FANZINE REVIEW! OWN THE WHOLE WORLD #17 (edited by Robert Forward, available via 200 W. Hermosa Dr., Tempe AZ 85282 USA)

Sheesh, what gives with this cover anyway? It was taken STRAIGHT off the front of the infamous (and I should know, even  I own one!) Beatles/Rolling Stones bootleg SING THIS ALL TOGETHER which features a wide variety of once-rare efforts all done up in fabulously flat sound. But I can't find a single thing about the Beatles, Stones or bootlegs for that matter on the inside! Sheesh, whatever happened to fanzines that you could judge by looking at the covers like with DENIM DELINQUENT and BACK DOOR MAN, mags where you KNEW what you were in store for with one mere glance of the visage of one Iggy or Ray Davies. (Well, the earliest issue of HYPERION I possess woulda fooled one what with the abstract almost Von Lmo-ish drawing more akin to a science fiction fanzine but I digress.)

Still it is strange seeing a real honest-to-goodness fanzine in the here and now. I do come across a scant few which capture the spirit of the GOLDEN AGE OF ROCK SCREEDING in the seventies, and OWN THE WHOLE WORLD might just be one of these welcome wonders. It has a long history (back to Akron Ohio during the prehistoric eighties even!) and the issues I own were pretty good---can't say about the ones I don't. Well, not as engrossing as any hot seventies-era rag when it was on full blast, but better'n the usual prissy fodder that is more emblematic of the energy crisis in rockist attitude one has come across these past fortysome years.

Highlight of the issue...a LOOOOONG letter from Tin Huey brainkiddie Harvey Gold in what was supposed to have been a Q&A interview but turned into an article in itself. The letter is better as it really gives you an idea of where the Tin Huey mindset was planted especially during those days before even they succumbed to the new unto gnu wave credo! Man I sure would like to hear their should be infamous medley of the Stooges into "It's a Rainy Day Sunshine Girl" into "We Did It Again" which I think would work a whole lot better'n some of you curmudgeons might think! This piece makes for a perfect addendum to the Akron underground rock history I blabbed on about last week.

I also dig the off-the-top prattling of current personalist faves (the infamous Crummy Fags make the list!) as well as the hotcha book review (THE GHOUL!!!!!) and ME TV huzzahs (I remember THE NEW ADVENTURES OF WONDER WOMAN being one of the few late-seventies tune-ins I liked eyeballing!). Big letdown...a buncha free jazz album reviews by some doofus who doesn't know his "pffffft" from his "pffffft" as my cyster would say. Sheesh, where do you dig up these guys who have to go around making their ignorance known in print Bob???

Otherwise a fine effort even if I really can't stand that post-seventies slap on layout (which I used for my own crudzine many a time...not that I'm exactly PROUD of it!).

TEE-VEE REVIEW BY BILL SHUTE! THE DETECTIVES (1959-1962), starring ROBERT TAYLOR!

THE DETECTIVES was a popular and critically acclaimed TV crime series which ran for three seasons between 1959 and 1962. The first two seasons were on ABC and lasted 30 minutes; the third and final season was on NBC and lasted 60 minutes. The lead detective and main star was ROBERT TAYLOR, longtime presence at MGM and always an impressive actor. He accepted his eventual aging, and in the post WWII-period he began to gravitate toward parts that reflected his maturity. He was not afraid to show his age (unlike so many actors after him who “had work done” on them) and developed a deep gravitas in the 50’s and 60’s. He was working steadily until the day he died (we reviewed one of his last films, the European DAY THE HOTLINE GOT HOT, here a year or two ago), and had he lived into the 1970’s, I could easily see him being put into another detective role with a slot in the NBC MYSTERY MOVIE series alongside COLUMBO, McCLOUD and McMILLAN AND WIFE.

This series has never, to my knowledge, been given a DVD release in North America. It HAS been released in Germany in a German-dubbed form (for any German BTC readers!). Perhaps Mill Creek or VCI or Timeless or some such company can put it out—especially season 3, where Adam West was added to the cast and the shows were bumped up from 30 to 60 minutes, giving them a larger canvas to work with. One would think the Taylor-West combination would have some market value. To be honest, I’d forgotten that Adam West was in the final season of the show until I watched the 2 episodes I’m reviewing—I guess I’d only watched early episodes before he joined the cast. We all know of West’s pre-BATMAN appearances on PERRY MASON and in the 3 Stooges final feature film THE OUTLAWS IS COMING and in his Italian western THE RELENTLESS FOUR---here’s another entry in West’s filmography that fans will want to track down.

Robert Taylor is the lead detective, Matt Holbrook. He makes the important decisions; he comes to the important conclusions; he spots the important clues. When the series was initially re-broadcast in syndication, it was called CAPTAIN OF DETECTIVES, and it also ran under the title ROBERT TAYLOR’S THE DETECTIVES, so RT was front and center always on the show. Second in command is Tige Andrews as Johnny Russo. Andrews was a decorated veteran in World War II, went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, worked on the stage as both actor and director, and had a role on the Phil Silvers Show (aka the Sgt. Bilko show). He may be best-known for this role on the MOD SQUAD TV series, though he also appeared on many crime shows. He radiates no-nonsense authority, so it’s no surprise he later was given multiple guest star roles on shows like KOJAK, POLICE STORY, and CHIPS. We also have Mark Goddard, later to become a bigger star with LOST IN SPACE, as the fourth cop in the unit, though he’s not given as much of a role as the others in the two episodes I watched. Taylor, Andrews, Goddard, and West (West being the charming and handsome member of the foursome) are a dynamite front line and contribute a lot toward making the series so strong and interesting. This multiple-cop format has become so omnipresent that we forget that shows like THE DETECTIVES helped create it. I don’t watch much of today’s TV, but when my wife and I go to Planet Fitness a few days a week to work out, our exercise machines are facing toward a huge bank of televisions, and there are ALWAYS at least five different ensemble-cast detective shows playing on the various monitors. These all owe a debt to THE DETECTIVES.…although as wonderful as, say, Mariska Hargitay or Joe Mantegna may be, they are not Robert Taylor or Adam West (or Tige Andrews!).

I watched two episodes from season three, so here are some comments on them.

THE QUEEN OF CRAVEN POINT (22 December 1961) is set in a fancy arts community on the coast (the show seems to be California-set…although that’s never made explicitly clear). The man who started the community, named Craven, has a manipulative Black Widow wife played by Lola Albright. She tries to get her weak-willed boyfriend (played by Russell Johnson of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND fame) to murder her husband. He constantly drinks and wipes his brow to show his nervousness (everybody drinks like a fish here, actually!) and tells her that he can’t do it. So SHE does it and then allows him to become the prime suspect. However, another person in this arts community, a sculptor and beat poet played by Michael Forest (of Roger Corman’s ATLAS), saw her leave the party and then slip back in, so he KNOWS her involvement. By the way, I always love the way that Beatniks (he’s not really a full-on TV Beatnik, but he’s an artsy type) are depicted in an insulting manner on TV shows and in B-movies of the day. Here we have Forest reading a Gertrude Stein-esque poem at the party where jazz is playing and people are making out that is outrageous and should be included alongside John Drew Barrymore’s famous beat poem recitation in HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL as a classic of the faux-Beat Poetry in movies/TV genre. Taylor bears down on the suspects, and Johnson’s character is not too smart to begin with, so everything is tied up neatly in an hour. Lola Albright may be best known as the jazz-singer girlfriend of Craig Stevens in the PETER GUNN TV series, which came before this TV episode. She was also in the Elvis Presley film KID GALAHAD. This episode is not unlike the Warner Brothers crime shows with an ensemble cast----HAWAIIAN EYE, BOURBON STREET BEAT, 77 SUNSET STRIP, etc.—but less slick and less built around pretty boy stars.

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT (20 April 1962) stars James Douglas (later co-star of PEYTON PLACE) and Aneta Corsaut (Andy’s girlfriend on THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW) as brother and sister. Their father was once convicted in some housing scandal and spent years in jail because people died due to faulty workmanship. He’s now out of jail and can’t get or keep a job due to his bad reputation. At one point, he tries to kill himself. His son (Douglas) takes the gun away from him. As he puts the gun in his pocket, it’s photographed in such a way that you KNOW it will figure into the plot again. And of course it does. Oh, one of the three main witnesses against this fellow in the housing fraud trial years ago was Matt Holbrook (Robert Taylor). The brother and sister run a bookstore, and in the first scene we see Douglas dressed up in costume and reading THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO to a group of children. That book is referred to throughout the episode, and of course it mirrors the situation in the episode’s plot (one of these writers must have been an English major!). I don’t want to give away the plot, but let’s just say that Douglas gets a little over-zealous in protecting his father’s reputation and going after his father’s accusers.


