Last Sacrifice-"Acid Rain Dance"/"Suspended" 45

While preparing a post of a greatly larger than usual scale (that is, unless I edit out all the wordy flack that seems to bog down too much of my scribings), I thought I'd toss this little gem of a review regarding a long-lost and unfortunately forgotten single (and personal fave) atcha. Anyway, does anybody out there remember this killer-diller of a seven-inch 33 rpm single (with over ten minutes of music?) from the wilds of Boston which got unleashed on an already-oversaturated underground market way back in 1986? From what I can make out, these Last Sacrifice guys were early-eighties remnants of the local scene who may or may not have still been together when this bombshell was released, and as far as I can remember (from various local mentions and a review in CONFLICT!) the fact that this disc was so power-packed came as a total surprise given the band's less-than-stellar live reputation! (I may be distorting things from a 20-year-memory hindsight, so don't hit me if I'm wrong!) Anyway (at least for me) this dark horse definitely was one of the better singles to creep out of the mid-eighties underground along with Tarba's (or whatever they were called!) "Candle On The Water" which nobody else remembers either but if I were some crafty bootlegger doing a PEBBLES/KILLED BY DEATH-styled sampler collecting my fave mid-eighties self-made wonders. you can betcha bottom dollar that BOTH of these platters would be appearing on my disc front and center alongsides such other classics by Halo of Flies and a few other winners who just happen to hold up more than a lotta the comparative pus that got circulated back then.

Like "Candle," "Acid Rain Dance" was a pounder that, albeit rooted in the contemporary underground scene for all the good or bad that may imply, eschewed a lotta the growing cliches of the various movements of the day and borrowed heavily from early-seventies hard rock. Maybe the strains of early Alice Cooper could be discerned here, though (as Chuck Eddy noted in his old CREEM METAL ROCK 'N ROLL column!) I would more or less say it was WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT that had Last Sacrifice copping the most riffage which in lieu of my admonitions of just how the VU have degenerated into twee-fodder must prove that this single was perhaps the last honest appraisal of that particular elpee with regards to rock as energy before it ALL degenerated into nada! Certainly a subject matter I wish one Wayne McGuire would weigh in on given his past appraisals of the Boston underground, but until he comes out from hiding please do attempt hear it for yourself (if you can---and don't look at me...my tape deck's been broken for five years!).

However the flipside's an even better deal, a totally unexpected wowzer that adds an even deeper, totally powerful mystery to the whole shebang. Basically an electronic piece mixing elements of early Roxy Music, Suicide, The Deviants' "Nothing Man" and even then-contemporary UK sissy electronic acts without the posturing, the throbbing drone of "Suspended" still zones me out two decades later which is more than I can say about the instantly disposable mush that came out of the indie scene directly following the brief rebirth of underground credo in the mid-eighties. Amidst the tribal drums and synthetic baroque-derived strains, "Suspended" will continue to have you wondering...not only about the music itself but whether or not this song is "pro" or "anti" (God, Satan?), both, or maybe neither??? Whatever it is (and whatever conclusion you may come to), "Suspended" continues to hold interest like all good, energy-packed music does, reminding me of none-other-than Kongress at least as they would've sounded in some non-guitar lineup (shades of "Space Savior") perhaps in the early-eighties when they were playing "New Musik For The End Of The World."

And speaking of Kongress, here's a link to a great story on future Kongress vocalist Geofrey Crozier's 1967 Australian band the Magic Word complete with two songs that were taken straight from some old acetate even though you could never tell considering their clarity! (Praise be to Aaron Goldberg for the tip!) Fans of not only Kongress but 1967 psychedelic rock will certainly want to hear these tunes which sound like the typical British art-mod pop of the day only with an uncharacteristic-yet-not-unheard-of-for-the-times Velvet Underground riff/drone which makes me ponder a whole lot because in Australia the Velvets were such an unknown entity that there was even another group there using the same handle sans any knowledge of the original ones operating above the equator! I'm sure that the "influence" must have been a coincidence, or perhaps the mystical Crozier had some sorta psychic osmosis with regards to what Lou Reed and Co. were up to! Whatever, between these songs and the tracks you can pick up on Otto von Ruggins' website you'll be in for quite a listening experience that'll send you back to those thrilling days of yesteryear when high energy, no-holds-barred rock music like this was EXPECTED and not just a once-in-awhile treat!

BLOG TO COMM REVIEWS THE COMPETITION!

Back in the "old days" when we underground rock aficionados (and assorted other fruitcakes of varying stripes) were allegedly in the throes of some great "fanzine revival" of sorts (albeit I never saw any special rewards for my own efforts during this period in time...go figure!), I used to peruse as many of the new offerings being made available via this "fanzine circuit" as I could stand. Now I gotta admit that some of these home-made magazines were pretty good reads in their own great amateurish way, but frankly most of these "efforts" (if you can call 'em that!) were strictly grade-z dullsville and in fact a few of 'em were downright abysmal! After being "influenced" by the great, no-holds-barred and definitely NON-PC rants you could see in a variety of now-forgotten fanzines of the past (which I will name as this post proceeds) this new generation of self-publishing that I guess was big enough that even the big mags took notice certainly came off weak, but since people who stapled three pages of their photocopied bile passing as honest appraisals of whatever flavor of the week music act was making waves were sending their wares in exchange for my, er, more professional endeavors, what else could I do but give 'em a read (before throwing the things away, that is???).

Well, since those maybe not-so-halcyon days the fanzine generation has more or less been replaced by the (taa-DAAH!) blog generation, and frankly it ain't no surprise seeing that a good hulking portion of nineties fanzine scene remnants are currently a part of the world-wide blogscene here in the oh-ohs. But what exactly are you getting when you click on your personal PC and go surfing amidst the ever-growing list of these aforementioned blogs out there in "notice me" land anyway? You KNOW what you're in store for when you tune this particular faverave in (mainly no-hold-barred high energy appraisals of ALL things deemed noteworthy with regards to your funfunFUN existence whether it be music, comics, mad obsessions...) but do you really get the same stellar quality in writing and information on alla those OTHER blogs like you get from trustworthy me? Rather than have you dear readers find out the HARD, STONE COLD TRUTH for yourselves, I've decided to peruse what some might call the competition and report to you my findings just so's you all can rest your pretty little heads and not have to fret over wasting your time searching out other rockism-oriented reads in order to help soothe your savage boobies.

AGONY SHORTHAND-Some of you readers may think I have a bee in my bonnet about not only this particular blog, but its "creator" who goes by the moniker Jay Hinman. Well, you readers certainly are astute. Yes, Jay has said some pretty vile, unsubstantiated and downright nasty things about me and egged on his legion of toadies who follow his every butt-drip with regards to spreading some unproven (and never will be!) falsehoods about myself, my tastes and my personal life based on some gross exaggerations I'll be mentioning later on, but somehow I just can't fault the guy. After all, being an "intern" for the flaming drug-hazed socialists at SOUND CHOICE would have a dangerous impact on a young and impressionable brain such as Jay's, and it's pretty obvious that Hinman's stay with this "legendary" OP spinoff has warped him to the point of no return. This might be the reason the man sports what could be called a strange left-leaning libertarianism that seems to mirror the current direction that the folks at REASON magazine has been heading in as of late, which might be one reason that this self-confessed libertarian (myself, that is) is more and more being drawn over to the paleo-conservative philosophizing going on at CHRONICLES (a mag and site tipped off to me by none other'n Russell Desmond of CAN'T BUY A THRILL fame, who even contributed some articles to it back in the late-eighties!), who at least know enough that you don't have to pal around with the ACLU-types and tie-dyed hippies even if you don't care for the current state of governmental concerns.

But Jay's political beliefs (no matter how wobbly) and personal attacks aside, what can I say about his blog anyway? Well, it is a popular one from what I can gather, with other sites linking it up and people from across the sphere leaving more comments than I can find on just about any other blog of note. But after reading a good portion of the thing, I can only mutter a hearty "why???" At times the guy hits it on the head with a few entries that I find not only readable but (believe-it-or-not) informative, but most of the time Jay seems to be rotating in his own orbit somewhere in the alternative/indie solar system, wanking on and on about a variety of acts (as of late: Scratch Acid and the unrepentingly socialist Ex) amongst a slew of others I've written off as watered-down shucks sometime in the late-80s/early-90s when it finally sunk into my bean as to just how yawn-inspiring these bands were when compared with the un-diluted form they allegedly were replacing. OK, that's where Jay comes from and he has every right to rah-rah his amerindie faves just like I have every right to divulge of my undying fandom for the likes of the Velvet Underground and DENIM DELINQUENT fanzine. However, Jay DOESN'T have the right to lambaste me as a "hypocrite" (popular left-wing admonition usually spouted by people who are dictionary definitions of the term) for doing the exact same thing with my faves that he does with his...mainly champion 'em and help egg people onto buying their wares thus boosting their status in some vague realm of an underground market of sorts.

