Sunday, March 31, 2013

Good news kiddies, it's Eastertime again just like it was last year around the same time. 's funny how Easter used to have a special meaning for me back when I was a youth because I knew that when Easter came around could summer vacation be far behind? Of course that was before it finally dawned on me that Easter comes early some years and late others, a fact which did confound me when I was about ten or so and it was snowing one Easter when it was nice 'n sunnylike the previous one. Back then it took a loooong time for facts like this to sink into my simianesque brain, and come to think of it things still take quite a while longer to make it into the grey room than they should for a man of my advanced caliber (and age). Frankly I could care less. I mean...in these post-life is worth living days do trivialities like this matter? And besides, there will be no more summer breaks for me, and come to think of it the next break I'm gonna get is probably gonna be death so why should I pine away for a long vacation anyway when its undoubtedly gonna be a few eons in Purgatory.

Anyway a Happy Easter to you and yours (and mine as well), and although I always thought Easter chocolate ain't as good as chocolate from other holidays (too thick and waxy for me) unless you're talking about Cadbury or Reese's eggs I hope you enjoy your baskets brimming with plastic hay and maybe even a fluffy bunny doll or two. And to all my Zoroastrian  readers happy Naw Ruz 'n I do mean it!
***
One thing that always makes me wanna puke, and puke in a totally gut-wrenching even splatter the rim of the toilet until it runs down the side of the bowl kinda way, is when your typical touchy-feely types present an article or photo or whatnot for approval and mention, as if to heighten the desired response they so crave, just how "heartbreaking" the item in question "undoubtedly" will be. Now I like cliches...in fact I use them as often as I can...but you just know that whenever some spiritual descendant of Eleanor Roosevelt uses the word "heartbreaking" or says that some sob story will "break your heart" (AOL/Huffpo being the greatest offender) it's just another cheap ploy to elicit those sensitive weepies from the same people who cry over every cause that comes down the line but LOOK THE OTHER WAY when a story or happening just doesn't fit their frisbee-tossing worldview no matter how gut-wrenching and truly emotion-packed it may be. Y'know, the same snifflers who rend garment over every white on black crime whether real or imagined and still hold the Matthew Sheppard case up as an example of rampant Amerigan-bred evil, all the while ignoring all the TRUTH regarding what really did happen in the vast majority of these cases because it just wouldn't jibe with their worldviews. The same upper-crust echelon who could hardly care less when thugs shoot a fourteen-month-old kid in the face during a robbery attempt, a crime which to me is way more vile and heinous than the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman debacle of last year yet hardly rates a blip on these enlightened type's emote meter. Or howabout the constant progressive portrayal of lower/midclass Amerigans as pot-bellied baldoid meat-eating guys who sit in front of the tee-vee alla time when its those guys who are out doing the working and begrudgingly paying taxes just so's they can give a hefty hunk of their paycheck to support the same people who loathe 'em with a vengeance. Now that's heartbreaking, and in a totally non-millionaire Marxist way at that!

Which reminds me of a story Al Capp brought up in the forward to a 1978 LI'L ABNER collection regarding his transformation from a thirties lib to a proto-neocon. Y'see, some photographer had approached Capp in the mid-sixties saying that she made a deal with a big name publisher stating that if Capp would provide witty captions to her photographs they'd get printed. I guess she was one of those new realist types, and the famed cartoonist, eager to help out some up and coming talent, agreed to provide snappy asides and retorts right off the top of his head.

Capp was shown the photos, and accordingly tried his best to provide humorous responses to what he saw. Then it came to the last one. "This will break your heart" the femme photographer said before showing him a photo of a rundown urban street strewn with trash, all the while a number of teens were sitting on a front porch smoking and drinking and generally having a fun time. Quick to wit, Capp blurted out something along the lines of "Why don't you kids get off your asses and clean your street up!" at which point the gal stormed out of the room huffing all the while! Good bye book deal, and hello to Capp's new found political outlook.

Frankly, hardly anything breaks my heart anymore, undoubtedly because there's hardly anything out there worthy of breaking my heart in this radical/gay/bastard/mollycoddling world where the stupid and ugly are praised and rewarded and the ideals of righteousness and justice have been twisted beyond recognition. Like I ain't gonna be crying when bad things happen to bad people (and don't kid yourself, you know what "good" and "bad" are even though the world has been trying to deny it for the past 500 years). However I came across this particular article courtesy none other than Jim Goad (yeah, the same Jim Goad who put out ANSWER ME! and THE REDNECK MANIFESTO and now writes some pretty good definitely non "heartbreaking" pieces for the fantastic TAKI'S MAGAZINE), and I gotta admit that although my heart didn't bleed like a poetry lover's does over a broken flower I felt a whole lot more sympatico with the story of Bucky Goad than I did with the ones regarding all of those AIDS patients that had liberals sobbing hefty heaps of body fluids back inna eighties (while smugly poo-pooing the plight of everyday folk who die from more common, and less "lifestyle"-related maladies which tear holes in families at a greater rate than a slew of fashionable diseases ever could).

I dunno, but I wasn't on one of my food deprivation days which might affect the ol' brainjuice flow a tad, nor had I taken any analgesic which might give me a tad loopy feeling. Undoubtedly I felt strongly about this story because frankly, Bucky wasn't exactly one of those people who the chic and fashionable would want to rally around like they used to do with the Black Panthers and Ruben "Hurricane" Carter. Come to think of it, I'm sure even the folk at the local schools and churches would have wanted to steer clear of him, or at least brush him off as an abnormality that would go away. A real fall through the cracks kinda guy, someone who needed that all-important help but wasn't severe or drastic enough for anyone to give it to him. He also needed that attention and nurturing (in the right parental way) but got stuck with a father of the old school who believed in a few hard whaps before, during and after as well as a mother who was more or less content to stick her head in the sand to avoid the shame of it all. And yeah, I know how that feels given my extremely erratic behavior as a youth which certainly could have used to honest to goodness "professional help" yet was denied it, only to be handled by people such as my teachers who, while "having good intentions," certainly didn't know what the hell they were doing considering the scatterbrained jerkoff I was and shall remain. As if anybody wouldn't have known that from the get go, but people who oh-so obviously knew better reap what they sew, and I'm the bumper crop!

Maybe that's why I can really understand the entire story behind Bucky. It kinda makes me feel that, although I did grow up intact and lived comfortably and all, maybe I (and perhaps even youdid get the shaft worse off'n all of those poor kids who maybe didn't have all the opportunities that were offered you at least had their minds and sanity to guide 'em through. Kinda makes me wonder how alla 'em other kids I saw who got slapped and humiliated beyond belief as a kid turned out, and if they were all as scrambled as I turned out I wouldn't doubt it in an instant.
***
There I go, feeling sorry for myself (if through someone else who for once in history deserves pity even though he wouldn't want any in a millyun years!)...well gee, I can't help it if only because I'm such a sympathetic kinda guy...I mean, who with a heart, soul and mind WOULDN'T feel sorry for me! All kidding aside (well, not really...I mean if you wanna feel sorry for me go right ahead!) here are this week's top of the slops.


Ornette Coleman-THE EMPTY FOXHOLE CD (Blue Note)

The first of the Ornette Denardo  releases, and OD plays as beautifully sympatico to pop's works as Billy Higgins or Ed Blackwell ever did. Charlie Haden stays in the background which is better'n him being at the forefront because whenever he's taking over things just aren't just quite cohesive. Of course Ornette the Elder is doing fine not only on alto but trumpet and violin, an instrument which when played with Haden's arco bass and OD's drums reminds me of future Revolutionary Ensemble endeavors even if Ornette and Leroy Jenkins are separated by a few measures of styling. But gawrsh, the fact that a kid like OD could actually play on his father's album and not stick out like a vain sore thumb like Linda McCartney did really does say something about the concept of fresh playing and approach in free jazz, and really don't it make you wish you had a father like Ornette now, hunh?
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Archie Shepp and Roswell Rudd-LIVE IN NEW YORK CD-R burn (originally on Verve Soundscape)

How long ago was it that Gary Giddins said that Archie Shepp's "embouchure was all fucked up"? The late eighties I presume. Funny, this was recorded in 2000 and Shepp sounds full enough here. Of course he ain't playing wild and free like he was in the sixties (and I always thought Rudd was nothing but dead weight and his FLEXIBLE FLYER album on Arista/Freedom was one of the worst of the batch) and the general performance is so restrained that even my Aunt Petunia would like this. And she's been dead for twenny-five years!

Shepp's piano playing is also worthwhile as is his singing, but it ain't like he was pouring his soul out with bitter anger like he did on "Poem For Malcolm" back when he was getting hotcha players like Anthony Braxton to record with him. This is the sound of a man whose best years are far behind him and who has strayed so far from the earlier righteous fire music that drew in many a fan that it's impossible to hear just how he inspired the MC5 to create those soaring spectaculars that they gained fame with. Stick with the BYG and Impulse sides and venture this way with as much caution as you can dare to muster up.
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THE MANY MOODS OF VENISON WHIRLED CD-R (Kendra Steiner Editions)

Latest in the long line of KSE ltd. ed. releases, and the first one to escape the old cover scheme which might make this a collector's fave. Venison Whirled (aka Lisa Cameron) creates some rather craze-oid "musique concrete" here with the aid of everything from tapes, contact mics, kalimbas and even a vibrator (!), and the results bring to mind everything from UFO-period Guru Guru and "John, John, Let's Hope For Peace" to even that track on George Harrison's ELECTRONIC SOUND he ripped off of that guy from Beaver and Krause. Also detected some of the Musica Electronica Viva/AMM album on Mainstream's influences within the...'er...grooves. A rather engaging one that, like the rest of the KSE label output, ain't gonna be gettin' spun on Sirius Radio any day soon.
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REBECCA AND THE SUNNYBROOK FARMERS CD-R burn (originally on Musicor)

Bill Shute sent me this probably because I was joking with him about burning a copy for me for the past two years or so. Now that I have this the jokes are naturally going to stop. Thanks a heap, Bill!

