Along with UGLY THINGS #40 (review naturally forthcoming), this li'l pub's the spiritual pacemaker that keeps my battered geriatric soul goin'. And like the previous three, BULL TONGUE REVIEW #4's a
Once again Byron Coley and Thurston Moore make the best they can outta a post-post underground rock world that really doesn't have much to offer other'n some vivid and eye-gobbing reminiscences, and they sure do a smack-dab fine job of it what with not only their own energetic displays of rockist spurting but by lining up some of the brightest and best of today's (but mostly yesterday's) top writing talents (well, with a few exceptions), each and every one of them giving you the lowdown on their own current personal favorites. And a nice portion of the writing to be found herein is such a fresh RELIEF from the usual rot seen in the pages of just about any post STONE craphaul you might come across, let alone the thousands of online imitators who think of themselves as being unique and oh-so-clever with their cheap fanboy droolathons passing for cutting critiques.
Not much new mentioned here that's worthy of my shekels but that's hokay, for at least it's probably about twice as much FUN readin' about 'em as it is hearin' 'em! And as usual there are some rather interesting snatches of rockist pearls to choose from. Well, it's not all rock 'n roll...the infamous Flesheater himself Chris Desjardins has been limiting himself to film reviews that might seem too Pauline Kael-ish to some but I find them rather entertaining...but for the most part it's sure nice to see exactly what the upper crust of the surviving underground past is up to long after we all thought it would be long gone. And who knows, but maybe even you can cop a few smart ideas from these geniuses' words if only to osmose in your own special way being just LIKE THEM!
Personal faves...Eddie Flowers' CREEM "Rock-A-Rama" influenced review of various Cee Dees he got from bandmembers etc. during the recent Gizmos tour, Nigel Cross (who was once described to me as being a 300 pound early-seventies-styled hippie which is fine by me as long as he likes Larry Wallis!) on English neo-beat Jeff Cloves, Alan Bishop on Pink Floyd's ANIMALS album (!!!!!---the part where he 'fesses up to plagiarizing "Dogs" off the album for a Creative Writing class reminded me of various doofs I knew who did the exact same thing and actually got their stuff printed in the school literary mag!), former fanzine contributor/NEW YORK ROCKER editor Andy Schwartz's cruel yet accurate (I guess---didn't read the book!) dissection of Mark Ribowsky's recent Otis Redding bio, and Meltzer's proposed tombstone which surprised me because I thought he'd just wanna be dumped in a hole, covered over and be done with it!
Low points...not many really. I mean, some of the contributions might have zoomed by me which is par for the course but anyone'd expect me to maybe be not that keen on Danny Kaye outside of his work for Educational Pictures. Other writers tend to bore, and since there are a couple contributors here who are on my enemies list (one to rival Nixon's) I better just keep my mouth shut.
I know there's no way any of us can expect a TEENAGE WASTELAND GAZETTE here in '15, but things like this are (maybe/not likely) about as close as we'll ever come to regaining that long lost Golden Age of Rock Screeding magic. Give it a go, it might be the best thing you've done since you picked up all over the available back issues of BLACK TO COMM, which I know you haven't.
***By the way hope you're having a boffo Thanksgiving Day. Weather here is perfect, in the low sixties but more Easter-y than Autumn-y and I can't complain about that! Anyway have a great day and may all of your mountain views be clear and bright (hee!).
You should ditch the enemy list.
ReplyDeleteSure worked for Stalin.
ReplyDelete