SINGLES GONE STROONAD ALL OVER THE PLACE AND I'M GONNA HAFTA CLEAN IT UP!
More singles and the like here, some which have been reviewed in my old crudzine way back in the Golden Age of Abysmal Rockscreed and others not. I might have reviewed a few of these in some by-now ancient post but eh, you're too lazy to check this out yourself. So am I.
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Here're some early recordings from a group that nobody other than their mothers thought would really go anywhere. I like these early efforts in my own downhome cornpone way because the Ramones did these familiar chestnuts up at an early stage in whatever it was you could call their career, and they were still getting their bearings together hence the amateur hour feeling that was smoothed out even on their rough enough debut platter. Listening to these tracks (recorded right when all of the NYC rockscribes were anxious to jump on their bandwagon, and some of 'em might have even liked 'em!)) does conjure up memories of how things really stood regarding any form of garage/punk expression in those best/worst of time days (well, at least they were best/worst for me). If you too remember what a thrill it used to be when you'd read about groups like the Ramones etc. in your fart-encrusted bedrooms well, this should get all of the emotions (and gas) just gushin' outta ya!
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By the time the Offbeats hit the clubs of Cleveland the first and second waves of underground rock were long gone thanks to an enormous amount of apathy on the part of kingmakers and listeners alike. Naturally enough that was too bad since the total energy of punk (in the best, Marc Zermati usage of the term) still raged within these guys who knew what the term "rock 'n roll" meant, and not in that wishy washy Anastasia Pantsios sense either (tired of my consistent Pantsios putdowns yet? Nah, me neither!).
A-side's a pure slice of power punk pop that sounds retrogarde (thankfully!) compared to some of the "up-to-date" banality that was being passed off as music in the eighties. "Out of Breath" has a definite teenage feeling in a seventies sorta way that makes me think that if the Offbeats were around a good decade earlier Greg Shaw woulda been praising 'em to the ceiling and perhaps would have even signed 'em to Bomp! (maybe even payin' 'em in the process!). If you ask me this side is good enough to sate one's craving for definitely anti-corporate music, but despite that it's something I wouldn't deem particularly special or different from many other locally produced efforts of the day. I prefer the flip, a high energy roarer that's driven in its crunch, sorta reminding me of the Wild Giraffes' "When I Find Out". Definitely not in touch with the gushy anti-rock atmosphere of them days now, eh?
This 'un makes me curious enough to try to search out the Offbeats' other spinners. I wouldn't mind hearing their effort that was produced by none other than Brian Sands even if the group thought it really didn't work out the way anyone would have planned. I mean eh, BRIAN SANDS...need I say more?
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This was given to my cyster by some guy who I understand was a rather heavy-duty rhumba fan. Either that or he lent it to her and she forgot to give it back. Flashy big band music tries to drown out Puente's poppin' percussion but it does stand a fighting chance, redeeming the platter from being yet another seventies dance music toss off. It's nothing that you'd consider part of the entire BLOG TO COMM reason for existence...in fact, for some perhaps not-so-strange reason this 'un dredges up some irky feelings regarding the seventies and the dinge that the latter portion of it layered upon someone such as myself. Thankfully the underground rock bleat of them times was a grand psychic Lysol scrub, but to be somewhat honest about it I'll take Puente over anything I've heard coming out of these sad 'n sorry times.
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I've written about this group many-a-time and this EP of theirs really is something that I kinda/sorta cherish in my own downhome cornpone way. Although they came out of the mid/late-eighties New York underground (and by that time the place was already hopelessly lost) Kilpig had a late-seventies edgy experimental feeling and look to 'em which certainly made them retrogarde IN THE RIGHT WAY. Kilpig really do sound like the type of Max's Kansas City group who ascended right around the time the riff-raff took over the first floor after it became a video arcade.
This EP has freeform saxophone sounds that come off more Joujouka 'n anything while Nozomi wails and streaks like Yoko Ono's kid cyster standing a good half mile or so from ground zero. The playing is frenetic and so artsy in the right NYC fashion that you would have wished THE NEW YORK ROCKER woulda gone back into business if only to cover 'em.
Another one of many "outliers" who were appearing at CBGB and other places at the time, only these guys 'n gal were lucky enough to slip some nerve-refreshing sounds our way while most flip flopped without any ever sating our ever-craving musical desires.
