Quantcast
Channel: BLOG TO COMM
Viewing all 1204 articles
Browse latest View live
↧

Article 1

February 21, 2015, 12:10 pm
$
0
0
Yeah I will admit it...this winter is getting me more twisted inna guts what with alla the snow we're havin' as of late (actually, the past two months!) but considering how I can get uptight 'n bothered even during the sunniest days of summer maybe I shouldn't complain.

Then again, if there was something worthwhile to gab about  in this opening schpiel maybe I wouldn't have to stoop so low as to bring up such a mundane subject as the weather! Well, maybe I could mention the recent passing of Leslie Gore if I wanted to be current events up to date 'n all about it, but given the fact that all of those rumors Don Fellman told me about her were finally found out to be true I'm sure you once-adolescent boys back 1963 way would be mighty disappointed to discover that the only man she ever kissed really was her daddy! Sometimes its best not to know about the more disgusting things in life though, y'know???

Whaddeva, here are a buncha FRESHER'N YER MOMMY'S RAG things I gotta listen to this week which I believe fit in snug-like as far as BLOG TO COMM ass-thetics go, and if you don't particularly care for this batch o' bile may I suggest a variety of hot and moist orifices that you'd most be comfortable snuggling your more-cultured-than-thou face into?


Henry Grimes/Roberto Pettinato/Tyshawn Sorey/Dave Burrell-PURITY CD-r burn (originally on Sony)

It's amazing to me that such a powerful, life-reaffirming release such as this could have been recorded and released during the definitely post-everything year of 2011 but it has, and perhaps it sounds as good as it does because two old hands (Dave Burrell and Henry Grimes) are part of this rather on-edge band. The newer players (reedist Pettinato and drummer Sorey) aren't slouches either, and it's sure great hearing the ghosts of the original free era crash into newer loftier form making for a sound and attitude that you thought would have been BANNED a good thirtysome years back! Coltrane cum Ayler lines collide with Taylor piano sprees, and Grimes' bass playing is even freer than on the stuff he did during his ESP days if you can imagine that. A verifiable ear-opener for those of you who still sniffle uncontrollable tears of despair due to the demise of Dee Pop's Freestyle Series oh so long ago.
***
Figures of Light-THE NEBRASKA SESSIONS CD (available via CD Baby)

Gee, more new Figures of Light recordings for our rockist regurgitation! These particular tracks were recorded in '07 and consist of the first Figures tracks laid down since the original group capitulated, and although we've heard them numbuhs before and they don't sound much different than the ones that came out on those Norton albums I kinda like the idea of these Figures of Light releases popping up onto the under-the-counterculture landscape faster'n herpes chancres on Madonna's lips. Another one to plop on the pile of teenage mid-Amerigan slop that always seemed to fit in with the Cheetos and MR ED reruns more'n Lady Caga ever could.
***
Hot Poop-DOES THEIR OWN STUFF! CD (Radioactive)

I had a chance to buy an original copy of this back inna eighties and for a pretty durn good price too. I passed. Well, back then I was extremely careful with how much cash I was tossin' around considering that I was not only supporting a modest lifestyle but a failing crudzine at the same time. Greg Shaw's rather iffy review of it in an old issue of BOMP! might have also colored my purchasing direction, and considering how I hung on every word and punctuation mark of the guy what else would you have expected me t' do...plop down the same amt. of spare change for Venus and the Razorblades???

But gosh it all, this Radioactive reish is boss enough to make me regret my twenny-plus-year-old rejection. Not the hippoid Zappa jagoff I had expected it to be, HOT POOP DOES THEIR OWN STUFF! is one of those bril amalgamations of everything right with sixties rock combined into a nice fun package that really does fit in with the rest of your sixties/seventies gems. Echoes of everyone from the early Flamin' Groovies to ? and the Mysterians, Yoko Ono, the Fugs and a whole slew of olde tyme faves can be heard here, and although the insert is slim on info (no track listings even!) you can tell by the mere sub-basement rock feeling (and the fact that one of their tres-Rivieras sounding numbers is titled "Dance to the War") that this is a radical rock album that's certainly NOT made for the Billy Jack peace 'n love crowd who STILL blubber over the People's Park fiasco!

A mighty good 'un that, despite the overt hippoid mentality portrayed onna cover, ain't gonna be one of those love generation relics that your fresh outta college third grade teacher used to spin in order to boost your single-digit consciousness. This is the gritty, dunce-y and downright teenagiest (in the best Golden Age of Baby Boomerism way possible) platter I've heard in a few years and if you don't like it you'll probably be in the majority. But then again what else is old out there anyway?
***
The James Marshall Human Arts Ensemble-AUTONOMOUS OBLAST CD (Freedonia Music, available via CD Baby)

I wish that the blab about this recently-unearthed Human Arts Ensemble Cee-Dee had gotten out a whole lot sooner'n it did...this thing's been wallowing around in the Cee-Dee ether since 2008! But it was worth the wait even though this isn't exactly one of the more top notch Human Arts Ensemble platters extant...kinda same-y if you ask me. Or maybe its the diarrhea in me talkin', but then again I'll take a talk from my Number Two over that of most rockbloggers anyday!

Not exactly a Human Arts Ensemble release...after all, where is Charles "Bobo" Shaw who I always took as the main constant and leader of the aggregate...but it's free enough for me. Luther Thomas along with Marshall squonks some good saxophone and the band really builds up to an amazing crescendo when they all start  wailing away on a bunch of tin flutes, but next to the funkified might of FUNKY DONKEY or any of those Arista/Circle platters this doesn't quite sate the way a good seventies post-new thing free play should. More listens are definitely in order...will keep you updated a la Lester Bangs slamming then praising to the rafters everyone from the MC5 to Amon Duul!
***
Various Artists-EARLY INDIANA PUNK & NEW WAVE 2-CD-r burn set (originally on Time Change)

O'er the years I have come to the agreement along with Crocus Behemoth (see BACK DOOR MAN interview) that punk rock as a viable form of energy distilled into sound pretty much peaked with the Stooges (though I would toss Rocket From The Tombs, the Electric Eels and quite a few mid-seventies post-Stooge aggros into the equation) so maybe a collection of various Indiana-era punk and new unto gnu wave acts wouldn't appeal to me like you thought it would. And in some ways the groups gathered on these two platters don't jive with me the same way any Bangsian-bred mid-seventies rock credo you can come up with does. But a good portion of this does register with my rather discerning sense of rockism, if only slightly. Too many swipes rather than emulations here true, but considering what else there was on the listening frontier these tracks rock out a whole lot more'n the local FM station blasting REO and Journey as if they were making some great rockin' statements to the sopored out amongst us in youth identification land. Best bands, the Gizmos and MX-80 Sound as if you didn't know.
***
The Laughing Dogs-LIVE AT CBGB'S CD (available via CD Baby)

Yes, one of those groups that nobody liked has released this boffo collection of various live tracks recorded where else but at CBGB. One show's from '77 and the other's an '84 reunion gig, and the band ain't that bad at all. The Dogs perform some rather goody mid/late-70s AM pop rock here (the kind that was in such short supply once disco began overrunning things worse'n Hitler in Poland), and as with many of the group's fellow LIVE AT CBGB's compats you could easily have seen them get a hit or two with a little more expert production and perhaps a few choice appearances on MIKE DOUGLAS. The stabs at humor (THREE STOOGES, WIZARD OF OZ) might seem rather high school-level duncitude to some, but I really liked the part where the Dogs starts riffing on JOHN LENNON/PLASTIC ONO BAND to rather sarcastic effect, and that's complete with Janov-inspired yells and gurgles!
***
Cracker-FROM BERKELEY TO BAKERSFIELD CD-r burn (originally on 429 Records)

A few surprisingly seventies retro-pop tracks are smothered by bad neo-oldish cum new country, alternative singer-songwriter schmooze and a way too modern approach that doesn't quite satisfy this oft jaded turd. If this in fact is the end result of the Bakersfield sound I could easily see the spirit of Buck Owens coming back to do some britches burtin' hee-hawin' mulekicks on this Cracker guy's bum. When you get down to it this ain't nothin' but a systematic symptomatic excuse for the continuation of old modes well into an era that in no ways deserves anything the beauty of the oft-loathed past presented ages back. Paul, what's gotten into ya anyway (and don't say Seagrams!).
***
Various Artists-GREGOR AND HIS EASY PEACEPIPE DREAMS CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Hmmmm, lotsa furrin stuff here. Stuff like the Bounties, Los Dukes, the Medussas, Los Polares and Okay Temiz. Sheesh, with records like this I kinda felt like I was walking around Youngstown's St. Elizabeth's Hospital listening to what alla the doctors there play in between cutting open the guts of octogenarian pensioners. Some of it is good enough mid/late-sixties rock I will admit, but most of it has that same continental reserve that you could find in just about any episode of GUTEN TAG.

Of course there is at least one Anglo-ish bit here for those of you wanting something closer to home, and let me tell you you haven't LIVED until you've heard Anthony Newley singing "Within You Without You"! Almost as heart-wrenching as Twiggy's rendition of "In My Life" or any Olivia Newton-John Beatletune you can think of! Other'n that you'll be transported to the faraway sixties European/Middle Eastern pleasure spot of your mind, and you don't have to worry about anybody withing the proximity of your nostrils not having bathed for nigh on three weeks!
↧
Search

Article 0

February 25, 2015, 4:58 am
$
0
0
BOOK REVIEW! LOVERS OF CINEMA, THE FIRST AMERICAN AVANT GARDE 1919-1945, edited by Ian-Christopher Horak (The University of Wisconsin Press, 1995)

Ever since I first discovered the concept and ideas behind the avant-garde (soon to be "underground") film via some tee-vee comedy skit where a skeptical Alan King was pitted against Paul Lynde as an Andy Warhol knockoff, I must admit that I've had the compulsion to wanna know more and more about them silly things. And rilly, if I had this book in the palm of my hands 'stead of something else back when I was a mid-teen mutant I might have been driven to the local art house (too young to drive myself) if only to see some of these self-produced wonders which certainly woulda had a bigger effect of me then than they do a good thirtysome years later.

Then again this book, being a collection of writings regarding the first era of the US of Whoa film avant garde (roughly early twennies to World War II), is about as erratic as you'd expect from such a compilation. Sure it's really info packed with little turdlets of history that I never knew of (such as the existence of an actual film studio that was to specialize in expressionist films 'n nothing else!), but it's also packed with loads of filmic insight here and cinematic gloss there to the point where you'd think that everybody connected with this book down to the gofer at the publishing house stilll drools uncontrollable strings o' sputum every they see Charlie Chaplin do that li'l dance with the forks and rolls in THE GOLD RUSH.

For those who've poured over Parker Tyler's UNDERGROUND FILM book and sat through a halfway-decent film history class which decided to deviate from the norm well, you'll appreciate it at least a li'l smidgen more. Like I said, this book does fill in some of the gaps and filmmakers who may have been wooshed over in previous avant garde film books, and the interesting info that does pop up comes as a surprise especially considering some of the respect and ADMIRATION (what with Robert Flory's films getting the backing of Chaplin and praise from Louella Parsons) these movies, usually made by relative nobodies working on budgets about as skimpy as the Kuchar Brothers', were getting. Even to this day I can't imagine a film like Watson and Webber's LOT IN SODOM finding any sort of showing outside of a few film clubs, at least without the legion of old ladies picketing some art house because of the bare butts and flagrant fairies to be found therein.

Leaves you wanting to know more too such as what was the deal with Christopher Young whose OBJECT LESSON remains one of those early experimental films that seem ripped from your turdler years sense of addled wonder, and when will the films of Francis Lee be made available if they aren't already. But if you can still ooze early wonderment thrills from seeing SCORPIO RISING or some Warhol flick inna college basement a zillion years back you might have a reason to settle back 'n enjoy this 'un.


↧
↧

Article 0

February 28, 2015, 12:08 pm
$
0
0
No I am not feeling any more chipper'n I have been the past few months! Rilly, how could anyone rampage through the dismal doldrums of winter w/o feeling kinda cooped up and caved in like I do at this very moment---sheesh, at least when I was younger I had loads of tee-vee reruns (as well as fresh produce that was worth the time 'n effort) to eyeball, not to mention somebody in the abode who was willing to play a rough 'n tumble round of Monopoly with me during them wintry days when cabin fever was near rampant! Nowadays I can't even get up a second for an engrossing Pop-A-Matic game 'round here, and frankly if it weren't for my ever-growing collection of classic tee-vee series on Dee-Vee-Dee not to mention about fortysome years of comic strip/book originals and reprints I'd probably be reverting to that other oldtime kiddo hobby I've engaged in a little more frequently than anyone on this earth should. And lemme tell you even that pastime is open to debate since the Vaseline Intensive Care is running rather low!
***
Probably the biggest thrill to hit me this week was the dream I had last Wednesday night where, believe it or not, I was asked to perform with the Sun Ra Arkestra who just happened to be playing at where else but my old high school, unfortunately not on a double bill with Woodchopper's Ball or Slipstream. It was to be a weird sorta concert where various "unknowns", myself included, were to perform with the Arkestra, and of course I was honored to have been amongst the chosen. But given that I was supposed to play a bass clarinet along with a flute or two which are I sure do not know how to play (nor was I provided with any of the instruments I was supposed to play) I was getting nervous about performing at this concert which seemed to be set up more like a banquet room than a jazz venue. Thus, I relegated my duties to some young gal who I somehow knew could play these instruments...how I knew along with as to why we were to play as if we were seated at a cafeteria is just another one of those dream logic things I can't tell you about at this time since I'm now awake.

But the best part of the dream was when I told Sun Ra himself that at this very school I submitted a term paper which misspelled his name as "Sien Ra" due to my sister's inability to read my manuscript. That got us all laughing up and down the dreamsphere so it wasn't like the evening was a total bust!
***
As you were expecting, here am some of the things I've been listening to this past week. Please don't hold it against them:


Weasel Walter/Chris Pitsiokos-DRAWN AND QUARTERED LP (One Hand Records)

Haven't heard from the likes of Weasel Walter for quite awhile, so this entry into his ever-expanding discography is definitely something that made me sit up and take noogies. I know I'm up for a major flaying just by saying this, but Walter's drumming abilities have improved (or is it the warm vinyl sound bringing forth the best in his oeuvre?) to the point where even longtime trailblazers like Sunny Murray come off half-there, and am I hallucinating it or does Chris Pitsiokos sound like the logical extension of Joseph Jarman, Anthony Braxton and the rest of those mid-seventies even newer-than-new trailblazers who were making it so big even DOWN BEAT couldn't ignore them? If you're a guy who still recall fondly your various mail order catalogs from Delmark, Inner City and Muse you may just cozy up to this li'l last-stop-can't-go-any-further-than-THIS jazz release.
***
FIVE DOLLAR SHOES LP (Neighborhood)

Given the tip o' the hat this 'un got in the third issue of SPOONFUL (btw, rip to SUNSHINE's Dennis Metrano, dead at age 72) where editor Fred Whitlock wrote on about how what with the Flamin' Groovies holidaying in England these guys were gonna take their place o'er HERE, you could say that  I was certainly in for the Five Dollar Shoes real deal! So naturally I snatched this 'un up under the impression that these Shoes were yet another forgotten early-seventies fave in the Hackamore Brick/Sidewinders vein, but unfortunately this was not to be the case. Five Dollar Shoes're more in the mid-seventies El Lay/Stepson watered down hard rock category, sounding like some guys who took what they perceived were the better moments of STICKY FINGERS and re-did 'em with much of the grit and crud taken outta the mix. And they looked so glam rock cool too but then again, what can you expect from the same record label that gave you Melanie???
***
Ben Vaughn-TEXAS ROAD TRIP CD-r burn (originally on Munster, Spain)

For those of us who were around when "My First Band" was lighting up the review section of many a fanzine it's pretty nice to find out that Ben Vaughn is still up 'n about making records like this 'un. Authentic-sounding country-tinged sounds here, music that makes alla that pathetic "new" country and "roots" rock heard these past thirtysome years sound rather potty-poopie to me. Kinda reminds me of classic Sir Douglas Quintet in spots, or perhaps some of those latterday Alex Chilton records that kinda caught us by surprise back when those obscure albums of his were comin' out back inna late-eighties. True it ain't something that's gonna be gettin' the constant repeato-spins the way Rebecca and the Sunnybrook Farmers do, but still this is a hotcha-gotcha MODERN DAY rock 'n roll platter that unfortunately's gonna get tossed aside like nothing since the Electric Eels! A big heaping thanks to Paul McGarry for sendin' this, he being a man who would obviously want to listen to this a whole lot more than he would Beethoven's Second Movement Because He Didn't Pay the Rent.
***
Henry Cowell-THE PIANO MUSIC OF HENRY COWELL CD-r burn (originally on Folkways)

Wouldja believe I've never heard anything by Cowell before (or at least I don't recall having)? Of course you would, considering how you all think I'm a turd-huffin' backwoods inbred who just ain't as INSPIRED as you all think you is. But better late'n never I say, and this '63 release (on the usually broken tooth hillbilly Folkways label) is a pretty snazzy introduction to this early avant gardist's piano music. Yeah some of it is a bit outside the sphere of usual BLOG TO COMM concerns (sheesh, some may even think it sounds line gnu age on a testosterone high) but when the chording get atonal and Cowell HIMSELF begins plucking the inner strings just like you used to do as a turdler (only nobody slaps Cowell's hands for doing so) there's some rather other-worldly sounds comin' outta that piece of furniture that yer momma made you practice a good hour a day on. Best track: "The Banshee", a 1925 composition that features a whole load of string strumming and other manipulations that shows just how much John Cage was inspired by (or should that be "swiped from") Cowell! (Thanks be to Bill Shute for da edjakashin!)
***
Birds of Maya-VOL. 1 CD-r burn (originally on Holy Mountain)

Even MORE heavy riffage than the Black Sabbath they emulate could have dared produce! Enough wah-wah to keel over just about every teenage 1969 combo extant! Enough distortion to make Blue Cheer sound like Windham Hill and turn Jimi Hendrix white!!! It's hard to believe that Philadelphia could have produced a fine and hearty act like this but it has, and its got the power to wither at least ten Pantsios (give or take a few Christgaus) with one mighty BLAST!
***
Various Artists-GUIDE DOGS AND BARTENDERS CD-r (A Bill Shute Barbershop Production)

This 'un doesn't quite spark the way previous funzy-packed Bill burns have, but then again can even each and every one of these BLOG TO COMM posts be gems (near all of 'em are, I say!)??? Lotsa downhome middle-Amerigan tracks from the likes ot Rex Zarion, Bob Sigveland as well as Sanford Clark appear, though the ones that really piqued my pucker (sounds durty, do'nit???) were the Cryan Shames (of NUGGETS fame) doin' some late-sixties psych excursion as well as Link Wray's "Black Widow" which ain't exactly new to mine ears but hey, better to hear it here than ne'er hear it at all! Also of interest are these early Ronnie Hawkins sides for those of you who want to hear what he was doing before he met up with John Lennon, Karl Denver for those of you who want to hear what he was doing before he met up with the Deviants, and this blind guy playing accordion and singing about his guide dog at the Beaulah Sea-View Inn in Yachats, Oregon and no, I didn't make that up!