 THE DETECTIVES was a co-production between Dick Powell’s Four Star Productions (one would assume Powell and Taylor were old pals, and no one would know better than Powell what a hard worker and good character actor Taylor was) and Levy-Gardner-Laven Productions, best known for THE RIFLEMAN and Elvis’s CLAMBAKE. Each of the hour-long episodes in the third season compares with the best crime B-movies of the day. The permanent cast is excellent; the acting from the guest stars is convincing (they were probably bringing their A-game to these shows, having to work alongside the legendary Robert Taylor); the writing is sharp and intelligent but fast-moving; the directors are mostly old-hands who have proven themselves in low-budget films (Thomas Carr, for instance). Overall, it’s a great show if you like detective dramas of that era. The picture quality of the shows in circulation varies. Some are from a TV Land run, some are from a Bravo run, and some seem to be earlier than that. Many look to be from VHS recorded-off-the-air tapes, with a generation or two (or three) loss in quality. Let’s hope better quality copies surface, or some other network airs it today and people can make sparkling digital copies of the off-the-air broadcasts. I’d rate the picture quality of the shows I have as in the 6 or 6.5 range on the proverbial 10 point scale. The show would surely be even MORE impressive from sparkling archival masters. If you can’t wait for that, your usual grey-market TV DVD sources (Chris and I know those characters well!) can provide you with a set of these on DVD-R’s. Better a mediocre quality copy of a gem like THE DETECTIVES than a High Definition copy of some contemporary crap. Oh, there was also a short-run of a Dell comic book based on the show, and wouldn’t you know, the great Gwandanaland Comics has republished that in book form. If I know myself, you’ll probably be reading a review of that collection here at BTC somewhere down the line…

As the old saying goes, another week another week, and like a bad penny here I turn up with this weekend's batch of reviews of the hits the keep on hittin' or something like that. I'd love to tell you that I had a really fun time putting this post together and that I most sincerely hope you will enjoy this particular entry of rock writing of a kind you won't find anywhere anymore, but then again I would be lying.

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So what have I been up to these past few days anyway? Well, on Eas-turd I decided to dig out my box of the original run of CRAWDADDY (or actually the reprints that I bought a few decades back) and give 'em a nice visual scouring so-to-speak. Now CRAWDADDY, especially the famed monthly prozine it became in the late-sixties, was never my idea of a full fledged rock-spirited professional newsstand read like CREEM or FUSION were, but these early fanzine-like issues (which sure come off like your standard early/mid-seventies fanzines albeit without the punk spew of Stooges/New York Dolls news) do have their merits what with the reviews and writeups of groups worthwhile (Love, Velvet Underground) and not (you can guess the rest). Plus the contributions of the WRITERS WHO MADE ROCKISM, the Gene Sculattis, Richard Meltzers and Wayne McGuires (maybe even Robert Sommas) are worth more than their weight in gold especially if you happen to be gung ho (like I was) to read Sculatti's early pre-suck San Francisco scene report. Or for that matter McGuire's "Universal Music Form" piece which comes off like the PERFECT encapsulation of Velvet Underground sound and aesthetics (along with other pertinent late-sixties touchpoints) worked into an audio-visual wowzer I sure wish I could experience! I also enjoyed the various Sandy Pearlman, Allen Lanier and Al Bouchard offerings found in these pages. It all makes me wonder sheesh, what happened between this original spurt of critical genius and the hypesheet scribbles that began popping up all over the "rock journalism" world sometime in the eighties?

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Here's something else that's been taking up much of my youtube time this past week, and for being a Walt Disney product I gotta say that I, surprisingly enough, really enjoyed the thing. Yeah, Disney has been known for ultra-saccharine entertainment (though FUN saccharine entertainment at times) for years, but this KING NEPTUNE cartoon is a whole lot more enveloping than some of the fodder that came outta Disney's studios 'specially after the death of the Mussolini of animation himself. And oh those topless (complete with bullseyes!) mermaids! Well, it's a lot better'n those MIGHTY MOUSE cartoons that I thought were kinda creepy even when I was a mere turdler!

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Gotta say that the passing of Cecil Taylor was yet another signpost of impending DOOM on my part given how I had been buying the guy's records on and off for nigh on forty years, but given that none of us who read this blog are exactly spring chickens what else can I say? What I CAN say is that Taylor was one of the bestest of the leading lights in that music we call jazz (especially that of the new stuff) and that, as you'd expect, his passing is gonna be wooshed over in favor of reporters trying to be the first to count the chancre sores on Lady Caga's twat. And yeah, Taylor's classic platters are "old" (remember when "old" had always been associated with "bad"???---heard that 'un for years!!!!!) but they sure hold up to repeated listening and sound as fresh and as driving as ever. My personal fave of his recorded output just HAS to be the infamous NEFERTITI, THE BEAUTIFUL ONE HAS COME (also known as LIVE AT CAFE MONTMARTRE) on Arista Freedom, reissued over and over again and certainly worth your effort what with Taylor's performance on that outta tune yet fitting piano, Jimmy Lyons' post-bop sax and Sunny Murray keeping it all together in ways John Phillip Sousa never woulda dreamed of! Here's hoping that Bill Shute'll deliver on his piece relating to the three days he spent with Taylor in the seventies back when Bill was co-producing (or something like that---I forget the details) a show at a Denver jazz radio station where he actually guest hosted as a teenager!

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All FREEBEES this week 'cept one (a late cummer) for which we must give thanks to Bill and Paul. Gotta hand it to them for keeping this blog going singlehandedly and no, I am NOT going to give their addresses and phone numbers out to you so you can "thank" them personally. I'm sure they get enough letter bombs as it is. Anyway as Ethel Merman once said, on with the show...

Massimo Magee-TENOR TALES CD-r (Kendra Steiner Editions)

Maybe I should stop reviewing these Massimo Magee platters considering how I might be digging myself into a groove I'll never be able to crawl outta given my, er, "limited" vocabulary with regards to the world of jazz. After all, how many times can I draw comparisons to Magee's work and either a) Roscoe Mitchell, b) Anthony Braxton's early solo saxophone album or c) various English experimentalists of the AMM/Scratch Orchestra variety. What do you think? Send your cards and letters to Bill Shute (or better yet contact him via the Kendra Steiner Editions link above) and let him know. He will no doubt drop the ax on me at a future date. (But in all honesty this is perhaps thee best, most swingingest in the Magee canon, especially the tracks where he sounds like a squealing synth or electronic static from planets yet to be discovered...)

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BOLD CHICKEN 7-inch EP (Lysergic Sound Distributors, available via Forced Exposure)

I've always dug these early outta-nowhere kinda releases featuring forgotten bands of the pre-gnu wave era when punks were PUNKS and not pUNQuEs, and this recent release ain't no diff'rent. Like many of these future punk rockers (this band was formed by Buzz Clic of Rubber City Rebels fame) Bold Chicken delivered some hot and PRIMITIVE neo-heavy metal riffage that I'm sure pleased somebody in the dank bars and high school gyms these guys played. But I really doubt it. But it's fantastic stuff that I'm sure fans of groups as diverse in the hard rock brigade of the time as Status Quo and the Stooges could bond over, and the seventies aura this platter exudes is amazing. After all, side one features tracks about the midunderstood homo and the teenage boy who can't get his rocks off while the flip's got the obligatory good looking prostitute number as well as an ode to VD. How SEVENTIES is that for you anyway?!?!?

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St. Phillips Elevator-ENDLESS TRIP CD-r burn (originally on Living Eye Records)

They're not sure whether they wanna be late-sixties punks or mid-seventies ones, but either way St. Phillips Elevators do a good job of cranking out rock 'n roll that doesn't sound like an apology for being young and unpretentious. Fast and rip-roaring rock here that, although nothing that startles you and makes you wanna go out and beat up babies, sounds good enough to make one think that there still is some rock 'n roll life even a good thirtysome years after I thought it ALL went down the poop chute. Yet another interesting outta nowhere surprise that reinforces my belief in.....well.....SOMETHING...

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Charlie Parker-THE COMPLETE DIAL SESSIONS, DISC 2 CD-r burn (originally on Stash Records)

Not as hubba as the first, perhaps because the repeated takes do tend to wind me down a bit. Especially the various versions  of "Dark Shadows" with vocalist Earl Coleman which I'm afraid have nothing to do with the television series of a good two decades later! The instrumentals do me fine and made for good Sunday afternoon reading as Parker and crew plowed through various takes of "Cool Blues", "Relaxin' at Camarillo", "Cheers", "Carvin' the Bird" and "Stupendous". It all makes me anticipate the NEXT BIG MOVE in jazz expression which was so out-there even those phony beret types who went for Bird were totally surprised by the next logical step...