But as far as when Mr. H does break from his norm to write about music that has been playing my soundtrack for a good many years...well, as the flittery Patrick Amory once said, he "lazes out double." A recent review of The Velvet Underground's WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT was not only such a waste of bytes re-re-rehashing points and stabs of esoterica originally presented by much-greater minds the likes of Wayne McGuire back when the thing originally came out, but it also reminded me about just how far this record, which was originally championed by only the most forward-thinking rockist mindsets of the sixties and used as a template for some of the best music to come out of the seventies, has dribbled down to the most twee of musically-inclined lamebrains here in the mid oh-ohs. Not that I would consider Hinman part of that cadre, far from that, but sheesh, reading his gosh-it-all scribing applied to one of my faves (a record which thrilled me to feral heights during my original teenaged listening sessions) makes me want to give WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT a loooooong rest after that damning with faint praise. And face it, a good hefty portion, nay, at least 99% of what does appear on this blog just makes me realize that all of the good and still readable material that popped up in his SUPERDOPE fanzine (oh excuse me...'zine since the term "fanzine" was tres-outre at the time!) wasn't even written by him but by erstwhile contributors Grady Runyan and Jon Behar, the former out of the music scene for all I know and the latter promising his own blog for what now seems like eons. And come to think of it, the fact that Hinman named his blog after a Flesheaters song has totally weaned my off that band with a pickle! Hey Jay, if you REALLY wanna rankle my ire and make sure my pleasurable musical listening days are RUINED for good, just write something positive about all the BLOG TO COMM faves and I'll guarantee you that I'll NEVER listen to or write about another note of music again!!!

But maybe I shouldn't be that hard on the guy even though he seems like the total wuss what with a wife and kid and a job/life straight out of some Peter Bagge comic. Like Fredric Wertham said about even the lowliest crudzine, there may be something of worth in there somewhere, and I'm sure that if you comb through AGONY SHORTHAND's massive archives you might find something an average BLOG TO COMM reader would want to learn about. Of course you'll have to fight your way through hundreds of posts on such lightweights as Mission of Burma and Come mixed in with the obligatory c&w and black music posts which are presented just so's Hinman can come off multicultural and all, but they even found a few good people in Sodom and you just might find a few good reads therein as well.

LEXICON DEVIL-Hoo boy, what else can I say about this living fart personified? Here I go, being so aw-shucks innocent enough as to actually THINK that old Dave here was a true-blue dyed-in-the-wool and whatever other hackneyed cliche you can come up with fan of me and my magazine, sending him mags and tapes while actually honoring his supposedly valued opinions on things both music-related and not, and what does the ol' sphincter go 'n do? None other than write up some big hate-filled screed attacking me and my mag for a slew of modern-day group-sins like racism (yeah, especially with all that racist avant garde jazz coverage I've given over the years), sexism (which makes me wonder what part of the body Dave's wife whips him with) and homophobia (which I never thought was a sin, at least compared with the rampant homophilia that's all the rage these days) but that was long ago. I'm still mad about it, not only because once you get down to it I don't think Dave would be any more of a "man" about these things than I am (though I dunno, since he might come off like that liberal white bunsnitch in some R. Crumb comic who, when being murdered by a gang of blacks, can only mutter "I can understand where you guys are coming from"), but because getting the "Et Tu Brute" treatment from him dragging up old feuds of the past (re. the YOUR FLESH flack which he purposefully misrepresented) and all that crap on his part really stung. And after all that brouhaha, the dil still doesn't get it as to why I was totally unhinged by his betrayal! Dave, since you're always mentioning just how the "fire will never go out" in my mind all I have to retort is...why should it?

But enough fun reminiscences. As for his blog, I gotta say that it's perhaps even more golly-gee than Jay Hinman's, with the usual mix of moderne fluff I saw as the shuck it was long ago mixed with the usual affirmative action picks which do seem suspect because I can never in a million years see such a nimnul as Dave cozying up to the likes of Mary Lou Williams (who he probably discovered only after reading a review of an LP of hers in BLACK TO COMM #25 anyway) other than to look "all-inclusive" or some other modern-day hogwash. However, unlike Hinman's at-times misguided yet perhaps entertaining entries, Dave cannot transcend his fanboy appreciation of whatever music be it punk, heavy metal, artrock etc. coming off much worse than a typical mid-teen just discovering the joy-de-vivre of it all. At least I can find plenty of high-energy jamz in the writings of the more fannish, teenage fanzine scribing of the seventies such as that of Greg Prevost's in the old FUTURE, but Dave's entire style and swagger (if you can call it that) just seems to me like one long misfire being written by some aspiring dweeb down in the Antipodes who wants everybody to like him while the bigtime alternative powers that be're laughing behind poor Dave's back and he don't even know it! Frankly, I'd graduated from that sorry state of "please like me!" around 1991 or so (maybe earlier) when I told more'n a few turdballs out there to take a hike, but I guess Dave is stuck in this sad state of adolescent fandom aspiration and what can we do?

At least the boy isn't posting as much as he used to, though right when I get all excited thinking that Dave has done the most honorable thing he could and hung himself the marsupial either posts a silly retort on some site or enters another useless entry on his blog usually regarding some disc we've heard about for years on end that he swiped from his brother! If Australians were any real sort of he-men they'd capture this great menace to their national pride and treat him with the same care and handling that their forefathers used to give to rabbits. I dunno, but I wouldn't mind a Dave Lang pelt hanging on my wall...howzbout yours???

LUNATIC'S ASYLUM-I was a bit wary of Jack Dee from his associations (read: frequent posting of comments) with the two aforementioned blogs, but since he never said anything nasty 'bout me that I can at least trace (other'n I repeat myself too often...hisssss!) I'll give him a pass this once. Anyway, I wrote up LUNATIC'S ASYLUM in one of my own posts earlier this years and after all these months all I gotta say is...the thing is pretty nice. Good even. You can tell from my exuberance that I really like this one...not only is LUNATIC'S ASYLUM one of the more picturesque blogs extant but Dee's writing and tastes are, as the British would say, spot on. Well, there are a few things (actually, many) Dee rallies round that I dunno if I'd sample inna million years, but I like it when he raves about long-forgotten albums and recent musical discoveries and believe-you-me this computer whiz even includes mp3's for people who are into things like that. Sometimes it seems like years twixt posts, but as Benjamin Franklin said "Good things come to those who wait," or was it Alfred E. Neuman? Either way, this one should win awards for SOMETHING if they ever get around to having Grammys or Emmys or whatever for blogs.

MUSIC CHAMBER-I gotta admit that I like Tim Ellison a lot. It's funny, because I'm not always 100% behind the music that he goes the whole 100 yards for like Klaatu or Franz Ferdinand, and sometimes his musical "jags" can look silly (like when he gets on his progressive rock high horse and does the old Chuck Eddy "It's square and popular so maybe I can get some notice by plugging it over whatever 'hip' stuff is big with the unwashed collegiates out there!" rant), but I like him nonetheless. Sorta like the way I like George W. Bush...I mean, I disagree with both of them a lot (Tim for some of the above musical ramblings and Bush for ignoring a true paleo-conservative/libertarian/anarchist direction this sick nation could've gone in, instead favoring a neo-conservative dribbling that only make him more of a middle-of-the-roadkill than he'll EVER admit or realize), but I kinda get mad when they're both being lambasted, Tim by relatively worthless know-it-alls and Bush by ultra-left chic post-Yohannonesque Stalin-worshippers. I get that way sometimes.

Anyway Tim's MUSIC CHAMBER blog is something that fans of him and his old ROCK MAG fanzoon really could use, though I gotta say that the entire affair needs...something MORE??? Like maybe more reviews and in-depth musings, longer posts and less of these lists which seem to permeate the thing. Many of the non-list posts are too brief as well, consisting of quickie commentary on whatever slice of musical esoterica Tim may whip up for our approval. Of course he'll link up an on-line piece of his for our benefit and I really liked it when he was posting old Richard Meltzer reviews, but frankly a rockism-inclined info-hound like myself wants much more and I gotta say that the Meltzer revisits only make me hungry. Hey Tim, how about more mega-articles, pix, insights on musical beings past and present and maybe even a little more FREQUENCY in the very near future???

THE NEXT BIG THING-Lindsay Hutton's another fave o' mine ever since I've heard all of the rant/rave about his fanzine entitled what else but THE NEXT BIG THING way back in the early days of the eighties. Here was a mag, one of the few in fact that lasted into the eighties which continued that hard-edged gonzoid style/tradition started by the likes of BACK DOOR MAN, DENIM DELINQUENT and FLASH way back in the early/mid seventies, and although Lindsay and I have had our own scrapes and scuffles o'er the years (which I think might have been brought about by personal factors going on in both our lives, though I don't wanna be another Dave Lang and blab a whole lotta misinformation) it ain't like any of us held a grudge against each other. Maybe that's because, in my own corny Pennsylvanian fashion I really dig the man for his down-home and fun-loving ways. I mean, I may rib him about haggis and blood pudding, but he sure seems to take it all in stride!

