Unlike many of you longtime BLOG TO COMM readers, I must admit that THE MANY LOVES OF DOBIE GILLIS wasn't exactly a show that was burned into my kiddie growing up days psyche as fondly as, say THE LUCY SHOW or Bob "Maynard G. Krebs" Denver's future series GILLIGAN'S ISLAND were. And although I am old enough that I could have remembered at least part of the series' final season with ease, I don't recall anybody having this 'un blaring away on the boob tube the same way that ANDY GRIFFITH or McHALE'S NAVY were prime time favorites here at BLOG TO COMM central. In fact, the only time I can recall DOBIE being watched around here was when I was of kindergarten age and the show had slipped into the pre-prime time syndication package slot at seven PM...the local station was showin' the one where perennial Dobie-chaser Zelda's family's swimming pool got repossessed by the bank leaving 'em with one big hole in their backyard, a line I do recall my mother laughing high-lariously at although the only thing I can recall that fateful night was the realization that one of the guys on that show was Gilligan with a beard!

So now, after years of watching bits and pieces of the series via inviting myself over to people who have cable's houses and tuning into low-wattage UHF stations while holed up in various motels I finally get the opportunity to settle back and enjoy the entire series, more or less in chronological order and in a variety of qualities ranging from good to severe thunderstorm warning! In many ways my viewing of these long-running and still-remembered episodes was almost like a sworn solemn duty to my own youth and upbringing, or at least if I went through my existence (won't call it "life") without doing so I would feel less a man. That's only because DOBIE GILLIS, in its own goofball way, epitomized the boffo 1959-1963 span in time which has been getting quite a few knocks for being so white and privileged, but in retrospect sure comes off a whole lot better'n being multikultural and fearful for your life just because somebody thinks you looked at him the wrong way!

In no way could I call DOBIE a "realistic" series the same way LEAVE IT TO BEAVER (suburban slob growing up) or THE ADVENTURES OF OZZIE AND HARRIET (kinda like sneaking a peek at your aunts 'n uncles while they weren't looking) were, but it did make for fine settle down with a bowl of popcorn  and don't get any butter on the furniture entertainment. And after watching the entire run of DOBIE one thing's for certain, and that is had DOBIE been running weeknights locally during my teenbo year I'd've been front 'n center watching 'stead of lusting after electrolytes in my science book like I was supposed to do! Good acting, good ensemble rapport and (most of the time) good scripts made DOBIE a four-season wowzer, and it didn't hurt that a lotta flipped out, almost screwball humor was tossed in that lent a certain dimension to the series that helped separate it from some of the lesser efforts hitting the boob tube at the time (witness the rather timely BEN CASEY spoof). Fortunately for us this element worked because ever since day one (and probably even until today) various fringe-y developments in an almost surreal fashion had been crammed into sitcoms, and although Don Fellman may disagree most of the ones I've seen fall flatter'n my arches after a hard day at the salt mines. And if I wanna watch surreal humor it better be via DOBIE GILLIS than MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE or THE DAYS AND NIGHTS OF MOLLY DODD!!!

Dwayne Hickman as Dobie was perfect as the girl-crazy if slightly nerdoid kid (at first bleached blonder'n Leee Black Childers) who's always in some sort of fix over money to support his girls or his inability to obtain some new piece that comes his way or his own self-shame over his lack of big time luck in the rocks off department. It's obvious just how much Hickman borrows from none other than Jack Benny from his on-screen monologues next to the omnipresent statue of "The Thinker" to his various mannerisms and speech patterns (witness Dobie's reaction to Zelda scrunching her face at him which comes rather close to Benny's perennial "Now cut that out!" quip)...kinda makes you wonder why Benny didn't sue given the overt similarities! Of course Bob Denver as the watered-down tee-vee beatnik (albeit by the time the show was winding down the only thing actually beat about the guy was his "chin spinach") Maynard G. Krebs was just about as boffo a second banana as Ed Norton was to Ralph Kramden that you kinda think that he was gonna steal the show just like Art Carney almost did at times. Of course Frank Faylen and Florida Friebus as Dobie's folks were good enough if kinda irritating (especially Faylen, whose catch-phrase "I'm gonna murder that boy!" was soon to be axed perhaps due to sponsor pressure), though even a non-watcher of THAT SEVENTIES SHOW such as myself could see that the pair would more or less be models for the Formans albeit with a load of Archie and Edith Bunker tossed into the mix.

