BLOG TO COMM

And so have I, Whit. In fact I kinda get the feeling that I'm one of the "whittiest" people in the under-the-counterculture rock blogging world and the last person I wanna see get offed is me!

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Welp, ya can't say that I didn't have fun this week, what with all of the EXTREME GULCHERAL LEARNING that has been crammed into my gourd these past few days! To be up and front about it, I sure did have a busier (yet fun filled) time not only listening to, enjoying and writing about the following items but by doing a whole lotta extracurricular reading that woulda gotten me an "A+" had this been fourth grade! Hadda forego making my way through the THIMBLE THEATER Sea Hag/Alice the Goon storyline (a real wowzer in the Popeye canon) in order to read a couple of extremely famous novels that I've only decided to approach in these later years of my life (reviews forthcoming), not to mention continue copying, reading and absorbing the various writings via Rocksbackpages I've been intensely glomming in order to keep myself totally bloated on that Golden Age of  Rock Screed Writing style ya just can't get any more. Y'know, the stuff which I know that more'n a few of us could use especially since the last forty years of "mainstream" rock criticism has been, for the most part, hypesheet cut 'n paste. That is, if "mainstream" rock criticism has even existed in the last twenty years. In all it's a lotta reading and writing that kinda reminds me of English classes during my High Stool days, though writing about a load of great records sure beats doing a term paper on "the manual retraction of koala foreskins".

The Mick Farren pieces were fine even with his occasional lapses into late-sixties rabblerouse, while I also felt that the relative pittance of Howard Wuelfing articles available were just what this jaded fanabla needed to keep on keeping on. You might think that I would hate Wuelfing because it has been mentioned to me that he thought that I wasn't such a good rockscribe because I really didn't listen to and relay what the music within those grooves had to say (or was it Ray Farrell?), but really I do not care. I don't care mainly because he was RIGHT about that. But then again it was sure hard to judge a 1988 indie album using the same intellectual/critical acumen that would have gone into an appreciation of say...Hackamore Brick or the Stooges a good fifteen years earlier. By that sorry time rock 'n roll was really hung out to dry (in fact it might have been mule skin for all it was worth) so like, why blame me for being more perceptive than the usual Big City rockscribe?

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Here's an interesting link (note- link has been discontinued until correct one can be found---see coments section for more information) that I sure hope a few of you more "progressive" readers (one in particular) will read. But of course, you can always deny it by "considering the source"! I mean, what else can ya do in these extremely enlightened times anyway?

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Anyhoo...the reviews. Bill, Paul and Bob are the ones to be blamed for the freebees, so kick them instead of me. I have enough heel marks on my buttocks as it stands already.

Sandy Bull-FANTASIAS FOR GUITAR AND BANJO LP (Alternative Fox Records)

If you never did find the original don't worry, because some label called Alternative Fox decided to reissue the debut album by legendary folk junkie Sandy Bull after years of it languishing in many a GOLDMINE auction list. And yes indeedy, this is an album that you really should have in your collection even if you HATE these more sensitive'n you'll ever be folk types because well...it's way different than the usual early-sixties hi-hoot spew. Let's just say that you'd never see Bull on some college campus being interviewed by Jack Linkletter for HOOTENANNY!

Actually what makes Bull so brash is the way he not only plays in a for-wont-of-a-better-term "folk" idiom but mixes country, blue and rock 'n roll into the sound making for a music that doofoid big-city critics would later call "World". However, way back during them phony intellectual sixties Bull was playing a hybrid that was so outside what everyone else was doing that he naturally got stuck in the same bins with Dylan and the rest of the world-saving bleats. Almost as bad as when the Flamin' Groovies got slipped into the "alternative music" section next to such similar acts as X and Frankie Goes To Hollywood because well...most of those record shop clerks were so STOOPID they didn't know any better.

Bee-youtiful trackage here from the side long "Blend" with Ornette drummer Billy Higgins adding a neo-mid-eastern beat jag to classical re-do's and updates to old Southern hoots all ending with a wild version of the old Ray Charles raver "I Got a Woman" entitled "Gospel Tune", the first documented recording of a folkie actually picking up an electric guitar and man does it work out the way you wanted it to!

The three other albums on Vanguard are worth finding too, so if you have some old beatno relative with a stash of platters rotting away somewhere look through 'em and steal whatever you can!

