Show from 10/01/09: That Horrid 70s Show

The Seventies were weird.
I don’t mean The Stooges, Residents and Prog-Rock weird.
I mean there was some incredibly strange mainstream music on commercial radio throughout a big chunk of the 70’s and much of it was very bad. Bad then and really bad now.
Tonight, it’s Horrid 70’s music. Everything played was on the air a lot and much of it was on the Billboard top 100.

That’s how badly Viet Nam, Nixon and the economy affected us.

Play

Download (2 hours, 2 mins. 172.7 megs. @ 192kbps)

Playlist:
Intro: Lalo Schifrin/George Lucas – What’s Wrong? – THX-1138 OST
Clint Eastwood/Paul Frees – Movie Trailer – Play Misty For Me

Minnie Ripperton – Lovin’ You
Cliff Richard – Devil Woman (1976)
C.W. McCall – Convoy
Jim Stafford – My Girl Bill (1974)
Michael Martin Murphey – Wildfire
Henry Gross – Shannon (1976)
The Carpenters – Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft
Billy Preston – Space Race
Deep Purple – Space Truckin’ (Album Version)
Meco – Star Wars
Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band – A Fifth Of Beethoven
Ohio Players – Love Rollercoaster
The Guess Who – Clap for the Wolfman
Five Man Electrical Band – Werewolf
Captain & Tennille – Muskrat Love
Randy Newman – Short People
Frank Mills – Music Box Dancer
Blue Swede – Hooked On A Feeling
Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods – Billy, Don’t Be A Hero
Ringo Starr – Back Off Boogaloo
Morris Albert – Feelings (1975)
Barry Manilow – Mandy
Billy Joel – Piano Man
Harry Chapin -Taxi
Richard Harris – Mac Arthur Park
Stephen Bishop – On&On
Cher – Gypsies, Tramps And Thieves
Daddy Dewdrops – Chick-a-Boom 1972
Carl Douglas – Kung Fu Fighting (1974)
Meri Wilson – Telephone Man (1977)

This is part one. I have enough music from this era to do it next week. Feel free to put your suggestions for most forgotten/hated overplayed (back then, but not now) songs.

The KOUG is WSU’s radio station, streaming 24 hours a day at www.kougradio.com (Winamp, Windows Media Player and VLC).
Streams:
Winamp & I Tunes:
http://www.ophanim.net/cast/tunein.php/koug/playlist.pls

Windows Media Player:
http://www.ophanim.net/cast/tunein.php/koug/playlist.asx

Real Player:
http://www.ophanim.net/cast/tunein.php/koug/playlist.ram

QuickTime:
http://www.ophanim.net/cast/tunein.php/koug/playlist.qtl

Trouser Press Tuesday: Veil

I’ve been slacking and forgot to do one of these last week. Sorry ’bout that!
Here it is:

VEIL
Surrender (UK Clay) 1985

Attempting a gothic sound comparable to mid-period Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bryan Gregory’s first post-Cramps project, the aptly titled Beast, was nothing like his old group. The Beast’s three 45s in the early-’80s were of mixed quality, and Gregory soon faded into obscurity. His three bandmates, however, moved to the UK and forged ahead as the Veil, releasing an underrated album of dark poptones like “Manikin,” “Twist” (both singles) and “Love in a Dying World” (a Beast remake). Vocalist Andrella’s wispy voice and quasi-Egyptian shtick manage to charm even when some of the material does not.

Since 1974, Trouser Press has been covering the Other Music beat and currently resides on the web at www.trouserpress.com

I will be posting a random link from Trouser Press on every Tuesday until I just flat out forget.

No archive of this week’s show

No recording of tonight’s show (due to a fuck-up by yours truly), which is just as well as technical problems in the studio made it not so swell…

There was a show. It was part two of Musically Speaking. It was ok, but chaos due to a completely fubar air-room made it frustrating and not very fun.
I might reconstruct it as a playlist and upload it later, but probably won’t get around to it because I am busy preparing for an upcoming special on KBOO.

Sorry about that.

Show from 9/17/09 Musically Speaking

Tonight’s show was entitled Musically Speaking, featuring spoken word arts with music, or people speaking with music and under, over and through music.
With a few exceptions, no one’s singing and sometimes there’s speaking with no music.
Some obvious choices like William Burroughs, Gil Scott-Heron and few items from Giorno Poetry Systems records and the like. I played several short tracks by globe-trotting avant garde guitarist/vocalist Craig Burk, who used to do a show opposite me on KBOO.
I have enough of this hybrid-spoken-word-music to fill up several shows, so will continue this next week.

