Gotta lotta fat to chew on this week as you will see if only you don't click me off and go search out something more suitable to your personal tastes, like NAMBLA NEWSLETTER or DECADE OF HOUSECAT ANAL CAVITY CAPACITY STUDY ENDS knowin' you guys. Got some really good 'uns to brag about as to having and holding as my own, and as usual thanks go to people like Bill, Paul and PD for the submitted goodies for which this blog could not survive without. Extra BIG thanks goes to one Mr. Cheese Borger who sent me a buncha platters gratis if only because I bought one of his old fanzines (which you were read about probably later this year) via an ebay auction without asking or pleading for which is usually what I have to do in order to get the kinda music I want, cash-strapped man I was, am and shall remain! Sheesh, true BLOG TO COMM gratitude doesn't get any better than this, and your wares are most certainly needed especially in these dry and decidedly anti rock 'n roll times.
FRENCH IS THE AVANT GARDE WORD FOR SHIT? NO WAY LENNON!!!
Jac Berrocal-1972-1976-1979 3-LP Set (Rotorelief Records, France)
Etron Fou Leloublan-BATTALAGES, LES TRIOTS FOU'S PERDEGAGNENT (AU PAYS DES...), EN PUBLIC AU ETATS UNIS DE AMERIQUE CDs (Belle Records, Japan)
The French always used to get the short shrift when it came to being recognized for hotcha rock 'n roll music...the kind men like ifyaknowaddamean. You may remember Lou Reed talking to Lester Bangs about METAL MACHINE MUSIC mentioning how lousy French rock was which is a strange thing for him to say...after all the BEST of what France was dishing out rock-wise at the time was a nice encapsulation of the whole Velvet Underground soundrill wrapped up in Parisian decadent snoot. Pretty nice stuff when you get down to the whole Open Market/Skydog Records/early Marie et les Garcons chomp of it that even resonated somewhat in the pages of our own more on-target rock 'n roll press.
I decided to clump these two recently purchased efforts (yas, thaz right!...items actually bought with the sweat and toil of my goofing off passing as labor!) considering some of the striking similarities between the two artists in question besides their ethnic co-brethrenship. Both free trumpeter Berrocal and "Rock In Opposition" group Etron Fou Leloublan are, after all, known to dabble more'n a few toes in the pond of free sound spew and released their prime efforts in that wondrous decade we call the seventies. And, given how I don't think any of their music would be welcomed by the usual "rock" audiences that has been brain-dead ever since the creation of "Classic Rock" ne. AOR radio maybe it be best to give both a classic review gang-bang even if my long-windedness usually does get the better of me.
Anyhoo, the first three Berrocal albums have been collected in a nice slip-case complete with one of those magazine-like booklets with all of the important information regarding these records, complete with candid snaps that you probably wouldn't find anywhere else on the planet. In other words this longtime freer-than-usual visionary FINALLY GETS THE ROYAL TREATMENT, and considering just how most people who claim fealty to jazz will undoubtedly ignore the very existence of not only Berrocal but the entire newer-than-new jazz spurt better I give you a rundown regarding this classic reissue lest it become all but forgotten in a jazz world more attuned to bowties and tux piano tinkles at chi chi clubs.
Not that it's exactly gonna be a palatable plate to present to a fan of, say, Chick Corea. But it's there and sure looks sleek which really ain't anything to be PROUD of but I guess if anyone should be paid attention to it's Berrocal. Here's what you're gonna get when you part with your precious pennies to tackle this true musical avatar's works:
MUSIQ/MUSIK-it sure sounds like it was recorded in the crypt of an old church, and the resonance is such that you feel as if you were in there with Berrocal and band (Roger Ferlet, Dominque Coster) getting all clammy and sweaty as the three present for you a music that cannot really be defined as easily as, say, "Mairzy Doats". The same way you cant' really define with mere human words what Captain Beefheart was doing, it's that much of an anomaly that the only reason these musics get categorized as jazz or rock is because they may concentrate on standard instruments used to present such sounds and what do mid-teen fanablas know anyway!
