MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! TROUBLE AT MELODY MESA (1948)

Actually this was filmed in 1944 but copyrighted in 1948. Actually it never was copyrighted which means that any unscrupulous turd who wanted to show this at his moom pitcher house or on his tee-vee station could do so w/o fear of reprimand. Actually, who'd want to see this film inna first place unless you're nostalgic for seventies-vintage UHF television viewing of cheap public domain westerns that somehow reflect the lost sense of chungeredness you've experienced at three in the morning only to be jolted out of your half-awake stupor by roll-a-sage chair commercials and public service announcements for the Army and Peace Corps (I mean, what better way to get the recruits in than to run ads in the middle of the night when all of the speed freaks and crossroads of life post-highschoolers are lined up in front of the boob tube!).

Actually since I'm one fellow who found loads of comfort and joy (to use a current holiday cliche of some worth) spending hot summer nights in the early-eighties watching movies along these lines with that brainless sense of awe permeating my entire being. Either that or I was just too lazy to get up and change the channel. But I wouldn't be lying if I told you that I do find that the monotone acting, nada musical numbers and re-rehashed plots quite exhilarating. Not to mention the quick film cuts lopping off loads of important dialogue at the end of reels. Even I knew that during this particular time in history we were at the tail end of a grand period in television when the last of the originators of the form were handing over the reigns to the new generation we all knew were gonna ruin the entire media beyond repair. And it was movies such as this, cheap westerns which had filled up television schedules since the post-World War II days, that seemed to make up a good portion of the late-movie/off-time filler at least until the nineties gave way to informercials and unbridled scatology. Who among us can claim not to have spend a sticky summer night watching films like TROUBLE AT MELODY MESA glued to the set either in transfixed awe, or perhaps because your flesh adhered to the naugahide recliner and you couldn't get up in a million years even if you tried!

Standard plot with bad guys out to get beautiful gal's ranch and a hero marshal (played with typical Quindlanesque aplomb by Brad King) on the case of a suspicious death. Of course there's a kid in there for youth identification, a comedic cook who can throw his voice and of course loads of cornpone humor that might work well on the comic pages but misses by a mile here. And if you think I know who any of the names of the actors who worked on this 'un are or what other mooms they've been in you're mistaken! But man if this didn't bring back memories of the early-eighties when films like this could be seen with relative ease, a time which for me represents the final years of Golden Age filler tee-vee being presented here and for free right before the PC clamp down banished such "trash" in favor of stiflingly serious dramas and humor that seem to serve no one but the darkest side of man's soul which should remain repressed rather than flaunted for all to see here in the dismal, future-less teens.

Christmas came early this year! I don't mean that one of my dreaded foes of the past or present got run over by a train (or better yet, something catastrophic happened to his/her significant other or spawn which is something I can also get off on!), but man did I get a hotcha enough Christmas present from none other than the infamous P.D. FADENSONNEN!!!!! Yes, the same guy who's been sending me all of these fantastic under-the-psychosis recordings that merge Can-like interstellar travelogues with WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT fidelity! Not only did Mr. Fadensonnen's package bring back fond memories of Christmas gifts past like the kind I got during my turdler years and directly after (the Corgi Toy Christmas of 1968 still dazzling me with those jeweled headlights), but for once I got a Christmas gift which for all intent purposes was actually useful in a non-socks or underwear way and will remember for a good twenty or so years after this fateful event!!!

What Fadensonnen did was...get this...send me some Cee-Dee-Are burns which I must say contain musics that fit in with the BLOG TO COMM mindset with not a spec of cereal filler inna batch either! Really, these platters that the man felt so kind to send my way consist of music that I actually can soak-in appreciate, as opposed to just settle back and listen to and pretend to like and all which is what seems to be the situation when it comes to a whole lotta pre-recorded soundage these days. Stuff that I would burn off the computer myself if the thing wasn't sicker'n Camille and coughing up electronic phlegm to add, or perhaps even bid on for exorbitant prices when something excrucuiatingly rare does transpire on ebay. In other words, music that has made up the DNA of my blueprint and backbone of my psyche for nigh on XXX years, and if I thought I'd ever live to see the day when material this hot and juicy was made available to mere lumpen proles like myself I woulda thought it woulda been the day after I expire considering the way fate works with me!

Got the opportunity to spin two of these to date, and naturally I first went for the more  eye-gouging in the stack considering that if I held off on 'em something drastic would naturally happen to me in the interim and poof goes my chance! The first of these disques consists of a Deviants/Pink Fairies-related sampler that was taken off of youtube (which is why I decided to download the music source for yourself below just so's you can make your own Cee-Dee or Dee-Vee-Dee for your own personal entertainment purposes) that still amazes me even though I've been around the septic tank more'n you! After a good umpteen years things like these just aren't supposed to dazzle here in the jaded teens but really, discovering the mere existence of these clips really is along the lines of archaeologists finding King Rooten-Tooten's turd cutter. I never thought material this long-suppressed would make its way to our eyes and ears in a millyun years, and considering the rarity of these items its obvious that these are mandatory listening for anybody who has claimed an allegiance to the whole Deviants/Pink Fairies/Twink/Larry Wallis axis ever since first setting sight on an import bin way back in the seventies.

The first Deviants-related offering is a outta-nowhere who woulda thunk it surprise, a film (with soundtrack!) of the group live in Hyde Park way back '69 way. After years of being told that no sixties-era Deviants material outside of the first three albums existed 'tis a gas noy only to listen to, but to see the group in action not only romping through a rather proto-Dr. Feelgood-ish pub rock r&b number (whose title escapes me...any help from the penis gallery?) but the standard set closer, the group's own version of "Sister Ray" which at this time has pretty much morphed into "Uncle Harry's Last Freak Out" (with only a "time time" from the original remaining!). In a word (or eleven), essential to the point where I can't even stand it anymore!

Following this piece of downright epiphany comes a more familiar yet still essential clip of the Pink Fairies leading that fife and drum corp at the 1971 Glastonbury Fayre festival, this bit not appearing on the three-album set but still a good enough in capturing the essence and spirit of hippie punkdom at a time when I don't think anybody outside of Greg Shaw knew it existed.



And as far as the Fairies got howz'bout this bit taken from a French television program back '73 way? Somebody break out the Berlitz French/English dictionary and be quick about it!



If that wasn't boffo enough, hold onto your 'nads, for the following French tee-vee clip features none other than UFO back when future Pink Fairy Larry Wallis was their guitar slinger! As you will discover, the group seems about half-way between their original garage-punky sound back when Mick Bolton was handling the guitar doodies and the straight-ahead metallic stylings of their Michael Schenker days and if you want my 'umble opin'yin I must say that Wallis does more'n an admirable job keeping this from being some seventies rock wank we all could do without! Its too bad they hadda split so acrimoniously given the friction between Wallis and longtime lead singer Phil Mogg because if Wallis stayed with the group like, maybe they coulda been underground gryphons!



Closing out the disque was this bit of Larry Wallis live on the infamous Stiffs Live tour which begat the album that everybody bought because Elvis Costello, Ian Dury and Nick Lowe were posing on it with those nobodies Wreckless Eric and Wallis. Or something like that, but anyway here's a clip of Wallis doing the song that probably earns him more in royalties yearly than a plumber makes in a week, "Police Car"...

Also spun was a Sonny Sharrock platter that fortunately gathers the rarities in one neat place this saving me plenty of precious space as well as the opportunity to lose ten different Cee Dee's, tapes, records and whatnot all over the house once they get scattered. It certainly was a joy finally getting to hear THE GREEN LINE especially considering how I more or less gave up on this '70 album which would either be out of stock or going for extremely high bids via ebay. Gotta admit that it's not as outre or stunning as either MONKEY-POCKIE-BOO or BLACK WOMAN but it still holds up, with Sharrock and his bandmates (Miroslav Vitous, Steve Marcus and Daniel Humair) going through funk to midweight jazz to avant garde back and forth up and down and in all making a better album than I even was expecting. Even more ear-opening's the FM radio broadcast from WKCR-FM in En Why See I believe featuring some studio recordings from Sonny and eventually ex-wife Linda's mid-seventies outfit which went by the name Savages. More or less an early version of the group that would record PARADISE for Atco the following year, these tracks sound like rehearsals for that album, though without the presence of a keyboardist adding Mellotron wash all over the place these definitely are an improvement. Closing the platter's the rare SPACE GHOST EP which features some mighty near-metallic playing on Sharrock's part that I only wish I knew about at the time just sos' I coulda been cheerleading for it like I was all of those other Sharrock rarities that were being discovered left and right. Too bad the guy croaked the way he did right when it looked as if his talents would have begun to pay off in the moolah department, but at least he existed long enough to make this particularly powerful (and even commercial!) statement!

