BROADCAST #27
AIR DATE: 07-03-07

Fanatics! I wish we could have gone live tonight but I was at the mercy of a TV shoot call time that seemed to change hour-to-hour, so to make sure there was no wailing, wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, Engineer X and I did this show last week. It actually worked out well as the scene in the TV show I was working on, Californication, didn’t shoot until late and I would have probably not been on time for our show tonight. As you can see from our play list, tonight’s show had a bit of concept happening. Every song had the word “free” or “freedom” in it. I thought that was pretty cool idea and we ended up with a good list of songs, don’t you think? I got back from DC a few hours ago. I had a great time there. On Sunday, July 1st, The Evens, other bands, poets, rappers and speakers were all part of a rally in Mount Pleasant to get music and live performance back into the local clubs and bars where it is now illegal to even sing along with the jukebox or read poetry. I was outside all day and got roasted but it was worth it. All the performances were great and it was so cool to hang out in Mount Pleasant all day. The next night was Joe Lally and The Evens playing for free at Fort Reno. Damn, there was a lot of people at that show! Someone told me that it was the most people they have seen there since when Fugazi would play there. I have never seen Joe play and he was great, all new material I think. The Evens were great as usual. I think I have seen them 6 times now. I didn’t sleep a great deal while there but I had a great time. I miss the place already. ‡ I went to the El Ray tonight to check out some bands and what a mind-altering experience I had! I got there in time to check out Earth, awesome! Then after that, I saw easily one of the best live shows of my short and malformed life. Sunn 0))) hit stage and for the next 75 minutes, I had my DNA recombined. DAMN!!!!!!!!! The band’s set was absolutely staggering. I’ll never be the same again! My only regret is that I can’t get up to San Francisco to see both bands play again tomorrow night. Actually, it’s probably better to give my mind a breather. The Sunn 0))) albums are great but I think the only way to really understand what they are all about is to experience them live. They are absolutely incredible. ‡ So, Fanatics, I hope you enjoyed the show tonight and I want to thank you for all the kind letters you send in. We’re having a great time with this show aren’t we?! Next week’s show is all ready to go and it’s a great one. I gave it the car test the other day and I think you’re going to like it. Until next week, Fanatics, thanks for tuning in, never relent and 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.

Jimi Hendrix - Stone Free: You can find this on the Are You Experienced? CD. I know what you’re thinking, “Why didn’t he play Freedom?” I hear ya but as much as I love that song, we have played it a few times and we have never played Stone Free to my knowledge so I went for it. Great early period Hendrix when he was young and lighter hearted than he was only months later. Hendrix was evolving so fast, he was into the next thing as fast as you can walk out of a room. Unfortunately for him, audiences don’t move at the same speed and after awhile, Hendrix was straining his audience’s affections with new line-ups, new directions and only with great urging did he go back to older material, even though it wasn’t that old. I have this album so ingrained in my mind, I can hear it in my sleep.

The Stooges - Free & Freaky: I believe this is the 2nd song we have played from the new Stooges album called The Weirdness. I like this song a lot. I can’t remember if they played this one the other night when I saw them here in LA. I thought the new songs sat in really well with the older material. The audience seemed to dig the new songs just fine. Honestly, I had no expectations of the album so when I heard it, I didn’t feel any way about it. I think it’s cool but I hope they make another record and that they work harder next time and really dig into what The Stooges are. I think this is a good getting back together album but next time around, they need to raise the bar. I hope they make more music.

The Warmers - Totally Free: From the Wanted: More CD. This from the 2nd and last recording session by The Warmers. This session was recorded in December of 1996 at Pirate House and was mixed at Inner Ear in 2003 by the band, Ian MacKaye, and don Zientara. The Warmers were Juan Carrera, Alec MacKaye and Amy Farina. I am so glad I got to see this band play. So often, I miss these Dischord bands, they form and break up and I never get to check them out. The Warmers played in NYC when I was there so I checked them out at Brownies I think. Great show. I am glad that Dischord finally released this last Warmers session.

