Very High Frequencies

Episode: 204 Ladies Night

Very High Frequencies invites you to join our Ladies Night on this week’s episode. Girls, girls, girls! That’s right, Not Dead Yet Mike has scoured the vault for a collection of everyone’s favorite songs with girls names in the title. 
And a few tunes featuring women’s names in the title that might even shock you! Creepy, violent and so very un-ladylike ladies.
Rest assured listeners, nobody writes a song about a boring Plain Jane type of female. Characters with unusual personality traits run amok. Drama will ensue.
Who’s representing you ask? We have a couple Alice’s that are problematic but pretty. Very very pretty thankfully. You could say dearest “multiple personality disorder Christine” has her good sides certainly. 
There’s songs mentioning Prudence, Charlotte, little darlings Judy & the other Judy, the late Gail who is all tuckered out, sweet Emily likes to play, it’s a live shout out to G L O R I A and praise for Sister Ray from a band not known for doing covers. 
We’re still dreaming of NYC nights with Cheree and fantasizing about a time travel trip to save tortured Warhol model Edie Sedgwick from her own self destructive drug abuse. Note: She looks good with her hair slicked back in her leather jeans. 
Furthermore Jane says and Cindy tells me. Lisa goes surfing. Mary Lou and Deanna make an impression. Watch out, Jolene might steal your man! Lola is asking for a dance and a coke-a -cola. Wendy has a big day tomorrow and Sheena is A) a punk  rocker B) in a goth gang now. 
We also hear tales about Maria, Laura, Melanie, Eliza, and let’s not forget rocking Elizabeth Jade.
Bands and artists on this Ladies Night episode are the usual VHF suspects. Goth and punk, psych rock, first wave artists like Eno, Bowie and Suicide. Let’s see, how about classic “chick shout outs” by Siouxsie, The Cure, Ramones, Sisters, The Cramps and a bunch more of your favorite alternative artists? It’s girls, girls, girls this week on VHF-204 (Ladies Night)

Episode: 203 Leonard Cohen

VHF-203 (Leonard Cohen) samples some of the music created by the late Canadian singer, songwriter, poet and novelist. He passed away on November 7, 2016.. Leonard was 82 years old young.
Leonard Cohen was first and foremost a poet. In the late 1950’s and early ‘60’s he was a full time poet and novelist. In 1966 he decided to write songs. He was thirty years old by the time he released his first album in 1967. A late bloomer, nonetheless he found adoring fans in his homeland of Canada as well as in England and much of Europe. The USA was slower to appreciate his unique repertoire. Adult themes and morose delivery could not compete with the AM radio pop that was popular at the time. Fortunately other artists covered his songs, often to much success.
The writing and performing process was not easy for him. He said that he spent hours, days and even years perfecting his lyrics to his songs. He described the process as agonizing and painful, like giving birth or dying; but that didn’t stop him from chasing his muse. 
What exactly was his muse? He really liked the ladies. A lot of alcohol was consumed, along with a bunch of drugs, sex, zen meditation, religious quests, and other extremes. 
The tales of his inebriated 1977 recording studio shenanigans with Phil Spector )and his pistol) are frightening and foretelling. 
Profoundly affected by being robbed of his life savings and publishing rights by his long time manager, Leonard was forced quite late in life to partake in ambitious world tours to recoup his losses. To Leonard’s surprise he enjoyed performing live to an adoring audience. 
We toast the artist with just some of the music he put out in his lifetime. Studio tracks, movie soundtrack cuts, and a few live songs here and there all get their due on this episode of Very High Frequencies. Check out some of the work of influential artist Leonard Cohen. Oh, and let’s not forget to thank the ladies. Mr. Cohen was a very busy gentleman and a one of a kind artist.

Episode: 202 Jimi Hendrix Psychedelic Pshaman

Very High Frequencies is an immersive auditory experience created entirely of music recorded between 1966 - 1970 by Seattle musician James Marshall Hendrix. 
Prior to Jimi’s untimely membership into the 27 Club in September of 1970, he had released in total three studio albums and a single full length live recording. Since then dozens of live and studio outtakes, demos and all star jam sessions have been made their way to the seemingly insatiable demand for “new” Jimi recordings.
VHF pulls a few tracks from the original albums and samples a bit of the live and posthumous material that’s been released. Some well known tracks are not included due to overplaying on Classic Rock Stations. Deep cuts that may have been too strange for record labels during Jimi’s lifetime get their chance to blow minds and your speakers.
Obviously Jimi was an innovator on his instrument of choice but he was also an imaginative poet that conveyed positive universal concepts that helped propel the peace and love vibe adapted by nearly all the groovy flower children in the legendary Summer of Love. He influenced countless bands and artists. Famously Dylan was quoted as saying that he changed the way he performed his own song, “All Along The Watchtower” to make it more guitar heavy after hearing Jimi’s interpretation.
Some music is beyond the realms of time. It’s drifting in space for eternity. Jimi’s frequencies are always vibrating and we’re still listening to the trippy feedback today. Are you experienced? Dig this episode of VHF-202 (Jimi Hendrix - Psychedelic Pshaman) and hear why his music is still being appreciated after more than half a century.

