Today we say goodbye to one of my personal heros. Tusta was a singer of a great punk band KUD Idijoti who put out a series of three excellent EPs back when I was just starting to be interested in the underground rock. For me, Idijoti was one of the most exciting things that happened musically worldwide, although they were just a small local Yugoslav band. Unfortunately, cancer took Tusta’s life sometime last week and it shook me deeply. As if a family member died, although I didn’t even know him personally. Today show is for Tusta. We hear some his music and we also check out some of the new music as well. Cowbell is a duet from England. Electric Six have a new live record, and they visited Cleveland. Along, they brought a new band from San Diego called Little Hurricane, also a duet. And we saw an interesting new Cleveland band, Dead Sweaters. Plus Dick Valentine has a new solo record. And The Legs, Eric Oblivian’s old band, has their recordings from 2000 finally out on a record.
Kevin Gordon – Don’t Stop Me This Time;
KUD Idijoti – Maja;
KUD Idijoti – Lutke na koncu;
The Connection – Comes And Goes;
The Lemonheads – Pittsburgh;
Redd Kross – Dracula’s Daughters;
OFF! – Peace In Hermosa;
Natural Child – Derek’s Blues;
The Golden Boys – Dirty Fingernails;
The Legs – You Won’t Get Me;
True Sons of Thunder – Wood Shampoo;
Cowbell – Mississippi;
Tav Falco – Dateless Night (Live in CLE);
Dead Sweaters – Dangerous;
Electric Six – Hello! I See You;
Dick Valentine – The Termite Queen;
Little Hurricane – Sun Sets West;
KUD Idijoti – Prezivjeti;
KUD Idijoti – Ljudi kao ja.
Jesse Lee Smith is a fellow that hails from the Atlanta rock’n’roll scene that gave us many interesting garage rock bands in the past few years. One of the bands that started it all was the Ramones influenced quintet The Carbonas and Jesse played bass in it. He had a somewhat more complex vision on what his music should be, so he started a solo career with a rotating line up of musicians simply referred to as “his men”.
Today we review some parts of the blooming and booming new San Francisco rock’n’roll scene, lead by Ty Segall who has a new album out there called Twins. We also check out the wonderful cajuns from Switzerland, Mama Rosin, who made a new album in New York City with Jon Spencer and also have another ad-hoc project called Les Frères Souchet. Talking about the Francophone stuff, we have a new single for Perpignan’s Jack of Heart and including their potent cover of Gun Club’s For The Love of Ivy recorded live in Cleveland. We close the show with Amy Lavere and Shannon McNally with their new tour rehearsal tapes and with Lucy Kaplansky’s cover of The Beatles tune I’m Looking Through You.
New supergroup today: David Hidalgo from Los Lobos, Luther Dickinson from North Mississippi Allstars and Mato Nanji join forces on a new album together called Three Skulls And The Truth. We have also the new non-album single from Natural Child and a track from a new LP for Suzi Chunk. The new names today are The Shivas from Portland and Forty Nineteens from LA. Famous tribute to the great late Arizona guitarist Rainer Ptacek called The Inner Flame has been reissued with some tracks missing and some new tracks. We check it all out today.
The Dirtbombs from Detroit joined forces with Dan Sartain and Terrible Twos for a new ep release and they cover another act from Detroit on that single – a cult band called Death. Quartet from Pittsburgh, PA Satin Gum are back with their second album, which they call LP2. Mark Eitzel and Rickie Lee Jones have new solo records out. And Crusaders of Love is a new name today, from Lille in France.
After several years of personal hell, Dan Stuart is finally back. His old band, legendary Green On Red, disbanded in 1992, and Dan tried to continue solo. After a record with Al Perry in 1993 and the first solo album in 1995, Dan disappeared from the music business.
The Replacements fans should pay special attention today. We have a new track for Paul Westerberg and also a new one for Chris Mars. Chris’ song is a part of an effort to raise fund for Slim Dunlap’s recovery after a severe stroke this February. And we also have Kevin Bowe, a musician from Minneapolis who collaborates with Westerberg on Bowe’s new record. Nels Cline is on guitar. We also have the brand new album for Natural Child. They already had one really good one earlier this year called For The Love Of The Game (we have a 
Natural Child is a trio from Nashville TN. When you hear Nashville, the immediate association is country music. These three guys though, sound like they could be from Atlanta or Memphis. What we have here is a garage rock dealing. And it’s a lucky draw.
This show is dominated by several new names today. First, we have the Connection – a power pop band from Portsmouth, NH. They are joined by Wyatt Funderbunk as a guest, who we also have for the first time. Then we have the Black Oil Brothers, an interesting unpretentious mixture of traditional blues and other types of art. For instance, on their site you can download a nice story of a struggling painter. Another new name are the Australian band The Murlocks. We also have some good old friends here with new music. Singing Loins are about to put out the new record called Here on Earth and David Eugene Edwards is back with another Woven Hand release. Nick Cave invited Mark Lanegan to sing on the soundtrack for the movie that he wrote Lawless.
In the past decade or so, we witnessed a surge of reunions, particularly of bands that meant something in the seventies and the eighties. Some of the bands just tour, perhaps make a live album and try to relive the past without changing much. Others make new records. Often times the motive is to draw larger crowds to the gigs than each band member would individually, or perhaps these bands simply want to go back to the youthful years. In any case, reunions are typically in shadows of the famous past. Exceptions to the rules are scarce. I can only think of Mission of Burma and their reunion album On Off On which is as great as anything they did before, if not better, more mature and stronger piece. Now we have a new example in Redd Kross.