Saturday, January 25, 2014

A smaller post'n usual. Blame it on the winter freeze-up since it seems as if everything around here (including my writing abilities) has come to a standstill. Believe-you-me, when the weather gets down to these sub-zero Fahrenheit temperatures I'm more concerned with staying toasty warm in my room than I am trekking down to the cold basement to spin a few, and that's just what I'm gonna do (stay in mine room, not go down to the basement) at least until the spring thaw or global warming whichever comes first. Until then it's gonna be Bill Shute Cee-Dee-Are burns and deep digs into the archives for me, thaz for sure!
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Well, at least there's some good news to blab on about this weekend! Brad Kohler tells me than none other than Miss Reconstructed Nostrils herself Linda Ronstadt now suffers from the debilitating disease Multiple Sclerosis and has to get around with the aid of a walker! Considering how the one-time wannabe Mrs. Jerry Brown made us suffer with her "hot tub hussy" music back in the seventies it's nice to see that she's doin' a li'l sufferin' herself! I wonder if her walker is embedded with turquoise?
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Hey kids, do you want to get a copy of the soon-to-be-released Simply Saucer "Bulletproof Nothing" single? If so then go here, and if they're sold out by the time you do just don't come crying to me because like---I gave you ample warning!
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Like I said, not much this time, though I must praise myself for going above the call of doody in presenting you this week's selections which I still get the feeling you couldn't care one whit about. But then again you're just reading this post for the visceral thrill of it all, right? Just like alla those freaks, degenerates, burnouts and confused adolescents used to pester Lester Bangs night and day to the point where you'd think the guy woulda had at least two hundred "closest friends". Well, I'm not gotta let you get away with it, though I must admit that I do feel flattered in my own personal way...


Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band-NAN TRUE'S HOLE, BEEFHEART TAPES VOLUME 3 CD (Dandelion, England), MAGNETICISM, THE BEST OF CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & HIS MAGIC BAND LIVE 72-81 CD (Viper, England)

I was gonna do a Beefheart special writin' up alla the new reissues 'n exhumations that were hittin' the catalogs...really I was! But lack of time, ability and other hoo-hahs just got in the way so I'm gonna do the whole thing like piecemeal ifyaknowaddamean... So for now lemme clue you into some Beefheart platters I got as of late that I didn't even know existed until I saw 'em on the Forced Exposure website, and who knows, I somehow get the feeling that you didn't know about 'em either! And you think you're such hot stuff now, don't you poopkins!

Taken from the collection of ace Beefheart booster John Peel, NAN'S TRUE HOLE rivals some of the crudest early seventies Beatle bootlegs for tough listening. But since it was either that or spinning BEATLES '65 again it wasn't like you had much choice so went for the boots you did. And hey, an anti-audiophile like myself doesn't care that much either since it's good hearing Beefheart in just about any setting even if the songs sometimes sound if they were recorded while Peel was stimulating an underage gal under the stage with the mic used to record these. Some rarities, some faves, and a good sampling of just what the guy was up to outside of the studio throughout the seventies all presented for you via Peel's very own Dandelion label, also home to the likes of Stackwaddy and David Bedford's NURSES SONG WITH ELEPHANTS for all you late seventies used record shop hunters out there!


MAGNETICISM is another collection of Beefheart live tracks recorded between '72 and '81, with one '66 Avalon Ballroom track not on the EP closing things out. If it matters to you the sound is better and the selection does keep that Beefheartian pace up to the point where all of those seventies rock feelings you had for the guy'll come rushing back faster than fanabla. Some interesting inclusions appear such as Beefheart's take on the classic "King Bee" which hearkens back to early Avalon-era efforts as well as a number recorded at the Red Creek Inn in Rochester New York where I believe Greg Prevost approached the man for the interview which eventually appeared in the third ish of FUTURE. That's definitely one interesting historical turdbit related to this platter, and I'm sure there are more in here if only you would look hard enough into the thing and relate to it as a true seventies artifact of just a portion of the energy and madness the music of that decade was infamous for. Or some insufficient hyperbole such as that.
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Archie Shepp and the Full Moon Ensemble-LIVE IN ANTIBES (vol. 1 & 2) two CD set (Fuel)

Ever since the rash of Affinity reissues of the BYG-Actuel series began gushing out at bargain prices back inna mid-eighties I've been lappin' 'em up more'n a dog mascot downs a nice bowl of beer at a university frat house. Unfortunately this particular Archie Shepp outing was not part of the Affinity reissue series so it was like us free jazz frolickers hadda wait a good fifteen or so years before this 'un got the royal treatment, that is without having to pay the exorbitant collectors prices that were getting stuck on long outta-print platters such as these.

