BLOG TO COMM

BLOG TO COMM VINYL LISTENING ORGY!

Hi. I used to call my rekkid spinning cols a "vinyl listening party," but since I only recently remembered that PUNK magazine had been using the exact same term to describe their own NEW YORK ROCKER/CREEM-styled conversation/reviews not only in-print but online these past few years I figured that I better change the title of my own series before I get royally sued! And yeah, despite the title I gotta 'fess up to the fact that this measly handfulla spinners does not exactly make an "orgy" but given the marathon-length time spent giving these platters a lissen I sure felt like one of the survivors of de Sade's three-month romp myself! Anyway, eat up...I'll be away for a few days so don't think I'm ignoring any of you eager-beaver readers/eaters out there (unless I am ignoring you, if you know what I mean certain somebodies!) while I head out for parts certainly known. Scrubbing of this blog to correct various inaccuracies, misspellings and other bizarroid mistakes will have to wait, and while I'm at it lemme say to anyone out there who may happen to read this feel free to come over and loot the place if you wish. You won't be getting much if anything, that's for sure!

BIG STAR LIVE (bootleg)

Remember back in the not-so-good ol' days when a pimply overweight bulge's main thrill was headin' out to the local outta-the-way cheapo record shop to thumb his way through all of those $4.99 elpees, cut-outs, bootlegs and imports that were retailing for just a buck extra (all easily within said plumpo's budget thank goodniz!). I sure do, and one of my favorite throb thrill memories of this distant past was going through the bootleg bins to eyeball alla those wacky insert-sleeve offerings that seemed way superior (in their own low-fi ways) to the legit mulch at hand. Sheesh, I can still recall alla those wild live Pink Floyd sets like BARRETT'S REVENGE and NOCTURNAL SUBMISSION that I certainly lusted after not forgetting those wild TMOQ offerings like the Stones' SUMMER RERUNS and WHO'S ZOO and of course how could I ever shake outta my head the disappointment of paying $7.98 for the Zappa/Mothers NO COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL two-record set only to get it home and find out that the thing was pressed on old floor mats! But cheap product or not, bootlegs certainly had their purpose and meaning as far as record collections across the globe go, and even with their overall improvement o'er the years with regards to sound quality and general packaging those early rubber-stamped or xerox-sleeve slapdashes certainly have a soft spot in my heart, or perhaps my soft head to "boot" (no pun intended there!).

So you could imagine my surprise when I spotted this Big Star bootleg, a xerox cover insert job as well and undoubtly an item not from the seventies or eighties but the here and now, or at least the nineties one would surmise. Yes, in an age of bootleg Cee-Dees and the ability to crank out your own personal fave-rave offering with an array of CD burners there still are vinyl boots being offered which should warm the cockles of some seventies-nostalgic hearts out there! And a Big Star live at Max's Kansas City album seemed just too good to be true not only because the fact that a group of such a cult status as Big Star warranting a bootleg release tends to boggle the ol' beanie, but I hadn't heard of any tapes of their '74 appearance at that famed hipster hole circulating and it's just that mere fact which made me jump on a copy of this 'un in the same fashion that Dave Lang jumps onto an ever-beggin' open set of bronzed buttocks!

I did say it was too good to be true, and as the cliche goes perhaps that's because it WASN'T. Turns out that this elpee wasn't culled from any live Max's tapes after all but from the WLIR-FM on Long Island in-studio live gig that Big Star did to promote those very same upcoming Max's gigs! Nothing wrong with that one bit, 'cept that this show is now available legal-like from the fine folks at Norton Records (see link at left), and if anyone shoulda been gettin' my money for that album it shoulda been Norton! Oh well, I can still buy the real-deal thing if I like and perhaps I will eventually, but in the meantime I got this illicit platter which at least has a copy of a review of the Max's show onna sleeve which is informative though I woulda preferred that the bootleggers'd copped a copy of Fred Kirby's VARIETY writeup. At least Kirby was a hep mid-ager who seemed to have a nicely skewered take on the underground sounds that were coming outta the NYC clubs throughout the seventies.

Illegit or not, BIG STAR LIVE is a mighty nice recording of a neat concept in FM radio broadcasting back when there still must've been some strange chard of freeform in the ever-AOR-encroaching format. The band play excellent-like, reminding me a lot more of the classic mid-sixties Beatles filtered for the mid-seventies or T. Rex than all of the alternative snoozers Big Star eventually spawned, and the interview segment is sure a lot more intelligent'n alla those pithy Q&A bits you get to hear via such rather tiresome "Fresh Air"-inspired gab shows these days. In any shape or form it's worth your while to have and who knows, BIG STAR LIVE might just fit in with your own personal seventies power pop listening orgy to take place after unearthing a choice selection of late-seventies issues of BOMP and perhaps the recently-released Marbles CD which even I haven't had the chance to snatch up yet!

