I dunno about you, but right now I'm feeling PRETTY GOOD for once in my ever fanablin' life! Sure the work load is tough and I usually end the day feeling like a wash rag that's been rung too many a time, but at least when I come home from a hard day at the Salt Mines I got plenty of funtime reading, tee-vee (thanx to FETV and the ol' Dee-Vee-Dee player!), and best of all MUSIC (or something like that) waiting for me with open arms. I dunno about you, but I sorta feel like I'm the 2018 equivalent of your old bachelor Uncle Ernie 'r somethin'---y'know, that pudgy guy from your youth who wore a bow time, used suspenders instead of a belt and had a pair of those standard Clark Kent specs right up until the day he finally died years after you thought he woulda. The one with the office job who had a lot more moolah 'n most because he had no wife or brats to support, and although he hadda fend for himself food-wise (but would enjoy that weekly steak dinner at The Brown Derby) at least he had that comfy leather recliner waiting for him as well as a tee-vee that was blasting out those hotcha westerns and sitcoms I myself just can't get enough of these days! Well, I guess you all can call me an Uncle Ernie for the 21st century, but don't expect those lavish Christmas gifts and freebee toys every time I come over to visit!
It ain't so strange that at this point in time I'm getting into the same dig out and read my old books habit that I've had ever since I was but a budding suburban slob! Dunno about you, but when I was in my single digit days I just hadda (no other choice!) re-re-re-read those old PEANUTS paperbacks I had (and still have!) because like, when you have parents who lived through the depression either they gave you EVERYTHING you wanted or were the stingiest people on the planet because like, why should you have it any better than your folks did, y'know? Nothing wrong with goin' the cheapo route if you ask me and in fact being tightwads was a good move on their part because hey, I too can have the memory of a flea and a cartoon I read one week might still not have registered into my mind by the time I re-perused the thing a good month or so later! Thus reading the same PEANUTS book over and over could be like a brand new experience to me, as if I could retain anything I learned in school all those years one iota!
This week I've been looking over my DENNIS THE MENACE collection which I gotta say put a smile upon my lips a whole lot more'n Kathy Griffin acting so sanctimonious all the time ever could. It's definitely Bill Shute's fault for this given all of those Dennis comic books he's come across and has been writing about as of late! Well, thank you a whole lot Bill, because you just had my own Dennis obsessions circa age eleven just flowing back even more'n the second season DVD collection of the tee-vee series I once reviewed in these pages ever did! I can really see how a comic like Dennis would appeal to a pre-pube kid like myself and dang it if these earlier editions of the famed panel just didn't revert me back to those days when you could still pack a whole lotta fun outta life even if the highlight of your day was watching 'em unload the melons at Krogers. Too bad I don't have a dog to tease or creek down the street to pee in like I did way back when during those truly halcyon days---then the funtime frolics would really be hittin' like they usedta!
It ain't so strange that at this point in time I'm getting into the same dig out and read my old books habit that I've had ever since I was but a budding suburban slob! Dunno about you, but when I was in my single digit days I just hadda (no other choice!) re-re-re-read those old PEANUTS paperbacks I had (and still have!) because like, when you have parents who lived through the depression either they gave you EVERYTHING you wanted or were the stingiest people on the planet because like, why should you have it any better than your folks did, y'know? Nothing wrong with goin' the cheapo route if you ask me and in fact being tightwads was a good move on their part because hey, I too can have the memory of a flea and a cartoon I read one week might still not have registered into my mind by the time I re-perused the thing a good month or so later! Thus reading the same PEANUTS book over and over could be like a brand new experience to me, as if I could retain anything I learned in school all those years one iota!
This week I've been looking over my DENNIS THE MENACE collection which I gotta say put a smile upon my lips a whole lot more'n Kathy Griffin acting so sanctimonious all the time ever could. It's definitely Bill Shute's fault for this given all of those Dennis comic books he's come across and has been writing about as of late! Well, thank you a whole lot Bill, because you just had my own Dennis obsessions circa age eleven just flowing back even more'n the second season DVD collection of the tee-vee series I once reviewed in these pages ever did! I can really see how a comic like Dennis would appeal to a pre-pube kid like myself and dang it if these earlier editions of the famed panel just didn't revert me back to those days when you could still pack a whole lotta fun outta life even if the highlight of your day was watching 'em unload the melons at Krogers. Too bad I don't have a dog to tease or creek down the street to pee in like I did way back when during those truly halcyon days---then the funtime frolics would really be hittin' like they usedta!
