BROADCAST #13
AIR DATE: 03-27-07

Here’s the rundown from the show tonight. As always, I hope you enjoyed the music tonight. The Bad Brains, will be touring on this record, it will be interesting to see what that will be like night to night. Like I was saying tonight, I went to the record store earlier today, always a good time and I got some cool records that I will be bringing on soon. Some interesting Nico releases as well as some more stuff by Entrance and XBXRX and some other good jams. Next week’s show is going to be a great one so if you can, please tune in. Thanks for listening and STAY FANATIC!!! --Henry

Since this is happening this coming Saturday, I will once more remind you all of this event so can keep it in mind: My long time pal and one time fellow ice cream store employee Susie J will be in LA to show slides from her very cool book of back in the day photographs of the DC music scene called Punk Love. This is the book I was telling you about before. Susie J is the gal who took the pictures of the famous Minor Threat single cover and a lot of photos you have seen in books like Banned In DC and Get In The Van. You can check out info on her book here: www.punklovebook.com

Here’s info on the event:
Book Soup on March 31 at 7pm.
8818 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood / 310. 659.3110
Free parking behind the store via Nellas St
http://www.booksoup.com/about.html

For you Fanatics who can’t live without hearing this show again or if the original broadcast time is too hard on your sleep cycle here’s the re-broadcast schedule.
USA: Fridays: 0200 – 0400 hrs. PST
UK: Fridays: 1000 hrs. – 1200 hrs.
Continental Europe: Fridays 1100 hrs. – 1300 hrs.
Australia: Fridays 2100 hrs. – 2300 hrs.

The Bad Brains – Universal Peace: From their brand new album, Build A Nation. I was sent this record from the band’s label Megaforce the other day. I have only played the thing twice and so far, this is my favorite song on it so far. This is the album that Adam Yauch from The Beastie Boys put together a long time ago. I remember him telling me about this one years ago. Darryl the bass player of the band gave me a few of the tracks about 18 months ago but not this one. Pretty cool, isn’t it? It’s a short album, clocking in at a little over half an hour and is about 50/50 Reggae to faster more rockin’ stuff. HR sounds like he’s in good voice, not all that angry, kinda floating over the whole thing. The band digs in very hard and the production will remind you of I Against I. I can’t say if Bad Brains Fanatics will be happy with this one or merely pleased. I’ll bring on another track soon and you all can make up your minds. The album will be released in May or early June so says Billboard Magazine. It was produced by Adam and he really did a bang up job, it sounds really damn good.

The Chumps - Jet Lag Drag: Another track from the :30 Over DC comp. CD. There’s a great EP on Round Raoul they did with Go Go God / 7-11 / Air Conditioning. Another DC band I don’t know anything about really. I have exchanged letters with band member Rob Kennedy but have not asked him about the album that they are rumored to have done. http://www.30underdc.com/discogs/roundraoul1.shtml.

Half Japanese - Bogue Millionaires - Cool Millionaire: Another DC area band with a track from their Half Gentlemen Not Beasts album. Half Japanese, at the beginning, was the Fair brothers, Jad and David. This is the line-up I first heard on the compilation album :30 Over DC with their song I Want Something New, which is also on this album. It was probably the first time I had ever heard a racket like that in my life. I saw them open for the Dead Kennedys in DC many years ago and they were amazing. I don’t have all their albums and so far, this is my favorite one. I don’t think it’s in print anymore. I went to all the usual places looking and the used copies are really expensive. Someone should re-issue this one.

The Users – Sick Of You / I’m) In Love With Today: This was the first release on the mighty Raw Records label. It features Alvin Gibbs on bass. I bought this at Skip’s Yesterday & Today Records many years ago. This was the same label that released The Killjoys single with Johnny Won’t Get To Heaven. The singles were great but the record I listened to the most was a compilation album the label released called Raw Deal that was a great record with a bunch of unreleased tracks. I could never find out any information on the label at the time and still can’t get all the information I want. I have the 7” version of this record I bought back in the day and I also have another one I picked up later that has the same sleeve but it is a numbered edition apparently of 5000 pressed. What I want to know is if this came before or after the unnumbered pressing. Also, there is a 12” version of this single that has no picture sleeve that I have only seen one of. I would like to know how many of that were pressed. There’s a great interview with Lee Wood, who owned and operated the label here: http://punk77.co.uk/groups/leewoodintervie.htm

The Fall – The Mixer: I have listened to the new Fall album Reformation Post TLC a few times now and still, it’s not grabbing me. I was thinking of what song to put on for our weekly visit with The Fall and this one immediately came to mind. I put it on and listened to it and it’s like I had never heard The Fall before. I have been so deeply concentrated on the new album that I had kinda forgot how they great they could be. Reformation is not an awful album but it’s not one of their best albums for sure. Anyway, The Mixer comes from an amazing bit of work from The Fall called Shift-Work released in 1991. It’s a typically great album by The Fall. There’s one song on the album, The Book Of Lies that I always skip over but the rest of it is great. Here’s an address that has all kinds of wonderful and frightening information on The Fall: http://www.visi.com/fall/

Dinosaur Jr. – Been There All The Time: Here it is, a crushing but of brilliance from the new Dinosaur Jr. album, Beyond. The album is slated to come out on 05-01-07. So far, this is my favorite album of the year. I bet they will be on tour this summer. I hope I get to see them play.

