BROADCAST #50
AIR DATE: 12-11-07

Fanatics! Here’s the show I am hoping we will pull off tonight. I am on the film set today and I am in the last shot and I really don’t know when I am getting out of it. I will hopefully either get to the studio on time or a little late. If I can’t get there on time, someone at Indie will fill on for me until I get there. It very well could be that I will get to the station in time. I don’t know but here are the notes anyway and we’ll see what I get to or not. It’s around noon now and I hit the set in a couple of hours. I hope we can pull this show off. It’s going to be a great one. --Henry 1218 hrs.

Henry e-mail address: 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.

XBXRX - The End of Quitting: Wake up! From the Sixth In Sixes album, it’s XBXRX again. I love this band.

Ja'afar Hassan - They Taught Me: From the Choubi Choubi! (Folk And Pop Songs From Iraq) CD. Another CD from the Sublime Frequency label. I don’t know a damn thing about any of the people on this album, you can perhaps understand that. It’s a very interesting listen so far.

PJ Harvey - When Under Ether: Another track from the new White Chalk albm. I belive this is the first single. I don’t see any of the songs on this album burning up the American top 40 charts any time soon and that’s a good thing I think. There’s no albums Ms. Harvey has made that I don’t like. I think she makes music for all the right reasons. White Chalk is a very spare album, there’s not much on it instrumentally but in her case, I think that’s a good thing, her performances are so strong, the less in her way, the better.

Funkadelic - Super Stupid: From the Maggot Brain album. I have a feeling we have played this song before. In case we have, I am sorry if the repetition is causing a problem but I really wanted to bring this song on the show so here we are. One of the best Funkadelic songs and one of the many great moments for guitarist Eddie Hazel who also does vocals on this song. It’s Eddie’s ridiculous playing you hear on the title track of this album. We have played a few songs off this album on our show. One of the greatest things about Funkadelic’s music for me are the lyrics. It was like George and Co. were trying to wake up and inform the people sharp enough to pick up on the signal. When you really listen to the more serious songs, you see that this was a band with a message, it was so much more than some people jamming. Decades ahead of their time. My favorite Funkadelic albums are the ones that came out before the Warner Bros. stuff: Funkadelic, Free You Mind And Your Ass Will Follow and Maggot Brain. They’re all in print and worth checking out.

Cloudland Canyon - Clearlight Intry: From the Requiems Der Natur 2002 – 2004 CD. The friendly folks at Tee Pee sent me this and it took me this long to get to it, sorry about that and what a loss for my ears that it took me so long. I wish I had cracked this one open as soon as they sent it because it’s really great. I don’t exactly know how to describe the music. Sometimes they sound like they emerged from the middle of Sister Ray on White Light/White Heat with synths and effects and on the next track they have morphed into a exploratory electronic unit and on other tracks there seems to be hints of pop oriented chord changes, and on Coastal Breathe, I almost expected Laurie Anderson start talking, all the while a dense surrounding of loops, effects, vocals and whatever else comes at you from every possible direction. I like it a lot. The band is basically Brooklyn based Kip Uhlhorn from the band Panthers and Simon Wojan from Germany but in the live format, I think they have had other peopl onstage. As it’s been said, “I don’t know about art but I know what I like.” The more I listen to this album, the more it’s blowing my mind. The horns on Holy Canyon – Vanquish are great, I’ll have to bring that track in at some point. We’ll definitely get to more tracks from this album in 2008. I am listening to this album at a fairly high volume as I write this and it’s blowing my mind. Looking forward to hearing their other stuff.

The Fall - Recipe For Fascism: I took this version from The Fall Box Set 1976 – 2007 although it can be found on the bonus disc of the Levitate album, CD version released in 1997. This is one of The Fall albums that took me awhile to get to when I first got it but after a few listens, I really liked it and played it a lot. We have sampled many tracks from this album over the years. I pulled this version from the box set because I think it sounds a little better than the one on the Levitate bonus CD. This is a very short track from MES and The Fall, not even a minute long, well, we’re just making room for other things tonight. If you check the unnofficial Fall site, you will see that the band had about an album’s worth of new songs in their live set so I imagine there will be another studio album in 2008 so we have that to look forward to. The sooner the better for me, I want to forget the last one as soon as I can. Need Fall info? Here is the place to go: http://www.visi.com/fall/

