Sunday, October 25, 2015

Here's something that I lifted off of the Ex-Army Libertarian National site which
only goes to show you that there are somepotent humor aimed right at your
groinal capacity being made even these sad and sorry days! But dontcha
think that the use of the term "the stuff" to be rather prudishly evasive,
and in this day and age? Really! And while I'm at it, shouldn't that read
"MURDERERS"?
And so another week trudged on. At this point in my life I couldn't care even a microscopic whit...I mean, back when I was but a mere youth the changing of the seasons for all the good and bad they implied only signaled the start and end of funzies of a different sort, from outdoor swing-sets and swimming to winter snowball fights resulting in the breaking of cellar windows and (of course) A WHOLE LOTTA EXCUSES TO STAY INSIDE AND DO NOTHING BUT READ COMIC BOOKS! Now it'a all just a big blur of weather and personal situations clogging my existence and y'know, so what whether or not it's sunny outside or snowin' up a storm! I don't care what the weather is like anymore because well...sad to say I've grown up and really, how can I go out and have fun the way I used to back when I was still in my single digits without coming off total retard anyway?

And besides, no matter what the weather is like outside I'M STILL GONNA STAY INSIDE AND READ OLD COMIC BOOKS!
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Oh yeah there I go, talking about the effin' weather again. 'Tis truly a shame given the cutting-edge, knows-no-bounds reaches of this blog which tackles the hard-nosed controversial issues of the day and in a totally frank, honest, and hopefully offensive (key word!) way. However, since I've run outta hot button situations to blab on about (and I don't wanna bore ya ravin' against the usual feminist/homo/racebait/liberteenage quap we've been inundated with for ages, at least until I get angry about 'em again) howzbout me blabbing on about a real rock und roll dream I had just this past Turds-day night/Fried-day morn!

Anyway, in this 'un I'm like thirteen again and in eighth grade (only I seem to be as cueball bald then as I am now!), and as a class project alla the boys (and there are a lotta 'em!) have to form rock 'n roll groups and perform for an eighth-grade battle of the bands! And so, throwing myself head-first into this fun-sounding project I borrow an electric guitar (an Epiphone in case you're keeping track) and form an act with three other kids inna class who I never saw before in my life and will probably never will see again!

So we're all dressed up in sports jackets, ties and suits in what looks like a large church basement/social hall kinda get up complete with a basketball court and stage, and our group is going to play alongside what seemed like about fifteen others who are also attired in sporty suits and ties and have haircuts more akin to the class of '63 than anything you'd see in a schools a good decade later. Oddly enough our un-named in the dream act hadn't even rehearsed, but I was going to instruct them on playing the song for that night which was none other than Von Lmo's "Ultra Violet Light"! When it was time for our soundcheck I feedbacked my guitar waving it in the air and jerking it all about thus causing utter howls of pure sound that was so atonal screech that my parents and others told me to cease and desist with the caterwauling immediatelly! Funny, but in this dream I couldn't hear a THING at all when I was waving my guitbox about, but judging from those around me I was making quite the racket.

Afterwords all of the musicians around took a group photo a la the kind they have in school, some of us posing with our guitars and such. As far as I recall, the dream ended before ANYBODY got to perform, and that included my band! But somehow, what I did dream gave me a whole lot more inner, deep satisfaction regarding my situation on this planet...other than the ones where I'm marooned on a South Sea Island with alla those topless island gals with large and clearly visible bullseyes (no long hair subterfuge here!) who haven't seen a man in ages and... Well, I think you know what I mean.
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This one didn't make the news the way I thought it shoulda, but in case you haven't heard RIP to none other than Jimmy Olsen himself Jack Larson. Say hi to Montgomery for us, willya Jack???
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Here's another week of reviews that wouldn't have existed if Bill Shute, Paul McGarry and Bruit Direct Disques hadn't (existed, that is). Thanks to them for the contributions which I will admit gave me hours (OK, at least two or even three) of listening enjoyment. In case you believe that I'm being a chintzoid relying on contributions such as these YOU'RE RIGHT, though I'll let you know that I just might get up the cash for some big FORCED EXPOSURE order in a week or two. Until then these efforts on their behalf sure do help.

Thanks again for the Care Packages...now I know how those starving Africans you used to see on those tee-vee PSA's when I was a kid felt when they were paddling up that lumpy goo (which, as I said, I always thought came in "flavors of the week" like cheddar cheese or peanut butter or tangy curry), tho instead of nourishment for the body I get nourishment for the nervous system. And at times that can be a whole lot better for one's overall high energy health!


LOCKSLEY HALL CD-r burn

For bein' a buncha hippie swill this one ain't that bad. True it borrows a whole lot from the Jefferson Airplane yet doesn't transcend them the way Amon Duul did (and of course it has the obligatory and patently unfunny dope number for all of those hip 'n with its to snigger at), but there's a decidedly driving side to these numbers that many of the hippoid musical acts of the day just couldn't express in their rather isolated from reality sounds. These Northwesterners did a fine balancing act between psychedelic rock and sunshine that takes the better moments of each without sounding too derivative of either, and only if they had ditched the cornball poetry and goodtimey drug reference this woulda been what I'd call a top notch spinner. You can hear it on youtube if you don't believe me and really, how many of you have?
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DEVIL'S KITCHEN CD-r burn (originally on Lysergic Sound)

