BROADCAST #01
AIR DATE: 12-27-05

Hello fanatics! It’s great to be back. So, here we are again, a year later on the radio. It’s great to be working on my play lists again and gearing up for the broadcasts.
One thing I wanted to mention at the outset, I will be gone for a few broadcasts In January, February and March. I don’t know what we’ll do in that time. Perhaps Engineer X will have time to do some pre-tape stuff with me. It’s not like I’ll be taking the night off and avoiding the airwaves. I will be in different countries on those Tuesdays. Australia, Russia, China, Holland, Belgium and Ireland to be exact. So, for the first few months, I will be around about half the time. I have a crazy schedule. I will post the days I won’t be in town and what will be done in my absence in a few days. I know it’s not breaking your heart or anything but what I don’t want you to forget me! I want to play a lot of good music and have been missing this DJ thing since I had to sign off last year due to touring schedules.
This year was a lot of shows, 119 in all. A lot of travel: USA, Russia, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Turkey, Egypt, Belgium, Holland, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Canada and England. I’m looking forward to getting back out there in 2006.
For those of you who are new to this show: We play a lot of different stuff here so please listen with an open ear. For the most part, we avoid the regular Indie 103.1 playlists as best we can. No disrespect to said bands but if they get played all the time on the station, they certainly don’t need my show to hold get their music played and since they’re so obviously well supported, we’ll take some roads less traveled lest they don’t get traveled at all! So, please don’t change the channel if a song goes a little longer than a few minutes and has a horn in it or something.
OK, so onto the real reason we’re all here: THE MUSIC. Here’s what we listened to tonight. Please tune in next week and again, it’s great to be back on the air!
--Henry

The Buzzcocks – Harmony in My Head: The name of the show is taken from this very great Buzzcocks song. In keeping with tradition, we start the first broadcast of 2005 with this classic song. To keep things a little different than last year, we’re going to listen to a live version from the Small Songs With Big Hearts live album recorded 11-09-79 at the Rainbow Theater in London. This album is one of a 2CD set of the Buzzcocks called Beating Hearts / Small Songs With Big Hearts. The Beating Hearts disc is from 10-27-78 at the Manchester Apollo. This is one great set. Want to see an absolutely amazing Buzzcocks site?! http://www.btinternet.com/~buzzcocks/. This one is really great. Lots of pictures of labels, rare pressings and tons of info. I warn you right now, we will be listening to the Buzzcocks often on this show! Apollo 81 Dept.: Black Flag opened for the Exploited at the Rainbow in December 1981. This is also where the Ramones classic live album It’s Alive was recorded 12-31-77.

Penetrators – Teenage Lifestyle: From the killer Basement Anthology: 1976-84 CD on Swami. I wish I could take the credit for finding this one on my own. Ian MacKaye played me this one months ago and I immediately checked it out. The Penetrators were from Syracuse NY. If you go to the Swami site http://www.swamirecords.com/ and go to the band part of the site, you can get more Penetrators info. Really cool CD.

Jimi Hendrix - Radio One: I used to have this on a bootleg I got many years ago in Columbus OH as I remember. At one point, Rykodisc released a collection of the Hendrix BBC recordings but for some reason left off the great cover of Dylan’s Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window? Now the Hendrix BBC sessions are available in a great 2CD version called The Jimi Hendrix Experience BBC Sessions. Worth it? As sure as you’re reading this, dear fanatic. The track Radio One is Jimi and band cutting loose a little with a written-on-the-spot jingle for Radio One. The BBC recordings of Hendrix are so straight ahead and I am always amazed at how a three piece could make so much racket. We’ll be checking in with Mr. Hendrix a lot as we go.

