Dispatches from Marmalade Falls 