BROADCAST #01
AIR DATE: 01-02-07

Tonight’s show is probably not going to feature much music that is unfamiliar to you so just consider it a good mix tape. Of all places in the world to be tonight, I am in Iran! I have wanted to go to Iran for a long time. I don’t know if it will be possible in a year from now so I am getting in and hopefully back out again while the getting is good. I hope you enjoy tonight’s show and please tune in next week, Engineer X and I have put together a great show for you. Thanks for listening and STAY FANATIC!!! --Henry
For you Europeans, Australians and New Zealand Fanatics, there is a re-broadcast time of Friday mornings, 0200 – 0400 hrs. West coast time so you all can check out the show and not have to set your alarms to too rude an hour.
Black Flag - Fix Me: I put some thought into what to start the year with and this song seemed like the one. It’s one of my favorite songs of all time. We have listened to this one before. The entire 4 song Nervous Breakdown EP is great. This is one of the all time bomb proof records. I have written about this song and this EP quite a bit in the show notes because to this day, it stands as one of the purest blasts of music I have ever heard. Even though it is bass, guitar, drums and vocal and none of the music is all that complicated, there is something on this record that’s more than the music itself. When I listen to this record and others that are this true and unaware of themselves, I wonder if music like this can ever come back again. Not to say that there isn’t great music happening all the time, there is but there’s something about this record and ones like The Negative Trend EP, Fun House by the Stooges where the band seem to have come from nowhere. Perhaps there’s something to being not being in a big city. The Black Flag guys were south of the airport, they were beach guys. When I lived down there long enough, going into Hollywood was like “going into town” or something. We were quite removed from the noise and all the goings on and even though I was born and raised in a city, I got used to the Hermosa and Redondo Beach area quite quickly and didn’t mind that it moved slower and was less eventful than Hollywood. I also remember when we would be “in town,” I would look at the people around me and I felt like I was in a film and all the people around me were actors. Have I gotten off the topic? This song and many other perfect songs can be found on The First Four Years CD. Before SST kinda went under, or wherever they reside now, they put out some strange versions of some of their catalog. They went nuts on releases like the Nervous Breakdown EP, and it’s not all that easy to find now but they made a 3” CD of this EP. I guess they were trying to get the collectors going. I wish they would have put The Stains album on CD instead.
Viletones – Rebel: The Viletones were from Canada and all their stuff is out of print. My favorite songs of theirs are contained on this EP: Screamin’ Fist, Rebel and Possibilities. Screamin’ Fist was covered by The Bad Brains with bassist Darryl doing the vocal. I saw them do it only once. This single came out in 1977 and it was either the first or nearly the first Punk release for Canada. This was one of the singles we all had back in the day. Skip at Yesterday & Today Records had them and they were cheap, about an hour’s pay so we all got it. In 1994, all the songs from this EP, some from their follow up EP, Look Back In Anger and other tracks were released on a CD called A Taste Of Honey, which I got as soon as I saw it. I don’t remember when but at some point, the band’s vocalist, Steven Leckie, whose Punk Rock name was Nazi Dog during his time as a Viletone, wrote me a letter which I have around here somewhere. I think we wrote back and forth at least a couple of times but I don’t think I’ve ever met him. A Taste Of Honey is showing that it’s in print as of this writing.
Ramones - Rockaway Beach: Have picked up a theme here? All the songs so far have a live count in. I thought it would be cool to have a few songs that counted off. This Ramones classic is from the Rocket To Russia album. This is such familiar territory for us Fanatics, I know but it’s a great one and there’s always time for a Ramones song. I just had a thought of myself as a very old man, if I get that many years on this ball of fear, I would like to think I’ll still be listening to The Ramones. I can see it now, I’ll be in the corner in the wheelchair with those big headphones on, the ones that are the size of halved grapefruits, rocking back and forth, spittle flying all over. Ramones music is some of the most ageless I have ever heard. I put on one of their records and it is at this point, a pavlovian response: the hair on my arms stands up, I feel a flush of warmth cross over my face like a wave, my neck muscles tense up and I am good to go.
