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Hooboy, is it gettin' rather toughoid working my way through this brand spankin' new 'n improved as Blue Cheer usedta say computer system! Fortunately there is hope...gotta say that I was able to enlarge the print so I don't need my Roger McGuinn granny glasses to see what's I'm writing thus correct alla the errors I'm sure I made last time. Other'n that not much to blab about this go' round unless you wanna hear about the scars I've accrued do to rather caustic work situations or some of my weirder dreams like the one where I happened to see a younger, still teenage Crocus Behemoth looking muscular and svelte before turning into the bearded overall'd guy who's just starting to head towards carbohydrate city, but I don't think you would. So with that let's just get onto the usual patented and downright rut-like reviews of mine, items courtesy Bill Shute, Paul McGarry, Bob Forward and if your name ain't amongst theirs you really oughta be ashamed!

 

The Grateful Dead-THE EYES OF THE WORLD 3-CD set (Left Field Media Records)

I ain't sure if this triple disque set is of bootleg status, nor am I sure what possessed me to get this other'n to listen to about sixteen minutes of the Phil Lesh and Ned Lagin avgarde portion of the '74 Dead show which has been written about, and in rather glowing terms for that particular matter, by a variety of scribes both worthy and not. 

After all, I like undoubtedly more than a few of you readers copped Lagin's SEASTONES platter when it hit the cutout circuit way back inna seventies, although at this time when things like electronic experimental music was a huge benefit to my own health and well being I ended up selling it off with some more rather offal-ly matter that had gathered in my collection. An' later on boy did I feel "offal" myself due to this not-so-wise choice on my part considering just how un-Grateful Dead/San Fran schlocky SEASTONES was, and naturally I eventually made amends by purchasing an expanded cassette version of this shoulda been legendary platter that Rykodisc reissued, one with additional material making for an even gnarlier soundscapade in my own personal collection which was starting to look way different than yer average teenybopper gal's as the days rolled on.

So I snatched this 'un up if only for sixteen minutes of reputed blitz. An' yeah, I gotta tell you that it sure is tougher 'n turds to have to sit through the standard Grateful Dead  gumby dance material to get to the electronic sesh, but amazingly enough I was able to do just that! Not that these guys are "bad"...maybe mediocre is the best way that I can describe this period of the group as they play through a whole slew of songs familiar and not with the tried and true oldies thrown in here and there to show us all that they never did forget their "roots" back before they grew up and got all brainfrizzled.

 Remember that remark Mark Shipper made in FLASH about how he thought that the Dead's version of "Johnny B. Goode" sounded like Eddie Haskell singing it to Beaver's mom? Well, their take on "Promised Land" reminds me of Ward Cleaver singing it at a Rotary Club meeting! 

Various jazz/fusion licks here, some patented psychedelic hokum there and even after a short while it all seems so futile. Of course there ain't no guy in a shaggy leather Wild West coat sitting next to me willing to share his stash, so maybe that's why it doesn't sound anything near my own personal conceptions (or yours for that matter) of rock 'n roll. But I gotta get my moneysworth outta this so just leave me alone to hear the extended guitar riffage during an extended "Playing in the Band" even if the end results seem like nothing but (to use that oft-tossed Dead description) "aimless noodling".

Onto disque #2. Some more noodles plus that horrid Donna Godchaux steps in to do some down home mama-styled wails which really don't add much to the entire nod off atmosphere of the thing. But hey, here comes the moment I've been waiting for...the Lesh/Nagin collaboration which forced a whole lotta atonal electronic music on an audience that was probably still digesting in their clogged brains what had been happening the previous seventysome minutes! 

Frankly I gotta say that I wasn't that impressed with the sounds that emanated from the large bank of dials and keyboards that Nagin was commandeering at this show, but I'm sure that at the right volume and at the right frame of mind-addledness this would reach its full potential. As it is "Phil and Ned" was the highlight of the gig and if it only coulda worked itself out like those Dead jams which supposedly reached their apex inna third hour it coulda been the karmic end to alla that counterculture jive that didn't take too long to start lookin' silly.

As for the rest well...like I said I paid for it and I will stick around. "Uncle John's Band" sure needed some rehearsin' considerin' just how out of sync the singers are while the country covers (which always kinda seemed like more of those "We hip forward-looking young generation type people really like yer country bumpkin music even if we do hate yer guts" exercises in being better than everyone else. There's also some music of a typically seventies Dead bent that has an over-polished feeling that only brings back not-so-fond memories of just where the music standard stood in the seventies next to less cosmic but more meaningful to your everyday existence sounds. As if we were to admire and praise sterility and perfection of a particularly professional manner to the hilt while shunning alla those crazed and beyond redemption punks who were pushing a whole lotta adrenaline into their oft scorned music.

Third and last disque continues on with the marathon snooze. Thankfully Donna Godchaux is kept in check (or did she hafta keep runnin' to the lady's room to change her tampons?) but that standard seventies-styled Dead music that couldn't rock if it had hot lead poured up its ass just rolls on and on. In fact, the only bright spot on this particular 'un is the two or so minutes where Garcia and the gang come rather close to that stretching out which was heard on the Hampton Grease Band's "Evans" before diddling off into more of that music that doesn't go anywhere unless you happen to either be in a particularly lysergic state or have somehow convinced yourself that it's all as worthy and as meaningful as the GREATS who the Dead have been borrowing from without capturing much if any of that crucial backbone they so dearly needed.

