3 Chords & the Truth: Color your world

This is the episode of 3 Chords & the Truth where we look at the whole flippin' world of radio, both on the Internets and online, and tell it to just hold our damn beer.

Because we're gonna show our true colors on the Big Show. All of 'em. Many of them in the same set of music.

This is not something you would hear on your local commercial radio station. This is something you'd hear on vanishingly few non-commercial radio stations.

This is something you hear all the time on 3 Chords & the Truth.

That's about all I have to say . . . HEY! I TOLD YOU TO HOLD MY DAMNED BEER, NOT SPILL IT!!!

Y'all, I gotta go. I have to fetch what's left of my beer. You can't trust most of the radio world to do anything.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Save some for us

We've all been there the past year and a half.

Hell, who are we kidding? We're all still there.

This may help some.

3 Chords & the Truth: Chillin' in the city

Ever have one of those days where, let us say, your get-up-and-go got up and went?

Sure you have.

Well, that's about how it's been going around the 3 Chords & the Truth studios here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska. So on this episode of the program, we're just chillin' the hell out.

Oh, the music's as good as always . . . but we're all just listening and, well, you know.

It's also been a stormy day around these parts, so there's that. And that's all I have to say about that.

Or much of anything at this juncture.

Just listen to the Big Show. You will be so glad you did. Peace . . . out.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: The Electric Kool-Aid Bad Acid Trip

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
 

Next on the Big Show

  I think you may get the gist of this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth just from the incredibly bizarre goings-on in Washington the past 48 hours.

There are two explanations for this: 1) We all took some really bad s***, and it's all a bummer of a trip, man! 2) It's real, and Americans voted for some bad s***, man!

Either way . . . bummer, man.

It's the Big Show, y'all. Be there in a while. Aloha.

Coming up on the Big Show

Click on the picture for large version

What could it be now?

Kind of like radio once upon a . . . GAAAAAH! Still trite.

OK, let's put it this way. Some of you will recognize it. Others will have their minds blown -- as usual.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

The magnificent Musicbox

Click on the picture for large version

Because good music needs brand awareness?

It's 3 Chords & the Truth. Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: Hip to the radiophonic trip

  Has there ever been a better drug than music?

Has there ever been a better way to take it than by radio?

Allow me to answer that for you with minimal gum-flapping or keyboard wordgurgitation. No.

That is the basis of this -- and, to be truthful, every -- episode of the Big Show, which is a thing called 3 Chords & the Truth. Now, radio is an endangered species these days, and younger music lovers might not know what the deal is with it . . . why old farts like your Mighty Favog keep going on and on and on and on about how great radio was. Well, it's like this.

No, I mean like this. Like 3 Chords & the Truth.

USED TO BE that you had radio that sounded like this all over the place. Now, not so much. Now, there are places where radio -- the medium of legend -- still exists. Places where music is that best of drugs, one that can wash over you in a tidal wave of sound that will soothe your soul and expand your mind.

Radio. Wonderful, trippy, unpredictable radio.

I hope the Big Show is one of those places. These days, radio isn't always on the radio. You do what you can.

And you take it where you can find it.

Radio.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Say hey to an old friend

Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: 33. 45. 78.

33.

45.

78.

That's RPM to you and me and, to be completely accurate, the 33 is actually 33⅓ -- the speed at which a vinyl LP rotates as the music jumps out of the grooves, onto a phonograph needle and into your hi-fi as it prepares to caress your eardrums.

Compare this to your average MP3 file, which slithers out of a pair of earbuds emanating from some plastic thingy, on its way to mug your brain. And, no, the irony is not lost on us that 3 Chords & the Truth comes to you over the Internets as . . . an MP3 file.

TECHNOLOGY . . . damn . . . you . . . to . . . HELL!

Sigh.

Anyway, the other numbers on the Big Show this week represent the revolutions per minute of your 7-inch 45 single and your extremely obsolete 78 record.

No matter the number, we treasure them all. And that's how we roll on 3 Chords & the Truth. Amen.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there.  Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: Mellowing out

This week on the Big Show, we take a chill pill.