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HERE'S BRENDA LEE LP (Vocalion Records)

An' all I can think about while hearing this pubescent pouter singin' these classics is...how many big biz guys got to sample this commodity when she was young 'n fresh anyway??? Just how much was li'l Brenda passed around by alla those producers and executives while she was on the way to the big time? Sheesh, I can't stop thinking about all of her smilin' for promotional shots with those horrid memories of denture breath creepin' up her snatch! In fact it's even come to the point I can't even watch LEAVE IT TO BEAVER without wonderin' if li'l Benjy hadda withstand the might of some huge industry phallus rammin' up his "secret underwater cave". Sheesh, alla this metooism has gotten to me to the point of utter horror. Anyway, the gal sings pretty hokay even if I couldn't give one whit about the standard top pop material she happens to be belting out here.

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Red Dark Sweet-REAL WORLD PHANTASY CLE 8/30/86/Frank Kogan/RDS CD-r burn

The Phantasy portion of the Cee-Dee is unlike the rest of the Red Dark Sweet offerings heard recently as in that this version of the group features what sounds like a free form AACM-inspired jazz ensemble playing while old yodel records are inserted here and there. A total surprise if you were looking for the Red Dark Sweet featuring Charlotte Pressler on organ and Andrew Klimek on guitar. Frank Kogan's material fits in with the old Red Dark Sweet oeuvre as it features standard solo repeato-riff guitar (and bass guitar) playing mostly accompanying the typical twistoid lyrics that the man has become somewhat known for. The final Red Dark Sweet bit tends to confuse people like myself even more...but then again was this batch ever consistent with their approaches to the post-rock splatter of things in the first place? In all, just what any Cle-rock fan bred on seventies trauma would not only know, but love.

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Various Artists-BALLROOM BEAT VOL. 2 --- TRY ME OUT CD-r burn (originally on Psychic Circle Records)

Since I'm not as familiar with the gritty underbelly of mid-sixties English beat groups as many of you readers are I will say this came as a pleasant surprise. Twenty rare single sides from a whole buncha Beatles-era bands who knew that if you swiped a riff or chording from the Fab Ones you just might come up with a chart topper yourself. An' they all have that snappy pounce that all the Liverpool biggies had, only it obviously didn't do any of these groups good since these platter sold about as well as saltpeter in San Francisco. Mostly obscuros here, tho a non-Fenman Bern Elliot track shows up there and hey, do you think that the League of Gentlemen who turn up here are the same League that a pre-King Crimson Robert Fripp led before reviving that name for his post Frippertronics act 'round 1980 way? Just might be.

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Allman Joy-EARLY ALLMAN FEATURING DUANE AND GREG ALLMAN LP (Dial Records)

I remember back inna mid-eighties when ROLLING STOOL magazine was syndicating a rock history thingamajig to various "AOR" stations, a concept which I knew woulda sucked off the bat and obviously did since their episode on the "garage band era" featured acts along the line of Rush, Todd Rundgren and the Allman Brothers! Groups that obviously come to mind when anyone with a head on as tight as mine thinks about garage bands, eh? Now I can see Todd being included in the program if only due to his tenure with the Nazz and I once read an article by Anastasia Pantsios where the First Lady of Rock as Sixties Hippie Justification for all that Back Patting Going On called Rush a typical garage band (I can sure sleep soundly at night knowing that rock history is firmly in the hands of such erudite and capable people like her), but the Allman Brothers, a group who I have always associated with the more boring moments of mainstream Dixiefied rock? Sheee-yucks!

Well, maybe not since the very hotcha and downright reliable Giovanni Dadomo mentioned the pre-Allman Brothers group called Allman Joy's 1966 "Gotta Get Away" single as being a boffo garage rocker in his "A to Z's of Punk" piece that appeared in some '76 ish of SOUNDS. Trusty guy that wop-a-dago, and that's why I got this album if not only for yet another trip into sixties downhome trash music but for a little change from the usual changes I've been going through these past few years.

Turns out "Gotta Get Away" which starts off this collection of early singles and demo sides is a fairly good teenage rocker, not as flash as any of those "base" groups that ROLLING STONE would not touch with a ten foot pole but entertaining enough. Unfortunately the rest of EARLY ALLMAN tends to flop about with the better moments sounding like bargain basement Paul Revere and the Raiders circa. 1967 and the others just failing miserably as if you'd really wanna hear these bro's do their version of "Old Man River" and a pretty low-key "Spoonful". Not exactly my idea of a high energy rock 'n roll time, but I get the feeling that the folk at ROLLING STONE, Anastasia Pantsios and maybe even Rush themselves would approve.

