The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on Asheville FM 103.3

25/08/2023

Today (soon, 3-5 pm EDT) my guest co-host on the show is Will York, who has just published his book, "Who Cares Anyway: Post-Punk San Francisco and the End of the Analog Age" on Headpress Books. 2 full hours of music most have not heard but will expand your brain! And lots of conversation about it. TUNE IN!

The San Francisco music underground, from the aftermath of punk to the dawn of the dot-com era. Includes interviews with over 100 musicians and artists.

01/05/2023

On my radio show Friday I had the tremendous pleasure of speaking with Erika Funke for the entire show. The occasion was the debut of her wonderful radio art piece, "Marienleben: The Life of Mary... Mary Caroline," selected for the 2022 Black Mountain College Radio Artists series. Erika is Senior Arts Producer at WVIA Public Media (NPR/PBS) in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, PA, and a friend of mine since we met at one of the several Black Mountain College conferences (held at UNCA and the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center) she's attended over the years. Here's her description of her piece: "M.C. Richards was moved by Paul Hindemith's 'Das Marienleben,' his setting of Rilke's cycle of poems, 'The Life of Mary.' This piece explores in sound how the Hindemith/Rilke cycle reflects concerns of M.C. Richards in her own life and work." On the show we also played more from the Hindemith piece, along with Yoko Ono, gamelan music, a Bach partita, and Gilbert & Sullivan. For the next 11 days you can stream the show from the Asheville FM page for my show (https://www.ashevillefm.org/.../the-good-the-bad-and-the.../) , or you can listen to it (or download it) from the link in the first comment below. Thanks to Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and Make Noise and Asheville FM for sponsoring the Black Mountain College Radio Artist series!

20/01/2023

Special guest co-host today on the show (Friday 3-5pm) is Justin Farrar (https://twitter.com/JustinFarrar)! Justin is joining us live from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and we'll be reviewing the previous year in new music, reissues of old music, and a brief segment on the recently departed. Justin is a former Asheville FM DJ (we even briefly did a show together--the photo is from then!), but he's also a veteran music writer and frankly one of the deepest heads I know in too many categories for me to begin mentioning. I'm super-excited!!

14/10/2022

WE STILL NEED $3000 TODAY to make our $30,000 goal! It's FUND DRIVE FINALE DAY on my radio show today (3-5 pm), The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on Asheville FM! Steven Howard will be my co-pilot as we ASK YOU to support Asheville FM while we play some tasty tunes for you and yours. I've got a bagful of my favorite wild world music, new and old post-punk, and more undefinable jams to entice you to DONATE: https://www.flipcause.com/secure/fundraiser/MTYwNjc1/77167

27/08/2022

22/07/2022

"Challenge it with all our might!" Life-affirming improv performance of Lonnie Holley with post-punk band L.O.X. (who were not anticipating said improvisation) courtesy of Mississippi Records, Portland. Lonnie Holley will be played on The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on Asheville FM 103.3 today (Fridays, 3-5 pm). Listen to Asheville FM online at www.ashevillefm.org or at 103.3 FM in Asheville.

Live and improvised - Cherry Sprout Park (across street from Mississippi records) in Portland, OR - June 18, 2022.

25/02/2022

[Update: Streaming archive available from link in comments.] Today (3-5pm) on The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on 103.3 Asheville FM I'm paying tribute to Mark Lanegan. When I was done preparing I had 6 hours of music chosen: Screaming Trees, solo work, and an incredible wealth of collaborations from Queens of the Stone Age to Nick Cave (who's playing here in Asheville next week--again!), Isobel Campbell (of Belle & Sebastian), Marianne Faithfull, and a surprising number of much more obscure musicians. It's a remarkable body of work--all the way to the end. Join me! Streaming online at ashevillefm.org (Asheville FM). There will be an archive.

