Radio What Wave Playlist April 19/2021
- Gruesomes…..What Wave….from Mr Garager’s Neighbourhood 1989 on OG Records.
- Ted Axe….Heaven….from his brand new Sex, Horror Violence release and from the Toronto area. Ted was in one of Canada’s first punk band, The Action from Ottawa Ontario who we hear later in this set.
- Dave Rave & The 2nd Responders…Eye To Eye….Dave’s latest single and as you probably know, Dave is lead singer for Teenage Head amongst the many bands he’s involved with.
- Danny Kidd….Floridian Dreaming….latest single from this London Ontario resident.
- Andy Butler & The Isolators….Movin’ To The City….from their only release from late last year.
- Action….Downtown Boys….from the Permanent New Wave compilation that came out in the late 70’s and features Ted Axe who you just heard.
- Indonesian Junk….Policeman….from their recent Living In A Nightmare release on Rumbar Records and from Milwaukee.
- UIC….Mystery Train….from their latest, FM Hill.
- Sorels…. Springbreak….from their brand new 7” and from Winnipeg.
- Wasagas….Wrong Path…from their very recent Dance Party A Go Go and from Toronto. These guys started in the late 80’s, took a coupla decades off and came back stronger than ever! Thanx to Mark Malibu for supplying this for your ear pleasure.
- Gruesomes…. The Deal….Cave In….from the recent vinyl release on Alien Snatch Records and is now available through Ricochet Sound, the home of the Gruesomes.
- Blue Peter….Get It On….live recording from Fryfogles here in London from 5/16/1981 and the second night of a 2 day engagement. This set goes out to Paul Humphrey, lead vocalist of Blue Peter who passed very recently. Blue Peter started in this area playing at the Schooner in St Thomas, then the Cedar Lounge, Fryfogles, Bullwinkles, Western University and finally 2 shows at Victoria Park (large park with a bandshell here in London). They were one of those bands that always put on top notch shows and were able to build an audience quite quickly.
- Blue Peter….Out With The Boys…from the Test Patterns For Living release from 1979. This was recorded right here in London with Londoner Kevin Doyle as engineer (he also engineered the first Demics release). We had Kevin on this show a couple years back and we talked about this and many other projects Kevin has worked on. How often do you get a JUNO winner to come on the radio to talk about their early career?
- Blue Peter….Living In The 80’s…..as above. The first time we saw Blue Peter was their first show at the Cedar. Had no idea who they were as they hadn’t released anything at the time, but we always went there to catch the bands. When we arrived, Blue Pete was still sound checking and Paul had the mic in his hand and was dancing like a maniac on the dance floor singing along trying to get the sound right. That and the great tunes had me up and dancing like a fool that night!
- Blue Peter….Factory Living…. As above. Also got to see Blue Peter at the Concert Hall in Toronto opening up for the Jam in May 1981.
- Blue Peter….Neon Girls….from the Radio Silence release from 1980.
- Suicide…..Rocket USA….from the New York New Wave Max’s Kansas City compilation from 1976. This is the start of our beginnings of punk/new wave in North America portion of the show. We based the research on Another Tuneless Racket (a soon to be 4 volume set) book by Steven H. Gardner that came out recently. These are 400 plus page books covering the early years of punk; no pictures, no posters, just Tons of information and opinion. Each of the bands we played in this portion of the show has a chapter in one of the first 2 volumes. I tried to play the earliest recordings of each of the band, hence some cuts are live or demo.
- NYDolls….Bad Girl….from the Personality Crisis EP and this features original drummer Billy and was recorded in 1972 in the UK. Jerry Nolan who joined after Billy’s passing, has a much bigger whallop on the drums and really adds to the Dolls sound.
- Heartbreakers….Pirate Love….from What Goes Around on Bomp Records. This is a live recording at Mothers from 11/16/1975 and features Richard Hell on the bass.
- Heartbreakers…. Get Off The Phone….from the LAMF release from 1977. A number of people complain about the sound quality of this release, but to me it sounds pretty good as the songs/musicianship overcome any aural issues. Apparently this has been re-ished again and supposedly it comes from the long lost original tapes.
- Syl Sylvain….14th Street….from the 78 Criminals release and recorded in 1977.
- David Johansen….Girls….from his 1978 debut release. Often Syl would go along with David on his tours, playing guitar and/or organ.
- Patti Smith….Piss Factory…..her first single from 1974 and is on the ROIR compilation called The Great NY Singles scene.
- Ramones….I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend….early demo that has been released on Norton Records as a single.
- Neon Boys…..That’s All I Know….from 1973 and came out as a single on Shake Records several years later.
- Television….Prove It….from their Island Demos that Brian Eno produced. Other than the sound quality, this is pretty much the same as what appears on their first longplayer.
- Richard Hell….Blank Generation….from a Stiff single and recorded in 1976. In the book, it mentions Richard Hell meeting Malcolm McLaren when he was ‘managing’ the NYDolls. And obviously this is where Malcolm got the idea for the clothing style of his later band.
- Modern Lovers….. Roadrunner…..from the 1972 Kim Fowley produced sessions. 3 members of this band went on to other very influential bands; John Felice to the Kids/Real Kids, Jerry Harrison to Talking Heads and David Robinson to the Cars.
- The Kids (who became The Real Kids)…Reggae Reggae….11/10/1974 demo that you can get on the Crypt Records imprint. Crypt has 3 Real Kids compilations that have a Ton of Killer early demos/live recordings etc. Recommended if you dig The Real Kids like I do!
- Talking Heads…. Psycho Killer….from their self titled debut longplayer from 1977.
- Blondie….Rip Her To Shreds….from the outtakes/rehearsals of the first album that came out in 1976.
- Dictators…. Backseat Boogie…..1973 demo from Every Day Is Saturday released on Norton Records.
- Rocket From The Tombs…. 30 Seconds Over Tokyo…..from their Life Stinks compilation that was recorded in 1975. They aired most of this over the airwaves on WMMS in Cleveland back then and I vaguely remember listening to it and wondered what the fuck did I just hear!!! So radically different than anything else that I had ever heard up to that point. And why was I listening to WMMS? Because there was fuckall to listen to in London….no CHRW, no CIXX, no nothing! With your tuner hooked up to cable back then, you could get a few half decent FM stations like CHUM FM and WMMS in Cleveland, but no Detroit stations where I was living at the time.
Next week we continue with the beginnings of punk/new wave in North America using Another Tuneless Racket as reference. We’ll start in the Cleveland area, cover the one Canadian band in the book, then try and fit the Australian beginnings in the show. Dug up some pretty cool early recordings by the Canadian group as well as some from one of the Australian bands. And a trib to Lew Lewis and next week marks the anniversary of the passing of Hasil Adkins.
Big Thanx to all who took the time to listen, comment, like, message, email, phone, yell and send smoke signals (Thanx Mack!). See ya next week.