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Sheesh, its hard to get through my bean that yet another whole stinkin' week has gone by! But thanks be that it's the weekend and I do have a brief respite from that harsh reality we call everyday work and toil. I plan on takin' it easy, just sittin' around watchin' old tee-vee shows while reading my vast array of old rock rags and comics while listening to that BIG THROB that someone out there called rock 'n roll oh so long ago. Dunno about you...you're probably gonna be doin' something "exciting" like go bike riding or boating or jogging or a variety of things that just tire me out by merely thinkin' about 'em. Sheesh, when I was a growin' up sorta suburban slob just hangin' 'round the house in my stockin' feet was my way of unwindin' after putting five days in at stool, and even at my advanced age I realize that I was doin' the right thing 'stead of playin' sports or being active like some old biddy out there told us to! I mean, here I am up and about havin' fun with my music and boob tube, and that spiritual Miss Grundy's been dead and gone for thirty years awlready so you tell me who was actually RIGHT all these years!

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I've been committing a lotta Suicide lately...that's Suicide with a big "S" as in Alan Vega and Martin Rev. Well, at least I'm committing the seventies variation on the form before those two got washed away by the new decade just like all of our other once-faves, but man when Revega were on a roll boy were they deliverin' on the high-energy that people like me just loved and craved in the face of the late-seventies sappy pop we were all force fed! Talk about total eruption post-WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT infernal carnage, the kind that none of the attempts at being the "new" Velvet Underground (even Yo La Tengo at their screechiest!) could handle no matter how hard those plunkers tried their best at chiming out the riffs to "Sweet Jane" while forgetting about all that beautiful sheet sound the Velvets branded into the under-the-counterculture psyche.

The Blast First box set of '77/'78 recordings is currently carving its initials on my brain...gotta say that I find the New York-area performances extremely satisfying in the way they churn sound into something that, as with the Electric Eels, Seeds and of course Velvet Underground themselves, actually becomes three-dimensional art as pure CARNAGE in your mind! Even that weird guy who moans along with Suicide (he appears on a 1981 Peppermint Lounge Suicide tape I got, not to mention the Johnny Thunders/Wayne Kramer Gang War live Max's Kansas City EP!) adds plenty to the overall terror to be enjoyed! Can't wait for that projected blast of earlier (and reportedly even more feral!) sounds to be unleashed on us never-to-be-satisfied aficionados!

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Wish I could spurt out more to beef this post up to larger expectations, but you certainly don't wanna know about all of the gritty details of my existence such as which state my latest booger looked like 'r anything like that (for your information it was Maryland). Here are the platters up for perusal and they are a dandy bunch if I do say so myself. The surprise of the week just hasta be the Hozac seven-inchers which start the proceedings off, tho the rest certainly ain't no slouches either. My thanks go to not only Hozac but Bill Shute, Paul McGarry, P.D. Fadesonnen and even myself for deciding to part with a precious few pence for the Living Dead effort. And before I forget make sure you get your preorder in to Smog Veil for the Peter Laughner box set which should be finally making its appearance within a relatively short time which is much better'n the X # of years since the thing's been announced.

The Anemic Boyfriends-"Fake I.D."/"Bad Girl in Love" 45 rpm single; Matt Gimmick-DETROIT RENAISSANCE '79 33 rpm single (both available via Hozac Records)

The folk at Hozac really outdid themselves in this very recent attempt to bring the energy and promise of the late-seventies underground into the stark nullitude of the present day.

The Anemic Boyfriends should be notched a few points for being an all-gal group with a name like that, but this misleading moniker will be excused if only for the fact that these Alaskan missies really deliver on the hard punk crunch! This particular effort  reminds me of what I was hoping the Runaways woulda sounded like after reading about 'em in CIRCUS---girlish and brutal but not so El Lay decadent! Straightforward crunchy rock 'n roll that puts that Riot Grrrrruel to utter shame and we need more of it!

The Gimmick EP's a reissue of that famous Stooges tribute record (immortalized via the first KILLED BY DEATH album) featuring two then-unreleased Iggy classics along with some newies that capture the influence of those Detroit hard rockers pretty much in the same way the Dead Boys and all those Australian acts of the day from Radio Birdman to the Dum Dum Boys (wait, they were from New Zealand and as we all know the Aussies and New Zealanders loathe each other with a passion!) did. It's amazing just how much Gimmick sings like Iggy and the group does have a fairly good handle on the entire over-the-top attitude those early emulators oozed outta just about every pore. Pretty above and beyond the call of duty effort you got here Hozac!

