BOOK REVIEW! BEETLE BAILEY 1966 DAILY & SUNDAY STRIPS by Mort Walker (Titan Books, 2011)

Even this late in my life I on scant occasion will eyeball the comic page in my local paper, but frankly I don't know why I even bother. After all, the entire comic strip industry seems to be following the lead of the newspapers in which they appear heading into a big morass of nada, serving no particular purpose than to permit a bunch of carbon-copy employees to continue working the way they had for years on end somehow oblivious to the fact that they and their entire industry is up against an infinite number of internet sites and opinions of all stripes that you'll never see touted in the local fishwrap. Heck, blokes like myself are now able to cut through the chaff and get to the news, ideals and comics entertainment that we want via our computers without having to put up with the pomposity and belittling we've been getting from our "betters" for years on end. And besides, it's kinda painful reading the modern-day versions of those strips I grew up with seeing just how dull and unfunny they've become o'er the years, as if anyone with a sense of humor could laugh at the antics of Dagwood or even that once-boffo Nancy now the same way they did when they were but mere suburban slob ranch house UHF-tee vee kids living a Corgi Toys and Great Shakes kinda existence.

And as far as painful comic strip reading goes nothing can be more painful than reading the current version of BEETLE BAILEY. Once an all-time fave rave this strip is nothing but extremely watered down gags that would have been rejected had they crossed the eyes of creator Mort Walker a good fiftysome years back. I blame it all on Walker's capitulation to the women's lip crowd who, after years of badgering Walker over the sexually-drenched General Halftrack/Miss Buxley strips (with Walker putting up a good front for quite some time), had the General go to a "sensitivity training seminar" in a series that was so dour that it obviously set the tone for the rest of the strip's run. Like just about every "comedian" out there who thinks its his job to make you "think" rather than laugh, BEETLE BAILEY is nothing but a series of drawings without any real punch or guffaw-inducing tendencies and yeah, things do change but must they be for the worse???

At least fifty years ago when these '66 strips first appeared the comic strip page was still pumping on a whole lotta past glories with new ones still being churned out regularly. And man are these '66 BEETLE strips fuh-knee unlike the current edition. Sure Sarge still wallops Beetle, but nobody would think of complaining that this was cruelty played up for cheap laughs. Zero still pulls all of his funny stunts but it wasn't like people though he was actually retarded. And the General still leers at the WAC's tits during inspection but the flat chested brigade feminists weren't all up in hairy pitted arms about it. In fact, were there feminists in 1966 other'n the failed New York City communist types who eventually pushed the issue to the front page thus tipping off frowzy housewives that they were being exploited???

Some real good chucklers in this one. And even some I remember the first time around. After all, in our household the March 27th Sunday BEETLE ("Fatman and Slobber") got a huge laugh outta not only myself but cyster and the November 27th got a rise outta alla us if only because of a cameo appearance from none other than Snoopy of PEANUTS fame! Also of note were the strips starting off the year dealing with the up 'n coming long hair brigade that show off that great ol' older generation resentment to the peace and love types who eventually ruined us all. Not so surprisingly the same sentiments that pop up here were also brought up in a concurrent FRECKLES storyline I'll fill you in on someday which only goes to show you just how loathed most of Ameriga felt towards the longhairs and their totally anti-anti-anti-hypocritical (or something like that) values which continue to reek this far down the timescape!

Don't remember my offhand reactions to any of the others, but for being a first-grade fanabla tortured day in and out by teachers and students struggling for hours through homework that should only take me fifteen minutes and not having all of the toys the other kids had because I was supposed to learn frugality and hadda save my dough well...I'm positive they were something that I looked forward to with unbridled glee once the newspaper hit the front porch back during those rather stellar days.

Titan has a volume of 1965 strips out which is fine, but frankly I could sure use some of the earlier (and later) BAILEYs in my existence. Anyone know what's available out there???

I've been sitting in front of this screen 'n keyboard for about ten minutes thinking about how I can get this weekend's blog off to a rip-roaring start. There's no real way to be honest about it, especially since nothing of whatcha'd call real interest had beset my fine abode (and maybe not-so-fine mere existence) these past seven days. Sometimes I wish that I could live a real thrill-packed life just like Bill Shute, Brad Kohler and alla you reg'lar readers do, but I'm afraid that I'd be willing to settle for something along the lines of Karen Quinlan the way things tend to be here in the post-post-POSTmodern world which promised us everything but only gave us yet more reasons to hide under the bed until things get better. And ya know they never will!

But trudge on I will, and at least I had these wonders to listen to which did help the pain a little bit. And who knows, maybe in comparison with my week yours was pretty snoozaroonie which, if true, will only make me feel all the more happier knowing that some people continue to live in even more misery than I could ever envision! So if you are indeed a sub-excremental sot let me know because hey, you really will make my day!

Fadensonnen-GUTTER WANDERER LP (Fadensonnen)

It's kinda strange listening to Fadensonnen wreak musical glory on old-styled technology, but given how I can listen to four-hundred-plus-year-old vocal compositions on my Cee-Dee player maybe trans-generational technological mixes and matches is a rather spirited idea after all. Mr. D continues on his over-the-hills-and-far-away guitar stylings (imagine a cross between all five of your out-guitar faves, and add some more) even dipping into some ACTUAL MELODIES when the spirit arises! Pretty hotcha outre-blare that should make all of Fadensonnen's fans happy enough knowing that the ultimate soundsquall has not been squelched no matter how hard lesser beings have tried.

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Cellular Chaos-DIAMOND TEETH CLENCHED CD (Skin Graft)

Lotsa genre-jamming ya got there Walter, and you and your cohorts really do a grand job of it. I certainly love the way Admiral Gray adds a certain melodic flair to her warbling (especially on "James Baldwin") while the music, er, TRANSCENDS the usual grindarama whilst getting into something that's a nice relief from the past thirtysome years of whatevercore that's been occupying the minds of self-centered primadonnas everywhere. One of those platters that I could dissect and discern about track by track complete with boring anecdotes from my turdler years tossed in for pure elaboration of every minute (that's "my-noot") point to be made, but Eddie Flowers thinks I tend to get long-winded and y'know, he's RIGHT!

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Zoom-SWEET DESPERATION LP (Ugly Pop Canada, available via Forced Exposure)

Toronto was alwaysa boffo place to find these "quirky" kinda rock 'n roll bands, so it's no surprise that a group like Zoom woulda emanated from that particular burgh. Firmly entrenched in the late-seventies underground (i.e. what was once "above ground" but was driven into hiding by the likes of AOR radio and the zitcultures who made it possible), Zoom worked flash with a style and sound that not only drew heavily from the under-the-counterculture big names of the day but the mid-sixties English rock 'n rollers from whence it all came. The results are a great slapdash of sounds that you sure wish was released back '77 way if only so that you could pick it up as a low-priced cutout a few years later like I obviously hadda do! Kinda reminds me of what Redd Kross was up to in the late-eighties only without the candy coat gloss that somehow turned me off 'em (that and a certain CREEM magazine staffer's review, but like I said I ain't badmouthing my "betters" this year no matter how much I yearn to!).

