BOOK REVIEW! A SMITTY TREASURY VOLUME 1 BY WALTER BERNDT (Gwandaland Comics, 2018) 

Given that the only thing I knew about this comic strip was copped outta old MAD magazines I gotta 'fess up that I was somewhat curious regarding these by now ancient SMITTYs. Sure a strip about an office boy who likes to goof off but is so aw gosh that even his boss Mr. Bailey takes a shine to him (enough that the two go on fishing trips and even vacations together --- gosh, weren't we all so innocent then?) doesn't seem like the kind that would exactly perk my nerve endings. But still, SMITTY was a product of the Golden Age of Comic Strips and just for that I thought giving it a try would be something constructive to do before I clock out of life or happily spend my declining years on life support, whichever comes first.

After going through this gathering of old BORMs it's easy enough to see through the haze of a good ninety years that, although SMITTY is not the attention-grabbing visually pleasing type of comic that LI'L ABNER was, nor was it a simple to-the-point strip about the fun times of childhood as HENRY or NANCY well --- it was better than even I would have gathered. SMITTY was somewhat of a situation comedy strip so-to-speak which presented the daily travails of a young boy who should have been in school but is supporting his parents and younger brother Herby (an actual school kid who seems to be of turdler status) at one of those "what kinda business is this anyway?" sorta places where Dagwood and Ward Cleaver work. It wouldn't've been an exciting comic either without Smitty getting into some interesting scrapes, twists, turns and other story development lines that were bound to keep the usual depression-era wage kids (during and after the depression, and I should know!) tuning in given that well, there wasn't much else for kids to tune into back in them days! 

And tune in they did! Some nice continuity here from the on/off attempt to snag the elusive fish "Big Mighty" to the usual problems and such we all probably had to (and still do!) go through thanks to office politics and ordeals, situations that I guess were later dealt with in the more recent (and way more boring) comic strip DILBERT. I liked the one where some new hotshot kid at the office tries to get Smitty fired so he can take his job which is something people (like myself) have experienced throughout life, only the badskis never did get caught and humiliated like they do here in fantasyville!

SMITTY creator Walter Berndt knew how to keep the art nice and simple and the stories uncluttered so that even the simplest of doofs could get it. And so would the same kinda folk (like us!) who still tune into old NANCY comic strip sites on this here internet if only to re-capture a part of our kid-hood that seemed to vanish once reality began to set in and set in hard.

It was nothing that really lights up the comic pressure point in my brain like a variety of other strips do, but I like it. I get the feeling that if I grew up with SMITTY I would be harboring the same pangs of a happy turdler era lost the same way I do when I read other old comics thinking about a time in my life I would gladly return to, at least if I had the dexterity to wipe my own ass.

Well, after all of those tossout book reviews I guess that it's time for the real thing, and if you are a fan of mine (and who shouldn't be unless you're a TOTAL JERKOFF) you BETTER be ever-so-grateful!  The usual day-to-day hassles and a summer that's gonna be filled with hard-sell outdoor flea markets etc. are putting a damper on this blog and will continue to for quite some time, but nevertheless settle back for the ride given how I've been putting a whole lot of heart, soul and even some plastic-laden testes into these posts.

Anyway welcome to the first post of Rainblow Month 'n here's that li'l ol' attention whore me presenting for you the kinda post I know (at least from post stats) you just love. I'll guarantee ya that nothing that is presented within these "pages" will elicit the same sorta throb thrills that earlier writings of mine most surely did, and perhaps because of the span of time between these big-deal posts there's just too much for the average (?) BTC reader to digest and ultimately shit out. (I was tempted to hold a whole load of this back for a subsequent post but figured by then none of it would be whatcha'd call "timely" as if this blog ever was.) However, deep down inside whatever's left of my heart I'll admit that I'm surprised my mind managed to toss this post at'cha, and given the swill passing for rock journalism these days what I've written still beats whatever I've recently read (or more accurately tried to avoid) regarding that maddening sound called rock 'n roll all hollow. 

Now, that doesn't say much considering the dearth of printed pus that passes itself of as "rock critijissom" or whatever other descriptive terms one might conjure but eh, so what! When you consider that this entire mode of the music (as well as the people who produce and even listen to it) really is deader'n Karen Quinlan what would you expect? As I've told you many-a-time, we're all just zombies goin' through the motions only we don't know that we've been obliterated by the past five or so decades of utter loathing directed at our pure ideals and concepts of music. Music as a spell cast against both the forces of mediocrity and the hip superiority moosh that's "supposed" to stand AGAINST that very selfsame mediocrity. Well, better to indulge in the hard and gritty musical past than to sustain your cravings via the piddle being passed off as "raw" and "exciting" these days, and you know this blog is but one guided missile in the war against the creeping tide of bland that unfortunately crept over us way too long ago. And remember --- I wouldn't print any of this if it wasn't true!

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REAL DEAL EVENT OF THE POST just hasta be the arrival of FAUX WOOD PANELING #5 into my mailbox as well as my very own existence. Sheesh, life has taken a turn for the better ever since this mag has come out, and looking forward to receiving the latest issue (me being on the freebee list---wow!) has become just as tingle throb worthy as when I was a kid awaiting my Archie Club badge and press card which I still have to have and to hold somewhere in the pile. Wade Oberlin never fails to deliver on the post-Meltzerian goods what with this brimming (pages are un-numbered but it is a biggie) mag that features none other than an in-depth interview with Darwin Layne himself Craig Bell as well as various bits 'n feces that are most welcome, at least to souls like ours who have been in on the game for quite a long time and are too smart to give it all up. Really, where else are you going to read an in-depth review of an early-fifties Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoon, other'n maybe the very blog you're now reading that is? The reprint of Meltzer's Blurt review was most welcome --- now if Wade would go 'n find the rest of his ne'er reprinted VILLAGE VOICE writeups boy would I be one happy somethingorother!

One particularly peeving thing about this issue is the (re?)printing of a Brian Walsby comic dealing with Rocket From The Tombs and the Cleveland first wave of underground rock. This particular page was irritating to me considering just how much I loathed Walsby's frequent PEANUTS-inspired art that cluttered up a myriad assortment of hardcore rags that I will be jettisoning once I get back on ebay or some cheaper equivalent one of these days. The man and his patented eighties punk unto punque attitudes were so upsetting to me that not one but TWO Walsby spoofs appeared in the earlier issues of my not-so-erstwhile crudzine...he was that irritable bowel syndrome bothersome to me perhaps because I thought that he and his work were somehow a culmination of the entire punk attitude and sound idiom that was turning into boring hippie swill right in front of my very eyes! And as time proved I was more righter'n you'll ever be!

Anyhow, despite my past hatred for the dude it's good to see that Walsby is now a devotee of the finer aspects of the underground rock quest (he was also responsible for a Maureen Tucker comic that I only saw a page of if only because Brad Kohler wanted to get my goat) and that his style has improved 'n all HOWEVER... Well, Walsby forgot that Crocus Behemoth had a beard and that Peter Laughner was in Rocket before the Gene O'Connor/Johnny "Madman" Madansky/Darwin Layne edition of the group, and although I know that I perhaps picking the nits a tad and that there's always some "poetic license" being injected into these things and that mistakes are expected to be made, but we're talking about a HALLOWED SUBJECT MATTER that should be treated with the utmost respect! This 'toon shoulda been executed a whole lot better considering the hallowed subject matter, with all the care and detail he  would have used had he were doing the Henry Rollins story or something along those lines! Eh, why bicker especially this late in the game when it doesn't really mean a thing anymore and in case you didn't know...we all LOST!  (available via wadeoberlin@gmail.com).

