BLOG TO COMM

Another week, another batch of reviews. I'll bet that even Stevie Wonder could see that I'm getting into a rut, though maybe a few surprises down the line ought to change your perspectives of this blog. Well, at least your perspective of just where me 'n my writing prowess stands in the pantheon of bored-outta-their-minds suburban slobs who still have the same passion for music, old tee-vee and other forms of true kultur even a good thirtysome years after it ALL wooshed down the memory hole. Anyway, I think you'll get a big boffo kick outta these writeups even if, in your heart of hearts, you probably could care as much about these recordings as you could the death of Little Lulu.

The Seeds-RAW AND ALIVE 2-CD set (Big Beat England)

When you think about alla the guff and putrid putdowns the Seeds encountered throughout their storied career (I mean, even Greg Shaw used to think they were teenbopper fodder before he wised up!), it's really amazing that this reissue of the group's final album has been given the Royal Treatment usually reserved for the likes of the Stones and Dead! And that's not only with the deluxe double disque treatment which includes all of those tasty extras, but with a nifty fold out package which (of course!) contains one of those li'l booklets not only chock fulla the required rare snaps and pertinent artyfacts but in-depth liner notes detailing rock history you thought would have been lost to history ages back. Gotta hand it to Big Beat...when they do a reissue job they do it up real spiffy like!

No bout a doubt it, RAW AND ALIVE remains one of my favorite all-time live platters! Yeah I know, the cat was let outta the bag regarding the true nature of this album long ago but if you ask me it was recorded like a live album (which naturally the booklet gets into detail about) and it has the energy and power of a live album, so in fact it most surely is a live disque in the truest sense! And really, when you spin something like this next to an "actual" recorded in front of a supposedly living and breathing audience album like say, BOB DYLAN SLEEPWALKS THROUGHOUT AN APPEARANCE AT BUDOKAN, what sounds for real and what really sounds phoned in???

Platter #1's got the album proper, first WITHOUT the over-dubbed gal screams and then with 'em! Nice to compare and contrast the original take with what got released, and although you can pick up more subtle nuances and the like sans the frenzied screams I gotta admit to still liking the original we've known and loved for years. Especially when heard via a scratched-up 50-cent flea market copy on a cheap Woolworth's portable record player which I somehow think is the ONLY way to give this one a listen. It's got that cheap suburban feeling I love that seemed to get wooshed away once the kids who grew up on rock 'n roll action like this decided to deny the same fun-loving experience to their children, cramming down some of the worst offal to pass as youth expression since Johnny Mann's STAND UP AND JEER!

The bonus is great, yet another live in the studio affair this time with an actual audience of flower children up and hollerin' for their fave raves. At least at first---later on they seem to tire out or are coming down off whatever was perkin''em up which is a shame since Sky Saxon and cohorts are really cookin' on all hotpoints here. A downright exciting performance by these now-seasoned veterans even if the hippoids in attendance can't seem to get beyond contemplating their foreskins, and even though the reaction dwindles more and more into the proceedings the energy still pumps on like a buncha sailors in a bathhouse on their first night in San Francisco.

One of the best by one of the best, and it sure makes me feel good knowing that, after a good 45+ years, Sky and his band are finally getting some long-deserved respect! And yes, it does make me sleep a whole lot better at night!

Swell Maps-WASTRELS AND WHIPPERSNAPPERS CD (Overground England)

I obviously have a love/hate relationship with Swell Maps, at first having flipped my punkoid lid over WHATEVER HAPPENS NEXT before being snoozed away by A TRIP TO MARINEVILLE and then becoming disillusioned by the whole Rough Trade shebang once the promise of the late-seventies dried up in the mung of the early-eighties. But this collection of pre-first album trackage (sorta like WHATEVER only less bootleggy) reaffirms my faith in these whackoids...it ain't as varied as I would have liked it to have been true, but WASTRELS sure has loads of everything that was good about Swell Maps crammed into its grooves good. Those early sound-pieces cram into them wild takes on such wonders as "Blam!" and "Vertical Slumber" and it sure rocks out (something that Patrick Amory would never approve of) the way you always liked your disgusto disturbo music to have been, be, and will remain for the rest of all eternity.