Iggy And The Stooges - Tight Pants: A great but ever so slightly less dangerous version of this song exists on the Raw Power album. This song is evil genius. It must be pretty cool being Iggy Pop, knowing that as good as any frontman has ever been, they’re still not as much of a badass as you are. Not Jagger, not anyone. Sorry, you think Iggy’s not the World Heavyweight Champion? It’s ok, you’re wrong but you’re still welcome to listen to the show and walk around in your world of illusion. This song is from a very great period of the Stooges. It was all good but Tight Pants, Gimmie Some Skin, I Got A Right, Sick Of You, Johanna, etc., this was devastating, damaging, life changing gear. These songs are trying to kill you. The Stooges were able to bypass so many of the safety nets and barriers that keep musicians from really bringing the terrifying, murderous music. Who did it more ultimately than The Stooges? That’s right. When these pussy critics stop torturing their keyboards writing up their corny assessment of the last few decades of music, usually spending way too much time on the band who had the female in it that the critic would never be able to fuck or waxing poetic about some king of youthful misery, when they finally cease to live the lie of those who do not do but merely spectate and critique from a safe distance, when the truth is finally told, the band at the top of the heap will be The Stooges. This track was taken from the Kill City CD, where it is a extra track. I am sure it’s on other Stooges CD comps. as well.
The Dregs - I'm Insane: The last of our live count off songs. This is a very hard-to-find record. At one point, we listened to the entire Dregs EP on one of our EP of the week listens. I have never been able to find out much information on the band or the EP. One site says there’s only 500 pressed and that’s a damn shame if it’s true because it’s really cool and should be available. This came out on Disturbing Records in 1979. I don’t know where to tell you to go to get one at this point, perhaps one will turn up on E-bay.
Lightnin' Hopkins - Happy New Year: The great Bluesman from Centerville TX. I didn’t hear Lightnin’ until 1981. I had never been exposed to much blues music growing up besides Billie Holiday. Sam Hopkins recorded a lot of material. It seems he never was without an album’s worth of songs at any time. I have read that he would often make up songs on the spot as long as they were paying. Like some Blues guys, Lightnin’ had a few different templates and he would put the lyrics in as he saw fit. I have every Lightnin’ record I have ever seen and they’re all good to amazing. The real differences in them are his levels of inspiration at any given time, the actual sound on the record and the band, when he played with one. There’s one record of his called Mojo Hand that you can find pretty easily, I think it’s on Collectables, let me check, ok, there’s been a little updating on that release. The one I have is an older pressing on Collectables but there’s a new version that has some live at Newport ’65 tracks on it as well. I have not heard this one and don’t know if they would have gone any great lengths to make the record sound better. I am not aware of my copy sounding anything less than just fine. This is the album that’s bright red with a hand smashing through the cover. I guess that would be the Mojo Hand. Yes. Anyway, this was originally released on the Fire label many years ago and fetches quite a price so you would be best served to get this cheap one and get your kicks that way. The Prestige box set is another nice grouping of Lightnin’ records. The album Lightnin’! on Tomato is a good one. There are so many Lightnin’ best of’s and a lot of them are just thrown together as I bet there’s no one going after the publishing and copyright infringement. That’s why I usually stay with a real label like Arhoolie or Prestige, they usually have the masters and there’s someone to at least make some informative liner notes. This track was taken from the Sittin' In With Lightnin' Hopkins album.
