BROADCAST #02
AIR DATE: 01-03-06


Alright Fanatics, we're back for Broadcast #2! I would like to thank you for your great letters that came in the last week. It's great to be back on the radio. Listeners checked in from all over the world. Fanatics from America, Canada, Germany, Australia, England, Rumania all wrote in and said they were catching the show. I will campaign for a re-broadcast time this week and get back to you when I get an answer.

I hope you liked the show tonight. I know some of you may have winced when we played Zeppelin but it's a great track and not too long. As a kid, I never really listened to what Robert Plant was actually singing. Some of those lyrics are a little silly but what a riff.

OK, here's a run down of what we listened to tonight. I can't believe I have to wait a week to do this again!!

Until next week Fanatics!

--Henry

Public Enemy - MKLVFKWR: From the New Whirl Odor album that just came out. This is a strong PE record. As long as Chuck keeps doing it, I'll keep listening. I played this record a lot in the last week and I think the band is trying some interesting things musically and the lyrics on this record are really strong. Worth checking out.

Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song: I love this raw version of Immigrant Song. I first heard this on LP bootleg in the 70's and I never forgot it because it blew away the version on the official release. The Zeppelin BBC Sessions have been bootlegged in varying degrees of quality for years now but finally, the Led Zeppelin these tracks are out for real and it's fantastic to hear all this relatively new-to-the-ears Zep. I always ended up with really bad boot CDs of these tracks. Mainly I bought them to hear this one song again. Well, here it is. They didn't play this when I saw them and they didn't play Black Dog either but they did open with Kashmir and that was good enough.

The Stains - Quit the Human Race: We played songs from this album in 2004. This was one of the early SST records and sadly out of print. The Stains were one of the heaviest bands I ever saw. An all Mexican heavy metal-punk rock band. The record is insane and the gigs were dangerous. Years ago, I put my copy of the album on a CDR so I could copy it for people and pass the music on as it doesn?seem as if the album will be back in print. They were one of the great LA bands and if you ever see this record at an affordable price, you should pick it up. I don?understand why this album was never put on CD or at least re-issued on vinyl.

Bo Diddley - Road Runner: Some of you may remember in 2004, we listened to Bo play Say Man. This time around, it's Road Runner. Such a great riff. I was taken by his music very early on as a kid when I first heard Who Do You Love. When George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers were on the radio with this song as a single many years ago, it made me go and get a best-of record, which there are many of and for me, the best way to listen to him. I have a couple of different ones on Chess that are really great. Talk about the beat that everyone copped! He is an electric guitar innovator of the highest degree. This song shows a lot of innovation for the time. If you can, check out his guitar some time. I remember when I saw him open for the Clash in February of 1979 and saw him with it. That was a great night. I had been 18 for about 48 hours and saw Bo and the Clash together. Forget it!

Trouble Funk - Go-Go Fatz: From P.A. Classics Vol. 2. One of the later and harder to find releases. I don't remember when or where I got this. There's a lot of after the fact releases. Not-so-great soundboard recordings and such. I buy most of them to keep track of the music but they're not as great as the earlier stuff. If you want to hear the real deal Trouble Funk, check out the thoughtfully priced 2CD live and early singles set I put out on my label District Line. This track Go-Go Fatz is really great though some serious drums.

Sleater-Kinney - Jumpers: Carrie, Corin and Janet, the three women who make up Sleater-Kinney recently turned up at the studio to play some songs for my TV show on the Independent Film Channel (the 1st season starts in March). They were great! They played Jumpers from their recent album on Subpop called The Woods. S-K has been around for a long time and has that serious respect and I was very happy to have them play for the upcoming season. I will be seeing their shows on the Big Day Out Festival in New Zealand and Australia as we will both be performing on it. I have not seem them play in a couple of years and look forward to it. Anyway, we all know that Sleater rocks and this is my favorite song on the record. Well, this one and Entertain, which they also played a couple of times for the show.