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Bill Haley and The Comets-IN MEXICO-TWIST ESPANOL 2 CD-r burn set (originally on Jasmine Records, England)

Here's a beaut I never knew about, not that I was up and about trying to FIND OUT ABOUT IT! A collection of tracks recorded by Bill Haley and His Comets Suid of Der Border especially for the Mexican audience! Well, I guess Bill hadda go fishin' where the fish were during the lean early-sixties, and I must say that his efforts down there produced some pretty tippy top recordings that stand up straight and tall even a good fifty-five-plus years later when for the most part, the idea of rock 'n roll let alone FUN seems to have been banished into some strange abyss from whence it shall never return, or something as equally corny as that.

The instrumental tracks (mostly covering the familiar tuneage of the times) really sates a soul like mine which thrives on these kind of tracks that seem to have fallen by the rock mindset once the Beatles came along, while it's really cool hearing Haley singing in Spanish and doing I good enough job that I doubt the locals would be laughing at him! (He does one song en Ingles but it's a Hispanic Hotcha one at that!)  Too bad that Haley and company hadda be branded as counter-revolutionary cubes as time rolled on (have you seen the PBS history of rock series which presented the form through hippoid ROLLING STONE glazed glasses? Boy did Haley get the shrift!) because frankly, this one ranks as more proof that the early-sixties weren't the dog days as most wire-rimmed self-conscious politically-drenched rock critics would have you believe!

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Bevis Frond-LONDON STONE CD-r burn (originally on Woronzow Records, England)

Approached this one with "apprehension" considering how I feel that much of Mr. Frond's output is howshallIsay "chance-y". Thankfully this one is "chance-y" but in the right way. Frond's psychedelic guitar stylings are prevalent true, but the music seems to switch from olde tyme Gaelic folk (not yet rock) to straight-ahead late-sixties onslaught to even mid-seventies punk rock in the days before it all pUnQueD out. (Oops, used the imitation patchword version twice in one post...sorry [not!]) Not as straightforwardly level as that one Frond platter I reviewed two years ago. I even enjoyed the final track entitled "On a Liquid Reel" which says about as much about the late-sixties London cooler-than-thou scene as Hawkwind's "Days of the Underground" did!

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Terry Riley-SHRI CAMEL CD-r burn (originally on CBS Records, Canada)

I remember the bitta-a-hubbub this 'un got back when it was released, though for some strange reason I can't recall seeing a copy of SHRI CAMEL in any of the record shops I inhabited. It was probably one of those special order things which woulda been expected given that most of these rekkid hangouts were concentrating on THE BIG DISCO BOOM which capitulated around the time the seventies began to clock out. At times Riley and his organ sound like interstellar church music while at others the strains of the East can easily be discerned. If you still have your copy of Riley's PERSIAN SURGERY DERVISHES double set handy for those hot and humid summer nights (well, that's when it works best for ME!) you might want to give this one a late nocturnal try during the tornado warning of your choice.

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Bill Black's Combo-BILL BLACK'S RECORD HOP CD-r burn (originally on Hi Records)

This 'un doesn't get to the quick of my being the way a whole lotta other boffo instrumental rock (especially from the '59-'61 era) does. Bill and the rest, despite their high-falutin' rock credo, just don't crank it out on all cylinders the way they should as they wank their way through a number of originals, near-originals and cover takes. Of course it's better than most anything recorded since 1980 at the latest, but for a real boffo instrumental rockin' time I'd suggest a few faves along the lines of any Link Wray, early Johnny and the Hurricanes and of course that infamous INSTRUMENTAL GOLDEN GOODIES available at a flea market near you.

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The Boss Guitars-PLAY THE WINNERS CD-r burn (originally on Kapp Records)

Bill must have known that I was on an instrumental rock jag because this particular fave popped up in the same package the above Bill Black 'un did! Of course this's obviously not of the early-sixties stratum but much later as the inclusion of a number of mop top faves from the likes of the Beatles and Kinks, done up all sax and guitar style, would prove. Cheap yet satisfying enough versions of the hits that I'm sure would have pleased some star-struck teenage gal spinning this on her cheapo portable. Would have made a fine 1972 flea market find on my part that's for sure!

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Various Artists-ROOSEVELT PETTIFORD CARHOP RUNAWAY CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

As usual, a wild and wooly  mix of things only Bill Shute could gather about and slap on a Cee Dee Are for (supposedly) my entertainment. And boy does he entertain swell, what with the cheapo soul of Roosevelt and the 7C's and the Ragtime rollicking of Die Ragtime Specht Groove who, contrary to what their name sounds like, are not a kraut rock group! I personally preferred not only the Walter Brennan Christmas single even if it is a bit outta season but Oscar Pettiford doing some down-groove jazz, the Runaways (no, not them!) late-fifties teen duo heart-throbbing, Los Voiladores' Argentinian takes on various Sex Pistols/Heartbreakers moves and the Exports doing some hot car cruising instrumental numbers ca. 1963-65 before the mop tops wooshed it all away! And with that I woosh you all a happy week and hope to see you probably Thursday if I'm still alive after this particular post that is!

BOOK REVIEW! THE AKRON SOUND---THE HEYDAY OF THE MIDWEST'S PUNK CAPITAL BY CALVIN C. RYDBOM (History Press, 2018)


Lotsa lotsa books comin' out about the punk rock revival of the mid/late-seventies, some of 'em seemingly worth the effort to peek through at the local chi-chi book shop and other not even earning the added effort to lift the thing outta the bin to open (which is why """""I""""" do it for you!). But I haven't come across many that I'd say were devoted to or dedicated to for that matter a single rock scene where these local acts sprouted up from their garages and suddenly got an ample audience and press space in BACK DOOR MAN thanks to a few self-produced records and a thriving fandom devoted to the wilder side of the rock music equation.

And believe-you-me, there were plenty of local scenes and locally-produced records to go crazy about back in the late-seventies, not only here in the United States (and Canada, which is nothing but an appendage of the U.S. no matter how much its denizens may loathe the thought of it) but in England, mainland Europe and even behind the Iron Curtain where acts like the Umela Hmotas and DG-307 were doing their best to add a little oomph to their existence with a load of late-sixties-style punk spirit added to their own home-bred rockist attitudes.

But Akron...man, was that the word on the lips of more'n a few Rock Lobstering kiddos back during the seventies-eighties cusp. That was a time when there were records and groups GALORE pouring outta all sections of the globe and for the most part alla them records actually sounded GOOD (and attuned to yours and maybe my own set of anti-aesthetics for once)! Or at least they did until a few years later when the general direction of "new wave" sorta crept into "gnu wave" (copyright 1982 Bill Shute) and many of us sorta wondered where the energy had gone almost overnight.

But Akron was the place where many looked to if only because of a few good local releases (mostly on the Bizarros' Clone label) as well as the promise it held that maybe those mid/late-sixties musical ideals that got wooshed away were still meaningful, and that maybe rock 'n roll could still have that bared-wire intensity and international youth language approach to it that seemed to wallow about once the Woodstock mentality began to replace the teenage fun and thrills that preceded it.

Nothing that was actually copasetic with the general AM/FM mindset of the times but hey, at least we could all pretend rock still had meaning.

And sure the Akron scene also pretty much piddled out about as fast as it became known to the rick kid subscribers to THE NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS and the gnarly seventies flowed into the calm cool and collected eighties, but while it was happening the Akron/Kent rock scene was almost as much on "10" as far as presenting hard-edged, high energy rock 'n roll as Cleveland or any other midwest burgh for that matter.

Calvin C. Rydbom did a really good job capturing the spirit of the age with this tome. OK, a few nit-pickers might wonder why that one group (I forget their name though a live radio broadcast exists somewhere---something like Lifeline???) consisting of various Tin Huey and Numbers Band members wanting to do some straight jazz on the side ain't mentioned or why their favorite under-the-counterculture local group didn't get more space, but otherwise I can't find a thing that would make me wanna chuck this book out the window. Rydbom pretty much covers all the bases and does it well enough to the the point where you don't mind him inserting his one "one-two" into the fray with comments regarding said group's recorded output. The man does it with verve, suaveness and a better than most knowledge regarding what was happening in the Kento/Ako area and just how it related not only to the local fans, but those same worldwide kids like you and me who (as I always seem to point out) used to pose in front of the full length bedroom mirrors pretending they were hanging out at Max's Kansas City 'stead of being stuck in the suburban slob havens they sure loved, but which sure coulda used a whole lot more ACTION.

Anyhoo...all yer faves get a good mention from the Numbers Band on (and has anyone out there discovered who the short-lived "Letters" Band were?) to the Bizarros and Tin Huey as well as Devo and that whole AKRON COMPILATION brouhaha that really helped up the rubber stock as far as English listeners were concerned. Even some of those early-eighties acts like Unit 5 get a hearty mention, and for the life of me I don't remember 'em one bit which must mean they were in existence long after I gave up giving a hoot. But forgotten Akron rocksters aside, overall THE AKRON SOUND's a great encapsulation of a time and place when the ideas and the energy were aligned right, and for once more than just a few local fans in a few local enclaves were taking note of a music that, really, deserved the adulation that was laid down upon it for once.