Raymond Scott - New Year's Eve In A Haunted House: We played a lot of Raymond Scott’s brilliant music on last year’s shows and I reckon we better waste no time this year. To save us a lot of time, you should go to Wikipedia and read the very informative and well written bio the site has about Raymond Scott. His achievements are so many that it would be hard to do them justice here. He was a true innovator, a relentless worker and worked fairly nonstop on his electronic musical research until a series of strokes made it impossible for him to carry on. Friends of his included DEVO’s Mark Mothersbaugh, Bob Moog, Motown’s Berry Gordy, who hired him as a consultant at one point. There is a good chance you have no idea just how much of his music you have heard in your life. From Bugs Bunny to Ren and Stimpy, Scott is all over cartoons and film soundtracks. Thankfully, heroes like Irwin Chusid and Hal Wilner helped put the largely out of print Scott catalog back in print with the release of The Music of Raymond Scott: Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights CD. It was the first collection of his I ever had. I have every one of his records I have ever seen at this point and they’re all really cool. Last year, we listened a few tracks from one I had recently picked up called The Unexpected, that’s a great one. A good one to start with is the Reckless Nights CD and go from there. I think if you’re not curious about the man and his music, after you read information on the man, you will be very curious to hear more. Chusid once told me about going to Scott’s house and seeing shelf after shelf of unreleased music. I want to hear it all.
Woody Guthrie - Los Angeles New Year's Flood: From the Library Of Congress Recordings Since it’s New Years or a little after I should say, I have been peppering tonight’s broadcast with songs that concern the date. I really like this set of songs and story telling that Guthrie recorded for the Library of Congress. Sometimes when I hear Guthrie speak, it reminds me of how early Dylan interviews sounded. He was a huge influence on Dylan but if you listen to Dylan talk in the early 60’s and then listen to Guthrie, I think there’s some similarities there, also when Dylan did his talking blues stuff, there’s some Guthrie in that as well I think. Before there was Springsteen, Seeger or the aforementioned and all those other righteous guitar slingers with a message for the people, there were some who helped pave the way, Guthrie is one, Leadbelly is another and both are worth checking out. I’ll get some Leadbelly on our show soon.
Isaac Hayes - The Mistletoe And Me: Another dip into the Stax/Volt Soul Singles Vol. 2 box set. No bad place to be. Ike was quite the innovator in his time. I have a lot of his solo records. Some I like, some I don’t like as much. My favorites are Hot Buttered Soul and the Shaft soundtrack. The others I have contain great music but do not hang in there for me track after track as well as these two do. I have a minor beef about the newly mastered version of the Shaft CD and if you find yourself really liking that record, you should check this out if you have not already: in the new mastering, that comes in a digipak, they have cleaned up and brightened the sound considerably but they have also added a video and in doing that, had to edit one of the album’s best tracks, Do Your Thing. The unedited version clocks in at 19:27 and the edit on the new CD chops it down considerably to 4:40. I held onto my original and made a CD that splices in the older version. You can my interview with Isaac Hayes in my book Do I Come Here Often.
Tenor Saw - Ring The Alarm (Live): This was the first track I ever heard of Tenor Saw. Ian played it for me. It blew me away. What a song, what a voice. Of all places, he died in Houston TX in a car accident in 1988. He was 22 years old. Tenor Saw was a rising star on the Reggae scene but his life was cut short. He had only been recording for a few years and was really picking up steam. I can’t find much information on the guy so I don’t know why he was in Houston. Apparently, this live version is now on a CD called Tenor Saw Lives On. I have a really badly pressed version of this on LP. I have not heard this CD yet but will let you know when I do.
The Clash – Cheat: The first Clash album is still one of my favorites, although I find it hard to listen to because it makes me think of Joe Strummer and that he’s gone. I remember driving around on the day I got word that he had died and I was at a red light and to my left was one of those big gas station convenience store mini city things, complete with out door sound system blasting music and advertisements for all the crap you can buy inside. They were playing Rock The Casbah really loud and I didn’t know if it was in tribute or if it was just coincidence. His death really made me mad. It was such a rip off. He was a few years older than I am now. I have done a couple of shows in this venue in Liverpool where the I am told he played his last ever show. I thought about that as I sat backstage before and after the show, wondering if he had been in the same room. The Entire Clash catalog has been remastered and it sounds really good and it’s worth checking out again if you have the old CDs. Strummer had charisma to burn. The last time I saw him was the night the two of us met Johnny Cash together. There’s a couple of pictures of the three of us around. I saw one in Rolling Stone and one in Billboard.
