Radio What Wave Playlist May 22/2014 10 Years of Being Onair at CHRW
Yep, according to my notes, i did my first solo show on CHRW in May 2004, a whole 10 years ago. According to the rough list i scrawled out for that particular show, looks like i played all local music of the late 70's/early 80's variety, setting a precedent for future shows. After that first show, i did lots and lots of fillins, even doing the world music show for most of that summer! We didn't get an official time slot for Radio WW until early the next year. By we, it was Mike Todd and myself alternating weeks for the first year or so. Then Mike left when he had family issues to deal with. And me, i won't go away, just like that bad smell coming from down in the basement.
This show, we're going to stick with some of the releases we did on the What Wave label, obviously including What Wave 24 (came out Oct 2012 in conjunction with the Graphic Underground: London 1977-1990 visual graphic show at Forest City Gallery). And cover some of the live to airs we've done as well as the Radio WW Sessions. The RWW Sessions is an invite only deal, where a band will send in 4 or 5 songs recorded in a studio with some banter inbetween, to give the impression of a live to air. We've only completed 3 so far, and we're waiting on quite a few bands to get their stuff into us. We all know bands don't operate on the same time scale as everyone else, hence the delay.
1. Hook Up.....Weatherly Mansion....from the C60 Go Cassette we released in Nov 2011. The Hook Up have appeared on Radio WW several times, even doing a live to air once. They'll be back on June 5th as they have a date at Call The Office that night and are now known as Dead City Soul Review.
2. Lonesome Ghost....Haunted By God....from a cassette we released by them April 2011 for Record Store Day. 2 piece outta Aylmer Ontario that did one live to air on Radio WW and were the only band from Southwestern Ontario to be on the international Garagepunk Hideout Compilations. They broke up right after the release of the cassette. At this time we tried to play another cassette but it didn't work....i still screw up as much as 10 years ago!!!
3. 63 Monroe....At The Boot....from Slippery's Club Hits, the cassette that came with What Wave 24. This cassette is 90m of unreleased London Ontario music from about 1978 to 1992!!What Wave 24 which is just over 100 pages, is the history of the punk/new wave/indy bands from London and area from about 1977 to the early 90's. Loads of pictures and info you won't find anywhere else and it comes with this 90m cassette. You can pick it up at Speed City, Village Idiot, Grooves, LA Mood, Star Records and other places.
4. Hippies....Can Teens....as above. The Hippies re-united for a one off gig this past fall and were amazing, just like we all remembered them!
5. Sinners....Not Worth My Time....as above. Sent this one out to Doug Sinner, drummer in this combo who last re-united in 2005 at the Boot 2 The Head reunion show at Call The Office.
6. Fine Print...Haunt You No More....from a cassette we released by them in April 2011 for Record Store Day. They promptly broke up right after!! This was the cassette that we were trying to play earlier in the show.
7. Cheshyres...Shake Your Money Maker....from Thee Cave Comes Alive LP that came out on Action Records in 2004. Back in 2003, George Rigas from Greece, wanted to release some of the songs that had been on the compilation cassettes that came with What Wave zine from the mid 80's to 90's. During that time, we released 10 compilation cassettes that came free with What Wave zine. At the time, this was the only way to hear the bands that we were yammering about in What Wave. George wanted to release some of the songs that were closest to 60's garage on a vinyl, hence Action Records from Greece released Thee Cave Comes Alive LP in early 2004. Took us about a year to locate the bands, get permission to use their songs again and in some cases, get better recordings of the songs. And that whole excercise is what got me onto CHRW as i brought the LP in to the station to see if we could get some airtime, next thing you know, Grant Stein has a mic in my face and i'm yammering! News Director Karlo Koskiala made a comment to me about how enthusiastic i sounded on air about the music and that comment sorta changed my direction in life....RIP Karlo!!! And Thanx!!
