AGAIN I let you faithful (and not so) readers down with yet another extended break from the once fun grind of cranking these sausages of a blogpost out. This wasn't necessarily due to a bad case of sloth on my part (well...partly), but let's just say that life can sure make things a whole load more agonizing that usual especially at a time when the less stress in one's life the better! 

Now, I've come to expect the variety of sideways turds that I've unfortunately encountered during that bowel movement that I call existence, but as of late the digestive process feels like the cloggy aftermath of one of those all-you-can-eat buffets that I used to go to as a teenbo which really packed on the pounds! You know, the kind of place where the owner eventually steps out and starts giving you dirty looks after your fourth trip but whatever...fate naturally has thrown the usual monkey wrenches into my not-so-soft machine what with the best laid plans of rodents and male human beings going awry and going awry like WILD. It just ain't like I can devote my time to writing in the way that I used to, at least the way that I used to until the earlier part of this decade when it ALL came down. Too bad, but for some reason I think that humanity will be able to survive.

And besides, I just wanted to avoid having anything to do with this thing that gets called gay "pride" (in torn rectums and soiled sheets...wait, I used that description before) month which really does give me the creeps as anyone growing up told to avoid that small house in the woods where the weird guy lives will tell you (mighta told you that one as well). Yeah, I know that with a great number of people out there Gay Pride is becoming about as popular as a garlic ban in Italy what with loads of bigtime industry doners bailing out and such, but what's left is still extremely skanky with nude guys shaking their wee-wee's at little kids and grossout trannies degrading the concept of feminine pulchritude...and if you haven't had enough nose thumbing directed at you like I have all I can say is you must be part of the Karen Quinlan generation!

Sheesh, even the recent NANCY storyline featuring Phil Fumble's dykoid cousin is bad enough (even within the context of a once-excellent strip gone rancid) that I won't even touch my old FRITZI RITZ books due to their tangential connection with a rather decayed here and now! (And as for the AI project below well, that was created long before this current atrocity popped up --- it ain't like I'm going to TOTALLY abandon the beautiful Bushmiller era despite the strip's current lapse in mid-Amerigan fun and jamz!) Boy do I hate the way these modern degenerates take well-loved characters and downright heroes well ingrained into the DNA of midclass values and fun and toss a whole load of LGBTS&M decadence coupled with the usual liberal homilies of the sixties that only Dave Marsh would believe in included if only to defile suburban slob culture and stick it to the rubes! It's like the people who we foolishly thought were "on our side" and friends have finally let their loathing for us be known after years of pent up holding back their undying hatred and boy did they let it flow with a vengeance!

Enough nausea...in closing all I gotta say is that whenever June rolls around anymore I just feel like hiding under my bed, preferably with a razor-sharp butt plug firmly in place just to feel a little more secure... Not like I'm prime meat for these kinds of guys, but you can't let your guard down these days!

***

But as far as much better news goes, I gotta wish you all a happy fiftieth anniversary to the United States Bicentennial Celebration which I think a few of you older readers out there might remember. I sure do, and the gaggy flag waving, "Bicentennial Minutes" on CBS and hokey sentiments that were to be found during those days still tend to toss the salad of my stomach much more than a jalapeno-loaded burrito binge. (For some historical content, I spent the morning playing WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY and my aunt called me a Bolshevik because I didn't go along with all of the Yankee Doodle Foolery that was goin' 'round!)  Still, despite the gollygooshiness of the times those were (at least once in awhile) good days, days when I was becoming aware of the musical world around me and a time when television was perhaps at one of its peaks if you knew when and where to tune in for classy old films, long-loathed by the hip snoots fifties/sixties reruns and naturally some PBS show which might show a bit of bared suckems and belly (not forgetting some much needed scatological humor). Teenage Perversity and Shits in the Night indeed! Of course there were more than just a few things that were downright nightmarish about them mid-seventies, but I prefer to shove them into the back of my mind the same way I try not to think about all of the abuse in life that I've had to endure. And guess what...sometimes those bad memories just STAY there!

***

I gotta admit that I am somewhat steamed that I missed the free (courtesy of Elon Musk) streaming of CITIZEN VIGILANTE by just one measly day. Not that I had any great hope for this modern-day DEATH WISH considering that movies for the most part have lost my interest since the days of Harry Langdon, but the hoohah that's been going around about how downright evil the film is what with it offending the sensibilities of more than a few precious petunias out there did pique my interests. Still, what I did see looked somewhat enticing, such as in the opening where some pretty frau gets her throat slashed by a definitely non-Aryan sort and spews blood while the kid playing her son shows that he could use a few more acting lessons given his passive performance. But whatever, CITIZEN VIGILANTE comes off like a better bet than some of the "biggies" that have been coming out lately, such as that bomb of the year Supergirl pic which I would assume has none of the charm of the old comic and is probably "woke" as they say beyond belief. And undoubtedly unreal as well...I mean, how could Supergirl save the world while she's having her period? Oh well, if this were 1961 I could always have waited a few months before CITIZEN VIGILANTE popped up on television.

***

Speaking of the boob tube the tee-vee situation has been slipping somewhat. It seems that INSP feels content to run only select episodes of HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL leaving out some rather tasty entries such as the one with a pre-RIFLEMAN Johnny Crawford as a boy kidnapped by the Indians, something that I've been wanting to watch for a longer than usual time. I gotta give INSP credit for bringing MAVERICK back to the cathode connection, but frankly I find that series rather tame compared with other western television activity of the Golden Age, and besides James Garner never was that big in my fave book of actors. Maybe the infamous series THE WESTERNER will get a much-needed showing, or yet another rarity like Jack Lord's pre-HAWAII FIVE-O series STONEY BURKE which has been in mothballs way too long. Until then I will be checking Youtube for such legendary efforts which may or may not get the ol' adrenaline rushing, but it ain't like I'm going to be holding it in until they do show up, y'know?

***

Something to note---RIP Kitty Bruce, a gal who was not only the daughter of the vastly overrated (and once you get down to it quite evil) Lenny but the leader of the Great Mistaque, a politically radical (bassist used to wear a Che t-shirt) country-rock band that played the CBGB circuit from very-late 1975 until about the middle of '76.  Hopefully something by them (photos, recordings...) survives if only to fill them tiny gaps in. Also of note---RIP Clive Davis who really doesn't mean that much in the overall BTC scheme of things either  but seeing his image in rock mags in the mid-seventies chumming it up with Patti Smith sure does bring back memories, perhaps some not so pleasant.

And although his music doesn't quite snuggle into the BLOG TO COMM reason for being, farewell bye-bye and ta-ta to Blood Sweat and Tears vocalist David Clayton Thomas if only for the time he got his ear ripped off by a biker who handed it to him and Clayton threw it in the trash!

***

Here's AI Nancy, and how she became Asian I'll never know! The solid wood
"swoosh" was an interesting touch.

***

WHO WOULDA THUNK IT DEPT.: I get this message from one-time BLACK TO COMM contributor and all around nice guy Paul McGarry that there was going to be a package that was to be delivered to me last Friday night before nine. Good I think...Paul finally mailed some more goodies my way and I won't have to review the LIVE AT CBGB'S album again! Well, here it is about seven in the evening or so checking my emails and guess what...Paul had sent a missive as to where the heck I am and boy am I confused...until it dawned on me that Paul did not mail the parcel but was (along with his wife) delivering it IN PERSON in order to give me the surprise of my life so great that it possibly could have ended it!  Only instead he went to my mailing address instead of my actual residence and boy was he as flummoxed as I was!!!