Play

Download (1 hour, 55 mins., 159 megs @ 192kbps)

Playlist:
(Artist – Track – Album)
Walter Murch/George Lucas – What’s Wrong – THX-1138 OST
Lounge Lizards – I Can’t Hardly Walk – Live 78-81 ROIR Cassette
Jim Carroll – A Peculiar Looking Girl – Better a New Demon Than an Old God
Butthole Surfers – A Boiled Dove – Smack My Crack
Bell Laboratories – How We Hear – The Science of Sound
Jim Larrance – It Is Called Radio – Best of No Soap Radio
Star Trek – Grammar – Conversational Klingon
Hakim Bey and Bill Laswell – Poetic Terrorism – TAZ
William S. Burroughs and Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy – Words of Advice for Young People – Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales
Gil Scott-Heron – The Revolution Will Not Be Televised – Pieces of a Man
D-Knowledge – The Revolution Will Be On the Big Screen – All That and a Bag of Words
Sarah Jones – Your Revolution – Your Revolution / The Higher Standard
Ivor Cutler and Linda Hirst – Women of the World – Privilege
Public Works – Numbers 1 – Numbers
Les Crane – Desiderata – Desiderata
National Lampoon – Deteriorata – Radio Dinner
Hakim Bey and Bill Laswell – Immediatism – TAZ
Public Works – Numbers 2 – Numbers
Katherine Dunn – King Ca Ca Boo Cycle – Cybere’t PDX
Maggie Estep – How to Get Free Burgers – Love is a Dog From Hell
Ken Nordine – Flibberty Jib – Best of Word Jazz Vol. I
Copernicus – From Bacteria – From Bacteria
Death in June (w/Boyd Rice) – Bring in the Night – Wall of Sacrifice
Happy Flowers – Charlie Got a Haircut – Too Many Bunnies
Craig Burk – Back To The Home Of My Mouth – Codes of Abstract Conduct
Craig Burk – Curl Up On The Couch – Codes of Abstract Conduct
Craig Burk – On A Hot Roll – Codes of Abstract Conduct
Craig Burk – Nothing In Particular – Codes of Abstract Conduct
Craig Burk – Let It Float – Codes of Abstract Conduct
Craig Burk – Let’s Get It All Done Tonight – Codes of Abstract Conduct
Craig Burk – Pick A Card – Codes of Abstract Conduct
Pigface – Binary System – Easy Listening for Difficult Fuckheads
Material – Seven Souls – Seven Souls
Psychic TV Presents – St. Francis E. – Ultrahouse – The LA Connection
Sonic Youth – In the Kingdom – EVOL
xxx – Closing Message – Drastic Perversions
Starlight Children’s Chorus – E.T. I Love You – E.T. I Love You

Trouser Press Tuesday: The 4 Skins

4 SKINS
The Good, the Bad & the 4 Skins (UK Secret) 1982
A Fistful of 4 Skins (UK Syndicate) 1983
From Chaos to 1984 (UK Syndicate) 1984
A Few 4 Skins More Volume 1 (UK Link) 1987
A Few 4 Skins More Volume 2 (UK Link) 1987
The Wonderful World of the 4 Skins: the Best of the 4 Skins (UK Link) 1987
Live and Loud!! (UK Link) 1989

One of the mainstays of second-wave Brit-punk, London’s harsh and serious 4 Skins — not as intense as Crass, but far more earnest than Sham 69 — endured major lineup changes (they went through four lead singers including, at one point, the quartet’s manager) long enough to record three albums in the early ’80s.

The studio side of The Good, the Bad & the 4 Skins starts out with a delightful ska-beat tune (“Plastic Gangsters”) and then turns angry skinhead generic for shoutalongs like “Justice” and “Yesterdays Heroes.” The seven-song live side is equally forbidding (Panther’s vocals are especially unpleasant)(…)

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Since 1974, Trouser Press has been covering the Other Music beat and currently resides on the web at www.trouserpress.com

I will be posting a random link from Trouser Press on every Tuesday until I just flat out forget.

The Kill Ugly Radio Adventure Hour

On every Thursday from 5pm – 7pm, Pacific Standard Time, on KOUG, WSU’s internet radio station. You can listen live at www.kougradio.com using Realplayer or VLC (recommended).

>>>Click here to launch the KOUG’s stream in Realplayer now;

Every show is archived here in high quality stereo mp3 with playlists and more. You can also subscribe to the show as a podcast via iTunes by copying this link: http://uglyradio.wordpress.com/feed/ and selecting in iTunes: Advanced: Subscribe to Podcast and pasting the link in the URL field and hitting OK.

