OT: Little Steven's Underground Garage Festival

[StatCat]

Anyone going to this show next week at Randall's Island in NY? It's all day long from 11 and has tons of bands. Looking forward to see the creation, pretty things, electric prunes, Davie Allan and the Arrows, Big Star, Bo Diddley, Chesterfield Kings, a few others plus a ton of other weird new bands I reallly don't know.

[StatCat]

Here's a full list!

Confirmed to appear:

Iggy Pop & The Stooges
The New York Dolls
The Strokes
Davie Allan and the Arrows
The Pete Best Band
Big Star
The Boss Martians
The Caesars
The Chains
The Charms
The Chesterfield Kings
The Chocolate Watchband
The Cocktail Slippers
The Contrast
The Creation
The Cynics
The D4
The Dictators
Bo Diddley
The Electric Prunes
The Flaming Sideburns
The Fleshtones
The Fondas
The Forty-Fives
The Fuzztones
The Gore Gore Girls
The High Dials
Jarvis Humby
Lyres
The Mooney Suzuki
The Paybacks
The Pretty Things
The Raveonettes
The Romantics
The Shazam
Nancy Sinatra
The Singles
The Star Spangles
The Stems
The Swingin' Neckbreakers
The Woggles

[Yaddo42]

I love the radio show, mostly for the oldies rather than the neo-garage stuff. No way I could go (too far, no $$$), but from the ads and the lineup listed above I'd love to.

[StatCat]

The show is only $20 to get in, seems like a damn good deal.

He does play some oldies but a lot of it is off the nuggets boxsets and a few other things. I'm not too much into this neo-garage stuff either. Wish he would dig a little deeper but at least he's playing this stuff on a big radio station so I'll give him credit for that.

[Yaddo42]

$20 isn't bad for that line up; but gas, food, and lodging for traveling from AL to NY right now puts it out of my range.

I like that he plays the Byrds (and the Birds), and lots of British invasion era bands like the Hollies and and the Small Faces, as well as lesser known groups from the era like Creation and Unit 4+2. I do wish he'd delve a little deeper into the mostly West Coast psychedelic groups, playing even more from Love, Moby Grape, Quicksilver Messenger Service, early Steve Miller, and more stuff from Blue Cheer than just "Summertime Blues".

Of the new stuff I've liked groups like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, but I still loathe the Strokes. I have been wondering if Sharon Osbourne is blackmailing Little Steven to keep him playing that annoying Kelly Osbourne song that he keeps plugging from her album that's been out for nearly two years now, if you count when it had a different title and fewer songs and was on a different label. She seems such an odd fit with the show. He cut down playing group like the Hives and the White Stripes once they got more attention from the mainstream, which seems only natural. So why keep playing stuff off that spoiled brat's irritating vanity project?

[StatCat]

You seem to be the only other guy here into garage and 60s music I guess which is pretty surprising. Check out garagepunk.com/forums- great place- you'll see me on there all the time. They are mostly garage 45 fanatical collectors there but there's still a bunch of other cool people there. The free forum cd is definitely cool also (we're up to vol. 4 soon.)

I know what you mean about Little Steven's Show he doens't dive very deep into things and he certainly shouldn't be playing crap like Kelly Osbourne and Courtney Love.

Here's my review of Steven's Festival:

The Lineup at Randall's Island, NY 8/14/04 (close but not exact)

1 The Sexy Magazines 10:30-10:45 AM
2 Davie Allan and the Arrows 10:45-11:00 AM
3 The Chains 11:00-11:10 AM
4 Star Spangles 11:10-11:20 AM
5 Gore Gore Girls 11:20-11:30 AM
6 The Swingin Neckbreakers 11:30-11:40 AM
7 The Fuzztones 11:40-11:50 AM
8 Caesars 11:50 AM-12:00 PM
9 The High Dials 12:00-12:10 PM
10 The Fondas 12:10-12:20 PM
11 The Contrast 12:20-12:30 PM
12 The Singles 12:30-12:40 PM
13 The Fleshtones 12:40-12:50 PM
14 Jarvis Humby 12:50-1:00 PM
15 The Blackouts 1:00-1:10 PM
16 Muck and the Mires 1:10-1:20 PM
17 Richard and the Young Lions 1:20-1:30 PM
18 The Flaming Sideburns 1:30-1:40 PM
19 The Boss Martians 1:40-1:50 PM
20 The Charms 1:50-2:00 PM
21 The Cynics 2:00-2:10 PM
22 Lyres 2:10-2:20 PM
23 The Stems 2:20-2:35 PM
24 The Woggles 2:35-2:45 PM
25 The Chocolate Watchband 2:45-3:00 PM
26 The Shazam 3:00-3:10 PM
27 The Electric Prunes 3:10-3:25 PM
28 The Cocktail Slippers 3:25-3:35 PM
29 The Creation 3:35-3:50 PM
30 The Chesterfield Kings 3:50-4:00 PM
31 The Mooney Suzuki 4:00-4:15 PM
32 The Paybacks 4:15-4:25 PM
33 The Pete Best Band 4:25-4:40 PM
34 The Forty Fives 4:40-4:50 PM
35 The D4 4:50-5:05 PM
36 The Romantics 5:05-5:25 PM
37 Nancy Sinatra 5:25-5:45 PM
38 The Dictators 5:45-6:05 PM
39 Big Star 6:05-6:25 PM
40 Bo Diddley 6:25-6:55 PM
41 Raveonettes 6:55-7:15 PM
42 The Pretty Things 7:15-7:50 PM
43 The New York Dolls 7:50-8:35 PM
44 The Strokes 8:35-9:35 PM
45 Iggy Pop & The Stooges 9:35-10:35 PM

I came in just as Richard and the Young Lions started to play (good
timing!) with a bunch of friends. Sat on a table cloth on the grass for the whole show mostly- stood during the bands I wanted to see. They have a jumbo tron which was good. A lot of the bands were good (and a bunch were horrible) but none seemed to get much time to play. The revolving stage broke about 10 bands into the show I heard.

