Showing posts with label Woodstock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Woodstock. Show all posts

Saturday, April 18, 2020

3 Chords & the Truth: Déjà vu all over again


These are the times that try men's immune systems.

And their faith in mankind . . . political leaders . . . the "American way of life" (snort) . . . human intelligence, God and the universe.

Americans, most of us, are not in a good place right now. We're cooped up, the president's brain obviously is f***ed up, people are all head-up, and right-wing politicians and pundits look at the mounting coronavirus death toll, then agitate for the economy to "open up."

It's late 1918 and the Spanish flu all over again. That didn't end well.

 
ON TOP of it all, John Prine died on April 7. Of the coronavirus.

It's all enough to make you give up hope. That's exactly why you can't. And that's more or less what this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is all about -- that, paying tribute to the great John Prine, a Woodstock jam and other good stuff.

To be frank (because I'm sick of people calling me Shirley), I'm kind of at a loss for what else to say about this go 'round of the Big Show.

So I won't. Just listen; you'll figure it out.

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


Friday, April 27, 2018

We dropped some brown acid, man

"To get back to the warning that I have received -- you may take it with however many grains of salt you wish -- that the brown acid that has been circulating around us is not, specifically, too good. It's suggested that you do stay away from that. Of course, it's your own trip, so be my guest. But please be advised that there is a warning on that one, OK?"
-- Chip Monck
Master of ceremonies,
Woodstock, 1969

Many odd and sometimes disturbing things about the 1960s and '70s, for those of us who came of age during those decades, can be explained or put into context merely by saying "It was the (fill in the blank)."

If that explanation does not suffice, blame the brown acid, man.

As we consider the person and "music" career of the late Tiny Tim -- seen here in a record-label ad from the June 8, 1968, edition of Billboard magazine -- I'm going straight to the brown-acid excuse.

Dude. Tiny Tim, born Herbert Buckingham Khaury in 1932, was the brown acid. Listening to Tiny Tim on your AM or FM radio . . . watching him on your 21-inch Magnavox . . . it was like being in the presence of an off-key castrato undergoing electroshock treatment.

Boy howdy.


MY UNFORTUNATE double- and triple-knit sartorial choices from the end of 1969 until marrying into a wardrobe-control regimen in 1983? "It was the '70s."

That Tiny Tim sold records and was all over network television and the radio, too? "The brown acid that had been circulating around us was not, specifically, too good."


Seriously. It was some bad shit, man.


You bet your sweet bippy, it was.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

3 Chords & the Truth: Blue Spanish radios


I've been rummaging around in a box of old reel-to-reel tapes again, and I've found another radio classic from Uncle Favog.

And I suppose I have Woodstock -- or at least the soundtrack LP thereof -- to thank for this glimpse into Unk's foray into middle-of-the-road radio disc jockeying.

And it is this glimpse, preserved on Mylar-backed sound recording tape, that comprises this week's episode of the Big Show, otherwise known as 3 Chords & the Truth.

From what I gather from my uncle, who when this aircheck was recorded was going by J. Favog, he got this gig at one of Omaha's AM old-school giants just a week or two beforehand. And that was about a week after he got fired from KOWH-FM, then known as Radio Free Omaha and now known as defunct.

IT MUST have been the first week of May 1970 when Radio Free Omaha got an advance promotional copy of the Woodstock soundtrack album. Uncle Favog had been much into the seminal 1969 music festival at the time, and gave much attention to it on his overnight shows on KOWH-FM.

So one night when he was running a little late for his air shift, he figured he'd throw it on the turntable and let it track through while he gathered his other music for the overnight. In fact, being a big Country Joe and the Fish fan, he figured he'd start with that band's Woodstock set.

Cool. Live version of "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag," preceded by something called The "Fish" Cheer. Must have been "Country" Joe McDonald's humorous commentary on it was raining so much, Max Yasgur's farm was only fit for trout.

Or something.

Uncle Favog never did get to finish that air shift. He was bummed for a while, but got the overnight MOR job by promising to cut his hair and wear a tie to work.

The station didn't have a copy of the Woodstock LP, alas. Where Unk was concerned, that was probably a good thing.

SO LISTEN UP, and listen in, to my old uncle shoehorning his hippie-dippy self into a Frank Sinatra and Jerry Vale world on this vintage recording.

You know, I think "J. Favog" really came to love that gig. He found it counter cultural, in a weird sort of way.

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

Saturday, January 02, 2010

3 Chords & the Truth: Aquarius redux

EDITOR'S NOTE: Your Mighty Favog is kicking back for a week, so he thought he'd start a New Year's tradition by reposting his favorite show of the previous year. For 2009, that would be the Woodstock 40th-anniversary show.

Favog doesn't know whether that was the best show of the year, but he knows it was the most fun to do. So, once again, let's travel back to the age of Aquarius . . . on the Big Show.


During the Age of Aquarius, Uncle Favog was the coolest cat I knew.

He drove the coolest VW microbus, he wore the coolest beads, and he had the coolest bell bottoms adorned with the coolest peace-and-love patches.

Uncle Favog protested the war, expanded his mind and got all the groovy chicks. And he played groovy music all night on Radio Free Omaha . . . master of his own fate (at least so long as he didn't cause The Man to come down on the station, bourgeois capitalist convention being what it was, man) and host of 3 Chords & the Truth.

This present 3 Chords & the Truth on the Internets is a tribute to that wonderful show of Uncle Favog's four decades ago on the FM airwaves.

Remember when FM was hip, cool, happenin' and now?

Didn't think you did.

ANYWAY, I was rummaging through a box of old reel-to-reel tapes, and I came up with this Big Show gem from 40 years ago this week. Anybody remember what was going on then?

Yeah, you may have seen the news stories featuring aging hippies remembering a certain "happening" in New York state. Uncle Favog, though, would not have been one of them.

Oh, of course he's an aging hippie, but he also was right here in Omaha, playing the musical "guru" as he spun the righteous tunes over the Radio Free Omaha airwaves.
Back in the day . . . when we had problems, but still held out hope, all the while groovin' to the music that could move our souls.

It was -- and is -- 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

3 Chords & the Truth: Aquarian flashback

During the Age of Aquarius, Uncle Favog was the coolest cat I knew.

He drove the coolest VW microbus, he wore the coolest beads, and he had the coolest bell bottoms adorned with the coolest peace-and-love patches.

Uncle Favog protested the war, expanded his mind and got all the groovy chicks. And he played groovy music all night on Radio Free Omaha . . . master of his own fate (at least so long as he didn't cause The Man to come down on the station, bourgeois capitalist convention being what it was, man) and host of 3 Chords & the Truth. This present
3 Chords & the Truth on the Internets is a tribute to that wonderful show of Uncle Favog's four decades ago on the FM airwaves.

Remember when FM was hip, cool, happenin' and now?

Didn't think you did.

ANYWAY, I was rummaging through a box of old reel-to-reel tapes, and I came up with this Big Show gem from 40 years ago this week. Anybody remember what was going on then?

Yeah, you may have seen the news stories featuring aging hippies remembering a certain "happening" in New York state. Uncle Favog, though, would not have been one of them.

Oh, of course he's an aging hippie, but he also was right here in Omaha, playing the musical "guru" as he spun the righteous tunes over the Radio Free Omaha airwaves.

Back in the day . . . when we had problems, but still held out hope, all the while groovin' to the music that could move our souls.

It was -- and is -- 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Tempus fugit, man


I came upon a child of god
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going
And this he told me
I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm
I'm going to join in a rock n roll band
I'm going to camp out on the land
I'm going to try an get my soul free
We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

-- Joni Mitchell







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