The use of exotic percussion, horns and even animals (a chicken!) kinda remind you at one point of an AACM workout that sounds too European and white, while sirens roar and Berrocal's trumpet bleats to the point where it kinda comes off like the Obscure Records release that got held back because it sounded too strange! Not one that you can easily "slip into its universe" to, but give it a few tries and I'm sure you'll wander into the proper frame of musical awareness that Berrocal intended you to.
So plug your nose and take Etron Fou in the way they should be...as a nice and compact act with a Gallic take on the new direction in sound that, while perhaps overindulgent in spots, holds up swell in the company of similar-minded sixties/seventies experimentalists who made those decades a whole lot more pleasant for those of you who had your third ear de-waxed with a sharp knife or Sun Ra, whichever came first.
BATELAGES-Starts out pretty cool (unless you count the acoustic guitar opening which might have led you to believe you just slapped on some of your hippie cousin's maryjane backdrop) repeato riff rock with screaming French vocals that sure sound angry and punk rock. The jazzier inclusions and Fugs-like blackouts kinda recall bits of the infamous RED NOISE album (Patrick Vian's not Bill Nelson's) which kinda makes me wanna immediately categorize Etron Fou with the likes of that group, Mahogany Brain and the under-represented Dagon in the EXCLUSIVE OVER THE TOP SEVENTIES FRENCH AVANT PUNK WILDNESS category where I think they would be snuggled in tight enough genre-wise. The drum solo might turn you off (so might the extended Frenchspeak), and so might the quaint instrumental closing the first side, but if you stick around there's more of that beautiful atonal neo-jazz unto rock soundspew to contend with. I get the impression that if ya like various likewise seventies "fusion" (in the truest sense) efforts such as Blurt you'll got for this in bigger ways than Ron Jeremy!
LES TROIS FOU'S PERDEGAGNENT (AU PAYS DES...)-another one from the pile which I will admit is what got me to buy the entire mini-cover Japanese reissues inna first place. The opening instrumental which sounds like a keen collision between the Canterbury Sound and Captain Beefheart is what keeps me going back to this, while the heavy sax workouts and colliding percussion kinda works as a white Euro take on the new thing in jazz and even newer rock that has been force fed down their ears for the previous twennysome years. So good that even the fifties nostalgia spoof ain't gonna have you throwin' your boom box into the fireplace! So good that you won't even flinch at the obvious Roy Estrada-inspired falsetto vocals!
EN PUBLIC AUX ETATS UNIS D'AMERIQUE-even though I get the idea that this was recorded in front of a bunch of chic-er than thou types who wouldn't know anything about the proper use of suppositories unless they read about it in THE VILLAGE VOICE this may in fact be the Etron Fou album to snatch into your gritty little paws before you snatch onto the others. Without the usual stand-ins to beef up the proceedings with tinkling zithers and the like you get the down-home, stripped to the bone Etron Fou sound which I must say is even more primal and gnawing than the earlier studio disques. The closing horn/bass/drums improv reminds me of a certain real-deal free jazz piece what with the strummed bass lines that really add a feral dimension to it all...if I could only remember who it was would I be in luck! Without the guest stars and spoken interludes this 'un goes down my waxed-up ear canals in the swellest way possible.
IGGY POP/MYSTERY GUITARIST DISC TWO CD-r burn
For serious fans only. And for anyone else who wants to give a listen to these blooze workouts that Iggy recorded with JAMES WILLIAMSON as I've been told (by Greg Shaw no less) back when I first heard these "rehearsals" about thirty years back. You'll probably be bored outta your gourd listening to Iggy moan over the same riff for a good half-hour or so but when you get to his takes on such faves as "I'm a Man" and "I'm So Glad" you'll be glad that these were done up so swell that even those people at Cleopatra decided to add bass and drums and present 'em as authentico Stooges tracks! And if ya ever wondered how the Stooges mighta tackled "Hollis Brown" well you'll get a pretty good idea here!
