UGLY THINGS #38!

Of course it's more than obvious why I'm happier'n Roman Polanski at a Camp Fire Girls cookout, for the latest issue of UGLY THINGS has finally arrived on my oft barren doorstep! Sheesh, it's amazing as to how Mike Stax can get this mag out on a bi-annual basis with all of the goodies and gunk he packs into each and every one of these rags and naturally this 'un's no exception. However it I must gripe (and why not?) I better mention that this 'un woulda been much better had it been TWICE the size with more occult references to the Velvet Underground than there were, and of course they shoulda enclosed a Cee-Dee of Stax singing lullabies to his kid the way Sky Saxon crooned his puppies to sleep, but maybe I'm just nitpicking.

But whadevva, this is yet another boffoid issue that's kept me glued to the toilet for quite some time, and come to think of it the crapper's a good place ot read this 'un because you'll be so surprised at what you read that who knows just what rectum rockets'll be flyin' outta your hiney when you chance upon an article or mention of one of your faves. The Dave Davies interview is definitely a coup for Stax as is the Jon Savage Screamers thingie, but since I ain't in a Kinks mood this very minute (next minute I will be!) and I've written off the Screamers as yet another buncha punk unto punque wannabes (I mean, look at their fans) I've skipped those over for now. I mean, there are meatier things in life, and in this issue of UGLY THINGS as well.

Actually for me the best part about ish #38 are the little surprises that are snuck in, like that piece on none other'n Lester Bangs' upbringing that sheds light on a whole buncha things we never knew despite all of the articles and books that have come out in the wake of that great's demise. Also boffo were the Greg Prevost (yay!) pieces on Alice Cooper (complete with a Dennis Dunaway interview and some early rare snaps) and Blue Cheer, as well as Alex Stimmell's article on the ever-popular Dust, a band who shoulda had their saga written up long ago making me wonder why it took someone so long just like Aunt Jemima! Jymn Parrett shines as well especially with his piece on Stoney and the Jagged Edge, a forgotten group in the late-sixties pantheon of Detroit Rock who never did make it into this official history books. And of course the myriad assortment (TM) of reviews of recordings, books and DVDs that always has me running to the bank so I can mortgage the house appear...gotta admit that it's my dog's house that's being mortgaged and I do hope he won't mind especially since he's been dead thirty years already!

As you may have guessed my favorite part of this issue has gotta be the continuing Cyril Jordan (of Flamin' Groovies fame) saga where he actually makes late-sixties San Francisco look like an exciting place to have been despite all of the contrary evidence. Sure the burnout hadn't quite set in, but the little sagas that Jordan trots out like the time he shared a joint with Ted Kennedy (!---I hope it didn't affect his driving) and went shopping for EC comics with Jimi Hendrix (makes me wish I hadn't made alla them choking jokes!) really shed some new light on what I woulda thought was the dog ass end of the sixties experiment. Even Janis herself comes off looking swell, she not only being a Groovies fan but someone who used her power in the industry to get 'em a few choice gigs! More power to ya gal, and I don't mean B.O.!

A boffo read for sure, and one that I have the feeling's gonna be sticking around the commode abode for quite awhile. And it's a quite handy read to have around because hey, I get the sneaking suspicion that with the flu season coming up a whole buncha us are gonna be spending more time on the throne than usual, and of course it's always good having a handy read like this around to keep your mind occupied so's you don't have to concentrate on the more disgusting facts facing (or behind) you. Just make sure you have plenty of toilet paper handy because hey, if you do run short you certainly don't want to resort to drastic measures and tear your mag up, do you?

Hey, guess what today is! The seventy-third anniversary of the (so they say) sneak attack on Pearl Harbor but that's not ALL! It's also the fiftieth anniversary of the first time I can recall my dad telling me it was the anniversary of that infamous day in history (which brought a big smile to Winston Churchill's mug) thus beginning a multi-year tradition here at the ranch complete with the usual "it all seems like just yesterday" comment tossed in for good measure. Of course in later years it wasn't like he was bringing it up that much, probably because real life was more apocalyptic than what transpired lo those many years ago. I can still vividly recall those Pearl Harbor anniversaries of yore and in fact today's in very similar to the ones I used to encounter, only I'm much older and fatter and balder and in fact there ain't nearly as much good stuff onna tee-vee now as there was then.

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Ann Hoohah*, here's this week's miscellany of mostly old fanablas I found in the collection, not to mention a couple of Bill Shute drop offs because he knows what a shallow life I must truly lead. Maybe things will perk up in the near future when I can get some scratch together but I doubt it. Right now I'm pretty much on a self-imposed austerity kick brought about by a general lack of savings as well as lack of anything I'd really like to plunge into musicwise. Unless I come across some rare recordings by the Yarbles (the mid-seventies Boston group) or Iggy sliding his Hawaiian guitar at that John Sinclair Halloween Party way back '67 way.

DMZ-WHEN I GET OFF---THE CLASSIC ORIGINALS CD (Voxx)

Part dos of my ongoing DMZ revisits, this being the Cee-Dee that not only contains the whole of the RELICS album but some interesting radio-only and studio outtake tracks that really do add to the teenage rambunction of it all. Gotta admit that I really like the freshness DMZ exude here---for me too many of those eighties garage band revivalist types lacked a certain set of something or others that dangle between your legs, but DMZ really knew how to take the hard rock of the sixties and play it like the mid-seventies hard rockers they were, making all of those connections between Sky Saxon and Iggy Pop that fanzine writers were blabbing about for years on end all the more plausible. Highlights include not only the boffo originals but the true-to-life yet not carbon copy covers, the theme to the Oedipus Show sung by Mickey Clean of the Mezz, and a high-larious attack on the English punk rock scene done to the tune of "I Wanna Be Your Dog" proving that Monoman is not only a true patriot but a true Irishman who remembers alla that horrible stuff that the limeys did to his mother country for years on end.

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Bob Bailey as YOURS TRULY JOHNNY DOLLAR CD-r

More old time radio, only these shows clearly date from the very very late-fifties which means that they were the lasty-last-last of the original radio dramas that had been running for quite some time not counting various brief attempts that continue on until today. JOHNNY DOLLAR was a good 'un too starring Bob Bailey as an insurance investigator who never seems to get those easy open 'n shut cases...naw, every week the guy was comin' up against these big deal matters having to do with (as on this Cee-Dee-Are) a phony mattress distribution set up and a Wild West celebration with a jealous boyfriend and a gal who ends up with a bashed in head! Sheesh, why can't the guy get something easy to investigate like a torched mob nightclub or a widow living off the policies of six dead hubbies, and she's only twenny-five!

But if you like old tee-vee like I do and love those ideas of what is cool and masculine and energetic (or at least were before the geldings took charge) you'll dig these episodes to the max. If you want to listen with a maximum effect you should try hearing these in a 1959 Studebaker Lark while dressed in the same work suit you wore to the office during a dark night while waiting for your daughter to finish her piano lessons at the local music store. A nice rain'd help as well along with an ashtray fulla butts to add to that old familiar aroma you just don't get anymore. Works every time!

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Vito Acconci-WATERWAY FOUR SALIVA STUDIES CD (Squint)

Here's the "official" explanation of it all"

Acconci explodes the notion of an artist’s creation, his creative act being the build-up and discharge of saliva, an activity more properly belonging to the realm of necessary and autonomic bodily functions than art. Positioning himself as a hyper self-conscious artistic subject, Acconci fuses the terrains of body art and process art, formulating the body as process, and art as a natural function of the body. This title was in the original Castelli-Sonnabend video art collection.

And if that don't sound like a load of malarkey I don't know what does! But anyway considering that I haven't heard this 'un since I reviewed it in one of the later issues of that monstrosity I used to put out. it was nice giving this another spin after all these years. Along with Chris Burden and maybe even John Morton, Vito Acconci was one of those seventies "performance artists" who really defined the genre with interesting and even entertaining works that were way more imaginative than the socio-political dross that came out inna eighties after a lotta precocious pooters were scared silly over the idea of Ronald Reagan to the point where they were splattering AIDS-infested blood over each other in order to soothe their shattered nerves. Or prove some maybe not-so-viable point. Or something like that.

