CLASSIC FANZINE REVIEW: RAW POWER #5 (Spring 1978)

One thing I will say about Los Angeles in the seventies is that although their underground/punk scene wasn't as all-encompassing (whatever good that may have been) and downright intense as New York City's, they sure had the East Coast beat as far as full-throttle fanzines go. After all, while all New York's underground rock press had going for it was THE NEW YORK ROCKER and PUNK magazine (not counting a bevy of small-run and totally obscure offerings that certainly didn't cover the vast array of styles and energies that New York became famous for), El Lay seemed to be brimming with power-packed bedroom-published reads that continue to please the amateur-hour rockscribe fan even this far down the pike. From biggies such as FLASH, BACK DOOR MAN and (for two issues) DENIM DELINQUENT to interesting asides like TB SHEETS, the Southern California fanzine scene was pretty on target with regards to not only detailing the underground movements of the day but giving you a reason as to why some of those "dinosaur" biggies like Aerosmith and Blue Oyster Cult were perhaps on the same rockism level as all of those "accepted" punque forebearers like the Dolls and Stooges. OK, maybe those magazines didn't make THAT STRONG OF A CASE (which is why I've yet to buy an Aerosmith album and find BOC's best moment to be their long-withheld Stalk-Forrest Group disque), but I'd rather read Phast Phreddie Patterson or Jymn Parrett writing about Kiss or Black Sabbath than some ex-Queen groupie of a punk who couldn't convince me to buy toilet paper blabbering on about the flavor-of-the-month underground treat that everybody seems to forget about once next week's flavor rolls by.

Anyway, after reading all the rest and thinking things out with regards to just what a rock publication above or underground should convey to you (the discriminating fan), all I gotta say is that RAW POWER fits the ideal of a classic seventies El Lay total eruption of an engrossing fanzine with perfection. A pub that has eluded my grasps for well on my two-plus decades of searching, I finally laid my hands on an ish (#5) and let me tell you that even jaded "I" must admit that this fanzine is MORE than I've bargained for even this far down the line! Yes, I knew I was in for a treat after reading the reviews in BOMP! (which ranged from Greg Shaw's praise to Gary Sperrazza's disdain) as well as SLASH (who didn't care one whit for the thing given the mag's penchant for more mainstream and metallic aggregates), and given that editor Quick Draw seemed like an affable fellow and all especially on this tape I have of the Dictators (and Meltzer) appearing on the Rodney Bingenheimer KROQ show which has said QD calling in not only to give kudos to Handsome Dick and crew but to ask Rodney when the Van Halen album was coming out, I had the feeling that RAW POWER wasn't going to be just your everyday runna-da-mill fanzoon TOSS OUT that's for sure!

First off this fanzine doesn't even look like a fanzine which might add up to strictly dullsville "vibes" for some but at least given the total wowzer fanzine-level ENERGY makes me wanna slap the entire staff's backs for being able to grow from their xeroxed roots so fast. I mean RAW POWER's got a color cover and SEVENTY-TWO action-packed pages, and not only that but they were able to drag in some honest-to-goodniz advertising (for water beds and Greenpeace!) as well! Ted Nugent adorns the cover in typical late-seventies El Lay fanzine style, and not only do they got an interview with him inside but they also managed to track down talks with the likes of Debbie Harry and Tommy Shaw of STYX fercryinoutloud but don't let that fool you into thinking that RAW POWER's another late-seventies teenybop read with Shawn Cassidy (sorry Imants!) posters and Peter Frampton's top ten positions because it's still got that punk snat even if they ain't always writing about p-rock per se...

One thing's for sure, and that's RAW POWER is the music that these FANS write about PERSONIFIED...I mean, just one look at the high school pix of the mag's staff on page one (with editor Quick Draw still in shoulder-length hair and Crocus Behemoth-esque beard and the rest of the batch with typical THAT SEVENTIES SHOW 'do's 'n a moustache in the bunch as well!) oughta prove to you that the staff and management ain't Boris Badenovs on a subversive mission but REAL LIFE ROCK & ROLL MANIACS!!! The editorials on page four also prove to you that, like BACK DOOR MAN and Greg Prevost's FUTURE and perhaps UNLIKE SLASH (which I think was a fine paper even when their underground fashion plate sense was in full mode), these guys had their heads straight on and weren't about to be moved by prevailing undercurrents...Quick Draw on the punks' anti-sixties stance:

"The 60's were a booming time for rock 'n roll. It was the glory years of rock 'n roll. You could hear the Stones' "19th Nervous Breakdown" and see the Quick Draw McGraw Show daily. What more could you want?? Also, those of you who hate hippies are wrong, too. The hippie movement improved a lot of things you take for granted today. I hear everyone now yelling, "No rules, I wanna do what I wanna do and I won't listen to you." Well, I heard the same in the 60's. You people who want to put down the 60's are putting down yourselves, so laugh hard."

Well, the hippie ref does leave me cold (after all, it was them very same hippies [and I don't mean hippie punks like the MC5, Big Brother and the Holding Company or even Roky!] who were ultimately responsible for all those wonderful social engineering ploys we've hadda put up with for the past umpteen years!), but otherwise I get the drift. Hey, I'd like to hear "19th Nervous Breakdown" on the radio daily and watch Hanna Barbera cartoons (not nec. Quick Draw McGraw...never liked him!) without having to pay premium cable rates as well!

Besides pages of letters (including one from an "Al" of Whittier who sez that the fanzine concentrates too much on the mainstream which should be ditched pronto and thinks Bowie ruined Iggy for good, both points being counteracted with gusto by Quick Draw himself...and methinks this "Al" may be THE Al who had by this time started up his own mag namely FLIPSIDE!) you get the articles and interviews on the vast array of RAW POWER faves, and although acts such as UFO (post-Bolton), Starz and Ted Nugent ain't exactly BLACK/BLOG TO COMM rah-rah's I still find myself reading 'em because the way these amateurs/fans conduct 'em (and their ability to bring out the everyday down-homeness in their subjects) does make for more intriguing reading than you get from the last twenty years of pious and pretentious rock critiquing, that's for sure!

And amidst the pages of interview and record reviews of the latest rock/metal/punk offerings there are a few surprises, such as a piece on page 49 entitled "Who Put The Punk" regarding "Germany's Possible Influence On Punk" (Floh De Cologne, Franz K., Ton Steine Scherben and Neu!) which really does predate the krautrock revival of the nineties so we gotta give RAW POWER some credit for that! And as far as those record reviews go the brilliance shines through even the tenth-grade level English class-style of the contributors (and a "C+" at that!), with THREE reviews of NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS nestled between writeups of Queen and AC/DC...and I LOVE IT!!!!! I mean, it may be "uncouth" to the standard punk elite (not that there's anything wrong with that, at least on a few levels!) to see Quick Draw giving a page long appraisal of METALLIC KO and the Ramones right after heaping praise upon the standard FM twaddle being produced during the industry's absolute worst nadir (at least before the nadirs of the eighties, nineties...), but like I said, I kinda find it neat myself.