The overall effect is everything you've always wanted these English underground groups to be and more, with the sound and approach of the early Velvet Underground intermingling with Syd-like fantasy and Marc mania as first two LPs of Eno experimentation soar through your cranial cavity. So pure in approach and spirit that you'll wish you coulda picked this 'un up for mere peanuts at the 1976 cut out bin of your choice. So naturally of its own essence of being that it's even got skeptical me scouring through my Cee-Dee collection for those Swell Maps platters Bomp! put out...the same ones that I remember despising with a passion when they first came out and considering how I tend to remain true blue to my own preconceived notions regarding my personal tastes in music that's really saying something!

Mouzakis-MAGIC TUBE CD-r burn (reissued on Radioactive)

Sheesh, if you wanna remember the "other" side of early-seventies youth movement music (the flip to the Melanie/Cat Stevens/John Denver folkie drag that is) give this self-produced platter a listen. Maybe Grand Funk Railroad don't sound so bad in comparison. Rather snoozeroo hard rock (Third Generation off to a bad start) that really doesn't capture the energy that the CREEM writers were tagging this sorta rock to have back when your $4.99 went a LONG way! Listened to it twice for penance (eyeballed the nipple configuration of a lady at work) which not only shows that I have a strong constitution for pain, but shows that maybe I should also remember to turn off the air conditioning when it gets too cold.

THE KIOSK 4 CD-r burn (email David Keay at keay david@aol.com
if you want one, which I get the feeling you will)

The latest in Keay's homespun recordings has once again been made available to the general public, and although most people are too cowardly to even think about wanting to hear such vivid and dynamic sounds I get the feeling that you, if you had the courage to hit this blog without the express purpose of being a TROLL, wouldn't mind giving it at least one spin. Again the proceedings take on a strong early Kraftwerk/Neu! approach giving me a better idea of what those early guitar-oriented Kraftwerk shows that supposedly showcased the group's Stooges influences were like, along with more of that simple drone that always seemed to work no matter which group of addled teenagers were cranking it out in their 1967 garages. Two vocal numbers even showed up to my surprise, and I can't say that I found a bum track anywhere on the platter which is really saying something---especially for a genre (home-recorded recordings made available in comparatively non-traditional ways) that certainly spawned a whole number of turds during the eighties and beyond.

Best of the batch: "Mr. Blount's Rocket Ride" which, contrary to the title, does not conjure up memories of Arkestras past but is more attuned to the Cecil Taylor style of out-there keyboard histrionics. And if this is fake jazz, this is just as good as some of that fake jazz we've heard from many a New York saxophone tooter back during the cusp between the decadent seventies and the comatose eighties!

Bob Hastings as ARCHIE ANDREWS CD-r (NBC radio netwerk)

My Archie is not dead---sorry about yours! Sorry, I couldn't help sayin' that considering the strange permutations that have happened in the once-funzie time ARCHIE COMICS sphere in recent days, what with the famed freckle-faced turdburger taking a bullet for MLJ's contribution to the bludgeoning force of dippy racial/sexual propaganda as midclass kiddoid entertainment, Kevin Keller. (Jim Goad and Kathy Shaidle had two pretty knee-slapping columns on the subject in last week's TAKI'S MAGAZINE, but then again my sense of humor may be radically different than yours.) So it's pretty neato getting a does of the old Archie via these late-forties radio shows which feature the recently departed Bob Hastings as the title character doing for the teenage bobbysoxer gals of the forties what the current variation on the character does for a million of fag hags in waiting.