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Massimo Magee-MUSIC IN 3 SPACES CD-r burn (Kendra Steiner Editions)

Really, whatever I said about Magee in earlier posts can be said here, and you just know how much I hate dredging up things I've written about before in order to ram my ideas down your throat! But still I can't let this one go by with just faint praise mere or not, and besides I gotta write at least enough so's that the neat li'l pic of the cover to your left will be encased by words and not ruin the configuration of the review below! And I don't wanna do a track-by-track just like Elliot Murphy didn't want us to, so I'll just end this writeup by saying that I thought track #3 "Cyber" was a real neat step forward regarding the merger of avant garde jazz and technology, what with Magee's sopranino saxophone playing alongside a computer that emits not only audio but visual data. Hmmmmm, sounds like an updated version of those old Mattel toy organs you put a color wheel and and it did strange things, or something like that.

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Muzzy Marcellino-HOUSE PARTY MUSIC TIME CD-r burn (originally on Capitol)

When I was but a mere turdler mom always had HOUSE PARTY blasting onna tee-vee, the Art Linkletter not Glenn O'Brien one that is! It was on right after AFTERNOON THEATER, and I for one liked watching it as much as mom did if only for the part of the show where Linkletter would ask a buncha kids silly questions and usually get unintentionally funny answers. Of course they all just hadda get a whole buncha toys just for being their true kid selves which kills me because when I acted my true kid self I usually got walloped one right inna behind. Gosh I always wanted to be on that show if only to get some of the fun freebees that Art was just flingin' at them suburban slob brats, though all that probably woulda been left after alla them kids piled onto the presents would be some sissy doll with its limbs torn off which would just be my luck.

The show had a bizarroid side too, like the time Art interviewed some old lady in the audience who had been dead for like five minutes before being revived...for a young 'un like myself that was pretty heady business believe-you-me! I also remember another one where Art came out in a mink coat that was made especially for men, an experiment in furrierisms that obviously didn't go too far with the general male populace (come to think of it, this might have happened on the early-seventies NBC "relevant issues" show that Linkletter co-hosted with his son Jack). Funny, but I think that Art would have looked better if he also came out with a floppy hat and a pennant reading "Beat State" but we were talking mink, not raccoon!

The music on HOUSE PARTY never really jazzed me that much, but if it had I REALLY woulda gone for this platter featuring the HOUSE PARTY band led by some guy called (now get this!) Muzzy Marcellino! It has lotsa whistling and accordion playing and sounds just like you'd think a small band for an afternoon tee-vee show aimed at housewives woulda back in them better than now days. It's actually kinda pleasant and surely a break from the raw sewage passing as music heard these days (and really, I like raw sewage, only it has to be raw the way I like rawness and sewage the way I like---well, let's not get into that!), and listening to these standards done up like something Happy Kyne and his Mirth Makers woulda done on FERNWOOD TONIGHT only reminds me of what a pal my tee-vee used to be! Well, at least until the worst people in our society just hadda get in control of everything and ruin it for us NICE GUYS! If you're inna mood for some good pre-raunch tee-vee this will stir up a few of them memories...

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Rod and the Cobras-DRAG RACE AT SURF CITY CD-r burn (originally on Somerset)

More 99-cent funzies from the fine folk at Somerset Records, this time a surf 'n hot rod cash in that (as usual) was bound to end up as a birthday present to ya from Aunt Mabel who, once again, would have bought you the real deal album you wanted but $3.98 for the actual platter is just too much and after all, she is on a fixed income. Half-baked yet satisfying enough covers of then-recent Beach Boys and Jan and Dean hits are interspersed with original instrumental roarers that sound fully baked to me and typical of the stomping roarers that were heard with regularity from the late-fifties to the mid-sixties. Not bad, especially for a buncha nth-stringers!

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Rolf & Joachim Kuhn-MONDAY MORNING CD-r burn (originally on Hor-Zu Germany)

Sometimes this Europeon jazz just doesn't sound like the real deal bein' all whited up and well, europeanized, but this particular sesh cooks a whole lot more'n knockwurst 'n sauerkraut. Pretty wild play between the Kuhn brothers and some of the bigger players on the Euro scene (Barre Phillips and Jacques Thollot among 'em) that at times comes off like a forgotten segment of FREE JAZZ, but right when you're not looking a few interesting themes like one based on the Bee Gees' "Words" ("Strangulation of a Monkey") or a downright tango ("Reflections of a Monday Morning") pop up and catch you totally off guard. Not bad at all, and worth at least a one-time listen you can probably dial up right here onna web.

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The McCoys-THE PSYCHEDELIC YEARS CD-r burn (originally on Mercury)

Having seen those latterday McCoys albums cluttering up every cheezy-bit record bin of my youth you can bet that I was perhaps a little bit curious. But not enough to actually snatch 'em up which is one reason you never read any review of 'em from me. Hmmm, turns out that the Psychedelic McCoys were just as good as the Real ones, for although there might be one or two duffers on this 'un THE PSYCHEDELIC YEARS is a real solid slice of what the band was doin' in between the big hits and the Johnny Winter And era. The forays into jazz, Byrds-esque West Coast country rock, blues and of course the reg'lar straight ahead rock 'n roll are all top-notch, and not only that but the additional vibes, piano, horns etc. actually accentuate the music rather'n bog everything down. There's even the obligatory one-minute asides into the avant garde which I still think was some industry requirement for all late-sixties pop albums of the day. I'm sure a majority of these track were top FM spins back during the glory days of freeform radio and if not, they sure shoulda been.

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Roy Harte & Milt Holland-PERFECT PERCUSSION CD-r burn (originally on World Pacific)

This looks like one of those album I woulda been snatching up during my late-seventies flea market scouring days thinking that it was gonna be some out-there avant garde jazz clunkerpiece, only to get home and find out it's nothing but standard bowtie 'n tux whiteguy stuff a millyun miles away from the Coleman Classics I was most certainly looking for. Heck it ain't even all-percussion like that Milford Graves album on ESP since there's piano and guitar inna mix! Still bright enough in spots like on the opening track which sounds like what a hip theme for YAKKY DOODLE woulda been what with all of those duck calls. But sheesh, do you really want to hear another version of THE KING AND I let alone "Misty" in what's left of your entire life??? Me neither.

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Various Artists-ROCKELATION JERKIN' CASTLE CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Too lazy to google the De-Codes who open and close this platter, but I will admit that these guys are good enough early-eighties-styled new wave-unto-power pop rock that comes off better'n some of the new wave-unto-power pop I've heard o'er the years. The rest varies from good 'nuff rockacountryboogie (Len Gale) to Norton Records fave the Mighty Hannibal doin' some r 'n b that's convincing enough to have been issued way back inna good ol' days to even some tinkling jazz via Erroll Garner and Ian Stuart Lane (good enough to mingle martinis to!). Fave of the bunch just happens to be the Factory's "Castle on a Hill" which does the 1967 English psyche thing about as good as those other late-sixties groups that ended up on those PERFUMED GARDEN albums. However, all I gotta say is what the heck is that Emenees single s'posed to be with an a-side featuring a soulful instrumental and the flip what sounds like radio ads for Emenee brand jukeboxes and organs?!?!?!?!

