Hi snookums. I'm stayin' up extra late tonight because the automatic sump pump in the basement is broken and I have to check on the rising rain water every few hours in order to utilize the not-so-automatic floor pump when flood levels appear imminent. In between slogging through an all-night shift that reminds me of my old night watchman job of yore I thought I'd do my usual finishing up touches and fine tunings on this weekend's megapost, even if I otherwise would prefer enjoying a NyQuil-induced dream that usually involves situations so abstract even Sidney Peterson would have rejected them as plausible film scenarios. So if the writing seems a bit woozy in spots and lacks the viscosity demanded of such an important blog as this well...you'll know that things are going just as they have been these past ten or so years so be grateful and SHUT THE HELL UP. (But don't worry, I get the feeling that I'll be doing more'n my share of "scrubbing" once I get my standard ten hours of sleep in and discover what a turdbomb of a post I unleashed upon you while fighting off the arms o' Morpheus.)

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Well, I always did wanna know exactly what kind of a "libertarian" I am, so I went to this site (which I discovered via the EX-ARMY LIBERTARIAN NATIONALIST blog) to find out! The results of this rather interesting quiz can be found directly below, and to be honest and truthful like I always am I must admit they don't surprise me one bit, even though I am glad to know that I am most definitely not the kind of libertarian Jay Hinman puts himself forth as. Heck, I should have guessed the results right off the bat since for years I've been fancying myself an "anarchist," and a real down-to-earth-and-not-a-pretend-anarchist-who's-really-a-communist like many of you readers have been for quite some time! Yeah, I know that you can probably take as much stock in a test like this as you could some "What Kind of Sex Animal Are You?" quiz found in an old issue of COSMOPOLITAN, but I wouldn't doubt that there's at least a shred of truth in what is brought out. Maybe a tiny shred but something I can latch onto with muddled glee. Maybe I can quibble with the results a bit even if I don't even consider myself a total believer in free markets as they stand these days, but like I said it's just a test, and for the second of these political quizzes that I took on-line I must say that I did get a better result'n the one where I tried to discover whether or not I was a fascist (they told me to get lost, and you can bet I felt disappointed!):

You Scored as Anarcho-capitalist 

Anarcho-capitalists are libertarians who oppose the state entirely and propose to have a free market in the provision of security and arbitration. The term anarcho-capitalism derives from Murray Rothbard to describe a stateless society based on the principles of laissez-faire or the philosophy in support of such a proposition. Anarcho-capitalists may tend to still associate more with the political right and make use of the political process, unless they are agorists or left-libertarians at the same time.

Anarcho-capitalist

83%

Minarchist

75%

Paleo-libertarian

67%

"Small L" libertarian

67%

Agorist

50%

Left-libertarian

25%

Geo-libertarian

17%

Neo-libertarian

17%

Libertarian socialist

8%

So readers, what do you stand as if my own fabian socialist-sniffing Geiger Counter wasn't clicking away like a pair of amphetamine-riddled castanets!

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Well here they be, this weekend's big batch o' reviews! Not as big a batch as you would have hoped for, but given how the past week did progress at a particularly slow if not dirge-like pace I guess I should be glad that I made it outta the thing alive! All but the first writeup are from Cee-Dee burns that were sent to me by readers both grateful and not, and considering how I'm running out of opportunities to purchase the kind of platters that I think I would enjoy here in the 'teens (that combined with the lack of produce I'd like to pick for my sound salads---boy I am getting woozy!) I'm more than thankful for these unsolicited handouts! So w/o further a-doo-doo, here's this week's list of tracks to twist (or something like that):

The Kinks-PRESERVATION ACT 1 CD (Koch)

I bought this one for purely teenage throbdom reasons that would have absolutely positively nothing to do with any smart set type who tunes into this blog. Y'see, when I was but a mere pimplefarm I used to prowl through department store record racks and look at the album covers just dreaming that I could own the whole lot of 'em (well, I wasn't too keen on the Don Ho ones), and unlike many of the people I went to school with I sure did remember the Kinks! Back when the original British Invasion was plowing everything in its path into the mulch the Kinks sounded, looked and snarled better'n the Beatles and Rolling Stones combined! Not only that, but the occasional Kinks "oldie" being spun on the just-recovering from the '69/'70 doldrums AM dial sure came off better in light of a whole load of the goop that was being spun, and come to think of it they sure fit in with the good trackage being played during that brief resurgence as well. Not only that but, unlike many of the mop top faves of a good eight/nine years back the Kinks were still together and putting out albums...sheesh, one would have thought they woulda combusticated ages ago when the music scene began to take a turn for the teenybop/hippydippy worse.

Do you think that I still have the same teen tingles over getting a copy of this 'un in the here and now that I would have had if I had latched onto one back when it first hit the racks? Well, not quite, though I will say that my general nerves and emotion nodes have been deadened over time just like my tastebuds have after having eaten too much Szechuan. Repeated spins of VINCEBUS ERUPTUM can do that to you, but I was still able to muster up a little bit of teenage oompah over this '73 platter. The feeling did come back a bit, like the one that I got after originally looking at the cover way back when getting the impression that the Kinks had turned into a fourteen-piece band and actually allowed gurls into their ranks. Hmmm, the Kinks certainly were entering into the seventies with that all-inclusive mindset that was so in vogue with the folks who were running ROLLING STONE, that's for sure!

As far as the music to be heard goes, well I really gotta say that I have more mixed emotions over this 'un 'n the time I was tempting Sam with treats during one of his barking rampages and he didn't know whether to be angry or gluttonous. It is clear that the specter of cockier seventies rock modes had unfortunately clutched its way into Ray and Dave's style while that old fuddy duddy English Music Hall bounce that might have sounded great on "Sunny Afternoon" just comes off tiresome and worn. (Speaking of "Sunny Afternoon," "Sitting in the Midday Sun" might just be a middling yet pleasant enough sequel.) However when they get into a more hot pop flash mode custom-made for the early-seventies AM pop rebirth the Kinks are cooking pretty good to the point where I even dig their fifties nostalgia paen "One of the Survivors," a number which'll make anyone forget the gassy "Cricket" in a flash.

Dock a buncha points for this being a concept album and the first of who knows how many parts, but at least the Kinks came out smelling better despite all the amputations. True they weren't the Kinks of yore, but they sure weren't as embarrassing to the feeling and movement of teenage sounds as James Taylor mewling in his heroin-induced stupor while straight-as-an-arrow gals were thinking he was singing directly to them.

But then again, had I heard this one back when it came out I get the feeling that, given my ever-budding and distorted teenage tastes, I would have written the Kinks off for good for being such brassy old timer music shucks or somethin'! Shows what sort of a stupid Special Education mongrel I could have been and in many ways do remain. Maybe if they wore shrunken heads around their waists and carved each other up with Bowie knives...

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Walter Brennan-HE'S YOUR UNCLE, NOT YOUR DAD CD-r burn (originally on Key Records)

Yes, tee-vee's Amos McCoy (best not to mention THE TYCOON in his presence!) lays it all out on the table as what was wrong with Ameriga in the mid-sixties, and it was even recorded "live" in the same studio the Seeds probably recorded their live album in, if you get my drift! Bill probably lifted this one from WFMU's "Beware of the Blog" (which is where I lifted the snazz cover on the left!), and although the guy who writes for them is so obviously full of snark sanctimony given his pithy if lofty East Coast liberal-cum-radical putdown of this platter (why, this man actually has friends who participated in ACT UP's trashing of St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1989 which was such a success bringing attention to the fact that anal penetration and rimming are such healthy practices which should be protected by the bludgeoning club of the law!) I take quite a different approach to the genius and down-to-earth common sense that Walter Brennan puts forth on these two sides.

