June 30th, 2011 : Cause & Effect : Siouxsie & the Banshees

It has been 30 years this June since the release of Siouxsie and the Banshees' Juju so tonight will be a celebration of the incredible and highly influential 20 years of music this band created. Tune into WRIR from 7pm to 9pm (Eastern Standard Time) locally on your radio dial at 97.3fm or stream live at www.wrir.org.









Some examples of music in the cue for tonight:


Siouxsie favorite songs / influences : Hendrix, Stones, Johnny Leyton, Roxy Music, Sparks, Bowie
Off shoot bands : The Glove, Adam and the Ants, Slits, Magazine, Creatures
Followers: U2, Cocteau Twins, Bjork, Santogold, Yeah Yeah Yeahs

*post show update - download the show here.

Great, now I am going to have nightmares.

I have a love / hate thing for this song and the video doesn't help. 

Messieurs Richard de Bordeaux et Daniel Beretta chantent Psychose (Papa) 

Tim Buckley Illustration

One last piece from the Dec 1968 issue of Eye; an illustration by Mona Mark of Tim Buckley. Groovy to say the least.

More Eye Magazine Photos from Dec, 1968

I would love to know if I am right in guessing that photographer Baron Wolmon was hired specifically for Eye Magazine shoots so I don't think these photos can be found in other places. Such great work - here are two examples, Harry Nilsson (sitting with his favorite possession, a hand -crank 1905 Victor Talking Machine with a laminated oak bell) and the ever smoking hot Peggy Lipton who is best known for her acting rather than her recording career. (My personal favorite - Norma from Twin Peaks!)

Muntz Stereo-Pak Ad from 1968

Taken from the December issue of Eye Magazine.

Janis & Grace

These two images come from an interview with Janis Joplin and Grace Slick. My scanner doesn't have a large enough bed to handle the large format of the magazine but I tried to work around it best I could. These come from a June Eye Magazine, 1968 and the photos are by Baron Wolman.

Eau De Groove

This French perfume ad was taken from Eye Magazine, June, 1968.

Give Disco the Heave - Ho

The Joy of EZ Listening.

More Than Just a Photo

The work of Charles Peterson taught me at an early age that capturing a band either posed or live was a true art form and if done right can express the true energy, spirit, and personality of an artist or group. I never gave much thought to band photography until I was introduced to his work in 1990. Fifteen years later in 2005 I was fortunate enough to see an entire exhibit ("Touch Me I'm Sick") dedicated to his talent at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, VA. Charles was also there for the opening night and I had a chance to show him the pile of his band press photos I had collected during the '90s.

He was signing books that evening so I am especially glad I had the opportunity to shake his hand and thank him for opening my eyes to a world of music I had originally been just using my ears to enjoy. He seemed a little confused as to how a girl who grew up NJ had all these pictures by him but I explained I had friends who worked at Sub Pop and that I eventually moved to the Emerald City so it wasn't too bizarre of a tale. Charles mentioned he didn't have a copy of a few of them (the promo photo card version) one of them being of Mark Lanegan (image below), singer from the Screaming Trees who at the time had released his first solo record for Sub Pop.

Found within this post are two promo pics (Nirvana w/ the original line up + Mark Lanegan) from my personal collection; now signed by CP.

By the end of 2011

I believe every musical entity who has ever walked the earth will have a documentary made about them. I can't decide if that is a good thing or not.

Better Than Something is a documentary about Jay Reatard and there will be a screening Sunday, June 26 @ 9:15pm @ AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, MD.

"Instead of having children...

what if we made ourselves the new person instead?"

Add in some W.S. Burroughs/ Brion Gysin cut-up techinque, cosmetic surgery, and there you have the concept of the third being. Or in this dimension, what was the complex relationship between Genesis and Lady Jaye.

I am adding this to the ever growing list of music related documentaries I very much look forward to seeing.