The Fall – Clasp Hands: From the brand new and fantastic new Fall album called Fall Heads Roll on Narnack. This is a great fall album and hats off to Shihan and his Narnack label for putting it out in America. For you vinyl fans, there’s a great 2LP version on Narnack. One pressing is in black and the other is colored. They are really limited and I don’t think they’ll last all that long. The UK LP version on Slogan is a single and sounds good but not as good as the Narnack one and besides, there’s an alternate take of Blindness on the LP, not found on the CD. If you’re new to this show, be warned, we are Fall fanatics here and they will be played every broadcast! For more info on the Fall, go to the best band site there is with more information on one band than you can handle: http://www.visi.com/fall/

Negative Trend - How Ya Feelin': The 4th track of the now legendary Negative Trend EP. Any of the listeners from last year will remember this song. We played almost all the songs from this EP last year and we’ll probably get to it again as the shows go. This time there’s a difference from the quality of the audio we played last year and the version you heard tonight. Rather than re-write all this stuff, I am pasting in what I wrote about this record from my last newsletter: A Negative Trend in Music: About 25 years ago, I found a single at Skip Groff’s Yesterday and Today record store that has remained one of my favorite 7” records of all time: The Negative Trend EP. I knew nothing about the band and probably bought it because it was only two dollars. The first time I played the four song EP, I was blown away by the heaviness of the band and the dark intensity of the singer. It occurred to me that these were not boys but angry men who played with malice. Many of us in the DC scene got the record and immediately became fans. Over the years I would see the Negative Trend record here and there, mostly bootlegged versions of the 7” and the occasional copy of the 12” re-release. At one point in the late 90’s, I asked the band’s drummer Steve DePace what was happening with the Negative Trend record and told him if I ever found out where the tapes were, I was going to put that record out so everyone could hear it. Early this year, I found them and we’re releasing the EP on CD. Steve from Subterranean Records mastered the record from the master mix tapes at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley CA and we worked off my single for the artwork. The tape held up over all these years and the mastering is fantastic. The Negative Trend EP never sounded better. I am so excited to be releasing this record on my label. The EP contains four songs: Mercenaries, Meat House, Black and Red, How Ya Feelin’. Four bludgeoning, savage, Stooges-like punches in the face that have not lost any power in over a quarter century. The Negative Trend EP and Black Flag’s Nervous Breakdown EP are in my opinion, the two most intense 7” EPs from the whole American Punk Rock-Hardcore shootin’ match. We are offering the Negative Trend EP on CD for five dollars. If you are a fan of pop music, this is not the record for you. If you are someone who digs Black Flag, the Misfits, Flipper and other heavy music—this record was made for you. We’re offering the record at the cheapest possible price in the hopes that you will be so taken with my enthusiasm and overcome with curiosity, or perhaps just want to hear this gem again, that you will just get it. Those of you who checked out my radio show, Harmony In My Head, last year may have heard some of these songs. I got a lot of mail about the Negative Trend tracks. Getting this record out has been a long standing ambition of mine and a labor of love to get over the wall. I hope you check it out and dig it. Here’s some info on the EP: Mercenaries (Shatter / Gray), Meat House (Shatter / Gray), Black and Red (Gray), How Ya Feelin’? (Waters / Gray) -- Steve DePace – Drums (Later in Flipper), Will Shatter – Bass (Later in Flipper), Craig Gray – Guitar (Later in the Toiling Midgets), Mikal Waters – Vocal -- Produced by Debbie Dub and Negative Trend, Engineered by Stu the hippy, June 1978 - San Francisco CA. If you’re interested in getting the record, you can check out my site for info: http://21361.com/.

The Evens – Around the Corner: From the self-titled debut on Dischord. If you have not heard by now, Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi note has a new band with drummer Amy Farina who we listened to last year in her earlier band, the Warmers. The Evens are a two piece, guitar and drums. The studio album is great and live it’s even better. I have seen them three times now and it gets better and better every time. This record is in print and on Dischord right now. http://www.dischord.com/

Carl Douglas - Dance the King Fu: Just in case you didn’t know, Carl Douglas followed up his hit Kung Fu Fighting with this. I found this Carl Douglas best-of many years ago in Germany for a few bucks and got it just to hear this song. Worth it for the wah guitar alone.

