BLOG TO COMM: 06/01/2024

Friday, June 28, 2024

BOOK KINDA THINGY REVIEW - PATTI SMITH --- HIGH ON REBELLION (Babylon Books, England)

Not a fanzine, a magazine or a book for that matter (actually its one of those quickie churn outs that Babylon Books used to splatter all over the place a good fortysome years back), but HIGH ON REBELLION's bound to get people like myself who are obsessed with sixties/seventies rock mythology and the one called Patti Smith's involvement with it somewhat excited. Not totally excited like I was while reading through Sandy Robertson's WHITE STUFF but good enough to rekindle the old nodes of rock energy and ranch house suburban slob bliss that sorta petered out once the early-eighties really got into gear.

To be as honest as J. Neo Marvin about it this 'un really ain't worth it if you've been in on the Smith game since the early-seventies. I'm sure that there are more'n just a few of you out there who were on to her back then anxiously pouring through her write ups and articles for a wide variety of pubs, not to mention latching onto your own prized copy of HORSES as soon as that 'un hit the bins. There are TONS of reprints of articles and other Patti ephemera that you probably already read once or at least copped via choice nuggets that popped up in WHITE STUFF or ANOTHER DIMENSION, and really do we need to see those nude snaps of her once again lest our testicles shudder in fear and run back up to the ribcage for safety?

Still, the original text regarding the lass and her history is well written (although nothing out of the ordinary is revealed) and there are a few bits that have passed me up even this late in life such as a NEW YORK TIMES piece by then-contributor Jonathan Cott. You may remember this guy --- he's the same Jonathan Cott who whipped up some rather high-minded and somewhat flitzy material in the early edition (and even later) of ROLLING STONE. (To me he's best known not only for the interviews with John Lennon and Karlheinz Stockhausen that appeared in the mag's early pages but a snooty high-minded putdown of the Red Crayola in their tenth anniversary issue calling them the bummers of the San Francisco Summer O' Love going against the entire grain of the spirit and warm 'n toasties those days exuded. Well I definitely am exaggerating but Cott sure didn't go for the group's atonal shenanigans which thankfully did a good nose thumb at all of the youth-gone-rancid loveydoveyness that was in the air.)

Cott aside I will admit that this entry fits in with my own ideals of just how much 1964-1981 were the real hard-driving years for rock 'n roll (and I don't mean the same kinda LSD haze that I assume Cott reveled in nor the whole James Taylor First Family of Rock spew his mag foistered on a generation of gullible kids) and how Smith, for all her rather creepy eccentricities, was a rock 'n roll fan like the rest of us who fortunately got to live her fantasies of being as big as her idols out unlike a schlub such as I. But given the oft-seen reprints and same-old packaged in a nice 'n glossy color cover effort I coulda done without it. I didn't and like well, it does snuggle nicely into my own '64-'81 homage to an era long gone and missed (at least by me) library that's cluttering up the place to the point where I just might be the next subject matter on the HOARDERS television show!

Thursday, June 20, 2024

SINGLES GOING STROONAD AGAIN AND AGAIN ONANONANONANISM...

Yet another trek into the vaults showcasing a whole buncha records of the seven-inch set. A good excuse to revisit long-unheard spinners hidden in the back of the pile which I will admit have yielded quite a few surprises even to me...

Died Pretty-"Out of the Unknown"/"World Without" (Citadel Records, Australia)

Australia was still buzzin' when this Rob Younger-produced single hit the consciousnesses of more'n just a few rock-starved OCD's back in the dark days of '84. Side one sounds more like It's All Meat when they were doing their early Pink Floyd moves than it does the Doors but still has its feet firmly planted in psycho terra firma. The flip not-so-oddly enough reminds me more of the Chocolate Watchband with that opening which sounds as if it came straight outta "Baby Blue". A few years later it all came off watered down when compared with what had transpired but when it was fresh boy, did I think that the next Golden Age was upon us and like now!

Mike Rep and the Quotas-"Mama was a Schitzo Daddy Was a Vegetable Man"/"Rocket Music On" (Hozac Records)

I don't think I should review this 'un considering how these guys have consorted with the enemy, but random pulls outta the collection being random pulls and all I got stuck with it. Low fidelity '76 vintage Ohio local rock with the same sorta suburban slob approach as the Real Kids or perhaps even the Screamin' Mee Mees, something which should not come as a surprise considering all of the raw scrapes of sound that were being laid down not only in that state but in the entire world just about the same time. For those of you about to reduce rock 'n roll to a compost heap of sound, we salute you!

Simon and Garfunkel-"El Condor Pasa"/"Why Don't You Write Me" (Columbia Records)

Another random pull out, and an inherited one at that (as if I'd ever buy such a thing)! The hit side proves once and for all that Paul Simon was swiping from the indigenous ones long before "Mother and Child Reunion" let alone GRACELAND, but if anything this 'un reminds me of the adolescent fun and jamz I used to have changing the lyrics to such absurdities as "I'd rather eat a booger than a turd" ... (another one was "I'd rather be a penis than a cunt --- you silly runt --- go on a beaver hunt" which is something you would expect from a twelve-year-old only I was 35!). The flip snoozes on though I will praise it for being at least tepid. Can you really run it through your brain that there were millions of 14-year-old girls out there who took this record (and this duo) to their flatter'n a pancake bosoms?

12,000 GIRL SCOUTS SING AMERICA'S NATIONAL FAVORITES 7-inch 33 rpm EP (United Artists Records)

And speaking of flat bosoms...twelve-thousand girl scouts??? Them gals sure hadda sell a whole lotta cookies to make it to this jamboree where I'm sure they not only had quite a good time skinny-dipping (hopefully without their Troop Leader lecherously spying on them) but got to record this EP of hoary chestnuts both familiar and not. It must've been utter heck to get 'em all singing in tune and all together for that matter, but they do and the results kind of remind me of either an avgarde musical experiment I'm sure John Cage would have loved to have conducted, or something that would have transpired in Mao-era China where one out of place squeal would send said singer to the re-education camp definitely not of his choice. Audio proof that 12,000 girl scouts can't be wrong, or better not be wrong to be more precise about it!