Photo of me on the left and Paul on the
right. As you can see, I do not photograph
well.

Next day we do, after some confusion, finally meet up and well, what else can I say other than Paul and his Missus were really down home and nice people, the kind of humans you'd like to have as neighbors as my cyster said even if I do get the impression that Paul would be mowing the yard at six in the morning busy guy that he is. Personable too, and believe it or not but Paul didn't put me down like many of you types out there do either which is something I really do admire in a guy. We talked about a number of things, and what can I say but this was a much more pleasant surprise than had he bombed me into smithereens I'll tell ya!

I guess the reason Paul came down here was to give ma a giant box of not only cassettes but Cee-Dee-Ares which would cost him a fortune to mail these days. (Y'see, Paul is from Canada and with postage, duty rates and additional costs it probably was cheaper to just deliver these directly to me...either that or Paul thinks that someone is going to euthanize him because he has a sore back and wanted to get out of town pronto!)  Paul and his better half could only stay a few minutes but still it was great meeting up with the man after all these years of pen-palmanship! Great meeting you Paul, but next time call ahead to avoid the confusion!!!

***

Not much of what I'd call crucial and rush out to get it is to be found here, but then again this is 2026 so what would an old turd like myself expect! 's funny, but the only freebee thing I got this time was from Brad Kohler, a man who is usually tighter than your mother's butt when it comes to finances! Anyway, have fun.

PARIS 1942 2-CD set (Superior Viaduct Records)

You probably already have the album with the exact same cover, now get the double CD version which really delivers on more of that mid-Amerigan low-fidelity post-Velvet Underground attack that was pretty popular in the under-the-covers music scene, at least until all of those eighties groups drove the entire concept into the amerindie ground. And the fact that Maureen Tucker pounds the drums only makes these records all the more mystical for all of you guys who got your rockist credo from reading NEW YORK ROCKER writeups. Now if someone would finally release the Bloody Virgins.

***

Chinas Comidas-COMPLETE STUDIO RECORDINGS '77-'81 LP (Beat Generation Records)

Once touted as Seattle's answer to Patti Smith (some record catalog said that so it has to be true!), you can hear similarities between the two from the rough application of various late-sixties rock moves to even the hardcore reggae homage. Heck, this platter even ends not-so surprisingly with a cover of the Sonics' "Witch" making the NUGGETS connection all the tastier. Still, Chinas is her own gal with a powerful approach and growl to match, and her backup has most all of the same low-fidelity that made all of those rock 'n roll singles that people like myself used to gobble up until the well went dry more worthwhile. Just one of a billion or so seventies flashes that need the good ol' (re)issue treatment, especially now that for all practical purposes rock 'n roll (the good stuff, not that corporate Hall of Fame jive) is long dead and buried.

***

Heldon-ELECTRONIQUE GUERILLA CD (Bureau B Records)

There are a whole load of records that some wanks out there would consider prog rock, and frankly I do like some (but not many) of them. However, I don't consider these particular groups to be part of the "rock music" genre let alone rock 'n roll...far from it...and so I refuse to categorize this music in the same frame and strata that I would say, the Seeds. 

But they are good 'un's.  F'rexample I tend to look at Magma and Soft Machine as being more in the jazzbo vein of sonic distortion, and as for today's subject at hand Heldon, something more as a collective working on "serious" avgarde moves only dressed up in seventies rock style/instrumentation. In fact, I see them as being an effort that come closer to some of the experimental sound hoo-hah that people like Stockhausen have been making for ages on end only with a beat and flash that could have made the famous 9/11 admirer a krautrocker himself.

Synthesized whirrs and moody drones are what's in store...very seventies analog sounding and reminiscent of a whole load of artificial sonic scrabble that I remember growing up with (pure old time flashback goody feelings). But rock 'n roll? Nah , 'cept maybe for the "Le Voyageur" track that originally got a release under the name of  Heldon leader Richard Pinhas' previous group Schizo.

***

Various Artists-NEW MUSIC FOR ELECTRONIC AND RECORDED MEDIA LP (1750 Arch Records)

This collection of electronic sound created by people who claim to be female but don't come right out and brag about it used to show up in New Music Distribution Services catalogs for years on end. Won't debate as to just how much estrogen really went into this thing but it does serve as an interesting sample of what the weaker (hah!) sex can do when put up to the task of creating avgarde music. 

Some of it is standard sinewhiz that's been done over and over while other parts show some sparks of actual thought-out and realized sound patterns (I particularly liked Laurie Spiegel's electronic homage to mid-South pluck). A few others are a downright surprise, like future Novak member Megan Roberts' percussive pulse punk that predated a whole load of future both good and bad. 

A pre-fame Laurie Anderson also shows up and does a halfway-interesting girlish neo-new wave thing that actually reminds me of a cutesy version of something Nurse With Wound would have done without the evil intent. But the track that really interests me is the one composed by Johanna M. Beyer, whose 1938 "Music of the Spheres" recalls "Imaginary Landscape Number One" with a Sci-Fi feel that typifies the wonderment people had with what was "out there in space" at the time. "Spheres" was "realized" here for the first time ever too. Beyer seems like an interesting enough crow (she didn't get into composing until her forties)...gotta do some research on her.

***

George Carlin-TAKES OFFS AND PUT ONS LP (RCA Camden Records)

It's the '72 budget reissue of (I think he's a) comedian George Carlin's '66 album with a new longhair pic of the guy slapped on the cover in order to cash in on Carlin's newfound status as a sock-it-to-'em hippie. Other than the fact that I finally own an album on the RCA Camden label I find no use for this thing other than for an extremely slight snicker that crawled out of my throat during the protest song spoof heard during WINO AM radio skit (the "Don't Want No War/Don't Want No Job Neither" line...well, it did seem slightly har-de-har-har at the time). With gifts like this, who needs gifts?

***

David Peel and the Lower East Side-SANTA CLAUS -  ROOFTOP JUNKIE LP (Orange Records) 

Still don't know what the big hatred towards David Peel is all about, because I find his records way more exciting than I do most of the newer folk freakazoids who've been running the radical street music game right into the old terra firma. On this, his first album for his own Orange Records, Peel gets back into the acoustic swing of things raging on about everything from Watergate, the Beatles and narco types to Santa's own fixation with a fix. The Lower East Side (this time containing ex-Godz Paul Thornton) do the bang shang a lang just as good in the studio as they did on the streets during their HAVE A MARIJUANA phase. Typically topical stuff for 1973 and still quite fun to listen to these days considering that, frankly, I don't think anyone out there has vied for the "new David Peel" position yet.

***

Captain Beefheart-THE SPOTLIGHT KID (DELUXE EDITION) 2 CD-r set (originally on Rhino/Warner Brothers Records)

Sheesh them crafties at the big labels'll do ANYTHING to get'cha to buy, buy and RE-buy material that's been in your cave since time immemorial! Thankfully I got my copy dubbed and for free so someone else just hadda be the stoop this time.  It's yet another way that these big label types try to eke the shekels from your precious savings, though anyone with a bean for a brain will tell you that in this case parting maybe is not such sweet sorrow.

Most all of you reg'lar readers already have heard THE SPOTLIGHT KID perhaps even since its original release, and undoubtedly a good portion who have still cherish the thing as if it were your favorite dollar bill. Well, pick this Record Store Day double-spinner up if you can and give that another whirl, but also be prepared for an additional disc of bonus tracks filled with numbers you might have heard before but I can tell you that I sure ain't.  Lack of liner notes leave me in the dark as to whether these are way-pre-RADAR STATION outtakes or whatever, and I know that you experts out there can write in and put me to shame like you all like to do!

