VICARIOUSNESS PT. 2

Things have been about as slow around the BLOG TO COMM offices as a peanut butter lover's bowel movements (its that kinda descriptive and to-the-heart-of-the-matter writing that's earned my a "C" in Creative Writing class), but at least there's been enough gulcheral ginchiness a'happenin' around here to warrant yet another important posting on my part. So all I gotta say is, please be thankful for such small favors as having me around to tell all yez what is hot and what is not, or else you'd hafta be stuck reading the same Lexicon Devildog post over and over for the next month or two in order to get your jamz jollies in gear, and we know that ain't right!

And speaking of which (and related), have you been following that recent brouhaha over those Mohammed cartoons that have gotten a good hunka the Muslim world all rambunctious? First there were the cartoons featuring images of the famed prophet and none to complimentary as well, then there was the Arab reaction (complete with the entire Middle East boycotting Danish products, although I dunno how many Iranians like to gulp down Havarati in the first place), and now some Iranian newspaper, in a self-righteous fit of rage only I thought I could muster up, is holding a contest to see who can come up with the best Holocaust cartoons as sort of a sicker than usual "tit for tat" thumb-nose aimed at the decadent West so to speak. I dunno what to think about the whole thing...I mean, everytime (OK, an exaggeration!) one turns on the Tee Vee one sees a load of bile flung at basically nice, everyday hokey people, but you don't see them rampaging all over the place. And as far as Holocaust cartoons go, I guess the Iranian who thought that one up never read any late-sixties issues of MAD magazine. Remember when they were going for the shock value (although with a "purpose", just like HIGHLIGHTS FOR CHILDREN and Goofus and Gallant and that crowd) with their death camp humor that certainly got a lotta heads turned, at first with their HOGAN'S HEROES spoof, and later on that closing panel from "Balmy and Clod" telling of a new movie featuring another old time fun-loving couple entitled "Eva and Dolph" ("THEY'RE YOUNG, THEY'RE IN LOVE, THEY MURDER MILLIONS" complete with Estelle Parsons as Ilsa Koch holding a lamp with a shade consisting of pieces of skin sewn together with little numbers on them...). Or how about the Dow Oven Cleaner spoof, and that "Wit and Wisdom of Adolf Hitler" book excerpt??? Maybe whoever's editing MAD these days can submit all this old twaddle and really rake in the bucks!

Anyway, this cartoon controversy has given me an idea, and that's to hold my own contest/competition for you Englishers out there. What I want to do is...publish the twelve best Dave Lang and Jay Hinman cartoons that you dear readers can muster up! That's right, a copy of the back issue of your very choice (provided it's still in stock) will go to you if your very own cartoon featuring one of these erstwhile bloggers appears on this very website! So if you're a budding comic bopper or even a well-seasoned pro and know what these people look like (or can guess), and can even delineate your own cartoon featuring them in whatever situation you find best in your own humble way, you will get your very own soon-to-be-rare back issue and boy will you be the better for it. So get your pens cranking and send me your 'toons as soon as you can! Remember, the address to send them to is 714 Shady Ave., Sharon PA 16146-3149 USA, and the uglier the better I always say!

Back to the meat at hand so to speak. Without further ado, here are just a few of the things that have been making my existence all the more worthwhile these past few days and who knows, maybe if you mimic my more'n worthy alternative-to-the-alternative lifestyle more closely, YOU TOO can latch onto the eternal glory that is part and parcel of the BLOG TO COMM way o' being. Well, it sure comes off a lot better'n the tried and untrue pretentious ultra-chicdom so prevalent in the reams of politically pristine and more-radical-than-thou blogdom out there, dontcha think?

THIS HEAT CD (These, 387 Wandsworth Rd., London SW8 2JL England)

Here's the Cee-Dee version of a longtime vinyl on/off fave that I believe I reviewed in one of the very first issues of my own hallowed hagiozine, and twennysome years down the line I must admit that THIS HEAT and its electronic post-Rock In Opposition industrial clang sure holds up a lot better than a lotta the stuff that was making the rounds in alternativeland back in those maybe not-so-hallowed days (but then again I'm only smarting because my dear publication was the ONLY ONE back then NOT to get any advertising dollars from SST!). Clangy enough distorto rock that sounds (at least to me) like a more punk rock version of the 1973 Virgin Records roster (Faust, Henry Cow...) and although I still gotta say that I prefer the collection of John Peel sessions that have previously appeared on Cee-Dee (and much more prefer the tape of these same sessions taken straight off the air with Peel's typically reserved commentaries that Imants Krumins dubbed for me ages back), I find THIS HEAT nervewrackingly engaging enough to make me regret giving CAMBERWELL NOW the toss-off back inna eighties. If you happen to be cruising ebay and see someone bidding on their wares, you'll positively know who he may be!

THE BEST OF THE UNCLE FLOYD SHOW DVD (Shanachie)

One of the highlights of 1982 besides buying up xeroxed back issues of BOMP and waking up at five weekend mornings to go flea marketing with my uncle was going over to Little Vic's house and watching THE UNCLE FLOYD SHOW back when WKYC channel 3 in Cleveland was running it weeknights at seven. This was perhaps at the tail end of what I would call the "real" Golden Age of Creative Local Television, or at least a time when the indie and UHF stations still had a lotta classic 50s/60s aesthetics to its approach and even the Big City VHF's would be smart enough to stick on long-forgotten wowzers such as UNCLE FLOYD, INSIGHT and TOM AND JERRY during their pre-Prime Time hours, at least before the eighties homogenized everything into one big messy goop of local magazine programming. Anyway, watching UNCLE FLOYD was about as big a tee-vee thrill for me as getting an eyefulla any classic (and locally-suppressed) early-sixties series as THE TWILIGHT ZONE or ANDY GRIFFITH, and even a bigger thrill than staying up late on "questionable weather" nights drawing in distant UHF signals as far away as channel 16 in South Bend Indiana and this weird-o channel 17 in Michigan somewhere that was spending its pre-sign off hours broadcasting some interesting instructional program that looked as if it were made in 1963! Oh yeah, I know that you have your own decadent and purposefully low-grade lifestyles you just love to wallow in and that's your business, but frankly you haven't lived low-grade and just wreaked with self-loathing if you didn't stay up late in the seventies/eighties watching UHF stations flickering off the air filled to the brim with this indescribable sense of disgust for just about everything and everyone. Ah, the good old days...

Anyway, THE UNCLE FLOYD SHOW sure brings back those good ol' memories. For a guy who sure longed for the original age of local (loco?) tee-vee productions that fizzled out in the mid-seventies with only a few stragglers remaining here and there, UNCLE FLOYD was like a grande return to Kennedy-era programming with a big twist natch! Sure there was the host with his dummy (or more or less puppet---Oogie) and the opening routine straight out of some Johnson/Smith gag book, but instead of the YOGI BEAR and DEPUDY DAWG cartoons one had come to expect with the package (not to mention the kids from a nearby grade school ready to blurt some dirty joke and get the host all mad) you just got a whole lotta weird-o skits and strange comedy monologues delivered by either Floyd in one of his characters (mafioso Don Goomba, Grouch, Eddie Slobbo...) or with the supporting players like Loony Skip Rooney and that fat guy who was going bald that they used to make fun of because he was trying to hide it by combing his remaining strands over like I did before it became too ridiculous looking for even me to stand. In all, the acting, humor and overall performances by Floyd and his crew reminded me not so much of the local downhome kid shows of the past but the late-night humor/horror host programming that not only had its roots in the early-sixties post-MAD college humor of Ghoulardi and later on Houlihan and Big Chuck, but their spiritual spawn from the Ghoul and even Superhost who was to remain on the air until the Forces of Staid became too strong in the early-nineties. Little Vic thought it was groaningly stupid but I could understand, perhaps because I was born and bred on cheap local television like THE BARNEY BEAN SHOW and other lowbrow productions that looked so recreation room dingy to the point you woulda thunk they were being broadcast from the garage down the street! And maybe its because this sorta refined programming was being aired at a time when all I hadda worry about was purring up a hissyfit inna store so mom'd buy me a toy and the walloping I'd get if she didn't that I have such an affinity for it, but lemme tell ya...after watching THE UNCLE FLOYD SHOW while trying to cram alla the classic tee-vee that I could into my system, I just flashed back to my pubescent days to the point where I started having nightmares about skeletons grabbing me and drowning in an ocean just like I did when I was a kid! Fortunately no bedsy wetsying occurred unlike in my kiddie days, but gimme a few more viewings and who knows what watersports may occur...

TECHNICAL GLITCH NOTE: my DVD, perhaps because of the cheap assemblage of such, plays only when it feels like it which may be OK for it but not for me! You'd figure that there would be a certain point where technology is so up-to-date that in no way could it go wrong, but Shanachie has managed to make a disque that will foul up just as much as a typically burnt DVD offering which doesn't suit me too well either. Looks like my Uncle Floyd viewing will have to be limited to whenever the ol' computer feels like playing it, though if I dig out my old videotapes wherever they may be...

Vic Godard & the Subway Sect-TWENTY ODD YEARS, THE STORY OF... 2-CD set (Motion England)

I dunno why I still give a rat's (or a blogger's) well-traveled ass over a lotta this punk rock stuff but I most certainly do. Now, I'm not talking about "punk" in a BLOG TO COMM sense of wordtwist where everything from the Fendermen and Link Wray on up through Mike Heron, Can and Yoko Ono is considered punk rock but punk rock as pUnK or even "punque" as in 1977 spiky hair and lotsa rage and all that stuff that had psych/sociologists from here to Patagonia making all of the most outrageous and offbase accusations and theorizing since the days when Fredric Wertham dared tell the local Women's Club that there was more to that guy's shoulder than meets the eye. Let's face it, back when punk was making England all upchucking nauseous over having dared question its staid and patented gentlemanly pattern of utter hatred, I may have been having fun watching the fireworks but it wasn't like I was exactly buying into the game. Well, not exactly 100%...while I was finding fun in the occasional X-Ray Spex single which was making me buy less Frank Zappa, Henry Cow and King Crimson albums as time went by, it was more or less the likes of Patti Smith, Television and Pere Ubu that were turning my ears in the right direction. I'm sure my story was not that dissimilar to a thousand other rockmag-reading wahoos out there in blogland, but sheesh, I gotta admit that I thought the moderne atmosphere of New York Rock and Cleveland avant garageness was sure a lot more entertaining and engrossing than listening to the English mixing their music and their Marx while condemning the United States for its racism (and soo-prize soo-prize acting all "oh gosh" once their own kids began to give the Nazi salute en masse...)

I even prepared myself for this Subway Sect 2-CD history by playing my Drones CD in preparation. I figured that one lower-caste punk band would easily prepare me for another...that is, if the Subway Sect in fact were "lower-caste" punks to begin with but really, I gotta say that even though I hardly ever played my '86 Subway Sect hits collection and kinda written these guys off as yet another case of the too-post-for-ME punk syndrome (along with Dexy' Midnight Runners and Culture Club) their love of Dean Martin and the Velvet Underground was just as appealing as Roxy Music's similar digging of the Velvets along with Ethel Merman, and sometimes things like that get me RIGHT HERE if yaknowwaddamean...

So I gotta admit that I even like Vic Godard's early-sixties teenage pop groovings along with his more Velvets-induced punkisms (not to mention the typically '77 trashing of "Sister Ray" closing out disque one) because maybe he does seem so aw shucks about it like nobody has since. In their early state they're so pure that their only rival on the British punque front just hadda've been Wire (whose approach was very similar yet more intellectual 'n its no accident that both bands were on the tres chic Rough Trade label in different times in their careers), while later on they had evolved into such a tight and out-of-time pop act that I'm sure Joe Meek coulda produced 'em. (Or maybe it was that organ...) Whatever, I'll take these guys in small enough doses over most of their countrymen...it may be the sorta screech that would make anyone breastfed on Iggydoms gag, but it has its own personal drive to it, and at least I can play this knowing that its singer didn't have to weep out that bad unlike most of his compatrirats on the English fashion plate scene.

Various Artists-TETES LOURDES: FRANCAIS METAL DE PROTO: LE SUPER ROCK SERIE 1970 CD-R (Deidr France)

A little birdie (or a big Lou Rone) was tellin' me that I wasn't getting enough heavy metal into my bloodstream so I decided to pick up a few disques in order to rectify things. One item purchased was the reissue of the first Blue Oyster Cult album on CD with additional tracks, and while that one's gonna hafta soak a little in the briny waters of my picklejuiced psyche long enough for me to digest the whole thing, I think I can more than aptly tell y'all about TETES LOURDES a new sampling of heavy metal to have come out of the sainted nation of France during the early part of the decade we now call the seventies. I always thought that France was an apt enough rock & roll country, or at least I did back when I'd see all these Patti Smith singles culled from RADIO ETHIOPIA in the import section of many a booty-filled record store and figured that those French cats must be hip-de-la-cool, and given that France has had its share of high energy metallic wonders over the past few decades (Shakin' Street come to mind) the fact that there were tons of loud and raucous bands coming from their shores in the past doesn't shock me one bit.

