BROADCAST #32
AIR DATE: 08-07-07

Here’s how it went down tonight Fanatics. I am really sorry for my voice being so out of whack. I have been averaging 4 hrs. of sleep for the last few nights and the voice is one of the things that goes with me when I am doing this. I am working on stuff at the office and trying to stay on European time as I have to be back there next week. I went the record store today and got some good records and will be bringing them in soon. I hope you dug the show tonight, again, sorry for the throat, it hurts worse than a love letter than from Karl Rove. Thanks to our guest, Joel, Fanatic from Ohio for bringing on that dy-no-mite Ween track. You know what I always say, STAY FANATIC!!! --Henry

The Best way to write in to the show / contact me is: Henryontheradio@aol.com

Below are two ways to part with your hard earned:

I got a letter from John Stabb, he’s healing well. You can refer to the notes from the other night: John Stabb from DC band GI was attacked and got his face rearranged the other day. He’s going to live but needs some financial help. If you feel like checking out the story and contributing, here’s the info: http://members.aol.com/johnstabbbenefit/. I sent in some bucks earlier today. He’s a really good guy and didn’t deserve to get attacked by five guys for just walking home from work. I got a letter from Stabb the other day, he’s getting better but he’s still pretty banged up. He’s a good DC area guy. Help if possible.

If you feel charitable on behalf of the West Memphis Three:
DAMIEN ECHOLS DEFENSE FUND, PO BOX 1216, LITTLE ROCK AR 72203

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.

Grinderman Rock - Go Tell The Women: From the Grinderman album. Am I playing this album a little too much these days? I’ll try and cool it. I think by now you know who Grinderman is, so what can I add. OK, I just came up with something: I asked Nick after the show at Slim’s if there’s more Grinderman stuff in the works and he said definitely and then he added that there was a new Bad Seeds album finished and it will hopefully be released in February of next year. I don’t know which one I am looking forward to more. The last Bad Seeds double album was stellar and there’s not enough good things I can say about the Grinderman album. The more the better!

Y Pants – Favorite Sweater: From the Y Pants CD. It’s not easy to get your hands on one of these CDs in shops or at the usual online places but the Forced Exposure site has it and they turn around orders quickly. The NY trio did a 4 track EP that was produced by Glen Branca. The toy piano makes them sound unique. The 7” is hard to find as is the album that Branca released on his Neutral label many years ago but the CD is available and really worth checking out. NYC is the gift that keeps giving. So many great bands from there.

Steel Leg Vs. The Electric Dread - Haile Unlikely: This is pretty cool. In the early days of PIL, Keith Levene and Jah Wobble released a 4 track EP called The Steel Leg v. The Electric Dread in December of 1978. The EP was released in 7” and 12” formats. The music sounds basically like outtakes from the Metal Box album, which is fine by me. The track we checked out tonight is the most together one on the EP and features the great Don Letts on vocals. This is the only track from this release ever to hit CD as far as I know and it can be found on the Death Disco - Songs From Under The Dancefloor 1978-84 CD.

Karp – Shotzie: From the Suplex album. I know, late to the dance as always. I got this album the other day. Too bad the band put it out in 1995. I am listening to this album as I write this and it’s so up my alley. It is so fucking crushing and ultimate. I first heard them at Ian’s house many weeks ago and sought out their music and it’s been one of the best turn-ons of this year. If you like the ten ton jams with the occasional Melvinoid feel, these guys are rockin’.

The Adverts - New Day Dawning: From the Singles Collection of The Adverts CD. I love this band. I saw TV Smith and Gaye Advert from The Adverts just the other night at the Paul Fox benefit. TV played and Gaye came along to the show as well. There was a backstage moment that I will never forget from that night. The show was over and I came out of the dressing room and there was Gaye standing in the hallway, talking to Captain Sensible of The Damned. It was like one of my Punk Rock fan boy dreams had come to life. That’s how it would be in my world, you would turn a corner and Captain Sensible would be talking with Gaye Advert, that works for me. So, I walked into the dream and stood with them and talked and then TV Smith walked over and the dream got even better. What a night. But more importantly than my ramblings, what a great band The Adverts were. Check out their Crossing The Red Sea album as well as all the band’s singles if you get a chance. Great stuff. Also, TV is alive and well, touring and making records and they’re quite good.