King Tubby & Prince Jammy - Channel Is A Joker: More King Tubby, more Dub and more music from one those great Blood & Fire albums, Dub Gone 2 Crazy. One of the things about Dub music that makes it so interesting to me is that I know so little about it so I just get a Dub CD now and then and go along for the ride. So far it’s been great but I wish someone would take it farther out and make it more extreme. Maybe I should start checking out some of that Tackhead stuff or investigate more Adrian Sherwood related things. I figured Laswell would have done something in the Dub tradition that would be insane. He’s done some really cool stuff that he calls Dub and he’s remixed some stuff that we have played on the show but I bet that somewhere out there, there is some really intense Dub music, something that just sounds wrong!

The Buzzcocks - Airwaves Dream: It’s been so many years ago, I don’t remember why I didn’t pay closer attention to the last few singles of The Buzzcocks on United Artists. They are as follows:
Are Everything / Why She's A Girl From The Chainstore (released 09-80)
Strange Thing / Airwaves Dream (released 10-80)
Running Free / What Do You Know (released 12-80)
In an interesting change of course, the band went back with Martin Hannet for the first two singles and returned to work with Martin Rushent on the last one. As you Fanatics know, the band worked almost exclusively with Rushent from their first single with UA all the way to the end. Martin Hannett, also known as Martin Zero, produced the band’s first release, the Spiral Scratch EP. I have listened to these six late period songs a lot in the last several months. They are interesting and I have been thinking of them a lot. The tracks written by Steve Diggle: Why She's A Girl From The Chainstore, Running Free and Airwaves Dream, sound like he’s breaking away from what The Buzzcocks were sounding like up to that point and heading in a solo direction. Of the six songs, I prefer the Shelley compositions: Are Everything, Strange Thing and What Do You Know. The reason we are playing Airwaves Dream tonight is because it’s my favorite of the Diggle compositions we are discussing here and the production is worth noting. The song was produced by Martin Hannett, who I don’t have to remind you, produced Unknown Pleasures for Joy Division. It is this reason we listened to this track tonight. Doesn’t it sound like it could be on UP? Garvey has extreme Peter Hook-ness to his bass sound and the guitars are so JD! Diggle almost sounds like he’s approaching the vocal with a great amount of Ian Curtis. If you listen to this song with your Hannett radar on, I think you will hear a lot of Joy Division in this Buzzcocks track.

Richard Hell & The Voidoids - Blank Generation: Richard Hell never did it for me on album. I saw him play once and really liked that but was never able to get to the Blank Generation album. The one song though is great for the Robert Quine solo. I liked the book he wrote called Go Now very much. I have this song on some compilation album, the likes of which has this song on with great regularity.

Third World War – Preaching Violence: It’s been a few weeks so I thought we should get into another track from the first and self-titled Third World War album. Hopefully we’ll be getting in a couple of solo albums from the band’s vocalist, Terry Stamp. I got a letter from someone who works with the man and he wanted to send them along so I’ll check them out and throw a track into the mix.

Fake Shark Real Zombie – Pair Of Dice: I got a letter from this band asking me to check them out on Myspace so I did. I thought they were really great so I asked them to send me the song they had on their site and they did, that’s what you heard tonight. Below is their page on Myspace. I hear Myspace is where all the kids go to hang out and get picked up on by older men. Hey now! I am looking forward to hearing the band’s album when it comes out. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=28106279

Emerson String Quartet - Streichquartett Nr. 4: From the 6 String Quartets of Bartok 2CD set. I have played stuff from this CD before. Many years ago, I used to have a ritual for when I was in Budapest Hungary, I would always try to get a Bartok CD before I left. I don’t remember how many times I pulled it off and I know I didn’t get this one there. I think my mother turned me onto this one. She has some serious taste in music.

