Today’s show is dedicated to Suze Rotolo, Bob Dylan’s muse from the early days. He wrote some his most beautiful love songs about her. One of his most bitter songs Ballad in Plain D is about his breakup with her. She passed away on February 25th this year. We also have the new music from the New York garage rockers The Fuzztones and London singer songwriter John Bisset. Grant Hart has a new rarities compilation and Strage Boys have a fun single dedicated to the American radio dial.
Bob Dylan – Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right;
Beau Brummels – One Too Many Mornings;
The Fuzztones – We’re Pretty Quick;
The Fuzztones – Between The Lines;
The Music Machine – Double Yellow Line;
The Strange Boys – American Radio;
Buffalo Tom – Guilty Girls;
Buffalo Tom – Directive;
Marrianne Dissard – Merci De Rien Du Tout & Flashback;
John Bisset – Over And Over;
Laura Cantrell – Pile of Woe;
George Usher – Not The Tremblin’ Kind;
Gran Hart – Masters Of War;
Bob Dylan – Ballad in Plain D;
The Association – One Too Many Mornings.
Today we have two obituaries. Jazz vibraphonist from Zagreb, BoÅ¡ko Petrović, better known as B. P, died on January 10. The Scottish singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty died on January 4. He is best known for his hit singles Stuck In The Middle and Baker Street, but he actually had a pretty consistently good songbook through the entire recording career. We pay tributes to B.P. and Gerry in today’s show. Bubblegum Lemonade is a new Scottish band that’s out to continue their countryman Rafferty’s work. They, however, roughly belong to the new 80s revival, with sound that’s resembles what once was on The Creation label or Paisley Underground, even a good dose of shoegaze. Jump Back Jake from Memphis are here again with yet another ep. Tim Lee has a new double LP called Raucous Americanus – the first truly (and literally) big record for 2011. Gentleman Jesse has yet another new 45. Kyle Thomas’ band Happy Birthday (he’s also in King Tuff) has an LP that came out quite a few months ago, but I only got it now. It’s a really phenomenal record with great pop tunes. Thomas’ proves again that he’s a very talented songwriter.
The last Little Lighthouse for 2010 is dedicated to wonderful rock musicians and rock personalities that left us in the past year. We have a practice at the show where we give small tributes whenever someone leaves this ugly world we live in, but we missed to pay a proper tribute to Andy Hummel, bass player of Big Star who had died in the summer while the show was on the break. We correct this omission now with two Big Star songs that Andy wrote. Of course, Alex Chilton from Big Star also died this year, which leaves the drummer Jody Stephens as the only surviving original member of this amazing band. Then we go on and pay tribute, one by one, to the other great musicians who died this year: Bobby Charles, Jay Reatard, Mark Linkous, Kenny Gethway, Captain Beefheart, Ari Up, Solomon Burke, Vic Chesnutt, Predrag Ivanovic and two rock’n’roll sidemen: Malcolm McLaren and Billy Ruane. To all of them, rest in peace and to all of us – happy new 2011.
Sad news came on December 17th this year. Don Van Vilet, better known as Captain Beefheart passed away after a long battle with various kinds of complications due to multiple sclerosis. This disease was also one of the reasons for his withdrawal from rock’n’roll scene and the whole world for the most part in the eighties. In those “retirement” days, he lived alone in a desert, mainly concentrating on painting. But before that, Captain redefined rock’n’roll, blues and avant-grade music the way nobody saw it coming. Recently, radio show Down on The Corner (Dole na uglu) pronounced Captain Beefheart as the greatest American blues rocker. You may think that this is an odd title in company of more conventional blues rockers that we know. But still – when you think about it harder, Beefheart took the good old blues format and stuck to it, but he also took it where the idiom never went before. And it will remain in that place. Bands like Endless Boogie, Black Keys, Dirtbombs, Mark Lanegan, Electric Six, Gori Usssi Winnetou… know where that place is and they call us from there every now and then. But now it’s time to say goodbye to Don Van Vilet, Captain, blues rocker, painter and magician…
Billy Ruane was a promoter and music event organizer in Boston. He had a huge impact on the Boston rock’n’roll scene and many Bostonians and others remember him fondly. Sad news came to us last Thursday that he has passed away in the age of 52. Today’s show is dedicated to him, as well as the beautiful song by Varsity Drag which bears his name. Besides this dedication, we also present some new music in this show. Gentleman Jesse has another 45 as well as the Memphis soul band Jump Back Jake. Croatian garage rockers Erotic Biljan and His Heretics have also a great new single. Jim Jones Revue are here for the first time, so we play two of their songs – one from the new album Burning Your House Down and the other from Mojo Magazine’s tribute to The Beatles album Let It Be. Underscore Adia sent us their song Buick. They come from Pittsburgh and they can really rock. Excellent Australian power-poper Dom Mariani is back with a new album and so is Susan Cowsill who calls her new album simply Lighthouse. I have a crazy fantasy that she named her album after my show… Am I right?!
