BROADCAST #36
AIR DATE: 09-04-07

Fanatics! Here’s the notes for the show. I hope you had a good time checking out all the jams. I also hope you enjoyed Janeane Garofalo’s visit on our show. She just got into town and asked if she could come along and I figured what the hell. As I was telling you, next week’s show falls on 09-11-07, a dark day for America but we will be broadcasting nonetheless and I have a good show planned. Next week is our last live broadcast for awhile but please try and check out the broadcasts upcoming as Engineer X and I have worked very hard to put together some really cool shows that I think you’re going to dig. OK Fanatics, I will leave you to it. Thanks for listening and 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.

James Brown - Get Up Get Into It Get Involved: From the Revolution Of The Mind album. The short intro you heard at the beginning was taken from the Doing It To Death album, I thought it would sound kinda cool. Now that James Brown is gone we can just think about the music and not think about the PCP bust or some of the other things that made it hard to be a fan of the man at certain points of his very long career. It was some of those things towards the end of his life that I had to write off as the man just always being a little crazy and coming a bit loose in his later years. I am glad I got to see the man perform and to shake the hand.

Hallelujah Chicken Run Band - Mudzimu Ndiringe: From the Take One CD. I think I found this by doing that consumerist thing on Amazon.com where they tell you that people who like what like also like . . . thing. It’s strange but it’s fairly effective as far as finding new jams to check out. I don’t remember what thread led me to this CD but I heard some samples of it and reckoned it was something to check out. Sounds great, right? This CD takes in the band’s hits from 1974 to 1979. The band are from Zimbabwe and what is important here is that the band features Thomas Mapfumo, one of the most popular musicians in Africa. You gotta go to the man’s site and read his bio, it’s intense. This is real rebel music. This CD hits on a thing Engineer X and I talk about all the time. You check out so much music and now and then, for a second, you think you’re getting your head around it and then you turn a corner and there’s a guy like Mapfumo who has been doing it for decades and it’s news to you. This is why we must always, AWAYS be on the search for new sounds, lest you not hear something this good. http://www.thomasmapfumo.com/

Dinosaur Jr. – Budge: From the Bug album. Such a nice piece of work, this album. Bug was released in 1988 and everyone seemed to have a copy of it. We toured Europe around the time it was released and the song Freak Scene was getting played all the time in the clubs we were in. It was a great time for music. I really had the feeling that things were changing in music. It was a very happy time to be out on the road. I can’t remember if there were any real indicators but I really felt that something was happening in Indie music and things were going to get really good for bands like the one I was in. I guess seeing how well the Bug album was being accepted was an indicator. I guess what I am trying to say is finally bands I thought were actually good were getting recognition and it was a strange thing to see a band you actually liked on the cover of a magazine. Usually it was some band you couldn’t stand. This album’s success, especially in Europe, where we were spending so much time in, was very encouraging. We were basically playing for food money and very small salaries and it made me think there might be at least another year or two of touring possibilities before everything went south for us. I never really thought the band I was in would get past 1988.

Duke Ellington – Amad: From the Far East Suite album. This was one of the Ellington CDs that was lent to me one weekend many years ago. I asked a guy at my office if he would let me check out some Ellington stuff and he came in on a Friday with this one, Blues In Orbit and The Great Paris Concert. I played them and was hooked. That started a very intense Ellington immersion over a period of several years. It’s been one of the most rewarding journeys I have ever taken. This album was released in 1966. By that time, he had been making music for decades and was still going very strong. In fact, it’s some of his later work that I like the best. Duke Ellington, of course, was from DC.

Deadline - Nothing For Me: from the new CD called 8/2/82. This is the 2nd of the two Peterbilt releases that just came out through Dischord. This is really cool and about time. Many years ago, Deadline contributed some songs to the Flex Your Head album on Dischord and then released a 12” on Peterbilt that quickly went out of print and now it’s on CD and easy to get. Playing drums on this album is a very young Brendan Canty. You can find this cool CD right here: http://dischord.com/

The Fall - Coach And Horses: Well now, I managed to play something off the new Fall album, Reformation Post TLC. This is the 2nd time we have checked out this album on our show. I am digging M.E.S. on the Von Sudenfed album more than what he’s doing on this new installment of The Fall. I am impressed with how the man keeps it going but I am not totally sold on this new line up and so far, prefer the last line-up who left him like so many others have. What a heartbreaker! Here is an address for Fall facts: http://www.visi.com/fall/

PIL - Careering (live OGWT): Thank goodness for the internets! I saw this on the youtubes or the googles and recorded it and brought it into the show. I think the early PIL stuff is incredible. If you had to get one Public Image Limited album, in my opinion, it would be the 2nd one, known as Second Edition. It is intense and at times a bit bleak but utterly brilliant.

