Barely could crank this 'un out! Lemme tell you, my life really is stuck in neutral...no real outside stimulation of the ol' back brain t' be found 'round here, and I still gotta rely on ancient Bill Shute packages and deep digs into the record, tape and Cee-Dee archives to sustain any sort of sanity! What's worse, I ain't heard from Brad Kohler since July and that guy usually is as prompt as the landlady one minute before she starts tossing the furniture out onna street...c'mon man, where's that treatise on what was wrong with the first six months of this blog that you were supposed to send me!
Eh, it ain't that bad. At least the musical dry spell has helped me hold on a few bucks that I have planning to go toward my retirement, and the thought of saving six dollars in the here and now which will undoubtedly go towards a colostomy bag fifteen years down the line certainly does put a smile on my thrifty face. But until then it (unfortunately) is scrimp and save time, at least until I come into a li'l spending cash which you know will be thrown down a rat hole, as my father used to say! And a good place for it too I might add!!!
Here's what helped me make it through a rather work and stress-filled, tiring week. Just read it and think of just how better off all you stroonads have it next to my pitiful existence! Don't go sayin' I don't do anything good for you!
Various Artists-ROOKIES ON A PASTRAMI WEEKEND CD-R burn (courtesy Bill Shute)
Bill Shute does it again! And again and again but we won't go into that. However, we will go into this neato-sampler of various rarities and not-sos that really tickle my fancy among other body parts. Starting off with the Jimmy Piersall "Rookie of the Year" single (a song which was covered by none other than Milk!), this disque topsies and turvies into a wide array of styles and moods from the late-fifties instrumental "Honky Tonk Train" by Jack Melick to Cal Smith's country creeper "Lord Knows I'm Drinking" with loadsa points in between. Some interesting surprises abound like the Tymes' "Roscoe Jim McClain" (an outright steal of the Coasters' "Searchin'"), a post-fame Kingsmen side, and Gary US Bonds doing the future Dolls raver "Seven Day Weekend" among others. There's even a recording of the late-fifties ABC kid show UNCLE AL that pops up, and let me tell you that it was a turdbomb!
A few familiar things are present from "Hot Rod High" and "Hot Pastrami" to the Blues Magoos' version of "Jingle Bells," but you wouldn't care because it ain't like you've heard 'em yesterday. And it's all topped off by yet another batcraze cash-in, mainly Adam West's "Miranda" featuring a guest appearance by Burt Ward as "Boy Genius"! A top notch collection in all, but whatever you do don't play "Ring Dang Do" in front of momma. It's durty!
Pink Fairies-CHINESE COWBOYS LIVE 1987 CD (Captain Trip, Japan)
Frankly if you have one of these late-eighties Pink Fairies gigs somewhere in the abode you have 'em all, but this 'un's good enough to buck the trend. Featuring a selection of Wallis-period Fairies faves with the new stuff tossed in (my fave being the Mick Farren/Andy Colquhoun composition "White Girls on Amphetamine"), the performance is high energy exemplary and the sound better'n you'd expect (either) recorded from the audience or a less-than-perfect soundboard. A pretty much non-stop drive through the early-seventies post-psychedelic English underground that doesn't let up, making me wonder what else there is available that I've been missing out on lo these many years...
Purchased from Eddie Flowers (who really knows his noise) a good decade-plus back, this forty-minute trek through the stratum is one piece of music that really should get out a lot more than it has. Basically an electronic (in the late-sixties fashion) extended jam, this one has possibilities. As transcendental as a 1966 Family Dog Tribal Stomp, an Exploding Plastic Inevitable, a Wayne McGuire "Universal Musical Form," or even a krautrock group from 1971 nobody's ever heard of. Starts off soft yet foreboding before enveloping you in a wall of feedback guitar and primal pounce. I wouldn't mind hearing more by this act, though I do get the sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't measure up to the driving drone they emit on this burnt offering.
John Fahey-WOMBLIFE CD (Table of the Elements)
I have been neglecting the Fahey/Basho/Bull side of sixties stringbending for quite awhile, so I thought I'd dig this obscuro out from the archives of forgotten compact disquewear that sorta got shuffled in between the hardcore punk and experimental hoo-hah. Even more avant garde than REQUIA, Fahey soars and clangs like something Harry Partch might have come up with on one of those home made instruments he was so fond of, creating a nice mass of tangled soundscapading that you kinda think woulda given bad vibes to those hippie college radio new agers who loved playing his "Skater's Waltz" repeatedly. The embryonic existence of your favorite sea life transformed into sound, all done so vividly that it makes it seem as if it were you who were about to be plopped into the murky depths after a good two years of gestation.
