Well one, down, eleven to go. I guess you can tell what my atty-tood is re. this particular year which, for some maybe not-so-occult reason, has me filled with dread and fear. And if I can trust my Spidey Senses something terrible, upsetting or even distasteful is just around the corner, though I can always comfort myself as to the fact that many of my ill feelings as to what would happen to me (such as the fact that I always thought I was gonna croak age 42) just never did happen, much to your chagrin I would imagine. Of course I have an even greater dread of what I'm going to find once I make my way into the realm of 2017, but as it stands in the here and now all I can hear is Sun Ra and June Tyson chanting "It's after the end of the world, don't you know that yet???" over 'n over 'n over...
I've been keeping myself occupied while the maelstrom of life keeps blowin' on outside. Naw, I ain't exactly one of those "hiding in my room, safe within my womb" kinda guys that Paul Simon was singing about (satirically/sarcastically as Don Fellman keeps telling me, though how could I think any differently about a guy who would team up with Art Garfunkel inna first place!), but with these short winter days and the Glory Days of Prime Time Tee-Vee looooooong gone it ain't like there's not much for me to do when I clock outta work and try to occupy my free time until its beddy-bye. Thankfully I've been digging into my life-long collection of paperback books and various comics collections in order to have some fun during the winding down hours, and dagnabbit if the music that I've been spinnin' a whole load of ain't helping me from goin' stir crazy these perhaps not-that-frigid winter months. Current fave rave group is Savage Rose, a perennial BLOG TO COMM chart topper that's certainly building up steam in my cranial capacities because hey, they did represent everything I like about late-sixties rock what with their melding of a whole slew of styles sounding way better'n anything else that would dare to do the same. Expect to read a whole lot more about 'em here, at least in my now-traditional year-end wrapup of platters just too obvious to review in my weekly record roundups.
Other'n that, here's the MANDATORY "thank you" section regarding those wonderful fans 'n followers who sent me some delicious wares to be writ up. First off thanks go to the fine folk at Guerssen for the Bare Sole platter (don't worry, Rocket Robert or vicey-versey should be next week) and Feeding Tube for Moonsicles. Also kudos go to BLOG TO COMM's #1 fans Bill Shute, Paul McGarry and PD Fadensonnen for their contributions to the cause. If you wanna add your name to the Friends and Benefactors of this blog feel free to do so, only remember that I'm a pretty picky sorta fellow so if you're still tryin' to peddle that eighties amerindie moosh better find another sucker to slurp it all up!
I've been keeping myself occupied while the maelstrom of life keeps blowin' on outside. Naw, I ain't exactly one of those "hiding in my room, safe within my womb" kinda guys that Paul Simon was singing about (satirically/sarcastically as Don Fellman keeps telling me, though how could I think any differently about a guy who would team up with Art Garfunkel inna first place!), but with these short winter days and the Glory Days of Prime Time Tee-Vee looooooong gone it ain't like there's not much for me to do when I clock outta work and try to occupy my free time until its beddy-bye. Thankfully I've been digging into my life-long collection of paperback books and various comics collections in order to have some fun during the winding down hours, and dagnabbit if the music that I've been spinnin' a whole load of ain't helping me from goin' stir crazy these perhaps not-that-frigid winter months. Current fave rave group is Savage Rose, a perennial BLOG TO COMM chart topper that's certainly building up steam in my cranial capacities because hey, they did represent everything I like about late-sixties rock what with their melding of a whole slew of styles sounding way better'n anything else that would dare to do the same. Expect to read a whole lot more about 'em here, at least in my now-traditional year-end wrapup of platters just too obvious to review in my weekly record roundups.
Other'n that, here's the MANDATORY "thank you" section regarding those wonderful fans 'n followers who sent me some delicious wares to be writ up. First off thanks go to the fine folk at Guerssen for the Bare Sole platter (don't worry, Rocket Robert or vicey-versey should be next week) and Feeding Tube for Moonsicles. Also kudos go to BLOG TO COMM's #1 fans Bill Shute, Paul McGarry and PD Fadensonnen for their contributions to the cause. If you wanna add your name to the Friends and Benefactors of this blog feel free to do so, only remember that I'm a pretty picky sorta fellow so if you're still tryin' to peddle that eighties amerindie moosh better find another sucker to slurp it all up!
