BLOG TO COMM

UGLY THINGS #53 (YOU KNOW WHERE TO GET IT!)

What was once a two times a year thrill has become a three times a year one, though at the hefty price of ten bucks (plus postage!) I dunno how I'll be able to afford many of these UGLY THINGS as the years roll by!

But beg borrow or turd I will in order to latch onto this crucial rag, and the latest is no exception from the rest of 'em and perhaps is an improvement over the earlier ones which really is sayin' something! Something especially when you consider the effort and quality that are poured into these things like hot coffee up my constipated anus.

UGLY THINGS #53's brilliant through and through, what with enough drama and excitement here to have filled up at least a season and a half of ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS. The major cover come ons are of course the big draw with not only tales about former Love drummer Dan Conka and the infamous Skip Spence that might even have you shedding a tear like they did me (I am a sensitive soul, you moron!) but a hotcha piece on the Groupies of "Primitive" (that blatant "Smokestack Lightning" swipe given a Stoogian life of its own) fame and the Outsiders of "The Boy With The Long Liverpool Hair" fame which would figure since both acts were "connected" somehow (you read it...I don't wanna give the entire issue away free since I'm already outta ten smackers for the thing and you're merely mooching!)

I also thought that the Johnny Blitz/Madansky interview was pretty good even if the guy seemed to clam up about a lot of things (an' he didn't even mention his early-eighties gig with Andy Gerome which Gerome said was the favorite of all his groups!). Oh well, maybe next time and maybe the great interview with Steve Cataldo of Nervous Eaters fame will get some more Boston-area gab abouts to apprear in future UT pages considering the wealth of hotcha acts that appeared in the area back in the seventies and eighties (and maybe even beyond!). And maybe the aforementioned Blitz talk and interview with Cleveland hero Wally Bryson will get some more of the heavily suppressed Cle rock scene info up and about before it all becomes a buncha jumbled unconnected brain syntax dribble at the rock and roller old folks home and euthenasium that's gonna be built any darn second!

Not only THAT (even tho I have yet to peruse some of the other hep pieces here such as the Time Machine and the Hungarian beatsters Atlas---there are a few time constraints gettin' this review out to DA PEOPLE ya know!) but there are those reviews which are good enough that they even inspired ME to part with some of that rare green stuff to purchase platters that will be reviewed in upcoming BLOG TO COMMs if I am lucky enough for them to arrive.

So the thing ain't exactly a waste of some good moolah after all! And unless a new issue of VULCHER comes out this just might rank as the ONLY rock mag that matters here in the dawn of a decade that just might be a whole lot more fun'n even I would have imagined. Might be worth the effort to do some serious labor in order to get hold of this one