BROADCAST #48
AIR DATE: 11-28-06

Hey Fanatics, here’s the notes from tonight’s show. I will be back at my desk at the office in a few hours as we are in full tilt mail order madness. I have not slept much in the last few days but I am hanging in there as best I can. I have a great show for next week that I think you will like so please tune in if you can. Thanks for listening, and STAY FANATIC! --Henry
Tralala
12-05-06 Safari Sam’s
12-06-06 Spaceland
Trail of the Dead & Blood Brothers
11-30-06@ Henry Fonda
12-01-06@ Henry Fonda
The Nymphs
12-04-06 Viper Room
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.
Pere Ubu – Two Girls: From the very swell new album on Smog Veil called Why I Hate Women. Pere Ubu leader David Thomas doesn’t hate women, by the way. I saw them play a few weeks ago at UCLA’s Royce Hall. The show opened with Corman’s B-movie classic X, The Man With X Ray Eyes with Pere Ubu doing a live underscore as the film played. Lucky us. Then after a short intermission, the band assembled onstage for a great set of music. Pere Ubu is one solid band. My favorite part of the show was watching Robert Wheeler, the synth player work out on the Theremin. What crazy sounds he gets with all his gear. In the encore David said very nice things about me from the stage. I can now wander into traffic. I have never seen a Pere Ubu or David performance that didn’t kill. Smog Veil says there’s another Pere Ubu album coming out soon called Why I Remix Women. As soon as I get my hands on it, we will all hear it on our show. A quote from the Pere Ubu page: “We are disappointed to have a day off on October 20. We hate days off. They make us weak.“ Love that! http://www.ubuprojex.net/.
The Scientists – Clear Spot: The start of a three song concept here. The early rumblings of the long and distinguished career of Kim Salmon, the great Australian song writer and recording artist. Kim Salmon of The Scientists, Beasts Of Bourbon, The Surrealists and his own solo records. Not surprising that Kim draws upon Captain Beefheart as a source for a cover song. How cool. This track was recorded over 20 years ago and still sounds great. There’s a great best of called Blood Red River 1982 – 1984. It’s not the only best-of they have out but it’s the one with Clear Spot on it. I have one Scientists record back in the 80’s but didn’t really know what I was dealing with. I liked the record fine but there was little information on Australian that I could find. It was after I started going there and seeing these bands that I became far more aware of all the great music happening in Australia. The first night I was in Australia, I saw Kim play when he was in the Beasts Of Bourbon and on the same tour, I think I also saw his other band, The Surrealists. I became a frequent visitor to Australia and every time I toured through, I would come back to America with more great records. Kim, in all his different stages of development is always worth the time.
Captain Beefheart – Grown So Ugly: From the Captain’s Safe As Milk album. It’s Captain Beefheart covering a song by one of my favorite Bluesmen of all time, Robert Pere Williams. Williams called the song I’ve Grown So Ugly. In the song he sings about getting out of prison and going to his woman’s house. He knocks on the door and she opens it but doesn’t recognize him because in the twenty some years he’s been away, he’s grown so ugly. In the song, he’s grown so ugly, he doesn’t even recognize himself in the mirror. It’s interesting that Captain Beefheart chose this song to cover. The Beefheart catalog is one of those wonderful worlds of music you must spend some time in. Listen to all of it at least once. There’s nothing like him anywhere.
Robert Pete Williams – Doctor Blues: At this point, I honestly forget how I found Robert Pete Williams’ music. It very well could have been from a recording of Angola State Prison inmate recordings. I had become interested in prison recordings from listening to the Prison Worksongs album on Arhoolie, that’s the one we were listening to weeks ago. There’s another one, it’s called Angola Prisoners' Blues, also on Arhoolie and also recorded by Dr. Harry Oster. Robert Pete Williams is on that one and that’s probably how I found his album Free Again, also recorded by Dr. Oster. One of the reasons I got interested in RPW’s work is because all his material is from real life. He killed a man and was sent to prison. He always stated that he acted in self defense. He was eventually pardoned with the help of Harry Oster. He served years of parole and worked long hours on a farm. He would play where he could on the weekends. He got out and played to grateful audiences all over, made a few recordings, all of them great in my opinion, and then he died. Tonight’s track was taken from the Blues Masters Vol. 1 on Storyville.
