OH BOY! MORE CEE-DEE REVIEWS!

Vinyl situation's pretty sad as we speak (not necessarily due to the lack of the much-needed plastic stuff, only that even the substitute Westinghouse turntable lent me by my brother-in-law has died a sorrowful death so I'm outta luck as they say), but I still got plenty of these tea-coasters to rattle off about given I haven't been doing any "serious" rock scribing for about a month. So, if you're one who likes to live vicariously through the writings of "highly-respected" (hah!) rock fanatics such as I (just like I used to and perhaps still do gape in awe at the old and new writings of certain rock journalists past and present soaking it all in more'n a sponge filled with hot soapy water ready to do battle with the bird doo on my car), then settle back and osmose to my own personal subjective opines on a number of cee-dees I've obtained over the past few months. (And, if I were one of those caustic, stuck-on-themselves writers who perpetuate the rock and blog worlds, I'd tell you to "get a life" if you're so hard up for your cheap thrills that you have to live through someone as cloistered as I am, but considering my stellar existence upon this planet all I gotta say is you're welcome to live through my writings, opinions, tastes etc. all you want! There's more'n enough "life" to go around, so live on!) And if you think these reviews "read" strained, strange and outer-worldly it's only because of this hangover I'm experiencing at this very moment...exactly what the hangover is from I do not know (not having imbibed in any of the strong spirits for quite some time since I drank 'em all up long ago), but I sure got them Sunday afternoon sweats so kindly bear w/me pleeze...(and I thought Dave Lang's reviews were insipid!).

NOISETET OBSCURE-I reviewed (what I could make out of) a live cybercast by this avant/improv group a month or so
back, and in the course of that scribble I mentioned something along the lines of that I didn't think that this CD in question would come anywhere near what I witnessed that night (which, through my foggy memory, was nothing less than free jazz cum rock taken to its logical 2005 extremes w/o looking totally silly), and after eyeballing their appearance via an archived aboptv.com gig my opinions were merely strengthened given the extremely high energy music Noisetet seems to put out in these low-fi days, and with seemingly relative ease to boot. Naturally I was told that this CD was just as fine and dandy as what I got an eye/earfulla during their recent CBGB Lounge appearance, but after a number of spins of this disque I just gotta concur with my original feelings re. this Texas-transplanted-to-NYC aggregate. Believe me, nothing tops what I saw and heard that Sunday evening true, but man-oh-man this disque is still a very good encapsulation of exactly what Noisetet does, or at least what they could capture in a studio without the live immediacy of it all. It's jazz and even rock with a strange-to-me mid-eighties feel, almost sounding like something that woulda frequented the main stage at CBGB in 1985 amidst the hardcore, metal, pop, punk, gnu wave etc. acts that were frequenting the club at the time. However, even with a more current approach to their reason for being, Noistet have a strong early-sixties avant jazz style which, when mixed with Donny Silverman's "bent electronics," kinda makes the thing come off like something you wished Frank Zappa's rock meets Ornette jazz stylings of the early seventies woulda sounded like had the man not been as stuck-on-himself as he was. In fact, Noistet are quite enthralling as they take the early avant and mix it not only with early-seventies accomplishment (Miles Davis in his electronic phase) but eighties post-fusion and moderne electronics and turn the whole thing into a jazz rock masterpiece that can even border on the fringes of (at least BLOG TO COMM-sanctioned) punk concerns if your mind can comprehend that. The cover ("deconstruction?") of Eric Dolphy's "Hat and Beard" is something not to be missed. Anyway, despite the early reservations NOISETET OBSCURE is a must-have for those of you who still pay more'n a little lip service to the unmitigated pow'r of the jazz avant garde, something which still seems to be steamrollering itself across the land if the quality of acts such as Noistet and many others are any indication.

Sonic Liberation Front-ASHE A GO-GO (High Two, 7835 Devon St., Philadelphia PA 19118)-With a name like Sonic Liberation Front I had the idea that these guys were some sorta terrorist/music organization like the dolts in Missing Foundation (or their record label Purge Sound League for that matter) who helped set the stage for radical thrash and burn in the eighties with their "confrontational" politix that seemed to inspire a load of pompous "direct action" at the time which never made it other'n with like-minded commies who continue to congratulate themselves for all their daring public disobedience that never really did anything constructive (thank goodness!), but their hearts were in the right place so I guess it was OK anyway. Well, this Sonic Liberation Front ain't cut from the same political/radical cloth as all of those blood splatterers of the past, though their aural shift is pretty revolutionary in itself. These Sonic guys are a heady mix of mid-seventies NYC loft jazz with a more-than-generous dose of Afro/Cuban percussion and influence tossed in...and believe me, although this stuff may be too radical for one Mr. Fidel Castro to digest (well, I hear that, contrary to popular belief, Castro really hates people of African heritage which may turn him off to the "Afro" portion of the equation but still, I couldn't in a million years see him and his pal Che Guevara grooving to anything this wildly radical even with a Cuban beat to it while smoking their cigars and kicking up their feet after a hard day at the palace), it sure ain't gonna be hard for you the avant garde maniac to get this heavy jazz excursion into your system with its mix of deep, free, Roscoe Mitchell-esque tenor sax and the wall of percussion. Like the best efforts of the earlier Art Ensemble of Chicago, Sonic Liberation Front mix new jazz and third world forms and come up with something that ain't just yer garden-variety "World Music" blather but a whole lot more...guttural. Only the acoustic guitar/vocal track "Agua Dulce" ruins things...its kinda like if you had a real hot rock record with high-energy jamz and total abandon, and then for some reason they hadda go and stick an acoustic folkie track custom-made for the Joan Baez gang right inna middle! Still, for up-to-date avant/Cuban free-form jazz...where else can you go?

(An aside: both Noisetet and Sonic Liberation Front will be playing the CBGB Lounge in the not-so-distant future...check their Sunday and Wednesday evening "freestyle" schedule for exact dates and times. And given the, er, precarious situation that the CBGB "empire" finds itself in these days and how not only the main club but the performance spaces next door may be closing down due to the rent debacle that Hilly Kristal finds himself embroiled in (sources say no later than August), this may be your last chance to catch acts like Noisetet, Sonic Liberation Front, and hundreds more of varying stripes in this classic setting before CBGB joins Max's Kansas City and Club 82 amongst the fallen seventies rock zones that made up a hefty portion of that decade's underground swing and style. I gotta give CBGB credit for keeping the seventies alive (or at least the better aspects of the seventies) as long as they did, but if you want to catch underground (and overground) music in its purest habitat perhaps you better make the trip to the Bowery to catch it all before it's too late. [And, if you're a person o' pow'r and might and you think you can do something to help save this hoary haunt, just click here and see if you can put your influence to work!])

THE MORAY EELS EAT THE HOLY MODAL ROUNDERS (Water, PO Box 2907, San Francisco CA 94126)-As far as I can tell, here's the story...between playing together as the Holy Modal Rounders, the oft-volatle duo of Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber would engage in their own pet projects which have been documented in a whole buncha articles, most of which I obviously haven't read. The mid-sixties were rife with such solo excursions, and although the only one that I know of Weber engaging in was the hot garage-y number "Half a Mind" on the ESP EAST VILLAGE OTHER ELECTRIC NEWSPAPER sampler (the song makes a re-appearance here), at the same time Stampfel had been lending his talents to at least two punky propositions, the All Night Workers (of "Why Don't You Smile" fame) and the Moray Eels. Just how much of this record is Moray Eels and how much is the Rounders I dunno (supposedly longtime Stampfel galpal Antonia was the vocalist for the Eels while erstwhile Rounders John Wesley Annis, Richard Tyler and playwright [as every description of him feels free to point out so why should I be different?] Sam Shepard were also members of a sort), but this, like the equally skewered INDIAN WAR WHOOP, is a wild mix o' psychedelic rock (before the burnout aftermath took effect) and the early-sixties folkie spurt that still satiates even this far down the line especially considering just how many dumbos took this original impetus and watered it down to the point where all anyone w/brains could do was yawn. It's rock true, maybe even punk (though I'd love to hear Shepard's famed improvised punk rant that drew reviewer Patti Smith into his dark circle), and in many ways this kinda sounds like some of the street-level New York music that took to the stages of CBGB and Max's Kansas City in the mid-seventies long before the punk rules were, er, "tightened" a bit (which wouldn't surprise me since Stampfel's Unholy Modal Rounders [with ex-Leather Secrets chanteuse/Robert Mapplethorpe crony Camille O'Grady on vocals] played both haunts in the mid-seventies with Stampfel's appearance at the former club being sporadic ever since). Though exactly just how much of this record is Stampfel and how much Weber is open to debate...Weber seems to be hanging in the background and boy is his voice raspy! Favorite Stampfel cut: "Dame Fortune" which not-so-surprisingly reminds me of one of those early Patti Smith tracks before she had a drummer. Favorite Weber cut: "Half a Mind" even if it sounds better on the EAST VILLAGE OTHER album.

