BLOG TO COMM

Got more'n just a little bit to blab about this time and I better warn you that it might be rather mind boggling for some, so if I were you I'd take a little bit of this now and save the rest for some other time, all in nice little pieces that you can digest and enjoy at your own pace. I've been writing up this post o'er the past month or so adding little bits here and removing big hunks there (you should see the stuff I remove---really caustic and scabrous material which sometimes remain much to the dismay of some of you more weak-stomached readers) which is why this entry into the canon pretty much tops the blowhard-y meter. Of course if you're one of the true blue dyed in the wool BLOG TO COMM lovers out there (of which there are two) I think you'll wanna swallow it all in one big Linda Lovelace gulp and like, who's stopping you anyway other'n your conscience which I thought you tossed out the window ages ago?

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You know how much I like to talk about myself not to mention spew out my various deep thoughts and opines which is but one of a gorillion reasons why this blog is in existence. Well, if you're the kind of guy who gets his jollies living vicariously through me like I've lived vicariously through the actions of various musicians and even writers over the years here's yet another bit of autobiographical goo that I'm sure will sate your utmost desires. That is, if you truly are into Chris Worship and who in their right mind wouldn't be? 

So here it is, Sunshine...as to what has been goin' on 'round here well, believe it or leave it but I actually got called for jury doody, like for the fourth time in this existence of mine which I gotta say really burns the britches off my thighs considering that there are way too many of you yahoos out there who never got called even once! Eh, that's what I get for registering to vote so maybe I shouldn't complain though given the way I vote YOU would. 

Anyway, I was really miffed because frankly I had much better things to be doing (like making a living, honest or not) and in no way did I wanna be pulled away from my livelihood in order to sit around and pass judgement on someone I probably couldn't give two hoots about! But then again as far as passing judgement goes you all know just how much I like sticking it to people I just don't like and who knows, the guy that's up for trial just might be the one who's perfect for a little wrath on my part!

But as far as for getting out of it I had it all planned, like taking a rope and practicing my noose knots and carrying around a biography of George Lincoln Rockwell, but then I thought I might get myself in some trouble that I just don't need during this time in whatever's left of my life. Thankfully the judge sent about 150 of us seething and downright throbbing potential jurors home because all of the cases on the dock were settled out of court behind closed doors and in a fashion I'm sure Charlie Rich wouldn't have cared for. Fine enough with me, but why couldn't they've done all that before we peons hadda be called in just sittin' around doing nothing just waiting for somethingorother to happen without anything to keep us otherwise occupied! Sheesh, they coulda at least shown us some THREE STOOGES shorts!!!

Besides the indignity of jury duty I have been keeping myself occupied considering that idle hands are the devil's rec room or something like that. Basically with this thing they call "work" as well as with this other thing called "lumping in front of the television set during the evening hours because you're exhausted and depressed by that other thing taking up your life". When I have the chance I pour through my old books, usually during turd time when I have to get my mind off of this disgusting necessity in my life. When I have an entire afternoon to kill maybe I'll crack open a box of old fanzines or whatnot, the whatnot usually being the reams of articles I copies off of Rocksbackpages back when I decided to splurge on a month's subscription and gobble up everything I deemed necessary that they had up for my approval. A nice endeavor true, but they seem to be lacking in a whole lot, like more articles by the likes of the late-seventies SOUNDS crowd (Goldman, Dadomo, Suck, Ingham...) and other oft forgotten or downright neglected English scribes whose writings hardly made their way over to my neck (or more accurately, asshole) of the woods. Even some Amerigan ones too! As if I had money and various other earthly goods handed to me on a silver platter just like all you rich kids reading this thing sneering at me for my abject poverty.