And if you think that's the last word on Akron, just wait until next Thursday!

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW BY BILL SHUTE! MONSTER A-GO GO 1965


I can’t imagine any BTC reader NOT wanting to see a film called MONSTER A-GO GO, especially when the people behind it are legendary exploitation film names like Bill Rebane (THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION, BLOOD HARVEST) and Herschell Gordon Lewis (BLOOD FEAST, 2000 MANIACS). Unfortunately, this is another film which is known more for its MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 skewering than for the original film, which is a shame because when seen without the sarcastic commentary and with the mindset of someone who stumbled across the film at a rural drive-in in 1965 or on a local UHF station’s Creature Feature package in the 1970’s, MONSTER A-GO GO is a totally entertaining experience that on the surface (say, if you walked into a room for three minutes while someone was watching it) looks like a typical z-grade locally made sci-fi film from the late 50’s or early 60’s, but the closer you pay attention to it, the more bizarre it seems, and if you stay with it until the end, it’s completely mind-blowing and would have anyone turning to the nearest person, even a stranger in a darkened movie theater, and saying, “what the **** was THAT?”

After two twist-oriented music shorts which found a home at AIP and Crown International, respectively (which are included on the Synergy DVD of MONSTER A-GO GO, and which are quite odd….with non-synced music and no live sound at all in a ‘musical’ short!), Chicago-based film-maker Bill Rebane (later, on his better-known films, he worked out of Wisconsin) set out to make a serious, professionally made science fiction film dealing with the space program and a manned space capsule which gets lost in the atmosphere….and at the same time a ten-foot monster appears out of the blue and people wonder what’s the link between the two. Rebane shot a few weeks with a full union crew and a professional cast including 1930’s actress June Travis (who’d co-starred with people such as Warren William, Joe E. Brown, Ricardo Cortez, Ronald Reagan, Robert Livingston, and Wayne Morris back in the day, and who was the daughter of the one-time owner of the Chicago White Sox). These scenes, properly shot and lit and with quality production design, appear mostly in the first half of the finished product and stand out—they could be from a legitimate AIP or Allied Artists film of the era, which is surely what Mr. Rebane was aiming for…and he achieved it in these sections of the film. Then the money ran out, but only a fraction of the intended film was completed.

The exact details of what happened next are murky and have to be inferred from the comments of Rebane and Lewis over the years. Evidently, Rebane and Lewis had worked together on various projects in the past, and each had even worked for the other. Rebane knew that Lewis could work quickly and cheaply, so as Rebane raised small amounts of money, Lewis assisted him in shooting new footage over the next year or two to get SOMETHING in the can. These scenes have a more haphazard look—clearly, the budget was severely limited in the later scenes—and cast members vanished and were replaced by others, in one case a scientist character being replaced by his brother (or something like that).

Evidently, they were unable to shoot enough footage in these circumstances to complete the film, and it sat unfinished. In late 1964 (or around then), Lewis wanted a quick and cheap second feature to back a new film of his (you did a lot better on the state’s rights drive-in circuit if you controlled BOTH HALVES of the double bill), probably remembered this footage sitting in the can, and acquired it. Lewis always was a savvy businessman with a nose for an exploitable concept—he also knew what audiences wanted (or, at minimum, what attracted audiences….once they’d paid at the box office, their response to the actual product did not matter as much…few would ever demand their money back).

Let’s be honest—if a film is titled MONSTER A-GO GO, does the quality or content of the film REALLY matter? Of course not. Lewis understood that. Such a title would get people in the door (or through the gate of the drive-in). He also understood one of the cardinal rules of the low-budget horror and sci-fi film, stated bluntly once by Jerry Warren: “you didn’t need to make it good, just make it weird.” In the days before video/DVD, you saw a film ONCE at a theater, or you saw it ONCE on television. You could not replay it. Oh, you could pay to see it a second time, but few would ever do that, and few would also make a point of checking the TV listings for months so they could catch something during a rerun screening many months later. You saw the film once, and it was over and all you had were memories. That’s how a film-maker like Larry Buchanan could show you a wild and cheap and totally unconvincing monster suit once for five seconds and get away with it. There was the initial shock, then you looked at it a second time and wondered what the heck you were seeing, and before you came to your senses, it was off the screen and the film had moved on.

Knowing how difficult it would be to take Rebane’s film and finish it right—assemble the same cast, match the photography style of the initial scenes, work on continuity, etc.—Lewis wisely decided that the best thing to do to get a quickie completed feature in the can and out to the drive-ins of the South and Midwest would be to give it an exploitative title that would pretty much pre-sell anything he would attach to the title, shoot a few new scenes of dancing teenage girls, put a garage-band rock and roll song in the title sequence, shoot a few new scenes featuring a cheap monster (whether it matched the original one or not was not essential), and tie the whole thing together with narration. Did the film have no ending? That’s fine….just explain that away by having some self-reflexive comments about how there is no real ending to anything and nothing in life is fully explainable. On some level, that could be a deep and profound philosophical idea, and it also throws such a curve at the audience that they’d be taken aback, and before they could gather together their thoughts, the THE END sign is on the screen and any analysis is a moot point. Also, Lewis wisely gave a sarcastic tone to the film’s promotion, just to let anyone who complained about the lack of continuity or the cheat ending that he too was in on the joke and the film was intentionally outrageous. Check out the film’s poster, where it states “This film could set our space program back at least fifty years.” No wonder Mr. Lewis had a successful career in marketing and taught marketing after he left the film industry….this man could sell ice to penguins!

Patchwork films with recontextualized stitched-together footage (from either unreleased films or uncompleted films or whatever) date back to the silent era. The 1931 film CALL OF THE ROCKIES is essentially an unreleased (or super-obscure) silent film re-issued with some new footage, narration, and sound effects, and passed off cynically to a sound audience as something new. The 1949 feature GUN CARGO contains scenes from either two or three 1930’s projects that were unfinished, now linked with a little new footage and a “plot” that attempts to tie everything together. While you are at it, check out other films such as DEVIL MONSTER (1946) or CONFESSIONS OF A VICE BARON (1942) or RECKLESS DECISION (1933). Or the 1950-52 "Western Adventure" productions starring Lash La Rue and Al "Fuzzy" St. John, which cannibalize earlier LaRue/St. John features to create "new" films. And Al Adamson created a number of these using his own films as the raw material for the slicing and dicing. Just read about the production history of HELL’S BLOODY DEVILS sometime! The film industry is a business, and business is all about product. If you can slap together an hour-long product from existing footage, tie it together somehow with narration or a few crudely shot inserts, and then give it a marketable title, why not? One of the most wonderful aspects of z-grade film is the strange, non-logical, hallucinatory world it can create—truly, it can put you in an alternate universe the same way a song-poem record or a short-story by Ed Wood can. You feel like you are “on something” but you are not.

MONSTER A-GO GO does that better than almost any other patchwork feature. Characters morph into others, continuity goes out the window, but, as Jerry Warren was wise enough to observe, it’s weird enough that it does not have to be “good” in any traditional sense. Well-made, safe, standard Hollywood films are a dime and dozen…something like MONSTER A-GO GO creates its own strange universe, and it’s a joy to live in that universe for 70 minutes.

If you can find the long-out-of-print 2010 Syngergy DVD of this, it’s almost like a Criterion edition….it’s got Bill Rebane’s twist shorts, a long interview with Rebane, a commentary track by Rebane, and a massive analytical booklet with interviews with any number of folks related to the film in one way or another. If someone asked me to choose one film which was the epitome of what the term “Psychotronic” was coined to refer to, I’d hand them a copy of MONSTER A-GO GO….but I’d just loan it to them, because I want MY copy back again!

Hey, tomorrow's Easter, or as I like to say Eas-turd given my colo-rectal mindset, and I hope you have fun at the local Chinese restaurant eating all of those egg rolls like you should during this rather solemn day of the year. Yeah, those days of chocolate bunnies and my dog Sam diggin' into the Easter baskets and almost dying of chocolate poisoning are long gone, but at least we still have our memories and other funtime reminiscences to keep us goin' which I'm sure helps out. I always liked the holiday because, as I once said awhile back, if Easter is here can summer vacation be far behind and y'know, I still have those weird memories of Easter breaks past like the time I was in the Grants department store the day after and saw the Blues Magoos' PSYCHEDELIC LOLLIPOP album on display thinking that the cover looked really cool and I'm sure the sounds contained within were as well. Of course all I ever got outta the day was a model airplane kit and a jaw-breaker but sheesh, do those weird outta nowhere memories come flashing back like potrzebie!

