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"The Drop with Danno" on GFN 광주영어방송 98.7FM in Gwangju & 93.7FM in Yeosu, Korea. An eclectic radio curation of all things musical spanning the spectrum every week. Broadcasting 8-10pm KST nightly.
Apr 6, 2023
Al Green – Here I Am (Come and Take Me)
The Ironsides – Song for Adrian
Surprise Chef – Friendship Theme
Mndsgn – Truth Interlude
Sven Wunder – Harmonica and…
Bliss Station – Sweet Chocolate
Earth Wind & Fire - Fantasy
El Michels Affair & Black Thought – I’m Still Somehow*
Nogymx – Temperance
Dreamer Isioma feat Merlin Wood – Touch Your Soul*
moim feat Louis mari – INTERVIEW
Alina Bzhezhinska & HipHarpCollective – Fire (We Are The Horsemen remix)
Gil Scott-Heron – Whitey On The Moon (Kek’star Deep Mix)
I.
It is 20 hours past midnight after another drizzler here in Gwangju, but we are ready to keep you warm & dry here at the spot, soaked into the finite towel of earth time as April 6, 2023. This is Danno at the ready as Thursday night is upon us, and that means we are ready to funk it up here in the first hour while still keepin it clean like a washing machine, then it’s Dan Lloyd’s time to shine with the rock stars and smashed guitars to finish the gig in our 2nd hour. As to the funk up, we got new tunes from El Michels, Flamingosis, Nogymx and plenty more for the first 57, then Dan Lloyd’s got lotsa goods on albums ready to drop in hour 2 as well, the big one coming out tomorrow being Wednesday’s debut, and that’s the rock band outta Asheville, NC, of course, not the emo horror heroine. Now, here in part 1 we also have two history features to bookend things, and we’ll start with Al Green performing live on Soul Train with a broken arm, and we’ll get into just what that’s all about on the other side. This is The Drop.
Al Green – Here I Am (Come and Take Me)
The Drop is on the air like for real for real, and as always thankful you are here as our funk punk soul rock Thursday gets the wheels rolling. That was Al Green with Here I Am (Come and Take Me) for our TIGHT (or) feature to start the show, and we’ll bookend things with more history tonight as well.
It was on this date in 1974 that The Reverend played that song live on Soul Train with a busted arm in a sling. Of course, usually the TV show didn’t do live performances as they were expensive to produce, and while I could have played that version he did live on the air, it honestly sounds awful, so another look behind the curtain as to why they didn’t do that too often on Soul Train.
Another interesting thing is of course, Al Green’s busted arm. Now, I’m not sure this is the incident in question, but our good friend of the show Carlton Jumel Smith told me a story about The Reverend breaking his arm that is surprising, but before we get into what happened there is something important to note, and that is that Al Green drove the ladies insane back in his prime. The guy was a total sex symbol.
Now, the story Carlton Jumel Smith told me is that once Al Green got caught up in a crowd of ladies who were absolutely clawing at him and did in fact get a hold. The singer got swung back and forth and all around in the push & pull, and busted his arm.
Not sure that this is the afters of that, but it would seem to be correct as he was on tour at the time. Crazy story though…we gotta have Carlton Jumel Smith back on, that guy’s got a lot of those in his pocket.
#9870, @gfnthedrop, podcast details, etc.
So let’s get back to now with our next block of fresh cuts, and we’ll make a rare square with four tunes coming up. New stuff from The Ironsides, Surprise Chef, Mndsgn, and Sven Wunder are on deck, but we’ll talk more after they take their swings. This is The Drop on your Sampled funk & soul Thursday night!
_________
The Drop returns for the final airbreak of part 1 tonight, our first selections for the new stuff tonight hath come and gone, although it wasn’t all new in that block. Danno here, caveats abounding, but let’s get into what’s up with that last quartet of cuts before I turn into an unpaid lawyer...
The Ironsides – Songs for Adrian (…for anyone who’s been paying attention to Colemine Records the last decade plus, this is big news. And as an aside, you really need to think about your priorities if in fact you are not. This tune heralds a new LP from the band, which drops in full on May 19.)
