TEN GROUPS/GIGS I SURE WISH TO HECK I COULDA SEEN!

1) VELVET UNDERGROUND-Actually any gig of theirs not counting the '93 reunions (after buying a ticket to see 'em, I couldn't afford the disposable lighter to "flick" in appreciation) would have been worth my while, but an emphasis on the Cale period, particularly of the 1964/65 variety which seems even more of a mystery even after the release of those early demos, would be especially tasty.

2) DEVIANTS-Ditto, though the Devie's '66/'67 days when they were amongst the first groups to heavily borrow from the Velvets and perhaps the only ones in Britian extant to do so sound enticing enough to me. Of course, any public appearance made by Mick Farren, especially during his Stiff Records days (see left) should be just as engrossing...

3) RED TRANSISTOR-Really, almost any '77/'79 no wave band counts (especially the groups considered "too wild and primitive" for the NO NEW YORK disque such as Daily Life, Terminal and the Gynecologists) but of the batch I've heard I'd say that Red Transistor would be the most desirable. Mars comes a close second, and naturally (the) VON LMO (band) should pop up in this category somewhere. Even Kongress other'n the gig where Geofrey Crozier threw the pigeon dust into his cauldron thus driving the entire audience at Max's Kansas City out the door would have been exciting...

4) ROCKET FROM THE TOMBS-Of all the Cleveland "first wave" groups who seem to have gotten their just desserts (coconut cream pie?) thirty years after the fact these are the guys I'd most love to have seen, either in their original "comedy" version or of the later high-energy variety best known to us from a number of bootleg records and tapes that have been floating around ever since the Rocket crash landed in 1975. The only other first wavers I would have really enjoyed lending an ear to would have been Milk with Brian Sands and Dennis Carleton (as well as Al Globekar and Dave Alexy) who certainly put a nice twist on the ol' Cleveland Pop movement that was taking the world by storm at the time (and debuting at a Circus gig at the height of their popularity in 1973 was certainly a smart coup!). It's too bad that these guys continually get left out of the Cle underground saga because Milk were every bit as important to the development of an original music scene in Cleveland and as high-intensity as Rocket and the other local underground units, even though the idea of an original music high-energy rock band in Cleveland seemed about as popular as a Studebaker with flame decals. I mean, that's cool as well, but not to the bong-headed Pantsios-reading nimnuls who permeated the burgh at the time with WMMS continually stuck into their ever-deafening ears if you know what I mean...

5) THE STOOGES' DEBUT, HALLOWEEN 1967-Yeah, just about any Stooges gig (even the reunion ones with Mike Watt of all people subbing for a departed Dave Alexander!) would be worthy of mine eyes and ears, but I still wonder what the very first Stooges show with Iggy playing a rented Hawaiian guitar and blowing out the amps in the process would have sounded like. The descriptions that survive are incredible (read Julian Cope's unabashed praise of Iggy's own account of this show recounted in the Ash Ra Tempel chapter of his KRAUTROCKSAMPLERSCHPIEL book) and I have the sneaking suspicion that tapes do survive along with more early Detroit high energy wonders out there (Seventh Seal, Power of Woman...) I've been yearning to hear for more than just a few years. All I gotta say is...paging Bomp Records!!!

6) THE PLANETS' 1975 LINEUP-Believe-you-me, there would be plenty of gigs happening on the New York Scene throughout the late-sixties until even today that I woulda loved to have been front and center for (sample list...any Manster appearance as well as any of those legendary and undocumented heavy metal groups that would scatter amidst the CBGB and Max's Kansas City schedules during the late-seventies/early-eighties such as Sorcerers, Junior Birdmen and Cold Steel...), and amongst the reams of unheard and probably ne'er-to-hear groups (as you can see I've pretty much limited this list to bands I am already familiar with just so's I wouldn't go off on a tangent mentioning a thousand or so groups out there I would love to hear at least once before clocking out for good) in that big burgh of En Why See I must say that eyeballing the classic Planets lineup woulda done me more'n just "some good". I dunno how the original glam-era group woulda come off and a tape of the post-Tally Talliafarrow lineup that I have sounds rather "straight" and almost Frampton-esque in spots, but the "famous" '76/'76 version of the band with Binky Phillips doing his Townshend trip while Talliafarrow is front and center doing the best black punk strut extant (with Anthony Jones on bass and Steve Korff on drums) might have been the wildest yet most commercial thing going on the New York Scene at the time, with a strong Who meets Stooges meets Cleveland power-pop sound and a clear-intensity that might have even rivaled Rocket From The Tombs for sheer ear-bursting power! There's a nice and detailed article on these guys (complete with the obligatory rare pictures!) that appeared in the twenty-second issue of BLACK TO COMM in case any of you blog-perusers are interested in educating yerselves.

7) ANY GIG BY LES RALLIZES DENUDES FROM 1968 UNTIL THE LATE SEVENTIES OR SO-Actually, just about any gig from the likes of the Denudes guys or their current-day emulators would be boffo for me, but I really woulda dug experiencing the Denudes way back when they seemed to be at the height of their avant-garde crank und strum which was roughly from the late-sixties (when Takashi Mizutani and his cohorts seemed to be closest to a Velvet Underground-inspired garage tap root) until the late-seventies which in retrospect were the final years of their peak efforts. Frankly I'd love to see just about all of the early-Velvetesque noisemongering aggregates of the late-sixties on (though I have a FAT CHANCE of ever doing so!), but given that these guys thankfully have some wonderful recorded material out and readily available Les Rallizes Denudes don't have to be on my atonal energy wish list any longer!

8) MX-80 SOUND LIVE PRE-RICH STIM AND DAVE MAHONEY-Now don't get me wrong, I really dig the effort and energy those guys put into the classic MX-80 recordings and all, but dag-nabbit if the two available tracks recorded by the original version of the group (top-splat guitarist Bruce Anderson and throb-bassist Dale Sophiea with dual drumming from Kevin Teare and Jeff Armour) have my appetite whetted for experiencing an entire concert from these instrumental atrocity mongers in some Bloomington Indiana student watering hole sometime on a muggy 1974 summer weekend. Original reports of these guys having a Mahavishnu Orchestra influence had me shying away from wanting to hear this stuff, but "Spoonfight" off the BLOOMINGTON ONE sampler was jarring enough to have me thinking more Sharrock than McLaughlin (believe me, I was expecting Anderson to toss flowers into the audience, not sharp metal filings!) while that track on DAS LOVE BOOT or whatever it's called (can't find the thing which makes it tough for me to come off looking all researched and proper like I should being such the gifted rock scriber that I am!) was equally spaced out with a heavier emphasis on free jazz avant gardities and less on DOWN BEAT-sanctioned fusion mush. I sure could use an entire album of this stuff, and I only hope that Anderson or Family Vineyard or whoever releases MX-80 Sound wares these days chances upon this blog and decides to take my earnest yearnings to solid fruitation!

9) CAN-Naturally when I say "Can" I mean the original high energy punk rockish Malcolm Mooney variation, but anything up to the mid-seventies would suffice. As far as other krautrock acts go, Amon Duul I would probably be a massive treat, as would Ash Ra Tempel (at least judging from those live CD's which had almost immediately gone out of print).

10) UMELA HMOTA (ANY VARIETY INCLUDING UH 2 AND UH 3)-Perhaps my favorite Czech underground (in the purest form considering the governmental crackdowns that made them international cause celebres in the late-seventies) band. And in case you're still puzzled as to why Umela Hmota ended up on this list when there are probably a lot more "famous" bands who should have, its because that of all the Czech underground aggregates I've heard o'er the years (and that includes biggies like the Plastic People of the Universe), these guys were naturally the punkiest of the batch attempting to do for Prague what groups like the Imperial Dogs and Simply Saucer were trying to do for their local scenes. Umela Hmota 2 have a two-CD set out which is definitely worth latching onto, mainly because its an all-encompassing collection of a huge hunkering portion of '76/'77-vintage studio and live goodies recorded when these guys were coming strangely close to what such non-Czech aggros as Pere Ubu not to mention a buncha British late-seventies explorers were doing a few years later! You can hear some Umela Hmota 3 numbers (this spinoff being led by Josef Vondruska, legendary poet and shattered artist) on the CD which comes with BLACK TO COMM #22, and those numbuhs have a striking similarity to their sister band, perhaps with a stronger Detroit influence that should earn UH 3 more followers amongst the same aficionados of the form who made bands like Radio Birdman cult heroes way back when. And I guess seeing either of these groups or the original Umela Hmota with Alfred, Dino and Vondruska sharing the leadership chair blasting forth from some clandestine barn or non-government approved wedding reception would have been more of a "rock & roll experience" than sweating it out in a small, safe "alternative" club catching the latest watered-down unoriginal "original music" band which is something that I had more of my share of in the past and frankly don't want to experience again!

