300. Thrice five score. Three hundred episodes of 3 Chords & the Truth . . . and counting. That's a lot of shows. I've loved doing every one of them -- even when I had a clunky, outdated digital audio workstation (that's computer to you and me) that I fought with all the time. I won't tell you what I called that Windows monstrosity; this show is PG-13 at its bawdiest.
But now I have a souped-up, giganto iMac, and it's all gravy now. Even more fun. And I hope you have as much fun listening as I do playing great -- and highly eclectic -- music for you on the Big Show.
WELL, this week we have another highly eclectic and hugely fun program for you to mark the Big 300th episode. We start out with a "revolutionary" set in honor of Revolution 21, the umbrella under which your humble musical smorgasbord keeps its powder dry. Dry gunpowder is important when you're aiming for a music explosion, don't you see? Then we have some more smorgasbord, and then some classic soul, and then . . . well, why dispel all mystery about this episode of3 Chords & the Truth. Needless to say, it's a good 'un. Set a spell, take your clothes off . . . NO, THAT'S NOT RIGHT . . . PG-13, REMEMBER? Let me try this again. SET ASPELL. Take your shoes off. Y'all have fun now, y'hear? Clothed. Absolutely clothed. Family show here on the Internets. Yeah, that's the ticket. It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Even after 265 editions, 3 Chords & the Truth still delivers . . . a BIG SHOW.
So you might want to hang onto something sturdy when you listen to this week's show. Let's just say that Phil Spector isn't the only guy capable of building a "wall of sound" -- although these days, Phil has other walls to concern himself with.
Actually, this week's 3 Chords & the Truthsonically washes over you more than it hits you like a brick wall. Actually, you hit the brick wall; it doesn't hit you.
Actually, this week's Big Show probably would sound pretty good recorded on Maxell cassette tape, from which the theme of this post was shamelessly pilfered. Pilfered. It's such a polite word, unlike "stolen."
WHAT? This makes no sense? If you want sense at this hour, I question your rock 'n' roll bona fides. Listen, pally, loud with a backbeat is good enough. Or, as Bono calls it . . . "The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)." I'd like to think Joey Ramone would like this week's program.
"The usual, sir?" "Please." Well, hang on. IT'S3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
What do you get when you want some tunes? You get enough crap to fertilize a garden You're in it hip deep but can't grow a begonia I'll try 3 Chords & the Truth! I'll try 3 Chords & the Truth!
DON'T TELL me what it's all about, I've switched off FM, and I'm glad that I'm out Out of that junk, that junk that slimes you That is why I'm here to remind you
What do you get when you give your heart? You turn on the radio, and your mind gets battered That's what you get, your ears are shattered, I'll try 3 Chords & the Truth! Out of that junk, that junk that slimes you That is why I'm here to remind you
The things I could tell you about this edition of the Big Show.
But I'm not. That would ruin it all.
Like, there's this one set on this week's 3 Chords & the Truth, and I'm telling you -- this is funny -- that when . . . nope. Not gonna get into that. Quit asking.
Listen, I'm not telling you. You know that half the fun oftheBig Show is that you have no idea what's coming next. Oh, the joys of freeform radio.
Even when it's not on the radio. By the way, cool radio in the picture, huh?
But there is this other stretch on the show. . . . No, I'd better go before I spill the beans.
"Progress" happens. New things come; old things go.
Kids quit going to record stores, and they start "file-sharing" or buying singles comprised of ones and zeros on iTunes. Digital in, physical presence out.
But with all the things the electronic marketplace can do, and with all the convenience and immediacy it offers, there are some things -- important things -- that get lost in translation. One thing is magical, musical places like The Antiquarium record store on the edge of Omaha's Old Market.
Another thing is the kind, curmudgeonly, opinionated presence of someone like Dave Sink -- the grandfather of the Omaha indie scene and purveyor of great old LPs, CDs and punk 45s. I know. I left much of my money there, then brought many of those LPs , CDs and 45s here.
And for a while there, I probably saw Dave every single week. So did a bunch of young kids with big dreams -- like Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes fame.
That won't be happening anymore. Some years back, Dave retired, and then The Antiquarium record store moved around the corner after its longtime home was sold. And now Dave is dead.
