"Never turn your back on the Mael Brothers." Steven Morrissey wrote that in an old issue of THE NEXT BIG THING, and although I must admit I've turned my back on Morrissey around the time of MEAT IS MURDER I never felt that Sparks were a group to dismiss en toto given their...well...bizarroid pop music masterpieces. Tracks that on one hand hearkened back to previous rock accomplishments of the sixties yet set the stage for various musical epiphanies that were a year or two away. In many ways Sparks were yet another one of those acts that was caught between the great rock movements, too late for the early-seventies pop maelstrom that was overtaking AM radio yet too early for the late-seventies pop underground where I'm sure they would have fit comfortably up against all of those Blondie and Ramones albums that were coming out even if a lotta people thought they were of the previous generation, ifyaknowaddamean...

Gotta say that looking at the covers of Sparks albums just wondering what the sounds inside entailed was a big part of my early record shop prowling years, and by the time I could actually afford to buy those wondrous slabs you can bet that I was snatching up all that I could get my handy little grubs on. Y'see, by that time Sparks had pretty much hit the dollar bin flea market circuit and spending a pittance on a used platter sure beat dishing out the six bucks a fresh 'n sealed copy would set me back at the local soon-to-be Cee-Dee emporium.

Yeah I can see why a whole lotta people, both snoots and level headed types, would dismiss Sparks as a cheap shuck. Yeah, I can even see how Ira Robbins would notch 'em a few points for leading the way to Queen (even though I gotta say that next to some of the turdburgers that have come out during the mid/late-seventies and beyond even Queen sound good in comparison!). And yeah, I can also see why people who I thought had some sense would wanna lump Sparks in with the likes of Genesis, Emerson Lake and Palmer and the rest of the dinosaur rock brigades given their ascent in popularity around the time progressive rock began making huge inroads into the listening habits of boxboy teenagers nationwide. I can see alla that, but it ain't like I'm buying it one iota.

Dunno about you, but for me Sparks seemed like a bright mid-seventies hope, a smart-pop act that had it not made it big during the pre-punk days woulda been grouped in with those late-seventies "save the world" bands that seemed so tame and commercial in many ways yet were too outre for a public that was numbed by way too much exposure to Southern Californian Sopor sounds. Snat decadent rock that was good enough for England but way above the heads of the average Amerigan teenbo who was either into stoner post-power metal music or fluffoid AM dribble. When I first saw the picture of the Maels on the back of KIMONO MY HOUSE Russell reminded me of Marc Bolan for obvious coiffure-like reasons, and given T. Rex's slide into post-mania ridicule I thought perhaps these were the guys who could pick up the scepter from Marc's ever-chubbying hands and run with it into snazz rock territory yet unconquered. I was right, though unfortunately Sparks never were able to capture the Amerigan market the same way Bolan could even on an underground, FM radio level and we really were the worse for it if you ask me.

This post's more or less a rundown of Sparks in the seventies, a time which saw the group rise from their local SoCal punk rock (in the best 1972 CREEM/JAMZ definition of the term) beginnings to mid-seventies megastardom to their eventual descent into the abyss with a string of albums that more'n a few aficionados of the form tended to loathe with a passion. Just my observations and opinions mind you...nothing more or less. Maybe I'm just bringing out my seventies rockist tendencies and resensifying myself as to some of the music that captured my fancy during that period in time (though really, a whole load of other music from those days that I was stupid enough to listen to better remain buried in the dark corners of my brain for all eternity)...well hey, it is my blog and if I wanna write about seventies art-flash rock acts that most would find tedious and even downright loathsome I got more of a right to do so than you...

                              

Sparks' debut (issued under the group's more grappling original moniker of Halfnelson and changed at the insistence of Bearsville label head and all around industry irritant Albert Grossman) was actually produced by none other'n Todd Rundgren, but don't expect this one to sound anything like the Nazz. Well, heavy British influences do abound from the Kinks and the Who to Tomorrow with the Southern California hub of industry ooze still firmly in place, but the flash and crash of the Nazz is...uh...just not present. Sparks were punkier and more SoCal local group irritable when compared to Rundgren's old act. And really, I can even hear just how none other than Alan Betrock (who seemed to be one of the better arbiters of underground crosscurrents throughout the seventies) could discern a Mothers of Invention vibe on "Biology 2" even if I more or less hear the roots of Devo. A listen or two all the way through and you too will know why this got buried under the weight of too many inferior albums of the day, but like the Sidewinders and Hackamore Brick you also get the idea that it was just too good for an era that showed both AM spark and FM dribble. And really, did anyone expect a group like Sparks to appeal in any way to the same frame of (or should that be lack of) mind that was buying up Jim Croce records with laid back gusto?

But who could fault the original Sparks for not trying? With a look that was total punk snarl (well, at least if you left the Maels outta it) it wasn't like they were going after the Marin County front porch jam band audience that's for sure! But as you'd expect Sparks were only about three or so years ahead of the gang doing what acts like the Quick and Fast would a short time down the rock evolutionary line, and maybe had this one gotten out a little more we woulda had an underground epiphany a few years before the fact. A surprisingly tough record too if you can believe that, perhaps due to Earle Mankey's high fever guitar playing that might have earned him a place in the Stooges had James Williamson's hand remained broken longer than the time it actually did take to heal.

Shouda been single track: "No More Mister Nice Guys," perhaps Sparks at their garagiest and most atonal. But surprisingly enough, the track that was chosen for the single, "Wonder Girl", actually did make it all the way up to #1 in Montgomery Alabama which is why the group was presented with a special award live and on stage during their tenure at Max's Kansas City pictured below:

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I must admit (again and again) that I never really cozied up to the Bearsville version of Sparks than I did the Island one, even to the point where (attempting a change of heart) I bought a used double disc collection of the group's two albums from Bona Fide Records...and returned 'em because not only didn't this particular spin change my mind but because I thought the albums were downright irritating! Time has soothed my nervous system to an extent, even to the point where I can slap on A WOOFER IN TWEETER'S CLOTHING and enjoy the bizzaroid pop even though Ron Mael looks like a fey Charlie Chaplin on the back cover while Russ sounds like a castrati about three performances away from getting the pink slip. However, after repeated listens I did find myself thinking this album really ain't as limp wrist as I originally thought...kinda smooth in a So Cal meets psych England sorta way. Sure you get a bit of the cutesies tossed in (a cover of "Do Re Mi" wasn't exactly gonna put 'em on the cover of HEAVY METAL DIGEST), but numbers like "Moon Over Kentucky" and "Angus Desire" have the right touch of deca-punch that fit in swell with Russ Mael's freaky faksettos which I'm sure took some time to get used to, but then again I'm positive most people didn't quite cozy up to Bob Dylan's vocal cords on first listen!.

Not surprisingly, tracks like "Underground" had that right touch of sleek early-seventies AM pop mixed with the suburban teenage drive to the point where you kinda wonder why it wasn't being played in heavy rotation between the Raspberries and Hollies. Really this is nothing to sneeze at (that'll have to wait for "Atchoo" on PROPAGANDA), and between the aforementioned tracks and the non-LP b-side "I Like Girls" you can see the direction the group was heading in this rat race biz and surprisingly it was "up".

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Of course only a doof'd admit that KIMONO MY HOUSE wasn't the big all-out breakthrough platter for the band which I'm sure surprised a few dongos who thought 'em a total flash in the pan. The Brothers Mael naturally did the right thing when they realized they weren't going places as fast as maybe they shoulda, and since they were trying for an English look, sound and feel the best career move they coulda come up with woulda been to ditch their old band, move to Blighty and start all over again with a new batch of musicians and label,  in this case Island. Being on the cusp of English prog smug and deca-dunce, Island was the perfect label for this new Sparks-concoction, and of course the implementation of a Roxy Music-ish sexy gal cover and attempt to capture the same audience as theirs was about as good a job of tuning in on a post-hippoid glamoid trend as there could have been. Of course the new hopped up music which despite current retro-reports wasn't progressive rock sure did hit some sorta collective chord with a whole load of kids who shot "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both of Us" straight to #2 in England. Kinda heavy metal pop, with hefty references to early-mid-sixties production values from both sides of the ocean. That would figure, since one thing that made me pay attention in the first place as a young turd was some review in ROLLING STONE of all places which dared bring up the sainted name "Shirelles". Who sez that rag was a total waste back then, although it came pretty close most of the time?

