BLOG TO COMM

Well, after all of those tossout book reviews I guess that it's time for the real thing, and if you are a fan of mine (and who shouldn't be unless you're a TOTAL JERKOFF) you BETTER be ever-so-grateful!  The usual day-to-day hassles and a summer that's gonna be filled with hard-sell outdoor flea markets etc. are putting a damper on this blog and will continue to for quite some time, but nevertheless settle back for the ride given how I've been putting a whole lot of heart, soul and even some plastic-laden testes into these posts.

Anyway welcome to the first post of Rainblow Month 'n here's that li'l ol' attention whore me presenting for you the kinda post I know (at least from post stats) you just love. I'll guarantee ya that nothing that is presented within these "pages" will elicit the same sorta throb thrills that earlier writings of mine most surely did, and perhaps because of the span of time between these big-deal posts there's just too much for the average (?) BTC reader to digest and ultimately shit out. (I was tempted to hold a whole load of this back for a subsequent post but figured by then none of it would be whatcha'd call "timely" as if this blog ever was.) However, deep down inside whatever's left of my heart I'll admit that I'm surprised my mind managed to toss this post at'cha, and given the swill passing for rock journalism these days what I've written still beats whatever I've recently read (or more accurately tried to avoid) regarding that maddening sound called rock 'n roll all hollow. 

Now, that doesn't say much considering the dearth of printed pus that passes itself of as "rock critijissom" or whatever other descriptive terms one might conjure but eh, so what! When you consider that this entire mode of the music (as well as the people who produce and even listen to it) really is deader'n Karen Quinlan what would you expect? As I've told you many-a-time, we're all just zombies goin' through the motions only we don't know that we've been obliterated by the past five or so decades of utter loathing directed at our pure ideals and concepts of music. Music as a spell cast against both the forces of mediocrity and the hip superiority moosh that's "supposed" to stand AGAINST that very selfsame mediocrity. Well, better to indulge in the hard and gritty musical past than to sustain your cravings via the piddle being passed off as "raw" and "exciting" these days, and you know this blog is but one guided missile in the war against the creeping tide of bland that unfortunately crept over us way too long ago. And remember --- I wouldn't print any of this if it wasn't true!

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REAL DEAL EVENT OF THE POST just hasta be the arrival of FAUX WOOD PANELING #5 into my mailbox as well as my very own existence. Sheesh, life has taken a turn for the better ever since this mag has come out, and looking forward to receiving the latest issue (me being on the freebee list---wow!) has become just as tingle throb worthy as when I was a kid awaiting my Archie Club badge and press card which I still have to have and to hold somewhere in the pile. Wade Oberlin never fails to deliver on the post-Meltzerian goods what with this brimming (pages are un-numbered but it is a biggie) mag that features none other than an in-depth interview with Darwin Layne himself Craig Bell as well as various bits 'n feces that are most welcome, at least to souls like ours who have been in on the game for quite a long time and are too smart to give it all up. Really, where else are you going to read an in-depth review of an early-fifties Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoon, other'n maybe the very blog you're now reading that is? The reprint of Meltzer's Blurt review was most welcome --- now if Wade would go 'n find the rest of his ne'er reprinted VILLAGE VOICE writeups boy would I be one happy somethingorother!

One particularly peeving thing about this issue is the (re?)printing of a Brian Walsby comic dealing with Rocket From The Tombs and the Cleveland first wave of underground rock. This particular page was irritating to me considering just how much I loathed Walsby's frequent PEANUTS-inspired art that cluttered up a myriad assortment of hardcore rags that I will be jettisoning once I get back on ebay or some cheaper equivalent one of these days. The man and his patented eighties punk unto punque attitudes were so upsetting to me that not one but TWO Walsby spoofs appeared in the earlier issues of my not-so-erstwhile crudzine...he was that irritable bowel syndrome bothersome to me perhaps because I thought that he and his work were somehow a culmination of the entire punk attitude and sound idiom that was turning into boring hippie swill right in front of my very eyes! And as time proved I was more righter'n you'll ever be!

