Well hey, wasn't that quite a week we had there, just jam packed with a whole lotta action you just couldn't get outta Parcheesi? Y'know, I was gonna make a whole lotta wizecracks about the recent riots that a few Precious Prunellas out there would find EXTREMELY offensive, so I won't (personally, """""I""""" don't think my jokes are that out-of-bounds but what's my opinion worth anyway?). However, if you want I'll tell ya a few on request---y'see, I am one guy who thinks along the same lines as Saul Alinsky in that I "Never let a good crisis go without some bad taste jibes" I ALWAYS say!
Anyway I do hope you readers had a fun time with all that violence and looting that was goin' on, and I sure do get the idea that a few of you were out showin' the world just how much you care and are more virtuous than the next bozo by smashing in windows and liberating all those flat screen tee-vees from their capitalistic bondage. I'll bet even MoeLarryandJesus was out and about doing what comes naturally to him when his social conscience starts a' stirrin', though I do get the sneakin' suspicion that he just might have sat this one out. After all, I didn't read about any Fredericks of Hollywood being emptied of their valuable wares. 'n besides, MLJ would look pretty silly going back asking for alterations anyway.
Spontaneous Music Ensemble & Orchestra-TRIO & TRIANGLE CD (Emanem)
More free play from John Stevens and whoever the Ensemble happened to be this time. Not as sparse sounding as that duo version of the act reviewed a few weeks back, but lacking the fullness of slow-motion gnarl that the classic ONE, TWO, ALBERT AYLER exuded through both of its sides (looking for that 'un in my massive record collection if only for a deserved re-play). Good selection of players here from Lol Coxhill to Paul Rutherford make sure that most would find no semblance of structure or form anywhere within these vibrations.
Chico Hamilton-EL EXIGENTE (THE DEMANDING ONE) CD-r burn (originally on Flying Dutchman Records)
In what has gotta be the downright surprise of the week (frankly I wasn't expecting that much!), Bob Thiele and his Flying Dutchman label present a really hot live side from noted drummer Chico Hamilton and band. Playing in between free and fusion, EL EXITENTE rocks out when necessary and has that bared-wire nerve-scrape that always ups the intensity levels on a whole buncha jazz disques that might not matter to you that much if it weren't for the rawness of it all. Incredible stuff especially when you realize that guitarist Bob Mann has lent his strings to many a musical downer (James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt...) throughout his checkered career. Kudos also go to altoist Arnie Lawrence, bassist Steve Swallow and of course drummer/leader Hamilton who sure was a whole lot more faceted in the realm of jazz than all of the "light jazz" stars present in the here and now.
Pere Ubu-PARIS 12/13/78 Cd-r burn
Ubu were still at the top of whatever form they were at the top of on this live disque recorded in front of a really wild Parisian audience, proving once again that the French were more rock 'n roll than a whole lotta Anglo types woulda given 'em credit for. Sound's typical late-seventies portable cassette which adds to the excitement even if you can't quite make out Crocus Behemoth's wailing sing-song patter, and the band rocks out surprisingly well considering just how much they lost in sound after going the single guitar route. Contains selections from the first two longplayers and even a version of "Final Solution" done before Crocus disowned that song, at least until the Rocket From The Tombs reunion that is. A good time seemed to be had by all.
Various Artists-SPIRITUAL JAZZ VOLUME TEN : PRESTIGE RECORDS CD-r burn (originally of Jazzman Records, England)
I dunno what you think nor do I care, but I find these sixties-era "spiritual jazz" recordings as down-to-earth moving as those soaring cathedrals of sonic styling that the likes of Coltrane and Coleman were recording around the same time. Big names and not-so's appear on this sampler taken from the Prestige catalog including Roy Haynes, Yusef Lateef, Mal Waldron and Moondog (with a rather neo-baroque yet Sun Ra-esque organ/percussion entry). Hokay, perhaps it really ain't as spiritual as I would have been led to believe (esp. after reading the piece on said subject via the Forced Exposure website) but I am moved enough.
