Well, with life just creeping along like it is, what better thing could any self-respecting fanabla like myself do but hunker down in my once fun-thrilled abode and listen to all of the boffo platters one (mainly myself) could get my pasta-pickin' hands on as of late. And thanks to some extra cash lyin' around (as well as a strange urge to "dump it down a rathole" as my father would say) I decided to do a li'l splurging myself hence the reviews of some platters one could actually say are "current releases" and not some old collection delving finds. Of course the freebee stuff courtesy of Bill Shute helps out, and you know it would.
So w/o any further a-doo-doo, here's what I've been listening to this past seven or so days. And you???
The Electric Eels-DIE ELECTRIC EELS LP (Superior Viaduct); "Accident"/"Wreck And Roll" 45 rpm (HoZac)
It's always great seeing MY FAVORITE ROCK 'N ROLL GROUP (next to a few million more, but who's counting) done up like they are here with great looking sleeves, liner notes (for the album) and a general respect that this act certainly did not get during its surprisingly short lifetime. The Superior Viaduct album collects a whole buncha the Eels' biggies including the hit "Agitated", and I must admit that this 'un makes for one of those boffo rock 'n roll listening experiences that really gets you all hot and bothered like it should. I really do wish this one got around back in the late-seventies so's I coulda enjoyed playing it during one of my rock jags along with the Flamin' Groovies and Alice Cooper. The HoZac single contains even more from those '75 sessions and it really tears into you like nothing since side two of FUNHOUSE. Again, this woulda been one of those real attention grabbers had it somehow ended up on Stiff Records and was available in a whole slew of commercial record shops on yellow vinyl! They shoulda let John Morton do the cover tho', but I guess these days he costs too much!
But still I wonder, with all of the unreleased stuff there must be why not some fresh booty for once in our lives? It sure would be boffo to hear the legendary track "Razor Blade", and I do know that the Eclectic Eels rehearsals from autumn '76 are out and about so why not let us hear Dave E tear his tonsils into things like the Sonics' "Strychnine" and John Morton do his TROUT MASK REPLICA-inspired vocal track "In a Pig's Eye"??? I mean, """"""""""I"""""""""" have this stuff on tape somewhere in my vast collection and if I were a stinking non-royalty paying kinda guy I could put it out myself, but I won't and hey, maybe it's time we raided the John Morton vaults to see what's REALLY in there because I think he's holding back on us and with a vengeance! Paul Marotta too...c'mon, this material is "Now More Than Ever" and in even more of a sense than Richard Nixon ever woulda dared dream!
Fury-"Flying"/"100 Proof" 45 rpm single; Liquid Diamonds-"Aw Ma"/"Long Ago" 45 rpm single (HoZac)
I'm not familiar one iota with Sonny Vincent or his Testors days, but this particular slice of En Why rock past certainly does whet my appetite for early-seventies punk rock or early-seventies heavy metal, at least the way the writers at CREEM used to make it out to be. Fury was Vincent's earlier act and they were a pretty good hard-rock scortching sorta bunch kinda in the mid-seventies El Lay HM vein before the hair really started to get out of control. Somehow I'm reminded of that Killer Kane Band single with Blackie Lawless in that I get the feeling that this one would really alienate the standard mid-eighties hardcore crowd, but those who still remembered the seventies would understand.
Liquid Diamonds were even looser in their approach to hard rock trio sounds giving me the impression that they probably sounded like a whole slew of those under-the-radar acts that popped up on various CBGB and Max's listings but were so outta the gnu wave loop that THE NEW YORK ROCKER wouldn't've written about 'em in a millyun years. If so, would someone please get more of this New York obscurity music out and about??? Nice packaging on both, including a boffo Club 82 ad on the back of the Diamonds one featuring that grand reopening show under new management when Lou Reed played host, and that would figure considering how he performed his only solo-era show in a NYC underground club at the ol' 82, even if the gig was one of those "unannounced" (hint hint) ones.
The Monks-THE EARLY YEARS 1964-1965 CD (Light in the Attic)
Some love 'em and some loathe 'em, and so what else is new? But for those who do think of the Monks as the ultimo mid-sixties freak-idea outfit this by-now ancient collection (which I passed on for quite a long time because hey, I only have so much lucre in the ol' Porky) is whatcha'd call a holy grail of the greasiest kind.
