Well, I gotta admit that things have livened up here since the last go 'round because (now get this!) I have just received my latest Forced Exposure order and boy am I glad! Yeah it had been getting a bit dullsville just listening to the same old over and over again*, so it's sure swell getting some new sounds my way even here in the jaded teens long after rock or jazz has had any truly impact on any of our o-minds and life-choice existences 'n all that rot. (To be truthful about it, me listening to John Coltrane and the Stooges here in the teens is akin to my uncle listening to some jazz band cranking out Bix Biederbecke on early morning PBS back inna eighties, but like that now long-gone dixieland fan I could care one whit what the neighbors, or even you think!)
I'll tell ya, getting this latest parcel is almost as exciting as it was back when I was in my twenties anxiously awaiting my next order from either Bomp! or Rough Trade, something which gave me a connection to the real life world of music, art and high energy that somehow evaded the tri-state area! However,I would be lying to you if I didn't admit that these FE orders really do take a pounding on the ol' wallet, making me long for the days when I could manage to scrape up a mail order (or trip to the local flea market) with mere pocket change and come away with some real moozikal treasures. But come to think of it, wasn't $2.99 a hefty price to pay for a self-produced single even then???, and remember how we really hadda talk some flea market hussy with a copy of the Five Americans' "Western Union" single down to a quarter from a whopping fifty cents? Maybe my memories of budget consciousness aren't as econimically stable as I thought they were!
Naturally I'm going to do my best to stretch this latest package out...no way am I gonna review the entire booty in one sitting and then moan and groan because of a lack of fresh wonders to blab about! Naw, I'm gonna take my time with this parcel, though between that and the above-mentioned peoples' burns I'm bound to have a good share of fresh material to write about for at least the next few weeks, if not months. Won't that be a relief to you...now you won't have to put up with yet another review of PARADIESWARTS DUUL I forgot I've aleady written up twenny times in my illustrious "career".
And now for something completely the same as the rest of these dog-tired posts I've been pumping at you the past eight-plus years...
Boris Sujdovic-DESPERATE GIRL LP (Bang! Records, Spain...FE may have some left)
I haven't been spinning much Australian music as of the past nine or so years, and with obvious reason. Therefore, I also haven't been paying attention to any of my old Scientists records or any spinoffs thereof that have been wallowing in the ol' collection since the late-eighties or so which is a surprise, since at one time the Scientists were like my favorite Flamin' Groovies superpop cum post-Velvets scronk band extant. Given all this hoo hah, you might be surprised to see this recent outing from former member Boris Sujdovic being reviewed in these er...pages, and I'm kinda surprised too because I haven't even spun those Kim Salmon albums I got ages ago (they're still inna shrink!) even though I have been tempted to during the few times they come across my path in my search for albums I haven't been spinning much as of late.
Well yeah, even though I wouldn't want to go to Australia these days unless I was packing heat I gotta say that I sure do have fond memories of what the combination continent/rectum of the earth once meant to us mid-eighties rock 'n roll maniacs. Even one with a short-term memory like I sure remember the life-reaffirming intensity and energy that the eighties Aussie scene blasted forth, only to be let down within a few years when that entire scene fizzled out into a mass of not-so-hot recordings and groups that seemed to be imitating, rather than emulating (or at least poorly emulating if not imitating, or something like that) the Detroit wild ride of the 1967-1973 seasons. And after me giving more'n my heart and soul to Australia only to be let down by some rather subpar sputum, boy did I feel dumber'n alla those guys who heard the Clash in 1977 and thought they were great only to be embarassed a good five years later when all of those dorks who badmouthed 'em just a few years before were all agog over "Rock The Casbah"!
Not quite bad...Boris plays and sings with a beat box that gives these recordings an air of Suicide-ish minimalism, and since he pretty much talk-sings like Alan Vega the whole thing works out better'n anyone would have suspected. The music is pretty driving too in that Velvets/Stooges under-the-counterculture sorta way which knew how to drive the drone, and thankfully the sound does not recall a myriad assortment of eighties "cassette culture" offerings that did nothing but reflect the artist's own vapidity and self-importance (as well as overwrought inhibitions) recorded in the sanctity of their fart-encrusted bedrooms.