23/02/2022

Mark Lanegan is gone, and I just want to say a couple of things before I begin prepping a tribute on Friday's radio (3-5 pm) on Asheville FM. Screaming Trees blew my mind from the moment I discovered their first 2 records as a freshman DJ at WXDU in 1987, through several shows at the Cat's Cradle (in 2 of its locations--see link in comments for audio of the 1988 show with Firehose), to almost getting crushed by a windmilling Gary Lee Conner at CBGB's. I didn't dig their major label stuff at all, but I ALWAYS listened to Mark's solo work. Much of it is great, and Bubblegum is a masterpiece. Nothing on youtube gives you a real sense of what it was like to see Screaming Trees live, but this gets closest: "Change Has Come" https://youtu.be/KpVI0JmyS5I?t=42

COLLEZIONISTI OLD SCHOOL! Scambio rarissimo video integrale degli SCREAMING TREES,mai circolato su dvd o in rete,col video amatoriale del secondo concerto de...

19/11/2021

Today (Friday, Nov. 19, 3-5pm) on the radio show we continue our Black Mountain College Radio Art Project series with a piece by improviser and drummer Thom Nguyen (Thom Statontheobvious). Thom is joining me today as guest co-host, so in addition to playing his piece, he's bringing in music that inspires him as a musician and sound artist. Thom plays as part of many projects, including MANAS (his duo with guitarist Tashi Dorji), punk band Forever Peace and Charm, and Nest Egg. He's also been collaborating on a duo drum record with Jon Mueller and on a tape collage work with Zach Rowden. He's got more projects too, so listen in. I'll post the archive here if you can't listen live. Thanks to Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and Make Noise for helping us bring this series together! Asheville FM: Tune in here: https://www.ashevillefm.org/

10/09/2021

I am thrilled to announce that my friend Jeff Arnal will be joining me TODAY (Friday, Sept. 10, 3-5 pm EDT) as guest and co-host of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" on Asheville FM! We are going to tackle two HUGE topics: 1) Jeff is the ED of Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, which has just opened a spectacular new exhibition, "Don’t Blame it on ZEN: The Way of John Cage & Friends." 2) Drummer/percussionist Michael Evans, a titan of the NY-based improv and underground music scenes, passed away suddenly in August. Jeff, himself a drummer/percussionist who has recently rekindled his vocation behind the kit after a long hiatus, recorded and gigged with Michael, his dear friend and mentor, in the mid-2000s. If you aren't familiar with the music of Michael Evans--who collaborated with everyone from God Is My Co-Pilot to John Zorn, Michael Gira, Jad Fair, and both William Parker and Evan Parker--now is your chance to do so! Listen at 103.3 FM in Asheville and online at www.ashevillefm.org!

03/09/2021

Mike Holmes (https://nostalgianoid.bandcamp.com/) and I had so much fun last week on The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on Asheville FM that he's coming back to guest co-host today's show as well. 3-5pm (EDT) on 103.3 FM and streaming at www.ashevillefm.org. We'll be playing some more of his work--and much more of his pile of records and other media that gives us insight into his sonic touchstones. Tune in!

27/08/2021

On today's radio show (Friday, 3-5pm EDT) I'm having musician and producer Mike Holmes (aka Nostalgianoid, linktr.ee/nostalgianoid) on to premiere his piece, "White Flamingo," his contribution to the Black Mountain College Radio Art project, a collaboration between Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Asheville FM, and Make Noise. Mike is also going to co-host the program. He's bringing in records and other media that have helped to form him as an artist. We've had a couple of great discussions about what we're going to do, and I know this is going to be a killer program. Listen in at 103.3 FM or stream online at www.ashevillefm.org.

20/07/2021

A friend asked for photos of my African record haul while I was in Paris. I’ll be featuring these and more over the next month on the radio show (Fridays 3-5 pm on Asheville FM). I started this past Friday. First set was French (and related) music. Second set was African. Link to show archive is in first comment.

07/06/2021

Hey WNC resident artists: I want to play your cool radio art on my radio show! Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Make Noise, and Asheville FM have teamed up and are soliciting your project for a short radio piece. The work does not have to be music. Projects can include any sound recording, cellphone recording, field recording, meditation, movement score, text score, sound collage, spoken word, audio art, experimental DJ work, etc. Honorariums are $200. Deadline for your Letter of Intent (LOI) is June 21. Link through for more info.

103.3 Asheville FM, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, and Make Noise announce an opportunity for artists living in Western North Carolina (WNC) to create new short works for broadcast on the radio.

