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VINYL LISTENING ORGY UP YOUR WAZOO!

Sheesh. Sure wish that I could lead a real life like all of those competing bloggers out there in "Notice Me!"-land just so's I can ramble on about other significant subject matters that may cross the bloghairs of many a poster (politics, book/film/concert reviews...) but frankly my life is too much of a one-way street to do anything else than go to work, take care of the household and maybe listen to some old records down in the basement or perhaps a new Cee-Dee offering that passes my way, only if I feel up to it that is. Oh, it's either that or the ever-shrinking once-precious tee-vee time usually inna evening that occupies my non-sleeping hours. But even THAT'S becoming less and less as the days take their toll, and what's bad about it is that once I get hooked on a program I like and in fact can get obsessed with (just like I did when I was a kiddo and tee-vee was just BRIMMING with all sorts of mid-Amerigan slob-attuned obsessive programming) the show gets canned and I hafta go looking elsewhere for my tee-vee fun and games! Yeah it's really sad, especially since I was just getting really hooked on the YOGI BEAR reruns that Boomerang was showing on the weekends and now even that little oasis in an ocean of multi-channeled absurdities hadda've been taken off the air! Oh well, at least Huckleberry Hound is the featured "Boomeroyality" star this month so I'll be getting my fill of this Andy Griffith swipe and more o'er the next few weeks!

In the meanwhile here are a buncha discs that just happened to pop up on my turntable o'er the past week or so, not necessarily because they seemed to be harkening to me from their matted sleeves or tend to speak for my generation (or whatever's left of it), but because I thought that givin' 'em the writeup would look rather neato on this very blog and given how fashion-conscious I am what else could I do! Now how do you like that as a representation of my usually cool logic and reasoning?!?!?!?

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The Bubble Puppy-"Hot Smoke and Sasafrass"/"Lonely" 45 rpm (International Artists)

When I first got latched onto this single back in 1979 I was excited as all get-out! Not only was the prospect of finding a record on the legendary International Artists label (and not necessarily the Radar reissues which were very desirable in themselves and just about as hard to find!) extremely tasty for this ever-budding rock & roll maniac, but finding one by this band which I had never heard of before made me feel about as important as the guy who found the Rosetta Stone or even the forbidden snaps taken at the Content Providers' Gay Liberation Felch-a-Thon with Jay Hinman providing entertainment by spinning all of the rare eighties singles he happened to dig up that week! However, by the time I took the rare booty home from the flea market and spun it on my now deceased cheapo-stereo my anticipation turned to abject woe...well, it wasn't that bad a listening experience but here I was expecting some solid hard-edged Texas garage-band punking and what did I get but (what at the time seemed like) basic heavy metal riffs with harmony vocals and a strange sense of late-sixties bred dismay overall. The flip "Lonely" wasn't that better but maybe I was just chungered by the letdown that the a-side incurred upon my battered soul and quickly found solace in...I dunno, an X-Ray Spex single or something but hey that's how I felt at the time!

Maybe time has changed me to a fault, but right now I find "Hot Smoke and Sasafrass" pretty snazzy as far as the cusp from mid-sixties garage band rock to late-sixties heavy metal goes, though I sure would've appreciated it more if the Pups had taken the late-sixties road to punkism like the Stooges and all good li'l snots did at the time. Still as a metal rec this one does succeed (as did its non-LP followup "What Do You See") not only with its smashbang guitar opening but the sprightly li'l instrumental interlude that shows the heavy influence of psychedelia upon the region, but without the mindless self-indulgence such chemical use could have inflicted upon more-impressionable minds.

Of course the biggest question I have regarding not only this single but the Bubble Puppy is...howcum hardly anybody considers this side a classic heavy metal BENCHMARK of some sorts? I mean, true FLASH magazine had a neet piece on them in their first issue and CREEM used to be on the ball mentioning them in their various heavy metal histories, but to the rank and file HM fans out there it seems as if metal began with Van Halen and everything before that was just "hard rock." Sheesh, what sorta history is that s'posed to be? Like Phast Phreddie once said, if you don't have roots, you're just a buncha leaves hanging around pretending to be a tree!

