I Always Knew He Was No Wave
Phibian, fresh from doing Halloween up early, announces his secret shame.
Looky that: a guy in the Navy officer corps who digs old school. To misquote the Television Personalities, “I Was A Punk Before You Was A Punk.” (And it’s truly sad when you see a LT walking around and have to hand him a copy of “No New York” just to get him to stop saying his new CD is all new stuff…)
Sounds like I need to share my Television and Glenn Branca records in exchange whenever I get around to buying CDR Salamander a beer. One of my regrets is that I never got to see Wimp Factor Fourteen or the Jesus Lizard play CB’s…
15 Responses to “I Always Knew He Was No Wave”
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October 18th, 2006 at 11:09 am
..You ever have one of those days where you wonder why and how you came to a place in your life where you can’t decide if you should put the “Flat Duo Jets” or Peter Murphy in slot 1 or slot 6 of the CD player? And you still hold a grudge against that Freshman girl from Univ. of VA who took your first run ’82 version of Laurie Anderson’s “Big Science” LP in ’85 home with her to Charlottesville, one Sunday morning – and are reminded every time you put the CD in the rack? Always in slot 3 or 4. Never at the beginning or the end. Sometimes, you have to go to slot 5 to get to Track 8 from The Cult’s “Electric” after that 2.5 hour PPT brief from WBB that just made no sense.
“So pay me what you owe me.”
Argghhh!!! That reminds me. I forgot to do a post using Laurie Anderson as proof that conspiracy nuts are, well, nuts.
October 18th, 2006 at 11:50 am
Amen, brother. I saw Flat Duo Jets open for Fishbone in Raleigh in ’84 and life was Good. Discovered the Cult while DJ’ing at WKNC, playing Metallica interviews with “Jason New Kid” and scamming the Jane’s Addiction boot from the last week’s show in exchange for a Majosha (pre-Ben Folds Five band) tape. I need to send you some records–Chapel Hill rawk led to Louisville squonk (Slint, Grifters, Palace, Rodan) and more more more.
I think Enrevanche got you covered on that post, though–he did a podcast that included it once, and yea indeed what was calming is now creepy…
October 18th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
“Here come the planes… they’re American planes… made in America…”
October 18th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
The podcast in question (July 4, 2005)
October 18th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
We swim in similar seas there shipmate. WKNC. That brings back memories. Let’s see, how did it go? “Just push that little button then, NIGHT WAVE.” If memory serves me right, WKNC was almost all metal all AOR almost all the time. WUNC was solid almost all the time but you almost had to be standing at The Well to hear it – their range was terrible – but when you were late to a Scruffy the Cat gig at the Cat’s Cradle – you didn’t have too much time to listen. One of the best concerts I ever saw was at some hole in the wall place in Raleigh too. Modern English. Don’t laugh. They were solid live.
Georgetown-Chapel Hill/Raleigh-Athens axis and the mid-80s. Happy time to be of legal age….a few times.
Forget the MilBlogger shoot-out. When do we do the MilBlogger SKA concert?
October 18th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Oh, and one more thing – “88 Lines about 44 Women,” The Nails. Perhaps a theme song for the USS Enterprise forward berthing under the bow cats……… Have to ask Lex.
October 18th, 2006 at 5:04 pm
Five gets you ten that the “hole in the wall place” in Raleighwood where you saw Modern English was The Brewery.
And Flat Duo Jets….well, Dexter Romweber was my roommate when I moved back to Chapel Hill in 1989…until he got us kicked out and Barry had to help me move. The guy could play classical piano, pick up a 6-string and totally become Woody Guthrie — seeing him play “Bound for Glory” at a coal miner’s benefit gave me chills.
I’m feeling bad that I didn’t take better care of my Mondo Montage cassette.
October 18th, 2006 at 7:11 pm
Got it on vinyl. Might be ripped later tonight. Might show up as a comment here for a very short time.
For fair use purposes, of course.
October 18th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
Awesome. Already humming…
Buddha Buddha.
Fishing boats in the Greek blue sea go…
Buddha Buddha.
Enemy planes in the comic books go…
October 18th, 2006 at 9:59 pm
101 MB, two mp3s in a zip archive, not split up except for side 1/side 2 and no sleeve pix because I’m lazy and in a hurry and both Audacity and CD Spin Doctor crashed on the Intel. Link [disappeared].
