BLOG TO COMM

So we bleat again. Got a nice packed (and not with fudge you thilly thing!) post this week, one which I hope'll inspire at least ONE  of you readers to empty out your wallet so's you can absorb some of the sonic musings that I'm touting as true saviors of a rather staid lifestyle. Had fun listening to the entire mess too so it wasn't like I was groveling through it all as if I were doing a high stool termpaper on the presidency of Thomas Dewey...it might read like one but eh, I can't hit on all of the spark plugs all of the time!

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PUBLIK CERVIX ANNOUNCEMENT-I know how many of you readers  long for rare long-gone issues of my crudzine. Well, here's an opportunity that don't come up too often, so hurry up before it's way too late!

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Naturally I've been pouring through the relevant Rock's Back Pages printouts I mentioned last week with a voracity that would put most seventies rockread fans to shame. (And why not considerin' alla the money I hadda spend to get a three month subscription which pales next to the money I woulda hadda spend then for subscriptions but eh!)  Having fun at it too. The Charles Shaar Murray pieces are of course boff even if ya don't give a hoot about a lot of his subject matter...he writes so good that you actually will find yourself enjoying his David Crosby history despite the fact that the guy for all intent purposes was useless even when he was finishing up his days in the Byrds writing gunk like "Triad". However, you'll LAUGH when he tries to interview Paul Kantner, Grace Slick and David Frieberg in an Eyetalian restaurant and all Gracie cares about is eating her lasagna with Paul and David only slightly more comatose! His infamous mention of the Clash as a garage band that should have been practicing while the engine was running is not to be found but still, Murray does have that patented neo-Bangsian ability to find punk rock in places where you never thought it would have existed which I find a gift only a few people have ever been blessed with. And if that makes you wanna search out those old Edgar Winter's White Trash albums for yet another dimension to a sound you thought Iggy and the Stooges had a monopoly on well then go ahead...I am (once I get some moolah back by selling loads of back issues of my failed crudzine...see come-on at end of post)!

Jane Suck's writings are also of a great value that I'm sure very few were putting on her SOUNDS contributions at the time, though even at this stage you kinda get the impression that this rather innocent yet streetsavvy dame is slowly but surely morphing into your standard flannel shirt bulldyke right before your very eyes. And as far as Paul Morley goes well, for some STUPID reason I stapled his efforts on the wrong side of the page so it reads backwards, something which I do hope is not an OMEN! Will give you a report after I remove the staples and do the job right.

The big surprise just has to be the various Chrissie Hynd(e) reviews---I've already mentioned how much I enjoyed her previous from the brain and heart rock rantings, and even though I have already read her reviews of acts such as Magma and Eno a few years back and thought them tops I gotta say that her other contributions to the mag, her Tim Buckley, Velvet Underground, Gram Parsons and David Cassidy pieces, were so pleasing to the rock psyche that I wish she had stuck with writing and used music as a sideline like her former boyfriend Nick Kent did. Unfortunately her Mose Allison article has yet to be archived, but maybe someday soon.

BIG SURPRISE...her more-recent (2004) ode to the sixties and why they were the top teen times (even during the later years when things got a little rancid) was something that had me wishing I was old enough to absorb all of the great negative energy of those days, a time when I was more concerned with KRAZY KAT than I was anything passing for music on the radio. If you can believe it, Hynde was actually listening to "Sister Ray" and Captain Beefheart on WMMS which really stymies me considering what turdburgers that station turned out to be when the $$$ were dangled in front of Kid Leo's eyes! And she, like most of us regular readers, understood to her heart of hearts that those shaggy groups on WERE THE ACTION IS might as well have been heralds from another dimension or zone for that matter presenting us suburban slobs with THE TRUE SECRET OF LIFE. Well, it is a whole lot better that people like her and me (of course!) bestow special tantric powers upon the likes of the Seeds than Charles Manson discerning occult messages in THE WHITE ALBUM!

Yeah, some of that piece might get slightly into hippydippy loveydove hate your parents they were so evil and be a slut regardless of the consequences prattle, but overall it packed a pretty strong punch to this paunch. Tune in next week for more rockscreeding revelations.