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IS MY SPHINCTER EVER GONNA UN-CLENCH??? DEPARTMENT: Since this is my blog I can gab about whatever I want, and heck that might include a whole lotta things that really don't fit in with music or "the ahts" or at least "the ahts" as defined from a BLOG TO COMM standard which probably differs from the one set up by ART IN AMERICA magazine. (Meaning, the painting is only as good as the nude lady who posed for it and the artist's abilities to capture those bullseyes and bellybuttons just right! And please don't skimp on the fur!) Which is why, during these holiest of times, I feel like wretching up a few things regarding THE SAD AND SORRY STATE OF AFFAIRS THAT IS PASSING FOR POLITICAL DISCOURSE OR WHATEVER YA WANNA CALL IT THESE DAYS! And I am kinda grumbling, first at the trek the oft-loathed Donald Trump presidency is taking what with all of the big goofs and gaffes that have been happening as of late (lessee...the hiring of that terminal left over John Bolton, the signing of that huge spending bill as if we really do need a stronger military these days, the banning of bump stocks which bugs my absolutist core...sheesh, you'd think he was George Bush III or somethin'!) and then at alla those gun control moronic kids who'll follow whatever  progressive (hah!) lead their hippoid teachers point their li'l snouts in. I mean, what kinda kid in their right mind LISTENS to their teacher inna first place?

And frankly, like between you and me, the real problem ain't the subject of gun control which is something that perhaps can be discussed without turning into Bomba the Jungle Boy, but that of the overbearing SANCTIMONY that's being spewed out and being passed off as honest stick-it-to-the-man protest and rabble rousing!

Gawd do I abhor that professional drama queen David Hogg who raises armchair high school social consciousness to levels un-reached since the days of THE TRIAL OF BILLY JACK...after getting a dose of just one minute of this guy's snootier-than-thou prattle I always end up wishing that the worst outlaw biker gang in the world would pounce upon the guy and knock some testosterone into him and thus puberty might set in. What a precious petunia Hogg is, in fact he's one to make most of the competition wilt in comparison with his Lt. Fuzz-level ferociousness and mock black power salute right outta prime Jane Fonda. The way Hogg's wedged his way into the whole sordid affair (find a crisis and CASH IN ON IT!!!) I'm surprised he hasn't come out in favor of banning DENNIS THE MENACE and sling shots given how down pat precocious this pampered performer is. One thing I wanna know is...who in the first place let this 'tardo get up and spew his mouth as if his pearls have the same value as say...a studied expert's??? (Don't answer, I know who---he and his HANDLERS!)

And don't get me started on Emma Gonzales, who you can tell just by looking at her has a reek that coulda leveled more students than that shooter ever could. And while I'm at it, don't those defiant pouts on these proud missies just make you want to shudder in abject fear??? (Well. they do, but not in the fashion that these gals intended ifyaknowaddamean...) Sheesh, how far down we've come not only since Frankie Darrow and Leo Gorcey defined the spirit of youth in revolt but since the last gasp of true teenage revolution via the Sex Pistols and Black Flag! And how those groups (who actually epitomized the best aspects of youth goin' out and doing what they wanted without the prodding of the grownups) were universally loathed and called evil while this swill is considered the peak of perfection remains way beyond the realm of human comprehension!



And while we're at it DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THE SNOOTY CLIQUE-ISH KIDS AT THAT SCHOOL WHO STARTED THE WHOLE THING BY BEING THE INSUFFERABLE SHITS THEY MOST TRULY ARE. After all, wasn't it Gonzales herself who, in response to various statements about just how out-of-the-outkid loop shooter Nikolaus Cruz was and that maybe if the kids at the high stool treated him a li'l better he wouldn't have gone on his rampage, spouted something along the line that Cruz wasn't the kind of guy you'd want to go near and that anyone with a brain avoided him like a flea bath because he was like, a creep! Hoo-boy, ain't that the sentiment of my high school classmates and teachers towards me summed up just perfectly! Sheesh, after having to have endured the same kind of attitudes from my "betters" during all those years of education all I gotta say is I WISH CRUZ WOULDA SHOT MORE PIGS BECAUSE IF THEY'RE LIKE YOU EMMA, THEY DESERVE NOT ONLY A PAINFUL DEATH BUT WHATEVER TOASTY AFTERLIFE THEY'LL GET FOR THEIR SNOOTY, UPPERCRUST ATTITUDES TOWARDS THEIR FELLOW STUDENTS! As I said in an earlier post didn't Cruz do what just about every picked-on hammered-on repeatedly-mocked suburban slob would have loved to have done but couldn't because of the lack of knowledge regarding weapons or moolah to buy them inna first place or general chicken-ness or most of all fear of family shame (remember that?).

And to think that these nose-ringed piglets are the so-called FUTURE of this once fun and jamz nation I live in! Sheesh, where the heck is our Generation Indentitaire or for that matter Golden Dawn anyway? Sure could use something along those truly threatening lines rather'n the usual piddling band-aid responses to bursting arteries we've been subject to for eons already. Lemme tell ya, from now on it's all out (I was merely doing 99.999...%) LOATHING for you all...nothing but MURDOCH MURDOCH videos, TYRONE RAGE cartoons and GAB I'll tell ya. And if anyone can give me the address of the local Falange Party I most certainly would appreciate it.

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Welp, here's this week's batch of freshly brewed beauts I managed to whip up for your betterment. Please note that I did not pay for ONE SINGLE DISQUE reviewed this week and that these aforementioned platters were actually DONATED by the likes of Bill Shute and Paul McGarry, two people who know a lost cause when they see one.  Sheesh, with people like Bill and Paul (not to mention Bob) around to pick up the bill who needs money around here anywah, not that there's much I feel like parting with my filthy lucre for these sad 'n sorry times!

Claus Ogerman and his Orchestra-SOUL SEARCHIN' CD-r burn (originally on RCA Victor Records)

With a name like Claus Ogerman I thought this album was gonna be filled with a buncha marches of a Teutonic nature guaranteed to put a smile on Herman Goering's face. But hey, I was wrong. This Ogerman guy plays e-z listening stereofied blooze-y jazz that woulda put a smile on my Horst Jankowski and Bert Kaempfert-listening uncle's face had he given this 'un a go. This effort features a whole load of Hammond organ-led instrumentals with the proper amount of strings and brass to beef the whole thing up to FM-stereo circa 1966 listening levels, and if I were some old fogey back then I probably woulda spent my moolah on a collection of Jan Garber albums but hey, that's my problem!

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Charlie Parker-THE COMPLETE DIAL SESSIONS, DISC 1 CD-r burn (originally on Stash Records)

Bill Shute said he was gonna come over my house and make me the mezzo-soprano I never was with his bare hands if I didn't review this new Parker box set, but given the time constraints on such a major project I thought maybe I should do it like piece meal, hokay? Anyhoo the first part of this collection of crucial Parker platters and such features rare takes and even fragments that woulda gotten an "unsatisfactory" in any bootleg discography extant, but since these are so important to us I guess we do have the right to listen in no matter how lousy they come off. Hot bop versions of everything from such notables as "Yardbird Suite" to "Ornithology" not to mention the infamous "Lover Man" in what sounds like a different take than the drug addled squeal that made jazz history while nobody seemed to be looking.

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WALTER WINCHELL BROADCASTS CD-r burn 

Four fifteen-minute wowzers here (well, the second and third 'un's are actually the same show!) which go to remind ya of just how professional radio news commentary was, and just how staid and tiring it has become in the interim. Postwar tirades tackle everything from communists to the social page with total elan. Coulda used some more background on the situations at hand (like, what was the jab at TIME magazine which closes out the 12/19/48 edition all about anyway?) but I will say that one listen to Winchell only makes me GLAD that the likes of Peter Jennings and Brian Williams ain't readin' the newscasts anymore, not that their spawn are any better y'know.

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George Jones and the Jones Boys-RADIO JAMBOREE CD-r burn (originally on United Artists Records)

Fans of the old country before it got all new and glitzy (or even fans of the old country before it got all Barbara Mandrelled outta existence) would do well by picking this 1963-vintage recording up. Jones stays sober enough to deliver twennysome steel guitar and fiddle-twanged tales of woe and other typical down and out country sentiments, finally taking some time out to do a li'l rejoicing on the snappy "I'm Gonna Sing Sing Sing". To close this 'un out with yet another rock critic (not that I am one!) cliche, lemme just say that your typical hot country/Nashville Network fan should be shackled to a chair and forced to listen to this until he learns what REAL country music is s'posed to be!

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AFRTS PRESENTS ROBERT Q. LEWIS--------------ALSO...MELODY ROUNDUP WITH LUM 'N' ABNER & TEXAS JIM LEWIS CD-r burn

More Armed Forces Radio slush, this time with Robert Q. Lewis (who was much better on those Screen Gems sitcoms like THE HATHAWAYS and BEWITCHED) hosting a buncha up-and-coming singers doing their usual early-fifties tin pan alley pap, while Lum 'n' Abner host a country and western show with a whole slew of that downhome humor that I'll bet even Ernest T. Bass thought was strictly cornballus. I'd hate to have been some soldier stuck in a muddy foxhole forced to listen to this when I could have been enjoying something a bit more pertinent to my nodes like say, Pyonyang Patti.

