Playlist for
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
January 25, 2008

Hosted by Greg Lyon on FRIDAYS at 2-4 pm
on WPVM Asheville (103.5 FM and www.wpvm.org)

This show is available for listening as an archive for one week after its airing at WPVM’s Archive Page (click on the STREAM button for this show–under the letter ‘G’)

Notes:

– I’ve liked everything I’ve played off the new Tight Leather CD, so I’ll be going to see them play at the New French Bar on March 8. They’re from Lexington, Kentucky, and play arty garage punk with a psych and VU slant–right up my alley.

– Also new and somewhat amusing were two garage outfits on the Spoonful record label out of Ohio. First came The Griefs, from Cincinnati and featuring Eric Stein, who used to be in the Greenhornes and has played with Holly Golightly. They play a kind of retro-garage pop that reminds me a lot of the dB’s and Let’s Active, but at times they can also lay down the fuzz à la Mudhoney. Second was The Tough & Lovely from Columbus, who aren’t as noisy as many of their townmates and often recall the stylings of Mary Weiss with Reigning Sound. More exciting than both those bands, however, is These Are Powers, who are somehow from both Brooklyn and Chicago–I hope that works out for them.

– Oh, the 70s. Today’s pic is from the back cover of the 1977 album by Robert Gordon (left) with Link Wray (right). Whoever the art director was for this album kinda missed the mark, I dare say, unless there were lots of gay rockabilly fans back then. What a great pose! Pink background? Gotta love the chest hair, open shirt, and wifebeater. The song I played, though, was so great I thought it had to be a cover, but no, "Woman (You’re My Woman)" is a Link Wray original. Link Wray’s 70s work is thoroughly under-appreciated, by the way. Check out the early 70s records, Link Wray, Beans and Fatback, and the Mordicai Jones album, all gathered on the 2CD collection, Wray’s Three Track Shack (Acadia 2005).

– New volunteer Shaina sat in again this week and brought bunches of fiddle music that’s not bluegrass, and so we played a set of bluegrass vs. the rest of the world. I didn’t really play fiddle music per se, so it wasn’t a rigorous contest. We switched to vocal music about half-way through, but the set worked out nicely, even with Nico rounding it up. She just mixed too well with Shirley Collins to leave out.

Background Music: Jimi Hendrix - Moods (Trip)

Playlist for
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
January 18, 2008

Hosted by Greg Lyon on FRIDAYS at 2-4 pm
on WPVM Asheville (103.5 FM and www.wpvm.org)

This show is available for listening as an archive for one week after its airing at WPVM’s Archive Page (click on the STREAM button for this show–under the letter ‘G’)

Notes:

– When I don’t have guests on the show, I play more jazz. I recently picked up a copy of Joe Harriott’s Abstract on vinyl, and it’s a real gem. Harriott was probably the greatest proponent of 1960s New Jazz in England, sounding very much in the same league as Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy. Here’s a short bio and discography. Ken Vandermark has paid homage with his Joe Harriott Project CD, Straight Lines on Atavistic, but I played something newer by Vandermark, namely his Territory Band-6 release, Collide, which also features Norwegian noise-meister Lasse Marhaug among many other notables. Vandermark consistently makes music that stretches the boundaries without going over the cliff, more Outward Bound than Out There, to use the Eric Dolphy albums as metaphors–something I’m sure the Dolphy-loving Vandermark wouldn’t mind, although much of Vandermark’s music is indeed farther out there than Dolphy’s album by that name (Out to Lunch, however, is a different story). I’ve discovered that my favorite jazz artists work in a similar vein: pushing the outer limits of tradition, with a discernible vector beyond those limits (outward bound). Steve Lacy epitomizes this for me. Back to earth: this Collide CD really does sound fresh: both avant-garde and listenable. I’m also working through all those Free America Records reissues put out a couple of years ago, and this time I featured Alan Shorter’s Tes Esat from 1970, one of only two albums led by the trumpet- and flugelhorn-playing brother of Wayne Shorter. Orgasm is the other one, and it’s truly dynamite. Orgasm needs a new reissue; it goes for far too much money on ebay nowadays. Lastly, I managed a cool Lester Young live track from the newly refreshed ESP-Disk label.