Dunno exactly what WATERWAYS entails en toto, but it does sound like Acconci had recorded his very own tastebuds drooling away at the thought of a nice juicy steak complete with greatly magnified snorts and sniffles added to give it that realistic feel. You can just hear the slobber gushing from those little pores and if you don't start getting your own mouth a waterin' after listening to this then you really must have a will of iron. Well, it does make for a better time'n watching some man-hating dykazoid cramming yams up her twat, and for all of you late-eighties self-righteous NEA chest beaters out there I hope you are offended!

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John Cage-ATLAS ECLIPTICALIS CD (Hat Art, Switzerland)

Cage's '61-'62 composition realized by flautist Eberhard Blum multi-tracking three different versions of his instrument with all of the appropriate gaps of silence adding just as much of a pounce to this as the actual sound parts do. Bound to get the less-enthused amongst us muttering about where art is headed, but the concept is clear enough to me at least as far as these esoteric zen-influenced chance operations go. Grab a bag of stale doritos, don a beret, stick your cigarette in a fancy holder and pretend you're in some New York loft ca. 1962 while this 'un spins and who knows, you might even bump into Marian Zazeela somwhere down the line!

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Various Artists-SELLIN' DAT STUFF CD (Ratcage)

For me the music on this particular release is one of the many representations of the dark dying gasps of the boffo 1964-1981 rock et roll generation that managed to hang on this bloody long down the line after most would have believed it dead 'n buried. I'm not talkin' 'bout that hippoid generation that gave us all of those delightful ideas like AOR (later to be tagged as "classic rock") or mudfests either...naw, I'm blabbing about the hard-edged sounds birthed from the Brit Invasion and nurtured through high energy Detroit Rock, early-punk screedings and metallic konk outs. A sound that pretty much had died out around the time Max's Kansas City closed up shop and Lester Bangs deep sixed in his apartment and the music just didn't have the same bared-wire intensity it had if only a few years back. Or so we thought, and with good reason I might add.

Basically a mishmosh of various Ratcage acts that were plopping around a good decade or so back, this Cee-Dee proves that maybe the spirit of decadent under-the-counterculture rock didn't croak in the early-eighties like ROLLING STONE had boasted at one time. Lotsa hot faves show up here from Day-z Daze (SEE HEAR's Ted Gottfried's ukelele band) to Joy Ryder without Avis Davis and Florida's Psycho Daisies as well as some of the bubbling unders on the En Why scene who never did make it humongous, and they really do bring back those goodtime memories of when you knew you were living through a vibrant age in rock 'n roll and the music that was being cranked out was happening now 'n not then, and everybody thought you were a turd for liking it but then again, it's thirtysome years later and you have your MX-80 and Von Lmo to keep you occupied and all they have are their lush Emerson Lake and Palmer reissues digitally remastered!

Personal faves include the pair of Ruby and the Rednecks tracks that remind me of just what a classic All-Amerigan rock 'n roll spinner her own album (due to re-eval in these pages) remains as well as Jayne County and her new Back Street Boys doing an extended version of the old fave "Max's Kansas City" which really does stir up the ol' rambunctious feelings that I used to get hearing songs like this. If you're still stuck with your rock 'n roll head in the ROCK SCENE era this is one to cuddle up to in your fart-encrusted bedroom while staring solemnly at your Aerosmith poster.

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Various Artists-LOBSTER GIRLS GOSSIP CD-r (Bill Shute)

Picked this 'un outta the pile because of the Buddy Hackett track featured onna cover, but personally I thought that one was about as funny as all of the woofs and meows my dad'd make whenever I'd eat Chinese food. But the rest really ain't that bad. Starts off really high-larious like with an instruction record (to the toon of "Ballin' the Jack") on how to eat lobster and goes from funny funky comedy (Effie Smith) to early sixties nerdo-cum-teen idol wackiness (Oliver Cool) with a pre-Deep Purple Ritchie Blackmore (Outlaws) and I don't know what the hell it is (Microbe Ensemble) in between. There's even some of that lame-o British comedy courtesy a Tony Payne that reminds me of nothing but circa.-1978/1983 PBS and indie television during the late hours. Freddie Cannon was hokay though even though I should loathe him for putting down Link Wray while the two were headin' towards some gig resulting in Wray kicking Cannon's ass out of the car stranding him inna middle of nowhere!!! In all, a better reminder of the past'n those horrid home movies my mom made of me and my cousin running around in front of my grade school (yech!).

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*If you get this ref there's a special no prize or at least a back issue of your choice waiting for you! You're welcome.

DVD REVIEW...SPACE PATROL 3-disc set (Barkview)

Don Fellman was tellin' me over 'n over about this faux-Supermarionation series for years on end, and although his mem'ry about it was what we shall call "fuzzy" what he did remember was down to earth amazing for a man of his advanced age! Here he hadn't seen the series for a good fiftysome years, and the guy was doing these impressions of the show's Martian sidekick Husky's "I'm hungry" routine with an unbelievable resemblance to the rill thing! However, for some strange reason Don thought that the show was filmed in Germany---in his Howdy Doody voice Don once mimicked the by-then unemployed marionette saying "I'd get a job on PLANET PATROL (the show's USA title since there already was a show called SPACE PATROL o'er here even if it had been off the air a good seven years) only I don't know what country that's made in!" and you can just betcha that I was rolling on the floor laughing even harder'n the time my cousin's dog started getting amorous on her leg and cous was yelling at me saying how terrible I was for showing my true feelings over this rather embarrassing situation!

Dunno which came first, the FIREBALL XL-5 chicken or the SPACE PATROL egg, but if you really went for the former with all of your suburban ranch house Saturday Morning slob inclinations firmly intact you'll most certainly go for the latter. From the imitation "Space City" to the flying motor scooters SPACE PATROL has FIREBALL written all over it and you won't mind one bit. If its early sixties fun and jamz you want this'll help you just as much as having your next door neighbor come over and break all your tootsietoys not to mention the resultant scratch 'n bite out you two'll be engaged in as a result.

You can also tell where the producers took a lotta shortcuts to keep costs down (like the animated space ship scenes), but who cares if the end result's a boffoid program that really sates that repressed ten-year-old in you who sure wished you could have watched top notch television like this when you were a kid, only by that time everything hadda be peace and love with bell bottoms to match!

Even the characters themselves seem to have come straight from the fevered imagination of Gerry Anderson from the hard-nosed by-the-books space commander who kinda looks like Mose Allison as opposed to Barry Goldwater to the sexy Venusian secretary who, along with fellow Venusian Slim, acts as the show's proto-Spock faction spewing forth reams of rational thought and the usual five dollar words. Fellow Patrolman Husky, the Martian Don imitated so well, is more comic relief akin to Ito on ULTRAMAN...a credit to the force yet you kinda wonder which well-connected uncle got this comparative dim bulb his job! And as for the show's star Larry Dart well...I gotta say that he does fill the Steve Zodiac role well enough but sheesh, why did they give him that long hair and beard in 1962 anyway??? I know this show was supposed to be about the future, but we're talking 2100 not 1969! He looks more like a Shakespearean actor or even Papa John Phillips than a rough 'n tumble spaceman but hey, given some of the pussies that pose for youth role models these days he's a whole lot better'n what was to come! Maybe they were planning on doing a "Supermarionation" ROBIN HOOD series and got stuck with this puppet before revamping the entire concept.

There are more marionettes to contend with from this Irish scientist who seems genial enough yet flies into a rage when his cute daughter calls him "Pops" to a Martian parrot who ain't as irritating as that Zuni on FIREBALL but you still wanna cement his beak anyway, and of course it all works out fine even if you know that the director is straining to save precious pounds by having characters talk about occurrences rather than actually show them. But that's only part of the charm behind these early-sixties crank outs and hey, what do four-year-olds plopped in front of the set with a bowl of Cap'n Crunch half-splattered on the carpet care about these things anyway?

One thing I gotta admit's got SPACE PATROL beating out the Andersons is the fact that 1) these shows actually have fight scenes where the puppets sock each other out via quick edit cuts and 2) the puppeteers actually can get their marionettes to WALK in a halfway believable way unlike the competition. Yeah, I even remember back when I was a mere turdler imitating the way the supermarionettes on SUPERCAR and FIREBALL walked by bobbing up and down, but somehow SPACE PATROL's characters actually move the legs and bend the knees and ankles when traipsing from one part of the planet sphere to the next! Things like these really do make up for the other budget consciousness shortcuts seen here, but then again even """""I""""" plopped in front of the set with a bowl of Cap'n Crunch half-splattered on the carpet could've care one whit and I get the feeling maybe you would have felt the same way too.

