BROADCAST #20
AIR DATE: 05-09-06
Alright Fanatics, here’s the breakdown of what we heard tonight. I hope you all enjoyed our humble program. Before the show notes are the details of the event on Friday in San Francisco if you’re interested. I have no idea what to expect but I bet it will be really cool. Anyway, until next week, stay 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.
     Thanks for listening and I’ll get back to you as soon as I find out about that Mark E Smith interview-special on an upcoming broadcast. Until next week, hang in there!
     --Henry

Hi Folks,

Information about the event is as follows:

May 12th @ 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco
http://www.111minnagallery.com

Gallery opens for showing 12noon
Reception: 6PM to 2AM
Reception admission: $15 minimum donation
Advanced tickets will be available via TicketWeb (www.ticketweb.com)
You can search "111 Minna" or "Skeleton Key" for the event.
Address:    111 Minna Street, SF
                 (@ New Montgomery & 2nd Streets)
Phone:      415-974-1719

Chuck Prophet to emcee event:

Jacob Pitts - 7 - 7:20 (acoustic set)
Michael Graves - 7:30 - 7:50 (acoustic set-playing a song Damien wrote FROST BITE)
Dennis Riordan - 8:00 - 8:30
Jonathan Richman - 8:45 - 8:55
JR with Damien's poetry - 8:55- 9:10pm
Matt Gonzalez - 9:20 - 9:40pm
Jacob Pitts - 9:50 - 10:10pm (speaking)
art auction ends
Henry Rollins 10:40 - 11:10
Penelope Houston 11:15 - 11:35
Jello Biafra - 11:45 to 12:15am

Please be advised that Associated Press and Juxtapoz will be covering the event.  They will be there with a reporter and photographer for each.

Chad Williams will be donating his time and energy to videotaping the event for documentary record to be used by www.psychopedia.com to benefit the West Memphis Three.

Frank Andrick of KUSF and the Luna Cafe in Sacramento will be donating his time and energy to audiotaping the event for future broadcast on Frank's quarterly program Pomo Literati on KUSF to benefit the West Memphis Three.  Frank has already been generous in scheduling Anje and I to read Damien's poetry on the air for his April Pomo Literati program.

ManiaTV.com will be on hand as well to videotape interviews.  However, they will only be interviewing speakers who are able to provide their time, outside of the gallery.  They will not be entering the interior of the gallery with their videocameras.  We have a release form and questions that are prepared by ManiaTV for anyone interested in being interviewed by them.

If anyone has a problem with being videotaped or audiotaped, please let us know at your earliest convenience.

Thank you.
Anje & Stephanie

The Damned – 1 Of The 2: From the classic first Damned album, Damned Damned Damned. There’s nothing rare about this record, we’re just listening to this song because it’s so damn good. Don’t have this one? It’s time for you to change that situation. What’s All The Noise? Dept.: For many people, their purchase of this album will be the version released by Sanctuary Records. On the outside, it looks pretty cool with the paper outer sleeve. You think you’re getting a really well considered package. Sanctuary is a company that has no soul and no real love of music. I mistakenly licensed them a few albums only to watch them languish. This is a horrible company that ruins almost everything they touch. The version of this stellar record they haphazardly released his loaded with surface noise. It’s pathetic but not surprising they would trot this out as real goods. If you like this album and want to hear its full potential, go online and check for used copies on Demon or the Japanese version on Imperial which as far as the CD versions go, are to me the best sounding.

The Glaxo Babies – It’s Irrational: I don’t know anything about this band as I am the only person I know who has their records. I first got turned onto them by hearing them on a compilation album called Labels Unlimited that had a song of theirs called Who Killed Bruce Lee?. I really liked that song so I picked up their records here and there when I found them. Some of their songs have been released on the newly released 2CD set called Avon Calling, the reference being Bristol UK where Heartbeat Records, the band’s primary label made their home. This came out as a single LP many years ago and it’s very hard to find but the CD is easily located. There’s a collection of the Glaxo Babies music that is scheduled for release on Heartbeat this year but I can’t seem to find solid information on that. I will get back to you on that when I get it.

Dome – Cruel When Complete: From Dome 1. Dome is Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis from Wire. They made four Dome albums. You can find them on CD on the internet. Mute put them out as two CDs. My favorite is the first album but they’re all really cool. I have played songs from this album before, some of you might remember we played Cancel Your Order and Say Again from this album last time we were doing the show. Gilbert and Lewis are fascinating to me. They have done so many records and projects. I don’t know if I have them all but I have a lot of the releases at least and they’re not always the easiest for me to get to but they’re cool nonetheless.

Dinosaur Jr. – Raisans: From the fantastic You’re Living All Over Me album. The Dino boys came down to play some songs for an upcoming episode of my show and they were incredible. They played this song and Forget The Swan as well. Lou, J and Murph—the original Dinosaur Jr. is on tour right now and if you get the chance, check them out. It’s loud!

