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COMM-A-RAMA II

Hey! I really liked the idea of writing nothin' but short 'n maybe not-so-sweet reviews of some of my recent Cee-Dee acquisitions a coupla weeks back so much that I decided to re-live past glories and whip up few quickies regarding this week's batch o' newies! Howzat for hopping on a new trend when I see one comin'!

The Blue Humans featuring Rudolph Grey-INCANDESCENCE CD (Shock, England)

Here's a Humans disque I missed out on for some reason when it was released way back whenever, probably because it didn't come out on New Alliance or Ecstatic Peace! Rec'd live June '88 at (where else but) CBGB, this one features not only one of our favorite "crossover" guitarists but Borbetomagus' Jim Sauter on saxophone and the late great Beaver Harris doing their best to create more mind-addled dissonance and blues within the grueling span of a twenty-minute set. I love this one not only because Grey's certainly in tip-top form this go 'round and Sauter's inciting the spirit of Coltrane while Harris tries to give Sunny Murray a run for the money, but because a certain someone (whom I more or less helped introduce to Grey way back in the day) is not playing on second guitar thus I have no reason to boycott this 'un out of some perhaps misguided self-pride. Still, a powerful, cataclysmic set. When's the Grey bio comin' out anyway???

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Dashiell Hedayat-OBSOLETE CD (Mantra, France)

Sheesh, I know I'm pretty ancient if only because I can remember when this was "album of the week" on the old WKSU-FM "Fresh Air" show back in 1978. And although it took me thirty years to buy the tham ding all I gotta say is better now 'n much later! Basically a Gong album, OBSOLETE has Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth helping out as well as fellow Gongster Didier Malherbe, Canterbury scenester Pip Pyle and even William Burroughs and Robert's turdler son Sam contribute a few bits o' insanity! Oh yeah, and it's all held together by this Hedayat guy who besides playing guitar does some keyboards and sings all over the place which I guess he's allowed to do because it's his session! Those of you who like the smart continental prog of the very-early seventies probably already have this in your collections by now. The rest of us will catch up one of these days...I hope!

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Johnny Lunchbreak-APPETIZER/SOUP'S ON CD (Numero Group)

A load of postmortem armchairing regarding this mid-seventies Connecticut band has been shoveled about the rockosphere as of late, and given the story behind Johnny Lunchbreak you'd ponder that they'd be one of those top-ranking underground garage band wonders I'm always on the lookout for. After all, these guys even rated an appearance at the fabled New York City watering hole Club 82 (and they hadda drive back home directly after the show so's they could be at their day jobs next morn!) and something like that would get the attention span of a rockism-oriented anal retentive like myself all hopped up, right? Turns out that Johnny Lunchbreak were a good group but nothing spectacular, with some fine suburban rock moments but nothing much that would really light a fire under the more avid aficionados of Amerigan garage-punk forms. Maybe if you could imagine a cross between LOADED and...whatever the Bee Gees were doing at the time? (At least that's sorta what the hypesheets say!) Nice, but not engaging enough.

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Link Wray-WHITE LIGHTNING; THE LOST CADENCE SESSIONS '58 CD (Sundazed)

Didja ever wonder why Cadence Records never released a full-length el-pee on the strength of Link Wray's '58 cruncher "Rumble"? Turns out that there actually was an album recorded by Link and his Wraymen on the basis of "Rumble"'s pimple-popping popularity, but Cadence bigwig Archie Bleyer nixed the thing because he thought Wray's music was a corrupting influence on the youth of Ameriga! Sheesh, only a grade-a turd would believe something as stupid as Link Wray being the ruination of Our Youth's morals...no wonder Arthur Godfrey fired him! Well it took a good fifty years for this to come out but come out it did, and as you'd guess it is a wowzer of a platter featuring Link and crew in that great low-fi rumblin' mode cranking out a good number of boss instrumentals and even a vocal from Link that's surprisingly tame but like I ain't gonna burn my Wray records in protest! A raw performance from an already-rawed out group that almost sounds like garage demo versions of tracks later made popular on Epic, and you don't have to be told that this is a definite must for not only followers of Wray but anyone who claims to pledge allegiance to all of those old KICKS fanzines that winged their way to our abodes back in the sterile eighties! But I'll tell ya anyways!

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MOBY GRAPE '69 CD (Sundazed)

I always thought that the general concensus was that '69 was a close but no cigar comeback after WOW's earnest but misguided excesses. Well, since I've come to love those "excesses" on the second Grape outing it ain't like I think there's anything for this group to rebound from! I still find this 'un a fine mix of the folk, blues and country-rock (with a li'l acid tossed in) that was more in line with where San Francisco should have been at the end of the decade 'stead of with the Jefferson Airplane dabbling in lousy revolutionary humor ("Which stripe on the flag is your favorite"...sheeeeesh) or the Dead getting into their CSN&Y trip. Now dear readers, should I dish out the dough for TRULY FINE CITIZEN, the fourth in the series of Columbia-period Moby Grape albums? Like with Todd Rundgren's SOMETHING/ANYTHING, the choice is up to YOU! And you know where you can leave your vote...inna comment box!!!

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OK, they were longer than even I wanted them, but they sure beat those ten-paragraph borgasms I've been cranking out, hunh?