February 14, 6pm
Singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist and all around hunka-hunka sexy man, Mark Growden is in the studio tonight, plugging the CD release party for his latest effort “Lose Me In The Sand”.
Mark’s a friend, and a compatriot, so the stories are very lose and relaxed. I always look forward to having touring musicians on to tell their road stories. Tune in and enjoy.
Here’s the link from the show. Enjoy.
Roustabout: Elvis Presley
Into The Sun: Lord Huron
Get High Babe: John Wesley Coleman III
Some Adventist preacher talking really low.
Bana Witt talking porn
Bottom of the World: Tom Waits
Wafer o’ Darkness: Three Day Stubble
I’ll Take Care of You: Mark Lanegan
Sixty-Minute Man: Dominoes, The
I Was Denied: Thee Oh Sees
You Ain’t Never Been Loved: Mark Growden
Interview with Mark Growden
Lovin’ Emma: Mark Growden with Tim O’Conner
Takin; My Time: Mark Growden
Interview with Mark Growden
Star Spangled Benz/Molly Rose Waltz: Mark Growden
Settle in a Little While: Mark Growden
Bones: Mark Growden
Interview with Mark Growden
Stealing the Ocean: Mark Growden
Jesus Didn’t Die For Me: Rube Waddell
Buy tix for his shows at the Brava, this weekend.
February 13, 9pm
Join John Hell on A Season in Hell, Valentines Night 8-10PM (PST), as he welcomes singer/songwriter Mark Growden back to the Radio Valencia studios. Mark is having a CD release party this weekend for his new CD “Lose Me In The Sand” at the Brava Theater in San Francisco. Mark will be talking about the road, and recording with the musicians he meets along the way. Tune in.
February 7, 7pm
Here’s the link to the show. Enjoy.
Roustabout: Elvis Presley
I love Cars and Girls: The Dictators
Dreaming: The Cherubs
Jeremy’s Storm: Tame Impala
Forest Ocean Sound: Landing
No Time for Dreaming: Charles Bradley
Interview with Susanne Tabata director of Bloodied But Unbowed, and Randy Rampage of DOA
The Prisoner: DOA
Tommy in Seven Minutes: Rats of Unusual Size and Friends
Fishing: PIL
Earth People: Dr. Octagon
Am I Black Enough For Ya: Schoolly D.
I Call My Baby Pussycat: Parliament
Do I Look Like A Slut?: Avenue D
Ca Plane Pour Moi (cover): Thee Headcoatees
Dr. Wu: Minutemen
sweet child o’mine/all out of love: Guns and Roses/Air Supply
Frankie and Albert: Taj Mahal
Down Home Girl: The Coasters
What a Wonderful World: Louis Armstrong
February 1, 8am
It’s been a while since I’ve been alone with you. I’ve missed your touch, the way you taste, the way you feel. Let’s take it real slow tonight, baby.
To hear this fine show, click on the archives link, then on the January 31st A Season in Hell podcast. Enjoy.
Roustabout: Elvis Presley
She Watch Channel Zero: Public Enemy
Home Affairs: Osibisa
Buenos Tardes Amigo: Ween
Aquarian Time: Wooden Shijps
Cocaine Blues: Johnny Cash
Messin’ With The Kid: Junior Wells & The Aces
5-Piece Chicken Dinner->Lookin’ Down the Barrel of a Gun: Beastie Boys
Peace Frog->Blue Sunday: The Doors
Constipation Blues: Hawkins, Screamin’ Jay
Hama: Boris
A Kiss to Build a Dream on: Louis Armstrong & Band (04-14-62)
I’ll Be Your Lover Too: Van Morrison
Halfway To Danville: Lee Simpson
Cortez the Killer: Neil Young and Crazy Horse (02-07-84)
Tom Violence: Sonic Youth (08-17-90)
The Catholics Are Attacking: Pop-O-Pies
My Way: Frank Sinatra
Derelicts of Dialect: Third Bass
Goin’ Out West: Tom Waits
January 31, 7pm
It’s been a while since I’ve been alone with you. I’ve missed your touch, the way you taste, the way you feel. Let’s take it real slow tonight, baby.
Listen here.
