It has been a fair enough autumn so far, nothing that different from the other ones I made it through yet still pleasant enough to prepare one for the upcoming winter months. That's a time where I pray that there'll be a massive snowstorm hitting the area thus stranding me in my house for a good week or so where I can indulge in my usual frivolities, most of which you read about regularly in this very blog. Of course a freezerload of Mama Cozzi's pizza wouldn't hurt given I'll need something to munch on while I'm watching those WAGON TRAIN reruns while channeling my third grade goof off time suburban slob self. 

But I keep telling you this year in and year out, and given how nobody complains about my redundancy I guess that proves I really don't have the number of readers that I need to keep this blog afloat. Oh well, what else is old? (even that phrase is old...well, what else would you expect from a stick in the mud like me anyway?).

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In case you're that DENSE to the point where you don't fathom what this go 'round's AI creations are supposed to be let me clue you nimnuls in. Sheesh, I thought you'd think it was obvious that these illustrations are nothing other than print ads showing Marlon Brando endorsing Parkay margarine, super-enlarged so you can see all of the neat detail and the golden goodness of that animal fat-free spread which has more than one practical use if you ask Marlon! And yeah I know Crisco is a whole lot cheaper but we all have to think about our cholesterol intake during these health-conscious times.

I'm sure you ancient types remember the old commercials on TV...butter---PARKAY! Yeah, these illustrations don't quite live up to the visage of the once Wild One nor are they of the early-seventies vintage post fifties tough guy and eighties bloat, but with AI as it stands today I dunno if any sorta intelligence artificial or otherwise could get the guy's jowls down 100% pat. I will mention that I do like the way that one apple in pic #1 looks like its sporting a pair of buttocks which I do get a kick outta! 

Still, a pretty nice batch of pix that show what just mighta been had Madison Avenue was more on the ball. Well, they almost succeeded getting Monica Lewinsky to be a spokeswoman for Jenny Craig and if anyone shoulda known about high protein diets it would be she!

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I guess the first real deal order of business is for me to relay to you the news (in case you haven't heard by now despite the lightning-fast way the internet tell you when the King of England farted) that none other than John, also known as JD King has passed on. In case you wondered, he's the guy with the glasses you see intermingled around the above title who was not only what I would call a somewhat in demand artist but a member of the obscure yet important (given how not only King but future Sonic Youth member Thurston Moore were in it) group the Coachmen. Details are sketchy at this time as to the whos whats whens wheres and why of such a thing (best bet's on a bad case of the flu), but whatever your opinions are regarding the man he was a feisty sparring partner and sheesh, at times even a pal (yeah, right!). 

Photo by Godlis

You may have read the interview I did with the guy in the last issue of my not-so-sainted crudzine (see link below), an interview which seemed to rankle more than just a few readers out there who just can't take hearing views and opines that might veer even a fraction of a degree from their own. But as I've learned the hard way, intermingling with the scions of the underground rock brigades can be pretty daring if you happen to get one of them ever so slightly rankled (and I'll show you the teeth marks on my buttocks in case you think I'm, joshing!). A latterday variation of the Coachmen also contributed a few numbers to the disque that came with that very same edition and boy were they good 'uns even though they all got re-released on an "official" Coachmen platter thus rendering my own disque somewhat obsolete. King was a man who might have rubbed more'n just a few people the wrong way what with his general snide attitude that I attribute to his Teutonic ancestry (his original last name was "Kung" but his ancestors changed it during World War I because well, you know the reason), but whaddaya expect from someone who lived in NYC anyway?

I do know that he eventually wised up and left that burgh taking his nasty attitude with him, but whether or not the man would or would not have vamoosed New Sodom City he sure is gonna miss out on the big kaboom that will eventually happen not only there but (give it time) all over the globe. He told me that he thought that this world of ours was going to last until 2036 at the least given the deep dive into the cesspool that has been slowly but steadily happening ever since the days of enlightenment but I begged to differ. I told King that it's gonna go on and on for another couple of millennia diving into depths that even we cannot fathom, only to topple into a huge physical/spiritual abyss once the Aquarian Age gives way to an era that I sure would not want to imagine even in my worst nightmares. But that was just my own opinion and you all know how much stock you put it that.

Well, I am kinda/sorta glad that King won't be around to see the inevitable, that is if his 2036 prediction does happen to come true.

Anyway, it is bad to see yet another fellow traveler do the ol' 86, but there is one thing that really does bother me regarding his passing, and that is THE SHIT NEVER DID THAT CARACTURE OF ME TO PUT ON THE MASTHEAD OF THIS BLOG and boy and I hot and bothered about it!

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Dig into these, and praise be to Paul McGarry for the donations. Also thanks to me for finding the Bob Forward burn that I found cleaning my room.

Crime-MURDER BY GUITAR LP (Superior Viaduct); SAN FRANCISCO'S STILL DOOMED CD (Swami Records)

One thing that I like about punk pre-punque rock was that, although most people believed it was more/less a late-seventies phenomenon totally sprung from the foam of the sea, strong ties to the punk rock generations of the past were oh-so obviously retained. Not that a few subsequent punks didn't keep the spirit of their forbearers alive as my vast (hah!) collection of outta nowhere singles would prove, but to be as honest as I can be about it the punks of the late seventies were way more aurally/spiritually closer to the mid-sixties local rock group taproot of it all than a few unaware (and usually grossly anti-punk) people might have led you to believe. And when it comes to the punks who were barging outta the garages of the late-seventies, Crime certainly were one out of many that took a whole heapin' hunkin' load of that mid-sixties grit and infused it into their own hard-edged late-seventies vision.

Despite being located in the middle of San Francisco (fruit 'n nut capitol of the world) Crime really knew how to rock 'n roll despite being hampered by such dreadful surroundings. With a sound and style that reminded me of those dank-quality early Lou Reed Pickwick sides, Crime were a group that I assume (considering my lack of knowledge re. what else was going on in SF...Mary Monday etc...at the time) stood out from the competition. Well-crafted yet raw musicianship coupled with a definitely lo-fi sound is what made this group legendary amongst latterday teenbo wannabe hipsters, and with songs like "Hot Wire My Heart" (the Primitives meet the Neon Boys) how could any true rock 'n roller not dribble constantly over these tracks.

And they're varied as well! On one particular track Crime sounds a whole lot like something the early-seventies edition of the Flamin' Groovies could have whipped up which would figure since Crime's original drummer started out with that bunch, while the title track's definitely pre-douse heavy metal done up right to the point where you just KNOW that all of those heavy metal aficionados of the eighties and beyond woulda hated it. It's a fantastic, cohesive even album that's so good that you'd get the feeling that today's uptight snobbish punquers would obviously thumb their noses at it which really ain't saying anything given the overall hippified nature of punk these past fortysome years!

For those of you who want more despite already being bludgeoned to death will also want SAN FRANCISCO'S STILL DOOMED. There undoubtedly are a few repeats from the above (can't tell for sure considering how I don't have both of these side-by-side and can't get hold of the LP anyway since I'm pecking this out at work) but who cares because there's plenty more to cherish here. Besides, I know alla you readers are big spenders who'd be more'n glad to dump even more money on an item that just might overlap, spendthrift types you are and will most certainly remain. 

Again this one's a heavy sorta collection that goes on from Velvet/Stooges (to be seventies hip rockscribe about it) roar to even some more early HM sludge that always sounded better in the hands of men like these 'stead of them self-important AOR types who've plagued us for more'n just a few decades. 's even got alternate takes of the all-time Crime hits "Hot Wire My Heart" and "Baby You're So Repulsive" for all of you readers who have to get more, more and MORE of this group's infinite genius which does have that somewhat refreshing West Coast punk of the late-seventies variety sound and approach that mighta been hard for many of us East Coasters to take at first (built-in prejudice) but we eventually began to understand before it became too late.

