BLOG TO COMM

Ah yes...LOTSA hotcha stuff to talk about this weekend with loads of new items to gab about courtesy of not only Weasel Walter 'n the Sediment Club but, if you can believe it, my own sweat 'n toil! In fact, this particular post is SO important and SO crucial to the entire concept of blogging as it stands in the 21st century that I even postponed the "theme oriented" entry that I had planned to use until next week so you know today's traipse into the realm of klassy kultural kurmudgeonness' gonna be a real dipsy doodle! And rilly, if you don't believe with your entire heart, soul and perhaps a few gizzards that this week's offering is the art of blogging at it's apex, a once-unreachable goal finally conquered for all to peruse, then as Madonna once said you cannot be my friend!!!!

So much material both good 'n bad to babylon about that I hardly know where to start! However, I guess the best place to do just that would be by writing about something other than rock 'n roll, old moom pitchers, old tee-vee programs or the sausage sandwich I downed but a few hours ago. Something that many of your readers would consider downright innerlectual, like (as they used to say on LEAVE IT TO BEAVER) a li'l "current events." An in the news hot topic that's on the lips, tongues and perhaps even other body parts of Amerigans both here and abroad for all I know which cuts to the core the inner workings and being of the sociopolitical clime in which we all live. Something that's bound to make one angry and say that such topics should be verboten in a blog such as this as I tear away at the bulwarks of modern day thought processes in hopes of getting to the raw, unexpurgated truth behind the story at large.

Perhaps I should give my long and drawn out opinions regarding the war, the economy or maybe even a li'l bit onna prezzy-dential contest unraveling as we speak? Naw, if I gotta talk about something that'll draw in the readers, I better make it something real "hotcha" like about say...s-x! That always brings 'em in, though if you ask me the sexual matters that I am going to blab on about today ain't anything that's gonna get you all hot and bothered or make you do a banana stand...in fact this story's so CRINGE-Y that I wouldn't be surprised if your own cajoobies head back up into your ribcage while you read this. In fact, if said cajoobs rush back up so fast that they slam the back of your tonsils I wouldn't flinch a bit because this saga is like, that sick if rubbernecking automobile pile up entertaining.

What I'm talking about is that current "HHS Mandate" which directs all private health service providers inna US of Whoa to dish out for the benefit of their employees coverage for birth control of all sorts including aborficants and other heavy duty measures that are commonly used to make sure that the sucker that's popped up in some belly doesn't even get the chance to make it to the launching pad. As I'm sure at least a good 0.000001% of you readers would understand, more'n a few bizzez are aghast at the thought of going against their own moral credo as am I...after all, forcing people to act against their deeply held no compromise beliefs no matter what they may be is rather frightening unless said belief has something to do with eating your first born or measures that most people used to find morally abhorrent before the recent neo-Pagan movement made these distasteful practices mere "choices." (Yes, there is such a thing as being "beyond the pale.")  Dunno about you (not that I care), but I find that the modern day leftoids and fellow clinger-ons who'd cheerfully force a hospital to pay for their employees' BCP's and IUD's or have them shut their doors for good to be frightenly akin to the same kinda folk who would be all in favor of forcing an Amish man to shave his beard, pay taxes and join the army (hmmmm, those Amish do have something going for them!), or making sure that a teetotaling Christian downs a fifth of bourbon or having an Orthodox Jew cook up a mess o' pork chops for that matter. Disturbing to say the least, though pretty much what you would expect in a world where the government is doing its best to trump everything from the private sector to industry and your very own brain cells in a fashion that would have been bound to give Josef Stalin a stiffy on his death bed.

Never mind that the US Senate said nada to any opt outs (which really goes to show you which side of the, er, bun the democrats who voted for it like to be buttered), it's the recent Sandra Fluck (no sic) brouhaha that really gets my very own babymakers in a twist. So the House or Senate or whatever has a hearing, and so this gal w/no real prerequisites comes forward to say just how terrible life is because the Catholic University she is a grad student at (Georgetown) doesn't offer contraception in their health care coverage, and so she has a whole bunch of the bleeding hearts in her audience soaking up tears in their hankies as she's telling 'em just how much she needs her birth control and how her college should pay the bill no matter what the Jesuits who run it think! Nothing really new here, and in fact the incident seemed so planned and scripted out that I thought I saw the entire premise on a Movie of the Week a good thirty years ago. Heck, this poor distraught flower, as well as the entire student body it seems,  is so upset over her chosen university's policies that she can even see the doom and despair on the faces of the students just because they can't get their free goodies, and oh look just how much this contraception costs the gal (or how much Georgetown has to pay for it...I forget)...$3000, which makes me wonder where the mattress she must have strapped to her back was when she was testifying.