On this outing for the "Key" label, Brennan tackles just about everything from the de-evaluated dollar to foreign aid and civil unrest and although the message he tosses out won't jibe with people who still think that fifty years of gimmedom has benefited the poor or that the average mid-Amerigan is nothing but a glorified pack mule I find Brennan's whole approach a whole lot more refreshing than I would listening to any alternate Great Society type with their newspapers or broadcast forums telling me just what a rat I am for being able to merely scratch out a living and coming off so suburban!

True Brennan's patriotic appeal just doesn't make it with this anarcho-capitalist type (and thankfully he doesn't get into his anti-Jewish rap---after all Brennan himself said that Irving Pincus and Sheldon Leonard were the only two decent Jews in Hollywood and the rest...feh!), but the Academy Award winner who's lucky his statuettes haven't been taken back sure comes off like a glass of clear water after being forced to drink the Koolade that then-contemporaries like, say, Bill Moyers have been glugging down our throats for years! And although Brennan's old time right wing savvy has been surpassed by the likes of Jim Goad, Gavin McInnes and even that neoconnish Kathy Shaidle it's sure great listening to some still pertinent commentary that doesn't grate or come off so paternalistic like just about every shard of controversial tee-vee these past fortysome years has.

As I've been sayin' all along, it's speak-to-you, not AT you, and that really makes a difference if you're interested in getting a passel of disinterested parties to even lend ear to you in the first place. Not only that, but Brennan's sure a master of elocution, cornballus-if-funny jokes and just about everything that would have made him a real hoot at any smoker you could imagine. If you don't think this 'un makes me wanna snatch up the entire run of THE GUNS OF WILL SONNET on DVD I dunno what will!

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Ray Martin and his Orchestra-UP-UP AND AWAY CD-r burn (originally on RCA Camden)

Bill Shute sez "want to feel like you are in the middle of a 1968 Dean Martin variety show...or a 1968 John Davidson special (and who doesn't)? This album TAKES YOU THERE." It mighta took Bill there, but all it did for me was dredge up memories of my pre-double digit days when one of my biggest concerns was how to spend the eighteen cents I had in my pocket without feeling too guilty because my dad said I should put it in the bank. Cheezoid renditions of the day's hits straight outta the Ding-a-Ling Sisters songbook done up to sound nice and mod even though you know your folk woulda hated them hippie sounds, true blue Guy Lombardo fans they who used to blanch when his band would do equally hokum covers of contemporary hits on New Year's Eve. The aural equivalent of those psychedelic neckerchiefs Oliver used to wear.

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SHIZUKA CD-r burn with bonus live track (originally on PSF. Japan)

After getting burned on some not-up-to-snuff Japanese underground platters o'er the past few years I was kinda wary of this 'un. Thankfully this '94 effort featuring the warbling and guitar playing of the one named Shizuka is highly in collusion with the post-Rallizes underground mindset that made the past decade a li'l more bearable than it was. A strange mixture of slow, introspective music that reminds me of Pink Floyd's "Green is the Colour," with occasional girly-girl sing-songy vocals punctuated by sonic blasts of feedback-laden guitar that seems right out of the Mizutani Takashi school of broken eardrums. Speaking of Mizutani, the additional bonus track Fadensonnen burned on to this for me is a live track from '95 sporting the presence of the soon to be MIA Rallizes guitarist and as many a people would say, it's gosharootie!

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Phil Yost-FOG-HAT RAMBLE CD-r burn (originally on Takoma)

Mildly engaging one-man jazz/folk sorta tossout that evokes everything from Sandy Bull to even one-time label-mate John Fahey. Obvious hip influence glomming abounds with a load of Ornette here and Lacy there done up in a proper boho way which, thankfully, doesn't reek either of hippie pretension nor whiz kid showoff. And with Yost's real-life albums (be on the lookout for BENT CITY after you snatch this one) costing an arm and a leg via the usual sources it's best you keep on the lookout for a free download somewhere here onna web, or better yet get a friend to do it for you like Bill Shute did it for me!

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Endless Boogie-7/4/2013 KNOCKDOWN CENTER CD-r burn (submitted by P. D. Fadensonnen)

As you may know I am extremely wary of some of these newfangled psychedelic hard punk rock 'n roll groups making their presence known, but Endless Boogie is one that pretty much kept me entertained throughout this disque's bevy of extended jamz. Kinda funny/strange/GRANDE that there'd be a group cranking out these Hawkwind-styled drones and chords here in the mid-teens but there is, and these guys crank it out like it was 1969 and there were was nothing to look forward to in the coming years except late-night UHF TV! Even has some Stoogian input that wags used to call "Acid Rock" because they didn't know any better. Stuff like this keeps me from pulling the trigger on my boss, and not only I but boss should be really happy about it.

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Various Artists-BLUE ARABIAN BARNYARD OASIS CD-r burn (thanks be to Bill Shute)

This collection of thrift store tracks I never saw in any thrift store I stepped foot in has a more Golden Age of Instrumentals feeling to it, not only because of the inclusion of the Wailers' boffo '59 tit-squeezer "Driftwood" but some mighty powerful tracks courtesy such forgotten acts going under such now-dated yet power-packed names as the Vaqueros, the Fatimas,and the Sound Breakers. And hey, I'm sure a good portion of 'em could give Bill Justis a run for the guitar twangy moolah had these records only made it outta the closet like they shoulda! Of course Bill put on some of that old-timey country and western wang-a-doodle (such as Jim & Edith Young's "Hill Billy Moon"), but since nobody's around to call me a hick for playing it I'll listen to it all without fear of embarrassment, ultra-sophisticado image I have and must retain. As an added bonus, Bill even put an end to this 'un with a couple of country tracks taken from an ancient (78 rpm) Peter Pan Record, so let's just say that it's the next best thing to crawling through a flea market without having to put up with an antique ice cream cone adhering to the sole of your sneaker!

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Well, I made it through this weekend perhaps not with flying coloreds, but satisfactorily enough if I do say so myself. Back to the ol' sump for me, and remember to tune in mid-week for some asinine review of somethingorother... 

BOOK REVIEW! GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW by Dennis O'Neill and Neal Adams (DC, 2012)

Sure is swell that DC decided to reissue the entire two year/thirteen issue run GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW series. Given all of the hubbub that these stories created what with the comic book idiom finally discovering the cutting-edge issues of  the day (which wasn't quite the case as a peek into any issue of THE HAWK AND THE DOVE would prove), GL/GA certainly was an important title in the history and development of comic books. Even in a day and age when there's hardly any way we can escape the usual moral relativism and hammered-in socio/politico messages provided by the Entertainment/Academia/Governmental megaglopolix, these stories read as boss late-Silver/early-Bronze Age stories with hot art, good if at times pretentious scripts, and why let subjects like slumlords and racism get in the way of a good adventure anyway?

Yeah it was a stroke of somethingorother to take a title that probably wasn't pumping on all cylinders and revamp it to snuggle in with the mindsets of "today's relevant youth," and even an old whackoff like myself must admit that these GL/GA stories did it just swimmingly. The best thing about DC comics' early-seventies dive into the "relevant" swamp of youth consciousness is that MOST of the time they actually did it right, and subtly enough w/o coming off like BLESS THE BEASTS AND CHILDREN mixed with rotational spinnings of "One Tin Soldier" and "Things Get a Little Easier (Once You Understand)." Let's just say that the good writing courtesy Denny O'Neill (even with his lapses into artsy Glade air-freshener prose) and art via Neal Adams take a front seat to the message at hand, no matter how timely or youth-oriented it may be.