Ornette Coleman - To Us / To Whom Who Keeps A Record: Months ago when I was in Austin TX, I went to Waterloo Records as I usually do and I saw this Ornette album. I had never seen it before so I picked it up. I played it before the show that night and a few times afterwards as the tour rolled on. This is my first opportunity to bring anything from it to our show. What a find! If you like Ornette, then you need this record. The record came out briefly in Japan in 1975 and that’s it until now. I guess for many of you afficinados, this album is nothing new for you but for the rest of us, it’s good news. The tracks were recorded in 1959 and 1960 and, Don Cherry, Billy Higgins and Charlie Hayden are on board so what’s there not to like?

The Syndicate - The Egyptian Thing: I had never heard of this band until I heard them on the Back From The Grave Part 3 CD which I picked up in the Piccadilly Tower Records many years ago. It was one of those purchases I have made many times, one to educate myself. I got a few CDs from the series as there were only a few bands on them that I had ever heard of. So far, the pay off has been great as there’s a lot of interesting music contained on them. The series zeros in on obscure bands from the 60’s. It’s a music I know nothing about but I know that I am interested and am liking what I hear. I have the Nuggets and like those but this series is way more raw than those are. The Syndicate were from Southern California and released this single in November of 1965. They were only around for about 20 months and released two singles but from what I have read, played all over Orange County and did some shows in Los Angeles before finally breaking up in 1966.

Yes, Collapse - Track 07: From the limited edition Final Diagnosis CD. I don’t know who sent me this, perhaps someone over at Crucial Blast, the label who put it out. I wrote them a thank you. And have ordered some CDs that seem like they might be interesting, I am looking forward to hearing them. Yes, Collapse were Matthew Reis, Dan Rizer and Josh Fink and they hailed from Dayton Ohio. I only have this album and another called Climate. Both are fucked and I only mean that in the best way. This shit will cause damage. This is sound that truly means harm and makes most guitar wielding bands seem almost sterile. I know some would hear this group and say it’s bullshit noise but I don’t agree. I think this is ultimate gear. Listen and perish.

Fanfare Ciocarlia - Mukav Tu (Florentina Sandu): From the Queens And Kings CD. You might remember me playing tracks from the band’s Iag Bari album months ago. I was turned onto this band when a Fanatic wrote in suggesting that I would like this album seeing that I liked the Ivo Papasov album Orpheus Rising. I went to the store and got the aforementioned, dug it and came back for more. This Romanian outfit is so incredible to me, the speeds they play at and the the energy coupled with the precision and chops makes for dizzying listening. I can’t say that I can get to their music all the time, it’s not that it’s not great, it is and then some, but it is damn intense and sometimes, a little dab will do you. The band are perhaps better known now as the group who covered Born To Be Wild in the film Borat, that track is on this album.

Ween – Object: From the brand new La Cucaracha album. This is a rough song, check the lyric on this one! Some of the lyrics come off as rehab-dealing-with-one’s-self which may pertain for to the fact that the band took some time from touring so certain members could get themselves ready for prime time again. This is a relatively straight ahead album for Ween but I think Weenatics will be satisfied with their new dose.

HollAnd - Turn Off the Century: From the Love Fluxus album on Teenbeat. I got into this band by checking out records on the Teenbeat label, one I trust very much. If they release something, I am immediately curious. At one point, it occurred to me that I did not have any HollAnd records and I had to take care of that so I checked out this one and the Paris Hilton Mujahideen albums and found them to be very good. HollAnd is trevor Kampmann who writes songs and produces. One of the bands he’s worked with is Flin Flon so you know he’s onto something! http://www.teenbeatrecords.com/

Blonde Redhead - Falling Man: From the Misery Is A Butterfly album. I really like this album and it sits in well with the other albums of their other albums that I like. I don’t play the early ones all that much because to me, they’re nowhere near as good as what they eventually ripened into. For me, they really come into something special on the Melody Of Certain Damaged Lemons and it stays compelling as hell right up until this one. The new album, 23, I have tried to get to an honestly, cannot. It’s more a production thing than anything else. I am not giving up on the band by a long shot but it sounds like the band was going one way and the producer or at least whoever mixed it, was going somewhere else or wasn’t on the same wavelength or something. The band is Simone and Amedeo Pace along with Kazu Makino and they make music that is really unique. At least one thing lacking on 23 is the production of DC genius and all around swell guy, Guy Picciotto, I think he was really able to bring this band’s music to tape better than anyone else who has worked with them. I am of course, looking forward to what they do next.

