Brad Kohler told me that I should have a blog that details my nightly dreams and nothing else! That might be a funzy idea 'n all, but frankly 1) I really don't have that many cohesive dreams that I can remember much of after I wake up, 2) a lot of the dreams I do have are pretty much plotless moving from one demi-scenario to the next and 3) some of the dreams I do have might warrant a visit from the vice squad, or at least a visit to a local headshrink who would probably go crazy himself trying to make sense of the garble that passes for thought inside my very own beanie.
However on Wednesday night I did have an interesting dream that actually had a rock 'n roll angle to it thus earning a mention on this very blog! I'm at this store of some sort, sweeping up or something along those lines while a recording of the Troggs is playing. I notice that the songs actually sound slightly slow, so I mention to some old guy (in my dreams I always seem to be the insecure, easily frightened and easily ticked off schoolkid while anyone old is usually about forty years or so) that the music ain't the correct speed, and so whoever is in charge does the right thing and adjusts the speed so "Love Is All Around" sounds the way that Reg Presley and company had intended. Well, it's sure a better dream'n those ones where some high school nemesis returns to humiliate me in front of the entire student body and all I'm wearing are my jockeys!
But that ain't gonna stop me from givin' my best to you as far as detailing the new sounds that have been gracing my ears as of late! Thanks again to Bill Shute, for he supplied ALL of the wares to be found below and frankly if it weren't for he all you'd be reading here would be details of all of my OTHER dreams this week, some which, when you get down to it, can be rather embarrassing...
Before we get to the scuffed knuckles of it all can anyone tell me...is there a collection of Lobby Loyde-era (or any era for that matter) Wild Cherries tracks that's readily available? I'm on the lookout for one and other than the myriad asst. of compilations with tracks I'm not quite interested in (not to mention a way-overpriced EP featuring a side of Cherries material) there seems to be nada available at this time. Or so it would seem if ebay is any indication. If you know where I can find this group's rare single sides or whatever else is available all in one nice neat place please do get in touch (though I get the feeling none of you will because like, why bother!).
Various Artists-SWEET BEAT CD-r burn (originally on Star Club Germany)
Here's one for the serious funtime collector, a sampler of great German and English beat crammed onto one tiny disque in the interest of space and your own funtime sound frolics. A nize li'l combination of sounds from acts both known (Wayne Fontana, the Walker Brothers) and not-so unless you still read your "British Invasion" copy of BOMP! Contains the likes of not only the aforementioned but the Phantom Brothers, Rattles and Liverbirds romping through tuneage we've probably haven't heard before even in this age of instant internet jollies.
What's best about this particular sampler is that there ain't a sour note in the batch and, as far as a collection dealing with the mid-sixties continental sound goes this contains probably the best cross section of b-to-z list groups anyone could cook up. The additional tracks by the German Bonds that were tacked on at the end show that they could have been a rather popular band even over here in Ameriga, if only there weren't those hard feelings about the war still popping up all over the place.
Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, John Zorn-LIVE AT THE FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL DE JAZZ 2 JULY 2010 MONTREAL CD-r burn (available as a download somewhere out there in the vast reaches of the internet)
Like most amateur golfers I cannot tell a lie, and frankly this gathering of big names live at some avant garde festival sounds a whole lot better'n the pretentious mish-mosh I thought it would. The audience does get a li'l testy at times (but not as bad as they did when John Cage performed his symphony during the 25 year retrospective) as Lou plays his guitar through the usual synthetic effects and does recall his Gretsch Country Gentlemen days if only in the slightest. Anderson's violin playing ('n whatever, sounds like there's a string quartet sitting in though that might just be some "sampling") ain't that bad considering she's keeping her more cute artzy inclinations under wraps, and although I always thought Zorn the sorriest of the three his free jazz honkings don't bug me the way many of those whiteguy practitioners of the form who used to pop up on Knitting Factory compilation albums might have. A whole lot better than I thought it would be, but I'm still not taking my reputedly "inflammatory" Lou Reed obituary back!
