Eh, fergit the gab about weather or other sundry things that would seem somewhat "suitable" to open up this post. Got a lot to deliver this time so why mess it up with alla that extraneous jive...shee-yucks, but I even axed my original introduction mentioning things like the current political situation and various local to-dos figurin' why bore you considering how none of you care one whit what I think of anything even if you people somehow find a reason to tune in. Deleted it all with a number of paragraph highlights and clicks, but lemme tell you I sure had some fine and on-target things to say that really would have blistered a whole slew of you readers who just can't face the bare-faced truth that I repeatedly deliver. Oh well, maybe some other time-----but not TODAY. Lucky for you, Sweetie!

***

For once in quite some time, things aren't as hyper pressure packed as they usually tend to get even during this stage in my life when I should be relegated to an existence of Malt O Meal and Ensure. Oh, I've been having a nice enough time watching the absolute loonybins around me (as Ernie Bushmiller once said, you don't have to go to the carnival to see the freaks these days) as well as engaging in the usual vices of music, top notch rockscreed reading via old fanzines and seventies rock "journalism" copped offa ROCK'S BACK PAGES. Did I mention my penchance for pouring over a slew of comic strip reprints like milk on your cornflakes? When it comes to glomming the kinda funnies that I stuntedly grew up with I must say that it's sure amazing what one can find when one looks in the right places.

And there's plenty of it out there for the pickin'...f'rinstance, my main source for classic Bob Montana-era ARCHIE strips these days are the examples put up by various peddlers via ebay. I actually remember reading some of these up for sale items during my single-digit days recalling just how much fun and joy I got outta 'em, something which led to a life-long ARCHIE fixation that I never could shake off even when I grew into "adulthood" and felt kinda creepy about it. 

I am still trying to locate a particularly laugh-ripping Sunday where Archie and Jughead concoct a "smell-o-vision" to impress Veronica, but the one where Mr. Lodge freezes to death after being locked out of the swimming pool enclosure at some ski resort has been, after a few decades of searching, finally located much to the joy of my inner brat. Man that 'un sure aroused a whole load of funtime feelings in this suburban slob who can sure remember the mind twist I got from the punch line even after all these years. Who knows, perhaps this was the very strip that is responsible for my sadistic sense of humor which almost got me set up for some downright serious mental scrutinizin'!  

I never knew that there were heated swimming pools in glass enclosures without roofs making me wonder how much energy has to be used to keep all the swimmers warm 'n toasty when it's 0 degrees Fahrenheit outside, but if they really do exist I'd sure like to know a whole lot more about 'em:

Best thing about these ebay offerings is that you're not obliged to buy any of these items so its safe to stare all you want without fear of getting one of those public shame shames from some tight-sphinctered department store salesman which, for all of you biographers out there, reminds me of a true story from when I was about ten or eleven. Y'see , me and a number of kids were at the local Mason's hanging out at a bookrack looking through some old MADs like kids tended to do back then, when some guy started yelling at us to get away and that if we wanted to read books we should all go to the library. The other kids ran but I stayed right where I was saying that they don't have these books at the library which certainly didn't make the guy change his mind one bit, and even though I eventually fled myself I did feel proud in standing up to the hothead! After all these years all I can hope is that he died a slow and painful death and although I wasn't there to laugh in his face as he gasped his last at least I'd be glad that the guy got his own belated comeuppance! 

***

As far as rock 'n roll or otherwise related reading, it's FAUX WOOD PANELING and the Richard Meltzer Fan Club "X" page only...nothing else (including this very blog) can compete with the pure throb thrills I get pouring over each and every issue. It certainly does give me tingles down the spine (and other body parts) knowing that the spirit of Meltzer somehow lives on a good forty years after alla those AM/FM "rock" dolts would have hoped it died off and was replaced by the likes of Parke Puterbaugh! I can't describe to you in words within the ken of human comprehension as Frank Zappa once said as to just how better'n anything else on the market this particular publication is, it being one thing that I must say is giving me incredible joy during these best/worst of times days (more the latter than the former). Thankfully there's still a ray of hope given mags like this are out there and that the fanzine is NOT dead, and best of all the plain unadulterated truth that Meltzer continues to be a solid influence on the truly wired and hipped out while Robert Christgau probably has to tell his children who he is lest they forget. 

***

OK, there's another thing I read that I don't recall ever telling you about although I might have, so for all of you amnesiacs who are even more forgetful that I am here we go... ROCK WRIT's this site run by some guy named Armen so I assume he is of Armenian extraction (I cannot spell or even pronounce his last name, but I think he is of Eastern European descent because he certainly ain't Swedish!)...well anyway, ROCK WRIT's devoted to what Armen calls old school rock fanzine critiquing and general rock scribing from the Golden Age and beyond, and if you don't think that is a subject matter that should have been examined and taken apart piece by piece in order to discover the whys and wherefores well, you don't think that this is a subject matter that should have been examined and taken apart piece by piece in order to discover the whys and wherefores! Cute, huh?

Over the last two years there have been quite a number of interviews that this big tru blu non-fake fan has conducted with various members of the fanzine process, some important and others I've never heard about before! Goes to show you just how far out of the loop I am as far as being a member of the fanzine "in crowd" clique. (Which is a cause for a huge dose of either jealousy or, considering the sociopolitical makeup of most of these denizens of terminal hipness, RELIEF). But whatever, this is an edjamacational and informative place to go if you (like me) are one of those types who kept up with the gonz rock writers and home cranked-out mags of the past and actually believed that the humans who wrote for these things were just as much stars as the musicians they were scribblin' about. It certainly fits in with my own jib and who knows, it might yours as well.

I've given a listen to two of the interviews up for grabs so far, the first one done with none other than fanzine regular himself Eddie Flowers. You remember Eddie, he's a guy who was not only in on the under-the-underground game from the get-go but a being who gave me some very important advice regarding my blowhard-y writing style and how I should more or less do some heavy duty editing before unleashing my material onto the public! He tells me all this a good fifteen or so years too late but 'eh'! Frankly it wouldn't have done me any good since I like to write pretty much in the same way that I like to hear myself talk, but I do thank him for the critique.

Also lent ear to the one that Armen did with DENIM DELINQUENT's Jymn Parrett which I thought was bosser than boss what with Mr. Parrett tossing out the stories about him and Iggy Pop and seeing the Kinks and putting out issue #3 in a remarkably short period of time! He sure spun some interesting tales but sheesh, his voice is so gruff that it sounds as if he sang the second side of FUNHOUSE ten times a day for the last fifty years! Well, I'm sure that interview is way more listenable than the one conducted with THE NEXT BIG THING's Lindsay Hutton of Grangemouth Stirlingshire Scotland. I dunno if I will be able to decipher a thing that man says what with that thick brogue of his, but I will try. (I'm also planning on playing the Phast Phreddie Patterson interview not to mention the one with Howard Wuelfing, a writer who I think's a pretty on-target scribe even though the guy hates my guts! Or so I got the idea way back when but so what...I think he's keen!)

There's also a ROCK WRIT "X" PAGE that might be of interest to some of you more inquisitive types although there seems to be more musical link ups and less text these past few months. As for the entire ROCK WRIT enterprise well, I think it's a great idea, a noble way to preserve the past before all of these fanzine creators croak the final croak and future generations will just stand aroound scratching their crotches wondering what it was all about. 

However, I will admit that I do harbor a whole slew of doubts regarding the entire enchilada. Y'see, on the headings of both the podbeam and "X" pages there are collages of a number of seventies/eighties fanzines that look as if they were scattered on the floor of some messy yet wizened teenbo gal's bedroom. Nothing wrong with that, but nowhere is a BLACK TO COMM to be found! Now if that ain't the ultimate insult I don't know what is!

***

Got a humongous surprise in the review section for you people to once again criticize me over. SO WHAT, since I had fun doing this piece in an adolescent science project sorta way and can you think of a better way that I can help re-create those days of working on some school project on a blustery autumn Sunday afternoon in the kitchen as SHIRLEY TEMPLE THEATRE roared on in the other room? Leaden it may be but otherwise well, I got my psychic rocks off tackling this delicate subject matter and maybe you can ooze some pleasure outta it all in your own vicarious way. Also thanks to Robert Forward, Wade Oberlin and P.D. Fadensonnen for the gibs (nothing from your parcel this time Paul, but maybe next 'un!). 

A HOMAGE TO PEBBLES, THE SERIES THAT PROVED A WHOLE LOAD OF "ROCK EXPERTS" WHO SAID THAT PUNK HAD NO ROOTS WRONGER THAN MOST OF THE WRONGHEADED THINGS THEY ALL HAVE WRITTEN OVER THE YEARS!

Punk was nothing you really coulda called "new" 'cept if you had your head squarely up Robert Christgau's ass for a good twennysome years. There were punks then (mid/late-sixties up through the seventies) and they were pretty much like the rest of the herd, buying the same Beatles and Stones platters in the middle and even later portion of the decade, watching the groups that frequently popped up on the tee-vee screen, and naturally playing around with the usual array of mental stimulants that were making themselves known in high school parking lots 'round three in the afternoon. The deciding factor was that the punks were heading for the outer reaches of sonic and even mental integrity while the herd stayed firmly in place. These punks were pouring their money down ratholes snatching up Velvets/Stooges and other under-the-underground albums as they went instant cutout while steering away from a lot of the more sunshine-y sounds that were beginning to speak to the inner sensitivity youth kumbaya mindset. By this point in time the punks were favoring the beats and Warhol's death mirror. Unfortunately the vast majority of the 18–34-year-old record buying public gravitated towards "One Tin Soldier" and BLESS THE BEASTS AND CHILDREN as the concept of teenage music went Catatonic Stevens to the point where a living zombie like James Taylor was considered the pinnacle of alienated youth expression, or something like that. 

