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SO WHAT WERE YOU EXPECTING---DETAILED TWANG?????

Sorry (yeah, right!) that this particular blogpost can't be as star-studded and jambus-packtus as it has been with hotcha pertinent information just brimming from its borders, but we can't all be Jay Hinman. All kidding aside, feel thankful that I was able to scratch this pitiful bunch of reviews (of recorded items taken directly from my recent Forced Exposure order) up for your pleasure this week, because this just hadda've been one of the more jungered seven-day periods (not that, girlies!) that I have come across as of late. Being able to come out of it with even the energy to tie my shoes certainly is a miracle in itself, and naturally old devoted """I""" have decided to forge on and do some all important blogging when I could be lounging about in the back yard! Talk about devotion, willya? Believe-you-me, there were more goodies in that package than the following pittance to talk about but those have yet to be listened to and gestated in the pregnant mind-fields of my cranium, so stick around for a week or three to get the full meal deal.

Before we get into the juicy bits of tasty musical morsels maybe I should mention the very recent passing of none other than that ol' newsman we've known to somethingorother, Walt Cronkite. Yes, I do know that I should be saying nothing but nice things about the guy now that he's deader 'n Sam, and in the course of it maybe tell you about all of the memories I have of the evening news being on and Mom'd be darning socks while Dad'd be reading the paper and Jillery would either be doing her homework or causing trouble...with me being steamed as ever the whole time because on channel 33 they were showing YOGI BEAR cartoons while NBC and CBS were running the news and my folks did not want to watch ABC because their news presentations with the long-forgotten Ron Cochran reeked so bad! Yeah I could tell you all that but I'll just go on to say that ol' Walt sure suckered a whole buncha people into thinking that he was "the most trusted name in news" because I dunno if I could trust the guy to be chief-of-dogcatchers let alone someone whom I could believe to give me the pure unadulterated news! From what I have read over the years, Cronkite came off like your typical smug and above-it-all television anchorman whose sneering elitism was perhaps hidden by a genuine misunderstanding of everyone from the Soviets, Chinese, Viet Cong (remember, he's the one who told us that the tide of the Vietnam war had changed after TET when in fact the exact opposite had happened) and perhaps Ameriga itself. (I do remember watching some "town hall"-styled interview program with him from the late-seventies when a priest complained to him about the lack of coverage of pro life happenings and Cronkite gave a pat, brief and smug response with this hideously above-it-all look upon his face. For a guy who wasn't that enamored with the pro life movement at the time even I couldn't take the condescending attitude that was being broadcast nationally!)

Walt soon evolved from being a bewildered sixties liberal seemingly confused over the kids and their strange ways into being a crusading seventies/eighties one, or at least I would get that impression regarding some of his more outspoken rants and opinions regarding the entire world struggle as we've seen it. And, to make matters even worse, in between hosting boring New Years Day specials on PBS Cronkite was, in his advanced stage, penning newspaper columns about how maybe he gloriosky would consider marrying a man which only goes to show you that maybe we should keep octogenarians away from the internet and word-processors especially if they are being heavily dosed! Yeah, I know some of you older BTC readers will point to his (from what I can barely remember about it) THE TWENTIETH CENTURY series (and who could forget the footage of all those stacked up bodies complete with closeups of children's faces which really gave us three-year-olds the creeps!) and its successor THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY which was either right on-target predictable or typical FLASH GORDON fodder, but then again he was also the host of the vastly-overrated YOU ARE THERE which, like all of those similar-minded PBS historical recreations this program obviously inspired, was just the past looked at through extremely tinted elitist rear viewing mirror glasses (read: poor downtrodden schmucks the good guys, overweight mustachioed whites the heavies).

Frankly, in my perhaps not-so-humble opinion Walter Cronkite's passing came more than a bit too late.

Now that we got the serious, thought-provoking portion of this post out of the way let's get on to the good stuff (or shall I say that stuff I dished out good money for in the hopes it would be good!):

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MAMMUT CD (Long Hair Germany, available via Forced Exposure)

I haven't been getting many new krautrock jollies as of late and there's only so many times I can spin my copy of PARDIESWARTS DUUL nightly before wafting off into a non-narcotic inducced dream state, so latching onto this recently-reissued obscurity seemed like the manly thing to do. Unfortunately Mammut can't hack it with the rest of the German/European proto-punky garage aficionados on the scene with their look-how-heavy-we-can-get playing and general early-seventies miasma stylings that do tend to agitate. Heavy on the progressive state of affairs, so if you go for that sorta thing be my guest! Cee-Dee closing track by the pre-Mammut Rope Sect had some spice to it, so maybe I should try to snatch up that UNDER PARTY GROUND collection from whence it was culled? Sounds like a tastier piece of schnitzel, yahwohl!

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The Inner Space-AGILOK AND BLUBBO CD (Wah Wah, available through Forced Exposure)

Really, I thought this collection of early pre-Can soundtrack music was going to be an out-and-out winner, but it's nothing but tres-boring incidental tinkling with a few spicy bits of rock thrown in here and there, nothing to get excited at all about. In fact most of AGILOK AND BLUBO is quite the road to irritable-ville, and although brief bits and pieces might have served us better scattered across say, a collection along the lines of (UN)LIMITED EDITION it pretty much sounds like a flat out snoozer when heard from end to end. The saddest thing about this 'un is that while this stuff gets the royal red carpet treatment there are HOURS of Can rarities that remain unreleased to this day that sure would brighten the life of any German expressionist rock fan who has to beg for his shards whilst others get the filet mignon treatment. I'm tired of these dog biscuits too and sure could use a few buffet trips, if you know what I mean!

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Sperm-SHH! LP (De Stjil...Forced Exposure seems to be out of 'em but Volcanic Tongue had 'em available the last time I looked)

Rumor has it that 95% of all Finnlanders are inbred, and if this is true then there certainly is an excuse for this album. Actually it's a good 'un if you're into all of those nutty noisebender freeform bleats that have been ticklin' the ol' bean for the past forty sunspins, complete with weirdo freaksound noise and even an extended horn romp that'll give both the LAFMS people and the AACM reason to stay up all night in agony. Sperm founder/leader Pekka Airaksinen is somewhat of a legend in Finland, and as far as late-sixties freakshow rampages go Sperm were perhaps the nuttiest bunch to ever get their sick act out on a stage, at one point going as far as to actually have live balling segments which as far as I can tell only the Fugs ever dared speak about. Crazy indeed, and if you ask me I think a Sperm/Smegma double bill would've been one of the choicest pairings to ever grace a stage (ow!)

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Cromagnon-CAVE ROCK CD (ESP)

Third time's the charm for this crucial ESP reissue, the first being taken from vinyl sounding the worse for wear with side two sped up while the second, although sounding much better, took liberties in editing that no true believer should ever dare accept. CAVE ROCK remains a highmark of the entire late-sixties doo-wah classics, and really I can't see any BTC-approved home being without one safel snuggled next to all their Neu! and Faust pleasers. Digipack omits the all-crucial history, but maybe you can snatch whatever info you can from your other issues.