BROADCAST #09
AIR DATE: 02-21-06

I’m back with you live. I’ve been looking forward to this show for awhile. I hope you liked it. If you have been checking out the Dispatches file on the two1361.com site, you’ll know that I have been on the east coast for a couple of weeks. I hope you liked the pre-taped show. It’s not nearly as fun as being there but at least the music was good I hope. I have some really good tunes to play you all on the upcoming shows, I am looking forward to getting them out to you. I just caught up on some goodies from the Teenbeat catalog that I didn’t have so we’ll be getting into some of that as well as some other cool stuff that I’ve picked up on recently.
     So, we have good music coming and of course, we had great music tonight. Until next week, Fanatics!
     Old show archive address: http://www.rollins-archive.com/

The Make-Up: Tonight we heard a track from the recently released Untouchable Sound album by the Make-Up, recorded live at the Black Cat in Washington DC in 2000. I have all the Make-Up records I think but this might be my favorite one. What a great sound. Brendan Canty, drummer extraordinaire recorded and produced this absolutely blistering show. This is one of the best bands DC ever had I think. This CD was released today on Sea Note. Damn, Brendan, this record sounds great! The louder I turn it up, the better it sounds, always a plus.

The Mark Of Cain – Walk Away: A great track from a great band. Adelaide Australia’s finest export. This track is from the hard to find outside of Australia album Ill At Ease. In 1992, we played with TMOC in Australia and they gave me their first album Battlesick. It quickly became one of my favorite albums. Ill was their 3rd album and they asked me to work on it with them. I flew to Australia almost immediately and got to work. It was easily the best time I have ever had producing a record. I have been in a lot of different production and mixing situations in my time. Many times there’s difficulties, actually, every time there is but some sessions are harder than others. Mixing this album wasn’t the easiest thing to do, mostly because of the gear but the songs were so great, it was a lot of fun because the songs were so good. Anyway, here’s one of the songs we came out with. The band is doing some Australian dates right now. If you’re in Australia, don’t miss them. Here’s their site address for more info: http://www.tmoc.com.au/.

Flin Flon – Levis: For me, the Teenbeat is a label that keeps delivering. Once a year, the label puts out a sampler that almost always contains unrelased tracks of the artists that you can’t get anywhere else. Weeks ago, I was going through my Teenbeat stuff and realized that there were a couple I didn’t have so I ordered them and they were waiting for me when I walked into the office last Sunday. On the 2003 Sampler, there’s a Flin Flon track I had never heard before called Levis. I have been playing it a lot over the last few days and in the next weeks I will play some more Teenbeat stuff from these samplers. http://www.teenbeatrecords.com/.

Slayer – Seven Faces: Another smasher from Slayer. I love Slayer. They are pure inspiration. Where so many bands are selling out, doing whatever they can to gain access to the first class cabin, Slayer remain pure to being Slayer. Every album is completely crushing and brutal. They don’t care about appealing to anyone. If you like them, fine. If you don’t, then you can go. We’ll be glad you’re gone if we even notice at all. This is from the God Hates Us All album. New album out soon I hear.

West Memphis Three Freedom Alliance Band - Revenge: This is a track from the benefit album we did for the West Memphis Three utilizing unlimited power of the Black Flag catalog. I couldn’t think of anyone in the world better to sing this song than Slayer’s Tom Araya. If you need the ultimate shredding vocal, Araya is your man. We called, we asked, he granted, we became very stoked. Araya walked into the studio and did one take to get warmed up and then hit this vocal and we picked ourselves up off the floor and said that will do Mr. A, thank you so much. What a vocal! What a song! It’s like the song was written and just waiting to be sung by Tom. For weeks before he came into do the vocal, I had it in my head how it would sound and it was amazing in there and then when I heard the real thing, it was that much better. The name of the album is Rise Above: 24 Black Flag Songs to Benefit the West Memphis Three and all proceeds go to aid the legal defense of the WM3. You can find out more on the West Memphis Three by going to WM3.org.

