BLOG TO COMM

Sunday, August 05, 2012

HIGH SIX!

Ain't done one of these in awhile. And, because Brad Kohler did complain about the lack of food and drink reviews as of late, this 'un (in part) deals with things you can cram down your throat and no jokes please!

But before I start (considering that the above pun is still freshly ruminating in my mind), maybe I should mention the recent passing of noted novelist and general sickoid even if people I dig liked him Gore Vidal. Yeah, the ol' homo is no longer with us, and for some perhaps not-so-strange reason I can picture him and his old adversary William F. Buckley Jr. right at this very moment arguing for all eternity while being consumed by the fires of Hell. I get that way sometimes, but really, I do believe that it was viewing that famous televised debate between Vidal and Buckley trading off the insults ("You're a fascist!" "Well, you're a fairy!!!") that got me interested in this wild and wacky world we call politics, and judging from the various blogs and sites that I frequent the sentiments remain ever so vitriolic! Gotta thank you for that Gore even if you were a rather disgusting in many ways man who even performed an unnatural act on Jack Kerouac, something which we at BLOG TO COMM do not approve of in any way, shape or form. Well, I guess that now you're dead I better not say anything bad about you since that's what the more "enlightened" amongst us always tell us ("Never speak ill of the dead!"), though for some reason they seem to give themelves as "pass" on this sacred rule when the names Hitler, McCarthy, Nixon and Agnew pop up! Which is all well and good, but sheesh, if I can only add Stalin, Wertham, Guevara and Ralph Gleason to the list would we be even???

GUINNESS STOUT ALE!

Although I ain't exactly the kinda guy who goes out and gets sloshed every night it ain't exactly like I'm one who totals the tea either. Alcohol consumption for me is a give or take affair...perhaps a li'l wine if they offer it free at the Eyetalian restaurant or an occasional can of Genessee Cream Ale if a six-pack is brought home, but nothing more. However, it's been quite awhile since I enjoyed the taste of any Guinness and so, perhaps spurred on by an email giving details as to how to make a neat hot day treat mixing some with some Coca-Cola and vanilla ice cream (though I used Diet Pepsi) I figured hey, why not!

Downing some was a rather enjoyable experience too, not only with the aforementioned cola 'n ice cream but straight. The taste is pretty heavy ("bold" as the critics like to call it) that recalls a flatter yet stronger Genessee CA yet is almost reminiscent of a patent medicine that's been in your granny's cabinet since 1917 only now it was fifty years later and you were up to a li'l "experimentin'"! I dunno why, but drinking some (at room temperature like they do o'er in Eerie as well!) brought back memories...of what I can only guess since it wasn't like I was gulping this down throughout my teenbo years. However, I will admit that a youthful excitement did overcome my bod for some unexplained reason. Maybe I was a lush in a previous life, though I've always expected that if such things as reincarnation were true then my previous life was as a slug and my current existence is nothing but a downgrade from that.

Oh yeah, and as for the Guinness Float...twas hokay though next time I would use a certainly stronger flavored cola or perhaps obtain some syrup straight from the distributor. If I happen to do any shandygaffin' with the rest of the six-pack (which I plan to down in the basement whilst spinning albums) I probably would use something along the lines of a Vernor's Ginger Ale (or "Ginger Soda" as they now call it) or perhaps dish out some additional lucre for some of that really strong Jamaican ginger beer that's always guaranteed to scorch the inner lining of your epiglottis! Maybe some Dr. Pepper or lemon lime would also be in order. Too bad Moxie's unobtainable in these parts, because the golden brown and potent flavor of that one'd really go well with the strange nostalgic appeal of Guinness! Hmmm, I better stop right now before people begin to mistake this for one of those chi-chi microbrewery blogs that are peppering up the landscape as we speak!

SURFSIDE SIX (ABC television series, 1960-1962)

Gotta admit that I really love the dickens outta those late-fifties/early-sixties Warner Brothers private eye series that ABC banked their bucks on, and SURFSIDE SIX is no exception. Although not as well known as WB biggies 77 SUNSET STRIP or HAWAIIAN EYE, at least this 'un's got the same formula with a buncha handsome guy hunks in the lead roles, the obligatory blonde and, for a change, Margarita Sierra as Cha Cha O'Brien and pseudo-Stooge Mousie Garner as who else but Mousie as if they hadda give him another name! Storylines are boss early-sixties cookie-cut complete with standard mobster heavies, sexy damsels either tied up with or running from such heavies, and of course the trio of Troy Donahue, future Green Hornet Van Williams and Lee Patterson exhibiting about as much early-sixties tee-vee manhood as any pimply lardbutt lovestruck teenager could stand. And as for the girls, well I'm positive that they'd go for these three too. Light fluff compared to CHECKMATE and JOHNNY STACCATO, but still a fun brain deadener that I know I could easily get hooked on if it happened to be running weekday nights just like I did with HOGAN'S HEROES and THE LUCY SHOW as a teen.

Got my dub from Bill Shute, who got his copy from a recent run on the Good Life TV Network which has also been running STRIP. Good choice Good Life, though if you really had some brains howzbout airing some of the other WB private dick shows like BOURBON STREET BEAT and THE ROARING TWENTIES while yer at it? Maybe even some of those more obscure WB PI series that are still talked about in hushed tones such as WARSAW AFTER DARK or DIAL "F" FOR FREDONIA would be fitting of your night time schedule as well.

HORCHATA!

Going from fermented libation to the soft stuff, here's something I bought outta curiosity when passing through the "ethnic grub" section at the local supermarket. Always on the go for a new taste sensation, I picked up a sack of some "Horchata" mix which, for some odd reason, I thought was going to be a non-alc Pina Coloda drink that would go down fine during the hot months we're now enjoying. However instead of the tangy pineapple/coconut-flavored drink I was expecting, it turns out that Horchata is a cinnamon/rice concoction that, although rather alien to a soda pop guzzler like myself, had a nice interesting taste to it that obviously reminded me of rice pudding! I've come across some on-line recipes for the stuff which I'd prefer to make with an artificial sweetener considering the diabetes double whammy that I'll probably inherit in a few year's time, but after serious thought (and the bizarre methods being used to make it) I decided to stick with the store brand! Have a gallon of the stuff on hand for a hot 'n sticky day and worry about the glucometer some other time.

ARTHUR TREACHER'S FISH AND CHIPS!

I remember when an Arthur Treacher's opened up over in Boardman Ohio (on the strip leading right into Youngstown) when I was but a mere lad and word spread fast about their great 'n "authentic" Fish and Chips that were just like the kind they eat over there in ol' Blighty! The fam'bly actually stopped there one day to give it a try and we all concurred that the meal we had was really grand. Then an Arthur Treacher restaurant opened up in Sharon and it became the new hotcha place to eat. I remember the place always being crowded, and what I really thought was cool about the chain was that they used to serve Faygo beverages including Faygobrau, their Ginger Beer which had a real head just like beer of the alcoholic variety and tasted way better'n the pale dry stuff that's oh so common these days!

Unfortunately when Long John Silvers headed into the area they stole a lotta Arthur Treacher's steam, but fortunately the original restaurant still stands albeit with a drive through window which makes lazyass types like myself all the more get go about going there. Which is what I did just a short while ago, and while I gotta say the prices are now rather atrocious (something like $7.00 for a reg'lar dinner) the food is still pretty snat.

The fish is now prepared differently without the beer batter of yore, more like a fine flour mixture not that dissimilar to what Kentucky Fried Chicken puts on their birds. The results are a crispier if still potent piece of seafood that looks more like the stuff you see the greenteeths over there gobble down only served without the old newspapers. The "chips" are still nice and thick, though have some special seasoning on 'em which adds to the taste sensation. Of course, the obligatory hushpuppies which gives this a slight southern accent are added, and although not authentic (why no li'l pearl onions or even those big peas?) it still taste good and remind me of when I was a kid and food like this was the baby boomer equiv. of dining at Delmonico's.

Most of my munch money has been going towards Chinese buffets as of late, but I think I will be heading back to Arthur Treacher's for some future meals. Even if the price is not conduit to my pocketbook it's worth sacrificing things such as electric bills to get your fill of the good stuff. Only wish Faygo'd reintroduce their Faygobrau just so's I can get the full adolescent effect all over again before heading home to hit a stack of comic books and pop a few pimples while I'm at it! Ahh, the good ol' (pus-infected) days!

(LAST MINUTE NOOZE!: looks like if I'm to be headin' for another meal at Arthur Treachers I better be headin' soon 'n fast, for there was a notice in the paper last Monday that this once-venerable joint is closing, and closing for good to be emphatic about it! I knew it was comin', not only because of the lack of cars parked outside the restaurant but the sky high prices I mentioned earlier [as well as the "for sale" sign that was on/off again being placed in the front], but even though I am not a reg'lar patron I am sad to see it go. Yes, the memories of going to packed restaurants as a kid waiting patiently for my grub will forever linger in my mind, part of an adolescence that also included enjoying recycled fifties culture and trying hard to not have a nervous breakdown in front of the entire class. Well, yet another part of my past about to be torn down, though all I gotta say is...if any old structures that made up my cultural background hafta be destroyed why can't it be one of the old schools I went to where those aforementioned breakdowns would most often occur? I'd really go for that, especially if all of my old teachers and classmates were locked in while it all comes down!!!)

LOBSTER NEWBERG, MY WAY!