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Just heard about the passing of Skydog label head and Open Market manager Marc Zermati, a surprise in that I thought he woulda died years earlier if all of those drug exploit stories I heard were true. Somehow I get the impression that Marc read my recent bootleg article which mentioned some of his old wares and that set him into motion for his meeting with destiny, but I do get that way sometimes as if my mere thoughts no matter how offhand can actually affect reality. Well, not all the time because if that was so there'd be a few extra corpses layin' around in California and Melbourne, ifyaknowaddamean... Still, another biggie in the BLOG TO COMM annals has passed on and I get the feelin' a whole lot more'll be headin' out to the roarin' flames as time lingers on so whatever you do, BE GOOD!

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Anyway/Anyhow/Anywhere, here's another batter down the hatches set of reviews I think you'll like, and if you can get as much spiritual fulfillment out of these as I am reading those old Murray and Hynde pieces you must be even more starry-eyed than I am! Thanks to Bill, Paul and Bob too for the gibs---you will be rewarded for your kindness, though I do get the feeling that it will be in a not-so-positive way...

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I'll betcha're won'drin' just what has gotten me on this Steve Lacy kick as of late. I mean, although I have sung the praises of his myriad assortment of spinners it was never like I was one to rabidly champion his various efforts spanning an assortment of jazz styles over the course of fiftysome years. If you wanna know, what happened to me was that I was triggered...not triggered like that chimp who tore off some woman's face and chomped her hand off after she picked up his Tickle Me Elmo doll, but something mighty darn close!

What got me goin' was the very same CBGB handbill from January 1990 that you see directly to your left (click ir to enlarge, dummy!), one which besides listing a myriad assortment as they say of interesting acts obscure and obscurer, features the listings for the next door CB's 313 Gallery which was known to host music that was somewhat quieter than the air raid that was goin' on at the more familiar club. Anyway, if you look at the bottom of the bill hard enough you'll see a gig listing for Sunday February the second which features an interesting line-up for a satellite multi-platform gig celebrating the poetic work of one Janos Gat. Dunno who this guy is even after I googled his name but I thought that the idea of a multimedia show from various worldwide hotspots seemed like a fine idea to me, especially when the CB's portion of the bill featured not only the infamous Defunkt but Arkestra regs John Gilmore and Marshall Allen plus "Setev" Lacy proving that whoever hired the typesetter should be commended for hiring a dyslexic person thus giving him a decent living wage.

Dunno how this particular event turned out---I kinda get the feeling it flopped with not only technical but personal glitches---but the mention of Lacy sure echoed something loud in my cavernous cranium and next thing you knew I was on the search of whatever recordings of his I thought would sate my atonal cravings for the free stuff. Plus that recent batch of CODAs I procured sure helped out what with their heavy duty coverage of the man at a time I'm sure he coulda used more'n just a little help!

Bought a few items in the interim, the first a ten-Cee-Dee collection of all the Black Saint/Soul Note Lacy albums as latched onto a few items of some notoriety. And in case you can't guess, I'm gonna give you my impressions regarding each and every one of these new items thrust into my otherwise snoozeville life.

The first of the Black Saint box is TRICKLES, which I'm sure is something many of you old Lacy fans will find rollin' down your leg once you remember just how difficult it was to get hold of these Black Saint albums when they were first up and about and now you can get hold of the entire set for a relatively cheap price! Trombonist Roswell Rudd, a guy whose FLEXIBLE FLYER album on Arista/Freedom is the only rec on that label I deemed to pawn off, actually plays swell enough that I perhaps regret that earlier trade-in (for a post-punk loser I'll bet!) even if he ain't as expressive and angular as he is here. Bassist Kent Carter and drummer Beaver Harris round out the quartet and "compliment" (yeeesh!) the horns without getting all over the sesh. I'm not Gary Giddins so I ain't gonna comment on any of that intricate jazz brouhaha about timbre and interplay and other gunk that sorta masks the fact that the music drives and scrapes at your nervous system like the best music could. Well, do you want me to compare music like this to "flamingos" 'r somethin'? Maybe long-extinct prehistoric birds of Herculean size and strength fighting for the last egg in some dinosaur nest.