Show from 9/10/09

Back after a week-long absence – where I was ably assisted by The Melvillain Show.

I had loads of trouble with some new equipment in the studio and some unforeseen (ahem!) changes to the mixing board, so the first few minutes were a little dodgy.

I played a tribute of sorts to the recently-departed Richard Francis (see entry earlier this week), mixing Terry Riley’s In C, Tod Dockstader’s Apocalypse and Alvin Lucier’s I Am Sitting in a Room simultaneously.
We heard some seasonal transitional mood music (for me anyway), with Loudon Wainright’s Summer’s Almost Over about two weeks too late, but I’ve always wanted to play it and was gone last week. So there.
Then I played a few things I’ve been listening on my iPod and while working. We heard some lovely crooning by Chris Connelly (Pigface), Peter Hammill, David Tibet (Current 93)and Graham Lewis (Wire). We also heard some weird interpretations of Black Sabbath and more.

Listen:

Download (2 hours, 167 megs. @ 192kbps)

Playlist:
(Artist – Track – Album)
Walter Murch/George Lucas – What’s Wrong – THX-1138 OST
Alvin Lucier – I Am Sitting in a Room – I Am Sitting in a Room
Tod Dockstader – Two Fragments from Apocalypse
Terry Riley – In C (Excerpt) – In C
Bell Laboratories – Echo and Reverberation – The Science of Sound
Francis Dhomont – Excerpt from Frankenstein Symphony
Century 21 – Pro Basics – Steamroller
Loudon Wainright III – Summer’s Almost Over – T-Shirt
Kathy McCarty – I Had a Dream – Dead Dog’s Eyeball
Gentle Giant – Black Cat – Acquiring the Taste
Terry Riley – In C (Excerpt) – In C
Copernicus – Humanity Created the Illusion of Itself – Disappearances
Copernicus – Atomic New Orleans – Disappearances
King Crimson – Exiles – Lark’s Tongue in Aspic
Current 93 – Malediction – Swastikas for Goddy
Peter Hammill – A Better Time – Sometime God Hides
Pigface – Miss Sway Action – Easy Listening for Difficult Fuckheads
Wire – A Touching Display – 154
William S. Burroughs – A New Standard By Which to Measure Infamy – Dead City Radio
1000 Homo DJs – Supernaut – Supernaut
Venetian Snares – Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath 10″
Venetian Snares – Electric Funeral – Black Sabbath 10″
SPK – Retard – Information Overload Unit
The Young Gods – Jimmy – The Young Gods
Twink – Flytrap – A Very Fine Adventure
Morgan Fisher, et al – Band 10 – Miniatures
Starlight Children’s Chorus – E.T. I Love You – E.T. I Love You

Trouser Press Tuesday: AFRIKA BAMBAATAA & THE JAZZY 5

AFRIKA BAMBAATAA & THE JAZZY 5
“Jazzy Sensation” (Tommy Boy) 1981
AFRIKA BAMBAATAA & SOULSONIC FORCE
“Looking for the Perfect Beat” (Tommy Boy) 1982
“Planet Rock” (Tommy Boy) 1982
“Renegades of Funk” (Tommy Boy) 1983
Planet Rock — The Album (Tommy Boy) 1986
“Return to Planet Rock” (York’s) 1990
TIME ZONE
“The Wildstyle” (Celluloid) 1983
“World Destruction” (Celluloid) 1984
(…)
Bronx DJ-turned-hip-hop-godfather Bambaataa not only created the record that thrust beatbox electro-funk into the ’80s and brought Kraftwerk onto the dancefloor, he has made pioneering sides with numerous performers and established himself as a major figure in contemporary music. Working mainly in the 12-inch format, Bam’s ascent began with a routine boast rap, “Jazzy Sensation,” but got into gear with “Planet Rock,” the Arthur Baker-produced (and co-written, with the band and John Robie) explosion of scratch cuts, electronic gimmickry, processed vocals and solid-state rhythms. (Both tracks were later compiled on the Tommy Boy label retrospective, Greatest Beats.) “Looking for the Perfect Beat” is even better, with Baker mostly soft-pedaling the monolithic pounding in favor of a skittish electronic metronome and tacking on fancier effects, vocals and mix tricks to create an ultra-busy urban symphony. The mega-rhythmic “Renegades of Funk” adds social/historical/political lyrics to the dance-floor dynamism and delivers a really bizarre blend of rap, synthesizers and oppressive electronic percussion(…)

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Since 1974, Trouser Press has been covering the Other Music beat and currently resides on the web at www.trouserpress.com

I will be posting a random link from Trouser Press on every Tuesday until I just flat out forget.

