BOOK REVIEW! NANCY LIKES CHRISTMAS BY ERNIE BUSHMILLER (Fantagraphics, 2012)

Just in time for the Holiday Season comes this new volume of NANCY dailies with a title just fitting for this time of year! An event to which I say "YAY" instead of "BAW WAH!" even though I really could have used this book for funtime reading during the Christmas breaks of 1969 through at least 1972 when I was really on a hefty comic strip appreciation roll!  And although such a serious reprinting of classic (for me 1945-1982) NANCY strips as this would have really suited me fantastic-like during my pre-pimples and body hair days, at least I can now live securely knowing that at least some of the public's tastes have finally caught up to my own to the point where such an enterprise as a collection of this friz-topped gal's oft-laughed at ('stead of with) strip is now commercially viable enough to have even warranted a second volume. Believe-you-me that's one thing that will make me happy here in the post-everything that's fun in this world kultur we now live in!

By the time these strips were hitting the funny pages being spread across the living room floors of Ameriga, NANCY was certainly becoming the funnie that it would be famous for at least until the fateful demise (in the late-seventies) and ultimate bye-bye (in 1982) of strip creator Ernie Bushmiller. That only means we've got thirty-five-plus more years of dailies (I guess they'll get to the Sundays one of these days) of NANCYs to look forward to, a boss concept to absorb even if Bushmiller was apt to repeat a mid-forties gag twenty/thirty years later when inspiration failed him. But still, 'tis fantab re-living those single-digit NANCY memories that I've told you about repeatedly, even if these particular strips were produced a good long time before I even hit the zygote stage but hey an appreciation of every pen line and badgag is still embedded into my DNA (along with HENRY and FERD'NAND too!) and it might be in your's too.

Highlights include a week's full of gags where Nancy and Sluggo meet up with a new brainy girl who resembles a seven-year-old Janeane Garofalo, Nancy's lookalike cousin Judy visiting, Sluggo's attempts to become a major ukulele performer and his getting a job carrying a sandwich sign all over town. (The various week-longs where Nancy stays with her neighbors the Sputters also rank high, if only because they pit Nancy up against a grown man 'stead of Aunt Fritzi for a change.) You may have your own personal favorites and you may sneer at the entire idea of anybody giving NANCY the time o' day when there are all of those "important" strips one could follow, but there's only one way to find out now and it ain't by upping your nose at this class act strip without reminding yourself...as to what kind of a snobbish asshole you've been for your entire life and will remain until the bitter end, that's for sure! Buy this 'un and discover your true inner wretchedness!

Although I am one fellow who is never at a loss of words, I must 'fess up to you that I really don't know how I should begin this weekend's post. Perhaps with a snappy joke or a mean ol' snarl at this poophole we call a world?  Howz'bout with a bit of current events, like (for the sake of being on top of a hot and breaking story) the Sandy Hook school shooting of a few days ago? Even with a hot button topic such as this I don't really know what to say, other than all of you "cause"-related people really now have a hot and potent tragedy you can all exploit and wagon jump onto! Yes, whether you're for gun control or prayer in school or even mandatory medicating all youth who display anti-"social" or even extreme nerdoid  behavior, now you can pester your friends and family with the unquestionable righteousness of your ways! Sheesh, if that kid didn't go and plow down all of those students and teachers then I guess somebody who strongly adheres to any or all of the above causes (and more!) would have had to have done the dirty deed if only to get the causemongers all cackling like deeply offended schoolmarms!

Now that I got the "socially conscious" portion of the blog outta the way, down to the nitty gritty, mainly da MUSIC!!! I am, happy to say, still plowing through the Fadensonnen pile of Cee-Dee burns which I have so graciously received last week, and even a good week-plus later I must admit that this is (so far) the bestest Christmas present that has wormed my way into my over-wormed heart so far this year (of course I haven't received any presents other'n this to date, but the sentiments do remain!). I mean,  even if I were lucky enough to have been offered a weekend at the Tokyo Health Spa this year, I'd forego the opportunity of having Kim and Han play bongos on my pitted butt to stay home and spin these shiny disques that the obscure yet talented Mr. F sent my way, thaz how good they iz! This week I played his double-spinner Tony Williams Lifetime show recorded live in Newcastle, England way back '70 way and let me tell you these guys are simply di-voon! as Patrick Amory would say. Fine enough even if this was recorded when Jack Bruce had joined the original Williams/McLaughlin/Young trio on bass guitar and unfortunately deemed to torture us with his vocal rendition of "One Word," that hideous bonus track available on the Cee-Dee reish of the second Lifetime album. Some early Mahavishnuisms also appear though they don't sound bad at all (although I must admit that I like Good God's rendition of "Dragon Song" so maybe I am a Mahavishnuista at heart!), and although the sound quality isn't quite up to snuff you can still get the same spiritual effect as if you were sitting at a choice spot at some club listening to this unfold right next to the rest room and it hasn't been cleaned in ages! Guess that's what I get for adding too much cabbage into my diet.

Next week I hope to tell you about the three disques of Andrew White recordings that I've finally lent ear to a good three-plus decades after wondering about this Coltrane obsessive who sold his wares through the New Music Distribution Service. Sheesh, these recordings really do make me miss the seventies, or at least the joys of tearing through just about any record shop extant with an open mind towards what was available, joy in my heart over the thrills I was about to experience, and only $2.98 in my wallet which does bring those old timey memories down quite a bit, eh?

Also played a preview of the new Fadensonnen platter, one which I better not tell you too much about lest I blow the entire schpiel but it's a hot noisy one for those who enjoy distortion and mayhem over clarity and nice manners. If its any indication of how 2013 is going to turn out musicwize, you can bet it'll be a banner year with people like Fadensonnen pumping these beyond-belief recordings our way.

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Seems like it was just a short while ago that the previous issue of UGLY THINGS hit the newsstands with a rather Shaw-esque bomp, and here it is December and lo and behold none other than issue #34 is up and running giving us rockism fans even more reason to rejoice this holiday season! You just can't believe how important any new issue of UGLY THINGS is to my own well being, for when said magazine wings its way to my door I'm more or less cozied up in my pungent boudoir reading the thing cover to cover looking for new releases, interesting hooks and whatever else may be within its pages that will undoubtedly enrich my life manyfold!  No bout a doubt it, UGLY THINGS really zaps my ever-thirsting desire to know EVERYTHING about rockism, and zaps it well enough that I even suffer withdrawal symptoms when the next issue just don't come out fast 'nuff! Believe me, I will scrutinize any freshly printed and even oldie moldie issue of UT just to find that new and elusive hook to latch onto, and so far I've found more than a few (and really, if you want to know where the roots of it all came from the name Anestis Delias should be looked into) so you know this really is gonna be a boss issue!

Not a bum note in the symphony, with personal faves ranging from Mike Stax's interview with Robbie Wood from The Bees (of "Voices Green and Purple" fame), Cyril Jordan giving us his own personal reminiscences of the early Beatlemania days and how he thought they were singing "I get high" on "I Want to Hold Your Hand," PEBBLES garage band faves The Haunted (remember "1-2-5"??????) and a spiffy interview with Mick Sahuc from The Rob Jo Star Band which is tasty enough to make me wanna give their only platter, which I thought was midway appealing, another spin. Reading Greg Prevost's record collecting obsessions is always a gas, and this time he talks about the thrills and spills of grabbing up every Byrds variation and pic sleeve and whatnot he could get his grubby little paws on!  Only goes to show you that I'm not the only obsessive/compulsive "gotta-have-it-all" kinda guy in the world!