Electric Wizard - We Hate You: I was online at one point and read a series of posts people were leaving about the band Sleep who I am a big fan of. One guy compared Sleep to the band Electric Wizard. I did some looking around and picked up some of their records. All the sites talking about them said they were a Doom Rock band. Sounded good to me. I picked up the self-titled album along with Dopethrone, Come My Fanatics (like that title!) and Let Us Prey. This is some heavy shit! I think they’re from Dorset UK. Check out the crushing low end on these guys! There’s some absolutely bruising tracks on the Come My Fanatics album that will run you over. The song we listened to tonight was from the Dopethrone album. If you like what you heard, these records are more of same. I bet some of you didn’t like this song at all and that’s cool, I really like where these guys are coming from. I really like that song title!

Johnny Lydon & Afrika Bambaataa - World Destruction: One day I had an urge to hear this song that wouldn’t quit. I didn’t have it on anything and searched the internet for the song on CD and finally located an ancient CD3 of the song. We listened to the 7” version. This is a Bill Laswell joint and some of the players will not surprise you: Bill Laswell on bass, Bernie Worrell on synthesizer, Nicky Skopelitis on guitar. I don’t know much about Bambaataa but have been reading up on him and had no idea he was such a ground floor guy in hip hop. I just remember this video in the 80’s and how cool it was to see Bambaataa in that wig. So, I battled a bunch of other fanatics on EBay and managed to wrestle a copy down. Hope you enjoyed that one.

Scene Creamers (aka Weird War) – Bag Inc.: I know of this band only because my DC pal and raving genius Ian Svenonius is in the band so of course I checked them out. Many of you know Ian from Nation of Ulysses and The Makeup. Weird War is one of his many projects. This song is taken from 2003’s I Suck On That Emotion album. Ian made a record a few years ago called David Candy – Play Power that is really strange and great. I’ll get a track from that to you very soon. Ian Svenonius gets the dubious honor of being one of the most brilliant and intense people I have ever met in my entire life. When I think of him, a quote of Velimir Khlebnikov’s comes to mind: “My mind is a caged animal!” I think the first time I encountered Ian was at an very early Fugazi show. I was watching the show from the side of the stage with my mother. Ian MacKaye of Fugazi announces that their friend, the very famous Russian keyboard player Ian (and then here MacKaye added many syllables to Svenonius) and Svenonius runs onstage with a winter scarf wrapped around his head and starts playing all this insane shit on a keyboard or organ that was onstage at the time. I had all the Nation of Ulysses records but had never met him. Anyway, I have never met anyone like Ian Svenonius in my life. Really, he’s fascinating. Anyway, his musical output is massive as his mind is a unique.
Weird War / Scene Creamers info: http://www.weirdwarworld.com/
Ian interview: http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/april_2003/scene-creamers.html
Another Ian interview: http://www.jaybabcock.com/makeup.html
David Candy info: http://www.epitonic.com/artists/davidcandy.html