Wesley Willis - Fireballs Of Freedom: It’s been awhile since we’ve listened to this giant of Rock. Wes is no longer with us and his many albums are very hard to find at this point but he left quite an impact. Wesley was a very large man, very tall, very wide. He had an incredibly hard life as a youth. He channeled a lot of his energies into his music and his artwork. I am happy that I wisely purchased a drawing he did of Chicago’s Dan Ryan Expressway many years ago. Wesley had a few different songwriting modes. He would often write about the people he liked, using their name in the chorus, he also wrote about bands he saw and told the story of their live show and how they rocked. The story was usually the same. The band was great, so great that they whip some poor animal’s ass with a belt they were so great. When he fancied a girl, that’s when he really turned on the charm and the lyrics are disarmingly direct and sincere, “I love you like a milkshake!” Sometimes he wrote about the voices he heard in his head, often the voices would speak to him when he was on a public bus turning the trip into a “demon hell ride” that sometimes got him kicked off the bus for cursing. Despite all these challenges to his sanity, Wes made a lot of records, played a lot of shows and was loved by many. His moods were up and down, depending perhaps on the meds but he was always friendly to me. He passed away a few years ago. If you want to check out some great WW records, Jello Biafra’s very fine Alternative Tentacles label had put out a Greatest Hits series that are really cool, especially Vol. 1, which might be his most listenable and engaging CD. I did the liner notes for Vol. 3. Tonight’s track can be found on the North Carolina Highway Patrol CD. This one might be a little hard to find at this point.

Robert Pete Williams - Free Again: From the Free Again album. Robert Pete Williams was doing a life sentence for murder in the famous Angola Prison in Louisiana. He clamed it was self-defense. I have not really been able to find much about the actual event. Dr. Harry Oster heard him playing guitar while Williams was there and got Williams pardoned. He did years of probation on a farm whose owner was not all that kind to RPW but he was allowed to go out and play on the weekends and he did. Eventually he was a totally free man. He played some shows and made some records and then as his health declined, he was mostly homebound. He died at the end of 1980 at 66. I have never heard a record of his I didn’t like. Talk about a “real deal” artist. I don’t think he had a choice. You can find this album very easily online.

Revolutionaries - Freedom Dub: From the Dub Massive: Chapter Two CD. Bill Laswell takes Dub tracks and Laswellizes them. Both “chapters” are good but I like Two better. Ian turned me onto this one. I don’t know anything about the band at all. I like how it sounds though.

The Planet The - Free Jewelry: We play yet another track from the You Absorb My Vision CD on the 5 Rue Christine label. I think the band is from Portland OR and they make a lot of noise on this very short album. Engineer X turned me onto this band. We listened to a track from their previous album Physical Angel recently. I like the You Absorb album more and have played it several times now.

Ornette Coleman – Free: Ornette Coleman is perfect for our show of course and just the man for this particular broadcast. You can find this track in a couple of different places: on the Change Of The Century album, released in 1960 and on the Beauty Is A Rare Thing Complete Atlantic Recordings box set. What a band! Billy Higgins on drums, Charlie Hayden on bass and Don Cherry on pocket trumpet. Some of the titles of Ornette’s albums, The Shape Of Jazz To Come, Something Else!!!!, Tomorrow Is The Question!, The Art Of The Improvisers to name a few, could be considered a bit over confident if the music wasn’t so great and it seems that the titles were just truth in advertising or at least fair warning. Coleman has been pushing music for decades and is a true genius. The box set is just jaw dropping. I the Atlantic albums on their own, Free Jazz was the first one I was ever turned onto and it was a challenging listen to say the least. I don’t know if that’s the best first album experience but that’s how I got in. I don’t know how to write about Jazz at all but I know what I like so I always go with that and the Ornette stuff is as good as it gets.

The Obsessed – Freedom: From the self-titled album. I have the original Hellhound version out of Germany I think it is and then the one that Joe from Fugazi put out on his Tolotta label. Sonically, there’s no comparison, the Tolotta version sounds much better. I first heard this song when Ian played it for me on cassette rolling in his car in 1986 I think it was. In summing up the band’s vocalist, guitarist and songwriter, he said that Scot “Wino” Weinrich sounds like a man who is slow to anger, finally getting mad enough to get out of his chair. That works for me. This early stuff is some of the best and heaviest from a man who has been nothing less than heavy and extremely talented. There’s no record of his that’s not worth checking out. His other bands, Hidden Hand, Shine, Spirit Caravan—all worth it.