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AFRTS TRANSCRIPTIONS---TEX WILLIAMS AT KNOTT'S BERRY FARM/AFTRS JUBILEE CHRISTMAS 1952 CD-r burn

Well this one is a vast improvement o'er the above and woulda kept me from crossing the DMZ with hands swinging in air. Tex Williams provides a fifteen-minute show live at Knott's Berry Farm (we never went there on any of our California vacations because we were told it was a tourist trap...we went to Disneyland tho!) featuring a train robbery skit which I believe was taken from an actual attraction as well as a variety of musical numbers that don't make for instant ipecac ifyaknowaddamean. The Christmas Eve show does make for some fine listening what with the variety of jazz tracks from the likes of Diz and Hampton to even the on-the-way-out Benny Goodman, but man does that bopster patter irritate to no end! Sounds as phony as a piece of currency with Barney Frank's picture on it which makes me wish that someone out there woulda given these announcers one of those issues of MAD with the cool cat jive talk stories just so's they could get at least some of it right! But hey, I'm sure the music on this 'un woulda kept our soldiers from deserting!

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Various Artists-MAGIC MOSCOW FROG CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Kinda spotty, and I do mean dalmatian, especially for one of these Bill Burns. The brief excerpt from some version of "Magic Carpet Ride" sounds like something a high school prom band circa 1974 mighta whipped up, while Gil Scott-Heron never did howshallIsay zone me with his power to the people proto rap stylings. The various "In Sound" interviews with Sean Bonniwell and Jim (or was it Roger by this time?) McGuinn are nice slices of an era when rock 'n roll definitely meant more to many than it would even a few years later. However, the soul tossoffs and some daft punk by a group called Leftovers really don't make for that enjoyable a time. Neither does listening to Steve Allen plug one of the billion things he was plugging back in the eighties and nineties nor Heather Thomas rattle on about choosing the right health spa. Well, whatever that Spinal Frog thing was I liked it and the Raeletts were a whole lot more exciting than I'm sure most naysayers would have thunk!

CONCERT REVIEW! THE ZOMBIES WITH DON DI LEGO LIVE @ THE KENT STAGE, MARCH 24, 2018!

Yeah I know, seeing these guys in 2018 is akin to yer grandpappy going to see the remnants of the Glenn Miller Orchestra back 1971 way. A rare nite out for the old fogies who were trying to cop some long gone funtime memories of a time that was much more preferable to the great kultural mess that was happening thanks to the narcissistic generation that would go on to greater and more destructive things. Only the crowd gathered to see 'em at the Kent Stage were way older 'n your grandfather was back during the BIG FORTIES NOSTALGIA PUTSCH OF THE EARLY SEVENTIES which I must admit was a movement I sure went for big time!

Hey, I know that I was the odd suburban slob out while in school but while the others were cumming buckets over Bobby Sherman I was wasting my time reading old comic strips while listening to old music and pleasuring myself with other outmoded forms of entertainment which were much better'n the bell bottom and "relevance" gunk I hadda endure on a daily basis. And a good forty-five years later what with early-seventies derived social consciousness and overbearing success shaming having been METASTASIZED into our very being who says that I was WRONG trying to resist that emotion-based prattle that was hitting me from all sides! William F. Buckley might have wanted to stand atop the turd heap of history yelling "stop" but even he eventually yawned and let it pass. I sure as shooting do not want to make the same mistake even though against all odds I'll be plowed over like some of those bodies you used to see in death camp films. (This paragraph is dedicated to J. D. King and Jeff Roth, who I think are the only people on this EARTH who will understand.)

But I'll leave my opinions regarding the million moron gun banners and that bald dyke who seems to be all over the place for another column (you can TELL that recent events are irritating me!) and concentrate on the Zombies. Boy were they a hot act even though only Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent remain from the originals and the former's voice sure ain't as smooth as it used to be. Well, it was good enough for me as were Argent's jazzy keyboard trills along with the rest of the rent-a-group new members who were so up on what they were doing that they didn't even hit any clunkers. Of course the hits were there (even Argent's "Hold Your Head Up" which, as we were told, was not sung "Wo-ah" but "Woman") and Blunstone was a good enough front man presence even though he looked like he was about to keel over a few times. But everyone involved did a stupendous job from the ODYSSEY AND ORACLE portion to the new stuff that nobody would be familiar with, and as you woulda guessed by now they really worked us all up with the extended butts off the seats ravers that, even if done up for a pack of retirees, were done up for some SMART ENOUGH ones who could appreciate their rock 'n roll without the past five decades of mummery thrown in. (In fact one of the many highlights of the evening was listening to this conversation the folk behind me were having regarding recent Roky Erickson and Flamin' Groovies appearances with a few Tom Verlaine/Television reminiscences tossed in which, for me, proves that the Akron/Kent/Cle under-the-covers rock experience lives on even a good fortysome years after the fact!

Opener Don DiLego came out and warmed the audience up with some originals that weren't bad even if they were too solo-artist emote for my tastes. But he did a good enough job to get that gold star on the forehead. Overall DiLego reminded me of those solo acts I used to catch on various CB's 313 Gallery cybercasts back in the early oh-ohs, fun if amateur-hourish creativity that wasn't offensive to your own musical parameters even if they were far far from 'em.

Big heaping thanks to cyst-er who not only paid for the tickets but bought me a burger beforehand. I even got to stay up way past my bedtime just like I usedta do when I was a young turd even, and although the magic of that went out around the time I was working steady midnight it sure brought back a few good memories I'll tell ya... 

COMIC BOOK REVIEW BY BILL SHUTE! WYATT EARP, FRONTIER MARSHAL #57 (Charlton Comics, March 1965)

When I was living in northern Oklahoma in the early 1980’s (during the period when I ran the INNER MYSTIQUE zine and label), I attended college and supported myself through various part-time jobs, usually juggling any two at one time. One summer my work-study job at the college was on hiatus, and the restaurant I worked at was shut down and the doors padlocked without prior notice to us employees (we all got stiffed two weeks pay too!), so I did what you should always do when you need work: tell EVERYONE you know, and hope that someone knows someone who needs someone somewhere. Most jobs are never advertised, and of course many people need someone for a few weeks or a month to fill in for an employee who’s out....or some private individual has a need for someone for a specific task and will pay you cash for that. In my case, I did not need permanent work, just something to help me get through the summer.

A lady who’d been in one of my classes, Terry--she worked at the college bookstore and was dating a German exchange student who was a friend of a friend--told me that her father needed someone to do about four weeks work in the town she was from, Shawnee, Oklahoma. He was the manager of a small loan company, and he’d purchased the space next door to their current office, but it was full of junk that needed to be moved, it needed to have new linoleum floors put in, it needed to be repainted, etc. He could not afford to hire actual licensed tradesmen to do those chores, and had mentioned to Terry about needing to find someone. He’d never acted on that, just kept the space empty, so Terry thought she’d kick him in the rear on this and get the ball rolling, and at the same time get me some work. She negotiated a generous amount of pay (pretty much triple the minimum wage and also a bonus if I got the work done in four weeks) for me with her Dad, PLUS they offered me a space to stay at and breakfast and dinner at their family home (and they’d provide me with a sack lunch every day). We covered up the front window of the space-to-be-fixed up so no one knew what work was being done, and since her Dad was in tight with the local officials, we were able to circumvent getting permits, which saved him even more money. I even had access to their family washer-dryer, so this was a win-win situation for me with no real expenses (back in Stillwater, I was paying 1/3 of a $100-a-month rent for a trashy apartment three of us shared, so being stuck with rent woes while out of town was not an issue).

I had an unlimited account at the local hardware store for the supplies I needed. The first week I just hauled out trash, got rid of old and useless furniture, and cleaned. The second week I stripped the old flooring and laid down new linoleum, and this also took me into week three. The second half of week three and all of week four was spent painting. I finished the Sunday night at the end of week four and told Terry’s Dad that I had a surprise for him when he came to work Monday morning-- a totally empty, but sparkling new-looking three-room office and bathroom and pantry. All he needed to do was have a professional paint a sign on the front window (you can’t have an amateur like me fake THAT and attract any business), lease some office furniture, get phone service set up, get a couple of window-unit air conditioners, and they were good to go.