What's really wild is that side one of this platter was recorded with Sujdovic playing his electric guitar and the flip with him playing solely a bass axe, and surprisingly enough I prefer the second side even thought I thought a lotta the bass worship of the eighties underground might have been way overrated. But hey, with the right overdubbing Sujdovic makes his basso profundo guitar sound like a standard one with a deep resonating sound to it, and somehow he was able to inject a nice WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT feeling to the resultant spew. Sheesh is this a good one which I must say makes me feel like I'm twenty-five again...now if only someone could come up with a disc that can make me feel like an embryo! (other'n a James Taylor one, which makes me feel like an embryo encountering a rather sharp 'n painful d&c!).
I mean like, what gives with the covers? I remember when the original SPACE RITUAL had just come out and those boobs of Stacia's were just like...starin' at me straight from the rack! Like I was what, thirteen years and thinking of the femme gender as something other'n a mass of gnarling nerve end blobs was something new to my own genital system...let's just say that the lurid day-glo cover with that lady in all of her curvitude was something that kinda "affected" me in many ways and perhaps planted the seed of my Hawkwind fandom a good five years before I actually got to hear any of their music!
But this new SPACE RITUAL, or to put it more succinctly SPACE RITUAL SUNDOWN V. 2...something is definitely quite amiss if you ask me. Now for one thing, that gal ain't Stacia and her tits just ain't as inviting as they were a good forty years back. She just doesn't have that interstellar pudendal overdrive which our stardancer so proudly exhibits on the original slabs, and although our new model sure looks better'n a nude of your wife would she just doesn't cut the mustard as far as deep space hotchas go. Even the belly button (which for me is about as important a component of the female torso as the bullseyes) is just too teeny-tiny to elicit any potent palpitations. I've presented both covers for your own personal comparisonsm the original on the top and the cheap imitation on the bottom:
Thank goodness that the music found within the aluminum reaches of the SPACE RITUAL SUNDOWN double set equal the mastery and majesty of the original SPACE RITUAL release. Of course I gotta say that it's pretty tough to put out a duff live Hawkwind set...I mean even those nth-level bootleg-quality releases at least had their share of redeeming rockism quality, but not only does this one sound pretty snat but it compliments the original. That is, if you were one who's spun SPACE RITUAL incessantly for the past four decades and want to hear more from that particular era in interstellar stasis, then this is the set to get and stash along with the wide array of seventies Hawkwind crank outs you obviously have cluttering up your collection.
Can't complain a bit whether it be the electronic screeches or even the "Sonic Attack" announcement (that tres upper-class English "do not panic" voice continues to affect me like a squeaking balloon or screeching chalk on a blackboard---like it's supposed to I gather), and the music is just as driving in that DOREMI-period fashion that sounded so pre-punk on one hand yet had all of my prog acquaintances hearing Yes and Emerson Lake and Palmer references on the other! The drone-on tracks like "I Do It" please me even more than they did a good three-some decades back and really, I couldn't think of spending a better evening listening to something like this unless I get hit with yet another one of my New York rock jags. An outta-nowhere surprise that should satiate the Ladbrook Grove in us all.
Tim Buckley-THE DREAM BELONGS TO ME CD (Manifesto)
It may seem heresey, but other'n LORCA and STARSAILOR I haven't been as familiar with the works of Tim Buckley as I "ought to" be, perhaps perceiving him to have been a male Joni Mitchell singer/songwriter shuck who maybe actually was a little bit too introspective enough to have been allowed to live. Well, I was kinda/SORTA right (after all, some of those mid/late-seventies Mitchell toonz do have more'n a few modern jazzbo moves and turns that seem lifted straight from the Buckley playbook and who's not to say vice/versa?), but in actuality Buckley was a completely different animal even if his songs did get into an inward-looking froth that usually wouldn't settle too well with someone as forward looking and on top of all gulcheral concerns like myself. At least it was a froth of a different chemical makeup than Joni's Canyon Girl gravestone-rubbing art class mewl, and even when he was treading similar waters it wasn't like Buckley was exactly roaming anywhere near the James Taylor/David Crosby sphere of sickening solace and commercially boffo inner "quick! pity ME!" turmoil.