Anyhow, despite my past hatred for the dude it's good to see that Walsby is now a devotee of the finer aspects of the underground rock quest (he was also responsible for a Maureen Tucker comic that I only saw a page of if only because Brad Kohler wanted to get my goat) and that his style has improved 'n all HOWEVER... Well, Walsby forgot that Crocus Behemoth had a beard and that Peter Laughner was in Rocket before the Gene O'Connor/Johnny "Madman" Madansky/Darwin Layne edition of the group, and although I know that I perhaps picking the nits a tad and that there's always some "poetic license" being injected into these things and that mistakes are expected to be made, but we're talking about a HALLOWED SUBJECT MATTER that should be treated with the utmost respect! This 'toon shoulda been executed a whole lot better considering the hallowed subject matter, with all the care and detail he  would have used had he were doing the Henry Rollins story or something along those lines! Eh, why bicker especially this late in the game when it doesn't really mean a thing anymore and in case you didn't know...we all LOST!  (available via wadeoberlin@gmail.com).

Also jettisoned my way via Robert Forward was an issue of that legendary magazine devoted to the more avgarde vibrations in life, mainly THE WIRE. Dunno why Mr. Forward sent this since hardly any of the musical entities who are written up in this magazine are anything that I'd go, in Tuli Kupferberg's own words, "aggieoogieagga" over (pardon me if I have used this descriptor before). Still the thought was nice and there were a few turdbits of interesting things I sorted outta this ish even if for the life of me I wouldn't spend one thin dime on just about anything that is mentioned in here! Well, they did print a review of that Peter Laughner "graphic novel" that I writ up sometime back, and maybe if I dig in a little more I'll find something like a review or an article that might actually be of interest to my rather horse-blindered brain. But as for now the only current publication that worthy of my time and pleasure's FAUX WOOD PANELING, and I won't take guff from any of you over this!

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Looks like I got my birthday present a li'l early but so what! Here it is, SYD BARRETT'S FIRST TRIP which should also be known as THE BEGINNING OF THE END...

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Here's another one for you cinema buffs, an early slice of underground filmage entitled 1941 that was created by a painter and moviemaker of little if any renown (can't find nada on-line, or elsewhere for that matter, about him) named Francis Lee. From what I do know about this flicker and (obviously) its title I can tell you that the thing had something to do with Ameriga's entry into the Second World War, but given how abstract and mind of the viewer interpretive it is, this film could be about "Aunt Flow" or any feminine type problem that's out there for all I know. Whatever, I gotta admit that I kinda like it if only because it reminds me of the opening of the old private detective series CHECKMATE:

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Anyone out there who could give me some info or maybe even airchecks regarding on-air personality Steve Brown, some guy who used to spin 'em at KSJO-FM, a once-freeform but now Bollywood station in San Jose California? I'm only asking cuz, in the course of a Cameron Crowe-penned Grateful Dead article in that Jan '74 issue of CREEM I praised to the rafters a few weeks back, Brown was briefly mentioned as having been "once a locally infamous disc-jockey" and "an eclectic lover of off-the-wall punk rock" whose "first love" are none other than the Gang of Garcia as if you couldn't've seen that comin'! Sounds like the kinda guy I wouldn't mind getting to know better, although his affection for one of the more overrated rock groups in history might be quite off the ol' high energy target if you ask me (and why not, 'tis my blog?).

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Hefty kudos to the DENIM DELINQUENT facebook page for all of those early Alice Cooper photos they've been posting as of a few weeks ago. Keep them snaps comin', and maybe a written review or two from Pete Sanchez would be nice!

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AS IF ANY OF YOU OUT THERE WOULD CARE TO HELP ME OUT DEPT.: I'm trying harder'n hard to find some information or for that matter a discography (and the availability of recordings) on a late-seventies English punk rock group called the Worst, a Mancunian bunch who have been described in the following terms --- and what terms they are!:

The worst are so much like Uncle Lou and Friends you could be fooled into thinking they are the genuine article. No one's pretending they're 1978's answer to New York's bug-eyed sons (and daughter)But people are inclined to make comparisons - And it's a shadow, y'know.A starting block, and attempt to identify/categorize....it's a blistering tribute, but I could blame a basketful of bands who think it's necessary to pay the Velvets homage = trouble is,The Worst do it so bloody well...Audio-visual excitement:it's even more difficult to understand.Maybe they've rediscovered the energy that made Warhol's Exploding Plastic Enevitable so special/maybe they're pulling the wool over everyone's eyes. (Punctuation/spelling kept as originally presented.)