Shannon Jackson and the Decoding Society-STREET PRIEST (Moers Music)-Here's a guy who's had a career that seems to fit in (at least) w/my own concepts of "World Music" (that is, music that fits into my world of musical listening sensibilities)...a veteran of the mid-sixties jazz avant garde, Jackson not only managed to hitch up with Ornette Coleman and James "Blood" Ulmer just in time for the big harmelodic push of the late-seventies, but by 1980 was front and center for the big punk/jazz/funk/r&b scene then coalescing at clubs such as (where else but) CBGB thanks to the likes of such enlightened minds as James Chance and Bill Laswell telling ignorant white suburban kids that the free jazz trip was just as good as their new wave fantasies which sure meant a lot more to thick-skulls like me than hearing long-past-it hippies like Grace Slick say that ASCENSION was "Coltrane's acid trip" (yeah man!).

Jackson's group "The Decoding Society" was one of those "punk/funk" (for lack of a better term) acts that was frequently performing at CBGB during those kinda dark ages times, and I just gotta chuckle thinking about all of the hipster wannabes from outta town who were probably trekkin' to that famous hole inna ground thinking they were gonna be soaking up all the hot underground new wave bands at CB's acting cool along with all of the other stoned tourists out to see the latest flavor of the week, then coming face to face w/the over-the-top hot jazz/funk of the Society! dB records this ain't, but what it was was a pretty neat turn for both rock & roll and jazz to go in, and perhaps this was the real fruitation of all that jazz-meets-rock crossover stuff that got Lester Bangs more'n a bit frothy back when the seventies were clocking over into the eighties.

There've been a slew of Decoding Society albums issued throughout their lifespan and even I have a couple of them in their original vinyl form wallowing somewhere in my collection, but not this one. Recorded in Bremen West Germany back in '81, STREET PRIEST probably comes closest to what CBGB audiences were being bombarded with amidst the reams of other local acts coming and going throughout that underrated (as far as the good stuff went, at least) decade. In many ways this ain't the total post-no wave splatter one would expect (if one had only heard a good portion of that splatter...much needed offerings by the likes of such contemporary aggros as Phillip Wilson's Magic have remained unissued for years!) but fine straight-ahead avant garde that most of you scouring the situation had come across at least since the introduction of the electric bass to the form some time in the seventies. (By the way, one of the two bass players performing here's Melvin Gibbs, still a force on the NYC rock/jazz continuum who in fact played in a new aggregation with longtime scenester Elliot Sharp at CBGB last night called Raw Meet [no sic] in case you're interested.) Speaking of future names in music, Vernon Reid's guitar soars fine enough with the same jazz/rock riffage he would soon thrill millions with as a member of Living Colour only a few short years later. Really, this is a fantastic driving, moody, high energy freedom offering that I must admit sure soothes the savage boobies more than a lotta current rock product ever will, and if STREET PRIEST (at least to me) stands not only as a fine testament to early-eighties underground jazz concerns but early-eighties underground/CBGB stylings, well, I guess that's my problem. And its problems like this I wish I had more of rather'n the ones I'm stuck with, sugar!

The Necks-MUSIC FROM THE FEATURE FILM THE BOYS (ReR)-Although I have developed an aversion to Australians for some strange reason, I found myself getting hold of this new offering by an Australian free jazz trio perhaps because of the adhype appearing on various websites making comparisons between this bunch and none other than the Velvet Underground! And yeah, it's been years since the mention of the Velvets with regards to some modern musical act has made my mouth water like it used to (not counting worthy contemporary Japanese concerns, natch!), but given that the hypers in question were making Velvet refs with regards to the realms of freedom jazz, you could say that my interest was piqued a bit. Not that I thought the Necks were going to sound like, say, Tony Williams' Lifetime let alone that Universal Musical Force Wayne McGuire laid the groundwork for back in the late-sixties, but given the lack of fresh ideas no matter how old they may be I just hadda give this one a listen.

Given that this is supposed to be the soundtrack music for a film I wouldn't wanna see in a million years, I still like it despite being able to hear all the pretension that flick undoubtedly exudes. The Velvets refs can be heard through the neat repeato-riffage one can find on tracks such as "Headlights" (which has a Velvets via Suicide drone to it as well...and I sure wish that more avant garde jazz groups would take the Velvet credo to heart like the Necks do!), and when the usual cineematic "aht" isn't getting in the way this soundtrack can be pretty engaging in the fore or background for that matter. It's not as "jazz" as I understand their other releases are, but these Neck guys can do a pretty fine job of creating a moody, atmospheric music w/some Velvety worth...at least w/o coming off like a buncha STOOPS, that is.

Let's face it, the only way I would wanna go to Australia nowadays is with ax in hand, but while I'm burying the hatchet (hee!) I might as well check some of the music out. Dunno how the rest of the Necks reperatoire holds up, but this one's good enough even for a once in awhile spin and who knows, maybe they'll let me have my own boombox w/CD player while I'm serving life down under!

Turpentine Brothers-WE DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR GOOD TIMES (Alive c/o Bomp!, PO Box 7112, Burbank CA 91510)-Hmmm, can't find the hypesheet that came with this promo (y'see, I'm such a famous and well-respected rock scribe that record companies and people in general send me their product just so's they can read my opinions about 'em...pretty neat, eh?) so I'll have to wing it myself. Hmmmm...Alive records is Bomp's high energy division so I could expect something less pop and more MC5, right? Heavy organ brings back some Doors memories though I hear a lot more Hackamore Brick in the stew. The vocals are pure post-Morrison anyway. Nice '69/'70s cusp energy tricks here, sorta like the stuff Richard Robinson said was gonna be the top guns of the seventies scene and he was right, in a certain way. Amazing high-energy sound I haven't heard from a live/kicking group in quite some time, with the right touch of "garage" tossed in just so it doesn't go hippie on us. Drummer is actually a Turpentine sister as well! Some tracks like "Wastin' Time" seem to venture off towards more of a "boogie" direction but on the whole I found these Brothers (and "sister") to be a pretty enthralling batch. Just hope they don't milk whatever good they have done here for the next dozen releases to the point of meaningless like too many geeks who were discovered only after their initial pow'r surge had trickled into low-energy mewlings.

RETRO FANZINE REVIEW: ROCK MAG #'s 1 AND 2 (edited by Tim Ellison, and you can read a lot more of his writings by pressing here, but don't try ordering any of these issues from him because they're long gone!)

A few posts back I made a disparaging comment about the current state of fanzine affairs, a topic I've tackled not only on this blog but in various issues of my irregularly-published fanzine, and although yeah, even retrogarde I know that we're now living in a magical mystical era of cyberwhatziz and can get any goofball's stoopid comments as soon as said stoop types his bile up and slaps it on his own personalized blog ("Look Ma, my name in print!" just doesn't have the same zing to it as it did long ago!), but sheesh, I gotta say that I've enjoyed things a lot more in the past when the same sorta stoop would slap his inanities onto a sheet of paper and xerox the thing for a hundred or so equally doltish goofs to read in yet another fanzine attempt to glom some of those precious SST albums that label was tossing out to just about everybody back in those maybe not-so-glorious days. Well, perhaps the once-proliferation of crudzines ain't as noble a cause as it may seem...after all, my closet is filled with up to a thousand of these quickie ten-page paste-and-slop 'zines, a ridiculous term in itself (like, at one point it was decided that the honorary term "fanzine" was too outmoded and a reflection of some cubesville Sci-Fi past or something equally ridiculous, and now they were [taa-DAAH!] hot 'n modern 'zines instead!), and how could I forget all of the cheapie crankouts sent me throughout the late-eighties and nineties by FACTSHEET FIVE-glomming "publishers" hoping for a copy of my humongazoid mag in "exchange" for their ten-cent wares! Frankly, I wouldn't call those days any sorta sainted highpoint in the history of any fanzine development given all the unmitigated crudzines that were coming out left and right, and in some ways that may include earlier endeavors I've had the gall to unleash on an unsuspecting rock world so MAYBE I SHOULDN'T TALK!!!