                                                                                                                                                                                             
                                                   

I sure wish "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both of Us" woulda shot to the top inna US of Whoa like it did elsewhere onna globe, but I guess this country was too far into denim and pious phony hipsterisms to notice anything even remotely Sparksian. Well, at least KIMONO MY HOUSE was one that was sure prevalent at the time and for years after via flea markets (where I picked up my first vinyl copy [had the cassette for years] at Hartville Ohio along with the first two Soft Machines and maybe that first Roxy Music...someone sure must've needed the moolah to sell 'em all to me for a mere buck!) and spinning this 'un sure brings back teenage memories that, for once, I don't mind shuttering to the darkest reaches of my cranium!

There's not a duff note to be heard here even if Sparks might be (inadvertently) giving fuel to some of the giddier practitioners of what would later be known as "new wave" with their terminal "quirkiness". Couldn't care less actually since Sparks toss it all off with such elan making a good portion of their emulators sound like the eighties "new music" wusses they most certainly were. And of course mucho Mael pts. are added considering that two surviving tracks ("In My Family" and "Barbecutie"---perhaps "Lost and Found" with that raging guitar lead) actually sport a mutated Pink Fairies (Larry Wallis, Russell Hunter and Roxy Music's John Porter) as the backing band!

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PROPAGANDA seemed to be the one that broke Sparks through, somewhat. Well, at least I remember seeing this all over the place back when this 'un hit the bins, and the overseas version (with the photo sticker on the cover because someone forgot to put the group name 'n title front and center) was even charting in the upper reaches of the PLAIN DEALER import top ten trying ever-so-hard to knock Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel's PSYCHOMODO and CAPTAIN LOCKHEED AND THE STARFIGHTERS off the #1 spot. Maybe it eventually did, and come to think of it PROPAGANDA might have even topped the domestic charts considering how on the ball Cleveland may have been at the time before the spirit of Laughner was washed out by the poison of Pantsios (the poison hadn't quite set in yet).

At least for me PROPAGANDA was Sparks' last big bang of the seventies. Really, the followups just couldn't compete with this one and for good reason...PROPAGANDA was a good all-out hard pop jaunt that really seemed to hit a whole number of smart ideas while gauging at just the right emotional tugs without sounding too coy or cute. Quite snappy in fact, and even the plays for your sweet sensitive side doesn't drive you batty either.


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Mael's belladonna vocals fit the post-Kinks neo-Brit material rather swell, and the group wasn't afraid to balls out rock either. Even the four years after they went out of vogue ecological number entitled "Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth" doesn't drive you batty. In fact, I can easily fantasize making out with a cute Japanese miss (perhaps one of the ladies who popped up on KIMONO MY HOUSE) to the strains of "Bon Voyage,"  a natural tit-rubbin' track what with its strings and Holiday piano lines, in our wooly sweaters next to the fire at the ski lodge. No wonder it was such a popular album back during the mid-seventies Sparks heyday even though I probably could count the number of people I knew who personally owned a copy on my nose.

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Unfortunately a whole lotta the smart deca-smarm of the previous platters seemed to get watered down quite a bit by the time INDISCREET hit the mid-'75 racks. The violins just didn't tug at the ol' heart strings this time but just sounded as klutzy as they did on "Here Comes Bob" offa WOOFER, and overall it seems as if this is the one that disappointed the old fans while failing to find any new ones. There were some bright spots natch, but even those (such as "Tits" which for some odd reason reminds me of some low budge thirties b-comedy then so-prevalent on late-night television!) would've come off as a low point on any of the previous English-era platters. You can hear the brothers just begging for a shard of inspiration and insight here and flopping about miserably. This might have been the beginning of the end of Sparks' seventies megastardom, and given the material and even performance (what happened to those killer guitar leads?) you don't have to scratch your head that much to figure out why.

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'76's BIG BEAT was whatcha'd call as "transitional" album, and the fact that it took 'em over a year to get this 'un out to the public might point to the fact that there was trouble brewing in the Mael camp. By this time the English musicians had been jettisoned and the Maels were in New York, with Russ posing with Cherry Vanilla on the cover of THE NEW YORK ROCKER while a new band was being constructed from the various acts that the brothers were catching via the stage of CBGB. In this new aggregate were local regulars Hilly Michaels (Cherry Vanilla drummer pre-CADDYSHACK), Milk 'n Cookies etc. Sal Maida and Tuff Dart Jeff Salen. The group that toured with the Maels to promote this album also featured El Lay resident Dave Swanson during his Pop days, something which I get the feeling must've irked at least a few people at BACK DOOR MAN who were championing the Pop to the ends of the city limits yet had nothing but pure disdain for Sparks. Eh, but that stuff happens alla time, and you can bet that even I have chewed my lower lip through after seeing the things that me and my name have been attached to without my consent or written permission either!

The Richard Avedon photos were a nice touch even if they
did signal the beginning of reflective superstar narcissism.

BIG BEAT marked not only a change in locale but a change in labels at least in the US of Whoa, with the Maels now enjoying the power and push that Columbia Records were able to give 'em. Funny that Island inna USA woulda given up on 'em so easily considering how successful they were, but I guess that once a group got so big the Amerigan labels with the clout wanted 'em at any cost which is probably why Pink Floyd also ended up on Columbia around the same time, and didn't Alex Harvey and Monty Python even ditch Vertigo and Charisma respectively for Atlantic and Arista once their names became big box office bonanzas over here as well???

Guess Columbia lost out mucho grande with their business move though, because BIG BEAT wasn't the commercial breakthrough that they were betting a whole load of bottom bucks on. Sure the group sounds straightforward, giving the Mael's a sharp edge that reminds me of what any good New York City group coulda whipped out at the time, but there really wasn't anything as strong or as memorable as most of the tracks laid down during the KIMONO MY HOUSE and PROPAGANDA days. In fact, to put it mildly the production (courtesy Rupert Holmes) sure coulda used a beef up of Chesty Morgan proportions.

Lotsa strong material here though...single pick "Big Boy" was a pretty good hard rocker that seemed to have the mid-seventies CBGB sound down even more'n the Stones did when they tried the same schtick a few years later. LP closer "I Like Girls," a song which in its original version was stuck on the b-side of a Bearsville single, might have suffered from the additional horns but still came off like the kinda pop track I would have loved to have heard on the AM 'stead of Peter Frampton and Stevie Nicks. And you'd know that a song like "White Women" where Russ sings about his appreciation for the pulchritude of the Caucasian race would elicit nothing but self-righteous screams from all of the dykes who go to Oberlin, but in this day and age anything that can make the descendents (no sic) of the same "tweedy" college professor types Wayne McGuire warned us about "cackle like indignant hens" is OK by me. Cackle on Brunhilde, cackle on!

Not so surprisingly, I find that the non-LP single that came out shortly before BIG BEAT, the lush "Stereo 99" cover of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" b/w "England" to be Sparks at their mid-seventies post-PROPAGANDA best. It's a wonder why the entire BIG BEAT album didn't have the same sorta swerve to it blah blah and so forth that these numbers had considering just how potent this particular platter was. Originally planned as a duet between Russ and Marianne Faithful, "Hand" is rendered in perfect sudsy glop with the 101 Strings sticking to your speakers like fecal matter to a turdler's behind, and considering the reams of saccharine and beyond-believable Beatles covers that had been coming out around the same time it's a shame that this high-larious if engaging single was ripped off the market by Island because EMI was coming out with a Beatles "greatest hits" collection (again!) and they thought that with the originals out who'd wanna hear a copy! Typical record label logic at work I'll tell ya!

Thankfully both "Hand" and "England" are available on Cee-Dee releases of BIG BEAT (and, come to think of it, INDISCREET as well which really must prove what a top notch record it was!) and worth the effort to track down whether via the originals, these reissues or perhaps even youtube. An interesting aside..."England" was actually produced by former Spark Earl Mankey which is probably why there is a bit of similarity between it an his own "Mau Mau" single, originally released on Bearsville a few years earlier and via Bomp!'s "Exhibit J" around the same time BIG BEAT started hitting the record shops. One you should try to keep more'n a few eyes open for even if I bought a larger than expected stack of 'em when Bomp! was having one of their closeout sales in the eighties.

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Although BIG BEAT was a halfway-there attempt to resuscitate Sparks' career '77's INTRODUCING SPARKS was the guillotine to the brothers' mid-seventies megastardom. You coulda seen it coming, what with the slicko production and bevy of session musicians giving the music all of the dimension and warmth of a Shaun Cassidy or Leif Garrett top ten smash. Of course if you like those Cassidy and Garrett rex INTRODUCING SPARKS would really fit into your collection snug-like. And really, I kinda like it, perhaps just because its slick and down pat like your kid sister's 1978 teenybop tastes, only with some imagination, zest and downright verve.

