Show #167 September 8, 2018

  
No "maybes" about it... tonight's show is dedicated to Maybelline!

Maybelline- Babyshambles Sequel To The Prequel
Dark Black Makeup- Radkey Dark Black Makeup 
Blameless- Nick Piunti Temporary High 
In Another Life- The Well Wishers A View From Above 
Have Faith- Sloan 12 
*Lipstick- Advertising Advertising Jingles 
*Lipstick- Rocket From The Crypt Lipstick 
*Lipstick- Buzzcocks Love Bites 
^Crush With Eyeliner- R.E.M. Crush With Eyeliner
*Eyeliner- Klik American Girls 
*Red Eyeliner- P. Hux Purgatory Falls 
Loving You Baby- Lisa Mychols Sugar 
So Cool- Death By Unga Bunga So Far So Good So Cool 
Lady Frankenstein- Matthew Sweet Tomorrow's Daughter 
*Little Mascara- The Replacements Tim 
*Mascara Tears- Richard Thompson Mirror Blue 
*Run Mascara Run- The Rubinoos 45 
Sometime to Return- Soul Asylum Live from Liberty Lunch, Austin, TX, 12/3/92
Brighter Side- The Revelons The Revelons: '77-'82 
Thirteen (Live)- Big Star Live At Lafayette's Music Room-Memphis, TN 
>Make Up- Lou Reed Transformer 
*Make Up- Marvelous 3 Math And Other Problems 
*Make Up- Delta 5 Singles and Sessions 1979-1981 
At All- Linus Of Hollywood Cabin Life 
My Negative Friend- David Myhr Lucky Day 
*Wig In A Box- Hedwig And The Angry Inch Soundtrack
*Flip Your Wig- Wayne County and The Backstreet Boys Max's Kansas City 1976 and Beyond 
*I Dig Your Wig- Ben Vaughn Mood Swings 
Under The Makeup A-Ha Under The Makeup 

^Power Pop Peak:  #20 Billboard Modern Rock Tracks 8/15/95

*SacroSet[s]:  Makeup Songs

>Power Pop Prototype:  1972

Werewolves of Sonoma and their Ladies

Alice

Aside from Halloween I've never had much use for makeup.  I appreciate its use in rock and roll, from Alice Cooper and Kiss to Dave Vanian of the Damned and Monkey of The Adicts (pictured above) but it is never anything I could pull off myself.  So, most of my experiences with makeup have been assessing its application when asked to do so by the women in my life.  I am not up to this task.  For nearly 25 years my wife Jaime has been asking me "do I have makeup streaks?" 

Dave

Early on I realized the correct answer is "no" but to this day I have no idea what "makeup streaks" look like.  I just image searched "makeup streaks" on Google and it didn't have any examples so I guess I will just keep answering "no" for the rest of my life.

Needless to say, evaluating a woman's skill with makeup is fraught.  Are you supposed to notice the makeup or not?  If you praise the makeup too much are you saying they are not naturally beautiful?  If you say you don't care for the makeup are you saying they are ugly?  I once dated a fair skinned blonde woman who for the first six months of our relationship wore perfectly applied eyeliner 24/7.  The first time I saw her without eyeliner I asked if she wasn't feeling well- that did not go over so great.  Apparently I'm not the first man to make this grave mistake.

It makes me appreciate those scenes in movies where women sneak out of bed at 2am to take off their makeup and apply their night face creams, only to sneak out of bed again at dawn to reapply everything and look "perfect" for their man in the morning.  What a lot of work!  Never mind the sleep deprivation.

When my son Jack was in the 8th Grade I chaperoned a class field trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland and we stayed in the dorms of Southern Oregon University.  The first day there we needed to be up at 8am.  At 6am there was a commotion in the hall and when I investigated I found all the girls in the class tromping to the bathroom to do their morning beauty ritual.  Most of the boys rolled out of bed at 7:45, many not bothering to change clothes from the day before.  The funny thing is that even with all the prep time, the girls emerged from their dorm rooms 20 minutes late, their stunning hair and makeup somewhat muted by their outfits, the standard "girl uniform" of the day:  jeans, hoodies and Ugg boots.  