Swans - Stay Here: From the bludgeoning first Swans album Filth. The Swans, lead by Michael Gira, turned out some of the heaviest most crushing records ever. If you check the Cop album and Raping A Slave EP, you'll see what I mean. As far as the their most brain smashing material, it was all done in the 80's After 1987 Child Of God, the band mutated into a no less intense but not as sonically dense band. The line-up changed and so did the music. At the center of it all, Gira works ceaselessly on music and writing to this day, churning out a seemingly endless supply of records. At one point, my company published a collection of his writing called The Consumer. It was one of the most requested titles we ever had. Let's see if I can you a website with some Gira/Swans info. Here's one for Gira's label Young God: http://www.younggodrecords.com/. I am not conversant on all of Gira's projects and couldn't get to the albums after the 1985 Greed and Holy Money releases. There's one Swans set of all the bruising material that you might want to check out: Cop/Young God/Greed/Holy Money. That's all the completely brutal stuff on one 2CD package. Tonight's track isn't on this one though, it's one another Swans re-release worth check out called Filth/Body To Body, Job To Job which is great as well. This music is not for everyone and most people I know who hear it want it turned off almost immediately. For me, it sounds like the inside of my head so it's good listening.

Da Moronics - Flying Saucers: I don't know anything about this DC area band, really. As far as musical output, I know of two compilation cuts. One being Mr. President on the 30 Seconds Over DC compilation on Limp Records, re-issued by the good folks at District Line and on an out of print LP called the Best of Baltimore's Buried on Balto-Weird, released in 1979. It took me a while to find this record but I did. The song we heard tonight, Flying Saucers, is from this one. Pretty cool.

Partyline - Unsafe At Any Speed: From the Girls With Glasses CD on Retard Disco. A few months ago, 06-30-85 to be exact, I was in Washington DC at an Routineers / Evens show at Fort Reno and at one point, Allison Wolfe (Bratmobile, Cold Cold Hearts) came up and gave me this CD. She told me that she didn't cuss as much as she did on the Cold Cold Hearts record and maybe this one would be better for radio play. I forgot who I told that it was impossible to play anything from the Cold Cold CD because as much as I wanted to put the band on the show, the language prevented me from doing so. I guess what I said got back to her. Anyway, it's another wild, wrecking ball from Allison, who apparently is, (I know you were wondering) a relative of the great American man of literature, Thomas Wolfe. I believe that was the first question I asked her when we met years ago. Oh, yes, the Routineers / Evens show. A great one. The Routineers have Amanda MacKaye, sister of Ian, on vocals and she can sing. I mean, she can really sing. It was a great set and the band have some great songs, the best ones were the new ones. I can?wait for them to record again. The Evens put in a great set with a couple of new songs, which were great. If you? ever in DC in the summer, try to get to one of the Fort Reno shows. They go all summer, they're outside and they're free. I saw a lot of people from my old neighborhood, even some people from my high school. It was a great night.

The Stoics - Hate: From Trash Box: Wild Psychotic Garage Punk!!! I saw this at big Tower Records in London years ago and it looked interesting. I didn't know much about garage punk and still don't really but I figured I could learn a thing or two with this box. Apparently, these tracks are contained in the Pebbles series. I don't know much about them. I played this for Ian MacKaye and he dug it so I gave it to him and was back in London a few weeks later and got another. I don't know anything about the Stoics but I really like the title of the song and it sounds pretty cool too.

The Telephone Company - I-C-E C-R-E-A-M: From the The King's Surprise? On Business Deal Records out of Austin TX. I think someone at the label sent me this or perhaps it was someone at Peek-A-Boo records. In any case, I don't know anything about the band but I think they're cool. http://www.peekaboorecords.com/

Link Wray - The Shadow Knows: I have a lot of Link Wray records. There's a couple of Best Ofs that are pretty cool. There's one on Rhino Records and another on the very cool UK label Ace Records. Tonight's track is from the Rhino Records Link Wray compilation Rumble! The Best Of Link Wray. Mr. Wray recently passed away 11-05-05 at 76 years of age. Wray was a for real Rock and Roll badass. Perhaps his most famous instrumental is Rumble, which is still turning up on soundtracks and compilations. There's a lot of Link records out there. If you liked what you heard tonight, the Rhino best of is easy to find and might be all the Link you need. The collections on Norton, the Missing Links series are really great as well. I really like the originators, these old guys who did their thing with primitive gear. They weren't trying to be like anybody as there was nobody to be like when they were doing it.

