Show #98 April 6, 2013

 
Yeeeee-haw!! This here show is dedicated to Amanda Ruth!

Amanda Ruth- Rank and File Rank and File
Cast A Long Shadow- The Monochrome Set The Independent Singles Collection
Backyard Guys- 20/20 20/20
Juke Box Sound- The Revillos Rev Up
Circle of Fools- The Rooks Encore Echoes
Play That Fast Thing (One More Time)- Rockpile Seconds Of Pleasure
Encyclopedi-Ite- Sammy Tales Of Great Neck Glory
Stately Homes- Capes Hello
^Sweet, Sweet Baby (I'm Falling)- Lone Justice Lone Justice
First Glimmer- Paul Westerberg 14 Songs
Watching You- States Mondo Montage
Be True- The CRY! The CRY!
Dreambuilder- The Angels The Angels
Get It Right- David Myhr Soundshine
*Help There's A Fire- Jason and The Nashville Scorchers Fervor
*Short Train- Tex and The Horseheads Tex and The Horseheads
*Happy Boy- The Beat Farmers Tales Of The New West
*Oldest Fire In The World- Scruffy the Cat Let's Breed
*Steal You Away- Blood On The Saddle Poison Love
*I Saw The Light- Dash Rip Rock Dash Rip Rock
*Slept All Afternoon- Jr. Gone Wild Less Art, More Pop
*Jolene- Rubber Rodeo Jolene
Shake Me Up Tonight- The Dahlmanns All Dahled Up
I'm So Free- Lou Reed Transformer
Be On Top- Symptoms Be On Top/Anorexia Nervosa 7"
>Sound of the Rain- The Dils Made In Canada Double-7"
Alcoholiday- Teenage Fanclub Bandwagonesque
Thru The Window- The Sports Don't Throw Stones 
Lonely Cowboy- The Boys To Hell With The Boys 
Like An Outlaw (For You)- Social Distortion L.A. Prison Bound 

^Power Pop Peak:  373 Billboard Hot 100 7/27/85

*SacroSet:  Cowpunk!

>Power Pop Prototype:  1980 

From 1994 to 2003, what I call my "child rearing years," there was

very little club going or new music discovery happening in my life.  Emerging from this cultural blackout I found myself at a crossroads. As a 40 year old married father of two living in beautiful Sonoma, the new punk rock coming out at the time just didn't speak to me.   I couldn't see myself sitting at the stoplight, two kids in car seats behind me and "This Place Sucks" or "F**k Armageddon This Is Hell" blaring from the car stereo.  My Cousin Rich had been into Alt Country for a while and he recommended a few groups to me, the best being Slobberbone from Denton, TX.  While I'm certainly no expert, I've listened to a fair amount of Alt-Country/Americana/No Depression music over the years and never heard anything as good as Slobberbone's Everything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today.

Jason Isbell (left) with Patterson Hood in DBTs

Around the time I was getting into Slobberbone we bought a new Dell computer and one of the free songs it came with was "My Sweet Annette" by Drive By Truckers.  (Freaking me out a little, there were also songs from Slobberbone's new album Slippage and Americana legends The Flatlanders- how the hell did Dell know?!?)  Anyway, I bought the DBTs album Decoration Day and was hooked- another incredible record.  With Slobberbone and Drive By Truckers I once again had bands to follow- it felt good.  I was lucky enough to catch Slobberbone three or four times before their break up- they were one of the best live bands I've seen.  I'm also happy to say I saw Drive By Truckers three times while Jason Isbell was in the group- it was amazing to see him alongside Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley.  Three amazing songwriters in one group- you just

Solo Jason

knew it couldn't last, especially when Jason lost a bunch of weight and went from looking like a truck driver to looking like a honky tonk star.  Sure enough, he went solo in 2007.


One of the first things I noticed at Slobberbone and Drive By Truckers shows is that the majority of the audience was pretty much just like me- white guys in their mid 40's looking for some age appropriate rock and roll fun.  Though a few years younger than us, the same could probably be said of the bands themselves.  The  power of punk rock courses through Slobberbone and Drive By Truckers' music but they've decided to embrace a timeless roots driven style that could appeal to listeners of all ages.  Their forbears in the mid-80's, the Cowpunk bands featured on tonight's ALL KINDSA GIRLS did the same thing- took punk energy and gave it some twang.  I picture a 1980 backstage conversation between the Kinman brothers (The Dils) and Alejandro Escovedo (The Nuns and a subsequent Americana legend) at some LA dive like The Masque where they talk about being fed up with punk rock and all the knuckleheads in the audience.  Turns out they share a common love of Hank Williams and boom! Rank and File is born (performers of tonight's dedication "Amanda Ruth").  The Dils had already taken a tentative step in that direction with tonight's Power Pop Prototype "Sound Of The Rain" from their last record.

My favorite group from tonight's SacroSet is Jason and The Scorchers, who would have blown 95% of the punk bands I've seen right off the stage.  I will never forget seeing Warner Hodges wailing on his guitar while spinning like a top-  the centrifugal force is floating the guitar two feet out in front of him and he's still hitting every note.  Man did that band rock.  Yet, there was always a thread of country music throughout. They may have dropped the "Nashville" from their name, likely at the request of some douche in EMI's marketing department, but certainly not from their sound.  In my opinion Jason and The Scorchers are the essential Cowpunk band.