Buzzcocks – ESP: From the band’s 2nd album, Love Bites. The Buzzcocks followed up their first album Another Music In A Different Kitchen very quickly. Another Music was released in March of 1978 and by July of that year, the band was back in the studio with Martin Rushent recording. By August the record had been mixed and on September 22nd, the album was released. That’s pretty cool, two full albums in one year. This is a different album than Another Music, the guitars are more ringing and less percussive, the songwriting is more evolved and it’s easy to tell that the band is hitting their stride. Shelley’s resigned vocal combined with his and Diggle’s two guitars set against the battering wall of drums and bass set up by John Maher and Steve Garvey proved to be a very pliant and adaptable resource for moving the music forward as the band’s songwriting became more ambitious. I don’t have all the facts in front of me but The Buzzcocks have to be one of the first Punk Rock Bands to make a 2nd album. The Clash’s 2nd album Give ‘Em Enough Rope came out in November of 1978, perhaps it was The Damned, who delivered their 2nd album Music For Pleasure, perhaps too prematurely, in 1977 that was the first follow up. Come to think of it, that was the first one I remember. Anyway, Love Bites and the band’s 3rd album, A Different Kind Of Tension often get either overlooked or under mentioned in my opinion and this may be due to the eclipsing power of their singles collection Singles Going Steady, which is pretty damn amazing, I must say. I must, I must!
Generation X - Day By Day: The band’s first single on Chrysalis, released 09-01-77. This song was on the b-side with Your Generation on the A-side. I don’t know if it was the band that didn’t want to release an album in 1977 or perhaps the label wanting more time to promote the band before putting out a whole album. I think that’s what it was. There were a few singles that preceded the self-titled debut, released 03-17-78. After the September release of the first single, there was the 11-19-78 release of Wild Youth / Wild Dub and the 02-10-78 release of Ready Steady Go / No No No. I think it was easy for most sussed punks to realize that Generation X were going to be a relatively commercial outfit when compared with other high profile acts at the time. The singer worked his looks, actually, the whole band did, looking more like pin-ups than punks. Nevertheless, the debut album really delivers. I will always wonder why the band released the tracks Wild Youth and Wild Dub as a single. To me, Wild Youth is not an A-side and Wild Dub, it’s not awful but it’s not great. No No No though, is one of the best b-sides ever. Interesting that the band chose not to put it on the recent re-release of the first album CD.
Sleep – Dragonaut: This was such a great band. Three albums, some might say four in that the third album, Dopesmoker can also be found in a slightly edited version called Jerusalem. There’s a single and a compilation cut, a version of Sabbath’s Snowblind on the Masters Of Misery Sabbath tribute on Earache Records. Sleep were Matt Pike on guitar, who plays now in his band High On Fire, Chris Hakius on drums and Al Cisneros on bass and vocals. These two have a band called Om. High On Fire and Om are both excellent bands and I listen to them frequently. Tonight’s track is taken from the Sleep's Holy Mountain album, which might be their most accessible one and it’s great but my favorite by far is Dopesmoker, which is a visionary masterpiece of density, delivery and concept. Yes, Sleep sounds a bit like Black Sabbath but only in tempo and wallop, but are quite on their own when you consider Dopesmoker and their zero interest in compromise. Same can be said of the two groups that came out of Sleep, especially Om. At some point, we’ll check out Sleep’s version of Sabbath’s Lord Of This World.