Yeah, Green Lantern does emit airs of sick white liberal guilt more'n a few times in these sagas...I mean just look at his shameful response in #76's "No Evil Shall Escape My Sight" when an elderly Don "Bubba" Bexley type confronts the power ring'd one with the pearl "I been readin' about how you work for the blue skins...and how on a planet someplace you helped out the orange skins, and you done considerable for the purple skins! Only there skins you never bothered with...the BLACK skins!" Lantern's cringing response is something that I sadly must admit is something right outta grovel and emote progressive television script #1,647 or Brian Ritchie's "Christians For a Day"...the sorta shame and self-conscious realization of that evil white privilege which somehow even the lowliest dirt poor white must wallow in that enlightened Hollywood writers just love to infuse into their stories! (Of course they are exempt---I mean well-off scribes who never ever traipse into South Central El Lay are superior to mid-South white trash who work side by side with blacks doing menial labor, aren 't they?)

But don't fret, because even though the pair (along with Earth Two refugee Black Canary, who incidentally is about as white as they come) do battle everything from greedy capitalists taking over Indian land to the population explosion, the stories are for the most part on par with what the Marvel-ites were doing at the exact same time with or without the social consciousness. And, thank God or Julius Schwartz or whoever comes first, they were also a whole lot less didactic (well, some of the time!) than some of the other DC titles which were going out of their way to preach their entire readership into bleeding heart upper class schmooze (if you don't believe me, pick up the WORLD'S FINEST Superman/Teen Titans saga "The Thing That Destroyed a Town," and it wasn't the big monster on the cover but YOU AND ME!).

I will say that by the advent of the 25-cent 52-page issues towards the end of 1971 the hippydippy-meter was starting to click away more'n a Geiger Counter shoved up the Hulk's ass. The two part saga dealing with drug abuse contains way too many suppositions and "heartbreaking" (in a Huffpo way) neo-facts to hold up even if the action part of the story is straight outta Silver Age heroesville. I mean, wasn't it a whole lot more truthful and honest when people did drugs just to have a good time rather'n blame it all on the older generation or society at large? Leave that crap for those street kids who used to play Phil Donahue and Bill Moyers like a violin; at least those down 'n dirty types who just wanted to get high always seemed more with it and hip than those who used 'em to either get back at society or milk sympathy outta the usual bleedheart suspects.

But hey, I guess the pumping up of the teenage emote meter really did help the mag's notoriety...after all while most other comics sported one page of fanmail GL/GA had three, and if I remember correctly one of the fans writing is was none other than New York mayor John Lindsay!

By the time the last issue to feature any original material (#89) popped off the presses, O'Neill and Adams really flew off the handle of tasteful if at-times cloying relevance with an allegorical Jesus hippie ecological tale that tops 'em all as far as dragging every 1971 youth culture cliche out of the high school newspaper office and milking 'em for all they were worth. For years I wondered whether or not the title got canceled because of this particular saga which re-enacted the crucifixion in terms of a dying planet complete with the standard knock 'em over the head moralizing  (c'mon Comics Code Authority, what are we payin' ya for???), though all I gotta say is that if the title just hadda go out for whatever reasons were given they really went out on a bang! But still, seeing O'Neill drag out that ol' Jesus was a hippie routine does kinda make me wanna puke up the last three rounds of Carnation Instant Breakfast I've been downing these last few days.

The following sagas taken from THE FLASH weren't nearly as paternalistically pious, but I guess by 1972 nobody cared about these message laden tales anymore. They do serve as a kinda limp finale to a series that helped change comic books (perhaps for the worse), but their inclusion does sorta stand as evidence of an industry that, although growing ever by leaps and bounds, just wasn't the same as it was a good ten years earlier when it was catering to a buncha Saturday Afternoon Barbershop Kids who couldn't care one whit about population explosions or grubby landlords. And hey, maybe we were ALL better about it just because we DIDN'T care!

So how did I spend New Year's Eve??? Not too different than I have the past twenty-five of 'em, huddled in my room cowering in fear thinking about how my entire existence has been a total waste with nothing to show for it. And how here it was, another year down the ol' pooper 'n what did it all mean (spiritually, socially, physically) anyway??? Of course I eventually got over the feeling and slapped on some handy next to the chair Cee-Dee whose title I now forget, but the gloom of shame was permeating the air heavier'n any underarm perspiration smells that might have emanated from my humidors otherwise known as armpits. I even read some old fanzines before hitting the sack around ten or so.

When I hadda wake up to pee around two it suddenly dawned on me that it's now been over fifty years since the Cool Life has ended (or was about to) and now I would be celebrating the demi-centennial of the mid-sixties, otherwise known as the transitional years which started off fine though by the late-sixties it would ALL be washed away by dull AM radio, boring television programs created by once-bright stars who were past it, radical hippies who somehow thought Havana was a better place to exist than Sharon, and the biggest loudmouths and back-stabbers to have called themselves children who I unfortunately hadda be shackled with in those prisons of so-called learning they call schools! The good side of it was at least programs like LEAVE IT TO BEAVER and DOBIE GILLIS were now being aired daily, even if most of the time it was during school hours and there was no way I could watch 'em.

But otherwise, New Year's Eve was not the kind I would have imagined I would be enjoying back when I was a young turd and thought life was gonna turn out way different that it obviously had. Then again, like I said my predictions regarding my existence never did turn out to be correct...somehow I thought I would end up being a successful, well-off financially, mannered specimen by this time in life and look where I ended up!

And worst of all, in the first discernible dream of the year that I had I was in my high school cafeteria trying to type out yet another issue of my fanzine monstrosity, being thwarted by fellow students every step of the way. Well, it beat the dream I had right after where I invened a way to remove hemorrhoids based on Biore Strips.

Enough of the silly self-pottying prattle...here are some reviews which I managed to crank out between snivels. For a first time of the year effort, I must admit that I did...middling.

Coum Transmissions-HOME AGED & THE 18 MONTH HOPE LP (Dais Records)

Not being much of a Genesis Breyer P'Orridge fan (in fact, not even owning any proper Throbbing Gristle releases), I decided to snatch up this collection of various sound experiments, poesy recitations and interviews related to P and his early art aggregation Coum Transmissions anyway. After all, there's something about that pre-pussified experimental performance art that gets me right here! (hearty thump to the chest). And as far as abstract dada surrealist vorticism goes, Coum really outdid alla 'em by their sheer force of disgusto in-you-face-or-up-your-ass theatrics that included public puking, eating of puke, live sex acts, coprophagy (with an emphasis on the "phag" I'm sure) and other things that would dearly upset Otto Muehl and various other arbiters of clean living.

I can't make out if any of the above preversions (no sic...it's a joke, son) have been acted out on this album, but don't worry because it's still gonna shock your Aunt Maybelle like nothing since the time cousin Wilomena had to go out of state for "cosmetic surgery." Musically this is standard home recording free rhythmic sound played on piano or violin, with interview snippets from radio and elsewhere (including one where P'Orridge talks about his plans for the budding Gristle) sandwiching the various sound formations for wont of a better term. There's even a live portion from the time Coum opened for Hawkwind in 1971 which might be lacking a lot without the visuals, but I get the feeling that the audience got a whole lot more than they bargained for.

I don't go for other people's art projects especially when they seems akin to looking at their toilet fulla crap before flushing (OK, I'm sure that's been done at least forty years ago), but this sound portion was quite entertaining. And it did come off as good a slab of conceptual innovation as workable as a Chris Burden installation or Vito Acconci jacking off while hidden under some floorboards. Your own art professor may not think so, but if he don't just give him a blood enema until he sees the errors of his ways.

