IT'S BOOTLEG BRAGADOCCIO TIME ONCE AGIN FER ALL YOU OLDE TYME BEAT UP
RECORD STORE AND HIPPIE HEAD SHOP BACK ROOM PROWLERS YOU!
Never thought I'd scrounge together enough platters to fill up another one
of these trips back in time into the age of alla that illicit vinyl that seemed
so mystical and contraband to the point where I usedta hide mine inna pile just so's some cops peeking into my windows wouldn't bust me. Anyway you're allowed to share in my decades-old fascination with these charming in
their own special way spinners that has clung to my musical whooziz ever
since my teenbo days. Days I wouldn't mind re-living, albeit with a whole
lot more money stuffed in my wallet mind you!
***
In honor on hizzoner's big Eight-Oh I decided to latch onto this old Dylan
boot, a double-disc effort on Kornyfone entitled
PASSED OVER AND ROLLING THUNDER which I'm sure a few of you remember seeing in the record shops of the day.' n hey, what a better way to
celebrate ol' Mr. Die-lan (as I usedta pronounce his surname before
none other'n MY FATHER [who wouldn't know a folk singer from Ish
Kabbibble] corrected me!) and his trip into the octogenarian realm than to spin an
effort of his that is good! Well, at least not one of those LIVE AT BUDOKAN quick crank outs that seemed to mar a whole load of
his career to the point where we eventually came to expect irregularity from that ol' contrarian ball of confusion.
Yeah, like I said there are
TWO platters here chock fulla some
pretty good music in excellent quality, and although the entire shebang
seems sped up just a tiny bit it still has a rage and urgency to it. That's perhaps
because it now sounds more rushed, and thus more urgent, in its overall attack.
The infamous 1975 Newport Folk Fest with Dylan joining Butterfield on
"Maggie's Farm" ain't exactly new but still sounds like the perfect backdrop
for late-springtime lazing about while the flip featuring the infamous
SOUNDSTAGE show I sure recall cozying up to way back when sounds
a whole loads better in its stripped down intimacy. Believe me, Dylan and band come off as if they coulda
been some wayward folk aggregate stuck on a CBGB poetry night from exactly
the same timespan they're so non-slick a way you sure wish most acts back then coulda been.
Never thought I'd say this, but Scarlet Rivera shoulda
been the new John Cale what with her careening violin adding an additional
nerve-fray to the music --- heck, if she only she had made a few better career
choices*. Even the extremely overwrought "Hurricane" sounds swell without the studio glitz to the
point where tryin' to follow the lyrics takes second place to enjoying the
more driving and subliminally intense music that was broadcast nationwide
during them Second Golden Age of Tee-Vee days!
The BLOOD ON THE TRACKS outtakes sure struck me as bein' much better'n the
official release what with these minimalist excursions which kinda make me think that
the powers that be were trying to update Dylan to a more decadent Elliot
Murphy stature flopping about in the process!
Topping it all off's a side of the Rolling Thunder Review in Providence Rhode Island and thankfully this belated wake for the sixties (well, more or less) sure doesn't conjure up memories of
flailing about hippoids still trying to live the kumbaya dream as much as it
does a pretty straightforward folk rock excursion that surprisingly doesn't
let its guard down. A guy like moi who spins HARD RAIN on
occasion was sated to the point where a whole load of curiosity regarding what else I've been missing regarding Dylan has popped to the surface like a whitehead --- perhaps a look at those other mid-seventies performances would do this body a whole lot more good'n this corpse woulda
thought way back in those penny-pinching days when records like this were first up and about?
So hey, a happy birthday to you ya ol' fanabla you! 'n yeah, yer so big you got
away with just about every stoopid move you coulda made these past fortysome
years but eh, at least you got a real good bootleg outta this 'un. Next
time --- JOAQUIN ANTIQUE???
***
Sometimes the recent reissuing of old 'n notoriously famous bootlegs
(complete with the original artwork or a cheap facsimile thereof) works,
most of the time it just plain don't. However, I just can't help but to
snuggle up to this recent exhumation of the classic Siouxsie and the
Banshees LOVE IN A VOID boot not only because it
does stand as a testimonial to the power of the entire bootleg idiom (having
been released before any legitimate Siouxsie efforts had come out)
but because it surpasses what we eventually got when THE SCREAM was released and, although that Polydor effort was a classic effort to the end, it
just couldn't compete with this collection of radio and whatnot efforts that
present the act in the raw, primal state that I prefer my music to
wallow in.