ON THE Hear Nebraska website, Oberst (one of the kids I used to see around the record store) explains what iTunes will never be, not in a million years:
I don’t remember the first time I went to the Antiquarium or met Dave Sink. It all just kind of happened. I suppose I would have been 12 or so, just tagging along with my brothers and the older kids from the neighborhood. Whenever that was I know I could not have known then that that place would become the epicenter of discovery for my musical life (and life in general) and probably the single most sacred place of my adolescence. Dave was a rare bird. He had a way of making you feel good even as he insulted you. He was especially kind to misfits and oddballs. Hence him nearly always being surrounded in the shop by a small enclave of disaffected youth. Boys mostly, but girls too, who would sit hour after hour listening to him pontificate about punk rock, baseball, local politics, French literature, chess, philosophy, modern art or whatever was the topic of the day. The thing about Dave that gave him such a loyal following was not just the way he talked to us but also the way he listened. At a time in life when most all adults are to be seen as the enemy it was strange to meet one who was on your side. He treated us as peers, like our ideas and ambitions were worth something. He wasn’t always pleasant or polite, but he wasn’t a fake. And it is that quality that cuts through the angst and straight to the teenage heart.
He made me feel like my dreams and plans mattered, encouraging me to pursue them even as he talked trash on my latest recording or most recent show. It is true you had to be a bit of a masochist to be friends with Dave, but despite his sarcasm and argumentative nature he had a soft heart and generous spirit. He gave me a lot of good advice over the years, as well as my first real stereo and turntable. He said he couldn’t stand watching me waste my money on the inferior formats of CDs and cassettes.
NEITHER will radio be, not anymore, what Dave Sink and his little record store (down the stairs and to the basement of the old building on Harney Street) were to its city. Maybe radio once was . . . kind of. That was a long time ago -- a generation or more ago -- back before dull men in pricey suits began to erase all the "Dave" out of their now-sinking industry.
Antiquarium Records was a social network digital eons before MySpace and Facebook. It got the word out when radio wouldn't, and this nascent Internet thing couldn't.
Sink loved vinyl, underground and obscure music, baseball and talking to customers, often recommending something or flat-out criticizing their purchases.
He also started One Hour Records, which released music from local bands such as Mousetrap, Ritual Device and Simon Joyner, among others.
When Gary Dean Davis' band, Frontier Trust, wanted to put out a record, Sink was their man. Davis, owner of SPEED! Nebraska Records and a Catholic school principal, recalled getting the first pressing of the band's record and racing to the Antiquarium to play it.
"We didn't have a radio station, so the Antiquarium kind of became that because there were kids hanging down there," Davis said. "We'd play our record and they'd immediately come down to the counter and say, 'How can I get that?'"
Davis recalled him as a local music booster who made kids in bands feel like they were doing something legitimate.
Sink's death left many to wonder what Omaha's nationally-recognized music scene would be without him.
"Dave was neither subtle nor short of opinion," said Robb Nansel, president of Saddle Creek Records. "I shudder to think of what this city would look like if there had been no Dave and no Antiquarium. It's safe to say there would be one less record label and one less music venue calling Omaha home."
YOU KNOW those records by Frontier Trust and The Monroes (another Davis "tractor punk" band) you sometimes hear on 3 Chords & the Truth? Where the hell do you think I got many of them?
Where the hell do you think I heard about the Monroes?
We live in a cynical world, one that loves money, breeds alienation and waits for a hero . . . in that Godot-esque sort of way.
Heroes we have. They dwell in out-of-the-way places like smoky basements filled with musty vinyl. They're so close, yet so far away.
My love for you is way out of line! Better run girl . . . you're much too young, girl.
But would you mind terribly if I channeled my testosterone and visions of carnal knowledge into a Top-40 smash hit? C'mon . . . people will love it. So hurry home to your mama. I'm sure she wonders where you are. . . . Get out of here before I have the time to change my mind . . . 'cause I'm afraid we'll go too far.
BUT . . . then again, too far is such an antiquated relic of the semi-Victorian era of the 1960s. Maybe I can do a rap about going as far as we can before Chris Hansen shows up with a camera crew. Sex.
Girls.
Danger.
Desperation.
We got it all this week on the Big Show. How big is it?
Well, 90 minutes, of course. What did you think I was going to say?
Let's take a look at the score sheet: Marxist East Germany (1974) gives us Nina Hagen und Automobil. Capitalist America (2008) gives us a pale imitation, Lady Gaga und blecch.
Advantage, communism.
OF COURSE, the totalitarian state had its limits. Thus, the First Fraulein of Punk(der punken?) was not perfected until she fled the dictatorship of the proletariat for West Germany, and then spent time in pre-Thatcherite England amid the emergence of The Clash and the Sex Pistols.
Advantage, democratic socialism.
Above, we see Hagen during a 1979 TV appearance.
