
Friday, June 12, 2020
3 Chords & the Truth: No. 1 in the heart of . . . something

Friday, September 27, 2019
3 Chords & the Truth: The Now Sound?
The Now Sound?
This week, not so much. The newest selection is from 21 years ago. Old happens.
No, this edition of the Big Show is the "then sound," with music from wildly varying genres and several different "thens." Frankly, I like it that way. Increasingly, "now" is not something to which a sane man wishes to aspire.
"Now," we're at one another's throats. We as an American nation . . . aren't. We are as divided as we've been since Vietnam, and maybe since Fort Sumter. "Now," we are dry kindling, and we have a president splashing gasoline around and lighting matches.

Pardon my pessimism and rejection of "now" this week. I came down with a nasty cold amid recording this week's edition of the Big Show, and I may have just had a toddy with orange juice, lemon juice, honey, Tabasco sauce . . . and three shots of grocery store bourbon.
If I can't get well soon, at least I won't care. But you have to endure my dark bluntness amid the damned fine music. Which definitely isn't "now."
It's from "then," when folks hated each other a bit less and hoped for the future a bit more. Good night and good luck.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Saturday, March 09, 2019
3 Chords & the Truth: The endless-winter blues
Donald Trump is autographing bibles in Alabama.
Well, of course he is. Hell has been frozen over for some time now -- and so has Omaha, by God, Nebraska.
Pardon us at 3 Chords & the Truth for being sick and tired of this crap. Winter. Ecclesiastical Lent piled on top of zeitgeist Lent. Winter. A world gone mad. Winter. . . .

This week on the Big Show, we're muddling through and making the best of things. It's all anyone can do.
YEP, we got the good music, we're hanging onto it tight, and that will have to suffice.
I regret that my Seasonal Affective Disorder prevents me from elucidating further. My bad.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Saturday, July 07, 2018
3 Chords & the Truth: The best sound. The greatest sound.
This show is the Miracle of Modern Sound.
The 3 Chords & the Truth, I guess I speak well. You know, we turned away thousands of people. They never say I'm a great speaker. Why the hell do so many people listen?

WE DON'T NEED IT. We have people in that space, so we break all these records. But really we do it without, like, the musical instruments. This is the only musical, the mouth, and hopefully the brain attached to the mouth, right?
But they -- Do you ever notice? -- do you ever hear something, they say -- you know we had a case last week we were in a great place in Wisconsin? And we had a tremendous crowd and we have like the choice of a 22,000 seat arena and in retrospect, we would have packed it and they would have sent away thousands of people.
But the people said to me, very innocent people, they were great. But I hadn't met them. I said why didn't you -- they -- they filled up a 7,000 seat arena, walked away thousands of people, like over 20. and we would have filled -- and I said why didn't you use the bigger arena?
He said, sir, we knew that if you had five vacant seats, empty seats -- see vacant just because I was in the womp womp womp, I'll say use that term. If you had five empty seats, they would say the Mighty Favog was unable to fill the arena. And I said, you know what, you're right.
And I plagiarize the best people. The most unbelievable people. You wouldn't believe -- but they did.
Anyway, it's 3 Chords & the Truth. Be there. Aloha.
Friday, September 24, 2010
3 Chords & the Truth: Sick of the 2000s

Fire up the Tom Snyder videotapes, hand me a colortini and make the postmodern world go away.
I'll take the economy size Box o' 1980s, and you can keep the change. Oh . . . before you go, can you take this box of 2010 out to the dumpster for me? Thanks.
Well, that pretty much sums up the thrust of my thinking as 3 Chords & the Truth reappears after a week off. Last week, I tried to actually get back to the 1980s -- and 145 pounds -- but it didn't work out.

At any rate, this week, the Big Show is the place to go to forget how outraged you are at . . . everybody. It's the place to go to forget radio consisting of 10 bad songs in a row with no actual human being within earshot.
It's the place to go to forget radio consisting of 10 bad songs in a row with no actual human being within earshot.
It's the place to go to forget radio consisting of 10 bad songs in a row with no actual human being within earshot.
It's the place to go to forget radio consisting of 10 bad songs in a row with no actual human being within earshot.
It's the place to go to forget radio consisting of 10 bad songs in a row with no actual human being within earshot.
SORRY . . . the automation computer went on the fritz. The budget for live program hosts disappeared in 'o8. Fixed it as fast as I could.
See, I told you the 2000s suck.
Which is why we're, to a large extent, ditching them on 3 Chords and the Truth this week.
And when we need to, we can go hide out there for a while. Join me, won't you?
Where I'm going -- where the Big Show is going -- Tom Snyder still lives. He's still interviewing original punks amid a cloud of smoke.
No one has heard of Rush Limbaugh. Lady Gaga hasn't been born yet. And a tea party is what genteel ladies have on a lazy afternoon. There are better times out there, if only in the memories of old farts like myself.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Friday, June 18, 2010
3 Chords & the Truth: Listen or else!

