YEESH, IS IT TIME FOR YET ANOTHER FANZINE FANABLA ALREADY???

Here are just some of the old-timey fanzines that have been making my acquaintance for the past few months, and if you must know I think they're a pretty good batch as far as these home-paste jobs tend to be.

Anyhoo, a while back, in fact in the previous fanzine fanabla, I mentioned the acquisition of a certain little publication that was going by the moniker of TEENAGE RAMPAGE. It was a fun-packed low-budget affair with no pix or snaps of any kind, filled to the brim with real snotty fanzine-styled rants 'n raves regarding the favorite records of some guy who was writing under the nom-de-typewriter Ricochet. I ingested it a lot, and I sure as shooting wanted to find more of these which, in this day and age, is all but an impossibility unless you just happen to know someone selling old fanzines or get just plain get lucky.

But I wasn't getting lucky with Groovytunesdays, who kept ignoring my request to purchase an early issue (a two sheet debut if I remember correctly) which only goes to show you that they probably want to do business with me about as much as they want to volunteer for exploratory sphincter stretching research (and who knows,given the people who run the business' moral fiber maybe they do!). However, as luck would have it none other than Ricochet himself was doing his own blog entitled GROWING OLD WITH ROCK & ROLL, a nice li'l read that seemed to take up where his fanzine has left off way back sometimes in the late-seventies. And back when he was closing up shop this past December 31st he was requesting from his readership just what they'd like to see in the blog's final days, spotting an opportunity to fill them missing gaps I asked if he reprint some of his old TEENAGE RAMPAGE material for us, either on-line or in the pulp and you know what, the man actually did!

Or at least two issues, in fact the following two (see directly below) which I had already received via a lucky ebay auction, but I was still grateful to get 'em because y'see, these new ones looked so crisp and fresh and besides, I think that the ones I bought had some missing pages and as you all know I am a completest when it comes to seventies rock fanzines. So even if I am still missing some of the mag's run at least I got hold of these to help fulfill my quest for seventies greatness, and as you'd expect I am feeling rather perky myself!

The issue which is numbered 606 is the smaller of the two, and contains lots of potent musings that despite their low-fidelity and near-crudzine appearance really do prove this mag to have been a spiritual descendant of BACK DOOR MAN if not CAN'T BUY A THRILL. Included is an interesting opening bit urging everyone out there to latch onto the NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS (Ric mentioned how he turned down an offer to be their midwest correspondent!) because of the writings of Charles Shaar Murray, Mick Farren and (now get this!) Tony Parsons and Julie Burchill which stymies me to no end because I loathe Burchill with a passion and y'know, I woulda thought that Ric'd know better'n that! But y'see, Burchill gave TEENAGE RAMPAGE a hot mention in one of her columns and that sold Ric on her, which only goes to show you what one good plug could do to an otherwise sane person! I mean, a few people have praised my own rockscreeding these past thirtysome years, and you know how much love I have for humanity at large let alone people who have been writing about rock 'n roll (or what passes for it) for quite some time!

But all kidding aside (I mean, I am treated with about the same amount of respect as a rock "writer" as Brad Kohler is treated as a serious artist), this particular ish of TEENAGE RAMPAGE is all the rage even though it is a four-sheet, one-sided read. Yes its got poetry and a piece on an imaginary radio station that plays ONLY the hot rock items (a station I'd sure like to listen to on a dark and lonely summer's night at three inna morn!), but it also has bits 'n feces on the likes of DMZ, reviews of the debut Clash and Sex Pistols albums, and even a writeup of the Wayne Kramer jail single that was even getting mentioned in major "respectable" mags who'd forgotten the MC5 years ago! And yeah, you could have read all about it in the latest British weekly or CREEM if you so desired, but sometimes it just comes off better hearing it from the likes of some suburban fanabla just like yourself!

The ish with Fred "Sonic" Smith doing his Pete Townshend guitar whomp (#505) probably precedes the above ish, but it sure seems like it came after not only because it has more pages, but because this 'un sports a couple of contributors of fanzine worth. One of 'em is Nancy Foster, the same lass who once ran the boffo NEW AGE and GROOVE ASSOCIATES 'zines back in the seventies and early-eighties. The other is Lisa Baumgardner, a Clevelander best known to the world for her BIKINI GIRL fanzine as well as having been one of many cohorts of the late Peter Laughner which should give her some rockist brownie points somewhere in a more just universe. Baumgardner's contribution to this issue is a review of a live Dead Boys performance while Foster rants on about her own personal faves of the day, most notably Starz and Piper (gotta get their records if only to hear them unreleased Sidewinders tracks!).

Ric does his part well too with his piece on Thundertrain, Tom Petty, the MC5 (in yet another "heartfelt appreciation") and other late-seventies upstarts who probably didn't get to go as far as they thought they could. Great fannish writing (so good you know that nobody involved would ever be invited to write for ROLLING STONE), and once again everything is so straightforward and energetic in a way that is hardly seen anymore which does make me wanna shed a li'l tear if I wasn't already cried out after the cancellation of LEAVE IT TO BEAVER. After putting this down all I wanna do is go and spin all of my class seventies single and album sides 'till I can't take it no more. Can't think of anything else a fanzine really should do now, can I?

A final note, along with my fresh and crisp copies of TEENAGE RAMPAGE Ric sent me a bonus, an ORIGINAL first edition issue of the mag which was a large one-sheet run off on one of those old-time xerox copiers that came out kinda blurry and on rough if glossy looking paper! A neat effort too considering all of the information that was to be found on two sides of  10 X 14 paper (I'd love to reprint it for you here but my scanner is just way too small...and I'm not sorry about it at all). It's got the bop too, what with a pic of the Up's Gary Rasmussen, a bit on how Ric and his workcrew sang "Dominance and Submission" at an eatery at two inna morn, and reviews of a variety of recent releases including Alice Cooper's "Only Women Bleed"! And tell me, what could you or I manage to muster up with just two pages of paper at our disposal???

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I've possessed the second issue of LA BEAT for quite some time, so I must say that finally getting the first ish of this lost-in-the-shuffle mag was something that fulfilled my inner rockist spirit if only for a few nanoseconds. It sure is refreshing to go back to them days when new wave still meant something exciting before the moneybags commercialized the entire genre beyond recognition, and although you might think that groups such as the Stranglers, Generation X, the Zippers and of course the Mumps are/were just more of the same old I still find them about as refreshing as a gulp of ice cold water on a hot summer's day. Can't say the same about a good portion of groups that were coming out at the time, but the way I look at it it's either this or Chuck Eddy's favorite classic rock bongbusters and it ain't like I'd ever care to listen to another spin of "Heard it From a Friend" as long as I live!

This ain't some throwout crudzine but a well-produced effort and real fan-oriented t'boot. The phone interview with Hugh Cornwell from the Stranglers is a hoot since he's coming off as gruff and as narcotic-induced as his image has lent him to be, while the rest of the interviews and writeups on the groups in general are just as fannish and as down to your level as many of these late-seventies El Lay-area fanzines were. Consider it a "nicer" version of BACK DOOR MAN or DENIM DELINQUENT and you're about halfway there.

