Eh, fergit the gab about weather or other sundry things that would seem somewhat "suitable" to open up this post. Got a lot to deliver this time so why mess it up with alla that extraneous jive...shee-yucks, but I even axed my original introduction mentioning things like the current political situation and various local to-dos figurin' why bore you considering how none of you care one whit what I think of anything even if you people somehow find a reason to tune in. Deleted it all with a number of paragraph highlights and clicks, but lemme tell you I sure had some fine and on-target things to say that really would have blistered a whole slew of you readers who just can't face the bare-faced truth that I repeatedly deliver. Oh well, maybe some other time-----but not TODAY. Lucky for you, Sweetie!
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For once in quite some time, things aren't as hyper pressure packed as they usually tend to get even during this stage in my life when I should be relegated to an existence of Malt O Meal and Ensure. Oh, I've been having a nice enough time watching the absolute loonybins around me (as Ernie Bushmiller once said, you don't have to go to the carnival to see the freaks these days) as well as engaging in the usual vices of music, top notch rockscreed reading via old fanzines and seventies rock "journalism" copped offa ROCK'S BACK PAGES. Did I mention my penchance for pouring over a slew of comic strip reprints like milk on your cornflakes? When it comes to glomming the kinda funnies that I stuntedly grew up with I must say that it's sure amazing what one can find when one looks in the right places.
And there's plenty of it out there for the pickin'...f'rinstance, my main source for classic Bob Montana-era ARCHIE strips these days are the examples put up by various peddlers via ebay. I actually remember reading some of these up for sale items during my single-digit days recalling just how much fun and joy I got outta 'em, something which led to a life-long ARCHIE fixation that I never could shake off even when I grew into "adulthood" and felt kinda creepy about it.
I am still trying to locate a particularly laugh-ripping Sunday where Archie and Jughead concoct a "smell-o-vision" to impress Veronica, but the one where Mr. Lodge freezes to death after being locked out of the swimming pool enclosure at some ski resort has been, after a few decades of searching, finally located much to the joy of my inner brat. Man that 'un sure aroused a whole load of funtime feelings in this suburban slob who can sure remember the mind twist I got from the punch line even after all these years. Who knows, perhaps this was the very strip that is responsible for my sadistic sense of humor which almost got me set up for some downright serious mental scrutinizin'!
I never knew that there were heated swimming pools in glass enclosures without roofs making me wonder how much energy has to be used to keep all the swimmers warm 'n toasty when it's 0 degrees Fahrenheit outside, but if they really do exist I'd sure like to know a whole lot more about 'em:
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As far as rock 'n roll or otherwise related reading, it's FAUX WOOD PANELING and the Richard Meltzer Fan Club "X" page only...nothing else (including this very blog) can compete with the pure throb thrills I get pouring over each and every issue. It certainly does give me tingles down the spine (and other body parts) knowing that the spirit of Meltzer somehow lives on a good forty years after alla those AM/FM "rock" dolts would have hoped it died off and was replaced by the likes of Parke Puterbaugh! I can't describe to you in words within the ken of human comprehension as Frank Zappa once said as to just how better'n anything else on the market this particular publication is, it being one thing that I must say is giving me incredible joy during these best/worst of times days (more the latter than the former). Thankfully there's still a ray of hope given mags like this are out there and that the fanzine is NOT dead, and best of all the plain unadulterated truth that Meltzer continues to be a solid influence on the truly wired and hipped out while Robert Christgau probably has to tell his children who he is lest they forget.
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OK, there's another thing I read that I don't recall ever telling you about although I might have, so for all of you amnesiacs who are even more forgetful that I am here we go... ROCK WRIT's this site run by some guy named Armen so I assume he is of Armenian extraction (I cannot spell or even pronounce his last name, but I think he is of Eastern European descent because he certainly ain't Swedish!)...well anyway, ROCK WRIT's devoted to what Armen calls old school rock fanzine critiquing and general rock scribing from the Golden Age and beyond, and if you don't think that is a subject matter that should have been examined and taken apart piece by piece in order to discover the whys and wherefores well, you don't think that this is a subject matter that should have been examined and taken apart piece by piece in order to discover the whys and wherefores! Cute, huh?