Various Artists-THE HIP WALK - JAZZ UNDERCURRENTS IN 60's NEW YORK CD-r burn (originally on BGP Records, England)
As you can tell, I'm really immersed in a sixties jazz of a non-"atonal energy" (not to be demeaning 'r anything) between-the-notes splash this week! This additional sampler courtesy who else but Bill Shute really drives home the sixties/seventies hard bop neo-r/b bent that didn't quite go over the edge but drives hard just the same to the point where you KNOW why this music was just as important to the Stooges as Archie Shepp. Lotsa big names here, mostly of people who I never really paid much attention to because...well, there were things like Rough Trade catalogs to pour through 'n all. But now that I'm older and have some time to sink into this universe I find these efforts to be---well, quite cathartic if you want me to get all brainy about it.
Bill Anderson-WHERE HAVE ALL OUR HEROES GONE? LP (Decca Records)
Bill tells it like it not only was but is on this 1970 effort, the title track deservedly becoming a boffo C/W hit at a time where country hadn't yet traversed that dark road to the decadence factory like way too many other musical genres. True "Where Have All Our Heroes Gone?" gets into play-it-safe "Dawn of Correction" mode and tries to cover all sorts of bases (I don't get the feelin' that mentioning the Kennedys and Martin Luther King would have gone over with Anderson's audience the way bringing up Gene Autry and Douglas MacArthur did!), but it sure comes off fine as a talk/sing clarion call as to all of the wrong moves that have happened in Ameriga that we never really could nip in the bud even when the nippin' was good. An' lookin' at the miasma they call today I sure wish they did---sheesh, why didn't we listen to Spiro Agnew and Anita Bryant when we had the chance?!?! Lotsa great old time steel guitar and Anderson's soft voice that woulda guaranteed any South of the Mason/Dixon Line gal to lose all inhibition!
Various Artists-VAULTAGE '79 - ANOTHER TWO SIDES OF BRIGHTON CD-r burn (originally on Attrix Records, England)
I was hoping for more. Like perhaps some hard-gnash 70s/80s cusp neo-Rough Trade experimental angular sounds, the sort of rock 'n roll that was captivating more'n a few hard-edged types during those rather crucial years. All I got on this 'un was some rather dippy neo-power pop (without the power or pop) and various lame stabs at some sort of rock expression that doesn't even have that much of a spark to begin with in order for it to fizzle out. If I ever go to England, remind me not to go to Brighton.
Red Dark Sweet-JB's Down Under 4/26/85; JUNGLE CLE 8/10/86 CD-r burn
Oh man is this something that really brings back the memories of what was RIGHT with eighties under-the-underground rock 'n roll modes, music that we could still listen to and ENJOY TO ITS FULLEST years after much of the other stuff still seems stuck inna world of outdated hippie youth manifesto.
First track's a live medley starting off with that familiar Red Dark Sweet warmup "Reuben's Train" which merges into "What Goes On" complete with some amazing modal guitar lines before ending up somehow as "Sister Ray" or a neat variation thereof. The long spoken tracks from (I assume) Andrew Klimek and Charlotte Pressler might seem like denouement, and given how hard it was to follow what they (or at least Andrew) were saying maybe it was. But eh, I really like that World War II song Pressler sings to a pre-recorded backing, sorta a spirit-depressing number for a change!
The Pressler/Klimek back and forth goes on for quite awhile as that music tape plays in the background, Pressler channeling Patti Smith at her streetsiest while Klimek even gets into a big to-do with some heckler and does some rather caustic spoken threats cum prose himself! And it all ends with a long piece of musique concrete that Klimek mutters over leaving one with the strange impression that he's just waking up from one of those dreams ya get after taking too much Ny Quil the evening prior.
An' in case you don't get the drift---this is a rather neato change from the usual hard grind.
Various Artists-ON THE BUMMER SIDE OF THE STREET CD-r burn (Bill Shute)
A needed surprise in my otherwise fanabla'd up life not only because of the return of the "Death Killers" (who do an ode to Homer Simpson tho whether they mean the cartoon character or the tragic doof of DAY OF THE LOCUST fame I dunno) but because of the needed surprises including a "Raunchy"-fied instrumental called "Switchblade" to some soul food gone Mejican entitled "Chitlins Con Carne". Sure ya get some guys doing their best to turn "She's Not There" into a sludge even worse than Santana did while the Rod Keith "song poem" ain't anything for you sophisticated urban snobs to snicker over, but things like the instrumentals "Prayer Meetin'" and"Blue Organ" not forgetting Lois Lee's nth grade Connie Francisisms and the downer garage of the Newcomers will have you doing cartwheels across the floor more than Procol Harum would have dreamed of! And considering how cooped up you muse be throwin' out your sacroiliac to this just might be the thing the doc did order!
