BLOG TO COMM

Once again it's your favorite clump of unviable cells back from Christmas holiday and ready to do some more much-needed blog-oriented jam kicking. I do hope that you didn't get too blitzed out by the celebrations 'n all unlike the wiry batch of kids seen directly to the left of us. Sheesh, don't these Little Rascals rejects look like they've taken the brown acid, which I'm sure quite a few of the real deal ones took when they became of pharmaceutical age??? Well, now that January is in full gear maybe the haze has lifted. For them, but not for me!

***

I might as well use this space to thank all of you wonderful people out there who sent me presents this past Holiday Season, some which, like the history of cassette tapes by a chap who calls himself Mark Masters (a name that rings a bell somewhat) look like highly engrossing fare especially given my own appreciation of them things in light of the more popular 8-Tracks back during my teenbo days. Bill Shute sent a buncha fine comic book collections I'll also be writing up once I get the chance, whenever that'll be natch! 

Too bad just about alla these gifts arrived after the big day, but that don't bug me any since I hardly got anything good anyway and these belated beauts sure make up for my disappointment if only a tad. Fortunately these recent arrivals did manage to ooze some of them old X-mas funtime feelings outta me (well. not as much as if I would had I gotten alla those Corgi and Dinky Toys I didn't get back then), reminding me of alla those great days spending my newly gained moolah on records and only TELLING the folk I deposited it all in the bank, devious little fanabla that I was and probably shall remain.

***

Better late than never's this year's Christmas card (which also arrived a day too late but eh!) from the Droogs and Plug and Socket Records, who also sent an entry from an encyclopedia of Power Pop giving mention to the group (never thought they were exactly power pop but with the way rock terminology gets twisto chango'ed these days...). At least this inclusion shows that they're still remembered by someone other than me which sure does some cockle warming of my heart if I do say so myself! 

Sheesh, who woulda thunk that there'd've ever been a day when I would have been deemed important enough to rate a card from this legendary rock group (or any rock group for that matter)   ---  kinda makes me feel somewhat important and big man on campus-like in the same way I felt like I was front and center on rock 'n roll history back when Lou Rone would play me various Von Lmo guitar riffs over the phone I'll tell ya...

***

Interesting indigenous people's history
fact! Long before anyone else, the Native
Americans were skilled experts at catheterizing!

Anyhoo, maybe now is the best time to tell you that (once again) the year of 2024 is, especially after the spendthrifty days of last year, going to be a real tighten the belt on one meaning NO RECORDS OR TAPES OR CEE-DEES OR WHATEVER UNLESS ITS ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY NO DOUBT ABOUT IT NECESSARY!!!!! (Of course it is arbitrary as to what exactly I would consider must have booty which just might ruin my financial planning after all!) I went through these periods of austerity before and of course told you all about 'em in particularly painful terms, but sheesh I just gotta save more of that filthy lucre for the future even if, for some unseen reason, there isn't any then it all gets buried with me! It probably won't be that much of a pain, since I think I already have enough goodies to keep me well and happy until the big bang, so why splurge unless it's for something I just gotta have to tingle the ol'  hammers and stirrups! 

Oh yeah I know I will be tempted, but pocketbook concerns do come first. But oh the temptation, not only to buy some hot music but to generally keep the cash in my possession and not spend any of it on frivolities and other items I really can do without. I just hope you're around here to remind me of that when I head on down to Aldi's and see all of those tasty treats they stick in their specialty cooler! Goat cheese and sliced tomatoes frozen pizza, those little Mexican pastries filled with spicy meat and of course German Black Forest cake, one of which I believe still resides in the freezer even after a good two years!

***

Gee, I gotta admit that this Bing AI chat thing is pretty neat! But "respected"??? Ya gotta be kiddin'!:

***

Know your enemy, part one-million:

***

Not that I shoulda been surprised, but the "new" and "revamped" CREEM (you know, once the home of high energy Detroit heavy metal) has reached a level of sociopolitical wokeness that makes even those weepy enough eighties issues of theirs (not to mention anything ROLLING STONE was worthy of cranking out) look positively stoic. Guess Brad Kohler was right all along to which I say....dagnabbit!

***

I believe that I do have quite a good selection of soundage up for inspection this time, and since I didn't have to pay a penny for any of it (all sent by the likes of Paul McGarry, P.D. Fadensonnen and Bob Forward) t'is all for the better! Like I said, if I gotta start acting like a Scotsman I better start doing it now, which reminds me of a funny story regarding when I was a kid and my father told me that I should be more like the Scots and I said "STINGY????" to which he shouted back "NO YOU MORON --- THRIFTY !!!!!" And a hoot mon to you too!