I Wish Kevin Smith Would Learn How To Dress Himself

but his most recent Smoviola event at Lincoln Center that featured Valley Girl was pretty bitchin'.

He moderated a Q & A with the maker of Valley Girl director Martha Coolidge, star Deborah Foreman ( THAT JULIE CHICK IS TRULY DAZZLING!) and cinematographer Frederick Elmes.

Before Built to Spill,

frontman Dug Martch was in the Treeople.



This is an ancient press photo of the band taken in early '90s I guess?

I have a lot of warm feelings towards this band, not only because they were my favorite band from the Pacific Northwest (take that Nirvana) but because they were the first band to ever stay with me (1990 or 1991), inspired me to want to learn how to play guitar, and in an effort to help the band as much as I could, eventually move to Seattle to work for C/Z Records, the label they were on. The only irony here is Dug left the band just as I moved out there but lucky for me, Built to Spill was right around the corner.

On a sad note, member Pat Brown committed suicide in 1999. He was the first person I knew who took their own life and the first of too many good people from that area to leave us too early.

Sub Pop Records Press Kits Circa the Early '90s

I have been digging around my closets and unearthing many treasures to further prove my obsession with Seattle in the late '80s / early '90s. Here are some press kits that a friend who worked at Sub Pop at the time sent me. We were pen pals and often his letters were written on the back of these things- posters, pictures, and handbills.

Here are some press kits I have that are anywhere from 6 to 20 pages each. 

Jon Langford of the Mekons Interviewed

I am equal parts fan of his music and his wood art. If you can't afford his paintings, he now has a book too.

Austrian Grim Pop

Ala Nico, Fever Ray with maybe a little Cat Power in there for good measure. The band is called Soap & Skin who as far as I can tell is just this one woman, Anja Plaschg. It looks like she hasn't made new music in a few years but I can only hope there will be more to come.

Eleanoora Rosenholm : I have no idea what these songs are about,

but they are none the less haunting; especially in video form.

A few more pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Soundgarden at Maxwell's in Hoboken, NJ 1990 - the whole band.

Atari Teenage Riot at CBGBs in NYC- 1997?

Little Roy Covers Nirvana

Via Ark Recordings : "Limited 7" from Jamica reggae artist (only 500 copies pressed). These are covers of the Nirvana SubPop double A-side single. Produced by Prince Fatty and being set for release to coincide with Nirvana's 20th Anniversary of 'Nevermind'.

The best part is, this is really good!

Drive-By-Truckers Cause & Effect Download

Better late than never!

The first 30 minutes of my radio show vanished do to technical troubles (too many listeners streaming the show bumped my recording connection off line.) but  I have managed to rescue the rest of it and for your listening pleasure added a few bonus tracks that we ran out of time for on air. Download it here. I have edited my show down to remove PSAs and underwriting so it is all quality Jay / Truckers time.

This means you will have more than half of the radio show to enjoy as well as these bonus songs; material Jay and his trusted circle of friends who are also experts on the Truckers hand picked as bands influenced by the DBTs :

1. "Hurricane J" - Hold Steady  

2. "Last Night in Town" - Lucero

3. "Down Low" Dexateens"

4. "Sorry Dreams" - Horsehead

My apologies for not being able to deliver the whole radio for your listening pleasure. Never in the history of doing my radio show at WRIR have we had so many listeners on-line that we overwhelmed our server at the station to the point it shut down - no less multiple times. WOW.

More Soundgarden Pictures

I took these my senior year of high school in 1990 at Maxwell's in Hoboken, NJ. You can read more about the show here.

IF YOU REUSE MY PHOTOS PLEASE GIVE ME CREDIT : TKW

 

This is a picture of the wall / base of the Sub Pop headquarters in Seattle, WA. I took in1992.