Today we begin with two obituaries. I’ve only recently heard that Kenny Gethway has passed away in April this year. He was very young and practically at the beginning of his musical career with two of his brothers in this band called Monstrous. I really liked their 2006 album Mother Nature’s Slaves. Somewhat silently they published another album in 2009 called Brothers Gethway, but I only got it now. In any case, my hope is that the other two brothers will continue to make music as great as it was with Kenny when they recuperate. Another loss for rock’n’roll is Ari Up from The Slits, who cause quite a stir back in the days of post punk with their record Cut. Ari Up passed away last week, she was just 48. Today’s show is dedicated to Kenny and Ari. We also have a few new things today. Giant Sand have a new record called Blurry Blue Mountain and Howe Gelb just celebrated his 54th birthday. Other two big rockers, Brian Wilson and Neil Young also have new records out. Neil Young has a noisy guitar album called Le Noise and Brian Wilson has an interesting record where he reimages and reinvents old George Gershwin songs.
Sad news comes to us that the soul legend Solomon Burke died last week in Netherlands. This happened in the middle of the times when his revived career saw new heights. However, in his honor, we play some of his classic hits from the sixties and we dedicate this show to him. We also have some new stuff in today’s show. Australian band You Aim I is back with a self-titled album and Kim Simpson with a new ep which he entitled The Price Is Right. The new name in today’s show is Stephanie Finch, collaborator of Chuck Prophet. The album is called Cry Tomorrow. We also feature the new recordings for Tim Lee and Sweet Apple that one can find on Internet (or as a Japanese only bonus in the case of Sweet Apple).
Today we have three new records and four obituaries. We say goodbye to Pete Quaife, former bass player of Kinks and a Memphis musician Tommy Hoehn. We also have a small tribute to Tom Gotovac, a conceptual artist from Zagreb who influenced the local punk scene greatly and who also died recently. I did not find any musical tribute, but another Yugoslav actor, possibly the greatest one from over there Bekim Fehmiu committed suicide a few days ago. Today’s show is dedicated to Pete, Tommy, Tom and Bekim. Alejandro Escovedo has a new album out, it’s called Street Songs of Love and it’s again a collaboration between him and Chuck Prophet, just like the previous one Real Animal. Marah is now basically only one of the Bielanko brothers and he put out a new album called Life is a Problem. Melvins came straight out of nowhere to #200 on Billboard new albums list with a new release called The Bride Screamed Murder. Check it all out here:
Today we say goodbye to Dennis Hopper – a Hollywood rebel for a reason, actor and director. His best known legacy is Easy Rider astonishing road epic that he directed, co-wrote and co-starred. This movie somehow sneaked into the foundation of what we know now as rock’n’roll. But my favorite movie that Hopper directed was Hot Spot. We interleave music from these two movies throughout the show. Besides that, we also play the new music made by David Hidalgo and Louie Perez of Los Lobos. We also have two new bands for the first time at show. Hornet Leg from Portland, OR and Apache from San Francisco. Both bands are represented with their records that actually came out some time ago, but we didn’t get a chance to present them until now.
Today we feature no less than three new truly exceptional records – one for Memphis musician Harlan T. Bobo, other for Holly Golightly and finally – Sweet Apple LP is out. This week in April might have brought three best records of 2010! Harlan’s third record is entitle Sucker. Not only it’s on par with his previous two records, but it also very well may be his best one yet. Diverse piece and a modern classic. Holly Golightly is again here with her Brokeoffs and it very well might be the hight of this duet’s career. Sweet Apple’s new album Love and Desperation is an instant hit record, lots of hooks and humor, but also some unexpected lyrical depths. But, let’s not forget to dedicate today’s show to Malcolm McLaren – legendary manager of Sex Pistols and a rock’n’roll maverick who died on April 8 this year.