And there were many, enough to fill out this neat-o disque with what someone out there considers the cream of the crop concerning Gallic Metallics. OK, a good hunka this ain't exactly wowsville (with hard and heavy horns turning the proceedings into yet another early-seventies Chicago/BS&T fake jazz smarm contest or standarized ripoffs of the biggies that may sound good, but only on a ripoff level) but a good portion is what I would call "exempliphique!", especially L'Assemblee's "Le Chien" with that Ubu-esque musette weaving in and out of the melody and Variations before they became "Les" Variations and got a bitta US of A "hey" for their MOROCCAN ROLL album (NEWSWEEK hated 'em calling the bunch "Les Derivations" while Kenne Highland flipped in the pages of GULCHER #0...guess which bastion of opinions I'M gonna pay attention to!).

Naturally the reason I got hold of this one was for the appearance of three Rotomagus tracks. These guys (from the unlikely hard rock city of Rouen, which went under the name Rotomagus during the days of Caesar) had been described to me as being a buncha Stooges fanatics who sounded like a cross between Hawkwind and Les Rallizes Denudes. Obviously picking up on such ears-to-ground hubbub as I've tended to do these past twentysome years I not only bought this CD-R but the group's three singles (each on a different label...who knows, if they had continued on they might have broken Captain Beefheart's own record of label switching!) and although I don't hear any real Stooges, Hawkwind or Denudes refs in the Rotomagus sound that doesn't mean this buncha Frenchies are yer typical beret, striped shirt and mousachioed mincers muttering "ooh-la-la" while carrying loaves of French bread everywhere they go! On "Eros" the lead singer moans like he's trying out for the opera right after his vasectomy while jews harps twang and flutes plays that sweet 'n lovely melody I've heard a millyun times yet can't identify for the life of me, while "Madame Wanda"'s a slow and dreamy crawl complete with an echoplexed tambourine. Too bad CBS dropped them, because they could've had another Blue Oyster Cult on their hands had they developed this group's strange mix of progressive, metal and punk. That one's guaranteed to get 'em into the heavy metal hall of fame, but the big surprise in store's the a-side from the group's final single entitled "Fighting Cock." This one has more of a Stooge-y bent to it, but I would say it more or less resembles seventies boogie metal more'n the Stooges' special brand of burn, coming off like that strange midway meet between Van Halen's and Thundertrain's take of "Hot For Teacher." By the way, the b-side to this single was left off the compilation for the sole fact that Rotomagus utilized a Mellotron on it. Don't go around saying that people don't have a sense of values anymore!

Anyway, for a good cop of metallic wonderment this disque should help fill the bill, and given how the metal tag has been dragged through the horse trough more'n even the punk one has maybe it's a good place for more'n a few metal mongerers to start over sorta like that guy who was so mentally screwed up his psychiatrist had him literally living his own life over again (diapers and all!) just so he could grow up STRAIGHT this time!


The Real Kids-FOGGY NOTION 10-inch EP (Norton)

You know that the rock "writing" (as opposed to rock critiquing) world is in a sad shape when the only chance we have to read Eddie Flowers' opinions are on press releases and CD booklets, or Miriam Linna's when she does the same thing or worse yet writes about the death of one of her record label's faveraves who's just bit the dust so to speak. And as you'd expect, the last thing Miriam wrote that any of us were privvy to was her "obituary" for Alan Paulino of the Real Kids, better known to us as "Alpo". And you can betcha that Miriam wrote a real heart-wrencher just a few days ago, telling us about the time she went with Alpo to see Tom Petty and got bum rushed out because Alpo was hecklin' 'em and this and that (don't worry, I will post the entire thing in the "comments section" for your own personal approval). Anyway, it was a good 'un, and I only hope that Miriam doesn't have to wait until someone else dies before letting us read her latest musically-inclined pizza-resistance (to quote the ever-lovin' Beaver Cleaver).

Anyway, Miriam's Alpo paen had me dragging out the 10-inch EP that Norton had recently released consisting of a buncha Real Kids songs(the Real Kids being Alpo's old group, ya dummy!)...one side's got nothing but 1974 vintage Velvet Underground songs done the Real Kids way while the other's a cover of a very Velvets-like Modern Lovers tune entitled "Fly Into The Mystery" that "fits in" with the main gist of this entire offering, as you should already know unless you've stumbled upon this blog looking for "Precious Flower Pressings of the Mind"! You may remember that Lovers track from back in the days when Jonathan Richman "redid it" on his infamous ROCK & ROLL WITH THE MODERN LOVERS platter, but before that song went acoustic it had a pretty electric, driving beat that Richman had long since lost, and it's sure nice hearing the Kids (pre-"Real" by the way...) doing it with all of that Boston-styled urge and angst that seems to have been lost in the shuffle of Boston turning from a hot bed of Velvet Underground worship and emulation to the city of the modern-day variety filled with a buncha uptight self-hating snits best represented by none other than Michael Bloom of (whatever happened to...) BOSTON ROCK fame, a fellow whom I pray is now hopelessly unemployed but given the narcissic leftchic nature of rock criticism these days who knows what unfortunately positive fate has befallen the "man".

Naturally I can't tell you what's on the grooves since my stereo system is still up in limbo (got a line on Little Vic's old turntable and amp but have yet to hear a word back) so in typical R. Meltzer fashion I will review this one solely by looking at the cover figuring that he usually did better describing the sounds therein by just giving the artwork a gander than playing the blasted thing, so why can't I! OK, I will admit that I have previously heard the Kids' take of "Foggy Notion" which was learned from Jonathan Richman and has the same sorta rote second generation feel to it as Mirrors' take, and I'm sure that the rest fits the same just-post-Velvet Underground bill that all those great early seventies bands did long before Velvets homage turned into eighties sap (with a few notable exceptions). However, I gotta give credit to Norton for that cover. It's a beautiful rendition of the WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT sleeve adapted for the Kids, and although I gotta admit that I get sicker'n a sack of cement over seeing a lotta these newbies taking past accomplishment whether it be of the Velvets or some garage band or pioneering label and adapting it to their new current mode of stifling seriousness (like, how many times have you seen Velvets postmarks utilized to push some of the lousiest attempts at rock music extant? It's like too many alternative wonks out there don't have any fresh ideas of their own so they have to soil the sainted name of the Velvets in order to gleam a little of their aura or something!), but I certainly don't mind it when Norton does the exact same thing. At least their heads, their rockism heads that is are on straight and its not like they're "borrowing" from the Velvet Underground legend to push utter crap, dontcha think??? No, this is perhaps the purest THANK YOU anyone could give to the Velvet Underground and all the hope they held for people like me in the seventies and eighties, and it sure rings a lot truer'n when even Rhino does it nowadays.

Anyway, its stuff like teenage garage bands playing Velvet Underground(-styled) songs that used to have me salivating from here to Canberra and back because, I dunno if you remember but back in the old days Velvet Underground-inspired rockism was of such a rare status (and stature) that having even something as now-fluffed off as a copy of the ARCHETYPES budget/cheapo WL/WH reish was like having your very own MOON ROCK, and given that you thought you were the only one within a fifty-mile radius who KNEW only added to the thunder in your soul. Nowadays it's all old hash especially after reading the same ol' cliches over and over (you know..."if it weren't for the Velvet Underground we wouldn't have a quarter-century of peep rock!"), but Billy and Miriam can get away with it because they always do it RIGHT!!!, and I hope they continue to do it so for the next eighty years or so...I'll stick around if they do!

Hey, slap my back! This must've been the longest review of a disc that I haven't even heard yet!!! And now I can't wait until I do!!!

(By the way, here's ONE Boston-oriented post-Velvets offering that I HAVE heard, and although I wish I could recommend it to you I just for the life of me can't! Its the reunion album by Fox Pass, who back in the early/mid-seventies were yet another local band stoked not only on the Velvet Underground but the Modern Lovers as well getting a lotta notoriety [and eventually some boss New York gigs and fanzine coverage] in the process. I gotta admit that what I had previously heard of Fox Pass, mostly their 1976 indie-produced single, was fine enough (or it was last time I played it about seven years back), and if we had just left it there I would've told ya that Fox Pass were yet another one of those great bands in the Velvet Underground "tradition" that came outta Boston in the seventies and eighties even...no more and certainly no less. Anyway, like a lotta pushing-fifty types who want that ONE LAST CHANCE at past glories these guys got back together and even released a CD in the process [available through CD Baby], and if anything it just goes to show you that having early seventies punk aesthetics and Velvet Underground mania is fine, but filtering the whole thing through the past few decades of alternative mush certainly puts a huge damper on things! The results: a disque that I really can't tell apart from at least a hundred other similar-minded numbed offerings I've had the displeasure to hear, with little of the original drive and feeling [with brains intact] that Fox Pass were originally noted for. Oh well, another bag of fodder down the drain!)

(One final parenthetical note: my current mini-obsession with Boston-bred Velvets homage stems from an issue of Count Joseph Viglione's VARULVEN fanzine, an early 1975 ish at that before the mag went totally into rock music! In this issue amidst the horror movie info and Alfred Hitchcock pix was an article on Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, a nice albeit typically fanzine-esque piece which gives some of the Count's views on the man called Lou and his music for all that was worth [and to me it was worth PLENTY]. What striked me most about this piece was not what was said, which had pretty much been said before, but the closing remarks about the Modern Lovers and their Velvetness as well as the Kids and their cover of "Foggy Notion"[!]...not to mention some group called "The Astrals" who the Count told us were carrying on the tradition!!!!! Having never heard of the Astrals and certainly wanting to, I emailed Mr. Viglione to no avail. Even a Velvets maniac like Imants Krumins drew a blank making me toss out the question to YOU, dear blog reader. So, does anyone out there have any concrete [or even cement...hee hee, the blogmeister must have his little joke!] information on these Astrals? Any help would be appreciated!)

FANZINE REVIEWS: naturally there aren't any new fanzines around for this homebody to sink his brain into, but that's not gonna stop me because there's plenty of OLD STUFF to slop around! And as far as old goodies go, the copy of Scotland's Only Fanzine That Still Prints ARCHAIC LINGO UNKNOWN OUTSIDE THE BORDERS entitled THE NEXT BIG THING (issue #9/10) that I latched onto sure helped to fill the bill as far as satiating my usual fanzine cravings. Since THE NEXT BIG THING was one of the only fanzines in the original proto-punk tradition to survive the post-BACK DOOR MAN seventies and work its way well into the following decades without losing a beat, and since I've been a fan and follower of it since at least 1981 when I actually subscribed thinking it would actually be coming out on a regularly scheduled basis, you could say that I have a small affinity for the magazine even though editor Lindsay Hutton used to roll the mags up and mail 'em inna tube meaning I hadda IRON the things out upon arrival, but I won't let that get to me too much...

Anway, this 9/10 double ish is a patented BLOG TO COMM wowzer, a xerox-y thing with one staple in the corner making it hard to read on the toilet, but still choc-fulla fun and games both entertaining (Suicide, Zantees...) and not (Bruce Springsteen?!?!?!?!). I gotta give Hutton credit for continuing on the same hallowed path of high energy rockism that he began on, and even when he does get off the beaten path (like in his anti-Irish tirades where he tells people to stomp on the IRA but "convienently" forgets the UDL) its not hard to get back on track with the reviews of all those great indie singles that used to pack a powerful punch before the entire genre petered out, plus even the articles on Sparks (by some guy named Steven Morrissey from Manchester...sarcastic me thinks the name does sound familiar) and the Psychedelic Furs (back during their early good days before they went off the alternative edge) seem to snuggle in well next to those on the Cramps and Damned so if you've written Hutton off because of his anti-American tirades and his hatred of dagos, it's time to re-think your preconceived notions. So, if you've got any old issues of THE NEXT BIG THING lying about pull up a haggis and a warm ale and settle back for a reading experience that you just don't get that much of anymore, even though some wonks such as I try...