Othar Turner – Shake ‘Em: Othar passed away a few years ago. Thankfully Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi All-Stars recorded the man and released the very fine Everybody Hollerin’ Goat album. Othar played fife and kept alive Fife and Drum music, a style of music that goes way back. In 1992, the NEA gave him a National Heritage Fellowship for keeping fife and drum music going. Heidi walks into my office, yells abuse at me and starts writing furiously then decides she’s bored and leaves: Henry is an ass! Shut your pie hole you big nightmare! I’m very sick you of today! I’ll take that fife that guy is playing and hit Henry over the head with it! That would be fun! Let’s see what else? Uh, I noticed I didn’t have a snow globe on my desk this morning! He has chores at the office that he doesn’t do when I ask him and so we all fall behind in our work. He won’t take the boxes of CD’s upstairs so my office is like a mouse maze and we almost kill ourselves trying to get around the office and get work done. He also likes to say mean things about me on stage and I get phone calls from his fans letting me know the many ways he burns me. I hope he changes soon! He’s threatening to throw me out of his office by my neck . . . nice! I’m an abused employee. He likes to refer to me as a ‘big unit,’ it hurts my feelings but he thinks it’s super funny! He’ll deny this, but I’m telling the truth. He also didn’t sign the posters we asked him to sign so we got a bunch of phone calls saying ‘Hey, my poster wasn’t signed.” He’s yelling at me right now but I’m not listening! I will be posting the picture of the big bruise he gave me very soon! Ok, anyway, here’s some info on Othar. Check out Goat if you can. PS I just caught Henry digging through my trash, he took out some DVD’s that were sent to us as samples and he’s going to cash them in at Amoeba. FYI He is a “Pack Rat,” he can’t throw anything out. Carol and I wait for him to go on tour so we can throw stuff out without him digging it back out the trash. 
http://www.cascadeblues.org/History/turner_othar.htm

Shangri-las – Dressed in Black: Like a lot of people, I heard the Shangs on the radio but never more than a song here or there. At one point, I thought I better check them out a little more closely. I went online and found a best-of called Myrmidons of Melodrama that seemed to be pretty comprehensive. When I got it, I played it a lot. Most of the songs I had never heard before. On The Songmakers Collection documentary DVD set, there’s some really great footage of the Shangs and that’s what got me interested in them. Worth investigating if you want to hear some early alt. girl rock. Hard not to like this band.

Saints – Know Your Product: From the Eternally Yours album. This was the 2nd LP by Australia’s Saints. Their first album (I’m)Stranded is perhaps more well-known but anyone with (I’m)Stranded who doesn’t have Eternally is missing out as it’s a great album. I don’t think there’s a bad song on either album. These are the two Saints albums I am most familiar with. The albums that came after, Prehistoric Sounds, Monkey Puzzle I have never played nearly as much. Some semi-interesting Saints info is that on Eternally and Prehistoric feature Algy Ward on bass. That name might be familiar to some of you Fanatics as he had a brief stint with the Damned in their Machine Gun Etiquette period. There could be a few of you who have not checked out The Saints. I think you should. At least Stranded and Eternally. A long time ago in DC, these were in heavy rotation in our scene. This is great stuff.

Buzzcocks – Whatever Happened To? (French mispress): Many of you know the famous Buzzcocks single Orgasm Addict / Whatever Happened To? released 11-18-77. Apparently, the wrong versions of the songs were sent to United Artists in France and the single was pressed. At this point it’s very rare and as far as I know, these versions have not been included as bonus tracks on any official Buzzcocks release. It’s a perfect track for our show. Basically what you have is what I think is the used take of the song with a guide vocal and no overdubs. It lacks the gleaming perfection of the final version of the song but it’s interesting to hear a version of this song that probably doesn’t get any attention at all. There, there now, little single, we love you.

Tel Aviv – We’ve Got the Computers: I didn’t know who these guys were. I just trusted the label and bought. Tel Aviv is on Teenbeat. You know I love that label. I figured if Mark Robinson, Teenbeat chief liked them enough to put them out, they must be pretty cool. I play their two albums all the time. The Shape of Fiction and 193 are very at times, VERY quiet records. Tonight’s track is from the Shape album. I listened to this one last night. Tel Aviv’s Andy Comer now in the Prosaics. http://www.teenbeatrecords.com/.

The Prosaics – Now The Shadow Of The Column: This is from the Aghast Agape EP. I don’t know anything about these guys but luckily, I was sent this CD and have been playing ever since. http://www.prosaics.com/home.html

Elvin Jones / McCoy Tyner Quintet - Origin: A great line-up on this album. Jones and Tyner or course but also Pharoah Sanders on tenor sax, Richard Davis on bass—he played with Eric Dolphy, Andrew Hill and Booker Ervin to name a few! Jean-Paul Baurelly on guitar. Melvin has played with Jean-Paul. The album is called Love And Peace. Recorded and mixed at Rudy Van Gelder’s April 13-15 in 1982. My copy is on Storyville but I am seeing it on Amazon.com on Evidence. Cool to hear Coltrane alums together. As you know, Jones, the mighty drummer and Tyner on piano were part of the legendary Coltrane Quartet. After that line-up dissolved, Pharoah came on board with Coltrane along with Rashied Ali on drums and Alice Coltrane on drums. I don’t think Sanders ever played with Jones and Tyner, so this is interesting.