Kahil El Zabar's Ritual Trio with Pharoah Sanders-AFRICA N'DA BLUES CD (Delmark)
After listening to a pack of Pharoah Sanders recordings from the late-seventies which bordered on the puke pail, I was a bit weary of latching onto this offering by him and Chicago free jazzers Ritual Trio back in the early oh-oh's. No need to fear though, AFRICA N'DA BLUES ain't a disco/gnu age extravaganza custom made for the peace-loving type of jazz-hole. Of course it ain't no TAUHID either, but it's pleasant enough despite the usual lapses into spiritual musings and Back to Africa kultural pride. If I were you I'd pass it up until either you're rich enough to buy everything you ever wanted to hear or just gotta have everything with Sanders on it, but if you do decide to snatch the thing up now it ain't like you're gonna get burned. Features longtime Art Ensemble of Chicago bassist Malachi Favors in the roster.
Eberhard Schoener-EVENTS cassette (Harvest, West Germany)
Don't have enough tapes to warrant any "cassette caga" feature just yet, but let me tell you, this one definitely is caga! Well, not caga en toto, but a good portion of it will have you rushing to the nearest toilet just so's you're impactus faeces will rush right out begging to be spared from the music to be found therein. At best a pale imitation of mid-seventies just pre-"Softs" Soft Machine, at worst some of the most gloppy jazz/classical pastiche to be heard outside the fetid realms of Jean-Michael Jarre. You can do worse, you have, but in all these sounds are rather pitiful musings that stand at the polar opposite of everything that was high energy, interesting, soul-stirring and affects you as a suburban slob that was coming out during the transitional year of 1980.
Eh, it ain't that bad. At least the musical dry spell has helped me hold on a few bucks that I have planning to go toward my retirement, and the thought of saving six dollars in the here and now which will undoubtedly go towards a colostomy bag fifteen years down the line certainly does put a smile on my thrifty face. But until then it (unfortunately) is scrimp and save time, at least until I come into a li'l spending cash which you know will be thrown down a rat hole, as my father used to say! And a good place for it too I might add!!!
Here's what helped me make it through a rather work and stress-filled, tiring week. Just read it and think of just how better off all you stroonads have it next to my pitiful existence! Don't go sayin' I don't do anything good for you!
Various Artists-ROOKIES ON A PASTRAMI WEEKEND CD-R burn (courtesy Bill Shute)Bill Shute does it again! And again and again but we won't go into that. However, we will go into this neato-sampler of various rarities and not-sos that really tickle my fancy among other body parts. Starting off with the Jimmy Piersall "Rookie of the Year" single (a song which was covered by none other than Milk!), this disque topsies and turvies into a wide array of styles and moods from the late-fifties instrumental "Honky Tonk Train" by Jack Melick to Cal Smith's country creeper "Lord Knows I'm Drinking" with loadsa points in between. Some interesting surprises abound like the Tymes' "Roscoe Jim McClain" (an outright steal of the Coasters' "Searchin'"), a post-fame Kingsmen side, and Gary US Bonds doing the future Dolls raver "Seven Day Weekend" among others. There's even a recording of the late-fifties ABC kid show UNCLE AL that pops up, and let me tell you that it was a turdbomb!
A few familiar things are present from "Hot Rod High" and "Hot Pastrami" to the Blues Magoos' version of "Jingle Bells," but you wouldn't care because it ain't like you've heard 'em yesterday. And it's all topped off by yet another batcraze cash-in, mainly Adam West's "Miranda" featuring a guest appearance by Burt Ward as "Boy Genius"! A top notch collection in all, but whatever you do don't play "Ring Dang Do" in front of momma. It's durty!
***
Pink Fairies-CHINESE COWBOYS LIVE 1987 CD (Captain Trip, Japan)Frankly if you have one of these late-eighties Pink Fairies gigs somewhere in the abode you have 'em all, but this 'un's good enough to buck the trend. Featuring a selection of Wallis-period Fairies faves with the new stuff tossed in (my fave being the Mick Farren/Andy Colquhoun composition "White Girls on Amphetamine"), the performance is high energy exemplary and the sound better'n you'd expect (either) recorded from the audience or a less-than-perfect soundboard. A pretty much non-stop drive through the early-seventies post-psychedelic English underground that doesn't let up, making me wonder what else there is available that I've been missing out on lo these many years...
