BLOG TO COMM

Not much to rant about this week if only for reasons that will become evident once you read the following paragraph. But eh, it ain't like BLOG TO COMM is a blog that can deliver 100% of the hi energy rock writing 100% of the time! Maybe this week it's 99.999...% on all counts but don't worry, because I will make up for any shortcomings (no jokes please) in future posts, some which are guaranteed to get you into even MORE fits of self-righteous garment-rending indignation than all of my previous posts COMBINED!

But more importantly I wanna know...does this post look rather STRANGEOID to ya than they have as of late? Mebbee it should since I got a new computer (a "Lenovo" which I hope don't mean "total ripoff" in Estonian!) an' like, after almost eighteen years of using a standard Dell with all of the comforts of home built in this thing is taking quite a bit to get used to what with neophyteme struggling to find the various "bold" and "italics" doohickeys plus goin' from plus goin' from "compose" to "HTML" an' back when the time arises! I still have to work out the bugs on this....sheesh, I can't even shut down the thing without having to plug the "on" button" plus I don't know how to enlarge the teenyweeny type which does cause eyestrain! But trudge on and play around with this thing I must, an' I sure hope th at my present and future published posts look as nice as they did back with the old computer quality conscious fanabla I am and shall remain. But hey, better a turdly BLOG TO COMM than none at all, albeit I think a few former readers would beg to differ.

Getting used to it all is adding somewhat of a strain on all of my senses as well as my psyche, especially when you consider just how much more effort I have to put into refurbishing myself to become accustomed to this new technological advance in my life unlike it was with all you rich kids who got the tippy top best things in life by merely bugging daddy until he couldn't stand it. Trudge on I will, and all I gotta say is that if you expect more quality and bared-knuckled effort being put into this thing now that I have advanced up the blogo-evolutionary ladder somewhat, boy are you mistaken!

***

IT'S USELESS TO ASK BECAUSE YOU ALL WILL IGNORE ME BUT I WILL ASK ANYWAY---are there any recordings by the French group CROUILLE MARTEAU out there that I can lay my grubby little paws on???

***

Oh yeah, and would this really be BLOG TO COMM without me mentioning in my own snarling sorta fashion that Eddie Van Halen's finally dead? All I gotta say to that is GOOD RIDDANCE to a guy who was part of the big ruination of rock 'n roll as a feral form of loathing expression what with his slick technoandroid guitar playing that typified the sterility of the eighties us old turds hadda live through! Sheesh, whenever I hear that opening to Van Halen's dismal take on "You Really Got Me" I really wanna run to the ol' boom box to cleanse my soul with some guitar playin' done RIGHT  a la Lou Reed on "I Heard Her Call My Name" or Throbbing Gristle's "Zyklon B/ Zombie" for that matter! Now that's the proper application of guitar as WEAPON tactics that this guy can really go for! Glad to see ya go Eddie, and hopefully you and the rest of your cadre as well as ex-wife Valerie will be joining you down there to argue about who had the biggest ego for all eternity! 

***

And as far as the credits go...thanks be to Bill Shute, Paul McGarry, Bob Forward and Feeding Tube Records for the donations. They are obviously appreciated even if I may seem rather snarky about some of these things at times. Of course I sure could use a lot more freebees to help keep my wallet filled enough for my eventual retirement, a era in my existence when I'll have even MORE time to just hang around the house and listen to records. No Meals For Wheels volunteering for me! So whatever you can send (as long as it approximates the BLOG TO COMM reason for existence) is most certainly welcomed. And with that let's stop the chin chatter and get down to the real deal squeal...

Loren Conners-UNACCOMPIANIED ACOUSTIC GUITAR VOLUME ONE LP (Feeding Tube Records)

Yup, the very first Loren "Mazzacane" Connors platter from back '79 way all waxed up and re-presented for your personal enjoyment. Those of you in on the Conners game might be surprised by these admittedly Mark Rothko-influenced shards of free sound framed in a rather arrhythmic if expected (remember, we're talking Rothko) pattern, but for those who spent the seventies scarfing up various solo guitar efforts on Caroline or snatched up Eugene Chadbourne albums via NMDS on a pure lark this will sound rather familiar.  A very enlightening look into the beginnings of a guy who may not be as great a "legend" as in Abraham Lincoln or Godzilla, but should be well-appreciated by the kinda guys who were lookin' for something beyond the bucolic folk strains that have ruined many a youth gathering back when I was young and wasn't supposed to know any better.