The Fall – Life Just Bounces: There’s two versions of this song. The original is found on the Dredger EP and is also the b-side of the White Lightnin’ single. The other version is found on the Cerebral Caustic album. The single version is great but cooks at a slightly lower temperature so well listen to the Caustic version since we need all the energy we can get to make it through the week. 1995’s Cerebral Caustic is interesting in that it’s one of the records that features the brief return of Brix Smith, one time wife of MES to the band’s line-up. She was in the band from 1983 to 1989 and then back again August 1994 to October 1996. The two studio records she recorded in this time, Cerebral and The Light User Syndrome are both great. The Unofficial Fall site address: http://www.visi.com/fall/

The Snakes – Serve Pro Joe: From their only CD, which comprises both of their albums Happy and I Won’t Love You (‘Til You’re More Like Me). The Snakes were Michael Hampton and Simon Jacobsen who I was in SOA with. This was their other band. They didn’t take the band all that seriously but the fact that Michael was such a good songwriter, the music ended up being pretty solid. They made a lot of tapes that were passed around and then finally these two albums. I still play them all the time 20+ years later. This was a Dischord/Adult Swim release. I just looked on the Dischord site and they only seem to have the cassette of this. I could be wrong about that. I did see copies of this on Amazon.com. It’s a cool record. http://www.dischord.com/main.shtml.

The Swell Maps – Midget Submarine: Form the Trip to Marineville album. The Maps are one of the bands who define the very idea of independent music. Their albums often sound like a few different bands showed up for the same session and somehow got through it. I don’t understand them but I love them. You can listen to their records over and over again and still walk away swearing that wasn’t the same record you heard last time. No band I know reminds me of them. Here’s a page on the Maps. http://www.furious.com/perfect/swellmaps.html

The Machines – EP: True Life / Everything’s Technical / You Better Hear / Evening Radio. In 2004, we listened to You Better Hear from the Machines one and only release on Wax records. Now and then you can find the colored vinyl release on Gecko Records. I thought tonight, we would re-visit the record and then some by playing the entire EP. All the songs are good and it doesn’t take all that much time. Since we played them in 2004, I have found some info on the band from the always amazing Punk77 site. Here’s an interview with the guitar player: http://punk77.co.uk/groups/machinesinterview.htm. Also, a short bio: http://punk77.co.uk/groups/machines.htm. This site gets better and better: http://punk77.co.uk/index.htm.

The Pop Group – Boys From Brazil: I am always late to the game. Recently I was in Australia and was talking to Tim, my agent down there and music Fanatic of the highest order. He asked me what my thoughts were on the Pop Group. I had no game. I told him I couldn’t weigh in as I didn’t know their stuff. I had a Mark Stewart solo album but that was it. He was surprised. He said that I should have at least checked them out to see the major influence on early material of the Birthday Party. When I said that I didn’t know the BP had some Pop Group in them, Tim said that I had some work to do. So, I tracked down the albums Y and For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?. I played them and dug them. I also see what Tim was getting at. Listen to these records, The Fall’s Dragnet and Live At the Witch Trials albums and you’ll here the influence it had on the early BP stuff. Really cool stuff this band. It’s obvious I don’t know much about them at all but I like what I hear so far.

The Birthday Party – A Catholic Skin: Very early Birthday Party. Still has the pre-Prayers On Fire feel. You can find a healthy slice if the band’s early material on the Hee Haw CD. That’s a great one. I can sit through the entire Birthday Party catalog from beginning to end and never get bored. At this point, it’s something to look back at the entire recorded output of Nick Cave and Mick Harvey. 30+ years in and still going strong those two.

Silver Apples – Lovefingers: While we’re on the topic of Tim, the Australian Fanatic, let’s quickly play a track of a band he turned me onto in the late 80’s. On my first tour of Australia I spent a lot of time on the road with Tim and we talked about music a lot. If you talk about good music for only a little while, of course the band Suicide comes into the conversation. Tim asked me if I had ever heard of the Silver Apples. I had not. He said if I wanted to hear a band that Suicide was at least in his opinion, aware of at the time, I better check out the Silver Apples. It was hard to find their stuff as at that time, I don’t think the CD bootleg of their two albums were out yet. I got by on a cassette he made me. Years later I tracked down the bootleg and eventually the real deal was released. It was an interesting band to say the least. I have never asked The Legend, Alan Vega, if he has ever heard of the band but I do see what Tim was getting to at least in theory. You can read reviews on Amazon.com that might be helpful for info on the band.