BLOG TO COMM

As usual there's not much to chomp on this week. You know the drill as to why...lethargy, apathy, not enough really hotcha platters to keep up my interests, and most of all hardly any free time to indulge in those nowadays infrequent yet  necessary dives into the realm of sound. In other words, alla them things that used to keep my leisure activities from staying too long in the bathroom. Oh well, with the lack of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Japanese pearl diver issues on hand maybe I should be limiting my toilet time to doing my necessary doodies, ifyaknowaddamean... Still, I sure could use more of that driving, raving, post-Velvet Underground music (hopefully created during the group's actual lifespan if not for a few measly years afterwards) 'stead of the patented and cookie cutter diarrhea that passes for cutting edge 'n based these sad 'n sorry days.

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Gotta say that there has been some news of worth that's good enough to rouse me from my self-imposed virtual suicide (which I committed ca. 1997 when I realized my life was never gonna happen). For one thing, the Alan Vega series of archived recordings that Sacred Bones is gonna unleash on us is one reason to keep one's bodily fluids up and about. As for the other well...gotta think on that one a bit but I'm sure that there are things out that that should keep any SANE, WELL ADJUSTED SPECIMEN OF A MAN like myself from crawling back under my crib.

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Haven't been discussing much politics on this podium as of late, though at this point in time what with a verifiable drool-cupper in the presidential chair and a spread legged anti-virgin poised to take his job at any time (not to mention a load of hip 'n with it felchophants at the papers and tee-vee tryin' to make it all look oh-so-normal) all I gotta say is --- I really do hope that either Poland or Hungary annex the United States and really soon! Heck, if their troops were bangin' the door just rarin' to come in I'd definitely give 'em all a helpin' hand! In other words as Kenne Highland once sang, "Sieg Heil Mofos --- Amerika First!"

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Seems like Bob Forward's got the  award this week for most contributions to the cause with Bill and Paul following closely by with one each. In fact, I just got a doozy of a package from Paul which makes me very happy, since I know that there's one guy north of here who ain't spendin' his free time burning churches down ('n hey, as far as I'm concerned they just hadda bury 'em TB-riddled Indian kids somewhere or else the place woulda stunk to high heaven 'n the vultures woulda gotten to 'em!) Keep it up guys because if it weren't for you well, it just wouldn't be BLOG TO COMM!

Greg "Stackhouse" Prevost-SONGS FOR THESE TIMES CD (Mean Disposition/Penniman Records, Spain)

The third in probably a long line of Greg Prevost folky/blooze outings that I get the idea would stymie (or even buckwheat) a whole load of his old Chesterfield Kings fans. In fact, didn't Cee-Dee opener "Free as the Wind" show up on some Chesterfield Kings album way back when? Sounds kinda familiar. Acoustic strums featuring (what else but) tracks, some new and most covers, with stunning versions of Love's "A Message to Pretty" and the 13th Floor Elevators' "Splash 1" being the hands down highlights. Worst part of this package : the liner notes from David Fricke which aren't offensive 'r anything, but I still haven't forgiven him for that Von Lmo putdown printed in the pages of a 1981 MELODY MAKER.

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Pete Ubu-390 DEGREES OF SIMULATED SOUND CD-r burn (originally on Rough Trade Records)

Hoo boy, do """""I""""" remember the big to-do when this effort came out! Early Pere Ubu live with a few tracks even featuring the original Laughner-manned version of the group when they were at the top of their form! Between that and the CLE flexi-disc featuring their live rendition of "Pushin' Too Hard" from the same show how could any real rock 'n roll maniac stand to be alive what with alla that hotcha pre-gnu wave (term now PD) rock that reflected the tastes of those who were still stuck in '76 AND WERE MIGHTY DANG PROUD ABOUT IT IN THE FACE OF WHAT THAT SOUND WAS BECOMING!

Forty years later this sounds just as fresh and cuts to the core of your under-the-underground sensibilities as ever. The five-piece version of Ubu had yet to wander off into that happyhappy watered-down version that sounded OK at the time before some elements of cringe made a few of us wanna upchuck it all. For those of you with the early-eighties and onward vision of Ubu in your mind this really'll remind you of just what a hard-edged no nonsense group they could be, firmly entrenched in the mad miasma of late-seventies under-the-underground rock with heavy duty thank you's being sent to the sixties/seventies cusp of rock 'n roll as that maddening mass of vibrations rolls over you like Crocus Behemoth running for the buffet table.

By the way, I noticed this way way back but nobody else seems to have mentioned it as far as I know, but have you heard the obvious similarities between Ubu's "My Dark Ages" and the Red Krayola's "Green Of My Pants"/"Nickle Niceness"?

