BROADCAST #26
AIR DATE: 06-26-07

Here is how it went down Fanatics! Tonight’s broadcast was the second of four broadcasts we will do this year that features bands covering music by other bands/artists. I figured one per quarter would be the way to go. I have been looking high and low for cool covers, hopefully there were a few you had not heard before. I think the one of the ways to really see into the way a band works is how they approach someone else’s music. The band is immediately out of their element and you get an insight into how the band’s parts work, also it’s always interesting to me how the singer phrases the lyrics. If you listen to what PJ Harvey did with Highway, she really made it hers, many bands just emulate and take the song nowhere, other bands or artists take the music to a whole new place. If you have ever heard Tom Waits’ version of Sea Of Love, you know what I mean. Fanatics, we’ll do this again in a few months. Next week’s show is going to be a great one. I will be in DC on Monday checking the night of music at Fort Reno, Joe Lally and The Evens are on the bill. Can’t wait to see the old neighborhood. So, until next week, STAY FANATIC --Henry

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.

Minor Threat - 12XU: You can find MT’s version of the Wire classic on the band’s Complete Discography CD. I was at these sessions and I sang a little back up vocal right at the end of the song. The original can of course be found on Wire’s amazing album Pink Flag but you already knew that. It’s incredible the impact this album had on not just music lovers but on bands. Many bands have covered tracks from this album. The older I get, the luckier I feel about being where I was when I was, especially to see this session go down. One of the best bands ever.

The Cramps - The Crusher: The Cramps cover the 1964 tribute to pro wrassler Reggie “The Crusher” Liskowski by The Novas. As you may remember from last week, we heard The Novas version. I think The Cramps give it a good shot but Cramps vocalist Lux Interior is up against a formidable vocal performance. You can get this track in a couple of different places. You can get it on the Psychedelic Jungle CD as well as Off The Bone.

Suicide - 96 Tears: Suicide do the ? And The Mysterians 1966 classic. This track was taken from Suicide’s Ghost Riders album which captures the band playing live at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis in 1981. I always liked this album. I had the original cassette only release and picked it up again when it hit CD years later. Suicide played this song fairly often in their early sets. I have another live version from Germany. I will get that one on our show at some point.

Alice In Chains - Suffragette City: From the Heroin bootleg CD. I think this was done when AIC was still in their semi-glam phase. It’s a cool version of the Bowie classic. I don’t think this is on any official AIC release. I thought it might be on their box set Music Bank but it’s not. This bootleg CD is pretty old and it’s been awhile since I saw any new AIC boot stuff out there as I guess it’s downloads now. For awhile there were some really great AIC boot CDs out there and I got every one I could find, talk about a great live band. I am so mad I never got to see them play. I think the closest I ever got was in 1992 when they were a few days behind us in Florida.

Dinosaur Jr. - Goin' Blind: From the handy Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved CD. Having just interviewed Gene Simmons, I can’t think of this tribute CD the same anymore. I now think of Gene looking over all the bands and wondering about their commercial potential for his back end cash flow. I have also heard The Melvins do this song. The original Kiss version appears on the very cool Hotter Than Hell album. Don’t worry Gene, I paid for my copy in full and I hope millions of others did as well. Now, doesn’t Dinosaur Jr. kill this song? I really like it when Dinosaur Jr. or J. Mascis tackles someone else’s song. It’s always great. A great track, this one.

Charles De Goal – New Rose: I first heard this guy from the So Young But So Cold comp. CD of French Cold Wave music that Engineer X turned me onto back in the Bronze Age. The bronze was really great back in those days, you shoulda been there . . . anyway, I thought his track, Synchro was really good so I tried to find more of his stuff and managed to locate the Etat General CD released in 1997. I had no idea that he had covered The Damned’s classic. I can’t find anything on this guy. He’s French and he’s released a few records. How’s that? Lame, ok. If I find anything that’s in a language I can read, I will let you know. Until then, all you have is the music. I don’t think I have to do any explaining to you about The Damned at this point . . .

Iggy Pop - (Get Up I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine: I found this on a CD single for Lust For Life. I figured I had to hear this one. It’s cool but not anything you will lose sleep over, just Iggy and band working out on the James Brown classic. It’s not a Stooges track, it’s Iggy and his band and the track was released in 1996, what was the album of Iggy’s that came out around that time? Naughty Little Doggie I guess, perhaps it’s from those sessions. It’s pretty cool to hear Iggy do this.

