BLOG TO COMM

Well whaddaya know, a heapin' hunkerin' big BLOG TO COMM post, and so soon at that! Fortunately enough for you I had the time, wherewithal and patience to crank this one out and like, you need to read this as opposed to that, I s'pose. Given how my eyesight seems to be failing even more than it should I sure as shootin' wish I could read and edit this as clearly as I could have even a year ago, and believe-it-or-not but I haven't even done "that thing" in years...

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I had a painfully long, drawn out and exceedingly snide explanation pertaining to the remarks I made re. Jay Hinman just last week but deleted it in favor of a briefer and hopefully more to-the-point dissertation. That is, one hopefully more to the point until I at least start embellishing on it. The first draft was just too windbaggy, perhaps overly caustic in spots and well, we wouldn't want to see any of that on this blog now, would we? So I did what I thought was best and 86'd the original and whipped up a neater, shorter and hopefully more coherent meltdown for all of you more brainfogged types out there in blogland to comprehend. That is, until I start adding to it until it's bigger than the Dogpatch Ham which I am wont to do!

First off, in reality I do not wish, hope or pray that any harm will befall either Jay's wife or his brood even though I believe the former made a bad choice in picking a mate and from what I can tell you can't choose your parents (though I hope Jay's genes didn't affect 'em too much). And, believe it or not, I don't wish any bad voodoo on Jay himself even though I'm more than certain, despite his mea culpas in the previous comments section, the man'd just love to wish a whole load of ill upon me given his past actions! (Frankly, I don't recall any apologies from Jay regarding his effective tear down which separated me from a lot of "friends" and cost me some outlets to peddle my fanzine --- perhaps it was not "sackcloth and ashes" enough to register in my mind.)  You probably wouldn't think so but really, I am not the type of guy, even though for all intent purposes I SHOULD be, who really deep down inside wants my enemies smitten in the cruelest and most Elizabethan ways possible. But eh, I can sure fantasize about it, can't I? 

All kidding aside, given the way the likes of Jay et. al. have used a slew of half-truths, innuendos and downright fabrications against me (and rather effectively at that) why shouldn't I use the same sort of crude and callous remarks against him and his loved ones? And considering Hinman's reactions to my post all I gotta say is, people think I can dish it out but can't take it???

But you really have nothing to worry about because after what you have written about me hardly anyone even goes NEAR me let alone this site!

Is this the face of a truly
contrite soul, or a deceiving
cad out to make more
80s rock fandom brownie points
by luring me into a deadly
trap? As usual, your opinions
COUNT!!!!! (yeah right!)

OK, so maybe Jay's new FANZINE HEMMORHAGE blog isn't a not-so-direct rip-off of my various posts extolling the glories of rock fandom past. After all, in his blog's statement of purpose he seems to credit a load of people for the inspiration --- everyone but me that is! I'd be lying if I said that didn't think the man's givin' me the ol' jagoff because after all, Jay has been more than willing to make veiled negative comments and snide digs about me in his own magazine (or he allowed his lackeys to do so) despite his (suspicious) mea culpa. At this point in time I AIN'T TRUSTIN' NO ONE!!!!! Eh, why should I kid myself because the guy wouldn't even go NEAR my lowly blog in a million years, probably afraid he'll catch my cooties 'r sumpthin'!

Maybe I am over-reacting, maybe it is projection, but so what! Eh, all of this blog back 'n forth is just kid stuff anyway, although in many ways I gotta admit that I sure do miss them old days of one-upmanship and backstabbing even if it seems that all of the people who excelled in it way back when have gone the kumbaya route to total peace and love through excessive violence duncitude. Except me, thankfully.

It was all a joke, a sick one at that but just one of my attempts to stir up a wasp's nest that I thought needed stirring up. And Jay, if you really do want forgiveness (I have my doubts) well, OK. But that doesn't mean I have to forget. Or even like you for that matter, though I do get the feeling (believe it or not!) that some day, some time, we definitely will be compatico with each other and perhaps in a gosh darn buddy-buddy sorta way at that. And that's not something I would ever say or think about Dave Lang, a subsputum example I hope will do some self-termination soon. Or all of the other former buddies who sure didn't miss a chance to pile on me back when Jay wrote his initial teardown.  But until then sheesh, if you can have your fun at my expense I believe that I should be able to have some at yours!