Tiny Tim-"Comic Strip Man (Biff Bam Slam)"/"Tell Me That You Love Me" (Solid Brass Records)

Gotta love Tiny Tim for trying to keep abreast of all the latest trends 'n gimmix in order to rev up that BIG COMEBACK he always thought was just around the corner. On this '81 release Tim attempted to cash in on the then-recent superhero revival complete with cheesy to the limit gal back up singers and Southern California session men who I'll bet'd rather be reading HUSTLER that working with this once-living legend. You know what it sounds like already, and I love every second of it. Other side's one of those trips back to the kind of twenties/thirties music that Tim gnarled his teeth with, or better yet the late-sixties nostalgia trip that Tim rose to the charts on. Thus you could call this an early-eighties nostalgic yearning for the nostalgic yearnings of 1968! Kinda like people whose only fond memories of the fifties are via HAPPY DAYS 'r somethin'.

4-Skins-"I'm Mad"/"When I'm Gone" (Grove Records)

Lotsa local rock groups that shoulda put out records back in the late-seventies/early-eighties didn't, while a lot who shouldn't have most certainly did. However, we can be thankful that NYC's 4-Skins were of the former persuasion what with this rather boff spinner that delivers the goods straight-ahead rather than being hung up on the varying early eighties trends which practically laid waste to the entire genre. "Mad" is an onslaught of straight ahead pre-punque heavy duty sounds which roars on though ends after a mere one minute and forty-eight seconds. "Gone" actually enters into some funky territory and dredges up memories of a music I sure wish proliferated 'stead of then flavors of the week that unfortunately took up way too much space in the pages of THE NEW YORK ROCKER and TROUSER PRESS. More of this kind of raucousness was needed by groups like the Skins (and a ton of unknown/unreleased acts) back then and maybe even now in a world where rock has been dead and buried for a good four decades already.

Nico-FOUR SONGS LIVE AT CBGB, MARCH 8, 1979 EP (What Goes On Records)

It was quite some time since Nico's last record so this EP did come in quite handy. Four songs recorded straight to cassette in what sounds like a quite intimate setting, one where you can ever hear the muffled chatter at the tables. Lutz Ulbrich strums guitar on "All Tomorrow's Parties" and Nico howls her harmonium on the rest. When this one does pop up for sale it's usually at an affordable price so you don't have to worry about any bank breaking on your part.

Gene Vincent-"Be-Bop-A-Lula '62"/"The King of Fools" (Capitol Records, Germany)

It's too bad that Vincent's '62 re-do didn't do anywhere near as well as the Ventures' "Walk Don't Run '64" because the thing really does have that sorta/coulda been feeling. "'62"'s a jauntier take on the original with an overall feeling and production that might have been more suitable for the whole Rydell/Vee crowd than the greaser jaunt of the late-fifties, but as the old cliche goes "it works!" Well, somewhat. Yeah, it was a comedown of sorts but then again Vincent could have sung Brad Kohler's report card and it would have sounded great. There's more of the same on the flip, this time complete with backup vocalists who sound as if they escaped from a SING ALONG WITH MITCH taping not to mention an overall direction that's as MOR as can be. It is better'n anything you've heard on the radio or tee-vee for the last fiftysome years so shut your trap and open your mind.

The Beach Boys-"Good Vibrations"/"Let's Go Away For Awhile" (Capitol Records)

You, me and even Helen Keller have heard the a-side overnovernover to the point of gagdom, but the instro flip really does satisfy those of us who still have somewhat of an appreciation for what they used to call California Sunshine Pop. A melding of moods and shifts that only a troubled mind could have come up with. "Let's Go" is the strange missing link between the original instrumental surf era and the new poppier sounds that were just on the horizon, and if original owner Michele Hodge is out there you can always stop in to take a gander at your long-gone record as long as I'm home during a day in the week with the letter "z" in it during a total eclipse.

Jane's Addiction-"Whole Lotta Love"/"Slow Diver" (Hell's Gate Records bootleg)

I loved the dickens outta this 'un when I first heard it way way back, but how does the thing hold up now that I'm older and much stupider if I am to believe some of you readers? The Zep cover still manages to tingle, sounding like something that I'm sure a few thou groups from the seventies and beyond coulda whipped up and maybe even performed at a Saturday night prance. "Slow Diver"'s the kicker, with moody late-sixties Pink Floyd organ intermingling with RADIO ETHIOPIA-era Patti Smith mystico mumbo jumbo that sure brings back warn 'n toasty memories of how I thought these late-eighties punk groups were gonna resurrect the mid-seventies teenage lament after years of squeaky clean whitewash. Unfortunately their debut album wasn't as good as far as I can remember, and I have the feeling that their subsequent ones weren't as well.

The Downliners Sect-"White Caterpillar"/"Lord of the Ring", "Spider" (Garageland Records, Sweden)

Even the Downliners Sect couldn't resist the lure of psychedelia as these released only in Sweden tracks so plain as the nose on Nanette Fabray's face reveal. With titles like "White Caterpillar" you can tell that the Sect were about as far into the psychedelic groove as the Troggs which I gotta admit says a whole lot more positive about the Sect and Troggs' contributions to the form than it does about the Jefferson Airplane's. Pretty hard rockin' for the Sect as well, and I wonder if any of those Sect haters who wanted to piss in Don Craine's deerstalker cap way back when woulda had different thoughts had this record made its way to their ears? Prob'ly not but what else is new?

Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments-CAREER INTERRUPTION CODE 33 rpm EP (Datapanik Records)

Mighty fine lo-fi wail on this 33 rpm spinner where the Apartments "borrow" heavily from everything from "Waiting For My Man" and "Gloria" to re-invent the concept of garage band rock the way most of you lunks probably first heard it via BACK FROM THE GRAVE. Trash enough (read: PERFECT) for my own personal tastes and perhaps yours too unless you're some sorta troll who likes to get his kicks writing stoopid comments on this blog. Notched many points for mentioning the excretable fanzine upper-echelon snob Tom Lax on the sleeve...wotta twat!

Y'know, if I only realized that Ron House was being sarcastic when he was whining the ikky "Letter to a Fanzine" on that Homostead sampler I wouldn't've given him and his Great Plains the razzing that I did. (Well, I gotta say that for the past fiftysome years it has been hard for me to separate put on from reality as most of my readers have surely found out, and vice-versa for that matter.) Boy did that start a feud to rival the Al Capp/Ham Fisher hatespew, the one that ended with the latter's suicide (no self-inflicted demises in our case as of yet). This 'un should forever redeem House in my eyes, but since I get the feeling that the guy continues to loathe me just like most of you sophisticado types out there most certainly do (he once described me as looking like an "insect" and if it were to be a butterfly I'd punch him in the mouth!) forget I said anything nice about him. Like anyone ever said anything nice about me (as if I should care anymore, but at times I do) so screw 'em all!

The Trashmen-"Henrietta"/"Rumble" (Sundazed Records)

This won't make any of those one-dimensional self-appointed hip kinda people change their minds about the "Surfin' Bird" creators but it will bolster our own faith in the entire Trashmen oeuvre. High quality sound too unlike the roller rink acoustics I thought would have been associated with a recording by a group on the low rung of mid-sixties snootiness. It's sure nice to know that there actually were people who remembered Link Wray in the mop topped year of 1965.

Konk-"Soka-Loka-Moki" (99 Records)

I recall being somewhat interested in that whole funk/dance music thingamabob that groups like Pigbag and these guys were cranking out during the v. early eighties, and these sides (which I assume are the same song) do have somewhat of a neo NYC decadent take on various James Brown moves that were so big at the time. But overall this is really tiring music that sounds as if it were made especially for some white New Yorker who wore a beret and light tan sports jacket and hung out at chi-chi parties where everyone was blasted outta their skulls on a variety of "stimulants" talking about who was on THE COCA CRYSTAL SHOW the previous night. You can bet that in these days each and every one of these people are about as humorous as a Sartre novel. You may call it punk funk (it really ain't --- check out Ronald Shannon Jackson or the Human Arts Ensemble's FUNKY DONKEY for that) but I'll call it the beginning of the end.

THE LONGINES SYMPHONETTE SOCIETY PRESENTS BRIEF EXCERPTS FROM BERT KAEMPFERT flexi-disc

It's no surprise that the older generation types were going whole hog for Kaempfert back during them days of teenbo rebellion 'n hair touching the collar/upper ear lobes (a big nada for the folks and relatives!). Well, Kaempfert's pseudo big band pop sure was a nice change of pace for some mid-aged office schlump having to endure "Quick Joey Small" over and over while carpooling the kids, and who out there would doubt that the Longines Symphonette people really knew which demographics to focus their energies on!

This promo flexi presents a nice enough medley of Kaempfert trackage neatly strung together sorta like those "Stars on 45" singles that were all the rage 40 + years ago. At first I played it at 45 and thought it had a nice kinetic bounce to it. At the proper 33 speed it had that slow glop feel that was bound to appeal to alla them cube types out there who wanted to do some oozing out after a long day's work. I can imagine some fifty-plus guy in 1972 playing the music presented here on his cheap Zayre's-bought stereo system, the kind that most all of us hadda endure whilst spinning our own then-piddling collections.

This flopper sure brings back memories of alla them free flexis that companies like Longines would fling out to them silent majority types as well of as the fun otherwise bored outta our skulls suburban slob types like myself had spinning 'em...sheesh, the first time a ten-year-old me ever heard any, or for that matter even heard about Buddy Holly was via one of these things!

Dangerous Birds-"Alfa Romeo"/"Smile On Your Face" (Propellor Records)

Two sides that really make me feel wonderful inside like I'm some teenbo kid and so happy about that life I have to look forward to with all the fun, adventure and cooze that's gonna be in store (hah!). "Romeo" might have some elements of eighties-vintage all gal group commercial cutesie poo to it, but even with the sweet melody this outfit still manages to inject some bright flash that kept it from sounding like the latest gnu wave toss into the trough. Real kicker's the flip, a middle eastern romp with castanets and couscous moves that kinda makes me wonder if Boston really was the last gasp of local rock innovation and a mecca for new and exciting talent. This'll help keep my spirits somewhat spry at least until the next time reality kicks in.

Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band-AVALON '66 EP (Blue Desert Records bootleg)

Rumor has it that some rather well-known rock critic released this on the sly at the same time he did a similar Alex Chilton effort. Well, whatever the case may be this EP did help us out by presenting some rare early Beefheart tracks long before they eventually ended up on a whole slew of illicit longplayers. Definitely SAFE AS MILK-period Beef here, and its all nattily done up at a time when he and the Magic Ones were still heavily into Howlin' Wolf and yet to traipse into their late-sixties cataclysmic mode. As usual the low-fi flatness adds more tension to an already high-powered effort than many people can stand. You've heard this 'un a long time ago, or so I assume...

Burt "Boy Wonder" Ward-"Boy Wonder I Love You", "Orange Coloured Sky"/"Bob Guy-"Dear Jeepers", "Letter From Jeepers 33 rpm EP (US Ltd. bootleg)

And now onto Captain Beefheart's high stool friend and sometimes nemesis Frank Zappa, here seen jumping onto the latest bandwagon that most definitely did have commercial potential. The trax with Burt Ward have been heard o'er and o'er again ever since the Mother People found out about Zappa's involvement with the Boy Wonder (I guess MGM could get away with avoiding the use of the name "Robin" in this fashion --- whoever was responsible sure learned their lesson from Jan and Dean). The other side contained one of those olde tymey hammed-up "nostalgia" efforts my mother hated because she thought the younger generation was making fun of her's! Of course they were, and I gotta credit mom for her astuteness. Naturally both of these songs are custom made for those who still cherish mid/late-sixties camp which I gotta admit sure beats modern comedy attempts at fun and jamz all hollow.

