HOO BOY, YET ANOTHER BLOG TO COMM LISTENING PARTY!

I still don't have any major projects/articles/screeds of note or worth to jettison your way as of now, but I thought it would be smart of me to at least review some of the flot/jetsam that has graced my laser launching pad (still out-of-commish w/regards to good ol' vynola) since we last had our little get-together. ('n besides, that pile o' un-reviewed tench growing ever-so-humongous in my room must be dealt with more sooner 'n later!) Anyway, here are some of the things both old, new, borrowed and maybe not-so-blue that I've been listening to (and "have" to review) over the last few days, and maybe if you take these reviews and roast them to the peak of perfection you'll find something of worth and might in here somewhere. For the life of me I can't, but, I dunno...maybe you're daft enough to do just that so getcherself in gear!

UP-TIGHT AND MAKOTO KAWABATA (Galactic Zoo Disc, available through Volcanic Tongue)

Japanese post-Rallizes Denudes wonders Up-Tight (along with Acid Mothers Temple hippie Makoto Kawataba sitting in) fare much better than they did on their previous snoozer LUCREZIA although Aoki and company still have quite a way to go before recapturing their early glory when it really seemed (no foolin'!) as if Up-Tight really were one of the few bands of the past twennysome years who actually are as good as their influences. The mock Velvets cover would have helped way back when, but today it seems like more past-digging hypeola to make up for present-day lack-of-accomplishment.

The Hypstrz-LIVE AT THE LONGHORN (Bomp)

I dunno how old most of you BLOG TO COMM perusers are, but it's a re-release of such a killer as this that reminds me of the Great Punk Rock Divide that transpired during the maybe not-so-halcyon days of the early-eighties when the music was changing but I was staying the same. Not that punk (as a music/notion/style/political soapbox...) was ever united (not that ANYTHING should be), but after a good six or so years of p-rock coming off to a good portion of us suburban slobs as this torrid mix of everything from mid-sixties garage aesthetics, avant garde snobbism, early-metal earbust and Detroit rockbluesjazzscrunch (in whatever incriments and percentages one would appreciate), by the early eighties it all sorta flung apart bigger'n the big bang itself. The sixties garageoids clung around their own camp with their fanzines, labels and various spokesmen (Greg Prevost being the unadulterated king of 'em all), while the hardcore guys sorta did the fine balance between late-seventies English aesthetics and early-seventies metallic moves. Ditto for the rockabillers and the "purer" heavy metal aggros (by the early eighties more and more underground groups were letting themselves be known as metal, perhaps more in tune with the likes of MX-80 Sound and VON LMO than Autograph!) and one thing that seemed most certain as the clock ticked away was...EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THESE ROCK CLIQUES HATED EACH OTHER! And though cooler minds such as Byron Coley's and mine thought that these twains should have "met" the prevaling winds said otherwise. Oh well, it is a pain being ahead of one's time.

Anyway, this HYPSTRZ re-release reminds me of THE BIG PUNK ROCK CRACK-UP OF 1981. No, I never did get their HYPSTERIZATION album when it came out at the beginning of that split way back when, but it was one of the things that was definitely on my "gotta have" list, me being a big fan of the Bomp!/Voxx empire then under the tutelage of the late Greg Shaw. Naturally my lack of money kept me from buying up EVERY slab of pulsating vinyl that I wanted to lend ear to back in those days (which is why I'm more'n willing to pay beaucoup for now o.p. Flipper CDs these days even if the early-eighties punk legacy has been tainted by various blogs out there), and although a quarter-century later is way too late if you ask me maybe if I squint my ears a bit I can ooze more early-eighties energy from these now-classic slabs of soon-to-oxidize aluminum pancakes just like I attempted to do with their vinyl forebearers so long ago.

Anyway, these Hypstrz guys are more of that great six-oh revival spew that seemed so refreshing next to the utter blah that what had become "new wave" was churning out at the time. Putting out a set of nothing but hep garage band covers (with the usual soul stirrer tossed in for ample effect), the Hypstrz wow their Minnesota audiences with blasts from the past that didn't reek of cheap-o nostalgia but frothed forth pure high energy thrills. Of course those were different times...I mean, nowadays EVERY bar-band with a bent towards the past will play "garage rock" toons for the massholes. I mean, it's EXPECTED that sixties punk is considered top notch fun-time rollicking music by everyone these days, but back then anyone carrying the sixties garage band flag might as well have been one of those commie punks ya used to see on CHIPS alla time. And come to think of it, listening to LIVE AT THE LONGHORN in all its early-eighties fighting the "hip-to-be-square" mentalities going around glory does make for a more adventurous time than it does now given just how accepted the sixties punks are these days...after all, what's ANYTHING (art/music/film/food...) without a little DANGER innit?