Over the last two years there have been quite a number of interviews that this big tru blu non-fake fan has conducted with various members of the fanzine process, some important and others I've never heard about before! Goes to show you just how far out of the loop I am as far as being a member of the fanzine "in crowd" clique. (Which is a cause for a huge dose of either jealousy or, considering the sociopolitical makeup of most of these denizens of terminal hipness, RELIEF). But whatever, this is an edjamacational and informative place to go if you (like me) are one of those types who kept up with the gonz rock writers and home cranked-out mags of the past and actually believed that the humans who wrote for these things were just as much stars as the musicians they were scribblin' about. It certainly fits in with my own jib and who knows, it might yours as well.
I've given a listen to two of the interviews up for grabs so far, the first one done with none other than fanzine regular himself Eddie Flowers. You remember Eddie, he's a guy who was not only in on the under-the-underground game from the get-go but a being who gave me some very important advice regarding my blowhard-y writing style and how I should more or less do some heavy duty editing before unleashing my material onto the public! He tells me all this a good fifteen or so years too late but 'eh'! Frankly it wouldn't have done me any good since I like to write pretty much in the same way that I like to hear myself talk, but I do thank him for the critique.
Also lent ear to the one that Armen did with DENIM DELINQUENT's Jymn Parrett which I thought was bosser than boss what with Mr. Parrett tossing out the stories about him and Iggy Pop and seeing the Kinks and putting out issue #3 in a remarkably short period of time! He sure spun some interesting tales but sheesh, his voice is so gruff that it sounds as if he sang the second side of FUNHOUSE ten times a day for the last fifty years! Well, I'm sure that interview is way more listenable than the one conducted with THE NEXT BIG THING's Lindsay Hutton of Grangemouth Stirlingshire Scotland. I dunno if I will be able to decipher a thing that man says what with that thick brogue of his, but I will try. (I'm also planning on playing the Phast Phreddie Patterson interview not to mention the one with Howard Wuelfing, a writer who I think's a pretty on-target scribe even though the guy hates my guts! Or so I got the idea way back when but so what...I think he's keen!)
There's also a ROCK WRIT "X" PAGE that might be of interest to some of you more inquisitive types although there seems to be more musical link ups and less text these past few months. As for the entire ROCK WRIT enterprise well, I think it's a great idea, a noble way to preserve the past before all of these fanzine creators croak the final croak and future generations will just stand aroound scratching their crotches wondering what it was all about.
However, I will admit that I do harbor a whole slew of doubts regarding the entire enchilada. Y'see, on the headings of both the podbeam and "X" pages there are collages of a number of seventies/eighties fanzines that look as if they were scattered on the floor of some messy yet wizened teenbo gal's bedroom. Nothing wrong with that, but nowhere is a BLACK TO COMM to be found! Now if that ain't the ultimate insult I don't know what is!
***Got a humongous surprise in the review section for you people to once again criticize me over. SO WHAT, since I had fun doing this piece in an adolescent science project sorta way and can you think of a better way that I can help re-create those days of working on some school project on a blustery autumn Sunday afternoon in the kitchen as SHIRLEY TEMPLE THEATRE roared on in the other room? Leaden it may be but otherwise well, I got my psychic rocks off tackling this delicate subject matter and maybe you can ooze some pleasure outta it all in your own vicarious way. Also thanks to Robert Forward, Wade Oberlin and P.D. Fadensonnen for the gibs (nothing from your parcel this time Paul, but maybe next 'un!).
A HOMAGE TO PEBBLES, THE SERIES THAT PROVED A WHOLE LOAD OF "ROCK EXPERTS" WHO SAID THAT PUNK HAD NO ROOTS WRONGER THAN MOST OF THE WRONGHEADED THINGS THEY ALL HAVE WRITTEN OVER THE YEARS!