Generation X – Dancing With Myself: Interesting version of this song. This is actually recorded by the original line up Billy Idol on vocals, Bob “Derwood” Andrews on guitar, Tony James on bass and Mark Laff on drums. The more well known was recorded after Andrews and Laff had left and were replaced by ex-Clash (and then re-hired) drummer Terry Chimes and a host of guitar players including Sex Pistol Steve Jones. This version comes from the Sweet Revenge album. Sweet Revenge was to be the band’s 3rd album but the band broke up while recording. I had these tracks on different bootlegs but eventually they came out as an album as well as included tracks on the 3CD Generation X comp. called Anthology. This is an interesting listen-in to a song that would eventually help break Billy Idol in America. I have chased down every different copy of the Gen X Dancing With Myself single I can find. Here’s the 7”’s I have found so far:
Dancing With Myself / Ugly Rash pressings from Germany, UK and Australia.
Dancing With Myself / Untouchables – (Portugal)
Dancing With Myself / Untouchables / King Rocker/Rock On (UK)
Dancing With Myself / Untouchables - GENXDJ 1 (UK DJ Pro)
Dancing With Myself / Happy People - CHS 2488 (US radio pro??)
Dancing With Myself (stereo) / Dancing With Myself (mono) - CHS 2488-AM
The single with Happy People on the b-side is interesting in that there’s no country of manufacture listed but the label lists “Billy Idol and Gen X” and says “Mastered At Alan Zentz LA Calif.” so I think it’s of US manufacture. Also, I located a 12” of Dancing. The sticker on the generic sleeve lists it as “Billy Idol and Gen X” and the songs as Dancing and Happy People.
The version of Dancing is the extended version and the version of Happy People is the Hubble, Bubble, Toil & Dubble version. Chrysalis worked Dancing With Myself hard. There’s promo singles of the song with stereo and mono versions like the one I listed but it lists as Billy Idol. In Europe there’s 12” releases with Dancing and Untouchables credited to Billy Idol and Gen X on one side and Billy Idol solo stuff on the other. The Spanish version of this 12” lists Billy Idol as “Willy” Idol. Caramba! There’s an “extended” version of the song on a 12” with Untouchables, Rock On and King Rocker. Since this is a mix of Generation X and Gen X songs the credits list Generation X men Bob Andrews on guitar and Mark Laff on drums. Sex Pistol Steve Jones gets credits for Untouchables and Rock On but not Dancing, which he plays on. I’m not sure he plays on Rock On either. Anyway, I had not seen the extended version on any Generation X CD so I started looking for it other places. I looked up the track listing for a Billy Idol best of called Vital Idol and Dancing was there but it was called “The Uptown Version”. That looked interesting so I got the CD and played it. It’s the extended version and it sounds great. I know, I know—too much information. 0235 Hrs. Revelation Dept.: But wait, there’s more! I just made a file on my computer of the three versions I have of the original version of Dancing. One is from the original CD of K.M.D.: Sweet Revenge, another from the newer version called K.M.D.: Sweet Revenge Xtra and the third is from the Chrysalis version found on Anthology. Anthology and Sweet Revenge have the same version down to the second. The Xtra version is a TOTALLY DIFFERENT MIX! Forget the stick clicks and solo drum beats removed, this version has a ton more guitars. The difference is night and day. On the choruses, there’s a ripping rhythm guitar part that really pumps it up and way more of that killer Bob Andrews guitar all around. It makes the other version sound lifeless in comparison. This more rockin’ version is the one we heard tonight, of course. There’s no mention of the change in the liner notes on Xtra. I know Bob Andrews is behind the Sweet Revenge releases. I want to know why he switched out the versions and why, if he had both, did he not use this killer version the first time? Perhaps he just found this version and if he did, is there anything else to hear? How to get to the bottom of this? I better write to Bob Andrews and see if he’ll weigh in! I’ll get back to you if he gets back to me. In any case, really cool version of the song.

Ivan & Jerry Lee Lewis – Real Wild Child: A lot of people know this song from Iggy Pop’s version of it from his 1987 album Blah Blah Blah. I think the first version is by Johnny O’Keefe, an Australian rocker who co-wrote the song and released it in 1958. I don’t know anything about him but he’s well known in Australia. Ivan also released this version in 1958. Ivan, better known as Jerry “J.I.” Ivan Allison played with some guy named Buddy Holly back in the fifties. He actually co-wrote Peggy Sue and That’ll Be the Day with Buddy. Also in 1958, The Killer, the one and only Jerry Lee Lewis banged out a version of the song at Sun Studios in the same year and it remained an outtake until the 70’s. I have it on the Complete Sun Recordings of Jerry Lee Lewis released on Bear Family. Anyway, two takes on a cool song. A little bit of info on the song and the people who covered it: http://www.poparchives.com.au/feature.php?id=132.

The Stooges – Stooges Party: No, not those Stooges! It’s the Stooges Brass Band from New Orleans. The album is called It’s About Time and it’s great. There’s not much information on the internet about them and this record was played for me several months ago by Ian MacKaye who always listening to something interesting. One of the great things about this album is it’s live. It’s so flat out and real. I play this one all the time.

