BLOG TO COMM

READING TIME: ONE MINUTE IF YOU SKIM OVER IT LIKE MOST OF YOU JERKS DO, FIFTEEN MINUTES IF YOU REALLY AND HONESTLY DO WANT TO FIND OUT WHAT I'M SAYING AND LET IT ALL DIGEST IN YOUR TAPIOCA-LIKE MIND, OR TEN HOURS IF YOU'RE A REALLY STUPID TARDO!

I know I've been remiss in my duties (which seems to be the rule more than the exception in these here times --- eh!), but as some might say the longer the wait the better! Not because there's a nice gap o' time between my postings of this trash, it's just that I have more time to concentrate on the details and nuances of the music at hand rather'n just dash out some prima facie opines. Also, because I'm not under the gun and doing this at a more leisurely pace I can even put more time into correcting some of the typos and unintended misspellings and grammatical errors that usually befall even the most honest and pure of BLOG TO COMM posts. (I'll keep the run-on sentences intact --- always loved their tangled drive.) You won't care, but two thousand years from now I get the impression that someone'll be studying this blog like it was an ancient dinosaur turd so I better put my all into these efforts rather'n just dish out the usual slop that I've been writing for the past umpteen (or more) years.

Not that there's anything really earth-shattering to report about these days, nor is there the time for me to do just that. As usual I have been busier than a gerbil salesman in San Francisco (by the way, happy "Gay Shame" month as Don Fellman says) doing way too much real-life things that sure take the time outta goofing off and other activities crucial to the BLOG TO COMM lifestyle. Fortunately I have had some precious moments where I could kick up the feet and lend ear to many a good recording as you will see below, but otherwise it's pretty yawnsville 'round here even when the drudgery of real life work gives way to those scant hours (who'm I kiddin' --- minutes) of funtime. Not only that but there hasn't been anything positive in a deep, spiritual way to affect me as of late. I mean, nobody that I hate has died recently and that's usually a call for "drinks on the house" as far as this fanabla is concerned!

***

A big hefty and hearty thanks to Robert Forward who jetted my way a burn of the 5-CD Yardbirds collection of radio and other weirdities entitled GLIMPSES. I really do appreciate the thought you put into sending 'em, but frankly if you did your homework you would have known that I've already reviewed it here and you could have saved a whole lotta time and money that could have been put to much better use, like buying up some of my back issues! Oh well --- if any of you readers would like these burns (and if you're in good standing) why not ask before Brad Kohler gets 'em whether he likes it or not! (No rush since the thing got lost in my room, but when I do find 'em them burns will be going somewhere!)

***

Members of the Against Me!
 fan club showing their
disapproval at the lack of 
any gender fluid trans
acts in today's space filler.

In order to fill up space and make this post look beefier'n a can of Dinty Moore's here's a list of some items that I have been spinnin' during the creation of this particular post.  I am also doing this to show you just what a well-rounded person with relatively universal tastes I most truly am and shall remain, just like all of them guys who wrote letters to THE NEW YORK ROCKER and MAXIMUM ROCK 'N ROLL and jotted down their top tens if only to look "hip" and "with it":

Roky Erickson EP on Sponge Records

Myriam Gendron-MA DELYRE CD (Feeding Tube Records)

Transcendental Psychology-REDEFINITION CD (Chromium Recordings)

Joseph Jarman-SONG FOR CD (Delmark Records)

International Harvester-SOV GOTT ROSE-MARIE CD (Silence Records, Sweden)

Moby Grape-MOBY GRAPE '69 CD (Sundazed Records)

Frank Lowe-DOCTOR TOO MUCH CD-r burn (originally on Kharma Records)

Gang of Four-ENTERTAINMENT! LP (Warner Brothers Records)

Can-UNOPENED CD (Asteroid Records)

Tim Buckley-STARSAILOR CD (Enigma/Retro/Straight Records)

Comus-FIRST UTTERANCE CD (BGO Records, England)

Les Rallizes Denudes-ARE YOU RALLIZISED? 2-CD set (Ignuitas Records)

Stanley Cowell-BLUES FOR THE VIET KONG LP (Arista/Freedom Records)

Wayne Shorter-SUPERNOVA LP (Blue Note Records)

Lol Coxhill-WELFARE STATE LP (Caroline Records, England)

Smegma-"PIGS FOR LEPERS" CD (Harbinger Sound Records)

The Ventures & The Fabulous Wailers-TWO CAR GARAGE CD (Blue Horizon Records)

The Grateful Dead-FROM THE ARCHIVES VOL. 1 CD (Deadhead Corporation Records)

THE FABULOUS VENTURES LP (Dolton Records)

The Magic Michael track from the GREASY TRUCKERS PARTY 2-LP set (United Artist Records, England)

Hawkwind-THE TEXT OF FESTIVAL CD (Eastworld Records)

Chrome-HALF MACHINE FROM THE SUN CD (King of Spades Records)

***

Don't say I don't do anything good for you, like post this link to where you can download your very own issue of GULCHER #0!

