BLOG TO COMM

Aren't you glad to be livin' in 2021? Not me --- heck, the parade has passed long ago and I didn't even get to participate in it, or get to see much for that matter. In fact, for a good portion of my life I didn't even know that there was a parade out there to enjoy and well, now that I'm in my declining years (which began age six if you ask me --- it's a slow death) all I gotta say is, was it WORTH it? I'll tell you after I get some of those Alan Vega platters that they're plannin' to release o'er the next year or so.

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Should I say anything about the very recent passing of ZZ Top's bass guitarist Dusty Hill? Dunno if I should but I will even though the only Top I liked was this thing I heard on very early 80s FM radio which was a nasty batch of post-psychedelic blare. Well, given the Moving Sidewalks/American Blues roots of ZZ Top (plus the fact that they remembered the Red Krayola as evidenced in a 1976 CREEM article entitled "Whorin' and Scorin' with...") maybe I should have some sorta "affectation" for 'em as George Kennedy woulda said. But eh, when all was said 'n done weren't ZZ Top really just another anti-life/anti-energy rock group for the vast array of dumbbells out there who lacked the once-vital rawness and utter degradation that any real human wants in his music? In other words, a good 180 from the kind of sounds these guys were layin' down in the sixties when Hill and compat Beard at least had the bad taste to dye their moptops blue in homage of their band's moniker??? Not only that, but I heard onna radio today about how Hill used to shop in the local supermarket not to mention gave money to various local charities in his area and like, JUST HOW CUBE CAN YOU GET??? True I'll still be spinnin' the Sidewalks and Blues from here on in but as far as losing a major musical icon goes well, maybe ya shoulda gotten into aluminum siding instead Dusty!

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Here's an article that I found very informative, well-researched and just plain ol' excitin' in that gets to the crux of the matter 'n makes you feel like yer a youth again readin' about it all for the first time. (However, for all its inclusiveness as to the etymology of the punk pre punque term a few references were left out such as Mike Heron's "Warm Heart Pastry" as "metaphysical punk rock" in the pages of JAMZ #5, Hot Scoff Fischer's review of the first Budgie LP in a '72 CREEM [where else?], Dennis "The Menace" Roth's C-60 punk compilation in FUSION and Amon Duul II's CARNIVAL IN BABYLON being described as "Stravinsky Punk", also in CREEM. Go figure!) C'mon, give it a go!

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Oh boy...more Johannis and his Pale Boys!

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Well, here's what you all've been waiting for. Paul gets the gold star for the most submissions to the cause while Bill clocks in at #2 with a measly one. An' if you don't think I'm grateful to the both of 'em, well people do get the impression that I am a stuck up, self-centered, ingrate kinda person who live in his own special universe and uses others to his own advantage. Well, it sure is better universe'n the one YOU'RE livin' in, and why shouldn't I be doin' what politicians have been doin' for years!

Sonic's Rendezvous Band-CITY SLANG CD-r burn (originally on Mark Aborn Rhythmic Arts, LLC Records)

Can't believe I've spent a good umpteen years on this blog w/o reviewing any Sonic's Rendezvous Band efforts. Too bad for me, because these documents of a world too cool for you still stir that spirit of life-reaffirmation in me like nothing since whippets. Thirteen all-out Detroit rockers that woulda been laid down even if that thing called underground rock didn't rear its pretty little head. Hard enough that it even made Ted Nugent wet his loincloth (I might have read that 'un somewhere so don't sue me) and like, I sure wish 1979 was all 'round as rockin' as this particular effort just happens to be. Eleven-count-'em live efforts sandwiched in between two studio takes of the title track, not countin' the nameless instrumental bonus tacked on at the end.

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Bad Religion-INTO THE UNKNOWN CD-r burn (originally on Epitaph Records)

You know, hearing Bad Religion's just as old and creaky as I am member Brett Gurewitz squeaking out that oh-so-brave proclamation that a real-life heavy doody punk rocker would never support Donald Trump, especially when the erstwhile punque himself takes oh-so-revolutionary sides with just about every woke corporation and mulimegalopolitan business east of Fanablasville, really doesn't do the Bad Religion memory that much good! But eh, he and his group should be credited for hopping onto the Howard Wuelfing canard about every good hardcore band eventually becoming Hawkwind a good two or so years before Wuelfing made that very same claim about Black Flag! 

INTO THE UNKNOWN "eschewed" the El Lay hardcore style right around the time many suburban nil-minds were discovering it via the pages of way too many publications that didn't deserve the notoriety they got, sounding way more like a swinging '71 version of none other than the aforementioned Hawkwind gang with a strong post-Doors El Lay feel that makes me wish this coulda been the ultimate flea market find of 1980.  Surprisingly good straight-ahead rock 'n roll that thankfully had little to do with the more nauseating aspects of phony anarcho-commie MRR hipsturd thought process that seems to be so in vogue these days.

Didja know I bought a whole slew of sealed copies of this 'un real cheap way back when after hearing about the platter's up 'n coming scarcity thinkin' I'd be making a bundle offa 'em? Shows you that I too can lose a buncha money doin' the rock 'n roll speculation game.

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MAYPOLE CD-r burn (originally on Colossus Records)

I remember those ads they used to have about the album on tee-vee alla time. Y'know the ones..."I want my MAYPOLE!"  Oh wait, that was Maypo they were talking about...hee!