THE DREAM BELONGS TO ME begins with some of that acoustic jazz-folk that Buckley became a cult figure with right around the time Elektra figured out what to do with him. On the first track "Song to the Siren" (yeah, the STARSAILOR number that Buckley not only sang on THE MONKEES but was covered by Pat Boone a few years later), Buckley's groove is rather laid back true, but still intense enough to separate this from all those whole wheat types who were cluttering up the teenage stratosphere in the post-Altamont back to the soil days. Can't complain one bit as Buckley and band sound jazzy enough (especially when the vibraphone comes into play) w/o having either a teenybopper attitude or one-dimensional protest kiddie aura to date the thing. Kinda makes me wish that I gobbled up all those used Buckley platters I'd see going for 99 pennies back in the used bins of 1978, but considering how spend-thrifty I could get back then I'm lucky that I latched onto the albums and singles that I did!
I'd be lying to you if I didn't mention that I approached the '73 SEFRONIA session tracks with some trepidation...after all, just about everybody I've read, including the Lee Underwood article in DOWN BEAT that first got me interested in Buckley way back in '77, has dismissed this final period in his career as being commercially retch-inducing and forced upon him by the powers that be just so's he'd regain the listeners and maybe get a hit album outta the deal. Nothing sadder'n seeing a talent forced into playing music he just didn't have his heart into being trotted out on stage while he career slipped right before his eyes, but despite the bad reputation that get thrust upon Buckley's later spins I gotta say that I didn't find these tracks offensive one iota. In fact I thought they were way better singer/songwriter taffy'n the dross that was making the SoCal Laurel Canyon cocaine freaks types big bucks, and in fact I would rank Buckley's performance at this point almost up there with Elliot Murphy's suburban post-sixties decadent Dylan stylings, and eons ahead of Bruce Springsteen's, whose own singer/songwriterdom seemed to take more'n a few pages from Buckley's albeit with a blowhardiness that was custom made for the seething anti-rock 'n roll dolts who were to permeate the late-seventies onwards.
Sure the backing band's no help and the material might have benefited from some fine tuning or at least a few tweaks, but Buckley makes the standard commercial feh sound downright bare-wired with his flash singing and ability to take the negative aspects and manage to turn out something that was, glad to say, rather engrossing. Even when the esoteric might get in the way a tad (like on the title track) Buckley does a durn good job making you forget he's singing about cross eyed flamingos as he churns on and on with rather potent perfection that belies the fact that he was drugging himself into oblivion as his career was spiraling down way beyond hope of recovery.
A surprisingly good find that I gotta say I never thought I'd purchase let alone listen to especially back in the late-eighties when interest in Buckley's career was being revived by the same fanzine types I could care less about. An interesting change of pace from the usual hard-edge especially if you want to get rid of those split ends on your nerves, and somehow I get the feeling that you want to do that more than you're willing to admit.
The Index-BLACK ALBUM RED ALBUM YESTERDAY AND TODAY 2-CD set (Lion Productions LLC)
Yes, it's the classic album by these Grosse Point teenagers finally digitized, and not only that but a load of previously unreleased material has been packed in to double-disc the thing! It also comes with a booket that details the group's short but tangy history so if you're in the mood to read something hotcha while listening to these platters it ain't like you have to dig into your personal library to find that copy of FANNY HILL you've had in hiding in case your mom popped in for a surprise visit!
As for me, the original album remains a nice example of late-sixties suburban upper-middle-class music (y'know, the kinda band the richer kids at your school woulda had since the poor kids were all into Motown and the Four Seasons). but I found the new stuff to be a mixed blessing, sometimes snat and sometimes passable. It's like you've heard better many times before, but this still does have that sorta late-sixties local feel that reminds me of scarfing up Matchbox cars more'n anything.
