Sunday, December 04, 2016

Ya heard of "fake news"??? Well, here's some more of that "fake rock criticism/journalism" that this blog has been well known for these past umpteen years! Honestly, if you can't dig this reality then you just can't be a part of the FAKE ROCK BLOG SET like you most rightly should! Besides, like fake news fake rock criticism is a whole lot less mainstream, more focused on the meat and less on the gristle and best of all doesn't kowtow to prevailing flavors of the week and big hypes being passed off as new and innovative by the same shills we've known and hated lo these many years. Leave that manure mangling to the "real" music blogs out there, and believe-you-moi there are many!!!
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Not that much to gab about this week. Lemme just put it this way, and that's with even the free time I have I'm occupied and it ain't like I have the opportunity to take a trek down to the basement to spin some of those Feeding Tube freebies etc. that have been gathering dust in my vinyl collection. Not even the miracle package that Brad Kohler sent. Will try to do better next week not only with the bountiful beauts I've received vinyl-wise but with more of those Bill burns as well as some items that I've actually purchased with my my own hard-begged! Time will tell the tale, but don't expect a happy ending.


Gregg Turner-CHARTBUSTERZ LP (Feeding Tube, available via Forced Exposure)

Hokay, I managed to get one freebee platter reviewed this week, and it turns out that my pick of the litter was no runt that's for sure! The former BACK DOOR MAN scribe never did any music listener wrong from his sojurns with Vom and the Angry Samoans to the Vampire Cows, and on this solo jaunt he does just as good as he was doing back inna eighties when the master was creating that innovative music while everyone else was out lazing about in the good vibes of the day.

Some pretty hot trackage here that points towards many of the Turner favorites from Jonathan to Roky (former Roky pal and Vampire Cow member Billy Bill Miller plays autoharp dontcha know!) while subject matter here and about. I mean. there's even a song about Franz Kafka here and I didn't even rip the record off the turntable because of it! Hit of the week: "The Box", a sequel to the Velvet Underground classic tale o' woe "The Gift" which is just as good as that Fleshtones one where they patched up an early VU riff to Shakespeare (!) and it worked out a whole lot better'n if your group thought it up! A late contender for the year's best...we'll see.
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Xavier Cugat-BANG BANG CD-r burn (originally on Decca)

Sheesh, no wonder the Who were flailing about on Decca the way they did what with this sorta sound getting the big publicity push! But if Older Generation rhumba bumba toned down for anglo consumption is your game like man, go for this longplayer where the former Mr. Charo  whumps up a whole buncha the hits (and other flotsam) of the day for the benefit of your old boss who always used to go to the matinees at the mooms with a plastic liner in his hat ifyaknowaddamean... Play this one and those memories of Saturday afternoons stuck in the car with your dad'll come back a whole lot clearer, y'know.
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Various Artists-ELECTRIC ROCK '71 CD-r burn (originally on Liberty Records ,Germany)

Oboy, yet another europeon sampler of hotcha hip rock just custom made to ooze even more marks outta your typical stoned lumpenprole who's still ashamed over what his parents might or might not have done during the gory days of Addie. Considering that United Artists/Liberty had a rather solid youth market roster at the time you would expect this 'un to be chock fulla the non-hits by the biggies on the roster, and naturally the likes of Sugarloaf, Canned Heat, Eric Burdon and Johnny Winter are prominent. Thankfully (and because of its decidedly euro nature) ELECTRIC ROCK also has a smattering of local flavor to keep this from being a West Coast Rock excursion what with tracks by Hawkwind, Amon Duul II and "the" Can. I'm sure that more than a few young German kinder were buying albums like this because of the scarcity of money during those days, and given these were usually sold at budget prices I would say they were getting a fair amount back on their investment. Not much but hey, those were the seventies.
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Esquivel-LIVE IN LAS VEGAS AT THE STARDUST HOTEL 1969 CD-r burn

While we're on a Spanish groove (see Cugat review above) howzbout this offering from the bachelor pad prince himself Esquivel?!?!? Recorded live in Las Vegas you can just feel the lushes and horny businessmen inna audience looking over ugly female specimens who look good after ya get a few in ya. Sound quality might not be so hotcha but Esquevel and band really put a lot into this show which features a whole lotta the adult contemporary faves of the day like the theme from A MAN AND A WOMAN and THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM done up in a way suitable for any proud member of The Silent Majority fed up with those raucous teenage records clogging the airwaves. Pretty masculine stuff ya got here Mr. E, the next best things to etchings if I do say so myself.
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Bill Black's Combo-SOULIN' THE BLUES CD-r burn (originally on Hi/London)

I like cheezy instrumental rock of the pre-Beatle stratum just like I ass-oom all of you readers do, and the cheezier (Johnny and the Hurricanes, Rock-A-Teens) the better in my book. Fifties heavyweight Bill Black does pretty good with this still stuck inna past (even with the psychodayglo cover!) platter of instrumental bloozers, and altho this ain't as cheezoid as I sure woulda hoped I gotta say that it serves its purpose rather well. This is the kinda music that I, at age eight mind you, woulda called "grown up" because it didn't have the mop top or soul appeal that the kidz went for, but as far as the last gasps of a genre that hadn't really been big on anyone's top 40 once the British Invasion got into gear it's pretty solid jamz. And I do mean that from the bottom of my pit!
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Bob Bailey as YOURS TRULY, JOHNNY DOLLAR CD-r burn

A coupla more classics to keep me company on these long December nights. Two hotcha cases here, the first dealing with a warehouse heist and the second the swiping of a Lincoln manuscript, all solved with as much action-packed pow'r that can be dished out by your favorite and mine insurance investigator. If you (like me) go for that old time hardboiled tough guy police/private eye/investigator television programs and moom pitchers of the fifties then give this li'l excursion of theatre of the mind a go...you'll be surprised at the reception you'll get!
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DEPUTY DAWG CD-r burn (originally on RCA Camden)

Who amongst us (well, at least the suburban slobbier amongst us) didn't grow up with DEPUTY DAWG cartoons blarin' outta the tee-vee! Didn't know that there was an album of stories featuring the characters from the series but there was, and if you're in more of a mood to recapture those high-falutin' early-sixties days you're bound to go for this platter even more'n than you would for a bowl of Kellogg's Stars. Yes, re-live those days when the likes of Dawg, Muskie, Vincent Van Gopher and Ty Coon entertained your turdler mind within the sanctity of your sitting room and yeah, if you have a stick horse and Play Dough factory handy the effect will be much greater. And skid marks do help.
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Various Artists-STRIDER PANDA BINDU BRINE CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Bill's usual yet unusual batch of internet-sourced once-rarities that can now be found with the mere click of a mouse. The standard garage band rarities mingle with the self-produced new-unto-gnu wave single sides (we're not quite into "gnu" by this time and Bill should know, he coining this term) and there's a little avant garde fudged in as well. Some of the acts like Teddy and the Pandas not to mention Tymon Dogg might/should already be familiar to you while the oddball tracks from the likes of Prana-Bindu et. al. did make for a nice diversion from just staring out the window watching the trees blow in the wind. Personal fave was the weirdie from Exit Out called "She Relies on Books" which I thought was just some Roxy Music wannabes having a go at it but turns out to be a 39 Clocks side project of sorts! Sure I coulda done without Orange Colored Sky (who sound too early-seventies AM pop for the iron haired girl crowd for my tastes) but the rest was...shall we say...boff!

1 comment:

  1. Johnny Dollar! WAMU has a great Sunday night show of old radio shows, they have been playing episodes of Johnny Dollar for years. The show runs from 7-10 est on Sundays.

    ReplyDelete

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