Actually not bad, for a bunch of hippies that is. With some work it coulda been Savage Rose. Halfway decent melodies and mostly good vocalizing (though I can't forgive the Dylan imitation that opens this) makes this one of those off-label (in this case Musicor) efforts that was trying to cash in on a Jefferson Airplane vibe but didn't quite get there. At times even exciting, jazzy and something that sounded totally dated by the time 1972 rolled around. Nothing special, but better'n the usual hippydippy relevance that was gushing forth around the same nanosecond.
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Various Artists-RATFINKS ON HUSHABYE MOUNTAIN CD-R burn 

Bill doesn't bill this as a "Thrift Shop" collection, but in some ways it could be. Nice splattering of various deep in the collection trackage from the Chipmunks doing "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" to Ken Thorne's themes to two biggies of the 1963-64 season, PETTICOAT JUNCTION and THE RICHARD BOONE SHOW which surprising enough was running directly opposite the Paul Henning classic. A few Joe Meek productions also pepper up the platter, and Tony Bennett even shows up to perform "Eleanor Rigby" and a song that's listed on the sleeve as being "MacArthur Park" but sure ain't. The non-LP Pink Fairies single shows up as well, as does Allan Sherman's "Rag Mop" rewrite "Rat Fink" which is even better than Crawlspace's version, and I do mean it!!! (really!)
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AFTERGLOW CD-R burn (originally on MTA)

I know I have the original Cee Dee version tucked away somewhere in my collection. I mean, I was so whacked out by the inclusion of their track "Susie's Gone" on BEYOND THE CALICO WALL (boffo acid punk inna PEBBLES VOL. 3 vein) that I snapped this 'un up via Bill Finneran as soon as I got hold of his latest catalog. Oh well, Bill's inclusion of this in his latest package only gives me an excuse to give this 'un another listen, and listen to it I most surely did!

Those of you who would be expecting a total acid punk excursion based on "Susie's Gone" will be in for a surprise, since AFTERGLOW (and Afterglow) were a rather talented straight-ahead psychedelic pop group that sounded like a garage band Association with elements of late-sixties AM baroque pop a la the Left Banke or at least Montage. Well-produced for a small label deal and musically proficient at least to the point where you won't puke...good enough harmony vocals and classical enough keyboards give it a classier than you'd expect feeling. If you still go for the likes of the David and other mid/late-sixties under-the-radarscope aggregates that got lost in the shuffle because they just weren't gettin' out there, this "could" put a smile on your face!
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Various Artists-BLACK AND WHITE PIANO, VOLUME 2 CD-R burn (originally on Document Records, Austria)

I mean, like wha' the heck with the title? Aren't all pianos black 'n white anyway???  So despite the obvious title wha' 'cha' get here are more of those old 78 tracks from the archives, this time of rare piano music of a jazzbo or jellyroll style that really helped make for a nice relaxing Saturday afternoon here at the BTC office. A lot, like Frank Melrose' "Cosmic," reminds me of Duke Ellington at his suavest, while others continue on the old ragtime bounce that continues to live on, at least among collectors of old silent films who buy their wares from miniscule dealers who've been in the business for seemingly ages. Names to watch out for...Kansas City Frank, Alex Hill, Cass Simpson and who could forget Smith/Irvine!
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AND IN CLOSING, just take a gander at this li'l beaut from the archives entitled INSIDE POP  - THE ROCK REVOLUTION which I believe was one of those oft-heard about but seldom seen affairs that did rank "some importance" among people following the rock 'n roll music scene of the '66/'67 cusp. The reason I plucked this one outta the youtube files is because Don Fellman called me last night and brought up Janis Ian's appearance on this very special along with host Leonard Bernstein's framing commentary regarding the song "Society's Child." Don remembered Bernstein saying certain things which he wanted to clarify after a good 47 years of not seeing this special, and after playing him not only Bernstein's comments but Ian miming the entire song (as a joke...y 'see, Fellman hates "Society's Child"!) it turns out that the line Fellman remembers Bernstein saying was not in the program! Makes me wonder if Darnold (as I affectionately call him) correctly remembers Ian's appearance on THE JOEY BISHOP SHOW singing the same song with Phil Silvers actually saying to her that if he had a daughter he'd want her to be just like Janis, which is strange because he already had a daughter who I'll bet wasn't too pleased with what pop said!

But digging this 'un out for Don was a good excuse to watch the entire special which I personally think tops a whole bunch of those other CBS REPORTS-type shows which tried to be so informative and understanding while usually falling flatter'n a DICK TRACY villain's head. Bernstein's actually passable as a member of the older generation admitting what he likes and dislikes in the new rock, although his attempts in helping to make it all the more "respectable" should be condemned considering some of the quap that came out after more and more intellectuals began paying attention to rock as "culture" instead of rock as avant garde. At other times, such as in the opening discussion between he and some unnamed longhair kiddo, he seems more like music's answer to Dave Berg with all of that New York enlightened liberal pose that's still in fashion (sad to say). Surprisingly enough, the aforementioned Janis Ian segment is actually hotcha which is hard for an Ian-hater like myself to admit, as is the fact that "Society's Child"'s actually a nice well-constructed slab of gussied up mid-sixties folk rock. But that's only because of Shadow Morton's snazzy production because otherwise it's just a whiny post-menarche girly drool bedroom folkie number ...eh!

The second portion's typical CBS news slog-through documentary featuring Herman's Hermits and the Hollies on and off-stage as well as a particularly irritating (due to both the interviewer and interviewees) segment where some Canned Heat member and some Gentle Soul and UFOs' (including future Lyman Family member Lisa Kindred) get uptight discussing the concept of love to the point where you think they were gonna break the interviewer's neck! Clips of Tim Buckley performing and Frank Zappa pontificating also pop up, as do the not-yet-Roger Jim McGuinn talking about drugs and Brian Wilson performing an early version of "Surf's Up" which didn't see the light of vinyl until a good five or so years later!

Y'know, I just coulda seen some suburban ranch house family watching this when it was broadcast, with mom 'n pop in utter shock over the subject of hidden meanings in lyrics and mixed combos while Junior was bummed out because some of the wilder and less inhibited acts of the day were unceremoniously left outta the thing! Too bad these kinda situations are long gone from the same kinda homes that probably used to bicker endlessly over the values set forth in an episode of ALL IN THE FAMILY...nowadays parents are probably concerned that their kids aren't getting enough nookie by age twelve and whether or not can afford all the tattoos their own folk so vehemently denied 'em! Sheesh, it's enough to make any self-respecting adolescent wanna go 'n join the castratis!

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

BOOK REVIEW! GULCHER, POST ROCK CULTURAL PLURALISM IN AMERICA (1649-1993) by Richard Meltzer (Citadel 1972-1990)

Whenever the shameless realities of life overcome my soul, there is only one place for me to go and that is to my bookshelf. And on that bookshelf is a volume that soothes my inner turmoil and reaffirms my place on this planet in a way which no other book can. Yes, in these troubled times when it seems as if there is no hope or reason to exist, there is but one book for us all to turn to for that reaffirmation, that clear bolt from beyond which beckons to us that we are not alone and there is a force greater than us with a master plan for each and every true believer and follower who dares to take The Word and spread the Good News for all creation.

It's no surprise that GULCHER has been thee top bedside reader for me these past few evenings, what with the plethora of inspiration and total energy compacted into mere words that author Richard (then "R.") Meltzer poured into every page of pure atomic might. A total expression of punk rock high energy ideals, ideas and perhaps even a posit or two written at a time when punkitude was mostly in the realm of a handfulla bi-coastal rock pundits still in shock that the Seeds were no more and that Melanie Safka was still among the living. A book that, when read and savored to peak perfection, says more about you (and me) as suburban slob workaday pimplefarm blobs and the world we live in than any ROLLING STONE screed would dare. Articulate, and accurate enough to the point where I can put a lock on my door but I can't put one on my MIND because Meltzer somehow has already gotten there and how he did it I'll never know!

GULCHER is about CULTURE or even KULTUR, but not the same culture you get going to see the symphony orchestra or reading Shakespeare. More like culture in everyday matters that affect you. Stuff like television (back when it was geared towards the t-shirt with dribblestains crowd and not some unworldly metrosex type), food, record covers, radio (ditto re. TV), and stuff (and snuff!) that never mattered to me and probably never will like hardcore drugs, sex and sports but why be picky. There's even a chapter on feminine hygiene for you lady readers out there. In other words, this is as perfect a collection for the BLOG TO COMM trendsetting type as THE PLAYBOY PHILOSOPHY was to sixties baldoid plumps who wanted to "get some" but were too ugly to or perhaps the gals around were ugly as well and who wants to get intimate with an ugly even if you are one yourself?

Of course this is Meltzer in full force, writing in that gonzoidl way which even made all of those budget bin acts he was writing about in THE AESTHETICS OF ROCK (and The Innocence) sound like the most driving underground experience one could imagine. It really could be said that Meltzer writes the same way his (former?) bandmates Smegma play, cutting a total swath through sonic (or in this case printed) matter while clinging to the traditional heart of it all, sometimes at the very same second.

The chapters in GULCHER (with tasty come-on headings such as "2700 Music Lovers Are Dumb Bunnies," "Those Pre-Code Tits" and "Amusement Parkinson's") do read like a variety of "Pumice" and related columns that Meltzer had done throughout the seventies for a nice variety of magazines ranging from CREEM and FUSION to RAUNCHY ROCK, and each of 'em are as powerful and as timely (to you as a suburban slob post [I hope] pimplefarm) here in the jaded teens as they were forty years back. And if you still chortle over the vast variety of Meltzer scribbling atrocities unleashed during the GOLDEN AGE OF ROCK WRITING (not "criticism") like I tend to, such as the one about the three-part GILLIGAN'S ISLAND where Mr. Howell lectures the castaways on the make-up of the lung which continues to stick in my mind like a glob of peanut butter sandwich in the windpipe, then you will most definitely appreciate the solid ins/outs and whythehells that make GULCHER such an important rock 'n roll book. Almost as important as the various CREEM and Richard Robinson histories of rock paperbacks that also tended to take music that we always thought was mundane and give it at least a little energetic backdrop that made us listen to a whole number of bands differently, even though we still thought they were mostly gunk.