Maybe if those rich snobs in your neck of the school put out an album it woulda sounded like this, but if not you can console yourself with the Index and reminisce about those days when all you hadda worry about was your mom catching you listening to stuff like this 'stead of the classical music she was cramming down your throat!
Canterbury Music Festival-RAIN & SHINE CD-r burn (originally on BT Puppy)
Pretty nice late-sixties fag pop that you'll be sure to go for, if you go for stuff like that. Actually I must admit that I had my doubts considering some of the commercial goo that came out of the late-sixties fop pop scene, but remarkably enough I found that a good hefty portion of this platter contained potentially powerful music that, had it only gotten out to the general populace, woulda made for some refreshing radio listening at a time when the AM dial was starting to mutate into something a little less pleasant than what it had once been. Naturally the sitar-laden cover of "Son of a Preacherman" is about as out of place here as Brad Kohler at an anti-smoking league meeting, but the rest ain't that bad a slab of late-sixties pop that doesn't sound teenybop or cerebral, but (if you can believe it) straightforward. Might be worth a download (I'm sure you can find it somewhere on the web if Bill Shute could!).
Various Artists-WATCHING LINDA TWIST ON MY SHOULDER CD-r burn (compiled by Bill Shute)
Typical Shutemix here with some interesting late-sixties pop (the Kaleidoscope), some countrytonk (Cotton Henry's "Devil on my Shoulder") and even some Wes Montgomery that they probably hadda shame him into recording! Of course right when you're ready to reach for the syrup of swill Bill sticks some hotcha Who and John Mayall on to keep your senses bound together. The Isley Brothers also make an appearance doing the original "Shaking (Twisting) with Linda" amid a whole buncha acts both good and gooder who somehow missed their fifteen seconds of fame, but one listen'll have you wishing that you'd heard this stuff next to the Ohio Alarm Clock back inna day. Also contains a song custom made for the majority of you readers: Steve and the Holidays' "Unemployment".
Just what I need...Eyetalian progressive rock! But don't worry, nothing here would have earned a mention in a Banco-oriented fanzine 'r anything like that since the session men who made up Blue Phantom were working in a fashion more akin to a film soundtrack to some rather cheap feature where the mouths move one way and the voices go another. Gotta admit that there was nothing which was really engaging here unless you're into wopadago western like Bill is but I was wondering...was it track three or four where the group gets into an "I Wanna Be Your Dog" riff towards the end???
THE BLACK JASPERS CD-r burn (originally on In The Red)
This un came from the mystery man mentioned last week, a somethingorother Gilmore I believer but I'm not quite sure. Anyway it's a beaut, one of those King Khan projects that has that typical eighties/nineties "garage" sound that owes about as much to the Ramones as it does the Sonics and it's pretty neat for what it is (no-fi sub-basement crank out!). I must admit that I haven't been going for music like this much lately since I find the original a lot more closer to my gulcheral roots, but there really ain't nothing wrong with these sounds a few generations down the line. Done up with a whole lotta snot appeal and basic no-chord knowhow and if you're one of those guys who still thumbs through old issues of FORCED EXPOSURE to catch up on all of those eighties rarities you somehow missed out on the first time 'round you know what to do w/o me sayin' a word!
_______________________________________________________________
*though those "Care Packages" that Bill Shute and Tom "Somethingorother" Gilmore have sent really do help out, the material enclosed having introduced me to music that I otherwise wouldn't have thought about listening to in a millyun years!
I'll tell ya, getting this latest parcel is almost as exciting as it was back when I was in my twenties anxiously awaiting my next order from either Bomp! or Rough Trade, something which gave me a connection to the real life world of music, art and high energy that somehow evaded the tri-state area! However,I would be lying to you if I didn't admit that these FE orders really do take a pounding on the ol' wallet, making me long for the days when I could manage to scrape up a mail order (or trip to the local flea market) with mere pocket change and come away with some real moozikal treasures. But come to think of it, wasn't $2.99 a hefty price to pay for a self-produced single even then???, and remember how we really hadda talk some flea market hussy with a copy of the Five Americans' "Western Union" single down to a quarter from a whopping fifty cents? Maybe my memories of budget consciousness aren't as econimically stable as I thought they were!