Cab Calloway - Blue Serge Suit: From the Cruisin' With Cab CD. I don’t know of any real albums of Cab Calloway as back in his day, bands usually recorded singles for juke boxes or radio play. I became interested in Calloway’s music many years ago when Chuck Dukowski of Black Flag played me the Cab song San Francisco Fan and that made me interested in hearing more. Over the years I have tracked down a lot of Calloway recordings from radio broadcasts to bootlegs. He is one of the best scat singers I have ever heard and from what I’ve read, he picked it up from hanging out with Louis Armstrong. His output was incredible, it’s like the man never slept. In that way, he reminds me of Duke Ellington, perhaps not as musically ambitious but very prolific and also very active with touring as well as acting and performing in musicals. Minnie The Moocher was Calloway’s biggest hit but not remotely his only good tune. Calloway was an amazing singer, dancer and band leader. I don’t know why he’s not more appreciated. Just his phrasing alone makes him one of the greatest vocalists I have ever heard, talk about control, school’s in!

Can - Outside My Door: From the Monster Movie album, released in 1969. This album features Malcom Mooney on vocals, this was before Damo Suzuki was in the band. I have never heard any of the Can albums past the Future Days album from 1973, the last one with Suzuki. I am rockin’ the MM album right now and it’s fantastic. I remember when some people at my office brought in the first Can re-issues over ten years ago and the first time I heard them, I didn’t get it. After a few listens I started to get my head around the music a little more but it was only in the last couple of years that I came back to these records again and really appreciated them. When I listen to music, it opens up my ears to other music so I am constantly going back to stuff I have not checked out in years to see how I am hearing it now. I must say, that at the end of the last track on this album, Yoo Doo Right, it fades right when the band is turning a corner in the jam and I wish I could hear where they took it next.

Fats Waller - Hold Tight (Want Some Food, Mama): From the Middle Years - Part 2 (1938-1940) CD on RCA. I don’t know if this one is still in print, let me check. Ok, it would appear that it’s not, which means the series is probably out of print as well. It’s not as if there are no Fats Waller albums around but that was a damn good set. There’s no Fats Waller I have ever heard that I don’t like very much. I have been doing a little looking around on the internets and there seems to be a series on JSP that attempts to cover the Fats catalog. I have a bootleg / semi legit series, what is it, like 17 CDs of alternate takes and master takes all thrown together that I found in NYC around 12 years ago that’s pretty cool, that’s on the King Jazz label. If you have liked the Fats you have heard on our show, you might just want to find a good 2CD hits thing to get your feet wet. Fats Waller, 05-21-04 to 12-15-43. He seemed to play nonstop. There is so much recorded Fats. His marathon stays at the piano were legendary. He was the one, along with lyricist Andy Razaf who wrote Ain’t Misbehavin’. Razaf also wrote the lyrics for Christopher Columbus, that you have heard Fats play on our show before. If you read about Fats you won’t go too far without seeing the names of two other pianists appearing pretty quickly: Willie “The Lion” Smith and James P. Johnson. They were known for a style called “Stride Pianio” Smith and Johnson were older than Fats and I think that at the beginiing, Smith was the most well known. By the end of their lives, even though Fats would not live as long as either, he was the most well known. I am a piano player fanatic and I love the playing of all three of these guys and I hope you check them out when you can. I got into Smith and Johnson just by reading books on Jazz and letting my curiosity get me motivated. These three along with Art Tatum are some of my favorite pianists of all time along with Monk, Matthew Shipp, Ahmad Jamal, Bud Powell, Herbie Hancock, the list goes on.

