NEU '75 (actually '74, but who's counting)..."HERO"!!!!!

SIMPLY SAUCER/THIRD KIND VIDEOS COURTESY YOU-TUBE!

I'm obviously in a vid-posting mood right now, so here are two ultra-obscurities (that Imants Krumins tipped me off to!) from The Third Kind, a group which most people think of as being the mid-eighties reincarnation of Simply Saucer because of the presence of mainstays Edgar Breau and Kevin Christoff but that ain't exactly the case. The first of these tracks is a spright, FIFTH DIMENSION period Byrdsy number called "Vecki" which has one of those melodies that's gonna spin through my head for the next few weeks or so:



Dunno what the title of this 'un is, but I find it pretty much on the same wavelength as not only the late-seventies Saucer recordings but what a lotta groups were whipping up in their garages back in the day:



It's really unbelievable that these audio (and visual!) obscurities are finally seeing the light of day....praise be to Youtube! I mean, back in the seventies and eighties, who would have ever thought that any of these long-archived recordings would be making their way to the public at large? Tune in for more of these totally outta-nowhere garage obscurities as soon as they hit the web!

MORE CLIPS FROM TOMORROW'S PIONEERS!

If you thought the scene with Farfour the bogus Mickey Mouse in a marked down costume that I posted a few weeks back was bad enough, just get a load of Nahool the Bee (Farfour's replacement) swinging kitties by the tail and throwing rocks at lions!



But even Nahool's tenure on TOMORROW'S PIONEERS was short-lived since our bee with the human relatives was denied access to hospital treatment by the Israelis! His replacement on the show? None other than Assud the mock Bugs Bunny, who not only is Nahool's brother but has such a vengeance for his sibling's death that he boasts that he will actually eat the Jews!



BARNEY BEAN never got this surreal! Twenty years from now when the target audience of TOMORROW'S PIONEERS finally stormtroop their way into Ameriga, can you imagine the look on their faces while pillaging Disney World and coming across the real Mickey, bursting into tears saying "Farfour, we thought you were dead!" Laugh along with the apocalypse!!!

JIM JONES (1951-2008)

I really don't like writing these obituaries, and it's even harder to put mind to pixel especially when you've actually had some sorta contact, no matter how slight, with the person you're now eulogizing but I just found out via Lindsay Hutton and his NEXT BIG THING blog (where I always seem to find out about these rock & roll deaths now that PSYCHOTRONIC seemingly went under) that former Mirrors/Styrene Money Band bassist and latterday Pere Ubu guitarist Jim Jones has died. I guess according to the PLAIN DEALER Jones had been ill for years (which prompted his leaving Ubu about a decade back) but it's like I haven't heard a thing about him being in any sort of ill health so the news of his passing is affecting me a lot more'n something like this usually would. And now he's gone, which if anything really dredges up the old memories of those not-so-glorious eighties when I was not only in contact with the guy but actually got to see him when Home and Garden hit Youngstown. That's where the two of us finally got to meet face-to-face and chitchatted for a few minutes or so, something I doubt Jones would ever remember, but for a young budding upstart in the world o' rock it was sure a memorable experience for me! And if you don't think that was definitely one of the tippy-toppest highlights of my life then brother, you don't know what it's like to be trapped in the aura of greatness!

And yeah, as the PD obit also said, Jones was an extremely nice guy to be in contact with no matter who you were. I remember this time I called him at work back when he was still at Record Rendevous and some gal who was in his employ got my phone message to him totally mangled up! Y'see, I was on the hunt for some of the rarities that Jones had in his collection including the Electric Eels session he played bass on and a tape of Mirrors' version of "Sweet Sister Ray" that was recorded around October '72, and somehow the Miss thought I was in search of some recently-released cassette tapes that were being sold at Record Rendevous that I wanted to personally buy from Jones! Anyway, Jones wrote me a particularly funny note back regarding my message asking if I was looking for some "Codger Rotters" tapes (that's "Roger Waters" to you) and that yeah, he would be MORE THAN HAPPY to dub his Eels and Mirrors cassettes for my personal listening pleasure! Whadda cutup he was! Anyway we made phone contact once or maybe twice afterwards and he regaled me with the sagas of Cleveland in the seventies with Mirrors and the Styrene Money Band...what a class act Jones was, taking time out of his busy schedule to talk to li'l ol' me! And yeah, I eventually got those tapes which helped ease me through some pretty low-energy times, and although thankfully the Electric Eels tracks have faithfully been released on a number of disques o'er the years that 19-minute "Sweet Sister Ray" remains a much-needed obscurity even to this day. If I were a conniving rat I'd bootleg this and other Mirrors rarities moiling away in my tape bin, but I won't.

I actually got to see Jones in the flesh twice in my life, the first time being when he was a member of the Easter Monkeys (who at the time were working under another name which escapes me at the moment...I believe it was Desperate Energy) at the Mather Courtyard at Case Western Reserve University June '81. (This is the same place where the final Mirrors and Electric Eels shows took place six years earlier, and judging from the photos of the stage taken in '75 and in '81 it hadn't changed much in those years!) I was there the whole day on my lonesome listening to the likes of the Wombats (pix from that show appear on their H*******d mini-album), the Human Switchboard and Modern Art Studios (not to mention that band that had Titch from Bernie and the Invisibles who did a little stage dive into the bushes) and...right when it was time for the Monkeys to play with the entire band front and center...the power was cut by the university (it was getting a bit late, but not that much!), causing some pretty caustic comments to come from the mouth of lead singer Chris Yarmock as the assembed began plotting a violent overthrow of the upper echelon. I took it as a cue to head back up to Coventry and pick up a few more albums for the pile...after all, getting caught up in a free-for-all because the authorities pulled the plug wasn't exactly my idea of a great way to cap an otherwise pleasant late-spring afternoon!

Thankfully I got the chance to see Jones again when his Home and Garden played the Cedars in downtown Youngstown 'round '86, back in the days when I still had the stamina to get up at five inna morn to go to work and party 'til the wee hours on a Friday night. I remember liking H&G at the time since they seemed like a good enough approximation of latterday Pere Ubu (this being right before I started losing interest in them and the groups they had spawned), and although I probably would just pass on that whole style of post-seventies alternarock these days it sure was great not only seeing Jim Jones perform but having a short gab with him pre-gig. He kinda reminded me of a thin Jackie Coogan whose hair was only starting to recede, and if I can recall correctly he was wearing a tank-top with the OUI magazine logo proudly emblazoned. And yeah, he was a real gent, something you don't quite see in this drugged-out, turncoat world of rock & roll!

It seemed as if everybody from the Cleveland area (and beyond) who I was in contact with back in the eighties and nineties liked Jones. Brian Sands of Milk fame was pals with him enough to release the first Foreign Bodies single on his own Bizart label, and I remember that Al Globekar, also ex-Milk as well as Andy Gerome Band and Circus ran a record store called Platterpuss with him as well. Come to think of it, I can't recall a bad thing being said about Jones by anyone, which must be a record considering the temperaments and general tone of way too many people out there in underground rock-land.

Did I ever tell you that the only time he went to see the Velvet Underground was when they did "Sweet Sister Ray" at La Cave back in April of '68, and he was sitting at the very same table with future bandmate Jamie Klimek and the hand-held Norelco (that's the Philips brand as it was known inna US) primitive cassette recorder that taped that show which we now all seem to have in our Velvets collections somewhere? And how about this story I was once told about how he caught the Silver Apples at that very same club later that year and how he thought their set was incredible, feeling apprehensive about approaching the two members of the group during intermission thinking that anybody who could make that sort of a racket must be total freakazoid axe murdering drugsots with spiralling eyes! Of course they turned out to be really nice guys and the three had a good conversation I sure wish I knew the exact details of!

And I'm sure you also know the story about how Jones, who was in England roadying for Pere Ubu back in '78, played an Electric Eels tape for Jon Savage who was impressed enough with it that he pestered Rough Trade into releasing the boffo "Agitated"/"Cyclotron" single!

Yes, another alumni of the great Cleveland "first wave" has passed on joining Peter Laughner and Stiv Bators in that great rehearsal loft in the sky. Here's to you Jones, a man of stature who fortunately treated peons like myself just as well as he would heads of state or even Jane Scott for that matter. Rock on...for all eternity.

A MINI-BLOG TO COMM CEE-DEE LISTENING ORGY!

Despite being ravaged with the agony of lower-back pain (which was "set off" by a wild sneezing jag of all things last Monday evening!) that not only has kept me awake half the night these past two evenings but enveloped me in virtual torture ever since, I am still going to face it like a MAN and give you a typical mid-week update on just a few of the Cee-Dees that have graced my ears despite being held hostage by a feeling akin to your lower spine being sledgehammered by an unemployed Polish plumber! (And yeah, I would "wish it on my worst enemy" or Dave Lang even...I mean, he deserves it!) But hey, I guess in order to be a striving and successful blogger in this world of utter hippie swill soldier on I must, so don't go saying that I can't do the humble selflessness routine once in awhile too!