Anyway, do any of you BLOG TO COMM readers wanna SHOW ME UP??? (One groups I did leave outta the mix in case you wanna chastize me...the Sonics!) If so, howzbout sending in your own fave fantasy gigs in order to spice up this entry, hmmmmm?

Blue Cheer-VINCEBUS ERUPTUM CD (Mercury)

Yeah, you could say that I am a little bit miffed that the camera wasn't turned on (neither was the sound!) for last night's Blue Cheer/Black Hollies show at CBGB, though that exactly ain't the first time someone "forgot" to turn on the blasted thing...I remember being really gung ho for a CBGB performance by a one-off grouping calling themselves "the Dopes" consisting of James Chance, Walter Steding, Billy Ficca and someoneorother back in '00 only to find out that they weren't cybercasting that night and as far as I can tell nobody even hadda smarts to sneak a recorder into the dive and bootleg it for all posterity! Maybe someone had the nerve to tape or whatever they do these days the Blue Cheer set and we can only hope that alla these final day gigs at CB's (or at least the hot ones) will be or have been recorded and preserved so's that anal-retentive obsessives like myself will have eons of great jamz to osmose to from now to eternity which would be a trip, especially since kicks certainly are getting harder to find as the entire music industry/scene sinks into a deeper chasm to the point where frankly it ain't even worth DEFENDING anymore.

At least I have this Cee-Dee to console myself with. Yeah, none other'n Blue Cheer's very first one from back in the opening days of '68, a platter so base and illiterate in its production and performance that a strong case can be made that this 'un really separated the intellect-o's from the brain-dead in just about every high school across the fruity plain. (And, in case you're puzzled, the smart kids weren't listening to VINCEBUS ERUPTUM by any stretch of the imagination!) A stone gronker that even inspired future garage-revival icon Greg Prevost to stick these guys on the front cover of the first issue of his now-infamous FUTURE fanzine way back in February of 1977, and everyone KNOWS that Greg Prevost is the arbiter of a different sort of sixties taste than the usual peruser! Hey, even I can remember when I first gave a listen to Blue Cheer's mega-thud hit "Summertime Blues" sometime in '72/'73 on one of those then-unique oldies programs which scattered the "peculiar" offbeat tracks with the standard bearers, the dee-jay expressing bewilderment perhaps with a slight scoff at the blast he just played which must go to show you the effects of a brain after too many plays of "It's Summertime" by the Jamies! Let's face it, for many people (even commentators I do pay attention to) Blue Cheer were thee mental midget rock band of the late-sixties purely because they took the freakier elements of pyschedelic love and peace music and proceeded to ramjam the entire mess into one huge shaking ball of phlegm that it seemed just about any dope-addled teenogre could play after just a mere listen. (Of course the hype about their volume which alledgedly killed a dog who happened to wander into a Blue Cheer show seemed to help...funny, Jonathan Cott [in the tenth-anniversary edition of ROLLING STONE] said the same thing happed at a Red Krayola show!) And naturally, a very strong case can be made that VINCEBUS ERUPTUM was the kicker that helped pave the way for the heavy metal onslaught of the 1969-1972 seasons...even the Detroit proto-punk brand of heavy metal (which seemed like a totally different breed of animal even back then) owed a hefty thanks to Blue Cheer and while we're at it the likes of Sir Lord Baltimore, Dust and alla those Metal Mike Saunders bedroom jams should prostrate themselves in homage as well.

It's an amazing miasma created by the trio of Dickie Peterson, Leigh Stephens and Paul Whaley, from the opening chord mangle of "Blues" to the freeform fall end of "Second Time Around" and for a bunch who still haven't shaken off their garage band roots (not that they shoulda) it's amazing that an inward-turned power trio as raw and unpolished as this was even ALLOWED to come out and ruin the good vibe trips that seemed totally in-synch with the big commercialization of the hippie movement going on at the time. Of course the best San Francisco rock of the day was anything but sunshine and misty-goo...and Blue Cheer's "success" only showed to proved that, had San Francisco evolved into a different breed of radical osmosis akin to the Velvet Underground maybe more bands would've produced a wail like Cheer did, one which might have rivaled the Velvets for psychotic fury perhaps leading to a better rock & roll future for the whole lot of us.

Don't get bent outta shape that half the tracks here are covers...Blue Cheer breathe their own life into such classics as "Parchment Farm" ("And all I did was shoot my arm"!!!!!!) and "Rock Me Baby" (not forgetting the hit single) that they sound like they might as well be originals anyway! And though I could be a Christgau type and dock Blue Cheer a grade for releasing such a short album (only 32 mins.) I gotta say that they pack more power and energy into that brief timespan than most metal bands did in entire careers and they even did it without the trite and wheezing Robert Plant-inspired Janis yelps and that ought to count for something!

If you want more early Blue Cheer (and who with their rockism heads on straight doesn't?), check out Eddie Flowers and the vast array of Cheer-oriented Captain Trip CDs he sometimes has for sale (not right now---all but one're outta stock!) including the one taken from THE STEVE ALLEN SHOW (which unfortunately cuts out Allen's opening wizecracking and post-"Blues" audible shock at the group's volume) not to mention some '75 demos that were covered extensively in BACK DOOR MAN at the time. And while you're waiting, why not just catching the following clip from BEAT CLUB which I'm sure will sate your thirst while you're awaiting a package of Cheer which ought to be heading your way (given your natural ability to sniff out the good in rock & roll and separate it from the sham which YOU have undoubtedly proven merely by tuning into this blog!) any day now.

The Surfaris-SURFER'S RULE/GONE WITH THE WAVE 2-CD set (BGO UK)

Dunno exactly why I bought this set...perhaps my viewing of Kenneth Anger's SCORPIO RISING on YouTube had something to do with it (or at least I think I was eyeballing SCORPIO RISING...it might have been a film of Dave Lang's birthday party for all I know!) but anyway the last "segment" of that 'un with the quick-cut editing of bikes coming and going and images of skulls smoking cigarettes labeled "youth" as the classic surf instrumental "Wipe Out" plays on certainly got this addled rock fan into pure surf instrumental gear and heading straight for ebay where a 2-CD of classic Surfaris sides was purchased post-haste in a serious bid to slake my 1963 lust.

Naturally I shoulda realized that the take of "Wipe Out" here (and maybe "Surfer Joe") ain't the well-known original versions since Dot records still owns 'em (which is why they released that bogus Surfaris album with the three or so Surfaris tracks they do own along with a buncha imposter material in order to milk the unaware bumpuses even MORE), and I also shoulda realized that the re-do of their biggest hit wouldn't sound anything like the well-known punk precursor that still stands as a testament to pre-Beatles thud. However, that's no reason to ignore this classic slab which covers the best and not-so moments of the group's Decca-period booty, ranging from the follow up pseudo-hits like "Point Panic" to a whole slab of Beach Boy imitations not forgetting the Surfaris' final days as a folk-rock band where they really musta felt outta place doing their Byrds imitations with a moniker straight outta the short-hair and matching suits era which only ended a few years prior!

Perhaps the biggest reason I latched onto this collection was to hear the Surfaris' take of what I like to call the "National Anthem" of 1966, mainly "Hey Joe". For years (at least since I saw it on an old Bomp auction list) I've been curious as to how the Surfaris woulda tackled this classic garage-band raver and y'know what, they do it with sheer aplomb almost as good as the Leaves, Byrds and Swamp Rats but better than Jimi Hendrix, Fever Tree and Creation. The Surfaris added a nice touch to the song with the entire group shouting "HEY---JOE!" before the lead singer would continue "...where you goin' with that gun in your hand" and why this one missed being included on one of the original PEBBLES volumes back in 1979/80 when we sure coulda used it is way beyond me.