Never having embraced the Holy Trinity of Alt Country (Uncle Tupelo with its offshoots Son Volt and Wilco) or most of the other heralded bands in the genre (Whiskeytown, Old 97's, Calixeco, etc.) I was at a bit of a loss when Slobberbone broke up and Jason Isbell left Drive By Truckers.  Thankfully I'd discovered Exploding Hearts, Pernice Brothers and Silver Sun by then so when the opportunity to do a radio show on KSVY came up I decided that Power Pop was the way to go.  Love songs about girls are timeless and never give me that "I'm too old for this sh*t" feeling I get when I hear new punk bands.  The audience at a Fountains of Wayne or Sloan show is more female than what I'd see at Alt County shows- a plus in my book- but age wise its about the same.  In fact, the logo for Power Pop central on the web,  Pop Geek Heaven, gleefully acknowledges the age of its target consumer:

(click to enlarge)

I appreciate the ageless appeal of Alt Country and Cowpunk but I can't imagine that I'll ever tire of a two minute fifty second pop song about a girl with one of those hooks that gets stuck in your head for days.

Download this week's show below (Right click and "Save Link As" if they're sticky just pause and unpause):
Hour 1
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Show #97 March 23, 2013

Dedicated to Courtney and those who suffered through the February 8th nor'easter!

Courtney- Nerf Herder How To Meet Girls
California Man- Cheap Trick Heaven Tonight
Dream Lovers- The Slickee Boys Uh Oh… No Breaks!
I Wonder If I'll Ever See You Again- The Leopards Shake Some Action Vol 7
Age- X-Ray Spex Germfree Adolescents
Alright Tonight- The Tories The Upside of Down
Poster Girl- Helmet Boy Helmet Boy
Look At The Girls- The Parts Look At The Girls 7"
^California- Phantom Planet California
(And) Don't Believe Your Eyes- Eddie And The Hot Rods Life On The Line
Sweet Sinsations- Lisa Mychols Sweet Sinsations
Backscratcher- Free Energy Love Sign
What Kind Of Kiss- Three Hour Tour 1969
Fighting My Way Back- Incredible Kidda Band Too Much, Too Little, Too Late
*California- Simpletones I Have A Date
*California- Low California
*California- Metro Station Metro Station
*California- Cherry Vanilla Venus D' Vinyl
*California- Lenny Kravitz Baptism
*California- The Adicts Smart Alex
*California- The Rentals First Demo
*California- The Casanovas All Night Long
Ash and Cinders- Summer Suns Greatest
Cellophane Girl- Radio Bandits Radio Bandits
Broken Hearts- The Misstakes National Pastime 
>California- Chuck Berry Rock It
Lover True- Tommy Hoehn Losing You to Sleep
Now I'm Spoken For- Yachts S.O.S Singles 1977-1981
What To Do- Future Dads 24 Winship
Billy's Third- The Undertones The Undertones
California- Quasi Featuring "Birds"

^Power Pop Peak:  #35 Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks 12/26/02

*SacroSet:  California Songs

>Power Pop Prototype:  1979

Back in mid-February I was out in shorts and a t-shirt walking to work along the Fryer Creek bike path on a beautiful 70 degree morning, listening to music on my iPhone and admiring the birds in the creek (a blue heron and two egrets according to a birder I met on the path) when my sister Sarah e-mailed me the photo at the top of this post.  It is a cedar tree in her back yard that has already lost its top half due to wind and heavy snow.  I grew up on Massachusetts' South Shore so I know all about storms like the one they had on February 8th of this year.  Adding insult to injury, this nor'easter came only a few weeks after Hurricane Sandy; it was a 1-2 punch that left the entire region reeling.  I remember what that was like- nearly 35 years ago to the day, on February 7, 1978, my family and I lived through the superstorm that came to be known as The Blizzard of '78.  I'll never forget my father, mother, sister and I huddling around the gas oven in our kitchen to keep warm.  We were without power for several days and the gas oven was the only appliance in the house that was working.  I was a Boston Globe paperboy at the time and I'm proud to say that delivery service was only interrupted that first day- only because they didn't get the papers out to us.  At left is the front page that never was-  Tuesday February 7, 1978.  It may have taken 3 1/2 hours the next day, but with the help of my Dad and his four wheel drive Subaru, my customers got their papers.  I have a fond recollection of hearing him laugh hysterically as I trudged up to one house, sinking up to my mid-thigh in snow every other step (apparently my right leg weighs more than my left).  I sure earned my money that day.

The Wreck of The Peter Stuyvesent February 7, 1978

Several famous images from the Blizzard of '78 are emblazoned in my memory:  cars snowed in up to their roofs on Rte. 128, waves even bigger than the one in the opening of Hawaii 5-0 slamming into houses in Scituate, students skiing in Harvard Yard.  Yet, the one I remember most is the listing, half submerged wreckage of the Peter Stuvysent in Boston Harbor.  The ship served as a banquet hall for Anthony's Pier 4, one of Boston's best known restaurants.  It looms large in my memory because my Cousin Debbie had her wedding reception there in 1970 or so.  It was the first wedding I had ever attended and I thought it was the most glamorous thing I had ever seen.  A big party on a fancy boat- what six year old wouldn't be blown away by that?  Needless to say, it was shocking to see the Peter Stuvysent looking like it had been torpedoed by a German U-Boat.

Shirtsleeves mean we're at Defcon 1!

It was also unsettling to see our governor, Michael Dukakis, in newspaper photos without a suit on.  Turns out he was at radio station WHDH in Boston when the storm hit and it became his command center where he mobilized the National Guard to help clean up after the storm.  Something about seeing him in a sweater really underscored the seriousness of the situation to me.  Huddling in front of the kitchen stove for warmth was one thing- it was kind of like camping really- but Dukakis in the sweater just screamed "we are all screwed!!"

This past February it took five days for the power to be restored at my mom's house in Duxbury. 