↧

Article 0

March 5, 2015, 4:08 am
$
0
0
BOOK REVIEW! THE TATTOOED DRAGON MEETS THE WOLFMAN; LENNY KAYE'S SCIENCE FICTION FANZINES 1941-1970 (Boo Hooray, 2014)

You (you insignificant little buttplug you!) might think that a book featuring nothing but covers taken from Lenny Kaye's personal Sci-Fi fanzine collection might be rather twee in the idea department, but for a serious fan and follower of the original fanzine spirit such as myself (perhaps second only to Fredric Wertham if not Bhob Stewart) this is a book just to die for, sweetie! True these covers representing perhaps a good CHUNK of the various 'zines that the famed rock writer and Patti Smith guitarist had collected during his days in Science Fiction fandom might not chalk up much inna huzzah world for some, but if you too are still agog at the entire long-gone concept of the fanzine as a mode that cut around the chaff of mainstream dogma and got to the hardcore intent then you'll appreciate looking at these as much as I have. Who knows, you might get into this 'un the same way you used to get all agog reading Greg Shaw's reviews of the up-and-coming 'zines in his BOMP column, surprised as all heck that people back then were actually paying attention to the Stooges and New York Dolls back '73 way when you thought it was all Elton John and Cat Stevens!

Nice selection here too, reprinted in full color when necessary and at times even annotated for those of us who forgot that the entire concept of Dianetics was first spread within the fanzine realm or that one of the founders of NAMBLA (Walter Breen) was into Sci Fi fandom and was causing controversy with his presence in the field even then. The artwork extant is is often brilliant esp. for the no-account jagoffs who were creating these rags, and a good portion of 'em are so hotcha that you'll be begging to get an eyefulla just what the innards to these things were like even if you couldn't care one whit about the FIAWOL credo that was so prevalent in the sphere at the time. Sadly there's none of that to be espied here, so I suggest that if you are curious as to what was to have been found within the pages of FIENDETTA #4 you should check out the ebay auctions and try to bid as much as you can afford just so's you could find out for yourself and sate those lifetime pangs of wonderment!

It's also interesting to see just how---uh---"advanced" some of these fanzine types were as far back as the fifties, what with the presence of scantily clad or even nood (bullseyes included) gals popping up on covers! Not to mention ideas and concepts that might not have settled too well with normal people such as ourselves which only proves that the punkoids of the late-seventies weren't the first to create provocative fanzines. I get the feeling that many a teenage outer space aficionado was thinkin' up many an interesting place to stash his copy of SPACEWARP #66 so's the folks didn't get an eyefulla the beauteous babe onna cover, but at least the mag was a whole lot easier to hide than NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC!

And for you longtime Kaye fans there's even some covers from his own publications including a number of "APAS", not to mention a "backwords" from Johan Kugelberg that tries to explain it all and as you'd already have guessed the resultant spew made for a more fun'n setting some lush on fire heap o' time! Hopefully such a project as this will be encouraging to others who want to preserve/recapture the fanzine spirit of yore...personally I wouldn't mind seeing a similar collection (with both cover and inside reprints) of the various MAD-inspired fanzines of the fifties and sixties such as NOPE, JACK HIGH and WILD not to mention one featuring various sixties and seventies home-produced rock reads that Dave Laing keeps sayin' he's gonna do even though I have about as much faith in him as I do Baby Huey. But for those of us who still swear by the power of the 'zine and continue to rate them much higher than the professional excursions that skirt around the real deal then man, you'll really love this one up and down the convention floor!
↧

Article 0

March 8, 2015, 10:33 am
$
0
0
Do you think that one of the craziest yet perhaps BRAVEST actions ever taken in a career move was when Steve Ditko upped and walked out on the pumping on all cylinders Marvel Comics Group in '66, and right after having drawn (and even plotted some of) the earliest and downright BEST Spider-Man stories ever? Not to mention his scribbling on the wildly esoteric comic capers of Doctor Strange, only to end up working in relative "obscurity" for DC as well as the less-renowned Charlton publishing house where at least the guy could get some of his philosophical hero messages across without ol' feet-of-clay himself Stan Lee tampering with the formula? And of course who could forget all of those Mr. A. and Avenging World fanzine/underground comics that really bummed out the bell bottomed readership of the late-sixties who were probably STILL getting high while staring endlessly at some old Doctor Strange panel that Ditko oh so lovingly delineated a good five or so years back!

I sure do---I mean here's a guy who was perhaps second only to Jack "King" Kirby as far as instantly recognizable comic book artists went, and right at the tip top HEIGHT of his powers he ups up and splits his most highest-profile gig in order to draw Blue Beetle and Creeper cartoons that I'd guess a hefty portion of the comic strip kiddoids out there really couldn't care one whit about. Sure he was about to give us those esoterically individualist Mr. A. sagas as well as the commercially friendly version known as the Question, but I kinda get the feeling that if Ditko had stuck it out with Marvel his popularity would have increased even more than it had during his late-fifties/mid-sixties sojurn there and alla them hippydippy types wouldn't have been turned off by the decidedly non-peacenlove "bummer, man" tone of those comics that Ditko eventually began churning out on his lonesome.

I haven't been paying attention to the Ditko/Robin Snyder titles as of late, so imagine my surprise when I discovered that there were a slew of new Ditko comic books released o'er the past five or so years. True the ravages of time have reduced Ditko's style to what more or less look like rough drafts and the stories are fractured to the point of near abstraction, but for a guy like myself who can still recall SPIDER-MAN lettercols relishing the original Ditko days of the title as well as the early-seventies fantasy reprints via WHERE CREATURES ROAM etc. and so forth, these tales still pack quite a wallop even for a jaded fanabla like myself. It's almost as if there's still some tangential connection to my young suburban slob days extant via these comics and that the adolescent ranch house jerk that I was CONTINUES to live on, at least through the work of this unheralded master who has been working in the comic book field for over sixty years which I believe has to be some sort of record in a biz that has been known to spew out even the most talented of artists once their style has become even slightly "passe" (or at least I get that impression sometimes).
***


The MR. A. comic that appears on the left was to have come out (as the first of a revival which was also to have presented the character's origin story) way back '90 way, only some disagreement happened between Ditko and whoever was going to publish it so the series was put on hold. One story from the revived MR. A. where he's pitted against a murderer called the Knifer who offed the sons of the rich and successful did appear in one of the Ditko collections that had come out during the previous decade, but this is the first time in forty years that the infamous moral avenger has gotten his own title which is something I would have thought would have gotten a whole slew of Silver Age survivors in a big huzzah mood! Guess these olde tymey fans are either croaked or totally disgusted with the state of comics because hey, other'n a few rah-rahers out there all I'm hearing regarding the return of this important character are a buncha crickets.

However, I do get the feeling that many of those long-time comic book fans and followers might be disappointed in these. Gone are the fine, detailed artwork, fancy lettering and panel-packed pages that decorated many a fanzine of the past, and not only that but the stories aren't even as lovingly long-winded as they were during the late-sixties. Next to Ditko at his sixties best these may seem like total denouement to most. At least the Ditko spark that made those earlier self-produced sagas so appealing even to the hippiest of early-seventies longhairs is still intact, but unfortunately I don't think even they really care about those comics of yore all these years later.

There are two stories here. The first one's a fairly interesting moosh up dealing with the typical Ditko themes of corruption as well as social justice dollops via THE DAILY CRUSADER, the paper where Mr. A.'s secret identity Rex Grainge works as a decidedly non-collectively conscious reporter who has a guaranteed job as long as CRUSADER owner Mr. Reder is at the helm. (Continuity never was important in the MR. A. scheme of things---earlier sagas had it that the paper's editor, sort of a bleedheart J. Jonah Jameson, would lose control if Grainge were fired due to a stipulation in his late brother's will, while another one had the BIG boss of the entire paper/television conglomerate giving Grainge all the leeway he needed in order to work free despite such definitely anti-Grainge organizations as "The Committee to Protect Criminals From Justice".)

I had bigger hopes for the second one where Mr. A. deals with a villain called the Exploder---drawn at the height of the "trash art" controversy when the threat of government (read: National Endowment for the Arts) cutoffs for offensive (or as its defenders say "cutting edge") art were getting armchair liberal types all in a huff, I thought Ditko would have gone all out both barrels blasting in exposing the obvious chicanery and hypocrisy of the arts crowd who were merely trying to bum a free paycheck offa the same hardcore working people they insult and loathe. But he does play it comparatively reserved-here in a saga dealing with a rather Marvel-esque bad guy in an Iron Man-styled suit who goes around destroying the artwork of a realistic, man-at-his-best sculptor at the command of Messa Jubi, a chubby harridan art critic who not only believes in grotesque art that represents man as his "true self" but actually makes Andrew Dworkin look cuddly in comparison.

Past commentaries on modern art (such as one that actually popped into one of Ditko's Blue Beetle sagas) were way more potent---this one doesn't quite charge at'cha the way a MR. A. story of the seventies dealing with the same subject matter would have, but at least his etapoint commentaries regarding the average Joe Blow featured in the final panel where the news is switched off so's the viewers could watch some PBS documentary on "The Benevolent Dictatorship of the People's Utopian Republic" will still strike
 a raw nerve with some of the more, er, benighted knowitalls seen these days. Of course I like it, and of course I'm glad to see Mr. A. back in action after way too long an absence.
***
The spate of titles with relatively BRAND NEW material might confuse the old timers even more, not only with the even baser art mentioned earlier but with the fragmented stories and even some characters who just don't quite fit into the Ditko hero/antihero antithesis he had been pushing for fortysome years already. Two of Ditko's new "heroes" come to mind, Madman and Miss Eerie. Both of these entities operate in what Ditko calls small, prosperous cities in the 1930s, one called Zane and the other Mizzen (I tend to think that Ditko was perhaps referring to his own thirties upbringing in Johnstown Pennsylvania but I do tend to speculate more than I perhaps should). But the fact that both of these rather grotesque beings are what Ditko would consider "heroes" (especially when his past good guys tended to be clean cut short haired well-doers who have been the butt of many a superhero spoof o'er the years) really is surprising considering how both look the standard Ditko badskis who would eventually come to a sad end especially after enduring a long Mr. A. lecture whilst they slip into the ether.

Madman's current situation ain't exactly the fault of his own. Mad Madder's a convicted jewel thief and murderer (claims innocence, something not exactly part and parcel to many a Ditko knave) who was somehow (not exactly explained) injected with a mystery drug which turns him into the crazed Madman who looks like one of Ditko's disheveled bums always mooching off the public teat. He does have spells of "normalcy" as they say but when the drug just happens to kick in causing uncontrollable pain Madder turns into a killing machine. Of course there are those who disagree and say that Madman actually ain't the hideous rampager he is made out to be, but we'll have to leave that up to plainclothes detectives I. Barge and J. Ogic to get to the bottom of this typically twisted one-direction-to-another Ditko mystery. One that comes in many parts too with Ditko teasing us ending his li'l installments with coy comments such as "Ooo, I may be too scared to continue this..."!

Miss Eerie and Madman look as if they would be the perfect date material, him with his bloat and unshaven face and she with that evil-looking smirk. This 'un is actually a young nice looking clean 'n wholesome type of female who transforms herself into the grotesque heroine whose powers are once again rather vague. Come to think of it sometimes the stories themselves get on a weird tangent almost to the point of vagueness but I've come to expect that. In fact such twists and turns that made other sags look like pretentious twaddle don't ruin any of these Ditko masterpieces one tiny bit. If corruption and an avenging power is your bag, you just can't beat this new entry into the costumed crimefighters brigade!
***

Some old Ditko favorites pop up here/there in the mix of recent entries. Remember THE AVENGING WORLD, the series featuring a rather Political Cartoon-ish globe with a human body that ran in the pages of WITZEND?  Y'know, the one which really got the laid backs uptight with the decidedly anti-vibes that were extant in the tireless repetition of the "A IS A" mantra so commonly found in Ditko's personalist work? The ol' globe makes yet another re-appearance here, more or less aided/abetted by a new un-named superhero who works as a symbol of man/heroism at his/its best pretty much in the same way that Mr. A. would pop into a smattering of one-page broadsides throughout the late-sixties fanzine world. Also present is yet another new Ditko character called the Grey Negotiator, a weird costumed guy who looks like one of the teenage thugs in an old MR. A. (or better yet Ditko's old Charlton Kid character after a good walloping) who could perhaps be Ditko's only true antihero. Well maybe a "sorta bad guy but with some good making him a total roadkill" kind of creature who gets stuck inna middle of situations trying to mediate,  usually getting slaughtered mercilessly as a result.
***
Continuing on the Ditko juggernaut of ideas you just don't see in WENDY THE GOOD LITTLE WITCH are ONCE MORE and OH NO, NOT AGAIN. Of the latter, The Avenging World globe character makes yet another appearance and although the artwork ain't as crisp as it was back in those late-sixties sagas the philosophical intent remains pretty much the same. I will admit that Ditko seems to have toned down some of the rhet which ain't as knock you out with a sledgehammer as it had been in the past, but this will still shock more'n a few of the pampered pooches out there who you think had copped their entire philosophical outlook from Billy Jack films. Oh, and the second part of another mew MR. A. story appears making me wish I knew which comic book had part one!


ONCE MORE gets even more abstract as the steamroller of ideas flattens you silly, with a slew of one-page critiques featuring more split faced shows of contradiction as well as a tale of sorts featuring a Ditko monster with clubs for forearms (one labeled "Faith" and the other "Force") who meets up with that aforementioned  new Ditko hero and naturally gets vanquished like potrzebie. One issue that separates this Ditko title from the rest regards his tackling of a new sort of adversary that the man has dealt with before on occasion, mainly the comic book fans who whine on about Ditko not giving interviews and being reclusive, not to mention blab on about his views which they so obviously find morally repugnant as if they can actually crawl into Ditko's mind and suss out his intents and purposes without coloring them through the gauze of postmodern piousness. Sheesh, I can sure empathize with Ditko on that one, but I'll leave that subject for a future post!
***
An even stranger entry into the Ditko self-produced archives is THE AVENGING MIND, a title which believe-it-or-leave-it contains mostly essays regarding various philosophical/cultural concerns rather than such ideas drawn out in a superhero or educational format. Ditko had been writing such missives for quite some time or at least since his "Violence, The Phony Issue" popped up in GUTS #5 way back '69 way, and if you were one who enjoyed the man's crafty dissecting and dismissing of the then-prevalent argument that pop culture causes the world's woes (y'know, the same frame of mind that had tee-vee stations editing BUGS BUNNY cartoons and newspapers dropping DICK TRACY due to the upswing in senseless violence during the late-sixties) you'll probably enjoy Ditko's various opines regarding everything from the destruction of cognitive thinking via groupmind to just who "created"SPIDER-MAN re. Jack Kirby's claim to have been the honest-to-golly originator of it all. (There's also a big ditto regarding Stan Lee and Dr. Strange which must prove that bad blood has been flowing from many a quarter for nigh on fifty years awlready, even if Lee seems to have nada but niceties to say about his former artist!)
***
Do you remember Laszlo Toth, the crazed guy who went on a hammer rampage smashing up Michelangelo's Pieta back '72 way?  Didn't think so even though I do remember a political cartoon of the time where some concerned citizens were calling for stricter hammer control laws after the incident, but Ditko reminds us of the dread villain in his LASZLO' S HAMMER title, which come to think of it would have made a boffo name for one of those under-the-covers New York bands that used to play CBGB in the mid-seventies. In this 'un Ditko draws some interesting parallels between Toth's actions and the way some ruin an individual's creative juices by tampering with the original intent, usually making some quite different than what the originator had intended. Most of this reads like a combination AVENGING WORLD/HEADS display of views and counterviews which are naturally weighed heavily in Ditko's direction (but what else would you expect?). Some sour turds can be discerned regarding Ditko's own experiences in the comic biz (he thinking that maybe some of the bigwigs at the various companies he worked for didn't give some of his characters a fighting chance, even though he shoulda realized that the bottom line of moolah always rules 'cept when some trendy liberal view is being espoused), but the points that the guy makes are sure refreshing especially after being bombarded with candy-coated paradiddles of patented pablum custom-made for today's vacuous with-it types who, once you get down to it, are nothing but a buncha Maynard G. Krebses with rectal dysfunctions.
***
I never got to read the entire run of STATIC which was presented in two installments back in the late-eighties, so you can bet that I was more'n glad that Snyder decided to release this "graphic novel" in one lumpen book rather'n split the thing up like he originally did way back when. This 'un's an equally potent wowzer as well, perhaps Ditko's last great effort in presenting his philosophical views within the frame of an extended story complete with all of the action, plot twists and head-scratching wonderment that made those old MR. A. and QUESTION stories so well respected even by readers who hated their messages back in the sixties and seventies. This morality tale (with loads of boffo ultra-violence tossed in for good measure) dealing with a superhero outfit whose powers might be used for mankind's benefit or its downfall for all we know is definitely Ditko at his best, and for the life of me I can't figure out why Charlton would have published these sagas in the first place, or at least the ones they did until they gave up the comic book business in the mid-eighties. But kudos to them because frankly, between these Ditko comics and DOCTOR GRAVES Charlton was perhaps the last company out there continuing the spirit of the Silver Age long after the Bronze era seemed to have been tarnished beyond recognition.