Are the Worst really that late-seventies flash/burst of Velvet Underground sonic pride I've always enjoyed or just another one of XXXXX rock groups who took "the superficial aspects of the quest" without the deep drive and nerve-twisted feeling. They never entered a recording studio but I assume that there are some live tapes flying about, even though to date I have uncovered nada and I just KNOW none of you would be willing to help me out (then again, I wouldn't give any of you readers a ride to the hospital even if you broke your leg!). Who knows, maybe that guy in Finland who has been releasing these limited edition CD-r's of punk rarities might have 'em in his catalog! As usual, I'll attempt to find out and probably once again get burned in the process.

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And the deaths just seem to keep on comin'. Dennis Thompson's passing makes it the MC0, and although I am not an aficionado of film as aht it was kinda sad to hear that Roger Corman bit the dust. And believe it or not, but I should feel somewhat droopy about the exit stage left of Steve Albini if only because he sent me an album gratis way back when I really needed to be sent albums gratis. Unfortunately the kind of deaths that I am looking forward to have yet to transpire which is kind of disappointing on my behalf. After all, I really do need a reason to smile these days. But maybe if we all wish and pray hard enough...

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Ron Unz makes the brilliant point that Donald Trump, whilst campaigning from his prison cell (or at least the swank country club passing as one he'll be skedaddled to), could possibly be this century's answer to Eugene Debs. And come to think of it, if I were around way back 1912/1916 way I definitely would have voted for Debs over Prez Taft and especially the vastly-overrated and downright despicable Woodrow Wilson. Then again, even Happy Hooligan woulda been a better choice than that peacenik conveniently turned warmonger Wilson, a man whose crowning moments as Commander in Chief was probably during his post-stroke days when he couldn't do any harm even though his illiterate wife ended up runnin' things. And, surprisingly enough Debs was an honest man, something which seems to be a scarcity in the world of political wheeliedealies these days. Howzat for throwing you staunchly patented lefty types for a loop?

Whilst on the subject of the upcoming election...izzit true what they say about Trump and Roy Cohn?????

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As you've been waiting for after all the above personalist jibberjab, here are some reviews of just a few of many recordings that are 1) either newly released and deserve a li'l push or 2) for the most part are totally new to my ears and I thought you should know at least what I think about 'em. As you've come to expect Paul McGarry, Robert Forward and even Wade Oberlin are the ones responsible for the burns and my pocketbook the one for the brand spanking new entries into my collection. 

It is getting harder and harder to keep to my New Year's resolution not to splurge on various frivolities so like well, better enjoy what I have writ up before I'm banished to the poor house until my dying day. Pretty pic 'n chooze here --- will it be a winner or will it be a dud? (Unfortunately the gif doesn't work, but it's taken from the old MYSTERY DATE tee-vee commercial that some of you old turdburgers may remember. That was the mid-sixties board game where gals getting in on the hetero relationship merry-go-round aim for the ultimate dating experience and usually get stuck with the "dud", a guy who in this day and age would probably be yer aspiring body-pierced tattoo'd gender is over type's idea of a fun night out!)

Dredd Foole and the Din-WE WILL FALL 1983 CD; SEE GOD 1985 1986 2-CD set (both efforts via Corbett Vs. Dempsey Records)

You can read my review of the first Foole/Din career retro release here if you really wanna. If you don't I might have a tad bit of contempt for you but anyway, here're vols. two and three of the Din trilogy for all of you unrepentant Boston Rock fans and Velvet Underground obsessives who I still believe are firmly ensconced under your own personal rocks. Save some space for me! 

WE WILL FALL 1983

 has Foole still teamed up with Mission of Burma (more/less) continuing on the Boston tradition with their mix of more than competent originals jumbled with the expected smattering of those covers that inspired them originals. It's all done up live and pretty gnarly at that what with Foole's strained vocals and a group that sounds blaring even on a cheap bedside boom box. 

