BLOG TO COMM

You may personally find it spiritually satisfying to engage in a lot of activities in order to satisfy your various inner wants and desires, some which may even engage in the use of more than one hand. As for me I'm helping to excise those inner whatchamacallits by pouring through more and more of those boxed up items that I've neglected to bust into o'er the past decade desperately on the lookout for old fanzines and whatnot that deserve yet aother eyeballing. At presstime I'm not having that much luck locating some of the essential reading material that has made many a bowel movement the most exhilarating experience, though I have come across a few long-forgotten wonders that deserve another mention lest they get buried under the weight of a thousand lesser efforts. Unfortunately I have not been able to locate the rest of my LOVE AND LAUGHTERs (see post from two or so weekends past) though I have secured my old TWO HEADED DOGs, that being the effort of one John Johnson who was a rather talented guy whose reviews used to pop up in the old OP. True there's nothing spectacular here like you might find in some of the wilder mid-sixties fanzine reads, but Johnson's tastes are on-target (read: close to mine) and it's always great getting opinions on old albums and acts from someone with a level head on their shoulders 'stead of up their heinies like those precocious pansies who have been leading the butthole battalion trend in most rockscreeding these past four or so decades.

Of course the memories just kept rushing back when I poured through these boxes well into one in the morning last Tuesday night. The various Eddie Flowers efforts from the eighties, shining beams of seventies-styled rock fandom in an ever-decaying world, have me hoping for that new issue of VULCHER more sooner than later although a good portion of the reading material I came across only went to show me what a vast turdland the eighties music scene (underground as well as mainstream) could have been if you didn't look for the right sounds in the right place. But most importantly of all my little nostalgic (hah!) foray had me just SHUDDERING over the plain and simple fact that during those years of fanzine frolics I certainly had the misfortune to associate with some of the slimiest people who ever disgraced the bright and beautiful name of rock n roll...people who patted me onna back and told me just how the world they thought of me only to turn with a vicious vengeance for whatever occult reason gestated in their obviously diseased minds.

And yeah, I know that people (even some that I have come to know and respect) have told me to "get over it" but sheesh, what good would that do??? It's like telling some deeply wronged person to rise above some childhood trauma when all the while said trauma has been eating away at said person like some insidious cancer. Yeah, some people can overcome the tribulations of the past with relative ease and good for them. But just try bein' a guy who's been kicked around his whole life never gettin' any real satisfaction or closure or whatever those frilly professional writers call plain' ol' blood soaked REVENGE. Ignoring it only makes the gnawing even more noticeable in the ol' digestive system ifyaknowaddamean... So hey, let me stew a bit before I let it pass like a kidney stone, OK???

So what does the above schpiel prove? Well, nothing more than maybe I should just stop prowling through boxes of old mags, letters and whatnot while stoked on caffeine, that's what! But prowl I must for those elusive fanzines that sure make me wish I was more conscious in the seventies!

OK, enough moaning, which I know means very little to you even if it means a world of a lot to me!

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Another way I've been pissing the time as Officer Crabtree might say is by googling my name to see what fun kinda doodies just happen to pop up. A really fun way to wile the hours too, reading about all of the strange things I'm allegedly involved in as well as the assortment of comments regarding my own personal beliefs and opinions regarding this thing we call life, usually written by people who I have never seen and will never see for that matter. It's amazing how people who don't even know me other'n through my writings know me better than I know myself! All I gotta say is...keep it up 'n don't stop!!! Whatever you guys write is more exciting than the actual drab existence that I am moiling in at this time and like, it's sure THROB THRILLING reading about these exploits and vicariously living the dirty deeds that I most certainly have been accused of perpetrating!

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RIP ADAM WEST, tee-vee's Batman, a man who I always used to get confused with basketball player Jerry West as well as a guy who was just about as much a part of my early grade school days of terminal frustration as that toy Batmobile I never did get.

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Now that I've wiped the tears from my eye (prob'ly more because of not getting that Batmobile rather'n the passing of Mr. West), here's this week's rock 'n roll autopsy:

Voigt/465-SLIGHTS STILL UNSPOKEN CD (Mental Experience c/o Guerssen, Spain)

If anything, this late-seventies Australian band that I never heard of before (though OUTLET called 'em "Australia's answer to Pere Ubu"!) sounds like some long-forgotten obscuro space/obtuse avant English act trying to cash in on the new  punk unto punque sounds and doing a pretty good job of it t'boot. Of course hardly anyone was gonna give their sounds a serious listen for at least a good two decades, but thankfully Voigt/465 were courteous enough to record this long-gone album (and give us some surviving outtakes) for us future generation types. Closer to the scope of ATEM as opposed to ROCK NEWS, Voigt/465 fit well into the cold wave of the day with their synth buzz and obscure vocalizing that kinda remind me of the Art Bears for some reason. If you were the kinda person who plunked down hard-begged money for THE MODERN DANCE as well as everything from Roxy Music and Eno to Faust and Debris you might just cozy up to this little spinner.