Cheese Borger and the Cleveland Steamers-TERMINAL CD (Smog Veil Records)
Gee, with a name like "Cleveland Steamers" what could they mean? P'haps itza ref. to the rug cleaners operating in the NE Ohio area, or maybe some ship that would leave one of the ports there, or perhaps even some frozen vegetable dinner available at your local supermarket. Gee, just WHAT could they mean with a name like that????
Not bad music enclosed in those whatever it is that the music that pops up on Cee-Dees is enclosed in. Thankfully not the new unto gnu wave (copyright 1983 Bill Shute) I mighta been expecting, these Steamers play a punk rock that's perhaps toned down a bit compared with the originals but still noticeable enough to sound like Cleveland punk rock. Nothing like the Pagans, Electric Eels or Styrenes, but nice and driving enough in the pure rock 'n roll spirit which is such a relief after years of all that junk like the Adults that Anastasia Pantsios used to push on us. Special guest stars like John Morton, Nick Knox, Mike Hudson and Johnny Dromette give it even more Cle cred, as if it is needed any more. Overall a pretty neat bit of Cle rock music the way that I'm sure most of us would like to remember it as having been like back when it was all young'n gnarly.
Teenage Head-HEATWAVE FESTIVAL, AUGUST 14, 1980, MOSPORT PARK, BOWMANVILLE, ONTARIO CD-r burn
I never gave these Hamiltonians a listen to during their late-seventies heyday, but this live at this infamous 1980 Gnu Wave Woodstock is quite a surprise. A surprise since the terminally hipper-than-thou punque types who I'm sure were there for the B-52's seem to actually enjoy these guys' hard-edged straight-ahead rockaroll which had about as much to do with the giddy wavers as Beethoven hadda do with Og the Caveman. Kinda like the Flamin' Groovies during their Kama Sutra days when they were mixing late-fifties teenage stomp with early-seventies high energy jamz. Surprisingly powerful rock 'n roll as a way of life!, music so atypical of the sounds that were being hyped as brash and precocious by people we know and trust as being better humans than we'll ever be.
Obnox-BANG MESSIAH CD (Smog Veil Records)
I've been curious as to what this oft-touted Cleveland punk rock madman (and onetime Ex-Blank-Ex drummer) was made up of, chemical-wise. Thanks for a certain Mr. Borger I now know and y'know what, this stuff ain't too bad even if it gets a little too much into modern neo-rap for my tastes. But hey, it still drives pretty good especially when Obnox himself gets into an almost-metallic rock mode that actually heralds back to various seventies accomplishments driven into severe madness thanks to that oft-loathed technological advancement. This might be the real punk funk as it stands today long after its originators (Ronald Shannon Jackson, Sonny Sharrock...) have passed on into the mystery. I wouldn't call BANG MESSIAH earth-shattering, but it does help clear out the nervous system after being inundated with the past fifty years of pop music abortions often heard over your local supermarket's speakers.
Various Artists-STORMY MANNERS DINGDONG SHOUT, BABY! CD-r burn (Bill Shute)
The ol' Rambler onna cover's what drove me (hee!) to this 'un like almost immediately, and the stuff Bill slapped on this pancake justifies my judging this book by the cover so-to-speak. With the combination of Spanish-language pop, piano jazz and sixties pop this almost sounds like a freewheeling spin on a short-wave radio on some rainy day inna basement. Without the scuzzy fidelity, snaps, crackles and pops that is. The big hit for me on this 'un was more of those Edgard Varese early free jazz experiments which really go on the old abstract tangent in ways that wouldn't be hinted at until a good decade after these '57 sessions were laid down. Did anyone ever collect 'em all onto one platter complete with stodgy liner notes and typical half-mastered sound? Wish they would even if you get the idea the whole effort would be more of a tombstone to the jazz avant garde than a celebration of it.
