Hey readers, do you really wanna know what the weather is like out here in the Tri-State area? Do you in any wayshapeform care about some unbeknownst to you detail from my life, or what I think about a certain person or my opinions on everything from tariffs to gun control? Of course you do, I mean why else would you wanna tune into this blog anyway other'n to live vicariously through my various beliefs and antics?
But I won't do any blabbing along those lines. Well, at least not this week because I'd rather get right to the matter at hand, mainly music. And goodness gracious if you can believe it I actually got to listen to a nice juicy hunk of good stuff this week as the following writeups will most certainly attest to, and not only do I have to thank myself for latching on to some of these items but I must the likes of Bill Shute and Paul McGarry for their various platters that swung by my way. I'd thank Bob Forward as well only I didn't get to any of his this time. Well not exactly...I will 'fess up to the fact that I did spin part of the Hy Maya effort but eh, I gotta admit that I didn't think that much of it because it was a tad too electronic bedroom music-y for my tastes! But, being the total coward so self-conscious and concerned with what other people think about me and my opinions kinda guy that I am, I will listen to and re-listen to it until I actually break down and LIKE the thang! I mean, what other way can I keep my standing as one of the few true blue thinking man's kinda geniuses there are left in the world today?
Chester seems to have been AWOL by this time (perhaps Dennis Weaver was already getting reading for his KENTUCKY JONES fiasco?) but at least Burt Reynolds as Quint the half-Indian blacksmith adds a cool dimension to these what with half the cast wanting to see him hung because of his racial mix! Well at least Festus ain't around in these...never really could cozy up to his BO Plenty-inspired sidekick self nohow!
The Trashmen-BIRD CALL---THE TWIN CITY STOMP OF THE TRASHMEN Four-CD box set (Sundazed Records)
If dreams ever came true this one would have to be one of the better ones in my life. Yes, the COMPLETE collected works of everything the Trashmen ever released (and not!) can now be obtained in a nice little package complete with the obligatory booklet and a whole lot more music than what most Trashmen poo-pooers ever thought the group had in 'em. Don't wanna rattle yer chains with a fifty-paragraph paen to these wondrous track like I tended to do during my less-restrained days, but let me just say that you all know the beauty of "Surfin' Bird" and just how much it not only signaled the end of 1958-1963 instro-garage madness but helped create the mid-sixties warp-rock style we still cherish even after a good half-century. Any self-respecting BLOG TO COMM fan BETTER have these in his collection lest he hurt my precious feelings. And it is all gutsy he-man rock 'n roll that doesn't let up one bit...let's just say that the Trashmen are not for TRANS-MEN and you better believe it!
MASI ASAKAWA CD (Honest John's Records, available via FORCED EXPOSURE)
Japanese torch singer type from the sixties (and after) whose vocalese ranges from jazzy to straight pop. Reminds me of something you'd hear in a foreign film, or perhaps even the Osaka Holiday Inn where a bunch of drunk German tourists call out for some of those old beer hall putsch singalongs since the Japanese are honorary Aryans after all. Mostly dreary but it does have a few snatches of brilliance like an imitation Coltrane ending to one song and an Indian drone thing which sounds even stranger with Japanese voices singing along. "Onna" is particularly haunting. If you get to hear these fine, but I don't know if it warrants buying an entire album.
Jean Jacques Perrey-PRELUDE AU SOMMEIL LP (Fantome Phonographique France, available via Forced Exposure)
I'm always on the lookout for these early "avant garde" composer types who might have been crushed under the thunder of the bigger names in the biz, and from what I can make out Perrey was one guy who probably got crushed a little more than many of his compatriots ever did. This '58 recording features him playing these sweet and emotion-packed tones on an Ondioline in an attempt to create music that was to help one slip into the arms of Morpheus as they used to say. Overall the sounds are relaxing with these gentle chord changes that result in a music that at one time sounds like a typical 1962 kid trying to play "Apache" on his toy chord organ and at others a soundtrack to an old silent movie horror film. Almost as ambient as that stock music they used for sound on the OLD MOVIES, THE GOLDEN ERA program that channel 25 used to run back in the mid-seventies. An interesting peek at the genesis of things that were to come (and come all over the place at that) once the late-sixties got into musical minimalist gear.