Anyway Lindsay's blog is one of the tops, with a buncha contributors like Jeroen Vedder and some other guy named Hutton (no relation) in there somewhere joining in the fray, and frankly for a good source of not only the latest in relevant entertainment news (like when some tee-vee star of the past dies---they never interrupt programming for important stuff like that) or maybe even news of a reissue or archival proto-punk dig of worth, you can't beat THE NEXT BIG THING. You may wanna beat some sense into Lindsay especially when he gets on his left-wing anti-American political soapbox, but given he's living in the middle of the People's Republic of Scotland where the peasantry expects grants and monies of all sorts from the ruling class and I understand the homosexuality rates are even higher than those in New York, San Francisco, Denmark and the restrooms at the Canfield Fairgrounds what would YOU figure? Maybe Hutton still cherishes his old-timey punk days and proudly displays his Crass badges and spiky 'do whilst walking down the streets. Maybe not. I really shouldn't pick on the guy, should I??? Heeza nice people.

THE STASH DAUBER-Why did I ever hook up with this guy??? Sure, promises of in-depth reviews with Detroit rock greats and lengthy long-distance calls detailing all sortsa interesting factoids did seem tasty back in 1997, but after all was said and done here all I can say is...whatta puss! If you like reading boring vignettes regarding some pushing-fifty's strictly dungeon life (complete with recipes of wifey's faves and all-too-brief [maybe that should read thankfully-brief] writeups on local musicbiz wannabes) all I can say is GO FOR IT, but really, if this thing had anything to do with the high-energy music its author purports to endorse then you need a microscope to find it. In retrospect I'm glad the guy jettisoned himself outta my mag and my life and may he find a peaceful and fulfilling life ahead of him in the drunk tank of his choice.

Naturally there are a whole slew of rock- (and other)-oriented blogs out there you'll probably wanna know about but I didn't write 'em up since I'm not familiar with 'em despite a looksee or two. (I am familiar with the above ones not only because I want to see what else is going on in this rock world of ours, but I want to see what nasty things are being said about me!) Anyway, these blogs're getting a pass...FOR NOW that is, but really, who knows which way this free-wheeling machine gun of a post will tilt in the coming months? As they used to say...duck!

O-Type-WESTERN CLASSICS CD (Family Vineyard)

The MX-80 family of fine underground rockism has sure been busy as of late, what with their now-controversial WE'RE AN AMERICAN BAND CD being unavailable for export and whatnot, and for a buncha old geezers I guess these guys are doing a lot better than I would expect folks their age (late fifties!) to be doing at this time (mainly, looking for WORK!). Unfortunately, not all of the maniacal jazz/rock/metal-fusion that's being pounded out of the same creative pool that gave us past classics by Chinaboise not to mention those great Ralph-era albums remains...take this new O-Type spinoff CD f'rinstance. Now I've been a upfront and center fan of this Bruce Anderson/Dale Sophiea MX-80 side-project ever since I heard their first (and currently unavailable) cassette tape when it came out back during those best/worst of times days (1986 to be exact), and although their subsequent offerings have been what you would call intriguing, nice, listenable yet somehow pushed to the back of the collection I couldn't say that they were useless. It's just that what I liked in MX-80 (Sound), the variety of side-projects of theirs I've heard and their various seventies/eighties recordings perhaps didn't translate very well into my music listening parameters here in the mid-oh-ohs. Artists grow in their musical developments and so do listeners, and although said performing acts may still have many of the same qualities now that they had two decades back, somewhere down the line paths crossed to the point of irreconcilable differences where specific portions of their style and procedure just don't mesh with whatever it is that I'm looking for when I want to do a little carpe diem myself.

This new CD is evident of that...WESTERN CLASSICS is a pleasant, well-constructed and maybe even enjoyable release (featuring what I assume are reworkings of film scores in the inimitable MX-80 fashion though since I don't think I saw any of the films in question I can't tell you), but there seems to be nothing here that really zones me to heights of rabid devotion that used to have me blabbing the MX-80 name to anyone who'd dare stand still for a minute. To me, it's pretty much toned-down and watered-over O-Type that, like I said, is listener-friendly enough yet has more than a little of the original metallic zooomph missing, a shame since it's that very joy de atonality that made Anderson/Sophiea et. al. such titans in an already-swelling pool of musical creativity back in the late-seventies. If you are interested in hearing these two longtime standbys at their unmitigated peak may I recommend the original MX-80 Sound numbers recorded before the arrival of Rich Stim and Dave Mahoney that ended up not only on the DAS LOVE BOOT CD collection of instrumental MX-80 recordings but the still easily-obtainable BLOOMINGTON ONE sampler from 1975 where the Anderson/Sophiea duo plus drummers sound about as un-hinged and as uncorrupted by current technoglitches as they'll ever be.

For those of you who think I've lost my bonkers by writing what could be called a rather negative review of one of my favorite avant-rock aggregations (a review which still doesn't give an in-depth description of the sounds included as one would hope for---maybe because I feel so disoriented and dejected like I've just come from an ether party after listening to this thing) consider this...at least I didn't review the new CD by another MX-80 offshoot, mainly Pluto's SHOEHORSE EMERGING on Rastascan which sounded so much like a typically energy-less attempt at past glories by leftover new wave heavies of the seventies (including ex-Tin Huey saxist Ralph Carney) that I couldn't even listen through the entire platter. At least the Anderson/Sophiea axis is not on this one (the only MX-80 player who remains here's "Hoss" Weinstein, and I'm sure some purists wouldn't even consider him a bona-fide member of the group) but it still sounds too "1982" to me, if you get my drift.

Hollywood Squaretet-TET OFFENSIVE CD (Gulcher)

While I'm in the process of writing up a humongous essay-sized post guaranteed to take up at least half of a month-long blogpage (complete with all of my intimate minutiae and of course the obligatory slams at certain competing blogmongers), I thought I'd toss out a bone to keep you satisfied until the big kahuna arrives either later this week or perhaps at the end of the solstice for all I know. Anyhoo, between my blogscreeding and other music-related duties I try to keep up with, I occasionally get a few promotional items sent to the BLOG TO COMM offices, mostly by people who are under the impression that my perhaps not-so-legendary fanzine is still in production (let's just say it is dormant until the tide of bad publicity subsides sometime in the twenties). Rather than delude these fine folk into thinking that the time and energy spent posting their wares my way are totally for naught (unless they've produced one giant of a turdburger deserving of derision) I thought that writing up whatever disques of worth I've received for this here blog just might suit them more than fine, and it BETTER suit 'em considering otherwise they may have to wait fifteen years to see their progeny written up on paper!

Anyway, here's an acquisition jetted my way thanks to the fine folks at Gulcher, a CD by a recent signing going by the moniker the Hollywood Squaretet. They're a trio featuring one Kenny Kawamura on saxes, another Todd Homer on upright bass and alto sax, and even yet another Larry Copcar on drums and vocals. (Also joining these three are Mikaleno, former Homer collaborator Larry Robinson and Gil Chinn on guitars, each separately of course.) Some of you might remember Homer from time spent in the infamous Angry Samoans, but these days his trip is avant garde jazz and for a punk he (like Dee Pop, David Hofstra and a good portion of the late-seventies NYC survivors) does a pretty good job at a music that has more to do with punk than anyone other than myself would dare admit.

The Squaretet play what I would call moderne avant improv worthy of a lotta the fantastic blare that was laid down at the Sunday/Wednesday night free-form series that took place at the CBGB Lounge over the past four years (lucky New Yorkers are in for a special treat October 19th when what might be the LAST EVER avant garde jazz show will transpire at the fabled space) with an approach that's part mid/late-seventies experiment (talking the Sam Rivers-led loft series that spawned such legendary outfits as Air) and part the even-newer thing that has been coalescing around the two coasts as of late and with an alarming frequency despite the better efforts of Ken Burns and the jazz establishment to totally ignore it. It's hard to put into words (especially for an illiterate like me) as to exactly what transpires upon these laser etchings w/o looking like a typically dry jazz critic, but if you've been following the recent developments in the avant garde (where things change yet stay the same as in the best experimental tradition) I know you'll be excited by what's in store...irrythmic beat descended from Sunny Murray, halfway-decent post-Ayler freeplay, arco-bass depth... Major plus: the cover art/layout which apes the old Arista/Freedom design and perhaps un-intentionally. Major minus: the vocals/recitation which, although steeped in the past fifty years of beat tradition, don't quite gel with the modern blast extant.

HIGH SIX!

Last weekend I attempted to post one of these top six highlights o' my current existence thingies (everything from books/music/video/whaddeva...) for your reading pleasure (and so you can emulate me and my vastly superior to whatever sorta existence mode you may be attuned to lifestyle) and guess what happened! The entire blogger system was "Down For Maintenence" for what was supposed to have been for one hour but turned out to be an entire weekend! And because of this unforseeable roadblack my entire post was lost for all eternity and if you think I was frothing-at-the-mouth MAD about such an injustice as this you are right! And if you think I cried my eyeballs out and stamped my feet like the spoiled brat that I am you'd STILL be in the know. And if you think I'd hissyfit myself until my face is blue all over this gross miscarriage of justice and never post another blog, well you'd be wrong about that one anyway but nice try. So here's an attempt to re-create the Great Lost Blog To Comm Post (with a few additional changes here/there), and if you think this one ain't quite up-to-snuff as previous endeavors, well that's MY problem!