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Yosuke Yamashita Trio-CLAY CD-r burn (originally released on Enja, Germany)

Hmmmm, seems like Yosuke and band had been listening to a li'l too much LIVE AT THE CAFE MONTMARTRE before recording this live '74 side at the Moers Fest, but since that bitta early-sixties avant garde splurge was such a wonderful experience I can hardly blame 'em! Yamashita's piano playing might cause Cecil Taylor to consider some legal action, but until he gets his lawyers on the rampage this will help if you can't find any of your Taylor albums offhand. Akira Sakata and Takeo Moritama might not be Jimmy Lyons and Sunny Murray respectively but they compliment Yamashita almost as well as the two did Taylor. An outta nowhere surprise that I'm sure many of you probably passed on back when this first hit the bins because hey, did any of you really think that Japanese could play jazz inna first place??? I mean, if it was as bad as their country and western...

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Budgie-SQUAWK CD (NPL, England)

Sheesh, what a comedown! For a group that blasted ahead with a stellar debut that had all of the choicest aspects of punk rock and heavy metal rolled up into one megablare, this followup shows that the more these early-seventies groups "grew" and "matured" the more their albums began taking on not only airs of pretense, but deadened-nerve downer flatline. Not only are the "Iggy Pop bop" and Black Sabbath no-chord grind gone, but they've been replaced by more of that "good playing" and "exquisite production" that kids who probably lambasted their parents for their sophistication just loved to have crammed into each and every inch of their "rock". The Roger Dean cover (which was better'n his usual glop) should have been a tipoff, but then again if you can believe Metal Mike Saunders they were merely following the standard heavy metal trend of one good debut album only, so like maybe I shouldn't be too hard on 'em.

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Suni McGrath-CORNFLOWER SUITE CD-r burn (originally on Adelphi)

Ok, so McGrath ain't as fluid as John Fahey nor is he as mystical as Robbie Basho (or as rocking as Sandy Bull), but the guy was apt enough to have recorded this mix of east 'n west slab that I'm sure would have done the job in any late-sixties college dorm lacking in Johnny Mathis or Mantovani records. Loads of fancy fingerpickin' and sitar twanginess to be found, sometimes with the addition of some brush percussion or tablas punctuating the procedures with exquisite taste. Still there seems to be something "strange" about it that keeps this from becoming a downright late-sixties blues/folk classic that I can digest well in my system. Maybe it's the fact that I'm actually listening to a rec recorded by a guy who calls himself "Suni"...sheesh!

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MC5-LIVE '70; LIVE '72 CD-r burns (courtesy of P. D. Fadensonnen)

Some more hotcha MC5 recordings containing material that even I haven't heard before! LIVE '70's got some exquisite-sounding FM/TV simulcast material complete with a typical early-seventies AOR radio gal announcing in that dry, detached style. The performance is top notch showing the group still had the pow'r and might of their KICK OUT THE JAMS debut even if that Lester Bangs review had 'em (at least subconsciously) "toning it down." The audience recordings from Soldier Field in Chicago Illinois (strangely enough laid down a day before the above tee-vee broadcast) packs a whole lotta wallop as well even if the batteries on the tape recorder definitely needed to be replaced. There's loads of squeal and wheeze goin' on with this one making it yet another coulda been wowzer that got sabotaged due to some guy being too cheap to buy a new pack of Ray-O-Vacs!

LIVE '72 details the Five on their last legs in Europe not only with what I guess are outtakes from the BEAT CLUB recording session (including "Ramblin' Rose," "Motor City is Burning" and other class favorites) but that live "MC2" show recorded at the Kennedy Gym in Copenhagen where Wayne Kramer leads a reshuffled version of the group through some old ("Kick Out the Jams") and new ("Gloria") faves for whatever was left of their fan base at the time. Of course next to what the full-fledged Five were doing only a few months earlier this kinda pales, but ya gotta admit that next to what a whole slew of acts were dishing out in the name of 'rock 'n roll" throughout the seventies (and beyond) this band in its death throes sure packed quite a punch in comparison!

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Various Artists-RAZZLE DAZZLE CHAOS SHOES CD-r burn (compliments of Bill Shute)

Starts off great with two sides of the Echotones' 1959 garage ballad single "So In Love"/"My Baby Doll" on the Dart label before slamming right into Rotomagus' third and final release which I know you have already heard, digested and loved to the hilt ever since it got the royal reissue treatment a few years back. The Birdwatchers were too horn-y for me, though I did like listening to the Pretty Things' "I Can Never Say" in this company .The Everly Bros. (I heard the news today---hoo boy!)sound particularly gutsy on "The Price of Love", and only Bill coulda thought to follow it up with Sonny Boy Williamson's blooze chooze "Peach Tree".

Rather'n continue on this rather choppy track-by-artist recitation lemme just wrap it up by saying that the selection's continues on a wunnerfully varied track from Bill Haley and Gene Vincent to Screaming Lord Sutch and the Minnesota-based surfers the Elegants or something like that. And (for a change) there's not one country twanger inna bunch! (And wait'll you hear Gollum's double-sided heavy metal whop-a-rena "Prayer of Despair"/"Desert Heat"! It's such a solid slab of vibrating phlegm lodged inna sinuses passing as "music" to the point where you know that all of those sissy eighties "hair metal" bands woulda run home crying to mama had they given this 'un a listen!)

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Mantronix-KING OF THE BEATS (Anthology 1985-1988) 2-CD set (Warlock)

I bought this one in honor of Imants Krumins since it was he who was the big Mantronix fan back in them dayze. I never could figure out why, just as I never could figure out how some rock critic types were more'n anxious to lump Mantronix in with such rock duos as Suicide and the Silver Apples. It must've been some strange delusional thing that quite a few of these writers get into, but even though I did tune in to SOUL TRAIN when Mantronix were on if only out of curiosity it wasn't like I was beggin' to buy any of this group's wares. And I don't care how many VILLAGE VOICE critics were jumping on the hip hop bandwagon thinking that acts such as this and Public Enemy were just as important to the "process" as the Jefferson Airplane and Rebecca and the Sunnybrook Farmers...I thought Mantronix were just another example of teenage fun 'n jamz goin' into areas I feel uncomfortable in, especially when it gets kinda dark at night.

Sorry Imants, but I can't get together with you on this one. This is rather alienating hip hop beat bleat that didn't engage or move me physically, spiritually, mentally or even bowel-like. Just more of that eighties dredge-up that made them years such a drag to make it through, and considering how that was the decade where it all went down it wasn't like this was anything to rip roar about, y'know?

If you happen to be one of those chic sophisticado types who can dabble in this style of beat bleat along with the rockism and utter raunch of the day I guess that's your problem (as Mr. Krumins himself would have put it), and I say good luck. But sheesh, I kinda like my rebellious noise to be something hard and uncompromising that would offend both the stuffed shirts and the heart-bleeds, and as far as being driving, moving, offensive, anarchic or anything else beneficial to the rabid musical process this has all of the rebellious attitude of a LITTLE LOTTA comic. Better to slap on a Seeds album...now that is what I call teenage rambunction!

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! LAW AND DISORDER (1974) starring Carroll O'Connor and Ernest Borgnine!


I still remember when this flick hit them local concrete fallout shelters they call movie theatres back in the mid-seventies, and it sure looked enticing what with Carroll O'Connor, then riding on his ALL IN THE FAMILY megastardom being teamed up with former McHALE'S NAVY lead and respectable film star in his own right Ernest Borgnine. I mean, if you could find two dog-tired aging actors who could play the roles of downtrodden New York schmucks having to deal with the crime problem in a timely "serio-comedy" then let me know who exactly they would be! And no, Paul Lynde and Joe Besser do not count!

