HARMONY IN MY HEAD

BROADCAST #36
AIR DATE: 09-05-06

It’s good to be back live with all of you. I put this set list together on the tour bus and have been very eager to play it all for you. I tried to move around genre-wise as we like to do. I hope you heard something you have not heard before and I hope you liked it. I have some great shows coming up that I worked on while on tour so stay tuned and thanks for listening to the shows while I was away. I am still getting letters about the Misfits show. As much as I would rather be live on the air, I enjoyed putting together those more conceptual broadcasts.
     I was in Washington DC recently and got a chance to hear the album by The Evens called Get Evens. It’s really great and as much as I liked their first album, I like this new one better. Alas, we have to wait until November before it comes out but at the earliest possible opportunity, I will get that one on the show. What else? I am digging the Dinosaur Jr. remasters of Green Mind and Where You Been. I just got off the road and have not had a chance to check out the new Slayer album, I know that’s lame but I’ll hit the record store tomorrow and grab that one and the new Dylan and New York Dolls albums. Can’t wait! Below are all the notes. Thanks for listening and 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.

Ludus - I Can't Swim I Have Nightmares: It’s not surprising that it took me a couple of decades for me to catch up. Recently, I was researching some facts on The Buzzcocks and came across some information about the band Ludus. Ludus released a record on the Buzzcocks label New Hormones. The band’s singer, Linder Sterling, designed The Buzzcocks Orgasm Addict single cover. I looked up their releases and saw that they had been reissued on CD and the reviews were really interesting so I got some of their CDs. I checked out the CDs when they came in and I have to say, I am a fan and I have never heard anything quite like them. What is it, Post Punk Jazz? I don’t know but I found myself listening to them quite a bit. Their release, Danger Came Smiling, had me completely distracted from doing anything else but listening when I played it recently. If you liked what you heard tonight, there’s a CD that has the band’s first two releases The Visit and The Seduction. The track you heard tonight was taken from The Visit. Here’s an informative bio: http://home.wxs.nl/~frankbri/ludushis.html

Masanka Sankayi featuring Kabongo Tshisensa - Le Laboureur: On one of my trips to Amoeba Records in LA, I came across the Congotronics 2 CD. At first, I thought it was a Konono N1 CD that I had not seen before. As many of you Fanatics know, their first album is called Congotronics. Congotronics 2 is a compilation CD/DVD set that features other bands who sound similar to Konono: likembe or thumb piano if you like, percussion, distorted amplification, vocal, etc. Konono N1 is great as is this compilation from Congo. I recommend both of these CDs but you judge for yourself, of course. Ian recently told me about seeing Konono N1 live at the Black Cat in DC and how great they were. I am jealous!

The Damned - I Just Can’t Be Happy Today / Ballroom Blitz / Turkey Song: Out EP of the week. Not anything you haven’t heard before but what the hell, these songs sure sound good. IJCBHT is one of the best songs The Damned ever wrote. There are a few versions out there, some of them we have played on the show before. This was an EP off the Machine Gun Etiquette album, the band’s 3rd. What can I say about The Damned that I haven’t said before?! I’ll come up with something, let’s see: this EP was released in November 1979, a few months after they came to DC to play at The Bayou with The Bad Brains opening. The versions of this single that will cost you plenty are two different A label promos. One features a different version of IJCBHT and the other one doesn’t. Both are very hard to find as well as any promo materials related to the release.

Alan Vega – Body Bop Jive: Do we listen to too much Alan Vega? Impossible! From the amazing Deuce Avenue album. Alan Vega is still at it, making music and art every year. I believe Alan once told me he did a lot of work for this album in a hotel room. I think this album is on its own, I have not heard anything like it and even in the Vega catalog, this one stands out. Vega’s unique vocal style and innovative use of electronics and effects makes him one of the more fascinating artists I have ever heard. Not to put down his other musical effort, Suicide, but I find myself listening to the Vega stuff more often.

