3 Chords & the Truth: Hello in there

Fall just fell, the heat is running, the coffee's on . . . a great time for you to pop in and say "Hello in there!"

Or maybe the Big Show will just drop by your place to say hello. Either way is fine.

Well, while we're saying hello, we just as well have some pumpkin spice stuff -- coffee, treats, booze, air freshener, whatever. Apparently it's required.

And we at 3 Chords & the Truth do what's expected of us.

Uh . . . once we did. I think.

Anyway, say howdy, grab some kind of pumpkin stuff and settle in for a bunch of really good music. As is our custom.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Watching the world go by

We're sittin' in the bunker, watching the world go by.

DUCK!

It's that kind of world these days, and 3 Chords & the Truth is here to help you cope with it. Good music helps with everything.

When you have a president who, in just one day, called on the Chinese communists to investigate the former vice president of the United States -- a potential electoral opponent of said president -- and then run a network television commercial accusing congressional Democrats of plotting a coup against him . . . well, we need all the help we can get.

AND THAT was just a couple of days after he quoted (in a tweet, of course) a right-wing preacher who said there'd be civil war to pay if the Democrats impeached him. Listen to the music, folks. Listen to the music.

Listen to the good music and soak in the good cheer -- we're not that far away from killing one another. Like I said, hold on to the good music . . . and the better angels of your nature. We need all the help we can get.

The Big Show is fun, yes. It's musically enlightening. It's, on its better days, informative without boring the crap out of you or sounding like a college lecture. (A not good one, that is.)

But this here little music program is as serious as a heart attack, too. 3 Chords & the Truth also is, one hopes, a reminder that we're better than the worse of the headlines on the evening news. That we're better than our politics. That we're better than the dysfunctional man-child in Washington who keeps trying to drag us down into the muck -- to pit American brother against American brother, and American sister against American sister. To pit America against the rest of the world.

Call the show not just "music for the people," but also "music for we the people."

Love your brother and listen to the damn music. Please?

'Cause no one's listening to anything if we've all done one another in.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Still the same . . . or something

I feel like the Big Show is a Bob Seger thing . . . still the same.

Forget that. We actually don't have any Bob Seger on the show this week. We are, however, still the same -- in that we're rarely the same week to week.

Which, conversely, makes 3 Chords & the Truth still the same in programmatic non-sameness. Or something like that.

I am starting to not make sense. Which might make me president of the United States, and no one wants that. Then again, nobody wants the present president of the United States, either.

So I'll merely say that this current edition of the Big Show is the same as every other in its eclecticism and high quality. And your host is what he is.

That is all.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Really?

There was a hurricane.

And, like, it moved north, you know, and wasn't. . . .

Not headed anywhere near Alabama.  But then the president tweeted. And. . . .

Then . . . then . . . he was wrong. But truth is a casualty when he's wrong and reality must be bent to make lies into something like the truth in this crazy, mixed-up land.

I swear to God, what's a poor music show to do in the middle of a loony bin? I'm talking about 3 Chords & the Truth here.

PITY THE Big Show that just wants to have fun when an apocalypse calls. No, not the Apocalypse, just an apocalypse.

But Donald Trump's trying hard, you know?

So tune in for 3 Chords & the Truth in full underground, rebel radio station mode. Because someone has to tell folks they're not the ones who are crazy.

Oh . . . the music's damn good, too.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: And it's all right?

We all, I think, had a close call with apocalyptic crazy last week, and it's all right.

For now.

I think.

The sun has continued to rise, and it appears we will make it to September. I think. That is, hurricanes and Washington willing.

Anyway, we're counting our being here to do yet another installment of 3 Chords & the Truth as a victory, which we're celebrating in the usual manner -- with really great music, eclectically presented.

IT'S THE BEST music. Unbelievably beautiful music. You would not believe how beautiful the music is on this week's edition of the Big Show.

And that's no fake news. Or is it Fake News?

The new rules for capitalization still kinda throw me. You know?

That said. . . .

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

3 Chords & the Truth: We had a good run, eh?

The lunatic tweets like an ass.

The lunatic speaks out his ass
Remembering blame and crazy claims and gaffes
Got to keep the loonies on the path

The lunatic has cast a pall
The lunatics have so much gall
TV news keeps his crazy rants in our ears
And every day the lunatic spews more

And the crazy train is off the rusted tracks again
And if this is the end of the damn line
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I'll see you here on 3 Chords & the Truth

It's the Big Show, y'all. Let's be here while we can. Aloha.

(Apologies to Pink Floyd.)

3 Chords & the Truth: Music box

What is the Big Show?

The program, 3 Chords & the Truth, is basically an internet-enabled, really eclectic, Favogian frickin' music box. Like a radio.

I assume you're listening on something that roughly approximates a box. And that there's music coming out of it.