Roustabout: Elvis Presley
She Watch Channel Zero: Public Enemy
Home Affairs: Osibisa
Buenos Tardes Amigo: Ween
Aquarian Time: Wooden Shijps
Cocaine Blues: Johnny Cash
Messin’ With The Kid: Junior Wells & The Aces
5-Piece Chicken Dinner->Lookin’ Down the Barrel of a Gun: Beastie Boys
Peace Frog->Blue Sunday: The Doors
Constipation Blues: Hawkins, Screamin’ Jay
Hama: Boris
A Kiss to Build a Dream on: Louis Armstrong & Band (04-14-62)
I’ll Be Your Lover Too: Van Morrison
Halfway To Danville: Lee Simpson
Cortez the Killer: Neil Young and Crazy Horse (02-07-84)
Tom Violence: Sonic Youth (08-17-90)
The Catholics Are Attacking: Pop-O-Pies
My Way: Frank Sinatra
Derelicts of Dialect: Third Bass
Goin’ Out West: Tom Waits
January 24, 6pm
I’ve been a fan of John Zorn since about 1994, when the first Masada recording came out, Aleph. I had the extreme pleasure of seeing him twice in concert, in SF; once with Masada in 1996, and once with Electric Masada in 2009. At the Yoshi’s show in 2009, I sat at the stage with Zorn directly within reach. He sweat on me. I have yet to wash.
Anyway, if you’re not familiar with the works of John Zorn, you should be warned. Zorn ranges from the stripped down, straight-ahead jazz combo-stylings, to the most avant garde. This show will showcase many different Zorn groups. The first hour is a smattering of all things Zorn. Hours two and three will feature the Masada family-tree (Masada, Electric Masada, Bar Kokhba, Emergency, and many artists who play with Zorn. The fourth and final hour is about letting loose. Seriously lOoSe! Cobra, Naked City, IAO, Yamatsuka Eye, Massacre, and too many more to mention. Listen in.
Hour One:
Executioner: Painkiller
Mystic Circles: The Dreamers
Music bed: Iao
Sicilian Clan: The Big Goundown
Conquest Of Mexico – Part 2: First Recordings
The Gift live (09-11-03)
Broadway Blues: Spy vs. Spy
Funk in a Deep Freeze: News for Lulu
Seduction: She Must be Seeing Things (Film Works 1986-1990)
B’rachos: Masada String Trio
Shtetl (Ghetto Life): Kristallnacht
Inside Straight: Naked City
Hour two:
Beeroth: Masada 5 (Hei)
Labbiel: Secret Chiefs 3
Zagzagel: Medeski, Martin and Wood (07-04-09)
Khebar: Bar Kokhba
Tekufah: Electric Masada (06-29-07)
Zemer: Book of Angels, Vol.7, Book 1: Zayin
Ezeqeel: Jamie Saft Trio
Kezef: Marc Ribot, Vol. 7, Book 2: Asmodeus
Ne’eman: The Wolleson’s
Hour three:
Postizo: Marc Ribot y los Cubanos Postizos
Shofetim: Yoshida Tatsuya: The Unknown Masada
Let Me People Go: Diaspora Soul
Sippur: Masada String Trio (50th Birthday, Vol. 1)
Rahtiel: Stolas: The Book of Angels, Vol. 12 (feat. Joe Lovano)
Bahir: Masada Rock
Oceania: Coalition of the Willing
Meholalat: West Coast Masada (05-30-98)
Hath-Arob: Electric Masada: At the Mountains of Madness
Rokhev: Bar Kokhba
Hour four:
D. Popylepis: Cobra
Supplicant: Moonchild
Leviathan: IAO
The Wish: Zorn: Locus Solus
Punk China Doll: Naked City
Rolled Surface: Tears of Ecstasy
Spiral: Tears of Ecstacy
Zorn with Yamatsuka Eye (03-16-95)
Black Chamber: Painkiller
Hemophiliac (12-31-05)
Yellow: Elegy
Necromicon (04-26-07)
Carne Cruda Squarciata Dal Suono Di Sassofono: Mike Patton
Shangkuan Ling-Feng: Naked City
January 22, 11am
A terrible happenstance in radio this week, as University of San Francisco sold their broadcast license of KUSF to USC Classical Public Radio. SF classical radio dinosaur KDFC has taken over 90.3FM.
Today I’ve invited KUSF staff/DJs into the studio to play music, take calls, and talk about what’s happening.
Hour one: DJ Nobody and DJ Mun
Singapore: Tom Waits
Pachuco Cadaver: Captain Beefheart
JH with Nobody and Mun
Alice Donut: Untidy Suicides
Taking calls about KUSF
Dedicated to the Press: Betty Davis
Example 22: Laurie Anderson
Missing: Datalist
Taking calls (Ratso)
Board of Sups on the 25th this afternoon, and a rally at 1pm. The sup’s are on KUSF’s side.
Green-Eyed Lady: Vanilla Fudge
Music Automatic: Stereo Total
Do Right: Cabaret Voltaire
Hour two:
John Hell with KUSF DJs Fari and The 6th Degree
It’s not Time To Say Goodbye: This Old Earthquake
Talking and taking calls.