WHITE STUFF (fanzine collected on a shiny disque, originally edited by Sandy Robertson during the years 1977/1978)

It's not like I've had the opportunity to read every last word of this magnificent fanzine, but I'm sure glad that I've finally gotten around to reading these WORTHWHILE scribings for once in my bloated life. For along with the ROCK ON's also recently received (and nearest and dearest to my frequent commode-visiting heart) you could say that I've been having the bestest fanzine-immersing time of my life at least since the early-nineties when eager-beaver fans were running off their old hard-to-get issues of BACK DOOR MAN, DENIM DELINQUENT and THE NEXT BIG THING for yours truly just because I was a big fanzine editurd who deserved this much-needed and still-craved reading material solely because I am ME!!! You should try it sometime.

Yeah, WHITE STUFF is a Patti Smith fanzine and I'm sure that you, I and the bedpost have had our various "qualms" about Patti and the things she has said and done o'er the past thirtysome years or so. And hey, even you (like I) might just have a big steaming MAD ON about her and her current state of socio-political bravado no matter who or what it may entail (for me, it's her anti-capitalist neo-Marxism that seems more or less like some last great grasp at reviving the sixties/seventies radical ultra-lib bent that still tinkles on here and there) but no matter whatcha think, I gotta say that her earlier endeavors still hold up even with her usual asides to various chic hipster pose not to mention a whole array of seventies relevant/kitsch causes. (Such as her, along with a good portion of the avant youth gulcher of the day's, deification of Wilhelm Reich, a guy who seems more or less like an "interesting figure" the same way that I might read on about Bobby Beausoliel or Mel Lyman, but raising him to the status of a persecuted prophet who...if only he were set free...would have changed the universe for the better is nothing more than a pipe dream an unlimited stay in an orgone box couldn't diminish in a millyun years!)

Reichian therapy and hipster bohoisms aside, I gotta say that I love the living dickens outta these WHITE STUFFs. Naturally there's lots on Patti and her Pals, but there's loads more because y'see, this fanzine came outta the cold reaches of Scotland as does editor Sandy Robertson, and as ye all know the Scots are good for giving bargains because they're all cheapskates up there! So that's why you really getcher money's worth outta mags like WHITE STUFF not to mention BAM BALAAM and that old standby THE NEXT BIG THING, because if folks like Robertson and Lindsay Hutton (who is a swell guy even if he does hate dagos) didn't give their countrymen a good magazine at a good price, you know that the entire clan would storm these fellows' huts and chop 'em up into pure haggis just like their forefather Sawney Beane did way back when! So besides the fantastic Patti coverage (complete with the bared-wire intensity that I used to associate with the lady and her music, at least when she was scraping through the heavy metal no wave of "Radio Ethiopia" while I would fret away about the next day at school!) there's loads more that in fact makes WHITE STUFF a "genzine" and not necessarily a purely Patti vehicle. Take ish #1 where one can espy amidst the intelligent Patti rah-rahs a review of the first Lou Reed album plus bits on the Ramones and those pesky Sex Pistols, not forgetting a writeup of that John Mendelsohn's Pits EP on Bomp which NOBODY seemed to like except Robertson, which is probably why he got on their promo list! (Ish #2 has a review of the Snatch single which I passed on at the time but sounds good enough judging from Robertson's tossing about of the Velvets tag which always lit my fire in those brave new wave days...I think that one might be on one of those Chuck Warner samplers I probably have in my collection somewhere...) And yeah, amidst the articles on all those old-timey arbitors of just how boho you can get such as Artaud, Harry Crosby, Rimbaud and the aforementioned Reich amongst other Smith watermarks are pieces on...KIM FOWLEY (who yeah, I know most of you reg'lar readers HATE with a passion but I personally never encountered him face-to-face or via phone and from what I've heard both musically and not he still comes off tres-seventies deca-chic enough for me...), THE RUNAWAYS (great pieces here---no pun intended!), ENO, HELEN REDDY (a writeup brought about by Fowley's then-recent production...fantastic in both writing and putting forth an unpopular view!) and even shemale Amanda Lear make the grade which should say something because even though this was the age of rock-going-in-every-direction, there still were some views out there that were too hard for certain hipsters to take and Amanda Lear was but one of them! Ain't encountered the Lear article yet (given the difficulty I sometimes have in not only reading this but calling up certain pages it's amazing that I've absorbed as much of WHITE STUFF as I have!) but if it's as good as the stuff Robertson did on Fowley and Reddy I know I'm in for an all-enveloping reading experience akin to the time I first flipped open a NEW YORK ROCKER and discovered that someone put out an ENTIRE MAGAZINE fulla the good stuff!

And Robertson's writing is snat as well...sorta comes off like the best of the hip-cool English critstars of the time like Charles Shaar Murray, Nick Kent and even Paul Morley whose OUT THERE kinda reminds me of a slick, well-produced take on what Robertson was doing here. Another one that comes very close to what WHITE STUFF was going for is Bill Shute's INNER MYSTIQUE which also housed intellecto-punk musings in a great slapdash dada layout that influenced a certain mentally-impaired rock cretin to paste together his own fanzoonie which, in perhaps a totally different, pixel'd form, lasts to this day. And especially with the stuck-up, self-important, gosh-it-all writing one sees on blogs and in "entertainment papers" these days it's sure nice to get a dose of the REAL THING in order to resensify yourself as to what all this rock & roll (as a grating, nerve-bending musical form-as-obsessive cult) used to mean in the seventies, and perhaps still continues to mean for at least a few torch-bearing true believers out there in the great void of internet and obsessive print fandom.

MOOM PITCHERS REVIEW: DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY (directed by Hans Richter, 1947)

Dunno if you have any sorta affinity for the old time avant-garde and/or underground films that used to make such a splash in the sixties to the point where I can even remember Alan King and Paul Lynde (as a Warhol-inspired filmmaker showing a flick of a soft-boiled egg) making sport of 'em on some tee-vee comedy/variety series, but I gotta say that I've had an interest in the stuff ever since my obsessions got the best of me around the time I was about fifteen. However, I can't say that I've seen a film of the "underground" variety like DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY...true it's directed by longtime avant garde father figure Hans Richter and it features segments from everyone from Ferdinand Leger to Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp (with John Cage musical backing!), but in many (most?) ways this one resembles a low-budget (albeit in color) late-forties attempt to get an underground film into the urban theatre market. From what looks like a poverty even on Poverty Row company (I mean, who were "Films International of America" anyway?) backing this feature (77 whole minutes!) to the typical zilch-style acting, DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY comes off like some of the greatest experimental minds of the early/mid-twentieth century somehow trying to cash in their artistic chips trying to get a film out and rake in something for all their surrealistic efforts. After all, you can't eat accolades. I wonder if 1) this film was ever released to the general public and if 2) it made any sorta impact amongst whoever might have seen it because there's a certain smarm to this 'un that reminds me of those "Adults Only" films of the same stratum, only without the seaminess or general gratuity (albeit a bitta boobs in the Duchamp segment which probably meant it certainly wouldn't play Pennsylvania given their stringent censorship board!).

You could call DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY an ingenious collaboration although I'd be lying to you if I didn't say that certain parts tended to bore the living daylights outta me. The segment with mannequins "directed" by Leger was way too artsy-cutesy for my digestion (if you will, think of a filmed variation on the same frilliness that went into those early Warhol shoe graphics) while the part featuring the Alexander Calder mobiles whirling in light/shadow play came off more or less like something outta some classroom film they used to show us when we were kids. Even the Man Ray one was a bit obtuse. But heavens-to-Betsy if I didn't groove to the Duchamp contribution (basically a remake of his ANEMIC CINEMA) complete with a nude descending a staircase and John Cage playing a prepared piano that sounds more or less like a gamelan, which I think was the point of Cage inventing it in the first place anyway! And yeah, it's interesting seeing these artistic segs framed by what looks more or less like a z-movie dealing with a man who people pay to look into their dreams, complete with the beautiful skirt and the tough guy gangster even though there's a strange combination of artistic pretense and cheesiness that keeps me from liking this any more than I do. In all, DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY recollects a lotta the early talkie-period avant garde features from THE BLOOD OF A POET to ECSTASY, and maybe this one will grow on me to the point where I could enjoy it as much as I do those other now-classic flickers of some importance. But for today, I'd rather just look at Richter's debut film exercise RHYTHMUS 21 which is much shorter and to the point, and if you tuned in earlier you could have actually seen the film via Youtube, who have since yanked if from their site so tuff turds.