Minutemen - Dreams Are Free, Motherfucker!: From the band’s amazing Buzz Or Howl Under The Influence of Heat record. One time when Black Flag and The Minutemen were all trapped in one van going through the Alps, Watt was being very intense in the confined space and we were getting him frothing about something and at one point, he yelled at me, “Dreams are free, motherfucker!” I yelled it back at him all the time and it became a joke. Eventually it found itself as a title on this very fine Minutemen release. As we play this, no doubt, Mike Watt is out somewhere with Iggy and the gang and they are destroying a lucky audience somewhere.

The Make-Up - Free Arthur Lee: From the I Want Some album. Ian Svenonius and company. We have not checked out this band for awhile, have we? Sorry about that. Ian is one of my favorite geniuses. What a brain on that kid. Talk about someone who thinks differently. He just sent me the Peter Coyote autobiography the other day. I am stuck in edit hell at the moment working on some book called Fanatic! Vol. II and can’t read much but the stunted ramblings of the “author” who is just a marked man waiting for the sands to stop passing through hourglass . . . Anyway, did I see Ian at Fort Reno yesterday? I did!

Lou Reed - I'm So Free: From the classic Transformer album that brought you Walk On The Wild Side. Early solo Lou greatness. One of the greatest recorded moments in Rock is on this album I think. You guessed it, the Reed / Bowie vocals on Satellite Of Love. This is the album that made Lou a for real Rockstar. He’ll always be one of my favorites. The photos of him with the sullen / bored look to me is so ROCK. Lou had a busy and up/down 70’s. Some of the albums were good, some not so and there was some drug use. He came back in the 80’s and got really busy with a lot of touring and recording. I remember really liking tracks on the Blue Mask album he released in 1982, it is a great album and seen as a return to form in a lot of ways, also the first one of his own albums he had played guitar on in years. Anyway, Transformer is one of those albums you really should check out if you have not already. I bet I am preaching to the perverted on this topic . . .

Lydia Kavina - Free Music # 1 For Four Theremins: From the Music From The Ether: Original Works For Theremin CD. I checked this CD out after becoming so interested in this music from listening to Clara Rockmore’s Theremin CDs. Of all the Theremin CDs I have found, this is my favorite hands down. From what I’ve read, she is the last protégé of the man who invented the instrument, Lev (or Leon) Theremin. I didn’t know this. Interesting that I went from Clara Rockmore who was an early student of Theremin’s to Ms. Kavina. There’s a live Lydia Kavina CD that I have been looking for all over but have had no success in locating. The CD we got this track from tonight is very easy to locate.

Kim Salmon & The Surrealists - Guilt Free: Of course, Kim is going to twist things just a little, or a lot if we’re lucky. This is from the great Ya Gotta Let Me Do My Thing CD. Not always the easiest of his records to find but it’s out there. We have listened to a lot of Kim songs on this show, from his work in The Beasts Of Bourbon, The Scientists and his solo stuff as well. He’s one of the many great Australian musicians and thankfully, he’s very prolific and it’s always good. This album is from 1997. I have been tripping on Kim’s work for almost 20 years now. I liked The Scientists ok but after I saw him play with The Beasts and especially on his solo dates, I became a huge fan. I will get a track from his new album onto the show soon.

J. Mascis And The Fog - Set Us Free: Playing so much Dinosaur Jr. lately, we have momentarily forgotten those awesome solo albums J. Mascis did, More Light and Free So Free. Well, here’s a track from the Free So Free, the 2nd of the two Fog albums. I know the man is busy with all things Dinosaur but I hope he does another one of these albums. Both of them are great great great. If you have not already, you, yes you, should become a member of the Free So Free site: http://www.freesofree.net/. It’s free to join and you can download a ton of free J. and Dino jams. I have about 30 hours of stuff from the site so far and it’s fantastic. I am listening to this song as I write this up, isn’t it a beautiful piece of work?!