And last but not least lemme tell you about this (relative) UK newie that I've also obtained over the past few weeks. I was interested in reading OUT THERE considering its date (1976) and the roster of stars featured in its pages (Dylan, Patti Smith, Eno, Stranglers...) ever since I heard about it a few years back. Given the date and the fanzine's, er, tastes I kinda had OUT THERE figured as some British take on the BACK DOOR MAN/DENIM DELINQUENT school of gonzo rock writing pretty much in the style of Lindsay Hutton's creation albeit on a more sixties/trad level (remember...Dylan). Well, it turns out that maybe I was close in my assessments yet off by a mile. OUT THERE was/is a fine rockism-oriented mag true, but printed on slick paper and more or less digest-sized, and certainly not in a gonz groove unlike the aforementioned trailblazers but don't hold that against it.

But OUT THERE was spiffy enough, a product of local punk and bigtime rockcrit wannabe Paul Morley (or "Paulus" as he's known here) in his attempts to scale the walls of NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS-dom by showcasing his own writings for the powers to be to see, sorta like the way Russell Desmond did his own CAN'T BUY A THRILL in order to impress Lester Bangs into giving him a job at CREEM. Only Morley's attempt succeeded while Desmond's failed. (And I guess it was sorta like Hutton's own attempts to impress NME by sending NBT to Tony Parsons, only to have said mag returned torn to shreds complete with a hard-to-decipher note from Parsons telling of his hatred for the whole affair!) Anyway, OUT THERE was a nice read with a wide range of subject matter for wide-ranging tastes, including a piece on Ted Nugent (standard fanzine fare at the time), the Ramones (a pithy putdown) and even a brief bit on the up-and-coming Stranglers where Morley puts a Velvet Underground spin on the usual Doors-comparisons that were plaguing the band up and down the line. The writing is good...typical NME/British rock critiquing stylings that anyone weaned on Charles Shaar Murray and Nick Kent would be expected to do, and even with the slick paper and pro print quality extant I gotta admit that OUT THERE, from the snazzy Dylan cover pic reproed en regalia above to the millionth artistic/introspective early Patti Smith article of the day, is everything I've wanted my own efforts to be like only money, intelligence and a helping hand have kept me from my desired goal. I'm only kidding, but this one did keep me reading for hours on end!

(Before I close this one, I gotta mention the Dylan piece, which was a report on his Rolling Thunder Revue that seems typical of the times though something no self-respecting punk woulda dared print a year later, coupled with an imaginary sicko interview concocted by none other than Paul Krassner, a guy I always thought was the new Count Screwloose especially after reading his old articles from the late-fifties vintage MAD [y'know, "Aloafa Bread, Ajuga Wine..."]. He seemed to have a few redeeming bits of value at least over the past couple of years when some of the libertarians would clue us in to his new guise, but this thing kinda made me wanna forget the guy ever existed inna first place! By the way, I have a funny story Don Fellman told me about his brief association with Krassner back in 1961 or so, but I'll only tell you on request, and after I get Don's OK!)

(Another flag wave...speaking of old fanzines I'm still in the market for many of the old seventies ones [real or copied] in case you wanna work out a trade of some sorts. One rag I'm especially interested is reading is Peter Tomlinson's NIX ON PIX, so anyway here's the feeler and if you feel it, fine enough with me!)

NEXT GO 'ROUND...Blue Oyster Cult, SAHB, the Sonny Sharrock Band with Pharoah Sanders, the Hollywood Brats, and who knows what else...

TIME TO LIVE VICARIOUSLY AGAIN!

Yes, I know how hard mere existence must be for some of you down-home people out there in computerland who have no real lives to lead and thus must continually prowl the blogosphere in order to see how the better half (read: me and the rest of Blog Nation) spend our lives of leisure spinning all of the top hot platters and writing about 'em just so's you too can at least snarf up an essence of our vastly superior existences. Y'know, sorta the same way millions of lower-class/brow ethnic housewives across the U. S. of Whoa used to buy up alla those issues of TV MIRROR back in the sixties just so's they could soak in a bitta that glamorous Kennedy lifestyle without the tragedies and cars swerving into the drink? Well listen up buddy, blogs are the 2006 equivalent of all that old-timey hair-roller and chewing gum checkout counter lust for glamour, only I'M the Kennedys (w/o their curse---and believe me the one I got stuck with is WORSE!), and YOU'RE the nicotine-fit mid-aged bingo-bopper just anxious to get in on all the thrills, which only goes to show you that the more things change, the more they stay the same!

But alas, being a well-respected and often-honored music fan of elevated status (not a "rock critic" as too many wonks out there tend to believe) does have its down-y downs along with the uppity ups, and this past week was no exception. I mean, I'm sure that a lotta you young 'n upstarting peons out there thing that the blogster's life is one of total fun and games jambus-packtus w/loads of records and other pre-recorded wonders arriving at your door hour upon end and people mailing you their nice-but-crude fanzine wonders just so they can say they sent it to youyouYOU, but lemme tell you that such an existence just ain't the case! Yes, sad to say but there are days, even weeks when this fanzine-editor's mailbox remains bare, perhaps because of an ebay mishap (an auction I had won for a disque by Bahamanian via NYC island rocker Exuma resulted in a no-show for the item in question, and not only that but the auctioneer pulled a fast one on me and went outta biz!), or perhaps because of a slow-to-arrive order (such as the one fer a number of recent T. Rex archival dig-ups, the new Mahogany Brain 12-incher plus the Time CD on Shadoks courtesy of Forced Exposure), but no matter what the reason for the treason this season be, I'm not gonna let this lack of kultural flow into my life get the best of me! Nosiree...y'see, at least I have a good three (maybe more!) decades of past laurels to rely on, so if I can't hear the latest hot flash of a release to get the green light out there I know there are plenty of old classics that are sure to occupy my time that I can dig outta my vast collection with little if any effort! And if I can't exactly get hold of a rare and previously-unread-by-me issue of CREEM or some long-obscure early/mid-seventies fanzine I've wanted to know about ever since reading an old review of it via some now-crud-encrusted issue of BOMP!, I can always dig some oldie out and read it while listening to some totally in-tune disque of mine! I got the idea when I was a little kid about three or four years of age...y'see, one day I wanted some new toys to play with and was pestering my mom to go out and get me some more, precocious brat I was. But what did mother, in her infinite wisdom do??? She went into the closet and pulled out a box with a whole slew of toys I had previously forgotten about! Boy was I overjoyed, because my mind at that point was so underdeveloped that I didn't realize these goodies were missing but I remembered them nonetheless and it was like I got a whole buncha new things to play with anyway! (I remember one of these once-missing wonders being my Felix the Cat Soakie bottle which still resides in a box in the basement alongsides my Popeye, Mr. Magoo and Ringo Starr [whatta team!] bubble bath decanters...and you can bet that I must've been the cleanest kid onna block!) This lesson not only goes to show you the benefits of giving some things a break in your life so's you can come back to them with a fresh attitude and mind, but it also goes to show you the lengths my mother would go to in order to save some buckskins buying soon-to-break toys for her grubby and greedy brat!

Anyway, so rather'n just moan on and on about the lack of fresh booty to make its way into my rockism-inclined cranium (although I must admit that I did receive an item or two that will be mentioned in upcoming pieces once I do a little private eye work and find out more and more about the articles in question or mention them in conjunction with items of similar intent) here's a rundown on just a few of the things that have been occupying my time and temperature during my peace-filled evening hours after a hard day at the dungheap. Of course some of the things that have been playing the soundtrack for my rather impressive life are items which have been mentioned in these, er, pages previously (the Umela Hmota 2 set and the Magic Tramps release come to mind), so rather'n bore you to death rattling off about those ad-infinitum (though I did want to add something about how I thought some of Umela Hmota's guitar-screech approach came pretty close to the late-seventies Pere Ubu avant-garage style while their "My Dva a Knez" bears a striking resemblance to the title track on Yoko Ono's RISING!) I'll just bore you to death by rattling on about some other items I know you masochist fans o' mine'll wanna know all about!

The Rolling Stones-STICKY FINGERS CD (Rolling Stone/Virgin, try your fave local music emporium)

As Ozzie Nelson used to say, "Ah, the Good Old Days!" This one had me flashing back to the times when I used to scour the record bins looking at all of those longplayers I wished I could own or at least hear but in no way could afford (at least on the depression wages I was earning for the usual house chores, though I was rich enough that I could've spared enough change to pick up JAMMING WITH EDWARD which...thankfully...I never did!). Anyhoo, I always remember seeing the original STICKY FINGERS in the bins when I was a kid barely into the double-digits, and y'know what? Most of the copies I've seen with the original zipper placed square inna middle of Joe Dallasandro's crotch were tampered with, at times with the zipper pulled all the way down! I mean, what were the vandals in question trying to do...reach in and grab a handfulla something???

Still, I was disappointed after having finally heard the thingie all those years later, and I can see the disappointment that some like Richard Meltzer expressed in the pages of THE NEW HAVEN ROCK PRESS (or at least I think I do...I'll hafta crank out the magnifying glass and re-read that shrunken-to-the-size-of-a-postage stamp page with Prince Pudding's review that appeared along with the cover of Nick Tosches' ZOOT in Greg Shaw's FUSION fanzine-piece back '72 way). Sure "Brown Sugar" (which I originally took as a tale of Our Nation's shameful past of slavery and the mistreatment of the Fairer Sex by evil slaveowners who used to whip and beat their femme chattel in the middle of the night and force them to dance for massa's personal pleasure long before Abraham Lincoln dared sign "The Emancipation Proclamation") was a good, typically driving custom-made Stones hit, but the rest with the Muscle Shoals horns and the obvious Southern Gulcher skidding/slumming just comes off as a pale version of TEENAGE HEAD (which did all that the Stones attempted here, and much better) making me wonder if the Stones had their ears tuned towards the workings of Roy Loney and company like they seemed to have had with all of the garage band competition and blues singers of the past and then-present. Sheesh, maybe I should re-read that Meltzer review...he compared one song here (side one cut X) to the Velvet Underground, and stuff like that always lit a fire under my psyche...

The Stooges-FUNHOUSE 2-CD set (Rhino/Elektra)

Ahh, that's more like it. A freebee sent my way by none other than noted artist/cartoonist Brad Kohler, this item was actually rescued from a "classic rock" radio station (!) where it was headed for oblivion which I guess is their loss but my gain! However, I must admit to you that I absolutely detest the thought of thousands of music fans in the Pittsburgh area being deprived of this really classic high-energy rock pounding while having to listen to the same ten Jethro Tull songs they heard yesterday...yes, there was more than a "Bungle in the Jungle" over some program director's ill-advised move, but then again do you think that the typical FM rock listener who's been brain-damaged by continual exposure to Pat Benetar's gonna notice the lack of total eruption in his life? I should say NOT!!! 'n pass the sopors, man!

Enough's been said over and over about this platter (which had all been said anyways when the thing came out a good 36 years back!) but not enough has been about the additional CD, culled from what I guess someone considers the cream of that FUNHOUSE outtakes CD-set that came out a good half-decade back. As for me, I woulda included all the rarities for sure (like the relative newies "Slide" and "Lost in the Future") which Rhino seemed apt enough to do, but the exclusion of that elongated pushing 20-minutes take of "LA Blues" was unforgivable, so don't go throwing out your bootlegs yet...

THE LOVE DRUNKS (Alive)

OK, here's one promo I have recently received, so don't go around sayin' I'm some sorta INGRATE or somethin'! Anyway, for the past umpteen years the Bomp family of labels has been releasing a whole batch of records by what I would consider the new generation of upstart garage bands, and while all of them may look nice and some may even have a mist of intrigue about 'em, I must 'fess up to the fact that very few of these platters pick me up and grasp my inner-soul or third-eye or whatever the hippie folksters used to call it like the Velvet Underground and Shadows of Knight did immediately upon first eardrumming way back during my impressionable days of youth. Call me an old fogie or whaddeva, but in my heart of hearts I can NOT snuggle up to a lotta the new garageoid Velvet Underground-wannabes or sixties garage meets seventies punk in an eighties environment alternindie bands like I can the original impetus, or at least something closer to the core (like a band that was snatching Velvets moves and Beefheart crank in 1968 before it became the underground fashion to do so), but I guess that's my problem which doesn't have anything to do with you so why should I bother wasting your time airing my warped impulses anyway???