A good 'un for sure, especially if you need some resensification after long periods of everyday banality being passed off as everyday banality but the peons can't care no mo'. Another testament to the fact that the seventies were the true decade of rock as grunge reflecting a period in time that really was better in all of its corruption and grit.

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Jimmy Algren/Scott Colby/Henry Kaiser-TROUBLE WITH THE TREBLE CD-r burn (originally on "Not on Label, Henry Kaiser Self-Released" Records)

A buncha old fogey types including slide guitarist Scott Colby and Henry Kaiser (a guy who got more than his fair share of hipster press coverage in the eighties) doing originals as well as Zappa, Beefheart, Iggy and Canned Heat covers. This release was a real bargain since is was released only as a freebee Cee-Dee a good two or so years back, and if you like listening to old turdburgers doing their version of past accomplishments and doing them fairly well you might like this. I'd recommend it to various Zappa fans who were way bigger on the post-Flo and Eddie period of his career than I ever was.

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Cecil Taylor-THE CLASSIC ALBUMS 4-CD set/Steve Lacy-THE CLASSIC ALBUMS 4-CD set; Steve Lacy-THE CLASSIC ALBUMS 4-CD set (both on Enlightenment Records, England)

Got these 'un's totally unsolicited in the mail (wonder who coulda sent 'em, hmmmmmmmmm?) and gotta say that both of 'em are what I'd call essential BLOG TO COMM musical fodder for a long and happy (well, happy enough) existence. 

The Taylor one's what I'd call an expected blast, especially in the way I get those warm 'n toasties listening to the classic sound develop from its neo-bop beginnings on JAZZ ADVANCE to the beautiful wall of intensity that is LIVE AT THE CAFE MONTMARTRE (I can still remember the glow I got walking with my copy of NEFERTITI THE BEAUTIFUL ONE HAS COME way back during my late teenbo days knowing I was in for a real hammer and stirrup pounding to end 'em all). After giving these early spinners a go don't YOU want to clobber not only Wynton Marsalis but whatever jerk it was who decided to run the guy's anti-Taylor commentary on the iffy Ken Burns documentary! 

The early Lacy sides are not as enthralling as the Taylor ones sticking close to earlier jazz forms that never really tingled my nerve endings. Fortunately the guy (undoubtedly under the influence of Taylor using the guy's sidemen in the process) heads straight into the New Thing and does a mightily fine job at it. It is a grand selection ending strangely enough with Lacy's ESP album which I don't think I've lent ear to in almost 40 years (if at all---fuzzy wuzzy hazy about these things). If you're game for these Lacy sides the next best thing to do is latch onto his BYG effort MOON which pretty much comes off like the end-all as far as Lacy at one of his many heights goes.

Two goodies that filled in a few collection cracks for me, but I assume you all have had the originals for ages now, hunh? Wotta buncha rich-kid trust funders you readers are...feh!

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Kim Fowley-OUTRAGEOUS CD (cheapo pirate copy)

After a whole load of the hippydippy offal that was tossed at gullible kids during the late-sixties Kim Fowley sure comes off more'n just the bee's knees. Maybe the whole bee body in fact. It sure is great hearing this particular classic again because not only is it an antidote to all of the "relevant" and "right on" goop that was passing for teenbo culture during them sad 'n sorry days but sure makes surviving in the twenties a whole lot easier. Fowley sings, screams, does mock Chinese and creates some downright classics in the process. The title track and "Bubble Gum" certainly hold up alongside other Woodstock-era rejects (the kind we like!) from the Velvets up through the Detroit bands on and on and like, after listening to this who needs Jim Morrison's phony intellectual I'm a poet pose anyway?

Sheesh, there's even more here! In fact a lot more like those rare single sides I was cryin' and blubberin' about not havin' a short while back. Actually these tracks were taken straight off of the first side of the Fowley bootleg STRANGER FROM THE SKY which is fine by me considering just how much a copy of that'll set me back these days. it's sure good getting more of these classic sides into my nervous system, especially that custom made for the late-sixties version of "Don't Be Cruel" where Fowley affects a high-larious (and kinda irritating) fey voice.

Brad Kohler sent this to me as part of my Christmas present and although I should be offended that he gave me some castoff 'stead of an item brand new and straight from the heart (especially considering just how important a person that I am) gift I'm still grateful and happy and all that stuff like my mother told me I shoulda been age 9. That's the year when I got some dinky li'l Charlie Brown bath soap bottle (which looked like the blockhead himself) from my grandmother for the holiday season and felt mighty pissed about it! Boy did I get called an ingrate---why couldn't I have had rich and doting grandfolk like all you lucky kids out there anyway?

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Talking Heads-1975 CD-r burn

You never woulda gotten me to admit this in the mid-eighties (around the time David Byrne and the rest were being hailed as the new chic alternative to all of those things that were supposed to be alternatives to all of those other things that were alternatives as well), but I do find the trio version of Talking Heads to have been as fun and overall enthralling as all those snoods were sayin' at the time in an attempt to look all hip and with it. After all, who other'n Mirrors regularly included Troggs songs in their repertoire? Shades of future NYC art chi-chi can be detected here/there like in Byrne's vocals on the better than the official version of "For Artists Only", but things like that can be easily forgotten once you oldster types remember what else there was in the way of teenbo entertainment at the time. 

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Neil Young-FORK IN THE ROAD CD-r burn (originally on Reprise Records)

I avoided those mid/late-seventies Neil Young albums for a purpose (mainly because alla the SoCal "hip" vibes that were being promulgated by the rock press just didn't jibe with my suburban slob ideals --- there were other $$$ reasons as well), and from what I've read via various fanzine reviews I did well saving my pennies. And although I gave Mr. Young's LE NOISE a nice rah rah awhile back I'm going on records saying that FORK IN THE ROAD doesn't quite snuggle up to that particular effort.  At least to these clogged up ears it sounds like more of that ol' cocaine 'n turquoise music --- y'know, the kind that epitomized a good hunk of what many hated about that downhome denim Marin County front porch FM radio milieu that seemed so ridiculous to just about everyone but the people who indulged in it. The title track gets back into rock 'n roll riff gear but by this time I'm sure alla you readers would have flicked this 'un off the turntable. If you had minds, that is.

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The Jam-MORE MOD CONS CD-r burn (originally on Polydor Universal Records)

I'll admit (really!) that other'n IN THE CITY I know pretty much nada about the Jam. Of course it ain't like I'd wanna given they spawned such typically eighties dross as the pseudo-mod revival and the Style Council, but still that don't mean like their entire existence was one big kultural nada. 

It's a collection of rarities and such that seem to cover a whole load of their career, all in varying degrees of interest and energy. A nice gathering of sounds for those of you who are sorta uninitiated but still, when it comes to the late-seventies and what England hadda offer I could think of a number of other acts that I would prefer lending lobes to.

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Believe it or not but ultra-sensitive cry over a broken flower me used to get really upset when BLACK TO COMM was ignored either by other members of the "rock underground" and not reviewed in their magazines (or, when they did, misrepresenting it (and on purpose at that!), with most all of the more holier than thou underground record labels refusing to advertise while other mags were raking in the needed bucks via adspace. Worse yet, I loathed it when the mag was denied the much-needed distribution that kept it out of the paws of way too many people who wanted copies (and if they did distribute most often not paying!). Maybe if you buy some of these mags the pain will dissipate somewhat. But I doubt it.

