The Hardcore Show #11

Back to hardcore now, here's the Hardcore Show #11. Find the track list below.

Click to listen.

Anthemic Pop Wonder - How Great Was Husker Du
Suicidal Tendencies - Institutionalized
T.S.O.L. - Code Blue
Dead Kennedys - Holiday In Cambodia
M.D.C. - John Wayne Was a Nazi
7 Seconds - Walk Together Rock Together
Circle Jerks - Red Tape
Circle Jerks - Back Against the Wall
D.R.I. - Who Am I?
Big Black - Power of Independent Trucking
Butthole Surfers - Human Canonball

The Hardcore Show #10

Well, here it is, for the non-existant crowd that has not been waitng for it. It's the Hardcore Show #10, jumping over number 9 because who cares about that boring number. The number 10 is so much more round, more firm, more fully packed.

Here's the track list:

Anthemic Pop Wonder – How Great Was Husker Du
Jimmy Good – Watch Dog
Waco Brothers – Bad Times (Are Comin’ Round Again)
Black Sabbath – Rat Salad
Marc Ribot – Como Se Goza En El Barrio
T-Bone Walker – Glamour Girl
Billie Holiday – These Foolish Things
Tin Hat Trio with Tom Waits – Helium Reprise
Naked City – Sicilian Clan
Nicoletta – Le grand amour
Ciccone Youth – Burnin’ Up

Click Here to Listen

The Hardcore Show #8

After a brief hiatus of a couple of weeks I finally got it together and posted a new Hardcore Show. I don't have anything to write about this one that I didn't say in the intro, so if you really want to know the truth, I'd advise listening to the show. And if you've never heard Mickey Katz before, do youself a favor and click on the link.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

Van Morrison, Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber – I Wanna Go Home
Dave Miller and Jeremy Wakefield – Steel Crazy
Dizzy Gillespie – Lady Be Good
Slim and Slam – Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen
Uri Caine – Cohen Owes Me Ninety-seven Dollars
Mickey Katz – Bagel Call Rag
Charlie Parker – Night in Tunisia
Charlie Chesterman – Goodbye To You
Betty Carter – Heart and Soul
Tin Hat Trio (w/ Willie Nelson) – Willow Weep for Me

The Hardcore Show #7

Not punk rock, but some of it is definitely hardcore. The Fully Celebrated Orchestra's madhouse free jazz, Uri Caine's drum-heavy samba, Brave Combo's fierce take on a Polish folk song, and Betty Carter's heartbreaking ballad. Fine stuff this week, here's hoping you listen.

Click here to listen to the show.

Uri Caine – Samba do Mar
Farmer’s Market – Less Paul, More John
Brave Combo – Hosa Dyna
Fully Celebrated Orchestra – Succbusology
Davey Williams & John Corbett – Playing Along
Marc Ribot – Hitman
Betty Carter – Nothing More to Look Forward To
Tin Hat Trio – Lauren’s Lullaby
Tiger Lillies with Kronos Quartet – Weeping Chandelier

The Hardcore Show #6

The songs for today's show kind of fell in place. I have very little to say about them. Listen to the show if you want to know more.

Click to listen.

Toy Dolls - Fisticuffs in Frederick St.
The Pogues - Waxie's Dargle
Wire - Ex-Lion Tamer
Wire - 12XU
Minutemen - Tour Spiel
Sublime - Babylon
Meat Puppets - Maiden's Milk
Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper - Elvis is Everywhere
Negativland - Cityman
Husker Du - Diane

The Hardcore Show #5

I am having a hard time writing about today’s show because I haven't followed the rules I set down at the outset. There is no punk rock in todays show, and definitely no hardcore. But I still believe that its spirit is here.

Over the years I have come to realize that I look at the world is through the lens of punk rock. To many people that may seem strange. To them, punk rock was only an anomaly of pop culture, a gang of mowhawked or skinheaded young people who may have flourished in the late 70s and early 80s, but had no real impact on American culture.

I’d beg to differ. Punk wasn't just a temporal movement. Punk represented an impulse that is inherent in human nature, one of rebellion, of resistance, of a sense of estrangement with the world into which you were born. The way I look at it, the early American revolutionaries were punks, reactionaries who resisted the status quo, seekers of true freedom.

That said, I think a lot of the music in today's show embodies that impulse. I'm not sure how this is true, it's just instinct, a feeling I get from the tunes that I don't get from others.

This is even more true because it took me longer than I expected to cobble these songs together. I had orginally selected a different set of songs, but when I juxtaposed them, they didn't communicate what I thought they should, so I re-evaluated and came up with these.