Flip's some single that a Studio Z-era Zappa did with El Lay horror host Jeepers Creepers during the Golden Age of Local Television (1963), and this fanabla exudes more of an early-sixties teenbo hipster appeal that was perfect for the MAD magazine/Steve Allen/PLAYBOY kinda Joe College type who eventually went whole grain marshmallow. Pretty fun stuff especially for you old-timers who remember just how downright cool low-budget television programming with their eccentric personalities was.

The Spiders-"No Price Tag", "Don't Blow Your Mind"/The Nazz-"Wonder Who's Loving Her Now", "Lay Down and Die, Goodbye" EP (Battle of the Bands Records bootleg)

And the third in a string of tangentially Zappa-related 7-inch bootleg booty. Here are two of the three pre-Alice Cooper singles from back when these guys were seemingly just as human and as every day suburban slobbish as you or (maybe even) I were. The Spiders got the mid-sixties teenbo sound (complete with a riff stolen from "Tobacco Road" on the a-side) down swell enough while the Nazz come off West Coast psychedelic what with their "Wonder Who's Loving Her Now" sounding closer to the Chocolate Watchband's take on "I Ain't No Miracle Worker" than anything I've heard before or since. For a funtime task compare "Don't Blow Your Mind" and "Lay Down and Die, Goodbye" with the versions that Alice and group were preforming a good three/four years later.

Rancid Vat-"It's My Fate"/"Slow Ride" (T/K Records)

And to top things off this effort from one of the few hardcore or thereabouts groups that were still worth their weight in salt after the rest proved themselves to be nothing but hippies in sawed off denim jackets. Can't complain about the a-side which is a surprisingly driving numbuh with interweaving guitar shards all backing up Steve Wilson's beauteous growl. Foghat gets the treatment on the flipster only proving just how much the Vat could take rather snoozeville boogie and rough it up beyond recognition. One of the few who hold up long after the rest floundered horribly, and if you want to know more about 'em just read the eighteenth issue of my not-so-infamous crudzine only you won't be able to cuz that issue's long out of print and just try findin' one!

Tuesday, June 18, 2024

BOOK REVIEW! A SMITTY TREASURY VOLUME 1 BY WALTER BERNDT (Gwandaland Comics, 2018)

Given that the only thing I knew about this comic strip was copped outta old MAD magazines I gotta 'fess up that I was somewhat curious regarding these by now ancient SMITTYs. Sure a strip about an office boy who likes to goof off but is so aw gosh that even his boss Mr. Bailey takes a shine to him (enough that the two go on fishing trips and even vacations together --- gosh, weren't we all so innocent then?) doesn't seem like the kind that would exactly perk my nerve endings. But still, SMITTY was a product of the Golden Age of Comic Strips and just for that I thought giving it a try would be something constructive to do before I clock out of life or happily spend my declining years on life support, whichever comes first.

After going through this gathering of old BORMs it's easy enough to see through the haze of a good ninety years that, although SMITTY is not the attention-grabbing visually pleasing type of comic that LI'L ABNER was, nor was it a simple to-the-point strip about the fun times of childhood as HENRY or NANCY well --- it was better than even I would have gathered. SMITTY was somewhat of a situation comedy strip so-to-speak which presented the daily travails of a young boy who should have been in school but is supporting his parents and younger brother Herby (an actual school kid who seems to be of turdler status) at one of those "what kinda business is this anyway?" sorta places where Dagwood and Ward Cleaver work. It wouldn't've been an exciting comic either without Smitty getting into some interesting scrapes, twists, turns and other story development lines that were bound to keep the usual depression-era wage kids (during and after the depression, and I should know!) tuning in given that well, there wasn't much else for kids to tune into back in them days!

And tune in they did! Some nice continuity here from the on/off attempt to snag the elusive fish "Big Mighty" to the usual problems and such we all probably had to (and still do!) go through thanks to office politics and ordeals, situations that I guess were later dealt with in the more recent (and way more boring) comic strip DILBERT. I liked the one where some new hotshot kid at the office tries to get Smitty fired so he can take his job which is something people (like myself) have experienced throughout life, only the badskis never did get caught and humiliated like they do here in fantasyville!

SMITTY creator Walter Berndt knew how to keep the art nice and simple and the stories uncluttered so that even the simplest of doofs could get it. And so would the same kinda folk (like us!) who still tune into old NANCY comic strip sites on this here internet if only to re-capture a part of our kid-hood that seemed to vanish once reality began to set in and set in hard.

It was nothing that really lights up the comic pressure point in my brain like a variety of other strips do, but I like it. I get the feeling that if I grew up with SMITTY I would be harboring the same pangs of a happy turdler era lost the same way I do when I read other old comics thinking about a time in my life I would gladly return to, at least if I had the dexterity to wipe my own ass.

Saturday, June 08, 2024

Well, after all of those tossout book reviews I guess that it's time for the real thing, and if you are a fan of mine (and who shouldn't be unless you're a TOTAL JERKOFF) you BETTER be ever-so-grateful! The usual day-to-day hassles and a summer that's gonna be filled with hard-sell outdoor flea markets etc. are putting a damper on this blog and will continue to for quite some time, but nevertheless settle back for the ride given how I've been putting a whole lot of heart, soul and even some plastic-laden testes into these posts.