The Fall - Edinburgh Man: From 1991’s Shift-Work. The early 90’s saw The Fall on a roll. In 1990, they released Extricate, they followed quickly with Shift-Work and in 1992 they released Code: Selfish. All three of these albums are great and you would have a great time listening to these in a row with all the corresponding singles. The always helpful Fall Unofficial Website says there’s two different mixes of this song. The album mix and a slightly different one that can be found on the Sinister Waltz, The Less You Look, The More You Find and The Archive Series albums. I have gone back and forth between the two and the differences I can find is that the alt mix seems to have a slightly higher vocal level and slightly less snare level. I have gone back and forth between the two many times now and that’s my verdict. I could be wrong. In any case, I think they are very similar. As the band’s leader, Mark E Smith takes yet another new line-up into the studio to record, we can only guess what the band’s new sound will be. As always, I am anxiously awaiting the next installment. That Fall Unofficial Website address is: http://www.visi.com/fall/

Romania - Low China: As always, I am curious and enthusiastic about anything on the Teenbeat label. One of the harder things to find is the 4CD Wakefield Box released in 1995. The set features already released and unreleased tracks from the massive Teenbeat reserve. It is possible to find vols. 1, 3, & 4 on the internet but it’s vol. 2 that proves to be elusive as it was made in Japan and most of them went into the box sets. I wrote Teenbeat label boss Mark to see what the probability of finding the box sets and he said it he hadn’t seen one or a copy of vol. 2 for a long time. I got on the case and was able to find all but vol. 2 fairly quickly. I searched all over the box set for months and nothing surfaced. Finally one came up on E-bay and I snagged it. So, to celebrate the fact that we now have this rarity in the collection, let’s hear something off the hard to find Vol. 02. This Romania track is not found on their album. Here’s the site address for Teenbeat, what a label: http://www.teenbeatrecords.com/

Hawkwind – Lord Of Light: From Hawkwind’s Doremi Fasol Latido album. I think all the early Hawkwind albums are worth checking out. The albums with Motorhead main man Lemmy and electronic sound generator are the ultimate ones for me. A short list:
Hawkwind – 1970 (with Dik Mik)
In Search Of Space – 1971 (with Dik Mik)
Doremi Fasol Latido – 1972 (with Lemmy & Dik Mik)
Space Ritual – 1973 (with Lemmy & Dik Mik)
Hall Of The Mountain Grill – 1974 (with Lemmy)
Warrior On The Edge Of Time – 1975 (with Lemmy)
This is ultimate Space Rock. All of them are in print, some with bonus tracks except for Warrior On The Edge Of Time, which is out of print for now. I lucked out and got a copy years ago. If you still want more, there’s a new-ish release called The 1999 Party, which captures Hawkwind live 03-21-74 in Chicago. Sounds great.

Joe Lally – The Resigned: Attention all fans of Fugazi and all things Dischord. Fugazi’s man of bass has completed his solo effort and it’s great! It’s called There To Here. Ian gave a copy to me a few weeks ago. I heard some of the demos earlier in the year and was very excited to hear what it was going to be like when it was all done. This album is so Joe it’s not to be beloved. Joe had some serious friends show up to play on the record: Ian MacKaye, Amy Farina, Scott “Wino” Weinrich, Guy Picciotto, Danny Frankel, Eddie Janney, to name a few. Joe’s bass lines are so solid and the lyrics are solemn, heavy and Joe all the way. This is a great Dischord release.

Glaxo Babies – This Is Your Life: I have been waiting for the Glaxo Babies CD to come out for quite some time. Several broadcasts ago, we listened to It’s Irrational, which was taken from the Heartbeat label comp. called Avon Calling, which contained a few tracks of the Glaxo’s but not nearly all of them. I found out about their retrospective CD Dreams Interrupted several months ago but couldn’t get a solid release date on it but finally it showed up so I ordered it and when I got back from tour recently, it had arrived. I have played it twice now and it’s fantastic. I have all the vinyl but it’s great to be able to just put this on and let it play. I don’t really know their music but remember hearing them a little back in the 80’s. I’ll have to check them out. I think the Post Punk era gave us some really great music and bands. For the most part, the movement element had ended and bands started looking for new places to take the music and that quest for something new lead to some breakthrough music.