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Like clockwork or at least tax time, an issue of FAUX WOOD PANELING has once again made its way to our doors. Or at least mine but anyway what else can I say about perhaps the bestest of best fanzines being produced today, at least as far as I know of considering that I'm not exactly raking in the mags these days. Custom made for the Meltzer type of aesthetic, FAUX WOOD PANELING's latest has an interview with Gregg Turner, a quite interesting piece on Dion (with a Meltzer twist!), Pittsburgh's I think they're supposed to be legendary the Puke, Cecil Taylor (!), Lisa "Suckdog" Carver (?), River Trash Records and even reviews of a couple of Japanese anime things that might be hentai but I'm not askin'! There's loadsa stuff in this thick issue that'll satisfy the hidden brat that lingers within all of us, and I don't hafta tell you how to get it now, do I? (Hint hint hint---look at the column on the left under "Faux Wood Paneling" and who knows, the answers to at least some of your prayers just might come true!).

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No posts on the DENIM DELINQUENT facebook page lately. I hope that Jymn Parrett isn't sick if not worse!

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Another AI exclusive! A true-to-life photographic rendition of Andy Warhol shooting
Valerie Solanis in retaliation for all of the grief she's given him (yeah, the one on the right looks nada like the real Solanis, but ya gotta admit that AI is still in its infancy and these rather amusing misfires and downright gaffes are just as fun as had something more realistic been conjured up!).

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THINGS WATCHED ON TEE-VEE AS OF LATE: As hinted at a few paragraphs above, I've been eyeballing a whole lot more tee-vee these days than I have these past two or three decades, and if you must know or really care for that matter I am PROUD of the fact. Strange but true, I've actually discovered that there is some television out there that is finally worth my time and satellite dish money, and none of it is any of them Lifetime For Women tee-vee mooms or flashy updates on the old Ted Mack Amateur Hour talent shows either. Naw, the programming that I'm front and center for speaks to the raw core of my eternal being, transcending a whole load of barriers and searches inside whatever it is that's left of my soul appealing to me on a multi-dimension level I doubt any of you readers will ever fathom. Television that speaks to me as a throbbing, living individual 'stead of as the wimpass follower of hognose ring-yanking trends and fancies. Entertainment that, once again, proves that I am a better man than most all of you will ever be. Here is some important cathode crashing that I have done or am doing as of late, and of course you would be wise to seek out these various programs and episodes in order to better your somewhat kukkied up life:

GUNSMOKE : "ISLAND IN THE DESERT PART ONE AND CONCLUSION" (originally airing on CBS December 2 and December 9, 1974) - I've written enough about this program these past few yeas but anyway, here's my overall opinion regarding the twenty-year run of this by-now infamous, legendary and other accolades that mean nada to you western tee-vee series. The first three or so seasons are the best, the rest of the half hour episodes are very good, the hour long black and white-era ones can at times get somewhat spotty and the color ones ain't worth the time. At least I thought that the color ones were snoozerinos for a longer period than I can imagine, probably due to me actually trying to watch some of those later ones back during my pre-pubesprout days and finding them too lacking in a whole load of the bared-wire intensity and general hard-edged power that I thought was exactly what drove all of my uncles to their tee-vee sets in the first place. 

Throwing caution to the gutwinds I tuned into this last-season (1974-1975) two-parter if only for the presence of Strother Martin making his last (and only color-era) GUNSMOKE appearance and gotta say that I'm sure glad I decided to stay up past my usual eight o'clock bedtime. Repeato-riff me has also gotta say that most all of the guy's other appearances in this series were what made those particular episodes highlights of the show's history...his second pop up as some retarded guy named Cooter who is goaded by a gambler into trying to kill Marshal Dillon rates in my top ten of GUNSMOKEs, while his role a few seasons later as the equally addled Dooley who thinks he killed a fellow buffalo skinner is equally powerful, especially in the final scene which might even make you want to do a little throat lumping yourself. Another favorite of mine is this mid-sixties hour-long one where Martin's the brutal victim of not only an amoral and ultra-violent clan (led by Denver Pyle playing it extremely and uncharacteristically sadistic) but some Slim Jims that pack a particularly potent punch.

