BOOK REVIEW! ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS BY STAN LEE (Fireside Books, 1974)

While I'm waiting for the new NOT BRAND ECCH collection to wing its ways to my door I figured I'd bone up on my Marvel history by dragging this book out of one of the dozen or so apple boxes I have filled with over fiftysome years of flotsam I never had the good sense to toss out. Good selection ya made there Chris, for ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS is one of the better ways to re-acquaint oneself with the Marvel Universe, or at least what the Marvel Universe used to be before Stan Lee's megalomania became so convoluted in its attempt to top past accomplishment after past accomplishment to the point where the entire line became a total mess of pretension and feeble attempts at high art that ultimately didn't matter anymore. And at one point I must admit it didn't mean a thing to me either what with the writers and artists falling into the ol' "going through the motions" trap that had turned something that was once an obsession into more flea market sales material to dump on my part, Maybe a bad move then considering all the worthy titles I did part with, but at the time it seemed like the best thing for me to do. And, come to think of it, so did cleaning my genital area with Ajax which only shows just how discombobulated a fifteen-year-old can be.

When this book came out just in time for the Christmas market of '74 it really was a godsend. That's only because by this time both the original an the reprint series issues of the very early sixties Marvel faves (which had pretty much defined what that company would mean to more comic mad kids for at least the next few decades) had long vamoosed the flea market stacks leaving us true fans little of the early Marvel taste to suck on. Oh yeah, there were still the Kirby and Ditko monster/fantasy comics comin' out, mostly with fresh covers in the new Marvel style that fooled neophytes like Brad Kohler into thinking they were brand new spanking fresh fodder for his teenbo fantasies. (And frankly I was fooled at one time picking a MARVEL'S GREATEST COMICS seeing a Jack Kirby reprint and thinking the guy was doing double-duty for the competition while he was also cranking out MISTER MIRACLE, THE FOREVER PEOPLE, THE NEW GODS and JIMMY OLSEN which proves what a stoop I was a shall remain!) But as far as those early costumed hero epics which still seemed so new and fresh even with the Cold War plots and space trip mania a good ten years later---zip. zero, nada, and that made me furious because even at that early stage in life I could tell that 1962 had CLASS and as for 1972...well, I wasn't so sure of that...

So if ya didn't get the originals when they first came out or via the flea market circuit this book was the best opportunity to cop at least a little bit of the glory. It was also the perfect way to gauge the Marvel evolution from the days when it was reflecting the boffo Amerigan cultural lunge of the oft-loathed late-fifties and early-sixties until everything seemed to explode at a time when youth kultur (and comic books were always a humongous part of that) was startin' to earn a li'l respect 'round '66 way. And yeah, a guy like me who only knew about the seventies Spider-Man and the legend of Steve Ditko would be more'n just "wowed" to read that by-now hackneyed character's debut saga!

Even the more up-to-date "modern" efforts that were plunked after the origins in order to pad things else were also a joy not just for doofs like me who could always use another story to help us through the drudgery of puberty itching, but for those serious aficionados who liked to study art in detail and pick at stories for lack of continuity. Back in school we had a NAME for those kind of people...

Stan Lee's intros are not especially helpful but they just might educate a few unaware types who wonder just how these characters were coagulated in his brain. His style is easy enough to digest and fits his crafted persona just right, and it's not hard to see what with his breezy pace 'n posture just how this guy has influenced not only a generation of rock fanzine writers but myself for that matter.

Of course given the success of this Lee just hadda crank out SON OF ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS which duplicated the same format and reminiscences with some of the heroes who missed out on being in the first edition. We'll leave that for a different post, and for a different box of that aforementioned flotsam that I have to comb through one of these days. Besides, I can't find it right now.

ALBUM REVIEW BY BILL SHUTE! DAVID BOWIE-PINUPS (RCA 1973)

My high school (in Golden, Colorado) had a radio station that was piped around the school and also had a low wattage over-the-air signal, which you could get for a few miles north or south, since east and west there were mountains blocking the signal (it was under whatever wattage limit the FCC had on that kind of thing). There was a core of 4 or 5 of us involved with the station. I can write more in the future about what I myself played on my shows, but that's not relevant here since this story is not about me. One thing we all agreed on, though, was that Bowie's PINUPS sucked. I didn't like much Bowie until DIAMOND DOGSand then the LOW/HEROES period through SCARY MONSTERS. I was always one of those people who felt that Bowie was an artistic inferior to people like Lou and Iggy----they were the real thing, while Bowie was to me an art-school APPLICATION/INTERPRETATION of their original ideas, a kind of artistic vampire who fed off the blood of the living.

In hindsight, PINUPS is not that bad, and it allowed Bowie to (in his own words) "shake off" his insufferable early 70's persona, by going back to his mid-60s roots (and Bowie himself made some great singles in the 64-66 period, though I had not yet heard them circa 1974) and led to his first listenable album (IMHO), DIAMOND DOGS. Back then, though, I did not have the detachment to recognize that: Bowie sucked, this was Bowie with all his pretentious mannerisms even though the material was not his usual fare, so by that logic, IT sucked too.

One day, over the lunch hour I was hanging out at the station, as I usually did during my free periods, when one of the other DJ's was broadcasting (Steve V.----who I hope is out there somewhere and doing well). Steve took PINUPS and dragged the needle across it back and forth, WHILE ON THE AIR. The 4 or 5 of us with him in the studio observed it as it happened and laughed and cheered him on. He then put something else on the other turntable, which then aired….I remember him being into Blue Oyster Cult, so maybe he put something by them on….took the scratched copy of PINUPS and put it on a chair and said, "I should take a shit on this piece of shit." We assumed he was speaking metaphorically, and went back to talking with each other, with a few of the crew still eating their cafeteria lunch, that day the infamous “mock filet,” a greyish patty that, to put it mildly, was very much “extended” with some kind of filler, and no one ever figured out what kind of meat, if any, was a part of it and what kind of filler it used—soy, oatmeal, sawdust, who knows.

Then, about 30 seconds later, Steve pulled down his jeans (this broadcast room was about 12' x 12', so we were all right in the midst of the action, including those eating lunch), straddled over the chair, and literally took a shit on the record, a long, thin, firm turd the size of a tube of breakfast chorizo.

He then pulled his pants up (no time for wiping….and in case you’re wondering, he wasn’t wearing underwear), grabbed the LP from the bottom, spread open the cover with his other hand, and put the disc and the hunk of shit in the cover. Once it was in, he pressed the cover on the top, presumably spreading the fecal matter over the album. Without missing a beat, he took the album cover, put it into a supermarket bag which happened to be laying around, opened the studio door, which led out to the school’s main hall, about four doors down from the principal’s office, and threw the bag into one of those round metal wastebaskets seen in school halls and classrooms.

I don’t know that any of us reacted more than laughing at this spectacle, and Steve went on to play more records during his DJ shift, which probably included a chunk of Zappa as I remember his tastes, and I went on to my 1 pm class.

Fortunately, Bowie went on to make albums like LOW, HEROES, LODGER, and SCARY MONSTERS, and I never really gave a second thought to PINUPS until I saw that Chris reviewed the single from the album in his recent SINGLES GOING STROONADIER THAN THEY’VE EVER BEEN column, and I thought I’d share this 45 year old story of a friend’s “review” of the Bowie PINUPS album. It’s a “review” one is unlikely to forget anytime soon….

Well howdy, you doody you! Spendin' the day wallowin' in the bowels of suburban slob heaven....readin' up old fanzines and classy rock scribin' copped off the internet (with a few comics tossed in) while listenin' to some mighty hot sounds that coagulate along with the vibrations in my cranium the way music was meant to. LICK MY DECALS OFF, Cabaret Voltaire and the Plastic People really go well with Greg Shaw's early epistles and other blasts of 1964-1981 information that seems even more pertinent in an era that could care about as much about rock 'n roll as it does about all of that great art and entertainment from the past that is all but forgotten...'cept for a few manic beings out there somewhere and you know who you are or else you wouldn't be reading this!