***

Y'know, it's quite interesting on one hand yet in no way surprising on the other how something like a comic strip can remain witty and more attuned to one's sense of humor and artistic taste a good hundred-plus years after its creation, while strips fresh off the press flop about like a fish as soon as they hit your eyes:

***

Does anyone out there in blogland know where the following bit originally appeared (one source says MAD TV but they were never as cutting as this)? Dunno about you but I found this takeoff on fifties-era educational films quite high-larious given how the concept of radical no-holds-barred humor (started by the likes of Monty Python and nurtured through various outlets throughout the seventies) is now strictly verboten in a world where the modern-day version of those "reform leagues" that D.W. Griffith so eloquently railed against are watching us with the gleeful intent to ruin. It's surprising that such truly righteous offensiveness was even permitted in the first place, at least in this dungeon we call the 21st century:

***

If we unplugged Karen Quinlan and plugged her back in a few minutes later, would she work?

***

And now for some albums that didn't set the world on fire (even when someone was looking!) and in fact nobody gives a good gol durn about even to this day. 'cept me of course, but what good am I in a day and age when music "criticism" has long gone beyond even the cut and paste of the eighties and into some rather dismal ultraslick hypoid direction I'm sure even the more turdlike rock critics of the eighties couldn't have imagined? Thanks to Paul McGarry, the aforementioned Mr. Forward and a record collection that's been growing like tumors on my anus ever since the seventies.

RAT AT RAT R LP (Neutral Records)

Way more coherent than I remember it to have been. Sure the rot of late-eighties noise for the sake of striking a pretentious New York artistic pose can be discerned (the forbearer of many of those angst scrawls one has heard since the nineties) but a hefty slab of experimentalism back when that concept was still exciting is clearly more'n just howshallIsay present. It's no surprise that this came out on Glenn Branca's Neutral label considering the similarities between Rat and Branca's various sonically-related endeavors. Actually a pretty gnarly listen-to especially if you were one of those guys in the eighties that really missed the cataclysmic crash that was seventies underground music and longed for its return. And if that sounds like me it should sound like you too.

***

WCSB LIVE LOST TRAXXX-UNIT FIVE/CHI PIG/TIN HUEY LIVE AT THE LIME SPIDER, AKRON 2005

Unit Five and Chi Pig live in 2005? Didn't know about it (or else I forgot about it) but I wouldn't've been there anyway because --- well, I have a hard time finding my way 'round Akron and going out costs money. 'n you all know what a cheapskate moocher I am!

I remember Unit Five as being one of those NE Ohio new unto gnu wave groups that were probably boring beyond belief (I mighta heard 'em before, but I sure don't remember given the blur of abysmal music that made its way to my ears throughout the eighties/nineties!) but here they seem downright passable. I guess the studio slickness that I faintly recall is what gave me such a terrible impression of 'em. Here they don't sound half bad, or half good for that matter. Still it is better'n just about all of the drek on the NE Ohio scene that music like this ultimately led to.

Chi Pig are surprisingly wowzer here, perhaps because once again the recording quality only adds the kinda rawness that I prefer in a lotta my music, accentuating the grittiness that rock 'n roll used to stand for before nauseating gloss and older generation professionalism took forth. Dunno if this was a one-off reunion or if they have been playin' out for some time, but the band sounds exactly as I remember 'em from those WMMS and WKSU recordings that Bob Forward had most graciously made for me. The reformed Rocket From The Tombs coulda taken a few lessons from Sue and Debbie given how those reunion platters, hokay as they were, needed some of the original THRUST.

Closing out the show's some Tin Huey who sound more late-seventies professional than mid-seventies underground here.  I guess they couldn't argue with the sound that got them signed to Warners which is fair enough, but given how dismal that 'un sold I dunno... Their version of "Gimme Danger" was a masterful touch --- I mean, to my knowledge NOBODY has ever covered that 'un! Too bad they hadda fade it out right when it was gettin' good.

***

The Revolutionary Ensemble-THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC CD-r burn (originally on A&M/Horizon Records)

Believe-you-me, I've had this in my collection for well over forty years (got it at the same flea market, the same booth, and the same day I got that Arnold Corns single that still has Brad Kohler cracking up left and right!), but I forced Paul McGarry to burn me one anyway just so's I can drive around with it playing on the sound system with the window down! Boy I'll bet the girls'll be pullin' up and winking at me like anything!