However this last-season two-parter's an equally power-pumping piece of television viewing and undoubtedly a couple of THE BEST COLOR ERA GUNSMOKES THAT I EVER LAID EYES UPON. Starts out with Marshal Dillon and his grubbier than you would have liked deputy Festus delivering a vicious murderer to a sheriff's office where a hanging is in the immediate offering and Festus is sticking around just for the festivities so-to-speak. After Dillon skedaddles the bad boy grabs a letter opener, kills the sheriff and escapes with Dillon's deputy in hot pursuit, at least until the ol' skudder gets grazed by the escapee's close enough rifle shot smack dab in the middle of the desert and left for "crow's bait" in the killer's own taunting words. Miraculously enough Festus is saved by Martin playing desert hermit Ben Snow, a guy who has been lost for what must've seemed like ages and is so whacked from the loneliness that he even has a pet rattlesnake to keep him company. Snow's got his own ideas as far as getting out of the place in order to exact some well-deserved revenge on the guy who not only shot him in the leg and abandoned him but ran off with his gold, and after swiping Festus' gun the coot's actually got the deputy by the prairie oysters as he forces him to take a ten mile hike through the desert. Destination: the town of Ten Strike where justice is gonna be rendered in a way only that Snow could really appreciate --- mainly humiliation!

Once again Martin plays it so believable that you'll undoubtedly be rooting for and against him at the same time. It's that old "he's s'posed to be the bad guy but you kinda wonder if he really is that bad" (maybe good-bad but not evil) scenario. You can't blame him for his built-up hostilities considering his mental screwedupness and the well-deserved poetic justice he has been longing for lo them many years. Ain't gonna tell you any more but the story gets weirder and more intense as it goes on, with the last ten minutes or so turning into one big gnarl on your very own spirit as you see things coming to the conclusion you kinda/sorta thought would happen but hoped wouldn't. But hey, even real life turns out in sad and sorry ways and I should know.

This 'un shoulda won some awards and if it were packaged as a feature length moom pitcher I'd rush to see it. I really can't get it through my chromebus domebus just how believable and gosh darn pity inducing Martin is as he was in his other GUNSMOKE appearances, while William Watson as the escaped murderer's so irritating and downright evil that you just can't wait for him to get his just desserts (and boy does he get 'em!). Even Ken Curtis plays the best Festus I've ever seen, somewhat different than his usual inbred sorta self and in fact quite wiry. I used to be of the same mind as my mother that Festus was nothing but a walking turdburger and that Chester was the perfect character to play the deputy role, but Curtis should have gotten some sorta huzzahs for his performance, or at least a raise. It's that good and I gotta say that even one day after viewing I am still somewhat razzled by the whole thing. If you ain't of the same mind as me well, you can always go back to your Vanessa Del Rio films 'n I won't tell anyone.

WARNER BROTHERS CARTOONS - Boomerang really is bugging me what with their re- and rereREpeating the same rather limited set of Warner Brothers 'toons during their evening hours. I don't mind the Depatie-Freling mid/late-sixties ones most people seem to loathe (even though most of those featured the Daffy Duck/Speedy Gonzales team-ups of which only one seems to be in circulation given the kibosh that has been placed on Speedy these past few years) but the "revival" 'toons made in the eighties and beyond are so self-referential they make me wanna puke. The best've always been the classic forties-era efforts with the detailed animation, vivid color that for once makes me glad that color tee-vee was invented, and the general World War II-era feeling that sure brings back memories of just how long that debacle stuck in the minds of the people who surrounded me...they just couldn't stop talking about the thing until their dying days! 's funny, but I remember my cyster saying how much she liked those early forties Warners cartoons that would start off our Saturday tee-vee viewing when compared with the ABC BUGS BUNNY SHOW ones which appeared at noon, and contrarily enough I was of the opposite opinion. It took a few years, but I eventually had to admit how right the ol' mule was.

The best of the current 'toons circulating on tee-vee include the late-thirties Porky Pigs that were done up back when an actual stutterer did Porky's voice (I vividly remember watching the Warner Brothers-Seven Arts prints of these on THE BARNEY BEAN SHOW when I was still in the single-digits) and of course the World War II era ones which still churn up those early Saturday AM get outta bed while the folks were still sleeping memories. And sheesh but I gotta tell you that when I watch those early Bugs Bunny 'toons that were made back when Bugs had that rounded-out skull and Elmer Fudd still looked like Arthur Q. Bryan that a smile, a small one but a smile nonetheless, pops up on this old shit's face! I mean, how often have I cracked one of those these past XXXXXXXX years anyway other'n when I'm thinking up thalidomide jokes?