And what would a fanzine be without the local band/personality coverage anyway? The tipoff that Quick Draw would be a fan of and call up Rodney's radio show should forewarn you that there's a Kim Fowley interview here that was in part conducted by Bingenheimer himself. And not only that, but there are brief yet substantial bits on such local RAW POWER faves as the Dogs and Germs (names that I seem to recall having heard somewhere before...) as well as Sister, which it turns out was formerly known as the Killer Kane Band featuring none other than Blackie Lawless as frontman long before he spearheaded the worst aspects of eighties metal making that decade (between the faux metal, gnu wave and new age) one of the worst for music fans ever! (Or at least until what eventually transpired!)

Some of my less-astute readers (and there are many) may think that after all of the dross that RAW POWER championed I would fling my copy into the nearest incinerator but not really...like I said, I like the rockism mindset of Quick Draw, Bobbalouie and gang, and even with the weak attempts at humor and coverage of groups I could care less about I give RAW POWER one of the highest accolades I could (and you can buy a cup of coffee with that!), mainly by placing it in my box of mid-seventies issues of CREEM that languishes underneath the very desk I'm typing this post on. And could you think of a more fitting tribute than that? (And while you're at it, could you imagine what RAW POWER would have come off like had it lasted into the dreaded eighties and nineties [or oh-oh's]??? I kinda shudder at that to tell you the truth because I somehow see the mag mutating into either a boring metal mouthpiece or tiresome new wave fashion plate publication. But then again, I could be wrong. Whatever happened to you anyway Quick Draw????)

The Spike-Drivers-FOLKROCKING PSYCHEDELIC INNOVATION FROM THE MOTOR CITY IN THE MID-SIXTIES CD (RD, Switzerland)

When I first saw the Spike-Drivers listed on one of those psychedelic Gary Grimshaw posters nestled next to the likes of the MC5 and Seventh Seal way back when, I had them figured as being yet another one of those high-powered heavy metal bands that permeated the Detroit Scene between the years 1967 and '71 or so...y'know, one-a those loud and RAMBUNCTIOUS groups that people like I still get all obsessed over even a good four decades down the line! Naturally my rather infantile preconceptions changed when yet another one of my fair-weathered friends made me a cassette of various sixties garage band rarities gathered straight from his own 45 rpm collection sometime in the early-eighties (long before the rash of post-NUGGETS/PEBBLES/BOULDERS samplers glutted the collector's market making these home made jobs obsolete). I didn't hear anything especially hard or "high-energy" regarding the 'Drivers' nationally-distributed Reprise-label single and thusly went along thinking that this particular buncha Michigan rockers were totally outta step with what was really happening in the Motor City at the time. Well, time as usual has honed my opinions regarding this bunch, and nowadays I'd consider the Spike-Drivers a pretty good folk-rocking group on par with the pre-hippie San Francisco aggregates along the lines of the Mojo Men and Vejtables, or maybe even Detroit's answer to the early Fairport Convention's answer to what the Jefferson Airplane were doing, obviously GAINING something in the translation.

Yeah, this Cee-Dee may be a bit too good-timey in spots for the average BLOG TO COMM reader, but I must admit to being swayed not only by the fine Eastern modalities therein (which they actually taught to the Butterfield Blues Band prior to that group's groundbreaking EAST/WEST) but the fine medieval male/female harmonies reminiscent of San Fran long before that piece of real estate devolved into boring hackdom and was still struggling in the transition from garage band aesthetics to psychedelic head-dom. And for those of you who still may be bummed out over the group's alleged betrayal of their Michigan roots don't despair because it's obvious that the 'Drivers learned SOMETHING from their associations with the Five ("...we got very hot and sweaty")...just give a listen to "Everybody's Got That Feeling" with its burst of pure MC5-derived avant rock if you want some downright PROOF!

But (as you know) man does not live by atonal blare alone, and even a rockism-bred person such as I can settle back and enjoy tracks like the string-laden "Portland Town" (with Marycarol Brown's sweet femme folk rock pipes billowing one of the better antiwar odes in those pre-radical days putting obvious contenders like Joan Baez to shame!). And the rest obviously ain't no slouch either, from the mid-sixties garage-punk (good stuff for a buncha folksters who only discoverd rock after the Beatles made it hip for all) to even the Spoonful-y goof takes (like "Grocery Store," and catch the sly foul-word slippage which they actually snuck into their afternoon television appearance in Lima Ohio of all places resulting in every kid in town being grounded just so's they couldn't attend their show that very evening...the MC5 weren't the only Detroit band to create such controversy!) I dunno about you, but I find it all kinda exhilarating myself!

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AT THE FACTORY: WARHOL TAPES CD (Nothing Sounds Limited, bootleg)

With all of the classic proto-punky upheavals and reissues going on this year, wouldn't you just know it that this wonder hadda've been unleashed in order to make my choice for "Best Classic Dig of 2005" an even HARDER one than it had been with all those Chinaboise, Magic Tramps and George Brigmans to choose from! Yes, some schmuck out there had the brains to somehow get hold of the ORIGINAL real-life Velvet Underground CD that was playing at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and press up a whole slew of 'em which is a whole lot better'n listening to those tapes somebody made by holding up a cheap-o portable cassette recorder near the speakers (something Brad Kohler tried doing, though he quit after awhile because some Japanese tourists actually thought he was part of the exhibit!). And whoever that schmuck may be let me be the first to congratulate you, because with the current legal holdup on all legit Velvet Underground unreleased material its you illegal bootleggers that we must rely on in order to satiate our lifelong Velvets cravings! And as I always said, rather some shifty bootlegger than some bigtime exec get the moolah, that's for sure (y'see, there's this question of quality one must keep in mind).

Not only is the sound on this new silver-disque much better'n that standing waved-out CD-R of yore, but the missing material pops up making for even more thrill-chills for all you longtime Velvets obsessives. "Walk Alone" (so far the only Pickwick-period track to have made it into the Velvets rep) is a good enough mid-sixties folk rocker perhaps a bit more "folk" 'n "rock" but considering the '64 origins I gotta commend Reed/Cale/Vance/Phillips even more, while the take of "Venus In Furs" is more or less a classic fifties "Crackin' Up"/"Love is Strange" riff with Lou speaking a few lyrics which doesn't quite qualify it as the actual song but adds up to good mythmaking. And if you think it ain't grand hearing "Miss Joanie Lee" a whole lot more, er, tuned in than before then you'd be wrong as usual (although the natural distortion of the original made for a more exhilarating experience especially if you were under the influence of Ny Quil!). And I for one am glad to finally hear a clear version of the early-'66 take of "Heroin" with that interesting (and soon deleted) guitar line that reminds me of an old out-of-tune upright piano!