Hank Williams - I'm Free At Last: A whole ‘nother take on the idea of freedom I guess. Hank could find the blood-in-the-eye version of any situation and he does it here. “I'm Free At Last don't ask me why I'm cryin'” Yup, that’s Hank. This is from the very necessary Complete recordings box set. Also, while you’re at it, check out the very great documentary Hank Williams: Honky Tonk Blues directed by my pal, the VERY talented Morgan Neville. Morgan’s docs.? See them all, no kidding. The life of Hank Williams is as tortured as the images in his songs. He bled for that music.

Frank Black - Freedom Rock: From the Teenager Of The Year album. I remember when this came out, I was just back from Europe and jet lagging like crazy and was up at the crack of dawn, I put this CD on first thing for like a week solid. Frank Black is very prolific and there may be an album here or there that I’ve missed but I believe I am pretty current with what he’s up to. I like how he records these days, live with the mix already set. It’s right there. This is one of my favorite Frank Black records if not my favorite. For those of you who don’t know, Frank Black is Charles of The Pixies. I don’t know what the band has planned for this year, if there are any tours or recordings planned.

The Fall - Free Range (Peel Session): What, the title of the song has the word “Free” in it! This is perhaps the last studio version of this song we have not played yet. We have played the album version, the single version at least. This is one of my favorite Fall songs of all time. Tonight we listened to the Peel version. The original can be found on the Code: Selfish album released in 1992. This is a great Fall album and has recently been re-released as a 2CD set that has all the singles from the album as well as this Peel Session that this track was pulled from. Knowing you are beside yourself with curiosity, allow me to pass along this hand website that has a whole lotta Fall info: http://www.visi.com/fall/

DEVO - Freedom of Choice: From the album of the same name. This is the one that had Whip It on it and brought the band to new heights of fame. It’s a great record but it has always been an interesting thing to me that the band picked up this very mainstream audience but the things they are saying in their songs and a lot of their imagery must have been so strange to the masses who actually listened to what the and were saying. It also bugs me that a lot of people didn’t go backwards through the catalog and check out the two albums that came before this one: the classic Are We Not Men? album and its incredible follow-up Duty Now For The Future. The fact that DEVO crossed over to the degree that they did is one of the most subversive and brilliant things to happen in music since I’ve been a fan. Just the lyrics of this song are a punch in the stomach and so talking about what’s happening now.

Curtis Mayfield - Wild And Free: I don’t think it would be possible to have a show with the concept being Freedom without one of the greatest musicians of all time, Curtis Mayfield. Yet again, we pull from the Curtis album. How about those horns at the top of the song?! So great. It’s hard to think of Curtis and all the great music he made in his life without having to deal with the facts the last years of his life. In August of 1990 he was paralyzed from the neck down when a lighting truss fell on him. He hung in for almost another decade. I remember reading an interview with him and he had no complaints at all. I was at the Grammys the night he got his life time achievement award. My bandmates and I watched him get wheeled by as we were waiting backstage.

The Buzzcocks - Running Free: This is last singles the band recorded for the United Artists label. You can find this track on the Singles Going Steady CD. This was a Steve Diggle composition recorded in 1980 at Advision and produced by Martin Rushent. The single was released in December of 1980. Recently, I have been checking out the last three singles the band released and really listening to them. I must admit, when they came out, they really didn’t do it for me as much all their previous work but I am liking them a lot more now. It’s interesting to hear the music that was coming from the band at this point as from what I’ve read, they were becoming somewhat stressed with the relentless touring and recording schedule which is kind of reminiscent of The Beatles. The last three singles are all found on Singles Going Steady and while I don’t think they stack up to the amazing sides that came before, they are still good enough to merit repeated listening.

Funkadelic - Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow: From the 1971 album of the same name. The gang’s all here, Eddie, Bernie, George. Talk about a free jam. The legend is that the band did this album on LSD. I wonder about that. It seems pretty together for a group of people tripping their collective brains out . . . All that early Funkadelic stuff is required listening I reckon. No one turned me onto these records when they were coming out, I was a little young so I was one of the many who got to it all later on. I think I probably heard a lot more Parliament than Funkadelic at first. They were on the radio somewhat. Growing up, I didn’t know anyone with a Funkadelic record. It wasn’t until I was hanging out with punk and new wave types that I heard the Maggot Brain album all the way through I think. Eventually I checked out the Funkadelic catalog and it has been so good to me and a perfect way to end tonight’s broadcast.