Suicide - Rocket USA: This is a live version, found on the Ghost Riders CD. Live at the Walker Art Center many years ago. This is brutal. Synth player Martin Rev never sounded more assaultive than on this track. He’s just killin’ it and Vega, his vocal is the Apocalypse unleashed. The whole set is great and features a song I have never seen released on any of their other records called Sweet White Lady, which we definitely have to get to at some point. For a lot of people, Suicide will always be one of those bands that defines themselves. There is no genre that can hold them. They get lumped in with the No Wave scene, which they were surely around but none of those bands were a “type” of band really. They must have known from the start that there was never going to be mass commercial acceptance or potentially even a way out of the venue they just played without a beating but they went for it anyway. Hail!
The Ruts - Something That I Said: Haven’t played this song on awhile. While trying to track down some people I wanted to ask questions of, I sourced music journalist Garry Bushell, of Sounds Magazine fame. He gave me the information I wanted and gave me a name and e-mail address of an old associate of The Ruts. I contacted him and we got to e-mailing back and forth about The Ruts. Hopefully I will visit him on my next trip to the UK and check in with him. Still hangs out with one of the Ruts members so I am hoping to meet him when next I am there. I have only met one person who told me Ruts stories. That was Rat Scabies, who was very generous with his time and suffered me fairly gladly. I am hoping to get more info on this band that I never came close to seeing live. I bet I’ll be in England this year and if I make contact with him and get something interesting to tell you about, I will. Last year when we listened to this track, we listened to the single version. Tonight, to keep things interesting, we listened to the version found on The Crack album. One of the most must-have albums of all time. I will not wear you out on the details of this album, I think I have put you through enough Ruts worship for a little while.
The Fall - Cab It Up!: From I Am Curious Oranj album, released October 1988. I don’t think we play tracks from this album often enough. There’s a few interesting things about this record. First, let’s talk about the actual tracks because there’s something worth noting: The LP and the CD have different versions of some of the tracks. The tracks with alt. versions are Dog Is Life / Jerusalem / Wrong Place, Right Time / C.D. Win Fall 2080 AD (LP title)/ C.D. Win Fall 2088 AD (CD title) / Yes, O Yes. That’s nearly half the album. I made a CD of my LP so I could put it all in iTunes and a-b them. It’s a pretty cool bit of Fall knowledge which would have taken me some time to notice but thanks to the Unofficial Fall site, I found out all this very important information. Here’s something else about this record. The music on I Am Curious Oranj can be in a way, considered commissioned music. I don’t know the particulars of the deal but the music from this album was written as a soundtrack a ballet put on by the Michael Clark & Company, a contemporary dance group. It is an interesting album, perhaps not The Fall’s greatest moment but still worth checking out. A few years ago, The Fall released a live album called I Am As Pure As Oranj which is a show from 08-17-88 in Edinburgh Scotland. I just found a site that has photos of the band playing onstage with the production: http://www.visi.com/fall/news/pics/88oct08_photos.html. Also, the Unofficial Fall site address: http://www.visi.com/fall/
Julee Cruise - The Nightingale: From the Floating Into The Night album. I thought all that Lynch / Badalamenti music contained in the Twin Peaks series was really great. The first time I heard some of his work was in the film Blue Velvet. I believe that was the first time he worked with the film’s director, David Lynch. It was to be the start of a relationship that could very well be still going strong. I went to Badalamenti’s site and it shows him doing soundtrack work on every film from Blue Velvet to Mulholland Drive. It was also by seeing Blue Velvet that I first heard the voice of Julee Cruise on the track she sings, Mysteries Of Love. It was a couple of years before her album came out but it was worth the wait. Floating Into The Night is really cool. It’s a Lynch / Badalamenti joint with Julee singing. Her second album with the team, The Voice Of Love, came out in 1993. It’s cool but not as magic as the first one. The time around the Twin Peaks show was a great time for Lynch. For awhile there, that show really had America’s attention. It was very different for television at the time. It’s something that you would have found on HBO years later. Ever since I heard Ms. Cruise sing for the first time, I have always been a fan and come back to this album from time to time. What I have not kept track of is the soundtrack work of Badalamenti regarding Lynch’s films. I really liked Mulholland Drive but don’t remember the music. I’ll have to check that out.