Hour three:
John Hell welcomes DJs Jantine and Amperdan, Shekky and Cellbot
Dedicated to the one I love: The Shirelles
Trying Times: Roberta Flack
Talking to Jantine, Amperdan and Shekky and Cellbot
Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio: The Ramones
Fight the Power: Public Enemy
Mighty Mighty: Baby Huey
Last 5 minutes of KUSF
Music is the World: Crown Heights Affair
Hour four:
John Hell welcomes KUSF DJs Germ, Shekky and Stereo Steve
Neon Beanbag: Stereolab
Talking to KUSF DJs Germ, Shekky and Stereo Steve
Heedless: No Joy
You Girls Smoke Cigarettes: No Joy
Pushing Too Hard: The Seeds
My Black Bag: The Mermen
The Catholics Are Attacking: Pop-O-Pies
Pressure Drop: The Clash
Stars and Stripes of Corruption: Dead Kennedy’s
January 18, 4pm
Tonight on the show I welcome Laurent Martini of Live Evil.
Who is Live Evil?
(From their website: http://www.walkouttorockout.com/
“Live Evil (www.liveevilrocks.com) is the heavy metal playground that existed only in the mind of wannabe rocker Laurent Martini, whose love of Motley Crue drove him to pen over 120 song lyrics during his teen-aged years as he tried (albeit in vain) to evoke the rocker lifestyle: loose women, boozing, and life on the road. Having leapt from his brain to the stage after 19 years, Live Evil is a two-parts fist-pumping arena rock concert, one-part failed high-school talent show and ultimately an endearing cocktail ultimately about a childhood dream that refuses to fade.”
Laurent will be on the show promoting the 5th anniversary party for a great show: Mortified (http://www.getmortified.com/), which Live Evil will be playing at.
This should be lovely.
Hour One:
Roustabout: Elvis Presley
We’re All In This Together: Gabby Young & Other Animals
Mutant: Wavves
Pigs on the Wing 1 & 2: Pink Floyd (from the UK only 8-track release)
Red Lights: Holy Fuck
Marine Salute: Liquorball
Kissing Clouds: Sweet Bulbs
Dada Brown: Lil Daggers
The Smoke: Home Video
Get High Babe: John Wesley Coleman III
Hour Two:
Laurent Martini in the studio
Get Down and Blow Me: Live Evil
Laurent Martini in the studio
Wild Tonight: Live Evil
TnT: AC/DC (12-09-79)
Street Fighting Man: Rolling Stones (07-26-72)
Everyday People: Sly and the Family Stone (09-01-69)
In My Time of Dying: The Black Crowes with Jimmy Page (10-18-99)
January 18, 4pm
If you were a rock music fan in the mid-1970s, you couldn’t have had a more unlikely savior than Don Kirshner. His nasal voice and balding, leisure-suited appearance made him less the stuff of hero worship than unbridled spoofing—and Paul Shaffer’s repeated impressions of him on Saturday Night Live in the late ’70s are still the stuff of legend. But Kirshner, who died Monday at age 76, was a critical pioneer for rock & roll on television with Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, the syndicated weekly show that ran from 1973 to 1982, its end perhaps not coincidentally coinciding with the birth of MTV. At a time when, if you wanted visuals to go with your music, you pretty much had to stare at an album cover, Kirshner was rock’s primary delivery system to American living rooms, nebbish or not.
It could be argued that Kirshner had an even more real and lasting influence on pop music as a behind-the-scenes figure in the early 1960s, when he was half-owner of Aldon Music, the famous Brill Building publishing outfit that signed songwriters like Neil Sedaka, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Gerry Goffin, and Carole King. He was also largely responsible for the Monkees—and the Archies. More creditably, he gave Bobby Darin his first big break.
But in the popular mindset, Kirshner will be remembered in the popular mindset less for any of those accomplishments than… that monotone. Not since Ed Sullivan had there been such a disconnect between the wild, world-changing rockers on the tube and the old-before-his-time nerd introducing them.
Watch the above clip of Kirshner introducing Queen on his television series, and you’ll see all the hallmarks that Shaffer was able to hilariously (and affectionately) spoof in the early years of SNL: the flatness of voice, the looking off-camera toward cue cards, and the completely incomprehensible recitation of an act’s record label, management, agents, and/or promoters, as if America gave a rat’s behind about who the suits behind the band were.
“When I did him on Saturday Night Live,” Shaffer said in a 2004 interview, “I would just make up names of promoters and managers. (But) the guy on Rock Concert was nothing like the real Don Kirshner. He’s actually a really funny guy.”
Indeed, if Kirshner could seem stilted and even a little tone-deaf on-camera, he was more than sharp enough off-camera, when he stopped looking like a deer caught in the headlights and got back to business.