The dichotomy's as simple as NOVA EXPRESS versus CRAIG AND JOAN : TWO LIVES FOR PEACE. CREEM versus ROLLING STONE. Sad thing is that nowadays (actually for the past forty years!) it is the punques who are the ones reviving the teenage headband hippie emote of the same exact era that helped create the social/sonic zeitgeist (a word I hate as much as "iconic" but I couldn't think of any other) that gave way to the concept of punkitude as a noticeable form of teenbo expression in the first place. Today, almost all punques are hippies with short hair and piercings that they think make a statement and shock the lumpen proles, all of who are yawning away like anything.

It's hard to imagine for you younger turds amongst us that in these days where everything and everybody can instantly (and in many cases unfortunately) be found within the tap of a few keys, that at one time the PEBBLES series of local scene garage band obscurities and not so's was a definite BOON to the molding and development of many a music-hungry suburban slob. T'was back during the cusp from seventies high energy rock success to eighties glitzed out piddle, days which were for the most part the best (pure unadulterated fruits of prior sonic breakthroughs laid right in front of you) and the worst (just try hearing any of it on the radio or even your mother's turntable!) of times. Would I want to live through those days again? Yeah, only if I were rich beyond my wildest dreams, handsome like anything, a pure genius who could shut my enemies up like snap and had a head of hair that would make Jimi Hendrix jealous!

For many of us kiddies gnawing away at the reams of releases that were coming out from all directions, it was records like these (as well as, of course, NUGGETS and later on the PSYCHEDELIC UNKNOWNS and BOULDERS series) that showed us that punk rock was not the up from nowhere flash in the pan that lesser minds believed it to be. Despite what most blabbermouths out there were telling us more on the ball record purchasers who were supposed to gobble up everything we were told as if it were gospel truth, punk rock was something that actually had a history that stretched back well until the very beginning of that sound we used to call rock 'n roll. And hey, although many would deny it punk was a prominent "movement" that was struttin' about right under our very noses way back when, only it didn't really have a name or image until later when smart writers like Meltzer himself started pining away for lost punkitude in the pages of a whole slew of pertinent publications one could even buy on the newsstand. 

Best thing about it is that this early punk rock was the exact same music many of us grew to love thanks to a more adventurous top forty as well as a buncha local bands that never knew that their adolescent hijinks were going to eventually turn out to be the stuff of legend. Sheesh, next to the local singles that were being made during the mid-sixties a whole load of efforts that were coming out of the underground rock scene of the early-eighties (and beyond) both legit and under-the-covers just sounded as staid and uninspired as the nimnuls who were writing about it!

And hey, I'm sure more'n just a few of you readers remember the heart-throbbing anticipation you had thumbing through the latest BOMP! mail-order catalog discovering that there was a new batch of these compilations up for sale thus making you skip a few lunches or better yet snatch money outta mom's purse in order to sate your oft-starved rock 'n roll desires. I sure know since I was one of them, actually nibbling away at my life's savings (which at the time totaled a whopping ninety dollars!) for records such as these and ya know what? I don't regret any of it one bit!

And so, as if you didn't need it, here's my take on these records which certainly got me all hot and bothered back when I couldn't tell a Bobby Fuller from a Bobby Kennedy.  I get the idea the situation was exactly the same for you! 

And, since I'm feeling sorta Luddite at the moment, I'm only reviewing the good ol' original vinyl versions of these, beautiful pieces of rock music history complete with all the mastering goofs and skips. They seemed so quaint yet meaningful at the time, recordings that would make any state of the art stereo system sound like one of those kiddie portables like my cousins had when me and one of 'em would stick on "Washington Square" and just walk around the room because we couldn't dance like they did on BANDSTAND. And, come to think of it, they do have all the low-fidelity grit that only makes these records sound good which is why I prefer this series (not to mention BOULDERS) to the cleaner sounding eq-'d outta existence updates and reissues that came out in their wake.

I'm also forgoing the various HIGHS IN THE MID-SIXTIES offshoots and most of the other PEBBLES-related releases. Gotta put some sort of a limit on this article and besides (due to depression-era wages and pity for my bank account), I don't even own 'em all! But from what I do have I can tell you that they're really worth the time and effort to latch onto, and if someone out there has the entire kit 'n kaboodle why dont'cha do your own blog review of these for the benefit of the unwary like myself? I'm sure someone out there has...it ain't like I'm the only village idiot for rock 'n roll out there!

***

Here's the first one, not the original Mastercharge issue going for loads of bitcoin these days but the first of the BFD pressings all the way from the wilds of Australia. Nice package as you can see as well, plus the liner notes from the legendary fanzine editor Nigel Strange from WEB OF SOUND sure bring back memories of them days when the acts that appeared on this effort seemed oh-so-exotic when in reality they were about as down home suburban slob as your next door neighbor who, who knows, might have even been in one of the groups who appear in this series.

Starts off swell too what with the Litter (Minneapolis' answer to the MC5 or so I've read somewhere) commencing the series with the total eruption of "Action Woman" (complete with skip) giving way to a whole load of lower caste rock wonders I sure wish were up and about in the minds of rockists world-wide. Wonders do abound from the likes of the Soup Greens "Louie Louie"-ing "Like a Rolling Stone" in a fashion that I'm sure would have offended the more "serious" members of the teenbo phony intellectual crowd, to the Wild Knights with their double entendre "Beaver Patrol" that might fool your Aunt Mabel but it won't fool me!

Gee, some familiar names pop up here as well from the infamous Kim Fowley (who for years I believed was the man with the knitting needles bald wig appearing on the front cover but then again this guy's jaw's not square enough so it couldn't be) to the Shadows of Knight freebee "Potato Chip", later covered so eloquently by Mykal Board's early-eighties group Art. The Haunted, Montreal's favorite exponent of the real deal teen beat, appear with their "1-2-5" which I'm sure sated a whole load of curious types who first read about it in the pages of DENIM DELINQUENT #3. And one of Miriam Linna's faves, none other than Floyd Dakil (or so a certain Spin Turlock has told me) shows up with an early-sixties bouncer entitled "Dance Franny Dance"...I hope she never finds out that a good decade or so after this was recorded Dakil eventually found his true calling...Vegas. 

***

PEBBLES VOLUME TWO was a more than apt follow-up with the same basic low-fidelity cover scheme as well as some boffo liner notes that were perhaps one of the better R. Meltzer (as A. Seltzer) swipes seen to date. (I should know because I copped a whole lot of my own writing skills from this very piece which, like any real deal Meltzer effort, sure stands the test of time.) Like the debut, this has a good smattering of sounds from acts both known and unknowns making for a quite adventurous trip back into a time when the lines most certainly were drawn and we all knew where these bands stood (along with the rest of the anti-AOR raging snoozathon sounds out there), eh?

The flybynight production will upset some of the more serious, er, "audiophiles" out there, that is if any of them are still around (haven't been near a STEREO REVIEW in years), but I gotta say I love it all from the distant AM station sound to even the slightly sped up masters that were probably taken off a cheap assembled in Mexico cassette. If you get uptight about such sundry matters as "quality" you better get over 'em if you want to enjoy the true basement cheapness of these records. And I do mean it!

Some downright classics here like the Satans predating "Sympathy For The Devil" a good two or so years with their "Makin' Deals", Jagger "can you guess my name" snarl and all. The platter proceeds in a quite raucous fashion what with the likes of the Choir, Bobby Fuller before the Four and the Electric Prunes (promoting the Vox Wah-Wah Pedal) providing us with some well-needed rarities that weren't exactly easy to find at the time. The best part is that, like I said a few paragraphs above, the big name acts are all mixed in with some pretty sore losers in a rock 'n roll world that was probably over-saturated with such well-meaning yet unlucky teenage groups who probably wore mop top haircuts if only to hide their pimples.

But even those "failures" proved they could do swell, what with the Moving Sidewalks, Zachary Thaks and Randy Alvey emanating the same transparent radiation that the Thirteenth Floor Elevators were just oozing all over Texas, to the Squires doing the Byrds' own schtick to the point where I woulda thought that they'd get sued had they not been so chemically addled themselves. And to top off an already exemplary collection this 'un ends with an even outdoes the Yardbirds version of "I'm a Man" done up by the Litter making a much appreciated second appearance in this series.

Interesting aside, the back cover lists all of the other albums that are available on the BFD label, most of them custom made for the Australian market natch although I sure wouldn't mind hearing one that was actually laid down by the guy who used to turn up just about EVERYWHERE Kim Fowley, and if anyone out there has a copy of THE LEGENDARY DOG PUKE SESSIONS they want to give away I would appreciate you sending it out my way.