BOOK REVIEW! THE MIDNIGHT COLLECTION - PT. 3 - FROM THE PAGES OF SMASH COMICS (Classic Comics Library, 2016)

Part three in the MIDNIGHT series features Our Hero still being delineated by Paul Gustavson and the same old battered original issues being used as source material. And as one might guess the sagas to be found herein are still top notch energetic as can be, highly reminiscent of THE SPIRIT opening splash-panel-wise yet with stories that are loopier and not as "artistic" which can mean a whole lot to you if you're an anti-intellectual fanabla like I tend to be!

The only true beef I have with this particular volume covering the immediate postwar years is that there are a whopping TEN count 'em pages missing! Well, actually nine pages plus a cover but what pages they are...many times the conclusion to a story or a part of said saga that holds many a plot shift and twist, and if you think that I'm an irritable chap to begin with you shoulda seen my face once I got hold of this volume! Well, as Classic Comics Library themselves state on the back cover these comics were reprinted from the best copies available and various faults and imperfections are to be found, but sheesh, ten pages??? You would think that the publishers would have held up the publication of this volume until the missing pages were found and if I were Classic Comics I'd send fresh new copies of this 'un to EACH AND EVERY CUSTOMER who bought this post haste once the book has been restored to its proper condition! We've waited for these comics for quite a long time, a little longer will not matter!

Otherwise eh. I really enjoyed reading this (sure nice to see actual comic book heroes for a change!) and I get the feeling that the inner Saturday Afternoon Barbershop Kid in you would feel just the same way!

So like, what should I talk about before we get into the meaty potatoes and all? As far as polly-tix go I'm sure glad that Brexit passed not only because of the international uproar over it and the fact that Europe as a unified glob just isn't the right way to go, but  man is it good seeing alla those talking head nimnul types (and I don't mean David Byrne, who is the subject of a whole 'nother nimnul column) shrieking like a pack of rabid boars over said vote thinking that the Fourth Reich is imminent or something along those lines. Sorry guys, but you were the Fourth Reich though you never would cotton up to the fact. As far as my personal life goes not much, unless you want to hear about all of that thrilling paperclip inventory that I had to endure at the orifice this past week. At least I got to hear some interesting platters that helped make the past seven a little easier for me, sorta like stool softener for the soul or something like that. Thank you Bill, Bob, and ME for the opportunity to listen to and write about a whole slew of platters that I think you might wanna read about, but you probably won't.

THE BECKIES CD (Real Gone Music )

Yesirree, it's Mike "Left Banke" Brown's final foray into major label musings with this platter that, although pumped up plenty by the various "It's All Coming Back!" Shawvinists of the day (1976 to you) became instant cutout fodder alongside a whole bunch of platters also featuring the famed recluse who unfortunately passed away last year. It's kinda like the first Stories album, though with a more mid-seventies hard-pop approach to it that frankly mirrors a whole lotta the powerpop sounds that were comin' outta garages nationwide. If you've been in on the likes of the Atlantics or Miamis for some time you probably already have this one as well. If not, GO GET IT! Features boffo liner notes from one Jeremy Cargill, a guy who all of you UGLY THINGS readers should be aware of considering his massive carbolic footprint on that particular pub!

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LOS LICHIS CD-r burn

Dunno if this is the actual album or some other sorta configuration but it's pretty ear opening. Kinda like chop shop electronic rock that mighta been chic with the newer than thou wave inna eighties, but it woulda set you back a good thirty bucks to get these wares via Systematic. Sometimes it sounds like some ethnic kinda music with the guitar strings tightened to the point of breaking, at others like some seventies synthesizer art project done up right. At even others it reminds me of that great avant garde jazz-fusion act Noisetet who used to play the CBGB Lounge a whole lot. Now this is nothing I'm gonna spin constantly but a good 'un to have heard at least once, courtesy of Bob Forward.

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Billy Vaughn-GREATEST BOOGIE WOOGIE HITS CD-r burn (originally on Dot)

Alla yer favorite standards jazzed up by the infamous Vaughn, though for the life of me I really don't know what audience Dot Records was aiming for with this 'un. Too grown up for rock 'n roll, too raucous for the old timers, I kinda get the feeling that this one was being pushed on the latter crowd who wanted something a little more upbeat yet far away from the rock 'n roll screamathons dominating the charts. Kinda reminds me of the background music one woulda heard on those old Warner Brothers detective shows of the early-sixties, especially in a lounge scene where some gal is doin' the cha-cha-cha with Robert Conrad.

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Bob Bailey in Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar-THE LANSING FRAUD MATTER CD-r burn

I've been enjoying all of the JOHNNY DOLLARs I could lay my ears on (either via Bill's burns or Sirius XM) and this one (back when the show was being broadcast in fifteen-minute daily installments) is perhaps one of the better of the batch. A bum with a $50,000 insurance policy is found dead onna streets from malnutrition and inner workings problems, only the strange thing is that when the guy was checked out a coupla years earlier he was in perfect health! Sounds kinda fishy which is why Dollar's on the job, only he's running up against the usual roadblocks from the man's sis who is the beneficiary to the doctor who performed the checkup and especially the creepy agent who made out the policy. Don't miss the surprise ending which wasn't exactly telegraphed like a lotta these shows tend to do. I'll tell ya, I sure got a whole lot more outta these programs than I have on most anything seen on tee-vee these past few eons

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Xavier Cugat-TWIST WITH CUGAT CD-r burn (originally on Mercury)

Wow, I'll bet you can just imagine your Aunt Maud 'n Uncle Ferd doin' the twist to this one just for gags back at some early-sixties fambly get-together, right? Heck, there might even be a home move showin' this flab-flanking magic moment for all to see lo these many years later!!! Rumba king Cugat works over the classics with a bossa nova beat that really doesn't sound as twistaroonie as say, Chubby Checker or Joey Dee, but hey I guess back then you coulda twisted to Conelrad as Jackie Vernon usedta say and gotten away with it! I'm sure the hi-fi nuts of the day CHERISHED blasting this 'un outta the knotty pine den until wifey started banging on the locked door tellin' her spouse that the Rice-a-Roni was ready.

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Minton's Playhouse Allstars-LIVE AT BERLINER JAZZTAGE 1971 CD-r burn

I usually don't cotton up to much of this pre-new thing jazz unless there's something about it that might happen to strike my fancy (like, maybe I read something about a certain so-and-so that piqued my curiosity), but this live set featuring some of the better postwar bopsters really cooks more than Ed Gein. Nothing here what I'd call earth-shattering, but these guys really play full force and the overall performance is way more than what anyone'd care call spirited. Particularly hot piano work from Theolonious Monk (he set the stage for the even newer thing) and the likes of Sonny Stitt and of course the ever-ominous Dizzy Gillespie help boost the value in this quite a bit. If I had heard this one back when it was performed I might have buckled down in front of the ol' flute-o-phone a whole lot more than I had!

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004's-IT'S ALRIGHT CD-r burn (originally on CBS South Africa)

Wow, another South African beat group! And these 004's are pretty good at the mop top game too. They might not be as flashy as the English bands were, but they sure had the spirit complete with covers of not only "On Broadway",  "Nobody But Me" and the Dave Clark Five's "You Got What It Takes" but "Parchment Farm", and that's not even counting the country and western goof worthy of Ringo Starr. Dunno exactly why this one didn't get out the way I kinda think it should...maybe it's because they were from South Africa and well, y'know, there was a lotta apartheid goin' on back then and some people mighta been upset about them for comin' from there and all...