So I dunno where that puts the Love Drunks, but I can't really jump up and down about 'em like I might have nigh on two decades back during the Golden Age of Promo Scamming! I mean, they're a great group and all with chops and moves and a sound sorta reminiscent of those eighties-era Crypt groups (the new 'uns) who took the same sixties base and added seventies sputum to make a new generation of under-the-counterculture sounds, but it's not like I can osmose this brand of punk chicanery like I used to at one time. Now don't get me wrong, this is a great Cee-Dee and I think the Drunks play a heavier and purer rock & roll than, say, some of the new and hyped groups the majors are pushing on you, but I find it, like most offerings from their brethren these past ten or so years, a lotta too little too late. But just to be on the safe side, let me say that I do recommend it, at least for the remnants of the great six-oh creeping-from-within-the-underground movement of the mid-eighties who still cling to this sound even with the advent of more and more archival material that soothes my savage boobies more than the new stuff ever could!

TEENAGE WASTELAND GAZETTE (fanzine published by Adny Shernoff circa 1971)

Naturally y'all read my article on this infamous-yet-totally-obscure (haven't seen an issue for sale ANYWHERE!) fanzine that originally appeared in (stand by for yet another free plug!) BLACK TO COMM #21, but (referring to the earlier paragraph re. mother hiding toys from me in order to save $$$ buying newbies for her pampered progeny) I was on the hunt for some fresh rockism-oriented reading material y-day and yanked out this envelope filled with copies of the sainted fanzine that none other'n Phil Milstein xeroxed for me back in '85 (envelope postmarked Sept. 20th) which I must admit filled the bill w/regards to the kulturally-lacking evening that I would have been in store for had I not rescued these self-published wonders from one of about thirty boxes of underground wares stored in my abode!

Anyway, I would call TEENAGE WASTELAND GAZETTE tops as far as fanzine fare goes either then (early/mid-seventies Rock Writing/Rock Fanzine GA) or later (mid-eighties onwards pseudo fanzine GA...perhaps a Silver Age if any), the only other f-zines that could claim any equality with it being CRETINOUS CONTENTIONS (see BLACK TO COMM #25 for an article), some of the Kenne Highland/Eddie Flowers one-offs like THE MIGHTY ROCK & ROLL AVENGERS or maybe yet BREAKFAST WITHOUT MEAT, that is, if totally off-the-wall no-holds-barred fanzine intelligence masquerading as dumbspeak appeals to you on whatever level it may. As for me, I find TEENAGE WASTELAND GAZETTE some of the best fanzine-oriented madness to ever get laid to spirit duplicator...from Shernoff's totally post-Meltzer screed masquerading as/spoofing early-seventies rockspeak (the fanzine seemed birthed entirely from Meltzer's FUSION-bred column work not forgetting his "Dust My Pumice"/"Outer Pumice"/whatever other "Pumice"-based contribs he might have creaked out) to the totally snide and prefab interviews with imaginary bands and too good to be true rock concerts/fests, TEENAGE WASTELAND GAZETTE was perhaps "thee" fanzine to end all fanzines ironically appearing at the dawn of the proto-punk fanzine era when all there was to go by at the time was WHO PUT THE BOMP, JAMZ and THE NEW HAVEN ROCK PRESS (but don't tell Shernoff that!).

Really, you gotta get hold of a copy of this totally off-the-wall and running into oblivion fanzine, and if I could I'd do a "Best of TWG" myself reprinting such classics as Lester Bangs' consumer guide to drive in burger joints ("White Light/White Bonusburgers") or Lenny Kaye on how much he hates Mexico and the truth behind how Jerry Garcia lost his middle finger (which VASTLY differs from the cartoon printed in BLACK TO COMM #22...y'see, one night when his parents were asleep, Jerry snuck into their bedroom, quietly snuggled himself between the sheets and...well, I don't wanna give it away...), but until someone DOES a compilation of that mag's best (which would be every word if you ask me!) how about if I print just a little smidgie bit from one of the issues I've read last night (vol. 1, #4) which really lays it down on the line as far as just how ENERGY-PACKED fanzine-speak could get at the time. I figure that Tim Ellison does it all the time so why can't I? Anyway, this little bit is from a piece entitled "Yup Yup" which was written by Tozz Uporta, and personally I believe it says more in one paragraph than Ann Powers says in an entire hardcover and soon-to-be-remaindered book, but trust me:

After a fabulous ten-month pregnancy complicated by influenza and sever (sic) mental disorder (which at one point required emergency hospitalization) Melanie Safka proudly gove (sic) birth to a beautiful baby boy. It was on the evening of April 25 that Melanie spread her legs wide and Sean Patrick, 8 lbs., 7 oz., finally arrived. Melanie had arrived at St. John's Hospital the evening before with her hair in curlers and her mind on birth. Because she was having such a horrifyingly grueling time of it the doctors decided to deliver the bounding brat by Cawsarian (sic) section. Fortunately for both mother and son the operation went smoothly with only minimal loss of blodd (sic). Melanie appears to be extremely happy about it having been a male that left her womb, and insiders believe this preference to be grounded in the young songstress's fear of being overtaken on the female singer front. She announced weeks before the baby's birth that she would give her child her own last name--Safka. But at this time it is not yer (sic) know (sic) what name the child has actually been given. Reportedly Melanie has told close friends that either Lee Van Cleef or Ry Cooder may be the father. But whether either one really fertilized her ovum has not officially been determined. The question is--will Lee or Ry marry Melanie? Whatever the answer we're happy to report that both men were at Melanie's side during her hospital stay-and that seemed a good omen.

I'm having a good go at it, so here's another piece (this time from another issue listed as vol. 1 #4 [!!!!!!!!]) entitled "Teevee Taffee":

THE GREATEST JOE FRANKLIN SHOW EVER, and Joe Franklin wasn't even on it....Joe Franklin has a great T.V. show. He also is the only person to have a T.V. show on at one o'clock twice. It's a trick but he manages to pull it off through the magic of videotape. He's got one show at one in the morning and the other at one in the afternoon. It's the best talk show going, one where Dickie, Johnny and Mervin could learn a few tricks. A few nights ago he had on the same show Rodney Dangerfield and the Zebra Kid. The Zebra Kid is a former wrestler who cracked so many knee-slappers, that Joe asked him back for a whole 45 minutes. I wouldn't miss it for the world. Joe also digs rock and roll. He once had the Forum Quorum on, and three times he has had R. Meltzer, famous rock critique, telling about the time he and Marty Balin drank a fifth of Jack Daniels, and the time he and Marty etc. etc.. Joe Franklin doesn't even know who Marty Balin is but he kept shaking his head like he did, that's what a great host he is.

On Jan. 4, Joe got up on the wrong side of bed or something, but he couldn't make the show. Who does he call up to take his place?? The Big R, Richard Meltzer. So the R. Meltzer T.V. special was born, with the greatest array of talent and loquacious guests ever presented on the 19 inch screen. On first and listed as co-host was Roni Hoffman. She gave the fair sex's view on abortion reform. Next, live in the stdio (sic) the Flamin' Groovies gave the east coast debut of their new lead singer. The general consensus was that they were very good but they shouldn't curse so much. I say, I don't mind rock and roll music but does it have to be played so loud? And their hair!! Does it have to be so long? Just trim it a little in the back. The next guest was Greg Shaw of the Greg Shaw T.V. Show and Polychrome Industries. He spoke about his new book Vitamen (sic) E and You. Bobby Abrams snuck out and told of his torrid love affair with Julie Newmar. To close the show Meltzer called on Stonybrook staples The Blue Oyster Cult. They did What is Quicksand?, St. Cecillia (sic), and Hot Pants. The show ended with everyone dancing, the Blue Oyster Cult playing, and Meltzer singing Society's Child. I called up Joe after to get his reaction. He said it was "zany" but he was glad to give the kids a chance. Joe can be seen on WOR-TV, channel 9.

And now you know what I'm trying to strive for when I sit in front of my keyboard and try to lay down a piece on rock/tee-vee/books and relay its inner karmic whooziz to you my prospective target! Chuck Eddy should be chained down CLOCKWORK ORANGE-style (and that goes for a whole range of unmentionables out there!) and FORCED to read TEENAGE WASTELAND GAZETTE until he knows what rock & roll writing is all about!

Burton Greene Trio-ON TOUR CD (ZYX/ESP-disk)

The low-fidelity of this live recording actually helps in a bootleg/urgency sort-of-way. Green plays on (and in) his piano while Steve Tintweiss learns Ayler's lessons well and Shelly Rustin goes about as far with his Sunny Murray/Milford Graves-styled between-the-beat playing as any white man would dare. Greene never was one who seemingly got his jazz dues, and with his eccentricities and mental breakdowns you think he would've. I hope you caught him earlier this year when he was performing at the Freestyle Series that was going down at the CBGB Lounge (I did...gimme credit!).

I guess that's about all for now, unless you want me to ramble on about the Sweet Potato Kugel (no relation to Bernard) I made which turned into a brick or a strange dream I had where I seemed to be in some weird TWILIGHT ZONE early-sixties cum mid-seventies world watching what purported to be MY FAVORITE MARTIAN yet resembled LOST IN SPACE, but I'll save that for some other pertinent post. Next time, I hope to have some fresh stuff to send your way. and send it I will!

The Magik Markers-A PANEGYRIC TO THE THINGS I DO NOT UNDERSTAND CD (Gulcher, visit the group's own site at magikmarkers.com)

Sorry to disappoint (or dissipate?) all you hearty BLOG TO COMM readers who have been anxiously awaiting my typical weekend blowout (calm down, you know what I mean!), but I gotta admit that this past week just wasn't exactly the tops for osmosing a lotta new 'n different music to tell all you anxiously awaiting guppies about! Oh yeah, I know I could just toss out a buncha reviews of some golden oldies I have been spinning constantly over the past seven days (describing in one or more words exactly why I must repeatedly play these disques that have nothing less than a CAMEL CLUTCH on my musical psyche) like the first Roxy Music album and the first two Alice Coopers, but why bore you even more with heaping praise on items I've already written about over and over again when I can bore you with a review of some totally new item? (I'll wait awhile with regards to Roxy and Alice, at least when such writeups'll come off looking fresh!) Howevah, I do feel that it's my personal and God-given DUTY (as a selfless blogger who dedicates his life to making yours better by giving you a taste of my vastly-superior opines, or something like that!) to at least peck out something to keep all you adoring blogpeons in gear, so sans further ado here's something I hope you'll really like!

Still, why should I blog on about the disque in question for today when there is this el fantastico hypesheet out there where none other than old-timey fanzine maniac Eddie Flowers himself said just all there is that has to be said about the Magik Markers, and a lot better'n I ever could for that matter??? 'n lemme tell ya, Mr. Flowers' "review" for this brand-spanking-new Gulcher release is a real honest-to-Meltzer doozy of a promosheet writeup by this longtime fanzine mafia don which only goes to prove that maybe this here guy is definitely one who shouldn't've left the underground rock writing game while way too many galoobs (myself included) stuck around! And if I could only FIND THE BLASTED THING which got lost in my computer somewhere maybe I should just put that onna post and let Flowers' more-descriptive rant speak for itself, but unfortunately I can't locate it anywhere and since I was pretty much gonna say a lotta what he said I'll just say it but in my own words which I only hope I doesn't get me called on the carpet for plagiarism! But I'll try to keep it cool so don't you worry.

Anyhoo here are "thee" Magik Markers, two gals and a boy from Asheville North Carolina of all places who I guess have been making quite a raucous racket for quite some time with this free rock that doesn't sound moderne with all its negative connotations one bit, but nice dark and feral like the best underground hatchet jobs from the sixties and seventies did before the dorkoids discovered you didn't need "chops" to play rock & roll (but you needed brains which seem to be in short supply given alla the leaden and self-indulgent thud these newbies unleashed on us!) and ran it into the ground. But with the Markers you don't have to worry, because for once their rock & roll sounds like what you woulda thought it woulda sounded like back in 1977 hearing the underground singles and all those stories about punk rock just wonderin' what it was gonna end up like thirty years down the line (like...NOW!).

I recall Eddie dragging around the name of Patti Smith's by-now classic (though pretty much loathed at the time) heavy metal opus RADIO ETHIOPIA in his description of the Markers' raison de DESTRUCTION and how he heard the title track on the FM dial nigh on three decades back thinking that it was the wyldest slice of free-music to come outta the rock & roll genre to date yet was disappointed that the entire shebang didn't have that over-the-top pounce 'n feel. Well, the guy said SOMETHING along those lines, but anyway I can see where Eddie is coming from in his appraisal of this new and exciting trio who have a lotta the same free-rock drive and verve that Smith exuded on that epochal sophomoric run, because these Markers certainly take the best of the past forty years of avant rock and cram the cream into their own special brand of free-splat fortunately jettisoning all the tired post-punk Christgau-approved precociousness in the process!