In many ways I feel like that same late single-digits kid I once was who was usually marooned inna house on some hot Sunday summer PM, only now I have enough backlog of reading and sounds to keep me up 'n goin' when back then all I had was the same five or so PEANUTS paperbacks to read over and over to stave off the ever threatening curse of boredom! If I only had all this music and reading matter back then maybe I wouldn't have spent so much time trying to relieve my frustration in the bathroom! And they wonder why all of those pages in the medical journal are stuck together! But those days are long gone----in fact I now kinda welcome boredom as a respite from everyday high-stresses living, and frankly I now own a whole lot more'n a handfulla paperbacks to keep my mind goin' on those long lonely nights! Sure beats human companionship I'll tell ya!

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Whew---did you survive gay pride month like I barely did? Talk about everyone from Giant Corporations to cutting edge cable television networks taking the air outta just about everything with scenes of lezbo face slobbering as some sorta reflection of a world any human would want to exist in! 'n no, I can't bear to see another rainbow or unicorn again as long as I live given how those once-innocent symbols of things hung in little girls' bedroom has taken on a whole new meaning! All I gotta say is...when the hell're they gonna have FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD MONTH, hunh??? I'd march in a parade while wearin' a jock strap with a few feathers stuck innit for that!

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I always was a guy who could never figure myself out. F'rexample, I can't love my neighbor as myself because frankly, I never could love myself like I could everything from food to the rock fanzines of the seventies to other earthly pleasures I've been in contact with a good portion of my sad 'n sordid life. I couldn't hate myself either....it's like I am me and other people and things are what I reflect off of and I have nil concept of either loving or hating myself no matter how much people tried to ram the concept of "shame" or "guilt" into me. Well, maybe not totally....after all there were many times I coulda killed myself for passing up some now-collectible record at the flea market, but other'n that...eh!

Maybe my own opinions regarding how I stand here in The Universe might just be reflected by a dream I had last Sunday night. It ain't a rock-related one where I discover a record shop loaded with the kind of outta print wares I'd love to possess either (haven't had any of those in awhile!) but one where I am in a building on South Irvine Avenue in Sharon (an old storefront located where the Soul Food restaurant and cash for paycheck buildings are) and I suddenly discover that I have this ability to take total control over people's minds! Just for giggles I mentally summon up a random slew of about thirty people who happen to be nearby, and via my psychic command I tell them to march down to Dock Street and jump off the bridge into the Shenango River! I discover that the final two people I mentally connect with are my younger cousins (who look as if they were still in their teens!) and tell 'em that they better not do what I am commanding them---only doing this because they are my cousins and like I don't wanna get in trouble with the fambly!

The hypnotized ones (mostly a selection of pudgy middle-aged ladies and elderly men with a few black people thrown in) are walking single file down the freeway where they take a right hand turn at Dock (which is strange because the bridge is on the left side) where the bridge happens to be, and emotionless-ly they all jump in. I find some standing in the river up to their waists or chests still blank-faced as others continue to do the lemming act. For some reason boy do I feel powerful.

Sheesh, if only real life could be as pro-Chris as this dream!

***

So what else have I been up to these past few weeks other'n dreaming the same kinda dreams I've been havin' throughout my entire butt pitted life? Well, like I've hinted above I've been re-perusin' my two BOMP! book collections, paying special attention to Greg Shaw's contributions to Jonh Ingham's FRANK'S APA (an item I would sure like to put my grubby paws on!) where Greg Shaw more or less accurately predicts the direction rock 'n roll music would be heading throughout the seventies---not on a mainstream AM/FM rigid categorized musical format but as far as free form true rock ideals go. Funny, but his mentioning about groups taking hard-edged Velvets and Beefheartian modes and mingling Sam the Sham and Red Krayola ideals certainly did flesh out as a good portion of the early Rough Trade roster definitely proved! I must admit that these entries into the APA field from Shaw pretty much influenced my writings not only with this particular post but the SEARCH AND DESTROY effort last Thursday---not forgetting a few upcoming efforts that might just get deleted before they pop up on this blog. You should see some of the bile-spewing and loathsome things I delete en masse because hey, nowadays you can get into deep trouble just for just merely thinking the wrong thing even if you never even thought up the dastardly idea before in your entire life. Not that I'm  shudderin' about these terrible times of "censorship" and "persecution" like those communists did during the fifties...in many ways I couldn't care less. Just wanna stay nice 'n free at this point in time because hey, I have a few years left and I'd like to spend it havin' fun fer once in my life!

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Yeah yeah I know---cut the crap 'n get on with the dancin' gals! Or in this case dancin' records, or something like that! Nice selection I've been enjoying here too, and if it weren't for Feeding Tube, Bill Shute and Paul McGarry maybe we wouldn't be talkin' about much 'cept for this dream I had last night where I try to pawn off a review of a Throbbing Gristle album as a high school English assignment!

Trinary System-LIGHTS IN THE CENTER OF YOUR HEAD LP (Feeding Tube Records)

Roger Miller helms this act, and if you've been following this living treasure ever since Mission of Burma or Destroy All Monsters you'll be more'n adequately pleased over it. Like Burma, some of this sounds rather seventies/eighties cusp...y'know, what this "new wave" was supposed to be all about before the term got co-opted into a glitzy post-glitter monster that ruined a whole lotta things for us, while others tend to slip into what I would call an early-eighties metal grind that really ain't my kind of raw meat but it sure sounds much better'n the real deal that permeated fogged up bedrooms back then. Kinda a roller coaster ride from pleasing to aw cuh-mon!, but I think you will get something outta it because I sure did!

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Eugene Chadbourne-SOLO GUITAR VOLUME 3/13 LP (Feeding Tube Records)

The hypesheet was right! Describing this 'un would be akin to describing one of those really free-thought dreams of mine where plot, scenes, characters and disposition change without moment's notice as Chadbourne clomps, plucks and strews away in a manner that makes all those old tymey comparisons hackneyed and even more boring than I used to get comparing group "X" to the Velvet Underground back in the eighties. A nice cornucopia of free sound that somehow comes together and makes sense as a "whole", even to a hole like you and I. Believe me, this early Chadbourne material is Caroline Records worthy!

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Lou Reed, John Cale & Nico-BATACLAN 1972 CD + DVD (Grey Scale Records)

This was about as much of a Velvet Underground reunion as that one the NME was hyping back when Eno joined up with the Cale/Nico ranks a few years later. At least that had people like Nick Kent jumping up and down spurting paens of pure joy...although I'll betcha that Yves Adrien's heart was all a'flutter over the mere idea of mingling with his rock electrique faves whilst coverin' this major event.

Adrien's nowhere to be seen on the brief DVD which accompanies this disque even though I'm positive that he was the interviewer heard in the audio portion of the direct from tee-vee to recorder audio tapes which had been flying around for ages. That didn't make it here, but it would have been fun to watch even if I know about as much French as Syd Barrett.

The reg'lar portion of this package won't disappoint since it gives us way more of that show than those overpriced European bootlegs did. Even a stickler for sonic blare like myself will admit that the acoustic and tres chic aspects delivers on that seventies decadent intensity that fans of the form were searching for not only in happenings such as this but their New York Dolls and Elliot Murphy platters. Total seventies involvement of a sonic stature in other words. Fair enough representations of old faves, and even that Jennifer Warnes track won't make ya puke.

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Big Jon Atkinson & Bob Corritore-HOUSE PARTY AT BIG JON's CD-r burn (originally on Delta Groove Records)

Recently there have been a whole lotta black people who have been slam-dunking white types for "appropriating their culture". Well, if more blacks were doin' the blues as good as Atkinson and Corritore so on this outta-the-nowhere effort then maybe they would have a case.

A lotta these white guy blooze acts really don't jib my jab...George Thorogood being one example of the wrong way to do it...but when a band like this one (or the Dicey-Ross Blues Band or even the Sugar Blues Band even tho their leader was a black guy backed by two French expats!) gets onto its natural course things are on "go" from here to the Checkerboard Lounge and back.

Hard and authentic-sounding blues that woulda gotten one of those old practitioners of the form to pen eloquent liner notes kinda like Muddy Waters did with the Seeds! I get the feeling some of you readers with more "universal" tastes might like it. But then again probably not.