THE EARLY YEARS consists of some early demos done in the days back when these guys' hair length was actually giving the Rolling Stones a run for the moolah and their hard churn act was just being gestated. Surprisingly loose sound (with a decidedly European approach right outta the oompah-rock of the day) and a boon for those of you who like to track musical developments like I used to do with NANCY comics styling details. The performance does have that tinge of Euro slickness, but I blame that on the production which was probably done by some old kraut who's previous job was coaching Eva Braun how to forcefully thrust out a convincing version of "Ist Das Ist Der Schnitzelbonk?"
Contains their version of "Hold That Tiger" (here known as "Hushie Pushie") which is bound to drive someone in your family to murder you. Closes out with the rare Five Torquays single from '64 that really connects the sleek Monks sound with the early sludge from whence they rose, and oh what a sludge it was!
The VIP's-LIVE AT THE TWEN CLUB 1966 CD-r burn (originally on Document Records, Austria)
I didn't think I was gonna enjoy this act one bit given how mid-European copycat they looked to me, but this platter does prove that the VIP's were able to crank out some rather stick-around-in-your-mind rock et roll. True some of the material here isn't up to BLOG TO COMM standards coming off like something one would have heard in some of the most lavish Holiday Inn lounges on the continent, but these cheese lovers can rock out in a pretty decent fashion when they wanted to. Pretty passable covers mingle with some hot originals, and for a buncha nth-stringers they come off better'n most of that music that passes for rock you hear in loads of mid-sixties foreign features. Nice enough for moi, and perhaps for thoi.
FOSSILS WITH BRIAN RURYK CD-r burn (Kendra Steiner Editions)
These guys (now about as defunct as anything) are back with yet another KSE release, one that's even wackier'n the previous Fossils platter reviewed a few months back. More chop and slop with sounds prefab or not, making for one of the wildest rides heard since I decided to smear one of those Longines Symphonette flexi discs with peanut butter and spin it at 16 rpm. Musique Concrete for the teens even if it does have roots stretching all the way back to your dada (and mama as well).
Pig Rider-THE ROBINSON SCRATCH THEORY 2-CD set (Guerrson Spain---I woulda linked this review up to the Forced Exposure sight but they were "down" when I was typing this review)
It really is too bad that a whole load of this eighties English DIY stuff has remained so under the blankets because some of it was pretty solid rock music that shoulda been noted by more'n a few maniacal fans. Take these Pig Rider guys f'rinstance...like hardly anybody knew they even existed let alone who they wuz, and now there's a spiffy double-Cee-Dee set consisting of a good portion of their tape releaseage out that really tops a whole lotta "professional" sputum that had been inundating us at the very same moment these guys were struggling to get their hands on a Cetron 90-minute tape assembled in Mexico!
For a buncha nobodies doin' this in the privacy of their bedroom without the prying eyes of the law tellin' 'em it was immoral or somethin', the Riders sure did their music up they way I'm sure most of us BLOG TO COMM readers wouldn't mind it. They remind me of the Tall Dwarfs in that they really do hearken back to their Limey roots (Syd Barrett, Kevin Ayers), yet there is also a noticeable amount of pre-bloat Beatles and Harvest-era Move tossed into the mix. Something tells me that Brian Sands would really go for this one if he could only gets his mitts on it. And Pig Rider take their English pop music a whole lot more serious than most...heck, these guys even mutilate Yusef Islam's very own "Moonshadow" for their "Just Can't Dance", speeding it up and chopping it up to the point where it doesn't sound like some dippy music to lay some sensitive girl to anymore!
And oh the injustice of it all, Pig Rider being all but ignored while untalented boobs like Madonna raked in the millyuns appealing to the basest instincts of music listeners worldwide! Kinda makes me wonder if there was anything else happening in the bedrooms of Britain during those rather unexciting days, other'n that disgusting stuff the British are well known for doing if Archie Bunker is to be believed.