Anyway it's New York City inna seventies where crime is rampant and both Willie the cab driver (played by O'Connor) and Cy the beautician (Borgnine) are bearing the brunt of robberies in their ever running-down neighborhood. When they go to the cops to complain they get suckered into joining an auxiliary police force and have to deal with both their home lives, work and their night duties trying to keep things under control. A tough job especially when Cy's son's bike gets swiped in broad daylight and Willie's daughter (who thankfully is not the Gloria Bunker clone I thought she was gonna be*, even though there is a strange mirror image of ditziness to contend with) is hanging out on the streets with the local tough kids including this one irritating delinquent whose one sole line throughout the film's what else but "fuck you!" And the pud does it in this really irritating nasal voice which really makes you wanna slug him inna 'nads the way Willie and Cy wanna whenever the dooge (another family only word!) is hanging around.

To be honest, LAW AND DISORDER ebbs and flows with some scenes amusing another while others drag a bit. Some portions are pure cereal filler like the scene where that guy who used to be the psychiatrist on M*A*S*H gives an overemotional speech about the process of erection and handling rapists, while other vignettes (such as the one where Cy tracks down the thief who stole his son's bike) do have that proper amount of humor and seriousness mixed together that might not have you rolling in the aisles, but you'll probably get a good charge outta it anyway. And frankly I don't know why Karen Black was in this 'un as Cy's fellow beautician who gives him a hard time other'n maybe as an opportunity to capitalize on her own stardom, but if you like her she's here and you won't mind.

Overall, it's kinda like that manager on WELCOME BACK KOTTER who just stood there with the stone face but pointed to his throat saying "I'm laughing...in there."

Of course this being a "serio-comedy" the film strangely enough takes a strange shift towards the end when Willie finds his ditz of a daughter stoned outta her mind and all of a sudden the film turns into a seventies crime drama that could match SERPICO or THE NEW CENTURIONS for on-screen brutal reality. Don't wanna give anything away but the climax, while not as all out violently powerful as I would have liked, was strong enough to give me a bit of a jolt and, maybe for once in the picture, made me realize that I wasn't watching some remake of CAR 54 WHERE ARE YOU? done seventies style!

Definitely worth a viewing whenever you can find it. I'm sure that the tee-vee print that was being shown inna eighties leaves a whole lot out but even if you get hold of that, it's still got the (occasional) pounce.
___________________________________
*...and don't worry because Willie ain't a Bunker clone either even if some similarities come popping out, perhaps uncontrollably.

BEST OF '13!

Well, I was right for once. Let's just say that my predictions regarding 2013 rang more than true, and that on the highway of hardships we call life this was one year I'm sure glad to see in the rear view mirror. What 2014 has in store I shudder to think, but somehow I get them hippie vibes sayin' that it's gonna be a whole lot less traumatic than the previous 365 had been for not only myself but for a whole load of people in my immediate surroundings. However, given my track record for lofty, sweetness and light-filled predictions and reality I KNOW it's gonna be a way worse one on all fronts than any of us could possibly imagine!

At least '13 had some pretty bright musical moments that helped get me through the harsh reality of "real life," and if it weren't for the records, tapes, Cee-Dees and all of those burns sent in by my many "fans" I'm sure the year would have been a much greater struggle for me to wiggle through. Anyhoo, as you already have surmised here are the highs and lows, ups and downs regarding the past year that should be noted by me if only to make sense of the giant mess that many of us had to live through, and somehow I get the feeling you're with me on this one 1000% even if, like I said, my personal feelings are usually off by a long mark.

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ALBUM (VINYL DIVISION) OF THE YEAR!: Greg "Stackhouse" Prevost's MISSISSIPPI MURDERER, a wild rollicking roll through the blues filtered through one of the few people on this planet entitled to sing 'em! Take Robert Johnson and spangle him up a bit with a hefty dose of speed and perhaps a contract with Skydog and he mighta come up with this! Special Mention (even if it was originally released on Cee-Dee last year): Dark Sunny Land's EMANATIONS FOR A RETURNING.

ALBUM (CD DIVISION) OF THE YEAR!: Rudimentary Peni's CACOPHONY, which might only prove that this was a slow year, or that this was a particularly surprising release by these anarcho punks, or that I just don't know what I'm talking about especially since I think this one was recorded long ago and just got the reissue treatment now. But it's probably the fave of the batch this year and hey, it's just the thing to play for that Lovecraft-loving freak in your family!

SINGLE OF THE YEAR!: Hackamore Brick's "Oh Those Sweet Bananas" which ain't anything I'm gonna be spinnin' from here to New Year's 2015, but man does it sure sound downhome suburban in light of some of the music I have been inundated with as of late!

ARCHIVAL DIG OF THE YEAR!: Figures of Light's THE TV SMASHING CONCERT, a wild lo-fi-ride through an area of proto-punk rock that needs to be uncovered before it all wooshes down the memory drain. Works especially well in conjunction with early-mid-seventies fanzines and Lester Bangs-vintage CREEM magazines, which'll give you an idea of what I was reading whiles first spinning this.

LABEL OF THE YEAR!-B13.

BOOK OF THE YEAR (ROCK DIVISION)!: Kim Fowley's LORD OF GARBAGE even if it came out very late last year...a better soar through the sixties than anything those execrable dungholes at ROLLING STONE would dare say about their sainted decade.

BOOK OF THE YEAR (SECULAR DIVISION)!: ARCHIE; THE SWINGING SIXTIES VOLUME ONE as if any of you looked as good in swimwear as Betty and Veronica do in this collection of early-sixties daily strips!

BOOTLEG OF THE YEAR (VINYL DIVISION!: a toss-up between Can's  DAI DOKO E and CAN YOU, both of which present the infamous krautscapaders during their exciting early-seventies "better" (still reserve the best for the Malcolm Mooney era-group) period before the world music got to their brains. After that all they could muster up in the recording studio were watered down fusion jamz even Herbie Mann would up his nose at, but in the early-seventies maybe they were a serious threat to the Stooges throne as kings of the slag heap!.

BOOTLEG OF THE YEAR (CD DIVISION)!: Nico/Cale/Eno's BERLIN NATIONAL GALLERIE 5.10.1974, where you get to hear the birth of the New Reich right before your very ears, and risk getting taken away by the secret stasi in the very process.

THE "SURPRISE OUTTA NOWHERE" AWARD: Boris Sujdovic's DESPERATE GIRL. You weren't expecting a hard-edged, growly punk record that could stand with the best of the seventies to come outta anywhere let alone Australia now...were you? I sure as Sam smells wasn't!

POST OF THE YEAR!: definitely the interview with Greg Prevost, though the ones with Cole Springer, Stephen Painter and Jonh Ingham weren't anything to sneeze at either! If I gotta pat myself on the back about anything good that I did on this blog in 2013, it was (at the very least) these informative, entertaining and (golly!) status-boosting entries!

POST OF THE YEAR (OTHER THAN MINE)!: Jonh Ingham's trek through the mid-sixties Amerigan rockism experience on his MY BACK PAGES blog. Sure it was written in 2011 for something called THE WORD, but danged if I just couldn't experience that whole SoCal sun 'n speed feeling via this one. Conjures a spell that I'm sure made Greg Shaw wanna break out the ol' printing press to crank out those early issues of BOMP which continue to read like missives from The Cool World that nobody seems to acknowledge even existed inna first place.

MOOM PITCHER OF THE YEAR!: ZARDOZ which is pushing 40 true, but its probably a whole lot better'n anything I'd care to see at the local concrete block had I a desire to go to a concrete block to see a moom pitcher inna first place! Actually anything after TILLIE'S PUNCTURED ROMANCE is a bit hard for me to endure, but this one well...sorta drove a spear through my brain.