Anyway welcome to the first post of Rainblow Month 'n here's that li'l ol' attention whore me presenting for you the kinda post I know (at least from post stats) you just love. I'll guarantee ya that nothing that is presented within these "pages" will elicit the same sorta throb thrills that earlier writings of mine most surely did, and perhaps because of the span of time between these big-deal posts there's just too much for the average (?) BTC reader to digest and ultimately shit out. (I was tempted to hold a whole load of this back for a subsequent post but figured by then none of it would be whatcha'd call "timely" as if this blog ever was.) However, deep down inside whatever's left of my heart I'll admit that I'm surprised my mind managed to toss this post at'cha, and given the swill passing for rock journalism these days what I've written still beats whatever I've recently read (or more accurately tried to avoid) regarding that maddening sound called rock 'n roll all hollow.

Now, that doesn't say much considering the dearth of printed pus that passes itself of as "rock critijissom" or whatever other descriptive terms one might conjure but eh, so what! When you consider that this entire mode of the music (as well as the people who produce and even listen to it) really is deader'n Karen Quinlan what would you expect? As I've told you many-a-time, we're all just zombies goin' through the motions only we don't know that we've been obliterated by the past five or so decades of utter loathing directed at our pure ideals and concepts of music. Music as a spell cast against both the forces of mediocrity and the hip superiority moosh that's "supposed" to stand AGAINST that very selfsame mediocrity. Well, better to indulge in the hard and gritty musical past than to sustain your cravings via the piddle being passed off as "raw" and "exciting" these days, and you know this blog is but one guided missile in the war against the creeping tide of bland that unfortunately crept over us way too long ago. And remember --- I wouldn't print any of this if it wasn't true!

REAL DEAL EVENT OF THE POST just hasta be the arrival of FAUX WOOD PANELING #5 into my mailbox as well as my very own existence. Sheesh, life has taken a turn for the better ever since this mag has come out, and looking forward to receiving the latest issue (me being on the freebee list---wow!) has become just as tingle throb worthy as when I was a kid awaiting my Archie Club badge and press card which I still have to have and to hold somewhere in the pile. Wade Oberlin never fails to deliver on the post-Meltzerian goods what with this brimming (pages are un-numbered but it is a biggie) mag that features none other than an in-depth interview with Darwin Layne himself Craig Bell as well as various bits 'n feces that are most welcome, at least to souls like ours who have been in on the game for quite a long time and are too smart to give it all up. Really, where else are you going to read an in-depth review of an early-fifties Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoon, other'n maybe the very blog you're now reading that is? The reprint of Meltzer's Blurt review was most welcome --- now if Wade would go 'n find the rest of his ne'er reprinted VILLAGE VOICE writeups boy would I be one happy somethingorother!

One particularly peeving thing about this issue is the (re?)printing of a Brian Walsby comic dealing with Rocket From The Tombs and the Cleveland first wave of underground rock. This particular page was irritating to me considering just how much I loathed Walsby's frequent PEANUTS-inspired art that cluttered up a myriad assortment of hardcore rags that I will be jettisoning once I get back on ebay or some cheaper equivalent one of these days. The man and his patented eighties punk unto punque attitudes were so upsetting to me that not one but TWO Walsby spoofs appeared in the earlier issues of my not-so-erstwhile crudzine...he was that irritable bowel syndrome bothersome to me perhaps because I thought that he and his work were somehow a culmination of the entire punk attitude and sound idiom that was turning into boring hippie swill right in front of my very eyes! And as time proved I was more righter'n you'll ever be!

Anyhow, despite my past hatred for the dude it's good to see that Walsby is now a devotee of the finer aspects of the underground rock quest (he was also responsible for a Maureen Tucker comic that I only saw a page of if only because Brad Kohler wanted to get my goat) and that his style has improved 'n all HOWEVER... Well, Walsby forgot that Crocus Behemoth had a beard and that Peter Laughner was in Rocket before the Gene O'Connor/Johnny "Madman" Madansky/Darwin Layne edition of the group, and although I know that I perhaps picking the nits a tad and that there's always some "poetic license" being injected into these things and that mistakes are expected to be made, but we're talking about a HALLOWED SUBJECT MATTER that should be treated with the utmost respect! This 'toon shoulda been executed a whole lot better considering the hallowed subject matter, with all the care and detail he would have used had he were doing the Henry Rollins story or something along those lines! Eh, why bicker especially this late in the game when it doesn't really mean a thing anymore and in case you didn't know...we all LOST! (available via wadeoberlin@gmail.com).

Also jettisoned my way via Robert Forward was an issue of that legendary magazine devoted to the more avgarde vibrations in life, mainly THE WIRE. Dunno why Mr. Forward sent this since hardly any of the musical entities who are written up in this magazine are anything that I'd go, in Tuli Kupferberg's own words, "aggieoogieagga" over (pardon me if I have used this descriptor before). Still the thought was nice and there were a few turdbits of interesting things I sorted outta this ish even if for the life of me I wouldn't spend one thin dime on just about anything that is mentioned in here! Well, they did print a review of that Peter Laughner "graphic novel" that I writ up sometime back, and maybe if I dig in a little more I'll find something like a review or an article that might actually be of interest to my rather horse-blindered brain. But as for now the only current publication that worthy of my time and pleasure's FAUX WOOD PANELING, and I won't take guff from any of you over this!

Looks like I got my birthday present a li'l early but so what! Here it is, SYD BARRETT'S FIRST TRIP which should also be known as THE BEGINNING OF THE END...