From the instrumentals (which show the group laying back and kicking up their footsies while working out their inspirations) to Nico trying to sing "There She Goes Again" not forgetting the manic live tracks (including "European Son" and Dylan's "gift" to Nico "I'll Keep It With Mine") it's sure great hearing a high quality Velvets recording (bootleg or not) that doesn't rehash the old product for rock generation after generation ad infinitum.

Not that this one won't be rehashed as time goes by...y'see, I have the sneaking suspicion that these WARHOL TAPES will be amongst the hard-to-get disques for all good hipsters to have within a few months or so, but given the quality and urgency of the thing there's no doubt someone will be re-booting and re-re-booting it as time goes on. And while the cult of the Velvets has grown from the enclaves of the avant-gardest of the avant-garde to the dweebest of the dweebs within the span of a good four decades it's always great to come back to the source if only to resensify yourself after way too much damning with faint riffage that has gone on due to all of those nth-generation bores of the past few decades who "claim" to have an undying allegiance to the Velvets and their drone but still come off like they worship at the altar of Hootie and the Blowfish for all I know.

Todd Tamanend Clark-NOVA PSYCHEDELIA 2-CD set (Anopheles)

Todd Tamanend Clark (known to us who bought his classic mid-eighties self-released album INTO THE VISION as just plain old Todd Clark) is one person who really might be able to be classified as a bona-fide enigma. Well, at least he sure seemed that way when that aforementioned platter got unleashed onto an unsuspecting underground music loving clique back in the middle of one of the more boring decades ever at least until the nineties and oh-ohs...after all, here was a guy coming atcha in the midst of all this geeky post-wave and slick pop and light metal, and with an electronic barrage that hadda be heard to be believed! And not only that but he was getting such bigname (at least in my book) talent as Cheetah Chrome, Alan Ravenstine and William Burroughs to appear on his disc which at the time seemed like a big feather in his cap and his feather certainly made for my obsessive/compulsive-about-such-things pleasure, that's for sure! OK, the Burroughs recitation on the title track was taken straight offa CALL ME BURROUGHS (Clark may be good but he ain't no Dashiel Hedayat!) but the nova synthroid energy was still there and considering how this guy came off like all the best the seventies hadda offer wrapped up for mid-eighties sound gobble, who could (especially in 1985) ask for anything more? Back then I had Clark pegged as being a healthy mix of early-seventies Eno and even-earlier-seventies Alice Cooper, and twenty years down the line I gotta commend myself for being astute about such things even then!

Still, there seemed to be a lack of somethingorother that kept Clark from being a classic (or better yet accepted) underground persona that I didn't catch, but others might've. Not quite too sure what it was, but it reminds me of a story of little importance I'll tell ya...y'see, Clark lives in Butler PA (also home to the Congo Eels of yore as well as a lotta factories including the plant which used to make the Austin here inna USA) and perhaps due to the relative closeness in locale (twixt Sharon and Butler, that is), I happened to obtain a copy of Suicide's "Dream Baby Dream" 12-inch single that was once owned by Clark! How do I know this? Well, Clark actually wrote his name on the lower left corner of the front cover which I think is cool, because a lotta people liked to write their names on record covers so's nobody would swipe 'em or for some other reason (like vanity?), and better a personality like Clark's name on a sleeve than some schmuck like Joe Fafoofnik's! However, it seems that a person who owned this very record afterwards (a BLACK TO COMM contributor whose name I won't mention in order to protect the innocent...mainly me because I don't wanna get hit!) had the unmitigated audacity to print the words "is an asshole" directly beneath Todd's very name! Naturally shocked, I asked this contributor-in-question as to why he would do such an uncouth, bestial thing as that. I forget his response other'n either he met or he knew someone who knew Todd and obviously they didn't hit it off too swimmingly or something like that, but sheesh...around the time INTO THE VISION came out I talked with Todd on the phone a few times and he came off like the nicest, aw shucks kinda guy I ever met who also had a good knowledge of electronics (I told him that I liked his album because I thought the synths of yore he used sounded so much earthier than the then-current Sweet Polly Purebred electronics seen all over the place, and he gave me a neat discourse of the differences between analog and digital devices that did make quite an impression in my oft-vacated beanie). Heck, the man even asked me if I happened to be "musically inclined" and when I told him I joked around on various noisemakers and even recorded some of the rather unmusical results, he then pondered whether or not I was a non-musician type like Eno! I felt kinda flattered although my musical level is about that of ol' Brian as an embryo, but the buzz I got was pleasant anyway. Even after this admission Todd invited me to his abode to do some jamming, and though I naturally declined for fear of being humililated on a musical level I understand that he also asked Sister Ray's Mark Hanley as well, and I recall that Mark was actually thinking of taking Todd up on his offer!

But that was long ago, and though much has happened within the BLACK TO COMM sphere in those years (mainly much degradation and obscurity!) it looked to me as if not much has been going on as far as Mr. Clark has been concerned. Another single entitled "Flame Over Philadelphia" managed to get popped out within a year or so, but after that it seems as if I (and maybe a lotta other people) lost contact with Todd. I guess that Todd actually was musically active after all (considering the backlog of CDs of his that are available through CD Baby), but at least it's neat that Karl Ikola at Anopheles had the brains to release a two-CD set of classic seventies/eighties Todd tracks because, even in this already boss retro-seventies underground-saturated year which has seen reissues and archival upheavals I never thought would see the light of day, we can always use more of these old-timey offerings in order to remind ourselves of just how exciting the whole fanzine/CREEM-bred high energy DIY scene was before a lotta geeks hadda turn garage aesthetics into "amerindie" disposables.

My Eno/Alice comparisons seem to shine through on these platters, from the single recorded with Todd's early aggregate Stars September '75 entitled "Flame Over Africa"/"Two-Thousand Light Years From Home" (both sides weirdo slow-down creepy crawls) to the all-out glam/metal stomper "We're Not Safe" that sounds like it coulda been some early Cooper outtake ca. EASY ACTION with a lotta synths added for extra-spook effect. And, in the best seventies-punk "we remember the sixties" fashion, there're also covers of Paul Revere's "Hungry" and the Electric Prunes' "I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night" that seem to suit these thudsters and their six-oh template just fine. In between there's a lotta fine electronic non-mummery excitement with wailing theremins and mini-moog blotches that sound like Eric Lindgren's studio just went ka-plooey!...lemme tell you, I don't care what Contributor "X" may think, but I know that Todd's mix of early-seventies hard-rock and style ('n take a look at that pic [on page 17 of the enclosed booklet] of a shirtless Todd live and onstage...somebody please feed this guy!!!) with now-outmoded electronics is one of the better underground trips I've heard in quite some time, or at least since Chrome stopped being of interest to me.