Anthony Braxton-DIAMOND CURTAIN WALL TRIO 40th DEUTSCHES JAZZFESTIVAL CRANKFURT OCTOBER 30, 2009 (MP3)
Perhaps I should admit that I really haven't paid that much attention to Braxton's post-fame (or whenever Arista dropped him) career (and what I did read about it sounded rather fishy like when the guy'd sit in with these nonagenarian dixieland musicians on contrabass clarinet or perform with a stand up comedian), and considering some of the projects the guy has been involved with (see previous parenthetical aside) maybe I'm the better for it! But since I got this recording from Bill what better way to at least fill myself in on a smidgen bit of what the famed multi-reedist has been up to ever since those days when he was being touted as the new Dave Brubeck for introspective mid-seventies college nerds worldwide.
Gotta say that not much has been up, though this live kraut jazz fest gig isn't without its funzy merits. Braxton still plays like the clinical musician he always was, nothing wrong with that, though he does tend to lack the swing of a Roscoe Mitchell or Joseph Jarman. No wonder he even rated an article in the old SOURCE magazine which was reserved for those of the avant garde classical vein. Bandmate Taylor Ho Bynum makes adequate enough noise on various brass and other horns (sounding rather restrained in this setting which does help Braxton all the more) while guitarist Mary Halverson does crank out some tasty riffs and sounds but doesn't quite dig into my nervous system the way Sonny Sharrock could. Again, her performance does mingle copasetically with Braxton's.
Nothing I'd care to actually purchase mind ya, but getting a freebee was a nice gesture on Bill's part and I do need my post-new thang jazz education beefed up a bit. Kinda makes me wonder what other new jazz performances are available online, and for as little cabbage as possible given these moolah-stricken times.
Jen Hill-THE SHAPE OF IT CD-r burn (Kendra Steiner Editions, see link on left)
Here's a newcomer (I think) that you may be hearing more of in the weeks to come and no, I don't mean her name is gonna pop up in the "Police Records" section of the local paper any time soon. Hill mixes her stangeoid soundstapadings with what sound like actual attempts at tonal melodies with acoustic trappings, and although she sings like she's been making too many trips to the punchbowl at the Junior Class Spring Fling her vocalese does fit in with the various sounds at hand. Cello drone, abstract sputter and if you head for the kitchen thinking you've left the refrigerator door open I don't blame you one bit!
Odell Brown and the Organ-izers-MELLOW YELLOW CD-r burn (originally on Cadet)
Fer a minute I thought this was gonna be one of those chintzoid ripoff albums that kidz bought for their Uncle Ferds and Aunt Mabels in order to get some well needed REVENGE on 'em for alla those cheap Beatle-imitation albums they've been giving out for years. Turns out that Lou Reed was right again when he said "shows just how wrong a suburban slob can be", because this spinner courtesy jazz/r&b organist Brown is a really hot number. Nothing otherworldly like Larry Young but toe tapping beautiful in its own way. Proves that you can't judge a book by looking at its liner notes, or something along those lines.
SANDY GURLEY AND THE SAN FRANCISCO BRIDGE CD-r burn (originally on Tower)
Ya kinda'd think that the same label that gave us the Standells, Chocolate Watchband, Davie Allen and Pink Floyd would have known better'n to shovel this quickie exploito package at us! Not that Sandy Gurley don't sing good and bawlzy like Janis (and has a better setta suckems too, not to mention face), but these San Francisco Bridge guys ain't nothin' but yer usual session guys who have cornered the market on STERILITY and the music ain't anything you'd care to really wanna sit down 'n listen to. Unless you like cheapoid crankout takes of such already overworked tuneage such as "Money Can't Buy Me Love" or "Under My Thumb" that is. If I had heard this back when it came out I would have immediately labeled it "Big People Music" somewhere between "Big Band Era" (what the folks listened to) and MOR pop/soul (which I thought was solely in the realm of twenty/thirtysomething listening pleasures if you can believe it!), and all these years later maybe I was right!