Tilt – Search and Destroy: This is your pals Trouble Funk and their alter ego Tilt. The last time we had the show going, we listened to Tilt Doing Arkade Funk, a great track, not all that hard to find. Search and Destroy on the other hand is not on CD anywhere as far as I know so I put this onto CDR and brought into Engineer X. I have not played this 12” for a long time. Sounds good as ever. I was playing the CDR about three times a day I was so happy to hear this one again.

Lurkers – Ain’t Got A Clue: Haven’t played any Lurkers yet. Those of you who tuned in the first time around might remember hearing this band fairly often. One of my favorite bands of all time! Two great albums, Fulham Fallout and God’s Lonely Men and a slew of great singles and then it was over. The band went through a line-up change and lost singer Howard Wall and kept on. No disrespect intended but without Howard, it’s not the Lurkers. Since we played single and album tracks in times before, let’s make it a little more interesting and play one of the tracks the band recorded for the late great John Peel of the BBC 04-24-78. This version is from the BBC Punk Sessions CD put out by the good folks and re-issue kings, Captain Oi!. They have also released Fulham and God’s with all the singles and demo cuts too. All three of these records are great. One of the original and all time great punk bands from the UK.

The Cramps & Ronnie Dawson – Rockin’ Bones: When I was a young man and the ink was still drying on the Emancipation Proclamation, I used to see the Cramps. Those were some fun shows. One of the highpoints in my life was seeing the band play a small club in DC and standing no further away than a couple of feet from the band as they rocked. This was the line-up with Bryan Gregory on guitar next to Poison Ivy. So, they used to do this song called Rockin’ Bones which I really liked because besides being a cool song, Bryan Gregory who was intense anyway, looked even more so when he was screaming the backing vocals. So, the first album, Songs The Lord Taught Us comes out and I was happy about that but a little let down that Rockin’ Bones wasn’t on it. Still, it’s a great record. Anyway, by the time the next album, Psychedelic Jungle came out, BG was gone and Kidd Congo was in his place. This was no bad thing, Congo is great! Psychedelic was great as well and the band put Rockin’ Bones on this one but not the same version I had become such a fan of. This version was no less intense but really different. I’ll never forget that tour. The Cramps played almost the whole Psychedelic Jungle album at the 9:30 Club in DC and it was amazing. Years went by and the Cramps albums finally hit CD with extra tracks. Some of the Chris Spedding demos were on them featuring great alternate versions of early songs like Teenage Werewolf but no Rockin’ Bones. Again, time to harness the power of the mighty underground and go to the Tales of the Cramps boot LP I bought in NYC in 1982 somehow. A nice clean version of the Bryan Gregory Rockin’ Bones is on side 2 and that’s the one we heard tonight. Since many of you already have the Psychedelic Jungle album, I figured this would be a little more interesting for you. As well as hearing the original Cramps version, let’s also check out the version the Cramps heard, the one by Texas Rockabilly hero Ronnie “The Blonde Bomber” Dawson. A great write up on the man who kept rockin’ through hell and high water. All the real guys do. Check him out. http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/09.05.96/music-9636.html.

The Fall – Surmount All Obstacles: Our weekly serving from The Fall! From the Middle Class Revolt album released in 1994. Another great one from The Fall. I tend to lump this record in with the album that came before it, 1993’s The Infotainment Scan. Both albums are different enough but they seem to be part of the same idea and production value. I would dare to say the 90’s was a fruitful and interesting time for the band. They seemed to take two albums to fully realize the idea before they moved on. The albums that came after these two, 1995’s Cerebral Caustic and 1996’s The Light User Syndrome are much rougher and aggressive than Middle Class and Infotainment but again, seem to me to be part of the same phase of the band’s development. This could be due to the fact that the band puts out so much stuff (a good thing, too!) that they never get too far from the studio and keep their nose to the grindstone. Arguably, Miles Davis did the same thing. If you listen to the Wayne Shorter line-up recordings, you’ll hear a long equation being worked out. The Fall my desert Island band! Here’s that website address again: http://www.visi.com/fall/.