A keen sense of mid-seventies Sparkdom does make a grand return as well, such as on the snazzy "Ladies" which's got some rather high-larious and (if I dare say it) "witty" lyrics that I get the feeling alla them snobs at the Algonquin woulda been knee-slapping to had Sparks been around in the twenties. And even if "Over the Summer" sounds like a too-hard try for a Summer single in the Beach Boys tradition (which it most certainly was) complete with that seventies production that didn't exactly suit me fine both then and even now, you can't say that it wouldn't have been out of place on The Paley Brothers album which was making its presence known at just about the same second. And given that INTRODUCING also has some pleasing quasi-nostalgia along the lines of "Those Mysteries" maybe a trip to the local flea market to dig this 'un up would be in order. (The bonus tracks "Breathe" and "Fact or Fiction" [which Russ gave to Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick as a possible cover!] are even better'n anything on the album making me wonder...why did they hold them back inna first place?) Given the time, place and general fickleness of the record buying public you'd kinda get the idea that this'd flop worse'n a fish in a PSA for asthma, but then again what were you looking for at the time? I guarantee you that it probably wasn't this!

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For being a group that had gone from Los Angeles deca-punks to the latest mania in England to nadasville, Sparks really know how to revitalize a sagging career at a time when any other act woulda gone into aluminum siding. A good two years after their previous outing and career disaster Sparks were back in '79, this time with the aid of none other'n electronics whiz Giorgio Moroder. And you can just bet that NO. ONE IN HEAVEN had alla 'em college newspaper Parke Puterbaugh wannabes diggin' into their thesauruses looking up new ways to say that this was Sparks going disco (which mighta been the haute thing to have said considering how everyone but the Kitchen Cinq were hopping on the discowagon at the time), but it really was a whole diff. ball of sound altogether as you should have realized all along.

Don't think of it as disco as much as electronopunk drive done up on synths and pretty refreshing at that. Probably nothing that much different than what a few acts were cooking up on the stages of Max's Kansas City and TR3 around the same time, even with all of the rough edges and amateur hour nerves tossed in. If you liked Moroder's work on those Donna Summers records you'll probably go for this. If you liked "Son of my Father" you'll probably also enjoy it. If you tune into this blog for my opines of long-gone metallic opuses or forgotten garage crank well, you probably haven't made it far down this article w/o sweating rivulets of disgust anyway. But for a dance record from the 70s/80s cusp that doesn't come off as saccharine syrupy as the Bee Gees nor as campy as the B52s this really does one good. Quite exhilarating in fact.

 
                               

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Of course Sparks have continued throughout the eighties (releasing some hotcha efforts that hold up with their seventies best) going through them ever-strange permutations and career moves that really stymied more'n a few observers. But as they said in Sodom in the end it all worked out swell. That's all for another post---after all the eighties were a time I'd rather forget about and hey, Sparks and the seventies did go together just as well as high school cafeteria food and salmonella. Who could argue differently?

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! THE FACELESS MONSTER (a.k.a. NIGHTMARE CASTLE) starring Barbara Steele (1965)!

Airy mid-sixties horror flick that I get the feeling I woulda just loved the dickens outta had I saw it back when I was a hefty ten of age, along with a hefty ten years of body for that matter. Nowadays an even heftier me thinks it woulda been better had I saw it back when I was ten because hey, it would've made a greater impact on my ever-budding psyche that it does here at the Halloween of my life when frankly, it all comes off so grand yet I feel like I should be attending an AARP meeting or somethin' instead.

Typical formulaic horror flick here---nothing wrong with that a-tall esp. when you have some pretty good formula being cooked up. Mad scientist catches wife and handyman playin' hide-the-sticky wicket in overtime and does the most logical thing by killing 'em slowly. Then he gets their hearts and uses 'em to make his now aged housekeeper young and bee-youtifal. However there is a catch...y'see wife Muriel happens to blab to hubby right before getting the ax that she had left the entire estate (mad scientist merely living off wife's megabucks) to her on-the-brink-of-madness sister, which certainly does throw a wrench into things.

Later on M.S. shows up at the estate with his new bride who looks remarkably like the old one. Is this the long-lost sister who's about to go nutzo??? (Of course.) Anyway, new bride's starting to have various weird dreams where some guy with a head taped up like the Invisible Man catches her and the old handyman in the greenhouse. Soon a psychiatrist comes to visit and things become even weirder with M.S., the new bride and the psychiatrist playing these weird little cat 'n mouse games that wouldn't be seen for at least a year or so before DARK SHADOWS made it to air.

If you like the gothic horror look that used to get all the gals' hearts a' flutter this one's for you. Nice dreamy mid-sixties ambiance, great musical score (even's got that recurring simple piano theme to telegraph that weirdo feeling) and its got this subdued rumble to it that continues throughout giving you the kinda creeps that you used to get watching this stuff on Saturday afternoon tee-vee. Really worth the effort to find and download, and you don't have to be a fan of Barbara Steele or Eyetalian moom pitchers with dago actors using Anglo names to appreciate it either!

BOOTLEG BRAGGADOCIO AGAIN

I guess it's time for yet another long-overdue "bootleg braggadocio," a post where I get to blab on about all of my recent bootleg acquisitions of platters (no "Cee-Dees") that I got and you don't, at which point I give a good "nyah nyah" considering how much I like to one up all of you readers out there! All kidding ass-side, here's a bunch of illicit vinyl offerings, both old and even recent, which I'm sure you and your significant other (at least if human) would want to know all about. So if Bill Shute can create the "Virtual Thrift Shop" then here be the "Virtual Outta The Way Record Shop" with alla them cutout, import and bootleg bins just begging for you to romp through 'em in a bold attempt for you to determine how you're gonna spend that $2.85 in your pocket!

If you were a high energy rock 'n roll maniac on the sixties/seventies cusp, wouldn't you have thought the mere concept of an MC5 bootleg to have been the wildest idea to come down the pike since Shake-A-Puddin'? I know that quite a few people felt so, or at least that's the idea I get after having read an issue of Alan Betrock's pre-NEW YORK ROCKER fanzine JAMZ where a news item mentioning that an MC5 bootleg with the rare pre-Elektra single sides, a few live tracks and even some stuff from the album was in the works thus oozing palpitating pangs of puerile pandemonium from more than a number of their readers! Unfortunately, along with the rumored Velvet Underground and Thirteenth Floor Elevators (on Rubber Dubber even!) bootlegs of the day no MC5 boots ever did make it out alive during the group's lifetime, though with all of the rabble rousing surrounding 'em and international acclaim the group was receiving even before releasing an album you kinda got the idea that some "enterprising" soul woulda dug out his tape recorder, captured a few hours of the Five at their prime and rushed it all off to the nearest pressing plant in order to help further the revolution, and make a few bucks while they were at it!

Dunno if that bootleg'd come off anything like this MC5 weirditie complete with a snap of the group taken at the Ann Arbor Fairgrounds on the cover and a news report from the German SOUNDS magazine on the back, but I do get the sneakin' suspicion that it would. Dunno when this was recorded, but it does sound as if it were taken from one of the group's '68 gigs which is fine enough for me considering just what would happen to the band after they read Lester Bangs' duff review in STONE and decided to depart from their avant rock roots, seemingly in abject shame.

Whatever, since I never heard this particular gig before I really cherished listening to it, even with the lousy sound quality, truncated "I Put a Spell on You" and abysmal glitch the ends side two that any normal bootlegger woulda neatly edited! Even with the obvious (and oblivious) errors the Five shine through, and if you can forget the ripoffisms involved this 'un does make for a must have. Especially with that never before released song on side one (title escapes me, but I'm sure I heard it before!) that reminds me of just what this band had to offer before official career moves and back stabbing got in the way of stardom (translation: BUSINESS AS USUAL!).

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This one's an old fanabla of a favorite that I bought back '76 way then sold when the cash flow was gettin' low, then bought again in the early nineties only to discover that the 1977-vintage WAX FLAGS double set was enclosed within instead of the actual artifact! But now that's all been corrected, so once again I get to hear this Flo and Eddie-period Mothers of Invention double set (actually a budget twofer of the by-then out-of-print SAFE MUFFINS and POOT FACE BOOGIE albums) and all I gotta say is, boy do the memories of my high stool Frank Zappa emulation come rushin' back faster'n blackheads to my ever-porous nose! Both platters feature the group during their rather productive 200 MOTELS days back when it seemed as if Zappa was releasing an album every other month, and fortunately the team of Howard Kaylan and Marc Volman pretty much hold the show together for those of you who just can't take that much of Zappa's watered-down post-Lenny Bruce hipsterisms!