(And lemme tell you that Flowers' hypesheet musings were some of the best rockscreed seen by these eyes in quite some time making me wish that the man had his own blog just so's he could enlighten us lumpen proles with regards to some of the better soundscapading that's been crossing his ears for the past umpteen years...I mean, his accurate description of the Magik Markers' entire modus operandi comes pretty close if not on-target to what Richard Meltzer did in his beautiful dissection of the Smegma sound that can be found on their website if one wants to do a little hard-nerve searching for it!)

I can agree with Mr. Flowers' comparisons regarding the title track from the second Smith slaughterfest and the Magik ones' approach to the hilt, but then again in order to clue you in as to where these people are coming from I would also toss in some of the music that definitely influenced Patti's extended romp way back during the hump of the seventies. The MC5's original soundscreed "Black To Comm" (which Smith admitted was a bonafide "Radio Ethiopia" influence) comes to mind as well (and it's no accident that lead singer/guitarist Elisa Ambroglo moans the names of such MC5 tuneage as "Sister Ann" in her freeform vocalese) not to mention that infamous un-named group (which might be the Richard Robinson/Lenny Kaye/Robert Palmer [?] aggregate entitled "Man Ray") which Kaye and Patti would spin nightly and gab with Palmer on the phone about. (Facts are kinda sketchy at this point as to whether or not this was Man Ray or yet another Kaye assemblage, but read what you can about it in Robert [not the rockabilly guy] Gordon's IT CAME FROM MEMPHIS tome if you can come across a copy!) And if you can't make anything outta the garble I'm writing I don't blame you, but lemme just say that if you have the same sorta jaded outlook as I over what underground rock hath begat and what it is like here in the present day, and you're one of those old-timey buzzards who likes the sound loud, hot 'n atonal like it was in the sixties and seventies when you were just discovering Cap'n Beefheart and NO NEW YORK, A PANEGYRIC TO THE THINGS I DO NOT UNDERSTAND will more'n satiate you because no matter what, these guys sound like they're sixties bohos (in a pure MAHOGANY BRAIN fashion) playing rock bred straight from a Beefheart/Velvets/Godz taproot without that strange sense of pretension?/studiousness??? that seems to have ruined a lotta the blare 'n bleat by the time "do it yourself" became "please, stop doing it!!!!" And really, only a few people can pull something like this off these days and they're usually oldtimers like Meltzer and his Smegmates, so it's nice to see some youngsters being able to make a racket without coming off like trust-funded darlings with their preconceived notions of what this "new music" is supposed to be all about.

I dunno if I've described the music at hand enough in the previous paragraph, but I hope the following will help a bit. There are two tracks here both running about nineteen-plus minutes, and they're both pretty much atonal and almost free-jazz-inspired drifting avant-rock in a Mahogany Brain cum Godz style with Ambroglio's guitar spazzing out as she talks-sings her equally freeform lyrics like a cross between a tranced out Patti and Michel Bulteau. Bassist Leah "Queequeg" Quimby and drummer Pete Nolan do their best NOT to get in the way of Ambroglio's bliss/blitzed-out visionary play and moan with the resultant spew sounding not as much the predictable amerindie tossout that has been so much in demand these past few decades, but more or less as something that would have transpired in some avant garde artist's NYC loft in 1972 (still being too wild for the Mercer Arts Center!) or perhaps a Paris anarchist convention around the same time. Yes, you can tell that, despite their attempts to be current and all, these Magik Markers are totally RETROGARDE which is perhaps the best thing one can be considering how all the good stuff (in the most brain-searingest, aural-destroying way) was done long ago and its better just to revamp the old ravings rather'n be new 'n tiresome, dontcha think?

There's a ltd. ed. CD-R of a live in Asheville gig that Flowers is sellin', and you can bet that as soon as I get my monthly allotment of entertainment money for February I'm sendin' the guy an order with that item smack dab at the top of the list. That is, unless you pesky blogsters beat me to it by buyin' up all of the available copies after glomming this over-the-top-and-running-down-the-side-of-the-hill writeup! Whaddeva, if you're hankerin' for a good ear-wringing and the new garageoids just don't fill the bill...well, Mark(er) my words (euugh!).

BOOK REVIEW-A WHORE JUST LIKE THE REST; THE MUSIC WRITINGS OF RICHARD MELTZER by Richard Meltzer (Da Capo, 2000)


(Blogmeister's note: hey, I can swipe ideas from other blogs too! Anyway, here's a prince of a piece if-I-do-say-so-myself that I did on this by-now-classic collection of Richard Meltzer scribblings that appeared way back in BLACK TO COMM #24, and unlike the issue of Tim Ellison's MODERN ROCK MAGAZINE where the competition's "review" originally appeared a short time aftwerwards there are plenty of copies of my sainted magazine still available which I hope you'll buy up faster than you can say "post-punk college amerindie rock"! So y'see, this post is more or less a little teaser that'll hopefully spur on some of you unaware perusers of the web into buying up a fistfulla back issues of my own fanzine that will not only benefit you (that is, if you're totally unaware of the force rockism still holds at least for a few obsessive/compulsives out there), but for me (I certainly could use the loot!). It's also a lesson in comparison between "dunce talk" and "smart talk" [as you'll see below] 'n besides, for a certain someone who hasn't even read my magazine in umpteen years yet claims to know more about myself that I do, this might be a grand opportunity to start doing a little catching up on all those issues he's missed at least with this li'l writeup so don't go around saying I don't do anything beneficial for ya even though yer highness can't stand reading a word of my work anyways! [But don't worry Jay...I'm only trying to win the "thinnest skin" award again this year and {golly gee!} maybe even the next as well so's I'll get to keep the trophy PERMANENTLY!] Sheesh, doesn't anybody have a sense of humor anymore???)

Given the above book {ed. note-that being a review of HIGH ON REBELLION, a tome devoted to the life and times of the classic En Why See hangout Max's Kansas City) and the Lester Bangs bio (ed. note-which I hadn't read at the time I reviewed A WHORE JUST LIKE THE REST but which ended up getting its own writeup later on) not forgetting a ton of "archival" releases, there really must be some rumbling under-the-counterculture for 70 underground rock at this point. If I had to guess why, I'd say that this might be because enough individuals (myself included) are SICK of what has happened to rock & roll music for a good umpteen years whether it be the VOICE music section or the charts (both underground or not) and maybe nostalgia for the good ol' ANARCHIC days is much more palatable than the current neo-Nazi generally staid and calculated scene run by people who PRETEND to be open and accepting and compassionate and all those things they AREN'T. After all, wouldn't you think that an era/segment that spawned everything from no wave to DENIM DELINQUENT magazine would be infinitesimally better than the one that gave us POP SMEAR?

Which is where this book comes in..."this book" being a freshly-released collection of choice prime-cut writings by the "noted" rock scribe/BTC-influencer Richard Meltzer. A man who is to be HONORED not only for his large body (actually, he's only 5' 6" or something) of non-esoteric garble passed off as rock criticism, but also for having the only TRULY punk attitude (Lester Bangs was a distant #2, Brian Doherty and Russell Desmond might be in there as well) in classic 60s/70s rockism-speak not counting Wayne McGuire who was more punk intellectual like MODERN ROCK MAGAZINE's Tim Ellison. Besides, Meltzer never really left the boards like McGuire nor did he hafta die like Bangs so's we could read this stuff "posthumously", and that adds up to even more greatness on the man's part! Y'see, he's ALIVE in the here and now and not only that but Meltzer's the new lead singer with Smegma and that ought to amount to something even though he DID the Smegma trip back in 1967 when he created with his original industrial (pre-Stalk Forrest Group/pre-PRE Vom) "group" called either "Applejack" or "The Stump" a one-and-a-half-hour long track/tract entitled "Piss Bust", nothing but "3-second bits of Jimi Hendrix ad infinitum" that ought to be slapped onto the next Smegma release in order to Meltzerize the thing EVEN MORE, because we need it!

Those hungering for more Meltzer will be sated...ONE-HUNDRED-AND-TWENTY-EIGHT Meltzer pieces do appear here and though it coulda been about twice as good if it were twice and long and you don't get to read such classics as "Manitoba's Last Hurrah" from the 1/76 CREEM (first Meltzer read by me...an impression) or his review of Hackamore Brick's ONE KISS LEADS TO ANOTHER (though you do get to read a paragraph on 'em page 566) this does have more'n enough zoomph to keep your palms sweaty and yourself glued to the lavvy. Such mind-altering entries include his Throbbing Gristle review from the old halfway decent VOICE ca. '79, the review of Redd Foxx's YOU GOTTA WASH YOUR ASS (also VOICE which is a surprise considering its non-Marshcus anti-"nice to negro culture" attitude...an edited version also ended up in PHONOGRAPH RECORD MAGAZINE which is where I first laid eyes upon it), and his SCREW piece on the Stooges (also found in Jon Eisen's FANDANGOS book) that captures the anarcho spirit of the entire proto-punk scene evident in both Meltzer/Stooges at the time. While I'm at it, shouldn't forget the lyrics to "Electrocute Your C--k" (and it ain't "cook", wordage being just as asininely brilliant as Nick Tosches' "Gaul and You", written for the Dictators) plus his review of Patti Smith's Mapplethorpe nude pix which are also worth a hoot especially because she's a dog. If you're stuck in an early anatcho/garage timewarp musico/social twilight zone such as I, this book along with hefty doses of early-sixties TV and repeated batterings of free jazz and 60s/70s garage punkdom can alleviate the pain. I find that even Smegma makes good background music for a sitdown reading, which given the current state of affairs makes for a fine time that can't be had on Napster!

Being totally objective and all, gotta say that there are parts of this read that don't do me too well. A lotta Meltzer's post-rock (mid-80s or so?) scribing for the LA READER and other sources don't digest too well all the time and might even be downright instant douse. Meltzer does get onto the hip/lefto bandwagon as well and usually to disgusting ends, reminding me of those shrill New York City liberal types who usedta complain about the crime and brutal cops and trash yet now BERATE Mayor Guilliani because he cleaned up the streets and crime plummeted! (They only complain about John Law if the cops act brutal towards non-white though...when a buncha stoned out thugs began raping white women during the Puerto Rican Day parade last spring 'n the cops did nada so's not to stir up "oppressed peoples" mob riots, these same Compassion Ltd. types remained silent WITH BIG SMILES ON THEIR FACES!)

Meltzer's WORST offense in this regard just hasta be his post-LA Riot droppage, a piece where, like EVERYONE ELSE nowadays, Meltzer just hadda apply Marx where he should have applied Mencken (or applied MOTHER JONES instead of REASON, if you get my drift) in showing off a whole load of self-righteous indignation (shudder!)! This is awful stuff where a guy I thought woulda known better slams EVERYTHING from Hollywood, THE BIRTH OF A NATION (a movie I'll defend because the Klan of Griffith is more palatable than the Klan of Compton), right-leaning blacks/latinos and of course his own white skin only to top off the heard-it-before white angst with a strange utterance stating that the world would be MUCH BETTER with ALL WHITE PEOPLE PAST AND PRESENT eradicated from the face of the earth (himself included?). An interesting wish so to speak that puts him in line with just about every seven-per-center in this nation and elsewhere and one (of many out there) that just REEKS of the current rampage against the last 5000 or so years of civilization now so chic amongst a good hefty portion of you readers. I think its funny how these white crits, so anxious to walk hand-in-hand with peoples of color and the like, can't seperate black artist X's music for good or bad and said artist's totally totalitarian political beliefs (Miles Davis' infamous "strangle a white boy" response to the question asking what he would like to do if he only had ten minutes to live is just one case in point...personally I wish that if Davis had gotten his wish, it would've been some self-loathing white critic who'd've gotten the wrenching), and frankly Meltzer falls into the SAME PIT OF DOOM with his own white race-baiting white attitude that might've (SHOULD'VE???) earned him some kickback money from Khalid Muhammed somewhere down the line. Of course Meltzer spouts off the same old tired stats that kinda seemed stilted to begin with in order to boost his case (here's one stat I DIDN'T read...black on white crime is MUCH MORE PREVALENT than white on black, though black on black is the worst of all), though I dunno just how much of a case can be made for a very small fraction of rioters who got off with mere handslaps for bashing a truckdriver's white skull in and cried the day after riot's end because the Welfare Office was totaled! Maybe more to be pitied than loathed. Now Richard, I really like ya and all and think you're one of the swellest around, but how can anyone with BRAINS relate to a piece like that??!?! Prob'ly was a little TOO swept up in the current mode of emotions.