You heard me.
Listen to this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth -- it's right here -- or Tony Hayward gets it.
I'm serious.
Really, I'll do it! Listen to this week's episode of the Big Show, or the CEO of BP gets it. And then we'll throw what's left of him into the oil slick.
I mean it!
C'mon, people. Listen to the show.

What?
Oh.
I'm not messing with you people anymore. Either listen to 3 Chords & the Truth -- which really is a fine show this week and every week -- or we let Tony Hayward, CEO of British Polluters, go home to London unscathed!
He'll make it back without a scratch on him. Unless you listen to the program right now.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
3 Chords & the Truth: Blues and grace


That, in a musical sense, is some of what we cover this week on 3 Chords & the Truth.

Well, that and some good ol' rockabilly (and fusion-y prog rock, too).
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
3 Chords & the Truth: Old school

The Thorazine was kind of nice, though.
You can't say 3 Chords & the Truth isn't, er . . . eventful. But I guess that's just the way we roll at the Big Show.
WELL, ACTUALLY, right now I'm being rolled down a bright corridor strapped to a gurney. My new friend Nurse Ratched is being kind enough to post this for me with her laptop.
But when you go old school, things do get "eventful." And you also can get 33 songs in a mere 90 minutes of show time.
Though I may have gotten carried away . . . before I was carried away.
AUNTIE EM! AUNTIE EM! AND TOTO, TOO!!!
Ow! Who gave me . . . a . . . shot?
I'm getting sleep . . . y . . . now. It's 3 Chords & the Truth . . . y'all. Beeeeeeeee there. Aaaaaaalohaaa . . . .
Saturday, January 23, 2010
3 Chords & the Truth: Dial up the music

Tired.
Hit the wall.
Motivation took a vacation, leaving the rest of me behind.

Ah, screw it. I just phoned it in this week. Deal.
EVEN THOUGH I phoned the Big Show (Medium-Sized Show?) in, the music still is pretty decent . . . probably. Whatever. Hope you like country. Then again, it's all the same to me.
'Cause I just phoned it in.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. (Or not . . . like I care this week.) Aloha.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
3 Chords & the Truth: Who are we now?
Sometimes, you stumble upon stuff.
Sometimes, it can get you to thinking hard.
And, sometimes, you just have to stop and wonder "Who am I?"
Last spring's Baton Rouge High senior video (above) was something I stumbled upon this week. And it ended with something that hit home:
Remember, this is who we were.
Who will we become?
THIRTY YEARS of memories came flooding back. Thirty years ago, I was where last semester's seniors were. And the same questions were on our minds, too.
Thirty years on, I wonder.
Who was I?
Who did I become?
Indeed, who did we all become? Sounds like a theme for a set on 3 Chords & the Truth, the show where we're not afraid to look at such things. In a musical manner, of course.
It's the Big Show, and you can find it here. And here. And at the upper right-hand corner of the blog.
3 Chords & the Truth. Be there. Aloha.
AND Bob Meyers . . . rest in peace, buddy.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
3 Chords & the Truth: My name is Mudd