***

John McLaughlin-DEVOTION CD (Once More Music, Japan)

Got this mini-LP cover import enticed by the thought of a bonus track that had me hoping to high hoot that it was from the same sessions as the album. Unfortunately it ain't but it's good, a leftover from the Graham Bond days that shows that McLaughlin was cookin' with gas even this early in the process perhaps thanks to the fact that opiates and the creative process sometimes do work hand in hand despite of what the recorded works of James Taylor might tell you. Naturally the actual album continues to hold up long after most of its fusion competition petered out into fairyland cha-cha, sounding as heavy and nerve-wrangling as it did way back when music critics actually paid attention to this stuff. I can hear a lot of MX-80 Sound and even a tad bit of Bizarre-era Zappa in this one, not to mention Miles of course 'n maybe even ol' Jimi. If you can hear Return to Forever or Weather Report you might (or better yet oughta)  have your inner ear checked out and while you're at it maybe your cranium too.

***

Just a reminder about all of the other reminders I've been telling you about all these years regarding back issues of BLACK TO COMM that you can obtain in case you're interested in such drek (as a good portion of my competition would have called it). But it's good dreak, in fact it's MY drek and like if I can like your drek you can like mine, or something, or nothing like that. Sheesh, what I have to go through just to get you readers to NOTICE these post-ending come-ons!

BOOK REVIEW! OCTOBRIANA - DER ERSTCOMIC-STRIP AUS DEM UdSSR-UNDERGROUND BY PETR SADECKY (und Melzer Verlag GMBH, 1972)

The whole thing is in Kraut so I don't understand nary a word as much as if this were in French which I can somehow absorb in my rather dimbulb chrome-dome. Still, after all these years or at least since I first heard Kevin Dunn's flipside to his "Nadine" single I did have somewhat of a curiosity about this particular comic heroine. The entire concept of a cult-level freaked out femme revolutionary with a red star tattoo'd on her forehead did seem somewhat tasty, and although other things have taken precedence over getting hold of any Octobriana in any wayshapeform over the years at least I do get to finally find out what all of the fuss surrounding this character is about, even if I probably am the last person on this planet to do so.

OCTOBRIANA isn't a comic strip in the standard sense of the word, and frankly I was under the impression that these stories would be in standard adventure strip panel form like a lefty STEVE CANYON 'r somethin'. This book is more or less like an illustrated tale complete with art that I will say is slightly enticing and shows a saga that does seem worthy of any comic fan's reading time, but this sure isn't what I was expecting (or even hoping for) lo these many years.

Octobriana's definitely the ULTIMATE Soviet Superheroine, a blond big tittied gal with liver lips dressed in an extremely scanty outfit that some might consider teetering across the line of good taste. She has this frightening aura about her and I get the feeling she also smells funny as well, like she forgot to wipe. Real sinus reaming stuff. The artwork by the Czech cartoonist Petr Sadecky is what one would hope for in an adventure story with some beautifully framed action panels but not knowing the language I can only take this 'un in on the art alone.

OCTOBRIANA is what perhaps a few of you readers would deem "out-there-in-orbit" what with the phallic symbols and surreal settings. I can't detect any of the time-traveling oft described in her stories and the Klansmen featured on the cover are nowhere to be seen (neither is Stalin) but you can tell the gal gets around a whole lot, appearing in China one story and the Arctic another and well, if someone does have an English translation I would be somewhat interested.

Best thing about OCTOBRIANA is that, in the spirit of socialist share and share alike, the character has always been public domain so anyone can do with the gal whatever they want, and they have. I've seen a few bits here/there and none of them seem to match the original but I was thinking...since OCTOBRIANA is anyone's for the taking how about someone doing a comic with her fighting against all of those creeds and such that the gal has defended all of these clenched fist years. Now wouldn't that be something to get all of her longtime fans just RILED??? Sure hope so since I haven't had a good laugh in ages!

BOOK REVIEW! SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES SCRAPBOOK 1976-1980

For a longer time that perhaps you even existed I wasn't what you would call anywhere close to being fan and follower of Siouxsie and her crew. At first listen THE SCREAM left me more bothered and confused and what I heard afterwards wasn't that much reassuring. You could say that I still am not what you would call "front and center" for her, but after reading a few articles by some writers who opinions I do cozy up to over the past XXX years my nodes did somewhat perk up. Yes, I still do get that way sometimes. The group's early demos and live recordings also brought me closer to the Siouxsie groove not only because of their abashed low fidelity bringing out the more feral aspects of the music but because these tracks presented Siouxsie and crew as part of the same kind of rock 'n roll fanbase who were part of the Velvet Underground/Stooges/T. Rex/krautrock cults of the earlier portion of the seventies in the same fashion that many of you older readers were and presumable still are.

These clippings from the early days of Bansheedom are particularly helpful if you (like me) struggled to latch onto all of the ultra-expensive British Weaklies that all the rich kids could afford but not a depression-era waged suburban slob such as I. You get a nice smattering from the likes of NME and SOUNDS not to mention the also-rans like RECORD MIRROR and yes, some of your favorite scribes (well, actually MY favorites like Vivien Goldman, Nick Kent and Jane Suck) are here to make their Siouxsie opines known. Surprisingly enough to me is the fact that the lost to time writers who worked for them aforementioned second-string papers were also pretty good in making their critiques known in a nice, forthright manner. Too bad these people never made it like the big names but crueler things in life have happened to people in the rock writing rat race

I just know that many of you regular tuner-inners go big time for the seventies explosion of cataclysmic music (and cataclysmic rock writing), and you'd do well snatching this collection up. Even if you're not exactly in the Banshee camp well, the sway and swivel that the authors of these missives deliver are way better than anything you read these days, and that includes the nth rate drivel you're reading right now.

No, I have unfortunately NOT been deported (wouldn't mind being sent to Tahiti I'll tell ya)! I'm just taking a breather, being lazy as usual, suffering under the lack of mental stimulation and of course there's REAL LIFE to contend with which is taking precedence to doing such things as writing a blog for you somewhat eager beaver types out there who I s'pose have nothing better to do than to read what I think about certain things in this world of ours. 'n after all that so howz things with you??? 

In other news let's just say that life is chomping me up, down and all around what with the warm summer months just around the corner dumping upon me more yardwork not to mention the outdoor antiques show/flea market wake up at three and on the go until six in the evening grind and well...it ain't like I'm no spring chicken anymore! Talk about taking up what should be my settle back and listen to music while reading a whole lotta fun things time, and since I'm not gettin' any younger who knows how much goof off time is left for me on this planet of ours. Believe-you-me, thoughts of outdoor storms raging on while I put my life on the line protecting the wares that are up for sale is worthy of the best of nightmares, and if I had a choice I'd rather be writing blog posts that arguing with old ladies who want items with ten-dollar price tags reduced to a buck.

In other news the political situation is fun to watch what with Donald Trump playing weird 20-dimensional chess flipping off the entire world the way he does best, stymieing even me with those weird AI-generated paintings with Jesus Christ himself acting as his number one advisor! Very creepy true, but I kind of take it as yet another way to irritate the usual variety of turdburgers who NEED to be "deeply offended" that I see up and about these sad and sorry days. He must be doing a good job of it because at times the ol' stroonada irritates me as well! 