Episode: 201- Angels

Very High Frequencies examines alternative music’s wide ranging songs with Angel in the title. It seems Angels are like snowflakes and no two are alike. 
Siouxsie’s had enough; it’s Exterminating Angel for the Creatures. 
Let me digress. Here’s the thing about angels. We have good angels, bad angels, fallen angels, rebel angels, heavenly angels, and of course the ever popular big baddy Angel Of Death. I believe an entire two hour show could be created using nothing but songs with that title. 
Let’s get biblical, nothing could go wrong with that idea? So many songs mentioning Angels & Devils. It’s like peanut butter and jelly, they just go together. It is very popular. The most common theme is a singular angel but, Hark, we tunes that have a whole flock of plural angels too.
Artists and groups contributing said tunes with “Angel” in the title include Ministry, Hawkwind, PIG, ohGr, Glenn Danzig, Echo & The Bunnymen, Love And Rockets, the The, Gary Numan, Tricky, Godflesh, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Black Mountain, David Bowie, Rozz Williams, The Velvet Underground, Jimi Hendrix, as well  as a whole set of metal heavy hitters including Leif Edling solo & with Candlemass, Dio Sabbath reincarnation project Heaven & Hell, eighties era Judas Priest, New Wave of British Heavy Metal legends Angel Witch, and a few more unique artists and bands. 
It’s another who’s who of very cool  on this week’s episode. We’re hearing songs foretelling of Angels visiting us mere mortals here on Earth. Dig the angelic frequencies on VHF-201 (Angels).

Episode: 201 Styx Myx

Very High Frequencies is celebrating our 200th episode of the legendary weekly show on radio Alternative music.com! We are boldly going to highlight a rock band that has a cheeky cheesy checkered history. But it wasn’t always so. Like a lot of groups, this Chicago outfit tried a variety of styles of music over ten very long years; perhaps chasing the muse in an attempt for another hit song on the radio or television. 
From a slow regional market build up on an independent record label beginning in 1972, to international superstars with ten top ten hits the band had nowhere else to go but implode in an ego driven self destruction. With three vocalists all fighting for the microphone the tendency for look at me look at me moments became problematic, especially while touring. It’s highly possible some shenanigans took place but that’s not the focus of this episode. Not Dead Yet Mike listened to ten of their studio albums and picked a track or three from nearly all of them, to present the ultimate retrospective. Every song is a testament to the tenacity of hard working rock and rollers across the world. Pour yourself a pint of courage, we recommend  a vintage ice cold PBR, and let the music take you to a time when prog lite and sci-fi tunes could co-mingle with tales of hobbits and Joe Six Packs. Styx Myx is all about the struggles we all endure to survive in this crazy world. It can grind you down, working all night and day chasing the American Dream. A loud stereo system cranking out a few catchy rock tunes might help make that heavy load a little more bearable. 
Styx Myx is dedicated to the local president of the Tommy Shaw Fan Club of 1977, the honorable D-Man himself. That guy never misses a Tommy Shaw show! Roadtrip, Woohoo! 
We are going way outside the box on Very High Frequencies. Check out this episode and you might find yourself singing along! VHF-200 (Styx Myx) is a show so not punk rock that it’s punk rock. Domo Aragato!

Episode 199: Abracadabra

VHF-199 (Abracadabra) is an entire episode of songs about wizards & witches and their like. This isn’t a Halloween show, it’s a collection of songs about magical people and the mind blowing reality that such  beings  enlighten upon the uninitiated. Bands and artists from five decades of rock music represent the arcane knowledge and mystical realms that the modern world is blind to its existence. Expect some heavy hitters on this episode of Very High Frequencies. Triptykon, Witchfinder General, Cough, Ozzy, Black Sabbath, Type O Negative, Mercyful Fate, Blood Ceremony, Witch, Lucifer, Angel Witch and a hell of a lot more all have a tune about witches and wizards. This week it’s all about magic on Very High Frequencies 199 Abracadabra!