While we're on the subject of seafood, howzbout this specialty courtesy of Chef Christomaine? After readin' a ref to Lobster Newberg in that ARCHIE Sunday strip collection I reviewed a few days back, I got to wond'rin' just exactly what was this high class dish that I've heard so much about but tasted naught. Turns out that Lobster Newberg is a neato-looking food that, although costly and calorific if you prepare it the correct way, can be made a whole lot cheaper and with low fat ingredients t'boot! Of course it won't taste as good as if you had the real deal ingredients, but do you want to spend the rest of your life looking like me? If you wanna make a batch for yourself to gorge, don't go web searching for a million recipes that pretty much say the same thing but use my well proven plan!

Now here's what'cha do...get an empty, clean jar (mayonnaise preferred) and put the milk, imitation egg and flour in. Maybe even the salt or paprika/cayenne if you so prefer. Now shake it up real good like you were makin' Shake-a-Puddin' until it's nice and smooth like paint. Make sure you have no lumps. Now, put it all in a saucepan and let it cook slow. Stir a lot so you don't get that scortch on the bottom. If you want to use sliced mushrooms (not part of the legit recipe but a nice aberration) put them in now and let them cook slowly with the mixture until tender. Taste to see if more salt, or paprika/cayenne is needed.If still thin, maybe a li'l more flour would do. When mushrooms are nice and cooked add the imitation or real lobster and sherry, then cook slowly for about another twenty minutes to half hour. Pour on toast (I like to tear my toast into pieces for easy eating) and munch away!

A meal fit for a BLOG TO COMM reader, though when I made some a few days back the sauce curdled a bit. Didn't affect the wondrous taste at all though next time I will be more careful not to cook at too high a heat. However, if you are picky about how it looks and don't wanna gobble it serve to Fido. Lucky dog!!!

RON PAUL (politician)

Well,it was good while it lasted. And a whole ton of fun too. Remember how those promising showings had all them cable tee-vee pundits gagging phlegm like, "this isn't supposed to be happening...quick, someone slip me the correct script!" A good hunkerin' portion, hell, ALL of those conservative radio hosts were also in an uproar, with Rush Limbaugh calling you the insane old uncle who slipped outta the attic'r something like that and Mark Levin flipping out over not only you but your various big-time supporters like Jack Hunter, calling him a fag even though there ain't any proof whether or not he is (as if anybody knew who he was or really cared if he was for that matter). Even Neil Boortz was frothing mad at not only you but your supporters until he finally settled down'n said you were fantastic, but only if your foreign policy permitted the wanton scale bombings of civilian targets and the wholesale wiping out of non-combatants! And yeah there's Michael Medved, but can ya really take a guy who thinks that IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE is the best film ever (and drove true talents like Arch Hall Jr. to righteous rage by acting all nice to him before swinging the ax) seriously?

Hokay, you ain't exactly a razzle-dazzler. But do we need any more politicians who are? Look at all of the recent presidents we've had from ex-moom pitcher stars to over-emotive "kinder and gentler" types who "feel your pain". Heck, at least those old timey mean presidents like Nixon were acting a whole lot truer to form...at least we knew they were crooks from the get go and their seedy public personas did nothing to change our opinions! But hey, you coming off as an everyday talkin' at'cha kinda guy is a whole lot more digestible'n the recent rash of fakes who may have seemed downright honest to the masses, but all I saw was a whole lotta rakin' in the rubes in the most condescending ways I would have thought possible!

Unlike all of your enemies, I never thought any of your followers were a buncha numbots who gulped down your every word without deciphering and digesting it. Most if not all of the ones I've heard and read seemed way more informed'n the standard man-in-the-street schlub who, when presented with a pointed question about what their candidate believes, walks away in anger shouting their eternal support for whomever it is they see as their new savior. Judging from what Paul supporters have been writing on various blogs and sites like TAKI'S MAGAZINE I see them as being rather level headed and not afraid to say where they may disagree with you on certain issues unlike the total black/white groupthink that's so prevalent in mainstream politics. And man are they straightforward about it. Not like some of those doofuses at DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND who, after saying how mildly disappointed they are with Obama for this, that and the other thing mutter that at least he's for gays getting hitched.

Yeah, the opposition (from both sides of the aisle) did their durndest to make you look either crazy or dangerous. Yeah, the John Birch thingie was brought up which I gotta say made me wonder which year this was, and if "guilt" by association with an organization that was lied about for years on end was a crime I'm sure you would've been swinging high from the rafters a long time ago. Of course us level headed types knew better, but sometimes it does stick a li'l in my craw hearing the same ol' diatribes being levied against you which, although refuted over and over again, still come on as if the ones doin' the leveling didn't think we heard 'em the first time around so they just shout louder.

But for "unpatriotic conservatives" such as yourself at least you have been striking the right chords in a world of politics that I have grown to loathe what with all of the backstabs and false promises I've heard over the course of the past few decades. And I gotta say that I love it when people call you nutzo for your "foreign policy", especially when they're either so hell bent on turning the world into a real life version of STRATEGO or feign the peacenik groove until there's a war that suits their purposes. Also gotta chuckle over the ranting that's been going on over those "racist" newsletters of yours especially when they seemed rather mild (and hardly the printed equiv. to a cross burning that some have decreed) when compared to many of the opinion-spewers on the left (and what's left of the right) who have become so shrill and loathing that they make a kluxer sound benevolent in comparison. I guess that thinking you were one of the saner voices on the political thrillway also makes me a ranting racist anti-American peacecreep anarchist or something like that, and if it does well...is there any place I can get a t-shirt with all of this printed up so's I can wear it to the next Tea Party circle jerk and really show 'em the truly righteous way!

Well, if you hadda go out on your political career this way, at least you did a fairly good job of it. Thankfully you didn't capitulate (yet) and endorse the human mannequin Romney like your son did, which only makes me wonder if there are toolsheds in Washington DC you can take him to for a good whoopin'. Maybe that other son who wants to enter into politics'll have just a li'l more sense, but I dunno...can we really hope for the likes of more people of your stature in such a cesspool as our nation's capitol???

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

BOOK REVIEW! ARCHIE'S SUNDAY FINEST BY BOB MONTANA (IDW/THE LIBRARY OF AMERICAN COMICS, 2012)

Still waitin' for the next round of ARCHIE dailies to make their way to the printers, but at least this collection of early Sundays (which for some strange reason leaves out huge chunks in the canon) is a pretty nice tide-ya-over until we can get to the '49-'51 strips. And from what I've read via old clippings those years are a hoot, especially the boss CHRISTMAS CAROL storyline from '50 where some moderne-day Scrooge gets all horny for Betty as the Ghost of Christmas Past!

Given that the Sunday ARCHIEs are what got me all hot 'n bothered when I was a young comics upstart this book does come in handy. And even with the awkwardness of the earliest entries, these full pagers do show the Bob Montana spirit of the strip which never did translate to the comic book pages that well. True, there's no Mr. Lodge getting locked outta his heated swimming pool and entered as an ice sculpture at a winter carnival here, nor does Archie create his own "smell-o-vision" to impress Veronica with while Jughead provides the odors from the kitchen. However, you can see the development in artist Montana's humor rhythm even in his earliest efforts, and perhaps the at-times stiltedness does lend a bit of forties ambiance that got vamoosed from the comics page by the seventies which really makes this edition pay off big bucks in the har-har department.

An' yeah, maybe some of these just ain't as high-larious as the ones from the Montana's creative height in the fifties and sixties, but only a postmodern jerkoff'd disagree that these are loads better'n the typical portrayals of teenage goofdom that were being pushed on us by elders who actually thought those years were our greatest when all they were was a period between a childhood of insecurities and an adulthood of utter despair. Bob Montana might not have captured this as well as the writers for LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, but he sure did a pretty close approximation that's for sure!

Personal faves include the ones where Archie gets roped into working for a summer stock company in order to get free tickets to a play, accidentally hangs himself while portraying Nathan Hale on a parade float, and swan dives into a swimming pool filled with lime jello. And tell me, could you see anybody in today's Sunday supplement getting into such an anarchistic uproar as this? Heck, even the once-outre DENNIS THE MENACE seems de-balled in comparison next to these early ARCHIE examples which only proves that even at his worst Montana was better than no-talents like Jerry Scott and whoever it is that does DILBERT as their best (as if they've ever been at it!).

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Hah! I actually managed to crank out a post that not only seems varied enough, but perhaps even downright inspirational in spots! In fact I thought it was so good that I decided to 86 the post I had planned for today until next week (or maybe even the week after!) which I will admit was a good idea considerin' how that 'un needed some "fine tunings" here and some gratuitous slams at various "protected classes" there in order to make all of you touchy feelies roar in put on indignation. This post also needs a few tweaks here and there, and something tells me that you will not be reading this 'un in its original published form a good year or so from now. (But then again Wilhelm Reich was always re-editing his work to reflect his ever-updating political/scientific beliefs and unlike what Lance "Torky" Koenigs or however it's spelled once said, people do have the right to change their noggins, at least once in awhile and as long as they don't keep changing it to fit in with the current mode of the music so-to-speak!)

In many ways I am amazed that I was able to dish out as much as I did this weekend considerin' that the pickins have been rather creepy crawl as of late. Of course the new Kiosks platter is all the rage here at BTC central, and those Bill Shute burns were pleasant enough even if they weren't anything that I'd kill you over (and sometimes I think I'm looking for a reason just to do that!). Not to mention the youtube find of Nick Kent's Subterraneans who mighta been one of those late-seventies novas that led us into the doldrum eighties had this only gotten out to more'n a choice few, but I sincerely doubt it .I'm sure that even a jaded curmudgeon such as yourself will have to admit that I did do a good job presenting something along the lines of a topper'n usual top quality post this week, and if I may pat myself on the back let me be the first to do so!