We relax.

Mellow out.

It's going to be great.

And that, in a nutshell, is the whole deal with this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth. It's all about relaxation . . . and letting the music wash over you with its warmth and soothing powers.

That's pretty much it.

It's the relaxation edition of the Big Show. Enjoy.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: The Stereo Theatre!

Here! Now! The new 3 Chords & the Truth Stereo Theatre!

Actually, it's a lot like the old 3 Chords & the Truth Stereo Theatre, only Here! Now! and New!

And again, with million-dollar stereophonic sound at a price within everyone's reach -- free -- you are there without ever leaving the comforts of home. Or wherever.

That's the magic of the Big Show.

So, this week on the program -- er, the Stereo Theatre -- we were wondering whether you were wondering what the deal is with America's only homegrown genre of popular music. That would be jazz, in case you were drawing a blank there.

WELL, you're going to learn all about the deal with jazz . . . and about the special sauce that gave us the Great American Songbook, especially the sounds that made Gershwin masterpieces Gershwin masterpieces and distinguished them from the Dixieland jazz that made its way from New Orleans to Chicago, and then to New York.

You'll also hear why that's important today. Especially today.

Yeah, you'll want to stay tuned for that.

So, I guess that's all there is to say about that. At least without giving away the whole show -- the Big Show.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Farewell, Radio Shack

If I had a dollar for all the stuff I've bought at Radio Shack over the last four decades or so . . . I'd still be so far in the hole on the deal, it wouldn't be funny.

I loved Radio Shack, especially when Radio Shack was still the Radio Shack I knew when I was young. And now it's going to be gone, with the "surviving" locations being Sprint stores with a "Radio Shack section" in them.

Sure, I can get everything I got at the Shack online now, but it's not the same. And it's not as convenient -- no more making a quick trip down the road for that part or connector I need right now.

ON HBO'S Last Week Tonight, John Oliver takes aim at the snarksters laughing at the demise of a 94-year-old company. Good for him. Double good for him in producing the farewell commercial he -- and I -- would like to see run on TV.

Take that, you hipster, Millennial scum!

For old farts like me, Radio Shack was where you went to drool over cool stereo and communications gear. It's where you went to get a new needle for your phonograph. It's where you, as a kid, bought cool Science Fair electronics kits. It's where, like the corner drug store, you could test the vacuum tubes from your radio or TV.

It's where you bought batteries and Supertape. Remember audio tape?

Radio Shack is where I bought those boxes that let you put several inputs into a single "AUX" imput on your stereo. Several VCRs or DVDs on the "video in" input on your television set.

If you needed it, Radio Shack had it.

AND IF YOU wanted to spend some quality time pining for all the cool stuff that you didn't have but wished you did, you pulled out your Radio Shack catalog. That's all gone now, relegated to blessed memory like all those other lost things from the lost youth of middle-aged Americans.

If you want to snark about that, go ahead. I hope one of the soon-to-be-unemployed employees of the fallen electronics giant knocks you into next week.

The things you find

SHOWN HERE in a high-school journalism scrapbook from 1976, saved by me and then my parents for no discernible reason, is an example of a "society picture with cutline," noted at top, which happened to be of Mr. and Mrs. Miller Williams, shown center, feted in Baton Rouge en route to Rome, where they were to reside for a year at the famed American Academy. With them at the large party in the home of Dr. and Mrs. Hulen B. Williams on Castle Kirk Drive were Mrs. E. B. Williams, left, the mother of Mr. Williams, and Miss Lucinda (Cindy) Williams, daughter of the famed poet, who had won the Prix de Rome awarded by the still-famed American Academy of Arts and Letters. Two years later, Miss Williams would begin her famed recording career, which was not initially feted, but achieved some note in 1988 and then became famed in the early 1990s, when she was feted at the famed Grammy Awards, where she won the award for Best Country Song for "Passionate Kisses." She then released her famed album "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" in 1998, which was awarded a gold record and for which she was again feted at the Grammy Awards.