More Fadensonnen offerings (including a sneak peak at a future release!) are in the forecast for future funtime jollies but they'll have to wait until next week. And for all intent purposes the week after as well. I mean, I don't wanna shoot my entire Christmas wad all at once now and risk the chance of overdose now, do I?

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Also spun during the warm 'n toasty evening hours was a relative recent recording, in fact one that was laid down at the infamous Knitting Factory (gotta say that Rudolph Grey's not the only one who hates that name!) just the past November (the 15th to be exact!) The name of the act was Lydia Lunch Retrovirus and the set this act laid down was one that I gotta say even startled a usually jaded ol' stroon such as myself! This new act features, besides the infamous nightengale herself Lydia Lunch, Weasel Walter on guitar 'stead of the usual drums, Algis Kizys (a name that does pop up once in awhile) on bass guitar and former whole buncha groups Bob Bert on drums and I gotta say that they sure do the whole very early-eighties Lunchian schtick with total grace and even some sparks of brilliance. The material to be found here is not only entertaining (as in a night on the town with a tux even!) but even inspired...I mean, whoever thought of ending the set with Alice Cooper's "Black Juju" was using all eight cylinders considering how such a track was more or less custom made for the likes of Lunch's vocal cords. The only really startling thing about this 'un is the way the lady sounds these days, all bleated out for her voice is deeper and starting to get a bit gravelly beyond her once teenage years. By the way she sings Lydia reminds more of that old bag in the school cafeteria dishing out the fried baloney sandwiches than the enfant terrible abomination of yore 'n yeah, I know we can't all be pimplefarm suburban slob kids anymore but hearing this really made me feel older than a NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC in a dentist's waiting room. At least no pictures came with this, because after hearing her sing I'd hate to see what she looks like nowadays!

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Over the years, I've discovered that it's just as exhilarating an experience reading about H. L. Mencken as it is reading Mencken. Maybe even more so, for most of the articles out there regarding the Bard of Baltimore are filled with hefty choice quotes the man spewed forth during his rather stellar and controversial career, and although you will have to put up with whoever wrote the piece's various dissections, interpretations and biased opinions regarding what you just read with your own eyes at least you're getting a choice hunk of the man's actual writings that you can let soak into you like an olive oil sunscreen. All this is just an introduction to an article I came across (on the always boffo TAKI'S MAGAZINE site) that gets into the meaning and motion of Mencken, and frankly I gotta say that the views and opines expressed really nail what the guy was all about flat straight on the head (though I must admit that I wasn't aware of his eugenicist leanings, which I must say I find even uglier than all of the other "disturbing" opines that still tend to get tenderfoot political theorists all in a tither). Be forewarned, the piece was written by Jared Taylor of AMERICAN RENAISSANCE notoriety which might turn more than a few of you socially aware types off faster'n IT'S WHAT'S HAPPENIN', BABY, but I believe it's a much better piece'n what somebody at THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF REVIEWS might have come up with racist shudders and ethnic cringes included so don't bark until you've read the bite!

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While I'm on a hot buttered roll, here's yet another good 'un, this time from Taki regular Guy Somerset who pretty much sums up my own opinions regarding "women" and I don't mean ladies. Given the amt. of hefty horse doody that these "females" have been slinging our way these past few decades all I gotta say is well, it's sure grand reading something sensible and irrefutable with regards to "gender equality" and other brainy college constructs these sad 'n sorry days. In other words SEGREGATION (between human beings and "women") is the rule for the day, and the sooner we pack all of them whiny libber types into Camp Runamuk the better we don't have to put up with all of that hideous twisting of reality where boys are raised as girls and generation after generation of Judy Hennslers have been nurturned and encouraged for a longer time than I can imagine!

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Other'n the Fadensonnen sampler and a few other tidbits that'll hafta wait for a bigger, "theme-oriented" post, here's what's been spinnin' on the ol' boom box these past seven or so dayze. A few newies and a couple long-forgottens amongst the mix, and if I tell you that a good time was had by all I'd be a bigger liar than the guy who told me he had seen the future of rock 'n roll and it was Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam!

BARR SHEA DAHL CD (ugEXPLODE)

I didn't know what I was gonna be in for after taking a look of the weirdo hippie onna cover, but if I were you I wouldn't let that get in the way of actually enjoying this disque. Anyway the pic here's a composite of features from all three members of this group (who, surprisingly enough), go by the names Barr, Shea and Dahl and who on their lonesome probably do not look as frightening as the chap seen to your left. The music, on the other hand, will frighten the weaker of heart among us with its downright full-on guitar attack and pounding percussion and thudding bass guitar that makes a racket that's not surprisingly equal parts rock 'n roll (of the outer reaches variety) but avant garde jazz at its extreme glory. If the words DAILY DANCE do not pop into your mind almost immediately please enroll in the rock refresher course of your choice post-haste, or even sooner if you can manage that.

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Cabaret Voltaire-LIVE YMCA 27.10.79 CD (Mute England)

I dunno if I could really call YMCA an old favorite, but it sure brings back pleasant enough memories for me. Well, it at least brings back oft-forgotten mental images not only of me prowling the import bin at RECORD REVOLUTION in Cle Hts. during my Christmas break which is where I might have picked this 'un up to begin with (but I doubt it), but it sure conjures up old feelings regarding just how the whole Rough Trade thing was something that made for a hefty and perhaps even healthy obsession around the time 1979 was clocking into 1980. Whether I first heard this 'un in 1980 or 1987 (when I think I finally did buy it) is irrelevant at this point for...after a good two or so decades of on/off interest I can proudly say that perhaps the idea and concept behind Cabaret Voltaire has finally hit me hard right between the psyche like it shoulda oh so long ago.

In other words, I certainly can NOT relate to Cabaret Voltaire as a proto-dance rock-y neo-disco electronic outfit that signified the decline of a once-interesting music movement over in Blighty, but as a buncha oldsters who were in on the glorious Velvets/Can axis of sound distillation into electronic pulse and doin' it long before I discovered this particular breed of poison yeah, it WORKS! Wonderful cassette-recorded pulse that's born and bred just as much of Neu! and Kraftwerk as it is Lou and Ig, complete with harrowing covers of "Here She Comes Now" and the Seeds' "No Escape" for added NUGGETS measure! A downright winner that makes me feel as if I'm on an eternal Christmas break with nothing to do but scarf up little hunks of foil-wrapped gouda!

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Tom Waits-TALES FROM THE UNDERGROUND CD-R (originally on PMS)

Don't think this 'un's legitimate by any stretch of the imaj, but considering that I got it free with an order of equally illicit goodies a few years back and stashed it away it ain't like I'm callin' the Better Business Bureau. Tom Waits recorded in the studio and who-knows-where, doing everything from the standard titties and beer nighthawk routine to Johnny Cash impersonations and other sundries. Actually made for good Sunday afternoon listening while I plowed through a box of old rock magazines. If you're one who was in on the hipster pose back when Steve Allen and Jean Shepard were broadcastin' it and Harvey Kurtzman was publishin' it and came to age around the time Frank Zappa was honing the fifties dabblings into har-har-har-dee-har-hardcore sixties realism, you'll probably go for a spin or two of this in between Soupy Sales videos.