Still I gotta say that this Maypole group could get about as lumpy as the cereal did. Not that these guys are wretched in any sense of the meaning, but sheesh there sure ain't a whole lotta real startling thrill chills and aural surprises in this early-seventies hard rock platter like there were in way many other definitely non-hippoid efforts of the day. Kinda comes off like Black Pearl only lacking their kinetic energy or the Stooges had they grew up like their parents wanted 'em to. No bad by any stretch of the imagination but sheesh, this just doesn't get you up and movin' the way alla them Detroit bands had you wantin' to go out and slash your teacher's titties. Still beats Cat Stevens along with Melanie and her li'l bells all hollow.

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The Satelliters-OUTTA HERE!! CD-r burn (originally on Dionysus Records)

I like this sixties retromoosh as much as anyone out there but for me a little sure can go a looooong way. 'n besides now that I have (or have access to) the originals that were so scarce in the seventies and eighties these sixties-inspired efforts just aren't as important to a not-so-young fanabla such as I anymore.  Still, acts like the Satelliters are fine for exorcizing some of those bad musical demons from your system, and given the utter turdburgers that have been released in the name of music these past few decades you might be wise to pick an effort like this up! 

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Eric Dolphy-GOD BLESS THE CHILD/IMPRESSIONS WITH THE JOHN COLTRANE QUARTET/Charles Mingus-SO LONG ERIC CD-r burn

I kinda feel embarrassed to admit that I wouldn't'a even'a knowed about Dolphy if it weren't for Frank Zappa name dropping him in the gatefold sleeve of FREAK OUT not to mention "The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbeque" offa WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH! Now that was a track that really made my teenbo wide eyed look even wider back when I heard it oh so long ago and it sure had me emptyin' out my wallet in order to get some more free jazz fun from the main source. But embarrassed I will remain, even though I am positive that many of you reg'lar readers didn't "come" to Dolphy in the exact same way I did!

The solo bass clarinet renditions of "God Bless the Child" remain a definite highlight of Dolphy's career, up there with his sax solo on the first Faubus Tales rendition with Charles Mingus that popped up on Candix. With a number of takes back-to-back you really do get a full meal deal experience as the famed Billie Holliday tune is extrapolated upon to points which wouldn't be reached until those Anthony Braxton solo albums that began cluttering up the jazz bins once his name became hot property. Too bad the kraut tee-vee appearance of him doin' yet another version has been yanked off Youtube, but these recordings are fine enough if you want to exorcize those goody two shoes demons that keep popping up now and then.

Speaking of kraut tee-vee, his sit in with the Coltrane quartet on "Impressions" remains a sturdy height in early-sixties jazz free-form as Dolphy's soprano interweaves with Coltrane's solid sheet of sound. 'n best of all, Ralph Gleason ain't about to ruin the mood with his thankfully by-now long gone smirk.

I'm not sure if "So Long Eric" was taken from a tee-vee appearance as well though if it was ya gotta say that them Europeans really knew how to fill up their airwaves with cool stuff as this. Basically Eric's goodbye to the Mingus group, ya gotta admit that he sure went out on a great note with this bluesy effort that brings back a whole load of previous Mingus tuneage. So swingin' that even white cool cats in them pre-whigger days usedta mention their names in hushed 'n holy tones as if they were in for the cause just as much as the real life blacks they emulated! Well, at least that generation of hipsters was way more on the ball than the one we have today!!!

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Brownsville Station-A NIGHT ON THE TOWN CD-r burn (originally on Big Tree Records)

I remember seein' this 'un in the record bins back in those pre-pubesprout days and never gave it the time o' day. Of course $3.99 was way too much for a guy like myself to splurge on a platter that just might not satisfy my sense of suburban slob thrills and well, that amount of money was a whole lotta kapusta to get hold of back then! Nowadays I think I had saved my moolah well, for A NIGHT ON THE TOWN really doesn't sound as if it woulda been worth the purchase. Sure there's a good Beatles swipe in "Mad For Me" and some neo-Detroit rockers here and there, but overall this Cub Koda effort reminds me of an early-seventies Flamin' Groovies album without the underlying nerve-bend that the Groovies were always able to deliver on. Tough.

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Various Artists-DOWNTOWN IN THE DARLING COTTONFIELDS CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Wow does Bill put out the corn, and I don't mean likker, on this platter what with the steel band version of "Downtown" and the Fairview High School Fine Arts Dept.'s version of the Turtles megahit "Happy Together"! There's also a whole buncha gals singin' in foreign tongues what sounds like standard pop love songs but could be "Go Home Yankee Trash" for all I know, not to mention some kraut guys singing rocked-up Amerigan folk songs in both German and like us. 

I can just see some jetlagged corporation representative listening to this all being whipped out as he digests his schnitzel at the Treblinka Holiday Inn. Add some song-poems, an early-sixties folkie cash in done by some group who were probably unaware of the communist nature of them songs and you got...yet another Bill burn! I'll betcha wish ya had one!!!

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Maybe I shouldn't'a printed up so many of 'em but gawrsh, what the world really needed back then was  BLACK TO COMM! And considering that the world STILL needs this oft-loathed but crucially important magazine I'm sure glad that I did. Now the rest is up to you, dear prospective reader you!