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CASSETTE CRAP #WHADEVVA...

I haven't done one of these in awhile but eh, here're some cassettes that have been cluttering up the collection for quite some time, along with a few newies that just happened to be slipped into packages sent me by Bob Forward an' I figured wha' th' hey... Anyway, if you miss those days of assembled in Mexico Cetron-brand three for a buck packages and jammed up machines well, this is the post for you!

The first tape in this column was purchased on a mere lark, and I gotta say that hearing these guys was a way more pleasurable experience than listening to Pablo Cruise in a West Covina shopping mall record shop while purchasing HERE COME THE WARM JETS that's for sure! Never heard of this group simply called Bag before I snatched this up, but these 1994 demos (recorded at CBGB) show them to have been a rather straightforward heavy metal in the old CREEM sense styled band that might have made it somewhere down the line but hey, they had no flashy gimmick or overwrought emotion to 'em so why would they! Still Bag put out a fine sampler of their wares about a few steps down from, say, Dust, but a whole many steps above many of the eighties heavy metal giants who were way big on the hair and glitz but lower than low when it came to high energy music!

This is what I really adore in many of the under-the-counterculture rock acts of the seventies on...those unassuming groups who were vying for stage space at the clubs who might have had more in common with the big metallic guns or the general FM dialsphere than they had with the hot touted "new wave" scene, but they presented a rock 'n roll that was primal, rough around the edges and punk perhaps only on anti-chops mentalities alone! Check the closing track "Heaven and Hell's Blues" which I gotta say sounded to me like a 1974 power rock take on "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" and like, maybe that's something we ALL coulda used way back when we were young and impressionable!

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This next 'un was dug outta the ol' crates and boy, was it a nice surprise! In fact listening to this made my day, as well as a few weeks and a month for that matter! The C-90 starts out with a recording of none other than Akron's Tin Huey live at the Mistake opening for Pere Ubu way back in May of 1976! At this time the group was transitioning between their early high energy rock soundstew of Velvets, Detroit, Kraut and Canterbury heading into that slicker style that eventually became known as "new wave" Y'know, that thing which was quite evident on their sole album back '79 way which might have sounded fresh enough at the time but when '82 reared its head you kinda grumbled at the general direction it all led to. 

Not bad given that Tin Huey's penchant for free splat was quite evident here and like, if you bought the Clone records and liked the low budget appeal evident there you will undoubtedly LOVE this effort!

But hey, what is this filling out side two anyway? I was told that these tracks were the actual Electric Eels live on WRUW-FM recordings which were presumably lost for all time, and then I was told this was the second Paul Marotta demo session but it doesn't sound like it could be either! I mean it sure sounds like a live tape with no audience reaction or between song patter either! And the versions of "Dead Man's Curve" and "Agitated" are quite different than the released takes. A big question that needs to remedied, because I just might have a huge humongous goldmine on my hands available to the highest bidder (hee!).

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While we're wallowing about in the NE Ohio area...here's a nice slab of sound that never did get out that much. Yes, this tape contains none other than Dave E during his post Electric Eels days back when he was prancing about in groups such as the Cool Marriage Counselors and Jazz Destroyers. Around that 70s/80s cusp he sure was doing his darndest trying to make a bit of a name for himself even though it was very unlikely that Anastasia Pantsios would help bolster his career with a feature in the pages of THE PLAIN DEALER's Friday mag insert but what else would one expect. 

The live portion featuring the Cool Marriage Counselors has E and the future Modern Art Studio romping through a number of oldies like a particularly McCoysesque "Fever" as well as a boffo collection of sixties nuggets sung to the same massive beat. There're also the CLE flexi-disc classic "Searching Through Sears" and a tender song about cockroaches that ranks up there with the David Roter/R. Meltzer classic. E also tells some great badgag jokes in between numbers though considering the quality of the cassette audience tape recorder you have to strain your ears quite a bit to enjoy 'em.

The Jazz Destroyers portion is also of audience quality and is rather short but at least it's good enough to put a smile on one's puss what with an opening that comes off at least 1959 new thing jazzworthy not to mention another version of "Have a Nice Day", a number which always gets me up and going even though the entire gist of the thing is about as anti-nihilism as one could hope for. 

The feller who made this 'un up for me filled out the thing with some Arizona college radio blues programming which is OK enough, though considering the Cle-ness of the groups presented I sure would have loved to have heard some WRUW-FM free form jazz play from a 1976 broadcast! Wonder if any of those airchecks survive?

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Hmmm, a C-120 I hope doesn't jam halfway through! Considering the thin nature of those tapes I just hope this 'un makes its way through the player without any struggle! Still I sure got a lotta music for my money, which in this case is nada since this tape was given to me by the same fellow who gave me the one reviewed directly above. 

