3 Chords & the Truth: No, this ain't ordinary

It's the glory of, the power of "No."

In Washington, it can make bullies fold like a newspaper. Here, it can banish the stale and the ordinary -- "No, we're not doing what we're supposed to do. No, we're gonna do something way beyond the ordinary."

And then the "nos" lead to yesses. "Yes, this is something that will blow your mind."

"Yes, 3 Chords & the Truth is something that's extraordinary."

"Yes, we're throwing away all the labels."

"Yes, we recognize only two kinds of music -- good and bad."

AND THEN,  and then . . .  we're right back to another "no." No . . . the bad, we don't mess with.

That's the glory of, that's the power of the Big Show. Dig it?

I knew that you would.

See, that's the story of this here little podcast. We embrace the power of "no." And that's a great big "YES!" for you.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Plumb out of clever

This is your head.

This is your head when it's plumb out of clever.

This is your head when you embrace the void, and just play some s*** and call it . . . good, actually.

That's where we are today on this, the latest episode of 3 Chords & the Truth. We're absolutely, positively out of cutesy, clever or anything vaguely resembling thematic.

You know what, though? That's OK. As it turns out, the Big Show doesn't particularly need cutesy, clever or thematic. What it needs is good music, and that we got plenty of.

OH . . . we also got this nifty picture of a vacuum tube from a 1928 RCA Radiola 18. That's a radio -- remember those?

After 91 years, it still works fine. I seriously doubt your big-screen TV, your laptop, your smartphone . . . or your government will still be functional in nine decades.

Hell, your government isn't functional now. But I digress.

The show. Music. Good. Getting by without big theme or cleverness. Check.

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

It's magi-sounda-what?

Don't know what to make of 3 Chords & the Truth?

That's OK. Sometimes, neither do I. Then again, that's kind of the point of the whole thing.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: All in all . . . .

All in all, we're just another brick in the wall.

Or another bollard in the steel-slat, fencey-wally thing to keep the brown people out.

As we post this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth, a quarter of the U.S. government still is flat-lined because Someone wants his big, beautiful border wall, and Congress won't fund it. Some 800,000 federal employees aren't being paid . . . whether they've been furloughed or are being forced into "essential personnel" involuntary servitude.

Slave labor is real, people. Still.

It's another fine mess we've gotten ourselves into.

OR, IN THE topical Big Show universe in which your Mighty Favog produces this particular podcast, it's (as is regularly said in the Omaha, by God, Nebraska studios as a show theme percolates its way into reality), "Another week, another clusterf*** we have to address."

Well, let's just say that 3 Chords & the Truth endeavors to make America's national clusterf***s as entertaining as possible. And dat's da name of dat toon.

Yeah. Amusing and thought-provoking clusterf***s. Such is life these days in these here United States. And on this here program.

You can be assured that this latest cock-up is being made the most of. Dangling preposition and all.

I personally think it's well worth a listen. But that's just me. You're welcome to agree, however.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: What was the question again?

Injury a head who knew you could from reading the news get?

Certainly not your Mighty Favog.

Scones!

Week this on Chords 3 Truth & the, think I we have a jolly show good. Fun we are having with plenty fun of music.

And . . . sure (the royal) we are that play we will some favorites of your. That's plenty reason to sit yourself down, click on the link, and listen to some music right now. The Big Show on. Is what we're saying.

Are we playing Pink Floyd's "Brain Damage"? Well, no, not this week. Why do you ask?

It's the great show. It's the best show. It's the unequaled show in all the universe.

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

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

Scones!

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: Tunes for a clown-car commute

Life is a three-ring circus. Now more than ever.

And what we all are is stuck in the slow lane of a clown-car traffic jam. Rogue elephants up ahead have just shucked Peter Peanut (may Chuckles the Clown rest in peace) and a Flying Wallenda has just done a bug impression . . . all over your teeny-tiny windshield.

That's right, ladies and germs, Ringling Bros. is no more because it no longer could compete with the United States of Big Top, which has the advantage of scale.

Oooooh, watch your step there, pally. Elephants eat a lot of peanuts.

But I have got a deal for you. Step right up, and I will show you the great deal 3 Chords & the Truth has got for you.

Right over here, I present to you the Big Show, a fine program of musical erudition -- one this week that features an excellent set of tip-top, Big Top music for the times in which we find ourselves this fine day.

IT'S A CIRCUS out there, gents . . . and ladies . . . and, boy, do I have the music for you.