Punk was nothing you really coulda called "new" 'cept if you had your head squarely up Robert Christgau's ass for a good twennysome years. There were punks then (mid/late-sixties up through the seventies) and they were pretty much like the rest of the herd, buying the same Beatles and Stones platters in the middle and even later portion of the decade, watching the groups that frequently popped up on the tee-vee screen, and naturally playing around with the usual array of mental stimulants that were making themselves known in high school parking lots 'round three in the afternoon. The deciding factor was that the punks were heading for the outer reaches of sonic and even mental integrity while the herd stayed firmly in place. These punks were pouring their money down ratholes snatching up Velvets/Stooges and other under-the-underground albums as they went instant cutout while steering away from a lot of the more sunshine-y sounds that were beginning to speak to the inner sensitivity youth kumbaya mindset. By this point in time the punks were favoring the beats and Warhol's death mirror. Unfortunately the vast majority of the 18–34-year-old record buying public gravitated towards "One Tin Soldier" and BLESS THE BEASTS AND CHILDREN as the concept of teenage music went Catatonic Stevens to the point where a living zombie like James Taylor was considered the pinnacle of alienated youth expression, or something like that.
The dichotomy's as simple as NOVA EXPRESS versus CRAIG AND JOAN : TWO LIVES FOR PEACE. CREEM versus ROLLING STONE. Sad thing is that nowadays (actually for the past forty years!) it is the punques who are the ones reviving the teenage headband hippie emote of the same exact era that helped create the social/sonic zeitgeist (a word I hate as much as "iconic" but I couldn't think of any other) that gave way to the concept of punkitude as a noticeable form of teenbo expression in the first place. Today, almost all punques are hippies with short hair and piercings that they think make a statement and shock the lumpen proles, all of who are yawning away like anything.
It's hard to imagine for you younger turds amongst us that in these days where everything and everybody can instantly (and in many cases unfortunately) be found within the tap of a few keys, that at one time the PEBBLES series of local scene garage band obscurities and not so's was a definite BOON to the molding and development of many a music-hungry suburban slob. T'was back during the cusp from seventies high energy rock success to eighties glitzed out piddle, days which were for the most part the best (pure unadulterated fruits of prior sonic breakthroughs laid right in front of you) and the worst (just try hearing any of it on the radio or even your mother's turntable!) of times. Would I want to live through those days again? Yeah, only if I were rich beyond my wildest dreams, handsome like anything, a pure genius who could shut my enemies up like snap and had a head of hair that would make Jimi Hendrix jealous!
For many of us kiddies gnawing away at the reams of releases that were coming out from all directions, it was records like these (as well as, of course, NUGGETS and later on the PSYCHEDELIC UNKNOWNS and BOULDERS series) that showed us that punk rock was not the up from nowhere flash in the pan that lesser minds believed it to be. Despite what most blabbermouths out there were telling us more on the ball record purchasers who were supposed to gobble up everything we were told as if it were gospel truth, punk rock was something that actually had a history that stretched back well until the very beginning of that sound we used to call rock 'n roll. And hey, although many would deny it punk was a prominent "movement" that was struttin' about right under our very noses way back when, only it didn't really have a name or image until later when smart writers like Meltzer himself started pining away for lost punkitude in the pages of a whole slew of pertinent publications one could even buy on the newsstand.
Best thing about it is that this early punk rock was the exact same music many of us grew to love thanks to a more adventurous top forty as well as a buncha local bands that never knew that their adolescent hijinks were going to eventually turn out to be the stuff of legend. Sheesh, next to the local singles that were being made during the mid-sixties a whole load of efforts that were coming out of the underground rock scene of the early-eighties (and beyond) both legit and under-the-covers just sounded as staid and uninspired as the nimnuls who were writing about it!
And hey, I'm sure more'n just a few of you readers remember the heart-throbbing anticipation you had thumbing through the latest BOMP! mail-order catalog discovering that there was a new batch of these compilations up for sale thus making you skip a few lunches or better yet snatch money outta mom's purse in order to sate your oft-starved rock 'n roll desires. I sure know since I was one of them, actually nibbling away at my life's savings (which at the time totaled a whopping ninety dollars!) for records such as these and ya know what? I don't regret any of it one bit!
And so, as if you didn't need it, here's my take on these records which certainly got me all hot and bothered back when I couldn't tell a Bobby Fuller from a Bobby Kennedy. I get the idea the situation was exactly the same for you!