Of course the collected democratic faces were just as drawn out as all of those Georgetown students Fluck described, hearkening back to the Golden Age of Deeply Felt Heartbleeding that the likes of Phil Donahue excelled in back during the eighties. The depth of their sorrow reminded me of the '92 El Lay riots when Rodney King was trotted out in front of the cameras and did his "Can't we all just get along" routine, and naturally Peter Jennings was shown directly after obviously moved to have heard such an eloquent, heartfelt statement as this. I'll tell ya, it made me wanna go 'n put on a pair of Puerto Rican Fence Climbers and give Jennings a swift kick in his very own babymakers just so he could feel some real pain 'stead of play act at being such a humble piece of human specimen who thinks he knows the meaning of true inner turmoil way more than any of us brazen hoi polloi could attempt to!

Then adding perhaps a drop of fuel to the fire (though from the sound of the detractors it seemed as if an entire gallon was dumped) none other'n radio personality Rush Limbaugh did what anyone with a brain'd do...mainly point out the obvious and call out Fluck for what she is...a slut who sure is having a hard time hiding her loose ways behind her sickeningly sanctimonious demeanor. Frankly, the use of that particular descriptor didn't seem as horrid as what most exaulted (and honored for some strange reason) leftoid pundits whip up when talking about people outside their bubble, but wouldn't you know it was enough to get all of those typical mooshy touchy-feeley types all aghast to the point where Limbaugh did what no sane man should have and issued an apology albeit a rather tepid one*. Heck, I even broke my pledge not to listen to the guy again (I figured that Limbaugh would be laying off his attacks on the more paleo/libertarian elements in the political sphere at least for a short while) just to hear what he termed a "heartfelt" mea culpa, and while it all came off about as honest as the time Howard Stern got into trouble over that dead Mexican singer at least the famed commentator did make a few interesting points. I mean, perhaps he actually was "sorry" about the "slut" part even though I sincerely doubt it, but everything else did stand about Fluck 'n her crusade to turn Ameriga into something that bears no resemblance to the place it used to be back when most people realized that Fluck and her sexual/social liberation kind were nothing but communists without the scratchy beards. As for the women...

The question as to whether Fluck is a slut (which is pretty much a given considering the three grand she needs to spend on birth control!) or not really isn't the thing that gets my goat. I ain't her daddy, so I guess she can whore it up all over the place as much as her libido-driven heart so desires. Maybe she actually does the rough 'n tumble an average of five times a day even though with those looks I kinda doubt it unless she's hanging around the eye doctor's office looking for potential triumphs. But what galls me is that the woman attends a Catholic university solely because she wanted to stir up this bee's nest of an issue and crybabies about it in front of congress in order to make her point in front of one of the most controlling forces in our lives (and it ain't the church or the military or the old white men who run everything either...let's face it but the New Jackboot is a rainbow coalition!). Then she pouts like a li'l lamb because somebody called her a nasty name which maybe rates a four outta ten on the nastymeter but that's more'n enough for this li'l frail flower of a being to have to endure! Sheesh, it's so obvious that the entire affair was one big set up worthy of Rosa Parks being arrested because she sat at the front of the bus while getting the proper attention because she looked so nice and innocent...in case you didn't know the same fix was tried a few weeks earlier but bombed because the woman who the NAACP used for their test run wasn't as attractive and went wild on the cops while swearing up a storm! Just wouldn't look good inna papers, y'know...

