As you can see, there's not that much to babble on about this weekn'd though in typical long-winded fashion I will try to pad this out using my keen sense of sticking my finger up just what you, the average BLOG TO COMM reader, not only wants but desires in his reading matter. Can't say that I'm totally sorry about this...after all, I have been busier than the obit writer for THE NAGASAKI DAILY NEWS way back August '45 way what with the ever-encroaching drama of REAL LIFE taking an undue toll on me. Just be thankful that you got these two bits of recorded wonderment presented for you 'stead of nothing. Y'know, I could have just said *#&% it and fluffed off this weekend ramble-on but I didn't, mainly because I must indulge in my rockist obsessions every chance I possibly could get and besides, I don't want to live under the cloud of any of you readers thinking I'm a wanker in my responsibilities, y'know...
But I will say that the items presented here are promising enough to make me think that maybe the year of '12 will be a greater, more high energy and powerful one than I had let on earlier. The Breau Cee-Dee has the potential to become a long-time repeated play rather than another one-spin and back of the binner, while Mordecai at least give one hope that there's more to punk rock as it stood in 1975 and as it will be in 2012 than the reams of overhyped quickies that many blogsters have been raving to the heavens these past ten or so years. Both of these items are what I would call upper-echelon, and the sooner they make their way into your lives the better!
So w/o further ado'n all that, here's this weekend's rambler...don't say you weren't warned.
Edgar Breau-PATCHES OF BLUE CD (Flying Inn , Canada)
This one certainly caught me by surprise when it came in the mail a few days ago. Well, maybe it shouldn't have done that since Breau has been talking up this new solo Cee-Dee of his for awhile as if he was talking up a new cigar, but then again it ain't like I've been payin' that much attention these past few weeks what with all of the forces of real life yankin' at me like a li'l kid begging his dad to buy him a new tootsietoy. I know, I have nobody to really blame but myself.
But man this is a good 'un...if you like Edgar Breau with or without the Saucer people you'll really go for the other side of the guy, who on this platter does a whole load of beyond-passable goodies that really make all of those claims goin' 'round about him being a "Canadian Primitive" sound like even more hackneyed rockcrit hype. Breau reminds me of some sorta late-sixties rockin' troubadour who I probably never heard of but would like with the dickens if I found out he had some hipster hook in his credo, like played at Max's in 1972 or something, and the way he can mix various aspects of singer/songwriter sunshine and lollipops with a draconian vision straight outta the Velvet Underground is something that continues to amaze me considering how EVERY OTHER ATTEMPT TO CONVEY THE SAME VISION (both on pro and amateur levels) HAS RESULTED IN SOME OF THE WORST DREK TO GRACE MY EARS IN DREK-FILLED AGES!!!.
And hey, I dunno about you but I'll listen to "Dandelion Kingdom" (a verifiable Syd Barrett exclamation of addled joy) over and over for hours on end if I wanted. Heck, the guy even does a song here about my neck of the woods ("Pennsylvania") which sure sounds more like a homage than the usual bleary-eyed mewls that one might hear if one were asked to write a ditty to say...Pulaski. And any song that can mention a nada town like Grove City (home to a once-famous Supreme Court case involving a reformist college, a gigantic shopping outlet plaza and lotsa boring types) and make it sound like a place one would actually want to visit let alone live in has got something goin' for him.
Saucer fans'll be glad to hear that longtime bassist Kevin Christoff is front and center here (which could make this yet another Simply Saucer via. Third Kind via Shadows of Ecstasy platter if you wish!), and if you like the work the pair did when they were in those aforementioned Shadows back '90 way you'll like this 'un to the rafters. And then again, if you haven't heard this interim Breau band don't worry, because in a few short months you probably will (Cee-Dee is inna works!) which is one good thing that I have to look forward to once 2012 starts getting into gear and all of those rarities that have been promised to us for decades finally materialize thus giving all true BLOG TO COMM readers years of enjoyment!
