Friday, November 17, 2017

3 Chords & the Truth: Drawing the line


There's a squiggly green line separating you from a world where you'd never know there once was a San Fransisco band called The Great Society, fronted by Grace Slick before . . . you know.

Before big things happened.

And you'd never know, on the other side of the squiggly green line, that the big Jefferson Airplane hit "Somebody to Love" once was "Someone to Love," the B-side of The Great Society's first (and only) single back in 1966.

No, you'd never know that on the far side of the squiggly green line. The squiggly green line is what 3 Chords & the Truth looks like before it gets to your ears -- and into your head.

It's a good thing to be on the right side of the squiggly green line.

It's a good thing to have the Big Show in your head. In your ears, too.

Who knows what surprises and what musical edification lies on the good side of the squiggly green line? Well, there's only one way to find out.

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


Saturday, November 11, 2017

3 Chords & the Truth: The Kudzu Curtain


Your Mighty Favog escaped from one of the Southern -stans when he was a young man. Now he brings the best in music and information to the captive populations of his home region of the United States.

He brings young and old alike the world their governments censor. Free thought and a robust culture . . . with a beat.

This week, millions in the -stans on the American frontier will tune in to 3 Chords & the Truth for uncensored news and music -- the "in" sound from outside. Join the Big Show this week for a program of special interest to listeners in Alabamastan, "Jesus Don't Like Ugly . . . or What Don't You Get About Jailbait?"

Captive Bubbas may not be able to spell "freedom," but almost all can spell 3C&T. And that's enough to cut through the Kudzu Curtain just a little every day.

Freedom's as close as the Internet, and 'Bamastanis spell it 3C&T.

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

(Apologies to the Radio Free Europe PSAs of the 1970s.)


Thursday, November 09, 2017

We'll be right back, right after these messages

Cliquez ici if you want to print this out and hang it on your bedroom wall

When your brain is 18 and the rest of you is 56 . . . and something makes you think of Mike Douglas.

File under: "Things you'll have to explain to your kids."



Saturday, November 04, 2017

3 Chords & the Truth: The latest thing is overrated


You can follow the crowd, stand in line, empty your bank account and get a new iPhone X-tremely expensive.

Or, you can sit in your dwelling in a toasty houserobe -- or your drawers, I really don't care -- and listen to the new 2017 iAnachronism for absolutely, positively no cost whatsoever. And it will sound just fine on your iPhone 6.

But your iAnachronism -- 3 Chords & the Truth, to be technical -- will sound better if you feed your computer into your home stereo. Preferably an anachronistic one. They sound awesome.

As usual, eclecticism reigns on the Big Show this week, as does freeformity. That's an anachronistic word. Listen to the show to catch the meaning, which has something to do with excellence in music programming.

Is what we're saying.

Also this go around, we celebrate the life and music of Fats Domino. That's all I have to say about that.

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


Wednesday, November 01, 2017

You can have 'diversity.' I'll take variety.

The CBS network lineup: Sunday, Nov. 10, 1968

Diversity. All we hear about these days is "diversity."

What is "diversity"? We certainly don't have ideological diversity among those most committed to the D-word today in the United States.

Racial and ethnic diversity seems more about building either an ideological monolith of rainbow hues or, alternatively, segregated racial and ethnic enclaves uneasily inhabiting common organizations, institutions or physical spaces.

Me, I think we ought to strive for variety, then go from there. If you're under 45, you probably have little memory of variety, which is what more or less -- sometimes more, sometimes less -- took place when shared common spaces were the norm and opportunities for, say, media self-segregation weren't. Of course, we all had our opportunities and mechanisms for self-segregation (and forced segregation) but we likewise had more spaces where interaction and cross-pollination was unavoidable. Like television.

THE BABY BOOM is the last generation to be forced in its youth, through prehistoric technology that had become just pervasive enough, to open itself a little bit to a lot of things.

And people.

And cultures.

We may not have had "diversity" (again, whatever the hell that might be) but we did on occasion achieve variety. That's not nothing, and in today's blasted moonscape of a political and cultural battlefield where warring monocultures try to cleanse America of the diverse Other, that long-ago variety begins to look like a lot.

And I really would have liked to hear the backstage conversation between Jefferson Airplane and Kate Smith.

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

3C&T: Always first with products for today

Click for full-size version

From Vox:
Mueller’s team describes Papadopoulos as a “proactive cooperator.” That’s a big deal.

Here’s why: Mueller purposely sealed the indictment and kept the arrest secret so that others wouldn’t know Papadopoulos was working with his team — because the probe might be using Papadopoulos to obtain even more information on possible Trump-Russia collusion.

The Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale reports that when prosecutors consider someone to be a “proactive cooperator,” it could signal that that person was wearing a wire. And if that’s true, that means Papadopoulos might’ve talked to Trump campaign officials with a wire on. That’s still speculative, of course, but it could pose a serious problem for Trump if officials with secrets to keep unknowingly divulged information to a wired-up Papadopoulos.