Can't complain about the supporting cast from semi-regs Tuesday Weld and Steven Franken to Zelda herself Sheila James, all of whom fit into the comedic situations just the way I would have hoped. Maybe I can complain about the dumbfounded way Maynard was briefly written outta the series during the beginning of the first season after Bob Denver was drafted, only to be return within a month or so after he 4-F'd out in real life. And while I'm on a bitch and moan tirade, whose idea was it to have Dobie and Maynard graduate from high school during the middle of season two and then join the army (I know continuity on these programs never was the best, but you woulda thunk that if the Army kicked Krebs out once they wouldn't have the sense to re-take him!). It was a bone-headed move on the part of whoever, but thankfully their enlistment was up at the beginning of season three and the pair could then return to school, this time at the local Peter Pryor Junior College where not so surprisingly their old high school teacher (played by tee-vee omnipresent actor William Schallert) was now working.

Speaking of Schallert, you'll get a kick espying the variety of actors later to proliferate mid/late-sixties prime time who made early appearances on DOBIE. In fact Schallert's soon-to-be tee-vee wife on the also worthy of re-evaluation PATTY DUKE SHOW Jean Byron plays college instructor Dr. Imogene Burkhart (her real life name, without the "Dr.") and surprisingly enough I thought she was a real hot tomato even when they have her wearing her hair flat 'n straight with the large horn rimmed specs! Sitcom character actor Steven Franken as rich kid Chatsworth Osborne Jr. might not have been as wondrously numb as Warren Beatty briefly was as Milton Armitage, but he sure does make a good enough nasal whine at it (and of course Doris Packer as mum to both Armitage and Osborne [she playing her own twin sister was how it was explained] will be more'n familiar to all of you LEAVE IT TO BEAVER fans who remember Mrs. Rayburn with a certain fondness). Stranger still was Raymond Bailey doing some double timing as both Dean Magruder and, with a toupee, Mr. Drysdale on THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES. And although such not-so-recurring last-season characters as Dobie's cousins Dunky (played by Steve Diamond) and Virgil, a Tennessee-bred scheming rockabilly singer (Roy Hemphill) coulda been dispensed with, it ain't like I'd wanna change stations while the pair were helping to make that final season a bit "wobbly" unless an uncut Bridgette Bardot film was being aired!

Of course the parade of future famous faces from John Banner to Barbara Bain, Mrs. Kravitz herself Alice Pearce and even the overtly sexarama future Batgirl Yvonne Craig'll get you peeling eyes to espy other future television standbys who've been long gone from the screen (and perhaps life itself) to the point where you too will be rushing to wikipedia to play the old "alive or dead" game with your fading memory. (And maybe I should mention the brief appearance of Maynard's cousin Jerome, a replacement tee-vee beatnik played by none other'n Michael J. Pollard who actually appears in a scene with future BONNIE AND CLYDE co-star Beatty on one of the non-Maynard episodes!)

I guess I've gotta give special dues to none other than Sheila James as Zelda, the Dobie-crazed gal who will do anything (even underhandedly) to drag him in front of the local justice of the peace or ship's captain actually succeeding twice although both attempts blow up at the very last minute as was wont these sitcom situations. I must admit that James was a rather fine actor and this was perhaps the role she was born to play, though the revelations about her real life will undoubtedly pop straight into your bean whenever she appears on screen. You can't help it, and I will 'fess up to the fact that the mere knowledge of James' not-so-secret orientation did make for plenty of fun and unintended double-entendres throughout the entire viewing of this series! Whether it be her mentioning how "gay" she might feel or how she loves (presumably platonic-like but who knows?) a member of the same sex, you just can't help but guffaw and chortle whenever these (and many other) situations arise. Really, I haven't had the snickers like this since I was about twelve and some kid actually decided to use the words "crap" and "shit" in class to prove to the teach that there were two words in the English language that meant the exact same thing!

Now in the Public Domain, these "grey area" GILLIS collections are mighty easy to come by in case you're not living in an area where the show might be airing or cablecast. It might be worth picking up a set of 'em in case you're getting those hunger pangs for some real Golden Age ('58-'67 and don't let anybody tell you different!) television and TV LAND just ain't been cutting it for the past eight or so years making me ponder why we ever bothered to get a satellite dish in the first place!