Earth People-WAKING THE LIVING, SIMPLE, ISN'T IT?? (Undivided Vision, visit the band at their site where they can direct you to where these CDs can be obtained)

Old recordings (originally reviewed in BLACK TO COMM #25) true, but I was kicking myself over missing their show (via cybercast) last Wednesday at the CBGB Lounge and in order to make amends spun their first two platters back to back in a fit of self-righteous angst. Gee, I gotta get more angstsy if that's gonna spur me onto listening to this great moderne-day avantjazzrockspew, because despite the paens to gnu age philosophising (Margie Mead quotes) and covers that remind me of Prince and Mandrill outtakes (w/o the monkey natch!) the Earth People remain one of the few groups that can pull off a "World Music" style and still make it sound all noisy and disturbing. WAKING THE LIVING features two extended tracks (one almost hitting the forty-minute mark!) and a sound that blends everything from great seventies Loft Jazz noisecapades to hotcha up-n-coming vocalese (courtesy "M"), and not only that but the band lineup's pretty snat as well featuring everbody from ex-Jimmy Lyons basoonist Karen Borca to Freedomland's Daniel Carter and Shandar survivor Francios Grillot. SIMPLE, ISN'T IT??'s got shorter songs but still has that twenty-directions at once feeling that kinda make me think that everyone in the band was playing a different song in a different style, but being so "all-inclusive" and all it gels quite fine nonetheless. Great platters there, and while linking the above site up I discovered that there have been two more Earth People CDs released since these earth-shaking splatters. Guess I know where my Christmas money's getting dumped, eh?

THE LOOKIES (Redrum, PO Box 4091, Harrisburg, PA 17111-0091, write the group at The Lookies@comcast.net)

Recently I got a letter from Brad Kohler, who (with regards to a Star Spangles review I did in the latest ish) wrote "did you write that while you were in a good mood?" Y'see, for some reason Brad thought that I somehow hated the kind of music the Star Spangles would play, thus maybe I got a new NANCY book that day or a gold star on my forehead at work when I wrote that thing or otherwise I woulda trashed it to all eternity. Well, yes Brad, I certainly was feeling chipper the day I wrote that, but let me explain about many of my reviews that, although the music may not exactly be something that I'd be spinning on my computer day-in/out, doesn't mean it's not worthwhile with its own merits and reasons for people other than myself to be flipping out over it. It may mean that, after giving the thing a boss write-up and extolling the group's many attributes I'll probably be filing the thing away until Kahoutek really comes back, but just because something doesn't fall exactly within the firm, fit and narrow confines of what does make a good record here at BLOG TO COMM central doesn't mean I have to trash the thing. Yes Virginia, there are recordings I will give a nice thumbs-up to even though I'm not exactly going to be championing the bands that made 'em from here to Bizoo and back!

So where do the Lookies fit in? I dunno...I was hoping they'd be a neat pop-rock thing like the Beckies of yore give the name, but they're pretty much another post-hardcore bunch that seemed to permeate the late-eighties (which, to nobody's surprise, is when I began getting freebie records of this stuff outta mine ears!) and although there is a bit of excitement here/there it sorta reminds me of things I might've gone gaga for at one time only now I tend to pass this stuff over during the evening hours in favor of a more pure drone. You may go fer it and if you think so try the group's CD Baby page for more info, but guys, I just got into a big arguement a few hours ago and really am not in that much of a good mood right now. Too bad I didn't write this yesterday...I was feeling super back then!

Crushed Butler-UNCRUSHED (RPM UK)

I've been hyped to this proto-Hammersmith Gorillas group (featuring the long-lived Jesse Hector whose first recordings circa 1959 [age 12] are still available via Norton) ever since a ten-inch version of this rather short (21:12) CD came out a few years back. As far as that high-energy late-sixties p-rock thingie goes this unearthed rarity sure beats the Gorillas by far and comes off as just powerful and as high energy as Crushed Butler's comrats in arms...like the Pink Fairies without the psychedelia maybe or a less blooze variation of Stackwaddy or even Killing Floor. The funny cartoon enclosed therein (done in that classic English style nobody seems to rah-rah anymore) explains the Butler story for y'all, but anyways for more of that hard-edged punkoid oomph you could use some Crushed Butler alongsides the usual Rocket From The Tombs/Mirrors/Magic Tramps/Umela Hmota/Rotomagus/Denudes... spins that only goes to PROVE to you that the past was really the future and the present is the real dungeon that's so bad that I would want my worst enemies marooned here! Hope you're having fun, guys!

