Didja ever have one of those days? Kinda like the one I'm havin' now. A purty bad 'un if I do say so myself. Y'see, for some odd reason the theme from the old FAMILY AFFAIR tee-vee series kept goin' through my mind, and I never thought that I would get rid of it! Y'know----"Daa daa daa dit daa daa daa daa daa"...
on and on. Worst yet, after I got that outta my system the Sly Stone song of the same name kept permeating my thoughts!
Otherwise it was a fun week. Spent alla Saturday night, well into the wee hours, doing my annual crawl through my box of mid-seventies vintage CREEMs (the just-pre Bangs exit years and the best by far) re-reading old classics like Peter Laughner's Rory Gallagher article (which said much more about Peter's decline into that eternal abyss than it did Gallagher that's for sure!) and things like Lester Bangs' own "Letter From Britain" which not only tells about the hipster inner-working of "sister publication" THE NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS during those sainted years but reveals the not-so-surprising fact that Mick Farren's own mom used to give him codeine-laced pills when he would have a headache, 'n at the age of FIVE at that! Talk about parents inadvertently setting their progeny on paths that were definitely not intended! Now I know why Bangs died at such a young age and why Farren had to subsist on tons of capsules and whatnot to treat his chemically-wreaked system during his tragic final days.
All of this visual and mental stimulation went down smoothly with the Electric Eels' EYEBALL OF HELL spinning gloriously in the background---listening to one of the highlights of the mid-seventies while reading some of the rock press' best of the same years really did this soul fine---zoned me back to an era when the planets, or at least the under-the-underground (and elsewhere) music scene, the Golden Age of Rock Journalism (and I don't mean ROLLING STONE) and television on the network, local and syndication levels were aligned in ways that could do nothing but make a true blue rockist soul smile even more'n those creepy pins that were all the rage at the time. Of course I did it ALL (or mostly) wrong during those formative years, and unfortunately if I hadda live it all over I'd naturally do the same thing! Wotta jerk!
KNIGHT HOWLS 12-inc 45 rpm record (Feeding Tube Records)
Dunno what to make outta this particular spin which is a gol durned shame since I've found most of these Feeding Tube releases rawther reet myself. Two sides of recordings (or as they say, "found sound") and electronic weirdities mixed with threats and the crying of victims, all put on or is it? Somehow this Knight Howls thing comes off way too scattered in its abstractions and didn't "gel" in my "mind" the way similar sound excursions outside the beat 'n rhythm realm have. Ask me as soon as this review is posted and I'll probably tell you another thing!
THE SECOND ANNUAL REPORT OF THROBBING GRISTLE 2-CD set (Industrial Records, England)
With these guys worming their way to the top of my hit parade I thought it would be best for me to dish out the hard-begged for this new double-disque take on the classic. Hmmmmm, sound is clearer here'n it was on the first Cee-Dee edition to the point where you can actually understand Genesis P.'s threats for once. You can feel the distorted guitar VVVVVRRRROOOOOOOMMMMMMS creeping up your spine like you were in the very same room as the band! Additional disque has rare goodies that continue on the beneath contempt music that the debut was legendary for all capped off with another appearance of the "Zyklon B. Zombie" single because hey, why argue with success?
THE BLACK EARTH PERCUSSION GROUP LP (Opus 1 Records)
That cruise through my old JCOA catalog really must've gotten my latent teenbo interests in music outside of Donny 'n Marie up and about, for I actually decided to dish out for this percussion album that was proudly being sold within the catalog's pages---er---"flaps". Compositions by people I've heard of (John Cage, Lou Harrison and Peter Garland) and not are performed by people I've never knew existed, but cram 'em all together and you get a record that shows all the dynamism and excitement of sound as abstraction that young sprouts like myself had the pleasure of experiencing during our growing up years. One listen to this and you'll know that you can sure get a whole lot more outta blocks and bongos than ya did during yer kindergarten days!
Junior Wells-LIVE AT BUDDY GUY'S LEGENDS CD-r burn (originally on Telarc Records)
When the slick horns get in the way I kinda feel like headin' for the fridge to stare at all that food I'm not supposed to eat. But during the stripped down basic moments when it's loads of harmonica and pure groan I'm more up front and center than a twelve-year-old boy at a sex education class. Still good enough to get a few energetic jolts into your otherwise Caucasian existence.
ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK BY LALO SCHIFRIN---DEAN MARTIN AS MAT HELM IN MURDERER'S ROW CD-r burn (originally on Colgems Records)
Eh, without watching Dean Martin get into all of that campy fun with the usual bevy of sexy costars we used to snicker at on THE CBS FRIDAY NIGHT MOVIE this music really ain't much. And since even ol' Dino doesn't' do any vocalizin' on it this won't appeal to whatever you have left of old Eyetalian uncles. In all, one for the heavy doody fans, and given how I once was on the horns of a dilemma when the aforementioned CBS moom pitcher show was airing a Helm film while a competing station broadcast an already-syndicated one in direct competition maybe I should count myself one too.
