Another week, another-------week??? Shee-yucks, once you get to be as elderly as I am these days just seem to woosh by ya and the thrill of waiting for the weekend for two days off inna row just vanishes into nada! But that's probably because I have to do doody on Sadderdays as well as the other five (Sundays on special occasion) which does tend to screw up the ol' cranial system w/regards to when to suffer and when to let loose. But I try not to let that get hold of me, usually w/o any success.
It was a good week though, what with the freebee platters and such which have made their way to my door and my ears, this week. Not forgetting the oldie moldies that is. Besides listening to the bountiful beauts that the likes of Bill Shute, Paul McGarry and P. D. Fadensonnen have sent my way quite a few BLOG TO COMM faves have been making their way into my musical listening parameters. Such downright classics as Chrome's HALF MACHINE FROM THE SUN (a platter I would now rate a whole lot higher'n I originally did via the piddling review I gave it back '13 way!) and the Can UNOPENED boot have been getting rather heavy airplay around here, much to my own personal inner peace advantage (yeah, hippie jargon!) if I do say so myself, brother! And of course when I just can't think of anything else that'll slip me into addled bliss during these rather tension-packed nights SWEET SISTER RAY is always there to help. Sheesh, if I wrote gunk like this during my high stool English class days maybe I woulda gotten a "C"!
***I CAN'T BELIEVE IT, I JUST CAN'T BELIEVE IT! DEPT.: I mean, who woulda thunk that a pre-fame Tiny Tim would have been filmed at "The Factory", which I assume is THEE Factory as in Andy Warhol way back 1963 way performing a number and on a patched up ukulele at that! And playing the thang right-handed if you can believe it. More dredges up from a past that I for one sure can't get enough of, and I get the feeling that you feel the exact same way too! (And of course I am wrong...)
Anyway, enough reminiscing about days that'll never come back (at least then freaks wuz freaks!). Here's what else I've been spinning this week and, as usual, thanks to Bill Shute, Paul McGarry and P.D. Fadensonnen for their contributions to the cause. And Bob Forward, I just found those Iggy and Rick James disques you gave me ages back so, maybe, in the next one???
Hokay, this ain't as power-packed jazzed-out as NUGGETS or PEBBLES, but its durn near great! Seventysome minutes of nothing but downer if high energy garage band tracks from the mid-to-late sixties that really do evoke alla those great suburban slob feelings those that scratchy old 45s that were inherited from your older brother in 'nam did (and yer hopin' he'd come home in a body bag just so he wouldn't decide to reclaim 'em!). Judging from this collection there was nothing better for white middle-class kids from across the fruity plain to do but moan about lost love (as if the guy could even get to bat with the love of his life who was more apt to do the dirty deed with the captain of the football team which is why we didn't see her for the last few months of high school) using the patented minor chord changes or even with some sly swipes of hoary old "Louie Louie" and "Hey Joe" riffs. (For the more introspective guys substitute the Byrds.) Instant classics via some names both familiar and not such as Lindy Blaskey, Billy and the Kids, the Squires and of course the legendary Public Nuisance whose double disque Cee-Dee set on Frantic Records I gotta dig outta the collection mighty soon for a decade-plus re-eval!
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And the second of this week's Bill burns is once again on the downer garage band side! But that's OK for me because hey, maybe what we could ALL use these days is more downer garage band gurgle and less up-and-cheerful pop slop the likes which permeate the tee-vees and even radios of this world. Again there's hardly anything here that'll make ya wanna run down the street nekkid screaming in pure addled joy, but it's still pleasant what with the nice 'n poppy tracks (almost said "if poppy tracks" which would convey a snooty feeling that I certainly don't have for these numbers), most of which seem to echo the more clean-cut side of the Amerigan garage band experience but I won't hold it against them. (Though you may want to hold plenty against the Yes It Is for their cornballus version of "Walking The Dog"!)
Mostly total unknown entities make up this particular slab of 29-count-'em tracks, but for those wanting something a little less obscure than the usual ultra-obscurities the infamous Executioners toon "The Noose" appears for your suburban slob pleasure. There's also a faithful cover of "Woolly Bully" that does evoke the spirit of 1965 ranch house pride as much as Kool Ade! Somehow I think Chad and Jeremy would have heartily approved of it all, and who knows maybe you will too.
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You may think it silly (unless you've swallowed all of the propaganda bait hook line and swanker), but France really was a musical hotbed of high energy sounds during the latter portion of the previous century. Not only for the hotcha amt. of music the nation had produced, but because the French weren't exactly the snobs everybody's made 'em out to be and actually liked music that was created from outside their borders. This collection proves that some of the sounds that emanated from that nation was pretty on-target, even if it wasn't actually being produced by native born French types.
The platter starts out with yet another Sonny Sharrock rarity, this time featuring then-wife Linda, MONKEY POCKIE BOO bassist Beb Guerin and Art Ensemble drummer Don Moye from a Tee-Vee sesh that I'm gonna hafta search out on youtube one of these days. (Editor's note---and I did and it's a real eyeful!) Mighty hotcha stuff here what with Sharrock and band starting off with "Peanut" from BLACK WOMAN before segueing into the title track from Sharrock's legendary BYG platter as if I have to repeat its name!
Following is the MC5 live during their European stay doing a "Kick Out The Jams"/"Black to Comm" medley for an undoubtedly appreciative audience once again laying waste to the rumor that the French not only played bad rock 'n roll but didn't like the wild stuff either. Cooking on all hotpoints the band proves why they were so big overseas while inna US of Whoa they were lucky enough if they got mentioned on page 100 of STEREO REVIEW right next to Jan Garber. And people think that the French had no sense of rockism in their souls!