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Hot Knives-"Hey Grandma"/"I Hear the Wind Blow" 45 rpm (KO)

Back in '77 there were a few people (not enough but at least they were there!) who were making the world a better place for our ears by performing, recording and writing about a music that was raw, exciting, refreshing, or any combination thereof, a music which a lotta people thought was totally new without any precedent that generally sprung forth from the minds of these creative geniuses like words flowed freely from the tips of Richard Meltzer's fingers. Of course those "in the know" knew that this sound was not exactlly all that "new"...it was just that most people had their heads buried firmly up the hindquarters of Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell to hear anything outside of their rectal bleeps to notice what was happening in typical "Mr. Jones" fashion. Of course, some wise fellows who were part of this recording/performing frenzy weren't ashamed to borrow from way back into the panthenon of past rockism endeavors, even if it was treading rather close to the iffy strains of SAN FRANCISCO for any punk to dare admit, but back then it seemed as if even less noticed. I guess given that rock & roll as a major commodity was in such a sick state at the time even rockabilly came off like a new innovation next to the likes of...I dunno, Frampton???

Fortunately these Hot Knives borrowed from the RIGHT aspects of San Fran, mainly the good folk/punk cusp of the scene a la Moby Grape and a whole slew of great garage unknowns that I'm sure Alec Palao will gab your ears off about if you were locked in a room with him for twelve hours straight. Featuring two ex-Flamin' Groovies and a Sally Struthers lookalike, these Knives' hot rockin' take on the Grape's "Hey Grandma" comes so close to the original it ain't like it's a swipe, but more like pure homage without the smarm. (BTW, do I have to tell you that it was my review of the first Moby Grape platter last week that made me wanna dig this 'un outta the collection? I thought you guys were smarter'n that!) Still trying to find out the origins of flipster "I Hear the Wind Blow," a fine slice of 1966 Vejtables-styled folk rock with a lotta power and verve to it but have come up a dead end. I think I recall reading something about it somewhere, but whaddeva the origins this 'un's still a pretty hot example of what San Fransisco rock was supposed to be about...at least before that midgie fag wimp Jann Wenner began calling all the shots and the entire burgh became known for a lotta wimpass Marin County jive rather'n the promise the place once held way back in the day..

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The Wailers-DO NOT RELEASE 10-inch EP (4-Dot)

Here's one that sorta popped up on the record buying market and vanished without a trace ten years back, a ten-incher featuring what's alleged to be mid-sixties era Wailers outtakes that, according to the INSERT included with this package, was released without former Wailer and Etiquette Records head Buck Ormsby's knowledge or blessings for that matter. Y'see, the story goes something like this: Ormsby gave a certain husband/wife team of Canadian origin (who were also involved with a fanzine of which only one issue came out) some authentic Wailers rarities on tape, most of which ended up on this bootleg while an earlier outtake and the sound portion of the Wailers' 6/59 AMERICAN BANDSTAND appearance turned up as a single without the express written whatever of the guy thus rankling the ire of this reknown band's former bass guitarist. Frankly I wouldn't be making a big to-do about it, only that I paid a good amount of change to run an ad for my own fanzine in that ne'er to be second issue, and as the case may be I haven't seen hide nor hair of that moolah since! (The same goes for the also gone but not forgotten THROAT CULTURE, a mag which I even contributed some shards of scribbled nonsense to way back in the ever-bleeding nineties!) And believe me, since people think I'm such a thin-skinned creep who shouldn't complain to the world when I get reamed over in the game of underground compadreship like that, all I gotta say is "WHAT'S WRONG WITH STANDING UP ON MY OWN SOAPBOX AND RANTING AND RAVING THE WAY I DO ANYWAY?????" Remember, the blogosphere is the closest to Hyde Park any of us'll ever get to, only I'll be lambasting that inbred queen of yours whether any of you want me to or not!

Tracks here sound more WAILERS WAILERS EVERYWHERE than OUT OF OUR TREE...restrained yet still with enough of that Northwest spark that really did a lot for the mid-sixties music scene albeit nobody outside of a few old fanzines and local commentators seems to acknowledge so but what else is new. Nice enough even though the original take of "Hang Up" lacks the official's hard drive and ya gotta admit that the Sonics had these guys beat all hollow...still, a little debbil inside me's gotta admit that I'm sorta glad those sheister's did what they did, though I share Ormsby's desire for justice all the more because like, he was the guy doin' it to being with!