Concerned people have been asking me how I've been taking the news regarding longtime funnyman Fred Willard, best known to me and perhaps even you as the addled announcer Jerry Hubbard from the late-seventies talk-show spoof FERNWOOD/AMERICA TONITE, who just happened to've had the misfortune of being arrested pants down in a porn palace a week or so back. Well, I must say that I am saddened to see this high-larious comedian having sunk so low (even though it's like he hasn't been outta the public light since that classic show went off the tube) as to engaging in sinful onanism in a public theatre, but rules are rules and if anything the guy is a sicko who should have the strong arm of the law pummel him until he bleeds for mercy. Yeah, I know that there are some out there who, as in the case of Pee Wee Paul Reubens Herman, think that such arrests are outrageous and that flibbin' the jib is something that comes naturally in X-rated moom pitcher houses and the cops should be out there arresting the real criminals who are out there jaywalking...well, that might be find and dandy oh civil libertarianous ones, but to this argument I must retort "have you ever whipped out your dirty part of the body at a public meeting place such as a theatre, or at a playground or swimming pool or even voting booth for that matter? If you have, all I gotta say is EWWWW, UGGH, ORRKK!!! (TRANSLATION: it figures!) As Bob Grant once said, it's getting sicker and sicker out there folks, and sometimes I get the feeling that its some of you readers who are help edging us all out over the cliff into total depravity to which I say hissssssss!

Of course the real question that nobody seems to be asking is...what was Willard viewing (that is,.what perverse and unnatural sexual act was being portrayed on the screen) that made him wanna do the naughty thing that got many a four-year-old threatened with scissors castration anyway? Now, finding that out is one thing that could change my opinion of him in a flash!

So without further ado (I know that I've probably reminded each and every one of you males about the time your mother chased you around the house with shears in hand!) here's what's been getting the royal treatment in my boudoir, and maybe this stuff should be in yours too!

THE KIOSK II CD-R (David Keay)

I should raise some skepticism about the Kiosk releasing another album so soon, but dang if this ain't such a good 'un that I don't care if Keay's dishing product at us faster'n Frank Zappa used to back when he'n his Mothers were riding the top of the freakout bandwagon. Face it, very few acts are doin' this kind of rock & roll music in this day and age, and to hear some of it bein' performed to such peak perfection is kinda like dyin' and findin' out that Heaven's nothing but an endless stream of records, fanzines, books, classic tee-vee shows and other things that would take a good infinity to make their way through here on earth, and of course we ain't got the time!

Wanted to avoid the usual Velvet Underground comparisons considering how just about every tinhorn up-from-bondage act that's pranced upon the amerindie scene claims total allegiance to 'em even if their music sucks turkey turds but sheesh, I can't. This Kiosk release reminds me of those great groups back in the seventies like Hackamore Brick and Lester Bangs' Birdland and Harry Toledo who had that hefty Velvets vibe yet were smart enough not to take on the superficial aspects of the quest by releasing gunk. In many ways this reminds me of the equally Vevetesque Shangs Cee-Dees from way back inna nineties and their own personalist nature, yet track #7 "Piano Boogie" comes off like classic Neu! so who knows exactly how to pigeonhole the Kiosk into terms that can easily be filtered through your obv. underdeveloped yet rock-saturated minds.

Really, this is a monster. A platter that I can find nary a fault with and which is guaranteed to get hefty pre-beddy bye spin time considering its copasetic nature with the Golden Age of Rock Scribbling reading that usually accompanies my late-night platter sessions. Anyway, if you want it bad enough you can write to Keay @ keay_david@yahoo.com, and who knows, maybe if you don't mention me he might slip a surprise or two into your package!

***

Twentieth Century Zoo-THUNDER ON A CLEAR DAY CD-R burn (originally on Sundazed)

Records like THUNDER ON A CLEAR DAY remind me of alla them old catalogs I used to get from Metro Music and Beathaven which would offer set sales of long-forgotten albums such as this one from an Arizona group that managed to get this album out on Vault Records back '67 way. I naturally was curious as to these under-the-counter acts that weren't exactly getting written up in BOMP! (though BLITZ's Mike McDowell usually gave 'em a go), and with my lack of moolah it wasn't like I was going to take a chance on a platter like this especially when there were many other spins that I was more'n willing to make my acquaintance with. At least the arrival of this at my abode (courtesy of GUESS WHO!) does sate a li'l bit of that curiosity I might have harbored alla these years even though, once I settle down 'n think of it, I coulda gone to potter's field w/o hearin' this and it wouldn't have made that big of a dent in my overall rockist nature!

Still a good one. Nothing exceptional 'r anything but still some well-settling if inoffensive, straightforward late-sixties garage morphing into punk that, with some firming up, coulda been one of those outta-nowhere threats the same way that It's All Meat and the Index were. Kinda jazzy at times and perhaps nondescript at others, Maybe with a little luck Twentieth Century Zoo could have been yet another Alice Cooper (if ya wanna talk about local competition) if they had only stretched out a bit more...as it was they did play it safe yet came up with a few good ideas that don't sound that bad a good 45 years later. Keep an ear out for their cover of "Hall of the Mountain King" which might not be as engaging as the Who's or Big Brother and the Holding Company's, but manages to hold its own freak quotient mighty proud-like.

Neighb'rhood Childr'n-LONG YEAR IN SPACE CD-R burn (originally released on Sundazed)

Rather "as you'd expect" musings from this Phoenix (Oregon, that is) transplanted to San Francisco group that tried cashing in on the hippie scene with their custom made sounds that were definitely too good to go anywhere with the dilated denizens of Haight Ashbury. Jeff Airplane comparisons are naturally in order thanks to the group's own Gracie Slick (a better vocalist at that), and given the Childr'n's folk-rockish nature comparisons between 'em and the early SF scene can be drawn with ease. Also count in the El Lay sunshine pop groups who were also making their mark on the AM dial just around the same time and you got this album that woulda made more'n a few sixties thrillseekers jump for joy had this ended up in their local flea market stack! Not only that but this group had the smarts (considering their Northwest heritage) to do a cover of "Louie Louie" which only goes to show that you can take the rock 'n roll group outta the Northwest, but you can't take the "Louie Louie" outta the group!

Once again, big humongous kudos are due to Bill Shute for shooting this one my way. Glad to know that there's at least one member of the inhuman race that appreciates a mentally deranged and loathed blog such as this and is willing to contribute to its abnormal growth by tossing me some tangy tidbits that are being gobbled up at the same rate that Roman Polanski goes down on some third grade hussy that happens to cross his path!

the Subteranneans-MY FLAMINGO

We always knew that the best rockscribes of the sixties and seventies really wanted to be punk rockers at heart, and just one look at the recorded output of Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer, Lenny Kaye, Mick Farren, Crocus Behemoth, Peter Laughner and alla them Gizmos is more'n ample proof of this undeniable fact. Nothing especially strange about that, especially when you've noticed how the trajectory between these aforementioned giants in the rock writing (not criticism) game and the history of punk more or less overcrossed to the point where it ended up looking like one giant braid. I guess that hanging around with alla them big names like Iggy (or at least emulating 'em from afar) and seeing the decadent lifestyles they lead was mighty influential, and although pecking out paens to the big roosters in that barnyard we call rock 'n roll was a mighty fun task in itself it wasn't like these scribes were actually up there on the stage leading their followers in shamanistic ritual trying to incite spirits unknown now, was it?

I mean, what fun was it for a whole slew of writers both pro and fan discussing the apocalyptic fervor of the Stooges '73 when they very well coulda been part of the zeitgeist themselves? Or at least part of it via the rock 'n roll performer as magus schtick that I guess was goin' over really well thanks to Mick Jagger and his decadent charms. And hey, I can tell you firsthand that it may be a joy to experience the atonal blare of free jazz or whatever avant rock might come down the path, but it's really nothing next to being up there on the stage trying to conjure pure adrenaline in your pack of followers, while exuding plenty of it yourself.

Considerin' that these writers knew and in fact felt the meaning behind the blaring drone that made up the soundtrack for my life these past thirtysome year, they sure had a head start on the rest of us as far as reproducing the general mania of the Velvets/Stooges axis in their own special ways. That's why I believe that Birdland, Vom, Smegma, Rocket From The Tombs, the Deviants et. al. were definitely the finest in their league. Having an O-mind ain't exactly something that comes naturally, and you always kinda had it figured out that these rockist writers could change media with a flash, producing good rock & roll or art at the drop of a hat while the rest of us would have to struggle to come up with anything even remotely as inspiring.

I've been curious about the scope and quality of noted English rockscribe Nick Kent's own musical endeavors for at least a few years, although I will admit that I haven't been that anxious to search out his scant recorded output the way I would some obscure early-seventies proto-punk genius's. Maybe I should have if only to sate some rockscribe as rock musician cravings that I've held for eons, but for some reason I thought it would only sound like some of the more third rate musings that were popping outta the immediately post-Sex Pistols days in England. TROUSER PRESS (for all of their good points as well as bad) aesthetics were also sticking in my mind...something was saying "new wave" as opposed to punk rock or garage and considering the reams of subpar sputum I've experienced during those years it wasn't like I was willing to suffer through all of those early-eighties musings again! Besides, even if there was an easily-obtainable recording by Kent's much-mentioned Subterraneans out and about I'm sure the price would be prohibitive, especially for a drudgery wage wonk like myself who really has to be cautious when it came to spreading his lack of wealth.

Thankfully the miracle of youtube can bring loads of once-rare booty to my door and this numbuh is no exception. Yes, while staring at a snap of Kent with onetime galpal and NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS contributor in her own right Chrissie Hynde (right before the gonorrhea set in) you now can enjoy listening to Kent and the remnants of the Only Ones cranking out this track entitled "My Flamingo" and decide for yourself whether or not Kent's moniker should be mentioned in hushed, solemn tones the same way we do with Meltzer's when hearing him rattle off his rants about sarsaps to a neo-TROUT MASK REPLICA beat.