Well, it sure is an improvement over watching Joe Biden and his tranny freakshow even if for all intent purposes I sure do miss the antiwar neocon-hating Trumpenstein of yore...y'know the one who wouldn't even go NEAR an outright Republican Party Hack with a big "H" like Lindsay Graham in a million years but now pumps the likes of him up while kicking his old supporters right inna rump! I guess that with Trump 2.0 it's now "The Art of the Squeal"!!! Talk about letting down all those people who helped build up the Trump brand a good ten years back by reneging on a whole load of promises that we all know sure needed to be kept, but never thought that he or anyone on this planet could!

In all actuality the New Model Trump is about as much Swamp as you can get these days, in fact just as much a marsh maven as those comic book faves the Heap, the Swamp Thing and the Man Thing all sludged together! Frankly, if there really is any hope for this nation of ours it most certainly is Carlson/Owens '28, or maybe even Nick Fuentes for ambassador to Israel! Well, either him or Norman Finkelstein (don't write in, I slipped the last two in, or at least Fuentes, just for some sick yucks this world can really use, and some downright offensiveness you all do really deserve!).

***

This week's AI creation...a sixties/seventies-era children's television host who has had
enough and is chasing kids around the set with axe in hand.

***

On a tastier note well...I've been wanting to see this FEARLESS FOSDICK marionette series, originally broadcast on CBS back 1952 way (thought lost and gone forever Clementine style), for YEARS! Sure glad that I lived so long...:

Howzbout another?:

And because you've been such a good boy just one more (that guy with the mustache must have been Parker before his Lady Penelope days):

This I never knew about! Somehow I get the feeling that Al Capp Enterprises had nothing to do with the thing since Fosdick ain't pushing no Wildroot Cream Oil, Charlie!:

And now, the Nazi Abbot and Costello, and after seeing more than a few of these I get the feeling that the Helle character was really an Allied asset given his somewhat humorous trajectories from the Aryan way of thinking:

***

My boob tube viewing tends to have run into the same old same old rut lately, what with me in the evening tuning in the usual smattering of Warner Brothers cartoons they've been showing on Boomerang for years on end (and I sure could use some Sniffles and maybe a Bosko or two). Then I switch over to INSP for HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL which I will admit can be a little too cerebral for my overworked beddy-bye brain to handle. Well, when my mind is "winding down" after a long day at the dildo factory it does get somewhat needlessly stimulated watching Paladin quoting the philosopher Erroneous and indulging in his love of fine wine and sexy girls in between engaging in a slew of ultraviolent acts. But eh, I like it especially knowing that the harridans of old who were so concerned about violence on TV were probably clutching more than just pearls because of the over-the-hill gunplay and regular slugfests found in this still somewhat legendary television series. And y'know, I get the feeling that the harridans of today, just like the ones of old only now with blue hair and enough metal piercings to sway the magnetic field wouldn't think highly of "Paladin" as well, but then again they complain about everything from the weather to what sex the new baby wants to be these days. All this naturally makes me want to tune it in all the more, spiteful person I am and shall remain! If I'm up to it then there's some old GUNSMOKE I've seen repeatedly these past ten years, but better an old GUNSMOKE than a new TRACKER.

***

It would figure that Brad Kohler would get his latest issue (#5) of DUMB AND READY PIGMEAT out within the same span of time as it would take me to change a lightbulb with a number of people of Polish extraction, but at least the guy produces an effort that certainly is way beyond the cudzine limitations Kohler claims to put into his creations. This one is a Japanese surprise issue for those of you who (like me) like Japanese surprises what with a cover article on Reck (I assume the other figure on the cover is none other than former bandmate Lydia Lunch) and a number of decidedly Far Eastern favorites of the past you probably forgot about because I have. This cover does have the look of a 1950s science fiction fanzine if I do say so myself, something that catches the eye of a person obsessed with fanzine history like...well...myself. Again, a nice bit of somethingorother available from 802 Crystal St., Ames (that should be pronounced "a mess") Iowa 50010 USA and like, don't you wish he was doing this back when fanzines really mattered?

***

I haven't been buying much if anything on my own these days, but Robert Forward's parcels and a few Paul McGarry stragglers have been helping to keep the review section afloat. Not to say that there aren't recordings both old and new that I wouldn't mind listening to like (for one measly example) the Chinas Comidas collection that just got unleashed but I figure it out this way...I am an old turd and, like I said in the opening schpiel, who knows how long I have being up and functioning. Why should I dish out the moolah for something that might give me only a few months if not days of fun and jamz? At least the stuff I've had since time immemorial has pleased me enough to the point where I really got my money's worth outta my youthful acquisitions!

Scots Pirates-REVOLUTIONARY MEANS CD-r burn (originally on Schoolkids Records)

Those early-to-mid nineties Scott Morgan Cee-Dees don't get any play around here no more given that they really don't live up to the whole Detroit promise that these guys had a good hand creating a good fiftysome years back. However, this post-Sonics Rendezvous bunch did a good enough job on this '95 effort that brings back all of the good things that early-seventies rock gave us while leaving the lamebrain aspects out of the proceedings. 

Yeah, with a song sporting a title like "Marijuana Wine" and a with few overworked seventies riffage moves heard for ages you'd think that these Pirates should have stayed down on the farm with the rest of those White Panther hasbeens. Considering what that song sounds like you wish they had. Otherwise, Morgan and company rev it up in a way that you feel as if you're at some 1972 end the war event which you probably attended if only to hear hot stuff like this.

Nothing I'd part with the silver for but otherwise in a word or two...pleasant enough.

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TOM SURGAL "FIRE MUSIC" INTERVIEW ON WKCR-FM NEW YORK CITY; Chik White-QUARANTUNES N. 56 CD-r burn

Former Blue Human, Thurston Moore and Arthur Doyle (amongst many others) collaborator Surgal gets interviewed about his 2021 documentary where he gabs on about the seemingly humongous task of presenting a history of the jazz avgarde without coming off like a Ken Burns gnome. The resultant FIRE MUSIC film sounds like a pretty tasty endeavor which is available on Criterion VOD but you think that I could afford that? Maybe it will pop up on Youtube one of these days  after all of you Rollo the Rich Kid types have seen, digested and crapped it out. 

But still, for a suburban slob like me who read about all of this strom via its tangential rock 'n roll connections, the mere idea of a documentary such as this sure jets me back to my own teenbo days snatching up the Cecil Taylor's NEFERTITI reissue on Arista/Freedom trotting back to the car just to read Nat Hentoff's liner notes. Not to mention spin a library copy of Mingus's "Original Faubus Fables" getting Dad more upset than even Xenakis did when Eric Dolphy let loose with that by-now legendary solo. Gee, ain't I a sentimental slob!

Chik White makes whacky and gurgling sounds using a variety of implements including his own voice. If I were to be a cynical crank about it I'd say that there's probably nothing else to do in Nova Scotia but still, I can ooze myself into the various glub glubs and whistles that the man makes, presumably through his own snout before he breaks out the nasal spray. I particularly liked the part where he does a pretty good Tasmanian Devil impression right at the end, assumedly not on purpose but I dig it anyway.

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Moonlove-MAY NEVER HAPPEN CD-r burn (originally on Concrete Circles Records

Here's some pre-Ghosts Before Breakfast groupage from Kent Ohio who originally released this in a limited cassette edition way back in '85 when I wasn't looking. Moonlove have that jingle jangle sound that can be heard even this late in the evolution of man, and considering the date it was recorded and what other forms of music it was up against even I have to admit that this is exemplary soundage. 

