The Industrial Jazz Group-HARD CORE CD (Ugly Rug)

Y'know, I wouldn't be taking the imminent demise of CBGB so hard if I hadn't been in touch with their three performing stages thanks to the miracle of cybercasting. But no, I hadda go upscale in the world and more or less re-acquaint myself with the vast array of musical styles (some good, most sucky) that are traipsing around the alternative muzak world, and whaddya know but I got HOOKED. So, thinking of a future where there's no CBGB and thus nothing to tune into on some lonesome evening when even the records ain't curing the blahs seems pretty bleak indeed. Sure most of the time there was nothing to choose from other'n some alternative mewl or folkie whine, but when the energy was being brandished about the whole place seemed to be on the brink of total eruption!

However, as I've said, perhaps my favorite CBGB moments o'er the past half-decade of tuning in have been the live avant garde jazz shows that were going down at the CBGB Lounge on Sunday/Wednesday nights. True they had a number of less 'n appealing acts there but then again the aforementioned eruption was more'n likely to have happened during one of the many great avant-jazz sets featuring the legendary alongsides the nobodies, and since I couldn't name for you a truly duff act to have played the Freestyle Series (now taking place at Jimmy's Restaurant) off the top of my thinned-out head that must PROVE that the entire shebang had a whole lot more good going for it than bad! Anyway, I only have to thank Dee Pop for his hard work and effort getting all of those great bands and long-ignored acts onto the stage of the lounge, not only helping out a lotta deserving avant meisters but adding fuel to my own mad musical obsessions in the process!

Anyway, I remember when this El Lay-based jazz act was front and center for the CBGB Lounge stage sometime before Hilly Kristel asked Pop to vacate the premises in a vain attempt to drum up public support for the place with a lotta high-profile shows. Personally I don't see how anything can be more high profile than brain-searing avant jazz, but I guess Hilly knew what he was doing. Anyway, I believe I decided not to tune in the Industrial Jazz Group after I read on the web somewhere that they seemed to owe a lot to the Zappa UNCLE MEAT sound which I gotta say ain't lighting my fire even when done by various krautrock jazzsters, and judging from their debut CD I don't think I missed that much given this band's meshing of mid-fifties West Coast cool jazzster roots with tads of avant sprinkle here/there and of course the large freak quotient that might have satisfied me in my mid-teens but seems like old hat unless old hands like Captain Beefheart are doing the mangling. Maybe I'm mis-judging them (I have done that on ultra-rare occasions) and I gotta say that there is a lotta merit to the Industrial Jazz Group sound, but like Bill Shute once told me ages back, "Why would anybody want to listen to Jim Morrison after they've heard Kim Fowley?" And after hearing a whole slew of modern day avant music that has been documented at the Freestyle Series I dunno why anyone would wanna listen to this! Oh well, it'll probably soak in one of these days. Ask me in a year.

MORE ON McGUIRE: having the luxury of my own internet weblog has guaranteed me at least one thing, and that is that more people have the potential to come in contact with my works via the web than they do through the printed matter, which of course is fine and dandy in its own form and transcends the computer screen on many an occasion, but the plain unmitigated FACT that there's now a bigger potential for me to find out about obscure bands that I've longed to know about for years or perhaps get in touch with former fanzine moguls surely sends thrills down my spine. That's why I was certainly buzzed when I got a little missive from a fellow who, having tuned into my Wayne McGuire post (a writeup that I must admit I'm very PROUD of), actually 'fesses up to that fact that he actually knew the guy and has allowed me to print (anonymously) his personal recollections which you can easily enough read below. Anyway, thanks must go to the email-writer who has helped clear up at least a little bit of the mystery surrounding McGuire although many questions do remain...like what did Wayne look like, and what books and magazines did he read and what records laid about in his collection as well as many more pertinent points that'll surely hit the grey matter as time rolls by. Anyway, read on for some interesting revelatory facts:

i 1st met him working at the Paperback Booksmith warehouse in the late 60s. he was interesting (altho no one could quite figure out what he was talking about with his "life cell" stuff), but difficult & often belligerent. i sort of like to make a project of penetrating the defences (or whatever) of such people, so we became friends. i used to visit him & Catherine in Somerville. btw, Kit is/was smarter than Wayne; he always tacitly accepted what she said (which wasnt much though). she was a fascinating woman in many ways, and she was his rock. she had a great influence on me. and he toughened me up with his sporadic attempts to destabilize my opinions; to make me see that i hadn't really thought them out (he failed). i have to say that he could really be very nice most of the time, but seemed to have a demon at other times. i enjoyed knowing him and considered him a friend.

misc facts: he went to Colby college in Maine and got straight A's, then transferred to Harvard. i lost touch after that, but i think he decided Harvard wasnt worth it. and he had started writing music reviews and fooling around w/ Macintoshs... we went to V Underground concert in the Boston Tea Party (??), and we visited Lou Reed back stage. Lou stared intently at me, which i think was his intent to hit on me. i'm not of that persuasion, and in any case for me it was a study of people who thought they were at the very center of things (an illusion).

i have no idea what happened to him after that.

Try back this weekend for a fresh update.

MAY THE REUNION BE PRESERVED!

The big punk rock reunion gigs started popping up sometime in the nineties, but at this point in the rock/roll spectrum they certainly seem to be going on full steam ahead! My guess as to the reason why this happens to be is that with the hip baby boom punkers starting to get into their bald chrome dome/potbellied crises, and with all of that upper-mid class moolahroolla they've got from their white collar jobs just waiting to be spent, and with their recent divorces and yearnings for a simpler, more copasetic time in life there's nothing better for 'em to do than to rush back whole hog into their past lives and re-live those thrilling days of yesteryear when there really was such a thing as an "International Youth Culture" that sorta spoke the massive drone language beyond borders and otherwise impenetrable barriers.

And you know it's true, like when Nick Nicholas of Clone records resurrected the Bizarros after his split from wifey (ditto Jymn Parrett's brief return to the fanzine front a decade back after he and longtime partner/DENIM DELINQUENT cohabitist Dee Daack parted company), or the Stooges and Rocket From the Tombs touring and recording even though they shoulda been doing such things back when they didn't hafta dye their hair (or had hair for that matter!), or even the renewed interest in loads of groups and various rockism idiosyncrasies that only I thought was pretty much a part and parcel of my own life sphere...y'know, back when I was yammering on about a whole slew of decade-old "first wave" underground snappers in the pages of my own BLACK TO COMM (then PHFUDD!) fanzine while the rest of my self-published compatriates were more or less enthralled by the latest Homestead/SST promotion package to fling their way. (Not that I wasn't going ga-ga over the reams of freebies from these and other labels that were heading to my doorstep with some regularity twenny years back, but I sure got the message that in no way did DC3 or Live Skull replace Mirrors or the MC5 in the panthenon of high-energy mindsear.) So yeah, it's no big revelation to point out to you the plain simple fact that the revival of the punk rock revival is in full gear, and don't blink because it sure seems a lot more palatable than the nineties homophilia revival which is bound to take you by storm sometime in the next few weeks.

Of course, one of the reasons for this revival frenzy going on is the imminent demise of CBGB which has more than a few old timey scenewatchers muttering "end of an era" with slung breasts and broken hearts. And given that the countdown to the noted beerdive's last-ever hoot is taking place as we speak you KNOW that there's gonna be a whole lotta bands both near and far cramming the stages of the various CB-run outlets in order to bid their fond adieus. Both Flipper and the Dead Kennedys are planning to represent the eighties portion of the punk equation with performances next week, but last Friday night was pretty much seventies salutations all the way.

Didn't get to catch the entire evening (actually, I hadda get up extra-early the next day and wasn't looking forward to the prospect of negative-four hours sleep that night!) but I did get to catch most of the reason I was tuning in, mainly the enticing reunion of none other'n THE PLANETS that was going down at the club which, come to think of it, is also going down as well. In case you don't know who these Planets are (or have them confused with the English early-eighties band with the same moniker or perhaps some other heavenly bodies of note) you can read all about 'em in BLACK TO COMM #22 which is still available from me, especially if you click the highlighted title which will take you to a post with the answer to ALL your questions (howzat for yet another not-so-subtle hint???). It promised to be a biggie of a night in itself, not only with the Planets performing but Bill Popp and the Tapes (survivors from the last days of Max's Kansas City who surprisingly enough never did split up!), the Boyfriends (ex-Poppees, with some guy from the Records sitting in somewhere!) and the Heat (Planets singer Tally Tallifarro's late-seventies punk band whom you can read about in the aforementioned article) also tearing up the torn-beyond-belief awlready stage, and I only wish that I coulda been front and center for this gig live 'n in the flesh 'n all, but the way things are I guess I'll just hafta put up with being stuck on the fringe of Sharon Pee-Yay gulcher with shoddy cybercast quality that at least connects with all of those swinging people over New York City way.

