BLOG TO COMM

So we meet again...yeah like, so what!!! Still glad you showed up anyway, because I got some great and real personalist things to write about that I know none of you really care about but will feign interest in only to look hip and with it. So take it like you would traveling to some business engagement with your boss listening to every boring aspect of his life as you are suffering outta your mind in abject misery! I've hadda endure things like that for ages, so maybe it should be YOUR TURN f'r once! 

But yeah, it has been a sweeter week than usual with me getting some free time which I used not only to write this piquant prattle but to just settle down and listen to music for my own benefit. Right now my fave platters are the Kleiner's Kabalah Syringe burns I reviewed last week. Just discovered that these tracks (and perhaps more) were actually from the group's mid-OO's days when they were on the Urinpolis label and that in fact they are no more. And from what I can tell lead vocalist S.C. Kleiner's no more as well, which is a shame considering just how much oomph these recordings gave us in an era that seemed to be slipping from its rockist moors faster than you can say ahfanacaga! This one just might become an all-time top spin here at BLOG TO COMM headquarters, and if it ain't in yer abode well, what else is new?

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I'll tell ya...sometimes my dreams can turn into nightmares that really can set me on edge for a long time, but when I have a good dream boy can it set the scene for a great day filled with a positive upbeat to it. Haven't had any of those kinds of dreams for eons, but last Sunday morn well... Here I am a mere teenbo in the backseat of some car which is being driven by some shadowy figure who I guess was a high school teach, we (including another teach inna front passenger side and two students in the back with me) going either to or fro some sorta inter-school assembly or debate or the like, and they actually allow me to play my tape of Patti Smith's ever-popular debut album HORSES on their car stereo! It's the cassette alright with the re-arranged song selection I thought was way better programmed than the actual platter, and there was this strange orgiastic feeling goin' through me as this played on (with the teachers not giving one wink about any of the questionable material to be found therein) which equaled the way I felt about the thing when I actually did give it my first ever play around the same time this dream was taking place.

When it came to the number "Break It Up" I actually snuggled my head between the two front seats to give myself a really good listen that song being one of the album's many highlights but was shocked to hear the song sans the piano or guitar sounding like one big bass-laden flop! I had the teach who was driving adjust the tone and then it sounded as crisp as it should be. Seems that everyone in the car loved listening to HORSES but nobody did as much as I.

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Dunno about you but I gotta say that, only a good three or months later, that I SURE MISS DONALD TRUMP!  Well, wouldn't you too after watching these last few months of the various internet, newspaper and tee-vee types doin' their best to make our current prez look like some sainted genius by covering some cornhole game he played with his granddaughter or manage to empty his dribble cup on his lonesome? Almost (key word) makes me miss those off-the-rails comments made by MoeLarryandJesus where he shows his sweet innocence by stating that Trayvon Martin was walking down the street minding his own business or George Floyd wasn't fentanyl-riddled at the time of his maybe not-so-early demise! What a sweet, untouched by the realities of life that MLJ is! Anyway I sure do wish the coup would get under way, and like immediately!

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'n now for  a li'l video break! Here's a tee-vee espsisode that I've been waiting to see for many-a-year. and thanks to youtube it's finally available to the general public! I dunno about you, but INSIGHT has gotta be my all-time fave religioso television program mainly because the thing was pretty much a swipe from a whole load of classic tee-vee anthology series, TWILIGHT ZONE bein' the most prominent amongst 'em. Anyhow I can recall many a Sunday afternoon sitting through this series while waiting for SHIRLEY TEMPLE THEATER to air (!), and I naturally got a lotta television pleasure watching INSIGHT not for any particularly inspiring spiritual message but for the sheer entertainment value. That entertainment value really must've been something which really must have been part of the overall appeal of this series because I remember the Cleveland ABC station airing INSIGHT on Saturday nights at seven-thirty running it up against such soul-searching programs as DON ADAMS SCREEN TEST and THAT GOOD OL' NASHVILLE MUSIC probably creamin' 'em in the Nielsens for that matter!