Also jettisoned my way via Robert Forward was an issue of that legendary magazine devoted to the more avgarde vibrations in life, mainly THE WIRE. Dunno why Mr. Forward sent this since hardly any of the musical entities who are written up in this magazine are anything that I'd go, in Tuli Kupferberg's own words, "aggieoogieagga" over (pardon me if I have used this descriptor before). Still the thought was nice and there were a few turdbits of interesting things I sorted outta this ish even if for the life of me I wouldn't spend one thin dime on just about anything that is mentioned in here! Well, they did print a review of that Peter Laughner "graphic novel" that I writ up sometime back, and maybe if I dig in a little more I'll find something like a review or an article that might actually be of interest to my rather horse-blindered brain. But as for now the only current publication that worthy of my time and pleasure's FAUX WOOD PANELING, and I won't take guff from any of you over this!

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Looks like I got my birthday present a li'l early but so what! Here it is, SYD BARRETT'S FIRST TRIP which should also be known as THE BEGINNING OF THE END...

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Here's another one for you cinema buffs, an early slice of underground filmage entitled 1941 that was created by a painter and moviemaker of little if any renown (can't find nada on-line, or elsewhere for that matter, about him) named Francis Lee. From what I do know about this flicker and (obviously) its title I can tell you that the thing had something to do with Ameriga's entry into the Second World War, but given how abstract and mind of the viewer interpretive it is, this film could be about "Aunt Flow" or any feminine type problem that's out there for all I know. Whatever, I gotta admit that I kinda like it if only because it reminds me of the opening of the old private detective series CHECKMATE:

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Anyone out there who could give me some info or maybe even airchecks regarding on-air personality Steve Brown, some guy who used to spin 'em at KSJO-FM, a once-freeform but now Bollywood station in San Jose California? I'm only asking cuz, in the course of a Cameron Crowe-penned Grateful Dead article in that Jan '74 issue of CREEM I praised to the rafters a few weeks back, Brown was briefly mentioned as having been "once a locally infamous disc-jockey" and "an eclectic lover of off-the-wall punk rock" whose "first love" are none other than the Gang of Garcia as if you couldn't've seen that comin'! Sounds like the kinda guy I wouldn't mind getting to know better, although his affection for one of the more overrated rock groups in history might be quite off the ol' high energy target if you ask me (and why not, 'tis my blog?).

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Hefty kudos to the DENIM DELINQUENT facebook page for all of those early Alice Cooper photos they've been posting as of a few weeks ago. Keep them snaps comin', and maybe a written review or two from Pete Sanchez would be nice!

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AS IF ANY OF YOU OUT THERE WOULD CARE TO HELP ME OUT DEPT.: I'm trying harder'n hard to find some information or for that matter a discography (and the availability of recordings) on a late-seventies English punk rock group called the Worst, a Mancunian bunch who have been described in the following terms --- and what terms they are!:

The worst are so much like Uncle Lou and Friends you could be fooled into thinking they are the genuine article. No one's pretending they're 1978's answer to New York's bug-eyed sons (and daughter)But people are inclined to make comparisons - And it's a shadow, y'know.A starting block, and attempt to identify/categorize....it's a blistering tribute, but I could blame a basketful of bands who think it's necessary to pay the Velvets homage = trouble is,The Worst do it so bloody well...Audio-visual excitement:it's even more difficult to understand.Maybe they've rediscovered the energy that made Warhol's Exploding Plastic Enevitable so special/maybe they're pulling the wool over everyone's eyes. (Punctuation/spelling kept as originally presented.)

Are the Worst really that late-seventies flash/burst of Velvet Underground sonic pride I've always enjoyed or just another one of XXXXX rock groups who took "the superficial aspects of the quest" without the deep drive and nerve-twisted feeling. They never entered a recording studio but I assume that there are some live tapes flying about, even though to date I have uncovered nada and I just KNOW none of you would be willing to help me out (then again, I wouldn't give any of you readers a ride to the hospital even if you broke your leg!). Who knows, maybe that guy in Finland who has been releasing these limited edition CD-r's of punk rarities might have 'em in his catalog! As usual, I'll attempt to find out and probably once again get burned in the process.

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And the deaths just seem to keep on comin'. Dennis Thompson's passing makes it the MC0, and although I am not an aficionado of film as aht it was kinda sad to hear that Roger Corman bit the dust. And believe it or not, but I should feel somewhat droopy about the exit stage left of Steve Albini if only because he sent me an album gratis way back when I really needed to be sent albums gratis. Unfortunately the kind of deaths that I am looking forward to have yet to transpire which is kind of disappointing on my behalf. After all, I really do need a reason to smile these days. But maybe if we all wish and pray hard enough...

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Ron Unz makes the brilliant point that Donald Trump, whilst campaigning from his prison cell (or at least the swank country club passing as one he'll be skedaddled to), could possibly be this century's answer to Eugene Debs. And come to think of it, if I were around way back 1912/1916 way I definitely would have voted for Debs over Prez Taft and especially the vastly-overrated and downright despicable Woodrow Wilson. Then again, even Happy Hooligan woulda been a better choice than that peacenik conveniently turned warmonger Wilson, a man whose crowning moments as Commander in Chief was probably during his post-stroke days when he couldn't do any harm even though his illiterate wife ended up runnin' things. And, surprisingly enough Debs was an honest man, something which seems to be a scarcity in the world of political wheeliedealies these days. Howzat for throwing you staunchly patented lefty types for a loop?

Whilst on the subject of the upcoming election...izzit true what they say about Trump and Roy Cohn?????

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As you've been waiting for after all the above personalist jibberjab, here are some reviews of just a few of many recordings that are 1) either newly released and deserve a li'l push or 2) for the most part are totally new to my ears and I thought you should know at least what I think about 'em. As you've come to expect Paul McGarry, Robert Forward and even Wade Oberlin are the ones responsible for the burns and my pocketbook the one for the brand spanking new entries into my collection. 

It is getting harder and harder to keep to my New Year's resolution not to splurge on various frivolities so like well, better enjoy what I have writ up before I'm banished to the poor house until my dying day. Pretty pic 'n chooze here --- will it be a winner or will it be a dud? (Unfortunately the gif doesn't work, but it's taken from the old MYSTERY DATE tee-vee commercial that some of you old turdburgers may remember. That was the mid-sixties board game where gals getting in on the hetero relationship merry-go-round aim for the ultimate dating experience and usually get stuck with the "dud", a guy who in this day and age would probably be yer aspiring body-pierced tattoo'd gender is over type's idea of a fun night out!)

Dredd Foole and the Din-WE WILL FALL 1983 CD; SEE GOD 1985 1986 2-CD set (both efforts via Corbett Vs. Dempsey Records)

You can read my review of the first Foole/Din career retro release here if you really wanna. If you don't I might have a tad bit of contempt for you but anyway, here're vols. two and three of the Din trilogy for all of you unrepentant Boston Rock fans and Velvet Underground obsessives who I still believe are firmly ensconced under your own personal rocks. Save some space for me! 

WE WILL FALL 1983

 has Foole still teamed up with Mission of Burma (more/less) continuing on the Boston tradition with their mix of more than competent originals jumbled with the expected smattering of those covers that inspired them originals. It's all done up live and pretty gnarly at that what with Foole's strained vocals and a group that sounds blaring even on a cheap bedside boom box. 

SEE GOD 1985-1986's got Foole backed by the post-Burma Volcano Suns (a group I now wish I paid more attention to, but sheesh I was so busy/poor then) with their two classic longplayers slapped together giving me reason to double up on the lisinopril given the palpitations I had for these albums back in the late eighties (a time that was certainly hard to get excited over even existing in I'll tell ya).