Naturally I'm going to do my best to stretch this latest package out...no way am I gonna review the entire booty in one sitting and then moan and groan because of a lack of fresh wonders to blab about! Naw, I'm gonna take my time with this parcel, though between that and the above-mentioned peoples' burns I'm bound to have a good share of fresh material to write about for at least the next few weeks, if not months. Won't that be a relief to you...now you won't have to put up with yet another review of PARADIESWARTS DUUL I forgot I've aleady written up twenny times in my illustrious "career".
***A DREAM I HAD THAT PERHAPS SHOULD HAVE BEEN LEFT IN THE SUBCONSCIOUS FOR ALL ETERNITY!: I ain't been having that many strange dreams of worth as of late that I'd particularly care to relate to you...most of 'em deal with everyday personal issues that have no meaning outside my close circle of enemies while others are so vague and rambling that they do resemble real life's miasma, but the one I had Tuesday night really topped 'em all as far as left-field bizzaroid knockouts go! In this dream I was, believe it or not, watching scenes from the infamous movie LAST TANGO IN PARIS only instead of Marlon Brando in the lead role it was Joey Bishop of all people playing the grumpy middle-aged curmudgeon who meets up with that ditzy French gal! The sole scene from the movie that I remember viewing was the one where Maria Schneider drove her fingernails into Bishop's hiney as he talked about her and a dying pig (although the exact dialogue was rather muddled), and thankfully I do not recall seeing any nudity or hearing foul language at all during my time in the arms of Morpheus. Then, as is usual in my dreams where logic gets warped worse'n that record I left on the heater, I discover that it wasn't Bishop in the lead role after all but Don Rickles (!!!!!!) which really woulda perked up the humor index in that flick, dontcha think??? I mean, can you imagine all the one-liners that moom woulda brought outta the famed insult comedian?!?!???!?!?
And now for something completely the same as the rest of these dog-tired posts I've been pumping at you the past eight-plus years...
I haven't been spinning much Australian music as of the past nine or so years, and with obvious reason. Therefore, I also haven't been paying attention to any of my old Scientists records or any spinoffs thereof that have been wallowing in the ol' collection since the late-eighties or so which is a surprise, since at one time the Scientists were like my favorite Flamin' Groovies superpop cum post-Velvets scronk band extant. Given all this hoo hah, you might be surprised to see this recent outing from former member Boris Sujdovic being reviewed in these er...pages, and I'm kinda surprised too because I haven't even spun those Kim Salmon albums I got ages ago (they're still inna shrink!) even though I have been tempted to during the few times they come across my path in my search for albums I haven't been spinning much as of late.
Well yeah, even though I wouldn't want to go to Australia these days unless I was packing heat I gotta say that I sure do have fond memories of what the combination continent/rectum of the earth once meant to us mid-eighties rock 'n roll maniacs. Even one with a short-term memory like I sure remember the life-reaffirming intensity and energy that the eighties Aussie scene blasted forth, only to be let down within a few years when that entire scene fizzled out into a mass of not-so-hot recordings and groups that seemed to be imitating, rather than emulating (or at least poorly emulating if not imitating, or something like that) the Detroit wild ride of the 1967-1973 seasons. And after me giving more'n my heart and soul to Australia only to be let down by some rather subpar sputum, boy did I feel dumber'n alla those guys who heard the Clash in 1977 and thought they were great only to be embarassed a good five years later when all of those dorks who badmouthed 'em just a few years before were all agog over "Rock The Casbah"!