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Various Artists-FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE CD-r burn (originally on Trojan Records, England)

The way Paul McGarry and Brad Kohler try to "educate" me about the finer points of reggae music you think I'd go totally bonkers what with that ooh-chikka-ooh beat!  Gotta say that I find it heard to believe that tank topped wiggers in mock dreadlocks really do like this particular breed of sound, especially the way these downhome tracks from the Trojan vaults are produced. After all, this is rawer'n even your standard garage-recorded early-sixties single, and the selection here sounds a whole lot like something that coulda graced the charts of the day...I mean, if "El Watusi" could hit, why not some of these?

Bargain bin organ and creaky production sure help, as does the wopadago western theme that maybe proves that reggae, like the movies that these songs inspired, is a Sunday afternoon UHF-TV suburban slob sorta thing after all! DON'T listen to those ROLLING STONE-styled myopics who look at this kinda music through rose-colored socio/political glasses...it's the TRASH that matters!

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The Rip Chords-THREE WINDOW COUPE CD-r burn (originally on Columbia Records)

I was recently musing  that, in this gorgeous summer weather that we're finally experiencing in the tr-county area, that  the evenings are just not the same unless there's some wild, hard, medium-to-negative energy rock 'n roll blaring in the air. Especially around dusk, when it seems that the dark blue sky and the deep humidity could withhold the soaring rhythms and sonic modulations that were laid down by brighter minds fifty years or more back. But alas, no teenage combo in the area blaring an EPI cum "Black to Comm" (with hefty sidesteps into the Red Krayola) for me to somehow discover playing but a few houses down...and yeah, I know that here in the dawn of what will evidently be "The Boring Twenties" I could hope to find much less if anything for that matter.

But as far as summer music and grab you by the cajoobies songs go you can't beat the sounds of surf. Especially these Rip Chords who were not only produced by Terry Melcher but had a better Beach Boys verve to 'em than many of the other surf clingons out there. Good selection from Jan and Arnie's "Gas Money" to a bevy of originals that might have fooled not only mom 'n dad but you as they soak in that Beach Boys harmonic gush. Naturally this would sound a whole lot grand in the evenings during these times given that they might be a good counterpoint to the hard spew I do enjoy, but they're on the same see-saw as far as music to be drilled into your consciousness goes.

Big kudos go to Bruce Johnston and company for making the ORIGINAL era of rock as a truly teenage backbone of existence a whole lot more important 'n those coffee house simps strummin' 'bout sounds of silence and books and poetry to protect them!

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Cliff Davis Sextet-DISCOTHEQUE A- GO-GO CD-r burn (originally on Epic Records)

You probably passed this one up a millyun times while pouring through all of John Kennedy memorial albums and WEST SIDE STORY soundtracks at the flea market in search of that obscure gem. And good thing you did, for this platter ain't nothin' but yet another shill the rubes cash-in that would have fooled Aunt Matilda, but if it fooled you it's time to get another hobby. Soul music without the soul's in store on this cash-in covers album that I guess prove that maybe there was a market for cheezy lounge takes on "Blowin' In The Wind"!

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Mike Curb & the Waterfall-THE DOORS SONGBOOK CD-r burn (originally on Forward Records)

Did I ever tell ya that when Jim Morrison died my cyster asked dad what he thought of the guy. You can just imagine the answer and come to think of it, you can imagine what he would still think after all these years of this Mike Curb take on the then-hot Doors name. It's great to think that at least around here some things never change! And come to think of it, but I prefer these cheezy takes to the real thing which tended to get a little too artistic/pretensioso (not to mention overtly commercial...ever hear the WAITING FOR THE SUN album?) for my own tastes. When it came to Los Angeles all-out rock 'n roll entertainment with charisma and talent it was the Seeds an' ferget about the rest!

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Jonny Chan and the New Dynasty Six-SO YOU WANT ACTION CD-r burn (originally on Dionysus Records)

Hmmmm, maybe there were more of those "garage band revival" acts who were worth their weight in cheeseburgers than I could remember. Not that Chan and his New Dynasty Six are any match for a spate of 1966-'67-era outta nowhere top forty smashes, but this album does that old sound up just right w/o the pretentious look-at-how-authentic-I-am feeling that made me feel as if I were watching some 1969-era Saturday Morning kiddie show. Great take of "Little Black Egg" via "We All Like Peanut Butter" via "Shian Hei Dan".

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Various Artists-INDIANA BEATNIK GRAVEYARD CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Another bee-youtiful collection of stuff I don't think has been listened to in ages, including some cool Amerigan instrumental rock, some cool if cornballus German instrumental rock, some Germans doing really hokey instrumental and vocal music and lots more. Radio ads from mid-seventies Indiana gettin' ya primed for Christmas are really Holiday Spirit toasty warming, while the state's own Harry Weber gives us some hotcha old/new country (talkin' Jimmy Dean of pork sausage fame era, not that dyke who was popular in the eighties!) with not only a song about his home state but a guy named Jimmy Bryan! Now that got my attention piqued because the kid who used to live in back of us was named Jimmy Bryan and like he was the Eddie Haskell to my Beaver! The mere mention of his names makes me wanna run for cover...he was that mean! He told me he actually hadda copy of SPIDER-MAN #1 but he never showed it to me...I think he was bluffin'---howzbout you?

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Oh how the mighty have fallen, and I'm not talking about Bette Midler's tits. I'm talking about the BLACK TO COMM empire which at one time was heralded as being at the forefront of the fanzine explosion of the eighties but today is a mere forgotten footnote in the annals of rock 'n roll screeding! And mister/sister, that massive effort I put out wasn't exactly journalistic or memorable for any bright insight into the music at hand but by gosh, was it sure FUN!!! Relive all of the IQ Zero fun and jamz you missed back then and snatch up one (or hopefully more!) of these fanzines by clicking on the link which will take you to a world of more wonder than an entire leather-bound collection of SUPERDOPE  CEREBRAL HEMORRHOID ever will!

ALBUM REVIEW BY BRAD KOHLER! VECTOR COMMAND-SYSTEM 3 (Hozac Archival Records)

Ex-members of Crime, Joey D'Kaye and Johnny Strike, laid down these dark synth wave tracks in '83 where they languished in limbo 'til now.

Fans of Robert Rental, Robin Crutchfield's Dark Day or like minded acts may want to investigate. There was a brief moment before this kind of sound reached the tipping point and swirled down the commode with the John Foxx and Fad Gadget's of the world and thankfully VECTOR COMMAND are on the right side of the "make it" line.

Side A contains the only two dogs on the album, "Invisible Men" and "Girls" which bring to mind the kind of club where you might find men wearing chaps who do not have horses tied to hitching posts outside.

Side two is uniformly strong, with a cool remake of Crime's only experimental tune "Emergency Music Ward". Several songs would have been perfect to have buzzing in my cranium the time I walked through the Fort Pitt tunnels at 3"00 AM clutching a  forty ouncer right around the time this LP was being recorded.

A two man, predominately synth band consisting of people not named Martin Rev and Alan Vega have some awful big shoes to fill, but like the young towhead who slides his feet into daddy's loafers and clomps about a bit, you can line this one up on the playlist after the second Suicide LP and be in fine fettle.

FANZINE COLLECTION REVIEW! SEARCH AND DESTROY VOLUMES ONE AND TWO (V-Search Publications, 1995)



Words just can't describe just how much I despise the comedy team of Juno and Vale what with their so-poised post-Burroughsian art 'n stick it to the man attitude inna age of Reagan---and beyond for that matter. You know, that cooler'n cool down pat and perfect for the "woke" amongst us pose the two exhibited which somehow made 'em the spokespersons for a generation of pseudo-nambies (or should that be "NAMBLA"s?) whose decayed offspring can be found wherever a just cause or kinda/sorta wrong to be righted may ever be present these sorry days.