The Fall – Popcorn Double Feature / Arms Control Poseur / Butterflies 4 Brains: Our EP of the week is from some band who have played at least once on this show. They are called The Fall and they are from a country called England. They were making records in the last century, don’t let that scare you, they actually made good records way back in the 90’s. This EP was released in March 1990. The Extricate album, that some of these tracks were taken from was released 02-19-90. Arms Control Poseur appears as a bonus track on the CD version of Extricate and has a different mix and edit than the single version we heard tonight. I know this information thrills you. I know it has transfixed and made you unable to think of anything else and now all you want to know about the smallest details about Manchester UK’s mightiest export, The Fall. I am loathe to give you the following information for fear that you will never return to this broadcast because you will be so consumed by The Fall, you will be unwilling to listen to anything BUT The Fall. At great risk of losing your Fanatic listenership forever, I give you this, the Unofficial Fall Website: http://www.visi.com/fall/
Jelly Roll Morton - Poor Alfred Wilson: My favorite Jelly Roll Morton recordings are from the collection from which we took tonight’s selection, The Library of Congress Recordings. For many years, I had the multi-CD set on Rounder. It’s Jelly Roll telling stories and playing music at the request of Alan Lomax, who made the recordings. Jelly Roll is such a character, he’s larger than life, his stories about New Orleans, the bars, fights, women and high times are an amazing insight into America’s rough street fight history. And then there’s the playing. Jelly Roll Morton was one ridiculous piano player. He was very sure of his own talent and I believe he takes credit for inventing Jazz. By the time Alan Lomax recorded him in 1938, Jelly’s career was on the skids and he was living in Washington DC playing piano at a small bar. When he was living large and making records for Victor he played with some of New Orleans best. One thing I didn’t know, I guess I didn’t read the liner notes closely enough, but he cut some records with killer trumpet player Bubber Miley, who is on some of my favorite Duke Ellington recordings. Pretty much all the Jelly Roll Morton stuff is available but of all of it, The Library Of Congress Recordings are the ones for me. It’s the storytelling that is so magic, that Lomax had the forethought to nail all this down, is a testament to his genius, his love of history, music and American culture. If it weren’t for the Lomax dragging Jelly into the studio and getting all these stories and music out of him, it would all would have been relegated to people writing about how great it was when Jelly Roll Morton would tell stories and play piano. I cannot overstate how cool these recordings are. There’s a couple of versions of these recordings. There is the Rounder Records unboxed version and a more recently released box set on Rounder that has all the spoken bits as well as an additional CD of data. I have read complaints that the box set sounds tinny in comparison to the older Rounder versions. I have a-b’d some of my more favorite tracks and I think overall, the box sounds fine, and you get all the extra stuff. Jelly Roll did it all, hustled women, gambled, played and sang and died young. It’s one hell of a story.
DEVO – Explosions: From the Oh No! It’s DEVO album. Far too many Spuds failed to maintain their DEVO Fanatic status by not paying enough attention to DEVO’s later albums. Everyone knows the first one Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO! Many people, not as many as I would like checked out the staggering follow-up Duty Now For The Future. Then the band had a “hit” with album #3, 1980’s Freedom Of Choice with Whip It. It is here where some of the DEVO-ted stopped paying attention to the hard working Spuds. Three great DEVO albums followed: New Traditionalists, Oh No! It’s DEVO and Shout. You need these albums! For many Fanatics who have never heard these albums all the way through, they will be amazed at all the great music they missed. Here’s something interesting about the Oh No! album, it was produced by Roy Thomas Baker! How cool is that?! Many years ago, these last three Warner Bros. titles all came out for the first time in America on the Infinite Zero label. Then they went out of print. Now they are back in print on Collectables but not all of them have the same extra tracks the Infinite Zero ones did. You might want to be a smart Spud and search around some for those versions.