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I think I first read about SNEAKERS in the first issue of KICKS...maybe not, but this sure seems like one of those fanzines that Billy and Miriam would have loved the dickens outta while loathing all of those "punk rock" rags that people were sending 'em! Funny, this one seems just about as punk rock as the rest of those mags B&M were getting hold of, but maybe they were talking something a little more "esoteric", like "punque" or "pUnk" rather than "punk". But still, SNEAKERS was a boffo rag in the tradition of all of those crazy French fanzines from ROCK NEWS on, and between the great print job and nice saddle-stapled look this 'un ranks with many of the winners on the scene from BACK DOOR MAN and DENIM DELINQUENT on...too bad it's all in French because I can't read the thing too well!


The Tom Petty piece doesn't exactly light up my life (gotta admit that I like what I've heard of his first long playing record but after that when he became a classic rock monger I just couldn't take his more singer/songwriter rant), but I thought that the Peter Hamill "blind test" was interesting, or at least what I could make out of it (he was played a nice variety of tracks from the Music Machine's "The People in Me" to Syd Barrett's "Octopus"). Also interesting are pieces on Buddy Holly, Dave Edmunds and of course Eddie and the Hot Rots, and not only that but a whole slew of records that I remember looking at lovingly at the local shop (as well as those too obscure to make it there) are reviewed giving me those late-seventies record throb thrills that I most certainly desire. And how could anyone hate a mag which features on their back cover the "Free Wayne Kramer" drawing that is pictured on the right anyway? The people who put this mag out really had a great love for rock music and it shows on each and every francophonic page!

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It's always great reading fanzines put out by high school kids, some of them surprisingly readable and thought-provoking while others showing the need for mandatory remedial thinking classes. MAKE IT IN THE BUSINESS WORLD is one that came out of late-seventies New York, and for a bunch of teenage rock 'n roll fans all I gotta say is that these guys did what I would assume most teenagers with an access to a typewriter and photocopier would do. A nice job, that is!

Layoutwize this is similar to the various Solomon and Jay Gruberger offerings that have been making their presence known since at least the mid-seventies. Loads of cartoons (both original and "Bazooka Joe") fill the pages which also happen to be filled with articles and reviews of acts on the MAKE IT IN THE BUSINESS WORLD faverave list such as Blondie and the Ramones. There are even some short stories included which I gotta say seem too esoteric and heady for a kid to have written. But hey I could be wrong...I mean, as I told Don Fellman there are no kids today, and maybe that was the case thirtysome years ago only nobody bothered to tell any of us.

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Here's an old one...VIBRATIONS began life as a fairly accurate imitation of the original CRAWDADDY before it morphed into a Boston/underground paper with the typical altruistic outlook that you could find in just about any other teen dweeb political project of the day. This particular issue in question (#61) is a good case in point, a slim volume with the standard New Left politics and only a little bit on rock, in this case part one of a Keith Richards interview that originally appeared in VIBRATIONS' "sister" publication ZIGZAG. There's also a review of an appearance by John 'n Yoko on DAVID FROST as well as something on Alice Cooper's Boston debut which concentrates more on the group's sexual shock value and very little on the music which is described as being "Zeppelin-esque". Can't say that I got as much outta Jon Kreidl's efforts with this one as I did with the material appearing in his earlier efforts, for this is the sound of a movement running out of so much steam that you couldn't even hear the put-puts of the once-roaring engine anymore.


The next issue (#61-A) is a return to the mag's early fanzine roots, albeit printed on one-sided mimeo as opposed to the offset and saddle-stapled look of the originals. A Dylan special so-to-speak with nothing but a wide array of articles relating to the recently-released Tony Scaduto bio. Not much here other'n loads of standard early-seventies theorizing with the usually lofty and romantic reminiscences regarding Dylan as well as Suze Rotolo of FREEWHEELIN' fame, and if you could find any real information or spark in whatever was printed on those eleven pages I certainly do congratulate you!

Maybe if one-time contributor and valid rock scribe in his own special way Jonathan Richman had only stuck around...at least his teenage-intellectual opinions and style acted as a counterbalance against the more heady ruminations to be found in mags like VIBRATIONS and FUSION (another Boston worthy) at the time. Maybe not, but I sure find those late-sixties scribblings of his on everything from the Velvet Underground to the Rolling Stones to be a whole lot more valid'n what the fin-de-la-hippie writers were pouring out of their vapid souls at the time.

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COLLUSION's an interesting fanzine. Well, let's just say that it ain't a fanzine in the fanzine sense, but it's interesting nonetheless. If anything, I would call COLLUSION a fanzine written by English intellectual types who are into all sortsa things and who decided to put their writings into print. So you get more or less of a "World Music" bent here, not to mention contributions from the likes of such English avant gardists as Steve Beresford and Lol Coxhill writing about a wide array of subjects from Japanese Enka music, Bollywood, African music, Amerigan soul sounds of the sixties, Cajun zydeco music, Carol Kaye, the Dennis Wilson/Charles Manson/Kenneth Anger connection and loads more. There's even an interview with Gavin Bryars and (now get this!) an article by Simon Frith on longtime English fan fave Gracie Fields (she was the one who was married to the horrid Eyetalian comedian Monte Banks, the only guy I know of who made a comedy short about wife beating!).

With the likes of the aforementioned writers (not forgetting David Toop of Obscure Records fame) you might expect COLLUSION to be kinda dry and it is, but I for one enjoyed the reams of information and general atmosphere it exuded, and I kinda wish that more fanzines that were trying for the innerlektual crowd woulda been as well put together and as streamlined as this. Who knows, if I bothered to keep that term paper on electronic music I wrote during my Sophomoric year in high school (the one where my typist sister mis-spelled "Sun Ra"), it might have appeared in the pages of COLLUSION!

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I wasn't rich enough to gather up all of the KICKS-inspired fanzines that thankfully sprouted up throughout the eighties and nineties, so coming across a mag like BROWN PAPER SACK really does thrill me to no end! A nice product too with slick cover and nice layout (reminds me of the higher quality sci-fi and comic book fanzines of the sixties), BROWN PAPER SACK was devoted to Southern garage bands of the sixties, a subject that was certainly worthy of scrutiny considering just how many of these bands remained a mystery to most of us for a longer time than any of us could imagine.

The cover story on the Five Canadians (of "Writing on the Wall" and "Never Alone" compilation fame) get their fifteen minutes (and what a good fifteen minutes it is!), while other Southern treats like the Bad Roads and Oedipus and the Mothers also get their just dues. The piece on New Orleans garage bands was also a hoot, especially since one of my psycedelic favorites the Greek Fountains not only get mentioned but also get pictured, and boy did they look 1966 long hair rock group creepy enough that your grandpappy woulda gotten his shotgun out if he saw 'em trouncing the front lawn!

