Playlist for
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
March 28, 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:

– The DUTCH, baby! Today’s show featured a set of Dutch music, the first half of which was 60s/70s Nederbeat (Outsiders) and acid rock (Group 1850 and Brainbox), while the second half was Dutch punk rock (The Ex, Ivy Green, and BGK). For info on the first half, you can visit the Nederpop Encyclopedia. There’s also a nice article from the e-zine Perfect Sound Forever on the Outsiders, "The Most Underrated Band Ever?". Ivy Green was the greatest of the first-wave Dutch punk bands, and it’s still impossible to get their early music, as far as I know. There was a CD reissue of their 1978 classic debut, but it’s out of print, as is the 1986 double-vinyl collection, Whatever They Hype. More info on Ivy Green here. One day I may have to do an entire Dutch show. I felt like I owed them after playing so much German and Scandinavian music over the last few months, particularly when Justin sits in and brings tons of Finnish forest folk and Swedish noise.

– Exciting new music of the week: I really like the new Nick Cave, at least the first time I listened to it. It seems that Cave has found a new lust for life–a renaissance, if you will (perhaps Viagra induced, as suggested by Justin)–in the last couple of years, as this album continues the irreverent and downright fun mood of his Grinderman release.

– The Raveonettes and their wall of noise appeared on David Letterman this week, and although I never watch that show, I was flipping channels when it was on. I’ve never paid any attention to this Danish duo, but I was mightily impressed by their massive wall of noise. And the strange thing was: Letterman seemed to like it! The song was good–very Jesus and Mary Chain. So in honor of their uncompromising appearance on Letterman, I played the song on this here show. Yup.

– Justin brought in the Peter Laughner recording, taped from a September 1972 radio appearance on WMMS, Cleveland’s Coffeebreak Concert series. We went with Laughner’s cover of "Willin’," a song written by George Lowell of Little Feat. Laughner was evidently doin’ mostly country/folk/blues music at the time, as the band with him in the studio was called The Original Wolverines. You can find out more about this recording by going to the Handsome Productions website. There’s a lot of info there about Laughner, one of the prime movers in the Cleveland rock scene (member of Rocket from the Tombs and the early Pere Ubu) before he died in 1977 at the far-too-young age of 24.

– Other Justin picks: the Nonesuch Explorer Series LP, Ladakh: Songs & Dances from the Highlands of Western Tibet, which was lovely and surprisingly poppy (I was expecting throat singing or something truly weird); the Kemialliset Ystävät 7-inch (Finnish forest folk); the hilarious and groovy "Smokin’ Cheeba Cheeba" by the Harlem Underground Band; and the utterly thunderous rendition of "Sunshine of Your Love" from the Steel Funk steel drum compilation. Shaina contributed the far more subtly excellent Swedish folk stomp by the band Swåp.

Background Music: Gabor Szabo - His Great Hits (Impulse!)

Playlist for
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
March 21, 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:

– We had two themed sets of music today. First came the acoustic guitar set, with Francis Bebey starting things off from 1965 and the "Concert for an Old Mask"–a true masterpiece begging for reissue on CD. Here’s the description from the LP: "A poem in music about an old mask endowed with magical powers. It describes, in its own way, the mask’s long journey from central Africa to Brazil. When it arrives, it is surprised and overjoyed to find something of its native Africa and dances at the carnival of Bahia, just as it used to on the other side of the Atlantic. One day however its owner forgets that in Africa he had been strictly forbidden to sell or give away the mask, and offers it to a museum. Needless to say the ‘curio’ is immediately imprisoned in a show-case. The mask spends only one night there. The next morning, it is found dead, split in two: mad with rage it had committed suicide during the night."

– The second theme was slightly off-kilter country music, and in addition to the lovely moog version of "Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town" (the Mel Tillis song, made famous by Kenny Rogers), we heard something from the comedic (and also unreissued) Johnny Cash album Everybody Loves a Nut, the coyly erotic (or is my mind in the gutter?) "Suckin’ Cider Through a Straw" as sung by Carl Sandburg, and the downright ridiculous "Woman Hungry" by Porter Wagoner (and it’s not even close to the zaniest on that compilation, The Rubber Room: The Haunting, Poetic Songs of Porter Wagoner). Because I can’t find the lyrics anywhere on the old internet, I’ll transcribe them here for posterity:

Lately I’ve been dining out
When my hungry lips need fed.
You no longer serve me love
And a heart could starve to death.
You push me from the table
It’s no longer spread with care
And when a man gets woman hungry
He will find a meal somewhere.

Chorus:
When a man gets woman hungry
And he’s got no food at home
There’s a gnawing down inside his heart
That will cause a man to roam.
He’ll play around forbidden fruit
Reach out and take his share.
When a man gets woman hungry
He will find a meal somwhere.

Malnutrition of the heart’s
One disease that I can’t fight.
It demands that I find love
And keeps me prowling through the night
Searching for the table
You’ve been failing to prepare
And when a man gets woman hungry
He’ll find a meal somewhere.