And one final note...the theme/incidental music is truly (to be nice 'n cornballus about it) "out of this world"! Sure the Anderson programs had that boffo Barry Gray jazzy music blaring all over the soundtrack but in comparison SPACE PATROL is total avant garde electronic that kinda sounds more fit for yet another PBS showing of METROPOLIS! Nothing but seemingly random Varese-influenced bloops and bleeps along with simple clavioline tones whenever the space sphere is taking our heroes to some distant planet. The mere soundtrack alone would make a boffo album and not only that, but it makes me want to hear some of the early avant garde compositions from a whole lotta schnooks who never did get the same notoriety as John Cage or Stockhausen, perhaps because they were doing their bleeping in Sioux City or Melbourne rather'n some music capitol of the world! And if those sounds were to be the "music of the future" then why does the gunk we hear here in the early 21st century just sound like Patti Page filtered through Captain and Tennille? Goes to show you just how advanced these folks were...I mean, when I was a kid I thought we woulda all been driving Supercars by 1978 at the latest!

Welcome to the further deteriorating adventures of BLOG TO COMM. And deteriorate is the word for it---I've been reading over the past few months of posts and I must admit that my writing, enthusiasm and general ability to congeal have certainly taken a downslide, and considering that my writing never was up to that tippy top rock gonz/fanzine style that I most certainly try to ape that's really saying something. Of course I have my excuses from real life woes to the lack of energy on the part of myself not to mention the lack of the kind of music I most crave, but I'm sure the last thing you want to hear are a buncha lame excuses from me. In all its a shame, because what WE (non apologetic longtime high energy music mavens) need in the here and now is more of that post-Bangs/Meltzer/Saunders/Kent/Tosches/Farren/Kaye... musical screeding (and the kind of music they used to screed over), and it's more'n obvious that you ain't getting it HERE!

Various Artists-HIGH ENERGY ROCK FOR LOW ENERGY TIMES CD-r

P. D. sent this 'un my way, perhaps because he could tell that I need quite a bit of resensifying after some of the dog tired posts I've been putting in as of late (see opening paragraph). Well, if this in fact is so then all I gotta say is Mr. Fadensonnen really produced one kicker of a platter here that helps me to remember just why I used to pick pennies up off the sidewalk in the first place. The music that's to be heard here is probably familiar to most of you reg'lar readers, but even if it is I gotta admit that it's sure great hearing it all in one blob 'stead of spread across dozens of platters just like it's grand to listen to those "Roots of Punk" type collections that have been springing up these past ten or so years and at collector's prices as well.

The music to be heard here is what I would call heavy metal in the old 1972 CREEM style, which in some ways is the same punk rock that CREEM was blabbin' about around the same time. Hard rockers from the likes of the MC5 (and spinoff Ascension), Crushed Butler, High Rise, DMZ, Coloured Balls and Sir Lord Baltimore appear, and even though we've all heard these tracks before all I gotta say is SO WHAT!  Even the new to me stuff from Birds of Maya and Highway Robbery sounds enticing enough to the point where I might do some internet diddlin' as soon as I get this review typed, but given my inbred laziness don't count on it. Too bad Fadensonnen isn't one of those big-time underground legends that alla us geeks look up to with reverent eyeballs affixed (at least not yet) or else we'd be buying this one complete with detained liner notes and snazzy pix on ebay for a good twenny bucks!

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DMZ-LIVE AT THE RAT CD (Bomp!)

The presence of DMZ on the above disque (as well as me coming across an old ad for a '76 performance where they were billed as "Boston's Newest Heavy Metal Band") got me into digging this old hoary chestnut (to be quaint about it) outta the collection and into my ears. And really, DMZ were heavy metal in the best CREEM/DENIM DELINQUENT/BACK DOOR MAN sense, hard-hitting high energy rock with an overdriven mania conduit for the best decadent aspects of teenbo living extant, at least until the glitzy fru fru and shrunken head aspects got into the mix sometime in the mid-seventies.

Taken from a live '76 show as well as a '83 reunion gig, I gotta say that the band is pumping on all cylinders (see above quaintness comment) even if I have heard tapes that were more raw 'n alive before (a '77 NYC show wallowing around somewhere in my closet's the proverbial screecher). Still I ain't gonna complain what with the hot mix of mid-sixties Northwest rock, late-sixties Detroit and general teenage Ameriga that somehow got lost in the shuffle of Classic FM and disco doldrums. But it was there, and a whole lot more'n what most industry moguls woulda dared admit way back in those bubbling under bared wire intensity days.

Good enough that I'm gonna hafta do some more collection surfing for not only the Bomp! singles but DMZ's infamous Flo and Eddie-produced Sire album that nobody ever seemed to like. Well it sure beats all of those other "hip" pastimes that permeate the behavioral cycles of way too many wonks out there in amerindie musicland, like publicly showing your undying appreciation for your favorite uberlib cause or combing the Matador Records self-hype blog, that's for sure!

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Dead Moon-DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH CD (Dog Meat, Australia)

A pluck out from the collection that I thought I'd pay some attention to given the large span of time I've ignored the thing. Anyhow, this 'un's a special release cooked up especially for the group's mid-nineties Australian tour complete with seven tracks taken from each of Dead Moon's albums up until then, and for a nice representation/introduction to the band I gotta say that this 'un does showcase this trio's neo-metallic approach rather swell. Kinda down home drag-out garage blooze HM that sounds down and dirty the way rock 'n roll hadn't since the hippies got in charge of things. It's also good for a cheapo like myself who never did get around to hearing these platters in their original forms, though as far as inspiring me to trek down all of the originals well...maybe when the inheritance from that Great Uncle I never knew rolls in...

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Kitty Brazelton's Dadadah-LOVE NOT LOVE LUST NOT LUST CD (Buzz, Netherlands)

It may not be Musica Orbis, but Kitty Brazelton's nineties aggregation is just as mix 'n match of a variety of seventies pop forms with avant garde inclinations and some toe tappers tossed in that'll make you wonder why she hadda get a job in a topless bar to make ends meet. Might be a bit professional for your own tastes, but I find it about as true to the whole rock as the real experimental music thing as all of those late-seventies no wavers who used to play in art galleries. Get the Musica Orbis album (widely available via ebay) first then let Dadadah fill in all of the holes in your musical consciousness.

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The Plastic People of the Universe-VOZRAEJ JAK SLIVA CD (Globus, Czech Republic)

Would you believe that I actually forgot that I owned this second volume in the Plastic People series of chronological recordings that Globus released way back in the late nineties? So in actuality this was like a brand-spanking new listening experience for me and I'm sure glad that I played the thing today rather'n forty years from now when the only listening I'll be doing is to a buncha angels strumming on harps. Either that or the earthworms wigglin' their way through my cranium.

Very Eastern Bloc...maybe even krautrock-esque what with the over-the-head Zappa influence and the surprising free jazz sax intermingling with the death dirge violin. What really makes it tick (and separates it from similar Zappa-cum-prepunk units like Tin Huey) is the hopelessness that envelops the sound. Ya gotta suffer if ya wanna make good music (or at least some introspective rock critic I hate said that), and given that the countries that were under Soviet control weren't exactly fun places to picnic really added a tension and sorrow that you just didn't hear around here even from the really repressed types (mainly us suburban slobs)! No wonder the Czech underground took to the freak element of Zappa, Beefheart and the Fugs like no one else...in some strange way these acts gave hope to a nationfulla lost teens who certainly weren't satisfied with the government-approved teen pablum and craved a whole lot more in their international youth language of a music!

Live and elsewhere material recorded during the group's EGON BONDY period. Sound quality is good enough for tapes that you thought would have been destroyed by the secret police, liner notes are in Czech so I can't read them, and one final thing---anybody who hates the Plastic People's got his head either buried way deep inside his ass or well into his collection of eighties post-funtime rock platters smug in his "so above it all" complacency, and you all know who I'm talkin' about dont'cha!