Surprise Chef – Friendship Theme (…after releasing their debut album on new label Big Crown Records, the boys from Melbourne are back with a new EP which drops in June called Friendship, so that is the title track. Check the band’s aforementioned debut album on Big Crown called Education & Recreation, available everywhere.)
Mndsgn – Truth Interlude (…a little something from 2021 right here, off an album called Rare Pleasure. Mndsgn (note sp.) is the solo project of Ringgo Anchetta, signed to Stones Throw.)
Sven Wunder – Harmonica and… (…this tune just dropped as a standalone the Friday prior to last, so the 24th of March. This tune was independently released, and the artist is based in Stockholm.)
Now let’s get in one more new joint prior to getting into our 2nd chapter of history tonight then we jump. Up next is the new collab project from Flamingosis and Ehiorobo called Bliss Station. The pair have a dropped another single called Autobahn previous, and this new one is called Sweet Chocolate. After that, it’s Earth Wind & Fire to close things, as we mark an epic concert also in 1974 in Ontario, CA featuring the band along with Neil Young, Emerson Lake & Palmer, along with Black Sabbath which was attended by 200k people. Unreal. A fantasy, even. THIS is The Drop on this week’s Round Trip to The D.
Bliss Station – Sweet Chocolate
Earth Wind & Fire – Fantasy
II.
The Drop continues, but simmering it down as we like to do here in part 2. Danno here, flame turned down along with the lights for mood, and a couple go slow heat seekers to begin proceedings in the 2nd quarter right there so let’s have you know a bit…
El Michels Affair & Black Thought – I’m Still Somehow* (…the latest and possibly final single from the upcoming collab album between these two legends is out, and this would be the 4th so far. The Big Crown head honcho and Roots leading man drop the Glorious Game LP on April 14, so do mark it, that’s next Friday for the calendar challenged.)
Nogymx – Temperance (…our main man up in Cheongju to get local but still fresh just dropped this on a new lo-fi beats comp called Ikigai. The comp features this tune from Jimmy Dunne along with 21 other lofi chillers, so go give it a bump if that’s your thing.)
Moving along SM, #9870, podcast let us know …
So we got three new joints to check out in the next block, starting with Dreamer Isioma, and then we go local again with an artist called moim, and then we’ll wrap the triad with a remix from We Are The Horsemen to make the snack complete. THIS is The Drop on your Sampled funk & soul first half.
_________
The Drop is back with our final verbal joust of hour 1 tonight. Danno here, going through all the (mostly) fresh & new funk & soul here in hour 1, soon to be joined by Dan Lloyd for our box of rocks we call AMPED. As to what just went up & came down in the space elevator, that was...
Dreamer Isioma feat Merlyn Wood – Touch Your Soul* (…this is the A side to a new 7” single out from the Chicago-based artist, and great news with this one as they are set to release a follow-up album to 2022’s fantastic Goodnight Dreamer. The album is called Princess Forever, and is out in just over 2 weeks’ time on April 21.)
moim feat Louis mari – INTERVIEW (…this is an artist whom we’ve featured a couple times on Monday & Tuesdays during our Korean indie sections, but I still have very little on this singer. Good funky tune here, and moim in Korean means gathering, like a gather of people in case you didn’t know already.)
Alina Bzhezhinska & The HipHarpCollective – Fire (We Are The Horsemen remix) (…this is an artist we’ve been paying attention to out of Korea, and this original just got the remix treatment and dropped this week via esteemed label BBE.)
So that’s gonna just about do it for the first hour, but we’ll bump up the bpm’s to make sure you’re awake as we go through the wormhole to part 3 tonight. Up next is a Kek’star deep mix of Gil Scott-Heron’s Whitey On The Moon, and we’ll call it quits on the first 57 there. THIS is The Drop and that is halftime.
Gil Scott-Heron – Whitey On The Moon (Kek’star Deep Mix)
III & IV AMPED
Metallica – 72 Seasons
Scowl – Psychic Dance Routine
Wednesday – TV in the Gas Pump
Bad Optix – Raid
LOREN - Panic
Mudhoney – Little Dogs
Louise Post – Guilty
Dropkick Murphys – Gotta Get to Peekskill (ft Violent Femmes)
KISS – Deuce
Be Your Own Pet – Hand Grenade
Ginger Wildheart – Urge
Midtown – Cut Your Hair (Pavement cover)
Metallica – 72 Seasons
Metallica have dropped the new song “72 Seasons” — the title track of their forthcoming album, arriving April 14th.