Although I ate and slept at their family home, I did not really feel comfortable there just hanging out, so I would spend most evenings and all day on the weekends at the space I was refurbishing. The loan office next door closed at 5, and as in most small towns, the main street pretty much closes down by 6 p.m., so I had the place to myself. I’d brought a boom-box and about 100 cassettes with me, so I had non-stop music while I worked and each night/weekend. I also brought a box of cheap used comics I’d picked up in Tulsa earlier that Summer, on the same trip to Tulsa where I picked up some import LP’s at Starship Records: the amazing EVA label compilation albums of MOUSE AND THE TRAPS, THE OTHER HALF, and THE SEEDS (Bad Part Of Town), and the French EMI Pathe Marconi exact reissues of original Capitol albums by Gene Vincent and Imperial albums by Rick Nelson. I made cassettes of all of those and also had many many mix-cassettes of obscure 45’s from my collection as well as episodes of the YOURS TRULY, JOHNNY DOLLAR detective radio show, airchecks of Benny Goodman’s "CAMEL CARAVAN" shows, and some of Duke Ellington’s wartime Treasury Bond broadcasts.. When they would close down the loan office next door each night, I’d start consuming 8-ounce bottles of Pearl Cream Ale ($1.09 an eight-pack!), turn up the volume on my music, and dabble at work until the sun went down. After sundown, I’d read either old comic books or Henry Miller’s "ROSY CRUCIFIXION" trilogy, and then eventually head back out to their house about 10:30, where dinner would be waiting for me in the refrigerator and I could just re-heat it, wash it down with one or two or three of THEIR beers (they had Lowenbrau in their fridge, a few steps up from Pearl Cream Ale, and I’d hear in my mind with each one I drank the golden soulful tones of Arthur Prysock, crooning, “tonight is kind of special...let it be Lowebrau”), chat with the Dad and/or Terry for a while, and crash for the night. This was a fairly sweet gig, and though I would not want to have done it forever, there were a lot worse ways to spend four sweltering weeks in the Oklahoma summer, getting paid well, being fed and given a place to stay, having great music playing all day and most evenings, and being able to read at night in a spacious environment on the main drag of an old-time small town. When I wind up in the small towns of Oklahoma or North Texas or Kansas in my travels in recent years, I’m taken back to that period, and it reminds me how rich life can be when you have a purpose (getting this space fixed up in a four week period) and the few essentials you need (food, beer, a place to sleep), plus good music and something worthwhile to read that was your own and which you chose and had a hard copy of. Albums you would play over and over, books and comics that you’d read and re-read. They grew deeper with each play or reading, and you grew to understand and feel their construction, their textures, their nuances. It’s hard to explain to someone nowadays with zillions of tracks of music available immediately on a smart phone, along with 7000 TV and movie watching options at any time anywhere, the joy of being in a small-town office building on a Wednesday night after everyone else working on the main street had gone home, the floor stripped of its old covering and no furniture whatsoever, sitting on the floor and blasting Mouse And The Traps “Wicker Vine” and “13 O’Clock Theme For Psychotics” over and over again while drinking cheap Pearl Cream Ales and reading and re-reading a WYATT EARP comic book. Heck, I was pretty much IN the Old West myself back then. The buildings on that block probably dated back to the 1920’s if not before, and Oklahoma had only become a state in 1907. It did not take much of an imaginative leap to insert myself into some of the situations in this 1965 Charlton WYATT EARP comic book that I’d paid a nickel for.

Wyatt Earp (not to be confused with Chrysler/Dodge dealer Wyatt Arp in Seguin, Texas) is the kind of legendary name that can be used for any kind of heroic western character--the way any muscle-bound leading man in a sword and sandal movie can be called Hercules (or one of the mighty Sons of Hercules). The specifics of the real Wyatt are known to western historians and people who read True West magazine, but most others just want a good story, action, adventure, and escape. Coincidentally, 1965, the date of this comic, was the same year that the great Guy Madison played a character named Wyatt Earp in the Euro-western GUNMEN OF THE RIO GRANDE. That had as little to do with the real character as this comic book does, but it was just as satisfying and excellent in its own way.

In between the full-page ads (someone in the Charlton ad sales office should have gotten a bonus for the number of ads sold in this issue!), there are two six-page stories featuring Earp, one five-pager with Earp, one five-pager without Earp, a one-page comic about the history of Derringer pistols, a one-page comic called “The Train Robbers” (kind of like a western version of those Ellery Queen Minute Mysteries radio shows!), and of course, the expected two-page prose story, here an account of a college student (like me, “off for the summer”) who learned buffalo hunting from the Ogillallah Tribe. The non-Earp five-pager was called “Forgotten Past,” about a man who had been living in a small western town where he’d established a good reputation and was known and trusted by all and had found a place in the community--but who remembers nothing of his life prior to coming to the town. One day he sees an old Wanted poster, and the sketch of the criminal on it resembles himself in a vague way, and he wonders. As I sat on the floor of that half-refurbished Shawnee, Oklahoma, office, looking through the back door onto the alley and the mellow glow of a distant streetlight, I wondered what might happen if I decided to stay in Shawnee. Terry had told me at one time that I knew enough math and accounting to get a job with her father’s company, if I wanted to. She also told me that there were some local ladies who had jobs at businesses in town or at the electric co-operative to the North whom she’d be glad to introduce me to. I did not take her up on that while in Shawnee for this work because I was working twelve hours a day in the summer heat in an old non-air conditioned building, and no lady, no matter how lonely, would have wanted to be introduced to someone who stank the way I probably did--also, even if I’d cleaned myself up, I would be gone in a few weeks. However, if I worked at the Loan Office regularly and took up residence there, I’d be fresh-smelling, clean-shaven, a man with a respectable job charging working people who could not get funding from a legitimate bank usurious rates for small household loans--hey, if we weren’t doing it, someone else would be. Isn’t that the usual self-justifying excuse? I could have met some lady who’d get me to join the Methodist Church, become a respectable member of small-town Oklahoma society, and spend my days calling people at work who’d gotten behind on their payments for that new water-heater or refrigerator. I could forget my own somewhat sordid past, like the character in the “Forgotten Past” story....and create a new only-slightly sordid present and future!

In the words of the late great bluesman Otis Rush, “so many roads, so many trains to ride.” In terms of the roads of imagination, I’ve taken many a trip via cheap used Charlton Comics. At the top of the right-facing pages in this Wyatt Earp comic, it reads CHARLTON COMICS GIVE YOU MORE! That’s for damn sure, and for just a nickel in my case. Used comics....your best entertainment value! It’s the BTC way!

Hokay, here's another column. Nothing much to ponder about it...as anyone with two stem cells to rub together can tell this is nothing more'n just a bunch of mental dribbles that I decided to put together to express my love of music that's rattled inside me ever since I was a mere turdler, if not even before. That's all. And hey, in no way is this or any of my writings gonna change the world for the better. In fact, I doubt that a vast majority of the inhabitants of this planet would care one whit about the sounds I'm expressing such deep devotion to. But at least you guys are here which proves one thing that all of the experts and shot callers will never attest to. And that is that you have some pretty hotcha tastes in sound and for that I salute ya (I think)!!!!

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POLITICAL CORNER: my personal opinion regarding President Trump's signing the new budget...boy did he step in it this time! Maybe it's part of some strange endgame rouse he's cooking up but frankly after keeping us all in suspense first saying he would veto it then changing his mind all I gotta say is that he's coming off more like Gerald Ford than he does Andrew Jackson. Not as funny as Ford true, but if he keeps this up he's prob'ly gonna be remembered by his base in pretty much the same way! Too bad because like, who else is there who can really change the gears of the world---other'n maybe Pat Buchanan but he had his chance! And I don't think that Rand Paul 2020 is gonna happen either not that I think that is gonna be any magic cure-all we all so desperately NEED these sad and sorry time!

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THINGS FOUND WHILE LOOKING FOR OTHER THINGS DEPT.: mostly loads of pertinent CLE-related gunch, that's what! Read on and see for yourself just what kind of boffo surprises I came across that you most likely will be eternally grateful to me for showing you thus enriching your otherwise drab existences!

First off, here's a tidbit from SCENE regarding the final Rocket From The Tombs shows. Big trouble with this one is that they got the month wrong.

Right across from that particular plug was a short piece on original Rocket bassist and future country and western comedian Charlie Wiener.

In fact, here's an ad for an early solo Wiener performance at Loose!, which I believe was the former Clockwork Orange.

And howzbout this one for THE BIG NIGHT!!!!

Wonder what this concoction was like? Actually, I'd be afraid to ask!!!

A pre-Rocket-era review from Crocus.

And another good one!

And in closing, howzbout these rare Great Bow Wah Death Band snaps taken a month before the creation of Rocket From The Tombs???

Now  please don't go 'round sayin' I don't do anything good for you!

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ITEMS LISTENED TO (BUT NOT NECESSARILY ENDORSED) THIS WEEK-WE'RE THE BANANA SPLITS (Decca), Deep Purple-FIREBALL (Harvest), Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band-UNCONDITIONALLY GUARANTEED (Virgin), Hawkwind-ASTOUNDING SOUNDS, AMAZING MUSIC (Charisma), Velvet Underground-CHELSEA GIRLS SOUNDTRACK one-sided bootleg LP, Can KOLN RADIO tape, and really not much else.

