North Fork Sound Top 20 - October 17th 2010

Eric Clapton

1. Eric Clapton: Autumn Leaves
2. Marc Vormawah & The L8 Connection: Maybe I
3. Toots & The Maytals: Hope That We Can Be Together Soon
4. Dirk Hamilton: Billboard On The Moon
5. Genya Ravan: I Who Have Nothing
6. Dungen: Barnen Undrar
7. Caitlin Rose: Things Change
8. Dennis Wilson: What's Wrong
9. Ronnie Wood: Thing About You
10. Sandie Shaw: Girl Don't Come
11. Big Suga: L.I. Sailor
12. Vanessa Paradis: Joe Le Taxi
13. The West Saugerties Ale & Quail Club: Grizzly Bear
14. The Smoke Fairies: When You Grow Old
15. The Kursaal Flyers: Hit Records
16. Lemmy: Orgasmatron (spoken word version)
17. Smokey Joe w/The Clyde Leoppard Band: Signifying Monkey
18. The Stone Roses: Fools Gold (ext. version)
19. Jimmy & Johnny: Can't Find The Doorknob
20. The Motors: Love And Loneliness

North Fork Sound Alb O' The Week

KORT: Invariable Heartache

North Fork Sound Legend Of The Month
Dion

Last Week's Listener Favourites

Natalie Merchant
photo: Tom Sheehan

10,000 Maniacs: Gun Shy
Addie Brik: I Get Home
Altai-Hangai: Hangain Magtaal (Praise Song For The Hangai Mountains)
Amadou & Mariam: Mon Amour, Ma Cherie
Bobby Darin: Mack The Knife
Bonnie Raitt: Love Has No Pride
Die Antwoord: Evil Boy
Dion: Ruby Baby
Dion: (I Was) Born To Cry
Dungen: Högdalstoppen
Eddie Cochran: Milk Cow Blues
Family: Burlesque
George Jones: The Race Is On
The Impressions: People Get Ready
The Inmates: Jealousy
The Jim Jones Revue: High Horse
Jimmie Vaughan: Love The World
The Jolly Boys feat. Albert Minott: Rehab

Ian Kimmet (Jook)
Bearsville Studios, NY
photo: ht

Jook: Aggravation Place
Kirsty MacColl: Maybe It's Imaginary
Kitty Wells: It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels
Kort: Eyes Look Away
The Little Darlings: Little Bit O' Soul
Lo-Fidelity Allstars feat. Pigeonhead: Battleflag
Los Straightjackets: Lurking In The Shadows
Miles Davis/Cannonball Adderley: Love For Sale
Odetta & Dr. John w/John Campbell): Brother, Can You Spare A Dime
The Ramones: The Return Of Jackie And Judy
The Roller Coasters: Rimshot Pt. 1
Ronnie Wood: 100%
Rootz Underground: Power To The People
Rosie Flores: It's Over
Roy Orbison: Running Scared
The Secret Sisters: Big River

Smashed Gladys
w/Larry Braverman, ht, Hale Milgrim & Brad Hunt
The Kat Club, NYC
photo: Gary Gershon

Smashed Gladys: Legs Up
Solomon Burke: You're The Kind Of Trouble
Solomon Burke: I Got The Blues
Solomon Burke: Cry To Me
The Sugarcubes: Regina

I now have a show - 'PURE' - on a GREAT radio station - WPKN, Bridgeport, CT.
Find the station and archived shows here: www.wpkn.org or tune in to listen "live" at WPKN 89.5 fm
SEND PROMOS - cds or vinyl ONLY, to Box 45, New Suffolk, NY, 11956
Next show: filling in for Terry Hopper Tuesday, October 12th, 3-6pm.
Otherwise, every second Friday of the month, 12-3pm

