Sorry. I just feel down in the dumps gloomy right now. Sure I put out a fantastic post (with some rather exhilarating writeups I might add---in fact some of the best dribble I've posted in at least six months!) and the influx of interesting and downright hotcha recordings and mooms (courtesy of Bill Shute) is keeping me occupied when I could be doing less moral things with myself, but-----let's face it-----no matter how much I stamp my foot and try to pretend otherwise it just ain't 1962 out there anymore!!! I didn't want to admit this because hey, I don't want YOU to get all gloomy about it as well. But let's face it---'62's a good fifty-three years in the past, and come to think of it so is good tee-vee, hotcha rock 'n roll radio (and don't you argue otherwise!), snazzy cars, good looking females and a clear knowledge of right (the self, property rights, morality) vs. wrong (dykes and fairies and all that stuff Ten Years After warned us about)! I might as well also throw in the pre-Vatican II church, but I think you knew that already. Let's face it, 1962 might have had tee-vee tubes that blew out leaving you entertainment-less for a few days and a quicker death due to heart disease and terminal illnesses we can now conquer or control, but it did have brand new episodes of LEAVE IT TO BEAVER and twelve-cent SUPERMAN comic books to keep your relatively sane self from turning into the next Joan Baez.
At least the following recordings keep me from going totally bonkers over the travails of trying to live a ranch house suburban slob life in a Compassion Inc. world. Got some real hot newies here (and a couple oldies that were floating about) you just might want to read a li'l about. And face it, one sentence of my pontificating o'er even the cruddiest of Cee-Dee pile finds is way more invigorating than entire posts regarding the post-punk mewlings of some introspective losers that them other blogs toss at you like turds flinging from an Amish horse at full gallop!
Francis the Great-RAVISSANTE BABY LP (Hot Casa Germany, available via Forced Exposure)
Hot outta nowhere surprise of the week's this reissue of a pretty obscuro mid-seventies album that was recorded by a seven-year-old Cameroonian kid transplanted to Paree. Not only did this progeny (that's a malapropism, son!) write both of the side-long tracks that grace this longplayer but he sings 'em with his definitely pre-pubesprout voice that makes Speedy Alkaseltzer sound like he has balls! An' hey, this single-digit wizard is tops in my book not only for his absolute gushing of talent beyond his years but for recording a platter that stands up with some of my fave raves, what with is primitive drone beats and overall mesmerizing sounds that you can really snuggle up and get into whether you're reading old DICK TRACY comic strips or doing an extra-deep wipe. It's that engrossing!
Title track's a wowzer, the same hypnotico (dare I say at the risk of sounding like an amerindie doof Velvet Underground-ish?) riff repeated ad-afanablum sukering you into its web while Francis adds his voice to the fray in his native Camaroon tongue. It kinda conjures up the same maddening effect one gets listening to "Up In Her Room", "Sister Ray" or "Persian Surgery Dervishes" on those hot 'n sticky August nights right before the tornado hits your hovel. If this is the basis for all of that seventies African rock that's getting reissued then count me in for a Missionary trip to the darkest part of Africa, and don't forget the electric guitars!
On the flip Francis goes hot funk with a riff that recalls "Greenfield Morning" offa YOKO ONO/PLASTIC ONO BAND where Our Hero sings about a typically second-grade-ish love of nature. Kinda incongruous since listening to this music I somehow conjure up dank inner city streets or those blaxploitation mooms that alla the cool kids (white and black) wanted to go see back during my years of passage from insecure kiddiedom to even more insecure adulthood back inna seventies, but then again I sure wish I heard more of this kinda music during that best/worst of times decade and less of that Anastasia Pantsios-approved tough women in rock who'd probably cry if they broke a fingernail crap.
Of course it's a top notch winner (ranks with the primalness of the Stooges so it IS that good!) that'll set you back quite a penny given these ain't exactly showin' up at your local supermarket. Maybe if you're lucky (and cheap enough) someone'll post this via youtube but until then save your plasma money!
