HARMONY IN MY HEAD

BROADCAST #42
AIR DATE: 10-17-06

Greetings Fanatics! Here’s the show notes for tonight. I worked on this one for quite awhile, trying to make it cool and all over the place as we like to do on this show. I just got back from France and Washington DC where I spent a lot of time on airplanes working on the rest of the shows for this month and I have a great one next week, the whole show will be dedicated to the late great John Peel and we will have an unreleased Fugazi track for that one that I think you’re going to like.
This radio show is the only thing that makes living in this city tolerable for me. It’s always over too quickly. So, until next week, stay Fanatic! –Henry

For you Europeans, Australians and New Zealand Fanatics, there is a re-broadcast time of Friday mornings, 0200 – 0400 hrs. West coast time so you all can check out the show and not have to set your alarms to too rude an hour.

Black Flag - Nervous Breakdown / Fix Me / I've Had It / Wasted: Our EP of the week is the Nervous Breakdown EP by Black Flag. This is one of the best records I have ever heard. This is the original line up with Brian Migdol on drums pre-Robo and Keith Morris on vocals. This is the line up with the most punch I think. The thing that always struck me about Keith is that he’s complete natural onstage. He’s one of the most zero bullshit people I have ever met. It comes across in all his music over the years and it makes the Black Flag material he’s on hit like a hammer. When he sings, you believe it. This is a very rare version of Black Flag, besides the Keith factor, one thing that sometimes gets overlooked when talking about this era of the band and this recording, is the Brian Migdol factor. What a rockin’ drummer! Robo, who was/is great, plays much differently and gave the music a completely different feel. Check out all the recordings Robo did with the band and his straight beats sound like he’s galloping. His style is very busy compared to Migdol and I think Migdol really worked well with what Greg Ginn does on those songs. I know many of you heard this record but as an EP it is as good as any that have ever been released anywhere. The EP is in print. If you don’t have any Black Flag and are want a good release, check out the First Four Years CD.

The Jesus And Mary Chain – You Trip Me Up: From the Psychocandy album. I great piece of work. I always thought these guys were really cool. I didn’t know much about them when they released this. They were all over college radio at the time and I heard them a lot and thought those guitars were really cool. I have a singles collection of theirs, Barbed Wire Kisses, which is really cool as well. It has my favorite song of theirs Kill Surf City.

Kenny Dorham & Co. – Poursuite Et Metro: Remember a few weeks ago when we listened to Miles from the Lift To The Scaffold soundtrack and I told you about the soundtrack that was finessed by promoter Marcel Romano that had Kenny Dorham playing on the session? The film is called Un Temoin Dans La Ville and the soundtrack, although brief, is really great. The sax player on the Scaffold soundtrack is the same as this one, the Frenchman, Barney Wilen. It was on this soundtrack that I noticed that he was really good. I looked him up and he had quite the career. I want to hear more of this guy. I’ll have to do some looking around. I have been a Dorham fan for a long time. This one might not be in some Dorham Fanatic’s collection as it’s not easy to locate unless you know where to look. Amazon.com USA will charge you an arm and a leg. Amazon.com France and UK are a little easier on the wallet (rhymes with ‘ballet’.)

The Fall – Antidote: This track isn’t all that easy to come by. It’s only released on the Touch Sensitive single, released 02-23-99. Touch was released on 12” vinyl and CD. Touch Sensitive / Antidote / Touch Sensitive (Dance mix). The track from The Marshall Suite album, (Jung Nev’s) Antidotes is basically the same track but it’s about 30 seconds longer. I figured we’d for the track that’s not as easy find as the other one. Another great track from The Fall. Also, if you have not, you should check out The Marshall Suite album, it’s a stand out record for the band. That Unofficial website address: http://www.visi.com/fall/