The first 'un entitled "The Red Cross Benefit" references the then-current Larry Parks Jolson biopic (funny, considering Shaidle's opinions toward both Jolson and the ARCHIE sphere you could just see her upchuckin' great gobs o' phlegm over this episode's mere existence---well, at least there weren't any Milton Berle reference to be found therein!). This 'un has to do with Arch thinking he's just as good a Jolson imitator as Parks was which at least gives Hastings to do a rather good if still not convincing impression at Mrs. Lodge's Red Cross get together. Gotta say that this 'un struck a sentimental string in my zinged up heart, if only because it oozed that sappy sentimentalism that ya just don't get anymore because Luis Bunuel told a whole buncha pseudo-intellectuals that people like us just hadda be distrusted and loathed.

The second 'un's yet another bathtub-related subject having to do with Mr. Andrews wanting to take a bath on a Saturday night and Archie getting his head stuck in a hold he made in the bathroom door. Come to think of it, this one is a remake of the previous Mr. Andrews want to take a bath episode I reviewed awhile back, only with a few minor changes and an integrated commercial for Swift Premium Franks! One slight change in the script has---now get this!---Archie and Jughead taking a bath together with Jughead admittedly scrubbing Archie's back, perhaps amongst other things!!! Hmmmm, maybe alla that Kevin Keller stuff that's been infused into the Archie swing of things isn't new after all!

Lewis-L'AMOUR CD-r burn (originally on Light in the Attic)

Like, uh, wha' th'..... Backed by the soppiest synth strings and piano tinklings you can imagine, the mysterioso Lewis mewls his way through ten love-drenched ballads that make Perry Como sound like Gerry Roslie and James Taylor look as energetic as Speedy Gonzales. If you forget just how dull and saccharine the late-seventies and early-eighties could get when it came to top 40 schmooze, just give a listen to this and you'll be begging to hear the hard-edged and high energy sounds of Christopher Cross. Something tells me that this is what was going through Karen Quinlan's mind all those long and lonely years.

Various Artists-CALIFORNIA MONEY SHEEP COUNTDOWN (thanks to Bill Shute)

Not as tip-toe-tappin' as some of the other Shute collections, this does have some interesting ditties that keep my attention from wan'drin' o'er to the ARCHIE comic strip panel which has Betty digging for clams in her bikini (side/rear shot). The off-track weirdities like Phil Tate's "Countdown" and the Ding-Doo Rattlers do perk things up, and Bill even included a track by Marlene Dietrich just in case some fags were gonna be stoppin' by for tea (he shoulda knowed better!). Nice touch including a rare Redwing single even it I don't think as highly of 'em as Jymn Parrett does, while those song poems always did sound better'n the real deal to these ears! However, what on earth possessed Bill to slip on the Sparky Thurman Duo's rendition of Morris Albert's "Feelings" let alone some horn-y jokes called the Cavaliers doing the Chicago hit "You Make Me Smile"??? Keep this up Bill, and I just might be doing my Terry Kath impression a lot sooner'n any of you woulda expected!

BOOKS REVIEW! ROY THOMAS PRESENTS THE HEAP, VOLUMES 1-3 (PS Artbooks, 2013)

After giving the Man-Thing a proper going over a coupla weeks back, I thought it would be prim and proper to offer the same sorta in-depth perusal to the Thing's spiritual fore bearer, none other than the Heap. A character who has remained an under-the-comic book counter legend ever since his fateful appearance way back inna early-forties, the Heap was not only a character far ahead of his time (predating the mutated monsters of the early sixties by a good two decades), but one who set the pace for a whole load of anti-hero comic book characters that made their way into your grubby suburban slob palms ever since Stan Lee got a brainstorm of an idea that made him a bundle fifty years ago.

And true, it might have been our loss that because of the advent of the grubby 'n smelly comic characters of the seventies that we have the gloppy miasma known as the comic book world of today (or so I would surmise after reading a whole load of articles regarding the tanking of the entire industry to movie and product profits), but at least when the Heap was roaming the earth we knew who the good guys and the bad guys were...or (after reading through a good eleven or so years of Heap adventures) did we?