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REVENUE came out on Soul Note and, unlike the first entry into the Black Saint canon features a recording done in Lacy's long time home Italy albeit none of the players seem to be of local heritage. In fact, I must admit that I'm not familiar with most of his sidemen here (other'n fellow soprano player Steve Potts who turns up on quite a few Lacy efforts)  but they sure do sound swell and are in-groove with Lacy's general free play nature which can take ya on some really inspiring (and inspired) tangents  A pretty good encapsulation of one of the final remnants of the early new thing that sure must have seemed "antiquated" (to some but not quite to me) when this 1993 sesh was laid down.

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TROUBLES is the second album on Black Saint proper and it sure is a pretty nervy album that appeals to the inner turmoil that's been raging in my body since I was at least two. Good band backing him up as well including wife Irene Aebi who sings on the interestingly-enough titled "Wasted". The entire group does some fine chanting themselves on the title track, and that twisted angular feeling I love hearing in the best jazz of the sixties/seventies is sure in full bloom on this '79 release that like I said earlier was not only a rarity but pretty pricey if one happened to makes its way into some high quality record shop. Kinda makes me glad that I was too cheap to even attempt to buy a lotta these efforts way back when not that a whole lotta stuff is not only inexpensive, but free if you can get it offa Youtube or Soundcloud!

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REGENERATION ain't exactly a Steve Lacy album per se, but a collaboration twixt he and Rudd, pianist Misha Mengelberg, bassist Kent Carter and drummer Han Bennink where the whole bunch of 'em play tribute to Herbie Nichols and Thelonius Monk a side apiece. And yeah, although both of these jazz legends ain't exactly whatcha'd call part of the sixties free explosion the way Lacy etc. were, their honorers handle their material certainly with a rather avgarde approach reminding me of various mid-fifties early branching outs from the hard bop idiom. The original cover is reproduced to a "t" here, though the printing on the reverse is so small I can't make out very much of what Nat Hentoff wrote about this particular effort! On Soul Note this time for those of you who are keeping track.

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Haw! Another joint effort tribute, this time to Herbie Nichols on his lonesome! Joining Lacy once again is Mengelberg and Bennink, along with Arjen Gortner on the bass violin and sprouting new jazz up 'n comer George Lewis who at this was being touted heavily even in the pages of the normally staid DOWN BEAT. Yet another Soul Note release, this one doesn't differ too much from the recordings presented on the previous offering, though I could wax eloquent about Lewis' trombone playing as well as the general freshness of the ensemble who branch well into the early avgarde feeling when the stretchin' out is worked on. Nice cover repro too, but again the liner notes are way too small to make out, so small that they even make some of the efforts re my own crudzine come off like the READER'S DIGEST large print version!!!

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Sheesh! I was hopin' that the cover of the Soul Note DUTCH MASTERS release woulda had the entire ensemble (besides Lacy, Mengelberg, Lewis and Bennink Cellist Ernst Reyseger) posed like the pic one would see on a box of cigars but no such luck. Still its what one would have expected from Lacy after the previous five albums for these labels, what with its strong Monk influence coupled with the same free approach that Lacy picked up on when part of the Cecil Taylor Unit (dunno if they were called that so early inna game, but...), all done up in that angular way that recalls not only seventies free jazz approaches but with that feeling ya got when listening to those Eric Dolphy albums where he seemed to be right on the brink of a tenser-than-ever breakthrough. Special commendation goes to Mengelberg's playing which doesn't seem to know whether or not to veer towards Taylor or Burton Greene but heads toward Mengelberg which I guess is suitable enough.

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Lacy seems to be the solid set leader of THE CONDOR (again, on Soul Note), a mid-eighties effort once again featuring wife Aebi and vocals and violin (good but not as tangent-bound as Leroy Jenkins or Billy Bang) and some hot playing that thankfully once again dredges up all of those great mid-seventies new thing experiments. This even kinda makes ya remember why you liked the jazz avgarde back when you were a teenbo takin' a BIG CHANCE buyin' some jazz album on the recommendation of R. Meltzer with those depression wages forever eatin' at your NEED to KNOW MORE about the gaping wide universe. Aebi sings swell too adding to the underlying bared-wire intensity of it all. Noted pianist Bobby Few even appears raising the property value many times over and as far as these Eyetalian releases go this might be the best of the batch---so far, that is.