Not quite bad...Boris plays and sings with a beat box that gives these recordings an air of Suicide-ish minimalism, and since he pretty much talk-sings like Alan Vega the whole thing works out better'n anyone would have suspected. The music is pretty driving too in that Velvets/Stooges under-the-counterculture sorta way which knew how to drive the drone, and thankfully the sound does not recall a myriad assortment of eighties "cassette culture" offerings that did nothing but reflect the artist's own vapidity and self-importance (as well as overwrought inhibitions) recorded in the sanctity of their fart-encrusted bedrooms.
What's really wild is that side one of this platter was recorded with Sujdovic playing his electric guitar and the flip with him playing solely a bass axe, and surprisingly enough I prefer the second side even thought I thought a lotta the bass worship of the eighties underground might have been way overrated. But hey, with the right overdubbing Sujdovic makes his basso profundo guitar sound like a standard one with a deep resonating sound to it, and somehow he was able to inject a nice WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT feeling to the resultant spew. Sheesh is this a good one which I must say makes me feel like I'm twenty-five again...now if only someone could come up with a disc that can make me feel like an embryo! (other'n a James Taylor one, which makes me feel like an embryo encountering a rather sharp 'n painful d&c!).
***Hawkwind-SPACE RITUAL SUNDOWN V. 2 two CD set (Abstract Sounds)
I mean like, what gives with the covers? I remember when the original SPACE RITUAL had just come out and those boobs of Stacia's were just like...starin' at me straight from the rack! Like I was what, thirteen years and thinking of the femme gender as something other'n a mass of gnarling nerve end blobs was something new to my own genital system...let's just say that the lurid day-glo cover with that lady in all of her curvitude was something that kinda "affected" me in many ways and perhaps planted the seed of my Hawkwind fandom a good five years before I actually got to hear any of their music!
But this new SPACE RITUAL, or to put it more succinctly SPACE RITUAL SUNDOWN V. 2...something is definitely quite amiss if you ask me. Now for one thing, that gal ain't Stacia and her tits just ain't as inviting as they were a good forty years back. She just doesn't have that interstellar pudendal overdrive which our stardancer so proudly exhibits on the original slabs, and although our new model sure looks better'n a nude of your wife would she just doesn't cut the mustard as far as deep space hotchas go. Even the belly button (which for me is about as important a component of the female torso as the bullseyes) is just too teeny-tiny to elicit any potent palpitations. I've presented both covers for your own personal comparisonsm the original on the top and the cheap imitation on the bottom:
Thank goodness that the music found within the aluminum reaches of the SPACE RITUAL SUNDOWN double set equal the mastery and majesty of the original SPACE RITUAL release. Of course I gotta say that it's pretty tough to put out a duff live Hawkwind set...I mean even those nth-level bootleg-quality releases at least had their share of redeeming rockism quality, but not only does this one sound pretty snat but it compliments the original. That is, if you were one who's spun SPACE RITUAL incessantly for the past four decades and want to hear more from that particular era in interstellar stasis, then this is the set to get and stash along with the wide array of seventies Hawkwind crank outs you obviously have cluttering up your collection.
Can't complain a bit whether it be the electronic screeches or even the "Sonic Attack" announcement (that tres upper-class English "do not panic" voice continues to affect me like a squeaking balloon or screeching chalk on a blackboard---like it's supposed to I gather), and the music is just as driving in that DOREMI-period fashion that sounded so pre-punk on one hand yet had all of my prog acquaintances hearing Yes and Emerson Lake and Palmer references on the other! The drone-on tracks like "I Do It" please me even more than they did a good three-some decades back and really, I couldn't think of spending a better evening listening to something like this unless I get hit with yet another one of my New York rock jags. An outta-nowhere surprise that should satiate the Ladbrook Grove in us all.