1) Les Rallizes Denudes-early material found on 67 ET LIVE (disc one of the red-covered Les Rallizes Denudes box set), ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RALLIZES 69-79 BOX SET, BOX ONE (discs one and two) and LIVE BOX SET, BOX ONE (discs one and two)

Even a Helen Keller could tell you that Les Rallizes Denudes are perhaps my fave archival proto-punk dig of the decade. I guess it is due to this Japanese group consisting of a bunch of guys who had the same early-underground Velvets-spawned high energy approach to my listening parameters that such acts as Rocket From the Tombs and MX-80 Sound held for me a quarter-century back, and given how I consider this a bone-bared accomplishment (at least with regards to my own strident set of musical tastes) that's something they should be applauded for! And since kicks really are getting harder to find in the underground rock sphere o' things these days (even harder than they were fifteen/twenty years back when I could have deluded myself that Husker Du or the Jesus and Marychain were just as bared-wire intense as the groups they were taking their lead from!), and given my undying curiousity for the oft-forgotten sounds of Undergroundus Americanus (and Undergroundus Rock as the International Youth Language) that played a fuzzed-out soundtrack somewhere between the days of NUGGETS capitulation and Sex Pistols garage aesthetics revivalism, a group like Les Rallizes Denudes fits in perfectly with my much battered rockism sensibilities. And the fact that group leader Mizutani Takashi actually kept the ball rolling for almost thirty years (all the while keeping a hefty underground/mysterioso image a la Rocket et. al. that has yet to be revealed) ought to count for SOMETHING especially in these gulcherally-deprived times.

As you woulda guessed by now, Les Rallizes Denudes' earliest material satiates me and my aforementioned horse-blindered rockism tastes the most. Don't get me wrong, I do like Les Rallizes' late-seventies onwards blare but I must admit that a lotta it has a strange feeling of "sameness" that you can get from any number of current Japanese acts playing the post-Rallizes circuit over in the Land of the Rising Drone. And this sameness (coupled with better live recording techniques?) has made it rather hard for me to listen through the nineties-era MIZUTANI box set, the Arthur Doyle tracks included. I will make it through that set eventually but for now I find myself going back to the band's late-sixties/early-seventies recordings when they really were an underground force (with a suave "foreign" approach to the Amerigan Velvets/Stooges energies that be which might have actually fooled a few into thinking these fellows were French as their name would've implied?) that really stands the test of time especially when lined up against the reams of subpar hippie spew that these guys were up against!

I dunno if the 67 ET LIVE is exactly the same as the legendary 67-69 STUDIO ET LIVE disc which was legitimately released for a few seconds around 1990 since it doesn't contain that great "Smoking Cigarette Blues" track also found on a live 2-LP set one can pick up with relative ease for the moment, but whatever it is, it sure woulda made a splended release back then on a par with the sole album by Le Stelle Di Mario Schifano (or, as Brad Kohler calls 'em, Stella Dora Breadsticks!) as far as recordings showing a direct link to the first Velvets pop-art rock package goes. Starting off with a live freakout reputedly from their first gig early '68 (which sounds like the second Family Dog Tribal Stomp in '66 when Quicksilver, the Oxford Circle and Big Brother and the Holding Company let the feedback fly and war whoops wail), 67 ET LIVE is a pretty good selection not only of what the early Rallizes were up to during one of the hotter decades in recent memory, but just what a strong presence underground/punk concerns could have even in an area which didn't seem totally conduit to such expression (mainly Japan). Excepting the goofy "group sound"-ish pop tune (complete with kazoo) and perhaps the track that kinda sounds like an early version of Bob Segar's "Turn The Page" (which I gotta admit I like, both the Denudes track and the Segar original) this is pretty wild sorta early-Velvets meets Dave Allen hard rock with proper amts. of fuzz drone and feedback to satisfy even the most demanding tastes such as my own. From the six-oh scree of "My Conviction" to the vast array of dark live rumblings, I can't see any up-and-center reader of this blog NOT being in possession of these, unless you're the kinda guy reading this to see what nasty things I have to say about you, natch!

Maybe easier to find are those Illegal Alien CD-R box sets where early Rallizes gunch appears alongsides various seventies/eighties must-have performances, such as the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RALLIZES set where discs one and two feature more of their early material and tuneage which didn't always make it even to the middle portion of the seventies. You not only get TWO live takes of "My Conviction" here, but some live material undoubtedly from '68 or so that coulda fit snugly onto 67 ET LIVE but didn't quite make it (sounding so close to EPI-period Velvets live improvs I'm sure some sneak coulda passed 'em off as just that!) not to mention some psychedelic raves that remind me of some mythical recently-unearthered Deviants romps straight from the stage of UFO! Of particular interest is this live numbah (title in Japanese) with the simplest of riffs which reminds me of a typical sixties garage band trying to figure out how to play "Sweet Sister Ray"...it's that tantalyzing!

LIVE starts off with a 38:12 '73 side so attuned to the pulsebeat of proto-punk mania (with interesting Stooges/Hawkwind similarities) that I'm surprised Skydog hasn't released this one as a single disc already! Even "My Conviction" gets revamped here almost sounding more in-tune with the early-seventies rather'n 1967, and I don't care what you think but this one already's got my best live album of 2005 vote even if it is thirty-plus years old! The '74 ELECTRIC PURE LAND disc which follows also has the pre-whatziz pretty much intact, though signs of the mid/late-seventies Rallizes sound are beginning to be discerned, and naturally that's another era and post entirely.

2) MAD IN ORBIT (paperback published by Signet, 1958, 1959, 1962)

My mother came into the room a few weeks back with a whole buncha old MAD paperbacks that she bought for me at some antique shop! And if you don't think I was surprised you're wrong as usual...y'see, when I was barely into the double-digits the LAST thing mater wanted me reading was MAD because she thought them books were contributing to my general sense of sassiness towards not only her, but aw-thor-oh-tee in general! Not only that, but MAD was dulling my mental capabilities to the point where I didn't wanna be just another cog in "society" and thus was letting myself slip and slide in school as a result! And I'll bet your bottom dollar that if I went in the wayback machine and asked my mother or yore whether or not she'd be buying her only son MAD paperbacks in the new millenium Old Mother would definitely say "nada!" So I guess that mommy has softened her stance o'er the years with regards to such brain-warping reading for her progeny, or maybe she feels that I'm so far gone that what harm could they do for an already doofed-out dullard such as myself. Probably the latter, which I don't know whether to take as an insult or not!

True I already had these paperbacks (and multiple copies as well) for years tucked away in a big box in my closet, but it was nice reading 'em all again. And my favorite of the batch just hadda've been MAD IN ORBIT which I recall reading for the first time in the parking lot of the Hickory Plaza long before it morphed into the Hermitage Towne Plaza a good two decades back. (Mom and Jillery were shopping for clothes at the now-defunct Little Guys and Dolls store while I was osmosing the book...when I write my memoirs it'll be pertinent things such as this that get the space at the cost of boring historical fact!) Anyway, MAD IN ORBIT remains a top collection of early-MAD wit not only for the snat writing and that excellent airbrushed art that was soon to be nixed (much of it done by Joe Orlando), but for such faves as the First Aid Booklet spoof that had me rolling in the aisles (actually the back seat) upon first reading and the inclusion of two comic strip-oriented articles, both including NANCY which as you'd already know makes for a fine and dandy reading experience if I do say so myself. And I also gotta admit that I really like the Space Age-y cover painting by the late Kelly Freas, a contributor to MAD who seems to have been all but forgotten in the wake of the later-on Norman Mingo depictions of the grinning Alfred E. Neuman (and by the way, do you know of people who prefer the work of Freas to Mingo? I know of one guy who swears by Freas and totally hates Mingo's portrayal of the gap-toothed one, and although I like both equally even though Freas seemed to have slipped in style during his later MAD days I can see the anti-Mingoite's point o' view rather clearly).

3) Can-UNLIMITED EDITION CD (Spoon Germany)

If you really want any more proof of my inbred dooficity, just gander upon THIS slab o' information that I should've kept hidden 'n under the covers lest I look even more foolish than some of you think I might be. My first exposure to the music of Can after years of import bin hopping came via a copy of the LIMITED EDITION one-LP version of this disque (the one with the white mice romping through a dollhouse on the cover) that I picked up at a flea market back in 1980. I didn't quite get into the sounds contained therein (well, I was told this was NOT the album to start with, but it only cost a buck!) and ended up selling the thing on my next trek to Cleveland Heights. Anyway, as even more proof of my budding mental laxity I also passed on copies of Elliot Murphy and Insect Trust albums that were available in that batch! Can you believe what a stoop I coulda been at the time (and beyond)???