You might want to take this one piecemeal. Having played all three platters (which clock in at way over an hour each) in one sitting I feel like I'm coming down off a long day with nothing but energy drinks for sustenance. Yes, Dredd Foole and the Din pack a mighty wallop and well, if you like your under-the-underground rock 'n roll history compacted in such a way as these platters deliver you just might be a better appreciator of the warm drone than I could ever hope to be!      

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Murahashibu-LIVE '72 CD (Good Lovin' Records, Japan)

Sometimes these Japanese rock groups can tread some mighty similar pools of sound. I mean, the opening track comes close to Les Rallizes Denudes while other moments recall that infamous anarcho-punk/mock Tyrannosaurus Rex act Zuno Keisatsu. Then there are the overt Stones swipes and other nods to the occidental set which is to be expected from Japanese acts such as Murahashibu and others who've kept their eye on alla them trends happening globe wide and brought 'em home for the locals. Nothing that'll get your jaw all agape but rough and tumble enough at least for my tastes. Yeah, I really can see why a touring Stranglers took an interest in these guys, and if you were/are in on the whole seventies leather and feral nature of rock 'n roll you will to.

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Grachan Moncur III-NEW AFRICA CD-r burn (originally on BYG-Actuel Records, France)

Another boff BYG sesh featuring trombonist Moncur along with the best of the expats making an album that might get you all frothing over the fact that nobody who played on this ever got renumerated. It ain't over the hill running and screaming like many of these other late-sixties cataclysmic bouts of sonic liberation, but it's still rooted in a dark mid-sixties neo-Archie Shepp (who appears on "When") urban groove that kinda sounds like it shoulda been the real soundtrack to COTTON COMES TO HARLEM. If they still have used record bins with 1980's prices dig it up you penny-pinchers you!

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Anthony Braxton-RECITAL PARIS '71 CD-r burn (originally on Futura Records, France)

This previously unheard by me Braxton rarity features a 25+ minute solo version of "Come Sunday" as well as a multitracked piano piece dedicated to John Cage sidekick David Tudor. Alla you Braxton fans who were listening in back when Meltzer said he was nothing but the new Dave Brubeck custom made for the college snobs "thing" (a comparison Braxton would have probably loved) already heard this. For the rest of us this should be more than just "good enough" if your tastes veer in between the new jazz thing and the classical avgarde. Not boring at all, in fact quite stimulating.

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Chick Corea-CIRCULUS CD (Blue Note Records, Japan)

Actually this is the first Circle album with Corea joined by fellow members Braxton, bassist Dave Holland and drummer Barry Altschul. You may be familiar with their double live set that popped up on the ECM label back in the seventies, and if you aren't then you sure weren't thumbing through the jazz section of your local record shop back when that set used to pepper up the plains.

Gotta say that I always found it quite funny that Corea was working in very close proximity with Braxton in the v. early-seventies considering how both of 'em would become rather big names in the world of jazz within a few measly years. Corea as the leader of a rather pedestrian fusion quartet (though I never did hear the debut Return to Forever LP on Polydor which some say was of a quite different genome than that of the later edition) and Braxton the omnipresent avgardist who appeared at a time when there actually seemed to be an audience for this sort of sonic air shredding.

Still, this effort shows Corea at a time when his L. Ron Hubbard-inspired pixie and dixie approach hadn't yet taken him into starry-eyed commercial realms. The rest of Circle keep him in tow, with Corea playing his classically-bred lines while Braxton etc. are free to do their own thing. And the use of small instruments etc. does lend the perfect color needed to keep this from being just another free jazz effort...CIRCULUS bounces up down and about in your musical psyche like the best AACM/BAG efforts though not as nervegrinding as the first or as funky as the second.

It is interesting, perhaps somewhat boring at times, but not boring as in you're stuck in a carpool with nothing to hear but the radio spinnin' the 80s/90s/00s etc. sounds you tried so hard to avoid for the past umpteen years. Might be worth picking up a few tracks via Youtube 'r something with only serious fans of seventies experimental strains searching out any flesh and blood copies that might be wallowing around.

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Meyer Kupferman-ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK FROM THE FILM HALLELUJAH THE HILLS LP (Fontana Records)

From what I could gather HTH wasn't exactly one of the more engrossing underground films that were popping up throughout the sixties, what with such efforts as CHAFED ELBOWS (also iffy but good 'nuff) and the various works of the Kuchars and Warhol passing it up while waving goodbye. This soundtrack album might give one the idea of what was happening on the screen (including a scene where future Cheryl Tiegs spouse Peter Beard goes streaking in the snow), though I get the feeling that it is all so filmatic and New York chi-chi that I doubt that it would have anything to do with your miserable existence. 

Musically some of it reminds me of the kind of tinkle you would have heard in such early French avgarde efforts as THE BLOOD OF A POET or ZERO FOR CONDUCT, while there are quiet neo-baroque harpsichord/flute interludes and even a few trips into a sound that's almost late-sixties neo-gothic rock. Overall this is nothing that I was expecting given the very few huzzahs this album had been endowed with these past sixtysome years, but one thing that I did like was that it didn't drive me into fits of rage the way a whole slew of amerindie/"lightcore" records I heard in the eighties sure did!

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SILOAH CD-r burn (originally on the Garden of Delights lael, Germany)

You remember SUKRAM GURK. Siloah's second album which sounded like a stoned punk rock mad trip into the inner reaches of some twenty-year-old German whose chemical makeup seemed to equal that of Monsanto's.  However, have you heard their debut of a quite different schnitzel? I tried to avoid it after hearing all of those references to "hippie-communal-freeform-body odor" mysticism that were directed at this, but lo and behold none other than Mr. Robert Forward sent me a burn and well, you already know how I feel about it so why write this review in the first place? Aimless get together in the group house jams are what's in store here, most of it kinda sounding something like Amon Duul's infamous swan song PARADIESWARTS DUUL without the early Velvet Underground repeato riffs. If Adolf were alive he'd just die!

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Various Artists-LULLABIES FOR CATATONICS 3-CD-r set (originally on Cherry Red Records, England)

A lot of these recent CD compilations that bunch up previously released spazz and slaps 'em into a packet under a certain thematic grouping are rather meaningless while others, like the Chris Needs-helmed DIRTY WATER series and that collection of classical avgarde efforts that inspired Frank Zappa are pretty solid. As for this triple disque effort giving us a somewhat unconnected overview of various late-sixties/early seventies English proggy sounds well...

This set comes off like the kind of jukebox Chris Welch and Michael Oldfield (the MELODY MAKER scribe, not the TUBULAR BELLS guy) would have just LOVED to have had  spinning at their headquarters while tossing darts at pictures of Johnny Rotten, and you've won the ol' cigar if you think that the majority of tracks don't exactly make me want to jump up and down in frenzied ecstasy. Acts like Curved Air (doing a Vivaldi violin homage that might have even put a smile on Miss Grundy's face) and Barclay James Harvest don't exactly reach for my jugular even if even I gotta admit that a few of the latter's very early Beatles riffs are slightly palatable if taken in extremely small doses (really!). For the most part the tracks on this effort just remind me of just how laden this so-called rock music could have gotten once the Mantovani side of the brain overtook the Buddy Holly one.

