Radio Anaphylaxis The New Friends of Rhythm Tribute 9-23-2003

This show predates slightly the existence of this pod; I selected it as the unmarked disc that it was on showed serious signs of deterioration, though was still playable. It's a good sequence of things, starting with a jazz set featuring Cincinnati's Henry Theis and continuing through Willie "The Lion" Smith, Ed Kirkeby, Cab Calloway, Fletcher Henderson and wrapping with Swing kings Messrs. Goodman and Miller. The pop set which follows involves Lawrence Welk (really?), Hugo Montenegro, Link Wray, Sam the Sham and delivers a cautionary tale by the Carpenters. But then it takes a new wavey shift through Elvis the C, Yukihiro Takahashi, A.C. Marias and Wire. One factual update; the Willie The Lion piece may be earlier than I thought -- it wasn't published until 1925, but may date from his French period. This photo of me and my daughter was taken by Ohio alt-rock legend Myrna Marcarian at the Detroit Festival of the Arts exactly a year before this broadcast. Length: 58 mins.

For a short time I was an "alternate" on WCBN Ann Arbor's long running "The Duke is On the Air," a program that usually featured Duke Ellington but also could be extended to other figures in classic jazz from time to time. When bebop trumpet master Idrees Sulieman passed away (at age 78, not "79") I hastily prepared this tribute which profiles not only him, but other obscure bop from the '40s. The Duke does get in on the action with his odd "The Clothed Woman," but I forgot to back-announce it. I got a lot of nice phone calls on this show, and even though I ramble a bit it required very little editing and runs just short of 60 minutes.

This is the second Art Damage Christmas Special that aired on WAIF Cincinnati on December 25, 1986 within the first two hours of Christmas Day itself. It may have run longer than that, as I don't think we were able to get relief for the following slot. However, for the moment this appears to be what I have on hand in terms of tape of this long ago show. Uncle Dave Lewis and Dan Williams host, and this is the whole of Dave's segment -- minus two pieces that I have excluded to prevent this from being taken down -- and the first half of Dan's. It includes original material by 11000 Switches, Dan Williams, Uncle Dave, Jim Robbins and a wide range of other crazy Christmas stuff for your seasonal listening pleasure. Length: 74 minutes.

This WQVC outing is a tribute to the Will Bradley Orchestra featuring Ray McKinley, known in big band circles as "Bradley-McKinley" as though it were a person's name. They specialized in the big band variety of boogie woogie, though it has not served them well in posterity, and this show goes towards redressing that balance. Prepare to rock out to this most quirky of big bands, whose forward contribution to the development of rock and roll and crazy, high energy sound remains a delight even though it constitutes a less-traveled byway in American jazz. Length: 60 minutes.

Here is the premiere episode of my new radio squeeze, "The Musical Curiosity Shop" which airs every Monday on WVQC-LP FM every Monday at 5pm ET. This is a grab bag of what I believe is excellent stuff: Prokofiev, Ensemble Mirable, Christophe Rousset, Germaine Tailleferre, Henry Cowell and the redoubtable Judy Kang pick up the classical tab, followed by Joe Venuti, Spike Hughes, Reginald Foresythe, Hal Kemp, Stephanie Trick and Cincinnati-based artistes The Acorn Sisters, Piano Roll Thompson and Blanco Nombre flying the flag in the popular category. All "The Musical Curiosity Shop" episodes are just 60 minutes so I try and keep them action packed. This is the first ep, and the host is a little rough, but hang in there with me as this is a good one.

Originally broadcast on WAIF-FM Cincinnati and taken from a surprisingly well preserved radio tape, this episode was a typical Uncle Dave-hosted nuts and bolts offering of its time. Some post-punk stuff from the UK (PiL, The Mekons, Rental & Leer & the Street Level artist Reptile Ranch), some No Wave stylings by Mars, some newly recorded pieces by The Master of Horror and the just-born Manwich, and finally a couple of tracks from thrift store albums. The tape also captures the first bit of Dan Williams' portion of the show, including the theme to "Mr. Ed" played backwards, as there was then concern that the little ditty contained a secret satanic message, i.e. "this song was sung for Satan." See if you can hear it. Length: 62 minutes.

