Back in the early nineties Vicki Peterson (from The Bangles) and Susan Cowsill (of the Cowsills), joined forces and started performing as a duet. Later in the decade, the collaboration blossomed into a new full band, Continental Drifters, which contained many of the eighties paisley pop musicians including Peterson and Cowsill. The band broke up, but Peterson and Cowsill reformed recently as The Psycho Sisters and made their first record as a duet. We feature them in today’s show, along with the new tunes for Cozy, Dead Milkmen and Allysen Callery. We also feature Birth of Joy from Netherlands, Deaf Wish from Australia and Banging Fragiles from Cleveland for the first time in our show.
Sybille Baier – The End;
OBN IIIs – Worries;
Cozy – Just a Touch;
King Tuff – Rainbow’s Run;
Dead Milkmen – All You Need Is Nothing;
Saucer – Jail Ain’t Stoppin’ Us;
POD – 123;
Bird of Joy – The Sound;
Deaf Wish – Cool Comment;
Banging Fragiles – Live in CLE;
The Budas Band – Tomahawk;
Rebirth Brass Band – HBNS;
Jack Owens – Jack Ain’t Had No Water;
Continental Drifters – Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway;
The Psycho Sisters – What Do You Want From Me;
Allysen Callery – The End.
A ton of new tunes from Australia. We have Ruined Fortune, a duo from Sydney and Eastlink from Melbourne. King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard have a new record called Oddments, plus we were lucky to host them in Cleveland. We also check out some good old rustbelt bands. Cheap Girls come from Lansing MI and The Safes are from Chicago. Peter Holsapple wrote a neat tribute to his old band Continental Drifters for The Radio Free Song Club and recorded it with overdubs from Susan Cowsill and Russ Broussard. We also check out the new Secretly Canadian reissues of Nikki Sudden albums.
New names in today’s show is the Portuguese duet called New Kind of Mambo and The Horrors from Cedar Rapids in Iowa. New Kind of Mambo has a new ep on their bandcamp page (free download) and Horrors have a new album called Vent produced by one of the heroes of this show Greg Cartwright. Tough Shits is another new band today with a self titled album. Deer Tick have new ep called Tim and we check it out in today’s show, by exploring connections between John McCauley and Paul Westerberg. Howe Gelb expanded the line up of his Giant Sand and now they are Giant Giant Sand – 12 people total in the new line up. Giant indeed. Freedy Johnston, Jon Dee Graham and Susan Cowsill put the record out as The Hobart Brothers and Lil’ Sis Hobart. We heard them all together for the first time a year ago in Flashlite 123 and now their first official album At Least We Have Each Other is out.
A ton of new records today… We have a new band called Sonny And The Sunsets. Album is called Hit By Hit and it’s out on Fat Possum. Robyn Hitchcock is also here with a new album called Tromsø, Kaptein. Steve Earle also has a new record out called I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive. Ad Hoc Detroit super group The Witches had put out a compilation record called A Haunted Person’s Guide To The Witches, which ranks as a seriously strong candidate for the best reissue of this year. A very pleasant surprise is the brand new collaboration between Susan Cowsill, Freedy Johnston and Jon Dee Graham in a band they call The Hobart Brothers And Lil’ Sis Hobart. The new songs are in progress, we got one from their website. We also have a new band today, Swedish hopefuls Bäddat för trubbel. I find it amusing how Swedish language when its sung sounds like gibberish English… Anyway, great stuff!
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?!