Getting back into proper rockism gear, I've got to gushingly say that li'l ol' me has been lucky enough to have latched onto a few more fanzines from the real "Golden Age" (which roughly lasted from the date the first issue of WHO PUT THE BOMP came out until the last issue of GROOVE ASSOCIATES in 1983), mainly the first three issues of the should-be-legendary COMSTOCK LODE. As you could tell if you've pressed the highlighted fanzine title and read the review that ultimately popped up (scroll down a bit), COMSTOCK LODE was one of those typical intellecto British fanzines that not only dwelled plenty on the past whether it be San Fran psychedelia (even with a hefty emphasis on the much dreaded Dead axis) or peripheral garage rock faves with a little of the moderne late-seventies/early-eighties underground rumble thrown in just so's they didn't look like total hippies, and even with the strange balance between psychedelic and punk the mag sure reads a lot better'n such contemporaries as DARK STAR not to mention that all 'round hippie trip RELIX which took the hippie credo and ran with it all way to the Boone's Farm winery. Anyway, I got the first three issues of COMSTOCK LODE just recently and they're all pretty snat as well even with the hippoid leanings that fortunately didn't go overboard into the more tasteless aspects of the form. And given editor John Platt's love for then-current innovation, it's sure swell that this fanzine didn't topple into the same chasm of terminal hipness that plagued its competition which ended up down on the farm with the rest of the ol' fogies.

But what I want to talk about today is ROCK MAG a fanzine that was put out (and may still be put out at least one of these days) by budding rock scribe Tim Ellison. I gotta say that I foolishly missed out on the early issues of ROCK MAG (which eventually became MODERN ROCK MAGAZINE for aesthetic purposes) back when they were first thrust upon a fanzine-hungry populace in the early nineties mainly because at that time I was purposefully avoiding just about EVERYTHING that had anything to do with the then-current underground rock scene. Y'see, at that time it had finally sunk into my pithy brain as to just how vapid a lotta this new rock banging had become despite deluding myself that there was some sorta connection between late-seventies innovation (no wave, local garage rock...) and then-current indie music, and by this late date it eventually dawned on me that all these new underground bands were doing was merely rehashing and rechanneling innovation of the previous thirty years to the point where it only seemed of themselves and nobody else, lacking any of the original putsch and impetus that one could find in even some early-seventies low-budget recording made by a buncha German punks who at least swiped from the big guns w/gusto yet came off pretty unique and entertaining in the process. This anti-current rock bias still exists (as even a casual tour of this blog would attest to), and without a doubt it was back in the early-nineties when my mad desire to hear just about EVERY proto-punk offering of worth (at the expense of current quap) went into high gear with my savings account being emptied into the coffers of the likes of Forced Exposure in exchange for just about every early-seventies vintage reissued 140-gram vinyl offering where the words "garage" or "Velvet Underground" appeared in its description.

But as for ROCK MAG, I didn't get hold of any copies of this 'un until the late-nineties, and only at the urging of a man who proclaims to be a fan of both that mag and the one that I publish on occasion. And I gotta say that when I finally read the thing (after much prodding) I thought it was pretty OK (which would be a change considering the low quality of many fanzines of the nineties), especially since for once in that sorry decade there seemed to be a magazine (and rock scribe) that straddled the various lines of punkism and intellectualism w/o any resultant storm fronts colliding into a tsunami I sure could do without. There had been similar attempts at writing about music considered to be dolt-inspiring by many with airs of philosophy major smarts tossed in...Russell Desmond and his epochal CAN'T BUY A THRILL comes to mind as does a good portion of the published work of Richard Meltzer, but seeing such writing coming from an upstart outta nowhere like Ellison was a fizzy relief, especially in light of the humongous hot "rock critic" turds birthed outta the ass of Robert Christgau we hadda dodge during those not-so-halcyon days.

Being outta print for quite some time it was sure fine and dandy latching onto these early issues of ROCK MAG. While not the fulfilling rock thrill the later issues could be, these embryonic pamphlets were sure fine as far as early starts go and in fact put a lotta other debut issues of certain fanzine endeavors (esp. the first attempt I made on a lost weekend in '85) flat out in crudzine territory. These "digest" issues are similar to the rest of the ROCK MAG run ('cept for that one "regular-sized" ish I reviewed in #25 of my own missive), and as far as these mags goe, they are pretty snat as far as delivering on the rockism goods that seem in such short supply as the years dwindle on and on from the original hard core root of it all.

The cover of the debut ROCK MAG features the guitar player from Larry and the Bluenotes (probably snatched from that issue of KICKS which made some joke about that group engaging in a "hold your breath the longest" contest in the caption), and on the inside you get a lotta good obscuro writing that takes me back to the days (mid/late-eighties) when I'd pour over xeroxed copies of Meltzer's uninhibited waxings that CRAWDADDY! and FUSION had the smarts to publish, analysing every word and ellipsed phrase as if it were a piece of well-crafted creative writing in itself. Questions re. rock as s**t/colors (good white/black analogies that recall Lisa Robinson's appraisal of New York rock in the mid-seventies as being monochrome, and in a good way) are tossed at you with a surprising accuracy and if your mind can't handle all of the philosophical tracts being shot out of Ellison's word-processor then welcome to the club...even I (no total dummy by a short stretch of the imagination!) have some trouble wading through the majestic thickness of Ellison's early scribings but I gotta say that it's sure a lot more FUN slipping inside Ellison's house that it was for me figuring out Bertrand Russell and Jean Paul Sartre in philosophy class (no beret and cigarette holder for me). Of course you get the obligatory reviews of the then-current altie/under/sideways/down stuff that never stood the test of the next week let alone eternity, but I guess there's an audience for this stuff...somewhere. Back cover snap of Paul McCartney in butch cut (probably pilfered from the WHAT A SHAME MARY JANE boot) foreshadows future McCartney idolatry to appear within the span of a half-decade.

Number 2 (a number 2 that I like the smell of!) continues on the high path of brain-scrambled quality that began with the debut, with a tome on minimalism that even reaches the pure heights of punk/intellectualism that's espoused by the likes of Wayne McGuire as well as a piece on "Cartoon Music" (complete w/a pic of the Archies) which ends with the brilliant summation "CARTOONS HEREIN AS REDUCTION RATHER THAN DETAIL PROLIFERATION"...comes close to a similar cartoon to real life axiom once uttered by VON LMO! (Great minds orbit the same planet.) The "highlight" of this issue is an interview with the Candy Apples who on first impression seem like just another one of the latest youth bands to roll out of the refurbished garage (there were so many of these groups over the past few decades sullying whatever mid-Amerigan gunch garage rock had come to mean), only this group looks like they might have had at least 25% on the ball (some intelligence in their answers) which would put them 25% ahead of the competition. Of course we also get the various altie reviews that I tend to ignore unless Ellison's reviewing something w/hefty sixties and seventies references (or some old reissue/repackaging), but you've come to expect that from me over the years. (Tho I did read and enjoy the Ruins review, but maybe that's only because they came recommended to me via a mention on Eddie Flowers' Slippytown website...thus the seventies tastemode connection that always seems to come up w/regards to my personal likes and dislikes.)

After all's said/done these two issues of ROCK MAG are honest-to-goodness pretty noble starts on a rock writing career that maybe did end up in a dead-end rut (I mean, what else would you call being a featured writer for THE VILLAGE VOICE alongsides such ne'er do wells as Frank Kogan and Chuck Eddy???), but at least we still have the guy's blog to enjoy, and perhaps there will be another MODERN ROCK MAGAZINE to peruse in the future, even if it is the distant future. Until then, try getting hold of whatever ROCK MAG/MODERN ROCK MAGAZINE back issues you can. Tim used to have a website where you can buy 'em but it seems to have been shut down. Write him at timellison@cox.net and see what happens.

