BLOG TO COMM

Well Crappy New Year to youse and your'ins, and if you think I really care how your holiday season went you're even denser than I thought! Thankfully I had some extra free time these past few weeks to crank out a sooner-than-I-expected real deal big time post 'stead of those pitzy book review thingies, and if ya think I am doin' all this for your benefit you got another think comin'! I'm doin' it all for my own personal feel-good-about-myself benefit and besides, my therapist thinks it does a whole lot more good for me than basket weavin' ever did.

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Oh, 'n before I forget, I must thank alla you who got me goodies this year like Bill, Brad, P.D. and of course the fine fine superfine Droogs for their Christmas Card! Of course this past X-mas was nada compared to some of the biggies in my life I have often told you about, but thoughts and actions do count, even in the slightest as alla you people who hate me and the blog undoubtedly know by now!

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Heres' a li'l bitta BLOG TO COMM esoterica I found while rummagin' through the ol' stockpile, a pic of none other'n ME taken during my young and from the looks of it hungry days. Sure look happy there don't I? Of course I don't --- I mean that snap was taken at a time when, besides having little to choose from in eyewear other than birth control glasses, there were plenty of good records out there for the buyin' but I was stuck livin' on depression-era wages and couldn't afford many let alone alla 'em goodies that were up and about! That is, unlike YOU ROLLO THE RICH KID TYPES OUT THERE WHO WERE ABLE TO BUY EVERYTHING YOUR LI'L OL' HEARTS DESIRED AND WHO WOULD HAVE PROBABLY LORDED IT ALL OVER ME HAD WE COME INTO CONTACT BACK THEN IN YOUR TYPICAL UPNOSED FASHION T'BOOT!!!!! Hey, I hadda work hard to be able to afford them 99-cent Flamin' Groovies albums (which I still own and hold near and dear to my boobies) while all you upper crust "punks" hadda do was get daddy to foot your bills in order to get alla 'em imports and bootlegs that were poppin' up all over the place! And you wimpass well off snoots still had the nerve to call me a "poseur" (oh boo hoo sniff blubber!) while munching on brie and fine wine for weeks on end, Sheesh why dontcha try workin' a day in your lives and see how hard it is to come by them platters honest-like 'stead of just "asking for it" like I know alla you pious and priggish narsissies have ever since the doctor was thinking about throwing you away while keeping the placenta, which, in retrospect, probably would have been the proper choice to make! Sheee-yit!

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I suppose that I should say something regarding my own personal thoughts and beliefs regarding the usual everyday current events if only to get alla you radical elitist snobs' bile all in an uproar. But then again, alla you pampered petunias have long quit reading this blog in self-righteous moral outrage so why should I even try? But I must because, frankly you kneed to my my own thoughts and opinions a whole lot more'n you do those armchair radicals at DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND. 

For one thing well, I gotta admit that I kinda like it watching the current Prez bumbling about taking the world down this the country with alla his handlers trying to make him look oh-so-presidential falling flat on their faces in the process, and I gotta hand it to the folks not only at the White House but the media at large for even bothering to tackle the Herculean task of making the ol' fanabla look even halfway coherent! naturally not reporting on his gaffes while still deriding Donald Trump as the badski does help, if only in the slightest even if everyting that seems to be thrown at his comes off like a cherry bomb tossed at a thick-hided rhinoceros. If anything, I gotta give credit to Biden for one thing --- he makes former prez Gerald Ford actually come off downright elegant in comparison!

As for slobs like me who live in the sate of Pennsylvania well, it is definitely true that I might have some devious fun watching the changing of the guard in the senate and governorship here just like I would watching the apocalypse from a safe distance. Not that I thought that Josh Shapiro (a man whom I absolutely LOATHE) was a shoe-in considering not only the weakness of his opponent but the chi-chi upper class liberal vote concentrated in the big city areas, but the fact that enough people got off their asses to send that human train wreck John Fetterman to Washington really does make me wonder what weird neurological robotics we're gonna be in store for on C-Span in a few short weeks! Personally I wish that Kathy Barnette had gotten the nod considering how a good portion of the Pennsylvania elite wishes that her mother had her D 'n C'd after the rape that she was conceived in butwhaddeva, a this point in history all I gotta say is that you people got the government you voted for and yer gonna LOVE it. But too bad for us normal folk who go to work and have to foot the bills to suit your socio-political reform whims and fancies, ifyakowaddamean...

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AND NOW, FOR SOME VIEWING THAT SURE AIN'T "CINEMA" BUT JUST SOME GOOD OL' KICK YOUR FEET UP 'N FART AWAY ENTERTAINMENT!