Other faves include Bob Clampett's THE GREAT PIGGY BANK ROBBERY with Daffy Duck as Duck Twacy (I wonder who the gal with the big suckems seen falling outta the closet with the rest of the Dick Tracy-esque villains is s'posed to be----personally I think 'tis one of the animators' ex-wives, the delineator clandestinely letting his feeling be known given the rapid progression of the falling corpses) and the Bugs Bunny/Cecil Turtle races which stand the test of alla them reruns. The Roadrunner ones not so much given how many times those have been aired but I do enjoy the Fred and Ralph sheepdog and wolf "series" of which only two of 'em seem to be circulating these days, a burning shame as Eno would have put it.

I can only hope that Boomerang breaks into their vaults because there are more'n just a few of those olde tymey classics that I'd love to see again while I still have eyeballs in my head, like the ones with the little talkative mouse Sniffles (remember "Mutiny in the Nursery"?) and of course there's that intense nerve-grinder TOM THUMB IN TROUBLE which you can betcher booties really got me all worked up back when I was a sensitive thirty-year-old. I'd especially like to once again view the once-legendary HORTON THE ELEPHANT HATCHES THE EGG (NOT the one narrated by Billy Crystal) which surprised me since when I first saw it I didn't even know that Dr. Seuss was up and about that early in the game! And considering just how legendary it is howzbout "The Dover Boys" even though that's been PD for ages and you can espy it just about anywhere, like once again on this very blog:

And since the wraparounds for the original BUGS BUNNY SHOW have finally been located and from what I've heard "restored", how about runnin' those again??? We portable holes need them portable hole 'toons back in our lives I'll tell ya!

THE RIFLEMAN-Chuck Connors always delivered on the ultraviolence that there should be much more of on television, but sheesh those scenes where he rescues son Mark and they start hugging each other really do irritate me! I wouldn't make such a fuss out of it, but there are those stories about Connors that have been going around like that movie with Rock Hudson not to mention some incidents in a New Orleans hotel and a certain haberdashery, and since these tales were told me by three people who have no connection to each other well...when I was a kid I was good at playing "connect the dots" and still am come to think of it! A highlight television series anyway with that Sam Peckinpaugh edge added to it, without the nude Mexican women that is.

And of course I'm front and center for WAGON TRAIN whenever I have a day off or decide to play hooky. They're all good (well, a few clunkers here/there) though I prefer Ward Bond's get up and do it! Major Adams over John McIntyre's subdued Chris Hale (too bad Bond had to be a huge imbiber in alcohol and tobacco [and let co-star Robert Horton's liberal leanings and alleged queer tendencies get the best of him!] or else he may have made his way through the entire series) while ex-stuntmen Terry Wilson as Bill Hawks and Frank McGrath as Charlie Wooster were the glue that kept the show together what with their own breed of not only sly comic relief but underlying intensity that gave this series a unique flavor way better'n the grub that Charlie seemed to dishing up that's for sure!

What really gets to me is the way these immigrants on the train can retain their sense of dignity what with the grueling travel, lack of decent sanitary conditions and rampant disease. Sheesh, every evening they seem to be eating outside on checker cloth-draped tables with fine chinaware keeping up the decorum even under the worst conditions possible. It's also amazing just how much seemingly extraneous items these people can cram into their wagons (pianos, furniture...) not to mention just how roomy they were what with beds and a single lamp lighting up the entire place with lumens galore! Sorta like Snoopy's doghouse with the Picasso and loads of un-cashed soda pop bottles.

The hairstyles always impress me as well. Didn't know that men cut their hair in early-sixties styles way back when, but the fact that women were using hairspray before it was even invented really knocks me for a loop! And keeping it so nice and clean under such circumstances...shows you that when there's a will there's a way!

Eh, why should I be doing the anal-retentive nitpicking anyway? WAGON TRAIN was a top notch series that delivered on action, intriguing stories and well-acted roles from people who had more than just a scrap of talent, and now I can see why everyone from my grandfather (who unfortunately died during the series' first season) to my mother watching the afternoon reruns to a whole load of people I grew up with were front and center for this 'un for more than just a few measly years.