If you ask me ('n hey, why not since it's my soapbox you're paying homage to!), "Flamingo"'s about halfway there and halfway off, with a sound that pretty much speaks 1980 "new music" the same way those other world saving groups you still see at the flea markets do. Naw, it ain't geeky rock lobstering gawdiness...y'know, 1962 JETSONS futurama repackaged for twenty-years-later tacky dancefloor jitters...but it still could've used some roughing up before seeing the light of day. Nice enough melody though with boffo bridges 'n coda, but still too early-eighties commercial FM radio's idea of new wave to really satisfy me. I coulda easily heard WHOT-FM caricature of a caricature Thomas John spinning it 'tween the usual FM gunk of the day, but maybe that's because of the Hynde factor figuring in (meaning, no matter how much I try not to think so, this does remind me of the Pretenders!). And sheesh, I was hoping that the influence of Iggy woulda made this 'un the logical followup to FUNHOUSE...guess I'll just leave that to some mid-eighties Australian aggregates like the Cosmic Psychos and Harem Scarem with their boffo "Figure Head", a record I'm gonna hafta dig out and dust off one of these days.

Good thing for him that Kent stuck to writing because judging from "Flamingo" he still needed to iron out the rumples and find his own voice in more ways'n one. Or maybe one of his big name friends like Keith Richards or Jimmy Page coulda gotten him some contract or bankrolled a recording session and Kent coulda made an album that woulda been a fine 1985 cut out classic even with the musical and vocal limitations. Maybe that coulda been a TEENAGE HEAD for the new rock generation, and wasn't that something we all coulda used? And hey, even I get the feeling that I'll be cozying up to this a whole lot more once I give it a few additional plays, but for now it stands as a nice enough period piece of that tail end on an era (which started 'round the release of the first Velvets album and ended with the death of Lester Bangs) that at the time I thought maybe deserved to die off and let the new sounds abound, but after a few weeks or so boy did I realize how wrong I was!

Harem Scarem-"Figure Head Parts One and Two" 45 rpm single (Au Go Go, Australia)

Took my own advice and decided to search and hopefully not destroy this classic '84 single by an Australian act in the "Detroit Heavy Metal" style (talking CREEM 1970, or "punk rock" style if talkin' CREEM '71!) who managed to release at least one good album and maybe some donkey turds after that for all I know. Well, my memories of this were rather firm, for "Figure Head" is prime Stooges circa FUNHOUSE high energy rock that probably sounds more like Ig and crew or even the MC5 did more'n all of those local acts that were tryin' to imitate 'em back '67 way. Or '77 or '87 or '97 for that matter. I could even make the case as to this having a stronger than anyone would have expected MC5 current at the point where the singer gets into this weirdo Rob Tyner-styled speak-sing on side two, but whatever the case may be this is fantastic lo-fi hard rock that speaks loads more about where the late-sixties were with regards to their influence on the mid-eighties. Well, at least it, along with the Fun Things and a few more, speaks more than all of those rather tiresome acts that crawled outta the cracks in the wake of hotcha Australian musings and pretty much turned me off to the newer acts in "the tradition" because they were so derivative. Only real question is, why did Au Go Go spread this one track between two sides when it easily could've fit on one, thus leaving the flip for some more heavy duty jams kicking out that we all could most certainly use!

After today's above par outing expect a tiresome tossout sometime midweek followed by a generic reject that I've held in so long it feels like one of those farts you just hadda let out in English class but saved until gym. Don't say I didn't warn you...

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! WEEKEND REBELLION a.k.a. GET DOWN GRAND FUNK a.k.a. MONDO DAYTONA!!!

I guess if I were one of those lowbrow teenage types I used to see back when I was ten and my dad would sneer at 'em 'n tell me that if I ever ended up that way I'd get my ass plastered all over the wall, I'd go buy some LSD and head out to where this movie would be playing. More often than not at some rundown Youngstown Ohio theatre that's now probably all boarded up or sells porn dvd's. I mean, who else would a film like this have been aimed at other'n the addled flotsam of early-seventies self-conscious hippie kids, the kind who went wild only to turn into such L7 specimens that the parents they rebelled against sure seem rather swinging in comparison!

But in all, GET DOWN GRAND FUNK 'r whatever you wanna call it's rawther fuh-nee if I do say so myself, 'specially when you consider that the bulk of this film is a late-sixties documentary about Spring Break at Daytona Beach narrated by Billy Joe Royal with special guest appearances by the Swinging Medallions, Spooky Mike Sharp and the Tams. Pretty much outta-date stuff for the heady early-seventies "relevant" scene, but still enjoyable considering the bountiful footage of alla them gals in their bikinis and feminine hairdos who actually look like they don't smell bad. Lotsa innies too! As an attempt at a mondo film, at least this has a realistic enough documentary look 'n feel to it that reminds me of my own kiddiehood, even if the only time I experienced gals in swimsuits and college guys goofin' off in front of 'em was at the local swimming pool and I was too busy buying candy bars to care!

Ya gotta credit Barry Mahon for taking this "outdated" produce and adding some Grand Funk footage from a Florida club that he personally filmed while throwing in some weird psychedelic effects and bizarre segues, and then re-packaging this flick as if to suggest that it stars Grand Funk in order to sucker in the aforementioned acid freaks and other casualties of the day! The results can be staggering when you go from shots of gals lying on the beach to a hand squeezing an egg or a candle exploding a water-filled balloon, and I'm sure even the dorkiest kid in the class coulda told you that there was a world of difference between the Swinging Medallions and Grand Funk, but then again was anybody really expecting the results to coalesce into some new art form guaranteed to win buckets of trophies at Cannes? I've always believed in grabbin' the moolah and runnin' as fast as you could with it myself.

As for the Grand Funk footage, the early psychedelic scene with the still closeups of the various Funksters, some gal and a toy doll with wavy lines all over the place was definitely a reminder of just how lousy that whole post-psych trip could get, and a whole lot more irritating than the good dated Daytona footage which at least recalls truly halcyon days anybody with a conscious could enjoy. However (now sit down for this, for it is a surprise!) I did get a kick outta watching the group doing "Into the Void" in their own knucklehead, thud it out way. Believe-it-or-not, but I've come to love early-seventies knuckleheadedness whether it is being done by some megahyped act like Funk or some of those obscure English neanderthals whose single sides are being re-released as we speak, and even jaded up the wazoo me can cheer on the feedback gronk of this music even though Mark Farner ain't exactly my idea of a rock & roll superman the way fellow Detroiters the MC5 and Stooges most certainly are. Let me reiterate it...I enjoyed 'em the same way I can appreciate other early-seventies hard rock acts that happen to pop up on a youtube playlist or via somebody's email, though it's ain't like I have to go out and buy their wares which I wouldn't do in a million years! And besides, I will give kudos (in part) to 1971 Farner 'stead of the creature that actually released that horrific cover of "Loco Motion" and of course "Bad Time To Be In Love", two of the more nerve-grating moments in mid-seventies AM decay if you dare ask me.

Heavy doody thanks be to Bill Shute for sending this unsolicited (for as you know, solicitation is a crime, especially if I ask him for Rebecca and the Sunnybrook Farmers burns!). Sometimes I get the idea that Bill's putting me on shuffling off Grand Funk videos my way, yet perhaps he is as serious about it as he is sending me that Herschell Gordon Lewis nudie cutie thing I wrote up a week or two back. Either that or he's reliving his own past as a teenage reject who went to rundown theatres in Colorado watching films along these lines totally outta his gourd on nutmeg and Seven Up! Well, it's better'n what I was doing at the same time, though then again the most action I got in the early-seventies was getting a huge hunka flesh ripped outta my kneecap while trying to keep my dog Sam from licking the gouge before my mom could get home!

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Bwah, was I feeling strange Thursday night! Here it was, the first heavy duty rainfall we've had in awhile, and I was looking out the window at the evening haze while giving my eyes a rest from the computer screen. Wouldn't you know but for reasons I will try to explain later, I done 'n zapped myself back to the most ennui-filled experiences of my long-gone teenage years to the point where I was actually re-experiencing all of those queasy and uncomfortable feelings that I had way back when I was eighteen smackin' years old and reaching out in twenty directions yet going nowhere! Why this happened I am not 100% sure, but somehow the strange rain-drenched and perhaps slightly-foggy atmosphere reminded me of none other than the summer of 1978, a span which just happened to be one of the most halcyon times in my life yet in many ways the eerie calm before the big kaboom that pretty much wrecked my life to the point of no return. The never-sated feelings of unease from those days actually drove me batty enough to the point where, as a result of this major mental breakdown, I ended up doing nothing but spin various seventies faves which I've been ignoring for quite some time (some which will be the subject of a future post!) and viewing not only old proto-underground avant garde shorts on youtube but a number of Cleveland "first wave" items and related (inc. Brian Sands' boffo remake of "Baby You're a Rich Man" and the Ex-Blank-X single which had John Morton's ass on the front cover) in a valiant attempt to buffer myself from these uncomfortable thoughts with the better moments from the music of our lives. Yeah, I know that the seventies never really left me in spirit, but sometimes I get these strange flashbacks regarding those days that are about as potent as any of the LSD variety, usually spurred on by dreams where some femme(s) that I may have had heavy duty throb thrills from afar re-enter(s) my life and well, still ignore(s) me about as much as the last time I saw them all inside the local A&P which is now a cheapo apartment complex. Yes, I even strike out major league-like in my dreams, and as Wilhelm Reich once said "thaz a bad sign, mister!"