4) THE FAUST TAPES CD (Recommended, England)

Another 'un I didn't quite "get into" (to be tres seventies about it) until Bill Shute sorta shamed me into it like he usually used to do. I never really cozied up to Faust at the time they were still alive and releasing albums one could only find in the most discerning of import bins...methinks that I was perhaps way too preoccupied with too much avant garde/progressive fluff at the time to have paid attention, and besides there were so many things vying for my attention (and moolah) back then so how would I know that Faust weren't anything akin to the new Jade Warrior anyway? Fortunately time has at least put it all into proper (?) perspective, with this collage of rock, art, jazz and just plain ol' noise landscaping coming off as the perfect distillation of that German aesthetic of art, discipline and post-apocalypse noise, with the right dash of punk added to krautify the thing, of course.

5) CREEM-1975/1976 ISSUES

Whenever I get the hankerin' for real rock & roll scribing sans the soggy tones of the current crop of weak-kneed "critics" best known for their oh-so-attuned political acumen as opposed to rocking out (a term Patrick Amory associates with the minds of pre-pubescent rocksters, but I'll take a twelve-year-old ideal of rock music over that of an aesthete anyday!), I always reach for a class mid-seventies rock read whether it be an old standby like BACK DOOR MAN or DENIM DELINQUENT, or naturally a classic issue of CREEM. Any dunce can tell you that the early/mid-seventies were a Golden Age for gonzo rock journalism and a time when you could find something of worth and might even in a college newspaper hack-out record review, and for the best of the batch you couldn't do much better'n CREEM unless you happen to be lucky enough to own the entire run of TEENAGE WASTELAND GAZETTE, which I doubt you are.

The issues in question today come from the final days of the Bangs regime (which finally capitulated somewhere early 1977, with the mag turning into a pretty pale shell of its former self as a result), and although you can detect a bitta the shape of things to come even during these last moments of Bangs-exertion (mostly in the later '76 issues, but that's probably because the music scene was changing), I find even the most commercially-oriented CREEM of the day vastly superior to the mag's more, er, arena-rock-putsch issues when even articles on punk rock upstarts (such as Richard Reigel's lackluster Dead Boys piece) seemed drab and certainly not befitting of the music that CREEM had helped to boost in the first place. (I could also blame the inclusion of new writers like Rick Johnson who weren't exactly up to snuff with regards to a pure CREEM anti-aesthetic, but even some of his scribings on the likes of the Gizmos
etc. come up to the usual standards.) The mid-seventies seemed like a better time for CREEM to continue on their quest to expose the better moments of the psychedelic past while hyping whatever good that was happening on the music scene (krautrock, nascent garage band frothings...), and although the mag could still surprise once in awhile even throughout their nadir in the eighties (a nadir reached by the hiring of one Chuck Eddy) as their Heavy Metal Special will attest to, its these mid-seventies mags that continue to capture my ever-palapitating heart and maybe yours too.

Highlights include the various Peter Laughner (a man seen as perhaps CREEM's shining hope as early as '75) offerings from his Television live '75 ROCK-A-RAMA entry to his classic review of Lou Reed's CONEY ISLAND BABY (notorious for detailing a number of tres-decadent and downright disturbing images which I am told never happened!). By the way, his Rocket From the Tombs crony Craig Bell can be spotted not only contributing a 'RAMA review of Eno's "Seven Deadly Finns" single but a negative writeup of The Sadistic Mika Band which he did in order to impress the powers that be...although he liked the thing he gave 'em the thumbs down in order to look hep! Not only that but you get the expected heaping helpings of Lester Bangs including his attempts to become the new Weberman to one Lou Reed amongst scores or still enjoyable reviews and other fluff. It's so fun reading these mags again, because I remember just how much articles like Richard Meltzer's review of the Dictators at the Miss All-Bare Ameriga pageant shocked/impressed me at the time, and how even such small asides as Robot Hull referring to Canadian hard rockers (and good ones at that!) Thundermug's manager as "Big Jugs" were typically tasteless guffaws of the past that still make it even in the present. Even fashion editor (and future Studio 54 effete even though she wrote how much she hated disco!) Lisa Robinson shines with her 11/75 ELEGANZA column on "The New Velvet Underground" regarding the New York bands and their black/white aesthetics, also notable for a mention of hubby Richard's '69 attempt at an avant-rock offering called Man Ray (who have been mentioned on/off in various scribings throughout the realm) who by Robinson's brief namedrop seem like the neatest attempt at a Velvets/EPI wall of starkness, at least until the advent of no wave.

6) HOT WACKS BOOK XV, THE LAST WACKS (book)

Yes, I've reviewed this one already in an earlier "High Six" five months ago, but as you already know I love these clandestine recordings with an unhealthy PASSION that maybe is a bit hard to describe. Bootlegs have always held a fascination for me, or at least they have ever since I first saw a binfulla them at White Wing records in Niles Ohio back in 1975, and since the entire concept of there being more'n just the limited assortment of music by your fave recording artists available on these clandestine discs was certainly appealing to a soul such as I, what would you expect anyway? And besides, given that the vast majority of these paper-insert elpees were actually affordable to a depression-era wage-earning kid such as myself (this was before the days of deluxe covered European bootlegs costing upwards of $20 a pop) you could bet they were soon to become a not big but rather decent part of my record (and later on CD) collection maybe just because of the fact that they were bootlegs and the mere thought of 'em made pure as the driven snow me feel like a regular Boris Badenov!

Anyway the HOT WACKS mags and books sure came in handy as far as sorting all this stuff out, and although the whole bootleg scene has been pretty much doused by legal decisions, police busts and maybe the lack of good, bootlable material at least this discography helps you with regards to exactly what there was in the boot world as well as what you've missed out on. And frankly, this book is the next best thing to bin-browsing with all of those Trademark of Quality, Wizardo and Melvin platters to once again acknowledge (and wonder exactly what they sounded like...though even experience will tell you that the sound quality guides given aren't that much of a help either!). It's also great for reacquainting yourself with legendary boot labels such as Skydog, as well as the obscure and puzzling of which there are many entries. If you (like me) always wondered about such weird, semi-legit companies such as Joker International (which released amongst their exploito, opera and easy-listening discs such rock classics as BEATLES/STONES LIVE, three volumes of Bob Dylan's A RARE BATCH OF LITTLE WHITE WONDER, a series of Hendrix jams that perhaps should have remained in the can and LED ZEPPELIN LIVE), well they're all included here as well. There were about five addendums to this massive "goodbye" issued before the HOW WACKS empire collapsed, but even if you weren't part of the same cadre who used to espy such exotic booty in the basements of outta the way record shops you might get a kick outta this book as well.

BOOK REVIEW: THE COMPLETE PEANUTS: 1950 TO 1954 by Charles M. Schulz (Fantagraphics)

Maybe I'm just overly-reminiscing about my childhood dayze (the GOOD portion, that is!) or perhaps I'm just starved for something interesting to happen for me gulcher-wize, but I guess that my latent fixation with the old PEANUTS comic strips that was revived upon a chance purchase of a couple paperbacks last month has finally come to full fanatical fruitation. And frankly, if you woulda told me even a good ten years back (never mind twenty or thirty) that I'd be dishing out hard-begged money for a PEANUTS anthology of any sorts let alone a hard-covered edition costing comparative megabucks I woulda called you a Jugheadus Supremus! I mean, by that time (roughly mid-nineties, though probably MUCH EARLIER) it was more'n obvious that PEANUTS had devolved into such a pathetic excuse for a comic (which undoubtedly mirrored the sick state of Suburban Ameriga just as much as it echoed its finer, more coherent qualities during the fifties) that I probably would have delivered a Lucy-styled SLUG atcha for even THINKING I'd ally myself with such a commercial and unfunny strip such as that. If anything, PEANUTS after its dip from mega-stardom sometime in the seventies became a comic that was obviously resting on its laurels...like a solo Beatles album (sorry Tim!), by that time PEANUTS merely existed because it was PEANUTS and could get away with anything whether it was a single-panel throwaway worthy of a greeting card or something completely dour echoing Charles Schulz's own emotional shortcomings (which, in interviews, he freely admitted to...Charlie Brown seemed so much an echo of Schulz not only as a child, but as a world-famed celebrity). I must admit that I held such a grudge against PEANUTS for what it became that for years I felt kinda ashamed that it had been one of my fave strips since the days I used to break my dad's lap having him read the funnies to me...after PEANUTS' fall from grace even at a time when it still remained a fave amongst the unwashed I refused to admit I ever liked it. Naw, my top fave strips were now (and had ALWAYS been) NANCY and DICK TRACY with such old timey faves as HENRY, FERD'NAND and Bob Montana-period ARCHIE up there somewhere (along w/SMOKEY STOVER, THE KATZENJAMMER KIDS, the sexual BEETLE BAILEY and a few more I'll remember in a week or two...).