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Philip Glass-HOW NOW/STRUNG OUT LP (Orange Mountain Music)

The earliest Glass recordings extant recorded live at the Film Makers Coop 1968. First side features solo organ (played by Glass) that hints towards the repeato-riff switcheroo he would put to good use in his late-sixties ensemble while the flip has a solo violinist playing these up and down melodies that (as usual) slightly vary making for one weird brain tease. I'm sure snobbish critics could think up all of the precocious words inna thesaurus to describe these in ever-glowing detail...as for me I always listen to these kinda things from a rock 'n roll perspective and its like I can appreciate the a-side from a cheap garage band organ view.  I know would never settle with those serious music snobs who don't know what kinda laughing stocks they are making themselves out to be. An interesting aside from the rock music that Glass obviously has copped over the years to produce what New York snobs think is "fresh" and "culturally appropriate".

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Ringo Starr-Y NOT CD-r burn (originally on Hip-o Recs)

Imagine what a Ringo Starr album would sound like had it been recorded in the year 2010. Now imagine it not sounding that bad. But no matter how you toss it the thing's still bad enough that you wouldn't buy it because no matter how interesting and toe-tapping it may be in spots. Even with those few seconds of redeeming social value it's still a Ringo Starr solo album and you wouldn't want to be caught dead with it. Now if you were one of the few who enjoyed those various Starr hits of the early/mid-seventies you might find this a good 'nuff once in a lifetime spin. But that's about it.

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Gasenta-SOONER OR LATER CD-r burn (originally on PSF Records, Japan)

It's too bad that Japan is half-way around the world, because where it's even to the point that the world has shrunk so much it's like we can all get a stenchy whiff of King Faisal's outhouse on a hot day there's still a lot about the Japanese rock 'n roll scene we know nada about. Of course most of you on-top-of-it-all record maniacs already have listened to and digested this late-seventies all-out aggregation but for po' boys like me living on depression-era wages I gotta get it all nth hand. And glad I did because this band is a total eruption hard-edged punk rock group in the best sense of the term whose platter (rec'd '78) is more "controlled" than a lot of the bands that came outta underground Japan in their wake. But that don't matter because 1) they recorded this when doing such music was indeed a daring effort and 2) they're from Japan where I guess they're not supposed to know any better or something like that. "The Electric Eels of Japan?" Maybe so but I won't gander a guess until I see if their guitarist has long peroxided hair.

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The Double Agents-SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA CD-r burn (originally on Lo-Fidelity Records)

No it didn't.

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The Attention-GETTIN' ALL... CD-r burn (originally on Screaming Apple Records)

Finally a retro-rock 'n roll band that sounds as good as the correct-to-the-time-and-place cover looks, Hot originals sounds just as mid-sixties authentico as those British Invasion r 'n b rousers they're emulating, and given how the sound quality apes those glossy hi-fi days i'll betcha even a few experts out there in mid-sixties rock land wouldn't be able to tell if this is archival or fresh outta the vat. If only Greg Shaw were alive to experience a group like the Attention maybe he woulda waited a good forty years before making his "It's All Coming Back!" exclamations in the pages of PHONOGRAPH RECORD MAGAZINE.

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DOLL BY DOLL CD-r burn (originally on Magnet Records)

Ya gotta admit one thing...Doll By Doll (who sound nada like the Dolls of a New York variety---go figure) were, at the dawn of the eighties, performing that same ol' dull artzy pop that pretty much defined the "new music" that was to be heard right at the middle of that doldrumesque decade. Nothing here merits much of a mention if any. Bouncy sounds for the Dexy's Midnight Runners crowd...betcha that the videos that accompanied these slick and tasteful sounds were totally art flop filled with more Fellini cops that anyone could imagine.

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Various Artists-TIFFANY HELLCAT STOMPER SAVAGE CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Bill really must've been in a biker moom pitcher mood when he made this spinner featuring a whole batch of cycle rarities (including two by Wayne Cochran)...well, between those and the sappy late-sixties pop slop he stuck on I'll take the biker rock hands down! Some good gunch here too from a vocal version of the DEVIL'S ANGELS theme to a rare Lollipop Shoppe track that didn't even make it to the recent JUST COLOUR reissue. Lotsa points deducted for the snooze-y listening tracks from the PINNACLES OF PERCUSSION platter which sounds like something your folks woulda played at a Tiki Party inna backyard 'round 1960 way. I can almost imagine the cover of that 'un with a buncha islanders banging on bongos while topless Tahitian temptresses do their li'l dance routines...hmmmm, someone point me in the direction of the nearest flea market so I can cop a copy of that 'un!