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Considering how much I really had a ball absorbing myself into the various recorded efforts of Nick Kent, I thought I'd give his NME hip gunslinger partner Charles Shaar Murray's attempts at being a punk rock figure a nice li'l ol' try. And as you'd expect, I'm more'n happy to give any writer who helped make the seventies a more readable era in rock scribbling a go, especially when you consider in sick sack of "rock critics" who followed in the wake of Murray, Kent, Bangs' etc. heyday as writers who were fans who knew rock 'n roll only as this bared-wire intensity expression of total high energy expression, a mode that got washed away with the eighties and the soft sycophantic sounds that decade thrust upon us.
Murray's group Blast Furnace really had the late-seventies blue wave feeling down what with the guy's gruff vocalese and pub rock tendencies recalling the kinda music that he wrote more'n a few books about (John Lee Hooker etc.). Sheesh, the label of this record even looks about as Stiff Records as the vinyl sounds! Can't complain one iota about the all-out r&b punkisms to be found herein, especially with that rocked up take on Robert Johnson that closes the disc which I know woulda put a smile on Peter Laughner's face (he being another stalwart in the rock writer/performer pantheon as you'ins should all be aware of)! Y'know, it sure was cool to know that some of our favorite music scribblers were frustrated rock 'n rollers who eventually got to live their musical fantasies unlike a whole buncha us untalented crudzine clingons (and myself as well).
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| Who would have thought that the waltz would come back in style. |
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This is one of the millions of fifties-era single repros that came out in the seventies, and as you'd obviously know by now thus 'un's a hotcha spinner considering the involvement of Sun Ra and his Arkestra. Ra's backing is mid-fifties pre-orbital as you'd have surmised, somewhat in the vein of his early Delmark albums, and the slow-burn jazz backing fits the early doo-wop of the Rays splendidly. Don't expect any extraterrestrial barrage here, and although these tracks aren't as striking as Ra's recordings with the Screamin' Jay Hawkins-ish Yochannon they are quite fitting (even exemplary!) as examples of what else was going on during the earlier days of the man's recording career.
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Yet another seventies-era repro, this time from a group who, if the Rock-A-Teens, Fendermen and Wailers were pre-psychedelic era NUGGETS material, would have been lucky to have scored a track on a pre-psychedelic era BACK FROM THE GRAVE. Given that this came out in 1960 when rockabilly was giving way to poppier aspects of the musical quest these Hi-Tombs should be commended for keeping the original Big Beat going in the face of teen idol aversion. A-side's a hefty good vocal number that takes more'n a few cues from various Elvis/Eddie/Gene/Carl moves, but what really has my humper a'pumpin's the instrumental flip, a kinetic instrumental that careens into pure sonic joy that packs more positive punch into one than Siley Myrus ever did. A fine example of what indie do-it-yourself rock 'n roll was like long before well meaning yet talentless kids ran that concept into the ground once the news about the "new wave" finally filtered down to Sharon PA.
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It's been soooooo long since I've spun any Half Japanese material so this pick outta the pile seemed just "the thing" to give a whirl a good XXXX years after first listening to and reviewing it for some long-dead issue of my crudzine. Shoulda done it sooner since this EP's just the kind of music that I remember having craved for (late-sixties/seventies underground appreciation during a time the whole enchilada spiraled off into areas I prefer not to traverse) when it seemed that I was the only one on this planet of ours (or at least the tri-county area) who even cared one iota about music such as this.
The songs veer from the expected noise drive to Velvets-slush with a great creepy crawl on the flipside that brings back not only the not-that-dead ghost of the Patty Hearst kidnapping and Patti Smith's homage to it, but the entire underbelly dark side of the Amerigan atmosphere that encompassed both. And sheesh, this EP's good enough that it makes me wanna crack open them other Half Japanese records in my collection even though I should hate listening to these because...well, a whole load of people I loathe are huge fans of Half Japanese and it ain't like I'd wanna have anything in common with those snobbish effetes!
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Late-seventies punk rock that, like some of the better outta-nowhere platters that have crept out during those days of rage, owes plenty to the whole sixties NUGGETS credo and little to the various other hip and with it trends that were rolling around at the time. Some of this is quite commercial even, but in that good way before the entire industry began to cater to the worst instincts inherent in the age 18-34 demographics. Mighty solid rock 'n roll from a buncha guys who would eventually head off into other groups that sure made quite a noise for themselves once the eighties began to creep in. Given that this is a 33 rpm play including five songs en toto, this would have been a bargain for all of you penny-pinching (like me) listeners who wanted more for less.