Voila! Music box.

And in the case of the Big Show, it's a good music box. Or a box filled with good music. However you'd like to phrase it.

It's certainly a box radiating eclectic music, carefully curated. I'm told I should use phrases like "carefully curated." I don't know why.

WE LIVE IN an age of branding, I suppose. That's fine, as far as it goes, but it doesn't equal doing. And thoughtfully selected and placed music is what we just frickin' do on 3 Chords & the Truth.

Heat up that iron in a fire and brand something with it, Cowboy.

Hell, I don't even know where I'm going with this. Hell, the veterinarian didn't know where I was going with it when I asked him whether the organizers were giving out Who's a GOOD Boy? awards at his 30-year vet-school reunion this summer.

AND, by the way, Belle the Dog is lying on the back of the couch watching Elmo on PBS Kids.

I don't know why.

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

Listen to Wubbie

Watch intently.

Obey Wubbie. You're feeling the need to listen. Listen. You really need to listen to the Big Show.

Listen to Wubbie.

Wubbie says listen to 3 Chords & the Truth. Wubbie loves good music. YOU love good music. Wubbie says listen.

Listen.

3 Chords & the Truth: WHOA!

Did you know there may be a race of men who live in the trees?

WHOA!

That's just one of the shocking developments you'll hear on this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth. In fact, this episode of the show is chock full of surprises, unexpected endings and edge-of-your-seat musical moments.

IT'S TRUE!

So if you don't want to miss out on one WHOA! moment after another, DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL!!! Even if your podcast-listening device doesn't actually have a dial.

Just do what we say, and everybody gets good music and somewhat-witty repartée. And it's right here on the Big Show.

You betcha.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: No static a-tall

Did your old man ever ominously warn you about giving him any static?

Mine did. It usually didn't work. I gave him static.

Well, pally, today we live in a world with nothin' but static. Static here, static there, static static static everywhere.

This week on 3 Chords & the Truth, I seek to make static amends by proclaiming this here program a static-free zone. There will be no static here, only good music.

And from the Great Beyond, Daddy now is saying "So NOW you decide to stop being an asshole."

To that, I only can say "Better late than never, Pop. Better late than never."

Enjoy your static-free edition of the Big Show.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Cooler than average

Embrace the chill.

3 Chords & the Truth, you see, is cooler than average. Way cooler than average.

Cool music, cool concept, cool production values . . . and a moderately acceptable host. That works out, when you do the math, to cooler than average. If you grade on a curve -- that is, factor in what you hear on the radio in most locales -- the Big Show is way cooler than average.

That's what I'm sayin'.

And that's what you'll hear, right here on this here program.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Patching it together

How do you put the Big Show together every week? One patch at a time.

You see, 3 Chords & the Truth is like a patchwork quilt. It has a bunch of musical scraps to it, and to the untrained eye, they look like pretty damned random scraps. To the untrained ear, it sounds like nothing sensible will come out of this mishmash.

Kind of how a box of discarded scraps looks like . . . a box of discarded scraps. Until you put them together into a beautiful quilt. Until you take the disorder and make it into order -- into a meaningful theme.

Until you create functional art out of random disorder.

That's exactly what's going on with the Big Show each and every week. We make a musical whole out of random songs and wildly diverse records.

It's a patchwork.

IT'S A SEEMING MESS until you add something that's in rare supply on the radio these days -- a vision.

I guess that's why the program's not on the radio. You need vision . . . and a bit of patience to see how things are going to turn out.

How the scraps get transformed into a whole.

Patchwork. That's the ticket to quality radio, even if it's just on the Internet.

Now let's you and me dig into that box of bits and pieces and see what we can make out of it.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Yes, sir! Couldn't be better!

It's great!

What's great? Everything!

Everything is great again in America, and everything is great here at 3 Chords & the Truth! Everything is going so phenomenally -- never has anything been so phenomenal -- that we may even add a fourth chord!

America is great again! The Big Show is great again! If America and the show were any greater, we'd be whistling Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah out our . . . well, we'd be whistling.

IS THIS a great country, or what?

Oh . . . one more thing. Please don't blow us up.

That is all. Because we're just great!

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Warm and comfy

The Big Show is warm and comfy like glowing vacuum tubes and sweet, sweet music from your hi-fi on a chilly autumn's evening.

I admit that's a nerd's vision of warm and comfortable, but work with me here.

What we can say that everybody can get his warm and fuzzies around is that 3 Chords & the Truth will make you feel all good inside as your troubles -- and the nasty, ugly world outside -- just melts away. At least for an hour and 30 minutes.

LONGER if you binge listen to every episode on the Big Show audio repository.

As usual, this week's show is an exemplary one . . . and we're confident you'll enjoy the eclectic heck out of it. And that, friend, is just about all there is to say.