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ANOTHER IN A LONG LINE OF "DON'T SAY I DON'T DO ANYTHING FOR YOU"'S: An Amon Duul II (sounding closer to Amon Duul I!) rarity from '69:

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Hey, got an inordinate amt. of these reviews set up and although it may take you some time to wade through 'em all I'm sure you'll find the wading mighty good. The donations were sent by Paul McGarry and Wade Oberlin, and maybe someday I will pay them back for all their hard work but given how things stand that's gonna be a long long time from now. If I write out a will, I'll remember you'ins.

Dred Scott-AN INSTRUMENTAL ACCIDENT BY... LP (D.S. Records)

I heard this way back in the Pre-Cambrian Era and thought it was nothing but stoned guy jagoffs trying to be hot stuff in the rec room, but in the here and now it sounds just like the kinda racket I woulda hoped that noisy group from down the street (the one mom always wondered why Mrs. Fafoofnik didn't march her son down to the barber shop and like RIGHT NOW!!!) woulda cooked up 'stead of their rehashing of Bloodrock riffs. 

Starts off with a jam which meanders at times true, but right when you're ready to head out for some Dr. Pepper it all coalesces in ways where you don't even need mental stimulants to appreciate the thing. Best of all, it all ends with a great version of "Waiting For My Man" which for some odd reason reminds me of that one the Riot Squad recorded even before the first Velvet Underground album came out! Maybe if I had heard some group playing this in their rec room when I was six my life would have changed all for the better. And if it's anything that'll make you wanna jump for joy Dred Scott's drummer was Stan Moore, who I have been told is the same Stan Moore who used to be in the Texas psychedelic band Zachary Thaks!  A reissue with the usual bonuses (like a 1983 single recorded after Moore left the group) would most certainly be appreciated.    

Oh, 'n by the way I read one on-line review of this where the writer-upper said that he was surprised that no one in the group was names Dred Scott, which only goes to show you just how vapid the educational system is in these here United States! And considering the concentration on dredging up all of the nasty things that happened at the expense of the nation's better attributes you'd think that Scott's name would be on the lips and tongues of every student who has to go through twelve-plus years of shame and guilt if only because of a dearth of melanin!                                                                            

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Brinsley Schwarz-IT'S ALL OVER NOW CD-r burn (originally on Mega Dodo Records)

I guess this is the final and long-unreleased until 2017 Brinsley Schwarz album, one that was thankfully recorded with commercial success in mind thus lacking in some of the more hippified moments of the group's earlier pump-outs. Too bad this remained hidden for so long because any number of tracks here just might have made good mid-seventies summertime AM transistor radio little boys watching neighborhood girls sunbathe in skimp swim suits hit material. 

I could envision not only Greg Shaw yelling "it's all coming back" over and over after giving this a spin but the fluttering of hearts of all of those pimple thighed gals who usually bought Bo Donaldson singles. Sheesh, but the title track coulda been one of those hit seventies re-dos like the kind Donny Osmond and David Cassidy usedta rake in the bucks with! 

Only a few clunkers here...overall a platter that brightened my day only now I just gotta slip on some Throbbing Gristle to DARKEN it!

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The Queers-GROW UP CD-r burn (originally on Lookout Records)

I usedta believe that the whole neo-Ramonesian influence on punk pre-punque fizzled out with the advent of hardcore, but I've made a few slight misjudgments in this vein some time in my long and unstoried life. Then again, maybe I wasn't thinking given the heaps of local singles coming out well into the mid-eighties that still bore the melodic hard pop of the Ramones if any cursory listen to some of my old Max R/R radio show tapes are any indication. If these guys weren't part and parcel to any of those shows then I guess Tim Yohannon had worse tastes in music than any of his naysays would have ever believed.  Whaddava, it's sure grand listening to some punk rock recorded in the eighties that wasn't all rebranded hippie politix. I should have paid more attention, really. I should have had an unlimited amount of money, reallyreallyREALLY...