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Gang of Four-A GIFT CD (V2)

I know what you're thinking....some gift! But hey, considering that I ain't heard Gang of Four in over thirty years and forgot what they sounded like this promo Cee-Dee I found inna collection sure came in handy. And actually, these guys (at least on this platter---can't judge about their other post-ENTERTAINMENT output) weren't "that" bad. They weren't that good if you want to stretch a point but I could enjoy the first elpee's "Damaged Goods" about as much as I can some MESSTHETICS contemporary, although the "mixed" material wasn't as attention grabbing as it would have been had this still been 1980 and my underground tastes were still fluttering around a bit. As I would have thought, it sounds like something that might have been boffo at one time in my life but a few years later all I hadda say was...wha???

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Noah Howard-LIVE AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD CD-r burn (originally on Freedom, England)

As with BLACK ARK Arista decided to pass on this 'un when they were getting the Freedom catalog out inna mid-seventies. Which is a durn shame since this 'un's yet another free jazz killer that needed to have gotten out into the used record bins of the late-seventies just like all those other Arista/Freedom albums I once picked up for a song. Fantab backing (Frank Lowe and Rashied Ali amongst 'em) and exemplary performance from Howard who proves that he was one of the few heirs to the Albert Ayler sphere of interstellar insanity around. And speaking of Ayler, you never heard a tribute to his overall being as you did on "Dedication" which posts most of the other Ayler homages I've heard to shame! (By the way, if you're worried about the presence of Earl Freeman's fuzz bass after reading a few on-line reviews don't worry...it doesn't get in the way at all. In fact, I gotta 'fess up to the fact that I can't even hear it so quit your fretting!).

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Various Artists-WALK LIKE THE STARRY-EYED WOLFMAN CD-r burn (so what if it's redundant...nearly everything on this blog is!) (courtesy Bill Shute)

This selection actually perked mine ears up to the point where I felt like giving Bill Shute a ring-a-ding to tell him just how much his Cee-Dee worked wonders with my life. Of course considering how cheap I am I decided not to, but if I did call him it would have been thing right thing to do. Highlights (for me, maybe not for Bill or for you for that matter) include the 13th Floor Elevators single cut of "Slip Inside This House", the obscure Sensation doing some rather decent mid/late-seventies pop that woulda beat the usual schmoozer music of the day all hollow, the strange duet between a chap named Jackie Edwards and Millie Small of "My Boy Lollipop" fame and Charles Gayle singeing your free jazz nervefrazzles for a good eight or so minutes. Nervous Norvous is always good for a spin while the Paul Horn jazzy hipster track made me wanna sneak into a 1969-vintage adults only film for some not-so strange reason. As for the inclusion of Divine screeching "Walk Like a Man" well Bill...I never knew...

BOOK REVIEW! THE COMPLETE DICK TRACY VOLUME 17 by Chester Gould (IDW 2014)

The TRACY saga continues on and with a potent splat, what with the culmination of the Flattop Jr. episode as well as the "Spec" storyline (she's the tyke who was framed for murdering her stepdad), the Kitten Sisters and the Clipso Brothers, a pair of conniving twins who look remarkably like Jackie Gleason. Pretty heavy stuff here esp. with the Flattop saga where the cad meets up with a cute boho gal called Skinny who enters ones of his paintings at an outdoor exhibition and wins first prize which, not so surprisingly enough inna world o' TRACY, directly leads to the gal's death by her getting heaved off the top of an apartment building by none other'n an angrier'n hell Flattop himself.

At first I was rather disheartened that Skinny met such a spattering end---after all her character was cute 'n sexy as well as sassy enough to like without anyone wanting to bash her face in---but thankfully she stays in the continuity as a ghost who clings to Flattop Jr. whether it be ethereally or metaphorically (you decide). The crashing outcome is mind-boggling even for a strip that never did mind stretching some of the comic boundaries that were to be found in the more "serious" endeavors on the funny page, and I for one believe that this particular storyline was one of the better TRACY sagas to appear in print and that's even stacked up against the ones seen during the forties which alla them comic snobs say was the bestest days for TRACY no doubt about it!

The rest ain't anything to sneeze at either, what with Spec's mom's new boyfriend "Ivy " losing his left forearm to a shark after mom pushes him off a cliff into the drink before he can do it to her, not to mention the whole Kitten Sisters saga where one of 'em gets revenge on an ex-member of the gang by dressing up like a snowman at a ski contest and shooting her through the heart with an arrow as she flies mid-air! The Clipso Brothers episode features the appearance of B.O. Plenty's long-lost father Morin and his teenaged barefoot bride (one of the Clipsos gets his right index finger shot off during a shootout giving us a good two amputations this volume!) while the Crystal saga's got the absconding with a bit pile o' loot husband frozen solid in the family walk-in freezer and some good close calls when the brat gal sneaks in to get some ice cream on a stick! Yes, there's no shortage of thrills this time around, and if you're somewhat bored, nonplussed or shocked at all of the action and adventure to be found may I call you Fredric Wertham?

One caveat, I must admit that Max Allen Collins' forwards are becoming a tad baby boomer moralistic preachy, that is mainly preaching against what Collins believes are the foibles and stuck-upness of Chester Gould and his anti-delinquency ideas that were starting to pop up in TRACY on scant occasion. Yeah I can see Collins being snarky about Tracy and his new crew cut (which was just as bad a move as the time Tracy was given long hair and a mustache inna early seventies!) and who could deny that Gould's pushing the (nonexistent) trend towards teens dressing up so's not to look thuggish was nothing but wishful thunk, but when its being delivered to you in a tone that could only come from a sainted member of the brave sixties generation who sacrificed so much for YOUR right to throw frisbees and felch in an non-obtrusive, peaceful world you can just BET that the b.s. meter's gonna be clicking more'n a buncha mad castanets driven by a pack of PMS-induced senoritas on the hunt for the bullfighter of their ill-tempered ire!

Of course Collins has to redeem his former mentor somewhat by saying that Gould takes a more "liberal" position in the story sidebar where Flattop's ex-pal Joe Period's mother pleads for forgiveness for ignoring her now-murderer son then throws herself into the path of a truck when he shoos her away...gee, I didn't know that the concept of bad parents making bad kiddies was exactly in the realm of the enlightened ones (after all, Taki himself got into hot wa-wa for saying that the thugs of England was descendants of other thugs who raised 'em that way and last time I heard Taki wasn't exactly Senator Heartbleed!) but hey, I learn somethin' new every day. Only wish the new thing I learned today was something about an obscure hard early-seventies post-Velvets monolith of a band, but maybe that'll be tomorrow.

Whatever you do, skip the sob saga (or take it as what it is...uberlib feelygood masturbation) and get to the meat 'n potatoes. But no matter what you like me'll be glad you're working your way through TRACY a whole lot more'n FOR BETTER OR WORSE, that's for sure!

Another slimmo post this week. Sheesh, the inspiration (in the form of new 'n hotcha disques to spin) just ain't comin' as fast as I'd like 'em to come, an' if I don't dig into the ol' pile to see what else I can blab on 'n beef about in order to plump this 'un up I'm sure gonna be in one big mess o' trouble! But blab on I will if only to pudge this 'un out to at least a respectably decent length because hey, I think you guys deserve something to read after a hard day working at yer job as testers at the dildo factory.

Anyway I hope you readers in the US of Whoa are looking forward to Fangsgiving this Thursday. Remember to keep the BLOG TO COMM tradition up for the holidays once again this year...don't shave or bathe for at least three days, wear your shabby clothes and try to get to the local rescue mission before the food's all gone. And remember to sneak out when they want you all to sing along with the corny hymns.

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Can't let the 51st anniversary of the big JFK ka-boom go unnoticed the weekend, so for those of you who missed last year's Golden Anniversary (one of the most-hit posts I've dared unleash on the pubelick) just click here and marvel o'er the fact that I didn't receive any internet award for this masterpiece. Even this late inna game I'm chortling over Don Fellman's recollections of that fateful for him day (no RETURN OF THE FLY that night!) which sure beats all hollow those reminiscences that ROLLING STONE printed in their '73 tenth anniversary baby boom "we're the best and brightest generation ever!" slobberfest, and somehow I get the feeling that you readers would probably agree!