BOOK REVIEW! NANCY WEARS HATS BY ERNIE BUSHMILLER (Fantagraphics, 2025)

This here's yet another collection of classic NANCY dailies that might seem somewhat too little/late here in the twenties given how not only can you read these vintage strips for free online but also in your daily fishwrap. Maybe I should complain given how at age ten I woulda slaughtered for a book such as this, and although I always did believe that good things come to those who do have the wherewithal to wait unfortunately they HAVE TO WAIT A PRETTY DARN LONG TIME if you ask me. Believe-you-me, old comic strips and the like really made an impact on me back then that just can't be replicated now that I'm in my Golden Lead Years.

Still 'nuff Fantagraphics' NANCY series is back in gear after quite a long spell and like well, I am certainly happy about it as well as somewhat peeved. When these early-fifties comics hit the papers NANCY was well at its height, one that started 'round the mid-forties and ended about the time Ernie Bushmiller was starting to head down the road to Parkinsonsville leaving the cartoon duties to the likes of United Features standby Al Plastino*. Most of these have repeatedly shown up on-line and make me wish that Fantagraphics had jumped over to the late-fifties which was a time when Bushmiller's art was honed to the perfect curve and hair ribbon. 

Still wanna (once again) see those early-sixties comics where Nancy meets up with a strange lookalike who has a round nose...the only strip featuring her that I clearly remember's this one where Nancy's sorta double shows her this idiophonic radiator that she can only could bang on when some warmth is needed, but could also play as a musical instrument while doing so!

Well, if you turds buy enough of these books maybe the series will continue and we'll eventually get to these later on and hardly repro'd strips. And while we're at it, let's badger IDW to continue their ARCHIE comic strip series which would be a real gem for all you toilet readers given how these have hardly ever been printed outside their original run!

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*Speaking of Plastino, I'm sure you know that the SUPERGIRL creator and all 'round filler-inner was once assigned to draw a slew of PEANUTS comic strips in case Charles Schulz bolted from United Features or didn't quite make it alive out of his open heart surgery. All of these comics were supposed to have been destroyed but the ones that have survived are pretty snat with an even meaner and rather nasty, violent streak that puts the somewhat "Happiness is a Warm Puppy" tone of the comic in the trash where it should have been! I hope that all of them did survive because they sure would make for a good paperback collection that'll hopefully wash away the memories of what that strip eventually became.

A good sum of you already saw a teensy-weensy part of this post a few weeks back much to my utter surprise. I dunno why I made some stupid flick of the keyboard (not the first time)...c'mon, of COURSE I know why, I'm stupid...but unbeknownst to me I discovered the next day that my incomplete entry had been up all night and had garnered a good 98 hits if you can believe that! (And since then three people espied this 'un which is strange since I took the thing down immediately after discovering my grievous error. Dunno how this happened but frankly I'm scared because if people can do something as nefarious as that what ELSE can they do to me!) Well, thanks to my ineptitude y'all got to see at least part of this post in advance, something which I will say is akin to that story I heard as a mere twelve-year-old which I undoubtedly told you before but wha' th' hey 'bout some truck with the upcoming issue of PLAYBOY overturning and thus spilling the not-ready-for-the-newsstand issue all over the place with alla these young boys runnin' for a copy to get a sneak peek!

Anyway, here I am once again going through the motions rehashing old thoughts and opines which I at least hope have some meaning as far as this thing called rock fandom (or whatever is left of it) goes. At this point in time it is a useless and futile job considering how, for the most part, it's been 57 years since rock 'n roll was still a vital force at its peak of perfection and about 45 since we blew our last chance to MAKE it vital once again. It has been a struggle existing throughout the years since those days of high energy glory but I have managed somehow. And I got the rectal scars to prove it.

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A still from an early-sixties television program made especially
for thalidomide babies.

I gotta give a mighty big hefty hunk THANK YOU to all of the people who have suddenly been tuning into this blog shooting the view count way up into astronomical digits I've never seen in all my born days. My writeup of the classic comedy TILLIE'S PUNCTURE ROMANCE has hit some rather surprising heights as has the September 19th edition with the great AI conjuring of Donald Duck wearing a cowboy hat shooting Mickey Mouse. I sure do appreciate all of the sudden notoriety, although this man does get the sneakin' suspicion that all of the people who are suddenly latching onto this blog are actually beings of nefarious intent who plan on doing some grievous bodily harm to me because well...in this age of openness and letting your mind traverse in any direction possible (especially if it isn't the direction that the sniper elite out there wants it to traverse) it's watch your ass time! Better cool it down lest some young and confused trans type take aim at my vitals because well, like I said awhile back "edginess for thee but not for me!" or something along those unbalanced lines.

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It's been forty years since the first issue of BLACK TO COMM (originally going under the once-ever changing title FUD/PFUD/PFUDD/PHFUDD!) left the cruddy kitchen table which would be appropriate for a crudzine such as mine, and thankfully I ain't gonna resort to that ol' "It just seems like yesterday!" line you'd expect some cornball like myself to spout. In fact it seems like an eon ago and if you don't think I feel exactly like Methuselah "reminiscing" about all them years you are sadly mistaken. But given how the mag, and this blog as well, were/are and will remain the center of my very being you can bet that I'll be talkin' the thing up even 'til my life support days. Now I really know how my Dad 'n assorted relatives felt what with them talking over and over again about World War II considering it was for the most part one of the highlights of their lives.

In honor of this not-so-stellar occasion I thought I'd link up this special post that I wrote to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary a good decade back when, for some strange reason I thought this event to be somewhat noteworthy. A lot of the stuff I typed out then remains pertinent and if I hadda do it all over again I'd do it even gnarlier. I was too chicken to go all out back then...after all, you all know what kind of coward I was and shall remain. Just ask anyone who has even slightly disagreed with me o'er the years.

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Elsewhere in this thing otherwise known as my existence...I know how much many of you enjoy the "personalism" of this blog so perhaps I should do some filling in on the heres and theres regarding things that are happening in my everyday life. To start things off well, I've had some trouble with my right ear feeling all clogged up (had a bad case of my eyes turnin' all red with pus just oozing out of the lids coupled with a hefty sinus congestion a few weeks back) so I went to the local ears/nose/throat doc to see wha' th' matter was, and it was discovered that my eardrum is paralyzed!  I guess that's really what is accounting for my generally stuffy head feeling and the plain stupid fact that I feel like I need to wear a winter cap even when it's fifty degrees Fahrenheit outside. Doc ain't sure if the paralysis is due to a buildup of fluid where the hammer, stirrup and thing that looks like a snail reside or if it's a growth of some sort, but an MRI should help clear that confusion up. I hope it is the latter...might get me a few days off from work as well as a good excuse to tell Bruno why I haven't been able to look for that Stilettos CD he needs more information on! Well, if I do by chance (odds're against it but we can all hope and pray) lose the hearing in that ear at least I'll save money by not buying that stereo system I've been wanting for oh so long.

Other'n than that I try to catch up on having some fun during whatever's left of my free time, which these days includes writing this blog while listening to music, NOT writing this blog while listening to music, reading a whole load of pertinent things on-line or otherwise (gotta lotta reviewing of books etc. to lay upon you, most which have yet to be written up) and of course clipping out the daily NANCY comic to put into some scrapbook that I'll hafta trot down to Hobby Lobby one of these days to acquire, along with some of that old timey school paste the kind kids love to eat.

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Once again Paul McGarry and his horse Silverman come to the rescue with one of his Care Packages which has me scooping up the recordings (solicited or not) like those starving kids with their flat wooden spoons shoveling down the pasty-looking gruel (this week's flavor: butter pecan) you used to see on TV. I'd get to some of the things that Robert Forward scooted my way only I wish he'd send some information along with them disques just so's I know what I'm getting into.