But I don't care what anybody says, because I really dig the heck outta these fancy, slipcased Fantagraphic-edition PEANUTS bound-volume reprints! Sure it would have been better had NANCY or DICK TRACY or even THE JACKSON TWINS and FRECKLES (see, I told you I'd remember more!) got the royal smythe-sewn bound treatment, but considering that PEANUTS was at its tip-top best during the early days before everyone and their uptight uncle began jumping on the mid-sixties hipster bandwagon I ain't complainin'. When it comes to comic strips, early-PEANUTS is better than late-PEANUTS or maybe even no-PEANUTS for that matter, and given the sorry state of modern-day comic strip craftsmanship and belly-shaking guffaws these books sure come in handy for some quickie escapism that'll take you back to those fun days that presumably happened before you were born when the baby-boomer generation that was inspired by PEANUTS (and vice versa) sure held a lot more promise than it eventually delivered on!

The earliest strips have a quaint, almost NANCY-styled simple sense of humor and are appealing on that great mid-Amerigan doofus level, and after about a year's run you can start to see the beginnings of what the strip would become at its height (which for me was the mid-to-late-fifties, or right before it evolved into one of the more popular comics on the page). There are already some interesting running gags this early in the game, from Violet's mud-pies which Charlie Brown actually enjoys eating (or at least licking the sand off the top of 'em) to Lucy's winning streak at checkers (going for 10,000 wins in a row against Charlie Brown, who's always deluding himself that Lucy is just lucky) as well as the ones that begin with Patty and Violet not inviting Charlie Brown to their party (with Charlie Brown delivering some great comeback taking his rejection in stride thus turning the joke on the two stuck-ups!). The introduction of new characters like Schroeder, Lucy and Linus (originally as infants who quickly grow to the same age/size as the rest of the gang...excepting Linus who stays toddler-sized for quite awhile!) is quite intriguing if you can believe that...it's almost as if you were in on the ground floor of something BIG seeing these kids for the first time, and not only that but you get to see some early experimentation, such as the three-part Sunday sequence where Lucy enters a golf tournament where (shudder!) adult spectators can actually be seen, albeit either at a distance or from the waist down! And, for you sticklers, the first of Schulz's many PEANUTS failures can be observed once we hit late 1954 and the loud-mouthed Charlotte Braun, who perhaps should be given an award of sorts for being scooted outta the strip faster than Faron, Frieda's cat who had previously earned the honors of being the most useless PEANUTS character to get the guillotine.

Looking at the Fantagraphics website I see that the series is already up to 1958, and who knows, maybe if I sell enough BLACK TO COMM back issues I'll be able to AFFORD 'em all. I can always use such fine, engrossing reading for the upcoming winter season, and since I guess there aren't going to be any new issues of DENIM DELINQUENT or CRETINOUS CONTENTIONS coming out any day soon (but I've come to expect that) these books will do fine in easing the winter blahs.

THE STOOGES 2-CD set (Elektra/Rhino)

Apologies must go to Bomp/Alive because I can't find my copy of the Bloody Hollys CD they sent me to review, but until that one turns up amidst the leaning tower of Cee-Dees in my bedroom I guess this li'l gem'll have to do as far as reviewing fodder goes. And although I hate to admit it for fear of looking "square" amongst the throngs of enemies out there but frankly, I've been tiring of a lotta these Stooges repackages that have been coming out for the past few years! Now don't get me wrong, I still think that Iggy and crew were one of the bestest bands to grace this golden earth of ours and I sure dug that FUNHOUSE box set that Jon Behar burned for me ages back, but it hasn't been like I've been champing at the bit to buy that new 6-CD set of 1973 live gigs and outtakes that just came out (even with the DVD!) and a lotta the other repackages have left me yawning from here to San Diego and back. I figure that, at this point in time, I can osmose to about fifty Les Rallizes Denudes CDs in my collection even if there is some overlap, but having at least ten singles, LPs, cassettes and CDs with "I Got a Right" on 'em is merely taking up precious space that can be used storing ten singles, LPs cassettes and CDs with "Heroin".

But this new 2-CD edition of the debut Stooges splatter is different. That junk-shop gem has always been a favorite here at the BLOG TO COMM offices, but as far as outtakes and general additions go it's been the most neglected of the batch. Until now that is, for the extra CD enclosed therein contains a lotta rare booty that everybody said never existed and I believed them which only goes to prove what a gullible jerk I can be! Anyway whatcha get here are "original John Cale mixes," complete versions sans quickie fadeouts and alternate vocal takes of your Stooge faves guaranteed to ground your head into the woofer until it's mere pulp. Sure it woulda been great if some of those free-form freakout early Stooges gigs coulda popped up here (in the enclosed booklet, longtime Stooges biographer Ben Edmonds describes a show where the band played atonal mulch while Iggy sang "Slow Boat to China"!), but we can't have everything!!! Still, if you wanna hear your faves remade/remodeled, this makes more sense than those bogus Stooges "alternate mix" bootlegs that came out in the late-eighties.

DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET 2-DVD SET (Tango Entertainment)

During my mid-teen years I was what some (not necessarily you) would call a big fan of MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS, and such a big fan at that I was more'n willing to yack about 'em to just about anyone stupid enough to get in harm's way. In retrospect, it was a fairly healthy obsession for someone such as I who would even inject various Pythonian asides into classroom discussions (once in Psychology class my teacher told us captives that he thought that we, and the students in the school in general, were more or less fans and followers of the likes of such caramel candy television programs as APPLE'S WAY...when I told him that most of the kids here were beyond that sort of pablum he asked me what is was that the youth of his fair school were watching these days and I replied MONTY PYTHON...he had to hold in his laughter!) and you can bet that I'd watch as much of the program as I could amidst soaking up other snide-aside seventies sarcasm (Zappa, SNL, sneak-peeks at NATIONAL LAMPOON) as I could which sure helped get me by all of that sickening Pollyannaish bile I was forced to endure not only in school but at home all the time. Y'know, those older generation images of youth as this misguided but altruistic vaguely Donny and Marie-looking mounds of clay just begging to be formed into upstanding breadwinners without a flyspec of grit or dirt anywhere. Like Roland Kirk said, "Real Hershey Bar with Almonds eaters!"

By the time I vamoosed the hallowed halls of learning and humiliation, I began to toss off a lotta the gulcheral entertainment that had captivated me during my high school days. Zappa didn't relate that much to me after his ZOOT ALLURES fiasco, and although the SNL/NATIONAL LAMPOON axis still held a semblance of meaning at least until the infamous Ackroyd/Belushi split, the plain fact that seventies snide humor just didn't translate into eighties social concern dampened any chance of entertainment that show would have for me. And as for MONTY PYTHON, well that was being jettisoned from the local PBS schedule around the same time which did seem fitting considering how much it had been run into the ground, but would you (non-Amerigans) believe that PBS didn't even have the BRAINS to run any of the PYTHON spinoffs from RIPPING YARNS to RUTLAND WEEKEND TELEVISION?!?!?! Well, it would figure since they didn't even start airing MONTY PYTHON until after the show was axed in Blighty, but you woulda thunk they were smart enough (given that this was Public/Educational television and all) to continue on a roll and air all the spinoffs other'n FAWLTY TOWERS which remains an entertaining series but doesn't exactly count. But feh, by this time I couldn't care, having written off MONTY PYTHON as merely GREEN ACRES with a British accent.

I also used to wonder why PBS never aired DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET which not only featured future Pythoners Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin with the Bonzo Dog Band and comedy standbys David Jason and Denise Coffey, but at least PBS had a good reason not to...y'see, the show had been LOST for a longer time than anyone could imagine! But they've been found and readied for this 2-DVD release that fans of the form should snatch up faster than Richard Gere snatches up gerbils, for DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET, while (true)of "historical" value to those scarfing up British television/humor and all that rot, is just a plain good ol' engrossing series that woulda made for worthwhile PBS filler had these been discovered a lot earlier.

In many ways I gotta prefer DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET to PYTHON because it's a nicer program. Oh, I gotta admit that I liked PYTHON as well as SNL and the rest of the comedy attack brigades of the seventies because their targets were wide-ranging, going after everyone (long before the days of political correctness deemed that the sufferings of protected groups greatly outweighed those of standard runna-da-mill people w/o any racial/societal ginchiness), but it does make for a pleasant change sitting down to watch a show w/o cringing at the thought that something you hold near and dear is going to be suddenly skewered!!! Considering that DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET was originally created as afternoon kiddie fodder it is pretty out-there, especially with the political humor and proto-PYTHON bizzaroids tossed in giving you a weird foreshadowing thirtysome years after the fact!

In fact DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET looks like a dress-rehearsal/pilot for PYTHON, with Idle, Jones and Palin pretty much getting their act together even if the humor for the most part looks about as 1968 British as you can get. (And, since the show is monochrome, it looks 1962 even with the longish hair sported on the likes of Idle and the definite "mod" references.) Terry Gilliam is credited with animation, but other'n the closing credits I dunno what "they're" talking about, and as for the rest of DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET's cast...David Jason seems more fitted for the British sitcoms he ended up doing than hip sketch humor as does Denise Coffey, but the two work together well on their own as they do in the "Captain Fantastic" skits which I must admit to liking despite Elton John's hijacking of the name. But then again, it all works out spiffingly well with a late-sixties attitude that, when thrust into the mad anti-everything non-PC humor of the seventies, made more than household names (even inna U. S. of Whoa) outta many of the future stars of this show.

