I've been sitting in front of this screen 'n keyboard for about ten minutes thinking about how I can get this weekend's blog off to a rip-roaring start. There's no real way to be honest about it, especially since nothing of whatcha'd call real interest had beset my fine abode (and maybe not-so-fine mere existence) these past seven days. Sometimes I wish that I could live a real thrill-packed life just like Bill Shute, Brad Kohler and alla you reg'lar readers do, but I'm afraid that I'd be willing to settle for something along the lines of Karen Quinlan the way things tend to be here in the post-post-POSTmodern world which promised us everything but only gave us yet more reasons to hide under the bed until things get better. And ya know they never will!
But trudge on I will, and at least I had these wonders to listen to which did help the pain a little bit. And who knows, maybe in comparison with my week yours was pretty snoozaroonie which, if true, will only make me feel all the more happier knowing that some people continue to live in even more misery than I could ever envision! So if you are indeed a sub-excremental sot let me know because hey, you really will make my day!
Fadensonnen-GUTTER WANDERER LP (Fadensonnen)
It's kinda strange listening to Fadensonnen wreak musical glory on old-styled technology, but given how I can listen to four-hundred-plus-year-old vocal compositions on my Cee-Dee player maybe trans-generational technological mixes and matches is a rather spirited idea after all. Mr. D continues on his over-the-hills-and-far-away guitar stylings (imagine a cross between all five of your out-guitar faves, and add some more) even dipping into some ACTUAL MELODIES when the spirit arises! Pretty hotcha outre-blare that should make all of Fadensonnen's fans happy enough knowing that the ultimate soundsquall has not been squelched no matter how hard lesser beings have tried.
Cellular Chaos-DIAMOND TEETH CLENCHED CD (Skin Graft)
Lotsa genre-jamming ya got there Walter, and you and your cohorts really do a grand job of it. I certainly love the way Admiral Gray adds a certain melodic flair to her warbling (especially on "James Baldwin") while the music, er, TRANSCENDS the usual grindarama whilst getting into something that's a nice relief from the past thirtysome years of whatevercore that's been occupying the minds of self-centered primadonnas everywhere. One of those platters that I could dissect and discern about track by track complete with boring anecdotes from my turdler years tossed in for pure elaboration of every minute (that's "my-noot") point to be made, but Eddie Flowers thinks I tend to get long-winded and y'know, he's RIGHT!
Zoom-SWEET DESPERATION LP (Ugly Pop Canada, available via Forced Exposure)
Toronto was alwaysa boffo place to find these "quirky" kinda rock 'n roll bands, so it's no surprise that a group like Zoom woulda emanated from that particular burgh. Firmly entrenched in the late-seventies underground (i.e. what was once "above ground" but was driven into hiding by the likes of AOR radio and the zitcultures who made it possible), Zoom worked flash with a style and sound that not only drew heavily from the under-the-counterculture big names of the day but the mid-sixties English rock 'n rollers from whence it all came. The results are a great slapdash of sounds that you sure wish was released back '77 way if only so that you could pick it up as a low-priced cutout a few years later like I obviously hadda do! Kinda reminds me of what Redd Kross was up to in the late-eighties only without the candy coat gloss that somehow turned me off 'em (that and a certain CREEM magazine staffer's review, but like I said I ain't badmouthing my "betters" this year no matter how much I yearn to!).
Massimo Magee-MUSIC IN 3 SPACES CD-r burn (Kendra Steiner Editions)
Really, whatever I said about Magee in earlier posts can be said here, and you just know how much I hate dredging up things I've written about before in order to ram my ideas down your throat! But still I can't let this one go by with just faint praise mere or not, and besides I gotta write at least enough so's that the neat li'l pic of the cover to your left will be encased by words and not ruin the configuration of the review below! And I don't wanna do a track-by-track just like Elliot Murphy didn't want us to, so I'll just end this writeup by saying that I thought track #3 "Cyber" was a real neat step forward regarding the merger of avant garde jazz and technology, what with Magee's sopranino saxophone playing alongside a computer that emits not only audio but visual data. Hmmmmm, sounds like an updated version of those old Mattel toy organs you put a color wheel and and it did strange things, or something like that.
