RADIO BROADCAST #884

03-13–26

Fanatic! I hope you had a great week. I just finished driving a van full of things for 30 hours and 44 minutes, with a break of 10 minutes of sleep at a truckstop in Oklahoma. Upon arrival, unfolding my body from the shape of the seat and getting out of the van was a small victory, but having to unload the van and then return it to the airport, all in one go, bordered on the miraculous.

On the way, I listened to the tracks for tonight’s show twice. I do believe we have a great gathering of tunes. Standouts that occurred to me as I was driving, include the great phrasing of Scott Walker, the sheer awesomeness of the Beastie Boys track, how I’ve got to listen to all the Soccer Team records yet again, and how perfectly Paul Weller of the Jam snapshots the frustrations of a young person in the track we’re playing tonight, The Modern World.

Also, perhaps selfishly, I want to include that while the miles went by, I came up with what I think is a great idea for a bit of music writing to do. I’m going to have to find some time to get into it in the next few months. Writing about music, on the glaringly sub-amateur level I do it on, is at best, hyperbolic and likely almost completely enthusiasm-based. I know this. I wish I had the cool sophistication of the music writers I admire, but I simply don’t. At some point over the summer, I’ll put in a mercifully abbreviated version of this idea, complete with a reference discography into our weekly show notes and write a far more painfully expanded version to go elsewhere at some point.

You might remember several weeks ago, I told you I was mixing some tracks with our good pal and sonic ally, Ian MacKaye at Inner Ear Studios. It took some time to make people understand that neither Ian or I were on any of the tracks, that we were merely mixing old tracks from a multitrack tape that I’d retrieved weeks before. So far, I haven’t told you who the band is. I didn’t want to do that until we knew we were going to be able to release it. Here’s an update: the test pressings are back from the plant. Larry Hardy at In The Red Records says it sounds great, as does Ian. I have a copy that I’ll listen to over the weekend. If those two say it’s good to go, then I’m 100% sure it is. That means, we’ll get the record pressed up and to you as soon as possible. We can’t wait for you to hear it.

Century, after century, humans, despite so much available history to learn from, keep perpetrating catastrophic and horrible campaigns that create unimaginable misery and generational trauma. The contorted logic they use to justify such madness is as transparent as it is obscene. I know you don’t need me to tell you any of this. Music is one thing humans created, in its best examples, that’s absolutely perfect. No matter how heartbreaking and disappointing the actions of people in power can be, we still have music. Engineer X, Engineer Am-Rock and myself are so glad to be able to provide you with some every week. To say we’re into it is an understatement. Thank you so much for tuning in.

Have a great weekend and STAY FANATIC!!!

–– Henry

We’re on Bluesky

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