***

Of the original gush of PEBBLES releases I gotta admit that the third one's my top notch no doubt about it fave. "The Acid Gallery" they call it, and what it purports to contain is damaged psychedelia done up by crazed teens who were hanging out in each others' fart encrusted suburban ranch house bedrooms 'stead of the gritty streets that eventually would be filled with dazed casualties of all sorts. The general gist of this volume is more or less typified by Teddy and His Patches' "Suzy Creamcheese", a garage band gagger that starts off with a Frank Zappa reference then gets into yet another "Louie Louie" groove before heading into a pretty freaked raveup that would have Jeff Beck running home cryin' to mama.

Not all of this is what I would call total punkazoid free form freak out considering that the BOMP! article this album was based on was somewhat tongue in cheek. There are tracks by deejays as well as outright novelty numbers intermingled with actual garage band efforts, but even those are good such as with Dave Diamond and the Higher Elevation's "The Diamond Mine" which has the Colorado-based record spinner doing one mighty flipped out stream-of-consciousness recitation with the backing laid down by some local punks who also lent the exact same backdrop to the Monocles' "Spider and the Fly". Even El Lay deejay Godfrey does fine with his rendition of the Kim Fowley classic "The Trip" (see volume one) as "Let's Take a Trip" with radically redone lyrics yet an equally boff backing. Kinda neat, what with the guy's nasal voice that reminds me of onetime Cleveland neo-shock jock John Lanigan played over that repeato riff straight out of something that just might have ended up in RIOT ON SUNSET STRIP!

Yeah, the Jefferson Handkerchief were strictly for laughs if you could call it that and why Mike Condello's "Those Were The Days" re-write "Soggy Cereal" made the cut I do not know, but there are plenty of freaked out faves here from the Calico Wall's tribute to William Shatner's famed airplane ride into THE TWILIGHT ZONE ("Flight Reaction") to the Driving Stupid playing a straight blues tune with lyrics about tiny green lobsters throwing spiders eggs (and for years I always thought my pressing just happened to leave off their "Horror Asparagus Stories" which was undoubtedly present on some other edition). There are even some legendary in the punk rock pantheon names like the Chocolate Watchband (as the Hogs) with their Zappified rewrite of "Gossamer Wings" complete with the skip that had more'n a few of us thinking there was a booger stuck in the grooves somewhere. Well, with the poor pressing (which only gives this more of that cheap glow of wonderment) who could tell?

And what review of this 'un shouldn't mention the Bees' "Voices Green and Purple" which kinda makes me wish I actually dished out for the reissue of that single complete with a LAFMS-looking picture sleeve when it was being offered a few decades back!

But still, with a whacked out track like the Lea Riders' theme to the Swedish moom pitcher DOM KALLAR OSS MODS (another one of those I AM CURIOUS (YELLOW) kinda films that were comin' out of that perverted place at the time) who cares about the hokey Bob Dylan spoof "Like a Dribblin' Fram" anyway? And what the heck was that "bonus track" featuring some snippet of Indian mysticism that sounds like it was done up by one of the many charlatans roaming the streets at the time? Cheezy in a way that it sorta fits in with the rest of the cheeziness you'll hear here true, but still cringeworthy in its own way.

If you like this volume let me suggest you pick BEYOND THE CALICO WALL on AIP records. It's pretty much Acid Gallery Part Two and will make you wonder just how so many of these rather innocent suburban slobs who were jerking around with their $29.95 guitars only a few years earlier could have their minds so warped what with the introduction of certain pharmaceuticals into their lives. Or more likely the advent of airplane glue and Bactine. 

***

The switch from punk to surf might have caught a few off guard, but this fourth volume does fit into the entire canon a whole lot more than some would have thunk. 'stead of rare p-rock trackage we get rare surf toons, some if not all that were written up previously in the pages of BOMP! making one believe that none other than Greg Shaw had a hand in this effort. And if he did maybe he shoulda gotten a hodad of the year award because these inclusions are boff, oozing the feelings of early/mid-sixties California surf culture for alla us landlocked lubbers who could only experience the magic of this teenbo culture via old AIP and GIDGET films.

Although Lloyd Thaxton's recitation does reek of quickie cash-in rob the rubes greedyism some honest-to-gosh winners appear here from the Beach Boys in disguise Four Speeds' "RPM" to comparatively unknown numbers by such familiar faces as the Pyramids, the Trashmen, the Rivieras (two midwest surf acts there but wha' th' hey) and a pre-Beach Boys/pre-Manson respectively Bruce and Terry. Future bigtime producer Gary Usher also slips his way into the grooves and sheesh, even Dave Edmunds puts in a brand spanking new version of "New York's a Lonely Town" switching the NYC to London! It sounds perfect-o in this stew of sounds from a subculture that shoulda hung around a little longer only Southern California went from well scrubbed beauties and muscle beach Adonises to burned-out hippiedom ruining things for seemingly all eternity.

This time the bonus track has Jan and Dean doing one of those Coca-Cola ads done up when it was still OK for hotcha musical stars to hawk everything from mod suits to canned corn. Of course these days recordings such as this one not to mention a whole bunch of the rest of those sixties rocker radio commercials are practically embedded into our grey matter, but back when this came out boy, it was kinda like finding the sound version of a moon rock or something!

***

Number Five (and the first of the "new batch" in the series featuring the circular center illustration cover scheme) seems somewhat of a letdown compared with the high energy quotient of the earlier punkified efforts but eh, it's got its moments of which there are plenty. Some tracks that would eventually become legendary amongst the sixties fans and frolickers appear like the Trees' "No Good Woman", and it does have some downright screamers from the likes of the Durty Wurds as well as Little Phil and the Nightshadows only a few years away from their all time classic SQUARE ROOT OF TWO (an album which should have earned them an inclusion on #3!). 

One track that I once believed way out of place (and loathed for just that reason) is the Magi's "You Don't Know Me" which came out in '71 thus somewhat out of the scope of this series. At first I thought it to be more heavy than punk (I was thinking Sugarloaf which isn't a thought that often comes through my mind) but eh, considering that "Brand New Key" and "Peace Train" came out around the same time this sure sounds swell in comparison! Good enough in a puffed chest sorta way.

Like I said, not the best collection when it comes to the original ten but still, it has that swivel and it definitely worth spinning when the batteries seem to be going dead.

***

Number six's "Roots of Mod" effort collects once-rare mid-sixties British sides that one would have had to have paid a good bazillion dollars for at one time, but thanks to the efforts of a few collectors now you don't have to!

If you like the Downliners Sect you will probably like this one, what with the doofiest of teenbo practitioners taking the Amerigan blues style and molding them sounds into their own pip-pip and cheerio way while doing it so admirably at that. The Fairies with the infamous Twink on drums show us just how much the spirit of his future employers the Pretty Things was embedded into their sound, while various surprises such as a track from Belfast's Wheels (the same Wheels whose "Bad Little Woman" got mentioned in this blog a few months back) has the spirit of Them just oozing out of each and every pore. Yeesh, there's even a Joe Meek produced version of "Singin' The Blues" that's kinetic beyond belief! 

Crack up of the disc is the set closer "Young Love" done up a way Sonny James never would have thought up in a millyun years! And to put the frosting on the cake this recording was made by none other than the Rolling Stones as a goof, not as good a goof as "Andrew's Blues" but still high-larious enough for those of you who couldn't stand the group since GOAT'S HEAD SOUP!  According to the liner notes it is rumored that not only Gene Pitney but Kim Fowley were out and about on this which really, if true, would give this 'un an even added dimension of weirdness. Just don't tell me exactly what kind of dimension but still it's one I sure woulda wished there was more of back in those good ol' days of a world for, by, and about teenbos!

***

Next in our lineup of second-generation PEBBLES is the seventh, another downright classic that kept up the good work of the previous efforts. With a high-larious cartoon cover featuring none other than the Barbarians' Moulty being mainlined Romilar to the etapoint liner notes spoofing the Tony Parsons/Julie Burchill gagger THE BOY LOOKED AT JOHNNY (here entitled "The Boy Looked at Roky") you know this isn't gonna be one of those quickie tossouts that Midnight Records would sell at $25 a pop a good five or so years later!

'n it has a rather stellar selection of topper-than-top sixties wowzers what with the Chocolate Watchband presenting their non-LP classic "Sweet Young Thing" which I'm sure put quite a few smiles on the faces of those fiends who could not find their non-LP singles until the Moxie label eventually released 'em. The spirit of the Byrds also lives on via a number of perhaps not-so-humble wannabes like the Four Fifths, who actually sound more like the Flamin' Groovies during their SHAKE SOME ACTION days than they do the original influence! Other highlights include the Human Beings swiping from the Monkees' "Last Train to Clarksville" on "You're Bad News", the Edge swiping from the Left Banke on "Seen Through The Eyes" and Silver Fleet's swiping from a whole load of acts with their "Gloria"-influenced "Look Out World". The famous albeit twenty years too late to do any real good for their career Floridians We The People also pop up with "When I Arrive", a worthy choice but in no way in the same class as their ultimate fuzzed out scruncher "You Burn Me Up And Down".

Another highlight's the Dovers' "White Ship", a toon which I originally assumed was about the wreck of that famed vessel which led to the "anarchy" in England during the Middle Ages! Given the lyrics about knights fighting dragons, I was pretty sure that the tune was about alla that but hey, what sorta punks paid that much attention in history class anyway?