Kim Fowley-UNDERGROUND ANIMAL --- REDISCOVERED GEMS BY THE INFAMOUS ROCK & ROLL PRODUCER CD (Bacchus Archives Records)

This '99 release didn't come out on Norton Records which is probably the main reason I missed out on it way back when. That and the fact that it wasn't like I exactly had two nickels to rub together at the time but eh, this is a nice addition to the Fowley collection even if I believe there are some overlaps with the Norton 'un's. 

It's mostly early/mid-sixties productions with some California Sunshine pop sidetracks and even an early incarnation of the Misunderstood, but you once again get to hear a few actual Fowley efforts like his '63 debut "Astrology" which I'm surprised hadn't been reissued way back. The pre-hippoid bent of this should please any of you who were in on the PEBBLES collecting bit in the early-eighties. What I really would like to hear is that album of Fowley rarities featuring all of those Original Sound singles not to mention the guy's goof take of Elvis' "Don't Be Cruel"...that 'un came and went faster'n a premature ejaculator now, didn't it? 

While we're on the subject of Fowley, I've also been trying to latch onto copies of both OUTRAGEOUS and GOOD CLEAN FUN (have cassettes of both made well over 40 years back which I'll bet are unplayable by now) and am surprised to see how they're now being sold for somewhat astronomical prices making them rather price-y for me at this time. On one hand I'm joybelled that these efforts are now somewhat in demand, though on the other I can't afford 'em unlike I woulda way back when they'd pop up in second hand bins at some of the smarter record shops, Of course it they had only shown up in such stores back then I woulda snatched 'em up but still...

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Neil Young-LE NOISE CD-r burn (originally on Reprise Records)

These days Neil Young seems to have about as much to do with reality as Spooky, but surprisingly enough way back in 2010 he released a pretty durn good platter that of course we all missed out on because hey, he IS Neil Young. Here Young plays electric guitar with loads of feedback, sounding a whole loads more atonal than he has of whatever I have heard of him these past umpteen years. Heck, these driving songs,  rooted in West Coast Amerigan rock but the kind of the late-sixties just-pre hippie revelations, are the best thing to come outta the guy's brain since at least EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE or maybe that other guitar feedback album a whole lotta people still talk about. The only real downers are the acoustic snoozaroonies "Love and War" and "Peaceful Valley Boulevard" ("Cortez the Killer" Part XXXX) which ruins the electronic flow. I wonder if any of those shallow Young imitators of the seventies would dare listen to let alone record anything as driving as this. Really, can you imagine Dewey Bunnell doing something along these lines?

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Pink Floyd-UMMAGUMMA SESSIONS : LIVE RECORDINGS 1969 CD (Eye of the Storm Records, Mexico)

The live tracks here are DEFINITELY the exact same ones that popped up on the official UMMAGUMMA album which I know is a bummer that ranks up there with the rest of these albums that promise new and exciting material yet rehash the same-old for a quick buck. I guess the additional stage chat plus a few other numbers that didn't make it to the real deal would be worth the while. The live renditions of various tracks that appeared on the studio version of that particular spinner range in quality from feh to crispy, but then again they will probably disappoint a whole load of you who were fans of that million seller from way back when. Like I said many-a-time, if you're game for the just post-Barrett era Pink Floyd these live efforts and most certainly hit/miss but well...you'll go for it.

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The Stimulators-LOUD FAST RULES CD (ROIR Records)

Missed out on this the first go 'round but eh, I just hadda save something for my old age. Here's the noted New York City late-seventies vintage hardcore band that gave us future Cro Mag Harley doing it not quite as fast that I woulda hoped, but these Stimulators are hard and they do rule somewhat. There's nothing here that I would say differentiates them from a whole slew of late-seventies local rock upstarts but the tension is there, and who could hate these guys 'n gal for covering the Kiss classic "Rock 'n Roll All Night" and turning it into a nice buzzsaw. Hey, do any of you know about guitarist Denise Mercedes' mid-seventies glam group Stutz? They're a bunch that I've been curious about ever since I read a Fred Kirby review of one of their shows at Club 82.

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Science-LIVE AT MAX'S KANSAS CITY March 19th and March 27th 1980 CD-r burn

As you more on-the-ball readers should already know, there were a whole slew of under-the-underground musical acts who were playing across the planet in the sixties and seventies (even beyond!) and I'd take a wild guess that a good hunk of 'em were sure deserving of more notoriety and fame than they ever did receive.  New York's Science were but one of many who had the oomph but never did get the acclaim that those lesser light "new wave" bands (like the kind Anastasia Pantsios used to come all over---the Adults, Insanity and the Killers---remember any of those all you Cleveland rock 'n roll fans?) were bestowed due to their general safety and ability to keep the youth of this land of ours sparkling and aw gosh. 

Very little is known , at least by me, about Science other than singer and guitarist Suzy Science used to wear these really long locks down the side of her face which made people think of Lene Lovich for obvious reasons. I understand that she's a he now, or at least she's a being who THINKS she's a he, or something along those lines. It's hard to keep up with things like this anymore. They also had a 40-year-old German guy playing drums which I'm sure made 'em look all the more sore thumbish next to some of the brylcreamed groups who were popping up around the same time. They also used to get paired with Von Lmo for a lot of shows which I will admit adds to the entire rockist mystique even more. Well, I guess I know more about 'em than most of you ever did.

These pretty good quality (rough yet loud) live at Max's recordings prove that Science were yet another one of those up-from-nowhere acts that had what it took, but nobody seemed to be there to take it. Their sound is brittle and in some ways, perhaps due to their trio setting, reminds me of Au Pairs only without that British neo-working class radical left spirit that ruined European underground music for quite some time. Suzy's singing is natural in its untrained yet wide range --- she sounds like a teenage girl who never had a vocal lesson in her life yet manages to hit the right notes. Her guitar playing is an interesting pluck, sorta like she was playing a zither instead. New wave before the gnu set in...primitive yet smart.

Songs tend to be staccato-y and performed as if they were being typed out which makes their cover of "My Little Red Book" quite driving...way more original than one would expect from any of these 70s/80s cusp underground rock bands. Now I like those Lydia Lunch groups like 8 Eyed Spy 'n all, but Science do the same under-the-underground toss off of sixties heights better and I mean WAY better. Or is it just Lydia's haute New York boho snootiness that's gettin' to me...

Science sure sound as underground intense in the same fashion as the New York rage-on of Suicide and the Contortion, and these recordings only make me wish that their Max's EP came out back in '80 along with that Lmo album, both of which got axed due to a lack of funds. For a taste of Science try searching Youtube for these two shows which are almost as brief as a Red Transistor set with less the carnage but eh!

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Jimmy Page-LUCIFER RISING (COMPLETE SESSION REMASTERED) SOUNDTRACK CD-r burn

Given the VCR dub that's been bootlegged for ages this sounds half-mastered! Much more detailed...the opening drone is hypnotic in ways the original bootleg only hinted at and you can actually hear the chanting weave in and out...I get the feeling that the original opening of "Sonic Reducer" sounded something like this. What once resembled a sagging stylophone now comes off like synthesized bagpipes. It all coalesces into a weird mix of primitive percussion (electronic or not) with bowed guitar and a variety of ethereal sound colorizations sucking you into a vortex that certainly ain't what you'd expect of Led Zep or even the proggy stew of the past. Closer to the Genesis P.'Orridge brand of sonic mangulation in fact. You'll find it somewhere online and when you do, dub a copy for yourself and the person you most likely would want to put a hex on.