Here's another one for you cinema buffs, an early slice of underground filmage entitled 1941 that was created by a painter and moviemaker of little if any renown (can't find nada on-line, or elsewhere for that matter, about him) named Francis Lee. From what I do know about this flicker and (obviously) its title I can tell you that the thing had something to do with Ameriga's entry into the Second World War, but given how abstract and mind of the viewer interpretive it is, this film could be about "Aunt Flow" or any feminine type problem that's out there for all I know. Whatever, I gotta admit that I kinda like it if only because it reminds me of the opening of the old private detective series CHECKMATE:

Anyone out there who could give me some info or maybe even airchecks regarding on-air personality Steve Brown, some guy who used to spin 'em at KSJO-FM, a once-freeform but now Bollywood station in San Jose California? I'm only asking cuz, in the course of a Cameron Crowe-penned Grateful Dead article in that Jan '74 issue of CREEM I praised to the rafters a few weeks back, Brown was briefly mentioned as having been "once a locally infamous disc-jockey" and "an eclectic lover of off-the-wall punk rock" whose "first love" are none other than the Gang of Garcia as if you couldn't've seen that comin'! Sounds like the kinda guy I wouldn't mind getting to know better, although his affection for one of the more overrated rock groups in history might be quite off the ol' high energy target if you ask me (and why not, 'tis my blog?).

Hefty kudos to the DENIM DELINQUENT facebook page for all of those early Alice Cooper photos they've been posting as of a few weeks ago. Keep them snaps comin', and maybe a written review or two from Pete Sanchez would be nice!

AS IF ANY OF YOU OUT THERE WOULD CARE TO HELP ME OUT DEPT.: I'm trying harder'n hard to find some information or for that matter a discography (and the availability of recordings) on a late-seventies English punk rock group called the Worst, a Mancunian bunch who have been described in the following terms --- and what terms they are!:

Are the Worst really that late-seventies flash/burst of Velvet Underground sonic pride I've always enjoyed or just another one of XXXXX rock groups who took "the superficial aspects of the quest" without the deep drive and nerve-twisted feeling. They never entered a recording studio but I assume that there are some live tapes flying about, even though to date I have uncovered nada and I just KNOW none of you would be willing to help me out (then again, I wouldn't give any of you readers a ride to the hospital even if you broke your leg!). Who knows, maybe that guy in Finland who has been releasing these limited edition CD-r's of punk rarities might have 'em in his catalog! As usual, I'll attempt to find out and probably once again get burned in the process.

And the deaths just seem to keep on comin'. Dennis Thompson's passing makes it the MC0, and although I am not an aficionado of film as aht it was kinda sad to hear that Roger Corman bit the dust. And believe it or not, but I should feel somewhat droopy about the exit stage left of Steve Albini if only because he sent me an album gratis way back when I really needed to be sent albums gratis. Unfortunately the kind of deaths that I am looking forward to have yet to transpire which is kind of disappointing on my behalf. After all, I really do need a reason to smile these days. But maybe if we all wish and pray hard enough...

Ron Unz makes the brilliant point that Donald Trump, whilst campaigning from his prison cell (or at least the swank country club passing as one he'll be skedaddled to), could possibly be this century's answer to Eugene Debs. And come to think of it, if I were around way back 1912/1916 way I definitely would have voted for Debs over Prez Taft and especially the vastly-overrated and downright despicable Woodrow Wilson. Then again, even Happy Hooligan woulda been a better choice than that peacenik conveniently turned warmonger Wilson, a man whose crowning moments as Commander in Chief was probably during his post-stroke days when he couldn't do any harm even though his illiterate wife ended up runnin' things. And, surprisingly enough Debs was an honest man, something which seems to be a scarcity in the world of political wheeliedealies these days. Howzat for throwing you staunchly patented lefty types for a loop?

Whilst on the subject of the upcoming election...izzit true what they say about Trump and Roy Cohn?????

As you've been waiting for after all the above personalist jibberjab, here are some reviews of just a few of many recordings that are 1) either newly released and deserve a li'l push or 2) for the most part are totally new to my ears and I thought you should know at least what I think about 'em. As you've come to expect Paul McGarry, Robert Forward and even Wade Oberlin are the ones responsible for the burns and my pocketbook the one for the brand spanking new entries into my collection.

It is getting harder and harder to keep to my New Year's resolution not to splurge on various frivolities so like well, better enjoy what I have writ up before I'm banished to the poor house until my dying day. Pretty pic 'n chooze here --- will it be a winner or will it be a dud? (Unfortunately the gif doesn't work, but it's taken from the old MYSTERY DATE tee-vee commercial that some of you old turdburgers may remember. That was the mid-sixties board game where gals getting in on the hetero relationship merry-go-round aim for the ultimate dating experience and usually get stuck with the "dud", a guy who in this day and age would probably be yer aspiring body-pierced tattoo'd gender is over type's idea of a fun night out!)

Dredd Foole and the Din-WE WILL FALL 1983 CD; SEE GOD 1985 1986 2-CD set (both efforts via Corbett Vs. Dempsey Records)

You can read my review of the first Foole/Din career retro release here if you really wanna. If you don't I might have a tad bit of contempt for you but anyway, here're vols. two and three of the Din trilogy for all of you unrepentant Boston Rock fans and Velvet Underground obsessives who I still believe are firmly ensconced under your own personal rocks. Save some space for me!

WE WILL FALL 1983

has Foole still teamed up with Mission of Burma (more/less) continuing on the Boston tradition with their mix of more than competent originals jumbled with the expected smattering of those covers that inspired them originals. It's all done up live and pretty gnarly at that what with Foole's strained vocals and a group that sounds blaring even on a cheap bedside boom box.

SEE GOD 1985-1986's got Foole backed by the post-Burma Volcano Suns (a group I now wish I paid more attention to, but sheesh I was so busy/poor then) with their two classic longplayers slapped together giving me reason to double up on the lisinopril given the palpitations I had for these albums back in the late eighties (a time that was certainly hard to get excited over even existing in I'll tell ya).

You might want to take this one piecemeal. Having played all three platters (which clock in at way over an hour each) in one sitting I feel like I'm coming down off a long day with nothing but energy drinks for sustenance. Yes, Dredd Foole and the Din pack a mighty wallop and well, if you like your under-the-underground rock 'n roll history compacted in such a way as these platters deliver you just might be a better appreciator of the warm drone than I could ever hope to be!