This is the first part of the Local Cincinnati Records feature, and unlike part two, this one deals with more hit oriented, mainstream records from Cincinnati's "major" labels, King Records and Fraternity. The paucity of King selections hardly gives one an impression of the vast variety experienced on that label, but this was the first show of this kind that I ever did. My boyish enthusiasm in 1988 is not exactly infectious, and here is another list of corrections: (a) I caught myself in supplying the wrong date for "Please, Please, Please," but the screaming on James Brown records began with the "Live at The Apollo" LP in 1962, and not before, and (b) Bill Parsons was a pseudonym for country legend Bobby Bare. Otherwise you will hear Bonnie Lou, Jerri Adams, the folk group The Minutemen, The Dolphins, The York Brothers a bathetic swath of Bob Braun, society bandleader Burt Farber and my dear, departed buddy Eddie Bennett and the Fun Bunch. As with part two, the label seen here is used for illustration and is not used in the show. Length: 42 minutes.

An early extrapolation of my interest in records of the local Cincinnati and Okiana regional variety, this segment mostly given to the "generics" of the 1950s. This was one of the first public appreciations in this field of research, and a lot more is known now about these records than in '88, so a few corrections are in order: (a) Dick Warren's "Rock Around the Clock" is FAR from being the first rock 'n roll record made in Cincinnati; in fact, it's not even close, as it is argued that some King Records from the period of 1947-50 qualify just as much as this one. (b) The Cincinnati Gateway label folded in 1958, and other companies used the name later. (c) The singer of "Settin' the Woods on Fire" is Delbert Barker, a prolific Cincinnati recording artist of the 1950s; I got out the first name, but not the last. (d) The Harp and Baron labels were manufactured, not distributed, by Rite Records and featured country music artists from Hamilton, Ohio. (e) Of course, you can recognize James Brown, but at the time I felt that his instrumental sound was not as well known as his vocal grooves. There is some measure of print thru on the source tape, and this is not digital quality to say the least; it's WAIF from over 20 years ago, using "junk" records. But I deeply appreciate this world as a kind of alternate universe whereby the hit-makers of the 1950s are replaced by local people from Cincinnati, and what could be more off the wall than that? Length: an action packed 37 minutes.

This WCBN broadcast is a devoted to profile of pioneering, criminally neglected classical crossover group The New Friends of Rhythm, which existed mainly on radio from just before WWII to just after it ended. Towards the end of the show I express concern that there are no reissues of their material, but by now there is one, in part made from the very same discs in my collection; that's here -- http://www.amazon.com/1939-47-Performances-New-Friends-Rhythm/dp/B000N6UCQI/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1315516991&sr=1-1 but if you like the group you owe it to yourself to hear the fine job Doug Pomeroy did in transferring the originals, rather than my amateur efforts as heard here. The WCBN "Radio Anaphylaxis" was a short-lived evening program that I did on Tuesdays for a bit; this was an especially nice and purposeful episode, and good listening to boot. Length: 55 mins.

The noise factor at WAIF is a little less worrisome here, though perhaps that does not apply to the music played, pretty heavily centered with 1980s Cincinnati avant-garde including previously thought lost pieces by Cointelpro, Uncle Dave Lewis and "Dave and Tim" (Uncle Dave and Tim Schwallie in a collaboration separate from Cointelpro). In addition to that there is a tasty novelty by fellow Ohioan Una Mae Carlisle, misogynistic musings of Kai Winding, some Ed Wood bondage music, Perez Prado and Collins and Harlan again to close the show. Demuth's "The Figure 5" would seem an obvious choice for an image, but that is already in use on this podcast, so this nifty New York nightscape by Italian futurist Fortunato Depero will have to do. Length: 45 minutes.