CALL ME when Lady Gaga has the guts to do this one.
Of course, back when I worked in Catholic radio, the sight of Nina Hagen singing a punk version of "Ave Maria" would have been cause for an epidemic of the vapors. Trust me, the good God-fearin' folk would be going all Rick Perry on the sacrilegious Kraut faster than Mother Angelica could say “Remember to keep us between your gas and electric bill.”
This is why I'm glad the good Lord got me out of there before I lost the rest of my faith. Trust me, it was close. (As always, your mileage may vary.)
But then you take a look at the translation of the German lyrics Hagen put to Franz Schubert's famous melody:
Ave Maria, Maria of whom I sing We are asking you for mercy For people who have already been waiting so long Totally without hope Totally without hope
See there, their unhappy lives It hungers deep, from fear of death Millions live here on the earth Still yet, in greatest need
Ave Maria Ave Maria, Saint Maria Hear my prayers Maria Where much suffering has already occurred Why always does more hurt follow more hurt Let the people have faith again Let them understand and forgive Then all peoples could become friends And all the races could be brothers Ave Maria
LIKE I SAID, let's see Gaga have the gu-guts to go onstage and belt out that one.
I wanna be . . . anarchy. Oh, wait, Anarchy, we got. Maybe I want to aim for something more original -- like putting out a kick-ass music program every week.
Yeah, that's the ticket.
And we call that little something 3 Chords & the Truth. It's a little bit punk; it's a little bit country. It's a lot rock 'n' roll, and it's the blues in the night.
Or jazz in the morning. Whatever.
THIS WEEK, we're all over the place, and we're topical, too. I'll bet you can guess.
Anyway, you're free not to like what we're doing on this Internet Age version of "Loose Radio" on 'shrooms -- if you're of a certain age and from Baton Rouge, La., you'll get that pop-culture reference -- and I guess you're also free not to give the best damned thing on the Internets a listen, either. But I just want to tell you that we at the Big Show are packin' bricks and petrol, and we know where you live.
The broken hearts have stood as the price we had to pay.
All we wanted was to keep pushin' till it was understood, and these badlands started treating us good.
Sometimes,it worked out. Other times, not. But always, The Boss and The Big Man were there to cheer us on.
To let the restless youth of what seems like a lifetime ago know they weren't alone. That they weren't freaks to want something better than the badlands.
THE MUSIC of my life was the music of my discontent . . . and of my hopes and dreams. It was the music that kept me sane when I wanted to spit in the face of those badlands.
The Big Man is gone; Scooter survives him. And many of our dreams linger on life support.
The badlands refuse to treat us good.
But this edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is all about holding on to hope. It's about spitting in the face of these badlands. It's about looking for how God is with us, not for declaring that He ain't.
This episode of the Big Show is devoted to finding joy amid our grief. It's about keeping the dream alive despite the lure of low expectations and lower estate. These are favorite haunts of the badlands.
In honor of Clarence Clemons, the Big Man, I spit in the face of these badlands. We'll have some fine spitting music on the Big Show this week, I guarantee.
Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king And a king ain't satisfied till he rules everything I wanna go out tonight, I wanna find out what I got Well I believe in the love that you gave me
I believe in the love that you gave me I believe in the faith that could save me I believe in the hope and I pray that some day It may raise me above these
Badlands, you gotta live it everyday Let the broken hearts stand As the price you've gotta pay We'll keep pushin' till it's understood and these badlands start treating us good
IN FACT, we'll start out the whole ballgame with . . .
SO GOOD!
SO GOOD!
SO GOOD!
. . . which I think you will find to be a real treat this time around on the Big Show.
And those hipsters down there about three rows -- the ones who are obviously here to be seen being here, even though baseball is usually so uncool -- would enjoy this week's 3 Chords & the Truth excursion into . . .
BAH! BAAAH! BAAAAAAAAH!
It's really going to be cool, even if it was put together by a balding guy well old enough to be their father. Especially when . . .
But if life gives us more than the cowbell can assuage -- like a visit from the Reaper -- we still have Plan Bhere on the Big Show -- run.
Run, run, run.
Run like hell, as a matter of fact. Whether it's from your own peccadilloes or the raging floodwaters, what I'm saying to you is run away, child. Running wild . . . now that's a plan.
But after all that runnin' 'round this world, if it all catches up to you -- well, in that case, it doesn't matter anymore. Hope to God I'm right on this.
THE ALTERNATIVE could be rather embarrassing.
That got me in trouble once with Mrs. Favog, not being right. I was in serious deep doo until I told her she was kinda kute. I have this look I give her.