Actually, the computer was acting pretty nice and fine when unbilled opening act the Tender Mercies were doing their late-seventies power pop thingie, but when it was time for the Planets to hit the stage I hadda keep re-upping the live stream thus catching their set in nice little pieces. But I got to admit that it was boffo to see Binky Phillips (who now has short hair which I guess was dyed for the occasion and kinda stocky-lookin' as well, sorta reminding me of a drive-time talk dee-jay) back on the CBGB stage after years of absence (at least since his fine late-eighties power trio that had me jumping up and down despite his ex-label Caroline's natural lethargy). However, other'n he and lead singer Talliafarro appearing that night there were no other original Planets (mainly, bassist Tony Jones and drummer Steve Korff) to be found. Some guy named Jim Wiseman played the bass while the "School of Rock"'s Desmond Sullivan filled in on rhythm guitar and helping Talliafarro out on vocals was a Phil Solomon who looked like a refugee from some eighties tattoo-punk band and certainly not in tune with the Planets' more metallic oomph-rock (but he was, which proves Bo Diddley's old dictum that you can't judge a man by looking at his tattoos!). Oh, and on drums was none other than Ritchie Teeter of the late-seventies Dictators which at least was a pleasant surprise...glad to see him breaking out of the cover band trap he was in a decade ago!

Talliafarro himself was a surprise as well, getting a special introduction from the band (kinda like the one Ruby Lynn Reyner got when I caught a cybercast of her about four years back!) comin' up on stage complete with dreadlocks hanging all the way down his back. (Somehow I expected him to have avoided the music/hip and cool scene all these years, perhaps becoming an accountant or somethin'!) However, the biggest surprise itself was the music...NONE of the Planets' classic odes to Lois Lane, nor their UFO-esque version of Eddie Cochran's "C'mon Everybody" or even that great summer-y Sidewinders-esque "Wish That It Were True" ended up getting performed once and for all (or maybe they saved all that after my computer conked out for good). Starting off with "Shadow Box" (which I believe is a cover...sounds a lot like the Dolls' "Chatterbox" and I know I've heard it somewhere...) and going all the way down through such "chestnuts" as "Sonic Reducer", "Search and Destroy", "Bad Girl" and even a revved-up "Train 'kept a Rollin", the Planets surely had the audience (which included former scenester/New York Dolls Peter Jordan) in the palm of their hands, but I was hoping for something a little more closer to those days of olde when the Planets could probably draw only about ten or so friends and acquaintances before the WORD got out. Still, it was powerful, high energy and fun watching Talliafarro and Solomon trading off choruses of some of our fave standbys and seemingly having about as much fun as I was jumping up and down in my playpen!

And if you want to see a snap of what Phillips looked like back when the Planets were a front-and-center hard-edged entity on the scene, just click here and you'll be satisfied!

Just who was that bloke who was disturbing my self-absorption by calling me up last Thursday night anyway? Well, it wasn't Chuck Eddy just to tell me how much he loved me, it was EDGAR BREAU of all people! Yes, the infamous Canadian primitive/primate gave me a ring, and boy did he have a good reason for doing so...mainly to break to me the news that yeah, SIMPLY SAUCER IS INDEED REFORMING!!!! and in fact have played their first of many reunion gigs by the time you read this!!! The details are sketchy (as was my mind), but I guess that former Saucer rhythm guitarist Steve Parks caught Edgar performing solo in Montreal (where I assume Parks is now residing...you can never tell about these things!) and well, one thing led to another and all, and anyway with longtime Saucer/Breau crony Kevin Christoff in the fold as well as a new drum-basher the Saucer is indeed alive and kicking, not only performing their old hits but some new numbuhs as well! And Mr. Breau even told me that they're thinking of getting a new electronics player in order to re-create that original space-y Saucer sound! Not Ping Romany, who I guess is way outta the scene and living the Newfie life somewhere, but no matter who will be minding the synths I certainly think that the addition of electronics to the Saucer sound will be the best thing to happen to avant rock since Eno discovered tape recorders! And Edgar is really excited about performing and all, tellin' me that although he's in his fifties now he feels just the way he did as a busting-out young man playing these songs live for unappreciative audiences who shoulda known better!

And what REALLY gets me all hot 'n bothered about the Breau call is that the man actually had the gentlemanly courtesy to ask ME (certainly a peon next to the massive might of Mr. B...in fact a mere flea in the world of his existence) how I was doing!!! I mean, it really jazzed me when Edgar really seemed concerned enough to find out how my life was going which was great considering how 99.44% of you Pee-Yews out there could care less if I got hit by a bus fulla rock critics on the way to a REO Speedwagon reunion! It really does my heart good to know that sometimes, some of the big people out there are looking out for the mere amoebas in life like myself. And some say chivalry is dead! Lemmee tell you, Edgar's call and his concern for my well being really made my day (but not night...I was so excited I couldn't get to sleep!) and I would say that it was perhaps one of the highlights of the year, at least next to Lou Rone's telephone calls but at least he calls on the weekends when I stay up late anyway!

Machine Gun-MACHINE GUN, OPEN FIRE CDs (Muworks)

Do any of you ever get into one of those certain jags in life, the kind where there's something in music or culture or whatever which captivates your imagination and permeates every waking moment of your life to the point where nothing else seems to matter (from food to human relationships etc.)one bit? Y'know, those mad obsessions that begin when you happen to hear a certain record or see a movie or even glance upon a certain person or object for that matter and all of a sudden your mind is triggered into fulfilling some sort of desire or thirst whether it be wanting to know EVERYTHING about a certain band, or television show, or actress or even long-gone pop art stylistic changes for that matter, and this particular quest for knowledge and just WANTING TO KNOW slips through even into your by-now feverish dreams to the point where music and image are portrayed even more vividly than they could ever hope to be in real life. Yeah, I know that some of you more "mentally capable" readers out there would think that only a lamebrained dunce such as myself could lose control of his cranial capacities to the point of letting his obsessive/compulsiveness get the better of him, but lemme tell you, it's those very same compulsions that got me outta whatever life ruts there have been in order to seek and find, and ultimately DO SOMETHING outside of just be a passive bystander in this thing we call life. Heck, if it weren't for such all-enveloping musical obsessions as the ones I've had towards garage band music (late-fifties onwards) or first-wave Cleveland underground rock or Velvets experimentation and application thereof (all of which intermingle I might add), there probably wouldn't have ever been a BLACK TO COMM fanzine let along me as an influential and highly sought after (hah!) rock chronologist such as I, which I'll bet makes you wish that someone would have pumped the seretonin straight into my grey room in order to SPARE you from my self-absorbed, half-cocked ravings, eh?

My latest musical trip happens NOT to be garage dorkism or unapologetic Velvets devotion but the great seventies/eighties rock/free jazz crux that certainly was a rare bird even during those days when we (as ears-wide-open listeners) should have known all about it! Well. it does have more of a spiritual crunch as far as my fantasies go these days, at least to the point where I've been digging deep into my collection to play certain trackage created by people who in fact helped the seemingly to some netherworlds of no wave mania and loft jazz intertwine to the point where I don't see how anyone could question the Marzette Watts LP on ESP as being a true punk rock classic, or at least Pharoah Sanders' TAUHID. And yeah, I know that may sound ridiculous to some, but just take a look at the past twennysome years of avant-punk jazz drainage and don't tell me that Sonny Sharrock wasn't more of a punk rocker than Dave Lang will ever be!

But Machine Gun were perhaps as perfect a mooshing of free jazz strategies on punk rock terrain as you can get, even more so then their spiritual forebearers Material (the '79/'80 band when people like Sharrock and Billy Bang were considered front-and-center members), Last Exit, Phillip Wilson's Magic, Luther Thomas' Dazz not forgetting such other well-meaning aggregates from the Contortions and Red Transistor down through the Stooges' FUNHOUSE and beyond. After all, take some avant-leaning jazz guys (one a former Lionel Hampton sideman/arranger!) and have some of the best outta work free jazz legends of the sixties/seventies play along, and who could doubt that some of the best non-tuxedo'd jazz to be heard in a long time will not flow forth! Machine Gun was perhaps the best rock/avant jazz hybrid heard in a long time (and certainly in the late-eighties when a dolt like me sure needed it!) at least until Earth People and Noisetet but then again who knows how many obscurities I've missed who were also treading the same waters anyway only to be ignored by folks like myself who never knew about 'em in the first place, or by the wide array of "'zine" publishers who were more concerned with wiping (or doing something else to, as in "lick lick!") Gerard Cosloy's and Patrick Amory's sphincters than with propagating the wild world of fire music.

Got two of the three Machine Gun offerings that've been unleashed to an alternative-brainwashed public that was more concerned with the precious panderings of whatever the "big" labels were churning out than the Big Beat (which is why Machine Gun were probably about as popular as...BLACK TO COMM during those supposedly brave, indie-minded days!), and I "may" have reviewed Cee-Dee #2 OPEN FIRE before in the mages of my erstwhile publication but I can't remember. And frankly I'm not going to go combing through hundreds of pages of mummified musical rants to see exactly what I did or did not write about this one because that was all then and this is then too but we'll speak as if it's NOW. Anyhoo, for fans of late-seventies loft jazz and no wave wonders wishing the two would crossbreed, Machine Gun is probably the answer to your wildest dreams with Tom Chapin (no relation I think to the Harry guy or mebbee so for all I know!), the former Hampton arranger on saxophone and flute, guitarist Robert Musso stretching out some decidedly non-Al DeMeola lines as well as thumping on one of those multi-range six-string bass guitars that add all those wild thunks and thuds like Lasswell used to do in Last Exit, Jair-Rohm Parker-Wells on regular four-string bass, Bill Bryant on drums and John Richey manning not only the tape decks but doing some spoken-word interjections that I personally think are the weakest link in the band (the recitations, at least) but it's not like I'm gonna lead a campaign to have him tarred and feathered!