***

Television-MARQUEE MOON CD (Elektra/Rhino)

Yeah, I know that reviewing a top ten win place or show slab o' aluminum like this 'un is akin to hipping all of you lumpen prolesters to old Alice Cooper singles just like I used to do during the early days of my own crudzine, but since I just got this new mini-LP sleeve version o' the thing ("LOVINGLY REPRODUCED IN A CD-SIZED JACKET"...well, I'm glad they did it without malice in their hearts!) plus I gotta admit that I haven't even spun my original musicassette version o' the thing in quite awhile, what better fodder for this orgy can you think of? And true, Television come off like a group that spawned way too many imitators and emulators o'er the years (some of 'em even good!), but once you get down to it MARQUEE MOON was a whole lot more to me than just being one of those brave new wave offerings that miraculously sprung forth from the ether to educate all of us stoopid suburbanites as to the music that we shoulda been listening to. It was a pretty good late-seventies bargan bin find alongsides all of those '77-vintage Sire albums, and seein' once-revered "save-the-world" music like this intermingling in the cheap bins alongsides Flamin' Groovies and Young Rascals offerings was pretty invigorating for a fellow like myself who certainly hadda count the pennies in order to get a little bitta high energy into his life!

After years of listening to audience tapes of Richard Hell-period shows at Max's and CBGB not to mention the Eno-produced demos and loads of pertinent bootleg wares, MARQUEE MOON sure sounds downright major label spit 'n polish professional. Which is probably why I didn't totally cozy up that much to this 'un when I gave it a spin last night...of course there might have been extraneous circumstances extant (like a throbbing spine) that hampered my critical acumen, but danged if I'll take the wide array of pre-MARQUEE MOON demos (Eno's or Lanier's) and live recordings over the official product.

But that's no reason to dump on MARQUEE MOON which is still a superfine example of what some outta-nowhere New York City punk rock group could do with a whizbang producer and real studio to work in. And it's a good place in itself to start, even if the the thing sounds more like a 1977 professionally-produced product than it does 1971 garage band. If only MARQUEE MOON had the tough edge of TEENAGE HEAD would it be the no-holds-barred album I sure was hoping for. But for now, I believe it will suffice at least in the face of all it stood AGAINST back in the day.

***

STUMBLEBUNNY CD-R (private pressing)

I'll betcha yez all thunk I wuz some smartsy when it came to Noo Yawk punk rock releases, eh? Well, here's a late-seventies NYC-oriented disc that I never even knew existed, and to add insult to injury the thing came out on a major label if you can believe it! Of course I knew that there was a band called Stumblebunny playing 'round the local club circuit at the time...I mean, they seemed to be playing out a lot (they even opened for Link Wray at Max's!) and who could forget their single which appeared on the very first edition of KILLED BY DEATH way back in the dark ages of the eighties? Stumblebunny seemed nice enough, though with all of the other groups playing around in the 'burgh at the time I'm sure they got plowed under, if you know what I mean. What I didn't know was that Stumblebunny actually toured England and Germany opening for the Hollies (!), and while they were holed up in the former REICHSTAG they actually recorded and released an album for Phonogram which I guess has been all but forgotten 'cept for the most diehard of New York City punkitudeners a good thirty years after the fact!

Flash forward thirty years and none other'n ex-member Chris Robison's making CD-Rs of this very album and auctioning them off on ebay! Praise be to Chris for taking the time out to make this rarity once again available (if it ever really was) to a punk-starved public, and even though I'm sure this "re-release" was done without the knowledge of the parent company who cares? I'll bet that Robison's making more selling these burns than he did from the legit album, and it's nice to see that the artist is finally seeing some long-missing moolah for his hard work after all these years. I mean, you don't think he's doing this merely for his health do you?!?

Anyway this Stumblebunny album's pretty neat stuff that, while not of the hard post-Velvets/experimental hard-edge late-sixties garage band style, is still pretty good NYC rock that sounds a lot like what I figure many of these other underdocumented groups did. Nothing hardcore rocking but surprisingly nice pop rock...even melodic pop at times with harmonies and nice playing which makes me wonder why a lotta doofs out there were pouncing on punksterisms at the time w/o hearing nary a note of it. Kinda reminds me of back in the day when things like "Cruel to be Kind" were considered tres-outre by a lotta my peers which only goes to show you how repressed teenage mindsets were, and I only hope this gives you an idea of what I was up AGAINST at the time so don't go 'round thinking I'm some sorta bandwagon jumper-on, pleeze...

No track listings and the songs are "banded" into two sides so you can't just click on a fave so you'll have to do a lotta fast-forwarding to get to a fave song. (I liked this one numbuh with a Lovin' Spoonful sorta lilt to it...wish I knew what it was called because it was a proverbial ear-pleaser!) And yeah, there's nothing "meaning of life" anywhere on this platter but Stumblebunny are still worth tracking down if your tastes veer into the more melodic side of late-seventies self-produced gems. And of course stuff like this only makes me wanna hear more and more of alla them "under-the-cover" local bands from throughout the seventies from not only New York but elsewhere across the globe, and hopefully alla the vaults will be opened so's we can get a taste of what all those unreleased/recorded bands we used to hear about were just like. Maybe soon...at least while I still have my hearing, I hope!

***

Material-MEMORY SERVES CD (G&P, Russia)

My recent Sonny Sharrock dig-ups had me going back to this classic early-eighties album that was originally released on Elektra/Musician during one of their more lucid moments. Considering how MEMORY SERVES, like the Television platter above also seemingly went directly into the cutout bins I guess budget-conscious record collectors like us must've had a field day collecting rarities such as this and at low cost to our already over-taxed pocketbooks as well! I mean, who sez the eighties were a bad time for music considering all of the great sixties/seventies flea market and cheap rack finds that helped quadruple my record collection, and for the fraction of the cost had I bought these things at full price or from GOLDMINE set-sale lists!

And maybe not-so-surprisingly so MEMORY SERVES is an extremely boffo album from a time when the merger between punk rock and freedom jazz was pretty much being solidified thanks to way too many smarties drawing the comparisons in a variety of magazine articles o'er the past ten years. This of couse was a time when Rudolph Grey would get Ken Simon to play free sax in Red Transistor (and of course introduce the likes of Beaver Harris and Arthur Doyle to a new generation via the Blue Humans) and hard-edged players such as Joseph Bowie, Philip Wilson, Ronald Shannon Jackson and Luther Thomas were intermingling on the same stages where the Contortions and Von Lmo would perform. And Material, with not only Sharrock on guitar but free jazz players the likes of Billy Bang and Olu Dara (not forgotting sax player Henry Threadgill and AACM alumni George Lewis on trombone) certainly fit in with that budding trend in underground rock, and it's too bad that more of this kind of jazz-rock didn't get out to the public like it shoulda because I think we sure coulda used a lot more avantjazzpunk merger at the time and a lot less bands filled with people dressing up like Lilly Tomlin doing the gnu wave dance rock deal!

The two vocal tracks sound very mid-seventies Eno before he began to take himself too seriously with Sharrock's guitar playing angular enough yet fitting in with the funkpunk rather smoothly. (Of course Fred Frith also contributes a few licks as does multi-instrumentalist Michael Beinhorn, and if any of them are doing those twisted licks then may I call them ample imitators?) The instrumentals also digest well enough, not falling into those horrid dance-rock grooves of the time (which Material could certainly be guilty of) and even with the Ronald Reagan sample this doesn't sound dated one bit! And hey, it's always great hearing players like Bang doing rural fiddle scraping with that urban touch kinda coming off like GREEN ACRES inna 'hood proving that you didn't have to be an uptight Manhattan snob or decadent artiste to make true art statements. And it didn't even HELP either!

Makes me wanna hear more such as some of those Material live shows like the ones done when Sharrock took over the guitar chair after Chris Cultieri left Summer '80. And with all the taping that was going on at the time you woulda thunk some of those gigs woulda made the trading lists but nooooo. I mean, I have a CBGB show from early '80 before Sharrock's arrival that's wasting away somewhere in the hovel, but it sure looks as if nobody and I mean nobody was astute enough to grab a recorder and take it to one of the gigs when Sharrock was front and center! Kinda makes me mad that these shows are rotting away in (the now "respected producer") Bill Laswell's collection when there are big bucks to be made in releasing this stuff to a hungry general populace! Hey Bill, why dontcha open sesame the vaults and share some of that gnarly stuff for once! (Until then, snarf up all the Last Exit disques you can find...those should sate your appetite for unchained Sharrock at his late-eighties best!)

IN THE SAGE WORDS OF BETTE MIDLER, A COUPLE BIG ONES ATCHA! ('n yeh I know it's a variation on an old gag but they can't all be gems like Dave Lang's latest!)