SCENES FROM THE PRIVATE LIFE OF DAVE LANG

As faithful (and faithless) readers of this blog know, there has been a load of half-truths, distortions and outright lies levied against me by one Dave Lang, an antipodean mental midgie who frequents his own blog sight which goes under the nom-de-puke Lexicon Devil (send him hate mail). In the post in question, which masqueraded as a review of the latest issue of my maybe not-so-infamous BLACK TO COMM fanzine, Dave rattled off a lot of rather controversial opines about me and although our hero said he was "trying to make a point" with what he wrote, once you get down to it what was spewed from the fingertips of the gushy one was nothing more than a lowly attempt to smear and ruin a faithful friend (one who gave him price breaks and words of encouragement despite my better nature) just because it seemed the best politically expedient thing to do. Dave may believe that he was "doing his readers a service" when he wrote that post, but the truth of the matter is Dave was merely trying to grind my face into the dirt by stating various pseudo-items pertaining to me (way) out of context and twisto-changing the facts in order to suit his perverted desire to see me grovel in my own vomit. And no matter how much he may deny it ("...oh yeah, I've just called you a racist/sexist/homophobe [ed. note-not that I particularly care, but et tu, Lang?] and all of those sins against the great mass of people and have probably killed a few hundred magazine orders for you in the process, but maybe we can still be friends..."), Dave's big game plan wasn't anything close to passing for honest criticism or even a great chomp and run away like Meltzer used to do...it was plain ol' defamation and hatescreed that more or less reminds me of all the tricks and ploys that members of the chic literary/political left use against renegades who ever-so-slightly deviated from the norm, in the process doing their best to get their victims to don the old plastic bag over head and cash it in at the Big Casino (remember what happened to Jerzy Koscinski, a solid leftoid true, who got more than the cold-shoulder from his former comrats for seeing through the John Henry Abbott scam way back before Abbott ended up offing some PBS kidshow actor in a roughneck bar...well, it is fitting seeing these all-encompassing types preying on each other like they do!).

Well, since Lang was so eager to spew forth things about me and my personal habits/lifestyle, maybe I should feel fit to do the same thing about him. As it turns out, someone's told me more about the man whose personal life we also know so very little about, though for the sake of not hurting anyone's feelings I'm not going to mention just what Lang does for a living. I don't know why he would be embarrassed, even though such laws must be far more lax in Australia than they are here in the good ol' US of Whoa. So here are just a few things I've found out about Dave that I'm sure you (the enquiring blogschpieler) would love to know. Please don't send me any laundry bills for puke-stained shirts or extra-skidded underwear (if possible, read on toilet):

In order to prove to himself that he's NOT a racist as well as purge guilt-ridden feelings about his violence and venom-laden Ulster Scots upbringing/ancestry (which would explain a lot of the pure hatred Lang oozes for certain non-protected classes), Lang once gave ten humm jobs to various aboriginies in a single hour, a record in Australia and maybe the world.

Given his various cinematic scribings, it's no surprise that Lang yearned to be the technical advisor for SALO.

On Valentine's Day, Dave sends personalized scratch-n-sniff cards to Jay Hinman.

Dave likes the smell of his number two.

Even though not a drummer, a common nickname of Dave's is "rim shot."

After fifteen years in the "Real World" (TRANSLATION: the space between the various record shops and counseling centers Dave inhabits), Lexidev has come to the conclusion that "the common man is a brainless slob" which would either prove that perhaps Dave himself is (shudder!) "common," or maybe that any philosophical beliefs on his part would have been perfectly copasetic had Dave been operating in any elitist German university of his choosing sometime in the twenties and thirties. (Though believe it or not but Lang's ancestors really did come from Scotland despite the kraut surname, which I think is great...for krauts worried about being related to this walking piece of non-viable life, that is.)

Next planned article for PERFECT SOUND FOREVER to be ten-thousand- word essay on the cokeball in Neil Young's nose spotted in THE LAST WALTZ.

Oh yeah, he does believe in the Yeti.

Dave was given an award from the Australian branch of the Hemlock Society after it was found out that reading his March 7, 2005 post to the terminally ill leads to a quicker death (though w/o the much-ballyhooed "dignity") than the withdrawl of various life-support systems. Future revised editions of the FUNK AND WAGNALLS DICTIONARY have arranged to print this particular post under the entry "insipid."

Dave likes the smell of his number two.

And there you have it, Dave-in-a-nutshell, or bring me a malignant polyp and I'll bring you Dave Lang. And he sure as shooting continues to exist unlike his fabled unicorn head, his mere life being a big thorn in the side to not only my own personal existence, but generally good rock writing in general which seems in such short supply these days. He is a prime pud, and the sooner he takes his pretentious writing and supposedly spot-on tastes with him to the grave the better for all of us. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my li'l April Fool's post (and could you think of a better fool to ransack?)...next time I be serious.

CD REVIEW: MY SOLID GROUND-SWF SESSIONS + BONUS ALBUM CD (Long Hair, or try Forced Exposure)

One CD that has been getting hefty evening pre-ANDY GRIFFITH/LEAVE IT TO BEAVER spinnage here at BLOG TO COMM central has been the MY SOLID GROUND reissue that came out on the Second Battle label eight years back. A German band of a decidedly non-krautrock variety, My Solid Ground (led by guitarist Bernhard Rendel, who was a mere fourteen when he formed My Solid Ground three smackin' years before their 1971 album was unleashed on an unsuspecting Euroscene thanks to the uberhip Bacillus label) were the kinda band that lesser minds might categorize as being a little, er, confused about their place in the rock & roll panthenon. On one hand they had the early-seventies progchops down pretty pat, with a heavy emphasis on the Pink Floyd of MEDDLE with perhaps a sidestep into early King Crimson and others of that snooty ilk, yet on the other they sounded like your typical and dare-I-say archetypical early seventies metallic punk garageburners! And yes, I have imagined that there were plenty of kidz around in those days who were mixing and matching the influences left and right and some of 'em probably had some pretty hotcha bands as well (well, I remember going to flea markets in the mid-seventies with used bins that sported albums by Yes, the Mothers of Invention, Black Sabbath, the Stooges and Lou Reed which would bear my opinions out), but it's kinda weird (in fact, neat!) hearing an early seventies band go from dense, mellotron-laden prog-thud on one track (like elpee opener "Dirty Yellow Mist") to hard-metal blast on "Flash Part IV," even going as far as to mix both prog headiness and punk doltisms at the same time like is evident on a track such as "The Executioner," and best of all not come off looking like a buncha gazoons for doing so. A group that perhaps only Tim Ellison could understand, and although you could say that maybe the Pink Fairies were doing the exact same thing at pretty much the exact same time on their first album (witness the Floydian "Heavenly Man," not to mention the early take on late-seventies British class snarl "Teenage Rebel"), they never had the audacity to mix and match influences within the same tune! (The My Solid Ground/Pink Fairies comparisons may be inevitable, given all of the cartoony pink pigs w/genitals [!] appearing all over the cover and gatefold.) If I can think of any other groups at the time who may have been tangling with progressive and punk forms entwined and at relatively the same stratum. perhaps Mitch Easter and Peter Holsapple's Rittenhouse Square would fill the bill (tales of how they performed Yes' "Yours is no Disgrace" filled the pages of a Winston-Salem scene history that appeared in KICKS #1 of all places!) although their sole album does not show any particular progressive moves, or overtly punky ones for that matter. Anyway, for a good explanation as to what this really is all about, just press here for somebody else's worthy views.

For those who can't get enough of My Solid Ground (or other early seventies German garage wonders like Ainigma, Siloah and a few more confused souls not sure whether they wanna be ELP or ? and the Mysterians), there's this relatively new (2001) CD you might wanna listen to if your Teutonic tendencies tip towards the crunchier aspects of the form. Taken from a June '71 session for Radio Bremen, these four non-LP instrumental tracks really don't sound that much like anything on the elpee and in fact come off more like the hip/jiver aspects of early-seventies Amerigan pop straddlin' somewhere between the time the garage bands stopped having hits and New York Rock Critics began discovering Talking Heads. I'm talking garage rock void of the Velvets/Detroit magic that spawned bands as distinct as Rocket From the Tombs and Umela Hmota...more or less the hard post-psych crank that for some reason reminds me of Sugar Loaf and the kinda rock groups that used to make the music for R-rated "now" movies. Alice Cooper used to get into this chicanery on their early albums yet it didn't bother me...so did Zappa and even Tim Buckley come to think of it and they came out OK more or less, but if you want to experience similar late-sixties popmodes via Europrog wannabes, then you know enough to get hold of this disque. Nothing repulsive mind you, but these sessions are far from the utter tromp of their lonesome longplayer that had people bidding well into the three digits on many an auction for years on end (at least after this stuff started getting pushed on a trend-hungry listening audience thanks to everyone from the Freeman Brothers to perhaps even Julian Cope himself!). I must say I do find it somewhat enjoyable like I do various early-seventies metallic modes, but it really pales next to then-contemporary hard rock endeavors whether they be from Les Rallizes Denudes or the Hampton Grease Band for that matter.

