Got a nice crop o' platters to write about this time, not only thanks to the efforts of one Bill Shute and two P. D. Fadensonnen but my own blood, sweat, tears and maybe even David Clayton Thomas himself! Gotta say that it's sure splendid giving some new and fresh music (even if it was recorded thirty/forty/fiftysome years back) a spin because hey---a stouthearted (and bodied) fellow like me really does need a little resensifyin' in his life at least once in awhile! And in these days we need all the resensifyin' we can get and you know those old Blondie records you have lyin' around just ain't gonna cut it!
AS WE ALL KNOW BY NOW CONSIDERING HOW MUCH IT'S BEEN CRAMMED INTO OUR SKULLS, some LGBTQWTF club or another in the heart of Dizzyworld (that's Orlando Ef-El-Lay in Lou Reed lingo to you) got shot up with a whole lotta folk either dead, wounded, or too shaken to continue their usual mouth-munching practices at least until the next episode of ANDERSON COOPER AT LARGE calms them down a bit. (And really, I sincerely do hope that you stayed away from the all media social or not to avoid the unbearable rush of heartbleed pap and anti-hate chest-beating from some of the biggest haters imaginable that has permeated our very existence these past few days, especially Cooper's sniffle-filled roll call of the fallen which certainly had my gag meter clicking like a geiger counter.)***
And oh, soo-prize soo-prize but the dastardly deed wasn't the handiwork of some Deep South inbred types that always get the blame for these sorta shenanigans after all but (and you won't believe this!) some ISIS flag-wavin' middle-Eastern bi-plane (he flew both ways) who reports say was sent into a rage after seeing a couple of sissyboys smooching it up inna park the previous week.
What probably REALLY set him off was the fact that he wasn't getting any from said boys and well...goats just aren't as easy to find in Florida as they are in Afghanistan! I guess that such outwardly flagrant behavior does trigger violent impulses within a whole slew of people both homo and hetero which is undoubtedly why we read about gay nightclub shootings like this all the time! But after all is said and done maybe it is true that immigrants (and their non-assimilating offspring) are the kinda people who'll do the jobs that Americans just won't do anymore! Hey, be glad that I didn't end this paragraph saying something to the effect that gay bars are something just simply to die for!
***I WANT TO KNOW, I HAVE TO KNOW, I'VE GOT TO KNOW, PLEASE LET ME KNOW DEPT.: do any recordings or tapes of the six-piece Tyrannosaurus Rex before the finance company repossessed their instruments exist?
***And now, as the old show tune (keeping in in mood of the second subject matter discussed this week...) sez, on with the show......
Totenkopf-ANN ARBOR LP (Chameleon)Finally dished out for this 'un and boy I couldn't have put my shekels to better use! The long-touted mid-seventies punk rock album from these skandies really does out do most others on the over-the-hills-and-screaming sweepstakes, coming off like a three-way cage match between Jack Ruby, Von Lmo and that whacked out dehumidifier we hadda get rid of a few years ago. Total scronk punk here that makes a whole lotta that eighties art passing for p-rock sound totally sick in comparison. Heavy metal before the beauticians industry got hold of it and just overloaded electronic sound gunch with a massive beat you can even dance to! If you like it hard and heavy and excruciating (w/o coming off like eighties industrial dirge) you might just go for this 'un. Costly but cheap, ifyaknowaddamean...
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Album covers resplendent with Maryjane leaves (on the back, which I obviously did not reproduce here) usually add up to big hippoid goose eggs in my personal collection, but this Cal thing sounds a whole lot better'n what I woulda thought some early-eighties independently manufactured platter with such imagery could. Thanks to the fine folk at Guerssen we now get to hear this obscure upstate En Why album that really is unique in the way it takes various late-sixties and early-seventies rock moves and updates 'em w/o sounding too eighties glossy. Only the use of a whiny string synthesizer ruins the overall straight ahead rock effect but otherwise this kind of hard rock (think early FM pre AOR) with tinges of folk and garage aesthetics really does do one better than any of you (or myself for that matter) would have dared given credit back then. Believe you me, if the Sex Pistols/Clash/Ramones/Blondie types never came around this is the kinda group CREEM woulda been calling punk rock back '81 way.
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Another one from the Guerssen promo packet, this obscure mid-seventies krautrock venture seems to reflect the mode of the music as it changed into something sounding a bit more commercial. Echoes of Amon Duul II from about the same time can be heard as can various jazz ideals the kind Passport got a lotta Amerigan press with even if their albums did tank here. Interspersed are some interesting pop moves that could have been Eurovision entries that probably wouldn't have rated much even if part of some MONTY PYTHON spoof, but are still way better than the actual pop slop that was permeating the continent at the time (well, I do hope they were spoofs!). Interesting to say the least and entertaining (at least on a BLOG TO COMM neo-serious level) in spots.
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Nice reish by a group that I (like everyone else trying to jump on the hipper-than-thou bandwagon) was supposed to like back inna eighties, did like, but not enough to gobble up every slab of sound that these punkoid junkoids were peddling throughout that decade. The most amazing thing about this platter is just how close it comes to the heavy metal sphere of things, at least that's HM in the old CREEM sense before the beauticians got hold of the term ruining it for everyone throughout that sad decade. (Well hey, two CREEM/HM/beauticians refs in one post ain't that bad!) Kinda reminds me of Blue Cheer without the blusier influences just ripping themselves up on snorted speed w/o care or worry about the consequences of ruptured eardrums. And yes, it can happen to you too!