Not to say that there are some winners sticking out like diamonds in a field of turds. The Bowie-fueled Riot Squad doing "Waiting For My Man" must rank along with the Deviants' version as the earliest example of a cover that more than a few Ladbrook Grove bands would be doing throughout the late-sixties and seventies. The Velvet Frogs' homage to THE MARBLE INDEX makes me wish that more by these Velvet Underground aficionados would make its way to the ears of people who are bored silly by all of those superficial VU-inspired groups of the last fortysome years. 10cc prove that there was a whole lot more to them than "I'm Not In Love" and oddly enough Stackridge's "Grand Piano" sounds like a Badfinger-esque Beatles rip that would have sounded spiffy on a 1972 AM playlist.

And there are more goodies from the Third Ear Band and Comus, but for the most part this effort just reverberates old feelings of some quite unexciting music that did have its audience, which is OK for that audience I guess but what about those of use who are addicted to the concept of high energy? There are collections more attuned to my own sense of sonic integrity which I mentioned in the first paragraph, but LULLABIES FOR CATATONICS is one grab together that just ain't made for the typical reader of this blog. But who knows...perhaps the Emerson Lake and Palmer revival is just around the corner and I know how some of you readers just love to jump on them new hip bandwagons!

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STONE COOL WHITE CD-r burn (originally on Cal-Tex Records---well at least it ain't Co-Tex!)

Wade Oberlin sent me a burn of this 1970 vintage funk thing OBVIOUSLY because these guys (and femme) hailed from Dayton, which is 'round where Oberlin himself resides. The AM radio sound does help deliver a most welcome raw feeling which does aid the searing wah-wah Hendrix ripoff instrumentals and echoplex vocals. Dull cover of "Ain't No Sunshine" tho. Kinda reminds me of what that King Afro and the Mongoloids single that Reg Shaw mentioned in his "Jukebox Jury" column in BRAIN DAMAGE magazine woulda sounded like.

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Wally Shoup/Bill Horist/Paul Kikuchi-CHEMICAL LANGUAGE CD-r burn (originally on New Atlantis Records)

Even thought this 'un's nine-years-old it's like very recent in BLOG TO COMM time! Alto/guitar/drums trio that play sparse and bared wire in that post-twentieth century style that I used to hear a whole lotta back when I'd tune into Dee Pop's Freestyle Night at the CBGB Lounge. Can't pinpoint a direct ref to Shoup's takeoff points (too sharp for Ayler and thin for Shepp---maybe Braxton?) but Horist plays electric spidery enough in the fashion of some of those Euros like Joseph DeJean did on Shepp's Antibes album. Drummer Kikuchi slaps around it all in the fashion that Sunny Murray begat oh so long ago. A good effort that has been ignored for nearly a decade and I get the feeling that it'll be ignored until the current crop of jazz pansies die off and are replaced by a new, snarling generation (yeah, right!).

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The Jesus and Marychain-GLASGOW EYES CD-r burn (Fuzz Club Records, Scotland I guess)

The latest, and perhaps not greatest in the Jesus and Marychain catalog. I liked these guys back when their mid-eighties violent mix of VU/Syd/Jan and Dean was such a welcome relief from the usual doldrums so prevalent then, but even that original splurge of brilliance didn't last long. The over-production and dependency on updated technotwizzle (with the passion kept to a bare minimum) sure doesn't bring back memories of those feedback blasts and riots that made these guys the darlings of the English weaklies. Well, it's good to see that ex-Rezillos singer Faye Fife got to lend some vocal cords to this even if I never did care for her act --- 's just that I'm glad she doesn't have to hang around the Welfare Office anymore. Overall a fair enough release that I guess I should have come to have expected when I tore this 'un outta McGarry's latest parcel.

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Hawkwind-STORIES FROM TIME AND SPACE CD-r burn (originally on Cherry Red Records, England)

The latest in a long line of Hawkwind wares that keep on comin' more'n John Holmes ever did. Naturally, like their past fortysome years of Hawkwind and related releases this is pretty much the same old only with a new cover that sure lacks the imagination of the ones that graced their seventies platters. Some good melodies can be discerned here and there but otherwise Dave Brock and the new crew have yet to re-capture the entire hard blare of those early albums that were so boff on the psychedelic trip that even the FM stations in the USA couldn't ignore 'em.  If you're starting in on the Hawkwind game and want to know where to start, go for the United Artists albums and slowly work your way forward...

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These reminders about picking up one (or hopefully even more) back issues of  BLACK TO COMM are gonna get less and less friendlier as time rolls on. Anyway like, what's keeping you? Whatever you do, don't believe all of those naysayers out there who have lambasted this rag for years if only to make their own selves feel more better in their quest of personal destruction (something I sure wish I had the ability to do!). These are the ultimate fanzines and any fan of the Big Beat who is without copies is like a toilet with a roll. Sheesh, you'd think there'd be at least a few thousand more hard-edged rockist maniacs out there on this globe of ours willin' to latch onto this thing!

BOOK REVIEW! HOUND DOG HUCK : VOLUME 1 (Gwandanaland Books, 2019) 

Having re-acquainted myself with the earlier Hanna-Barbara cartoonage during frequent evening (and even middle of the night) viewings I have perhaps not-so-surprisingly grown to appreciate the early HUCKLEBERRY HOUND cartoons. Not having seen any of the first gen HB efforts since their final local Sunday AM broadcasting in the late-seventies I was surprised, not only at the ingenious ways the animators cut corners what with the use of bowties and collars enabling them to draw only a head instead of the entire body, but to the plain fact that these cartoons were just as appealing and as humorous to the grownups who happ'd be be watching along with the turdlers. Like with BULLWINKLE and even the UPA-era DICK TRACY cartoons there were a load of gags that were just gonna go over them kids' peabrains and straight into their parents' gag reflex, and although none of these HB efforts were as naughty as all of those Tex Avery cartoons complete with all of those sexual references they still were a whole lot snazzier'n the usual BABY BUNNY IN THE FLOPPY FOREST gaggeroonies that couldn't appeal to anyone over the age of a fetus.  

This comic rendition of the original HUCKLEBERRY HOUND lineup is about as close enough to the originals as I would expect. No cigar though, but then again how could you really translate the animated form into print as anyone whose ever read the comic strip and book adaptations of ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE not to mention HOUND co-star YOGI BEAR can tell ya. (Gotta admit that I really went for the BUGS BUNNY comic strip but that had a life of its own --- always liked the running gag where Sylvester and some bum friend of his would stroll into Bugs' lunch counter if only to scarf the free crackers and ketchup.)

But if yer an eight-year-old Saturday Afternoon Barbershop Kid waiting for your own clipping back '59 way I don't think it's gonna offend your sense of suburban slob aesthetics reading these. The stories might not be as slam boffo as the tee-vee cartoons but they ain't gonna let ya look at the POLICE GAZETTE so just settle back with one of these 'n don't ferget to tip the guy!

Well, at these stories do try to somewhat stick to the patented tee-vee form. Just like on tee-vee Huck's profession changes from story to story with him being on the police force on the search for an escaped gorilla in one (I think this might have been copped from an actual animated adventure but don't clobber me if it ain't) to another with him as a private eye combing the northern reaches of Canada for a shaggy prehistoric entity who looks remarkably like the Captain Caveman that Hanna/Barbera would unleash on Saturday AM tee-vee a good fifteen or so years later. That dog just can't keep a job but at least the same kinda yuks that you really went for way back'll come rushing like diarrhea after givin' a few of these halfway decent sagas a spin.