'n I guess if there's no hard feelings on yer part, howzbout a real doozy and positive (of course!) review of one of my old mags, eh? Do me right for once in my life!!! Boy am I askin' for trouble!

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After all that bound to win me the Blog of the Year award screeding howzbout I skip any other personal comments about life and what I've been doing and thinking this past week (not much really since the politico/socio geiger counter just hasn't been clickin' away as rapidly as it should) and head on out into RECORD REVIEW TERRITORY!!!! Starting off with a mega-humongous gang-bang writeup of (now get this!) the entire BACK FROM THE GRAVE series, and as it appears in the digital age t'boot. Now, that's something that we all know is sure worthy of mention here at the BTC blog considerin' just how much these platters have made an indent on a whole slew of not only you readers, but myself natch! After that there are a few dibdabs regarding some other albums that I assume would be worthy of your precious kopeks, so tighten up your bladders because there's gonna be some mighty fine readin' (hah!) straight ahead and you just won't want to tear away from your screens for a well-deserved piss break!

LIKE I SAID, YET ANOTHER OVERVIEW OF THE MUCH-DESIRED AND MANDITORY IN YOUR COLLECTIONS BACK FROM THE GRAVE SERIES OF ONCE-RARE BUT THANKFULLY PLENTIFUL EARLY PUNK ROCK MEWLINGS!

Lookin' back o'er the years I gotta say that there were quite a few of these sixties-era garage band samplers that really made my existence a better one to revel in amidst a world of turmoil and constipation. The PEBBLES series, or at least the first ten volumes (the rest being of intermittent high energy squalls) certainly rate as all-time collectibles featuring the whole gist and movement of a rather short yet potent time in rock 'n roll history, while the entire BOULDERS collection remains close to my heart if only because of the low-fidelity placed not only on the actual recordings and pressings but the beautifully simplistic covers. I'll confess that the various other garage band series and one-offs out there really don't jibe with me as much as these classics did, either because they seemed to mix too much clarity and quality in with the teenage trash or were just way too expensive for a guy like myself who was putting out a crudzine on far less than what some would call a shoestring budget. 

But as far as the only real sixties garage band "punk" series that not only could hold their own with PEBBLES and BOULDERS but in many ways supersede 'em, BACK FROM THE GRAVE has alla the competition beat hands down. Sheesh, all I gotta say is that an eighties without BACK FROM THE GRAVE woulda been akin to a seventies without a UHF television station and a bottle of pop to watch alla my favorites reruns with!

The entire series (or at least most of it with some interchangeable inclusions I understand) is now available on Cee-Dee and well, I just hadda dish out the hard-begged in order to add these particular pleasantries to my collection. If you do feel that the following is a lame excuse to pay tribute to a classic set of platters done up in a rather pale fanboy-ish fashion well pod'ner, once again you'd be right on the money it took to buy alla these disques.

BACK FROM THE GRAVE VOLUMES 1 & 2

Shee-yucks but does this one take me back to October 1983, a time when I was in one of my even danker 'n usual lifemodes waitin' in line at the local post office so's I could buy a money order to purchase this very first, and as they said at the time "limited edition" volume! Mind you there were many of these garage band compilations up and about at the time although like I said most were exceedingly expensive especially for a fanabla like me who was working a minimum wage job tryin' to keep sane given everything happening around me. Needless to say when the package finally arrived and BACK FROM THE GRAVE VOLUME ONE got plopped on the turntable things did come off rather pleasing even if life for the most part was rather dismalsville.