The Damned - Born To Kill: Not enough can be written about the early line-up of The Damned featuring Brian James on guitar that yielded the first two Damned albums, Damned Damned Damned and Music For Pleasure. This is from DDD, one of the first Punk Rock albums I ever heard. I think it was one of the first Punk albums, period. We’ll have to play this one all the way through some night. I am sure all you Fanatics have heard this one enough times. If you have not you should get yourself to this record as soon as possible.
Slim Gaillard & Slam Stewart - Ferdinand The Bull: Slim Gaillard, the great musician, actor and all around master of all things vout. Slim did a lot of recordings with bass player Slam Stewart and are they a treat. Their on-the-spot improvs and hilarious songs are fantastic. There’s several collections of these two all with different degrees of quality. Check The Legendary McVouty for a good introduction into these two. Another good CD to check out is a Slim best-of on Verve called Laughing in Rhythm: The Best of the Verve Years, another great one. Slim had one hell of a life, look him up online. I had never heard of him until the late great Mick Geyer made me a tape with some of his music on it. Yip Roc Heresy and Atomic Cocktail were the first songs I heard of his and I was a Slim Fanatic immediately. This is from a CD called Slim & Slam 1938-1939. There’s also a documentary on him that I saw in Australia years ago but I can’t find it anywhere. There’s footage of Slim hanging out with Dizzy Gillespie that is just incredible.
Funkadelic - Super Stupid: This one of the Funkadelic songs I have heard covered now and again by Rock bands. It’s a pretty rockin’ song. The early Funkadelic albums are small miracle, bridging Funk, Rock and Psychedelia. I wonder what people made of them at first. I always wondered who their audience was at first, if they were too rock for funk fans, vice versa, etc. Funkadelic features one of the guitar greats of all time, Eddie Hazel, who at times reminds one of Hendrix but definitely has a sound and approach all his own. The song Maggot Brain, from the album of the same name, same album we pulled tonight’s track from, features Eddie at his spaced out and soulful best. Eddie Hazel died in late 1992. He was born on 04-10-50. Joe Cole’s birthday is 04-10-61. That works for me.
Wire - Two People In A Room: From Wire album #03, 154. The title refers to, if I am not mistaken, from the amount of shows they had played at the time of the recording. This album often doesn’t get mentioned much when talking about Wire, many times people just talk about the band’s first album, Pink Flag, which is a pretty damn cool album but what came next, Chairs Missing and 154 are great as well. Wire are one of the great Punk/Post Punk bands. They were around at the same time as the first wave of UK Punk Rock bands, there’s tracks of theirs on the Live At The Roxy album but it was obvious from the start there was a lot more happening with Wire than just three chords and attitude, which is evident on the band’s amazingly rapid development over the span of those three albums. The Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis solo and partner projects like Dome are really great too. They have a very good website. http://www.pinkflag.com/
The Screamer – Infant Son: Many years ago, crank callers would drive the jocks at WRC AM Talk Radio in the DC area nuts with their relentless and witty assault on their humble station. There seems to have been at least a couple of callers but the best of the available recordings have been gatherer by your pals at Teenbeat under the name The Screamer. It’s all one CD and there’s not a bad one in the bunch. It is my favorite phone prank collection. http://www.teenbeatrecords.com/
Devo – Shout (E-Z Listening version): We conclude tonight’s broadcast with a little E-Z listening, Spud style. Many years ago, DEVO released a cassette of instrumental Muzak versions of some of their songs. I don’t know what year it was released and I don’t know what year the limited 1000 LP on Ohio Records of some of the tunes came out but it did. Years after that, Ryko released a CD collection of DEVO Muzak. It’s now out of print along with the very cool Hardcore DEVO CDs. All of this stuff is really good grab them if you can find them. Hopefully they come back into print someday.