Stream the Hustle HERE! Download the Bustle HERE! Listen into all my shows here! Subscribe to my show, via
Some shows I’m just inspired to dig a little deeper. This is one of those shows. Are you as tired of the commercial radio dreck as I am? And who can blame you, really? They play the same 40-50 songs over and over throughout the day. It’s insulting. I don’t want to insult you. I want to inspire you.
Leon Redbone passed away a couple of weeks back; the day before Roky Erickson as a matter of fact.
Genres-a-plenty across these two hours, with my ongoing desire to share my recent live show acquisitions with you during the second hour. Some live Bob Dylan from the recent Rolling Thunder Revue 17 disc set, Muddy Waters from 1963, and Grand Funk from 1972 to rock your bones.
Get out and dance this week!
Enjoy.
jh
Hell’s Kitchen Radio with John Hell Mondays 8-10PM Radio Valencia in SF
Groove Me: Blues Brothers Women’s Liberation: TV Mama Jean Funk and Soul: New York Underground Funk Band My Walkin’ Stick: Leon Redbone
Moving Pictures For the Ear: Don Cherry Reflections (On New York City Everything is Everything): The Visitors Cut Loose: The Teacher Haters
Mettavolution: Rodrigo y Gabriela Priest of the Hill People: Hot Fog Fallout: Zig Zags
Femme Fatale: Ty Segall Lorsque je Frappe A Ta Porte: Ginette Taillon Love Comes in Spurts: Thee Headcoats Little Red Hen: Taj Mahal
Isis: Bob Dylan (Technical University, Lowell, MA – November 1975) Mercy Seat: Johnny Cash
Knock On Joe: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (RPM Club, Toronto, Canada, February 14, 1989) 19 Years Old: Muddy Waters (Copa Cabana Club, Chicago, IL, July 26, 1963) Ta Ha: New Masada Quartet (The Village Vanguard, New York City, NY, June 9, 2019)
Clementine: Grateful Dead (Avalon Ballroom, SF, CA, January 26, 1969) I’m Your Captain: Grand Funk Railroad (Madison Square Garden, NYC, NY, December 23, 1972)
Stream the History HERE!
Download the Memories HERE!
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Has it been a year already? Who am I kidding, November can’t come fast enough. Seriously, I anxiously await this time of year to comb through the music and media of one specific year to share with you all. This year it took a bit of head scratching to make a final decision. I was considering something from the 80’s when I was a teen, and when I started purchasing music on my own. I would like to thank my brother-from-another-mother, Eric Wilcox for suggesting 1983. Debut records from Metallica, Slayer, Exploited, Suicidal Tendencies, Weird Al, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and so many more!
What did 1983 mean to you? To me it was a very awkward 8th grade (my eighth school in eight years), very poor Bar Mitzvah prep, and my parents marriage falling apart. Yay! It’s also the year that I began noticing more than what was playing on popular radio. I was used to Huey Lewis, Van Halen and ZZ Top, but my friend Etienne was turning me onto bands like Dio, Judas Priest, Ozzy (solo) and Iron Maiden. So I had that going for me.
If you’re interested you can check out the Billboard top whatever here. I do my best to stay away from the hits, though the Donna Summer video was always a favorite of mine. I do talk up some 1983 history and throw some old commercials in there for good measure.
I never have enough time to get through every act I want to, but this will need to suffice. Check out the playlist below, and for Christ’s sake go purchase some of this fine music, and as always go out and see live music from time to time.
Speaking of which, there are some great live shows coming to the Bay Area in the next few weeks. Ty and Denée Segall’s band CIA is playing at El Rio in SF on December 9th, Redd Kross and Dale Crover Band are playing Slims on December 19th, and the Melvins have announced a show at Cornerstone Brewery in Berkeley for January 21st. For more info on live shows coming to town check out THE LIST, which has been my go-to since it was in print form many moons ago.
Leave It (A Capella): Yes
Cold Blooded: Rick James
I Saw Your Mommy…: Suicidal Tendencies
Man of Peace: Bob Dylan
Another One Rides the Bus: Weird Al
1983 Commercials
The Antichrist: Slayer
Little Man With and Gun in His Hand: Minutemen
She Works Hard For The Money: Donna Summer
1983 Commercials
Let It All Go: Killing Joke
Holy Diver: DIO
Confessions: Violent Femmes
1983 Commercials
Cuckoo Clocking: Fab 5 Freddie
Rap Machine: Whodini
16 Shells From a Thirty-Ought Six: Tom Waits
Freezer Burn/I Wanna Be Your Dog: Sonic Youth
Texas Flood: Stevie Ray Vaughn
1983 Commercials
Am I Evil: Metallica
Mr. Whirly: The Replacements
Let’s Start A War: The Exploited
Not Now John: Pink Floyd
Trashed: Black Sabbath
Hungry for some TV commercials from 1983? I know you aren’t, but here you go anyway.