Red Noise-SARCELLES-LOCHERES LP; Mahogany Brain-WITH (JUNK-SAUCEPAN) WHEN (SPOON-TRIGGER) LP (Souffle Continu Records France, available via Forced Exposure)
Wow, two of the wilder, punkier efforts to come out on the legendary French-based Futura label during the early-seventies are once again available, and not only that but Souffle Continu (who are handling these and other Futura efforts) did a painstakingly powerful job doin' 'em up right from the top notch sound and pressing to the impressive gatefold sleeves. Of course they too are rather pricey, but maybe if you act like you're having a spasm at the welfare office they'll dish out a li'l more moolah your way.
Red Noise sound fantab here compared with the youtube burn I got, coming off like a mad dash of Captain Beefheart filtered through Eric Dolphy with a whole load of late-sixties punk rock points tossed in to remind you of that teenage band down the road whose rehearsal got put to a halt after dad stuffed up the cracks, hitched the exhaust pipe of his '59 Lark to a vacuum cleaner tube and pumped it in! Some Fugs-y craziness also ensues both in the Frog and English language, but it doesn't get in the way of this overall crazed effort that really does live up to all of your 1968-75 punk expectations with a slew of atonal freeform tossed here and about. And hey, if the Titfield Thunderbolt put an album out it probably would have sounded a whole lot like this! Don't let the Zappa goatee on the front fool ya---this is primal rock 'n rot that (as one French crit put it) has reference points in such stellar acts as the Velvets, MC5 and Plastic Ono Band!
Mahogany Brain need no introduction to those of us who have scoured the earth looking for the spiritual successor to the WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT blare reduced to something that even makes NO NEW YORK sound happyhappy in comparison. Band leader Michel Bulteau and his crew scrape blooze licks and harmonica farts seemingly in a most indiscriminate way that makes most of those eighties art rock expressions sound totally self-centered amateurish. About one step removed (in the right direction) from even such out there seventies anti-rock acts as Teenage Jesus and the Jerks (who sound structured next to this crew!), and come to think of it former co-leader Patrick Geoffris was an early-eighties Contortion so it did all "come around" like we always knew it would.
More adventurous (and richer) readers might wanna get the limited edition color vinyl versions, but penny-counting me just stuck with the good ol' black stuff. Either way these'll make you really happy, or get a hefty price put on my head after someone parts with a good $44 (for both) and feels they've been had and but good!
Other Dimensions in Music w/Matthew Shipp-TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE IS BEYOND TIME CD (Aum Fidelity)
Dunno why this '97 slab didn't tickle my hammer'n stirrups back when I first spun it o'er a good decade back. Musta been onna male rag at the time because is something that I sure coulda used more of during the past twennysome (plus) years than the reams of precocious amerindie platters done up by a buncha Poppy Family wannabes who thought they were channeling the Velvet Underground through Gordon Gano's sphincter.
Multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter (who also popped up in Freedomland and the beauteous Storm (I do hope somebody preserved this racket!) lends his talents via saxophones, flute and trumpet while Roy Campbell Jr. (another big star of the old CBGB Lounge Freestyle series) does a pretty good job himself. No Ayler he, but then again he ain't no David Sanborn! Freedomland's William Parker handles the bass chores while Rashid Bakr, the original Blue Humans drummer himself is present making this like a supergroup of a substance and form that could put Penelope Playtex to shame!
Oh yeah, pianist Matthew Shipp sat in here and he doesn't get in the way even if he is a white interloper. Comes off less Cecil Taylor and more Burton Greene albeit a more restrained one, but it all works copasetic-like as if these guys had their antennae tuned to the same brainwaves and could bounce off each others' impulses like something outta TWILIGHT ZONE. In many ways this reminds me of that free group recording from '62 with Greene and Alan Silva that also deserves another spin, and if you think I'm gonna ignore any other other ODIM releases (have at least one stashed here in the closet along with a whole slew of fag relatives) you are most sadly mistaken!