One of the more exciting things about Machine Gun (named after the infamous Peter Brotzmann album that had free ears turning Europewards back in the late-sixties) are their SPECIAL GUESTS who've turned up on both of these disques, each recorded in live settings but not really live albums per se. Both of these platters contain the appearance of the great Sonny Sharrock (the group's spiritual big daddy, and it even says so in the booklet notes to OPEN FIRE!) whose presence on angular guitar certainly locks in on the overall Machine Gun sound in a way that I've imagined the four-piece mid-'80 Material did when they were still basically a progressive garage band. Also turning up, at least on the self-titled debut is none other than Karl Berger, the famous European multi-instrumentalist of ESP-disk fame pictured on the right who coincidentally has played with Sharrock before at least on the Watts album and who, in his seventies, is still active on the New York jazz scene and has even been caught vibraphoning it up with the Earth People at the CBGB Gallery at this late stage in the game which is a lot hipper'n sitting on a folding chair in some Florida resthome reading SENIOR CITIZENS NEWS AND VIEWS dontcha think? The weird thing about Berger's Machine Gun appearances is that the instrument he's playing on these live from CBGB tracks isn't his standard modes of melody namely the vibraphone or piano, but a melodica! Yeah, one of those keyboards you blow into at the end (as I used to say about 'em at age seven...seems that at every birthday party I went to at that age SOMEBODY was getting a melodica as a present!) that sounds like a sick one-note accordion! Well, having a living legend like Berger playing a melodica (and contributing some vocal) on a live sesh such as this is about as mythical/mystical as Pharoah Sanders playing tambourine and nothing but on that Arista/Freedom Dave Burrell album, and maybe Berger's presence on these numbers does add a certain, addled charm!

But what does it matter anyway as Machine Gun blurs the boundaries like the best music does with its no wave bleat intermingled with free jazz sputum all blanketed in a mad Burroughsian tape cutup worthy of the Bob James ESP disc. Total eruption music that doesn't dare fall into the usual fusion gimmicks or harken back to overused free jazz ripoff #320, in fact sounding good enough that you KNOW it coulda stood the test of time, or at least coulda withstood both the artiest and punkiest of New York's roughest audiences alike!

Debut CD is shorter but still sweet, with some classic avant moves and even a good Ornette Coleman riff-rip that's done up just differently enough to avoid lawsuit. OPEN FIRE is longer and perhaps even more strained/tense, and although both Sharrock and Berger sat it out for the third one I'm still gonna try to pick it up one of these years.

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW: DELIVERANCE (directed by John Boorman, 1972)

The passing mention of this film in regards to how your humble blogschpieler wouldn't mind seeing none other than "fellow" blogfuhrer Jay Hinman acting out the Ned Beatty role with the hillbillies not far from the rump of the matter (all laid down somewhere in the vast reaches of my previous post) had me hot on the heels of searching out my own personal copy of DELIVERANCE if only to get a better unnerstandin' of what the whole hubbub about that pig ridin' scene was about (amongst other things, of course!). I may've seen the film on tee-vee way back when but you know what the nets used to do to these features bowderizin' 'em for general consumption (at least when they had a thing about not offending mid-amerigan sensibilities, that is). In the tee-vee version, the hillbilly merely insults Beatty makin' him roll around in the dirt in his undies...which sorta makes about as much sense as Dustin Hoffman merely teaching the bad guys a "lesson" by slappin' 'em silly in the tube take of STRAW DOGS (a future BLOG TO COMM subject matter) or Gary Grimes and Jennifer O'Neill "dancing" in SUMMER OF '42. And I dunno about you, but I sure miss those days of yore when you could easily turn on the set and not expect a load of UNCENSORED crud comin' your way that only seems to exist to devour, nay, DEMOLISH the everyday nowhere bloke who turns on the box for a little escapism from the inadequecies of everyday life, y'know?

Anyway, even I can remember just how much DELIVERANCE was making a hugeoid impact on the collective psyches of movie-going Ameriga back when it came out smack-dab inna middle of perhaps the second greatest film era (at least since the talkies) during the early seventies (I'd argue that this second Golden Age lasted at least until STAR WARS mucked up the cinematic clime a few years later, but that's another arguement!). "Dueling Banjos" was being played all over the place and the opening scene where Ronnie Cox gets out-played by some halfwit mountain boy was even spoofed on BIG CHUCK AND HOULIHAN and probably THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW for all I know, and hey, I recall hearing about the aforementioned mountain man run-in during those tender teenage years (and from my cousin in fact!), first of all being told that it was co-star Burt Reynolds himself who got the reaming, and second being led to believe that the scene was a lot more graphic than it actually was thinkin' that there was blood spurting out from Beatty's hole and up-close penetration shots'n all that disgusting stuff that must prove I'm a homophobe since I will admit this scene, and the way it was portrayed 'n not relayed to me third-hand, does make me cringe just thinkin' about it!

(Speaking of homo-bashing even of the slightest incidental kind, while combing the web looking for background info regarding DELIVERANCE I came acoss this writeup where the on-line reviewer chides the film for its outdated and downright evil anti-gay stance! REALLY!!!! I mean, whoever wrote the review was totally apopleptic about how "homosexuality" [as opposed to rape!] was portrayed in the moom as if DELIVERANCE was some sorta great anti-homosexual screed making me wonder just how said "critic" would have written the scene himself...with Beatty, all filled with hetero guilt, willingly giving himself to the humiliating hillbilly??? I mean, here a guy is being RAPED, and some pink-leaning lavender-loving self-professed film scholar is cutting the thing down because he perceives it as being derougatory towards homos! Maybe he sees the hillbilly as a gay man [which is probably not the case, this more or less being a revenge rape in the purest prison sense] but I gotta say that if a reviewer feels that somehow DELIVERANCE is making an anti-gay/sodomy statement with this scene then he's obviously been attending too many sensitivity seminars or perhaps teaches quite a few of 'em himself! The mind boggles, not only at how deviancy in all forms has been made to come off as a mere "choice" in life, but how people who end up as victims because of such deviancy are somehow made to look like the evil ones!)

But enough bunghole bungling...once you get down to it DELIVERANCE is a good enough draw-you-in saga that could have something to do with some ideals regarding certain masculinity "myths" that people have tried to tear down for a few decades awlready, or it's a mere update on those old Jack London stories I've been told to read when I was a kid so's I wouldn't end up looking like a complete doofus. But whatever it is it sure fits in swell with the aforementioned early/mid-seventies Golden Age of cinema gone gonz. Four suburban Atlanta professional types (played by Reynolds who was then at the height of his popularity, self-confessed Jew-beater Jon Voight, Beatty [who kinda does looke more like Dave Lang than D. Boon does making the rape scene more meaningful] in his first film role and nada character actor Ronny Cox) hit the wild country 'stead of the golf course for the weekend in search of hunting and canoeing whilst wandering right into the land of nature gone awry and telephone-pole family trees in the process. Admittedly the story does get a little slow when you see the guys camping out and acting manly for each other, but the trek into unknown dangers helps kick up the heart-pace to the point where even you (jaded "seen-it-all-before" filmgoer) can get a little queasy watching Beatty's hershey highway get trafficjammed, or the city guys seemingly getting beaten to smithereens while rushing the rapids as a canoe gets crunched in half and the guys kinda reconsider the last-minute plea of Voight that maybe hitting the links again this weekend wouldn't've been such a bad idea after all!

Not being a fella who's much of a "fan" of recent cinematic excursions (in fact, being a guy who hasn't even set foot in a theater in almost two decades), I can easily say that at least films such as DELIVERANCE as well as much of the seventies fare I have seen have a certain dark edge that has sorely been lacking in a lotta pop culture for quite some time. Maybe it was this era (which spawned a load of top-notch high-intensity filmfare) that was the final Hollywood swan-song before the whole industry toppled into hackdom and ultimately self-conscious political priggishness, and if so maybe it's time for a real film revival, not one of empty self-consciousness, endless remakes and pallid, self-generated controversy, but one of HIGH ENERGY and nerve-twisting intensity. Heck, that's another reactionary movement I can get myself tuned into!

IN OTHER NEWS: just got hold of a promo package from Gulcher featuring two li'l items I'm sure you'll all wanna know about. Mykal Xul's GIZMOS MY WAY is a great tribute to the infamous Kenne Highland et. al. gonzo rock crit band of the seventies that, despite the advent of thirty years of "technology" and "people knowing better" still retains the great mid-seventies punk drive that made the Gizmos household names, at least in households with subscriptions to HUSTLER magazine. Now, none of the songs that made the Gizmos famous are here...in a surprise move this 'un consists of nothin' but unreleased Gizmo wares that might have been done by the Afrika Korps or maybe even Slickee Boys somewhere down the line but you can't deny that the spirit of Kenne and Krew has leeched itself onto Xul's brain (and it has...just take a look at the guy's face!) giving this disque a suburban garage sprawl so real that you can just see the bikes piled up inna corner as Xul and band start to play. The surprise hit of the late summer season, even if it only clocks in at a half-hour!