However, as some of you might know I never was one to cozy up to a lot of that post-seventies underground rock pop, and to be more honest than Brad Kohler about it the connective nodes between what Moonlove is trying to express and my own taste meters just don't quite collide. I do get the feeling that some of you regular readers might be up for a group such as this and well, it's not like this group is dire or anything. They just wander quite outside the admittedly limited parameters of what I'm extremely obsessed with these sad and sorry days. And that's probably more my fault than theirs!

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Delaney & Bonnie & Friends-ON TOUR WITH ERIC CLAPTON CD-r burn (originally on Atco Records

Sheesh Paul, what did I deserve to have you send this to me? Did I do anything bad to you, or your family or anything like that to have you jet this piece of early-seventies hokey hippie music my way? Talk about everything that was wrong about the early-seventies (including the lamer-than-lameass Little Richard homage) rolled up into one big obnoxious ball of sound, and considering that Eric Clapton was involved with this I wouldn't exactly call him God. Not even close, unless your idea of a deity is Cthulhu. Worst part about it is...Bonnie's still alive and I'm sure shrieking today just as she was on this 55-plus-year-old tribute to controlled opposition music passed off as the latest in hipster shuck for kids who fell for Woodstock hook line and ticketron. Elvis Costello was right.

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Taste-LIVE TASTE CD-r burn (originally on Polydor Records)

I better be careful with this one. Y'see, Paul also sent this my way and like, Rory Gallagher is his favorite guitarist so if I say anything bad about him McGarry is going to personally flatten my bean because well, he is one who is loyal to his idols unlike me who will turn on a fave at the drop of a hat. Any of you readers able to help me break the news about what I really feel about this album without arousing the ire of McGarry? If so, please leave your comments below.

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Dr. John-LOCKED DOWN CD-r burn (originally on Nonesuch Records)

Didn't think that the ol' fanabla would have had it in him this late (2012) in the game but hey, Dr. John put out a record that sounds as if it coulda come from the cooler moments of mid-seventies still-had-it-in-him blues rockism. For a minute I thought the guy woulda been sneaking a whole load of then-current trendy moves into his sound, but this comes off as good as something that woulda gotten them STEREO REVIEW rock critics all hot and bothered and, come to think of it, even normal people like us too. As I often say these days I wouldn't buy this one in a million years but then again it ain't something that I'd call worthless. You might even like the thing, who knows?

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Fille Qui Mousse-TRIXIE STAPLETON 291 D (Spalax Records, France)

I should have read them French underground rock books a whole lot closer, because for the life of me I thought that the Fille Qui Mousse TRIXIE STAPLETON 291 D platter was a somewhat different monster than the SE TAIRE POUR UN FEMME TROPPE BELLE release on Futura which I wrote up a good six years ago. Turns out they're one and the same, but since I can't find the latter one this'll do me just swell. French musique concrete gone rock 'n roll and like, if this isn't the real punk rock that I've been gabbing about for my entire "career" then anything I've written really was all for naught. And I do believe it so!

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Charlie Rich-BEHIND CLOSED DOORS LP (Epic Records)

When I was a pubesproutnig adolescent some kid in the neighborhood came up to be and yelled right into my face "Hey Chris, what do fags do behind closed doors?" My immediate reaction was to start singing the chorus of the then current Charlie Rich hit "Behind Closed Doors" which I thought would give me a humorous pass, but I still got beat up anyway.

But still, when I listen to that 'un and Rich's next big hit "The Most Beautiful Girl" (which also appears here), I must admit that I get deep into the sudzy groove. This stuff ain't necessarily housewife fodder to scrub out them skidmarks to, but sly, calculated yet target-hitting country and western pop that will reduce you to custard especially on one of those kick back and relax days I certainly do cherish. Sure there's nothing straightforward and downright rockin' like "Lonely Weekends" or "Mohair Sam" here, but this one helped do a little desensification after being subjected to perhaps way too much resensification these past few weeks.

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John Inzane Olson-ART BOOK TWO, LITTER, TRAINING YOU CD-r burn

Olson must have a lot of free time on his hands and GOOD FOR HIM! I mean, how else are any of us going to get to hear this fine electronic crash 'em up that recalls everything from Can's "Cutaway" off of UNLIMITED EDITION to kids jacking around with dad's expensive stereo system circa 1965 anyway? It really is a good (and non-self indulgent) blast of electronic zoom that I would compare to various ethereal efforts of the same strata. Now if I only knew how to tell you where you can get your own copy.

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Hey, if you haven't picked up all of those back issues of BLACK TO COMM that have eluded you for years maybe it's time that you checked out the highlighted link and did some catching up! One of these days this offer is not going to be here and well, you better get these now before you have to do some landfill scouring in the probably not too distant future.

With the world situation the way it is and everything I've once not only admired but downright lusted after in my life decaying right before my eyes, things like this blog really do help chase away some of the old blooze that tend to cling in my psyche like the fat clogging up my arteries. Nothing much to blab about these days other that taxes and shit, but I thought that you all'd like to read one of my "major league" posts more sooner than later anyway even if I will have to scrape my brain to come up with something. Well, it keeps me off the street and out of the locked bathroom, ifyaknowaddamean...

Like I said last time, financial straits are once again separating me from the various recent releases I would actually want to own. All three of them that is (also mentioned last time). Frankly there's hardly anything getting tossed at me that I would consider worthy of parting with my pennies for, and given that the "modern" (hah!) music being created this very moments just doesn't flibben my jib and that the items that are up and about on the reissue and archival dig front just ain't happening well, that leaves me with spinning my same old faves over and over again. Not that I don't mind, but as you all should know by now I once in awhile do need a fresh injection of late-sixties Velvets-inspired and influenced cataclysm music which keeps me up on my toes even more than prune juice.

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I gotta admit to all two of you faithful BLOG TO COMM readers out there that I am actually sorry to see Jay Hinman's "Fanzine Hemorrhage" blog do the ol' 86 like the thing did a few months back. True it usually featured mags from Jay's I'm sure vast collection that were mostly of an eighties and beyond variety (and thus far from the "Golden Age of Rock Writing" styled zoombah that I like to pour into) but it was somewhat educational and maybe even downright interesting even if the man was waxing eloquence about some rag I could care less about. Besides, what else is there on the web that has anything to do with rock 'n roll anyway? Naturally I especially liked it when Hinman diverted his attention towards the seventies breed of rockscribing I tend to "go for", plus some of the newer rags that the guy praised to the rafters were more than just worthy of my time, especially the ones that would delve into the wild world of experimental sound that was going through some sort of renaissance during the eighties. Who knows, maybe Jay will resurrect the blog and (golly) even say something nice about me somewhere in the process, but I doubt it.

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Paul Ehrlich is dead, about fifty years too late according to his own calculations. Gotta hate him for scaring the bejabbers outta alla us kids (thanks to "well read" neo-hippie teachers) ranting on about all of that "world has ten more years at the best" impending doom that was being crammed into our skulls because of him and his Chicken Little panic prophesies. Also gotta laugh at the way the litzy snob press and television news people tried to cover up and make excuses for all of his off-kilter predictions in a failed attempt to save their own asses from looking like the hipster lapdogs they were, are, and unfortunately shall remain.

Dash Crofts has joined ex-partner Jim Seals in Bahai Heaven about a good five decades after he should have made that grand exit into tie dye eternity. Yeah, the two were in The Champs who did give us that rather boppin' single "Tequila" but one song does not necessarily a career make. Obits say that he performed a music called "soft rock" which is ridiculous, and also an oxymoron of the most moronic type.