SEE GOD 1985-1986's got Foole backed by the post-Burma Volcano Suns (a group I now wish I paid more attention to, but sheesh I was so busy/poor then) with their two classic longplayers slapped together giving me reason to double up on the lisinopril given the palpitations I had for these albums back in the late eighties (a time that was certainly hard to get excited over even existing in I'll tell ya).

You might want to take this one piecemeal. Having played all three platters (which clock in at way over an hour each) in one sitting I feel like I'm coming down off a long day with nothing but energy drinks for sustenance. Yes, Dredd Foole and the Din pack a mighty wallop and well, if you like your under-the-underground rock 'n roll history compacted in such a way as these platters deliver you just might be a better appreciator of the warm drone than I could ever hope to be!      

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Murahashibu-LIVE '72 CD (Good Lovin' Records, Japan)

Sometimes these Japanese rock groups can tread some mighty similar pools of sound. I mean, the opening track comes close to Les Rallizes Denudes while other moments recall that infamous anarcho-punk/mock Tyrannosaurus Rex act Zuno Keisatsu. Then there are the overt Stones swipes and other nods to the occidental set which is to be expected from Japanese acts such as Murahashibu and others who've kept their eye on alla them trends happening globe wide and brought 'em home for the locals. Nothing that'll get your jaw all agape but rough and tumble enough at least for my tastes. Yeah, I really can see why a touring Stranglers took an interest in these guys, and if you were/are in on the whole seventies leather and feral nature of rock 'n roll you will to.

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Grachan Moncur III-NEW AFRICA CD-r burn (originally on BYG-Actuel Records, France)

Another boff BYG sesh featuring trombonist Moncur along with the best of the expats making an album that might get you all frothing over the fact that nobody who played on this ever got renumerated. It ain't over the hill running and screaming like many of these other late-sixties cataclysmic bouts of sonic liberation, but it's still rooted in a dark mid-sixties neo-Archie Shepp (who appears on "When") urban groove that kinda sounds like it shoulda been the real soundtrack to COTTON COMES TO HARLEM. If they still have used record bins with 1980's prices dig it up you penny-pinchers you!

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Anthony Braxton-RECITAL PARIS '71 CD-r burn (originally on Futura Records, France)

This previously unheard by me Braxton rarity features a 25+ minute solo version of "Come Sunday" as well as a multitracked piano piece dedicated to John Cage sidekick David Tudor. Alla you Braxton fans who were listening in back when Meltzer said he was nothing but the new Dave Brubeck custom made for the college snobs "thing" (a comparison Braxton would have probably loved) already heard this. For the rest of us this should be more than just "good enough" if your tastes veer in between the new jazz thing and the classical avgarde. Not boring at all, in fact quite stimulating.

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Chick Corea-CIRCULUS CD (Blue Note Records, Japan)

Actually this is the first Circle album with Corea joined by fellow members Braxton, bassist Dave Holland and drummer Barry Altschul. You may be familiar with their double live set that popped up on the ECM label back in the seventies, and if you aren't then you sure weren't thumbing through the jazz section of your local record shop back when that set used to pepper up the plains.

Gotta say that I always found it quite funny that Corea was working in very close proximity with Braxton in the v. early-seventies considering how both of 'em would become rather big names in the world of jazz within a few measly years. Corea as the leader of a rather pedestrian fusion quartet (though I never did hear the debut Return to Forever LP on Polydor which some say was of a quite different genome than that of the later edition) and Braxton the omnipresent avgardist who appeared at a time when there actually seemed to be an audience for this sort of sonic air shredding.

Still, this effort shows Corea at a time when his L. Ron Hubbard-inspired pixie and dixie approach hadn't yet taken him into starry-eyed commercial realms. The rest of Circle keep him in tow, with Corea playing his classically-bred lines while Braxton etc. are free to do their own thing. And the use of small instruments etc. does lend the perfect color needed to keep this from being just another free jazz effort...CIRCULUS bounces up down and about in your musical psyche like the best AACM/BAG efforts though not as nervegrinding as the first or as funky as the second.

It is interesting, perhaps somewhat boring at times, but not boring as in you're stuck in a carpool with nothing to hear but the radio spinnin' the 80s/90s/00s etc. sounds you tried so hard to avoid for the past umpteen years. Might be worth picking up a few tracks via Youtube 'r something with only serious fans of seventies experimental strains searching out any flesh and blood copies that might be wallowing around.