This Cee-Dee pairing of the first two volumes of this series (sorry but I don't have any particularly strong memories of obtaining the second 'un) does remind me of all of the action and energy that just wasn't being presented in a good portion of the rock music that had been produced since those days of youth and innocence (right!). Yeah that "new" track done up by the Lyres (a cover of the Sonics' "chestnut' "The Witch") was left off for some perhaps not-so-strange reason, but the hefties are here from Michigan's Ju Jus who had that singer who does not sound like David Surkamp to the famed Cle garage banders the Alarm Clocks who probably got the entire seventies local undergrund scene rollin' if yuo want to stretch things a bit! Two Rats appear, the Rats proper with both sides of their wondrous doof classic "Rat's Revenge" and thee Swamp Rats doin' the Sonics long before that group became the toast of the under-the-underground garage band crowd thanks to Mark Shipper. Yeah I woulda preferred Larry and the Blue Notes' "Night of the Sadist" 'stead of the bowdlerized "Phantom" overdubber, but I think that might be on another 'un-a-these.

The second BACK FROM THE GRAVE picks up on the first's "vibes" with not only even more killer tuneage but a cover pick that features Chuck Eddy being roasted on a spit. That'll give ya a good approximation of what's inside of here (even tho Eddy did give one of these volumes a good rave, perhaps in atonement for past rock critic faux pissoffs of which there were many). Too much to talk about on this 'un but I'm sure glad that this 'un includes the Ralph Nielsen and the Chancellors' "Scream" (the Crypt EP of which I reviewed a few months back), the Hysterics trying to steal Sky Saxon's thunder with "Won't Get Far" (a BOULDERS fave from way back when), the Mods reverbing "Satisfaction" their way and (best of all) this totally unknown to mankind band doin' a really heavy version of the ol' whatchamcallit "Little By Little" on one of those Film Board of Canada moom pitchers they usedta make ya watch in school! Funny but I don't remember seeing that 'un unless there was a wild moose in it 'r sumpin'!

First beef... the sound quality is TOP NOTCH unlike those worn, crackly discs that were used on the original platters. Sheesh, I was hoping that once again I could turn my cheap bedroom boom box into the modern day equivalent of some teenbo gal's portable player circa. 1963! Second beef...lotsa stuff that should be here is missing, like the Novas' wrestling homage "The Crusher" and the Unrelated Segments' "Cry Cry Cry" along with a few others  whose monikers just don't come to what's left of my mind right now.Yeah I know that in the good ol'  meanwhile those missing toons have been reissued on other platters but I like AUTHENTICITY with these reissues, not latterday revisionism!

BACK FROM THE GRAVE VOLUMES 3 & 4

Another nice pair o' screamers complete with those offensive covers that shoulda set off a whole load of VILLAGE VOICE freak types but didn't because back then a whole bunch of 'em were clued in on the har-de-har-har game. Thankfully even the New York snoot types could get off on these accurate if tasteless portrayals of music done up by kids you thought woulda been held in detention for life! 

But when it comes to the music to  be found inside well...it's still everything that the likes of Robert Christgau and a whole buncha them Big City rock crit types (who are either planted six-feet-under or have lost their cushy newspaper jobs ages back) just loathe to smithereens, Then again, how can ya argue with a 70+-year-old Alzheimer's victim who thinks that the best thing ever to happen to  rock 'n roll was the cowbell?

Plenty of hot stuff here, from one of a millyun Nomads doin' "Be Nice" to the Tamrons' "Wild Man" and the Fabs (who I thought were Texans but weren't exactly, the neat-o book with updated liner notes and plenny of photos will fill ya in on it all!) doin' "Dinah Wants Religion"! Other top notch faves include the Vectors' "What In The World" which was written and performed by future Shadows of Knight guitarist Joe Kelley to the infamous Bunker Hill with Link Wray and the Wraymen's "The Girl Can't Dance"! Yeah, this '62 screecher just might be a li'l bit outta the mid-sixties teenage garage band realm but if Dr. Feelgood and the Interns' pre-Beatles "Mister Moonlight" coulda made the next-to-final cut for inclusion on the original NUGGETS then why not this bonafeed howler passing as plain' ol' unadulterated music?