Interesting note... the Fountains' psychedelic masterpiece "An Experimented Terror," a track which not only the liner notes to BEYOND THE CALICO WALL but my own ears would have led us to believe was a direct swipe of the Red Krayola's "Free Piece", was actually recorded an entire year before that infamous GOD BLESS THE RED KRAYOLA track! Also revealed is the origin of the group's supposedly stoic name...nothing esoteric here, since "Greek Fountain" is fraternity slang for puking! And if it weren't for BROWN PAPER SACK do you thin we would have known any of this? I sincerely doubt it, pard'ner!

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Now let's talk about some "serious" fanzines, even more serious than COLLUSION. By this I mean the kind of 'zines that weren't as frolicky frivolous as the ones who were clearly feeding on the teat of Bangs, but the ones that were a whole lot more studious or intellectual or just plain ol' STODGY! Y'know, those that were less punk and more progressive which isn't anything evil mind you, it's just that these mags never did make for a funtime sit-yourself-down read the way many of the mags mentioned above did.

Sometimes these 'zines broke out of their supposedly self-imposed studious credos and did make for excellent reading whether in front of the stereo on plunked on the toilet. EUROCK was one fanzine that could balance gonz and journalistic especially when they had Hot Scott Fischer writing for 'em during their earliest days. But these 'zines at times tended to be quite serious and academic, and that doesn't quite serve the music being covered even if it is serious and academic.


IMPETUS is a good example of a fanzine that tended to be quite refined which at times might have suited the subject matter at hand. An English publication, IMPETUS existed at a time when a "new music" that was part past avant garde accomplishment coupled with seventies innovation certainly needed as much exposure as it could possible stand, and despite the at-times formal feeling I will admit that they did a passably good job of it. Coming off like a house organ for a seventies college radio station all-night playlist, IMPETUS at least knew how to hit the right buttons with their mix of avant old and new where the likes of articles on Gyorgy Ligeti and Olivier Messian could intermingle with Can and This Heat, and while you're at it throw some of the new jazz of Carla Bley and Keith Tippet in for good measure.

Yeah, the interview with Irmin Schmidt was a bit dry (and no new light was shed on Can in the process) but it was a good enough effort especially for long-hungering fans who certainly weren't reading about the group in the pages of CIRCUS. The articles on important figures in the new jazz were mildly engaging even if CODA did a better job of covering the jazz avant garde without succumbing to pseudo-intellectual gaga. And really, I gotta admit that reading about some of my more "underground" rock favorites does sound better when its coming from the typewriters of serious music aficionados rather'n some hippies who couldn't tell a Modern Lovers from a New Riders or an amerindie College Dork class of '89 who funneled his entire knowledge of rock music through the butthole of Parke Puterbaugh. It doesn't always work that way, but here it does.

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While IMPETUS might have been intellectual it was also quite professional. FACE OUT on the other hand was more in the traditional fanzine style of mimeo/xeroxed single sheets of pecked out paper with perhaps a neet drawing to decorate the page a bit.

Comparisons with the original EUROCK would also be worth of mention if only that there seemed to be a fannish appreciation of the music (in this case mostly the German expressionists) and the impression that these pages were being written by the peoples in the audience rather than those in the classroom. The simple drawings on the cover also hearken back to the old Science Fiction and Fantasy 'zines of the thirties onward, and in many cases you can see a direct line of influence between those early self-produced efforts that these showing that maybe not that much had changed in the past forty years.


Great pieces whether they be appreciations or reviews appear too, proving once again that it is the schmuck banging these articles out in the dead of night who has the right approach to music as that magic save-all as opposed to most of those big-city rockcrit types who thankfully lost their jobs around the times the financially-strapped newspapers hadda do a great deal of cutting back. And although a tad bit of an intellectual air does tend to seep through at times, I'm in it for the rock 'n roll point of it. Meaning, I get more excited when I read a reference to the first Faust album sounding like a cross between METAL MACHINE MUSIC and "Sister Ray" or the umpteenth comparison twixt Can and the entire oeuvre of the original Velvet Underground. But I guess that's just me---you might find your own instant pushbutton thrills in FACE OUT if you just look hard enough.

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Hmmmmm, a fanzine from Western Pee-YAY and from the mid-eighties, and it ain't mine either! Not only that' but the thing's actually named after a Velvet Underground song which does show more imagination than naming 'em after Stooges or MC5 ones. And Gerry Goffin and Carole King are on the cover too---should be a nice historically balanced read with articles on rock 'n roll accomplishments past and present, eh? Well, I was wrong about that because Goffin and King are nowhere to be found on the insides, but what is doesn't quite jibe with my own "horse-blindered" musical tastes.

Face it, WAITING FOR THE MAN is just one of the million hardcore-era punk fanzines of the day, complete with local scene reports and reviews of the latest hardcore/underground releases. Stuff which might jibe with the MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL audience but seemed a tad outdated once the mid-eighties rolled in and people like myself discovered that all of those hardcore punks were nothing but hippies with cry-over-a-broken-flower emotions. Awww, it's a nice effort for what it is even though this one dates back to an era in rock that didn't seem all that I hoped it would have been cracked up to be which might just be my problem but should have been yours as well.

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LIQUORICE was a short-lived (though lasting a good eight issues) English fanzine that I once bought for an interview with a Kilburn and the High Roads-period Ian Dury, but I thought it was generally a stuffy sort of affairs which is strange considering how many of these early-mid-seventies English rags were pretty lively affairs. The John Cale interview featured on the cover of this second issue (released "Summer 1975") certainly hooked me and it is a fairly good 'un even if nothing special is revealed other'n the fact that the landlord at John and Lou Reed's Ludlow Street digs used to pick up the rent toting a gun. Other'n that, this is an OK sort of mag dealing with some of the bigger names on the up 'n coming English music scene such as Be-Bop Deluxe and Canterbury prog rockers Hatfield and the North. And, proving that extremely bad ideas never do go away, there's also a huge interview with some act calling itself "The Women's Liberation Rock Band" which only reinforces my attitudes and beliefs towards what had become of the once snazzy female gender. After reading this one I get the idea that if any dogs were to come up to the band and sniff away in their usual fashion they'd all keel over dead within one good inhale.

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As far as other mid-seventies English rock 'n roll fanzines go PENETRATION certainly hit my bullseyes with their great mix of late-sixties accomplishment meets early/mid-seventies high energy, something which did point the way for the late-seventies eruption which the mag was fortunate to cover at least for a few issues. Although I have most all of this mag's run available via xeroxed copies, originals are mighty hard to come by these days which is why I'm glad that I got hold of this third issue which, besides featuring a boffo interview with long time English underground eccentric Steve "Peregrine" Took, also's got pieces on the Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart, Kevin Ayers and some hip BBC "musical presenter" named Mike Sparrow who had a radio rock talk show which must have seemed like a good idea what with the place and time.