These Illinois transplants to the Summer of Hippie in San Francisco actually do manage a halfway-there blooze chooze  that doesn't sound any worse'n the thousands of other similar-minded miscreants who were pounding the pavement on the lookout for gigs back inna late-sixties. Might be way too heavy into the whiteguy pose for some of you hardened anti-longhair types out there, but in many ways this is perhaps thee most perfect manifestation of the post-Yardbirds phenomenon that anyone could have hoped for back in those ever-sagging days. And you gotta congratulate 'em for at least getting the blues thing right unlike too many suburban slob Elmore James wannabes out there did.
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Jackie McLean-CAPUCHIN SWING CD-r burn (originally on Blue Note)

Wow, bop! Or is it post-bop? Whatever it is, it sure sounds great in the entire nada of it all that passes for living these days. Great throbbing sounds from McLean (yet another victim of the mad fury that was once known as Charles Mingus), Blue Mitchell, Walter Bishop Jr., Paul Chambers (who actually appeared with Jeremy Steig in the middle of punk-crazy 1975 CBGB's if you can believe that) and drummer Art Taylor, who some of you might remember actually pounded log drums with Archie Shepp while at BYG! And the drive of it won't have you slappin' any bowties on soon I'll tell ya that!
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BATTERED WIVES CD-r burn (originally on Bomb, Canada)

I can certainly remember when these guys were out and about causing such a well-planned out controversy with their rawther "offensive" moniker. Ugly old harridans were picketing their shows crying typical deeply buttbruised tears over a name such as "The Battered Wives" and yeah, some of 'em were acting rather convincingly at that but you kinda get the idea that was only because there weren't any other crises for them to exploit that day. The way I look at it, if "women" wanna be equal to men they should take all the beatings they can get, just like the guys at the bar who mouth off and actually get those teeth extracted for their upcoming dentures free if not so easy!

These Wives don't sound like the everyday British punk rock group I had envisioned them to be. More or less punk rock true, but in a straighter if still potent vein as if they had been at the Roundhouse in London 7/4/76 and took more of a shining to the Flamin' Groovies than the Ramones. Even the then-topical Idi Amin number isn't played for punk laffs, but you can squeeze some outta it if you want. A real surprise given just how calculated and sleepwalking some of these groups had become right around the time the seventies were clocking their way outta existence.
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ORANGE COLORED SKY CD-r burn (originally on UNI Records)

This one is really iffy, and I mean iffy like in 1970 record bin at the local supermarket for 79-cents and you're debating between this and a bag of Wise Sour Cream 'n Onion Potato Chips with a container of Orange Drink. If you bought the chips 'n drink I'm sure you would made made the right choice, because I really don't see much of tippy-top BLOG TO COMM value in this particular slice of late-sixties El Lay pop. You can hear them striving for the same sonic heights of the Beatles ca. "Got To Get You Into My Life" and falling worse the Icarus, hoping for the same classical dash of the David or Montage yet getting lost somewhere in the wash of xommercial overkill. Not totally without the mythical "it", for this contains a version of the song "Mr. Peacock" which Darlene Love sang so beautifully in that all-time slice of relevant yet laugh-inducing cinema THE LOVE GOD starring Don Knotts!
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Wonderfuls-ONLY SHADOWS NOW LP (Bruit Direct Disques, France)

A rather lush release from this French label, but nothing that's gonna make you get all saccharine sweet to the point of diabetes. Sounds like everything from Nico ca. MARBLE INDEX with some late-sixties Tim Buckley tossed in, and do I discern an almost-direct swipe of Mirrors' "I've Been Down" on more than one of the offerings available here? Of course the sound is heightened if you play it through one of those old stereo consoles that has an "aux" position on the amplifier thus making it sound like a total vibrating soundslide in the privacy of your own home. Someone out there in internetland compared this 'un to the Durutti Column...sheesh, is it like they're trying to get me to hate this album or somethin'?
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Various Artists-VIRTUAL FLOOR SWEEPINGS REDUX CD-r burn (Bill Shute Productions)

Bill lost the track listings for this one which is something that a spiritual 'tardo like myself can get away with but BILL??? Like his brain must certainly be of MENSA quality (which means he's "mensa-mensa" as they say in dagoland). Still a good 'un, what with the infamous Jim Backus "Delicious" side which I believe Bill has already snuck on a previous floor sweeping (wish he'd send me the Backus dirty old man and English maid single side!), some accapella doo wop that might appeal to the 300 pound record collector in us all, a kinda funny country-grass male/femme vocal duo, instrumental rave on, "Little Egypt" even better'n the Downliners Sect (the same act does a country weeper called "Is This The End"), Snaggy and his gal doin' an bloozey version of "Delicious" so-to-squawk, a horn-y soul number that don't get me ("grown up music" as eight-year-old me woulda said), thud-sy sax instrumental with a plodding rhythm, early-seventies funk during the "sock it to 'em" days done by a black comedian who I believe is Pigmeat Markham or one of those Laff Records renegades, MORE sax instros this one of a slightly Spanish swing (sounds familiar, perhaps a repeat), super-scratchy early-seventies loco-ly produced funk,  so-so instrumental rock this time, definitely Pigmeat Markham doing the "Here Come De Judge" routine that got him kicked off LAUGH IN,  late-sixties sunshine pop, seventies update on old front porch country with a hippie tinge to it,  ad for THE LOVE SLAYERS and some middling neo-soul sung by a person of indeterminable race.

Sheesh,  even when Bill flubs up he makes up for it in spades shovels!

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