On an even sadder note --- farewell to Ross the Boss FUNicello who as you all should know was up and front for the Dictators as well as Shakin' Street and some acts I never really did follow like Manowar. A big loss for anyone who tuned into mid-seventies issues of CREEM looking for the next big thing.

And finally, r.i.p. Valerie Perrine, a gal who made more'n just a few young boys switch to their local PBS station to watch the beginning of STEAMBATH whenever that one would hit the old cathodes. Her passing is, once again, a good excuse for me to post some nudie pic in order to boost the view count of this blog somewhat. I can only hope that more nude women die because well, BTC really does need them hits, especially in these anti-rock 'n roll (but pro-tits) times of ours.

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Oddly enough the first entry in this review section was actually purchased by none other than me. Robert Forward sent a nice load of 'em in my direction and I was able to dig up a Paul McGarry one which for some reason has slipped through my rather grubby fingers. Thanks be to them and no one else.

Talking Heads-TENTATIVE DECISIONS : DEMOS & LIVE 3-CD set (Sire/Rhino Records)

Well, this collection of early three-piece Talking Heads demos and such sure took its time making its way to the general public. In fact I would have LOVED to have given these demos and live tracks a good scrutinizing back in 1979 when my interest in the trio edition of the group (spurred on after reading a NEW YORKER blurb believe it or not!) was perhaps at its highest. Sure things would change in a few years or so when the resultant edition of Talking Heads was such an embarrassment to anyone who championed the group a few years prior to the point where many disavowed ANY previous love for the band, but once a whole load of that new unto gnu wave art project cutseypieness sorta fizzed into various amerindie modes, both listenable and not, I thought it was safe enough to give these early Talking Heads another go. Sheesh, and that was even with their spawn both physically (Tom Tom Club) and spiritually (ever pick up an independent single made in the eighties?) continuing to clutter up the minds of people who are naturally better than anyone else on this here planet of ours.

Disque One's got early '75/6 trackage that really does remain downright refreshing and dare-I-say "life-reaffirming" especially in the face of all of the quap that was going on in the mid-seventies. The Heads come off wild-eyed and youthful as their stripped-down music once again proves that sometimes less is more. That NEW YORKER writer was actually correct for once comparing David Byrne's 12-string acoustic guitar playing to a harpsichord which gives their tracks an elegance (ooh!) which comes off more noble than giddy what with their mix of sixties under-the-covers influences strained through seventies underground rock aesthetics. No wonder a whole load of punks on the lookout for the next thrill took 'em to heart! And as a bonus you get two pre-Heads Artistics tracks providing for us even earlier (and rawer) examples of a couple future chestnuts just as they were being birthed. I sure wish their Paul Revere and Kinks covers would have been included but eh!

#2's got the '75 Columbia demos once again showing the Heads still heavily into a garage band sixties-infused mindset, long before success stripped everything that was exciting away in order to cater to art school pretensions.  Actually these Columbia tracks are quite straightforward in themselves to the point where you kinda/sorta wish the label would have signed 'em and just put these out as is...sure it wouldn't have sold much but think how fun it would have been picking this up at some flea market a few years later.

The last one's all live, first with that October '76 Max's show everybody in on the group has probably heard by now as well as a January '77 Syracuse club appearance laid down at the start of what was going to be a somewhat promising year for the batch. Sound quality is improved somewhat on the Max's one if something like that interests you, and the Syracuse show ain't no slouch either what with an early version of their up-and-coming in a few years hit "Take Me to the River" which sounds even better without all the Enoisms that were later added too!

Big bouef with this one's that there are none of those Troggs songs that were part of their regular set but still, this collection goes to remind me why Talking Heads were grabbing the attention of more than just a few rock devotees long before they committed anything to good ol' vinyl. Play this 'un again? Sure will and not only to wash years of "Once in a Lifetime" art shuck outta my intestines.

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The Bizarros/Bad Dudes-FROM AKRON II CD-r burn of 2-LP set (originally on Clone Records)

NATURALLY this 2006 double-platter effort from the once-resurrected Bizarros along with a new batch of Akronies would be something that should have blipped on my own radarscope. Unfortunately, my radarscope must have busted since I didn't discover this 'un until Bob Forward send me a burn. Sheesh and it was on Clone Records too which also should have perked my antennae somewhat.

This double album release is nice deal too featuring the Bizarros doing more of their seventies-focused rock filtered through late-sixties greatness. The Bad Dudes, a more recent addition to the Akron "scene",  play "in the tradition" on the other. The Dudes even go as far to cover the Bizarros "chestnut" "The Waves Cry" and they do it well to the point where I even feel like doing some on-line research on the group if only I weren't so lazy. 

Even a totally detached from life and reality person such as I can enjoy both groups as they play on as if all of the bad music that has gone down since the late-seventies (and during the late-seventies) never happened, a concept which might please some of you regular readers out there. Sheesh, they even copied the old Bizarros/Rubber City Rebels cover style which I will say does bring back a whole lotta memories of seeing used copies of that one wallowing in the basement of the Record Revolution in Cle Heights but not buying any because well...I had to properly spend my pennies back then and really took care to see where they went, usually towards the wrong records but what did a fanabla like me know? 

Whatever, if you were one of those beings who snatched up the Stiff Records Akron compilation as soon as it hit the stores and scratched and sniffed that tire to the point where all the smell went out well. you could like this 'un.

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Weasel Walter & Daniel Carter-WKCR 1/18/2016 CD-r burn

Here's one fantastic sesh that recalls everything from the Lester Bowie/Charles "Bobo" Shaw duets (when Carter is playing trumpet), or maybe some Joseph Jarman/Don Moye effort without all of the small instruments (when Carter is playing saxophone or flute). The playing is up on top whether it be Carter's eerily tense playing or Walter going in between the notes in the best Sunny Murray fashion. I'm sure if you want to hear it bad enough you know what to do, just like you all know where you can find that sick pornography that gets your libido all pumped up.

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UK Subs-BRAND NEW AGE CD-r burn (originally on Captain Oi Records, England I guess)

Once again a disque by that group people "in the know" go out of their way to knock, although I personally find nothing that I would call "offensive" about 'em the way I have many of these "young" and "precocious" acts that have cluttered fanzine pages for the past fortysome years. This 'un's their second longplaying effort and I must say that I find the thing pretty good as far as these English p-rock things tend to go. Nothing here's contrary to my sense of propriety, but then again nothing that stimulates me to the point of saying "aaaahhhhh" is as well. 's just straight-on early-eighties hard energy that reminds me of what the "alternatives" to all of the alternative dribble that was starting to come out used to be like. If you're offended by this you're probably also offended by a kitten playing with a ball of yarn.

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Various Artists-RADIO SUMATRA  - THE INDONESIAN FM EXPERIENCE CD-r burn (originally on Sublime Frequencies Records)

I sure wish that I had some info on these radio broadcasts presenting for us a number of Indonesian musical trends that I sure as shootin' let alone you don't know toopie about. But hey, if you're interested in "Gambus Rock" and "Islamic Folk" sung by women who break the soprano barrier to the point where only dogs can hear 'em boy, are you in for a treat! 

These seemingly clandestine broadcasts (which I assume are of a current nature) have a whole load of interesting freak-out pop and downright hard-rock madness interspaced with a whole load of altered Javanese talk which for all I know could have been Sukarno giving instructions to his troops. The old Amerigan radio jingles adapted for local broadcast really do scrape up them memories (not necessarily good ones) as well. Sounds like a cross between some of the things I used to pick up on shortwave as a kid as well as the music you're going to be hearing in a whole lotta restaurants once these people eventually make their way to our shores. And you all know they will.

