The ladies of Cheap Hooch and I have been on a global mission to bring you the funniest people on the planet.
So far, our favorites are from Ireland, D$ and my ancestral homeland. (We don’t know where Holly’s ancestral homeland is. Possibly Arizona.)

This week, we got a hold of Cormac Moore from ThePotato.IE, a comedic “mash-up” of headlines and current events. We spent the better part of our work week reading the articles on The Potato and laughing our Hoochie asses off. We recommend you check out The Potato.IE as well as Cormac’s stand-up on Youtube. Because, as we all agreed on The Priests show a few weeks back, everything is better with an Irish accent.

But wait – it gets better. Our in-studio guest was Brett Klinker, The Most Interesting Man in San Francisco. He regaled us with tales of opening for Black Flag, karaoke with Jane Wiedlin from the Go-Go’s, and being on the Howard Stern show with his band Brown Star. (This dude really is interesting!) Brett brought in some of his original experimental punk stuff and the crowd went wild! I want “Skinny Guy/Big Dick” played at my wedding!

D$ and I also spent a few minutes trying to piece together the after party from the previous week’s show. We think it involved a San Francisco crime reporter, D$ puking into the Bay and yet another walk of shame for Sham. (We take our hoochie-ness very seriously. Even off the air.)
Hope you enjoy the show, and tune in next week. We’ll be reading the email we received from the one and only Henry Rollins!
Special Thanks to our good friend and mentor, Brett Klinker, and to our new friend Cormac Moore!

The ladies of Cheap Hooch and I got to chat with Dana and Dave, a typical, American, Norman Rockwell kind of couple. He writes books about Atheism, she writes fiction about zombies and was a sword fighter in Army of Darkness. The conversation meandered through topics like ocelots, fake band names, and erotica. (Cacao.)
Also in studio was San Francisco Examiner crime reporter and great friend of the show, Rob Nagel. For our Crime and Disorder segment, Rob was kind enough to read one of his own crime stories. That was fucking meta. (Am I using that word correctly?) Rob also talked a little about being a San Francisco cab driver, and a bike messenger, and he held my hand!
Thanks to Hot Paul, Alex Jones, Scofie, and Rak for your song requests.
And thank you, Jad Abumrad from the Radiolab show on NPR for your music requests. This show was dedicated to you!
You can follow Rob Nagel @SFEX_RobNagel
Listen for the return of Dave and Dana on our Erotica show coming up in January! (My safe word for the Erotica show is Cacao. Holly’s is Bottle Rocket. D$ doesn’t need a safe word. Daaaaaaamn…)

The face of the Bay Area is rapidly changing, but news hounds D$ and Holly Hooch are on it like a bonnet! On this week’s show they conduct a hard hitting interview with San Francisco Chronicle journalist, Carloyn Jones on the gentrification of West Oakland and the history of class migration in the San Francisco Bay area. They explore the tech boom cylce, rising rents, and finding white people where you’d least expect them. Carolyn also talks about fuck-ups in present day media. (Think Bill O’Reily’s crazy ass, and the woman who read the racist pilot names from the Korean Air crash.)

The ladies also tried out a new segment called “Truth or Dare On Air” where they had to answer embarrassings question or take a shot of whiskey. I don’t want to spoil it for you, so I’ll just say, hide your significant others from D$, hide your grandparents from Carolyn, and Holly Hooch probably thinks about you when she’s in the shower. A listener from Colorado called in and asked Sham an embarrassing question but you can fast forward over that part.

Later, in Cheap Hooch’s famous “Law an Disorder Report” segment, Rob Nagel and Mike Aldax lead us on a whirlwind trip through the mean streets of San Francisco, from bodily fluids in the Main Library (Philosophy of Language section, obviously,) to the driver’s seat of Guy Fieri’s douchey car.

Song requests came in from Christophe and his daughters in Paris, Stephane in Chicago, and from American NPR badboy/literary god, David Sedaris, to whom this show is dedicated. Thank you all for your requests and keep ‘em comin’!

Email your song requests to cheaphoochradio@gmail.com, or call us in the studio on Sundays from 4pm-6pm at (415) 962-7979!

Follow San Francisco Chronicle reporter, Carolyn Jones on Twitter @carolynajones

The Troubador Interview: Surf Punk, Santeria, and a Shirtless Guy (for RadioValencia.fm)

Cheap Hooch is the show in the 4-6pm spot on Radio Valencia every Sunday. Your hosts, Holly Hooch and DJ D$ carefully select the best of Surf Punk, Garage, Trash, Soul, Rockabilly and occasionally Hall& Oats. These ladies are passionate about local bands and live music so they’ll also tell you about upcoming shows and when they can, they bring bands into the studio for a live, radio performance.

“We’ve been doing this for five years” D$ replied when asked about the chemistry and almost telepathic short-hand she and Holly have.