Serendipity was feted for my happening to cut out this particular "society picture with cutline" from the famed Sunday Advocate in Baton Rouge some 37 years ago for my journalism assignment. Attending the small party in the Omaha home of Mr. and Mrs. Mighty Favog are Mr. Favog and a bottle of moderately priced bourbon.

3 Chords & the Truth: A merry little Christmas

Our Christmas tree is the story of our lives, the missus and me. Yours may well be the same.

There's a little wooden painted-tree ornament over here -- I made that in elementary school more than 40 years ago. And that glass ball over there with the glitter on it -- that's from my wife's childhood Christmas tree.

And there's the big Lucite heart that says "Love. Christmas 1983." We bought that at Hallmark our first Christmas as a married couple. I cherish that ornament.

I cherish our tree . . . the annual Yuletide story of our lives, with baubles commemorating five years together -- 1988 -- and first Christmas in our new house, 1989. Ornaments given to us by now-gone parents. Ornaments for now-gone pets. Ornaments made by now-grown children of friends.

EVERY YEAR -- with every added year -- Christmas becomes more wistful. It becomes more about loss, more about what once was instead of what might be. It becomes about remembering and erasing the impenetrable barrier between what was and what is -- who we were and who we are. It lets us bring back those who have gone, if only in our dreams.

Once again as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were dear to us
Will be near to us once more
Someday soon we all will be together
If the fates allow
Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now

THIS WEEK on 3 Chords & the Truth, we celebrate He who has defeated time and death, the celestial king come to earth as a little child, born in a manger long ago in a land far away. We play the songs of our Christmases past as we anticipate its coming once again.

This week, the Big Show is about the songs of our lives, both sacred and playful.

It's Christmastime once again, and we're having a party. Everyone is invited -- past, present or future . . . it doesn't matter. Not this week. Faithful friends who were dear to us will be near to us once more.

As will you.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

And don't forget to try the egg nog and bourbon balls. Yum.

3 Chords & the Truth: Shellac touchstones

You know what kind of music my parents were buying in 1947? Walter Brown -- "My Baby's Boogie Woogie."

Low-down blues. "Race" music. Along with pop, jump and country twangfests like the Delmore Brothers (above).

"She's got what it takes, make a preacher lay his Bible down," sangeth Mr. Brown. You should hear the flip side -- and you will . . . on this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth.

This is a special one, this episode of the Big Show. If you want to know the music of my soul, this will get you pretty close.

If you want to know what was it that made your Mighty Favog the musical creature that he is -- if you want to hear the records I was playing when I was but a lad, just old enough to get into my folks records and operate a record player -- this is it.

This is personal.

THIS WEEK'S 3 Chords & the Truth is who I am. This week's program sounds like the world -- the Deep South -- I was born into a half century ago. It's a sequel to this episode of the Big Show, only I go "there" a lot more this time around.

It was eclectic, the Louisiana . . . the South of my youth. It was seemingly at odds with itself if you didn't look any further than the surface of things. It was also rich beyond measure. So is the show today.

Take Walter Brown, the blues shouter who once sang with Jay McShann's orchestra. In the particular culture I entered into during the spring of 1961, black shouters like him could sit next to white twangers like Ernest Tubb in the record cabinet in the bottom of the old Silvertone . . . even if they couldn't share a seat on a city bus.

And no one thought twice about either peculiarity.

This explains my parents' music-buying habits of 1947, 14 years before I came along and about 18 years before I started raiding their music collection. It also explains the complex and contradictory inner lives of these people -- formed by the Southern society that brought us Louis Armstrong, Hank Williams and Jim Crow -- who could in 1947 buy racy records by blues shouters, then in 1971 yell at me about my expletive-deleted "n***er music."

People who thought Dick Clark was a communist.

Those Wallace and Duke voters.

A couple more of the blackest white people on earth -- as Southern Caucasians surely are -- who may have found it just cause for homicide if you had told them that back in the day.

