BLOG TO COMM

Well here we are in 2020, a year (and beginning of a decade unless you're one of those mathematical sticklers with puckered up anuses) where I hope we can all think 20/20 ifyaknowaddamean... But as for any great hopes for the upcoming ten years well...lessee, that makes it FIVE decades I lived in that were relatively---naw---EXTREMELY blah, and from the bottom of my rectum let me be the first to predict that the next ten ain't gonna be any bit better if not downright worse. Hooo boy, what we have to look forward to what with all the EVIL things that have been happening in my lifetime being magnified even more... And worse if you can imagine. I mean, if you can't stand slobbering homos smooching each other to rapturous applause and twerking ten-year-olds in the present day and age imagine what we're gonna hafta endure once December 2029 rolls around!

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So in order to keep SANE ya gotta concentrate on all the GOOD stuff that probably will happen, like the archival upheavals of even more good sixties/seventies digs that we've been waiting to hear our entire lives. Those early Velvet Underground ca. the Falling Spikes and Warlocks days recordings are bound to hit the boards and who knows what other fineries will make their way to our ears as the days roll on. And hey, maybe more of those old-tyme tee-vee channels pumping alla the great goodies of the past will keep us from going bonkers at night (sheesh, remember when PRIME TIME (actually starting when the evening news ended and the pre-net reruns began) used to be that big fambly party where we'd all have fun time and ate popcorn and watched shows that really hit us right between our existence? Boy was that long ago!), or maybe they'll bring back alla that food that we used to love as kids but got taken offa the market by a bunch of blue noses who know better'n Albert Einstein and Don Fellman COMBINED! Boy, sometimes I could just cry for a Shake-A-Puddin', banana flavor that is.

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Gotta give credit to those who did their bestest to make sure this post gets the next ten years rollin' off in the right direction. Thanx as usual goes to Bill, Paul and especially P. D. FADENSONNEN who sent me a beautiful batch of burns that have kept me locked in my room like nothing since the time I discovered that cache of old NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC hula girl issues. I ain't gonna review all of 'em in one sitting thus shooting my load (sorry) all at once leaving future posts relatively bare, but as you can see a good portion of this week's reviews do feature my belated Christmas gift of which I am eternally grateful. Now I could have thanked Mr. Fadensonnen with a nice gooey thank you via email, but I figure wha' th' hey, why not do it in public just so people can see that I am not the ingrate that I am often made out to be. Anyway, a big golly gee goes to you sir, and once again thank you for helping to make the final days of the 'teens a whole lot more pleasant than I had originally thought they were gonna be!

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Just a friendly reminder to keep der environment clean mein little schnitzels!

Luciano Berio/Pierre Boulez/Karlheinz Stockhausen/Olivier Messiaen-SERINATA I/SONATINE/CANTEYODJAYA/ZEITMASZE LP (Fantome Fonographiq Records, Italy)

When I was lunging through my GREAT AVANT GARDE MUSIC EDUCATIONAL CRAM OF 1978 these kinda records were harder to find than spendthrifts in Scotland. Now my collection is so fulla these interesting atonal blares that I kinda wonder how I ever got through the dry spell. My cyster going to college in Cleveland thus giving me time to prowl local used record shops while visiting her is how!

This is the kinda rec I sure wish was around back then, what with it containing some '57 recordings made by a few of the greats in the "new music" category doing their best to drive mom and dad outta the rec room. Tho I personally prefer Luciano Berio with the Swingle Singers and Stockhausen when he's cutting up tapes and making a horrendous roar (or Messiaen when he's playing the pipe organ at Notre Dame) these ensemble and solo tracks should be of some interest to those who like the new classical music either because of its historical significance, or because of its influence on the "new" rock, or maybe even because it's a good noise resesifier that can cleanse your soul out like prunes on your colon!

This is a limited to 500 pressing so if you don't get it now, wait until the next 500 pressing!

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The Stooges-COMPLETE DETROIT 1973 REHEARSALS DISC ONE CD-r burn

The first of the Fadensonnen batch which, like I said, I prefer to listen to piece by piece rather'n overdose in its entirety. These have been issued and re-issued before but I don't think I've heard it all before so it might be new to me! And you too so if you haven't given a listen to that Rolling Stones circa. 1970 country bloozer that opens this thing up or the various takes and retakes of old faves you're in luck!

Frankly I think I can listen to all of the takes of both "Search and Destroy" and "Raw Power" that exist in this world of ours, and if those songs continue to sear your psychotic side like they tend to do mine you couldn't do wrong by latching onto these rehearsal sides which might be just as simple as doin' a li'l internet search and fryin' away!

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Jack Wright/Murray Reams-LIVE @ KILLTIME, PHILADELPHIA PA 1/22/91 CD-r burn

Having listened to this late at night when the mind was feelin' woozier'n usual I thought this was some recently unearthed FRANK Wright recording! My error, though these Wrights sure do it the right way with their over-the-edge saxophone playing which brings that late-sixties zeitgeist back faster'n you can say Phoebe an' I don't mean Snow! Sax/drum duets that ain't as brash as the Frank Lowe/Rashied Ali album but better'n INTERSTELLAR SPACE---really. Not essential, but a fine antidote to Jazz Incorporated no matter how you put it!