Lee Hazlewood – The Night Before: Onto the next Lee of the evening. From the Poet Fool Or Bum album. I don’t think this track is on the original album but it’s on this CD I got many years ago. I never hear much Lee Hazlewood until the early 80’s. Lydia Lunch and Rowland S Howard had done a cover of a song Hazlewood did with Nancy Sinatra called Some Velvet Morning. Both versions are great. Einsturzende Neubauten did a cover of Sand. Eventually I ended up with a couple mangled LPs and then a few years later, had some CDs. Some of his tracks are a little corny but I think he’s going for a little of that and it’s not bad because it’s always heartfelt and strange enough to work. He and Nancy are well known for their cover of Jackson. Since we had not listened to any Lee Hazlewood in a long time, I scrolled through the songs and came by this one, which is classic Hazlewood, a short story, maybe written moments after the woman he’s singing about left the room. On its surface, a bent pop song but upon closer listening, a sincere and sad song.

Lydia Lunch & Friends - Done Dun: Lydia gave me a tape of this years before it came out. It’s from her Honeymoon In Red album, which features The Birthday Party as her band. Not bad back up for a city girl. This song is a mangled duet between her and one Nick Cave. It’s one of my favorite Nick vocals. For a long time, LL would do records with different people and bands and never have a band of her own. Often, the results were really cool. The stuff she did with Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) is really good as is her tracks with Sort Sol and Einsturzende Neubauten. Lydia made some really good records.

Fats Waller – Twenty Four Robbers: We have checked out any Fats for awhile so I figured we’d better. I have all the Fats records I’ve ever seen but the most together sets are the ones on Blue Bird and unfortunately, they seem to be out of print. What you get for the most part with Fats as well as lot of artists who recorded before there were albums is a bunch of best-ofs and sometimes stolen tracks. You have to be careful with quality on CDs like these. That’s why I like the ones on Blue Bird / RCA. Fats Waller was an incredibly talented, funny and charismatic man. His piano playing is amazing and as a vocalist, he’s incredible. He was funny but also able to really put ballads across as well. In his short life, (1904 – 1943) he recorded and played all over the world, all the time. Sometimes he would just go into places and play for beer, just for the hell of it, sometimes it went on for hours. He burned the candle very brightly at both ends and died of pneumonia. He co-wrote Honeysuckle Rose with Andy Razaf and Ain’t Misbehavin’ with Razaf and Harry Brooks. I forget which song it was or perhaps it was both but anyway, they sold the rights for the songs away for like 75 bucks or something. When you hear these Fats records, there’s a ton of songs on them and it makes you wonder how he could take so many other people’s songs and make them sound like he wrote them. Sinatra did the same thing, as soon as they hit it, they owned it. Also, when you consider how young Fats was when he passed away and look at the sheer number of songs he recorded, it’s astounding.

Menace - Electrocutioner: This was always my favorite Menace track along with G.L.C. and I always thought about playing it on our show but it was on vinyl and I never dragged it to the turntable to transfer it. Recently I saw that a best of Menace had been released that contained Electrocutioner. So, I got it and here it is for our show tonight. They were a good band but not all that exceptional in my opinion. Solid though.

Dwight Pullen - Sunglasses After Dark: I have this track on two Rhino box sets: Rockin’ Bones and Loud, Fast & Out Of Control. It jumped right out at me since I have been listening to The Cramps version of the song forever. I have to tell the truth, I didn’t know it wasn’t a Cramps song. I never bothered to check the credits. The Cramps cover a lot of songs. I did some reading up on Dwight “Whitey” Pullen and found out that prostate cancer got him when he was only 31. Here’s a site with a well-written bio on the man: http://www.rockabilly.nl/references/messages/whitey_pullen.htm

Joe Lally - Pick A War: The wait is over and Joe’s album is out. There To Here came out last week. As you remember we played a track week’s before the album’s release, giving you Fanatics the drop on the rest of the radio world. We’ll have to wait until our November 7th show to play you something from The Evens new album. I’ve been sitting on that one for weeks now and it’s a great one. Anyway, Joe has some serious friends dropping in on this album. Wino of the Obsessed, Guy Picciotto, Ian and Amy from The Evens, Danny Frankel of The Urban Verbs, and THE MAN: Eddie Janney of The Untouchables, Rites Of Spring, Happy Go Licky, One Last Wish. Joe laid down that solid bass in Fugazi from start to finish and it’s about time he got a record out. I have been playing this one a lot. Fans of Fugazi will love this one. http://www.dischord.com/main.shtm