I guess this is the last post I'll be doing before the big day, and I don't mean when I'm getting my next colonoscopy either! Naw, I'm talking 'bout CHRISTMAS, and although I really don't feel like writing anything special about it this year (just mull over last year's wondrous collection of the holiday season's worst for that tingling feeling) maybe I should mention to you that this particular X-mas is (now get this!) the fiftieth one that I can remember from the furthest reaches of my mind! Yeah, lo these many eons later I can still vividly recall that day way back in '62 which will forever remain burned into my memory the same way other memorable days such as my fourth birthday party and the infamous skidmark incident most certainly are, as well as the wild joy I had driving over everybody's gifts in my pedal car and being filmed with those hot lights whilst tearing into presents that would end up smashed to bits before the day was over. This was also the exact same day I mentioned in last year's roundup where I bit my cousin on the back of the neck because he wouldn't let me play with his new lithographed metal gas station getting some grief (but no spanking!) for my deed. Dunno exactly what this might mean, but deep down inside I'd kinda like to re-enact that day oh so long ago even though that is an impossibility. I mean, that toy garage has probably been consigned to the trash heap within the span of a good three years, but maybe if an exact copy can be purchased from an antique shop and if my aunt will let me back into her basement...

But anyway, Merry Christmas even if in this day and age I really don't feel like celebrating (though maybe you do, and why should I step on your tootsies?), and I hope you get all of the Dinky Toys and Mattel games that I didn't way back in the kid-saturated sixties 'n seventies! As for all of those who couldn't give a fanabla, just read the rest of this and maybe your senses will be deadened enough to the point where alla the holiday glitz just won't matter anymore.

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Just finished polishing off the last of the Fadensonnen Christmas Cee-Dee-Ares he most graciously sent, this time sitting through three whole volumes of Andrew White platters that actually originated from the collection of none other than no wave/free music revivalist Weasel Walter himself! Like I may or may not have told you before, this White guy is a rabid fan and follower of John Coltrane, and besides having released a ton of albums on his own label (which were available via New Music Distribution Service for years) he even annotated all of Coltrane's solos straight onto staff  and clef that's what kind of guy White is! The playing ain't late-sixties/seventies hard-and-outre AACM/BAG or even ESP/BYG for that matter, but if you're still agog over what jazz was saying in the early/mid-sixties and think that the death of 'trane was a bigger late-sixties loss than that of RFK/MLK combined, I get the feeling you'd enjoy the entire White catalog which might be available via ebay if you have enough moolah to bid on any.

And I guess that tops off the Fadensonnen Christmas package for this year. Between these latest acquisitions and the Tim Buckley STARSAILOR-period live show I received last January (not to mention the guy's original recordings which have a drive and swing to 'em that I'm surprised hasn't been outlawed) all I gotta say is Fadensonnen, if it weren't for you I'd probably still be spinning that CBGB album of mine in an attempt to review it for the twentieth time in my sorry life!

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Not as many platter to offer this as I woulda liked to have written about, though if I must pat myself onna back (which is the only "touching" that I seem to be doing these days) I will admit that I did a pretty good job with what I did have at my disposal. I do hope that 2013 brings more archival digs and discoveries of highly-charged rockist delights both old and new than the previous solar spin has, but for now I shan't complain considering how these mostly newies (with one toasty tossed in at the end) really do fill the bill with regards to high energy jamz! And if you don't think I feel honored in my own cornballus way writing about these spins and tipping you off to 'em (thus enriching your life, and mine as well for that matter) then you don't know what kind of cloistered antisocial stay-at-home one-track-mind excuse for a glob of cells and tissue I've become over the past seven or so years! Anyway as they used to say, read on MacDuff!

