BLOG TO COMM

Oh chee, another BLOG TO COMM post. Well, ya better feel GOOD about the fact that yer even gettin' one this week! Yeah, I coulda been spending my ever-dwindlin' free time doing more constructive things like dolin' out slop at the homeless shelter or watching even more of those GUNSMOKE reruns that have been captivating my imagination (I like to imagine what REALLY goes on upstairs at the Longbranch Saloon!) but nooooo, I have to hunker down and listen to a lotta music (both good and bad I'll admit) and let you loafers know what I think about 'em just so's you can decide whether or not to go 'n getcherself a copy or two yourselves! A thankless job and one I never did have a "calling" for (the only calling in life I ever had was to be a decadent millionaire in the J. Paul Getty III vein but them's the breaks) but better me than thee I always say!

Big hankerin' hunkin' thanks to Paul McGarry and Bill Shute for the gibs. I mean, other what other circumstance would I ever get to hear some of these obscurities anyway?

 

Tim Buckley-STARSAILOR CD (Music on CD Records)

Sheesh, why should I be reviewin' this new Cee-Dee reissue since I already have one Cee-Dee and three whopping vinyl platters of STARSAILOR rotting away in the collection? I'm doin' it because STARSAILOR  is that good of a record to recommend, and given the lack of real deal musical throb thrills these days you need every bit of hard-gunge that you can lay your precious little ears on!

It might just go right past your unadulterated beanie just how overall rockist important an album this one is. For one thing STARSAILOR was as great a slab of downright rock 'n roll career suicide as METAL MACHINE MUSIC was, bumming out the hippified sensitive folkstrummers even more'n Reed turned on the heavy metal crowd he had accrued as of late. For another thing STARSAILOR was one of those 1970 albums that seemed to ring in the more down-to-earth hard-edged sounds that the seventies would become renown for. Along with FUNHOUSE, THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD (MUSIC TO EAT if ya wanna stretch things to '71) as well as a whole slew of import oddities from Germany that we wouldn't even know about for a good six or so years, STARSAILOR drove home the whole downer trip of the day even more'n the hard rock groups on the ascent ever could. And thirdly, it was so good that even Pat Boone covered "Song to the Siren" on his own getting up to date and hipster comeback album, although he no doubt snatched his version offa Buckley's '68 rendition on THE MONKEES...as if Boone woulda covered the title track inna millyun years!

Not only that but for a late-seventies suburban slob teenbo who was gobbling up ten-year-old finds and new spurts as if he had just popped outta the pod STARSAILOR was an unexpected wow-wow! Even by that time it had become harder to snatch ir up in just about any form (though the discovery of an ancient 8-track cutout espied in a stereo shop bin had me contemplating buying a machine worthy enough to play it on!), so when I laid my eyeballs upon a flesh and vinyl copy you can bet that it (as well as Buckley's earlier attempts at avgarde musical moves LORCA which only set me back a whole buck!) got snatched up even faster'n Vanessa Del Rio going for the Anusol!

The band is great what with the defecting Gardner Brothers from the original Mothers adding some fairly good moves that kinda make me wonder why they never tried to make it inna jazz world on their own and time signatures are all over the place getting funky and hard rockish like nothing since Black Pearl! It don't sound like them but the West Coast freakout quotient is certainly something that cannot be denied.

Although firmly rooted in the rock 'n roll idiom those blasts and blares also recall the grimier side of the New Black Music of Pharoah Sanders with an El Lay drive mixed in. I don't see how anyone who believed that side two of FUNHOUSE or the clanging of Guru Guru's UFO represented the true sounds of utter decay and desperation that earwormed its way into way too many teenbo casualties to keep track of could not find even a tad bitta appreciation for this alb!

If it makes any bit of a difference to you Nick "St. Nicholas" Kent thinks very highly of it. I kinda wonder if I hear in STARSAILOR  what he hears in those mid/late-seventies Joni Mitchell platters he still hosannas to the rafters? Sheesh, maybe I better not press the subject any further or I might end up loving those as well.

Available again on Cee-Dee after years legal hoo-hahs,  STARSAILOR just might be the sonic remedy to many of the musical woes of today as it was a good half-century back. Only I hope that now there are more fanablas out there aware of its power and overall abilities to crush those repression blues you liberated kiddies have piled up in you. If the word had only gotten about about this way back when maybe it woulda stayed in print longer and like, I sure coulda used a copy a whole lot sooner'n when I eventually did get hold of one I'll tell ya!