Ssh Retina Stimulants-ZATSUON JUNK CD-r burn (originally on Old Europa Cafe cassettes)
You might not be able to enjoy the full aural scale of tones and hums that appear on this recording, but I get the feeling your dog can. So give Fido an extra treat for not messing the floor and spin this cassette culture electrowhizzer straight outta SOUND CHOICE for his dining and dancing pleasure. Synthed-up (or is it down?) sounds will whiz inside his caninical cranium leaving him blitzed out at best, or deader'n that one bowzer who happened to wander into a Blue Cheer concert and ended up with terminal brain damage. Oh well, the pooch was gettin' up in years anyhoo...
Humble Pie-LIVE AT THE WHISKY A GO-GO CD-r burn (originally on Castle Records)
I never desired to buy a Humble Pie album 'cept for that one with the purty durty pix insides (which I found weren't as durty as I was led to believe once I found an opened up copy at the used record store) so sitting through this '69 set was like a new hexperience for me. And an unfortunate one at that for this group put out some pretty dullsville rock glopping fanzy shmantzy solos and other needless flash onto music that sounded a whole lot boffer ("Hallelujah I Love Her So", "For Your Love"...) without it. If you're nostalgic for the less jam-packed moments in seventies FM radio, this might warm at least a few cockles in your heart.
Various Artists-IT'S FINKING TIME---60's PUNK VS. DANCING JUNK CD-r burn (originally on Beware Records, England)
This ain't one of those everyday six-oh garage band collections bub! With Steve Rossi and Marty Allen gracing the cover you know that IT'S FINKING TIME is perhaps the best vinyl voomer to be heard in quite awhile. Side one's scraping of the garage band bottom of the barrel doesn't quite zone me like it mighta even thirty years back, but the flip's selection of dance music (you know the kind!) has me up and hopping like nothing since my last cayenne pepper colonoscopy! Not only does this have a bonafide MAD magazine (influenced) spoof and a remake of (or was it the original?) of "Baby Let Me Bang Your Box" but even a rock 'n roll version of the old "Hokey Pokey" shows up to prove to all that bad taste is timeless! Best of the batch is Marsha Gee's attempt to hit the charts and start yet another dance sensation with "The Peanut Duck", oddly enough sounding VERY MUCH like none other'n (yep!) Patti Smith had she been recording at the time right down to not only the vocal flow and ebb but the backing band's primal garage aesthetics a la HORSES! I wonder---has anybody ever seen Marsha and Patti together???----hmmmmm.
Various Artists-WYLD SIDES VOLUME 6 CD-r burn (originally on Retro Gene Records, Australia)
With a HIGHS IN THE MID-SIXTIES-styled cover you can tell that whoever it was that put this together really knows his onions, and thankfully there are no dudsters to be found on this platter no-sir-REE! Pretty good batch of moaners in the folk rock/down home trash vein guaranteed to get you into a Shake-A-Puddin' mood faster than you can say Conelrad! Groups like the 7 Dwarfs and Somebody's Children really knew how to get deep down into the mid-sixties angst groove, and the overall appeal of these definitely pre-Haight howlers remains as potent today as they were when these local bozos were recording 'em at some outta-the-way cheap-o studio. Be on the lookout for the Pied Piper's version of the Byrds' version of "Hey Joe", these Pipers consisting of none other than future Left End vocalist Dennis Sesonsky, who I just discovered (while researching this thing) has been dead for almost five years!
Various Artists-CRAZY ROACH BOND HENDERSON CD-r burn (Bill Shute)
The strangies just keep on comin' with this recent Bill burn. An Easybeats EP is definitely the high point of this effort, which also includes organ blues courtesy Freddie Roach with Joe Henderson, Hal Sutter doin' more of that pre-Mandrell country that Bill Shute was breast fed on (or so I assume) and what sounds like backing music for a French porn moom pitcher that comes off so real you can swear you can smell the femme lead's unwashed poontang as if it were right up front and atcha. It's a good enough diversion from the same ol' metallic crunch that has been percolatin' your bean as of late, as you probably knew already.
on and on. Worst yet, after I got that outta my system the Sly Stone song of the same name kept permeating my thoughts!
Otherwise it was a fun week. Spent alla Saturday night, well into the wee hours, doing my annual crawl through my box of mid-seventies vintage CREEMs (the just-pre Bangs exit years and the best by far) re-reading old classics like Peter Laughner's Rory Gallagher article (which said much more about Peter's decline into that eternal abyss than it did Gallagher that's for sure!) and things like Lester Bangs' own "Letter From Britain" which not only tells about the hipster inner-working of "sister publication" THE NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS during those sainted years but reveals the not-so-surprising fact that Mick Farren's own mom used to give him codeine-laced pills when he would have a headache, 'n at the age of FIVE at that! Talk about parents inadvertently setting their progeny on paths that were definitely not intended! Now I know why Bangs died at such a young age and why Farren had to subsist on tons of capsules and whatnot to treat his chemically-wreaked system during his tragic final days.