Of course it's fantab reading the pages of reviews regarding records that we might consider purchasing for our own, if only these 300-press run platters were still available by the time we found out about 'em. Not only that, but it's sure boffo lending eyeballs to Jymn Parrett of DENIM DELINQUENT's writing once again, this time with the legendary fanzine publisher/editor/writer/ultimate rock 'n roll fan goin' on and on about a Michel Pagliaro 13-CD career-spanning collection that unfortunately left off the early Les Chanceliers numbers I sure woulda loved to have heard! (Jymn also did a writeup of an album featuring some ex-Savage Rose [yay!] guitarist's early group which was boss...the review that is, dunno about the album.) Hey Jymn, if you're reading this let me tell you I found that live tape of Pagliaro's recorded around '73 if you're interested in a dub (which I will have to have somebody make for me since I do not have the technology to reproduce any sorta sound whether on to disque or tape!).

(BIGGEST REVELATION OF THE ISSUE!: the "Steven Weed" from the Velvet Illusions musical group, the ones who did "Acid Head" on a now-obscure Moxie garage band EP was not, as previously reported, the same "Steven Weed" who was living with Patty Hearst when she was kidnaped by the Symbionese Liberation Army on that fateful day way back in 1974!)

Event of the year? Well, maybe one of 'em, and a pretty durn good one at that. Lots to read, digest and osmose here, and frankly I can't think of a better way to spend a late-autumn evening than curling up with the latest UGLY THINGS while some high energy sounds blast away on the bedroom boom box. So whatever you do, don't bug me during the post-supper/pre-beddy bye hours at least for the next two weeks because I'll be reading UT with rapt attention, and better yet get yourself your own copy so's you can occupy your own evening hours enriching yourself 'stead of pestering me with your inanities! Check the link on the left, or add one to your next FORCED EXPOSURE order like I dood!

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As usual, here's a selection of previously (I hope!) un-reviewed items that I just know you'll love reading about, some oldies scattered among the newies and some recent purchases mingling with the ancient booty. Can't say that it wasn't a pleasurable experience giving these platters a spin, with even the tried and trues serving to remind me as to what music used to mean back when there was that bared-wire line of intensity which seemed to permeate just about everything that was good, and that even included those Sweet singles that were hitting the top of the charts at the time! Let's face it, although you may still stomp and rave and wax poetic about rock 'n roll as that all-out mind-distorting beyond belief music, the plain fact is that it's really been dead 'n gone for quite a long time even to the point where it ain't even big in Japan anymore! A sad thought once you realize just how long it's been since high energy ruled the waves (and clubs and rock mags...), and if you don't think I'm the modern-day equivalent to those old-timey fogies you used to see as a kid who lived for old comic strips, radio shows and early-tee-vee even but seemed totally lost in a world of protesters, lawbreakers and people making excuses for the worst aspects of mankind well...you are right! I am (at this very moment even!) what those old war vets and hippie-hating curmudgeons of the past were, and looking back I can see all of the reason for their ire (and love of a past that slipped by too fast!) more than ever! Makes me want to spin a side of Glenn Miller before listening to my old World War II radio broadcast tapes of IT PAYS TO BE IGNORANT (the version with the comedy team of Tom Howard and George Shelton at the helm) while drinking lime rickeys, and I do mean it!

The Velvet Underground-LA CAVE 1968 CD (Keyhole UK); SQUEEZE CD (Kismet)

Not so surprisingly (considering how the band has been awarded supercult status for the past thirty-five years if not more) here come some Velvet Underground releases that, although not containing anything you'd even remotely say was "rare" and "crucial," just might fit into your own collection, mind and maybe even psyche nice and comfortably. Maybe not, but frankly I'd rather see my hard-begged go towards something along the lines of new Velvets disques of questionable legality than less essential items like food, shelter and of course that old standby fresh underwear. I mean, why buy all that when there are thousands of albums, singles, tapes and even Cee-Dees calling me like Sirens to a buncha sailors who haven't had any nookie for months on end!

LA CAVE 1968 is yet another issue of the infamous October '68 Cleveland gig which introduced Doug Yule to the world, and although this one has been around the block in various forms for the past thirtysome years who can deny that the people who released this really went to work on the sound quality improving it immensely from those nth generation dubs you paid $15 for back in 1979. Not that this sounds like a Windham Hill album by any stretch of the imagination (thankfully), but it does gain some clarity and cohesiveness in the process and hey, even some new trackage unheard by me via my own tape list trade has popped up making this the consumer buy of the year. And as anyone who's heard this 'un o'er the years can tell ya, the Velvets are pumping on all tubes here even though Mr. Yule had been in the band for only a good two or three days! Powerful enough that even those John Cale lovers who always thought the group took a nosedive when he left'll listen to this with rapt attention thinking to themselves that the band was just running on Cale gas fumes until the reality of Yule's presence in the organization was finally felt. They may be right, but at this point in time its like I could care less.

Believe it or not, but for all these years I have avoided listening to SQUEEZE, at least until this allegedly legit release on the Kismet label was released just recently! Yeah I was tempted to snatch this up way back '76 way considering just how much this post-Reed spin was an omnipresent import bin stuffer and that I was really wowed by the potency of LOADED, but naturally with my lack of funds it wasn't like I could indulge in every costly whim that would come before me. (Since I now have a real job I can now fulfill all of those empty teenage yearnings of mine, but a good three-plus decades later it just ain't as fun as if I had been able to splurge back when I was young with a mind as impressionable as Play Dough!) But hey, now that I've heard this sneakily packaged Doug Yule solo album all I gotta say is that it ain't as bad as the naysayers and effete rock critics made it out to be oh so long ago. Yeah it ain't anything along the lines of a "real" VU album, but Yule does a good enough job with some sly '71-period Grateful Dead musings that actually don't offend ("Dopey Joe"), Hackamore Brick-styled retro-flash ("Crash"), a sequel of sorts to "Sweet Jane" ("Jack and Jane"), some LOADED-inspired mishmosh that isn't as insulting as you'd think (forget which exact ones those are) and even this deca-glam number called "Louise" which sounds like something that the early Bearsville-period Sparks coulda worked wonders with! Once again proof that you just can't trust "rock critics" one iota like you thought you could, but then again could you ever take stock in what a geeky ass-licking gravy-train jumping big city self-important schmuck who's in the back pocket of a corrupt media and gangster-ridden industry has to say as if it ever would be intelligently thought out and true to one's soul 'stead of more churnout for twenty pieces of silver?

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MC5-THUNDER EXPRESS CD (Munster Spain)

From one important cult group to another, this time the usually incredible MC5 recorded live in the studio for French television and elsewhere. I really woulda preferred the Skydog issue of this given their all-important stature in the punk and bootleg canon, but this recent reissue on Spain's Munster label suits just spiffy and in fact comes off like what those tracks on KICK OUT THE JAMS would have sounded like had it been a studio album. The sound is professional, and not only that but there are some additional tracks to be found here that I don't think made the tee-vee broadcast (or at least the circulating videos) which makes this a boffo bargain bonanza especially in these penny pinching times! And to show us just what kind of give-the-customer-more-than-he-asks-for kinda guys Munster are, they stuck on the first MC5 single (the '68 revised for the High Energy crowd reissued version) at the end and although you've all heard that a millyun times a millyun and one certainly will not hurt!

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Various Artists-CBGB's AND THE BIRTH OF US PUNK CD (Ocho UK)

Said it before 'n I'll say it again, but these rather recent garage/punk/whatever it was being called at a certain point in time collections that have been coming out on small labels really do tickle my fancy! They all seem to come off as if somebody got the rights to a certain number of tracks and slapped 'em on a platter, and it was some outta work schlub's job to create some sort of tangentical connection outta the mess and write booklet notes tying all of the tracks together in some cohesive fashion. Surprisingly enough the results are usually stirring in a thematic way, even if most of these tunes are available somewhere in the reaches of my forty-plus-year-old record collection (well, I do consider my collection days beginning with the acquisition of the Mar-Ketts' "Batman Theme" which I won at a carnival back when I was seven even if I didn't get an honest-to-goodness record for at least another five years).