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Meyer Kupferman-ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK FROM THE FILM HALLELUJAH THE HILLS LP (Fontana Records)

From what I could gather HTH wasn't exactly one of the more engrossing underground films that were popping up throughout the sixties, what with such efforts as CHAFED ELBOWS (also iffy but good 'nuff) and the various works of the Kuchars and Warhol passing it up while waving goodbye. This soundtrack album might give one the idea of what was happening on the screen (including a scene where future Cheryl Tiegs spouse Peter Beard goes streaking in the snow), though I get the feeling that it is all so filmatic and New York chi-chi that I doubt that it would have anything to do with your miserable existence. 

Musically some of it reminds me of the kind of tinkle you would have heard in such early French avgarde efforts as THE BLOOD OF A POET or ZERO FOR CONDUCT, while there are quiet neo-baroque harpsichord/flute interludes and even a few trips into a sound that's almost late-sixties neo-gothic rock. Overall this is nothing that I was expecting given the very few huzzahs this album had been endowed with these past sixtysome years, but one thing that I did like was that it didn't drive me into fits of rage the way a whole slew of amerindie/"lightcore" records I heard in the eighties sure did!

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SILOAH CD-r burn (originally on the Garden of Delights lael, Germany)

You remember SUKRAM GURK. Siloah's second album which sounded like a stoned punk rock mad trip into the inner reaches of some twenty-year-old German whose chemical makeup seemed to equal that of Monsanto's.  However, have you heard their debut of a quite different schnitzel? I tried to avoid it after hearing all of those references to "hippie-communal-freeform-body odor" mysticism that were directed at this, but lo and behold none other than Mr. Robert Forward sent me a burn and well, you already know how I feel about it so why write this review in the first place? Aimless get together in the group house jams are what's in store here, most of it kinda sounding something like Amon Duul's infamous swan song PARADIESWARTS DUUL without the early Velvet Underground repeato riffs. If Adolf were alive he'd just die!

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Various Artists-LULLABIES FOR CATATONICS 3-CD-r set (originally on Cherry Red Records, England)

A lot of these recent CD compilations that bunch up previously released spazz and slaps 'em into a packet under a certain thematic grouping are rather meaningless while others, like the Chris Needs-helmed DIRTY WATER series and that collection of classical avgarde efforts that inspired Frank Zappa are pretty solid. As for this triple disque effort giving us a somewhat unconnected overview of various late-sixties/early seventies English proggy sounds well...

This set comes off like the kind of jukebox Chris Welch and Michael Oldfield (the MELODY MAKER scribe, not the TUBULAR BELLS guy) would have just LOVED to have had  spinning at their headquarters while tossing darts at pictures of Johnny Rotten, and you've won the ol' cigar if you think that the majority of tracks don't exactly make me want to jump up and down in frenzied ecstasy. Acts like Curved Air (doing a Vivaldi violin homage that might have even put a smile on Miss Grundy's face) and Barclay James Harvest don't exactly reach for my jugular even if even I gotta admit that a few of the latter's very early Beatles riffs are slightly palatable if taken in extremely small doses (really!). For the most part the tracks on this effort just remind me of just how laden this so-called rock music could have gotten once the Mantovani side of the brain overtook the Buddy Holly one.

Not to say that there are some winners sticking out like diamonds in a field of turds. The Bowie-fueled Riot Squad doing "Waiting For My Man" must rank along with the Deviants' version as the earliest example of a cover that more than a few Ladbrook Grove bands would be doing throughout the late-sixties and seventies. The Velvet Frogs' homage to THE MARBLE INDEX makes me wish that more by these Velvet Underground aficionados would make its way to the ears of people who are bored silly by all of those superficial VU-inspired groups of the last fortysome years. 10cc prove that there was a whole lot more to them than "I'm Not In Love" and oddly enough Stackridge's "Grand Piano" sounds like a Badfinger-esque Beatles rip that would have sounded spiffy on a 1972 AM playlist.