Richard Francis ~ 1948 – 2009

As I started writing this, Richard Francis, host of A Different Nature, was in a medically-induced coma after suffering a heart attack on the eve of his last show.
He didn’t show up before the broadcast, which alarmed those that knew him well; Richard was a meticulous planner and was always early for his shows, often polishing up the details up to the last minute.
When he failed to show up – most of the show being pre-prepared by other participants, no one had to be told that the show must go on while a friend traced his route back to his apartment and finally calling area emergency rooms.
Her worst fears were realized when she learned that he was indeed in Emmanuel Hospital’s ICU, having collapsed in a market.
As of this writing, he’s unresponsive to any stimuli and shows no brain activity.
The plan was to slowly take him out of the coma to assess the damage while his family descended on Portland from the Midwest.

Richard is KBOO’s Dean of Avant-garde and Surrealism. He’s hosted his program of adventurous music since the  early Eighties and each program is carefully planned like a class curriculum. I’ve been fortunate to have listened to it since I’ve been in High School, which is to say well over 20 years.
I feel like I’ve gotten quite an education from Professor Francis. He turned lucky and brave listeners onto Musique Concrète, historical Dada recordings and writings, early electronic music, environmental recordings and so much more.
I remember what an epiphany it was hearing Lucier’s I Am Sitting In A Room on Richard’s show all those years ago and him explaining what it was about and why it was important. It changed my view of art and music forever.
He also curated the 2001 Dada Fest marathon and was Field Marshall for its five-day revival in 2008.  Richard fearlessly led us into much mayhem on that hot summer and I was fortunate to have participated in a few of those events. The atmosphere of surreal creativity was most contagious.
He’s also largely responsible for the considerable collection of Avant-Gard music – both historic and modern – in KBOO’s labyrinthian library. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of strange and experimental music, which he loved sharing with people. When he flies away, it’ll be as if a giant museum burned to the ground.
I can’t imagine KBOO without him.

And so it goes…
I just received the news from Daniel Flessas that his family and the doctors thought it was in the best interests of Richard’s wishes – given his situation – that he be taken off of life support:

“At about 4 pm today, the family has decided to take Richard off the respirator, and it will be just a matter of time then how long his body will stay alive. The neurologist and others have decided that that the higher function areas of his brain, which made Richard “Richard”, his ability to think, to know, to communicate, what made up his very identity, seems to be not coming back. There is a question of how much time his brain was without oxygen, unconscious at the convenience store, before the response team arrived. But he has not been responsive since then (Monday late afternoon).(…)
But Richard is having some new experience without us, has moved into it now, and has left this one, whether we’re ready or not.”

I’m not and am not sure when I will be. I can only say thank you, Richard, for one hell of an education and for showing me how to bravely plow forward for art.
Peace.
Rich

Trouser Press Tuesday: ROBERT GORDON (WITH LINK WRAY)

This is cool; I was just watching Link Wray clips on YouTube this weekend and I own one of these records on vinyl:

ROBERT GORDON WITH LINK WRAY
Robert Gordon with Link Wray (Private Stock) 1977
Fresh Fish Special (Private Stock) 1978
ROBERT GORDON
Rock Billy Boogie (RCA) 1979
Bad Boy (RCA) 1980
Are You Gonna Be the One (RCA) 1981
Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die (RCA) 1982
Live at Lone Star (Fr. New Rose) 1989
Robert Gordon Is Red Hot (Ger. Bear Family) 1989

Singer Robert Gordon made one of the sharpest volte-faces in musical memory when he left New York pseudo-punkers Tuff Darts to reappear as a freeze-dried ’50s rocker, complete with sideburns, pompadour, a songbook of Sun Records oldies and authentic guitar icon Link Wray in tow.

Superficial trappings aside, Gordon’s strongest asset is his magnificent voice — a clear, clean baritone rarely heard in pop music of any stripe. His debut album, Robert Gordon with Link Wray, is suffused with rockabilly material (songs from Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent, Billy Lee Riley and Eddie Cochran), but the accompaniment by the Wildcats is more contemporary, with Wray contributing sizzling guitar licks(…)

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Since 1974, Trouser Press has been covering the Other Music beat and currently resides on the web at www.trouserpress.com

I will be posting a random link from Trouser Press on every Tuesday until I just flat out forget.