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Various Artists-BABA BONZO JIMMER FRINGE CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

A strange one from Bill, starting off with a rare Bonzo Dog Band cover (taken from an acetate) of Cher's "Bang Bang" (a song I remember my mother loathing when it was a hit, perhaps because it sounded too much like the younger generation making fun of the oldsters again) followed by tons of late-sixties pop of varying degrees that excited me in varying degrees as well. Some of it just tingly-mildly while others sounded hey, good enough. Still others, like the Baby Scholae ones, reminded me of what I think people who liked Jethro Tull heard in 'em, maybe during their first LP days when it seemed as if just about everyone was a fan of theirs. And then there's a Chubby Checker imitator (I think he is---his name's Andy Nevison in case you're keeping track), a big band schmoozer and a whole buncha trackage of varying bizzarities. In all a weird mish-mosh of various rare slabs that nobody has heard before and probably will never hear again, but then again in the great shape of things SO WHAT!

COMIC BOOK REVIEW! MR. A. #18 by Steve Ditko (Steve Ditko and Robin Snyder 2016, check Ditkoclub.com for availability)

Well MR. A. is finally back, or shall I say that the slew of stories that Steve Ditko cooked up back in the early-nineties that never saw the light of day are finally being published. Frankly I don't know if Ditko is still drawing his creation (reports say that he's suffering a bit from the ravages of age, but then again that might all be hooey), but if indeed these are the last MR. A. stories to be had then you could say that Ditko sure went out on a pretty wild note what with this personalist character of his who's been in on the good 'n evil game ever since his debut in the pages of Wally Wood's WITZEND 'round 1967 way.

Drawing ain't as crisp as it was back then and the stories seem even more lacking in...viscosity? Well, not quite, because although I thought my mind took a few trips to Jupiter without my knowing while going through these sagas MR. A. still held up as a solid comic read that, although rooted in the classic mid-sixties style, transcends any style or shape or generation of costumed crimefighting you can come up with. Face it, if there's anything one can all agree on re. Mr. A. it that this character is a unique example of a comic book hero who just can't be categorized. I know I've tried what with calling him the successor to the various Quality line of masked and suited good guys (Spirit, Midnight, 711, Mouthpiece...) but even that really doesn't hold up the way I hoped it would.

"Mr. A. and the Horror" starts things off, a strange saga about this weird blackmailing evildoer who kinda looks like a deflated Michelin Man who threatens his victims (including a typically Ditko-esque woman nightclub singer the kind we haven't seen since Steve Douglas discovered a pre-liberated Jaye P. Morgan appearing at some dive on MY THREE SONS) until he's caught, handed over to the police, then released for lack of evidence. Do you think that's gonna stop Mr. A. from doing his job? C'mon, you've been reading these long enough to know the answer to that!

In "Mr. A. and the Score" a fambly man type shoots himself in the head and his co-workers act shocked and surprised since like, they all thought he was a nice bloke 'n all. However reporter Rex Graine (Mr. A.'s alter ego) knows a load of crap when he hears it, only right when things get hot he's told to get off the case by a superior at the paper where he works, THE DAILY CRUSADER. As Mr. A., Graine attempts to get to the bottom of the matter by tormenting one of the suicide victim's weaker-willed co-workers, and after a few visits this lily-livered type is downright convinced by Mr. A. that maybe the other guys who were in on the plot to ruin the dead man might be ready to do him in! Then all Mr. A. has to do is settle back and watch the collision that's bound to happen, since evil always seems to destroy itself or something like that Crass once said!

Continuity never was that important in the MR. A. scheme. Oh the typically bleeding heart liberal editor Reder is still around and as angry over the fact that he can't fire Graine lest he lose control of the paper, but now a sister-in-law who seems every bit as Big City progressive as he shows up and you can bet that she hates Graine with just as equal a passion. As for the actual owner, mainly the editor's brother, well...at first he was deceased and it was stipulated in the will that Graine stays on lest brother lose the paper, then later on (when THE DAILY CRUSADER was actually part of a large media conglomeration) he was portrayed as a man who, although disliking "extremes" in thought, kept Graine on because he did deliver his stories accurately and without personal bias. Now he's getting out of the hospital after an extended stay, not in the best of health and has just returned to duty and not only does brother but wifey wish that he didn't survive the heart attack just so's they both could proceed with their sweetness 'n light agenda unmolested! Wow, such a happy bunch these Big City newspaper types are!

These stories still get me going in a thirteen-year-old gosh darn way even though I should be old enough to know better. Thankfully I don't. You can't hurt yourself by buying this 'un up and catching a glimpse of a comic style/character that you would have thought died out years earlier. And naturally, even with all of the comic book/rock mag backlog clogging up my bedroom I can't wait for the next edition which I do hope comes out more sooner'n later.

Got a nice crop o' platters to write about this time, not only thanks to the efforts of one Bill Shute and two P. D. Fadensonnen but my own blood, sweat, tears and maybe even David Clayton Thomas himself! Gotta say that it's sure splendid giving some new and fresh music (even if it was recorded thirty/forty/fiftysome years back) a spin because hey---a stouthearted (and bodied) fellow like me really does need a little resensifyin' in his life at least once in awhile! And in these days we need all the resensifyin' we can get and you know those old Blondie records you have lyin' around just ain't gonna cut it!

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AS WE ALL KNOW BY NOW CONSIDERING HOW MUCH IT'S BEEN CRAMMED INTO OUR SKULLS, some LGBTQWTF club or another in the heart of Dizzyworld (that's Orlando Ef-El-Lay in Lou Reed lingo to you) got shot up with a whole lotta folk either dead, wounded, or too shaken to continue their usual mouth-munching practices at least until the next episode of ANDERSON COOPER AT LARGE calms them down a bit. (And really, I sincerely do hope that you stayed away from the all media social or not to avoid the unbearable rush of heartbleed pap and anti-hate chest-beating from some of the biggest haters imaginable that has permeated our very existence these past few days, especially Cooper's sniffle-filled roll call of the fallen which certainly had my gag meter clicking like a geiger counter.)

And oh, soo-prize soo-prize but the dastardly deed wasn't the handiwork of some Deep South inbred types that always get the blame for these sorta shenanigans after all but (and you won't believe this!) some ISIS flag-wavin' middle-Eastern bi-plane (he flew both ways) who reports say was sent into a rage after seeing a couple of sissyboys smooching it up inna park the previous week.

What probably REALLY set him off was the fact that he wasn't getting any from said boys and well...goats just aren't as easy to find in Florida as they are in Afghanistan! I guess that such outwardly flagrant behavior does trigger violent impulses within a whole slew of people both homo and hetero which is undoubtedly why we read about gay nightclub shootings like this all the time! But after all is said and done maybe it is true that immigrants (and their non-assimilating offspring) are the kinda people who'll do the jobs that Americans just won't do anymore! Hey, be glad that I didn't end this paragraph saying something to the effect that gay bars are something just simply to die for!

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I WANT TO KNOW, I HAVE TO KNOW, I'VE GOT TO KNOW, PLEASE LET ME KNOW DEPT.: do any recordings or tapes of the six-piece Tyrannosaurus Rex before the finance company repossessed their instruments exist?

