Hoo boy wotta week """""I""""" had! Ya don't wanna know about it, so why don't we just get to the fun portion of this week's post and skip the gosh-dang of it all...
Circulation-TANK TRACKS CD (Shadok, Germany)
S'funny, but when I first heard this 'un a decade or ten back I didn't exactly cozy up to Circulation's teenage attempts at emulating the biggies. Or so I remember, and my review ot the original Shadoks reissue in a now-ancient issue of my crudzine might prove different. However, listening to these English stoolboy stompers in the here and now just reminded me of how unexpectedly good some of these outta-the-way teenage combos could have gotten. Living-room quality recording exemplifies the rawness of the sound which, although definitely in the classic garage band idiom, borrows plenty from not only then-current English underground blues stylings but various Amerigan sources straight outta the NUGGETS book of local band primitive aesthetics. Nothing over-the-top, but I found it rather enjoyable and wouldn't mind hearing more from these sorta outta-the-way teenage group types of the day.
STEVE WINWOOD AND FRIENDS CD-r burn (originally on Springboard)
Like most of you record shop frequenters of the seventies I certainly do remember those Springboard albums with titles like ERIC CLAPTON AND THE YARDBIRDS and JEFF BECK AND THE YARDBIRDS popping up in the budget bins of my youth. However, although they were cheapo enough for a depression-era wages kid like me it wasn't like I was interested in getting hold of any of 'em. Perhaps it was because I wasn't quite ready to immerse myself into da blooze, or maybe I was just bein' dang cheap about it all. Maybe the former but most certainly the latter. Well this particular platter got burned for me by none other'n Bill Shute and y'know, those memories of mid-teen record bin bonanzas just came rushin' back to me faster'n Johnny Quick upon mere viewin' the album cover not to mention the Springboard logo..kinda makes me wanna look for the nearest what used to be a record shop and try to osmose all of those forty-plus-year record throb thrills long gone which come to think of it I have done on certain lonely days.
Still don't know how Springboard got away with releasing alla these big name rarities unless they had financial holdings in Sicily ifyaknowaddamean, but this particular platter woulda been a nice introduction to English (and other) blues had I the opportunity to give this 'un a lissen to way back when. Early Winwood doing his take on the likes of Willie Dixon ain't as bad as a Traffic-hater (or at least Traffic-indifferenter) such as myself would have thought, while the Beck and Yardbirds stuff is pretty top notch even if the Sonny Boy Williamson team up usually emits yawns from certain quarters. And is that Baker/Bruce track "Early in the Morning" from a Graham Bond Organisation live tape by any chance? British blues that could be picked up for mere shekels at one time, though nowadays it's even easier to get hold of considering all of the internet sources there just MUST be out there.
Sounds Orchestral-WORDS CD-r burn (originally on Pye, England)
Syrupy string slop don't do anything for me on this collection of late-sixties hits done up so sweetly that I've heard that various elevators personally rejected this music for being too mundane. Sure I can get some pre-teen nostalgic juice out of Sounds Orchestral's version of that bubbly gum classic "Simon Says" but the rest...sheesh, all these numbers do is remind me of what a miserable time I had when I was eight and hadda take a whole lotta venom from my classmates, teachers, neighborhood kids, parents, relatives... Sheesh Bill, you really dredged up a whole lotta bad memories with this one and just for that you're not gonna get any autographed copies of my failed crudzine I can't give away for Christmas!
Frank Foster-SOUL OUTING CD-r burn (originally on Prestige)
Nice li'l attempt to merge the cool jazz thing with the soul movement that was plugging up a whole load of transistor speakers back during the days when Top 40 sorta meant something to your average runna da mill suburban slob. Good band (including bassist Richard Davis) backing Foster on a buncha tracks that do have that urban teen sound to 'em even though they're firmly rooted in a bop-style...I'll betcha that some of the brains at Prestige pondered the thought of releasing a track or two as a single hoping it might crash the market, but then again you know these things never did chart no matter how good they may have been. A real outta nowhere surprise that helped calm me down after a particularly grueling day at the reality mines.