And as a special bonus we get another take of the LUCIFER RISING soundtrack appearing in what sounds like a shortened version for radio airplay, before being treated to a somewhat different full-length version with an added acoustic guitar. This 'un doesn't quite make it which is probably why it never showed up until recently but it still holds your attention...somewhat. But whatever, this tossoff does make for fair background music for when you're reading your old NANCY comics or even imbibing in things that might even be legal now. Oh, and in between all of this you get fragments of guitar and synth sounds that actually don't irritate like you would have thought they would given the general dinosaur-ness of Zep at this sorry stage in time. 

Somehow I can't see the stereotypical mid-seventies heavy metal fan going for this one iota. Fans of experimental sound mulch maybe, but the arena rock types would probably be as stymied by this music as they would Lawrence Welk having a jam session with the Norman Luboff Choir. Like with SEASTONES or LOW, this is an example of megabucks rock stars doing the avgarde thing and doing it right for once.

Oddly enough the strangest thing about these recordings is the story behind them. I'm sure you all know the saga about Kenneth Anger nixing the original soundtrack for not being long enough and totally unusable, blaming it all on Page's heavy duty opiate usage. However, if this is so why did he eventually use it for his LUCIFER RISING PART ONE (SIGN LANGUAGE), a collection of outtakes and rushes which was shown at a benefit to raise the funds to complete the film that was held at UCLA in September of 1976 (news that was so publicized to the point where even the extremely lame folk at CIRCUS magazine mentioned it --- where do you think I first read about it anyway)? 's one of those things that I guess will come out once time rolls on and even more stories creep out, some of which I get the feeling will chill you to more than just to the bone.

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Billy Bang/Aftermath Band-SAIGON PHUNK live at CB's Lounge 5-12-2002 CD-r burn

Just missed out seeing this via cybercast (by the time I tuned in Bang and band were packing up and some Amerindie-looking types were setting up) so it is grand to finally catch some of it lo these many years later. The title says it all and sentimental me must say that this 'un does bring back loads of memories of free jazz past that used to rate the high hosannas from the press and record companies before getting the ol' heave ho once 1980 clocked in. If I hadda compare it to anything maybe the Revolutionary Ensemble's "Chinese Rock" off of their THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC, but even that really doesn't come that close.

For those of us (like me) who were denied access the first time here it is, and I only hope the entire show has been preserved for the few of us who seem to really care even this late in the game of life.

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Tom Waits-RAIN DOGS CD-r burn (originally on Island Records0 

If Waits had only stayed with the Discreet crowd and didn't become one of those ROLLING STONE hyped acts custom made for hippie leftovers maybe his early albums woulda sounded like this. RAIN DOGS is definitely not for the kinda fanabla who listened to Waits during his Louis Armstrong days...at parts this is sorta like Col. Bruce Hampton singing sea shanties with the help of Harry Partch and Sandy Bull (really!), or a spirited remake of mid-sixties El Lay folk rock followed by the old Waits style which keeps the beatnik attitude of his early work firmly in place. This would have been perfect for Discreet back during the days of their existence 'stead of some of the strange offerings that label gave us much to Frank Zappa's dismay (remember Kathy Dalton?). The mid-eighties were such a dire place to exist and I only wish some smart mind would have pointed me to this 'un (and the other Waits disques in this vein --- and when I say "smart minds" I certainly don't mean them MUSICIAN magazine dorks!) way back when.

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Last Sacrifice-FOUR TRACKS LIVE AT CANTONE'S, BOSTON MASS. 1981 CD-r burn

These guys' "Acid Rain Dance" single (which McGarry slipped on after the live show) just hadda've been one of the highlights of eighties underground rock snazz and well, given just how much of a damper the eighties were with regards to a rock underground (only to be superseded by the nineties, oh-ohs, teens...)  I only wish there were more platters like that one around 'stead of the usual rote efforts that I was plagued with! 

These live tracks, while somewhat rough, just go to show you how much Boston had to give us only the usual evil people got in the way of us getting to hear any. I wouldn't say that anything here's as instant knockout as their single but the drive of pre-eighties local rock (when Velvet Underground influences didn't translate into geeky emulation of their too few mushy moments) is loud and clear. Dark and driving, making me wish that someone out there had the nerve to release a longplayer of their assumedly expansive repertoire. For a taste just click on the video strategically placed below:

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The Soundtrack of Our Lives-ORIGIN VOL. 1 CD-r burn (originally on Telegram Records)

If I were to be my old brash and throw fact and logic to the wind sorta self I'd call 'em the best band to come out of Scandanavia since Savage Rose. Heck, maybe I will still call 'em that. Loads of differences twixt the two but still there's that mix of raw tension and sophisticado that both took to their hearts amongst other things. Of course Soundtrack do the hard drive a whole lot better, kinda reminding me of what Roxy Music mighta sounded like in the mid-seventies had they stuck to their original hard "Remake Remodel" credo. Best thing about this 'un is that it was recorded and released at a time when smart and intelligent rock 'n roll was pretty much BANNED due to...well, taste and stuff like that. A nice one...wouldn't buy it on my own but it was good enough to listen to.

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BACK ISSUES TIME, and if you missed out on any of the BLACK TO COMM's that have made their way out of my imagination (and boudoir) then you know what to do with your moolah now, eh? Not only that, but you can bet that every penny received will be put to a good cause, mainly having a wild time!

BOOK REVIEW! NOISE FOR HEROES --- MUSIC FOR ZEROES COMPLETE: 1988-1991 VOL. 2 BY STEVE GARDNER (2020)

When the first all-inclusive book covering the rock fanzine phenomenon (well, at least a phenomenon in the eyes of the people involved) is written, I dunno if NOISE FOR HEROES is going to rate any mentions. Perhaps not even a tiny footnote. You know how horse-blindered, exclusive and generally stuck in their own anal cavities most if not all of the rock fandom brigade types are, what with their incestuous cliquish natures and sickening better-than-thouisms that didn't help the music they were trying to promote any. I sure do remember the closed clubs that rock fandom doth wrought because I've engaged in a little of this myself and felt slighted when left out of many others, but anyway if I were cursed to have to write a rock fanzine history from the late-sixties until the present I'd try to fit NOISE FOR HEROES in it somewhere, and probably give it more than just the sentence or two that most others tasked with the job undoubtedly would.

I must admit that I love the dickens outta the various fanzine anthologies I do posses, especially the DENIM DELINQUENT one that came and went a good ten or so years back. I sure wish there were more around such as one gathering up the entire runs of BACKDOOR MAN and TEENAGE WASTELAND GAZETTE but I doubt those will ever see the light of day given the beautifully anti-hippie offensiveness (and face it, the kids who thought they were punks these past forty-five years were/are hippies and don't let them tell you different! Not that they would...). Thankfully due to the not-so-modern miracle of vanity presses and self-publishing a collection of fanzines can be created and marketed by the original publisher himself avoiding all of the hassles of having some "legit" house do the work, and that's just what Steve Gardner did with his very own mag. NOISE FOR HEROES was a fanzine that I understand made more'n just a little headway as far as the 'zine game went back then but I wouldn't know because well...I was so broke and it wasn't like I was exactly in the inner circle when it came to distribution, notoriety, respect...