Ringfinger Ponders Heidegger

I know, I know. It has been a while but the one positive thing I can say about my unemployment stint is that it has given me time to work on some new music AKA Ringfinger returns. I have been on the other side of the music industry for so long that I have almost forgotten about the part of me that makes my own music. I have been so focused on my career of selling other people's art that it has been genuine pleasure to revisit my artistic side.

Here is the link to my demo for a new Ringfinger song that I have been working on for the past month.. I wanted to stray away from percussion heavy writing to see what happens when I rely less on beats and more on melodies and found sounds.

My goal is to finish a Ringfinger record (at least the demos for) by the end of this Summer and if things go as I hope they will, there will be more songs to share in the months to come.

Wanna Be Your Ghost Dog

Jim Jarmusch to make a film on the Stooges.

Watching Alan Partridge Brought Me to This.

Peter Gabriel + Kate Bush doing a duet written by Roy Harper for a 1979 for a Christmas special.

Quick Update on the Drive-By-Truckers Show

The good news is we broke a show record for having the most people tuned into the show at one time - THANK YOU FOR TUNING IN ! ! ! The bad news is that it overwhelmed our radio station's server and in turn I lost the stream I was recording the show off of to put into a podcast type deal. Please let me know if you recorded the show as I would LOVE to get a copy of it in MP3 form so I can post it / share it with the folks who missed this very special edition of Cause & Effect. 

Tomorrow I will also post a mix of the songs we didn't have time to air too. Thanks again to those who tuned in and a BIG thanks to all those who helped Jay put this show together, especially Patterson Hood. 

Here is the link to tonight's set list and here are the notes I promised to share that Patterson wrote about some of his influences. 

Bruce springsteen -

as you know I saw The Boss on Feb 13 1981 in Starkville MS and it is still my all time favorite concert.

That was The River and as we all know I Iove a good story song so lets play a GREAT one. TITLE CUT. (THE RIVER)

The Band

Push comes to shove, my all time favorite band. First heard them (knowingly) when they played Saturday Night Live right before The LAst Waltz, It was 3 nights before the 76 election and they ended the evening by playing Georgia On My Mind. Jimmy Carter was elected President that tuesday. My all time fave Band song is THE NIGHT THEY DROVE OLD DIXIE DOWN for more reasons than I have time to list.

Clash

When I was in High School my alarm would go off at exactly 6:25 for me to go to school. I had an old GE clock radio and loved in the county and the only station I could pick up was WQLT, which was our crappy top 40 station and they were always playing something I hated, except for about 2 weeks straight in 1980 they would be playing TRAIN IN VAIN which is still one of my all time favorite songs.

Tom Petty

The name of my very first band was Breakdown (1979) named after the TPHB song. I've ALWAYS Loved Tom Petty, but my favorite song of his is SOUTHERN ACCENTS. The piano against Jack Neitzes' string arrangement is absolute perfection.

R.E.M.

Still my all time favorite Southern Rock Band and Athens GA Band. I fell in love with REM when Chronic Town was still their only record and have loved them ever since. This increased tenfold in 1984 (Reckoning Tour) when this really great friend of mine took my broke butt to Oxford MS to see them for my first time. That friend was of course Jay Leavitt. I played an REM tribute in Athens for their favorIte charity and they all came. I had to sing this song in front of them. It's still one of my faves. DON'T GO BACK TO ROCKVILLE.

Replacements

Their album Tim literally inspired me to drop out of school and form Adam's House Cat with Mike Cooley back in 1985. The rest as they say is... insanity. HERE COMES A REGULAR. A few years later I saw them open for Tom Petty the night Tom fired them on stage and kicked them off the tour in Nashville TN. They deserved it. It was a glorious night of Rock and Roll though.

Todd Rundgren

Push comes to shove, my favorite album of all time is Something/Anything?. My favorite song on that album is HELLO ITS ME. I keep saying I want to someday write one of those 33 1/3 books about that one but I bet someone beats me to it.

If you were to add one more, I'd think Curtis Mayfield's FREDDIE'S DEAD.