Entrance - Silence Of A Crowded Train: From the Prayer Of Death album on Tee Pee records. Tony from Tee Pee sent this to me and I checked it out the other night. Damn! What an album! I can’t wait to hear the rest of the work of Guy Blakeslee who is Entrance. You might hear some Jeff Buckley in how Guy effortlessly ascends into falsetto but he owns it. And now for something completely different indeed!
http://www.teepeerecords.com/bands/entrance/

The Sonics – Strychnine: Pulled from the always handy Nuggets box set. Since we played The Fall’s version last week, I thought you might dig hearing the original one. I think The Sonics are better known now than they were when they were around back in the 1960’s. It’s always interesting to me when you hear something like The Sonics and have to wonder how it occurred to them to write and play that way. Music that comes out of nowhere always fascinates me. When you hear tracks like this one or Psycho, you have to marvel at the vision and the guts it took to do it this way. I have seen a few bands cover this song, The Cramps do a bang up version of it, we’ll have to get to that one soon.

Laurie Anderson - The Salesman: From The Ugly One With The Jewels album. I think I played something from this album before. I wanted to play O Superman but I need to find a single edit version. Laurie is great and one of the best live shows I have ever seen. Whenever I listen to her records, it always makes me think of late, great Deirdre O’Donoghue, who played me her music. I had heard Laurie’s music here and there but had never heard the albums all the way through until Deirdre played them for me. Thinking of Deirdre now, I am reminded of how things were when she was doing radio. She would get promo copies of every damn record in the world it seemed, we’re talking about LP mailers stacked like square pancakes all over her apartment the sheer bulk of it all was intense. Then CDs came in and her place was up-to-her with those as well. Small woman, small apartment, lots of music. She was the best. When I met Laurie Anderson I asked her if she remembered Deirdre, I forget what she said though.

Black Dice – ABA: From the Broken Ear Record CD. Engineer X turned me onto these guys last year. For some their music might not even be considered music but for me it’s great. I have this album and the Beaches And Canyons CD which we have listened to before on our show. This is the new Bebop!

Bikini Kill - Hamster Baby: From the Pussy Whipped album. Last time I saw Kathleen Hannah, I told her I was going to play this song on the show and then I spaced out. It’s time to right the wrong. You all know Bikini Kill, they were on the Kill Rockstars label and made some really great, angry and ripping music. Kathleen is in Le Tigre now and bass player Kathi Wilcox made a great record awhile ago with her band The Casual Dots. You have heard some of that record on our show. In the past, I think we have played Rebel Girl, which was produced by Joan Jett, who I just interviewed recently. Too bad I forgot to ask her about working with Bikini Kill. I think all the band’s stuff is in print on the very sturdy Kill Rockstars label. A lot of people can’t say the band’s name without saying “Riot Grrrl” in the same sentence. They may have had that term thrust upon them but I betcha that became a hindrance quite quickly. All those terms, to me, are a way of marginalizing anything special, when a bunch of anything gets lumped together and given a name, it’s an attempt to write it all off, which is lame. Bikini Kill were a great band, not a great band for it being mostly female—they were just a great band.

Blonde Redhead - Ego Manic Kid: I still have not heard the band’s last album, Misery Is A Butterfly. I will get to that one soon. Their new album, 23, is released on 04-10-07. Tonight’s track is taken from the Fake Can Be Just As Good album. Many years ago, Guy Picciotto gave me a copy of one of their records because he had worked on it, that’s what got me into the band. Before that I had only heard of them never heard them. I had not played Citronique and Melody Of Certain Damaged Lemons for a long time and then dug them out recently and got back into them again and liked them more than the first time I had checked them out. The more I play their music, the more I like it. I always have to catch up with things. I am sure many of you Fanatics are all over this band, I am just getting started.

The Planet The - Tighten Your Dreams: Engineer X turned me onto this album, You Absorb My Vision. I have played it a few times and really like it and also really like the 5 Rue Christie label that released this album. The record clocks in at twenty-something minutes, which is a bit brief and makes me wonder if they have anything else under the hood but I’ll just think of it as an EP and dig it for what it is. I have not yet heard their other record, Physical Angel,but I am looking forward to it arriving in the mail.

Vivi Bach & Dietmar Schönherr - Molotow Cocktail Party: Thanks Engineer X, for the turn on. It was he who lent me this album, The In-Kraut. I heard it and had to get one of my own. It’s so cool. It’s basically a super brief overview of hipster music in Germany in the 60’s and 70’s. The bestest track of the record, Hildegarde Knef’s From Here On It Got Rough, we already played a long time ago, this one’s also really great though. Engineer X says Vol. 2 is out he says it’s just as great. I’ll get on that and report back.

The Jesus & Mary Chain – Hit: From the Barbed Wire Kisses singles collection. I am not a complete Fanatic for this band but I am a fan. I really like their first album Psychocandy and the singles around it and also like their second album, Darklands but it’s the 1st one that I like the most. I don’t have all their records and have not heard them all. Tonight’s track was part of a single released in summer 1986. I looked on all the CDs of theirs I could find and nowhere could I find their version of Vegetable Man, penned by the late Syd Barrett.