And, since I'm feeling sorta Luddite at the moment, I'm only reviewing the good ol' original vinyl versions of these, beautiful pieces of rock music history complete with all the mastering goofs and skips. They seemed so quaint yet meaningful at the time, recordings that would make any state of the art stereo system sound like one of those kiddie portables like my cousins had when me and one of 'em would stick on "Washington Square" and just walk around the room because we couldn't dance like they did on BANDSTAND. And, come to think of it, they do have all the low-fidelity grit that only makes these records sound good which is why I prefer this series (not to mention BOULDERS) to the cleaner sounding eq-'d outta existence updates and reissues that came out in their wake.
I'm also forgoing the various HIGHS IN THE MID-SIXTIES offshoots and most of the other PEBBLES-related releases. Gotta put some sort of a limit on this article and besides (due to depression-era wages and pity for my bank account), I don't even own 'em all! But from what I do have I can tell you that they're really worth the time and effort to latch onto, and if someone out there has the entire kit 'n kaboodle why dont'cha do your own blog review of these for the benefit of the unwary like myself? I'm sure someone out there has...it ain't like I'm the only village idiot for rock 'n roll out there!
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Starts off swell too what with the Litter (Minneapolis' answer to the MC5 or so I've read somewhere) commencing the series with the total eruption of "Action Woman" (complete with skip) giving way to a whole load of lower caste rock wonders I sure wish were up and about in the minds of rockists world-wide. Wonders do abound from the likes of the Soup Greens "Louie Louie"-ing "Like a Rolling Stone" in a fashion that I'm sure would have offended the more "serious" members of the teenbo phony intellectual crowd, to the Wild Knights with their double entendre "Beaver Patrol" that might fool your Aunt Mabel but it won't fool me!
Gee, some familiar names pop up here as well from the infamous Kim Fowley (who for years I believed was the man with the knitting needles bald wig appearing on the front cover but then again this guy's jaw's not square enough so it couldn't be) to the Shadows of Knight freebee "Potato Chip", later covered so eloquently by Mykal Board's early-eighties group Art. The Haunted, Montreal's favorite exponent of the real deal teen beat, appear with their "1-2-5" which I'm sure sated a whole load of curious types who first read about it in the pages of DENIM DELINQUENT #3. And one of Miriam Linna's faves, none other than Floyd Dakil (or so a certain Spin Turlock has told me) shows up with an early-sixties bouncer entitled "Dance Franny Dance"...I hope she never finds out that a good decade or so after this was recorded Dakil eventually found his true calling...Vegas.
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The flybynight production will upset some of the more serious, er, "audiophiles" out there, that is if any of them are still around (haven't been near a STEREO REVIEW in years), but I gotta say I love it all from the distant AM station sound to even the slightly sped up masters that were probably taken off a cheap assembled in Mexico cassette. If you get uptight about such sundry matters as "quality" you better get over 'em if you want to enjoy the true basement cheapness of these records. And I do mean it!
Some downright classics here like the Satans predating "Sympathy For The Devil" a good two or so years with their "Makin' Deals", Jagger "can you guess my name" snarl and all. The platter proceeds in a quite raucous fashion what with the likes of the Choir, Bobby Fuller before the Four and the Electric Prunes (promoting the Vox Wah-Wah Pedal) providing us with some well-needed rarities that weren't exactly easy to find at the time. The best part is that, like I said a few paragraphs above, the big name acts are all mixed in with some pretty sore losers in a rock 'n roll world that was probably over-saturated with such well-meaning yet unlucky teenage groups who probably wore mop top haircuts if only to hide their pimples.
But even those "failures" proved they could do swell, what with the Moving Sidewalks, Zachary Thaks and Randy Alvey emanating the same transparent radiation that the Thirteenth Floor Elevators were just oozing all over Texas, to the Squires doing the Byrds' own schtick to the point where I woulda thought that they'd get sued had they not been so chemically addled themselves. And to top off an already exemplary collection this 'un ends with an even outdoes the Yardbirds version of "I'm a Man" done up by the Litter making a much appreciated second appearance in this series.
Interesting aside, the back cover lists all of the other albums that are available on the BFD label, most of them custom made for the Australian market natch although I sure wouldn't mind hearing one that was actually laid down by the guy who used to turn up just about EVERYWHERE Kim Fowley, and if anyone out there has a copy of THE LEGENDARY DOG PUKE SESSIONS they want to give away I would appreciate you sending it out my way.