The flat AM-ish reproduction does bring back memories of various "intentional" (of which I assume this wasn't) efforts to re-create the WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT sway and style, while the pre-major label performances recall not only the original Siouxsie and company's early approach to their instruments but thankfully brings them all to the forefront atonal spirals and all. The definite home made approach of this makes LOVE IN A VOID as much of a classic representation of ROCK AS A FERAL, TANTRIC SOUND as the variety of acts that were poured into the Siouxsie mode (Velvets, Stooges, Can if you do believe Nick Kent and why not?) and for that reason it should be considered a definite wanna get for any record collection that dares to reflect the primal blare of the sixties and seventies.
Get those memories of eighties and beyond Siouxsie outta your system and
latch onto this particular godsend to the cult of recorded
plastic or, if you can spare the extra change, try to find an original at a
halfway decent price which of course is rather impossible in these collectors consciousness times.
***
I remember espying the Roxy Music
BETTER THAN FOOD bootleg when I was browsing the bins at White
Wing Records in Niles Ohio way back inna mid-seventies, tho I certainly recall
an entirely different cover on it! The one that continues to ricochet in my
brain had an insert sleeve picturing a buncha what looked like prepubescent
gals in full frontal mode smiling away, something which kinda disgusted my
teenbo self since I, not being of the Brazilian persuasion, certainly liked fuzz on the peaches I've seen and for that
matter still do! (As far as I'm concerned, a gal without the fuzzies is like a rabbit without a fluffy tail!) Maybe that particular version of BETTER THAN FOOD was a knockoff that was taken off the market for obvious reasons or
maybe my memory is faultier than usual...I mean I do have some pretty creepy
memories of a past that I sure hope I didn't have to live through!
This take on BETTER THAN FOOD has an actual cover with a neat
Jay Kinney drawing and the expectedly inaccurate credits on the back. Most of
it was taken from various BBC broadcasts and non-LP single sides with the
sound quality getting kinda mooshed in the process, but as far as these old
bootleg artifacts go man, does it sure look good stuffed in the ol'
collection.
You probably already have the double Cee-Dee FIRST KISS somewhere
in the house and that's got all this 'n more (a real budget deal!), but if you
(like me) sure have a hankerin' for old vinyl as well as that whole
mid-seventies Roxy mystique that gave us some pretty much against the grain
music then man, you know what to do! Its recs like this which make me wanna turn the house into something resembling an old beat up record shop with sawdust on the floor, and come to think of it I wouldn't have to do that much in the way of interior decorating!
This early-eighties edition of CHAMPAGNE AND NOVOCAINE is a gotta have
not only for the cover, but for the fact that the first platter was
lifted from a great sounding NYC live show recorded around the time
SIREN was starting to hit the shops. It's a soundboard one too
where Brawn Fairy of course mentions that it was being reviewed for a
legitimate live effort and the crowd of course yaps it up like nothing since
the days when someone would mention "Brooklyn" on some by-now ancient radio
show!
As you might have expected, the second album in this set's a reissue of the original mid-seventies bootleg perennial CHAMPAGNE AND NOVOCAINE. Those of you in-the-know are aware that this particular Roxy boot's the most infamous of these
seventies not-so-under-the-counter platters given its ability to turn up even in high-end shopping mall record stores where you normally wouldn't expect bootlegs to be peddled. The bootleggers didn't even bother to
re-process this 'un in the right speed so it's all a tad slow, but it still
sounds as good as the original plus the additional live show will have you
tearing into that old pile of albums to spin those Roxy and offshoot platters
that took up more than just a little of your teenbo hipster wannabe time. 'n
so what if you (like me) have multiple copies of these recordings in your
collection...that cover's gonna keep you lonely baldoids occupied for quite
some time ifyaknowaddamean...
