Nice week I had there. Gotta thank Bill Shute for that since was he who supplied most of this week's freebee material (one from Paul McGarry who I hope doesn't get violent over the fact), and if weren't for Bill I'd have to dish out more hard-begged moolah to buy albums that I really didn't wanna get inna first place but got anyway because I was that hard up! Gotta say that it sure is a nice selection of spinners that I sat through these lonely summer nights, and although I should be out there looking for interesting sounds to snatch up for my own personal enrichment (and yours you little remoras you!) its sure nice to have these Bill burns around because well...they sure help me keep my psychosocial equilibrium up a lot more'n Coke 'n aspirin ever did.
Hokay, I found this bitta crude animation rather high-larious especially in these glee-free super-serious days so I figured why not pass it around like them legendary 99 bottles of beer! (An' hey, I never knew that the words "assault", "amounts", "existence" and "escalates" were spelled "assult", "ammounts", "existance" and "escilates" in England!) Thankfully bad taste (if socially conscious) humor lives even to this day, and if you happen to think it offensive, distorted and insulting to your own personal set o' values well now you know how """""I""""" feel every time I flick the tee-vee on! Or in other words...SO HOWD'JA LIKE THEM APPLES???***
Getting that bit of stellar amination outta the way, here are this week's fave raves. Loadsa goodies here with hardly a feh feh to be seen. Glad I made it through this one...hope the next will be just as star spangled spectacular (but I kinda doubt it)!***
Sheesh, but did I just hear the African Continent's answer to the Stooges?
For those who believe that heavy metal before "heavy metal (TM)" was a way more exciting affair than much of the moozik that got tagged within the eventually narrow-minded genre this might be thee album for you. Mid-seventies recordings from the recently-exhumed (or so I would think) "Zamrock" scene courtesy local hero Paul Ngozi, who with his band so keenly named after him certainly does have that primitive hard riff-drool quotient that would give Mike Saunders a cerebral hemorrhage he'd most certainly enjoy. And really, who would have ever THUNK that there would have been a wildly thriving rock scene on the continent let alone one that was so hard-rock keen that such a garage artyfact as this would have come out in the first place!
Solid surprises abound, like on the Black Sabbath cop "Kumanda Kwa Bambo Wanga" (which ends in a distorted guitar solo akin to "I Wanna Be Your Dog") or "Tikondane" what with its "What Goes On"-styled rhythm guitar (and that overfuzzed lead again!) For a change Ngozi goes Jagger on the early-seventies styled "Let Me Know" which I am kinda surprised ol' Mick himself didn't swipe for his own, and if this had gotten out more than it did he most certainly would have.
Naturally the local African folk influences mix with the Anglo Ameriganisms that made up the rock slop of the era, and the results are just about as colloquial as the Seeds were to El Lay and the Stooges to Detroit. It also has the Mid Amerigan trash aesthetic down about as pat as Umela Hmota or Les Rallizes Denudes to the point where you can snuggle this 'un up against your Flamin' Groovies and Ramones records and nobody'll ever notice! (True I might have said that about Zambian rockers the Peace a month or so back, but the sentiments really do carry over.)
Whenever I see these overseas exhumations being touted as the best thing since sliced bakers that geiger counter in my head usually starts clicking away like mad! But for once I am glad I dished out some hard-begged for this particular spinner which should prove that the well of sixties/seventies underground rock energy certainly hasn't gone dry yet. Comes in a neat hard-covered book containing the whole Ngozi story and, as usual, I am left thirsting for more of these wild African acts that might really be the last frontier (Dr. Footswitch perhaps?).
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Inneresting idea teaming up the long-lived Fleshtones with rock scribe and Patti Smith guitarist Kaye, and (to be so pleasantly redundant about it) the results are pretty hotcha if I do say so myself. There was a time when I pegged the 'tones as a buncha new unto gnu wave sellouts, but this platter washes away all previous fears I might have had what with the nice and on-target garage-y rock this group continues to spew out after forty years! Kaye's particular playing (just above garage yet not quite polished) really fits in with the 'tones, and the mix of rare covers and originals makes for one of those hits-you-where-you-like-it platters in the tradition of the Flamin' Groovies, Sonics and other oft-ignored aggregations. You, like I, need a brace of something like this every once in awhile.
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I hate to say this but (..........shudder..........) Richard Meltzer was wrong! Maybe you can't judge an album by looking at the cover because I for one was certainly fooled by this particular spinner! I mean, take a look at the snap that adorns the front of Staff Carpenborg and Electric Corona' FANTASTIC PARTY...looks like it'd be a real turdburger bein' some lounge act tryin' to look hip inna wild 'n flashy early Seventies or something like that, eh? Something that the elder German mensch played while their kids lapped up the latest by Jimi and Floyd, hunh??? Well, I was fooled and you will be too because FANTASTIC PARTY ain't no chitchat 'n martinis mingler nohow! The music's a soundtrack-y drive through late-sixties German cinema with alla the snazzy jazz asides you'd expect, ONLY there's a whole load of psychedelic effects and downright freaky moves tossed in to make this something more'n the usual Bert Kaempfert/Horst Jankowski fare so popular with many of der volks at the time. Seems like Carpenborg was listening to not only Pink Floyd but krautrock and it shows plenny! And somehow I originally had the impression that these ozobs were to Germany what the Gold Diggers were to the USA...what a surprise I got!