Muzzy Marcellino-HOUSE PARTY MUSIC TIME CD-r burn (originally on Capitol)
When I was but a mere turdler mom always had HOUSE PARTY blasting onna tee-vee, the Art Linkletter not Glenn O'Brien one that is! It was on right after AFTERNOON THEATER, and I for one liked watching it as much as mom did if only for the part of the show where Linkletter would ask a buncha kids silly questions and usually get unintentionally funny answers. Of course they all just hadda get a whole buncha toys just for being their true kid selves which kills me because when I acted my true kid self I usually got walloped one right inna behind. Gosh I always wanted to be on that show if only to get some of the fun freebees that Art was just flingin' at them suburban slob brats, though all that probably woulda been left after alla them kids piled onto the presents would be some sissy doll with its limbs torn off which would just be my luck.
The show had a bizarroid side too, like the time Art interviewed some old lady in the audience who had been dead for like five minutes before being revived...for a young 'un like myself that was pretty heady business believe-you-me! I also remember another one where Art came out in a mink coat that was made especially for men, an experiment in furrierisms that obviously didn't go too far with the general male populace (come to think of it, this might have happened on the early-seventies NBC "relevant issues" show that Linkletter co-hosted with his son Jack). Funny, but I think that Art would have looked better if he also came out with a floppy hat and a pennant reading "Beat State" but we were talking mink, not raccoon!
The music on HOUSE PARTY never really jazzed me that much, but if it had I REALLY woulda gone for this platter featuring the HOUSE PARTY band led by some guy called (now get this!) Muzzy Marcellino! It has lotsa whistling and accordion playing and sounds just like you'd think a small band for an afternoon tee-vee show aimed at housewives woulda back in them better than now days. It's actually kinda pleasant and surely a break from the raw sewage passing as music heard these days (and really, I like raw sewage, only it has to be raw the way I like rawness and sewage the way I like---well, let's not get into that!), and listening to these standards done up like something Happy Kyne and his Mirth Makers woulda done on FERNWOOD TONIGHT only reminds me of what a pal my tee-vee used to be! Well, at least until the worst people in our society just hadda get in control of everything and ruin it for us NICE GUYS! If you're inna mood for some good pre-raunch tee-vee this will stir up a few of them memories...
Rod and the Cobras-DRAG RACE AT SURF CITY CD-r burn (originally on Somerset)
More 99-cent funzies from the fine folk at Somerset Records, this time a surf 'n hot rod cash in that (as usual) was bound to end up as a birthday present to ya from Aunt Mabel who, once again, would have bought you the real deal album you wanted but $3.98 for the actual platter is just too much and after all, she is on a fixed income. Half-baked yet satisfying enough covers of then-recent Beach Boys and Jan and Dean hits are interspersed with original instrumental roarers that sound fully baked to me and typical of the stomping roarers that were heard with regularity from the late-fifties to the mid-sixties. Not bad, especially for a buncha nth-stringers!
Rolf & Joachim Kuhn-MONDAY MORNING CD-r burn (originally on Hor-Zu Germany)
Sometimes this Europeon jazz just doesn't sound like the real deal bein' all whited up and well, europeanized, but this particular sesh cooks a whole lot more'n knockwurst 'n sauerkraut. Pretty wild play between the Kuhn brothers and some of the bigger players on the Euro scene (Barre Phillips and Jacques Thollot among 'em) that at times comes off like a forgotten segment of FREE JAZZ, but right when you're not looking a few interesting themes like one based on the Bee Gees' "Words" ("Strangulation of a Monkey") or a downright tango ("Reflections of a Monday Morning") pop up and catch you totally off guard. Not bad at all, and worth at least a one-time listen you can probably dial up right here onna web.