The show in question's entitled "The Death of Superman" and no, this ain't some re-enactment of George Reeves' own capsizing but a story about this retarded janitor who reminds me of a cross between Gomer Pyle and Emo Phillips (who woulda been an even better choice for this role --- too bad he wasn't around back '72 way), a strange yet lovable do-gooder living in the basement of an apartment with his dolls who he often shares milk 'n cookies with. I won't give too much away but I gotta say that Britt Leach as the janitor shoulda won some sorta award for his performance as the dolt, one so realistic I wouldn't be surprised if kids who saw this 'un threw stuff at him while he was walking down the street! And a great episode even if the moralistic angle will definitely upset more'n a few of you pampered pooches out there.

Oh yeah, an' if you're wond'rin' just why I wanted to see this 'un for a long time well... Y'see, my cyster just happened to see the thing back when it was fresh and told me about it because well, the guy does dress up in a Superman costume and like I was really into a comic book kick at the time! If you were lookin' for a more philosophical or religious reason as to why I was waiting so long to see this well bub, once again you barked up the wrong oak!

I liked that one so much that I decided to treat you to yet another favorite! I mentioned this one onna blog about a decade or so back but now the entire episode is up and in superior quality! A goodie featuring Bob Hastings as the host of this almost Ray Bradbury-esque PRICE IS RIGHT satire which would figure given how this was obviously filmed at the CBS Studio City facilities!

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Oh yeah...here's some good news I know you'll savor! Cleveland purveyor of musical schmalz Michael Stanley has died on March 5th! About fortysome years too soon but be thankful for small favors!

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Also better mention that no wave musician and New York artzy type Barbara Ess has also passed on, but since she nixed an email interview I was doing with her former bandmate Paul McMahon who dropped all forms of correspondence due to her dictum it ain't like I'm gonna be mourning much. 

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As usual, gotta give thanks to the men behind the scene who put so much into these posts, human beings like Bill Shute, Paul McGarry, Jakob Boysen and Bob Forward even though he has gone over to the enemy more times that I can count. But since he's sending me this stuff I better act like I'm not offended because he's stop the freebees more sooner than later! It ain't like I'm made outta moolah y'know!

Lou Reed-LIVE AT ALICE TULLY HALL 2-CD-r set (originally on RCA Records)

Sheesh, didn't know that this show was released by RCA given how many version of not only this live gig but the WLIR broadcast are floating about on labels that might just be bubbling right above, or below for that matter, the grey area line. Another one of those gigs with the Tots who I still find a whole lot more palatable as Reedian backup musicians than I do those groupings with all those jiveass neohippies, and Lou has yet to wallow into his wasted rockstar image so you don't get that irritable feeling of him either being so precociously self-conscious of himself or phoning in his performance. As Tin Huey's Harvey Gold once said, back inna sixties Lou was great and now (1973) he's just good. Which kinda makes you wonder what state the guy was in a good ten or so years after all that!

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Anthony Braxton Quartet-(SANTA CRUZ) 1993 SECOND SET CD-r burn (originally on Hat Hut Records, Germany)

A lotta the Braxton oomph had left by the time his Arista contract expired, and I gotta say that I didn't think some of the endeavors he was involved with since were really worth the time or energy to explore. I mean, him doing a duet with a standup comedian? But this early '90s show from the Kuumbwa Jazz Center with Marilyn Crispell, Mark Dresser and Gerry Hemingway still has the kinda spark that I woulda expected outta the post-Ornette free sound that was thankfully still wigglin' about long after the jazz mags seemed to lose all interest. It doesn't have that rigid feeling of those earlier Braxton efforts but eh, I find it something that sticks to the essentials and thankfully doesn't stray too far from the original AACM intent of it all.

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Dr. Feelgood and the Interns-MISTER MOONLIGHT CD (Olday Records, Japan)

Gotta say that the planned inclusion of "Mr. Moonlight" on the NUGGETS album seemed like one of the more out-there ideas, especially when you consider how them two platters were pretty much the underlying reason for punkitude back 1972 way. Even Smokey and His Cyster seemed like a more viable entry, or so I thought before giving the Doctor's MISTER MOONLIGHT platter a spin.

