Anything, Anything with Rich Russo

Hollis Brown are one of the best bands to come out of NYC in years, their new album, Ride on the Train, will surely be on many best of lists (including mine), vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Mike Montali and Drummer Mike Graves of the band, hung at my house and on-air as we talked about the band, and even heard some live songs, Gypsy Black Cat, Hey Baby, and It’s Raining Men, yes It’s Raining Men plus a version of Nightfall that was done only for this podcast…Enjoy!

make sure you catch the band live at the mercury lounge on sat 3/30 get tix here

hollis pod 128

Enjoy this podcast of Dr Demento’s complete appearance on my show on 2/3/13 as well as additional content where the Doctor discusses Weird Al, Tom Lehrer, Devo Spice and Jonathan Coulton…please note the bonus material includes explicit language. Please visit www.drdemento.com and www.thefump.com for all of your novelty needs. The New York Funny Songs Festival is May 16-18, visit www.nyfunnysongs.com for info on that

Dr Demento Podcast

For the first in the history of my radio show, my birthday fell on a Sunday, and considering I play whatever I want all of the time, i thought maybe i’d do an unbirthday thing and play things i hate, fortunately that didn’t last long, here’s the opening of the show as it falls off the rails. enjoy!

 

podcast unbday

Lucero, in my mind, is currently America’s best band, their album Women and Work was named the top album of 2012 on my yearend list, i was fortunate enough to sit down with Ben and Brian and discuss the album, as well as the origin of their name, how they write and everything else…

Enjoy this podcast of my interview with them, including some segments that were not on the air and are exclusive to this podcast only.

lucero podcast

Covers are such an important part of all artists repertoire, think of how rock was born, as covers of blues and country songs, look at Elvis early songs, look at the early Beatles and Stones albums, dominated by covers, Led Zeppelin were big on covers as is Joan Jett too and Springsteen’s live shows have always had a healthy dose of covers..

It’s important that all up and coming bands learn cover songs, it will help their live show, it will help their songwriting too.. So i’ve picked out some very nice covers for your enjoyment…and the podcast will have some clips of all of the songs, seek them out and buy the complete versions! covers 2012

and these are all versions the public would have had access to, not live performances at a random show…. so let’s go…

Number 12: Cherie Currie Roxy Roller  Cherie’s new album is due out in 2013 and we were given a sampler of 4 tracks, featuring backing from Slash, Matt Sorum, Duff Mckagan, Billy Corgan and others, i really dug this version of the long forgotten Sweeney Todd song, which featured Nick Gilder on Vocals, later covered by Suzy Quatro… but i’m liking Cherie’s New version the best of all three…

Number 11: Giovanni Hendriksen My Kind of Town  Steven Van Zandt in character as a mobster in the witness protection program, singing Sinatra and changing the lyrics from “Chicago is” to “Lillehammer is”  works for me and it will work for you too.

Number 10: Gaslight Anthem You Got Lucky Brian Fallon and the crew have all done some cool covers, including a Bon Iver cover that came out last month, but i like this one of the Petty song best, but it does leave me both frustrated and hopeful. Frustrated that of all the Petty songs that this band can really nail, they chose this one, but hopeful that maybe they’ll go back to this same Petty album and try to tackle Change of Heart, or Deliver Me, or The Same Old You or Straight into Darkness, yeah, Gaslight could really nail all of those. Let’s hope they try.

Number 9: The Civil Wars Billie Jean Joy Williams and John Paul White really kick ass on the harmonies of this song that is slowed down considerably compared to the Michael Jackson version, with a very cool guitar riff that if sped up could almost be reggae. No version could ever top the original, right? Then again, perhaps maybe this might.

Number 8: Wendy James It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding I’ll admit these two things, i was in a record store in the late 80’s and there was a 12inch single with a smoking hot half naked girl on the cover, i bought it only because of the picture (it was $1.99), the record was better than the picture, and i then would buy every album and single by Transvision Vamp and Wendy James and loved them all. The second thing I’ll admit is that i rolled my eyes when this 7 minute cover of the Bob Dylan classic crossed my desk. Ok, yes she has done great versions of Holly and the Italians and even Elvis Costello songs, but Dylan? and of all the Dylan songs this one? But you know what, it delivers, it’s different than this song has ever been done and when you take all that politically is still polarizing our world, the lyrics and sentiment of this masterpiece still hits home.

Number 7: Superchunk Cruel Summer  How cool is it when a rock band covers a pop hit and gives it some juice. Superchunk does that here and even Bananarama would be impressed, i think? now hopefully someone will punk up Robert Deniro’s Waiting next.

Number 6: Amanda Palmer Polly  There are not enough adjectives to describe Amanda Palmer, but if you forced to come up with two, i’d go with Enjoyable Insanity, because you think it’s crazy, and it probably it is, but it’s so much fun. The most popular skit on SNL this year was the girl you don’t want to get stuck at a party with, Amanda is the opposite, she’s the one, you want to talk to, and maybe she’ll break into a Nirvana cover.

Number 5: Shannon and the Clams White [...]