This set, purportedly having to do with the birth of the American punk rock scene and the importance of the famed NYC club CBGB in its growth and dissemination, is snatty enough even if you can tell right off the bat that the track selection is rather wobbly at best with a lotta things that don't quite fit the storyline popping up at the expense of tracks that the label probably couldn't wrangle the rights to. Still it all works out, and it even makes sense in a 1978 Greg Shaw-styled editorial way back when he was tracing the roots of late-seventies punk rock all the way to the mid-sixties garage band era thus helping to jack up the prices of albums one used to be able to score for mere pennies at any budget bin but now went for upwards of ten smackers a pop in collectors circles!

There is method in the madness even if the likes of the Seeds and Sonics weren't around for the CBGB scene and the Velvet Underground, Pere Ubu, New York Dolls, Suicide, the Heartbreakers and Wayne County were closer to the Max's Kansas City axis (and although I love the Electric Eels to the utmost they never even played a gig outside of Ohio so why slap 'em on here other'n to help fill in a line of rock evolution from the sixties garage bands to the late-seventies punks?). It's just a fun collection, a whole lot better'n the various punk history lessons that were coming outta ol' Blighty in the early-eighties, and it's programmed expertly enough that you don't mind sitting through a relative snoozer like the Dead Kennedys' "California Uber Alles" to get to the Dead Boys' "Sonic Reducer" one bit! The booklet notes even make more sense than you'd think given the high level of hackdom out there, and if there was any real fault with this 'un I'd say that it was presenting a Television track that originally appeared on their BLOW UP cassette release as a bonafeed CBGB recording. Oh well, I think I've made a few factual errors in my own scribing once or twice throughout the years...

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The Fundamentalists-"A CIRCLE IS NEVER COMPLETE" cassette (Walls Flowing, contact ubgun12@yahoocom for more information)

Gee, like I am one person who doesn't miss the eighties, especially the music! So what should appear in my mailbox just the other day but a cassette (masterminded by Bob Forward of OWN THE WHOLE WORLD fame) featuring some of the more noisome bedroom "cassette culture" clank heard in a good two decades! Tell you what, between the home appliance squeaks and the manipulated Ronald Reagan State of the Union speech it was just like 1983 all over again, and considering how that year was one of the worst for me on all fronts it wasn't like I was cherishing sitting through this garble one bit. Actually the rock 'n roll-y fragments do hold my attention span for their short duration, and maybe I should console myself that this could have sounded like a true eighties abomination that could have been birthed from the fetid imagination of a J. Neo Marvin or someone of his pansypunk ilk!

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Various Punks-PEBBLES VOL. 2 CD (AIP)

Twenty-year-old Cee-Dee cop of a thirty-five-year-old album that really helped expand my own rock history consciousness during a time when I thought NUGGETS was the first last and only word as far as any truthful garage band history went. Little did I know that the infamous Lenny Kaye compilation of mid-sixties proto-punkism was only the tippy top of the humongous iceberg and that albums such as the PEBBLES and BOULDERS series were merely the first steps in edjamacating us lumpen rock 'n rollers to the finer points of punk rock history! And no, it didn't all begin with Malcolm McLaren no matter how much the fraud woulda wanted us to believe so. (I mean, what do you think the real reason he had Sid Vicious and Jah Wobble splatter Nick Kent's gore all over the walls at that Sex Pistols gig? To cover his tracks, man!)

Volume two of this series was always one of my favorites. It was done up long before these collections of garage band obscurities lost their initial impact, and as far as sampling the pan-American scene it does a pretty swell job of it. I always liked the more pop-rock/Brit Invasion feel of #2 with the likes of the Choir belting out their mini-hit "It's Cold Outside" and Phil and the Frantics trying to fool everyone into thinking that their Zombies rip was their own creation. The Texas psychedelic aspect is also important from the pre-Z.Z. Top Moving Sidewalks and Zachary Thaks to Randy Alvey's "Green Fuz" each giving the Thirteenth Floor Elevators a run for the acid-damaged money. And of course who could ignore such classics as the Dovers' double-sided whammy (which proves that nasal voices were as much conduit to mid-sixties garage groups as fuzztone guitars), the Satans doing the "Can you guess my name" Rolling Stones schtick two years before BEGGARS BANQUET, and of course the Electric Prunes hawking Vox Wah-Wah Pedals! But hey, why did they ax the Litter's "I'm a Man" from this reish? Can't be due to copyright laws (as if Greg Shaw was paying attention to 'em in the first place), or maybe somebody from the group found out and threatened to bomp him a few times if he did put it on?

The bonus numbers are compatible to the entire thematic structure (such as it is), with yet another Choir side, the oft-used Avengers "Be a Caveman" and even more English rock "homages" including a keen "Tobacco Road" re-vamp. In all, this shouldn't have remained buried in the collection as long as it was, though why Shaw didn't re-publish the high-larious "A. Seltzer" liner notes from the original album is way beyond comprehension.

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GURU GURU CD (Osava)

Most krautsters consider this fourth Guru Guru release their last "real" album, and although I haven't heard any of these Jello Biafra faves' later-on material (not counting that "reunion" three-CD set with Damo Suzuki that fortunately had a bonus disque filled with a vintage live set to cure our boredom over the other sides) I'm more than likely to take their word for it. Nothing as stark or as intense as anything from their Ohr Records period here, but this final spin for the Brain label still has a load of that left-field punch and stamina that people who consider themselves krautskateers fondly remember the band for. Some jazz spazz here and hard 'n heaviness there, and what kinda fanabla would I be by not mentioning the Eddie Cochran medley where Mani Neumaier and his co-horts rework those classic rockabilly sides in their own special way! Not one of the better platters to have come out of early/mid-seventies Germany, but a durn sight better'n most of the albums that were coming out at the time 'n you better believe it!

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The Runaways-BORN TO BE BAD CD (Marilyn)

The original group from August '75, right after Kim Fowley published that infamous call to arms for a seventies girl group in the pages of BOMP and long before the actual living and breathing version of the act began inflicting El Lay clubs with their particular brand of hard metallic pop. The original trio (Joan Jett and Sandy West being joined by the soon to be axed Micki Steele) do have that El Lay street beat down pat, kinda comin' off like a cheap Sweet imitation with some bits and pieces of the Imperial Dogs and (maybe even) Atomic Kid tossed in for good measure. After hearing these romps through a variety of familiar and not-so originals and covers it's no wonder the staff of BACK DOOR MAN (or at least some of 'em) thought they saw the future of El Lay rock in the Runaways' teenage pudendal pounce!

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Sun Ra-SUN SONG, SOUND OF JOY CDs (Delmark)

Ra's first two from the late-fifties which won't dazzle those familiar with his more outre material but the "roots" can clearly be heard. Bop-period neo-Ellingtonian stylings abound here with only a tad trace of extraterrestrial jetstream. Just ignore the bonus vocal cuts on JOY and you'll do fine. Your (great) grandpappy might even enjoy it, so don't let him catch you listening to these lest you get the ribbing regarding how you're now listening to nice 'n wholesome music! At which point you'd do best to slip on a choice BYG or ESP side and bring it all back to reality.