Joe Greene-ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK FROM ALBERT ZUGSMITH'S ON HER BED OF ROSES CD-r burn (originally on Mira)
These soundtrack albums don't always grab me even if the moom was hokay, and although I never did see ON HER BED OF ROSES (which I understand should have been titled KRAFT-EBBING THEATER) I gotta say that the soundtrack to this '66 durty film was...shall I say..."eh"?!?!?! Standard mid-sixties spooky zoom-bah jazzoid sounds from a guy who I suspect is not the "Mean" Joe Greene of seventies football fame, and hardly anything here conjures up any special juice flows within my tortured soul the way Herrmann could. Could have come straight from an episode of THE FELONY SQUAD for all I care. Guess this music really needed the on-screen action to make any real sorta impact in your sexually-saturated mind, let alone mine.
Gene Vincent-TWIST CRAZY TIMES CD-r burn (originally on Capitol)
Y'know, there was once a time in my life when the Gene Vincent name seemed like some obscure blast from a well-hidden past that I just hadda know about! Like Link Wray and (even to an extent ) Buddy Holly, Vincent came off to this adolescent record scrambler like some long-forgotten recording act that was just beggin' for me to rediscover. This '60 album woulda been a good place for me to start age elevem had one just happ'd to pop up in a flea market bin...Vincent was still cooking pretty hot and every track on this platter is what I would call boffo early-sixties rock in an era where it perhaps was starting to wane (dig the title---dunno if you could twist to anything here unless you were one of those crazy little kids on CANDID CAMERA), and it's sure good knowing that some of the original rock 'n roll spirit lived on in an era when top 40 frankly was gettin' kinda sappy in spots. But hey, don't YOU think that the song "Why Don't You People Learn How To Drive" is pretty creepy considering what was to happen to him and Eddie Cochran within the span of a very short time????
Warren William in STRANGE WILLS radio show CD-r burn
Here's a radio series I never heard of, dealing with last wills, testaments, and everything that goes along with them. Strange subject eh, but if the folks at JOHNNY DOLLAR could make insurance investigation look high class then the writers for this 'un could do so as well. Warren William is pretty snat as O'Connell the will lawyer or whatever they call 'em, and the stories aren't half bad even if at times they tend to border on the ridiculous. Like in the one where a father disinherits his son for swiping his latest gash away, dies, and then the son goes nuts to the point where he has to be hospitalized for hearing daddy laughing his ass off from the grave. The solution??? O'Connell arranges for son's failed radio show to be performed, son hears it and after collapsing midway through comes back to the living with the secure knowledge that his flop radio series is a fluke hit! Kinda reminds me of that old SUPERBOY story where some guy was in a coma for twenty years and the residents of Smallville do their best to make things exactly as they were when the sop first slipped into his deep sleep! Unreal but fun, and by the way when was the last time you saw anything that was being touted on AOL as real anyway???
PREMIUM CUTS-SYLVESTER CD-r burn (originally on Celeste Vivid Sound, Japan)
If any of you are gonna make a late-sixties European spy or crime film you might wanna use these sound library recordings for some fast car chase or psychedelic discotheque scene. Lotsa jazzy organ and vibes give off that continental feeling, and while listening to the flute intermingle with the piano you can just imagine some scene where the hero is driving off with his galpal down the Champs De Whateveritscalled, or maybe even one of yer own fave late-sixties television public service announcements with this music playing in the background as some announcer warns of the perils of reckless driving or puffing cigarettes. Even better, play some of this in your bachelor pad to get some nice sweetie in the mood. Real martini-mingling music ya got here, pal!
Various Artists-DOLORES RHYTHM CROSSING CD-r burn (Bill Shute)
Weirdo offering in a series that really stretches the definition of the term. Most of this is sixties-styled e-zy listening makeout moozik that makes me think I'm three-years-old again and waiting for my mom to buy something (hopefully a toy for me!) in a department store that was playing the old Stereo 99 strings and glop that sounds so good in retrospect o'er the loudspeaker.
The slightly newer tracks from the likes of Edward Shahapin and others ("Going Out of My Head", "Classical Gas") conjure up late-single digits memories of waiting for cyster to get her butt outta the dress shop so I can go 'n buy some Matchbox car to drive around the bathtub that passes for an imaginary lake in my kiddoid mind (submarines banned for safety purposes). Still others like the Rocky Mount Instruments' version of "Batman" come off like a commercial cash-in of the strangest type.