Personal fave in this volume just HASTA be "TV's Tussle For Life" (page 61), where Meltzer lists a whopping 32 ideas for a television series starring none other than ex-boxer Rocky Graziano who was then getting into the pizza pie business! Meltzer even offers some mighty fine suggestions too which would top just about anything that prevailing on the tube these sorry times from a quiz show to Rocky as a convict and ex-barber who tries a new and different career each week! "Bebop Confidential" (page 81) is also a stunner if only for chapter closer "THIS MONTH'S JASS QUIZ: Which member of the Pete Jolly Sextet has a daughter who is a retard?" You may have your favorites as well, and if so go get your own blog, OK?

And yeah there are some fair-weather BLOG TO COMM readers who would most undoubtedly be "offended" in the most Victorian/Politically Pious way over some of the opines spewed forth, but then again they were the same kinda people registered shock at my "Funny Captions For Robert Mapplethorpe Photos" bit in a later issue of my crudzine because it ran against their hotsy totsy upper-echelon values so snub 'em while you still can!

Definitely worth (re)reading once a year. You need to get your head re-aligned with the planets, y'know.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Yez, it's just one of those weeks where nothing exciting really happens. As if anything exciting (in the world of music, tee-vee, radio, food...) has really been happenin' in quite some time. Music sheesh...I mean rock 'n roll (as a force to really consider) lasted until no later than '68 as some well-known prophet once said (though punk/underground was a valiant if vain attempt to recover lost ground) while tee-vee began its dive from the second Golden Age (roughly 1972-1979) into a well-deserved oblivion ages back. And as for radio, that medium that "spoke for all of us kids" well...I guess kids weren't worth being spoken for if AOR and Top 40 is what was doin' the speakin' for 'em, and has food really been worth eatin' ever since they took  Shake-A-Puddin' off the market? Well, we all gotta eat and all, but I sure liked eatin' better when Chinese restaurants were more geared towards quality dishes such as Wor Shau Duck and not just pumpin' the usual stir fry out for budget conscious retirees at buffets.

I had a li'l fun this week watching some rare Ed Wood Jr. filmage that's recently been discovered. SUN WAS SHINING (1951) comes off exactly like some fifties half-hour religious program that was still getting shown on Sunday Morning tee-vee well into the sixties, only it's fifteen minutes long and doesn't have any overt religious message that I could discern. It is a nifty drama about this lady who's not long for the world and wants to have one final night out on the town even though the excitement might kill her. Moving in its own realistic way (no foolin'!), and not only that but watch for Phyllis Coates herself in the best friend role. FINAL CURTAIN (1957) is about twenty minutes of Poe-ish narration (courtesy Dudley Manlove) regarding an actor in an abandoned theatre who senses strange spirits before finding a casket, and crawling into it. Might seem like kiddie caga to you, but frankly if I was three years old and this 'un popped up on the tee-vee screen you could bet I would be runnin' outta the room just as much as I did when the Conelrad logo would suddenly appear with that voice of doom announcer voice followed by the high-pitched screech and...sheesh, there I went 'n peed my pants again!

Another thing that's been pumping up my free time as of late's been the spinning of disc #14 taken from Bill Shute's ever-desirous SURFSIDE SIX collection. You all know of my eternal love 'n gratitude for the early-mid-sixties breed of television (which I never could get enough of throughout the years), so Bill's li'l gift sure came in handy for a guy like me who just pines away for the return of the 1958-1966 television seasons (emphasis on 1961-1964) if only to rescue me from the drudgery we now call the "new" and "improved" future that we're now living in. These Warner Brothers detective shows that helped keep ABC from keeling over well into the seventies really do suit me fine...true they were all cookie-cutter made and certainly nothing that the intellectual snobs who watched PERRY MASON would go for, but they all had great plots, great acting, great entertainment value and best of all they didn't pound a whole lotta midclass suburban slob shame on you like way too many modern day programs most certainly do. What I really like about SURFSIDE SIX (and the other WB series like 77 SUNSET STRIP, HAWAIIAN EYE and maybe even BOURBON STREET BEAT and THE ROARING TWENTIES if I ever would be lucky enough to see any of 'em!) is that the leading characters, in this case Troy Donahue, Lee Patterson and future Green Hornet Van Williams, are likable enough because they don't come off like squeaky-clean goody-two shoes who are so antiseptic and high horse moral that you end up rooting for the bad guys. I mean the bad guys can be pretty admirable in their own down and dirty way, but the stars come off real early-sixties slick and wild in the most admirable to suburban slobs fashion possible and not only that but they get to hang around with the best looking dolls you'll ever get to see on pre-feminist froth television no doubt about it! Yeah, no ugly crones are gonna contact these private eyes for help finding a lost husband (or lost bulldyke for that matter) which is something we can ALL be thankful for!

(And one interesting, heart-toasting aside)...the private eyes, or at least one of 'em on the show gets to drive around town in a white 1962 Pontiac convertible which really hits me right inna breadbasket because that's the exact earliest vehicle that I can recall my fambly having ever since the dawn of time, or at least ever since my own memory cells were in full function! That's right, we also had a '62 Pontiac convertible which held up pretty good at least until 1967, at which point we got a '67 Pontiac convertible which was nice though not as good looking as the original because by then automobiles had pretty much lost their boffo early-sixties stylings! Of course the guys on this high-budget network series drove around in one of the higher-ranking brands of Pontiac like the Bonneville or Grand Prix...we hadda settle for the more economy priced and less-chromed up Catalina in order to save some kopeks, but we did have one with a maroon interior which was made up especially to my mother's specifications! For years I would tell the kids at school we had a "customized" automobile and a whole buncha 'em were all agog, like it was a hand-crafted job right outta Pininfarina, Ghia, Bertone or any of the classier coachbuilding facilities of Italy! Naturally none of 'em believed it, but it sure made me feel all the more important and hotcha!
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Bad news. I had to remove Mark Jenkins' (he of HYPERION fame) blog from the roll at left because his "sponsor," namely BLURT ONLINE, was found to contain malware virus that could affect not only your, but my computer. Sorry I had to let it go since Jenkins' snide and sublimely sarcastic writing was, and remains, something that we sure could use more of here in these rockhack times when gracious goo is rewarded over gonzo grate. Of course Jenkins only had a handfulla entries on said blog before he abandoned it, but reading that great Michael Jackson obituary which came to bury and not to praise is still worth the price of admission, especially after reading the roars of "racism" being directed at Jenkins via the comments box solely because the guy dared to mention a few uncomfortable truths that don't mesh with the legend. Dunno what you think, but nowadays I get the idea that "racism" means any criticism of a non-white person no matter how innocent, light and non-threatening it may be. Unless it's Sammy Davis Jr...I mean, he deserved everything that came his way!
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Got the usual old, new, borrowed and fanabla for you this week. Still trying to stave off the shock of modern (and anti/post-rock) living by digging into the archives for sustenence as well as relying on the ever-pouring in Bill Shute Cee-Dee-Are burns which do satiate, at least when they play that is. (Bill, if you sent me a DVD or CD-R and it ain't been reviewed, that's probably because the thing ain't spinnin' on my machine for some stroonad reason and it ain't like I'm actually ignoring the thing!) But still, I sure do long for the days of yore, at least the ones where I could pour through a record shop, flea market stacks and catalogs galore and wanna buy at least 50% of the goodies being offered. Of course back then I might have been able to scrape up enough $$$ to be able to afford either a cut-out (or used goodie) and have enough left over for a corn dog and just drooled over the many items I wanted for my very own but knew I would never be able to have. Now I can buy out the entire record shop and give it to the poor as Eddie Haskell might have said, only there ain't any more record shops (at least in the good ol' backwaters way) and I don't even think the poor still have their old Victrolas in up and working order come to think of it!

So as I say every week, without further somethingorother...

 
Various Artists-PEBBLES PRESENTS: YA GOTTA HAVE MOXIE VOLUME ONE 2-CD set (AIP/Moxie)

I guess picking the BOMP 2, BORN IN THE GARAGE book offa the shelf last night influenced me enough to get me digging into the ol' collection for this oft-ignored wonder, none other than Greg Shaw's very own tribute to his friendly (and long dead) competitor Dave Gibson's Moxie label! And as far as sixties punkist concerns go I'm sure that all of you aging collector punk types remember who Dave was! I mean, who could forget this down-to-earth collector geek turned record label head and particularly his various BOULDERS, GARAGE ZONE and EP collections that came out via Moxie and a number of offshoot labels back in the days when we all thought there was still a strong connection between underground rock of a mid-sixties variety and that of an early-eighties one!

If you were a big fan and follower of "six-oh" garage band trends, it's more than likely that you owned quite a few records that Gibson released on his wide variety of label. Besides a good eleven or so volumes of  the flagship BOULDERS albums just jam-packed with both the familiar and downright rarites, there were also a variety of interesting extended plays he released including the one featuring nothing but Chocolate Watchband single sides, one of 1962/3-vintage Zappa productions, some pre-ZZ Top Moving Sidewalks (with a boffo cover featuring some fifties automobile that I understand inspired the group to use one in an upcoming video!) and even an early-sixties instrumental surf sides including the whacked out "LSD 025" by The Gamblers featuring Elliot Ingber. Heck, there was even a Zachary Thaks album as well as an actually live 13th Floor Elevators platter, and the entire Moxie catalog seemed like manna for garage punk freaks in 1979 who never thought any of this grub would ever see the light of day!

It might seem like piddle to some, but back in 1981 getting a load of Moxie records was cause for celebration here in the BLOG TO COMM abode not only for the loads of rare material they contained but because these records, in their cheap low-fidelity, really radiated a fun prowl through the box of old toys charm dredging up old memories of what it was like back when these records in their original configurations were available for the first time and rock 'n roll was a cheap funtime excursion for kids just as much as late-afternoon tee-vee reruns and trips to Kiddie City!