Last week Guerssen thrilled me with their double Uther Pendragon set of late-sixties San Francisco rock of a decidedly non-Garcia-ish strata, and now this late-sixties English offering of ne'er before heard rumblings has graced mine ears and for the better I should add. I like Bare Sole for their primitive heaviness (though these are more or less demos and I'm sure some big label really woulda glossed the proceedings up a bit) and neanderthal lead guitar lines which come off more like early UFO back when Mick Bolton was in the band. So primal that even on songs like "Woman-A-Come" (of which there are two takes of!) Bare Sole dig back even further into rock history and evoke a whole slew of mid-Amerigan garage band combos who probably went about as far as our heroes from Hull did. Proof positive that there was a whole lot more comin' outta very late-sixties England than flitzy Moody Blues gunk or Emerson Lake and Palmer precociousness back during those rather confusing days. (And just dig that Big Band drum solo on "Jungle Beat"...it's something that cries out "take THAT Ginger Baker!")
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I wasn't expecting this 'un to be as much of a SURPRISE as it was, but man was BAY OF SEETHING by the Austin TX-based Moonsicles perhaps thee album of the week to catch me totally off guard! For being an outta-nowhere sorta act Moonsicles really know how to pour on the heavy-duty sound stylings comin' off one part cheezy film soundtrack and about ten post-krautrock electronics with the results being pretty nerve-bending in a Can meets O-Type sorta way. If you're comfortable with any of those abstract releases that Bruce Anderson and Dale Sophiea did under the O-Type moniker back in the nineties Moonsicles should be one act that should fit snugly up your mighty expansive back alley.
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Well, if you ain't got a Ventures album about the place these guys do come in handy. The nice 'n cheap way to have gotten your instrumental rock jollies in '65, the Mustangs were definitely the budget bin acts to go to back in those penny-pinching days, especially if you wanted to get an album but had only ninety-nine pennies to spend. I remember back inna mid-seventies my dad got hold of a scratchy and no cover version of the Mustangs' Beatles album because he heard there was moolah in Beatle collectibles and you know what, he actually sold it scratches and all making a profit in the deal! So you can just see how much the Mustangs rate in our fambly given the juicy buck fifty we profited from their hard toil of making an album inna first place!
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You know what kinda band that I wuz expectin' with a name like dat! Turns out that there is none of the duncitude or outright punk slob appeal to Archie and the Bunkers that I was banking my shenaniganzas on, but that don't mean they're a duff grou by any stretch of the imagination. Heavy duty organ recalls early Uriah Heep for some reason, but the results are more late-sixties garage band as in what Otto von Ruggins and Von Lmo were doing back before they hit the big time. Pretty exhilarating in fact. Siloah of SURKAM GURK PLAYING also come to mind even though this pair certainly ain't of the same hippoid mentality which is OK in my book. Only goes to prove that if you gave some turdler a Magnus Chord Organ for Christmas he'd come up with a group like this in a good ten year's time.
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Just one look at this and I can osmose its entire history from bein' some hi-fit nut's pick back '59 way before getting sold in a stack of platters at some garage sale circa. '71 where it was stuck in some record collecting fanabla cum old tee-vee fan's collection ever since. Listening to this I somehow feel like some fiftysomething bachelor circa them days ('59 that is) who smoked a pipe and sat in a recliner all night after work. With a platter like this all I need are some etchings to show some nubile young thing I coaxed up to my abode, though how many gals around today even know who Peter Gunn was? Sheesh, no wonder there are so many fags out there these days given that manhood and all of the things it used to mean has been replaced by a pretty cuck-minded version of the male sex!
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Absolute Grey come off like one of those eighties bands (which figures, 'cause they were) that were so good because hey, was the mid-eighties and like, what else was there to listen to? Considering the virtual chasm that rock 'n roll has tumbled into since the late-sixties over-greening of it they should STILL sound good, and they do. I find that WHAT REMAINS does pale perhaps a tad next to the various sixties/seventies acts that Absolute Grey got more'n a few of their moves from, but next to the various aggregations that have OBVIOUSLY ripped Absolute Grey off (probably via a few generations at that) this sounds a whole lot livelier and perhaps even emotional next to the cyborg state of many of today's trying to act human musical acts. Better'n even what this droll review is trying to relay. In fact, a downright startler from an era that I didn't think I would ever wanna cozy up to even in the slightest.