Ketty Lester - Moscow Nights: I was always curious about Ketty Lester ever since I head her sing Love Letters on the Blue Velvet film soundtrack. I had never checked out any of her other songs so I figured I better get on that. I found a couple under the name Love Letters. I got the one on the Marginal label. I have only played once through and am liking it so far. She sings very well but her vocals nor the music on the CD is remarkable, it’s solid though and she has great control of her voice. She had her biggest success with Love Letters and later abandoned singing for film and television acting where she had success. She sang with Cab Calloway says an online biog. I will have to see if I can find a recording with her on it. She very well could have just been the featured singer for a vocal number and never actually recorded with Cab and his band.

The Pupils - Go To Gone: From the one and only Pupils album there is. The Pupils are Daniel Higgs and Asa Osbourne of Lungfish, who might be Dischord’s most prolific band with at least ten albums out. Daniel can sing his ass off and he’s one heavy songwriter. You probably remember on Broadcast #33, we listened to the Lungfish song Love Will Ruin Your Mind. Anyway, The Pupils. I don’t know what the history of the band is. Perhaps the two of them wanted to write while the rest of Lungfish did other things. Seems to me that Daniel is always working on music. He sang at Alec MacKaye’s wedding many years ago, it was strong. Lungfish and The Pupils are heavy listening but always worth it. I want to check out Daniel’s book The Doomsday Bonnet.

The J.B.'s - The Grunt: Gee, you think Public Enemy ever heard this song?! Public Enemy used a lot of James Brown and they used a lot of this tune. This is one of my favorite J.B.’s jam. If you don’t know by now, the J.B.’s are the band that backs up James Brown. They can play a little! Check out the horn break on this tune, it’s right out of New Orleans (before Mother Nature and the Bush Administration conspired to kill the 9th Ward.) Don’t be a hater, God?!

The Moonglows – Starlite: I got this 2CD Moonglows set years ago because I liked their song The Ten Commandments Of Love. This is top-shelf R&B flavored Doo Wop. From what I read online, they were called The Crazy Sounds until Alan Freed (!) renamed them.

Stephen Mosko - Indigenous Music II: When the computers at my company stop doing what we tell them to, we call Matt who comes over and tames them. Matt knows a lot about Avant music and one day I asked him to make me a list of some records I should check out as I know next to nothing about the genre. Instead of suggesting some titles, he came by and dropped off a stack of CDs. Most of the artists and composers I had never heard of. I played all of it liked all of it. This album, Indigenous Music, is one of the CDs he lent me. The group playing on the CD is called The California Ear Unit. I am so caught out there when it comes to this kind of music. I know what I like when I hear it and I know why but I don’t know anything about any of the players or composers. I got a bunch of Ligeti records because of the ones that Matt lent me and they are amazing but I still have a lot to learn about Ligeti. Some of the first Avant stuff I ever heard was Iannis Xenakis’ piece called Bohor. Diamanda Galas lent me the album in 1985. I found a copy of my own awhile later. I got interested in George Crumb by hearing his work Four Nocturnes on KCRW FM in Santa Monica. I looked all over for a copy and can’t find a copy of Indigenous Music. I just wrote the label and asked if they are going to put it back in print. I’ll let you know if I hear back in case any of you find the track interesting. Here’s some info on Mr. Mosko, who passed away in December of last year: http://www.leisureplanetmusic.com/composer/mosko/bio.htm