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IT'S ALL MEAT (pirate)

I'm sure a few of you remember hearing this Canadian group's pre-LP single "Feel It" on PEBBLES VOLUME 9 thinking this particular song was more or less stuck in the late-sixties punk scheme of things (and thus outta the "scope" of the rest of the tracks on that sampler), and even less of you probably recall reading the writeup the longplayer It's All Meat did for Columbia in '70 received at the hands of Jymn Parrett and DENIM DELINQUENT way back in '76. About fifteen years back somebody actually did a pirate of that disc...an OK job mind you only without the gatefold sleeve and with the inclusion of "Feel It" at the end in order to sweeten the pot a bit, but now that the item has been reissued on Cee-Dee by Hallucinations Records you won't have to rely on your decade-plus-old copy especially with the improved sound quality and outakes galore that Hallucinations decided to stick on. You may not have to rely on it, but """""I""""" sure do...y'see, I paid a whopping $15 for this from Forced Exposure, and given how that much of loot is like a FORTUNE to me let's just say I'm still getting my money's worth outta this platter and will CONTINUE to until it breaks or somethin' and then and only then will I fork over more for a new CD or whatever neat technological crapola they come up with once that time has come!

But for an occasional spinner IT'S ALL MEAT can't be beat for late-sixties rock without the boring noodling or sociorelevant twaddle that seemed like such a joke once 1972 rolled around. And it rocks so smoothly and sounds so sincere that even the "working it out from the inside" political number doesn't make you wanna gag! I will agree with Parrett's comments regarding how the band sound like 1967 West Coast rock a la Country Joe (the organ thing) with the "metal electricity of the late-sixties punk rockers," though just who these punks may be is open to question. The Stooges? Maybe Can??? But whatever, IT'S ALL MEAT has more than enough of that brazen garage trash aesthetic mixed with a neat sense of slow-burning intensity that'll keep your attention attuned even through a few misplaced Doors cops here and a blatant Steppenwolf allusion there. Nothing I'm going to go aaaaah! over, but still engaging enough to make me stand up and salute in spots!

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John Coltrane-COLTRANOLOGY VOLUME ONE LP (Affinity, Spain)

I remember when I first played a John Coltrane album...it was MY FAVORITE THINGS which I had checked out of the local library after a few years of hearing his name and once again trying to quell that strange, morbid sense of curiousity I never was able to shake loose all my life. At the time I knew not what to expect...to me, Coltrane was a jazz guy who was inflluential on a number of rock musicians I had liked or at least had some peripheral interest in being a snot-nosed pre-driving age pimple farm and all, and being the kinda nerk who was discovering things like electronic music records that were also at the library I decided to take this 'un out and hear for myself what this guy (who, I had once suspected to be the FATHER of Chi Coltrane, the gal who had a hit with "Thunder and Lightning" in '72!) was up to and just how he much of his whatever-he-did could be discerened in the rock music I was playing at the time. (Come to think of it, I believe it was an FM-radio play of Devilcrabdip Carlos Santana and Maha-aha! John McLaughlin's LOVE DEVOTION AND SURRENDER on the local FM AOR station that got my attention perked considering how Coltrane got the cover treatment on that 'un! Talk about getting inspiration from the weirdest places!!!)

I really wasn't that impressed with Coltrane's take on the Rogers and Hammerstein "chestnut," expecting some sort of total energy music and getting something a bit "skippy" in the process. Even more skippy than Ornette (a guy I discovered later and enjoyed immensely more) and frankly I must admit that the experience turned me off to Coltrane for quite a few years because, hey I was still a kiddo, and even believed so! If I had only started with some total eruption side a la ASCENSION or even OHM which nobody except me likes...even Coltrane hated it once he heard the playback...maybe my opinions would have been a lot different than they had been. But starting with MY FAVORITE THINGS was def. a big mistake in the annals of my musical listening rationale, almost as bad as starting with Can's LIMITED EDITION 'stead of MONSTER MOVIE but (in my own humble defense)...sheesh, wuzza mid-teenage kid stuck inna middle of nadaswhere s'posed to do ANYWAY???

Funny enough, after all that I gotta admit that I still don't care that number, even the live take that appears on this Affinity issue of the Coltrane Quartet with special guest Eric Dolphy that came out sometime in the early-eighties. Naw, I like the album in general...the performances are enveloping enough and the classic white block letters on black background style that Affinity used on a whole lot of their covers (sometimes issued with white background and black block lettering on releases like the Spontaneous Music Ensemble's ONE, TWO, ALBERT AYLER) looks nice with the rest of the Affinity albums, most of them BYG Actuel reissues, hunkering around in my collection. But as for that song...it still doesn't swing with me...and maybe it's because I can't stand Julie Andrews and anything she may come in contact with that I carry over my ire towards this particular number, but even """""I""""" wouldn't go that far!

Gotta say that side two does rectify things (esp. when Dolphy's sweet flute and bass clarinet come into play) starting off with a mighty rendition of "Blue Train," "Naima" (for Coltrane's then wife) and closing out things that all-time wowzer "Impressions" ending this disc on a solidly positive note. In many ways this is Dolphy's album as much as it is Coltrane's, and it is kind of a shame that Mr. D didn't get joint billing on this issue because you know his name coulda helped double sales with relative ease!