Closing out the disque is Beb Guerin, now with his own band doing a rather Euro-ish sounding set that recalls some of the quieter things that Gunter Hampel did on those self-produced albums that you could once get via NMDS for prices I sure wish were around today. It kinda moves and absorbs as it goes on, and you hear a vibraphone at one point then a slide whistle making me wonder if Sharrock had returned Guerin's favors and decided to sit in on this particular gig!
So despite having bred a whole buncha bad revolutionary movements and horrid philosophers who propped up said movements there still was, at least judging from this compilation, a lot of life in France back in the twentieth century. Burn one if you can, only try to keep it away from all sortsa doofs out there who still like to bandy terms like "surrender monkeys", "cheese eaters" and "freedom fries" around!
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Well whaddaya know, the classic Milk 'n' Cookies album has once again been reissued for all of you power pop turds out there, and I'm sure the news of this has got y'all jumpin' up an' down like a buncha homos who accidentally got the cayenne mixed in with the KY. And as you probably already know by now this one is a total winner---a typically mid-seventies teenbo platter with the right amount of tough snarl, teenage pop credo and of course the good looks that gals used to swoon over and guys like me wish we had rather'n having to be mirror images of Bernard Punsley.
Disque #1's got the album as well as a batch of rare non-LP numbers that all point towards something akin to a weird cross between the Ramones and Bay City Rollers. That sounds good enough for me despite not being top-notch 1000% boosters of either act (hissssssss!), but for my ears it all works out fine. I prefer the additional disque though, which has a buncha rare demos and rehearsal tracks that are raw and extremely attuned to what this whole idea of punk rock and cheap aesthetics was supposed to be all about back when these sides were recorded (1973). Of particular interest is track #3 entitled "Girls in Gangs" which sounds just like those Harvest-period Move numbers that still appeal to me to the point where other writers have made fun of me for liking 'em so! Well tough turds fella, I got my own anglophile side that I ain't ashamed of, and come to think of it so did Milk 'n' Cookies and it's all for the better if I do say so myself!
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I sure dunno why Paul McGarry sent a copy of this 'un to me! I thought the man had enough knock-knock up there to know that I really don't cozy up to most of these soft pop platters that seem to take the hard-edge of those seventies power pop tunes and water 'em down quite a few notches. Maybe somebody in the group is related to Paul, only Paul didn't want to tell me because he wanted me to judge it on its own merits and not be fluzzled by his hard-handed hypeorama regarding this 'un. Well, frankly it is kinda pleasant and la-de-da 'n all, but if ya really wanna know I've heard saucier. Now tell me Paul, who was it? A relative, co-worker, a neighbor, the milkman???
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Fans of Nurse With Wound will undoubtedly wanna gobble up this long-forgotten act's recordings considering how Two Daughters (who sound more like two sons but who am I to say?) seem to be working the same sound mangipulation strata as their more famous labelmates did. Weird tape-loop sounds produce repeato-riff musings that sure come off a whole lot better'n some of the home-made geek on a trip soundscapadings that I've heard o'er the years, with the daughters adding strange vocal sounds over everything from sampled classical music to strange riffage culled from who knows where. And the best thing about it is that you can dance to about a half of these tracks! Of course these motions on your part would have to be clunked out spasmodic moves so if you do decide to engage in improvisational gyrations (like I did age 11 whilst listening to Elvis blast out "Hound Dog") don't let anybody see you or else they'll laugh their gluteous maximuses off!
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THE PROFESSIONALS CD-r burn (originally on Virgin)Yeah I care about as much about these ex-Pistols as I do the season finale of CHAMPIONSHIP FELCHING, but the Cook/Jones axis sure does make for good neo-wave-y power poppish rock that said more about 1980 than...THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY I guess. Pleasant enough hard pop for my tastes though frankly, will I ever listen to this 'un again (your views will be summarily dismissed)? There's a cover of "White Light/White Heat" ripped from Bowie 'stead of Reed which might diminish 'em in your view, but then again maybe not.
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This being the middle of winter it ain't like I'm longing for sun and surf music that much (could use some snowbunny ski sounds if any happen to be lying around), but THE HONDELLS does get me right inna labonza the way the dredge up all of those turdler-era memories of hearing songs like these, mostly on someone else's radio. More'n decent surf slurp from these Beach Boys swiperoos that, for at least a brief moment, held the English at bay on the top 40 charts. Then again how could these clean cut wholesome surfer types compete against a buncha mop top rockers goin' wild all over the place??? All I want to know is, which side are you on, peace creep?
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Various Artists-NABISCO JANITOR PALSY CAN-CAN CD-r burn (Bill Shute)Here's yet another one of Bill's mystery meat samplers in which he gives no hint other'n the title as to what's to be found herein. A classic ad for Mayfield cigarettes (remember those? I sure don't!) starts off a fine selection of tracks ranging from a Japanese language version of "Dominique" to some spoken word cum radio trancemissions between a man and some woman, the man sounding a bit like Bill himself so who knows? There are also some funny old novelty records that sound like they were recorded by some Borscht Belt comedian during his free time (nothing as good as Benny Bell's "Shaving Cream") as well as a few slabs of sparse-sounding free jazz and pre-rock pop that kinda made me think that I was some doofus fiftysomething bachelor...in 1953 lazing about like Mr. Wilson or something. And of course those ads for Nabisco Shredded Wheat really hit the spot, though between you and me I eat mine with honey 'stead of sugar!!!! In all a better way to spend your free time rather'n playing proctologist with the neighborhood cat.
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