And there are more goodies from the Third Ear Band and Comus, but for the most part this effort just reverberates old feelings of some quite unexciting music that did have its audience, which is OK for that audience I guess but what about those of use who are addicted to the concept of high energy? There are collections more attuned to my own sense of sonic integrity which I mentioned in the first paragraph, but LULLABIES FOR CATATONICS is one grab together that just ain't made for the typical reader of this blog. But who knows...perhaps the Emerson Lake and Palmer revival is just around the corner and I know how some of you readers just love to jump on them new hip bandwagons!

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STONE COOL WHITE CD-r burn (originally on Cal-Tex Records---well at least it ain't Co-Tex!)

Wade Oberlin sent me a burn of this 1970 vintage funk thing OBVIOUSLY because these guys (and femme) hailed from Dayton, which is 'round where Oberlin himself resides. The AM radio sound does help deliver a most welcome raw feeling which does aid the searing wah-wah Hendrix ripoff instrumentals and echoplex vocals. Dull cover of "Ain't No Sunshine" tho. Kinda reminds me of what that King Afro and the Mongoloids single that Reg Shaw mentioned in his "Jukebox Jury" column in BRAIN DAMAGE magazine woulda sounded like.

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Wally Shoup/Bill Horist/Paul Kikuchi-CHEMICAL LANGUAGE CD-r burn (originally on New Atlantis Records)

Even thought this 'un's nine-years-old it's like very recent in BLOG TO COMM time! Alto/guitar/drums trio that play sparse and bared wire in that post-twentieth century style that I used to hear a whole lotta back when I'd tune into Dee Pop's Freestyle Night at the CBGB Lounge. Can't pinpoint a direct ref to Shoup's takeoff points (too sharp for Ayler and thin for Shepp---maybe Braxton?) but Horist plays electric spidery enough in the fashion of some of those Euros like Joseph DeJean did on Shepp's Antibes album. Drummer Kikuchi slaps around it all in the fashion that Sunny Murray begat oh so long ago. A good effort that has been ignored for nearly a decade and I get the feeling that it'll be ignored until the current crop of jazz pansies die off and are replaced by a new, snarling generation (yeah, right!).

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The Jesus and Marychain-GLASGOW EYES CD-r burn (Fuzz Club Records, Scotland I guess)

The latest, and perhaps not greatest in the Jesus and Marychain catalog. I liked these guys back when their mid-eighties violent mix of VU/Syd/Jan and Dean was such a welcome relief from the usual doldrums so prevalent then, but even that original splurge of brilliance didn't last long. The over-production and dependency on updated technotwizzle (with the passion kept to a bare minimum) sure doesn't bring back memories of those feedback blasts and riots that made these guys the darlings of the English weaklies. Well, it's good to see that ex-Rezillos singer Faye Fife got to lend some vocal cords to this even if I never did care for her act --- 's just that I'm glad she doesn't have to hang around the Welfare Office anymore. Overall a fair enough release that I guess I should have come to have expected when I tore this 'un outta McGarry's latest parcel.

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Hawkwind-STORIES FROM TIME AND SPACE CD-r burn (originally on Cherry Red Records, England)

The latest in a long line of Hawkwind wares that keep on comin' more'n John Holmes ever did. Naturally, like their past fortysome years of Hawkwind and related releases this is pretty much the same old only with a new cover that sure lacks the imagination of the ones that graced their seventies platters. Some good melodies can be discerned here and there but otherwise Dave Brock and the new crew have yet to re-capture the entire hard blare of those early albums that were so boff on the psychedelic trip that even the FM stations in the USA couldn't ignore 'em.  If you're starting in on the Hawkwind game and want to know where to start, go for the United Artists albums and slowly work your way forward...

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These reminders about picking up one (or hopefully even more) back issues of  BLACK TO COMM are gonna get less and less friendlier as time rolls on. Anyway like, what's keeping you? Whatever you do, don't believe all of those naysayers out there who have lambasted this rag for years if only to make their own selves feel more better in their quest of personal destruction (something I sure wish I had the ability to do!). These are the ultimate fanzines and any fan of the Big Beat who is without copies is like a toilet with a roll. Sheesh, you'd think there'd be at least a few thousand more hard-edged rockist maniacs out there on this globe of ours willin' to latch onto this thing!