It is kinda frightening that people like Fluck want people like me (I guess) to stay out of her bedroom (oooh. don't tempt me to dish out the comeback to that 'un I have cooked up!), but really, if obviously snooping types like myself are supposed to stay outta the gal's private affairs where and when she can display all of her knowledge copped from repeated readings of de Sade then why should anybody no matter what they think of the Margaret Sanger revolution eugenics and all have to subsidize her libertinism? As well as her medical bills, her public radio/television, art or local symphony orchestra for that matter? I mean, if you wanna pay for it outta your own deep pockets go ahead, but some of us are saving up as much as we can just in case we do make it to old age!

I guess that's the crux of my anger, the fact that this Fluck person and all of those naturally unattractive feminist types who don't happen to be shrub scouts want to bed jump as much as their well-traveled velvet caves can stand but they want other people to foot the contraception bill for their wanton desires! Of course they mask it all in other extraneous hoo-hah (such as Fluck's lez pal who needs The Pill for cysts on her ovaries). But once you get down (pardon the expression) to the bare facts it'a all about pleasure screwing, and how everybody's gotta chip in no matter how small the cost may be (do you part, Ameriga!).

Like I said, it may not be any business of mine if this "lady" (or even "woman" for that matter) goes flat out for every braying donkey in the entire barnyard or takes on the college football team Clara Bow fashion, but then again why does it have to be anyone's business to pay for her trolloping affairs whether its you, me, or any organization that might find a whiff of promiscuity downright evil! Or support someone else's sexual matters in or outside of wedlock especially if we'd just like to save a little cash for ourselves or (if you're Georgetown) for something I'm sure would benefit the campus and its clientele as a whole rather than for a hole. Even if you think sex is for something other'n making babies why pay for some coed's night out when you yourself remain at home feeling like Calvin Coolidge? The fact is that if Fluck wanted her pills and foams and whatnot bad enough she could just trek to a nearby pharmacy and buy about a year's supply for much less'n the $3000 she wants Georgetown to dish out for her!

Sheesh, I remember back when people considered Joan Baez such a brave person for withholding a portion of her taxes that were earmarked for the Vietnam War, but nowadays these exact same folk believe that a Catholic organization has the "moral duty" to dole out money against it's own will for something that they find downright reprehensible (and for good reason given the dystopian present created by the past forty years of wall-to-wall screwing). And if anyone dares to balk you can bet the rampaging media and their political butt brothers will be out in full force to make sure they do the bidding, or at least die in the process!

Yeah, you might think that my entire argument's nothing but a mask and that I want the world to return to those grand days back when the Comstock Laws were in full effect and birth control was about as hush hush a subject matter as dirty little comic books and clandestine screenings of Candy Barr films. Well, in many ways YOU'RE RIGHT! After all, did you ever see what women used to look like back then? Really hotcha stuff, like Louise Brooks and Colleen Moore 'n that gal who posed for "Figure in Motion". They were not only sleek and curvy, but feminine (remember that word???), fashionable unlike today's rather dumpy breed, and overall very boss-looking whether they were in or out of clothing. And not only that, but they didn't smell as if they forgot to change their rag for the past ten years or neglected to wipe for whatever pagan reason that comes into their obviously hormone-soaked beings. Nowadays most of the "women" I see are nothing but overweight ugly buglies who think they're so special because they're female to the point where they end up chasing their sons around the house with hedge clippers threatening to lop 'em like any proud feminist should! And even the ones who do look pretty decent ruin their bodies with tattoos and shiny doohickies all over makin' about as attractive as a pile of horse plop on a Northeast Ohio country road! Which only goes to prove that the end result of all this feminism really was nothing but the go-ahead for women who are unattractive either by choice or by nature to destroy in whatever fashion they so desire all of their enemies real or imagined, or at least stomp their feet and throw the biggest temper tantrums on the face of the earth until they get their way. Judy Hennsler would be proud.

The best thing about the whole concept of femininity and masculinity which has been dumped down the well so-to-speak was that most  females weren't sluts back then because virginity and good taste seemed to be a choice value, and if they were well...there always was that front door door for daddy to kick 'em out of right into the falling snow! To the credit of the generation of my parents, they continue to feel this way about loose women and the wolves who jump all over 'em, only they do their wretching in private just because they're concerned about their public image and don't feel like insulting people right to their faces. Fortunately I'm not as cautious about such things which is why my own poll ratings are down there somewhere with Brad Kohler's, not that any of us really care anymore...