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In the IF YOU THOUGHT LIFE WAS STRANGE ENOUGH AWLREADY department...remember that issue of BACK DOOR MAN where Phast Phreddie was interviewing Adny Shernoff of the Dictators and asked him is the Dics'd ever play the Vatican? The question seemed funny har-har at the time but it turns out to have been more'n just "prophetic" in a way since I have just found out that yes...none other than PATTI SMITH is going to appear at the Vatican Christmas Concert next month!!! I couldn't believe it even if the gal did get to chat with the recent pope during some meet 'n greet but I guess that the ever-famed and aged punk poetess is going to be performing for ol' Francis in the not-so-distant future! I get the feeling that she might be dishing out a neatly censored set w/o any of the Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine and Wilhelm Reich Peter diddling shockarama that put her on the map, but no matter how bowdlerized the show might get all I gotta say is...I wonder who's gonna be the opening act, Kongress??? Maybe Suicide can do a Punk Music Mass for the gig 'n wouldn't THAT be somethin' t' fill up the baskets???

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Anyhoo here're some revooz of some items I was able to scrape together and stick onna ol' bedside boom box this week. Thanks to P.D. Fadensonnen for the late entry (Dixie Dregs' THE GREAT SPECTACULAR as well as some more that'll get the nod next weekend) and thanks to Paul McGarry for the Chrome, Jerry Jerry, Daddy Long Legs and Love spinners. And while I'm at it, thanks to Bill Shute for the spiffy sampler that closes out the post...if it weren't for you guys the only thing that would be reviewed this week would be the Jean-Francois Pauvros discs that I bought (thanks to ME!).

Chrome-FEEL IT LIKE A SCIENTIST CD-r burn (originally on King of Spades)

It's platters like this that give me hope that the feral past can have some meaning here in the tepid present. Chrome rock on just as hard and as electronically infused here as they did back when you used to see ads for their albums cluttering up the fanzines of the late-seventies, crashing up and about while all of those other seventies punk wonders have floundered about as if too much Donovan had gotten into their systems. A pretty good approximation of the ALIEN SOUNDTRACKS/HALF MACHINE LIP MOVES Chrome era, and it's been recorded and released in an era (mainly, TODAY!) that has been more conduit to the Chrome mindset than the late-seventies (a wonderful time if you must know!) has been. If only more interstellar cyborgs out there would only listen...

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Jerry Jerry-THE SOUND OF THE JERRY CD-r burn (originally on Aquarius)

Singer/songwriter-y guy here who gets into the usual under-the-mainstream musical snark yet still comes off pretty hot in some respects. And that's even though this form for all intent purposes has been long gone from the "music" scene for at least fifteen or so years. A bit altie/folk coming off like a snarling Jonathan Richman after a bad day at the shopping center. Nothing that I'd want to spin on a daily basis but it does have a certain style to it. Quite clever at times even...just skip over the song where Jerry Jerry sings about his garden hose and you'll probably take a liking to it even with alla the swearing.

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Dixie Dregs-THE GREAT SPECTACULAR CD-r (originally on Dregs Records)

I must admit that I've been tingling my toes in what used to be (and still may be) called "Southern Rock", though other than Black Oak Arkansas, the Hampton Grease Band and Hydra I really haven't found one of these groups that fits it totally with my BLOG TO COMM sense of high energy hijinx. The Dixie Dregs just might snuggle up with the aforementioned one of these days, but their slick approach (even on this pre-major label outing) just doesn't satiate the way I was hoping a hotcha deep South bluegrass jazz rock group woulda. Still interesting enough for a quick spin, though frankly I wish these guy were listening to a whole lot more Miles Davis and a whole lot less Return to Forever. (For real Dixie thrills get a hold of former bassist Andy West's RAMA 1 Cee-Dee and be prepared to change your bigoted opinions regarding him and his fellow musicians for all time!)

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Daddy Long Legs-BLOOD FROM A STONE CD-r burn (originally on Norton)

Wow is this 'un exciting as all get out! The Long Legs "channel" all of the best moments of the original fifties-sixties punk thrust through various seventies and eighties (even nineties and oh-ohs!) influences giving out with a sound that reminds me of the Raunch Hands aping early Black Oak Arkansas after spinning a variety of Flamin' Groovies,  Dr. Feelgood and Count Bishops platters that were found in Charles Shaar Murray's backpack which got lost in the NME listening room sometime in '78. If you wanna get all hopped up over the BIG BEAT the same way you did back when you were young 'n impressionable this 'un just might restore your faith in rock 'n roll as a healing force. And I don't mean any of that Haight Ashbury mystical mumbo jumbo either!

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Jean-Francois Pauvros-MUSIQUES POR ANNE DREYFUS CD (Spalax France)

Ex-Catalogue man Pauvros makes music for the choreography of an Anne Dreyfus, a lady whose works I assume would never ever have been attempted by the Class of '66 even though that gal with the ironed hair who wanted to be a Freedom Rider so badly mighta attempted it. It varies from soft if unnerving violin strains to clunks and clangs as well as even some rather rocking passages (thanks to the presence of Modern Lover/Elliot Murphy bassist Ernie Brooks), and it all sounds just as alien and as indecipherable as all of those other French neo-punkian avant free jazz RIO things that have been coming outta France for quite some time. Nothing that special for the standard reader of this blog, but it just might be of interest if you're experiencing one of those really ennui-filled introspective moments like I tend to do on overcast snowed-in days.

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Love-BLACK BEAUTY CD-r burn (originally on High Moon)

Hey, McGarry actually sent me a Cee-Dee-Are that I had my eyes on for quite some time! Yes it's the legendary long-unreleased Love album finally getting its just dues, and even if I never was whatcha'd call a humongous fan of Arthur Lee and company (more like a passing fancy fan) I gotta mention that I did enjoy this 'un quite a whole lot! Kinda funky in a mid-seventies sorta way, but its still a power-packed offering that manages to retain some of the excitement of the Electra-era band if not the oft-maligned version that popped up on Blue Thumb/Harvest. And really, you haven't heard anything until you lend your ears to Arthur Lee singing the old Rooftop Singers hit "Walk Right In"! Bonus tracks don't let you down either (the interview was quite illuminating!) but don't get yer hopes up over the inclusion of a track called "LA Blues"...this 'un's a latterday numbub ('n an actual blooze!) where Lee is joined by an act called Ventilator and as you woulda surmised by now it ain't even the Stooges song! Awww c'mon, don't let that get to you---go buy the durned thing!

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Various Artists-MONKEY DOGS DOIN' THE FLAME CD-r burn (directed by Bill Shute)

A good hour's worth of downloads courtesy the Inner Mystique Man himself. The Maymie and Robert track mixed late-fifties pop and Chipmunks voices to a good effect, and while the Buchanan/Goodman cut-ins ain't as funny as they were when I was ten they still do reverberate spasms of pre-teen har hars as well as any good ARCHIE comic should. It's interesting the way Bill follows the gospel rouser "One More River" with "Marijuana Polka" (I wonder if he's trying to tell us something), while the theme from SANFORD AND SON as well as the Raiders' "ss 396" and Clark Chewing Gum tracks do recall more fun frolics of the past than I thought they would. And it all closes out with Ray Sharpe doing a great "Gloria" swipe that'll curdle your curry, and with horns too! (Shouldn't forget that the obv. scuffed up Christmas recordings that Bill slapped on do signal that the Holiday Season is almost upon us, which means that YOU Bill are going to get an ADDED if not addled bonus this year---mainly two lumps of coal instead of one!)

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Might see you Wednesday though probably Thursday...if I can pry myself away from the table long enough to crank something out that is!

BOOK REVIEW! FUTURE DAYS---KRAUTROCK AND THE BUILDING OF MODERN GERMANY by David Stubbs (Faber and Faber, 2013)

As the age-old question goes, "do we really need another book on krautrock (or as I like to call it 'German Expressionist Rock')???" If you're anything even remotely like me then you'll know in your heart of hards that the answer is most definitely YES!!! Just like we need more books on the Cleveland underground rock scene circa. 1972-1980 not to mention a few on those British groups from the late-sixties and early-seventies who took their musical cues from the Velvet Underground and Stooges. Hey, we need ALL the books we can on each and every style and genre of rock et roll that used to tingle our hammers and stirrups during that era's height and one more book on the subject is, at least for me, one more reason to stay in every night and cuddle up with such a read while some classic Can or Amon Duul I, II or III for that matter careens on the bedside boom box!