Johnny Dollar – Rockin’ Bones: There’s far more about music I don’t know than I will ever know. I work at it. I don’t think I had ever heard anything more of Johnny Dollar than the song Action Packed, which turns up on Rock and Roll type compilations fairly often. We listened to that song recently on our show. I did a little research on the guy and his best of seemed like something that would be interesting to check out. It is. It’s rockin’! He definitely has his own thing but he also sounds like he’s right in there with Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran and other flat out rockers. Having heard Rockin’ Bones done by The Cramps in the late 70’s at their shows and only finding out that it wasn’t one of their songs only a little while ago, I am interested in any earlier version of that song and this one is really great. There’s another song on Mr. Action Packed CD called Green Eyed Cat that we’ll have to play at some point.
The Cravats – When Will We Fall: Another track from the newly released Cravats retrospective The Land Of The Giants 2CD set on Overground. I warned you that we would be checking this release out with some frequency. I only hope this release inspires The Cravats to go out and play some shows. Their website is really good now and the band bio is a fun read, the illustrated discography is very handy as well. If you didn’t hear tonight’s track or have never heard the band before, the music is a bit hard to describe. I think since the band formed in such an unorthodox way and since their thing was never to “rock” as it were, their music seems relatively free from influence. They sound the way some bands made up of people who are artistically inclined but perhaps never thought they would be in a band and all of a sudden found themselves in one sound. I don’t know of that’s the case with The Cravats but I have been around enough people like that and often they make really great musicians as they come into the whole thing from a different door than a lot of others. In the music of The Cravats, interesting things happen. I could see them having a devoted following or none, neither would surprise me. They are that different. Count me in! http://www.thecravats.com/
Soccer Team - We Closed A Record Store: Another track from Soccer Team’s recent debut album, the one with the interesting name and punctuation, '"Volunteered" Civility & Professionalism' on Dischord. Soccer Team are Melissa Quinley - keyboards, piano, vocals and Ryan Nelson - guitar, bass, keyboards, piano, drums, vocals. What a cool band. Since the duo are both staffers at Dischord, I don’t know if they will be able to tour far and wide so if you see a listing for them, it might be a show to hurry to. All Dischord releases are available right here, right now: http://www.dischord.com/main.shtml
999 - High Energy Plan: From the band’s classic Separates album. Not a bad song on this one. We’ve played this band a few times. I used to see them when they toured through Washington DC. This album has been re-issued on Captain Oi and is easy to find. 999 was one of the great UK Punk bands that had truly great songs and real talent. There’s a few different CD versions of Separates available so let’s break them down. There is the aforementioned version on Captain Oi with extra tracks You Can’t Buy Me, Soldier, Waiting and Action. There is the Fan Club label version with the same songs and a 2-for-1 CD released by EMI that has the band’s self-titled first album and Separates but no extra tracks. Captain Oi has also released a CD of the band’s singles from ‘77-‘80 that’s very nice. Worfitmate.
The Vibrators - Into The Future: I have kinda told this story before but here I go again. Many years ago, we would go to this one record store that had a lot of cut out records for three bucks. We would check out anything that looked Punk Rock. It’s how I ended up with the 1st Suicide album and the Saints albums. They cost about an hour’s wage and lucky for me, they were really good records. The Vibrators album Pure Mania was one of those records. We all bought a copy. Pure Mania was one of many major label Punk releases that came out stateside that no one knew what to do with so thousands of unloved copies flooded the bins. I don’t know a great deal about the band as I never ventured past this album and the Judy Says single. I met the singer, Knox, in London a couple of times when he was hanging out with Charlie Harper of the UK Subs. Always cool when Charlie would show up to the gig. There’s a UK issue of this album on Captain Oi and the information says that it’s a different mix than the regular release, apparently it’s the original mix that the label did approve of. I have them both and I’ll be damned if I can tell the difference. Anyway just so you know, we listened to the Captain Oi version tonight. I do believe there is more in the way of extra tracks on that one, which might make it more interesting.