Larry Martin Factory-EARLY DOWN FLYERS AND ELECTRIC KIDS CD-r burn (originally on Isadora, Italy)
Remember that ol' line that was goin' around inna seventies about how the French couldn't play rock 'n roll? Gotta say that it was a whole lotta hooey not only given all of those French Flamin' Groovies and Iggy imports clogging up the bins of the late-seventies but that nation's love for the Lou Reed/Patti Smith swing of things! But given an album like this I can see how the rumor got started. Michel Polnareff comes off like Sky Saxon next to this Larry Martin fellow who dribbles off a seventies schmooze rock that comes off like the worst aspects of what I remember of Nelson Slater's WILD ANGEL (worthy of a reappraisal more sooner than later) with enough Mike Post-ish synth to remind you of the theme of some late-seventies detective series that never even existed. Somebody's chortling over the cheap juxtaposition of watered down sixties moves, muffled vocals and lackluster arrangements, and it sure ain't me!
Alien Planetscapes-IRON MAN OF VENUS CD-r (Galactus, available via Richard Orlando)
Yet another nice entry into the Doug Walker Hall of Space Creeps. A 2003 studio session featuring Walker in a straight-ahead rock 'n roll version of the group (Richard Orlando on guitar and synth, Chris Altenhof on bass guitar and Rob Benson on drums) sounding like that bastardized version of Hawkwind Nick Turner never got around to forming. Or maybe early Kongress, Chrome, or that 1969 punk rock band you remember from down the street only those guys couldn't afford a stylophone let alone a synthesizer. After all if early Kongress (or Chrome or early krautrock for that matter) sounded like anything it was that 1969 punk rock band you remember from down the street. Soar the sonic heights of your mind (or at least your fart-encrusted bedroom) with these straight ahead rhythmic shards of cosmic drone that kinda makes you wish that electronic snorkles like this caught on way back when 'stead of Keith Emerson monkeying around with his Moog feeling so self-assured that he has wowed the rubes with at least five new electronic cantatas played with his nose.
Various Artists-EXPLODING GREEN HONKYTONK PEANUTS CD-r burn (Bill Shute)
Mr. B must be in a jazzy r 'n b mood what with these bloozy (mostly) instrumental sides that come off as if they popped straight outta Chuck Shadowski's collection. Names like Jimmy McGriff (he of Ghoulardi trib "Turn Blue" fame), the Jazz Crusaders and Ace Cannon might be known by more'n a few casual listeners, but you might be surprised to find the likes of Elvin Jones and Richard Davis (together!) doing some down-groove jazzy blooze not to mention legendary jazzman Illinois Jacquet. For a surprising change of somethingorother Bill even threw in some latin jazz courtesy of Jack Constanzo that sounds like something Fidel Castro and Che Guevara woulda swung to in between caving skulls in with shovels (gotta do something to break up the monotony!). It's stuff like this that spelled it all out regarding the black experience when I was but a mere single-digiter and even though I wasn't exactly a whole hog fan of this stuff it's sure nice hearing a good selection of it all in one place. And it's a place where I wouldn't be afraid to go after dark, ifyaknowaddamean...
So w/o any further a-doo-doo, here's what I've been listening to this past seven or so days. And you???
The Electric Eels-DIE ELECTRIC EELS LP (Superior Viaduct); "Accident"/"Wreck And Roll" 45 rpm (HoZac)
It's always great seeing MY FAVORITE ROCK 'N ROLL GROUP (next to a few million more, but who's counting) done up like they are here with great looking sleeves, liner notes (for the album) and a general respect that this act certainly did not get during its surprisingly short lifetime. The Superior Viaduct album collects a whole buncha the Eels' biggies including the hit "Agitated", and I must admit that this 'un makes for one of those boffo rock 'n roll listening experiences that really gets you all hot and bothered like it should. I really do wish this one got around back in the late-seventies so's I coulda enjoyed playing it during one of my rock jags along with the Flamin' Groovies and Alice Cooper. The HoZac single contains even more from those '75 sessions and it really tears into you like nothing since side two of FUNHOUSE. Again, this woulda been one of those real attention grabbers had it somehow ended up on Stiff Records and was available in a whole slew of commercial record shops on yellow vinyl! They shoulda let John Morton do the cover tho', but I guess these days he costs too much!