[Repeat Chorus]

– Also in that set was a gorgeous Lee Hazlewood track, "Since You’re Gone,"from his 1965 LP Friday’s Child, which has finally been reissued on CD as part of the new collection on Rhino Handmade: Strung Out on Something New: The Reprise Recordings. I had a hard time determining whether this was in fact a collection of ALL the tracks from Hazlewood’s 3 Reprise LPs, as the Rhino Handmade website has an incomplete track listing (and poorly describes the compilation as having "selections from" Friday’s Child), but I rolled the dice, and it turns out that it is complete. Asheville-based music writer Fred Mills has it right in his really nice review of the collection in Harp Magazine.

– Shaina brought in some really nice wax today: the Hungarian pop record (we think it was from the 1960s), the Devil’s Anvil, and the aforementioned (and pictured) Switched-On-Country moog record.

Background Music: Henry Mancini - The Pink Panther (RCA 1964)

Playlist for
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
March 14, 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:

– Highlights this week included the Mauritanian field recording from a compilation put out on CDR by Ian Nagoski, whose recent Black Mirror collection on Dust-to-Digital Records is also a real gem. Shaina, who co-hosted today, brought that in, as well as the really nifty anthology of Bollywood singer Geeta Dutt.

– There was a bit of a György Ligeti theme today: I started with a track from the new Vandermark 5 CD that was dedicated to the Romanian/Hungarian/Austrian/Jewish composer, and then we found a recording of an electronic piece by the man himself. Click on the lovely image above to go to the site I lifted it from.

Background Music: Benny Golson - Tune In, Turn On (To the Hippest Commercials of the Sixties) (Verve 1967)

Playlist for
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
March 7, 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:

– Let’s face it, unearthed previously unreleased songs usually suck. So imagine my elation when I read about a live recording of the Velvet Underground in 1967 that not only had good sound direct from the board but also featured a song that didn’t suck. Too good to be true? Nope. The song is "I’m Not a Young Man Anymore," and it was recorded probably in April 1967 at the Gymnasium in NYC. The recording first appeared as a green-vinyl bootleg on ebay last month and has shown up for download (try Dead Flowers) and linked by lots of blogs (and some unmentionably shitty music sites, like Pitchfuck–whoops!), but I had to play it. Great riff. There are reports that Thurston Moore has covered it already, at a March 1 Webster Hall (NY) gig on the bill with Roky Erickson & The Explosives.

– Justin Farrar was my co-pilot today, and we had a weird synchronicity. We both brought in Stack Waddy, a pretty obscure British heavy bar rock band from circa 1970 who happened to be favorites of John Peel. I chose the Pretty Things cover, "Rosalyn," from their 1972 sophomore release. Justin is responsible for Wormdoom, the Dead C. (neat punky, pre-drone Dead C.), Enema Syringe (ouch, very Throbbing Gristle), Krupps (who became Die Krupps), and Audion (minimal tehcno!), Charley D. and Milo (California-style rural rock), Tony Joe White (open-shirt 70s country), and the Sir Douglas Quintet (Tex-Mex rural rock from San Francisco).

– The collaboration between Faust and Nurse with Wound really works. Mesmerizing.

– I had played a song by Brigitte Fontaine with the Art Ensemble of Chicago called "Le Goudron" a couple of times from the Bearded Ladies compilation that’s out now (Bird/B-Music), and I dug it so much that I tracked down the album it was on, 1971’s Comme à la Radio (Saravah). Well, the album is a total masterpiece. I’m utterly hooked. I played the title track from it today, and the bass groove laid down by Malachi Favors is trance-inducing. Leo Smith (later aka Wadada Leo Smith) is also credited on the album, and I wonder if it was him playing the weird flute and recorder in the piece. It could have been Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, or Lester Bowie, of course, or even Fontaine’s long-time collaborator, Areski. Whoever it is–it’s genius. Click on the picture for a Fontaine biography.

– Justin and I both sat nodding in approval as we listened to the Jim Ohlschmidt track on the new compilation Wayfaring Strangers: Guitar Soli, brought out by Numero Group, the same folks who are doing those wonderful Eccentric Soul compilations. This track, recorded in 1979 by Sheboygan, Wisconsin’s Jim Ohlschmidt, was like a grittier John Fahey. Leo Kottke was evidently a fan, according to the liner notes. A little research reveals that Mr. Ohlschmidt is living in Alabama and is still making music (and also here).

– When looking around for more info on Charley D. and Milo, I discovered that Charley D. is still making music as Charley Packard, and Lon Milo Duquette not only makes music but also writes books about the occult (one on Aleister Crowley!) and is an administrative officer of the Ordo Templi Orientis (Order of the Eastern Temple, for the Latin-challenged), "one of the most influential and controversial magical societies of the 20th century" (according to Milo’s website). Cool.

– To all those who tried to check out the webcam and see Justin in a v-neck sweater with no undershirt, my sincerest apologies. The webcam was not working until it was too late. Drats! We will definitely arrange something for next time.

Background Music: The 50 Guitars of Tommy Garrett - El Hombre (Liberty)