Not that I really paid that much attention to the two inna first place, but some time during the eighties/nineties cusp when the duo were making their presence known within the pages of such journals as YOUR FLESH where sycophantic interviewers tossed 'em many a cream puff question, all I could cop from their entire aura was one of total contempt and froth directed at the people in our lives who were actually producing instead of consuming the effects of their toil, and for free t'boot. We're talkin' back during the days when threatened funding for the "arts" or something like that was throwing many an artiste into a dither since said sponge was, for all intent purposes, now gonna go out and look for a real life JOB to support itself while leaving alla that creative work to the free hours they usually spent hustling young boys 'r somethin' like that.

Who knows, maybe the lumpen proles out there did deserve it...after all I guess your average blue collar worker was doin' a whole lotta oppressin' by noting that his taxpayer monies were going to artists who were living off the toil of people who wouldn't be caught dead at any of these "creators'" efforts to show Mr. and Mrs. Front Porch just what a pair of terrible, backwards and knuckle-dragging people they've been throughout their tired existences! But as we know it all worked out in the end...at least these workers were stupid enough to support the arts community even though you know in a millyun years the recipients of all these free dollars would never say thanks!

I remember the big rage, something that really made me eschew the whole lower Manhattan VILLAGE VOICE persecuted artist pose with a blinding anger and washed any last vestige of humanist compassion out of my system for good. The utter audacity of these artists who thought that they were owed a living for being some sort of trumpeters heralding a new generation of shock art Narcissuses could hold no bounds. They were truly of the Nietzschean view that it wasn't "right or wrong" but "can or can't" (that is, creating the concept of "public works" in order to not only bankroll one's lifestyle but gain some much needed artistic cred), and the fact that they were being offensive and in most cases talentless (remember Karen Finley, a "human" I hope dropped off the face of this earth along with not only her yams but the concept art she made her poster girl for "censorship" [right] moolah with) only rammed the idea into me that these artists weren't concerned with any true form of the creative process but only with living it up while fooling the dumbos out there into footing the bill. Sorta like those welfare cheats you used to read about only we're talkin' 'bout the beret and stale doritos crowd who support the "ahts" uber alles!

I know what you're sayin'...but those tax dollars also went to local symphony orchestras and besides, only a sliver of what you pay in taxes actually goes to support such art! Yeah, but can you imagine the roars of outrage from these same free-minded homo superior types if that sliver was directed towards something along the lines of a religious (make that Christian or some form thereof) art exhibit or heaven forbid an installation in support of the Carlist side in the Spanish Civil War? We'd've been hearing about it from Maine to Bizoo and back while reporters from all major television networks sobbed on in unison as Bob Bannister led the entire Gay Men's Health Crisis Choir in a rousing rendition of "Give Peace a Chance"!

Sheesh, that was three good decades back and I still feel the hate. Maybe that's because after all these years nothing was won and the whole concept of everything that was fun and traditional and holy and made up the soundtrack for the entire Amerigan Century has dwindled off into nothing worth keeping, replaced by the spawn of these World-Wreckers who somehow find the proper soapboxes open to them on demand while folks like me (and presumably you) are constantly deplatformed, shuttered aside and, as the current lingo goes, "marginalized" if only for the slightest of perceived transgressions. And yeah, I know it is fun seeing it all go down when the leftist elitist snobs happen to eat each other for going against the norm no matter how ineffectual it may be, but when they get on Catholic school kids in MAGA hats and white people in general (even when nary a Caucasian may be in sight) well, you are gettin' on the fightin' side of me as Merle Haggard so proudly once sang.

Well, maybe I do have Juno and Vale to thank for making me discover the true, unvarnished side of Jesse Helms, and maybe I should thank them for putting out SEARCH AND DESTROY, the fanzine that started the entire RE-Search dynasty at least for a few years before who-knows-what happened to it all (it's not like I've been doin' much googlin' to that fact, nor do I feel like doing so). This tabloid fanzine was a good endeavor though not as good as SLASH, and even though they did steal their name from Eddie Flowers' long-promised publishing attempt which eventually mutated into GULCHER #0 it's sure grand that there was at least another fanzine on the market with its title copped from a Stooges song! And thankfully they can't be faulted for at least keeping their radical mania in check even if it did squeak out on more than a few occasions. I like this only for the music in the same way many chortled over DER STURMER for the sex forgetting the political bent Julius Streicher was most anxious for many a lumpen kinder kid to absorb.

First ish is actually OK in that the overall anger against the powers that be (which not surprisingly turned out to be THEMSELVES) is kept in check with pieces on the Mabuhay Gardens, Crime (!!!!) and the Nuns showing that originally there was some good taste to be found within the editorial ranks. I looked forward to the Nuns piece considering just how hot I these guys were in a post-Stooges/pre-spiky hair high energy vein, though the interview with Alejandro Escovido is troubling...not that his tastes in books, moom pitchers and music (not to mention his musical direction at the time) doesn't reflect the standard BLOG TO COMM reader's somewhat, but his revealing of the fact that he viewed one of those 25 cent adult movies showing two ten-year-old boys graphically doin' in a much younger female (followed by the interviewer's discovery of some explicit magazine entitled FINGER laying on the floor which delves into sex of an even kinkier and disturbing realm) says not only something about Escovdeo but of the interviewer who must agree with the man's, er, tastes given the lack of any form of admonishment. A shame considering just what a power-packed bunch the Nuns were...too bad something like this hadda come along and discolor the entire illusion!

But there are bright spots amid the early radical/porno chic rabble that is snuck in (I mean...Baader-Meinhoff?) and coverage of music that I don't think rates as well in 2019 as it did forty-three years back. Stuff I dug include the two David "Crocus Behemoth" Thomas interviews, one which even gives a shout out to not only the Electric Eels and Milk but an act I never knew about before called Cinderella Airstream, undoubtedly an obscure Peter Laughner band. Additional points go towards the John Morton/Ex-Blank-Ex piece which sure proves that these guys had it onna ball while the powers that be in Cleveland could have cared one whit. The interview with Roky Erickson in #7 shows him down-to-earth and clear in his thinking even more so than he had been in the BLITZ one from a few years later. A talk with Mick Farren was also enlightening since he does come out as being an actual communist who got out of the Army for that sole reason which I gotta say is a lot less strange'n the way chickenhawk Ted Nugent beat the draft!

And there's lots more that should whet any BLOG TO COMMer's whistle from a pretty hotcha Patti Smith interview and Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle coverage to a chat with Suicide (and if you wanna see a rather gross pic of Helen Wheels topless well, yer in luck!), but somehow that seems to be washed away by the dotage given to the likes of various local acts that might have stood your test of time but somehow got tossed to the side on my road trip to punkist perfection. And even at this early stage one can see the ever bubblin' roots of the whole eighties/nineties-bred full froth ire that really wouldn't've gone anywhere had the whole thing not been supported by the same machine that was being raged against for a longer period of time than one can imagine. It was only a few short steps from SEARCH AND DESTROY to MAXIMUM ROCK 'N' ROLL, inverse snobbishness and messianic radical chic complex included!

But the covers to each of these volumes might be the ultimate tip off as to why SEARCH AND DESTROY eventually falters in the midst of my fanzine collection while the competition ran the ol' rings around 'em. Y'see, Juno and Vale were peddling what they called "Punk Culture" which is just as nauseating in the handling of upstart mid-Amerigan teenage music and thrills as "punk community" or antifa can be for that matter. To me culture is nothing but people of a certain background dwelling into their ethnic past even though they might be tens of generations removed from it. Y'know, people dressing up in Eastern Euro garb and doing folk dances even though for all practical purposes those dances, costumes, traditions etc. have nothing to do with them and their new and comfortable existences in the civilized world. Or as Paul Johnson once put it ages back, it's civilization we should be concerned with, not the cultural aspects of existence which ultimately tends to give us some people who just happen to be superior to the rest. And if you think people might look silly clinging to a past they really have nothing to do with, you shoulda seen these eighties/nineties hardcore types trying to take a once-vital music form and disfigure it to fit some crybaby persecution complex mindset worse 'n even the hippies did ages back!