Stream yet another tribute, HERE!
Download the heartbreak, HERE!
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Is he or isn’t he? Apparently he is. Dang. I saw Tom Petty three times in the late 80s and early 90s, including the very first Bridge School benefit in 1986, which is the only one I attended. I also was able to see him with Lenny Kravitz opening (the Let Love Rule tour). Petty always put on such a great show. I gave up going to shows in large venues many years ago, but I always felt that I seeing Petty again would be fun, regardless of the size of the venue.
There are few artists I would see in a large venue today. I would see Neil Young in a large venue if Crazy Horse was backing him. Other than that I prefer a venue ranging from a size 50-1500 people. The more intimate the better.
Speaking of an intimate setting, my bride took me to see Oh Sees (no more “Thee”) last week at the Great American Music Hall. Not only was it a brilliant show, it was without a doubt, the loudest show I have ever been to. Even guitarist/lead singer John Dwyer was heard to ask if that show wasn’t louder than the previous night’s? I’m seeing them again in December at The Chapel. Get your tickets before they sell out.
best venue in SF:
Last night I was lucky enough to catch what has been marked as the “Last Polka” of the great SF punk-polka band, Polkacide, at Bottom of the Hill. After 30+ years they’re hanging up their lederhosen. I spent a good 30 minutes in the polkapit. and boy did I feel it. The four original members are grandparent age now, and I’m guessing that having 10 people in the band makes it difficult to make the scene too often. I’m hoping for an annual reunion at the very least.
On a completely unrelated note, my bride Catherine gave birth to our little boy, Bodhi Miles Hell this past Thursday! We couldn’t be more excited about this fella coming into our lives. I’ll be taking a few weeks off from my show so I can be home with the little fella, fitting him with black t-shirts and guitar picks, and singing to him my favorite Melvis and Grateful Dead tunes. I can’t wait to have him and Little Lauson Hell both in the studio with me in the years to come.
Check out the playlist below. There’s a live Tom Petty tribute, new music from Ty Segall and Oh Sees, as well as Boris. Lots of great live treats in there as well.
Plastic Plant: Thee Oh Sees (September 28, 2017 Great American Music Hall, SF, CA)
Jack the Ripper: Link Wray
Young, Gifted and Black: Aretha Franklin
Radebe: Johnny Dyani
Dead Flowers: Townes Van Zandt
Rise Up With Fists: Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins
American Girl: Tom Petty (April 23, 1977 The Record Plant, Sausalito, CA)
Even the Losers/The Waiting/So You Want To Be A Rock and Roll Star: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with Bob Dylan (June 26, 1986 HHH Metrodome, Minneapolis, MN)
Something in the Air: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Keys to the Castle: Thee Oh Sees
Dystopia-Vanishing Point: Boris
Ride Into the Sun: The Velvet Underground
My Favorite Things: John Coltrane (October 26, 1963 Tivoli Koncertsal, Copenhagen)
I Loved Another Woman: Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac (June 9, 1968, Carousel Ballroom, SF, CA)
When Prince died I shared this video everywhere. Now that Petty has left us I think it bares reposting.
Stream the Truth, HERE!
Download the Question, HERE!
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I promised I wasn’t going to go on a rant tonight. I almost got through the entire show too. It was worth it. But it’s all about the music, right? That’s why you tune in. You want to hear what I’m going to play, and in what order I’ll be playing it. I get it. That’s why I listen to quality radio programs, and often with a pen and paper at hand. I want to get excited about a tune I haven’t heard before so I can run on out and purchase it, and perhaps get turned on to an artist that has deftly escaped my attention until now.
Recently, a friend of mine was telling me that I should contact a commercial radio station and ask for the opportunity to be their music director for one day. Yes, the music heard on most commercial stations, most of the time, makes me want to puke. Much of what I’m perplexed about is the order of their songs. They can hand me the list of all artists/songs they want played for that day and allow me to place it in an order that actually makes sense. Don’t hold your breath for me to do this anytime soon, but I do like the idea.
If you have been enjoying the second hour live sets I’ve been doing then I believe you’re really going to enjoy what I have in store for you on this show. Check out the playlist below, and click the stream/download links above.
Stream these History, HERE!
Download the Memories, HERE!
Listen into all my shows here.
You can subscribe to my show through iTunes here.
I grew up wishing I had graduated from a San Francisco high school in 1964 so that by the Summer of Love in 1967 I would 21 years old and able to fully immerse myself in everything that era had to offer. It’s the music of that time that influenced me the most during my adolescent years, when I was moving past what played on the home hi-fi and more into discovering my own likes. It was that swirling psychedelic music and it was that message of change and opportunity that grabbed me most.