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Anyway, here's the latest batch of recorded mayhem, all but the first one being donations from the likes of Bill Shute, Paul McGarry and NOBODY ELSE!!!! Yeah, you might think these are slim pickins but I'll bet your mother that one word of schpiel from me beats the entire collection of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY music criticisms ever since the creation of that infamous pooty wiper oh so long ago. Beg to differ?

Frank Lowe-OUT LOUD 2-LP set (Triple Point Records)

It's expensive true ($94 plus postage!) but I wasn't buying ANYTHING ELSE this month, not even bare necessities like Ny Quil or baby aspirin so like, maybe I could splurge whatever I had left on a double-LP set like this and forget any other trivialities at least until the next paycheck, eh?

But was it worth the grandiose amount of moolah I dumped for it?

Well, that might be something I can best answer in twenny years time when I'll really be poor and wasted, but for now I gotta say that this effort seems pretty much the kind of hardcore energy that I was expecting from it and well worth the buckskins spent. So yeah, I think I made a smart move getting hold of this one even if it means starvation for the next X or so weeks.

This previously-unreleased 1974 sesh features Lowe, his sand-blasted tenor and various "small instruments" backed by a pretty copasetic group including Joseph Bowie on trombone, Steve Reid on drums and William Parker on bass. And this quartet soar like nothing since BLACK BEINGS or better yet the infamous EXCHANGE with Rashied Ali (who engineered this 'un) and like, if you thought Lowe was strata on those (as well as next year's FRESH) he sure puts up a mighty wail on these four sides.

I mean, can you stand it? I barely could myself what with Lowe firmly in the post-sixties bag now conjuring up solid shards of atonal madness that might have seemed "unbrotherly" even a good three years earlier. The band is wired and that tension sure can bounce from instrument to instrument as the quartet performs (with Ahmed Abdullah appears on trumpet on the Studio Rivbea live side) some of the more scathing sounds in jazz heard throughout the already tensed over seventies. Really, the energy levels provided here are above and beyond the call of whatever it was in jazz Chick Corea said he was offering us peons when he went all twinky twirly.

Solid gatefold cover with a nice booklet insert...it's a good investment, for your own jazz being as well as for when you're ancient and wanna sell the thing at a grande profit. Not that you would...will this 'un to me, willya?

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Big Star-COLUMBIA CD-r burn (originally on Zoo Records)

Another remnant of that brief Big Star reunion back in the early-nineties, this one featuring all of their famous numbers the group made themselves known to a few aficionados with as well as a few nice surprises that I'm sure brought out the early-seventies fandom in more than a few old turds out there. Y'know, it's too bad that these guys got stuck on a small label like Ardent who really couldn't give 'em the grand push they most certainly needed, but at least we have this fine act to stash into our collection next to other outta-nowhere bright hopes of the day who unfortunately floundered about while Paul McCartney was trying to fool everyone that Wings were the new Beatles. Y'know, acts like the Sidewinders, Jump, Hackamore Brick and Zuno Keisatsu. Look for the expanded edition if you dare.

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Muddy Waters-AT NEWPORT CD-r burn (originally on Chess Records)

As you know I'm not much of a straight-on blues booster, perhaps because I don't have enough hair to let it be long and greasy plus I don't even own a leather jacket or tattered jeans for that matter. But man, I gotta say that listening to the likes of Waters as well as many of the original wave of blooze chooze does help sooth the savage boobies around these parts. Anywah, here's a boffo slab of none other than Muddy Waters live at the Newport Folk Festival in 1960 (or was it the Jazz one?) rolling through his classics as well as a few lesser knowns and for not being a full-fledged fan of the form all I gotta say is...this sure's got most of the eighties/nineties "new music" that I hadda sweat my way through beat all hollow!

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Mind Express-WHAT'S HAPPENING CD-r burn (originally on Dot Records)

If you like exploito psychedelic records created by folk who got their lysergic knowledge through repeated viewings of DRAGNET, boy will you go for this! Everything from "Theme From Exodus" and Mussorgsky to "A Night on Bald Mountain" done up on a Hammond B-3 and Roger Williams-esque piano trills with all of the appropriate sound effects thrown in for that proper bohemian mood. It sure would have made waves with your typical David Susskind audience member. 's funny, but although this platter was aimed at the typical father and mother of us suburban slob types way back when you KNOW they woulda thought of it as nothing more than that disgusting and smelly hippie music no matter how much it was gussied up to their particular musical parameters of taste!

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The Moderates-FETISHES EP CD-r burn

Here's an early-eighties Liverpool group that sounds nothing like the Teardrop Explodes. In fact they sound like nothing of what you thought the Liverpool groups of the late-seventies onward were supposed to sound like. These Moderates in fact kinda come off rooted in mid-sixties British pop moves filtered through early-seventies decadence all tumbled up into that big heap of compost known as alternative music. But they're intelligent and quite conscious of their pop moves enough to make this rather pleasant and not just another art project. Lyrics have a certain sexual charge to 'em and the performance is clean yet still obnoxious enough to pry the average underground rock fan of his precious pences with male/female tradeoff vocals dominating the proceedings. Not bad like a whole bunch of the new unto gnu wave (copyright 1982 Bill Shute) could get at the time.

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Various Artists-NOWHERE MEN VOLUME 4 CD-r burn (originally on LCD Records)

Like with the mid-sixties Amerigan local band phenomenon, there have been countless collections of rare English hard pop rockers that never did accrue the the attention that all of the big names in the biz were getting left and right. Here's but one volume of one of these efforts, and it's a fairly good sampling of some of the under-the-bubbling that was going on over there a good fiftysome years back. Some familiar names pop up, but for the most part this 'un's total obscuro and for a buncha nobodies these guys sure put out some pretty good efforts that, while not exactly earth-shattering, sure make for a better time than Crosby Stills and Gnash ever did. As an added bonus this set ends with a number of recordings by the Crying Shames, produced by Joe Meek no less, who really do some hot numbers including a Dylan cop that really must have rankled the strictly anti-mop top Meek to no end!

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Various Artists-CLASS OF '66 CD-r burn (originally on Wanted Records)

Given alla the down and out woe is me teenage thumpers that appear on CLASS OF '66, ya kinda wonder why the entire adolescent population of the United States and possessions for that matter weren't undergoing daily doses of Paxil like I sure think they shoulda. Well at least these bozos were able to transform their depression into some hotcha recordings that expressed their sorry state in life, and for the most part the resultant singles they managed to inflict upon their home rooms reflect well upon their abilities to communicate utter woe. These tracks are mostly done up by the usual one-shot flopabouts we all like but a few familiar names pop into the selection such as Rochester New York's Young Tyrants and Tony and the Tigers of Soupy Sales' very own kids fame! Sheesh, what did they have to get all bummed out about with such a rich and famous (and funny) dad as he???

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Pete Rugolo-PERCUSSION AT WORK CD-r burn (originally on Mercury/Wing Records)

Former Stan Kenton sideman (and LEAVE IT TO BEAVER music director during its final season) Rugolo does snat with this heavy duty percussion record. Naw, this ain't anything like "Ionization" or any of those Imaginary Landcape things but boffo home hi-fi-styled jazzy workouts that (like I always say) really woulda been a fave of that stereo nut kinda guy you knew when you were growing up. Ya know, the guy who looked like Dennis the Menace's dad and had a den with one of those ultra-expensive set ups he'd never let you go near. For a taste of an old, and much BETTER time, slap this on the ol' Victrola and kick up your feet while the kids are fighting over whether to watch YOGI BEAR or SUPERCAR in the next room.

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Billy Larkin and the Delegates featuring Clifford Scott-BLUE LIGHTS CD-r burn (originally on Aura Records)

Soul jazz instrumentals that might do a certain thingie for you but I frankly find this more of the same old. Of course it's better than anything being promulgated on the radio and tee-vee during these sad 'n sorry times, but for the most part I find myself yearning for the strains of Nurse With Wound for some strange reason. Probably would have made for a fine flea market find during the summer of 1979, a time which copped me more than my fair share of platters and at depression-era wages as well!

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Various Artists-WATERMELON SELFISH PITTMAN BALL CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

This 'un's got some goodies from Mae "Betty Boop" Questel's rendition of "The Codfish Ball" (made famous by endless reruns of old Shirley Temple mooms) to a touching father's day number courtesy Groucho Marx (his "Funniest Song in the World" sure ain't tho...) not to mention this crazed a-Capella comedy number from the Julius Monk Revue regarding Con Ed that comes off real late-sixties/early-seventies New Yawk to these ears. There's also an abundance of jazzy soul stuff from Johny Lewis to Della Reese that helps perk up the ear canals a bit. Personal faves include Jerry Colonna's rendition of "Ebb Tide" not to mention these three tracks from a typing instruction record which has you peck out the pertinent keys to a twenties-era instrumental! Maybe I should take the course just so's I can get these posts out a whole lot quicker'n I am doing now!