If that fails, though, the only alternative is crying, waiting, hoping. Don't ask me why, I'm just the morning DJ on3C&T.
Don't worry 'bout me, though. I'm just a stranger in paradise, falling in love with love.
BECAUSE, after all, we're all children of the sun. Or something like that.
I know the Bible likes light, because it talks about it so much -- and so glowingly. Darkness, not so much.
Well. a large chunk of this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth has to do with light. And how we sometimes talk a good game when it comes to light but would just as soon talk about light than be light.
Sometimes, what really worries those most obsessed with showing us "the light" is appearances. It's the old bait and switch.
IN THAT EVENT, the name of the Big Show would have to change to 3 Chords & Looking Good for the Neighbors.
This go around, we're gonna play one of the great gospel songs ever. It was written by a creative genius who often liked to crawl inside a bottle.
For that reason, some would like you to hear the song, but not the suffering soul who gave it to us by the grace of God. That's an example of putting keeping up appearances over seeing the light.
We don't do that here.
Hank Williams died a hopeless drunk.I may yet die a hopeless A-hole. But Jesus died so that there might be hope for drunks like Hank and A-holes like me.
MEANTIME, I propose that the saints and the sinners come over to my place, home of the Big Show, and we'll gather around the record player, have a hell of a time . . . and look for the light while we're at it.
From 1976, London Weekend Television takes a look at the British punk scene, in which we see the Sex Pistols before Sid Vicious, Clash before the "The" and Siouxsie before the Banshees.
We also see Joe Strummer, Mick Jones and Topper Headon making some sense about why there had to be punk at that moment in musical history. And we see a calculatingly bored Johnny Rotten unable to grasp the contradictions of condemning bands like the Rolling Stones as "a business" while immersed in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle -- the real one, not the mockumentary -- up to one's spiky hairdo.
The mod, hip, now and happenin' -- or should that be "mawd, 'ip, now 'n' 'appenin' "? -- Janet Street-Porter presided over all of this, despite being nearly 40 at the time and well-ensconced in the establishment the punks so loathed.
Satan never sleeps. That's because he's too busy leaving anonymous comments on blogs and websites.
If you're one of those people inclined to doubt the existence of hell and the devil , look at these comments I got today on what I thought was a fairly whimsical post on the Sex Pistols and the state of the Establishment, circa January 1978.
IT'S A HELL of a thing, no?
Obviously, "Anonymous" is one disturbed individual, and an angry one, too. Obviously, this is why I moderate comments to Revolution 21's Blog for the People. Obviously, these got deleted.
And -- obviously -- I'm now making an example of them . . . and the sick soul who has nothing better to say than this.
Where does such rage come from? How do you explain such an all-consuming, intense hatred of all humanity? And can anyone deny this poor soul exists in some very real, albeit private (for now), manifestation of hell?
Mental illness or some manner of deviant socialization can get you most of the way to an explanation, but not all the way to one. It doesn't -- at least not in my opinion -- get you all the way to that degree of nihilism, that level of hatred of the human race itself. Mental illness or sociological deficits can explain the brokenness, but neither can explain the phenomenon of evil.
What we have here is evil -- and all sociology or psychology can shed light upon are the fissures that allow evil to penetrate the soul and do what it will. This is what Satan looks like when he thinks the cameras aren't rolling; this is what he sounds like when he's at a loss for words.
I SUPPOSE my disturbed correspondent is some sort of punk who -- again, obviously -- takes issue with the aforementioned post. He, she or it is a cautionary tale of what can happen when one takes this punk thing entirely too seriously.
Especially that "I am an antichrist" part in the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K." Not the Antichrist, mind you, but an antichrist.
The real Antichrist will be a much better writer with a much larger vocabulary.
This must have been from 1978, this Today show report by Jack Perkins on NBC. The Sex Pistols were embarking on their first American tour, amid copious Establishment wailing and cultural gnashing of teeth.
My God, what if they cursed on stage? Spat on the audience? Trashed a hotel room?
Next thing you know, they'd be shooting the telly. What? Elvis did that years before?
Oh.
STILL, THE ADULT self, some 33 years removed from his teenage hormones, suspects that Establishment Jack was pretty much on target. The Pistolswere boorish, dissipated louts of limited technical ability who probably did coarsen the culture, for what that's worth anymore.
I know this; you know this. Jack Perkins certainly knew this, and wasn't shy about telling his horrified TV audience -- the one sitting at the breakfast table putting a little nip of something in the morning coffee, smoking cigarettes and plotting out how to screw that little s*** at the office.