The remainder of the CD's taken over by an album's worth of tracks recorded by a now-mid-aged Rendel in his home studio during the autumn of '01, and (without batting an eye) I know that you're thinking that this is ONCE AGAIN THE CASE OF SOME POTBELLIED BOZO SUFFERING FROM A CASE OF MID-LIFE CRISIS TRYING TO RE-LIVE PAST GLORIES IN HIS BASEMENT PLAYING ALL THE INSTRUMENTS AND RELEASING THE TRIPE IN ORDER TO CON HIMSELF INTO BELIEVING HE'S STILL "RELEVANT" and you'd be right as usual. Only this mid-aged fanabla did it right for a change, and ironies of ironies it's this part of the CD that comes closer to the My Solid Ground album than the radio sessions! Tasteful, tense and (best of all) totally void of any studio session slime slapped onto an unsuspecting public by some cult figure of dubious origin, Rendel came up with a mild winner this time! Despite the overabundant use of electronics and the usual home-studio gimmickry it still sounds sweet enough to my ears which is saying a lot, and even though I know this CD's gonna get tossed into the low-circulation pile once I get my fill of it in a day or two, I gotta fess up that Rendel sure did a better job at reliving past glories than way too many elderly progrocksnitches both of worth and not. A halfway decent surprise, and you may like the old stuff as well.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FANZINES GONE?

Good question, since I've been kinda won'drin' myself. Y'see, there was a time in my life when fanzines were pretty much a huge hunkerin' part of my rock & roll lifeblood just as much as getting hold of some hot independently-produced single by an underground fave felt like a deed most worthy of heavenly reward (this being long before the "indie" mania of the eighties and beyond changed the beast into a slightly-different character that seemed unrecognizable to me even a decade after the original oomph!). And as you would guess, these self-published wonders were just what the doctor ordered especially in a world soon to be overrun with mediocrity masquerading as alternative innovation...with fanzines, you didn't have to cut through the chaff to get to your faverave underground bands (who at the time were so infinitely superior to the relatively soft schmooze that was supposed to "speak to/for you and your generation")...all you hadda do was just open up the things and readreadREAD on about some group that seemed to have all of the smart moves and concepts rolled into a fine package custom-made for your suburban dumboid lifestyle living vicariously through the exploits of the latest Velvet Underground to come down the punkwave chute. While the mainstream magazines may have had "it" (in pure Clara Bow-speak) some of the time, it was pretty much GUARANTEED that the fanzines, even the lowlier "crudzines" of the day, had it ALL of the time and given that the likes of Christopher Cross and Robin Trower were the big guns while the likes of the Zantees and Fleshtones hadda struggle to keep their heads above water, what more could ya ask for?

Natch'ly those days are long-gone, pretty much killed off not only from scores of subpar "alternative" acts taking the innovation of the sixties/seventies and watering it down for mass consumption (or so they dream), but mostly by the advent of internet where just about anyone can flog on about just about any group no matter how unprepared for public consumption (at least to the audience they may be aimed at) they are or, for that matter, how decidedly non-jamz they continue to be. Oh well, things gotta change (or so I've been told), but there are a few things out there that have changed in my life that I sure miss all them years later! Such as the proliferation of fanzines along the lines of KICKS, SHAKIN' STREET GAZETTE, DENIM DELINQUENT, LIVING EYE and others who used to make my trips to the mailbox such an exhilarating experience. It may be a reflection of my so-called miserable existence, but such activities as seeking out new and exciting fanzines was something that truly fluttered my putter back in them days, along with being able to turn on a television and find some great boss fiftles TV show or flick custom-made for my doofus existence, that is.

Enough reminiscing...anyway, there are a few fanzines out there still cranking out the good stuff even in these post-post-POST rockism days...UGLY THINGS naturally comes to mind as does DAGGER even though I can't really comprehend a good deal of the music Tim Hinely has an undying affinity for, but that's my hang-up. These magazines (and a few more...will there ever be a new MODERN ROCK MAGAZINE heading our way???) seem to be part of the same dying prairie that now houses a few hoary old buffalos in a field once swarming with the critters, and true, you could say that this is the natural chain of events and that the music and people who have supported these sounds have skeedaddled off to the Old Rockism Home long ago, but frankly a stubborn soul such as I refuses to take this new capitulation lying down! So let me predict in pure Criswell fashion that there will be a rebirth in the rock fanzine idiom (just as there has been in SciFi and comic book fandom in recent years), and you and I will be witness to this new rebirth in underground rock adoration! Mark this date...July 16, 2007!

Until that fateful day comes, here's a little-heralded fanzine for you to get your grubby paws on. I've had copies of BACK OF A CAR (c/o Judith Beeman, #4636 MPO, Vancouver BC, CANADA V6B 4A1) for a couple years already, but it suddenly dawned on me that I never wrote about 'em in my entire career, or if I had it was probably in issues #22 or 23 and I never re-read those 'uns unless really hard up for toilet material. But I gotta say that I really enjoy BOAC not only because it's such a nice fanzine to settle down with after a hard day at the salt mines, but it's one of the few fanzines out there that reminds me of the cool and breezy personal style (meaning, editor/writer Judith Beeman and her contributors talk to you in the best fanzine tradition) that one could even find in early-seventies college paper rock criticism before it all seemed to go down the hole only to be replaced by immature hackery and pseudo-intellectual nada about one step above your typical snake-oil shill hyping up the rubes.

As you may guess from the title, this fanzine is devoted to the likes of one Alex Chilton and his endeavors (especially early-seventies underground wonders Big Star), and even though I'm only a peripheral fan of Alex and his friends which is something that would probably have Beeman sending me a Unabomber parcel if she only knew (though I will admit that LIKE FLIES ON SHERBERT remains a classic late-seventies underground/punk landmark amidst all my other faves of the time-period), even with the hefty Chilton/Bell/Stephens coverage I really can attach to BOAC strictly because it is so seventies even in an oh-ohs world that I don't have to flinch thinking about the next assault on my tastes/values like I hadda do with too many decadent (in the worst eighties/nineties fashion) 'zines of recent years.

Besides being a great writer, Beeman's a fantastic cartoon fan and the comix that various contributors have delineated (some written by her) for BOAC sure beat the fertilizer outta the stuff that I've scribbled for early issues of my own 'zoon...believe me, KICKOUT D. JAMZ let alone RATS REAGAN (cartoon mouse patterned on Ignatz I did age 13 or so, one gross example [dealing with EC-styled decay!] having been printed in a now o.p. back issue) really pale next to the guffaw-laden works that appear in BOAC's pages. And not only that, but the writing that shows up here is top-notch apex-level material that seems to have been all but wooshed away by a lotta the bottom-feeding musings that have been appearing in magazines and on the web over the past umpteen years. Couple that with the needed reprints not only from rock mags but the funny pages (!) and a great layout/printjob, and you've got something you kinda wish more people knew about only they won't because all of these "big guns" out there are in the back pockets of some of the worst ideas/creeds to come down the pike since the rash of "__________"-core groups of the previous decade that the entire battery of rock critics out there couldn't convince me to listen to in a million years!

My fave of these issues just hasta be #4, the "seventies" one and for obvious reasons natch! With "Barney and Mike" of CREEM-fame on the cover, this one's got it all onna ball and even tops CIMMARRON WEEKEND's CREEM ish a few years back complete with an in-depth interview with "Barney and Mike" creator Bob Wilson, not to mention snat ad/review reprints (like the METAL MACHINE MUSIC page with Ed Ward, Lester Bangs and "Cyborg QX38" giving their impressions of Lou Reed's masterpiece not forgetting POP WIRE's "Chest-O-Rama" contest), plus there are a lotta great 'toons dealing with the seventies muzak scene as experienced by current Canadian cartoonies and hottest of all some DENIM DELINQUENT news (keeping with the "Canadian Content") complete with the Kim Fowley article originally published in #5 as well as editor Jymn Parrett's Gene Pitney sketch eventually printed in 16 magazine of all places! I especially dug the cartoon on the back cover about Beeman's own experiences as a Bay City Rollers-loving teen walking down the streets of Vancouver inna middle part of that sainted decade getting psychically razzed by some tuff guy and his bra-less galpal EVEN THOUGH SHE WASN'T EVEN WEARING ANY SORTA BAY CITY ROLLERS PARAPHRENALIA AT ALL!!! I guess they just thought she was a fan because she was a teenager, but boy did that experience ruin her day! Well, I certainly can understand being ridiculed for things ya just hafta believe in!!!