Sun Ra-SPACESHIP LULLABY (Unheard Music Series)

Here are more of those Ra rarities done with vocal groups (more of which can be heard on the Evidence 2-CD set of single sides made for Saturn) that sorta put an even newer, different light on what the man called Ra was also up to while helping to define the avant jazz genre during the fifties. Actually I was expecting more of the same outer-space weirdness that starts off this disc, namely the title track by the futuristically named "Nu Sounds" (and with a moniker like that you'd think they were some 1980 gnu wave aggro designed to capture the hearts and minds of Anastasia Pantsioses everywhere) which zooms off into the same orbit you'd expect Ra to inhabit, but frankly most of this platter sounds like a lotta the fifties vocal schmoozing that my folks listened to back then and still like to osmose on those radio stations geared towards the fifties/sixties easy-listening sphere. That's why I don't like to listen to this one when they're around, y'see, I have this image to uphold!

Lou Rone-PLASTIC PISTOL (it ain't out yet!!!!)

Those of you who flipped for Rone's solo debut ALONE (Gulcher) should prepare to do a little MORE flipping over this newie that, like its predecessor, does its best to take the hard-edged seventies guitar sound and add some even harder-edged electronic murk to the thing to make a product that sounds like---I dunno, maybe that perfect act you wish would have played Max's Kansas City back in 1979 only you were sick that night or sumpin'. The whole thing just pimplebursts that seventies weirdo self-produced underground bounce, at one time coming off like Suicide (or was that Kraftwerk?) with a heavy metal guitar and then Bowie's LOW (or was that Harmonia?) with even more Eno-weirdness or perhaps some snake guitar tossed in. Either way it's a sound winner that reminds me of how I'd get all hoppity hooper excited over these electronic projex back in my teenybop days and maybe I wasn't a wuss for it after all! (Some may disagree, but this is MY blog!) Hopefully PLASTIC PISTOL won't stay in the hamper for too long. Hopefully more'n a few people out there will pay attention.

The Invisible Eyes-LAUGH IN THE DARK (Bomp)

Here's another one that I'm sure will have Kohler wonderin' whether/not I'm inna good mood, and although I ain't that tippy-top right now (see Lookies review above) I'm still gonna give these Invisible Eyes guys the thumbs up. Good post-sixties rock (complete with Doors-via-Mysterians organ on one track) that, while it doesn't make me wanna turn cartwheels, does make me glad that the Bomp name doesn't always have to stand for just about every new group with some sixties refs filtered through the next forty years of nada into a """new""" product that doesn't seem to sell as much as it did back during the heyday of underground noiserocking. Cover seems a bit too ginchy in the worst mid-eighties "revival" fashion (which is why I ain't gonna download it here!) but for folks who miss the days when underground rock didn't mean having to say you're caca this iz zit!

THE MUSIC OF WILLIAM PARKER; THROUGH ACCEPTANCE OF THE MYSTERY PEACE (Eremite, also available through Volcanic Tongue)

I've been following bassist Parker ever since I saw his name popping up on more "Freestyle Jazz" listings at the CBGB Lounge than I could count, and considering his membership in the great all-star free jazz cum no wave group (!) Freedomland not to mention his involvement in various other groups such as New Dimensions In Music you'd think that Hilly Kristal'd give him a discount or somethin' if only Hilly wasn't having his own troubles! Anyway, here's a new disque featuring a variety of Parker performances in various groupings both old (1979) and older (1974) showing he and the rest of the new seventies jazz underground osmosing the influences of everyone from the sixties trailbusters to the seventies out-theres (AACM) with relative ease, churning out a new avant garde that's just as palatable as the classic loft sides we heard on WILDFLOWERS as well as the more recent jazz purity that can be heard via a number of dives other'n CB's. And with such stalwarts as fellow Freedomlander Daniel Carter and Freestyle regs like Billy Bang, Jameel Moondoc and Charles Brakeen helping out you don't have to kick youself (like I do) for having missed all of those beyond-blare cybercasts (though I am thankful for what I've heard...).

On the good news front, Freestyle Jazz head honcho Dee Pop tells us that the series has reconvened at some place I've never heard of before called Jimmy's Restaurant. The bad news is that there ain't any cybercast hookups for you to watch nor even a sound system...waah!