Murahashibu-LIVE '72 CD (Good Lovin' Records, Japan)

Sometimes these Japanese rock groups can tread some mighty similar pools of sound. I mean, the opening track comes close to Les Rallizes Denudes while other moments recall that infamous anarcho-punk/mock Tyrannosaurus Rex act Zuno Keisatsu. Then there are the overt Stones swipes and other nods to the occidental set which is to be expected from Japanese acts such as Murahashibu and others who've kept their eye on alla them trends happening globe wide and brought 'em home for the locals. Nothing that'll get your jaw all agape but rough and tumble enough at least for my tastes. Yeah, I really can see why a touring Stranglers took an interest in these guys, and if you were/are in on the whole seventies leather and feral nature of rock 'n roll you will to.

Grachan Moncur III-NEW AFRICA CD-r burn (originally on BYG-Actuel Records, France)

Another boff BYG sesh featuring trombonist Moncur along with the best of the expats making an album that might get you all frothing over the fact that nobody who played on this ever got renumerated. It ain't over the hill running and screaming like many of these other late-sixties cataclysmic bouts of sonic liberation, but it's still rooted in a dark mid-sixties neo-Archie Shepp (who appears on "When") urban groove that kinda sounds like it shoulda been the real soundtrack to COTTON COMES TO HARLEM. If they still have used record bins with 1980's prices dig it up you penny-pinchers you!

Anthony Braxton-RECITAL PARIS '71 CD-r burn (originally on Futura Records, France)

This previously unheard by me Braxton rarity features a 25+ minute solo version of "Come Sunday" as well as a multitracked piano piece dedicated to John Cage sidekick David Tudor. Alla you Braxton fans who were listening in back when Meltzer said he was nothing but the new Dave Brubeck custom made for the college snobs "thing" (a comparison Braxton would have probably loved) already heard this. For the rest of us this should be more than just "good enough" if your tastes veer in between the new jazz thing and the classical avgarde. Not boring at all, in fact quite stimulating.

Chick Corea-CIRCULUS CD (Blue Note Records, Japan)

Actually this is the first Circle album with Corea joined by fellow members Braxton, bassist Dave Holland and drummer Barry Altschul. You may be familiar with their double live set that popped up on the ECM label back in the seventies, and if you aren't then you sure weren't thumbing through the jazz section of your local record shop back when that set used to pepper up the plains.

Gotta say that I always found it quite funny that Corea was working in very close proximity with Braxton in the v. early-seventies considering how both of 'em would become rather big names in the world of jazz within a few measly years. Corea as the leader of a rather pedestrian fusion quartet (though I never did hear the debut Return to Forever LP on Polydor which some say was of a quite different genome than that of the later edition) and Braxton the omnipresent avgardist who appeared at a time when there actually seemed to be an audience for this sort of sonic air shredding.

Still, this effort shows Corea at a time when his L. Ron Hubbard-inspired pixie and dixie approach hadn't yet taken him into starry-eyed commercial realms. The rest of Circle keep him in tow, with Corea playing his classically-bred lines while Braxton etc. are free to do their own thing. And the use of small instruments etc. does lend the perfect color needed to keep this from being just another free jazz effort...CIRCULUS bounces up down and about in your musical psyche like the best AACM/BAG efforts though not as nervegrinding as the first or as funky as the second.

It is interesting, perhaps somewhat boring at times, but not boring as in you're stuck in a carpool with nothing to hear but the radio spinnin' the 80s/90s/00s etc. sounds you tried so hard to avoid for the past umpteen years. Might be worth picking up a few tracks via Youtube 'r something with only serious fans of seventies experimental strains searching out any flesh and blood copies that might be wallowing around.

Meyer Kupferman-ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK FROM THE FILM HALLELUJAH THE HILLS LP (Fontana Records)

From what I could gather HTH wasn't exactly one of the more engrossing underground films that were popping up throughout the sixties, what with such efforts as CHAFED ELBOWS (also iffy but good 'nuff) and the various works of the Kuchars and Warhol passing it up while waving goodbye. This soundtrack album might give one the idea of what was happening on the screen (including a scene where future Cheryl Tiegs spouse Peter Beard goes streaking in the snow), though I get the feeling that it is all so filmatic and New York chi-chi that I doubt that it would have anything to do with your miserable existence.

Musically some of it reminds me of the kind of tinkle you would have heard in such early French avgarde efforts as THE BLOOD OF A POET or ZERO FOR CONDUCT, while there are quiet neo-baroque harpsichord/flute interludes and even a few trips into a sound that's almost late-sixties neo-gothic rock. Overall this is nothing that I was expecting given the very few huzzahs this album had been endowed with these past sixtysome years, but one thing that I did like was that it didn't drive me into fits of rage the way a whole slew of amerindie/"lightcore" records I heard in the eighties sure did!

SILOAH CD-r burn (originally on the Garden of Delights lael, Germany)

You remember SUKRAM GURK. Siloah's second album which sounded like a stoned punk rock mad trip into the inner reaches of some twenty-year-old German whose chemical makeup seemed to equal that of Monsanto's. However, have you heard their debut of a quite different schnitzel? I tried to avoid it after hearing all of those references to "hippie-communal-freeform-body odor" mysticism that were directed at this, but lo and behold none other than Mr. Robert Forward sent me a burn and well, you already know how I feel about it so why write this review in the first place? Aimless get together in the group house jams are what's in store here, most of it kinda sounding something like Amon Duul's infamous swan song PARADIESWARTS DUUL without the early Velvet Underground repeato riffs. If Adolf were alive he'd just die!

Various Artists-LULLABIES FOR CATATONICS 3-CD-r set (originally on Cherry Red Records, England)

A lot of these recent CD compilations that bunch up previously released spazz and slaps 'em into a packet under a certain thematic grouping are rather meaningless while others, like the Chris Needs-helmed DIRTY WATER series and that collection of classical avgarde efforts that inspired Frank Zappa are pretty solid. As for this triple disque effort giving us a somewhat unconnected overview of various late-sixties/early seventies English proggy sounds well...