I forgot to tell you that #5 comes with a Chris Bell flexidisc (which I haven't played yet not only because even my substitute turntable did an 86 but I'm too anal-retentive to tear the thing outta my mag), plus I got a buncha CDs from Beeman that I can't find though I'll be giving those a spin when I have an occasion to search 'em out. As for you, dear reader, you can be manly enough to tear out the flexi and keep track of your digital wares after writing to the above address and latching onto your own copies of these modern-day wonders. And once I get down to it, I guess I like BOAC the same way I like the Velvet Underground and all those seventies fanzines and archival digs of all sorts of long-gone things because frankly, I'm old-fashioned! So get me my rocking chair and shawl and call me Whistler's Mother...I'm gonna go give SISTER LOVERS a spin right now!

THE KONKS CD (Bomp!)

Has it been twenty years already? I sure remember those days, the days of The Garage Band Revival that first swept across the US of A and then the world with groups in every suburban studebaker-hut bashing out three/two/one/no-chord crunchers and putting their wondrous inaptitude to vinyl complete with neat picture sleeves that looked really boss in record collections stuck next to the original artyfacts of worth (which was the idea in the first place...if you couldn't be the Count Five the Primates would certainly do!). And who could forget all of the big-gun name groups on the scene from the top-notch Chesterfield Kings (a band that always seems to be looked down upon by the uber-humans in rockcritsnoblogland these days, so I guess I'm only showing my slob-like tastes in coming out saying I LIKE 'em!) to the Lyres and Fuzztones (a group I always used to think were a buncha watered-downs, but nowadays they come off a lot more snat in twenty-year hindsight than Henry Rollins' tiresome outbursts eventually did), and if you don't think that there were guys a-plenty across the fruity plain dressing in page-boys and balloon-y Bob Dylan shirts and gals in mini-skirts and chains and bracelets galore doing all the Shindig dances while a small minority of kids were acting L-7 to the strains of John Cougar and the rest of Chuck Eddy-approved "It's mainstream and bland so it MUST be GOOD cuz all them kids making their own records and printing their own fanzines and putting on their own shows are such LAZY blights upon the fine prarie of rock & roll righteousness unlike the mallbong America youth grooving to Lou Gramm..." Well, like I SAID before going off on that well-meaning tangent, if you think that the youth of the eighties took to the wild and untamed sounds of Garagebomp USA 'stead of "classic rock" schmooze...then you'd be wrong, as usual!

Face it, the eighties were the drekkiest decade to grace this planet of ours, and they were so ba-ad w/regards to high energy jamz that believe-it-or-not but the early-seventies of Cat Stevens and Melanie looked pretty enticing in comparison! At least we had Iggy and early heavy metal and something to look forward to (mainly the late-seventies of punk and fun!) back then, but what was there to look forward to in the eighties anyway? Nirvana and REM having hits??? And maybe that's what made the six-oh revival pretty keen in the light of the boring non-jamz going down then. Hardcore was fizzling out just like its main inspiration heavy metal had a decade earlier. The remnants of what was mid/late-seventies punk/new wave sounded pretty tame and 360 degree turnaround from earlier accomplishment, and what was worse was that the good bands who survived the late-seventies nova (Velveteen, MX-80 Sound...) were either dormant or getting shoved under the rug in favor of...Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam???

So yeah, the eighties were turdsville, but at least there were a few things there to keep high energy USA/Earth from slashing its collective throat...things like Greg Prevost, Billy Miller and Miriam Linna, HERE TIS and best of all there was GREG SHAW telling us about all the great groups (old and new) and records to spend our well-begged money on. Boy did I envy Shaw, who made his dough just sitting around the house and listening to records and tapes and deciding who to sign to one of his marvelous labels, and to put the frosting on the glands he just hadda go and open up his own showcase (The Cavern Club) for the best in the revivalism bunch. And true, this particular endeavor sunk like the most cliched stone you could find but then again I'd rank the efforts of Shaw from the sixties on to have been a lot more healthier for the fate of rock & roll than anything Jann Wenner could have come up with, dontcha think?

And what's best about it is that Greg Shaw is more meaningful in death than Dave Lang is alive, especially since his glorious Bomp! label is cranking 'em out at a fantastic pace and has been doing it for thirty years already which I think is crazy considering the odds against doing things GOOD and gettin' away with it, especially these days. And one thing that I'm sure got Shaw a pass through the Pearly Gates last year is this new release by some group outta nowhere called the Konks. And konked they are...just take a look at the yeti on the cover and tell me these guys aren't ready for the monkey cage at the zoo! And they play like a buncha yetis as well...sorta like the feh Cheater Slicks only much better because they don't sound like a mockery of the music they claim to love. They also don't sound like the truly tiresome who just sounded like retreads of hoary old Sonics/Seeds/Stooges riffs run into the ground (all the while the band members pat themselves on the back congradulating themselves for taking part in such a "meaningful experience")...naw, these guys sound like TOTAL TRASH like in mentally-challenged thugs 1961 meet 1966 doofs at the Grande Ballroom in 1968 as they ponder the significance of the Pagans. Complete with the cheap guitar sale $29.99 sound that Jonathan Richman so eloquently bellowed about.

I could make some big city critic comparisons about how the Konks sound like group "x" getting sodomized by group "y" in group "z"'s hot tub, but this ain't THE VILLAGE VOICE. But man, the primal tone of this one is nice enough, sorta reminiscent of a lotta the rock cum blues cum rockabilly yobsters of the past twenty years who got tangled up in many an indie label fishnet and usually ended up totally obscuresville for all their efforts. Gotta admit that I haven't been playing many of those past wonders as of late and I don't know just how much I'll be spinning the Konks in the future, but for now I'd say they were a better garage-oriented time-passer worthy of your collection than whatever the usual challenged ones out there in real-life rock critic land seem to be putsching at you these days, and maybe if I paid attention to what was being praised to the hilt out there (Little Steven merely bores) I could come up with a snappier ending to this review than I have, but gee ain't I a lazy turd!

BBQ-TIE YOUR NOOSE CD (Bomp!)

Hey, whadja know...rock & roll rootier than Canada Dry's polar bear! And what's best about it is that this rock & roll is a one-man band affair! Yes, believe it or not but BBQ is the work of one soul, a soul going by the name of Mark Sultan who sounds like your typical four-man garage band whether they be from 1959 ("C'mon And Love Me") or 1966 ("Outta My Mind"), but whatever, Sultan does it all by himself and I ain't talkin' Eric Carmen either! It's all pretty good garage-a-billy cum BACK FROM THE SCUM fun that doesn't sound like a re-think via some 40/5-year hindsight but music being made by some TRUE FAN and not just another trust-fund kiddie trying to pass time between various "cultural milestones" in his life. To put it bluntly, this is a nice racket that coulda been one of those discs Beaver got when he joined that record club oh-so long ago!

LES RALLIZES DENUDES 1976-1994 DVD-R

Let's face it, if you hate mid-seventies garage primitivism, atonal blasts of pure white noise feedback, Jimi Hendrix-inspired guitar twist, Velvet Underground riff/drone, general high-energy jamz, terroristic usage of light and sound coupled with a hefty dose of unbridled pure mania unseen in the rock & roll world for a longer time than you (or even I) can imagine, then you're really gonna hate this DVD.

Avid readers of this blog are well aware of the praise and homage I have heaped upon this truly "cult" band, a bunch so unbelievably pure with regards to their mission and execution of beyond-hard rock norms (over a period of almost thirty years!) and under very clandestine wraps to boot that the stale term "cult" doesn't even start to describe Les Rallizes Denudes' whole reason for being. Formed in the mad rush of Japanese college-level dissent and protest during the fall of 1967 and performing from early '68 until the mid-nineties, Les Rallizes Denudes (or, actually, leader/free-guitarist Mizutani + whomever else) were a band who've unleashed an incredibly high-energy (in pure BACK DOOR MAN-speak) pow'r surge music on the few lucky enough to get hold of this wail first hand complete with a blinding light show that had fanz within eye and even ear-shot comparing these malcontents to everything from the EPI-period Velvets to early San Francisco thud-bomp (Blue Cheer...). Couple all that with a legendary outlaw/radical bent (alleged Japanese Red Army involvement with a former member somehow tied up with a hijacking to North Korea that Mizutani was even asked to participate in!) and you've got yourself one walloping huge hunka Japanese rock & roll history to contend with. A verifiable cross twixt the early-Velvet Underground, Deviants and VON LMO, and a group so enveloping in their mysticism that (as you'd guess) even the obviously Denudes-inspired produce that came out in their wake like LSD March and "acolytes" Up Tight may come close, but I'm not doling out any cigars yet...