I guess that's it for today's installment. Next time we have more, including a buncha Cee-Dees graciously sent to me by Norton and other promo gravy to top those mashed potats! Not to mention a few interesting oldies scattered about and even some surprises that'll have you doing a changeroo on your pre-conceived notions of exactly what I and the BLOG TO COMM empire stand for! So hold on tight, and remember, if you see a Lang, STEP ON IT!!!

AS THE UGLY DUCKLINGS ONCE SAID...

Just in case you've wondered why I haven't posted anything since last Sunday (and probably won't for another few days or so), frankly there's nothing exciting hitting the boards (or at least my panic button) right now worth my taking the effort to alert you fine readers about it. Nada, nicht, nyack---and not even the new promos that Bomp! and Rick Noll sent me look enticing enough to spin at this time (I can't stand most moderne rock anymore, no matter how tres retro it may aspire to be), so rather than wade my way through those offerings (or dig into the pile of CD-Rs Jon Behar tossed at me a few months back) I'm taking a short sabbatical from the instant-fame world of blogging until something that does grab my cajoobies comes around to spur me to heights of rockism reduction. Until I do get inna mood, or discover a disque of worth to write about, or get all hot under the collar because of what some blogging fool out there may have posted about me or one of my dear-to-heart save-the-world bands, all I ask of you is to give me a li'l break from the day-in/day-out grind of it all. However, while you're waiting for my grand re-entrance please give this fine article courtesy of Brian Doherty at REASON magazine a hopefully more than cursory read because not only is this particular piece a wowzer (which is no surprise since Doherty's a fantastic rock writer even [especially?] when he's scribbling about it within the confines of his libertarian/right oeuvre), but it sure-as-you-smell-bad says what I've been trying to say about all you rock lefties out there for ages and in a much more concise and entertaining way to boot. (Well, it does at least 99.999...% of the time...after all, when I lend ear to "Born in the USA" all I hear is some phlegm-lined vocal cords belonging to one of the main reasons I would've wanted to flee the USA for the safe confines of Antartica back in the eighties!) Sometimes even a professional scribe such as I has trouble finding the right words and the proper way to convey my abject hatred for what does transpire on the leftist rock scene (along with its toadies) these days, but Doherty (not only the former editor of the fabulous SURRENDER fanzine [now you know who posted those mysterioso comments on the Agony Shortninbread box awhile back!] but bassist with the Sawdust Caesars and head of the Cherry Smash label of fine records I've never heard) really lays it down on the proverbial line as far as detailing exactly what is inherently wrong (nay...evil) with all of you budding Marxist Minstrels out there. Sure you can laugh about it when such a comparatively effete scribe as I tell you lumpen Lenins to FACE FACTS, but if you don't think (know, realize?) that Doherty is holding Death's Mirror to your very sad existence then brother (sister), you don't know what being trampled is!

LINK WRAY, REST IN PEACE


I was going to write one of my typically self-indulgent "what I've been listening to" posts today but some bad news (that was broken to me by noted bad news breaker Lindsay Hutton this AM as I barely staggered out of the bed and onto my computer---talk about a rude awakening!) has changed all that. Yes, it does look like Link Wray, the king of the guitar, has died at the still-young-for-these-days age of 76, and while details are a bit sketchy at this time that won't stop me from at least writing a little bitta praise in his memory, or at least something that I hope will compliment the halfway-there article I wrote on him that originally appeared in BLACK TO COMM #18 which is hopeless out of print so let that be a lesson to you!

It's a shame that Wray never got to be as "well known" as many of his fellow fifties rockers who have been long-enshrined in the memories of greying "Golden Age of Rock" fogies who kinda remind me of those great, self-indulgent and anal-retentive model car builders who still seem to be 14-years-old fifty years later! Not to take anything away from those fifties rockers who HAVE been deified for ages and deserve every li'l bitta homage they have received for their efforts, but to the vast majority of people who claim total and undying allegiance to rock & roll Wray might as well be one of those never-hit-it types who used to appear on various late-fifties/early-sixties Dick Clark television programs making nary a dent! In fact, I must admit that the first time I (who has led a shelterd life!) recall coming in contact with the Wray name was back in the late-seventies crawling through the record bins and picking up the first Robert Gordon and Link Wray album thinking none other than...there's this guy Robert Gordon and he's being backed by some group called Link Wray...sorta like that CHRISTMAS AND THE BEADS OF SWEAT disc that Laura Nyro did with Labelle! Y'know. maybe Link Wray was some cool band in the early-seventies that I never heard about and now they're making a comeback with this Robert Gordon fellow! When you're a stupid kid you think up weird things like that.