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Not all of this is what I would call total punkazoid free form freak out considering that the BOMP! article this album was based on was somewhat tongue in cheek. There are tracks by deejays as well as outright novelty numbers intermingled with actual garage band efforts, but even those are good such as with Dave Diamond and the Higher Elevation's "The Diamond Mine" which has the Colorado-based record spinner doing one mighty flipped out stream-of-consciousness recitation with the backing laid down by some local punks who also lent the exact same backdrop to the Monocles' "Spider and the Fly". Even El Lay deejay Godfrey does fine with his rendition of the Kim Fowley classic "The Trip" (see volume one) as "Let's Take a Trip" with radically redone lyrics yet an equally boff backing. Kinda neat, what with the guy's nasal voice that reminds me of onetime Cleveland neo-shock jock John Lanigan played over that repeato riff straight out of something that just might have ended up in RIOT ON SUNSET STRIP!
Yeah, the Jefferson Handkerchief were strictly for laughs if you could call it that and why Mike Condello's "Those Were The Days" re-write "Soggy Cereal" made the cut I do not know, but there are plenty of freaked out faves here from the Calico Wall's tribute to William Shatner's famed airplane ride into THE TWILIGHT ZONE ("Flight Reaction") to the Driving Stupid playing a straight blues tune with lyrics about tiny green lobsters throwing spiders eggs (and for years I always thought my pressing just happened to leave off their "Horror Asparagus Stories" which was undoubtedly present on some other edition). There are even some legendary in the punk rock pantheon names like the Chocolate Watchband (as the Hogs) with their Zappified rewrite of "Gossamer Wings" complete with the skip that had more'n a few of us thinking there was a booger stuck in the grooves somewhere. Well, with the poor pressing (which only gives this more of that cheap glow of wonderment) who could tell?
And what review of this 'un shouldn't mention the Bees' "Voices Green and Purple" which kinda makes me wish I actually dished out for the reissue of that single complete with a LAFMS-looking picture sleeve when it was being offered a few decades back!
But still, with a whacked out track like the Lea Riders' theme to the Swedish moom pitcher DOM KALLAR OSS MODS (another one of those I AM CURIOUS (YELLOW) kinda films that were comin' out of that perverted place at the time) who cares about the hokey Bob Dylan spoof "Like a Dribblin' Fram" anyway? And what the heck was that "bonus track" featuring some snippet of Indian mysticism that sounds like it was done up by one of the many charlatans roaming the streets at the time? Cheezy in a way that it sorta fits in with the rest of the cheeziness you'll hear here true, but still cringeworthy in its own way.
If you like this volume let me suggest you pick BEYOND THE CALICO WALL on AIP records. It's pretty much Acid Gallery Part Two and will make you wonder just how so many of these rather innocent suburban slobs who were jerking around with their $29.95 guitars only a few years earlier could have their minds so warped what with the introduction of certain pharmaceuticals into their lives. Or more likely the advent of airplane glue and Bactine.
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Although Lloyd Thaxton's recitation does reek of quickie cash-in rob the rubes greedyism some honest-to-gosh winners appear here from the Beach Boys in disguise Four Speeds' "RPM" to comparatively unknown numbers by such familiar faces as the Pyramids, the Trashmen, the Rivieras (two midwest surf acts there but wha' th' hey) and a pre-Beach Boys/pre-Manson respectively Bruce and Terry. Future bigtime producer Gary Usher also slips his way into the grooves and sheesh, even Dave Edmunds puts in a brand spanking new version of "New York's a Lonely Town" switching the NYC to London! It sounds perfect-o in this stew of sounds from a subculture that shoulda hung around a little longer only Southern California went from well scrubbed beauties and muscle beach Adonises to burned-out hippiedom ruining things for seemingly all eternity.
This time the bonus track has Jan and Dean doing one of those Coca-Cola ads done up when it was still OK for hotcha musical stars to hawk everything from mod suits to canned corn. Of course these days recordings such as this one not to mention a whole bunch of the rest of those sixties rocker radio commercials are practically embedded into our grey matter, but back when this came out boy, it was kinda like finding the sound version of a moon rock or something!
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Like I said, not the best collection when it comes to the original ten but still, it has that swivel and it definitely worth spinning when the batteries seem to be going dead.