Mark Stewart - Pay It All Back: I don’t know anything about The Pop Group or Mark Stewart yet but I’m working on it. This Mark solo record, As The Veneer Of Democracy Starts To Fade, is really intense. It seems that’s Stewart’s MO. I keep coming back to this record for its relentless non-compromise. I have to spend more time with the Pop Group records and check out the Mark two solo records I have. http://www.uncarved.org/music/maffia/maffia.html
Partyline - Zombie Terrorist: It’s the Alison Wolfe show! I saw Partyline play in DC several weeks at Fort Reno in Washington DC several weeks ago and they rocked. This track is from the Zombie Terrorist CD on Retard Disco, the follow-up to the Girls With Glasses CD. This Girl Rock With Attitude unit is a very chaotic and good time. Allison Wolfe is in this band, you may remember her from Bratmobile and Cold Cold Hearts. Zombie is such an inside job! Produced by Chris from Q and Not U produced, recorded at Inner Ear by Don Zientara and mastered by Chad at Silver Sonya. I hope you caught them on their recent tour. http://www.partylinedc.com/
Ris Paul Ric – Daft Young Cannibals: Speaking of the young and very talented Mr. Richards, this is a track from his first solo outing since the break up of Q And Not U: Ric Paul Ric is the name of the band, Purple Blaze is the name of the record. Of course, an obvious Hendrix reference comes to mind but if you have ever heard Chris Paul Richards sing, Purple Rain also comes to mind. This is an interesting record and I have to admit, I have not spent enough time with this record yet. Chris sent it to me ages ago when I was in the middle of something. It has elements of QANU in it because there was so much of Chris in QANU. It’s an interesting record but might not be the record QANU fans want out of Chris. This record is a collaboration between Chris and Tim Hecker, a techno man I know nothing about because I don’t move as fast as all the kids. I just wrote Chris and asked what he’s up to. If he lets me know, I’ll let you know. Update: Ok, Chris just got back to me with my info request and here is what he sent me: Here's an update from my world: I'm currently writing jams with my new R&B band (not yet named) and DJing with my bandmate Dave Nada under the name Rubber Bullets. We put out a mixtape called "Crowd Control" recently - it's full of partycuts, Bmore club anthems, new go-go jams, mashups, remixes and original shit. (There's also a Black Flag sample in there!). I am still doing the Ris Paul Ric stuff part-time, but really pouring most of the blood/sweat into this new group. We hope to be delivering a devastating live show six months from now.
Tim Hecker just put out a new album called Harmony In Ultraviolet and I think it might be his best. I just visited him in Montreal recently and he's doing really well.
Here are the links for the Ris/Rubber Bullets myspace pages:
myspace.com/rispaulric
myspace.com/rubberbulletsmusic
And there you go. Thanks Chris!
Johnny Hartman – Alone: As I have reported here before, I got to Hartman via Coltrane and the album they did together on Impulse. I really like the richness of his voice, his phrasing and his choices of songs. I also like that he never really got huge and it still feels like a cool little discovery that I made on my own. I don’t know anyone who has his albums but I don’t know many people anyway. Every now and then, I look around to see if there’s some new re-release of a Hartman record I have never seen and recently I saw there were a few and one of them was This one called I Love Everybody that has a session on it that has never been on CD before so I jumped on it. It’s got the sessions he did with Oliver Nelson, that’s Blues And The Abstract Truth Oliver Nelson, yeah! Another great, deep and thoughtful group of songs from one of the masters of the ballad, the amazing Mr. Hartman.