My personal fave is the Craig's "I Must Be Mad" which is notable not only because it was an English release (which actually made it to the US) but because the group's excellent drummer was none other than prog rock hero Carl Palmer! I know it's hard to imagine that the fourteen-year-old Palmer, who shines brightly on this manic slab of intensity, would go on to megafame in Emerson Lake and..., but weirder things have happened since the group Bodast contained not only Yesman Steve Howe but ex-Deviants guitarist Clive Maldoon and you also gotta remember that fellow Yester Chris Squire actually (as I said oh so long ago) auditioned for the Deviants and didn't make the grade because they thought he sucked! It's kinda fun to know, since the song the Deviants used for auditions was "Waiting For My Man", that a guy who would be well known for being part and parcel to the whole dinosaur rock movement of the seventies actually performed a Velvet Underground number! I guess boundaries were rather blurred back in those somewhat hazed times.

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Following up on #7's greatness is the equally stellar 8 which not only continues on the generation gap theme espoused via the cartoon depicted on the previous cover (this time with the "MC3" as marionettes being manipulated by an unscrupulous marijuana hazed John Sinclair amidst a backdrop of college campus rioting) but contains part two of THE BOY LOOKED AT JOHNNY satire which makes some rather valid points regarding the youth rebellion of the day while namedropping a few groups who should have been namedropped more often. I mean, this is probably one of the first places ever where I've seen the Fendermen mentioned outside of some rock history book (and as a footnote at that), alongside the Wailers and Beach Boys!

Onto the actual music which I must say really does keep on the high quality of intensity this music is supposed to be known for. The Lollipop Shoppe's "You Must Be a Witch" starts this thing off on a particularly high energy level and well, I guess what better way to begin a collection of ancient punk purified! All time faves ? and the Mysterians even show up with one of their bubblegum shoulda beens, as we even get some talent that's pretty much local to the environs from whence I am writing, mainly Youngstown Ohio with the Human Beinz of "Nobody But Me" fame and the Sound Barrier out of Salem whose "(My) Baby's Gone" really tried to live up to the group's name. 

Other top notch ravers appear from the Caravelles doing the then-popular Yardbirds schtick with "Lovin' Just My Style" (it was rumored that Alice Cooper drummer Neil Smith appears here which has eventually been debunked---drat!), the Cindermen with the uncensored version of  "Don't Do It Some More" that leaves the blood curdling screams in, Mississippi's Gants rewriting the Beatles "In My Life" and some downright classics that alla them eighties revival bands covered until that scene eventually got run into the ground! Definitely one for the top of the stack given its genuine power-packedness.

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I don't think PEBBLES VOLUME 9's any slouch either considering the once again exemplary song selection what with the ultra-hyper "Project Blue" by the Banshees (almost achieves "I Must Be Mad" levels) to the Gestures' Beatle-ish "Run Run Run" which actually was lined up for the ne'er to be second volume of NUGGETS. The outright idea swipes continue what with the Bugs' also Beatlesque "Little Girl" (funny how this now well-documented act was totally unknown at the time Strange wrote these liner notes --- kinda reminds me of the time when Greg Shaw was pondering whether or not the Sonics were a Texas band) and the Knaves with their outright Byrdsian imitation. Sheesh, I wonder why Dino Valenti never sued given how so many groups just decided to do their own version of "Gloria" with new lyrics but take bits and pieces of it and toss it into an entirely different ball of wax (as the Bold did on "Gotta Get Some") --- woulda made him rich enough to bribe himself outta jail!

Some big names pop up here as well such as the Outsiders of "Time Won't Let Me" fame doing an even better song, namely "I'm Not Trying to Hurt You", to a pre MOR New Colony Six actually performing a track that sounds a whole dang lot like "Mystic Eyes". And of course one of my current faves, It's All Meat, pop up with "Feel It" which is somewhat out of place like the Magi were on #5 but with their hard roar of a sound you'll wish/hope/pray that they woulda caught on and joined the Stooges, MC5, Flamin' Groovies, Alice Cooper and Hackamore Brick in the 60s/70s cusp punk rock hall of fame and James Taylor album bonfire!

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Closing out the original PEBBLES run's volume #10 and what a fine cap it was. The entire album has a great early (as in 1965) San Francisco vibe, with a whole load of Texas garage rumblings tossed in t'boot. It holds up pretty swell what with a whole load of familiar names joining an equal load of relatively obscure acts, or at least they were obscure before this platter hit the mailboxes of the very late-seventies tru blu rock mavens out there (of which I was one, braggart that I was am and shall remain).

Of the familiar ones, the Groupies (promising upstarts from En Why See who were even covered in the pages of THE ROCK MARKETPLACE and even compared to the Stooges in the accompanying article [bonus hotcha brownie point credits on their part!]), Toronto's Ugly Ducklings, the Five Americans of "Western Union" fame and even a pre horn-y Ides of March clock in with promising efforts that still pack that wallop a good sixty years later when music was for, by and about the kids who were listening to it. 

As far as the obscuros go they're (as if you wouldn't have expected it) pretty apex themselves what with not only a strong emphasis on the effects the Yardbirds had on many a mind but the more regal side of lush pop that proves that the Left Banke weren't exactly that teenybopper group "for girls" that many of you testosterone-laden readers have been thinking all these years. Heck, there's even a track that was more or less a demo for a Jackie De Shannon composition that never did make it out as far as I can tell.

Not having heard this one in like eons it's just like experiencing an all new adventure for the first time. That's what the benefit of a sieve-like mind is for someone like myself who doesn't have the dough to splurge on everything (and a short-term memory) he'd like so's records like these are almost like an epiphany.

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Since I recall an old BOMP! mail order catalog entry describe EAR PIERCING PUNK as the eleventh volume in the PEBBLES saga (the line seemed for all intent purposes dead by this time) I find it right and proper to include it in my writeup given it, well, woulda made for a fine addition to this sainted series. Great track listing anyway from then-rarities by the Trashmen ("Ubangi Stomp") to the Bohemian Vendetta as well as the Groupies' flipside to "Primitive" "I'm a Hog For You", all of which make for just one reason as to why many of us picked just enough pennies off the street when this came out. There are plenty of other fine onetime rarer than hen's arms efforts as well, like the Northwest Sonics-esque rant of Keith Kessler's "Don't Bug Me" not forgetting the rewrite of "Milk Cow Blues" as "Nonstop Blues" by a group who just happened to call themselves Outlaw Blues! With a name like that I envisioned a bunch who would have gotten into the long hair and shag country look and had the same swerve and style that Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings would popularize only a few short years later! 

Other highlights include a refurbishing of "Little Black Egg" with horns, future gospel singer Dean Carter's over-the-hill rendition of "Jailhouse Rock" and the Sparkles' by now infamous in the annals of local trash rock glory "Ain't No Friend of Mine". Coulda used a standard PEBBLES-type cover 'stead of the one with the punquette snitched from some fanzine, not to mention the usual liner notes that gave us some idea of just exactly who some of these acts were, but I'm no ingrate so I'll just shut up!

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Now for a return to PEBBLES proper with the first one to hit the boards in quite some time, mainly the real volume 11! A lot had gone down the pike since #10 hit the mailbox what with a growing "garage band" scene featuring loads of people both old and young aping the look and feel of sixties youth culture (the good stuff mind you) complete with mop tops that would have made the Hullabaloos jealous and Beatle boots that woulda made their feet ache. Not only that but these records now appeared on the AIP label having been licensed for repro by BFD making for somewhat inexpensive releases over here. For cheapskates like myself this was certainly a swell change of affairs!

I was somewhat disappointed upon its arrival thinking the selection to be rather piddling in contrast with the first ten, but as usual my opinions have changed somewhat for the better. Danged if there aren't some real classics here such as the three tracks by some guy named Milan the Leather Boy who had the audacity to let a whole buncha roaring motorcycles into the studio while he was recording. And what you got in the earlier ones you get here from the lo-fi mangled "Louie Louie" chords of the Barking Spyders' "I Want Your Love" to the Von Rudens' version of the Rolling Stones' "Spider and the Fly" which, thanks to the muddy sound and warm drone, actually comes off somewhat like an early Velvet Underground number! Ooh there I go mentioning that group in terms of comparison which every dingbat guy writing about this kinda music (myself included) has done without thinking for the past fortysome years! That's so EIGHTIES...

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PEBBLES VOLUME 12 also tended to let me down a tad upon first spin, but the years have proved it to have been a solid entry into the annals of true blue punkitude. Some quite interesting inclusions on this 'un, from a group called the Teddy Boys who do their own version of the Diddley fave "Mona", only is that lead instrument I hear throughout this number a wooden flute or maybe a recorder? An ocarina??? The Jam do a pretty good remake/remodel of the Rascals' "Groovin'" cuddled up in a lush pop lather on their "Something's Gone", and the Pawnee Drive track from '69/'70 way woulda sounded great on the cheapo radios blarin' across the neighborhood stuck right after "Quick Joey Small" (that being a song I couldn't stand but next to anything today it IS "Sister Ray" for all intent purposes).