Richard Berry – The Big Break: Richard Berry is the man who brought you the original Louie Louie. There are two different versions of The Big Break as far as I know. There’s the one on the Get Out Of The Car CD and a different take on the LP version. I got the LP years before there were CDs and was surprised to hear the different take on the CD. Stuff like this happened a lot in the early days of CDs. There was a totally different version of Sly Stone’s Fresh! album on CD for awhile, I mean different, as in take for take, song for song different. I made a CDR copy from a pal of mine years ago and have now forgotten how to tell the two back covers apart. The “real” one is better but the other one is really interesting and hell, it’s Sly working out on the Fresh! material, how bad can it be? There’s the Miles Davis ___ album that’s different as well. There was a time when all the labels had to make CDs pretty much over night, which is why a lot of CDs came out the first time, sounding really bad. Sometimes it was engineers not listening to the tapes as they were being played, sometimes CDs were made from masters that were only copies of copies. The original Doors CDs were awful until Manzerek and Rothschild went and remastered the entire catalog themselves. How many times did you buy Electric Ladyland as they remastered that record over and over?! The Sabbath albums were awful the first time on CD. You wonder what EMI is thinking with the Beatles. That catalog could use a remastering big time. Anyway, here you have the harder to find version of The Big Break with the funnier vocal and without the poorly overdubbed chorus vocal. While I’m kind of on the topic, I might as well say here, if you buy a CD again because it’s remastered and you think it’s going to sound better, play them both back-to-back before you get rid of the other one. Sometimes, to make the music sound more contemporary, they will enhance the mids and lows digitally and it sounds really bad. I still have all my original Nugent and Van Halen CDs as I don’t always like the sonic aftertaste of what’s going on with some of the songs on the new ones.

The Fontaine Toups – TFT: From Fontaine’s self-titled album on Teenbeat, one of my favorite labels. A lot of people know Fontaine from her time in Versus. I must say, I am not versed in Versus and have one record I think. I got this from Mark Robinson who runs Teenbeat. I think Fontaine has a great voice and this is a smart and well crafted album without being cute and overproduced. Worth checking out. In print and ready to go from the good folks at Teenbeat. What a great label. http://www.teenbeat.net/.

Cigarettes – The Only Way To Live (Die): The Cigarettes put out an EP many years ago on Company Records, They’re Back Again, Here They Come Again was the lead track and what a great song that was. It’s hard to find and expensive when you do. Thankfully, there has been a really cool CD and limited vinyl release of all their songs called Cigarettes Will Damage Your Health on the very cool Detour records. I had only heard their two singles and didn’t know they had all this other material. The Only Way To Live (Die) is the b-side of the band’s second single on Dead Good Records, with Can’t Sleep At Night on the a-side. The rest of their songs are good, if you like this one. I don’t know much about these guys besides they were a Mod band. I remember when I first heard They’re Back Again around 1980 and it found its way onto many a mix tape.

The Descendents – Ride The Wild: From the first ever Descendents single with It’s A Hectic World and . I always liked this single because it sounded nothing like all the records that came after it. I used to see these guys play a lot. Never seen anything like them in my life. The band’s drummer and guitar player, Bill and Frank walked into the venue right from their day job as commercial fishermen covered in fish scales and fish blood. What a smell. They set up their gear and played at played in full bore stench mode. After Milo joined the band as singer, they changed their sound to the more well known Milo Goes To College album sound that made them so influential. Man, talk about a band who got their sound copped! So many bands sound like these guys minus the brilliance. There’s a few bands from this era that really had influence. Descendents and Minor Threat big time. Bands are still ripping off Milo’s vocal style. There’s no one like Milo, they broke the mold on that guy. You can find Ride The Wild and the b-side along with their 2nd record The Fat EP on one CD on SST called The Bonus Fat EP. You can also find this release along with Milo Goes To College on one CD called Two Things At Once.

