We have some interesting reissues today. Tav Falco continues reissues of his opus with a second installment of Lore and Testament which compiles two EPs and one live concert in Vienna from 1986. Another reissue today is a 2cd set that compiles the music from the 80s rock band in Zagreb called Trobecove Krušne Peći. New stuff today is a new song from John Paul Keith, new debut album from The Connection, and the new record for Ty Segall. Tim Williams is back with his Summer Suns with a new record called Eulalie. The only truly new band today is The Torments from Cleveland, who we feature in our regular live in CLE segment.
Mission of Burma – All World Cowboy Romance;
The Connection – Wrong Side Of 25;
The Summer Suns – Cupid The Assasin;
Games – Why Can’t We Go Back;
Zoogz Rift – Beak Roy Orbit’s Sonmo’ Mo-Fo’smain Theme;
Tav Falco’s Panther Burns – Oh Pretty Woman;
John Paul Keith – Everything’s Different Now;
John Paul Keith – Afraid To Look;
The Torments – Bursting Love (Live in CLE);
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band – Lovin’ Cup;
Oblivians – Loving Cup;
Viva Glorio – Mama;
Trobecove krusne peci – Imam dovoljno te vlage;
Shoes – Educated;
Ty Segall – Sweet C.C;
Mikal Cronin – Better Man.
Last week we introduced the list of 20 best LPs that we liked to listen to here at The Little Lighthouse. This week, we move on to the list of five best reissues and archival recordings that came out in or around 2012. The title goes to Tav Falco and a gorgeous reissue of Beyond the Magnolia Curtain with also included Blow Your Top EP and four pages of early history of the band. The whole list looks like this:
Today we say goodbye to Johnny Perez, who played drums in the early days of The Sir Douglas Quintet. We also play some very interesting reissues from many different heroes of this show. Tav Falco has reissued his debut album Beyond The Magnolia County recently, and the record cover includes a nice four sided description on the early history of the band from the insiders. Legendary first (and only) album by Memphis band Moloch also has a very nice high quality vinyl reissue. Beach Boys and Frank Zappa are reissuing their entire catalog and Velvet Underground’s debut from 1967 saw an extremely expanded 6 disc upgrade. Also there’s a new tribute to the same record, marking a nice 45 year anniversary. Other new stuff is Kurt Baker and his new record, as well as Austin’s Rosie Flores.
 Today we pay respect to Beastie Boy MCA and Flying Burrito Brother Chris Ethridge. We also have a new name at the show, a singer from Cardiff in England, Suzi Chunk. Another new name today is a Basque artist called Petti. He joined forces with the legendary Boston’s singer Barrence Whitfield and did a very nice record over in the Basque land, which still happens to be part of the Northern Spain. Naim Amor is back with a new album Dansons and Italian rockers Mojomatics are also here with a new record which the call You Are The Reason For My Troubles. The volume two of Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s tribute record is out and Tav Falco’s Panther Burns have a nice song on it.
We have a lot of new stuff this time. Let’s start off with the new albums for the bands that we know very well already. Chuck Prophet (ex Green On Red) has a brand new album Temple Beautiful lovingly dedicated to his home town of San Francisco. Heartless Bastards from Cincinnati are also here with a new record. It’s simply called Arrow. Besides his new album One Thought Revealed, Bill Fox also has a cassette tape out with some rare recordings that he made over the years. It’s called Before I Went To Harvard. Tav Falco reissued his legenrady Behind The Magnolia Curtain and The Cramps put together a compilation of their earliest singles. New names this time are all over the map. We have The Riffbrokers, a roots rock/power pop band from Seattle, The Dark Rags from the hometown of rockxs.com, Athens Greece, Blackbox Revalation from Brussels, Belgium, Calibro 35 from Milan, Italy and Janey and The Ravemen from London, England.