Ya gotta wonder why kinda people would not only pay, but actually sit through this show and somehow get anything outta either the pedestrian noodling or Robert Hunter's mystico-incoherent lyrics. Then again, all you hafta do is look at "any" goof who grew up on rock and somehow got separated from the wild and wooly when he hit the crossroads of rock as action and took the rock as back-patting stick it to the man down on the commune route and find out exactly WHY that self-congratulatory generation really messed up everything they touched with a passion. Thank the putrefied 70s/80s AM dial and yer average Chuck Eddy metalhead type while yer at it. All of 'em are gonna be first onna pile when I take over and well, while I'm at it I might as well get into the fertilizer business because I think I'll have more bones on my hand than I can know what to do with!

After a good two-and-a-half hours of THE EYES OF THE WORLD all I can feel like muttering is sheesh, do I need something caustic to clean my carburetor out! Lessee, where'd I put that Throbbing Gristle platter anyway???

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Ty Segall and Mike Cronin-SHARK ATTACK CD-r burn, Ty Segall and Tim Presley-HAIR CD-r burn (originally on In The Red and Drag City Records respectively)

Not bad  'tall rock from this Segall guy working with two different accomplices on some really good hard throttle that sounds rather refreshing when compared with the Dead session I previously endured. REVERSE SHARK ATTACK sounds like a fuzzed-up needle pressing to me but rocks out fierce with that garage band psychedelic roar that we all sure could appreciate but could hardly get down pat, or Tricia for that matter. Not only is the title track a knock-down fave but the take on Syd Floyd's "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk" sure sounds better than many of the tributes to the Astral Case I've encountered over the years.

HAIR (which I suppose is the followup to the above) sounds suspiciously  cleaner and perhaps way more professional in spots but still kicks cellulose-riddled buttocks with its definitely pro-rockist feelers twistin' around in all directios. But whatever you do, don't let that throw you off.  Don't miss the re-write of the Seeds' "Satisfy You" now entitled "I Can't Get Around You"!

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Jorma Kaukonen-STARS IN MY CROWN CD-r burn (originally on Red House Records)

(Didn't I review this one already??? Well if so, here's yet another take...) I was goin' into this 'un thinkin' it wuz gonna be more of that aged ex-hippie rerereREdiscovery of Olde Tyme West gospel folk country melodies done up for a world that left this guy behind even more'n those badskis in THE WILD BUNCH. I was kinda/sorta right about that, but this ex-'plane/Tuna guitarist at least put in a few moments of decent singer/songwriter spiz (talkin' Buckley/Hardin/Tim Rose...) that could move my inner juices somewhat. Nothing substantial, and nothing I would ever part precious dollars for, but thankfully this is not that continuation of the whole earth radical hippie yammer revolution that this guy made a whole lotta radical brownie points with. Might even get him on A PRARIE HOME COMPANION if that thing's still onna air.

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Eugrom and his Dupes-AN ADMISSION OF GUILT cassette

I wuz gonna save this 'un for the occasional cassette only post, but since I just got it and it's a new recording and it's SO GOSH-DARNED GOOD I better mention Eugrom and his Dupes right now or forever hold my pizza. On this li'l wonder you get a group consisting of wild drums, front-heavy bass guitar (which even breaks into a "Sunshine of Your Love" riff) and tons of wild synthesizer glopped all over it making for a pretty wild basement-level recorded excursion that comes off rather gnarly especially in these rather sissified times. So good that parts reminded me of some of those '76-vintage Kongress rehearsal tapes only without Geofrey Krozier's mystical rants. Maybe Bob Forward can tell you where to get it, but then again maybe he can't.

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The Strypes-SPITTING IMAGE CD-r  burn (originally on EMI Records)

Well yeh, it 'tis good stuff, but sitting through these fiftysome minutes wasn't exactly a rock 'n roll expression of tantric (my new fave word) sound the way the  two albums by Mahogany Brain (my current fave beddy bye spinners!) most surely are! However if you are of the persuasion that the highlight of the late seventies new wave splatter was the power pop contingent as exemplified by Nick Lowe and a whole slew of bowlcut lads you might do some cozying up to the Strypes. As for me well, there were alla those Pere Ubu, Flamin' Groovies and New York Dolls records to attend to before traipsing across these particular waters.

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Various Artists-JACKHAMMER WALLFLOWER CHANGES CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Once again, did I hear this one before? The Andre Williams (who I don't think is thee Andre Williams of "Greasy Chicken" fame if ya ask me considerin' the heart-wrenching mooshy glop sentimentality he exudes here) track is somewhat familiar but the rest, from old tyme country to some cornball Wyncote Records cover of "Michelle" to an early-seventies styled soul raver by Eight Minutes sure seems new to my brain! The "song poems" are a crack up as usual while the fifties popsters did have potential though ya kinda get the idea that the rate-a-record kids on BANDSTAND wouldn't be able to dance to any of 'em. 

Yet another aural trip into that junk store that burned down twenny years back an' you never did get that scratched up Dave Clark Five album you were ponderin' about for weeks on end.

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One-a-these-days yer gonna regret ignoring these BLACK TO COMM back issues for sale come on's that I've been runnin' at the end of these posts for nigh on two or so years. Like when are you guys gonna wake up and latch yerselves onto some heavy doody real-life rock 'n roll readin' for once in yer miserable existences? Sheesh, sometimes I do wonder about you guys but then again when I get to readin' some of yer Fecebook posts I wonder what kinda people there are out in this sick sad world of ours!