Anyway I do hope you readers had a fun time with all that violence and looting that was goin' on, and I sure do get the idea that a few of you were out showin' the world just how much you care and are more virtuous than the next bozo by smashing in windows and liberating all those flat screen tee-vees from their capitalistic bondage. I'll bet even MoeLarryandJesus was out and about doing what comes naturally to him when his social conscience starts a' stirrin', though I do get the sneakin' suspicion that he just might have sat this one out. After all, I didn't read about any Fredericks of Hollywood being emptied of their valuable wares. 'n besides, MLJ would look pretty silly going back asking for alterations anyway.
***You might wonder what I have been up to this past week. Well, not rioting I'll tell ya. Actually, between slopping the cyster and screamin' my lungs out at the hogs I have been spending some time at THE NEXT BIG THING catching up on my reading by downloading some of those old, long out-of-print issues which you can retrieve here if you're smart enough to hunger for these mags. I unfortunately missed on many of these the first go 'round, and although at one time NBT editor Lindsay Hutton was rather reticent or some other fancy word about running off copies for me (which I would have gladly paid for...I mean what kind of Scotsman is he?) he obviously relented and decided to make the entire run of his legendary fanzine available for all to read for (that all important word ) FREE!!! I for one am sure glad of this, especially since original issues of NBT can set you back inna wallet, it's that important of a magazine as far as the annals of rockism most surely go. I do hope that Hutton's actions will inspire some old type fanzine editors to make their seventies efforts equally available to the public since hey, I sure could use some issues of PANACHE (especially the first one with Iggy and Linda Ronstadt and Pink Floyd bootleg reviews hyped onna cover!) and JUNGLELAND in my abode! You more-anti-capitalist-than-thou guys always talk about stickin' it to the man and people over profits...well, why dontcha PROVE IT sometimes and make your now expensive wares a li'l less costly to us peon rock fans!
***AND SPEAKING OF OLDE TYMEY FANZINES, BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR THIS! Yes, the entire run of the English fanzine PENETRATION has been collected in book form for all you mid-late seventies followers of the big beat and related sputum. You may remember PENETRATION not only for their in-depth coverage of the under-the-underground British scene (Hawkwind, Pink Fairies, Steve Took...) but for the way they threw themselves into the burgeoning punk rock groups there long before many imbecilic pre-teens knew what a safety pin was supposed to be used for! It's definitely a must to have if you're into the pre-schmooze style of writing that came to prominence in the eighties annals of rock journalism, though as you would have guessed GOOD LUCK FINDING IT! My attempts so far have been futile, but like the trooper that I am I am still attempting to latch my paws upon this undoubtedly NECESSARY addition to any tru blu BLOG TO COMM reader's library! Any reader out there willing to help me? I can pay you back in all the BLACK TO COMM back issues you better need!
***Pardon moi, but I just gotta say that my writing really sucks more than usual this week...I hope if's only a short phase, one that will hopefully last shorter than the last twenty-year writer's block I suffered. I blame it on the excessive gas building up in my colon, and that too shall pass.
***Not that much to brag about this week, but I think the tasty items presented will sate your musical palate rather well. Paul McGarry will be mad that I didn't include any of his freebees this go 'round, but maybe next time. Bill Shute and Bob Forward might be glad that I used some of theirs, but I doubt it.
More free play from John Stevens and whoever the Ensemble happened to be this time. Not as sparse sounding as that duo version of the act reviewed a few weeks back, but lacking the fullness of slow-motion gnarl that the classic ONE, TWO, ALBERT AYLER exuded through both of its sides (looking for that 'un in my massive record collection if only for a deserved re-play). Good selection of players here from Lol Coxhill to Paul Rutherford make sure that most would find no semblance of structure or form anywhere within these vibrations.