Side one has a Sonic Youth live show from 1985 where Ut is opening for 'em, sorta like an old home week for these two scions of what used to be known as no wave. The Youth sound their typically good hard-scronkin' self and sound a whole lot more digestible'n they did back when they were believing Anita Hill, while Ut thankfully continues on their one-note grind that never did progress beyond what they were doing when they first begat. 

As far as the side of BBC sessions courtesy Mark Smith and the Fall---stop, stop--I'll confess---I'LL CONFESS!!!!!!

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Do you remember when punk funk was creating a larger than usual ripple in many a smartypants kid's record buying habits? That was fortysome years back, but  even after all those years I get the feeling that a whole load of you turdburgers were out there buying records by James "Blood" Ulmer, Ronald Shannon Jackson and the Decoding Society. Luther Thomas and others who pretty much epitomized this particular movement in under-the-underground sound. But do any of you remember Alfonia Tims who with his Flying Tigers released the FUTURE FUNK/UNCUT cassette on ROIR? Yeah, I thought so which is too bad because after giving this 'un a recent spin I've come to the conclusion that maybe all that post-Contortions neo-jazz decadent dance music really wasn't as faux-chic bad as I'd remembered. In fact it probably was one of the LAST SAVING GRACES of what seventies underground rock had become before all of our old favorites began disappointing us with albums that just weren't up to par with what was goin' on even a good five years earlier.

Sims sings and plays "harmelodic guitar" with a band mostly made up of white guys who look as if they were auditioning for Peter Peter Ivers' old NEW WAVE THEATER program. And the group's sound is definitely last-gasp New York rock with loads of saxophones and more sunglasses and cool poses than you can imagine. But these guys play steady and tense enough and the resultant tracks actually come closer to such earlier punk funk watermarks as the Human Arts Ensemble's oft-neglected classic FUNKY DONKEY than you would have expected. I'll say it sure brought back memories for me, mostly of sad and downtrodden times but thankfully also some of the brighter moments that eventually popped up into the mix. For a once-in-awhile spinner FUTURE FUNK/UNCUT doesh its work swell!

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Most of you know just how much I loathed the whole "Tribute Album" trend of the eighties and nineties. Not that there weren't a few...the HARD TO BEAT Stooges trib, the Troggs' GROIN THUNDER and Norton Records' Sam the Sham collection paid homage to their respective idols in the proper fashion, but if HEAVEN AND HELL not to mention a slew of other Velvet Underground "inspired" efforts I had the displeasure of hearing were any indication of just what kind of fury and energy the Velvets presented for us throughout their existence then I'm Dave Lang with a little J. Neo Marvin thrown in for good measure!

However I gotta admit that this SET IT ON FIRE cassette tribute to Australian under-the-underground group the Scientists was one homage to an obscure yet IMPORTANT group that I could get 1000% behind. The songs presented might not sound exactly like the original tracks these guys laid down way back inna seventies and eighties, but they have a total rock-on energy and pounce that doesn't deny the group's gnarlier edge the way those saps who were covering the Velvets sure did. Sheesh, I probably don't even give one whit about most of the acts that pop up on SET IT ON FIRE but they all put out swell, making that sort of music that I used to know as ROCK 'N ROLL even more inspiring and frontal lobe grabbing as the years progress into nothingness!

A rarity that you might like seeking out though golly knows if any of these are still up and about, or intact for that matter.

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Oh no...another demo, this time by a trio featuring a female singer who is backed by yet another femme with a male pounding the percussion. Sounds like feminist power pussy-whipped drummer time now, don't it? Well, don't fret too much, because if the two gals in Theories of the Old School are of the Sapphic persuasion they don't sound too bad and who knows, they may even shave their armpits and dab 'em with Secret which would be a move in the right direction!

The sound is acoustic and the songs are rather melodic without getting into some sorta Woodstock moosh (I mean, I'll betcha that Joni Mitchell is some sorta influence but it doesn't translate into neurosis-laden self-pity!). At times Theories of the Old School can, such as on "Taking the Train", get kinda pop rock-ish but you'll love it all just the same. But don't worry---this ain't no Deadly Nightshade country folk lezfest---I hope! 

It's more like the sixties without the back-patting self-congratulatory nausea mixed with seventies Canyon Girl mentalities transferred to the dank of lower Manhattan. Moody yet upbeat almost folk rocky sounds that sure remind me of the better things that were happening in non-glitz music during the early-nineties. A time when for once it seemed as if the more attractive moments of the seventies were getting reshaped into a new sound that I sure hoped woulda spoken reams in the nineties, but boy was I wrong!