In any case this prepared me for the major role makeup would play in my daughter's life.  The four years she was in high school the amount of time she spent applying makeup in the bathroom was inversely proportional to the amount of available counter space in our upstairs

bathroom.  Man does it look complicated!  She is a lovely girl, but I know better than to get between her and her makeup.  That said, it made me realize something:  women don't wear makeup for men in allegiance to the patriarchy or for other women to bolster the sisterhood.  The women who wear makeup do so because they want to and unless we have something complementary to say about it, we should probably keep our thoughts to ourselves.

Below is one of the first Inside Amy Schumer videos I saw and it is perfect for this post- if you haven't seen it you are in for a treat!



How perfect is that! 

When I was a kid I loved Milton Berle's makeup gag from the 50's, and reprised here on The Muppet Show

I'd sneak up on my sister Sarah, yell "makeup" and slam her in the face with a pillow.  Good times!

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ALL KINDSA GIRLS #167

Show #166 July 14, 2018

Tonight we've got two "HEYs" for Helen and zero for Bill...


Hey Hey Helen- ABBA ABBA 
Hey Polarity!- Tommy Hoehn Losing You to Sleep 
Hey Julie- Fountains Of Wayne Welcome Interstate Managers 
Hey Diane- Bowling For Soup Drunk Dynasty 
Hey Sue- The Late Show Portable Pop 
Sick of Waiting- Kurt Baker Combo Let's Go Wild! 
Money- Dumptruck Wrecked 
In the End- The Connection Wish You Success 
^Hey!- Gillmor Counting The Days 
Hey- Pixies Doolittle 
Hey- Blue Shoes Someone Like You E.P. 7"
*Hey Hey- The Elms The Big Surprise
*Hey Hey- The Descendents Fat E.P. 7"
*Hey! Hey!- The Shake Ups Ponymania 
Hey Hey Alodia- Segatron Rainbows and Hangovers
Hey, Tristessa- Mockingbirds Mockingbirds 
Hey Rita- The Rubinoos The Basement Tapes Plus 
*Hey!- Hellacopters Hey! 
*Hey- Goo Goo Dolls Hold Me Up 
*Hey- Slaves Hey
The Perfect Place- David Myhr Lucky Day
Sucker- Beechwood Inside the Flesh Hotel 
Chasing A Ghost- The Longshot Love Is for Losers 
*Hey Now- Matt and Kim New Glow 
*Hey Now- The Regrettes Hey Now
*Hey Now- Myracle Brah Myracle Brah 
>Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!- Johnny Otis And Orchestra Let The Sunshine In My Life 
Hey Hey Hey- Room Eleven Hey Hey Hey 
Hey Hey- The Wellingtons Hey Hey The Wellingtons 
Hey!- Stephen Lawrenson Somehwere Else
Hey Paula- Jr. Gone Wild Less Art, More Pop 
Hey Jane- Pink Spiders Teenage Graffitti 

^Power Pop Peak:  #70 6/20/09 (Mitchel Musso version)

*SacroSet[s]:  "Hey" Songs

>Power Pop Prototype:  1956




I started tonight's show with this "HEY HEY!" from Krusty The Clown because my favorite  "HEY," the one I grew up with and looked forward to on Saturday mornings has been forever tainted.  As I've mentioned in this space before, along with Mum's Elvis albums, Dad's comedy albums had a huge impact on me growing up and none more than Bill Cosby's Revenge.  I was a very shy kid yet after memorizing stories from the record I found I could perform them in front of people and, even more important, get laughs just like Bill.  I would perform for my relatives whenever asked, admittedly also when not asked, such was the power of this album over my young imagination.  (It makes me smile now, thinking about a 7 year old white kid from suburban Brockton, Massachusetts telling stories about black kids from urban Philadelphia to his elderly white Canadian relatives.)

Released in 1967, Revenge was a juggernaut, topping the Billboard R and B Album chart, hitting #2 on the Pop Album Chart and winning the 1968 Grammy for Best Comedy Album.  I didn't know any of that until I googled it just now- what I knew back then was that it was the funniest thing I had ever heard.  I especially loved "Buck Buck" a story about Cosby's childhood on streets of Philadelphia and my favorite person it it was Fat Albert, whose "Hey Hey HEY!" is permanently lodged in my psyche.  Turns out Fat Albert was first introduced on Revenge.

I remember being excited when my mom told me Cosby had a show called I Spy (by this time in weekend reruns after its initial 1965-1968 run) but his character on that show was so dry and so unfunny I didn't make it through the whole episode.