Most collector scum types tended to hate Gibson and Moxie because of his cheap pressings and lack of care in mastering and packaging the thing. Sheesh, I even remember getting a sealed copy of one of the later BOULDERS volumes, I believe the sixth, which had some crud fixated between the shrinkwrap and the cover...upon pulling the album outta the sleeve I discovered more corruption embedded in the grooves that hadda be cleaned out before I could even think of playing it without gross harm coming to my stereo needle. Of course that was par for the course, and call me a sickie but I feel like rushing downstairs right NOW! to pull that rec outta the collection and give it a spin if only because that record did exude more than its fair share of charm and garage band energy no matter how cheap the vinyl Gibson used was!

But hey, I loved and continue to love those Moxie platters not only for their low-fidelity charm but because they presented for us the ultra-rare punkoid sides that most had only read about via fanzines such as BOMP! and of course FUTURE, and how many of us were lucky enough to have traipsed through the flea markets of the seventies like the two Gregs (Shaw and Prevost) and find these discarded self-produced wonders anyway? Not me that's for sure and shuckins, I sure didn't care if some of the tracks were taken from the scratchiest single copies extant or that you hadda crank up the volume for SRC's "Get The Picture" that started off side two of the second volume because this stuff sounded fantastic no matter how "muffled" it might have been! If you ask me (and why wouldn't you?), Gibson was doing us a great service presenting the rarest garage band sides and at rather decent prices as well, like $5.99 in 1981 money which translates into $55 today!

Eventually the quality went up and Moxie also began releasing moderne groups (starting with the Unclaimed and going up the revival ladder from there) but its the early recordings that capture my fancy. And Shaw collecting the best of 'em on to two disques was undoubtedly noble of him even if the proposed series of a Moxie reissue series never did get off the ground and Gibson's legacy wasn't altered one iota after this made it into the collections of people who were warmly reminiscing about the early-eighties, a time when they were even more warmly reminiscing about the mid-sixties.

Shaw also did the Moxie legacy one turn by using choice source material 'stead of the cruddy copies Gibson was more or less wont to stick on his various platters. Dunno what you think of this, but frankly I think Shaw only demeaned the original intent and if he wanted to do these platters justice he woulda rolled each and every one of 'em in gravel, because I'm sure Gibson woulda liked that in his own weird way.

Even with the technowhiz clean ups this collection still proves that Gibson had good tastes when it came to picking the best garage band singles at their peak perfection, and even if the guy had no aesthetic sense and his albums earned the ire of more'n a few big names out there (I remember Billy Miller mentioning something about how they sounded as if they were pressed on old rubber floormats swiped outta various early-sixties wrecks) I'd say that this 'un more than vindicates him. Great selection of tracks here ranging from mid-sixties El Lay washouts (or at least groups sounding like 'em!) to Texas obscurities, and thankfully Shaw decided to leave the more familiar (and comped to death) single sides for some of these weirdities that never did seem to get the time of day. If you must know, personal faves include the Beaver Patrol ripping off the Pretty Things mightily with "ESP," the Communication Aggregation's "Freak Out USA" (which RCA actually pumped money into when they weren't hyping the Jefferson Airplane),  the Chylds' "Hey Girl,"  the Basooties' version of the Mothers' "You Didn't Try to Call Me" and the Cindermen (of "Don't Do It Some More" fame) singing a particularly down and disgusting "Don't Knock It" complete with Chipmunk background vocals. You may have your faves, and given the company my faves keep I ain't gonna knock you one bit because this 'un's programmed perfectly w/o a turdster to be found in the batch!

Like I said Gibson is no longer with us (which I guess is why the Moxie catalogs stopped coming...I thought I just got dropped from the roster!) but the music lives on. Come to think of it Shaw is long gone as well, and somehow I can imagine the two palling around in the afterlife sharing musical anecdotes and generally living it up even though they are both deader than doornails. But then again, if the pair went "down there" who knows what turmoil would befall them...I mean, there's probably nothing but Barry Manilow records and Anastasia Pantsios press releases to pour through in Hades and you know they wouldn't have it any other way, and if such a fate befell the two boy do I feel sorry for them!
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Freddie Hubbard-BREAKING POINT CD-R burn (originally on Blue Note)

"Aw Sheeeee..." as Archie Bunker used to say. I thought this was going to be the soundtrack to the 1963-1964 BEN CASEY spinoff series BREAKING POINT, the show where Edouard Franz dealt with sicknesses of the gray matter the same way that Vince Edwards dealt with sicknesses of the body. Turns out this is an album of jazz by trumpeter Freddie Hubbard who probably nicked the title from the series because this came out '64 way as well. Fine enough bop that, while not as soul-searing as the new thing being touted around the same time, still manages to come up with more than a few moments of drive and energy. Of course I would trample over it to get to FREE JAZZ, but I'm sure glad I heard it.
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Various Artists-SPIKY DREAD ISSUE ONE: PUNKY REGGAE & POST DUB 1978-1984 CD (Rongo Rongo, available from Forced Exposure)

As you may know I never did cozy up that much (if at all) to reggae music, and although Brad Kohler had tried his darndest to embarrass me into liking it I never did fall for the hype no matter how down to earth and guttural it may have been. However, I thought that a dose of mostly late-seventies/early-eighties punkisms filtered through various reggae dub techniques and musical turns would do me fine. Well yeah they do whether it be that of an Amerigan variety (the Offs, Bad Brains) or English types working closely with various Jamaican expats, but there ain't anything here that grasps my psyche the same way various other punk stylings of the same era do. I guess that only shows what a narrow minded, horse blindered sorta fellow I most truly am. Oh how I wish I could be one of those enlightened blogger types who can listen to everything from Cat Stevens to the Moon Duo, and feel so superior to everyone else because I do!
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ALLAH-LAS CD-R burn (originally on Innovative Leisure)

Allah better be praised over this El Lay garage revival combo or else he can go back to listening to alla that Moroccan market square warble for all I care! Nothing which I would call out of the ordinary (in fact they, like many of the garage aficionados from the eighties onwards, manage to leave the inner gut punch of the originals on the back porch while concentrating on the twee) but I ain't gonna pee all over this 'un because it is a nice and entertaining effort even if it falls short of the same boffo mid-sixties aesthetics that sounded so fresh to me throughout the late-seventies and into the eighties (and even afterwards!) . Don't get rid of your NUGGETS and PEBBLES albums just yet, but for a nice diversion this just might do.
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Various Artists-ROCKET INFINITY, THE GLOBAL RISE OF ROCKING MUSIC, 1942-62 10-inch LP (Mississippi, available through Forced Exposure)

Nice li'l surprise here, a ten-inch album with a cover custom made for that chain smokin' lady with the cough at the flea market's booth to sell. ROCKET INFINITY features nothing but early rockarolla ideas transmuted and re-shaped for local consumption whether that locality be the Middle East, South America or Milwaukee for all I know. So what's in store is that yer gonna get a buncha rockin' ideas being used (and mutated (by everybody from the Indians to the Arabs and even the Colombians as well, and I gotta say that they do a pretty good yob of taking the initial form and squeezing as much drive and verve outta it to suit their own tastes. A lot of this bops, even the Japanese boogie woogie number from 1949, while some (like the polka variety rocker on side two) sounds straight outta Sunday morning AM radio in these here parts. But it's all good, even the swingin' organ instrumental done by some midwest cornball and the way South of the Border rockin' rhumba beat that you would have laughed at back then, but times sometimes do change for the better.
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Electric Death-FORGOTTEN TENEMENTS CD (Electric Death Productions, available via. CD Baby)

I reviewed another one of this group's platters awhile back...too lazy to link it up so find it yourself...but here's another one by this New York trio and it's good stuff. Nothing what I'd call cartwheels all over the place spectacular, but fun enough straight ahead rock 'n rollin'  done power trio style. Not that dissimilar to the kind of CDs that various ex-Dictators/Ramones/Shrapnel types have been making since the nineties, so if you're frothing at the mouth for more this is one recordings that can't be beat!
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TOOTIE FLOOTIE, A TIPTOE THROUGH A HEARTY STACK OF THRIFT-STORE 45's TAKEN FROM MP3 BLOGS CD-R (compiled by Bill Shute)

Bill's combing the cyber-thrift shops again and boy has he picked up a beauteous bounty of fun finds without even passing by a stack of old BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS either (remember, it's all on-line and I don't even think he skipped by a BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS website to get to these either!). Some familiar trackage pops up here, such as Mick Jagger's "Memo From Turner," Buddy Holly's "Blue Days Black Nights" and the Cyrcle's "Turn Down Day," but there are also loads of fun rarities as well. A pre-Monkees Davy Jones gets to belt out "It Ain't Me Babe" sounding even twee-er than he did in the famed band, while game show host Wink Martindale's top ten hit "Deck of Cards," the story about a soldier who pulls out a deck of playing cards during a church service and explains to a commanding officer how the deck reminds him of not only the Bible but works as an almanac, also pops up! We don't get to hear whether or not the private was exonerated for his rather cunning explanation, but personally I like to think that they threw the book, or in this case maybe even the deck, at him!

Other goodies include two sides of a String-A-Longs (of "Wheels" fame) single, the Rockin' Berries trying to do the Beatles and falling sort, country musican Sammy Masters trying to latch onto the rock craze (along with a b-side entitled "Lonely Weekend" which I was hopin' was his version of the Charlie Rich smash), the Megatrons latching onto the instrumental craze and the Attack doing Jeff Beck amongst other funzies. The virtual thrift store is the next best thing to the virtual locked bathroom door, that's for sure!
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Guess that's it for now...see you for a mid-weekly review of something non-aural (and maybe non-visual for all I know!) then the usual weekend kap-POW!