MORDECAI 2-CD-R SET
Here's one of those outta-nowhere recording (and possibly performing) acts that used to get the hotcha rock screedics all excited dog-earing their Thesauruses looking up superlatives that haven't been used in eighty years. Y'know, the kind that some outta-the-loop fanzine would plug to the rafters back in the seventies because these guys were rehearsing next door and frankly there was nothing else local to write about unless you wanted to type on about some cover band that played at the local bar. Real down and dirty stuff that brought back memories of all of those sixties groups you liked whose ideas were being reshaped in the seventies only now it was the oh-ohs and you thought all of those stuff died out with the last issue of SONIC IGUANA 'r somethin'! Well, here we are in 2012 long after the era of high energy had petered out into fuzzy wuzzy pablum for the pueriles, and what do we got but none other than MORDECAI!!!!!
A nice way to start out the year, these Mordecai guys are an up and cummin' band from none other than Butte Montana who not only know how to bust a few eardrums, but have recorded a double disc demo in their basement (knotty pine at that!) that brings back nice and cozy thoughts regarding all of your favorite seventies punk skiddoos from the Neon Boys/Television (talkin' 'bout the days before they learned to handle their instruments in a more adolescent fashion), the Electric Eels and Pagans as well as the Gizmos, the ever-popular Kid Sister, the Screamin' Mee-Mee's and even the various Umela Hmota offerings that were getting stifled in Prague back in the middle portion of that wowzer decade. I was also reminded of the Sonars, an unheralded Cleveland group from the latter portion of them days which was led by Matt McManus, the younger brother of Electric Eel Dave E who managed to at least get a mid-fidelity demo out and about into a few collections and who better get a complete archival release available shortly if the people at the various reissue labels know what's good for 'em (us archival rock fans can get to be a pretty frothing at the mouth bunch, as if eight years of this blog didn't tell ya that already!).
This sounds like it was recorded on a portable cassette player sometime in 1975 which is a good start already, but Mordecai's use of classic Velvets unto Kinks unto Stooges unto Sabbath unto unto riffage really makes 'em a "punk gryphon" (copyright 1982 TAKE IT! magazine) that we can certainly use more of these days. None of that precocious put on that way too many current day under-the-kultur acts put on which only takes the original source and waters 'em down for AV Club consumption. Believe-you-me, this is great straight-ahead punk (as in 1975 CREEM magazine) that has reduced me to the same wallow of vibrating gelatin I used to get back in '79 when spotting old Red Crayola refs. in a variety of articles used to give me the same thrill of unbridled joy that I would get spotting DEVIANTS refs in the same kinda mags!
Keep these names in mind....Elijah Bodish-bass guitar (he's the guy who sent me this!), Holt Bodish-guitar; drums, vocals; Garin-drums; Louie-drums...and that's a whole lotta drums if you ask me! Dunno who plays the one-note sax honk on "Dead Head" which closes out disque #2 but whoever it is, it oughta get some credit around here! Keep an eye out for 'em next time they play Arnie's Bowl-A-Rena, or better yet why not write 'em at 325 W. Gold, Butte MT, 59701 and ask 'em when the record's comin' out. If you have computer handy, you can email em at elijah.bodish@gmail.com and you might even get a prompt reply!
But I will say that the items presented here are promising enough to make me think that maybe the year of '12 will be a greater, more high energy and powerful one than I had let on earlier. The Breau Cee-Dee has the potential to become a long-time repeated play rather than another one-spin and back of the binner, while Mordecai at least give one hope that there's more to punk rock as it stood in 1975 and as it will be in 2012 than the reams of overhyped quickies that many blogsters have been raving to the heavens these past ten or so years. Both of these items are what I would call upper-echelon, and the sooner they make their way into your lives the better!
So w/o further ado'n all that, here's this weekend's rambler...don't say you weren't warned.
***
This one certainly caught me by surprise when it came in the mail a few days ago. Well, maybe it shouldn't have done that since Breau has been talking up this new solo Cee-Dee of his for awhile as if he was talking up a new cigar, but then again it ain't like I've been payin' that much attention these past few weeks what with all of the forces of real life yankin' at me like a li'l kid begging his dad to buy him a new tootsietoy. I know, I have nobody to really blame but myself.