***

Ken Kesey-THE ACID TEST LP (Jackpot Records)

Somehow I get the impression that the people involved with the album didn't need drugs to be disconnected from reality, but I guess the more lysergic acid inna bloodstream the better for these San Fran proto-burnouts. Ken Kesey, Ken Babbs and the Grateful Dead take an extended trip and lay it all down in the studio so's that curious boobs like myself can see what all the fuss was about a good fifty-five years after the fact. Jaded me thinks that there really wasn't anything that special a'goin' on, but the strange wordplay coupled with the even stranger musical background reminds me of something that the Butthole Surfers may have laid down inna eighties before having the poor sense to toss it out! Fortunately these people had the sense to lay it down on wax and an interesting listening experience for those of you wanting to know more about the acid experience without trying to cop today's watered down variety is in store.

***

Led Zeppelin-CARDIFF 1972 CD-r bootleg

Gotta say that the audience quality of this 'un (which would probably rate a "Good Mono" in some old HOT WACKS catalog) does deter from the legend. The legend being that Nick Kent felt this was perhaps thee Led Zeppelin performance which really got that woolly mammoth we call punk rock rollin' into total eruption. Unfortunately these thirty-seven minutes are all that's left representing what actually went down that December night in '72, and between the muddy sound and the gasping audience it really is hard to discern anything either positive or negative about the group's performance. But hey, I gotta say that I did eke some enjoyment outta whatever was left from the "Whole Lotta Love" medley, and that John Paul Jones's Mellotron solo was silent moom pitcher spooky enough for my own strange tastes. And hey, if this is punk rock at some important point in its development let it be so. Better'n the guys in Genesis sayin' they were playing some real bonafeed punk rock on THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY that's for sure!

***

The Vapids-YOU WANNA F... AROUND CD-r burn (originally on Amp Records)

Latterday Ramones/Heartbreakers imitators who at least veer a little bit off base to make this platter a fairly enjoyable once-inna-lifetime experience. You've heard it before true, but you'll wanna hear it again because I get the impression that many of you readers still haven't gotten enough of the one-chord monobeat even at your advanced ages! If you've worn out all of those New York punk re-re-re-REissues and want to hear more of the sound that kept you goin' for forty-five years well, this 1999 spinner is just what yer lookin' for!

***

The Fundamentalists-WHAT YOUR NEIGHBORS THINK ABOUT YOU... CD-r burn (Walls Flowing Records...write ubgun12@yahoo.com)

Sheesh, everybody knows that good fences make good neighbors, and if you're spinning this ambient recording of what I purport is Bob Forward's own neighborhood maybe good sound buffers would be handy as well!

***

Various Artists-CHOCOLATE DUCKTAIL SOUL CRY CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Sludge city. Well, almost kinda/sorta. Si Zentmer and Peter Nero's Beatles schlockups will remind you of your kiddoid days when for years just about every mainstream mauler on the Adult Contemporary scene hadda cover some sorta Fab Four fandango and worse yet YOU hadda endure it all whether at the department store or dad's den. (Tho my own father loathed the music in any wayshapeform which makes me glad that there were still some people who stuck to their thirties/forties music aesthetics even that far into the game!)  The various EZ listening efforts do bring back those memories of knotty-pine rec room stereo shenanigans  Some country swing and teenage boys who think their record is gonna get 'em gash appear as well so if you hate the sounds of the Older Generation all is not completely lost. One thing about this is for certain and that is that Rita Moss, who performs "Daydream", must have had more helium in her than Kate Bush!

***

Are you feeling sad, lonely, depressed or otherwise chungered??? No wonder, for you probably do not have enough back issues of BLACK TO COMM circulating in your system! As the guy on Apple Records once sang, try some, buy some and you only have yourself to blame if you just don't come off feelin' all light an' airy doin' the tarantella as the dopamine churns up in your skull. Lotsa snat reading to be found in these pages, so stock up for the upcoming winter months lest you be snowed in with the complete collection of MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL coupled with a few issues of BRAVEAR for good measure.