Playlist for
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
February 29, 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:

– Background music today was Billy Mure’s Super-Sonic Guitars, and I doubted on the air that it was in fact a stereo recording, but it most certainly is. Stereo vinyl records were first sold in 1958, and that’s when this LP was released–on RCA Victor Living Stereo.

– Polvo is reuniting and playing the Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill on May 10. In preparing this show, I decided that their music actually holds up pretty well compared to a lot of 90s indie rock, particularly other stuff from the Triangle scene.

– If I had listened to the Intelligence album, Deuteronomy, when it came out, it would have made my Best of 2007 list.

Background Music: Billy Mure’s Super-Sonic Guitars - Fireworks (1958 RCA Victor Living Stereo)

Playlist for
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
February 22, 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:

– Justin Farrar was my co-pilot again today, and he brought his usual pile of excellent wax. We were still on a high after spinning records in public together this past Sunday at the Asheville Sound Swap, which, by the way, was a smash success for all involved. I think everybody who was there will be back next time around.

– "Foot-Stompin’ Music" by Hamilton Bohannon was a revelation for me. Detroit proto-disco at its primal best! All I have to say is B-O-H-A-N-N-O-N!

– You gotta love Bo Diddley the Funk God. Is that a good look or what???!!! A listener called up and gave us the straight dope: evidently Black Gladiator (1970) is the first of three funk records by the rock ‘n’ roll legend. I miss the square guitar, but the leather belts make up for it.

– Randy Holden’s Population II from 1970 was H-E-A-V-Y. Holden was in The Other Half, a 60s psychedelic/garage band from San Francisco known mainly for "Mr. Pharmacist", which you may know from The Fall’s cover (it also is still a staple of their live sets). And then Holden played in Blue Cheer briefly as the replacement for Leigh Stevens on the second half of their third LP, New! Improved! (1968). And then came the solo record, Population II, which Justin somehow unearthed. According to Randy Holden’s website, this monster has been remastered and is available there exclusively as of September 2007. The album features Holden on guitar and Chris Lockheed of Blue Cheer on drums. It’s the blueprint for all heavy guitar/drums duos (Hospitals comes to mind, among, ahem, others). Also check out the review by "The Seth Man" on Julian Cope’s Head Heritage website.

Background Music: Various Artists - German Beer-Drinking Music (Capitol International Series)

Playlist for
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
February 15, 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:

– Catching up on my notes, so I’ll be brief. The highlights of this show for me were the following:

– The Duke Ellington suites (the Girl’s Suite from 1961 and the Perfume Suite from 1957) were the background music, and somehow I had never slapped this wax on the turntable. How could I have overlooked this one?

– Marzette Watts’ 1966 disk is really wild, and it has vibes (!) (Karl Berger), not to mention Byard Lancaster (flute and alto), Sonny Sharrock (guitar, and his first appearance on record), Clifford Thornton (trombone), Henry Grimes (bass), and J.C. Moses (drums). What a line-up! I believe Marzette only released two albums under his own name, and I’ve never seen the other one (evidently on Savoy, with Bill Dixon and Patty Waters).

– Mary Lou Williams. This 1977 LP, My Mama Pinned a Rose on Me, is one of her better later records, featuring mostly her own compositions.

Background Music: Duke Ellington - The Girl’s Suite and the Perfume Suite (1961 Columbia)

Playlist for
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
February 8, 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:

– Hell yes! By far the most satisfying radio show I’ve had in months–perhaps since I started spinning at WPVM. Shaina sat in for one last training session, and she really helped out the show, as she has done for the last month. Thanks, Shaina! Look for her doing her own show sometime soon.

– The Brigitte Fontaine cut that Shaina picked from the Bearded Ladies compilation (put together by Jane Weaver) was so outstanding, I had to look into getting it. It turns out that the album this is from is Fontaine’s 1971 LP, Comme à la Radio, her second, and the backing band is the Art Ensemble of Chicago, who were living in Paris at the time. How cool is that?

– If I want to get a phone call of praise, playing "My Own Private P. Swayze" by the Male Nurse always does the trick. Who wouldn’t love a song about a 24-inch Patrick Swayze who lives under the bed, a "perfectly formed little man" who wears an Elvis jumpsuit and is in trouble if he grows. The track was so loved by BBC DJ John Peel that he assigned it #32 in his 1998 Festive 50. This Scottish band, which counted Ben Wallers of the Country Teasers (and The Rebel, as a solo artist) as a member, to my knowledge never produced an album, although they did record two Peel Sessions. This song’s tune is a slower (and more humorous) riff on The Fall’s "My New House".