If your tastes tend to lean more towards FILLMORE EAST than JUST ANOTHER BAND FROM LA (which I thought was perhaps a bit too overwrought with "Billy the Mountain" and all that satirical googly moogly) you'll probably enjoy this more'n even I did! Loads of familiar toonz, some interesting re-makes of old Mothers standbys, and the instrumental track of "Dog Breath" plus alternate version "My Guitar" (along with "Lightning Rod Man" which ain't even the Mothers!) pad the thing out in typical sneaky bootleg fashion. Of course I love it.

***

I've never been whatcha'd call an Aerosmith fan, and for a good many years must admit that I never felt strongly one way or another about 'em. By the eighties I gotta say that I hated the group and not only because a good portion of their followers were a buncha lowclass jeters who took pride in running down dogs and getting equally lowclass female pimplefarms knocked up and everyone'd feel sorry for 'em 'stead of kick 'em outta the house for bringing shame upon the place (these were the sensitive eighties, y'know)...I hated 'em because they lacked a whole lotta the bop 'n drive that I like in my music, and considering how bopless and driveless music was making a big comeback at the time you could say that these Aerosmith guys were like the poster boys for the whole mode of musical jive that would eventually become known as "classic rock". And to think that more than a few naive nabobs out there were actually duped into thinking that Aerosmith were part and parcel to the entire Alice Cooper hard rock tradition and the group that was poised to take up the slack where the New York Dolls had failed back in the best/worst of times mid-seventies!

But I've been under the spell of reading too many BACK DOOR MANs and DENIM DELINQUENTs as of late, so I figured why not splurge on a copy of this popular Aerosmith boot which I guess captured the band at their mid-seventies height before the heroin did a pretty good job makin' 'em sound even more ragged than Johnny Thunders on a lost weekend (see LIVE BOOTLEG for more information). And hey, I gotta admit that LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL is rather good, if only for capturing what this group could have done live in the mid-seventies when they were rocketing their way up into the hard rock stratosphere and their nervous systems weren't quite shot yet. Sound on this Korneyfone release is surprisingly good if kinda audience distorto at times, and the performance is straightforward 'stead of phoned in as I'm sure it was within a few years of megastardom. I can't say that I like it a whole heap, but after hearing some of the atrocities committed in the name of heavy metal since those days Steve Tyler and company might as well be the Dolls for all I care! 

***

If you told me a good three decades back that I'd even think of buying a Grateful Dead bootleg (let alone one of their reg'lar album) I probably would have called you a fan of the SS record label. So yeah, I do find it surprising that I have actually picked up a few Dead boots o'er the years, even though they're mostly items that consist of the group's early trackage recorded at a time when even the more "eclectic" of rock fans (y'know, the ones who discovered it only after the Beatles made it respectable) knew that "Louie Louie" was a boss number giving all of the pseudo-intellectual reasons for believing so. This recently-obtained double platter (on the "Bewitching Music" label) entitled FRESHLY DEAD IN LA & SF fits into my typical Dead bootleg buying patterns as it it mostly contains the early version of the band just before the bad acid got to their brains and the "spokesmen for a generation" tag they were forever saddled with was but a few years off. Don't let the snaps of the early-seventies Dead on the cover deter you...this is the mid-sixties Dead recorded long before they started believing in all of their press releases!

Quality's mostly good (unless you count the numerous chopped off inna middle numbers as well as primitive splices) and I really can't complain about the performance especially when Pig Pen's organ is cranking out those great patented mid-sixties garage band chords that must've seemed like an embarrassment only a few years later. Even Jerry Garcia's leads don't sound as morbidly cosmic as they would after you took that swig from the bottle passed your way. Overall a good set from that magical year of 1966 which proved that even though the Dead couldn't play a really rockin' number even if you poured hot lead up their asses they really did have some "moments" as many a person used to say way back inna seventies.

A few obviously later-on numbers show up proving just how much into a rut the Dead had gotten into by the time the late-sixties approached, and for some not-so-surprising reason a great portion of side four is taken up by various Jorma Kaukonen solo acoustic tracks done up live, in case you're interested in continuing the acid experience after the Dead material has been exhausted and there's still fifteen minutes of record to fill up.

***

Here's another one from the Silver Age of Rock Bootlegs (roughly 1978 until 1989---talkin' about the days when these things began comin' out in high-quality sleeves with a sound and style that gave the legit product a run for the teenage money), a double set of BBC session material recorded by none other than those psychedelic fruitcakes themselves Pink Floyd. If you're looking for a vinyl set featuring the post-Barrett/pre-megastardom Floyd this one is just what the Doc Rock ordered, and besides that the sound (and perhaps even performance!) is so hot that it puts the legit material to shame!

I kinda get the feeling that someone snuck into the BBC vaults and lifted the tapes, that's how good this one sounds. And although the post-Barrett version of the group slowly lost its energy and ideas to the point where everyone in the act (as well as their fans) were "comfortably numb," I must admit that I don't find the Gilmour-helmed act as nauseating as they could have gotten. Sure you deserve a special medal for being able to sit through "Echoes" without crying for mama, but I will admit that I found the "Atom Heart Mother" suite kinda interesting even though people like myself aren't supposed to "like" it...sheesh, I'm starting to sound like Jymn Parrett in the pages of DENIM DELINQUENT when he kept apologizing for saying how much he enjoyed not only DARK SIDE OF THE MOON but a bootleg taken from the Floyd tour as well! No need to apoligize Jymn...the only thing you do need to apologize for is not keeping your website up to date with fresh reviews, pix and rock 'n roll energy! C'mon Jymn...write something hot and write it NOW!!!

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If I had to list the top forty bootleg albums of all time, the Velvet Underground's SWEET SISTER RAY would definitely be up there on the list. In fact if I hadda list the top ten bootlegs of all time SSR would definitely be up there amid the likes of METALLIC KO and other definite must-have worthies in both your and my collections. Come to think of it, if I hadda list thee ultimate bootleg album of all time this 'un just might make the #1 spot because hey, it is like, that essential.

Sure SWEET SISTER RAY's been booted and rebooted for ages with nary a legit release in sight, but it's sure nice seeing that double-platter set available on vinyl again. And for those who are keeping score one album being issued in solid black and the other in see-through red. 's gotta new cover too, and although that excuse ain't exactly something that's gonna make you run out and plunk down some of your hard-begged the fact that you don't have to wear down your now-valuable original just might. And frankly, I think this take sounds better, perhaps being mastered from original tapes or at the hands of some studio whiz who can take monochromatic-sounding music and beef it up with all of the vim and vigor it takes turning your standard flatzy runaway sixteen-year-old into the top-notch exotic dancer now wowin' 'em on the sleazier side of town.

Of course the entire 1968 "Sweet Sister Ray" appears spread out on two sides, and that's definitely a wowzer in itself especially by the time side two hits and Lou Reed and company are doing things with their guitars the krauts could have only dreamed of. Platter two features two rather powerful versions of Doug Yule-period "Sister Ray," one being the take recorded direct off Reed's amp at the Boston Tea Party where enough atonal guitar screech is given off to give Les Rallizes Denudes a run for the money! If you remember Lou Reed's interview for the LA FREE PRESS where he talked about all of the takes and versions of "Sister Ray" from "Sweet Sister Ray" to "Sweet Rock 'n Roll" and "Sister Ray Part Two" and how it would tale a good day or so to perform it all, with the interviewer suggesting that maybe they should release a limited edition set just for us manic fans, consider this a down payment. And now that Reed is kaput and not standing in the way of the flood of classic Velvets recordings we all need asap perhaps the day we finally get to hear all of those hidden gems is at hand

***

And in closing, it seems as if a whole load of Can material is being made available as of late both legally and not, but since this is an article on bootlegs and I've covered the official material awhile back we'll concentrate of the illegal deal. Most of the ones like DAI DOKO E have been obtained via downloads and whatnot for awhile now, and although I thought that HORRORTRIP IN THE PAPERHOUSE (Blue Sea Records, Italy) was to have contained all-new gunch it turns out that it too is familiar material packaged up in a new sleeve. The FM broadcast from whence these track were taken has been floating around for years, but if you'd like to hear a particularly potent Can show during what many would consider their height look no further. Another offering entitled CAN YOU seemed more enticing since it promised never-before-heard-outside-the-studio trackage, and although a glance at the song credits revealed that the tracks pretty much came from the less-exciting (and sometimes downright dull) post-Damo Suzuki era group I must say I enjoyed it, even the more dance-oriented tracks where weren't as bad as some of that drek coming out of England around 1983. Not the first place I'd start if I were checking these guys out for the first time (I made that mistake by buying LIMITED EDITION when I shoulda picked up MONSTER MOVIE), but the cherry on top of the sundae or the nipple on top of the boob, whichever you prefer.

LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS DEATH DWARVES AGAIN, by BRAD KOHLER

Lou Reed was a Jew who had an iron cross shaved into his hair.

He wrote the immortal songs "Disco Mystic," "My Little Red Joy Stick," and "I'm Just a Gift (To The Women of the World)".

He was simultaneously way too smart for rock n' roll and dumb enough to believe in its redemptive power. When I was in junior high, reading the latest skirmish between Lou and Lester Bangs in CREEM was like a teenager's version of William F. Buckley's FIRING LINE...for freaks.

In 1978 I was president of the Moon High School Lou Reed Club, not that there was much to preside over (check the yearbook if you think I'm shitting you). On a record player obtained from the A.V. room, I'd play "Vicious" off TRANSFORMER. I liked that the lyrics seemed tossed off in about one minute instead of dreadfully earnest rock opera crap. Maybe five kids would attend, mostly because I'd also play METAL MACHINE MUSIC and the sponsoring teacher would suddenly urgently need a cigarette break, allowing them to do one hitters while she was gone.

David Bowie was good, but he didn't have a rock 'n roll bone in his body. The Rolling Stones seemed geared more towards the popular kids. I had not heard the Stooges. I was working my way backwards to the Velvets. I was getting into punk but didn't see the Lou Reed DNA strand encoded in its helix. Lou I couldn't figure. I still can't. I liked that about him.

At almost every meeting, someone would sneer "Lou Reed sucks" just like you can hear someone in the audience opine after the last song on LOU REED LIVE. How many artists would have left that on there? How many would probably take a perverse pride in it? Good ol' Lou.

LOU REED EST MORT--- WEAR YOUR TOURNIQUETS AT HALF MAST

Yeah, I'm sure you all know by now that Lou Reed's dead, nyet, nada, no more, kicked the bucket, bought the farm and is probably even colder'n Nico. The nooze sources say it happened last Sunday but I ain't buying that a bit. I happen to know that Lou died sometime in 1968 only he just now found out.

Or better yet in the snark department, if John Lennon could say that Elvis Presley died when he joined the army (and that H. Gertz could say that Lennon himself died when he met Yoko Ono), then maybe Lou Reed died when he kicked John Cale out of the Velvet Underground! Now how does that one come off for doof-addled brilliance?

Not too good, hunh? Well yeah, I could've popped out a better one only I don't wanna come off too precociously smart like Oscar Wilde, and look what happened to him! But we're not talkin' that fag, we're talkin' this one, Lou Reed, a guy who love him or loathe him was responsible for almost single-handedly reorganizing rock 'n roll during its silver age, not to mention help keep the entire fanabla from totally tumbling into a stew of hippie spectacle and cheap progressive ploy. Perhaps he was thee rockin' redeemer at a time when we certainly needed a rock savior during the just-post-British Invasion era when rock music was beginning to flounder about unsure of its rightful place inna universe. Face it, the guy set the stage for Iggy, the Dolls and all of your favorite seventies bargain bin faves a whole lot more'n Jagger. Bowie or Morrison could, and you can tell he was good because he rubbed too many people the wrong way which in these days of unbridled cause/cult felcharama is certainly an asset.

And yes, the Velvet Underground were responsible for all of the good rock 'n roll music to have come out of the late-sixties and seventies, as well as all of the BAD music to come out afterwards. Can't argue with a bold fact like that!

But when Lou and the Velvets were making their own good rock 'n roll who but the stodgiest "classic rock" fan would deny that they were creating the best music to have come out of the form not only then but a good five decades later. The only groups that could come close were those that were directly influenced by 'em and yeah, I can name many instances of acts who had never even heard of the Velvet Underground who put out some wild sides themselves, but then again I get the feeling that your standard stuck up rock snob would blanch at the mere thought of the 1910 Fruitgum Company, Tim Buckley, the Sonics, the Sweet or the Sensational Alex Harvey Band (among many others) being considered "good" rock 'n roll. Kinda shows what kind of a chasm there is between high energy rockers like ourselves and the majority of people who claim to love rock 'n roll while paying homage to a hollowed out, cheap imitation of it.

Although it's supposedly hip to say so (even if Peter Laughner, a Mattel model version of Lou Reed if there ever was one, begged to differ), I will agree that the Velvets were at their best when Lou's street slime was countered by John Cale's avant garde inclinations. Hey, I will tell you up front that just about every note that the classic Cale-period Velvets, forever touted as being the "early Velvet Underground" even a few months after Cale had left the act (witness Dave Mush's review of the first Stooges album in CREEM) was beyond measure the best rock 'n roll to have been laid down to vinyl ever. Those sides continue to stand as a monumental testimonial to noise as art as a reason to tear things up, and its no wonder entire rock genres could be built on those two platters which were so powerful that they were talked about in tones maybe not so hushed even when these records had gone out of print in the USA. A basic template that could be extrapolated on or reduced to a basic pulse, and whatever was done it was something that was bound to make the unacquainted squeem in terror as any listen to WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT in its nerve-shattering entirety will prove.

Even the latterday Velvets would get compared to their early selves which only goes to show you just how important and life-reaffirming the Velvets were, even when they were singing about death and dope making a whole load of kids wanna cop some of that dark universe in the process.

But hey, I don't give a coprophaggot Reedian ass that the Velvets sang about drugs and sex practices that might now be legal but are certainly not risk free no matter how you look at it. It's the drone, the ideas and the repeato-riffs that sold me. And although the lyrics did have their air of beauty I guess Reed could have been mumbling the telephone book and it still would have come off overload. Some people just have that gift.

Of course solo Reed, even with the few bright spots and METAL MACHINE MUSIC searing the synapses of your mind, never did add up to anything he was able to cook up during his Velvets tenure. The early eighties Robert Quine band was a magnificent romp true (and I have been known to enjoy TRANSFORMER on a once-in-a-lifetime basis), but given the material Reed gave Quine to perform its a wonder it came out as good as it did. It reminds me of what Thomas Fleming on the CHRONICLES website recently wrote about how he much more enjoyed Reed back when the chap was a drug sotted degenerate...when he went liberal he started singing about saving the whales just like all of those protest kiddies Reed once upped nose at! The perfect move to cuddle up to the Jann Wenners in order to get some crucial bigtime rock space but certainly a downer for people like you. Or what Harvey Gold said at a Tin Huey concert in 1973 (prior to a particularly potent "Sister Ray" dedicated to Peter Laughner and Maureen Tucker)...that Lou Reed was once great, now he's only good (and guess what he became by 198X...a bigger embarrassment than the time Brad Kohler's uncle unscrewed that Oreo cookie and stuck 'em to his nipples while imitating a topless island hula dancer and in front of the entire fambly t'boot!).

Well, there is one thing that we should all be grateful about regarding Lou's death, and that is he won't be around this November 22nd to sing "The Day John Kennedy Died" for the fiftieth anniversary hullabaloo bash that's undoubtedly gonna happen all over the place. And you know he would have, for some sycophantic clingons out there!

Certain readers have written in noting a strain on my being that's persisted since at least the early days of Autumn. For those of you who have noticed all I can do is congratulate you on being such observant people! Really, the past month or so has induced a giant mass of pressure being pounced upon my being, not because of any personal demons I've been struggling with (face it, those demons have won long ago!), but because the thought of me having to rake up and dispose of all these leaves that have been falling off the trees this autumn...as if they were gonna jump into the trash bag 'n dispose of themselves without any personal prodding on my behalf...not to mention cleaning the gutters is just too maddening to shake outta my obviously overworked and overwrought mind! And of course the mere idea of me going up and down that rickety latter to scrape who-knows-what outta the gutters (I have the feeling that the neighborhood cats 'n squirrels like to use 'em as a latrine) really does a number on me...enough to be giving me weirder dreams'n the one I had last night even (it was one of my recurring GILLIGAN'S ISLAND dreams dealing with a brief mid-eighties revival of the series with the original cast, only for some strange reason Richard Deacon was one of 'em! Stranger'n the one I had a good seven or so years back where the Professor was wearing a "hip" ponytail while dressed in judge's robes!). I know you all have had those falling dreams where you are pushed off a ledge or fall out of a tree only to suddenly wake up in a cold sweat, but not every night like I do during gutter cleaning season!