As it stands FUTURE DAYS isn't a particularly revealing read---most of the knowledge presented has been chopped away from a variety of previous krautreads not to mention the author's exhaustive collection of ancient British weeklies and ZIGZAGs cluttering up his own boudoir. Maybe I am being pickier'n I am with my nostrils because hey, once all is written and digested I gotta admit that FUTURE DAYS is dang fine enough for me!

If you like your rock kraut-y and still harbor fun memories of careening record shop import bins wishing you could dish out a good twelve smackers for one of the German imports that would often be displayed in conjunction with head supplies (really, as I once saw in a West Covina CA plaza disc emporium!) then this'll surely warm the cockles of your heart, amongst other things.

Slim onna pix but heavy on the facts, FUTURE DAYS at least gives the non-German fan a glimpse into the German music scene and the reasons as to why these bands (which actually were not that popular in Germany even if they were underground faves amongst the British heads and proto-punks) even existed in the first place being cast about due to post-war conditions and a searing sense of self-loathing. Of course all of the biggies from Can, Kraftwerk and the Amon Duuls on down are here, and although you oldtimers are probably gonna be sick to your stomachs reading these stories for the umpteenth time I will admit that author Stubbs does manage to add in a li'l more insight into the German Expressionist saga than has been spewed forth in earlier tomes. The German experience and the bubbling teenbo dissent that helped create the climate for this musical genre is delved into (with the author perhaps discerning more than is actually there!) while more information than has previously been distributed regarding the inner workings of these bands (por ejemplo the Amon Duul commune saga with all of its disturbing neo-Mansonish inner workings is presented in way more than passing) is also disseminated whether you want to know about the time Chris Karrer was forced to screw a femme Duulite or not. So if you think FUTURE DAYS is nothing but a quickie rehash cash in custom made for blobs like us who'll read just about anything plopped in front of us you are sadly mistaken.

Maybe it ain't as flippant as Julian Cope's infamous  KRAUTROCKSAMPLERschpiel nor as vivid as the various oversized collections that have popped up o'er the years, but FUTURE DAYS wasn't that bad a read even if most of this was remedial rockism reading to resensify my sense of high energy. Now if only someone'll write a concise history of the Cleveland seventies underground rock scene and early Velvets/Stooges inroads into late-sixties English rock, but I ain't holding your breath.

Yeah, another short 'un this week. Sheesh, despite the best efforts of the likes of Bill Shute, Paul McGarry, P.D. Fadensonnen and Bob Forward to enlighten me with burns of new and not-so items I really can't muster up the same rah-rah energy to crank out a halfway decent post the way I might have even a good two years back. I hope I ain't suffering from the same burnout that wasted many a once-vital writer out there in notice-me land, even if I must say that my best days as a scribe are a good what...fortysome years behind me (I mean, you should have read that short story I did for fifth grade English Composition having to do with a Venusian and a sheep dog with an extremely cold nose!).

But given the week I've been through it's amazing that I have been able to crank out even this much bile. Yeah, a real toughie. A week I would wish on my worst enemy that's how bad it was. Oh well, maybe there will be MORE weeks like the one I've been through to wish on those who have dared defile the name of BLOG TO COMM lo these many years, and somehow I have the sneaking suspicion that there will be!

But until that glorious day arrives, enjoy these precious pearls and get all of the goosebumps you can just thinking about all of the angst, stomach acid and gnash that went into the creation of this particular post. You'll be glad you did!

Roy Orbison-EARLY DEMOS AND SUN OVERDUBS CD-r burn (originally on HMC Records)

Here's an interesting batch of early Roy Orbison numbers that show the genesis of the famed Orbison style that wowed many a transistor radio throughout the early 'n mid-sixties.

The very early tracks where Roy rams through a buncha early Elvis numbers might not exactly get the top notch rating in an old issue of STEREO REVIEW but the energy and party-like ambiance really does lend a certain fun feeling of old fun times long gone. The Sun-era demos may or may not have been done with the String Kings (ain't got no liner notes!), but they sure pack that late-fifties wallop that really put the electricity into funtime teenage living way back when.

Thoroughly enjoyable, and if any of you readers were wondering what Orbison was up to in the days before "Southbound Jericho Parkway" here's your chance (if you can find it that is, and I'm sure a good search engine will help out just fine!).

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Jeremy Gluck-I KNEW BUFFALO BILL CD-r burn (originally on Diesel Motors)

Noted fanzine regular and Barracuda Gluck does pretty snat on this solo outing where he's backed by various Swell Maps, a Birthday Partier and Jeffrey Pierce of Gun Club fame.

To be honest about it I thought about half of this was singer/songwriter snooze, not as bad as James and Joni and the rest of the SoCal sleepers but still a bit too introspective for my personal tastes. However when he starts cooking Gluck does pretty fine himself even if the ghost of eighties post-inspiration tends to seep into the mix at times (really, 1987 was not an inspirational year for ANYTHING and I should know!).

It's probably worth the trouble of finding, at least for all of you longtime Barracudas and DENIM DELINQUENT fans because frankly you could have done much worse and as the old saying goes you probably have.

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Isis-LIVE SELECTIONS 2001-2005 CD (www.sgn105.com)

This ain't the feminist horn band of the seventies, but a newer act I gagged on about a month or two back re. the current Islamic army traipsing through the Arab world. And believe-you-moi, from what I can tell these guys have little if anything in common with the other Isis recording act other'n they both use(d) guitars and drums---this Isis is what is called a "post metal" band which probably means something to highbrow rock critics and nobody else, and while they sound quite similar to the slew of ______core/metal acts that were cluttering up the mid-to-late eighties they just might appeal to your own sense of sludge.

If you will, the spiritual successors to the whole Slayer/Metallica cum Flipper grind it out, good enough at just the right nanosecond in your stress-laden world even if I'll probably listen to it once ever four or so millennium.

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The Astronauts-RARITIES CD (Bear Family, Germany)

(Speaking of recording acts with the exact same name existing decades apart) this ain't the English anarchist band who released some great platters back in the eighties but the surf one who ended up being RCA's brave if vainglorious attempt to crack into the Beach Boys market during the early-sixties! And although you won't believe it, for a buncha landlocked surf types they almost did as good a job of surf rock as the Trashmen did from an even more landlocked locale.

And it's a nice collection of tracks too starting with the group's debut self-produced single up through their maybe not-so-stellar height during the surf era ending with a bunch of garage band-y Brit Invasion pop 'n blooze numbers that, while rather solid by any suburban slob's standards o' excellence, just didn't cut it against the Gerry and the Pacemakers and Rolling Stones tracks these were obviously influenced by. I mean, even back then kidz were picky about what they would cram in their ears which in many ways is a durn shame.

The surf material whether instrumental or vocal shines as some of the better trackage to make its way outta the I-don't-care-what-you-say-but-it-was-HOPPING early sixties. They're filled with strong guitar lines, rugged melodies and a sturdy performance that really stands tall against some of the squeakier acts of the day. The mid-sixties numbers should put more'n a smile on the face of many a NUGGETSphile even if they will probably give those breastfed from the nipples of Jann Wenner a serious headache, which is a good thing considering just how much rockers like us hadda suffer thanks to the efforts of that horrid rump-wranglin' tastemaker who actually pushed the idea (along with Jon Landau) that James Taylor and his sibs were no doubt about it the first family of rock!

So good that even the numbers with strings sound boffo enough to bring back alla them fond memories of getting beaten up in the boy's room at the local drive in when you were but a mere kid.

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Khun Narin-KHUN NARIN'S ELECTRIC PHIN BAND CD-r burn (originally on Innovative Leisure)

Every so often some ethnically-oriented recording or another comes around to get all of the more phony-intellectual than thou types all excited, and from what I can tell you, given my lofty status as a well-respected somethingorother, this is the latest one. True it ain't no MUSIC OF BULGARIA but this Khun Narin and his Electric Phin Band put out a wild excursion into a world music I can enjoy and the sounds they create just might sate the high energy pangs and desires crumpled up in your psyche like some old smelly skidmarked underwear nestled in the corner of your room. Although hailing from Thailand the Phins have more of an Indian sound and feeling about 'em that'll bring back fond memories of alla them raga rock records you used to spin while pretending to be high, and if you're the kinda BLOG TO COMM reader who still stands by your Seventh Sons and Malachi albums you'll probably fall for this 'un head o'er heels. Made for fantastic lay back 'n read old comics listening this very weekend, and if you have a copy I know it will do the same thing for you!

