Airwaves

by Brian Golslow

There's so much dirt on this record, I don't know if it's going to make it to the end!" exclaims Rob Silverberg as he answers the phone in the middle of last Friday's New Traditions. Jimmy Skinner's "I Met a Girl Right Back Here in the Good Old USA" successfully makes it to the end, another lost classic retrieved from inside the confines of WCUW's massive record library. It's one of the many selections of pounding pianos, clanging and twanging guitars, and firing fiddles he plays every Friday from 6 to 9 a.m. on WCUW (91.3 FM).

Silverberg digs out lost gems like Freddie Fender's (remember him?) "Acapulco Rock" from Barrio Hits from the '50 and '60s (Ahuli), the Dead Man Curvish "The Curve of No Return" from Lisa Coch's legendary You Make My Pants Pound (Tongueinchic), Texas Ruby's "Don't Let That Man Get You Down" from Columbia Country Classics: Volume One -- The Golden Age ("There are four or five volumes of that. This is the older stuff, which always attracts me"), and Bobby Valentino's "The Man Who Invented Jazz," from You're Telling Me (Vallejo). "It probably sold no records when it came out, because it had no marketing because it had no niche. He's kind of a crooner in a Western-swing style."

He doesn't blink when playing Cliff Carlisle's "Payday Fight" from Blues Yodeller and Steel Guitar Wizard (doesn't the title say it all?) next to the Surf Trio's uncleaned-guitar masterpiece "Skater Dater" (originally performed by Davie Allen) from Surfing in a Living Graveyard (Blood Red Vinyl and Discs), shortly after reaching for the sky with Terry Allen's "Oh, Hallelujah!," which asks, "Does Jesus Love You?" The show may be filled with inspiration hymns, but "Good Cheap Transportation," the Kropotniks' tale of a school-bus driver hanging his vehicle off the side of a cliff, may raise a few eyebrows, which as a lover of mournful tunes would certainly put a smile on Silverberg's face. "You don't know whether to take them seriously -- they go beyond the edge of sad." But he's never far from stained-glass revelry with tracks like Johnny Pond's "She Made 10 Trips to the Altar (But with Me, She Made Only One)," and he'd certainly argue that the Hillbilly Hellcats' instrumental freakout, "I Like Jazz," is as transcendental an experience as you can get. The same goes for the Okeh Ramblers' "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes" (Fury). "I dig them, I guess they're a whole family that comes from England. They're got a weird looking picture [on the album jacket], but a real cool sound." As the Cramps once stated, "If you can't dig this, you can't dig nothin'." And if you really want to dig, check out the Loubin Brothers' "Satan's Jeweled Crown" from Satan Is Real, the follow-up to Tragic Songs of Life. "They were totally serious about gospel music."

In upcoming weeks, Silverberg plans to talk with biographer Johnny Whiteside, who's just published Ramblin' Rose: The Life and Career of Rose Maddox. "She was a country singer in the '40s and '50s who put out CDs as recent as two or three years ago." He'll also speak with Nicolas Dawidoff, author of In the Country, Of Country: People and Places in American Music, along with a representative from the New England Country Music Historical Society's soon-to-open New England Country Hall of Fame, in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

THE JUNE 8 Sunday Night Concert features western Massachusetts art-rockers Architectural Metaphor recorded at Gilreins in April as part of this year's WAGFest festivities. The program airs at midnight on WCUW.