Walking In A (Deadly) Winter Wonderland! 
The view from Sarah's Porch

Luckily my sister in Kingston, the next town over, got through the storm without an outage and Mum was able to stay with her.  Many people weren't as fortunate; they say 405,000 people in eastern Massachusetts were without power for at least three days.  Those nor'easters are brutal and it seems like there is a least one every year.  In this context, it always makes me smile when on visits back east people will say "I could never live in California with all the __________!" (insert:  earthquakes, wildfires, floods, killer bees, Mexicans, etc.)  This brings me to the subject of this week's episode of ALL KINDSA GIRLS.  So, bike path, shorts, beautiful February day and boom!  Sarah e-mails these pictures of the pretty, yet frozen deadly hellscape that is eastern Massachusetts and I think "Thank God I live in California!"  Apparantly a lot of people feel the same way because I found ten songs called "California" and I didn't even have to look that hard.  I send tonight's dedication song out to all Courtney's everywhere but Nerf Herder are talking specifically about Courtney Love, the once hot mess who many would say is now more "mess" than "hot."

Courtney among the Dead

I think a Courtney Love dedication is perfect for a show about California.  She and I are not related of course though when my son Jack dated a girl named Courtney his freshman year we teased him that if they got married his wife would be "Courtney Love," which was a horrible thought considering the state the real Courtney Love was in at the time (see the 2005 Pamela Anderson roast on Comedy Central if you don't know what I'm talking about).  Anyway, the famous Courtney Love was born Courtney Harrison in San Francisco.  For a short time her dad managed the Grateful Dead which is how, at age five, she ended up on the back cover of the band's 1969 album Aoxomoxoa.  After her parents divorced, her mom split for New Zealand and her dad lost custody after allegedly giving young Courtney LSD.  It's pretty much a straight line from there- foster homes to juvenile halls to stripping.  It's a sad, sordid story yet in the midst of all of it she managed to travel the world, learn to play guitar and form the band Hole who in my opinion released one of the best albums of the grunge era, 1993's Live Through This.    It's criminal that songs from this record aren't on the radio alongside grunge standards by Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Nirvana.  Courtney Love has pissed off a lot of people in the industry though so it's understandable.  There are even haters who say Love's husband Kurt Cobain masterminded the Live Through This album but I don't buy it.

After her Golden Globe nominated turn in the 1996 film The People vs. Larry  Flynt it seemed like

Woody Harrelson & Courtney Love

Courtney Love had turned a corner but since then not so much.  That is why I think she is the ideal dedicatee for this ALL KINDSA GIRLS episode about California- Courtney Love's successes and failures play out on a very public stage but provided she can get her demons under control with considerable talent and resources (all that Nirvana widow money) her best work may still be yet to come.  Just like the great state of California

I do miss my family and no doubt it is freaking expensive to live in The Golden State.  And yes, we have our share of earthquakes, wildfires and floods (I was joking earlier about the killer bees and the Mexicans were here first so I have no problem with them).  Yet,  have you seen Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, Big Sur or even Sonoma?  Well I have and I can only hope that all of you feel as blessed to live where you are as I do to live here in California.

Download this week's show below- right click and "save link as"- if they stop just pause and unpause and you should be good to go:

Hour 1

Hour 2

Show #96 March 9, 2013

This one's for Polly!

Polly- Sneakers Ear Cartoons
I Hope Things Will Turn Around- Chixdiggit! Safeways Here We Come
Complex World- Young Adults Complex World
I Believe- The Volcanos The Volcanos
Four Dollar Date- The Take The Take 7"
Missing You- Green Day ¡Tré!
Foreign Girls- Tours Language School 7"
Prove It- The Cute Lepers Can't Stand Modern Music
^Timothy- The Buoys Timothy
Savage- The Nuns The Nuns
How Can We Go On?- Bill Lloyd Nashpop: A Nashville Pop Compilation
Gravity- Soul Asylum Delayed Reaction
Not My Girl Anymore- The Bats How Pop Can You Get 
Lonely Enough To Lie- Best Kissers In The World Yellow Brick Roadkill 
*Larry- The Scientists The Scientists 
*Geno- Dexys Midnight Runners Searching For The Young Soul Rebels 
*Eric- Radio Stars Songs For Swinging Lovers 
*Trevor- Senseless Things Postcard C.V. 
Northern Lights- Allo Darlin' Northern Lights Single
Even The Girls Don't Know- Slyk Slyk Records Single
Married To Me- The Ravers I Was A Teenage Rock and Roller
Endless Weekend- The Golden Horde The Golden Horde 
Talk To Me- Myracle Brah Life On Planet Eartsnop 
Send Me Something Real- The dB's Falling Off The Sky 
>Jesus- The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground
Will You Be Mine- The Blend Anytime Delight
Movin In- The Doits This Is Rocket Science 
Are You Gonna Move It For Me- The Donnas Turn 21 
What I Got- International Q International Q 45
Honest Boy- Dred Scott Believe You All E.P.
Jimmy Jazz- The Clash London Calling 

^Power Pop Peak:  #17 Billboard Hot 100 1/2/71

*SacroSet:  All Kindsa Guys

>Power Pop Prototype:  1969

I have always loved coming of age stories.  As a child I was drawn to TV shows and movies about kids facing the challenges of growing up, from Will and Penny on Lost In Space to Jody Foster in Freaky Friday to Jan and Peter on The Brady Bunch.  Not much has changed; when you take a look at my Top 5's from last year you'll see the film The Perks of Being A Wallflower, DVD's Pariah, Chronicle and Tomboy as well as books The Fault In Our Stars and Ready Player One.   In fact coming of age stories invariably show up on every Top 5 List going back to my first in 1999. Maybe I suffer from a form of arrested development (a great TV show but not what I'm talking about here).  Ultimately who knows why we love what we love.  And who cares?  The act of loving something and sharing it with other people is the important part.