 
Having played "Buck Buck" from Revenge for a few friends in my neighborhood, it was hugely gratifying when Fat Albert and The Cosby Kids joined the CBS Saturday morning lineup in 1972.  At the age of seven I felt like a trailblazer!  My "Hey Hey HEY!" was a big thing in the neighborhood that fall and I milked it for all it was worth.

Along with Fat Albert, Revenge had also introduced me to Weird Harold on the track "9th Street Bridge," so when the show came on I knew the characters well enough to feel like a Cosby kid myself.  Starting in prime time on NBC in 1969 as Hey Hey Hey It's Fat Albert, the network balked at moving the show to Saturday mornings because they didn't like the educational component.  Cosby insisted every episode have a lesson about lying, bullying, cheating, pretending to be someone you're not, etc.  Some of my friends didn't care for that aspect of the show but I took those lessons as scripture.  It never seemed weird to me that they spent so much time in a junkyard.  I'd heard my Dad make jokes about the awfulness of Philadelphia so I just assumed the city was one giant junkyard but no one on the show seemed to mind so I didn't either.  After each lesson the Junkyard Band would play a song, in the junkyard on junk instruments of course:

The song I remember most was "Everybody Plays The Fool" which I was shocked to hear on the radio one day and even more shocked when the DJ said it was by The Main Ingredient.  "No it's not- it's by The Junkyard Band!" I tried to tell everyone to no avail.  Interesting side note, The Main Ingredient included Cuba Gooding, Sr. father (no duh) of Cuba Gooding, Jr.  One other note about the group- I'm now back on The Junkyard Band- is that they all played instruments made of junk except when they would cut away to Rudy who would be playing this slick guitar with an "R" on it.

My questions have never been answered:

• Why is Rudy the only one with a real instrument?
• Why in the group scenes is he playing a junky banjo-looking thing but not in the cutaways?

Now I would like to add:

• Is it a 5 string bass or a 5 string guitar?
• How is the bass connected to the amp- there doesn't seem to be a chord? 
• And where in the junkyard is he plugging in his amp?

In any case, it was easy to hear the pop R and B songs on the show were not being played on the junk instruments and Fat Albert's voice was different on every one- giving me my first taste of lip-syncing.  Even so, I was curious to know how those junk instruments would really sound.  To this day whenever I hear cacophonous experimental rock, like Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, I think "this is what The Junkyard Band would have sounded like."  Who knows, creating an unholy din with instruments made in a junkyard in the early 70's- the Junkyard Band probably would have been huge in Germany.

 
But I digress...  Looking back, I see now that Bill Cosby also had a big impact on my perception of race.  Growing up we didn't have any black people in my neighborhood or my school, Kennedy Elementary.  I'm sure I had seen black people in Brockton but I don't know that I had ever talked to any.  I also don't remember seeing many black people on TV- my favorite shows at the time being The Brady Bunch,

Ultraman

F-Troop and Ultraman (this last show had a 100% Japanese cast which didn't seem that exotic compared to the giant monsters destroying Tokyo each week.)  I had heard my father playing Revenge on our stereo before I saw the cover- and it never occurred to me that the man talking, or Fat Albert or Weird Harold did not look like me.  My father never mentioned it either- so when I did see Cosby on the cover, his blackness was simply a fact and nothing more.  Same with Fat Albert and The Cosby Kids, it didn't really occur to me that after years of watching shows with all-white casts I was now watching a show that was 100% black.    

Like a lot of people, I found it hard to believe those early reports about Bill Cosby drugging and raping women.  This man had taught me valuable life lessons as a child and gone on to be Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable- how could the same person do such horrible things to women?  I wasn't sure how to take his criticism of young black men's speech, work ethic, low slung pants, etc. but I listened because it was Bill Cosby.  In

the 2002 Jerry Seinfield documentary Comedian, Chris Rock talks about going to see Cosby do a two hour show in a huge theater and you can hear the awe in Rock's his voice.  Cosby is a giant of comedy- how could this same guy be a monster?  Yet, there's no denying the truth:  the man has been abusing women his entire career, the first allegations dating back to 1965, two years before Revenge came out.  And the gall he had to tell other people how to live their lives- especially the hectoring "advice" he gave young black men all while doing appalling things to young black women.  