Still not much happening here at BTC central, but that's not gonna stop me from shirking my bi-weekly doody to give you the best posts that blogdom has ever had the fortune of seeing in a good X years o' the form! Of course that means I gotta hit some of the old faithfuls in my collection for pertinant blogfodder, hopefully something I haven't reviewed before or at least on this blog, and considering how many Cee-Dees I have spun in the past few days solely for blog purposes only to realize that in fact they have been written up in these "pages" has been quite surprising to say the least. That's why there are only two "newies" this time (and believe-you-me, I hadda be quite certain they haven't made it to this blog thus a good hour or so of pre-publication research!), but as you can guess I put my heart, soul and maybe even a few glands into this post so don't go complainin' that I just don't care about you precious readers anymore. An' besides it ain't like I was ever made outta moolah, not unlike some of the white collar bloggers who take up way too much blogspace to matter, so if you've come here expecting the latest mp3 of whatever down-the-hatch new alternative hype there may be out there in alternativeland you've certainly come to the wrong place!

And unfortunately (for you) I haven't even had the time to venture into my rekkid collection down inna basement to refresh myself with some long-forgotten goodies! There certainly are a buncha worthwhile wares down there that need to be writ up for the express purposes of giving you a clear, concise and maybe even mediocre post, but once I get the time and have the ability I most certainly will take that long trek downstairs and maybe even play that enticing Lookies single that Rich Noll sent my way all those months ago! But until I do (go downstairs that is, as well as receive a few bulging orders I have on reserve one of these days!) here are them two disques in question, oldies but sureies, that I hope will enlighten you in some occult way or else the entire purpose of this blog will have been for naught.

But before we do, just take a gander at the drawing that I've posted on the right, an actual gift to me from none other than Jillery herself! Y'see, last Tuesday was the thirteenth anniversary of my "break-day", the day when Jillery actually went and broke my arm and boy is she still upset about it. (Mainly because she was aiming for the neck, but we can't all be perfect!) Anyway, in honor of the occasion Jillery actually went and bought me this original Barney Bean drawing seen on the right, a nice cartoon-y pic of a guy that was made using the initials "J. Z." which belonged to some lucky birthday kiddie who sent his name in to channel 33 way back in the day just so's Bean (a. k. a. Bill Harris, longtime WYTV announcer/station manager) could make this drawing for him onna air! (Those of you who have issue 17 of my own mag can see the drawing that he did with Jillery's initials way back in '65, albeit the drawing she received was done on cheap drawing paper unlike this new acquisition and probably was done off-camera since nobody can recall seeing any shows where he would have draw the thing for her!) Anyway, I am proud that this framed piece of artwork is now hanging in my very bedroom, and muchas gracias to Jillery for shattering my humerus (and believe me, at the time is wasn't humorous one bit!) or else I never woulda gotten hold of this classic sixties tee-vee memorabilia!

And now the no further ado part...

Television & Patti Smith-EARLY GIG '75 CD (Element of Crime bootleg)

From what I understand there's now a 2-CD boot featuring both groups' entire sets from the legendary April '75 CBGB run, but since I got this one already I thought I'd hold off on dishing out any more exorbitant import prices at least until the next great money purge. And it's a shame that nobody thought of releasing any of these recordings a lot earlier, like when both TV and Smith were pretty much hot fanzine fodder because this disque's got it all from the VELVET UNDERGROUND LIVE AT MAX'S KANSAS CITY ambience (with the geekoid college kids talking into the mic telling us all from a good thirtysome years how this is gonna make a swell bootleg just like Jim Carroll woulda done!) to the early documentation of both groups long before they released any major label fodder for the cutout bins! Television's just starting to get their grip on a more "serious" form of soundscapading (compare these tracks to those Richard Hell-era tapes from a year earlier just to see how much they've honed up) while Patti's still drummerless and kinda teetering between a basement-level band and cabaret, but either way I'm sure even the dullest of the VILLAGE VOICE-reading flybynights in the audience coulda seen that something indeed was in the air that night. A release that's custom-made for those of you who still fondly read the old Wayne County advice columns in ROCK SCENE...and follow his crazy suggestions t'boot!

***

Sonny Sharrock-GUITAR CD (Enemy)
If I'm not mistaken ain't this the one that sorta jumpstarted Sharrock's recording career after a few years of "wha' 'app'd"? You woulda thought that this venerable avant garde guitarist woulda been done good by eighties whiz kid Bill Laswell a lot sooner, especially since Sharrock was playing front and center in Laswell's own Material for a good five or so years prior (and speaking of live tapes, where are all of those CBGB gigs Sharrock did either with Material or on his lonesome rotting away at?). Still, for a guy like myself who had just gotten hold of the Affinity reissue of Sharrock's claim-to-destruction MONKEY POCKIE BOO and sure missed the raw aggressive edge of underground rock after five years of general namby-pambyisms a disc like GUITAR really did give this feller somethingorother to live for, especially in the face of way more post-hardcore drek than a sane person could handle!

Nothing but guitar overlapped and overdubbed, with general melodies taken not only from jazz but r&b and rock proper coming off kinda like Eddie Hazel's guitar solo on "Maggot Brain" isolated and used against itself. (Hey I dunno what that exactly means either, but it sure reads cool enough in a faux-rockcrit way to me!) And considering that some of the latterday Sharrock recordings I've heard can be less violent than one would hope for (with the exception of the brill ASK THE AGES natch!) this is perhaps thee quintessential Sharrock release from the latter portion of his career that's gonna be yapped about for years on end long after Al DeMeola breaks his last string. A downright classic that makes me glad I was doing stories on the guy in my fanzine whilst the rest of the "underground" was more content with re-copying Homestead and Matador press releases in order to curry favor with the Big Boss.

SPOTLIGHT ON...CAN'T BUY A THRILL!

(Blogschpieler's note: in lieu of the fact that here it is the middle of the week and I have nada that I want to write about in particular...no new records, CDs, reading material or visual stimulation...and that the older stuff I am engrossing myself in has either been written about on this blog or isn't quite up to BLOG TO COMM standards, I thought I'd once again reprint a bit of past mayhem from the pages of my very own BLACK TO COMM magazine, this time a piece on the under-the-counterculture mid/late-seventies fanzine CAN'T BUY A THRILL that originally popped up in issue #24 way back in 2001. A nice piece of fanzine esoterica if I do say so myself although a lotta the graphics that had originally appeared in the mag as well as a few other little shards of clip art/reproed covers etc. did not make their way to this particular pixel'd production so if you wanna read the entire thing in its original form [as well as some of the best rockism writing to have appeared in over the past twenty-five years) just click here to be taken to the back issues post where you can chose from a wide array of fanzine wares that'll take your mind off of a lotta the drek that passes for "clear" and "incisive" rock critiques these sorry days. Paypal is accepted...just contact me via the comment box [I "moderate" 'em, so yours won't be printed if you do send me confidential info and request anonymity from this cruel world] and maybe I can unload some of these albatrosses 'round my neck and get back into some real living for a change!)

Past issues of BLACK TO COMM had some really nifty reviews/articles on now-defunct old-timey fanzines that, although lasting but a flea's lifespan in comparison to this hallowed read packed more of a rock & roll wallop'n the last 20-plus years of mainstream AND fanzine rock scribing COMBINED could ever hope to. Yeah, mags like BACK DOOR MAN, DENIM DELINQUENT, TEENAGE WASTELAND GAZETTE and lots of others even I ain't seen have definitely left their pox mark on the face of music with that teenage gonzoid approach to rock & roll NOT as some high-quality reflection of the sainted hippie evolution from freak to West Coast politico, but that of PURE UNADULTERATED SPEED-O TRASH which I can certainly take a lot more'n it being a groundswell for phony revolt like it was thirty-plus years back. And, as Lillian Roxon said, WE (the new up-and-coming delineators of a REAL new post-Youth gulcher) are the stars meaning that I am and Simon Reynolds isn't, which is the TRUE reason these olds rags, although created to be INSTANTLY DISPOSABLE like those old TV shows and cars and comics and records we all love, HAVE MORE MEANING THAT ANY APPLICATION OF THE TERM "ART" (hah!) JUST BECAUSE IT'S TRASH, but fun trash nonetheless. And for being trash, it said a lot more about where I was (am?) here in the middle of nada with only a warped mind to guide me than the entire collected leather-bound fifteen-volume collection of SPIN ever could. Frankly, how can a HIPPIE relate to rock & roll, or trash for that matter?