BACK FROM THE GRAVE VOLUMES 5 & 6

More mid sixties anti-malarky here featuring alla those groups whose members I'm sure you sneered at way back when inna cafeteria line. There are a few definite classics here (such as the Keggs' "To Find Out" and it's not-so-boss but still superfine flip) to contend with, and if any of you think that these groups are gonna be wafting over into late sixties psychedelia well, you're wrong again chummo!

BACK FROM THE GRAVE VOLUME 7

This might just be the one that busted a whole lotta previous records for DOWNRIGHT ADDLED AND STOOPIDLY BEAUTIFUL MID-SIXTIES LOCALLY PRODUCED ROCK PRIMITIVISM!    True #7 covers a lotta area where many reissues have gone before (the Bugs, the Mustangs, and a pre-fame Alice Cooper) but what an area it was so-to-speak. The high energy quotient of this package could even make KICK OUT THE JAMS sound like third-grade flute-o-phone music class what with the likes of the Gentrys (an' not the ones of "Keep On Dancin'" fame) doin' the appropriately named "Wild" or this Deep South act called the Snails (complete with a lead singer who sounds somewhat like Bruce Hampton) throwin' a party complete with calls for hamburgers right inna middle of their recordin' session! Some of those later-on PEBBLES and HIGHS IN THE MID-SIXTIES do come off kinda pale next to this particularly potent pounder, and for all of these years I thought that was because alla the good 'un's were taken! Oh how wrong I was!!!

BACK FROM THE GRAVE VOLUME 8

Starts off pretty screamin' with some outright wailers courtesy bands with such names as the Groop and the Benders, the latter who got the hard-edged Iggy yelp down pretty snat which wasn't anything outta place when it came to the mid-sixties spirit of knotty pine basement suburban slob aesthetics. The Bojax's heavy duty "Like a Rolling Stone" meets "All Day and All of the Night" "Go Alone" rises above the ranch house snarl like a particularly purple pimple on a sea of blackheads splattered across your teenbo cheeks and really, there are so many tracks here which represent the true spirit of mid-sixties teenbo USA that it's hard to specify which one is better than the other because it all comes off so rough...

But (at least in my who cares opinion) the best of the batch is the Dave Myers and the Disciples track "Come On Baby" which to my tin ears sounds more late-sixties psychedelic garage but was recorded smack dab in the definitely teenbo culture year os 1965! That should make this cut a proto something of worth which'll surprise a few considerin' Myers prestige as a surf guitarist of the tippy-toppest order. The Painted Ship's "I Told All Those Little White Lies" is the same one that Greg Prevost belted on the first Chesterfield Kings album and I don't think he'd wanna kill me for saying that the original tops the re-do. But who knows --- this offhand remark just might get him to tear a big mad on against me! I mean, things like that have happened before (see above).

BACK FROM THE GRAVE VOLUME 9

This final entry in the Cee-Dee series captures the last two vinyl efforts in one nice splat and like, for a series closer it's sure a swell way to make an exit! Lotsa slob gems to be found, like the tambourine-drenched "Tamborine" (sick!) by the Why Nots who prove that you can use a tambourine as a lead instrument, to the Classics' "I'm Hurtin'" which was definitely sung by the five-foot-five kid who used to get real nervous in the boys' gang shower after gym class. Personal pick of the volume's an acetate of the Gentlemen's "It's a Cryin' Shame" which you might remember from PEBBLES VOL. 5 only here it is in an even more feral form!

Special kudos to the Donshires who really knew how to use the ol' repeato-roff mode to the Fours' "69" which was recorded in '66 so I assume they were rather anxious about things happening three years later, like high school graduation or something along those lines. And it all ends with that legendary whacked out version of "The Witch" by GMC and the Arcells which'll get you either really PO'd or rollin' on the floor laughing your bean off, your choice.

And that's all there is folk, and here's hoping that more'll make their way out to the populace faster than yo can say "Knoll Allen and the Noble Savages"! (ewwwww...)

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OK, now for the regular portion of our program for today...