***
It may seem heresey, but other'n LORCA and STARSAILOR I haven't been as familiar with the works of Tim Buckley as I "ought to" be, perhaps perceiving him to have been a male Joni Mitchell singer/songwriter shuck who maybe actually was a little bit too introspective enough to have been allowed to live. Well, I was kinda/SORTA right (after all, some of those mid/late-seventies Mitchell toonz do have more'n a few modern jazzbo moves and turns that seem lifted straight from the Buckley playbook and who's not to say vice/versa?), but in actuality Buckley was a completely different animal even if his songs did get into an inward-looking froth that usually wouldn't settle too well with someone as forward looking and on top of all gulcheral concerns like myself. At least it was a froth of a different chemical makeup than Joni's Canyon Girl gravestone-rubbing art class mewl, and even when he was treading similar waters it wasn't like Buckley was exactly roaming anywhere near the James Taylor/David Crosby sphere of sickening solace and commercially boffo inner "quick! pity ME!" turmoil.
THE DREAM BELONGS TO ME begins with some of that acoustic jazz-folk that Buckley became a cult figure with right around the time Elektra figured out what to do with him. On the first track "Song to the Siren" (yeah, the STARSAILOR number that Buckley not only sang on THE MONKEES but was covered by Pat Boone a few years later), Buckley's groove is rather laid back true, but still intense enough to separate this from all those whole wheat types who were cluttering up the teenage stratosphere in the post-Altamont back to the soil days. Can't complain one bit as Buckley and band sound jazzy enough (especially when the vibraphone comes into play) w/o having either a teenybopper attitude or one-dimensional protest kiddie aura to date the thing. Kinda makes me wish that I gobbled up all those used Buckley platters I'd see going for 99 pennies back in the used bins of 1978, but considering how spend-thrifty I could get back then I'm lucky that I latched onto the albums and singles that I did!
I'd be lying to you if I didn't mention that I approached the '73 SEFRONIA session tracks with some trepidation...after all, just about everybody I've read, including the Lee Underwood article in DOWN BEAT that first got me interested in Buckley way back in '77, has dismissed this final period in his career as being commercially retch-inducing and forced upon him by the powers that be just so's he'd regain the listeners and maybe get a hit album outta the deal. Nothing sadder'n seeing a talent forced into playing music he just didn't have his heart into being trotted out on stage while he career slipped right before his eyes, but despite the bad reputation that get thrust upon Buckley's later spins I gotta say that I didn't find these tracks offensive one iota. In fact I thought they were way better singer/songwriter taffy'n the dross that was making the SoCal Laurel Canyon cocaine freaks types big bucks, and in fact I would rank Buckley's performance at this point almost up there with Elliot Murphy's suburban post-sixties decadent Dylan stylings, and eons ahead of Bruce Springsteen's, whose own singer/songwriterdom seemed to take more'n a few pages from Buckley's albeit with a blowhardiness that was custom made for the seething anti-rock 'n roll dolts who were to permeate the late-seventies onwards.
Sure the backing band's no help and the material might have benefited from some fine tuning or at least a few tweaks, but Buckley makes the standard commercial feh sound downright bare-wired with his flash singing and ability to take the negative aspects and manage to turn out something that was, glad to say, rather engrossing. Even when the esoteric might get in the way a tad (like on the title track) Buckley does a durn good job making you forget he's singing about cross eyed flamingos as he churns on and on with rather potent perfection that belies the fact that he was drugging himself into oblivion as his career was spiraling down way beyond hope of recovery.
A surprisingly good find that I gotta say I never thought I'd purchase let alone listen to especially back in the late-eighties when interest in Buckley's career was being revived by the same fanzine types I could care less about. An interesting change of pace from the usual hard-edge especially if you want to get rid of those split ends on your nerves, and somehow I get the feeling that you want to do that more than you're willing to admit.
***
The Index-BLACK ALBUM RED ALBUM YESTERDAY AND TODAY 2-CD set (Lion Productions LLC)Yes, it's the classic album by these Grosse Point teenagers finally digitized, and not only that but a load of previously unreleased material has been packed in to double-disc the thing! It also comes with a booket that details the group's short but tangy history so if you're in the mood to read something hotcha while listening to these platters it ain't like you have to dig into your personal library to find that copy of FANNY HILL you've had in hiding in case your mom popped in for a surprise visit!