(And by the way, can anyone out there like Karl f'rinstance find out whether or not it was Todd's "Stars" or another band with the same handle who performed at the now-fabled CBGB Christmas Festival sometime during the closing days of 1975? Yeah, I get the feeling that there must've been a hunnerd groups calling themselves Stars between then and now [including the famed Syd Barrett/Twink attempt] but considering that the Fest featured a lotta outta town talent made up of suburban garage band wannabes who read about the club in ROLLING STONE, who knows? Perhaps these Stars were those Stars, and finding out the plain truth would be nice one of these days if only to clear up these nagging details that've been cluttering up my mind for years.)

Oh, and the entire INTO THE VISION album plus the "Flame Over Philadelphia" single are included as well (though I gotta admit that I don't quite cozy up to Todd's dedication of this song to Mumia Abu-Jamal especially after reading more and more about the case which has clearly put me on the "Fry Mumia" side of the issue---and I ain't even that much of a pro-death penalty cheerleader these days either!) and yeah I know that it's redundant and even futile to rehash the ol' arguments in favor of high-energy rock such as this that you've heard from the word processors of folks like me for ages but between you, me and the laser I'd take advantage of the one-month only sales price ($17.99) that Karl is offering because especially in these money-shortage times you can't afford to pass up bargains such as this!

Oh, and I didn't tell you about the time Todd went to the Allen Theater in Cleveland to see the Slade/Stooges show early '74 and sat in the third row next to one Crocus Behemoth and left during the Slade set because he thought they were boring and talked with Iggy in the vestibule who came off like a nice and friendly chap for being a rock star and all! (That Stooges show must've been impressive as well, since his "Secret Sinema" on disque two comes off more like Iggy ca. KILL CITY as opposed to Jim Morrison, Todd's intended influence!)

MY OWN HORN-TOOTING TIME!

Probably its because you WON'T be reading about it anywhere else or see it plastered all over whatever media there is out there that makes note of such things, but maybe not-so-egotistical me feels like it's my duty to inform you faithful readers that this month, in fact this very WEEK marks none other than the twentieth anniversary of the very first issue of my very own fanzine BLACK TO COMM! Yes, a whole whopping two decades back the debut issue of this mag (then wrestling under the pretty doofy title FUD!) was unleashed upon an unsuspecting public, a humble twelve-page crudzine with an entire press run of about fifty copies (and that's including a brief reprinting in 1989) that had nary a readable word in it and incredible lame stabs at humor and record reviews to boot, but since it's MY crudzine and I know that it's stuff like this that makes up the vim and vigor of a "true" underground and not the usual bigtime alternative prepackaged wheelings and dealings, I'm of the opinion that blabbing about my efforts on this post have a lot more value (culturally, socially) to YOU as a whole (or even hole) than most of the blab coming out of blogland these sorry days. So sit tight Gertrude because it's gonna be a long, self-centered ride ahead!

Anyway, two decades back this upstart rockscribe, who had been toying with the idea of a fanzine creation for a good four or so years prior, (everything from a mag featuring nothing but various correspondence to an all Pere Ubu and related specialty pub, even going so far as to have started on a hand-printed sub-crudzine effort in '81, artwork samples of which had ended up in later-on issues as sort of an "in" joke), decided to finally get off the old duff and GO TO WORK creating a fanzine that would be JUST THAT! and not the sick state of affairs that some of these self-published reads had devolved into once the mid-eighties were rolling around. At the time I had become enamored with the previous generation of proto-punk fanzines that had come out during the early-seventies "Golden Age of Rock Criticism" and I guess the combination of 1) being stuck in a rather dire time for rock music in general (post-hardcore, post-post-seventies garage aesthetics) and 2) flipping over then-decade-old copies of such fanzines as BACK DOOR MAN, DENIM DELINQUENT and TEENAGE WASTELAND GAZETTE with their snotty anti-"Youth Culture" mentalities and deciding that what 1985 needed was a lot less introspection and a lot more jams kicking...well, let's just say that the combination of the two made for a bigger combustion in my mind than the slamming of "nitro" and "glycerin" together, the resultant boom being none other than the entire BTC "empire" that remains with us to this day (more/less).

It's so funny looking over the old issues rotting away in my closet, reminiscing about the problems I had with not only with laying these out but getting them printed and hoping they wouldn't look too crappy in the process. In those days there were NO copiers (at least in my area!) which could reduce already-typed articles/reviews/etc. to whatever dimensions I would need for a tasty and tight layout...all the machines I had contact with contained only two settings in which to reduce (50 and 75%) which is why those early issues (up to #16) look so "clunky", and I gotta laugh at the primitiveness of it all as well as at some of my more left-wing opines that were still being spouted well into the late-eighties. I guess that journey from kneejerk radical hipness (the kind that kills millions!) to my present right-wing anarchist state took a lot longer than I realized, but although you could see evidence of an anti-statist mindset even in these early issues there are many things written in these early issues that seem so anti-BTC in retrospect! It's also funny giving a gander at some of the bands I was championing (maybe w/a small "c" but championing still) at the time like Husker Du and a lotta other musical acts that I haven't spun in what seems like ages. Still, my penchant for high-energy rock & roll and pangs for the cream of the previous decade's energetic post-Velvet Underground scene was also in full-force, so you could say that I weeded the chaff outta the mag and concentrated on the purer, more blare-conscious music as the years progressed.

If you asked me which of the early issues were my fave I'd probably sputter a classic Ralph Kramden "A-hummana-hummana-hummana..." from here to Kalamazoo and back! Issue two struck me as being pretty decent at the time not only with the John Dowd-inspired cover (similar to efforts he did for not only the classic Troggs-issue of WHO PUT THE BOMP but TEENAGE WASTELAND GAZETTE, the final JAMZ and a few others I don't possess yet!) but with my piece on the then-current Australian high energy scene ("Continent Explodes on Impact"). You gotta remember that at that time it sure seemed as if the Detroit-inspired Aussie bands were not only the salvation of rock & roll but perhaps the last holdout regarding seventies trash aesthetics remains something to look back at without wincing, and yeah, before the glut of weaker recordings began being pumped outta that land o' Lang it sure seemed pretty exciting seeing what new groups and records were coming outta the Antipodes in those halcyon days. Also in that issue was a piece on the Raunch Hands who were yet another up-and-coming group out of the then-raving hot "garage revival" that captured my attention, as well as the debut of the "Inner Mystique" column by one Bill Shute (who had expressed a liking of the first issue although I've felt he was only being "kind" and didn't wanna hurt my feelings!). As you may or may not know, Bill had his own fanzine in the early-eighties (I still remember being shown a copy of it in the music listening room at Kilcawley Center located on the campus of Youngstown State University in 1982 and flipping out, so you can say that Bill was another big influence on my publishing desires) and having him do a "regular column" for the mag was certainly one big feather in the ol' cap since, if anything, what this mag really coulda used during the early days of struggle were some BRAINS, which Bill had in plenty supply. It was always a gas getting hold of Bill's columns, reading about whatever new reissue of some then-obscure private press or societal/political bugaboo he had, either laughing out loud at the brilliant ironies or shuddering in abject fear, but then again I get that way sometimes.