Other'n the grown up sounds for the anti-rock 'n roll adults out there Bill slapped on some bizart avant from the likes of Jon Gressel (a computer-generated piece that sounds like a de-tuned piano to me) and Lowell Cross's tape mangipulations, and the pseudo-phony intellectual 18-year-old in me kinda digs 'em to the point of wanting to don the beret and eat them stale doritos with the rest of the starving art colonists out there. Final question...who's idea to have Ravi Chancre record the theme from the Cliff Robertson psychoflipout vehicle CHARLY anyway? Shows that even supposedly altruistic artists can do sappoid things when ya dangle a few dinero in front of their noses.
S'funny, but when I first heard this 'un a decade or ten back I didn't exactly cozy up to Circulation's teenage attempts at emulating the biggies. Or so I remember, and my review ot the original Shadoks reissue in a now-ancient issue of my crudzine might prove different. However, listening to these English stoolboy stompers in the here and now just reminded me of how unexpectedly good some of these outta-the-way teenage combos could have gotten. Living-room quality recording exemplifies the rawness of the sound which, although definitely in the classic garage band idiom, borrows plenty from not only then-current English underground blues stylings but various Amerigan sources straight outta the NUGGETS book of local band primitive aesthetics. Nothing over-the-top, but I found it rather enjoyable and wouldn't mind hearing more from these sorta outta-the-way teenage group types of the day.
***
Like most of you record shop frequenters of the seventies I certainly do remember those Springboard albums with titles like ERIC CLAPTON AND THE YARDBIRDS and JEFF BECK AND THE YARDBIRDS popping up in the budget bins of my youth. However, although they were cheapo enough for a depression-era wages kid like me it wasn't like I was interested in getting hold of any of 'em. Perhaps it was because I wasn't quite ready to immerse myself into da blooze, or maybe I was just bein' dang cheap about it all. Maybe the former but most certainly the latter. Well this particular platter got burned for me by none other'n Bill Shute and y'know, those memories of mid-teen record bin bonanzas just came rushin' back to me faster'n Johnny Quick upon mere viewin' the album cover not to mention the Springboard logo..kinda makes me wanna look for the nearest what used to be a record shop and try to osmose all of those forty-plus-year record throb thrills long gone which come to think of it I have done on certain lonely days.
Still don't know how Springboard got away with releasing alla these big name rarities unless they had financial holdings in Sicily ifyaknowaddamean, but this particular platter woulda been a nice introduction to English (and other) blues had I the opportunity to give this 'un a lissen to way back when. Early Winwood doing his take on the likes of Willie Dixon ain't as bad as a Traffic-hater (or at least Traffic-indifferenter) such as myself would have thought, while the Beck and Yardbirds stuff is pretty top notch even if the Sonny Boy Williamson team up usually emits yawns from certain quarters. And is that Baker/Bruce track "Early in the Morning" from a Graham Bond Organisation live tape by any chance? British blues that could be picked up for mere shekels at one time, though nowadays it's even easier to get hold of considering all of the internet sources there just MUST be out there.
***
Syrupy string slop don't do anything for me on this collection of late-sixties hits done up so sweetly that I've heard that various elevators personally rejected this music for being too mundane. Sure I can get some pre-teen nostalgic juice out of Sounds Orchestral's version of that bubbly gum classic "Simon Says" but the rest...sheesh, all these numbers do is remind me of what a miserable time I had when I was eight and hadda take a whole lotta venom from my classmates, teachers, neighborhood kids, parents, relatives... Sheesh Bill, you really dredged up a whole lotta bad memories with this one and just for that you're not gonna get any autographed copies of my failed crudzine I can't give away for Christmas!
***
Nice li'l attempt to merge the cool jazz thing with the soul movement that was plugging up a whole load of transistor speakers back during the days when Top 40 sorta meant something to your average runna da mill suburban slob. Good band (including bassist Richard Davis) backing Foster on a buncha tracks that do have that urban teen sound to 'em even though they're firmly rooted in a bop-style...I'll betcha that some of the brains at Prestige pondered the thought of releasing a track or two as a single hoping it might crash the market, but then again you know these things never did chart no matter how good they may have been. A real outta nowhere surprise that helped calm me down after a particularly grueling day at the reality mines.