Tinariwen – Nar Djenetbouba: From The Radio Tisdas Sessions album. I kind of lead myself to this group by researching the group Konono N1 and I am so glad I rolled the dice and bought this album on the strength of the write-up. Toureg music from the Mali. I don’t know much about the group besides some information I was able to find on the internet but all I can say is that I saw them on the BBC and they were amazing and it sounds like someone gave the band a John Lee Hooker album at some point. This album and their other one, Amassakoul, which we have played before on the show are both beautiful albums that make it so great to be a music Fanatic. Here’s a site address with a short write-up on the band if this track made you at all interested: http://www.justinadams.co.uk/tinariwen.htm

Black Randy & The Metro Squad - I Wanna Be A Nark: From the Pass The Dust, I Think I'm Bowie album. Recently, I was talking with Ryan Richardson, Texan, Fanatic and Dangerhouse Records know-it-all. Dangerhouse is the label that gave us bands like Black Randy, The Bags, The Deadbeats, The Weirdos, etc. I have bought some pretty rare records from Ryan and it was good to talk to a fellow Fanatic. It is from Ryan that I learned about all the different pressings of the Dangerhouse singles. I had no idea there were different colors. I bought most of my Dangerhouse stuff many years ago and it was all in black vinyl but I find out that some of the bands had some limited quantities of colored pressings as well. I don’t know how many more decades that very important fact would have remained unknown to me. Anyway, tonight we’re listening to Black Randy, who is somewhat distinctive to the Dangerhouse label in that he actually recorded an album’s worth of material. The vinyl isn’t all that easy to find but thankfully, it’s all on CD. I recommend you track that one down if you have not already. Fanatics who regularly check out this show know that Black Randy is no stranger here. Want to read one serious load of information on Dangerhouse? Yes, you do! Here you go: http://www.breakmyface.com/bands/dangerhouse1.html

Booker Ervin - The Second #2: From The Space Book album. Someone who used to work at my publishing company turned me onto Booker Ervin. He lent me his album The Blues Book. I was a fan immediately. What tone, what energy. I picked up The Space Book in Japan. In his short life, Ervin cut a lot of records on his own and with others like Horace Parlan and Charles Mingus. As you know, I am not all that good with writing about Jazz but I know what I like when I hear it. Ervin’s sound and approach is explosive, confident and exciting. I have been looking up info on The Space Book and it’s in print but the US version doesn’t seem to have the extra tracks, one of which is the one we played tonight. There is a listing for a recently released version of this album but at this time, there’s no information. Here’s a short bio thing on Booker Ervin: http://hardbop.tripod.com/booker.html

Public Image Limited – Swan Lake: From the 2nd PIL album and my personal favorite. This would mark the first time we have played this band on our show. I thought PIL was a groundbreaking band that showed that Johnny Lydon was much more than an angry young man trying to shock people. I remember when this came out. Some people were angry that PIL wasn’t more “Punk Rock.” It made me glad because as much as I liked the Pistols, they didn’t finish well, thanks to mishandling by their awful manager, Malcom McClaren. This record still holds up. I bought the metal box edition when it came out many years ago, three 12”’s for an hour of music, it was a pain in the ass to listen to but it sure sounded good. It’s all tarnished now.

Bruce Gilbert – Emission Curve: this is from the Ab Ovo album. I am sure he didn’t sell a great number of this one but I like it just fine. I am sure you are familiar with the name Bruce Gilbert as being a member of Wire, a band that launched their fair share of ships. Along with Wire member Graham Lewis, they are the most prolific of the band. Together they formed the band, Dome, which we have played on this show a few times. Gilbert’s work can take some work to appreciate but it’s always worth it.

Archie Shepp – Naima: This John Coltrane composition is from Shepp’s Four For Trane album. I have been listening to a lot of Archie Shepp lately. I’ve been listening to Steam, The Way Ahead and The Magic Of Ju-Ju. Shepp has a dangerous and challenging saxophone player. I hear it as an angry and intelligent sound. When I listen to Shepp, Dolphy, Cherry, Ornette, it’s hard to get out of it and listen to something on Blue Note like Hank Mobley or Art Blakey. I’m not saying they aren’t great, I have all those records too but there’s something about guys like Shepp that make a lot of players seem lightweight somehow. Shepp is always intense, always heavy. His best stuff is at the very least essential listening.

Sonic’s Rendezvous – Love And Learn: From the Sweet Nothing album. I had this one on CDR for a long time and finally found a real one. Most of you Fanatics know that this band was lead by Fred Sonic Smith of the MC5. He had Scott Ashton on drums too, which is really cool. Listen to how well the guitars blend. That’s one thing the Detroit bands always got right—those massive two guitar riffs and powerful blending of two guitars. It’s such an open yet dense sound. The MC5 had that figured out. If you ever see this CD or the City Slang CD for a price that won’t stop your wallet dead in its tracks, check them out.