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Maria Minerva-TALLIAN AT DAWN CD-r burn (originally a cassette on what I assume is on the artiste's own label and of Estonian extraction)

One of the many sent me by Mr. Oberlin and I gotta say that this is one electronic dance whatever effort that I really couldn't wrap around that thing they used to call a psyche. Heard enough (if you put it all end-to-end about a good ten year's hunk outta my life) electronic mix stuff to give me a good idea of what detention woulda been like in Estonia, where this recording emanated from. Some nice swirl here/there but mostly snoozeroonie if you ask me.

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Mike Shank-SONGS I KNOW CD-r burn (originally on the artist's label, meaning none in particular)

Know nada about this guy other than he was in some indie moom pitcher entitled AN AMERICAN FILM which I hope wasn't this nation's answer to A SERBIAN FILM! But whatever the case may be, Shank put out a pretty good album before croaking awhile back. Starts off with some pretty nice acoustic thingies sounding like John Fahey before he got it all down pat, then the vocals come in and you get to hear the guy's gruff groan with a primitive romp to it considering the guy's singing and playing and well, it is hard to do both at the same time. The vocals are somewhat guttural and semi squonked which I guess only adds to the overall gunchiness of it all. The final track which sows a hard rock group romping through some instrumental might not be part of the original program, but only Shank and dubber Wade Oberlin will be able to tell me. And one's dead and the other prob'ly mum's da woid so I'll have to go to my shallow grave never knowing the truth!

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T. Rex-BOLAN BOOGIE CD (Castle Classics Records, England)

Every so often I dig out my Tyrannosaurus/T. Rex platters and reintro-ooze myself to the genius that was this group. Here's one (of many) T. Rex items that I missed out on the first time 'round, this one being a once-familiar import bin stuffer featuring the best of Marc 'n the rest during their Fly Records period. It was released right around the time when T. Rextasy was getting into full swing even though over here in the US of Duh it seemed as if I was the only one in the area who cared, and who'd listen to a pre-pubesprout tub like me inna first place? 

It has them tracks whitcha'd expect would've appeared like "Bang a Gong" and "Ride a White Swan" as well as the usual rarities and b-sides they use to pad these things out with. Thankfully there are even a few morsels here that never managed to pass my ears so I'm all the better for it. Each 'n every one of these tunes is a beaut and gathering 'em all in one place really does make for yet another long-playing T. Rex effort that holds up even more'n John Holmes' truss. 

Y'know, after all these years I still wonder how these guys ever did make it big...I mean, they're too good to have had 14-year-old girls with pimples on their inner thighs screamin' their lungs out over music as hard-edged as these 55-year-old winners remain long after the fact!

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Mohammed "Jimmy" Mohammed-TAKKABEL CD-r burn (originally on Terp Records, Holland)

Those of you who miss the heyday of blind black singers will definitely go for this guy. Hokay, Mohammed ain't exactly of the Negro persuasion since he's Ethiopian but I guess he's close enough for us dumb Amerigans. The guy plays what sounds like an electric clavinet while his band strum along on an Ethiopian harp and percussive things making for one of those world music hotcha items that got phony intellectuals all excited ever since the days ot the MUSIC OF BULGARIA album. Kinda jive jazzy music that might fit in with your own assuring of your One World Brotherliness 'n all, but I'll take Group Inerane over this guy anyway.

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Various Somethingorothers-NOW MIX 1, 2, and 3 CD-r burns

A Wade Oberlin collection containing a buncha Joe Carducci-approved trackage of kraut origin that ranges from somewhat good to what was THAT??? Oberlin gives the lowdown between tracks just like they do on college radio stations only the guy's voice is sped up to chipmunkese making it about as hard for me to understand as I'm sure it was for David Seville. It's a jumble of things that are somewhat listenable even if I doubt I'll be playing any of this again. Sheesh, Germany used to be known for some nerve-grating and bared-wire music---wha' app'd?