This set comes off like the kind of jukebox Chris Welch and Michael Oldfield (the MELODY MAKER scribe, not the TUBULAR BELLS guy) would have just LOVED to have had spinning at their headquarters while tossing darts at pictures of Johnny Rotten, and you've won the ol' cigar if you think that the majority of tracks don't exactly make me want to jump up and down in frenzied ecstasy. Acts like Curved Air (doing a Vivaldi violin homage that might have even put a smile on Miss Grundy's face) and Barclay James Harvest don't exactly reach for my jugular even if even I gotta admit that a few of the latter's very early Beatles riffs are slightly palatable if taken in extremely small doses (really!). For the most part the tracks on this effort just remind me of just how laden this so-called rock music could have gotten once the Mantovani side of the brain overtook the Buddy Holly one.

Not to say that there are some winners sticking out like diamonds in a field of turds. The Bowie-fueled Riot Squad doing "Waiting For My Man" must rank along with the Deviants' version as the earliest example of a cover that more than a few Ladbrook Grove bands would be doing throughout the late-sixties and seventies. The Velvet Frogs' homage to THE MARBLE INDEX makes me wish that more by these Velvet Underground aficionados would make its way to the ears of people who are bored silly by all of those superficial VU-inspired groups of the last fortysome years. 10cc prove that there was a whole lot more to them than "I'm Not In Love" and oddly enough Stackridge's "Grand Piano" sounds like a Badfinger-esque Beatles rip that would have sounded spiffy on a 1972 AM playlist.

And there are more goodies from the Third Ear Band and Comus, but for the most part this effort just reverberates old feelings of some quite unexciting music that did have its audience, which is OK for that audience I guess but what about those of use who are addicted to the concept of high energy? There are collections more attuned to my own sense of sonic integrity which I mentioned in the first paragraph, but LULLABIES FOR CATATONICS is one grab together that just ain't made for the typical reader of this blog. But who knows...perhaps the Emerson Lake and Palmer revival is just around the corner and I know how some of you readers just love to jump on them new hip bandwagons!

STONE COOL WHITE CD-r burn (originally on Cal-Tex Records---well at least it ain't Co-Tex!)

Wade Oberlin sent me a burn of this 1970 vintage funk thing OBVIOUSLY because these guys (and femme) hailed from Dayton, which is 'round where Oberlin himself resides. The AM radio sound does help deliver a most welcome raw feeling which does aid the searing wah-wah Hendrix ripoff instrumentals and echoplex vocals. Dull cover of "Ain't No Sunshine" tho. Kinda reminds me of what that King Afro and the Mongoloids single that Reg Shaw mentioned in his "Jukebox Jury" column in BRAIN DAMAGE magazine woulda sounded like.

Wally Shoup/Bill Horist/Paul Kikuchi-CHEMICAL LANGUAGE CD-r burn (originally on New Atlantis Records)

Even thought this 'un's nine-years-old it's like very recent in BLOG TO COMM time! Alto/guitar/drums trio that play sparse and bared wire in that post-twentieth century style that I used to hear a whole lotta back when I'd tune into Dee Pop's Freestyle Night at the CBGB Lounge. Can't pinpoint a direct ref to Shoup's takeoff points (too sharp for Ayler and thin for Shepp---maybe Braxton?) but Horist plays electric spidery enough in the fashion of some of those Euros like Joseph DeJean did on Shepp's Antibes album. Drummer Kikuchi slaps around it all in the fashion that Sunny Murray begat oh so long ago. A good effort that has been ignored for nearly a decade and I get the feeling that it'll be ignored until the current crop of jazz pansies die off and are replaced by a new, snarling generation (yeah, right!).

The Jesus and Marychain-GLASGOW EYES CD-r burn (Fuzz Club Records, Scotland I guess)

The latest, and perhaps not greatest in the Jesus and Marychain catalog. I liked these guys back when their mid-eighties violent mix of VU/Syd/Jan and Dean was such a welcome relief from the usual doldrums so prevalent then, but even that original splurge of brilliance didn't last long. The over-production and dependency on updated technotwizzle (with the passion kept to a bare minimum) sure doesn't bring back memories of those feedback blasts and riots that made these guys the darlings of the English weaklies. Well, it's good to see that ex-Rezillos singer Faye Fife got to lend some vocal cords to this even if I never did care for her act --- 's just that I'm glad she doesn't have to hang around the Welfare Office anymore. Overall a fair enough release that I guess I should have come to have expected when I tore this 'un outta McGarry's latest parcel.

Hawkwind-STORIES FROM TIME AND SPACE CD-r burn (originally on Cherry Red Records, England)

The latest in a long line of Hawkwind wares that keep on comin' more'n John Holmes ever did. Naturally, like their past fortysome years of Hawkwind and related releases this is pretty much the same old only with a new cover that sure lacks the imagination of the ones that graced their seventies platters. Some good melodies can be discerned here and there but otherwise Dave Brock and the new crew have yet to re-capture the entire hard blare of those early albums that were so boff on the psychedelic trip that even the FM stations in the USA couldn't ignore 'em. If you're starting in on the Hawkwind game and want to know where to start, go for the United Artists albums and slowly work your way forward...

These reminders about picking up one (or hopefully even more) back issues of BLACK TO COMM are gonna get less and less friendlier as time rolls on. Anyway like, what's keeping you? Whatever you do, don't believe all of those naysayers out there who have lambasted this rag for years if only to make their own selves feel more better in their quest of personal destruction (something I sure wish I had the ability to do!). These are the ultimate fanzines and any fan of the Big Beat who is without copies is like a toilet with a roll. Sheesh, you'd think there'd be at least a few thousand more hard-edged rockist maniacs out there on this globe of ours willin' to latch onto this thing!