8. Mystic Eyes....She Put Me Down.... as above.
9. The Gruesomes....I Try....from the Hey CD on Ricochet Sound. Did the liner notes for this CD re-issue and supplied tapes for some of the bonus tracks as we used to work with The Gruesomes. We booked or had a hand in booking all their London Ontario shows over the years and during the early years, they'd stay at our place, sometimes for days after the local gig. These guys would consume all our junk food, watch all the cool movies we had, play all the cool records we had and generally make themselves at home. Great guys and lots of fun times! All their releases are now available on CD via Ricochet Sound in Montreal....hint hint!
10.The Gruesomes....Dirty Robber....from the Live In Hell CD on Ricochet Sound. This one initially only came out as a cassette and the original masters were not to be found. And it turned out that i had to lend my copy of the Live In Hell cassette to be used to create the CD! That's what sometimes happens when you have the WW Archives stored in your basement!
11. Legend Killers....Gonna Snap....from the We're Workin' On It CD that has our name on it. Legend Killers were formed in 1986 under the influence of too many beer and What Waves and proceeded to be on every compilation cassette that we've released so far! And on every compilation record except for one!! That's a lot of releases just there, but we also released a 7" EP in 1989 called Better Than Hammerin' by the LK's that won several What's The Poop Awards back then! And they toured Canada on the strength of that little EP, making friends across the country!
12. Legend Killers...Rippin' It Up...from the Boot 2 The Head CD 2005. From the reunion show of the same name that took place at Call The Office. Only song where WW gets name dropped more than once! Thanx Earle!
13. The Mogs....Swamp Love....from the El Mogamundo CD on the What Wave label from 2014. Rob Munro, leader of the Mogs was in many London combos back in the late 80's/early 90's, ie Frankenstein 5, Evil Hoodoos,
14. Dynamite Pussy Club....Into The Groove....the first of the RWW Sessions and these guys sorta got the ball rolling on this one. DPC are from Bath UK, big fans of Radio WW and we always play their releases. Since a live to air was out of the question, they sent this recording and we aired it Nov 2012 and have done a couple more RWW Sessions since. A great idea that should be taking off!!
15. The 905s....Under A Spell/ Stay Inside....another RWW Session and from 5/16/2013. Brampton's finest combo doesn't come to London often enough, so we did this instead! This is the combo that caught our ears many years ago with their tale of Teenage Head in Hamilton Head, one of the coolest songs ever! Any band that can write a tune about Teenage Head certainly has its merits as these guys prove!! Rumour has it, Hamilton Head may be re-recorded for release!!
16. The Mongrels....Piece Of Crap....another RWW Session and from 5/2/2013. One of our fave local combos actually records and sounds Really Good!! Catch these village idiots whenever they play out as they've been known to do full sets of 60's garagepunk just for kicks!
17. Bloody Diamonds....She Ain't Pretty.....live to air on RWW from 9/27/12. Halifax 4 piece at the time of this recording as they had the super fuzz bass and big organ sound down just right during this session! Coincidentally Bloody Diamonds were in town as a 2 piece playing at the APK and Grooves Records yesterday!
18. Tuerto Loco....Robert Q Public....from a live to air from 9/16/2010. Local combo of nut cases that rarely play out, and when they do, it's always a pile of fun!! Led by Hank the Singing Bookman who used to do an act called Hank'n'Frank of which Frank is heard next.
19.Frank Ridsdale...Shake Some Action....live to air 9/16/2010 where Frank learned this song just for me as he knew it was one of my faves!! And a big Thanx to Frank for coming on air and doing this!! Frank h as been in Uranus, Sci-Phonics, Slugfest and many many other combos over the years!
20. Oily Birds....Love Me Till The Sun Shines....live to air 4/29/10 as John and Bryan of The Oily Birds dropped by to sing a coupla tunes live over the airwaves.
Hope you enjoyed the retrospective show!! There's lots more where the above came from and we may play a couple more tunes on next week's show! Thanx for all the email, facebook, and other congrats on 10 years of yammering!!!
See ya next week!
And here's a link to the podcast:
http://chrwradio.ca/programs/radio-what-wave