Charles Gayle – Happy Birthday: Many years ago, heavyweight saxophone player Charles Gayle went into the studio for an extended session, longer than he was accustomed to. He was making a record for my label and I had noticed that he always made his records quickly and I when I asked him why, he said that he never had enough money to work longer than one day. I told him to work as long as he needed and I would pick up the studio costs. I figured the guy would do a lot better of he didn’t feel pressured to do everything in one take and not do exactly what he wanted. So, instead of doing the album in one day, he took one whole other day in the studio and made it into a two day session. The sessions were complete led and all of it was mixed—a whopping 3 CD’s worth of material. Charles picked out the material he wanted to put on the record, sequenced it and it was done. The album, called Creation Changes, per Mr. Gayle’s request, was never released. Charles’ agent at the time was Knitting Factory and they said if he didn’t record for them, they wouldn’t book him any more. Live shows feed Charles and there’s no way I am going to stand in the way of that. He asked me to turn him loose from his contract and I did and shelved the album. One of the tracks from the album was CG’s version of Happy Birthday. The other day, Kevin, music Fanatic and exec over at KUCI FM asked me if I would play something off the Music Of Islam box set for his birthday. I thought I would go him one better and play this unreleased Charles Gayle track in his honor. Happy birthday Kevin and thanks for sending those naked pictures of your mother into the station, we’ll be sure to post them as soon as there’s another culture shift. Keep listening!

New York Dolls - Punishing World: I wanted to wait a few weeks before we came back to this album. This is from the new New York Dolls album, One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This. As I wrote before when we listened to the song We’re All In Love a few weeks ago, this album holds up all the way through. It’s really solid and again, I’m not saying I had my doubts because I didn’t but I didn’t think it would kick as hard as it does. I love the first Dolls album but never played the 2nd one nearly as much, this one to me is a better follow up, all these years later. Of course some band members are gone permanently and band that had Johnny Thunders in it would miss that but I’m glad the band did this record. It should be said, what an influence the Dolls were on Rock and Roll. I don’t give a damn about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but that The Sex Pistols and The Ramones are in there and the Dolls aren’t is pretty lame. They should at least get the nod.

Contortions - I Can't Stand Myself: This is from the No New York compilation album. If you like this show, you need this record. It was out of print for about three hundred years, never on CD until fairly recently. NNY is 4 bands / 16 tracks. James Chance & The Contortions, Teenage Jesus And The Jerks, Mars and D.N.A. I think the best stuff James ever did is are the four tracks he did here. I have all his records and they’re all great but there is a level of insane genius on these tracks that are mandatory listening. This is the album that inspired the Yes LA album on the west coast. That’s a great one as well. NNY documents four bands from New York’s No Wave movement. These four bands of course aren’t the only ones who were part of this scene. You can’t leave out Suicide, The Bush Tetras, The Theoretical Girls, etc. I think between the early Punk and No Wave scenes in New York City have left such a world wide mark on music, I don’t think it can be estimated or overstated. Some of the No Wave stuff, like what Lydia Lunch was doing, was so far ahead of its time. I am always amazed by the ones who pull stuff out of nowhere. I have never been able to do it so I am always a fan of those who do it. This was a short-lived scene and probably not all that well attended and a great way to go broke and stay that way, which makes it all the more interesting to me. These bands had to fight for this music.

Barbecue Bob - Chocolate To The Bone: One of my favorites bluesmen. I don’t remember how I bumped into BB but it was in the mid eighties. He got his name from the barbecues he used to host and play at. He had success as a player. He had a brother, Charley Hicks a.k.a. Charley Lincoln, who also played and it’s pretty easy to get the two mixed up although Bob has a lot more range, Charley made himself stand out by starting a lot of songs with a mirthless laugh, which earned him the nickname Charley “Laughing Charley” Lincoln. Charley had a reason to sing the blues and dad gummit, we should be playing a song of his as he has one hell of a story. His mother died, then on Halloween 1931, brother Bob died. He became quite the moody drinker after that and separated from his wife, who died shortly after. Then, his father died and Charley really had the blues. He shot and killed a man and a few years into his 20 year sentence, he died of a brain hemorrhage in 1963. Damn! And how the fuck was your day?!