Episode: 198 Wax Trax VHF Highlights

VHF-198 (Wax Trax! Records VHF Highlights) is a salute to the Chicago independent record label. When TVT Records bought the rights to Wax Trax! they released a triple CD box set with a lot of songs from the many artists on the label, released between 1980 to 1993. Some bands made it to bigger labels, others faded away. Very High Frequencies is surgically honing down the Wax Trax! Black Box to a two hour synopsis. Some of the biggest Wax Trax! singles get a spin as well as some deep cuts too. As many concert attendees have posted Ministry stole the show at last week’s Cruel World festival, playing only early songs, mostly from With Sympathy and Twitch it’s become apparent that Every Day Is Halloween all over again! Find out why this era of music has resurged in  popularity. VHF-198 highlights the Wax Trax! label. Not Dead Yet Mike is celebrating the club music of the ‘80’s & early 90’s and you are cordially invited!

Episode: 197 Judas Priest

Episode: 196 Cyberaktif vs Related Artists

VHF-196 Cyberaktif vs Related Artists. After four decades in sleep mode Canadian electro industrial outfit Cyberaktif has released a new album. Endgame is packed with meticulously produced and programmed electronic songs with multilayered vocals. You’re going to like this. Here’s the skinny on the band. In 1990 / 91 cEvin Key, Duane Rudolph Gotell and Bill Leeb had a Skinny Puppy / Front Line Assembly side project called Cyberaktif. Two extended singles, Temper & Nothing Stays came out in 1990. They were followed up with full length album Tenebre Vision in 1991. Sadly the project was abandoned after Duane died from a heroin overdose in 1995.
Flash forward forty three years and Front Line Assembly/Conjure One/Delerium programming wizard Rhys Fulber has stepped into the very big shoes of the late great DRG in a 2023 reboot of Cyberaktif. Two impressive videos were created for the band by a video editor that utilized AI technology. The videos look like they had a huge Hollywood budget and help convey some of the lyrics. The diehard Puppy/FLA fans have been very complimentary of the new music. Rhys was just a teenager in 1991 but he was a recording studio rat and visited the studio when the guys recorded the initial release. Very High Frequencies plays a bit of the new music, some of the early singles and tracks from the first album. In between those songs tracks by other bands and projects by the same musicians help propel the buzz. Front Line Assembly, cEvin Key, Will, Noise Unit, Doubting Thomas, Download,  Plateau, and other cool artists and bands highlight the work of these four talented Canadian musicians. VHF-196 (Cyberaktif vs Related Artists) this episode of Very High Frequencies.

Episode: 195 Kraftwerk 45678

VHF-195 (Kraftwerk 45678) is a two hour voyage of frequencies and modulations generated by the ground breaking German electronic band Kraftwerk. 
Very High Frequencies samples and holds songs from the band’s fourth album up to their eighth. 
After three free form experimental albums that didn’t get much traction, in 1974’s Kraftwerk released Autobahn. Drum machines and synthesizer were nothing like the rock bands of the era. Far from Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath and against all odds the album became an international hit, despite its 20 plus minute length. Its unique keyboard and percussion mix fit in with the more radical head music of the era. Back in the mid Seventies Pink Floyd and Supertramp fans, with their expensive and massively huge stereo systems, pulled out their vinyl or cassette Kraftwerk albums whenever a party was ready to catapult to the future. The LSD was optional.
Album five, Radio-Activity melded yellow cake nightmares to vocoder glitch in a schizophrenic diatribe about radio stars and doppelgänger radioactivity. Especially intense on the German vocoder speaking release. Pure genius but far too frightening for the average Joe Sixpack that was blasting safe top ten radio fair like  the Eagles or Styx in 1975. 
Uber fans Iggy & Ziggy got on the Kraftwerk crazy train on shout out Trans Europe Express in ‘77. Once the ultra cool crowd gave the German group the double thumbs up it seemed everyone with a pocket calculator was ready to get on board. The band released English, German and even French versions of their music which helped the radio programmers spread the sound waves across the world. 
Robots completely took over the band on 1978’s The Man-Machine. The image and sound were now reduced to binary analog manipulations that merged science and technology into a cyborg hybrid that made for robot dance freakouts at late night clubs across Europe. Being a wired up half machine was actually kind of fun!
The band went in sleep mode until 1981’s Computer World. To say the album was unique and full of iconic radio hits would be an understatement. The modern world we know today was being recognized and predicted on this legendary piece of music. 
We also will be hearing a set of live tracks by Kraftwerk released in 2017. The songs are all originally from albums 4 through eight. For that reason this episode is called VHF-195 Kraftwerk 45678).
- Not Dead Yet Mike