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THE CRY is a double Cee-Dee set taken from a live jazzfest show in '88 with a rather different line-up of instruments that you would usually associate with a Lacy ensemble (accordion, harpsichord) as well as wife Aebi's vocals which are taken from the writings of some Bangladeshi feminist type who has a hefty price on her head. Heck, I do need the money and if she happens to wander into my neighborhood I might be tempted to off her, but chances are that she won't and anyway her real contribution to this album is small because frankly I can't understand a word Aebi is singing.

Despite occasional lapses into staidness (much like this post---yawn) THE CRY does hit upon some moments that approach avgarde total eruption. Even a few sidesteps into Sun Ra (thanks to the harpsichord?) cum downright funkitude show up making this one of those tantric excursions into a sound beyond music. Might be worth a try if you are feeling rather experimental yourself. This one came out on Soul Note, again if your anus happens to get really tight about such things.

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Also on Soul note is Lacy's final effort for that label credited to the Steve Lacy Octet and entitled VESPERS, something which doesn't exactly come to mind when listening to this rather good flashback into the mid/late-sixties late-Coltrane period New Jazz feel that is more representative of the work that Archie Shepp was beginning to make his mark with at the time. The playing seems even more expressive than on some of the other Black Saint/Soul Note efforts and the sound has a nice gloss to it that reminds me of those early-sixties Impluse and Blue Note efforts which really does stir a li'l somethin' in me, like making me wanna kick myself for passin' up alla those used jazz records I used to come across in shops because finances were so limited! In all a rather pleasing to the avgarde spirit of Lacy effort to end his tenure at this label which, like I probably have mentioned before, was all but obtainable unless you were a rabid Italian record buyer or knew which shops to go to (complete with a Trust Fund to match).

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After all that you might want to latch onto STAMPS on HatHut, a particularly high-charged live '77/'78 double set featuring the standard late-seventies quintet more/less (Aebi, Potts, Kent Carter, Oliver Johnson) playing particularly ferocious approaching previous Shepp/Coltrane/Coleman levels of high pressure music that really will affect you especially if your main musical forte is high energy rock. Sound is great, playing is perfect and this really compliments the above Black Saint/Soul Note efforts which I also get the feeling will not be leaving your laser launching pad any time soon.

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Lacy's SAXOPHONE SPECIAL (on Emanem but get yers offa Youtube because a real life copy is EXPENSIVE) is more or less what I wished the mostly-eighties vintage Lacy albums reviewed in the box set section were like. Gnarly and nerve-shredding, these live shows present Lacy and band THE WAY I LIKE 'EM TO BE HEARD, with a lotta free play and grit with added dimension (and downright gnarly-ness) added to the session thanks to the likes of some of the more advanced minds in seventies like Derek Bailey sitting in. The saxophone quartet (all sopranos!) should perk the lobes of those of ya who were part and parcel for the BIG ANTHONY BRAXTON PUSH AS THE NEWER-THAN-NEW-JAZZ-THING-OF-THE-MID/LATE-SEVENTIES movement, while Michel Waisvisz's synthesizer playing tops Richard Teitelbaum's if you ask me.

lotslotslotslotslots more Lacy out there for any serious fan of the new thing to peruse, and even I have a few vinyl examples inna collection that are due for a reappraisal one of these days when I get some extraextra time on my hands. An expansive catalog the man has, and quite a bit is readily available if you too wanna take the plunge into some way more expansive than your standard tux 'n bowtie impression of the music that, when in the right hands, is as tantric and as SHOCKING as that cold frozen moment look at the end of the fork as any of your rock 'n roll favorites. Pretty heady and cathartic even, and once I get it all digested into my brain and fully comprehend the sounds at hand all I gotta say is...I still wonder how that gig with Gilmore and Allen at the CB's 313 Gallery turned out, tho I get the maybe not-so-strange feeling that if the event actually did take place it wasn't grade-z turdsville after all!