Yogi Bear had yet to graduate to his own series and comic book but he's present here and his stories are about as true to the original thrust as Huck's. Yogi's not as anarchistic here as he was onna tube but I've yet to rip out a page for some timely wiping so I guess he's good enough. The ones with Pixie/Dixie/Jinks also seem true to the animated efforts, but then again how much leeway does one get with these cat 'n meeces efforts anyway? Still far from aggravating and if you were one to spend Sunday PMs reading cheaply-acquired comics such as these after a long day of garage sale and flea market combing well, I'm sure you'll get the same tired, but it's a good tired feeling as you comb through these whilst waiting for your frozen pizza to cook up.

Hey, 's a worthy one to scoop up if yer in the mood for some pre-hippie values and pukka shell drapes comic book reading. And given the quality of  most post-mid-seventies comic book wares who'd blame you if you decided to snatch this outta the paws of some wise and on the ball six-year-old clutching onto one of these things? They're appealing enough and heck, even somewhat timely considering the story where Huck, on the search for a place to live, runs for president (with Yogi as his campaign manager) just so's he could settle down in the White House. And to add some omnidirectional funzies to the thing, just about the entire Hanna-Barbara stable ends up hitting the campaign trail in support to the point where you know that the guy just hadda win since as history has proven he woulda been better'n either Kennedy or Nixon! 

Health note...these Gwandanaland titles are clean and hygienic unlike a lotta the flea market goods I came across way back when, some which looked so atrocious that I hadda shed a tear if a much wanted title looked as if it was used as a feminine napkin. No boogers, food stains or dried baby batter to worry about in these pages so you don't have to wash your hands after reading these like my mother used to make me do (and you should have heard the things she used to tell me in order to keep me from buying old comic books, like what if some colored boy was reading it in the bathroom and picking his nose...I was so naive I had no idea what she was talking about until years later!).

BOOK REVIEW! NICO --- SONGS THEY NEVER PLAY ON THE RADIO BY JAMES YOUNG (Bloomesbury Publishing, 1992)

Shame on Brad Kohler for sending me this book! I mean it!!! Y'see, this personalist diary of one's participation with the ol' Moon Goddess herself Nico during a slew of tours and recording sessions is fine and dandy itself but really, Brad shoulda remembered that I already have this tome for the times albeit under a totally different title. Shows ya just how much the fanabla pays attention to the stuff I write up! You know, it really does get me deep down in the ol' pate de foi gras when a devoted fan and admirer of mine gets things wrong, and in such a gross manner at that t'boot! Sheesh what kinda admirers do I really have, but at least him giving me a book outta the kindness of his heart does make me feel all kinda warm 'n toasty inside. Besides I haven't read this 'un in ages so it's like Brad sent me more'n just a little "hint" to give it another go...

So here it is, old turds in new bowels more or less, and to prove that I'm a man who takes chances I ain't gonna read my old writeup of this in order to compare notes and look smarter than the average blog reader. I might contradict myself and even end up looking like a total idiot (or worse yet rock critic) having said one thing then and another thing now, but that's the price I pay for being the foolhardy gambler (who always loses) that I am and shall remain!

James Young played keyboards in Nico's final group Faction and the saga he tells 'bout the gal just reiterates everything we've known about her to the point where even Kohler gave an apt description of the ice goddess' final years via the "Li'l Minx" comic that appeared in the last issue of my very own crudzine. Yes, everything we've already known about Nico and are still afraid to ask is brought up...Nico the rayciss, Nico the stinkpot, Nico the junkie, Nico the gal who forgets her friends 'n it's all here. It won't get you to chuck your platters but it will reinforce alla those sagas about the Nico's viscousness trying to gouge a black model's eyeball out with a wine glass and other things that I'm sure would upset the more precious petunia types who tune into the blog. But eh, they'll still keep their Nico recs as well I'll bet.

Lotsa special guest appearances in these pages from an equally junked up John Cooper Clarke, Ari the bastard kid who's even more of a mental wreck than mama can be, and former bandmate/producer John Cale whose brain seems to be about as white powdered as Nico's. It is not so strange that, for being collaborator for over two decades at this point, the two seem more or less like a jaundiced married couple with a deep sort of irritation for each others' presence, and come to think of it it's things like this which make the entire sordid and seed saga all the more tasty. 

It ain't the streamlined sixties/seventies decadence that seemed really appealing to us cloistered kids who only got a taste of it via the rock mags, but a better than average encapsulation of what happened once that decadence got way off the rails as the hard-edged seventies slid into the squeaky clean eighties and that whole drugs/pervo scene just wasn't as fun as it used to be. For a good tombstone to the entire deca-Warhol/lower Manhattan era you can't beat this 'un which won't make you wanna mourn for those days'r anything, but it will remind us of what bigtime jerkoffs some of our favorite under-the-counterculture icons could get to be sometimes. And after all of the books, articles and rumors I've come across, boy were there many!

BOOK REVIEW! THE CATALOG OF COOL, EDITED BY GENE SCULATTI (Warner Brothers Books, 1982)

Shee-it. I mean, can anyone even properly define what the meaning, the concept of "cool" is 'n what ain't? Well, I'm sure that even that bespectacled wheezer we all knew in first grade might have had an inkling of what was hep 'n "with it", but to publish a whole BOOK about it may seem about as pointless as teaching my cyster how not to blow her stack at every slight indiscretion of mine. Well, a tome about the essence of true hipsterdom does seem like somewhat of a noble endeavor ('n who knows, perhaps even a one-dimensional being such as I might be able to pick up some tips!), so dig in I must!

I'm sure there has been, is, and will continue to be arguments about the aspects of "cool" for years on end and like, maybe it should be obvious as to what is 'n what is not (like didn't Huey Lewis prove himself and the minions he sang for that they were definitively NOT "cool" when "It's Hip to be Square" rose in the charts???), but after years of seeing such soul-bending and earth-shattering things as whacked out local tee-vee shows and EC comics in the rear view mirror of destiny does it really matter??? Should any of us even care about any sorta concepts of coolness here in the dank dark days of the snoring twenties??? 

As I've said many-a-time, the battle for downright soul-searing nerve-fraying energy and "cool" as defined in a somewhat general fashion was lost a good fortysome years back when the obviously squeaky-clean cutesy-poo aspects of life unfortunately overtook the bared-wire intensity of hard-edged and gnarling look/sound/fashion/attitude. T'was a time when (as noted in a long inactive blog) even Iggy Pop and Lou Reed began putting out snoozeville records so you KNEW that all has been lost.

But as to the brass tacks of cool versus stool, or hip versus flip...I remember a long time ago in the pages of (I believe it was) CREEM when they commended Patti Smith for her "cool" after a typically porcine in looks and behavior Bette Midler threw a drink in her face at some fancy to-do and Smith didn't even bat an eye. If that's an example of hip and with-it behavior I must say that I much prefer the time when a White Power-bedecked John Morton, while at some party Peter Laughner threw at his parents' digs, hadda endure some gal snootily put down the infamous Electric Eel's visual and performance art as total shuck upon whence Morton approached the blabbermouth with a poker face that Buster Keaton would have envied, right before giving her a swift jab to the jaw which threw the gal across the room knocking her out cold. I gotta admit that I like that little demonstration of "hot" as opposed to Smith's chilled attitude, perhaps because I wish I could have done to many a chick what Morton did lo those many years back! So maybe "hot" can be "cool" and vicey-versey and like Barbarino I'm sooooo confused!

Sure glad that Roberto Berlin tipped us all off to this 1982 collection of prim and proper behavior via the Richard Meltzer "X" page (the Prince Pudding himself being a contributor --- I mean, why else would Berlin have brought it up in the first place?) or else I would have undoubtedly ignored the thing for the rest of my born and unnatural days. Funny, but I only have a slight inkling of this book ever having come out way back in the early eighties (definitely the most uncool decade to have existed, at least until the nineties, oughts, teens...) but I have the thing now and well, it sure is swell to have it in my possession which at least proves to some nabobs out there that maybe I never was as L7 as I was brought up to be. However, if I ever find out that those naysayers have owned this read since day uno well, confine me to the playpen for the rest of my born days.

