BLOG TO COMM

I've been busier than an abortionist in a NYC ghetto as of late which is why I haven't scooted this 'un out to you a lot sooner 'n now. Well, it ain't like I'm exactly buried up to my britches in work but I still need more time to devote to kicking up my feet and goofing off while listening to music sans attempting to tell you just how I feel about it from the vast reaches of my soul, or brain, or something like that. I do try my best, but you all know what a failure I've been in life thus the delays in these writeups. You're gonna get what'cha expect, which might be blow-hardy at times so take it piece by piece like you should do all these megaposts.

Tedium seems to be the order of the day but by this time in life I've learned to love it. There is something about monotony that seems to benefit my spirit in the same way that the better rock 'n roll groups of the sixties and seventies used repeato riffs to create a warm blanket of sonic reduction that entices rather than bores. Who knows, maybe that's why I've been playing some of my pre-chitchat with the Dalai Lama-era Philip Glass albums as of late but whatever, I sure can't wait for the days when I can do nothing but hang around the house just like I did when I was a budding suburban slob and I preferred staying in my room 'stead of going out and associating with humanity. Sorta like today only I'll be able to do it 24 hours nonstop!

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Stale old news but still...r.i.p. to Lou Christie, a name in sixties music that many associate with the rash of rumors surrounding his...er..."private" (parts) affairs. You want to know the REAL reason why the gypsy cried??? Then there's Connie Francis, and I'm not gonna make any obvious jokes about her because the last time I did I got into some hot water with a certain person and I do want to avoid controversy on this blog (BTW my mother, who at first thought Connie was swell probably because they shared the same ethnic background, went 180 against her after Connie's misfortune at a certain NYC-area motel...I mean, Connie was clearly the victim in this case but my mother though she was TAINTED by the incident and it was nothing but disgust from thereon in!). Bobby Sherman also finally bit the dust---well, at least he lived long enough to enjoy the passing of David Cassidy who certainly stole Sherman's teen idol thunder and heavy duty like at that. And of course a shout out to Mick Ralphs who should be fondly remembered for his role in Mott the Hoople (an act that I find 50/50 myself to be honest about it), though co-founding Bad Company's something that he's really gonna hafta answer to St. Peter for.

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Big thank you to Robert Forward for the old Tom Donahue radio show from May 2 of 1967 with none other than Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh sittin' in spinnin' the records and talkin' things up just like I'm sure they woulda back at their pad on Haight. By this time the Dead really had fizzled out and but good (but then again the only GD I will do the rah-rahs for are those 1965 demos straight out of PEBBLESville...dunno if SEASTONES counts) but as you'd guess their tastes in music were better'n their ability to take such tastes and do something good with 'em. Thus the listener that particular night would have been subjected to a whole slew of surprisingly interesting tracks from Charles Mingus to Blind Willie Johnson up through James Brown which only goes to prove that Gene Sculatti was right in labeling the early Dead as intellectual punk rock supremos before the press releases and chemicals really got to their heads.  

The two do come off somewhat phony intellectual (after all, wasn't that MUSIC OF BULGARIA album [a track of which pops up on this show or else I wouldn't be mentioning it] considered some sort of total hipster gotta have and gotta love possession for every true smarter than their parents type back then? I mean, if Paul Simon loved it I kinda get the idea that every ironed hair freedom rider gal out there did as well!). However, I can see how Nick Kent thought they actually came off like Amerigan college boy types with an honest interest in European culture back when he interviewed 'em for FRIENDS 'round '72 way...they are kinda gosh darn sincere 'n all. Sheesh, after all of this maybe I should give these bozos another go at it --- perhaps if I could separate the group from their FANS somehow...

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Current tee-vee jollies include weeknight perusals of JONNY QUEST, a program that I went totally nutzo for during my turdler years though when I caught up with reruns in the eighties I thought they were somewhat unexciting and even quite stale. In my advanced age I gotta say that this 'un's got everything that was custom-made for the sixties-vintage ranch house lardass plopped right in front of the idiot box kinda guy...there's the fine comic book-styled artwork and storylines (sorta like a cross 'twixt the tales one got during the 12-cent era and a smattering of post-WW II action strips borrowing more than a few ideas from Milton Caniff) to the finest animation I've seen broadcast outside of some snoozy cartoon television special that boasted top notch efforts but total boredom. Hoyt Curtin's theme song and incidental music ain't no slouch either what with that jazzy roaring brass all over the place helping to pump up the visuals even more. In many ways JONNY QUEST was one of the last gasps of boffo and real-deal Golden Age of Television considering that in a few short years the whole kit 'n kaboodle would (temporarily) lose a lot of the bared-wire intensity it had for the previous ten or so years what with the old line programs starting to lose their direction and the new efforts just not as potent as what had been dished out at Mr. and Mrs. Front Porch only a short time earlier.