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And now, as the old show tune (keeping in in mood of the second subject matter discussed this week...) sez, on with the show......

Totenkopf-ANN ARBOR LP (Chameleon)

Finally dished out for this 'un and boy I couldn't have put my shekels to better use! The long-touted mid-seventies punk rock album from these skandies really does out do most others on the over-the-hills-and-screaming sweepstakes, coming off like a three-way cage match between Jack Ruby, Von Lmo and that whacked out dehumidifier we hadda get rid of a few years ago. Total scronk punk here that makes a whole lotta that eighties art passing for p-rock sound totally sick in comparison. Heavy metal before the beauticians industry got hold of it and just overloaded electronic sound gunch with a massive beat you can even dance to! If you like it hard and heavy and excruciating (w/o coming off like eighties industrial dirge) you might just go for this 'un. Costly but cheap, ifyaknowaddamean...

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Cal-HOMEGROWN CD (Guerssen, Spain)

Album covers resplendent with Maryjane leaves (on the back, which I obviously did not reproduce here) usually add up to big hippoid goose eggs in my personal collection, but this Cal thing sounds a whole lot better'n what I woulda thought some early-eighties independently manufactured platter with such imagery could. Thanks to the fine folk at Guerssen we now get to hear this obscure upstate En Why album that really is unique in the way it takes various late-sixties and early-seventies rock moves and updates 'em w/o sounding too eighties glossy. Only the use of a whiny string synthesizer ruins the overall straight ahead rock effect but otherwise this kind of hard rock (think early FM pre AOR) with tinges of folk and garage aesthetics really does do one better than any of you (or myself for that matter) would have dared given credit back then. Believe you me, if the Sex Pistols/Clash/Ramones/Blondie types never came around this is the kinda group CREEM woulda been calling punk rock back '81 way.

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Tyll-SEXPHONIE CD (Mental Experience, available via Guerssen, Spain)

Another one from the Guerssen promo packet, this obscure mid-seventies krautrock venture seems to reflect the mode of the music as it changed into something sounding a bit more commercial. Echoes of Amon Duul II from about the same time can be heard as can various jazz ideals the kind Passport got a lotta Amerigan press with even if their albums did tank here. Interspersed are some interesting pop moves that could have been Eurovision entries that probably wouldn't have rated much even if part of some MONTY PYTHON spoof, but are still way better than the actual pop slop that was permeating the continent at the time (well, I do hope they were spoofs!). Interesting to say the least and entertaining (at least on a BLOG TO COMM neo-serious level) in spots.

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Flipper-"Love Canal"/"Ha Ha Ha" 45 rpm single (no label that I can tell)

Nice reish by a group that I (like everyone else trying to jump on the hipper-than-thou bandwagon) was supposed to like back inna eighties, did like, but not enough to gobble up every slab of sound that these punkoid junkoids were peddling throughout that decade. The most amazing thing about this platter is just how close it comes to the heavy metal sphere of things, at least that's HM in the old CREEM sense before the beauticians got hold of the term ruining it for everyone throughout that sad decade. (Well hey, two CREEM/HM/beauticians refs in one post ain't that bad!) Kinda reminds me of Blue Cheer without the blusier influences just ripping themselves up on snorted speed w/o care or worry about the consequences of ruptured eardrums. And yes, it can happen to you too!

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So What-"Why Can't I See You Tonight"/"I Can See But You Don't Know" 45 rpm single (Jaw)

Bee-youtiful reissue of some group I never heard of before who were out and about during the seventies rumbling under the radar of just about everybody that you or even I know of. It's hard to believe that this was recorded in 1970 because the sound is so late-seventies teenage pop-punk, kinda reminding me of such other bubbling way under acts like Wowii who made records and had somewhat of a following in their New Jersey burghs but just didn't get the additional push needed to make a really big name for themselves. If you were (and are) a fan of the last vestiges of seventies AM pop that managed to squeak out in between the disco and singer-songwriters, you might just go for it. And if anyone out there can tell us how to get hold of this item, please do write in!

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Les Baxter-HELL'S BELLES SOUNDTRACK CD-r burn (originally on Sidewalk)

If motorcycle moom soundtracks are your game then well, this one just might be the gamiest! Baxter does a boffo job adding the oomph to this biker flick whether it be incidental background mood-makers or just plain drop into the mix and enjoy them for what they are no matter what's happening on-screen. The tinny fuzztone guitar lines give that added psycho biker film tension an even greater boost, and there's this recurring vocal number that kinda sounds like "Turn on Your Lovelight" only sung by someone who wasn't quite as stoned as Pigpen. I know that many of these soundtrack albums are about as oft played as those Christmas platters you've inherited from relatives for years on end, but this one just might stay put on your turntable a little longer than that WEST SIDE STORY album you've been trying to get rid of at the flea market these past fortysome years and still can't dump!

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The Tapes-BLEIFREI CD-r burn (originally on RV Tapes, Italy)

Many of these cassette culture releases of the eighties might have sounded as if they were taken from the same feedback overdrive blurb session, but these Tapes sure do the self-produced thing up a whole lot differently. Simple melodies go up and down the scales with electronic sounds accentuating the overall effect which reminds me of the Metal Boys' TOKIO AIRPORT album more'n anything. Another track has the same chord changes as Can's "Gomorrah" and overall the whole thing was as pleasing to this particular pud as some of those better early-eighties self-produced platters were...well, at least until the mad rush began thanks to the exposure of this kinda sound-spew courtesy of SOUND CHOICE. And this was released in 1987 after most of this mulch had gone the artso pretensioso route. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

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LOBBY LOYDE COMPENDIUM DISC 7---COLOURED BALLS - THE FIRST SUPPER LAST OR SCENES WE DIDN'T GET TO SEE CD-r burn

The last of the Fadensonnen burns featuring Loyde, this one was a posthumous Coloured Balls album recorded in '72 yet unreleased until a good four years later perhaps to capitalize on Loyde's local fame or somethin'. Anyway there's none of that prog rock influence here that there was on the last compendium, this being good straight ahead hard rock that, while still commercial enough to appease the Australian box boy marijuana crowd, will tingle the high-energy nerve ends in us all. Even the cover of "Johnny B. Goode" comes closer to the Pink Fairies than it does that fringe jacket 'n droopy 'stache band from the same strata who was doin' this gunch live at the corner bar. Nice cap on a pretty good series you got there, P. D.!

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La Joven Guardia-EL EXTRANO DEL PELO LARGO CD-r burn (originally on RCA Victor Argentina)

Hmmmm, late-sixties Argentinian teen pop with touches of psychedelia that isn't overpowering enough to upset the senoritas out there who undoubtedly packed the pesos for records like this. Works good, or at least as good as a whole load of the late-sixties international long hair popsters who weren't singing in English. A lot of this can get a bit too bell bottom and lambchops for most of you reg'lar BLOG TO COMM readers' tastes, but I think it goes down a little smoother than, say, Gary Puckett. Has a bit of a charm to it like some of those outta-nowhere hits of the day did, though for the life of my I can't figure out why I have the sudden urge to tease my long-gone dog Sam while listening to this! Either that or lock myself in the bathroom and...well, let's not go into that!