So like this 'un really is a "catalog of cool", and although the whole argument of what is 'n ain't can be shallwesay somewhat "nebulous" I'll gander that the people behind this 'un (such smarter-than-all-of-us types like Gene Sculatti and his cohorts in West Coast rock erudition) sure make a better case as to what's truly "in" and "out" than this certain put-on and absolutely nauseating goody two shoes eighties/nineties-era Youngstown Ohio area FM deejay who told us all to brush our teeth and salute the flag (and gawrsh but the kids did!). Music, books, moom pitchers, munchies, sartorial elegance...it's all discussed here'n if you want to see what the true essence of living a full life without the trammels of socio/corporate straight and narrow was like at least until the eighties threw the o-mind off the tracks this book'll sure come in handy!

There are some pretty spot on opines presented that deliver on the concept of what cool in a break the boundaries form of human behavior is supposed to be vs. what many a deluded soul might say otherwise. Like, 1965-era punk rock Grateful Dead SI, 1975 flop in the mud Grateful Dead a most definite NO!!!!! SOUPY SALES and DRAGNET make the cool list while MTV's a no-er than no, it being more than an accurate example of the eighties cubism that infested seemingly every aspect of down-home ranch house suburban living that really wrecked a whole load of definitely non-sartorial elegance in this here life of ours. 

By now you should realize that I'm speaking about that sphere where hip bop jive music and fancy mixed drinkies can co-exist in the same dimension as those zilch-grade movies and rancid comic books we weren't supposed to view according to our social climbing elders. Things that always seemed to bypass the usual arbiters of consumer pig trough toss out (or maybe not), but otherwise I am SURE GLAD that even the so-called cornballus amongst us, everyone from the gals in the Shaggs to the sniveling C-average suburban slob pudgeball reading his sci fi paperbacks in the shameful privacy of his fart encrusted bedroom, are far more "cooler" than the slender and popular Student Council types and jocks who always seemed to get the hosannas and accolades from their superiors who, as you could guess, were about as "cool" as a fresh and steaming bowel movement.

Pretty boff selection of contributors too given just how much Sculatti was associated with the entire Meltzer/Vom cadre of (once again) "cool" rockscribe visionaries, That would definitely explain the presence of not only "R" on mixed adult beverages but Gregg Turner giving us a pretty PSYCHOTRONIC lowdown on a variety of goresploitation flickage that helped make the backdrop for many a funtime pre-sensitivity session baby boomer adolescence. 'n boy do they dish out the goods on a variety of books, mags, moom pitchers, tee-vee shows etc. that might not exactly fit into various straightjacketed definitions of "cool" but eh, they sure pull the whole thing off a whole loads better'n any traipsing into the world of boffness that has been whipped up by the "press" (legacy or otherwise) since the early eighties. The time that was a portal from down and dirty grit as music/visuals/"altitude" to the world of uptight prissiness of varying degrees and you've heard tape loop mind me bitch about it ever since them dayze so why drag you into it again!

And so this is the feely good book of the year even if the thing clocks in at well over four decades. And a vindication. Y'see, for years I had been tagged by classmates and even the elders who made me what I am today as the most un-hip being to have walked the earth. Undoubtedly this was due to a combination of a horse-blindered upbringing that totally alienated me from everyone I was in contact with to having an obsessive passion for the older and definitely more fun things in life from twenties-vintage comic strips to black and white reruns. And sheesh, do you think that the kids who were hotcha on the Osmonds and ALL IN THE FAMILY (taking Meathead's side no matter what the situation would be) could relate? But reading this effort proves that I wasn't exactly the "herb" that many had made me out to be, and that hey, I really was of a way higher caliber than all of the in-kids (and I was outer'n the outkids if that was possible) what with my own tastes and likings which, according to this book and anyone with a conscious brain, were way hipper'n the hippie relevance shit that was being shoveled at the massholes during my unfortunate days of learning. 

It may be somewhat of a shaggy dog book but eh, this brand of pointlessness makes a whole load more points than anything else that is supposed to have any meaning or relevance to hotcha under-the-counterculture existence, at least in recent memory. A book that should, or to put it more succinctly BETTER, change your undoubtedly cloistered life though I get the feeling that EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU READERS is too high falutin' to take the bait being such homo superiors way ahead of the rest of us Cro-Magnons! Would figure.

COMIC BOOK(S) REVIEW! NEW YORK WORLD'S FAIR COMICS and YOUNG ALLIES COMICS No. 1 (Special Edition Reprints)

Back in the days (Don Fellman will not allow me to say "back in the day [singular]" since that is appropriating black lingo and he don't abide by it!) when I had a vast want list of goodies but a depression-era wage to depend on, I could only afford one of these Golden Age comic books that Special Edition Reprints had released somewhere 'round 1974. And at three bucks a pop that was a whole lotta kapusta I'll tell ya --- I never had all of the goodies and junk that you rich kids had that's for sure, and because of it I wasn't as --- ahem --- kulturally "up-to-date" the way a wannabe sophisticado teenbo in on the realm of o-mind should be! 

But anyway it really was a hard enough dilemma figuring out what to choose when it came to these reprints, but I eventually settled for the ALL SELECT COMICS one with Captain America, the Human Torch and Submariner laying waste to Berchtesgaden on the cover. And, ol' sentimental fanabla that I am, that very same ALL SELECT is still snuggled in my comic book collection waiting for yet another go through once I make my way past a whole lotta funnies I never even had the chance to look at yet!

I'm sure you get the idea that the two books up for scrutiny today were also high up on the want list, and that ever since I missed the opportunity to get hold of them way back when I've had the burning desire to snatch them up lest my life go unfulfilled. After all, both of 'em sure had a look and feel that would attract any fan of the comic book realm, what with NEW YORK WORLD'S FAIR sporting both a Superman and (the original) Sandman story and the YOUNG ALLIES 'un Bucky and Toro (youth identification sidekicks of Captain America and the Torch) fronting a verifiable EAST SIDE KIDS bunch of miscreants fighting the Second World War barehandedly and doing a pretty snazzy job at that. Besides, I read all about the Allies in ALL IN COLOR FOR A DIME and it sure sounded like the kinda comic custom made for any tubboid adlo pre-pubesprout suburban slob who liked a whole load of action and gratuitous pre-Code violence in his stories!

So after all this time I got 'em (for more'n three bucks a pop but I'm richer now) and yes, a hole in my swiss cheese like life has been filled and filled a whole lot more'n had I gotten that young girl vanity I wanted age four because it looked like an electric piano. Given that even at my "advanced age" I need a whole lot more comic book energy and vim in my existence than I have been getting recently these two titles sure help out when the settle back and snuggle up with a good read time comes, and nowadays I could sure a whole lot more of that that I have been getting I'll tell ya!

At a whopping twenny-five cents, the NEW YORK WORLD'S FAIR comic must've busted the piggy banks of more'n a few pauper kids who at least had an excuse because it WAS the depression, but I guess it was worth smashin' ol' Porky in order to get the change for this heavy doody giant sized mag. Sure the innards, like the rest of repros in this series, are in black and white and some might complain about the faintness of the reproduction as well as the overboard text hyping the affair, but the energy and excitement one usually associates with these early comic books is here and that's what counts if you're a Saturday Afternoon Barber Shop kinda kid like I sure wish I was! 