Various Artists-GLOOMY DREAM HAVEN PIGEONS CD-r burn (Bill Shute, as if you were expecting Patrick Amory???)
Haven't heard the Dream Syndicate in ages, so this version of "When You Smile" lifted from their debut EP kinda reminds me of why these guys were the new hotcha underground thing in '83, as well as why they sorta creeped me out because of the mad rush to Syndication by more'n a few people I didn't quite cozy up to. The Blaze Foley song is good, kinda like negro folk blues that doesn't come off as dippoid as Richie Havens (who I gotta admit sounds better'n much of the dippoidness that had been coming out in his day). The Musical Betts...church-y organ music accompanied by a bowed saw. Russ Sainty's Beatles covers are about as good or as bad as every other moptop cash-in of the day while the Pixies with Thurl Ravenscroft do these kiddie kinda records that yer older neighbor's kids used to play back when they were growing up inna fifties, and you know what kinda jerkoffs they turned out to be!
What I REALLY liked...the Ramrods doing yet some more of that late-fifties toughass garage band rock that sorta came off post-Holly yet pre-surf era, Supersax's jazzy instrumental that sounds a whole lot older than the 1979 date tagged to it, and Mike Thomas's "song poems" where he and his accompanying band (a good riff-droner act at that!) do their best to take abysmal poems and make something outta 'em. They do fine on "See Him" which is a basically a "Watching Scotty Grow" knockoff set to a beaut of an electric guitar strum but "Early One Morn at a Quarter to Ten" musta been a real hard one for Thomas and band to work up considering the poem sent them seems to be cut off mid-section. Y'see, this 'un's about some guy who meets up with an old friend who says he's been on welfare for five years because the more he was earning and working to make ends meet the more moolah was being taken outta his paycheck. And that's it, kinda makin' ya wonder why whoever wrote this thing didn't at least take a few creative writing classes to at least develop more'n what Thomas obviously hadda work with! But I guess that's the charm of it, kinda reminding me of some of my early writing endeavors that kinda just came to an end because I deemed so and if you didn't like it boy were you the real doof!
However on Wednesday night I did have an interesting dream that actually had a rock 'n roll angle to it thus earning a mention on this very blog! I'm at this store of some sort, sweeping up or something along those lines while a recording of the Troggs is playing. I notice that the songs actually sound slightly slow, so I mention to some old guy (in my dreams I always seem to be the insecure, easily frightened and easily ticked off schoolkid while anyone old is usually about forty years or so) that the music ain't the correct speed, and so whoever is in charge does the right thing and adjusts the speed so "Love Is All Around" sounds the way that Reg Presley and company had intended. Well, it's sure a better dream'n those ones where some high school nemesis returns to humiliate me in front of the entire student body and all I'm wearing are my jockeys!
***I guess you can tell by the above space-filler that this week hasn't been exactly the slam-bam kinda one a high-energy rock et roll fan such as myself would enjoy. I mean, if a dream such as that is the HIGHLIGHT of my past seven days you can tell that I'm definitely stuck in the Turdsville of my mind (sounds like a late-sixties AM hit best left in the toilet!). Well yeah, I do get a few of them weeks where things just ain't as funzies as they should be, and believe-you-me I have just experienced one that I would surely wish on my worst enemy!
But that ain't gonna stop me from givin' my best to you as far as detailing the new sounds that have been gracing my ears as of late! Thanks again to Bill Shute, for he supplied ALL of the wares to be found below and frankly if it weren't for he all you'd be reading here would be details of all of my OTHER dreams this week, some which, when you get down to it, can be rather embarrassing...