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William Parker-CENTERING 6-CD set burn (No Business)

Just in time to qualify for best jazz release of the year comes this brand-spanking-fresh-new set courtesy none other than Paul McGarry! And it was lifted from a box set (released this year) of rare sessions and live appearances by none other than jazz bassist William Parker! Now Parker never did get the fame or notoriety that fellow avant bassists from Henry Grimes and Alan Silva on down have and frankly I don't know if this collection of '76-'87-era recordings is gonna rectify any situations. But whatever the case may be this sure is a hotcha sampling of the man's work throughout the seventies and eighties when loft jazz was briefly in bloom and it seemed as if the even newer jazz was going to attain an audience beyond the same few free jazz nuts who kept the New Music Distribution Service afloat at least before that became too monstrous a thing for anybody to do!

Now I wouldn't say there was anything here that really strikes me as being transcendental the way you felt when things like INTERSTELLAR SPACE and FREE JAZZ first penetrated your bean, but these six slabs are still an amazing MONUMENT for a guy who I don't think even a rag such as THE WIRE had the opportunity to dissect like some smelly old frog. From solos with saxist/trumpeter Daniel Carter (how I'd once again love to experience his group Storm who did a beyond-energy one-off show at the old CBGB Lounge way back in the middle portion of the previous decade!) to various ensemble performances, these platters really capture the place and space where the free music scene was stationed between the brief flurry of mid-seventies major label interest and modern-day apathy, and they do a pretty good spanking job rep\resenting a good hunk of Parker's leadership talents too.

The performances aren't quite all-out AACM clang or BAG funk-rock, but slow, moving, intertwining and sheesh, almost chamber music! With top-notch new jazz performers from Rashied Bakr (original Blue Humans drummer) and Charles Gayle to Billy Bang and Denis Charles (he's the one who added that strange percussive pulse to Sandy Bull's DEMOLITION DERBY album), CENTERING is an unexpected surprise that serves to remind us all that the avant garde vanguard never did die out even if for all intent purposes the jazz establishment (which as always feigned faint praise and delivered no vital support for the free scene) seems to wish it was.

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TASAVALLAN PRESIDENTTI CD (Love Records, Finland)

Well, I did mention that I might pick this 'un up due to Lester Bangs' recommendations way back in a '69 ROLLING STONE and I can't say that I'm totally sorry I plunked down my hard-begged for it either. At least I now know what this long-heralded Finnish jazz-rock group sounds like, and while they're not exactly the Blood Sweat and Tears clones some made 'em out to be (though vocalist Frank Robson does sound too much like David Clayton Thomas for comfort) they're certainly not the inspired continental style of rock group blasting forth the same style of nova music that Savage Rose and Can were making just around the same nanosecond. Better moments capture some sort of post-Soft Machine/Canterbury elegance but that usually gets washed away by a rather commercial prog/jazz bent that probably wouldn't do a thing (positive) for you unless you're one of those new fluff jazz aficionados and want to try out something a little more toe tapping. The strange thing about it is, considering how 95% of all Finns are inbred these guys could be related to Miriam Linna and that's a frightening thought, especially for Miriam!

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Yeah, I know this post has the look, feel and rhythm of a hastily pecked out, tossed together post and all, I make no bones about it, because right not (at this stage in my existence) I feel like a hastily pecked out, tossed together human being about three steps away from the scrap heap! Even so, I hope to be back in the saddle for the usual mid-week post and of course a bigger one this weekend unless the worst happens which, given my recent track record, probably will.

BOOK (AND CD) REVIEW! PICTURES OF SOUND; ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF EDUCED AUDIO 980-1980 by Patrick Feaster (Dust-To-Digital, 2012)

The idea of "educed sound," that being the ability to capture audio from printed material that was not intended to be reproduced as sound and in fact might have been created before technology would have even made such an idea thinkable, is one that really stretches the boundaries regarding what lost fragments from the past there are which can be retrieved here in the computer savvy present. Patrick Feaster has done just that with his canny abilities to take early (and visually) recorded sound patterns and translate them to sound...in fact, you might have remembered when, a few years ago, he took such an example of sound patterns (which were not intended to be reproduced as sound but to study how voice and music could be produced visually) that were created by a Edouard Leon Scott de Martinville and, through the abilities of modern computer savvy, was able to create the sound of the man singing the French classic "Clare de Lune" that was made in the year of 1860!

That one appears on the enclosed disque, though at a slower, more distorted speed that pretty much hides the snappy melody under a pile of hiss and distortion. Actually, many of the educed audio that appears on the recording accompanying this rather engaging read are distorted to the point you think you're listening to some bedroom avant gardist from the eighties, but the whole idea of translating early written down formations of patterns into actual sound is so brilliant you can't help but congratulate Feaster for his efforts and hope that the technology of the future will uncover even more lost artifacts of the past that hopefully will pave the way for a better future (though I doubt it).

It's uncanny just thinking of how we have advanced in the realm of science to the point where Feaster could actually take an advertisement showing a printed recording made by long-time raconteur Chauncey Depew that appeared in a late-nineties issue of COSMOPOLITAN and derive sound from the groove patterns presented therein! Or in fact take various "phonophotography" featuring early gospel quartets and actually get some semblance of sound for his efforts. Some of this does seem far fetched with results that really don't say anything special to me (such as the translation of the FBI "Sound Spectrum") but when Feaster takes early scrolls and gets 17th century compositions out of them, or Russian folk melodies from transcribed patterns I can't help but feel that something long-gone and crucial has been recaptured for the present. It would be like if the long decayed beyond belief films of the past could be restored (or in some cases even recovered) to pristine beauty with a science that at this point in time is far beyond our grasp but someday will allow people to see images we long thought existed only in the minds of the few who could remember.

A fantastic effort which FORCED EXPOSURE has been selling as of late, though if you want to get it from the source click on the link above which will take you not only to the Dust-To-Digital website where you can order this, but fill you in on even more educed audio that Feaster is continuing to produce for perhaps an even newer edition of this worthwhile endeavor.

Yeah I know, you want me to dispense with the usual introductory chin flap and get to the meat 'n gristle, right? Well, who says that I don't treat my readers for more (or less, depending) than they're worth anyway...

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO 45th ANNIVERSARY SUPER DELUXE EDITION 6-CD set and book (Polydor)

Like yeah, I wasn't gonna get it. And you all know why by now. With my limited monetary resources it ain't like I'm really up to buying recordings (no matter how life-reaffirming and essential they may be) that I already have in various formats. Nor am I that hot on all of these "special edition" releases featuring the same-old tracks that are finally getting the royal carpet treatment. And as we all know, these "new" and "improved" releases are only going to be upgraded even more within the span of a few years time so why buy 'em now? I mean yeah, if this 45th anniversary reissue of that all-time wowzer THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO is gonna be the ultimate last word in what this platter means in the annals of eternal rockism, then can you imagine what the FIFTIETH anniversary collection will have? Not to mention the 75th and 100th for that matter which really makes me wanna stick around to be 107 because can you imagine all of the money I will be saving by not buying these earlier special editions which just toss at'cha the same old mixes plus whatever newies might get discovered in the interim?

And so it comes, this time in a hard-covered book with almost 100 glossy pages covering the early Velvet Underground saga that's just chock brimming fulla photos showing our fave rave group creating art or just hanging around like all of our fave rave groups do. Not only that, but the cover comes complete with a peelable banana giving it even more class, and there's not one or two but six Cee-Dees filled with aural booty that captures the sound and aura of what the Velvet Underground meant and continues to mean for the countless number of fans out there whether they be sixties originals or seventies CREEM maniacs, or youngsters who just caught up with everybody else and think that this group's the neatest!

To which I say "so what!" We've seen all of those once-rare snaps over and over (and over and over even more in this age of instant internet), and it should be common fact that I and just about any Velvet cultist can write the entire story in our sleep complete with the obligatory nods to David, Iggy and Patti (and of course REM at least to endear ourselves to classic FM radio corporate interests), not to mention have to endure a re-re-repeat of that oft-quoted Eno blurb about how everybody who bought the 30-thou copies this album way back when were inspired to form their own band. In fact, let me try writing this book in MY sleep...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..."Although highly reviled during their lifetime, the Velvet Underground have been noted by various people whose first names are David, Iggy and Patti to have sold 30-thou copies of their album which Eno blurbed influenced REM to form a classic FM radio corporate interest." Well, yeah, maybe I shouldnt't've taken all of those Ny-Quils before hitting the hay, though it does come off better'n some of the stuff I've written while conscious!