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THE LEGENDARY EDDIE COCHRAN CD-r burn (originally on United Artists, England)

Do you have the two-LP Eddie Cochran LEGENDARY MASTERS SERIES set like I do? Like I hadda ask, but if you're in the market for more Cochran material to shatter your soothed nerves this 'un just might do the trick.

Dunno if it came out inna U.S. of Whoa but you might be able to snatch up this import of umport if you scour the auction lists close enough. It really would be worth your while to do it unless you're just another lazy computer guy who'll download and burn this with the flick of a wrist.

Alt. takes, sideman work not to mention an interview done shortly before Cochran's own unfortunate demise pop up, and other'n a repeat of the corny yet cool "Fourth Man Theme" there are no dupes with the LEGENDARY MASTERS set unless you wanna count the original version of "Skinny Jim", which you just might!

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Ivy Pete and his Limbomaniacs-LIMBO PARTY CD-r burn (originally on Somerset)

This looks like one of those albums that I'd find while thumbing through Farts Flanagan's parents' record collection stashed in their parlor console when nobody was around, only to chased out of the place by Ma Flanagan when she discovered what a mess I left.

I could make a joke about Bill Shute's brain being in limbo for him sending me this supermarket crankout that was probably snuggled right next to the very same budget MARY POPPINS rec my mother bought us when I was but a budding suburban slob, but I won't. But sheesh, this is nothing but cheapoid limbo crankout music that went right from the budget bins of the sixties to the flea market stacks of the seventies and eighties, and only the boffoest of limbo lovers will like these Island ditties even if they're too chubboid to do the actual bend over backwards like the pretty gal pictured on the cover does.

Hmmm, I must admit that it would have been funny to see Ma Flanagan position her flabby body in the strange contortion that slim miss seems to do with ease! But given her bursitis (and the fact that she's now 95 years old) I won't ask her if she still can.

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Various Artists-BLUE BUMBLE AZTEC GYPSY SANDALS CD-r burn (via Bill Shute)

Another boffo mix 'n match courtesy one of the few human beings on this earth who will even talk to me! Hodgepodge of various six-oh stylings from the likes of United Travel Service's socially conscious suburban teenage psych (two sides!), the Warm Sounds and the Bumble Bees to the outta-nowhere gospel/soul of Margie Hendrix and Syl Johnson. The Mad Hatters' earnest yet hilarious version of "Blowin' In The Wind" done up garage punk style is a must to hear, while the infamous Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs' take on "Dancing in the Streets" might be effete, but is still driving enough to keep you from throwing your copy out the window. Personal fave has to be the Davie Allan/Arrows track but I guess that's just because maybe I'm still stuck in the boffo era of Metro Music catalogs at least in spirit. I do tend to get that way sometimes.

BOOK REVIEW! TUMBLEWEEDS #5 by Tom K. Ryan (Fawcett, 1972)
I still dunno what got into me that day I bought this paperback at the now long-gone Strouss' downtown Youngstown Ohio store! I mean, at the time of this 'un's release I certainly was NOT 

whatcha'd call a fan of the looser post-PEANUTS-era comic strips like BC, THE WIZARD OF ID and ANIMAL CRACKERS. Not by a long shot---my tastes ran towards the firmer, more traditional comics like ARCHIE, NANCY and PRISCILLA'S POP not to mention a good portion of those strips that were seeing their final days around the time the new crop of comic crap was beginning to replace 'em on the funny page. Comics like TUMBLEWEEDS just seemed too modern and snide for my twennysome years behind the times and proud of it sense of comic strip elegance, and frankly the last thing this fifties barbershop kid stuck inna hippydippy world wanted to read was a strip like this 'un!

But bought it I did instead of the usual Marvel, DC and Archie Comics tossout that I was wont to get while probing the Mezzanine at that once-viable store, and let's just say that after enduring the snarky sagas and dryer'n an Arab's anus humor to be found in this book I quickly shoved it to the back of the paperback rack in my own personal newsstand of a bedroom book shelf. While all of the other paperbacks there had become dog-eared and creased due to constant reading TUMBLEWEEDS #5 remained almost as glossy and brand-spanking new as the day it was bought, and despite a few age spots and a slightly dinged corner it holds up a whole lot sweller'n some of the paperbacks you'll find cluttering up the flea market tables of many a retiree out to make a few bux on some gunky ol' weekend.

But as we all know times change, and so do old fanablas like myself whose tastes mutate and glop all over the place to the point where maybe I can enjoy some of the dry gags 'n subtle guffaws that TUMBLEWEEDS was best known for (at least amongst the small batch of fanz who kept this strip going for nigh on twenny-two years).

Not being that much of a fan of western strips other'n the recurring panels in OUT OUR WAY as well as some old CASEY RUGGLES book I chanced upon, I gotta admit that TUMBLEWEEDS creator Tom K. Ryan did a fair job of taking the ol' western theme and updating it for the new era of BC/WIZARD OF ID styled strips. Nothing earth-shattering, but good enough especially when stacked up against the positively staid and unfunny strips one sees these days. The dialogue tends to get quite wordy and sometimes the gags are more groans than guffaws, but I can still appreciate some of the catch-you-off guard humor that pops up on scant occasion. 'n although the artwork ain't as eye-popping suburban slob friendly as the Bob Montana-era ARCHIE or Bushmiller delineated NANCY comics most certainly were, they sure beat the feminized cutesy-pie plop permeating the funny pages of today which I still say is a leading cause as to why newspapers are dying off.

Good enough that even the lameass gags revolving around Tumbleweeds' horse Epic ain't as hopeless as I originally thought they were, while the Poohawk Indians portrayed are high-larious to the point where I get the idea that even the most Marxist of First Nations types might get a laugh outta the way they interact and throw some good zingers (verbally as well as visually) at the whiteys. Some of the takes on various western cliches might wear thin, but then again ya gotta admit that when the comics in this collection were drawn (1969) those western satires were still a bit (at the least) fresher'n they were when TUMBLEWEEDS finally packed it up in 1987.

True it ain't a classic in the way I like my comic strips, but at least TUMBLEWEEDS had its own charm, some nice artwork and a strange subtle nature that sorta petered out when the mid-sixties minimalist comics gave way to the comparative snoozers seen today.  'n hey, I would say that I was slightly inspired by these comics even to the point where I just might pick up this nineties collection of selected strips that the local Thrift Shops just can't give away, and hey can you tell me of a better way for me to squander my fifty cents???

Gawrsh, another week gone, and the way time's been flying around here it sure seems like autumn out there. Wait, is is autumn out there...sheesh, where has all of that summertime weather I've been waiting for gone anyway! Well, enough of alla them gosh crimonies and welcome to this weekend's BLOG TO COMM post. As you can see there's nothing that much (again) to blab about and, given that the era in rock that served us well is forever gone (only to be replaced by a monster that stands 180 against the throbbing genius of the BIG BEAT), it's a miracle that I've been able to scrape up at least this much to write about. But like that chef who was able to whip up a tasty dish of Chicken Marengo with just a few ingredients at hand I think I did "fairly" swell with the few shards of new material that managed to make their way to my ears. Maybe not, for somehow I get the idea that if Napoleon would have read this blog I would have been drawn and quartered post haste!

I must admit that I am greeting the arrival of the winter season with a whole lot more anticipation than I have been these past few decades. The thought of being snowed in for a good month with nothing better to do than devote more time to listening to oft-ignored records and pouring through boxes in search of long-forgotten fanzines really does settle well with my ever-impending approachment towards my second childhood (or at least second adolescence) which would suit me just fine. At least when I was a turdler life was a fun adventure and even when I was older and had to endure the terrors of school and social congress those weekends and holidays with nothing but my transistor radio and my comic books to protect me were way more beneficial'n anything else I could conjure up in my mind. I'll tell ya, when I'm old enough to retire I'm gonna do NOTHING but stay home all day and read comics, listen to music, play with my toys, watch old tee-vee shows and hide from the mailman just like I used to do when I was only three and knew better. And somehow, I feel that I would be serving mankind in a more beneficial way doing this than would I volunteer for hospital poop pickup and meals on wheels work like alla them other retirees do.