All of this visual and mental stimulation went down smoothly with the Electric Eels' EYEBALL OF HELL spinning gloriously in the background---listening to one of the highlights of the mid-seventies while reading some of the rock press' best of the same years really did this soul fine---zoned me back to an era when the planets, or at least the under-the-underground (and elsewhere) music scene, the Golden Age of Rock Journalism (and I don't mean ROLLING STONE) and television on the network, local and syndication levels were aligned in ways that could do nothing but make a true blue rockist soul smile even more'n those creepy pins that were all the rage at the time. Of course I did it ALL (or mostly) wrong during those formative years, and unfortunately if I hadda live it all over I'd naturally do the same thing! Wotta jerk!
***Still making my way through HERBIE, that classic doof of a comic series that reminds me of just how much fun these titles could get even with the usual "restrictions" placed upon 'em by the Comics Code Authority. Y'know, back during them days when I was combing the flea markets for those by-then not so hard to find titles (though just try getting hold of a GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW---desirable if didactic!) I don't recall seeing any HERBIEs, or any ACG comic titles for that matter stacked up amidst tons of TEENAGE FATGAL ROMANCE or BLOODY GUTS ARMY TALES for that matter! Did they suffer from poor distribution or wasn't I just looking in the right flea market piles? Who knows, but the abject camp creepiness of this comic has me on the lookout for more sixties-era retardo visions within the pages of a 12-cent book, though for the life of me I can't understand why THE INFERIOR FIVE or NOT BRAND ECCH! have yet to be reissued in slick paged hardcover books. Given both titles' legendary status as outside-the-outside exercises in comic book STOOPIDITY you'd think that DC and Marvel would make a FORTUNE reprinting 'em! Quick guys, put 'em out before the Suburban Slob generation dies out and dies out HARD!
***The recordings up for scrupulation today (hmmmm---watching AMOS 'N ANDY has affected my abilities to create new words out of thin air, and for the better at that!) come to us courtesy of Bill Shute, Paul McGarry and Feeding Tube Records. A big hefty thanks to them all, for these guys have kept me from thinking about the big Deep Six that somehow overcomes aging Suburban Slobs who just can't get it through their heads that it's been well over fifty years since GILLIGAN'S ISLAND was canceled. Got some hefties to talk about as well, so read on and try to glom some of the astral energies that I've been trying to eke outta scratchy garage band singles for years...
Dunno what to make outta this particular spin which is a gol durned shame since I've found most of these Feeding Tube releases rawther reet myself. Two sides of recordings (or as they say, "found sound") and electronic weirdities mixed with threats and the crying of victims, all put on or is it? Somehow this Knight Howls thing comes off way too scattered in its abstractions and didn't "gel" in my "mind" the way similar sound excursions outside the beat 'n rhythm realm have. Ask me as soon as this review is posted and I'll probably tell you another thing!
***
With these guys worming their way to the top of my hit parade I thought it would be best for me to dish out the hard-begged for this new double-disque take on the classic. Hmmmmm, sound is clearer here'n it was on the first Cee-Dee edition to the point where you can actually understand Genesis P.'s threats for once. You can feel the distorted guitar VVVVVRRRROOOOOOOMMMMMMS creeping up your spine like you were in the very same room as the band! Additional disque has rare goodies that continue on the beneath contempt music that the debut was legendary for all capped off with another appearance of the "Zyklon B. Zombie" single because hey, why argue with success?
***
That cruise through my old JCOA catalog really must've gotten my latent teenbo interests in music outside of Donny 'n Marie up and about, for I actually decided to dish out for this percussion album that was proudly being sold within the catalog's pages---er---"flaps". Compositions by people I've heard of (John Cage, Lou Harrison and Peter Garland) and not are performed by people I've never knew existed, but cram 'em all together and you get a record that shows all the dynamism and excitement of sound as abstraction that young sprouts like myself had the pleasure of experiencing during our growing up years. One listen to this and you'll know that you can sure get a whole lot more outta blocks and bongos than ya did during yer kindergarten days!
***
When the slick horns get in the way I kinda feel like headin' for the fridge to stare at all that food I'm not supposed to eat. But during the stripped down basic moments when it's loads of harmonica and pure groan I'm more up front and center than a twelve-year-old boy at a sex education class. Still good enough to get a few energetic jolts into your otherwise Caucasian existence.