Well, if Paul Simon had his books and poetry to protect him back when he was getting into one of his self-indulgent moods at least I got my music and fanzines, not to mention all of the boss rock writing (not "criticism") that helps occupy my time twixt the salt mines and snoozeville. Frequent fanzine digs really help re-charge the ol' batteries esp. when accompanied by music with the ability to transform (yeah that sounds unnecessarily brainy, but I don't want you all to think that I wallow in the realm of anti-intellectualism despite evidence to the contrary), and if I want to read some "Golden Age of Rock Writing" that's new to my system I can always hit the computer and print up some classic seventies rock critiquing that always seems to re-affirm my life at a time when high quality rock screeding has pretty much ground to a frightening and staid halt. Yeah, I know I can save the paper and just read 'em on the screen, but wouldn't you agree that it just ain't a rock 'n roll reading experience if the words ain't on paper and you're relieving your bowels while enjoying a particular potent paragraph courtesy Lester Bangs?

Given how I haven't been exposed to the NME state of things like I shoulda back when I was a sprouting teenage blubberfarm the various scribings of people like Nick Kent and Charles Shaar Murray (with appropriate sidesteps into Ian MacDonald, Mick Farren and the rest) really need to resonate now even if they didn't back when the resonating would have done its best on me. Gotta say that I now find it a total joy to read the old writings of these hands here in the teens even if the subject matter isn't quite as enthralling as it should be or if their own personal opines are totally foreign to mine. But sheesh, these guys were such good writers who never left their punkitude in the dresser drawer even when they'd be writing about subjects that I personally find abhorrent or instantly passe.

Unfortunately getting my fill of seventies rock scribing on the web can turn out to be a rather costly affair especially if you have to rely on getting your fill through the Rock's Backpages website. Frankly, don't YOU (like I do) think that Rock's Backpages are really rooking us with their hefty fees which almost equal (including inflation) what a subscription to the NME would have cost ya airmail way back 1975 way? Yeah, I know they have "upkeep" and a high overhead to attend to, but once you settle down and think about it ain't charging us peons $90 for a year's access to their vault is nothing short of highway robbery? This site, although containing all of those important and necessary NME/SOUNDS/CREEM pieces we need with a passion, is something that only the same people who could tackle getting all of the British weeklies and imports way back when can affort, and in case you haven't noticed I ain't exactly Rollo the Rich Kid! Sluggo is more like it, and unfortunately it ain't like I even have any Rollos in my life who can lend me their hand-me-down mags and platters like I did way back in the days when something like a social life wasn't exactly a luxury I couldn't afford!

I know I can find a few of the requested items for free elsewhere on the web, but in order to make my life (and reading material) much easier a subscription to Backpages would definitely be something on my Christmas list this coming December. Until then it's suffer, suffer, suffer, although if you readers are really hungry for more of my writing (and that of others) you can always go 'n buy a heaping hunk of BLACK TO COMM BACK ISSUES which will help keep me solvent enough not only for me to afford a sub, but at least a few ebay auctions and Forced Exposure orders t'boot. If any of you longtime fans (all three of you!) want to help out a financially destitute blogschpieler catch up on his reading and listening doodies, I'm sure you all know where to send your kopeks, right?

This week's selection of reviews is a nice smattering if I do say so myself. Gotta give thanks to Bill Shute for his frequent burns which help this lovable ol' pooperoo make it through the day, plus the remnants of my latest Forced Exposure order can be found roaming around somewhere in the mix. Not to mention a few ebay wins and whatever else in the line of jetsam I'll probably tack to the end at the last possible moment. If I must blow my own bugle so to speak I will admit that there is a good amount of energy extant not only in these recordings but in the reviews as well...nothing quite as exhilarating as that of a Bangs or Kent mind you, but then again one of my major writing influences is Greg Prevost though I get the feeling he'd blanch at the thought of it. Awwww, just go 'n read the things, willya?

Various Artists-ROCKABILLY HOODLUMS Vol. 2 CD-R burn (originally on White Label, Holland)

Ever since KICKS magazine went outta business I haven't been listening to rockabilly music as much as I shoulda. Well, at least Bill Shute has been gettin' on my ever-expanding tail by sending me burns like this 'un from the high quality White Label outta Holland. White Label has had a good reputation for re-releasing these fifties rarities at least since the eighties (maybe earlier!), and this collection of self-produced/distributed rockabilly tracks ain't no different. Think of 'em as PEBBLES for the fifties and you'll get the gist.

Almost seventy minutes of obscuros here, some which I gotta admit woosh right past me but most of which connect in my mind enough that they sound just as representative of the mid/late-fifties ideal as ABBOTT AND COSTELLO reruns. And guttural too, even to the point where they can make those early Elvis Sun sides sound like Alvino Ray. Highlights include Johnny Pal & the Winchester Four's "Tired of Travelin'" , The Emanons' "Big Boy Rock" and the tastebud tantalizin' "Chicken in the Basket" by the Tri-Tones which ain't about eatin' foul, but I think they got around the subject matter just fine!

Factrix-SCHEINTOT CD (Superior Viaduct, available via Forced Exposure)

I wasn't as impressed with a whole load of those early-eighties West Coast experimental rock outfits like Tuxedomoon, BPeople and Human Hands like you were, and that's undoubtedly the reason why I passed up on all of those Factrix records back when the latest Renaissance/Systematic catalog would slither my way before I got unceremoniously dumped from their mailing list. Of course with such limited finances and so many new and hotcha records to choose from it wasn't like I'd throw caution to the wind as of which records out there were gonna thrill me the way they do!

Now that I'm a self-made man and can buy out the record shop and give it to the poor, I figure hey why not give Factrix a chance considerin' how a whole lotta the early-eighties canon is comin' in for a re-evaluation now that we've finally hit the post-post-POST-rock strata in World Affairs.

To be honest I wasn't that wowed by this, though I felt that Factrix's entire raison d'etre was as good an approach to various late-sixties accomplishment as that of Chrome or even early Cabaret Voltaire. But it's sure dang more'n passable than a good portion of the local groups that were fighting for the bottomest of my bottom dollar at the time, many of whom were traveling the same stratum as Factrix but tended to forgo their more rockist inclinations in favor of industrial noisesplat that never did settle well with my delicate system.

Who knows, maybe the entire dank dark despair that emanates from this does mirror the same feelings I was harboring at the time these tracks were being laid down. Then again I'm sure that more'n a few of you readers were spending the early-eighties just wondering where your next life-move was coming from and besides you didn't tune into this blog to read my rheumy reminiscences about past failures and rejections now, eh?

Actually SCHEINTOT is whatcha'd call a decent example of the early-eighties industrial scronk, even if this is far from the atonal blare of a Throbbing Gristle or any of their fellow travelers who people even in this neck of the throat talked about in hushed tones. They're a slow twist of the nerves rather'n an all out assault, and in that approach there are more'n a few spots of brilliance that'll even make my overworked hammer 'n stirrup rise in salute! Late seventies underground wankers will definitely approve, though the more rockist inclined amongst us should approach with at least a tad of caution. If not hey, send me all of the threatening and caustic comments you'd care to dig up...and just see if I publish 'em!

Toi et Moi-THIRD ALBUM CD (MRC, South Korea)

Got this 'un for the promise of a Velvet Underground cover despite the fact that this male/femme duo of Korean descent were more or less bred of the early-sixties Greenwich Village folkie idiom (complete with a Simon and Garfunkel cover!) 'stead of the dark junkie visions of the Lower East Side that you all know I so desire. Considering how big heroin is over there you'd think these two would have been copycatting the entire Velvets oeuvre with ease, but I guess their heads were a whole lot clearer'n I gave 'em credit for!

But really, the prospect of hearing a '71 vintage VU cover from halfway 'round the world did seem enticing even if it were being done by some Korean folkies who probably wish they were at the Cafe Bizarre 'stead of a country that was being threatened with North Korean missiles for nigh on twenty (now sixty!) years.

Even if there weren't any Velvets covers to lure me in Toi et Moi do fine with a halfway decent if commercial folk music that doesn't sound too gravestone rubbing introspective for my own tastes...sung mostly in Korean, the duo strum guitars (the male member even playing a melodica at times!) and warble some rather pleasant ditties that don't exactly grate on ya like some of the less subtle masters of the form like Melanie did. And not only that but they made music that was driving if relaxing, at times imbued with the early-sixties all-inclusive credo to the point where even your stodg-o pop can tap foot to some of this while no one else is looking. The sound is great even if it was taken from vinyl and crackles are audible, and I can't complain about the S&G cover (even their take of "I Who Have Nothing" fits in swell!) because the two pull it off with just about as much taste as Lou Reed and John Cale might've during the reign of the Falling Spikes. Not only that, but the gal on the cover has a sweet, non-twee voice and sure is a looker who makes me wanna cop more snaps of her lovely visage via google (not to many there, unfortunately).

As you can tell Toi et Moi got a whole lot goin' for 'em, but where the heck's the Velvets song I was so looking forward to??? Sure ain't here!

LOL COXHILL/WELFARE STATE LP (Caroline UK)

Gee now, like don't go blaming me! When I bid on this album a coupla weeks back how did I know that legendary English jazzster Lol Coxhill was gonna up and die like he did! I mean, haven't you heard of coincidences, like the time Fulton Sheen said live on tee-vee after reciting a scene from Shakespeare's JULIUS CAESER (complete with various Soviet Union heavies like Berea and Malenkov's names replacing those from the oratory) that someday Stalin was gonna meet his doom and right then and there the Soviet strongman had the stroke that rapidly sent him off to The Big Politburo in the Sky? I mean, if I knew that buying this album was gonna knock off one of England's most legendary soprano sax players I would have waited until after he died, even though I've been wanting to give this 'un a listen (on/off) for well over thirtysome years!