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Dark Sunny Land-EMANATIONS FOR A RETURNING CD (Skachimawakee, try obtaining it via www.darksunnyland.com)

Comin' in right under the wire, here's the new release from Steven Painter a.k.a. Dark Sunny Land which, as you'd expect, is every bit as powerful as those other Dark Sunny Land and 12-Cent Donkey albums that have come out and have been ignored by people who I must admit are lesser beings than WE most definitely are! In case you were wondering, EMANATIONS FOR A RETURNING is, like Mr. Painter's other recording endeavors, stark ambient music (perhaps even in a "rock" vein) that for some not-so-strange reason reminds me of the early recordings of the infamous German duo Cluster. You don't exactly feel as if you are "floating on air" while listening to this (to use Greg Prevost's description of the early Cluster sound), but you are taken through a rather enticing aural trip that on one hand relaxes and the other creates a strangely eerie if enveloping emotional atmosphere. Listen closely and you'll even be able to discern the guitar and percussive lines amid the keyboard wash. Made for good late-evening listening last night and will most definitely be a nerve-calmer for weeks to come. Another hefty one to chalk up there, Steve, and too bad it came out so late in the year or else it might have garnered a mention in the year end wrapup. I mean, otherwise how would it look?

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In the sage words of Tim Moore as George "Kingfish" Stevens, I guess that's a wrap it up I'll take it! As things usually go, 'll see ya again midweek with a little enticer then next week with something a lot more substantial. Maybe even a Christmas-themed post though after last year's big Christmas Jeer I might just link that 'un up and let you relive your own Christmas miseries as well as mine! We'll see what will transpire, but until then hang in there and don't take any wooden Santas!

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! TROUBLE AT MELODY MESA (1948)

Actually this was filmed in 1944 but copyrighted in 1948. Actually it never was copyrighted which means that any unscrupulous turd who wanted to show this at his moom pitcher house or on his tee-vee station could do so w/o fear of reprimand. Actually, who'd want to see this film inna first place unless you're nostalgic for seventies-vintage UHF television viewing of cheap public domain westerns that somehow reflect the lost sense of chungeredness you've experienced at three in the morning only to be jolted out of your half-awake stupor by roll-a-sage chair commercials and public service announcements for the Army and Peace Corps (I mean, what better way to get the recruits in than to run ads in the middle of the night when all of the speed freaks and crossroads of life post-highschoolers are lined up in front of the boob tube!).

Actually since I'm one fellow who found loads of comfort and joy (to use a current holiday cliche of some worth) spending hot summer nights in the early-eighties watching movies along these lines with that brainless sense of awe permeating my entire being. Either that or I was just too lazy to get up and change the channel. But I wouldn't be lying if I told you that I do find that the monotone acting, nada musical numbers and re-rehashed plots quite exhilarating. Not to mention the quick film cuts lopping off loads of important dialogue at the end of reels. Even I knew that during this particular time in history we were at the tail end of a grand period in television when the last of the originators of the form were handing over the reigns to the new generation we all knew were gonna ruin the entire media beyond repair. And it was movies such as this, cheap westerns which had filled up television schedules since the post-World War II days, that seemed to make up a good portion of the late-movie/off-time filler at least until the nineties gave way to informercials and unbridled scatology. Who among us can claim not to have spend a sticky summer night watching films like TROUBLE AT MELODY MESA glued to the set either in transfixed awe, or perhaps because your flesh adhered to the naugahide recliner and you couldn't get up in a million years even if you tried!

Standard plot with bad guys out to get beautiful gal's ranch and a hero marshal (played with typical Quindlanesque aplomb by Brad King) on the case of a suspicious death. Of course there's a kid in there for youth identification, a comedic cook who can throw his voice and of course loads of cornpone humor that might work well on the comic pages but misses by a mile here. And if you think I know who any of the names of the actors who worked on this 'un are or what other mooms they've been in you're mistaken! But man if this didn't bring back memories of the early-eighties when films like this could be seen with relative ease, a time which for me represents the final years of Golden Age filler tee-vee being presented here and for free right before the PC clamp down banished such "trash" in favor of stiflingly serious dramas and humor that seem to serve no one but the darkest side of man's soul which should remain repressed rather than flaunted for all to see here in the dismal, future-less teens.

Christmas came early this year! I don't mean that one of my dreaded foes of the past or present got run over by a train (or better yet, something catastrophic happened to his/her significant other or spawn which is something I can also get off on!), but man did I get a hotcha enough Christmas present from none other than the infamous P.D. FADENSONNEN!!!!! Yes, the same guy who's been sending me all of these fantastic under-the-psychosis recordings that merge Can-like interstellar travelogues with WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT fidelity! Not only did Mr. Fadensonnen's package bring back fond memories of Christmas gifts past like the kind I got during my turdler years and directly after (the Corgi Toy Christmas of 1968 still dazzling me with those jeweled headlights), but for once I got a Christmas gift which for all intent purposes was actually useful in a non-socks or underwear way and will remember for a good twenty or so years after this fateful event!!!

What Fadensonnen did was...get this...send me some Cee-Dee-Are burns which I must say contain musics that fit in with the BLOG TO COMM mindset with not a spec of cereal filler inna batch either! Really, these platters that the man felt so kind to send my way consist of music that I actually can soak-in appreciate, as opposed to just settle back and listen to and pretend to like and all which is what seems to be the situation when it comes to a whole lotta pre-recorded soundage these days. Stuff that I would burn off the computer myself if the thing wasn't sicker'n Camille and coughing up electronic phlegm to add, or perhaps even bid on for exorbitant prices when something excrucuiatingly rare does transpire on ebay. In other words, music that has made up the DNA of my blueprint and backbone of my psyche for nigh on XXX years, and if I thought I'd ever live to see the day when material this hot and juicy was made available to mere lumpen proles like myself I woulda thought it woulda been the day after I expire considering the way fate works with me!

Got the opportunity to spin two of these to date, and naturally I first went for the more  eye-gouging in the stack considering that if I held off on 'em something drastic would naturally happen to me in the interim and poof goes my chance! The first of these disques consists of a Deviants/Pink Fairies-related sampler that was taken off of youtube (which is why I decided to download the music source for yourself below just so's you can make your own Cee-Dee or Dee-Vee-Dee for your own personal entertainment purposes) that still amazes me even though I've been around the septic tank more'n you! After a good umpteen years things like these just aren't supposed to dazzle here in the jaded teens but really, discovering the mere existence of these clips really is along the lines of archaeologists finding King Rooten-Tooten's turd cutter. I never thought material this long-suppressed would make its way to our eyes and ears in a millyun years, and considering the rarity of these items its obvious that these are mandatory listening for anybody who has claimed an allegiance to the whole Deviants/Pink Fairies/Twink/Larry Wallis axis ever since first setting sight on an import bin way back in the seventies.

The first Deviants-related offering is a outta-nowhere who woulda thunk it surprise, a film (with soundtrack!) of the group live in Hyde Park way back '69 way. After years of being told that no sixties-era Deviants material outside of the first three albums existed 'tis a gas noy only to listen to, but to see the group in action not only romping through a rather proto-Dr. Feelgood-ish pub rock r&b number (whose title escapes me...any help from the penis gallery?) but the standard set closer, the group's own version of "Sister Ray" which at this time has pretty much morphed into "Uncle Harry's Last Freak Out" (with only a "time time" from the original remaining!). In a word (or eleven), essential to the point where I can't even stand it anymore!

Following this piece of downright epiphany comes a more familiar yet still essential clip of the Pink Fairies leading that fife and drum corp at the 1971 Glastonbury Fayre festival, this bit not appearing on the three-album set but still a good enough in capturing the essence and spirit of hippie punkdom at a time when I don't think anybody outside of Greg Shaw knew it existed.



And as far as the Fairies got howz'bout this bit taken from a French television program back '73 way? Somebody break out the Berlitz French/English dictionary and be quick about it!