Dead Boys - Ain't Nothin' to Do: I always thought The Dead Boys was one of the coolest names for a band. The Dead Boys come from, where a lot of good bands came from, Ohio. Ohio has given music fans much to be thankful for: DEVO, Rockets from the Tombs, Pere Ubu, X Blank X, Electric Eels, the Pagans just to name a few. Formed in the mid-70's the Dead Boys released their classic Young Loud And Snotty album on Sire in 1977. The band was fronted by Stiv Bators who was one crazy motherfucker with a bit of an Iggy fixation. The Dead Boys didn?last for long with only two full studio albums and at this point, more bootlegs than actual product. There's a different version of the Young Loud album called Younger, Louder and Snottier. I compared the two versions of Ain't Nothin' To Do to see which one sounded better and I came to the conclusion that the original Young, Loud has a little more wallop so that's the one we're listening to tonight. The guitars break up a little too much on the other version and those great smashing chords lose some power and we wouldn't want that. The Younger version has some very noticeable edits which you'll hear once you're familiar with the other versions of the song found on Young. Stiv had quite the post Dead Boys career on and off the stage. He toured with his band Lords of the New Church that had Brian James of the first two Damned albums fame as well as former Sham 69 bass player Dave Tregunna. I think Bators and James were bad for each other's health as they were quite hard on their bodies with the rock and roll lifestyle. Of all the ways to go, Stiv died in 1990 in France due to injuries sustained when he got hit by a car! Anyway, If you have not checked out Young Loud And Snotty, you should. Some Dead Boy Info: http://punkandoi.free.fr/deadboys_biography.htm


Bad Brains - At the Movies: I think it was 1980. I was at Madam's Organ, a punk rock hang out in DC where a lot of serious life changing shows happened and Daryl, the bass player in the Bad Brains asked me if I wanted to listen to their new tape they had recorded at Omega Studios. He had borrowed bass player in Black Market Baby, Paul Cleary's car keys so we could use his car stereo. We sat in the car and listened to a couple of the songs. This was one, I Against I was another. I remember this song being one of the newer ones in their set at the time. Anyway, it was just a demo but it was a demo that we could never get our hands on. For a long time, the Bad Brains Omega Sessions tapes was one of our holy grails we were always after. Many years later, Ian finally secured a copy of it and then some years after that, the sessions were released by the good folks at Victory Records as The Omega Sessions. If you're into the Bad Brains, this is a really worthwhile record and if you're a real fan of DC music history, you? really want this one in the collection as this marks a period when the band were really changing their approach to their music and also, it's the Bad Brains! You gotta hear it! It's always happy when stuff like this comes to light. Music sitting unheard has always bugged me. One of the reasons we get together here on Tuesday nights, right?!

Sleep - Snow Blind: From the Masters of Misery Black Sabbath tribute album on Earache. I got this one just for the Sleep track I must admit. I am a huge Sleep fan. The first Sleep record I heard was Sleep's Holy Mountain and I was hooked. I then found their first one called Volume One and then got a tape of their third album Dopesmoker which didn?come out until after the band broke up. At first the album came out under the name Jerusalem which comes in at 52:09 and then later, Dopesmoker which comes in at 63:31 was released. From what I've read, Dopesmoker was the intentioned record and Jerusalem was the band versus label compromise. Dopesmoker is one track where Jerusalem is six. I remember talking to an A&R guy in NYC many years ago who was trying to sign them after hearing Holy Mountain. They told him the next thing was going to be Dopesmoker. Apparently they went to the major label's big NYC office, straight into the head honcho's office and sparked up some of that Northern Cal. skunk weed and proceeded with the meeting. He said the entire office stank for days. I like that. Anyway, This is the mighty, very mighty Sleep doing a Black Sabbath's Snow Blind. Not all that easy to find, perfect for this show. Before I stop writing fanatically here, let me say that Dopesmoker played in its entirety is a revelation. It's an astounding piece of work that will have your head ringing and leave your mind throwing in the towel. Also, Sleep man Al Pike formed High On Fire after Sleep's demise and their records, The Art Of Self Defense, Surrounded By Thieves and Blessed Black Wings are absolute monsters. A few weeks ago, I had a night off in Missoula MT. I went to the local coffee place, bought a cup of the regular and sat in a corner and wrote in my journal. The chatter of the highschool girls and the boys nervously walking around them made me glad that I was not young any more and that I had an ipod loaded with Sleep and High On Fire. I was smashing my mind to pieces inside my Shure ear plugs while the locals looked at me like I was from somewhere else. I wonder why? I wondered what they were thinking. I know what I was thinking: Fuck you. How the fuck are you going to clap your hands when the circus comes to town after I hack your hands off and send them to the Salvation fucking Army in a Hefty bag? That's what I was thinking. I hope you enjoyed the song.