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Amon Duul I and II-VARIOUS THINGIES CD-r burn

Speaking of krauts, maybe they shoulda won the war if only so's that the USA woulda been INUNDATED with this kind of music! Here're a few Amon Duul thingies copped off Youtube including the clip seen above not to mention "Eye Shaking King" and "Surrounded by the Stars" taken from Kraut tee-vee. I'd say that all of these tracks are pretty snat even if the later one from '75 shows plenty (not so good) signs of the group's punk rock loose ends tightening up. Topping it off is a brief yet potent excerpt from the 1968 Essen gig that I embedded on this blog sometime back. It has some (well, at least me) begging for more, at least to the point where I actually played this track on "repeat" for a good sixty minutes straight its that repeato riff good. A Youtube comment on that 'un simply reads "German Velvet" and I'm not gonna argue with the man one bit! Another quipped "the poor man's Velvet Underground" which might come in for a little tete a tete...

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The Rolling Stones-BRIDGES TO  BABYLON CD-r burn (originally on Virgin Records)

Yeah I know, why do people still care. But there are some respected souls whose opinions I cherish who say that the Rolling Degenerates still cranked it out years after most braincell-packed people like myself dismissed them so like, why not give this the ol' go anyway. Frankly it's not bad, but it's not good either what with Mick sounding nothing like his old spiritually blackface self and the musical backing being smooth to the point where you can appreciate those early BBC sides in their raw state all the more. I thought the bonus jam echoed the old and bluesy Stones somewhat but eh, these guys shoulda scrambooched to the old folks home long ago!

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Dusty Springfield-"DUSTY" THE SILVER COLLECTION CD-r burn (originally on Philips Records)

She's one of them singers that I grew up thinking was for the older kids (I was but a zygote at the time) so I never paid her no mind. I will admit that the big 'uns of hers (the hits that is) were OK enough to the point where it wasn't worth the time and effort to get up and change the station. I still have that "grown up music" attitude towards her but only a dyed in the wool former rock critic would deny that each and every track here beats any of that slutty gal singer stuff that's been crammed down more'n a few throats for so long I've stopped counting. 

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The Clash-THE CLASH ; GIVE 'EM ENOUGH ROPE CD-r burns (originally on Epic Records)

Wouldja believe that I never reviewed a Clash album in lo my born days (Big Audio Dynamite don't count)? Well, to make up for it here are not just one but two of 'em, mainly the group's first coupla longplaying efforts done back when music like this was considered downright evil next to the usual swill that was overcoming the teenbo minds of this here nation (and given how them kids turned out it's no wonder that the various Generations X, Y and Z think the Boomers are nothing but a buncha self-centered myopic turds! And y'know what...I feel that way too).

THE CLASH just don't cut it with me. Well, the singles work because I get them brief spurt of Clashdom which quickly sate but when it's gathered all in one place I'm bogged down by it all. Anyway when you compare this spinner next to a good portion of the music falling under the "vague rubric of new wave" (copyright 1986 Robert Christgau) around the same time this just doesn't rate next to the likes of the things that various other acts on either a big label, a self-produced single or even nothing at all to document 'em were able to crank out. 

GIVE 'EM ENOUGH ROPE fares much better, perhaps because Sandy Pearlman's presence makes me think Dictators 'r something. Harder and fuller than the first, although knowing that Greil Marcus went whole hog for this does damper any enthusiasm I might have quite a bit. Anyway, when you boil everything down to the bones does this music really mean that much when (once again) compared with a good hunk of the competition? I'll take the 101ers over this any day of the week.

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Y'know, sometimes I get these sad and downright curl up 'n die feelings knowing that my fanzine, something which at one point of my life was my pride, joy and sole reason for existing, has never gotten its well-deserved dues. Nor has it been praised (either at the time or in retrospect) for the fine work it was with all of the diligence and scrutiny (despite the primitive equipment at hand to rely on, the lack of funds making me resort to some extreme penny-pinching and scrap selling, and lack of facts having to rely on the fuzzy memories of the subjects at hand and even downright lying and rumors). Then there were the general hassles regarding distribution and "the conspiracy of silence" while lesser efforts unfortunately got the bigtime huzzahs. Then I take some medication and, thankfully enough, the feeling goes away. You might want to see what all of the fuss really was about way back when things like home-produced (on the kitchen table!) efforts were like in those pre-technowhiz days, and if you are the kind of person who really does want to find out you know what to do now, eh? Outside the USA, ferget it since if you're reading this you certainly cannot be rich.