A show like this can mean only one thing: My name is gonna be Mudd.
C'mon, I reference freakin' Hee-Haw, for pity's sake! I even assume people will remember the show . . . and Junior Samples' hilarious bits selling used cars. That number again: BR-549.
And then on 3 Chords & the Truth, we go on to play stuff by the band that took its name from Samples' Hee-Haw bits -- BR5-49.
IT'S NOT flippin' brain surgery. I am an idiot. I have outed myself as a gol-darned redneck. I had relatives who lived in the country.
In trailers.
Some still do.
And, oh, what's the point . . . I mean, what the hell. The Big Show is gonna end up being the no-show. OK, you want some truth with your three chords?
I'll give you truth. Whether or not you can handle it is another question.
I drink Schlitz . . . PBR is kind of pricey.
There. I've gone and done it now. My credibility is toast. I don't care.
So, if you care about as damn little as I do, give 3 Chords & the Truth a listen this week. It's the Big Show. Be there. Aloha.
HEY, Y'ALL! Watch thi. . . .
Thursday, November 27, 2008
3 Chords & the Truth: Real. Good. Real good.
This is the Sex Pistols, back in the glory days. Only on 3 Chords & the Truth could the Sex Pistols somehow coexist with Ernest Tubb.
BOTH ARE REAL. Both are good. As far as we're concerned on 3 Chords & the Truth, both are real good.
I think that tells you all you need to know about this week's episode of the Big Show. In fact, I think that tells you all you need to know about any episode of our little program.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Oh . . . what the Buck. This is cool.
Man, I miss stuff like this. You can take the boy out of the 1960s -- and the South -- but. . . .
I especially like the part where the director thinks "We got us this fancy new zoom lens and, by God, we're 'a gonna use that sucker. Outlandishly."
Saturday, September 06, 2008
3 Chords & the Truth: Falling for September
September starts with the Labor Day weekend and a trip to the Nebraska State Fair, rolls right into college football, then glides into the first signs of nippy weather and -- finally -- segues into October with those autumn leaves.
SEPTEMBER IS a month of hustle and bustle, new beginnings for schoolkids and old memories for former schoolkids. September brings out the comfortable old sweatshirts and ushers in the realization that Thanksgiving and Christmas aren't that far off.
We at 3 Chords & the Truth love fall . . . and we love September. September is something to celebrate, particularly in the Midwest. In the Midwest, September is the month that's juuuuuust right.
That's one of the joys of living on the civilized edge of the barely tamed Great Plains. September becomes a celebration -- sort of like a monthlong meteorological Carnival season before the strict and unforgiving Lent of winter on the prairie.
Really, you haven't lived till you've experienced 25 below zero the week before Christmas. Or until it's so cold that yours is the last car running . . . until your battery cable gets so brittle it snaps. And your fingers still get frostbitten through your thick insulated gloves.
Nebraska isn't a place for sissies. But we'll always have September.
And this week on the Big Show, that's what we celebrate -- September. And fall . . . both the seasonal and arse-over-head varieties.
We at 3 Chords & the Truth are funny that way.
Be there. Aloha.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
3 Chords & the Truth: It's about the journey
SOMETIMES, THOUGH, I just like to throw up the week's playlist to demonstrate that the Big Show ain't exactly what folks are used to nowadays -- at least not when it comes to radio . . . or even to most webcasts or podcasts.
3 Chords & the Truth is not about a format, and it's not about a subculture or a niche. What it's about is the music. Good music. And good music can come from a lot of places, just as righteous mixes can cover a hell of a lot of musical ground in one set.
When it comes to this show -- like they say, whomever "they" might be -- we're all about the wonder of the journey. The actual destination is lagniappe.
So, that being said, here's this week's playlist:
Must Get Out
Maroon 5 (Songs About Jane)
2003
Your Heart Is Breaking Down
Choo Choo (Choo Choo)
2008
Should I Cry (alternate take)
Jackie De Shannon (The Definitive Collection)
1964
Six Days on The Road
Dave Dudley (Country USA - 1963)
1963
Straight Eight
Spencer Bohren (Born in a Biscayne)
1984
Boris the Spider
The Who (My Generation -- The Very Best of the Who)
1966
Real Love
Cretones (Thin Red Line)
1980
Lost in the Supermarket
The Clash (London Calling)
1979
You're Lost Little Girl
The Doors (Strange Days)
1967
Innocence Lost
Steve Taylor (I Predict 1990)
1987
Lost My Mind
Matthew Sweet (100% Fun)
1995
Departure / Ride My See-Saw
The Moody Blues (In Search of the Lost Chord)
1968
Handshake Drugs
Wilco (A Ghost Is Born)
2004
Brightly Wound
Eisley (Room Noises)
2005
Sole Salvation
English Beat (Special Beat Service)
1982
I Do
J. Geils Band (Monkey Island)
1977
Easy Does It
Count Basie & His Orchestra (The Essential Count Basie, Vol. 2)
1940
Do You Love Me
The Contours (The Classic Rhythm & Blues Collection: 1958-1963)
1962
Baby Workout
Jackie Wilson (The Classic Rhythm & Blues Collection: 1958-1963)
1963
I Saw Her Standing There
Beatles (Meet The Beatles!)
1964
You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
The Silkie (British Invasion Gold)
1965
Everything Gonna Be Everything
Don Covay (See-Saw)
1966
She May Call You Up Tonight
The Left Banke (There's Gonna Be A Storm - The Complete Recordings 1966-1969)
1967
Frankenstein
New York Dolls (New York Dolls)
1973
IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth. Be there. Aloha.