If you get this book be sure to staple "One White Man's Opinion" (pages 496-510) together and READ THE REST! It's fun, informative (makes a better consumer guide than 30 years of Christgau!) plus each article is personally prefaced by Meltzer giving us even more autobiographical info including dirt on people he's always hated or liked then hated such as Patti Smith (Meltzer reiterates her personal snobbishness the same way that Jymn Parrett did in DENIM DELINQUENT #7). It'll keep you busy at nights since TV rots the brain, and if anything oughta rot it it should be Meltzer. Proves that one CAN age with grace despite a few sideroads into unacceptable pose and whatnot. Read or Ignore or Die!

fanzine review...HOO HAH!; THE BEST OF EC'S FINEST FANZINE (published around 1984 or so...check out occasional ebay auctions for availability or if you dare, write to Ron Parker, 324 Warwick, Oakland CA 94610)

In what might be yet another limp attempt to break the "conspiracy of silence" that surrounds not only this blog, but this writer and his self-published endeavors, I've decided to do a small midweek posting if only to alert some unassuming soul out there about me, myself and a tonna sweat and fervor I've hadda put into my "hobby" for oh-so-long. Anyway, since this week has been rather slow (in fact, downright creeping) with regards to various BLOG TO GULCHERAL happenings especially geared to jolt your humble blogmeister outta his usual ennui (save for a boss Cee-Dee from the Magic Markers that I'm saving for this weekend's big review blowout), you can betcha that I was in a quandary as to just what I should write about here in order to wow you rubes'n all into NOTICING ME! (like I know you should). That is, I was stymied until I decided to pull something outta one-a the big boxes in my room in order to glom a little reading material to accompany today's early-morning relief session and plucked out none other than this neat-o collection of the "best" from the "groundbreaking" (I guess) fifties-era EC fanzine HOO HAH! and the proverbial light bulb just began a-gleaming above my sweaty (remember, I was anxious to go about doing my daily duty!) brow! I dunno if this was an act of God or perhaps just plain ol' lady luck that popped this classic collection into my hands or not, but believe-you-me, stranger things (like Chuck Eddy being considered an apt, well-versed rock critic) have happened so why should I argue with kismet?

Of course you can't believe EVERYTHING you read including the cover blurb "THE BEST OF EC'S FINEST FANZINE" (I'd give that honor to a host of sixties/seventies four-color covered wonders with such classically EC-Sci Fi-inspired titles as SPA FON, QUA BROT and CHIN HO), but perhaps it was the finest back in the mid/late fifties when the EC legend was only freshly dead'n still ruminating and the only other EC fanzine on the boards that I can think of was Bhob Stewart's POTRZEBIE (created by Stewart as a wonderfully kneejerk reaction to none other than latent communist Fred Wertham!). Whatever your take is, HOO HAH! was a very good (in fact excellent given the time and effort) fanzine project that I believe (for what you'd take of that) suited the EC fan base gurgle pretty well in those pre-mania times long before comic books became the hardcore matter of hipster youthdom when Stan Lee decided to adapt a more Comics Code-prone view of the EC fan style and made megamillions with it.

THE BEST OF HOO HAH! is packaged pretty much like one of those over-sized eighties/nineties fanzines (the second issue of KICKS comes to mind) complete with some (but strangely enough not all) original covers on display as well as not only choice reprints but the sagas behind just about every word and semicolon that appeared in HOO HAH!'s halcyon pages. A pretty detailed endeavor considering just how limited such a product must have been outside the EC/fandom realm (I mean, I was actually considering a similar "Best Of" collection of tasty tidbits taken from the pages of the infamous TEENAGE WASTELAND GAZETTE back in the early-nineties only publishing costs, copyrights and all the technicalities finally got the best of me!---that and the thought that I might be the only person alive who'd wanna read the thing!), but one that I feel needs to be done lest all this great fanzine drive of the past be totally forgotten!

But what's exactly in store once you open the plastic protector and get to the meaty self-published pow'r of it all? Well, what'cha get's a lotta early amateur-yet-engrossing endeavors not only by the soon-to-be-forgotten scribes like Larry Stark, but art and type by people who used their fanzine experience to blast off into mainstream comics fame such as Archie Goodwin, Marv Wolfman and the aforementioned Stewart. And not only that, but we also get the meaty EC articles on where it was and where it was going (which, after the "New Direction" and "Picto-Fiction" lines bombed, was MAD and nothing but!), and yeah, some of the articles appearing here may have been written (and unintentionally at that!) in your typically staid term paper fashion (not an uncommon occurrence amongst comic fandom...too bad they didn't have their own Meltzer to swipe from like we do!) but it at least gives us that li'l inkling of just what it was like to be a nerdy shell ready to burst forth into a broth of a buttsop within the short span of a good seven/eight issues trying to sneak in alla snide female nudity one could get away with a good half-century back.

Personal fave moments: the "Kurtzman Vs. Feldstein" debate regarding who was the better MAD editor (with such future heavyweights as E. Nelson Bridwell and underground comix spurrer-onner Marty Pahls giving their what for), the reviews of EC's "Picto-Fiction" titles by Stewart and Archie Goodwin (who was perhaps "thee" true force behind HOO HAH! given his contributions and cover illios), and naturally all of the rare EC arcana that's been reprinted over and over I'm sure, but at least it appears for my own perusal in the here and now thanks to this fanzine appreciation. And yeah, there are always the CARTOONS to enjoy, and although HOO HAH! wasn't a MAD fanzine "emulation" along the lines of ODD and a slewwa other proto-underground affairs the influence can certainly be felt like a heavy-handed sledge, from the six-page spoof of William Gaines' appearance before the Kefauver Crime Committee ("The Gaines Mutiny") to the bad taste cartoons along the lines of Gene Kelly's "Wilbur" (no, not the Archie Comics self-ripoff, but a kiddie comic involving a puppy that drops a turd about twice the dog's size which really makes for interactive reading if you yourself are doing a dump...hefty stuff for a kiddie comic spoof inna mid-fifties I might add?). Hokay, I gotta admit that a lotta the comic wares reprinted in HOO HAH! ain't quite up to my guffawing standards more or less reading like bad college mag gagsters that don't even appeal on a good groan level like a classic NANCY does, but I gotta say that I like the snot attitude more than...say the comic fanzine altruism of the sixties onwards and you can bet that I'll be reading HOO HAH! a lot closer tonight. In fact, if you see me making additions and corrections to this very blog post like I tend to do you'll know it's because I'm finding even more insight into this collection than I already have. Yes, in today's vigilant blogworld, your ever-ready blog author refuses to SLEEP in the name of truth and a good post that'll knock yer socks off!

MORE STUFF FOR YOUSE TO PERUSE (well, they can't all be creative and clever!)

Didn't get to do my usual middle-of-the-week posting, nor did I even get the chance to mail out the Sparks CD-R which I reviewed last go 'round to the long-suffering Mike Snider either! Let's face it, this past week was pretty heck-tick for your faithful blogger if you ask me, what with being called up for JURY DUTY and all which is something that'll zap a lotta the sap outta this tree (I didn't get asked to sit on any juries so there wasn't any chance of me frying anyone, but then again I think the reason I didn't get picked was not only because of an old high school teacher who hated my guts that was gonna testify for the prosecution [I think he called me a lang to my face, and probably got a raise for it!], but when I sat on a previous jury a decade back I helped to send some DUI guy uppa river which I guess didn't sound like sweet music to the defense's ears either!). Naturally I still found the time (between trying to catch up on alla work I missed) to do a little enjoyin' myself with my frequent evening music spinning and reading sessions, and here are just a fewwa the things that helped occupy my free-time (between the usual internet browsing and and occasional boob-tube perusals, that is) I just know all you life-starved bloggin' fools'll wanna know about! So you can all go on LIVING again thanks to ME and my impeccable tastes which I just know you'll cherish and perhaps swipe as your own in order to impress the lads and lassies out there! And a note to Lou Rone, I really appreciate you burning Jeff Beck's ORANGE album for me, but the stoopid thing won't play on my INDOORS cee-dee player. I'll hafta give that one a spin in the station wagon once I have the chance to do a little pizza pie picking up or somethin', so it wasn't like I was ignoring it, or you!

Jayne County-SO NEW YORK CD (Ratcage)

Dunno where you can get it direct-like (both web-'dresses given for Ratcage seem t' be pubic domain now) but Peter Crowley occasionally has it up for auction on ebay (his user name is "Mr. Earl") in case you wanna latch onto this pretty good retro-garde platter. Now, I gotta admit that I never was that much of a Wayne/Jayne fan back during the heyday of the late-seventies punkerground (maybe there was too much right-side brainclog in gear), but considering how this guy/gal has only recently put out a pretty searing high-energy New York street rock affair while just about everyone else either dozed off or jumped I gotta commend he/she for sticking to his/her guns 'stead of going for the big gnu wave bucks like he/she coulda. From yet another Max's Kansas City take (also heard on THE RATCAGE SAMPLER which is reviewed in BLACK TO COMM #25 in case you're counting beans out there) to more re-re-recordings (is Jayne trying to be the new Chuck Berry in more ways than one???) to even a nice ballad that sounds more seventies-appropos than something a relative turd like Cyndi Lauper woulda whipped up, I gotta admit that I thought this one had more rockism-derived catch and oomph'n a lotta things that were supposed to be "custom made" for me o'er the past quarter-century yet sound totally alien to ANY pure rock/roll concepts that I grew up with! A surprise for sure!

Day-Z Daze-LITTLE TRAMP CD-R (Ratcage)

Crowley burned this thing for me complete w/cover graphics, and if you think that the lady on the front sure looks sweet and would make the perfect date, THINK AGAIN!!!! Yeah she's kinda cute, but on further examination (and upon hearing the baritone voice) you'll come to the realization that """she""" may really be a """"""""""HE""""""""""! But then again I think you hafta be a little cautious when you're approaching the Ratcage label roster anyhoo, so just don't go around throwing caution to the wind because you just don't know who you'll pick up at the next label board meeting. Day-Z plays the ukelele, and on this all-cover mini-disque (only 24-some mins. here!) the lad performs tuneage by everything from the Bad Brains to Jimi H. and even the Purps and Ramones (in the same song), and even if you think that ukelele rock is strictly for sissies (I don't, being a big fan of Brian Sands' overdubbed ukelele ballad "White Chocolate" on his REHEATED CHOCOLATE TANGOES mini-album from 1979!) I gotta tell ya that these tracks're just as New York (talkin' all those things you wanted to run away to the burgh for back inna seventies) as hanging out at Max's and comparing makeup techniques! There's even an appearance from Sonic Uke, who some of you might remember as Ted Gottfried from the late/lamented SEE HEAR fanzine shoppe and yeah, I'm sure a lotta you self-publishers must've hated him when he hadda declare bankruptcy, but at least he sent all the unsold mags o' mine back w/o question and I gotta SALUTE him for keeping up the Herculean task for so long! I sure miss yer store Ted...since you went outta biz it's been harder and harder to move my rag than ever...between that and all the back-stabbing that has gone on over the past two years, that is!


Dead Fingers Talk-STORM THE REALITY STUDIOS...PLUS CD (Sanctuary)

Good cover, well-placed seventies-rock Burroughs-ref, late-seventies decadence, early-seventies Stones (filtered through early-Velvets) grrrffff...all the things you'd think I'd drool over in a band and album, right? And STORM THE REALITY STUDIOS does "make it" on the boss Stones riff-energy and interesting deca-lyrics alone, though if I didn't admit that I just snoozed out as the thing progressed I'd be a regular Fibber Fox. As it stands...good in doses though hardly engaging, gonad-grabbing or just plain high-enough energy for me to give this more than the occasional referential spin.

The Deviants-"Taste The Blue"/"You've Got To Hold On"/"Let's Loot The Supermarket" CD-R (Captain Trip, Japan)

Ltd. ed. burnt offering from the fine folks at the Japanese Captain Trip label, who not only give us a recent live song taken from one of Mick Farren's umpteenth resurrections of "The Deviants" but the "remixed version" of the group's '68 Stable-era single (which really was released in Japan, and they used the picture sleeve for the cover!), and although the single sides don't sound that much diff'n the album tracks I find the entire kitten kaboodle nice enough, or at least nice enough to snuggle into my collection along with the rest of the Deviants/Farren/Fairies platters rusting away until their needed calling for some future BLOG TO COMM listening session in the hopefully near future.