REVIEW OF THE YEAR!: None other than a writeup of the recent Oprah Winfrey box office bonanza THE BUTLER courtesy the infamous John Derbyshire. I'm sure you remember Derb, a guy who got raked over the coals for writing (at times satirically, at others dead on) about modern day race relations even though pretty much what he said was agreed upon by people who wouldn't admit so in broad daylight. If you wanted a really good excuse not to see the movie, this review gives you more'n a few reasons to stay home and watch LITTLE RASCALS tapes instead.

BLOG OF THE YEAR!: Actually its the obscure (and dead as of 1/1/14) GROWING OLD WITH ROCK AND ROLL which, despite its occasional unevenness and lapses into areas I'm not exactly comfortable in, was one of the few blogs out there manned by a former seventies rock fanzine (TEENAGE RAMPAGE) maniac who drew his inspiration from many of the same sources I, and presumably you, have. Gonna miss the thing even if I was only an occasional popper onner.

DREAM OF THE YEAR!: The one where I "reminisce" about  Andy Warhol reuniting the Velvet Underground with Reed, Cale, Morrison and Tucker along with David Bowie (!) and Warhol himself "on rhythm guitar and rhythm guitar only." I'll fill you in on any future dream I might have about stumbling across a copy of the resultant album during a romp through the Hartville Flea Market a good decade or so later.

HERO OF THE YEAR!: A toughie. Edward Snowden? Bradlina or whatever it's now calling itself Manning? (Well, not anymore considering the sappy apology the enlisted one gave when being sentenced...Manning should have faced it like "a man" but I guess that's obviously not possible.) Hands down winner (in my own unbiased opinion) is Jim Goad, with Gavin McInnes and Andy Nowicki following a close second tied. They're just some of the few who even remotely reflect how I feel about life in general these sorry days where I feel like I've been dead for the past two or so decades only I just keep moving around due to reflex.

DEATH OF THE YEAR!: No doubt about it that of Frank Bank alias Lumpy Rutherford, the goony sidekick of Eddie and Wally who proved once and for all that you could be a stocky supporting player in a classy sixties sitcom and have three girls satisfying your earthly needs per day! (Haw, and you thought I was gonna give Lou Reed the honors now...well ya shoulda knowed better!) Also noteworthy of mention; Kevin Ayers, Mick Farren and Reg Presley (and what about Dick Dodd???).

***

And with that I say adieu to '13 and hello to the mid-teens, the centennial of the beginning of the First World War (a special no prize to anyone who can explain to me why all of those horrid deaths and disfigurements were necessary) and best of all the tenth anniversary of this blog! As far as BLOG TO COMM goes don't expect anything special or outstanding once the new year rolls in, just more of the same old grisly writeups complete with my opinions regarding whatever's happening around the tri-state area and maybe a surprise review or "fanzine fanabla" to break up the monotony. And in today's topsy-turvy milieu, can you think of anything better for your shell-shocked system?

Betcha glad you're not gonna get one of my old rock 'n roll publication writeups this week now, aren't you? And if you think you're gonna be in for a change of pace well, you've guessed right,  for instead of starting off this week's rock wrapup with my impressions on some old issue of THE NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS or CREEM I'm gonna do something different, like mainly give you my impressions regarding a couple of old issues of Harvey Kurtzman's infamous HELP! magazine that I thankfully grabbed hold of a few weeks back! And hey, I know that this one'll be a refreshing switcheroo from my usual rants regarding Lester Bangs' ruminations as to what punk rock was on an early-seventies plateau now, right???

Gotta say that I was stuck on HELP! ever since I got hold of a copy back when I was fifteen, and given that my mid-teen years were a time that pretty much began my development into the specimen that I most truly am nowadays it's not surprising that this magazine made such a big indent on my MAD-mutated mind. The early/mid-sixties cool of it helped, not to mention Kurtzman's penchant for printing stuff that just might not have been comfy cozy in either MAD, TRUMP or HUMBUG...y'know, material which seemed almost as durty and chance-taking as that NATIONAL LAMPOON stuff I was taking a sneek peek at when perusing the magazine department of my local record shop even if it had an air of Kennedy sophisticado. It would figure that HELP! was once called a missing link between MAD and the 'POON, for it had a lotta the snazz of the former with the cutting and keen seventies snarl of the latter. And as far as hotcha satire with a pre-relevance sixties bent went, better this than some of the high-minded glop MAD would eventually be pushing at us which just reeked New York limousine liberal gush 'stead of sarcastic guffaw-inducing material that could put a smile on George Lincoln Rockwell's face as much as it could Nelson Rockefeller's.



Jerry Lewis appears on the cover of the third 'un. Don Fellman believes that the reason all of those early issues of HELP! had famous comedians posing for 'em not only on the covers but in the "fumetti" stories to be found therein was because none other than Miss MS. herself Gloria Steinem was working for 'em at the time, and since this was before her descent into Cousin Itt hairstyles and a rabid anti-man attitude she was willing to "lower herself" for the sake of the magazine by "coaxing" the various male stars to be photographed for the mag in her own feminine way! I dunno if this is actually true or not (though the fact that Steinem always moans about her abortion being one of the things that nudged her into feminist hagitude, I just wonder which one of these famous celebs impregnated her!), but given how all of the issues she was involved with had the likes of Tom Poston, Jonathan Winters, Mort Sahl and Jackie Gleason onna covers I just can't keep from conjurin' all kindsa strange juxtapositions in my head

Since ol' Jer's the one appearing on thus 'un we all know that he wouldn't do anything as foul or as indecent as engage in adultery to further the popularity of one of the best rising "new comic books" (as Les Daniels put it) on the stands now, would he? Well, at least he did pose foe this funny 'n timely Sputnik-oriented cover which helps make this ish a definite keeper, though if I were you Jerry I'd just stick with DC..

Unfortunately these early HELP!s weren't as boffo-y comic book-y as the later ones, what with all of the short story text that wasn't exactly aimed at the teenagers who wanted to look "cool" reading this and way too many comic reprints from old European magazines that just took on airs of snootiness. At least we got a half-page of Bill Elder, not to mention Jack Davis doing his "Civil War Vignettes" that were oddly enough way too similar to his syndicated War Between the States strip that came and went without a trace.

The fumetti mostly hit their target especially when Kurtzman was given a slew of classic old moom pitcher stills to work with (I wonder what the origin of the one on page 18 just happens to be), though this issue's original saga "On The Coney"  just doesn't hit it like I hoped it would. These posed stories were always touch and go for me, and although some like "Baby It's Occult Outside" with Tom Poston and Sylvia Miles were what we would have hoped the entire lot of 'em to have been like many just flopped all over the place without any of the humor or snicker that I go for in these "photo funnies". Maybe if Kurtzman himself wrote 'em they woulda been high-larious, but otherwise all I can say about 'em is that in order to enjoy the things you probably just hadda've been some New Yawk high rise dweller who drank martinis after work just like Uncle Bill did on FAMILY AFFAIR, at least before Buffy and Jody shamed him into not doing so, the hypocrites!

It looks as if Kurtzman got all of the bugs worked out by ish nine, since this 'un shows a marked improvement not only with less text and more comics, but with two pages of KRAZY KAT reprints that are always welcome around here!  The posed fumetti entitled "A Star is Born" featuring up 'n comer Jane Mason as the girl from Sioux City hoping to make it as a serious Broadway star pitted against legendary comedy talent Jack Carter as the casting couch-oriented producer was a fun one as well even if from all reports Carter was a pretty difficult figure to deal with. Jack Davis also pops in with his personal first-hand impressions of the then-hotcha Floyd Patterson/Ingemar Johanssen fight, while future MAD staffer Paul Coker proves that even back before his plunge into mega-stardom he really wasn't as hot of a talent as I thought he was...kinda pallid in fact.