Hannibal Buress

The insane thing is Cosby seemed to be getting away with it until comedian Hannibal Buress called him out during a 2014 show in, appropriately, Philadelphia.  Someone illegally recorded the bit and uploaded it to youtube.  Think about that for a moment- it wasn't the numerous reports in the news media of women telling their personal Cosby horror stories that turned the tide...IT WAS A COMEDY BIT!!  How many more women would have been abused if that person didn't upload their poor quality recording of Buress' rant.  It truly boggles the mind. As for Cosby himself, he clearly doesn't get it- judging from this "performance" coming out of court last year:



Seriously- F**k You Bill Cosby.

So, what do I do with this information?  I loved Louis CK, but cutting him out of my life was relatively easy.  I don't even have any desire to finish Horace and Pete and I was really enjoying that show.  Cosby though, those roots run much deeper and it makes me sad that this guy who had such a positive impression on me has destroyed so many lives.  No more "Hey Hey HEY!" for me.

I guess all there is to do is to try to hold on to the good things he did for me, chuck the rest and move on- yet I'll say it again:  F**k You Bill Cosby.

As a palate cleanser, I'll let Krusty take us out...



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ALL KINDSA GIRLS #166

Show #165 May 26, 2018

For Good Time Sally and all Rock n' Roll Dads!


Good Time Sally- Rare Earth Good Time Sally 
Here Come the Good Times- A House Here Come The Good Times
Now Was the Future- Matthew Sweet Tomorrow's Daughter 
Boys Will Be Boys- The Fast Max's Kansas City 1976 and Beyond 
Leave- Regular Guys Jayhawk Pop: Lawrence, KS 1979-1981 
Who We Are- Descendents Who We Are 
Love In Your Eyes- Walter Clevenger and The Dairy Kings Love Songs To Myself 
Confidentially Renee- Radio Alarm Clocks Wake Me When It's Over 
^Good Times- Hoodoo Gurus Blow Your Cool!
*Good Times- Jack Lee Jack Lee's Greatest Hits Vol. 1 
*Good Times- Paul Collins' Beat To Beat Or Not To Beat/Long Time Gone 
Won't Let It Get Me Down- Linus Of Hollywood Cabin Life 
(My Girl's A) Hologram- The Rabies (My Girl's A) Hologram 
So What- Richard X. Heyman Incognito 
*Good Times- The Monkees Good Times! 
*Good Times- The Stone Roses Second Coming 
*Good Times- Rivals If Only... 
The Day Will Be Mine- Sloan 12 
All The Same- Parallax Project I Hate Girls 
Reason For Wanting You- The Laughing Dogs Meet Their Makers 
Sonar Deceit- The Damned Evil Spirits 
Time For Dinner?- De Cylinders De Cylinders 
Can't Hurry Love- The Kwyet Kings Been Where? Done What? 
>Good Times- The Easybeats The Definitive Anthology
>Good Times- The Rolling Stones Out Of Our Heads 
>Good Times- Eric Burdon and The Animals San Franciscan Nights 
I Like You Better- The Well Wishers A View From Above 
Foreign Fields- Smart Remarks Foreign Fields: 1982 - 1984 
All The Girls- The Secrets Success Without College 
Goodbye Goodtimes- Gary Charlson Titan: It's All Pop!  

^Power Pop Peak:

*SacroSet:  "Good Times" Songs

>Power Pop Prototype:  1968, 1965, 1967

My son Jack has had a hard time of it since the day he was born.  Now at age 22, he is doing better than ever and for that my wife Jaime and I are truly grateful.  It was very different with our second child.  In my experience having a daughter is a glorious thing.  It made me a better man having this small, kindhearted, patient, non-aggressive, deeply empathetic little girl in my life.  Everyone warns you that they grow up and "turn on you" and my situation is no different, yet Nica and I had great run.  From seven seasons of coaching her in softball to watching seven seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer on DVD with her on my laptop, the two of us wedged into the big red chair in our living room- we were close until she turned 14.  Three Hunger Games books and four Hunger Games films in two Hunger Games movie marathons further cemented our bond.  Jaime and I were also able to share our love of theater with Nica who has a beautiful singing voice.  Our theater collaborations have included several shows, the high point being Carrie:  The Musical in 2015.  Jaime was the Producer, Nica played Sue Snell (red sweater in foreground right) and I was Mr. Stephens (wearing tie in background right).