The Kinks-THE GREAT LOST KINKS ALBUM CD-r burn (originally on Neue Revue Records---a bootleg I believe)
For being one of those "older kid" groups that seemed so high falutin' and brainy when I was growin' up, I find myself listening to the Kinks a whole lot more now than I did way back when Ray Davies was giving Mike Douglas a hard time on his famous afternoon tee-vee show of yore. This is definitely a hotcha collection of very-early to last days of the Pye-era Kinks, and oddly enough this only features a fraction of that infamous Kinks tossout of the same title that was cluttering up the cut out bins of the mid-seventies. But still this has a whole lotta fun and charm to it as well as a few goodies I forgot about via other Kinks Kompendiums. Personal favorite, the beautifully bad taste "When I Turn Out The Living Room Light", a song that would have had Davies drawn and quartered had it only come out in today's over-sensitive and downright watch-what-you-say clime.
Various Artists-SYDE TRYPS SEVEN CD-r burn (originally on Tenth Planet Records)
Not exactly mid-sixties garage band---more or less late-sixties punk rock the kind that snuck its way onto the original NUGGETS thus upsetting all you PURISTS out there. All English and all psychedellically snat too given that these recordings by such acts as the Brain and Those Fadin' Colours never did get any real push and sank like a post-peanut butter turd in the toilet bowl of rock 'n roll. Kinda wish I knew more about these groups but I get the feeling that all these and more will be lionized and hosannaed to all heck in a hundred years while the mass of remaining rock 'n roll scholars will undoubtedly be muttering "Jimi Who???"
The Troggs-AU CD-r burn (originally on New Rose Records, France)
Sheesh, I wonder just how many of these albums of re-recorded hits and other rare faves were released by the Troggs throughout their career! This '89 effort was but one, and frankly I must tell you that it's a pretty wonderful affair. Sure the thing opens up with a cover of the Bacharach/David number "There's Always Something There to Remind Me" (which became a nausea-inducing hit thanks to Naked Eyes back in the eighties) but then again, as Bill Shute might say, Reg Presley could sing the phone book and make it sound great! The new tracks like "The Disco Kid Versus Sid Chicane" rank as top-notch Troggers while the synthed-up re-dos are pretty snazzy even if they (expectedly) don't quite measure up to the originals. These guys never let you down, so don't do the same and pick this 'un up wherever you can find it!
The Creation-PSYCHEDELIC ROSE CD-r burn (originally on Cherry Red Records, England)
Awwww sheesh, why did the Creation reunion have to be this sappy? These tracks, originally recorded for ELO's Jet Records, contain all of the worst (as if there were any good) elements of eighties pop with none of the original Creation flash and verve to be found even on the remake of their claim to fame "Making Time". A total disappointment from a group I thought would have been able to transcend the sick trappings of the eighties and flash us all back to those biff bang pow times that a few of us sure missed in our moderne day music, Unfortunately I was wrong again...sheeesh!
Various Artists-ON THE BUMMER SIDE OF THE STREET CD-r burn (Bill Shute)
These disque do serve a special purpose in my life and I just ain't talkin' 'bout hearin' new to mine ears music'r anything like that either! These Bill burns usually transport me back to those good ol' turdler and/or suburban slob days just like a trip to the flea market in the seventies or eighties could, or better yet a trip down to my aunt's basement when I was a kid when I would snoop around and, after noticing that a whole buncha glassware was wrapped in mid-fifties vintage newspaper, unwrap the papers if only to read those classic old comic strips. And I actually saved one of the wrinkled papers which, years later, ended up as clip art in some of those later BLACK TO COMMs that I hope you need to fill up your collection because I NEED TO SELL 'EM!!!!!
Anyway, this is a nice oleo of various clutter that hits me sorta as if my entire life was flashing before my eyes but it was only the good, goof off kid stuff that I got to see. Of course Bill had to start off with a downer garage band thingie done up by some guys who probably thought that the guitars and drums were the key to getting good gash but discovered otherwise. I did enjoy Ron Thompson's jangly instrumental "Switchblade" and some of the r&b crankouts (especially John Patton's "Chitlins Con Carne" which is so strange I must give it some sorta BLOG TO COMM award for unintended mystical importance) while the Rod Keith "song poem" was enough to bring out at least a chuckle. Heck, the Death Killers' "Homer Simpson" was a great expression of post-turdler tee-vee trauma via rock 'n roll (no kiddin'!) and if the singer, guitarist and toy keyboard player are more than five-years-old I'll eat their Banana Wackies!
A surprise for sure Bill, but as far as Bernie Roberts w/ Blondie goes...well, were you thinkin' the same sorta Blondie that """"I"""" was? Guess not.
