Show #164 April 14, 2018

 Take us away Lady Satellite...

Lady Satellite- Idle Jets Atomic Fireball
Song for the Satellites- Thousands Millions Rock Days
Soldier- Death By Unga Bunga So Far So Good So Cool
Bandit Of Love- Jenny Dee and The Deelinquents Electric Candyland
Time After Time- This Perfect Day Don't Smile
Always- The Stanleys The Stanleys
It's Not The Way You Talk- Da Biz Language School
Let Me Rock- Flamin' Groovies Fantastic Plastic
^Satellite Blues- AC/DC Satellite Blues                        
Satellite- Hooters One Way Home
Wish Upon a Satellite- Sloan 12
Come Out And Play- The Well Wishers A View From Above
Tune Into Heaven- Jags The Best of the Jags
Daydreaming- The Queers Love Songs for the Retarded
*Satellite- Material Issue Telecommando Americano
*Satellite- The Replacements All For Nothing
*Satellite- Echo and The Bunnymen Echo and The Bunnymen
*Satellite- Sex Pistols Spunk
Mighty Girl- Cotton Mather Young Life EP
Do The Things- Neats Propeller Cassette
All Wrapped Up- The Successful Failures Ichor of Nettle
She's A Mover- Big Star Live At Lafayette's Music Room-Memphis, TN
Tell Me More- Tenpole Tudor Wunderbar - The Best Of Tenpole Tudor
I Wonder If I'll Ever See You Again- The Leopards Kansas City Slickers
>Satellite of Love- Lou Reed Transformer
Nothing- The Distractions Nobody's Perfect
Can't Help It At All- Rivals If Only...
Searchin' For The Satellites- Bleu Redhead

*Power Pop Peak:  #7 US Mainstream Rock Chart 7/1/2000

^SacroSet:  Songs Called "Satellite"

>Power Pop Prototype:  1972

One of the rules I set in place when I came up with the idea for ALL KINDSA GIRLS- first the radio show, then the blog, social media, etc.- is that I was going to strive to keep things positive.  There is so much bile being spewed 24/7 these days (thanks Internet!) that I made a conscious effort not to add any more.  Even after the 2016 election, I strove to stay positive in the blog post for Show #155, and reading it now I'm glad I made the effort.  Anyway, the week of this show our President launched a missile attack on Syria so I decided it was a good time to leave earth and focus on the skies with a show about satellites.  

Slooooooooooaaaaaaaannnnnnnn!

Sloan really helped out by releasing their new album 12 the same week.  Sloan are an amazingly consistent band and 12, despite a Chicagoesque lack of inspiration in the title, is a great record.  Even better, it includes a song called "Wish Upon A Satellite," perfect for tonight's show.  I've said it many times over the years- thank God for Sloan.  The band did the major label thing in the 90's and had some fleeting success in their native Canada.  Since then

Billy Gibbons

they've kept the rock 'n roll fires burning out their shared love for playing rock 'n roll together.  They have their own label and do it all themselves- even releasing records by other bands.  It's straight up inspiring to all of us older dudes who still want to rock ourselves.  Interestingly, Patrick Pentland, my favorite Sloaner and third from the left in the photo above, has entered a full-on Billy Gibbons phase.  More power to you dude!  Now, how about playing San Francisco on a weekend night?  The last four or five times Sloan have come through town it's been between weekend shows in LA and Seattle, both SF and Portland get stuck with weeknights.  Dudes!?!  There is no way I can drive into SF on a Tuesday, see a show, drive home and then not be in a coma the next day.  How about a little understanding- we're all well over 40 here!  That said, while I would have liked to see Sloan again this tour, I'm confident that I will see the band again someday.  After twenty-seven years together, Sloan are in it for the long haul.

Another satellite song I was happy to play tonight is "Searching For The Satellites" by Bleu.  Bleu is a dude from Boston (real name William James McAuley III), though he didn't start making a name for himself until after I left town in the early '90's.  In 2001, Bleu won WBCN's Rock and Roll Rumble talent competition.  After that he was signed to a major label and put out the brilliant album Redhead in 2003.  He even got a song on the soundtrack for Sam Raimi's first Spider Man movie but like Sloan, Bleu's dalliance with major labels didn't last long.  Since then he has released records on smaller labels and played in bands with ALL KINDSA GIRLS regulars like Mike Viola, Alison Robertson of The Donnas and Taylor Locke of Rooney.  Perhaps due to his professional relationship with pop singers like Demi Lovato, Joe Jonas and Selena Gomez, Bleu's music took a more electronic turn on later records that isn't my thing, but Redhead remains a Power Pop gem.  It also has the distinction of being the ONLY album I have ever sought and successfully found in Amoeba Music's enormous $1 clearance CD section.  Seriously, I went specifically to the miscellaneous "B" section and it was the second CD I saw.  If you are not a lifelong record shopper this will mean nothing to you, but if you are you'll understand why Redhead will always have a special place in my heart.

The final song I want to mention is "Satellite" by The Sex Pistols from their infamous album Spunk.  As I've said in this blog before, haberdasher/punk marketeer Malcom McLaren was a first rate sh*t stirrer.  In September 1977 Virgin Records was getting ready to release the debut album Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols.  By this time the band's "Filth and Fury" phase was in full swing; they had dropped f-bombs on live TV, been kicked off of two record labels, were banned from playing in cities across the country and

Glen Matlock

getting physically attacked everywhere they went.  Even worse, they had replaced Glen Matlock, the guy who wrote the music for most songs, with professional f-up and non-bass playing clown Sid Vicious.  What's more, major record outlets had already stated they would not carry Bollocks so what better time could there be for a bootleg record to show up in stores that contained high-quality demos of many of the same songs.

Spunk is based on demo sessions the band recorded with Dave Goodman between July 1976 and January 1977.  It came out in a white cardboard sleeve with a crude stamp on the front.  McLaren denied putting the record out but it is such text book sh*t-stirring I don't believe him for a second.  No surprise, he told anyone who would listen at the time that Spunk is superior to Bollocks.  I don't agree with him, I think Bollocks is one of the greatest rock 'n roll albums of all time.  That said, it's still not the original band.  Realizing he would have ruined the album, the group smartly decided to leave Sid Vicious out of the recording- he only plays on the song "Bodies."  The story is that Matlock agreed to return for the sessions if paid in advance but McLaren stiffed him.  That's Steve Jones playing all the other bass parts on the record.

What I love about Spunk is you get to hear the full band with Matlock on bass, giving you a great sense of how ferocious they must have been live.  

Links to this week's show are below, click to stream or to download, right click and "Save Target As:"
ALL KINDSA GIRLS #164