The Cast of Carrie:  The Musical

My wife Jaime worried that it was going to kill me when our daughter inevitably turned away from us, yet I'd seen it happen to friends with daughters as young as 12 so I truly appreciated getting two more years of quality time with Nica.  Now at age 19 I'm lucky if I can get her to text me back in a single 24 hour period and we haven't spent more than 24 hours under the same roof since evacuating during the wildfires last October.  Nevertheless, I remain hopeful- as I often tell Jaime, "life is long."  I know in my heart

Jack and Kayla at her gradation

that Nica and I will be close again one day.  Case in point, Jack now lives an hour away in Cloverdale but we talk or text a couple of times a week and he and his girlfriend Kayla drive down to Sonoma to see us at least once a month.  In fact as I write this, they are stuck in traffic in Petaluma on the way to join us for a Father's Day hike at Bartholomew Park followed by dinner at the Fremont Diner.

Since becoming a father myself, I've noticed that while there are many examples of strong, competent and loving mothers on TV and in the movies, most fathers fit one of two profiles:

 


Tired, angry and out of touch, exemplified by Jack Arnold on The Wonder Years (portrayed by Dan Lauria) 

Or juvenile ass clowns, exemplified by virtually every other father on TV, but I'll go with the one I personally find most annoying: the guy Jim Belushi played (also named "Jim") on According To Jim.


Truth be told, I do love some doofus dads in the latter category, Homer Simpson and Phil Dunphy from Modern Family are two that immediately come to mind, but for every one of those, you'll find ten bumbling Tim Taylors (Tim Allen's character on Home Improvement) or whiny Ray Barones (played by Ray Romano on Everybody Loves Raymond- are you sensing a pattern here?)  And don't get me started on the Father of The Bride movies, I love Steve Martin but only made it through 25 minutes of that first film and even now I cringe thinking about it.


The funny thing is, the dads I remember most from TV reruns when I was a kid were almost godlike.  Ward Cleaver from Leave It To Beaver and, my personal favorite, Andy Taylor from The Andy Griffith Show- to quote AKG regular Greg Kihn- "they just don't write 'em like that anymore."  Even Mike Brady from The Brady Bunch was a huge step up from the lame dads we started seeing on TV in the 80's.

Which brings me to the point of this post- in the last year or so I've seen some beautiful, nuanced dad/daughter stories in a genre you wouldn't expect:  horror.  In retrospect, it started with 2016's Train To Busan.  As we hit "peak zombie" some time in the early 2010's, I was skeptical about the film but it is a great movie and the relationship between Seok-woo and his daughter Su-an amps up the tension.

Even better, this year's A Quiet Place is about a family, but at its core is the strained relationship between the father and daughter.  If you aren't moved by the last look shared between Lee and Regan Abbott then you might want to check and see if you still have a pulse.  Jaime even came to see A Quiet Place with me and she liked it- our first horror movie together since Army of Darkness in 1992.  (Hey, wait.  That was the year we got married... coincidence?  I think not!)  

While Su-an from Train To Busan is 6 or 7 years old and Regan from A Quiet Place is 11 or 12, the daughter in Australian zombie apocalypse movie Cargo raises the stakes even higher.  Daughter Rosie is only 12 months old; you think fighting off zombies is hard enough on your own, try doing it with a baby on board!  The final scenes in the movie are heartbreaking- what won't we dads do for our daughters!?! 

Tim from The Office UK. (top)
Jim from The Office US (bottom)

I can't be the only one to have noticed the interesting relationship between Cargo and A Quiet Place.  Cargo star Martin Freeman made his name playing Tim Canterbury on the original UK television series The Office.  John Krasinski, who wrote, directed and starred in A Quiet Place, made his name playing Jim Halpert on the US version of the The Office.  Perhaps that doesn't qualify as "interesting" in your book, but I saw the two movies within a week of each other and when I realized the connection it blew my mind.

Leave it to the oft derided horror genre to highlight brave, selfless fathers sacrificing everything for their kids- when was the last time you saw a dad like that on TV?  Of course my "life is long" philosophy doesn't really apply to horror movies but no matter how much time you've got left, where there's life (though not the undead kind of course) there's hope.  And look at that, Nica just texted me back she can join us for dinner! 

Father's Day 6/17/2018

Happy Father's Day to my fellow Rock and Roll Dads Everywhere!

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ALL KINDSA GIRLS SHOW #165

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