True the ongoing story can get quite confusing at times, and sometimes Ditko's personal opines might rub even someone like myself the wrong way (por ejemplo I just felt like taking the side of the unemployed workers even if they were being used as pawns by some of the more cagey wealth distributists around) but the ins-and-outs and plot twists that are extant should sate even the more self-consciously pious amongst us even if the standard reiteration of various Objectivist readymades'll snooze out those who've read early Ditko and heard it all before.

As for me well, I don't mind because hey, it sure reads a whole lot better'n alla that early-seventies hippie get along goo that the comic books were pumping out until even that became too embarrassingly obvious.
***
If you're game on getting any or all (or even more if readily available) Ditko comics, just try the fellow mentioned on the left. Ford is one of the bigger Ditko fans to be found, and if you're looking for any rarities or readily available Ditko material you probably couldn't do any better. And in this world where high quality comic strip art is hard to come by and the greats of the past seem to be slipping into eternal obscurity well, it's sure great to know that guys like him are still around! Even if you're looking for original Ditko art he may just be the man!


↧
↧

Article 1

March 12, 2015, 4:43 am
$
0
0
DVD REVIEW! THE MISHAPS OF MUSTY SUFFER starring Mr. Harry Watson Jr. (in numerous whirls)

If Charlie Chaplin was the Beatles of silent film comedy then Harry Watson was definitely Randy Alvey and Green Fuz. On one end we got an act that began as interesting and innovative but eventually developed into something that became so big that even his/their worst moments, aspects and utterances were considered beyond sacred while on the other we got some rinkydink under-produced entity that hardly anybody knows about or remembers, but whose comparatively slim output continues to resonate in beautiful primitive pulsations even these many years later.

Harry Watson wasn't exactly a household name even back when these 1916-17 comedies were being produced, but given his career with Ringling Brothers and the Ziegfeld Follies he just might have been as good as all of the other fanablas who were trying to jump on the BIG SILENT MOOM PITCHER COMEDY BANDWAGON. Given these credentials, Watson seemed like just the type to get in on this big bux bonanza, and thanks to producer George Kleine he did appear in front of the camera for a number of one-reel shorts, the surviving ones of which appear on a brand new DVD collection of which I have been honored with a rather decent dub considering all of the restoration that hadda go into this thing.

Funny stuff here, though nothing that'll get you laughing as hard as the time your turdler nephew began asking all those sorta embarrassing genitalia questions during Thanksgiving Dinner. But funny enough what with the sitegag pratfalls and various predicaments that Suffer (a less pathetic tramp'n Chaplin ever was) goes through, what with the guy being taken through the usual patented silent moom rigmarole to varying results. Sometimes they work and others, eh!, but still it is nice to see some of the old moldies being trotted out once again like the infamous staircase that instantly becomes a sliding board or father-in-law moving in with the new wife.

Still there's a certain something that keeps these shorts from being the top notch comedy classics they coulda been. Maybe Watson just ain't as sympathetic a character as Lloyd Hamilton or the supporting actors as copasetic as Vernon Dent and Bud Jamieson.  For that matter the direction, while typical of the Sennett era of silent film, still seems comparatively primitive and more of the pre-BIRTH OF A NATION days. Maybe the word "staid" comes to mind, but I will say that next to some of the silent film comedy turdballs out there (ever see Larry Semon or Monte Banks?) Watson at least has a better handle on the whys and wherefores of delivering a funny gag, which come to think of it died out around the time true humor did once the hippoid generation got their mitts on the POWER and ruined everything.

If you're that interested in finding out for yerself, why not click here and be prepared to part with a nice portion of your precious kopecks. As the old saying goes you could do worse and you have, and what's best about the deal is that the music used sounds authentic and not a Boston Pops goo-fest the kind you hear on TCM whenever they run those pre-talkie schmoozers! 
↧

Article 0

March 15, 2015, 5:15 am
$
0
0
As Shemp Howard once said, "How time flies!!! Only a few weeks back the entire tri-state area was covered in a thick layer of snow 'n ice that was causing more'n a few incidents of fenderbenders and bone breaks, and today alla that precipitation is gushing its way right into my very basement! Yes, when the sump pump starts working overtime and the yard has the texture of quicksand you know spring is just around the corner, and although I do dread the days of lawn cutting and less inside goofing off the feeling of walking around with my bare arms and legs showing does set off a certain...tingle inside me that's even worse'n when Chris Matthews sees Obama! Well, at least I'll have all of those rainy days to look forward to just like you did when you were a kid and felt so lucky that you could stay cooped up inside your cramped sitting room watching reruns all day 'stead of going out and playing with the other kids inna neighborhood who thought you were a queer because your mother dressed you up like Freddie Bartholomew.
***
Please, somebody kick me in the
balls!
A sad bitta current events to relate to you---r.i.p. Irwin Hasen, not only the artist for the late-Golden Age GREEN LANTERN and JUSTICE SOCIETY titles at DC but the pencil man for that infamous comic strip of yesteryear entitled DONDI! Y'know, the particularly saccharine one about this dago kid with the gigundo ears who remembered World War II even forty years later and was so cutesy-wootsey you just wanted to beat the shit outta him! Never could stand DONDI, not only because ol' Don seemed like such a squeaky clean "role model" type that my mother obviously wanted ME to be like but because well, with the fambly cramming alla that wop kultur down my throat from day one to the point of no mas! I hadda take my ethnic stereotyping frustration out on something and why not this ineffectual comic strip kiddoid! Well, at least the story line from the late-sixties or so regarding a beatnik cousin who was heavily into pop art (with even an indirect reference to Warhol!) was striking enough that even Don Fellman remembered it, but if it wasn't for Hasen's work at DC and the fact that I wanted to have a good reason to rag on that comic strip for ages I probably wouldn't have even mentioned his passing at all!
***
Well, on that particular note here's what you've all been waiting for these past seven earth-spins. To be all gosharootie about it, I personally believe that I picked a good batch of newies this time (some oldies too) and who knows, of the posts I've presented these first few months of 2015 this just might be the crowning achievement tip top toppiest of 'em all! And what's really goody-two-shoes about it all is that most of this booty was actually purchased by memeME! with my hard-begged, thus proving that I'm not the sycophantic gotta-have-this recordgrubber various malcontents have made me out to be. Anyhoo, since you've probably skipped down to the reviews awlready and aren't even READING this why don't I just STOP...

Alice Cooper-OLD SCHOOL 4-CD set and book (Alive)

Don't know how this 'un slipped outta my sight when it came out, but it did. Whaddeva, now I got it and boy am I a happy stroon because this Alice Cooper collection's the THING I've been waiting for for quite a long time! Or at least since the mid-eighties when I was wondering when a decent collection of classic Alice Cooper live shows, outtakes, rarities and other sundries would be given the royal treatment and make their way into not only the underground rock world, but my very own private and heavily fart-encrusted boudoir.

But come out it has, and I gotta say that this is one collection that does Alice proper and should send shivers of thrills to all of you once-teenage fans who grew up on Alice then puked to see what he had become once the late-seventies had turned this bonafeed hero into just another washed up rock hasbeen reduced to appearing on boring variety programs and MUPPET SHOWs just like the rest of the sudzy stars of the day.

But we ain't talking Alice the flimflammer but Alice the high energy rock maniac, the guy who like the best acts of the seventies took everything good there was about the sixties and rolled it up in one huge ball that seemed like the end-all regarding how far this rock 'n roll thing could logically go. Y'know, the snot-nosed arrogance of the Stones, the rampaging mania of the Yardbirds and the over-the-top danger of the Stooges (I could through the Doors and Seeds in there even though I don't dig the former and adore the latter) and frankly, what else did you want in your early-seventies listening pleasure anyway?

And so they get done up in a nice package once again proving that the powers that be might have a few smarts in 'em. The book portion will naturally knock you out, especially alla you olde tymers who were always miffed that those old and rare Alice group snaps from the mid-sixties never did make their way into the public arena. They're here, complete with family photo album pix of Alice with short suburban hair looking more like the denizen of a very late LEAVE IT TO BEAVER episode back when Gilbert was sprouting up higher'n even Ward and Whitey hadn't even grown one inch during the show's entire run. Those early days are lovingly detailed as is the transition of the Earwigs/Spiders/Nazz to Alice proper as well as the group's heyday during the height of Alicemania when even your pre-teen cousin would snuggle SCHOOL'S OUT in between ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH and TEA FOR THE TILLERMAN (just make sure to hide the panties from mom!). And yeah, it's all here right up to that big breakup which had Alice going soft schmooze and the rest of the act fragmented beyond repair to the point where Glenn Buxton had become even more down on his luck'n most of the once-famous musicians and actors who were once a big deal but now...eh!

Best thing about this book is that it's all done up lovingly and with the proper care and rare group photos that any real Alice Cooper Band fan will appreciate, and while you're reading the book you'll (as if you didn't know) definitely want to listen to the disques enclosed therein. And what good platters they are what with the rarities and li'l surprises that it seemed only popped up on mid-seventies bootlegs that were put out by real fans and not a buncha knownothing cheap thrill hustlers.

Disque one features Alice during the early years of bitter struggle. Coulda been slightly better. Like, why only ONE track from the early, garage band Alice days when there are a whole slew of these sides making the rounds and for all I know the Nazz one had never been released legit-like even after all these years? And while I'm at it, the classic Caravalles "Lovin' Just My Style" with Neal Smith on drums woulda sounded fine in this stew as well. Their omission is undoubtedly a big mystery adding perhaps the only real damper to this boffoid collection.

The early Alice Cooper proper rarities from those early and oft-loathed splatters really fit in well with a guy like myself who could never find those Straight-period releases anywhere back inna mid-eighties and hadda rely on cheap cassette copies to give 'em any appreciation. Hearing a clear version of the infamous "Nobody Likes Me" (best known from not only a paper record giveaway but numerous live Toronto Rock Festival live releases) was goody enough for me, but most striking is the early version of "Eighteen" done up right before Bob Ezrin shaped it into a downright punk rock classic that really shook up the AM dial for a few months way back when (in its original form its so chopped up that its a wonder it ever came out the way we've all known it to be lo these many years!). Heck, this disque even sports a few classic radio ads (it's amazing to see how the term "Third Generation" was being used at a time when hardly anybody outside of CREEM was aware of it!) that just might take you back to those days of listening to the radio in the car while making out, only you didn't quite realize that you were the only one in the ol' calaboose!

The second 'un centers on Alice the Big Hitmaking Freakshow and takes you through the group you knew from 16 right up until the bloody end when MUSCLE OF LOVE signaled the capsizing megashow that was somehow beginning to seem so quaint. It's got more fantastic radio ads that I never recall hearing, live tracks, pre-production demos, and even that session where those kids who sing on "School's Out" are being coached pop up here! The quality is mostly a-hokay even if some of it does sink a bit into slightly hissy tape Korneyphone quality. But at this point in time are you still that anal-retentive (I know I sure am, at least some of the time!).

After this comes an interview disc which is fun to listen to, entertaining and even informative even if a lot of the information blabbed can be read about in the book making one wonder "why bother?" Still more'n a few shards of insight are revealed, such as the fact that Alice himself considers the first two albums more or less Nazz releases and not "Alice Cooper" proper considering how LOVE IT TO DEATH was their true breakthrough. Still if you're not reading anything and wanna osmose some mid-seventies vibes re. one of the few big things that was still hotcha this is definitely worth an occasional spin.

Closing out the package's what I personally consider its crowning achievement, a live show from the KILLER tour which I sure wish woulda been the bootleg of the year had this come out 1972 way! Quality varies but so what, because it's the energy that we're after and if you want to hear the Cooper band right before they really began tearing up the charts (they still being an underground concern even this late inna game) this show's the one for ye! And since KILLER's my own fave Cooper effort (with the roots of everything from "serious" period Rocket From the Tombs to the Electric Eels evident within its soundwaves) maybe I can appreciate this wild side more'n you. But somehow I actually doubt it.

One that should get out a li'l more, and a great tombstone to all of the energy, effort and downright LUCK that made the early-seventies rock scene so good, at least when it got good that is!
***
Jett Black-"Mademoiselle"/"You Make Everything Dirty" 45 rpm single (Fiddlers)

While we're on the subject of Alice Cooper it just might be mighty handy to bring these guys up. Like Alice Jett Black began in the wilds of Arizona and not only that but they also made the trek to Detroit to cash in on all of high energy action was happening. However, by this time they were reduced to playing covers and little but, though an article that appeared in the local CREEM magazine insert sometime during the mid-seventies made 'em out to be the most astute cover band around, tossing songs like "Waiting For My Man", "Queen Bitch" and a few Stooges thingies into the usual stew. Sounds like the kinda group you wished played in the school cafeteria Friday night 'stead of the ones the Art Club always happened to get, right?

After their stay inna city of motors Jett Black made their way to Connecticut where Alice and band were then holding court, and none other than Cooper guitarist Michael Bruce took 'em under his then-expansive wing producing a buncha sides that I don't think ever'll see the light of day unless Munster Records just happens to be reading this. There was a gig at the infamous Club 82 which earned Jett Black one of Fred Kirby's few sour writeups (he hated their negative stage banter) in the pages of VARIETY, and from then on I don't think the group's fortunes were as bright as some had thought they would be. The last reference I can find of 'em anywhere was on a '77 CBGB listing opening for the Dictators who were certainly garnering up a whole lot more success than Black, an act that was headin' down the crapper of busted rockism dreams becoming one of a million rock groups that coulda taken the world by storm but...well. listening tastes were turning for the worse and with disco and light metal taking the world by storm what use was there for rock 'n roll anyway? Whaddeva, that certainly would have been a double bill to be front and center for if the group's sole single's any indication.

Hokay, the a-side isn't anything I'd call exemplary, pretty much falling into the standard post-Bad Company tuff stuff sweat 'n kerchiefs stylized moves that weren't anything special at the time. But "Mademoiselle"'s still a halfway-decent cooker that at least did the mid-seventies hard rock schtick better'n many local hairsprouters could. Much better's the flipster where lead singer Jett Jeffords and crew get into a more down 'n dirty groove almost emulating the Stooges circa. "Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell" and coming off equally devious themselves as a result. Rather hotcha stuff fer a band that hadda play covers in barjoints to pay the bills only a few years earlier, and it's too bad that Jett Black hadda capsize the way they did because...well y'know if they ever did release an album it woulda been the cutout classic of 1979!

Coming to a BONEHEAD CRUNCHERS collection near you? Only time (and a wake up call to whoever puts those collections of seventies obscurities out) will tell. But like man, you better hope it's soon...
***
Various Artists-HIGH VOLTAGE! GIANT STEPS & FLASHPOINTS IN 20th CENTURY EXPERIMENTAL AND ELECTRONIC SOUND 3-CD set  (Fantastic Voyage, England)

As I've mentioned many a time, I really dig these recent Cee-Dee collections of various easy-to-find archival digs that are gathered up and annotated via a certain (sub)genre that the particular piece just might happen to fall into. This time the tracks gathered about (by Kris Needs no less!) fall into the early avant garde (mostly of a classical variety) with other toonz that take certain ideas either consciously or unconsciously from these works tossed in. The resultant splat makes for a perhaps incongruous collection, but if you thought all along that the Stooges were playing a music more avant garde than anything Luciano Berio could come up with then man is this the collection for you!