***But before we get into the proper mode of things, I feel that it's best to give a mention regarding the recent passing of Steve Martin Caro, the lead singer for the Left Banke throughout their roller coaster career from the mid-sixties into the seventies when such winners like the tracks from the HOT PARTS soundtrack were laid down to little notice other'n via THE ROCK MARKETPLACE. I'd mention that feh disco reunion single from the late-seventies but I'd prefer to keep this obit free of any tingling sense of controversy. So I won't.
***And now here's what you haven't exactly been waiting for, but I get the idea you'll lap it up anyway...
FRENCH IS THE AVANT GARDE WORD FOR SHIT? NO WAY LENNON!!!
Jac Berrocal-1972-1976-1979 3-LP Set (Rotorelief Records, France)
Etron Fou Leloublan-BATTALAGES, LES TRIOTS FOU'S PERDEGAGNENT (AU PAYS DES...), EN PUBLIC AU ETATS UNIS DE AMERIQUE CDs (Belle Records, Japan)
The French always used to get the short shrift when it came to being recognized for hotcha rock 'n roll music...the kind men like ifyaknowaddamean. You may remember Lou Reed talking to Lester Bangs about METAL MACHINE MUSIC mentioning how lousy French rock was which is a strange thing for him to say...after all the BEST of what France was dishing out rock-wise at the time was a nice encapsulation of the whole Velvet Underground soundrill wrapped up in Parisian decadent snoot. Pretty nice stuff when you get down to the whole Open Market/Skydog Records/early Marie et les Garcons chomp of it that even resonated somewhat in the pages of our own more on-target rock 'n roll press.
I decided to clump these two recently purchased efforts (yas, thaz right!...items actually bought with the sweat and toil of my goofing off passing as labor!) considering some of the striking similarities between the two artists in question besides their ethnic co-brethrenship. Both free trumpeter Berrocal and "Rock In Opposition" group Etron Fou Leloublan are, after all, known to dabble more'n a few toes in the pond of free sound spew and released their prime efforts in that wondrous decade we call the seventies. And, given how I don't think any of their music would be welcomed by the usual "rock" audiences that has been brain-dead ever since the creation of "Classic Rock" ne. AOR radio maybe it be best to give both a classic review gang-bang even if my long-windedness usually does get the better of me.
***I've written about this guy before and danged if this will be the last time I bring the Jac Berrocal name up in my scribblings. For I gotta say that Berrocal is one of the more original living legends in free music splurt that has been seen in quite awhile, not only bridging various seeming dissimilar musical forms into one REAL "world music" for the O-mind but for performing some of the freer sans time/beat/tempo with found sound and sneaky surprises music that perhaps makes Berrocal the proverbial PUNK GRYPHON! Or as much one as everyone from Mayo Thompson to Kim Fowley are and one whose music should attract and repel with a frothing polarity which I gotta say is something that always piqued my attention back when I was young and certainly LOOKING FOR A HOOK (which I still am, by the way!).
Anyhoo, the first three Berrocal albums have been collected in a nice slip-case complete with one of those magazine-like booklets with all of the important information regarding these records, complete with candid snaps that you probably wouldn't find anywhere else on the planet. In other words this longtime freer-than-usual visionary FINALLY GETS THE ROYAL TREATMENT, and considering just how most people who claim fealty to jazz will undoubtedly ignore the very existence of not only Berrocal but the entire newer-than-new jazz spurt better I give you a rundown regarding this classic reissue lest it become all but forgotten in a jazz world more attuned to bowties and tux piano tinkles at chi chi clubs.
Not that it's exactly gonna be a palatable plate to present to a fan of, say, Chick Corea. But it's there and sure looks sleek which really ain't anything to be PROUD of but I guess if anyone should be paid attention to it's Berrocal. Here's what you're gonna get when you part with your precious pennies to tackle this true musical avatar's works:
The use of exotic percussion, horns and even animals (a chicken!) kinda remind you at one point of an AACM workout that sounds too European and white, while sirens roar and Berrocal's trumpet bleats to the point where it kinda comes off like the Obscure Records release that got held back because it sounded too strange! Not one that you can easily "slip into its universe" to, but give it a few tries and I'm sure you'll wander into the proper frame of musical awareness that Berrocal intended you to.