But still I wonder, with all of the unreleased stuff there must be why not some fresh booty for once in our lives? It sure would be boffo to hear the legendary track "Razor Blade", and I do know that the Eclectic Eels rehearsals from autumn '76 are out and about so why not let us hear Dave E tear his tonsils into things like the Sonics' "Strychnine" and John Morton do his TROUT MASK REPLICA-inspired vocal track "In a Pig's Eye"??? I mean, """"""""""I"""""""""" have this stuff on tape somewhere in my vast collection and if I were a stinking non-royalty paying kinda guy I could put it out myself, but I won't and hey, maybe it's time we raided the John Morton vaults to see what's REALLY in there because I think he's holding back on us and with a vengeance! Paul Marotta too...c'mon, this material is "Now More Than Ever" and in even more of a sense than Richard Nixon ever woulda dared dream!
***
Fury-"Flying"/"100 Proof" 45 rpm single; Liquid Diamonds-"Aw Ma"/"Long Ago" 45 rpm single (HoZac)
I'm not familiar one iota with Sonny Vincent or his Testors days, but this particular slice of En Why rock past certainly does whet my appetite for early-seventies punk rock or early-seventies heavy metal, at least the way the writers at CREEM used to make it out to be. Fury was Vincent's earlier act and they were a pretty good hard-rock scortching sorta bunch kinda in the mid-seventies El Lay HM vein before the hair really started to get out of control. Somehow I'm reminded of that Killer Kane Band single with Blackie Lawless in that I get the feeling that this one would really alienate the standard mid-eighties hardcore crowd, but those who still remembered the seventies would understand.
Liquid Diamonds were even looser in their approach to hard rock trio sounds giving me the impression that they probably sounded like a whole slew of those under-the-radar acts that popped up on various CBGB and Max's listings but were so outta the gnu wave loop that THE NEW YORK ROCKER wouldn't've written about 'em in a millyun years. If so, would someone please get more of this New York obscurity music out and about??? Nice packaging on both, including a boffo Club 82 ad on the back of the Diamonds one featuring that grand reopening show under new management when Lou Reed played host, and that would figure considering how he performed his only solo-era show in a NYC underground club at the ol' 82, even if the gig was one of those "unannounced" (hint hint) ones.***
Some love 'em and some loathe 'em, and so what else is new? But for those who do think of the Monks as the ultimo mid-sixties freak-idea outfit this by-now ancient collection (which I passed on for quite a long time because hey, I only have so much lucre in the ol' Porky) is whatcha'd call a holy grail of the greasiest kind.
THE EARLY YEARS consists of some early demos done in the days back when these guys' hair length was actually giving the Rolling Stones a run for the moolah and their hard churn act was just being gestated. Surprisingly loose sound (with a decidedly European approach right outta the oompah-rock of the day) and a boon for those of you who like to track musical developments like I used to do with NANCY comics styling details. The performance does have that tinge of Euro slickness, but I blame that on the production which was probably done by some old kraut who's previous job was coaching Eva Braun how to forcefully thrust out a convincing version of "Ist Das Ist Der Schnitzelbonk?"
Contains their version of "Hold That Tiger" (here known as "Hushie Pushie") which is bound to drive someone in your family to murder you. Closes out with the rare Five Torquays single from '64 that really connects the sleek Monks sound with the early sludge from whence they rose, and oh what a sludge it was!
***
I didn't think I was gonna enjoy this act one bit given how mid-European copycat they looked to me, but this platter does prove that the VIP's were able to crank out some rather stick-around-in-your-mind rock et roll. True some of the material here isn't up to BLOG TO COMM standards coming off like something one would have heard in some of the most lavish Holiday Inn lounges on the continent, but these cheese lovers can rock out in a pretty decent fashion when they wanted to. Pretty passable covers mingle with some hot originals, and for a buncha nth-stringers they come off better'n most of that music that passes for rock you hear in loads of mid-sixties foreign features. Nice enough for moi, and perhaps for thoi.
***
These guys (now about as defunct as anything) are back with yet another KSE release, one that's even wackier'n the previous Fossils platter reviewed a few months back. More chop and slop with sounds prefab or not, making for one of the wildest rides heard since I decided to smear one of those Longines Symphonette flexi discs with peanut butter and spin it at 16 rpm. Musique Concrete for the teens even if it does have roots stretching all the way back to your dada (and mama as well).