If that wasn't boffo enough, hold onto your 'nads, for the following French tee-vee clip features none other than UFO back when future Pink Fairy Larry Wallis was their guitar slinger! As you will discover, the group seems about half-way between their original garage-punky sound back when Mick Bolton was handling the guitar doodies and the straight-ahead metallic stylings of their Michael Schenker days and if you want my 'umble opin'yin I must say that Wallis does more'n an admirable job keeping this from being some seventies rock wank we all could do without! Its too bad they hadda split so acrimoniously given the friction between Wallis and longtime lead singer Phil Mogg because if Wallis stayed with the group like, maybe they coulda been underground gryphons!



Closing out the disque was this bit of Larry Wallis live on the infamous Stiffs Live tour which begat the album that everybody bought because Elvis Costello, Ian Dury and Nick Lowe were posing on it with those nobodies Wreckless Eric and Wallis. Or something like that, but anyway here's a clip of Wallis doing the song that probably earns him more in royalties yearly than a plumber makes in a week, "Police Car"...

Also spun was a Sonny Sharrock platter that fortunately gathers the rarities in one neat place this saving me plenty of precious space as well as the opportunity to lose ten different Cee Dee's, tapes, records and whatnot all over the house once they get scattered. It certainly was a joy finally getting to hear THE GREEN LINE especially considering how I more or less gave up on this '70 album which would either be out of stock or going for extremely high bids via ebay. Gotta admit that it's not as outre or stunning as either MONKEY-POCKIE-BOO or BLACK WOMAN but it still holds up, with Sharrock and his bandmates (Miroslav Vitous, Steve Marcus and Daniel Humair) going through funk to midweight jazz to avant garde back and forth up and down and in all making a better album than I even was expecting. Even more ear-opening's the FM radio broadcast from WKCR-FM in En Why See I believe featuring some studio recordings from Sonny and eventually ex-wife Linda's mid-seventies outfit which went by the name Savages. More or less an early version of the group that would record PARADISE for Atco the following year, these tracks sound like rehearsals for that album, though without the presence of a keyboardist adding Mellotron wash all over the place these definitely are an improvement. Closing the platter's the rare SPACE GHOST EP which features some mighty near-metallic playing on Sharrock's part that I only wish I knew about at the time just sos' I coulda been cheerleading for it like I was all of those other Sharrock rarities that were being discovered left and right. Too bad the guy croaked the way he did right when it looked as if his talents would have begun to pay off in the moolah department, but at least he existed long enough to make this particularly powerful (and even commercial!) statement!

More Fadensonnen offerings (including a sneak peak at a future release!) are in the forecast for future funtime jollies but they'll have to wait until next week. And for all intent purposes the week after as well. I mean, I don't wanna shoot my entire Christmas wad all at once now and risk the chance of overdose now, do I?

*** 

Also spun during the warm 'n toasty evening hours was a relative recent recording, in fact one that was laid down at the infamous Knitting Factory (gotta say that Rudolph Grey's not the only one who hates that name!) just the past November (the 15th to be exact!) The name of the act was Lydia Lunch Retrovirus and the set this act laid down was one that I gotta say even startled a usually jaded ol' stroon such as myself! This new act features, besides the infamous nightengale herself Lydia Lunch, Weasel Walter on guitar 'stead of the usual drums, Algis Kizys (a name that does pop up once in awhile) on bass guitar and former whole buncha groups Bob Bert on drums and I gotta say that they sure do the whole very early-eighties Lunchian schtick with total grace and even some sparks of brilliance. The material to be found here is not only entertaining (as in a night on the town with a tux even!) but even inspired...I mean, whoever thought of ending the set with Alice Cooper's "Black Juju" was using all eight cylinders considering how such a track was more or less custom made for the likes of Lunch's vocal cords. The only really startling thing about this 'un is the way the lady sounds these days, all bleated out for her voice is deeper and starting to get a bit gravelly beyond her once teenage years. By the way she sings Lydia reminds more of that old bag in the school cafeteria dishing out the fried baloney sandwiches than the enfant terrible abomination of yore 'n yeah, I know we can't all be pimplefarm suburban slob kids anymore but hearing this really made me feel older than a NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC in a dentist's waiting room. At least no pictures came with this, because after hearing her sing I'd hate to see what she looks like nowadays!

***

Over the years, I've discovered that it's just as exhilarating an experience reading about H. L. Mencken as it is reading Mencken. Maybe even more so, for most of the articles out there regarding the Bard of Baltimore are filled with hefty choice quotes the man spewed forth during his rather stellar and controversial career, and although you will have to put up with whoever wrote the piece's various dissections, interpretations and biased opinions regarding what you just read with your own eyes at least you're getting a choice hunk of the man's actual writings that you can let soak into you like an olive oil sunscreen. All this is just an introduction to an article I came across (on the always boffo TAKI'S MAGAZINE site) that gets into the meaning and motion of Mencken, and frankly I gotta say that the views and opines expressed really nail what the guy was all about flat straight on the head (though I must admit that I wasn't aware of his eugenicist leanings, which I must say I find even uglier than all of the other "disturbing" opines that still tend to get tenderfoot political theorists all in a tither). Be forewarned, the piece was written by Jared Taylor of AMERICAN RENAISSANCE notoriety which might turn more than a few of you socially aware types off faster'n IT'S WHAT'S HAPPENIN', BABY, but I believe it's a much better piece'n what somebody at THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF REVIEWS might have come up with racist shudders and ethnic cringes included so don't bark until you've read the bite!

***

While I'm on a hot buttered roll, here's yet another good 'un, this time from Taki regular Guy Somerset who pretty much sums up my own opinions regarding "women" and I don't mean ladies. Given the amt. of hefty horse doody that these "females" have been slinging our way these past few decades all I gotta say is well, it's sure grand reading something sensible and irrefutable with regards to "gender equality" and other brainy college constructs these sad 'n sorry days. In other words SEGREGATION (between human beings and "women") is the rule for the day, and the sooner we pack all of them whiny libber types into Camp Runamuk the better we don't have to put up with all of that hideous twisting of reality where boys are raised as girls and generation after generation of Judy Hennslers have been nurturned and encouraged for a longer time than I can imagine!

***

Other'n the Fadensonnen sampler and a few other tidbits that'll hafta wait for a bigger, "theme-oriented" post, here's what's been spinnin' on the ol' boom box these past seven or so dayze. A few newies and a couple long-forgottens amongst the mix, and if I tell you that a good time was had by all I'd be a bigger liar than the guy who told me he had seen the future of rock 'n roll and it was Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam!

BARR SHEA DAHL CD (ugEXPLODE)

I didn't know what I was gonna be in for after taking a look of the weirdo hippie onna cover, but if I were you I wouldn't let that get in the way of actually enjoying this disque. Anyway the pic here's a composite of features from all three members of this group (who, surprisingly enough), go by the names Barr, Shea and Dahl and who on their lonesome probably do not look as frightening as the chap seen to your left. The music, on the other hand, will frighten the weaker of heart among us with its downright full-on guitar attack and pounding percussion and thudding bass guitar that makes a racket that's not surprisingly equal parts rock 'n roll (of the outer reaches variety) but avant garde jazz at its extreme glory. If the words DAILY DANCE do not pop into your mind almost immediately please enroll in the rock refresher course of your choice post-haste, or even sooner if you can manage that.