Mark Bingham

Mark Bingham
photo machine, late -70's

I like New Orleans. I like its music, its vibe, the ‘debris’ at Mother’s, the architecture, the crawfish, the Circle Bar and much of what comes out of Piety Street - Mark Bingham’s recording studio in the 9th Ward. If you want Pro-Tools or 2 inch analog, orchestra or solo, modern or vintage equipment, Piety's got it all, plus a squad of in-house talent that help make things sound like records used to, before they all got weedy and naff. Mark’s an accomplished arranger, producer, instrumentalist and writer whose resumé lists stints with The Screaming Gypsy Bandits, The Brain Sisters, The Social Climbers, the Glenn Branca Orchestra, Shannon MacNally and sessions with Natalie Merchant, Jon Cleary, Dr. John, Ed Sanders, Peter Stampfel, MX-80, Hal Willner, Wharton Tiers and the Nevilles to name but a diverse, yet glorious few. The studio’s seen Harry Connick Jr., Korn, Lennie Kravitz, Mudvayne, Ryan Adams, Robin Thicke, Bobby Charles and Ray Davies all pass through its doors in the last few years, though (unfortunately) not all at once.

Natalie Merchant, Mark Bingham
photo machine, 1988

The first time I met him was in Bloomington, Indiana when I flew there to see MX-80 Sound. He was the first person I ever saw drink carrot juice. There, he gave me a couple of albums he'd produced - Caroline Peyton, a sampler of Bloomington artists he'd produced, Bloomington 1 (BRBQ Records), a reel-to-reel quarter-track tape of the unreleased Chinaboise album, featuring MX-80's Rich Stim and Dave Mahoney and Andrea Ross (who went on to become Mrs. Stim and Angel Corpus Christi) and 3 albums' worth of tapes by his own band, The Screamin' Gypsy Bandits - a sort of Tubes-meets-Zappa psychedelic, funk-rock outfit (with marvelous horns) which occasionally featured Bruce Anderson and a terrific Dale Sopheia vocal on 'Foggy Windows' - both also members of MX-80. Tune into the station to hear the 'Bloomington Sound'.

Social Climbers
A. Leroy (Dick Connette), Jean Seaton Shaw, Mark Bingham
Gulcher Records' publicity photo

From Bloomington, Mark moved to New York where partnered with Philip Glass in a downtown loft studio, near the Mudd Club, calling it The Living Room. During an early visit, I was impressed to see Mark actually building the interior walls, hammer in hand.
In the late 80's, I went slightly off the rails and Mark sent me a letter that cut clean to the quick. It told me to shape up and get it together or I'd lose him as a friend. It seems my vices were getting the better of me. He shocked me back to reality. I was grateful for the warning.

Eddie Murphy, Mark Bingham
photo: Patti Perret

Mark always sent copies of what he was working on and I have a ton of tapes containing his own music that regularly gets featured on the station. Now, much of it has been collected onto several cds which will, hopefully, see a release someday. As a rapacious consumer of all sorts of interesting music, he turned me on to Xenakis, Bonerama, Kurt Weill, Morning 40 Federation, Brother Tyrone, Rudy Ray Moore and he introduced me to the considerable delights of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Mother’s Restaurant, the incredible brass bands and fabulously greasy menu at Donna’s Bar & Grill, Ernie K-Doe’s Mother-In-Law Lounge and all sorts of wild hangouts in New Orleans.

Mark Bingham, John Sinclair
New Orleans
photo: Patti Perret

Mark Bingham
New Orleans
photo: ht

Ruth Polsky (12/5/56 - 9/7/86)

Ze Records' Michael Zilkha, Ruth Polsky
23rd St, NYC
photo: ht

Today would have been Ruth Polsky's 52nd birthday. I met Ruth when she came to London to see if I could help her get The Psychedelic Furs to play Hurrah, a club she booked in NYC. I made the necessary introductions and it wasn’t too long before they were playing ‘Sister Europe’ to David Bowie, myself and a house full of curious Anglophiles.