Of all of the weirdoid, whacked out heroes of the Golden Age of Rubbish, the Heap just hadda've been the weirdest. Beginning life as the dashing World War I German ace Baron Von Emmelmann, the Heap coagulated over an indefinite period of time after the highly-decorated Baron was shot down over a Polish swamp (no jokes please!) and his will to live kept him alive as the vegetation and other rotting matter clung to whatever was left of him resulting in the first of the comic book muck monsters. At first looking like a shaggy yeti then as more of a collection of moss and branches with a human form and a short elephant-like snout, the Heap wandered through the pages of AIR FIGHTER then AIR BOY comics, originally as a bad if brainless kraut monster subsiding on the blood of animals and men for sustenance then as a good-bad guy who must have had the kids rootin' for 'im even though he wasn't exactly a redeemed soul 'r anything, and finally as a strange presence of good who appeared almost deus ex machina while wandering across the world (and at the most amazing distances his swampy feet could take him).

And along the way boy did he not only tangle with some of the weirdest elements to hit the pages of the pre-Comics Code world but had some of the strangest coincidental happenings surround his own origin story even worse'n when Superman's own saga got switched around and mutated as the years progressed! The slight changes and tinkerings done with the Heap origin throughout the series run really stretch the bounds of credibility, but then again sometimes I have to keep reminding myself "this is a comic book" even if I want it to be about as close to my own sphere of comic realism as NANCY.

Even the first few years of HEAP-dom show the character as a good-bad guy who unwittingly helps Sky Wolf and his men thwart the Nazis before dying in the line of doody, but that's before his corpse is shipped over to the USA after the war by a Zoologist who revives the Heap (who more than once is referred to as being a "Hulk"!) so he can kill the henpecked man's shrewish wife (and boy does she look shrewish!). Pretty soon Our Hero is out and about, usually associating with a proto-Rick Jones/Snapper Carr-ish kid calle Rickie Woods if only because the thing's infatuated with the kid's German insignia model plane which dredges up faint memories of his past life, but even at this stage he's still considered a badski to the point where even Woods wishes someone would off the shaggy nuisance once and for all!

Of course that is before the legendary Mars and Ceres use the Heap in their bet to see if the creature is one of violence or love, at which point the entire story line seems to change from that of a headlining bad guy who is good even if his bad traits seem to overpower him to a muddled creature with some semblance of valor left. And from there the Heap travels the world stopping throughout Europe (many times to the swamp from whence he sprang) showing up to somehow right some wrong typical of the post-superhero era and pre-Code days when, although comics seemed to by searching for some sorta viable hook, they produced some of the best work to come outta the funny book world and that even includes today!

It is kinda funny seeing a character who embodied Teutonic evil und sadism transform into a shaggy clump of love and dog-like understanding like this, but the stories are good even if the series turned into what looked like a standard crime/horror comic with the Heap making an appearance somewhere in the mix. Not only that, but the artwork is just about as good as the post-World War II era cartoonists could muster up (which was pretty snat compared to some of the drek that was coming out at the time). And if you like all of those seventies swamp-laden comic books from MAN THING to SWAMP THING not to mention THE HULK during his sixties/early-seventies prime, this is just more of the same, only in its original form sans the cloying moralizing and soap opera moosh that has plagued the comic book idiom for a longer time than any of us could imagine.

Roy Thomas's intros are concise and entertaining, detailing the development of not only of the Heap but the entire muck monster genre (he even mentions the infamous MAD spoof "Outer Sanctum" which featured its own Heap monster) as well as digs deep into the background of the series and the various artists who handled the series throughout the years. The art repro's really good too. obviously taken from the original issues yet still crisp and clear without looking doctored up. Frankly I can't find a thing wrong with the entire shebang which kept me occupied for weeks on end and made pre-beddy bye time a lot more enjoyable'n usual.