Among my TV favorites are several shows from the 60's (Ultraman, Get Smart, Underdog, The Banana Splits, Wild Wild West) and 70's (Kung Fu, Baretta, Soap, SCTV, SNL).  Even in the 80's and 90's when my life got more interesting I'd still manage to make time for Hill Street Blues, Seinfeld, The Simpsons or Twin Peaks.  And television in the last ten years has been pretty amazing with The Wire, Lost, Arrested Development, Deadwood, Dexter, Sons of Anarchy, The Walking Dead, Justified, Louie, Game of Thrones.... the list goes on and on.  Even so, of all the great television I have seen in my life, my all-time favorite show is one that ran on NBC for only twelve episodes in the 1999-2000 season.  The show is called Freaks and Geeks and, of course, it is a coming of age story.

I'll never forget the night I came home from band rehearsal and found my wife sitting on the couch crying in front of the TV.  I figured she had just seen another of those sappy ATandT or Kodak commercials, but Jaime proceeded to tell me about a show that could have been taken from a diary of her high school years in Plymouth, MI.  I watched the following week's episode of Freaks and Geeks and every one after that, taping each on the VCR.  I was hooked.  The show was cancelled in March, with NBC blowing out the last three episodes on one night in July and that was it. 

Freaks and Geeks is centered around Lindsay Weir and her friends (the "freaks") as well as her brother Sam and his friends (the "geeks").  Set in fictional Detroit suburb Chippewa, MI in 1980, the series has one of the best opening switcheroos in history.  While cheesy canned music plays in the background the camera pans across the football field at William McKinley High School and up into the bleachers.  There we pause on a football player and cheerleader, both beautiful and blonde, professing their undying chaste love for each other, before the camera indifferently moves on, panning down below the bleachers as the opening riff of Van Halen's "Running With The Devil" blares out of the screen.  We then meet the "freaks" who are being stalked by a girl in her dad's green Korean war coat.  We later learn that this girl, straight A student Linsday Weir, is a former Mathlete going through an existential crisis after witnessing the death of her grandmother- hence the army jacket and interest in the "freaks." The camera then moves on to Sam Weir with his friends Neil and Bill.  The three are goofily running through their favorite Bill Murray comedy bits from SNL and Caddyshack only to be rudely interrupted by a bully and his toadies who start threatening Sam.  Lindsay rescues her brother, shaming him in the process, and after Sam snaps at her while skulking away she turns and says "Man! I hate high school."  Then the show opens with the driving guitar and drums of Joan Jett's anthem "Bad Reputation."

When creator Paul Feig establishes then promptly abandons the telegenic yet banal football player and cheerleader on the bleachers he is telling us that Freaks and Geeks is not going to be like Dawson's Creek and virtually every other high school show we've seen.  Sam's humiliation in front of his friends sends the message that neither is it a That '70s Show style nostalgia comedy.  Freaks and Geeks isn't glamorous; some cast members are overweight or have bad skin and more than a few have greasy hair.  The show also isn't fashionable; one of the first things I noticed is that in the winter the cast wear the same coats everyday (which is certainly realistic, though today imagine a network exec lamenting that it "doesn't move product").  The biggest difference between Freaks and Geeks and other shows about young people is that it doesn't shy away from or overly dramatize the pain of adolescence.  Furthermore, the parents on the show are not the typical broad stroke caricatures we usually see on TV.  All Feig's characters, young and old, are fully realized which is what makes the show so great.  The Freaks and Geeks episode "The Garage Door" is perhaps my favorite episode of any show ever:

 

It is pretty amazing how many big stars came out Freaks and Geeks:

From left:  Seth Rogen, Busy Phillips (Cougar Town), Samm Levine, Jason Segal, John Francis Daly (Bones),
Linda Cardellini (ER), Martin Starr (Party Down), James Franco

And don't forget the behind the scenes people:

• Creator Paul Feig, a Mt. Clemens, MI native, has directed a ton of TV shows as well as the film Bridesmaids 
• Writer Mike White created the show Enlightened and wrote School of Rock  
• Co-Executive Producer Judd Apatow has changed film and television comedy forever, making in my opinion the funniest film of the last ten years The 40 Year Old Virgin

Finally, lets not forget Freaks and Geeks "extras" including Ben Foster, Shia LaBeouf, Leslie Mann, Ben Stiller Jason Schwartzman and Rashida Jones.  Along with this great cast, music has a major role on the show, from that first "Runnin' With The Devil" riff in the pilot, every episode includes original recordings by groups like Kiss, Cheap Trick, Styx, Ted Nugent, Rush, The Who and in the memorable episode "Noshing And Moshing," Black Flag and X.  It adds up to over 120 songs over the course of the series, making music the single biggest item in the Freaks and Geeks budget and a major obstacle to its release in syndication and on DVD.  Some reruns airing on Fox Family had songs taken out and replaced with generic music but thankfully Paul Feig held out on a DVD release until he found the company Shout Factory! that would release the series with all its music intact.