Right here, and for an unlimited time only, I give you the best in musical programming -- three full rings of musical bliss -- for the low, low price of absolutely nothing. That's right! Absolutely nothing. And all I require from you is . . . your undying devotion.

That's it! No catches, no regrets . . . just the finest music on the Internets for the low price of zilch! Zip! Nada!

Squat!

And if you stay tuned to this here episode of 3 Chords & the Truth, you will witness something too dangerous to ever hear on the regular, pedestrian radio airwaves! You will see -- somewhere in the middle of the show -- the death-defying segué that mere mortals dare not attempt at your crappy corporate radio station!

WILL your Mighty Favog live? Or will . . . he . . . die . . . in the flaming wreckage of a musical transition gone terribly . . . horribly . . . wrong?

You must stay glued to -- transfixed upon -- your high-fidelity listening device to find out the answer to that perilous question. Yes, indeed!

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, ladies and gentlemen! Be there. And let the show begin!

3 Chords & the Truth: Hello! Hello? Hello?!

Hello?

Is this thing on?

Hello! Hello! Hello???

Echo echo echo echooooooooo!

Hello! Hello! What's goin' on? This week's 3 Chords & the Truth is comin' on strong.

This one is 401, that's the number, it's true. And we just wanted to say hello . . . not to do so is wrong.

Hello! Hello! Can you hear me out there? Sometimes you just wonder. Sometimes, it's a bear.

This week's Big Show -- boy howdy, it's fun! The music's wonderful . . . there's joy in the air!

Hello! Hello! There's no more to say. So I'll just tell you "Ta-ta!"

The show's 3 Chords & the Truth. Be there. Aloha!

3 Chords & the Truth: The Now Sound @ 400

It all started in a 5,000-watt radio station in Fresno, California -- a $65 paycheck and a crazy dream.

Now 3 Chords & the Truth has just released its 400th episode, and while the dream is still crazy, the paycheck is down to $5.32. Working in the media is not for sissies.

Or, actually, for people who like to eat.

So, what can I say on this occasion of the 400th program of the Big Show?






















OK, I got something.

This 400th episode of 3 Chords & the Truth is one more than 399. And it's 399 more than episode No. 1 back in January 2008.

Thank you.

Oh . . . and the music's good. Real good.

Is this long  enough to turn in now, teacher?

Is anybody in here?

ECHO! ECHO! (ECHOOOOO! ECHOOOOO!)

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

3 Chords & the Truth: 57 candles, and there's somethin' on

Kyrie eleison, down the road that I must travel.

Christe eleison, it's my birthday.

Kyrie eleison, I am freakin' old.

Lord have mercy, if I have to turn what I'm turning, the Big Show is gonna party like it's 1979. Or 1980.

Perhaps, 1985.

WHATEVER. No matter the particular year, this edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is going to rock.

Hard.

Christ have mercy, the old farts will rock. Yes we will. And so will you, Cap.

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

It blowed up good. It blowed up real good.

Click for full-size image

Listen to the Big Show. It's a (CLUNK!) blast.

If you don't get the joke . . . ask your parents.

3 Chords & the Truth: Colliding subcultures, or . . .

. . . radio at a time far, far away.

You know the spiel. It's the standard 3 Chords & the Truth spiel: We've subcultured ourselves to death. Almost literally.

In the radio sense, that's a boring thing. Do you like just one kind of music? Do you only want to know anything about one kind of music . . . or about only one tiny, tiny segment of the population that looks suspiciously a lot like yourself?

I didn't think so. If you were that unbelievably narrow of taste and of mind, you wouldn't be here.

The Big Show is the place for the inquisitive and the easily bored. It's the place where cultures collide constantly -- as we've said this week in promoting the program. And -- again -- it's freakin' glorious.

NOW, I'm not sayin', but on this edition of the show, Sinatra and Steppenwolf may well coexist on your Internet connection. Might even collide.

That'd be something to hear. But I'm not sayin', you understand.

I am sayin', however, that this here program is all about what radio, at its best, used to be. It's about starting there and pushing forward.

So, forward.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Favog's Country Bunker

It's almost Election Day, and we're here in the 3 Chords & the Truth Country Bunker waiting for the end of the world.

If it doesn't actually happen Tuesday -- Wednesday at the latest -- one way or the other, it's gonna be close.

So this week on the Big Show, our time will be well spent listening to some favorites, getting close to Jesus and standing in the light. Well . . . as much light as there is here in the bunker.

If you find all this to be a great mystery, listen to the program and all will be revealed to thee. Here, In the bunker.

Don't mind the chicken wire in front of the stage.

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