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Various Artists-EGGHEAD cassette tape

Mix, or as some wisenheimer would say "mixed up" tape from Bob Forward featuring things you wouldn't normally hear in polite company. The recent Anthony Braxton interview on NPR was pretty much what you would expect given the guy's unpredictable nature, though I was kinda shocked to hear what he sounds like today as compared to those spoken word tracks which appeared on his early albums. John Cage's RHENGA  AND APARTMENT HOUSE 1776 bicentennial effort's comparatively cozy when compared to some of his earlier orchestral efforts and even features Jeanne Lee via pre-recorded tape. Following's a Wire show from the mid-eighties when everybody who used to like them didn't anymore (but I find it about as passable as these Wire efforts can get) plus Devo on tee-vee in 1980 long after they became one of those groups for people who wanted to be hip and with it but were terrified of James Chance and Throbbing Gristle.

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Miles Davis-PAUL'S MALL, BOSTON 9/72 CD-r burn

Its an FM radio broadcast featuring early-seventies Miles and crew doing some pretty good raga-y fusion that you can really wrap your nerve nodes around. Good sound and good performance featuring a backup filled with mostly passerby's in the world of jazz...best of all this'll warp you into some really far away sphere that'll make you forget just what a horrible person Davis was!

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THE BEAU BRUMMELS CD-r burn (originally on Warner Brothers)

Dunno why this '75 reunion platter got such hard knocks at the time, for it has a good sorta post-folk laze about it that I doubt anyone was gettin' outta the myriad assortment of post-Byrds platters hittin' the bins. Sure Sal Valentino doesn't sound as young as he used to and there are too many ballads for my tastes, but the music is still driving and the update from sixties folk rock to seventies country pop ain't as rocky as one would expect. There's even a bit of the old Brummels feel here and there and really, I guess any of you who were up and about back then woulda been scourin' the cutout bins of '76 lookin' for a copy of this...I mean, what's a wait of a few months anyway if yer gonna save a good four bucks!

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Captain Beefheart-OSLO '75/CLEAR SPOT cassette tape

This 'un woulda definitely setcha back a good ten bucks or so (hokay, on a premium chrome tape!) had you bought a nth-generation copy from some fanabla way back 1980 way, but here it is fortysome years later an' I'm gettin' a copy for freefreeFREE!!! Given the rate of inflation and other important factors being considered ya woulda thunk it's be worth a good bazillion by now!

Anyhow this cassette's a surprisingly good-sounding (def "A-" using olde tyme grading systems) live show from right around the time when the dinge of those Mercury albums (which I thought were OK but you will beg to differ) had given way to the man as we once knew him. Lotsa classic sixties Beef here too including some rather treacherous recreations from TROUT MASK REPLICA, an album which as you all know is one of those sixties/seventies cusp albums that continue to be as soul-searing as it was when it first came out.

The CLEAR SPOT cuts are mostly backing tracks which may or may not have ended up on the final product. Or so I'm kinda/sorta led to believe...can't be too sure with my album in storage at this point in time. Anyway that's for them real nitty gritty Beefheart fans to tell us lumpen lumps. But whatever, it's sure great revisiting 'em because, as we all know, we need more music like this and less music like that as the years dwindle on.

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Various Artists-PEANUT-BUTTER CHEYENNE BORDER GRITS CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Another fine muss what with a neat cover of the theme to the infamous tee-vee western CHEYENNE not to mention the usual country and mid-Amerigan local rock singles that never went anywhere but are once again given a chance to make it inna world of instant communication. Highlights include Lester Flatt's "I Can't Tell The Boys From The Girls" which has an even stronger impact here in the days of mix 'n match gender fluidity, Champion Jack Dupree as Meathead Johnson explainin' why he likes 'em old 'n wrinkly and three-count-'em-three whoppin' versions of "Double Shot Of My Baby's Love". The BONANZA Christmas tracks weren't exactly welcome here in July ('n besides after years of thought I've come to the conclusion that this particular series paled next to the fifties/sixties western competition) and I coulda done without Sammy Davis Jr. --- had enough of that guy for about ten lifetimes already to want to give him the time of day ever again.

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You like rock mags? I like rock mags too, as long as they're filled with that hard edged offensive music scribing, the kind you used to find way back inna mid-seventies when everyone was too chemically-induced to really care what sorta snide comments were being directed against "minorities" by the gonz crowd of the day. If you like that sorta chicanery then well, I get the sneakin' suspicion that you'll really like these back issues of BLACK TO COMM that I have been pushin' on ya these past umpteen years. Then again you might not. I just can't judge the overall stupidity of many of you readers especially after reading some of the asinine comments you people tend to leave on this blog.