So why did NBC cancel Freaks and Geeks after only 12 of its 18 episodes aired?  Some might say it's because "people are idiots, and that goes double for network television executives." I prefer to take a more nuanced view.  I think young people ignored Freaks and Geeks because it had neither the slick aspirational sexiness of shows like Beverly Hills 90210 and One Tree Hill nor the lighter silliness of Boy Meets World and Saved By The Bell.  (Granted, during sweeps all of these shows would trot out their "very special episodes" about drugs, teen pregnancy, etc.  but none come close to the everyday reality of Freaks and Geeks.)  As for adults, I imagine they ignored the show partly due to a lack of teen sex appeal but mostly because Freaks and Geeks clearly illustrates the pain and awkwardness that most of us experienced in adolescence and who wants to watch that?  Well, I do and it has been a pleasure sharing the show with my kids over the last few months.  My rule is that we only watch an episode when all four of us are present.  It's been great seeing the show through my children's eyes and since there are only 18 episodes my goal is to savor every one.

Here are the links to download this week's show (right click and "Save Target As")
Hour 1
Hour 2

Show #95 February 23, 2013

This one goes out to Betsy and all the great bands from Providence, RI!!

Betsy- The Probers Mad At The World
Smash-Up- The Greenberry Woods Big Money Item
Give And Take- Throwback Suburbia Shot Glass Souvenir
Crime Scene- Kevin K The Best Of Kevin K - New York, New York
Tomorrow- Radio City Class of '77  
Princess Warrior- Big Dipper Crashes On The Platinum Planet 
If I Didn't Love You- Squeeze Argybargy
Flamingo- This Perfect Day Don't Smile
^Anywhere With You- Rubber Rodeo Anywhere With You 
Cha Cha- Tinted Windows Tinted Windows
New Girl- The Fingers On The Radio 
*I Wanna Be The Vice President- Delinquents It's Down To You 
*Make It The Same- The Mundanes Make It The Same 7"
*You Don't Know Me- The Nads The Nads Ep 
*Hyperactive- Hi-Beams Hyperactive 
*Streamline Heart- The Schemers The Living Room: A Compilation 
*Something Special- Big World The Living Room: A Compilation 
*Dream Girl- The Threats The Living Room: A Compilation
*Can't Remember Her Name- The Detectives The Living Room: A Compilation
*Gone- Plan 9 Dealing With The Dead
*Mom- Neutral Nation It's A Bash
*(When I) Touch You There- Coat Of Arms Roust! 
*My Blank Pages- Velvet Crush Teenage Symphonies To God 
Hangin- Free Energy Love Sign
Children Of The Revolution- T-Rex The Very Best Of T-Rex 
Drastic Change- Just Water The Riff
>Sweet Mary- Wadsworth Mansion Sweet Mary 
Mr. Sad- The True Loves I Was Accident 
Little Bit Frightening- The Wanderers Only Lovers Left Alive  
The Untitled- Rash Of Stabbings Shell Shocked Ride 

^Power Pop Peak:

*SacroSet:  Providence Rock and Roll 1979-1994

>Power Pop Prototype:  1971

Growing up in the suburbs usually means you are oriented toward one "urb" or city.  Both towns I grew up in Massachusetts, Brockton (until 5th grade) and Duxbury (through high school) are clearly suburbs of Boston.  We rooted for the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bruins and when someone said they were going "in town" it only meant Boston.  Even so, since both Brockton and Duxbury are in southeastern Massachusetts, we got many of the Providence, Rhode Island television and radio stations.  The A and P in Brockton used to give out bright yellow cardboard boxes featuring the logo for Channel 6, a station in New Bedford, Mass that serves the Providence market.  I think they were supposed to be in-car trash cans which is ironic because I have a vivid memory of a family car trip where beside me in the back seat my sister Sarah methodically tears a Channel 6 box apart, laughing maniacally as each yellow shred gets sucked out her open window.  I remember laughing a little too, though she was making me pretty anxious.  First, I knew my Dad was about to yell at us and I thought laughter would make me seem complicit.  Second, it shocked me she was littering!  I was very susceptible to all the anti-littering ads on TV.  Woodsy the owl was admittedly lame but who could resist the Indian with the tear in his eye?

But I digress, Providence Channels 6, 10 and 12 were a part of my television upbringing.  From an early age however I sensed an "otherness" about these stations.  Not that I paid that much attention, but to my young eyes, newscasts on Boston TV were pretty slick affairs with anchors that seemed kind of like game show hosts.  The news out of Providence was nowhere near as flashy and read by older, more serious people with Italian names that sounded hard to spell.  Interestingly, Providence and Boston radio stations sounded the same to me.  In fact, for my first few years in Duxbury, my favorite station was Providence's 92 PRO FM, which is still in the Top 40 format today.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, my first concert was Aerosmith with Nils Lofgren at the Providence Civic Center on October 31, 1977.  Thanks to the Celtics and Bruins' home games, Boston Garden couldn't hold a candle to the Civic Center when it came to rock concerts.  One of my all-time favorite shows was the following year:  Kiss at Providence Civic Center on February 2, 1978.

When I got into Punk Rock I stopped going to arena rock shows for a few years and didn't make it back to Providence until 1983 on the fateful night that my friend Jim and I went to see The Damned.  I loved the band's new album Strawberries and had never seen them before.  For some reason Boston wasn't on the tour so I borrowed my mom's Chevy Chevette and Jim and I headed down to The Living Room. In its first incarnation the club was located in easily accessible downtown Providence. In 1981, to make way for a federal building, The Living Room moved to the industrial west side, occupying part of something called "the bubble complex" due to its skylights and exterior bubble out front below the sign.  If you pulled back about 50 more feet in the photo you'd be in the Providence River.  On a map it looks like The Living Room is a straight shot off Route 95 but thanks to a convoluted clover leaf, the aforementioned river and the club's hidden location in the midst of much taller factory buildings, I got lost each and every time I drove there- that first time with Jim being the worst.  True to form, I insisted we leave three hours early saying- "we'll get a bite to eat near the club," ignorant to the fact that it was located in an Escher-like barren industrial hellscape.  Jim and I drove around and around that night, finally seeing The Living Room lit up against a now pitch black backdrop, only to realize that we were on the WRONG SIDE of the freaking river!  We contemplated swimming for it, but even in the dark that water seemed nasty.  It sounded thick and syrupy, making me wonder if its inky depths were the inspiration for some of Providence writer HP Lovecraft's monsters like Cthulhu or Yog-Sothoth.