Andrew Hill – Desire: From the Change album, in print on CD right now. There were many Andrew Hill Fanatics out there who were howling at the moon in agony that they didn’t get the box set of Hill’s music on the Mosaic label. The box set was the only way to get many Hill tracks, like the one we heard tonight. I think enough Fanatics let their voices be heard and the folks at Blue Note, who LOVE to put out albums, sometimes even when they’re not all that good, started to release this Hill material. Now all can enjoy. I actually bought that box set when it came out and it was cool to feel oh so special for a minute but that’s elitism and it has no place here. Music was made to be heard, not to be released in limited editions and squirreled away. In fact, over the last few years, there have been some really great Hill releases from the Blue Note vault that had Bop aficionados wondering what took them so long. If nothing else, it’s great to see the Compulsion album available. Andrew Hill was one of the great piano players in Jazz music. Check out the Black Fire album and go forth. I think that was the first album of his that was stuck under my snout many years ago.

The Fall - Auto Tech Pilot: From the Bend Sinister album. I think we have been dipping into this album pretty frequently as of late. It’s not on purpose, this song felt like the one. Bend Sinister came out 09-29-86. Whenever I look at the release date of a Fall album, I always try and see where I was at that time. In September of 1986, I was gearing up for my first post Black Flag album but that’s not important as this is a Fall record we are talking about. Al eras of The Fall have great music and the busy, multi album deal the band did with Beggars Banquet, the label who released Bend, was fruitful and from the amount of singles and the large amount of promotion put behind the band, it seems that BB was very happy to have the band. I don’t know how MES feels about this period of the band’s recorded output but he must dig it somewhat as the band is still playing songs from the Beggars era live. There’s no Fall album I wouldn’t recommend but there’s definitely ones I would yell louder about than others but when a band releases over 30 albums with no end in sight, then there’s bound to be some you like better than others. I’m going to try and get to the band’s newest one, Reformation Post TLC, its appeal is still escaping me at this point but I’ll work on it. I know what you’re saying now. You want to know more about The Fall but you’re frustrated because I never give you any information. Well, ok, this time I’ll let up on you, here’s somewhere you can go and all your Fall questions will be answered: http://www.visi.com/fall/.

The Ruts - S.U.S.: From The Crack album. I guess I still have The Ruts on the brain. This was such a great song to play. When guitarist Paul Fox comes in on the big riff in the chorus, it’s as good as it gets. I don’t know what more I can say about the band and the amazing album they made so many years ago. Well, let’s see, we can briefly mention what the hell “S.U.S.” means so you can impress your friends, although I think they’ll just roll their eyes and say, “Yes, we know. We KNOW!” This was a law that permitted police officers to search someone on the street just because they looked “suspicious” and that was all the officers needed to hassle someone. In the UK this was a big deal and the law was eventually dropped. Here in America, we don’t even have a name for this besides, “living while black” and you can kick and scream all you want but I doubt this will change any time soon. Fortuitous that The Ruts released this song in 1979 and the Sus law was dropped in 1981. Thanks, guys!

Fela Ransome Kuti - Eko Ile: From the Open & Close album. I was at Comic Con the other day and a man came up and identified himself as a Fanatic and told me he thought I didn’t play enough Fela. Duly noted, Fanatic, duly noted. It’s hard to find a Fela jam that’s less than 20 minutes but there some and this is one of them and what a great one it is. What a band, what a man, what a story.

Georgie James - More Lights: From the Demos At Dance Place CD. This is John Davis from the now dismantled Q And Not U and Laura Burhenn. John sent me this awhile ago and I am sorry that it took me this long to get to it. I have never heard any of Laura’s solo stuff, she’s released a few albums on her label Laboratory Records. Apparently they have an album coming out in September of this year. So far this is our 2nd dip into the post Q And Not U bucket, as many of you Fanatics remember, several weeks ago we checked out a track from another Q member Chris Richards and his Ris Paul Ris project from the Purple Blaze album, which they just made a limited ed. vinyl run of by the way. Q And Not U were a great band so it will be interesting to see where these two take their music in the future. I just wrote to John to see if he would send up a Georgie James update. We’ll see if he gets back to us . . . John Promptly Replies Dept.: “Our first record is called "Places" and it comes out on Saddle Creek on September 25th. It was co-produced by Chad Clark (who also played in Beauty Pill) and TJ Lipple (who also played in Aloha) and those two definitely were instrumental in us making a record that we're really happy with. Starting in September, we're going to be on the road for the rest of the year, heading over to Europe a couple times and doing some thorough U.S. touring. We plan to hit more places early next year as well. We expect to get over to Japan and also do a lot more in the U.S. Unlike our records, where it's just me and Laura doing the recording, we have some friends along to help for the live shows. We just started playing as a quintet, so that should be the line-up we have on the road this fall.” Nice one! So there you have it from the source, Fanatics. Here’s the band’s myspace page so you can check them out further. Please do. http://www.myspace.com/georgiejames