As far as big names go, the Vejtables appear with the Diddley beat albeit with a nice dose of raga rock thrown in. And if you think that Richard and the Young Lions were a big name act as well, here's one of their other non-"Open Up Your Door" efforts which utilizes some orchestra chimes in yet another inspired idea of tone coloration that woulda made THE AESTHETICS OF ROCK had R. Meltzer only been hip to the fact! (Who knows, maybe he was --- 's been so long since I picked that 'un up and it sure is due for a re-eyeballin'.)

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The next one's the first of two to feature cover art by R.K. Sloane, a guy who really got around if all of those album covers he cranked out were any indication. And it's a fair enough effort as well which doesn't make you wanna stand up and holler, but it still comes off way better'n you remembered it back when the thing came out and your musical tastes were more formed by the groups covered in KICKS rather'n those in BLITZ (a mag I subscribed to on the basis of a few excellent late-seventies/early-eighties issues I chanced upon but by the time 1983 hit, boy did it change!).

Maybe this 13's unlucky because I frankly thought the selection here to be rather piddling, especially in light of what was going on with the BACK FROM THE GRAVE series at just about the same time. Not that this isn't without worth for it does have a version of "Diddy Wah Diddy" (actually called Didi-Wa-Didi"!) by Boston's "The Ones" that sounds just as good as the renditions that the Remains and Captain Beefheart were releasing around the same time. This act calling itself the Cat's Meow were just what their name lives up to what with their spry garage band rouser which actually features downright Beach Boys harmonies. Otherwise it isn't exactly up to the kind of teenage sit around the house in your stocking feel and goof off music that I sure thought it would be but eh!

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The fourteenth PEBBLES still has somewhat of a feeling that the entire concept of this series is being run into the ground, but a few tracks of stellar quality make this one that you might want to keep at the front of the pile. It even has a few downright classics that redeem any barrel-scraping tendencies these teen-numbered PEBBLES tend to have. The Customs' "Let's Go In 69" was probably recorded in '65 so why the futuristic date anyhow? Can any of you readers out there enlighten me by any chance??? Maybe they were thinking about how great the music would be in a few years what with the likes of the MC5, Black Pearl and other beyond-"heavy" groups putting out records, and this track does have a Stoogeian primitiveness to it that makes it quite the toe tapper if I do say so myself!

Also up there is this middle-eastern raga raver from some act called the Luv Bandits who take Cher's "Bang Bang" and twists it into something I'm sure your folks woulda thought even more disgusting! And I get the idea that Japan's Golden Cups got hold of a whole mess of effect boxes (as well as some Blues Magoos albums) and decided to use 'em to the max after giving their version of "Hey Joe" a spin! My personal fave's this Toronto act called Three To One who showed excellent taste with their rendition of Pink Floyd's fresh off the press "See Emily Play", producing a record that actually matches the original in Beardsleyan beauty making me want to know more about this here today gone tomorrow act.

Still there are the downers here like an entry from some Jefferson Airplane wannabes who called themselves Group Image not to mention some just plain pedestrian acts like the Baker Street Irregulars, but the good sounds sorta block 'em all out so's they don't get under your flesh 'r anything like that. 

And perhaps the boffo-est thing about this 'un's the closing "Bonus Track", a buncha teenaged jeeters high on LSD joking around in one of those old make your own record booths with one especially tripping specimen telling of her horniness for the stuff! Really top choice har-dee-har-har here, and it woulda made for a much better surprise offering on Volume 3 than that phony mystico sitar jive that was so bad that they even left it off the CD reissue! 

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And then along came PEBBLES #15, a change of pace considering that this 'un actually contains nothing but rare tracks that were laid down in Holland, something which might have surprised many people out there who probably still thought that the land of fingers in dikes was still stuck in the age of Rembrandt'r sumpthin'. Not that this doesn't have any of the sterile features that I found in many of these Pretty Things wannabes, but it's a good enough slap together of rarities that you'll get way more enjoyment outta had you plunked your last pennies down on the latest hype to come out of the eighties, castrated CREEM.

This initial entry into the "Continent Lashes Back" series is rather subdued when compared with the rambunctiousness heard elsewhere but it'll do, what with the Jay Jays doing a cruncher of an instrumental and I do like how the Dream capture the spirit of 1967 with a good enough Beatles/Move feel. Dragonfly's track is more late-sixties fuzztone hard rock but still listenable in a 60s/70s punk cusp sorta way, and even the new version of the Grass Roots hit "Let's Live For Today" as "Be Mine Again" by the Skopes is pleasant enough at least for my lobes. But sheesh, If you can stay awake through Johnny Kendall and the Heralds' take on "St. James Infirmary" you might be able to sit through me telling you what I ate for my last five meals, dinner mints and all!

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With this 'un (#16) it's back to the original scheme of things and by that I mean the scheme that was going down on those later-on PEBBLES which pretty much translates into two or three wild tracks and the rest well---eh! In this cast the goodies include Jimmy Curtiss doing a purty on-target Monkees bubble-gum cum punk thingie that I'm sure the snobs woulda up nosed back then before claiming to having liked even a good three or so years later. Also tops is the Ron Wray Light Show adding a certain Hendrixian (in a good way) dimension to what otherwise would have been a standard local release of the day. Also hot were the Scary Knaves who could have been contenders for BACK FROM THE GRAVE and Just Luv's "Valley of Hate", a downer groove neo-folk rock grinder with protest lyrics that would unnerve Joan Baez enough to the point where she'd even take a bath! 

***

Hot on the heels of #16 came this particularly pertinent item and a rather good 'un at that. Starting off with a '63 vintage Midwest mauler from the Statesmen entitled "Ruh-Buh-Doo-Buh-Doo" (A frenetic rocker featuring a piccolo or maybe even fife as a lead instrument --- coulda been another "Surfin' Bird" with a little luck!), this 'un takes off with a whole load of fun-filled surprises from the Novas of "The Crusher" fame doing a pretty spiff instrumental to some Seeds swipes (the 4th Dimension's '"Always Blue") which only prove that Sky and his friends were way more popular that most up-nosed rock connoisseurs out there woulda believed. One of about a thousand Rogues also score high with "Wanted Dead or Alive" which sounds just like "Hey Joe" only with a "Psychotic Reaction" mid-section thrown in...great! 

Of special note---the Donnybrooks re-shuffling/re-titling of "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" as well as Butch Engel's Styx (OBVIOUSLY not the castrati Styx of "Lady" fame) reaping the glories of pre-acid head San Francisco with all of their feet still planted firmly on terra. 

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#18 "European Rock Part Two" gets back to the old country and once again goes to prove that I was really wrong as a kid thinking that the place was all one big farmland with peasants playing accordions and dancing in weirdo costumes. As usual the English beat/blues acts of the day, particularly the Pretty Things, seem to be the template with that unique twisto-changeo of various Amerigan blues stylings done up for white moptops who probably never even saw an actual black person. This 'un's even got some big in collectors' circles names like Q65, the Outsiders and the Tages. Big surprises here are the appearances of the Kentuckys with "The Old Hangman is Dead" (and anybody who read about their fartscapades and pukeathons in the pages of GORILLA BEAT will be glad to finally lend ear to these guys!) and the Primitives with their grittier than anyone would expect re-do of the Rascals' "Ain't Gonna Eat My Heart Out Anymore" as "Yeaaaaaah"!

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PEBBLES VOLUME 19, THE CONTINENT LASHES BACK has more of those Europeon once-obscurities that were so out of orbit that I'm sure they made Strange empty a whole lot into his BVD's when he first discovered these records that hardly anyone outside of the area even knew existed. Of course this 'un's once again steeped in the post-Pretty Things r/b mindset that most of these groups seemed to wallow in which is finer'n fine to me, although I will admit that this effort seems to show signs of what I most definitely would call strain. Or was I just starting to get jaded (my money's on the latter).

Of special interest are the Lollipops, the original Gary and the Hornets prepubesprout group who spent the decade going from Connie Francis covers to neo-prog without batting an eye. The most interesting (and bizarre) entry into this one is Denmark's Mad Sound, whose "Hey Joe" swipe "To Masturbate" shows just what sorta sickos they have over there. Considering that this 'un originally appeared on the Jack's Sound label maybe that particular companu should have changed its name to "Jackoff Sound" considering the subject matter (of course I can't pass up the opportunity to slip my own cornball joke into the thing!).

***

Gaah! I now find out that there were 28 of these original PEBBLES and I don't possess any of the later ones! Does this stark fact show my ineptitude and lack of "discographical" continuity? No, it shows my abject poverty.

However, to top this all off here's the GET PRIMITIVE --- THE BEST OF PEBBLES album that came out via Ubik in England, an album I assume was especially made for the furriners who I guess couldn't latch on to the real thing and hadda settle for this. For a garage band compilation they sure went all the way to make this a really attractive item too, not only with the fancy cover art courtesy Rudi Protrudi of the Fuzztones but the upkick in sound quality which is explained to ya via the chipmunk chatter opening the album telling us all about things like equalizers, background noise reduction and other technological goo-goo that I always say never really did matter to me that much. I guess quite a few of you are that finicky about such quality and if so well, this is the record for you.

Most of this is old hat if you've been on the sixties reissue game, but there are even a few newies (as far as I know) added to the familiar PEBBLES faves of yore. It's always groovesome to give additional listens to old standbys like "Voices Green and Purple", and the smattering of sounds collected are programmed well enough that I don't cringe over the fact that most of the tracks are dupes. Just found out that there's a "Best of" #2 out there and if you think I'm gonna splurge on it you're even stoopider than I thought!