At least some of the bared-wire intensity and high energy that drew many a suburban slob to the cutout racks for those New York Dolls albums they couldn't afford appears within these pages. And although SEARCH AND DESTROY was pretty much a far cry from earlier rock fanzine experiences it did attempt to capture the entire look and feel of the newer garage bands before the sound headed on a variety of directions I doubt even a hundred SEARCH AND DESTROYs could have kept up with. I gotta give 'em credit for that, and yeah I can always skip over the unnecessary bits 'n feces on de Sade and the musical mumblings that might be the talk of the town on other blogs, but I've left behind ages back in search of something more meaty.

In other words, a nice enough go at it, but please be forewarned if you want to keep your sense of MORALITY intact...

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW BY BILL SHUTE! WALKING BACK (1928) starring Sue Carol!

This late-silent youth-rampage melodrama was released by Pathe in 1928, the last year when silent films dominated the cinematic marketplace. Seeing it today, you can realize how many of the 1930’s exploitation films which followed in its footsteps basically added a little flesh and perhaps some dope, and perhaps a tragic ending, but were cut from the same cloth, except on a z-grade level.

The film starts off with a bang, with an odd montage that goes on for a few minutes, starting off with the “cosmic jazz” (paging Sun Ra!) of the universe, then flowing into all kinds of 1920’s images of hedonism and excess, mixed with some World War I footage! After this dizzying montage (kind of like a 20’s version of the montage at the beginning of the 1936 Frankie Darro/Kane Richmond film ANYTHING FOR A THRILL, which is also highly recommended), we then cut to two cars full of wild and crazy teens (probably actors in their mid to late 20’s) careening down some rural road, passing around bottles of hooch while swerving, the characters necking and howling, and one of them strumming a ukulele. One of the cars is wrecked, plunging off the road into a ravine. This does not faze this crew, as they see a farmer’s truck, full of hay and farm implements, and then steal it, gradually throwing all of his supplies out of the back and onto the road. Gee, you’d think you were watching Herschell Gordon Lewis’s JUST FOR THE HELL OF IT or the scene in BLACKBOARD JUNGLE where the delinquent students break the math teacher’s Bix Beiderbecke 78’s! This anarchic action is punctuated by title cards that ask questions like “Godless—or just graceless?” They then all pull into a roadhouse called “Ptomaine Charlie’s—Leap In, Limp Out!” where they drink more and dance the Charleston. A motorcycle cop on the trail of the stolen farm truck, pulls into the roadhouse, the manager calls out for all the customers to beat it, the cops are here, and the young revelers basically trample down the cop as they are exiting, and he is trying to enter. Next thing we see is the middle-class home of lead hooligan “Smoke Thatcher,” and the “plot” begins. And we’re only six minutes into the film!

The parents are what you’d expect from any exploitation melodrama or DRAGNET episode, the Dad out of touch and somewhat pompous with his waxed moustache, the Mom much closer to the boy, but naive and easy to take advantage of and spoiling him (Smoke barely keeps his half-pint flask hidden as he hugs and dances with Mom).

His girlfriend, Patsy Schuyler, is played by the film’s above-the-title star, Sue Carol, who had a good career in the late silent era, but moved into talent management and became one of Hollywood’s top agents, and eventually Alan Ladd’s wife, living into the 1980’s. She plays a flapper in the Clara Bow or silent-era Joan Crawford vein, and she’s really a charismatic dynamo. In real life, Carol was wise enough to realize that the real security in show business was in management—then you’re never between acting gigs yourself and you get a 10% cut of all your clients who are working.

In her brief starring career as an actress, Sue Carol was a protégé of Cecil B. DeMille, who produced this film and also allegedly directed the climactic street-race scene. We tend to think of DeMille today in terms of Biblical epics and spectacles….and of course, Gloria Swanson’s famous line in SUNSET BLVD, “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.” However, in the 1920’s, DeMille’s bread-and-butter product as producer and/or director was sensationalized melodramas such as DON’T CHANGE YOUR HUSBAND, WHY CHANGE YOUR WIFE, FORBIDDEN FRUIT, THE GODLESS GIRL, and VANITY. These paid the bills in between the Biblical epics!

I won’t give away the “plot” of this film, which is jaw-dropping in its distance from any “reality” on any planet I’m familiar with, and the outrageous ending would not satisfy anyone’s sense of “justice,” except for those who feel that connected, upper-class people in their 20’s should get off with a slap on their wrist whatever crimes they commit, while the rest of us should face the expected consequences. Probably no one in the Hollywood community would have found any problem in that! But hey, it’s only a movie!

And as a movie, it’s a wild ride, packing lots of action and drinking and necking and live-fast-die-young youth speeding toward oblivion (but being saved in the final moments with no consequences for their behavior) into under an hour. The editing is fast-paced and has a dizzying rhythm when it needs to, and director Rupert Julian (originally a New Zealander) knows how to create atmosphere and to force you to “see” a scene in an unexpected way. His best-known credit was the silent version of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA with Lon Chaney Sr. His final directorial effort was the early-sound creepy old-dark-house thriller THE CAT CREEPS, which unfortunately is considered lost.

If you like Sue Carol in this, you can see another late-silent of hers, CAPTAIN SWAGGER with Rod LaRocque, on You Tube. Carol also made a number of early sound films and was still fairly active as an actress through 1933. She later appeared as herself in a 1950’s I LOVE LUCY episode.

If a silent 1920’s version of RIOT ON SUNSET STRIP set in some anonymous Midwest town is what you’re craving, you could do worse than to spend 56 minutes of your life watching this for free on You Tube. It’s also available on video, but the You Tube version has the advantage of an excellent soundtrack of 1920’s dance-band 78’s which really help to put the viewer in the same party-fueled world as the characters (all we need as a half-pint flask of bathtub gin!)—much more than the organ score on the DVD that’s available. You’ll feel like shouting “Doo Wacka Doo!”

“Vicious—or just wild?” YOU decide!

SINGLES GOING STROONADIER'N THEY'VE EVER BEEN!

Some of the seven-inchers I've been sampling as of late. Old faves and a few newies in the batch. Take a chance for once you lazy being!

Treponen Pal-"Other Life"/"Solitude" (Gerard Tourier Records)

Haw! I actually snapped this disque up thinking that these Treponen Pal guys were thee same group who released a bunch of hot industrial strength electronic heavy metal records in the late-eighties! Naw, this is another group named after that syphilitic condition who were wallowing about in France a good ten or so years earlier and that, dear pard, is where the coincidence ends!

A-side is total wimp, typical brainless AM at its mid-seventies worst dribble that would appeal to those gals you knew who actually liked the tepid tunes of the day like "Chevy Van" and "Undercover Angel" but you agreed with their musical tastes in the hopes of going farther than first base. Flipster fairs slightly better what with a neo-"20th Century Boy" riff that still doesn't get off the ground but sounds boffo when played against the plug side. Not quite the European experience in under-the-covers rock music that I was hopin' for, but eh!

***

The Roamers-"Be True To Your School"/"Joanne Kay-"Wonderful Summer" (Hit Records)

Here's one I "inherited" from an older cousin, this undoubtedly one of the efforts of some knockoff label that specialized in releasing cover versions of the latest hits for both the dumbos and the tightwads. Ya know, people who didn't want to dish out the full price for the primo cut or best yet were too stoopid to tell the difference, so's they figured that a budget single would still get 'em in good with precious daughter because maybe SHE was such a stoop that didn't know better herself!

The reasons behind my cuz obtaining this does stymie me, because her parents used to get her and the rest of the brood the real deal items alla time! By no means were they penny pinching pikers like the folk I got! But for the price it musta cost them (and since I got it free!) the purpose was served because hey, these "Roamers" sound fairly close to the original Beach Boys (no cigars tho!) while Joanne Kay coulda been a big enuff singer herself had she made the right connections and the right motel for that matter! And ya gotta admit...back when this came out the seventysome pennies it cost for a single was sure a lotta money to pour down a rathole, as my father would still say!