Well, impending backbreaking work and strange dreams dealing with untied ends from childhood kultural significance aside, here are this week's reviews!

Various Artists-CLASSROOM PROJECTS---INCREDIBLE MUSIC MADE BY CHILDREN IN SCHOOLS CD (P/C Trunk, England)

Will strangeties never cease? I mean, here's an entire Cee-Dee consisting of nothing but tracks recorded by a bunch of English school kids which were pressed on to records from the late-fifties until the early-eighties, and it ain't like these kids were necessarily being led on by their over-rambunctious stage mothers or teachers either! Naw, these tracks were not only performed by kids but in many cases were written by kids for school projects, and I must admit they sure did a boffo job above and beyond the call of just putting forth enough to get a good grade. Well, it sure beats cutting open a dead frog!

Some of it might seem out of place...after all, the Nick Nack Kids are pretty much household names in households that still bellow out "This Old Man"...but the all-gal choirs, avant garde soundscapes and a Scarlatti piano piece do prove that grade schoolers like these ain't as stoopid as teachers and parents tend to make 'em out to be. Some of this is amazingly serious while a don't drink and drive project is light hearted kidstuff that kinda misses the intended target. After all, how many ten-year-olds are boozing it up and jumping into the family car anyway? But whatever, this sorta comes off as the aural counterpart to those artwork by children studies where some seven-year-old's art is compared to ancient works or Picasso for that matter. Only this ain't as stodgy or as clinical in its approach (though the booklet notes should have been more thorough---many a gap and omission leaves me hungerin' for more background information!).

Kinda makes me wish that the songs that my cousin and I created at age seven were preserved for future generations and collections such as this. We really created some doozies, like our spoof of the classic "Let The Sun Shine In" entitled "Let the Moonshine In" which really rattled my aunt who thought we were ruining a nice wholesome song, not to mention that all-time classic "Pick My Nose in the Middle of February"! Yeah, I know that stuff like that would never make it outta the back porch and onto a record let alone Cee-Dee years later but hey, what can you expect from a buncha suburban slobs anyway? It ain't like we were creative like all those English fags now, were we?

***

Bill Barron-THE TENOR STYLINGS OF... CD-r burn (originally on Savoy)

Wish that I had one of those encyclopedia kinda jazz minds like Gary Giddins or Bill Shute so I can rattle off to you more about this jazz saxophonist, but since I don't I hadda do my googlin' just like everyone else. Turns out that Barron's a guy who had previously played with Cecil Taylor and would later end up on Ted Curson's TEARS FOR DOLPHY, an album that I never really quite wrapped my Eustachian tubes around. Nothing quite awe-inspiring on this '61 sesh either, though Barron and band (also including not only Curson but Coltrane bassist Jimmy Garrison) know how to keep things moving while doing the post-bop drive. Might even suit you well even if you don't feel as nerve-beaten as I have these last few days!

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Various Artists-KEEP OFF THE GHOUL-TIDE! (pudgy pickings from the virtual thrift store) CD-r (compiled by Bill Shute)

Another Bill Shute sampler of stuff you're never gonna hear on drive time radio (unless I was program director!), that's for sure! Mostly unfamaliar, at least one bell-ringing name (Positively 13 O'Clock of "Psychotic Reaction" on PEBBLES Volume 1 fame) appears...oh wait, so do the Kasenetz-Katz Super Cirkus doing "To You With Love" which just hadda've stymied all of the kids who bought the "I'm in Love With You" single and, as usual, wanted to get their money's worth outta it by spinning the flip!

Also on board is more country twang courtesy Ruth Dalton with Wayne Johnston's Boys, black gospel by the Angelic Gospel Choir for those of you who go for things like this, locally-produced soul from Cleveland's Soul Notes and various garage band gurgles that sound so neighborhood you kinda get the idea that they were recorded next door! (As far as "answer records" go the Imposters' "Wipe In" has gotta be the cheeziest of 'em all!) Especially strange is a side off an album by a Korean singing group called "Bunny Girls" who do their sixties pop schtick in their own native tongue...they may not be the Korean answer to Japan's Peanuts but man, if you're gonna riot in their neighborhood I'll betcha they've got pretty good aim so like...watch out!

***

The Dirtbombs-OOEY GOOEY CHEWY KA-BLOOEY! CD-r burn (originally on In The Red)

Personally I like mine Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy, but this will do. A surprisingly crafted tribute to late-sixties SoCal sunshine pop with a few sidetracks into Box Tops mid-South twang. Not quite the bubblegum bonanza that leader Mick Collins says it is, but considering the lack of any sorta smart pop criteria being pumped out in this age of eternal Patti Page glop recycled as _________________ (fill in the blank with whatever female "belter" you have the most loathing for) this does come off fresher'n your gal's rag after a heavy dousing of lye. I get the feeling that Brian Wilson's gonna be wantin' to do some heavy boppin' on this group's collective heads after he hears "We Come In the Sunshine," but its best to let the courts decide.

***

Various Artists-THE BYG DEAL CD-r burn (originally on Finders Keepers)

One via Thomas Gilmore, this time a sampler of the BYG (with and without Actuel) label's rock wares that was released obviously to cash in on the collector's cult surrounding the legendary French label. Y'know, the one that was best known not only for a slew of late-seventies bargain bin entries at your fave shopping mall emporium but poor pressings and a notorious ripping off of the artist. Mostly hippie stuff here, though you don't have to feel self-conscious listening to Daevid Allen and Gong or AME Son because they certainly don't reek patchouli like some of the entries do. Oddly enough, this contains a cover of the Standells hit "Dirty Water" as performed by some English cats (oooh, am """""I""""" in the groove!) called Freedom you probably will hate, but since they probably hate you everything's even. Dock ten pts. for including the Art Ensemble of Chicago's "Rock On!" (a boffo inclusion mind you), and fading it out right when Roscoe Mitchell's toughass sax solo gets into gear!

***

THE OFFSET: SPECTACLE CD-r burn (sent by Tom Gilmore)

Not too sure about this one...was it originally a vinyl album released by the Spectator K label, or did this one come out as a Cee-Dee somewhere? Whatever it was, I went into it cold not knowing a thing about 'em. Thought the low-fi drone the Offset: Spectacle people put forth was interesting enough what with the references to a whole slew of acts both well-known and well-loved from early Pavement to Tyrannosaurus Rex, and what's more the singer was not elocutioning in the Queen's English...sounded something more like French to me!

Turns out that this group wasn't Gallic in the slightest but Chinese, and the Offset: Spectacle are an act that has made their home in none other than Peking of all places! Yes, the sorry spectacle (whether offset or not) of self-produced non-commercial rock 'n roll has made its way deep into the heart of Maoland, but thankfully a whole lot was lost in the translation because this act is mighty entertaining w/o harboring the self-conscious narcissism of many similar acts who had been paraded out as the next hotcha wowzer save-the-world band over the past three or so decades. A pretty decent outing from this outta-nowhere act, and frankly I hope they stay in China with their mad drone music and unique under-the-garage stylings---after all, I'd hate to hear what they'd sound like AFTER being exposed to Western alternative/amerindie values, and so would you!

***

THE KIOSK III CD-r (David Keay, available via  david.keay1957@gmail.com)

Latest addition/edition from this boffo bedroom act that seems to be improving with each and every release. On this one the specter of krautitude seems to be growing with a few references to Neu! here and Faust there, and for some maybe not-so-surprising reason I can hear quite a bit of Slapp Happy in the mix! Even some very early Fairport Convention back when they were doing a better job of being the Jefferson Airplane than the 'plane themselves were. A pretty pleasant slice of home-made music that reminds me of the good ol' days of sub-garage antics---before it became just another cheap ploy for people to wanna swap their cassettes of musical jagoffs for my crudzine as if it were an honest and legal barter. (And don't worry, I used to attempt to do the exact same thing with people of a much greater stature than I was or shall ever hope to be!)

***

Left Lane Cruiser-ROCK THEM BACK TO HELL CD-r (originally on Alive)

Paul McGarry doesn't care for this one, but he thought he should send me a burn of it anyway. Thanks a lot Paul, now how about sending me some more things you don't like, such as MANTOVANI'S GREATEST HITS or even a few of those collections of THE WORLD'S BEST LOVED MELODIES that they used to sell on weekend tee-vee in order to shame loads of doof families into getting some culture into their homes!