***
These soundtrack albums don't always grab me even if the moom was hokay, and although I never did see ON HER BED OF ROSES (which I understand should have been titled KRAFT-EBBING THEATER) I gotta say that the soundtrack to this '66 durty film was...shall I say..."eh"?!?!?! Standard mid-sixties spooky zoom-bah jazzoid sounds from a guy who I suspect is not the "Mean" Joe Greene of seventies football fame, and hardly anything here conjures up any special juice flows within my tortured soul the way Herrmann could. Could have come straight from an episode of THE FELONY SQUAD for all I care. Guess this music really needed the on-screen action to make any real sorta impact in your sexually-saturated mind, let alone mine.
***
Y'know, there was once a time in my life when the Gene Vincent name seemed like some obscure blast from a well-hidden past that I just hadda know about! Like Link Wray and (even to an extent ) Buddy Holly, Vincent came off to this adolescent record scrambler like some long-forgotten recording act that was just beggin' for me to rediscover. This '60 album woulda been a good place for me to start age elevem had one just happ'd to pop up in a flea market bin...Vincent was still cooking pretty hot and every track on this platter is what I would call boffo early-sixties rock in an era where it perhaps was starting to wane (dig the title---dunno if you could twist to anything here unless you were one of those crazy little kids on CANDID CAMERA), and it's sure good knowing that some of the original rock 'n roll spirit lived on in an era when top 40 frankly was gettin' kinda sappy in spots. But hey, don't YOU think that the song "Why Don't You People Learn How To Drive" is pretty creepy considering what was to happen to him and Eddie Cochran within the span of a very short time????
***
Here's a radio series I never heard of, dealing with last wills, testaments, and everything that goes along with them. Strange subject eh, but if the folks at JOHNNY DOLLAR could make insurance investigation look high class then the writers for this 'un could do so as well. Warren William is pretty snat as O'Connell the will lawyer or whatever they call 'em, and the stories aren't half bad even if at times they tend to border on the ridiculous. Like in the one where a father disinherits his son for swiping his latest gash away, dies, and then the son goes nuts to the point where he has to be hospitalized for hearing daddy laughing his ass off from the grave. The solution??? O'Connell arranges for son's failed radio show to be performed, son hears it and after collapsing midway through comes back to the living with the secure knowledge that his flop radio series is a fluke hit! Kinda reminds me of that old SUPERBOY story where some guy was in a coma for twenty years and the residents of Smallville do their best to make things exactly as they were when the sop first slipped into his deep sleep! Unreal but fun, and by the way when was the last time you saw anything that was being touted on AOL as real anyway???
***
If any of you are gonna make a late-sixties European spy or crime film you might wanna use these sound library recordings for some fast car chase or psychedelic discotheque scene. Lotsa jazzy organ and vibes give off that continental feeling, and while listening to the flute intermingle with the piano you can just imagine some scene where the hero is driving off with his galpal down the Champs De Whateveritscalled, or maybe even one of yer own fave late-sixties television public service announcements with this music playing in the background as some announcer warns of the perils of reckless driving or puffing cigarettes. Even better, play some of this in your bachelor pad to get some nice sweetie in the mood. Real martini-mingling music ya got here, pal!
***
Various Artists-DOLORES RHYTHM CROSSING CD-r burn (Bill Shute)Weirdo offering in a series that really stretches the definition of the term. Most of this is sixties-styled e-zy listening makeout moozik that makes me think I'm three-years-old again and waiting for my mom to buy something (hopefully a toy for me!) in a department store that was playing the old Stereo 99 strings and glop that sounds so good in retrospect o'er the loudspeaker.
The slightly newer tracks from the likes of Edward Shahapin and others ("Going Out of My Head", "Classical Gas") conjure up late-single digits memories of waiting for cyster to get her butt outta the dress shop so I can go 'n buy some Matchbox car to drive around the bathtub that passes for an imaginary lake in my kiddoid mind (submarines banned for safety purposes). Still others like the Rocky Mount Instruments' version of "Batman" come off like a commercial cash-in of the strangest type.
Other'n the grown up sounds for the anti-rock 'n roll adults out there Bill slapped on some bizart avant from the likes of Jon Gressel (a computer-generated piece that sounds like a de-tuned piano to me) and Lowell Cross's tape mangipulations, and the pseudo-phony intellectual 18-year-old in me kinda digs 'em to the point of wanting to don the beret and eat them stale doritos with the rest of the starving art colonists out there. Final question...who's idea to have Ravi Chancre record the theme from the Cliff Robertson psychoflipout vehicle CHARLY anyway? Shows that even supposedly altruistic artists can do sappoid things when ya dangle a few dinero in front of their noses.
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