Last week on the Cheap Hooch show, the band Troubador out of Livermore, California came in to talk to Holly and D$, and to play a couple of their songs.

The band is made up of Matt, Pat, and their “class clown,” Paul. The ladies played “Ramona” by Troubador, and some of their other songs, along with the usual selection of stuff you can only hear on independent radio. A couple great ones from the first half of the show were “Le Banana Split” by Clorox Girls and “Wait Your Turn” by Big Ups.

Then Troubador performed a couple of their songs live in the studio. They played the “Year of the Rat,” a cool, imaginary tale of the end of the world. And then the guys played “West Texas,” a remarkably moving song that captivated the Cheap Hooch DJs.

There are countless moving parts in a radio show, and a DJ has to above all be able to multi-task. But when the boys played “West Texas,” they had the full attention of everyone in the room. It seemed like even the street noise from outside the windows was silenced. The lyrics were powerful to say the least. “You have to write about it, I guess. Or it will eat you alive. So you have to get it out. Somehow.” Matt said as sincerely as I’ve ever heard a man speak.

Matt writes the music and lyrics, at least initially. “Everything. Music…lyrics…it’s all Matt.” says Paul. But Matt described the collaboration actually involved. He was clear about the role Paul and Pat play. “I would be some poor solo act that nobody wanted to watch if it weren’t for these guys.”

The discussion continued about lyrics and music, and like a big, gay fly on the wall, I listened. But the conversation gradually shifted, not for the first time, to Voodoo. A topic I know all too well. So I began to speak. (I was kind of speaking throughout the show, but this is when I really started to feel it, if you know what I mean.)

The mood changed. The dynamic shifted. Traditional gender roles were eschewed. There was talk of magic, and love spells. Holly faded the track in the background to “Turn Off The Lights” by Teddy Pendergrass. We got Paul to take his shirt off. D$ was just about to tell the on-air listeners how they could contact the guys from Troubador and when they would be playing next. But she phrased it “Now we’re gonna plug these boys ‘till the cows come home!” That was my cue to add “Like we did that one time in college!” Holly, D$ and I cackled and gulped our drinks like a trio of Pacific Heights cougars.

Paul froze as he suddenly remembered all the PSAs and After School Specials he had seen as a child in Livermore about “Stranger Danger.”

“Wait. W…what?”

Unknown to the guys from Troubador, that was just the secret phrase for our on-air drinking game that day.

You can check out the new Troubador album “”Beat Les Troubador” for free at http://troubador.bandcamp.com/
Or search for “The Troubador!” on Facebook.

Tune in to Holly and D$ on Cheap Hooch Radio at Radio Valencia, Sundays, 4-6pm

September 29th, will go down in Cheap Hooch history as “a bunch of…nothing good,” as one listener described it. Although I thought D$ and I did a pretty good job considering how drunk we were. But I hear ya, listener. I’m no Holly Hooch. Fortunately for us, Holly returns this Sunday.

Our special guest was Oakland band and all around fun dudes The Electric Church. And they were into it.

Lead singer, van driver, and son of Alice Simon, Jack Simon was hilarious, as were all the guys. (Enrico, call me.)

Our topic of discussion was hypocracy and dishonestly in religious tradition, specifically the role of orthodox practice in religious identity. (I know!! Can you believe that shit??)

We may have strayed from the topic a little, and I may have bent the rules about ethnic humor, but as I always say, “you can say it if you are one.” And though the guys from The Electric Church did question my Japanese, Jamaican, Belizean, Cuban, Korean, Irish, Indian, and “Jew-ish” ancestry, I can assure you, I am mostly some of those things.

The testosterone in the air was so thick it nearly short-circuited the mind lamp. And as if these guys weren’t sexy enough, some sexy dude named Emanuel called in to the studio to contribute to the discussion. (Dear Penthouse, I never thought it would happen to me…)

And of course, DJ D$ played some tunes that were, shall I say, divinely inspired?

Then I blacked out.

If you didn’t get a chance to hear the show live, check it out on the podcast page. And go see The Electric Church live at Kip’s in Berkeley, Friday, October 18th at 7:00pm.

Want to know the quickest way to an Irishman’s heart? According to Joey, the handsome guitar player from The Shams, it’s a bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey. (I didn’t know he was going to say that, but I kind of knew.)

The Shams Éire are a band of charming lads who play energetic rock with Treggar on the fiddle, Tommy on the upright bass and James on the drums. The guys came to the studio and talked with us about life and love and growing up in Northern Ireland. As the conversation moved toward music, Sean the lead vocalist talked about Northern Irish rebel bands, the Pogues, and how most Jewish people don’t care for Irish music generally. (Is…wait…what??)

I was curious about that, so I asked around. A young Jewish lady named Evanne C. told me that “River Dance rocks!” Lotus W. said “You mean like River Dance?”

Inconclusive.