All kidding aside this ain't bad. Nothing I think I'll be spinning again any time soon, but good enough hard-country thunk rock that owes about as much to early heavy metal moves as it does rockabilly. Maybe even Z.Z. Top (or even choice-era Black Oak Arkansas) meets the Cramps? Could be! Whatever, a fair enough screecher that delivers quite a lot more than many of the competition that's roaming out there in new and refreshing land.

***

The Hammersmith Gorillas-MESSAGE TO THE WORLD CD (Damaged Goods England)

Gotta say that I own a whole load of Jesse Hector-related booty whether it be in disc, disque or tape format. Also gotta admit that I ain't been spinnin' as much Jesse Hector-related material as perhaps I should, but now that winter's almost upon us maybe I will have some more time to spare in a few months time. A good 'un here finally digitized, showing the trio in tippy top form cranking out material both classic ("Foxy Lady") and new with that patented hard thrust that evokes everything from T. Rex and Slade to the late-fifties experimenters. Not bad, though wha' th' %*#& is it with those oscillating intros and outros???

***

Hooo boy have I got a hot one for you comin' up this week...bet you can't stand waitin' for it, eh? Well tough turds, because yer gonna hafta wait for the thing just like everyone else...what makes you think YOU'RE so special anyway???

BOOK REVIEW! THE LITTLE RASCALS (the life and times of Our Gang) by Leonard Maltin and Richard W. Bann (Crown, 1992)

Here's a long-honored book that comes in handy not only if you were one of the millyuns who sacked out in front of the boob tube watching LITTLE RASCALS and OUR GANG comedies long before Bill Cosby made good on his threat and bought up the rights, but if you're one (like me) who thinks that there was a "Golden Era" of films that began in the 1890's and lasted until the outbreak of the Second World War which will never be replicated, replaced or emulated for that matter. After that era the world became too distraught to ever become innocent again, and right now you can bet we're bearing the brunt of it all.

A nice enough read you betcha, even when Leonard Maltin's getting into his patented "above-it-all" chortling about somethingorother and slaps in his two-cents of knock me over the head with a sledgehammer observations (yeah, the MGM GANGs just don't measure up...you don't have to keep reminding us!). I mean, what sorta suburban slob wouldn't go for a book listing the entire 22+-year series short by short with typical posed production stills that usually have nothing to do with the films, not to mention the behind the scenes hijinx as well as bios on your fave and not-so characters even if that bearded buffoon was behind the entire shebang!

So it's a good enough effort with bits 'n pieces not only on the actual comedies themselves but the actors, directors, controversies and all sorta observations spewed forth from the soon-to-be-86's members themselves. There's even a page or so on not only the copycat series that were flooding the market for years, but the reams of people who were claiming to be former RASCAL members and going to their deaths living their illusions even though all of the evidence was pretty much stacked up against 'em!

I must admit that breezing like Brisbane through this book really did jog a few memory cells loose from my brain...like didja know that onetime RASCAL imitator Malcolm Sebastian (better known as BIG BOY) was a member of the troupe once and only once for the difficult to sit through "Shivering Shakespeare"??? However the Nanette Fabray controversy still rages on considering how the book definitely claims that the pert-nosed one was not a member (something which contradicts what she actually said on MATCH GAME!)...well since this book's revised edition came out it has been discovered that Fabray actually did appear in an early silent as a kiddie extra which just "might" qualify her as a member, but that also might be like saying Don Evans was a member of Rocket From The Tombs or that Eve Plumb appeared in the DICK TRACY pilot episode. It all depends on how you look at it.

But phonus balonuses and peripheral membership aside I gotta say I love this book to the dickens. Not only does it fill me in on a whole load of film history I could stand crammed into my beanie (unlike all of those other textbook stodgy treatises which praise the likes of Chaplin to the rafters and say that Buster Keaton was fantastic until those dread talkies came into being), but it sure brings back them boffo memories of my favorite years of all time, namely the pre-school days, when watching LITTLE RASCALS in the morning was just as much as ritual as...waiting until the end of AFTERNOON THEATER to watch some King Features filler cartoons (BEETLE BAILEY, KRAZY KAT...) before tuning into BARNEY BEAN at five for whatever animated wowzers he'd would happen to be running (DEPUTY DAWG, DICK TRACY!!!). And if you don't think that those years were the bestest, most fruitful years of my being you certainly haven't been reading this blog long enough!

(Did I ever tell you about the time when I was about four or so and watching ROAMIN' HOLIDAY during the morning hours, and the film actually began "flickering" and snapped [probably due to too many syndication spins!] during the finale when the bees begin flying all over the place much to Spanky, Alfalfa and Buckwheat's dismay? Mother was vexed because she wanted to go to her mother's place and had to take me along, but I wouldn't budge because as long as "the end" didn't appear on the screen the movie just wasn't over for me I actually watched about another five or so minutes of the television well into the next program just hoping that I would finally see "the end" flashed thus signalling the culmination of my morning viewing hours, but eventually gave up hope that it ever would be finalized at least in my mind. To this day I must admit that I do feel unfulfilled, as if I have been denied some sort of closure lo these many years and if you wonder why I come off as this sort of gruff and unlovable coot that I've revealed myself to be throughout my not-so-illustrious "career" well, know you know.) 

Eh, not much to say right now. Don't feel like talking, being sociable, or even breathing for that matter. Here's what's been spinning on my various 'tables this past week, and if you don't like it why don't you go write a letter to your mother or something...at this point in time I could hardly give a whit what any of you think (and judging from the amt. of feedback I get via the blog, the feeling is most certainly mutual!).

Kim Gordon and Bill Nace-BODY/HEAD CD-r (originally on Matador)

Like, what the fuh? I mean, me actually reviewing a release on the Matador label which is run by that adolescent tough boy poseur (copyright 1977) grand master of self-important assholism Gerard "Go back across the room and stick Eddie Flowers' dick back in your mouth" Cosloy himself? The guy who pretty much single-handedly caused a huge drop off in sales of my saintly fanzine with his incessant rantings against myself-financed, hand cranked pride and joy??? You'd think I'd take to reviewing a Matador release with about the same sense of objectivity as Chuck Eddy would review a release by Sister Ray, but since I got this one free via Bob Forward (to whom I give a big "thank you," I think) I figure hey, why not? And besides, at this point in time I am that hard up.

Really nothing that special here. Music that's been done a good twenty-plus years ago by other remnants of the New York Lower East Side cadre. Perhaps they didn't do it as good as Nace and Gordon do here though, but at least it's in the same vernacular. Moody drone that's enveloping enough, but lacks the proper warmth and drive that made previous drones oh-so-enticing.

But hey, these modern-day experimental types are totally devoid of any humanity or feeling don'tcha know...I think it had something to do with eight years of Reagan and four years of Bush I, then eight years of Bush II later on. Well, if you were some young radical type writing about rock music for your blog you'd probably come up with the same excuse now, wouldn't you??? (And oh, am I trying to be copasetic with all of you Marcusians out there who love to troll blogs such as mine!)

To be honest about it, I can't say that I've been that much of a fan and follower of the entire Sonic Youth cadre since the very late-eighties. The lack of money, access and a serious reaction against the entire miasma that had settled upon what we used to call "underground rock" sorta had me steering clear of these post-no wave styled acts for quite some time. Well, at least Miss Gordon hasn't gone new age, which I somehow would have thought the next logical evolutionary move given some of the other offal to have come out of the New York under-the-underground.

Your take may differ, but for me BODY/HEAD represents the sounds of the once-bright hope of past accomplishment stuck in neutral not going anywhere and merely existing if only to exist as a musical artifact. Certainly a labor of love, even if some might be tempted to say self indulgence. I wouldn't, but then again I wouldn't exactly say that this has the same verve and style that drew me to Sonic Youth back when they had just released their debut on Neutral which sounded like yet another one of those intelligent and brilliant flashes of early Velvet Underground energies wrapped up for an era in rock that seemed rather precarious. And hey, if a certain label head would just happen to see this particular writeup and once again feign self-pitying rage (as we'd all expect) well hey, look at the bright side...maybe Patrick Amory is across the room, and you know what to do now don't you sweetie!