Johnny Clarke – Top Ranking: I don’t know much at about Johnny Clarke. He’s been around a long time. Clarke is one of the people I picked on via one of my methods of music exploration. Sometimes I buy a record because of the label it’s on. I like label identity. When I was in Black Flag many years ago, the label we were on was SST and the concept was that everything on the label was great so when you saw the SST logo but didn’t know the band, you could buy with confidence. For many years this was the case for SST in my opinion at least. The label had Black Flag, the Minutemen, Saccharine Trust, Saint Vitus, Husker Dü, the Meat Puppets, etc. It was a great time for the label. Some of the labels I get records from because I trust the label is Teenbeat, Dischord and the one I got Johnny Clarke’s Dreader Dread 1976 – 1978 album from, Blood and Fire. Ian MacKaye turned me onto this label some years ago when he played me tracks from a great dub CD on the label called If Deejay Was Your Trade. So, one night I was looking up Blood and Fire bands and saw the Johnny Clarke CD and thought I’d check it out. I was rewarded for my consumer courage. There’s not a bad song on this record. What a badass. This is great hard hitting reggae from one of the old school legends. http://www.johnnyclarke.com/ for more info.

Slits – Instant Hit: I had a choice here. There’s the version from this classic album Cut as well as a Peel Session version and a live version from France that’s a little noisy. I like the Peel version very much as it’s very untreated and straight ahead but since a lot of you are perhaps streaming this through small speakers in your laptops, I thought we’d go with the album version, which is smoother than the Peel version but no less great. The Slits were one of the first if not first all female punk rock band. They were right there at the beginning of the UK punk scene and played with all the big bands of the day. They were on the 1978 Buzzcocks tour. Their album is really interesting. Probably their most well known song is Typical Girls. Here’s a cool write-up on the band: http://www.aurealm.com/slits.htm.

The Ruts – In A Rut: Haven’t played any Ruts over these last few broadcasts and now I can no longer hold back. If you listened to the show last time around, you heard a lot of Ruts. One of my all time favorite bands. One album, the amazing The Crack, some great singles and then the death of singer Malcom Owen in 1980. They had just gotten started and there’s no doubt their next album would have been great. Tracks that most likely would have found their way onto this album came out on an album called Grin And Bear It after Malcom died. Songs featured on the album, Secret Soldier and Demolition Dancing showed the band were still making great music. Such a shame they got cut short. I think, had things been different, they would have been one of the most important bands in Punk Rock. The Crack and Grin are now both on one CD. Really worth checking out. Tonight we heard the John Peel Sessions version of In A Rut just to make things interesting. The bands Peel Sessions is a great record but looks like it’s out of print at the moment. I hope this one comes back. It’s a great one. Maybe it means there’s some kind of box set coming out. Talk about a band who deserves the inch-by-inch historical treatment. Anyway, a great song, perhaps a version that’s a little unfamiliar to you. Like what you heard? Check out some Ruts info from the always helpful Punk77 site: http://www.punk77.co.uk/groups/ruts.htm

Scott Walker – Jackie: From Scott 2. I don’t know how to write about Scott Walker. Easily brilliant and there I stall. These songs, massive arrangements, an entire orchestra backing his soaring vocals. Then you listen to what he’s singing and you don’t know whether to laugh or what. It’s not that the words are stupid, not at all. They’re incredible and kind of insane. Tonight we listened to Jackie, which is one of the many great songs on this album, apparently written by Jacques Brel. The reason I picked this one is to put this question out to you: listen to this song and then listen to Nick Cave’s song The Mercy Seat and tell me they don’t have a lot of similarities. This song jumped and bit me it sounded so similar in places. If you want to have your head done in, check out Walker’s album Tilt. To get a sense of the guy’s work, you might want to search out some of his albums on Amazon.com and read the reviews, which are very helpful. “Disturbing” is one word used by someone to describe the Tilt album. I’d go with that.

Jimi Hendrix – Peter Gunn Catastrophe: This is from the War Heroes album. War Heroes was one of those posthumous albums that were compilations of outtakes and unfinished Hendrix ideas. Some of them went in and out of print, probably due to litigation. Another one that’s interesting and not all that easy to locate is called Loose Ends. Anyway, this track is no stunning work of genius but it’s really cool and I can’t find it on any of the newer Jimi compilations so I thought you all would get a kick out hearing this. Some of you familiar with these albums might be wondering why I didn’t play Jimi’s version of Dylan’s Drifter’s Escape. I have a good reason and if you keep listening to the show, you’ll see why.