Again there ain't much we haven't already known to be found within these pages (other than Took's mentioning  of a single featuring himself and some Pink Fairy and Hawkwind types going under the name "The First Eleven" who dressed in cricket gear) , but back in 1975 I'm sure just about any stories regarding the Velvets or Beefheart would have been welcome in any self-respecting pimplefarm's fart-encrusted boudoir to be happily read while said denizen played these acts' records for the very first time. A good place to experience a whole lotta British (and Amerigan) underground worship as well as that strange nether-region between the whole Pink Fairies/New York Dolls/Stooges rage of '73 and the various hard-gunch sounds that were to catch everybody by surprise a good year or so later.

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In closing I thought I'd mention this interesting piece of nonfiction that I picked up under the guise that it was an actual fanzine. It's more like a fan club newsletter, since  SPARKSOUNDS is the "organ" for the International Sparks Fan Club, and this '97 issue does its fanclub doody well with a rundown on the then-recent Sparks REWORKING album. Eight pages of blue fannish flailings and straightforward sparksy answers to fanclub members earnest questions. Did you know that Ron Mael drove a VW Kubelwagen? Most interesting thing about this 'un appears on the inside spread reprinting a Sparks piece from a Glasgow newspaper...the piece is standard professional goo of course but that photo...Ron and Russ look like half of Kraftwerk from a 1975 photo session...I mean, you can just feel the Nazi aura which I will admit even gives a strong-stomached seen-it-all kinda fanabla like myself the creeps! So until then, see you in the interrogation room!

 JIMMY OLSEN'S PAL FRED HEMBECK #6 (Fantaco, 1981)

I remember seeing these Hembeck comic mags advertised in the Rather Ripped catalog along with all of those other underground comix that seemed so enticing to a not-so-wayward teenbo such as I, but never in a millions years did I ever think that I would actually own one (if only one) of these once-mysterioso titles! I never thought about it because frankly I didn't really desire to own any of 'em inna first place, but since I now have one I figure why not settle back and read, digest, and conjure up some funny-ish things to say about the thing given that hardly anybody out there really could give a hoot what with all of the wondrous things passing for entertainment these rather snoozeville days.

Fred Hembeck's comic vision almost mirrors my own which is one reason I take to his critiques and compliments regarding a whole load of Golden, Silver and Bronze-Age characters he meets up with in these rather high-quality pages. Really, it's always funzy to be reminded of some of those mid-sixties turdbombs which were plunked down on the world of comic books like the ones that came outta the Myron Fass stable (the best known being the version of Captain Marvel who used to split apart in order to fight crime) not to mention other flash-by-you occurrences in the shady world of comic book publishing like Larry Leiber's mid-seventies Atlas Comics line of not-so-clever imitations. (And yeah, I still pride myself on avoiding those Marvel ripoffs like the proverbial AIDS, even though when I first espired 'em you could say that I was mighty tempted.)

Well, I gotta admit that it's all a better distillation of comic book history into a fortysome page oversized comic than some of the boring dribble I've read online and elsewhere over the past fifteen years! And not only that but its sure good to (re)discover all of those mid/late-sixties comics that I and undoubtedly you missed out on such as SUPER GREEN BERET and be glad as all heck that we did because if otherwise it mighta just ruined our taste for comic books and for good. And you wouldn't have wanted me to end up reading LITTLE WOMEN now, would you?


It's great to have those kiddoid comic book memories come back to you faster'n the Flash and Quicksilver racing to get a peek at Wonder Woman taking a bath, and Hembeck's hilarious depictions of then-current comic biz chicanery (such as DC's frustration that bats and lightning bolts were not copyrightable material as well as the long-forgotten fact that DENNIS THE MENACE was once part of the Marvel Comics stable---and where does that leave PETER THE LITTLE PEST????) does put a humorous light on a biz that seems about one step up from organized crime. And humorous it is...after all, where else are you gonna see a rendition of none other'n "Brando" from the notorious PEANUTS swipe SHRIMPY that was mentioned in last Saturday's post other'n in these pages???

Don't tell Don Fellman, but the publication pictured on the left is gonna be his birthday present come this upcoming week! Of course if you do tell him afterwards it won't matter, mainly because he would have received it already and thus your tattlin' won't do you any good, you spoilsport you! But here it is in its entirety, the forty-third issue of ARCHIE'S JOKE BOOK (cover dated November, 1960) and if you don't think I was gonna take a sneek peek at it before handing it over to the erstwhile phoner-upper then you're even stoopider'n I originally gave yez all credit for!

Longtime Archie staff artist Harry Lucey did the cover art, a fact which doesn't hit it with me because I always thought he was the lesser of the batch who were drawing for the Archie Series at the time. Certainly nowhere near Dan DeCarlo or Samm Schwartz even if those two could never reach the lofty heights of the guy who started it all, Bob Montana. Of course by that time Montana was nowhere to be seen in the comic book (in fact, his version of ARCHIE and the comic book were almost like dueling universes where some characters existed in different form if they even existed at all) but when you're operating a business as big as Archie Comics it's pretty hard to keep things such as continuity straight, as if these things really mattered in the first place.

The three to four panel-length gags that permeate this issue read like they were written by the same guy who used to think up stories for Bazooka Joe (Pud was too sophisticated for this crowd!), while most if not all of the artwork comes off so slapdash especially when compared with the lush beauty of Montana's renditions of the swimsuit-clad female form that you wonder if these renditions were created under the auspices of the Comics Code Authority in order to prevent Junior from rushing into the bathroom with the latest BETTY AND VERONICA snugged under his shirt. If I didn't know better I'd assume that a grand portion of the art appearing here was created by guys whose renditions of the characters were spotted in Tijuana Bibles and like, they probably work for peanuts and so what if they had nada in the way of style or class goin' for 'em anyway???

(By the way, I got this issue for Fellman because from what I could deduce one of these tales entitled "Horsing Around" was purportedly dilineated by his close friend and the author of THE FILMS OF BELA LUGOSI, the late Richard Bojarski. Given there could have been more'n a dozen Archie comics with that title floating around throughout the character's run I hadda nail it down to the year or so he had freelanced for the company, and with the miracle of internet working in my favor I came upon the same titled story in this particular issue! It could be "Bojack" who drew this particularly deadened story true, though since the artist's style seems to reflect everything else drawn this ish I must say that I do have my doubts. Still, this one is a curios for fans of the man, and I know Fellman will enjoy seeing his late friend's artwork unless he's a big fat INGRATE!)

As a strange "bonus",  none other than Archie's blonde galpal Betty submitted an article on noted guitar slinger Duane Eddy, a man whose talents I certainly can't deny though next to hard-edged fifties rockers like Link Wray or Bo Diddley he just doesn't figure in to any early rock weltanschauung on my part. Unfortunately this piece certainly lacks the swing and sway of any top-notch rock writer one could think of offhand, and as far as copying text straight from the hypesheet to the typewriter Betty really was ahead of her time, the Anthony DeCurtis of the early-sixties if you can believe that! Frankly I thought more of the oft-ignored blonde bombshell than to think of her as a typical rock hack, but I guess this sickening breed existed even back then and that the past forty year trend of zilch-dimensional  rock scribing definitely stretches back a whole lot further than I ever thought! Maybe they shoulda gotten Jughead to be the resident rock critic. He woulda been gonzo enough.