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John Drendall, B. A. Thrower and Friends-PAPA NEVER LET ME SING THE BLUES CD-r burn (originally on Deacon Productions)

Given the evident hippie vibes and early-seventies singer/songwriter/sorta feeling this one exudes, I thought I was going to need to settle back for a viewing of BLESS THE BEASTS AND CHILDREN followed by a group encounter session led by Erich Siegel in order to get the full touchy-feely sensitivity of it all. Well, actually it ain't all that bad and in fact this one can get you rollicking about at times if you so desire. It's mostly mid-level straight ahead rock (no roll) with a sidestep into the blues here and barrelhouse country piano there, and unlike other artifacts from the first hippydippy era it doesn't offend your grubby punk aesthetics that much. Nothing I'd want to spend eternity listening to, but for a buncha wire-rimmed longhairs decked out in denim kinda guys it's a whole lot better than I would have thought in the first place!

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Various Artists-COLORADO T-SHIRT FIREWATER CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Sandwiched between two instrumental EPs of French origin comes a song poem single voiced by the inimitable (though highly imitative) Norm Burns who set some lucky housewife from Waukeegan's poems to the beat of a country and western ballad. Did country and western tunes have beats back then? Nowadays they sure sound like typical pop pablum only with a choice fiddle, steel guitar swing and southern voice to make them distinguishable from the rest of the junk so popular. The French instrumental EPs are more to my liking what with Les Champions doing their darndest to ape the Shadows without copping any of the soft moosh that went along with it, while Les Cyclones feature a harmonica player to give their twangers more of a Western sorta feel. No wonder one of their numbers is named "Lucky Luke" after the French cowboy comic that I have written about in these "pages" before. A short but sweet one to make at least twenty minutes of my life more bearable.

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And to all of you may I say "HAPPY FATHER'S DAY", though if I were you I'd demand a DNA test first!

A VERY SPECIAL EPISODE OF BLOG TO COMM WRITTEN BY BRAD KOHLER ENTITLED "A CHILD'S GARDEN OF DELIGHTS IN THE LAND OF THROBBING GRISTLE"

One of the striking things about seminal industrial unit Throbbing Gristle was that they looked like they were assembled via casting call a la the Monkees.

You had the anti-Davy Jones, Genesis P. Orridge, pretty boy Chris Carter, pornography pinup girl-next-door Cosey Fanni Tutti and well, Sleazy. If only they had a half hour TV show back in the day, sponsored by Tesco department stores, in which they'd get involved in various madcap adventures such as the time Cosey inadvertently agreed to date two different guys on the same night. After realizing her dilemma, Genesis dresses up like a woman, tells one date he's her sister, and fends off the amorous clutches of the drunken lothario with some trademark Brit BBC double entendre humor straight out of a show like ARE YOU BEING SERVED? Cut to the band performing "Hit by a Rock" and end credits.

Here at BLOG TO COMM we are not approaching TG as anything but a band. Forget the concentration camp chic, the Crowley-in-the-box boogeyman, the philosophical treatise. What we are interested in is Genesis P. Orridge playing bass guitar in the way that chimpanzee in the Samsonite commercial played the luggage. The fact that said bass was hooked up to every rinky dink fuzz pedal and distortion unit the band could find was just the icing on the cake.

With that in mind, here is a Cliff Notes assemblage of required Throbbing Gristle recordings for the novice, taken from legit, grey area and bootleg releases.

Like in the case of the Grateful Dead, there are seemingly endless live recordings. Unless, like a Dead devotee, you collect a show just for the jam leading from "China Cat Sunflower" into "Pigpen stares at an oily puddle beside a dumpster" and you just need to hear a certain Cosey coronet bleat recorded on a Dictaphone in '78 you only need a few of the multitude of live shows. HEATHEN EARTH is one. The particularly intense FUNERAL IN BERLIN is another. SPECIAL TREATMENT (a '78 show re-processed by Carter) where Genesis took an overdose of pills before the show (Cosey had thrown him over for Carter) and does a monologue about coming home to an empty room with cats staring at him before becoming post-verbal for the rest of the gig is the third.

Side one of their first LP SECOND ANNUAL REPORT is a masterpiece right out of the gate, an amazing brick-bat upside of the head. It's right up there with the most throttling of the no wave bands, if operating on a somewhat different wavelength. Call it the mutant thalidomide stillborn as opposed to the full gestation of bands like Mars. If side two were more than a warmed-over Tangerine Dream toss-off this LP would rate the highest of hosannas.

The SORDIDE SENTIMENTAL 45 that was re-released on SEARCH AND DESTROY's Adolescent label, "We Hate You Little Girls"/"Five Knuckle Shuffle", is the perfect distillation of the early TG sound. The guitar on the latter sounds like one of those wands TSA agents use that make an ungodly whooping noise when someone tries to sneak contraband in on their person. It makes Lydia Lunch's guitar playing sound like...wait, hold that thought...I just played the song and my cat ran away from home.

"United" is the greatest of the early cyborg synth workouts, making something like "Warm Leatherette" sound like Doctor Demento fodder. If there were any justice in the world this song would be played as frequent as the nth-degree watered down regurgitations like "Tainted Love". The flipside, "Zyklon B. Zombie" ("It's like Coca-Cola only worse for your teeth"-Genesis), their token one chord punk song, is another killer diller. The white vinyl reissue with the middle section cut EXTRA LOUD is preferable. It sounds like what the choppers circling overhead at the outdoor gig the MC5 did at the 1968 Democratic Convention must've sounded like to a stoned Wayne Kramer.

The other studio LPs have their moments but were mostly divided into solo tracks by the various band members, and as such lack a certain cohesiveness.

The bootleg LP VERY FRIENDLY is made up of very early recordings. The title track is the heartwarming tale of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, the Moors Murderers, and like "The Gift" works as a lyrical and musical piece. Unfortunately the song isn't separated into two channels so you can't choose to lay back with a groovy piece of music or listen to Genesis describe the victim as "just a lump of stuff".

The side long track on their final studio LP JOURNEY THROUGH A BODY will give you an idea of what it'll be like to be hooked up to machines on your death bed after too many years of the Cheetos/malt liquor diet many of us existed on during leaner times.

There are a few more odds and ends, but I'll cut this short and just add that like a lot of life affirming, rambunctious, direct-to-the-mainline sounds-as-energy musical manifestos out there, the best of TG still resonates with that engorged electrical yawp all these years later. I'm talking about a band who, when a gypsy encampment invaded their neighborhood resulting in a skyrocketing amount of theft and violence, actually engaged in sonic warfare by using sub-sonic oscillations and other disruptive waveforms beamed at the encampment via hidden speakers. The gypsy guard dogs went mad, the inhabitants complained of sleeping poorly and health problems, and eventually they pulled up stakes declaring that the place was haunted!

How many bands would consider sound to be anything more than a means to construct songs that'll get them a Lexus and a palatial retreat overlooking the ocean? For TG it was an arrow and a quiver! They even got an ace a-side for a 45 out of the whole experience, the song "Subhuman".

Maybe they weren't the "wreckers of civilisation" the British Parliament tagged them as, but they wrecked a few cones in my cheapo stereo speakers, and that's good enough for me. And you too.

