BLOG TO COMM

Hiya fanablas---not that big of a post this week given that the specter of REAL LIFE has once again reared its ugly head and I have been more or less "drafted" into doing more than my fair share of hard work and toil in order to please others! Sheeh, if only I did it all with a good nature and even better heart I'd be chalkin' up all them grace points to be tallied on that big day when I finally cash my chips in at the Big Casino! However, since I am doing all of this rather begrudgingly none of this is gonna count towards ANYTHING so why bother? A fast fist inna lip is why I do.

But don't worry, I will try to PAD this out somewhat by breaking up paragraphs and adding "cereal" here and there to at least pump it up to a halfway-decent size. Think of it as a word sausage more or less.

Frankly I think the results are pretty decent if I do say so myself. And why not since I am the worst judge of my own character and do have a rather biased opinion of myself...in the the right sorta way ifyaknowaddamean. Nice selection of items for review here with thanks and glory bees to Bill Shute and Paul McGarry for the gibsmedats. Maybe a bigger to-do next time 'round, but I dunno...

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Well if any of ya want a copy, here it is! And on that note...

Blue Sun-PEACE BE UNTO YOU CD-r burn (originally on Spectator Records, Denmark)

When I first laid eyes upon it I thought that it was gonna be strictly from grade-z turdsville what with a title like PEACE BE UNTO YOU! I mean, who put this record together, some guy who gave ya the handshake of peace in church then beat you up silly in the parking lot when you accidentally dinged the door of his car? Don't worry Prunella, for this album ain't that kinda dippy warmnfuzzy gunch, it's this kind, the kind that comes closer to those early Pharoah Sanders albums that drove home the deep feeling of post-Coltraneesque bliss without making you wanna puke like a few of these efforts mighta. Those were Sanders' LATER albums that got you all up-chucking, especially since you parted with plenty of dinero for those atrocities thinkin' they were gonna be the bee's knees! You wouldn't think a buncha Danes had it in 'em, but Lord knows they can be just as spiritual as their Amerigan compats!

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Various Artists-EXPLOITING PLASTIC INEVITABLE VOLUMES ONE AND TWO CD-r burns (originally on Yahoo Records)

Drat! With a title like that I was hopin' EXPLOITING PLASTIC INEVITABLE woulda been a keen study of the Velvet Underground's influence on music beginning with its earliest incarnations via the few adept types who actually did buy a copy of THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO and were inspired enough to form a band just like Eno said! Now that's an endeavor that I really could throw my listening parameters around with little if any effort!

Turns out these two disques contain a selection of various psychedelic rarities and pop ephemera that capture the late-sixties teenbo consumption and digestion of the new sounds, mostly flopperoos but they'll certainly be big hits once they make their way into your own personal top forty that's for sure!

T' be honest a lotta this is studio re-gush of various hit fodder that might seem shallIsay "derivative", but there are more'n a few gems to be found within. Volume one actually has a rather well known track in "Clock on the Wall" done up by the Guess Who which I'm sure many of you readers already have in your collection. It fits in swell with the rest of these entries and is a whole lot better'n their anti-Amerigan rabble rousing stuff those communists were best know for!

The Cool Cats from Norway's cover of Lothar and the Hand People's "Machines" is also a winner if only because that song was such a  classic early pre-suck FM rouser to begin with. And Turkey's Mogollar also do the land of sick porn fine with "Hard Work" which might get me back into discovering more about all of those great acts that Jay Dobis told us about in that interview I did with him last year.

Second vol.'s fine as well with a few real winners from Israel's Revolver and their late-sixties pop psych take on the Beatles' "I'm Down" not to mention Germany's Rope Sect (pre-Mammut---will once again check out their tracks on the UNDER PARTY GROUND album whenever I can find it!) and "Da Du Da" complete with a scratchy violin solo and some amazing electronic effects that for once doesn't come off art school pretentious! For me the real winner of this set's England's Ram and Sel who do the ever-eloquent "Screw You" which sounds like a bunch of gnomes singing the Troggs with a synth quiver through it all that'll remind you of your nervous system during a caffiened up cram session at three AM. How this never became a hit I'll never know, though could you imagine all of the shouting and punishment your standard teenbo at the time would have had to endure had mom 'n pop heard their progeny spin this 'un on the family console?

Maybe it was music like this that was that fabled "International Youth Language" we kept hearin' about back inna seventies. It all fits into a nice cohesive example of teenage radio pop at what should have been its best but unfortunately kids never were at their best when it came to choosing rock 'n roll (and other forms of music) that could cut to the quick and sate the craving urge. Only a few could during their usual Burroughian endeavors into the rabid realm of human behavior, and unfortunately they were looked upon as the Great Beast which is something that continues to rile me up looong after rock 'n roll was rendered impotent by a combination of the industry and kids who were just too wasted or holy or tamed to understand the concept of atonal bliss!

