BROADCAST #46
AIR DATE: 11-13-07

Fanatics! I am back with you live tonight. I hope you liked tonight’s show. I have been playing this Omar Souleyman album a lot on tour and really liking it. It’s great to be back on the air again. I really hope you enjoyed all the pre-tapes that Engineer X and I put together for you all. I have a lot of new music I’ll be bringing in over the next few weeks so tune in if you can. STAY FANATIC!!! --Henry

Henry E-mail: Henryontheradio@AOL.com

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.

Omar Souleyman – Leh Jani: From the Highway To Hassake album on the Sublime Frequencies label. I had never heard of this album until Guy Picciotto recommended it to me when I was in DC in early October. When Guy recommends a record, I usually check it out immediately. I got this record on a day off on tour and fired it up. Damn! When I found out that Souleyman was from Syria and has a slew of releases there, it pained me to think that I could have scored some more of his stuff, having just been in Syria. Some of the less traditional tracks on the album, like the one we heard tonight are amazing. Thanks to Guy P. for the turn-on. I will bring in another one of Souleyman’s songs soon, perhaps next week!

Ween - Captain Fantasy: From their 2nd album, The Pod. This is the version of Ween that I am most familiar with. We used to do a lot of shows with them and when I heard their first tapes, they were sounding like this album. There’s really none of their albums I don’t like but I really like them at their most regressive and when they are under the steerage of Andrew Weiss who brings out the best in the band texturally and performance wise I think. What’s there not to like about Ween? To me, they are so under mentioned when so many incredibly mediocre people of the same era are so lauded. There’s no need to mention names but it must be said that Ween are scary genius. More in one of their fingers than whole bands on their best day.

The Mae Shi - The Melody: I don’t know if this album, Pwnd7xx7, has been released yet. I don’t know why I was given a copy but I am sure it was finessed by Engineer X who knows everyone. I have almost all of their records and they all are working for me. I just found a copy of To Hit Armor Class Zero, which I have not heard yet but will soon. This Pwnd7xx7 CD is great all the way through. You can go to their myspace page to learn more about the band. Yet another band illustrating the fact that good music is alive and well.

High On Fire – Rumors Of War: From the Death Is This Communion album which just came out a few weeks ago on Relapse. If you are a fan of Sleep then you are probably well acquainted with High On Fire. When Sleep split up, members Al Cisneros and Chris Hakius formed the very great Om and member Matt Pike put together High On Fire and has been beating the daylights out of the world ever since. This is the band’s 4th release and is as strong as HOF’s previous three releases. Pike never relents, he only seems to put more power and fury into the mix and sonically, this might be the best sounding album the band has done so far although I find myself partial to the sludgy malevolence of the sound achieved on the band’s first effort The Art Of Self Defense, which will cause brain damage if played too loud too often.

DEVO – Sloppy: From the classic Are We Not Men? We Are DEVO! album, the band’s first release on Warner Brothers. I have been listening to a lot of DEVO lately. I always listen to a fair amount of DEVO but I have been hitting the Spud Muzik hard lately. It’s always good to hear but sometimes it’s all I want to hear. We have never played this song before, it’s one of the stranger songs on the album full of strange songs. All the Warner Bros. albums are worth checking out. A lot of people quit after the Freedom Of Choice but of all of their Warner Bros. output, that one to me is the least interesting. I think this first album is one of the finest debut albums of all time. Everyone should hear this one once.

Tinariwen – Taskiout: From the Matadjem Yinmixan CD single. Matadjem Yinmixan can be found on the Aman Iman album. Yeah, that’s right, Tinariwen have a single. Aman Iman is their third and in my opinion, their best album although the other two are great, this one has beautiful songs and playing as the others do but the sound on this one is so superb, just amazing. Toureg Rebel music, good to go!

Epsilons – Sunshine: From the new Killed 'Em Deader 'n A Six Card Poker Hand album. Rockin’! They do everything right I think. I like Rock played to death without the players dipping into the jaded or ironic bags and just letting it rip. We have been playing this band fairly frequently on our show. I am really liking them a lot and their music gives our set a good energy shot.