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Cabaret Voltaire-LIVE YMCA 27.10.79 CD (Mute England)

I dunno if I could really call YMCA an old favorite, but it sure brings back pleasant enough memories for me. Well, it at least brings back oft-forgotten mental images not only of me prowling the import bin at RECORD REVOLUTION in Cle Hts. during my Christmas break which is where I might have picked this 'un up to begin with (but I doubt it), but it sure conjures up old feelings regarding just how the whole Rough Trade thing was something that made for a hefty and perhaps even healthy obsession around the time 1979 was clocking into 1980. Whether I first heard this 'un in 1980 or 1987 (when I think I finally did buy it) is irrelevant at this point for...after a good two or so decades of on/off interest I can proudly say that perhaps the idea and concept behind Cabaret Voltaire has finally hit me hard right between the psyche like it shoulda oh so long ago.

In other words, I certainly can NOT relate to Cabaret Voltaire as a proto-dance rock-y neo-disco electronic outfit that signified the decline of a once-interesting music movement over in Blighty, but as a buncha oldsters who were in on the glorious Velvets/Can axis of sound distillation into electronic pulse and doin' it long before I discovered this particular breed of poison yeah, it WORKS! Wonderful cassette-recorded pulse that's born and bred just as much of Neu! and Kraftwerk as it is Lou and Ig, complete with harrowing covers of "Here She Comes Now" and the Seeds' "No Escape" for added NUGGETS measure! A downright winner that makes me feel as if I'm on an eternal Christmas break with nothing to do but scarf up little hunks of foil-wrapped gouda!

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Tom Waits-TALES FROM THE UNDERGROUND CD-R (originally on PMS)

Don't think this 'un's legitimate by any stretch of the imaj, but considering that I got it free with an order of equally illicit goodies a few years back and stashed it away it ain't like I'm callin' the Better Business Bureau. Tom Waits recorded in the studio and who-knows-where, doing everything from the standard titties and beer nighthawk routine to Johnny Cash impersonations and other sundries. Actually made for good Sunday afternoon listening while I plowed through a box of old rock magazines. If you're one who was in on the hipster pose back when Steve Allen and Jean Shepard were broadcastin' it and Harvey Kurtzman was publishin' it and came to age around the time Frank Zappa was honing the fifties dabblings into har-har-har-dee-har-hardcore sixties realism, you'll probably go for a spin or two of this in between Soupy Sales videos.

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William Parker-CENTERING 6-CD set burn (No Business)

Just in time to qualify for best jazz release of the year comes this brand-spanking-fresh-new set courtesy none other than Paul McGarry! And it was lifted from a box set (released this year) of rare sessions and live appearances by none other than jazz bassist William Parker! Now Parker never did get the fame or notoriety that fellow avant bassists from Henry Grimes and Alan Silva on down have and frankly I don't know if this collection of '76-'87-era recordings is gonna rectify any situations. But whatever the case may be this sure is a hotcha sampling of the man's work throughout the seventies and eighties when loft jazz was briefly in bloom and it seemed as if the even newer jazz was going to attain an audience beyond the same few free jazz nuts who kept the New Music Distribution Service afloat at least before that became too monstrous a thing for anybody to do!

Now I wouldn't say there was anything here that really strikes me as being transcendental the way you felt when things like INTERSTELLAR SPACE and FREE JAZZ first penetrated your bean, but these six slabs are still an amazing MONUMENT for a guy who I don't think even a rag such as THE WIRE had the opportunity to dissect like some smelly old frog. From solos with saxist/trumpeter Daniel Carter (how I'd once again love to experience his group Storm who did a beyond-energy one-off show at the old CBGB Lounge way back in the middle portion of the previous decade!) to various ensemble performances, these platters really capture the place and space where the free music scene was stationed between the brief flurry of mid-seventies major label interest and modern-day apathy, and they do a pretty good spanking job rep\resenting a good hunk of Parker's leadership talents too.

The performances aren't quite all-out AACM clang or BAG funk-rock, but slow, moving, intertwining and sheesh, almost chamber music! With top-notch new jazz performers from Rashied Bakr (original Blue Humans drummer) and Charles Gayle to Billy Bang and Denis Charles (he's the one who added that strange percussive pulse to Sandy Bull's DEMOLITION DERBY album), CENTERING is an unexpected surprise that serves to remind us all that the avant garde vanguard never did die out even if for all intent purposes the jazz establishment (which as always feigned faint praise and delivered no vital support for the free scene) seems to wish it was.

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TASAVALLAN PRESIDENTTI CD (Love Records, Finland)

Well, I did mention that I might pick this 'un up due to Lester Bangs' recommendations way back in a '69 ROLLING STONE and I can't say that I'm totally sorry I plunked down my hard-begged for it either. At least I now know what this long-heralded Finnish jazz-rock group sounds like, and while they're not exactly the Blood Sweat and Tears clones some made 'em out to be (though vocalist Frank Robson does sound too much like David Clayton Thomas for comfort) they're certainly not the inspired continental style of rock group blasting forth the same style of nova music that Savage Rose and Can were making just around the same nanosecond. Better moments capture some sort of post-Soft Machine/Canterbury elegance but that usually gets washed away by a rather commercial prog/jazz bent that probably wouldn't do a thing (positive) for you unless you're one of those new fluff jazz aficionados and want to try out something a little more toe tapping. The strange thing about it is, considering how 95% of all Finns are inbred these guys could be related to Miriam Linna and that's a frightening thought, especially for Miriam!

***

Yeah, I know this post has the look, feel and rhythm of a hastily pecked out, tossed together post and all, I make no bones about it, because right not (at this stage in my existence) I feel like a hastily pecked out, tossed together human being about three steps away from the scrap heap! Even so, I hope to be back in the saddle for the usual mid-week post and of course a bigger one this weekend unless the worst happens which, given my recent track record, probably will.

BOOK (AND CD) REVIEW! PICTURES OF SOUND; ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF EDUCED AUDIO 980-1980 by Patrick Feaster (Dust-To-Digital, 2012)

The idea of "educed sound," that being the ability to capture audio from printed material that was not intended to be reproduced as sound and in fact might have been created before technology would have even made such an idea thinkable, is one that really stretches the boundaries regarding what lost fragments from the past there are which can be retrieved here in the computer savvy present. Patrick Feaster has done just that with his canny abilities to take early (and visually) recorded sound patterns and translate them to sound...in fact, you might have remembered when, a few years ago, he took such an example of sound patterns (which were not intended to be reproduced as sound but to study how voice and music could be produced visually) that were created by a Edouard Leon Scott de Martinville and, through the abilities of modern computer savvy, was able to create the sound of the man singing the French classic "Clare de Lune" that was made in the year of 1860!

That one appears on the enclosed disque, though at a slower, more distorted speed that pretty much hides the snappy melody under a pile of hiss and distortion. Actually, many of the educed audio that appears on the recording accompanying this rather engaging read are distorted to the point you think you're listening to some bedroom avant gardist from the eighties, but the whole idea of translating early written down formations of patterns into actual sound is so brilliant you can't help but congratulate Feaster for his efforts and hope that the technology of the future will uncover even more lost artifacts of the past that hopefully will pave the way for a better future (though I doubt it).

It's uncanny just thinking of how we have advanced in the realm of science to the point where Feaster could actually take an advertisement showing a printed recording made by long-time raconteur Chauncey Depew that appeared in a late-nineties issue of COSMOPOLITAN and derive sound from the groove patterns presented therein! Or in fact take various "phonophotography" featuring early gospel quartets and actually get some semblance of sound for his efforts. Some of this does seem far fetched with results that really don't say anything special to me (such as the translation of the FBI "Sound Spectrum") but when Feaster takes early scrolls and gets 17th century compositions out of them, or Russian folk melodies from transcribed patterns I can't help but feel that something long-gone and crucial has been recaptured for the present. It would be like if the long decayed beyond belief films of the past could be restored (or in some cases even recovered) to pristine beauty with a science that at this point in time is far beyond our grasp but someday will allow people to see images we long thought existed only in the minds of the few who could remember.