***
In what has gotta be the downright surprise of the week (frankly I wasn't expecting that much!), Bob Thiele and his Flying Dutchman label present a really hot live side from noted drummer Chico Hamilton and band. Playing in between free and fusion, EL EXITENTE rocks out when necessary and has that bared-wire nerve-scrape that always ups the intensity levels on a whole buncha jazz disques that might not matter to you that much if it weren't for the rawness of it all. Incredible stuff especially when you realize that guitarist Bob Mann has lent his strings to many a musical downer (James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt...) throughout his checkered career. Kudos also go to altoist Arnie Lawrence, bassist Steve Swallow and of course drummer/leader Hamilton who sure was a whole lot more faceted in the realm of jazz than all of the "light jazz" stars present in the here and now.
***
Ubu were still at the top of whatever form they were at the top of on this live disque recorded in front of a really wild Parisian audience, proving once again that the French were more rock 'n roll than a whole lotta Anglo types woulda given 'em credit for. Sound's typical late-seventies portable cassette which adds to the excitement even if you can't quite make out Crocus Behemoth's wailing sing-song patter, and the band rocks out surprisingly well considering just how much they lost in sound after going the single guitar route. Contains selections from the first two longplayers and even a version of "Final Solution" done before Crocus disowned that song, at least until the Rocket From The Tombs reunion that is. A good time seemed to be had by all.
***
I dunno what you think nor do I care, but I find these sixties-era "spiritual jazz" recordings as down-to-earth moving as those soaring cathedrals of sonic styling that the likes of Coltrane and Coleman were recording around the same time. Big names and not-so's appear on this sampler taken from the Prestige catalog including Roy Haynes, Yusef Lateef, Mal Waldron and Moondog (with a rather neo-baroque yet Sun Ra-esque organ/percussion entry). Hokay, perhaps it really ain't as spiritual as I would have been led to believe (esp. after reading the piece on said subject via the Forced Exposure website) but I am moved enough.
***
As you can tell, I'm really immersed in a sixties jazz of a non-"atonal energy" (not to be demeaning 'r anything) between-the-notes splash this week! This additional sampler courtesy who else but Bill Shute really drives home the sixties/seventies hard bop neo-r/b bent that didn't quite go over the edge but drives hard just the same to the point where you KNOW why this music was just as important to the Stooges as Archie Shepp. Lotsa big names here, mostly of people who I never really paid much attention to because...well, there were things like Rough Trade catalogs to pour through 'n all. But now that I'm older and have some time to sink into this universe I find these efforts to be---well, quite cathartic if you want me to get all brainy about it.
***
Bill tells it like it not only was but is on this 1970 effort, the title track deservedly becoming a boffo C/W hit at a time where country hadn't yet traversed that dark road to the decadence factory like way too many other musical genres. True "Where Have All Our Heroes Gone?" gets into play-it-safe "Dawn of Correction" mode and tries to cover all sorts of bases (I don't get the feelin' that mentioning the Kennedys and Martin Luther King would have gone over with Anderson's audience the way bringing up Gene Autry and Douglas MacArthur did!), but it sure comes off fine as a talk/sing clarion call as to all of the wrong moves that have happened in Ameriga that we never really could nip in the bud even when the nippin' was good. An' lookin' at the miasma they call today I sure wish they did---sheesh, why didn't we listen to Spiro Agnew and Anita Bryant when we had the chance?!?! Lotsa great old time steel guitar and Anderson's soft voice that woulda guaranteed any South of the Mason/Dixon Line gal to lose all inhibition!
***
I was hoping for more. Like perhaps some hard-gnash 70s/80s cusp neo-Rough Trade experimental angular sounds, the sort of rock 'n roll that was captivating more'n a few hard-edged types during those rather crucial years. All I got on this 'un was some rather dippy neo-power pop (without the power or pop) and various lame stabs at some sort of rock expression that doesn't even have that much of a spark to begin with in order for it to fizzle out. If I ever go to England, remind me not to go to Brighton.
***
Oh man is this something that really brings back the memories of what was RIGHT with eighties under-the-underground rock 'n roll modes, music that we could still listen to and ENJOY TO ITS FULLEST years after much of the other stuff still seems stuck inna world of outdated hippie youth manifesto.