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The Living Dead-LIVE AT THE SPEAKEASY, LONDON, 17TH FEBRUARY 1978 CD-r burn

Johnny Thunders and most of the Only Ones get together to do the Heartbreakers thing in front of a breathing audience. Sheesh, with two junkies like Thunders and Peter Perrett on the same stage I wonder what kinda clientele was hangin' about in the wings! But hey, the show is a whole lot more together than many of these Thunders productions and at least to my virgin ears akin to the better Heartbreakers efforts that have been floating about lo these many eons. Special guest appearance by Patti Palladin of Snatch on "Give Him a Great Big Kiss" and "Daddy Rolling Stone". Unfortunately Perrett gets to shine on only one Only Ones song but who said this was gonna be some sorta democracy or something as equally inane as that?

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Kraftwerk-MITTERNACE 1975/CROYDON UK Cd-r burn

AUTOBAHN-period 'werk that, if you listing to it long enough, will turn you into one of those printed components Kraftwerk uses to make music such as this. Vehr fahn fahn fahn on der electronic sounds that remind me of something that Stockhausen woulda whipped up in order to have a hit record in the late-fifties, all reducing you to atomistic stature as you bop through the various beeps and buzzes that are resplendent in these guys' collected works. Back when these guys were hitting it big with "Autobahn" back '75 way I had the impression that this would be ALL we'd be hearing as for as music goes at this point in time, but the mechanical revolution still has a long way to gesticulate before we humans are TOTALLY conquered! Or so I would think, you cyborg you.

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Cement Trampoline-GLAD TO BE ALIVE CD-r burn (originally on Imagine Records)

's funny, but here in the dusk of the 'teens this eighties-era post-power pop breed of new wave doesn't sound as goopy as it back back in them days. Cement Trampoline not only write a buncha good pop songs with the proper amount of tension, but they perform 'em w/o the more cloying aspects that befell many of these groups in the transition from punky seventies to gnu wave eighties. If you still hold your Shoes albums tenderly to your bosom you might want to give this obscurity a try.

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Greg Oblivian and the Tip Tops-HEAD SHOP CD-r burn (originally on Sympathy For the Record Industry Records)

Nice mix and match of everything from spiffy straight ahead neo-country rock to neo-Beatles popism. At times it kinda reminds me of mid-seventies Dylan or better yet Elliot Murphy without the ranch house decadence. Better'n usual fifties paens toom all capped off with a track called "Self-Indulgent Asshole" which starts off like a pretty decent Suicide tribute until Oblivian's vocals make ya think he's tryin' to live up to the title.

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Various Artists-MODEL T BOOGIE CD-r burn (originally on Black Rhythm Records)

To be way repetitious about this, it's the kinda blooze that'll send all those fans of the more "modern" aspects of the music crying all the way back to the comfort of their Van Halen albums. Lack of liner notes has got me stymied (or even buckwheated) about these tracks, but if you're the kinda guy who finds these acoustic country sounds rather stirring as in the way you felt when you first heard the Velvet Underground you'll enjoy these prob'ly just-postwar efforts immensely. Norton Records is sellin' both this and volume two, and if you order from 'em DON'T mention that BLOG TO COMM sent you because they might just DOUBLE the price!

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Various Artists-MR. CHANG'S TAXI TWIST CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

And the (shoulda been) hits just keep on a' comin'! Sure the Imperials ain't thee Imperials of Little Anthony fame while Jack Wilson ain't "Jackie", but these tracks mighta had a chance on the top 40 had only enough strongarm threats were made to timid deejays. Lotsa twist here for those of you who miss the sight of Jackie O shakin' her frail frame at the Peppermint Lounge (this even might put Eddie Haskell's collection of twist records to shame!) plus if you like rockabilly with that late-seventies sorta "authenticity" to it there's always the Moonlighters. I thought that the primitive approach of Los Flecos was particularly appealing to my own sense of stripped down rock 'n roll appreciation. Like most of these Bill burns, I feel a little fuller after I'm done listenin' to 'em, and I don't mean inna belly!

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Yes, we have no bananas, but we got tons of BLACK TO COMM back issues to keep you busier than a cushion scrubber at a nudist colony.  Some fine reading is to be found (along with hotcha pictures!) in these mags, and as I've said many a time no self-respecting rockist reader would be without the ENTIRE BOUND AND GAGGED COLLECTION in their library. However, since nobody who reads this blog has any self-respect perhaps I am wasting my precious breath, no matter how dog-smelly it may be.