Gawrsh was this article a piece of you-know-what and a half! If you read through it then you're even stupider than me writing the thing! But I'm sure glad I did it because hey, this blog deserves a switch from the same old hackneyed groove into an entirely NEW hackneyed groove that's for sure.

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'n now for a couple of real deal actual reviews of other items that have been gracing the waxed up earholes as of late.

Wally Shoup/Toshi Makihara/Brent Arnold-COMFLUXUS CD-r burn (originally on Leo Records, England)

Another from the recently-deceased (and definitely under-the-radar as well as under the ground) Shoup leading a trio consisting of Toshi Makihara and Brent Arnold and yeah, I don't think I've heard about those two before either! Arnold actually plays Cello which does give this a more Abdul Wadud-sorta seventies free tone colorizing feel. Gets into some beautiful metallic sub-sound scrape at times, and like if you enjoyed the guy's more recent CHEMICAL LANGUAGE effort I reviewed back June way do I need to have to tell you the rest?

ESSENTIAL TREMORS (WYPR-FM BALTIMORE)---STEVE REICH/THRUSTON MOORE CD-r burn

I have avoided going near any form of listener-supported radio for ages if only because I could handle fluffy political and musical talk only so much. And although ESSENTIAL TREMORS ain't exactly gonna make me donate my pittance to NPR any day soon this show was, at least judging from these two half-hour episodes, something I sure wish was up and about back when the seventies were starting to squeeze into the eighties. You remember them dayze, that was an era when even these once-cheerleaders for the new and innovative in sound (like WKSU-FM) dropped everything and went the whole grain new age route instead. 

The first 'un with Steve Reich helped out at least on my behalf (not as familiar with his works as I shoulda been all these years) what with him telling about the music that put hair on his chest. And it was some pretty hotcha music in itself, ranging from THE RITES OF SPRING to AFRICA BRASS...a way beyond "satisfactory" selection if I do say so myself. 

Thurston Moore's faveraves were equally inspirational if somewhat expected, but then again talking about records like "Louie Louie" and Patti Smith's "Hey Joe" is something that's always welcome no matter who's talkin' 'bout 'em (well, almost). Sheesh, where was ESSENTIAL TREMORS back in 1983 when I really could used it 'stead of all those gnu age shows that were poppin' up on the college radio dials!

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Razorlegs-DARAGADA LP (get it here)

Dang I wish that Fadensonnen had printed a nice 'n flat pic of the cover on his site, otherwise I wouldn't have to used this off-kilter example that he sure 'nuff did! Nice enough tho...if you blur your eyes somewhat it kinda reminds me of John Cale's ANIMAL JUSTICE although I doubt any chickens were killed in the process of its recording.

The label reminds me of the ones that appeared on Eno's old Obscure series of experimental sounds that nobody would have known about had he not been involved.

The music is naturally brilliant, as top notch as the various other RAzoRLEGS and Faddensonen efforts that have been making themselves known to readers of thin blog and a few others for quite some time. Sonic reduction to the max with a blast that (as the promo slip suggests) channels Damon Edge somewhat with a few sidesteps towards various feedback cantinas including those of 1968-era Dead and likewise Zappa without the acid damage of the former nor the big ego pose of the latter. I enjoyed side two immensely what with the way the guitar not only recalls Guru Guru on their UFO album but John Lennon's angular spazz that graced the YOKO ONO/PLASTIC ONO BAND spinner which has thankfully received its proper huzzahs a good fiftysome years after it shoulda!

You won't see this one hitting any charts other'n MINE soon. Latch onto one before all of the smarter mooks tuning in do thus leaving you to sniffle boo hoo over yet another lost gem you held out for thinking it's be around forever and a day. Oh well, I'm sure the download'll be available forever and a day...

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I once believed that my "mental instability", which I have suffered through most if not all of my born days, would have been an asset to the scribings that I had pumped into my fanzine and sundry other items o'er the course of my illustrious career. Turns out I was wrong, so if you wanna read some really nutso and incoherent mindfarts passing as rock critique you know where to send your monies to.

Eh, the November weather really does something to one's spirit and I gotta admit that I really do like this time of planetary tilt 'n position in our solar system. Now that most of the trees have shed all of those disgusting leaves we have to mulch and rake there are more'n just a few opportunities for goofing off, at least until we gotta drag out the snow shovels and risk major coronary harm keeping our driveways clear. IN OTHER WORDS...this is the perfect time of the year to kick up your footsies and read old comic books and fanzines, listen to hard-hitting sounds and catch up on all of those WAGON TRAIN reruns I (and maybe you) have been unfortunate enough to miss out on. Naturally like marijuana smokers and serious boozehounds you can turn just about ANYTHING into a good excuse to indulge in your favorite pastimes so it ain't like I'm the only fanabla out there who can do my best to find a halfway decent reason to be my natural do nothing no good self! 

***

Well, the most important election in our lifetimes (at least since the one four years ago) is finally over. And, as you already know and either went joybells over or (knowing you readers) are freaking out to the point of self-immolation, Donald Trump did a Grover Cleveland and has become the second prez ever in the Untied State of Ameriga to be elected to two terms separated by a four-year interim. Well, that's a pretty good trick for him to have pulled especially when you consider all of the throb thrills amongst many of you out there who were all excited over voting for a black Indian woman without a gag reflex but anyway... Yeah I do know that the prospect of a prez of assumedly the femme gender's something that might have been peachy keen for you but as far as I'm concerned well...for me even the slightest thought of Ms. Harris in the Oval Orifice really woulda been akin to having to endure a four year massive rectal probe done by a cackling harridan assisted by creatures of indeterminable gender who make me wish that the futures that Huxley or most fifties-on Sci-Fi types wrote about would have come true because those dystopias sure seems a whole load more palatable. 

Eh, there were a few nauseating things about the evening of November 5th that didn't quite appease me such as Delaware electing a she-male to Congress. Maybe if this thing was a hard-right anarcho-capitalist type who reads Lew Rockwell I could stomach it, but given the general mental loonybin-esque conditions of these people (never saw any with their heads screwed on all that tight...if their heads were would they be trans in the first place?) all I gotta say is that I hope the Capitol has enough Risperidone on hand.  

(But back to where I started...) in all honesty (right!) I am surprised that many of you reg'lar readers weren't in the Trump corner if only because he's the only one around (really!) who has at least a scintilla of potential to "smash the state" as many a rock-thrower used to put it during them early-seventies days of rage. I sure believe, as maybe you do, that statism is something that should have been destroyed (or at least made irrelevant) long ago but eh, better now than fifty years from now when things get really metastasized. Oh wait, now that you rabble-rousing types ARE for all intent purposes worshippers of that very same state you used to loathe you know where your bread's buttered...why would you want to destroy it given how much milking I'm sure more'n a few of you grifters out there have been doing for years! I just KNOW that most of you reg'lar tuner-inners are all for what is now known as either "clown world" or "globohomo" so I guess what was, and what may be in store as far as the second Trump term goes is just the KIND of "state" you're game for wreaking havoc on, eh?

Well, put it that way...

To tell the truth in typical Bud Collyer fashion I don't think that Trump's ability to do any serious state smashing will be all that great...after all, even though the man seemed to give it the ol' college or at least junior high school try during term #1 he sure didn't live up to what I earnestly thought was his full potential at tearing anything that couldn't stand alone down as Mel Lyman would have put it. Eight years back my hopes were way up there thinking the guy was going to be another Marine LePen or Viktor Orban which unfortunately was just another pipe dream---sheesh, once you take a good look at the record in typical Al Smith fashion Trump's pretty much on the level of that Meloni lady in Italy who sure seemed to come from the same mold of nationalist identity but went center a whole lot more than I care to think about. I just hope #47's smart enough not to (re)hire all of those neocon types like he originally did such as the one with the John Holmes mustache, not forgetting many others who never were faithful to the boss in the first place and were just reg'lar republicans with all of negative connotations that definitely implies.

So, to be more up front than Chesty Morgan, it should be extremely obvious to even the more pamphleteering types amongst you that Trump's re-election is not exactly the save-all many people out there are delusional enough to swallow. T'is nothing but yet another "speed bump" on that road towards the dictatorship of the mal-adjusted sexually-confused pampered pooch of a poor example of human being who seems to be getting more and more outre to the point where even the people who champion what we used to call perverted behavior are gonna be startled at what's down the line a good fiftysome years from now (or at least around the time we discover that animals can consent). Well, at least one definitely bright result of this election's the undeniable fact that the political establishments of both the republican and democratic parties seem to be totally shattered, for now that is. And hopefully they will be for a long time given how George Wallace made a lotta sense with his dime worths of difference comment way back when.

Aw c'mon, any response to this 'un's  WAY too easy! Well, maybe a teeny weeny cliff would suffice.

My own personal pleasure while experiencing the return of Trumpism is having a good laugh at the hoards of Tik Tok women who are so distraught over the prospect of seeing things happen to them that never did during the first Trump term making their already unattractive selves even more homely by shaving their heads in disgust or...better yet...going on sex strikes for the next four years as if they precious little man-in-the-boats and highways to Hersheys could stand not being wiggle jiggled for that long a spell. Well, that's one way to lessen the bastard problem that's been plaguing us the last number of decades!

