Radio What Wave Playlist Feb 20/2014: Psychos and Other Unusual Canadians Part 1
Welcome to Part 1 of Psychos and Other Unusual Canadians....judging by the overabundance of phone calls this week, you people are either digging this show or you realize that you're as much of an unusual Canadian as I am. Hoping for the latter. Well dig in, this is only the tip of the iceberg of what's in the WW Archives!
1. The Gruesomes....Psycho....live at Larry's in Toronto, 3/29/1986. This was the Easter Og Weekend Special and the first time The Gruesomes were allowed out of their Montreal homebase. Also on the show that night were Deja Voodoo and Chris Houston, both of whom appear later in this playlist. And this was one of the few times I heard The Gruesomes play Psycho live...went through a ton of live tapes looking for another version and came up with nothing.
2. The Sadies... Black Sheep....from the Tales Of The Rat Fink Soundtrack CD. Ya, I've played this song on Radio WW many times as it sums up my life perfectly!
3. Nihilist Spasm Band....No Canada....1967 flexi and re-issued on CD 1996. 1967 was Canada's Centennial year, lots and lots of celebrations and this was the anti! Totally off the wall, artnoise combo who used to play weekly in London Ontario, that are huge in the world of noise.
4. Orie Hitt Machine....Killer Inside Me....totally loony from London Ontario.
5. The Spoons...After The Institution....1980 7" from this combo who went mainstream new wave/synth/dance in the mid 80's. Remember seeing them at The Cedar Lounge here in London back in the late 70's and any song about being put away fit right into this episode.
6. Crash Kills 5....Special School....7" from this combo that morphed into Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet....songs about being special fit right into the late 70's/early 80's musical era.
7. Botched Suicides....Nuthouse Inn...from the Ottawa Gaga compilation. Another song about being put away...
8. Mainline...Brain Damage...from the Canada Our Home And Native Land LP. This one prominently features Joe Mendelson, presently an artist living, literally living on the fringes of society. We'll be hearing more from Joe on future episodes!
9. David Clayton Thomas....Brainwashed....from the Made In Canada Volume 3 compilation. David fronted Blood Sweat And Tears, a major band in the late 60's/early 70's and one of the first to do the jazz rock thing. This was before he became brainwashed, and was a struggling artist on the Toronto scene that also spawned Neil Young amongst others.
10. Chris Houston....Surfin' On Heroin...from the Hate Filled Man LP. This is the only LP that i own that comes with one square foot of astro turf!! Ya, one square foot of plastic grass! Chris was in the Forgotten Rebels, where he composed this tune and has been doing music ever since. Caught him live this past summer and his take on the world is totally hilarious!! We'll be hearing more from Chris in episodes to come.
11. Fridge Magnets...Hypodermic Beach...from a late 80's demo and this song also appeared on a WW cassette. If you only learn one thing from listening to Radio WW, it better be; Don't Do Heroin! I repeated that twice during this show and hope everyone got the message.
12. Deja Voodoo...Surfin' On Mars...from the Worst Of LP. Deja Voodoo were a duo from Montreal who invented sludgeabilly, formed their own record company that released some of the best music to come out of Canada, became stars of college radio and promptly broke up in 1990 when they turned 30. And we still miss them after all these years! We'll be hearing more from Deja Voodoo as well as many of the OG Records stars!
13. Von Drats....Dratsylvania....from the Dratsylvania CD. From 2010, and these characters would dress up for every show (quite often in matching costumes) and play some of the wildest surf, monster and 60's garage punk you've ever heard! Quite often they had a character (The Canadian Wolfman) dressed up in costume to introduce them and invoke the crowd into a frenzy! If these guys had been around in the 80's, they would have been on OG Records!
14. Transylvania 500....Go 500!...from their only 7" on Wolf Beat Records. Count Suckula on the keyboards and Wolfboy on the drums...either a budget version of The Mummies or 2 totally whacked out individuals as they would run around the crowd when playing live shows and do just about anything for laughs! Another band that woulda been on OG Records if they were around in the 80's!
15. Transylvania 500....Death Drag...as above. Had to play both songs on this 7" as they are both equally stupid. Just the way i like my music!
16. The Dead Bolts....Torture Chamber...from a 7". This one is totally over the top whacko...just listen to those lyrics! And it's on Coffin Records, outta Hamilton Ontario.
17. Cardboard Brains....Babies Run My World...from the And Now Live From Toronto, The Last Pogo. Aptly named band for this show and I've loved this song since first hearing it way too many years ago! This was the Cardboard Brains at their finest!!
Hope you dug the loonies tonite and we'll have more on part 2 in 2 weeks time! Next week we've gotta pay tribute to Marty Thau, who worked with ? and The Mysterians when they broke with 96 Tears, worked with the NY Dolls at the beginning, The Ramones at their infancy, early Fleshtones, early Real Kids, Suicide and sooooooo many others!! A true innovator in the music that we dig! And a trib to Bob Devo who passed away this week, another highly influential band that we all laughed at when they first came out. Then after many listens of their first LP, most of us agreed, these guys are genius!! Yet, most probably know them as an insult to punk rockers back in the day. How many times did a carload of heavy metal mutants yell "Hey Devo" to you when you were minding your own business! Way too many times for me.
And thanx for all the phone calls....way too many times there was more than one call coming in at a time on this show, so I missed many calls, sorry, I'm just a one man show! And thanx for all the emails, facebook likes, facebook messages and Heys!!
You can catch the archived show at:
http://chrwradio.ca/programs/radio-what-wave