And like I always say, maybe a successful effort like this'll spur on the likes of DC and Marvel to dig up some of their old favorites and get them repro'd for all of us fans who've been waiting to read the entire MIDNIGHT or JOHNNY QUICK runs for years on end. I doubt any of 'em'll get the hint-hint, but somehow I get the feeling they'd make more moolah bilking their seventy-year-old successes for all they are worth (and to me that's plenty!) than they would creating new characters that only seem to mirror the worst aspects of contemporary living with all of its foibles and cliched liberal platitudes. And you know its true!

The special post that I had planned on presenting to you this weekend still needs a bit of gestation before passing through the birth canal of my mind, so in its stead I thought I'd present for you well...more of the same old same old. Sorry about that, but you wouldn't want me to just toss out a special edition of BLOG TO COMM when it wasn't exactly ready to pass your eyes now, would you? Don't worry, I should have it all up and ready to go within a week, or maybe three for that matter at which time the post should be ripened to peak perfection just like one of those juicy blackheads on your forehead you've been picking at for the past three days.

Since I do have some space to fill up in order to pad this blog out to proper specifications, I figured that maybe it would ha best to put it to good use by writing about some of the links to other pertinent sites that I have up and goin' on the roster that can be seen to your direct left. Now to be honest and even more upfront 'n Raquel Welch about it I will admit that most of the ones that I do have linked really don't have much to do with BLOG TO COMMper se, they being mostly for my own personal use and abuse. However, I get the sneaking suspicion that some of you might chance goin' over to a few of 'em if, not out of curiosity, if only because you might find something of worth and value in them considering they have my own personal imprimatur stamped right one 'em. For both of you types, here are my own personal assessments and feelings regarding just a few of 'em which you can take or leave as I assume you usually do.

I assume that more'n a few of you are wondering why I, as an unabashed knuckle-dragging aficionado of the Old Right style of political barbarism (talking H.L. Mencken, Robert Taft and Wyndham Lewis along with a few other notables) would dare to link up an avowed commie leftoid site as COUNTERPUNCH on my site. Well, I do it because as far as commie leftoid sites go, this 'un reads a whole lot better'n a load of neocon war-throbbing rightist sites I often come across! And as far as being an outpost for some of the few straggling fist-pumpers in our world Counterpunch at least has the moral wherewithal to know when to stop pandering to the phonus balonuses among 'em (like the famed Nobel Prize winner currently sitting in the Oval Office) unlike many on both sides of the spectrum who'll stick by their guy no matter how embarrassing or impractical it may be while making up keen if deceptive reasons for doing so. Besides, I find that some of their regular Even Newer Left'n That New Left that there used to be back inna seventies writers make some sense, whether it be Counterpunch's now deceased founder Alexander Cockburn or Norman Finkelstein, the guy who was cheated outta tenure by DePaul University not for his Maoist inclinations but for a little bitta back-door finagling on the part of Alan Dershowitz who certainly wanted to settle a score in the most damning possible way! And even though I probably disagree with him much more than I do agree, I can't loathe Ralph Nader in the same way that the ubercapitalists of the seventies most certainly did even if I do think that the Corvair was a snazzy bit of automotive genius. Even when he seems to be talking outta an orifice other'n his mouth, at least the guy has a better sense of reasoning and intelligence that's not exactly being flaunted by way too many spokesmen for their particular party line these sad 'n sorry days.

Some of the Counterpunch regs are rather copasetic with my own line of thinking. I really like Paul Craig Roberts' views even if his unwarranted praise of former boss Ron Reagan might be too hard to take (as I'm sure it was for Cockburn when Roberts told him something along the lines of him having the same spirit of ram-bunk-shuh and vision as our 40th prez), while Sheldon Richman remains perhaps the only anti-capitalist "left-liberal" I can really stomach anymore. And as I recall, even the last standing man of integrity Ron Paul was linked up a few times in Counterpunch's gallery of online opinions, which is more'n I can say any standard Republican site out there would dare lest they feel the ire of a few thousand armchair commontators out there.