Erase Errata – Rider: I came back from tour recently and sifted through all the CDs and other things that people gave me while I was out there. I think that’s where I got this CD of Erase Errata called Nightlife. I think that’s how I came in contact with this CD. I don’t think it was sent to me at the radio station and I know I didn’t buy it. Anyway, I looked at the back of it and saw that it was in Kill Rockstars so that made me interested because that’s a good label. I like the record a lot because I like what the label does and this album sounds like it came out on Kill Rockstars, you know what I mean? Sometimes I think the bands sound like the label. It’s the problem I used to have with some of the bands on Dischord or Am Rep. Erase Errata sound like a Kill Rockstars band but are not limited by it but put it this way, if the band gave me their record and asked what label they should send it to get heard, I would say Kill Rockstars, that’s as best as I can put it. That being said, I am now a fan of the band and will look up their earlier stuff and check it out. I have a lot of the records on Kill Rockstars but not all of them. I like the ones I have though. http://www.killrockstars.com/
Tralala - Yellow Taxi: This CD, Is That The Tralala was sent to Heidi. We gave it a listen at the office and I borrowed it and have played it through a few times now and really like it. The band is four gals in front on vocals and all he men ass-whoopers supplying The Rock. Looks like they have some California dates coming up. Check their site for info: http://www.tralalatheband.com/home.html
The Blood Brothers – Set Fire To The Face On Fire: First track from the band’s new Young Machetes album. This is a great album. They played this song at a taping for my IFC show. Their segment will go to air at some point in 2007. They are a great band, another sign of life in the music world. So many times I hear someone say that music is dead, music sucks now, etc. I don’t see how anyone can say that with all the great bands that are around. Things are different than they used to be, bands don’t sound like they did ten years ago and that’s why bands make records. They’re like dinosaur bones. As soon as the record is released, it’s a relic. Some bands make the same record year after year for some reason. Perhaps they should try something else! Anyway, The Blood Brothers are just more proof that music is alive and well. Wait until you see them on the IFC show, they fucking killed.
Blonde Redhead – Slogan: It took me a long time to check out Blonde Redhead. Usually when bands come with a lot of hipster hype attached to them, the music doesn’t always hold up. Reviews of their early records compare them to Sonic Youth and that always sends me in the other direction. Many years ago, Guy Picciotto sent me this EP of theirs called Melodie Citronique that he worked on. He’s worked with them quite a bit, which makes me interested in them. Basically a trio, two brothers, Amedeo and Simone Pace and vocalist Kazu Makino, they make interesting and unique music which makes me wonder why the hipsters like them. I have not checked out all their records and only have Melody Of Certain Damaged Lemons and Fake Can Be Just As Good but I’m going to investigate them more and am looking forward to their new album coming out next year. Slogan is a Serge Gainsbourg song which was recorded at Guy’s old home studio.
DNA – Blonde Redhead: Haven’t listened to DNA in awhile and this would be a good place to put this song by this band. This is from the DNA On DNA album. DNA as many of you Fanatics know, were a big part of New York’s No Wave scene. Groups like Mars, Von Lmo, The Contortions, Suicide, Lydia Lunch, were the anti-rock, an active deconstruction of rock music that some people thought was just awful noise and many others thought was music to their ears. I was never there for any of it and caught up to the music years later from records. I don’t know if I would have got it if I was actually at those shows at the time. I might not have hated it and been part of group that cleared out of the room but I don’t know if I would have been able to appreciate what was happening for what it was. Years after the fact, I quite like all this stuff.
King Crimson – Happy With What You Have to Be Happy With: From the EP of the same name, it’s pretty long for an EP but we’ll call it an EP anyway. This came was released in October of 2002 with an album, The Power To Believe, released in spring 2003. Both feature this song although the EP version is about a minute longer. They seem to be the same take so I guess it’s an edited version. Tonight, we heard the EP version because I figure the song is really cool and we could probably use a little more of it than a little less.