Yeah, I know that Archie Bunker once sang "Didn't need no welfare state", but if you have even a modicum of interest in the English jazz scene of the seventies you probably need this one more'n you think. Not that I was expecting anything radical here, but WELFARE STATE is a nice, sublime example of English free music that can be traditional as all heck when it wanted to be. If you must know, Coxhill was the musical director for this bizarroid troupe that I could best describe as being a cross twixt The Living Theatre and a marching band, and the music to be found within these grooves is surprisingly tame and more representative of England in the thirties than they are of the 1975 in which this album was released. But don't let that discourage you...

Many of the tracks reflect the type of music you would have expected to have accompanied the "happening"-like antics Welfare State reveled in; nothing "out-there" as in mid-seventies English free jazz but pleasant enough ditties that sound like long-gone recordings from the BBC music library. With a little bit of spoken word and sound effects (and other recordings) thrown in to artsify the thing even more. The results may leave you scratching your bean (I guess you hadda be there to experience it en toto), but you probably will marvel at the mix and match of old time pop with a few atonal ideas that were thrown in undoubtedly to confuse the casual listener. Heck, they even do a veddy British version of Albert Ayler's "Ghosts" that could have been the theme for some 1940s radio programme aimed at the lot of sissy kids they got over there! It's nothing I would want to spin on a nightly basis in order to recharge my life energy forces, but like the series of discs that came out on the Obscure label around the same time WELFARE STATE a reliable idea of where the old and new experimental sounds were at, and perhaps were heading at least until it all came down a short period later!

Various Artists-NEW WAVE cassette (Vertigo, England)

Had this 'un as an elpee for a good twenty or so years (an antique shop steal!), but picked this cassette up if only to rekindle some late-seventies record shop scrounging feelings in me. Of course the REAL question is, just what were the folks at Phonogram thinking of when they released this selection of punk rock flotsam on their Vertigo imprint anyway??? Given that Vertigo at the time was Phonogram's home for not only hard rock but progressive jollies of the English and German variety, I've often wondered as to why this obv. cash-in didn't make it out on Mercury or better yet Sire, a label that was best known for pushing the likes of the Ramones and Talking Heads on ya at least until they found their multi-million dollar cash cow in the form of Madonna!

After a whole lotta thought I concluded that this 'un got the Vertigo label-slap if only to reel in the beefy prog rock clientele that was Vertigo's forte with such unfamiliar music on a familiar looking label! I'm sure more'n a few fans of the standard Vertigo fare saw the label and thought "hey man, maybe this stuff ain't as bad as I think it is" so they up and bought it, only to get home, tear open the shrinkwrap with fingers trembling, remove the platter and spin it before ripping the thing offa the turntable and into the trash! I mean, what else would you have imagined?

Despite the opines of a few million ELP and Genesis fans, NEW WAVE was a good enough selection of punky-enough Phonogram artists suitable not only for the '77 beginner but for somebody who's just gotta have this stuff in order to re-live past accomplishments. It's got not only two prime New York Dolls and Dead Boys tracks each from their eponymous debuts, but Rich Hell and Talking Heads plus the Runaways, Patti Smith's "Piss Factory" and even the Flamin' Groovies doin' "Shake Some Action" which always get my blood flowin' like I know it does yours too! You can tell that at least a little care was put into this because the likes of French blues-punks Little Bob Story show up, although whose idea was it to include Skyhooks of all groups in the mix? I mean, if Phonogram wanted to get obscure they could at least've snuck on something by Sire's original CBGB signing City Lights 'stead of these phony outrage publicity seekers (who I've heard very little of but I still am mad at that one guy in the group who was goin' 'round calling Deniz Tek a Nazi...guess these Aussies will call anybody they remotely disagree with racist and sexist and get away with it because they're all so politically and genetically inbred!). Even with this obvious faux pas NEW WAVE's a release that at least reminds me of the days when music which you now take for granted was once a clandestine sound one could only find in the nearest import bin or maybe even cut out pile for that matter!

Perhaps the only thing I want to read/believe in the wake of the recent "Batman" shootings in Aurora Colorado can be found in Thomas Fleming's DAILY MAIL column which can be retrieved here. Everything else from the crocodile tears of Obama and Romney to all of the leeches trying to pump up their various causes because of this tragedy can go pound all of the fine grainy stuff at the beach if you really do want my humble opinion. Once again, Fleming shows true offensiveness in the face of us all "coming together" because some warped genius thought he was the Joker...well at least Wertham ain't around the pitch in his two cents!

BEFORE I GO, a hearty farewell to Alexander Cockburn, one of the few leftist journalists and webschpielers (COUNTERPUNCH) out there that I could not only stand, but enjoy reading and (shudder!) even agree with on many accounts. Funny that I was thinking about him just yesterday afternoon wondering why his writings haven't been appearing on the paleoconservative CHRONICLES website (where he was welcome just as he was on the libertarian lewrockwell.com) as of late, and I only hope that my thoughts aren't what did the guy in like I'm at times wont to believe (kinda like the way Don Fellman tells me about the time he dreamed that Johnny Cash had died then woke up to find out that the Man In Black had indeed heard the train a' comin'!). Whatever, Cockburn's writings and interesting ideas will be missed, perhaps because he was one of the last probing scribes on either side of the aisle whose conclusions didn't HAVE to jigsaw in with whatever was haute and new on the mainstream left, which is probably one reason he was oft feted by the "unpatriotic" right most of the time as well much to the dismay of the neoconservative types like the Davids Frum and Horowitz. Whaddeva, I'm one stubborn curmudgeon who's sad to see Cockburn go, and who knows, maybe you should be one too.

Hope you can make it OK until my next post sometime during the mid-week. I think you can, but I do get the feeling that many of you just can't wait until I crank something out and fret away the hours until something from my keyboard finally makes its way to your sweaty boudoir. If so keep calm, read a whole lot of high energy fanzines and listen to life-reaffirming music while consoling yourself that I will be back in a few days to make your pitiful lives even more meaningful than they are now that you're totally under my power...

Thursday, July 19, 2012

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! MISS NYMPHET'S ZAP-IN, FROM THE MIND OF HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS!

Yet anudder freebee from Bill Shute, to which I say "Bill, what exactly was going on in your head when you burned this one for me? It's not like I'm one of those guys who slips on the ol' raincoat and heads down to the nearest X-rated moom pitcher palace with smile on face and plastic bag hidden in the brim of my hat! Sheesh, and as my mother would have said I thought you were a GOOD boy! No telling what kind of sickos we have out there nowadays, and they just might be one of your biggest pals! Why, I thought this film was so guttural and obscene that I almost took the thing outta the Dee-Vee-Dee player and slapped on something a whole lot more wholesome, like SALO or perhaps even ILSA, SHE WOLF OF THE SS!

All funnin' aside (which I only brought up in order to use an old Archie Bunker joke), a film like ZAP-IN is perhaps one of the cleanest "X" films around, and that even includes Allen Funt's WHAT DO YOU SAY TO A NAKED LADY? which Funt himself was plugging on late-night tee-vee as the cleanest dirty move you ever saw! Sure there's lotsa nekkid juggins and butts here, but then again when it's all wrapped up in some of the cornballest jokes heard since they took HEE HAW off the air it just don't seem as downright nefarious evil as the kinda porn I understand that they have around today. Not that you'd wanna invite Uncle Archer and Aunt Petunia to see this, but if you like looking at topless gals who keep their panties on most of the time (and only take 'em off to show off their "cools", no haystacks in sight in this one!) while engaging in typical late-sixties blackout humor then hey, look no further!

Obv. a LAUGH-IN cash-in, ZAP-OUT's filled with typical sixties dirty humor'n calculated titillation (heavy on the tits) that I'd gander was custom made for the standard late-sixties jagoff...y'know, the kinda guys that went for the lower-class men's mags who just ten years earlier were high school greasers and in fact still had the 1959 flop up and jellyroll haircuts that Wally Wood and Joe Orlando really knew how to draw and sideburns to prove it. The blue collar guy who liked to provoke fights because he knew how to get away with doin' so and who was probably a few steps away from getting tossed outta his apartment between jobs, or at least those kinda guys I used to see sucking on cigarettes and nursing cups of coffee at rundown hamburger joints when I was a mere ten. These kinda guys wouldn't mind being caught dead seeing a film like this, and as usual Herschell Gordon knew that there were probably more'n a few of 'em scattering the diners and bowling alleys of Ameriga just beggin' for entertainment that was conduit to their way of...er, "thinking".

So if you like your jokes off-color if hayseed 'n your gals pre-feminist with hotcha hairstyles and nary a shot of silicone in sight* (not to mention the wondrous lack of tattoos and shiny doohickies all over the fleshy realm) you'll probably like this 'un as much as those twelve-year-olds who spent some hot summer night peering at this 'un whilst hiding in the woods in back of the drive-in (binoculars in hand)! And hey even a suave sophisticado such as I found more'n a little worth within the quickie skits 'n topless dancers...there was at least one homo joke here that's good enough that I'm even gonna tell it to Jillery, and if I hadda spend a good 90 minutes sitting through this to at least catch one good gaggeroo then it was well worth it!

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*...tho I did that that hostess Miss Nymphet's own knockers were rather suspicious...more dirigible-like w/o the natural hang to 'em that looks more realistic. I could be wrong, or maybe they just pumped her w/some helium before filming?

