ANOTHER WEEK ANOTHER SOMETHINGOROTHER...: welcome back back my friends to the bloviating that never ends, and if you're disgusted by that reference to noted prog schmoozers Emerson should go jump in the Lake with Palmer (copyright 1973 DENIM DELINQUENT magazine) then you'll undoubtedly be totally stomach-churned by what indeedly follows! Again it's been a rather creepathon week here at the BTC orifices and between this, work and whatever funzie time I can scrounge about there really hasn't been much that I could all stimulating happening between these four walls, or any other four walls I happen to be occupying at the time. Hopefully this will all change for the better, but then again hopefully I'll fall into a few billion dollars that'll tide me over until payday.
And guess which song I hear when I trot in...."I'm Really Not This Way" by Manster! Yes, Manster had reformed for this gig and they did a good rendition of the famous number offa LIVE AT CBGB's though I remember the closing guitar solo being restrained in comparison with the original. I then trotted over to the stage to see them...as expected they were now all old guys in their sixties, kinda wrinkled skin-wise yet looking rather neat in their suits and ties, and they were playing really good that night to the point where I sure wish I had a tape recorder handy! The singer (whose hair was grey and kinda wiry) had fun at our expense by shaking a bottle of Coke and spraying it all over the front of the crowd (including me!). He also shot some whipped or shaving cream on me and of course I fell to my knees laughing as well as feeling honored that the guy would target me with his aerosol can!!! A good time was had by all, and naturally dreams like this just make me wanna hear more of the real thing wherever that may be. But hey, without dreams like these I sure have a lot less!
OK, no more ado for me!
JD McPhearson-LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL CD-r burn (originally on Rounder Records)
A lotta this revival blooze chooze never did settle well with my rather delicate stomach, but since this guy's not Robert Cray it ain't like I'm gonna be complainin'. In fact this is pretty hot stuff that sounds rather pre-scuzzy white kids slick it up at times, a bit commercial perhaps but still varied enough to keep this short-attention-spanned reviewer occupied for the entirety. IMPORTANT NOTE: the title song is not the Huey Piano Smith and the Clowns classic nor is it the Cars late-seventies classic rock schmoozer but an original, so don't be let down once you plunk this one on the laser launch pad expecting one or the other finding out that its neither!
***WEIRD ROCK 'N ROLL DREAM TIME!: haven't been having many of these particular dreamies as of late, but the one I experienced only a few evenings back was not only elongated beyond the usual dream timespan of aseemingly minute or so but rather strange even for a suburban slob such as myself!!! At the beginning of it I was hanging out in Youngstown Ohio around the university area and I decide to blow off seeing the Rollins Band (had tickets) to take in Ella Fitzgerald at a large auditorium nearby! Ella even drove me home and was acting nice about it too! Then all of a sudden I'm in a strange place which turns out to be CBGB (though it now looks like some sorta abandoned warehouse turned into a flea market) and somehow my mind is relaying to me that this is that "new" place where CBGB used to be but they're having a CBGB reunion night of sorts!
And guess which song I hear when I trot in...."I'm Really Not This Way" by Manster! Yes, Manster had reformed for this gig and they did a good rendition of the famous number offa LIVE AT CBGB's though I remember the closing guitar solo being restrained in comparison with the original. I then trotted over to the stage to see them...as expected they were now all old guys in their sixties, kinda wrinkled skin-wise yet looking rather neat in their suits and ties, and they were playing really good that night to the point where I sure wish I had a tape recorder handy! The singer (whose hair was grey and kinda wiry) had fun at our expense by shaking a bottle of Coke and spraying it all over the front of the crowd (including me!). He also shot some whipped or shaving cream on me and of course I fell to my knees laughing as well as feeling honored that the guy would target me with his aerosol can!!! A good time was had by all, and naturally dreams like this just make me wanna hear more of the real thing wherever that may be. But hey, without dreams like these I sure have a lot less!
***Maybe there will be some "further ado" before we get into the review portion of today's program. First off I gotta thank Paul McGarry for a good portion of the burns, none of which I felt I got "burned" over ha ha hee hee, and Bill Shute for the sampler (one of a bazillion) of rarities combed off of the internet. Heap heavy hunkering thanks go to Bob Forward for the Nin "album" which was a total surprise because for some reason (joke presented in opening line of review notwithstanding) I thought this was gonna be some modern group doing the industrial crank game! (BTW this a platter that I will admit sounds just as good at 33 as it does at 45...in fact play it at 33 because it will last longer and sound even spookier just like one of those old Chrome records which urged you to do the same!)
OK, no more ado for me!
A lotta this revival blooze chooze never did settle well with my rather delicate stomach, but since this guy's not Robert Cray it ain't like I'm gonna be complainin'. In fact this is pretty hot stuff that sounds rather pre-scuzzy white kids slick it up at times, a bit commercial perhaps but still varied enough to keep this short-attention-spanned reviewer occupied for the entirety. IMPORTANT NOTE: the title song is not the Huey Piano Smith and the Clowns classic nor is it the Cars late-seventies classic rock schmoozer but an original, so don't be let down once you plunk this one on the laser launch pad expecting one or the other finding out that its neither!