True, many of the articles found here aren't exactly what you'd call easy reading. I recall one article written by someone who resides in Moscow (and whose heart is most definitely with the regime of old) telling Counterpunch's readership that the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge in late-seventies Cambodia never happened (at least in the capacity that was reported) and were mostly a Western creation which is something that I'm sure would surprise fellow Counterpunch contributor John Pilger, yet another man of the left who comes up with more than a few intelligent writings that seem so rare even in these idea-lacking times. Cuban strongman Fidel Castro recently popped up here as well which must prove that even the bloodiest of dictators can have their say in the cyberworld as long as their hearts are in the right place. But the worst Counterpunch contributor of all is regular Dave Marsh, a scoundrel who is doing his best to make sure that the hippiedippy flag of the late-sixties is still flying high, and how anyone could read one word of his long-standing rock 'n revolution drivel is beyond me for sure! Let's just say that if you do care to peruse Counterpunch, please pick and choose carefully.

Did I ever tell you that when I was a kid I was not allowed to read 16 magazine? I never bought any issues but my older cousins who lived up the street did, and they had a stack of 'em lying around all the time. I liked looking through 'em to see the pix and find out about the new groups that were popping up and about, but my interest in what was going on in the world of music was soon quashed because these very same cousins would tell me that this mag was for girls, and since I wasn't one I wasn't allowed to read it! Funny, I didn't think that there was any harm in espying the newest rock 'n roll gear or up-and-coming groups from the Netherlands like the Van Doornes...mebbe it was the snaps of the gal actresses that the cousins didn't want me to espy all these years. Sorry gals, but contrary to whatever you might have been thinking in no way was I ever gonna get a woody looking at a pic of Grayson Hall!

Maybe they just didn't want me reading that article allegedly written by the now-teenaged and long-haired child star Billy Mumy talking about doing drugs and being a hippie kid, as if that was gonna warp my mind any .Well, at least all these years later I can always get my teenybopper kicks tagging on to the GLORIA STAVERS site which relives the gosharootie days of not only 16 but its most famous editor. True there are times when I think that Miss Stavers shoulda been throttled (after all, if it weren't for her gushing review of ROLLING STONE magazine urging her lumpen followers to buy the thing that subsputum read would have 86's ages back!) but the pics and bits regarding a whole bunch of First and Second Generation rockers (as well as the tee-vee screen faves of them dayze) sends me right back to my cousins' house pouring through alla that great kultur I missed out on because my own folk though that anything recorded after Nelson Eddy was the debbil's music.

Some of the smartness of 16 lingers on this site, such as when they repro the ":Gee Gee Recommends" sections tellin' alla the iron-haired gals where to spend their hard-begged (lotsa duds true, but a few goodies) so if you, like me, want to know how the other half was spending their suburban slob teenbo time while we were diddlin' around with our Dinkys, this is the sight to see in the privacy of your cousin-free abode.

Hokay, howzbout one more site of interest before we get to the juiciest portion of this post (mainly, da revooz!!!). Back inna early eighties I, like many a wastrel turdburger with not enough money and too much time on my hands, looked over the sea to England for signs of punk life that I might have wanted to latch onto if only to relieve the boredom. England was still punked up despite what many of the mainstream pundits were sayin' (or better yet, wished), and as anyone who glanced at a Systematic or Rough Trade catalog could tell you, there were more'n a few interesting recordings coming out that were just beggin' for your attention.

