In what may be the fastest turnaround in recent history, the performance of this Radiators’ offshoot band from September 2 at Chickie Wah Wah, is available here. The show features a plethora of Rads’ favorites and a smattering of choice covers.
The band, which featured Ed Volker on keys and vocals, Camile Baudoin on guitar and vocals, Reggie Scanlan on bass, and Michael Skinkus on drums and percussion, was assembled with the expressed purpose of deconstructing songs from the Radiators’ catalog. Volker, Baudoin, and Scanlan played in the band for over 33 years while still continuing to play the occasional reunion.
As Volker said, “…with all this timeless time on my fins, I started taking Rads’ tunes and twisting them this way and that way and eventually all these tunes found new homes, new settings, and arrangements that refreshed them and displayed different tones, colors, and rhythms than they ever had before…”
What this longtime fishhead liked about the show, of course I was in attendance, was the way Volker created segues between songs in ways that were very inventive. A highlight from the middle of the first set is the Radiators’ chestnut, “Cannibal Girls” leading directly into a tease of Dr. John’s “I Walk on Guilded Splinters.” For fans of the Radiators, even those of you out there with hundreds of recordings, this is a must-have.