One program I decided to catch if only to satiate my morbid curiosity was the mid-eighties revival of an early-sixties classic and I don't mean that hippified TWILIGHT ZONE either (a show which I admittedly liked even if I tuned out after awhile). I'm talkin' THE JETSONS, Hanna-Barbera's one-season wonder that flopped in the ratings because it was stacked up against Disney but grew in popularity due to incessant reruns that ya just couldn't avoid if you were living in a house with a pack of preteen turdburgers. Earlier in my lifecycle I caught a few minutes of these new 'un's here/there and didn't care for the animation much (too eighties-ish Hanna-Barbera crankout that probably took three times as many people to create as it did the superior originals) but decided to give them another go at it out of something a little less than morbid curiosity.

The revived JETSONS really ain't "that" bad, that is if you tweak your own personal tastemeters to suit your suburban slob outlook on tee-vee jollies. It's boff that the original voice actors were brought in before they all croaked, but it sure is tough listening to the likes of Daws Butler struggling to hit that high Elroy voice (and, come to think of it, George "Jetson" O'Hanlon was suffering from some heavy duty health issues 'round the same time even though it really didn't affect his vocal cords...maybe his lungs). Like I said the animation's rather television uninspired but I guess it could have been loads worse, and judging from some of the Hanna Barbera programs from the same time it sure was an improvement. And the storylines were actually OK even if the creeping tendency of eighties blanditude does date these in the same way that the original series is dated only in a good early-sixties fashion. Overall I'm glad these cartoons weren't botched by mid-eighties retroscuzz, but if you think I'm gonna stay up past snoozetime to watch any more of these you got another think comin'.

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It's infantile but it's fun! No, I don't mean grabbin' the weenie like you boys did from age two onward (and I do mean onward!) but more AI chicanery, this time of what are supposed to be the actual covers of that sixties-vintage Marvel Comics Group title THE SUBPAR SEVEN! Yeah the very concept's quite immature in a thirteen-year-old way or at least a bad idea that would have popped up in some mid-sixties comic book crudzine but eh, if I were a pre-pubesprout and I had this technology to work with I sure woulda been gung ho on creating such covers as these! The results look more 80s and beyond and definitely post-Kirby but anyway, these results are loads better'n anything any of the big and even small comic book companies have been able to cook up for quite a long time):

 

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After alla that cereal filler well, here be the reviews. Thanks to Paul, Bob, Fadensonnen, Thierry Muller and no one else (forgot who sent me the Destroyed CD, but whoever it was well...sorry it got lost in the rubble otherwise known as my bedroom).

The Destroyed-OUTTA CONTROL CD (available via bert@bertswitzer.com)

If it means a heck of a lot of difference to you, drummer Bert Switzer has a rather amazing pedigree not only having been influenced by Keith Moon and the Remains but having gathered up a certain number of friends who just could have been instrumental in making the guy a household name. That never happened but it didn't stop Bert who kept churnin' out his own breed of basement rock including some recordings by this Boston group called the Destroyed, a name that seems somewhat familiar in the back reaches of my cavernous cranium. 

This release begins with a Destroyed reunion of sorts with Bert bashing away behind guitarist and singer JD Jackson producing a roar that reminds me of various home-produced efforts from Metal Mike Saunders' Rockin' Blewz to those pre-Gizmo Kenne Highland tapes that circulated amongst the creepier of fanzine freaks back in the eighties. Like a lot of late-seventies punk rock, these guys rehash old heavy metal riffs in a way that would offend the more petunia readers of this blog to which I say OKAY!!!

Onetime big name in underground circles Henry Kaiser appears on a few tracks laying some of his experimental leads which sure sound good in this stew (never was a fan of the guy who always seemed to come off perfectly constructed to jigsaw into the tastes the people who would listen to him --- nothing wrong with that but I felt his presence a little too howshallIsay "obvious"). Sheesh. these remind me a whole lot of DAILY DANCE so I really do have to give the man a huge reconsideration!

Filling out the disque are some actual real deal late-seventies recordings by the group. They come off just like you would have expect them to with the bargain basement cassette quality improving the overall intensity just like it did with all of those other classic definitely lo-fi seventies recordings that continue to stand up to half-mastered virgin vinyl efforts the kind that alla them STEREO REVIEW nuts used to skid shorts over. Overall, a really interesting effort from these guys who I'll bet hardly any of you knew about and wouldn't care to know about, but that's not gonna stop me from educating you random clump of cells out there.

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By Any Means-LIVE AT CRESCENDO 2-CD-r set (originally on Ayler Records, Sweden)

Not much is known (at least by me) 'bout this late-00's configuration with new thing biggies Charles Gayle, Rashied Ali and William Parker, but the trio swing swell here in a fashion that brings back to me some of the more gnarllier moments of the old Sam Rivers-thrusted loft jazz scene documented on the you should have had 'em for years already WILDFLOWERS albums. 

Gayle in general brings up (at least in my rather hollow mindset) everyone from Henry Threadgill to even Roscoe Mitchell and a number of other seventies players I'm too stupid to know about but will discover in a good twenty or so years should I live so long. Parker's versatile enough to the point where you don't even feel like snoozing during his bass solo and like, what else can be said about Rashied Ali who ranked as one of the better out-of-the-groove drummers during the early prominence of the new jazz way back in the total eruption days of the late-sixties. 

