Murky experimental downer of a show today, but still, great new music from Meatbodies in LA, Goat in Sweden, Strange Attractor in Canada, Wanderlust from Nashville, Shivas from Portland, City of Cool from Australia and the legendary Hawkwind! Also we check out new tunes from Kurt Vile, Iggy Pop and Matt Sweeney that came out on the new Velvet Underground tribute.
Electric Light Orchestra – Fire on High;
Meatbodies – Reach For The Sunn;
Goat – Queen of the Underground;
Hawkwind – Unsomnia;
Strange Attractor – Temenos;
Weird Omen – (I Will Write You) Poetry;
Wanderlust – All A View;
Kurt Vile – Run Run Run;
Iggy Pop & Matt Sweeney – European Son;
The Shivas – You Wanna Be My Man;
City of Cool – Inside the work Outside the work.
Today we have a Velvet Underground tour de force. Death of Samantha play a cover of Rock And Roll in our Live in Cleveland segment, Danny And The Darlean’s play a pre-Velvet Lou Reed tune You’re Driving Me Insane. Also Natural Child participated in the Burger Records tribute to White Light White Heat. That album also saw a deluxe reissue with a lot of previously unreleased material, so we check out one of the songs. Talking about Natural Child, they also have a new record Dancing With The Wolves, which is about to come out. Other good new stuff come from The Cry!. We also check out The Moldes from Peru.
We got some sad news this Sunday. Lou Reed passed away. When it comes to rock’n’roll, there are not many musicians that are greater than Lou. He managed to take the Bo Diddley rhythms and put them in the context of urban New York underground art movement. He was a street poet and he consciously enhanced the lyrical potentials of rock’n’roll music. We will dedicate our entire show today to him. We begin with two tunes that are direct dedications of other artists to his musical direction. Then we hear some other bands trying out their abilities by performing Lou Reed tunes. Two of those bands are from Yugoslavia (my former country), where Lou Reed was extraordinarily influential. Then we hear one live recording of Velvet Underground which was recorded in 1968 in Cleveland, where I live now. Again, it turns out, Cleveland was one of the rare places where VU was welcome back then. And then we close things off with an ambitious medley of songs by Lou Reed about death. He was obsessed by that topic and wrote a lot of songs about it, especially in the past 20 years. And now, he’s gone too. Lou, Lou, Lou… it’s the end of a great adventure.
Those who like Heroin by Velvet Underground will find this episode interesting. We have two tunes that sound like it and two versions of the very song. Burnt Ones from San Francisco have a cover of this song and we also check out some of their original new stuff. New Thurston Moore’s band Chelsea Light Moving has a song that sounds like Heroin and Michael Tarbox has a similar tune on his latest album. We check out the new garage rock tunes from King Louie and his Missing Monuments and Obits. Southern music is represented by Hickoids and Left Lane Cruiser who have an excellent new record Rock Them Back To Hell.
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.
As the google search indicates, Australian four Luke, David, Jess and Alex are among several bands that named their band Mona Lisa Overdrive after William Gibson’s novel. In todays alienating world, many readers seem to find a shelter in cyber-reality and super-powers of Matrix that in Gibson’s novels has god-like powers. So you’d expect some futuro-escapist crap from these guys… Contrary, Mona Lisa Overdrive echoes White Light White Heat era Velvet Underground and lists pretty much an alphabet of rock’n’roll on their