PALESTINE | Bodega Pop Live

Ataba, dal'ona, grunge and rap; sahja, mejana, folk and trap: This is al-musiqa al-filastaniyya. 


On Wednesday, August 20, Bodega Pop Live on WFMU's Give the Drummer Radio spun music from Gaza, the West Bank and the Palestinian diaspora.
Listen to the show in the archives

Various Artists | Best Egyptian Pop

Throw yourself into Mahmoud el Hasani's "Sagara Bouny"

Grab all 19 mind-blowing tracks here.

As a super-outgoing Leo with a massive, unrestrained ego, it's very rare that I am short on words.

This is one of those occasions. 

I picked this album up at the Nile Deli on Steinway Street yesterday along with a few other CDs that I'd been meaning to bring home for a while. I hadn't, for reasons that are unclear to me now, ever seen this gem before. How was this possible? The thing was grime-encrusted and must have been sitting in the store for years. A store that I frequent at least once a month, drooling, cash in hand, prowling for sonic treasure.

I instantly fell in love with the cover. I assumed that this wasn't going to be like any of the other Egyptian CDs I'd picked up from this place. I was right.

Is this chaabi? It isn't so-called "electro-chaabi," I know that. There's no autotune, for one thing. It may, in fact, predate autotune. But it has all of the other elements. Insane use of sound effects. KickThrillAss rhythms. Vocals that will put hair on your back. 

Whatever it is, whatever it's called, whenever it was recorded, you're not ever going to forget it.

Monrakplengthai Live

On Wednesday, August 13th, Bodega Pop Live on WFMU's Give the Drummer Radio welcomed music blogger extraordinaire, Peter Doolan.

Over half a decade of curating Monrakplengthai, Peter has established himself as one of the greatest international music bloggers on the planet. Back in the States after a lengthy sojourn to Bangkok where he worked cataloging Thai records for a public university library, Peter joined Gary to talk about Southeast Asian music and spin some of the most awesome luk thung, molam and other regional delights you’ve ever heard.

Listen to the archived show now

The A-List

On Wednesday, August 6, Bodega Pop Live on WFMU's Give the Drummer Radio rolled out the red carpet for your favorite corner store's "A" list performers. Adis Munyaka? Check. Arrington de Dionyso's Malaikat dan Singa? Check. Abhijeet? Antoine? Abílio Manoel? Check, check and check. 

Check out the show in the archives!

Beirut, Then + Now

On Wednesday, July 30, Bodega Pop Live on WFMU's Give the Drummer Radio spent a rare evening in the City that Would Not Die with some of Lebanon's greatest musicians ... from yesterday's trad tablahists and today's trip-hopping turntablists to forgotten divas like Siham Rifqi and the country's first singing stand-up comedienne, Ferial Karim.

Listen to the archived show now

80s Ladies!

Girls with asymmetrical hair to the front!

On Wednesday, July 23, Bodega Pop Live on WFMU's Give the Drummer Radio hosted a wild night of post-punk icons from Brazil to Yugoslavia, no-wave jaipong divas, funk sirens from Khemisset to Addis Ababa, and a solid final hour of mind-blowing gals from the front lines of the Japanese avant-garde.

Listen to the show in the archives

Hommage à Serge Gainsbourg

On Weds, July 16, 7-10 PM EDT, Bodega Pop Live on WFMU's Give the Drummer Radio celebrated "France's answer to David Bowie, Mick Jagger and John Lennon rolled into one smoke cloud of controversy" with a three-hour tribute featuring rare tracks, covers incroyable, sweet samples + swipes — and a decent serving of the original, unimpeachable hits. 

Listen to the show now in the archives

Various Artists | Bodega Pop Live

On Wednesday, July 9, Bodega Pop Live on WFMU's Give the Drummer Radio played ear-bending tracks from some of our favorite compilations. 

Hear fallen Afghan stars, American tourists in Guam, East-African Muslims, Brazilian-influenced Bari Fez and more than two dozen other artists from the world's most awesome and outrageous compilations!

Listen to the show in the archives now!

Sharifah Aini | Nostalgia Aidilfitri (1996)

 
Listen to the title track

Grab the whole album here

Word has come to us from Facebook friends in Kuala Lumpur of the passing of one of Malaysia's most beloved singers, Sharifah Aini. 

Often referred to as Kak Pah, Aini was the most prolific recording artist in Malasia, having released 93 albums, 7 of them in English. Her career took off in 1969 when she was signed to EMI a year after winning the 1968 Bintang RTS singing contest in Singapore.

She was only 61 when she passed away.

A Very Bodega America

We suck at soccer (we call it "soccer"); we treat corporations with more respect than we do our womenfolk; the guns you'll have to pry out of our cold, dead hands are responsible for 10 times more deaths in our country every year than we've lost in our entire history to terrorism -- but that doesn't mean we have nothing to be proud of.

On Wednesday, July 2, Bodega Pop Live on WFMU’s Give the Drummer Radio celebrated the country that invented swim fins, swivel chairs and Swiffer WetJets with three solid hours of Songs + Poems Americana by the commie pinko fags, French decadents, Puerto Rican Independence Movementers and Republic of Benin immigrants who love/hate this country the most. 

Listen to the show in the archives