CAN'T BUY A THRILL fits in snugly w/paragraph #1's application of not only lowly fanzine geek as star but fun trash as the true intellectual concern. And fitting it is, because THRILL editor/chief writer Russell Desmond was perhaps the first if not one of the first true punk/intellectuals on the boards (see the ROCK MAG review in #23 for a deeper understanding I won't go into here), a guy with the smarts and the brains to pull off such a task as creating this fanzine (which, as specified on page two of the very first issue, was conceived soley to impress Lester Bangs into giving him a job at CREEM!). Strangely (or maybe not so?), this was a period when things were picking up even more (in rockism terms...1975 was a crucial year ESPECIALLY in retrospect) than anyone'd hope to expect. A kinda mysterious time filled with progressive rock on the rise, some still bright snatches of AM pop, and a rock press that at times was one of the best to be found with writers who were perhaps even superior to the product that they were writing about.

CAN'T BUY A THRILL was oft lumped in with the usually lumped BACK DOOR MAN and DENIM DELINQUENT as far as being a punk madcap affront put out by a buncha 22-year-olds acting on ten-year-old impulses, but there were plenty of differences from the xerox slap together/computer paper sprocket style of the first four issues to the cheap paste-up layout (similar to BLACK TO COMM #22's only DESMOND MEANT IT!) of the same not to mention the lack of discernable UP-FRONT-ON-THE-COVER features and hype meant to lure in the obsessive and curious. (Front cover pix on all five issues were drawing by 19th century kraut Heinrich Kley, which mighta given this an, er, intellectual air about it, at least for the unwary.) Let's just say that CBAT wasn't some rag meant to compete on the newsstand...if anything, it was a hard and to-the-point batch of opinions and bile spewed forth by a guy who KNEW he was of import which is why you NEEDED to read his opinions. And what's BEST is that Desmond/CBAT didn't come from some major hub of musical activity but from Baton Rouge, Louisiana meaning you can just leave the inside joke professionalism of things OUT OF THE MIX at least for this once and get STRAIGHT TO THE HEART OF THE MATTER.

This first CBAT (dated "WINTER 75-76") was an inconspicuous affair that just happened to find its way out "there", and if it weren't for a review in BOMP! (where the BDM/DD comparison first came up) who knows if ANYONE woulda bought it! OK, the subtitle "A ROCK 'N' ROLL JOURNAL" might've scared off a few people, but I doubt it. However, the extremely personalist nature of this magazine might've been the thing to do a lotta turning off at least for those weaned on puff-piece scribing and not on the gonzoid punk-intellectualism of Bangs and Meltzer. Since I'm a guy who LIKES such personalism if the person has some sorta electrode connections to my own tastes/desires, I'll dig into whatever plane or mode his li'l heart desires. And the electrodes ARE connected...

Mind-zapping no-holds barred electrodes too, all of which is evident from the opening schpiece which I MUST reprint elsewhere in this article's layout scheme because it's p'haps the BEST application of true gonzoid zap-into-your-gourd rock writing THAT LAYS IT ALL BARE re. rock as the International Yourh Language that I even believed in when I was eighteen or so many years back! (Another editor's note: the actual issue actually does reprint this stellar debut issue schpiel, giving you another reason to snatch a flesh and blood issue up for yourself in order to get the ehtire aura of this piece!) 'n within the twenty or so pages of #1 you'll find a whole lot perhaps not a whole lot within the realms of major features and snazzy review columns but plenty within the framework of the reviews that take up the majority of this issue (all written spaz and GUARANTEED to offend English Teachers and Honor Society students with its blatant disregard for propriety and use of slang and a derogatory term that describes people of African heritage which might be used in a Mark Twain sense [back then he said it was used w/o malice, but as school districts can tell you TIMES CHANGE]). 's kinda neat roaming through the "Best of '75" reviews not only because that was the first year I truly became aware of rock/rock 'n' roll/avant as a form to seriously explore, but because Desmond's expertise in telling you WHY 1975 had a hunka good records innit sure reads better'n TROUSER PRESS' similar attempt. And dig the FASHION and ELAN in which Desmond could pull it off like in this excerpt from his review of the Dictators' GO GIRL CRAZY..."Chuck-up the Dolls' stance, verve + vocal inflections, w/the Cult's awesome technique + production, mixed with the spittin' image of Handsome Dick Manitoba ("I don't hav'ta be here yaknow...I coulda been baskin' in thuh sun in Florida, This is Jus' A Hobby Fer Me, y'unnerstan', A HOBBY!"), shades of Sonny + Cher ("I Got You Babe"), three chord lumps + humps of rhythm, tubs of drums, and what must be the most ridiculous ("Well the girls are frisky in ole Frisco") banal ("I still drink my sody but I'm gettin' confused, sometimes I wish I was Black,") absurd ("I drink Coca-Cola fuh breakfast!"), Not to mention subversely outrageous ("We're thuh members a' thuh Mastuh Race, got no style an' we got no grace, sleep all night, sleep all day, nuthin' good on TV anyway,") lyrical approach wince a? the Fugs, b) Roger Miller, c) Annette Funicello, or d) Leave it to Beaver..." WHEW!!!! Could go on and on but then again we mightjust hafta be callin' Mr. Ripley to see if Desmond broke the record for longest sentence in the world. Tried to keep the syntax and punctuational errors (?) as close to the original, but there's NO WAY I coulda duplicated the strike outs/overs! But you get the idea...nothing but non-stop energy written at punkitude levels even when writing about decidedly non-punkdom like Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen (Duke and the Drivers?). Actually it all kinda squarely fits in w/the 1975 mindsets and screech that was going on elsewhere in print (CREEM) and in music (CBGB) at the time.

Mix in a three-page music mag review section (where once again BDM/DD are compared and contrasted), write-ups of current films and books, plus a feature/homage to Patti Smith written in stream-of-unconsciousness Frog symbolist style ("I'd die t be your---------------Gilles de Rais.") OK, Desmond uses a lotta French in this ("Venus dens les Fourres an Loques" [!!] but since he's from Baton Rouge which is a Frog name in itself I guess he can't help it) and you got a pretty slambang debut ish that shoulda gotten around a lot more'n it did, like just about EVERYTHING good that unfortunatey got tossed aside 20 + years back. And just how often do YOU get your psyche raped these days?

By #2, 1976 had arrived marking the transition from mid-seventies fun and games to late-seventies general nausea...'cept for rock and esp. the burgeoning underground stuff that seemed to be snowballing outta control. And CBAT was there to document it all, or at least document whatever Desmond could afford to buy. This one has a nice sorta "thinkpiece" on the US Bicentennial, a "conversation" on the role of this nation and concepts of "art" as it changed because of the existence of this very same country I'[m typing this review in and why Oscar Wilde HATED it, being America set out to ruin EVERYTHING the English aristocracy deemed important. Mixed in with loads of rock & roll ref. pts. re. ROYAL ALBERT HALL and the third Velvets album and why New York 1976 seemed like a hype to many outside the walls. Reviewswize this was pretty much in the heavy metal/punk writesphere that encompassed rock fandom at the time, complete with classic engraving illios to pack a wallop. For the first time we even got some TV reviews (considering that TV was just starting its late-70s slide), featuring a writeup on RICH MAN/POOR MAN (!---remember miniseries?...wait, they still make 'em, right?) and Patti Smith's appearance on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, an awakening to sixties aesthetics redone for the seventies for me but "...well, it wasn't that good" according to Desmond, "not half of what I expected from listenin' to the record and seein' pics of her in action, and, well, besides I was too busy watchin' Patti's over-dressed get-up an silly poses t pay much attention to the music, but I was sort of impressed, tho, by the amateurish flavor of the whole thing, the whole purveyor of punkdom, garage effect which more or less broke NBC's grown-up hippie show right down the backbone... Anyway, then she came on with a corny intro to "My Generation" and this time I COULDN'T WATCH HER STAND THERE WITH A GUITAR SHE COULDN'T PLAY---I JUS'COULDN'T DO IT DAMN IT, THIS ISN'T THE PATTI SMITH I DREAMED ABOUT... Well, then it was over an'a friend asked me 'An you really like that stuff, crude as it is?' and for some reason and for some reason even with all my emerging disgust I felt complied to answer, 'Yeah, that's right/ An that's why I like it...'" Ladies and gentlemen, the preceding quote has just OBLITERATED every shard of bad rockcritspeak uttered in the last thirty-five years. Topping this off, a rock retrospective column featuring Paul Revere and the Raiders where Desmond comes to the conclusion that maybe those later albums are pretty good after all.