David Bowie – Because You’re Young: The track from Bowie’s late 70’s masterpiece Scary Monsters? Well, almost. This is an alternate version from a bootleg CD I got many years ago called Vampires Of Human Flesh. It has some great alternate versions of songs like his cover of Tom Verlaine’s Kingdom Come and other tracks. Scary Monsters is an amazing album. The interesting part of this version of Because You’re Young is the alternate lyrics in the chorus. “Because I’m young . .” Mr. Bowie sings. Interesting look into the mind of one of the best musicians ever.

Tom Verlaine - Kingdom Come: From the self-titled first post Television solo album. That’s right, Verlaine had a band called Television, you may have heard them somewhere. If you have not, and I’m sure you have but I would be remiss if I didn’t implore you to get yourself a copy of Television’s Marquee Moon album. What a songwriter, what a guitar player. Damn can he play! Some indie guitar players should get the fuck off his trip and find one of their own!! MM is one of my desert island discs for sure. I never get tired of that one. I have all the bootlegs of television I have been able to find and they’re great as well. I met him briefly in 1996. It was cool to shake the hand. Anyway, Verlaine’s first two solo albums are cool as well, the second one is called Dreamtime and it’s worth checking out. It’s interesting to me that Bowie chose to do this song on his Scary Monsters album. Bowie is not new to covers but this is an interesting choice nonetheless.

Daniel Johnston – Never Relaxed: There’s no one like Daniel Johnston. I remember hearing him many years ago when he was making cassettes in Austin. What I heard eventually ended up on the Yip/Jump Music album. There’s a lot of pain, alienation and botched romance in Daniel’s music. A lot of it is very disturbing and dark. His early stuff is my favorite. His later stuff is really cool as well but he had too many people trying to help him out and sometimes they watered down the music. It’s what happens when the average get in the mix with the extraordinary, the whole thing defaults to the weakest link in the chain. If you liked what you heard tonight, this song is off the Songs of Pain album which is great. The beginning of Never Relaxed reminds me of The Dust Blows Forward 'N The Dust Blows Back from Trout Mask Replica with the on/off button of the mic being activated between words. Also, Yip/Jump Music and Fun are great as well. Be warned, a lot of these recordings are extremely lo-fi but the greatness of Daniel’s music comes through nonetheless. Sometimes the material is a little uneven or childish but he’s the real deal and makes many musicians seem like shallow posers. Daniel is one of the people I hold up as the example of there being too many well-adjusted people making music these days, hence the reason why a lot music, just sucks. Most bands should just leave the art to the freaks and stop wasting time. Daniel Johnston, absolutely to be checked out. Info:  http://www.hihowareyou.com/.

DJ Screw – White Horse: From 3 In The Morning Part 1. What a fucked up CD. This one and Part 2 are bizarre as they are brutal. All the tempos are pitched down, all the voices are slurred. Perfect for when you’re sipping cough syrup and leaning on something. These are not the easiest CDs to find and if you pursue these, make sure you’re not getting some fucked up CDRs. There’s a lot of dishonesty in the internet rap retail business. Part 2 is better and way more fucked up but this is a great track off Part 1. DJ Screw, who invented the Chopped style, overdosed in November 2001. A large amount of assorted drugs, alcohol and cough syrup were found in his system. There’s a ton of his tapes out there and a lot of them have been made into CDs. I have some of them and they’re pretty cool but 3 In The Morning Part 2 is the one.

Kobiyashi – Tipping Advice: Rollins Band guitarist Chris Haskett bought a set of language CDs from a man on the street in NYC. It’s famous Japanese personality giving English lessons. We used to put this on before shows to confuse and destabilize the audience. Oh boy did it work. We were supposed to meet him and do photos in Tokyo in 1997 but for some reason, it didn’t come through. I have a few hours of this stuff on my hard drive. Rap beat practice!

Du Droppers – Can’t Do Sixty No More: A great R&B-Doo Wop group from the fifties. I got this CD many years ago because it looked interesting. I have a lot of Doo Wop records. I have always admired the vocal groupings and harmonies and also, the fact that the music was almost always locally recorded and independently distributed makes it interesting as well. Here’s a little info on the band. http://home.att.net/~marvy42/Dudroppers/dudrop.html.