The Drones - Bone Idol (single version): From the Further Temptations CD. This was the band’s 2nd single. Good Manchester UK Punk Rock from back in the day. This was one of those singles I didn’t get. Ian did and I taped his copy. I caught up with it years later. They were solid band, not stand out in my opinion but really good. I got their album many years ago when it came out and never really took to it but I tried again recently and it’s sounding pretty good to me. I like the single version of this song more than the album version.

Jimmy Giuffre 3 – Sonic: From the 1961 album. The first time I ever heard Giuffre was one day when I was hanging out with Raymond Pettibon at his place and he put a Giuffre record and I thought it was really good. I found this one in a store on tour somewhere, I forget now where I was. I don’t know much about him at all. In 1961, he, along with piano player Paul Bley and bass player Steve Swallow made this album. Even though this is not wildly out music, it’s still intense without being dense or loud. Nothing on this record is what I remember hearing at Raymond’s so I went looking around for more of his stuff and got the Free Fall album. I’ll check that one out when it arrives and bring some on the show if I think it’s worth your while.

Dead Boys - Down In Flames: From the Young Loud and Snotty album. I never really cared about the Dead Boys when they were around. I checked out this album a long time ago and gave it away and then got it again many years later to check it out again and liked it a lot better. I always had the feeling the band got handled wrong. I would see photos of them in magazines and it seemed like they were being marketed as a pop band or something. It really put me off the band back then. Upon listening to the album years later, I liked it a lot better. I imagine on a good night it was a good live show. I’ve seen more than one band cover their song Sonic Reducer.

The Damned - See Her Tonite: From the Damned Damned Damned album. What?! We’re listening to The Damned again?! Well sure. A classic song from another killer debut album. This is one of my favorite albums to start the weekend with. We all have our rituals and that’s one of mine. If I off the road and am not succumbing to performance anxiety, I spend a good deal of the weekend listening to music. To get things rolling, it’s usually a Damned album and many times, it’s this one. Ah, perfection.

Dax Riggs - Radiation Blues: From the We Sing Of Only Blood Or Love album. I finally caught up with the first Deadboy album as well as Dax’s early jams in the band Acid Bath. I don’t know if these albums had been out of print for awhile but when I tried to find them, I could not, now these CDs are in all the stores. I will bring some in some of those songs soon. More Dax the better I reckon. It killed me the other night in DC, I was onstage across town from him. I hate it when something like that happens.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - That's What Jazz Is To Me: From the handy B-Sides And Rarities CD set. I first heard this in 1994 when the song was released as a b-side with Red Right Hand as the A-side. RRH can also be found on the Let Love In album. I really liked album one a lot. I saw a show from that tour in Detroit on a night off. Cave Fanatics rejoice! It looks like there will be a new Bad Seeds album in February and at some point another Grinderman album. Can’t wait for that one!

Evelyn - Smoke & Mirrors: From the 1998 Teenbeat Sampler. I am guessing that the Evelyn here is his Evelyn Hurley from Blast Off Country Style. Well, there you go.

Dum Dum Dum – Dum Dum Dum: From the Messthetics Greatest Hits: The Sounds Of D.I.Y. 1977-80 CD. I have a couple of singles on this CD but most of the bands I don’t know much about, which is the reason I got it. For fans of the lo-fi DIY thing like The Door And The Window, this is a great series of CDs, I think there are 3 or 4 now. The vinyl isn’t all that easy to find at this point which makes these comp. CDs a great thing. I have a feeling I will never bump into this single so this is as close as I will get to hearing this band. Their myspace page says they formed in Oxford UK in 1978 and that’s about it. There’s a great site to check this CD out at: http://www.hyped2death.com/

The Vile Cherubs - Man With A Photograph: From the very cool The Man Who Has No Eats Has No Sweats CD, on Afterburn Records in a limited edition of 1000. The VC’s were a DC band who were only around for a short period of time 1986 – 1987. Their album on Dischord, Post Humorous Relief isn’t all that easy to find and at some point, this CD will be scarce as well. I don’t know anything about this band really, never saw them and the only person I am familiar with is the guitar player Tim Green, who was in Nation Of Ulysses. What a cool band. I never saw them play and don’t know anything about them. There’s not much to read about the band on the internets and they don’t sound like a “DC” band, which is pretty cool as so many bands from DC have a thing. I wish there was more of their music to be heard.