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Again, here's a nice heapin' hunkerin' buncha old, new. borrowed and blues things I've been spinin' since our last soiree. A nice batch if I do say so myself and if thie following reviews don't prompt y'all to head for your nearest record shop to snatch up these sonically speaking efforts well, I guess things are just as usual as they've always been ya knuckleheads! Kudos to Paul, Brad, and my by-now aged vinyl collection for the contributions.

Chrome-THE CHRONICLES !! LP (Dossier Records)

An old classic that Brad Kohler got me for Christmas thinking that, in all these years, I NEVER HEARD THE DAD-BLASTED THING AS IF I WAS SOME SORTA PIMPLE-POPPIN' LOCK THE DOOR AND SPURT AWAY NIMNUL 'R SOMETHIN'! Of course he was right --- actually he was wrong but it sounds funnier if I said he was right --- but it was still nice of the ol' fanabla to give me another excuse to listen to this slice of classic Chrome.  Wall of gnarl complete with a steady drum beat just right for alla you old turds who used to read them fanzines which had Chrome ads plastered all over 'em, and I know you were one of 'em because who else would even go near this blog!

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The Senders-ALL KILLER NO FILLER (1977-2001) 2 CD set (Left For Dead Records)

"Can't O.D. on r 'n b" was this group's slogan, but from what I've heard they sure were O.D.'in' on a whole lot more if them stories about Sid Vicious galpal Nancy Spungen asking Senders frontman Philipe Marcade how to shoot up gives you some sorta inkling. Who knows, maybe it was the pharmaceuticals that got this group up 'n goin' considerin' the highly pulsatin' music that is put forth on this collection of Senders tracks both rare and not-so-unreleased. The live @ CBGB album that came out on Midnight is nowhere to be seen here but the Max's 'un from '80 is, along with a whole slew of tracks that take those fifties tock roots which are amphetamized to a point where many a precursor to the Senders sound like BACK IN THE USA come off reserved in comparison. Speaking of the MC5, none other'n Wayne Kramer drops in as does Johnny Thunders and it's all guaranteed to make your prissy Aunt Matilda's ears bleed like nothing since your cyster's last period. Dunno about YOUR ears, but you have been warned.

By the way, the liner notes to his 'un were scribed by none other'n Tim Stegall, a guy who sure got more than his share of abuse o'er the last thirtysome years and, from what I can tell; NONE OF IT, not even a tiny little eeny meeny bit, was deserved. It sure is nice to see Stegall still writing on in the here and now while al lotta the doofs who were putting him down in their own better-than-thou sophisticado ways are now either scrubbing toilets in some sailor bar or running daddy's business with alla the perks and some hot teenage boys on the side. I admire people who stay TRUE TO THE FORM!!!

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Anthony Braxton-THREE COMPOSITIONS OF THE NEW JAZZ LP (Delmark Records)

Here's Braxton a good eight or so years before he deservedly got the kind of notice that usually eluded the practitioners of the free form making his a reputation amongst the more-inclined jazzbos found on many a college campus. With the basis of the future Creative Construction Company in tow Braxton gets even more further out there than those far out players of the sixties with a surprisingly bold approach that I never could fathom them aforementioned college jazz hipster wannabes even goin' near! 

Think Roscoe Mitchell and the rest of those AACM-ers, only with a European classical approach that even got some of the John Cage groupies noticin'! But, like Mitchell and a good portion of the AACMer's, still a vital part of the Great Black Music which, come to think of it, appropriated a good hunk of white Europeanisms into their style

By the way, did i ever tell you about the time I was spinnin' some Braxton platter in my boudoir and my father saw the cover and thought he was Johnny Mathis??? A few seconds of sound quickly changed his mind!

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The Seeds & Sky Saxon-BAD PART OF TOWN LP (Eva Records, France)

Yeah, most if not alla this has been reissued under the guise of the Bomp! Records Group back inna late-eighties, but at one time this album was the only place most of us could hear these rare sides featuring the Sky King before and after his brief but heady heyday in the mid-to-late sixties! 

Nice Euro-styled sleeve houses not only those rare post-GNP Seeds singles which really do cut a hard psychedelic swath, but some (maybe all?) of the early pre-Seeds Sky spinners which show off a particularly innocent and ballad-y early-sixties side to the man. You might want to pay special attention to "Half Angel" which sure doesn't sound as if Sky is doin ' the warbleizin' --- that's definitely a female in front of the mic and I do suspect it to be Sky's former partner in musical crime and ex-Little Rascal Darla Hood who's doin' the honors! Anyone out there know the true story? If so keep it to yourself like you always seem to do!!!