I also gotta say that the third ish was good, maybe not necessarily because of the insides (which contained some embarrassing, error-ridden scribings on my part) but because of the cover, a wonderful parody/homage to the Pretty Things' SF SORROW drawn by one-time contributor John Stanton who also did the wild Velvet Underground cover for #5 (utilizing a then-new photo which has since been over-used to the point of nausea) not to mention some nice scribing as well. And I gotta say one thing...looking at (and writing about) these early days reminds me of just how HAPPY this usually Sad Sack of a guy was during those times, which weren't any great shakes gulcherally but gave me a lot to live for, whether it be some new Syd Barrett or Velvet Underground bootleg to look forward to or some new group that Imants Krumins hipped me to, or even the fact that television hadn't begun its slide into total post-hippie wretchdom when such wonders as THE BEST OF GROUCHO and STAR PERFORMANCES, not to mention classic old movies that used to be the staple of the slowly-dying late shows, were now being shown on PBS of all places!

However, as far as the best of the early, less-professional (although the mag went from xerox to offset with #5) issues of what had by now evolved into PHFUDD! goes, my faves have to be issues 6, 7 and 8. #6 featured another fave early cover spotlighting my "heavy metal slugfest" pitting Radio Birdman against MX-80 Sound (getting hold of a batch of old CREEM's had honed my rockism vocabulary to the point where I was using their hoary old definition of the HM tag well into an era when metal had split into polar opposites of extreme brilliance or utter inaptitude with no redeeming trash aesthetic) not to mention pieces on Rocket From the Tombs and the Electric Eels which I was extremely proud of at the time. (An aside, I recall putting the finishing touches on this issue while playing Eno's HERE COME THE WARM JETS inspired by a recent reading of Lester Bangs' review of said album in the pages of the aforementioned CREEM.) Issue #7 was fine as well, not only with a brief mail interview with up-and-comers the Laughing Hyenas who were featured on the cover (I guess Chuck Eddy was put on this earth for a purpose since it was he who tipped me off to these Detroit maniacs before the inevitable rift!) but a hugeoid history on none other than local legend Blue Ash, a piece that I had painstakingly prepared complete with an interview with bassist Frank Secich (who lent me the use of his archives) and a lotta love-laboring going on considering how I felt like a bonafide Jimmy Olsen getting a SCOOP while this issue was underway. And the Peter Laughner special in #8 was another fave...it had been ten years since this Cleveland pioneer had died and considering how I got the issue out almost to the exact date of his passing was certainly an effort worth noting. By the way, the cover pic featuring a snap of Laughner taken onstage at the Agora during the Rocket From The Tombs gig at the "Night of Heavy Music" broadcast on WMMS-FM with no title or wordage (or price!) whatsoever was clearly a homage to DENIM DELINQUENT's Iggy-cover (#5), though such a fact didn't set well with See Hear's Ted Gottfried, who hadda sell the things and ended up printing the title and price on each of the copies I forwarded his way!

Not that those days were without their moments of angst (to be overemotional about it)...the fact that both Gerard Cosloy and Patrick Amory played the old "build up/knock down" game with me (resulting in dismal sales and adverse publicity thanks to some should-have-seen-it-coming bandwagon-jumping) really knocked a lotta wind outta my sails, something which couldn't be remedied by a much-needed title-change to BLACK TO COMM in 1989 as well as a switch to a more-professional (hah!) saddle-staple and screened photography layout a year earlier (suggested to me by one Bruce Mowat, who wrote the cover story on Simply Saucer to accompany this fanzine beef-up). By this time (1988) I was still keeping up a hefty and regular publishing schedule with four-to-six issues per year, and although I was constantly bearing the brunt of a lotta undeserved antipathy at the time I was still enjoying myself discovering not only classic recordings (Hackamore Brick, Von Lmo) but new faves like the Droogs' classic KINGDOM DAY, and as I said at the time I was flattered that this publication of mine was the first ever to feature this quartet on the cover and after almost seventeen years of fanzine adulation as well! But as far as the name-switch goes, although I thought it necessary in 1988 given all the crap I had to go through thanks to a few punques, in retrospect I never would have switched it to BLACK TO COMM had I only known that this once-obscure MC5 number would grow in fame (and notoriety) by leaps and bounds within the coming years. I was still on my BACK DOOR MAN jag which helped influence the moniker-switch (which was better than some of the new titles that were thrust upon me like (nothing about) U2 and RANDOM INSECT DOOM) but from the hindsight of sixteen years all I gotta say is that I coulda done better at least with the choice of title for my vehicle, but then again if everyone from Robert E. Lee to Soupy Sales had another chance to make that one significant change in their lives the world would be a much different place than it is today!

It was at this time that I also got to hitch up with a lotta people claiming to be friends, and while some turned out to be pals of the fair weather variety (in order to spare your senses just comb over the past year-and-a-half of blog posts for an inkling) there were a few, like Brad Kohler, who proved to be true and blue to the point of contributing articles and pix sorely needed to color the thing up. If you're reading this Brad, all I gotta say is...wanna buy any additional issues???

Anyway, by 1990 I had so much trouble keeping up with a "regular schedule" more or less, and since I had long-wanted to unleash a larger fanzine the dimensions of KICKS and WHO PUT THE BOMP (again, the Troggs issue) on you faithful readers I quit with the clockwork and decided to take my good ol' time lopping these mags at you. Frankly I consider this move on one hand brilliant considering the less-rushed look of the things and nice-solid reading and dismal on the other taking in account that the immediacy was lost given the lapsed time between issues. But since the music scene was changing and I was changing myself, perhaps in a different direction (having pretty much given up on a lotta what had devolved into alternative music during that time) maybe the changeover to a mag that wasn't exactly "topical" yet remained on the top of a proto-punk/old tee-vee/Amerigan gulcher trash-heap was a move worthy of King Solomon, or maybe Solomon Gruberger for that matter.