But I won't do any blabbing along those lines. Well, at least not this week because I'd rather get right to the matter at hand, mainly music. And goodness gracious if you can believe it I actually got to listen to a nice juicy hunk of good stuff this week as the following writeups will most certainly attest to, and not only do I have to thank myself for latching on to some of these items but I must the likes of Bill Shute and Paul McGarry for their various platters that swung by my way. I'd thank Bob Forward as well only I didn't get to any of his this time. Well not exactly...I will 'fess up to the fact that I did spin part of the Hy Maya effort but eh, I gotta admit that I didn't think that much of it because it was a tad too electronic bedroom music-y for my tastes! But, being the total coward so self-conscious and concerned with what other people think about me and my opinions kinda guy that I am, I will listen to and re-listen to it until I actually break down and LIKE the thang! I mean, what other way can I keep my standing as one of the few true blue thinking man's kinda geniuses there are left in the world today?
***As far as my personal fave pre-beddy bye spins go, this week's snoozer-time award goes the platter that is really throwing my lobes for a loop just HASTA be the 13th Floor Elevators' HEADSTONE effort that came out on the International Artists/Charly label quite a few years back. In a field which has included some hefty "mind-expanding" (hee!) competition this 'un's the hands-down fave around these parts and for more'n OBVIOUS reasons if I do say so myself. I always need to get a good dose of the Elevators into my system when things are down and bloozey, and this particular package (containing the entire Contact Records sessions plus live rarities of varying sound quality) really does fill the bill when it comes to getting some much-needed psychedelic resensification around here. Sheesh, given just how great these tracks are I guess I better do some digging and try to unearth more Elevator rarities lest I meet up with the same fate that befell all of those people who wanted to see Roky Erickson and company nailed to the wall for their lysergic excursions ifyaknowaddamean. Or as the late Don Waller once so succinctly put it, "Reality is for people who can't face drugs"!!!
***Some good news on the tee-vee front...the cable (yech...but what choice do I got?) "Insp" network is running the early hour-long GUNSMOKE episodes on Saturday nights which is at least one good reason to keep me off the streets and out of trouble! After being inundated with the later-on color episodes which really don't strike at the heart of the matter (the matter being high-energy intense television) these early-sixties GUNSMOKEs really do pack a whole lotta the classic tee-vee energy that seemed to seep away once the boffo earlier portion of that decade began to seep into a banality it took quite awhile to crawl out of. Caught a good one last week with none other than Uncle Joe/Billy himself Edgar Buchanan as a bank robber who saves the life of a young Matt Dillon then uses the favor a good two decades later to his own thievin' advantage.
Chester seems to have been AWOL by this time (perhaps Dennis Weaver was already getting reading for his KENTUCKY JONES fiasco?) but at least Burt Reynolds as Quint the half-Indian blacksmith adds a cool dimension to these what with half the cast wanting to see him hung because of his racial mix! Well at least Festus ain't around in these...never really could cozy up to his BO Plenty-inspired sidekick self nohow!
***Like I said above, a good selection of booty here. Read 'em and weep---that you didn't think of getting hold of these spinners before I told you to!
If dreams ever came true this one would have to be one of the better ones in my life. Yes, the COMPLETE collected works of everything the Trashmen ever released (and not!) can now be obtained in a nice little package complete with the obligatory booklet and a whole lot more music than what most Trashmen poo-pooers ever thought the group had in 'em. Don't wanna rattle yer chains with a fifty-paragraph paen to these wondrous track like I tended to do during my less-restrained days, but let me just say that you all know the beauty of "Surfin' Bird" and just how much it not only signaled the end of 1958-1963 instro-garage madness but helped create the mid-sixties warp-rock style we still cherish even after a good half-century. Any self-respecting BLOG TO COMM fan BETTER have these in his collection lest he hurt my precious feelings. And it is all gutsy he-man rock 'n roll that doesn't let up one bit...let's just say that the Trashmen are not for TRANS-MEN and you better believe it!
***
Japanese torch singer type from the sixties (and after) whose vocalese ranges from jazzy to straight pop. Reminds me of something you'd hear in a foreign film, or perhaps even the Osaka Holiday Inn where a bunch of drunk German tourists call out for some of those old beer hall putsch singalongs since the Japanese are honorary Aryans after all. Mostly dreary but it does have a few snatches of brilliance like an imitation Coltrane ending to one song and an Indian drone thing which sounds even stranger with Japanese voices singing along. "Onna" is particularly haunting. If you get to hear these fine, but I don't know if it warrants buying an entire album.