But hey, I chickened out and bought this, not only because I felt it was my own sacred duty to the aforementioned cult of the Velvet Underground (seed planted when that weird Swan-covered collection hit the bins at JC  Penney's) but because frankly there wasn't much else out there that was worth burning a hole in my pocket and I figured why not? And for once I made a wise choice, for THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO  45th ANNIVERSARY SUPER DELUXE EDITION actually fills the bill not only for the nouveau Velvet Underground fanatic (who I imagine as some mid-forties upwardly-spiraled Jeannie Garofalo fan who still wets bed ecstatically over each and every one of the "new" Velvet Undergrounds that have been coming out these past ten or so years), but with the "old" and in fact "ancient" Velvets crazies (coots like us who first heard about 'em in the pages of CREEM or even CRAWDADDY for all I know and gave up on banking hope re. any "new" Velvets somewhere around the time A New Order came into the public consciousness).

First the book. Not bad actually, especially when I had an inkling that it was going to be yet another re-hash of histories I've already praised to the hilt over the years done up in a postmodern sickly fashion. Or worse yet, a sad-sack look through 45 years of rose-colored hindsight written by a scion of the "new" Velvets fandom who always seemed so frail that a light breeze'd topple him over. Ritchie Unterberger wrote this 'un, and although what he did jot down here is a far cry from the jam-packed, indulgent information he relayed to us in his VU day-by-day tome a few years back it's still vital enough with even some recently-uncovered mini-bits of historical tweaking that you'll be glad you found out about. The pix are basically the same 'uns we've seen over and over, but if you look hard enough you might notice a few outtakes from some of the more familiar photoshoots that'll have you doing headspins given your anal-retentive obsessive over the subject matter. Maybe not, but they're here for your eyeballing if you so desire to.

It's the music that we're really interested in, and as far as presenting it as it is supposed to be heard goes at least Polydor did a good job. Now, I don't really care for alternative mixes or mono vs. stereo or any of that HIGH FIDELITY AND STEREO REVIEW hi-fi nut stuff that seemed the realm of an early-sixties-looking guy in horn-rimmed glasses and a necktie who fiddled with his knobs in lieu of swinging a few on the golf course, so the first two platters here aren't anything special to me outside of containing some of the better rock 'n roll music to have been heard in the sixties or for that matter since. But they sound good in any fashion...mono, stereo or even quad if there was a mix of that around even though I can't imagine some long-hair sitting on a pad inside of four speakers listening to anything on these platters! The alternate takes and single versions that close out the disques do matter to me, and although there ain't anything on these that's so different from the original takes to make you wanna do a li'l shoplifting at least you do get to hear some of your favorite elpee moments once again before the disque clicks off, and the slight differences you may be able to notice will probably perk your ears up more'n Lassie's!

The inclusion of Nico's CHELSEA GIRL as disque #3 might have been inspired, but like you I already have this 'un so the question is...why? True, this is as important to the early-Velvets canon as all of those weirdities like "Loop" and "Noise," but I wish more would have been added to pad out the platter into something that would have been a little more...cohesive? (Break out your own thesauruses to find a suitable way to express my, and probably your, disappointment that more wasn't tacked on to at least bolster the CHELSEA GIRL credo the way it should have been.) At least disque 4 has not only the oft-bootlegged Scepter Studios tracks but some of the Andy Warhol Museum rehearsal tapes, and they sure sound fab! Not a skip or crackle to be heard here, and even with the noise-reduction and editing hijinx these sound a whole lot better'n they had on the reams of bootlegs we've been buying over the past few decades. (I will admit that I did notice some awkward editing on "Waiting For My Man" but I don't want to go gettin' anybody involved with this 'un in trouble so mum's da woid!) Gee, I thought that the issuing of any more Velvet rarities was being held up in court...well, at least the presence of these tracks gives me hope that all of those rumored rarities from the early Falling Spikes and Warlocks-era rehearsals to a studio "Sweet Sister Ray" will be eventually released, and post haste as well since it ain't like I got all day!

Closing out the set are two platters taken from the infamous Valleydale Ballroom in Columbus from December of 1966, and after giving these a listen all I can say is TECHNOLOGY TOTALLY TRIUMPHS once again! Dunno what they're doing nowadays, but these recordings actually sound rather clear and distinct compared with the previous bootlegs and cassettes that have been flying around for years, even to the point where you can hear someone yelling for a "Doug" (undoubtedly Doug Snyder of DAILY DANCE and Sick Dick and the Volkswagens fame) at some point during the festivities. Now these tapes don't sound crystal clear to the point where you can hear the pimples forming on Lou Reed's forehead during a particularly stirring solo, but they're close enough for a legitimate early-mid-sixties live platter and that's more'n good enough for me!

Hokay, it ain't the totally-enveloping selection of ne'er before heard songs and stuff so rare even Lou forgot about it muckity muck we've given up hoping for, but it's nice enough a tribute you'll feel good enough plunking your filthy lucre down for. As far as it adding to the legend goes, well I don't know if the legend really needs anything more added to it since it's already larger than any of us would have imagined, so let's just say that this 45th anniversary blowout compliments everything we've loved about the Velvet Underground with perhaps a few more bonus points tossed in for good measure. Only real beef with this package is that the Cee-Dees are packed tightly in these inserts in the back of the book, and it can be a real struggle to try to get 'em out w/o marring the precious disque surface! Somebody shoulda thought of that beforehand, unless the folk at Polydor just thought this was a book for showin' off and nobody'd even think of playing these things once let alone over and over again in a thousand years! And given what Lester Bangs once said about people who owned WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT just because it was a hip thing to do even though they never actually played it well, I wouldn't doubt Polydor's actions one bit!

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JOHN CAGE SHOCK VOLUMES 1, 2 and 3 CDs (EM Records Japan, available via Forced Exposure)

Those of you who were concerned that I wasn't going to get the triple Cee Dee version of the two-LP JOHN CAGE SHOCK collection which I reviewed awhile back feel free to exhale, for I was able to snatch up the scratch for the complete set of recordings made during the infamous Cage tour of Japan during the month of October in the year of 1962. It's a dandy too...unfortunately the recording of "Fontana Mix" with Ms. L herself Yoko Ono I've been wanting to hear ever since reading about it in LENNON DISMEMBERS ain't on here, but we do get to hear some additional trackage which'll slay ya even if none of it was composed or performed for that matter by Mr. Cage. Fans of Karlheinz Stockhausen will surely like listening to his "Klavierstiik X" performed by the tag team of David Tudor and Toshi Ichiyanagi, while Christian Wolff  gets his "Duo For Pianist & Violinist" worked out for perhaps the first time ever in the annals of history. The comparatively unknown Toru Takemitsu and Michael von Biel are also represented on these platters, and if anything their efforts prove that they coulda been as well-known and as popular as the likes of Cage or Stockhausen if they had only hit the right art patrons at the right time. But they didn't, so it's zilch string for alla 'em bub!

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Paul Flaherty/Sam Gas Can/White Limo-MYSTERY TRIANGLE LP (Feeding Tube Records)

A document of a festival I have the feeling very few readers of this blog would have cared to attend. As for myself I probably wouldn't want to either, but that's only because I've become too much of a bedroom-bound ball of blubber these past few decades to consider making it outside of the Tri State Area even if it were to go see the Electric Eels reunite on a bill with the Sidewinders (also reuniting) opening. But still it sounds as if it were a mighty fine time...Paul Flaherty wails a whole side of free avant garde sax splat not as studious as Anthony Braxton or guttural as Roscoe Mitchell but still better'n many of the newer players who seem to be lacking a little more than heart and soul in their embouchure. Sam Gas Can on the other han' make such an annoying electronic barrage (with some rather creepazoid vocalese thrown in) that only a fan of latterday Dredd Foole could appreciate it (and I must admit that I do as well), whilst White Limo don't do much better with their manipulated tape conglobuating but I'll take it over 1986 college radio playlists any day! You can tell a fine time was had by all, though whether or not you'll be able to face the music remains to be seen.