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Rhino Bucket-PAIN AND SUFFERING CD-r burn (originally on Acetate Records)

Do YOU miss the Golden Age of Hard Rock that made its presence known whether you wanted to know about it or not way back when? Didn't think so, but if you do you'll probably go crazy over this 2007 release from a group with the rather unlikely name of Rhino Bucket. Heavy of the early-seventies aspects of metallic scronk (talkin' Free and Led Balloon along with a few others you can read about in any CREEM heavy metal history), Rhino Bucket also tend to take more than a few of their moves from late-seventies AC/DC which will probably make a few of the more heavier duty readers out there wanna seek this out. And after years of faux metal prissies taking over the world of true sonic expression it's sure nice to hear what this stuff was supposed to sound like before it all got glitzed out! It's worth the time to seek out if you tend to be a little more randy in the soundscapading than usual.

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The Jet Black Berries-SUNDOWN ON VENUS CD-r burn (originally on Pink Dust/Enigma Records)

Fairly faithful to the whole sixties good memories rock ruckus, but then again SUNDOWN ON VENUS might be a little too slick for some of the gruffier survivors amongst us. Highly recommended for those of you who still have a hankerin' for the better portions of what eventually became of "new wave" back inna eighties and were torn between the past and present due to overdose readings of KICKS magazine. I felt it rather copasetic with my reading of some old issues of PSYCHOTRONIC VIDEO that I haven't touched in over twenty years and who knows, you might have the same goody gumdrops feeling about it too!

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FELT CD (originally on Nasco Reecords)

Amid the standard 1971 relevant rock moves there is a decent album waiting to burst out. Neo-Doors jazz signatures with a tad toss of then-contempo singer/songwriter emote plus a few other West Coast signposts make for a fairly digestible outing. Overall a fair platter though you can tell that these guys wouldn't have been signed in a millyun years had they tried to break out of their Alabama enclave.  

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White Fence-LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO CD-r burn (originally on Castle Face Records)

Y'all know that, other'n these Cee-Dee-Are burns that I get sent, I have not been paying much attention to many of these newer'n new underground rock groups that have been spurting up as of late. An' when I say "of late" I mean the past thirtysome years! So when I do hear a relatively new group that does something to the inner core of my being or some other hippie jargon I must say that it all hits me pretty hard, and in a good, life-reaffirming way as well.

These White Fence guys are one example of a newer kinda band that delivers on the BLOG TO COMM aesthetics 'n in an real hard-pounce fashion at that. They play sixties/seventies cusp hard rock with a hard garage band tone to their sound which woulda earned 'em hefty heavy metal accolades in any boff mag from the early-seventies (and perhaps even later). The singer has this great Bob Dylan nasal tone that gives the already rockin' sound a strange enough air and between the hard-riffage and the at-times neo-retro sound ("Breathe Again" borrows freely from "96 Tears"!) this live effort sounds like well, it musta been a pretty fun night!

Dunno if any of the other (if any) White Fence output is worth the time and energy to get but this record didn't make me wince one bit. Not a sign of coy cute and precociousness to be found...can ya believe it???

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Various Artists-ACTION PAINTING SOUL TRAIN CD-r burn (Bill Shute) 

Fun 'nuff mix of relative gnu recordings from the likes of the Raveonettes and Action Painting's MUSTARD GAS EP (more powerful'n the usual power pop sound!) mixed up with sixties rarities and whacked-out soul courtesy Sound Experience. Personal favorite is the promo record for Selmer's "Varitone" sax pickups. Some of the furrin' stuff and the instrumental "Soul Train" by the Rim Shots (which ain't the theme to the famed tee-vee dance show!) and the cover of "Evil Ways" didn't quite flibben my jib but wha' th' hey! Too bad Bill snuck a coupla beer commercials on here because well, I'm trying to avoid anything harder than lemonade beverages 'round here and there's always that li'l seed of temptation that puts those impure thought into my mind. Sheesh, now I just GOTTA get a can of beer and some Mountain Dew to make an imitation Hop 'n Gator that'll really dredge up those early days of adolescence like pronto!

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I know it....I've been checking the "hits" on these posts and can tell that THOUSANDS of people have been hitting the link that takes 'em to the back issues of BLACK TO COMM page! So howcum there have been so few orders for 'em comin' in as of late? As if I didn't know, so why dontcha all get off your acne-pitted butts and BUY a few if only to keep me well in Funyons for at least a week or three???