Can-A DOUBLE LIVE PROMO ALBUM BY CAN 2-LP set; Ash Ra Tempel-ASH RA TEMPEL REUNION 3-sided 2-LP set (both on B 13, available via Forced Exposure)

Here are two of the three latest B 13 releases (the third being a live recording of Joy Division at the Paradisio in Amsterdam) that have made their way outta whatever clandestine factory they were produced at and into my abode, and if you're an old-timey krautrock fan like I assume you are let's just say that these two platters were worth the thirty-five years after you broke your last syringe and cracked your bong wait! The Can set was recorded right around the time the group was just beginning to latch onto a wider transcontinental audience (with TOP OF THE POPS appearances and British hit singles just around the bend) and as you'd expect the group do a pretty good job weaving in and out of their interstellar journeys even though former frontman Damo Suzuki had been long gone from the act. For those of you who miss Suzuki rest assured that a Thaiga Rag Raga Ratnam pops in here and there to do some rather Damoesque vocalizing which does lend a nice touch. Anybody out there wanna download that recently-unearthed disque where none other than Magic Michael fronts the band for me (and yourself while you're at it)??? Check the links on the left (I believe it was the "Mutant Sounds" one...).

The Ash Ra Tempel set is a boon considering how it ain't the so-so later-on band who were more of a new age outfit but (get this!) a reunion of the original trio with now-bigwig star in his own right Klaus Schultze rejoining his old bandmates Manuel Gottsching and Hartmut Enke on drums and electric lap steel guitar! So if you're a humongous fan of the debut Ash Ra album and tracks such as the side-long acid rock brain-scrambler "Amboss" you'll probably if not undoubtedly like this '73 show where the trio sways and dabbles through three sides of krautified space rock that makes you remember the power and frazzling nerve-end frayed feeling Ash Ra were once known for. OK, it ain't as downright earth-shattering as the debut, but these track are a fine example of what space rock represented before the entire genre tumbled into the whole laser light show gimmick of the late-seventies where doped up teens would enhance their highs to flashy effects while DARK SIDE OF THE MOON blared over the sound system.

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Various Artists-30 YEARS OF MUSICAL INSURRECTION IN FRANCE 3-CD set (Spalax, France)

I must admit that, outside of three Magma albums and an Etron Fou Leloublan platter, I really haven't paid as much attention to the French underground rock scene as I perhaps should have. Not because of all of the negative remarks that have been made regarding French rock groups mind you, but because a whole lotta the music that was coming outta the French scene was beyond the grasp of any pus-poppin' teenager's local record store or wallet for that matter. Now that we're living in the days of internet and instant gratification things have changed, and after all of these years we can now listen to (and perhaps even enjoy!) the same outer space washes and wooshes that French radicals and the merely disenchanted got to hear way back in the late-sixties and seventies while making up our own minds as to whether or not this brand of brie is the utmost in rockist expression or just more progressive hogswill that deserves to be buried in the memories of insomniacs who spent a good portion of the late-seventies listening to all-night college radio stations.

Three disques here ranging from 1968 to 1997, and as you'd prob'ly surmise only the first and thus earliest tracks were able to grab my primitive psyche. In fact that first platter is a doozy not only with a collection of previously-released wonders like Mahogany Brain's "Silkskin Dawn" (kinda sounds like an early Raincoats session before the gals really got a handle on their equipment) but some ne'er before wonders by some woefully undocumented acts that have remained outside of my sphere for quite too long. Naturally the more pre/proto-punky material is what appeals to me (I just hafta get the Red Dawn album on Futura downloaded even if I thought the youtube tracks I've lent ear to were more Zappa 'n Beefheart if you get my drift), though none of this is what you would call Rotomagus or even Les Blousons Noir proto-punky. More like them French freaks who wanted tp sound like The Soft Machine but come out "Sister Ray" instead, merging the best of each genre in a mess that might even remind you more of some 1968 basement band who never did get outta their knotty pine recreation room intact!

(Anybody out there know if Dagon, whose "Suite Pour Orgue" from 1972 appears here albeit in part, have any other recordings extant? Talk about a band whose entire history has been swallowed up in classic earthquake fashion!)

The rest of the set doesn't quite affect me like the first platter...too slick experimental progressive that's dated perhaps even more by the occasional nods of the head to new wave rock. I will admit to liking the always engaging Etron Fou Leloublan as well as Gilbert Artman's Urban Sax (Lard Free's appearance is also a definite jazz-rock highlight), but otherwise the later-on trackage is strictly pick and choose. If you're a poor boy maybe you can get someone to burn the first 'un for ya thus saving the expense of buying a long-box set with only one sturdy goodie for you to hold near and dear to whatever there is that's left of your heart. At least that 'un proves just how powerful and exciting French rock could be, and although I knew the French always had their heads on straight after I read an article (right before a high school history class commenced no less) as to how Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye got a special award from the French rock industry maybe it's time the rest of the world caught on, savvy?