One nice surprise in this ish, besides the absence of the one-note PRISCILLA'S POP ripoff "Li'l Jinx", was the appearance of two "SHRIMPY" comics. You may remember SHRIMPY as an outright no-doubt-about-it swipe of PEANUTS, and as far as the many imitations and emulations of Charles Schulz's creation go this 'un is most definitely the swipiest of the batch! From the puffy dresses, button noses and ankles almost as long as the actual front of the foot to the not-so-sly knockoffs of established PEANUTS characters (I think Brando is a clever enough Pigpen as a beatnik swipe even if that gal seems unsure as to whether or not she is supposed to be Lucy or Violet), SHRIMPY just reeks as much a steal of the original goodie w/o coming off as a carbon copy, sorta like what THE FINEHEIMER TWINS were to THE KATZENJAMMER KIDS in years gone by. Close, and we're still deciding on the cigar.

Still, I'd most certainly want to read a SHRIMPY collection more than I would one of TIGER, WINTHROP or any of the mid/late-sixties PEANUTS knockoffs that were popping up in your local paper, usually at the expense of old tried 'n true favorites as FRECKLES and WASH TUBBS which I sure coulda stood reading back when I was beginning to pop into the double digits. And since such not-quite-up-there Archie Group entries as ARCHIE'S MADHOUSE have received the royal reprint treatment why not these forgotten faves on nice slick paper between a sturdy hard cover? I'd probably be the only one to buy it, but given how fast it would be remaindered I'm sure to save a bundle!

Interesting, fack---these SHRIMPY's are credited to a fellow named Joe Harold, a member of the ever-suffering ARCHIE bullpen of whom I could find practically nada about via the web regarding his career whether it be inside or outside the confines of the former MLJ group. However, considering just how much of a swipe SHRIMPY was I get the feeling Harold'd prefer to remain about as anonymous as he has been these past fiftysome years considering just how much the man "lifted" from the original while getting away with it. If you're in the mood for more SHRIMPY why not click here, here, here and maybe even here if you feel so inclined to do so, and if you still want to believe that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery you got my vote!

(Next time, Archie Comics' PAT THE BRAT versus Marvel's PETER THE LITTLE PEST...which was the best DENNIS THE MENACE swipe????)

***

Well here it is, yet another reason to dread the weekend! Anyway, I gotta admit that I have a nice selection for you to chew on today including some recent finds as well as some old faves that slipped between the cracks, not to mention a few Bill Shute finds (don't worry Bob and Paul---I'll be getting to your submissions eventually). Overall the listening scene is pretty flatline if you ask me (I've been tempted to give a spin to some of those "new" groups like Wooden Shjips and Moon Duo even if they have been championed by utter morons which just  goes to shows you just how hard up I am), but with some of the recordings I've been spinning this week the energy really shines through. And really, who needs "modern" rock when efforts from forty, fifty and sixty years ago is far more engaging and enveloping than anything being put forth in these cold, cyborg times?

 Various Artists-BONEHEAD CRUNCHERS VOLS. 1 and 4 LPs (Belter)

I liked the one with the tits on the cover a whole lot, but these now-obscure volumes from the BONEHEAD CRUNCHERS series really don't flibben my jib in a downhome punk rock sorta way like I sure hoped they would. The first 'un's perhaps the worst of the lot, a collection of locally-produced Amerigan singles that owe much more to the likes of Grand Funk and Mountain than they do the Stooges, and if it weren't for me getting to once again hear Left End's now-rare "Sunshine Girl" single (which got hefty AM airplay back '72 way, at least in the Youngstown Ohio area) this woulda been a total loss pocketbook-wise.

The fourth volume is better, a collection of "continent"-oriented acts who might have had a dose of that Detroit madness infused into their sound, only the more commercial moments of hard rock both of a European and Amerigan flavor just hadda get inna way. Still, much of this volume ain't anything spectacular either, especially next to some of the hard pounders (or proto punk as some would call it) that were coming out both here and abroad during those days people say the Sex Pistols saved us from! Laugh of the week---two Krautese gals singing about "The Hound of the Baskervilles" to the tune of "Paranoid".

***

Moebius & Plank-RASTAKRAUTPASTA & MATERIAL CD; Mobius-Plank-Neumeier-ZERO SET CD (both are on Sky Records)

Nice little dredge ups from the collection these. The first one's a post-kraut era early-eighties release featuring former and future Cluster member Hans Moebius with longtime krautrock producer Conny Plank while on ZERO SET former Guru Guru drummer Mani Neumeier joins the duo for even more Teutonic hijinx! Pretty decent listening too even if there may be a bit of  an eighties "taint" to it giving me the kind of feeling I used to get listening to various seventies legends' eighties recordings which seemed about as out of place and confused in the new musical clime as I was.

But the offerings do work wonders despite their confusion and at times escape into amazing brilliance---I'm still wondering just how Neumeier coulda laid down the drums that he did on "Speed Display" which I guess is where they got the title of that particular track! Sure it comes off total denouement after hearing the brash punk-drive of the early-seventies kraut scene, but these platters hold up a whole lot more'n many of the discs some of our old new wave faves were making around the same nanosecond.

***

ALI AND HIS GANG VS. MR. TOOTH DECAY CD-r burn (originally on St. John's Fruit and Vegetable Company)

When Bill Shute sifts through the virtual thrift store for items picked over by thousands of eager vinyl enthusiasts on the lookout for that elusive copy of THE JOHN KENNEDY MEMORIAL ALBUM this is what he comes up with! A flashback to those times in the seventies which we've been trying to extricate from our memories, ALI AND HIS GANG comes off like that ABC AFTERSCHOOL SPECIAL that got you mad because that meant there was gonna be no GILLIGAN'S ISLAND or LUCY SHOW reruns for you to watch, and after you dashed off all of your homework at that!

The guy who does Ali's voice sounds like the same character who sang "The Fonzarelli Slide" on that HAPPY DAYS exploitation album while the kids seem to be about as excited making this record as they would be performing a school play at Dachau. Even Frank Sinatra and Richie Havens pop into the mix which is strange because none of 'em had any teeth for the last forty years of their lives!

Of course for the ultimate in cultural carbon dating the entire schpiel is narrated by none other'n Howard Cosell which lends an easily identifiable enough stench to the proceedings. But in all I will say this one does capture that lost, ennui-filled feeling that used to overcome me a whole lot during those oft-maligned days...after listening to this I was actually scoring the tee-vee channels for a rerun of THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN!