15/01/2021

Captain Beefheart (aka Don Van Vliet) would have been 80 years old today! I will celebrate on today's radio show, taking it to the rare side of the Beefheart universe. I will also celebrate the life of Sylvain Sylvain, New York Doll, whom we lost this week. And I will play other odd musics. Listen live on Asheville FM, Friday 3-5 pm EST, on the web at ashevillefm.org and on the radio at 103.3 FM.

18/10/2020

Jackie McLean explaining Sun Ra to university students--testy and righteous. Link should take you to 25:50 in, but if you want more context, back up to hear him going off about commercialism.

Produced, Directed & Edited by Ken Levis

09/10/2020

On today's show the first hour is dedicated to Eddie Van Halen. I've got all pre-Hagar VH including some demos and early live material you may not have heard. Indulgent? You betcha. Second hour surveys some other giants of guitar. Tune in to 103.3 Asheville FM, 3-5 pm, and on the web at www.ashevillefm.org. Rock on!

17/07/2020

TODAY (Friday) 3-5pm: More Morricone madness with my mic-mate Marc McCloud of Orbit DVD. [Sorry, I woke up with that alliteration in my head and had to get it out.] This week we focus on the *giallo* genre (yellow in Italian) of psycho-sexual crime and horror films that were all the vogue after the westerns ran their course in the early 70s. Morricone scored dozens (if not hundreds) of these films. The music is tense, creepy, and even more out there than the western soundtracks. Listen live to Asheville FM at 103.3 FM and streaming online at www.ashevillefm.org, with the archive available overnight (I'll post the link in the comments below when it's available).

10/07/2020

It's a wrap! When I heard the news of Ennio Morricone's passing on Sunday, I knew I had to ask Marc McCloud of Orbit DVD, the biggest Morricone fan I know (also the area expert on the c. 500 films Morricone scored), to co-host this week's radio show. We recorded it remotely, and it airs today (Friday) 3-5 pm on 103.3 Asheville FM and streaming at www.ashevillefm.org. Once we got started, it was apparent that we would not be able to do justice to the maestro in one show. So after making a pact to do episode 2 next week, we devoted 2 FULL HOURS to the WESTERN SOUNDTRACKS alone. Put on your poncho and join us for a majestic, dark, and dusty ride through Morricone's wild west!

26/06/2020

Please donate and listen (online or at 103.3 FM) to my radio show, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, TODAY (3-5pm) on the LAST DAY of the Asheville FM Spring Fund Drive! We're getting close to our goal, but we need your help to make it right now! DONATE easily online at ashevillefm.org. Cousin, host of Stank Free Radio (and fellow board member), below is sporting our special premium AFM FACE MASK, which is a thank-you gift for a $60 donation. It's a matching day, so every $1 you donate gets matched by AVL Technologies (and 3 anonymous donors). Plus there's the daily raffle (get your name in the hat with a donation of any amount)--details on the website (and when I tell you about all the goodies on-air). Also, any donation triggers our sponsors Make Noise (local synth makers!) to donate a meal to nonprofit AMP to help folks in the Asheville music scene in need. THANK YOU! https://www.ashevillefm.org/post/2020-ashevillefm-spring-fund-drive/

19/05/2020

"We've got five years, what a surprise!" Five years ago today, on Monday, May 18, 2015, 103.3 Asheville FM debuted on the FM dial as WSFM-LP. I am so thankful to all the people who got us to that point, who got us to today, and who will get us through many tomorrows! David Bowie's song may be dystopian, but it also reminds us of something profound about how connected we are in times of crisis:
"I heard telephones, opera house, favorite melodies
I saw boys, toys, electric irons and T.V.'s
My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare
I had to cram so many things to store everything in there
And all the fat-skinny people, and all the tall-short people
And all the nobody people, and all the somebody people
I never thought I'd need so many people..."