Pure Hell-NOISE ADDICTION CD & DVD (Welfare)

OK, I'm gonna keep this short and sweet because really, either I can rave about this new package with a few quick and shallow words of praise, or I can blab on for hour upon hour on end about every little insignificant piece of trivia pertaining to me and my upbringing and my musical tastes whether or not they have anything to do with Pure Hell directly or not, and frankly I think I'd do you readers a disservice either way so lemme just give you a nice, detailed yet not too brainy (me, brainy?) dissertation as to why you should scarf this sucker up post haste before it's lost to all eternity and you're gonna hafta perform unnatural acts upon certain well-known rockscribe collectors (not counting ME) in order to procure a nth-rate burn that you'll all cherish nonetheless.

Anyway, for the uninitiated...Pure Hell were an all black punk rock & roll band from Philadelphia who formed in 1975 and almost immediately got a prestigeous Big Apple gig at Max's Kansas City that very same year, and until at least 1980 (last ref I can find of them via a gig listing at Max's very early in the year) they sorta made waves on the NYC scene and elsewhere getting some nice incidental press in the meanwhile. A single ("These Boots Were Made For Walking"/"No Rules") on the British Golden Sphinx label even earned them a short English tour in '78, and considering that they were also opening for Sid V's Max's gigs that very year you could say that these punks were at the height of their power if not popularity during that cream o' the punk crop time. However, after all of this hubbub Pure Hell decided they didn't wanna be known as punks anymore and started considering themselves a heavy metal outfit, but whichever way you wanna categorize the band they still come off as top high energy noisemakers who still sound up-to-date three-plus decades down the line which is more than I can say about some new aggros who sound stillborn upon launch. And face it bub, a lotta the all-black groups who made it superduper big in the nineties owe more than a pat on the back to Pure Hell, who I am told reformed (with a white bassist, so maybe they don't count anymore!) in the mid-nineties even getting some label attention from the folks at Mercury Records of all places!

So, you're probably wondering whether or not Pure Hell are punks or metal mongers, right? Well, like all of the great BLOG TO COMM faves I've rah-rah'd over they years all I gotta say is they sure straddle the boundaries in a way that seemed oh-so-normal in the early/mid-seventies when the folks at BACK DOOR MAN and DENIM DELINQUENT were more'n anxious to utter the names of such bands as Aerosmith, the Stooges, Blue Oyster Cult and the Dolls in the same breath although boundaries seemed to be more or less, er, defined as the decade wore on. Guitarist Preston Morris III (aka Chip Wreck) can thunder along with the heaviest of them all, but he's also a power-chord master par-excellence inna Tommy Ramone vein. Vocalist Kenny Gordon reminds me of a whole slew of black punkers from Hiawatha Bailey (Cult Heroes) on down with his cock-sure approach, 'n rhythm section Kerry Boles and Michael Sanders (nom-de-punkques being Lenny Still and Spider resp'v'ly) seem about as ham-fisted good enough for such an endeavor, Spider somehow recalling the likes of one Scott Asheton in the addled thud department. So really, the whole punk vs. metal question is superfluous, since like the best groups from both camps there are probably more similarities than differences and besides all I care about is what's GOOD (read: high energy and nerve-twisting) and what's ATROCIOUS (weak-kneed music especially when it's played by people who think they know enough for all of us!) and really, given all of the musical inbreeding that has gone on for ages are "labels" really that helpful anymore (other'n to give the prospective buyer a little leeway in knowing what he's gonna be in store for when he gets home, unwraps the shrink and submits himself to some of the worst prattle to pass as rock & roll extant???).

Naturally the single sides are here (their "Boots" almost as good as Destroy All Monsters if not on the same sainted plateau) as are a whole lotta other studio wonders which all have that hot late-seventies punk-a-rama thrill-chill to 'em that reminds me of the feeling I'd get (1978) picking up some hot Stiff-label cruncher before that company gnu-waved itself outta existence. Yeah, I'm sure there will be quite a few naysayers out there who think all the songs "sound alike" just like they did with ? and the Mysterians, but if they all sound good and sound alike, what's wrong with that. And besides they DON'T...I mean, just take the song "American" which starts off with this wild "LA Blues"-styled scrangacronka (well, could YOU think up a better word?) as Stinker recites his own Pledge kinda coming off like David Peel doing heavy metal! Believe you me, it's enthralling enough even if you've heard all the seventies punk reissues and rehashes that have been clogging up the Bomp! catalog ever since those sainted days of TRUE ROCK ORIGINALITY!!!

The DVD that's included's taken from some unknown-to-me gig (unless the credits are too small for mine eyes) and captures Pure Hell in a fine state of big-intensity punk bliss. And it's a professional two-camera job too unlike a lotta the hand-held videos being shot in clubs back then, and what's great about the whole schmeer is that when the picture starts getting all weirdo and distorted (otherwise this looks about as fresh as the day it was video'd), someone had the keen idea to use the chromakey effect to give the picture a weird psychedelic edge that come to think of it does fit in with the wild proceedings going on on camera. And in front of an appreciative (if polite) audience Pure Hell are totally frenetic with more'n a few references to various past masters black and white, and if anything can be said about Pure Hell it's that these guys sure knew how to WHIP UP A CROWD which is more'n I can say about a good portion of the so-called amerindie/alternative drek I've had the misfortune to see live back in the eighties when the independant music decay was only beginning...

Supposedly this NOISE ADDICTION set was released in a very limited edition (1000 only!) so before it dries up totally (and you have to resort to certain unspeakable crimes in order to latch onto your own copy) I'd click on the label link above and getcher credit card number handy while yer at it. Can't say that the reissue/exhumation scene has been that hot this year, but if this one is any indication...

WEEKEND UPDATE WITH CHRIS STIGLIANO

Sorry if this usual Sunday mega-post ain't as mega as it should be, but what would ya expect with me shooting my wad with all of these mid-week writeups (in keeping with my personal goal of making this June one of the most post-filled in BLOG TO COMM history) only to fizzle out like a soggy fart by the end of the week! But don't worry Kyoko, cuz I'll be trying my durndest to make this one just as exciting and as jingle/tingle of a post as alla the rest, even though I'll probably have to stretch a few things in order to make this 'un epic length like a good Sunday post should be, so no poke-ing around for I better dig into it and soon! (I gotta congratulate myself for making alla the above sly s-xual asides and not once mentioning Dave Lang...I guess I do have some self-control!)

First off maybe I should talk about what is perhaps the gulcheral event of the year, mainly the arrival of a stack of old fanzines (from the glory days of the seventies, not the pallid yet overhyped eighties and nineties) that always make my day a whole heckkuva lot more interesting than...cruising the web for meager mentions of my faves amidst a load of lousy rock scribing out there! Being a humongous fan of the first generation of (proto-) punk fanzines and general gonzoid writings you can bet that the arrival of the old BOMPs, HOT WACKS and ROCK ONs was cause for celebration (FROZEN TEE-VEE DINNERS EVEN!), and although I've already had the WHO PUT THE BOMPs for well o'er a quarter-century (albeit in cheap photocopy mode) and the HOT WACKS (not the bootleg mag) more or less consisted of West Coastie musings even with Brian Hogg on board it was the ROCK ONs that got me all hot and bothered, and given that this one was (in part) the brainchild of one Kenne Highland ex-Gizmos and seventies fanzine scribbler/editor in his own right, really how can one go wrong??? Reading ROCK ON is like taking a time machine back to the early-seventies, only instead of being bombarded with alla the daffness that era could have dished out all we're saturated with are the rays of high energy metallic hope, with loads of musings on all our faves from the Raspberries and T. Rex on down the line.