Also on Gulcher comes 12 Cent Donkey's WHERE THERE ARE NO ROADS. With a name like 12 Cent Donkey I kinda figured that none other'n Eddie Flowers had a hand in their signin' (I figured that because these avant/noise/ambient/experimental outings on Gulcher tend to reflect what I perceive as Flowers' current musical tastes which veer towards the weird!) and since ol' Alabammy himself was responsible for the cover graphics I'm pretty positive that the man had more'n a "little" imput into this thing. Whaddeva, WHERE THERE ARE NO ROADS is a "peculiar" release, sorta like bedroom rock with hefty Eno-era MUSIC FOR COMAS sound mixed with an Art Ensemble (Malachi Favors-styled zither plucking) feel and some acoustic Amon Duul I folkiedoms actually clinging onto your psyche with relative ease! Kinda reminds me of the groove I was into during the late-seventies when things like Obscure Records and John Cage seemed to mean as much to me as the Standells and heck even Patti Smith did, and a few years later I thought I was nuts for listening to this avantspew in the first place when I coulda been devoting myself 100% to the rock & roll big beat! Maybe I was right or wrong...who knows, but 12 Cent Donkey sure dredge up the memories!

I was speaking of Eno earlier, and perhaps because I wanted to give a listen to his later "rock" albums again I got hold of the now outta-print ENOBOX in order to do a little re-educatin'. I dunno about you, but I still find NO NEW YORK Eno's last bright moment, right around the same time he was also getting into the proto-new age gunk he's best known for as well as the popwave productions that seemed like the right thing to do when he was working with Television in '75, but oh-so-pretentious when working with U2 and Talking Heads a half-decade later. It was obvious even in the mid-seventies when he was still popular as a rock icon that Eno's rock star era was starting to come to a close which is probably why his last two rock disques ANOTHER GREEN WORLD and BEFORE AND AFTER SCIENCE still don't hold up as well as HERE COME THE WARM JETS and TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN (BY STRATEGY) continue to. (By the way, both of those albums are compiled on disque #1 but are edited down for some odd reason so even if you get the box set, don't throw away yer originals!) And surprisingly enough, even when Eno's doing his Velvet Underground/punk thing (like on "King's Lead Hat" or while working with Snatch) he just seems like he's paving the way for eighties dance art and the tiresome David Byrne collaborations that appear on disque three. Stick with the originals, though this might be worth picking up if only for the rare gem "Seven Deadly Finns."

ALSO HEARD: Peter Brotzmann's MACHINE GUN CD (FMP), Freedomland's YIA YIA'S SONG CD-R (Rent Control), Tangerine Dream's ELECTRONIC MEDITATION CD (Castle Communications) and lots of Doodles as well. And, believe it or not, but I have changed my mind w/regards to a previously tossed off disque, mainly O-Type's WESTERN CLASSICS CD which sounds more like up-to-date MX-80-isms the more I listen to it and might just become an all-time top-spin here at the offices one of these days. Bruce Anderson/Dale Sophiea fans might want to give the new Family Vineyard box set consisting of all of their work for the label as well as an unreleased DVD a looksee even if you do have all the original disques like I do. (Which is not an indication that I will or won't buy this box set considering the tight reins I have to put on my pocketbook these days, but I must admit that this po' boy does find the idea of an Anderson/Sophiea box set mighty tasty indeed!)

ATTEMPTED TO HEAR Lenny Kaye at the CB's 313 Gallery last Friday night. Sheesh, with the club's days winding down to a precious few you would at least hoped someone would've left the sound on (it had been on for the previous act, some folk-rockers who called themselves the Ric Flairs) but for some reason it was cut for Kaye's solo electric guitar set and considering how many more opportunities I will have left to tune into these cybercasts you can bet I was madder than Ken Shimamoto at a World War II Bataan Death March Survivors reunion. And yeah, I had high hopes that maybe Kaye and Richard Robinson would have resurrected Man Ray for at least one gig, but even the prospects of a solo Kaye gig was too much to hope for to begin with...I would've at least hoped for sound, but I got to see Kaye in a striped shirt, worn jeans and red hair (!) and believe-you-me that was worth tuning in for. I only hope that no snafus doth occur while I try to catch a rare PLANETS reunion next Friday hopefully transpiring on the main CBGB stage!

Before I split, just wanted to share a few You Tube things wit' cha! The first one's an early Otto Von Ruggins video from '81 (the number in question's taken from the MUSICAL VIEWERS EP he did with Robert Crash) while the second is Lou Rone and Triple Cross from '89 or so, Lou's last live appearance on a stage as I hear! Watch up, and if you're lucky maybe I'll do a little mid-week posting for a change!

UGLY THINGS #24 (not a fanzine anymore)

Back when I was a gulcher-absorbing tee-vee addicted suburban kiddie perhaps not that different than you, our fambly had a dog we called Sam. He was a dalmatian who, although particularly handsome and perhaps even show-worthy despite a large black blotch of spots that ran together on his chest (a pedigree no-no) was either way doltish or sly beyond belief depending on the situation. (Sam never did seem to have complete control of his nether-regions even in his spring chicken days [meaning: the days he'd attack and eat chickens in the spring] to the point of urinating all over the place when over-excited or because he didn't like the way my cousin smelled or something like that, though he was crafty enough to know how to snitch tasty food from the kitchen counter and turn the portable heater on full blast, something which us kids were being blamed for during those cold winter months until the dog was caught in the act nudging the dial with his front right paw!).

Anyway, Sam had a reputation for being a particularly vicious pooch, and not only towards people outside the usual family circle but within the household as well. Take f'rinstance the various times we'd give Sam a leather smoky-flavored chew-stick to chomp on...now these leather sticks were meant for your dog to teethe, perhaps ridding himself of deeply-held frustrations in the process and eventually discarding within a period of time, but in Sam's case he would take the entire stick, hold it between his front paws and mercilessly chew on the dang thing until he had totally eaten it! It would take hours upon end, but Sam would devour the piece of leather slowly but surely putting every bit of his mind and energy to obliterating the tasty piece of cowhide pretty much in the same fashion his ancestors would devour a dried out carcass in the blazing sun.

And one thing was sure, and that was you didn't dare disturb Sam during his hours-long chew-stick sessions or you would be in for an intense growling that sounded life-threatening and evil beyond belief, like a screech from a hound of Hell greeting you on the banks of the River Styx (howzat for a fine example of my stellar eighth-grade-level descriptive writing!). Once for some long-forgotten reason my mother instructed me to take the stick away from Sam, and I'm sure that I barely escaped his deep-seated rage with all fingers intact (and without the stick, mind you)! Another time on Christmas day when Sam was chomping away at one of his gifts, I mistakenly bumped into his hind leg whilst he was squatting in front of the tee-vee and once again incurred his feral wrath! Let's face it, there were some days when you just didn't mess around with Sam, and chew-stick days were but just one!

(For those of you who might think that I'm a typical fanzoonie coward having lowered myself to the beast I should let you know that Sam didn't always go away unpunished. A day or two later when Sam would be in a better, chew-stick-less mood, I would coax him over to wherever I happened to be standing with high-pitched googly sounds and then, right when Sam wouldn't expect it, put the mutt into a hammerlock hold learned from tee-vee wrestling and deliver to him a succession of noogies, nose-punches/fingernail scrapes, lip-twists, full-blast ear growls and whisker pulls in order to teach him a lesson for having dared attack me, or passing gas while the family was watching the tube and other not-so-minor infractions. Yes, no bad deed went unturned in the Stigliano household which is probably one of the reason that Sam wouldn't even go near me for weeks on end at a time given the well-deserved whallopings that would surely be in store for him!)

Four paragraphs later you're probably wondering what all of this has to do with the latest issue of UGLY THINGS anyways. Well, let's just say that what the chew-stick was to Sam an issue of UGLY THINGS is to me! Yes, with the decline and fall of the seventies/early-eighties fanzine generation (forget all about the ninetes other'n one lone issue of KICKS and of course the leading light of that decade, namely BLACK TO COMM, the rest of which was a pathetic excuse for high-energy reading material despite the loads of hype surrounding a pre-internet "'zine explosion") there just ain't as much buzzing going about on the printed page as there used to be. And face it Frank, with once-honored reads such as the aforementioned KICKS and BOMP having bit the dust long ago, let's just say that bowel-moving time just ain't what it used to be back when those two mighty publications were alive and thunderin'! And not being the kinda guy who likes to hold bowels in for a long time, it sure is a relief to get hold of these new UGLY THINGS lest I turn into the living embodiement of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "Constipation Blues"!!!

No Misunderstood saga continuation this time (and I wanted to hear about Rick Brown's rash!), but izza nice one as well and once I get over all the jealousy of not being able to crank out a magazine like this myself (I never did get the adspace or backers or general huzzuh that eddytor Mike Stax did---it must've been his nifty hair that did it!) its easy to get into the meat and potatoes of the thing or in this case a chicken fried steak with mashed tots 'n gravy served up to you by none other'n Guy Wilkerson himself! And don't think that I was able to read through the entire kahuna despite my Sam-like devotion to the mag...heck, I'm still sifting through the past seven issues of UGLY THINGS and even a six-trip Chinese Buffet toidy session ain't enough time to absorb (maybe I should think of another term...after all, UT ain't no two-ply version of MOST rock reading material one sees these days!) one paragraph, let alone article in a typical issue of this grand mag.

So, what's innit??? Plenty within the 208 sparkling pages and that don't even include the four-color glossy cover with all those ads for the likes of Norton and Sundazed (a label I've long hated because they never put me on their promo list...not true, I'm only saying that to piss off Jay Hinman) including a load of rock sagas on groups past (Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band, an interview conducted by onetime BLACK TO COMM contributor [not quite!] Phil Milstein) and paster (San Diego faves the Bush, the Mustangs of "That's for Sure" fame) plus other fine flotsam such as part uno of a fantab history of the Rubber City Rebels (and I guess a CD filled with nothing but pre-Rebels metallic thud courtesy Bold Chicken is now available via the Smog Veil label!) and other big steaming hunks of loads more that'll keep your head spinning and have jealous fanzine wonks sending Stax packages of cookies with untraceable poisons in 'em...believe me, this mag is THAT good!

