HARMONY IN MY HEAD

Hello folks, here’s some info on what we played on the show. Thanks for listening and I’ll play more jams next week. I will be bringing in some serious singles so it should be fun. Valves, The Now, The Razors, The Machines, The Contollers, The Black Light Panthers, The Deadbeats, etc. It’s going be a good one! --Henry

Trouble Funk – Hey Fellas: Trouble Funk are from Washington DC. Along with Chuck Brown, Mass Extension, Rare Essence and the Junkyard Band, they are one of the well known, well regarded early wave of DC Go-Go Fink bands. There’s some great Trouble Comp. CDs to be found if you like what you heard here. Check Droppin’ Bombs and of course the very cheap and one dollar goes to charity 2CD set Trouble Funk Live/Early Singles set on my label, District Line. HenryRollins.com takes you to that one.

Bernie Torme – Street Fighter: From that good old Live at the Vortex album that we heard the Art Attacks do Animal Bondage from last week. What a bad ass song. I don’t know much if anything about Bernie Torme. I think the only song of his I have is on this one record. Good blistering stuff.

Link Wray - Street Fighter: Might as well stay on the same title for a minute. This is my favorite Link Wray song. It’s from the Great Norton Record set Missing Links Vol. 2. It’s live obviously and the song farily explodes out of the speakers like it wants to wreck your stereo. In the Missing Links liner notes it’s mentioned that Link used to play a lot in the Washington DC area and sometimes find himself in rough joints called knifer bars because of all the stabbings and general violence. He said that the gangs that fought therein had no problem with the band, they were too busy trying to kill each other. When you hear this song, you can almost imagine it happening.

Generation X – Kleenex: One of my favorite Generation X songs. Those first two albums and the singles around them are pretty solid and there’s stuff on the Kiss Me Deadly album that are great as well. Have any of you ever checked out the singles from Kiss Me deadly? In their great wisdom, Chrysalis has issued all these albums on CD and never issued Ugly Rash, Ugly Dub, Loopy Dub, Rock On or No No No on any of them. What a shame. I will bring in Ugly Rash to play next week. Generation X made really lasting punk-pop music that still sounds great.

X-Ray Spex – Identity: From the perfect Germ Free Adolescents album. What a band, what great songs. They did this one album, some singles and that’s pretty much it. There’s a great anthology 2CD set that has it all plus some demos and the famous Live at the Roxy set. There’s some other alt. versions of songs on some bootlegs but sadly they never made more music than the one batch. I was making a record once many years ago and in the studio there was a guy making food and he told me that he had been the drummer in a band once a long time ago. Turns out he was the drummer in X Ray Spex. I was all over him like a cheap suit with questions. No memorabilia, no live tapes, nothing but the memories. I was crushed.

Eater – You: We heard some Eater weeks ago but I reckon it’s time to bring them back. Ons of the great bands from back in the days of the classic UK punk rock. There’s a couple of CD comps out there. A single one that has all the songs from the singles and album and then a newer 2CD version that has some cool unreleased stuff and singer Andy blade reading from his autobiography of the band’s early days. I have a good sized chunk of the book that he sent me and it’s great reading. I hope he gets it out. I bet there’s good info on the band on the punk77 site.

Mississippi Fred McDowell – Shake ‘Em on Down: I have every Fred record I’ve ever seen and have yet to hear one that’s in any way less than a must-have. Of all of the songs, this is my favorite. Shake ‘Em on Down might be his most well known song but the Rolling Stones, one of the three or four bands that your pal Heidi bothers to listen to covered his song You Got to Move. She probably doesn’t know that but she will be happy to tell you how cute Keith Richards is as long as you don’t mention that the picture she’s reffering to is from the Bronze Age, that’s right, the age they invented bronze. Anyway, Mr. MacDowell delivers big time on this song. There’s several different version of this song on different albums but this is the one. Between that narrow slide and the rhythm he lays down, he sounds like a whole band. Was Fred macDowell on the Rolling Stone top 100 guitar player list? No? Not good enough? Oh, torch the Rolling Stone building to the ground? Sounds like a plan.

Negative Trend – Red and Black: You wanted it and so you got it. Another track off the completely devastating Negative Trend EP. I think we played How Ya Feelin’ on the first broadcast and I’ve been getting letters about it ever since. This is a hard one to find. You pay waaaaaaay too much for it on e-bay. One of these weeks, I’ll play the whole damn EP so you all can download it for free. All music that stays out of print for more than a few years shold be given out for free.