A great way (if you can't latch onto the Bomp! side) to osmose the extremes in the career of the man otherwise known as dog's best friend.

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Wah y Los Arrrghs!!!-CANTAN EN ESPANOL CD-r burn (originally on Voodoo Rhythm Records)

Since the only Spanish I know is "chinga usted" and "tu mama es una puta" (which I believe respectively translates into "you're a swell guy" and "your mother is nice" or something like that) the lyrics on this 'un go totally right by me. However this wild rocker doesn't need no Berlitz to get its message across. Sixties revival racket 'n roll that thankfully eschews the usual hackneyed ruts many of the mid-eighties revivalists got into with a mid-sixties beat that woulda gotten any teenbo of the past up and hollerin' for more'n Shake-A-Puddin'! That flat Moxie sound really woulda helped these guys out, but then again we can'T have everything even if it's tht anti-audiophile attitude we all know 'n love.

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Various Artists-A SPLASH OF COLOUR LP (WEA Records, England)

It's been awhile since I've given this 'un a play. In fact this has been the FIRST time I played the thing since I got it and I sure know why! 

While this collection of the New British Psychedelia straight outta 1981 revival-land sounded like a nice idea fortysome years back most of the groups presented on A SPLASH OF COLOUR come off more like Duran Duran wannabes tryin' to cash in on the new British Weekly flavo(u)r of the week! 'n frankly, I was wishin' an' hopin' this 'un'd be brimmin' with nothin' but the type of psychopunks who were seen at the time ampin' up for a hotcha  self-produced single. Sheesh, as if they couldn't've gotten Dr. Mix and the Remix to donate a track!  

Only the Times with their "I Helped Patrick McGoohan Escape" captured any of the stark reasons as to why I was gobblin' this stuff up in lieu of the actual sixties thing being harder to find than Don Fellman in Germantown!

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The Night Shadows-LIVE AT THE SPOT LP (Hottrax Records)

It ain't THE SQUARE ROOT OF TWO but this '69 live set is sure better'n just how some of them sixties garage band purists made it out to be. Good mix of mid-sixties aesthetics, the off color hot dog song and the hipster schmooze and it all comes off like I woulda thought a wild night out would've--- even the cover of "Seasons of the Witch" with Little Phil doin' a Janis Joplin imitation is less hippie and more scronk! Well, lemme tell ya that I rather woulda been at this concert than Woodstock --- at least there would be a relatively clean toilet somewhere nearby and you know just how gassy my bowels can get sometimes!

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Hawkwind-PORT TALBOT MAY '70 CD-r burn 

The horrible sound quality actually adds a whole load of gnarl to this extended rendition of "Be Yourself" from the first Hawkwind spinner. Incredibly intense rendition here that shoulda been bootlegged long ago even if the overall quality certainly wouldn;t have been suitable for some of you HIGH FIGELIT/STEREO REVIEW half-mastered virgin vinyl pressing types out there.

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Hot Lunch-MAX'S KANSAS CITY NOVEMBER 20, 1977 CD-r burn

Better quality than the CBGB 'un reviewed a month or so back, Now you can understand more of what Emilio Cubiero is singing and from what I can make out most (but not all) of it is as disgusting as the bile he was spouting on his DEATH OF AN ASSHOLE platter, that album which got the New York under-the-underground better-than-thou types all agog back when it came out. Good for historical purposes and for those of you who kinda remember punk rock before it mutated into that sissified variation called punque.

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Kikagaku Moyo-AT HERE PRESENT/GREEN SUGAR CD-r burn 

Big thanks to Otto von Ruggins for tipping me off to this now defunct Japanese group that no ifs and and buts about it had the German Expressionist Rock style and approach down pat! Drawing on equal parts Can, Amon Duul II and the motorik beat of Neu!, Kikagaku Moyo sounds so seventies under-the-underground Teutonic to me that upon listening I felt like I was back at some Southern California record shop thumbing through overpriced Ohr imports! A group that really dredges up alla those long-forgotten (sometimes even for me) impulses of the past that usually led to the draining of my hard-begged moolah.

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Now that you got alla that Christmas money just bustin' outta yer wallet what're ya gonna do with it? Yeah yer maw said to put in all inna bank but you know better! Howzbout spendin' the entire wad on back issues of BLACK TO COMM 'n just tell her that you deposited the booty so's you can buy a scarf for her with the 10 cents interest when Mother's Day rolls around! Hey, by the time Mother's Day does pop up onna calendar she probably be senile anyway 'n besides, why waste money ona lady who doesn't even know what day it is when you can blow it all on yourselves!