***

Major Chill-"Underfended"/"Tear Me Up" 45 rpm single (G&P)

Always being on the lookout for hotcha New York-area underground artifacts of the past, my interest in this one was piqued after reading a Ken Barnes review in one of those NEW YORK ROCKERs that Stephen Painter sent my way a short while back (see last weekend's post for more info). The comparisons to Roky Erickson being backed by the Bubble Puppy or something like that seemed too good to be true, but in this case they come closer to the truth the whole truth and nothing but than a whole lotta the rock hyperbole that's been brandished around these past five or so decades. A really outta time single from this short-lived act which sounds more like a 1969-1974 timewarp into proto-punk concerns rather than an artifact of the New York which was transmorphing from Von Lmo to Madonna. Maybe this ended up on one of those KILLED BY DEATH types of samplers? If not both sides are definitely big time contenders for the next one that might be fermenting in some frustrated collector's mind.

***

Crawlspace-DOGS BEGIN TO CRAWL, SNAKES BEGIN TO HOWL CD-r (Slippytown)

An oldie true, but a gooey. Eddie Flowers and crew really knew how to spew the confusion on this 2000 release, sounding like nothing short of that version of Smegma we sure wish would get the vinyl treatment, or is that the Grateful Dead ca. 1969 turning into Swell Maps (at least on disque opener "Tantric Beehive")? I do swear that some of this sounds like those Can outtakes that appeared on UNLIMITED EDITION, and not just those "E.F.S." numbers that came off like primitive folk numbers for cultures that exist only in Flowers' fertile imagination. Whatever, it's a crazy toss and turn of sound masquerading as rock 'n roll about 1000 light years ahead of the original Crawlspace tapes Flowers was sending off to anxiously awaiting knowitalls back '85 way. And that stuff was Gizmos redux so you can imagine what transpires within these grooves!

***

Various Artists-BLUE ARABIAN BARNYARD OASIS CD-r (courtesy of Bill Shute)

Along with Bill's patented pre-Barbara Mandrell country 'n western twang, the man tossed on some great instrumental-era musical numbers that really zoom me back to the Golden Years of Existence (tracks include the Wailers' boffo tit-squeezer "Driftwood" without the recording glitch at the beginning!) and a top of the heap bloozer from Garry Goodgion and Stan Holder entitled "Blues Party"! Nice punch to this one even though I thought it was a bit too heavy on the western music which doesn't quite excite me as much as it does him...Bill even used some old Peter Pan record recording of "Git Along Little Doggie" and "Lone Prairie" to pad the thing out which certainly made me feel like some toddler dressed like Leon outta THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW only without the Peanut Butter 'n Jelly samwich!

***

Think you'll stick around for a midweek review of some weird item I happened to find in the house? I sincerely doubt it!

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! CAMILLE (1921) starring Alla Nazimova and Rudolph Valentino

Of course I never read the original, and I never saw any of the film adaptations until now, but I've known about the sad story of Camille and the case of consumption that did her in for what by now seems like ages. It's just one of those things I heard about long ago that I just figured was part of the literary scene of which I want little if any part of. But this 1921 version starring the switch-hitting swingers Nazimova and Rudy Valentino did seem tasty if anything, so why not spend a lost Sunday afternoon watching the thing 'stead of enjoying the weather like most suburban slobs would do..

The film does come off as pleasing-enough in an eye-catching way what with all of those art deco sets and the expressive acting through sickly layers of makeup. It's a definite must-see for the hip-de-la silent moom pitcher crowd too, what with this early Valentino performance right before he broke the heart of every bell boy in San Francisco with his ultry sultry looks. It ain't the best thing that the silent era hadda offer, but with the stylish look and heavy melodrama it really is a can't miss. Woulda looked great on the old PBS SILENT YEARS series tinted and with a fitting William Perry soundtrack (though the one tagged onto this is way more befitting than the modern jazzbo junk often heard on TCM productions---sure wish these moderne-day film restorers wouldn't go out of their way to "update" these by-now ancient classics!).

But when all is said and done there's one and only one thing that I can say to you after watching this film, and that is---COVER COUGHS AND SNEEZES---FIGHT TB TODAY!!!!

HEY MA, LOOK WHAT I GOT INNA MAIL TODAY!

Remember when you were a kid and ya'd send away for some toy with your hard-begged box tops and fifteen cents for postage and handling? You'd sweat out the weeks waiting for the piece of  "cheap plastic junk" to arrive, and  when it finally did boy were you happier than Joseph Mengele at a midgets convention! Well y'see, I feel the same way about a package I just received, and the best part about it is that I didn't hafta save up any box tops or moolah to obtain the parcel at all! In fact, I didn't even know the blasted thing was a'comin' until it finally did!!!

Here's what happened...it seems as if none other than Stephen Painter, no foe of the blog he, decided outta the goodness of his heart to send me a whole load of music-related magazines that he discovered while cleaning his room out! Really, the man actually thought that I would actually enjoy thumbing through these reads, and since he didn't particularly want them himself he actually felt it right and proper to send 'em all my way! A strange thing for him to do considering the lack of sympathy or empathy that has been given to either myself or this blog, but send 'em out he did and boy am I glad!

Funny, whenever I clean my room all I find are dead spiders and bits of peanuts and breakfast cereal, but I don't think Stephen would want me to send these things his way in a million years! Sorry guy.

But dietary concerns notwithstanding, it was sure great that I got a whole slew of hotcha reading outta this packet, and one tumble through these mags only goes to prove that the seventies (from whence these publications were bred) not only had some of the best rock scribing to have been found in the printed realm, but some of the worst style, prose and opinions directed toward that wild and woolly world of music as well. More on all that in a sec.

***

The two issues of CREEM that  Stephen scooted my way are a splendid example of just how good rock mags could be, and just how tiresome they became once the music and the attitude changed from gonzoid to journalistic. The February '76 ish with a whitefaced Dylan rolling the thunder is a proud example of the former, a mag that was tuned into the same wavelength as their suburban slob readers. I have hearty memories of readin' this ish in my teenage boudoir during Christmas Vacation '75 whilst slung over my bed in typical teenage fashion, and naturally the old timey memories came rushin' back so fast that I was looking for that NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC hidden under my mattress just outta reflex!

It's got memories 'n more in fact...Lester Bangs making peacepipe with Lou Reed after the debut of METAL MACHINE MUSIC*, Bangs opening more'n a few doors of curiosity in my addled teenbo brain with his review of Patti Smith's HORSES** and the usual bunch of faves (R. Meltzer and Robot Hull among 'em) on the cusp between mid-seventies snarl and that late-seventies miasma we never really got over. Yeah, everything that I find exciting in a rock read can be found here and more, and all I gotta say is (and not even with a good four decades of armchair hindsight) is that it is too bad that the majority of Amerigan kids went more for ROLLING STONE's hippie West Coast schmooze rather'n the Detroit hammer of classic CREEM. Maybe if they didn't we wouldn't have had to see rock 'n roll treated as such utter trash over these past XXX years to the point where I could care less if the entire genre had died out (as a true teenage International Music Language) somewhere around the time when Max's Kansas City closed up shop and Bangs took his final gasp in that fart-encrusted room he called an apartment.