Luther Thomas/Daniel Carter/Blaise Siwula/Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut-OUTCRY CD-R (No Label)

Along with Rent Control Records, Jeffrey Shurdut's No Label has been issuing a lotta fine modern-times avant jazz that covers the current improv scene just as well as the old CBGB Lounge Freestyle Series now taking place at Jimmy's Tavern did, and in order to test the waters so to speak I bought this disc starring none other than longtime BAG fave Luther Thomas honking his brains out along with Freestyle regs Daniel Carter and Blaise Siwula, not to mention the omnipresent Shurdut in there somewhere. And I dunno who this Shurdut guy is, but I gotta commend him for recording and releasing such interesting and engrossing sessions on his lonesome even though he seems to be in the background at least on this one, playing guitar, amplifier, broken chimes and metal while adding "third voice" (Thomas presumably does the "first voice," a Yoko Ono impression which sounds pretty gnarly, at least coming from a man that is!). Anyway, OUTCRY starts off with a great three-way freeplay between Thomas, Carter and Siwula before dying down to the point where Shurdut gets to do his solo on what sounds like a buzzing amp and chimes (you'll have to turn your speakers way up to get a good listen) before the thing works itself into one of those slow Human Arts Ensemble-styled workouts. If you like those early Art Ensemble discs before Don Moye joined up you'll probably get into this 'un as well. And the rest of the No Label offerings looks pretty enticing, though since I've already gone over my $1000 a month entertainment allotment for January I'll have to wait until next month to latch onto 'em. Keep tuned.

ZUNO KEISATSU 1 CD (Be-Witch)

's funny, but I didn't quite cozy up to the second Keisatsu album (where the band went electric a la their main influence Tyrannosaurus Rex) nor did their appearance on the GENYA CONCERT CD and DVD elicit any strong feelings one way or the other, but I find this debut self-released disc by the original duo of Panta and whateverhisnameis to be a lot more enthralling than I thought it would've been. Kinda like early Marc meets David Peel if you wanna get hackneyed about it, but the acoustic guitar crank (sorta like Ritchie Havens doing the freedom thing without the panache and brotherhood schtick) and bongo popping sounds a lot more gritty'n the peace vibes I assume potential teen idol Panta hoped were emanating from his guitbox, amongst other things. A nice set, though beware the encroaching Kyu Sakamotoisms that always seem to creep their way into these Japanese underground forms. Comes with a shrunken version of the original inserts including that weird snap of the starved 'n nude guys with halos which only makes me wanna know...what was it all about???

THE KATZENJAMMER KIDS by Rudolph Dirks (Dover, 1974)

Interesting collection of 1906/07 Katzenjammer strips that hold up surprisingly well considering their age, but then again I've noticed that most of these dawn-of-comics offering sure read swell while most moderne-day product tends to bore instantly. Of course what else is new, since moderne strips are reflecting moderne concerns and the last thing I wanna be these days is "current," "up-to-date" or "on-top-of-things!" And just because something is "old" doesn't mean it's worthless...believe me, I'll take that "old" music, tee-vee, archetecture and COMIC ENTERTAINMENT over the new stuff anyday...just give me the "new" medical discoveries and "new" make-my-life-easier technological breakthroughs, OK? Everything else better be antiquated!

Anyway, this book begins in the middle of a continuing series where the kids, Mama, the ship's crew and der Captain (the original father and grandfather somehow getting jettisoned from the strip during the turn of the century...perhaps lost in a fatal attack similar to the one that must've offed the original third Katzenjammer brother who appeared in their earliest adventures!) were shipwrecked near the North Pole, with Hans und Fritz maliciously bungling every rescue attempt with typical aryan glee. Lemme tell you, if you're only familiar with the comparatively sedate modern version of the strip (which only seems to exist either because nobody at King Features Syndicate has the heart to give it the guillotine or perhaps because of an overseas popularity I'm not aware of) these early ones'll come as a surprise...not only are the Kids especially cruel to their elders but often turn on each other with abandon making for some especially tasty storytelling especially in light of what the post-H. H. Knerr strip in the fifties had become. By the middle of the book the cast is inexplicably back to civilization but the stories continue having the kids attacking authority (and themselves) with relish, and usually with the strip ending with the pair getting walloped by der Captain (thankfully, they never do learn their lesson!). If you can, search out Blackthorne's collection of early-thirties strips done by Knerr, who actually was an improvement over series creator Rudolph Dirks (Dirks continuing his strip as THE CAPTAIN AND THE KIDS after a long battle to retain ownership of his creation) and who was perhaps even more violent in his approach, which always is a good thing.



SMOKEY STOVER by Bill Holman (Blackthorne, 1985)

What else can I or anyone else say about this classic screwball comedy strip that still tends to guffaw me up and down the page even this far down the jaded path? Being a lover of daily groans and bad-gags, Bill Holman was the master, and you can tell that SMOKEY STOVER was perhaps "thee" bestest of the screwball batch because when MAD magazine decided to spoof it in their 1960 newspaper funnies insert they did a totally serious, staid lampoon more or less shaming the strip for "making fun of firemen" which couldn't be further from the truth. I mean, wouldn't that be like saying strips like HENRY, THE LITTLE KING, LOUIE and FERD'NAND make fun of mutes???

IT'S A FANZINE #47 (fanzine published by Gene Kehoe, 1421 Bertch Ave., Waterloo IA 50702)

While it seems as if rock fanzines have gone the way of the Edsel (albeit one shall rise again, as we shall see!), there are still a few comic book fanzines cranking away out there despite the entire idiom more or less being overrun by the prozines and websites out there doing the job that these 'zine creators more or less started! And the niftily-named IT'S A FANZINE is but one, a long-running pub that seems to be covering the same classic comic book terrain that it and many others have for quite some time. And although my tastes are more or less rooted in Velvetisms and the fandom that surrounds that particular obsession of mine, I can sure see the same effort and just plain ol' mania in IT'S A FANZINE that helped get me off my butt and start my own illustrious writing and fanzineing efforts and to that I say...HATS OFF!!!

The ish I got (#47, dated Summer 1998) has, besides an Adam Strange cover (never did like that 'un for some odd reason...perhaps the staid sixties DC art and lackluster storylines come to mind), a review of SUPERMAN #233 from January 1971 (the one where all the green kryptonite on Earth is turned to lead), an appraisal of Barry Smith (which doesn't excite me much because I never did like Smith's style though I gotta kick outta the splash page taken from his "Norman the Barbarian" spoof in an early-'72 ish of the old NATIONAL LAMPOON) and a wonderful Milton Caniff overview that kinda makes me wish I had followed STEVE CANYON more closely back when it was still around even though adventure comics weren't exactly my forte. Of course, the reason I bought this issue of IT'S A FANZINE was for the the old Scribbly/Red Tornado story editor Kehoe had the smarts to publish, this series being a rather new fave of mine that I only wish DC would immediately reprint, and not in one of those expensive hardcover editions either! It's the love-labor and pure energy in things like IT'S A FANZINE that help spur me on with regards to my own writings and fanzine aspirations, so if you have any hate mail to send, send it to Gene, not me!


CLOSING WORDS-I told you just how much I was going to post those Lou Rone and Cross photos for you...well, here they are, and reprinted nice and LARGE in order to wow your already blurry eyes! (In case you don't know, that's none other than Our Hero Lou on the left playing under the influence of Blackmore while on yer right Cross not only consider their future on the New York Rock Scene but keep on the lookout for a lead singer who won't end up hosting his own Saturday Morning Cartoon Show!!!) With the publication of these rare snaps you can now say that another blow for rockism history has been struck, though as you'll notice there will be little if any accolades heading my way. But I've come to expect that, and besides I'm not doing this for the glory and certainly not the moolah...it's all because this music continues to drive me insane, and what better way to express my own obsessive/compulsiveness about underground music (and comics, tee-vee, food...) than to bore all you ignoramuses with my idle prattle!

IT'S TIME FOR YET ANOTHER BLOG TO COMM KICKOUT D. JAMZ SESSION!

Yes, it'a another sunny Sunday afternoon, and while the rest of the world is out romping around at flea markets and watching boring educational programs and even more boring sports on tee-vee, what is your faithful blogger up to when he could be doing all of those wonderful things to preoccupy his time? Why, nothing but filling you all in on some of the top hot property and other things that's going on in his rather fruitful (not "fruity"...leave that to Dame Elton John) life, whether it be music or...really what else is there to bother yerself with anymore/anyway? So, here are a few things that, if you're the kind who likes to follow my every burp and bleep, you'd probably want to know about in a sorta playlist/whatever I do to keep myself outta trouble fashion...

Before I do commence with the critiquing, let me just explain to you'ins the social significance of today's blogspot title. "Kickout D. Jamz" was none other than the moniker of a totally rock & roll oriented comic character who used to sporadically appear in the earlier issues of my (stand-by for yet another freebie back-issues plug) fanzine, a butch-haired, sweat-shirted and sunglassed total rockism-devoted encapsulation of what BLACK/BLOG TO COMM stood for and continues to stand for especially in the face of a sagging anti-rock climate that was so pervasive then and continues to linger on even into these not exactly rock-friendly times. Looking back on these strips, it's not hard to see that Kickout definitely was a no-holds-barred maniac who would perhaps give his all for the music that not-so-surprisingly I too would do the same for (while remaining deep-in-the-heart of the suburban sprawl that not only he, but I love!), and I'm sure that some could say that he was perhaps rock & roll's answer to East Germany's freckle-faced commie cheerleader Manne Murmelauge, perhaps on a totally BLOG TO COMM plane and without the red scarf. (Upcoming cartoon: Kickout EXECUTES Murmelauge while various members of choice Eastern European underground groups applaud!) I'm sure we haven't seen the last of this guy (Kickout, not Manne!), who just might pop up in an upcoming ish of my aforementioned self-published wonder the same way Greg Prevost's "Dad" continues to have a life of his own, whenever Greg gets away from his Kenner's Give-A-Show Projector long enough to publish something, that is!



Sparks-KIMONO MY HOUSE CD (Island Japan, mini-LP cover version)

I'm burning this one for Michael Snider, and while I'm not sure that the CD-R in question's gonna be as crystalline clear as the original artyfact (if you ask me, these burnt CDs seem to be lacking in a li'l something more than "personality"), at least it gave me an excuse to pull this longtime faverave outta the collection as I tend to do with these teenage toppers every so often. I dunno about you, but way back then I was lumping Sparks in with T. Rex as far as hard 'n tough early-seventies rock (of a "pop" variety) went (complete with a frizzed haired androgynous-yet-hetero-oriented teen idol singer...that helped!), and years later it's so amazing just how well this stuff holds up despite Sparks having been dumped upon by a good portion of the more-effete-than-thou rock critics and hard rock fans alike. And while not as engrossing or as decadent (in a healthy seventies way) as followup PROPAGANDA I still find KIMONO MY HOUSE a rather fine Brit-pop offering where one can hear the roots of a lotta NEW YORK mythmaking (Fast, early Blondie...) which ironically had the Mael Brothers clubhopping for new members a few years later! (Plus dig the inclusion of then-current Pink Fairies Larry Wallis and Russell Hunter on "In My Family" and b-side "Lost and Found" adding a tasty heavy metal punch to the already-patented Sparks sound!)

SOMETHING ELSE BY THE KINKS (burned CD-R)

And this is one of the groups Sparks got a lotta their inspiration (you know what I'm talking about...this ain't the kind of inspiration that you pay for by the ounce!) from, and although I gotta say that I've never been that much an up-and-front Kinks fan (oh yeah, I used to drool at their album covers during my pre-curlysprout days wishing I could hear the music onna insides, and this was at a time when they weren't even overtly popular with the mass of classmates more concerned with Beatle beards than rock & roll!) I gotta say that it's sure nice to refresh myself after a time away from the elegance of it all. Kinda sappy at times especially if you're forever indebted to the early heavy metal the Kinks in part helped to create (you can easily see just how far the Troggs had surpassed their influence at the time) but there never really was anything wrong with sap per-se...it was only when said sap became more or less the foundation for entire genres of pop kultchur that I drew the line. And while I never will be as front-and-center a Kinks fan as Imants Krumins, Edgar Breau or Jymn Parrett (must be something in the Kinks that appeals to the Canadian in a feller!) I find their adaptation of then-current popisms in a British sorta-fop sense a lot more exciting than a lotta band trends that were happening in music (and elsewhere) back in them dayze! A "returner" for sure!