The band teased a significant portion of the song’s music video on social media before releasing the full track and music video today (March 30th). The performance clip sees the band illuminated by red lasers, giving off the effect of Metallica barreling through space.
It’s fitting visuals for what is the fastest and grooviest of the four singles we’ve heard from 72 Seasons, following “Lux Æterna,” “Screaming Suicide,” and “If Darkness Had a Son.” James Hetfield may have recently said that he and his fellow bandmates were “average” players, but this new track proves otherwise.
Lars Ulrich is locked into the pocket of the quick tempo, and the riff structures and palm-muted chugs hit with undeniable power. Hetfield’s more pronounced drawl also works nicely around the arrangement and vocal melody, which ascends to a soaring chorus hook. When he’s not singing, the band veer through instrumental sections that build tension and variation — and give Kirk Hammett ample room to shred.
Scowl – Psychic Dance Routine
Scowl have just unleashed the absolutely ace title-track from their new EP Psychic Dance Routine.
Ahead of the record’s release on April 7 via Flatspot, you can watch the video for Psychic Dance Routine below. Vocalist Kat Moss explains of the meaning behind the single: “My perspective of being consumed as the version of myself that is ‘performing’ has shifted dramatically, while simultaneously grappling the experience of being a feminine artist in a world that doesn’t always take you seriously.
“I made an effort to change perspectives back and forth lyrically because I felt that would have the most impact with the message I was trying convey. ‘She’ll never be your animal, she’s got her own personal hell.’ In its simplest form I’m explaining that nobody can corner me into their perception of who I am and that I’ve got my own shit to deal with. By using ‘She’ I’m making it clear that I’m also speaking about a feminine experience. ‘Can’t handle your control, think of the love I’d give’ is me begging the listener to relinquish the grip they have on me and questioning if they’ll allow me to be the earnest and vulnerable person I truly am.”
Wednesday – TV in the Gas Pump
Wednesday’s new album, Rat Saw God, is out April 7 via Dead Oceans. Today, they’ve dropped the final single they’re sharing prior to its release. “TV in the Gas Pump” arrives with a new music video from director Lewis Dahm. Watch it below.
“This is the first song I’ve written about being on the road, and I really just wanted to collect all that imagery you ingest on tour,” Wednesday singer-songwriter Karly Hartzman said in a statement. “A few images that made it in the song include: the never ending gas station stops that blend together and the dystopian gas pump advertisements, a stressful experience in a Panera Bread, and a story of coming up from taking what you thought was a microdose of shrooms in a Dollar General.”
The new album follows Wednesday’s 2021 album, Twin Plagues, and last year’s covers collection, Mowing the Leaves Instead of Piling ’Em Up.
Bad Optix – Raid
Former Operation Ivy bandmates Jesse Michaels and Tim Armstrong have reunited to form a new band called Bad Optix. For their debut single, they’ve shared a song called “Raid” through Armstrong’s Hellcat Records. Listen below.
The origins of Bad Optix trace back to March 2021, some 32 years after Operation Ivy’s breakup. After initially meeting up “purely with the intent to reconnect,” the duo soon found themselves working together on new music. To round out the lineup, Michaels and Armstrong recruited drummer Joey Castillo (Circle Jerks, The Bronx) and Spencer Pollard (Trash Talk).
“As soon as we started writing together, we found that we had the same collaborative energy that we had in the past, so it was natural and fun just to keep going,” Michaels said in a statement.
Last year, Michaels and Armstrong reunited at Los Angeles’ Musack Rock and Roll Carnival, where they performed Operation Ivy’s “Sound System.”
LOREN – Panic
Alternative artist LØREN says he’s trying to reignite rock in Korea with his debut EP Put Up A Fight.
Following the five-track record’s release on Friday (March 24), the musician admits to Variety that, “I feel like rock music is not a dying breed in Korea: it’s dead. It’s six feet under its gravestones, but I’m kind of resisting where everything else is going, like a branch or something in the wind.”