Wolf Eyes - Burn Your House Down: A relatively melodic and tastefully rendered bit of abuse from Wolf Eyes’ wonderful album Dread from 2002. Wolf Eyes have been making some of the most bruising, completely uncompromising noise for years now. Between all their cassette, CDR and split LP efforts—which are many, I have no idea how to bring you a remotely comprehensive list of releases of this band. Some of the easier to find CDs include Dread, Dead Hills, Slicer, Fuck Pete Larson and the recent Sub Pop release Burned Mind from which we played the very fine Stabbed In The Face on the show last year. Whenever I listen to these guys, I think to myself that it’s about time someone came up and ripped the fucking place apart. Wolf Eyes are the antidote. Play their records and break shit.

J Mascis & Friends - Please Remember That I'm Here: With regularity, I troll release info sites to see if there’s any activity from J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. and J. Mascis and the Fog. Every great once in awhile, J. drops a new one and I am a very happy man. I listen to Dinosaur Jr. and J. Mascis and the Fog all the time. There’s some great Dinosaur Jr. and J bootlegs out there.
Anyway, I was on e-bay recently and looked up Dinosaur Jr. to see if there was anything interesting and came across J And Friends Sing and Chant for Amma on Baked Goods Records. I bought it and played at as soon as it arrived. It’s really good and very different than the regular J Mascis bleeding guitar outing. It is what the title states, a collection of devotional songs. I had to do some reading up on Amma, otherwise known as Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Dev. I typed in “Mascis Amma” into Google and it took me to a page, which can explain this a lot better than I can. If you’re into Dinosaur Jr. and J. Mascis, this is worth checking out. Here’s that page address: http://jmascis.com/content/view/19/2/

Antelope – Crowns: The only person I am familiar with in this band is Justin Moyer of El Guapo and Supersystem. The others in the band are Mike Andre and Bee Elvy, who both play bass and sing in the band. There’s two releases as far as I know. They’re on Dischord. The first release, a self-titled six EP came out January 2003 and the other one, the two song single Crowns / The Flock, came out in February 2004. Both are great and available on Dischord. Info: http://www.dischord.com/

The Cameos- Wait Up: My Doo Wop obsession rears its ugly head once again. From The Golden Era Of Doo Wops - The Groups Of Johnson Records on Relic. At one point, there was a seemingly endless supply of these CDs coming out all the time on the Relic label. Relic went label by label and put out at least 45 of these CDs from different Doo Wop labels from all over America. I am no authority on this genre but it fascinates me all the same. These were independent labels, many times run out of a local record store. I put all the Golden Era series in one file on my computer and it’s well over one thousand songs. I just found a Cellos collection on Relic that I had never seen before. The Cellos most popular song was Rang Tang Ding Dong (I Am The Japanese Sandman), which can be found on many different Doo Wop box sets. I am eager to find out more about them. Anyway, the Cameos, I can’t find anything on them but the song sure is good and chances are, you never heard this before and in our relentless and never ending imperative to expand and enhance our eclectic musical taste, we again wrench musical victory from the jaws of the corporate beast of FM mediocrity!

Youth Brigade – Last Word: Youth Brigade featured Nathan Strejcek, formerly the vocalist in the Teen Idles, the first band on the mighty Dischord label. After the Teen Idles broke up and Ian MacKaye went on to form some band called Minor Threat, Nathan teamed up with his old friend Danny Ingram on drums, Bert Queiroz formerly of the Untouchables was recruited for bass duties and Tom Clinton signed up for guitar. The band recorded the Possible EP (Dischord no. 6) in 1981. They weren’t around long, March to December of 1981. Honestly I can’t remember if I saw them or not. The song we heard tonight is not found on their EP but on an early classic Dischord release of previously unreleased Dischord bands called Flex Your Head. This is a cool record if you like the early Dischord sound. The Youth Brigade’s Possible EP is easily found on Dischord 1981: The Year in 7"s. They are also featured on the 20 Years of Dischord box set. (I did the liner notes on that one. I was shaking in my boots when Ian called me and asked me to write up the notes for that one! Talk about write and re-write. Anyway, all things Dischord can be found at this site: http://www.dischord.com/