Francois Tusques/Don Cherry-LA MAISON FILLE DU SOLIEL 7-inch 45 rpm single (Cacophonic France, available via Forced Exposure)
Weirdo (if neat) '64 sides recorded by French multi-instrumentalist Tusques (here plunking on his main instro piano) along with bigtime great Cherry and somebody other than Bernard Guerin on contrabass (though he does get credit). The three perform what could best be called chamber free jazz that sounds as if it were recorded on reel-to-reel in either a rehearsal hall or one of the cheaper studios in the vicinity. Coolsville, but why is this a single 'stead of a longplayer (I assume there's more...and yeah, I know that this is a reish of one of the rarest free jazz singles extant) and what was the Le Corbusier exhibit this was recorded for about anyway? Matters that deserve to be discussed true. but if you wanna part with a good fourteen smackers for a free jazz single you couldn't do better'n this.
MORGAN TAYLOR'S ROCK GROUP CD (no label)
Twas wondering how much this early oh-oh's underground-y platter held up considering I hadn't spun the thing since first reviewing it in the pages of my long-capsized crudzine. Turns out that these Morgan Taylor's Rock Group people still sound as fresh and as late-sixties Greg Shaw special power pop issue of BOMP! as I remembered...sure there's a trace of twee in the vocals, and some of the melodies ruin the impression of seventies veneration of sixties moves but this is still solid enough (even on the softer, introspective numbers) to remind you of the hope you had in the earlier part of this century for the hope you held in the eighties for the hope you held in the seventies that somehow the better aspects of sixties rock would once again rear its crazy head.
Morgan Taylor can get a little too introspective irritating (with his vox and compositions) true, but even the softer numbers don't grate as much as they should perhaps because here in 2015 they sound as retrospectively refreshing as they did when this was released in 2002. Overall the group reminds me of the long-gone Pezband who were treading a similar post-Raspberries groove and got washed over in the tide of late-seventies triteness despite all of their (and Cary Baker's) best efforts. Surprisingly Midwest sounding, which don't quite figure since these guys are En Why See born and bred and in fact used to frequent CBGB plenty during that haunt's final half decade.
Too bad I can't tell you where to get this since their website has been taken down presumably LONG ago. Maybe a seek and ye shall find rah-rah should be in order. Go for it because you have done worse many a time.
Various Artists-DUSTY LIMEHOUSE VALLEY CD-r burn (Bill Shute Enterprises)
This one doesn't tingle my taters the way previous Bill burns do, but I like it anyway so there! Starts off strong with a track by the Buckinghams which is actually good enough that it could have popped up on a NUGGETS-styled compilation of the very-early eighties and fit in snug-like, and the cover of the String-A-Longs' "Wheels" by some unknown Canadian outfit is just as cornball good as the original. The rest vacillates between fair 'nough and eh!, though if you're that bugs over early-sixties misses and country good tries you might like this. The little commercial jingle thingies Bill stuck here and there did help ooze those long-repressed feelings of single-digit doofdom so maybe I shouldn't be acting like the louse ingrate that I'm certainly coming off like!
At least the following recordings keep me from going totally bonkers over the travails of trying to live a ranch house suburban slob life in a Compassion Inc. world. Got some real hot newies here (and a couple oldies that were floating about) you just might want to read a li'l about. And face it, one sentence of my pontificating o'er even the cruddiest of Cee-Dee pile finds is way more invigorating than entire posts regarding the post-punk mewlings of some introspective losers that them other blogs toss at you like turds flinging from an Amish horse at full gallop!
Hot outta nowhere surprise of the week's this reissue of a pretty obscuro mid-seventies album that was recorded by a seven-year-old Cameroonian kid transplanted to Paree. Not only did this progeny (that's a malapropism, son!) write both of the side-long tracks that grace this longplayer but he sings 'em with his definitely pre-pubesprout voice that makes Speedy Alkaseltzer sound like he has balls! An' hey, this single-digit wizard is tops in my book not only for his absolute gushing of talent beyond his years but for recording a platter that stands up with some of my fave raves, what with is primitive drone beats and overall mesmerizing sounds that you can really snuggle up and get into whether you're reading old DICK TRACY comic strips or doing an extra-deep wipe. It's that engrossing!