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

If (according to last week's review) HONG KONG PHOOEY reminded me of loading up on MSG-laden cans of Campbell's Chicken 'n Dumplings Soup (another adolescent lunchtime favorite) on dullsville Saturday mornings, then INSIDE/OUT brings back hefty memories of rainy days off from school (whether sick or otherwise) when there was nothing better to do than watch the local PBS station because it was either that or some sissy soap opera or game show that I wasn't quite inna mood for. In fact INSIDE/OUT, along with RIPPLES, I NEED TO READ, THE MATH FACTORY and COVER TO COVER, hold a strange nostalgic grip on me if only because these were some of the first PBS shows I ever saw when the local "educational" station went on the air in 1973, and although these programs were designed for classroom viewing and were obviously way below my mental capacities I liked watching 'em the same way aging drunks used to load up on cheap wine and glom MISTER ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD! After all, they were so cheezy in their own early-seventies muttonchops and striped pants way and thus entertaining for that fact alone, and throughout the eighties and into the early-nineties these shows were way more attuned to my own sense of seventies trash-ness than any episode of THAT SEVENTIES SHOW ever could be!

Yeah, these low-budget, low-fidelity educational kid shows (which were probably meant to be thrown out along with the battered copies of YOUR WORLD AND YOU that have been vandalized over the years) really do hold up more'n any of us ever thought they would. This is probably because no matter how up-to-date and hipster the shows tried to be, there was still that great bask of WORLD WAR II GENERATION/BABY BOOMER radiation permeating INSIDE/OUT, and even though we sure had more'n our share of hipster teachers and touchy/feely relevance permeating our lives both then and most definitely now it wasn't like the specters of rampant feminism or homosexual liberation were exactly breathing down our necks. Yeah those things were there, but most people with sense knew enough to stay FAR away like they did that part of town where you can see movies for 25 cents in booths which hopefully had working plumbing...like they were smart, y'know?

Depending on your local station's afternoon schedule, INSIDE/OUT would be shown once or twice during the school week. Sometimes it might have even run it Saturday mornings, usually coupled with another fifteen-minute classroom program like BREAD AND BUTTERFLIES filling up the half-hour (this was back when the stations would usually rerun the entire SESAME STREET/ELECTRIC COMPANY/MISTER ROGERS weekly feed on Saturdays from about eight in the morning until seven or so at night). Surprisingly enough, INSIDE/OUT was popular enough that there was even an evening version called something like INSIDE/OUT FOR PARENTS TOO which basically featured the same program that the kiddies saw in school that day padded out by another fifteen minutes of an interview, usually with the child who starred in that particular program and perhaps some psychologist or sociologist in case the kid was starting to talk gibberish. This portion of the program was conducted by failed game show host and DIVORCE COURT reporter Jim Peck, who I believe was actually hosting his own ABC program at the time INSIDE/OUT was first aired around here and still nobody knew who the schmuck was. The memories of staying home from school sick some winter day and watching the original, then watching this half hour take later in the evening somehow sticks in my mind, as if it were one of the benefits of teenage illness since who else in school could have claimed to do the exact same thing! What I was studying that semester in class is a total blank, which only goes to show you where my mind was, is, and hopefully will remain.

So what the heck was this show anyway? Basically INSIDE/OUT presented fifteen-minute dramas which were basically exercises in problem solving, situation handling and other hoo-hahs presenting kids in various stages of behavioral hijinx. Sometimes the particular episode would present a situation where some kid or kids were involved in some form of personal or social turmoil all ending in a cliff-hanger (remember, these shows only lasted fifteen minutes). I'm sure that right after the class viewed the specific episode the teacher would then lead a discussion asking the students what would happen next to the characters involved,  or maybe even "rap" about what the students themselves would do if they were the protagonist and hadda make that crucial decision themselves, probably rolling her eyes at some of the smartass answers she was getting from the usual precocious suspects.

There were a few INSIDE/OUTs that were more or less standard classroom lessons about others, like the one about a visually-impaired gal who was being mainstreamed into a regular class and hadda go through the Helen Keller rigmarole of kids re-arranging the desks, but most all of these shows were created with the intent to get kids stimulated in the brain department and develop decision skills that I'm sure would come in handy-dandy in later life. Take this rather inspiring INSIDE/OUT about a wimpoid weakling who is being taunted by the class bully who could use a few lessons in acting (yeah, so what!) as well as citizenship...

(oops..video got taken down because of a copyright hoo-hah brought up by the Agency for Instructional Television!)

Now, I can just see the teacher talking with the class after they view this 'un, just praying that they will all agree that the proper thing to do is for the kid to run and get help for his now busted-up tormentor and then they will all be friends forever and ever. Good thing I wasn't in the class because I woulda told her that I'd just run off and let the kid writhe in agony until he died, and besides that abandoned barn was so far out in the boonies that by the time they did find his body it woulda been decayed beyond belief or better yet picked to the bone by various woodland creatures to the point where whoever found that bully's skeleton coulda sold it to a college for some nifty bucks, even with the busted leg! But then again I was always like that...I remember when I was in third grade we were reading a story about a Chinese boy who wanted to be part of the dragon for a Chinese New Year parade only he was too short. So he gets a knife and...well, before we could turn to the next page to find out what happened the teach asked us kids what he was going to do, and of course I chime in that he's gonna stab himself because that's what alla 'em orientals do when they don't get their way! The truth of the matter was that the kid actually added a few inches to his heels and thus was tall enough to at least be part of the tail, but sheesh, how can you blame a kid who got all of his knowledge of Asian culture from watching that famous Popeye cartoon YOU'RE A SAP MISTER JAP not forgetting that GILLIGAN'S ISLAND episode featuring Vito Scotti as a Japanese sailor who didn't know that the war was over???

Here's another INSIDE/OUT episode for you, one that features a kid show spoof that is so surreal that it might have even ended up in THE GROOVE TUBE if if they only threw in some juggins or maybe even a swear word or two:

(yep, copyright infringement got this 'un pulled off too!)

Yeah, I know that this particular local kiddie tee-vee show take off is about as accurate as the one MAD did back in the mid-sixties but in all honesty I wouldn't mind having an Iron Whirlygig myself! On a more serious note, how about the one about the two kids in school who are having such a rough time of it at home and want to make a break for it that very evening?

(see above)

All I gotta say to you young lads is hey, I'm sure there will be many men out there who are more than willing to take care of you, if you know what I mean... But then again I woulda been siding with the kid who had the bickering mom 'n dad to force the other one with the sensitive hippie parents to go along with him. I mean, those hippie parent types might have been all skushgush sympathetico and all, but they were touchy-feely hippies which is one good reason for that boy to vamoose! Maybe the kids coulda just stayed with the bickering parents which woulda been fun at least for 'em watching them jeeters fight to the death and knock each other out!

(And given that this particular episode was made at KETC in St. Louis Missouri I wonder if that incidental and abstract sax and flute music used was made by somebody from the BAG, perhaps even Luther Thomas himself???)

Eh...watch one or two of these then slap on some Rocket From The Tombs and I'll tell ya, it's just like you're re-living a hotcha day in 1975 and all you have to look forward to is ineffectual government, inflation, unemployment and (best of all!) an underground rock scene that seems custom made for your own values and ideals! And hey, if you find that urge to switch over to channel 61 to see what's happening on MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY just keep telling yourself "it's educational..."

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Funny how springlike it was just a week ago, and now winter has returned with not so much of a vengeance as a dribble! Yeah, nothing but cold weather' n rain/snow mix to look forward to this weekend, which I am sure is putting a damper on a whole lot of you readers' St. Patrick's Day plans of bar hopping and telling old dirty jokes. Well, at least it ain't as bad as the humongous St. Patrick's Day blizzard of 1993 which seemed to close up the entire Eastern Seaboard as if it were a fireworks display tent at your local parking lot on July 5th, but it still serves to show us that winter ain't over here in the Western Pee-YAY area until next week, and then probably a few more weeks as well! Until the weather switches over into something more suitable for bunny mating I'm gonna continue acting like it is still winter, meaning loads of DVDs, records, funny books and fanzines while it's into the jammies by seven (and sack by nine at the latest!)...which come to think of it isn't that much of a change from any other time of the year but hey, I gotta keep my excuses up!

Not too many platters up for review this go 'round, and most of 'em are actually Cee-Dee-Are burns that were sent either by Bill Shute or Paul McGarry, two fellows you'd think would know better but don't. So praise be to them (as well as Feeding Tube Records) for helping to keep this blog afloat, but frankly I gotta say that with or without the efforts of the aforementioned chaps there really ain't that much out there in music-land being released that makes me wanna tear any of my buckskins from the ol' wallet like there was during the second half of the decade we now call the seventies! Now, I could go on and on and on about the lack of potent vinyl being made (or being dug outta some aged band member's attic chest) that would make me wanna do cartwheels 'cross the floor, but LET'S FACE IT, rock 'n roll and freedom jazz and other forms of atonal blare that we've known and loved for ages is now deader'n your first boss, and unlike that ol' geezer I sure do miss the form a whole lot! Or at least I long for the days when I could go into just about any record shop in the realm and walk out with a batch of spazzed out, high energy recordings that would suit my collection fine, even more if I happened to have my raincoat on!

Until there is a return to the extra-potent musical mores of yore I guess I just will have to rely not only on my own overflowing collection of records, tapes, mags, books and whatnot that really deliver on the high energy goods, but those few musical acts that are happening in the here and now who fortunately still go all out even though etiquette and good taste (or whatever passes for it these days) deems their sounds "rude" and "antisocial." Fortunately there still are a few wild and woolly acts out and about, and of course I do bring 'em to your attention whenever they do hit the ol' BLOG TO COMM turntable or boom box. However, I do advise you to be extra cautious when checking out new groups on your own. When it comes to uncharted waters such as these, you need an expert, and I'm assuming that I've been around the block a few more times than you have, and maybe in and out of a few alleys as well!

So, as I say just about every other week...without further ado...