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The Modern Lovers-LIVE @ STONEHENGE CLUB, IPSWICH MA 71/72 (?) SET ONE CD-r burn

Hah, a surprisingly good quality live tape that I'm surprised hasn't gotten out to the lumpen proles a whole lot earlier. Richman and Co. sound even more swinging than anticipated what with the Doors-inspired instrumental breaks and a general wrapping up of everything you liked in rock 'n roll ca. 1966-69 rolled up into one neat package that'll make you forget all of the bad stuff that was goin' on at the time. Pretty nice slab of teenbo Amerigana that only the Modern Lovers really could present to us as that New Suburban Folk Music that would make deep inroads once the seventies rolled on and on...

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The Magic Band-FALL 1974 DEMO CD-r burn

If I ain't mistaken ain't this really Mallard? Y'know, the post-Beefheart version of the Magic Band that sorta got the pink slip before recording two albums for Virgin? Y'know again, those platters that I was warned over and over again NOT to buy lest I lose my faith in the power and the glory of what Van Vliet and company presented to us during those abstract days of the late-sixties? If so, I can see why many would think Mallard would be verboten with my own sense of musical maleficence.

Not that it's rancid by any stretch of whatever's left of my imagination, but the neo-country West Coast rock approach just ain't the kinda thing that grasps at anything that makes music such a major part of my own reason for existence. A looooooong way from MIRROR MAN altho if I did see them albums for a buck apiece in some flea market pile I would snatch 'em up just to dolly up the collection a bit.

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Spacemen 3-HOW THE BLUES SHOULD'VE TURNED OUT 2-CD-r burn set (Sonic Boom self-released)

I pretty much gave up on most of them various eighties groups who were re-creating the heights of sixties/seventies innovation, perhaps because I thought the original takes were way better and since many of these things were being reissued why bother with the imitations! Spaceman 3 were but one of those acts who got shoved to the back of the bus while the purge was set in place, and other'n that Silver Apples-related effort (Spectrum) I pretty much avoided 'em the same way many of you readers avoid soap.

Perhaps I was being a bit hasty in my judging of these more-recent encapsulators of the form, for this collection of trackage from the collection of Spaceman Sonic Boom really does put forth a good effort as far as reviving the past while adding something new to it. And all the while not losing much if any of the sound and spirit that made the originals so fun to listen to.

Yeah I know we've had way too many of these Velvets/Stooges/Roky/Free Jazz mergers that just don't ring as true as they did in the late-seventies, but I'm surprised how Spacemen Three can get rid of the usual pretension that may have crept into a few of those early-eighties Rough Trade efforts and bring everything back down to that bare THUD. Disque 1 sure does that with a total boil down to the bare essentials rock that sounds loud even when the volume is toned way down...familiar tracks like "TV Eye" and "Hey Man" (actually a rock version of that "Amen" song from LILLIES OF THE FIELD which may have been adapted into its more recent form down the road---I dunno) come off like that true heavy metal in its early-seventies definition even if Andy Secher would be the last man to admit it. The more psychedelic numbers on the other platter are mixed with such remarkable entries as an electronic "Modulated Tones" and an acoustic "Transparent Radiation" which does have a particularly sentimental charm.

These flashes of the week usually come and go, and I know what its like to plunk down hard-begged shekels only to find out that the hype just might be mightier than the jamz. But with this 'un I realize that some of these under-the-counterculture faves just might have had their own sense of rockist gyrospection (gyrospheric introspection, that is!) that made their efforts to create the past almost as good as the past itself was. Only I was too obsessed with various superficial aspects of the quest to have noticed.

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Various Artists-IN THE MORNING AFTER THE POLAR JET CROWD CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

One of the stranger Bill burns true. Lotsa furrin pop stuff here that makes me think this was taped in the commissary at the United Nations, and while the representatives from Cutchakockov and Crackafarta are fighting over who gets the last zebra steak one can imagine songs by such acts as the Bulawayo Street Rhythm Band from Rhodesia (who I guess did not get the stamp of approval from Ian Smith!) and Raymond Legrand's "Istanbul" proudly playing from the ceiling speakers.

One must wonder just why the Czechoslovakian Rebels would want to cover the Mamas and the Papas' "Creeque Alley" (and they had the nerve to jail the Plastic People of the Universe rather than these mokes!) while I get the idea that Nisar Bazmi's ALL we're gonna be hearin' before they tighten the immigration laws!

If you are in the mood for some "Amerigan" stuff there's Jack Jones singing "The In Crowd" (whoopee) and a Shelley Berman routine which makes me wish the guy made more TWILIGHT ZONE appearances 'stead of deliver this dull mulch that I could not ooze even a snicker outta.

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As we slide into what obviously will be known as "The Boring Twenties" perhaps its best to fortify your rockism soul with a few still-available issues of BLACK TO COMM. But hurry, because supplies are limited...limited to all I can SELL, that is!