Howdy y'all. Another BLOG TO COMM big humongous weekend posting to greet you as you start yet another seven days of existence! If I do say so myself (I love cliches dontcha know?) I think I packed more into this particular post than Rock Hudson packed into the entire Vienna Boy's Choir during his European jaunt and that's really sayin' somethin'! Lotsa goodies to gab about this time, and gosh-it-all but I gotta say that yeah, I AM gladder'n glad to be up and about during this period in time because like there's still high energy music and other accessories like EARS to enjoy all of the sounds that I have come across throughout my life and well, sure there ain't anything rock 'n roll-y like there was when I was but a mere turdler goin' on these days but at least I have a good few thousand years of fun that has been left behind for me to peruse and digest the way I wanna and like, nobody other'n my pocketbook is gonna stop me from havin' a good time, y'know? (I love run-on sentences as well!) With alla the good sounds, readings and viewing that is at my mere fingertips I am set for LIFE, and I hope that life is a long one so I can cram alla the fun possible into whatever time I have left which is a whole lot more SATISFYING than serving mankind and those things alla those snooty kids I went to school with are probably doing as we speak! I mean, why volunteer to scrub toilets at a homeless shelter when you can stay home and KICK OUT THE JAMS!!!!! I mean, them toilets are just gonna get dirty again anyway...
***As of the past week or so, I have been fulfilling some sort of inner hunger in my pop-gulcher life by watching this Dee-Vee-Dee set that Brad Kohler sent me (and like, outta nowhere!---willikers) of the second half of the first season of none other than MY THREE SONS! Remember when this show slipped into syndication back inna mid-seventies and you were madder'n all heck because the early Tim Considine/William Frawley episodes weren't in the package? Remember when you were even MADDER when the reruns continued and it was obvious that the syndicators also left the final '71-'72 season off right when Ernie Douglas was looking so loose with long hair and wire-rimmed glasses? Well, if you like me didn't get to see those 'uns back when you needed 'em the most (and didn't have access to the old Nick At Night) these Dee-Vee-Dees sure do come in handy.
I also found these early ones to be a whole lot more anarchic than the more familiar color episodes, what with the general inter-brother chaos that seems to be going on a good portion of the time...I don't recall there being such a clash of screaming brothers and flustered Uncle Charlie going at each other all at one time like they do during these first season episodes!
Most do "work" amidst the clutter, but I will admit that the chemistry doesn't always quite mesh. Like in the one where the neighbor is conned into taking his wife, daughter, the three sons and Bub on a Sunday drive that keeps getting delayed...talk about funetticus interruptus! The episodes that try to be poignant (like this rather silly one featuring future Larry Tate David White as the father of a kid who wants to go away to school which for some reason is causing grief for everyone involved) fall flatter'n Olive Oyl's bustline, though as far as these "serious" entries go I did like the season finale where college kid Mike take a job on a forest lookout tower where he drives his co-worker crazy and ultimately, after making a big stink about his situation, is stuck alone during a severe thunderstorm warning. I dunno, it just seemed right, at least this time, to have some drama and tension packed into an otherwise har-har episode that wasn't trying to make some not-so-obscure socio-political point that happened to be chic that week.
Kinda wish these old episodes were in syndication because I sure coulda used 'em during my mid-teenbo suburban slob days when early-sixties sitcoms really packed a punch with me. After all, those later ones with Robbie having triplets just so's they could continue the title of the series for one more year or Chip eloping with Bobby Troup's daughter (both of these gimmicks that coulda been done up a whole lot better if ya ask me!) just don't cut it the way ya hoped they would! But gimme some of these old MY THREE SONS and a buncha LEAVE IT TO BEAVERs and throw a few MISTER EDs into the mix and it's just like one of those funtime tee-vee evenings we used to have back when I was a turdler, only without the juice glass full of root beer, the corn chips and the inevitable fight between me and my cyster!
***IN OTHER NEWS, here's this week's video clip that proves to you that the spirit of THE NATIONAL PERSPIRER lives on even to this day...
Now that we got that bit of pleasantness outta the way here be de revooze! Got a lovely bunch if I do say so myself, some thanks to Bill Shute, others to Paul McGarry, at least one to Robert Forward and still another to Hozac Records which continues to amaze me with their abilities to tune into my very thought patterns. (Sorry Feeding Tube...didn't get to any of yours this time but I'll try to make up for it next time!) Anyway thanks to all who contributed to the revolution which I hope comes to fruition a whole lot more later than sooner...I mean, it's so fun fightin' the BIG FIGHT that I want this war against the jive to last FOREVER...
Strange as it may seem, this particular KSE Editions release is SO different than the previous ones to the point where even I am unable to rattle off the usual hackneyed comparisons in order to describe this quite unique affair. The standard KSE/small Cee-Dee-Are label sense of outside-the-out clang und sturm or whatever it's called can be discerned, but amidst the percussive clanks and other unworldly squeals there's a semblance of (now get this!) structured music goin' on here! Guitar emits funky riffs while the wall of percussion clatters about (that's on "Year End Skies") and the sax can get down to it when it likes (on "All Beneath Heaven"). Talk about surprises here...I can't describe this kinda music with my limited vocabulary but it sure captures my, and maybe even your psyche! And hey, don't you think that slide guitar sound on "The Eighth Horizon" sounds quite a bit like (now get this!) ALVINO RAY????