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If you like the Downliners Sect you will probably like this one, what with the doofiest of teenbo practitioners taking the Amerigan blues style and molding them sounds into their own pip-pip and cheerio way while doing it so admirably at that. The Fairies with the infamous Twink on drums show us just how much the spirit of his future employers the Pretty Things was embedded into their sound, while various surprises such as a track from Belfast's Wheels (the same Wheels whose "Bad Little Woman" got mentioned in this blog a few months back) has the spirit of Them just oozing out of each and every pore. Yeesh, there's even a Joe Meek produced version of "Singin' The Blues" that's kinetic beyond belief!
Crack up of the disc is the set closer "Young Love" done up a way Sonny James never would have thought up in a millyun years! And to put the frosting on the cake this recording was made by none other than the Rolling Stones as a goof, not as good a goof as "Andrew's Blues" but still high-larious enough for those of you who couldn't stand the group since GOAT'S HEAD SOUP! According to the liner notes it is rumored that not only Gene Pitney but Kim Fowley were out and about on this which really, if true, would give this 'un an even added dimension of weirdness. Just don't tell me exactly what kind of dimension but still it's one I sure woulda wished there was more of back in those good ol' days of a world for, by, and about teenbos!
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'n it has a rather stellar selection of topper-than-top sixties wowzers what with the Chocolate Watchband presenting their non-LP classic "Sweet Young Thing" which I'm sure put quite a few smiles on the faces of those fiends who could not find their non-LP singles until the Moxie label eventually released 'em. The spirit of the Byrds also lives on via a number of perhaps not-so-humble wannabes like the Four Fifths, who actually sound more like the Flamin' Groovies during their SHAKE SOME ACTION days than they do the original influence! Other highlights include the Human Beings swiping from the Monkees' "Last Train to Clarksville" on "You're Bad News", the Edge swiping from the Left Banke on "Seen Through The Eyes" and Silver Fleet's swiping from a whole load of acts with their "Gloria"-influenced "Look Out World". The famous albeit twenty years too late to do any real good for their career Floridians We The People also pop up with "When I Arrive", a worthy choice but in no way in the same class as their ultimate fuzzed out scruncher "You Burn Me Up And Down".
Another highlight's the Dovers' "White Ship", a toon which I originally assumed was about the wreck of that famed vessel which led to the "anarchy" in England during the Middle Ages! Given the lyrics about knights fighting dragons, I was pretty sure that the tune was about alla that but hey, what sorta punks paid that much attention in history class anyway?
My personal fave is the Craig's "I Must Be Mad" which is notable not only because it was an English release (which actually made it to the US) but because the group's excellent drummer was none other than prog rock hero Carl Palmer! I know it's hard to imagine that the fourteen-year-old Palmer, who shines brightly on this manic slab of intensity, would go on to megafame in Emerson Lake and..., but weirder things have happened since the group Bodast contained not only Yesman Steve Howe but ex-Deviants guitarist Clive Maldoon and you also gotta remember that fellow Yester Chris Squire actually (as I said oh so long ago) auditioned for the Deviants and didn't make the grade because they thought he sucked! It's kinda fun to know, since the song the Deviants used for auditions was "Waiting For My Man", that a guy who would be well known for being part and parcel to the whole dinosaur rock movement of the seventies actually performed a Velvet Underground number! I guess boundaries were rather blurred back in those somewhat hazed times.
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Onto the actual music which I must say really does keep on the high quality of intensity this music is supposed to be known for. The Lollipop Shoppe's "You Must Be a Witch" starts this thing off on a particularly high energy level and well, I guess what better way to begin a collection of ancient punk purified! All time faves ? and the Mysterians even show up with one of their bubblegum shoulda beens, as we even get some talent that's pretty much local to the environs from whence I am writing, mainly Youngstown Ohio with the Human Beinz of "Nobody But Me" fame and the Sound Barrier out of Salem whose "(My) Baby's Gone" really tried to live up to the group's name.
Other top notch ravers appear from the Caravelles doing the then-popular Yardbirds schtick with "Lovin' Just My Style" (it was rumored that Alice Cooper drummer Neil Smith appears here which has eventually been debunked---drat!), the Cindermen with the uncensored version of "Don't Do It Some More" that leaves the blood curdling screams in, Mississippi's Gants rewriting the Beatles "In My Life" and some downright classics that alla them eighties revival bands covered until that scene eventually got run into the ground! Definitely one for the top of the stack given its genuine power-packedness.