– I am now the proud owner of an original Metal Box by Public Image Ltd. It was worth every penny. There’s something exhilarating about opening up the box (and mine has some nice oxidation) and trying to get the records out; it makes you work for the thrill. And then the sound–45 rpm just sounds better. I’m kinda glad some asshole stole my CD of Second Edition years ago. And the locked groove… I never knew it existed, but it’s astoundingly beautiful.

– And then… the set of music surrounding the Italian Futurists. First I played examples of reconstructed noise intoners (intonarumori), performed by Daniele Lombardi in 1978: the gorgogliatore (gurgler), the ronzatore (buzzer), the ululatore (howler), and the crepitatore (crackler). These recordings are compiled on a fantastic CD called Musica Futurista: The Art of Noises (Salon Records). Then I played Adam & the Ants’ homage to the Italian Futurists, "Animals and Men" and a song by an Italian post-punk band, Art Fleury, who often incorporated industrial noises. Next came a poem by Wyndham Lewis, the founder of Vorticism (the British response to Futurism), from a collection called Futurism & Dada Reviewed (Sub Rosa). This blended into the Italian poetry of F.T. Marinetti, the founder of Italian Futurism with piano accompaniment by Aldo Giuntini, recorded in 1931. David Bowie ended the set because I felt like it. The photo takes you to one site about futurist music. Here’s another, and yet another.

Background Music: Don Cherry - Orient (1972, reissued on vinyl by Abraxas)

Playlist for
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
February 1, 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:

– DJ-in-training Shaina brought in a slew of UK late-70s/early 80s punk and post-punk goodies, including The Flying Lizards, a record I’ve passed up so many times in used record bins that I’m now ashamed that I’d never listened to it. Next time I find it…

– Because of an ice storm in the Asheville area and subsequent power outages, the FM transmitter was down during this broadcast, so it was internet only. Thus, I set aside most everything I had planned for the show for next week. Everything except the best Fall live album, recorded May 6, 1983, at the Austurbæjarbíó club in Reykjavík, Iceland. Why the best, you ask? Because it’s the rawest, most pounding line-up in the Fall’s history–that’s why. Guitarist Marc Riley had just been sacked, and Brix had yet to join the band. It was just Craig Scanlon on guitar, and the focus was more on rhythm–rhythm guitar and a rhythm section of the ever-stupendous Steve Hanley on bass and TWO–that’s right, TWO–drummers: Karl Burns (a serially hired and fired member of The Fall who had also played with PIL) and Steve’s brother, Paul Hanley. This line-up only recorded two singles for Rough Trade, "The Man Whose Head Expanded" and "Kicker Conspiracy", and here they were working up a slew of songs for the next LP, Perverted by Language.

– Despite the beautifully brutal rendition of "Eat Y’self Fitter" by The Fall, the standout for me this week was the background music, a collection of compositions and recordings of the seminal electronic music composer, Gottfried Michael Koenig. All you laptop musicians out there take heed: you will never be as cool as Koenig. Although his earliest works are from the mid-50s, it’s in the late 60s that Koenig really got rolling. Some of his work at the Instituut voor Sonologie in Utrecht, Netherlands, was recorded for Deutsche Grammophon and released in their Avant-Garde composers series. But now all that stuff has been released on two collections, the one by BVHaast, which I played today, and the other on Edition RZ. There’s no overlap. Click on the album cover to go to Koenig’s website.

– The Blue Sky Boys, Earl and Bill Bolick, originally of Hickory, NC, were one of the greatest brother duets in the history of country music, and if you like the Louvin Brothers and the Monroe Brothers, you simply must get ahold of a bunch of the Blue Sky Boys recordings from the 1930s. They excel at the murder ballad, always a staple of brother duets, but we heard another form of warped love ballad today. They got their start on the radio here in Asheville, NC–I presume at WWNC, which also saw the debut of Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys in 1939. It’s very sad that the station went from a country format to conservative talk in 2002. Booooo hisssss!

Background Music: Gottfried Michael Koenig - Acousmatrix-History of Electronic Music I-II (BVHaast, 2005)