Before we get to the scuffed knuckles of it all can anyone tell me...is there a collection of Lobby Loyde-era (or any era for that matter) Wild Cherries tracks that's readily available? I'm on the lookout for one and other than the myriad asst. of compilations with tracks I'm not quite interested in (not to mention a way-overpriced EP featuring a side of Cherries material) there seems to be nada available at this time. Or so it would seem if ebay is any indication. If you know where I can find this group's rare single sides or whatever else is available all in one nice neat place please do get in touch (though I get the feeling none of you will because like, why bother!).
Here's one for the serious funtime collector, a sampler of great German and English beat crammed onto one tiny disque in the interest of space and your own funtime sound frolics. A nize li'l combination of sounds from acts both known (Wayne Fontana, the Walker Brothers) and not-so unless you still read your "British Invasion" copy of BOMP! Contains the likes of not only the aforementioned but the Phantom Brothers, Rattles and Liverbirds romping through tuneage we've probably haven't heard before even in this age of instant internet jollies.
What's best about this particular sampler is that there ain't a sour note in the batch and, as far as a collection dealing with the mid-sixties continental sound goes this contains probably the best cross section of b-to-z list groups anyone could cook up. The additional tracks by the German Bonds that were tacked on at the end show that they could have been a rather popular band even over here in Ameriga, if only there weren't those hard feelings about the war still popping up all over the place.
***
Like most amateur golfers I cannot tell a lie, and frankly this gathering of big names live at some avant garde festival sounds a whole lot better'n the pretentious mish-mosh I thought it would. The audience does get a li'l testy at times (but not as bad as they did when John Cage performed his symphony during the 25 year retrospective) as Lou plays his guitar through the usual synthetic effects and does recall his Gretsch Country Gentlemen days if only in the slightest. Anderson's violin playing ('n whatever, sounds like there's a string quartet sitting in though that might just be some "sampling") ain't that bad considering she's keeping her more cute artzy inclinations under wraps, and although I always thought Zorn the sorriest of the three his free jazz honkings don't bug me the way many of those whiteguy practitioners of the form who used to pop up on Knitting Factory compilation albums might have. A whole lot better than I thought it would be, but I'm still not taking my reputedly "inflammatory" Lou Reed obituary back!
***
Perhaps I should admit that I really haven't paid that much attention to Braxton's post-fame (or whenever Arista dropped him) career (and what I did read about it sounded rather fishy like when the guy'd sit in with these nonagenarian dixieland musicians on contrabass clarinet or perform with a stand up comedian), and considering some of the projects the guy has been involved with (see previous parenthetical aside) maybe I'm the better for it! But since I got this recording from Bill what better way to at least fill myself in on a smidgen bit of what the famed multi-reedist has been up to ever since those days when he was being touted as the new Dave Brubeck for introspective mid-seventies college nerds worldwide.
Gotta say that not much has been up, though this live kraut jazz fest gig isn't without its funzy merits. Braxton still plays like the clinical musician he always was, nothing wrong with that, though he does tend to lack the swing of a Roscoe Mitchell or Joseph Jarman. No wonder he even rated an article in the old SOURCE magazine which was reserved for those of the avant garde classical vein. Bandmate Taylor Ho Bynum makes adequate enough noise on various brass and other horns (sounding rather restrained in this setting which does help Braxton all the more) while guitarist Mary Halverson does crank out some tasty riffs and sounds but doesn't quite dig into my nervous system the way Sonny Sharrock could. Again, her performance does mingle copasetically with Braxton's.
Nothing I'd care to actually purchase mind ya, but getting a freebee was a nice gesture on Bill's part and I do need my post-new thang jazz education beefed up a bit. Kinda makes me wonder what other new jazz performances are available online, and for as little cabbage as possible given these moolah-stricken times.