Yeah, a lotta this has been heard by you "serious" beret and stale doritos types who've been practicing your patented precocious poses inna mirror for the past four decades, but Needs' natural abilities to mix and match 'em does make for about as good a listen as those legendary Scott Krauss platter sessions at the Plaza on Prospect back inna seventies where friends would plop themselves down while the original Pere Ubu drummer would spin early Grateful Dead (!) into African ritual making for a listening experience you'd never get outta Anastasia Pantsios! Thus we get the Joe Meek faves the Blue Men doing their electronic space rock pushed up against Olivier Messiaen working out on an Ondes Martenot before Edgard Varese makes a whole lotta orchestral thunder that Zappa shamelessly swiped while dribbling all over his mentor. It does make for a better free-form than some might admit, but nowadays nobody wants to admit anything so why should I give a fanabla anyway?

Hokay, maybe it is a stretch to include everything from Xenakis, Cage, Stockhausen, Babbitt and a whole slew of Frenchies you never heard of with the likes of Sun Ra, the Tornados, the Spotniks and Les Baxter, but like Lou Reed said during one of his more lucid moments rock 'n roll's a better avant garde than the avant garde, and maybe this li'l package proves he might have had a point. A slight point perhaps (after all, "Gesang Der Junglings" and "Turangalila-Symphonie"do pack as much as wallop as "Pushin' Too Hard"), but it's pretty funzy to listen to such seemingly disparate tracks gathered together coming out as a cohesive whole custom made to satisfy us cohesive holes. Heavy kudos to Needs and to Fantastic Voyage for glopping it all together and dishing it out to us ranch house kiddies who always deserved the best in high fidelity gunch!
***
Shorty Rogers and his Giants-CLICKIN' WITH CLAX CD-r burn (originally on Atlantic, England)

The El Lay cool brigade plop back for more of that forward-looking music that seemed so experimental in1955 yet was reduced to PSA background music only a good ten years later. The group (including Jimmy Giuffre and Shelly Manne, who with Rogers released the avant-looking ten-inch LP THE THREE back '54 way) plays swift enough but there's plenty missing for fans of the even newer thing that was just popping up around the corner. For tension mongers like myself hold out for some of the more atonal-minded West Coast platters that have appeared o'er the years. BTW, the Bill Holman who shows up on tenor sax is probably not the same guy who used to draw SMOKEY STOVER which I will say does disappoint me a bit. Foo!
***
Paul Flaherty & Randall Colbourne-IRONIC HAVOC CD-r burn (originally on Relative Pitch)

Maybe this downtown stuff doesn't have the same kinetic drive of either the sixties new thing expression or the seventies loft jazz movement, but the Flaherty/Colborne duo does play as good as free jazz splat as most anything you're gonna come straight up against these days. For most of you this is probably just more of that "heard it all before" nada but I gotta admit that it sure is swell that sixties/seventies sonic jazz explorations are still being bleated out even this late in the post-fun world game. If you're one who still thinks the best thing that happened to rock 'n roll was the incursion of various freedom moves inna sixties then hey, this one is probably just waiting for you so go get it!
***
Various Artists-BIG NOISE FROM THE IN-CROWD CD-r burn (Bill)

More and more of those surprises that Bill Shute always has in store here...from some middle-eastern psychedelia that prepared me for the Indian buffet I was about to engage in to the beatnik bopsters called the Cecil Young Progressive Quartet creating some of that hotcha jazzbo stuff that I'm sure went real well with teenagers reading MAD comic books inna early-fifties. Some of this is really obscure like Sha Kane's hard rocker and Spaghetti Head updating the Bob Crosby classic "Big Noise From Winnetka", while Dick Hyman (he shoulda had an act with Beaver Cleaver!) does his version of "The In Crowd" for the same type of men who you used to see snuggled up to the bar chatting up gals when you were but a mere eight years of age. Highlights include Geater Davis (who, as I feared, was not Skeeter Davis under an alias) doing some surprisingly stirring soul movers in an age of creeping discoisms as well as the same Flamin' Groovies cuts you've been listening to for over thirtysome years but YOU don't mind, do ya!
↧

Article 1

March 19, 2015, 5:01 am
$
0
0
MOOM PITCHER TRIPLE FEATURE! CALLING HOMICIDE, CHAIN OF EVIDENCE and FOOTSTEPS IN THE NIGHT starring Bill Elliott (Allied Artists, 1956-1957)

Here's the second and last volume of the Warner Archive collection featuring the final Wild Bill Elliott detective mooms made for the long-missed Allied Artists studios, the same stroonads who gave us both the Bowery Boys and Bomba! And like the first two in the series these crankouts have everything you like in those fifties films guaranteed to have made your tee-vee viewing all the more pleasurable, that is if these films were being aired on your local station back then (forget about now!) and you didn't have anything better to do that stay plopped in front of the boob tube on a nice day when you shoulda been outside riding your bike and doing alla that normil kid stuff like your parents wanted you to. But then again, what could be more normil'n watching mooms like these?

CALLING HOMICIDE's a good 'un where this nice looking gal is found mauled to death and, as usual, there are 'bout a few dozen people who would have liked to have done the doody including none other than Lyle Talbot as a lush who worked for the bitch at her modeling school. Of course there's more to it that mere hatred of the victim, something to do with a black market baby ring considering that them wuz the days when having a bastard was a shame-filled event unlike now when they're popping outta orifices faster'n blackheads offa my nose. Look out for longtime tee-vee/film regular James Best as a deputy as well as THREE STOOGES/BOWERY BOYS mainstay Edward Bernds not only directing but writing the screenplay.

CHAIN OF EVIDENCE stars an all grown up Jimmy Lydon as this seemingly innocuous hothead guy who gets sent to the work farm for beating up none other than Timothy Carey! When he gets out Carey's right there waiting for him ready to give Lydon his what-for to the point where the kid gets the memory knocked outta his skull. After awhile of drifting, he gets a job working for a wealthy businessman and takes the rap when the captain of industry gets 86'd by wifey's boyfriend. It's up to Doyle (with the help of none other'n Dabs Greer) to cure Lydon if only to get to the bottom of the case and they have to resort to some pretty outlandish ways to shock the guy back into realitysville which in many ways makes me wanna stay as long in etherland as I could possibly stand!

In FOOTSTEPS IN THE NIGHT, some guy with a gambling problem gets into a game of all night poker with none other Lt. Henderson from THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN himself Robert Shayne. Shane loses heavily and starts getting uppity, and when his partner returns from the kitchen with a nice cold 'un he finds Shayne dead onna floor!  What does the guy do??? What any normal BLOG TO COMM reader would, mainly run and hide!!! Of course with the heavy breath of the law exhaling down your neck that's nearly impossible, and considering that Doyle's a good cop type he's out to find who the real murderer is and the results he comes to, while seemingly as far fetched as my kiddoid plan to turn tooth powder into a nice minty drink, actually work showing that sometimes these long shots do pay beaucoup dividends!

All three are what I'd call top notch BTC-approved viewing, and I must admit that each 'n every one are what I would have preferred watching on the tee-vee these past three or four decades 'stead of the new 'n relevant quap that keeps getting force fed down our unrepentant provincial throats like so much Play Dough. However, I must admit that when I was watching these I was not fantasizing myself as being some young-ish workaday slob watching 'em on some UHF station late movie back 1962 way...this time I pretended I was the same guy watching 'em onna same station a good six years later on a yukky Sunday afternoon. Can't say that I haven't progressed since then, eh?
↧
Search

Article 0

March 22, 2015, 4:38 am
$
0
0
Well, here we are at the start of another week, and as I would suspect it's probably not gonna be that much different from any of the other weeks we've been experiencing these past three or so decades. No skin off my apple really, because I gotta admit that I kinda enjoy the nada-ness of everyday life (except for the work part natch!) especially when it comes to settling back to watch an old episode of THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN or eating some dried squid snack I got while visiting an Asian grocery store in Pittsburgh. That's what I call high-living, and if you don't think so you can always go out and save the world, usually ruining it in the process as most do-gooders have these past hundred-some years. I'll just stay indoors and do my suburban slob duty which is a whole lot more CONSTRUCTIVE'n anything you peace corpse types would dare come up with I'll betcha! Now if I can only get some other ranch house ravers like myself together so maybe we could join a club where all we do is sit around, gobble greasy teenage fast foods, read old comic books, talk about all the fun we shoulda had inna old days and watch a surprise tee-vee fave that nobody remembers...it might not set the world on fire but think of the thrills we'll have accusing each other of cheating during a game of MONOPOLY!!!
***
Anyway here are the reviews, a good batch if I do say so myself...all newies to mine ears and only two of 'em are gimmes which does make me kinda proud knowin' that I'm not the mooch that I sometimes make myself out to be. Personally I think I did a fantab job of it myself so if you hear some steady rhythm that's not a drum machine pounding away...it's just me patting myself on the back!


Roxy Music-THREE AND NINE CD bootleg (Virtuoso, Japan)

Hoohah! Remember when you were a teenbo boy and you not only hadda worry about sneaking your copy of COUNTRY LIFE into your record collection but into the bathroom when Mother Nature was tellin' ya it was rock clockin' time? Well here's a new Roxy Music Cee-Dee that'll bring back alla those horny memories not only with a front cover featuring more bare flesh for your thigh sighin' thrills, but other outtakes scattered about that'll really have you relivin' those strange days of yore when you hadda check the palms of your mitts to see if they needed a trim!

THREE AND NINE's a fantastico artyfact of mid-seventies Roxy that was recorded around the time us Amerigan nimnuls were just beginning to catch on despite the futile efforts of Greg Shaw and Alan Niestor. Live in Paris during November of '74 you can tell that Roxy are in fine form what with their promoting their latest effort to a typically appreciative Roxy crowd, and if you're one who thinks that they hit their post-Eno height on COUNTRY LIFE (like I do!) you'll appreciate this 'un all the more.

True the songs sound just like they do on the album and when they don't (like during Eddie Jobson's rather pedestrian violin solo on "If There Is Something ") you might be yawning more'n you should, but THREE AND NINE captures everything that was hotcha and exciting about Roxy Music when they were pumping out rather sexoid art rock that seemed to gather fans from most of the rock spectrum, even factions you'd never thought would agree on anything ever!

One good thing about SIX AND NINE's the sound quality which, although not soundboard by any stretch of the imagination, is rather crisp making me wonder if technology has somehow found a way to make those cruddy live shows of yore sound as good as any late-fifties hi-fi effort you can come up with. If so, please direct me to the nearest studio because I have more'n a few cassettes hangin' around that certainly could use a major sound beefup, and maybe some sorta release if there happens to be a market for live 8-Balls recordings.
***
Bolder Damn-MOURNING LP (Guersson Spain, available via Forced Exposure)

Being in a particularly ravenous early-seventies hard rock mood I bought this 'un with the impression that Ft. Lauderdale's Bolder Damn would be a true Third Generation thunderer in the tradition of Alice Cooper and Black Sabbath. All I got was mid-energy musings that reminded me of Grand Funk Railroad more'n anything rabid. Like the Funksters it ain't bad, but after listening to the vast array of various heavy competitors who were able to get their recordings out during the seventies Bolder Damn just don't measure up with their comparatively commercial (and thus watered down) approach. Don't get me wrong because this is a good album that does contain a few snatches of hard rock hysteria, but after listening to Cooper, Sabs, the Stooges and Dust it's just leftovers.
***
Populare Mechanik-KOLLEKTION 03: POPULARE MECHANIK COMPILED BY HOLGER HILLER CD (Bureau B, available via Forced Exposure)

Populare Mechanik were Ton Steine Scherben founding member Wolfgang Seidel's early-eighties new wave band, and if you're of the thought that the one-time German radical was going all Rock Lobster Armagideon Time over us think again! Seidel not only borrows from the early electronic krautrock of Conrad Schnitzler's freeform Zodiac Club work of the late-sixties but various experiments of the new wave era both obtuse and not, making for a platter that you kinda get the feeling woulda gotten mucho space in OP's cassette culture column had this stuff only gotten out more than it had. Some of it is entertaining even to my jaded ears (sorta like cubist jazz) while other moments had me bored silly, but I get the feeling that this is one that'll really grown on me more'n those skin blebs the docs won't remove from my eyelids. One thing I'll say...if you were expecting the proto-punk neo-amateur approach of the first TSS album you'll be in for quite a short-skidding surprise!
***
Derek Rogers-DEPTH/DETAIL OF PROCESSING CD-r burn (Kendra Steiner Editions)

This guy's been absent from the KSE imprint for quite some time so it's sure nice giving a listen to Derek Rogers' electronic scronk again (sure he has dozens of these things out but like, I prefer mine FREE!). Mesmerizing washing machine drone gives way to a tide of static and even a bit of mid-seventies Obscure Records chance operations sparseness, and there's even one track ("An Illusion, Albeit") that kinda sounds defective to these ears though in all probability it ain't. In all, quite engrossing, enveloping and perhaps even forward-looking. If you're a big fan of those reincarnated Faust recordings this will certainly light up your gaseous exhaust.
***
Ed Blackwell-THE COMPLETE REMASTERED RECORDINGS ON BLACK SAINT & SOUL NOTE 8-CD set (Black Saint/Soul Note Italy, available via Forced Exposure)

The guy mighta been real hot stuff back when he was whoopin' it up with Ornette, but on these Black Saint platters Blackwell ain't really anything that would connect with me in that visceral, primal fashion. Even when performing with old hands like Karl Berger or David Murray as a leader or sideman, these albums just drip of same-old in a frighteningly staid way. Heck, I even gotta admit that the Old and New Dreams Ornette without Ornette stuff comes off stale which is something I never dreamed would have happened in a millyun years even if these reunion attempts are usually bust from the get-go. There's much better Blackwell to be heard, and unfortunately it ain't here!
***
Various Artists-EVERYWHERE CHAINSAW SOUND CD (Feed The Mind, available via Forced Exposure)

Here's a reish (also available on plastic) that came out in the early eighties during the height of the underground six-oh reissue hubbub, and if you missed it the first time around don't feel too bad because I did as well! Of course, being a limited edition release and all it wasn't like you were gonna find EVERYWHERE CHAINSAW SOUND at your local cutout bin, but for those of us unlucky enough to miss out on it the first time here's another chance to snatch up a copy of an album that you probably would have appreciated a whole lot more back then but this is now and like, it ain't gonna hurt you to listen to the thing.

The original package was a sparse affair, but this reissue does the entire thing up much better with actual liner notes you can read while your personal favorite punk rockers spin away. The sound is rather mid-fi as if this was recorded off the original album, and to that I saw great! Because like hey, this is the way most suburban slobs heard the originals on their ranch house consoles and what makes you think you're better'n any of them anyhow?

Hot selection here...the PEBBLES well hadn't run dry by this time so there were still a whole slew of un-comped platters that were years away from reissue begging to be unleashed on a new punk rock generation. Names familiar to us reg'lars from the Electric Prunes (coming on pretty strong in one of their last gasps before Axlerod fired the whole lot of 'em!) to the Spokesmen (of "Dawn of Correction" fame), the Music Explosion and even Link Wray and the Raymen doing their Beatles swipe show up, as do various PEBBLES leftovers and a few comparatively obscuros who sound mighty powerful in this stew. It all makes for a pleasant oleo that holds up much stronger than many of those later on collections which, although far superior to the eighties drek that was being pushed at the time, still seemed like bottom of the barrel scrapings compared with the rush you got spinning those early PEBBLES and BOULDERS incessantly during the seventies-eighties cusp.

But man, it's always boffo playing those raw and alive singles by going nowhere acts with names like Ken and the Fourth Dimension and the Original Dukes who seemed to understand the all-important zeitgeist of the mid-sixties rock explosion even more'n the Beatles. Hard rush one/two-chord rock like this always has a special place in my collection, and although many wonks consider the mid-sixties the big stepping stone to even greater accomplishment in the latter portion of that decade I find what eventually happened pure denouement. Few late-sixties groups retained the energy, snot and downright onslaught of these early punk rockers and if you too wanna WEEP over what we had (music as pure adrenaline rush) and lost (acoustic front porch jams) then just give this 'un a spin and THINK DEEPLY.
***
Various Artists-BIG CAT CAROLINA CRUISE CD-r burn (Bill)

Except for a few country and gospel diversions this 'un lays down a hefty early-sixties vibe that'll make you wanna hunker down for an evening of REAL McCOYS and McHALE'S NAVY-type programming before slipping into your Doctor Denton's for a nice slumber in your WAGON TRAIN bed. The non-teenage rock 'n roll stuff's boss from a swingin' holy roller via Freddie Branch to a truck-drivin ode to greenies from Danny Edwards, but the far off the charts singles here really made a wowzing impression on my still stuck in turdler psychological mode. From Ricki and the Alternates'"Angel Baby" swipe to Jack and the Jumpin' Jacks/Contrasts' 1961 popsters, this 'un is proof that even the less rock 'n rollin' music to come outta the pre-Beatles sixties was a whole lot more down-to-earth 'n kicking than what most snob rock revisionists would want you to believe. And for ya fudgie types there's even a single by a pre-fame Lou Christie here so don't say yer being ignored, you thilly things you!
↧
↧

Article 1

March 26, 2015, 4:00 am
$
0
0
MAGAZINE REVIEW! FLASHBACK #6 (Winter 2014)

I once said that other'n UGLY THINGS I can't really osmose these new retro-rock magazines that seem to have all of the knowledge at hand but very little of the motion needed to get the facts and fancy across to us thick-skulled readers! FLASHBACK is different, and this latest ish is one more reason for you to not hermetically seal yourself into your fart-encrusted bedroom with enough fanzines, comic books, records and a subscription to one of those old tee-vee show substations to last you a lifetime. Or at least until you have to come out because the air in your room is getting a little too foul even for you.