As for me, the original album remains a nice example of late-sixties suburban upper-middle-class music (y'know, the kinda band the richer kids at your school woulda had since the poor kids were all into Motown and the Four Seasons). but I found the new stuff to be a mixed blessing, sometimes snat and sometimes passable. It's like you've heard better many times before, but this still does have that sorta late-sixties local feel that reminds me of scarfing up Matchbox cars more'n anything.
Maybe if those rich snobs in your neck of the school put out an album it woulda sounded like this, but if not you can console yourself with the Index and reminisce about those days when all you hadda worry about was your mom catching you listening to stuff like this 'stead of the classical music she was cramming down your throat!
***
Pretty nice late-sixties fag pop that you'll be sure to go for, if you go for stuff like that. Actually I must admit that I had my doubts considering some of the commercial goo that came out of the late-sixties fop pop scene, but remarkably enough I found that a good hefty portion of this platter contained potentially powerful music that, had it only gotten out to the general populace, woulda made for some refreshing radio listening at a time when the AM dial was starting to mutate into something a little less pleasant than what it had once been. Naturally the sitar-laden cover of "Son of a Preacherman" is about as out of place here as Brad Kohler at an anti-smoking league meeting, but the rest ain't that bad a slab of late-sixties pop that doesn't sound teenybop or cerebral, but (if you can believe it) straightforward. Might be worth a download (I'm sure you can find it somewhere on the web if Bill Shute could!).
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Various Artists-WATCHING LINDA TWIST ON MY SHOULDER CD-r burn (compiled by Bill Shute)Typical Shutemix here with some interesting late-sixties pop (the Kaleidoscope), some countrytonk (Cotton Henry's "Devil on my Shoulder") and even some Wes Montgomery that they probably hadda shame him into recording! Of course right when you're ready to reach for the syrup of swill Bill sticks some hotcha Who and John Mayall on to keep your senses bound together. The Isley Brothers also make an appearance doing the original "Shaking (Twisting) with Linda" amid a whole buncha acts both good and gooder who somehow missed their fifteen seconds of fame, but one listen'll have you wishing that you'd heard this stuff next to the Ohio Alarm Clock back inna day. Also contains a song custom made for the majority of you readers: Steve and the Holidays' "Unemployment".
***Blue Phantom-DISTORTIONS CD-r burn (originally on Kismet)
Just what I need...Eyetalian progressive rock! But don't worry, nothing here would have earned a mention in a Banco-oriented fanzine 'r anything like that since the session men who made up Blue Phantom were working in a fashion more akin to a film soundtrack to some rather cheap feature where the mouths move one way and the voices go another. Gotta admit that there was nothing which was really engaging here unless you're into wopadago western like Bill is but I was wondering...was it track three or four where the group gets into an "I Wanna Be Your Dog" riff towards the end???
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This un came from the mystery man mentioned last week, a somethingorother Gilmore I believer but I'm not quite sure. Anyway it's a beaut, one of those King Khan projects that has that typical eighties/nineties "garage" sound that owes about as much to the Ramones as it does the Sonics and it's pretty neat for what it is (no-fi sub-basement crank out!). I must admit that I haven't been going for music like this much lately since I find the original a lot more closer to my gulcheral roots, but there really ain't nothing wrong with these sounds a few generations down the line. Done up with a whole lotta snot appeal and basic no-chord knowhow and if you're one of those guys who still thumbs through old issues of FORCED EXPOSURE to catch up on all of those eighties rarities you somehow missed out on the first time 'round you know what to do w/o me sayin' a word!
***Got a nice change o' pace planned next weekend. Let's just say it's another one of my "specials"...nothing that'll earn me a blog of the year award true, but who knows. You may like it or loathe it, but you'll undoubtedly ignore it.
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*though those "Care Packages" that Bill Shute and Tom "Somethingorother" Gilmore have sent really do help out, the material enclosed having introduced me to music that I otherwise wouldn't have thought about listening to in a millyun years!
Don Rickles in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kEQ3ndLhq8
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