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Marc Cunningham & Jorgen Teller-NEXT CD-r burn (originally on Feeding Tube Records)

Strange as it seems but former Mars etc. bass guitarist and soon-to-be trumpeter Marc Cunningham has had a rather long "career" in Spain playing music that I get the impression might seem alien to those who first chanced upon his talents way back during the NO NEW YORK days. Here he is teamed up with a more outside of it than the usual outside types Jorgen Teller who plays guitar including a Hofner electric with two bass strings on it! You probably have heard Cunningham on the horn before, and with the addition of Teller and a whole kit 'n kaboodle of electronic effects this makes for the kind of music various dorks that sometimes tune into this blog can actually appreciate. Moody and dare-I-say even dreamy in ways that usually don't penetrate your brain armor.  

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Stare Kits-LIVE IN NYC 1979 CD-r burn (originally on Feeding Tube Records)

This 'un's been flying around on the grey market (in fact reviewed in these "pages" earlier), but Feeding Tube deemed it gosh golly enough to give them a legitimate release! The sound has been cleaned up a bit but that won't matter to you because the music is great in that New York ahtzy way that continued in a variety of local groups long after the no wave breathed its last whenever it was that the no wave breathed. 

I believe that the word they use to describe this type of music is "angular" but fans of late-sixties Renaissance/Systematic Records catalogs will probably clamor to buy a release like this if only out of reliving one's youth. I at times am reminded of the late-seventies Red Crayola while others have mentioned such stellar names as Wire and Ut. The Great ! Society track's even faithful enough to the early San Fran pre-hippoid trash groove which certainly is a feather in their caps considering the gap  between mid-sixties San Francisco and late-seventies lower Manhattan. Good enough that you won't even mind that the high-warbling female vocalist here is the template for just about every whiny "I'm My Own Woman!" breed of screecher many of us have had the displeasure of hearing these past fortysome years.

Waddeva, now that this is available in the flesh, or plastic in this case get it. Live from TR3 as well as some rehearsal type things that sound sturdy enough for my own sense of enjoyment. Worth the quarter of a Ben Franklin you'll probably have to spend for it.

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Will Rogers once remarked that he never met a man he didn't like. Well, I never met a man who bought back issues of BLACK TO COMM that I didn't like. And the rest of you can go blow more than just bubbles for all I care!

I've been trying to pump out these major league posts at a more frequent pace that I have these past four years, and I am doing my best if that means a heck of a lot to you. Believe it or leave it, but I don't see much of value in any of them including this 'un but still it's better'n if I had just stayed in my room the whole time digging through my NANCY paperback collection like any real deal BLOG TO COMMunist out there should. Doing this blog is sorta like an updated version of my mom yellin' "GO OUTSIDE AND GET SOME FRESH AIR!" and well, it does keep me occupied in between viewing HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL reruns and scrubbing the toilet after a rather powerful prune juice experience.

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Heavens to Betsy Ross but it does seem as if it is picking up on the record front! Unfortunately I'll be passing on most of the new/old or old/new or well, you know, those old things that are getting some new life items that are making their way to a variety of online mailorder businesses. The new collection of rarities from the Laughing Hyenas archives looks rather yummy as do such other fresh off the press items like the Brion Gyson DREAMACHINE longplayer not forgetting the Black Randy reissue which passed my paws when it first came out because I was poor even back then. Too bad I can't afford the whole lot of 'em even though I really should given that I've saved up a whole load of moolah for my "old age"...unfortunately I'm unable to lay my hands on it at this time and gotta wait a few years if not more to hit that ol' jackpot. But when I do get hold of it I better go out and flitter all of my money away on such items because well, it looks like I don't have any heirs and I don't want to give all of whatever I have that's left over to The Society to Combat Baldness. 

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MY TWO CENTS WORTH DEPT.: In this world of real deal death and destruction I gotta tell you that I really don't cozy up to all of this heavy duty carnage that is now going on in the Middle East and for reasons that don't even remotely have anything to do with (maybe) you and (definitely) me. Yeah it sure is fun watching all of those happy Iranians jumping up and down even though you get the feeling that a good portion of 'em or at least their parents were yelling "Death to the Shah!" a good fiftysome years back, but what does that have to do with me in the here and now stuck in Western Pee-YAY? It's also nicey-nice to know that at least few high-ranking Iranian badskis have been sent to their afterlife, but in the overall what does any of this really matter when it comes to the important things in life like putting food on the table and records on the turntable? Something deep inside like a constipated turd tells me that all of the joyous hubbub is going to be ending a whole lot sooner than anyone out there's expecting and with consequences than few if any of us can imagine. And I don't just mean inflation or even mass-scale carnage in your local municipality either.

Maybe this whole Mideast kabooming's all fun and jamz for those Death Cult Christian types who want to hasten the end of the world even though if they do they'd be denying future generations into joining the gang so to speak, but overall this breed of religious fervor makes me want to puke my last two Chinese buffets. Y'know, Old Testament revenge and the annihilation of schoolchildren to fulfill some naturally misconstrued Bible prophesy that may or may not come about in the near future but well, it sure feels good in that altruistic self assuring way that you're going to be first in line for the oblivion express while all of us pagans are gonna be tearing each other apart. Or something like that which doesn't faze these worshippers who believe that some people are destined for eternal glory while children are OK targets because they're not in on the Big Ol' Glory Train so-to-speak. And yeah, I'm in with all of those Communist types like Norman Finkelstein on this one! 

Haven't we all had enough of this End Times rigamarole ever since THE LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH had more'n a few Chicken Littles doing the glory hallelujah freaking out routine while letting everyone around 'em osmose their sanctimony way back in the seventies? Talk about suicidal people who want to take everyone else with them! Kinda makes me wish that if I were around in those BC days I'd be up and front on the pagan train if only out of spite!

And all of this after Trump put down (rightfully so) Obama for his own saber rattling too. Eeeugh! Well, next time someone out there elects a peace president please let me know.

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It looks like HOMEMADE SHIT has gone down the crapper. Instead expect a new mag entitled RUTEBAGA which is supposedly to be patterned after the old English magazine OZ so expect a lotta nude gals in these pages. Maybe Wade Oberlin should rent a balloon and toss copies all over Hooterville!

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Bless it all but yet another issue of DUMB AND READY PIGMEAT has made its way to my door, or at least my sliding glass window. A fine cudzine to read on the pot while your number two dutifully glides down your colon as you actually get to read Brad Kohler's screenplay for a film about none other than Darby Crash's...er..."crash" that got rejected because there was already a film on the guy being made at the time. That 'un came and went without anyone noticing because frankly, who else other than Hollywood snoots and dimwitted slobs go to the moom pitchers these days anyway. Support the guy...I mean, his wife listens to NPR so he needs all the help he can get! Again, send all of those green pieces of paper with the pictures on them to 802 Crystal St., Ames IA 50010 and that's in the USA in case you didn't know.

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Oh boy, record review time! Thanks go to Otto von Ruggins for the Kongress material and Pail McGarry for Dock Boggs.

Various Artists-CBGB & OMFUG - A NEW YORK SOUNDTRACK 1975-1986 4-CD set (Cherry Red Records, England)

I won't apologize to Bruno for not being able to find my Stilettos disque in time to help out with the liner notes to this budget-priced four Cee-Dee set.  The one containing material I woulda killed for way back which purports (and actually succeeds) to be a cross-section of what was going up and down at CBGB back during the Golden Age of Smart Underground Rockitude. I don't apologize for anything anymore out of self-respect but eh, at least this collection finally made it out without my help and like, I think this is a pretty neat bunch of trackage if I do say so myself. I'm glad Bruno got his Stilettos information despite my lack of help even if he probably hates the dickens out of me.