Highland is an interesting rock scribe, more Charles Shaar Murray than Nick Kent maybe (though still firmly entrenched in a Kent-ish sense of sleek rockism style), for although Highland is a punk one thing he's not afraid to do is rave on about a lotta things that more self-conscious people (like myself) would be afraid to because of "what people might think." So yeah, you do get a lotta the same Iggy raves and hard rock rah-rahs that you saw from a lotta the other "proto-punk" putschers back in the earlier days of the seventies, but Highland is still man enough to tell you that he really goes for the likes of Jethro Tull's AQUALUNG and the "Living in the Past" single and that the Doobie Brothers were just as good as Moby Grape and that even Elton John's "Levon" was a boss 'un as well. I gotta admit that I don't exactly cozy up to the Doobies and that I wouldn't kiss Elton John on the mouth if you paid me (I mean, you don't know where its been!), but I find Highland's championing of such acts a lot more palatable than the rote party-line rants regarding the patented "hip" product out there (which, dear readers, I sometimes fall into myself) nor the Chuck Eddy "hip-to-be-square" huckster jive which seems like just another FM-jock stab at all that was really good and energetic to come out of the vague rubric known as "punk rock." And Highland is far more down-to-earth and seventies teenage locker room than most prissies writing about "rock & roll" these days!

Ish #1 (April, 1972) oddly enough doesn't seem to have any Highland in it other than a page where you can order then-current bootlegs (Neil Young, Jefferson Airplane, Elton...) from a 16-year-old Kenne for the mere price of $2.50 for a single and a whopping $3.50 for a double! The whole thing is mimeographed (blue ink, just like the cafeteria menus for the week!) and the cover features, besides a black power fist complete with middle finger raised, a review of Sha Na Na live done by co-conspirator (and co-classmate) Al Baase. Inside Al also does a review of Alice Cooper's KILLER that inspired me to do yesterday's post (but then again I always flip when I read the Velvet Underground's name used in the context of early-seventies rock) and yeah, maybe it is a "crudzine" with one-sided pages and faint repros and poor layout values, but it's a good one and I probably got more out of this debut offering than I did the entire run of most rock-oriented blogs out there (even some of the ones I like!) so punk you!

Future issues of ROCK ON upped the production ante more or less. My #2 doesn't seem to have a cover though it does have Solomon Gruberger on T. Rex and so-so album reviews including a nice mention of the Velvet Underground's LIVE AT MAX'S KANSAS CITY by a Phyllis Korlipp, plus a quick aside regarding cult hero Nick Drake saying that if you like Cat Stevens you'll like him! Sorta puts all that current-day alternative worship of the guy in its proper place, dontcha think??? Also cool...#5 with the Stooges on the cover inside with a good Kenne Highland rundown (which includes a heretofore unknown factoid stating that after Iggy left the band in 1971 none other than KIM FOWLEY offered to take his place...after being refused, he took consolation in recording his I'M BAD album for Capitol!), and speaking of Fowley there's a sordid tour diary featuring his exploits (with Meltzer tagging along!) plus good Highland pieces on the Move, Raspberries and the same David Bowie article printed in CRETINOUS CONTENTIONS without Crescenzo Capece's wizeacre comments!

(By the way, the Move piece in ROCK ON mentions a film of their 1967 stage act appearing on LAUGH IN of all places, with Rowan commenting how he thought the destruction of cars and tee-vee sets was a bad example for kidz to observe while Martin seemed to lap it all up! Any of you readers out there care to tell me if this prime-time atrocity is true or not???)

I already wrote up #6 in BLACK TO COMM #25 and didn't bother to re-read it, but #7 (the final one) seemed to be a return to the one-sided page days of yore, with a pic of Richard Nixon as a rocker on the front and double-spaced reviews straight from the typewriters of contributors Natalie ELECTRIC WARRIOR FREE PRESS McDonald and Metal Mike Saunders on TANX and Robert Christgau's ANY OLD WAY YOU CHOOSE IT respectively. Not really a fine sendoff, but despite all the amputations ROCK ON was an admirable endeavor which was not only smart and current on one hand but fannish and primitive on the other, and if rock groups could use such attributes and make wonderful blare with it why not fanzines?

As far as other fanzine frolicking goes, I got the complete run of two Patti Smith fanzines of reknown, WHITE STUFF and ANOTHER DIMENSION on disque which makes it hard for me to read but I'm getting there, slowly but surely. Since I've read the latter and still have copies bought directly from the source I'm not that anxious to rap about it at this time (which doesn't diminish its own greatness), but the former is a new trip for me, a fanzine that, although more or less bred of the late-seventies punk rock "explosion" in England, still seems fixed in an early-mid-seventies frame of mind and layout which does help someone like me who turned off by certain aspects of British punkisms a bit (more or less preferring Amerigan wares, chauvinist that I am!). And besides, the mag ain't totally Patti per-se, but has neat bits and pieces on some of her influences (Harry Crosby, Wilhelm Reich [!] by Jon Savage [!!]) as well as other top spins in editor Sandy Robertson's collection from Eno to the Ramones, John Mendelsohn's Pits {!!!) and even that old Imants Krumins fave Amanda Lear!!!! Sounds like a fanzine worth immersing myself into, and when I have a chance I'll wing a full report your way, hokay???

Last night I tuned into the cybercast of the show going on at the CB's 313 Gallery in order to catch the appearances of both Radio I-Ching and Uncle Monk. Given the short life span the club has left, I gotta admit that tuning into these cybercasts reminds me of the final year or so of Johnny Carson's tenure on THE TONIGHT SHOW back when that show became so self-referential conscious of its host's retirement that every program began with a standing ovation and every Mighty Carson Art Players skit was cheered on like it was the last. Well, you don't get the same sense of doom watching the goings on at CB's like you did watching Carson, but the sense of final days eerieness does hang in the air a bit.

Radio I-Ching is fabled jazz drummer Dee Pop's new three-piece with a coupla guys who used to be in Tertiary Trio and are also in the Hanuman Ensemble laying down some particulary free-stretch music including a cover of Duke Ellington's "Caravan" (almost as good as the Fendermen's!) as well as some Dr. John thing and a few other items I recognized last night but forgot about because I was too busy to take notes! They're a slightly different trip from the standard all-out nerve grate freeplay I love so much, but that's fine. Can't wait for the album to come out (and it will soon!).

As for Uncle Monk, well I had some high hopes for 'em considering none other than TOMMY RAMONE was in this group, and visions of him being in some wild garage band avant/splurge/bash act overtook my already-saturated mind, but it turns out that Uncle Monk didn't even live up to their "alt-country punk bluegrass" label...after all, this band is nothing but a now-aged Tommy who looks like some old geezer at the flea market on vocals and mandolin and a slightly springier female cohort on acoustic guitar and vocals, and if you like me had preconceived notions, well it's time to flush them down the toilet with the rest of your youthful memories!

Hey, I don't have anything personal against bluegrass (though I don't particularly care for the form...it's just that I don't have an animus against the thing like I do disco!), but seeing a guy like Ramone older and wheezier singing folk musings that would have probably gotten the original Ramones crowd all agag (no sic) was to me probably as bad as some fanzine hipster first seeing Sky Saxon in 1977 live with Star's New Seeds. Remember that part on the live album where someone in the audience yells up to Sky asking why he doesn't wear his hair like he did in 1966 and he replied "It isn't 1966 anymore."??? Well, I can see the reasoning in such a response even though it did make me cringe back when I first heard it, but really, seeing Tommy Ramone playing a mandolin and singing hippified bluegrass folkieisms didn't quite do my system good. But then again I'm not exactly as "open-minded" (read: holes in the head) as a whole slew of "rock critics" out there like to believe they are and I do have my own tastes and faves and losers for that matter, and while I wouldn't put Tommy Ramone and friend in the loser's column it wasn't like I wanted to do any cheerleading for 'em as well. However there are some consolations...I could see Uncle Monk as being some sort of Peter Laughner-ish folkie sidestep (like the groups he had all through the duration of his high energy outfits), and at least the guy is ALIVE, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna buy their CD!

