Not much inna record (excuse me, Cee-Dee-Are) vein this week. Y'see, I've been too busy making money going from house to house shoveling drives and sidewalks after the big storm we had, kicking a whole lotta young kids outta the way inna meantime in order to GET THERE FIRST! Didn't mean to hurt anybody but sheesh, ya brats better watch out for all that slick ice 'n all while I'm shoving ya aside! Got some moolah that I'm sure to put to good use in the music department in the meanwhile, so watch this blog for further developments!
But I do hope you enjoy what I have in for store. The winter weather did give me a good excuse to "hunker down" and enjoy more sounds and good reading, and even though all that snow shoveling has pretty much broken my back at least I can recline in my worn out comfy chair, kick my feet up onto my bed and ooze my soul into some good blare while staring at Betty and Veronica's Bob Montana-delineated torsos without any negative consequences. Unlike in real life when you can GET INTO REAL TROUBLE, and sheesh, you'd think starin' at a gal's bod would be considered a compliment! I dunno, what do you members of the more dangerous sex really want anyhow?!?!?!
And while we're still on the subject...
whores students David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez started getting a whole load of 15 minute fame with the gun control right on drama class project. And naturally, people (including myself) were called onna carpet for criticizing these young and precocious children who held (socio/media acceptable) views that just needed to be expressed even though you never see people with contrasting views get the same kind of analingous treatment. Y'see, being under age and all supposedly exempts one from any criticism and in the long run it was people like me who were being mean to these inchoate yet sparkling souls with something pertinent to say, as if any other opinion on the face of the earth wasn't.What I wanna know is...howcum the under age students from that high school in Kentucky can get threatened with all kindsa torture and death and for some reason its socially acceptable to do so, or I'm sure it is from the same kinda twats who were condemning me for puttin' my two cents in regarding the whole gun control debate a good year back? Of course we all know the answer. I guess some kids are more equal than others, or in other words what else is new???
But I do hope you enjoy what I have in for store. The winter weather did give me a good excuse to "hunker down" and enjoy more sounds and good reading, and even though all that snow shoveling has pretty much broken my back at least I can recline in my worn out comfy chair, kick my feet up onto my bed and ooze my soul into some good blare while staring at Betty and Veronica's Bob Montana-delineated torsos without any negative consequences. Unlike in real life when you can GET INTO REAL TROUBLE, and sheesh, you'd think starin' at a gal's bod would be considered a compliment! I dunno, what do you members of the more dangerous sex really want anyhow?!?!?!
***A CORRECTION (VIA OTTO VON RUGGINS) REGARDING MY REVIEWS OF THE CYBERCRAZEDAND OTHER COMPACT DISC OFFERINGS SENT ME BY OTTO VON RUGGINS A FEW WEEKS BACK, and you better pay attention for once!
“The Cybercrazed disque from 1973” does not exist. It’s Fugue of Death that is from 1973 while Cybercrazed is around 1993! Fugue of Death has all of the original Kongress plus Sal Maida on bass guitar and it sounds just as wild as those snippets of yore that have been flying around for quite some time. A female vocalist chants and coos through the VIRTUAL REALITY disc and the strains of synth can be heard, so if you are bound to think this in fact must BE Kongress and not some earlier aggregation of the von Ruggins variety you are forgiven.
All of that above is true and worthy of clarification in a future issue, if it pleases you. Perhaps you can include both images for your readers and explain that the Fugue of Death cover is a poem by a Romanian poet Paul Celan, who survived the holocaust, only to commit suicide by drowning in the Spring of 1970 due to a rise in anti-semitism in Europe. Read those lyrics (they were put to that particular longest track, but did not get sung on that improv in a rehearsal studio, which was recorded on a small stereo cassette player). The entire album is one session actually and not a patchquilt, as the tracks appear in the order they are created. Both albums are available on iTunes, Spotify and other outlets like CD Baby, but Cybercrazed can be heard @ www.reverbnation.com/virtualreality4D and the American Film Institute 1993 award-winning video created on an Amiga computer (when PCs had no video & Quicktime was the size of a postage stamp) can be seen there as well. Thanks for listening, enjoying & spreading the word..."
And while we're still on the subject...
It would be nice to indicate that the female vocalist is Marilyn, who sang with Kongress after Madgician Geoffrey Crozier left to return to Oz. Sorry I didn’t specify that...Thanks for clearing that up for us! Will try to find and dig up both of the covers for reader analysis, and keep on making that beautiful space music while yer at it!