I just absolutely love that song and always have. it IS a huge influence writing wise, especially it's circular structure and use of a move as an influence. In this case, he took a minor character and wrote a song about him so great that it made him a major part of the story even though he's actually barely mentioned in the actual movie. Brilliant.

- Patterson

June 9, 2011 : Cause & Effect : Drive-By-Truckers

Tonight from 7PM to 9PM and only on WRIR (97.3FM on your dial in RVA or stream live at www.wrir.org), there will be a shift in Caue & Effect's normal format to accommodate my special on air guest Jay Leavitt.

He is a close friend of Patterson Hood from the Drive-By-Truckers (as well as the whole band) and he and Patterson have cooked up a terrific show. I will surrender the mic over to Jay for the evening and just let him do his thing.

Much like the music of the Truckers, tonight will be two hours of storytelling. Jay will be offering up the story of this band using music by the band's influences, off-shoot projects, the band's catalog (rare live tracks too!), musical peers, and the bands who have been influenced by the Truckers. All of this will be narrated by Jay live and for a final touch of awesomeness, I will be posting Patterson's notes about the songs here as well as on the WRIR blog post with the tracklisting as well.

Jay is a gifted and engaging speaker who will be able to share the story of the Truckers in a way that no one else could come close to. If you are a fan of the Drive-By-Truckers, you will not want to miss this very personal and touching account of the band and their ties to Richmond, VA.

The Facebook invite about the show is here.

The Truckers are playing in RVA tomorrow night and for information you can go here.









This took place in the alley next to the record store Jay owns, Deep Groove Records

Amon Tobin IMAM Live : The Rebirth of Electionic Music

Check out Amon live in Montreal at the MUTEK festival. This has given me faith in Electronic music again.

Some Next Level Sh*t

Certainly among some of the most stunning cover art concepts I have ever seen. Fonal Records does it again, check out this video for the upcoming Tuusanuuskat release.

Friday Flashcard : Name That Metal Band

It has been a good 6 months since I did this last but here we go again. I supply the logo, you guess the band, and then answer will be in the comment section. There is no prize, just the satisfaction that you are metal literate.

This band shares the same hometown as the Humboldt Crabs, a semi-pro baseball team that has been playing every year since 1945. They also happen to have a rather lovely logo that if placed upside down and turned into a 3-D model would make a lovely June bride's tiara.

So many record stores, so little time.

This time, in Bryn Mawr, PA.

June 2, 2011 : Cause & Effect : What's Going On

Forty years ago Marvin Gaye's politically charged album What's Going On (and no, that isn't a question - Marvin is telling us in fact what IS going on) debuted.

His label Motown/Tamla was convinced it was doomed to fail because of its unsavory themes but Americans felt otherwise about this concept album. It resonated with a country who like Marvin had strong feelings and frustrations with the Vietnam War, police brutality, drug abuse, racism, and environmental concerns to name just a few key issues plaguing the country. Sales were so tremendous that is rested on on the Billboard charts for more than a years time, selling over 2 million copies in just a year and a half. Over the last 4 decades nearly every mainstream music media outlet has voted What's Going On one of the greatest albums of all time and one of the most important political soul records to come out of America, ever.

Motown has recently announced that an extra special reissue of What's Going On is in the works so it seemed to be the prefect time to revisit this record on air. Tonight from 7PM to 9M I will focus on this WGO, looking at the building blocks to what Marvin used to make this record, the songs from this classic record (as well as the artists who have covered them), and a handful of the thousands of artists who have either re-recorded versions of his music or been wildly influenced by his creative output.

What I didn't realize while working on this show is just how many legendary politically infused soul records were released in 1971 so while the primary focus tonight is Marvin Gaye, the secondary focus is a 101 look into soul music from the late '60s to the mid '70s that carried a groove and a heavy message. 

Tune in tonight to WRIR, 97.3 on your FM dial if you are a RVA local or stream it live at www.wrir.org.