Memphis legend Tav Falco now lives in Vienna. This year he showed up with a new album first time after ten years. One song repeats from his earlier repertoire (Gentleman in Black), but the rest are new. To his old mix of traditional Memphis and North Mississippi genres and tango, Tav this time adds several East European motifs, obviously influenced by his life in the former capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire. These motifs are as accurate as mountains of Vinkovci where Agatha Christie’s Oriental Express once got stuck in snow, but they add to the exotic and mythic mixture of Tav Falco perfectly.
This is the last Little Lighthouse episode for this summer. Radio SC goes for a summer break and this show will take a rest together with them. We will be back in September together with the regular Radio SC programming schedule. For the last show of this season, we prepared some 20 minutes extra content for you. The most exciting thing this time is definitely the new Tav Falco album called Conjurations. Texas Tornados reunited without Doug Sahm and Freddy Fender, and have a new album called Esta Bueno!. Esta bueno is also the new garage band Davila 666 from Puerto Rico. The Half Rats is another good new garage band from Lafayette, IN. The main songwriter from King Tuff, Kyle has a new band called simply Happy Birthday. Mark Olson of the Jayhawks is also back with a new solo album called Many Colored Kite. So plenty of fresh stuff to chew on until we return in September! Keep checking The Little Lighthouse for occasional bonus shows and let me know if you’d like to see some of our older shows repeated while we’re on the break.
Just a few short months ago we lost Jim Dickinson. And now another Memphis rock’n’roll legend left the planet. Dickinson and Chilton are actually much more than Memphis rock’n’rollers. They are an epitome of a true rock’n’roll star anywhere in the world. Beautiful, uncompromising, larger than life but at the same time. Alex Chilton also epitomizes a sad, defeated rock’n’roll star, enormous talent that had difficulties finding its audience. When Chilton was 16 he had an early success with The Box Tops, but that was a little too much, a little too early. Â Alex simply did not feel free to do his own thing. When he was ready to conquer the world in his twenties with The Big Star, he created a musical landscape that audience did not understand – as it was at least twenty years ahead of its time. Then Alex battled addiction to drugs and alcohol and recorded albums that were about to de-construct the very fabric of rock’n’roll – his solo albums were a diary of a man who’s sending signals from some other reality and his work with Tav Falco we all about striping the pop music from all the glitz and glitter to something rugged and rough, but much more honest and longer lasting. He then became an in-demand music producer, moved to New Orleans and eventually left all his vices. In New Orleans, after Katrina, he went missing for awhile and luckily he resurfaced. But just four and a half short years after, in Chilton got a heart attack in his home in New Orleans and that was it. He was only 59 years old, but his music is some of the most inspiring ever laid on tape. This is a two hour tribute to this great man. Even this double deck of Chilton’s music is not enough, so please check out another tribute to Chilton below, Igor’s Sympathy for Rock’n’Roll (look for the Panther on fire logo).
We bring you two truly exceptional new albums and more! Chris Cacavas, legendary keyboardist of Green on Red just put out his new solo album called Love’s Been Discontinued, which is probably his strongest one yet. Grant Hart from Husker Du also has a great new album entitled Hot Wax, and it’s his first in ten year time. It starts from a big fat fade in, almost as Grant is a bit shy to throw a full blast after 10 years of silence, but overall, it contains nine perfect tracks if you ask me. From the same city, Minneapolis, Paul Westerberg has another one of those small Internet ditties that he keeps putting out in the past year. This one is a short form, ep of six songs, and brings Paul in an outstanding songwriting form. Richmond Fontaine, were around for quite some time, but we have them here at the Lighthouse for the first time. They have a very strong new album that has a wonderfully poetic title We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River, and true to it, it contains songs that are dense and full of poetical imagery. This time we bring you another new name, English band The Ace, which we knew as Freebooting Profiteers. They sent us their fiery new demo collection and we also check out their even earlier incarnation Thee Mighty Uptight. And last, but not the least, my personal hero Tav Falco has a new single out and we check out its B side at the end of the show.