And like I said, I haven't devoured this chew-stick to the utmost, but I saw what I saw and I liked it too...more interesting parts include the bits on Dean Kohler (any relation to Brad?) and his South Vietnamese band the Electrical Banana (the one that covered the Velvet Underground's "There She Goes Again" live in the jungles of the war-ravaged nation fully documented on ALIENS, PSYCHOS AND WILD THINGS), The Move, the Phantom Brothers (interviewed by none other'n Fearless Leader himself, probably because he LOOKS the way Olgerd Wokock did in 1965!) and the proverbial MORE. One big surprise within these pages was the in-depth and heart-tugging piece on the recent Sire-era Flamin' Groovies reissues (with plenty of eye-opening quotes from the likes of Greg Shaw and Don Waller via BACK DOOR MAN fanzine, the latter name dropped only to bug the living daylights outta Hinman again, y'know) that was written by a fellow from Australia (portal to Hell as Don Howland once said) named David Laing. Yes, I too was about to fling my copy into the garbage disposal when I saw that moniker emblazoned across the page until I realized that although this was a Dave Laing and a Dave Laing from Australia to boot, it wasn't a Dave Lang (note spelling) and in fact this particular Laing used to write me letters, send me Dog Meat albums (since that twas his label!) and tell me what a good sport I used to be before he unceremoniously cut me off just like every other terwilliger did when my own fanzine began a more, uh, erratic publishing schedule. But whatever you do, if you see this man, please, DON'T aim for the base of the heart!

Loads more goodies here (imagine a classic issue of BOMP multiplied ten-fold) including that perv Swede (another BTC wagon-jumper) named Johan Kugelberg writing about what he calls the all-time best issue of any fanzine, in this case WHO PUT THE BOMP #8 if solely for the Lester Bangs Troggs epic which still sends tingles of thrills down the spine of at least one Swede out there. (Personally I think Mr. K is slightly off the mark since the best-ever no-bout-a-doubt-it single issue of any fanzine would just have to be the TEENAGE WASTELAND GAZETTE one with the unspeakable act being performed onna cover where Nick Tosches' review of the Mellow Fellows' SNORTIN' and R. Evan Circiel's take on Crazy Horse's ROCK & ROLL MUSIC TO THE WORLD appear side by side...or maybe CRETINOUS CONTENTIONS #2 or the DENIM DELINQUENT with the closeup of Iggy's face onna cover and blurry nude snaps inside would beat out that particular BOMP out, but not that it matters.) The little bit on the recording of Blue Cheer's VINCEBUS ERUPTUM got my juicy juices flowing which kills me because Stax was ragging on them in an early issue of his then-fanzine, but what really got me all hot and bothered like Sam on those days where he'd break outta the place to roam the neighborhood environs amongst other things is the RECORD (er, Cee-Dee) REVIEW SECTION where people like me get to see what new goodies're out there or better yet what old garb redone for the 21st century has been (re)issued before we can spring it onto boobs like you as if we've discovered this stuff ourselves outta whole wheat bread! And believe it or not, but there are loads of recently-released sixties/seventies wares out there these days that I know that I and probably you will want to hear down the line even if we can't afford it all, but who says that we can't at least drool over the tasty reviews (which are getting better as of late) just as much as we're salivatin' over the prospect of more sixties rant the way Sam would leave strings of drool all over the furniture. One big soo-prize here's a review of a Scatman Crothers disque written by guess-who-but Bill Shute who I guess is making his grand-re-entrance to the Real World after living under a rock for the past umpteen years! Of course, I don't see him flinging any much-needed scribing my way even though sales of BLACK TO COMM had plummeted since his abrupt departure from the masthead...wassamatter, too good for me these days???, but at least the guy is still ALIVE and maybe that's all that counts right now.

In all, UGLY THINGS is a mighty good 'un once I get beyond my usual fits of envy and oneupmanship, and if there are any flaws in the thing I'd have to go through it with a fine-tooth hair-clogged comb to find any. Well, there is ONE huge pimple of a fox pas right smack dab in the center of the opening schpiel that (naturally) got my goat, the one where Stax responds to noted turdbiter Hinman's assessment of how UGLY THINGS writes only about bands that are "footnotes" in the pantheon of what we know as rock & roll! (Y'know, as if Hinman's faves such as the Wooden Gyps or whatever they're called and Franz Ferd'nand are exactly burning up the charts, but then again the Yardbirds were nothing but peons next to the Flesheaters, right Jayzey?). Anyway, in rightfully retorting these bogus trumped-up charges (something of what Hinman is noted for doing as I should know FIRST HAND) Stax has the unmitigated gall to say that even though he has better tastes than Hinman (true, but so did Sam!), he "respects" his opinions which drives me nuts and reminds me of that whole seventies-era living-free and smiling on your brother no matter how evil he may be morality I was hoping the punks would've buried for GOOD! Mike, why cantcha just say that you too would like to see Jay get the hillbilly treatment straight outta DELIVERANCE and quit this so-called delusional mutual respect jive? Yeah, I know you got the last word in with the little jibe at Jay's tastes, but if you think that's enough you're sorely mistaken. Heck, even Sam woulda pissed on the guy, and rightfully so!

In other news...not much happening on the front as I try to battle off excessive work strain and a general collapse waiting to happen. (All of which is affecting my writing capabilities and general enthusiasm as I'm sure you can easily tell.) Anyway, I keep reading about people my age who are starting to drop off thanks to heart attacks wondering when my number will be called up, and given that the work grind, the home grind and the exercise grind aren't doing me any good (even with a daily gym workout my weight remains stable though now my armpits tend to smell like a week-dead rabbit someone found in the tool-shed on a stifling summer day...how I wish mine smelled like McDonalds hamburgers just like everyone else's!) who knows when that'll be, perhaps more sooner than later but given the range of classic fanzines I must read and music I definitely should head I hope it's as late as possible. You readers are free to pray...any way you want. Some may say that it's my paranoia at work, others the large amts. of caffeine ingested daily, but when I lay awake in bed waiting to drop off and suddenly some searing pain hits me in the chest I dunno whether it's the fried eggplant I had at the restaurant attempting to be digested into slow-burning number two or the big 'un waiting to go off. Whatever, I must admit that I do feel the frazzle of life coming upon me, and while I cannot live the sorta existence that I know I was made out for (mainly that of a decadent millionaire in the J. Paul Getty III vein but with both ears intact), I guess I'll have to do what I am doing until something better, like death, comes along!

In other other news...I've been working my way through a series of DVD-Rs I've received as of late, one (Jean-Michel Basquiet's DOWNTOWN '81) which was reviewed last post in case you're interested. The Ornette Coleman sampler I have is engrossing enough although doesn't play smoothly on my computer (I have no proper DVD-player at this time and would love for Santa Claus to send one my way...I'm willing to wait three-plus months too along with a much-needed turntable and stereo-system!), but from what I can make out Ornette and Company are worth the money if only for the black & white footage of the 1974 band with James Blood Ulmer (which unfortunately keeps stopping and re-starting on my player making for a worse viewing experience akin to settling down for a real good and equally fidgety cybercast from one of the soon-doomed CBGB clubs). Fortunately my other DVD-Rs from the same Canadian salesman with good taste have given me nil problems...the Peter Brotzmann disques are magnif showing the ultra-bellowing kraut in fine form whether playing with fellow Germans or the jazz-punk supergroup Last Exit (sorta like seventies fusion for WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT fans) or with historic jazz percussionist Milford Graves and arco bassist William Parker live at CB's 313 Gallery a few Easters back. Even more eye opening are the two volumes of UNDER THE UNDERGROUND that appear on one shiny pancake...I think the original tape from whence this DVD-R is culled originated in Japan but whatever, this sampler is made up of live in En Why See (mostly at Max's Kansas City) performances from a variety of underground/punk/whatever types ranging from no wave (Contortions, Von Lmo) to punky (Heartbreakers) to rockabilly (Buzz & the Flyers) and gnu wave (the Model Citizens, who I must admit I couldn't stand to watch and who seem to have gotten all the cliches one could find in late-seventies underground rock and milked them for all it was worth). Surprisingly interesting were the pre-mohawk Plasmatics when they wore their no wave influences on their sleeves (much to the dismay of Von Lmo, who actually confronted Wendy O'Williams head on one evening!), Von Lmo and band doing "Flying Saucers '88 (which I saw before!), the Contortions right after Adele Bertei and George Scott left doing "I Can't Stand Myself" (sounding very thin as most live tapes of the time do, but still a nice slice of lower Manhattan art), the Heartbreakers surprisingly lucid enough and finally the Mikki Zone (ex-Fast) Zoo with Mikki playing some interesting arty guitar lines with pencils of all things kinda coming off like a punk Jimi Hendrix!

Got some more interesting things to gab about from a recent Gulcher package to some long-festering Cee-Dees and even a moom pitcher or two (and I must thank Lou Rone for sending me not one but TWO DVD-Rs of his band Triple Cross playing various New York hotspots in the eighties, but neither of 'em play on my box...the thought was nice anyway, Lou!), but that'll all have to wait until another go 'round. So ta-ta for now, and don't forget getting hold of your own chew-sticks in order to occupy your time!