But sheesh, don't you miss the good ol' fashioned concept of women as nice looking, sweet smelling, soft, feminine cheerful and real get along kinda people? None of that hard-edge women's libber stuff that's ruined everything about the relationship between masculinity and feminity these past thirtysome years and turned the sex act into something only for total pleasure gratification performed by two people who actually hate each other's guts! But hey, once you think about it these new women have the most effective birth control method built right into 'em, mainly their looks and their overactive persecution complexes!

Back to the matter at hand (mainly, forcing people who should know better into doling it out for your throb thrills)...frankly, I thought this particular piece was as extremely informative as it was funny. Not to mention "offensive" which is something that anybody who reads this blog with his inner child smothered to death knows needs to be heaved upon the current band of shot-calling compassionists. But then again I gotta say that I pretty much find myself in agreement with a whole load of what Jim Goad says in his usually insightful and analytic way even though ten years ago I wouldn't even go near the fella...funny how time can soften a person, eh?

Or, as a commentator on TAKI'S TOP DRAWER said regarding the entire affair, "If you want to make an upper-middle-class woman squeal in indignation, tell her she can't have something."

(Final note...after doing a li'l more reading I discovered that Fluck is also in favor of having Georgetown University pay for sex change operations, something which is a springboard for yet another one of my fly off the handle yet particularly potent screeds! I mean, talk about subject matter to be used as an offensive, in your puss [no, not that all yez gals!] excuse to rattle off a whole slew of witty remarks bound to get the charter members of "Compassion Incorporated" all bound up like a rubber band on a toy airplane!!! But then again, with real life the way it is these days who needs comedy writers?)

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Unlike Davy Jones' passing two weeks back, Ronnie Montrose's demise last Sunday certainly did not affect me even remotely in the same fashion as Jones' surprise departure did. Undoubtedly this is because whereas Jones was at least partially responsible for a slew of high-quality, energetic and fun records that still stand the test of time Montrose was just another one of those superflash seventies guitarists that all of the box boy burnout types liked because he could play "fast" even though his stylings had about all of the soul and depth of....of a box boy burnout if anything. As most of you already know, once craftsmanship and a "clean" sound replaced grit and unbridled energy as the hallmark of what makes "good rock" (not even talkin' "rock 'n' roll" which as I've mentioned many a time is a totally superior beast all together!) the entire mode and taste of the music mutated into a style that I'm sure none of us wanted anything to do with. Montrose was definitely part of the problem as to where rock took that wrong turn, and as we all know the corpse of that once mighty music continues to linger on. I mean, just tune in to some "classic rock" radio for a nice nostril-singeing example.

's funny, but the same breed of kids who went for technical proficiency and smooth, clean, tonal guitar solos (as a requirement for their musical well-being) over hard-edged atonal scree (and these battle lines were clearly drawn '79 at the latest) really weren't that much different than their parents who were hi-fi Mantovani freaks who still marveled at the way the sound moved from one stereo speaker to the next as Charlotte Pressler once remarked!  After all, both pop 'n son based their musical preferences on just how clean, smooth, pure, professional and copasetic the music was with their own vapid, over-emotional lifestyles, and if Lawrence Welk could satiate the oldsters with his sounds of security then Montrose was custom made for Junior and his oversexed  late-seventies bong-filled meaning. Makes me glad that I'm made of stronger bile to the point where I don't think I could have ever made it in life without hearing Lou Reed's guitar solo on "I Heard Her Call My Name",  a solo which remains the perfect antithesis to all of that Montrose monstrosity that's been cloggin' up the FM airwaves ever since the late-seventies and early-eighties when rock 'n roll music was certainly taking a beating! Hey Ghost of Montrose, if you happen to be reading this lemme tell you that your slick musical skills will not be missed here...after all Lydia Lunch could say a whole lot more with her guitar playing and like, how many lessons did she have???