VIVA! ROXY MUSIC CD (Virgin Ameriga)

Here's one from that came straight outta the Golden Age of Crankout Live Albums when it seemed as if cheap-o and low-quality live sets were the norm as far as up-and-coming British acts went. I mean, amongst a slew of usually (but not always) unreleased-outside-the isles offerings there was GENESIS LIVE, King Crimson's EARTHBOUND and this wonder which not only earned the ire of record buyers worldwide but helped spur on the bootleg industry...after all, their wares, usually taken straight from FM broadcasts, surpassed the legit companies hands down! Quality on this '76 throwaway's OK...a step or two above METALLIC KO yet the whole thing sounds like just another big company tossing the bone out for us eager poochies to gobble up and nothing more. Performances are fair, maybe even snoozy in comparison to the original albums or even a slew of choice boots (CHAMPAGNE AND NOVOCAINE, a then-common platter oft seen in back-alley record shops across the globe, is way-preferrable considering its mix of Eno/Jobson as well as exemplary performances both live and Peel). Still, a good cheapie for what these things are worth and considering the number of copies that ended up in used record flea market bins, perhaps not that much!



Amon Duul II-LIVE IN LONDON CD (Captain Trip, Japan)

Another live cheapie of the seventies, yet since Amon Duul II were krauts I couldn't include them in with the British progressives listed above. Yet still, since this disc was originally issued in Gee Bee only and to coincide with a tour you could say that the same spirit that was beind such a cassette-recorded monstrosity as EARTHBOUND (well, I think that was the name of that live Crimson budget atrocity!) was behind this moolah-maker as well! The songs and performances are nothing to complain about...Renate Knaup-Whatzername's trying to be Grace Slick, Nico and Yoko Ono all at once while the rest of the band is doing their kraut-y best not knowing whether to sound like the Jefferson Airplane or Hawkwind, though even at this early stage (December, 1972) you can hear the progressive jazz chops replacing the punk drive of the earlier material. And contrary to one South-of-the-Equator naysayer I must heartily admit that I most certainly can hear a heavy Velvet Underground influence in both this and Roxy Music...have """you""" (ineffectual pipsqueak that you are) ever listened to the heavy riffage of "Phallus Dei" or (in Roxy's case) "Editions of You" not to mention "Remake/Remodel" (which early-seventies GA crit Alan Niector referred to as a Velvets/Stooges hump)? Sheesh, I guess some people ought to pick up the Q-tips and swab their ears before picking up a blog!!! Anyway, a nice messy affair for diehards only.

Various Artists-GET IN THE GROOVE CD (Norton)

Here's a Norton promosapiens that somehow got lost amidst a whole slewwa leaning-town-of-Cee Dees in my bedroom (also found two Australian-released disques, one by a Detroit group called Back in Spades and another a CD-Rom sampler of Australian punk history, but since I'm still sore at the entire continent because of a certain person who resides there it's not like I'm champing at the bit to review anything coming out of that island of sin and degradation!). Anyhoo this platter was rec'd at some swinging r&b hoedown in Brooklyn a coupla years back and not only do you get a whole buncha the Norton r&b roster (living division) front and center (Andre Williams, Mighty Hannibal, Lonnie Youngblood, the Great Gaylord...all hosted by none other than Rudy Ray Moore) screaming their souls out for you but the patented Norton pastyfaces are backing 'em up and it sounds a lot more ebony/ivory than Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder putting on the sanctimonious pose thinking they're doing something for the Harmonic Convergence! Considerin' tomorrow's Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday maybe this is the best way we can celebrate it...by tuning into the REAL black core of it all which really lays more on the line than all of those boring and preachy sermons everybody's been subject to throughout these years! Well, at least it's a lot more dignified than watching something with Cicely Tyson or James Earl Jones innit!

IN OTHER NEWS-If you wanna go to (former Von Lmo guitarist and metallic talent in his own right) Lou Rone's website and see a lotta wyld pix and get the latest (I tried posting some Cross-era pix Lou had sent me to no avail, but as they say try, try again...), just click here, and no, I am NOT shillin' for the guy despite what a few of you out there might think...shills are brainless/heartless (or perhaps overtly heart-rendering) hacks who write juicy hagiography about whatever their boss at the company tells 'em to rag on about. Me, I'm just a FAN and nothing more, a guy who wants to see his faverave musical acts get ahead in this ratrace they call the "music biz" while remaining as far from it as possible. In the sage words of Handsome Dick Manitoba "This is nuthin' to me but a hobby", and yeah, maybe I do rave on about my faves to the point where this might even turn into a hagioblog at times, but at least my hobby's more engrossing, obsessive and ultimately enriching than collecting records, that's for sure!

And an aside to Jeroen: gee, I never hear you put down Lindsay Hutton when he's getting into his anti-Amerigan "rants" (which he's allowed to do...it's his blog after all and you're more or less his employee, but howcum his pro-government leftwing political tirades get the green light while you're pulling me over and slapping me with a whole lotta tickets??? Been reading too much of the competition???).

BOOK REVIEW: TWENTY-MINUTE FANDANGOS AND FOREVER CHANGES, A ROCK BAZAAR EDITED BY JONATHAN EISEN (Random House, 1971)

Gotta say one thing about the GOLDEN AGE OF ROCK CRITICISM (to paraphrase Eddie Flowers in some long-buried mid-eighties newsletter of his), and that's although this undoubtedly GA of rockscribing coincided w/what many on the home front found to be the unmitigated worst time for rock & roll ever (at least until the eighties made rock & roll flaccid for good!), said downspiral for music certainly didn't affect the vast array of classic rockist screeds being pumped out by a wide array of upstart punkoids who certainly had their planets aligned straight enough when detailing to you exactly why group "X" wasn't worth the salt you pounded for it. And let's face it, but it was the downfall of this selfsame GA that in part inspired none other'n ME (I really wish this blog had the capability of making words blink on and off in a vast array of colorful NOTICE ME hues, because I certainly do deserve it!) to pick up the pen and start writing about obsessive/compulsive groups that most others out there were ignoring on-purpose, and although frankly I don't think I succeeded in my perhaps limp attempts to single-handedly restore the art of rock writing as a purely rockist form to its former self, (if you're a liberal) you can always congratulate me for these gosh-honest tries because "my heart was in the right place!" But still, all I gotta say is that "ONE MERE PARAGRAPH OF MY WRITING STYLE AND SWERVE OBLITERATES TEN CURRENTLY-RUNNING BLOGS WITH ONE HARD-FELT SWOOP!", and if you don't believe me just check out a good hunkerin' portion of the blog competition and see just how sterile and hackneyed moderne, post-"zine" culture VILLAGE VOICE/SPIN-influenced/promoted rock "criticism" can be. And these same doofuses think they're carrying on some sort of "tradition" and "precedent" set by the late-sixties trailblazers who were nothing more than these "editors'" very own Davy Crockett and Dan'l Boone of the printed page...like, HAH!

So maybe that's why I like to pull such old chestnuts as TWENTY MINUTE FANDANGOS (as well as a few choice classic fanzines) outta the fire when I'm being dragged down to the bottom of the muddy river after being weighted by way too much current-day lily-livered preachy piousness (and pseudo-decadent swill) being passed off as "honest rock criticism." And yes, the writing found within such a book (and such fanzines) are, as I've said, "old" (the book being pub'd 1971, hardly a year for banner rock & roll but like Eddie said tops for rock scribbling!) and perhaps ANCIENT to a variety of young shrubs who must've been negative-fifteen-years-old when this book was unleashed on the flea-bitten hippie populace, but then again most of the best things around today are "old"...I mean, where would we be w/o "old" tee-vee shows or "old" punk rock or "old" people who grew up with this stuff for that matter, and I gotta admit that when this humble blogschpieler hisself feels "old" all he hasta do is pick up a book like TWENTY MINUTE FANDANGOS and alla the sudden he's BACK IN HIGH SCHOOL, and this time he's calling the shots!

TWENTY MINUTE FANDANGOS is not only a great encapsulation of exactly what was RIGHT w/rockscreeding nigh on three-and-a-half decades back, but it really hits the heart w/regards to the bared-wire essence of it all. "It all" being the total energy and proto-punk NERVEGRATE that drove a young/impressionable person like myself to not only the music but the writers who were telling me all about it (and in the best, booger-nosed and non-PC-est ways possible) in the first place. I mean, this book is just dripping Richard Meltzer (now sexagenarian lead singer for Smegma) and Iggy Stooge influx to the point of condensation that I couldn't see just how the average ironed-hair girls aping the Melanie look coulda gone for a book like this one iota...

...or maybe they could! Y'see, TWENTY MINUTE FANDANGOS tries to cover most/some if not all of the early-seventies bases regarding the public's taste (or lack of it), so we do get a nice and tasty slab of Bobby Sherman's "My Secret Love List" (page 86) where he says "Last, but by no means least, in my heart and on my secret 'Love List' is the way I feel about each and every one of you!" Of course the book ain't totally made up of such heart-rendering caca (which sounded bad when Mark Lindsay was dedicating his sax solo to a girl he didn't even know, but at least Paul Revere and the Raiders made up for it with their high energy music!), so's we get plenty of Meltzer (either as Meltzer or under two pseudos inc. Borneo Jimmy and Lars Tush, not Tusb!), writings directly influenced by Meltzer (including acolyte Bobby [here Robert!] Abrams and Steve Sidorsky), references to Meltzer (the topical index to THE AESTHETICS OF ROCK printed en toto) and loads more'n your average horse-blindered blog-reading moderne-day bunsnitch could POSSIBLY stand! And if I dare say so, TWENTY MINUTE FANDANGOS is "thee" perfect antidote to Ann Powers and all that post-hippie "coolness" ol' hatchet face oozes outta every unclogged pore!!!

And you can bet TWENTY MINUTE FANDANGOS spares no semicolon in giving you the entire scope/range of early-seventies miasma that """I""", but not necessarily you, hadda grow up in! True you get loads on the early-seventies highpoints (like THREE Stoogepieces, one by fan club prez Natalie Stoogeling, another a beaut of a makeup w/more truth than you could expect from none other'n Meltzer, and the last nothing but Jackie Curtis and Rita Redd talking back/forth about Iggy and his importance to the coming gulcheral upheaval taking place as we speak), but then again you get a slice of mid-Ameriga at its snooziest (pic of ultra-square mom 'n son w/latter holding banner displaying vulgar patriotic sentiments) which is sometimes spiced up by the writer in question whether it be Danny Fields on Mrs. Miller (p. 201) and an interview with a rock & roll record burning minister conducted by Deday LaRene's cousin/niece? Janet (a bonafide teenager) who, after noticing that all of the records being melted were at least ten/fifteen years old, asks the reverend if he's heard the MC5! Yes, TWENTY MINUTE FANDANGOS is a book that will fill you in on the true trials and tribulations of early-seventies living more than a double bill of BLESS THE BEASTS AND CHILDREN and BILLY JACK (with maybe THE CONCERT FOR BANGLADESH thrown in for good measure) would ever dare!

(Which reminds me of a funny aside...for some reason in a history class back during my stool days the subject of BILLY JACK and the sequel entitled THE TRIAL OF BILLY JACK came up for discussion, I think in relation to My Lai or whatever it was called and Lt. Calley's role in that slaughter. I hadn't seen either of 'em but I recall the more bleedheart amongst the classmates discussing it with the teacher, himself a bitta a post-New Deal Generation lib I surmise, with total gusto. The only thing I can clearly remember from that class "rap session" was when the aforementioned teach said something along the lines of "If they had shown the shot up dead bodies in that mass grave, the movie would have gotten an 'R'...it would have looked like lasagna or something!" Somehow, that line sticks in my mind even this far down the road, though I was now able to eat lasagna which I previously had abhorred...and God only knows why!)

True, some of this book tends to snooze (the Byrds interview doesn't quite gel the way I thought it would but considering that I never cozied up to the late-sixties variety maybe it's I who has the mental blockheadedness fully in gear), but as editor Eisen (who also contributes his own material including a writeup on Liberace [page 253]) says, you can do a John Cage on this one and pop in anywhere and go forth at your own rate. (Funny, you can say the same thing about any issue of BLACK TO COMM!) So if you're not really inna mood to read about Mrs. Miller or comb through the drug/Manson refs (though do not pass up Abrams' Manson spew which starts the thing off...it's as fictitious yet engrossing as anything Meltzer has written!) you can just SKIP IT! and concentrate on the high energy all you want. And the entire trip's great because not only do you get to read a whole lotta unexpurgated rockist thumbnose that's been more or less whitewashed from the entire rock critique scam a la some Stalinist purge of a deviationist, but you also get to read the roots of ME! which I know is something you've always wanted to do. And aren't you glad that, although you can't easily enough read rock critiques by the likes of Meltzer or Tosches w/any ease these days, you CAN read my to-the-point dissections of Amerigan (and International) rockism wonders? Be GRATEFUL for once in your alternative life!