Rezillos – Flying Saucer Attack: from the Can’t Stand the Rezillos album. Issued on CD with the live album missing one live track. Great band from Scotland. I got mixed reviews about their recent re-union show in London. My more reliable source told me they ripped it. The punk77 site has info I’m sure.

Dion – The Wanderer: Lollapalooza 1991 we were in Orlando FL, Aug. 20. Word was that the legendary Dion of Dion and Belmonts was backstage because his daughter wanted to meet Jane’s Addiction. I was off like a shot in search of him. I found him immediately and we got to talking. He told me he liked how I told off the skinheads that were beating the crap out of people in the crowd and then told me some stories of his early days. He told me about hanging out with James Brown after his shows at the Apollo and how on tour with Bobbie Blue Bland and Sam Cook (!!!) while in the south, he and his band would have to get the other two bands sandwiches at the roadstops because of their color, they weren’t allowed inside. Can you imagine? He said it was the first time he was subjected to racism. What a way to woken up to that one. The Wanderer is my favorite Dion vocal. His daughter took pictures of the two of us and never sent me one. Cough it up, woman!

Silver Apples - Whirly Bird: A guy in Australia tuned me onto these guys a long time ago. The records were hard to find and I eventually got a bootleg of the two LPs and then later on, they were officially released, through Universal. Whirly Bird was released in the late sixties, 1968 I think. Amazon is showing a lot of used copies for cheap. Want more info? http://www.silverapples.com/ gets you there.

Janis Joplin – Summertime: From the Joplin in Concert album. I have had this record since 5th grade. Easily one of the most painfully beautiful vocals I have ever heard. She just kills it and there’s nothing you can do but be pulled in. When she had this band, Big Brother and the Holding Company with her, she was indestuctable. No one ever gave that band enough credit. Listen to their playing on their half of this record and the Cheap Thrills album. Murdering guitar work by James Gurley. I bet this would have been Gershwin’s favorite version.

Funkadelic – Superstupid: From the amazing Funkadelic album Maggot Brain. George Clinton is a world of music. He’s like Duke Ellington. I don’t think anyone will ever have the definitive Funkadelic-Parliament and related bands discography together, I think it’s too tangled but it’s one amazing journey to take. The Funkadelic catalog got remastered and it’s great stuff.

Chuck Berry – Havana Moon: Chuck Berry wrote a lot of Rock and Roll. A lot of people have covered him and ripped him off. One of my favorite Berry tunes has always been Havana Moon. The story depicted in the song is a mini-epic and if you listen to the amazing economy of the lyric, it’s really brilliant.

Ketty Lester - Love Letters: I got this from the Blue Velvet Sondtrack. I looked her up and apparently this was a big hit for her in the UK in the early sixties. That’s about all I could find out. Amazon.co never heard of her and Gemm.com shows one LP and a single of Love Letters. Really great voice, I wonder what the rest of her catalog sounds like.

Nick Cave – Stranger than Kindness: From the great Your Funeral My Trial album. All the songs on this album are great. When the Bad Seeds would play this song, Nick and Blixa would sit o the drum riser and do it. I have a cool photo of it that someone gave me in Hamburg in 1987.

Kim Salmon – Cockroach: From the Essence album. He’s so cool. He was in some great Australian bands, The Scientists, Beasts of Bourbon. His band The Surrealists have released a lot of good stuff. I think there’s one Kim record released domestically. The rest are on import. Worth check out I think.

Mirrors – She Smiled Wild: I didn’t even know there was a CD of their stuff until Engineer X told me about it. I only had this 7”. I don’t know much about these guys but they’re part of that killin’ Ohio scene X-Blank-X, Drome Records, Pagans, Pere Ubu, Rockets, Peter Laughner, Electic Eels, Ubu, etc. The CD is called Hands in My Pockets and it’s on John Esplen’s very fine label Overground. John also put out an Electric Eels CD. The Overground catalog is great. Esplen knows his music.

Rowland S. Howard – Still Burning: Great track by Rowland S. Howard of the Birthday Party. This song is to be found on Lydia Lunch’s very cool Honeymoon in Red album. On the Honeymoon record, there’s a track called Done Dun where Lydia shares a track with Nick Cave. It’s one of my favorite Nick vocals. At some point, we’ll be playing a track off Rowland’s latest offering Teenage Snuff Film. Great record.

De la Soul – Plug Tunin’ (12” version): I have a few De La Soul records but the first one is the one I go back to the most. I liked it a lot when it came out. I still have my Plug Tunin’ 12” but this is off the CD, that has this original version which I like a little better.