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Yeesh, you'd think that the Grim Creeper'd give us olde-tymey tee-vee fans a break considerin' the recent passings of George "Goober" Lindsey, Frank Cady and Andy Griffith but nooooo, the guy just hadda cut a swath and mow down none other than former McHALE'S NAVY star and respected actor in his own right Ernest Borgnine this past Sunday! Like I'm sure it was in many households across the U.S. of Whoa back in the sixties, McHALE'S NAVY was burning brightly on our idiot box whenever it was on, and for some strange reason I can recall my mother laughing like anything when we were watching that episode about the Japanese sailors in a submarine who were catching Morse Code signals having to do with some grand dinner being served for some Navy bigwig, and these sailors were starving with nothing but fish sticks to eat so they gladly surrendered in order to get some of that high-falutin' grub themselves!

Yeah, that show was a doozy which thankfully survived in syndication for years unlike other many other early/mid-sixties programs of worth, though to be honest with ya I don't recall watching it that much when the reruns hit the just-pre-prime time hours in the late-sixties. I guess that I was still too immature to fully appreciate them given that I really wasn't tuning in to the sixties reruns until I was twelve by which time the values and qualities of these programs really began to sink in especially when compared with some of the gunk that was being made. Then (again) I do remember seeing the one with McHale's lookalike Eyetalian cousin (Borgnine in a double role) when it was airing in late-sixties pre-prime time, perhaps because I associate it with a day where I didn't have to go through any degradation and humiliation at the hands of either students or teachers at school. And believe-you-me, those days were mighty scarce!!!

Of course there was more to Borgnine than McHALE or any of this other tee-vee roles like AIRWOLF (that was from the eighties thus way outside of our scope), such as the wide array of feature-length films he had appeared in since the fifties. I always though it was a hoot that Borgnine would play a dago-hating soldier who murders Frank Sinatra in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY especially when you consider that Borgnine himself was of the Mediterranean persuasion, though MARTY used to get my dad cracking up whenever it hit the tube way back when, even to the point where he appreciated the MAD magazine spoof where Huey, Duey and Louie do the "What do you want to do tonight" gag when I showed it to him!. Naturally when Borgnine began popping up in those more adult "R"-rated films it wasn't like he was that much of a paizan as he used to be, but I gotta admit that he gave those late-sixties and seventies films more of a punch than the modern-day mooms of the same variety. This was undoubtedly because Borgnine was part of that older school of acting and those films, no matter how risque or vulgar they could get, still had the classic H-wood feel to 'em that made the things watchable. Unlike the comparatively boring films seen these days which have about as much of a connection with the film industry at its height as Lady Gaga has with Lydia Lunch.

THE WILD BUNCH was definitely Borgnine as his best in these types of films, and I gotta say that seeing him play an aging and totally amoral outlaw on his last caper (in a role that Sammy Davis Jr. turned down!) was perhaps Borgnine at his dramatic best. (And why else would I run a snap of him taken from the exact same film if I didn't think his performance was one of the things that really made it so powerful, besides the all-out violence that is!) WILLARD, that outta-nowhere early-seventies hit about the weirdoid boy who befriends man-eating rats, also benefitted from Borgnine's at-times greasy persona. Never saw THE ADVENTURERS (which upset my mother because her old-timey favorite actress Olivia DeHaviland was in it!), though HANNIE CAULDER with Raquel Welch, Robert Culp and Jack Elam sure looked good when I saw it on AMC a short while back, and that ain't just because of the bathtub scene. Eh, another aging fifties/sixties icon bites the dust, making me wonder who the next forties/fifties film star to take leave will be (I'm thinking Kirk Douglas for some reason, though I hope to be wrong). If any of you are taking bets, please contact the oddsmaker to end 'em all Brad Kohler.

(And hey, did you notice how I made it through the above obit without once mentioning that infamous Ernest Borgnine quip about what he does with himself a whole lot while locked away in the bathroom???!!! Give me credit for keeping this blog clean at least once, though for some odd reason I can't get it out of my head [no pun intended] that right now as I type this very sentence Borgnine himself is standing right before God explaining himself in order to save his soul from an eternity in you-know-where..."Well, uh, God, uh, sometimes I got really lonely and I mean sheesh, if you were married to Ethel Merman wouldn't you understand????")

And with that outta the way, here's what you've been waiting for since last weekend!

The Pop Group-Y CD (Radar/WEA Japan)

Mark Stewart-THE POLITICS OF ENVY 2-CD set (Future Noise England, both CD's available via Forced Exposure)

Looks like it's old altrockers at home week here at BLOG TO COMM, what with these two surprise offerings, one by an act that hasn't been mentioned in the annals of Stiglianodom in at least a good quarter century whilst the other's a new release from said group's singer which, considering the stellar and surprising array of guest musicians will only make you wanna mutter..."what year is this anyway???" The Pop Group debut shouldn't be a stranger to about half of this blog's regular readership, and although I should hate this group for the mere fact that I hate most people who like them (for purely aesthetic reasons mind you) maybe I should stoop so low to at least cop a little bit of that late-seventies English experimentalism that used to spark my electrodes back when I was young and perhaps didn't know any better. Heck, even Lester Bangs was all rootin' tootin' in favor of Au Pairs*, and if Lester in his ever-mutating yet firmly in trash gear brain could champion an act that had most faux crits gagging in abject rejection then why shouldn't I try to find something of excitement in this group which seemed tied to the whole late-seventies neo-communist/pseudo-anarchist bent of the time more than anything outside of the Crass contingent? I mean, it ain't like I have anything else to do!

So keeping out of mind that more than a few alternageeks and armchair radical types rally towards the Pop Group as if they were a Feminist Armpit Hair Braiding Workshop what can I say?

Well, for one thing, I could mention that I heard practically nada of its world-saving energy and hope for a better future that way too many did in their entire back catalog. Yes, I know I've been criticized by at least one wank out there for sayin' that my music's gotta rock, earning a snide "What are we in, fourth grade?" comment from an ineffectual faggot whose idea of a good time is the double-dildo "Janus" position, but frankly yeah, that is what I'm searching for in my music and if you don't like it stick it sideways up your ever-expansive hiney. I know it will fit with ease but hey, I gotta say that Y maybe ain't the rockinest' album out there to take me to those Sargassan depths and stratospheric heights like a good portion of the platters that are gettin' heavy spins here at BTC central. Perhaps the overt concentration on various funk and free jazz forms seem to deter, but then again the exact same things helped make FUNHOUSE one of the brightest rock 'n roll albums to ever rearrange a person's cranium during an age when David Crosby was considered hot stuff and Gene Vincent like, wasn't.

All joking aside, I will admit that I liked Y a whole lot more'n some of you definitely anti-BLOG TO COMM-sters would have gandered considering how you all think I'm some sorta subhuman form of life that's so far removed from the homo (and I do mean homo!) superiors you all are. Maybe that's true, but hey I can at least appreciate the Pop Group's heady mix of punkain overtones (including Can, who were perhaps the most influential punk group ever, outside of the Stooges, Dolls and maybe Velvets, to affect these upstarts who at least knew better at the time) and avant garde jazz, not to mention the deep dives into various dub reggae variants which I never did bother with perhaps because I wasn't exactly brought up properly. But it all works swell and although it, like some of the "Rough Trade"-styled musings of the 70s/80s cusp, doesn't quite engage me like I hoped it would I can't call Y one of those English experimental offerings custom made for lower-class stinkoids to rub themselves to while consoling each other for the raw deal life has given them (then again, don't you kinda get the idea that if God didn't create Margaret Thatcher then man would have had to---for whatever reasons he could milk outta her?). It's downright fun, entertaining, surprising (and yeah, maybe a little slow at times) and the best thing about it is you don't have to be one of those upper class kids slumming in the barricades to enjoy the thing either!

Flash forwarding a good thirtysome years and whaddaya know, but none other than Pop Group voice Mark Stewart's got himself not only a hotcha new cult following (thanks to "She Is Beyond Good and Evil" hitting the charts there due to a cover version done up by some new aggregation over there!) but a new solo album! Considering the lineup he's got backing him it does seem like yet another case of "what year is this???"...I mean, I didn't even know that Keith Levine, Youth, Gina Birch and Adrian Sherwood were still alive but I guess they are, and they're all on Stewart's new effort THE POLITICS OF ENVY which seems like the ideal Rough Trade supersession to get those old critics at SOUNDS and NME all moist in the crotch region. And hey, you'd think that maybe Stewart himself would be doin' a li'l chuckling wallowin' in the fact that the once-mighty Maggie Thatcher's brains are now scrambled more'n his breakfast meal but no, he continues to sound just as angry and as dedicated to whatever upheaval of English society and its structures as he was way back in '79 when he was just a young budding neosocialist upstart.

And now that he's just as full fledged a neosocialist as ever, the guy can dabble in his interesting musical veins and get his friends and personal heroes to help him out. People like Lee "Scratch" Perry (Stewart obviously sating his long-lived reggae craving to perform with a bonafeed leader in the realm) and Richard Hell pop into the mix, as does the theremin playing of none other than underground film-making legend Kenneth Anger who's now wowin' 'em with his own Exploding Skull act which is no mere feat for an 85-year-old! (Heck, he's even listed as co-writer of the track on which he appears entitled "Vanity Kills" and hey, what has your grandfather been doin' lately anyway???) And believe-you-me, more than your skull will be exploded once you give these rather hard-edged tracks a spin given the unique use of electronics both old and new coupled with the raging heavy duty hammered out post-whatever sounds that permeate the aluminum.

I could go on and give you one of those track-by-tracks, but considering how I took this one as a whole (which works especially if you are a 'hole) I won't. It's just a big overpowering throb that perhaps would have been too much for the typical Rough Trade follower of the early-eighties, but if this 'un had only come out back then (with or without the 15-minute "Experiments" disc taking the original sound into even deeper grooves of atonal gnarl) boy, you'd know they'd be talkin' 'bout this thing for years to come! And if a stick inna mud curmudgeon like me can hack it, I get the idea maybe you can (though hey, I've given up second guessing you readers looooooong ago!)