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Well, I guess that closes out the intellectual portion of today's post! Here are but a few of the new items I've had the chance to listen to and digest this past week. Interesting choice of items if you ask me, and although all of 'em ain't exactly whatcha'd call primo BLOG TO COMM fodder at least I had a fun time listening to 'n describing these items for the massholes whom I assume are just begging to be enlightened by my obviously etapoint and (in these sorry times) unique proctorockical examinations. And hey, if you just can't screw your minds into the overtly hard-edged all-enveloping meaning of it all what else can I say but what were you expecting anyway, Robert Christgau (I hope not!)???

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David Buddin-CANTICLES FOR ELECTRONIC MUSIC CD (ugEXPLODE)

Taking a break from the usual free jazz/post-no wave music that the label is noted for, ugEXPLODE dive head first into the modern-day classical avant garde with this album of electronic music by South Carolinian composer David Buddin. Funny, I didn't know that there were still any more of these types of composers around, but then again I wouldn't know considering how I don't read chic publications like THE NEW YORKER which I supposed still cover this music in between writing screeds on which solution to the Everyday Workingman Problem is the best from their lofty viewpoint (with #3, "the showers",  taking a far and distant first place). Maybe I shouldn't hold that against Buddin, whose CANTICLES bring back memories as far and as distant as those fuzzy college radio station waves that used to deliver these kinds of experimental musings in between baroque organ recitals and some feminist type railing on about some crank listener mailing in a can of Nair which really got the ol' gal off her rocker!

Yeah, maybe I should disqualify myself with the same quickness and brevity that Bennett Cerf would because he knew who the Mystery Guest was after espying him in the hallway right before airtime, but I won't. As you might have guessed, I really haven't paid attention to any of these new classical things for ages other'n some random Terry Riley/Phillip Glass/Obscure Records spins o'er the past decade or so. And although many of you think I'm not qualified to prattle on about anything perhaps I'd better lay off writing about the New American Avant Garde Music or whatever it's being called these sorry times.

However, in the interest of cranking out at least a halfway decent review I will give it the ol' college try if only because I do not want to return my review copy of Weasel Walter. So here goes...in many ways this electronic album does recall some of the releases on Eno's label of yore (Michael Nyman?) with a few references of certain late-sixties experiments ("HPSCHD"?) and maybe even some serialism if I only knew what that word meant. Aleatory perhaps, though I have the feeling that it was all planned to peak perfection by Buddin and executed with the aid of pre-programmed synths sorta like an update on those Conlon Nancarrow piano rolls that took all the hard work outta performin' these things manually. The results are synthetic clusters of notes sounding as random as can possibly be which most people would tend to think the work of a madman or worse yet a pretentious college student jacking off with some electronic gear in the music lab. However with the proper liner notes explaining the whys, wherefores and procedure behind it all Buddin is justified, provided that a load of big 'n esoteric words unseen since the days of Geoffrey Chaucer are being used to explain the music as it exists to twitch the brains of more'n a few beret wearing souls. Wait...this release comes with no liners meaning that we, the listeners, are more or less left on our own to decipher the true meaning behind these "canticles"! I hope that doesn't mean Buddin's a fraud after all because if so there might be a few aficionados of the form who are about to bow their heads in abject shame! Awwww...go geddit!

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Sphex-"Time"/"Leaving This Crazy City 45 rpm; TWITCH EP (both on the Supreme Echo label, Canada)

It's pretty amazing exactly what some people will market as "proto-punk" in a deceptively vague way just so's they can soak unaware bunsnitches like myself outta a whole lotta hard-begged cash. Heck, even I can remember long ago when May Blitz were being touted as just that in some record auction flyer which caused an acquaintance of mine to gag phlegm worse'n Camille on her deathbed! It only goes to show you just how misused this particular term had become even in the eighties when punk history was being scrutinized after a good two or so decades of germination.

True, a lotta these recordings that are tagged as being the precursor to all of the hotcha and boss high energy wailings of the mid/late-seventies (mostly of a local variety which makes it even harder for astute types like me to check up on 'em) are worthy of your time and effort, but a good hunk are nothing but the same tired ol' boogie riffs copped from too many Humble Pie albums that were recorded by the same friz-headed guys you used to see sneaking into those horrid X-rated movies at the multiplex cinema. And dear brothers in armpit odor, these Canadian releases which too are being marketed as proto-punk gems are nothing but more of that standard local rock shuck 'n jive recorded by groups custom-made for the "More New Bands" section of ROCK SCENE along with all of those guys slapping Kiss makeup on their mugs in order to hide more'n their lack of insight!