Air Miami - Afternoon Train: How happy am I?! How high am I jumping for joy? Teenbeat has just released two CDs of unreleased Air Miami material. One is called Sixteen Songs and the other is called Fourteen Songs. It’s Friday afternoon as I write this and I already know what I am doing tonight. I am going to check out both of these CDs back to back with great interest, that’s what I’m going to do. Air Miami was Bridget Cross and Mark Robinson of Unrest and at times, Mike Fellows of Rites of Spring on drums, great or what?! The band released a few singles and the great Me Me Me album, one of my favorite in the Teenbeat catalog. The idea of there being another 30 tracks to listen to, even if they are demos or alternate takes, is music it my ears. Here’s the label’s site info: http://www.teenbeatrecords.com/

Hawkwind - Silver Machine: From the new three CD Greasy Truckers Party set on EMI. This was one of the last things I was ever expecting to see on CD and it’s very impressive to see EMI devote all this plastic and attention to this fairly obscure concert. Many years ago I was on tour and our road manager at the time was a British fellow named Rick. He used to see Hawkwind play at Stonehenge. He told me that the Hawkwind recordings I really needed to find were from the Greasy Truckers Party, a concert event I knew nothing about. I looked all over but couldn’t locate any of the recordings. I found out that a double album was released from this show, 02-13-72 at the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm London but I couldn’t find that. Eventually, I ran into some of the tracks on a Hawkwind bootleg CD I found in Japan but there were only a few tracks on it. I figured that was that and then the other day someone over at EMI flipped me this greatly expanded version. I was amazed at what I had in my hand! More Hawkwind! I have been doing some reading about this release and apparently a 2CD version of this came in out in 1999 but that one got my me, no surprise there but I have never seen it in any Hawkwind bins. Master Of The Universe and Born To Go from this concert can be found on the recent re-release of the Hawkwind album Space Ritual, these were the two tracks that were on the original 2LP release. I read a statement made by Hawkwinder Bob Calvert in 1981 about the origins of this song and apparently it was in reference to a silver bicycle he had. I also read that this live track was taken into Morgan Studios for the addition of overdubs and mixing and was released as the single version. I will have to dig that version out and check it out. It’s been ahwhile since I have heard that track. Another classic Lemmy track.

Hallelujah Chicken Run Band – Alikulila: From the Take One CD. I think I got this record out of curiosity and it paid off. This band is from Zimbabwe and was lead by Thomas Mapfumo, who was a major star of African music in the 1970’s and was very much like Fela in the he went against the grain and it cost him plenty. Apparently from the heat he put on Mugabe, Mapfumo eventually had to leave the country and from what I’ve read, now lives in America. He’s released a ton of solo albums, none of which I have ever heard but now I am real curious so I will see what I can find. Before I picked up this album, I had never heard of this man before and now I want to know all about him.

Deadline - Close Door: Out 2nd listen to the 8/2/82 CD. This one is limited so you might want to get on it sooner than later if you like what you hear. It’s available on the Dischord site. Originally, you could only get three tracks of Deadline on the Flex Your Head comp. and then a few more tracks came out on a very limited 12” on Peterbilt but that went quickly went out of print so for many years the Deadline material was very hard to locate but a CD of all this stuff is in print but they didn’t make a lot of them, I am not sure of the run. It’s a cool record and if you like the early DC scene, this from those times. A very young Brendan Canty on drums.

The Gun Club - City In Pain: From the newer 2CD version of the Lucky Jim album. This track was not on the orignal version. A few years ago, the Gun Club catalog was released yet again, this time, featuring a ton of new tracks. They are frutratingly hard to get in America. I think they are coming out of Holland. I think I have all of them or almost all of them. This track is perhaps not as strong as every track found on the very excellent Lucky Jim album but as an extra track or a b-side, it’s a very welcome track. I like this kind of low down James Brown feel the band have going on here. The guitars playing plaintivey while the bass and drums drive it right along. I get very mad sometimes when I listen to the Gun Club and the passing of the band’s leader Jeffrey Lee Pierce. As I sit here writing this, I can look over and remember when he was sitting on the floor with his lyric sheets spread out around him. What a loss. You should check out this record if you can.

The Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound – Ekranoplan: From the Ekranoplan CD. I was sent this album weeks ago by the good folks at Tee Pee and have only played it now. The band is a three piece from San Francisco CA. Cool and spaced. I had never heard of them before I got this but I am liking them a lot and would really like to see how it jams live, where I betcha it takes on a whole ‘nother thing.

Young Marble Giants - Music For Evening: From the Colossal Youth album. I saw this album all the time through the 1980’s and never checked it out or knew anyone who was into the band. I got the record months ago because I was curious. CY was recently re-issued as a multi CD set with demos and other tracks. They were from Wales, were around for an eye blink yet had some real impact in what would become the Indie scene years later. I can’t get to all the extra cuts but the album itself is a good collection of minimalist tunes. When I first heard this album, it was obvious to me that a lot of bands had heard this album and started bands, or at least were influenced by The YMG. I have only played the album a few times through and am still getting me head around it but I am liking it so far and wish I could have connected with this album when it came out.

Public Enemy - See Something, Say Something: Our third visit to the new PE album How You Sell Soul To A Souless People Who Sold Their Soul???. The thing I missed most about the early PE albums that I wasn’t getting in the later ones was the production. It was never that Chuck didn’t have something to say and a great way of getting it across. It was always the production was flat compared to the genius of the Bomb Squad who assembled the first three albums. That was one hell of a team. This album is the first one that stands up sonically to those early ones and really made me sit up when I heard it. The previous album, Rebirth Of A Nation, was better than the ones before and it made me think that the band and production team had made a breakthrough and this new album proved that out. This album is worth checking out big time.

Adverts - New Church: From the Crossing The Red Sea album, released about 30 years ago. The Adverts and this album will always be for me, what the Punk Rock thing was supposed to be about: anger, awareness and reaction. TV Smith was one of the great lyricists of the time and this album still works all these years later. We have been playing this band since we started this show back in 1841! The band’s music was relentlessly heavy and while chock full of irony and sarcasm, very low if not totally devoid of humor so it’s not everyone’s thing but talk about a band using music to get a message across, this is it. If you have never heard this Crossing all the way through, it’s one of those must listen to albums. For our show, I have tended to stay with the singles and lay off the album tracks but I thought this would be a good track to put on seeing there’s so much god in the news at the moment. If I am to believe one presidential hopeful, there’s no freedom without religion. Really.

Ike Yard – Night After Night: From the 1980-82 Collected CD on Acute. I got this record only because it was on Acute and they put out good records. I was rewarded for my loyalty as I like the record a lot. Even though they were a New York band, I had never heard of them until I was checking out the Acute site one day and read about them and thought I better see what’s happening. I read that they recorded their one album on Factory but I didn’t see that it was Factory USA. At first, I thought they were from Manchester, they sound like a Factory band from those times. There’s a cold Unknown Pleasures vibe happening on a lot of the tracks, not like they’re copping JD’s thing at all but there’s that close distance that Ike Yard achieves that reminds me of how the UP album makes me feel in places. The Ike Yard stuff is way less songs and a singer fare, it’s way more about the instruments with the vocals almost used as ambience, it’s difficult to impossible to hear a single word of what’s being said. This record could have come out this year and would fit in quite well with what’s happening. I wish I connected with this material the first time around but am very glad that Acute saw fit to put it out. That’s a great label, I admire them for all the good records they have put back into circulation. http://www.acuterecords.com/

Ros Sereysothea – I’m So Shy: From the Cambodian Rocks Vol. 1 CD. I don’t know how easy this one will be to track down at this point. I think it’s out of print at the moment but you never know, it may make a come back. I don’t know anything about any of the artists on this album but there is some amazing music here. There’s a lot of tracks by Sinn Sisamouth who we featured last week. I am sorry that I spelled his name wrong last week. After I checked out the Cambodian Cassette Archives CD and really liked it, I got very curious if there were any more collections about and so that took me to the internet and I found this one. So far, so good. I think in a place like Cambodia, a lot of music just ends up there, Armed Forces Network, stuff left behind as people pass through, stuff that people bring back from other countries and over time, it mixes in with local and traditional melodies and you end up with these very interesting genre-hopping songs that have you scratching your head as much as enjoying what you’re listening to. I am all for this, of course.