The Pink Fairies-SCREWED UP! CD-r burn (originally on Cleopatra Records

Yup, the Pink Geriatrics (Canadian division) are back kinda/sorta, with North Amerigan rep Paul Rudolph hitching up with some old Hawkwind and Motorhead pals for a trip I thought woulda fizzed out ages ago! Like that platter Rudolph did with Twink a couple decades back this really ain't anything as beautifully psyched as the Polydor albums, but if you liked any of the Pink Fairies reunion disques that have come out since the mid-eighties this'll suit you just fine and dandy. And for you old-timers there's a boff version of the Deviants "chestnut" "Screwed Up" not to mention that Hawkwind fave off QUARK STRANGENESS AND CHARM "Hassan I Sabbah" complete with violinist Simon House adding the exact same flourishes that he did on the original. Heck, this really is good enough (especially when you consider that most if not all of the musicians here are septuagenarians!) that I'd even go see 'em if they were playin' in my back yard, Who knows, if I were the kind of guy who'd only indulge in some of the chemicals that fueled these guys for years on end maybe I WILL (see pic above)...

***

Tim Buckley-STARSAILOR BAND FIRST GIG, OCTOBER 1970 LION'S SHARE SAN ANSELMO SAN FRANCISCO CD-r burn

I believe that some of this was sent by Mr. Fadensonnen as part of a general smattering of STARSAILOR material done up live, but this is the entire debut of that infamous bout of career suicide on Buckley's part that continues to amaze...well at least continues to amaze me. It's not hard to imagine what Buckley's old fans thought of his one-and-a-half avgarde albums but fie on them anyway because this is a fine slice of 60s/70s cusp cataclysm music every bit as important as all of those sonic screams for a true sanity that we've all been rah-rahing for ages. One listen and you'll know why Buckley ended up on Straight Records...that was supposed to be a tax write off and really, what honest to goodness Boone's Farm hippie would ever go for this! Bad part, my copy stops right smack dab in the middle of the second version of "Come Here Woman"!

***

Lucia Dlugoszewski-DISPARATE STAIRWAY RADICAL OTHER CD-r burn (originally on New World Records)

There are so many of these twentieth-century avgarde composers to keep track of that even a person well-versed in the genre would find it a hassle to keep up with 'em all. For me it's really pick 'n choose because, for the life of me, I find some of these composers radically brilliant while others seem to be taking the same ol' Schoenberg and Varese moves milking 'em as if they were at a La Leche convention. Sad to say that I find Dlugoszweski to fit into the latter category, as there's really nothing here that moves my inner being (ooooh!) like a forties-vintage John Cage piano piece or some out of left field Nam June Paik performance put on. Even the idea of the "timbre piano" doesn't tend to flib my jib which is saying something considering my interest in "prepared" instrumentation of all sorts. Guess I'll have to turn in my beret and stale doritos and go back to being the outside-the-outkids doof that I've been and will probably remain for the rest of my life.

***

Blue Cheer-1968 LIVE FAMILY DOG, DENVER CD-r burn

And I thought the Family Dog was in San Francisco! Well, that's a new one on me! The Cheer blasting it so loud and hard that you can't even hear 'em singing!  Oh well, this is probably how everyone in the audience that day heard it, before they all heard nothing that is. Not so long (maybe fifteen minutes or so) but it has a rather good riffed up jam as well as "Doctor Please" on it. 

***

Sun Ra Arkestra-THE HAGUE NORTH SEA JAZZ FESTIVAL 7/14/79 2-CD-r set

Eh, t'aint the best live Arkestra offering out there. Ra's getting perhaps a little too far into his Big Band roots for at least my tastes, maybe not yours either but who knows? One for those of you who've heard the rest and want a li'l topper.

***

Various Artists-AT THE HOP! 2-LP set (Brookeville Records)

What happens when budget oldies collections no longer serve the purpose of their original owners who have possessed such platters since the heyday of misplaced seventies nostalgia? Why, they're given to ME as this double duty collection of various blasts from the dawn of the big beat (or something like that) ultimately proves.

Actually this isn't a bad sampling of previous transistor triumphs even if it is somewhat incongruous, what with the like of Little Eva and the Music Machine being included in the same package 'n all. Well, those platters peddled on afternoon television never were known to just stick to one distinct theme other'n to cram together whatever there was available for Morris Levy to peddle to the kids watching GILLIGAN'S ISLAND reruns. Still, AT THE HOP! does collect some beauts such as the Beach Boys' "Surfin'", the Surfaris' "Wipe Out" and the Fendermen's "Mule Skinner Blues" which (at least for me) was one record that seemed nigh on impossible to latch onto in the history of serious record shop, garage sale and flea market scouring!