The McCoys-THE PSYCHEDELIC YEARS CD-r burn (originally on Mercury)
Having seen those latterday McCoys albums cluttering up every cheezy-bit record bin of my youth you can bet that I was perhaps a little bit curious. But not enough to actually snatch 'em up which is one reason you never read any review of 'em from me. Hmmm, turns out that the Psychedelic McCoys were just as good as the Real ones, for although there might be one or two duffers on this 'un THE PSYCHEDELIC YEARS is a real solid slice of what the band was doin' in between the big hits and the Johnny Winter And era. The forays into jazz, Byrds-esque West Coast country rock, blues and of course the reg'lar straight ahead rock 'n roll are all top-notch, and not only that but the additional vibes, piano, horns etc. actually accentuate the music rather'n bog everything down. There's even the obligatory one-minute asides into the avant garde which I still think was some industry requirement for all late-sixties pop albums of the day. I'm sure a majority of these track were top FM spins back during the glory days of freeform radio and if not, they sure shoulda been.
Roy Harte & Milt Holland-PERFECT PERCUSSION CD-r burn (originally on World Pacific)
This looks like one of those album I woulda been snatching up during my late-seventies flea market scouring days thinking that it was gonna be some out-there avant garde jazz clunkerpiece, only to get home and find out it's nothing but standard bowtie 'n tux whiteguy stuff a millyun miles away from the Coleman Classics I was most certainly looking for. Heck it ain't even all-percussion like that Milford Graves album on ESP since there's piano and guitar inna mix! Still bright enough in spots like on the opening track which sounds like what a hip theme for YAKKY DOODLE woulda been what with all of those duck calls. But sheesh, do you really want to hear another version of THE KING AND I let alone "Misty" in what's left of your entire life??? Me neither.
Various Artists-ROCKELATION JERKIN' CASTLE CD-r burn (Bill Shute)
Too lazy to google the De-Codes who open and close this platter, but I will admit that these guys are good enough early-eighties-styled new wave-unto-power pop rock that comes off better'n some of the new wave-unto-power pop I've heard o'er the years. The rest varies from good 'nuff rockacountryboogie (Len Gale) to Norton Records fave the Mighty Hannibal doin' some r 'n b that's convincing enough to have been issued way back inna good ol' days to even some tinkling jazz via Erroll Garner and Ian Stuart Lane (good enough to mingle martinis to!). Fave of the bunch just happens to be the Factory's "Castle on a Hill" which does the 1967 English psyche thing about as good as those other late-sixties groups that ended up on those PERFUMED GARDEN albums. However, all I gotta say is what the heck is that Emenees single s'posed to be with an a-side featuring a soulful instrumental and the flip what sounds like radio ads for Emenee brand jukeboxes and organs?!?!?!?!
But trudge on I will, and at least I had these wonders to listen to which did help the pain a little bit. And who knows, maybe in comparison with my week yours was pretty snoozaroonie which, if true, will only make me feel all the more happier knowing that some people continue to live in even more misery than I could ever envision! So if you are indeed a sub-excremental sot let me know because hey, you really will make my day!
It's kinda strange listening to Fadensonnen wreak musical glory on old-styled technology, but given how I can listen to four-hundred-plus-year-old vocal compositions on my Cee-Dee player maybe trans-generational technological mixes and matches is a rather spirited idea after all. Mr. D continues on his over-the-hills-and-far-away guitar stylings (imagine a cross between all five of your out-guitar faves, and add some more) even dipping into some ACTUAL MELODIES when the spirit arises! Pretty hotcha outre-blare that should make all of Fadensonnen's fans happy enough knowing that the ultimate soundsquall has not been squelched no matter how hard lesser beings have tried.