***Ohm-LIVE AT THE CROWN CD-R (Last Visible Dog)
Purchased from Eddie Flowers (who really knows his noise) a good decade-plus back, this forty-minute trek through the stratum is one piece of music that really should get out a lot more than it has. Basically an electronic (in the late-sixties fashion) extended jam, this one has possibilities. As transcendental as a 1966 Family Dog Tribal Stomp, an Exploding Plastic Inevitable, a Wayne McGuire "Universal Musical Form," or even a krautrock group from 1971 nobody's ever heard of. Starts off soft yet foreboding before enveloping you in a wall of feedback guitar and primal pounce. I wouldn't mind hearing more by this act, though I do get the sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't measure up to the driving drone they emit on this burnt offering.
***
John Fahey-WOMBLIFE CD (Table of the Elements)I have been neglecting the Fahey/Basho/Bull side of sixties stringbending for quite awhile, so I thought I'd dig this obscuro out from the archives of forgotten compact disquewear that sorta got shuffled in between the hardcore punk and experimental hoo-hah. Even more avant garde than REQUIA, Fahey soars and clangs like something Harry Partch might have come up with on one of those home made instruments he was so fond of, creating a nice mass of tangled soundscapading that you kinda think woulda given bad vibes to those hippie college radio new agers who loved playing his "Skater's Waltz" repeatedly. The embryonic existence of your favorite sea life transformed into sound, all done so vividly that it makes it seem as if it were you who were about to be plopped into the murky depths after a good two years of gestation.
***
After listening to a pack of Pharoah Sanders recordings from the late-seventies which bordered on the puke pail, I was a bit weary of latching onto this offering by him and Chicago free jazzers Ritual Trio back in the early oh-oh's. No need to fear though, AFRICA N'DA BLUES ain't a disco/gnu age extravaganza custom made for the peace-loving type of jazz-hole. Of course it ain't no TAUHID either, but it's pleasant enough despite the usual lapses into spiritual musings and Back to Africa kultural pride. If I were you I'd pass it up until either you're rich enough to buy everything you ever wanted to hear or just gotta have everything with Sanders on it, but if you do decide to snatch the thing up now it ain't like you're gonna get burned. Features longtime Art Ensemble of Chicago bassist Malachi Favors in the roster.
***
Eberhard Schoener-EVENTS cassette (Harvest, West Germany)Don't have enough tapes to warrant any "cassette caga" feature just yet, but let me tell you, this one definitely is caga! Well, not caga en toto, but a good portion of it will have you rushing to the nearest toilet just so's you're impactus faeces will rush right out begging to be spared from the music to be found therein. At best a pale imitation of mid-seventies just pre-"Softs" Soft Machine, at worst some of the most gloppy jazz/classical pastiche to be heard outside the fetid realms of Jean-Michael Jarre. You can do worse, you have, but in all these sounds are rather pitiful musings that stand at the polar opposite of everything that was high energy, interesting, soul-stirring and affects you as a suburban slob that was coming out during the transitional year of 1980.
***and in closing...A TREAT THAT CAN'T BE BEAT! Yes, for all of you old-time fanzine hunters who are looking for a little more than the umpteenth copy of BOMP! with Brian Wilson on the cover, here comes (now get this!) the next to last issue of HYPE available on-line and free to boot! Yes, the legendary fanzine edited by Mark Jenkins which featured a bevy of contributors from the likes of R. Meltzer and Lester Bangs to Gene Sculatti and Eddie Flowers can be had for the mere click of a mouse, and best of it the newsprint ain't gonna be crumblin' in your hands like it would with a real life flesh and pulp copy! If you like that CREEM-styled snot-nosed middle-fingered defiance at the (hippie) powers that be which made up a good portion of the seventies rock press at its best you'll definitely go for something like this! Now really, don't you all love your Unca Chris for pointing you in the right direction and making you aware of these gritty li'l reads you all need in your system? Now don't you???...........................aw, go 'n fellate your neighbor's tabby for all I care, ingrates!
I was @ my local B&N last night & I saw this issue of Hot Rod Deluxe called The Best of the 60s & it was full of neat piccys of 60s kar kulture. The very last picture was of a typical newsstand circa 1963 & I thought of you rushing to the nearest time machine to check it out.
ReplyDeleteAlso, why no review of the latest issue of Ugly Things?