***
It really is too bad that a whole load of this eighties English DIY stuff has remained so under the blankets because some of it was pretty solid rock music that shoulda been noted by more'n a few maniacal fans. Take these Pig Rider guys f'rinstance...like hardly anybody knew they even existed let alone who they wuz, and now there's a spiffy double-Cee-Dee set consisting of a good portion of their tape releaseage out that really tops a whole lotta "professional" sputum that had been inundating us at the very same moment these guys were struggling to get their hands on a Cetron 90-minute tape assembled in Mexico!
For a buncha nobodies doin' this in the privacy of their bedroom without the prying eyes of the law tellin' 'em it was immoral or somethin', the Riders sure did their music up they way I'm sure most of us BLOG TO COMM readers wouldn't mind it. They remind me of the Tall Dwarfs in that they really do hearken back to their Limey roots (Syd Barrett, Kevin Ayers), yet there is also a noticeable amount of pre-bloat Beatles and Harvest-era Move tossed into the mix. Something tells me that Brian Sands would really go for this one if he could only gets his mitts on it. And Pig Rider take their English pop music a whole lot more serious than most...heck, these guys even mutilate Yusef Islam's very own "Moonshadow" for their "Just Can't Dance", speeding it up and chopping it up to the point where it doesn't sound like some dippy music to lay some sensitive girl to anymore!
And oh the injustice of it all, Pig Rider being all but ignored while untalented boobs like Madonna raked in the millyuns appealing to the basest instincts of music listeners worldwide! Kinda makes me wonder if there was anything else happening in the bedrooms of Britain during those rather unexciting days, other'n that disgusting stuff the British are well known for doing if Archie Bunker is to be believed.
***
Remember that ol' line that was goin' around inna seventies about how the French couldn't play rock 'n roll? Gotta say that it was a whole lotta hooey not only given all of those French Flamin' Groovies and Iggy imports clogging up the bins of the late-seventies but that nation's love for the Lou Reed/Patti Smith swing of things! But given an album like this I can see how the rumor got started. Michel Polnareff comes off like Sky Saxon next to this Larry Martin fellow who dribbles off a seventies schmooze rock that comes off like the worst aspects of what I remember of Nelson Slater's WILD ANGEL (worthy of a reappraisal more sooner than later) with enough Mike Post-ish synth to remind you of the theme of some late-seventies detective series that never even existed. Somebody's chortling over the cheap juxtaposition of watered down sixties moves, muffled vocals and lackluster arrangements, and it sure ain't me!
***
Yet another nice entry into the Doug Walker Hall of Space Creeps. A 2003 studio session featuring Walker in a straight-ahead rock 'n roll version of the group (Richard Orlando on guitar and synth, Chris Altenhof on bass guitar and Rob Benson on drums) sounding like that bastardized version of Hawkwind Nick Turner never got around to forming. Or maybe early Kongress, Chrome, or that 1969 punk rock band you remember from down the street only those guys couldn't afford a stylophone let alone a synthesizer. After all if early Kongress (or Chrome or early krautrock for that matter) sounded like anything it was that 1969 punk rock band you remember from down the street. Soar the sonic heights of your mind (or at least your fart-encrusted bedroom) with these straight ahead rhythmic shards of cosmic drone that kinda makes you wish that electronic snorkles like this caught on way back when 'stead of Keith Emerson monkeying around with his Moog feeling so self-assured that he has wowed the rubes with at least five new electronic cantatas played with his nose.
***
Mr. B must be in a jazzy r 'n b mood what with these bloozy (mostly) instrumental sides that come off as if they popped straight outta Chuck Shadowski's collection. Names like Jimmy McGriff (he of Ghoulardi trib "Turn Blue" fame), the Jazz Crusaders and Ace Cannon might be known by more'n a few casual listeners, but you might be surprised to find the likes of Elvin Jones and Richard Davis (together!) doing some down-groove jazzy blooze not to mention legendary jazzman Illinois Jacquet. For a surprising change of somethingorother Bill even threw in some latin jazz courtesy of Jack Constanzo that sounds like something Fidel Castro and Che Guevara woulda swung to in between caving skulls in with shovels (gotta do something to break up the monotony!). It's stuff like this that spelled it all out regarding the black experience when I was but a mere single-digiter and even though I wasn't exactly a whole hog fan of this stuff it's sure nice hearing a good selection of it all in one place. And it's a place where I wouldn't be afraid to go after dark, ifyaknowaddamean...
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