A lot of this ish is boring filler true..."Smoke" is just some dull excerpt from an off-Broadway production while the Phil Interlandi-captioned etchings are about as funny as the tasteless yet rather unfunny bidet piece that unfortunately also appeared. But you can just see the roots of future funtime endeavors just popping up in this 'un, and all I gotta say is that given that I might have a good ten...fifteen if I hold off the lynch mob years left in me its gonna be fun snatching up the issues of HELP! that I don't have in order to spur me on in my existence. Hey, humor as it is presented in today's cyborg, socially constraining world just ain't funny no more. I mean when I hear the comedians of the present rattle off their routines I feel like I am being lectured for being such a renegade knuckle-dragger or somethin', that I ain't worthy of living because I just don't fit in with the New Order that's being shoved up everybody's orifices whether they have tight enough sphincters or not. At least when I read an old Kurtzman publication or the 'POON for that matter I can feel my old evil, discerning, discriminating self and I certainly am the better for it now, ain't I???

***

Well, here it is, the last full-fledged review-packed post of the year. Gotta say that I tried to go out with a big bang on this one, and although I have obviously failed in my quest at least I've presented some writeups that I will deem...satisfactory. Once again thanks to everybody who sent in burnt offerings for me to peruse...got so many of 'em right now that I'm probably all set for review fodder until spring, and although most of the stuff I have received isn't anything I'd particularly part with my money for in these ultra-discerning times at least I have something new and fresh that I can focus my critical mind on. After all, you don't want to read yet another review of the debut Seeds album from me now, do you? Well, maybe you do, but sometimes I do think that I am made of better stuff and once you really get down to the nitty gritty I am doing this blog for myself and myself only!!!

And so, the moment you've all been waiting for...

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Paul Vanase in the World of Baby Bones LP (Bone Productions)

Gotta admit that I was curious about this one since I thought Baby Bones was the group mentioned in an article on the infamous JD King/Thurston Moore aggregation known as the Coachmen in which mentioned the time the 'men were billed at CBGB with a some guys who were not only dressed up Village People style and began their act by smashing transistor radios, but played what was called an extremely bad form of seventies heavy metal! Since I was in the mood for some bad seventies heavy metal whether or not it was performed by guys dressed Village People style I thought this woulda been yet another lost New York slice of metallic genius in the vein of FUTURE LANGUAGE or the long-forgotten band Cherry Hill High whose CBGB cybercast I would dearly love to experience once more. (And if anyone can retrieve it from the lost reaches of the internet well, there is a reward for you at least spiritually.)

Turns out that I was in for a surprise, since Paul Vanase and Baby Bones ain't metal in the least but rollicking piano-laden homo rock, the kind that used to get loads of attention from the seventies well into the oughts when people like Dean Johnson and his Velvet Mafia would play these special "homocorps" nights at CBGB kinda flittin' about as if 1981 and AIDS never did happen. Well, I gotta say that although Vanase and Co. were clearly of a three-dollar-bill status it wasn't like their songs were about buggering little boys or recycling your boypal's breakfast (if you know what I mean), though with a title like "Sissy" I kinda get the idea that their act wasn't exactly aimed at the same kinda clientele that used to read TRUE magazine.

Actually a huge hunkerin' part of this album is good for what it is, mainly rollicking barrel house drenched piano tunes that at times remind me of some of Paul Revere's earlier work, with a quasi-fey tenor doing a kinda/sorta cabaret-ish if humorous vocal above it all. A bit showbizzy true, but still something that woulda gotten a few huzzahs on the New York underground scene from the early-seventies on. Can't really dismiss it in the least even with the uneven compositions and downright campiness, and definitely worth a reissue for the newer generation of glam/glitter/homo rock enthusiasts who missed out on alla this decadence the first time around..

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Yoko Ono-RARITIES CD-r burn (courtesy of P_D_Fadensonnen)

One of the beter packages I got this year was from Mr. Fadensonnen himself, who sent me a bevy of Cee-Dee-Are burns that I know I will have as much fun writing about as I will listening to them to be corny about it. Not only that, but each of 'em had nice hand-made covers mostly with the artists in question pictured on the front, back, and at times even inside! That's more than most of you people who burn these disques do for me, and frankly I believe you should all be ASHAMED of your pithy paper sleeves and gritty reduced xerox covers considering just how important a living, breathing specimen I am who most certainly deserves better! Well now, aren't you????

The first one of the batch I picked outta the batch was this one, a collection of rarities by Mrs. Lennon herself Yoko Ono. As you all know Ono is a fave of mine even if her career is extremely roller-coasty, but thankfully this slab collects her better early moments so's we don't have to put up with her doing the Carole King singer/songwriter schtick in a vain attempt to get people to like her. More of the Beatles Twinkenham Jams with her in and Harrison out appear along with this sing/songy ditty that's supposed to be "Martha My Dear" tinkling along as Ono moans "John" repeatedly, while John and Yoko sing a bit from the bed in (funny thing...only now did I get the word play regarding "hair peace" and "hairpiece"!). Yoko closes things out doing a rather un-together version of "Midsummer New York" with Elephant's Memory on DICK CAVETT plus a hot "Mind Train" live in Japan '74!

A better collection'n what I woulda expected given what is available, though if he really wanted to get in on my good side Fadensonnen shoulda stuck the soundtrack from that 1964 avant garde slice of animated eyesores AOS here. Now that woulda been a guaranteed room-clearer at the next family get-together I just don't want to get-together WITH!

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Milford Graves-LIVE 1973 + SOUNDTRACK CD-r burn (courtesy of P_D Fadensonnen)

The second Fadensonnen spinner I got to listen to, this begins with a live broadcast of the Milford Graves Quartet in Sweden where the famed drummist is joined by Joe Rigby and Hugh Glover on saxophones and Art Williams on trumpet. Mighty fine rumble here not as good as the snatch I've heard of BABI MUSIC (one just beggin' for the reissue status!) but still free-splat seventies loft/avant/atonal in that beautiful way we'll probably never recapture. Following's the soundtrack from a French tee-vee show, a documentary about the time Graves was invited to some Japanese festival where he played drums while this crazy looking guy with Tiny Tim hair wearing pajamas danced around and made strange utterances! You'll get the entire impact of it if you'll only take a look at the thing which you can do yourself if you only click the proper buttons below!



Both "tracks" have that seventies splurge in jazz that I like (even though the second one's definitely eighties fare) and really, I can't think of a better way to spend an afternoon than to listen to Graves' multi-layered percussion playing and flayed gongs in just about any context. One of the few survivors you better not be ignoring now so like...don't ignore him!

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King Crab-LEATHER CD-r (thanks be to P_D Fadensonnen)

The third Fadensonnen platter to makes its way to my laser launching pad, I just hadda give this one a spin because hey, this was the guy's old group and if I didn't review it first thing he'd probably think that I was ignoring him or something. Well good thing that I was being courteous because this '07 set's pretty snat in itself. Hard clang that reminds me of a whole slew of  past noisemengers from Chrome to (get this!) German Oak, with perhaps a bit of early DAF thrown in even though I don't think this one has that much to do with any "Neu Deutche Welle" extant. Surprise hit of the litter is"Aphids" which sounds like robotic insects boring their way straight through your very soul!

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Last Exit-DEITSCHES JAZZFESTIVAL, FRANKFURT GERMANY 1986 CD-r burn (courtesy of P-D Fadensonnen)

To be honest about it this is just the soundtrack to that German television presentation that's been flying around on various trade lists for some time. However, that doesn't distract from the abject pow'r and might this legendary quartet putsched forth on this thirty-seven minute excursion into everything one with a brain woulda hoped fusion woulda been back inna seventies. Hardcore rock/jazz jollies courtesy the late Ronald Shannon Jackson and Sonny Sharrock as well as Bill Lasswell and the always welcome in my cranium Peter Brotzmann. So much has already been said so like, why bog things down even though I could with the least bit of effort?

