It’s Friday, which means it’s time for Spark’s music expert and legendary L.A. radio DJ Nic Harcourt to weigh in on what new music he’s got on repeat at the moment. Below, he shares his newest picks added to his Spark Radio playlist and shares a spotlight on his favorite earworm of the week.
ADDS
Zander Schloss (feat. Bedouine): I Have Loved The Story Of My Life
Adele: Oh My God
Momma: Medicine
Loop: Halo
Nobody’s Flowers: Mountains Out of Broken Men
Hazel English: Nine Stories
Slo/tide: Neck High
LIFE: Friends Without Names
Kacey Musgraves: Fix You
Career Woman: Not A Betty
Beirut: So Slowly
Ibeyi, Pa Salieu: Made of Gold
St. Panther: Places
Beau: Dreamer
Sebu and Jonah Walsh: Mended Mind
SPOTLIGHT
Zander Schloss (feat. Bedouine): I Have Loved The Story Of My Life
Zander Schloss is perhaps best known as the bass player in the legendary Circle Jerks although his career has not been defined by it. With acting credits that include independent classics Repo Man and Sid and Nancy as well as musical collaborations with Thelonius Monster, The Weirdos and the late Joe Strummer, Schloss in no one-trick pony. With his new solo album Song About Songs, its nine original compositions reveal another side of his work that will no doubt surprise fans used to him knocking out punk rock tunes. “Everybody always used to make fun of me because I was a muso,” he says. “I’d studied Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen and Neil Young and all of those guys back when I was a kid. Then I moved out to California and sunk my teeth into Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page and became a rocker. Then in my last year of high school I started listening to Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, moved in with my jazz teacher for a year and became a jazz guy.
“This is my polar opposite version of punk rock. Punk rock is volume and anger and speed. I wanted to do space and vulnerability and excruciating, almost subconscious emotions, things that I feel so deeply that I would never say them out loud.” The new single “I Have Loved The Story Of My Life,” which features singer-songwriter Bedouine as a guest vocalist. “‘I Have Loved the Story of my Life’ is a song that I wrote about acquiring strength and gratitude in the face of all the hard lessons that I’ve had to learn in my life,” says Schloss of this track. “It’s very personal to me but ultimately the lyrics encompass things that we all have to endure. These things happen, we have no choice but to carry them with us and there are no takebacks. It was not an easy subject to tackle and condense into four minutes and twenty-five seconds. To quote a line from the film Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, ‘Dewey’s gotta think about his whole life before he sings this song’. As do I.” Schloss will also be touring with the Circle Jerks for their 40th-anniversary tour which kicked off in October and continues into 2022.