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Here is one of those archival digs of some group we never would have known about had not one of its members been in an act that got a tad of underground credo once the eighties got into gear. Future Scientist Kim Salmon was guitar player with these nasty guys, and he and the rest of the brood do a pretty swank job capturing the punk rock feelings not just by hacking out the same one chord repeatedly (though that helps!) but by lifting more than a few moves from prior rock crazies who helped get the whole DIY rough sound kicked into gear while the rest of the world was snoozing away to John Denver's Colorado hippie paens. Shards of RAW POWER Stooges ram into "20th Century Boy" and like, this is what I remember punk rock was supposed to be like at least before the late-seventies crash and burn generation evolved into the eighties hippydippy concerns which have plagued us ever since!
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Here's yet another one of those albums by someone who nobody seems to know about, but she sure made some sorta musical waves about a good ten years back when at least a few people were listening. Actually this LaVette lady sings some pretty honest neo-soul music to a choogling enough backdrop, but once you get through a few of these numbers you kinda realize that the only people who would really enjoy listening to this are those Big City rockcrit types who used to spout the usual analytical inanities in their own columns until the papers began trimming the fat a good while back. I haven't picked up a VILLAGE VOICE since CBGB closed down, but I do get the feeling that at one time LaVette woulda been getting some hefty coverage and PAZZ 'N JOP votes there, she's so custom made for those whitebread guiltmongers, ifyaknowaddamean...
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The "Come on Down" guys really jigsawed into that whole 1967 sunshine pop puzzle rather swimmingly, but next to the Monkees, Turtles and Yellow Balloon types there's a certain lack of zip in these recordings. Not that there weren't a number of good pop expressions here and there, but for the most part I found these Sons rather plain in comparison to the competition. In other words, I ain't exactly bustin' out cryin' o'er skipping on their records during my flea market and garage sale combing days. For late-sixties commercial Top 40-styled pop rock one could do much better with a mere combing of the charts.
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In a whole lotta ways this 'un could be considered a LIVE AT CBGB's-kinda album only it ain't live and I believe some of the acts here never appeared on that sainted stage. But some have and since it's all so theme-tied it might as well be 1988's answer to MAX'S KANSAS CITY 1976 for all I care. A mix of the various post-post-POST "local scene" a good decade after it began toppling over. Some of it is rather/sorta entertaining such as the Rude Buddha track as well as Frank Maya's "Polaroid Children" while others like Bernie Worrell's version of "Telstar" are just more disco wave we never did want in the first place. Surprise hit of the album's Loup Garou's Cajun-styled accordion rock which has a shard of En Why decadence to it but sounds all rice and beans-y otherwise. Liner notes by Lenny Kaye for all you seventies rockscribe groupies out there!
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For some reason this straight-ahead NYC-styled post-Dolls rock's hitting me just as hard as it did when I was buying up Dolls cutouts in the seventies! And THANK GOODNESS! Maybe its because I'm reading a whole lotta late-seventies English p-rock fanzines in preparation for a post that this one is doin' its ol' magic on me but dang if this one's sure snuggling into my musical makeup during my December years. Nice re-hashes of familiar Dolls/Heartbreakers numbers 'n melodies that---surprise---sound just as hotcha now as they did way back when. Sure these guys are older'n Methuselah but at least they deliver the straight-ahead rock 'n roll it a world where Miley Cyrus is considered the epitome of talent and unbridled energy!
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Jeff Beck Group-DALLAS BOLERO CD-r burn
Believe it or not, but this is a surprisingly good recording of the Group during the '68 tour stretching out a whole lot more'n usual, Or so I've been told and if you can't trust Wikipedia who can you trust? It's got the expected (yet mandatory) selection of the usual white British blooze catalog and the whole thing comes off more'n just plain listenable---there are even a few moments of sheer intensity to be found. However, all I gotta say is---am I the only guy who can't really take a whole lotta this in one sitting or is that a common occurrence with these English whiteguy setups which do tend to drag on at times and really aren't different than any of the similarly minded efforts? Yeah, it's probably me who is the culprit, or so many of you readers would say...
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Various Artists-OUTLET ABSTRACT COLONY KILLER CD-r burn (Bill Shute)You can tell that Bill didn't really put his heart into this one. Maybe a lung or a pancreas or perhaps even a couple of kidneys. The new unto gnu wave of the Outlets and Abstracts only serve to remind me of just what a miasma the self-produced indie single scene had become once the eighties really settled down into the collective psyches of dare-to-be-different youth, while the Gregory Dee and the Avantis sides fare better if only because they might be trying to be hipsters but fall short and thus are hipsters in true suburban slob rock 'n roll fashion! I've heard the New Colony Six "I Confess" single before but it's so good what's another go at it, while the Father Brown radio show was too cluttered and complicated for me to digest in my mind but eh, so what! The disque closer, another Ellery Queen Minute Mystery, was boffo but sheesh, that berry picker coulda been sent up the river on (once again) the flimsiest of evidence! I mean, how many of you know that unripened blackberries are red anyway?
***Still looking to fill the gaps in your BLACK TO COMM collection? Well look no further Gertrude, because the highlighted link'll take you to a place where you can fulfill your wildest fantasies the ways the Danish never even dreamed of!
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