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CELLULAR CHAOS W/VON LMO CD-r (courtesy of P_D Fadensonnen)

That remarkable new group of the year, Cellular Chaos, is joined by none other'n the heavy metalloid master himself Von Lmo! Recorded live at the Bowery Electric on February 11th of this year in front of an audience of a mere fifteen people! Perhaps the best meeting of minds since John Lee Hooker hitched up with Canned Heat, the leader of the seventies no wave strut is in fine form while Cellular Chaos lays down a heavy atonal backdrop for Lmo's guitarscapading. In the tradition of Red Transistor and Teenage Jesus, this paen to sonic blare past lasts a good fifteen minutes, one might surmise because the instruments were probably destroyed by the end of it all.

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Various Artists-FRESH MALT-LIQUOR RAGA FARM CD-r burn (thanks to Bill Shute)

Whew, after listening to Dr. Macnitt's hypnotist routine I almost wasn't able to review this! But wake from my trance I did, and I'm sure glad about it too! This one's got a bunch of downright absurdities such as a sitar-laden country and western tune (which makes me wonder why that instrument wasn't used in more c&w numbers since it has a most appropriate twang!) to the strange Buddy Boy Hawkins' "Voice Throwin' Blues" (which is basically the old "Hesitation Blues" of Holy Modal Rounders and Peter Laughner fame) to the theme from BEACH GIRLS AND THE MONSTER. Best track for me weren't the Bonzo Dog or Rutles Beatles rips, but Braz Gonzalves' "Raga Rock" which proves that even over-the-hill jazzbos could create a driving psychedelic jazz rock excursion that outdid most of the carbon copy crankouts! A surprise that should have something for everybody, even if I'm gonna be one of the few to ever hear it!

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Desecrator-THE NIGHTMARE'S CALL cassette

If anything good did come out of the eighties it jsut hadda've been the even newer new wave of heavy metal---not that horrid giddy stuff that Andy Secher at HIT PARADER was pushing on the populace but the hard, gnarly and beyond tension blare that still rates a huge huzzah here at BLOG TO COMM central. I'm talking such definitely anti-Twisted Sister/Autograph/hair metal type of bands as Voi Vod and Metallica (at least before their more classically-minded muses got the best of 'em), Slayer, Possessed, Nasty Savage, movement-masterminds Motorhead as well as a whole bunch of groups like Wurm and Powertrip who sorta dangled between the HM and punk idioms in the best 1971 CREEM sorta way.

Desecrator were a New York variation on the movement, and this twenty-minute tape shows that the act did have a whole load of promise even if you get the feeling that most of the targeted metal audience woulda up-turned nose at this in favor of the latest prissy-preen bunch to make their way to shutterbug heaven.

Not quite speedmetal, in fact the pace is sometimes slowed down to that of a snail, but still sludge enough to qualify as intriguing and nerve-racking doom music. Could use a little more bop to the thing, but Desecrator still have enough of a dunce thud in their sound to satisfy those who believe that noise can make a better man of even the most sissified freaks out there.

And hey, you could say that this trio does lift more'n a few ideas from the big names in late-eighties metal trauma, but then again did you ever hate Dave Aguilar for singing like Jagger or the Seeds for swiping not only from the Stones, but themselves??? A nice slab from yet another one of a mill'yun aggregates of worth to crawl outta that toidy called "the eighties" but never did get outta their cocoons enough to really indulge in that raw power.

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Remember to tune in Tuesday AM for the not-so-big this time End O' Year bash (perhaps in the literal sense!). Until then remember to drive recklessly---the life you don't save may be Patrick Amory's!

BOOK REVIEW! DC UNIVERSE CHRISTMAS (DC, 2000)

Sheesh. Back when I was an unrepentant adolescent turdfarm, comic books and Christmas went hand-in-hand or maybe even gland-in-hand if you were good in spotting those hidden pictures that Fred Wertham and Ham Fisher warned us about. But hey, if there was one thing that I liked to do during school break it was read comic books because I had the time to do it, and besides it sure beat hanging around with your relatives showing off all of their rare and expensive gadgets they got when all you had to show for your name was a brand new package of undies and of course those high brow improve your mind items like science games that, like any other attempt to mix funzies and learning, didn't teach you diddly squat!  Toss in a few TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST and MRS. WIGGS OF THE CABBAGE PATCH books for good measure, and you knew that Christmas certainly spelled T-R-O-U-B-L-E and it wasn't like you exactly wanted to wait until next year....

I gotta admit that I dug out this DC UNIVERSE CHRISTMAS book hoping to get into more of an old timey holiday spirit, but the stories presented therein certainly did not conjure memories of that New Year's Party where I spent the first few hours of 1972 reading the final installment of "the Kree-Skrull War" in THE AVENGERS. Naw, I spent the time it took to read this book in abject misery, and I was upset not only at the hackneyed sight if what had become of comic books since the mid-seventies when I pretty much gave up on 'em for price and content reasons, but at the lack of energy, power and general feeling these once engaging titles now oozed forth like syphilitic pus from Iggy's main vein.

I kinda felt like some guy that was held captive by the barbarians for fifty years who's just been rescued and has headed home to watch some boffo tee-vee only to find that BEN CASEY has been replaced by GREY'S ANATOMY! "Man, woman, birth, death, infinity, diarrhea..."

First off, gotta say that the artwork that permeates the newer entries is abysmal. It's the kinda stuff where every muscle bulge and sinew is exaggerated beyond belief looking like a reject from some Da Vinci notebook he had the good sense to dump into the old waste-a-basket. Gazing at the Golden Age sagas after looking at most if not all of the nineties-era quap certainly was good for the eyes especially since you don't get to see all of the abdominal bulges that Superman sports and Wonder Woman's nipples do not protrude from her chestplate as they would in some R. Crumb comic (not that hers ever did, or at least they never did when I was looking!).

Of course the stories are especially sappy which would figure given they deal with the holiday season. And yeah, DC had a flair for gooey melodramatics what with Dick Grayson shedding a tear when leaving Wayne Manor for college, and the soldiers of Company "C" actually enjoying the talents of a ventriloquist as if they were first graders at a school assembly. (My dad once told me that when he was in the army the guys would just hoot and holler in disapproval whenever sentimentality would permeate a moom pitcher they were watching...those hardened fighting men knew phonus balonus heart-string tugs when they saw it, and like me they LET IT BE KNOWN!!!!!!! ) If you can imagine all of the worst aspects of seventies DC emote condensed into a short piece of filler fluff magnified a few more times, believe you me you will be buying up more than the usual amount of Glucera next time you go to the market!

Not that this book is a total douse since the Golden Age stories, even the sappy Superman one guest-starring ol' St. Whatzizname, sure read better'n whatever else pops up in the book. (And hey, I gotta say that I never did care for the revamped Sandman that Joe Simon and Jack Kirby did...gimme the original with the gas mask and suit anyday!) I will take some of that back since the two-page filler where Kirby's Darkseid (a fave rave for me considering his rather Marvel-ish look and mean mofo demeanor) is given a lump o' coal was a nice if too brief diversion. But otherwise I get the feeling that the folks at DC really must hate the Winter Solstice as the pagan types like to call it if all they have to offer us are Bat Lash (why not Jonah Hex?)  and the Flash engaging in cheap heroics and fuzzy storylines?

Hey guys, you really woulda done us all good if ya left this one on the shelf. At least gimme an old Sheldon Mayer-drawn RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER which had more Christmas cheer and kiddoid jollies than this collection of uneven pap!