– A real find this week was the Marc Wilkinson soundtrack to the 1971 British sexploitation horror film, Blood on Satan’s Claw. It’s creepy throughout and incredibly well scored–on par with Morricone in his horror mode.

– My Jack Nitzsche pick this week was the Everly Brothers doing "Hey Mr. Soul" from 1968. It didn’t see a release, though, until 1984, according to the liner notes of my Ace Records Nitzsche collection (one of two on that label). They also report that Nitzsche recorded Buffalo Springfield doing this song, but that version didn’t make the record. Nitzsche later worked with Neil Young on his first solo record.

– My favorite website usage error of the week: Lion Productions reissued a big, shiny ruby of a find in the 1972 French band Ophiucus’s self-titled debut. But either their blurb needs an editor, or the liner notes really pissed someone off: "A fulsome 28-page booklet includes band history and commentaries on the songs written by Ophiucus, photos, lyrics (French and English), and a contemporary review. Not to be missed!" I read the liner notes and didn’t find them at all fulsome. Yes, I am a pedant.

Background Music: Joe Harriott Quintet - Abstract (1961 Capitol)

Playlist for
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
January 11, 2008

Hosted by Greg Lyon on FRIDAYS at 2-4 pm
on WPVM Asheville (103.5 FM and www.wpvm.org)

This show is available for listening as an archive for one week after its airing at WPVM’s Archive Page (click on the STREAM button for this show–under the letter ‘G’)

Notes:

– I had two guests today: music writer and Asheville resident Justin Farrar came back for a second visit, and our new volunteer at WPVM, Shaina, who has gamely declared that she will be back next week! We love a party at The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

– This show was dedicated to Dave Day (Havlicek) of the Monks, who passed away this week. Click on his picture to go visit the Monks website, where they have more pix of Dave and all kinds of info about this, perhaps the weirdest–and certainly one of the best–of all American (and German) garage rock bands of the 1960s. He was the crazy percussive electric banjo player in the band–a true rock original.

– Justin brought in about half the music today, and it was all groovy. We had a nice immaculate California production showdown between Phil Spector (the Dion track) and his Wrecking Crew mate, Jack Nitzsche (the Bobby Darin track). Both were winners. I’ve been listening to much Nitzsche lately, especially that first Neil Young solo record I played a while back. I’m sure to play more in the coming weeks.

– I brought in the new S.T. Mikael album, which appears 9 years after his last record, Soul Flower, which I played a few weeks ago. This new one features fellow Swedes from the band Dungen, Reine Fiske and Fredrik Björling, in supporting roles.

– The Finnish band Liimanarina was one of Justin’s picks, and like a cat to catnip, I couldn’t stop saying ‘Bad Vugum’, the label on which their 1989 7" appears. I knew that this was a Beefheart reference, but I’m shocked that I couldn’t remember which song it was from, considering it is in fact one of my all-time favorite Beefheart tunes, "Sue Egypt", from Doc at the Radar Station (1980). I’m going to play it next week, I think, but to get you all warmed up, here are some of the fantastic lyrics (or at least what I hear): "Bring me my scissors / and those on waters / The moon was a / wisdomatic / pristocratic / vagabond / Bad vugum / a picture of red-hot juice / a pitcher of / red garnet juice." In an 1980 interview for Melody Maker, Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) explains that "Bad vugum" is a curse (or insult, as the interviewer puts it) against punk and new wave, who "could have gone far," but who used him "like an ashtray heart" and whom he indicts further in "Sue Egypt" with the lyric, "I think of all the people who ride my bones." Don was a wee bit bitter against the music industry, and justifiably so.