Gen X - Untouchables: From the 3rd Generation X album, Kiss Me Deadly. By the time this album came out, Generation X had changed their name to Gen X. Two members, guitarist Bob Andrews and drummer Mark Laff had left or were sacked, depending on who you ask and were replaced by a trio of guitar players for the sessions, Steve Jones, John McGeoch and Chelsea's James Stevenson with Terry Chimes (better known as the drummer of the Clash before and after Topper Headon's time in the band). This is a Generation X album fans don't really mention all that often and was fairly obliterated in the press and eclipsed by Billy Idol's huge stateside success as a solo act. I am a Generation X fan full time as you know and I ignored this album for years. Instead of playing the album, I concentrated more on the singles and b-sides that came off the record, especially Dancing With Myself, Ugly Rash and the song we listened to tonight, Untouchables. Unmistakable guitar work on the song by Indie 103.1 star DJ, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and Sex Pistol, Steve Jones. What a tone that guy has. Only recently I started playing Kiss Me Deadly on a regular basis and it has grown on me. Happy People is a great song as is Revenge. This album has just been re-issued on CD and sounds good. It should have been Idol's first solo album instead of calling it Gen X. I think the perception of the record would have been different but then again, it would have probably been a swing and a miss with American audiences.

Devo - Be Stiff (Stiff version): This is from perhaps my favorite single DEVO release, the DEVO Be Stiff EP on Stiff records. Six songs: Jocko Homo, Satisfaction, Be Stiff, Mongoloid, Sloppy, Social Fools. All tracks except one produced by DEVO with the exception being Be Stiff, which was produced by Brian Eno, one of the great talents of our age hooking up with one of the greatest bands of all time. This record is mad genius from start to finish. I like this EP even more than the Eno produced debut album Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! And their 2nd one Duty Now For The Future, both of which are perfect albums. I had the first album before I had this EP and so I was used to the album versions of Sloppy, Satisfaction, etc. so it was really cool to hear an alternate version of a song. This was one of the first time I had heard an alt. version of a song and since then, I have never gotten over the thrill of finding that the single version of a song is different than the album version and comparing the two. There was a lot of that in the early punk rock stuff and that made going after all the different versions of the songs. Besides my DEVO bootlegs and the version we heard tonight, I know of a few others. A very early version can be found on the Hardcore DEVO Vol. 2, another one Recombo DNA, a limited edition 2CD set of rare and unreleased stuff. You sometimes see the version of Be Stiff we heard tonight on some of the best-of compilations of the band. I took tonight's version from Pioneers Who Got Scalped, another multi CD set of rarities and whatnot. The Hardcore DEVO Vols. 1 & 2 are really worth checking out. They're out of print and fetch a price on EBay when you see them. Here's info on Recombo and Pioneers:
Recombo: http://www.rhinohandmade.com/browse/ProductLink.lasso?Number=7718
Pioneers: http://www.rhino.com/store/ProductDetail.lasso?Number=75967

The Damned - Sick Of Being Sick / Stretcher Case Baby (single version): Not the version of Stretcher Case from the band's 2nd album Music For Pleasure which you might be more familiar with but the single version that was given away free to the ticket holders when the band did a multi-night stand at the Marquee in London, July of 1977. The actual single you see now and then on EBay but it's not cheap as there were only 5000 made. The flipside of the single, the very cool song Sick Of Being Sick is another classic Brian James era Damned track. I figured we'll play the entire single lest anyone think I'm not in my 28th year of Damned worship. I got these two songs from the very handy Skip Off School To See The Damned (The Stiff Singles A's & B's) on Demon.