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Frederick Fennel/Eastman Wind Ensemble-SOUND OFF = MARCHES BY JOHN PHILIP SOUSA LP (Mercury Records)

Back durin' the mid-seventies I remember a whole lotta record burnin' goin' on due to the supposedly occult sexual beats that developed in the deepest darkest reaches of Biloxi Mississippi. Beats that, coupled with the overt sexualis lyrics and naughty album covers, did send a whole lotta mid-Amerigan parents righteously marching into their kids bedrooms to snatch Frank Zappa albums and smash them to little pieces. Not to mention, getting off the subject slightly, irately call up the local PBS station which resulted in them moving MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS to a later time slot. But when asked what kind of music Young Ameriga should be listening to I recall one smart fellow mentioning that John Philip Sousa marches would be just the nicest, dandiest thing to cool off those hot randy kids and turn 'em into the meek and milquetoast beings that parents really could suppress like it should be!

WHOZE THAT GUY KIDDIN' ANYWAY????? After listening to this album I have come to believe that march music is the real inhibition-tossing sex stirrer that could ruin one's soul. The twenties may have had the saxophone and the fifties Elvis swivvilin' his hips but both have NOTHING on the "oompah" sounds that could get unaware teenbos hotter'n you-know-what faster than you can say Grover Cleveland! Those Sousaphone sounds may as well represent the pea-soup-like bubblin' goin' on in the nether-regions while the steady beat is extremely close to the carnal act itself. If you listen to these marches while watching those Victorian gals bare all for those Muybridge photo sessions (all put together for your enjoyment on youtube...just keep telling yourself that it's historical and art and you won't feel so guilty) you'll get an idea of just how swinging the 1880s coulda been!

Best part of it is you can easily get away with listening to this since most folk will just think you're another cube who might as well be a white supremacist since listening to march music and white nationalism go hand in hand, especially if someone on Twitter says so! But eh, I'll get over it the same way I got over people thinking I was the evilest person ever for saying I enjoyed 14th Century English and French religious compositions. And come to think of it, this album contains the infamous "Liberty Bell March" which Python used as the theme to their much admired television series which I get the feeling will be censored heavily itself as the days roll on, for all the wrong reasons of course.

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Andrew Klimek-WCSB (MID-80's) PARTS ONE AND TWO CD-r burns

Yes, the former and future X-Whatever-X singer and guitarist actually did a dee-jaying gig on Cleveland State University radio back 'round 1986 way, and thankfully these recordings are around to remind us of just how boffo those local college radio shows coulda been. The first disque begins with an editorial by some whiny feminist (sheesh, they had whiny feminists even then!) and then gets into a whole array of sounds both good (Velvet Underground galore!) and not so (the Feelies) with loads of newer than ever new music 'n jazz thrown in to keep you listeners on your tootsies.

A lotta the stuff that Andrew got from the old New Music Distribution Service really doesn't jangle my joints but it was nice to give such obscurities by the likes of John Zorn and Elliot Sharp a listen at least once, and the overall effect was akin to had I actually turned on the radio, kicked up feet and enjoyed the proceedings as they happened a good 35 years back. Interspersing Allan Kaprow and a variety of tracks (sometimes on top of each other!) was a brilliant idea! Sure would love to hear the Charlotte Pressler shows she did for the very same station around the very same time (hint hint!).

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Various Artists-SILVER INNERSPACE LOVEBELLS CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Bill gets all bellbottoms and pukka on this collection, a "mixtape" for people who might have a little bit too mixed up in their heads already! I can just see Bill slippin' on his Nehru Jacket and ploppin' on a whole buncha love beads as everything from "The Farm" and the Chambers Brothers to Terry Reid do their doody while Bill swings and sways away! And don't laff because I know I'd be doin' the exact same thing and my girth probably makes Bill look like Twiggy in comparison! Thankfully the likes of doo wopper Eddie Delmar and a funkified Chuck Berry arrive in time before anyone can throw their sacroiliac out.

Oh yeah, you get more of that late-eighties more amerindie than thou music from the Silver Jews tryin' to milk Lou Reed for even more than he was worth not to mention one of those Sonic Youth tracks recorded a bit after I stopped listening. So if you're keen on these thirty-plus-year-old phenomenons well, you're in luck!

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When history is recorded and everything has been said about the state of the fanzine art in the late-twentieth to early twenty-first centuries one thing can be certain. And that is everyone will then know that I will never have been able to sell all of the BACK ISSUES OF BLACK TO COMM that lie unmolested just waiting for eager rock 'n roll fans to latch up with unrestrained abandon. Let's prove history wrong for once, eh?