Volume two in this series features issues from '88 to '91 which I will up and front say was not exactly my favorite time for rock 'n roll. I much prefer the 1964-1981 era which started off with the onslaught of punk/Brit Invasion and hit singles that actually punched out at you and ended with the entire concept of rock music turning even more sour thanks to the big suits who knew they could make more money appealing to the worst aspects of youth who had more money than they knew what to do with it. By the time these issues hit the boards a whole lot of the high energy music that drew me to fandom in the first place was unfortunately being written off as an aberration or outright joke, even by the kind of people who originally seemed to at least give it the time of day during the earlier part of the seventies (CREEM anyone?). Oh yeah, there were plenty of great band coming out of the woodwork world-wide but you sure weren't going to see all of those bigtime rockcrits who used to go ga-ga over this music give 'em that much-needed hype like they shoulda received. Only until it was dead and buried (and no longer a threat) did anyone outside of the fanzine idiom seem to stand up for it. The coast was clear and it was safe. This conspiracy of silence and huge vacuum was left up to mags like NOISE FOR HEROES to fill and judging from these issues I guess that Gardner did more'n just an ample job of spreading the word.

Nice selection of groups pop up in these pages, reminding me AGAIN of the frustration I had trying to locate a whole slew of rarities not to mention locate some money to purchase 'em. (One critic of mine said that he thought my public begging was more'n just pathetic, and although most of that was just har-de-har-har puton there was an air of desperation in my tone!) Loads of groups that I think were the best reason for me to stick around coupled with those that never did faze me turn up in these pages, but even if you could care less about a certain act Gardner does a good enough job that, like with any fanzine writer from Phast Phreddie Patterson to Jymn Parrett, you don't mind reading what is laid in front of your eyes. It's all done in an entertaining and informative style that doesn't bore of come off anywhere as haughty as the rockscreed one has seen these past fortysome years both in the "legacy" rock press and from the fanzine upstarts as well.

Issues 13-20 are collected in these pages and as far as I know printed up exactly as the originals which is to say a whole loads better'n some of the crudzine efforts of the day that looked like spew thanks to limited printing capabilities. Nice selection of groups here as well...the Australian contingent which seemed to be single-handedly keeping the spirit of 60s/70s high energy ideals alive gets more than a fair share of space. It's amazing to remember the groups that were still up and about even this late in the underground rock evolution, not to mention the scores who were out there releasing their own records that weren't exactly in the cutesy poo gnu wave or leftover hippie radicals playing as punks mode. So many that heck, I never even heard of let alone heard over half of 'em that's how complete and packed these issues were. One wonders where Steve got the money to buy all of these, though the ad space given out not only gives me a clue but pisses me off in retrospect given how people and companies used to go out of their way to snub me and my sub-kitchen table publishing (pardon the self-pity but them scars never did heal nor did my bank account get replenished).

Reading about such acts like Australia's Trilobites, a band that I haven't thought about in years, does indeed make me want to search my probably useless by this time cassette collection for their obscure live tape that used to get some play here in the BTC offices way back when. Lots of groups that I wanted to hear but missed out on the first time because --- well, you know --- make their presence known in these pages and it sure is boff to see those high energy bands worldwide get that sorta press I sure wish helped 'em break outta their undeserved obscurity.

If I hadda say anything "bad" about this well...the standard computer layout is too professional for my tastes. I prefer the old typewriter pecked out "selectric" look that you used to see in mags like HYPE myself. Then again, maybe there are some, perhaps MANY (who knows?) "opinions" that I can disagree with. And as they say opinions are like assholes and I've had quite a few drilled into me over the years.

I am curious as to what the other issues are like and maybe some day I'll dish out the dinero. As for now I have another book by Gardner to peruse, mainly his West Coast take on ANOTHER TUNELESS RACKET which should take ma a good ten or so years to go through, digest and wipe.

YOU'RE REALLY GOING TO GET A HUGE BANG OUTTA THIS EPISODE OF BLOG TO COMM AND I DO MEAN IT!!!!

I'm typing this at night and believe it or leave it but ever since I could remember I loved the dark evening hours. Perhaps because of its overall SPOOKINESS (to be typically turdler about it) nighttime really does affect my inner sump pump a whole lot in a quite mysterious fashion. Hope that don't make me an evil sorta stroon (after all, Satan himself just loves the dickens outta the dark) but I know most all of you readers already think I'm as evil as evil can be and I won't argue with that!

Even after all of these years of existence (and despite a short period of my life having to work IN the dark during my security guard days), I loved the way the outside slowly turned pitch black while inside the lamps gave off a nice golden glow in the rooms like they still do making me glad a few things haven't changed. Of course, way back when during those single-digit turdler days the evening hours were usually reserved for television viewing especially during those long winter nights, sort of a kick-up-your-feet party time with snacks and fun verbal intercourse until beddy-bye. Tee-vee was the thing that united the entire fambly, and I sure liked to be in the room when it was on even if I didn't understand what these programs were about and just fumbled around with my toys as the set roared on. But hey, with all of that shooting and violence that was prevalent on the tube back then boy did life sure look fun! Heck, I couldn't wait to grow up so I could do a li'l shootin' myself! 

Speaking of the dark, I used to think that it was more or less like a gaseous form that just crept up on the world and then dissipated into the light until it was time to come out again! Once I took a jar and left it open in the backyard thinking that some of the darkness would seep into it, then I could cap it and keep some for myself. Boy was I disappointed that my scientific theory did not pan out, but then again like I told you quite a long time ago I used to think that the universe was kept in a box that was stashed somewhere in the police station where DICK TRACY took place. Non sequriturism has been a vital part of my entire life as you undoubtedly already would have known from reading my usual spew.

Music sounds better during the evening hours. In my younger days I'd spend hours upon hours listening to it late at night, a time when everything from Terry Riley to Robbie Basho took on a somewhat feral, even more bared-wire intensity approach. Unfortunately thanks to my current living conditions I'm usually hitting the hay even before it gets pitch black...oh well, the winter days will be coming up shortly and if there's one thing I do like about that season is that when it gets dark I don't have to feel guilty about goofin' off after the supper hours. As if I felt guilty about anything in my life.

Did I ever tell you all of this? Probably in a post that's ten or so years old but given my sieve-like brain (and probably yours too) it's new stuff to us all. Anyway, I do hope that you dig this chapter in the ever-trudging along destiny of BLOG TO COMM even if I do think that there should have been more reviews and well, sometimes my critical acumen does seem to weeble wobble like your childhood friend's bike that you borrowed only to find out the brakes weren't working as you sped down a steep hill.

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As far as this edition's obits go, I really must admit to you that the assassination of Charlie Kirk was something that I wouldn't have expected in a millyun years, and that's even with all of the people out there who certainly had a taste for his blood (and pardon me if you think my AI-generated snap of Donald Duck shooting Mickey Mouse is some sort of commentary on current events but it was created long in advance of this tragedy --- it is somewhat fitting in a rather ghoulish way that fits in swell with the screw you demeanor of this blog). Yeah, even though Kirk was more or less a member of Conservative Inc. ("normies") rather than a full bloom anarcho/paleocon/pseudo-"fascist"-rightist type (in other words he didn't go far enough or even get downright offensive like a good provocateur should) I have to admit that I loved the lion-hearted bravery he exuded in the way that he debated the loonier neo-"communist" college types ("communist" in parentheses because none of 'em would have lasted a day in Stalin's Russia) who would strut up to the podium at one of his gatherings to give him a piece of their minds with all of the self-righteous indignation you would expect from well-off upper-middle-class pampered radicals. I don't think that Kirk was always, perhaps even mostly, successful in his rebuttals (as if he could have ever swayed any of his detractors to his POV) but it was fun to watch him take on some screaming harridan going on about the haute cause of the day, trying to keep his composure while said specimen flung various arguments his way in the same fashion that Cheeta tossed his turds willy-nilly. 

