Hey, howdja like the updated blog header which, as you probably could tell having been in onna game these past thirtysome years, is "based" on the old BLACK TO COMM logo that was created by a very famous artist who prefers to remain anonymous for some strange reason or another. Makes this blog look "professional" and all, right??? (Yeah, right!) I just did a little snip snip here and there, and although the results just ain't what I expected I kinda like the sloppoid thing in my own gosh darn it suburban slob way. I hope you do too since hey, it does have that cruddy sorta aura to it that suits the contents of BLOG TO COMM rather well, and if you have any suggestions regarding it or just how the item can be "altered" and "adjusted" to your own personal tastes well, you know what you can do with them now, do you!!!! But really, I find it pretty neat...ya think I should gussy it up with some pastels or even crayons for that matter because once you really get down to it, this is a "wreck in progress"!!!
***You could say that I'm feeling so good, feeling so fine, until tomorrow but that's just some other time, and for once you'd be RIGHT! Right now I am radiating like nothing since Three Mile Island if only because of the bevy o' bouncing stimulation that's been pounding my brain these past few days which have certainly benefited my health more than Vigero ever could. The various Dee-Vee-Dee programming I've been watching certainly helps me avoid having to tune into Anderson Cooper's or Kennedy's for that matter snooty mug, while the music making up the soundtrack to my mere being gives me a charge that makes me feel like I've just got off Dr. Frankenstein's slab. Even the reading material that's been accompanying much of my musical mayhem during those evening hours has been helping me stand strong against the rages of Moderne Day Living, and if it weren't for these three things where would I be? Probably in front of the boob tube trying to eke some entertainment outta the latest non-sitcom that only reflects the rather unfunny concept of life and humor here in the late-teens. Sheesh, would I be glad if only someone would throw a pie in someone's face thus upsetting the spirit of Fred Rogers for all eternity!!!
***Now if you really wanna know what the highlight of my week was (other'n the creation of the new header that is) well, I gotta say that of all the things that did occur over these past seven earthspins the grandest of all was the discovery of the DENIM DELINQUENT facebook page which I have linked up on the left somewhere or other. Yes, like you I was bummed beyond belief when the actual DD sight more or less wafted off into nothingness but now I can once again groove to the myriad assortment of photos and whatnot that DD head Jymn Parrett has found suitable for sharing with the rest of us starved rock 'n plunder types. And boy has the man come up with some great goodies from the archives (really must've dug deep because even I don't remember seein' a whole buncha 'em!) what with the snaps of everyone from Iggy and the Dolls to Lou and Kim and Sky and Beefheart and Moon the Loon on and on, and prowling through his page is like prowling through the past fiftysome years of everything that was good and life-reaffirming about music inna first place. Thanks for all of the snaps Jymn...but GRACE SLICK???? Sheesh, I'll even take Pigpen over her any day!
***Hey, I got an actual bloomin' complaint that there haven't been any interviews on this blog in a skunk's age. Anyone out there for the taking? If so please tell me, but be oh so discreet about it because I don't want any news of this gettin' out.
***Nothing more to report, so here be this week's gruel to be served up to this week's Oliver Twists. Bill Shute, Paul McGarry and even P.D. Fadensonnen are the ones responsible...will get to Bob Forwards wares eventually I'll tell ya...
P.D really fooled me with this one since he used the exact same cover photo from his cassette release here! But this is a different recording as the Razorlegs duo rip it up on the radio (WFMU to be exact...donate all you have to 'em!) doing a pretty good job of scaring off alla them old ladies who were tuning in to hear SERMONETTE. Won't be too redundant but once again the total eruption of the guitar/drums onslaught (with some stylophone tossed in...paging Rolf Harris!) hearkens back to many an earlier gtr/dms situation from the Hampton Grease Band and DAILY DANCE onward, and the entire performance is one top notch attempt to reclaim the avant rock banner from the various assortment of bedroom bounders who have popped up these past thirtysome years. I guarantee you that if you give this one a spin (or at least download the thing) you'll be in for a pretty hefty resensification, and like how many current day acts can do that to you and your frazzled cyborg nerves???
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Gee, I wonder if Syd Barrett himself woulda sounded like this had he been fit 'n fiddle enough to make records forty years after his Pink Floyd debut! Of course it woulda had somewhat of a commercial bent (which in these tender times means clean, professional sound and performance sans any spec of flydirt or muscle) and of course it would upset alla the same early-seventies English rock fans who were smart enough to pick up the albums before they became budget priced twofas. My guess is that Barrett's efforts woulda been pretty dullsville given just how much of a rot the music has become o'er the years, and I do get the impression that the powers that be would have tempered with the resultant stew to make it sound like THE DIVISION BELL redux. As for this platter well...maybe this is what Barrett's platter woulda sounded like had some of them newfangled producers and bandfans got into the act---solid yet too sleek to really appeal to those familiar with the original thrust of it all. But it will. Features one of the better country unto rock goofs since the Left Banke if not the Byrds or Beatles themselves.