But man this is a good 'un...if you like Edgar Breau with or without the Saucer people you'll really go for the other side of the guy, who on this platter does a whole load of beyond-passable goodies that really make all of those claims goin' 'round about him being a "Canadian Primitive" sound like even more hackneyed rockcrit hype. Breau reminds me of some sorta late-sixties rockin' troubadour who I probably never heard of but would like with the dickens if I found out he had some hipster hook in his credo, like played at Max's in 1972 or something, and the way he can mix various aspects of singer/songwriter sunshine and lollipops with a draconian vision straight outta the Velvet Underground is something that continues to amaze me considering how EVERY OTHER ATTEMPT TO CONVEY THE SAME VISION (both on pro and amateur levels) HAS RESULTED IN SOME OF THE WORST DREK TO GRACE MY EARS IN DREK-FILLED AGES!!!.
And hey, I dunno about you but I'll listen to "Dandelion Kingdom" (a verifiable Syd Barrett exclamation of addled joy) over and over for hours on end if I wanted. Heck, the guy even does a song here about my neck of the woods ("Pennsylvania") which sure sounds more like a homage than the usual bleary-eyed mewls that one might hear if one were asked to write a ditty to say...Pulaski. And any song that can mention a nada town like Grove City (home to a once-famous Supreme Court case involving a reformist college, a gigantic shopping outlet plaza and lotsa boring types) and make it sound like a place one would actually want to visit let alone live in has got something goin' for him.
Saucer fans'll be glad to hear that longtime bassist Kevin Christoff is front and center here (which could make this yet another Simply Saucer via. Third Kind via Shadows of Ecstasy platter if you wish!), and if you like the work the pair did when they were in those aforementioned Shadows back '90 way you'll like this 'un to the rafters. And then again, if you haven't heard this interim Breau band don't worry, because in a few short months you probably will (Cee-Dee is inna works!) which is one good thing that I have to look forward to once 2012 starts getting into gear and all of those rarities that have been promised to us for decades finally materialize thus giving all true BLOG TO COMM readers years of enjoyment!
***
Here's one of those outta-nowhere recording (and possibly performing) acts that used to get the hotcha rock screedics all excited dog-earing their Thesauruses looking up superlatives that haven't been used in eighty years. Y'know, the kind that some outta-the-loop fanzine would plug to the rafters back in the seventies because these guys were rehearsing next door and frankly there was nothing else local to write about unless you wanted to type on about some cover band that played at the local bar. Real down and dirty stuff that brought back memories of all of those sixties groups you liked whose ideas were being reshaped in the seventies only now it was the oh-ohs and you thought all of those stuff died out with the last issue of SONIC IGUANA 'r somethin'! Well, here we are in 2012 long after the era of high energy had petered out into fuzzy wuzzy pablum for the pueriles, and what do we got but none other than MORDECAI!!!!!
A nice way to start out the year, these Mordecai guys are an up and cummin' band from none other than Butte Montana who not only know how to bust a few eardrums, but have recorded a double disc demo in their basement (knotty pine at that!) that brings back nice and cozy thoughts regarding all of your favorite seventies punk skiddoos from the Neon Boys/Television (talkin' 'bout the days before they learned to handle their instruments in a more adolescent fashion), the Electric Eels and Pagans as well as the Gizmos, the ever-popular Kid Sister, the Screamin' Mee-Mee's and even the various Umela Hmota offerings that were getting stifled in Prague back in the middle portion of that wowzer decade. I was also reminded of the Sonars, an unheralded Cleveland group from the latter portion of them days which was led by Matt McManus, the younger brother of Electric Eel Dave E who managed to at least get a mid-fidelity demo out and about into a few collections and who better get a complete archival release available shortly if the people at the various reissue labels know what's good for 'em (us archival rock fans can get to be a pretty frothing at the mouth bunch, as if eight years of this blog didn't tell ya that already!).