Bud Powell - Bud's Bubble: From The Complete Blue Note And Roost Recordings. He was known as the “Charlie Parker of piano” which really makes sense if you listen to the two of them play. Powell’s ability to remain melodic at the sheer speed he’s playing is exactly what one of the things Parker was known for. I really like the early Powell material before his performances started to become erratic due to mental problems. I believe this was recorded in 1947 and featured the great Max Roach on drums who as you know, just passed away.

Rain - That Time Of Year: From the La Vache Qui Rit EP, released in 1990 and out of print for many years. Recently re-released by Dischord for Peterbilt, this restores a nice little bit of DC music history and makes it easily accessible. I never saw this band but remember very well the music scene in DC in 1986 when the band formed. DC was going though a great period of explosive creativity. 1986 was the year I saw One Last Wish do their first show. There is no doubt about it, there was something happening at that time in DC, you could feel it. That show, you could see it on people’s faces, it was a time to remember. I am so glad more of the Peterbilt stuff is hitting CD. Those releases were rare by the end of the day they were released and not enough people got to check out the label and the music. Later on in the show, you will hear the other Peterbilt release that just came out. If you like what you heard, you can report to the Dischord site and order up. I did and my CDs arrived within a week. http://www.dischord.com/

Public Enemy – Frankenstar: Another track from How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul??? released last month. I am loving this album. Chuck D is one of my heroes. He has been for years. It’s great to know that he’s not slowing down, that he’s saying such great things. Talk about being part of the solution! This album makes me want to be in a band.

Mark Stewart - To Have The Vision: From the Learning to Cope With Cowardice album released in 1983. I was a bit of a late comer to the early Mark solo stuff. I heard one of his solo efforts when I was in England about 20 years ago but never heard this album until a couple of years ago after checking out his previous band, the Pop Group. This is my kind of record. It’s smart and wild. Stewart takes some interesting choices on his albums. Distortion and discordance don’t hold him back. He is one hectic motherfucker. I can’t believe there isn’t more on this guy. He’s such a force. His lyrics are volatile, confrontationa, political and very extreme and the music is brutal and brilliant. How come more people don’t talk about this guy?

The Horrors - Sheena Is A Parasite: It was Engineer X who turned me onto this band. This track is from their Strange House album. I think these guys are really cool. They are young skinny and British, which has worked in the past. A lot of the time, who has that going for them doesn’t always make good music but these guys do. This is smart, intense stuff by young whippersnappers.

Wolf Eyes & Anthony Braxton - Rationed Rot: From the Black Vomit CD. Braxton seems a little out of place jamming with Wolf Eyes and at the beginning of the track, the band seems a little challenged or something. One of them says to Braxton, “Let’s see what you’ve got.” He’s Anthony Braxton, he’s been doing it while you were watching cartoons after school, he’s got, he’s got. Whatever. What matters is that the hellacious din that Wolf Eyes generates will dent your skull. They are truly a force to be reckoned with and chances are you will lose.

Scott Walker – Psoriatic: From The Drift album. What an intense guy, What a heavy album. I read that Walker will release an instrumental album called And Who Shall Go to the Ball? And What Shall Go to the Ball? Next month. If there’s anyone around here who will get an advance copy, it will be Engineer X, so I will see if the man will allow me to borrow it and check it out. Of all Walker’s albums, most of them I have, it’s the last two, The Drift and its predecessor, Tilt, are the ones I listen to the most. They are brilliant. In case you are wondering what the title of the song refers to, I looked it up and The Arthritis Foundation says it’s a kind of arthritis that causes pain and swelling in the joints. Ok. Next song!

Deerhoof – Crow: From the 1999 Holdy Paws album. I think it’s interesting to jump around through the Deerhoof catalog without considering any kind of timeline. They It doesn’t occur to me that the band is “evolving” as much as they keep going along with out agenda and keep finding the next thing quite naturally. I am very new to the band’s music. When I go to the record store, I sometimes get a Deerhoof album. I don’t pay attention to when it came out, I just get one that I don’t have and play it. So far, I like them all. Of all the bands I have checked out for the first time in the last several months, it’s Deerhoof that impresses me the most.