Anyhoo, this DVD-R features (what at least I would call) mandatory Denudes material taken from a coupla sources. The first clip's from an August, 1976 appearance at something called the Sunset Glow Festival, an outdoor thingie that looks just like every other outdoor thingie you've seen via your own personal seventies rock VCR/DVD archive for years on end. Y'know, a one-camera set-up job which moves in and out from the stage focusing on various aspects of the show including (beside the on-stage goings on) the audience and the sky for that matter. Quality is very good, and here the Denudes kinda look like a Japanese variation on the Real Kids or some other American garage band upstarts around the same time with long hair (this being just-pre-Sex Pistols anti-hippie credo) only they're all Japanese with the drummer wearing a mask that looks like it was made from a training bra while the group do one of their signature songs, the one with the obvious fifties beat whose title I forget. Like I said, good sound and overall quality though the whole thing just ends "like that" after eight or so minutes.

Flashing forward to 1994, we now see the Denudes (or actually Mizutani with the rest of the group hidden beneath the fog and amidst the stroboscopic effect) in one of their last incarnations courtesy of a pair of clandestine videotapers who edited their results into a halfway-decent two-camera effort that makes YOU just as much a part of the audience (meaning, you get to see a buncha back of heads!) as the brave souls who taped this! Mizutani's hair's shorter now, more or less in a 1965 Beatles flop and he's now clad in leather like someone's idea of a fifties rocker, and what's amazing about the whole thing is that the music, even that far down the line, is pretty much the same in style and overall scronk as it was twenty years earlier! Yes, while many other bands had "improved" their sound as time went on and "evolved," usually into some polished, taste-laden outfit maybe you and definitely I could care less about, Les Rallize Denudes remained steadfastly primitive and unreconstructively raw! As usual, the backing band lays down their basic riff somehow derived from hoary old Velvet ideals, while Mizutani grabs the mic Johnny Thunders-style and sings in his usually moany, quasi hoarse way before latching onto his axe and emitting some of the most extreme all-over feedback guitar I've heard since VON LMO, or at least when Lou Reed stopped playing his white-noise cantatas whenever the Velvets (make the Lou) quit being avant garde. And it can get pretty out-there as well, almost to the point of post-eruption pure unrelenting solid screech like on the twentysome-minute-long traditional show closer "The Last One" which at times can make even you (like it did your humble reviewer) actually simulate a hallucinogenic experience akin to being there, and being about as dosed as I'm sure Mizutani was. In fact, coupled with the extreme stroboscopic light show (which I'll assume is also a leftover from the band's early days when they tried to simulate the Warhol/'Frisco experience with blinding lights and reflective balls giving off an effect certainly not "in-tune" with the usual peace-'n-flowers vibes o' the times...in fact, I wonder if this sorta aural/visual chicanery's what the ultra-legendary band Man Ray had in mind with their planned monochrome set up!), this DVD can send you into mental realms only Brion Gysin could explain. Not recommended for epileptics.

Another interesting surprise...amidst the sonic screech and repeato-rock, Mizutani actually picks up a HARMONICA for about thirty seconds of some post-Dylan play that's out of tune at times, but a lot better'n Crocus Behemoth's great duncework on Pere Ubu's deconstructive cover of the Seeds' "Pushing Too Hard." Not as obtrusive as when he picks up this Firebird and starts screeching and playing it totally oblivious to the patented tape-loop riff the rest of the group's laying down.

It's pretty neat getting hold of these video documents from downright punkazoid faves whom I never thought I'd glom all my born days. I mean, if ya'd asked me twenny years back whether I'd ever experience seeing the MC5 or Stooges via the small screen (let alone stuff from the likes of the NUGGETS bands, who I thought would remain locked up in Dick Clark's vault forever...) I probably woulda thought "feh!" But nowadays it's like this stuff is coming outta the woodwork and at a rate so fast that even the most studious collector probably couldn't keep up with the backlog. Whatever, I think it's fantab that I got a DVD of this in my collection to refer to again and again, and who knows, perhaps this is yet another start of the archival dig into other classic proto/avant-punk vaults for similar wares I never thought even existed in the first place. I know that there's just gotta be a whole load more video rarities to be unleashed one of these days, and although I'm not exactly gonna be holding my bowels until it does come out (the videos, that is), I got the strange and tingling feeling that there are gonna be a lot more goodies of similar intent winging their ways to our stinky boudoirs within a relatively short time. Dunno about you, but I'm impatient.

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SUNDAY MARCH 20
7pm - Chris Kelsey, Dom Minasi, Francois Grillot
8pm - Earth People
9:30pm - Billy Mintz Two Bass Band
11pm - Jean-Francois Pauvros, Ernie Brooks, Jonathan Kane,
Peter Zummo

SUNDAY MARCH 27
7pm - Reuben Radding, Stephen Gauci, Reut Regev, Todd Capp
8pm - Taylor Ho Bynum, Kwaku Kwaakye Obeng, Joe Morris
9pm - Imaginary Folk: Jessica Pavone, Amie Weiss,
Brandon Seabrook, Peter Evans
10PM - Ben Gerstein Collective: Ben Gerstein, Jacob Sacks,
Dave Binney, Thomas Morgan, Dan Weiss, Eivind Opsvik,
Jacob Garchik

SUNDAY APRIL 3
7pm - Reuben Radding, Sayuri Goto, Federico Ughi, Daniel Carter
8:30pm - Henry Warner, Billy Bang, William Parker, Rashid Bakr
10pm - Steve Backowski & Ravi Padmanabha

WEDNESDAY APRIL 6
9pm - Roy Cambell, Francois Grillot, Dee Pop
10pm - Jon Lunbom & Big Five Chord: Jon Irabagon, Bryan Murray, Moppa Elliott, and Andrew Bain

SUNDAY APRIL 10
7pm - Clay Jenkins, Dave Scott, Jeff Hirshfield, Lew Scott
8pm - Maryanne Deprophetis, Masa Kamaguchi, Ron Horton,
Tom Beckham
9pm - Ralph Alessi, Chris Dingham

WEDNESDAY APRIL 13
8pm - Moppa Elliot Group
9pm - John Savage, Curtis Fowlkes, JD Parran, Rob Garcia,
Kevin Ray

SUNDAY APRIL 17
7pm - Blarvuster: Matt Welch, Jackson Moore, Karen Waltuch,
Ed Kasparek, Mike Pride
8pm - Ehran Elisha Ensemble
9pm - Michael Evans, Peter Zummo, Evan Gallagher, Michael Attias, Adam Lane, Jeff Hudgins

WEDNESDAY APRIL 20
8pm - Andrew Rathbun
9pm - Steve Lehman & Kevin O’Neil
10pm - David Crowell Group

SUNDAY APRIL 24
7pm - TBA
8pm - James Finn & Warren Smith
9pm - Sonic Openings Under Pressure: Patrick Brennan, Hill Greene, David Pleasant

WEDNESDAY APRIL 27
8pm - Monika Heideman
9pm - Dom Minasi Trio w/Ken Filiano Jackson Krall
10pm - Jason Hwang, Taylor Ho Bynum, Andrew Drury, Ken Filiano

SUNDAY MAY 1
7pm - Talat: Matt Shulman, Marc Mommaas, Matt Pavolka, Jordan Perlson, Daniel Carter, Alonso
8pm - Tom Abbs Group
9pm - Mario Pavone, Angie Sanchez, Tony Malaby, Kevin Norton
(2 sets)

WEDNESDAY MAY 4
Gunther Hampel
Moon Pool - Eric Person, Mark Puricelli, Gene Torres, Jim Payne

SUNDAY MAY 8
7:30pm - Hanuman Ensemble: Andy Haas, Don Fiorino, David Gould, Mia Theodoratus, Dee Pop, Matt Heyner
9pm - Jackelope: John Abercrombie, Bob Meyer, Loren Stillman

WEDNESDAY MAY 11
The Music Now Unit +1: Ras Moshe, Raphe Malik, Jackson Krall, Matt Heyner.
Burton Greene - Roy Campbell Quartet w/Adam Lane & Lou Grassi
Sabir Mateen Group

SUNDAY MAY 15
7pm - Peter VanHuffel, Kris Davis, Jeff Davis, Terry McManus

WEDNESDAY MAY 18
Nate Wooley, Matt Moran, Reuben Radding, Tatsuya Nakatani
Ken Filiano, Steve Swell, Thomas Ulrich, Jackson Krall

SUNDAY MAY 22
7PM - OKIOK: Kyoko Kitamura, Khabu Young, Mike McGinnis
8pm - Chris Lightcap Quartet (2 sets)