As such, LØREN reveals that the music contained within Put Up A Fight lives up to its name, and it “kind of sounds like you’re kicking and screaming on your way out. You’re still going to kind of lose, but at least you refuse to just go peacefully.”
To coincide with the release of Put Up A Fight, LØREN has also shared an excellent, dramatic video for the song Folks
Mudhoney – Little Dogs
This week, Mudhoney are releasing a new album, Plastic Eternity. They’ve shared two songs from it so far, “Almost Everything” and “Move Under,” and today they’re back with one last single, the goofy and lovable “Little Dogs,” which true to its title, is all about the joys of having a little dog: “I like little dogs/ I like little dogs/ Just today, I went out for a walk/ Guess who came along? That’s right it was a, a little dog.” That’s right! The band shows off a whole variety of little dogs in the Eleanor Petry-directed music video.
Louise Post – Guilty
You might know Louise Post as the co-frontwoman of ’90s alt-rock icons Veruca Salt, but she’s now gearing up to embark solo with Sleepwalker, her debut album under her own name. With the announcement, she’s shared a run of 2023 North American tour dates, as well as a preview ahead of the record’s June 2nd release with the lead single “Guilty.”
After Veruca Salt released their 2015 comeback album Ghost Notes, Post went back to writing music as usual. But the songs that began flowing out of her — which she says “almost appeared to be writing themselves” — felt much more personal to her than what she’d done previously with a band.
“I have always identified as a sleepwalker,” Post said of the album’s title in a statement. “I slept-walked around my house routinely when I was a child, and even down the street. I believe in hindsight it was me trying to process what was going on in my home with my parents’ troubled marriage. As far as I know, I stopped sleepwalking after the divorce when I was eight, but it has always been a part of me that I feel protective of, a little girl who I feel sad for.”
Dropkick Murphys – Gotta Get to Peekskill (ft Violent Femmes)
Dropkick Murphys team up with Violent Femmes to fight the Ku Klux Klan on the new collaborative track “Gotta Get to Peekskill.” It’s the latest single from Dropkick’s upcoming album, Okemah Rising.
As previously reported, Okemah Rising (due May 12th) is the second Dropkick album to interpret the words of late folk legend Woody Guthrie, following last year’s This Machine Still Kills Fascists.
The song features the distinctive voices of Violent Femmes frontman Gordon Gano and Dropkick Murphys singer Ken Casey, as they trade verses on the track, singing Guthrie’s lyrics about confronting the Ku Klux Klan.
“We had the privilege of collaborating with the Violent Femmes on this feisty track,” said Casey in a press release. “Acoustic Dropkicks sounds a lot like the Violent Femmes in my opinion, so the collaboration is musically and symbolically fitting. And singing a song about fighting the Ku Klux Klan is always extra fun.”
Gano added, “Long live Paul Robeson! Long live Woody Guthrie! It’s an honor to be singing and playing on this song.”
And Violent Femmes bassist Brian Ritchie commented, “We have always loved the Dropkicks’ aggressive approach to roots material. They don’t need any help, but it was a pleasure to contribute flamboyant acoustic bass guitar. I was moved by the vocal interplay between Gordon and Ken. Mysteriously, the end result sounds suspiciously like Dropkicks meets Femmes. Which is a good thing!”
KISS – Deuce
Estranged KISS guitarist Ace Frehley has issued former bandmate Paul Stanley an ultimatum, offering him seven days to issue a formal apology over a recent insulting remark, or he will spill "dirt" on him and Gene Simmons. He noted this trove of documents he possesses would ruin the careers of both active KISS members.
In an interview on The Howard Stern Show earlier this month (March), KISS announced the final show of their End of the Road farewell tour, and touched on a variety of other KISS-related topics. Stern asked why classic members Frehley and drummer Peter Criss didn't partake in KISS' performance at their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Stanley replied with a dig at his ex-bandmates.
"[The Rock Hall organizers] were demanding, quite honestly, that we play with the two original guys, Peter and Ace, and at this point, that would be demeaning to the [current KISS] band, and also would give some people confusion. Because if you saw people on stage who looked like KISS but sounded like that, maybe we should be called PISS," the Starchild contended.