***
Here's a newcomer (I think) that you may be hearing more of in the weeks to come and no, I don't mean her name is gonna pop up in the "Police Records" section of the local paper any time soon. Hill mixes her stangeoid soundstapadings with what sound like actual attempts at tonal melodies with acoustic trappings, and although she sings like she's been making too many trips to the punchbowl at the Junior Class Spring Fling her vocalese does fit in with the various sounds at hand. Cello drone, abstract sputter and if you head for the kitchen thinking you've left the refrigerator door open I don't blame you one bit!
***
Fer a minute I thought this was gonna be one of those chintzoid ripoff albums that kidz bought for their Uncle Ferds and Aunt Mabels in order to get some well needed REVENGE on 'em for alla those cheap Beatle-imitation albums they've been giving out for years. Turns out that Lou Reed was right again when he said "shows just how wrong a suburban slob can be", because this spinner courtesy jazz/r&b organist Brown is a really hot number. Nothing otherworldly like Larry Young but toe tapping beautiful in its own way. Proves that you can't judge a book by looking at its liner notes, or something along those lines.
***
Ya kinda'd think that the same label that gave us the Standells, Chocolate Watchband, Davie Allen and Pink Floyd would have known better'n to shovel this quickie exploito package at us! Not that Sandy Gurley don't sing good and bawlzy like Janis (and has a better setta suckems too, not to mention face), but these San Francisco Bridge guys ain't nothin' but yer usual session guys who have cornered the market on STERILITY and the music ain't anything you'd care to really wanna sit down 'n listen to. Unless you like cheapoid crankout takes of such already overworked tuneage such as "Money Can't Buy Me Love" or "Under My Thumb" that is. If I had heard this back when it came out I would have immediately labeled it "Big People Music" somewhere between "Big Band Era" (what the folks listened to) and MOR pop/soul (which I thought was solely in the realm of twenty/thirtysomething listening pleasures if you can believe it!), and all these years later maybe I was right!
***
Haven't heard the Dream Syndicate in ages, so this version of "When You Smile" lifted from their debut EP kinda reminds me of why these guys were the new hotcha underground thing in '83, as well as why they sorta creeped me out because of the mad rush to Syndication by more'n a few people I didn't quite cozy up to. The Blaze Foley song is good, kinda like negro folk blues that doesn't come off as dippoid as Richie Havens (who I gotta admit sounds better'n much of the dippoidness that had been coming out in his day). The Musical Betts...church-y organ music accompanied by a bowed saw. Russ Sainty's Beatles covers are about as good or as bad as every other moptop cash-in of the day while the Pixies with Thurl Ravenscroft do these kiddie kinda records that yer older neighbor's kids used to play back when they were growing up inna fifties, and you know what kinda jerkoffs they turned out to be!
What I REALLY liked...the Ramrods doing yet some more of that late-fifties toughass garage band rock that sorta came off post-Holly yet pre-surf era, Supersax's jazzy instrumental that sounds a whole lot older than the 1979 date tagged to it, and Mike Thomas's "song poems" where he and his accompanying band (a good riff-droner act at that!) do their best to take abysmal poems and make something outta 'em. They do fine on "See Him" which is a basically a "Watching Scotty Grow" knockoff set to a beaut of an electric guitar strum but "Early One Morn at a Quarter to Ten" musta been a real hard one for Thomas and band to work up considering the poem sent them seems to be cut off mid-section. Y'see, this 'un's about some guy who meets up with an old friend who says he's been on welfare for five years because the more he was earning and working to make ends meet the more moolah was being taken outta his paycheck. And that's it, kinda makin' ya wonder why whoever wrote this thing didn't at least take a few creative writing classes to at least develop more'n what Thomas obviously hadda work with! But I guess that's the charm of it, kinda reminding me of some of my early writing endeavors that kinda just came to an end because I deemed so and if you didn't like it boy were you the real doof!
Concerning the wild cherries , there's a cd called "that's life" released in 2007 on half a cow records. I can't say if it's hard to find a copy now...
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