dimland radio 5-4-13 show notes

It's May And It's F#%king Snowing Out 

 

Spring in Minnesota can be a bit of a challenge.  We can have a Sunday be sunny and 80 degrees and three days later have to shovel snow.  That's what this spring has been like.

 

It's not the first time this has happened.  I related the story of another such spring when my friend John and I first encountered a fellow we called the Loud Guy.  He came into the bar one cold May night and uttered the immortal phrase, "It's May and it's f#%king snowing out!!"

A Remarkable Cargo Plane Crash

Recently, a 747 cargo plane crashed shortly after takeoff in Afghanistan.  There were two things that struck me about this tragedy.  1) The fellow who captured the video of the plane falling from the sky made virtually no sound as the plane crashed.  Remarkable!  2) Plane crashes are rare.  Very rare!  Exceedingly rare!  And yet this guy was able to capture the event on video.  It's remarkable how there still isn't any film/video footage of a bigfoot that's any better than the Patterson/Gimlin film.

 

Never Found In The 80s: Four Bands!

 

Since I did my last regular show, four artists have been featured in my Never Found in the 80s blog series.  They were 54-40, The Barracudas, Game Theory, and Front 242.  I used the four songs featured in the series as my bumpers for the show.

James McCormick Is Going To Prison

Who is James McCormick?  He's the con man who made millions selling bogus bomb detectors to the Iraqi and other world governments.  The "detector" was a dowsing device and, as we all know, dowsing doesn't work.  You do know that, right?

McCormack has been sentenced to ten years in prison and millions of dollars worth of his assets will be confiscated to help offset the money he stole.  He should be locked away for life for all the life and limb his devices surely cost innocent civilians and military personnel.

 

Read about it here.

George Jones Is Not Playing Possum, He's Really Dead

That's not very respectful, but I wanted to make a funny header for this part.  Sorry, George.

So, on April 26th, George Jones died at age 81.  I talked about his awesome voice, his hard living, and the greatest country song ever recorded.

Movie Recommendation (Television Edition): Breaking Bad (2008 - Present)

 

AMC

I'm midway through season three and wow!  The first two seasons were a slow build, but season three has me blow away.  I used to lament the lack of good scripted shows on TV.  Not having cable has put me in that state of mind.  Broadcast TV has been virtually taken over by "reality" programming, cable has the excellent scripted shows.  Thankfully, there is Netflix and I can get to watch these quality shows.

Music heard on the show (These songs are linked above)...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus

First ad break bumpers: 'One Day In Your Life' by 54-40 & 'Summer Fun' by The Barracudas
Second ad break bumpers: 'Erica's Word' by Game Theory & 'Quite Unusual' by Front 242
Closing song: 'Angler's Treble Hook' by $5 Fiddle

That's it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com you can also download my show from the z talk show archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com

You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.

concert memoirs pt. 20 - hunters & collectors, echo & the bunnymen, new order, gene loves jezebel, game theory & naked rayun

Hunters & Collectors
5/31/87 First Avenue w/John Ticket Price: $5.00

I didn’t know this Australian band well, but John really liked them. I enjoyed the show very much. I’ve got to say this band definitely wore their hearts on their sleeves. They played some of the most heartfelt music I’ve ever heard at a concert. Not the best vocalist, but he was dedicated to getting his point across. They also had a big sound with meaty bass lines and a hot horn section.

These next three entries do not have ticket stubs. What I have is a back of an ATM receipt on which I had written the basic show information. You know it goes back a few years because there are no ads on the back. Why I did this for only these three shows, I have no idea.

Echo & the Bunnymen, New Order & Gene Loves Jezebel
8/13/87 Northrop Auditorium w/John Ticket Price: Unknown

As far as I can remember, this was the only show I had seen at the Northrop Auditorium located on the University of Minnesota campus. I seem to recall seeing a show at the Coffman Union on campus which was a popular venue for the punk bands, but I can’t remember what act we saw.

Anyway, the Northrop show was a mega show with three pretty good bands. Any of which could have headlined at First Avenue. And, of course, I don’t remember much about the show. Hmm. It’s weird how this happens, because I can assure I was stone sober.

What comes to mind is going to the U of M campus, noting the braveness of the campus squirrels (so used to people being around) and hanging out on the steps waiting to head in for the show.

Of the show, I remember the lead singer of Gene Loves Jezebel prancing around and hanging on the other band members.

I can also picture the New Order bass player with his legs apart and bass hanging low. So low it was nearly hitting the floor. I thought it was so cool that he played that way. He was also the most animated member of New Order.

Nothing comes about Echo & the Bunnymen.