UGLY THINGS #41 (geddit here)

Wow, another issue of UGLY THINGS has invaded the sanctity of my fart-encrusted boudour! No Jymn Parrett or Johan Kugelberg to be found, but it does have Greg Prevost and Bill Shute and that's hokay by me. It also has a ton of great junk and stuff and alla those things that drove a lawn-cutting tee-vee watching suburban slob such as I to the mag inna first place, like high energy action packed articles and reviews by some of the better people to pick up a keypad these past umpteen years. And (in case you can't get it through your thick fanabla head) that's exactly why I like this mag, glossy cover, $9.95 price tag and all!

The Lovin' Spoonful! Got mixed feelings about 'em because for years I somehow had 'em pegged as pure hippie music progenitors what with their good timey sound and all. Sure don't know just how this impression crept into my mind (other'n the fact that John Sebastian performed at Woodstock and their album cover which had some nudies running wild inna field with a lion covering up their nether regions [the woman's bullseyes airbrushed out too) because even a quick perusal of their material tends to categorize 'em as a precursor to the early San Fran freakpop style that kinda got lost in the Alice Dee shuffle within a few years. Great interview with Sebastian even though I'll never quite forgive him for that sappy if better'n most of the songs on 1976 AM radio theme to WELCOME BACK KOTTER.

As for the rest of the thing...Cuby and the Blizzards---never heard 'em so this 'un doesn't register with me like it would with those of you immersed in the mainland Euro roar. The Barbarians---this is a combination of that interview Greg Prevost did with Moulty in his old OUTASITE magazine and a more recent Mike Stax one making for a gab that sounds just as coherent as if it all took place in one nice setting. The Beachnuts---cool enough even if (after all these years) it's been determined that these guys and the Lou Reed studio group just ain't the same batch like some had been thinking lo these many years. And the stuff on the likes of Suzannah Jordan, Huckle, Bobby Patrick, the Big Six etc. well---maybe I'll let you know AFTER  I read their articles these upcoming weeks (gotta get this review out t'the public, y'know...)

Fave parts (so far)...Cyril Jordan's Flamin' Groovies documentation of just how tough it was for rock 'n roll (especially his own band) to break through in the age of Baez, the saga on Toronto's infamous Ugly Ducklings (the stars of the 1979-1981 rock fanzine sweepstakes---piece features an excerpt from lead singer Tom Byngham's new book on the band!) and a really boffo interview with Elliot Murphy, a man who has been quite ignored these past fortysome years even though I tried paying attention, critically panned albums and all. The reviews of books, recordings, Dee-Vee-Dees and such are also good even though for the life of me I couldn't find anything that I would actually wanna go out and purchase (other'n perhaps the Beckies and Ten Years After reissues) which either proves how dearth-like the exhumations are or how cheap I am (undoubtedly the latter).

I'll betcha that Mike Stax is one guy who can go to sleep peacefully knowing how much he has benefited mankind with his way above par rock magazine that delivers on the high energy goods. Can you?????

Hey wasn't that a great week we just went through, just chock-fulla high energy fun 'n excitement an' all??? Kinda made ya glad to be alive an' kickin' and proud that you're walking the earth during one of the most exciting and punch-packed times EVER hunh? And not only that, but you're so charged up over the fact that it's time for yet another spicy and fun installment of BLOG TO COMM, one which you've been looking forward to for quite some time eh?..............(oh shit!)

Wire-NOCTURNAL KOREANS CD-r burn (originally on Pink Flag)

I hate to admit it, but this latest from Wire just ain't as good as last year's chart topper of a spin. In fact NOCTURNAL KOREANS (I've had a few dreams like that!) is kinda early 80s "new music" as they used to call that synth-laden ennui which really doesn't dredge up any good memories for this particular scribe (one who missed the late-seventies rock zeitgeist as soon as that generation toppled into rock video glitz). Still fine in its electronic drone creep fashion which doesn't really offend as much as it should, though (and I sincerely do mean this!) if you were one of those people who loathed the late-eighties Wire rebirth you've probably written 'em off long ago anyway to care so like, forget you ever read this writeup inna first place!

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The Peace-BLACK POWER CD (Now-Again, available via Forced Exposure)

Bought this Zambian-spawned reissue of a mid-seventies platter by local rock 'n roll heroes the Peace on a mere whim and y'know what? I was more than pleasantly surprised, really! I often don't go out on limbs to buy these outta nowhere releases because hey, money is a scarce commodity these days but this one looked so enticing, and man does it live up to alla the hype surrounding it.

The sound quality is primitive as is the performance, but it's all garage band energy that's perhaps helped thanks to the fact that this was sourced out from surviving copies of the album which I guess weren't pressed up that hot to begin with!

Startlingly enough, BLACK POWER ain't some over-the-top afro funk Osibisa-type of release like I kinda thought it might have been but sounds pretty well settled into the usual Amerigan/English ref. pts., with hefty nods to the Rolling Stones and Beatles to be heard not to mention some groups whose names I dare not mention lest I get your hearts a-flutterin' outta control to the point of seizure. Heck, if the vocals didn't have such a thick African accent I would have thought these to have been recorded by some local suburban Amerigan teens at the local cheapo studio.

Might be worth a listen even if you tend to be jaded by all of these recent exhumations that you sometimes wish would have remained dead and buried all these years. If you need to get it on a dare well hey, then I dare ya! And I mean it too, sissy!!!

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THE KIOSK 6 CD

David Keay and Laura Feathers (a.k.a. the Kiosk!) are back with some pretty wonderful repeato-riff guitar rock that recalls a whole load of past rock accomplishment and a tad bit of CHURCH OF ANTHRAX on "Destabilization in Slow Motion" t'boot! (Harmonia on "Desert of the Tartars" even!). I could dredge up the usual xyz comparisons if you like but that really won't be necessary...let's just say that if you were one of the luckies who got hold of the previous Kiosk platters this 'un continues on the same fine tradition of believable under-the-underground avant garde yet downhome rock 'n roll that I thought went kablooey long ago. If you can, really do try to latch onto one.

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Glenn Mercer-WHEELS IN MOTION CD-r burn (originally on Pravda)

It would have been easier to get Frank Zappa to take a bath than it is to get me to listen to either the Feelies or any one of their various side projects. But since I was breaking wind to the caution or something like that I figured hey, why not give this McGarry burn a turn? Of course there's nothing really exciting on WHEELS IN MOTION what with Feelie Mercer's standard amerindie/altie styles and moods calmed down to Perry Como levels, but surprisingly enough I did not rip this one off the turntable in abject rage like I was wont to do only a few short decades back. Mildly pleasant and well suited to a Sunday afternoon reading of Golden Age PLASTIC MAN comics...gee I really must be goin' soft if I can't even get enough rage into my soul to have ripped this disque outta the laser launching pad and smashing it to kingdom come!

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Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds-LA ARANA ES LA VIDA CD-r burn (originally on In The Red)

Hey, it sounds pure rockism authentic enough to have been some great lost seventies underground resurgence of rock artyfact, only it came out in the here and now! Low fidelity helps Congo and band present that hard-edged neo-garage sound which kinda reminds me of classic Fleshtones without the more new unto gnu wave production that didn't help some of their platters out. It even contains a cover of the Psychedelic Furs '"We Love You" and when was the last time any of us admitted to having once led that prettier'n pink band?!?!?! One to catch if they just happen to plow their way into your town, that is if they ever go that far outta their way considering the dunghole you're probably living in right now.

