Sheesh how I used to hate August. Here the summer was finally getting into gear with the really hot weather and general outdoor fun and jamz to be had, and whaddaya know but September and stool time pops up just around the corner and RUINS everything! But that was long ago and now I figure that no matter the month or season I'm in life is ruined anyway, so what's the diff between a cold winter and a hot summer if life is nothing but misery anyway...'s just that you have to wear your galoshes during some of the bad times and shorts during the rest.
At least I've got my music to protect me just like Paul Simon had his books and poetry! And yeah, things have been improving on the musical front as of late...nothing as gnarly as a current throbbing musical scene mind ya, but items like the recent arrival of the Peter Laughner five-LP box set (a review winging your way next week---it needs that much scrutiny for it to be done up just right!) does give me hope that the feral drive of the seventies will continue to reverberate in my bean for the rest of my born days. I do know that in my incessant rah-rahing of musical trends past I sorta come off like those old fifties rockabilly guys who think that it really did all die when Buddy Holly et. al. died in that crash and that everything that came afterwards was nothing but mere piddle but really, once you get down to it is there anything inherently wrong with having a musical worldview as "horse-blindered" as that? Sounds pretty cool in its own downhome sorta suburban slob way in my book!
As usual, the forty-plus-year backlog of recordings in my collection is more'n what keeps me goin' these days, and what a pittance of platters I do have (at least in comparison to all of you readers' bulging at the seams stacks of records, tapes and whatnot) sure helps out in these times when there is comparatively very little that lights any farts in my brain. Current faves include the LA FEMME album which I've spewed way too much on a few weeks back but SO WHAT!, Blue Cheer's VINCEBUS ERUPTUM, Kim Fowley's ANIMAL GOD OF THE STREET, LES PUNKS: THE FRENCH CONNECTION (France still rings proud 'n true in my mind since Mahogany Brain's SMOOTH SICK LIGHTS is also a daily dipper into Gallic grooves in the Velvets/Stooges tradition), Dredd Foole and the Din-THE WHYS OF FIRE, 15-60-75 (The Numbers Band)-20 and many more albums that I won't mention here because like, I've already wowed you with this bright eyed and bushy tailed batch of oh-so-important spins that'll undoubtedly make y'all jealous of not only me but the bountiful gathering of encompassing sounds available within my domain. Of course that domain can be even more bountiful-er, but only time and a rash of BTC-worthy releases will see to that.
Nice batch here anyway. Thanks be to the likes of Bill Shute, Paul McGarry and Feeding Tube for their efforts in keeping this blog from turning into SENIOR CITIZENS NEWS AND VIEWS. Which I guess someday it will become if I keep this thing goin' that long.
At least I've got my music to protect me just like Paul Simon had his books and poetry! And yeah, things have been improving on the musical front as of late...nothing as gnarly as a current throbbing musical scene mind ya, but items like the recent arrival of the Peter Laughner five-LP box set (a review winging your way next week---it needs that much scrutiny for it to be done up just right!) does give me hope that the feral drive of the seventies will continue to reverberate in my bean for the rest of my born days. I do know that in my incessant rah-rahing of musical trends past I sorta come off like those old fifties rockabilly guys who think that it really did all die when Buddy Holly et. al. died in that crash and that everything that came afterwards was nothing but mere piddle but really, once you get down to it is there anything inherently wrong with having a musical worldview as "horse-blindered" as that? Sounds pretty cool in its own downhome sorta suburban slob way in my book!
As usual, the forty-plus-year backlog of recordings in my collection is more'n what keeps me goin' these days, and what a pittance of platters I do have (at least in comparison to all of you readers' bulging at the seams stacks of records, tapes and whatnot) sure helps out in these times when there is comparatively very little that lights any farts in my brain. Current faves include the LA FEMME album which I've spewed way too much on a few weeks back but SO WHAT!, Blue Cheer's VINCEBUS ERUPTUM, Kim Fowley's ANIMAL GOD OF THE STREET, LES PUNKS: THE FRENCH CONNECTION (France still rings proud 'n true in my mind since Mahogany Brain's SMOOTH SICK LIGHTS is also a daily dipper into Gallic grooves in the Velvets/Stooges tradition), Dredd Foole and the Din-THE WHYS OF FIRE, 15-60-75 (The Numbers Band)-20 and many more albums that I won't mention here because like, I've already wowed you with this bright eyed and bushy tailed batch of oh-so-important spins that'll undoubtedly make y'all jealous of not only me but the bountiful gathering of encompassing sounds available within my domain. Of course that domain can be even more bountiful-er, but only time and a rash of BTC-worthy releases will see to that.