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Amon Duul II-DANCE OF THE LEMMINGS CD (Mantra, France)

If you don't think my plunking this 'un outta the collection and givin' it a spin was not inspired by the Lester Bangs writeup mentioned in last Wednesday's review of the EUROCK collection you're in an even sadder state than I've originally given you credit for! And maybe it's because I used to stare at this 'un while perusing the import section of White Wing Records in Niles Ohio that I have such an affection for it not only because the double-disc set had such a hefty price tag on it and I'd never be able to afford the thing given my depression-era wages, but the credit listing on the back had such a nice array of instruments next to the various musicians' names and just seeing all of those instruments, no matter how humble and  lowly they may be, really hit me hard right inna labonza!

And of course who wouldn't want to know what tracks sporting titles as mind-consuming as "Dehypnotized Toothpaste" and "A Short Stop at the Transylvanian Brain Surgery" sounded like? Not to mention "The Marilyn Monroe Memorial Church"??? Yeah, maybe you could take it or leave it a good four decades after having seen it all, but what if you were a sixteen-year-old loathsome blob of jangled nerves and pustules like me? Yeah, if any album on the earth was created for a species such as myself it would undoubtedly have to be this!!!

So all these years later, and a good twenny years after eventually picking this up on Cee-Dee all I can say is that if I had heard this 'un back '76 way it probably would have affected me more than WOLF CITY (which was more or less the concepts of the first four Amon Duul II albums boiled down to steady song structures and perhaps even some radio play) or even the krautpunk fantasies of CARNIVAL IN BABYLON and VIVE LA TRANCE which were cutout classics by that time yet not quite as energetic or powerful which is why they ended up on the sell pile within a few years. It's rather obvious that Bangs was right and Julian Cope was wrong about this particular item which contains some of the best sprawled out mindshatter that used to get classified as "psychedelic" until that became too overused a cliche to wrangle, and as it stands LEMMINGS is perhaps one of the closest examples of krautrock outside of Can (even more so than Faust!) which not only summed up all of the better aspects of late-sixties rock trends, but predicted what was gonna be comin' down the line within a few short years (Pere Ubu anyone?). And although you've heard it from me and many others for years on end until you can recite it in your nightmares, let me reiterate that this has as much power and conviction in its grooves that sure adds up to it being more than Germany's answer to the Airplane or Dead, but a bona-fide Velvet Underground to Can's Stooges and I don't know where Guru Guru fit in but it's sure gonna be fun sorting out the whole influence and correlation mess these outta-the-way scenes sure can generate!

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Charles Mingus-THE BLACK SAINT AND THE SINNER LADY CD (Impulse)

Regarding this '63 Mingus platter, Lester Bangs said "This was IT! Babies being born, taxicabs honking, people fucking, couples fighting, the cries of lonely anguish that no one else hears in solitary rooms, children laughing, insurgents and guerrillas clashing, people of all sorts crying, shouting and whooping for joy, stunned at the crossroads, and some of them dying." Hokay, I know I've been using the memory of Bangs as way too much of a crutch these past umpteen years (even though Wayne McGuire has usurped him on many a level) in order to unsuccessfully support my own theories and opines regarding music as a clarion call to the disaffected and downright frothing...after all if you won't listen to me you might listen to him...but right now I'm having what'cha'd call a severe pain in the right kneecap of my creative impulses and boy do I feel lame in the spirit enough that I could try out for the Raymond Burr role in a remake of IRONSIDE, or at least Tiny Tim in a local grade school production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL that always features the goofiest boy with the buckest teeth playing Ebenezer Stooge.

I can see Bangs' appreciative nod to this 'un, and in fact can imagine his fifteen-year-oldness spinning BLACK SAINT repeatedly on some battered Victrola while his mother was waiting tables unaware her spawn was playing hookey. I mean, what better way to spend a carefree day off while all the other kids were probably learning the finer points of Hugo Winterhalter in music class that very minute. But yeah, this is a great long sprawl that goes from mood and style faster'n Anastasia Pantsios used to change pads, with a blast of hotcha avant garde jazz here before sweeping into Duke Ellington wash there and tone poems all over the blasted thing. Sure it was stuff those stuck up pseudointellectuals would listen to, but it was a load lots better'n the Brothers Four or even lumpy ol' Joan Baez as far as outer realms of a person's own hotcha mettle went. Anybody who'd tell me they were spinning Mingus in those proto-protest days will earn some boffo no prizes in my book, while those who'd admit a Baez affection probably still live in treehouses and make gravestone rubbings while reciting Chaucer in the wilds and that's no jive, Clive!

BOOK REVIEW! EUROCK, EUROPEAN ROCK & THE SECOND CULTURE, BY ARCHIE PATTERSON, 2002, (Eurock Publications, PO Box 13718, Portland, OR 97213)

As in the case of the ALTER EGO collection reviewed two weeks back, this humongous sampling of work from the pages of Archie Patterson's 70s/80s fanzine entitled  EUROCK does lose something in the translation from mimeograph to typeset. As I often say, there's just something special about reading the opines of a person nobody in the industry or real life press would give a shit about (which is usually a sign of just how insightful and valuable their writing and abilities to discuss just what it is that makes the music at hand worthy of praise or dismissal), especially when it's presented in an home-produced and amateurish yet attuned to your own sense of musical values fashion that's easy on the eyes. And reading these almost-40-year-old articles in more or less their original setting's sure a whole lot easier on the mind than having it typeset (on something a little more technologically advanced than an IBM Selectric) and reprocessed complete with professionally screened pics and of course all of those updates and edits to fit into the more streamlined thought processes of 21st century Earth with all of the piousness and gut-wrenching tingles that may imply!

But (as usual) I'll take a good fanzine read any which way they choose it! And although this collection of choice morsels from EUROCK sure come off better in the original type and dimensions of a mag you can read on the toilet (pretty hard with this think edition) I gotta say that I love the entire dickens outta this compilation of the mag's finest moments. Yeah it's got more than its share of a progressive rock bent as well as information on acts that you'd swear you'd never wanna listen to no matter how dry the well of rockist inspiration has run, but there's more than a good share of hefty info regarding my (and perhaps even your) personal favorites that'll keep you running back to this book whenever the pangs of continental rock escapism (from the confines of groups who sing with English as their first tongue) just might hit you hard upside the head.

As I've said many a time once before, the likes of the upper-echelon krautrock groups as well as many of the acts wiggling around in various other European enclaves were just as much a part of the whole punk rock continuum as the Velvet Underground and Stooges were. And true, many of these musicians tended to come from classical backgrounds and were conservatory trained thus approaching rock from a post-Beatles intellectual standpoint, but the sounds emitted by everybody from Can, the Amon Duul's and even the Tangerine Dream of their debut album were just as much a part of what 1969 punk rock was all about as all of those compact organ crunchers such as It's All Meat and the rest of those guys who still couldn't make up their minds whether or not they wanted to be part of the Sky Saxon shopping plaza set or Jim Morrison-esque pseudo-intellectual college bops! The members of Can might have been well respected idealists who were not only pushing thirty but could probably peck out the Minute Waltz on their bass guitars if the spirit was willing, but you know they were more content to find sonic nurturing in the same batch of outta-the-way record shops with sawdust onna floor that the rest of punk rock Ameriga 1969 found their soul and inspiration with, and if you don't think that's something that counts in their favor you're obviously reading the wrong blog, you prog!

Although I will admit a hefty portion of EUROCK caters to the more esoteric breed of record collector (the kind who would eventually find solace in aerie faerie syntho gnu age candy coat) there's enough here to send the standard fan of o-mind deep fry into unbridled spasms of joy. Lester Bangs' liner notes for the Amerigan pressing of DANCE OF THE LEMMINGS (which for one strange reason or another were never included in that instant cutout) opens the book, and with the man's penchant for slipping hefty p-rock refs. in between the usual San Fran/Jefferson Airplane comparisons that naturally get dredged up how could any true blue son of Stoogemerica be disappointed! Of course there's more'n just this rare piece of subatomic mind spasm, since EUROCK during its early days was blessed with the presence of American gonz scribe Hot Scott Fischer, a man who other'n Bangs was perhaps the first to see the connection between various underground trends happening in Germany and elsewhere and bring up the point that not only were Can and Guru Guru (among others) Germany's answer to the Stooges, but in many ways their entire styles and grooves had taken the original no-chord thud and run off with it in ways that the likes of Iggy and crew could not imagine. A debatable point true, but a whole lot more interesting a subject to ponder than whether or not Paul was the Walrus!