I must admit that of all the FUD!/PFUD!/PFUDD!/PHFUDD!/BLACK TO COMMs that came out it's these later ones that I am the most gosh-darn-it-all proud of. Since I was aiming for a KICKS look and a feel akin to the oft-mentioned classic early/mid-seventies fanzines I adore, I think I did a pretty good job and I'm sure some staunch observer like Lindsay Hutton might agree with me (but then again, he might not!). And I must also admit (at the risk of sounding like a gosh-it-all young dweeb) that it has been a total thrill for me to find out more and more information about all of these then-obscure proto-punk aggregates like Umela Hmota and Simply Saucer and not only do articles on 'em but release their wares on those disques that came with issues 22 and 25! Yes, of all the "accomplishments" (hah!) I've made o'er the years I think it's the inclusion of those CDs that I'm the proudest of even though I originally feared that those shiny pancakes would eventually KILL primitive music as we knew it! And yeah, I would have loved to have seen a Milk single back in 1980 and all of those Czech bands released for underground consumption around the same time, but if I had known only then that I would've been the one doing all this record releasing (OK, "CD" releasing) stuff I probably'd've freaked out to no end! And although the current music scene seems to be so dry and uninspiring these past few years (except for the new avant garde jazz that has played [and will continue to play] at the CBGB Lounge) it's always great to hunt out and (re)discover bands from the feral past (like Les Rallizes Denudes) who still deliver on the goods even if they're not around anymore while the "underground" of a current strain continues to bore beyond belief. And although not everyone seems to bear my musical inclinations out, I'll bet you a stack of back issues that come ten/twenty years, its bands like The Magic Tramps that are going to be remembered while the alternative flavor of the month club blog-hyped acts that are all the rage will be thought of more or less as a punchline to a sick joke.

And hey, it's great that I could use this mag (and blog) and HITCH UP with a lotta my heroes from the Tramps to Lou Rone to Mr. Bear, Billy 'n Miriam and many more too numerous to mention!!! (If I forgot ya, leave me a post to chew me out!) I mean, these are folks I only read about for years, but actually getting in touch via the internet or mail or however is a big thrill that turns this mid-aged baldo into yet another raving adolescent blackhead farm! I certainly can get off on that more'n had I just holed up in my room reading about a life I wish I could live but couldn't inna millyun years!

Anyway, despite all the self-backpatting and one-way congratulations going on in this post, all I gotta say is that despite all the bad stuff that's happened to me and the mag, the back-stabbing and the lack of interest thanks to distributors (many who have yet to pay me) and big-name people who coulda given me the push but failed to do so even after promising just that, it's been fun. Sure, BLACK TO COMM has never turned a profit or made anybody's top ten list or even got a hint of recognition from the "mainstream" and/or "underground" but so what? I did what I KNEW I should do, and my only beef these days would be that I didn't do what I did HARD ENOUGH!!! And if I've turned off people because of my certain views (which were honed and cultivated perhaps because of these very same people, if you get my drift), remember that these are the same folk who TURNED ME OFF long ago with their even-Newer Left blab so in vogue in the colleges and newsrooms of Ameriga these days. Well, it's nice GIVING IT BACK to the same people who give it to me and my family/relatives/associates all these years for being so ethnic and honest and middle-class and all those things so not-in-vogue with the same people who claim to "speak for their vague conception of the common man."


But enough of that. Let's just say that here it is, twenty whole years after that first FUD began creeping into the mailboxes of unsuspecting rock maniacs and the train is still chugging away... a few wheels have derailed and its not exactly on-time maybe, but the ol engine's continuing to churn out the high-energy rock & roll message that's STILL so desperately needed even these days when we ALL should know better. Really, I wish I could have celebrated this momentous occasion with you by publishing a twentieth-anniversary BEST OF BLACK TO COMM with choice moments from past out-of-print issues and even more in-depth reminiscences, but sad to say there just ain't any market for that, at least at this moment. Perhaps for our Silver Anniversay I can slap something together, but as the sixties radicals used to say, "things gotta change first!" And although the medium may now be internet and a new flesh and blood (make that pulp and ink) issue might be years away, the enterprise keeps on going and I doubt it will be going away for a LONG time. Anyway, I'm here, I'm JEER, I'm SNEER and I'm STILL IN YOUR FACE, and while yer at it howzbout buying a couple
back issues?

Another Pretty Face-21st CENTURY ROCK CD (Bummer Tent)

The Magic Tramps-KICKIN' UP MOONLIGHT DUST CD (Moonlight Dust)

The problem with glam/glitter rock (at least in the United States and especially in New York City) was that, for all of the press and accolades it received and all the promise it held for overweight pimple-infested fat tubs o' lard cloistered in their midwestern bedrooms, NOTHING CAME OUT!!! Other'n the New York Dolls that is, but even considering just how much that group could inspire fellow rockers to heights of spandex greatness on one hand and get them all frothing at the mouth rabid on the other (witness their topping both the "Best" and "Worst" new group categories in the 1973 CREEM reader's poll) you'd've thunk that some enterprising label, even a cheap-o upstart like Paramount, would've had the initiative to do a little a&r hunting at the Mercer Arts Center for their own personal Dolls wannabes! But alas, given all the press, hype, attention and promise that the Dolls earned, the big New York Rock Putsch pretty much ended with a fizzle as glam screeched to a halt. And frankly, the same labels that upped their noses at Teenage Lust and Gilded Tramp didn't do that much better when the same En Why Scene morphed into the mid-seventies decidedly NON-glam era of Television and all those groups that seemed so refreshing especially compared with a lotta the disco and prog rock that was goin' on at the time but hardly anybody seemed to care anyway.

It would figure that it's taken well over thirty years for the rest of the New York decadence scene to start getting documented, and while I think we all could've used both of these disques a lot earlier'n now when its time for this stuff to be SCRUTINIZED by effete geeks, at least they're here for our perusal while we still have our wits about us. After all, I'd hate to be 99 years old drooling on my bib listening to stuff I shoulda back when I was twenty, and unfortunately that's gonna be the case when some archival neural-implant label gets around to issuing EVERY NOTE PLAYED IN NEW YORK CITY 1972-1975 well into the future!

Anyway, fans of the En Why sound'll probably get a big kick outta these two platters. The first is by Another Pretty Face whom you, I and everyone on the pretty face of this earth thought were from Metropolis at least until I reviewed their 1980 album FACE FACTS in the latest issue of my fanzine and revealed to you the fact that these glam guys were actually from Philadelphia, a place that doesn't exactly seem like a glitter hotbed unless you want to take the burgh's translated name at face value. Whatever, I kinda wrote off the 1980 variation of Another Pretty Face (not to be confused with the English post-punk act that almost got ME fooled) as just another buncha third-stringers bending with the prevailing underground winds, doing a glam-slam thing in 1974 whilst going the electronic gnu wave highway in '80, kinda making me wonder which route these trendy travelers took in between. Certainly nothing special, especially with all the other electronic fashion-plate electronic new wave groups fighting for your hard-begged money at the time.