Cover stars for this sixth issue are none other'n Sam Gopal of ESCALATOR fame, the same Sam Gopal who not only recorded for the infamous Stable label but had none other'n Lemmy Willis/Kilminster of Hawkwind/Motorhead fame in his ranks. As you'd hopefully expect this piece is pretty mind-bending and in-depth what with all the engrossing twists and turns to be found therein, and surprisingly enough there's a current photo of Mr. Gopal included in this article and boy does he look like Sammy Davis Jr.!

There are other pieces of great interest to those of a late-sixties mentality including those on Bill Fay (who I never heard of prior to picking this magazine up), TEENSET magazine (sorta like a bopper rag with a stronger social consciousness) and even an old Jimmy Page interview from FUSION magazine and they're all heavily mandatory in the reading department, along with the tons of record, book, Dee-Vee-Dee and whatnot writeups just begging you to separate a whole lotta hard-begged from your chained up wallet (that is, if you can afford to find these woosh-where-did-they-go reissues.

My own personal favorites this ish happen to be the article on the David which really tells all about this mysterious group that still captivates ya like all of those great sixties albums should, as well as the interview with none other than James Williamson of the Stooges who doesn't say much in the way of anything we haven't heard before, but oh the way he tells it! Really sends you back to that night at Max's Kansas City when Alice Cooper hadda rush ol' Iggy to the EMX which even Robert Plant wouldn't've done!

Kinda pricey true, but then again what else are you gonna be spending your moolah on these days, food and shelter? Definitely a magazine to contend with, and considering just how scarce good rock 'n roll reading has become these days it ain't like you have much choice between this 'un and my own scribblings, eh?
↧

Article 0

March 28, 2015, 9:32 am
$
0
0
Sorry. I just feel down in the dumps gloomy right now. Sure I put out a fantastic post (with some rather exhilarating writeups I might add---in fact some of the best dribble I've posted in at least six months!) and the influx of interesting and downright hotcha recordings and mooms (courtesy of Bill Shute) is keeping me occupied when I could be doing less moral things with myself, but-----let's face it-----no matter how much I stamp my foot and try to pretend otherwise it just ain't 1962 out there anymore!!! I didn't want to admit this because hey, I don't want YOU to get all gloomy about it as well. But let's face it---'62's a good fifty-three years in the past, and come to think of it so is good tee-vee, hotcha rock 'n roll radio (and don't you argue otherwise!), snazzy cars, good looking females and a clear knowledge of right (the self, property rights, morality) vs. wrong (dykes and fairies and all that stuff Ten Years After warned us about)! I might as well also throw in the pre-Vatican II church, but I think you knew that already. Let's face it, 1962 might have had tee-vee tubes that blew out leaving you entertainment-less for a few days and a quicker death due to heart disease and terminal diseases we can now conquer or control, but it didn't have brand new episodes of LEAVE IT TO BEAVER or twelve-cent SUPERMAN comic books to keep your relatively sane self from turning into the next Joan Baez.

At least the following recordings keep me from going totally bonkers over the travails of trying to live a ranch house suburban slob life in a Compassion Inc. world. Got some real hot newies here (and a couple oldies that were floating about) you just might want to read a li'l about. And face it, one sentence of my pontificating o'er even the cruddiest of Cee-Dee pile finds is way more invigorating than entire posts regarding the post-punk mewlings of some introspective losers that them other blogs toss at you like turds flinging from an Amish horse at full gallop!


Francis the Great-RAVISSANTE BABY LP (Hot Casa Germany, available via Forced Exposure)

Hot outta nowhere surprise of the week's this reissue of a pretty obscuro mid-seventies album that was recorded by a seven-year-old Cameroonian kid transplanted to Paree. Not only did this progeny (that's a malapropism, son!) write both of the side-long tracks that grace this longplayer but he sings 'em with his definitely pre-pubesprout voice that makes Speedy Alkaseltzer sound like he has balls! An'hey, this single-digit wizard is tops in my book not only for his absolute gushing of talent beyond his years but for recording a platter that stands up with some of my fave raves, what with is primitive drone beats and overall mesmerizing sounds that you can really snuggle up and get into whether you're reading old DICK TRACY comic strips or doing an extra-deep wipe. It's that engrossing!

Title track's a wowzer, the same hypnotico (dare I say at the risk of sounding like an amerindie doof Velvet Underground-ish?) riff repeated ad-afanablum sukering you into its web while Francis adds his voice to the fray in his native Camaroon tongue. It kinda conjures up the same maddening effect one gets listening to "Up In Her Room", "Sister Ray" or "Persian Surgery Dervishes" on those hot 'n sticky August nights right before the tornado hits your hovel. If this is the basis for all of that seventies African rock that's getting reissued then count me in for a Missionary trip to the darkest part of Africa, and don't forget the electric guitars!

On the flip Francis goes hot funk with a riff that recalls "Greenfield Morning" offa YOKO ONO/PLASTIC ONO BAND where Our Hero sings about a typically second-grade-ish love of nature. Kinda incongruous since listening to this music I somehow conjure up dank inner city streets or those blaxploitation mooms that alla the cool kids (white and black) wanted to go see back during my years of passage from insecure kiddiedom to even more insecure adulthood back inna seventies, but then again I sure wish I heard more of this kinda music during that best/worst of times decade and less of that Anastasia Pantsios-approved tough women in rock who'd probably cry if they broke a fingernail crap.

Of course it's a top notch winner (ranks with the primalness of the Stooges so it IS that good!) that'll set you back quite a penny given these ain't exactly showin' up at your local supermarket. Maybe if you're lucky (and cheap enough) someone'll post this via youtube but until then save your plasma money!
***
Red Noise-SARCELLES-LOCHERES LP; Mahogany Brain-WITH (JUNK-SAUCEPAN) WHEN (SPOON-TRIGGER) LP (Souffle Continu Records France, available via Forced Exposure)

Wow, two of the wilder, punkier efforts to come out on the legendary French-based Futura label during the early-seventies are once again available, and not only that but Souffle Continu (who are handling these and other Futura efforts) did a painstakingly powerful job doin''em up right from the top notch sound and pressing to the impressive gatefold sleeves. Of course they too are rather pricey, but maybe if you act like you're having a spasm at the welfare office they'll dish out a li'l more moolah your way.

Red Noise sound fantab here compared with the youtube burn I got, coming off like a mad dash of Captain Beefheart filtered through Eric Dolphy with a whole load of late-sixties punk rock points tossed in to remind you of that teenage band down the road whose rehearsal got put to a halt after dad stuffed up the cracks, hitched the exhaust pipe of his '59 Lark to a vacuum cleaner tube and pumped it in! Some Fugs-y craziness also ensues both in the Frog and English language, but it doesn't get in the way of this overall crazed effort that really does live up to all of your 1968-75 punk expectations with a slew of atonal freeform tossed here and about. And hey, if the Titfield Thunderbolt put an album out it probably would have sounded a whole lot like this! Don't let the Zappa goatee on the front fool ya---this is primal rock 'n rot that (as one French crit put it) has reference points in such stellar acts as the Velvets, MC5 and Plastic Ono Band!

Mahogany Brain need no introduction to those of us who have scoured the earth looking for the spiritual successor to the WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT blare reduced to something that even makes NO NEW YORK sound happyhappy in comparison. Band leader Michel Bulteau and his crew scrape blooze licks and harmonica farts seemingly in a most indiscriminate way that makes most of those eighties art rock expressions sound totally self-centered amateurish. About one step removed (in the right direction) from even such out there seventies anti-rock acts as Teenage Jesus and the Jerks (who sound structured next to this crew!), and come to think of it former co-leader Patrick Geoffris was an early-eighties Contortion so it did all "come around" like we always knew it would.

More adventurous (and richer) readers might wanna get the limited edition color vinyl versions, but penny-counting me just stuck with the good ol' black stuff. Either way these'll make you really happy, or get a hefty price put on my head after someone parts with a good $44 (for both) and feels they've been had and but good!
***
Other Dimensions in Music w/Matthew Shipp-TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE IS BEYOND TIME CD (Aum Fidelity)

Dunno why this '97 slab didn't tickle my hammer'n stirrups back when I first spun it o'er a good decade back. Musta been onna male rag at the time because is something that I sure coulda used more of during the past twennysome (plus) years than the reams of precocious amerindie platters done up by a buncha Poppy Family wannabes who thought they were channeling the Velvet Underground through Gordon Gano's sphincter.

Multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter (who also popped up in Freedomland and the beauteous Storm  (I do hope somebody preserved this racket!) lends his talents via saxophones, flute and trumpet while Roy Campbell Jr. (another big star of the old CBGB Lounge Freestyle series) does a pretty good job  himself. No Ayler he, but then again he ain't no David Sanborn! Freedomland's William Parker handles the bass chores while Rashid Bakr, the original Blue Humans drummer himself is present making this like a supergroup of a substance and form that could put Penelope Playtex to shame!

Oh yeah, pianist Matthew Shipp sat in here and he doesn't get in the way even if he is a white interloper. Comes off less Cecil Taylor and more Burton Greene albeit a more restrained one, but it all works copasetic-like as if these guys had their antennae tuned to the same brainwaves and could bounce off each others' impulses like something outta TWILIGHT ZONE. In many ways this reminds me of that free group recording from '62 with Greene and Alan Silva that also deserves another spin, and if you think I'm gonna ignore any other other ODIM releases (have at least one stashed here in the closet along with a whole slew of fag relatives) you are most sadly mistaken!
***
Francois Tusques/Don Cherry-LA MAISON FILLE DU SOLIEL 7-inch 45 rpm single (Cacophonic France, available via Forced Exposure)

Weirdo (if neat) '64 sides recorded by French multi-instrumentalist Tusques (here plunking on his main instro piano) along with bigtime great Cherry and somebody other than Bernard Guerin on contrabass (though he does get credit). The three perform what could best be called chamber free jazz that sounds as if it were recorded on reel-to-reel in either a rehearsal hall or one of the cheaper studios in the vicinity. Coolsville, but why is this a single 'stead of a longplayer (I assume there's more...and yeah, I know that this is a reish of one of the rarest free jazz singles extant) and what was the Le Corbusier exhibit this was recorded for about anyway? Matters that deserve to be discussed true. but if you wanna part with a good fourteen smackers for a free jazz single you couldn't do better'n this.
***
MORGAN TAYLOR'S ROCK GROUP CD (no label)

Twas wondering how much this early oh-oh's underground-y platter held up considering I hadn't spun the thing since first reviewing it in the pages of my long-capsized crudzine. Turns out that these Morgan Taylor's Rock Group people still sound as fresh and as late-sixties Greg Shaw special power pop issue of BOMP! as I remembered...sure there's a trace of twee in the vocals, and some of the melodies ruin the impression of seventies veneration of sixties moves but this is still solid enough (even on the softer, introspective numbers) to remind you of the hope you had in the earlier part of this century for the hope you held in the eighties for the hope you held in the seventies that somehow the better aspects of sixties rock would once again rear its crazy head.

Morgan Taylor can get a little too introspective irritating (with his vox and compositions) true, but even the softer numbers don't grate as much as they should perhaps because here in 2015 they sound as retrospectively refreshing as they did when this was released in 2002. Overall the group reminds me of the long-gone Pezband who were treading a similar post-Raspberries groove and got washed over in the tide of late-seventies triteness despite all of their (and Cary Baker's) best efforts. Surprisingly Midwest sounding, which don't quite figure since these guys are En Why See born and bred and in fact used to frequent CBGB plenty during that haunt's final half decade.

Too bad I can't tell you where to get this since their website has been taken down presumably LONG ago. Maybe a seek and ye shall find rah-rah should be in order. Go for it because you have done worse many a time.
***
Various Artists-DUSTY LIMEHOUSE VALLEY CD-r burn (Bill Shute Enterprises)

This one doesn't tingle my taters the way previous Bill burns do, but I like it anyway so there! Starts off strong with a track by the Buckinghams which is actually good enough that it could have popped up on a NUGGETS-styled compilation of the very-early eighties and fit in snug-like, and the cover of the String-A-Longs'"Wheels" by some unknown Canadian outfit is just as cornball good as the original. The rest vacillates between fair 'nough and eh!, though if you're that bugs over early-sixties misses and country good tries you might like this. The little commercial jingle thingies Bill stuck here and there did help ooze those long-repressed feelings of single-digit doofdom so maybe I shouldn't be acting like the louse ingrate that I'm certainly coming off like!
↧

Article 0

April 1, 2015, 1:12 am
$
0
0
BOOK REVIEW! THE CREEPER by Steve Ditko (DC, 2010)

After pouring through all of those Steve Ditko comics I wrote about three weeks back, I figured that I needed more of the man's comics in my life. So I did what I thought was best and latched onto this recent collection of every Ditko delineated CREEPER story that appeared under the DC imprint from the late-sixties until the late-seventies. There really weren't that many of these tasty tales made (the original series ran about seven issues and his Ditko-manned reappearances in the seventies only nine) so let's just say that this tome for our times makes for a nice 'n handy collection, especially for those of us who never did get enough of that good ol' ranch house fifties-sixties-seventies living and wanna make up for lost time before we're stuck at the Abundant Life rest home in a coma and the stoopid doctors there are pumping in disco day and night because that's what they think us old timers like!

Yeah the Creeper just ain't as legendary as that other Ditko creation SPIDER-MAN, but at least he left the Stan Lee-approved angst and imperfection back at Marvel where it belonged! Jack Ryder's a recently-fired tee-vee host who, while undercover at a mob costume party dressed up like a refugee from a gay pride parade, gets brutally stabbed when discovered. An Iron Curtain scientist who is been kidnaped by the badboys saves Ryder's life by injecting a new serum that causes not only the wound to instantly heal but a big upkick in strength, agility, energy and other superhero qualities. Oh, and before that wound healed the good doc slipped in this much-coveted device which can make Ryder's identity change from the costumed crimefighter into his real self (later on it's revealed that the Creeper costume is stuck on him and for good!) with the mere click of an activator making those quick-changes a whole lot more easier'n they were on THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN. In all a pretty neato origin story regarding a hero that I believe Ditko later re-vamped as Shag!

There's very little of the infamous late-sixties Ditko editorializing that you found creeping into his latterday SPIDER-MAN work or even the BLUE BEETLE title at Charlton (let alone Ditko's more commercial comic book friendly take on MR. A. entitled THE QUESTION). The only whiff of socio-politico pontificating I can locate is in the origin story where the still employed Ryder is poo-pooing Dr. Clayton Wetley, a thinly-disguised (I'll betcha!) take on Fredric Wertham who is going on an anti-violence tear that seems rather sympatico with the same line of thinking that got DICK TRACY dropped from the local paper back inna late-sixties. Oddly enough Wetley doesn't make it beyond this story like I thought he would (he does come off as a standard Ditko do-gooder type who woulda made for an irritating aside in the comic's run) and neither do the standard Ditko gadflies who popped up in the reams of his personalist work...I do find it really strange reading one of these sagas where the Ditko protagonist doesn't give a dying criminal a discourse on "A is A" as he slips into the sleep that knows no dawn, but I kinda get the feeling the Comics Code Authority wouldn't have gone for that!

These stories are better'n the usual late-sixties DC standard superhero sagas which at times were suffering from the ol' run down and let's try to copy the Marvel Comics format feeling. Even the ones where Denny O'Neill (the mastermind behind the short-lived and tres-relevant GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW early seventies revamp) took over the writing chores ain't as righteous as I thought they would be after reading those Ditko/Robin Snyder newsletters which stated otherwise. And hey, even though the series barely made it into 1969 I will say that what was done in these comics and done in such a relatively short time does rank with the better moments of Silver/Bronze Age funnybook hijinx and that include the top notch stuff that Marvel had been doing at least up until Stan Lee decided to retire and suddenly it seemed as if SPIDER-MAN had become nothing more than a spokesman for Hostess Pies.

I didn't have much hope for the seventies CREEPER revival but the ones here seem to pick up as if there weren't a good eight or so years between stories. A little clarification was in order---the mysterious burgh that Jack Ryder/Creeper were working in was none other than Gotham City (I guess this was brought out in a non-Ditko scratched issue of THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD where the guy teamed up with none other'n Gotham's really favorite creep Batman) which kinda makes me wonder how the same hero could work in the same city at least in the old DC universe! But in Gotham City he was, and I will admit that it sure was great to read something in a late-seventies DC title that didn't try too hard to be cutting edge or just plain down pat retread (not that it's any worse than the social consciousness-packed dribble we are still constantly bombarded with even at a time when these people should know better...).

