HARMONY IN MY HEAD

WHILE I’M AWAY #24
AIR DATE: 06-06-06

This is what we heard tonight Fanatics. Engineer X and I put this one together some weeks ago. I am making notes on some different things I want to do with the show when I get back into town later in the year. I like the format we do like the one we played tonight—a bunch of songs by a bunch of bands but I am also liking what we did the other night with the Ruts and Suicide show. I think if I just zeroed in on two bands every week, it would get a little stale, actually really stale. Perhaps now and then it might be interesting though. I don’t know how you all feel about this. I shut down the letter section of the site. Not that I didn’t like hearing from you—I did. It’s just that I don’t have time to answer the letters and get all the other work that I have done so I shut it down. So, the show just goes along and I am just broadcasting out into space and hoping it. Anyway, here’s the notes as promised. I truly hope you enjoyed tonight’s show. Stay Fanatic!
--Henry (NW DC Fanatic)
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. If you want to download this show, http://www.rollins-archive.com/ is the place to go for that.

Garbage - #1 Crush: I don’t know much about this band. I have liked the songs I’ve heard and I know they have a ton of fans anywhere there’s electricity. I like this one song I heard on the Romeo and Juliet movie soundtrack. I have read interviews with the band’s singer Shirley Manson and she’s a stick of dynamite. A good song by a band I don’t know much about but if you don’t know a lot about them already, I am sure there’s lots of fan sites to fill you in.

Thought Criminals – Victims Of Today: From the 2CD Chrono-Logical set by Australia’s Thought Criminals. A for-real 1977 punk rock outfit. This is their recorded output. I had never heard them before Tim, the guy who books all my shows in Australia gave me this set. Overall it’s cool punk with some pop overtones. Australia is the never ending source for interesting music. In the last few years, a lot of the older and more obscure Australian music is coming out on CD. Check the Sunnyboys This Is Real and Tales From The Australian Underground sets.

The Ruts – Staring At The Rude Boys (Peel version): A song many of you are familiar with. To make things interesting, we listened to the Peel Sessions version. I have been looking around on the internet and the Ruts Peel stuff still seems to be out of print. I hope it means some cool box set is on the way. I have some cool Ruts stuff I have never seen on CD that I’ll bring in at some point for us to check out. You can never have enough Ruts. I know I am Rutting you Fanatics over the head week after week. I don’t have any investment in this band besides all the time I have spent listening to them. If you are familiar with the single version of this song, you will note some interesting differences in this version. The more melodic lean on the chorus and different phrasing on the part of vocalist Malcom Owen. There were three Peel Sessions the band did: 01-29-79, 05-21-79 and 02-18-80. The track we heard tonight was from this last one where they also performed Demolition Dancing, In A Rut and Secret Soldiers.

The Damned – The Limit Club: A song from the band’s Friday The 13th EP released November 1981. This song is about Ruts singer Malcom Owen. This came out right before we opened for them at the Lyceum in London December 1981. This EP and the Strawberries album that came several months later were the last two Damned releases that I really paid attention to. I have never checked out the Damned’s MCA period. I can listen to all of their releases right up to and including Strawberries and it’s great.

The Pacific Ocean – It Was As If He Had Seen A Ghost: From the Teenbeat 2003 sampler CD. I don’t know much about this band but it seems to be Connie Lovatt and Ed Baluyut who you know from Versus. Cool music.

The Saints – Nights in Venice: From the classic (I’m) Stranded album by Australia’s very own Saints. This is great one all the way through and so is their second album Eternally Yours. I have had and lost these records for years. I got them around 1979 and somehow lost them. I found copies again in London 1984. I guess some people would consider them punk rock but I don’t know. They have a little too much wallop for punk rock. These two albums have been re-issued several times and often contain the singles that were released around the albums. I am sure most of you have heard of the Saints and already have these records but if you have not and are interested, start with Stranded and go from there. I never took to the their later recordings. It’s not I don’t think they’re good, I guess I’m still kind of staggering from the first two. As you know, Australia has had so many great bands, it’s not to be believed. If you are a fan of Radio Birdman, you would probably dig the Saints. 666 mastering choices. http://www.saintsmusic.com/linernotesstrandedxxx.htm

Dee Dee King – Emergency: How could we leave this album all alone for so many weeks. I know, I asked myself the same thing. We’ve played music from Dee Dee Ramone’s rap/rock project before. This track is from his album under the King name called Standing In The Spotlight. Dee Dee Ramone, as you know, died some years ago. He was one crazy motherfucker. I miss him, all those guys. I was asked to add a liner to one of those greatest hits things that Rhino’s putting out of the Ramones soon. I worked on it off and on while I did other stuff. I came up with “Rock and Roll? The Ramones saved Rock and Roll. There it is.” That seemed to say it best.

Public Enemy - Louder than a Bomb: From the It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back album. I remember it well. We were on tour in the mid-West. In Lawrence KS, we met a local college DJ guy who told us he had just gotten a white label of the new Public Enemy album which we had already heard about and the reports were that it was the greatest album of all time and be prepared for a song about a woman who watches channel zero as it used a Slayer riff. The DJ told us the album had no information besides “Public Enemy – Too Black, Too Strong on the label. We asked if he could make us a copy and he said he would. He came to the show later with the cassette of the album, which I still have. The next day, June 24th, we were on our way to Kansas for the next show. We pulled into the parking lot of a music store and put the tape in and listened. Not since the first time I saw the Bad Brains have I been so blown away by a band. For me at least, this album eclipsed the predecessor, Yo! Bum Rush The Show. We just sat in silence as the tape played. What an album, what a band and Chuck D, what a man. I am looking forward to hearing the new Public Enemy record New Whirl Odor that just came out. We’ll have to get a track on the show real soon.