You just can't escape the fair for each and every story features one character or another doing something positive for it or just having a whole buncha fun while being there. Naturally that means that the adventure strip characters like top dog Superman either foil some nasty thievery or perform acts of bravery while the "kiddie characters" (Bob Kane's Gingersnap and Butch the Pup) get into the same patented trouble they would in any other of their appearances! Nothing that dredges up warm 'n toasty Golden Age memories in me but they still had some shard of pre-ranch house-era adolescent appeal to 'em and succeed if only on that level.

And boy is there a whole load of kid-time fun to be found in these pages! Not enough to gag you to death but enough to fill you in on all of the new and out of this world things that were going on at the World's Fair from the Trylon and Perisphere to the interesting foreigners in their native costumes that were roaming about 'n heck, there's even an entire village populated by what Billy Barty used to call "the little people" and if you think anybody would get away with such insensitivity these days you're sadly mistaken!

But as far as being a nice artifact of a time and place that I'm sure still brings happy memories to quite a few nonagenarians out there it sure works out golly ned swell. And at least I get to read a rather good story from the original Sandman, a suited and gas masked chap who in these early sagas was a Batman-esque vigilante (wanted by the police on two continents!) with no special powers or gimmicks other'n the use of a gas gun that knocked evildoers out! Forget the Jack Kirby rendition which was a vain attempt to keep the character in circulation...the original's the real deal meal!

Over at Timely the Young Allies were, along with the proto-Avengers All Winners Squad, fighting the war so fast and so efficiently you wonder why they even bothered having armies.  Now, just like Jules Feiffer once wrote (prolly the only thing I agree on with the guy) I think that kid sidekicks are useless which is why Bucky and Toro (basically a Human Torch Junior) on their own leading up a casting call of forties kid stereotypes (the tough Irish mug, the fatso, the brainy one with glasses and the scared of ghosts black kid) sure works better'n those jerks do alongside their adult wards. And in case you were too stupid to know, these Timely tales really knew how to pack the punch at a superfast pace...if you think that the Marvel Age of Comics that came out a good two decades later was a totally birthed from the mind of a mid-aged Stan Lee the action and twisto changeo plots these tales exude will have you believin' different!

'n sheesh, the way these kids work wonders with the barest of necessities makes MacGyver look like a piker! On the search for an equally young British agent (a dignified beyond belief monocle'd chap) who was captured by the bad boys and valiantly struggling not to reveal the "secret code", the Young Allies trick the Germans at every stop even making their way into Der Fadderland where they actually get patted on the heads by none other'n Adolf himself for looking so Aryan-like! Even more ingenious is the part where Bucky disguises himself as arch enemy the Red Skull by painting an actual human skull (brainy kid Jefferson Worthington Sandervilt just happened to have a watercolor set on him) and slipping it right atop his own dome! Well, if I have to suspend belief/reality watching everything from the news to my favorite old timey television shows why not some comic aimed at kids who pretty much were apt to believe anything that was being tossed in front of their eyes.

If some of you more "pious" types really want to enjoy this you're going to have to suspend a whole WHOLE lot especially given this particular portion of the saga where, in order to raise some desperately needed money to get back home, the Allies put on a show for a crowd of exceedingly backwards Russian peasantry who look as if they'd be marveled by the invention of the wheel.  Along with Bucky and Toro doing some typical superhero pyrotechnics the aforementioned token black kid, "Whitewash Jones", gets his chance entertaining the locals as "Growlo the Ape Man"! Now if that bit of comic book history should make the rounds you could just imagine all of the rather "interesting" comments to be made on some of the message boards that I just happen to chance upon.

If you're one of the precious petunia types who becomes outrage at the mere hint of a "dog whistle" or "red flag" THE YOUNG ALLIES will offend you even more'n I ever could hope to. However, if you really want to be insulted you should read one of those (fairly --- 2009) recent Young Allies re-dos that were done up for whatever if left of the type of crowd who might still have some positive tinglings regarding the Golden Age of extreme comic book mayhem. Yup, the whole kit 'n kaboodle's been "updated" in these World War II sagas and perhaps for the worse given the overboard gotta be up to date and pay retribution for the past revision. Whitewash isn't the slant-skulled slo-mo with Hindenburg-sized lips anymore but now looks just about as prim and proper as Sidney Poitier visiting the white in-laws. It's as bad as when Chop Chop from BLACKHAWK went from a short pudgy bucktoothed Chinese sidekick to a normal looking full time member of the group which didn't seem as much a case of the DC line being progressive as it was of them being condescending. Sheesh, they even had the chubby kid do some reducin' as well although I think they kept the Irish one as Gorceyesque as possible, or at least I hope they did if only to retain some semblance of gritty forties comic book aesthetics. Personally I think Marvel should have just let these characters alone because once you get down to the bared wire meaning of it all, it does seem more dignified.

BOOK REVIEW! MAJOR DUDES - A STEELY DAN COMPANION EDITED BY BARNEY HOSKYNS (Constable Books, 2017)

Maybe or maybe not, but some of you just might be surprised to hear that for a whole longer time that you could imagine I wasn't exactly what you would call a rabid loather of Steely Dan. Shee-it but I even kinda liked 'em, perhaps in a passing "oh, they're good" sorta way but I liked 'em nonetheless. I'm even brave enough to 'fess up that I lent plenty of ear to "Do It Again" and "Reeling in the Years" back when they were incessantly being spun on the radio, but then again that was during my non-discerning pre-pubesprout days when I seemed to like just about everything that I heard on the radio. Didn't hone the aesthetics nodes until much much later.

Weird 'nuff, but stuck in my usually sieve-like mind's their appearance (with Donald Fagan strumming the strings of his piano post-performance) on AMERICAN BANDSTAND back when Dick Clark revealed to us that their moniker came from "a device" that was found in a novel by William Burroughs. Or did he say Henry Miller? Gotta check on that but it wasn't until sometime later, around the days of AJA when you just couldn't escape "Deacon Blue" (a song I enjoyed at first before my better senses took hold of me) that the Dan were seen more as one of those progenitors of that oxymoronic term they now call "lite rock" or even more accurately "yacht rock". Sheesh, but even an outta-the-loop kid such as I wouldn't've believed that it would ever come to this group producing chi-chi wine and brie music back when they were starting out and the kids used to gab about the durty pictures to be found on the cover of CAN'T BUY A THRILL (y'know, the prostitutes and the nekked gal, and of course that shirtless guy whose lower excited half was fortunately edited out).

Well they did seem somewhat gnarly at first. Take a gander at their early promo pix (one of 'em directly below) which makes 'em out to look like some rough and tumble decadent white blues band, one almost on par with those other scruffy white blues bands that proliferated in the seventies (15-60-75 even!). And a lotta people whose opines I respect actually like these guys so maybe I should be giving 'em another honest appraisal, me being generous and considerate of everyone's tastes like I'm sure you already know.

But as someone like myself who has reviewed albums by merely looking at the covers and getting grief for a load of inaccuracies, looks can be deceiving and in no way were Steely Dan quite the grubboid local greasy haired bunch doing the wafrican-american (a nicer way of saying "wigger") game so common with the usual worn leather types of the past. Once you got down to the plain and horrid truth the team of Donald Fagan and Walter Becker were nothing but late-sixties snoot collegiate kids on that drug 'n cooze trip so typical of the upper class pampered menial of a snob youth, and we all know what kinda music them kinda brats used to go for before the advent of amerindie rock, eh?