And as for the Bonzo Dog Band, well, it's finally great to actually see 'em performing rather'n just look at all those stills outta some old issue of GORILLA BEAT. I never was what you'd call a fan of the Bonzos and in fact must admit to not owning any of their records or having even heard "Canyons Of Your Mind" for that matter. I once owned a copy of Grimm's ROCKIN' DUCK but got chewed out by a Bonzo fan for having it ("Yech, that has NOTHING to do with the Bonzos or Scaffold even!") so I got rid of it, so let's just say that watching the likes of Vivian Stanshall, future PYTHON Neil Innes and band romping through a variety of rock kitsch like a hip English take on Paul Revere and the Raiders was pleasant enough that I'll probably download "Canyons" as soon as I post this mess.

And if you're interested in the rest of the proto-PYTHON bunch, Tango also has a patchwork edition (meaning, they got whatever they could find!) of AT LAST THE 1948 SHOW where John Cleese and Graham Chapman could be seen alongside the likes of Marty Feldman!

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW: THE DAY OF THE LOCUST (1974, directed by John Schlesinger)

If you ask me, one of the best things to come out of the Amerigan post-Vietnam/Watergate era was a healthy sense of cynicism! Y'know, that sarcastic "bad attitude" regarding all things high, mighty and downright stodgy that developed amongst not only the general working stiff populace, but the arts and crafts makers who were finally peddling some rather tasty shards of produce to their eager consumers because of it. Maybe it was because this was a time when anti-authoritarianism was being marketed to lumpen youthproles like myself that I remember it so fondly, but you also gotta remember that it was that oft-loathed in retrospect Gerald Ford time 'n place (and could you think of a better guy to exemplify those days?) which not only gave us discordant rock of a punk style and otherwise but snide satire, HOLLYWOOD BABYLON and a whole slew of movies that for once seemed to mirror some gritty realities that didn't make it past the early-thirties once the Code came into being. And, with or without any "retrospect" to rely on, I found this state o' affairs to be pretty positive with regards to civilization as a whole, a timespan where for once people could see things as they really were instead of through typical Pollyannaish glitz. Especially from a thirty-year perch it's not hard too see that roughly the years 1973-1976 were times when a curmudgeonness and caustic glances at "culture and society" (yech!) seemed to be firmly etched into the psyche of gulcher USA, and it's too bad that disco, Jimmy Carter's Mr. Rogers-inspired snakeoil shill and overemotional Social Worker doogooderisms hadda replace the seething bile within only a few short years!

So that's why I was looking forward to viewing THE DAY OF THE LOCUST, a film that I remember got hefty attention upon release way back in '74 yet seems to have been totally forgotten thirtyplus years down the line. After all, LOCUST was one of those mid-seventies flicks that was so dour it even turned its own death-mirror on the whole image of tinseltown and right at the height of its power and popularity (1939, the year of GONE WITH THE WIND, THE WIZARD OF OZ and maybe a few films I'd actually enjoy watching!), and it sure seemed interesting enough fitting in beautifully with the whole seventies trend towards "nostalgia" even if this film set out to destroy the rose-tinted hindsight of thirties Hollywood. But Cheese Louise, espying the dark underbelly of classic Hollywood through a mid-seventies aura of despair and disgust sounds so tasty, and since I was one of those wee li'l kids who always wanted to know what went on in alla them "R" rated movies that the more "with it" stoolboys got to see then why not give this flicker a chance since it sure seems a lot more, er, scrutinizing than a lotta the mooms being made these days.

Still, for all the promise and retro-decadence such a film begs for, all I gotta say is that I was expecting much more outta this flick than what was delivered. William Atherton as the gosh-darn-it young artist out to make it big in Hollywood just doesn't cut it with me, looking more or less like a modern-day (2005 as well as 1974) young soap opera actor on the "way up" trying to slam more of that "New Hollywood" into the old model failing miserably. I mean, I'm STILL seeing young doofs like him trying to bring back everything from "film noir" to pseudo-Bogartisms even this late in the game, so maybe I oughta credit him for being the first dolt to do it all! Femme lead Karen Black as the slutzy starlet who can't face the reality of love or stable relationships does have her "moments" if only to show the vacuousness of her existence, while longtime fave (not nec. mine) Burgess Meredith is certainly not up to earlier TWILIGHT ZONE/NAKED CITY standards here as Black's dying alkie father (the scene where he's peddling patent medicine door-to-door doesn't elicit the kinda pseudo-Chaplinesque pathos I'm sure hotshot director John Schlesinger, or most audiences for that matter were looking for...it's a wonder why Meredith ever got nominated for a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar unless someone at the Acadamy felt sorry for him). As for the rest, well most of the supporting cast really doesn't elicit any sorta deep affection for anything. Maybe that was the point, though I woulda expected more outta old hands like Bo Hopkins as the cowboy/extra who runs cockfights with his over-testosteroned Mexican partner on the move for Black, and especially Billy Barty as another piece of H-wood flotsam albeit his earthiness was at least one redeeming factor even though his appearance can have the same uneasy feeling on me that midget wrestlers used to have on my cousin.

If you must know (and maybe you do wanna given you've read this far), the only character of any real interest here is Donald Sutherland's oafish Homer Simpson (and no, it's not exactly clear if this guy is the template for the more famous cartoon character, though in some ways he coulda been). Amidst the Hollywood phonies and lusters at least this guy can elicit a lotta rah-rahs perhaps because the goof's so lovable like a big teddy bear or the president even, and despite Simpson's near-retarded behavior, emotionalism and gullibility (as well as his inability to see through Hollywood sham) he is the only real man in a film fulla truly airhead wannabes and callous studio heads who don't care one iota whether or not their actors live or die (as in the battle sequence where the hilly soundstage collapses before everyone's eyes).

Still, THE DAY OF THE LOCUST comes off like a series of what could have been potentially powerful scenes strung together very haphazardly. The "Big Sister" seg. (with Geraldine Page as a mock Aimee Semple McPherson wowing the rubes) hits you seemingly out of nowhere (although it does add to the film's gist of Hollywood as this huge zilch-dimensional dream you just gotta buy into), and even the climax where Sutherland gets torn to shreds by a raging mob at a movie premiere after stomping to bloody death bratty adolescent "actress" Adore (played by Jackie Haley, later to star in a series of teenage cherrypop features) seems totally outta nowhere without any real stable lead in or reason for that matter. Perhaps under the direction of a less-connected director DAY OF THE LOCUST could have been cohesive, but even with the potential and mid-seventies grit trying to revive classic Hollywood form it misfires, not by a mile but just enough.

But as far as Old Hollywood morphing into the New goes, the casting couldn't've been better. Natalie Schafer of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND fame plays the madam at a house of ill-repute where Black moonlights when she needs the extra cash for her father's funeral amongst other things, while I even caught Florence Lake of the old Edgar Kennedy comedies in a quickie scene visiting Meredith at his bedside. Bill Baldwin (you've probably seen him on JACK BENNY and LEAVE IT TO BEAVER!) is great as the radio announcer at the movie premiere who actually thinks that the crazed riot ensuing is due to fan fervor giving the carnage a hyperbolic play-by-play and hey, Alvin Childress shows up in a post-AMOS 'N ANDY role, albeit he's once again reduced to playing a butler and even in "new" Hollywood for that matter. (And I think I saw Stymie Beard as a chauffeur, uncredited natch!) Who knows, maybe DAY OF THE LOCUST was after all the perfect mix of classic Hollywood and the aforementioned new cynicism, or maybe the best intrusion of Old Hollywood on new turf since MYRA BRECKINRIDGE.

My vote for BEST POLITICAL COLUMN OF THE YEAR!!! (click below)

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The Sadistic Mika Band-GOLDEN BEST CD (Toshiba/EMI EU)
MILK 'N' COOKIES CD (RPM England)
Rouge-LIVE 1976 CD (Captain Trips Japan, available via Slippytown)

If I don't already have enough Japanese rock & roll to sift through these days (Taj Mahal Travelers, Fushitsusha, a 12-CD Les Rallizes Denudes selection of 90s-vintage recordings...) here comes more Asian Artyfacts (save for the Milk/Cookies disque of course) to help spice up my dismal round-eyed life. I gotta admit that, especially in the wake of some pretty dire music being regurgitated these days, Japanese rock's still got the sock, or maybe it's because the local market's just so dry, but either way here are a buncha cee-dees that have recently arrived which deal with some more of that now-archival Japanese music that's been taking my laser launching pad over by storm. BUT WAIT!!!!, I didn't know whether I wanted to make this essay/review into a piece on Japanese mid-seventies rock or just plain glam/punk concerns of the same chronological strata so's I decided to throw in the aforementioned Milk 'n' Cookies reissue just to confuse things up a bit, but I'm sure you'll understand deep down inside.