(One this is the last, trust me! closing note: perhaps you've noticed that the "enetations" comment box that used to be smack dab at the bottom of each and every BLOG TO COMM page has finally been eradicated. Good riddance I say...given my inability to find my way around a template I was never able to stick a comment box before or after each post where they should be, and besides that [or perhaps because of that] that "comments page" had become nothing but a place for spammers to plug their wares anyway [along with anonymous nay-wayers which is fine with me...I always need a good laugh!]. Obtaining a blogger-approved comment section which can be accessed by simply clicking on the pound sign after every post helped out plenty and made the enetations page obsolete, though for some strange reason I kept the enetations one perhaps because I didn't want to mess up the template. Well, after much thought and trial/error I did a little finagling here and there and voila the stupid comment box that I never could correctly place where it should've been was finally gone, only to be replaced by a stupider mass of computer nonsense I can't quite eliminate[+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Add things to your sidebar here. Use the format: Link Text+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-->] that makes about as much sense as some of the reviews I was writing while under the influence of extremely strong painkillers! Notes to the people at blogger have been to no avail [they probably think I've cried wolf once too often], so until I do get rid of this mess please excuse the eyesore.)

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW: DOWNTOWN '81 STARRING JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT!

When this flicker was finally released a few years back after being held up for who knows what reason I'm sure SOMEBODY stood up and took notice. Maybe one of those New York elitist (as opposed to Mencken-elitist I guess) VILLAGE VOICE types who claim an ever-vigilant all-enveloping relationship with the prole unless he's a Queens Archie Bunker hardhat or somethin' rushed to the nearest arthouse to get an eyefull, but frankly I gotta admit that despte NOT being a beret-wearing art-snob from the chic enclosures of En Why See my own attention regarding this film was a little bit piqued. Now, I can't say that I care very much about the artwork and career of Jean-Michel Basquiat who stars as himself in this lower Manhattan romp filmed during the final days of the New York Scene in full bloom, but the setting (like I said, lower Manhattan), the time (1981) and the smattering of stars and cameos in this moom had me more interested in seeing this under-the-counterculture film than I am eyeballing a whole barrel of Fatty and Baldy-approved wares out there, and given the star-studded rockist intent of the thing yeah, I could say that DOWNTOWN '81 is perhaps one of the last great rock & roll flicks to have graced my laser launching pad. But I won't.

Actually it's halfway-there decent and watchable, and 75% enjoyable at that. Rising artworld star Basquiat plays himself, a down-and-out local artist/new wave musician (leader of the band Gray, whose only recorded output can be heard on the soundtrack though I don't know exactly where) who, after getting released from the hospital is locked out of his apartment by landlord Giorgio Gromelsky (best known to you as the one-time Yardbirds manager) until he can come up with the four-hundredsome bucks to pay his back rent. Attempting to sell a painting in order to raise the cash, we see Basquiat travel the hip confines of Manhattan meeting up with everyone from old school rappers to fellow new (transmuting into "gnu"...this was the transitional early-eighties y'know) wave musicians, seeing his band's equipment get ripped off in the process and running into a whole slew of women who I guess are supposed to be "good looking" but even at that time I missed the stark femininity I grew up with so they don't seem that hot to me to begin with!

Yeah, DOWNTOWN '81 has a lotta that self-consciousness to it that was probably copped from European art films and PBS documentaries, but its still worth an eyeballing (and perhaps owning) at least for the variety of guest stars who pop into the mix when you least expect it. INTERVIEW/cable TV host Glenn O'Brien (who was one of my fave contributors to the old SPIN back in the mid-eighties!) plays the rock critic for THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR interviewing Japanese quick-flashes the Plastics, while no wave violinist (and bandleader of the GLENN O'BRIEN'S HOUSE PARTY group---see how it all ties in expecially considering how O'Brien wrote this thing!) Walter Steding has a long scene explaining the problems that even successful underground stars had in En Why See at the time! (Lance Loud pal Christian Hoffman and Cameo-Parkway/Red Star label bigwig Marty Thau appear in this scene as industry wonks!) Also getting ample screen time are DNA (well into their downtown noise thing having long forsaken a steady rock beat that got my undies in an uproar way back when) with a strange interlude consisting of bassist Tim Wright talking to drummer Ikue Mori in English and Spanish with Mori responding in the only English she knew at the time..."shut up!" (Which might figure since I was told the two married if only to keep Mori from being deported!) And while we're at it, the big "rock star" getting mobbed while going out to see Kid Creole and the Coconuts (how early-eighties NEW YORK ROCKER can you get?) is none other'n Elliot Murphy wearing his famous shag coat, and guess who that tough lug playing the doorman at the Peppermint Lounge preventing Basquiat from sneaking in to see the Contortions (the Joseph Bowie/Bern Nix version!) is? That's right, none other'n John Morton of Electric Eels/Ex-Blank-X fame WITHOUT his hair bleached blond! Believe-you-me, DOWNTOWN '81 has more of those hipster guest stars sneaking in and out of the mix (and while we're at it, Bradley Field, Mahogany Brain's Patrick Geoffris, and Tish & Snooky also show up as do O'Brien's patrons Chris Stein and Debbie Harry as well---what'd'ja expect anyway???) which kinda makes it come off like a low-budget IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD and funnier to boot! True there's no Lou Rone, Miriam Linna or Robert Quine here, but ya can't have EVERYTHING!!!!

Thee Midniters-IN THEE MIDNIGHT HOUR CD (Norton)

Tried downloading a cover snap to grace this particular post but the sneaky spuds at Norton put up some weird protective barrier between me and the pic in question (probably because the cover artwork is so holy that it should only be viewed under the strict and safe confines of their site). Oh well, I guess if you wanna see it bad enough you can always go there to check out the typically tasteful Norton cover art, and while you're there why dontcha pic up a copy or ten of IN THEE MIDNIGHT HOUR in order to pad up your collection against the rising tide of blanditude which can be found therein. I guess the "thee" in "Thee Midniters"'ll tip you off to the fact that this here's a Mexican-Amerigan buncha musicians who used to play a fine blare of powerful dance-rock at least until the self-consciousness of El Chicano swept over the scene, and if you like that mid-sixties dunce-thrash that seemed to spring from the corpse of Ritchie Valens you'll certainly want to go for this breed of wild frat chicanery straight from the streets of East El Lay back during the days when the Mexican influence in local rock & roll was very hard to deny (not that you'd want to!). Personal faves include the strange soul twist on "Gloria" (complete with expertly mimicked Van Morrison lyrics), a perfectly '64-punk drone-riff take on the old "I Found a Peanut" song my sister used to bug me with whilst I was a tyke, and the infamous "Down Whittier Blvd." done with local dee-jay Godfrey, who later took Kim Fowley's "The Trip" and made it into a classic PEBBLES VOL. 3 staple!

Norton also sent me some udder wares including the latest single in their Rolling Stones covers series (complete with impeccable London ripoff sleeve and labels as per usual) featuring a King Kahn/Flakes double-header, but since my old turntable remains unrepaired and my luck in finding a new one remains dizz-mal I'll have to put that one (along with my entire vinola collection) on ice as they say. However, I do plan on getting a system into my abode by the time the NEXT Norton Rolling Stones tribute single wings my way, which should be a doozy considering it's a duo between none other than Jay Hinman and Dave Lang schmoozing it up on the famed contract-breaking legend "Cocksucker Blues"! I'd make a pun about the dynamic duo going to the "head" of the class with this one but that's too corny to ever see print, er, pixel!


Vietnam-THE CONCRETE'S ALWAYS GRAYER ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET CD (Vice)

Aha! Finally was able to download a Cee-Dee cover snap even if it does look like lang! Gee, I seem to remember a band also called Vietnam from the early-eighties, a self-proclaimed "no wave" group from Georgia back when that state was popping out zome of the least-Southern-sounding rock you could imagine! Anyway, when I saw that a band called Vietnam was playing at the CBGB Lounge a few months back I figured it couldn't be the same batch, but considering that the first Vietnam weren't exactly breaking office box records its not like the second ones weren't swiping their names on purpose...after all, look at how many groups there were with the names the Coachmen (at least five by my count), the Sonics (four), L-7 (three) and Destroy All Monster (two), and you know that none of 'em were exactly hitting the top of the pop charts at any given time so why should I bust the chops of these new Vietnam guys especially when they seemed like a pretty good act to begin with!

Anyway, like those Vietnam guys these guys are also from the South (Texas transplanted to En Why See) and are a duo as well, but that's where the similarities end. And although I gotta clobber them for evoking (albeit second-hand) the memory of Erma Bombeck (beyond-the-pale cutesy-drivel columnist and heroine of all myopic teachers and perennial Home Ec Club gals during my high school years) with the title of this thing I gotta congratulate Vietnam for evoking some of the better moments of sixties rockhood (electric Dylan, Velvets and blues-saturated Stones) w/o coming off as total eggheads. True, this one's eventually gonna get buried in the collection next to all those other quick-flash fixes and the vocals do tend to borrow too heavily from the alternative "My head's too heavy from last night's orgy and daddy's gonna cut off my trust fund" blooze, but these two (with the right percussive backing in the sparse Maureen Tucker vein) surprisingly do safisfy on this half-hour trek. Vietnam will probably fizzle out just like 99.999...% of their local brethren, but at least they put out this halfway-decent and listenable disque that doesn't borrow too much from the font of moderne-day alternative beyond-cliches.