Ontario's Sphex were just one of the many local groups that were poppin' up all over the place back in the mid-seventies, and frankly there's nothing much on this disc to separate 'em from the rest of the batch. Sphex seem like the typical suburban schmuck types who listened to way too much English prog and Amerigan metal and decided to slap together their own combination of the two, the results coming off way more Grand Funk 'n the Stooges for my tastes. It wasn't anything that I would deem totally offensive to the senses the way many similar aggregates of those times (and ours) were, but as far as creating that high energy sound that bowls one over upon first spin well, Sphex seem to miss the mark by at least ten Imperial Miles.

On the other hand Twitch, hailing all the way across the continent in Vancouver BC, earn some goody goody points for having evolved outta a mid-sixties act called the Invaders who were definitely influenced by the "Northwest Rock" groups such as the Sonics and Wailers that were creating a mighty ruckus directly south of 'em. However, by the time Twitch arrived on the local scene they'd devolved into the standard type of hard-rocking power trio complete with Kiss-styled makeup and a fog machine that was bound to draw in not only all of the local teenage kids to the clubs but maybe even a few lumberjacks looking for a good fight as well! Musically their thud chops matched their typically grotesque looks though I will say that side two of this EP featured not only a stunning folk-rocker of a 1965 West Coast variety but a track that started off as a straight ahead country number then roars into a hard rock take of the same. Bet that's something that woulda made the tough working guys happy, at least until it turned into a standard pounce rocker which was bound to get the chairs flyin' all over the place! It's nothing that makes me see any new light at the end of the tunnel of modern rock, but it's a nice change from the standard clod mentality that one has to put up with not only on the radio but elsewhere on this monstrosity we call the internet.

No addresses are listed on either release, though there is a Supreme Echo Facebook page that might give you some idea of where these can be picked up. Better yet, you can find copies on ebay easily enough before all of the sources dry up sometime in 2020. Well, at least you can if you're interested enough after reading this review (if ya ask me, the money you could spend on these can easily be put to better use searching out some more exciting and entertaining proto-punk excursions, many of which have been reviewed on this blog o'er the past eight years...just search us out with the above application and be taken to some write ups which really rave on about the raw and alive sounds that have been all but suppressed these sorry days!).

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The Sediment Club-TIME DECAY NOW  LP (Softspot Music)

Listening to this debut from the same buncha upstart "no wave" kiddies (the leader who is the son of none other'n ex-Voidoid Ivan Julian and Bush Tetra Laura Kennedy) was enough to send me back to the dark and dank days of the v. early eighties. A time when underground rock seemed to be standing at the junction of some mighty forky road in which the music as a whole could shatter into a myriad asst. of directions that bore little if any semblance to where said music stood at least a good five years earlier. The jerky rhythms, angry if youthful singing and general lack of a "professional" "cohesiveness" (please note the use of quotation marks) really was the hallmark of  many an "indie" release of the day, much of which was so self-conscious, self-indulgent and center-of-the-universe stultifyingly boring but occasionally could snap up a few sparks of brilliance. Not that I was particularly caring about any of it at the time because well, it just didn't have that sixties/seventies bop to it that seemed born of the Velvet Underground and fizzed out around the time Talking Heads turned into that white funk band that had about as much soul in it as Jan Garber!