We got to the club moments before opening act Rash Of Stabbings took the stage.  One look at their teased out nu-wave mullets and I was ready to right them off but boy was I wrong- that band was fierce!  Bob Hymers guitar filled every nook and cranny of the room, kind of a hybrid between The Edge's ethereal echoes and Husker Du-era Bob Mould's sonic onslaught.  There were lots of spaces in Rash of Stabbings' songs but then everything would come together and it was powerful.  Carlotta Christy was still their lead singer that first night I saw them opening up for The Damned.  Years later I was dating a Rhode Island girl named Laura who had worked coat check at The Living Room.  She told that Carlotta had been swept off her feet and not just out of the band, but out of the United States by, of all people, 70's British pop star David Essex of "Rock On" fame.  They were together until 2008 and I just read on the Interweb that Essex is getting married again- to a girl 26 years younger (they guy is consistent, I'll give him that). 

After Carlotta left Rash of Stabbings Bob Hymers took over lead vocals which in my opinion was a change for the better.  It always seemed like the group was on the cusp of getting signed to a major label but nothing ever came of it.  Part of the problem may be that from a marketing standpoint the name "Rash Of Stabbings" was too hard for the labels to get their heads around.  The band tried switching to just "Rash" for a while but it didn't take and as near as I can tell they called it quits sometime in the early 90's.

As we were circling west Providence looking for the Living Room that night back in 1983, Jim and I talked about how nice it was to be seeing a show outside Boston.  We had seen too many shows marred by the moshing, stage diving showboats of the Boston hardcore scene. These guys would often grab the microphone out of a singer's hand and scream along, usually getting the words wrong.  I would always feel bad for the real singers, most of whom tried to take it in stride but were, like myself, probably thinking "get these douche bags off my stage!"  The worst offender was already in Boston's most infamous hardcore band- how much stage time did this guy need?!?  Anyway, it's all cool during Rash of Stabbings but when The Damned take the stage this same guy and about ten of his friends bum rush the stage.  The Damned were good sports and despite all the "Boston Crew" douche baggery it was an amazing show.

When I started dating Laura in the mid-80's we'd often go down to Providence to see bands.  She still had connections at The Living Room- this one bouncer named Rich would always let us in for free (she told me that Rich had once gotten a blowy from a groupie in exchange for letting her backstage to see King Diamond- how awesome is that?)  I remember seeing Rash of Stabbings a few more times- slightly awkward since Laura had dated the drummer- along with Neutral Nation, Boneyard and a bunch of touring bands.  We'd also go to Club Babyhead where we saw Coat of Arms and Plan 9, who had five guitar players- FIVE!  One of the great things about those Providence trips was that during the day Laura took me over to Thayer Street near Brown University which had a couple of amazing record stores- the best being Tom's Tracks.  I bought a lot of great records at Tom's during those years, including The Mundane's single and Coat of Arms cassette I played on tonight's show.  Allston, Mass institution In Your Ear Records had store on Thayer Street as well.  After Laura and I broke up I took Jaime on a Providence excursion where we stopped off at In Your Ear, bought Velvet Crush's Ash and Earth single from drummer Ric Menck who was working behind the counter, then saw he and his bandmates rock mightily that night at Babyhead.  Jaime and I became friends when I was dating Laura and the two of them got along pretty well.  In fact I think the three of us went to see Dramarama at The Living Room one night- or maybe it was Soul Asylum.  There's no doubt that Laura was a guest at our wedding.  In any case, like Kenmore Square in Boston, Thayer Street has become a soulless corporate husk of its former self.  I'm glad I got to see it in the good old days.  I will always be grateful to Laura for showing me around Providence, RI. 

p.s.  Big thanks go out to the great Ed Slota for helping me out with some music for this show.

You can download this week's ALL KINDSA GIRLS below (right click and "Save Link As," if download stops you may need to pause and un-pause)
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Show #94 February 2, 2012

Tonight we rock for la bonita Margarita!


Margarita- Henry Essence Shake Some Action Vol 8
On The Radio- Cheap Trick Heaven Tonight
Girls Want Rock- Free Energy Love Sign
Showdown- Off Broadway Quick Turns 
Any Other Woman- Greg Kihn Greg Kihn Band "Best Of Beserkley" '75-'84
Lone- Swag Catchall
Doormat- Ben Vaughn Mood Swings
Suspicion- Scott Wilk + The Walls Scott Wilk + The Walls
^Radio Radio- Elvis Costello and The Attractions This Year's Model
Help Me Fall- The Wellingtons Keeping Up With The Wellingtons
iPod Girl- The Scruffs Conquest
Let's Go Away- Travoltas Endless Summer
Paper Dolls- The Nerves One Way Ticket 
Sooner or Later- Hot Knives Hot Knives
*Radio Heart- Willie Alexander and The Boom Boom Band Willie Alexander and The Boom Boom Band 
*Radio Heart- Crosby Loggins Time To Move
*Radio Heart- The Secrets Titan: It's All Pop!
*Radio Heart- The Futureheads This Is Not the World
*Turn On The Radio- Bay City Rollers The Definitive Collection 
*Turn The Radio On- Lisa Mychols Sweet Sinsations 
*Turn Off Your Radio- The Essentials Fast Music In A Slow Town E.P. 7"
*Turn Me On Your Radio- Hilly Michaels Calling All Girls 
Bottle Of Fur- Urge Overkill Saturation 
Go Go Go- The Innocents No Hit Wonders From Down-Under 
I Feel Alright- Cosmic Dropouts Sonic Circus 
>Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me)- Reunion Super Hits of the '70s: Have a Nice Day
The Jet Set Junta- The Monochrome Set Eligible Bachelors
Dead End- Adam Schmitt World So Bright
Stop Thinking About Yourself- Seventeen A Flashing Blur Of Stripped Down Excitement 
Saint Jake- The Del-Lords Johnny Comes Marching Home 