First track's a live medley starting off with that familiar Red Dark Sweet warmup "Reuben's Train" which merges into "What Goes On" complete with some amazing modal guitar lines before ending up somehow as "Sister Ray" or a neat variation thereof. The long spoken tracks from (I assume) Andrew Klimek and Charlotte Pressler might seem like denouement, and given how hard it was to follow what they (or at least Andrew) were saying maybe it was. But eh, I really like that World War II song Pressler sings to a pre-recorded backing, sorta a spirit-depressing number for a change!
The Pressler/Klimek back and forth goes on for quite awhile as that music tape plays in the background, Pressler channeling Patti Smith at her streetsiest while Klimek even gets into a big to-do with some heckler and does some rather caustic spoken threats cum prose himself! And it all ends with a long piece of musique concrete that Klimek mutters over leaving one with the strange impression that he's just waking up from one of those dreams ya get after taking too much Ny Quil the evening prior.
An' in case you don't get the drift---this is a rather neato change from the usual hard grind.
***
A needed surprise in my otherwise fanabla'd up life not only because of the return of the "Death Killers" (who do an ode to Homer Simpson tho whether they mean the cartoon character or the tragic doof of DAY OF THE LOCUST fame I dunno) but because of the needed surprises including a "Raunchy"-fied instrumental called "Switchblade" to some soul food gone Mejican entitled "Chitlins Con Carne". Sure ya get some guys doing their best to turn "She's Not There" into a sludge even worse than Santana did while the Rod Keith "song poem" ain't anything for you sophisticated urban snobs to snicker over, but things like the instrumentals "Prayer Meetin'" and"Blue Organ" not forgetting Lois Lee's nth grade Connie Francisisms and the downer garage of the Newcomers will have you doing cartwheels across the floor more than Procol Harum would have dreamed of! And considering how cooped up you muse be throwin' out your sacroiliac to this just might be the thing the doc did order!
Yes, back issues of BLACK TO COMM can still be obtained with the mere flick of a keystroke! Bet you never knew that before! Do what dozens have done and illuminate yourself with long-forbidden rockism knowledge that has been SUPPRESSED for as long as this mag has fearlessly been striving to get the TRUTH out despite the well-funded efforts of those who have been trying to TEAR IT DOWN for the last sixtysome years. Get them, before they come to get you!***
Bill Anderson = Mister Cuck
ReplyDeleteYou can order the Penetration book from Amazon UK:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.amazon.co.uk/Penetration-Rock-Magazine-Compilation-featuring/dp/1090331797
Or you may want to contact the author directly:
https://paulwelshwriter.wordpress.com/contact/
Steve
So when will you be making the complete run of Puds/Fuds/Bukakkes-To-Comm available online, Chris? Or at least the first 10 issues, which you are not actively flogging in every column. There's lots of good shit in those early issues. Some of it was even written by you.
ReplyDeleteSo did you and Ron House ever reconcile?
footnote: both Charlotte & Andrew had radio shows on WCSB back in those days (next pkg, guy)....(
ReplyDeleteThe Penetration collection is $45 from Amazon. Just use your FOT (Friend Of Trump) discount and you can get it for $44.99! Plus, of course, $25 for the renewal of your FOT membership.
ReplyDeletePlz goyim! For the back date issues, some shekels! Plz! Coveted collector items! Good investment!
ReplyDeleteAh! Chico Hamilton! The times we spent smoking reefer in LA and NYC! The man could smoke him some weed! Righteous!
ReplyDeletemy Chico Hamilton experience: a few years ago i bought a used copy of his "best of" dbl lp on Impulse!. For some reason i didn't peruse the condition of both lps because it looked like someone stubbed out a cig or a joint on the 1st track of lp one (embedded ash and all!). Great dbl lp &, uh, some history there...which i learned once I got home!
ReplyDeletelol i guess cap'n bee fart is out of style? lol as if he were ever in style lol what hoppen'd to the good cap'n? lol
ReplyDeleteI hear ML&J has got repetitive strain injury from taking the knee to every black person he meets. He even 'goes down' on both knees if it's a black male, if ya know worrimean! White Liberals Matter!
ReplyDeleteScottish Nazis, on the other hand, are just sick sacks of Saxon-subservient sloat shit.
ReplyDelete