Got some Christmas cards and though most of them are probably stashed away in the gifts that I am about to receive come this Chrismas morn I will show you a couple that I decided to open in advance because hey...I can be that sneaky if I sure wanna!
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| Here's the Christmas card I got from none other than BRAD KOHLER! Only he would have known and appreciated what a troubled time the holiday season can be, which is perhaps thee only reason I find the above sentiments oh-so-meaningful to the current Christmas situation. A time which, shall I way, just doesn't measure up to funtimes (or tragedies) of holidays past. And after hearing similar stories of Yuletide freakouts from parents to various other holiday disasters all I can say is---I am not alone! |
And really, I gotta say that I never would have expected getting such a nice, life-reafforming letter like the one I got from the Droogs above. Stuff like this can really help make the Holidays such a festive time, especially NOW when everything that was once fun and exciting's been neutered beyond recognition to the point where them jolly ol' Christmas records have been replaced by sappy pap custom-made for the IQ zero in your life.
***Hope you guys, you deserving ones that is, got yer Christmas gifts safe and sound. In case yer won'drin' why the parcels are smaller'n usual well...I got to thinkin' that really, the more money I spend on what you get only means that there's less moolah that I can spend on MYSELF which really does kinda bum me out once the January doldrums start rollin' around and I'm short on the long green! And since Christmas is the time o' givin' well, think of all the fun you're giving ME what with you getting less so I can get more! See, it all works out fine (even these sick attempts to be CHEAP!) if you adjust your moral parameters in just the right way...
***Another good batch, one which really has inspired me these hollow-day seasons in ways more'n all of those fruit cakes and gift certificates to Golden Corral ever could. Thanks to Feeding Tube, Bill Shute and Paul McGarry, who I get the idea has already broken all the toys I sent him this year, rambunctious inner child that he has...
Interesting one from Feeding Tube here, but then again aren't they all interesting? A duo (at time supplemented by female vocal, sax and organ), Zebu at first come off straight ahead like some kids in your average 1965 basement whanging away on their cheap $19.99 guitar and sell twenty boxes and get a drumset, then all of a sudden it's like the same kids only after that bottle of airplane glue lying on the floor got punctured and nobody knew until it was too late. Then there's that gal singin' and it reminds me of the Paradise Lounge late show and yer dad's entertaining a buncha outta town customers wishin' he could be home watching Carson. If a good portion of this reminds you of the Smashcords then well, your thinking is in the same stratosphere as mine but there's a lot more to it, kid!
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Who in a million years woulda guessed that a double-single set by the Cords of BACK FROM THE GRAVE fame woulda made its way onto a slickly-packaged set like this anyway! But one has, and I gotta say that these Cords are sure a high-powered group who were actually keeping an early-sixties style of garage band rock alive in 1970 when these track were recorded! I guess being real-life Franciscan monks and all they didn't have much time to get out in the world, but thankfully these numbers were laid down and prove that even rigidly-disciplined guys wearing black robes could play better rock 'n roll than spaced out hippies!
Two blazing instrumentals (think 1962 local group crank out) and two vocal tracks (think 1962 softer b-sides, or a-sides for that matter) make this package up, and if you were ever tempted to join the monastic life in order to get away from it all maybe this will change your mind! From the sound of it, its probably a whole lot wilder on the inside than it is on the outside!
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There seem to be about as many of these electronic sound manipulation releases on the market these days as there are sexual orientations, and A-Pfeffer Quitter are just but one of the "acts" that have been able to get their soundscapades down to vinyl without seemingly much of a hassle. A-Pfeffer Quitter's mode is of electronic sheets of sound floating in and out of your listening scope, adding various clanks here and other effects for a style that just might appeal to the fringier side of your very own parameters. Gotta say that I feel kinda/sorta good in the breadbasket that things like this are being created in the here and now ('stead of those douchier works of "art" that used to crave funding back in the 90s), because this has the spirit and swerve of that wild ride in art that began when Marcel Duchamp decided to display that urinal at the Armory Show and it was such a shocker that nobody even complained about Robert Henri's wowzer of a nudie painting "Figure in Motion"!
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Slowed down devilcore grind that might have made it to the same levels as those groups on the now impossible-to-latch-onto DO WHAT THOU WILT compilation album. Of course with about thirtysome years of bad rock influence not affected their sound. Actually not bad despite the usual paens to the usual sludge-y stylistic modes...in fact this is way better'n a whole lotta groups I've heard playin' the same hard crunch post-metal groove these sad and sorry days which ain't much but I don't wanna show off my moozikal ignorance like I tend to do. Nothing I'm gonna let my ears munch on too much as the years go by, but I will admit this has got a lot of the hard non-schmooze metal I've heard trounced on all counts!
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Sheesh, if this really was Canada's most exciting band as the announcer on this early-fifties CBC broadcast sez, then P.J. O'Rourke was right about 'em after all! Lucky that Ish Kabible didn't wander up north of the border or he would have been arrested as a subversive! I dunno what prompted Bill Shute to burn this one for me other'n as a sick joke, but it just might make a hit piped into the Alzheimer Ward at the local old folk's home because hey, what else are they gonna listen to...Throbbing Gristle?
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Neato idea actually having Blaine do a surf platter with his percussive talents up front and natural. The results are a good groove to soak into as Blaine gets more than his share of soloing in and the rest of the Cougars just fill in the sound in a way that most early-eighties new wave aficionados woulda called "minimalist". There are even some vocal tracks tagged on that sound cheezy enough on first spin but when you realize that it captures the spirit of the mid-sixties slot car and skateboard teen mindset you'll be thankful they existed in the first place. Makes me nostalgic for Shake-A-Puddin'.
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If the above album makes me long for the days of Shake-A-Puddin', FRIDAY AT THE CAGE A GO GO makes me nostalgic for bargain bins filled with inexpensive Flamin' Groovies albums. Mid-sixties Detroit rock doin' the local scene romp a good year or so before the John Sinclair effect was put to good measure. Great covers of the day (and some originals I gather) from the top bands on the local scene performed beautifully and primitively in gorgeous low-fidelity, and even Helen Keller could have heard the genesis of the MC5 and Stooges sound in the stark thud that the likes of the Oxford 5 and Fugitives pound out on this definitely teenage rebellion (in the purest, non-compromised way) recordings.
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I think Bill skroo'd up on the song listings somewhere along the way but that duzzn't matter because he did a really cool job this go 'round. The Cowsills of all people start this one out and surprisingly enough d a pretty good job given their milk-minded image (this track actually reminds me of none other than BIG STAR!) while the Sir Douglas Quintet under another name ain't gonna fool nobody! The rest varies, but in a nice way with this strange abstract piece from Joe South (!) giving way to some neat-o bubblegum rock by the likes of Fun and Games not to mention Peter Hobbins, who is probably best known for being the original voice of Charlie Brown on those PEANUTS specials! Most surprising of all is the track by the Knack---no, not the new wave band for people who hated new wave but the sixties one who do up "Hole in my Pocket" sounding very close to the version (complete with violin) on that pre-Crazy Horse Rockets album! I gotta wonder which one came first, and of course I'm too
***Guess what! Your lack of response regarding these hypes for you to buy up my back issues of BLACK TO COMM have gotten me sooo mad that I will NOT post any more of these come ons! No more, zip, finito and all that! Hope you're all satisfied! Well, maybe this once...
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