***
Cellular Chaos-DIAMOND TEETH CLENCHED CD (Skin Graft)
Lotsa genre-jamming ya got there Walter, and you and your cohorts really do a grand job of it. I certainly love the way Admiral Gray adds a certain melodic flair to her warbling (especially on "James Baldwin") while the music, er, TRANSCENDS the usual grindarama whilst getting into something that's a nice relief from the past thirtysome years of whatevercore that's been occupying the minds of self-centered primadonnas everywhere. One of those platters that I could dissect and discern about track by track complete with boring anecdotes from my turdler years tossed in for pure elaboration of every minute (that's "my-noot") point to be made, but Eddie Flowers thinks I tend to get long-winded and y'know, he's RIGHT!
***
Toronto was alwaysa boffo place to find these "quirky" kinda rock 'n roll bands, so it's no surprise that a group like Zoom woulda emanated from that particular burgh. Firmly entrenched in the late-seventies underground (i.e. what was once "above ground" but was driven into hiding by the likes of AOR radio and the zitcultures who made it possible), Zoom worked flash with a style and sound that not only drew heavily from the under-the-counterculture big names of the day but the mid-sixties English rock 'n rollers from whence it all came. The results are a great slapdash of sounds that you sure wish was released back '77 way if only so that you could pick it up as a low-priced cutout a few years later like I obviously hadda do! Kinda reminds me of what Redd Kross was up to in the late-eighties only without the candy coat gloss that somehow turned me off 'em (that and a certain CREEM magazine staffer's review, but like I said I ain't badmouthing my "betters" this year no matter how much I yearn to!).
***
Really, whatever I said about Magee in earlier posts can be said here, and you just know how much I hate dredging up things I've written about before in order to ram my ideas down your throat! But still I can't let this one go by with just faint praise mere or not, and besides I gotta write at least enough so's that the neat li'l pic of the cover to your left will be encased by words and not ruin the configuration of the review below! And I don't wanna do a track-by-track just like Elliot Murphy didn't want us to, so I'll just end this writeup by saying that I thought track #3 "Cyber" was a real neat step forward regarding the merger of avant garde jazz and technology, what with Magee's sopranino saxophone playing alongside a computer that emits not only audio but visual data. Hmmmmm, sounds like an updated version of those old Mattel toy organs you put a color wheel and and it did strange things, or something like that.
***
When I was but a mere turdler mom always had HOUSE PARTY blasting onna tee-vee, the Art Linkletter not Glenn O'Brien one that is! It was on right after AFTERNOON THEATER, and I for one liked watching it as much as mom did if only for the part of the show where Linkletter would ask a buncha kids silly questions and usually get unintentionally funny answers. Of course they all just hadda get a whole buncha toys just for being their true kid selves which kills me because when I acted my true kid self I usually got walloped one right inna behind. Gosh I always wanted to be on that show if only to get some of the fun freebees that Art was just flingin' at them suburban slob brats, though all that probably woulda been left after alla them kids piled onto the presents would be some sissy doll with its limbs torn off which would just be my luck.
The show had a bizarroid side too, like the time Art interviewed some old lady in the audience who had been dead for like five minutes before being revived...for a young 'un like myself that was pretty heady business believe-you-me! I also remember another one where Art came out in a mink coat that was made especially for men, an experiment in furrierisms that obviously didn't go too far with the general male populace (come to think of it, this might have happened on the early-seventies NBC "relevant issues" show that Linkletter co-hosted with his son Jack). Funny, but I think that Art would have looked better if he also came out with a floppy hat and a pennant reading "Beat State" but we were talking mink, not raccoon!
The music on HOUSE PARTY never really jazzed me that much, but if it had I REALLY woulda gone for this platter featuring the HOUSE PARTY band led by some guy called (now get this!) Muzzy Marcellino! It has lotsa whistling and accordion playing and sounds just like you'd think a small band for an afternoon tee-vee show aimed at housewives woulda back in them better than now days. It's actually kinda pleasant and surely a break from the raw sewage passing as music heard these days (and really, I like raw sewage, only it has to be raw the way I like rawness and sewage the way I like---well, let's not get into that!), and listening to these standards done up like something Happy Kyne and his Mirth Makers woulda done on FERNWOOD TONIGHT only reminds me of what a pal my tee-vee used to be! Well, at least until the worst people in our society just hadda get in control of everything and ruin it for us NICE GUYS! If you're inna mood for some good pre-raunch tee-vee this will stir up a few of them memories...