***
My "recent" dream of listening to HORSES in an automobile as a
high stooler had me digging the Patti Smith SUPERBUNNY bootleg
outta the stack, and as you can guess the subliminal suggestion sure did a
world of good for my own sense of rockism. The quality is definitely
audience but the performance is tippy top what with Patti and crew careening
through such classics as "Free Money" and "The Hunter Gets Captured By The
Game" not forgetting that tearjerker version of "Pale Blue Eyes" that was
part of their 1975 set. You have to strain yer ears to listen to Patti's
between-song patter but its worth it, as well as it is to listen to the
ever-changing narrative that is thrown into her live renditions of "Horses"
where Johnny travels through all sortsa weird neo-Burroughsian concepts that
change and intertwine almost like a good thirties serial. And to think
that people were actually buying up her platters back inna seventies with even the more nerdoid amongst us talkin' 'bout her with unbridled pangs of lust in between the usual mindless America and James Taylor droolathons...from
this jaded era we call 2021 and years of seeing rock 'n roll reduced to sham MTV
graphics and meaningless sizzle that does seem like an eon away.
***
I was rather (dare I say)
"enthralled" by last brouhaha entry
ROCK 'N ROLL ANIMAL that I decided to snatch up yet another Lou
Reed offering, this time the STIFF ON HIS LEGEND outing. Nice
package here what with a snap of bleached blonde Lou on the cover and liner
notes swiped from who-knows-where onna back, and the sound ain't that bad as
well. Too bad this is taken from the '74 SALLY CAN'T DANCE days
back when Lou hired some rhumba band to back him and the re-arrangements of
old faves along with them new efforts just don't quite cut the mustard like
ya kinda hoped they woulda. Not that it's atrocious, but it just doesn't rev
up them Lou Reed memories they way you sure woulda liked 'em to have been
revved up. If you can latch onto the original edition of this (entitled
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO DICK AND STEVE?) bully for you, but alla you
hard rocksters who grew up on the RCA version of ANIMAL (Lou loved
the Skydog album so much that he decided to bootleg the name for himself!) just might be
just a tad li'l let down.
***Seems as if boots of the original late-sixties version of the Mothers of Invention are still coming out at a rather snat pace, and although I sure woulda liked to have heard these way back 1976 way at least I got to hear 'em now. And considering the fine packaging and color vinyl and other cheapazoid collectors come ons these newer efforts are jambus packtus with I am sure glad I got hold of a few of these recent releases that woulda done me swell had they been released in the mid-seventies even if I woulda been too poor to buy 'em all.
WE MAY PLAY SOME THINGS THAT MIGHT SOUND STRANGE was taken from
two consecutive nights on the Fall '67 Scandinavian tour --- sound is
kinda audience wobbly but still strong enough for any mother listening in
with an overall effect that'll zoom you back to those days when stuff like
this really did seem exciting. I
wouldn't call it mandatory 'r anything along those lines, but the
performance is fair enough and the early Mothers' musicianship thankfully do detract from
Zappa's often condescending stage patter. Besides, this kinda humor did seem kinda refreshing at one point in the lives of
many a record purchaser and in some ways that late-sixties sense of satire does remain, if only in a purely nostalgic sense. As with many of these original Mothers of
Invention-period live shows there's a lotta stuff you
HAVE heard
before, but the things new to yer lobes'll have you washing "Valley Girl"
outta yer system for good!
Way back when things like shopping malls were one way to connect with what was going on in life, I thought that the cover to
THE FRANK ZAPPA SONGBOOK VOL. 1 woulda looked boffo on a
bootleg. Turns out that not only one, but two enterprising bootleggers took my advice, one of 'em being the folks
who released A TOKEN OF MY EXTREME way back during the seventies Golden
Age of Zappa bootlegs. Unfortunately it was reproduced in black and white
when the original color would have been more appealing, but thanks be that
my psychic recommendations got to these ne'erdowells inna first place even
if the results were monochromatic.
Again, this "Zapped" reissue is on colored vinyl and again the sound leaves
a little to be desired. It perhaps is a tad fast (not benefitting the overall effects unlike the Dylan effort mentioned above) and it is definitely of an
audience source, but this '75 show has Captain Beefheart in the band and he
does shine not only on them familiar BONGO FURY efforts but a
newie entiled "Why Doesn't Somebody Get Him A Pepsi" which, from my ears,
sounds like an early version of "The Torture Never Stops". But it's better
since Beefheart could save the Albanian National Anthem with his mere
tonsils...if he wanted to that is and for some reason I don't think he
woulda wanted to but if he did it sure woulda sounded sweller'n "Jewish
Princess".