Tom Crean (Banjo Assault)-FACEBOOK WHILE DRIVING CD-R (originally on Inn Studio Recordings)

Banjoist Crean (former Anthony Braxton sideman!) does a solo routine on this 70+-minute excursion that reminds me of what those inbreds in DELIVERANCE would be playing nowadays if the genetic pool was about as narrow as one would suspect (I mean, not alla them thirteen-year-old linthead gals can outrun their brothers or father fast enough ifyaknowaddamean...). Some amazing noise, some introspection, some interesting tricks that I never knew could be laid down on a banjo...it all comes off like Pete Seeger in the last stages of palsy which come to think of it might be just what that old redster is able to muster up these days. Look out for an upcoming release on the Kendra Steiner Editions imprint.
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The Lemon Clocks-NOW IS THE TIME CD-R burn (originally on Jam Records)

Twee will always be, and when it comes to thee you can't beat the Lemon Clocks for delivering on all of the promise that many an amerindie group of the eighties had only hinted at! A tenth-generation dub of previously exhilarating mid-sixties Beatles/Byrds (and mid-seventies Groovies) ideas that, while interesting and sparky enough, give me the same queasy feeling I'd get prowling the kitchen cabinets and finding a 45-year-old packet of Cap'n Crunch Ship Shakes somebody forgot about. But don't let my own misgivings keep you from finding out yourself...it's available for free somewhere out there on the internet and why take this fanabla's word for it when you can discover for yourself??? For serious power-pop practitioners and paisley underground aficionados of the highest order only!
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Various Artists-SHE LIKES KIOLBASA, A COLLECTION OF THRIFT STORE 45s FROM MP3 BLOGS CD-R (compiled by Bill Shute)

Bill Shute must go into some pretty neat thrift shops...funny, since all I can find when I go in 'em are old copies of Pat Robertson's GOD'S PLAN FOR YOU and Hello Kitty tampon dispensers. Nice selection of recordings ranging from the historical (Andre Williams, Otis Spann with Fleetwood Mac), the high-larious (Ed Solomon's Beatlemania cut-in cash-in), the has-been (Murray Kellum's "Red Ryder") and the hunh? (Li'l Wally's "She Likes Kiolbasa" and Jan Hobson's "Throw Your Cat Away"). Some thrift store fun  ya got there Bill, but next time you go could you pick up a lazy susan for me?
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Justice Yeldham-"Popped in the Head"/"All the Time Now" 12-inch 45 rpm (Feeding Tube)

Nasty distorted music with traces of amateur hour vocalese hidden in the amped up sconk. Reminds me of the days when I'd switch on the stereo amplifier's "aux" and inadvertently blast the family outta the house. Only goes to show you that teenage stabs at the avant garde are as good as the more developed practitioners of the form, which is why maybe alla us phony intellectual kiddies with John Cage records neatly in hand shoulda been wearin' berets and eatin' stale doritos with the rest of the art brigade back then, savvy?
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Various Artists-PORKERS AND KISSY-FACES. another collection of thrift-store 45's taken from various MP3 blogs compiled by Bill Shute CD-R

Bill makes yet another trip to the Goodwill store, and boy did he come up with some nice doozies this time! This 'un starts off with Cissy "Rainbo" Spacek's infamous yet hardly heard "John You Went Too Far This Time" (about Cis' utter revulsion over the TWO STURGEONS cover!) and it's really neet...reminds me of a PROPAGANDA-era Sparks song in execution and deliverance and would have definitely benefitted from Russ Mael's voice. It goes sure but steady from there with the overblown (Leona Anderson), the overwrought (Mister G) and Bill even throws in a Jesus song (Amy Beth's "Hero For The 90's") that I get the feeling Jesus would hate although he'd be too kind to say anything about it to Amy's face.

Some of it is kinda silly like the one where Gayla Peevey (that gal who wanted a hippopotamus for Christmas and still makes more money per year in residuals than I ever will because of it) gives her daddy a report card, some is hotcha like the Santo and Johnny single, and some is even entertaining although you never woulda admitted it in high stool like the Three Stooges singing "Jingle Bells" with custom-made lyrics for the holiday season. Highlight for me's the Barry Gordon*  rockin' Mother Goose toe tapper which is almost as good as Stan Freberg rockin' Stephen Foster, while on the flip he's getting the hots for gals and he's only seven! Lowlight is the Real Pros' "That's Her Kissy Face," latent lezbo skushgush (that's a girl singing it!).
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Eric Dolphy-THE ILLINOIS CONCERT CD-R burn (originally on Blue Note)

This 'un popped out of Bill's latest Care Package like a festering pimple on a summer morn forehead and naturally it had to be "popped" before all of the other ones. The great Dolphy live with his quartet (including future fusionmonger Herbie Handjob, I mean Hancock on piano) creating more of that powerful fire music that had quite a few college kiddies tearing away from their Joan Baez sensitive folkie inclinations at least for a few nanoseconds. Joined by the University of Illinois jazz band horn section on the finale entitled "G. W." which proves that attending the halls of higher learning and dippoid music don't necessarily have to go hand-in-hand. If you're interested in giving this a free spin here's a link to a rapidshare that just might help you out.
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Various Artists-TRADE MARK OF QUALITY CD-R burn courtesy of Bill Shute

It seems as if the spirit of King Uszniewicz himself overcame Bill Shute when he was burnin' this 'un. Thing starts off with five tracks from a live show by the South Bay Surfers who romp through their covers of such standards as "Treat Her Right" and "Teenager In Love" with all the aplomb of a spastic getting his rocks off to the latest Sears Roebucks underwear catalog. The Portsmouth Sinfonia follow with their takes on such sudzy slush as "Whiter Shade of Pale" and less sudzier slush such as "Apache" and sound rather together if you ask me! Not only that, but Bill actually slipped an entire album that's called HOW TO SPEAK HIP, one of those wild beat neo-comedy (as opposed to neo-Marvin) they used to sell in the back pages of HELP! Closing out the thing's a promo flexidisc for Slade's OLD, NEW BORROWED AND BLUE which sounds like a winner even if it was considered extremely gauche to admit to liking Slade back in the mid-seventies, that is for anyone I knew who actually heard them. In all, a better listen than REBECCA AND THE SUNNYBROOK FARMERS.
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The Treniers-COOL IT BABY CD-R burn (originally on Bear Family)

What else can be said about the Treniers that hasn't been said before? I only say this because I am at a loss for braincells when it comes to reviewing these early proto-rock excursions that have enough swing to 'em that even your World War II (great) (grand) daddy will congratulate you for showing some musical taste. A boffo selection of single sides for everybody from RCA to Groove (?) to X (???) that at least will get you up 'n jumpin' all over the place like a nudist who just sat on some spilled liniment. Contains what just might be the first ever record that was pumping up some action for a "rock 'n roll president," an idea that might have seemed boffo in 1956 but treacherous when we actually got a couple!
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Yoko Ono/Kim Gordon/Thurston Moore-YOKOKIMTHURSTON CD-R burn (originally on Chimera Music)

And finally for today's this 2012 release featuring a collaboration between none other than Mrs. Lennon herself Yoko Ono and the now-split mainstays of Sonic Youth where the three get into some pretty good avant garde grooveplay that's similar to the stuff that was going on in the late-sixties and entire portion of the seventies as well. Yoko's in fine form here (there's none of that phony singer/songwriter crap from back when she was trying to get hippie Beatlefans to like her!) doing her mewls and catarrhs, while Kim and Thurston lay down an accompanying backdrop of sounds that reminds me of everything from the Art Ensemble of Chicago during their quieter moments when Joseph Jarman and Malachi Favors would be strumming on zithers and African harps to the very same Joe Jones Music Company that made Yoko's own FLY album such an outfield wowzer. Didn't think any of 'em still had it in 'em, but I wuz wrong.

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*you know, the kid who got the weepies on LEAVE IT TO BEAVER and was all over the television tube back in the fifties, sixties, seventies and even the eighties to an extent.




Thursday, March 14, 2013

DVD REVIEW! HONG KONG PHOOEY, THE COMPLETE SERIES (Warner Brothers)

Whenever I watch some television creation of the past that I haven't seen in quite some time, my thoughts uncontrollably rush back to the days when I first espied a certain series or perhaps even an episode as the case may be of the program that I am watching. Like whenever I would watch, say,  SUPERCAR, I am naturally reminded of my happy turdler days when I'd be glued in front of the set viewing that airborne auto in awe undoubtedly thinking that by the time the year 2013 rolled around we'd all have one in our garage. I can go on and on about how viewing certain movies even today will remind me of what I was doing and what my state of mind was when they first popped up on the tube, and nary a day goes by without me digging up a whole load of reminiscences that have to do with certain programs and where my head might have been at when I'd watch 'em whether or not I wanted to back during my misguided and waste of time growing up days.

As far as HONG KONG PHOOEY goes well, considering how I pretty much gave up on Saturday AM cartooning by the time this one was being aired in the mid-seventies, I will admit that the only reminiscences that came back to me had to do with opening up a can of tamales for lunch! Y'see, as far as I can recall HONG KONG PHOOEY aired around the lunch hour, and more often than not either this program would be airing while I'd chow down one of many meals that would sustain me throughout the day. I could be wrong because I also remember watching BIG BLUE MARBLE while eating my MSG, and I know that the local station used to quit airing the ABC feed around eleven or so for whatever reasons so maybe I never did watch HONG KONG PHOOEY while gobbling down my late-morning repast and the whole thing is just one massive false memory that's been lodged in my brain!

As far as Saturday Morning mid-seventies television series go, HONG KONG PHOOEY never was anything I'd call "special" even with the talents of such stalwarts as Scatman Crothers and the cringe-inducing Joe E. Ross on voice duty. Then again I never cared for THE HAIR BEAR BUNCH either and Ross was all over that one as the dimwit sidekick who made sitting through yet another Hanna Barbera attempt at hipster relevance at least slightly appealing. It's just that HONG KONG PHOOEY, along with Saturday morning kid television, was heading down the pooper chute into seventies gulcheral nada at this time, even with its "timely" subject matter and less-then-stellar animation which, while as cheaply produced  as the early HUCKLEBERRY HOUND and YOGI BEAR ventures, lacked those titles' style and at least honest attempts to look good despite the financial hazards in producing cartoons for the television market.