My family moved to the Bay Area in late 1982 when I was 12 years and I knew right away what a special place San Francisco was. In our first excursion into the city my parents wanted to tour Fisherman’s Wharf, I wanted to go to the Haight. Of course by 1982 the Haight was long past its hippy prime and deep in its lost years of heroin and speed and closed storefronts. That didn’t stop me from searching this great city and colorful neighborhoods for any crumb that remained from the vibe that the Summer of Love hoped to propagate following 1967. Today the area is inundated by boutiques and way too many Tibetan importers and head shops; not to mention countless tourists, who, like me, are looking for a shred of evidence that there was once an energy of love that attempted to take our nation to a higher level, overcoming war and grief and capitalism. And let’s not forget the number of homeless teens and 20-somethings who have been termed out of foster care, who call the doorways of Haight Street their home.
It was the swirling music, colorful fashion, and risk-taking youth that took precedence at that time. It was the music industry that bastardized it and made way for the punk movement of the 70s/80s. But before
that all came to pass we have to appreciate what the bands of the time were doing. San Fransisco was one hell of a great scene. Great clubs, like the Avalon Ballroom, Carousel, Fillmore, Family Dog at the Great Highway had the bestbands playing their stages night after night. And promoters like Chet Helms and Bill Graham were pairing local rock bands with legendary blues and jazz artists, opening the ears of the audience to sights and sounds they may never have taken the time to check out on their own.
We are all better for 1967 and San Francisco.
Two books I’d like to recommend that will shed much better light on that era include Joel Selvin’s
“Summer of Love”, and David Talbot’s “Season of the Witch”. The latter starts in 67 and works its way up through the first 49er Super Bowl win in early 1982. Both are definitely worth your time, especially if you hold a place in your heart for San Francisco.
As for the music I chose for this show, it’s all from 1967, and most are west coast American bands. in retrospect I could have chosen more obscure acts from that year, or other, more current bands, covering these songs, below. Instead I played music that really moved me as I was growing up. And isn’t that the job of the DJ, to move you the way they have been?
My friend Linda Kelly, managing editor of the local rag Haight Street Voice was hanging out in the studio with me too. She was interviewing me for the August issue. It’s a free paper, so pick it up when you see it, or go online to check it out. I hope she doesn’t make me sound too bitter. It’s been a challenging year when it comes to my love for SF. But isn’t that like all relationships? We’ll see it through to the end.
Wednesday I had the chance to take in the Summer of Love exhibition at the deYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park. It was more than I could have hoped for. If you live in the Bay Area make sure you get to this show before it closes, August 20th.
Next Monday night is lots of new music and the return of Little Lauson Hell!!!
Stream these Legends, HERE!
Download the Vulnerability, HERE!
Listen into all my shows here.
You can subscribe to my show through iTunes here.
This ain’t no bar fight (though I’m fairly confident that Cash would win). No, this is a love fest. Johnny Cash and Nick Cave have more in common, musically, than many other combos. Cave has claimed that it was the fire and brimstone preachers of the American south that have inspired him the most in his songwriting, while Cash lived it by being raised there!
I’ve been wanting to host this special for a while now, but it’s not easy with only two hours to cover two men of such musical prominence. I’m sure the critics can tear my sets apart, which is fine. How would you improve on this show? Leave comments. In retrospect, I could have played Cave’s version of “The Singer”, and left out the Cash/Dylan duet. Other than that I could have used about six more hours to really do them justice. Thanks to everyone who offered their suggestions on my FB thread.
Next Monday night will feature lots of new music and some psych jams.
Mercy Seat: Johnny Cash
Flesh and Blood: Johnny Cash
Devil’s Right Hand: Johnny Cash
Red Right Hand: Nick Cave
Moonland: Nick Cave
There She Goes My Beautiful World: Nick Cave
Delia’s Gone: Johnny Cash
Cocaine Blues: Johnny Cash
Stagger Lee: Nick Cave
Where the Wild Roses Grow: Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue
Give My Love to Rose: Johnny Cash
Redemption Song: Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer
I’ve Been Everywhere: Johnny Cash and Lynn Anderson
The Ship Song: Nick Cave
Tupelo: Nick Cave
Jennifer’s Veil: Birthday Party
The Folk Singer: Johnny Cash
Girl From North Country: Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan
25 Minutes to Go: Johnny Cash
Don’t Take Your Guns To Town: Johnny Cash
Wanted Man: Johnny Cash
Jubilee Street: Nick Cave
Super Heathen Child: Grinderman
Hurt: Johnny Cash
Cindy: Johnny Cash and Nick Cave
I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry: Johnny Cash and Nick Cave