Whereas Les Rallizes Denudes represented just about as far underground and mysterioso you could get in the Japanese rock scene, it could be argued that the Sadistic Mika Band were the cream of the underground rock brigades in old Nippon. Of course, these guys (and gal) could only be considered "underground" if you still considered Roxy Music and T. Rex underground...I mean, maybe they were total obscurities to the mass of musical midgies swarming your local college and high school campuses during them dayze but what about those real rockism maniacs who eyeballed the rock mags with alarming regularity and professed interest in things that were new, looked refreshing and maybe sounded energetic enough as well? Face it, if you were part of the second swarm of smart-set musicologists out there in post-Watergate cynicismland you pretty much woulda KNOWN BY HEART who these Sadistic Mika people were! Why (if you got hold of the hypesheets), they were none other than Japan's answer to Roxy Music themselves, or was it King Crimson?, but anyway how could you have missed 'em not only with the hefty exposure (a piece by Jonh Ingham ex-BOMP/NEW HAVEN ROCK PRESS cartoonist and future Generation X manager in a '75 CREEM, Eno wearing a t-shirt with their name emblazoned upon it easily espiable on the back cover of the Quiet Sun MAINSTREAM album) but with their very own longplayer on Harvest Records that was actually released inna U.S. of Whoa for that matter! (Not only that but ex-Mirrors/Rocket From the Tombs bassist Craig Bell, who gave their sole US elpee a thumbs down in the pages of CREEM's "Rock-A-Rama" section told me that he really liked the disque but wrote that flippant review anyway in order to impress the powers that be!) Yes, if you were the kinda guy who had your own copy of the Jem catalog and paid hefty sums of $12 each for Ohr albums that you couldn't find ANYWHERE unless you took the big trek to Cleveland for your musical needs, there was no doubt you knew who the Sadistic Mikas were...how could you miss 'em even with that all-important Horseslips and Gentle Giant coverage of the day anyway?

Actually I must admit that I did miss the American edition of their album when it came out way back in 1975. In fact, although I recall seeing the British HOT MENU import in the bins once in awhile (the cover snap being convieniently lifted for GOLDEN BEST) I don't even remember seeing the Amerigan collection of various Japanese elpee tracks adorning my local NATIONAL RECORD MART ever, but that didn't stop me from snatching up a copy well over a decade later when I was, er, trying to search for life outside the patented underground rock/label anti-human muzak that was beginning to strangle the life outta the likes of my fanzine and my sanity for that matter.

But what do the Sadistic Mika Band mean in 2005? Well, that's open to debate...actually I thought GOLDEN BEST (sounds like a Chinese buffet!) would be quite the gathering of retro-glam-chic like Roxy were around the time of COUNTRY LIFE with an Asian-tint, and although there are shades of Roxiness here/there (the "2HB"-styled electric piano opening to "Sumie No Kunie" and the decadent pomp of "Black Ship [4th June]" come to mind) but this presumably career-spanning collection if anything shows that the Sadistics were a bunch that certainly bended with whatever times they happened to chance upon. Unfortunately their "go with the flow" attitude didn't take them from Roxy to New York to London like one would have hoped, because their (presumably) later recordings have this smarmy AM cum Japanese pop prance that sounds even more contrived than when other Japanese acts attempted it. I mean, I can take the slower, more AM-pop classics that seem "aimed" at that legendary just-post-18-to-34 demographic group, but the sambas and imitation fifties romps (though the disco-attempt "Suki Suki Suki" is an exception!) just make the Sadistics sound like a group struggling to keep head above water grasping for any gulcheral identity they can. TRANSLATION: when doing a hard British-inspired glamprog romp the Sadistics are within their proper niche...otherwise they might as well have been Kyu Sakamoto reincarnated for all YOU'LL care!

Not only that, but group namesake Mika is certainly kept in the background if she's being heard at all...dunno why since she had a nice enough set of pipes (though acc. to Ingham she hated her singing abilities!) and her hot looks woulda made for a fine CREEM DREEM pinup, but given the second-class treatment Mika gets in her own group it's not hard to fathom why the lass ditched hubby/group leader Kazuhiko Katoh and ended up marrying Harvest head Peter Jenner! Perhaps if she posed semi-clad in COUNTRY LIFE-inspired PENTHOUSE throes of ecstasy on the cover (or at least if they stuck her in the hot tub 'stead of her husband) this woulda sold a few more copies, though such a sexy concept as that might not have settled well in then-prudish mid-seventies Japan! Oh well, it sure woulda settled well with me, but they coulda at least used it for the western market!!!

Come to think of it. if the Sadistic's Occidental company Harvest (who were trying for an Island Records sound here!) handled this CD reissue I'm sure it would have made not only for a better collection but for an overall superior package! I mean, there's nada biographical or production info to go by here and the enclosed lyrics booklet's all in Japanese! Other'n copping a classic elpee cover photo, this product resembles something you can buy for $4.99 at the checkout line at Big Lots! (By the way, GOLDEN BEST still gets the OK from me despite not quite hitting the usual BLOG TO COMM high energy make best with what you got standards...I mean, besides the tracks worthy of your ears how could I ignore Mika's tender, seventies-sexual stride resplendent on the cover???)

As for Milk 'N' Cookies, I can somehow have seen these guys being "Big in Japan" themselves while remaining total unknowns here in the United States (and at a time when country rock schmooze a la the Starland Vocal Band was all the rage, though funny enough I actually recall liking "Afternoon Delight" on some now-unfathomable-to-me level, a fact which I'm sure Tim Ellison might get a huge kick outta!). They certainly had the looks and the sound to pull off such a stunt as that, but unfortunately you just knew that they would get PLOWED OVER here. A little history: Milk 'N' Cookies started off in the vast wilderness of the lower Manhattan rock scene playing at such hotspots as the 82 Club before taking the trek to the sunny confines of Southern California before heading back to a revitalized En Why See club circuit where they appeared frequently at such over-namedropped scribehyped outlets as CBGB and Max's Kansas City before offshooting into various projects both of interest and not to the average BLOG TO COMM reader In the meantime (1975) they got signed to Island in England where a single produced by Steve's brother Muff Winwood (who got his nickname the same way Beaver Harris got his...meaning the guy didn't wear a furry handwarmer in the winter, or maybe he did... if you know what I mean) came out though an album was shelved until "punk rock" supposedly became marketable for a few weeks in 1977. Cold hands and delayed releases aside, what you've here is yet another glam-slam project that ranks up there with a lotta the competition both saleable and not, and fortunately (like the best rock/roll) there's the right amount of punkiness mixed in with the extremely seventies glam-rock riffage and fey sex appeal "for the girls" to make Milk 'N' Cookies more'n just another slide down the charnelchute. If you can, imagine the perfect three-way bop between the Bay City Rollers, Sparks and the Ramones and you'll be halfway there. Anyway, this cee-dee plus oblig. extras makes for a nice occasional popspin for those of you enamored by the mid-seventies decapop I've been writing about not only today but the past week or so, and to top the whole thing off this comes with a neet insert featuring a group history written by noneother'n New York Dolls historian Nina Antonia!

Going back to Japan we have this not-so-new CD from Rouge to contend with. These guys were also mentioned in Jonh Ingham's Sadistic Mika piece because Kazuhiko was producing these "self styled punks"'s album at the time that article was written. Dunno what happened to that one, but Captain Trips released this live thingie recorded a year later, and I gotta 'fess up to the fact that LIVE 1976 is pretty hotcha in a now-deceased toughguy punk way that I'm sure seemed unique to a lotta the people in the respective burghs where groups like Rouge and others were playing out. However, after the Sex Pistols began making new waves it all kinda came off...I dunno...contrived. At least contrived to a lotta the more hipster-oriented amongst us, but I kinda found it interesting enough even if fading in popularity because it all had the power of the past and the vision of the present to it making it timeless in its own strange way. Back when punks in general and punk rock fanzines like ROCK NEWS, DENIM DELINQUENT and TEENAGE NEWS outta Montreal were still fawning over the Rolling Stones there were a lotta groups like this around kinda straggling the old and punk and metal waves with some ease and a lotta success if you ask me, and Rouge themselves did a pretty good Dolls (even quoting "Looking For a Kiss"!) cum Stones thing themselves with this booming live gig that three decades down the line comes off about as refreshing as I'm sure it would had I chanced upon a show of theirs way back when. Both the Dolls and Stones seem like good starting points; at least the back cover photo from a live gig with an oversized Easter Bunny hopping about brings back memories of the pix I saw of the "new" Dolls in Tokyo with a Frankenstein monster doing pretty much the same thing (OK, he was lurking). Hot, bluezy and definitely punky enough for the times, I'd say that LIVE 1976 is a pretty good approximation of the thud-headed fun and games groups like Somebody Good were laying down in the Big Apple and who knows what in your neck of the woods, and love it or hate it but you must ADMIT it...that rock groups like Rouge were sure a lot more fun'n entertaining than the usual bar-bait bands out there laying down the entire Moody Blues songbook for you, that's for sure! (Though initially you MIGHT be fooled into thinking that this is a progressive album upon listening to the first few seconds, where strains of Pink Floyd's "Sisyphus" [!!!!!!] morph into Alice Cooper's "Titanic Overture" before the fun and games begin!)