#3 (Winter 76-77) was a surprise as in it not only had a nice 1976 roundup but was printed on on 81 /2 by 14 paper making it hard to store with all the other fanzines in your collection but still a nice addition, with the '76 writeup much better'n most seen anywhere else again illio'd w/nice scraps of 19th century engravings etc. (A few sample subs for curious cats out there...Best Reissue-Elvis-THE SUN SESSIONS, Greatest Event-The Wayne County/Handsome Dick Manitoba slugfest, Too Good To Be True And That's Why They're Not-Boston...) Also featured are the hefty reviews (good teaming of the first Ramones and Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers not to mention a beaut of a Flamin' Groovies homage in the form of a SHAKE SOME ACTION review) and 'stead of a rock retro column a piece on an actual live band, this time the Danish group Gasolin', an act with big credentials and a number of albums in their name back in kiddiepornland but one with nil recognition in the USA even tho Columbia had 'em re-record songs in English and ran loads of ads all over the place. Given this must have been Gasolin's ONLY article in a U. S. mag maybe the band (unheard by me) are deserving of cult stature?!?! ("An they play a great, crazed mix pot of rock derivations so typically plagaristic and European you'll never notice which includes great guitar solos that sound like a cross between a synthesizer and a calliope gone berzerk, great STUPID id drums a la Charlie Watts, and weird half-muzak arrangements which're so off the wall they work["Lady Oh Lady" is honestly the most incredible, Spectoresque pop ballad {via mid-Europe melody} I've ever heard]--Larsen's great voice over swirls of acoustic guitar and bkgd vocals an this half-crazed, mad circus dwarf schmalz music--this thing's unreal!!!")

Four reverted back to the standard 8 1/2/11 format but was one mighty BIGGIE compared with the previous ones. Maybe because this one tookd a full year to come out, complete with a '77 wrapup that showed just how far rock and something more'n wild had gone in this period of time. Layout got a little better (tinier, more crammed pages) and now CBAT was featuring GUEST WRITERS like Eddie Flowers, Todd Abramson and one or two of Desmond's Louisiana friends lamenting the loss of Lynryd Skynryd, The effects of the punk rock revival had spoken in these pages, with loads of reviews of the new hot matter that whetted/wetted appetites and pants at the time (tops included everyone from Mink de Ville to the Real Kids, Television and the Saints to the usual midgies Elvis Costello and Van Morrison---nays included Neil Young's AMERICAN STARS AND BARS ["ROLLING STONE said this was his best since HARVEST so you know it sucks"]). Besides the up-to-dateness on a scene unraveling before everyone's eyes, you got live reviews from an on-the-road Desmond (Kiss, Dirty Angels at Boston's Rat, Flamingo Road on a CBGB audition night [!]...) and tons of moom pitchers/mags/books/TV review stuff showing that Desmond could be just as straight-old/tamebo as he could be wild with regards to taste, if some of his pix are to be TAKEN SERIOUSLY (SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER????) Topping the ish off is a retro on Steppenwolf, created just to remind us of how garage punk the band was at one time before giving all the heavy monsters of '69 a run for the Led Zepplin money.

By Fall '78 CBAT #5 came out to surprise everyone, a surprise since this ish was newsprint tabloid and typeset/professionally laid out in part to boot. It actually resembled a lot of those record shop freebies you might've picked up along the way if you were around back then, only this one would (as the cover states) "COST CHA UH BUCK ($1)" and it was well worth it to boot. Besides having an Eddie Flowers "no wave" (!-guess that scene hadn't penetrated Ameriga fully yet) insert w/wild reviews of Hawkwind, Coltrane, Ubu, Doug Snyder/Bob Thompson (!!!!!) etc. and a large long-promised Gizmos piece detailing the third EP session (mighty info packed here) the Granville-delineated cover (note my mistake in paragraph #3---at least Kley got the back) was later used for the front of Flowers' first Crawlspace album which was ironic because when Desmond met up with Barry Goubler years later he knew NOTHING of Flowers' then-current doings! The professionalism mixed with the typewriter hijinx (tho nary a crossout/over) and screened photos/pro layout really made this one tops with regards to small-press fanzinedom, but the newsprint for one thing doesn't hold up too well two decades-plus later. Oh well, if you can read a copy before it disintegrates for you'll also get the unexpurgated truth about Willie Loco, Brian Jones (that issue's "Rock Retrospective") and even an obit of Sandy Denny, something which woulda KILLED me at the time since with all of this new energy and vitality in rock (plus the discovering of past proto-punk forebearers), something like Denny was tres retro to get French about it.

Of course, more on (moron?) that previously-mentioned 1,450th fanzine article on the Gizmos, a tour de force (oh that FRENCH!) telling us about (in a whole slew of pages!) Desmond's trek to the third Gizmos recording session picking up Eddie Flowers along the way (Desmond stopped in Jackson Alabama to tank up the car and ask the attendants if they knew where Eddie lived, and all he got was upset looks!!!) and his run-ins w/the whole slew from Kenne Highland on down plus a brief encounter with MX-80's Rich Stim and wife Angel Ross who was playing bass to RAW POWER FULL BLAST...a copy of Lester Bangs' review of THE IDIOT hung on the apartment wall with corrections and comments in the margins!!! made this issue the top dog it is in fanzine desirability. Too bad you don't have a copy...makes a good read during the umpteenth play of the Gizmos CDs after you've worn your booklet out! (Pant Pant!)

Nice try, but that was the last CBAT to pop out during those oversaturated fanzine days. Not that Desmond exactly disappeared from the scene immediate-like...he did show with a Dave Edmunds article in the first issue of KICKS (editor's third note: since this article was written I discovered that he had previously written a piece for Miriam Linna's Flamin' Groovies fanzine, the cover proudly emblazond "Russell Desmonds BUYS A THRILL!"), but before the decade was out up Desmond was off to another life doing everything from private detective work to a stint in France to a split with his wife, last to be seen (Desmond that is) running a bookstore in New Orleans. I spoke with him briefly (folks were over the day before Easter) about ten years ago and he seemed to be just "getting back into" rock & roll after a decade of real life, actually expressing interest in Theolonious Monster (guess he was away too long!) I suggested the re-start CBAT and he seemed to dismiss that idea. In fact, that was the last I or anyone else asfar as I know heard from the guy. Too bad. Talent's always being wasted and Desmond's is no exception. I mean, Desmond shoulda made the CREEM cut back then, and in hindsight its a shame he didn't at least dish out a few more CBAT's just to relieve the boredom of what has begat rock & roll these past three decades or so! And too bad somebody doesn't put out a "Best of" CAN'T BUY A THRILL just like there should be with EVERY class 70s fanzine fill'd w/brill to-the-point writing 'stead of whatever is out there in funland these days (dunno...ain't read a "real" rock mag ina decade AND DON'T WANT TO!!!!) If only this were to happen we would cure illiteracy IMMEDIATELY! I mean it!

(BLOG TO COMM UPDATE!: since this article was printed Desmond did indeed get back in touch with me, having found out about this very article and expressing his satisfaction with it. Things were working out well between us, with him telling me not only about his relatively new paleoconservative views [he being a typical liberal until spending time living with his grandmother in Mississippi post-divorce and actually coming around to Ronald Reagan's way-of-thinking whilst watching the '80 Carter debates...this came out when I expressed a lack of emotion at the death of the former prez figuring that he was more hot air than actual do, and when he did things he was expanding that same ol' govt. he claimed he wanted to shrink!] He sent me some copies of a few pieces he wrote for CHRONICLES in the mid-eighties as well as some letter he was going to send to a local paper that was getting a little too ashamed of its Southern heritage [Desmond made the rather intelligent clain regarding the War Between the States that while Northern soldiers were fighting to free slaves, very few Southerners were fighting to keep them!], and after promising me a Moby Grape retrospective, the same one that was slated for a future issue of CBAT disaster struck in the form of Hurrican Katrina. Although Desmond's Ffrench Quarter bookstore was probably spared the carnage I felt very iffy, perhaps cowardly in trying to get back in touch with Desmond fearing the worst. Since the man was not hooked up to any internet it's not like I have any other way to try contacting him other than write to the 714 Rue De Orleans address. Perhaps someone reading this would care to pass on the word? Anyone out there care to tell me what really happened? Stay tuned for further developments.)

Wizzard-MASTERS OF ROCK VOL. 11-SEE MY BABY JIVE LP (EMI-Electrola Harvest, Germany)

Do any of you Europeon readers remember those coming-at'cha-outta-nowhere "greatest hits" albums that the major labels in your land used to rush out (and at budget prices as well!) featuring hits and non-LP b-sides from some of the hottest artists to grace these companies' rosters? Acts who for the most part have just left said labels for greener pastures thus this milking of their back catalogs for all its worth? I sure do, in fact I can still recall seeing not only the import bins but even five and dime store record departments just brimming with such platters as ROCK AND ROLLING STONES and GIMME SHELTER (or whatever Stones collection Decca'd release just about every other month!) as well as the "Harvest Heritage" series where EMI would reissue a good hunk of their early-prog rock catalog in order to dupe a lotta unsuspecting Olde Country kiddos into thinking that the stuff Steve Howe and Greg Lake were dishing out in 1967 sounded exactly like the things they were doing ten years later! Unfortunately by the time these platters made it to shopping malls and "specialty" record shops Ameriga-wide they sure weren't bargain-priced anymore, in fact costing just as much as all those other import albums that were zooming well up to $7.98-per which certainly was disasterous on pocketbooks as lean as mine. Imagine how I felt just longingly eyeballing that Harvest Heritage twofa of the Pretty Things' SF SORROW/PARACHUTE package with the cool Hipgnosis cover knowing full well that I couldn't afford nohow the $12.98 price tag that was slapped on that one! Sheesh, I almost wanna buy a copy just to sate my bruised youthful feelings of not being able to latch paws upon this elusive treasure back when it really mattered, and maybe then I will be the complete man!