I have no idea if they'll speak to you in the way the speak to me...but I hope they do.

Click to listen.

Cab Calloway – Utt-da-zay
Louis Prima – Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody
Leon Redbone – You’re a Heartbreaker
Klezmatics – Undoing World
Warren Zevon – Carmelita
Tiger Lillies – Russians
Leonard Cohen – Hallelujah
Eleni Mandell – Tristeza
Chuck E. Weiss – Marcy
The Ziggens – The Waitress Song

Hardcore Show #4

In this fourth installment of The Hardcore Show I include some music that pre-dates most Hardcore by at least 20 years.

Charles Mingus and Ornette Coleman were uncompromising visionaries that created intense, passionate music that, to my ears, has much in common with the best punk. I won't hesitate to recognize the vast musical difference between the jazzers and the punkers, but you might find some surprises if you listen closely enough.

The Minutemen's D. Boon and Mike Watt were heavily influenced by John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. Black Flag, in its more improvisational modes, was one of the few rock bands to openly embrace free jazz. Avant-jazz geek John Zorn makes no secret about his love for Japanese noise-core.

Take a listen to today's show and consider this your first toe in the water. In future shows I'll be mixing in more jazz and improvisational stuff, maybe even something...contemporary.

Click to Listen

Anthemic Pop Wonder – How Great Was Hüsker Dü
Charles Mingus – Cryin’ Blues
Bad Brains – Banned in DC
Hüsker Dü – First of the Last Calls
Hüsker Dü – Diane
Minutemen – Little Man with a Gun in His Hand
Minutemen – Product
The Lounge Lizards – Well You Needn’t
Ornette Coleman – Eventually
Negativland – Escape from Noise

The Hardcore Show #3

Today, it's covers! Yes, after realizing that each of my past shows included a couple of cover songs, I decided to dedicate a whole show to them. I know there's a whole lot of other tunes that I should have included here, but because I'm trying to keep each show to just 10 songs, I had to to leave some of them out. I'm sure another cover show is in the future.

Today's show finally introduces Hüsker Dü into the mix with their great version of 'Love is All Around,' the theme to the 70s sit-com The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and the song 'Eight Miles High,' originally recorded by the Byrds. This recording of EMH has some quality issues. It seems to hae been mixed with its levels pushed a little too high. But you can still hear the power and ferocity of the band's take on the hippie original.

Click this link to listen.

Anthemic Pop Wonder - How Great was Hüsker Dü
7 Seconds - 99 Red Baloons
Hüsker Dü - Love is All Around
Black Flag - Louie Louie
Minutemen - Aint Talking 'Bout Love
Minutemen - Fortunate Son
The Dickies - Theme to the Banana Splitz
Dead Kennedys - Rawhide
Elvis Hitler - Green Haze
Hüsker Dü - Eight Miles High

The Hardcore Show #2

Well, here's another episode of The Hardcore Show, something I'll try and produce on a weekly basis. It's more a nostalgic enterprise for me than anything else, giving me the chance to dig through my past and see what I can come up with. I had presumed I had grown out of a lot of this music, but as I pull the old music of the racks or download the tunes from the Internet, I'm finding that I still enjoy listening to the stuff. In fact, some of the music still inspires me in the same way it did when I was first listening to it...now over 20 years ago. I don't know if anybody reading this and listening today's show will have the same experience, but I hope so.

Click this link to listen.

Anthemic Pop Wonder - How Great Was Hüsker Dü
Youth Brigade - Sink With California
Big Boys - Hollywood Swinging
Minutemen - Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs
Embrace - Give Me Back
Billy Bragg - Saturday Boy
Negativland - Four Fingers
Einstürzende Neubauten - Sand
Laibach - Sympathy for the Devil

The Hardcore Show

Here's my first music show. I don't know if you care about the hardcore punk and "alternative" music from the 80s, but it really doesn't matter to me. I've decided to put together some of the music that influenced me and try to cobble it together into a show. It won't be exclusively hardcore punk, you might hear some Tom Waits or some hippie shit from the early or late 60s, but for lack of a better name, let's call it "The Hardcore Show." I intend it to be music that represents who I am. As if you could possibly care.

Click this link to listen.

Track list:

Anthemic Pop Wonder - How Great Was Husker Du
Minutemen - History Lessson (Part II)
The Pogues - The Sick Bed of Cuchulain
X - Los Angeles
Toy Dolls - Nellie the Elephant
The Vandals - Mohawk Town
Meat Puppets - Look at the Rain
Fugazi - Bad Mouth
Bad Brains - Pay to Cum
Minor Threat - Salad Days