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My review of THE RILL THING a good month or ten back had me won'drin what this sole single that Little Richard made for Emerson Lake and Palmer's Manticore label sounded like. All sorts of thoughts kept spinning through my mind as to what sort of permutations Richard would have gone through for that label, but actually this one bears no traces of mid-seventies progressive rock overbloat at all! True, it has what one would call an "updated" approach, but it's updated for the then-current tastes in the black market which had yet to permutate into some rather slick dimensions. In other words there ain't a disco lick to be heard...both sides of these are more funk if anything and somewhat strange given the guy's earlier catalog but why bicker.
Richard's re-write of "Little Liza Jane"'s a pretty nice bit of deep groove as it romps on, but its more than obvious that in no way would this or the other side send George Clinton into conniptions. To be trite about it this single is an interesting enough oddity making me wonder whether or not I should check out those other Manticore label faves Thee Image...after all Solomon Gruberger said they were punk rock!
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Teaming up one of my favorite heavy metal guitarists (others being Von Lmo and Paul Major) with a guy who I once thought was nothing but eighties underground hype (one of those "look at him kids...he's gonna go to the top!" sorta people you always hoped would fail), I originally was expecting a mix of the frantic and the staid. That was so long ago and I hope I know better these days.
Bruce Anderson's side re-uses that old "Dough Boy Joe" riff reduced to primitive Delta field recording quality with angry lyrics that echo a whole load of the same froth that Anderson spewed on other efforts. Results sure do sound "authentic" enough without the ooze that's marred blues recordings for ages.
The Kaiser-penned "Stalker" sounds like two guitars on divergent and conflicting trajectories making for a conflicting music that might not go well with your nervous system but it does mine. With a bass guitar and drums this would have made a fine MX-80 Sound number! Maybe Kaiser wasn't so overhyped in the under-the-underground press after all.
There were only 500 of these made so try to cop a listen off somewhere in this vast world we happen to call internet.
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Snatched this one out of (once again) pure curiosity if only because Weiler's name pops up on a number of CBGB listings from late-'75 'til 'bout mid-'76. And after giving this one a spin all I can say is that Weiler's appearance at the club once again proves that CBGB really does stand for "We'll Book Anybody!" because this single really has about as much to do with a whole load of conceptions as to what was going down at the club back then as a number of previously-recorded recordings of long-forgotten CBGB-ites I've spun o'er the years have. In other words, not too much.
Frankly, this record's not exactly anything that I would consider part and parcel to any type of hard rock/punk/sixties throwback sound that was getting a whole load of hosannas from both rock-starved fans and rock critics on the lookout for something different to write about. "Shake It Loose" reminds me of a toned down to singer/songwriter levels Lynyrd Skynyrd ca. "What's Your Name" while the flip is typical soft schmooze that might have fit in swell between such AM drippings as "Undercover Angel" and "Chevy Van"...if it only had the extreme high energy intensity that those two chart-toppers were renown for. Maybe they were a ball live but here Buzzie and band make even the lamest of Springsteen rip offs often heard during them days sound like raw power.
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Sometimes I just lie back and think warm and toasty thoughts about the "New Era" rock groups that permeated the underground of the late-eighties, much of it perpetrated by the likes of Tom Hazelmyer and his Amphetamine Reptile label. Then I just forget it all since hey, the late-eighties weren't' exactly a boffo time in my existence and I can certainly remember times in my life that were less hideous. But still, those days of duh did give us a group like Halo of Flies who were great because, like all of those other great groups they took from the past and mooshed it into a new vision for the present which ultimately would have led to the future, if people were less asshole-ish bout their musical tastes.
This 'un hasn't lost a drop of viscosity since the day it was released. In fact this is one record that helped a whole load of rockist rebels like myself make it through the post-underground rock days nice and safe. The a-side was too boogie for some ears back then but today it sounds all the better, like if those rancid southern rock groups with the long hair and denim snuck a whole lot of heavy metallic Detroit screed into their diet. Detroit rock also figures on the Creation cover which takes the post-Eddie Phillips version of the group's best known classic and grinds it through that avrock gauge that makes everything sound even better. Come to think of it things never really did get better after the early-nineties when underground rock innovation was replaced by deadened nervous systems, making me all the more glad I was at least up and conscious when records like this were coming out.
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Strangely enough the Nazz sound more early-seventies deca-pop than a lot of the hard-edged pop groups of the Raspberries era ever did. And these tracks were recorded a whole year before "Open My Eyes" attempted to rush up the charts heralding the end of the NUGGETS era (or something like that). Well, the songs do have a nice Beatles-ish twist to them at a time when John and the rest were trying to be serious artists so hefty hosannas for that! Some of you might find the backwards effects interlude on the flipside rather dated, but I'd rather hear something dated this way instead of dated like eighties hip hop or something like that!
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