The Jimmy Giuffre 3-THE EASY WAY CD-R burn (originally on Verve)

Another one courtesy of Bill Shute (who is affectionately known around the BLOG TO COMM offices as "Santy Klutz"), this '59 outing by Jimmy Guiffre's infamous trio ain't as proto-Ornette as his '54 work with Shelly Manne on THE THREE AND THE TWO, nor is it as chamber avant as '61's FREE FALL. And although it is toned down as all heck there's still a good hunkerin' intensity a'surgin' through. Guitarist Jim Hall plays subdued for the course (never could stand him...too much late-seventies DOWN BEAT jazz establishment sticks in my cranium) and while Ray Brown ain't no Steve Swallow he's fine just by staying in the background giving this drummerless act a beat. If you're just getting into Giuffre this ain't the best place to start, but after giving the aforementioned essentials (and even a number of platters I ain't even heard yet!) a try this one will help fill in the empty spaces in your mind.

Chris Weisman-FRESH SIP 2-LP set (Feeding Tube Records)

They're already calling this Weisman fellow "the Brian Wilson of Brattleboro MA" (or was it Vermont?), but I can't fathom that. The Alex Chilton of B-boro would be much more fitting. Originally released on a limited edition cassette (!) which even got a mention on NPR of all places, FRESH SIP features some of the better "singer-songwriter" musings I've heard in quite some time, or at least since the David Patrick Kelly (and Toivo) RIP VAN BOY MAN disc a good three years back.

Nice late-sixties vibe (maybe some Tim Buckley?) here, with Weisman's rather boy-ish vocalizing giving this a strange sunshine El Lay poppy feeling that sounds like something one of those iron-haired gals back in 1972 woulda been spinning in between TAPESTRY and maybe even AFTER THE GOLD RUSH if it only had that slicko El Lay production. At other times I'm thinking that the ghost of Syd Barrett has clasped his talons in pretty deep. Backing is sparse, though some of this was done with what appears to be a small band that thankfully doesn't get in the way of Weisman's at times witticist lyrics. A pretty good surprise that I'm sure most reg'lar BLOG TO COMM readers could find something of worth in, and although it ain't like a rip-roarer up and down the scales with amphetamine guitar lines and fire-pissing vocals man does not live by Stooges albums alone (though at times I've tried to do just that!).

LES BLOUSONS NOIRS CD (Born Bad)

Kinda wonder if this record is the basis for all of those cruddy lies one used to hear about the French playing lousy rock 'n roll. If so, then all I gotta say is that the French can sure play some lousy rock 'n roll that sounds great which is a whole lot better'n all of those pretenders the past fortysome years who were playing "good" rock (no "'n roll") that fouled up the air a whole lot worse'n the time I opened my gym locker with the half-eaten limburger cheese sandwich after being sick for two weeks. Total eruption primitive thud rock maybe one-step above the Shaggs that not only features a boss cover of "Be Bop Alula" but some totally addled originals that weren't composed as much as they were hacked out on a beat up electric guitar. Makes Jack Starr look like Ringo...Fonebone, that is!

BIZARRO DREAM TIME AGAIN!: haven't had many strange, kultural-related dreams as of late but the doozy I had Monday night really tops 'em all! Strangely enough, I wasn't even under the influence of anything other'n a strong dosage of Melatonin to overcome the usual caffeine jitters! And boy, this 'un was one that woulda gotten any sixties tee-vee fan all hot and excited, for the dream I experienced had me watching/participating in none other than (now get this!) THE FINAL EPISODE OF "HOGAN'S HEROES" THAT WE ALL WOULDA LIKED TO HAVE SEEN YET NEVER GOT MADE LET ALONE AIRED!!! Details as as usual sketchy, but this last HH naturally had to do with the closing days of World War II when Hogan and the rest of the POW's are escaping the Nazis while being imprisoned in what looks like a business complex with many offices and hallways. After making a good enough go at it while running down what seems to be a vacant corridor they just happened to get captured by Sgt. Schultz, who does a good job acting all mean and gnarly like any good Nazi should! However, when some even meaner looking soldiers close in on the POW's attempting to cut them down in their tracks Schultz machine guns 'em clearly signalling that he is now on Hogan's side, lovable puffball that he was! Unfortunately he takes some bullets himself in the side, but otherwise he's doing OK considering they were flesh wounds and he has a whole lotta it to spare!

When hiding his now buddies in what looks like a medical office waiting room who should show up but Col. Klink who, luger in hand, naturally chastises Schultz for his traitorous act, though during Klink's tirade none other than Gestapo man himself Major Hochstetter enters, chewing out Klink for being such a worthless being as usual! During this particular balling out """""I""""" notice a gold plated luger in Klink's holster which I sneakily approach and remove in order to facilitate a quick get out...then wake up due to an ever-bursting bladder! I know that if I had stayed asleep I would have shot Klink, Hochstetter and maybe even Schultz (hey, he was the enemy!) thus ensuring a happy ending, but then again, who knows???

Tune in next week when I'll probably relay to you an 'ALLO 'ALLO dream I will undoubtedly have, though since that series did have a final wrapup who knows what sorta somnastical visions I would dare to conjure in my illogical mind!

JUST IN VIA YOUTUBE, thirty minutes of Geofrey Crozier and the Shanghai Side Show (not Kongress!):

ONE FINAL NOTE: after reading Eddie Flowers' recent entries on Facebook I take back all I said about him being a closeted neo-libertarian! And I do mean it! This guy's just as radical as the next Weatherman down the pike, and don't you ferget it lest you find yourself waking up with a freshly-tossed pipebomb in your bed some hazy summer's morn!!! He's still cool people tho (hey, got anymore old recs 'n mags ya wanna sell me??? Of course not at a profit, that would be EVIL!!!).
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* ...an act whose version of "Smoke on the Water" I've been anxious to hear ever since some VILLAGE VOICE scribe mentioned a live performance of said number in which he brought up the "fact" that it contained the most inept drum solo extant...guess the guy never did hear the debut performance of Umela Hmota back '74 way but then again how could he?

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

BOOK REVIEW! THE GREAT MOVIE SHORTS BY LEONARD MALTIN (Bonanza, 1972)

OK, get the fact outta your mind that Leonard Maltin is nothing but a bearded buffoon who not only has one of the most irritating voices (worse than mine!) to be heard on the cathode connection but tastes befitting those of Karen Quinlan after downing the booze 'n pills...at least he was watching long-forgotten comedy shorts and related flotsam on afternoon tee-vee while all of those other budding film crits were more likely to sneak into screenings of obscure art films with subtitles written in Sanskrit as MAD magazine once so eloquently put it. And yeah, even though I can take him and his nasonex voice for only so long I will say that Maltin sure did a good job with this once-omnipresent book (from which I've snitched more'n a few snaps for various issues of my crudzine) that, while not as up there and as thorough as I woulda liked, at least made for one of them nice "introductory" looksees back when I was a teenager and wanted to know more about them Li'l Rascals and Three Stooges comedies that were still gettin' the afternoon tee-vee play long before being banished into the far reaches of cable 'n low wattage UHF hell.

Gotta admit that THE GREAT MOVIE SHORTS is info 'n snap packed to peak perfection, and the inclusion of complete and detailed short subject filmographies with credits and synopses is what really makes this 'un a keeper. It's especially helpful if you're trying to keep track of all of the shorts you've managed to see on tee-vee and wanna know what you've missed out on. However, don't you think Maltin can get a li'l overbearing at times (but hey, if he really was that much of a kiddo as he was when he wrote this well, I can forgive 'im!) and some of his opines just don't jibe with what a typical BLOG TO COMM reader's would be with regards to what is good and what is douse? Yeah, me too but then again in those pre-internet times it wasn't like we had that much to rely on, eh?

OK, Maltin can complain all he wants about the "cheap" look of Educational Pictures and their supposedly duff scripts, but in many ways don't'cha think that the low budget look is just what made those latterday Educationals so appealing? And besides, any book dealing with short subjects and would limit a total great such as Joe Cook to a passing mention (and ignore another true comedy genius as Willie Howard) does have something crucial missing. And I'm sure many fans of the various Columbia short subject series were wincing from here to Bizoo and back over Maltin's curt dismissals of the Vera Vague and El Brendel comedies, but hey it's his book and I guess if you wanna do something better you can always start up your own blog, site or do whatever there is witin your means to get your message across.

As for me I can't complain that much if only because at least the guy gathered up most of the hotcha stuff (inc. all of the big names like the aforementioned Rascals 'n Stooges, and of course Lauren & Hardy, Edgar Kennedy, Charley Chase...) along with all of those other Roach, Columbia, Educational and RKO rarities and got the thing published and slapped into book stores and libraries where brain-addled teens could write weird obscenities and scribble in the pages when the virginal librarian types weren't looking. And if it weren't for him, where would typical suburban slobs like myself have found some of our first information regarding those old mooms we've seen on tee-vee for years on end! Can't fault him for that even if the sight of him on the tube is enough to make me want to click the remote to find a nice soothing braindead drama on Lifetime.

Who knows, if they still have libraries this one might be available even if it has been surpassed at least three times over by many other efforts both print and pixel. Grab hold of it while you can for a quick comedy short fix that might even leave a lump in your throat 'stead of your groin.

Sunday, August 05, 2012

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Saturday, July 28, 2012

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

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Thursday, July 19, 2012

Saturday, July 14, 2012

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