Nice batch here anyway. Thanks be to the likes of Bill Shute, Paul McGarry and Feeding Tube for their efforts in keeping this blog from turning into SENIOR CITIZENS NEWS AND VIEWS. Which I guess someday it will become if I keep this thing goin' that long.
And ya wonder where the new generation of sonic noise honk groove is comin' from! The duo of Rasmussen and Dorji perform pure energy as sound (or is it vice versa?) like no tenor sax/guitar duo since Peter Brotzmann and Sonny Sharrock, careening through some of the better and more heartfelt playing in ages. Rasmussen recalls Archie Shepp during his BYG heights. Dorji's strum brings to mind some of those French session guys who used to pop up on a variety of once-obscurities ne'er to be heard from again. His playing lacerates the entire structure like nothing since maybe even MONKEY POCKIE BOO or at least fellow guitar flagellater Keiji Haino, and it's all done up in glorious mid-fi that recalls many an indie jazz pressing of the seventies making it all the more feral. Somewhere in the afterlife Leonard Feather must be frowning.
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The Jokers-GUITAR BOOGIE CD-r burn
There have been so many groups in rockdom (and elsewhere) called "The Jokers" that you can count the number of 'em on one foot if you're an inbred. But one thing's for sure and that is these Jokers were a pretty nifty bunch of early-sixties instrumental rockers who make that nice and refined sorta sound that could appeal to your own folk as well as yourself. That is, if your own folk weren't the kind who thought ALL that kid stuff was worthless and not as true to time immemorial as the gunk they grew up with! Like the String-a-longs, these Jokers played the old classics along with the newies and although they don't "rock out" the way that the...say...Northwest groups did this sure goes down better in an early-sixties way than some of those cheap shots that made the charts at the time. I found it pleasurable enough in a suburban ranch house kick up your feet like Dennis the Menace's dad sorta way, and who knows, you might too!
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If you miss late-period Flamin' Groovies. If you miss mid-sixties gal pop. If you miss musical acts who tried to recreate the magic and energy of the mid-sixties and succeeded...well then you just might go for this particular effort from a group I ashamedly have not heard about before. While too many of these "revival" acts take on the superficial aspects of the quest the Parting Gifts have at least a little more than an inkling of why those records sounded so great to teenbos tuned into some Mom and Pop back 1966 way. Nuggets if you dug its abound. Stick it in the car stereo on some hot summer day and play it while driving around with the top down, though you girls might do better if you kept your blouses on.
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How sudzy can you get? I guess German housewives need something to listen to after they send der kinder off to school und bread the schnitzels. Hits of the late-sixties schmoozed up for members of the older generation who resented the music their offspring were listening to but perhaps felt guilty about it so they tortured themselves with these tamed takes they kinda kidded themselves into liking. Makes me want to make a meat loaf and macaroni and cheese before settling down for SECRET STORM.
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Music like this doesn't exactly APPEAL to me especially when I'm more in the mood for a searing beyond high energy sonic excursion, but since it's my job to learn ya people a thingie or two I shall make the supreme sacrifice. The gal sings good for a platinum blonde who used to be married to Newkirk and these sounds are bound to get your daddy all reminiscent of his 1962 hi-fi set. But really, the only reason you hot blooded COMM-sters would ever purchase this platter is for the hotcha snap on the cover...right???
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This is the way I like 'em what with all those olde tymey radio spots (Vernor's Ginger Ale, the TURTLE SOUP album, Salem cigarettes, Stan Freberg...), tee-vee show themes (remember TOUCHE TURTLE? I kinda/sorta do) and various seventies-era synthesizer news theme music. It's kinda like prowling through an old radio station that's been off the air for forty years yet nobody bothered to clean it up. Nice jingles and long-forgotten messterpieces sure bring back those memories of driving around in the car when you were a kid with those side vents directed right at'cha! And the weirdest thing about it is that Bill slapped on more of those weird ethnic tracks that sorta conjure up phantom belly pains from eating too much of that greasy rich food those kinda people like to shove down your throat.
***I know that you readers do not have the entire run of BLACK TO COMM in your collections like I kinda hoped you would. And if you are ashamed of this depressing fact (and why not!) you can make amends by purchasing as many of the still-available mags that I'm sure will do you good especially in this world of feh. C'mon, I won't hold it against you that you were too stoopid to buy these when they first came out!
Sheesh.
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