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And for all these years I thought the Beatles created the concept album! Well long before SERGEANT PEPPER hit the record bins this particular platter was up and about, and as far as concept albums go it's about as concept as you can get! The world of motorcycles and racing set to some snappy beats, honking sax and twangy guitar complete with the appropriate engine revs right when they're most needed! The Scramblers' vocalist might not exactly have the Gerry Roslie strained vocal cord style down pat, but he's OK and the band does cook sorta like Davie Allan and the Arrows about seven months into gestation. I still can see some doof parent putting some kid down for listening to this, saying it will never stand the test of time. Kinda shows ya how good it really is then, eh?
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Dunno much about this particular release even after doin' a little internet research, but whatever it is it's sure a good collection of Karlheinz Stockhausen during the early years before he hadda say stupid things about how great the Jefferson Airplane were 'n the destruction of the World Trade Center being art. Interesting tape mangipulations and such fill this offering out making for some pretty heady racket, and if you were the sorta spud who used to pester your local library as to why there ain't any John Cage platters to spin (though ours actually had the Jan Steele/John Cage 'un on Obscure/Antilles as well as the Stockhausen's CBS label "Music In Our Time" album which got my dad in a HUGE uproar after I blasted it in his presence) you'll wish you had heard this 'un years before. And besides that, just play this 'un alongside any Velvet Underground album and you get CAN!
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Since I never got GLIMPSES volumes one or two this one was quite the surprise. Not exactly your typical sixties garage band sampler, some of the track here don't even quality as garage band at all. Closer to the psychedelic range of things, even if Donnie Machett's "Twist and Shout" swipe "Come on Baby" is pure 1963 teen idol wannabe AM hit material even if it did come out three years later. The inclusion of Canned Heat doing a song about Smokey Bear might seem a bit out of place as is the inclusion of a cut from the Mad River EP, but maybe in the overall shape o' things these do have about as much relevance to a sixties warp mindframe as the British Road Runners' rehashing of "Hey Joe" or the Accents' neo-punk mindwarped "Red Sky At Night". As usual nothing as thrilling as those early PEBBLES and BOULDERS platters were back when they came out, but still worthwhile in that unsettling crazed way that made these sixties rockers so appealing long after the fact.
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I'm sure Bill Shute cold talk your ear off about Jay Miller and these Louisianan rockabilly and blues sessions that were produced by the man...I sure couldn't! I'm rather neophytical about these obscure fifties records that I'm sure make up a whole huge hunkerin' portions of record collections across the fruity plain. However, that ain't gonna stop me from givin' this particular burn a bloomin' mention on this blog! Definite Deep South groove to these decidedly low-fi spinners that have that sorta local hard knock thud to 'em that you just couldn't find on those comparatively cleancut revival records o'er the years. Really nothing else to say (in fact, not much has been said) but this does contain the ultra-slobbering dunce-rocker "She's My Baby Doll" by Terry Clement which turned up on some old SIN ALLEY and turned around more than a few stomachs in the process!
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A little of that Fifties-derived hipster humor usually goes a long way, so thankfully I haven't been reading any of my old MAD and CRACKED paperbacks before putting this particular spinner on! And as far as that beatnik bop stuff goes Al "Jazzbo" Collins was pretty hotcha...not as hotcha as Lord Buckley (Collins never had a record out on Straight), but pretty good nonetheless. Not only that, but this platter of cool recitation still works even a good ten years or so after the original beat spurt caught the attention of middle Ameriga (like, this 'un came out 'round '67 way!). The old hipster fairy tale gags continue to please, and whatever you do don't miss the opening interview conducted by the usually excrementable Steve Allen where some interesting names are dropped, and in the most peculiar way!
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Considering their reputation as being a slicked-up El Lay Sound group it wasn't like I was exactly searching these guys out the way I tend to various hot-button bands I've heard about o'er the years. Still the Kitchen Cinq were good enough doing the post-Byrds folk beat even if they tended to be gussied up a little more than anyone reading this blog mighta hoped. Harper's Bizarre with some Association and Sunshine Pop tossed in for good measure...for those of you who really miss the 1967 AM pop groove overdone production and all, and considering what AM pop would entail within a few good years maybe what you missed was sure worth the time and effort gloppy strings and all!
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Various Artists-EVIL NOWHERE NAMELESS HUMP CD-r burn (Bill Shute)Lotsa whatcha'd call country 'n western on this particular Bill burn, but since I'm not exactly in the mood for any C/W at the time let's jest say that these particular tracks didn't exactly light my gas stove. Neither did the two tracks by Suck, this South African group that somehow is revered for their early-seventies hard-thudness which I had trouble detecting on these numbers. What did light the hotpoint was the Della Reese/Bill Doggett live burner that had one of those boffo repeato riffs that settle well inside my noggin as well as the Arkansas Travelers' "Travelers Boogie" which sounded primo enough to have been a Fendermen dance floor burner. Five By Five were good enough, but not good enough to have made it to a NUGGETS imitator of my choice. In all, this made my Saturday evening a whole lot better than I'll bet yours went!
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