A fantastic effort which FORCED EXPOSURE has been selling as of late, though if you want to get it from the source click on the link above which will take you not only to the Dust-To-Digital website where you can order this, but fill you in on even more educed audio that Feaster is continuing to produce for perhaps an even newer edition of this worthwhile endeavor.

Yeah I know, you want me to dispense with the usual introductory chin flap and get to the meat 'n gristle, right? Well, who says that I don't treat my readers for more (or less, depending) than they're worth anyway...

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO 45th ANNIVERSARY SUPER DELUXE EDITION 6-CD set and book (Polydor)

Like yeah, I wasn't gonna get it. And you all know why by now. With my limited monetary resources it ain't like I'm really up to buying recordings (no matter how life-reaffirming and essential they may be) that I already have in various formats. Nor am I that hot on all of these "special edition" releases featuring the same-old tracks that are finally getting the royal carpet treatment. And as we all know, these "new" and "improved" releases are only going to be upgraded even more within the span of a few years time so why buy 'em now? I mean yeah, if this 45th anniversary reissue of that all-time wowzer THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO is gonna be the ultimate last word in what this platter means in the annals of eternal rockism, then can you imagine what the FIFTIETH anniversary collection will have? Not to mention the 75th and 100th for that matter which really makes me wanna stick around to be 107 because can you imagine all of the money I will be saving by not buying these earlier special editions which just toss at'cha the same old mixes plus whatever newies might get discovered in the interim?

And so it comes, this time in a hard-covered book with almost 100 glossy pages covering the early Velvet Underground saga that's just chock brimming fulla photos showing our fave rave group creating art or just hanging around like all of our fave rave groups do. Not only that, but the cover comes complete with a peelable banana giving it even more class, and there's not one or two but six Cee-Dees filled with aural booty that captures the sound and aura of what the Velvet Underground meant and continues to mean for the countless number of fans out there whether they be sixties originals or seventies CREEM maniacs, or youngsters who just caught up with everybody else and think that this group's the neatest!

To which I say "so what!" We've seen all of those once-rare snaps over and over (and over and over even more in this age of instant internet), and it should be common fact that I and just about any Velvet cultist can write the entire story in our sleep complete with the obligatory nods to David, Iggy and Patti (and of course REM at least to endear ourselves to classic FM radio corporate interests), not to mention have to endure a re-re-repeat of that oft-quoted Eno blurb about how everybody who bought the 30-thou copies this album way back when were inspired to form their own band. In fact, let me try writing this book in MY sleep...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..."Although highly reviled during their lifetime, the Velvet Underground have been noted by various people whose first names are David, Iggy and Patti to have sold 30-thou copies of their album which Eno blurbed influenced REM to form a classic FM radio corporate interest." Well, yeah, maybe I shouldnt't've taken all of those Ny-Quils before hitting the hay, though it does come off better'n some of the stuff I've written while conscious!

But hey, I chickened out and bought this, not only because I felt it was my own sacred duty to the aforementioned cult of the Velvet Underground (seed planted when that weird Swan-covered collection hit the bins at JC  Penney's) but because frankly there wasn't much else out there that was worth burning a hole in my pocket and I figured why not? And for once I made a wise choice, for THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO  45th ANNIVERSARY SUPER DELUXE EDITION actually fills the bill not only for the nouveau Velvet Underground fanatic (who I imagine as some mid-forties upwardly-spiraled Jeannie Garofalo fan who still wets bed ecstatically over each and every one of the "new" Velvet Undergrounds that have been coming out these past ten or so years), but with the "old" and in fact "ancient" Velvets crazies (coots like us who first heard about 'em in the pages of CREEM or even CRAWDADDY for all I know and gave up on banking hope re. any "new" Velvets somewhere around the time A New Order came into the public consciousness).

First the book. Not bad actually, especially when I had an inkling that it was going to be yet another re-hash of histories I've already praised to the hilt over the years done up in a postmodern sickly fashion. Or worse yet, a sad-sack look through 45 years of rose-colored hindsight written by a scion of the "new" Velvets fandom who always seemed so frail that a light breeze'd topple him over. Ritchie Unterberger wrote this 'un, and although what he did jot down here is a far cry from the jam-packed, indulgent information he relayed to us in his VU day-by-day tome a few years back it's still vital enough with even some recently-uncovered mini-bits of historical tweaking that you'll be glad you found out about. The pix are basically the same 'uns we've seen over and over, but if you look hard enough you might notice a few outtakes from some of the more familiar photoshoots that'll have you doing headspins given your anal-retentive obsessive over the subject matter. Maybe not, but they're here for your eyeballing if you so desire to.

It's the music that we're really interested in, and as far as presenting it as it is supposed to be heard goes at least Polydor did a good job. Now, I don't really care for alternative mixes or mono vs. stereo or any of that HIGH FIDELITY AND STEREO REVIEW hi-fi nut stuff that seemed the realm of an early-sixties-looking guy in horn-rimmed glasses and a necktie who fiddled with his knobs in lieu of swinging a few on the golf course, so the first two platters here aren't anything special to me outside of containing some of the better rock 'n roll music to have been heard in the sixties or for that matter since. But they sound good in any fashion...mono, stereo or even quad if there was a mix of that around even though I can't imagine some long-hair sitting on a pad inside of four speakers listening to anything on these platters! The alternate takes and single versions that close out the disques do matter to me, and although there ain't anything on these that's so different from the original takes to make you wanna do a li'l shoplifting at least you do get to hear some of your favorite elpee moments once again before the disque clicks off, and the slight differences you may be able to notice will probably perk your ears up more'n Lassie's!

The inclusion of Nico's CHELSEA GIRL as disque #3 might have been inspired, but like you I already have this 'un so the question is...why? True, this is as important to the early-Velvets canon as all of those weirdities like "Loop" and "Noise," but I wish more would have been added to pad out the platter into something that would have been a little more...cohesive? (Break out your own thesauruses to find a suitable way to express my, and probably your, disappointment that more wasn't tacked on to at least bolster the CHELSEA GIRL credo the way it should have been.) At least disque 4 has not only the oft-bootlegged Scepter Studios tracks but some of the Andy Warhol Museum rehearsal tapes, and they sure sound fab! Not a skip or crackle to be heard here, and even with the noise-reduction and editing hijinx these sound a whole lot better'n they had on the reams of bootlegs we've been buying over the past few decades. (I will admit that I did notice some awkward editing on "Waiting For My Man" but I don't want to go gettin' anybody involved with this 'un in trouble so mum's da woid!) Gee, I thought that the issuing of any more Velvet rarities was being held up in court...well, at least the presence of these tracks gives me hope that all of those rumored rarities from the early Falling Spikes and Warlocks-era rehearsals to a studio "Sweet Sister Ray" will be eventually released, and post haste as well since it ain't like I got all day!

Closing out the set are two platters taken from the infamous Valleydale Ballroom in Columbus from December of 1966, and after giving these a listen all I can say is TECHNOLOGY TOTALLY TRIUMPHS once again! Dunno what they're doing nowadays, but these recordings actually sound rather clear and distinct compared with the previous bootlegs and cassettes that have been flying around for years, even to the point where you can hear someone yelling for a "Doug" (undoubtedly Doug Snyder of DAILY DANCE and Sick Dick and the Volkswagens fame) at some point during the festivities. Now these tapes don't sound crystal clear to the point where you can hear the pimples forming on Lou Reed's forehead during a particularly stirring solo, but they're close enough for a legitimate early-mid-sixties live platter and that's more'n good enough for me!

