New Zealand’s Flying Nun Records has released a whole slew of great releases from great bands from Kiwiland from the 1980s to this day.  Bands like THE CLEAN, THE CHILLS, STRAIGHTJACKET FITS, TALL DWARFS, THE BATS, BAILTER SPACE, VERLAINES and the JEAN PAUL SARTRE EXPERIENCE got their starts on the label, and most of those bands are represented on this amazing compilation In Love With These Times, which will be featured in its entirety followed by choice cuts from releases by the above bands.  Time to get in the Kiwi swing, fellow music geeks!

Way back in the swinging ’60s a crazy-like-a-fox singer/songwriter who took on the moniker BRUTE FORCE threatened to turn pop culture on its ear with some openly subversive pop classics like “Tapeworm Of Love” and “King Of Fuh”.  But, like most visionary eccentrics, he was too far ahead of his time to be properly appreciated.  It’s probably still too soon for his talent to get the props it deserves, but this episode of GE will give it a shot, with an exclusive interview and plenty of amazing BF music.  Cognitive dissonance rules, fellow music geeks!

Anyone at all familiar with Nardwuar The Human Serviette knows what a genius of cognitive dissonance and flat-out hilarity he is.  Fewer know that his bands THE EVAPORATORS and THEE GOBLINS were 2 of Canada’s greatest pop-punk acts ever!  Hear the evidence and laugh your way to good health as April Fool’s Month continues on GE.  Never underestimate the healing power of humor, fellow music geeks!

When BLACK SABBATH tried to play in Milwaukee in 1980, they got a big surprise!  The rowdy crowd threw crap at them, they refused to play, and then a full-on riot ensued.  Hear the riot in action and a series of riot remixes on this wild episode of GE.  Search and destroy, fellow music geeks!

For the month of April GE will be celebrating the weird and the eccentric, and how better to celebrate than to play the infamous Tube Bar LP in its entirety.  You’ll recognize some of the classic telephone prank calls from the Simpsons, but this is the real deal!  Plenty of pranks and fun to be had on this music-less episode.  Get down with Hal Jalikeakick, fellow music geeks!

You gotta hear it to believe it!  Feed Your Head’s DJ Marin will be locked in funky battle with The Rock’N’Roll Nurse in a danceable dual duel!  The finest and most terrible dance tunes from the previous Millennium will be trotted out for your listening pleasure/pain.  Listen if you dare, fellow music geeks!

Back by unpopular demand as GE continues its Dance Into Spring series comes more of the trashy disco schlock that unfairly defines that pop-culture era.  “Luminaries” such as ANDREA TRUE CONNECTION, PETER BROWN, DISCO TEX AND THE SEX-O-LETTES will be featured, along with some disco dance instruction and stories about roller skating to the sounds of “Disco Duck”.  Throw off those taste tethers, fellow music geeks!

The disco/funk era got fully transmogrified by the purveyors of “New Wave” in the 1980s.  New and often disturbing elements of dissonance and anxiety replaced the drug-fueled positivity of the previous decade.  Hear some of the greatest and oddest dance sounds from 30 years back, including BUSH TETRAS, PYLON, B-52s, TRIO, KLAUS NOMI, NINA HAGEN, AU PAIRS, NENA and plenty of others on yet another danceable episode.  Funk up your post-punk, fellow music geeks!

Ohio produced more than its fair share of innovative bands through the 1970s and 1980s, and this week’s comp LP shines a light on some great underground Cle music from 1983 (and re-released as a double LP set in 2010!).  Great tracks by The OFFBEATS, SPIKE IN VAIN, STARVATION ARMY and many others will rock you silly!  Also included will be historical Cle tracks by the likes of ROCKET FROM THE TOMBS, PERE UBU, DEAD BOYS, TIN HUEY and many others.  Skank to the Midwest skronk, fellow music geeks!

Three weeks ago GE featured the first in the series of compilation LPs released by Boston’s own Throbbing Lobster Records, and this week we get the second!  We survived 1984, thanks in no part to the wild and reckless music put out by indie labels like TL, and these comps serve as historical documents to what Boston sounded like to discerning ears 30 years back.  Hear the real sounds of Tea Party Revolution, fellow music geeks!