Human Adult Band-SLOG QUEST CROSSTIME LP (Feeding Tube Records)

If I were the type of person to apologize, I'd tell the folk at Feeding Tube that I am sorry to have waited so long to review this. Since I've given up on apologies (apologies are a sign of weakness as Duke Wayne said and besides, I figure there are a lotta weaklings out there who should line up to apologize to me), well I won't. 

But hey, these Human Adult guys are pretty interesting. A lo-fi bunch who've released a slew of sound o'er the years, on this Feeding Tube debut they rage from noise blare to hard rock to garage band here to and fro with that sorta creepy feeling you only seem to get from Feeding Tube. Gotta admit that some of this dragged on quite a bit but that's OK considering the general scrunginess of it all. If you're on the lookout for some atonal yet still rockist soundscapading well the search is up!

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Ronald Shannon Jackson and the Decoding Society-MONTREAUX 1985 CD-r burn

The mere word "Montreaux" can conjure up images  of quite a few state-of-the-sad-state-of-jazz acts that have graced that fest's stage, but then again there have been many good live efforts from the kinda new thing groups we like that've emanated from that stage. And the Decoding Society are but just one of 'em.

Jackson and his Society already had a buncha LPs out and a pretty decent reputation in the under-the-underground jazz community when they popped up at the 'fest, and by the time this '85 gig was recorded a lotta the roughness that could be heard on the earlier releases seems to have been ironed out of the sound. It might sound somewhat slick in spots to a few of you readers, but I find this particular gig something that should settle well with those who have been fans and followers of the punk funk genre ever since the very late-seventies, if not before. Go ahead, watch it on youtube and burn yourself a copy to play while beating the kids.

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Magic Tuber Stringband-TARANTISM LP (Feeding Tube Records)

Mighty sweet downhome folk here with a bizarre avant twist that might remind you of something John Fahey would've cooked up had he hung around with the Red Krayola a little more. Classic finger-pickin' and fiddlin' folk instrumentation flows and weaves like something you thought you've experienced before but you just wonder where, coming off so fine in that real Amerigana fashion that comes off more rustic than anything the Grateful Dead ever attempted.  If you're bigtime on things llike that well, it's your choice.

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Saphron-RED AMBER LP (Feeding Tube/Shagrat Records)

Whew! Judging from the name of this act I thought I was gonna be in store for a bunch of lesbians singin' 'bout lappin' lilies and munchin' menses! Turns out that these recordings (discovered by the essential Nigel Cross) were actually made by a group of innocent early-seventies London schoolgals who were into the folk and singer/songwriter realm of the day. And despite what you might think they pulled it all off with total smoothness recording these acoustic folky tracks that'll please you even if you ain't exactly the kinda guy who'd go for some Cat Stevens-lovin' hippoid wannabe. Don't kid yourself, these Saphrons perform a music that's got a strong and nervy backbone to it, quite pleasant without being all joss stick. And believe it or not but this even ends with a cover of "Moonchild" from IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING!

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SPECIAL NOTE TO MISTERS FORWARD AND OBERLIN---Sorry but I still haven't received anything from youse in the mail as of yet! 

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DOWN TO THE WIRE LAST MINUTE MENTION!-Humungous big huzzahs go to Mr, Vance Vilandre from Johnson City, Tennessee who (now get this!!) sent me that Ed Ward (and not Greg Shaw as I have read elsewhere!) fanzine article from a 1970 ish of ROLLING STONE, the exact same one that I had requested just last week! Way to go noble reader but sheesh, I only wanted the article and not the entire dad blamed magazine --- I hope nobody sees me reading this thinking I'm a Leon Russell fan! Just kidding Mr. V and thanks, pal!

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Winter's here, so why not buy some of these back issues of BLACK TO COMM to store in your hut during the remainder of these cold months? Yeah you might not wanna read 'em, but just think of how warm they'll keep you when you stick a few of 'em in the pot bellied stove! You'll probably think they''ll be put to their best usage that way, and in some snarky way so do I!