So if you like to read about a clean-cut early-sixties savvy kinda guy who lives in a world of sideburns and caterpillar mustaches and turn into freaky mop-topped hero with the click of a switch this 'un might the the one to pick. One for your goof off time reading list, and it does go well on a day off from my mid-Amerigan responsibilities along with the usual old time tee-vee shows and a spin or three of NUGGETS...who sez late-sixties suburban slobdom is dead!
↧

Article 0

April 5, 2015, 9:09 am
$
0
0
Sheesh, I'm still trying to down some rather wretched Christmas candy that's still lying about the abode (some sorta chocolate-covered dog feces dried to a nauseating chewable texture) and now it's Easter---I mean, can you believe it??? Given my luck with holiday candy I'm probably going to have to spend the next six months or so trying to down alla those horrible fruit 'n nut eggs my mother buys because she thinks I like 'em (of course only she does and she ain't fooling anyone one bit because the last thirtysome years have been filled with hints for vanilla fudge and coconut ones!) which certainly does not add up to any tasty sweets gobbling on my part, that's for sure!

Anyway, this particular Easter had me reminiscing of those holidays past undoubtedly because I was much younger then and could appreciate cheapo candy thrills even more, and for some not-so-surprising reason I keep recalling perhaps the most vivid Easter of all. Twas the one from when I was but a little single-digiter, about nine or so but anyway, the entire fambly had returned home from church that Easter morn and what did we find but all of the Easter baskets pilfered! Torn into with candy and boxes chewed up and scattered about the parlor floor amidst the Easter hay with what could be called primal abandon. Upon further discovery we found our dog Sam lying at the bottom of the cellar stairs deathly ill whilst moaning his guts away! Y'see, dogs and chocolate don't exactly go together---we didn't know that at the time---and here Sam snuck into the forbidden parlor area on the hunt for food, ate all of the goodies he could stand and was sick as what else but a dog because of his misdeeds!

I still chortle over that even all these years later, and even though Sam might have learned his lesson I sure didn't because I would give the pooch a piece of my Hershey's bar whenever he would beg and maybe if a li'l bit didn't hurt him that much I'm sure his mind remembered that sunny spring day when he certainly did bite off more than he could chew! Or should that be digest... But its those kinda memories that I cherish most even if the wretched ones about school and being banged into that round hole with a mallet usually take center stage in my sometimes not-so-rheumy reminiscences.
***
Kinda slow new-disque-wize this go 'round, so other'n the obligatory Bill Shute effort at the end the platters being reviewed are all oldsters that were rescued from within the vast reaches of Cee-Dees that could be found on various boxes sitting on top of my bedroom bookcase (which is filled with even more Cee-Dees if you can believe it!). Just random pics of platters that I might have spun a few times and forgot, or even those I've ignored for whatever reasons when I first snatched 'em up or was given 'em by people who thought I would review the thing post haste! Whatever, here are some spins that I think you'll appreciate reading about (hah!), and if I've convinced any of you to go out and search a copy or two of these I'll REALLY be surprised. I mean, some of you reg'lar visitors to this blog are kinda brain dead, y'know???
***
Oh, before I get into the good stuff, can anyone direct me to some English translations of any Yves Adrien articles that might be floating about out there in the ether we know as internet???


Crazy Horse-CRAZY MOON CD (Raven, Australia)

The unreleased '78 album sounds about as instant bargain bin as any late-seventies album could, but even I must admit that CRAZY MOON comes off like a much better potential cutout classic than all of those Arthur Fiedler Boston Pops platters you hadda tread through to get to the Monty Python. Sure it's got a whole lotta that El Lay fringe and denim in its slickly-produced sound (I can just see the men behind the control panel engaging in a little extra-curricular activities up their nostrils while this was being recorded) , but beneath the ROLLING STONE-approved comfy jeans candor there's a rather gritty affair that just might appeal to even the more punkier of thou. At least in part, but those parts just might be juicy enough for you to digest.

Hokay I know you're gonna conjure up all sortsa Doobie Brothers vibes in your brain whilst listening to "Dancin' Lady", but I think you might be able to get around the occasional lapses into mediocrity once in awhile.

The tracks from the '72 AT CROOKED LAKE album are more to my liking even if I find CRAZY MOON quite palatable (West Coast at its gutsier---guess the patchouli hadn't sunk into their brains yet) at least to the point where I might seek out that particular platter once I get the review over an done with. (NOTE---I checked into what was available and decided to hold off because of $$$ constraints, which is as good enough an excuse as any!) And of course the Rockets tracks which were included to sweeten the pot so to speak are better'n the rest of the tracks combined, but if you've been reading this blog long enough you wouldn't have to ask (if you were to, that is).
***
Led Zeppelin-CABALA 5/6 2-CD set bootleg (Osoz Italy)

Bought these two final disques taken from one of those superduper bootleg box sets if only for the inclusion of the LUCIFER RISING soundtrack which appears on the first 'un. Turns out this ain't the rather boffo Jimmy Page take which appeared on the legendary (and recently restored) LUCIFER RISING PART ONE version of that film but the better known Bobby Beausoliel soundtrack that comes off about as Zep-oriented as Mantovani (actually it reminds me a whole lot of just-pre-DARK SIDE OF THE MOON Pink Floyd). Prison really did a lot to alter Beausoliel's musical capabilities because this proggy stew is a looong way from Arthur Lee, and if I were you I'd keep an eye out for the Page version.

The rest that transpires ain't much to chew on either, with rather coked up performances taken from various Amerigan tours which I would assume really brought out the beast in the group (at least to the point where they were sloshing through their sets thinking about the entertainment they were gonna be in store for once their entertaining was over for the night), and while I'm at it the El Lay '77 soundcheck featuring the band hamming it up on old fifties hits doesn't have the joy de vivid that even the more jaded Lennon and McCartney woulda worked up during the same time. Of course by that tour it would all come (deservedly) crashing down so what else would you expect from these major league burpers anyway?

At least those '69 live shows had a lotta the snazz and groove that their first LP was lacking, even to the point where you can easily hear some tangential sixties punk rock styles merging into seventies accomplishment. But this particular quaff's only for the downed out zitfarm greaseatron who used to bag your groceries in between tokes in the back of the supermarket. If you're nostalgic for backseat puking this is the boot for you!
***
The Chesterfield Kings-SURFIN' RAMPAGE CD (Mirror)

I've been neglecting the Chesterfield Kings for quite awhile so this 'un did come in handy even if I was looking for their Rolling Stones "tribute". The best of PEBBLES VOLUME 4 cum the BOMP! surf issue mooshed up for an audience who wants a li'l more in their surf sounds than the local lounge act doing their usually sterile version of "Wipe Out". Surf obscurities from the Usher/Christian and Brian Wilson collections mingle with a few originals and heck, even your Unca Fanabla might remember hearing "Little Honda" on the radio way back when while changing stations to get to the new Bert Kaempfert single on E-Z listening. A better tombstone to the glory that was post-World War II/pre-hippie living than anything the seventies/eighties cooked up for "nostalgic" (yawn!) baby boomer consumption.
***
The Lyres-THE EARLY YEARS-1979 TO 1983-LIVE AT CANTONES AND WERS-FM CD (Crypt)

Given my recent DMZ obsession I thought this would be a good 'un to give a reappraisal to even if Jeff Conolly's later-on band didn't quite measure up to the original bunch (at least not in my own humble opinion). Never fear, for the raw approach to plenty of covers and even a few originals had me jumping up and down like Elton John on a prostrate synthetic son of his. More six-oh organ-dominated than DMZ true, yet it captures that mid-sixties era from a suburban slob viewpoint more than most of the other "garage revival" acts that were cluttering up the scene at the time. For some reason it reminds me of all of those family trips to a cold, damp, rainy New England, and that includes the boffo drive in restaurants that served up a whole oceanfulla delicious 'n greasy seafood as well!
***
The Red Crayola-LIVE 1967 2-CD set (Drag City)

Here 'tis, or is it here 'tare, the legendary Red Crayola (the original batch, not the ones Mayo Thompson had been trotting about since the late-seventies) recorded live and elsewhere during their legendary San Francisco romp back July 1967 way. Total free-form sound both acoustic and electronic done in front of an audience (some who actually seems to appreciate their free form freak outs---guess the drugs hadn't gone to all of their frazzled heads yet) and in their hotel room playing some of the freest music (let alone "rock") to have been heard at that time.

There's even a track with none other than John Fahey sitting in which still makes me wonder whatever happened to that lost unreleased album the group did with him during their West Coast jaunt. But this is great on many levels, not only for the wonderful ahead-of-their-time avant-rock explorations that would come to fruition with the advent of Throbbing Gristle and Nurse With Wound, but for the fact that the band of Thompson, Cunningham and Barthleme were really upsetting more'n a few peace 'n love applecarts with this sonic barrage that seems to go 180-degrees against the prevailing winds of the time. And of course killjoy me just loves that to the end!

Nice foldout poster/insert with this one which reprints a whole load of press regarding the band's stay in the Bay Area. And as you would expect not all of it is positive. There's even that brief if infamous mention of the Crayola that appeared in Jonathan Cott's opening schpiel in ROLLING STONE's tenth anniversary special edition where he pretty much dismisses 'em as an awkward miss in an otherwise beautiful world of youth kultur hits. Strange, but wouldn't you think a guy who cozied up to those early John and Yoko albums woulda found the Red Crayola to have been positively smashing, eh?
***
Lambsbread-WATER DAMAGE CD-r (Maim & Disfigure)

This 'un's almost ten years old but I'm just getting to the thing now. Maybe I was put off by the guy on the cover's tattoo and earring (I get that way sometimes) but once I got over the body modification I figured wha' th'hey. Pretty neat electronic squonk here too with atonal guitar scrawl and who knows what else, and although you might say it's just a couple of guys jagging off with their gear I say so what! Sorta like a bedroom tape version of what acts like Ascension and maybe even High Rise have been doing for the past few decades. Only fifty numbered copies, and I got #3!
***
Iggy and the Stooges-OPEN UP AND BLEED! CD (Bomp!)

Yupyupyup, I've heard these tracks via many a source ever since the floodgates of RAW POWER-era Stooges burst forth like vomit from an AIDS-riddled streetbum but sheesh, it's always great listening to these melodies over and over again no matter what form they happen to come in.

The CBS rehearsals with the future Blue Gene Tyranny on piano begin the disque followed by a portion of the Latin Casino and Whisky-A-Go-Go shows before its back to rehearsals with the always engrossing "She Creatures of the Hollywood Hills" and "Rubber Legs". It's all kinda together enough to appreciate as a "whole", and not only that but it'll sure brings back old Stooges tingles to you people who were in on the game from the get-go!

If you were one stroonad who was ostracized for listening to the Stooges and Dolls in a world of Cat Stevens and Melanie it might not rectify anything in the long run, but think about all of the fun you'll have at the high school reunion when you see alla them dunderhead folkie types waddle their way up to tell you just how superior they still are and always will be as their colostomy bags spill all over their gowns!
***
Various Artists-VULGAR LIME BOATMEN VIBRATING CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

In between snatches of brilliance (Bo Diddley, the Sunrays) Bill globs on a whole lotta tossaway gunk that an't even fit enough for your retarded cousin's basket-weaving class!

But I like it, everything from "vanity entertainer" Dora Hall's "Engine #9 to Hank and Jimmy doing the late-fifties singing due schtick in the most pedestrian manner imaginable to a Japanese take on the Beach Boys'"God Only Knows". Sure the obv. BATMAN cop entitled "Chickenman" (who certainly ain't no Batwing I'll tell ya) flops all over and how many versions of the "Third Man Theme" do you need, but at least we get some fun li'l turdbits like a Chuck Berry medley and a neato instrumental by an act called the Eagles who don't reek Southern California cocaine karma like I know you thought they would.

Funniest track---Angelina's "He Forgot His Rubbers" which is double entendre enough for you, me and your high school English teacher because it was taken from an album fulla durty songs with titles like "All The Girls Love Big Dick" and "My Pussy Belongs To Daddy"! A great way to celebrate the Easter Holida, dontcha think? Now you know what to get Aunt Mabel and Unca Ferd for their anniversary, and if they brain ya don't come cryin' to me!
↧
↧

Article 0

April 9, 2015, 5:43 am
$
0
0
BOOK REVIEW! THE CRACKED READER (Avon, 1960)

Haw! It figures that the very first MAD paperback collection was entitled THE MAD READER so why not CRACKED's debut on the spinning bookcase display be a direct swipe anyhow??? Considering what an alternate dimension version of MAD CRACKED had been for way too long a time wouldja think they were gonna call this thing anything but???

I gotta admit that although I cringed whenever I saw this mag at the stands throughout my MAD-loving days I do find this smattering of some of the earliest CRACKED stories ever to be printed to be rawther entertaining. Even funny at times. John Severin's art was perhaps at its post-EC best (and even the "serious" piece contrasting tee-vee western characters and their real life counterparts was pleasing enough for my eyeballs to behold), and although Jack Davis wasn't putting as much fine-lined detail into his art like he did in the MAD spectacular "Let's Go For a Ride!" (as well as his TRUMP and HUMBUG contributions) his stories were at least as good as it got compared with some of his later slapdash crankout. Even Bill Elder does some of his great comic strip parodies which are always amazing even if I don't think the POPEYE panel that pops up here really captured the various MAD (let alone PANIC) versions he previously gifted us with.

Whoever was scribbling the text for these stories was sure doing a better job than they were in the CRACKEDs that I used to sneak peek on scant occasion. Sure a good portion of the turds they popped out might have seemed trite compared with the main competition, but the timely spoofs dealing with such astute subject matter as beatniks, BAT MASTERSON, SEA HUNT and Bridgette Bardot still make for funtime reading especially in an age where comedy more or less has become loudmouth assaults on whatever target of self-righteous ire some sideways turd of a human being may harbor these days.

And between you 'n me dontcha think we can sure use a whole lot more real har-hars these days whether it be a Gavin McInnes or Jim Goad column or one of those DIVERSITY CHRONICLE articles that keep me laughing from here to Fanabla because it's like 2015 and you're not supposed to laugh at these things like you could have even a good ten years back!

One final note---it is interesting (though not exactly surprising) to see that even in these early issues the CRACKED writers were poking fun at their main inspiration with blatant references to not only Alfred E. himself but EC boss Bill Gaines (the latter even being pictured with his face unobscured unlike old Neuman's) whenever they could get a chance to poke fun at the big guys. Yeah I know that Alfred E.'s visage had been spotted in a variety of MAD knockoffs in the late-fifties (and even in TRUMP), but when I was a kid I was once shocked to see a CRACKED cover where mascot Sylvester P. Smythe was seen sticking pins into a voodoo doll who looked suspiciously like you-know-who. Somehow to an adolescent pus-package such as myself this seemed like a horrid blasphemy, but considering most of the blasphemies that are accepted and whole and true these days it's like well, what else is there gonna be to shock and offend me these days, eh? (or is that yawn...). Still it was quite a shock, and although I hadn't heard of any lawsuits regarding the use of MAD's very own Esky/Playboy bunny I was sure as shootin' under the impression that one was gonna be just around the corner! But then again when I was an adolescent I thought that anybody who was famous and on tee-vee alla time was an automatic millionaire, and when you're twelve you do see the world kinda skewered, y'know?
↧

Article 0

April 12, 2015, 11:00 am
$
0
0
A REAL BOSS ROCK 'N' ROLL SHOW I ATTENDED LAST TUESDAY EVENING!-I'm talkin' about the Moody Blues at Akron's B. J. Thomas (hah!) Hall, and boy was that one a proverbial mofo as they say!!! The Moodies started off with this high energy rocker called "Once Upon a Time" which was highly reminiscent of the Stooges back when Iggy slipped into a heavy duty smack jones and began smelling like that dog poop that mistakenly ran over with the lawn mower and splattered all over the place. Total annihilation. Then they roared into an old favorite entitled "Tuesday Afternoon" that sounded just like the Seeds back around the time they were recording "Up In Her Room". After that came a whole string of numbers that really hearkened back to those crazy days of sixties decadence like "Nights in White Satin" (a dead ringer for the Flamin' Groovies), "Melancholy Man" (a resensifier if there ever was one!!!) and "Ride My See Saw", which a few fanablas out there say is a direct swipe from the Deviants'"I'm Coming Home". The show ended in a wild orgasmic free form freakout that really turned crazy when the gal flute player got nekkid and started dancing to the primal rock 'n' roll beat of it all!