Game Theory w/27 Various & Swingin’ Uncle Jimmy
1/15/88 7th Street Entry w/John Ticket Price: Unknown

Ed Ackerson was a bit of an icon of the local music scene whose first band was The Dig. The Dig was a mod band that was part of the brief mod revival thing. He went on to form 27 Various and, then, Polara. All three bands had a different sound. All were very interesting.

So, this night it was 27 Various. They had a kind of Sonic Youth discord sound going.

Later, Game Theory was doing their jangly, pretentious, catchy, alterna-pop show, when Scott Miller (the bandleader) slowed things down to talk to the crowd. He wanted to thank the opening acts for playing.

He mentioned something interesting about 27 Various. He said that he didn’t quite dig their sound at first. He thought that they sounded out of tune, but then he started to catch onto what they were doing. And he dug it.


Naked Raygun
3/5/88 7th Street Entry w/John Ticket Price: Unknown

Ahhh, Naked Raygun in the Entry. What could be better? This band never disappointed us. And this was another outstanding show. It was also the last time we would ever see them.

Naked Raygun should have been bigger than they were. They could have been bigger than Nirvana. Well, enough hyperbole.

The highlight of this night was seeing John at the front of the low set Entry stage, his arm flung over some hefty fellow’s shoulder (no, we didn’t know him), that fellow with his arm across John’s shoulder, their other arms held aloft, shaking their fists and heads, all while bopping up and down. This was an unbelievable sight. It was absolutely uncharacteristic of the normally stoic and standoffish John. Especially when he is sober, which he was.

Such was the power of Naked Raygun. God damn! I miss them.

concert memoirs pt. 18 - game theory, the woodentops, peter murphy & chameleons uk

Game Theory w/The Jayhawks

10/19/86 First Avenue w/John Ticket Price: Unknown

Nothing. I’ve got nothing here.

The Woodentops w/Trip Shakespeare & New Marines
11/5/86 First Avenue w/John Ticket Price: $6.00

I don’t recall anything of the open acts, but I did like Trip Shakespeare a lot. I’m pretty sure I saw their first ever show in the 7th Street Entry, but I’ll write about that at another time.

The Woodentops put on a good show with their fast, jumpy style of acoustic alternative/pop music. Very high energy. The crowd was jumping and some fellow kept yelling, “Frenetic! Frenetic!”

I kept thinking, “Ok, pal, nice word. Very descriptive. Now shut-up!”

A highlight moment was when the lead singer hopped down to the floor and sang and danced his way through the audience.

“Frenetic!”

“Man! Seriously, shut-up!”

Peter Murphy
2/24/87 First Avenue w/John Ticket Price: $5.00

Five bucks to see Peter Murphy, not bad.

At the time, I was more of a fan of his solo material than of Tones on Tail or Love & Rockets (the bands the other former members of Bauhaus were in). Don’t get me wrong though because I liked them all. It’s just that Peter Murphy’s stuff seemed more lush and musical (whatever that means) while TOT and L&R was more striped down and dark.

The show itself has few memories. I don’t recall if he played any Bauhaus songs, although I’d say probably not. I might have more memories of the show if he had.

What stands out are images of him dancing about, doing his Gothic thing. And it seems as though he was lit by a very bright white light from underneath.

Chameleons UK w/The Mighty Lemon Drops
3/11/87 First Avenue w/John Ticket Price: Unknown

Both John and I liked The Mighty Lemon Drops, but, if you know their stuff, you gotta admit they sound an awful lot like Echo & the Bunnymen. (Also a good band that has a strong Doors influence. We like Echo & the Bunnymen even with their similarity to that extremely overrated band.)

Anyway, as I said the Lemon Drops sounded very much like Echo and John felt compelled to point that out. Once or twice between songs, John would call out, “Rescue!” Which, if you don’t know, is a song by Echo off their great album, Crocodiles.

I don’t think the band appreciated it, but John and I thought it was funny. It wasn’t that we weren’t enjoying their set, we were. It was just that it was funny. At least John didn’t yell, “Freebird!”

Speaking of birds (brilliant segue, Jim!), when The Chameleons were onstage, Birdy (lead vocal/bass) took to berating a couple of the more uncouth members of the audience. I can picture a couple dudes holding up their beers and whooping or something. (I never understood the holding up of the beer. Was it a salute? Was it an offer to the band? Was it to show what lousy taste in beer they have?)

I can’t remember exactly what Birdy said, but it was along the lines of... “Look at the moronic frat boys drinking Bud and looking for a fight.”

So, the band played great. They were promoting my favorite of their albums, Strange Times. They have other good albums but Strange Times holds together beautifully from beginning to end. I especially remember the lead guitarist stepping up front while playing the excellent lead in to the fantastic song, Swamp Thing.

Good show.