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Bee-youtiful reissue of some group I never heard of before who were out and about during the seventies rumbling under the radar of just about everybody that you or even I know of. It's hard to believe that this was recorded in 1970 because the sound is so late-seventies teenage pop-punk, kinda reminding me of such other bubbling way under acts like Wowii who made records and had somewhat of a following in their New Jersey burghs but just didn't get the additional push needed to make a really big name for themselves. If you were (and are) a fan of the last vestiges of seventies AM pop that managed to squeak out in between the disco and singer-songwriters, you might just go for it. And if anyone out there can tell us how to get hold of this item, please do write in!
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If motorcycle moom soundtracks are your game then well, this one just might be the gamiest! Baxter does a boffo job adding the oomph to this biker flick whether it be incidental background mood-makers or just plain drop into the mix and enjoy them for what they are no matter what's happening on-screen. The tinny fuzztone guitar lines give that added psycho biker film tension an even greater boost, and there's this recurring vocal number that kinda sounds like "Turn on Your Lovelight" only sung by someone who wasn't quite as stoned as Pigpen. I know that many of these soundtrack albums are about as oft played as those Christmas platters you've inherited from relatives for years on end, but this one just might stay put on your turntable a little longer than that WEST SIDE STORY album you've been trying to get rid of at the flea market these past fortysome years and still can't dump!
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Many of these cassette culture releases of the eighties might have sounded as if they were taken from the same feedback overdrive blurb session, but these Tapes sure do the self-produced thing up a whole lot differently. Simple melodies go up and down the scales with electronic sounds accentuating the overall effect which reminds me of the Metal Boys' TOKIO AIRPORT album more'n anything. Another track has the same chord changes as Can's "Gomorrah" and overall the whole thing was as pleasing to this particular pud as some of those better early-eighties self-produced platters were...well, at least until the mad rush began thanks to the exposure of this kinda sound-spew courtesy of SOUND CHOICE. And this was released in 1987 after most of this mulch had gone the artso pretensioso route. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...
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The last of the Fadensonnen burns featuring Loyde, this one was a posthumous Coloured Balls album recorded in '72 yet unreleased until a good four years later perhaps to capitalize on Loyde's local fame or somethin'. Anyway there's none of that prog rock influence here that there was on the last compendium, this being good straight ahead hard rock that, while still commercial enough to appease the Australian box boy marijuana crowd, will tingle the high-energy nerve ends in us all. Even the cover of "Johnny B. Goode" comes closer to the Pink Fairies than it does that fringe jacket 'n droopy 'stache band from the same strata who was doin' this gunch live at the corner bar. Nice cap on a pretty good series you got there, P. D.!
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Hmmmm, late-sixties Argentinian teen pop with touches of psychedelia that isn't overpowering enough to upset the senoritas out there who undoubtedly packed the pesos for records like this. Works good, or at least as good as a whole load of the late-sixties international long hair popsters who weren't singing in English. A lot of this can get a bit too bell bottom and lambchops for most of you reg'lar BLOG TO COMM readers' tastes, but I think it goes down a little smoother than, say, Gary Puckett. Has a bit of a charm to it like some of those outta-nowhere hits of the day did, though for the life of my I can't figure out why I have the sudden urge to tease my long-gone dog Sam while listening to this! Either that or lock myself in the bathroom and...well, let's not go into that!
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Given the evident hippie vibes and early-seventies singer/songwriter/sorta feeling this one exudes, I thought I was going to need to settle back for a viewing of BLESS THE BEASTS AND CHILDREN followed by a group encounter session led by Erich Siegel in order to get the full touchy-feely sensitivity of it all. Well, actually it ain't all that bad and in fact this one can get you rollicking about at times if you so desire. It's mostly mid-level straight ahead rock (no roll) with a sidestep into the blues here and barrelhouse country piano there, and unlike other artifacts from the first hippydippy era it doesn't offend your grubby punk aesthetics that much. Nothing I'd want to spend eternity listening to, but for a buncha wire-rimmed longhairs decked out in denim kinda guys it's a whole lot better than I would have thought in the first place!
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Sandwiched between two instrumental EPs of French origin comes a song poem single voiced by the inimitable (though highly imitative) Norm Burns who set some lucky housewife from Waukeegan's poems to the beat of a country and western ballad. Did country and western tunes have beats back then? Nowadays they sure sound like typical pop pablum only with a choice fiddle, steel guitar swing and southern voice to make them distinguishable from the rest of the junk so popular. The French instrumental EPs are more to my liking what with Les Champions doing their darndest to ape the Shadows without copping any of the soft moosh that went along with it, while Les Cyclones feature a harmonica player to give their twangers more of a Western sorta feel. No wonder one of their numbers is named "Lucky Luke" after the French cowboy comic that I have written about in these "pages" before. A short but sweet one to make at least twenty minutes of my life more bearable.
***And to all of you may I say "HAPPY FATHER'S DAY", though if I were you I'd demand a DNA test first!
Hm...sorry to tell you that So What is a new band and their records are not hard to get...just Google!
ReplyDeleteWhy be sorry to tell me? I'm GLAD some good rock 'n roll is being made these days. Just goes to show ya I can't believe anything I get on hype sheets these days ("'I Can See But You Don't Know' was originally released in 1970, and as JESSE HECTOR so eloquently put it, 'Now, that was PUNK before PUNK!'").
ReplyDeleteGlad you´re glad then!
ReplyDeleteTHE EQUALS also made some cheesy tunes though, but that one above is great! And Jesse Hector never made a cheesy tune! God bless him!!
Punk on!