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TOMORROW, FEATURING KEITH WEST AND STEVE HOWE LP (Harvest, England)

Part of the "Harvest Heritage" budget reissue series aimed to milk more money outta your standard MELODY MAKER reader, this reish now has guitarist Steve Howe's name proudly emblazoned right next to singer Keith West's in order to grab the attentions of the standard import bin hopper of the day. A good idea too, because your average FM/progressive radio type would certainly have benefited from hearing the Yes-man's earlier outings 'stead of the mulch he is best known for and who knows, if this 'un had only gotten out more'n it did maybe the future of rock would have changed for the better, with kids worldwide being hipped to the fact that the boring dross they were listening to at the time really did have roots in a sound that was young, fresh and downright innovative 'stead of the usual rock-devolved doldrums doused in Vaughn Williams here (Pink Floyd) and Igor Stravinsky there (who else but Yes?).

Nice packaging (even if it is custom made for the '75-'77 prog romanticists among us) and even better liner notes, though I sure would have thought ZIG ZAG's John Tobler to have been smarter than to write two major faux passes regarding John "Twink" Alder, first saying that he joined Tomorrow straight from the Pretty Things and that he "vanished" afterwards. Then again, I think I've made similar errors in my "career" which is why I'll forego dragging out the guillotine, at least for now.

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Jandek-HASSELT SATURDAY CD-R burn (originally on Corwood Industries)

Not having played any Jandek releases in quite a long time I went into this with a whole lotta trepidation. Didn't know what to expect of the guy in the here and now (to me, Jandek'll always remain an eighties phenomenon who was mostly a memory to me once 1990 rolled around), and reading that he was playing the piano whilst singing on this 'un sure had me bracing myself for the worst, whatever that might be. Turns out my fears were unfounded, sort of. At this live show, Jandek plays simple yet effective piano while talk-singing his obscure, lonesome lyrics over the tinkling making for a surprisingly restrained yet powerful set. You can tell by even a cursory listening that Jandek made it through at least the second John Schaum book, and while I was spinnig this the main thought that entered my mind was...is this kinda like that demo recording Robert Nedelkoff sent to Gary Sperrazza which got reviewed in the final issue of BOMP's "Crib Death" column back '78 way??? Bizarre and totally unexpected, I gotta say that this legend has lived on (both artistically and functionally) for a longer time than I'm sure any of us would have imagined back when The Units' READY FOR THIS HOUSE first hit our turntables back during the hazy days of 1981.

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Parameter-GALACTIC RAMBLE CD (Kissing Spell, England)

Although I never really did cozy up to this way back when I got the thick vinyl/sturdy cover edition Kissing Spell issued back in the early-nineties, I must admit that Parameter and their sole ltd. ed. album GALACTIC RAMBLE has grown on me even more'n those weird blebs of skin that spring up all across my eyelids. As far as garage-level home recordings go these tracks do satisfy you in that mid-Amerigan teenage CREEM magazine way (even though they were English and probably scarfed up every NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS that landed in their paws), and when the group gets to producing their own straight-ahead rocking they do kinda come off like anygroup 1971 stuck in the basement trying to pay homage to the Velvet Underground via Kevin Ayers' "Stranger in Blue Suede Shoes."  An outta nowhere punk rock (in the classiest 1972 Charles Shaar Murray sense) surprise that might have caught the attention of at least Harvest Records who I'm sure were on the lookout for a new Syd Barrett just around this time.

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Once again a hearty Merry Christmas to all you BLOG TO COMM readers, and if you don't get that album or turntable or Teisco guitar you asked for remember...I never did get that Vac-U-Form I've always wanted so I know how you feel! However,  I DID buy a much-sought after LIE DETECTOR game at a flea market a good five or so years ago which was cool since that was something I was gung ho on gettin' after watching alla those Saturday Morning television commercials that were hawking this battery operated game!!! Only problem is, I can't find anybody who wanted to play it with me, so if you're in the area and wanna take me on (you know what I mean, silly!)  howzbout dropping me a line 'r somethin' so I can clear off the kitchen table and maybe we can play a game or two before watching some Kenner's Give-A-Show Projector slides?

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?

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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!

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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!

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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!

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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!

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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.