Actually the rest of the Mothers do well enough even if the group was
becoming more and more fusion-y as time went on. But at least they can
create some driving intense melodies that keep Zappa's ooga booga in check,
and even with the usual bootleg shortcomings this does prove to be a record
that got me up and bouncing at a time when it seems that being up and
bouncing could develop into a serious crime if the Powers That Be have their
way.
The problem with IF YOU GET A HEADACHE is that there is so
little Captain Beefheart on it, and he's only on the first side of this '75
live effort which has that cavernous sound that forces you to stick your
head right up to the speakers in order to make any real sense outta the
thing! Still that first side kicks off fine with a blistering version of
"Apostrophe" as well as a halfway decent "Stinkfoot" which I gotta admit
used to make me crack up back during my high stool days. Once you get down
to the whole matter of it all IF YOU GET A HEADACHE is just
another documentation of Zappa during his even steeper slide
into self-indulgent hoo-hahs which started a few years earlier, even if we
all knew he was as big a jerk as Jerry Lewis even as far back as those
original Mothers of Invention days.
***
As with the last brouhaha I'm wrapping this 'un up with a sidestep into
the realm of jazz bootlegs, an area which deserves its own separate study
considering their own unique history and overall adaptation to the jazz as
opposed to rock frame of absorption.
Now these bootlegs, as with classical
music or Broadway show platters of a non-legit variety, ain't exactly part
of the same realm as rock boots given their more authentic if budget-y look.
Not only that but they sure go for much less because well, there probably
ain't as much of a demand for jazz boots as there are rock ones. But who can
argue that these albums aren't worthy of their own scrutiny what with the
wide variety of 'em that are available and at cheapo prices at that!
There are a few worthwhile jazz bootlegs out and about, and although I've
yet to see any boots devoted to some of the more Fire Music-oriented in the
jazz genre there have been some Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler ones that
really made my record collection more'n just one to bemusedly thumb through. As if I'd let any of you even near my
less bountiful than it should be stacks o' wax you thievin' scoundrels
you!
STATING THE CASE is one Coleman boot that I only came across recently, a good 'un from a French label called "Jazz Anthology" that, according to the discography listed on the back cover, has a pretty hefty line of wares to offer from various John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy efforts to early Louis Armstrong live gigs that may not have been released legitimately even if you would think such an audience existed for it. But this Coleman album's pretty boffo, perhaps even improved by the reel-to-reel in the audience live sound that adds a certain feral element to the performance, and a good one it most certainly is.
Credits are sketchy ("early sixties" is given as the recording date, the venue unknown and the band lineup nonexistent) and the song listing ("Ornette's Suite" parts one and two) totally inaccurate as these efforts and themes have appeared on a variety of Coleman releases. But when ya plunk the needle down ya get a good fifty-five-plus minutes of music that really does stretch out into the clogged corners of your mind. I even get the idea that you'll wonder just how you managed to spend your entire life without this, it's that much a part of the Coleman "canon" as his legit efforts.
STATING THE CASE is one Coleman boot that I only came across recently, a good 'un from a French label called "Jazz Anthology" that, according to the discography listed on the back cover, has a pretty hefty line of wares to offer from various John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy efforts to early Louis Armstrong live gigs that may not have been released legitimately even if you would think such an audience existed for it. But this Coleman album's pretty boffo, perhaps even improved by the reel-to-reel in the audience live sound that adds a certain feral element to the performance, and a good one it most certainly is.
Credits are sketchy ("early sixties" is given as the recording date, the venue unknown and the band lineup nonexistent) and the song listing ("Ornette's Suite" parts one and two) totally inaccurate as these efforts and themes have appeared on a variety of Coleman releases. But when ya plunk the needle down ya get a good fifty-five-plus minutes of music that really does stretch out into the clogged corners of your mind. I even get the idea that you'll wonder just how you managed to spend your entire life without this, it's that much a part of the Coleman "canon" as his legit efforts.