In actuality it was a typical baby boomer money grabber that I attended only because my cyst-er got some free tickets for pledging to the local PBS station (we got the PBS seats way up high and I got a spontaneous [translation-no picking] nosebleed to prove it). And, needless to say, I was bored silly by it all. Well, it was kinda fun (if not a little sickening) watching all of the old leftovers standing up and applauding or holding their arms up while yelling "THANK YOU!" as if this were some sort of tent revival meeting. The only song I really liked was "The Story in Your Eyes" which wasn't any "Go Now", but better than the rest, even that psychedelic one about the butterflies flying all over the place. I couldn't sleep too well that night, though that may be because of the Mexican dinner I engaged in at some chi-chi yuppie eatery prior to the performance. I also told cyst that next time she pledged she should just take the Julia Childs cookbook and be done with it.
***
As  for what else I've been doing this week, I must admit that I've been spending a more than inordinate amount of time on archive.org's NATIONAL LAMPOON site gathering up a whole slew of past issues for our modern-day perusal and guffaws for that matter. It's sure swell to see someone put these classic magazines up for the reading (and nothing but!), and of course it's sure boffo eyeballing alla those great comics like DIRTY DUCK and even some of the NUTS that didn't make it into book form considering just how downright goodie they can be. And of course the bad taste for bad taste's sake attitude is sure refreshing just like those old Bangs and Meltzer (not to forget TEENAGE WASTELAND GAZETTE) pieces are here in the beyond cyborg and Nazified 'teens. If you want to know where I got at least some of my powers, look no further than here. Personal fave story espied so far..."All In De Fambly" which is, as they say, guaranteed to offend (the people who deserve to be offended, that is!).
***
The recent death of STAN FREBERG did affect me a certain way, maybe in a way where its' finally sinking into my thick skull that it's now 2015 and all of those child/teen-hood fave types who made the fifties and sixties so funtime are now passing on into eternity, perhaps taking along with the entertainment they had created with them. Of course I didn't even know who Freberg was until the early-seventies when I picked up a copy of INSIDE MAD and read the guy's "backword", and the discovery of A CHILD'S GARDEN OF FREBERG being advertised in the back pages of HELP! had me begging my mother to snatch up a copy for Christmas which was an impossibility since by this time the platter had been out of print for over fifteen years. (But don't worry, I found a nice mint copy of it a good decade later and I even reviewed it in the fifth issue of my very own crudzine!). But whatever, I kept an eye out for Freberg even though I did NOT realize at the time that all of those crazy commercials I saw on tee-vee (Ann Miller's GREAT AMERICAN SOUPS, the Shakey's Pizza one which had a Col. Sanders lookalike downing a slice which earned that now-deep sixed chain a nice lawsuit from the KFC head honcho...) were Freberg creations so it was like I was enjoying the guy for years without even knowing who he was!

If I could, I would photoshop the pic to make Freberg read an
old issue of BLACK TO COMM. But I can't, and come
to think of it he wouldn't.
Of course over the years I began spotting a whole load of boffo Freberg platters (as well as a cassette at a local supermarket!) and scarfed 'em up like potrzebie! In an age of unfunniness as the norm these spinners were the most...they were har-har inducing in that cool fifties way (even cooler'n the tepid Steve Allen) that oozed from the works of Harvey Kurtzman and could be spotted even in those supposedly kiddie-oriented Hanna-Barbara cartoons that were dragging the oldsters in front of the set just as much as they were the turdlers. Freberg's 1962 Chung King-sponsored Chinese New Year tee-vee special (which was written up in my rag as well!) was a big play around the BTC offices in the mid-90s and would be today if I only had a working VCR player. And who could forget those high-larious spoofs of DRAGNET, "The Great Pretender" and Elvis. Never did get to hear any of those anti-Vietnam war PSA's that I understand got Freberg on Nixon's Enemies List (though I can't find any concrete proof of that), but I'll bet those are a hoot as well (the "Vietnamamatic"???? Har!).

So it's so long to you master cartoon voice, tee-vee funnyman (remember when this unabashed rock 'n' roll hater was on THE MONKEES???) and yet another cool fifties/sixties guy with glasses (along with Bill Cullen and Alan Ludden!). Sheesh, somehow I now feel a whole lot older than the four-year-old I always envision myself as!
***
Well, do ya think I have created a spiffy batch of reviews here now...c'mon, do YA??? Well, yeah, the selection coulda been better, but given the past week I'm surprised I was able to crank out this much. One oldie, one recently bought and the rest donated. Who sez one can't live on a mere five dollars a week anyhow?



Sonny Simmons-STAYING ON THE WATCH CD (ZYX/ESP Germany)

Neglected debut ESP spin from the equally neglected Simmons, who plays not as ferocious as the big names but good enough to make you forget some of those not so exciting performers who used to pop up in the eighties and nineties. An as-you'd-expect new thing session featuring the beautifully droning trumpet of Barbara Donald, John Hicks doing standard Bley-isms on the piano, Teddy Smith on bass and Marvin Pattillo on percussion. Best of the batch; "A Distant Voice" which has Simmons wailing alto over one of the most beautiful mid-east drones heard at least since LaMonte Young, and who am I to lie to you?
***
Jake Starr and the Delicious Fullness-TASTES GOOD CD-r (originally on AM)

Typical garage revival platter that similar to most of the ones we've heard ever since the seventies. Good cheap trasho organ sound coupled with reconstituted tough teenage vocals. Not bad at all but really nothing that might have excited me the same way these sorta shenanigans did back when Moxie Records was in business and BATTLE OF THE GARAGES seemed like the ultimate in underground rock expression especially compared with alla that new wave-o gunch that was siphoning money away from our trust funds. For 99th FLOOR readers, and maybe a few fans of the early BLACK TO COMM as well.
***
Moondog-RARE MATERIAL 2-CD set (Indigo)

Before they had outsider music, they had outsider music. And this guy (along with Harry Partch, Conlon Nancarrow and some hip relic I'll find out about tomorrow) was one of the earliest practitioners of the form to the point where he was considered hepster material long before Janis Joplin covered his "All Is Loneliness". Heck, even Marlon Brando used to sit in with him slapping the bongos, and I remember reading in some old issue of BUCKETFULL OF BRAINS where Moondog himself said that none other than Lenny Bruce showed an interest in his work, but we won't talk about overrated unfunny junkies who think they have something important to say about society especially when they don't.

Rather upfront collection this is, with stuff from those really old albums Moondog did in the fifties as well as some newer extravaganzas ranging from Big Band strut to introspective renaissance-type thingies. It all fits in well when you're in the mood for something that's jazzy then emotional then kinda Amerigan rustic. And, like the best of this original outta nowhere music it doesn't have a SHARD of artistic pretension the kind you've seen outta the billions of performance artists and underground rock types who think they're being creative when they're aping the likes of Lydia Lunch a good thirtysome years after these mattress gal types shoulda known better.

As Madonna said about some seventies foreign film, "I like it because it's real"...
***
THE BOTTLE ROCKETS CD-r burn (originally on East Side Digital)

Average (in fact, kinda ho-hum) country rock that at least has got a definite pounce to it. Gets points for making an attempt to merge deep south grit and suburban slob rockism, but just doesn't hit the mark like similar efforts by the Kama Sutra-era Flamin' Groovies let alone pre-glitzout Stones. Still, the tracks heard here sure do make for a whole better listening experience than alla that new country popschmooze that I hear every time I enter into Dollar General to pick up a bag of pork rinds.
***
Fossils-FOR BRIAN RURYK CD (Kendra Steiner Editions)

Crazed collage of musique concrete roar, huddling somewhere between Smegma, Nurse With Wound, Orchid Spangiafora and that dream you had one night having something to do with a high school science class and severe constipation. Rather extreme at times but nothing that will want to make you upchuck, and quite mesmerizing even when the sound seems to be going off into tangents that would make Sun Ra's various space explorations seem like first class travel complete with the comfy slippers. Pretty snazzy stuff if you must know, and something that I'll bet a whole slew of anal retentive geeks will be studying to death 100 years from now because hey, what else will there be for them to do?
***
Various Artists-I SAW HER STANDING NEXT TO IGOR CD-r burn (BS)

I enjoyed it. The thing's got a pleasing mish-mosh of obscurities from sixties soul (the Bronzettes, Betty Davis before she married Miles) to familiar faves missing the charts big (Brenda Lee, Bill Medley) to British Invasion rave (the Boy Blues) and forgotten garage bands (the Snaps). Oddly enough I actually owned The Paniks' Batman spoof entitled "I Can Beat Him Up" at one time, but I think it got dumped somewhere (maybe not...it might still be snuggled in my collection somewhere). My faves of the lot just happen to be this Mexican-themed novelty about Christmas south of the border entitled "Burrito", Zacherle's horror grossout "Igor" and Nat King Cole plugging some cheapo wine via a promotional platter sent to local booze shops. Dunno if they still bottle this "Arriba" stuff, but if you got a bottle of MD 20/20 or Thunderbird handy it just might go swell with this 'un.
↧
Search

Article 1

April 16, 2015, 4:00 am
$
0
0
MAGAZINE REVIEW! BULL TONGUE REVIEW #2 (www.bulltonguereview.com...Forced Exposure has 'em as well)

Remember them days, y'know, them days when you'd wait patiently for whatever fanzine you had sent away for to finally show up at your doorstep and you'd eagerly (if carefully) open the manila envelope, remove said not-so-periodical from its sheath, and then lock yourself in your fart-encrusted bedroom and read the whole dang thing cover-to-cover until it was either time to relieve your number one or mom was calling for you to come eat supper?

Yeah them were the days...and now you can relive them about as well as you can here in the tepid teens with the latest issue of BULL TONGUE REVIEW! Yes, with those sixties/seventies/eighties underground thrills just slipping away faster'n hair from Eno's scalp a mag like this comes in mighty handy! For not only do editors Byron Coley and Thurston Moore round up just about whatever's left of that once-blazing underground and report it all to you in a nice, concise and ya-just-gotta-get-hold-of-a-copy-even-if-the-thing's-been-sold-out-for-months sorta way, but they got a whole lotta stragglers from said underground to tell us about their recent fave books, activities, recordings, tee-vee programs and other things you didn't think pseudo-boho types cared about one bit! But these people ain't pseudo-bohos so once again you don't know what you're talking about and why are you reading this nize li'l downhome blog of mine in the FIRST place you "poseur" you!


All kidding aside, Byron and Thurston do a pretty spiffy job of layin' on the line what has popped up in what's left of underground punkdom. The A MINUTE TO PRAY period Flesheaters reunion review that was undoubtedly Byron's bailiwick read grand especially from a guy who had been all-out supportive of the group ever since the day (or actually, long before) "Chris D's Carnal Knowledge" (a whopper of a piece if there ever was one) appeared in the pages of THE NEW YORK ROCKER. It's kinda like he was born to write about the Flesheaters in any way shape or form and hey, I'd rather read about his personalist opines on the guy than I would some certain West Coast tinytoon's given the fact that here it is 2015 and just about anybody can come off looking like a total asshole given they got the right technology in their hands.

However, to be honest I think I'm gonna pass on trying to get hold of most of the wares Coley and Moore were pitching to us this time, perhaps except for a new Rolling Stones fanzine out there called what else but STONE AGE! Yeah I know what yer thinking---who'd wanna buy let along read yet another Rolling Stones 'zine these days?!?! Well, this one's different since it features nothing but various celebs (big name or not) writing about just how much Mick Jagger and company have influenced their otherwise pitiful lives! The thing comes outta London England, but it might be worth the pences to pick up especially if you wanna read the personal Stone takes of such big names in the rock 'n roll biz as Sylvain Sylvain, James Williamson and Henry Rollins?!?!?!??

The main meaty portion of the rag is boffo enough for my tastes as well. Some new additions to the growing cast of characters (welcome aboard Eddie Flowers!) join the reg'lars, and for the most part the reading is just as swell as you'd find in just about any down-to-earth fanzine of the early-mid-seventies that dared to mix its Genesis with its Seeds. Once again Donna Lethal cracks me up with her spin on "Youtube Tutorials" while Richard Meltzer (remind me to do a seventieth birthday trib to him onna blog) does a moom pitcher-tee-vee roundup that reminds me of those columns he used to do for FUSION and RAUNCHY ROCK way back when! Only it's in the here and now and the landscape has changed but fortunately not the prime oomph!

Other personal faves include Lili Dwight on belly buttons (a current subject swirling in my mind because I have come under attack for saying that the navel on a nize looking lady is just as va-voom as her bullseyes and the mounds they rest upon), Charles Plymell on the recent rash of Norton Records/Books output, Joe Carducci on Sam Peckinpah's short-lived WESTERNER series (with Brian Keith long before the days of FAMILY AFFAIR, caught an episode when the Western Channel was being shown free for a week and it was almost as boffo as the early-hour-long GUNSMOKE that sure made the later ones TV Land run look pale) and Ira Kaplan on "37 Birds I Prefer to THE BIRDMAN (2014)"! Loads more too, but I'll let you pour your peeps over your own copy and decide what pieces you think make this 'un a magazine to be dealt with.

Oh yeah, and the art is fantab, especially the Savage Pencil drawings that pop up throughout this potent periodical. Reminds me of those little cartoons that Jonh Ingham and others used to do for NEW HAVEN ROCK PRESS and WHO PUT THE BOMP! which only shows that the more things stay the same, they change, or something like that.
↧

Article 0

April 18, 2015, 10:14 am
$
0
0
ANOTHER WEEK ANOTHER SOMETHINGOROTHER...: welcome back back my friends to the bloviating that never ends, and if you're disgusted by that reference to noted prog schmoozers Emerson should go jump in the Lake with Palmer (copyright 1973 DENIM DELINQUENT magazine) then you'll undoubtedly be totally stomach-churned by what indeedly follows! Again it's been a rather creepathon week here at the BTC orifices and between this, work and whatever funzie time I can scrounge about there really hasn't been much that I could all stimulating happening between these four walls, or any other four walls I happen to be occupying at the time. Hopefully this will all change for the better, but then again hopefully I'll fall into a few billion dollars that'll tide me over until payday.
***
WEIRD ROCK 'N ROLL DREAM TIME!: haven't been having many of these particular dreamies as of late, but the one  I experienced only a few evenings back was not only elongated beyond the usual dream timespan of aseemingly minute or so but rather strange even for a suburban slob such as myself!!! At the beginning of it I was hanging out in Youngstown Ohio around the university area and I decide to blow off seeing the Rollins Band (had tickets) to take in Ella Fitzgerald at a large auditorium nearby! Ella even drove me home and was acting nice about it too! Then all of a sudden I'm in a strange place which turns out to be CBGB (though it now looks like some sorta abandoned warehouse turned into a flea market) and somehow my mind is relaying to me that this is that "new" place where CBGB used to be but they're having a CBGB reunion night of sorts!

And guess which song I hear when I trot in...."I'm Really Not This Way" by Manster! Yes, Manster had reformed for this gig and they did a good rendition of the famous number offa LIVE AT CBGB's though I remember the closing guitar solo being restrained in comparison with the original. I then trotted over to the stage to see them...as expected they were now all old guys in their sixties, kinda wrinkled skin-wise yet looking rather neat in their suits and ties, and they were playing really good that night to the point where I surewish I had a tape recorder handy! The singer (whose hair was grey and kinda wiry) had fun at our expense by shaking a bottle of Coke and spraying it all over the front of the crowd (including me!). He also shot some whipped or shaving cream on me and of course I fell to my knees laughing as we;; as feeling honored that the guy would target me with his aerosol can!!! A good time was had by all, and naturally dreams like this just make me wanna hear more of the real thing wherever that may be. But hey, without dreams like these I sure have a lot less!
***
Maybe there will be some "further ado" before we get into the review portion of today's program. First off I gotta thank Paul McGarry for a good portion of the burns, none of which I felt I got "burned" over ha ha hee hee, and Bill Shute for the sampler (one of a bazillion) of rarities combed off of the internet. Heap heavy hunkering thanks go to Bob Forward for the Nin "album" which was a total surprise because for some reason (joke presented in opening line of review notwithstanding) I thought this was gonna be some modern group doing the industrial crank game! (BTW this a platter that I will admit sounds just as good at 33 as it does at 45...in fact play it at 33 because it will last longer and sound even spookier just like one of those old Chrome records which urged you to do the same!)

OK, no more ado for me!



JD McPhearson-LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL CD-r burn (originally on Rounder Records)

A lotta this revival blooze chooze never did settle well with my rather delicate stomach, but since this guy's not Robert Cray it ain't like I'm gonna be complainin'. In fact this is pretty hot stuff that sounds rather pre-scuzzy white kids slick it up at times, a bit commercial perhaps but still varied enough to keep this short-attention-spanned reviewer occupied for the entirety. IMPORTANT NOTE: the title song is not the Huey Piano Smith and the Clowns classic nor is it the Cars late-seventies classic rock schmoozer but an original, so don't be let down once you plunk this one on the laser launch pad expecting one or the other finding out that its neither!
***

The Bossmen-PERSONALLY YOURS CD-r burn (originally on Lion)

A pre-Alice/Lou/etc. Dick Wagner got his chops chopped up in this mid-sixties Detroit band, and if you want to hear the roots of all of those seventies guitar god grinders that he cranked out way back when well... It ain't like you're exactly gonna hear any of 'em here! But you'll like it more'n enough knowing the voracious appetite of some of you six-oh rock fans and followers.