***
More 99-cent funzies from the fine folk at Somerset Records, this time a surf 'n hot rod cash in that (as usual) was bound to end up as a birthday present to ya from Aunt Mabel who, once again, would have bought you the real deal album you wanted but $3.98 for the actual platter is just too much and after all, she is on a fixed income. Half-baked yet satisfying enough covers of then-recent Beach Boys and Jan and Dean hits are interspersed with original instrumental roarers that sound fully baked to me and typical of the stomping roarers that were heard with regularity from the late-fifties to the mid-sixties. Not bad, especially for a buncha nth-stringers!
***
Rolf & Joachim Kuhn-MONDAY MORNING CD-r burn (originally on Hor-Zu Germany)
Sometimes this Europeon jazz just doesn't sound like the real deal bein' all whited up and well, europeanized, but this particular sesh cooks a whole lot more'n knockwurst 'n sauerkraut. Pretty wild play between the Kuhn brothers and some of the bigger players on the Euro scene (Barre Phillips and Jacques Thollot among 'em) that at times comes off like a forgotten segment of FREE JAZZ, but right when you're not looking a few interesting themes like one based on the Bee Gees' "Words" ("Strangulation of a Monkey") or a downright tango ("Reflections of a Monday Morning") pop up and catch you totally off guard. Not bad at all, and worth at least a one-time listen you can probably dial up right here onna web.
***
Having seen those latterday McCoys albums cluttering up every cheezy-bit record bin of my youth you can bet that I was perhaps a little bit curious. But not enough to actually snatch 'em up which is one reason you never read any review of 'em from me. Hmmm, turns out that the Psychedelic McCoys were just as good as the Real ones, for although there might be one or two duffers on this 'un THE PSYCHEDELIC YEARS is a real solid slice of what the band was doin' in between the big hits and the Johnny Winter And era. The forays into jazz, Byrds-esque West Coast country rock, blues and of course the reg'lar straight ahead rock 'n roll are all top-notch, and not only that but the additional vibes, piano, horns etc. actually accentuate the music rather'n bog everything down. There's even the obligatory one-minute asides into the avant garde which I still think was some industry requirement for all late-sixties pop albums of the day. I'm sure a majority of these track were top FM spins back during the glory days of freeform radio and if not, they sure shoulda been.
***
This looks like one of those album I woulda been snatching up during my late-seventies flea market scouring days thinking that it was gonna be some out-there avant garde jazz clunkerpiece, only to get home and find out it's nothing but standard bowtie 'n tux whiteguy stuff a millyun miles away from the Coleman Classics I was most certainly looking for. Heck it ain't even all-percussion like that Milford Graves album on ESP since there's piano and guitar inna mix! Still bright enough in spots like on the opening track which sounds like what a hip theme for YAKKY DOODLE woulda been what with all of those duck calls. But sheesh, do you really want to hear another version of THE KING AND I let alone "Misty" in what's left of your entire life??? Me neither.
***
Too lazy to google the De-Codes who open and close this platter, but I will admit that these guys are good enough early-eighties-styled new wave-unto-power pop rock that comes off better'n some of the new wave-unto-power pop I've heard o'er the years. The rest varies from good 'nuff rockacountryboogie (Len Gale) to Norton Records fave the Mighty Hannibal doin' some r 'n b that's convincing enough to have been issued way back inna good ol' days to even some tinkling jazz via Erroll Garner and Ian Stuart Lane (good enough to mingle martinis to!). Fave of the bunch just happens to be the Factory's "Castle on a Hill" which does the 1967 English psyche thing about as good as those other late-sixties groups that ended up on those PERFUMED GARDEN albums. However, all I gotta say is what the heck is that Emenees single s'posed to be with an a-side featuring a soulful instrumental and the flip what sounds like radio ads for Emenee brand jukeboxes and organs?!?!?!?!
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