New Henry Rollins: Wire, Fuzz, and a Tom Waits November

Fanatic! Welcome to November. I am glad we could all be together on the first day of this month. We have a lot of great listening to do in the next five Sundays. That’s right, November is one of those special months.

Before I forget, I wanted to tell you this. As you might know, I am a huge fan of the Wire album Document & Eye Witness, their 1LP + 12” set that came out after the band parted ways with EMI after the amazing 154 album. We have listened to tracks from this album before and, of course, we will again. I was very impressed with the recent CD remastering of the album released by Wire and thought I would check out the new vinyl version to see how it stands up next to my original U.K. and Japanese pressings. I played it last night. It’s very big, mastered loud, which isn’t always good, but in this case it really brings out the power in the songs. I am usually not a big fan off re-issues as I am not sure what the source master is but this one is worth checking out.

If you notice, we have a lot of references to space in this broadcast. When I think of November, I think of early dark, cold, seeing your breath as you exhale on walks at night. This is how I built the two hours. As I do, I listened from start to finish at least twice and I think we hit a great balance.

This is what we go for, show after show. It is never, ever merely throwing songs into a folder and talking about them. We’re trying to conduct a great orchestra made up of over 20 groups and somehow make it sound like they were all in on it. That’s the idea, anyway. Whether we hit it or not is obviously up to you. Hopefully, this is a great soundtrack as November happens to us all.

We have been working over time assembling our November shows and I think we have them in our grasp. You will have to listen to each broadcast, at least twice, better that you play them all three times, maybe four, to see what you think.

Late last month was a great time for releases. Fuzz (above), Car Seat Headrest, Soccer Team, Wolf Eyes, to name but a few. What are you waiting for?!

Ignore them when they say, “You spend way too much time listening to music” and STAY FANATIC!!!

Follow me on Twitter: @henryrollins

Listen to all of Henry Rollins’ KCRW broadcasts here.

Hour 1

01. Le Butcherettes – Witchless / A Raw Youth

02. The Sods – Copenhagen / Minutes To Go

03. Tom Waits – November / The Black Rider

04. Lydia Kavina – Dance in the Moon / Music From the Ether

05. Kim Salmon & the Surrealists – Space 1999 / You Gotta Let Me Do My Thing

06. Ween – Help Me Scrape The Mucus Off My Brain / Golden Country Greats

07. Neu! – Lila Engel (Lilac Angel) / 2

08. Parliament – I Can Move You (If You Can Let Me) / Up For the Down Stroke

09. Pseudo Existors – Now / Pseudo Existors

10. Drinks – Time Between / Hermits on Holiday

11. Fuzz – Let It Live / II

12. Wand – Generator Larping / Ganglion Reef

Hour 2

01. Kraftwerk – Trans Europa Express / Trans Europa Express

02. David Bowie – V-2 Schneider / Heroes

03. Iggy Pop – The Passenger / Lust For Life

04. Cluster – Rosa / Zuckerzeit

05. Conrad Schnitzler – Track 11 / Gelb

06. Föllakzoid – Trees / II

07. Farflung – Endless Drifting Wreck / A Wound In Eternity

08. Sun Ra – We’ll Wait For You / Space Is the Place Soundtrack

09. Hawkwind – Space is Deep / Doremi Fasol Latido