This is one devastating month for the world of music. We lost some of the really great ones recently. Tommy Ramone is the most recent one, until now, the only remaining original Ramone, writer of Blitzkrieg Bop and producer of The Replacements Tim. His most recent musical effort was a bluegrass duet Uncle Monk, and one touching song which I recorded live in Cleveland from that era finishes our show. We also review some of my favorite Gerry Goffin and Carole King songs. Goffin passed away and left behind an incredible pioneering work in rock’n’roll lyricism. Bobby Womack, who was born in Cleveland OH by the way, also passed away last month. Rock’n’roll audience probably knows him the best as the author of the Rolling Stones first no.1 hit It’s All Over Now, but he was also a great singer in his own right. The we say goodbye to two great jazz bassists. Charlie Haden was definitely one of the greatest in the world. Incredible list of collaborators will never be surpassed. For instance, we check out his most recent album with Keith Jarrett called The Last Dance. It came just one month before the news came about Haden’s departure. MiÅ¡a Blam is the second bassist that passed away recently. He is not very well known outside of the borders of former Yugoslavia, but back home, he was regarded as the greatest one. And finally we also mention the passing of Paul Mazursky, definitely one of my favorite movie directors.
Laura Nyro – Up on the Roof;
Ramones – Mama’s Boy;
Ramones – Blitzkrieg Bop;
Ramones – I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend;
The Replacements – Left of the dial;
Redd Kross – Frostep Flake;
The Animals – Don’t Bring Me Down;
The Byrds – Goin’ Back;
Monkees – Pleasant Valley Sunday;
Little Eva – The Locomotion;
Elektricni Orgazam – Locomotion;
Zafir Hadzimanov – Stari cadjavi voz;
Albert King – The Hunter (Blues Alphabet);
Misa Blam – Insert 12;
Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden – Dance of the Infidels;
Charlie Haden – Oh Shenandoah;
Bobby Womack – If You Don’t Want My Love;
The Valentinos – It’s All Over Now;
Rolling Stones – It’s All Over Now;
Faces – Maybe I’m Amazed;
Uncle Monk – Heaven (Live in CLE).
Summer’s here. The sun is shining, even here in Cleveland. I also noticed that there’s quite a few new tunes with summer vibes. So, today’s show is filled with (mostly) new, summer tunes. New records for this week include Little Barrie, a hipster trio from London with the new album Shadow. Not too far from there, in Glasgow, there’s a cool new power pop band called Dr. Cosmo’ Tape Lab. The Murlocks hail from Melbourne Australia. But the greatest new album featured today is Bettysoo’s When We’re Gone. Enjoy Summer, folks!
Today’s show is a part of our Vinyl Junkyard serial in which we dedicate time to one LP that I’ve found dirt cheap collecting dust in some bargain bin box. The one we grabbed today is a tribute to the Byrds, called Time Between. It came out on Communion records in 1989 and it collected the cream of the crop when it comes to the alternative rock scene of the day, covering Byrds exclusively the songs written by the main original Byrds: McGuinn, Clark, Crosby and Hillman. In my mind, the highlight of the record is Thin White Rope’s version of Everybody Has Been Burned, but nearly every song marks more than a decent attempt at revising the old Byrds sound. This LP, together with the Husker Du single covering Eight Miles High did a great job of turning the younger audience to Byrds. And I was one of them.
We have some new names in this show.On the garage rock front, we have Electric Mess from New York City with their classic sound. Acid Baby Jesus play it dirty and they come from Greece. From Spain, we have a psychedelic combo The See See. On the singer songwriter front we bring you three new names here at the Little Lighthouse. Mia Dyson from Australia, Arlo McKinley from Cincinnati and Matija Habijanec from Croatia. Matija plays under a pseudonym The Marshmallow Notebooks. About a year ago we represented Tijuana Panthers for the first time in this show. Now they are back with the new record called Wayne Interest. Plus new tunes from Turf War, Allysen Callery and John Murry.
Today we represent the brand new album by the phenomenal Memphis bass player Amy Lavere. She also participated in an interesting project called the 78 Project which is set around recording modern musicians by cutting directly onto a 78RPM acetate the way it was done back before the magnetic tapes were invented. The project was started by Lavinia Jones Wright and Alex Steyermark as a nod to the great American blues archivist Alan Lomax. We also check out the new tune recorded by Frank Black and the Catholics, inspired by the great SST band called Angst. Alvin brothers Dave and Phil, the founding members of the Blasters, are back together with a new album called Common Ground and it’s all about the Big Bill Broonzy old songs. Finally, we represent a piano and drum duet from Chicago, The Claudettes.
New stuff from the garage rock scene comes from Zagreb, Croatia and Australia. We have Erotic Biljan and His Heretics reunited with an amazing new single that promises to reestablish this band as the leader on the ex-Yugoslav scene. Volcanics come from Perth and Terrible Truths come from Adelaide. We also check out the new indie rockers Gold-Bears. The Auteurs was a new wave band over in London. Luke Haines who was with them is back with a solo record dedicated to the New York City. John Nemeth is another new name for us. He hails from Boise ID and belts out a sound characteristic to the black Memphis scene. Ghost come from Sweden. They are a quite an attraction over in their home land. They scored a good hit last year with a Roky Erickson cover. And finally, Ian McLagan, truly legendary keyboardist of Faces and Small Faces is back with his Bump Band over in Austin TX with the new single.
As if we didn’t have a lot of Australians in our last show, we open up with yet another band from Down Under. Straight Arrows have a great new record called Rising. That land never seems to have a shortage of great sounds. Back in America, Ty Segall has a new, very heave single and Bob Mould is in good spirit with a loud new record called Beauty and Ruin. Jenny Scheinman is also back with a new record called The Littlest Prisoner. And a special treat this time is The Chamber Strings. A band lead by Kevin Junior, who is a Cleveland native, but now lives in Chicago. He reformed the band with an all-Cleveland lineup and they had a great show in Cleveland opening for The Sadies. We check out an exclusive track recorded live that night.
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.
Today we present the new record for catl, a blues rock duo from Toronto, Canada. Another representative of the same genre, but a bit more traditional, are Backsliders from Australia. They have a new album out there called Dark Side. Jack Bruce of Cream is back also with a new record. Jon Spencer with his new single rounds out our very long blues segment today. Sonic Chicken 4 from Perpignan are also back with the new record called Shake Appeal. The leader of Tragically Hip, Gord Downie joined forces with The Sadies to make a new record. All of that stuff today in The Little Lighthouse!