If the above ish of CREEM stands as a testament to everything that was hot about rock 'n roll as a wild and energetic stab at atonal expression, this March '82 copy just goes to show you how far down the slippery slope of complacency and tastefulness a magazine could go. Not only have all of the classic CREEM-era writers (excepting for a few including original CREEM-ster Richard Allen Pinkston IV reviewing Ringo!) packed up for browner pastures with the writing taking a huge nose-dive in the process, but the magazine had taken on an air of  "professionalism" that really didn't suit the wild and exciting state of rock 'n roll as it stood in the early-eighties . OOPS! I forgot, this was 1982 when everything from fluffy metal to new wave-y pose was the hot stuff, and as any good whore knows you gotta roll with the punches and go with the flow even if it means looking like a total asshole in the process! But hey, what's rock 'n roll fun 'n jamz in the face of looking hip 'n with it, man???

Not that this one is the total turdster I seem to be making it out to be (after all, Chuck Eddy had yet to contribute to the pack), but there seems to be a total lack of energy, joy, excitement or anything that made me wanna tune into the mag even a few years earlier to be found within these pages. But I guess with a packload of writers who actually could get excited over Van Halen this is what you'd expect. Even the SCTV article drags a whole load, and compared with...say...Bangs' own Firesign Theater piece from a good seven years earlier you could just see where youth gulcher was heading to the point where even college paper kiddies would soon be taking their cues from Erma Bombeck a whole lot more'n Mike Saunders.

Don't know whether to blame the music or the kids or the paper, but if anything this particular CREEM comes off like a tombstone to that bright era in music that gave us the Velvet Underground*** and Stooges, not forgetting some of the lesser lights in the game such as Dylan and the Stones. There was no way acts like these and many more would be compatible with the squeaky-clean and smooth utterances that the eighties would be known for, and it's a shame the guys running the mag couldn't have kept it nice and grubby with loads of coverage of the new underground mixed with the old one and maybe a few mainstream things here and there to keep the advertisers happy.

But let's face it, the eighties were a pretty drekky era for rock 'n roll and just as bad as the nineties, otz and the teens we are now schmoozing around it and in no way could an energetic, energy-crazed sorta rock mag dare to exist in the same climate that was pumping out acts like Loverboy and Pat Benetar galore. You were great once CREEM, but how could you even think of walking in the same stratum of post-stoner hipness as Andy Secher (blech)'s HIT PARADER???

***

I get the idea that a lotta people who had grown tired of CREEM's arena rock pandering eventually skeedaddled over to TROUSER PRESS to get their rock 'n roll information, and judging from this June '79 issue I wouldn't doubt it one bit. Whereas those involved with CREEM had become so cocksure of themselves as they tossed two-dimensional throwaways at their readers, TROUSER PRESS was presenting articles, reviews and a general atmosphere that mirrored those of the kid on the go for something new and exciting to listen to. No more did we have to search through an entire mainstream mag just to get one brief mention of some underground rock mystery we sure wanted to know more about...with TROUSER PRESS that underground mystery more or less had an entire article to itself that helped fill in all of the gaps that most certainly weren't being filled by any of the major newsstand competition..

Of course it wasn't like digging into a hot fanzine where said underground act was probably interviewed and had their mug splattered all over the place, but TROUSER PRESS was sure enough easier to find and besides it probably held together a whole lot better'n a whole number of those staple jobs where the pages kept fallin' off after a few reads.

Good writers and good subject matters too (meaning we're not gonna be inundated with Van Halen's pusses being splattered all over the place, that's for sure). A bit new wave-y true, but this was before that whole underground scene toppled into a gooey abyss of Talking Heads pose and B-52s kitsch and a good portion of what was happening in NYC and elsewhere was mighty listenable, at least on different levels. And it's obviously nice to know that the people who wrote for the mag still seemed to care about music as a high energy form of expression ('stead of background for carnal oompah or a stroking of your own ego regarding your superior position on this planet of ours), and at a time when the rest of the mainstream competition was either willfully ignoring the new underground styles or berating them without any real evidence to back their pallid claims up. TROUSER PRESS were keeping themselves at the forefront of what heavy duty rockscreeding was supposed to be about and doing a good enough job at least until the early eighties clime changed and in no way could a mag like this exist in a world where Madonna was actually considered an important artistic achievement.

Special note---the inclusion of a review of Frank Zappa's SHIEK YERBOUTI written by a chap calling himself Cole Springer, a name that somehow rings a bell to be cornball about it.

***

In contrast of TROUSER PRESS's willingness to expose the youth of this nation to the rare, the unheard and the exciting sounds that truly mirrored their existence, CRAWDADDY seemed to go out of their way to cater to the remnants (and there were many to cater to as there are today!) of the early-seventies fringe leather 'n turquoise crowd that looked silly and worthy of ridicule even during their day in the sun. Far from being the same rock mag that published Meltzer and allowed Wayne McGuire to pontificate about WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT, CRAWDADDY had become even more of a ROLLING STONE-styled hippie tossout during the seventies complete with the usual New Left hoohah with all of the right buttons being pushed to assuage the scions of the shaggy hair generation as to how intelligent and superior they are (and will remain) to everybody else that walked the face of this earth.

Taking your cues from ROLLING STONE 'stead of CREEM might have been a good way to rake in the cash, but who would agree that it was the right way to go if you wanted to dish out the high energy jamz! But then again, were the mass of people in that mythical ages 18-34 bracket really interested in rock 'n roll what with all of the mind-numbing downers and brain-napping religious movements that were abounding at the time? Yes, the folks at CRAWDADDY really had their fingers way up the sphincters of Amerigan youth, and you can tell it not only with the standard political propaganda (that doesn't read as cutting as STONE's nor as in-depth as FUSION's) but with their musical tastes which were so obviously stuck at the turn of the 60s-unto-70s what with all of the rattle-on about the remnants of those fatal years who certainly deserved to be remnants. Some interesting bits do pop up such as Michael Cuscuna's review of John Coltrane's INTERSTELLAR SPACE craftily combined with one of the Rashied Ali/Frank Lowe DUO EXCHANGE on Survival, but in order to get to that you have to trod through a ton of the usual West Coast cokesnort canticles to get to 'em. And what a trod it is, especially when you read a review of Tim Buckley's LOOK AT THE FOOL and the guy writing about it mentions that the "SAILOR" album was "a disaster, but at least it ended Buckley's flirtation with jazz"!!!

If you want a good example of what I, as an over-rambunctious teenager, used to pour through in order to find maybe one measly reference to the Shadows of Knight or Dictators back in those sorry on one level (and heaven on another) days look no further than these stinking examples of journalistic rock critic-mentality turdbombs. Somehow I get the feeling that most people who wrote about rock music from the eighties onward used to read CRAWDADDY religiously, holding it with one hand if you know what I mean.