***
A pre-Alice/Lou/etc. Dick Wagner got his chops chopped up in this mid-sixties Detroit band, and if you want to hear the roots of all of those seventies guitar god grinders that he cranked out way back when well... It ain't like you're exactly gonna hear any of 'em here! But you'll like it more'n enough knowing the voracious appetite of some of you six-oh rock fans and followers.
From the early Beatles cops to the white enough take on soul to the Yardbirds-inspired hard blues noogies the Bossmen really captured their era well, and if you're still hungering for more of that NUGGETS crunch this might help you out at least until the next outta-nowhere exhumation. For fans of that BOMP! issue with the Detroit history (I think it was the one with the Groovies onna cover) that you still refer to when the ol' memory fails.
***
Sheesh, who woulda thought this guy was still around? But he is, and frankly I remember him sounding a whole lot rummage sale 'n this back in '81 when the first Panther Burns album came out. But it's sure nice giving Mr. Falco a listen to all these years later even if he does sound like he got a stuffy nose. A lotta this does kinda suffer from a post-postmodern slickness and it ain't like the originals are anything to toss the cornflakes about, but this stew does entertain a whole load more'n most of the free download snoozeroonies out these days. And hey, why should I moan about it because I got the thing for free (unless you wanna count the big humongous Christmas gifts I give Paul McGarry not to mention the loads of postage it takes to trek the package all the way to Waterdown)...
***
One of those "revival" kinda bands that actually strikes me good whether it be because of their authentico 1963 look or their faithful renditions of early-mid-sixties cusp garage rock craziness that really made those years special in more ways than one. Taking cues from everyone from the Trashmen to the Ramones even and all British Invasion points in-between, the NP's have released a record that would have rated with any long player to get the wrecked needle play on your older sis's portable back mid-sixties way. Not only that, but the high-pumping pressure this one exudes only proves that no matter how much the snobbish Pantsiosites out there in sophiticado "rock" land may pout about it the Big Beat continues to live on! I probably won't be spinning this 'un on a nightly basis like I do some of my stone cold faves, but it sure does bring back alla those turdler-era spells of tee-vee fun and car radio ramalama!
***
Whew! For a minute I thought this was gonna be some sickoid story about a guy thinking he's sodomizing his new born infant only to find out it was the fambly dog alla time! Turns out that it ain't...it's just the soundtrack to the Ian Hugo 1952 film BELLS OF ATLANTIS which features famed pornographer Anais Nin reciting a portion of her own HOUSE OF INCEST while this beautifully gurgling and burbling music (sounds like a buncha tape loops and audio generations set for the heart of the sun) predates a whole lotta seventies underground rock accomplishment that might've made it to the Nurse With Wound list had this only gotten out more.
You can hear it for free on youtube if you wish (while watching the pre-psychedelic explosion of color that just might creep inside your frazzle) but this is a nifty package and a gosh darn wonderful artifact of early hipster expression and alla that Jackson Pollack nonsense we've been inundated with for years. Methinks that the same people who pressed this one up (color xerox cover pasted onto black sleeve, color one-sided vinyl) also did the very similar Velvet Underground CHELSEA GIRLS, AGENTS OF MISFORTUNE and Sun Ra on church organ releases that had been coming out for well over a year, but I just can't be sure of such things. Sure looks similar tho...
***
Bill is showing marked improvement with these newer efforts. Not that the old ones were exactly turdballs but there's more of a mind-expanding variety with these efforts. Or something like that but hey, these made for great listening whilst I was reading the newest issue of BULL TONGUE REVIEW (see last post) so don't go givin' me any lip!
Dunno why Bill slapped guitar snoozer Al Caiola on here (probably because he knows I hate him!), but he sure did good here. There are also such "oddities" as Grasshopper's "Pretzel Bill" (some of that new avant musique concrete I believe which oddly enough conjured up nightmarish vision of the early-eighties cassette culture) and some other equally mesmerizing into the pit of despair track I never was able to find the name of (track listings get all goofed up because of the boffo radio commercials stuck in without any prior warning)..Come to think of it, the entire platter seems to ooze some strange spell that comes off like one of those drug-induced dreams I have which come off so real to the point where even years later I still wonder if what I had dreamed had actually happened or not. I'm sure some of you serious narcologists would know what I'm talking about but gee, I'm just a tippy-toe dabbler compared with
Oh yeah, the inclusion of Quincy Jones was totally unnecessary, and listening to Harry James go late-sixties top 40 hip is about as digestible as watching Pat Buttrum with long hair and a mod kerchief. But listening to these things just had me fantasizing that it was the seventies, and the hopes of a Gizmos EP was just around the corner...
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