ZZ Top - Jailhouse Rock: What tone Billy Gibbon has on this track taken from the live side of the Fandango! album released in 1975. This track was a genuine bit of genius from Leiber and Stoller that did pretty well for some guy named Elvis in 1957.

Black Flag - Louie Louie: Even though Black Flag didn’t write this song, they sure make it sound like they did. This song has one of my favorite Dez vocals and Greg Ginn leads. As you Fanatics know, the song has been covered by everyone from The Chambers Brothers to The Stooges. The track was written by Richard Berry in 1955. We have played his version on our show before. I read that after this song, he never really had the same chart success again. I think this is a good song of course but it’s only one of the many great songs that Berry wrote and not nearly my favorite. I’ve covered a couple of Berry songs in my time and it was big fun. If you want to hear the original, a good CD to source it from is Have Louie Will Travel. The way to check out the Black Flag version is from the must have record, The First Four Years.

Birthday Party - Cat Man: Easily found on The Birthday Party CD. I first heard the Birthday Party cover this cool cool Gene Vincent song on a 7” that also had The Friend Catcher and Waving My Arms. It took me a long time to hear Gene Vincent’s version. It’s great. The BP covered a few songs in their time. Some that come to mind: Loose, Fun House and Little Doll by the Stooges for sure and they did justice to them all as they did to this killer track.

Sex Pistols - No Fun: Most bands would be well served not, I repeat NOT attempt to cover Stooges songs. They were done fine the first time and as good a time as you’re having playing the song, you are most likely putting everyone around you in a state of agony. Now and then, a band is so good, they can pull it off and that’s why we listened to this version of No Fun tonight. This kills. Rotten’s vocal is amazing and Steve Jones destroys. I had not heard this for a long time so I went out and got the Flogging A Dead Horse CD because it has this song and the other b-sides by the Pistols, which were always my favorite songs by the band. The original version is perfection of course but the Pistols version is a real and irony free delivery. It’s great to hear Johnny Rotten just let it rip, you can tell he really likes the song. I thought he didn’t like anything, maaaaaan! He’s a strange and funny elderly woman now so be kind.

Lurkers – You Better Move On: You can find The Lurkers cover of this very fine Arthur Alexander track on The Lurkers BBC Punk Sessions CD. I’m not too sure about when this track was done as there’s no information I can find.

The Sods - Ghost Rider: I’ve been holding off on playing this one in anticipation of this broadcast and now I can turn it loose! This is from the Minutes To Go album. As you know, the great Danish band, The Sods changed their name to Sort Sol and carried on for several albums. I think you also know that the original was performed by New York City legends Suicide. The fact that a band living so far away from America covered this song only goes to show the impact the band has had on musicians all over the world. I do believe Sort Sol also covered this song but for our purposes here tonight, this version will do.

The Jesus & Mary Chain - Surfin' USA: The band beat the hell out this song and left it for dead many years ago as a single. I got this the easy way from the Barbed Wire Kisses CD that has singles and b-sides. Can you believe that this song is almost 45 years old now? Another thing that’s interesting about this song is that it’s basically a lift of Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Sixteen, in fact, if you look, you will see that the song is credited to Wilson/Berry. Apparently when the single was released, it was credited solely to Brian Wilson but then Chuck Berry had a word and things changed. Online, I read a quote from Brian Wilson saying that some people may not agree with Berry’s assessment but Wilson never directly refutes it so I guess he was just trying to get out of that one as quickly and as smoothly as possible. He was young, it happens. It’s not the first time it’s happened to Berry though. I think there was a little flap over the Beatles song Come Together tugging a little too hard on Berry’s You Can’t Catch Me. Settled out of court but Lennon, a fan of Berry, learned not to mess. OK, history lesson done. Let’s rejoice for a moment in how great the guitars sound on this version. Ahhh.

Pere Ubu - Surfer Girl: I saw David Thomas do this as a solo vocal / accordion performance at a festival in Holland in 1996. I have always loved this song but it never revealed itself to me as the powerful ballad is truly is until I heard David do it. This version is from the band’s album Raygun Suitcase released in 1995 on the Tim Kerr label. That was an interesting label. They put out some really cool records and then they went away. David Thomas is a Beach Boys fan. Many years ago when Pet Sounds came out in Stereo, we exchanged e-mails as to the splendor of the album in stereo. Recently, when the album was re-released from better source tape, I sent him a copy.