The Fall – Fall Sound (alt. version): From the Fall Box Set 1977 – 2007. I was hoping for more to tell you the truth. I wanted much more from this box set. I wanted Mark E. Smith to dig, dig deep and wrench from his archives, his guts or wherever else he’s hiding the Fall goodies, to put it all on this box set. What I got instead was a lot of things I already had and only a few things that melted my butter. We have played the album version of this song before. It’s one of the only tracks from the last Fall album we have listened to on our show. This is an interesting version of the song. I will spend more time with this box set and extract from it all the good stuff I can and bring it in. At the time of this writing, I cannot recommend this box set to you. If you want to learn more about this incredible band, you can go right here: http://www.visi.com/fall/

The Buzzcocks - Nostalgia: From the band’s 2nd album, Love Bites. One of my favorite autumn listens. I hope you have taken some time to check out this often overlooked album. It’s different than the one that came before it, Another Music In A Different Kitchen, there’s more colors on the pallet tonally and the band is pushing themselves in the way of more complex arrangements and subtlety on this album when compared to the rather stark, high contrast wall of sound on AMIADK. It’s a great one, get on it!

Deerhoof – Trickybird: From 2001’s Halfbird album. Deerhoof’s singer Satomi Matsuzaki is amazing. So far, there’s no Deerhoof record I don’t like. I just got one after another and they’re all different and they’re all winners to me. I was reading about one band and got lead to Deerhoof and checked out some short audio samples I was able to check out and that lead me to getting the Apple-O and Milkman albums. I played them and immediately loved them. When I told Engineer X of my discovery, he sighed and nodded wearily. Of course he has been a fan of theirs for many years, actually he was into them three months before the band even formed. Interesting. I find out about music by tripping over it, usually a few years after the band has broken up. I am always the last to know. Hip I’m not but I’m always cheerful when I finally arrive. Fanatic!

Public Image Ltd. – Another: Easily found as an extra track on the CD version of the Flowers Of Romance album. Originally, this song was issued as a b-side along with an alternate mix of Memories on the A 10-10-79. the Fodderstompf site reminds us that Another is a version of Graveyard from the Metal Box album a.k.a. Second Edition, with vocals. This song sounds great with or without vocals but it’s interesting to hear anything the band was doing with the Lydon / Wobble / Levene line-up. The first three PIL studio albums are all different and all brilliant in their own way. http://www.fodderstompf.com/fodhome.html
Blues Boy Rawlins - Baby, She Loves Me: From the I Got a Woman Shining My Shoe album. I found this record about 23 years ago or something. The cover of the album sold me.

The Android Sisters - Telephone Wires In The Tropics: From the Best Of The Android Sisters. This CD is a lot of fun. There’s not a song on this CD I don’t like. It was love at first listen. All through the album, the processed female voices change accent and go from hilarious conversation to vulnerable sincerity to glacial hopelessness and resignation, sometimes all in the same song. I had never heard of them before Engineer X loaned me this to check out, he’s a sharp one, nose to the ground, shoulder to the yoke . . . that’s about all I could come up with there but the boy knows his music! I got this CD from the Forced Exposure website, where you can find almost any album that you are having trouble finding everywhere else. This was a great find.

Buck Gooter – Animal: From the brand new Animals CD. I am loving this record. I think this is the band’s 4th album, having released What Da Hell?, TV Evangelist Song and Woman President previously. BG is Terry Turtle and Billy Brat and they hail from Harrisonburg VA. I met Billy at an Joe Lally / Evens show last July in DC and he told me to be looking out for the new album to hit soon and happily for me, it arrived recently. These guys are so cool. If you go to their site, which I’ll list at the end of this, you will see a picture of the band playing live. The albums sound like the picture looks, great stuff. I hope you check them out. http://www.littlegrillcollective.com/bg/who.html

The Prids – The Glow: From the ...Until the World Is Beautiful album. Someone who works with the band wrote me and asked if he could send some of the band’s records and I said sure. I have not heard all the music he sent but I am liking them pretty much and I think this is my favorite song of theirs so far. I don’t know much about them yet.