Bruce Gilbert - In 3 Minds: From the Ab Ovo album. Bruce Gilbert is one fourth of some band called Wire, heard of them? Gilbert and his bandmate Graham Lewis are the two Wire members who seem to have done more records outside of the band than with them. My favorite non-Wire work of theirs is their collaborative effort, Dome. Those are interesting records. Gilbert’s work is not easy for me to describe. I have never heard anything like what he does. I guess what you could call what he does is mine the possibility of sound. I don’t know if many people get to his solo material like The Shivering Man and The Haring but I think they’re great and his work is perfect for our show.

The Eternals - Rockin' In The Jungle: From the Golden Age Of American Rock - Vol. 2 CD. It’s surprising to me that we have not played this song yet. It’s a great one. The story of The Eternals is a typical one of young bands of the late 50’s. They signed sucker contracts and despite selling well, they didn’t revive much money and that led to a lawsuit which lead to their early break up. Besides this song, there’s not much more recorded by the band but this song hits the spot tonight and can be found on many Rock and Roll / R&B comp. CDs.

The Rondelles – Distraction: From the Fiction Romance Fast Machines album. I first heard this band because I check out a lot of things on the Teenbeat label and they released their album The Fox on Teenbeat so I figured if it was good enough for Mark Robinson to release, then that was good enough for me. I liked that record so I got some of their older albums and they’re good too. Cool, smart independent music is what they do and they do it well. Of course, I catch up to them 100 years later but there’s a lot of better late than never on our show as you know by now.

The Sound - New Dark Age: From the BBC Recordings CD set on Renascent. Talk about late to the dance. I only stumbled upon this band because they were referenced in something else I was researching. I don’t know how this band escaped me all these DECADES. I never heard of them before, never saw any of their albums anywhere. If you like Joy Division and some of the more intense ends of Post Punk music, you might dig this band. They were around for nine years or so, 1978 to 1987. I have listened to a few of their albums a couple of times so I am not all that familiar with them yet. The band’s leader, Adrian Borland killed himself on 04-26-99.

Squatweiler - Belle Starr: From the Horsepower album. I love this band. They broke up a long times ago but they were great. We did a lot of shows together and the bass player Stacey aka Michelina is a long time pal. I saw her the other day and it occurred to me that we have not played any Squatweiler for awhile so we better get on that. I don’t know if any of their albums are in print but they’re worth seeking out if you like good American Independent music with some brains and humor.

Poison Girls - The Moon (I Wanted): From the Statement - The Complete Recordings box set. I first heard their song Closed Shop on a compilation album many years ago, liked it but never checked out any more of their stuff. Eventually, I got curious and got this box set. The main member of the band was Viv Subversa. They were associated with Crass, the two bands did a lot of shows together. I am woefully caught out there on Crass and all the bands around them. I have some of the records but don’t really know much of the history. I don’t know if anyone around me at the time was checking them out. I am catching up slowly, now that it’s been almost thirty years. If you see the Statement set somewhere, you might like it. I think there’s 2CD set of the band on Snapper called Poisonous that was just released, that might be a good place to start.

The Jesus & Mary Chain - Happy When It Rains: From the handy 21 Singles CD. Doesn’t this song sound a bit like their single Head On? I think does, a little. It’s a great song nonetheless. All their stuff up to an including their first album and the singles around it are really good, I think. I am a sucker for guitar noise, the more the better and one of the coolest sound ideas I have ever heard is the early Jesus And Mary Chain stuff. Worth checking out the Psychocandy album right now.

Bill Beach - Peg Pants: From The King Federal Rockabillys album. The single was released on King 06-30-56. I can’t find any information on the man but I like the song. Back in the day, Nathan, singer of The Teen Idles had this album so I got my own copy after hearing it one day when we were hanging out in his room. I eventually found it on CD many years later and here we are. One of the great things about Nathan was that he had great taste in music and was checking out albums that took me years to finally get to. I remember seeing Stooges and Dolls albums in his room a long time before I checked them out. The first time I saw L.A.M.F. by the Heartbreakers was at Nathan’s. Growing up, Nathan was one of my favorite people. I spent a lot of time at his mother’s house, checking out Teen Idles band practice.

Ween – Pizza Hut Ad: Joel, Fanatic From Ohio brings in this amazing track for tonight’s show. Nice one!