Hokay, it ain't the totally-enveloping selection of ne'er before heard songs and stuff so rare even Lou forgot about it muckity muck we've given up hoping for, but it's nice enough a tribute you'll feel good enough plunking your filthy lucre down for. As far as it adding to the legend goes, well I don't know if the legend really needs anything more added to it since it's already larger than any of us would have imagined, so let's just say that this 45th anniversary blowout compliments everything we've loved about the Velvet Underground with perhaps a few more bonus points tossed in for good measure. Only real beef with this package is that the Cee-Dees are packed tightly in these inserts in the back of the book, and it can be a real struggle to try to get 'em out w/o marring the precious disque surface! Somebody shoulda thought of that beforehand, unless the folk at Polydor just thought this was a book for showin' off and nobody'd even think of playing these things once let alone over and over again in a thousand years! And given what Lester Bangs once said about people who owned WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT just because it was a hip thing to do even though they never actually played it well, I wouldn't doubt Polydor's actions one bit!

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JOHN CAGE SHOCK VOLUMES 1, 2 and 3 CDs (EM Records Japan, available via Forced Exposure)

Those of you who were concerned that I wasn't going to get the triple Cee Dee version of the two-LP JOHN CAGE SHOCK collection which I reviewed awhile back feel free to exhale, for I was able to snatch up the scratch for the complete set of recordings made during the infamous Cage tour of Japan during the month of October in the year of 1962. It's a dandy too...unfortunately the recording of "Fontana Mix" with Ms. L herself Yoko Ono I've been wanting to hear ever since reading about it in LENNON DISMEMBERS ain't on here, but we do get to hear some additional trackage which'll slay ya even if none of it was composed or performed for that matter by Mr. Cage. Fans of Karlheinz Stockhausen will surely like listening to his "Klavierstiik X" performed by the tag team of David Tudor and Toshi Ichiyanagi, while Christian Wolff  gets his "Duo For Pianist & Violinist" worked out for perhaps the first time ever in the annals of history. The comparatively unknown Toru Takemitsu and Michael von Biel are also represented on these platters, and if anything their efforts prove that they coulda been as well-known and as popular as the likes of Cage or Stockhausen if they had only hit the right art patrons at the right time. But they didn't, so it's zilch string for alla 'em bub!

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Paul Flaherty/Sam Gas Can/White Limo-MYSTERY TRIANGLE LP (Feeding Tube Records)

A document of a festival I have the feeling very few readers of this blog would have cared to attend. As for myself I probably wouldn't want to either, but that's only because I've become too much of a bedroom-bound ball of blubber these past few decades to consider making it outside of the Tri State Area even if it were to go see the Electric Eels reunite on a bill with the Sidewinders (also reuniting) opening. But still it sounds as if it were a mighty fine time...Paul Flaherty wails a whole side of free avant garde sax splat not as studious as Anthony Braxton or guttural as Roscoe Mitchell but still better'n many of the newer players who seem to be lacking a little more than heart and soul in their embouchure. Sam Gas Can on the other han' make such an annoying electronic barrage (with some rather creepazoid vocalese thrown in) that only a fan of latterday Dredd Foole could appreciate it (and I must admit that I do as well), whilst White Limo don't do much better with their manipulated tape conglobuating but I'll take it over 1986 college radio playlists any day! You can tell a fine time was had by all, though whether or not you'll be able to face the music remains to be seen.

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Amon Duul II-DANCE OF THE LEMMINGS CD (Mantra, France)

If you don't think my plunking this 'un outta the collection and givin' it a spin was not inspired by the Lester Bangs writeup mentioned in last Wednesday's review of the EUROCK collection you're in an even sadder state than I've originally given you credit for! And maybe it's because I used to stare at this 'un while perusing the import section of White Wing Records in Niles Ohio that I have such an affection for it not only because the double-disc set had such a hefty price tag on it and I'd never be able to afford the thing given my depression-era wages, but the credit listing on the back had such a nice array of instruments next to the various musicians' names and just seeing all of those instruments, no matter how humble and  lowly they may be, really hit me hard right inna labonza!

And of course who wouldn't want to know what tracks sporting titles as mind-consuming as "Dehypnotized Toothpaste" and "A Short Stop at the Transylvanian Brain Surgery" sounded like? Not to mention "The Marilyn Monroe Memorial Church"??? Yeah, maybe you could take it or leave it a good four decades after having seen it all, but what if you were a sixteen-year-old loathsome blob of jangled nerves and pustules like me? Yeah, if any album on the earth was created for a species such as myself it would undoubtedly have to be this!!!

So all these years later, and a good twenny years after eventually picking this up on Cee-Dee all I can say is that if I had heard this 'un back '76 way it probably would have affected me more than WOLF CITY (which was more or less the concepts of the first four Amon Duul II albums boiled down to steady song structures and perhaps even some radio play) or even the krautpunk fantasies of CARNIVAL IN BABYLON and VIVE LA TRANCE which were cutout classics by that time yet not quite as energetic or powerful which is why they ended up on the sell pile within a few years. It's rather obvious that Bangs was right and Julian Cope was wrong about this particular item which contains some of the best sprawled out mindshatter that used to get classified as "psychedelic" until that became too overused a cliche to wrangle, and as it stands LEMMINGS is perhaps one of the closest examples of krautrock outside of Can (even more so than Faust!) which not only summed up all of the better aspects of late-sixties rock trends, but predicted what was gonna be comin' down the line within a few short years (Pere Ubu anyone?). And although you've heard it from me and many others for years on end until you can recite it in your nightmares, let me reiterate that this has as much power and conviction in its grooves that sure adds up to it being more than Germany's answer to the Airplane or Dead, but a bona-fide Velvet Underground to Can's Stooges and I don't know where Guru Guru fit in but it's sure gonna be fun sorting out the whole influence and correlation mess these outta-the-way scenes sure can generate!

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Charles Mingus-THE BLACK SAINT AND THE SINNER LADY CD (Impulse)

Regarding this '63 Mingus platter, Lester Bangs said "This was IT! Babies being born, taxicabs honking, people fucking, couples fighting, the cries of lonely anguish that no one else hears in solitary rooms, children laughing, insurgents and guerrillas clashing, people of all sorts crying, shouting and whooping for joy, stunned at the crossroads, and some of them dying." Hokay, I know I've been using the memory of Bangs as way too much of a crutch these past umpteen years (even though Wayne McGuire has usurped him on many a level) in order to unsuccessfully support my own theories and opines regarding music as a clarion call to the disaffected and downright frothing...after all if you won't listen to me you might listen to him...but right now I'm having what'cha'd call a severe pain in the right kneecap of my creative impulses and boy do I feel lame in the spirit enough that I could try out for the Raymond Burr role in a remake of IRONSIDE, or at least Tiny Tim in a local grade school production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL that always features the goofiest boy with the buckest teeth playing Ebenezer Stooge.

I can see Bangs' appreciative nod to this 'un, and in fact can imagine his fifteen-year-oldness spinning BLACK SAINT repeatedly on some battered Victrola while his mother was waiting tables unaware her spawn was playing hookey. I mean, what better way to spend a carefree day off while all the other kids were probably learning the finer points of Hugo Winterhalter in music class that very minute. But yeah, this is a great long sprawl that goes from mood and style faster'n Anastasia Pantsios used to change pads, with a blast of hotcha avant garde jazz here before sweeping into Duke Ellington wash there and tone poems all over the blasted thing. Sure it was stuff those stuck up pseudointellectuals would listen to, but it was a load lots better'n the Brothers Four or even lumpy ol' Joan Baez as far as outer realms of a person's own hotcha mettle went. Anybody who'd tell me they were spinning Mingus in those proto-protest days will earn some boffo no prizes in my book, while those who'd admit a Baez affection probably still live in treehouses and make gravestone rubbings while reciting Chaucer in the wilds and that's no jive, Clive!