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JUST PUSSIN' THROUGH!

Not much goin' on. Have a few biggies inna fire that I'll enlighten you about once them reviews germinate in my fertile, manure-filled mind along with the rest of the mushrooms but until then chomp on these, sunshine!

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Julie Normal and Olivier Zmo-ACCIDENT DU TRAVAIL LP (ondesmusicales.com, France)

Didn't know what to think about this album when I first removed it from its quivering envelope, but ACCIDENT turns out to actually be a downright entertaining collection of avant garde musings located somewhere between Terry Riley and Fripp/Eno, all played on an ondes martenot! Pleasurable drones to help soothe the inner you battered daily by the constant onslaught of work and other disgusting necessities of life. (BTW I hope I got the names and titles correct since my French would get me murdered in downtown Paris!) The fact that it's analog also helps, especially with those pops beginning and ending each side that bring back long-lost memories of vinyl obsession I thought I'd never forget. If you like old old avant as opposed to newer old avant or post-postmodern avant, this might be the surprise hit of the season!

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Better than Death-SWIMMAN LP (Lost)

Here's one I got on a lark after doing some CBGB gig searching, and although I kinda had the feeling that with a name like Better Than Death it just hadda be good in typical Smuckers fashion frankly I thought I was going to latch onto yet another bowzer considering the time (1988) and place (post-gnu wave Ameriga). Hmmmm, turns out there guys were actually on-target with some eighties new wave here, a little garage band ideals there, and a lotta avant garde free jazz stylings all over the place! Not that dissimilar to much of the underground rock spew being made at CBGB in the eighties but WAIT!!!...is that none other than free jazz musician Michael Lyle playing not only a bass clarinet but an Anthony Braxton-sized contrabass one as well??? No wonder they have that all 'round abstract bleat which makes this more than yet another feh amerindie tossout! An interesting outta nowhere surprise I probably would have loathed had I heard it way back when but nowadays it just doesn't sound as precocious as it used to.

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Lou Reed-THE PHANTOM OF ROCK CD (bootleg)

Yazzuh, I know this 'un's available legal like but given how I want as little money as possible to go into that degenerate Reed's pocket I prefer to stick with this earlier bootleg version of his "comeback" show, tape glitches and all. Lou is still palatable enough as an entertainer at this point in time and he even seems to shine a bit as far as being a New York Street Poet goes (yet to devolve into the Dylan for the sot set), while backup band the Tots shine through sounding a whole lot better'n those blokes Richard Robinson got to back Reed up on the first album! Well, at least they sound as down home garage band as any hot En Why See group from the mid-seventies onward making me wonder why they didn't stick together long enough to conquer that scene! Some disappointments do pop up such as on the total disembowelment of "Sister Ray" which has been turned into more of a mid-eighties amerindie grope for hotcha decapoints, but the rest is way more'n passable early-seventies deca-rcok, and the Tots might have been the best band to back solo Lou ever even including the eighties Quine lineup and that's really saying somethin'!