Of course when you're a stupid ADULT you still think up weird things like that fifties rock & roll was all Sha Na Na/HAPPY DAYS fodder not worth your time with all the new sounds emanating from garages world-wide, and it was a long while until I decided to take on fifties rock in the same way I liked sixties garage aesthetics and seventies reshaping of past accomplishments. In fact, I don't really recall "getting into" (to be seventies about it) Wray until the early/mid-eighties, a time where I certainly was starving for something outside of the then-encroaching "alternative" music scene that was supposed to be a switch from the tiresome metal and boring pop caca that had permeated the 18-34 target area I was smack dab inna middle of! I dunno if it was the article in a 1980 ish of TWO-HEADED DOG (an interesting halfway-there crankout) or KICKS #3 from early '84 that totally tilted my head towards the pow'r of Link, but after grabbing hold of the then-available Line records reissue of some seventies Wray collection with all of the hits presented with a nice mid-fidelity I suddenly became an up-front-and-center maniacal fan of the man! There were other catalysts as well, such as the emergence of the Raunch Hands who had obvious Link-connections not to mention a number of sixties garage band compilations with Link or Link-involvement, but either way I thought that Link was thee guy to follow as far as fifties guitar spew is concerned, and given how the man had (unconsciously) led the way for everything from CREEM-sanctioned metallic forays (talkin' the Stooges, early Sabbath and speedthrash...forget the main thrust of weak eighties metal that was all the rage!) to late-sixties teenage head-dom maybe you upstarts better get hold of some Link before you dare traverse anywhere else in order to hone your musical parameters, y'hear?

A good place to start gathering up items for your own personal Link Wray collection would be via the Norton site where I heartily recommend that you buy EVERYTHING Link-related they have to offer. The four-volume MISSING LINKS series (see above graphic for neat-o free plug!) has all of the great indie single and side-project sides recorded throughout the original Wray "Golden Years," but for a really good start get hold of the two-CD collection of Swan-era (1963-1966) tracks which I believe show Link at his gnarliest best and then try latching onto yet another collection, this time the Sundazed set of numbahs laid down for Epic between the years '59 and '62 which prove that Link could be cool even when he was recording fluff like "Clare D'Lune"! Then I'd settle on the aforementioned MISSING LINKS which covers Link with and without his Raymen either as leader or backing up everyone from future country star and fellow Indian Marvin Rainwater to r&b screamer Bunker Hill! This four LP/CD series takes on Link at his obscurest all the way from the very beginning of his solo career ("I Sez Baby," a rough garage mauler that perhaps dates as early as 1954 [!]) to the tracks that made up side two of his '69 YESTERDAY AND TODAY album, a platter that not only was a paen to the new hard rock of the Stooges, MC5, Flamin' Groovies and the other new groups who were influenced by Wray but the last word with regards to the Original High-Energy Wray Era. The post-sixties Wray days ranging from his early-seventies and folky material for Polydor and Virgin to his late-seventies "punk era" albums with Gordon and beyond are pretty much hit-and-miss as far as I'm concerned (yet not without their worth)...if I were you and just starting things out I'd hold off on these until the classic fifties/sixties sides had sunk in quite a bit.

And as for yet another COINCIDENCE CORNER, about three nights ago I was thinkin' about Link and considering pulling out the MISSING LINKS platters for some evening pajama-time musical backing but nixed on that because I had one of my typical Velvets-drone craving and settled for Les Rallizes Denudes, and only LAST NIGHT I was thinking about an article on Wray from an early-seventies issue of PHONOGRAPH RECORD MAGAZINE that mentioned a gig he did at Max's Kansas City with an un-named Egyptian folk singer opening things up for him! Because of this I headed directly for my fave search engine trying to find out some information on...the Egyptian folk singer! Naturally I had no luck (it seems that way when I'm searching for info on obscure acts who've performed at Max's, CBGB and other hip watering holes...you'd think EVERY flopster musical act who played these haunts would have their own websites up by now just so's they's get some satisfaction knowing that at least more'n a few close friends and relatives have access to the fact that they coulda been somebody!), but really, it's kinda scary when I think about some performing artist or public figure of some sort and then find out that the person in question has died! Once I was reading a book on THE LITTLE RASCALS and simulaneously heard on the late news that Spanky had died, and while watching GOMER PYLE USMC on the tube as a teenager my mother told me that she had just read in the papers that Frank Sutton had also hit the carbon cycle...I mean, do I have some weird, uncontrollable psychic ability that dooms people? I better stop thinking about people or the next victim could be YOU...

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!