Although Kirshner was left out of Beyond the Sea, Kevin Spacey’s Bobby Darin biopic, he was a crucial figure in Darin’s early career, having met the future star at age 20, when they began writing songs together. Their partnership as manager and client was close enough that Darin married fellow star Sandra Dee in Kirshner’s apartment. The two fell out as Darin’s celebrity grew, but Kirshner found another great partner in entrepreneur Al Nevons, with whom he formed Aldon Music. They were responsible for teaming up some of the greatest songwriters of the early ’60s and publishing such indelible hits as “Walkin’ in the Rain,” “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” “On Broadway,” and “The Locomotion.”
Columbia Music bought the company in the mid-’60s but installed Kirshner as the head of Screen Gems, where he was the music consultant for shows including Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie. More historically, however, he was the guy in charge of music for TV’s answer to the Beatles, the Monkees, and he had the faux four record smashes like “Daydream Believer” and “I’m a Believer.”
When the Monkees, like Pinocchio, got it in their heads that they wanted to be a real band, heads clashed and tempers flared. Michael Nesmith won that battle, if he arguably lost the war when the group floundered doing original material. One flare-up came when Kirshner wanted the Monkees to record “Sugar Sugar,” and, obviously, they balked. “I said, ‘Screw the Monkees. I want a band that won’t talk back’,” he recalled later. As sung anonymously by a crew of cartoon rockers, “it was the Number 1 song of 1969. It outsold the Rolling Stones.”
Kirshner kept on with the brave new world of pop music on television, becoming an executive producer on ABC’s nascent In Concert series in late 1972. He quickly moved on to start his own show, which went head-to-head in late night with not only the ABC series but NBC’s new Midnight Special. The crucial difference between the latter show and Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert was that the Kirshner performances really were filmed in concert and not lip-synched, starting with the inaugural episode, a highly touted return to television by the Rolling Stones.
The show ran into the punk era; in the above clips, you can see Kirshner hedging with some “maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t” uncertainty over the Ramones and “judge for yourself” faint praise for the New York Dolls. Mid-’70s staples like Black Oak Arkansas, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, and Mountain gave way to the likes of the Police before Kirshner hung up his hosting duties in ’82.
He then all but disappeared for the last 28 years of his life, although in an excellent 2004 profile in the Washington Post, he laid out plans for a business comeback that never materialized. He also expressed resentment at never having been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s non-performer division. “I don’t want to sound like sour grapes,” he told the Post, “but I believe I shoud have been one of the first three or first five inducted. Seriously. I mean, they’ve got people in there that I trained, and I’m not in? It bothers me, on principle.”
Not to worry, Don. In the hall of fame that exists in baby boomers’ and early Gen-X-ers’ hearts, you’re well-enshrined, thanks to your show’s 180-episode run. You were the delivery system for glam-rock, punk, and other outre subgenres at a time when we had to wait seven days for another shot at seeing just what these brilliant clowns looked and acted like. And all that was worth sitting through a few superfluous names of promoters and managers—and even the sight of those horrendous wide collars—for.
If you want to see Shaffer’s amazing vintage take on Kirshner, here’s a link to a prime example from a 1978 episode, wherein the future Letterman band leader opened the show as the eminently spoofable Rock Concert host:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/159687/saturday-night-live-steve-martin-and-the-blues-brothers
January 17, 7pm
Tonight on the show I welcome Laurent Martini of Live Evil.
Who is Live Evil?
(From their website: http://www.walkouttorockout.com/
“Live Evil (www.liveevilrocks.com) is the heavy metal playground that existed only in the mind of wannabe rocker Laurent Martini, whose love of Motley Crue drove him to pen over 120 song lyrics during his teen-aged years as he tried (albeit in vain) to evoke the rocker lifestyle: loose women, boozing, and life on the road. Having leapt from his brain to the stage after 19 years, Live Evil is a two-parts fist-pumping arena rock concert, one-part failed high-school talent show and ultimately an endearing cocktail ultimately about a childhood dream that refuses to fade.”
Laurent will be on the show promoting the 5th anniversary party for a great show: Mortified (http://www.getmortified.com/), which Live Evil will be playing at.
This should be lovely.
Hour One:
Roustabout: Elvis Presley
We’re All In This Together: Gabby Young & Other Animals
Mutant: Wavves
Pigs on the Wing 1 & 2: Pink Floyd (from the UK only 8-track release)
Red Lights: Holy Fuck
Marine Salute: Liquorball
Kissing Clouds: Sweet Bulbs
Dada Brown: Lil Daggers
The Smoke: Home Video
Get High Babe: John Wesley Coleman III
Hour Two:
Laurent Martini in the studio
Get Down and Blow Me: Live Evil
Laurent Martini in the studio
Wild Tonight: Live Evil
TnT: AC/DC (12-09-79)
Street Fighting Man: Rolling Stones (07-26-72)
Everyday People: Sly and the Family Stone (09-01-69)
In My Time of Dying: The Black Crowes with Jimmy Page (10-18-99)