The Fall - The Legend Of Xanadu: Originally done by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich and released as a single in 1968. The Fall released their version on an NME comp. called Ruby Trax. In 1992. For the rest of us, there’s two ways to get this track: A World Bewitched, a Fall comp. released 02-06-01. This version is from crunchy vinyl. This song was also recently released on the Code: Selfish re-release. That’s the version we heard tonight. The Bewitched version actually sounds punchier but there’s so much surface noise, I opted for the quieter version on Code. Here’s your address for Fall information: http://www.visi.com/fall/

PJ Harvey - Highway 61 Revisited: From the first PJ record I ever had. It’s a bootleg CD on KTS called Build Me A Woman. It’s from a show in Holland in 1992. This is a Bob Dylan track that he released on the album of the same name in summer of 1965. It’s one of my favorite Dylan albums. I don’t have anywhere near all the Dylan records but the ones I have, I really like. I might have almost all the PJ Harvey records I have ever seen, she’s great. I just got some of the singles I didn’t have and will bring in some of those b-sides.

The Pixies – Winterlong: From the The Bridge: A Tribute to Neil Young CD. This was one of the first of the “tribute” CDs I ever got. Remember back in the last century there was a tribute CD released once a week? That was back in the day when the majors thought the money would never run out and that we would but ANYTHING. Well, that all changed, didn’t it? The upside of all this hemorrhaging of funds was that really cool bands did covers of really cool people’s music and all these CDs are out of print and for the most part, really cheap when you find them online. Pay less for music! Anyway, here’s your pals, The Pixies tackling Neil Young’s Winterlong, which was a track that sat unreleased until Young put it out on the Decade retrospective album released in 1977.

DEVO - Bread and Butter: I originally found DEVO’s cover of this Parks & Turnbow song popularized by The Newbeats on the 9 1/2 Weeks soundtrack LP released in 1988. It was re-released on a cool DEVO 2CD comp. released in 2000 called Pioneers Who Got Scalped: The Anthology. I can’t find any information if DEVO recorded this for the film or if they pulled it from a session that they had done previously.

The Clash - Brand New Cadillac: You can find this one on the London Calling album. You already knew that though. Vince Taylor wrote and released this in 1958. I got this track when I got that really cool Loud, Fast And Out Of Control box set on Rhino. I have heard a version of this song done by Doctor Mix And The Remix which is also very cool but I chose The Clash version because it’s just loud and rockin’. I’ve been doing some reading on Vince Taylor, pretty interesting and sad. Apparently, he was on the brink of stardom and he lost his mind live onstage and it went downhill from there. I know all about it.

The Slits - I Heard It Through The Grapevine: You can find this on the Cut CD. The band does a brilliant version of this Whitfield/Strong number. Almost 40 years ago, Marvin Gaye took it to number one. I’m Casey Kasim. So many bands and artists have covered this song, their handlers sure it would be a hit for them or because it’s a really good song. I don’t hear people raving this version so I guess we’ll have to do it ourselves. The Slits to me, will always be one of the more remarkable bands from the First Wave Punk Rock stock. They were women, they “couldn’t play” or whatever and they ended up making one the stand out records of that whole scene. Cut holds up to this day, it’s a great record and in print. You have heard some of their tracks on this show and if you have not heard the album all the way through, you should check it out.

The Beauty Pill - I Don't Live Today: I was so happy when I this CD, I Don't Know When I'll Be Back Again a CD benefiting Vietnam Veterans of America (http://www.vva.org/). Isn’t this cool?! The Beauty Pill doing a Hendrix cover?! There’s some other tracks on this CD I’ll be bringing in later in the year. This album was released on the Exotic Fever label http://www.exoticfever.com/. I was happy to hear more Beauty Pill, I listen to their records quite often. You can find their stuff here: http://www.dischord.com/

The Ramones - Surfin' Bird: We listen to songs from the Rocket To Russia album all the time. The Cramps did a bang up version of this song as well and we have played that one before so I thought we would rock this version tonight. The original, done by The Trashmen is really cool, an interesting “mash” if you will, of The Rivingtons Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow and The Bird’s The Word. The former, you may remember from last week’s broadcast.

The Buzzcocks - I Can't Control Myself: From the Time's Up album by The Buzzcocks. The Buzzcocks recorded this track in their first ever session in October of 1976 at Revolution Studio, Stockport UK. It was not intended for release but it came out as a bootleg that many of us collector types found but was later given a proper release by the wonderful folks at Mute. In this early line-up, the Howard Devoto fronted version of my beloved Buzzcocks take a mad bash at this Troggs classic from 1966. Remember that The Troggs are the lads who brought you Wild Thing.