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So anyhow, here it is for worse or even worser. The listening (and reviewing) situation may brighten up in the future what with a number of hotcha items that are up for sale via FORCED EXPOSURE as well as via ebay (plus I've discovered a whole buncha platters that are posted on youtube that I wouldn't mind some enterprising computer whiz to download for me), but those goodies'll have to wait until I can get a large load of scratch up. And since I've pretty much given up on anything current (which to me translates into just about anything that sounds as if it were recorded after 1981) you can just bet that the kicks will be getting harder to find once I mutate into an even grouchier caga'n the one I am at this very nanosecond. But hunker in the bunker I will, because I get the feeling that someday, somehow, I will get to hear each and every one of those obscure ne'er released groups that I've read about via obscure mentions and strange asides (like, who in heck was that Mexican rock group who sent an audition tape to CBGB in early 1976?) and frankly, I ain't leaving this mortal coil until I do and that's a promise!

Awww g'wan, read the blasted things willya???

Achim Reichel & Machines-ECHO/A.R.IV. 2-CD set (New Amos Records, Germany)

Even though it's been a good two or so decades since I began to seriously listen to the vast array of krautrock with a post-Stoogian mindset meant for the music, its more'n obvious that I'm still feeling myself out (no, not THAT!) when it comes to discovering some of even the more noteworthy acts who were wallowing around in that particular genre back during the Golden Age of import bins. And to be upfront and natural about it, the works of Achim Reichal are definitely among the wads of krautscapading that I haven't been paying much attention to lo these many years. True I  gave the former Rattler's boffo THE GREAT JOURNEY the royal BLOG TO COMM treatment o'er a year ago, but other'n that it wasn't like I was bustin' down the barn door attempting to give any more of Reichel's works a proper ear-ticklin'. Until now that is.

Y'see, sometimes (actually, ALL of the time!) I really do get hard up for a fresh solid straight ahead rock 'n roll spin and this collection has not one but two of Reichel's old works found in one nice li'l package! Yes, this truly is a moderne-day equivalent of those twofa's they used to have where you could snatch up once-outta print platters by your faves at special budget prices custom made to fit your depression-era wage laden pocket book. Only the prices on these things sure ain't as budget as they were inna olden days that's for sure!

ECHO is a quandary in many a way, with lush 'n rather proggy instrumental passages morphing into some rather hot repeato-riff neo-punk manifested in the best krautrockian way one could imagine. The overall results are a give 'n take what with the rather dry experimental sounds turning you off before the flashier drones send you off into pure early-seventies metallic scronk. However, if you've been able to sit through your cyst-er's reams of Moody Blues albums spinnin' on the turntable before you were able to get to it with your Iggy I think you can handle this 'un hands down. And if you're one of those early-seventies survivors who brazenly stood against the tide of timid with your unapologetic stance re. the Velvet Underground and various seventies/eighties permutations you'll undoubtedly find much to enjoy with ECHO. As the old saying goes, you can do worse, and you have!

Don't get the wrench shown on the cover of A.R. IV. confused with that of Can's INNER SPACE because unlike that pitiful later-on edition to the once-snat Can line of albums this one ain't that bad at all. Of course you have to put up with a lotta experimental whackadoody voices and classical music interspliced with the usual kraut-talk but after that's all over there's some more hot krautrocking that sorta reminds me of the likes of Can and Amon Duul II romping through various late-sixties punk motifs. (It may remind you of some English faerie prog landscape a la Yes, but if it does I'm not going to take away your no prize because to an extent I agree with you!)

But after it starts to sink into your mind like a greasy ball o' dago dough in your stomach you'll discover that A.R.IV. can be pretty driving. Driving like an early-seventies Can splurge through the realm of interstellar rock, and although I doubt there'd be anything on this 'un that'd convert the typical "classic rock/AOR" schmuck to the cause of pure unadultered rockism it might suit the typical BTC reader to the infamous "T". Well, at least in small doses so don't go off buying this under the impression that the latest variation on WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT has been finally unearthed. But if you thought the best moments of Can, Amon Duul II and their spiritual brethren were their interstellar forays into free form enveloping jams you'll definitely cling to this like undigested bran to my sphincter.

An overall not bad set of two early-seventies kraut-unto-underground platters that, while perhaps steeped a little too much into the progressive miasma of the day, still can deliver on some high energy jamz worthy of the better German expressionist rock one can imagine. One you might not wanna pass up, but if you do I think I understand.

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The Human Condition-LIVE AT THE COLLEGIATE THEATRE 13th SEPTEMBER 1981/LIVE IN EUROPE NOVEMBER 1981 2 CD-r burn (originally on THC)

I know I'm not supposed to like this on purely aesthetic principles, but I find these two live recordings to be slightly inspirational. And although I'm not supposed to like the members of this band on purely aesthetic principles as well I can't find any fault on the part of the ex PiL people and cohorts who were present on these instrumental live jamz that not only hearken back to the group's earlier roots, but set the stage for a whole slew of interesting eighties romps along the lines of Mark Hanley's excellent Room 101. The use of various riffage copped from everyone from Pere Ubu to Pink Floyd makes for an interesting springboard into free form jamming and I should admit as to just how inspiring this comes off next to some of the cruddo musings that were beginning to infiltrate the entire "vague rubric" (© 1985 Robert Christgau) of new unto gnu wave music, but danged if I'm never EVER gonna listen to this again. I mean, with a shoebox fulla Electric Eels Cee-Dees inna closet would YOU???

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The Fall-C.R.E.E.P. SHOW CD-r burn (taken from bootleg)

Never having been a Fall fanatic like way too many of you were out and about during the HOTCHA UNDERGROUND I HEARD IT BEFORE YOU! bandwagon jump of the eighties, I must admit that I do find Mark Smith and cohorts' antics pleasurable "once in awhile" to be corny about it. The one-chord thump and grind does wonders for a fanabla like me who doesn't mind his music doused with the proper amount of "minimalism" at least until it starts sounding like an art project, and the band delivers that great and beautiful eternal drone like nothing since the days of back when the Stooges were first learning how to handle their instruments and failing miserably at it. I've been told that these Fall live album releases (legit or not) are rather hit and miss, but this one hits it on all quarters and even a few nickels and if you dig it up and download it for your pleasure that's your good luck!

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WALTER WINCHELL BROADCASTS (via the internet I s'pose)

Bill sent me a whole slab o' these Winchell programs but only now (after over a year) have I started to dig into 'em, undoubtedly because there's hardly been anything else to dig into this week. Good stuff they are with the famed crusading commentator's rat-a-tat reporting and hard-edged commentaries that would give even Perry White a headache. Sound quality ain't that hotcha, but the fast pace and down-to-earth drive of these is enough to show you just how much the concept of news broadcasts has changed o'er the years. Face it, next to guys like Winchell all of those people you see on the news today like Brian Williams and Scott Pelly really come off looking like sissies, though I must admit that even next to me they look like sissies as well!

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Various Artists-SOUR DIAMOND TAILFEATHER HEAVER CD-r (a Bill Shute Production)

Nice but not as tippy top as last week's entry. Two Danny and the Juniors demos really don't toggle this guy's switch (still suffering from the dreaded malady of seventies nostalgia overhype) while I'm still nauseated even thinking about Steve Allen even though he's been gone for x-teen years, but the various takes/rewrites of "This Diamond Ring" actually make me wanna forget what a jerk Gary Lewis is supposed to be while the Homer and Jethro take on "Battle of New Orleans" had me smilin' and guffawin' more'n any George Carlin routine you'd dare to conjure. Even the Allman Joys (one of ROLLING STONE's favorite garage bands---no foolin'!) ain't as disgusto to your punk attitude as they normally would be, while the Jerry Landis/Paul Simon produced and recorded tracks that close the disque out evoke more early-sixties proto-singer/songwriter pop fun than they do anything you'd expect from a guy who has to team up with longtime partner/adversary Art Garfunkel because otherwise nobody would go see him perform. A whole lot better'n what you can dig up on Sirius XM I'll tell ya!