***While I'm at it (whatever "it" is)...howzbout lendin' some ear to my opinions regarding that hoo-hah last weekend where some Black Israelite group in Washington DC taunted those Kentucky school kids while some Indian activist banged a drum at 'em for who knows what reason (with one kid starin' the ol' Medicine Man down with a smirk like you wouldn't believe) and boy did it create some sorta stink if only because that kid 'n the others were wearing Make America Great Again hats! Not that I have any sturdy opinion on what happened nor do I particularly care because like, I wasn't there and have no dogs in the fight. But sheesh, I remember a year ago when that one student shot up that high school in Florida and suddenly those two attention grabbing
***What I have been listening to in the meanwhile....The Revolutionary Ensemble's THE PSYCHE---great AACM-ish trio featuring Leroy Jenkins' nerve-y violin playing, Sirone's arco/basso drones and Jerome Cooper on percussion and piano. The only release on their own RE label and while not as professional as the A&M/Horizon THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC effort it still soars with even the less-than-top notch sound giving the effort a rather urgent punch! THE GOOD RATS (Kapp)---even with the strings and horns its a heavy duty contender for the very late-sixties sound obliteration crown up there with Iggy, Black Pearl etc. Too bad the iron haired girls were paying too much attention to Bobby Sherman to notice or else this might have been a hit! Red Noise-SARCELLES-LOCHERES---the long-lost booty---more French under-the-underground weirdness that works; with side two sounding like a mad fusion of the early Velvets and avant garde jazz. Thierry Muller-RARE AND UNRELEASED 1974-1984 (Fractal)---not bad at all re-wirings of various electro-rock ideas that don't sound that technical (well, most of the time!). Capt. Beefheart etc.-TROUT MASK REPLICA---wonder why it took me so long to get myself into its reason for existence? Maybe it took THAT long for me to get that disjointed. I am ashamed. CURRENT LULL ME TO SLEEP BEDDY-BYE FAVE...Throbbing Gristle-THE SECOND ANNUAL REPORT (a quite mesmerizing effort).
***All set? You bet! Now GET!!!
Sure they weren't Ex-Blank-X, but who was. Still a grand summation of the group from their early under-the-underground Dangerhouse days to the bitter end when they had become way too tamed by da industry to really emote out like they usedta. But still even those later-on numbers sound a whole lot better'n what has been passing for that once-glorious but long decayed form called rock 'n roll I'll tell ya. They kinda remind me of what that new rock sounds like these days, only without the sweet sensitivity straight outta James Taylor that make ya wanna go woe is me. A good collection that's so boff you woulda thought some bootlegger'd put it out!
***
The name of this group sure makes me hungry I'll tell ya! But anyway these Tandooris do sound like they might have originated over there in the southern mid-portion of Asia and while they do suffer a tad from that garageus revivus sameness that has ruined more than a few groups they sure do have a good spark when they so desire. Just dip your nan in their version of the VU classic "Head Held High" and see. They even crank out a cover of the Devo hit "Whip It" making it sound like some late-sixties rave up in the basement! Pretty spunky for a group continuing on a genre that seemed to has lost steam a good thirty years back. Who knows, the next time you head on over to your favorite Indian eatery you might find a Tandoori or two busing tables!
***
Gotta say that a lotta these sixties-era punk rock compilations that have been hitting the bins as of late just don't grab me they way those old PEBBLES and BOULDERS efforts used to, but this one has some punch to it. True a lot of this ain't up to the usual punk rock standards what with the slow ballads and Ernie Douglas-level youth paens to unrequited jagoffisms, but there are some sprightly nice numbers in the batch from cover stars Teddy and his Patches doing one of those twenties-styled camp numbers to the Changing Tydes Revue covering the Rascals to fairly good effect. Coulda used more of that kinda stuff on it but hey, mebbee all the hotcha material has been mined already and whaddaya expectin' anyway---the lost lost ? and the Mysterians/Stooges jam sessions????
***
If your etchings don't work maybe this will! While string slush worthy of Jackie Gleason oozes from the speakers McCormack recites the words to the melodies at hand in a soft, hypnotically relaxing voice. Your gal might get inna mood, but then again she just might fall asleep. McCormack might have had a future in the radio announcing game, but as far as these spoken word platters go he ain't got nuthin' on Telly Savalas.
***
1951 radio dramas that still pack a huge punch with this paunch. The expected calm and collected investigator Craig (handed well enough by Gargan, who might be better known to you as yet another private investigator, namely Martin Kane) handles his cases with that tossoff restrained yet overdrive way that'd make you think that he could stare down a bullet, and the stories while typical of the genre, still hold your attention a whole lot more than anything those castratis who write for the tee-vee medium these days would dare come up with. Fave of the two episodes present here....12/5/51's "Paper Bullets" which deals with the missing manuscript of an adventure novel that just won a fifty-thou dollar contest and a dead body in there, as usual.
***
Heavy garage band themed platter here what with the Mopp-Topps doing a good neo-Liverpool weeper and the Original Sins (Not the late-eighties band of much renown) going late-sixties hard. It's a pleasant enough romp through the various stages of Amerigan teen-dom proving that even the most cube of L-7 kinda kids coulda been somethin' with the proper cheap Japanese guitar and fresh Beatle wig.
Rockabilly rears its collectible head with Lindol Rand's rendition of "Long Tall Sally" done up late-fifties white-like ifyaknowaddamean while Scotty Scott and his Swinging Strings had trouble getting the vocals and music together on "Chattanooga, Nashville, Battlecreek Trek"! Even and outfit wit the whacked out moniker of the Oddballs do a good early-sixties kinda post-rockabilly garage thumper on their double sider that rocks around at a nice pace but I'm sure back then it woulda been like the worst in devil's music had your great-great-grandmother heard the thing.
What really strikes me about this effort is that Bill stuck all these old ads for the 1942 edition of Lifebuoy soap in between the music! Y'know, the ones that had that foghorn like "B.O." sound it it? Sheesh Bill, are you trying to tell me something even my best friends, if I had any, wouldn't?
***Here's my usual plug regarding those issues of BLACK TO COMM that just happen to still be available. Reviled by some, loathed by others, one look into these issues and you'll know why BLACK TO COMM has been deemed the anti-ROLLING STONE one more than a few occasions. De-Wennerize yourself with an issue TODAY!
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