When all's said and done all I gotta say is that when they start building all of the internment illegal alien/forced pregnancy/rump-wrangler and shrub scout camps for Trump's enemies like way too many have been predicting even back when the man was making his initial run...can I get a job in construction? I better watch myself...I originally had a rather "questionable" joke I was going to include that really woulda gotten me in dutch with alla ya readers and at the rate you're leaving this sinking ship of a blog I need all you guys that I can get!

Oh, before I get into other interesting things to discuss...Mr. Soon To Be President, if you're tuning into this blog here are some wise words I really do hope you will heed.

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The airchecks that Robert Forward was smarter 'n smart enough to donate to the "cause" were certainly a help, but exactly what they did help does escape me. Maybe a curiosity as to what radio used to be for good or bad back when rock 'n roll was still a vital force in our lives, although you never would have known it if you paid attention to what was being plugged in I guess what you could call the "legacy" rock press. The WMMS 'check with a smattering of early-seventies trackage and the between song patter and a radical youth bent newsbreak was interesting in a purely historical fashion. HOWEVER, in no way were the tracks presented a mix of the mundane and innovative that I hoped they woulda been given how much I heard about the station's playlist policy from the late-sixties to mid-seventies. Maybe Peter Laughner wasn't listening in at the time and fuming mad enough to phone in a request for the Stooges. 

Big surprise was for the first time ever hearing Ellen McIlwaine and actually liking her effort in the same detached yet intriguing way that I like what I've heard from Myra Gendron or the long-gone Amy Winehouse, or at least what I've heard of her so far (one track). Not inspirational enough for me to go out and splurge on any of McIlwaine's releases, but the toon still put all of those superficial "I'm My Own Woman" femme singer/songwriters that have been gagging strong souls like myself for years to shame.

WNEW's Pete Fornatale's a waste, nothing more than your typical budding hippie FM dee-jay type who sounds about as orbiting Mars as I assume most of his listenership was. He's everything I thought he would be after reading a brief mention of him in the second issue of FLASH where the man is quoted about the then-latest John Denver album and its role in the "revolution". Somehow I can't see Denver on the same political plateau as all of those early-seventies radicals, though I sure wish that he had undergone the Diana Oughton treatment (or crashed his plane a good twennysome years earlier) just so's we would have been spared his aw-shucks and custom-made for the mid-seventies L7 amongst act that probably did hide his deep down loathing for all humanity. 

Tom Donahue, as I said once before, was the kind of professional relate-to-you record spinner I sure wish there were more of, a surprise since the brilliantines at ROLLING STONE seemed to think highly of him and we all know what assholes those guys could be. His old styled DJ approach to some rather cringe-inducing sounds make you at least want to listen through the songs in order to hear him again, though a good hotcha r/b bouncer is usually in store to clear both the air and your mind. And hey, at one point in the show the guy even promised to slip a John Cage track into the mix although it didn't turn up on this burn---drat! (Or did it and it went by way too fast for me to even notice?)

And as for the Mad Daddy...what else can you say about a deejay that pretty much EPITOMIZED everything that a late-fifties rock 'n roll record spinner should have taken to the outer reaches? I sure would have loved to have shackled a whole load of those seventies hipster FM dee-jays like WHOT-FM's Thomas John and Bob Popa to a loudspeaker and forced them to listen to the daddy until they got the idea of what rock 'n roll radio is really about! Then finish it off with a few HEPCATS FROM HELL if only to drive the message in a little more.

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I've been checking out some blogs/sites that are run by people I call "the opposition", doing some reconnaissance just to see what I am up against. The results: Chuck Eddy's "Eliminated for Reasons of Space" is, to put in in one word, "snoozy". Extremely dry writing which perhaps is suitable for the mostly paper-thin musical acts (well, I would assume so) that he is writing about. Really does come off like what you would expect from an eighties-bred rock critic stranded in the here and now, long after all of the sonic destruction has passed but he still wants to pretend that everything is just as exciting and soul-fulfilling as it used to be (sorta like me only I'm daydreaming on a sixties/seventies level). Eddy also gets to write about his other passions from politics (the usual squawk--s'peck no surprises here) to (now get this!) nature. A regular Eden Ahbez for the 21st century. Robert Christgau....yeah, he's still alive and doing his consumer's guide lo all these many years later! (Stand by for a more than obvious and predictable wittijissom...) Beyonce gets an "A". I give him an "F". Frank Kogan --- I used to like him but grew increasingly irritated with his cliquish inside group behavior, perhaps because I wasn't part of that clique. He made a good cassette tho which I reviewed on this blog ages back. I was hoping this would have been up my rather expansive alley but felt like I was stranded in the middle of the Mojave after only five minutes. Sometimes I wish I stayed on good terms with him then reality overcomes me. Metal Mike Saunders on Reddit---not now or ever was a member of the opposition but someone who I would consider a very good friend if I only knew him in person, I doubt it would be the other way around but what else is new. Pretty good shit here to the point where I thought it was so good that I linked it up on the left. I really must admit that it does stymie me to know that people are still talking about Warrant, but that's Saunders, who never did me no wrong so I won't say nada bad on him no way! Gerard Cosloy's "Can't Stop the Bleeding"---the man seems to have toned down since his rabid chip-on-the-shoulder "go back across the room and stick Eddie Flowers' dick back into your mouth" adolescent routine of the eighties/nineties. Yeah, I know that his penchant for build 'em up and tear 'em down personal destruction is one thing that kept me from succeeding in ways that would have been helpful to magazine sales, but sheesh if I am jealous because he accomplished things (ruination of enemies real or imagined) that I couldn't get away with in a millyun years. Unfortunately what the man does write about has nothing to do with my own reason for being so ignore him I will. Simon Reynolds' "Blissblog"---must admit that I never really cozied up to this guy, perhaps because his eighties-bred style of rock critique stood firmly against the seventies snark splatter that helped make me the man that I am. Besides music there's also a load on politics, the latter even of the Amerigan variety. You can guess the rest as Bryan Ferry once sang.

Unfortunately I couldn't find any Richard Riegel pages...that woulda been something fun to tear into given the guy's...er...self-congratulatory virtue-signaling nature.

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You're lucky that I managed to crank out this buncha reviews given how I am still enamored with Paul McGarry's recent parcel filled with loads of vibes I never thought I would ever give a hammer and stirrup to no matter how long I stuck around on God's Green Earth. That Ruby and the Rednecks show from the Coventry has been a particular fave as of late, resensifying me with alla that fun and energy that this music gave me during the dark ages of mentally maturing and finding my place in this wobbly sphere they call the world. The Leather Secrets also get hefty spins these days which only goes to show you something, though exactly what that is I really can't tell you out in public.

I would like to review a whole load more'n what you're in store for today, but unfortunately the ultra-high price tags placed on some items I would love to spin, like the Lou Reed WHY DON'T YOU SMILE collection of his Pickwick label efforts plunked into one tidy package, are astronomically expensive probably for yourselves as well as me (getting a copy via ebay would set me back eighty-plus smackers which would be more useful going towards my next rectal examination). Other seemingly enticing goodies tend to cost more'n just an arm and a leg---perhaps some gizzards and bodily fluids as well, and it ain't like I want to squander a load of hard-begged on items that I just might loathe. I guess I'll just have to suck it up (no, not that you silly!) and make do with what I have considering that...well I already own enough records, tapes and other forms of musical stimulation (with reading material to accompany it all) to last a good two centuries or so and like why pour money down a rathole as my father used to say?

Paul McGarry is a man I greatly appreciate. So is Wade Oberlin and so is Robert Forward as well. You wanna be appreciated too? I didn't think so.

CBGB COUNTRY SUNDAY WITH THE LAUGHING DOGS AND WAYNE KRAMER CD-r burn

Sheesh, I didn't know that the Laughing Dogs were still around when this "Country Sunday" show was laid down sometime in the dank and dark eighties. But they sure as shootin' were and you can hear 'em countrify the Beatles' "I've Just Seen a Face" and "What Goes On" (which were basically folk rock and thus already countrified to some extent) while getting some local yokels to do some authentic downhome hoot with 'em. It's broken up (some guy interrupts the proceedings on/off with his own personal opines) but you get the idea regarding the funbo time all involved had. Special guest appearance by none other'n Wayne Kramer who is toned down compared to the MC5 days but thankfully still up and about, at least here (no more!). Watch it from the safety of your own home (see below) so's nobody'll beat your sissy ass up.

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PEYOTE QUEEN SOUNDTRACK CD-r burn

Whacked out music accompanying the Storm De Hirsch underground film that got special mention in the Parker Tyler book. Starts out with interesting percussive moves before going into early-sixties lounge-a-roonie neo-jazz that sounds like the kinda music your great-grandfather used to get drunk to. Then the tribal beat returns and the you're smack dab right in the middle of what sounds like a pagan circumcision ritual and it's your Vienna sausage that's on the chopping block. The whole schmeer's available for you below, and if you just happen to be game for watching one of De Hirsch's suckems in kaleidoscope mode then this is the film for you!