Containe - Summer: As far as I know, there’s only two records of Containe I Want It All and Only Cowards Walk Like Cowards. Containe is Connie Lovatt of The Pacific Ocean and Fontaine Toups of Versus fame. We have played some her solo stuff before.

Andrew Hill - Black Fire: Many years ago a guy who used to work at my company who knew a few things about Jazz would regularly lend me CDs to check out. Thanks to him, I learned plenty. One of the people he turned me onto was the great piano player Andrew Hill and his album Black Fire on Blue Note. He’s strong and relentlessly innovative and breaks away from a lot of the Blue Note Records. If you have spent a good deal of time with Blue Note albums, you will detect an almost assembly line or Motown feel to them. A lot of the same artists are on the records, which isn’t a bad thing when they’re people like Lee Morgan and Art Blakey, etc. but sometimes the records have one of these, and one of those type of sets. Hill really makes you site and listen. I have since graduated to the Blue Note Recordings box set so I could hear it all. Black Fire was re-released with extra tracks and sounds great.

Brief Weeds – It’s So Hard Not To Say Hello: Another Brief Weeds track. I thought the Weeds sounded good in the show, so I thought I’d bring in another song. Since most of their stuff is unreleased and I don’t know how they feel about this stuff being played, I am sticking to stuff that’s released so it’s cool. This track can be found on the International Hip Swing Comp. CD on K Records which came out 11 years ago but it’s still around. The Brief Weeds were Eddie Janney, Guy Picciotto and Brendan Canty of Rites Of Spring and Mike Hampton of SOA, Faith, Embrace, Manifesto. As you know, Guy and Brendan were also in Fugazi. The Weeds line-up was also the band One Last Wish, who we have played before.

Sisterhood Of Convoluted Thinkers - Lunchdate: From the Ume Sour album. I don’t know anything about the band besides what I read on the Teenbeat site. It’s a two person band of Rob Christiansen and Jeanine Durfee. I know Rob was in The Eggs and also in Grenadine. I don’t know if Jeanine has done music previous to this. This album was not so easy to find and it was pretty battered when I finally came across it. It’s really interesting though.

Can – Oh Yeah: From the Tago Mago album. I remember many years when the Can catalog hit CD and one of the guys at my office was very happy and brought in some of the CDs for me to check out and at first I didn’t get them. I didn’t really listen very carefully. I forget what I was in the middle of but it was something, it’s always something and I just kind listened but didn’t hear it. Years went by and so many bands and people mentioned the band and what their music meant to them that I reckoned I should check them out again. I asked Engineer X who is a Can fan. He recommended this album and so I checked it out and am digging it. I will check out another one soon.

The Fall – I Am Damo Suzuki: I have read interviews with Mark E Smith, he’s the singer in The Fall, the same singer who bailed on the opportunity to be on this show, leaving Engineer X and I in a heap of tears and broken dreams. . . anyway, interviews have revealed that Can is a favorite of MES and their vocalist, Damo Suzuki is his favorite singer. So to compliment the Can track we listened to tonight, we’ll listen to The Fall doing I Am Damo Suzuki from the 1985 This Nation’s Saving Grace album. This track sounds a lot like the Can track we heard tonight, which I guess might have something to do with the title. The rest of This Nation’s is really great but you would expect to hear that from me at this point. I guess you Fanatics know by now that MES’ band mates and their road manager all bailed on him and went back to the UK mid-tour a few weeks back. I don’t understand how anyone could be in a band situation that chaotic all the time. I couldn’t get anything done in that environment. Obviously, it works for some people. I sure wish MES had shown up for the interview. Engineer X and I were really excited about it. O Mark, whyyoubreakamyhearta?! The address of the Unofficial Fall Website: http://www.visi.com/fall/.

Laurie Anderson – The Ugly One With The Jewels: From the album of the same name. This one and her album The Color Red are favorites of mine. She is so cool live. It’s the best show you’ll see all year. She’s really something special. I met her many years and she was really cool to me. I have not checked out her latest record. I will get on that. There’s a funny thing that happens in the audience after her show is over. People all around you grumble and you think for a second they didn’t like the show. It’s not that they didn’t like the show, it’s that no one wants it to be over! It’s not like it’s a short show, it’s like two+ hours but she’s so great. I always want her to run back out onstage and ask if we want her to start all over again. If she did, we would all stay.

Crisis – White Youth: You have heard me play this band before. We have listened to a song called Frustration. It’s a great one. The vinyl releases of Crisis are really rare and very expensive when you can find them on EBay. At one point, a very hard-to-find 2CD release of all their stuff along with some live tracks was released under the title We Are All Jews And Germans. I have seen one copy. Recently, a single CD of most of the material came out, it’s called Holocaust Hymns. A lot of their stuff was political, anti-racist stuff. They were very serious, which sometimes loses me a little but I still like the singles. There’s a small write up on the band on the Punk77 site that is well done and the writer says the same thing that basically they were great but a little bit stewed in their own juices. Read for yourself if you like. http://www.punk77.co.uk/groups/crisis.htm. The CD is in print. I got mine from Amazon.com UK.

Archie Shepp – Shazam: This is from Shepp’s The Magic Of Ju-Ju album. I bought this many years ago in Japan. I have never seen it released domestically here. Any time I see a Shepp title on the Impulse label, I get it as all the ones I have are really great. He’s a monster sax player. Played on some serious Coltrane sessions and is a heavyweight in his own right. Some familiar names on this 1967 session include Reggie Workman, Beaver Harris, Ed Blackwell who many of you Fanatics know from Don Cherry, Ayler, etc. Shepp is always, ALWAYS heavy. Worth checking out.