(as the bi said)...THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!

Summertime really is taking a toll on me not unlike the great summer of '78 back when all I felt capable of doing was dragging myself outta bed at 9:00 AM to watch the fifteen-minute ROCKY AND HIS FRIENDS, lolling around the house watching even more tee-vee and listening to the likes of NUGGETS, the Flamin' Groovies' SHAKE SOME ACTION and the Airplane's SURREALISTIC PILLOW (OK, nobody's perfect!) all day/night long. Of course things have changed a bit since then, mostly because there's a LOT MORE to listen to these days and frankly I don't think I ever would've 'fessed up to having actually listened to let alone owned (still own it too!) a Jefferson Airplane disc (actually cassette) even a decade ago, but since my reputation is shot all I gotta mutter is (in the sage words of Benito Mussolini)..."eh!"

But sheesh, I hate neglecting my duties in this life o' mine even if it means having to struggle to toss out some interesting shards of rockscribing your way (I figure that there must be ONE lonesome BLOG TO COMM fan out there somewhere in the wilds of Borneo for all I know who hangs, nay, clings to every thought, word, semi-colon and keystroke of mine, and who am I to deny this sheltered soul an occasional cheap thrill anyhow?), but struggle to peck out a hopefully interesting post I will because once you get down to it, I'm that kinda guy. The kinda guy who strokes his own ego playing big time rockfan-cum-blogger who actually has a fanbase worthy enough to keep him afloat, a Meltzer in his own mind who couldn't punch his way out of a paper bag if plopped inside the "real world" of rock scribing because, frankly he's too good for the current "rock criticism" scene which has banished the post-Bangs/Meltzer/Tosches madmen gonzos to the far reaches of blogger space in favor of some of the more outright HACKS to have seen the insides of an editorial board but...my do I ramble on...

No real reviews this time...just a list of stuff I've been giving a listen to over the past week or so with a few oldies scattered amidst the batch in order to give that lone Bornean an idea of what kinda life he can live vicariously through. By mid-week I'll try to get something more coherent out for your dining and dancing pleasure, if the spirit moves me like an overdose of Swiss Chris, that is!

Jackalope-SALTIER THAN EVER CD (Challenge)

Perhaps it's because of my fond memories of lazing about on Sunday evenings listening to this trio play introverted free blast at the CBGB Lounge that I keep coming back to this. Again, if you told me back in the late-seventies that I would be spending a good hunka my time almost three whopping decades later listening to John Abercrombie (then the nearest-and-dearest to the hearts and minds of the ECM/DOWN BEAT ideal of a "perfect" jazz guitarist) I probably woulda told you to jump inna lake, but this platter sure brings back memories of the strangely sublime music that Abercrombie, with the help of saxophonist Loren Stillman and drummer Bob Meyers, was laying down at the Lounge along with a whole splattering of other upstarts and established persons giving me a new strange hope for the world of jazz which I had feared been taken over by the Al DiMeolas of this world. Too bad Jackalope weren't together twenny-plus years back and stomping their stuff at CB's proper back then...I mean, I sure would've liked to have seen them on some 1982 bill opening up for some hot latest avant flash with Abercrombie joining them for a spaced-out jam, sorta like the way that the Social Climbers got the John Scofield Trio to open for 'em with Scofield joining the band for a wild jam that eventually ended up on the STATE OF THE UNION elpee, albeit in a one-minute clip.

Doodles-FRANCE TOUR 2004. 11. 18 AT POINT EPHEMERE IN PARIS CD-R (no label)

Someone somehow has been issuing a buncha live in Paree CD-Rs by a variety of Japanese underground gods 'n goddesses in a series of quickie-crank out (albeit in color) insert covers and mini-sleeves, and I got two of 'em. Unfortunately the one from Miminokoto wasn't as hot as expected (was hoping for a patented modern-Japanese take on Velvet Underground sensibilities but got too much early-seventies Pink Floyd for my troubles, and I don't think Imants Krumins' naysaying was what got me into thinking this either!), but Doodles were fine as usual. These lassies have been worming their way onto my launching pad as of late, and although I still don't quite cozy up to their latest endeavor I find the rest of their recorded output pretty snazzy, including this live 'un which still showcases the duo's great femme-pop cum Velvet Underground obsessive pounding that reminds me of the final days of VU-homage (first wave division) before it became like an autopsy. I mean, I'd sure like to hear what the groups all those twelve-year-old kids who used to go up to Lou Reed backstage and tell him they shot up to "Heroin" sounded like. I certainly DON'T want to hear the bands that the pampered menials of the eighties and beyond did filtering the Velvets through the mire of bad alternative drivel which continues to shame me (for having stuck up for the Velvets and spawn) in the first place!

John Coltrane-MEDITATIONS CD (Impulse)

Naturally it was Wayne McGuire who turned me onto this one via his infamous Velvet Underground article in CRAWDADDY ("The Boston Sound" which is mandatory reading for anyone who is interested in the spiritual inner workings of the Velvet Underground and while we're at it, howcum nobody's had the initiative to actually put McGuire's Universal Musical Force into working order anyway? Now that would be a better 21st-century homage to the VU 'n all of the poochies who have been sullying their sound for the past umpteen years!). And yeah, I gotta admit that, like his mid-sixties period onwards, it is amongst Coltrane's best...now I gotta say that at one time I never did think of Coltrane as that much of a boss pioneer as a lotta you readers out there have. In fact, I remember the first time I heard Coltrane via the copy of MY FAVORITE THINGS (which didn't inspire the pithy title of this particular post!) I took outta the Sharon Public Library back in '76 thinking it was rather pale jazz tinklings (certainly nowhere near the searing ream [calm down, Dave!] of the likes of Coleman or Taylor that I would be introduced to within a relatively short time) but thankfully I pursued and persevered and yeah, I thought that Coltrane was even better'n what all those hippies out there made him out to be! As McGuire said, a culmination of the New Black Music that had seemingly sprung up from nowhere and continues to permeate and mutate in ways that the guy who does those PBS documentaries will never understand.

Terry Riley-PERSIAN SURGERY DERVISHES 2-CD set (Mantra France)

This one was a toughie (albeit desirable) Shandar set to try and find for quite a long time 'n even during the Golden Age of Record Bins. Fortunately I got my own copy of this Riley rarity (as well as Albert Ayler's BELLS, two volumes of that Virgin sampler of solo guitar with Fred Frith onna cover and a scratchy copy of Ayler live also on Shandar) from Bill Shute, who was really hurting for money whilst I was hurting to hear new sounds nigh on twenty years back. Somehow I think I got the best of the deal, and although I haven't had the opportunity to listen to any vinyl faves for quite some time (I hope you RICH and money-tossing readers are getting the hint!) it's sure nice getting an earfulla these old classics once in awhile if only to remind you of where you've been, and perhaps shoulda STAYED. Perhaps my fave Riley disc next to CHURCH OF ANTHRAX (with John Cale true, but still a sublime post-VU classic), PERSIAN SURGERY DERVISHES features two whole disques of nothing but great, pulsating pure organ tones which, like Klaus Schultze's CYBORG and Suicide's earlier material, sorta straddles the great punk divide between the early-Velvet Underground and the krautrock answer via Can, Neu! and a whole lotta groups that, as BRAIN DAMAGE once said, put out twenty of the worst albums ever made! Those guys at BRAIN DAMAGE were satirists true, but anyway the driving organ drone of PERSIAN SURGERY DERVISHES still has the unmitigated power (especially when played late at night during a serious fanzine-reading/internet scouring session) to whisk me back to my ennui-filled yet erotic (in the purest, Jonathan Richman sense) teenage days and if anything can do that it should be praised to the rafters!

Suicide-disc two of THE SECOND ALBUM + THE FIRST REHEARSAL TAPES 2-CD set (Mute)

Suicide's second album is still a hard one for me to sit through without fidgeting with all of the sleek new wave production that reminds me of everything that went bad with the form, but the bonus disc that came with the rather recent (like, seven years ago!) reissue of that 'un has become a recent hot bopper around here these past few days. Like the Riley discs, these early droners make for fine evening listening with their "enveloping" atmosphere that sounds like electronic Nico gone android (no jokes please) and, like a small taste of the apple, makes you yearn for a bigger bite (in this case, whatever may survive of the earlier, even more carnivorous version of Suicide from the early-seventies days of obscurity). If only this had reached the populace at an earlier date maybe we wouldn't have had to put up with Kraftwerk going disco!

Additional note: the various CD-Rs that Mr. Jonathan Behar burned for me (including TWO Milk 'n' Cookies live disques!) will not properly play on my computer box so a listening to these and others will have to wait until I can take 'em for an exceedingly long car ride. Anyhoo, hope this one will hold your attention (amongst other things) until I can get more into the swing of things and the spirit catches me or whatever. Believe me, I will try to get another one out to you later this week, even if you don't hold your own bad breath!

INSPIRATIONAL LINK OF THE DAY

Hopefully, some music-related post will follow later on.