24/04/2020

Today (Friday 3-5 pm) on the radio show I will pay tribute to bassist Henry Grimes, who died of COVID-19 last Friday in NYC. Grimes played with Sonny Rollins, Cecil Taylor, Lee Konitz, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Roy Haynes, McCoy Tyner, Andrew Cyrille, Steve Lacy, Albert Ayler, Frank Wright, Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, and later in this century with Marc Ribot, Marilyn Crispell, Rashied Ali, Marshall Allen, and many more. I will also play music from saxophonist Giuseppi Logan, who sadly passed the same day in NYC of the virus. More forward-looking, in the last half hour I will debut music from Asheville drummer Matty Garau from his album As You Were, which is now available on all streaming platforms. Tune in at ashevillefm.org

“Henry was not hired to fill the role of a bass player; he was hired to be Henry,” declares fellow bassist William Parker

07/02/2020

[Update: This was a FUN show (archive link in the comments) with Gang of Four, Phew, Colin Potter, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Hannah Silva, Nour Mobarak, Jo Johnson, Fennesz, Venetian Snares, flamenco, and Bana herself.] Bana Haffar will be returning as my guest co-host today (Friday) on The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on Asheville FM 103.3, 3-5 pm. We'll be talking about the upcoming debut performance of her composition *Shed* for percussion quartet and modular synthesizer at Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center next Thursday evening (see first comment for link to more details). *Shed* is inspired by BMC's Anni Albers and is actually based on Albers' weaving patterns. Bana's also bringing in music she likes, so we'll be spinning all kinds of wonderful weirdness for the full 2 hours. Tune in at http://ashevillefm.org!

06/12/2019

I'm excited to announce that internationally-acclaimed artist Colby Caldwell will be my guest co-host today on The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on Asheville FM 103.3, 3-5pm. Colby is curating Revolve Now: An Evening of Performance, featuring over a dozen local artists performing next Thursday in various spaces within the newly-reopened Asheville Art Museum. But he's also bringing music that has inspired him from growing up in neighboring Henderson County, to his time as a student and then teacher at Corcoran School of Art in DC, then Associate Professor of Fine Art & Photography at St. Mary's College of Maryland, and his more recent return to WNC to co-found Revolve. [EDIT: Here's the mp3 download link of the show: http://stream.ashevillefm.org/afm-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-12062019.mp3]

01/11/2019

I’ve picked a mystery year for the music I will play during my Asheville FM Fall Fund Drive show today. See if you can figure it out before the reveal. Please listen and donate at www.ashevillefm.org

28/09/2019

It was Theremin Day on this week's radio show! My guest in studio was Asheville's Derek Dominy, who makes experimental theremin music as Sonic Parlour. In addition to his music, we played recordings where you can hear the theremin (from Clara Rockmore to Led Zeppelin) and songs that have shaped Derek's musical journey thus far. In the last 30 minutes I paid homage to Ric Ocasek of The Cars, since I didn't host the show last week when he passed away. See first comment below for link to show archive mp3. [Thanks to Don Howland of Orchestral Maneuvers In The Dark for filling in for me last week!]

The Sculpting of Sound.

02/08/2019

On today's program (Friday, Aug. 2, 3-5 pm) I have electronic music artist Bana Haffar as my guest co-host in studio. Bana is based in Asheville now but grew up mostly on the Arabian peninsula before moving to the US and living in L.A. for a number of years. She has a new album on Touch, and today we'll also be playing some Arabic language 7" records she's picked up in her travels. Tune in at 103.3 FM and online at www.ashevillefm.org. Asheville FM. [Follow-up: Link to archive of this tremendously fun show is in comments below.]

28/06/2019

On the show live in-studio today (Friday 3-5 pm) Baharat Band from Brooklyn, playing music from the traditions of the Middle East and beyond. They're in town for the Asheville Percussion Festival. They'll be in around 3:30, but I'll be focusing on music of the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East for the entire show. Get ready to bellydance! [Tune in online at Asheville FM: https://www.ashevillefm.org/]

01/06/2019

Caleb Kelly's visit to the radio show yesterday was both informative and great fun (at least for me!). We talked about the materiality of sound, John Cage, Anni Albers, the dirty energy that feeds our musical and radio listening, the difference between sound and music, and Caleb's exhibition opening at Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center next Friday: Materials, Sounds + Black Mountain College. Play or download the show here: http://stream.ashevillefm.org/afm-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-05312019.mp3