***

Time for something more...copasetic? And one thing that really brings back the memories of just what goodness the seventies had in store for us all was none other than THE NEW YORK ROCKER. Don't laugh, for at one time the ROCKER was a pretty brave publication that concentrated not only on the up-and-coming New York underground groups who were cluttering up the stages of the local clubs, but also pop/rock acts of all kinds whose knowledge were usually confined to Greg Shaw columns and small-press fanzines that really never did make their way into the bedrooms of kids who most certainly needed to read 'em. Editor Alan Betrock and staff most certainly felt it worthy to expose these relative unknown to a bunch of kids who were more'n anxious to eat this music up no matter how much their parents and dee-jays feared and true, later on when the mode of the music changed thanks to unforeseen trends so did the mag, but when it was still running on an underground seventies pulse the ROCKER was one of the better rags covering the musical upheaval you KNOW that everybody in your vicinity wanted absolutely nothing to do with!

Well these two issues really do bring back da memories of mooching copies off of like-minded associates who knew enough to ditch you (and the music they once loved) once they got the sheepskins and headed off for real life. The March '81 ish was good if rather lacking in something (like the "New York" groups that the paper originally made their moolah with) though after thumbing through the thing I dunno if I wanna dig out my old Pylon single that eagerly. Simon Frith's John Lennon obit doesn't quite hit the target like Mick Farren's did, and given this is a rock 'n roll publication why the interview with the recently rooted out Abbie Hoffman??? I guess that the ROCKER really wanted to get a jump on the eighties even Newer than the New Left bandwagon with this 'un which is their biz of course, though I would have preferred that the space be devoted to some up and coming local act that might have sizzled my nodes 'stead of some warmed-over hippie who seemed rather creepy in some respects.


The April '82 ish with the Human Switchboard proudly featured on the front shows just how much the "underground" had twisted in a mere year. With the mode of the music changing the way it was (and the walls of the city shaking naught) it was more'n obvious that the sixties/seventies under-the-counterculture was dead, and although what eventually replaced it was more or less a pallid version of the original thrust you can see the sometimes abysmal morphing right before your very eyes in these pages. The last days of the post-Velvets underground era meets the onslaught of the trendies and hardcores right before your very eyes, making for a strange storm front that seemed promising enough though by the late-eighties all I could find within the remnants were lame musical acts coming out on every front.

Again I sure wish that these bozos woulda been reviewing many more local acts other'n the Fleshtones (I mean, they coulda just gone to CBGB and found the most derivative yet refreshing act nobody's heard of and done a nice feature on 'em!), because for the life of me I don't think those Adam and the Ants and Police articles really hold up here in the post-worth living world of the teens no matter how hard I try to squint my eyes!

***

'n finally for today's trek into rockist reading matter, this comic book done up in a neat spiral binding just like some handbook for operating that dishwasher you ditched in 1986. It ain't just ANY cosmic book either, but a French language offering called BLACK OUT that just happ'd to have been written by none other'n that French miscreant everybody seemed to like Serge Gainsbourg! It's all in French but you can still look at the hotcha pix drawn by a Jacques Armand, and considering how a good portion of it is practically word-free it ain't like you're gonna be missing much anyway. Great art, nice "feel" too, and it has a great fashionable look to it because it was created (1982) right before the female gender were told by their elders that they hadda look ugly for the sake of the sex 'n men hadda like it no matter what lest they be forever sent to the land of the geldings. Sorta comes off like an old Roxy Music album cover fleshed out into a nice mid/late-seventies story of steamy decadence, at least before that word started to refer to incestuous relationships with one's five-year-old detailed in glowing, progressive-sounding terms.

***

Nice bitta housecleaning you've been doing there Steve...if you find any more old mags you swept under the rug well, you know where you can dump your trash now, don't you???

___________________________________________________
* in fact, this very article is the first ever place I encountered the very existence of the Stooges' "LA Blues" if you can believe that!

**in fact, this very review is the first ever place I encountered the very existence of Savage Rose if you can believe that!

***although the Velvets retrospective by Robot Hull which appeared in an '81 issue was passable, their 1987 cover story was one of the most puke-inducing "homages" that I had ever encountered in a bigtime mag. The worst part about it being you know whatever was left of the folks at CREEM shoulda known better, but in order to placate the squeaky clean crowd they just hadda stoop to dishing out zilch-dimensional drivel like that special issue which, if anything, attempted to sully the VU mystique by transplanting it into late-eighties thought processes!!! And people wonder why I grew to loathe the rock press like I eventually did!

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW...FREE, WHITE AND 21, directed by Larry Buchanan (1963)

Looking back, who can deny just how tame and downright quaint alla them early-sixties "controversial" movies were. Whether they were dealing with race relations or some moral issue, the hard-edged crux of the matter just keeps getting skirted around or maybe even ignored totally. I mean, nowadays tee-vee can crank out program after program dealing with a man's love for his bovine or how the age of consent should be extended to embryos, but at least this purported entertainment delivers the controversy to the point where any normal person would wanna take a bath in concentrated Lestoil after sitting through a prime time of programming filled with such once-verboten subject matter as these.

Maybe we've just become so used to and even immune to the same subject matter that woulda made Aunt Gladys blanch in those turbulent times, but back in the early-sixties when socially provocative moom pitchers and tee-vee shows started popping up boy did they make for an uncomfortable time for those gathered around the cathode tube.

Nowadays these surviving shards of a lost civilization sure seem about as tame as all of those old "Adults Only" mooms dealing with the lustful desires of pot smokers and cocaine fiends, tame if sensational entertainment that didn't take long to end up as campy fodder for snooty college students who love to be so "above" the people who originally flocked to these grindhouse classix. But whether it was a thrill-seeking suburbanite or a pseudo-intellectual college major who couldn't find a job in a million years with his philosophy degree, there were many sharp operators out there who knew how to shill the rubes with entertainment that could work on so many levels it was like, how could they lose?

And when it came to knowing the proper way to separate the fool from his filthy lucre Larry Buchanan certainly knew what to do, and he sure did it swell with this courtroom drama that is packed to the gills with tension, drama, social significance, and the best thing about it is that you don't wanna puke your guts out after (or while) watching it!

Greta Mae Hansen, a Scandie lass in the USA for who knows what reason, gets involved with the Civil Rights movement that was brewing up at the time. Finding herself in Texas, she stays at the Ebony Hotel and, after going to a black nightspot, finds herself back in her room with Ernie Jones, a local black businessman who solicits Greta Mae for some modeling work. And you can bet that he means business since he even carrier a handy measuring tape around with him! But is what happens next rape or consensual sex??? Greta Mae sez that Ernie forcibly took advantage of her while Ernie, after some prodding, admits that he did have sex but she was all for it from the get go.

And that's where you the viewer come in...you were given ballots to vote and you have but three minutes to make your decision. No motel rooms or free dinners for you bub, and if your verdict matches the outcome of this film (like mine did!) consider yourself even smarter than I gave you credit for. But after all is said 'n done maybe the DA did have a point about the jury...maybe they just don't know who to hate more, furriners or Negros!