Of course there is plenty here to get the average (if there is one) BLOG TO COMM reader headin' for the nearest ebay auction within his grasp, such as an extended piece on noted radicals Ton Steine Scherben, not to mention the usual proto-punkian rants regarding the once-ignored but now hipster Neu! Even a bit on Kraftwerk will raise some shaved eyebrows with the brief description of a 1972 vintage live show on page 76, one where writer Reinhard Kunert recalls seeing Ralf and Florian doing their standard electronic set only to be joined by two guitarists doing an extremely early version of "Autobahn" that sounded nothing like the hit of three years later! In fact, with the guitars doing blitzkrieg swoops and careens Kunert said that the song resembled "a cross between John Cage and The Stooges" which I know is something that makes me curious enough to kill more than a litter of kittens!  I know that if anybody knows of the existence of this particular show via bootleg tape or Compact Disque (or good ol' vinyl even) they'd definitely keep it to themselves, but maybe if somebody out there was kind and generous enough to... Naw, you know that would never happen especially with all of you cutthroats out there!

Even a good portion of the rest of this book might soothe the punkian spirit within us. The piece on Jukka Tolonen was interesting enough for me, but that's only because I've read Bangs' review of the Tasavallan Presidentti album in ROLLING STONE and remain curious even a good thirtysome years after the fact. Other pieces such as the ones on the "Rock In Opposition" groups of the late-seventies was educational enough even if I'm not as much of a Henry Cow fan as I know I should be. Even if the likes of Supersister and Catherine Ribiero and Alpes might have piqued my attention on and off over the past X years at least the pieces here remind me that there's still time left in my life to give 'em a try. But still, how can you ignore a fanzine that was chock fulla such goodies as these early appreciations of the krautrock groups as well as various non-Teutonic worthies such as Savage Rose (who also teetered between European Classicism and Amerigan basement rock mentalities), not to mention an interview with the once-elusive Malcolm Mooney which is something that I'm sure was being sought after by just about every stop-the-presses fan of the German rock movement ever since the man became legend.

This is also available on a Cee-Dee-Rom for your personal computer (complete with an Amon Duul II television appearance that's probably all over the web by now), and I'm sure that if you write Archie at the above address he'll fill you in on all the details as to how one could purchase a copy for his very own. In any format this'll make a smart addition to your home and even if you have the fanzine's entire 1973-1993 run it ain't like you're gonna hafta search through boxes of mags just to find that one elusive interview with Annisette that you've been hungerin' to read after a few spins of YOUR DAILY GIFT! (Like I do after pushing my books and 'zines the back of the pile thus having to spend a good two hours trying to retrieve the things!)

I guess you made it through the Holiday Weekend OK for if not, you wouldn't be reading this.  I sure did (made it through OK, not read this), even though I hadda work not only Friday but Saturday which didn't leave me much time for Christmas shopping or stringing up those tiny lights that have replaced the glorious finger-burning tree lights of old where you hadda alternate the colors and if one of 'em went out they all went. Well, at least I got a couple more days of folding green in my wallet for my efforts, but if only there was something crucial to spend it on these days instead of the usual sundries like food, shelter and of course electricity would I be the happy camper! Maybe some of you readers out there have a good idea of where I can unload some of my extra loot in exchange for the plethora of recordings and reads that I've been sorely lacking in for the past umpteen years...if you do, be your usual selves and keep it all to yourself. I mean, why change your stuck up, arrogant, self-centered and loathesome behavior of a lifetime just for me?

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I must be doing something wrong! After all, the latest issue of DAGGER (available via the link up on the left or send $3.00 to PO Box 22938, Denver CO 80222) is out, and I actually found a number of articles in it that I could understand and (gosh!) even relate to in my own addled way! The "Summer 2012" issue, which arrived on a cold November day, features interviews with Dave from Rat at Rat R (remember them?), Pooch and Hudley from the old fLIPSIDE (not quite a fave of mine since they were the MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL JUNIOR of eighties self-conscious spoiled suburban brats) and the best of the batch, a collection of thought-provoking pieces by "famous scene makers" talkin' 'bout their favorite record shops of yore! You know, the places where all of those underground idols, writers and even famous for being famous types picked up those platters that grew hair on their chests and made 'em proud to be teenage pimplefarm music creeps in a world of Supertramp picture discs! Gosh, this really unearths a load of memories from my clogged cranium and makes me pine for the days when you could trek down to your favorite local store and snatch up just about any record made whether it be new, cutout, out of print or made in Guam for all I care! Great personal sagas to be viewed here, though the real question that editor Tim Hinely should have posed to these people was how many records did they STEAL from their fave shops anyway! That's a question, when posed perfectly, should get more'n a few rabid answers that are not only being plunked down for posterity but proves to you once and for all what creeps these underground tastemakers may be. Get your copy today, but please don't get any ideas to "boost" it from your own favorite honest to gosh record outlet (that is, if any are still in existence!).

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As you can tell from a few of the old/new/borrowed/blah! reviews below, I actually felt inspired enough to crank out a couple of reviews that were more than a paragraph padded with the Styrofoam of printed puff! At least congratulate me for that even though I seem to be at a loss for inspiration as the years progress and the fodder just doesn't seem as potent and life-reaffirming as it once was. Judging from the past few years of blogging, I've had about as much trouble reclaiming my glory days as the "Janitor of Rock Critics" as Ellen Willis had making it through a sentence without spewing out disdain for the goyim around her, but as usual I am not going to let that stop me from giving you yet another jam-packed, thought-provoking round of reviews that oughta get you headed for your nearest search engine in the hopes of wranglin' at least one or more of these tender items for your very own. Hope you have as much fun readin' 'em as I had writin' 'em...in fact I hope you have MORE fun since I gotta admit that I was mighty gloomy while putting some of the thoughts I was having below to type!

Lester Bangs and the Delinquents-JOOK SAVAGES ON THE BRAZOS LP (Live Wire)

Yeah, I can't believe it either. But it's true...listening to this album after years of jamming it to the back of the bin was a revelation, a flashback, a reminiscence of days gone by that I sure wish were still around. Or at least still retained a purpose and meaning here in the cold and unemotional (or is it a-emotional?) 'teens. But at least JOOK SAVAGES ON THE BRAZOS does serve a purpose here in the cyborg days of now, if only because it stirred up a fire deep inside me, one that reminded me of the latter portion of the seventies when I first listened to such classics as TEENAGE HEAD and NUGGETS (and would you believe Mick Farren and the Deviants?) and felt that warm spark ignite into a blazing flame like a furnace on a sub zero night. And believe-you-moi, but I never thought I was gonna feel like this again no matter how many hotcha Norton records keeping the name of rock 'n roll alive would pass the sanctity of my earwax and head straight into my ever hungering psyche!

Back when I first heard that JOOK SAVAGES was being released I gotta admit that I was a tad skeptical. Oh yeah, I thought Lester Bangs was the bestest thing to speak for rock 'n roll next to R. Meltzer and in fact I believed that his writing had improved by the time 1980 rolled around (after dismissing him as an over-praised beatnik bum who had lost his mind through romilar abuse and too many readings of "The Playboy Philosophy" as an impressionable youth), but I had feared his musical abilities weren't exactly gonna be the thing that would make for a rough and tumble listening experience. After all, if the man sang like he wrote we were all in trouble, not because his writing was bad (it sure wasn't even though the consensus seemed to say that Bangs' VILLAGE VOICE output was sorely lacking where his CREEM days were just brimming full of that punkian zest for erotic knowledge), but because it wouldn't just cut the mustard when packaged and presented to an audience that had been in on the gonz for nigh on a decade. And after hearing that live CBGB tape that's made the rounds for all of these years (not to mention the once-elusive "Let It Blurt" single) it became obvious that the guy did sing like he wrote, for all the good and (especially) bad that would imply.

