Introduction (Woah, I started a blog)

Hello Internet,
I've finally decided to join the party and start one of these things. Nominally, it's a companion piece to my radio show of the same name, which will be airing on WESU 88.1 FM from 1-2 a.m. on Sunday night/Monday morning starting at the end of this month (stream at wesufm.org if you live outside Connecticut and/or if you have a computer but not a radio).

On the radio show Mansion on the Hill, I will be playing (as I described it to the program director) "music from the American song tradition." This is a ridiculously broad and non-descript category, and deliberately so. Each episode will cover a different song topic (trains, Jesus, cocaine, etc.), and you'll hear artists spanning the better part of a century give you their take on the subject: ranging from field recordings of hillbillies to bedroom demos of contemporary indie folks, with some 60's folk-rock, 90's alt-country, and plenty of other stuff in the middle.

On the blog Mansion on the Hill, I will be posting music from the radio show (maybe even some episodes in their entirety), along with info, links, and all that good bloggy stuff. I'll be focusing mostly on the newer stuff that I'm playing on the show (if Woody Guthrie has a Myspace, I don't need to link to it); but since it's important to acknowledge your roots, I'll keep you posted if I find something awesome from Smithsonian Folkways or some such place.

Coming soon: a preview of the first episode (hint: it's about a big city on a small island).

-Max