Favorites:

Chocolate Watchband- really good- best band there I'd say. Nice sounding
equipment and Dave Aguilar sounded great. 3 song set- Don't Need Your
Lovin', Are You Gonna Be There at the Love in, Let's Talk About Girls

The Creation- Not too crazy about the new singer who isn't anywhere near
to sounding like Kenny Pickett (who was replaced because he died in the
late 90s.) But Eddie Phillips and the rest of the band was amazing- 2 song set- Biff Bang Pow, Making Time (what the hell? These guys deserved to play more) Just as Eddie pulled out the bow on his guitar they had to go- egh.

Big Star- At this point a bunch of white trashers around me were
throwing beer bottles and shouting which was really annoying since I was
trying to watch the band. Felt like seriously punching their faces in. Everything sounded solid with Big Star who played about 5 songs I think.

Pretty Things- Sounded really good but they were cut short because it
started to rain a little and I guess Little Steven was afraid the show
would be shut down with the storm coming. Set- Roadrunner, Don't Bring
Me Down, Come See Me, LSD- Old Man Going (was hoping for midnight to six at least but this was rushed for the crap ahead which I didn't stick
around for)

Other notable mentions- Pete Best Band, The Stems, The Woggles, The
Chesterfield Kings

Bo Diddley's set was going great until he decided he had to get hip and
rap- how embarrasing for this guy. They gave him well over a half hour.

The Dictators (who I really don't like) played the loudest by far which
was pretty annoying. Don't know what the big deal is over them.

Could've been a much better festival but it was ok for what it was.

Kim Fowley was ultra annoying by the way when he would talk between bands and say bizarre things. He let some of the moronic dancing chicks scream into the microphone and other annoying stuff. Acid head freak

Only band I regret not seeing is Davie Allan and the Arrows

[Yaddo42]

I'll have to check out that forum, thanks for the heads up.

Did the New York Dolls wear the drag and makeup? They were never pretty, but they would probably be down right scary in the gear now,

I saw Little Steven on MTV talking about the revolving stage, seems like a practical idea with so many groups. Guess he wanted to play into the old punk vibe of cramming lots of songs into short sets and avoiding anything over three minutes. But I think I'd like to see more of a group like The Creation than just the two songs they are best known for.

Bo Diddley rapping seems like heresy, just sounds like a bad idea for anyone past a certain age to rap.

I've seen Pete Best on several talk shows (and even plugging an album on QVC), he seems to be pretty cool about being a cultural footnote, guess he's had the past 40 years to deal with it. Kind of glad he's still out there playing.

I'm not surprised that Kim Fowley was annoying, from what I've read and when I've seen him on TV, he seems to go out of his way to be a prick. Whenever I think I'm getting too cynical about life, I just remember Fowley's still alive. This is a guy who admits he intentionally used to book the Runaways in seedy dives full of white trash drunks and horny losers, counting on some of them trying to come onto the girls in the band because of their "jailbait" appeal and wanting to exploit the buzz it would generate. I've always wondered if he is one of the cynical record/music business people that Peter Fonda said he based his character in "The Limey" on.

[StatCat]

They were showing clips from Godzilla movies (other Japanese giant monster movies too like Frankenstein Conquers the World), 50's B movies, and The Wild Angels. Played over and over on the jumbo tron in back of the bands so I guess there was a little B Movie feel there.  

Kim Fowley is a moron. I like his song the trip but I think that's all I can take. This (persumably fake studio) band called the Fire Escape did a cover of The Trip which is a lot cooler though.

The revolving stage broke 10 bands into the show I heard. This let that moron Kim Fowley annoy the hell out of you for a few minutes between each band. I think Peppy from the Blues Magoos (he came out for about 2 minutes) would've been a much better host for most of the show.  

The creation released a new dvd recently (on cherry red) which has two concerts from the 90s reunion with all the original members. It's a British disc but seems to be all regions. I can't find it at all though. I'll keep looking but it seems damn hard to find.

I'm trading someone right now for the 2 disc set (vol 1- Making Time Vol 2- Biff Bang Pow) from 1998 which has every creation song. I have the 25 track set Our Music is Red with Purple Flashes, but this other one has live tracks circa 1966 from the German tv show Beat Beat Beat. 6 or so live songs- should be great. I've actually seen one of them off the show. I have it on tape- That's How Strong My Love Is- creation are a damn great live band. If you want a copy of this set just let me know.
 
I didn't see the NY Dolls- I ran the hell out of there after the pretty things. Didn't really want to see any of the headlining bands.

[musicfan]

no one here saw the flaming sideburns??? they were amazing.

[raj]

What? No ? and the Mysterions?
Iggy to Nancy Sinatra gives me whiplash just thinking about it.

[EDDIE CUNNINGHAM (LOS ANGELES)]

kim fowley is a survivor!!!!  I THINK ITS COOL HE IS STILL DOING PUNK ABSTRACT KINDA s**t!!!!!thats what ROCK-N-ROLL is all about!!!!
KIM IS A LEGEND AND YOU WILL BE GLAD TO SAY YOU KNEW HIM WHEN........SO f**k OFF AND EAT SOME s**t
BIG ORANGE & THE BACK YARD RAMBLERS