Desmond Dekker & The Aces - Archie Wah Wah: From The Original Reggae Hitsound CD. I have a few comp. CDs of Dekker but this is the only one that has this song. Dekker had a lot of great songs, some of the more famous ones are Israelites and Get Up Edina and of course my personal favorite, 007 (Shanty Town). Dekker is one of those guys who people don’t think they know until they hear a song and say, “Oh! That’s his name? He’s great!” His vocal on his cover of Jimmy Cliff’s You Can Get It If You Really Want is one of the best vocal performances ever. Mr. Dekker passed away last summer. There are quite a few best-of’s available, it’s great music with some great, economic playing.

Hamza el Din - Give Back My Heart: Have not played anything from this CD, Music Of Nubia in quite awhile. This was the first album of Hamza El Din I ever heard. Previous to hearing the album, I was in Egypt and saw these amazing looking people on a dock on the Nile one day and I asked someone I was standing next to who they were and the man said, “Nubians”. I had to hear what music they jamming and when I got back to America, I went to the record store to see if there was something to check out and this album seemed to fit the bill. I got the record back to the stereo and checked it out and quickly realized that I was fan. He was an extraordinary musician, very deep, very passionate. There are none of his albums I don’t like although I prefer the ones where he’s more on his own, without others sitting in. Here’s a brief write up on the man: http://www.hamzaeldin.com/

Generation X - Ready Steady Go / No No No: This single was released on 02-10-78. For some reason, the b-side was not included on the recent re-release of the CD of the first Generation X album, originally released 03-17-78, where the A-side resides. For a fairly clean version of the No No No, I utilized The Idol Generation comp. CD that came out in Australia a long time ago and has gone out of print. The first Generation X album, along with the corresponding singles, are pretty damn solid. A lot of people didn’t get past these first releases of the band and didn’t check out the 2nd album, Valley Of The Dolls, produced by Ian Hunter and released 01-26-79. I think that album has some great tracks on it. If you have not checked it out, you might be surprised how much music the band actually pulls off. Some of the songs are very ambitious but the band has the chops and the songs come off well.

Jah Stitch - Militant Man: I first heard Jah Stitch on the If DJ Was Your Trade CD and wanted to hear more so I got this Original Ragga Muffin (1975 -77) like I told you I was. It’s another cool Blood & Fire album, worth checking out. Jah Stitch was popular and prolific and this CD captures some of his killer sides.

Melvins – Hooch: From the crushing Houdini Live 2005: A Live History Of Gluttony & Lust CD. The good folks at Ipecac put this out. Sounds great, right? What a band. The Houdini album was the first Melvins album I ever heard all the way through. I was very late to the game with this band. It’s not that I didn’t like the band, it’s that no one around me listened to them and I didn’t have the funds to check out many records when they were starting up. Eventually, one of the road crew told me to check out the album and I really liked it. There’s a few of their albums I have not checked out yet but I’ll take care of that at some point. It’s good to know that heavy music like this still has an audience.

The Meters - He Bite Me: From the Good Old Funky Music CD. Pure Funk from New Orleans. The Meters have been around forever. I never had a Meters album until the late 80’s. I got a comp. CD of theirs out of curiosity and feeling of duty. I always try to educate myself on music but just getting records I am unfamiliar with and checking them out. They have toured and played with everyone from the Stones to McCartney. In the 90’s Melvin Gibbs, bass player in the band I was in, told me I had to check out a Meters album called Cabbage Alley. Eventually it was re-released and I got it and it’s so great. These guys are all about the rhythm, seriously good.

The Mae Shi – Pwnd: When I put this CD into my computer, Pwnd7xx7 came up, so I am going to go with that. I can’t find anything about this release though. I think the band passed this onto me via Engineer X, he knows everybody. It’s 0450 hrs. on 08-27-07 and my day is just starting. I listened to this album very carefully yesterday afternoon and really liked it. I have a couple of their other records, Terrorbird and the one they did with Rapider Than Horsepower called Don’t Ignore The Potential and I think they’re all really cool. The Mae Shi are very talented boys and more proof that music alive and well.