***Don't wanna keep ya waitin'...here are just a few of the really boffo items that I've heard this week, some of which I know is really gonna zone ya the way it did me while others might just pass by your wayside. Thanks goes to Bill Shute, Paul McGarry, Bob Forward and Feeding Tube for the donations, and to me for being wealthy enough to buy some things that I really DO need years after I thought I had already heard everything I've needed to about a hunnerd times over!
The biggest surprise of the week (other'n the results of my chromosome test) has to be this record which, for all practical purposes, has been forty years in the making. Bernie Joelson was (and perhaps still is) the king of the late-seventies Third Generation Cleveland under-the-counterculture, and the fact that his musical anti-genius has been ignored lo these many years is only more proof as to how the tastemakers and audience at large in the Cle area were nothing but a buncha nth degree mainstream slush lovers who bought into the whole Madison Ave concept of hip and cool while the real chance tasters and adventurers were passed over and ridiculed, only to be "praised" with the usual faintness once the "scene" they helped create (and themselves for that matter) was long dead and gone.
(I know I told you this a millyun times but considering how many of you readers have a head like a sieve...) imagine a maddening cross between Lou Reed, David Peel, David Roter, Magic Michael and Wild Man Fischer and you'll only be scratching the surface as to what this Bernie creature might be. Might wanna throw some Jerry Lewis into the mix as well...wouldn't hurt'r anything.
Totally lo-fi and reduced to a point where, to borrow a phrase, even the Ramones sound like Mantovani in comparison, Bernie and crew plow through their work with no-chord aplomb complete with his own poetry that I gotta say sounds pretty down home and basic especially when compared with the moon/june/poon stuff that gals used to spout in English class. Straightforward rant backed by his own guitar playing which acts like a sound-generator more'n anything as drums and occasional bass guitar make some sort of sense outta things. And back to those WORDS...they sure hit the core of late-seventies up from under NE Ohio living more'n the kids these songs were made for would ever realize. I was especially surprised by the neo-Velvet circa. WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT drive on "In Hell" (just a segment from a live performance but oh what a segment!), not to mention the rant entitled "Is It Good?" which Bernie actually "dedicated" to Anastasia Pantsios, and when I put quotation marks around dedicated you BEST know what I (and he) means!!!!
I know that forty decades is a whole lotta time to wait for a record like this. But man it was worth the wait to give this a listen to while we still have ears, and who knows what other items might be popping up in the near future which will bring back all of the obscurity, frustration and pure energy that went into the Cleveland of Drome and the Phantasy Night Club which was purposefully ignored by the original "anti-monsters" who became monsters themselves. Hope the wait is short, because if there is any time for us to lay out all the fact that time be NOW!
***
Here tis a twenny-three-year-old recording of Michael Hurley and band, live in Slovenia of all places, playin' the same music that was just as Amerigana in 1963 as it was in 1976 as it is today and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. An audience of three (all pictured on the insert!) were sure treated to a fine set by Ameriga's last leading folk as true down home practitioner on a bunch of tracks I sure am not familiar with but still the smart country flavor seeps through. Personal fave: "Horses Ass" which cracks enough fart and butt references to really get the ten-year-old suburban slob in me chucking like nothing since my cousin's dog decided to make love to her leg. And that dog was a St. Bernard!
***
Fairer than fair enough "odds and sods" collection from the outta nowhere hitmakers who gave us "I Wish It Could Be 1965 Again" back when nobody in the world was expecting it. Can't really complain about the Barracudas' approach to those magic rock 'n roll years of yore one bit, though I might say that sitting through the eighteen songs here can be a bit of a six-oh overdose. Try it in spots...it just might remind you as to why "then" was more of a tempting period in existence than "now" ever will be!
***
Like your slutty sister, the cheap-o crank outs just KEEP a-comin'. And for a batch of obviously studio only groups who definitely ain't English (even with names like the Peers, the Dukes of Soho and the Spots!), these faux Londoners are pretty good (well, at least some of the time) if you let your listening parameters loosen up even more'n your sphincter. The covers of "Yellow Submarine" and "Winchester Cathedral" seem faithful enough while the various originals can have that spark of mid-sixties popcraft that made even the sappier records in the genre worth a spin. True, a fair number of these tracks lack a good hunk of mop top swerve, but given this is a budget platter you do get a good amount of jamz for the moolah you put into it!