Dunno if you could consider Piano Red a punk rocker but judging from this effort maybe he is one albeit with an asterisk smack dab next to his moniker. MISTER MOONLIGHT is that much of a jam packed rock 'n roll platter that it can even stand besides TEENAGE HEAD as a spinner that doesn't let up as far as rockist concerns are considered, only with an early-sixties black view 'stead of an early-seventies jaded one a whole lotta white kids had having seen everything bad that has happened to the form in them ten short years since.

Rock thrills through and through, and given how the Interns used to dress as doctors and nurses (yes there were two functioning female members of the band on guitars and backup vocals --- bet that makes all you sociopolitical dyke types all hot under the undies!) the showbizzy camp so attached to much of the mid-sixties punk ethos is all but predicted! And hey, although it might predate the whole garage band blowout of a good three years later who can deny that "Mr. Moonlight" was a nugget if you dug it! 

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Various Artists-THE HISTORY OF ROCKS 'N' ONION ROLLS CD-r burn (Walls Flowing Records)

Lidless Eye remind me a whole lot of This Heat. Knox Mitchell and Stephen Kish plow the usual electro noise beats comin' up with something that has been explored long ago not only here and there but everywhere. At least it does have a beat and you can dance to it. Sounds like 22nd Century rhumba after the robots finally take over.

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Rockpile-LIVE AT ROCKPALAST CD-r burn

Rockpile never did tingle my 1980 sense of musical drive the same way that such then-current acts as MX-80 Sound or the Styrene Money Band sure did, but listening to the soundtrack to their German tee-vee appearance does remind me as to why many a fanabla took to 'em in light of what was passing for teen tuneage at the time. Hard enough rock that fits into that whole Stiff ethos that was starting to go into areas that just didn't jibe, but here you can just give a listen to just why Edmunds and the rest were such a refreshing change from the usual drek.

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Various Artists-WHAT'S ALL THE  FUZZ ABOUT CD-r burn (originally issued with WHAT WAVE magazine #17)

Here's yet another one of those platters that answers the 1981 question "what is PEBBLES VOLUME 99 gonna sound like?!?!?" A "freebee" giveaway that accompanied the infamous retrowhooziz mag WHAT WAVE, this disque has some of the creme and some of the curds of the eighties under-the-underground six-oh revival acts which does make for a rather rousing listening to session. Some rather big names in the field like Dead Moon and Thee Fourgiven pop into the mix and while some of this does tend to veer off the garage band reservation into more poppish pastures the majority of it'll remind you as to just why things like Voxx Records and the Chesterfield Kings meant so much to a whole lotta suburban slobs torn between wasting their last six dollars on either BATTLE OF THE GARAGES or JOHNNY ARE YOU QUEER?  A nice way to remember the eighties through sixties rose-colored rear view mirrors, something many of us used to do and continued to do for ages come to think of it.

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Various Artists-LOVE AND LIFE AND VINYL CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

I thought I was gonna be in for a good time what with the fifties-vintage country and vocal group singles that start this thing off, but sheesh, having to listen to two sides of that stoopid Johnny Carson "replacement" (on WHO DO YOU TRUST --- he later did his own failed attempt at a TONIGHT SHOW swipe before dribbling into a long-deserved oblivion) Woody Woodbury was about as funny as sandpaper on a toilet roll dispenser.  At least those single sides make this 'un rather palatable so don't expect me to smash this one on the sidewalk any time soon. But if any of you can get even an ounce of pleasure outta Woodbury's cornballus humor then you'd probably laugh your head off at a Shakespeare comedy! 

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Since history repeats itself all the time, these back issues of BLACK TO COMM remain as up to date and as (to use that old 1971 hippie word) "relevant" as the day they were birthed. Some good readin' in 'em and some bad, but I'm sure that none of you out there can deny that it's "readin'"! Best to fill your library with some of these rather'n take the word of whatever hype-driven Ann Powers wannabe they have up and running in the bigtime mags these days.