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Some big names pop up here as well such as the Outsiders of "Time Won't Let Me" fame doing an even better song, namely "I'm Not Trying to Hurt You", to a pre MOR New Colony Six actually performing a track that sounds a whole dang lot like "Mystic Eyes". And of course one of my current faves, It's All Meat, pop up with "Feel It" which is somewhat out of place like the Magi were on #5 but with their hard roar of a sound you'll wish/hope/pray that they woulda caught on and joined the Stooges, MC5, Flamin' Groovies, Alice Cooper and Hackamore Brick in the 60s/70s cusp punk rock hall of fame and James Taylor album bonfire!
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Of the familiar ones, the Groupies (promising upstarts from En Why See who were even covered in the pages of THE ROCK MARKETPLACE and even compared to the Stooges in the accompanying article [bonus hotcha brownie point credits on their part!]), Toronto's Ugly Ducklings, the Five Americans of "Western Union" fame and even a pre horn-y Ides of March clock in with promising efforts that still pack that wallop a good sixty years later when music was for, by and about the kids who were listening to it.
As far as the obscuros go they're (as if you wouldn't have expected it) pretty apex themselves what with not only a strong emphasis on the effects the Yardbirds had on many a mind but the more regal side of lush pop that proves that the Left Banke weren't exactly that teenybopper group "for girls" that many of you testosterone-laden readers have been thinking all these years. Heck, there's even a track that was more or less a demo for a Jackie De Shannon composition that never did make it out as far as I can tell.
Not having heard this one in like eons it's just like experiencing an all new adventure for the first time. That's what the benefit of a sieve-like mind is for someone like myself who doesn't have the dough to splurge on everything (and a short-term memory) he'd like so's records like these are almost like an epiphany.
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I was somewhat disappointed upon its arrival thinking the selection to be rather piddling in contrast with the first ten, but as usual my opinions have changed somewhat for the better. Danged if there aren't some real classics here such as the three tracks by some guy named Milan the Leather Boy who had the audacity to let a whole buncha roaring motorcycles into the studio while he was recording. And what you got in the earlier ones you get here from the lo-fi mangled "Louie Louie" chords of the Barking Spyders' "I Want Your Love" to the Von Rudens' version of the Rolling Stones' "Spider and the Fly" which, thanks to the muddy sound and warm drone, actually comes off somewhat like an early Velvet Underground number! Ooh there I go mentioning that group in terms of comparison which every dingbat guy writing about this kinda music (myself included) has done without thinking for the past fortysome years! That's so EIGHTIES...
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As far as big names go, the Vejtables appear with the Diddley beat albeit with a nice dose of raga rock thrown in. And if you think that Richard and the Young Lions were a big name act as well, here's one of their other non-"Open Up Your Door" efforts which utilizes some orchestra chimes in yet another inspired idea of tone coloration that woulda made THE AESTHETICS OF ROCK had R. Meltzer only been hip to the fact! (Who knows, maybe he was --- 's been so long since I picked that 'un up and it sure is due for a re-eyeballin'.)
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Maybe this 13's unlucky because I frankly thought the selection here to be rather piddling, especially in light of what was going on with the BACK FROM THE GRAVE series at just about the same time. Not that this isn't without worth for it does have a version of "Diddy Wah Diddy" (actually called Didi-Wa-Didi"!) by Boston's "The Ones" that sounds just as good as the renditions that the Remains and Captain Beefheart were releasing around the same time. This act calling itself the Cat's Meow were just what their name lives up to what with their spry garage band rouser which actually features downright Beach Boys harmonies. Otherwise it isn't exactly up to the kind of teenage sit around the house in your stocking feel and goof off music that I sure thought it would be but eh!
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Also up there is this middle-eastern raga raver from some act called the Luv Bandits who take Cher's "Bang Bang" and twists it into something I'm sure your folks woulda thought even more disgusting! And I get the idea that Japan's Golden Cups got hold of a whole mess of effect boxes (as well as some Blues Magoos albums) and decided to use 'em to the max after giving their version of "Hey Joe" a spin! My personal fave's this Toronto act called Three To One who showed excellent taste with their rendition of Pink Floyd's fresh off the press "See Emily Play", producing a record that actually matches the original in Beardsleyan beauty making me want to know more about this here today gone tomorrow act.