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Now I could be like one of those DOWN BEAT critics and wax rhapsorious about this all-percussive endeavor in some of the most stringently somnambulistic terms extant, but I won't. But sheesh if this doesn't remind me of some effort that would get your typical jazz snoot type rushing to his thesaurus to come up with new and witty ways to say "this record reminds me of flamingos frolicking in a crystal rain before the rays of the sun evaporate every drop of dew on their precious accouterments (ie feathers)." But it is a grand one natch as percussionist Bell gets more music than you would expect outta a vast array of instruments sounding like church bells at one time and a buncha pixies plunking around the forest the next. Charming, mesmerizing and even...listenable. Reminds me of something I think I heard before, but that was probably before I was born. Amongst the instruments to be heard on this effort are vibraharp, glockenspiel, scrap metal, piano frame and Khong Vang, and boy was Khong mad about getting banged up the way he did!
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I never did care for the Wilko Johnson Solid Senders album, but this li'l bijou from a good six or so years later's really a boffo affair if I do say so myself! At one time this brand of newer than new English r 'n b was getting tagged with the punk moniker until the spiky hair crowd came into being, but in this day and age it sure has more of that p-rock meaning than a lot of those halfway-there acts pseudo-glam punks from the late-seventies (and there were many!) ever did.
This is Stiff Records punk ifyaknowaddamean, the kinda music that was being bandied about as the new in direction even if it was a flashback to the mid-sixties of pure back alley bashout. Looking back I can sure see how the likes of Feelgood and those other early Stiff signings could mingle with Johnnie Allen and Stones Masonry in a broad view of the term that never did sit well with some of the more arty types about.
Contains originals and covers that sound just as exciting as the familiar takes...sure glad the guy survived his recent medical tragedies because if this 'un stunk I'd be doin' a few Indian War Whoops for his demise and like right now!
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Good enough but not the best Dolphy that's out there, but then again is it like we have to be picky? The pickup sidemen are just that, though fortunately they don't hinder Dolphy's always entertaining woodwind whirls that shoulda made him as famous as the other great names of the day only the guy hadda die and for the stupidest reason possible. If you're just beginning to delve into the Dolphy mystique this ain't the best place to start (try his various Mingus dates not to mention OUT TO LUNCH) but after you've let those weave their way into your soul give this live sesh a go at it.
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It's hard to understand why this free jazz trio was given so many hails and hosannas during the mid to late-seventies. After all, they were good, and a whole lot more exciting than the soft schmooze bowtie music that would eventually capture the jazz mindset by storm (or should that be "mist"?). Bred from the entire AACM intermingle of various sonic irregularities, Air performed a particularly strident breed of the new thing that certainly fit in with the under-the-counterculture loft jazz scene if nothing else.
This Japanese-only (until the eighties when India Navigation released it o'er here) album sure captures the team of Henry Threadgill, Fred Hopkins and Steve McCall in a good way what with the trio easily flowing from hardass crash to straight-ahead urban bop with mere ease, not sounding too outre yet being tense enough to make your typical Al DeMeola fan nauseous. Terse-beyond-belief reeds intermingle with Hopkins' hopped up bass while McCall shows us that the force he put in on those old Anthony Braxton albums wasn't anything but a fluke. And we better not forget Threadgill's "hubkaphone" which ain't nothin' but a hubcap he beat on with a drumstick, but he could actually get melodies outta the thing which is more than I'm sure you could! (Come to think of it, wasn't a hubkaphone actually a metal rack with a variety of hubcaps hung up which Threadgill beat with a drumstick thus getting different tones???)
Way back when you'd have to pay lotsa greckels for this particular item, and have to search far and wide for a copy at that. In the here and now all you need is a flick of a mere internet switch to be taken to a download, which I know is less expensive and excitement of the ol' hunt for you all but sheesh, think of all the frustration you'll save!
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Another old "floor sweepings" compilation (the newest one Bill sent, on a black Cee-Dee-Are, will not play on my bedside box!) that really captures the whole essence of suburban slob trashdom. Every track here (well, most of 'em!) sounds like something I woulda loved to have picked up at a flea market some Saturday afternoon back 1974 way what with the reams of rarities from the Jalopy Five doing their take on "Paint It, Black" to the Staple Singers out-doing Buffalo Springfield and more t'boot! The Christmas jingles worked fine even here in the August heat while the weirdo hits of the day sung partly in German by Evi Kent really had my ears perking more'n Sam's. The folk rock stuff from the Minute Men and Royal Knights coulda been PEBBLES produce had these made their way to Greg Shaw's collection while even the big band rouser by Kressbronner Dorfmusikanten shows just how much them krauts wanted to "catch up" after twelve years of being without that decadent Western music they were so warned about. Even the mandatory musique concrete from an act calling itself "Subversive Intentions" doesn't come off like college kid jerkoff! You can make your own copy, if you try hard enough!
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