THE SOUTH: It's a mystery, wrapped in a riddle, tucked away in an enigma and fueled by contradiction. This week, you can look under its hood a little bit -- its and mine. You won't totally understand either of us at the end of this particular installment of the Big Show . . . but it will be a start.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: When stereo danced

I miss the days when stereo used to dance.

I miss the days when we would get excited over something as simple as "stereo" gettin' jiggy wit it. I miss the days when we didn't say "gettin' jiggy wit it."

I miss the days when we didn't take this stuff for granted. When dancing stereo was fresh, new and exciting. Down Up. Down. Up. Down. Up.

STEREO!

This week's 3 Chords & the Truth is completely down with the jiggy stereo. Or is that sTeReO.

I miss the days of glorious analog and 29-cent gas -- the days when we were so easily amused. I miss the days when $3.98 could buy you, if not love, left and right channels of WOW!

I miss "WOW!" too. Wow and dancing stereo went hand in hand with our lost sense of wonder. When progress was a given, because we were Americans, by God!

Mostly, I miss the sense of wonder. If you get anything out of this week's edition of the Big Show, I hope it's an inkling of wonder. A smidgen of glory.

Actually, we have a whole set of "glory" this week on 3 Chords & the Truth. A whole set of cheatin', cryin' and drankin', too . . . call it "fair and balanced" DJing.

MAINLY, though, it's about the WOW! and the dancing "stereo" on old record albums pulled from the closet -- and from the warm glow of our memories of a time of wonder. Maybe it's not too late to recapture how that felt.

All you need is $3.98 and a time machine. Of course, just downloading this week's show would be easier . . . and cheaper.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: Back in the saddle again

I'm back in the saddle again, out where a friend is a friend.

Where the lonely DJ feeds on some lowly MP3s . . . back in the saddle again.

Ridin' the 'Net once more
Huntin' an RCA 44
Where there's 3 Chords & the Truth
And the music shakes the roof
Back in the saddle again

Whoopi-ty-aye-yay
Rock is here to stay
Back in the saddle again
Whoopi-ty-aye-oh
Vacations come and go
Back in the saddle again

I'm back in the saddle again
Out where a friend is a friend
Where the lonely DJ feeds
On some lowly MP3s
Back in the saddle again

Ridin' the 'Net once more
Huntin' an RCA 44
Where you sign on every day
And there's great tunes here to play
Back in the saddle again

Whoopi-ty-aye-yay
Jazz may come your way
Back in the saddle again

Whoopi-ty-aye-oh
Vacation, why'd you go?
Back in the saddle again

It's 3 Chords & the Truth y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Pardner.

-- Apologies to Gene Autry

3 Chords & the Truth: Boogie till you. . . .

How to describe this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth?

Let us consider how the great philosopher, the late Root Boy Slim, might have viewed what the Big Show has in store for us today:

Put a quarter in the juke
And boogie till you puke

Works for me. And I'll spot you the quarter.

I MEAN, after all, "the party lasts till your brain cells gone." Because we got to boogie.

I think that's in the Bible.

Somewhere.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: Gather 'round the iFi

One night of spin is what I'm praying for.

Wait . . . that doesn't sound quite right.

Or does it sound completely right? One night of spinning your favorite records on a machine so pretty that I'll bet the late Steve Jobs was envious of it. Yeah . . . sounds good. Sounds right.

I guess what 3 Chords & the Truth is all about is bridging realities, past and present. It's about putting a bunch of music together from yesterday and today, then mashing it all together as we try to translate the tactile, personal aesthetic of music and radio yesterday to the digital world of iWhatever today.

THIS, I suppose, is done in hope of a better tomorrow.

Or something.

That's the executive summary of what the Big Show is all about and what this episode of the Big Show is about. It's about bringing things together -- people together.

It's about bringing all kinds of music together, because there basically are only two kinds. Good and bad. The bad, we don't mess with. I've said that before and, no doubt, will say it again. And again.

So drop in, grab a cold one and grab a chair over here next to the hi-fi. There's a record party going on. We call it 3 Chords & the Truth . . . or the Big Show.

Either one.

IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.