Alice Cooper-KILLER CD (Warner Brothers)

Yeah, I know, why should I review an album by a group that I've already spewed a good thirteen pages of bile on way back in the twenty-second issue of my own dear fanzine, even though that ish was a good nine years back! Boy, that Chriz certainly must be as repetitive as alla them blogsters out there make him out to be, right-o? Well "yeah", right-o. Y'see, I'm so ga-ga over this thing called "rock & roll" (as a nerve-grating, soul-searing, life-affirming sound) that if you pampered brats don't get the rockism message about the music and the groups and the PEOPLE behind it all well, yeah, I'll be "repetitive" and yammer on about everything GOOD and WHOLESOME about this thing called ENERGY as sound-patterns until you're all firmly entrenched in the fine rays of enlightenment, even if I have to drag you there by your nipple rings. And guess what...it probably ain't gonna be the last time I'll be raving on either so you better get used to it and PRONTO!

But y'see, the real reason that I'm posting a dissectation of KILLER, the fourth album by that mysterious pop/beat band going under the strange moniker of "Alice Cooper," is because I've chanced upon a review of it in an old vintage fanzine, and given how these Golden Age fanzines are so to-the-point and high-energy in their sway and style (plus the fact that fanzine and web refs. to particularly fave musical acts can have me digging way into my collection in search of an obsession-filled listening session, especially if said mention hits my musical parameters in the right way) well, how could I resist writing about a disque that somehow seems to fit itself into everything that's been driving me BATTY for the past few weeks anyway? I'll probably be dropping hefty wordage on the fanzine said ref. came from another day, but for now all I wanna do is write about KILLER which is perhaps the most aptly-named album in the history of LPs or at least was until MX-80 Sound's HARD ATTACK which was six years down the line anyway.

Since it was a fanzine review that got me all hot and bothered in the first place, maybe I should do this writeup in a (classic-era) fanzine style...real down to earth and cruddy like you used to see in mags such as BACK DOOR MAN and DENIM DELINQUENT (to be "repetitive" about it)...anyway, KILLER remains a certain top-notch wowzer and not only in the heavy metal arena where it was born and bred but in a whole passel of other "genres" as well. Not only was it released in 1971 which was perhaps the last killer (sic) year for the original heavy metal generation, but in retrospect it definitely ranks as one of the best albums of that best of/worst of time year alongside T. Rex's ELECTRIC WARRIOR and Black Sabbath's PARANOID. '71 certainly was a good year for heavy metal (Sir Lord Baltimore, Dust, Hawkwind...) and it's too bad that the whole thing seemed to get wooshed over into boring doldrums within a year or so. Or at least Metal Mike Saunders said something along those lines in his thrashing of Led Zep's HOUSES OF THE HOLY not to mention his heavy metal cover saga also in PHONOGRAPH RECORD MAGAZINE, and who am I to argue with the spokesman for a generation? Maybe it was burnout, but as far as '71 goes it was heavy metal all the way, with a good deal of punkism thrown in for good measure (just to keep it exciting).

But no matter what good (T. Rex) or dire (Carole King's TAPESTRY, not forgetting James Taylor, Cat Stevens and that whole mellow-out scene) came out of 1971, KILLER certainly stuck out like a sore nose. I mean, how many other groups back then were drawing heavily from the Detroit heavy metal sound (which bore a distinct difference from heavy metal proper) that it seemed NOBODY wanted to remember two years after Danny Fields detailed the "hype", not to mention the mid-sixties garage bands that were about as "cool" as Studebakers, or the Velvet Underground for that matter? Mixing and matching those influences should have made KILLER instant bargain bin fodder but it made for one of the bigger sellers of the year, which should prove to you readers that miracles do happen especially when you least expect them.

"Under My Wheels" starts the thing off about as good as a classic album can be started off. One of my beefs in life has been how a whole slew of top fave-rave albums from THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO through Hackamore Brick's ONE KISS LEADS TO ANOTHER (another '71 winner!) started off with soft, outta place tuneage. Not so with KILLER...here Alice Cooper (the singer, not the band) leads off Alice Cooper (the band, without the singer) on a hard-rocking Rolling Stones-influenced all-out rocker that still seems to retain its original high energy throttle even though too many pseudo heavy metal acts (especially in the eighties) have taken their ideas from this song (and Cooper in general) and used them to further their own stuffed-crotch visions which always seemed like a joke to me. Oh well, it's about as bad as all of the phony gnu wave posturing of the early-eighties which took the ideas of the mid-seventies originators and "commercialized" them outta existence. Only I thought that the gnu wavers woulda known better given alla the pratfalls of the past they accused everyone else of falling into.

Following "Wheels" comes "Be My Lover"...I remember hearing this one back when it was onna radio getting played on a local AM tries to hint around at FM freeform station. I was in the other room reading a comic book, but even though Green Lantern was more or less front and center in my mind "Lover" really stuck out in my mind! There was also a contest on the same station (where you didn't win anything, but had the glory of knowing you had the right answer and your name mentioned over the airwaves!) where whoever could identify which song the lines "'cause it's a long long way to Paradise/And I'm still on my own" would "win". I dunno if this is the tune that won me over to the Cooper brigades or not, but it sure had me hopping around the local department store album bins wanting to know more! The song reeks Velvets, from the "Sweet Jane" ripoff opening to the atonal guitar at the end...and with all that good energy going for it "Be My Lover" shoulda been a huge '71 hit though considering all the worthy flops of the early-seventies who could blame it for sinking like it did! (A useless aside...the liner notes to the Velvets' ARCHETYPES budget reissue of WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT refer to this song as "Woman Love" which at first had me thinking it was some unknown outtake or a tune available only on certain variations of the album! So I guess I was a Velvets obsessive even before hearing a note of their music!)

"Halo of Flies"---OK, I gotta 'fess up to the fact that this one doesn't quite grab me by the lobes like it should. Maybe it reminds me too much of the extended theatrical production numbers Alice Cooper (with or w/o Alice Cooper the band) ended up doing in a "gee, ain't I bold and daring" fashion while other bands were outgrossing the originator at every turn. It's not like I'm writing this one off en toto, because "Halo"'s still a proverbial wowzer even though I've been finding myself more often than not clicking the "forward" button for...

"Desperado" which is a real top notcher, especially considering how it uses an acoustic guitar as well as a string quartet to heighten the metal effect. Sounds strange to you? Well, lemme too you that I too have always hated a lotta the softer, introspective moments that have ruined many a heavy metal epiphany for me. Those acoustic interludes on Dust's HARD ATTACK didn't do that 'un any good while the slow schmooze of Metallica's MASTERS OF PUPPETS was enough for me to write that band off for me despite the protestations of a certain "heavy metal" rock critic who shall remain nameless. But "Desperado" wins precisely because of the acoustic guitar and strings, with the former giving the tune a striking, almost harpsichord-ish spine tingle and the latter...well, I am moved to the same heights that strings brought to bands like the Left Banke, Montage and STREET HASSLE...

In the old days we hadda flip it over, but now we can just stay still and listen to "You Drive Me Nervous" which is yet another metallic stormtrooper of a tale dealing with the teenage diaspora. I remember hearing this one on the same station mentioned about and around the same time as well (Warners must've been dumping a lotta SOMETHING to warrant such airplay!) in disbelief that a song could be so hard-edged powerful. Especially with those drums doing the hard thump in an almost vain attempt to break a pre-adolescent's spine.

With a title like "Yeah Yeah Yeah" (not the Amon Duul I song!) you'd kinda think that Alice was trying to cash in on Beatlemania. Not so Gertrude, and although I can't hear any Moby Grape here like the aforementioned fanzine review(er) mentioned earlier did, I can hear a lotta the Electric Eels! Especially Brian McMahon's, er Michael Bruce's acerbic rhythm playing leaving a hard base for the John Morton-ish leads of Glenn Buxton. It's so primitive right down to Alice's (intentional?) sub-garage band speak-singing that I'm surprised that the Eels didn't even consider covering it.

"Dead Babies" never did thrill me that much. Lemme take that back...it did when I was writing my article on them way back when, and I do remember the controversy surrounding this song (some thought it a commentary, either pro or con, on abortion, and believe you me I remember when even mentioning that word brought gags and sputters amongst the more upstanding of people in this nation!) but nowadays it just gives me the creeps. Not that its creepy per-se or that creepiness is necessarily a bad option in rockism, but maybe I just hear future echoes of mid-seventies castrated Alice, which doesn't do that much good for my gullet.