Gotta also say that I also get a kick outta watching alla them TikTok types and others emoting such gleeful howls over Kirk's rather grisly ending which shows you just what kind of a sense of har-de-har-har I have. Well, some of the more haughty ones from the usual septum ring types can get rather nauseating, but these videos do exude a pompous better-than-thouism that would put Lydia Lunch to shame making me glad that that there are still sick people out there and their minions are growing! Well, it is more entertaining than the usual mope and weep over the state of the world that I tend to come across via "Libs of TikTok"! Somehow the celebratory nature of some of these admitted nutcases appeals to my own warped morality even if, for the life of me, it's wiener chopping time whenever I indulge in the same type of nyah-nyah-yer-DEAD type of screech that I get into if only to razz you sissies a bit! I guess that these scions of privilege are allowed to get away with it due to their unbridled and youthful altruism while I get nothing but grief because well, you know the old saying that has been going 'round throughout the underground/amerindie rockcrit sphere for years on end, mainly "edginess for me but not for thee!" 

Call me a sicko, but I'm also chortling over a scant few who are crawlin' outta the woodwork to tell us that Kirk was such a jerkoff 'stead of the heroic martyr he's being portrayed as in the non-legacy media. Like f'rinstance, some high stool classmate of his says that the guy was a bully or something along those lines, all of which is naturally portrayed as a shock horror newsflash the same way that Brett Kavanaugh's alleged horny boy past suddenly popped up back when he was up for his Supreme Court gig! Sure glad that I'm not a fellow in the public spotlight lest all of those stories about my uncontrollable dandruff and gaseous explosions during the best years of my life (hah!) come to light!

The fallout is quite interesting. I never saw Jimmy Kimmel nor heard any of his jokes and I assume he is about as trite as the budding young sociopolitical comics that I came across and shunned way back in the nineties, but I gotta say that his suspension or cancellation, whatever it was, at ABC is certainly out of character for that network. I mean, there were people on the former NBC Blue who have said things that were a lot more caustic than Kimmel musing that one of Kirk's own fans and followers did the killing, but for some reason or another the guy got the axe and boy are the rest of the late-night types frothing at the mouth! It doesn't matter a hill of turds since, at least for me, late-night tee-vee died out when they stopped running old movies and Carson retired (and Letterman lost his sense of humor), so why is ABC all of a sudden acting like they have some sort of scruples given how they've been cutting off the balls of people like me for years on end and explaining it all away in terms of free speech and moralistic gumbyisms!

But I wish these guys would do a better job of razzing and poking fun at Kirk's widow and kids while building up their own crypto-political stances...I mean they could at least throw some wit into their overall cruelty and anti-capitalistic/pro-sexual deviancy diatribes for once now, eh?

   

I find the passing of Mark Volman a whole loads more important in the overall under-the-counterculture size-of-things than I have most all of the other rock-related deaths that have cropped up recently. From the Turtle days to his and Howard Kaylan's successful attempts to spice up the Mothers of Invention carrying that edition of the group a whole lot more'n Zappa did, Volman was definitely someone who enriched the rock 'n roll form unlike a good slice of those sickening "baby boomer" acts who are still wheelchairing along. Sure he and Kaylan were responsible for the cutesypoo Strawberry Shortcake phenomenon of the early-eighties, but they also added a whole load of dimensional oomph to those classic T. Rex albums, and come to think of it haven't we all (well, 'cept for myself) made ill-informed choices throughout our rather sniveling lives? (Yeah, Strawberry Shortcake was an overall bad career move even if it did fill the pair's coffers, but then again it introduced a whole new generation of five-year-old gals to the music of the pair and probably encouraged 'em all to snatch up a copy of the live at the Fillmore Mothers album! Future Mud Shark groupies in the making if I do say so myself!) If you can, try catching them on that episode of SOUNDSTAGE hosted by Martin Mull.

Did any of you ever hear that story about the time GG Allin saw Volman and Kaylan with their wives at some restaurant and approached them saying how much he was a fan and had all their albums onandonandon...? Allin also inquired if the pair would produce his next record and, when they asked about his music, Allin rattled off the titles and they just started laughing uncontrollably and couldn't stop! Believe-you-me, Volman and Kaylan were in such hysterics that Allin didn't even get an answer --- they were rolling on the floor crying their eyes out that's how crazed they were!

Well, maybe Viv Prince's toodle-oo is as important on the dead rockster meter as Volman's, he being another one of them guys that you swore woulda been dead a good fiftysome years back but just kept going on and on even though far from the limelight. Like Steve Took, he coulda been a punk rocker supremo had he only gotten his musical act together, but then again give him credit for being one of the three people who were in the audience for the MC5's English debut!

As far as Robert Redford goes well, as R. Meltzer once said about someone else his death means about as much to me as Baby Huey's.

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Even with all of the current events hubbub above I must admit that the biggest news of the blog is the downright FACT that the local paper is, for some glorious reason, now reprinting classic Ernie Bushmiller-era NANCY comic strips 'stead of those horrid modern-day ones that are about as much fun as a cactus dildo up the Hershey Highway. Dunno what prompted whoever it is who is involved with what turns up in the funnies section to switch from the current excuse for a comic to the real downright thing I grew up with and continue to honor and praise, but after all of these years I can finally open up a newspaper and anticipate of a good groan! Heck, I'm even cutting these strips out and plan to paste them in a scrapbook just like my grandmother did during the Lindbergh kidnapping case! A good reason for my cyster (you think I'd actually dish out money for their swill passing as news?) not to cancel her subscription to the local fish wrap!

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BAD NEWS...no more FAUX WOOD PANELING magazine. GOOD NEWS !!!!!...Wade Oberlin, in conjunction with Eddie Flowers, is starting a NEW 'un called...now get this...HOMEMADE SHIT!!!!! Yodel-odel-lay-eee-ooo!

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Interesting batch of music up for inspection this time, and not-so-surprisingly enough I would say that most each and every one of these entries is what I would call music that I would have loved to have heard during my late-teenbo days but couldn't afford because --- well --- I was pretty much living on depression-era wages and had an extremely hard time prying any cash for "frivolities" outta my mother and father's wallets. I still remember the old line when I'd ask the folks for some coin so's I could get some of the things the other kids had, and I was sternly told to EARN IT!!!!! Then when I asked if there were any household chores or jobs that they could give me they gave me a stern NO!...sheesh, what was a kid s'posed to do, especially when most all of the filthy lucre I would get for Christmas and my birthday HAD to be deposited into my bank account! Sometimes I get the feeling that the folks were trying their darndest to keep me from being an average teenage kid and envisioned me some bow tied and polite bunsnitch with nicely combed hair who wowed the girls at parties playing the piano as if that was ever gonna get me some you-know-whatie!

All I gotta say is that I'm sure glad that we didn't live near a seaport because well, when the sailors would come into town and spend their money there would have been many ways to earn more'n just a few bucks...and although I'm not "built" like that it could have been the start of a rather disgusting habit!

Can-RECYCLED CD (Eye of the Storm Records)

Don't expect anything special, but if this is the first time around for you budding Can-sters you'll definitely need to snatch this up before it too vanishes into the great lost cluttered up bedroom in the sky. 's got four cuts left off the DELAY 1968 album plus the entirety of "Doko Dae E" not forgetting that weird "Voice Changer" track that sounds pretty good even if it never did make it onto any of the legit or perhaps even illegit Can outtake records (well, not that I know of).  If you don't have these well, I'm sure that if you were smart enough to tune into this blog that you're smart enough to do some googlin' now, eh?

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Terry Riley-THE COLUMBIA RECORDINGS 4-CD set (Sony Classical Records)

Speaking of Terry Riley like I had in the fourth paragraph of this post, I must admit that his music sounds great in the light of day as well! In fact, I listened to this new collection of the guy's Columbia albums during the morning hours and found the entire experience just as exhilarating as it was back when I'd make it a semi-habit of playing PERSIAN SURGURY DERVISHES during the late-late show.