As for the 1974 variant, this "real" first album which got ditched back in the day will answer a whole lotta questions. However, I'm not sure that the average reader of this blog'll actually appreciate the answers given, but I'll let you decide that on your lonesome. If you (like I) were expecting a Dolls-styled rush you'll be sadly disappointed, though if your tastes veer towards British Bowie/Spiders glam with just a wee touch of pomp...well, you'll STILL be bummed albeit if you like it a little heavier pomp-wise this should suit'cha just fine.

Yes, after just one listen to 21st CENTURY ROCK you'll know just why lead Face T. Roth and mysterioso glitter alien Jobriath were such good friends. This is pretty much after-hours nightclub schmoozing music, not much on the energy but if you go for something like the deca-sleaze of Nelson Slater's WILD ANGEL album (RCA '76, produced by old pal Lou Reed and yanked off the market by feminists due to the s&m cover snap!) you'll probably get some enjoyment outta it. I must admit that I do at least on that level, though I must confess that I haven't been spinning WILD ANGEL that much lately!

Definitely a professional clean-up spiffy production (courtesy Ed Stasium, his first in fact) loaded with synths and horns (courtesy Randy Brecker etc.), you can't call this disque proto-punk or high energy or ANYTHING that you were expecting outta glam rock, American or otherwise. Still its got a cutesy fun to it whether it be the poofy take of T. Rex's "Bang A Gong" or the even poofier "Da Do Ron Ron" which I'm sure wowed the habituates of the old 82 Club to heights of dance floor frenzy! And even though nothing here can wow you the way the originals (talking influences as well as original artists) have, you can still get a bitta fun outta 21st CENTURY ROCK if you squeeze it hard enough, although the only song here that perked my ears up was this eloquent slab of melodrama entitled "Little Boys" which might be an impassioned gay libber plea or just another "All The Young Dudes"-inspired romp through mixed-up confusion for all I know. Or care for that matter. Y'see, I like the chord changes.

If you wanna do better with regards to what glam slam should've meant to more of those crazy and confused wannabes in Idaho sending their pix into the "New Groups" section of ROCK SCENE magazine then just try the Magic Tramps. A band that perhaps has gotten so little even after producing so much hype and publicity all over the place (thanks to everyone from THE VILLAGE VOICE's Richard Nusser to Lester Bangs in PHONOGRAPH RECORD MAGAZINE), one would've expected the Tramps to've unleashed at least a couple albums before petering off into flea-market heaven. Unfortunately they never even got that far, but thanks to this new release at least a lotta historical inaccuracies and strange mysteries have been cleared up, and not only that but a lotta great music has been unleashed on us starved beggars as well.

Perhaps best known as Warhol Superstar and legendary madman Eric Emerson's early-seventies group (he of the infamous original back cover shot of THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO lawsuit fame), in reality the Tramps were a group that preceded and surpassed Emerson's attention-grabbing involvement. Originally an avant-rock trio featuring Lary (no sic) Chaplan on violin, Young Blood on guitar and Sesu Coleman on drums (in the best Maureen Tucker/Scott Asheton THUD tradition), this Los Angeles-based threesome managed to get a residency at some outta-the-radarscope hangout called The Temple of the Rainbow under their original name Messiah while simultaneously working (with a bassist) at a blues joint as the Magic Tramps. After hitching up with Emerson (who was acting in Warhol's LONESOME COWBOYS at the time) the quartet fled Los Angeles after the January '71 earthquake and settled right into a residency at Max's Kansas City where they were thankfully able to kick up a bit of a scene there, and during a rather dry spell in local music as well. (In fact, it was the Dolls who originally opened for the Tramps although the situation would be reversed within a rather short time.) And even after Emerson lost interest in being the group's frontman (wanting to devote more time to his acting career before getting killed in what remains a very peculiar and oft-disputed vehicular accident) Chaplan and Coleman continued on with a new version of the Tramps, more heavy metal perhaps but still of interest to the fans who not only supported bands such as these, but the entire media surrounding them for years on end.

And although proto-punk maniacs like myself hadda wait a good quarter-century for something like this to finally see the light (and it was a painful wait, especially given all the blab that was going on ever since those days about just how primitive and BETTER groups like the Tramps and Ruby and the Rednecks were next to the more professional and COMMERCIAL Dolls!), like I said before I'm glad that the stuff is appearing now 'stead of when I'm even older and more infirmed! Anyway, this CD is more or less divided into three parts representing the three periods in the Tramps' history (the Los Angeles days, the New York days with Emerson and the post-Emerson era when lead vocals were handled by future Joe Perry Project warbler Joe Mala!), and what's really super about all this is that this disque is supposed to be a sampler of FUTURE CDs, each devoted to these particular periods in Tramps history which will make for even more high energy listening as the days progress!

The early Messiah-period tracks are beautifully minimalist, sparse yet pretty much what I would have expected from a violin/guitar/drums trio (with or without a Warhol star on vocals) coming out of an American garage at the dawn of the seventies. Naturally I'm always in the market for obscure proto-punk such as this, and let's just say that these early tunes (recorded circa. '70/'71) certainly don't fail in regards to resensifying my oft-warped musical psyche. There's really nothing that I can compare the early tracks (with titles like "Ode To James Dean" and "Warriors of the Rainbow") to...true you can hear snatches of most other late-sixties/early-seventies groups of similar intent whether they be Alice Cooper or Hackamore Brick for that matter, but then again the Magic Tramps trip was their very own. The instrumental numbers are (as the booklet clearly states) "freeform" yet not noisy or atonal. Rather pleasant yet with an underlying intensity that would have seemed so out-of-place coming out of early-seventies Los Angeles but perhaps not-so if a thorough search of garage, basement and bedroom groups in the vicinity had only been conducted. Kinda tribal, minimal and slightly psychedelic yet definitely not hippie-ish. I'm even thinking of Amon Duul I circa. their Ohr period only even more stripped down, and I must confess that I even hear the drone that originally emanated from the early days of a certain New York "under-the-covers" band I mention way too often as do about a thousand other nimnul rock critics out there! "Hey People" with Emerson on typically teenage-sounding vocals is definitely Stones-inspired, and perhaps about as "Gimme Shelter"-influenced as Roky Erickson's "Two Headed Dog." There are many surprises in these early numbers from the American Indian-esque chant of "Rainbow" to the country blues-ish "Magic in the Moonlight"...if anything, these early tracks prove that the Magic Tramps might have been the ultimate punk promise of the time, and (at the risk of sounding anti-West Coast) their trek to En Why was perhaps the best career move on anybody's part, at least since cartoonist Milt Gross told Ernie Bushmiller to concentrate on the frizzy-haired girl character.