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I really dug this teenbo funk band's single which I reviewed a few months back, but how does an entire elpee-length Cee-Dee hold up? Pretty good actually! Hearing a buncha guys who looked more like yer standard heartfelt amerindie type of group doing some halfway-convincing funk does have a certain lilt, maybe charm to it, and surprisingly enough I was able to sit through the entire schpiel (including some live tracks recorded at CBGB '83) w/o doin' the kinda barf up I would do listening to an entire platter of Wild Cherry romping through pretty much the same whiteboy thing. You can find it all on some soundcloud out there, and it includes the group's only single meaning you don't have to dish out the big bucks for it like I did!
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Not bein' in an English blooze revamping mood maybe this one wasn't the pick o' the pile to soothe my overworked nerves. However sitting through the hour-plus of BBC sessions wasn't quite as bad given these guys did have that sorta late-seventies pub/thud attitude which sure differed from the reams of Caucasian Cutups that have not impressed me these past few eons. Nice 'n raw feeling to these live tracks that certainly will not have you thinking about those fu manchu mustached types with strong garlic aromas who have been playing the white variation for a longer time than I can imagine. If you still thumb through your collection of old Stiff and Dynamite singles you know what to do when your next welfare check comes in, eh?
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Haven't listened to the Buzzcocks in years so this particular disque was like, er, a nice refresher course. The Howard Devoto-era side was particularly pleasing as in I've been wanting to hear those early tracks from whence the first Buzzcocks EP came for years, and as I thought they were just as punk (as in what everyone thought punk rock was supposed to sound like back then) as can be. Frankly, it was sure great hearing that whole buzzsaw blast being performed without a whole slew of neo-Marxist jargon you'd expect from the useful or not idiots who make this sorta drivel nowadays. As for the post-Devoto flip taken from a USA promo LP and the LOVE BITES demos well...somehow or other I don't recall ever liking this version of the band but these tracks really pleased me to no end. They kinda reminded me of the Velvets via Eno on the first two albums he cranked out complete with that wicked sense of pop that was known to sneak into these affairs at the time. When all is said and done all I can say right now is VIVE LA BUZZCOCKS because hey, they weren't a buncha hasbeens and mebbee those gnu wave creeps waxing eloquence were right all along!
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Like Hanoi Rocks and a number of similarly-minded aggregations, the Joneses sure stood out proud against the hair metal bands of the eighties what with their playin' hard rock scronk (with bleached locks) just it was meant to be! Of course the hair bunch had a whole load of snooty press and big label putsch behind 'em while acts like the Rocks 'n Joneses were lucky enough to make enough gig money to take the bus home, but from a good thirtysome-year lookback we can all tell who the real victors of the rock scrapheap were, eh? Sure it ain't as knockover as hearing the Dolls the very first time way back in the suburban slobby seventies, but considering the dire state of rock during them eighties days these guys might as well have been the second coming of Eric Emerson, y'know?
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No track listing here so I guess I'll have to wing it in Leonard Feather "Blindfold Test" fashion. And no, I won't go the Miles Davis route and just lambaste everyone and everything with terse vulgarity-laden responses either! Of course I can identify the opening track because hey, if anybody out there in BLOG TO COMM-land can't recognize Roy Rogers singing "Happy Trails" then they don't know what Saturday afternoon ranch house UHF-TV living is all about! The rest does have me a bit corn-fused, though the synthesized versions of various e-zy listening faves did register some sorta teenage nostalgia in me to the point where I thought I was watching tee-vee on a snow-bound Friday night in 1975 trying to stay awake through a buncha dress shop commercials! The ads that Bill stuck in between the tracks were boffo as well...and if you can't relate to a Hailey's MO commercial (and what it's used for) then hey, how can you relate to this blog? Fair enough question if I do say so myself.
Hey Chris. New Gizmos EP--dig it: https://play.spotify.com/album/1MPWQQStxkLycrtLJNIfBA
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