True a good portion of these acts had about the same high level of intensity as Joe Feeney belting out "Oh My Papa" on THE LAWRENCE WELK SHOW but quite a few of the platters I purchased (even the Exploited "Barmy Army" one, and don't laugh!) hold up pretty well next to most of the competition. Even the "anarcho-punks" that were crawling out of the post-hippie woodwork had their own stellar moments, and true the whole movement (at least in retrospect) seemed like the scum of the English New Left trying out their old piss in new punk skins at least acts like the Mob, Apostles and Zounds dressed it up in high energy screech to the point where I didn't even mind that the lyrics being belted out were about the evils of eating a nice juicy steak or a wimmin's right to choose whether or not she should use a sponge or a cork whenever Mister Monthly Visitor was gonna stop by for a week.

THE ASTRONAUTS came out of this muck 'n mire passing for a post-seventies scene, but they sure stood out from the reams of punks goin' about with names like Crisis, Even More Of A Crisis Than That Other Crisis, or "If You Think All Of Those Other Crises Are Crises, Just Listen To THIS Crisis!" First off they had a cool name, and although I already knew about the original Astronauts (RCA records 1962-1966) the retro appeal sure did strike a chord with homesick for the sixties me. Another thing about these Astronauts was that they looked more or less like a throwback to the early-seventies English underground scene that thrust forth both Hawkwind and the Pink Fairies what with their long hair and jean jackets that sure haven't been punk rock paraphernalia them past six or so years! Best of all, these guys SOUNDED like the early-seventies English u-ground which I will admit was a nice li'l refreshing change from alla that thrash 'n discord I so adored.

The group's site is a nice li'l testimonial to their long-lasting (over thirty years!) appeal, complete with the obligatory pix and of course the discography that always gets us record maniacs frustrated more'n a bridegroom with a jammed zipper because in no way are we gonna get to hear all of those obscure tracks that popped up on samplers and long gone extended plays. The site sure coulda used a li'l more in-depth history, but why quibble because this thing is a whole lots better'n nothing. And that's what most of us have had to settle with when it came to finding out about the groups we've craved and desired for lo these many years!

Well, after all that space-filler on to the reviews! Again, hefty thanks to the nice people who jetted most of these CD burns my way, and also thanks to my employer who at least gave me some moolah that I could spend for myself after I dump a huge portion of my pittance on the bare necessities of life. Hope you dig 'em, even if it ain't like any of these platters are gonna be making it to Anastasia Pantsios' top 40 of all time list or anything even remotely like that

The Dave Clark Five-SATISFIED WITH YOU CD-r burn (originally on Epic)

Not being as humongous a Dave Clark Five fan as Mike Saunders was and hopefully remains, I can't really judge this 'un next to their other long playing offerings (but I will---eventually!). However, would you please pardon me if I found this was more'n a trifle staid??? Rather uninspiring originals (one of which comes too close to the Beatles w/o their kinetic energy for comfort) as well as a limp cover of "Good Lovin'" don't exactly make for a ravin' rompin' British Invasion album, and it really is no wonder these guys wafted away while the competition kept going for quite some time. Well, at least they didn't get to meet the Maharajah!

The Deviants-"Fury of the Mob"/"A Better Day is Coming 45 rpm single (Shagrat, England)

Sure doesn't seem like it's been a year since Mick Farren took his final bow on the stage of some London concert hall but he did, and while the flurry of Deviants recordings both old, new and unreleased hasn't hit us like I thought it would at least we have this li'l spinner to contend with. Farren finally releases a Deviants "reunion" platter featuring at least a couple guys who were in the original bunch, and they sure rock out like 1971 never happened and a signing with Stiff records was right on the horizon.

"Fury"'s a heavy duty rocker that reminds me of those eighties Farren-related offerings that popped up on a whole slew of small labels---hard, uncompromising and filled with a whole lotta anger that I don't think Farren ever got outta his system. The voice may sound ragged, but you try sounding smooth 'n sweet after years of alla that booze 'n cigarettes!

Someone else (probably Andy Colquhoun) sings the first part of "A Better Day is Coming" and it figures because it does sound like one of Colquhoun's solo recordings that would have appeared on a Captain Trips album. Comparatively smooth, perhaps even a tad West Coast-y, but engaging enough even if the message of it all seems straight outta the mid-seventies whatever happened to the revolution sentiment that was going around.