Richard Butler, David Bowie
Hurrah, NYC '80
photographer: Ebet Roberts

Ruth was a big fan of the period’s non-mainstream music and bands like Simple Minds, New Order, The Smiths, The Birthday Party, The Sisters Of Mercy, The Slits and Echo & The Bunnymen can all thank her for being the first person to bring them to the States. After Hurrah, in the early 80s she moved on to Danceteria and, with Jim Fouratt, Rudolf and Dianne Brill, made it NYC's liveliest, and most creative nightspot. The man with the 'list', sweet Haoui Montaug, would greet you with a smile and the first thing I'd do upon entering was turn right, into the room where the bands would play. Ruth's booking policy made everything worth a look, so I'd take a spot at the bar, order a drink and give whoever was playing 3 songs (or 2 drinks) to make their point. It was there I first saw 10,000 Maniacs at Ruth's insistence (and also on the recommendation of my friend Eric Maché, who had seen them in Buffalo). It only took a couple of minutes to find me up front, mesmerized by Natalie Merchant's extraordinary stage presence and Rob Buck's liquid guitar-playing.

Natalie Merchant
Rochester, NY, 1983
photo: ht

If nothing was happening downstairs, one floor up was where DJs like Mark Kamins, Anita Sarko, Johnny Dynell and Bill Bahlman would spin all the latest discs. I remember 'dancing' past a supremely confident and stylin' lass on my way to give Bill a Leisure Process advance 12" only to find out her name was Madonna and that she was a regular and Kamins' girlfriend. She was not tall (in stature) but she had huge presence. There were bars on all floors and sometimes I'd just park myself at the bar, drink a few, listen to the latest records and watch the dancers.

The 3rd floor featured a video lounge that ran experimental video (a developing art-form) and bizarre porn. I remember staring at the televisions once - careful, I nearly typed TVs - trying to figure out exactly what was going on and suddenly realizing I was seeing my first fisting tape (male). Had to wash away the image with copious screwdrivers with Suicide's Alan Vega, a regular 3rd floor customer who lived a few blocks away at the Gramercy Hotel.

(unknown couple), Alan Vega, Diane Brill, ht
3rd floor, Danceteria
photo: Herbert Schultz
German Cosmopolitan December 1984

In the summer, the club’s owner Rudolf opened up the roof to lucky invitees and on Wednesday nights, Haoui presented his freaky 'No Etiendes' variety show, where Madonna made her live debut. There were often strange art events happening. Underground film-maker Nick Zedd 'premiered' his 'Geek Maggot Bingo' (to most people's disappointment) and somehow Chris Isaak even had a residency at Danceteria.
One of Ruth’s favourite bands was Joy Division and she worked very hard to put their first US tour together only to have it canceled when singer Ian Curtis hanged himself the night before they were due to leave for America. She wasn’t only a fan of British bands though and in 1984 started managing NYC’s Certain General, whose compilation 'Invisible New York' was released last year. For those who might be interested, their history is admirably recounted by Kris Needs here
Ruth enjoyed photography, and one of her favourite people was Andrew Eldritch from the Sisters Of Mercy. Andrew used a photo she took inside their debut album, First And Last And Always.

The Sisters Of Mercy
publicity photo by: Ruth Polsky

and she took this one, backstage, after a show in London -

Andrew Eldritch, ht
photo: Ruth Polsky

Tragically, Ruth was killed on September 7th 1986 outside another club, Limelight, when a taxi jumped the kerb and pinned her to the wall while she was waiting to enter the venue to see Certain General play. Ruth was a lovely, kind, funny, generous and nurturing woman. At this time of year, I always think about the ways she encouraged and helped musicians. She enriched many of their lives and her presence and influence is still greatly missed.

Robert Maché (The Swinging Madisons), Stephen Israel, Ruth Polsky, Eugenie Deserio & Steven Alexander (Model Citizens/The Dance)
23rd St, NYC
photo: ht

David Johansen, Anne Deon, John Anthony, Jo-Ellen (top), Ruth
23rd St, NYC
photo: ht