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Chico Freeman-SPIRIT SENSITIVE (India Navigation)

I usually can remember the exact day 'n time I bought a certain elpee with the same joy de vivre that a person remembers what he was doing when John Kennedy got his brains splattered all across the upholstery of his Lincoln limo, but for some odd reason I don't recall ever latching onto this platter featuring a jazz sesh led by tenor saxist Chico Freeman. However, considering how this 'un ain't some hot all-out free-form squonk like I was hoping it's no surprise I sorta shut this one outta my mind lo these many years. Done for the India Navigation label (who also released a rather snat Revolutionary Ensemble album around the same time that's so rare I only have a cassette dub of it), SPIRIT SENSITIVE's just anudder one of those albums where the avant guys dig back to their pre-bop pasts foolin' all us unsuspecting saps in the process which kinda burns me up considerin' the potential that Freeman and his backup (including drummer Don Moye of Art Ensemble fame) had to make this another ear-popper. Oh well, it's their heritage, but soul-cleansing or awe-inspiring it ain't. Sheesh, this is almost as bad a burn as picking up some of those seventies Archie Shepp albums which showed him well past "it"!

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Hawkwind, Friends & Relations-TWICE UPON A TIME (Flicknife UK)

I sorta remember picking this 'un up after John Stanton was layin' this rap on me regarding Jon Savage's highest of high reviews in a recent whateverthatweeklyhewroteforwas, and once again Stanton and Savage were right. Released on the infamous vanity label Flicknife at what I believe was an ebb in Hawkwind's career (super-serious fans may beg to differ), side one's got live wowzers recorded throughout the seventies (the highlight being the extended "We Do It" from '71 where Hawkwind do the grand repeato-riff high-energy thing that recalls the earlier work of this one group I seem to mention way too much on this blog as well as other outlets) while the flip's solo and side-project stuff that doesn't sound like the usual home-studio wankjobs we've heard way too often these past few decades. A refreshing surprise esp. for this seventies lover and nice change o' pace from the usual same old.

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Fred Frith-GUITAR SOLOS (Caroline UK); Various Artists-GUITAR SOLOS 2 (Caroline UK)

Here are some import bin stuffers of the mid-seventies that I used to espy while looking for the likes of Hatfield and the North (a group I've yet to hear!) albums and the like back when shopping mall record shops were a pretty exciting place to venture into. Anyway, I bought these two splats in question as well as a few other goodies from Bill Shute back in 1986 when the guy was strapped for cash and decided to unload some of his platters in order to eat, and naturally I obliged in taking advantage of a man who was in such dire straights just so's I could pad out my own album collection with relative ease and only a slight strain on the pocketbook! Anyway both of these discs were part of the full meal deal, and since I hadn't played 'em since those halcyon days I thought I'd give 'em another go just so remind myself of what all the fuss was about at least as far as fuzzy import bin memories went. As I expected, both of these albums (released on Virgin's Caroline subsidiary where they slapped alla the gunk that was even too gooey for their usual prog-hippie sensibilities) are filled to the brim with a whole load of solo guitar extrapolations either done acoustically or electrically with effects or preparations that may boggle the average listener, but those of us who've been in on the secret for the past few decades'll recognize it as part of that blooming British underground that gave us a whole slew of loonies from AMM on down. Frith gets his own solo platter to try out various forms that were even too wild for Henry Cow and of course you can hear everything from the Cow to krautrock ideas and usual avant smarts filtered into here and made even more heady, while on vol. 2 Frith shares the spotlight with a G. F. Fitzgerald, Hans Reichel (a name that rings a bell somewhat) and none other'n British legend Derek Bailey and all seem to be in a contest to outdo each other in exploring new vistas in recorded sound while attempting to drive your folks batty, and it may work on you too! Interesting aside..while looking at GUITAR SOLOS VOL. 2 under a bright light I noticed a lotta fine scratches that would have been invisible to the nekkid eye under most any other form o' illumination, making me wonder what kinda mindstate Shute was in while spinning this certifiable doo-wah classic! Who knows, maybe someday he may tell us all, and a grand jury as well!