Background Music: Sun Ra - Disco 3000 (expanded 2CD edition) - Art Yard

Playlist for
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
January 3, 2008

Hosted by Greg Lyon on Thursdays at 2-4 pm
on WPVM Asheville (103.5 FM and www.wpvm.org)

The archive for this show normally appears at the WPVM Archive Page, but this week it was truncated, so I’ve put up a more complete version on this website for the next week (listen fast!): STREAM

Notes:

– I usually do a countdown show of my favorite releases of the year, but this year I couldn’t decide on a favorite record, so I didn’t put them in order. But I did keep most of my favorites until the end of the show.

– Looking back, I’d say 2007 was a really good year in music. BUT–nothing stayed on CD player for weeks on end, so it didn’t have any blockbusters for me. The album that gave me the most sustained pleasure was probably the Grinderman album, which is both glorious and a bit depressing, considering I think the best, rawest rock record of the year came from a guy so established. Still, there was a pure joy evident on that album that I surmise came from somebody who rediscovered what it felt like to rock. "No Pussy Blues" is one of the greatest songs in the Nick Cave canon, and was my favorite "single" of the year. Veterans Angels of Light (Michael Gira) and Einstürzende Neubauten also got it done this year. Mark E. Smith and crew did not.

– World music, particularly African grooves, pounded my cerebral cortex constantly all year long. Sublime Frequencies wins for most consistently mind-blowing label. I didn’t get a chance to play several items from them that should have been in the show, including the brilliant comp, Molam: Thai Country Groove Groove from Isan Vol. 2. My favorite archival pick-up was the Romanian tambal master Toni Iordache compilation, Sounds from a Bygone Age Vol. 4 from the German Asphalt-Tango label. The Tony Allen and Orlando Julius sets on Vampi Soul (from Spain) had (and still have) the radio station buzzin’ for weeks. Mali was heavily represented as well: Tinariwen hit the bigtime, while the Yaala Yaala label uncovered the rawer side of the Mali underground with their first 3 mysterious CDs (artist info was scarce).

– I didn’t put any jazz albums on my list, despite the fact I heard a lot of tremendous jazz in 2007. I’m going to blame myself for this lacuna, and I have an excuse: I spent 3 years in Switzerland and came back to my vinyl jazz collection hungy (downright ravenous, actually) to get reacquainted with it. So I did, to the detriment of new jazz releases. The best thing I heard this year was something old, newly discovered: the Charles Mingus Sextet with Eric Dolphy, Cornell 1964. That’s almost up there with the Monk & Coltrane set from Carnegie Hall discovered a couple of years ago. Truly smokin’!

– I had originally anticipated that 2007 would be dominated by the new folk (freak folk, psych folk, whatever you want to call it, just don’t call it New Weird America) movement. Maybe it was. But I wasn’t buying it. Nothing from this strain of independent music even made my finalist list for the year. Maybe I’ll mellow out in 2008.

– On the rock front, there was a surge in the California noise-garage-punk scene, producing such treats as No Age, Silver Daggers, Lamps, Health, and the like. Bands like Raccoo-oo-oon, Magik Markers, and Deerhunter combined the noise thing with a tribal psych vibe in a way I could digest without getting ill from hippy-itis. I continued to have a very soft spot for adolescent garage punk, which Home Blitz and Turbo Fruits representing on this show. Old Time Relijun and Wooden Shjips simply stood above the rest for me this year; they’re not unique, but there was something incredibly fresh in their carressing (and mauling) approach to some of my most easily pushed buttons.

– Carolina Funk runs off with the Best Archival Compilation of the Year award. Even without home field advantage, I think this would have won.

– Thanks for listening (and reading) in 2007!!!!!! Beginning next week, the show is airing on Fridays, 2-4pm. Shift your schedules accordingly! I wanted to move back to Friday afternoon because that was my slot at WPRB in Princeton, NJ for many years, and I LOVED it. Friday afternoon–you know you don’t want to work. You want to listen to the radio! Just do it.

Background Music: Tony Allen - Afro Disco Beat (Vampi Soul)