There are so many of these avgarde jazz things to choose from and if you're a person who is conscious of where your hard begged goes I know you will be cautious before considering an effort like this. Heaven only knows how much $$$ I've squandered merely on hunch. But you might go for this 'un if you are a devoted follower of the form and still have the same fervor for the free sound that you did when you were a teenbo and you read somewhere where Frank Zappa mentioned Cecil Taylor 'r something along those lines. Not bad really...in fact a tip topper effort from three players, two who are no longer around to be ignored like they were most all of their lives.

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Marion Brown-LIVE AT CLUB LABRATORIUM CD-r burn

This came out as a bootleg cassette a good five or so years back, something I find a bit strange considering that no legit label devoted to the New Thing was conscious enough to release it legal-like. Sound is flat (though a pro company could make it sound really spiffy) but the performance is just what you'd hope a jazz act would have come up with during the cataclysmic 60s/70s cusp. 

This has Brown and trumpeter Leo Smith playing with a buncha krauts (including Teutonic jazz bigwig Manfred Eicher on bass) doing it slow and bared-wire intense recalling some of Brown's then-contemp. albums, the one on ECM with Braxton and Chick Corea coming to mind. Perhaps Smith's presence does lend somewhat of an AACM approach which is heightened by the heavy use of "small instruments" of a percussive variety.  

A nice slow burn play that reminds me of PEOPLE IN SORROW which would figure given the time and locale (Europe during the days of the great afro-jazz expat).

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Drew Gardner-THE RETURN CD-r burn (originally on Astral Spirits Records)

While we're on a jazz jag...well I can't say that this '95 session breaks any new ground, but it sure is a fine harkening back to the late-sixties burst of creativity that was so noticeable that even a few suburban slob kids were paying attention (yeah, a rehash of thought first delivered in the By Any Means review but like, I wrote these up a good two months apart so stow the snide!). Stellar lineup including the shoulda/oughta be legendary John Tchicai who most of you will probably remember from his appearance with John Stevens on the live portion of the John Lennon and Yoko Ono LIFE WITH THE LIONS spinner...that's him getting particularly squonky right when the song unfortunately fades out. This sesh ain't as nerve grating as the Lennon/Ono show but eh, some of you will go for it.

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The Equals-EQUALS SUPREME/SENSATIONAL EQUALS CD-e burn (originally on Repertoire Records, Germany)

"Baby Come Back" ain't on here (unless you got a special burn made for me by Paul McGarry), so superficial fanablas'll probably want to skip on this given their inherent shallowness. And considering how the Equals were pretty hit or miss, with some pretty on-target island-tinged pop songs intermingled with comparatively pallid efforts, you might want to skip on the thing as well. Features the talents of one Eddy Grant, the first black artist to pop up on the MTV screens (this during the days of rock music finally tumbling deep into the abyss) even though superficial wonks like to say it was Michael Jackson all along.

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PSYCHIC PIGS CD-r burn (originally on Slovenly Records, England)

It sure is nice hearing a punk rock group in the here and now that hasn't succumbed to the prevailing hippie tide of pink hair 'n protest! This duo creates a great straight-ahead roaring breed of rock 'n roll that brings back memories of some of those early/mid-eighties outfits who were too smart to believe alla that kultured dribble regarding punk rock being dead yet were too smart to dive whole hog into that radical left warmed over hippie drool that was nothing but them kids from BILLY JACK in Doc Martens once you get down to it. Today, like fortysome years back, the roar of real punk rock 'n roll is here to fight off the precocious strains of pampered pooch piousness!

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Wire-SEND CD-r burn (originally on Pinkflag Records, England)

Gotta say that I find a lot of these later-on Wire LPs (wha' th' heck---maybe even some of the earlier ones as well) not that bad. Hit or miss as far as some go perhaps, and this 'un 's quite the same what with the roar coming off potent in spots yet sounding like the same old heard them avgarde musical moves many times before in others. But hey, I'll take this over just 'bout any of the other late-seventies survivors of the English punk brigades who were still up and about when this offering was made. But then again I find a good portion of it more of the usual blare...a good blare mind you but y'know, nothing I'd care to spin when stacked up against the Electric Eels'r somethin'.

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Pascal Comelade-LES LIMINANAS TRAITE DE GUITARRES TRIOLECTIQUES CD-r burn (originally on Because Records, France)

This guy has a discography longer than anyone you know's arm, but I never did come across any of Comelade's music during my many-a-years of listening (not that I was looking...). The man plays what sounds like electronic takes on late-sixties instrumentals, sorta like Kim Fowley's BORN TO BE WILD without any of the gals on the cover 'r somethin' like that. Needs a low-budget German film from the seventies to go along. "A Wall of Perrukes" kinda reminds me of Cluster during their ZUKERZEIT days or even La Dusseldorf once the late-seventies began rolling in. And by the way track #8 "Green Fuz" is not the Randy Alvey song made popular by its appearance on PEBBLES.

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And if you were stoopid enough to make your way through this post then you're just the kind of person who is just ready-made for a whole slew of BLACK TO COMM back issues! Get some, shit some!