Most of these recs are still fresh memories in my mind considering how I haven't heard a couple of 'em until quite recently in my existence. Not that these records were just jumping outta the bins begging me to take 'em home, but whaddeva it sure is great that Columbia finally collected 'em all in one place and they're all within reach of my sweaty and haired-up palms.

IN C remains the Riley classic, a piece that can be done up by just about any musical entity or entities, and given its Cageian aleatory construction it makes for a rather exciting bit of music that's limited to only two (or is it three?) notes. I sure would like to hear how a polka group would have handled this.

I believe I told you just how much I didn't care for A RAINBOW IN CURVED AIR back when I snatched it up way back when only to cozy up to the thing when I recently bought the vinyl reissue. Well, I gotta say that I stand by my more recent assessments. Far from the prog rock stew I originally believed it to be, this one does engage rather than pacify. Elements of early Phil Glass and Steve Reich can be picked out here/ther (old news but you probably heard it here first) but if I told you this was yet another permutation of "Sister Ray" you'd call me a jerk. "Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band" also has the ability to do more'n just a little testicle scrunching in a steel claw sorta fashion and if I told you it was definitely a precursor to various mid-80s sonic attacks a-la Controlled Bleeding well...

A longtime fave, the CHURCH OF ANTHRAX collab with John Cale's one effort that really brings out the best in what each of these guys were up to back when this was recorded. It's a good 'un for Cale fans showing more of a Velvet Underground drive than anything the guy did at least until "Gun", while Riley's musical manipulations can most certainly be discerned throughout the proceedings. Even with the presence of somewhat in-depth liner notes there's no new light shed on the mysterious track entitled "The Soul of Patrick Lee" which clearly has no Riley input and perhaps even minimal Cale involvement other'n composition and piano. It fits in swell anyway...a definite sixties/seventies cusp straight ahead rocker we shoulda heard Cale warble on VINTAGE VIOLENCE. And hey, did YOU ever notice the strong similarities twixt LP closer "The Protégé" and the Modern Lovers faverave "Pablo Picasso"?

I never even saw a copy of SRI CAMEL let alone heard the thing so this was a nicety-nice surprise for me. Ignore the mystical Alice Coltrane-styled cover and get into the just intonation organ sound weaving all over cavern of your brain in a manner very much similar to PERSIAN SURGERY DERVISHES...the soundtrack to a rather devious silent movie if you ask me. 

Overall, this set's one of those overdue releases that I hope will draw more people to the music of Riley blah blah prattle on as if any of you readers out there would ever think of buying a mandatory to your boring existence package such as this.

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Philip Glass-GLASSWORKS CD (Sony Legacy Records)

At one time I put Riley and Glass on the same level of composers who could pass for "rock", but in the here and now I gotta say that Riley's works hold up swell but Glass' eighties on and compositions do come off rather kitchy, like a man creating avgarde music that the average doof out there could appreciate but failing miserably because what does the average doof care about avgarde music anyway. 

It's still howshallIsay "fair", but the early Ensemble sounded more like a roaring post-Velvets krautrock experiment or maybe even Suicide with six Martin Revs than this orchestral material that remind me more of etudes than though-out well-constructed works. 

If it is any consolation, ex-Contortions Don Christiansen helped engineer the bonus tracks. And while we're on the subject, I heard somewhere a long time ago that the works of Roger Reynolds and Gyorgy Ligeti would fit into the Riley/Glass school of avgarde classical that the brainier listener might appreciate on a rock level...izzat true? And if so any recommendations as if any of you would ever dare answer any of my queries?

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Boy Dirt Car-WINTER/F/i SPLIT LP CD (Childhood Anal Cavity Love Records, Australia)

I dunno why "Just Disgusted" was so surprised when he first heard about the existence of acts like Boy Dirt Car as well as Einsturzende Neubauten given that their musical forebearers dip as far back as Edgard Varese, George Antheil and John Cage. Sheesh, the early Stooges also figure into both of these groups' motives mightily! If Mr. Disgusted had only paid attention to early-sixties Sunday Afternoon tee-vee he surely would've understood the whys and wherefores of industrial music given all of the brainy programs they used to show before prime time kicked in. Maybe not...'s hard to judge the grey-matter patterns being emitted by ANYONE these days (let alone the eighties), but if the man had only devoted even just a small part of his crainial abilities to the ABSTRACT he might have just had a quite different attitude towards this breed of vibration!

For a guy like me who keeps losing, finding then once again losing his Boy Dirt Car cassettes (esp. the one in the li'l cloth pouch) this does help some, at least until this one gets lost somewhere in the rubble. From what I can tell this is a collection of the LP these guys shared with F/i, as well as their first album proper or something like that. It may be an utter shock to the average FM-bred dolt out there, but this,along with hardcore and certain sixties-revisionisms, is thee ultimate eighties rock 'n roll musical statement, and a lotta that high energy beyond the fringe music that Boy Dirt Car blessed us with during those dismal days of the mid/late-eighties (only to be followed by the dismal nineties...) pops up on this release. Ind if you want to hear the glory once again here 'tis. Definitely a Cee-Dee that should be top on your steal (at least from the source) list.

As you've known for nigh on five decades already, this music is really not that far off from the Velvets up through Stooges and Beefheart on to METAL MACHINE MUSIC, and thankfully the concept and consciousness of industrial music never did really pass from this mortal/sonic coil. Unlike Ann Landers who I understand is firmly ensconced a good six or so feet under the ground (and thank goodness considering the pop psychology and cornball solutions she emitted for a good period of time)!

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Jeff Beck and the Yardbirds-SHAPES OF THINGS LP (Springboard Records)

Albums that popped up on the Springboard label used to be easily obtained in the record shops of the seventies and the flea market piles of the eighties, but only until the here and now have I ever purchased any. Got this one partly out of curiosity. Never understood just how Springboard could operate by pirating familiar tuneage for so long but well, I must admit that they sure offered the poorer amongst us albums at way more affordable prices than the usual $5.99 you would have had to part with for a platter of the twelve-inch variety. This one OBVIOUSLY (well, I can't account for some of you readers' stupidity) contains Beck-era Yardbird tracks which were somewhat hard to find at the time, presented with a weird glaze of a sound and running about a half-hour total. In other words this was just the thing for the twelve-year-old picking pennies off the street to latch up. Not bad, at least until one could dig up the dough to get hold of those expensive (for poor kids like me) imports and bootlegs.

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Michael Nyman/London Saxophonic-AN EYE FOR A DIFFERENCE CD (Tring Records, England)

I was going to mention how this sounded kitschy in the way some of Philip Glass's later work tried to grasp at a more mainstream audience, but as with Glass's LOW SYMPHONY I can enjoy this on a base level, kinda like the way your parents would dig into the classics after they got hold of those collections they used to sell on tee-vee in order to dignify the house a bit. A lot of the bared wire intensity that one would hear in the avgarde of old is missing and if you told me this was the soundtrack music to the kinda films they make today I'd believe it, if only I saw some of the kinda films they make today. I guess it is better to stay home rather'n go out and squander your money on a flicker that has about as much to do with one's existence as The Masked Ginny Lynne.

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Hey, guess what! I sold all of my BLACK TO COMM back issues so I don't have to post any of these end of post hypes anymore! Boy am I lucky that I have such wonderful and devoted followers who have been kind and generous in helping me out with clearing my basement and upping my bank account that had been pretty much depleted by parting with my hard-begged in order to put these out! Boy am I making myself sick thinking the TRUTH about how you skinflints really are when it comes to supporting the underground rock publication world...sheesh, you'd think there'd be enough rabid rockers worldwide who'd just LOVE to snatch these rags up!