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Barrance Whitfield and the Savages-DIG THY SAVAGE SOULD CD-r burn (originally on Bloodshot)

Uh like, this is more like it! I gotta admit that I was one bozo who had ignored Mr. Whitfield back during his eighties rise to "fame" perhaps because there were too many other things that were begging for my money out there, but who could deny that this guy was one of the few real-life people singing the blues in an era where the genre seemed to get slicked up thanks to the likes of Robert Cray and a whole buncha white guys who thought they were pursuing the down-and-out lifestyle. Whitfield sings tough and gruff the way you'd expect a blues man to belt it out, and the Savages mix just the right amount of garage band energy and hard urban blues to make this a record that (maybe) could unite the hardened r 'n' b  and rock & roll fans! Though I kinda doubt it...I mean, why would they WANT to unite in the first place? It's kinda surprising to hear such a hard blare here in the 'teens long after the original spirit had died...give it a listen before it too gets buried under the weight of way too many Miley Cyrus disques.

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Various Artists-SWEET CRAWLIN' REBEL CATERPILLARS CD-r burn (tossed my way via Bill Shute)

Remember Captain Beefheart's "Best Batch Yet"? Well, the latest round of Cee-Dee-Ares that Bill Shute sent me were the worst batch yet, since none of 'em would play on my chairside entertainment system w/o emitting a loud chirpy squeaky echo-y sound that makes each 'n every one of 'em all but listenable! And sheesh, it seemed as if Bill had sent yet another set of goodies that I woulda enjoyed too. Well, worse things have happened to me...like once I was on the Atlantic Records alternative music promo list!

This slightly older collection does spin fine enough, all the way through in fact w/o skipping or just stopping as if it were a deer caught in your headlights on some late-autumn midnight road. It's got some way-too familiar trackage true (Max Frost, Blues Magoos, Seeds...) but some neat surprises as well, like an early Buckinghams track that sounds just the right balance of pop and garage band without the overbearing horns that cluttered up their hits! Bill also slapped on a toon by one of a thousand groups from the sixties calling themselves the Invaders, Hasil Adkins taken straight from 8-track (!), and for a change of pace, a lounge-y version of "Sweet Caroline" that sounds as if it was recorded live at the "Ripple Room" in the Moonlight Lounge right before the mob burned it to the ground. Good stack of singles you got here Bill, and next time make sure the heads are clean on your machine next time!

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Various Artists-MICHIGAN MELTDOWN VOLUME 2 LP (Coney Dog)

And I thought volume one was a wild ride...lemme tell you in this case the sequel tops the original hands down. Here's more of that MC5-driven Detroit rock style via a slew of extremely obscure self-produced single sides which really bring all of that hype about the area being one force field of musical scronk home, y'know???

If you're a humongous fan of self-produced, garage-recorded, poorly-pressed singles man, this is the platter for you! Twelve rarities pop up here, and if they ain't trying to mimic the avant rock of the MC5 they're going for the Stooges sense of aural overload. Or maybe even something of their own for that matter, but whatever it is these groups really do create that high-energy style that had doofuses like me scouring THE MUSIC INDEX trying to find any reference to these groups and more as if the publications of the day were exactly gonna be brimming full with detailed minutiae on the Up or even Carnal Kitchen!

Fave raves (at least for me) include Attack's "Dream" (mildly MC5 riddled), TNS's "Time's Up" (heavily Stoogified), Canada's "Money is Love Heredity" (I'll bet they didn't even know they were influenced by the Velvet Underground!), the Mixed Generation's "Unhooked Generation" (Freda Payne taken to the logically correct Detroit-rock extreme) and Spaced's double sider! And hey, I don't even know who what or where these obviously punk rockin' locals with names like Ape and Chuckles who appeared in this band were comin' from...talk about a group trying to create their own genre of rock 'n roll right before your very ears, succeeding, then losing it for a good forty or so years!

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The Sadies-INTERNAL SOUNDS CD-r burn (originally on Yep Records)

Not much I can really say about these Canadian alt-country rockers other'n they can put up a halfway-decent moderne-psychedelic sound even if fully ingrained in the "patented" indie style and that their more twango numbers do emit an air of Elliot Murphy around the time of NIGHT LIGHTS which really is a good feat. Other'n that all I can say is that, although the Sadies are a group with musical talent and an ability to craft some slightly appealing numbers, they seem to tread the same waters of post-eighties Long Ryders psych rock compete with western ride-'em-cowboy sensibilities. If I ever do happen to spin this one again it'll probably be out of either extreme boredom or the fact that I forgot I had spun it in the first place and decided to repeat myself as usual (it has been done.) My moolah's gonna be on the former...care to plunk down a dime for a bet???

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Clifford Thornton-FREEDOM AND UNITY CD-r burn (originally on Atavistic)

Bill sent a fanabla of a good one here (which didn't even sport any defects unlike the platters promulgating his last package), a '67 sesh from valve trombonist Thornton and his "New Art Ensemble." Somehow I don't get the feeling that Roscoe Mitchell would have been one to sue over the name of Thornton's aggregation, and after a spin or two I'm sure the erstwhile AEC multi-instrumentalist found someone who most definitely was more than just a "kindred spirit".

Fantastic down vibe on this session, very similar to the boffo Marzette Watts ESP platter probably because of not only Thornton's but Karl Berger's presence on that 'un as well as this. It's even gnarlier if you can imagine which is saying something about a release featuring the guitar maulingness of Sonny Sharrock. Fantastic players too, most of whom other'n Jimmy Garrison are unknowns not only now, but then (one guy sports the moniker of Tyrone Crabb, one of the best nom-de-trues to pass my eyes since Dick Hyman). The reissue also has two bonus tracks meaning that you're getting a better and cheaper bargain downloading this 'un rather'n dishing out the bucks for an original. Be thrifty for once, willya?

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Doubt I'll be in a better mood for next week's extravaganza, but I will give it a try. Until then, as Adam Clayton Powell used to say, "keep the faith---and better hold onto the cash too while you're at it."

MOOM PITCHER DOUBLE FEATURE REVIEW! THE STEPMOTHER (1972) and THE SISTER-IN-LAW (1974)

Still milking the BIG SCREEN BOMBSHELLS Dee-Vee-Dee set for all its worth, and surprise surprise today's double header was a pretty hotcha if botcha one if I do say so myself. First on the bill's THE STEPMOTHER, a "melodrama" (that's what I think they call 'em) starring none other than Alejandro Rey of FLYING NUN fame in the lead as this hot-headed and jealous to the nth architect who not only kills a client who has been doodling his wife, but accidentally (or so I think) pushes his best friend and business partner off the roof of a partway-completed structure. Considering the friend was played by none other than Larry Linville of M*A*S*H fame you could say that I've been waiting for a scene like this for quite a long time!

THE STEPMOTHER reeks early-seventies gloss and flash even when you consider its grimy deca-suburban (considering everybody is either talking about doing the dirty deed or doing it with everyone else) feel. In many ways it comes of like an NBC MYSTERY MOVIE with tits. And hey, that's what makes it so interesting because when you get bored with the police work scenes there are always some areola bound to pop up on the screen to keep your mind occupied for at least a few seconds.

'n hey, if does make for a good round of entertainment even if your mind isn't focused on mams 'n paps, because the pace is pumped up enough that you don't have to do much if any fast forwarding like I have to at least when I get to some filler (walks through the park, strolls through the zoo...) that exist only to pad an hour's worth of material into a solid feature length. Just don't let the arty "freeze frame" effects get to you. (If you are an epileptic you might wanna steer clear of this one.)

I hadda do more than my share of fast-forwarding with THE SISTER-IN-LAW, a '74 effort starring future youth-appeal actor John Savage as a young fanabla returning home after trying to "find himself," where he's not only seduced by his brother's oft-overexposed  wife, but bro's mistress who bears a bit of a resemblance to the wife so like, why the switch? Actually this 'un is a good enough drama in itself (especially when it comes to the underworld elements who are more'n anxious for brother to deliver a certain package to Canada, and it ain't Paul McGarry's Christmas gift!), though some of it does tend to drag like the dickens. Especially the scenes where we see Savage and bro's whore driving through the countryside followed by a pair of comedic baddies making sure that they do their doody, and maybe get shot right afterwards...I mean, if they just cut those down to proper lengths and maybe added a few more boob shots you wouldn't be hitting the ol' refrigerator so often now, would you?

Actually you can't really go wrong with these drive-in creepers that I'm sure woulda been worth your while seeing back when they were hitting the projectors, though I get the idea that if you were to trek down to the local outdoor theatre when any of these classics were being run the only thing you'd be seeing would be some gal's legs up inna air in the car ahead of you. Well, as they used to say, there was probably more action going on in the cars than on the screen, and after all of these years I finally realize why my mother would always tell me to look straight ahead when we'd drive to the Reynolds to go see SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARVES or BAMBI...well, at least the entertainment that was being provided was rated "G" unlike everything else that was happening around me!