One question some of you "serious" jazzbos might be able to answer for me, and that is which label originally issued this platter anyway? I know that Affinity was reissueing a lotta wares by the likes of BYG, Bethlehem and other deep-sixed outfits, but I can't find any reference to who might have put this one out way back in the day! I keep thinking it originally must've been a bootleg like the reams of jazz-oriented ones that were coming out in Europe at the time, but no mention of COLTRANOLOGY VOLUME ONE can be spotted anywhere on the sleeve. Hope somebody out there in the vast reaches of cyberspace with a half-of-ounce-of-jazz-intelligence can help this guy who has zilch-ounces-of-intelligence, jazz or otherwise! (See Jay, I can get "self-deprecating" too!)

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Ten Years Afer-WATT LP (Deram)

Here's one I bought after reading Metal Mike Saunders' perhaps definitive article on heavy metal that the master did for a 1973 issue of PHONOGRAPH RECORD MAGAZINE mainly because he said that there were some downright Stoogian interludes to be found therein and that just wasn't counting the dog barks made by Alvin Lee that commenced this late-sixties blues chooze side either! Upon playing the thing I wasn't quite Stooged outta my mind like I thought I was gonna be, and in fact I was so nonplussed by it all that the record stayed in the collection ne'er to be dug out and digested...until now, that is.

If you think I've matured any since my original spin of WATT you may say I have. I gotta admit that I wasn't offended by Lee and company's obvious heavy-duty caucasifying of the blues sound...in fact a good portion of WATT sounds pleasing enough to accompany my evening fanzine reading hours. But if there is a spec of even the slightest big of high energy, I certainly can't really discern it. Even the closing live hash-out of Chuck Berry sounds about as staid as every other white guy band smashing the same chords into oblivion. Alvin Lee shoulda been made to listen to Crushed Butler until he cried for Clapton!

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Various Artists-LIKE WOW LP (Hydra, Germany)

Here's an old fave that for some odd reason I believed to be groove-damaged, but checking it out just to make sure this very day I found out that it sounded as crystal as ever much to my heart's content! And it's a good thing too, because LIKE WOW is a pretty irreplaceable album pressed up back inna late-eighties when loads of these European-origin albums chock fulla Amerigan obscurities were coming to light. Not only does this one have all four sides of the Decca Tony Conn singles (FYI one of the wilder of the late-fifties rockabilly cats who, if the excerpts from his unpublished autobio printed in BACK DOOR MAN can be believed, was one completely off-the-wall rocker which is something easily discerned from his extensive telling of his childhood booger memories!) to some early Johnny Burnette Rock 'n' Roll Trio sides (might-T primal) and best of all two tracks from an unnamed acetate featuring some of the craziest sub-garage band sputum to ever get issued amongst some already-deranged sides! People were always wondering about the roots of punk rock back inna seventies, and if this scronker came out back then we wouldn't have to had heard loads of "experts" tracing the sound back to Frank Zappa! If you living under the delusion that mid/late-fifties rock & roll was all HAPPY DAYS-inspired fluff listen to this 'un and please re-evaluate your rather off-kilter thoughts!

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The Human Arts Ensemble-LIVE IN TRIO PERFORMANCES VOLUME 1 (Circle, Germany)

And finally for today's record soiree comes this rarity that was recorded at the 1978 Moers Jazz Festival and released on the Circle label, a company that I believe existed only to release the music that was recorded at that fest and nothin' but! Anyhoo, this disc features half of the Human Arts Ensemble (Charles "Bobo" Shaw's Black Arts Group-backed seventies aggregate) in performance, this half featuring saxophonist Luther Thomas along with bassist John Linberg and Shaw working it out in a pretty snat fashion that really reminds me of all the fun I had watching those Sunday night free jazz performances at the CBGB Lounge that really re-opened my eyes to a lotta the avantness that still abounded even that late in the new millenium game. Thomas's style is not unlike that of Albert Ayler's only with a more seventies sense of jazz cynicism (y'know, that beyond-belief drive that pretty much replaces the myopic love vision of the previous decade) while Linberg plucks and arcos free enough for my tastes and Shaw was one of the better free play drummers to come out of the seventies if you ask me. If you can, try finding volume two which has Shaw playing a set with other half Joseph Bowie on trombone and guitarist James Emory playing equally off-tangent even when they're doing yet another version of "Concere Natashiah," perhaps thee signature song of the group!