The Clash - Janie Jones (demo): In honor of the first HIMH broadcast 05-17-04 where we listened to Janie Jones from the first Clash album, tonight we listen to a demo version found on the Clash On Broadway set. There’s some cool outtakes are rarities in that collection and it’s worth checking out. If you’ve never heard the Clash besides a song here or there and want to know more, On Broadway or The Essential Clash are good places to start. The Clash are one of the cornerstones of rock and roll and shouldn’t be missed. I don’t think anyone who listens to this station or to this show is a stranger to this good-as-it-gets band. I recently tracked down a flyer from the first time I saw them play in 1979.

Supersystem – Tragedy: Supersystem existed for many years under the name El Guapo and recorded some really great records. Anyone listening to the show last year might remember me playing songs from their album Fake French on Dischord. Well, the lads changed their name and moved over to Touch & Go Records and released the first Supersystem album called Always Never Again in April of this year. It’s a little different than the previous records but still great. Listeners might find it a little more busy than the relatively sparse Fake French and Super/System albums. Worth checking out. I saw them play this year on a great double bill in Washington DC at the Black Cat. On September 22nd and 23rd, Q and Not U played their last ever shows at the Black Cat. I was there for the show on the 23rd. Supersystem opened and were amazing and then Q went on and ripped it up. They didn’t sound like a band breaking up. They were really tight, really together. For the encore they were joined by members of the Black Eyes to make it even more of an event.

Tin Machine - Baby Can Dance: From the self-titled first album. Last year, I played Prisoner of Love from this one. I really like the two Tin Machine albums. I don’t know why David Bowie put this band together instead of calling it David Bowie. Perhaps he wanted to be in a band and not have his name all over it for a second. Tin Machine played in the late 80’s into the early 90’s. Tin Machine played smaller places than Bowie usually did on his own. Perhaps this was appeal for Bowie, just to go out and rock without all the production expected of his previous tours. Critics were hard on this band but I don’t see why. Pretty cool if somewhat ordinary for Bowie if you think about what he had done in the past.

Paco – My Love: My old pal one Michael Hampton sent me this. Michael and I used to be in a band together a few centuries ago in DC. His music pedigree is of the bluest ribbon. He’s all over the Dischord Records catalog in bands like The Snakes, SOA, Embrace, One Last Wish and Faith. After that bit of business he had a band called Manifesto, which I really like. Anyway, Mr. Hampton can write and sing and play guitar pretty damn well. I think Michael plays some guitar and did some production work on this one. Paco, from what I understand is a meeting of members of the bands Ivy, Hem and Michael. I don’t know anything about Ivy or Hem yet but I’m on it. I can’t keep up with what all these youngsters are doing.

Raven – Sex Candy: Several weeks ago, I was on tour in Canada. I finished the show and was standing outside in very cold weather talking to the shivering people near the bus. A young man, all gothed out came up and gave me a CDR of his music and asked me to hand it to one of my very powerful friends in the major label music industry as they would be very happy with what they heard. With an intro like that, how could I not be interested. He also told me that he didn’t go to my show that night as he had been following Nine Inch Nails, who he referred to as “The Nines” and only stopped by to drop this off and had to go to catch NIN in the next city as he would be waiting outside NIN’s front man Trent Reznor’s bus to hand him a copy of the aforementioned CDR. I told him that Trent loved meeting people who waited outside of his bus in the afternoon near soundcheck time and liked nothing more than to check out CDRs given to him by men in make-up. I like Trent, I don’t know why I did that. I love it when someone gives you their demo or book like they’re doing you a favor. I rarely send anything I do to any of the few people I know because I don’t want to insult them or make them feel in any way compelled to get back to me about said product. Anyway, I popped this into the player as soon as I got back on the bus and we all sat and listened to the magic and dark genius of Raven and now, so shall you.

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Thanks for listening.