***PARALLELES-I could "laze out double" (copyright 1987 Patrick Amory) and call it more of the same, but there are striking differences between this and its presecessor. Abstract in a totally different way with the sparse trumpet and the strange and outta nowhere indescribable sounds which thankfully sets this music into a state of jazz that sure stands tall against some of the abominations that have passed for the music these past fiftysome years. For me the best part of PARALLELES was the appearance of Anglo-French rock 'n roll legend Vince Taylor on "Rock 'n Roll Station", a magnificent cut up and re-arranging of various comments made by Taylor (including a positive one directed towards Berrocal's own musical genius) backed up by Berrocal's playing of a bicycle. A track featuring a field recording of a pig sty also appears, the basis for many a rude comment that I will refrain from making at least this one time. (You may recall that I used that exact same joke when I reviewed a CD-r of this a good ten years back---of course I couldn't pass up an opportunity to use it again joke regurgitating man I was and shall remain!!!)
***CATALOGUE-now this does have a flash of no wave distortion amid the sound cut ups (old 78s and the like) and a generally screwed up atmosphere that makes the preceding sound quaint in comparison. Electric guitar and accordion are present giving a good portion of this the same feeling as some early-seventies Can experiment. The recorded conversations if anything do (as the hype oh so points out) recall some of those old Eyetalian Futurist manifestos, only this time spoken in French but with the same force and fire of the originals. Like many similar efforts outta the rock world, this seems like a fond farewell to an era of brash sound and nihilism that seemed to fizzle out into mere pose once the eighties really began to get into gear.
***As for Etron Fou Leloublan well...it may seem strange that I would mention an act such as this which for all intent and purpose were one of those radical commie types who were birthed in the revolutionary rush of the early-seventies trying to destroy all decent aspects of the French culture that they and their Situationist pals hated with a stranger than usual passion. Now that France has pretty much turned into the sewer than these people envisioned as a Utopia fiftysome years back all I can say is NICE JOB YA DONE THERE COMMIES!!! Begrudgingly I guess, but while I can disagree with their societal aims like I can with about 99.999...% of these radical rock prissies at least I can enjoy this music which is rock 'n roll filtered through the jazz spectrum with enough free-for-all spazz all seen through the eyes of some wannabe radical college kid sons of the middle class who probably haven't taken a bath in twenny years!
So plug your nose and take Etron Fou in the way they should be...as a nice and compact act with a Gallic take on the new direction in sound that, while perhaps overindulgent in spots, holds up swell in the company of similar-minded sixties/seventies experimentalists who made those decades a whole lot more pleasant for those of you who had your third ear de-waxed with a sharp knife or Sun Ra, whichever came first.
***
***
***Yeah, these writeups really don't reveal the essence, the hardcore being of it all. But then again that's why ya gotta listen to the thing to "get into its universe" as R. Meltzer said so long ago and try to understand what the music is tryin' to tell ya not in some karmik flowering visions of a world where we can all prance and throw frisbees but as that bared-wire streak of sonic fortitude that's always made the best music screech forth in your over-stressed mind. As the old saying goes, you could do worse but ignoring these, and come to think of it you have...
***How, back to the regular portion of our blog...
For serious fans only. And for anyone else who wants to give a listen to these blooze workouts that Iggy recorded with JAMES WILLIAMSON as I've been told (by Greg Shaw no less) back when I first heard these "rehearsals" about thirty years back. You'll probably be bored outta your gourd listening to Iggy moan over the same riff for a good half-hour or so but when you get to his takes on such faves as "I'm a Man" and "I'm So Glad" you'll be glad that these were done up so swell that even those people at Cleopatra decided to add bass and drums and present 'em as authentico Stooges tracks! And if ya ever wondered how the Stooges mighta tackled "Hollis Brown" well you'll get a pretty good idea here!