Shepp is in fine form whether he be playing his tenor or grunting out what sound like veiled obscenities, while the Ensemble compliment his fire performance well, what with the group's mix of legendary black Amerigan players like Allen Shorter and Clifford Thornton and French BYG regulars like Beb Guerin and Claude Delcloo. Of special note is guitarist Joseph Dejean whose staccato strumming is somewhat reminiscent of Sonny Sharrock's making me wonder why the guy didn't end up recording a BYG album of his own other'n he wasn't really a "name" and more or less was part of the label's backing entourage!

Two disques, each encompassing single works that have the primal roar that made too many kids searching for the roots of the Stooges pick up platters like this up. Definitely the last word in what this "fire music" was supposed to be about and rather important, especially considering some of the comparatively tame and in fact disappointing platters that Shepp ended up making only a few years later.
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John Coltrane-COLTRANE'S SOUND CD-r burn (originally on Atlantic)

For a buncha leftovers these Atlantic tracks sure do fill the bill, or at least filled the bill for hungry jazz fanatics who couldn't wait for the next Impulse-label Coltrane album to come out. Originally released in '64, these '60 sides might not have the same overdrive into free sputum that Coltrane was inflicting on his listeners at the time, but the roots of the toots can be discerned on such tracks as "26-2" (which actually didn't come out until '70's COLTRANE LEGACY). Not the best place to start (I made the mistake as a curious mid-teen with MY FAVORITE THINGS which almost ruined the guy en-toto for me!) but a fine one to digest after you've given the major titles more than a quick run through.
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Metallica-KILL 'EM ALL CD (Elektra)

Last week's review of the Cliff Burton/Agents of Misfortune "album" had me digging back into the history of Metallica proper, if only to re-acquaint myself as to what is was that made this group such a welcome relief from the type of metal that most of the stoner lowrider types were goin' for at the time. Oddly enough these '83 tracks don't have quite the oompah that I remember 'em to've had, but as far as doing a proper update on early-seventies metallic forms from Zep to Sabs to even such outside chances as the Pink Fairies Metallica did it grand, taking the original drill and breaking it down to even more white noise appeal. After listening to this I can see why I had hope in this act being the saviors of the HM idiom, and in some ways I can see why some of their less-appealing influences from Yes to Bob Segar eventually got the best of 'em even when they were doing their darndest to wipe a few braincells from our minds.
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Various Artists-SINGING PLUMBERS AND SMOKING ACTORS CD-r burn (contributed to the cause by Bill Shute)

Must've been a duff week at Bill Shute's pad, what with the cornballus singers who appear on this particular collection! Dave & Suzanne might have some talent goin' for 'em even if their version of "Dock of the Bay" is about as whitebread copycat as the Sandpipers, but Justin Liu comes off like the nightly entertainment at the Cantonese Palace as he makes his way through everything from "Love is Blue" to "More"! Strange, because it wasn't like he was singing in an Eyetalian restaurant so why not something more Chinese?! Of course nobody can top the San Suct's take of "Boogie Fever" nor the Executives' "I Got to be Me," at least until Fat Bob, the Singing Plumber tortures us with a side of his versions of "Sunrise Sunset" and "Danny Boy" among other old fogey faves!

Thankfully, the Avon representative motivational record's good for a hoot considering it was recorded in the late-sixties right before women began losing their seats on the bus because they stood up for their rights,  while the HOW TO STOP SMOKING WITHOUT USING WILLPOWER album came at just the right time for me...y'see, I've been trying to START smoking for quite some time, so what I'm doing is taking the information from this record and working backwards with it, so in no time at all I'm gonna be a three carton a day man and I have Bill to thank for that! Well it's cheaper'n me buying nicotine lozenges and starting with the low dosage and working my way up like I was originally planning on!!!

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