***

Jeri Rossi-"I Left My Heart But I Don't Know Where"/"It's a Mans Mans Mans World" (Local Anesthetic Records)

Rossi's yet another one of those oft-loathed early eighties performers who used to dredge up more'n her share of fanzine-related bile. but I never exactly knew why she was thought of in such a disdainful way. After all, her recordings weren't anything calculated to make a full-blooded rock 'n roll maniac cringe and in fact her neo-Patti Smith cum Lydia Lunch posture sure came off better than some of the armchair boho feminist types around not only then but for many years after. This particular single has Rossi stretching her vocal cords and guitar chords for that matter on a couple of trax that still mingle around in late-seventies dark decadence without succumbing to the fetid post-no wave put on shock that always fell flat on its face. The James Brown cover even has that 13/13 lunge to it and if she was nada but a nth rate copycat as many had pegged her as well, we needed MORE nth rate copycats like her ifyaknowaddamean...

***

Your Funeral-"I Want To Be You"/"Final Abyss" (Local Anesthetic Records)

Another Rossi effort, this time with what I would assume was her reg'lar backing band. An all-gal group too, and boy (girl?) do they make most of those all-femme acts more concerned either with their pudenda or politics sound like the standard eighties above-it-all types they most certainly WERE.  More of that dark neo-goth style that did pop up on Rossi's other effort rears its not-so-ugly head here, yet these numbers are still together enough to the point where you sure couldn't call these babes a Go Gos cheap cash-in for the gnu wave bux! I'd only hate to hear what this woulda sounded like a good five years from its 1982 launch, but I have faith that Your Funeral woulda transcended most of the lame punque political fashion post that ruined the entire genre for ages on end.

***

The Shadows of Knight-"Gloria"/"Dark Side: (Atlantic Golden Series Records)

When I grabbed this 'un up at the Musicland in Niles Ohio way back May 1977 boy was I happy! I kinda thought that bands like the Shadows of Knight and their NUGGETS brethren had totally vanished from the record store scene and here I was actually latching onto this million dollar (or so I thought!) goodie! And it was fantab too, rushing adrenaline into my veins upon first spin with that twangy guitar riff driving that whole mid-Amerigan suburban slob message into me in just the same way those GILLIGAN'S ISLAND reruns did! And hey, if yer a teenbo and that sound doesn't affect you all I gotta say is that you might be ready for that brain pressure reduction surgery a whole lot sooner than you had originally gambled on. Even the bluesy flip was mesmerizing enough too...what a double headed winner that made me feel glad that my mere pittance did got a lot farther than I woulda thunk inna first place!

Oh, and I got a cutout cassette of the first Stooges album that very day which I must admit did NOT affect me in the least! Too muddy with an overdose bass drowning everything out. It wasn't until I heard the album proper that it became a top spin but sheesh, you'd think even a DEFECTIVE copy of the debut Stooges record'd be better than no Stooges at all!

***

Rob Tyner and the Hot Rods-"Till The Night Is Gone (Let's Rock)"/"Flipside Rock" (Island Records, England)

It definitely was pure genius to team up the former MC5 frontman with England's then-upstart punk rockers Eddie and the Hot Rods, and the resultant spew is naturally about as on target as you would expect. Sure Tyner sounds like an older and battered man far from the pushing twenty pseudo-intellectual he most certainly once was, but the results are pretty snappy and don't make you wanna cringe the way fanz of the original Mothers of Invention mighta once they heard ZOOT ALLURES (well, that was the one that did it for me rather well!). Kinda strange tho---if the entire Tyner/Rods meeting was arranged by the NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS howcum SOUNDS's own Giovanni Dadomo's cyster (and well known photographer in her own right) Eve's singing back up on the thing?!?!?

***

Bob Dylan-"Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You"/"Country Pie" (Columbia Records)

Not bad a-tall Dylan single that shoulda done better than the mid-reaches of the charts. Kinda bounce-y swinger/songwriter approach that is fair enough in the fact that I could even compare it to Elliot Murphy (something I prefer to do when measuring up solo guys with rockist chips on their shoulders). Flipster's once again one of those "double entendre" things that would have gotten you into a lotta hot water had you submitted this for English class...t'is still a good number from a guy who I can't figure on how much I hate him until I hear something like this then I like him until I hear something else that makes me hate him even more!

***

The Box Tops-"Sweet Cream Ladies Forward March"/"I See Only Sunshine" (Mala Records)

Another one I inherited from my cousin proving that she had a whole lot more taste in the music department than some of the records I got outta her collection would have attested to. Alex Chilton proves his worth even when under the heavy reigns of the record industry on the smooth Southern soul track that I'm surprised didn't hit as big as the other 'uns. Maybe the song was kinda...y'know...dirty what with the title and all. The flip should have been the side to hit tho with its smooth mid-south country soul style. Another boffo effort from Alex Chilton and company long before he became that cult figure that nerdy altrock types look towards as if his magic would ever rub off on their geeky essence.

***

The Village Stompers-"Washington Square"/"Turkish Delight" (Epic Records)

This single really dredges up the WAY BACK memories since I used to spin this up at my cousin's place where they had a small record player in their basement rec. room, and me and him used to walk around the room while it played because we thought that's what they did on AMERIGAN BANDSTAND. Sheesh, those banjo strains sure make me wanna revert back to age three (which is an easy thing for me to do---no kiddin'!) just so's I could relive a part of my childhood that was rather fun and exciting given all the opportunities us ranch house kids had! Or at least more exciting than anything that's happening these days! The flip's a dixieized version of "Hungarian Rhapsody" that sounds fine to me even if woulda made your 90-year-old gramma upchuck her Geritol---sheesh, who sez 1963 was a lousy year for music anyway???

***

Ray Charles-"In the Heat of the Night"/"Something's Got to Change" (ABC Records)

An expected-as-usual hot single from Charles long before he didn't have to stoop so low as to record "Ameriga the Beautiful" (even though his take has more verve to it than any jingoistic paens heard from the eighties on). The theme to the moom pitcher of the same name's probably way snazzier than the actual thing (never did see it!) with its moving groove, while the flip goes to show you that even co-author Billy Preston was put to some good use in this world. (Even though you could just tell he was only hanging out with Charles and the Beatles in order to further his own comparatively snoozoid solo career.) I guess Charles was one guy who really deserved getting all those tee-vee roles and commercial endorsements even if I always thought those voice overs of his were actually done by keen imitators!

***

David Bowie-"Sorrow"/"Amsterdam" (RCA Victor Records)

Only Bowie could have turned the McCoys' track into martinis and munchos mingle music for the better off amongst us. Makes me glad that I sat out the PIN UPS album all these years. Somehow I do cozy up to his take on Jacques Brel's "Amsterdam" even though I never did like that dirty Frenchman's work because well...he was a sicko. Still, these sorta solo acoustic passionate plods can hit 'cha in certain ways and believe-it-or-not but "Amsterdam" does have a certain thrill-chill to it that makes it almost worthwhile. A definite keeper that I'm gonna stick in my collection right next to Arnold Corns.

***

The Wipers-ALIEN BOY EP (Park Avenue Records)

These guys were pretty much the CRITICS DARLINGS back inna eighties, which just might be one reason why I had shied away from their music for the past three or so decades. But hey, as Aesop's son said, "Time wounds all heels" and maybe now I can settle back and listen to their music without being reminded of Gerard Cosloy!

Anyhoo, Hans Jurgen Klitsch was right when he was callin' the Wipers the best bunch he's heard since the Pink Fairies...after all both groups had the three-piece approach down pat as well as a driving force that seemed absent in the gnashing of teeth that was passing for punk rock during those rather feh days. And the Wipers also had a good extra ten years of rock 'n roll education to absorb which made 'em one of the brighter spots in the under-the-counterculture of the day which was really beginning to fail on all fronts.

This is their first, or one of 'em, back when they were on Park Avenue Records in the Pacific Northwest long before that area became that hippydippy punque anarcho-sissy headquarters of these here United States. If I were payin' more attention, I'd kinda wonder whatever happened to 'em.

***

Vox Pop-"Cab Driver"/"Just Like Your Mom" (Bad Trip Records)

Neat-o outta-the-way rarity from the same label that gave us the Angry Samoans, featuring the same kinda heavy metal disguised as punk rock that the Samoans proudly featured during their early years. It's got such a great approach to the higher end of ear plummification to it that I'm even tempted to dig into the ol' collection to find that 12-inch single on Mystic Records with Paul Cutler flashing his bod for the sake of all their homo fans. It's one of those records I'm glad I glommed onto before it skyrocketed in price, and if you weren't as smart as I was and shall remain maybe you could hear this via the KILLED BY DEATH series (I'm sure there are a few of those in your collection and if not---why?).