It's hardly the first time he's taken shots at either Frehley or Criss, which has repeatedly angered Frehley.
Now, in an appearance on Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM, Frehley appears to have had enough, ready to go live with what he says is a "120-page manuscript" he wrote after finishing his book if certain demands of his are not met.
"I'm going to make a statement to Paul Stanley right now. I'm telling you that I want a formal apology for what you said, and a retraction and an apology within seven days," he tells Trunk (transcription via Blabbermouth), "And if I don't get that within seven days I'm coming back on Ed Trunk's show – if you'll have me, Ed – and I'm going to tell some dirt that nobody knows about Paul and Gene, that I've always kept to myself because I'm the kind of guy who doesn't talk about this. I like to talk about positive stuff."
Frehley mentions books released by Stanley and Simmons, alleging, "A lot of times those guys are just throwing people under the bus," later making note of the aforementioned manuscript.
"My attorney has it in a safety deposit box. God forbid anything happens to me, my attorney is instructed to release it to the New York Times, Rolling Stone, everybody. So they can't intimidate me with trying to hurt me or saying 'you better not say anything about me live on the radio,' because then they're totally screwed. Their careers will be ruined," he charges.
"Those guys aren't squeaky clean," he adds, teasing some of the manuscript's contents, "You know how many lawsuits girls have had against Gene?"
Be Your Own Pet – Hand Grenade
Be Your Own Pet reunited last year to play their first shows in over a decade, and if that weren’t enough, they’ve now released a new song, “Hand Grenade.” The track arrives via Jack White’s Third Man Records.
“Hand Grenade” offers Be Your Own Pet’s usual guitar growl courtesy of Jonas Stein, while also infusing the song with modern production. Jemina Pearl Abegg’s voice is drenched in effects pedals for a blown-out sound that fits the single’s music video, appropriately shot in the singer’s basement on an iPhone.
The Nashville band’s first song since 2008’s Get Damaged EP “started out as a threat to the people who harmed me, that I will make them suffer as I have suffered,” Abegg said in a statement. “But the song grew like a mirror to my own grief process, through anger, denial, sorrow. In the end I gain my power back not through violence, but through self acceptance and rejection of the labels others might put on me. I define myself, no one else.” Listen to “Hand Grenade” below.
Ginger Wildheart – Urge
This Friday, Ginger Wildheart will release Acoustic Albums Are Shit Vol. 2 on his bandcamp page (probably as a 24 hours only limited release, as has been his way of doing things this year so far). It contains acoustic(ish) renditions of some classic Wildhearts songs, and by way of a teaser, Ginger released this song, a radical reworking of 1997 single Urge, which came from the abrasive, industrial sounding Endless, Nameless album.
Midtown – Cut Your Hair (Pavement cover)
The new single from reunited pop-punk favorites Midtown‘s covers EP We’re Too Old To Write New Songs So Here’s Some Old Songs We Didn’t Write is a remake of Pavement’s Crooked Rain classic “Cut Your Hair.” If slacker-indie legends Pavement are not the first band you expect to appear on a Midtown covers EP, let frontman Gabe Saporta explain:
Our goal in making this EP was to give people insight into the different music we listened to growing up that ultimately led us into doing Midtown. Believe it or not, Rob Hitt and I butted heads when we met as 14-year-olds. He teased me for wearing striped socks—which he considered “grunge” and clearly not as cool as the ska revival argyle socks he was donning.
A few years later we would make up and start Midtown, but in those days I was taking the bus into the city every weekend to see bands like Superchunk, Sonic Youth, and one of my favorites, Pavement. I remember being at the Pavement show at the Roseland, looking around, and realizing that I was probably the only 14 year old kid in a crowd that was mostly college kids. And as much as I loved Crooked Rain, I was just a little twerp and something inside of me wanted to break shit. When I discovered that there were hardcore shows happening in VFW halls 15 minutes from me, I stopped taking the bus into the city every weekend and started immersing myself in the world that eventually spawned Midtown. But still, the records I listened to when I was first falling in love with music must have shaped my journey because I keep going back to them year after year. “Cut Your Hair” was the first song I heard from Pavement, which turned me on to an album that became one of my all time favorites— thanks for letting us share it with you.