The Shams blew us away with an on-air accousic set and take my advice, if you get a chance to see them live, do it. The music is grand and they’re great craic.

We received some international requests this week from Yoko in Japan, Brad in Perú, Rhona from Ireland, and my all-time favorite author, Zadie Smith to whom we dedicated the show. Ms Smith wrote “White Teeth,” “On Beauty,” “Autograph Man,” and I’ll leave you with a few lines from her novel “NW”:

“Leah drank some more and spent a long time twisting the radio knob for a pirate station they didn’t find. At around ten fifteen p.m. Leah Hanwell said “I think women can be really beautiful. I think they can be so attractive and you want to love them and shag them and blah blah, but I think really only men can be completely beautiful in the end.” You recon?” said Keisha, and disguised her confusion by drinking deeply from her mug of tea. She was not at all sure to whom the second person pronoun was meant to refer.”

Check out The Shams Éire on Facebook!

Cheap Hooch Theme Song

Commercial – Black Sunday

Can’t Hardly Stand It – Charlie Feathers

Commercial – Johnny Cash Folgers Coffee

Nine Feet Nine & A Half Inches Tall – Dick Kent

She Said – Hasil Adkins

Commercial – Marilyn Monroe

Tiger – Sparkle Moore

Jet Lady – Tangela Tricoli

She Was A Mau Mau – Bob Ridgley

Baby Your Love’s In Town – “Dusty Roads” Rowe

Commercial – The Thing That Wouldn’t Die

Valerie – Jackie & The Starlighters

Commercial  – Little Richard for Royal Crown Hairdressing

Rally In The Valley – Rudy Ray Moore

Monkey Man – Baby Huey & The Baby Sitters

I Smoke Weed – Wesley Willis

Commercial – I’m A Chiquita Bananna

Pancho Rock – Lalo Guerrero

El Touchy – Luie Luie

Commercial – Lucky Strike Cigarettes

Your Cheating Heart – Alfred A. Alfa

The Way Out Mummy – Kwentin QWISP

Rockin’ Out The Blues – Musical Linn Twins

In Canada – BJ Snowden

Commercial – Oscar Meyer

Happy Go Lucky Me – Paul Evans

My Boyfriend’s Learning Karate – Charlie & Chan

Tip-Toe Thru The Tulips – Tiny Tim

Commercial – 1957 Chevrolet

Bad Motorcycle – Storey Sisters

Indian Rock – Musical Linn Twins

I’m So Happy When You’re Near – The Shaggs

Commercial – Astro Zombies

I Walked With A Zombie – Roky Erickson & The Aliens

Goo Goo Muck – Ronnie Cook & The Gaylads

Hot Dog Boogie – The Singing Dogs

I Hate CD’s  – The Legendary Stardust Cowboy

Commercial – I Was A Teenage Werewolf

Chicken – Jack Starr

Wooly Bully – Hasil Adkins

Jan 6: Stellar Corpses (Santa Cruz)
Jan 27: Ray Rimas (Poet SF)

Feb 3: Spawn Atomic (SF)
Feb 10: Jesse Morris & The Mancougars (SF)
Feb 17: Cuban Cigar Crisis (SF)
Feb 24: The Left Hand (Sac)

March 3: Mutilators (SF)
March 10: The Messenger (Comedy OAK)
March 17: Los Dryheavers (Salinas)
March 24: Festizio (SF)
March 31: James Hunnicutt (Seattle)

April 7: Cookie Wolf
April 14: Goddamn Gallows (Michigan)
April 21: Hounds & Harlots (SF)

May 1: Jose Reyes
May 8: Frankenstein LIVS (SF)
May 15: Dirty Cupcakes(OAK)
May 22: Roofie & The Nightstalker(SF)
May 29: The Rebel Set (AZ)

June 5: No Show (canceled)
June 12: Creature Comforts (SF)
June 19: La Plebe (SF)
June 26: Casey Shafer (Burning House Records) and The Holy Rolling Empire(AZ)

July 3: Spawn Atomic & Mental Hygiene (SF)
July 10: DJ Scotty Blank (Frankenstein LIVS)
July 17: The Clarences & The Sore Thumbs (SF/East Bay)
July 24: FUKM (SF)
July 31: The Plastic Saints (SF)

Aug 7: Total Trash Showcase with DJ Dustin
Aug 14: Microfiche (SF)
Aug 21: Unko Atama (SF) & Wee The Band (SF)
Aug 28: No Show (canceled)

Sept 4: Robert Medeiros (The Clarences SF)
Sept 11: The Hollowpoints (Seattle)
Sept 18 Lucabrazzi (SF)

Hey!  We want to hear from you!

You can contact us at our regular email address:

CheapHoochRadio@gmail.com

Or check us out on the web at

www.myspace.com/CheapHoochRadio

www.facebook.com/CheapHoochRadio

Well hey! Please welcome another Radio Valencia show to the blog roster: Cheap Hooch!