Here is the opening 45 minutes of the show that aired on 12/16/12 featuring the monologues and songs.

please click on the 12612 link to play instead of the play button.

12612

Little Steven calls into to the anything anything radio program, he discusses his upcoming Rascals shows. Did you know that the first show that Steven saw was the Rascals? and that was Bruce’s first show too? some other E Street tidbits too and much much more

this podcast includes all that was broadcast on the radio plus a bonus 10 minutes of fascinating discussion that happened off air while songs were playing, you don’t want to miss this!!

 

 

svz pod 128

On February 21, 2010 The Spring Standards popped into the studio to chat and play a few songs, you can hear live versions of The Hutch, Reply and a cover of Neil Young’s Birds…

 

enjoy

spring standards

Social Distortion is one on the most influential and enduring rock bands of the last 30 years, their 2011 album Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes was my choice of best album of 2011 (see the full list here). For my 4th anniversary on the radio Social Distortion was kind enough to have their show on 11/2/12 at Starland Ballroom serve as my anniversary show. I sat down with Mike Ness and we discussed new material, radio, Springsteen playing his song at an E Street show, Lucero, how they choose opening acts and more, and Mike even DJ’s a little as he picks songs that are lineage to Social D.. you will enjoy this!

Mike Ness

mike ness interview

all i can do is cry wayne walker

all i can do is cry Mike Ness

mike ness interview

california hustle and flow social distortion

mike ness interview

company c Mike Ness

the day i die Lindi Ortega

mike ness interview

so many nights biters

gimme the sweet and lowdown social distortion

mike ness interview

whip it Pearl Jam (10/31/09 Philly)

Down Pearl Jam with Mike Ness (10/28/09 Philly)

mike ness interview

Bad Luck Mike Ness with Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band

Women and Work Lucero

women in charge graham parker

mike ness discusses and picks these songs:

Single Girl Married Girl The Carter Family

moanin the blues hank williams

done somebody wrong elmore james

shake your hips the rolling stones

here comes the night David Bowie

I want you around the ramones

helen, pussy riot, monologue

welcome to anything anything, I’m rich russo,

this is your weekly two hour, ass kicking band breaking, genre busting, multi station eargasmic free form radio extravanganza broadcasting in New jersey,

and two sides of the female coin, begin us off, Helen gurley brown, obviously an influence to the women of the world with cosmopolitian magazine, which of course led to sex and the city, she passed away this week at age 90, we heard from her 1963 album, a spoken word masterpiece of sorts, yet a somewhat disturbing view of that time in our country regarding women, as she talks about affairs, secretaries, some brute force amongst other things and later on we’ll hear an even more baffling and disturbing segment from the album..

and then pussy riot from Russia with putin lights the fires, there has been endless coverage of their plight, and social media is abuzz with the perceived injustice to them. And here’s where I stand on this, and it’s not the same belief as many of those who feel these girls were wronged

and as usual, I will step in and be the voice of logic. And let’s be perfectly clear, regardless of how we feel about the laws of another country, their laws are their laws, and do I believe they got these girls on a technicality,

yes,

but it’s just like catching Al Capone on tax evasion to a degree. They broke a law and regardless of whether that law is inane or not, it’s still on the books there. I’m not quite sure if a bunch of people in ski masks walked up the the altar at st patrick’s. or at temple or a mosque, would be received very well, or how about in an airport or on a plane.

This is from legal expert peter maggs: Russian legal code identifies two types of hooliganism: petty and criminal. Petty hooliganism is more or less like disorderly conduct —90% of those convicted for this offense are “obnoxious drunks.” The punishment is usually a fine or brief imprisonment

Criminal hooliganism is more serious. It has to be “a gross violation of public order, showing a disrespect for society.” It must involve weapons or objects used as weapons,

OR

be done for motives of political, ideological, racial, national, or religious hatred, or hatred toward a social group. It can carry a sentence of up to 5 years if committed by an individual, or 7 years if committed by an organized group.

The band was convicted of criminal hooliganism because their performance in a church “disrupted the peace of a religious institution.”

And yes it did, that’s the law, the band knew exactly what they were doing, they premeditated it, they had film crews on hand, and even released that song we just heard by them the day they were sentenced. Kim Kardashian would be proud of their PR prowess coming from being a no talent nobody to becoming a world wide buzz celebrity…sadly in pussy riot’s case there was no sex tape.

The band easily could have done their thing elsewhere but a church,

withOUT breaking a law that they were admittedly aware of ,

one of the members even said she didn’t think the sentence would be this harsh, therefore knowing it was a crime. And by the way they have small children, and what mother knowing commits a crime they are planning on publicizing, which has the possibility of separating them from their children? This isn’t a welfare mom stealing food from a market to put food on the table for her children, this was a premediated crime, with video shot, a PR firm lined up, and a song ready to release…

laws and sentencing are deterrents, or at least supposed to be, and yes as inane as this is to us, there will not be many other Russian protests like this, the precedent has been set, it’s jail. Unlike here where we are spoiled by high powered lawyers and the more affluent you are, the better you are treated in the legal system, which is why Paris Hilton can get busted for possession of Cocaine and not get any jailtime and it becomes a late night tv joke, but [...]