But at least the disque ends on the good note of "Killer", the title track being a nice under-the-beat groover that kinda reminds me of that part on the Deviants' PTOOFF! where Farren and the guys are discussing the anatomical dimensions of some English toffee (a "piece"...get it?) while this sub-Diddley beat goes on and on. At this point the record shifts over to the live portion of our show where the band drags Alice to the scaffold (as spooky pre-recorded organ music plays) where he does his hanging routine as the music suddenly switches over into moog dementia. A fine ending for one of the best moments of early-seventies rockism that I'm pretty positive got the opposite end of the spectrum a bit peeved (making me wish I was more aware of the hard vs. soft struggle going on at the time...like I said, I was too busy reading comics!). I mean, I know that John Denver once mentioned how "People like David Bowie and the New York Dolls exist only to satisfy the sick and far out," and one wonders if Cooper would have joined this litany if only Nature Boy had given KILLER a spin!

But then again, by the time heavy metal did "make it" as a bona-fide teenage rabble-rousing means of expression a lotta the haller had gone out of it. I believe Saunders himself had said "No later than '72" while I'm sure his mentor Bangs would have agreed. It wasn't until the eighties underground thrash/speed groups began ejecting some vim and verve back into the mix (not forgetting the bands that did keep the faith like MX-80, Von Lmo and all those heavy metal nights at Max's Kansas City), but after awhile all I can say is, given the likes of "Only Women Bleed" and "You and Me" Alice Cooper might as well have been John Denver, and that's no bunk even with all of those well-meaning comebacks and revivals!

Hope this track-by-track nitpick helps keep you in tune! Will be back tomorrow with a hopefully traditional Sunday weekend wrap-it-up!

NEED YER HELP

I'm hoping that some smart Britpop scholar out there can identify for me the wild early-seventies vintage number that was used in the original short version of Kenneth Anger's RABBIT'S MOON (we're talking the sped-up 1972 edit, not to be confused with the easier found long version with the oldies soundtrack). Click below for the take in question.



All I know about this one is what Brad Kohler wrote me in a letter a few months back....supposedly whoever recorded this obscure glam-popper was also a member of the British group A Raincoat whose album (produced by Ray Davies) came out in 1975. Recently the guy was located in Australia and expressed total surprise that his song was even used in the Anger film of legend! Anyway, you have the clues...are there any budding Shawvinists out there willing to help me out???

In keeping with my goal to make this June a month of post-filled bliss, I'll try to post some more goodies this weekend. Keep attuned!

TEN VINYLIZED ALBUMS THAT HAVEN'T MADE IT TO CEE-DEE YET (AT LEAST AS FAR AS I CAN TELL...)

Y'know, if someone would've asked me even a decade ago if I was interested in seeing some of my obscure-o fave LPs re-released in the digital mode, I woulda told said inquirer that he was probably reading too much HI-FI STEREO REVIEW to ask such a silly question and that, with my vast array of vinylized wares staring me in the face, I needed CD variations on these old reliable pals o' mine just about as much as Linda Lovelace needed a gag reflex. However, with a busted turntable (and general stereo system) pretty much putting all of my albums and singles into cold storage yeah, I could use more and more of my old faves transformed into shiny pancakes rather'n starve to death so to speak. And true, writing a piece on non-digitized albums of yore ain't exactly front page news considering how many nimnuls of note havee done just that, but between you, me and the stylus I think I will do a much better job at pointing out some of the better non-transformed elpees out there than most high-faluting big time critics have already and besides, in my quest to make June a post-filled month what better than to snitch half-stale ideas from my foes and turn the tables on them, at least as far as my impeccable all-around good tastes go!

Feel free to slip your faves into the mix if you will, but here are ten longplayers that haven't made the transition to the 21-st century but I hope will soon, or at least before I get hold of some workable turntable, stereo system and speaker equipment and make this post instantly obsolete!

1) THE SIDEWINDERS (RCA)

It's funny that RCA would have signed an act with the exact same name over twenty years after this classic one and only album from Boston's third or so best band of the early seventies (after the Modern Lovers and Aerosmith) came out on the exact same label but they did, making me wonder if the RCA bigwigs had totally forgotten this "legendary" power-pop-proto-punk offering featuring local heart-throb Andrew Paley front and center on vocals, harmonica and tambourine. Considering the amount of albums sold they probably did, but that's no excuse for anyone to overlook this great 1972 platter which mixed the early Stones with an early-sixties pop demeanor and T. Rex-inspired decadence straight outta the same Max's Kansas City confines that made Paley and group the hit of the back room. C'mon, Hackamore Brick earned a CD reissue...why not these guys?!?!?!

2) Copernicus-NOTHING EXISTS (Ski)

One of the best things about the New York rock scene in the late-seventies was not the standardized punk-as-punque groups that seemed to be the norm, but those acts who straddled a whole load of styles, looks and attitudes no matter how alien they may have been to people more or less attuned to a sense of fashion rather than grace. I have the feeling Copernicus was one of those groups...led by Copernicus himself, a long-haired 40-plus hippie-type backed by the Irish folk duo turned rockers Turner and Kirwin of Wexford (later the Major Thinkers), this act featured strange free-form music played by an at-times large ensemble that seemed to lay down a particularly space-rock-y backing for the growling Copernicus' poetic musings which usually related to his obscure neo-scientific theorems dealing with atoms and particles and their relationships to somethingorother I've totally forgotten about lo these many years. Classic New York-y eighties rock fodder that kinda scared me off at first but eventually became a huge fave...later albums aren't that hot but who could resist the abstract sounds (which at time could go progressive, then avant-garage a la Pere Ubu, then Barry White!) as well as Copernicus' ethnic (Polish) bellow. Seventies kiddies like myself who spent a good portion of the latter part of that decade reading about the New York club goings on will be glad to know that the track "Hiroshima" (or was it called "Nagasaki"?) was recorded live at none other than Max's which even gets plugged in the lyrics, just like Elliot Murphy, Marc Bolan and Wayne County used to do!

3) Elliot Murphy-NIGHT LIGHTS (RCA)

Speaking of Murphy (and Paley, and RCA who seem to be slacking in the reissue department if this posting is any indication), as far as I know his 1976 album NIGHT LIGHTS has not been reissued on disque as of yet, though considering the duff reviews that one got its no wonder RCA dumped him right after this one fizzled out into all eternity. Still I find NIGHT LIGHTS much better'n Murphy's previous efforts, especially with his all-star Boston-period band (late-'75) backing him up on most of these tracks...and with Jerry Harrison and Ernie Brooks straight from the Modern Lovers and Andy Paley straight from the Sidewinders banging the drums, all I gotta say is that gnu wave Ameriga certainly did itself a disservice ignoring Murphy's suburban decadent paens to the same kinda tenderness Jonathan Richman himself was yearning for! True this one also has Billy Joel on one track and Doug Yule, although not as bad as chap as some would make him out to be yet still playing in American Flyer (yeesh!) helping out, but I still would call this one a top ten of '76 blaster, at least the equal of such other classics of the year as SHAKE SOME ACTION (itself a recent CD reissue!) and RADIO ETHIOPIA, not forgetting that all-time wowzer LIVE AT CBGB's.

4) LIVE AT THE RAT 2-LP set (Rat)

Speaking of the CBGB set (I hope you appreciate these little segues into each review in my discreet matter-of-fact way), I remember a whole load of people also tossing their breakfast over that one as if it wasn't "punk" enough for their own personal sense of cutting edge. However, I also recall the same folks who couldn't stand the array of psychedelia, heavy metal and art rock on the CBGB disques waxing so much praise over the Rat album (which was done as a "homage" of sorts to the original inspiration!) which kinda seems strange considering how a lotta that one wasn't quite as punk rock as some would have liked. Still LIVE AT THE RAT remains an un-digitized top spin, a '76 document of a non-New York scene that shows us just how vibrant its outta-nowhere upstarts could be, jam-packed not only with the usual energy we've come to expect from punk rock but a lotta the sense-of-wonder people had with local post-Velvet Underground (more or less) groups at the time. Kinda makes me wish the Cleveland scene was more together in the mid-seventies so's a similar double-set with the likes of Pere Ubu and the Styrene (George) Money Band amongst others woulda made the rounds! High spirited performances from the likes of Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band, the Real Kids, DMZ, Thundertrain (yay!) and Susan amongst many others.