This sounds like it was recorded on a portable cassette player sometime in 1975 which is a good start already, but Mordecai's use of classic Velvets unto Kinks unto Stooges unto Sabbath unto unto riffage really makes 'em a "punk gryphon" (copyright 1982 TAKE IT! magazine) that we can certainly use more of these days. None of that precocious put on that way too many current day under-the-kultur acts put on which only takes the original source and waters 'em down for AV Club consumption. Believe-you-me, this is great straight-ahead punk (as in 1975 CREEM magazine) that has reduced me to the same wallow of vibrating gelatin I used to get back in '79 when spotting old Red Crayola refs. in a variety of articles used to give me the same thrill of unbridled joy that I would get spotting DEVIANTS refs in the same kinda mags!
Keep these names in mind....Elijah Bodish-bass guitar (he's the guy who sent me this!), Holt Bodish-guitar; drums, vocals; Garin-drums; Louie-drums...and that's a whole lotta drums if you ask me! Dunno who plays the one-note sax honk on "Dead Head" which closes out disque #2 but whoever it is, it oughta get some credit around here! Keep an eye out for 'em next time they play Arnie's Bowl-A-Rena, or better yet why not write 'em at 325 W. Gold, Butte MT, 59701 and ask 'em when the record's comin' out. If you have computer handy, you can email em at elijah.bodish@gmail.com and you might even get a prompt reply!
***
MY SEMI-MONTHLY CONTRIBUTION TO THE SOMETHING TO BITCH ABOUT DEPT.: here's this li'l bitta flufferoo that I happened to glance upon while I was trolling Facebook today, a nice example of what I like to call public masturbation courtesy of none other than the Poster Boy for the touchy-feely generation himself Lawrence O'Donnell! Really Lawrence, I gotta admit that this was a nice try at making yourself look oh-so saintly and the straw men you set up so dastardly but really, why come down on conservatives (or at least your own personal definition which I guess would differ greatly from mine) so hard when it was you liberals who were all for the Leviathan State as well as those Social Engineering measures that wrecked families and turned neighborhoods into war zones? Not to mention eugenics and the racial superiority of the Northern European stock, putting Japanese-Americans in concentration camps then sniveling as if you had nothing to do with it (ditto w/the Vietnam War, as if JFK and LBJ were rampaging right wingers!), Eminent Domain, the right to do what you want to with your body only if its an abortion or one-night stand where you're tied up like a hunk of roast beef hanging from a rafter, all sorts of urban projects that really haven't panned out the way starry-eyed types like yourself wanted 'em to back inna mid-sixties, draconian measures that have kept helpful medicines out of the hands of people who could have benefited from their use because they cause athlete's feet in lab mice, income tax, the AIDS scare, the hatred of the right to associate with whomever you please, legalized snooping etc. and so forth. Prohibition (of the booze and drug kind) fits in here somewhere too. Didn't even get to mention my own personal favorite regarding the new liberal pastime of parents who let their boys grow up thinking they're girls then cause a ruckus because he ain't allowed to join the Girl Scouts! Dunno about most "Conservatives" (many of whom I guess would even approve of some of these measures!), but I think these are just some of the reasons that a good number, perhaps even a majority of people on this planet hold the meddling, intrusive, "we know better than you! (trust us)" do-gooder liberal in utter contempt!