And although I am pretty sure STATING THE CASE has been legitimately
released in the interim ya just can't help but thank Jazz Anthology for
making the thing available at a time when jazz was starting to regain some
of its feeling after years of bloated DOWN BEAT inertia dragging
everything down to a Wynton Marsalis level of bowties and flowery flamingo
sounds. Worth a search and come to think of it, a definitive jazz bootleg
article would be welcome on this (or any other) blog. Any takers out there?
If any of you happen to come across Coleman's BROADCASTS on the
J For Jazz label pick it up as well. It's got a snat cover with iffy liner
notes from a Harris Venuti whoever he is. It also has THE EXACT SAME MUSIC that appears on
STATING THE CASE and with equally dubious credits! But hey, I know
you guys out there want everything you can get by Coleman and I'm not crying
over the dupe so why should you?
After buying, digesting and ultimately filing away the above albums I found
two outta three Charles Mingus bootlegs that really have filled my bill so-to-speak, Released on the Eyetalian Ingo lable, three volumes of
this April '64 show were released --- managed to get the second and third
'un's and although the first volume entitled HOPE SO, ERIC remains
outta my grasp at press time the other two, FABLES OF FAUBUS and
PARKERIANA are firmly entrenched within and I gotta say that I
feel lucky enough that even those have been obtained by me in the ol' here
and now even if I should have had 'em in the there and then.
Sound's usual bootleg flat (though would still be rated an "excellent" by HOT WACKS) but is fine enough for a hard-edged fanatic who'll listen through virtual blizzards of distortion to get to the
meat of the matter. And really, what sorta new thing jazzbo type wouldn't
want to hear an entire album featuring the classic ode to the Arkansas
segregationist (who I remember tried to make a comeback in the mid-eighties
all apologetic about his political past making me wonder if he ever heard
this composition!) complete with some great piano from Jacki Byard and
reed-destruction courtesy Eric Dolphy who was only a couple of months away
from that big gig inna sky.
The side longs on Volume Three are as memorable a part of the Mingus/Dolphy legend as such mindwowzers as THE BLACK SAINT AND SINNER LADY (really!), especially on
"Meditations" which gets into one of those clouds of sound that foreshadows
various Art Ensemble of Chicago moodgropes that were maybe not-so-clearly on
the horizon. Both are much needed even in your own nascent jazz collection
and for bootleg hounds like myself well, wow-whee!
***
If you have any semblance of a soul left you'll want 'em all, just like you want a whole slew of bootlegs that I will
probably be fillin' ya in on once the next "Bootleg Bragadoccio" hits the
screens a whole lot sooner than you'll care but wha' th' hey? Until then, count your pennies and who knows, maybe that old dusty head shop or "alternative" book store with the back room is still in business lo these many years later and like, they're probably still too stoned to know that there are a few dozen uncracked crates from TMOQ just moiling in between the unsold Anais Nin porn and Paul Ehrich Chicken Little rewrites one's bound to find in these shops lo these many years later!
___________________________________________________
*'s funny, because I recall hating her playing way back when the gal was up and about...musta been the budding anti-folkie in me.
bob dyln and frank zapa are hippy dippy bs
ReplyDeleteornettes a hippy
punk rock!
do yo lik jaxon brown. hes pretty good. nico sang on e ofhis songs
PUNK ROK!!!!
bob dylan's cool :)
ReplyDeleteA tasty roundup chris. Right up there with your description of the falling spikes boot as sounding like it was recorded inside ondines colon.
ReplyDeleteMingus, si! Ornette, no! (Chuckle!)
ReplyDeleteMore typos from Brad the Retard! (Chuckle!)
Hoyt Axton was better than Bob Dylan.
At 80, does Bob need a bib? Bib Droolin'! (Chuckle!)
Cheers!
lgffgv
ReplyDeletekntrh ksrl;mxztr nnnnnn
pati smith is a fag hag, a woof woof
ReplyDeletetracy chapstick was a one hit blunder
k ill al the hippys
Separated at birth: Ornette Coleman and Michelle "Mike" Obama-lama-ding-dong?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ejga4kJUts
ReplyDeletebest rock song-video everrrrrrrrr :)
https://www.city-journal.org/roman-polanski-jaccuse-cancel-culture
ReplyDelete(((Judith Miller)))
Sister of Jimmy Miller the dead drug addict.