Title track's a wowzer, the same hypnotico (dare I say at the risk of sounding like an amerindie doof Velvet Underground-ish?) riff repeated ad-afanablum sukering you into its web while Francis adds his voice to the fray in his native Camaroon tongue. It kinda conjures up the same maddening effect one gets listening to "Up In Her Room", "Sister Ray" or "Persian Surgery Dervishes" on those hot 'n sticky August nights right before the tornado hits your hovel. If this is the basis for all of that seventies African rock that's getting reissued then count me in for a Missionary trip to the darkest part of Africa, and don't forget the electric guitars!
On the flip Francis goes hot funk with a riff that recalls "Greenfield Morning" offa YOKO ONO/PLASTIC ONO BAND where Our Hero sings about a typically second-grade-ish love of nature. Kinda incongruous since listening to this music I somehow conjure up dank inner city streets or those blaxploitation mooms that alla the cool kids (white and black) wanted to go see back during my years of passage from insecure kiddiedom to even more insecure adulthood back inna seventies, but then again I sure wish I heard more of this kinda music during that best/worst of times decade and less of that Anastasia Pantsios-approved tough women in rock who'd probably cry if they broke a fingernail crap.
Of course it's a top notch winner (ranks with the primalness of the Stooges so it IS that good!) that'll set you back quite a penny given these ain't exactly showin' up at your local supermarket. Maybe if you're lucky (and cheap enough) someone'll post this via youtube but until then save your plasma money!
***
Red Noise-SARCELLES-LOCHERES LP; Mahogany Brain-WITH (JUNK-SAUCEPAN) WHEN (SPOON-TRIGGER) LP (Souffle Continu Records France, available via Forced Exposure)Wow, two of the wilder, punkier efforts to come out on the legendary French-based Futura label during the early-seventies are once again available, and not only that but Souffle Continu (who are handling these and other Futura efforts) did a painstakingly powerful job doin' 'em up right from the top notch sound and pressing to the impressive gatefold sleeves. Of course they too are rather pricey, but maybe if you act like you're having a spasm at the welfare office they'll dish out a li'l more moolah your way.
Red Noise sound fantab here compared with the youtube burn I got, coming off like a mad dash of Captain Beefheart filtered through Eric Dolphy with a whole load of late-sixties punk rock points tossed in to remind you of that teenage band down the road whose rehearsal got put to a halt after dad stuffed up the cracks, hitched the exhaust pipe of his '59 Lark to a vacuum cleaner tube and pumped it in! Some Fugs-y craziness also ensues both in the Frog and English language, but it doesn't get in the way of this overall crazed effort that really does live up to all of your 1968-75 punk expectations with a slew of atonal freeform tossed here and about. And hey, if the Titfield Thunderbolt put an album out it probably would have sounded a whole lot like this! Don't let the Zappa goatee on the front fool ya---this is primal rock 'n rot that (as one French crit put it) has reference points in such stellar acts as the Velvets, MC5 and Plastic Ono Band!
Mahogany Brain need no introduction to those of us who have scoured the earth looking for the spiritual successor to the WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT blare reduced to something that even makes NO NEW YORK sound happyhappy in comparison. Band leader Michel Bulteau and his crew scrape blooze licks and harmonica farts seemingly in a most indiscriminate way that makes most of those eighties art rock expressions sound totally self-centered amateurish. About one step removed (in the right direction) from even such out there seventies anti-rock acts as Teenage Jesus and the Jerks (who sound structured next to this crew!), and come to think of it former co-leader Patrick Geoffris was an early-eighties Contortion so it did all "come around" like we always knew it would.
More adventurous (and richer) readers might wanna get the limited edition color vinyl versions, but penny-counting me just stuck with the good ol' black stuff. Either way these'll make you really happy, or get a hefty price put on my head after someone parts with a good $44 (for both) and feels they've been had and but good!