Wizzard's SEE MY BABY JIVE was just one of the many albums taken from EMI's pre-Harvest Heritage "Masters of Rock" series, and this 'un's from the German edition which featured a boffo 3-D relief design cover series that I think looks much hepper'n the cheapazoid tee-vee promo/live shots that the English edition of this series was using. And for being a "budget series" release ya gotta give credit to EMI for getting the best stuff and culling it into a collection that holds up well w/o any of the elpee flack that usually brings the actual group-sanctioned platters down to a middling-level energy affair.

Since I already had the Move CALIFORNIA MAN collection in my possession as well as the Electric Light Orchestra's own Harvest-vintage single hits/b-sides grouping entitled SHOWDOWN, I figured that maybe the Wizzard edition of this same series would fit twixt the two snugger than a bug crawling 'round in Amy Gelman's rug. After all, I remember seeing Wizzard albums being sold all over the place at the time and Roy Wood being treated as a modern-day rock genius by the press, and who could forget all of the hype surrounding this new band being fronted by not only one-half of the old Move/ELO leadership but a man who was actually asked by Col. Tom Parker himself to write a couple songs for Elvis Presley! (And how could I forget the week when he was to appear on DON KIRSHNER'S ROCK CONCERT and the typicaly adenoyial announcer at channel 33 kept referring to "Roy Wood's Blizzard", perhaps anticipating the Dairy Queen frozen treat by a good five years!) For a kid who was discovering all sorts of rock & roll music Wizzard sure seemed something just begging to be shoved up my not-quite-yet-reamed-by-bad-music alley, and not only with the group's freakout makeup and looks but the use of such non-rock instruments as bagpipes how could a feller go wrong!

Unfortunately Wizzard's EDDY AND THE FALCONS-period appearance on THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL was hardly anything to brag about at least from the vantage point of my hazy memory (don't worry, if I want to refresh myself there's probably a youtube vid up at least for the next day), but that didn't stop me from buying an English import copy of WIZZARD'S BREW with the textured cover a short time later. Of course that didn't stop me from selling the thing shortly afterwards either...just couldn't lock up with a good portion of it which would figure since if anything Wizzard was not ELO only with horns 'stead of strings, but whaddidiknow anyway? I regretted the tradeoff a few years later, but that was probably because I felt that I coulda gotten more outta the thing had I only waited, penny-counting rockfan that I may be!

But here we are in 2008, and if you're still in on this story even after my incredibly long and boring autobiographical spew than goodie for you! So how do Wizzard hold up in my moderne-day rockism-parametered listening modus opporandi you wonder? Well, pretty good considering just what was laid down on this crank-out! The "hits" (at least over there) like the title track are swell enough in an early-seventies British pop sorta fashion, and although you should be warned that the ginchiness effect is well in place on more than a few numbers you really don't mind it on such tracks as "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" which wouldn't sound bad stuck next to an equally treacly slab of UK Christmas pomp like McCartney's "It's Christmastime". And I still gotta hand it to Wood and gang for being able to pull off the mix of sitar and big band jazz on "Rob Roy's Nightmare" which is something I'll bet I coulda fooled my own dad into admitting he dug in his own 1940s pop music way, at least until he saw what the guys in the band looked like!

And although I'm sure that most of Wood's post-mid-seventies career moves would be more of interest to your standard TROUSER PRESS fan, at least I can get some jollies outta this budget platter which still shows Wood in fine form long before he dropped off into late-seventies anonymity thanks to the punques in charge. Too bad that writing songs for Elvis (who probably was jazzed over Wood's deft impression of his singing style!) didn't pan out into bigger things...I mean, at least former bandmate Jeff Lynne got to hobnob with the surviving Beatles and there was actual talk about the former ELO head-by-default becoming a member of a reformed Fab Four for recording and performing purposes! (And yeah, I know Lynne was all over that "Threetles" stuff awhile back, but it wasn't like he was actually an up-front member even though I'm sure he wished in his heart-of-hearts he coulda been!) But I'll betcha by golly wow that none of that is fazin' Wood one bit...after all, he's probably still keeping busy with some sorta musical endeavor and maybe there's a CD-reissue of this very platter out there that's helping the man stay afloat financial-wise, and at this stage in the devolved rock & roll game what more could a guy ask for?

***

MARVEL PREVIEW #9 FEATURING MAN-GOD! (Marvel/Curtis, 1977)

I dunno about you, but a lotta those oversized comic books of the seventies that were cluttering up the newsstands amidst the MADs and NATIONAL LAMPOONs really really didn't appeal to me, and that especially goes for the ones Marvel was pumping out throughout that decade with an alarming regularity. I remember brousing through the old SAVAGE TALES (with the self-appointed "M" rating) at the stands and thought that maybe the buxom broads found therein would look better if only they weren't trying so hard to strategically hide their various naughty bits behind arms, trees etc. And although the two issues of the late-sixties SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN attempt at giving Marvel's #1 hero an actual mag were pretty nifty in my book I really didn't care that much for the Hulk magazine even though it did take place in the early-sixties which were some of the best Hulkism years at least for my own blinkered tastes! But hey, not only did I find these mags way over-priced (a buck a pop!), but the stories weren't anything to shake a stick at either! And besides, I was getting the feeling that the entire comic book industry was taking a big nosedive with stories that were trying to be more "real" with better "art" and way too lurid storylines and plots for my own personal tastes, and considering just how much of a "Saturday Afternoon Barbershop Kid" I was at the time all of this new sophistication in comic books seemed way too foreign to me. Gimme a SAD SACK over this junk anyday!

And you know what, but I was right, especially after reading some comics done long after I abandoned the form finding 'em all to be rather puerile and a far cry from those great "Imaginary Tales" where Superman and Lois would get married and raise a buncha superkids or those I guess not-so-imaginary ones where Superman's secret identity was exposed to one and all right there on the front cover! Man, those were the days!

So why did I get this issue of MARVEL PREVIEW with that way-too-lurid cover complete with the typically panicked gal in a torn dress and artistic style straight outta those sadistic Nazis torturing innocent wimmen mags you used to see all over the stands? Mainly because the character in question, none other than "Man-God", was originally known as "the Gladiator" in a novel written by onetime gadfly Philip Wylie and that 'un inspired a coupla Cleveland kiddies to create an even better variation on the form, none other than Superman! Sounds pretty inticing eh, and although I always fathomed Wylie to be at the most a dime-store Mencken if his book GENERATION OF VIPERS is any indication I guess that the guy was prolific enough not only to indirectly contribute to the creation of Superman but the short-lived television series CRUNCH AND DEZ (one of my mother's old time faves!) which came from a series that Wylie actually penned for THE SATURDAY EVENING POST way back when!

As for this Gladiator/Man-God character, the similarities between him and DC's mega-claim-to-fame are there, but not enough to have Wylie doing the lawsuit trick on National for a change. Frankly, this variation seems if anything a big simp, but I dunno if that's because of Roy Thomas' (usually) overemotional adaptation or perhaps the post-Kirbyesque stylings of Tony DeZuniga...who knows, maybe both of these things combined made such a potentially hot story just another late-seventies comic magazine read. Even a non-SciFi aficionado such as I could see that there was more than a little lost in the translation from early-thirties novel to late-seventies comics, and the usual inclusion of smarm and vulgarity only detracted from whatever overall energy this story could have delivered on. But still, for an acknowledged precursor to Superman I can see how a couple Cle teens got more'n a few ideas, and at least this saga served as a catalyst for something a lot greater as far as comicdom in general goes, eh?

And yeah, maybe I should be judging this next to the novel which I haven't even read, but life is kinda short (could be longer) and really it ain't like I have the time what with all the seventies fanzines out there just beggin' to be eyeballed! But I'm sure either way I'd be unimpressed even though the historical value behind this saga is overwhelming. But what I really wanna know is, did Marvel ever print the second part of this story where Gladiator/Man-God has what could be called a direct meeting with the Supreme One which results in our hero's very demise? Seems that nobody out there, at least onna web, has the correct answer which does bug me esp. in these days when answers to age-old questions can be found with the mere click of a key!

FARFOUR THE MOUSE!