Still there are the downers here like an entry from some Jefferson Airplane wannabes who called themselves Group Image not to mention some just plain pedestrian acts like the Baker Street Irregulars, but the good sounds sorta block 'em all out so's they don't get under your flesh 'r anything like that.
And perhaps the boffo-est thing about this 'un's the closing "Bonus Track", a buncha teenaged jeeters high on LSD joking around in one of those old make your own record booths with one especially tripping specimen telling of her horniness for the stuff! Really top choice har-dee-har-har here, and it woulda made for a much better surprise offering on Volume 3 than that phony mystico sitar jive that was so bad that they even left it off the CD reissue!
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This initial entry into the "Continent Lashes Back" series is rather subdued when compared with the rambunctiousness heard elsewhere but it'll do, what with the Jay Jays doing a cruncher of an instrumental and I do like how the Dream capture the spirit of 1967 with a good enough Beatles/Move feel. Dragonfly's track is more late-sixties fuzztone hard rock but still listenable in a 60s/70s punk cusp sorta way, and even the new version of the Grass Roots hit "Let's Live For Today" as "Be Mine Again" by the Skopes is pleasant enough at least for my lobes. But sheesh, If you can stay awake through Johnny Kendall and the Heralds' take on "St. James Infirmary" you might be able to sit through me telling you what I ate for my last five meals, dinner mints and all!
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Most of this is old hat if you've been on the sixties reissue game, but there are even a few newies (as far as I know) added to the familiar PEBBLES faves of yore. It's always groovesome to give additional listens to old standbys like "Voices Green and Purple", and the smattering of sounds collected are programmed well enough that I don't cringe over the fact that most of the tracks are dupes. Just found out that there's a "Best of" #2 out there and if you think I'm gonna splurge on it you're even stoopider than I thought!
Gawrsh was this article a piece of you-know-what and a half! If you read through it then you're even stupider than me writing the thing! But I'm sure glad I did it because hey, this blog deserves a switch from the same old hackneyed groove into an entirely NEW hackneyed groove that's for sure.
************************'n now for a couple of real deal actual reviews of other items that have been gracing the waxed up earholes as of late.
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Dang I wish that Fadensonnen had printed a nice 'n flat pic of the cover on his site, otherwise I wouldn't have to used this off-kilter example that he sure 'nuff did! Nice enough tho...if you blur your eyes somewhat it kinda reminds me of John Cale's ANIMAL JUSTICE although I doubt any chickens were killed in the process of its recording.
The label reminds me of the ones that appeared on Eno's old Obscure series of experimental sounds that nobody would have known about had he not been involved.
The music is naturally brilliant, as top notch as the various other RAzoRLEGS and Faddensonen efforts that have been making themselves known to readers of thin blog and a few others for quite some time. Sonic reduction to the max with a blast that (as the promo slip suggests) channels Damon Edge somewhat with a few sidesteps towards various feedback cantinas including those of 1968-era Dead and likewise Zappa without the acid damage of the former nor the big ego pose of the latter. I enjoyed side two immensely what with the way the guitar not only recalls Guru Guru on their UFO album but John Lennon's angular spazz that graced the YOKO ONO/PLASTIC ONO BAND spinner which has thankfully received its proper huzzahs a good fiftysome years after it shoulda!
You won't see this one hitting any charts other'n MINE soon. Latch onto one before all of the smarter mooks tuning in do thus leaving you to sniffle boo hoo over yet another lost gem you held out for thinking it's be around forever and a day. Oh well, I'm sure the download'll be available forever and a day...
***I once believed that my "mental instability", which I have suffered through most if not all of my born days, would have been an asset to the scribings that I had pumped into my fanzine and sundry other items o'er the course of my illustrious career. Turns out I was wrong, so if you wanna read some really nutso and incoherent mindfarts passing as rock critique you know where to send your monies to.
1 comment:
Thanks for the kind words Chris! Razorlegs is playing an all ages record release show at Little Amps in Harrisburg, PA this Saturday Nov.23 if any afficianados are in the area - 7pm
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