The New York-period material is equally grabbing, showing an energy and power that equals that of scenemongers the Dolls which really makes you wonder just why somebody didn't snatch the Tramps up for their OWN record deal. (Actually, as is explained on the Tramps' own website, the offers were coming but the band held out for an even BETTER one that I guess never did come!) After hearing "Trippin'" you'll be thinking that Bowie himself was hanging out at the Mercer Arts Center in order to rip off the locals just as much as Alice Cooper was...the song does sound pretty much like "Suffragette City" if you ask me, only with more or a New York street dirtiness that Bowie would definitely have washed away! "My Reflection" is hard to describe, a staccato-driven classical-ish number albeit with great "Til The End of the Day"-styled live life lyrics that never fail to stir up the old juices. And there's ONE thing I gotta say about Chaplan's violin playing, and that it certainly fits in with the mode of the music whether it be the freeform avantrock or glam, or even the heavy metal the group eventually ended up performing after Emerson's exit from the rock stage in early '74.

And speaking about those latterday mid-seventies Tramps tracks, well I'm sure the more punk rock-oriented amongst us probably won't cozy up to this version of the band as much as others might, but if yer one of those punks who also straddled the metallic spheres a la the writers at DENIM DELINQUENT and BACK DOOR MAN then these numbahs will get you up and moving more'n prune juice ever could. Lead singer Mala may be your typical hard rock frontman and I gotta admit that the promo snaps of these guys which you can see on the aforementioned site had 'em looking about as dorky as most of these seventies hard rocksters, but given that the band was making a conscious effort to "tighten up" and they didn't sound as wretched as some of these efforts could have, you may actually enjoy giving it a listen or ten while pouring through all your old fanzines. And besides, these guys did their own ode to Max's entitled just that, and it's almost as good as Jayne County's tribute!

And before I forget I gotta re-mention that website. It's a killer, not only with a rather in-depth history of the group but tons of flyers, articles and pix that'll have you roaming the regions for hours on end. And not only that, but they also link you up to a PUNK PLANET online interview with drummer Coleman as well as to a place (CD Baby) where you can even purchase this disque, and if you're a bit wary about this 'un even after all the hype I've bestowed upon it you can hear those wonderful instrumental tracks playing over and over ad infinitum for yourself just by clicking on certain pages...in fact before I received the CD I was occupying myself by listening to these intertwining/engrossing melodies over and over (and for HOURS on end!) whilst doing my obligatory rock & roll/comic nighty-nite pre-sack reading, and the rhythmic pounce of these songs certainly fit the mood just as much as PARADIESWARTS DUUL had been doing over the past few months! And really, could YOU think of a better recommendation than that???

Sorry Chinaboise, but this one just might top you as far as being the best proto-punk archival dig of the year goes. Come December 31, we'll see.

Hasil Adkins-MOON OVER MADISON CD; PEANUT BUTTER ROCK AND ROLL CDs (Norton)

Yer gonna hafta wait a little while until my oft-promised (and still in gestation) mega-length article/post I've been telling you about for a few weeks finally appears, hopefully sometime this week or so but until then I thought I'd tip you off to these two wondrous Cee-Dee reissues flung atcha thanks for the fine folks at Norton Rekkids. And as far as fine Cee-Dees being flung atcha go you can't get any finer'n this pair of aluminum archival digs these days (or at least today), for both of these classic offering certainly do bring back fond memories. Not necessarily of the fifties which I'll assume a good portion of you BLOG TO COMM readers don't even remember, but of the eighties. The mid-eighties to be precise, when there really wasn't anything that hot going on and new wave had pretty much devolved into nothingness compared with the bright light it had been only a decade earlier and the only thing that really thrilled me outside of a faltering hardcore scene and a few worthy seventies leftovers were those energetic and enthralling look-backs into the maybe not-so-distant past which Billy and Miriam and their Norton label not to mention their long-missed KICKS fanzine sure helped deliver on. It's so funny in some ways, because in twenty years time it seems that very little has changed and even this late in the game it's these look backs that thrill me more'n seeing what's happening in the here and now!

Anyway, two classic sides from Norton superstar and one-man hunch Hasil Adkins (who I'm sure you all know about and cherish in some respects so I'll skip on any historical background) have been reished on Cee-Dee, perhaps because the man is now dead or perhaps because Billy and Miriam wanted to honor him in this fine way, but most probably because these sides are pretty hot tickets if you ask me that'll continue to find an audience as long as there are still rockism-crazed no-accounts keeping the flame alive out there. Both tea coasters are fine produce if you ask me, MOON OVER MADISON being Hasil's more c&w-oriented splatter with what you'd call the kinda music (tearful rural moans rooted in the country sounds the Haze grew up on) that'll get your girlfriend all weepy and ready for the hunch of your lifetime. I like this one for those late-night keep-the-volume-down moments of personal reflection (melodies to accompany caffeine-induced insomnia) but my own personal fave-rave of the batch just hasta be PEANUT BUTTER ROCK AND ROLL, the more high-energy gut-bucket rockin' rollin' one that's really good for getting me in the proper frame of mind when I wanna noogie the dog. PEANUT BUTTER's also fine for getting in the right mood for thigh-boil busting, blackhead-squeezing and other matters of personal hygiene perhaps because of its incessant drive that really didn't manifest itself into the collective rock psyche until a good decade (1966) after these manic sides were laid down. In fact, I gotta say (at the risk of being drummed out of the Friends Of Norton secret club) that there was a bit of a rockabilly-push extant on these tracks that actually remind me of none other than Marc Bolan during his Tyrannosaurus Rex days, and if that don't earn the ire of Billy and Miriam I dunno what will! If you thought the first RAMONES album was a no-holds-barred breathtaking experience, try PEANUT BUTTER...it makes da brudders sound like the Snooty Blues!

Did I mention that each disque contains all-new material not found on the original elpee releases? Did I also mention the enclosed booklets not only with the obligatory rare snaps but liner notes by Nick Tosches as well as classic Adkins rejection slips? I didn't? Well, fooey on me! And fooey on this review! It sure is hard trying to keep up with the current reissue frenzy going on while trying to continue writing a gonzo-influenced blog especially at a time when hardly anyone could care less, especially when even I can tell I'm failing on all fronts especially with my lame attempts to capture the best of the hipster rockcrit style!

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.