In between telling your humble blogger all about the ST. TRINIAN'S movies plus how lousy he thought Sue Hodge looked on last Saturday's episode of 'ALLO 'ALLO (not to mention the hotsy-totsies he has for current heart-throb, English actress Julia Foster, at least as she looked in the sixties), Don Fellman cued me into this weirdie he read about in THE NEW YORK POST just recently. It's taken from a Palestinian kiddie show that aired on the boob tube this past summer called THE PIONEERS OF TOMORROW, and amidst the typically low-budget look and feel of the thing which reminds me more of something that would have aired on a Pittsburgh television station well up until the mid-seventies (with a ROMPER ROOM-styled set complete with a Palestinean Miss Sally) we're treated to (believe-it-or-not) an obvious cheap costume knockoff Mickey Mouse called Farfour who I guess is designed to convert your average six-year-old viewer to the next intifada! Copyright-infringement aside, Farfour's entire reason for being ain't exactly akin to his Amerigan cousin in the rodent family, for this rat's certainly front and center for the Palestinean cause as this first youtube clip will point out!:



And besides his spewing of nothing but kiddiespeak hatred and ire for the nation of Israel, Farfour sure likes to dish it out to the current powers that be in the United States!:



I guess this is what kids in Palestine have to rush home to watch after school, and frankly I'll take GOMER PYLE reruns anyday! But what's really bizarre is Farfour's final appearance on this I believe still-running series where not only does his human grandfather (who looks to be about forty but remembers the pre-1948 days clearly!) die, but before doing so gives Farfour a key and important documents proving that what is now Tel Aviv really belongs to the Arabs! Unfortunately for Farfour he's captured and drilled by an Israeli intent on getting the elusive goodies, and when all else (mainly bribery) fails this sunglassed shady character decides to give the animal a few good whaps in order to speed up the process!:



Who says MR. BILL-styled humor is dead! And although we don't see it, the hostess tells us that Farfour did not survive the interrogation and thus all good Moslem kids should be like him, body/arm expressions and all! (And frankly, I sure wish they would have video'd a scene where we actually see Farfour go to that great cheese bin in the sky what with his overacting and cringe-inducing squeaky voice!) Now, I've long bemoaned the demise of afternoon kid shows where cheap local productions featuring guys dressed up like sailors and gals in cowpoke outfits would host LITTLE RASCALS shorts and 40s/50s-vintage Warner Brothers cartoons, but maybe a case can be made for endless news broadcasts and OPRAH if any revival in local kids television's going to come off even remotely like this piece of pure propaganda ploy! All I gotta say is, with "serious" television being like this, who needs satire?

RAUNCH AND ROLL; O. REXTASY/BLITZKRIEG; QUATRO QULT (fanzines from the Solomon/Jay Gruberger axis ca. 1974-1977)

Ya wanna talk about crudzines, those lower-end of the rung cheaply-produced fanzines that were certainly lacking in quality, looks and best of all intestinal fortitude??? You remember them from the eighties, when some hardcore punque rockers'd get together, review the latest batch of records they got from their latest Systematic and Rough Trade orders 'n throw in a bit of self-righteous/indulgent editorials and maybe that ten-second interview with Ian MacKaye they did after a gig ("Hi Ian"/"Bye puds!") and make it into a brand-spanking new 'zine that would compete with all the biggies and just get the collective minds of p-rock Ameriga all a'buzzin', right? Wrong! But the lack of expertise or writing abilities or anything like that never did stop a whole slew of fanzine-mad kiddoes ever since the days of the early Sci-Fi fandom surge of the thirties, and come to think of it such a lack of finesse never stopped me, and I've been in on this rock writing/self-publishing game for a much longer time than any of us could ever imagine, or were alive for that matter!

I don't think you could any of these fanzines that came straight from the stable of Solomon and Jay Gruberger "crudzines" per-se...sure they sometimes come out reproduced as if the mimeograph at the office was due for servicing back in 1972 and the one-sided printjob only makes the things look a lot larger than they actually were, but the writing in these mags is more often than not superb, and believe-it-or-not but I gotta admit that all of these RAUNCH & ROLL and O. REXTASYs (or is it "O REXTASIES"???) as well as the other fanzines from the "Calzone Ltd." publishing empire were mighty boffo reads even if the production values were way down. Just like every good bitta mid-seventies rock fan/prozine writing where you can sure get a whole lotta information let alone fun outta reading these magazines and who knows, maybe you'll even get to learn something just like Bill Cosby used to say at the beginning of all those Fat Albert cartoons even if the thought of "educational" entertainment used to make my skin feel so creepy as a kid!

You may know the Grubergers better as 2/3rds of the infamous O. Rex band of "Califawnia Girls" fame (see latest UGLY THINGS in particular, and Johan Kugelberg's "pre-punk" article specifically for more information) and you might also know them as members of the famed "critics" band Afrika Korps, but before they were setting their musical urges to sound they were setting them to type not only as contributors (Solomon to Kenne Highland's ROCK ON as well as Mark Jenkins' HYPE) but as publishers of their own mags, mainly these three titles in question. And, as you'd probably expect, the Gruberger brothers, like Lester Bangs and Richard Meltzer, Robot Hull, Adny Shernoff and Crescenzo Capece, dove full-tilt into this thing that we called gonzo rock journalism meaning that if you're one of those limp-wristed lilly-livered watercress sandwich-eating types who gets all aghast at the stuff that I've written about various "protected" peoples and classes then you're going to crap your Ghandis when you get an eyefulla the stuff that the Grubergers were writing way back inna day! So settle back Gertrude, because it's gonna be a long trip into bad-taste land for thee!

And yeah, I remember when I first read something by Solomon G., in fact in the pages of an issue of Kenne Highland's post-ROCK ON fanzine TRASH (the issue with the Eddie Flowers-drawn cover of the New York Dolls acting naughty) and an article entitled "Juba Night on the Midnight Special" appeared (in case you didn't know, "juba" is a Gruberger term for people of African heritage, and it appears a lot in these pages!)...in this one Solomon was tellin' us about how it was Friday night (actually Saturday AM) at One O'Clock and the two were gathered writing letters to record companies trying to scam freebie albums while THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL was on, with the O'Jays singing a song in tattered clothes about slavery or something to which the two sang some lyrics outta one of those racist singles you used to hear about that went something along the lines of "America's for whites/Africa's for blacks" and you can probably guess the rest which is something so disturbing I dare not print it. And even then I could get the whole sick joke about two white guys singing such stuff (if in fact it did happen this way w/o any fanzine exaggeration on Solomon's part) because if anything the joke was not on any black people but on the sissified overtly-sensitive white rock listening public that might have had pity and empathy for minorities, but once the cameras and tape recorders were turned off seemed to be singing a different tune. A hypocrisy that dared not speak its name because just about everyone was going along with it!

The real punchline to the joke was that none of these guys were racist, and in fact I have it on good authority that Jay Gruberger's best friend in high school was of African heritage! But like I said ages back, I thought it was great when I read some CREEM critic saying that the various "Archie Bunkerisms" that people like Bangs etc. were spouting off at the time were such a refreshing change from "giving lip service to the liberal homilies of the sixties, which everybody agreed with but few believed in." And controversial or not, these mags really ain't as out-there as things that were being said in BACK DOOR MAN let alone NATIONAL LAMPOON at the time, and you could easily pick that one up at the newsstand!

But lest I lead you more tender readers into thinking that the sole output of the Grubergers was one of violent Amerigan Nasty Party propaganda let me just talk about these mags I recently got via my big fanzine score of last month. And let's start with RAUNCH AND ROLL, brother Jay's own mag which in many ways is almost identical to Solomon's O. REXTASY 'cept in the proportion of Jay to Solomon writing (reversed in Solomon's own mag, naturally!). Taking personalism to a new height, both RAUNCH AND ROLL and O. REXTASY have that faded xerox look of the sixties 'zines, lotsa quickie hand-printed covers and graphics, and comics that look like no expense was spared to get the neighbor's ten-year-old to draw 'em. Loads of Leslie West praise as well, not to mention some pages that are one-sided, some that are two! And, in a fanzine first, the front cover of issue #3 (June '75) is actually an ad for the Blue Oyster Cult's ON YOUR FEET OR ON YOUR KNEES which kinda makes me wanna guffaw because back when I was doing issue #13 of my own rag I got (as part of a pithy hate note from none other than Gerard Cosloy) a snide jibe about me using a press-release for Sonic Youth's DAYDREAM NATION on the inside front cover as if I was so low on copy or something equally oneupmanship-like, me politely responding that since this flyer was something that was not going to reach the general listening audience I felt that there was no significant rock/cultural gaffe being made in my printing of the thing. And besides, Blast First hinted that they might pay for the thing as an ad if I published it...of course they didn't!

