dickenbock

Every year since I began Self Help Radio in 2002, I take the opportunity on my birthday week to explore my favorite music from a year of my life. It began with my birthday in 2003, when I explored my favorite music from 1968, the year of my birth. I have made it up to 1989,... Read more

Though probably the show is generally described as "peculiar," the first Self Help Radio of 2025 was an explicitly peculiar show. Songs involved the word peculiar, two guests who competed in the Most Peculiar Person In Portland Contest 2024 - including the winner! - & some ... Read more

On the last Self Help Radio of 2024 - on the last day of the year - I returned to a series that I started a long time ago & far far away. An attempt to present in alphabetical order artists+bands in the genre of indiepop. What is indiepop? The Wikipedia has a good definitio... Read more

Please don't think of this as a "best of." I think whatever music you like best is what's best for you. This is just a lot of my favorite music of the year. The only criteria I have is that I seemed to listen to these records a lot. It indicates to me that I liked them a lo... Read more

On this week's show, I continued to pay tribute to an old friend & collaborator who appeared on Self Help Radio in improvised bits as The Rev Dr Howard Gently. These are the 67th-78th appearances of Howard Gently, from 2016 & 2017. It's not quite the end of his third year -... Read more

Perhaps you don't see as many hobos as one used to but for some reason there were a lot of them on KBOO on Tuesday morning. Yes, Self Help Radio had a show about hobos with probably too many hobo songs, plus guests - a sociologist looking for the king of the hobos, a local ... Read more

Yes. It's one of those episodes of Self Help Radio where I play lots of songs with a particular word in them. The word this time is steady. I do write about why I pick these themes, altho it's really not all that exciting. So there were lots of steady tunes plus I talked to ... Read more

Magda is my wife. Every year around the time of her birthday, I dedicate an entire show to her by playing birthday songs. I do my best not to repeat recordings so there are lots of new birthday songs on the show today. But do you have a birthday this year? Have you had a bir... Read more

A caller during the show asked me if the theme was parasites because all of the parasites descending on our nation's capital at the moment. Sadly, these shabby shows of mine are planned somewhat far in advance. But if it helps the enjoyment, you can think that! It's a show ... Read more

When a listener asked me if I had ever done a Self Help Radio episode about guns, I said nope. I said it was too general a topic. (I didn't say I wasn't particularly interested in it.) But this listener persisted & I asked if they had a favorite gun. Apparently they did - a... Read more