A:
The Snap: Voice of America
States: Watching You
Lise Uyanik and Mobile City: I Can Hear Music
Moon Pie: Tore Up
Rod Abernethy: White Lies
Lise Uyanik and Mobile City: Love Is Fine
Rick Rock: Buddha Buddha
B:
States: Don’t Call My Name Anymore
Arrogance: Perfect Light
X-Teens: Heaven In Your Eyes
The Snap: (She’s A) Modern Girl
Texas Toads: Drink You Off My Mind
Rick Rock: (I’m a lookin’ for a) Sputnik
Let’s Active: A Room With A View
October 18th, 2006 at 10:16 pm
I can believe you about Modern English. I miss finding the small cool bands out there.
KNC in the late eighties and early nineties was metal during the day and rap during the night. Nightwave was an evening weekday show; I was on the air all over the place (including Nightwave, metal, rap and the pre-Sunday morning freakout before the religion shows). Rap was a challenge because I knew DJ Kool Herc and UTFO and Grandmaster Flash but that West Coast stuff was all new to me. Schooly-D? Why is Ice-T ripping off Curtis Mayfield? Took me a while to get into it.
I loved WXDU myself; it took chances and played the stuff that XYC wouldn’t touch. Which is mostly where my head is at. At WRCT my most punk rock moment was the semester I did a show of old country music–Johnny Cash and the Tennesee Two, Hasil Adkins, etc–which the punks (a) hated because I wasn’t playing Fugazi’s “Waiting Room” for the eleventeenth time and (b) loved because after all who is more punk rock than Johnny Cash kicking a murder ballad back in the day? (This is pre-Rick Rubin Cash, mind you.)
WSPN I played a lot of records you could Not Find In Upstate New York, a very relaxing and enjoyable mindblowing for folks in Saratoga. It’s been a long time since I turned anyone on to this kind of stuff on air…
October 18th, 2006 at 10:21 pm
Dex Romweber’s roommate?
Whoa. I am in the presence of grace. You must be one patient mofo. No wonder you teach high school; you’ve seen it all two or three times, I bet…
October 19th, 2006 at 7:34 am
Re: Dexter.
Yes, he was quite the handful. Most memorable thing was trying to convince him to use the door to the apartment as opposed to removing his window screen and going back and forth to his room via window. Was unsuccessful. The other roommate was female and a long-time buddy of mine. Dexter came to us and asked us to socialize him. Ha!
I’m also now remembering coming home from a week on the road (was traveling portrait photographer at the time) to find my Mr. Coffee pot in the sink with encrusted bran flakes inside it and Brother Romweber had decided that the handle made it the perfect portable cereal bowl.
After he got us tossed — I hardly ever saw him again. But I did see him about two years ago at the Cradle. My buddy Ron Royster went up to him on stage in between sets and asked him if he remembered me — he did and we swapped a few stories. It appeared that somehow along the way he had become domesticated. And damn if his music didn’t suffer. I have no clue how to categorize his new stuff — Elvis fused with something — but it was quite painful.
I had forgotten Let’s Active (with Dex’s sister Sarah as the always explosive drummer — saw her on Franklin St a couple of years ago — looked EXACTLY the same) was on Mondo — they played St. A’s (was a bro) quite often, frequently on the annex roof. I think that’s where I learned how to teach high school, though nothing has prepared me for the number of intensely damaged souls I’ve encountered this year. These kids amaze me with what they’ve been put through and how they are somehow able to make it.
Mucho thanks for the upload – I hope to listen to it this afternoon on the way to the anniversary hut — but before that, the philosophy class will be subjected to Buddah Buddah.
October 19th, 2006 at 10:57 am
I can confirm the story about deVille and Dexter being roommates.
And, holy shit, Mondo Montage? Dude. I mean, duuuuuuude.
- bc, huge Lise Uyanik fan back in the day, still remembers when Mobile City played the Assembly Hall at the NC School of Science and Math
October 19th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
With Mondo Montage playing on my iPod Nano, I was inspired to do a little Googlin’.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Let’s Active: Mitch Easter, of course, went on to produce a bunch of early R.E.M. albums, but is still playing club dates and staying active as a producer: http://www.mitchworldusa.net/
Faye Hunter – unknown.
Sara Romweber – “Sara Romweber (from the original Let’s Active trio) works at the Music Explorium in Carrboro and makes puppets” – source; http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A14340
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Rick Rock became at least slightly better known as Parthenon Huxley:
http://www.parthenonhuxley.com/
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Lise Uyanik – still rocking out with Mobile City from time to time –
see, e.g., http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A20554
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Rod Abernethy is scoring movies, TV shows, and (especially) video games:
http://www.rednoteaudio.com/about/