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Ronnie Mathews-TRIP TO THE ORIENT CD-r burn (originally on East West Records, Japan)

Better'n ho-hum straight ahead piano jazz trio recording from longtime bopster Mathews who tinkles the ivories on this once rare specimen. Playing's not that far out in case you're the kinda guy who goes for this sorta music, though it's far from the lounge-y prattle that has made up a good portion of what I've heard from the "mainstream" of jazz these past few years. Made passable pleasing backdrop to the collection of BEETLE BAILEY 1966 comics that Brad Kohler sent me via Bill Shute, a review of that 'un comin' up more later than sooner considering the backload of book/moom pitcher  reviews I have just waiting for you!

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ZIPPER/KING BEE CD-r burn (originally on Permanent/Whizeagle)

I never sought out Fred "Lollipop Shoppe" Cole's mid-seventies album goin' under the Zipper tag if only because it'd been consistently compared to Led Zeppelin up and down the Disques du Monde catalog. Not being a big fan of the Zep by any stretch of the imagination I figured hey, why bother considering all of the groups who were also trying to sound like Zep playing on within my ear-reach. Turns out those comparisons had been right-o all along what with Cole's faux Robert Plant whine and the group's hard grind of blues into pure soundswell. In other worlds....yawn!

Although this actually sounds kinda gnarled in spots and enough to make any true blue metalloid stand up and take notice I must admit that I wouldn't want to part with any moolah to get either an original or a repressing of this particular spin. I would (and have!) done just that with the King Bee EP from '78 where Cole goes full blast into the same kinda hard punk blues drive that fits into the whole Dr. Feelgood/Eddie and the Hot Rods swerve that actually gained a little bit of notoriety back in them days. On the whole these tracks are top notch enough for my own tastes (even the Zipper stuff!) even if you're not listening for purely historical snoot purposes.

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The New Life-SINGS THE SIDEHACKERS CD-r bur (originally on Amaret Records)

Well they ain't no Davie Allen and the Arrows that's for sure! It's kinda blahsville in fact, what with the New Life (what kinda name is that for a rock group...sounds like a hair restorer scam!) and their soppy numbers undoubtedly made for this movie's slobbering scenes and nothing else! Even the more "rollicking" tracks (that is, if you consider aged constipated cows trying to get the tarts out of the oven "rollicking") conjure a general douseness to the entire proceedings for a film that I woulda thought packed with action scenes and loads of biker violence! Don't get me wrong, there's some good late-sixties scrunch here but this is mostly feh music that would have made an embarrassment of any moom pitcher it woulda been tagged onto!

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Various Artists-ANOTHER MONDO AUBURN DAY CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Short 'n sweet mostly folky-rocky collection here starting off with some related trackage from acts called Junior and the Mondos and Florian Monday and the Mondos who basically do the same thing what with their versions of "Mondo Moe" and "Mondo" sounding remarkably similar. (Reissue action on Norton might just be worth getting!) But really, Bill should include liner notes with these burns! These two acts have that good 1962-1965 (at the latest) mid-Amerigan teenage crank out sound that still appeals, though if you're one of those sophisticado rock types I tend to come across on occasion you won't understand them the same way you refuse to understand Great Shakes and LEAVE IT TO BEAVER. The rest of this ain't gonna make you wanna burn your Jefferson Airhose albums in abject shame (yeah I know, in the sixties they were perhaps one of the better Amerigan groups who took a severe tumble into the hippoid abyss once albums like BARK and MANHOLE not forgetting such wowzers as BLOWS AGAINST THE EMPIRE started cluttering up the record shelves, or something like that), but they're still fine mid-sixties Amerigan garage band acts that sure sound good next to some of the sewage that was cluttering up the airwaves within the next few years. Good selection ya got here too Bill!

BOOK REVIEW! THE COMPLETE DICK TRACY VOLUME 20 by Chester Gould (IDW, 2016)

Now we're really headin' into hotcha TRACY territory what with the early-sixties storylines getting in gear and the TRACY environment that I could remember from my very own "youth" starting to come into focus! Yes even this late inna comic strip game when other strips were starting to flounder TRACY was pumping out the intense, energetic sagas it was know for for quite awhile, and although a lotta the fans had poo-poo'd the strip for quite some time (y'know, the ones who think that after Mumbles it was nothing but down hill) it was more'n obvious that TRACY was still a top notch read on any comic strip fanabla's list! Oh, if I could only get my hands on those grade school teachers of mine who thought us kids so "immature" because we read the comic pages before everything else (which in my case was the tee-vee listings and that's that) 'stead of the front section with all of that war and atrocity and violence...sheesh, I got enough of that via TRACY to care about it in real life, and what else would you expect from an eight-year-old anyway???

The "Spready" saga at first disappointed me because well, I thought the villain might have been a female and with a name like that... But eh, it was a great read having to do with this former obese criminal on the prowl who has something strange sewed into the right portion of his abdomen, and whatever it is it's sure hard and magnetic!!! However the "Brush" saga is once again a return to the TRACY of yore, a grotesque criminal whose face is completely covered in hair due to him being a POW in Hiroshima back August '45 way...now he's running this scam ostensibly having something to do with a crusade against nuclear radiation and his staff is made up of a couple of trained chimpanzees!

For a change from the usual blood 'n gore there is a comparatively short storyline that grows out of the "Spready" saga featuring the brief return of none other than Junior Tracy's real mother. And for another change there is some sad poignancy slipped into the strip when the former "Mary Steele" (now Mary Smith) is killed by a golf ball from a nearby course that hits her in the temple and kills he while she is reading to her adopted children, with Tracy keeping the truth about the woman's identity from Junior who wouldn't remember it anyway. Now given how Junior's mother got written outta the strip I just figured that her disappearance was just one of those loose ends about as relevant as both of the dogs Junior owned who somehow got forgotten over time, but the heartstrings are sure to be tugged over this particular TRACY saga even if you for the life of ya would have thought that Junior would have remembered his real mother considering he was about a hefty seven or eight by the time Tracy officially adopted the brat! Whatever, better stock up on the Kleenex because you too will probably be shedding a tear or two like I did...inside that is.

Topping off this book is something that I really relished, an article on the infamous DICK TRACY cartoon show that the UPA people of MR. MAGOO fame released way back in the early-sixties! This series (back when it was running on THE BARNEY BEAN SHOW) was where I first even knew that Tracy existed, and of course I was always front and center for these cartoons which usually pitted one of his "underlings" like Joe Jitsu, Hemlock Holmes, Go Go Gomez or Heap O'Calorie against the likes of Flattop and Mumbles. (In fact, I remember when my dad'd read me the funnies I'd have him read me TRACY only the grim aspect of the real deal was totally different than the light-hearted cartoons and boy was I surprised!) These cartoons, like a lotta the cartoons coming out on tee-vee during the early-sixties, had an interesting sorta "adult" appeal to 'em as well...nothing as strong as ROCKY AND HIS FRIENDS mind you but some pretty good gags only the parents could get were definitely peppered through these episodes. Whaddevva, reading this piece was a nice reminder of my turdler past which I sure wouldn't mind experiencing to its fullest these sorry days, even if I probably would have an "accident" or two that would embarrass me to no end in front of the entire fambly.