Lord Kitchener – Love In The Cemetery: The great singer from Trinidad! Several tours ago, I was in Australia and saw this record, Klassic Kitchener Vol. II and it’s predecessor, Vol. I, along with 2 CDs of a singer called The Mighty Sparrow used at a record store. I had never heard of them but I figured I could learn a thing or two so I got them all. I played them through the tour and became quite a fan. These records were some of the first Calypso records I heard and it started quite a fire under me to hear more. There’s a lot of great Calypso recordings I found out. If you have tuned into this show now and then over the years, you know that we have played some great Calypso music from the likes of Young Tiger and Joseph Spence. More to come. After many years of service, Lord Kitchener also known as Aldwyn Roberts, passed away in early 2000 at 77.
http://www.tntisland.com/kitchindex.html

The Sods – Police: From the Minutes To Go album. I think we are slowly working our way through this album. I have been listening to this album for almost 30 years and it’s still great to me. When I play a track this old, I wonder if I am stuck in some time period like some prehistoric beast stuck in the mud as the skies darken with volcanic ash. I do listen to new music all the time but I do enjoy bringing on music I grew up with on our show so if some of this stuff is a little dated sounding to you, it’s because I am! Anyway, The Sods are from Denmark and after this album, they changed their name to Sort Sol and changed their sound to a more pop oriented model and recorded a lot of albums under that moniker. I think it was in 1984 when I was touring in Sweden with Black Flag that I picked up their Dagger & Guitar album. I either got it there or Lydia Lunch gave it to me, I forget at this point. It’s a great album and her work on the album is really good. With The Sods and Sort Sol, I always wondered if their geographical location ever had anything to do with their sound and songwriting. Being so far away from the UK and continental Europe, the band were more or less left on their own more than had they been from Hamburg or somewhere. Since The Sods only recorded the one album, there’s not much to talk about as much as there is Sort Sol. If you can get your hands on a copy of their Fog Things album, you might find some interesting tracks on there. None of either band’s releases were pressed domestically to my knowledge so you might have to do a little digging or traveling. Worth it though.

Eric Dolphy - Lost In The Night: With tracks pulled from two different sessions in 1959 and 1961, you get the Hot, Cool & Latin album. Not a “proper” album like Out To Lunch but great nonetheless, it’s Eric Dolphy, how bad can it be? Dolphy played saxophone, flute and clarinet left behind a fairly staggering body of work before he died very young at 36 in 1964. The first time I heard him was when Chris Haskett played me his great Out To Lunch album. If you’re a fan of Coltrane, there’s a good chance you have come across Dolphy as he was in Coltrane’s line up. I know I have said this before but I always thought that Dolphy left quite the impression on Coltrane after he left the line-up. If you look at the list of people Dolphy played with and records he’s on, it’s as if the man didn’t do anything but play. He’s on Oliver Nelson’s very cool Jazz And The Abstract Truth album, Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz album and Andrew Hill's Point Of Departure album. Some of my favorite Dolphy moments are from live CDs I have from 1964 Charles Mingus dates. Some are bootlegs and some are legit. Some of the Mingus compositions are long and it really gives Dolphy room to stretch out. I think Mingus really knew what he had in Dolphy and let him stretch. Due to ignorance and bad luck, Eric Dolphy passed away in 1964 in Germany due to insulin shock. From what I have read, the situation could have been avoided. Eric Dolphy is a musician who merits checking out. He was one of the Jazz greats and he probably had some amazing work ahead of him. We are very lucky he left so much stuff behind.

The Sisterhood Of Convoluted Thinkers – Telephone: From the Better Days Coming Now album. I think the last time we visited this band was with a track from their Ume Sour album. The Sisterhood is Rob Christiansen and Jeannine Durfee and I got into their music by being a fan of the label they’re on, Teenbeat. Slowly but surely, I am working my way through the massive Teenbeat catalog. I am determined to hear as much of it as I can. When I got The Sisterhood’s records I listened to them immediately and dug their strange and cool music. Here’s their website: http://www.convolutedthinkers.com/

Dee Dee King - Brooklyn Babe: I have not played anything from this album for a long time. I was scrolling through all my Dee Dee Ramone solo stuff and almost settled on a different song and then started listening to some of the tracks on Dee Dee’s rap album Standing In The Spotlight and when I got to this song, I knew this was the one to wrap up the show with. As many of you know, there was a time when Dee Dee Ramone changed his name to Dee Dee King and started writing rap songs. I think it drove Johnny Ramone nuts! Anyway, he released a 12” with a song called Funky Man on it that we have played on our show and then released the now classic, Standing album. If people would only love this album just a little bit more, they might have to re-issue it.