Not a great package considering that some of the groups who were playing at the club at the time weren't exactly up to BTC standards and others were ignored but still, if you're the kind of guy who wants to know what you might have been listening to had you plopped your butt at the club this would be a close approximation. Without some of the glammier, more metallic or even folksy trios true, but close enough to maybe even get that cigar.

It is a brilliant selection of the well known mixed with the nth-string. Not enough nth-stringers that I would have loved hearing for my tastes but still fun with a purpose enough in the old HIGHLIGHTS FOR CHILDREN vein with early practitioners like the Magic Tramps intermingled with the later on flashes with all sorts of entertaining bits and surprises thrown in. If you like the era of glam punk you'll dig this as well as all of those brainy art bands and even a few that I never thought would ever make it to disque like the Planets even! Most of it sounds good intermingled with a wide array of under-the-underground stylage, although the more synth-y and hardcore types just make me think about how disappointing it was to see the mid/late-seventies lurch into a new style that more or less reflected either the hap-hap-happy eighties or a faint attempt to counteract them rather than the gritty seventies that produced all of that nerve-grating beauty. The music that drew a whole load of people (including myself, virtue signaling me must confess) to this breed of rambunction in the first place.

Its a pick or choose with this trackage but I doubt that anyone stupid enough to tune into this blog won't find something that just might suit their tastes no matter how hard-edged or simpy it may be.

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Kongress-50th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION! MAGICK BY KONGRESS (MADGICIANS 1 + 2,  MAGICK) 3-CD-r burn set

Sheesh, FIFTY YEARS??? Even I can remember back that far back when people were still marveling about what was happening fifty years earlier in the Roaring You-Know-Whats, like movies and early radio and celebrity criminals who still seemed to resonate with the older people in my life. Even to me it seems like ancient history on one hand and current events on the other...sheesh, at that time many of the actors who were making those old films were still up and about doing interviews if not even still stepping in front of the camera on occasion. Today it seems all as much history as the Babylonian segment of INTOLERANCE if not the dawn of time, and if you think that makes li'l ol' me feel any younger you are sadly mistaken!

Kongress didn't make the CBGB collection cut, probably because they were anything BUT a CBGB band having the honor of being banned from the club twice in 1976 and more or less deciding to stick with Max's Kansas City as home base. But still they were one of many acts from those days who should have gone on to better things even if they didn't quite fit the idea of what underground rock 1976 was supposed to be or something along those lines and like, if a group like the Ramones could make it big why not Kongress?

The early tracks do have a late-sixties/early-seventies punk (in the old CREEM magazine sense) sound with plenty of of krautisms (which were always punk anyway) with '68 Velvetisms and some Arthur Brown tossed in to pound home that evil tinge. The earlier tracks do harbor a strong sense of cusp-era cataclysmic music attitude but could easily have been PEBBLES fodder if honed into one of those local group single sides from '71 that actually made it onto a few of those albums. Sheesh, if Kongress were around way back when I'm sure they could have cooked up a neat single along the lines of It's All Meat or the Magi, without the synths of course but it sure would have been a doozy! 

The later ones with Marilyn and Ilosa Hatt vocalizing do have more of a "new wave" tinge to them, but it's like good "new wave" back when groups like the Comateens were actually making listenable records despite the inherent ginchiness of the times. Even "Oliver Twist" which snatches some early-eighties rap moves doesn't trigger any regurgitating despite all indications that I SHOULD do a li'l puking if only our of maintaining a good self image. Great stuff despite the aura of early-eighties sparkle, though I must admit these songs do make me feel somewhat down though, if only because a lot of this music reminds me of a particularly bitter time in my existence...ain't their fault tho!

One truly bizarro thing about this set is that on "Son of Sam" Krozier's vocals are censored for some reason, replaced with some inaudible to me electronicized garble. The lines edited out went something around the lines of "His skin is brown, but not from tan/All my victims have brown hair" which I guess would be offensive to someone out there in these precious petunia days but I don't know why!

A bunch of  extremely ear-opening sounds definitely deserving the royal red carpet treatment complete with the obligatory book enclosure and tons of inside info. Credits and song background info dates/personnel/instruments/onandon would also help. If you're interested in hearing these, try this link or maybe even this other one as well. 

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Les Rallizes Denudes-FRANCE DEMO TAPES CD (Bamboo Records)

These early-eighties recordings have been flying around for a longer time than anyone could imagine, but it's sure nice seeing them gathered together in one place and cleaned up somewhat. As any fan of the group would know these Denudes are part of the essentials along with all of those other ones that have been getting tossed at us these past sixtysome years, and with yet another nervegrating version of "The Last One" and a remarkable "Cruel Love" that settles into one of those repeato riff modes that you can really soak into your psyche at that how can you lose getting hold of this. If you're only going to buy one Les Rallizes Denudes album this year make it this one. I already did knowing that finances won't let me buy another.

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Kraftwerk-KLINGKLANG LIVE 1974 CD (Audiovaults Records)

By now Kraftwerk were settling into a relatively tame electronic rock style which would propel them to international notoriety once AUTOBAHN got them onto the charts and into the collections. Gotta admit that Kraftwerk at this stage in the game were becoming even more reserved than they were on RALF UND FLORIAN, and I'm afraid that recordings like this one show the beginning of the end of Kraftwerk as a nervetwisting musical entity and the beginning of them as a robotic dance band for people who won't admit that they like disco but they listened to Kraftwerk because they were German and thus continental. Now if only someone would locate a tape of that infamous live show from a few months earlier where the two were joined by a pair of guitarists who divebombed their way through an early version of "Autobahn" that puts the better known version to abject shame!

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Dock Boggs-LEGENDARY SINGER & BANJO PLAYER CD-r burn (originally on Folkways Records)

This guy sounds like one of those twenties-vintage Appalachian types who picked up a banjo and did pretty good with it even though it was more or less his avocation, he making most all of his bread slaving away in the coal mines. Then, after a brief recording career, he dropped the musical act altogether and devoted his hours to the real life deal only to be re-discovered a good thirtysome years later by one of those pointy-headed intellectual New York types who made him a proud member of the new folkie boom until eventually doing the big 86 like they all seem to do. From thereon in the man became one of those proud forbearers of a whole slew of sounds that studious practitioners of various hip musical forms consider the "roots" of whatever it is they're doing these days. Am I right? 

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STRAVINSKY : THE FIREBIRD-SEIJI OZAWA, BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CD (EMI Records, Japan)

Gotta say that I prefer THE RITES OF SPRING over this, but it is still early Stravinsky and a whole load of rock types, both snooty and not, really go for this breed of longhair barrage. Fine to the point where you can purge yourself of some of that inner turmoil that's been rumblin' inside your guts as of late and besides, with this 'un you can all finally throw away your copies of YESSONGS! 

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BLACK TO COMM back isues are still available in case you are interested. And anyone who has been reading this blog for the past twentysome years should be interested enough in latching onto a whole number of these essential magazines which might not be as important to the canon of eighties/nineties underground rock journalism as FLIPSIDE true, but they might look nice on your coffee table when the in-laws come to visit. Which might be a good idea,,,after all, you know they'll never come back after seeing those laying around that's for sure!