Except for this . . . .

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Doing what we do

With a little luck, we won't piss off QAnon this week.

That's something that happened last week. Your Mighty Favog said something unfavorable toward the president, etc., and so forth on the Big Show, and . . . well . . . life has gotten weird in these Disunited States.

To the best of my remembering, this week's 3 Chords & the Truth is a relative bastion of sweetness and light -- OK . . . it's merely the normal amount of snark and silliness -- so we should be spared the Two-Minute Hates and the demands to shut up. Or not.

As I said, sh*t's gotten weird across the land.

Perhaps this episode of the finest music podcast on the Internets just will offend regular-strength conspiracy theorists, not the extra-strength, supersized ones. Look! Black helicopters!

ANYWAY . . .  we're here to talk about the music we're playing this week, right?

Well, we have some of this, a fair smattering of that, and you can't overlook the other thing that's on the Big Show this week. It's all very, very good.

For one thing, we have both country and  a set where we funk our way back to the 1940s. Then there's some stuff right out of left field.

Oh, crap. I said "left field." I sense some people getting pissed at the mere mention of Not Right. I swear to God, sh*t's weird these days. So very, very weird.

Listen, I'm trying not to get into trouble here. So maybe I should quit while I'm behind and just say something like "Listen to 3 Chords & the Truth. It's good." Yeah, I think I'll just do that.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Tunes in the ruins

In 1961, I was born into a society and a state run by preening, fascist jackasses who weaponized bigotry and hatred as a means of governance and civic intimidation. Such was the Deep South under Jim Crow.

In middle age, I find myself living in a society and -- now -- an entire country run by preening, fascist jackasses who weaponize bigotry and hatred as a means of governance (such as it is) and civic intimidation. Such is the whole damn country under Trumpism.

Forget two steps forward and one step back. Try two steps forward, then 60 years back.

This week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth comes at the end of a particularly ugly week in American history -- this by the prevailing standards of a time in American history when every week is an ugly week presided over by a president who is the Pied Piper of Pathology. The Duke of Deviance. The Count of Cruelty.

And he has a trail of toilet paper stuck to his goddamn shoe.

Or the soiled, tattered souls of Republican senators. One or the other.

THIS UGLY WEEK featured the slut shaming of victims of sexual assault. The ridiculing of a woman who had given credible testimony that a nominee for the Supreme Court had tried to rape her when they were in high school.

It also featured a sham FBI investigation of that accusation and others against Brett Kavanaugh. Did we know enough to say for sure what happened? No.Was there enough smoke to logically assume something was fully engulfed in flame? You bet.

Did congressional Republicans care? Of course not.

Does it look like the United States is coming apart at a level not seen since 1968 -- and perhaps since 1861? Looks like it from here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska.

This is the week we wish wasn't, and this is a week when we're -- somehow -- supposed to do another episode of the Big Show. Remember the Big Show? Yeah. It's easy to forget in times like these.

THE PROBLEM in doing yet another episode of 3 Chords & the Truth when shit gets exponentially weirder with each passing week is the specter of overwhelming cognitive dissonance. You start to feel like you're returning to regularly scheduled programming in Detroit as the Motor City burns around you in the spring of 1967.

Or, more in keeping with my personal frame of reference, you're the overnight man at Loose Radio in Baton Rouge, La., playing hippie, trippy rock 'n' roll music in 1971 while the rednecks from the end of Easy Rider keep circling the block, shotgun barrel pointed out the window of the pickup truck.

At you.

It occurs to me there's only one thing to do in such a situation . . . in this present situation. What do you do? What you do is give the f***ers the finger and keep playing the tunes. In the ruins.

Amen.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Musical truth

Like any product of the 1960s and '70s, I admit my fondness for the Top-40 radio of that now long-ago era. Whenever I hear a recording of that, from then, something comes over me.

Nostalgia, wistfulness, longing . . . whatever you want to call it. It's like an emotional wave crashing upon the graying sands of a middle-aged shore.

But Top-40 by definition is musical popularity, which is something quite different from musical truth. There can be truth in there somewhere . . . but my musical truth and yours isn't subject to the Billboard charts or a survey of local retailers.

Musical truth comes from the soul -- from what speaks to you and moves you, deeply and immediately. That is what 3 Chords & the Truth  is all about.

FOR ME, that's what this week's show is about, what last week's show was about and what every episode of the Big Show will be about. It's kind of like walking a tightrope without a safety net. You know the songs you play, and how you string them together, speaks to you. But will it speak to anyone else?

Good question, no pat answer.

It's an art, not a science. Science has its purpose, but this isn't one of them. Every week, I'm hoping for the best and fearing the deafening silence of the worst.

And I'm hoping for that kernel of musical truth for me and for you.

That's all anyone can do when it comes to the God's honest musical truth.

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

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.