Maybe the appearance a mere BOC ad smack-dab on the front cover of a fanzine was used to hide the fact that perhaps this ish was goin' over the edge into TEENAGE WASTELAND GAZETTE-inspired "bad taste" territory such as in "The Allman Brothers Show", a spoof of what it would've been like if that famed Southern Rock band had their own tee-vee program complete with that weekly skit "Snag a N----r, Inc.!" (pardon the censorship all you free speech kiddies out there!) where not only do various blacks done up in the old time stereotypes get offed, but none other than Eddie Flowers hisself since he's an albino "white coon"! (Elswhere in RAUNCH & ROLL was a section entitled "Could You Imagine" which said amongst other things, "Could you Imagine Eddie Flowers hating blacks?" that to me just seems like another fun dig at a fellow bad-taste monger!) Again, please keep in mind the real target of this sorta stuff, the Robert Christgaus of this world who still get all apopleptic over humor that even dares to tweak the nodes of their personal ideals of universal brotherhood, eh Clarabelle?

But anyway, I love these RAUNCH AND ROLLs. Ish #1 has a drawing by then noted-fanzine cartoonist (DENIM DELINQUENT, GULCHER, ELECTRIC WARRIOR FREE PRESS...) and future Classic Ruins bassist Carl Biancucci, who was then in the middle of his Jack Bruce obsession which really did fit into R&R's entire oeuvre, since Jay Gruberger was heavily into Mountain and West, Bruce and Laing! It's a spiffy issue too, not only with a column from Biancucci but a Mountain comic by Jay (whose style makes my old "Kickout D. Jamz" from the mid-eighties look like Milton Caniff!), a fake New York Dolls interview (don't worry, it won't be republished when they do a "New York Dolls in print" book a few years from now!) and loads more inc. the Kinks, heavy metal and brother Solomon on...Paul McCartney and Wings! What really makes RAUNCH & ROLL #1 so special is...that the thing is stapled not on the left side but at the top of the page making for very hard toilet reading! And as far as the New York Dolls poster promised on the front cover...well, it's just a promo pic from the same sesh that gave us the cover of TOO MUCH TOO SOON reduced to xerox fuz. No big deal!!!!

I'd like to say that future RAUNCH & ROLL stepped up the evolutionary ladder of fanzine humble beginnings to something a bit more...neat???? but in this case I'd be lying since ALL of these mags seemed to have the same sense of crudzine bliss that one can still find a lotta chahm in. There was a quick upgrade to what looked like a more professionally-printed cover with the October '75 ish (cover reprinted above) but that was not to last if the May '76 issue is any indication. Still, all of the mags I got made for some great fanzine reading time...and in fact I'm still going through these rags finding new and interesting things that missed my eye the first time kinda like I used to do with the old MAD magazine. And hey, amidst the cartoons swiped from the English weeklies and such other acts of blatant ripoff a gem or two can be found, such as the review of Phil Manzanara's DIAMOND HEAD written by none other than future underground rock spokesman Thurston Moore where he, in the course of name dropping some of his fave hits to pick like Television and Patti Smith, mentions such likely faves as Roxy Music as well as (now get this!) the rock version of PETER AND THE WOLF as well as Manfred Mann's NIGHTENGALES AND BOMBERS album and...Renaissance??? Naturally Moore's particular tastes in music were scrutinized by editor Jay with various wizecracking comments...but frankly what else would you expect??? However, the thought of Moore actually cheerleading o'er a group like Renaissance really does surprise me! Well, I feel a lot less guilty about some of the crap I was listening to back then after this...I never bought a Renaissance album and for that I am glad!

(And while I'm at it, how could I forget [which I actually did forget since I'm adding this to the post a good two hours after it originally published!] some of the great tossing about of the punk rock credo right around the time that term was filtering out of the fanzine/collector scum movement intothe general populace. Take this example from the October '75 ish in which appears a review of the first Thee Image album. Now, some of you avid garage sale and flea market record bin hustlers are sure to remember these guys, a trio fronted by former Blues Image leader Mike Pinera who had two albums out on ELP's Manticore label back in the day. Of course you should remember because you've seen both of these albums, the first with an actually pleasing psychedelic circa '69 sleeve and the second [with a Bermuda Triangle motif] languishing in 99-cent bins and flea markets for years on end, and although I had them pegged as an American ELP/Triumvrat guitar/mass of keyboards/drums-styled progressive band [I mean, why else would Manticore sign 'em?] the review of their album by presumably Jay has me thinking otherwise..."Boy, do these guys sound like PAUL REVERE AND THE RAIDERS except a little more rock 'n' roll. These guys would be such great punks if they didn't have that touch of heavy metal." Sound great, hunh? Well, I dunno because a few pages later Jay is badmouthing the very same group after he encountered them live although most of his ire seemed directed towards Pinera for his "boasting" about the group, the label and the album. So what's the verdict? Should I actually go and spend a buck on the first Thee Image LP I see at the next flea market? What's it gonna be? As usual, your votes will tell.)

Moving onto brother Solomon (the "heavier" of the pair, he weighing in at a good 350 according to the Afrika Korps weigh-in mentioned in the last issue of TAKE IT!), his magazine O. REXTASY seemed to be the more popular of the pair, at least judging from the reams of fanzine press the thing got compared with RAUNCH & ROLL. Frankly I felt the two titles were pretty much interchangeable with the same kind of low-fi printing, the typewriter-pecked front cover "masthead" at the top of the page and (again) the one/two-sided page job which makes you think you're getting a lot more than you actually do. The earliest of these two issue's actually not an O. REXTASY at all but the mag under its (temporary) new title BLITZKRIEG complete with a faux-nazi symbol on the front looking like a cross between a swastika and the Blue Oyster Cult Greek symbol for chaos and snaps of...Elton John and Black Sabbath? And yes, there's a long Elton John article on the insides written by some gal reader since it's really fannish and the pics are mostly faded snaps we've seen a million times taken from old ROLLING STONEs and other teenybopper fan mags. There is a drawing of the glammed-up Elton as well which was done by a Ron Agostinetti, a bloke who also did the cover of RAUNCH & ROLL #5 (with a S&M theme!) in case anybody is keeping track out there!

As for the name change: "Well, the whole point is, the name O. REXTASY was taken from the band O. Rex. And all that was named after Marc Bolan. And that was years ago. Now the times have changed. It's 1976, and Marc Bolan is a thing of the past. In fact, he never was! And I do not want to be associeted with a failure! So the name BLITZKRIEG is the name of the new band, and of this paper." However, I guess that Solomon once again changed his tune so to speak, because for all I know this was the only issue under the title BLITZKRIEG and as far as the new band goes, dunno what happened to them!

Still it is a nice ish, with Solomon's impressions of hanging out with Kenne Highland in Bloomington Indiana as well as a ghosted review of CAPTAIN FANTASTIC AND THE BROWN DIRT COWBOY which I guess only goes to prove to you that maybe my own personal music tastes when I was fourteen weren't as bad as I thought...for years I felt the pain of shame for growing up and actually liking a lotta that AM rock twaddle but since such big names as Solomon Gruberger have done the exact same thing...well, maybe I can now sleep well at nights safely and securely cuddled under my Beaver Cleaver dooner!

Next ish of O REXTASY I have's dated July '77, and the cover shot's a beaut even if it's a mere xerox. It features a photo of the main players at a Boston rock group night at CBGB with not only a good portion of the players posed onstage (including members of the Third Rail, Thundertrain and the Boom Boom Band, but Kim Kane from the Slickee Boys and Solomon Gruberger himself! The insides have a lotta musings regarding the then-roaring Boston scene as well as what was going on that very night, not foo-getting Kenne Highland's review of the LIVE AT THE RAT two-LP collection where he not only says it's a way better deal than the CBGB and Max's Kansas City discs that had come out about the same time but exhorts you, the unsuspecting reader, not to be "a cheap jew" and get the thing! Now frankly I think that some of Mr. Highland's best friends are Jewish (including the Gruberger brothers, who actually once decided to celebrate their favorite Jewish holiday with a take out pizza!) and again, he was merely tugging at the chains of way too many a hippie heartbleed out there so whatever you do, don't pester the man with emails! He don't answer them anyway! And for the sake of all you new wavers out there, this ish is more "underground rock"-oriented than the earlier ones with loads of reviews of the new Patti, Television, Iggy and whatnot by a Lisa Rosenberg and she did a really good job of it as well without a lotta the pretension and self-consciousness that too many innerlektuals put into a lotta these reviews at the time!

In between O. REXTASYs Solomon did an issue or maybe three of QUATRO QULT a fanzine devoted to his number one heart-throb Suzi Quatro who he loved despite her flat chest (which he pokes fun at!) and who gets the royal treatment not only with a load of Gruberger brothers pieces but mucho informacion pilfered from English music mags and perhaps some domestic product as well! Hmmm, nicer print and repro here, and none other than Mark Jenkins got to contribute his own article which certainly ups the ante in my book! And since Jay is now dead (auto accident) and I don't want to get into the recent history of Solomon I shall now put a cap on this piece on the Grubergers and their fanzines, which I hope will inspire you the BLOG TO COMM reader to...outbid me outrageously that rare time any more of these RAUNCH & ROLL and O. REXTASY fanzines go up on the ebay auction block. Get your trust funds ready, kids!