If you liked the Sediment Club's debut 7-inch EP from 2010 you're bound to like this. In fact I spotted at least one repeat from that "eponymous" debut (I used quotations this time because I never use the word "eponymous" in everyday conversation and don't wanna come off like an effete!), mainly the track that sounds a whole lot like Ex-Blank-Ex's version of "No Nonsense" which of course piqued my ears up like Bugs Bunny's upon first spin that fateful spring day. Overall, TIME DECAY NOW is very reminiscent of some of the under-the-covers rock 'n roll that was being made in the v.-early eighties, a music that seemed to bridge the late-seventies underground avant garde (which was in effect the ultimate end point in the entire Velvets/Detroit/local garage/Lester Bangs undercurrent of Amerigan teenage living) and something newer, perhaps starker in vision and approach. Sparse, brittle, angular, jagged, and all of those other terms that had brainy college kids runnin' to their thesauruses looking up adequate adjective in order to pepper up their fanzine reviews, only with some movement and soul which was lacking in a good portion of the early-eighties "post rock" experiments. I'd say they're even better'n Julian's own mother's Bush Tetras which might sound like utter blasphemy to some of you readers who swallowed the eighties NEW YORK ROCKER rant hook line and Sting, but then again I'm sure a whole lot of you still wear your Stiff t-shirts and Ronald Reagan campaign badges upside down in proud defiance of "the man" and why should I burst any pre-conceived balloons around here anyway?

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SANDY EWEN, DAMON SMITH, WEASEL WALTER CD (ugEXPLODE, see David Buddin review above for link)

It's about time somebody released these recordings of Adam and Eve Link (from the I ROBOT/Eando Binder short stories featuring the infamous Sci-Fi metallic man and wife) having their first go at conjugal nuts 'n bolts bliss! In fact, I think the cover snap is one of Eve's very own synthetic hymen after Adam's metallic tool permeated it upon first thrust! All kidding aside, these improvisations between guitarist Sandy Ewen, bassist Damon Smith and drummer Weasel Walter do have a primal mechanical power to 'em that would conjure up images of copulating robots, something which I will admit makes for some pretty engaging soundscapades that I love to indulge in more often than not. Irrhythmic free sound with a penchant for high-pitched wails and squeals followed by quiet spells and percussive madness. If you still have all of those old Derek Bailey platters and guitar improv albums that Virgin issued in the mid-seventies (and even listen to them on scant occasion!) I think something like this would suit your listening parameters quite well.

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Tim Carroll- LOOK OUT! CD (Gulcher)

Comin' in just under the wire's this newie from the former faux-Gizmos singer/songwriter Tim Carroll, a talent who does a pretty neat job on this album of originals ranging from bar band brouhaha to neo-Lou Reed detachment. It's all rather seventies, almost like a solo album on the old Bar-B-Q label out of Carroll's own Bloomington Indiana haunts which showcased a whole slew of similar-minded musical talents who, like Carroll, unfortunately won't find any true reward at least in this lifetime. But even though I thought some of this tended to come a tad close to the Springsteenian/Mellencamp mid-Amerigan veg-out there were more'n a few moments that shone pure hard-edged heartland whomp, "When I Have You" being the best example I could find. A nice mix and match, nothing that's gonna end the world mind you, but living proof that all of this Americana rock 'n roll with roots stickin' out all over the place doesn't have to be cornball!

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Plan on runnin' the post that was slated for this week next Saturday, that is unless I come up with another ton of hotcha interesting platters to blab on about in my typically unbridled fashion. Who knows, maybe there will be some other sociopolitical combustion that's bound to have be dust off the podium once again if only to give you all what for! But really, I can only hope for such luck as that! _______________________________________________________________________
*After some thought, I figured that this portion of the story was very similar to the situation a good fortysome years back when none other than cartoonist and political pundit Al Capp brought up the matter that the likes of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin were calling the members of the "establishment" every filthy, foul mouthed name in the book yet uttered pure indignation and were deeply offended when Spiro Agnew responded by calling these rabble-rousers "coarse"! But then again, one of the hallmarks of today's left-leaning establishment is that, as one rather ill-informed commentator said about none other than myself, "they can dish it out but they can't take it" which seems all the more truer as politically correct touchy-feelyisms overtake logic and reason in the discourse. Naturally New York socialites and earnest and angst-filled anti-capitalist protesters are not supposed to "take it" given their lofty status in the upper echelons of modern day sainthood, but the typical everyday grovelers and bottom feeders such as myself as well as the more traditional elements in our society are because of our lowly status on the ladder of sociopolitical enlightenment! So I guess that's why these modern day neo-Marxists masquerading as comedians can fly off whatever handles they feel like it under the banner of free expression yet when I call a spade a spade or a dyke a dyke or an ineffectual blogschpieler a felchmeister you better WATCH OUT FOR FLYING HEADS!!!!!!!!