And how about those stately liberal icons like Eleanor Roosevelt, who displayed such righteous indignation when she saw a photo of a child in a KKK uniform but on the other hand fell in with the likes of Paul Blanchard, a man who didn't need a sheet to convey his loathsome views which maybe did bridge the Klan and those of lofty Utopians who certainly wanted a better world for their own WASP-dominated visions. (TRANSLATION...there ain't no difference between the cross burning lyncher and the millionaire who pumps cash into a variety of uplifter causes aimed at the "betterment" [read: destruction] of people who just don't smell as good as they do.) Well, I can go on. Sheesh Larry, you can whack off all you want about your lofty and sainted ideals, but I think I'll just stick with those "Conservatives" that "opposed" all of your wonderful goals, men like H. L. Mencken, Murray Rothbard, Pat Buchanan (who I guess was too hot for that cable net you work for which is why he got 86'd... so much for a perceived semblance of balanced opinions eh?), Joseph Sobran, Sam Francis and... Well, if you can call these people "Conservatives" in the strictest sense OK (frankly I don't and I'm sure that most of 'em shudder[ed] at the c-word themselves!), but for some odd reason I get the feeling that if you offend the likes of an open-minded guy like O'Donnell on one point, you're a dreaded Conservative no ifs ands or buts! It's enough to make me wanna vote Republican next November just to spite the guy, and that's something I really do not have any otherwise strong desire to do!
And yeah O'Donnell, I can see the results of the amazing policies you and your ilk put into practice every time I go into downtown Youngstown Ohio. Wonderful society for all we've got there, hunh?
And how about those stately liberal icons like Eleanor Roosevelt, who displayed such righteous indignation when she saw a photo of a child in a KKK uniform but on the other hand fell in with the likes of Paul Blanchard, a man who didn't need a sheet to convey his loathsome views which maybe did bridge the Klan and those of lofty Utopians who certainly wanted a better world for their own WASP-dominated visions. (TRANSLATION...there ain't no difference between the cross burning lyncher and the millionaire who pumps cash into a variety of uplifter causes aimed at the "betterment" [read: destruction] of people who just don't smell as good as they do.) Well, I can go on. Sheesh Larry, you can whack off all you want about your lofty and sainted ideals, but I think I'll just stick with those "Conservatives" that "opposed" all of your wonderful goals, men like H. L. Mencken, Murray Rothbard, Pat Buchanan (who I guess was too hot for that cable net you work for which is why he got 86'd... so much for a perceived semblance of balanced opinions eh?), Joseph Sobran, Sam Francis and... Well, if you can call these people "Conservatives" in the strictest sense OK (frankly I don't and I'm sure that most of 'em shudder[ed] at the c-word themselves!), but for some odd reason I get the feeling that if you offend the likes of an open-minded guy like O'Donnell on one point, you're a dreaded Conservative no ifs ands or buts! It's enough to make me wanna vote Republican next November just to spite the guy, and that's something I really do not have any otherwise strong desire to do!
And yeah O'Donnell, I can see the results of the amazing policies you and your ilk put into practice every time I go into downtown Youngstown Ohio. Wonderful society for all we've got there, hunh?
***Closing with some better news, here we have former American Indian Movement leader and downright radical Russell Means FINALLY SEEING THE LIGHT by endorsing none other'n my current political favorite, congressman, presidential candidate and downright hero Ron Paul! Welcome to the true cause of freedom Mr. Means...glad to see you on the right side of this one especially after some of the wrongheaded political moves you made lo these many years (as if running for Veep on a ticket with Larry Flynt wasn't a boneheaded thing to do in the first place)!
Re: Lawrence O'Donnell's claims - other than those which stem from an era when conservative and liberal meant very different things than today (i.e. the 15th and 19th Amendments), I wonder if he knows that Robert Taft wrote his own civil rights bill - a bill that failed in committee but some aspects of which inspired the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, almost 20 years later. I wonder if he also knows that Taft, who was nicknamed "Mr. Conservative", opposed Japanese-American internment. I wonder if he also knows that Barry Goldwater supported the ERA and abortion rights and was gays' only friend in the US Senate. I wonder if he's also aware of the conservative environmentalist tradition ; for example Russell Kirk was much more of an environmentalist than Al Gore could ever be, and the Southern Agrarians were pioneer environmentalists. Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and Daniel Evans, all Western conservatives, favored some environmental legislation.
ReplyDeleteBut none of this probably means anything to Lawrence O'Donnell. Liberal shibboleths are more important than the actual historical record. I prefer the latter to liberal shibboleths.