From the early Beatles cops to the white enough take on soul to the Yardbirds-inspired hard blues noogies the Bossmen really captured their era well, and if you're still hungering for more of that NUGGETS crunch this might help you out at least until the next outta-nowhere exhumation. For fans of that BOMP! issue with the Detroit history (I think it was the one with the Groovies onna cover) that you still refer to when the ol' memory fails.
***
Tav Falco-COMMAND PERFORMANCE CD-r burn (originally on Stone Blatt)

Sheesh, who woulda thought this guy was still around? But he is, and frankly I remember him sounding a whole lot rummage sale 'n this back in '81 when the first Panther Burns album came out. But it's sure nice giving Mr. Falco a listen to all these years later even if he does sound like he got a stuffy nose. A lotta this does kinda suffer from a post-postmodern slickness and it ain't like the originals are anything to toss the cornflakes about, but this stew does entertain a whole load more'n most of the free download snoozeroonies out these days. And hey, why should I moan about it because I got the thing for free (unless you wanna count the big humongous Christmas gifts I give Paul McGarry not to mention the loads of postage it takes to trek the package all the way to Waterdown)...
***
INTRODUCING THE NEW PICCADILLYS CD-r burn (originally on Sound Flat)

One of those "revival" kinda bands that actually strikes me good whether it be because of their authentico 1963 look or their faithful renditions of early-mid-sixties cusp garage rock craziness that really made those years special in more ways than one. Taking cues from everyone from the Trashmen to the Ramones even and all British Invasion points in-between, the NP's have released a record that would have rated with any long player to get the wrecked needle play on your older sis's portable back mid-sixties way. Not only that, but the high-pumping pressure this one exudes only proves that no matter how much the snobbish Pantsiosites out there in sophiticado "rock" land may pout about it the Big Beat continues to live on! I probably won't be spinning this 'un on a nightly basis like I do some of my stone cold faves, but it sure does bring back alla those turdler-era spells of tee-vee fun and car radio ramalama!
***
Anais Nin-ATLANTIS INCEST one-sided 12-inch 45-rpm (no label)

Whew! For a minute I thought this was gonna be some sickoid story about a guy thinking he's sodomising his new born infant only to find out it was the fambly dog alla time! Turns out that it ain't...it's just the soundtrack to the Ian Hugo 1952 film BELLS OF ATLANTIS which features famed pornographer Anais Nin reciting a portion of her own HOUSE OF INCEST while this beautifully gurgling and burbling music (sounds like a buncha tape loops and audio generations set for the heart of the sun) predates a whole lotta seventies underground rock accomplishment that might've made it to the Nurse With Wound list had this only gotten out more.

You can hear it for free on youtube if you wish (while watching the pre-psychedelic explosion of color that just might creep inside your frazzle) but this is a nifty package and a gosh darn wonderful artifact of early hipster expression and alla that Jackson Pollack nonsense we've been inundated with for years. Methinks that the same people who pressed this one up (color xerox cover pasted onto black sleeve, color one-sided vinyl) also did the very similar Velvet Underground CHELSEA GIRLS, AGENTS OF MISFORTUNE and Sun Ra on church organ releases that had been coming out for well over a year, but I just can't be sure of such things. Sure looks similar tho...
***
Various Artists-DEADEND PLAYBOY BUTTERBALL DEEP CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Bill is showing marked improvement with these newer efforts. Not that the old ones were exactly turdballs but there's more of a mind-expanding variety with these efforts. Or something like that but hey, these made for great listening whilst I was reading the newest issue of BULL TONGUE REVIEW (see last post) so don't go givin' me any lip!

Dunno why Bill slapped guitar snoozer Al Caiola on here (probably because he knows I hate him!), but he sure did good here. There are also such "oddities" as Grasshopper's "Pretzel Bill" (some of that new avant musique concrete I believe which oddly enough conjured up nightmarish vision of the early-eighties cassette culture) and some other equally mesmerizing into the pit of despair track I never was able to find the name of (track listings get all goofed up because of the boffo radio commercials stuck in without any prior warning)..Come to think of it, the entire platter seems to ooze some strange spell that comes off like one of those drug-induced dreams I have which come off so real to the point where even years later I still wonder if what I had dreamed had actually happened or not. I'm sure some of you serious narcologists would know what I'm talking about but gee, I'm just a tippy-toe dabbler compared with some just about every one of you guys!

Oh yeah, the inclusion of Quincy Jones was totally unnecessary, and listening to Harry James go late-sixties top 40 hip is about as digestible as watching Pat Buttrum with long hair and a mod kerchief. But listening to these things just had me fantasizing that it was the seventies, and the hopes of a Gizmos EP was just around the corner...
↧
↧

Article 0

April 22, 2015, 4:50 am
$
0
0
NANCY, THE FORGOTTEN YEARS!

When Ernie Bushmiller capsized into the dreaded inkwell of eternity back in 1982 the comic strip world really lost a heavy hitter. I mean, here was a guy who had been drawing the adventures of that curly headed mulatto NANCY for nigh on almost fifty years by that time (and Aunt Fritzi a whole lot longer) and all of a sudden he was missing for good, his absence becoming a noticeable blot on the once-funny pages of the day. And really, who could have replaced such a stellar name inna world of comics as Bushmiller just as who could have replaced Al Capp, Chester Gould or even that guy who drew MR. MUM? Not Gary Trudeau that's for sure!

Yeah, many a strip out there has survived the loss of its creator (usually with disastrous effect) but in this case the creator (Bushmiller) was the strip and even the stoopidest of doopidest people out there gotta admit that trying to continue NANCY after Bushmiller's demise wasn't exactly as easy a task as it was to keep yet another top notch fave such as FERD'NAND going. But continue on with this big bucks bonanza United Features Syndicate did, but who out there could have taken on such a Herculean task of tackling a strip that looked so primitive yet took a whole lot more skill'n I'm sure even Michelangelo would have been able to muster up?

Turns out that the person who was up to such a task was none other than Bushmiller assistant Mark Lasky, who from what I would gather had been responsible for much of the daily NANCY output during Bushmiller's final days. (Though I must admit that some of the strips that were appearing in the early-eighties looked as if Bushmiller was giving 'em a go on his lonesome despite his stroke and diabetes...really bizarro primitive work featuring Nancy eating spaghetti in the bathtub for a super-droll punchline.) And if I must put my two scents into the mix lemme say that I think that Mr. Lasky did a really good job of it, at least when he was directly copying from the old Bushmiller-era strips which is no big deal since Bushmiller used to di it himself.

True that certain Bushmiller sense o' suburban slobdom isn't exactly rearing its pockmarked head in these strips, but then again these funnies do capture that weird transitional mood that affected me throughout the early-to-mid eighties. Yeah, that was a time when a whole lotta the joy de vivre that was kiddom was being replaced by something a whole lot less palatable and perhaps downright sophisticado from tee-vee programs to music as well as general slob living. Sheesh, looking back on those days I only wish that I was around to say goodbye to Bushmiller because hey, when he passed on he sure took a whole lotta twentieth-century GOODNESS with him!

Since I doubt that the Lasky-period strips are gonna be reprinting in some slick Library of American Comics collection any day soon here are just a smattering of 'em. Some do show a particular primitive nature to 'em but considering the duty that Lasky had towards his readership of six-year-old kids and aged fanablas like myself I'd say he did a way more impressive job 'n what I'm sure the majority of NANCY-mongers out there woulda thought:










Needless to say Lasky's '83 death from leukemia threw United Features into a pants down tizzy, what with their rushing a troubleshooter in to do the strip for a short while the suits went looking for a new artist to handle their still potent property. Needless to say this fly in the monkeywrench didn't go unnoticed not only to us comic strip readers of the day but the general world as well (heck, I even remember none other'n NPR's Nina Totenberg breaking the early morning radio sphere after pulling a midnight shift with a story about NANCY's current travails!). It was but a short time this artist who didn't sign his work (for professional reason I'd gather) filled in the gap between Lasky and the artist who would eventually take up the strip, but I still gotta credit whoever it was doing this for at least trying to capture that great forties/fifties/sixties thrills and feelings in an era that really didn't capture much of anything for me:










By '84 the strip was taken over by the execrable Jerry Scott, definitely a member of the post-seventies comic strip set who managed to take everything that was fun and ranch house out of NANCY and turn it into yet another one of those imitation PEANUTS strips that had been floating around since the mid-fifties. Another nail into that coffin holding all of those fun frolics of youth that were now either forgotten, mocked or (worse yet) banned. The re-appearance of the NANCY of original intent in the mid-nineties after United Features had the good sense to knock Scott on his fat butt off the strip did give me some hope for the return of good ol' cheapo gulcher in an ever-yuppified world, but even that move turned sour after the brothers found out they couldn't aspire to those stellar Bushmillerian heights and went their own way after a few months of some super copycatting. 's funny, but if Lasky could pull it off maybe 75% of the time and the unknown troubleshooter at least half of it, why couldn't any of these modern day people who you think would have had the technology, talent and BRAINS to re-create NANCY's original spirit? If man can find a cure for sideways turds you'd think he could create a decent comic strip, eh?
↧

Article 0

April 25, 2015, 4:38 pm
$
0
0
The "rock star" formerly and still to be known as Prince once did say "sometimes it snows in April", and he was sure right about this year for sure! Here it is Thursday morn in late April 2015, and as I look out the window of my formerly fart-encrusted bedroom (got a new paint job) I see them snowflakes fluttering down just as if it was still winter and all I hadda look forward to was a good three months of staying huddled inside watching old tee-vee show dee-vee-dee's, reading old fanzines, comics and whatnot, and listening to some pertinent hot sounds on my bedside boom box (too cold to venture down to the basement where my vinyl 'n turntable reside). Hmmm, after all that the only thing I can say right now is snow, keep on comin'!

Been doin' very little as of late 'cept the usual work/eat/snooze game, though maybe I should relay to you the fact that I (once again) made it through the entirety of that classic and oft poo-poo'd television series SUPERCAR and in one piece as well! Haven't touched my Dee-Vee-Dee set of this classic "Supermarionation" series (which was definitely one of my fave pre-school/socialization period programs) since 2002, so watching this 'un once again was quite a thrill and, given my sieve-like head, was almost like watching a new series considering I totally forgot about 75% of the shows presented therein.

But man, it's always great and downright LIFE REAFFIRMING watching a series like this which really reminds me of them days when tee-vee was certainly my best friend and not the cowering stranger it has since become. Believe-you-me, when I settle back and watch SUPERCAR I immediately zoom back to my funtime turdler years when the boob tube was perhaps my only real contact with the "outside world" (unless you count the funny pages!) and shows like this (and THE JETSONS, yet another show I can recall watching during its original Sunday evening prime time run) undoubtedly pointed the way towards a shining technological future which extrapolated on all of the fun comforts and energy that the early/mid-sixties had to offer. Sheesh, when I was a kid I thought we'd all be driving Supercars at least by the mid-eighties (around the same time we were supposed to be landing on Mars according to most scientific stroons in the know) which makes me wonder in retrospect..."wha' th'fanabla 'app'd???" Anyway, next stop...FIREBALL XL-5!!!

Here are the revooz for this week, and boy are they doozies! Got a couple of sure-fire winners here too, and if it weren't for Paul McGarry sending me these platters I probably never would have knowed they existed, let alone head them!!!! So it's YOU I thank Paul, and if you were here I'd give you a thousand hugs 'n kisses for sending these wonderful recordings my way! And if you were here, you'd probably bash my head in for doing just that, right??? Of course sweetie, but then again, aren't these records to die for???



Wand-GOLEM CD-r burn (originally on In The Red)

Hmmmm, this breed of hard rock heavy metallic prog stew is rather enticing. Thought I would hate it for dredging up some of the worst memories of seventies record bin ruminations but this act does 'em all up fine with the proper dose of tension and patented thug riffs tossed in to make it all the more worthwhile. The blitzed-out female vocals also add a particularly potent touch to this hard grind (though I coulda personally done without the seventies synthesizer growl), and if Kenne Highland were still doing his hard 'n heavy version of the Robert Christgau Consumer Guide (which appeared in GULCHER and other pertinent pubs of the day) I get the feeling he woulda given GOLEM a hefty "A+" and nothing less! But I could be wrong.
***
The Maharajahs-YESTERDAY ALWAYS KNEW CD-r burn (originally on Low Impact)

These Swedes look so old that I kinda get the idea that they were playing rock 'n roll even before you or especially I were born! They're still at it when others have petered out and gone the Coconut Inn on Rt. 47 way, and although they might have been charter members of the Flamin' Groovies fanclub for all I know they sure put out a good 'un. Maybe it is a little tiring in spots, but really hardly anybody has rock 'n rolled like this in a long time. Kinda like the Groovies with a touch of Feelgood and some of those eighties acts that got lost in the madness of it all, and the best thing about it is they pull it off so suave w/o looking like a buncha smug knowitalls who like to smirk at those who just ain't of their same sainted wavelength. Sheesh, when I get to be their age (which'll probably be a few years plus or minus) I sure hope I'm as cool and as snarling as they are!
***
THIS IS THE SONICS CD-r burn (originally on Revox)

Wow I can't believe it! The Sonics have recorded a new album after all these years (not counting the faux Sonics release on Bomp! which was a killer in itself) and boy is it great! There's none of the Jerden-era pop moves here (no matter how tasty they were)---just prime head-on hard Northwest Rock that puts 99.999% of the competition to shame now as well as then! Gerry Roslie still sounds as raw-throated as possible (perhaps even more---after all he's had a lifetime of screaming to contend with) while the backing band (which I presume consists of the Parypa brothers and some new hired hands) keep the old Sonics flame a-goin' with that hard rock fervor that used to get the Sonics tagged in the whole "there wouldn't be any new wave if these guys weren't around" hype back in the late seventies! Beyond-hot covers and treacherous originals including an ecological number you'll never hear Joan Baez doin' in a millyun years!
***
WIRE CD-r burn (originally on Pink Flag)

Wire's latest release sure drives that whole "post-punk" rigmarole home and nails down the door like shoulda been done years ago! Nice drone here which does recall the better moments of 1980 non-hardcore desire, coupled with hefty thank yous to the Velvets, Pink Floyd and of course the original Wire themselves. This actually had me zoning back to various old Rough Trade arrivals to my abode and the joy (and eventual dissatisfaction) I had with this particular breed and era of sound. But I'm sure this one'll stick around for a long time.
***
Lava Sutra-HARD AND HEAVY (WITH MARSHMALLOW) CD (Whitehouse Records)

Here's a forgotten favorite from the graveyard of gangrened goodies that I shoulda been playing a whole lot more o'er these past twenny years than I have. Co-led by former fanzine magnate Anthony Illarde, Lava Sutra might seem like more of that nineties grunge that you either couldn't get enough of or got way too much of, only I espy more of an early seventies heavy metal vibe to it that at least tames the more alternative rock instincts to a respectable low. The Badfinger/Raspberries pop moves also help enshrine Lava Sutra more in the early-seventies camp than it does the feigned nihilism of the nineties, and the Seeds references on "What You Gonna Give" still sound refreshing considering just how hated that band had been for years on end. It's got a little bit of something for everyone...who appreciates the grittier, less polished side of rock 'n roll that is.
***
Various Artists-KICKIN' THE QUEST AROUND CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Hmmmmm, this 'un kept me in rock 'n roll jollies more'n I would have expected! The Hanna Barbara theme songs were boff enough for this spiritual suburban slob turdler, but the rest? Well, the Lorin Frank Productions radio ads were quite inspiring, reminding me of the days when classiness was the norm as far as the ol' commercial push goes, while the Neil Young and Crazy Horse track shows that although the former sounds as if he's turning into Walter Brennan the latter can still cook hot rock and they shoulda dumped Young ages back and become the Rockets again. Oddly enough my favorite tracks were by th' Faith Healers (pretty good electric drone indie rock that don't offend even if they have a typically indie-sounding gal singing on some of it) and the Ping-Pongs (strange neo-garage band sound that has this Ray Davies on ether feel---research sez it just might be one of those "song poems" that are all the rage in certain circles these days). The version of "Hey Ba Ba Re Bob" that closes the thing is a hoot...and gee, I never knew that it was such a dirty song!
↧

Article 1

April 30, 2015, 4:15 am
$
0
0
MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! NUDE RESTAURANT STARRING VIVA, BRIDGET BERLIN AND TAYLOR MEAD, DIRECTED BY ANDY WARHOL! (1967)

What sorta guy would wanna go to this nude restaurant? Maybe one who ain't that interested in looking at hotcha nude waitresses. Viva has all the sex appeal of Cloris Leachman and couldn't even turn on a Japanese soldier who's been hiding in some palm tree for eighty years! At least Bridget Berlin is slimmer here than she was in alla those seventies snaps we saw. Well, with nude gals like that its no wonder why their biggest customer just happens to be none other than the ultimate flaming faggot hisself Taylor Mead!

Was this film the inspiration for CHEERS? Ya'd kinda think so given the lack of any discernable plot and no real cohesion to the thing. Ah but that's the charm, and if you're frazzled enough to like one of those raging Andy Warhol extravaganzas you'll certainly wanna gobble this period piece (called so because both of the actresses were having periods at the time hence the presence of g-strings) that sez more about the sixties than an entire leather bound volume of ROLLING STONEever could!
She be bad lady. She smoke.

Highlights from this Warhol tossout include Mead playing the harmonica, singing and making goony faces while Viva does her opening monologue, some guy playing some really good outta tune acoustic guitar accompanied by his equally outta tune singing, Viva chatting it up with some guy who's half-American Indian and has this wild tattoo covering his back, and Mead talking about the antiwar movement with a real-life draft dodger who actually believes that Mead is sincere about said dodger's cause! This portion of the flick is kinda funny because although Mead seems interested in the plight of the resistor he's so dunderheaded that you get the feeling that he couldn't even find Vietnam on a map!

Should be an easy enough snatch-up in case you wanna show this in your run down digs complete with all of the antique furniture falling apart pretending yer at a REAL LIFE underground film showing circa. 1967, but one thing about this nude restaurant bizness really bothers me and bothers me good! That is, I sure hope they scrubbed them seats of the booths and bar stools REALLY good! I mean, ugh!,  'specially on those hot and sweaty days when you seem to dribble no matter how hard you wipe ifyaknowaddamean...
↧
Viewing all 1204 articles
Browse latest View live
Search