And whatever you do, DON'T buy into that "ALL 31 EPISODES" bull spread across the front of the DVD box...I mean, there were 31 HONG KONG PHOOEY stories made, but in actuality there were two episodes to one entire 20+-minute program (the rest of the half-hour being filled with what seemed like the zillionth rerun of SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK) and only about sixteen programs made it out en toto. ABC really got their milage outta this 'un rerunning these HONG KONG PHOOEYs over and over for a couple of years, probably boring your typical Saturday AM cartoon kiddie to the point where he'd probably even would have found relief switching over to the other channel to watch Kathryn Kulhman heal some inbred's chancre sores.

Gotta say that the memories I got watchin' this 'un weren't exactly the crowning point of my youth, but then again there weren't that many points to crown back then. Until then I'm gonna keep digging for some old television programs that just might get the few good growing up memories a flowin' once again. But gee, I don't know where in the world to start looking for that NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PRESENTS THE BEST IN TOPLESS TAHITIAN HULA GALS special...now that 'un was truly a highlight of my youthful television viewing days, at least until mom walked into the room!

Saturday, March 09, 2013

Looks as if spring-timey weather has finally hit the tri-county area which only means one thing, and that is that I'm definitely gonna be spending more time in the great outdoors getting some exercise in so's I can fit into my bermuda shorts this summer! That definitely means there's gonna be less time in front of the ol' computer for me to peck out epic posts for your own personal pleasure which is something that suits me fine but might not go down well with your reg'lar readers out there, or so I assume!

Now don't go crappin' rabbit turds yet, because I'm sure to have many an info-laden bountiful post a comin' up during these warm weather months that will surely tickle your tonsils. It's just that it ain't like I'm gonna be marooned in the house all day with nothing to do but crank out reviews. news and whatever yaz choose for you obviously starved specimens! Let's face it, there's loads more to do in life than write up blogs and pretend to be Meltzer Mk II (well, make that III) in an age that could care less about the feral qualities of music considering the ferality we face on a day-to-day basis! And although I am certainly not shirking my doodies I do feel like I have other obligations to take care of, like taking out the garbage, cleaning out the garage and getting in as much ABBOT AND COSTELLO viewing in as I can! You know, the essentials!

Got a few goodies for you, some oldsters I've been spinning as of late, a few new items to have entered into my collection thanks to the froots of my own toils (meaning I actually paid hard cash for these tea coasters!), and (now get this!) even some items that arrived in the mail GRATIS thanks to the devotion of readers such as Bill Shute, Paul McGarry, and now even Bob Forward has entered into the fray with some items he thought I should kick around and see what pops outta 'em which is good for me, but maybe not for the artists who recorded these wares oh so long ago! Anyway I will admit I hadda ball getting this post together, and maybe if you look hard enough you'll find something of worth and value here that will help you decide whether or not to purchase any of the platters in question for your own listening pleasure. Maybe you will, but I kinda doubt it. I mean, I sure ain't Christgau, and I thank myself for that fact every blinking day of my life!

SLEAZE LP (Sing Sing)

The Adverts never were my idea of a prime late-seventies English punk rock group. They just didn't have the swing, style or guttural emotive power to affect me the way some of their late-seventies brethren did, and if you can sit through any of their albums without having your mind wander towards more fruitful punkist concerns you must have sturdier hammers 'n stirrups than I could ever muster up!

Strangely enough, this pre-Adverts album by TV Smith's mid-seventies aggregation Sleaze is a way better affair'n anything the Adverts came up with. It's an interesting ref. pt. if only to show you where the guy's head was at during those pre-Sexy Pistols days and it warn't up Greg Lake's butt either! A rather unique display of proto-punk aggression with most of the numbers, although clearly focused in a New York Dolls/Stooges deca-glam direction, last almost into the double digits and display various dramatic touches that didn't quite translate into the English punk rock movement a good years or so away from fruition.

This album in fact remind me of something that would have made its way outta the very tail end of the British psychedelic scene which, come to think of it, was still being promulgated by the likes of Hawkwind, the Pink Fairies and other Ladbroke Groovers who were smart enough not to know that the scene was "over" a good four or so years earlier. It might seem a little contrived in spots, but it still packs enough angst-filled energy to set your teenage remembrances alight as if you were actually lucky enough to score one of the handfulla copies of this back when it came out '75 way!
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Djin Aquarian, Sir Plastic Crimewave & the Everafter-THE HOLY BREATH OF FIRE CD-R (Kendra Steiner Editions)

Nice unexpected diversion from the Kendra Steiner Editions label, featuring two modern minds (stuck in the late-sixties West Coast scene!) performing a forty-minute dronefest that reminds me of everything from the Second Family Dog Tribal Stomp to Le Stelle di Mario Schifano on a particularly "on" night. A better comparison would be to Parson Sound at their stretchiest, and if you get the impression this is gonna sound similar to many an extended track of recent memory that tends to borrow more than a few ideas from the EPI-era VU you'd be correct as usual. Nothing that's exactly earth-shattering, but surprisingly enveloping mantras do appear before your very ears, Sahib!
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Iggy and the Stooges-CALIFORNIA BLEEDING CD (Bomp!)

Remember when Bomp was tossing out their "Iguana Chronicles" series of Stooges live recordings circa the RAW POWER era with an alarming regularity? I sure do, and come to think of it I also recall some scribe in the pages of UGLY THINGS no less putting the series down via a review of WILD LOVE saying that enough was enough and that we really don't need to hear umpteen takes of "Head On" or "She Creatures of the Hollywood Hills" recorded on a cassette player strategically placed straight upside Kim Fowley's seventh wife's ass anymore. Of course I'm paraphrasing, but even I seemed to harbor the same impression if to a much lesser extent, probably because of my own spoiled brat ineptitude which was at the time begging for more early Stooge rattle instead of the RAW POWER-era raves which seemed to be over-documented at the time. As if "overdocumenting" the Stooges was some sorta heinous crime...

Now that my head is older, shinier and clearer, all I wish is that there weren't more recordings being unleashed via this series because hey, anyone with a brain pumping and a heart thinking will admit that the entire Stoogian trek 1967-1974 was one wild ride that undoubtedly epitomized what rock 'n roll was all about, what it aspired to be, and just what every kid WITH HIS HEAD ON STRAIGHT was thinking about when ideas such as music and living and taking a huge bite outta that big ass belonging to the world we all live in was the top priority in any self-respecting kid's life. And you know I'm right, of course.

CALIFORNIA BLEEDING is rock 'n roll personified even more so than THIRTEENTH FLOOR ELEVATORS LIVE was, and a whole lot more'n most of the pathetic pablum that has been passed off as the form lo these many years. It reminds me of a classic seventies bootleg what with the clips from Iggy interviews (including the famous one conducted by Dick Clark where Iggy admits that he has no morals!) stuck between tracks like they used to do on Frank Zappa boots. The sound quality goes from good audience to feh too just like a real boot, though given that I'm such a fan of the Stooges it doesn't matter. I'll listen to these things even if, like I said, they were recorded up Kim Fowley's wife's butt, or even Rodney Binghenheimer's for that matter (but not Robert Hillburn's that's for sure!).

Classic Stoogian mania abounds recorded live not only at the Whisky-Au-go-go but Bimbo's in San Fran. Nothing totally new to our ears true, but a live version of "Johanna" shows up and who among us couldn't thrill over the Paul Revere piano of "Wet My Bed" or the avant weirdness of "Open Up and Bleed" anyway? Only hope, now that the Stooges floodgates seem to be trickling little things here and there, that more of these releases come to light especially since I could really stand to hear such classics as the "Murder of the Virgin" show from Rodney's English Disco (a snap of which is presented on the back cover) not to mention an early live gig when the group's sense of structure was about as wobbly as that of the Deviants or early Suicide for that matter!
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Rouge-LIVE 1976 (Captain Trip, Japan)

Surprisingly enough, whatever was hot and rollicking over in England or here inna US was even more hot and rollicking over in Japan! We all know just how bubbling under the famous Jonathan Richman "make it" line the Dolls were over here, but in Japan they were an even bigger success, not as big as Kiss were but that's only because Kiss really appealed to the Japanese sense of twisted and bizarre history. The Dolls were...well, just strange enough to appeal to some sexually confused college student in Osaka who had only enough money to purchase one album a year, and I get the feeling that he was gonna get more outta his yen with the Dolls than he was if he snatched up Kyu Sakamoto, y'know?

The Dolls were big enough not only here but in Japan to have spawned a whole bunch of able imitators, and these guys qualified as good enough Dolly boys to have sated the glam slam crowd over there whenever the hankerin' for something more than records cropped up. Now it ain't like Rouge were out 'n out Dolls clones, far from it, but they had this mid-seventies snide swagger to 'em that seemed copped from more'n a few glimpses of Johansen's pout. Thankfully they were hot and straightforward enough in a say, 1975 Los Angeles pre-punk sorta way that I'm sure that had they been located in Carson City 'stead of Tokyo they would've earned at least one slightly indifferent paragraph in BACK DOOR MAN.

The opening strains of Pink Floyd's "Sisyphus" giving way to Alice Cooper's "Titanic Overture" seem foreboding enough, and from there Rouge get into a decent enough groove that's part Stones, a little Stooges, a touch of Aerosmith and a whole lotta Dolls as they romp through songs with translated titles like "Magic Lady," "Honky Tonk Roller Star," "New York Baby" and of course "Heavy Mama." There's even a cover of :Johnny B. Goode" tossed in, and of course it's done up in that over-amped hard rock way that never did work with most seventies self-centered, self-important rock types but it comes off mildly amusing here.