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THE STORY OF...ELECTRIC JIMMY & HIS SKYROCKETS CD (Rarity Records, Holland)

Unlike most all of you self-conscious what-will-people-think-of-me types out there in readerland, I am not ashamed of promoting and doing some downright cheerleading for various musical acts or cultural happenings that might not be considered "cool" and "with it" in the hipster hotcha rock 'n roll realm. That includes a smattering of sounds that came out of the post-Elvis/pre-Beatles era which I get the feeling quite a few Greils and Daves out there would definitely find counter to their own sense of sociopolitical elegance (and for good reason, at least for them). As far as the instrumental vibrations of the early-sixties go I'm game for the relatively tame tinklings of an act such as the String-a-Longs, nor will I say anything bad about these Indorockers led by a guy named Jimmy who just happened to be an electrician hence his name! While not exactly another Tielman Brothers the Skyrockets still created some pleasing enough (and Latin-tinged!) soundscapades that sure give more credence to the early-sixties being rather hotcha as far as rock 'n roll went than any of those "Bobby" acts ever could have.

Twenty-eight tracks bound to nauseate more'n a few snobs posing as rough and tumble rock appreciators out there. But eh, most all who've chanced upon this blog should know better. This might be a good 'un to spin after hearing the bigger names in the Indorock biz and wanting more.

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Vic Godard & Subway Sect-WHAT'S THE MATTER BOY? CD-r burn (originally on MCA Records England)

After being bored gourd-less after recently listening to their double disque I wasn't exactly champing at the bit to give this early-eighties effort by the once-rather punkified Sect a hear-see. Tell ya what, WHAT'S THE MATTER BOY? surprisingly enough isn't the early-eighties retro-pose put on I thought it was going to be. Not that it's gonna top any charts 'round these parts but that sense of "wha' 'app'd?" I got when the new wave went gnu just wasn't present during this particular play. Yeah it's almost as well-packaged and produced for uppercrust snoots the way that Dexy's Midnight Runners and Culture Club were but I've yet to puke.

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AC/DC-STIFF UPPER LIP CD-r burn (originally on Elektra Records)

Sent by primo AC/DC camp follower Paul McGarry, this effort was a mild surprise. Y'see, I like quite a few AC/DC sides, especially the earliest ones which show more than just a glimmer of punk rock promise. However, when Bon Scott glugged himself to death and they got that guy from Geordie to do the warbling it was PANDER TO THE WORST ASPECTS OF STONER YOUTHDOM extant and well, by then you could tell that the eighties were in full downer gear anyway. 

But this rec's different, with Brian Johnson's whine fitting in swell with the overall racket, the Free influence prominent and not even annoying, and best of all there ain't any of that anthemic heavy metal sludge that made the entire eighties hard rock scene (well, 'cept for the truly high energy stuff) so nauseating. Primitive in the way this type of growl was always supposed to be, and whatever you do don't let those FM-bred dolts whose still believe that rock should have finesse and quality, spouting about it all with musical tastes that equals their grandfolk who preferred Kay Kyser over Count Basie (true), tell you any different!

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Vivian Goldman-RESOLUTIONARY (SONGS 1979-1982) CD (Staubgold Records E.U.)

I sure wish I was as rich as alla you readers out there if only so's I coulda afforded to gobble up not only all of the records I wanted but all of the publications of worth that were coming out throughout the seventies and even into the early eighties. Then I wouldn't have had to wait so long to appreciate the writings of the creme de la Golden Age scribes for the various English Weeklies (those overseas subs were atrociously costly and like, even the individual issues woulda cost me a few limbs). I mean, imagine me all these years missing out on the smart scribblings of such people as Charles Shaar Murray, Nick Kent, Giovanni Dadomo, Jonh Ingham, Jane Suck and today's subject at hand Vivian Goldman. 

Goldman's a lass who ranks pretty high as far as not only the staff of SOUNDS went but one who certainly held her own with any of the great rock writers as fans back when I looked upon these scribes as "one of us". Or more accurately "one of me". An' I'm talking Richard Meltzer and Lenny Kaye way on down the line so you know that this woman wasn't just another one of those embarrassing female rock critics you used to see (and still do!) who seemed to be put women's lip or Erma Bombeck twaddle above telling us all about the whys and wherefores of the music at hand.

Hmmm, way better'n I woulda expected considering that this was all being done in the early-eighties of shifting underground concerns (and not always in the right direction as the Culture Club and Dexy's Midnight Runners proved) . Not anywhere as good as Dadomo's Sniveling Shits effort but really listenable early-eighties art puff. I am somewhat shocked that I like this since I usually loathe this brand of gruel which (at least for me) signaled the death of seventies grit passing as sound into the antiseptic art pose that the eighties were rather well known for. Def. "post punk" neo reggae electrono beatbox stuff true, only done up with enough avgarde momentum that kinda makes me wish more of these 12-inch single efforts from various punks who "grew up" (with all the bad connotations that term implies) put out things along these lines. Or am I only cozying up to this because of Goldman's writing expertise which made her stand out from the rest of them "I am my own woman" affirmative action hires who were more menstrual show than relate to the music at hand w/o the usual ulterior motives garnered from whatever was picked up at the latest feminist workshop?

Not only that but she really does gotta pleasant voice that weaves in and out of the electronic clang without singeing your ears. Well, it is a nice, light and downright airy music that is definitely worth losing your brain in, and even her Flying Lizards efforts that also pop up here sound smarter'n I remember that group to have ever been. Good enough that it reminds me of the misery and lost feelings in life (feelings which only got worse as time progressed) that I had back when these tracks were first released! 

The Cee-Dee ends with an interview with Goldman whose thick English accent makes this one pretty indecipherable to my Amerigan ears. I did hear her say something about a "male controlled press" somewhere in the mix, so maybe it's BETTER that I don't understand what she's talking about!

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Odyssey the Band-BACK IN TIME CD (Pi Records)

I bought this 'un strictly on Goldman's recommendation via some NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS (I think she skedaddled SOUNDS by that time and started to freelance) article on James "Blood" Ulmer, only I goofed since this isn't the original Odyssey the band but a mid-00's reunion! Well, it's the same group and it's still a FANTASTIC listen-to, as the trio of Ulmer, fiddler Charles Burnham and drummer Warren Benbow lay down a great repeato-riff almost drone-a-thon that at least on one track could pass as neo-Velvet Underground rock 'n roll (no crappin' on ya here...just listen to "Channel One" which reminds me of Amon Duul I's "Love is Peace" filtered through "Sweet Sister Ray"). More of that punk funk that was all the under-the-underground rage a good fortysome years ago and will continue to turn a whole load of heads as long as there are things called ears. 

The blues unto jazz tackle is pretty much in-groove with most of the BTC (anti)aesthetics, and if you went whole hog for a guitar jazz extravaganza like Sonny Sharrock's ASK THE AGES there's no reason why you shouldn't love this 'un. And although the original OSYSSEY record is now out of my spending range well, I just might skip a few meals and bills in order to snatch me up a copy sometimes!

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Horace Tapscott conducting the Pan-Afrikan People's Arkestra-THE CALL CD-r burn (originally on UGMAA Records)

Mr. Oberlin sent this 'un my way...wotta guy! Tapscott leads his own arkestra sounding almost exactly like the mid-fifties Ra ensemble with a surprisingly Coltrane-ish AFRICA BRASS feel, or am I once again showing my ignorance of jazz? Eh so what, I (thankfully) am no Leonard Feather with all of the negative connotations that conjures up in your head!  

Incredible piano playing and hits-you-square energy that we all could use a whole lot more of in our ever-sagging lives. A downright sounds bouncing left and right at'cha recording that should appeal to the spiritual jazz types amongst you readers who I have the feeling are anything BUT spiritual!

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Jah Wobble-DEEP SPACE CD-r burn (originally on 30 Hertz Records)

Never ever ever gave a whit about Jah Wobble other'n METAL BOX ...after all, any guy who would hold a knife to Nick Kent while Sid Vicious bashed him with a bike chain doesn't seem to be on the same spiritual plateau as I am. But this '99 release is OK. Reminds me of those early-eighties Conny Plank-related electronic recs he did with members of Cluster --- records that might have predicted some of the gloss we were in store for as the years rolled on but back then it wasn't anything to get alarmed over...yet. Coulda spent the time listening to this in a more productive fashion, but probably woulda in worser ways nomesame? 

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S.W.A.T.-DEEP INSIDE A COP'S MIND CD-r burn (originally on Amphetamine Reptile Records)

Wow, the best comedy album I've heard since MY NAME...JOSE JIMENEZ! Jim Goad, with the help of Adam Parfrey, released this cop concept platter way back in the darker 'n dark nineties and, as anyone familiar with the two would have guessed, the law enforcer snark and general loopiness such misanthropes would inflict onto a slab on vinyl is pretty har-har-har-de-har-har in typical Ralph Kramden fashion. Tee-vee police music meets Johnny Cash c/w and MIDNIGHT COWBOY. Not like any of the other Amphetamine Reptile platters I've heard, that's for sure!

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Prices might not be going up, but my dander sure is over the fact that not enough of these BLACK TO COMM back issues ain't flyin' outta the abode like they should be. If you don't have 'em all and want to fill up the gaps in your collection well, now's the time before I get really mad and make 'em totally unaffordable to the reams of layabout no-good pox upon the face of humanity types who seem to be cluttering up the place as of late. People like YOU...