Not only that, but the idea of Bangs being backed by the Delinquents wasn't one I exactly cherished at the time. Not because I heard, digested and pooped 'em outta my system (heck, I hadn't even heard
'em before this!) but the hype goin' 'round had 'em pegged as being Austin Texas' answer to the B-52's, and given how I had purchased, enjoyed and eventually spewed their debut from my collection feeling cheated once again (this was right during the '79/'80 cusp when new wave had surely evolved into the "gnu" wave that seemed the exact opposite of what it originally had started out to be) it wasn't like I wanted to clog up any more brain cells with what I perceived as cheap sixties sentiments filtered through seventies deca-geekdom. Oddly enough I did have a few deals with Delinquents leader Brian Curley during the late-eighties when he was somehow involved backing up a guy who fancied himself a Buddhist priest, but my memory of the recording he did send is so faint though definitely worthy of a re-eval in a joyless and soul-less world such as the one we are living in right at this very moment.

And believe it or not, but JOOK SAVAGES just proves how joyless and soul-less America as well as the rest of the once-free world has become since those days. We didn't take notice because it crept up on us like a cover of darkness while we were too busy living our real lives, but who could deny that the miasma is here and it's stark and dull to the point where we have become the real robotic stooges that people warned us we'd become only we were too engrossed with our records and rock cults to believe them. But man, this record exudes the warmth and excitement that I remember rock 'n roll was supposed to have had throughout the seventies when we put so much hope into that same new wave or punk or proto-punk or whatever to help rescue us from the original creeping meatballism that was AM/FM radio and general kultur. It jumps and speaks to you as if it were still 196/7X and things like rock 'n roll weren't just one of those distant memories but relevant to you because it was happening now 'stead of a beaut of a past that we could only remember through family stories or afternoon reruns for that matter.

There's a country twang that can be heard amid the late-seventies (admittedly) wave-ish musicianship, but don't confuse it with any future alt. country or rootzy toots that might have come out afterwards. Naw, this 'un still cooks on hefty sixties/seventies innovation that still had a whole lotta moxie in the "underground" rock scene of the day, or it did at least until that all tumbled into a variety of warring factions that never could agree on much in the first place. It would be wise to stick your copy alongside the Stooges and Groovies 'stead of the Cowboy Junkies and various latterday attempts to capture ideas that were fleeting at best, especially when you consider how few groups of the eighties onward seemed to have a grasp of what that Big Beat was supposed to have entailed which is why were were being inundated with so few albums like this and so many X-Tals to the point where that bared-wire genesis of the style from the Velvets through the Stooges on and upward became meaningless...

JOOK SAVAGES is powerful even when Bangs is getting into his humanist emotional moosh, and with the music raving on in between neo-country, Velvet-punk, voidoid and downhome outhouse romps it stays steady and powerful unlike many of the sounds that were overtaking the new muzak scene thus rendering the entire genre useless. Lester really could sing (the atonal growl of his Peter Laughner CREEM jams had matured into a more soulful, tuneful baritone) and the Delinquents are so conduit to his style that I feel ashamed regarding all of those nasty thoughts I had about Curley and company being a Western bunch of Rock Lobstering giddoids!

The more familiar tracks (at least to those who've scarfed up the album Bangs did with his New York punkazoid act Birdland) like "I'm In Love With My Walls" and "Kill Him Again" will be surprised at the rewrites that are about as different as those numbers that got changed in the transition from Rocket From The Tombs to Pere Ubu and the Dead Boys, while the unique to this album trackage is sure to stimulate any true seventies rockist's back-brain. My personal faves just happen to be side two's "Nuclear War" (a powerful  punk snarl with lyrics that just seem custom-written for seventies lost teenage angst and anger) as well as the oft-praised cover of Dale Hawkins' "Grandma's House," a song that begins as a sentimental ode to backwoods Southern living (a world that had already been dead by the time Hawkins originally recorded this b-side) which turns into utter horror with two all new verses about a murdered sister and a gentleman of African heritage who gets burned to death in his house not unlike the fate that befell Bangs' own father, albeit this particular fire's most definitely a premeditated act of loathing on the part of who-knows. It sure gave me the spiritual creeps back when I first lent ears to this album during the dank eighties, and in these even danker teens it still sends nerve-shoots of fright up my already frazzled nerveline!

I'm sure you want a download for your already boffo collection whether or not you never heard it before or could use a shiny disque for driving about. Here's a link to the Mutant Sounds blog which will thusly link you up to a place where you can burn a copy of this National Treasure for yourself! Now don't go thinkin' Unca Chris doesn't do anything good for ya!

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Black Sabbath-MASTER OF REALITY cassette (Vertigo Holland)

Actually, this writeup is not inspired by the Lester Bangs review above even though Bangs had raved cumbuckets over this album back during its '71 debut. (And, as you should remember, 1971 was the banner year of heavy metal and if you can't trust Metal Mike Saunders who can you trust?) But hey, forty-one years and a whole lotta bad heavy metal drowning out the good heavy metal in the interim later, what else can I say but THIS ALBUM REMAINS AS RELEVANT TO NOT ONLY THE 1971 OF LOVE IT TO DEATH, KILLER, ELECTRIC WARRIOR AND DUST, BUT TO THE MODERN DAY EVEN IF MUSIC AS GOOD AS THIS HASN'T BEEN MADE IN AT LEAST THIRTY-FIVE YEARS! Well, I'm not counting the reams of soul-wrenching heavy metal that has come out in the interim from MX-80 Sound and Von Lmo to Voi Vod and Anthrax, but considering what little value those kinda groups had in the wake of the HIT PARADER big metal putsch of the eighties the entire genre might as well have been buried under the weight of all of those pretty boy hair bands that were all the rage at the expense of the really gnarly stuff. And you know that had Sabbath come out with this platter in 1985 the same sissy repressed faggot audience that boosted the group to the higher echelons of atonal heaven would have upped noses at the bunch while traipsing over the bins that held all of the WASP and RATT platters without thinking twice!

Can't say a bad thing about MASTER OF REALITY even though I was a fellow who used to loathe this metallic sludge a good thirtysome years back. Now I find it great trash aesthetic and even love it, though maybe that's because the original hardcore era of Black Flag/Flipper decadence made early metallic drone tasty again no matter how much we associated it with late-seventies FM playlist doldrums. But whatever, this one's a charm even with two Tony Iommi solo guitar excursions that sound better here than Steve Howe's and Steve Hackett's did in the company of Yes and Genesis, while Ozzy Osbourne ain't quite into his phony satanic creeping nihilism yet and in fact even turns out a hefty Jesus rock song in "After Forever" (actually an Iommi composition with no input from Osbourne that I know of) that won't make you puke. And the song is clever enough even if Iommi snatched a bitta Moby Grape for the main theme which is better'n snatching Jefferson Airplane! And what kind of review would this be w/o mentioning that the sublime "Solitude" serves to cool you off in its own eerie way just like "Planet Caravan" on the equally stellar PARANOID did. Not a fault with the thing even with the standard hard-crunch heard it before riffs that didn't really sound all so up-to-date and teenage once 1976 rolled around unless you were a proud member of Box Boy pimples 'n pot stoner Ameriga I guess! Maybe that's why this sounds so good on 8-track!

Almost as inspiring as PARANOID and hey, even better than the debut or VOL. 4 (which was the group's last gasp before the sweet leaf and California cocaine got the best of 'em. Never thought SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH was that exciting even if it did inspire some jeeter's teenage suicide, and to be honest about it I haven't heard a note of anything they've done since given that the front line metallic squad had thought their wad was shot by this time and why should I doubt them by squandering any more money on recordings I really don't need! But for the prime hard-edged awe-inspiring Sabbath at their best it's REALITY and the other three originals of hard-edged genius, music which inspired a whole lot more futureshock gnarl that I'm sure even Osbourne feels pangs of guilt for encouraging this late in the rock evolutionary game.