***

Various Artists-AMERICAN PRIMITIVE Volumes 1 and 2 CD-r burns (Revenant Records)

Believe it or leave it, but I really do hate writing about these old folk/blues collections that have been cluttering up many a record collection for more years than I can even remember. It's probably because I'm oh-so-self-conscious about myself and just don't wanna look like I'm even remotely coming off like one of the reams of upper crust white college-bred music scribes we've all seen for ages who seem to devour this stuff with a haughtiness that might even put your Aunt Petunia to shame. Y'know, the kid (or aging precursor from the glory days of the New Left) who used to, and probably still does, slobber and drool over just about anything that has an abundance of melanin in it if only for the sake of doing just that even though said scribe might convince himself otherwise. After all, someone out there has to keep that "we are all one people" schtick going even longer than most observers out there would have thought humanly possible, right?

When I think about those kinda people I tend to conjure up some pretty accurate visions of what I would call a WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE CLASS OF '64 born and bred bowl of mush --- skinny wire-rimmed seventies/eighties longhairs (neat looking well trimmed longhairs at that) who are still around and look quite the same albeit with wrinkles and white hair wearing sports jackets with patches on the sleeves and sweaters underneath 'em even on the hottest days of the year. Social Anthropology majors who actually were able to get a job with their degree. The kind who used to watch SUNSHINE and THE PAPER CHASE on television and actually oozed some warm 'n toasties outta 'em while sneering at the HAWAII FIVE-O crowd for being so --- I dunno --- violent? Probably got some physical disability as well. The kind who can't help but bring up they were conscientious objectors during the Vietnam War whether you wanted to hear so or not. Read Ellen Willis. Males who, when reviewing such items, come off more like they're apologizing for being white which seems to be that original sin imposed upon ultra-guilt riddled WASP-y types who couldn't find a black musician to hate even if he were to cave his head in for some drug money. 

Being Vinnie Virtuous these days can get a body far, and in no way will I ever do that old humble bumble act like the one where that guy who owns Chick-Fil-A went and polished some black guy's shoes acting oh so contrite about something he was never guilty of in the first place. So feel a whole lot surprised when I tell you that I find these early pre WW II gospel blues pretty snat even though it certainly ain't because I'm gonna do a whole lotta groveling to atone for past transgressions real or imaginary. I'm doing it because this is fine enough raw music that, like those one-string guitar efforts I reviewed way back, resonates because it is raw and crackly and thus fits in with the state of my nervous system the same way Suicide and Can do, even if for the life of me I doubt I'll ever listen to this collection again.

Big surprise---Eddie Head and his Family's "Down On Me" which is the same song Big Brother and the Holding Company used to do, only this version comes off better if only because the (original) lyrics are more deadly and therefore truthful. Walter Taylor's "Deal Rag" sure sounds good because it wasn't done up by some hippies on a Marin County front porch thus hitting the spot a whole lot more'n Pepsi ever did. Sheesh, at least Peter Laughner knew how to sing this stuff probably because his own frayed nervous system was way more in tune with this breed of down home folk than most refugees from a high school hootenanny's ever were!

Great hypno-drone to "You Better Quit Drinking Shine" by Rev. L.B. Ware and I should be thankful that the 1897-vintage "Poor Mourner" by Cousins and DeMoss isn't some early take on the various folk duos of the sixties like Simon and Garfunkel or Brewer and Shipley. And to get downright frightening about it, Rev. Edward Clayborn's "This Time Next Year You May Be Gone" is one track I sure hope doesn't manifest itself into my destiny I'll tell ya! Other people's yeah but not me that's for sure!!! 

And whatever Tommy Settlers' doing on "Big Bed Bug (Red Bed Bug)" it sure sounds like I could use some of the "inspiration" that he must have partook in before recording such a whacked out toon such as that!

Three disques that just might make you wanna listen to something other'n the usual new flash, that is if they still have new flashes anymore. And although I sincerely doubt it, I do hope to high hog heaven that in no way in this review did I come off like some precious petunia of a "rock critic" who probably learned about music by watching Ken Burns documentaries and nothing else! You might think I come across as a low class jerkoff "poseur" type as Amy Gelman might have put it, but then again do I really care what any of you think about me anymore?

***

Gee you'd think there'd be a thousand or two rock-mad, mouth-frothing life-loathing individuals out there who would be just more than willing to buy up these back issues of BLACK TO COMM at what I would call a rather accelerated rate. But I guess there ain't, although YOU readers would sure do yourselves good by picking up a stack or two. Try a few and see if your hatred of "the other" as they say doesn't just grow by leaps and bounds, like it should.