Negative Trend - Mercenaries: Another track from the legendary Negative Trend EP. If you liked it, you can find a brand new copy of the CD for sale on my site, HenryRollins.com. If you didn't get last week's notes about this band, you can go to the archive and read up on them from the 12-27-05 broadcast.

The Fall - Blind Man (also known as Blindness): This version was only available as a free CD given to customers who bought Fall items on Voiceprint. There are other versions of the song under the name Blindness on the Fall's Interim album released in 1994 and on the new Fall album Fall Heads Roll, yet another version exists on the US vinyl version of the Fall Heads Roll album and there?yet another on the Fall Peel Sessions box set. They're all really good but I think this is my favorite. Also this one is hard to come by so it's perfect for our show.

Captain Beyond - Dancing Madly Backwards: From the first Captain Beyond album. My favorite of the three. They're all good though. The first two, the self-titled and the Sufficiently Breathless albums were hard to find on CD in Japan only but came out domestically not long ago and sound great, way better than their Japanese predecessors. I don't know what you call them, Prog, Jazz Rock, I don't know but I think they're really cool, not to mention ridiculous players. If you read the Amazon.com reviews of this record, you'll find some interesting information including that Duane Allman was partially responsible for getting the band signed back in the early 70's Dez from Black Flag turned me onto these guys. I liked it as soon as I heard it. Dez turned me onto a lot of good music. If you liked this song, you should check out this album. It's in print. I found a cool info page on the band, here it is. http://members.fortunecity.com/captainbeyond/.

Washington Phillips - I Am Born To Preach The Gospel: Gospel played on the dolceola! This is the title cut from the I Am Born To Preach The Gospel CD on Yazoo. The CD liner notes which discuss the invention of the dolceola and the likelihood that its inventor David Boyd never heard the instrument recorded. I don't know much about instruments but had never heard of the dolceola before this record was recommended to me by someone in NYC in 1996 or so. I can't remember who it was that told me to check it out but I remember getting the tip and buying it that night and checking it out. There's a great site with some fascinating information on the man and the instrument: http://www.minermusic.com/dolceola/corcoran.htm.

Raymond Scott - Powerhouse: I don't know where to begin or what to say. What a giant. In 1949 he invented something called a synthesizer. Years later, he also invented something called a sequencer. In 1954 he starts working with some young upstart named Bob Moog. ETC. If you look at the time line of his life, it's as if the guy never slept. We like that. A lot of people know his music from all those Bugs Bunny and Ren & Stimpy episodes, yes, that's right. But past that, he helped shape music as we know it in the present day. Hats off to the Scott scholar and ol' pal of mine Mr. Irwin Chusid for keeping his memory alive and well. DEVO's Mark Mothersbaugh, no slouch on the genius scale, was also a help the Scott family in Scott's later years. The Reckless Nights & Turkish Twilights CD is a good one to start with, that's where we got tonight's track. Next week, we'll play one of my favorite way out tracks of his called Don't Beat Your Wife Every Night. Check the site for tons of info: http://www.raymondscott.com/

RaVeN - She's A Freak: Back by not such overwhelming demand, about three of you wanted him, and you got him, another track from RaVeN's CDR. This is a little more low volume compared to the industrial and wicked She's A Freak. What can you say about RaVeN besides visionary?

Maceo & All The King's Men - Funky Women: As far as I know, this is Maceo Parker who you know from all those great James Brown albums after he took a break from Mr. Brown's outfit after some kind of falling out. It was released as Maceo & All The King's Men - Doing Their Own Thing. I found this in Germany many years ago. It's different than a JB's record but still really good. There's a lot of semi-solo records put out by members of James Brown's band. Usually, JB and the rest of the JB's are on the record and they're great. One of the best ones is a Maceo album called Us, which has the killer track Soul Of A Black Man, which has Maceo's most soulful playing. Anyway, this is a great track off a great album. Maceo!