***
Dunno why this '97 slab didn't tickle my hammer'n stirrups back when I first spun it o'er a good decade back. Musta been onna male rag at the time because is something that I sure coulda used more of during the past twennysome (plus) years than the reams of precocious amerindie platters done up by a buncha Poppy Family wannabes who thought they were channeling the Velvet Underground through Gordon Gano's sphincter.
Multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter (who also popped up in Freedomland and the beauteous Storm (I do hope somebody preserved this racket!) lends his talents via saxophones, flute and trumpet while Roy Campbell Jr. (another big star of the old CBGB Lounge Freestyle series) does a pretty good job himself. No Ayler he, but then again he ain't no David Sanborn! Freedomland's William Parker handles the bass chores while Rashid Bakr, the original Blue Humans drummer himself is present making this like a supergroup of a substance and form that could put Penelope Playtex to shame!
Oh yeah, pianist Matthew Shipp sat in here and he doesn't get in the way even if he is a white interloper. Comes off less Cecil Taylor and more Burton Greene albeit a more restrained one, but it all works copasetic-like as if these guys had their antennae tuned to the same brainwaves and could bounce off each others' impulses like something outta TWILIGHT ZONE. In many ways this reminds me of that free group recording from '62 with Greene and Alan Silva that also deserves another spin, and if you think I'm gonna ignore any other other ODIM releases (have at least one stashed here in the closet along with a whole slew of fag relatives) you are most sadly mistaken!
***
Weirdo (if neat) '64 sides recorded by French multi-instrumentalist Tusques (here plunking on his main instro piano) along with bigtime great Cherry and somebody other than Bernard Guerin on contrabass (though he does get credit). The three perform what could best be called chamber free jazz that sounds as if it were recorded on reel-to-reel in either a rehearsal hall or one of the cheaper studios in the vicinity. Coolsville, but why is this a single 'stead of a longplayer (I assume there's more...and yeah, I know that this is a reish of one of the rarest free jazz singles extant) and what was the Le Corbusier exhibit this was recorded for about anyway? Matters that deserve to be discussed true. but if you wanna part with a good fourteen smackers for a free jazz single you couldn't do better'n this.
***
Twas wondering how much this early oh-oh's underground-y platter held up considering I hadn't spun the thing since first reviewing it in the pages of my long-capsized crudzine. Turns out that these Morgan Taylor's Rock Group people still sound as fresh and as late-sixties Greg Shaw special power pop issue of BOMP! as I remembered...sure there's a trace of twee in the vocals, and some of the melodies ruin the impression of seventies veneration of sixties moves but this is still solid enough (even on the softer, introspective numbers) to remind you of the hope you had in the earlier part of this century for the hope you held in the eighties for the hope you held in the seventies that somehow the better aspects of sixties rock would once again rear its crazy head.
Morgan Taylor can get a little too introspective irritating (with his vox and compositions) true, but even the softer numbers don't grate as much as they should perhaps because here in 2015 they sound as retrospectively refreshing as they did when this was released in 2002. Overall the group reminds me of the long-gone Pezband who were treading a similar post-Raspberries groove and got washed over in the tide of late-seventies triteness despite all of their (and Cary Baker's) best efforts. Surprisingly Midwest sounding, which don't quite figure since these guys are En Why See born and bred and in fact used to frequent CBGB plenty during that haunt's final half decade.
Too bad I can't tell you where to get this since their website has been taken down presumably LONG ago. Maybe a seek and ye shall find rah-rah should be in order. Go for it because you have done worse many a time.
***
This one doesn't tingle my taters the way previous Bill burns do, but I like it anyway so there! Starts off strong with a track by the Buckinghams which is actually good enough that it could have popped up on a NUGGETS-styled compilation of the very-early eighties and fit in snug-like, and the cover of the String-A-Longs' "Wheels" by some unknown Canadian outfit is just as cornball good as the original. The rest vacillates between fair 'nough and eh!, though if you're that bugs over early-sixties misses and country good tries you might like this. The little commercial jingle thingies Bill stuck here and there did help ooze those long-repressed feelings of single-digit doofdom so maybe I shouldn't be acting like the louse ingrate that I'm certainly coming off like!
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