***

Third Rail-"It's a Surprise"/"Take That"  (Long View Records)

Third and I believe final Third Rail single with Richard Nolan and a new group of Rails playing a more pop-oriented rock that don't sound much like their first two releases! An interesting change with synthesizer added in to modify things I guess, and frankly I sure wouldn't mind hearing even more Third Rail if the material I've experienced so far has been that good. Maybe a compilation of tracks from the band's earliest days until the end would be most welcome, complete with annotated notes and all those great things we've come to expect from the few companies still willing to dish out these archival wonders to the few remaining rock 'n roll droolers that are left of this once-high energy planet of ours.

***

The Naked Cage House Band-"Track Dog"/"Rolling in Clover" (Shoestring Records)

For all intent purposes this is a Third Rail offering, released in the otherwise dark and dismal year of 1988 when for the most part the rabid sounds and ideals of the guttural seventies had been washed away by the geeky goo passing as music. Or so I was led to believe---Nolan sounds as strong as ever here and although I can detect a number of instances where the music might be veering off into that flashy new-unto-gnu wave style this still beats much of the big-time amerindergroundindie stuff that I had the mispleasure of listening to at the time. Sheesh, if I had only known that Nolan was still up and about at the time maybe I wouldn't have been so down in the dumps about the state of rock 'n roll as prefab showy tee-vee glitz...blame the fanzines, not me kid!

***

The Cleveland Cuties-"If I Only Had the Bomb"/"Could She Love Me", "Pregnant Molly" 7-inch EP (Precious Records)

Dunno if this actually is the first self-produced independent record to come outta Cle as I've been told, but if it is the whole DIY ethos sure got off to a good start. The Brian Sands/Milk/Brian and the Juniors axis comes together (without Brian) to create some local Power Pop the way it shoulda been done, with loads of hard riffs, punchy melodies and (best of all) a sense of humor that could only come outta the land of Ghoulardi. Side "A" has Al Globekar not only crunching out some top leads but singing about his desire for true justice via the a-bomb, while on the flip Dennis Carleton sings modern love songs that I don't even think Jonathan Richman woulda thought up! And future Juniors drummer Mac Chafer bangs his way through the whole thing with perfect aplomb as well!

***

The Dillards-"Reason to Believe"/"Nobody Knows" (Elektra Records)

You probably only know the Dillards through their various ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW appearances as the Darling boys, but later on they did have quite a country rock career not only when they were hangin' out with various ex-Byrds but on their lonesome as well. The a-side has the boys tackling a Tim Hardin track and doin' it rather fairly well---maybe if they cracked a fart or two it woulda been more authentic. Flip is an original that, like the plug side, has that late-sixties gloss that actually gives this song a commercial edge that mighta pushed 'em over the "made it" line an' who could blame 'em! Nothing shattering, but it still has a "twing" to it that makes the thing a "keepie"!

***

Cabaret Voltaire-EXTENDED PLAY EP (Rough Trade Records, England)


This particular platter sure brings up a whole lotta memories, not only of the joys of receiving a new Systematic catalog but wonderin' where I was gonna get alla the money to pay for the records I oh so dearly wanted! This ain't exactly the kind of thing I went for back when the seventies/eighties cusp was up and about, but years later I can easily see just how these not-so-addled electronic rock fans merged the best of the late-sixties rebellion in sound (I'm talking Velvet Underground, not those putrid examples oft banded about by elderly enemies of music as that epitomized everything that was wrong with Teenbo Ameriga) with the new cyborg anti-humanism that was so drastically needed and, come to think of it, still is. Too bad Cabaret Voltaire eventually ended up as yet another post-disco dance band because if they kept up with what they started out with...whew!

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! THE TWO GLADIATORS, STARRING RICHARD HARRISON, MIMMO PALMARA AND GUILIANO GEMMA! (1964)

These sword 'n sandals spectaculars tend to get me even more bored than a hillbilly at a dental hygiene seminar, but I gotta say that this particular pelicula was a real wowzer. True, there area few snoozeroo parts here and there, but right when you're ready to get up to do a number one the action builds up into an exciting fight complete with all of the clanking of sword onto shield that your li'l ol' heart can stand. And I do hope you have a suitable enough stain remover for your comfy chair.

Amerigan ex-pat Richard Harrison stars as Lucius Crassius, a luckier'n you'll ever be warrior who just happens to be the long-gone twin brother of the new Roman emperor, a sadistic sicko by the name of Commodus (played by Mimmo Palmara...what kinda human'd name her kid "Mimmo" anyhow?), a former gladiator himself who happens to be even crueler'n the likes of Caligula and he sure lets you know it in the first scene when he shows no mercy to an easily defeated punko who not-so-surprisingly enough predicts Commodus' own fate. Maybe I shoulda put a "Spoiler Alert" somewhere above, but frankly I know that NONE of ya are gonna wanna watch this kinda film anyway so why bother?

Lest you think that this is, by my mere mention of Caligula, is gonna be a moom pitcher anywhere nears the likes of the Bob Guccione-helmed effort of a few decades back don't worry. No tied up foreskins or golden showers are to be seen, but you do get a hefty amount of All-Amerigan fun time violence that you used to get on Saturday afternoon tee-vee until the moral superiors around us decided to make even that as boring as their own tired existences! 

Thankfully this pitcher plays it pretty straight without the usual dullsville sidesteps---even the brief romantic angle gets squashed by a confrontation so's you li'l boys don't hafta get sick like you would with similar efforts. So if you're an action-packed kid who is hotcha for thrills galore and doesn't want that much to get inna way of alla those gruesome jabs and moans well...if this were on tee-vee some rainy afternoon and your cyster was watching Shirley Temple on the other station you have every RIGHT  to bash her skull in so's you could watch something that you'd really like 'stead of all that prissy mewl that everyone wants to force down your throat!

It doesn't take much to please me. Just gimme a back of Cheetos (fried to a crackly crunch) and a glass of Hawaiian Punch and I'm in suburban slob heaven. It also helps if there's something great onna tube like an old Hanna Barbera cartoon (hey Boomerang, what's wrong with ya???) or some soul-stirring music on the boom box or what passes for my stereo system (wouldja believe I NEVER owned a proper stereo with big speakers and an amplifier 'n all that?---it was always a turntable run through a beat up boom box or something even more primitive when it came to living high off the hog on depression-era wages for me!). But like Ted Berrigan once said, I'm doin' all right!

Thankfully the big joy in my life these days is watching ROUTE 66 reruns being shown via FETV! Yeah, I sure wish they were being shown on a local tee-vee station for FREE 'n all, but at this late date in life (mine, at least!) why should I complain! Anyway, it's sure a hoot (and brings back old memories of the days when Chevrolet would sponsor the show what with those commercials showing the new models placed upon some desert plateaus in a most striking way) what with Martin Milner and George Maharis drivin' about from place to place and getting into all sortsa early-sixties type adventures without succumbing to that whole EASY RIDER looking for Ameriga headiness that eventually seeped its way into television programming as the years rolled by.

These hold up a whole lot better'n any of your doubters would expect. In fact, if I were well-versed in various eighties-nineties hour long dramas (wouldja believe the last one I saw was an episode of ST. ELSEWHERE or two? ---and that was bad enough!) I'd say the ROUTE 66 holds up much better'n any of those would had I been aware enough to judge them. These episodes are sleek, to-the-point and like NAKED CITY or BEN CASEY (two series they oughta bring back and like now!) you can easily get sucked in because even though this is all tee-vee and make-believe, these shows seem to fit into life the way YOU see it more'n all the overly preachy and sanctimonious programming these past few decades ever could. It's sure great to know that television programmers and advertisers were aware that there were people living in between New York City and Los Angeles back then.

Still awaiting the Youngstown Ohio one with Darrin McGavin...that should bring back a few memories of turdler-era trips back when all the mills were up and runnin' and given the sounds and billowing smoke that area could be a rather scary place for a three-year-old!