Nothing that would wow the rubes here in post-rock Ameriga true, but in 1975 Japan I'm sure that more'n a few starved for rock youth would line up to see the group romp through a set complete with someone in an Easter Bunny costume dancing onstage like the group's very own Frankenstein. And come to think of it, I'd sure wait a good hour in line too, because if I were in Japan I'd rather see Rouge than a buncha overweight Sumo wrestlers passing gas while wearing nothing but bulky jockstraps!
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Archie Shepp and Dollar Brand-DUET CD-R burn (Denon, Japan)

This '78 set featuring onetime free jazz forerunner Archie Shepp and South African pianist Dollar Brand proves, if anything, that Shepp was already reaching his nadir by the time these numbers were being laid down a good decade after reaching his fire music climax. Now Brand is fine and all in his own post-post Ellington fashion, but Sheep sounds so weak and held back, with little of his Coltrane-induced vision evident in such a setting. Now I must admit that I really don't care for many of Shepp's post-mid-seventies outings where he forsakes the avant garde of his Impluse and BYG days for a more traditional romp, but this one seems like total denouement. Stick with THE MAGIC OF JU JU and avoid unless you happen to get particularly hungry.
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The Flamin' Groovies-SEPTEMBER 11, 1987 TOWN & COUNTRY CLUB, LONDON ENGLAND CD-R burn

A nicety (sent my way by Paul McGarry) of the later-on Groovies sounding very "will '75 be their year?" a good twelve years after Greg Shaw made a fool of himself predicting great things for this long-lived San Franciscan band. Well, I can't think of any other cause to stand up proudly for in this rock 'n roll world, and its too bad for us that Shaw was wrong this time and '75 ended up being the Eagles' year instead! Sound quality may seem too late-seventies hand-held portable smuggled into the concrete venue for your liking, but it still holds up if you're a manic Groovies fan and do ya really need good sound quality to listen to rock 'n roll in the first place?
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Brett Smiley-BREATHLESSLY BRETT CD-R burn (originally on RPM)

I originally heard about Smiley via Brian Sands, who told me that not only was he a fan of, but that he was actually in touch with this by-then (1980) forgotten glam rock guy and was planning on releasing a single of Smiley's for the Bizart label. Dunno if that ever came out but if it did boy, would that have been a really neat li'l artifact of early-eighties post-glam slam for alla us Clevo fanatics to have in our collections!

Of course it also would have been way outta time since Smiley's fey glitter pop was more of a 1972-1975 phenomenon, as is evidenced by his debut album from '74. It's a real neat piece too, full of swishy overproduced pop numbers that on one hand would have fit in swell with the confused nature of teenage boydom seventies-style, yet on the other would most definitely get buried under all of the other swishy overproduced pop numbers that were being tossed at us during those days when we hadda hide any refs to glambisexuality from our parents lest they lock us in a closet for the next twenny years!

Some of it reminds me of Sparks, especially Smiley's cover of the Beatles classic "I Want To Hold Your Hand" which Sparks covered in a more "Stereo 99" fashion the following year, not to mention a medley of "I Can't Help Myself"/"Over The Rainbow" which somehow reminded me of Sands' old group Milk doing their own "Getting to Know You"/"Whistle a Happy Tune" medley! If you're up for whimsy such as that (and I sure am, as long as the whimsy is good enough!) this might be a forgotten classic for you!

For more on Smiley, there's a thorough interview with him in the WIRED UP book I wrote up a few weeks back. For a nice peek at a side of glam/slam/proto-punk/bubblegum you probably haven't seen (or shut out of your mind) you can't ignore a book such as this, already #1 on my toilet reads and that's even when I'm doing #2 as well!
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The Bryan Ferry Orchestra-THE JAZZ AGE CD-R burn (originally on BMG Rights Management)

Sheesh the gimmix they keep comin' up with! Bryan Ferry gets his old songs done up like twenties 78's, complete with a flat sound guaranteed to back the funniest of your silent movie comedies. As a joke it's good enough as a one-off spin I guess, but I can't see anybody really wanting to play it a second time. What's next, Eno's ambient recordings done up as test pattern tones?
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Various Artists-NOWHERE TO RUN, BUT AWAY (original 60's local garage band singles from various MP3 blogs, compiled by Bill Shute) CD-R

Since I haven't been tuning into any of my vast assortment of sixties garage band collections lately this one is certainly a godsend, or at least a Bill Shutesend. Nothing spectacular here, but this does contain more than a few good enough rehashes of various Beatle and surf forms done by guys who probably got kicked outta their high school audio/visual clubs for being too square. Highlights include The Webs' instrumental version of "Blue Skies" (forget the flipster "Lost [Cricket in my Ear]"), Mr. Roberts and the Rhodesmen's version of "My Little Red Book," and The Shoremen's simplistic and definitely knotty pine 1965 Saturday evening family get together party-favorable tribute entitled "Dance USA."
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The Group-LIVE CD-R (originally on NoBusiness Records, Lithuania)

This 'n the following one were sent to me by Bob Forward. I don't know why, but I will say that Bob certainly had enough good taste to at least think of me in a positive way by sending me this instead of Rebecca and the Sunnybrook Farmers. The Group were a little-known free jazz outfit consisting of Ahmed Abdullah on trumpet and flugelhorn, Marion Brown on alto sax, Billy Bang on violin, Sirone and/or Fred Hopkins on bass, and Andrew Cyrille on drums, and with a line-up like that you can bet this ain't gonna be some fiddle-faddle light lounge-y sorta affair that's so popular among those "jazz" fans you see nowadays. Bang's playing is always top notch nerve-exposing, while Brown is one guy who shoulda been given the royal Coltrane/Coleman treatment but never did. Of course the rest of The Group ain't no slouches either from Abdullah's neo-AACM stylings to the double bass threat of Hopkins and Sirone, both big players on the seventies loft and related scenes. Can't find any fault with this 'un (other'n they coulda screeched it up a little bit more), but I just know some nitpicker out there would. If so, well do write in because I like to feel superior once in awhile, y'know?
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Concrete Rubber Band-RISEN SAVIOR CD-R (New Music-Green Tree Germany)

Uh Bob, you are kidding now, aren't you? I mean, these Christian rock albums never were the best in music listening pleasure. And the fact that the group consists of two keyboardists (who I believe are brother and sister) monkeying around with their new electronic gear making bloops and bleeps that even Tangerine Dream woulda left on the cutting room floor doesn't make it any better now, does it? Really Bob, you thought that I'd actually go for this amateur hour mewling? Well YEAH I do, but only in small doses (even with the Sun Ra-esque instrumental) because sometimes the melodies are entertaining enough and the overly-devout lyrics could be much worse. Another amusing self-produced effort you probably passed up in a flea market bin back in 1986.
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SHEESH, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO MAKE of this dream I had last week where I was being bombarded with memories regarding Andy Warhol's 1972 efforts to reform the Velvet Underground with the Reed/Cale/Morrison/Tucker lineup (no Nico in sight!) being augmented not only by the addition of David Bowie as a full-fledged member but by Warhol himself on rhythm guitar (and rhythm guitar only as was expressly stated in my dream)! You may think it strange, but I'm more'n anxious to hear this grouping, or any variation thereof, myself! More information as my dreams develop.
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IN CLOSING, here's something that I found, via youtube,  that I just naturally had to show ya considerin' how it seems to fit in with my own pre-school sense of television and nervous agitation! It's a rather keen "recreation" of what a nuclear emergency might have come off as on a local (Springfield Ohio) television station during the otherwise halcyon days of 1962, and considering the general accuracy that the guy who created this put into that long-gone early/mid-sixties tee-vee feeling complete with the old-styled announcing and station graphics*, all I gotta say is boy does this 'un dredge up the old memories! Of  course them memories may not be as happy as many of us would like to remember 'em to be, because when I watch this I certainly do flash back to when I was three/four and, while watching a cartoon or whatever on afternoon tee-vee, all of a sudden that Civil Defense logo would unexpectedly pop up on the screen and scare the bejabbers outta me! The ear-piercing tone would naturally heighten the fright levels even more to the point where if I wasn't able to escape to another room in a relatively short amount of time a pant-moistening occurrence was bound to happen at my expense!

I remember once when I was laying on the couch with either a nosebleed or a throbbing headache and was told not to get up, and a conelrad test suddenly popped onto the screen and boy did I have to suffer through it because of my mother's direct orders!!! There I was on the couch quivering in fear as that tone ripped through my entire being, although I will admit that my own piercing screams probably drowned the tone being emitted from the television speaker! Yes, even the remotest thought of instant annihilation was enough to make this preschooler quiver in uncontrollable fear, and even a good half-century later I can recall those panic attacks and fears of instant zilch almost as if it all happened yesterday!

Anyway, if you too want to re-live those bomb-filled days of potential annihilation (and experience a li'l bitta them kiddie creepies) here's your chance to get to the source of your own youthful nightmares about the big one that everybody said was about to come. And considering how life eventually turned out too bad it didn't...



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*now, I will admit that I did spot a few comparatively minor inaccuracies, other than the fact that channel 26 wasn't even on the air during the spring of '62 which the creator of this video freely admits! For example, PASSWORD was in actuality broadcast at two in the afternoon 'stead of noon (well, it coulda been a delayed broadcast from the previous day), the word "recycle" as used in the movie promo was more of a seventies construct, any afternoon movie program on a local CBS affiliate would have more likely started at four-thirty in the afternoon instead of four as advertised because that's when the network feed yielded to local programming and the news announcer is giving a report on the 1963, not 1962 Academy Award ceremony (whew!). Of course some stations did preempt these local feeds so they could milk more local dollars out of advertisers but would you expect a quibbler such as I NOT  to mention this little fact, as well as the puzzling question as to why CBS didn't break in with a bulletin themselves and left the dastardly deed to their local affiliates unless they were somehow blown to smithereens by the sneak attack! Whatever, this one sure brought back enough memories, pleasant as well as frightening, to the point where I could use an entire broadcast day complete with local programming recreations and station ID slides, local and national commercials, sign on/off national anthems...