Being their only big label release, this '76 effort sure shows the trio of Jenkins/Sirone/Cooper not wasting the opportunity to take it to the max throwing every bit of sweat, sinew and perhaps even a few whole body parts into this effort. The upkick in quality doesn't make this any better of an album than does the same spirited violin-led neo-chamber jazz that the Ensemble made somewhat of a name for themselves with. Introspective in fact, sorta like a chopped down string quartet with percussion and forays into what some might call "whimsy", but it is nothing less than pure genius (using the word a little loosely, but just a little...).

Shee-it, but "Chinese Rocks" really does have a rock 'n roll (well, rhythm and blues) base that yings Jenkins' homage to mid-sixties Ornette's yang 'n you can dance to it! 

The title track starts off with a Back to Africa percussion workout complete with chanting before turning into Anton Webern (or is it Arnold Schoenberg? John Cage???). Then it's back to everything you liked about such 60s/70s players like Jenkins who (no doubt about it!) was the Albert Ayler of the violin to Sirone who invented lead bass and Cooper who could get Sunny Murray-ish then refined then tribalist, or maybe all three things at once if you can believe it!

T'is interesting to realize that, for a brief period in the seventies, the music of Braxton as well as these guys could actually get major label backing not to mention some press coverage with everything drying up as soon as the eighties took hold. Heck, I even recall seeing THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC proudly on display on the wall at the National Record Mart at the Youngstown Ohio Southern Park Mall along with the rest of the new releases of note proving its prominence as a platter that was worthy of all the push it deserved! And people wonder why I think so highly of the mid-seventies.

***

Lamonte Young/Marian Zazeela-THE BLACK RECORD CD-r burn (originally on Not On Label Records, Japan)

I haven't been keeping up with the flood of Lamonte Young albums that have been (re)issued over the pasty twentysome years, so this '69 effort is definitely a newie to me. Young and Zazeela moan to sine waves on the first track while a gong is bowed on the second sans any vocal contributions. It kind of reminds me of some of those early-sixties experimental Fluxus-inspired pieces where items are dragged across the floor and amplified by contact mics. This is gonna be a great spin for me whenever I get into one of my classical avant drag out the Cage moods.

***

Radio Birdman-JULY 14, 2007 BLUEBIRD THEATER DENVER COLORADO CD-r burn

Another one from the US tour and really not that different from any of the other Radio Birdman recordings from the same era. Noteworthy for the inclusion of some stellar covers from the Who ("Circles") and Blue Oyster Cult ("Hot Rails to Hell") not forgetting the Kinks raver "Till the End of the Day" 'long with the familiar Birdman rep. Good enough for me, howzbout you?

***

Au Pairs-STEPPING OUT OF LINE THE ANTHOLOGY 2-CD set (Castle Music Records)

Sheesh what's with it with these early-eighties English "post-punque" bands anyway? You start off liking what you hear, then you begin picking out various nuances that hamper the band's overall direction and approach, then you get just downright irritated after even only a few numbers. This is especially frustrating on anthologies when the music starts off sounding rather creative but eventually devolves into Feminist Youth Disco pickup dance music puke (12-inch remix). You can just guess how you'll feel when you're done with the entire shebang! The worst part was that groups like Au Pairs sounded a whole load better'n alla the fluff-weight metal and preening gnu wave posturing that was all the rage at the time! Gawd if I had a knife I'd cut any memories of the eighties on right outta my brain!

***

AMM-THE CRYPT : 12 JUNE 1968 THE COMPLETE SESSION 2-CDr burn (originally on Matchless Recordings)

Heard a snippet of this off AN AFFLICTED MAN'S MUSICAL BAG but the entirety of this '92 release is new to mine ears. Bee-youtiful stuff too, what with the wall of feedback covering up the conventional (?) instruments weaving in and out, up and down and it still comes off like 90 minutes of "LA Blues" to me. I should like this --- after all I used to spin the AMM side of the LIVE ELECTRONIC MUSIC IMPROVISED album in bed back in the late-seventies and it sure helped relax me straight into the arms of Morpheus more'n Sominex ever could!

***

I've come to a surprising change o' mind regarding these back issues of BLACK TO COMM I've been hustling since time immemorial (well, at least it seems that way). Maybe I'm just not pushing them hard enough, so PUSH PUSH PUSH I must! Now if only some of you readers out there'd do a little pulling (and you know what I mean, silly!).