So good that I might even pick up Theories' Cee Dee release despite the rather unattractive cover which kinda put me off on buying that before this, whose cover I think is rather fitting considering the admittedly tasteful music enclosed therein.

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Do you remember back when the folk at CBGB and Max's Kansas City had the bright idea to promote some of the talent appearing in their clubs by releasing their wares just so's some overzealous rock critics could hype 'em to the roof? I do, and I thought it was a great idea considering just how much good music was being made yet how little of it was actually reaching the ears of Mr. and Mrs. Front Porch Rockism, There were plenty of great songs on these efforts that entered into our consciousnesses, and if it weren't for both of these clubs how many of ya woulda cared about the likes of Mink DeVille, Suicide or even Manster inna first place?

The series of cassette-only releases that CBGB released inna mid-eighties (part of their "Off The Board" series) resulted in some much needed music as well as two albums which collected the best of these tapes in what sorta amounted to an eighties version of the old LIVE AT CBGB album. For awhile they were being advertised in alla the hip mags around, though as the years rolled by they became rarer than dogs and cats in a famine to the point where IN NO WAY can I find a tape of the Tulpa one, a shame considering how I really enjoyed their tracks on the aforementioned albums.

This split release by Jing and Chemical Wedding gives you an idea of what was goin' down at CBGB at a time when things like local groups with talent and energy all but ignored in lieu of flashy rock video glitz and dazzle without grit. Not that I would say that either group represented CBGB at its best but they sure go to show ya that while there might have been weekend spiky hair punk matinees here and angry young folksingers with progressive cause chips on their shoulders there, there also was a music being played that was whatcha'd call downright commercial yet not necessarily vomit-inducing like even a few minutes of Top Forty schmaltz was bound to be. Especially if you were a hardcore rock 'n roller stranded in such a desert as the eighties (and nineties, and outghts, and teens...).

Jing and Chemical Wedding were both spinoffs of the infamous Brooklynites the Shirts hence the split release, and although by that time Shirts singer Annie Golden was rakin' in bucks as a semi-reg'lar on MIAMI VICE the rest of the band kept goin' on in one form or another. Artie Lamonica's Jing had the potential to make some headway with their singer/songwriter music, though even at their worst they sounded like something Billy Joel wouldn't have minded to pilfer from, and thankfully they could come up with tunes just as dread and as New York gritty when they wanted to. Like Lamonica and band do on "World Gone Mad", a downer eighties pop song which might have shocked more'n a few lonely funny hairdo gals into THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION. Too bad that by this time Lamonica looked like one of those old Eyetalian uncles who smoked those small black cigars which burn holes in your lungs, but if looks don't matter to you this just might be the one.

Chemical Wedding have more of a whatcha'd call edgy drive, at least to the point where their re-write of Yes's "And You And I" (the middle part) entitled "Helicopter" does sounds like a palatable electro-wave number that epitomized plenty of things that were happening in the burgh a few years earlier. Lotsa neo-casio synthwork does date Chemical Wedding's sound, but these guys still come off as pleasing enough bar rock that probably would be best experienced at CBGB rather than in the confines of my fart-encrusted bedroom. 

In all, nothing that would offend me (or maybe even you) even when you begin to envision flashing colored lights and one of those sexless veejays who used to populate tee-vee screens back in those sadder than sad days (not counting now).

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Boy it really has been a long time since I listened to the Three Johns (mocked by a certain rock critic whose name I detest as "the Three Jonathans"), so it was like listening to an all new to mine ears effort what with me coming across this interesting home-made effort. Most of it consists of a Toronto gig from '85 with surprisingly poor quality with the rest taken from not only a Peel sesh but an appearance on some English tee-vee show called THE TUBE. The broadcast material sounds much better although on all of it you can get yerself into the Three John groove, which is a mighty snat one if I do say so myself.

Never was a Mekons fan (mostly due to not having any of their platters...records cost money, y'know!), but I find former member John Langford's efforts in this act to have continued on that seventies rock trash-garage aesthetic that seemed to flub about around the time the eighties got into full gear. In other words, these track do "rock" (yeah I know, are we still in fourth grade as Patrick Amory would say) and nary a hint of twee is to be found as the group tears through a number of demi-serious efforts including a cover of "Like a Virgin" that tops the original as far as it returning the gnu wave back to its more punkish roots.

Nothing exemplary here true, but it's sure good to know that a straight-ahead rock 'n roll unit that was not into the revival game coulda existed in an ever fashion-conscious music scene during the dank days of the eighties.

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That's it for the tapes...maybe in another fifty years...