5) SUSAN (Champion/RCA)

OK, I promise this is my last sly segue, but let me make it a good one...Susan, as you would have known from the previous entry in today's hipper'n Marsh Rock List, were a Boston band, and on the heels of the Car's own success Susan got signed to RCA's new subsidiary Champion where they put out a pretty spiffy album that, contrary to previous reports, did NOT sound like the Cars, but more or less like a rich, Bostonian take on Roxy Music without any of the gnu wave smarm that beset many other similar-minded outfits. Frankly I only have a colored vinyl promo one-sided selection of the best tracks from this particular platter, but it all works swell even for a jaded rock scribbler such as myself, especially the art-deco-in-the-seventies romancer "Marlene" (which, from what I can tell, is a tribute to the famed switch-hitting kraut of BLUE ANGEL fame!).

6) Brian Sands-FIXATION (Bizart)

Unfortunately just about everything released by ex-Milkman Sands on his Bizart label (ca. 1979-1983) is undigitized (and unavailable) except for a booted track or two on the HOMEWORK series of self-released Amerigan garage slop that Chuck Warner is selling somewhere on the web. Tis a shame, especially for a guy who I thought was going to be one of the spokesmen for that very same eighties underground rock scene which unfortunately capsized before our very eyes around the time Lester Bangs died, Max's shut down and the same rock critics who were only yesterday singing the praises of the garage and Velvet Underground were now drooling over Madonna rolling around onstage in a wedding dress. FIXATION was Brian's only real longplayer, released in December 1980 (and received in the mail the same day John Lennon croaked...talk about premonitions or what!) to a rather unappreciative audience which is a shame, for from the startling opening "Dialogue in Limbo" on through, this one was what they used to call a "weirdie", a totally spaced freaky platter that woulda been too strange even for Zappa's Straight/Bizarre labels had it only come out a decade earlier yet serene and life-affirming in its own special way. For real thrills try Sands' 1979 12-inch mini-LP REHEATED CHOCOLATE TANGOES with its fine homages to Bolan, Beefheart, Holly and Marsden amongst others. Another forgotten treat, Alan (Globekar) Snake's 1983 alb also on Bizart which brought back the Cleveland pop sound of the seventies on eighties turf only nobody was listening (or caring) ten years later. (Self-tooting horn time: I am totally PROUD to say that I not only got a letter, but a phone call from Globekar/Snake himself thanking me for my positive review of his disque which goes to show you just how down-to-earth some of these bigtime rock & rollers can be, especially when all of the other critics have their heads firmly placed between the legs of...well, I'm sure you know the rest so why bother with the gory details...)

7) FROM AKRON, THE BIZARROS AND THE RUBBER CITY REBELS (Clone)

Famous split album with one side from each group that you used to be able to find all over the place (at least in Cleveland) with relative ease and for miniscule bucks as well, at least until the nineties started to dry the good sounds up. Each group gets one side sounding much better than they do on their big-label offerings, with the Bizarros doing a cool Velvets cum Roxy cum Ubu-styled Northeast Ohio drill while the Rebels, still in their long hair and biker attire, play a better variation on what New York punk was supposed to be about than the New Yorkers themselves! A bonafide stoner classic that should be reissued with additional bonus goodies to pad the thing out even more just so's even the old fogies who've had this one for years'll snatch it up thus garnering even more sales!

8) Jack Starr-BORN PETRIFIED (Norton)

Norton's been promising a CD reish of this one for years (hopefully complete with the rare single sides done not only for themselves but the In The Red label) but it has yet to materialize...a shame really, since this one's perhaps the all-time forgotten rockabilly/garage mauler of them all, so primitive that even ? and the Mysterians sound like Emerson, Lake and Palmer in comparison! Side one has the Dallas-based and teenaged Starr singing and strumming his home-made rockabilly odes (as well as on a professional studio session-bred track complete with chirping femme backing) while the flip's got him and his long-lived combo recording heavy-duty punk rock trash in the commode. Either way this is a winner that I'm surprised didn't have more people yelping in addled glee when it was released in the early-nineties. The Jack Starr and the American X-Press cassette of then-contempo recordings should also see the (laser) light of day as well, dontcha think???

9) Musica Orbis-TO THE LISTENERS (Longdivity)

Composer Kitty Brazelton's first major group, Musica Orbis played an interesting mix of rock, jazz, classical, folk and even progressive, and did it in an original enough fashion that when they played CBGB back in May '76 Joey Ramone himself was front and center to see just what the fuss was all about! This album came out a year later, featuring recordings spanning the previous two years as well as some major personnel changes, but that doesn't stop the fact that TO THE LISTENERS, despite some thankfully-brief and tepid hippie musings on side two, was a powerful album that seemed to merge a lot of the mid-seventies punk power with late-sixties artistic expression w/o coming off like a lotta slop. Again, a CD of this has been promised for years, but you might be able to snatch up a copy on the used vinyl market with ease like I did (my copy even comes with a letter from the group's harpist to her son, telling him to do his homework and be a good little bubbie...gee, can I get in trouble reading someone else's mail like this???).

10) Nelson Slater-WILD ANGEL (RCA)

Like I said, RCA really is slipping as far as their reissues go, and this is one that somehow got lost in the shuffle of seventies deca-glam wonders. I must admit that I never did hear Jobriath (nor could I find his albums then or now!), but this guy probably had the space fairy beat on all counts. Slater actually went to high school with one Lou Reed, played with him (in rock & roll bands silly!), and re-emerged in 1976 on a Reed-produced album that got yanked off the market after a buncha feminists complained about the chained angel S&M cover. The libbers' gain was our loss, because WILD ANGEL was a particularly vital album in its after hours gay bar (to quote the quotable BACK DOOR MAN) way, with a slime to it that even SALLY CAN'T DANCE couldn't match. If you don't want to take a bath in Lestoil after hearing this one, then man are you ready for the Wasserman Test or what!

(Special thanks goes to Bruce Mowat for calling me right around when I was doing entry #6 thus helping me wriggle out of my writer's block.)

DICK DALE LIVE @ CBGB 6/4/06

As I've said before, if CBGB is going out, it's sure going out in style with a load of classic names (Blue Cheer, Joan Jett, Sonic Youth) joining the usual upstart reliables during the club's final months in what seems like a celebration of CB's entire raison d'etre or whatever the Frogs call it. And as far as style goes you can't get any classier than the "King of the Surf Guitar" Dick Dale, who made his presumably first and last appearance on the club's hallowed stage last night in front of a quivvering crowd of hard-rocking teens who probably thought they were going to see Korn, but thankfully these post-natals ate what Dale dished out for 'em which at least should give us some hope for the future!

I was wondering just how this oft-ignored guitar hero would "come off" in the here and now (after all, visions of a young, clean cut almost Dick Clark-looking Dale from various early sixties promo shots taken straight outta Bomp! magazine still dance in my head), and although the promotional snapshot repro'd above clearly shows that life has taken its toll on the once-sleek guitarist I pretty much thought, even knew in my artery-clogged heart of hearts that Dale would still "have it" in him to kick out some jams.

And I pretty much was right. With a rhythm section that looked young enough to perhaps be Dale's (great) grandkids, Dale took to the stage in head-band and leatherbound garb straight from the VON LMO GARAGE SALE and proceeded to smashcrash all of his old surf instro faves from "Miserlou" on, even tossing "Rumble" and a vocal or two into the mix as the typical young and rowdy CBGB audience barked appreciatively.

True, we hadda put up with lotsa heavy metal posturing that might have seemed outta place for a golden ager such as Dale, but even with the occasional guitar pyrotechnical tossout the guy was putting on a pretty hefty show for the lumpen even if it seemed to be slightly cookie-cutter. Yeah I know it ain't 1962 anymore, but Dale still cuts a fine swath in my book and rather him alive and active in the here and now than some of the utter drek of post-enlightenment rock that deserves to stay embedded in the eternal trash-heap of alternative mindsnooze, dontcha think?