J. D. King and the Coachmen-AMERICAN MERCURY CD (Ecstatic Peace)

What else can I rilly say that hasn't already been said in BLACK TO COMM #25 anyway? Oh yeah, I forgot...none of you budding upwardly crusty music snobs who claim allegiance to the big beat yet IGNORE the mighty garage pounce that stands right in front of you have had the righteous GUMPTION to pick up a copy of that well-meaning and well-delivering moderne-day fanzine even though you sure have had the opportunity to latch onto a copy or ten for nigh on three years already! Oh yeah, I can tell you all about the gracious beauty of the thing from the in-depth and revealing interviews (including one with the leader of today's band in question, none other than J. D. King!) to the boffo reviews of wares both old and new/printed and aural, not to mention the hot-to-trot Cee-Dee that you get with each and every copy and where you could've heard FOUR (count 'em!) tracks that appear on this very release that I'm reviewing for you lumpen hoi-polloi today, but NO, all of you impatient blogprowlers, in a typical fit of adolescent masturbation mind you, have forsaken the greener pastures of BLOG/BLACK TO COMM enlightenment for the pale posturings of lesser "men" who """think""" they speak for the ages but have an all-encompassing agenda about the lifespan of a flea. Let's face it, there are those who ponder, muse and dictate from their fart-encrusted boudoirs, and there are those who speak, nay YELL from the rafters about the coming of a truly new age in sound and vision, one that owes much from the beautiful past while speaking for an unseen future, and J. D. King is but one of the prophets of the Third Testament and that's one undeniable truth which even you stodgiest of athiests better BELIEVE.

(Again, for those of you who've decided to avoid the bitter future-shock of BLACK TO COMM #25 for the more safe, comforting realms of comparatively dull mutterings...) This album is, like all true works of rock & roll, heavily indebted to the glorious moments of sixties music without reaching too far into the utter sham and sideshow drivel that decade is best remembered for. At one moment you hear electric/bluesy John Fahey (as well as some jazz guitarist whose name escapes me now) melding into the early Velvet Underground...either the free-form joy of "Noise" off the ESP ELECTRIC NEWSPAPER sampler or the live EPI flash and blur of 1966. At other times these Coachmen (sic) swipe from the font of pre-retch San Francisco (Big Brother and the Holding Company at the Trips Festival) not forgetting FIFTH DIMENSION-era Byrds back when David Crosby was nothing but a fun little butterball...no, make that more of early Love or at least the mad tromping of Los Angeles before punk wafted into fringe. Throw in a little country-rock a la Moby Grape (OK, part of the SF equation I guess though I'm sure many denizens would beg to differ), some Stooge thud and a lotta New York darkness (they play black & white not unlike Lisa Robinson's positive portrayal of the New Yorkers of the mid-seventies as recounted in the November '75 CREEM) and you might be halfway there. Of course that other half always seems to depend on the listener which is why AMERICAN MERCURY (named after noted curmudgeon H. L. Mencken's infamous political magazine that somewhere-down-the-line was turned into a racialist rant after Willis Carto got hold of it sometime in the mid-sixties) may or may not succeed within your own listening parameters, but then again there's no accounting for anybody's dunceability these days so why should I worry?

Of course a whole lotta you "open-minded" types will shy away from this one even though it is all instrumental, for as D. D. Faye once said in an old BACK DOOR MAN she used to get yelled at by the landlord because her noise was threatening, while the jerks who played Journey and REO Speedwagon at equally-loud volume didn't because their bleat was hip-approved. One glance at the titles will lay it all down for you, with their name-droppings of such decidedly non-PC anti-heroes (of today's thumbscrew battalions) as Elizabeth Bentley, John Birch and James Burnham (go look 'em up on Wikipedia!), not to mention a particulary joyous song about the Virgin Mary which seems especially fitting in this day and age when people are actually getting tattoos of her getting a coathanger abortion (OK, being presented with a coathanger if you want to be a stickler about it) on their arms.

And although it took over three years to get out, AMERICAN MERCURY stands the test of time, at least on my own personal level where the distant past can be as refreshing as today's news, and dang-it-all if this one just isn't one of the top albums of the year as least as it stands here in August of '06. But then again it ain't like I'm in any loops out there like I mighta been two decades back, and even if I were all I can tell you is that I've been bored silly by whatever little Yeah Yeah Yeahs/Franz Ferdinand/White Stripes-derived goo that has graced my ears so make mine AMERICAN MERCURY alla way! I'm sure you'll remind me about this 'un when it's time to peck out my top o' the year list, and I'm purty sure I won't need reminded but your thoughts are nice anyway.

The Velvet Underground-LIVE AT MAX'S KANSAS CITY 2-CD set (Atlantic/Rhino)

For years this "contractual obligation" album has been the most summarily dismissed (and not usually offhandly at that) Velvet Underground rec even by some of their most ardent fans. Well, not exactly dismissed (to get into Mr. Kimball histrionics)...let's just say that LIVE AT MAX'S was one of those discs that most people who listened to the Velvet Underground back in the mid/late-seventies (at least the few I knew) sorta sheepishly shied away from while praising the '74 two-LP LIVE 1969 WITH LOU REED to the rafters. OK, I can see how that plump-buttocked double set would pique the interest of more'n a few Velveetas out there not only with the previously-unreleased tracks, Elliot Murphy's suburban decadent liner notes and the sleekly-intense feel, but it wasn't as if LIVE AT MAX'S was without its own special charm that seemed to turn off even the most serious of Velvet afionados out there.

And charm it most certainly had. and in more ways'n one...at least for a rock & roll acolyte/nut like I was during my mid-teen years when music seemed less like teenage background noise and more like an obsessive religion. First off it was a mysterious rarity (always a good sign for a CREEM-reading blackhead farm like myself) in the days before a surge in Velvets popularity forced major record stores to stock their wares. I mean, the only place where you could find this wonder (as well as LOADED and a load of non-top 40 Lester Bangs-approved psycho-mulch like Amon Duul II) was in one of those outta-the-way record shops that also had humongous loads of imports, cutouts and manhandled bootlegs amidst the $4.99 domestic brew. The kinda shops that John Cougar Mellencamp (in relating a saga about the first time he bought a copy of the Stooges' FUNHOUSE somewhere in Kentucky) said had sawdust on the floors. Second off, the show took place at Max's Kansas City which as any ROCK SCENE or Lillian Roxon-reading suburban blob knew was thee hipster rock & roll hangout (along with the 82 Club) where everything met everything else that was worth its salt on this decadent planet of ours. And third off, this really was a live album of true quality and value...none of that pre-processed cheese that sounded so bad that many live bootlegs came off livelier in comparison. The sound was good enough and although the performances lacked the avant-garde feeling that the Velvets made their reputation with, it was still a fun disc that set the stage for a load of interesting recordings to come out of the New York Scene over the next few decades. Witness a live '76 Talking Heads gig recorded at Max's that has made the tape circuit rounds for ages where a pre-art project David Byrne even quotes directly from Reed's "a tender love song from the early-fifties about the love between man and subway..." which is something that nobody could get away with even three years later, so at least give the artiste credit for doing SOMETHING while it still had a shard of gulcheral meaning!

There was a mention in Richard Nusser's review of the summer-long series of Max's gigs in THE VILLAGE VOICE (a review you can easily-enough pick up in the ALL YESTERDAY'S PARTIES book which I assume is near and dear to your nightstand for those inspirational moments) about how the Velvets had not only borrowed from the likes of Creedence and (I think he said) the Stones, but from their own early selves as well. And y'know, he's right. In many ways, the Velvets 1970 have a lot in common with the whole range of seventies bands that had drunk from the font of the mid-sixties variety of VU which makes them an even bigger punk gryphon than I'd thought. Listening to LIVE AT MAX'S KANSAS CITY is like taking a trip through the gulcheral underside of the seventies, and who'd've thought that by the time the decade clocked out there'd literally be thousands of bands worldwide taking the torch the Velvets were soon to drop, going in just about any direction from doltist emulation to bright innovation somehow eluding the radarscope of "respectable" rock marketability in the process?

Yes, LIVE AT MAX'S KANSAS CITY, this not-so-new 2-CD edition (after all, most of the unreleased stuff has been circulating albeit in low-fidelity for many years now) is a definite must-have. It's also (and not "arguably") """the""" spiritual kick-start of the seventies (with the Stooges and Dolls taking the cue and way too many to count getting in on the verve) and everything good that decade stood for especially in the face of a load of dross that seems to be remembered so fondly these sorry days. And what's best of all is that now the thing's a cheap bargain find if you look hard enough, which sure goes down smoothly especially when you've hadda pay upwards of sixteen smackers for Cee-Dee versions of cutout classics you once snatched up for mere pences! And with rockism kicks getting harder and harder to find as the years roll on, these rehashes sure do work miracles!

BEFORE I TUNE OUT, I must tell y'all that I just happened to latch onto even more Bill Shute poetic wonders, which believe-it-or-not were actually sent me directly from the man himself perhaps due to his graciousness at seeing his earlier wares reviewed on this blog! I haven't had the chance to digest these pamphlet-sized collections yet so expect a more thorough review of these collections with titles like COLORS IN RHYTHM and SLICED TOMATOES in a future post, but from what I've eye-gobbled it looks as if Bill is improving which is always a good thing even if he has started off in tippy-top shape. And although I'm not exactly gonna be an impartial reviewer of these things, I must admit that I even think YOU'LL like Bill's personalist takes on everyday life (y'know, that same life that some above-it-all hipster snob who probably actually reads this blog would think of as total squaresville) and what Bill can lay down for you in poetic form can be enveloping, touching, at-times scary and even funny! I mean, there was one sublimely witty poem here that was so catch-you-off-guard high-larious that I'd swear the spirit of Ernie Bushmiller had guided Bill's hand! Stay tuned for more coverage as it happens.