***
Shouldn't that title read SONGS WE TAUGHT THE NEW YORK DOLLS? Despite the boo-boo, this is yet another one of those themed compilations centered around either the original versions of cover songs or numbers which are somehow tangentially connected by some thin thread of a theme yet they sound so good when bunched up together. The hit versions of all those Dolls songs you probably heard first via them, such as Bo Diddley's "Pills", the Shangri La's "Give Him a Great Big Kiss" and a whole buncha other older 'n old wowzers you probably would have avoided if the Dolls didn't bother to cover these most potent wares.
***
Barron does the Coltrane Quartet on this rarity (the last "original" platter on Savoy) and does it rather snat-like if I do say so myself. Having busted his butt with the fifties generation of avant garde players like Cecil Taylor and Charles Mingus, Barron had better known what to do and do RIGHT as far as any approaches to the New Thing went! But fear not, for the man does swell straddling the hard bop and the experimental that, while perhaps a bit "behind the curve/times" when this '72 sesh was recorded, still echoes the raw cry of the late-fifties as well as those Ornette Coleman albums that sounded so innovative even in the face of the generation that spewed forth from those early sides. Dunno about you, but this sure beats that "light jazz" cable station all hollow.
***
While cleaning out my room for the first time in several years I came across this particular platter in the ongoing Olson/Case/Hardiman series of mutilated music. Dunno where my copy of vol. 2 went (that is, if I did get a copy), but this 'un's just as equally good a free form exploration of soundscapadings as the first 'un. Should be humongous with the improvised cacophony crowd...strums of strings, woodwinds and percussion taken to even less human levels than previous works. The sound of a world where the musical instruments play the performers???
***
Compared to many of these (can I still call 'em) "Virtual Floor Sweepings", this Bill burn is comparatively short but still fills the bill on one of those lazy Saturday afternoons while I wallow around with an old book listening to this 'stead of outside working like I should be. From soul to country-blues to local garage band mulch (but good mulch), this 'un does make me wanna pretend it is still a pre-gunkified Ameriga even more'n THE ROY ROGERS SHOW could! Wouldn't mind knowin' more about Curly Hamner and those early-sixties era duets he does with some sassy gal---too lazy to look him up right now so if any of my mutated minions are anxious in helping der leader out just this once...
***I just know that quite a few of you reg'lar blog readers out there are just anxious to fill in the gaps in your BLACK TO COMM collections. Well if so you don't need a golden invitation to do so...just click that highlighted link and find out just how easy it is to get that elusive issue that you've been wanting for quite some time only you never had the knowledge or capital to dig it up. Hurry, copies are limited...limited to how many I can sell and I sure got a whole bunch clutterin' up the place ifyaknowaddamean...
1 comment:
I refer to them as either VIRTUAL FLOOR SWEEPINGS or VIRTUAL THRIFT STORE compilations. I think that I have done over 400 of these now.
Wow!
Glad I have gotten you back into Dennis The Menace more. My review of one of the Dennis The Menace Marvels will be coming up soon.
Recently, comic-wise, I have been re-reading old Charlton war/military comics, which I've forgotten over the years so they are new again to me. I've got stacks of WAR and ATTACK and FIGHTIN' ARMY and FIGHTIN' MARINES etc. Also, Gwandanaland has recently done a beautiful collection of all seven issues of Charlton's NAVY WAR HEROES, which I highly recommended to anyone so inclined.
I'm also watching one or two 77 SUNSET STRIP episodes a week, recording those 3 a.m. cable TV broadcasts and watching them in the early evenings after a long and draining day at work. In a recent one, not only did you get the great Marie Windsor as some Eastern European agent (!!!!) called "The Countess," you got TWO songs from Joanie Sommers (who was being groomed for stardom by Warner Brothers at that time) who was performing at the night club next door, which was managed by Jim Backus (who, because this was pre-Gilligan's Island, was channeling his inner Mister Magoo at points during his performance)!
THAT's entertainment!
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