^Power Pop Peak:  #29 UK Singles Chart 10/20/78

*SacroSet:  Turn On Radio Heart

>Power Pop Prototype:  #8 Billboard Hot 100 9/7/74 

I guess it's just human nature but when I tell people I work in radio, many say "I NEVER listen to the radio."  I find this pretty rude, the equivalent of them telling me "well, then your children will STARVE- bwah ha ha haaaa!"  It's also not true, because when pressed they'll usually admit to listening "but only in the car."  Yes ONLY in the car- as if this is an inconsequential amount of time and we aren't all spending more and more time behind the wheel.  When I was a kid, I'd leave the house about 9am on a summer day, swing by for a fluffernutter at lunch time, and not return until supper.  Apparently that would now be called "child neglect," but I have no complaints.  Childhood today is a long succession of car trips as parenthood has largely devolved into an unpaid chauffeur position, driving the kids to school, to sports, to the doctor, music lessons, etc.  That's a lot of time in the car "never" listening to the radio.  Oh, you may ask, but what about all the choices available in the dash these days?  True, satellite radio offers hundreds of choices and will continue to do so right up until the day it is run out of business by wi-fi enabled cars.  Then, with the Internet at your fingertips, you'll have thousands of choices!  Imagine thousands of options for the 20 minute round trip taking Billy to soccer!  I have no doubt that the tech savvy will be listening to Zef radio out of  Johannesburg or J-Pop broadcasts from Osaka but the rest of us?  I think radio is going to be around for a while.

Now I'll grant that there has been a considerable artistic decline in commercial radio since it was deregulated in 1996.  Sadly, I doubt my boyhood hero Duane Ingalls Glasscock, renegade "clone" of WBCN morning man Charles Laquidara, would get his own show on any station in America today  ("Hello Rangoooooon!").  Yet you have to laugh at those newspaper stories about "the death of radio;" a 17th century medium calling a 20th century medium dead!  Placed any classified newspaper ads lately?  Ha!  Compared to other deregulated industries, like oh say banking and the airlines, radio is holding up pretty well.  How many mergers has your bank been through since '09 and have you flown on an airline recently, say in the last 10 years?  I get how deregulation is supposed to work theoretically, but sweet mother of mercy it has caused a world of hurt in the U.S.  I know the free marketeers would call this "creative destruction" but that's little solace when it's your knees that are being destroyed on a jam packed "beverage service only" flight that's been sitting out on the tarmac for 90 freakin' minutes.

Anyway, I still listen to the radio- FM and AM both.  Truth be told, I always have a selection of CD's in the car as well but after a while, especially on long trips, I start feeling like I'm in a "closed loop" and on goes the radio.  When I'm listening to the radio, whether its for music or talk, I feel connected to both the people at the station and my fellow listeners- it's not a feeling I get from a CD or my iPhone set on shuffle.  Plus, even though I have about 6,000 songs on the phone, there are no real surprises like those you get listening to a music station when you never know what they'll play next.  Furthermore, ask people who suffered through Hurricane Sandy or the Nor'easter in February how important radio is in a tragedy.  No power, no landline or wireless phone service- for many radio is their only connection to the outside world.  I have to say it really makes me mad that the aforementioned "free market forces" have kept an FM receiver out of smartphones for so long.  From what I've read, many phones already have the chip, but the manufacturers won't activate it because there's no money in it for them.  You would have thought after Katrina that they would have worked this out.  The good news is that I just read today that Emmis Broadcasting has an agreement with Sprint for FM radio in Android and Windows phones so hopefully we've turned a corner on what is an obvious no-brainer. 

My son rarely listens to the radio, but I'm happy to see my daughter Nica embrace the medium.  She fires through her four pre-set stations, lighting up when she finds her favorite hit song of the moment, singing at the top of her lungs.  That's one of the other things radio provides:  cultural consensus.  You can't really call a song a "hit" until you hear it all over the radio.  The Internet gives each of us the power to be our own "cultural curators" but as my ten year old self, alone in a bedroom full of Kiss posters and albums could tell you- it's much more fun when we share our passions.  That's not just what social media is about it's what all media throughout history is about- from cave paintings to Twitter, and that of course includes ALL KINDSA GIRLS!

Download tonight's show below (right click and "Save Link As," if they get sticky you may need to pause and unpause a couple of times):
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Show #93 January 19, 2012

Tonight's all about Amanda!

Amanda- Green Day ¡Tré!

Can't Get Through- The Tearaways Ground's the Limit 

You Won't Break My Heart- The Nomads Solna 

I Love The Way You Touch- The Rubinoos Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About 

What In the World?- The Cavedogs Joy Rides for Shut-Ins 

Forget the Chef- Big Dipper Crashes On The Platinum Planet 

Got the Time- Joe Jackson Look Sharp! 