WEDNESDAY MAY 25
Dan Dechellis, Reuben Radding, Dee Pop

SUNDAY MAY 29
7pm - May Halvorsen & Jessica Pavone
8pm - Bruce Eisenbeil & Katsu Itakura
9pm - DARCY JAMES ARGUE'S SECRET SOCIETY
Featuring: Erica Von Kleist, Rob Wilkerson, Joel Frahm, Sam Sadigursky, Frank Basile, Ingrid Jensen, Dave Smith, John Chudoba, Tom Goehring, Dave Rezek, Marshall Gilkes, Mike Fahie, Mark Patterson, Max Siegel, Sebastian Noelle, Mike Holober, Fraser Hollins, Jon Wikan

WEDNESDAY JUNE 1
Eastern Seaboard w/ Brent Bagwell, Seth Nanaa & Jordan Schranz

SUNDAY JUNE 5
7:00pm: Joe Giardullo, Dee Pop, Reuben Radding
8:30pm: Steve Lehman, Eric McPherson, Matt Brewer
10:00pm: Curtis Hasselbring, Mat Maneri, Matt Moran, Satoshi Takeishi

JUNE 12
Briggan Krauss

JUNE 19
7:30pm Mary Halvorson, Jessica Pavone, Brian Chase, Matt Welch, Jason Cady
9pm - Ralph Alessi, Tim Berne, Mark Helias, Shane Endsley, Will Jennings (2 sets)

Wednesday June 29
Joe Giardullo, Ken Filiano, Dee Pop

SUNDAY JULY 17
Matana Roberts Clarinet Choir

SUNDAY JUNE 26
Andrew Lamb,Tom Abbs, Warren Smith

SUNDAY JULY 17
Steve Lehman Quintet

All SHOWS $10 for entire evening

aboptv.com!

No, I haven't forsaken the wily ways of rock & roll for improv avant garde jazz YET, but gosh-all-darn if there's a whole lotta this NEW (translation: stuff happening in the here-and-now, and not faded memories of past high-energy accomplishment) and totally zoned-in music out there in "buy me!" land that actually SPEAKS TO ME w/o me having to make any sacrifices or concessions w/regards to my, er, acquired tastes. Avant garde jazz/improv/what-have-you is (at least in my universe) perhaps the only currently-functioning music to really take my inner-psyche (to get hippie about it!) for a challenging ride, and with "underground rock" having long turned into an overground sham (with the exceptions of a slew of groups you will read about on my blog and perhaps ONLY on my blog!) having branched out into a hundred or so weak tributaries from a once-mighty roaring Mississippi, and with other strains of aural vibration sounding just as tiddlywink as you always suspected they did (folk etc.), maybe the freestyle thing is the only trip there is for high-energy jamz these days, at least until enough rock & roll groups get their acts together and create a new generation of punkisms that will equal or even surpass the hard-drive root of it all!

Anyway, besides tuning into the CBGB Lounge on Sunday evenings for some of this stuff as it's live and happening, another place to get an avant fix is through aboptv.com, a neato new site where you can actually download and watch some fantastic archived performances by some of the best of the new (and old) improvisers out there in jazzland, and for a guy who's been perusing these sounds for nigh on twenny-five years it's a real gas to actually see these legendary (and not-so, at least for now) big-names in a little pond more or less performing rather'n hafta imagine what it looks like in your bean, and imagine it all wrong for that matter. Aboptv's the brainkiddie of Albey Balgochian, not only a member of the fantastic Noistet but the current bassist for none other than Cecil Taylor himself, and the man oughta be commended for his toil in bringing you these rarities that...I dunno about you, but I'm sure glad are easily enough available and with a few mere clicks of a mouse to boot!

It may take awhile for the program to eventually download (I suggest that you start downloading, then take a long bath, or perhaps talk on the phone for a few hours or go shopping then come back), but when it does you not only get a clear picture w/o any of the usual buffering stops, but an exciting piece of performance that's not only aurally, but visually stimulating. So far I've watched two of 'em, the first being a trio version of Noisetet featuring Donny Silverman not only playing some great post-bop on sax and flute but twiddling with something called "bent electronics" (and they do sound "bent," eliciting strange whirrs and piano-like sounds with the mere twist of knobs!), David Phelps on sub-stratum guitar and Brian Sebastian playing free drums and gongs that look like pots and pans strung up and rattled with mallets! Amazing stuff. (BTW, a review of their CD is forthcoming, as soon as I properly digest the thing so's I can give the platter its proper dues and not just rush out some idiotic hackspew in order to "be the first on my block.") Fine, as was the quartet led by reknown pianist Burton Greene (who has been making appearances at the CBGB Lounge which is cool given his legendary status of the utmost importance!) and flugelhornist Roy Campbell. This one was a hoot to watch, not only because of the fantastic seventies loft-styled whirr they mixed up, but it's wild watching Greene playing all over the keys throwing in a bitta the French Natl. Anthem amongst other hoary old melodic and atonal treats, making comments and crazed facial expressions at the audience, and swiveling around on his piano stool and kicking up his feet just like another audience member as Campbell did his thing...wow! Believe me, even if you're not that much of a fan of this jazzstream (or any jazzstream for that matter) you'll enjoy watching this 'un!

With kicks getting even harder to find these days than they were after the great post-punk collapse of the early-eighties, it's grand to have a site like aboptv.com available and for FREE (at least for now...who knows what the future holds!) which suits a po' boy like me just fine considering just how all this high-energy, soul-pounding music has had such a hard time funnelling down to me all these years! C'mon, you know that there's much more to life than the latest "KBD" sampler and CD retrospective of some icky group you didn't even bother to pay attention to back when they were alive and kicking!

NOISETET, LIVE AT THE CBGB LOUNGE 3/6/05

Hey, there was SOUND last night! Plus the cybercast only stopped and kicked me off once every ten minutes (with length of time diminishing as the kickoffs proceeded throughout the evening), and I could actually see the figures MOVING for a good portion of the show, so things really weren't that bad as far as my oft-glitched cyberviewing went, unless you wanna count the fact that Don Fellman called me up towards the beginning of Noisetet's set. But we didn't talk that long, and in fact I even let him listen in because when it comes to unmitigated sonic blast Don can be a bit of a doofus. He thought one musical phrase on the trumpet sounded like the opening of "Wild Thing."

Anyway, these Texans transplanted to New York put up a pretty fine avantstew that seems to be in such shortage these days. (Sounded like Earth People w/o the peace tendencies!) Noisetet, a group I would surmise is co-led by Danny Silverman and Brian Sebastian (forget which instruments they play) put up a wild sonic miasma that seemed to straddle jazz and rock concerns, reminding me at one point of various Miles Davis scrunch effects a la "He Loved Him Madly" (or other pre-simp fusionisms a la Lifetime) run into an AACM (or better yet, BAG) radical jazz mindset that always seemed to appeal to me even though it shut off everyone around me faster than a spigot. And toss in a tad of underground rock credo (not alternative/new music etc.) and you had one pretty good example of something at least I can become obsessed about these days given that the thrills just keep getting harder to come by as we drift further and further from the core of it all.

Anyhow, Noisetet consisted (at least last night) of an electric guitarist, trumpeter, upright bassist, a guy who I think alternated between a keyboard and alto sax (if anyone out there is "in the know" please include me amongst the enlightened!) and drummer, accompanied by two femme dancers in front of the stage doing what looked like the Grateful Dead dance o' ecstasy. The sounds emitted by this aggregate were beautifully feral...dark, majestic strains of sonic shard complete with great post-Murray drumming, restrained-yet-out gtr playing and of course the horns/keys, the trumpet coming close to various late-sixties Ornette endeavors all coagulated together by some great arco bass playing.

The final minutes of the show were the best, as Noisetet built themselves up into a frenzied coda complete with the saxist playing what I think was a theremin on the brink of annihilation or perhaps a sick stylophone, sorta giving an effect akin to winding up a balsa wood airplane then letting it soar! The whole thing reminded me of a lotta classic heavy metal epiphanies with those total-eruption endings which they copped off the avant garde anyway, so it's sorta like the originators taking the idea from the folks who ripped 'em off in the first place!

Hope this show was recorded for "posterity" (I sure wouldn't mind hearing it again!), and although I ordered the Noisetet CD which should be arriving in the mail one of these weeks I don't think it's gonna come anywhere near what I witnessed last night. Another group on the avant garde treadmill to give a listen to before they go the way of all those others who sorta slipped through the cracks while talents of lesser stature gobbled up all the glory (which you already know...).