No big surprise that I find MAJOR DUDES about as exciting as the vast majority of the music that the group produced. Edited by Barney Hoskyns (a scribe that I never had any beef over although I must admit I'm not all that familiar with his works), this anthology of interviews/articles/record reviews covers the Fagan/Becker Danglomerate that was ultimately so flatliner in the realm of music in general that it was no wonder these guys became rock critic faves. It collects a smattering of features, reviews and interviews from o'er the years and well, if you think I would have snatched this 'un up if Charles Shaar Murray and Jonh Ingham weren't included than you're way way off target even more'n you usually are regarding my own tastes, opinions and goals.

An interesting fact about this book is that, although this was by and for Steely Dan freaks both Murray and Ingham's contributions are what one would call less than favorable. That's one good thing (at least for this anti-snob rock maven) about MAJOR DUDES --- Hoskyns wasn't afraid to slip a little negativity into the mix but that still doesn't stop the onslaught of perhaps somewhat overboard platitudes that are to be found therein. Not that it's anything that would be uninteresting let alone downright upsetting, but if you want to read a passel of interviews with the usually detached (and at times boring) Fagan/Becker team and wade through the same kind of rock writing you've been trying to avoid your entire life then I'd tell you to spend your shekels on the newest Gwandanaland collection for a way more satisfying back brain rubdown.

Much of the time the scribes who appear are just as boring as their subject. I mean, I have nothing personal against MELODY MAKER's Chris Welch, a guy who beefed that paper up with his emphasis on progressive rock which, fortunately for them found a certain niche in the minds of the 70s record buying public, but that doesn't mean that I have to enjoy what he has written here. Actually his entry's one of the better articles to show up in MAJOR DUDES, but despite that I'd guess you'd hafta be a really diehard fan of this act to really get down to brass tacks enjoying those tales of Bard College and the hard life as staff writers at ABC/Dunhill records.

BUT ONCE YOU DIG DEEP INTO THE CORE OF IT ALL...despite the Burroughs ref, eye catching album cover art and Cathy Berberian namedrop, Steely Dan were ultimately just Ivy League decadents who chose the highfalutin' path to musical fun and big bux martinis and munchies jamz while, for the most part, pianist Fagan got his notoriety with some rather yawnsville Ray Charles impressions that only make the entire white guy doing the black groove thing stink even more to high heaven. Maybe an appraisal of those earlier efforts which did house some singles that sounded good in the early-seventies mix of AM hitting its stride would be in order, so who knows what the future holds in store regarding an eval of CAN'T BUY A THRILL or even its next few followups. After all, if Russell Desmond can name his fanzine after it maybe I can ooze some snide decadent early-seventies fun 'n jamz outta the things.

BOOK REVIEW! AIN'T IT FUN --- PETER LAUGHNER & PROTO PUNK IN THE SECRET CITY BY AARON LANGE (Stone Church Press, 2023)

I'm sure I can hear a whole lotta you regular readers out there thinking HAS IT REALLY COME TO THIS????? Is a "graphic novel" about Peter Laughner and the Cleveland "first wave" groups really necessary, can something like this really be represented honestly (and accurately) in comic book form?  And would the end results come off looking like some haughty artzy expression regarding past energies misinterpreted by a new generation of kids wallowing about in a nth generation faded version of the original thrust? 

Or has it come to the point where all of the OCD Velvet Underground fans and punk rock hunters and gatherers of the sixties and seventies have finally been vindicated after years of scorn and being misinterpreted by critics and downright dolts and ON PURPOSE at that? Maybe every suburban slob who stocked up on the high energy big beat and usually got grief for it can bask in the glory that this book has shown whose music really stood the test of time, not that standing the test of time is any testament to the ultimate worth and intensity of the sounds at hand as if anyone should even care, but after all of those years of rejection and loathing directed at folk like us maybe we can do some sneering back at our detractors and bask in some long-deserved revenge.

Hmmm, the visuals are very good, not quite underground comix-ish but extremely professional. Kinda reminds me of some newspaper sports "Believe it or Not"-styled page filler. Layouts are extremely eyeball catching and the detail and committal for exactness is also to be commended. The storytelling well --- I gotta find that I find it a whole load "splurge" for my own tastes what with author Aaron Lange gathering up all sortsa shards and storytelling that might give a good seedy background regarding the whole Northeast Ohio saga, but he does manage to work it out so that everything from Elliot Ness and Sam Sheppard to Kent State, DA Levy and Ghoulardi sorta ties in together and the results don't come off looking like some pseudointellectual garble worthy of a book report on gender fluid left-handed Hopi Indians.

The main thrust here is the Cleveland (and various surrounding environs) rock 'n roll underground of the seventies, its gestation and spawn as well. And with Peter Laughner, who you could say was the mad genius and true lover of music whose own case of "too much too soon" led to his own sad and no ways romantic demise. Lange did his homework and captured a whole load of the nerve breaking power and pure genius that came out of that time and place, keeping it all rather focused even when he knots together all sorts of loose strands to create an image of the time and aura that I will say was etapoint. Yeah, the guy leaves out quite a few large and I would think important chunks (like no mention of Brian Sands and his pioneering work with Moses/Mouse/Milk) plus his dismissal of the Raspberries will get your head scratchin', but on other points Lange sure knew what the score was regarding the massive amount of passion and devotion of the bared-wire intensity that got the Cleveland underground a world wide reputation that I know very few people in the area even knew (or cared for that matter) existed.

Thankfully those groups that were so vehemently ignored or even outright scorned during one of the more fertile time in garage band expression are once again given their fair dues. Mirrors appear briefly which I guess wouldn't please a good portion of the members given their disdain for Laughner and the whole Plaza Apartments art colony, but there's more'n you could bargain for when it comes to the Electric Eels and the truths and fabrications that even got 'em a brief if un-named mention in CREEM regarding the lawn mower incident at the Viking Saloon. Something which most likely never did transpire but well, we can pretend.

Of COURSE I love it to pieces when Lange shows up the Cleveland media and the lunkhead "rock" fans for the general dolts they were and I assume remain. Local FM giant WMMS is given its dues for their early innovation in the field of a truly free format where the new and trend breaking could get played next to the firmly entrenched, but Lange gets major kudos for telling us just how that all went down the tubes once the concept of AOR proved you can make a mint catering to a clientele that had somehow figured rock 'n roll to be an update of their parents' passion for the blander, cornier aspects of the big band era. There is an emphasis on just how bad things were for the high energy contingent in this supposed "rock city", a place where such one-dimensional "talents" as Michael Stanley and Pat Benetar were considered the epitome of musical entertainment while the real mavericks and movers hadda struggle to make the rent and pay the bills. I'm sure glad that Lange gave that entire time in rock history a nice swift kick in the balls because frankly, considering the "conspiracy of silence" that these groups suffered from, it sure needs one.

But hey, this book is mainly about Laughner, a guy who was perhaps THEE mover and shaker and town crier for the harder, more feral aspects of a music scene that got its due long after it was dead and gone. Lange must've had a whole wagonload of index cards telling everything about the man and his influence on not only the bubbling under music scene (from folkies to rockers as well as the mainstream if you can imagine), but on those he would come in contact with throughout his almost quarter century of existence. And with the ups and downs and Laughner's shedding of self-control along with his friends it does make for a harrowing read, and perhaps a warning that you know anyone who reads this will never ever heed. 

So eh, this is a good enough one to dish out the big bux for or at least beg someone to get it for you (the smart way). A graphic novel about Laughner and Cleveland might not be the epitome of some sort of much needed vindication for what happened a good half-century back but its a start and like, I for one am glad it all happened.