Hmmmm, maybe the sounds that appear here are the actual spawn of the Velvets, dolled up and smoothed here and there but just as to the fingerquick "dangerous" and "evil" as all of those rock naysayers said it ALL was! And maybe that was a legacy that I can surely sink my maws into considering how vital it still seems lo these many years later.

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The Ventures-TELSTAR/THE LONELY BULL LP (Dolton Records)

Heh, what else can ya say about these Ventures albums which take the hits of the day, boff or not, and rework 'em in their own Mosrite image anyway? For some reason (perhaps because they reflect the world of my earliest memories) songs like "Telstar", "Calcutta" and "Green Onions" really resonate in this old blubberfarm's bean, and even if these familiar faves ain't done by the original artists I can still osmose a whole lotta pre-hippycreep livin' with the Ventures' etapoint renditions! One flea market find from the past that sure paid off, a fifty-cents well spent if I do say so myself!

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Various Artists-THAT'LL FLAT GET IT, VOLUME 12, IMPERIAL RECORDS CD-r burn (originally on Bear Family Records, Germany)

You might be shocked to think that Imperial Records had invested a good hunka cash into the rockabilly moo'ment considerin' how they seemed to bank their bucks on r 'n b and straight-ahead country. But they did, and on this CD-r burn appear some of the hotter late-fifties rockabilly efforts that graced that label's long history (which is still goin' on in some mutated form or another). A number of these selections will be familiar to most of you readers such as Bob Luman's "Red Hot" whether you heard the original or Robert Gordon's cover, but I was in for a whole load of fresh to my ears efforts and you probably might too. Faves of the batch were done up by a Texas sextet called the Strikes, who for a brief senior moment I had confused with the Strokes but hey, worse things have happened.

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John Coltrane-COMPLETE LIVE AT THE SUTHERLAND LOUNGE 1961 c-CD-r burn set (originally on RLR Records, of European ancestry)

A definitely probably (hah!) bootleg of some Coltrane broadcast using various nth-generation tapes for source material. Of course a good portion of you half-mastered audiophile types will cringe at the thought of listening to this, and frankly for the neophyte to give this a go in lieu of the vast Coltrane catalog that's already available would be akin to me having played MY FAVORITE THINGS before IMPRESSIONS or INDIA thus keeping me away for a good five or so years. (As ya can tell, I was not impressed but what do sixteen-year-olds really know especially if they're brain dead?). Still, if you're way familiar with the Impulse catalog and have a good portion of those Atlantic and Bethlehem albums under your belt yeah, you might go for these recordings in a really big way.

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Theatre du Chene Noir-AURORA CD-r burn (originally on Futura Records, France)

Given that this is on the same label that gave us both Red Noise and Mahogany Brain you can just tell that Theatre du Chene Noir's album is gonna be a wild excursion into Gallic grooviness! The soundtrack to an avgarde play, the music teeters in between the New Jazz and the Even Newer Classical in ways that should please both fans of Ornette Coleman and Stockhausen. Sounds like it came straight from some art house film that one would see in some run down theatre, the kind where you're trying to follow some strange tangential plot then all of a sudden you feel a hand upon your knee. Good enough that you don't even need the visuals to appreciate this 100%.

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Various Artists-WATUSI TOBACCO SEXBEAT CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Starting off with a surprisingly psychedelic Chubby Checker track called "Stoned in the Bathroom", Bill really thrown the good stuff into one nice dungheap on this particular "Floor Sweepings" disque. Of course I gotta say that I think Bill is pretty outta the BLOG TO COMM loop if he thinks that I am unfamiliar with such trackage as the Orlons' "Wah-Watusi" or the Sonics and Dolls, but he makes up for it with some good inclusions like a Blue Ridge Rangers number that makes me wonder why all the hip crits were so down on this post-CCR effort. Also a fine inclusion was Beehive and the Barracuda's cover of the Gun Club's "Sex Beat", which while not as good as the original, still manages to hold its head way above water while similar efforts woulda sunk like turds in the toilet of my mind. Overall its a pretty good gatherin' because stuff I thought was gonna be strict grade-z like Clyde's "Where the Radar Is" and Southern Culture on the Skids' version of "Tobacco Road" sounded pretty snat to me!

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I know that some of you people are in the market for BLACK TO COMM back issues, and perhaps financial situations or just plain stinginess have kept you from keeping up with all the missing gaps that are otherwise ruining your own fine rock reading collections. Now's the time to buy because hey, who knows how long it will be before I croak and they all end up in a massive landfill somewhere. Hey, that's what Tower Records did so why not my own kith 'n kin?