***
I'm always on the lookout for these early "avant garde" composer types who might have been crushed under the thunder of the bigger names in the biz, and from what I can make out Perrey was one guy who probably got crushed a little more than many of his compatriots ever did. This '58 recording features him playing these sweet and emotion-packed tones on an Ondioline in an attempt to create music that was to help one slip into the arms of Morpheus as they used to say. Overall the sounds are relaxing with these gentle chord changes that result in a music that at one time sounds like a typical 1962 kid trying to play "Apache" on his toy chord organ and at others a soundtrack to an old silent movie horror film. Almost as ambient as that stock music they used for sound on the OLD MOVIES, THE GOLDEN ERA program that channel 25 used to run back in the mid-seventies. An interesting peek at the genesis of things that were to come (and come all over the place at that) once the late-sixties got into musical minimalist gear.
***
For being one of those "older kid" groups that seemed so high falutin' and brainy when I was growin' up, I find myself listening to the Kinks a whole lot more now than I did way back when Ray Davies was giving Mike Douglas a hard time on his famous afternoon tee-vee show of yore. This is definitely a hotcha collection of very-early to last days of the Pye-era Kinks, and oddly enough this only features a fraction of that infamous Kinks tossout of the same title that was cluttering up the cut out bins of the mid-seventies. But still this has a whole lotta fun and charm to it as well as a few goodies I forgot about via other Kinks Kompendiums. Personal favorite, the beautifully bad taste "When I Turn Out The Living Room Light", a song that would have had Davies drawn and quartered had it only come out in today's over-sensitive and downright watch-what-you-say clime.
***
Not exactly mid-sixties garage band---more or less late-sixties punk rock the kind that snuck its way onto the original NUGGETS thus upsetting all you PURISTS out there. All English and all psychedellically snat too given that these recordings by such acts as the Brain and Those Fadin' Colours never did get any real push and sank like a post-peanut butter turd in the toilet bowl of rock 'n roll. Kinda wish I knew more about these groups but I get the feeling that all these and more will be lionized and hosannaed to all heck in a hundred years while the mass of remaining rock 'n roll scholars will undoubtedly be muttering "Jimi Who???"
***
Sheesh, I wonder just how many of these albums of re-recorded hits and other rare faves were released by the Troggs throughout their career! This '89 effort was but one, and frankly I must tell you that it's a pretty wonderful affair. Sure the thing opens up with a cover of the Bacharach/David number "There's Always Something There to Remind Me" (which became a nausea-inducing hit thanks to Naked Eyes back in the eighties) but then again, as Bill Shute might say, Reg Presley could sing the phone book and make it sound great! The new tracks like "The Disco Kid Versus Sid Chicane" rank as top-notch Troggers while the synthed-up re-dos are pretty snazzy even if they (expectedly) don't quite measure up to the originals. These guys never let you down, so don't do the same and pick this 'un up wherever you can find it!
***
Awwww sheesh, why did the Creation reunion have to be this sappy? These tracks, originally recorded for ELO's Jet Records, contain all of the worst (as if there were any good) elements of eighties pop with none of the original Creation flash and verve to be found even on the remake of their claim to fame "Making Time". A total disappointment from a group I thought would have been able to transcend the sick trappings of the eighties and flash us all back to those biff bang pow times that a few of us sure missed in our moderne day music, Unfortunately I was wrong again...sheeesh!
***
These disque do serve a special purpose in my life and I just ain't talkin' 'bout hearin' new to mine ears music'r anything like that either! These Bill burns usually transport me back to those good ol' turdler and/or suburban slob days just like a trip to the flea market in the seventies or eighties could, or better yet a trip down to my aunt's basement when I was a kid when I would snoop around and, after noticing that a whole buncha glassware was wrapped in mid-fifties vintage newspaper, unwrap the papers if only to read those classic old comic strips. And I actually saved one of the wrinkled papers which, years later, ended up as clip art in some of those later BLACK TO COMMs that I hope you need to fill up your collection because I NEED TO SELL 'EM!!!!!
Anyway, this is a nice oleo of various clutter that hits me sorta as if my entire life was flashing before my eyes but it was only the good, goof off kid stuff that I got to see. Of course Bill had to start off with a downer garage band thingie done up by some guys who probably thought that the guitars and drums were the key to getting good gash but discovered otherwise. I did enjoy Ron Thompson's jangly instrumental "Switchblade" and some of the r&b crankouts (especially John Patton's "Chitlins Con Carne" which is so strange I must give it some sorta BLOG TO COMM award for unintended mystical importance) while the Rod Keith "song poem" was enough to bring out at least a chuckle. Heck, the Death Killers' "Homer Simpson" was a great expression of post-turdler tee-vee trauma via rock 'n roll (no kiddin'!) and if the singer, guitarist and toy keyboard player are more than five-years-old I'll eat their Banana Wackies!
A surprise for sure Bill, but as far as Bernie Roberts w/ Blondie goes...well, were you thinkin' the same sorta Blondie that """"I"""" was? Guess not.
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