What Can I Do- The Late Show Portable Pop 

^She- Southcote She 

Youth Coup- Holly and the Italians The Right to Be Italian 

Out Of My Head- The Producers Coelacanth 

Don't Ask Me- OK Go OK Go

Diamonds- The Damned So, Who's Paranoid? 

Lovers Of Today- The Only Ones Special View 

*She- Hoodoo Gurus Mars Needs Guitars! 

*She- The Taxi Boys The Taxi Boys 

*She- Popsicle Laquer 

*She- Green Day Dookie

*She- Kiss Dressed to Kill 

Keep Believing- Bob Mould Silver Age

(It's Gonna Be) A Heartbreaker- The Cryers The Cryers

Maybe Tomorrow- The Chords This Is What Thay Want 

Candypants- The Dahlmanns All Dahled Up

Bring Back The One I Love- The Smithereens 2011 

Best of Intentions- Happy Hate Me Nots Out

>She- The Monkees Listen To The Band

Five Minutes In A Hero's Life- The A's The A's

No Answers- The Proof It's Safe 

Back In The Middle- Pezband Cover To Cover

Smart Boys- The Starjets God Bless The Starjets

She Rocks Me- Graham Parker and The Rumour Three Chords Good 

^Power Pop Prototype:  #80 Billboard Hot 100 3/9/74

*SacroSet:  "She" Songs

>Power Pop Prototype:  1968

Like most kids, the first records I ever listened to belonged to my parents.  They had a laissez-faire attitude about their albums- my sister Sarah and I could do what we wanted with them.  (Just to be clear, my kids have never even touched one of my records and that's just the way I like it.)  I don't remember my dad having any music albums, though he did have several comedy records, my favorite being Revenge by Bill Cosby (see above).  I memorized the title track "Revenge," a story about Bill's plot to get Junior Barnes for pelting him with a slush ball.  Bill makes a perfect snowball, hides it in the freezer and spends the next four months befriending Barnes, doing things like "letting him take a sip out of my soda bottle and not even wiping it off after."  Then, on a fateful spring day Bill and Junior Barnes are sitting on his front steps and Bill goes inside to get the snowball, only to find his mother has thrown it away.  What follows is one of my all-time favorite punch lines- Bill says "so I went outside and I spit on him."  I performed the entire bit for some neighborhood kids, who didn't find it nearly as funny as I did although I suppose it's possible that at eight years old I lacked the comic chops of an in-his-prime Bill Cosby.  My grandparents were a much more receptive audience- though I can only imagine what it was like for them watching their white Boston Irish Catholic grandson imitate Junior Barnes' black Philly ghetto accent.

Another of my father's records was a very bizarre album called Why Not! by Dayton Allen, who got his start on his brother Steve's TV show.  It was a very silly record but Dad and I loved it.  I couldn't get my friends to listen to it for more than a minute but as I write this I'm smiling just thinking about his signature catch phrase "Why Not!"  Further confirming Dayton Allen's genius, I later learned that he went on to voice Heckle and Jeckle, Lancelot Link Secret Chimp and ....wait for it.... Deputy Dawg!!  So there you go you “Dayton is Steve’s untalented brother” doubters.  

One Christmas several years later I got a chance to pay my father back for all those hours I spent enjoying his comedy records.  That fall a neighborhood kid named Steven invited a few of us over to his house- for what he wouldn't say, it was very hush hush and his parents weren't home.  After getting us to promise that we would not tell on him he pulled out one of his older sister Kim's albums with a cover photo of a hippie in jeans and an open shirt making a stupid face.  I probably made some music snob remark about hippies but he just smiled and put the record on.   And my mind was blown!  You see what I was listening to was George Carlin's Class Clown album featuring his infamous "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television." I couldn't believe how shocking, funny and smart it was.  When I went to the record store to buy Class Clown for my father that Christmas I saw that Carlin had just released a greatest hits album called Indecent Exposure so I went with that instead.  Dad spent Christmas afternoon listening to it in the family room (on headphones of course- Mum wouldn't have approved of "the language") and howling with laughter.  We couldn't hear any of what he was listening to, only his laughter getting louder and louder.  It was awesome!

My Mom’s records leaned more towards folk music and some early rock and roll.  She had a few albums by a folk singer named Josh White.  Turns out he was an early civil rights activist and according to Wikipedia "the closest African-American friend and confidant to president Franklin D. Roosevelt."  All right Mum!  One of the things that proves how right my parents were for each other is that mixed in among her "serious" folk and 50's rock records were two albums by Allan Sherman, the folk/comedy singer of "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" fame.  I found the Sherman records corny though she had two albums by satarist/pianist/mathemetician Tom Lehrer that I remember liking.  I'm sure I understood only a little of what he was singing but the way he sang struck me as hilarious.  

I tried listening to Josh White, but that's just not the type of music that appeals to a nine year old.  Much more up my alley were her Elvis albums, especially his first.  I remember listening to the songs "Tutti Frutti" and "Money Honey" over and over.  That was an attitude I could relate to! To my ears, Elvis' singing sounded like he was trying REALLY hard not to explode and that tension was exciting to hear.  Staring at the record cover I'd think, "well he finally did explode, right when this picture was taken!"  There is a freedom in this photo that for me is a big part of what rock and roll is all about. Needless to say, I was thrilled years later when on a snowy December day Cousin Rich and I scored our import copies of The Clash's London Calling at the Strawberries in Harvard Square.  The cover took me right back to listening to my mother's Elvis LP!   Completing the circle, London Calling is my favorite album of all-time.

Download this week's show below (Right click and "Save Link As" if the links are sticky you may need to pause and unpause the download)

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