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As yew-kan-cee, there are quite a few goodies for us all to slip into this week, and I ever tried my best to correct all the typos which that anal retentive nitpicker Brad Kohler seems to spot out with little if any effort! I guess goin' through the corn and picking out all the caterpillars at Cash Market will do that to a guy. Anyhoo, enjoy! Thanks again go to Bill Shute, Paul McGarry and Feeding Tube for the freebees, and to me for having a pair of ears and something substantial in between 'em to discern what is goin' on within those grooves!

Mozzaleum-DARK RIDE LP (Feeding Tube Records)

Mozzaleum? Isn't that the place where all dead pizzas go??? All funnin' aside, this is yet another fear-packed Feeding Tube record, ever so tastefully packaged (with beautiful orange puke vinyl) featuring some of that sonically jacked off music that this label is particularly known for. Sometimes I am reminded of a pretty messed up soundtrack to a moom pitcher that might be a little too weird for my tastes, while others have a sorta rock chug with electronic distortions that would madden the most serene of STEREO REVIEW subscribers in their knotty pine dens. It is hard to put into letters exactly how fringe on one hand yet straightforward rock-y this effort more certainly is.  If you go for the freakier aspects of that newer-than-new under-the-underground style of soundscapading well, you probably wore your copy out by now!

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Nothing On Semble-CORNERS AND THEIR PLACES cassette (Feeding Tube Records)

It would be fitting that this effort was released on cassette. After all, everything you can say about Nothing On Semble seems to be based in that decade of decades we know as the seventies what with the archaic electronic keyboards and the overall performance which sounds like just about anyone USA's bedroom recordings that just happened to be heard outside of their own small clique. It ain't exactly the kinda progressive rock spew that was prevalent then, but some of you might think so what with the neo-Floydian chording, import bin classical touches and occasional buzzes that'll have you thinking krautrock before you even realize it.

Actually it's much better'n that because even with the mellotron strings and ARP intrusions there seems to be less'n the usual Yes-styled goop to contend with. It does come off headier than the English classical schmooze which is undoubtedly why this works a whole lot better on my system. Maybe even like Floyd right after Syd got the boot. But those vocals...sheesh!

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The Plastic People of the Universe-TROUBLE EVERY DAY CD (Globus Music, Czech Republic)

I know most of you readers could care one whit, but I have TREMENDOUS RESPECT for the Plastic People and other under-the-underground Czech rockers not only for their ability to play rock 'n roll as it was meant to be in the early-seventies, but also for standing up to the EVIL powers that be when it mattered most. Yes, the Plastic People were fighting the GOOD CAUSE and suffering tremendously for doing so under circumstances that would have most of you pampered pudendas runnin' home to mama wif big baby tears in your eyes if Big Government threatened you in the same way.

Here they are in concert twixt 1971 and 1977 doing nothing but covers, eight by the Velvets, three by the Fugs and one by Zappa, and boy do they do 'em PROUD! True you can laff at the unintentional lyrical bloopers and jumble ups but if you do you are nothing but a SNOB no better'n those prog wags who complained that the Kingsmen couldn't play their instruments.

Overall the performances are top notch, about as good as any local Amerigan band from the same time or maybe  even better, and the sound is surprisingly clear as well in case you're a stickler for such things being the sophisticated one you mostcertainly are. You don't just get the feeling that you are listening to something clandestine, but something that can transcend time, age, maybe even your mentality and bring back all those early latent memories of just why you chose to listen to rock 'n roll for your own personal soundtrack instead of as for mere backdrop to something less stimulating. Rock As A Way of Life indeed!

 Extra kudos go to vocalist Paul Wilson for getting the perfect Lou Reed inflections on "Sweet Jane" and "Some Kinda Love", something you never did hear those acoustic mimeographed missies with their heavy duty makeup get down pat.

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Various Artists-THE KNIGHTS OF FUZZ --- THE GARAGE AND PSYCHEDELIC MUSIC EXPLOSION, 1980-2000 CD-r burn (originally on None Records)

Remember back when it seemed that each and every rock 'n roll revved fanzine of the eighties devoted more'n just a few lines to the up-and-comin' garage band revival? Well, considerin' what little else was goin' on during those MTV-drenched days what else would you expect! This collection of various tracks from the Voxx Records archives and elsewhere proves that the entire movement was a whole lot more'n just cheap copycat approached to past accomplishments...much of this holds up rather well even here in the dark reaches of the late-teens and even those acts we thought a little too pretentious with their Sean Bonniwell poses sure sound a whole lot PURER that I originally believed. Maybe it's time I gather up all those old promos that are wasting about in the collection and give 'em a real run through one of these days! Yeah...RIGHT!!!

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Oscar and the Majestics-NO CHANCE BABY CD-r burn (originally on Sundazed Records)

I know...even when """""I""""" think of Gary Indiana I think of that one family with the slavedriver father and the whole slew of children who were terrified into becoming one of the bigger music sensations (for worse or worse-r) o'er the past few decades. But there was more to Gary Indiana such as this group whose boffo local singles (and more) were collected on this neeto disque much to the satisfaction of any true six-oh collector and aficionado. Oscar and the Majestics had that '66 pounce down pretty good---and true some wags might consider their entire reason for existence to be mere downer groove tones that most every other batch of high stool sophomores were layin' down at the time, but I find these guys bared-wire intense enough for my own tastes when their teenbo dander gets rowled up enough. Just don't try chucklin' when you hear the background vocals on "I Can't Explain"!

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Waylon Speed-HORSESHOES AND HAND GRENADES CD-r burn (originally on Crow on Ten Records)

More post-Byrds/Burritos-styled country and western-tinged rock 'n roll that, in this case, sounds rather authentico yet leaves this soul a li'l bit more'n addled. I'm sure that more'na few students of the form could wax eloquent (or wax bikini lines for that matter) over this and while I find the numbers snappy and quite well crafted I gotta say that I don't think this one quite measures up to previous country-unto-rock and vice-versa efforts from past practitioners like Gram Parsons on down. Well, at least it beats all holy heck outta the Eagles and for that Waylon Speed ought to get ALL THE GOLD STARS IN THE WORLD!!!

(Note to Paul who sent this---are the final tracks on this disque Waylon Speed or a totally unrelated halfway-decent hard rock act? Those instrumentals sound rather non-country if ya ask me and like, some of it is pretty good in its own dull thud way.)

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Frolk Haven-AT THE APEX OF HIGH CD-r burn

Future Police drummer Stewart Copeland's presence on this self-produced spin better not deter you from hearing this, for this album is just about everything I go for as far as home-made neo-jazz avant rock music goes! Low fidelity free splats of sound give way to more than halfway decent riff rock that has the same self-produced feel as the White Light album with its stilted yet driving crunch of an approach. It sounds exactly like what I would imagine a buncha kids with the instruments and the money not forgetting the hard into the whole under-the-underground mindset to have put out back 1973 way, to little or no huzzahs of course. After hearing it you'll wonder why it went from this to "Don't Stand So Close To Me" within the span of a good seven years.

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Various Artists-EASTSIDE STRANGER JUDGE DEL-SATIN CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

If Bill were in my presence he'd get a nice swift kick inna pants for slapping on that adolescent art project music known as "Unrest, Work & Play" (Beefheart would weep!) but the Paul Revere and the Raiders "Judge" ad was swell as were the Eastside Kids who unfortunately did not have Scruno in their ranks at the time. The skiffle thing and Monkees HEAD ad didn't quite fit in with my mood while the Scabs' punk thing had some good imitation of the biggies' spirit but, as expected, was done better before. Overall (and that includes the early-sixties gal singer flop) it passes the mustard, but I dunno if I'd put any on my sausage sandwich.

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I've been trying to unload these BLACK TO COMM back issues for a longer time than you can imagine, and you can just bet your own bottom buck that you don't have all of the thoughtful, insightful and downright entertaining issues of this mag that you need in your collection! Instead of betting that bottom dollar, how about sending it in to me (along with a few more bottom dollars!) for some of these award-losing and generally scorned mags that, given the Bizarro Rock World we live in, proves they're good!