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Peter Green-THE END OF THE GAME CD-r burn (originally on Reprise Records)

Sheesh, I mention an old Fleetwood Mac bootleg ONCE and wouldn't you know it but that would spur Bob Forward into sending me a dub of the thing. To which I say good choice of burns ya got there, Bob!

Of course it ain't like I was never aware of this particular spinner, as Lou Rone was once raving on and on about how great the thing was. Of course he seemed to be equally excited about the photo on the back cover which I don't consider anything to be arousal-like, but to each his own I say!

But even if blooze chooze ain't your brand of moccasins THE END OF THE GAME is a spiffy platter, a strange rambling amorphous jam (or sets of jams) edited down to FM-radio length for that laid back dee-jay to play when number one starts a'callin'. It might even SURPRISE a few of you adamantly anti-Fleetwood Mac listeners with its decidedly free rock approach which borders on a free jazz tempo and even some cacophony that might get some wag out there to call this a punk rock masterpiece. Go ahead, makes more sense'n some of those patented crybaby rants bein' called exactly that!

For late-night head-straightening out or just an average good listen, and if you walk away wanting to search out those old Mac platters don't blame me if they sound nothin' like this.

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The Cosmic Dropouts-GROOVY THINGS CD-r burn (originally on Skyclad Records)

Y'all know exactly how much I've come to tire of these rote-a-garage bands that had been comin' out o'er the past thirtysome years or so, but the Cosmic Dropouts deliver on some hotcha hard-riff beats to the point where I gotta separate these guys from the hoards that have been making themselves a name despite their relatively light-fluff style. Closer to the DMZ/Lyres style of sixties revision with none of that phony op art go go stuff to mess things up. Pretty nice listening to without having to adjust your listening parameters, really.

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The Barracudas-WAIT FOR EVERYTHING CD-r burn (originally on Shake Records)

Sounds like the Barracudas grow up and get professional album. But that's grow up in the right way. These are the guys who had those fluke English hits a good twelve or so years earlier and those singles were a surprise...total teenage NUGGETS fun in an era where everything hadda be cut and shaped to a conformity that still makes me uneasy to think of. By 1992 their sound had become way more polished and dare-I-say "commercial", yet it still has enough of a rock 'n roll backbone so that you won't puke listening to it. You may even tap toe or wave an index finger like the big kids usedta do when I was a mere first-grader. Not bad a-tall.

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Red Dark Sweet-JB'S 5/24/85 (PT. 2)/JB'S DOWN 6/28/85 CD-r burn

Somehow Red Dark Sweet sounds like the only early-eighties-bred under-the-underground NYC post no wave art rock/Loisada (if I spelled that right) band that...sounds rock 'n roll to me! Sheesh, at certain parts it's like they coulda been of the late-sixties/early-seventies local Hackamore Brick teenage combo stoked on the fumes of a truly freeform FM radio (see Chrissie Hynde blurb above) and cheap wine kinda act I sure wish were playin' down my block! Again the specter of "Kandy Korn" pops up as well as some funny asides like Charlotte Pressler hawking various records to audience members for prices that we'd all kill for these days. Only we had it all then so it didn't seem like that much of a bargain. If alla this was edited down and sharpened up I think it'd make one of those boffo albums that woulda adorned my collection for years on end...and even get fondly played when it happens to turn up in the stack.

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Various Artists-AMBITION SANDALWOOD CLEO RIDER CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Bill starts out moody and gets funky with Syl Johnson and down home with some digestible folk and even a batch of radio ads (Byrds, Four Wheels, Tokens, Tiny Tim, Canned Heat) tossed into the mix! Since I haven't played any Jesus and Marychain in a good few decades Bill put some on here to remind me, and while he was at it he decided to also remind me about the Flaming Lips, another act that sorta got bushwhacked over time. Blues, schmooze (from New Castle's own Four Friends) and I even dug the Companions' novelty rocker "I Want a Yul Brynner Haircut" which goes to show you what kind of flippant mood I'm in today!

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BACK ISSUES DEPARTMENT! I know that some of you are getting tired of me consistently hawking these old BLACK TO COMMs that are popping up around the ol' abode whether I want to find a copy or not. Maybe if some of you actually BOUGHT some I wouldn't have to keep badgering you. Take a hint, willya?