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The Brats-ROCK CANDY LP (Rave Up)

Outta nowhere surprise from this long-running (and recently reunited) New York band best known for their metal pop anthem "First Rock Star on the Moon" (check your second Max's Kansas City album for more info). Not quite the Kiss-take I had expected, with a surprisingly power poppish style that borrows heavily from the Who, Sparks, and even fellow local boys the Fast at least when their guest synthesizer player's wailing away. They had it all going for them, from the teenybop good boy looks to the dangerous attitude and of course the dangling long locks...too bad they got buried under the weight of too much happening all at one time or else we might have heard this album in 1977 'stead of thirty-five years later.

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The Tremeloes-WHAT A STATE I'M IN CD-R (originally on Sanctuary)

Gee, I guess "Silence is Golden" was a fluke after all! Tiresome pop without the craftiness of the Troggs at their most commercial or the Beatles at their sunshinest. Or the Who at their most violent or the Kinks at their most British. Or Bowie at his most sexually confused or... Well, I could go on since their review does need padded out, but I know you get the gist. Definite lower rung Britsters who give me the cringe the same way listening to Tintin's "Toast and Marmalade For Tea"  instantly sprouts abscesses all over the body.

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Vapor Gourds-DAGGER MUSIC LP (Feeding Tube Records)

Haven't been keeping up on my Feeding Tube promo packages as of late, so in order to rectify my wanton lethargy I thought I'd pull this weirditie outta their at-times angular stack. Yet another transfer to vinyl from cassette just like Feeding Tube did with their latest Gary Wilson jazzstravaganza, Vapor Gourds is actually a sound collage experiment that chops, splices and dices recordings from a variety of sources creating a music (and I mean it!) that mesmerizes as much as it startles with its sharp edits and wondrous drone-on tape loop-like repeato-riffs. In the tradition of a whole lotta that bedroom experimentation that's been going on for nigh on forty years, and hopefully for another forty more and I ain't talkin' bout that geek with a flute-o-phone either. Reminds me of what little I have heard from the Christian Marclay catalog and if that sorta eighties-bred experimentalism does appeal to you, by all means go to it!

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Thurston Moore/John Moloney-CAUGHT ON TAPE LP (Feeding Tube)

Hokay here's another one from Feeding Tube, a good enough one too featuring the ubiquitous Thurston Moore as well a drummer John Moloney, a man who is probably best known as being a former member of the group Shit Spangled Banner, and I shit you not about their name! Its one of those guitar/drums free improv type duo setting too, though I must admit that even at its most powerful CAUGHT ON TAPE doesn't quite have the same sound and fury of DAILY DANCE but then again what does? It's noisy and atonal enough, and perhaps closer to the various other Moore duos done with a variety of free drummers not to mention that obscurity by an English act called Ascension, definitely not the post-MC5 aggregation but still worth seeking out if your ears tend to lean toward this sort of thing.

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15-60-75 (The Numbers Band)-LIVE AT THE AGORA 5/25/80 (originally broadcast on WMMS-FM's "Ohio Homegrown Program") cassette

While doin' some cassette diggin' last Wednesday I found this particular offering snuggled in between reams of Eugene Chadbourne tossouts and quite a number of tape-trade items that at one time seemed like hen's teeth but nowadays are so well-known among aficionados of the form that I coulda saved a bundle had I only waited a good thirty years for this stuff to come out legit-like. I must say that it is surprising to hear this legendary aggregate getting the royal WMMS treatment via a Sunday night broadcast...after all, anybody who's lived in the epicenter of Pantsiosville during those rather drudge-like days can tell you just how much of an aversion the entire Cleveland music mafia had to anything that was considered young, exciting, underground, Velvet-inspired and just plain ol' punky, and the mere thought of hearing something like 15-60-75 on a commercial FM station is definitely akin to finding out that Lindsay Hutton was made grand marshal of a Sons of Italy parade. Heck, the only "new wave" types who got to appear on the Cleveland "AOR" biggies back when this music was at its most potent were the likes of the Baloney Heads (who had business connections), the Adults and Insanity and the Killers (ditto, plus they were horrid enough to pass the FM taste test) not forgetting the Wild Giraffes and Styrene Money Band but that's only because Paul Marotta's recording and technical knowhow was needed in a pinch and well, Paul did have a bargaining chip handy now, didn't he?

I kinda wonder just how the Numbers wrangled this broadcast, but thank somebody they got an opportunity to perform to an audience potentially way larger than their regular following. It's funny listening to the announcer, who I guess didn't know the Kidney Brothers from a hole in the ground, explain the meaning of the group's name and generally treat 'em as some strange aberration, but that only adds to the whole "charm" of the proceedings. Vocalist Robert Kidney is in fine vocal and lyrical shape, reminding me more of Tim Buckley than the Jim Morrison most local writers had him pegged as, while the rest of the group jam-packs the heavy riff-rock sound with a drone straight outta the Velvets packed with perhaps thee best horn section ever...it even makes the classic Mothers of Invention lineup sound like sickly neo-bopsters trying to hitch their futures to some mustachioed freak who smelled really bad.

Even the group's latest single on Hearthan was performed, and I get the feeling that this particular action didn't make the folks at 'MMS too happy considering just how much animosity there was between 'em and the former Crocus Behemoth who was responsible for releasing the Numbers' only release twixt the essential JIMMY BELL'S STILL IN TOWN and their '83 followup. Who knows...hard feelings never die and I guess there's still a lotta vitriol between the people at that long-running FM station and the local underground, but at least I'm glad it at least let up for this particular faux pas on the part of Denny Sanders and the rest of the down home, whole wheat crew. Nice to know some things never change (or as we always say about our adversaries...once an asshole, always an asshole!).

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Crawlspace-TO' UP cassette (Space One)

'member all of those old Eddie Flowers reviews in fanzines such as BEYOND OUR CONTROL, INITIAL SHOCK and of course that all-time killer GULCHER where the heftoid praise he would ladle out for Can would run into that for Yoko Ono and the Stooges with sidesteps into the Velvet Underground, Albert Ayler and Amon Duul II? Well, this cassette is sorta like the sum and substance of Eddie's 1972-1976 writings mooshed up into a nice ball and spewed out for the same audience that undoubtedly rushed to the nearest record shop after reading one of his missives. Maybe you were one of them. I sure wish I was!

I can't help but think of Can when listening to the a-side of this Crawlspace live lysergic ramble that came out a hefty twenty-one years back, a period in time when it looked as if Flowers' knack for self-promotion was succeeding somewhat on the Los Angeles underground scene. Dunno if Eddie would have made the short list for potential Can vocalists, but his presence sure would have brightened up those latterday albums of an iffy nature as he mutters and spews in the best Damo Suzuki trad while the band creeps and crawls through a mess that does sound about as much krautrock 1972 as it does El Lay ponk 1991. A nice shift through various themes and ideas that really do sound like the clashing of YOKO ONO PLASTIC ONO BAND up against TAGO MAGO (or was it MIRROR MAN?) with a healthy fix of the Stooges as they existed in the minds of such mental miscreants as Flowers back '72 way, all ending with the main theme from Ornette Coleman's SKIES OF AMERICA twisted to atonal delight. Definitely deserves to be heard by more than the few thousand who managed to get hold of this a good twenny-one years back.

Side "B" has Mr. Flowers working out not only with Todd Homer (ex-Angry Samoans) and Larry Robinson's Mooseheart Faith, but former Sanhedrin guitarist George Popel shows up and they all succeed in  making an exquisite electronic free splat for Flowers to spout his inspired gibberish. The music weaves in and out of the realm of normality with synths and squeaky toys being hard to differentiate from while psychedelic guitar lines echo back to the glory days of late-sixties El Lay, and if Eddie was within the grasps of his senses while this was being laid down he must have a sturdier constitutional than any of us would have gathered. You don't need the help of psychedelics to enjoy this trip, and come to think of it the use of the usual mind-expanding substances might bring the festivities down quite a bit.

Golly, I never remembered Crawlspace (an act I felt was superior to the drek most associated with the late-eighties underground flotsam) to be this exhilarating, this soul-cleansing and perhaps the only honest-to-goodness heir to Can's long-abdicated throne of maddening glory. Expect more Crawlspace reviews as the weeks progress, and let's just hope that those iffy CD-R's Eddie sent me ages back will play on my new if cheaper deck which doesn't seem to be as fussy about these home-pressed goodies as many of my Cee-Dee players of yore were.