***
Gee, with a name like "Cleveland Steamers" what could they mean? P'haps itza ref. to the rug cleaners operating in the NE Ohio area, or maybe some ship that would leave one of the ports there, or perhaps even some frozen vegetable dinner available at your local supermarket. Gee, just WHAT could they mean with a name like that????
Not bad music enclosed in those whatever it is that the music that pops up on Cee-Dees is enclosed in. Thankfully not the new unto gnu wave (copyright 1983 Bill Shute) I mighta been expecting, these Steamers play a punk rock that's perhaps toned down a bit compared with the originals but still noticeable enough to sound like Cleveland punk rock. Nothing like the Pagans, Electric Eels or Styrenes, but nice and driving enough in the pure rock 'n roll spirit which is such a relief after years of all that junk like the Adults that Anastasia Pantsios used to push on us. Special guest stars like John Morton, Nick Knox, Mike Hudson and Johnny Dromette give it even more Cle cred, as if it is needed any more. Overall a pretty neat bit of Cle rock music the way that I'm sure most of us would like to remember it as having been like back when it was all young'n gnarly.
***
I never gave these Hamiltonians a listen to during their late-seventies heyday, but this live at this infamous 1980 Gnu Wave Woodstock is quite a surprise. A surprise since the terminally hipper-than-thou punque types who I'm sure were there for the B-52's seem to actually enjoy these guys' hard-edged straight-ahead rockaroll which had about as much to do with the giddy wavers as Beethoven hadda do with Og the Caveman. Kinda like the Flamin' Groovies during their Kama Sutra days when they were mixing late-fifties teenage stomp with early-seventies high energy jamz. Surprisingly powerful rock 'n roll as a way of life!, music so atypical of the sounds that were being hyped as brash and precocious by people we know and trust as being better humans than we'll ever be.
***
I've been curious as to what this oft-touted Cleveland punk rock madman (and onetime Ex-Blank-Ex drummer) was made up of, chemical-wise. Thanks for a certain Mr. Borger I now know and y'know what, this stuff ain't too bad even if it gets a little too much into modern neo-rap for my tastes. But hey, it still drives pretty good especially when Obnox himself gets into an almost-metallic rock mode that actually heralds back to various seventies accomplishments driven into severe madness thanks to that oft-loathed technological advancement. This might be the real punk funk as it stands today long after its originators (Ronald Shannon Jackson, Sonny Sharrock...) have passed on into the mystery. I wouldn't call BANG MESSIAH earth-shattering, but it does help clear out the nervous system after being inundated with the past fifty years of pop music abortions often heard over your local supermarket's speakers.
***
The ol' Rambler onna cover's what drove me (hee!) to this 'un like almost immediately, and the stuff Bill slapped on this pancake justifies my judging this book by the cover so-to-speak. With the combination of Spanish-language pop, piano jazz and sixties pop this almost sounds like a freewheeling spin on a short-wave radio on some rainy day inna basement. Without the scuzzy fidelity, snaps, crackles and pops that is. The big hit for me on this 'un was more of those Edgard Varese early free jazz experiments which really go on the old abstract tangent in ways that wouldn't be hinted at until a good decade after these '57 sessions were laid down. Did anyone ever collect 'em all onto one platter complete with stodgy liner notes and typical half-mastered sound? Wish they would even if you get the idea the whole effort would be more of a tombstone to the jazz avant garde than a celebration of it.
***You think you know everything there is to know about rock 'n roll! Well, buy a few back issues of BLACK TO COMM and you'll realize that maybe you know more about it than the jerks who put the thing out! C'mon, buy a few and bolster your ego for once!
4 comments:
lol more stuff no one has ever even heard of lol how about some def leppard? lol no, they're popular lol
What would a "def leppard" sound like? The mind boggles.
lol avant garde is the french word for pretentious and this e-rag is an illustration of it lol why not some good music? lol try sting or eric clapton lol y'know, someone people actually enjoy to listening to lol oh wait lol that wouldn't be "cool" lol hate t' be a debbie downer, but just sayin' lol
lol who is iggy poop? lol
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