***
Eh, without watching Dean Martin get into all of that campy fun with the usual bevy of sexy costars we used to snicker at on THE CBS FRIDAY NIGHT MOVIE this music really ain't much. And since even ol' Dino doesn't' do any vocalizin' on it this won't appeal to whatever you have left of old Eyetalian uncles. In all, one for the heavy doody fans, and given how I once was on the horns of a dilemma when the aforementioned CBS moom pitcher show was airing a Helm film while a competing station broadcast an already-syndicated one in direct competition maybe I should count myself one too.
***
You might not be able to enjoy the full aural scale of tones and hums that appear on this recording, but I get the feeling your dog can. So give Fido an extra treat for not messing the floor and spin this cassette culture electrowhizzer straight outta SOUND CHOICE for his dining and dancing pleasure. Synthed-up (or is it down?) sounds will whiz inside his caninical cranium leaving him blitzed out at best, or deader'n that one bowzer who happened to wander into a Blue Cheer concert and ended up with terminal brain damage. Oh well, the pooch was gettin' up in years anyhoo...
***
I never desired to buy a Humble Pie album 'cept for that one with the purty durty pix insides (which I found weren't as durty as I was led to believe once I found an opened up copy at the used record store) so sitting through this '69 set was like a new hexperience for me. And an unfortunate one at that for this group put out some pretty dullsville rock glopping fanzy shmantzy solos and other needless flash onto music that sounded a whole lot boffer ("Hallelujah I Love Her So", "For Your Love"...) without it. If you're nostalgic for the less jam-packed moments in seventies FM radio, this might warm at least a few cockles in your heart.
***
This ain't one of those everyday six-oh garage band collections bub! With Steve Rossi and Marty Allen gracing the cover you know that IT'S FINKING TIME is perhaps the best vinyl voomer to be heard in quite awhile. Side one's scraping of the garage band bottom of the barrel doesn't quite zone me like it mighta even thirty years back, but the flip's selection of dance music (you know the kind!) has me up and hopping like nothing since my last cayenne pepper colonoscopy! Not only does this have a bonafide MAD magazine (influenced) spoof and a remake of (or was it the original?) of "Baby Let Me Bang Your Box" but even a rock 'n roll version of the old "Hokey Pokey" shows up to prove to all that bad taste is timeless! Best of the batch is Marsha Gee's attempt to hit the charts and start yet another dance sensation with "The Peanut Duck", oddly enough sounding VERY MUCH like none other'n (yep!) Patti Smith had she been recording at the time right down to not only the vocal flow and ebb but the backing band's primal garage aesthetics a la HORSES! I wonder---has anybody ever seen Marsha and Patti together???----hmmmmm.
***
With a HIGHS IN THE MID-SIXTIES-styled cover you can tell that whoever it was that put this together really knows his onions, and thankfully there are no dudsters to be found on this platter no-sir-REE! Pretty good batch of moaners in the folk rock/down home trash vein guaranteed to get you into a Shake-A-Puddin' mood faster than you can say Conelrad! Groups like the 7 Dwarfs and Somebody's Children really knew how to get deep down into the mid-sixties angst groove, and the overall appeal of these definitely pre-Haight howlers remains as potent today as they were when these local bozos were recording 'em at some outta-the-way cheap-o studio. Be on the lookout for the Pied Piper's version of the Byrds' version of "Hey Joe", these Pipers consisting of none other than future Left End vocalist Dennis Sesonsky, who I just discovered (while researching this thing) has been dead for almost five years!
***
The strangies just keep on comin' with this recent Bill burn. An Easybeats EP is definitely the high point of this effort, which also includes organ blues courtesy Freddie Roach with Joe Henderson, Hal Sutter doin' more of that pre-Mandrell country that Bill Shute was breast fed on (or so I assume) and what sounds like backing music for a French porn moom pitcher that comes off so real you can swear you can smell the femme lead's unwashed poontang as if it were right up front and atcha. It's a good enough diversion from the same ol' metallic crunch that has been percolatin' your bean as of late, as you probably knew already.
***What would you say if I told you that the next person to order some BLACK TO COMM back issues is in store for a MILLION DOLLAR BONUS?!?!?!?! Well, not in actual paper dollars and sense, but the knowledge and entertainment to be found in each and every one of these magazines will provide for more satisfaction and a jollier time than a million bucks can deliver on. Try one (or more) and see if you don't agree that you get more for your moolah with BLACK TO COMM than you do with your solid gold Lamborghini.
4 comments:
The NOT BRAND ECHH comics were reprinted as part of the hardcover "Marvel Masterworks" series four years ago.
Haw! Searched for something along them lines but couldn't locate none! Will keep tryin' since I just finished the HERBIEs and want more mid-sixties stoopidity!
Of course, only NOW do I realize that the reason I hadsuch back luck locating the book was that I spelled ECHH wrong!
New "NOT BRAND ECHH: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION TPB" coming out this June.
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