And then that young little thing after work, being that the missus was visiting the mother-in-law.
In your heart, you know I'm right. Somewhere in my cynical, cynical heart, I know Perkins was right.
THAT SAID, how about we throw the old fascist out of a moving limo on the way to the show?
You're a young man in Omaha, it's 1988, and you just want the hell out.
You just want out of Boringsville, where it's just so . . . so . . . so . . . Midwestern. And not cool.
You're a young man in Omaha in 1988, and you want to see the world. Which, coincidentally, is Not Omaha. What do you do?
Well, you always can put together a punk band and get popular. Make a record album. Get noticed. Go on tour. Get big.
Real big.
Voila!
OR . . . you can become a theology professor. One way or the other, it's all good. And not necessarily in Omaha.
All of a sudden, it's 20 years later. Life is what happens between wanting to get the hell out of Dodge -- or away from cruising Dodge -- and coming back for the reunion show at the kind of Omaha club that was more or less unthinkable in 1988.
Oddly enough, the Omaha of 1988 was the one I came to. Fled screaming in the night to, actually.
It looked pretty good to me at the time -- I'm from Baton Rouge.(Ignatius Reilly may have had a point.) And everybody's always running from -- or to -- somewhere.
From my college days, way back in 1980, I am proud (and a bit ashamed of myself) to present The Band Whose Name Must Not Be Uttered.
Then known in LSU's college newspaper as the S*** Dogs-- and in Baton Rouge's daily rags (back when there were still two local daily rags) as The 'Dogs -- TBWNMNBU was hot (ahem) around campus and in the Red Stick's first-generation punk scene.
So, kid, I don't want to hear what a badass you are. I don't want to hear how badass your emo-poseur, thrash, death-metal, hardcore music is. They all bore me, and so do you.
IF YOU WANT to be radical, go put on some classic-jazz vinyl. Get into the 1950s and '60s folk scene.
Buy some Hank Williams 78s and find something to play them on.
That would be out there.
But we've already invented the S*** Dogs. We've been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt we can't wear to church.
The Thanksgiving turkey has been eaten. So have the leftovers.
All traces of the fowl doings have been erased.
The Christmas cookies are only just now starting to appear, and we're somehow supposed to resume some semblance of normality until the next wild tryptophan-fueled blowout in a few weeks.
Well, OK. You got any damn ideas on how to get back to "normal"? Me neither.
Oh, yeah. This post is about 3 Chords . . . burrrrrrrp . . . & the Truth. Whatever.
I HAVE a vague recollection of music being involved in this week's edition of the Big Show, but don't hold me to that. I also understand it's pretty good, considering.
But don't hold me to that, either.
Listen, I'm going to go get another cup of hot tea. Why don't you do the same, then meet me back here, and we'll give it a listen and see what the hell the deal is. Who knows, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.
Maybe you will, too.
But don't hold me to that. I'm not quite back to "normal" yet. Whatever the hell that is.
Yadda yadda yadda. Etcetera and so on. And now for the hoary old closing line. . . .
If you've spent any time lately listening to commercial radio -- for instance, you've just been released from a CIA torture chamber or, perhaps, Mexican drug lords wanted to find out where you hid their stash, man -- boy, are you going to need this.
And that, of course, is the mark of quality music on the Internet.
Here's a quick example of the sumptuousness of today edition of 3 Chords & the Truth: Right out of the box, we're going to be hitting the rarer side of the British Invasion, and then you're going to listen to that set of music segue into . . . well, you're going to just have to listen to find out, won't you?
OK, OK, OK. Another quick example for you, Skipper.
A LITTLE LATER in the show, we're going to launch from a little 1965 disc by Mimi and Richard Fariña, and then you get to sit in utter amazement as their electric folk stylings morph, with the succeeding tracks, into . . . naw, you're going to have to listen to find out what happens there, too.
Hang on. OK, how about this. I can let you in on this little bit of proprietary information.
See, closer to the end of the show, we're going to kick off a sultry, swanky and sometimes sweet spate of songs with a great, great number by a singer's singer -- and native Nebraskan -- Jeri Southern. You can read all about her here.
Anyway, we're going to start there and tell you a little bit about this underappreciated song stylist who's nearly been lost to the ages, and then we're going to go right into some stuff by . . . no, just can't spill the beans.
That would be wrong. Sorry to have been such a tease.
BUT IF YOU just go click on the player up yonder at the top of the page, or just click here, all will be revealed to you. I guarantee.
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