Nothing that I would call remarkably different 'n what these guys have been up to since the last batch of Deviants albums, but it sure is good to know that Farren didn't spend his final days picking posies, y'know?

Gerald Mohr in THE ADVENTURES OF PHILLIP MARLOWE CD-r burn (CBS Radio Network)

Bill's sent me a stack of these old Marlowe radio shows, but lazyass me's only gotten to 'em right now. But hey, since the weather is gettin' kinda overcast-y what better way to dig into that mid-summer ennui'n to slip one of these mysteries on and pretend that I'm a nostalgia-bustin' adolescent listening to the radio wonderin' whether I should stay awake 'n see what's on the late movie or skedaddle it over to woods in back of the drive-in with binoculars in hand and some Vaseline Intensive Care---just in case.

The first episode is hard to get into, what with this being a rehearsal tape with a sub-broadcast sound that's got yer ears strainin' to make out what's goin' on in this tale dealing with tough guy sailors and a treasure map leading the way to some valuable black pearls. (Contrary to the cover come-on, there are sound effects heard on these, though the lack of incidental music does give this a sorta amateur hour performance at the Frostbite Falls Civic Auditorium feel.) The other one fares better what with the professional sound, music and best of all ads for juicy Wrigley Spearmint Gum in a tale about a former galpal of Marlowe's getting knocked off and the sordid trail of blood 'n other stuff left in its wake.

Mohr plays it particularly cool as Marlowe and thankfully you end up rooting for him 'stead of the bad guy, who don't have any particularly admirable traits about 'em like the Germans and Japanese in World War II mooms most certainly did (they being so vicious you just want 'em to down alla 'em Howdy Doodies they call Allied troops!). Long before the advent of the pussified male pretty much emasculated the entire gender, Mohr plays is tough and many times even dirtier'n the cold blooded ones, though in no way do these stories entail the amoral values of today...naw, good is still good here and the bad get it comin' to 'em even if you think Marlowe's gonna get his brains blown out by the least likely suspect who turned out to be the heel all along. 'n yeah, given the current state of entertainment affairs (or at least what I can discern about it via some Kathy Shaidle article) maybe these sixty-plus-year-old radio dramas do lay it out on the line regarding a whole lotta things that have been wooshed down the memory hole, like tough guys and sexy gals and maybe, when appropriately used, violence does solve a whole lotta problems in this world.

And really, if you wanna be kinda stunned about just how power-packed these shows could get, check out the last minute or two in episode #2 "The Glass Donkey" which even surprised a been around the block a few times guy like me!

Rockin' Rollin Blues Band-WILD AND UNTAMED CD-r burn

Dunno anything about the whys 'n wherefores of this 1973 self-produced platter, and I'm sure nobody other'n the group does either. But whatever and whoever this is, these white bluesters do a fairly good job. Garage band production hides the slicker aspects of the white blues phenomenon as these guys ('n gal) crank out a primal blues sound that true, might have a few aspects of the Grateful Dooges traipsing about but the dunce take on the Yardbirds which starts the thing out sure makes up for any laid back urges this band might have had. Not bad at all, even though I don't think I'll ever rate this one as highly as I do Great Plains.

Various Artists-VIOLET PROON-DOON PATTI MIST CD-r burn (Bill Shute Enterprises)

Another swingin' one here, what with the late-sixties psych-pop of Billy Shears and the All-Americans and Nova Local (an act I had been wanting to listen to for quite some time) tangling with everything from the dirty if hokey c&w of Big Rock and Tadpole to the Tamrons doing one of those garage band rarities that I haven't spun since I lost alla them comps in the vast resources of my fortysome-year collection. The Mersey Makers do a good double-sided Beatles impression that, while still sounding like a buncha guys trying to copy the successful elements of Beatlemania, does have a certain neat Poppees-like feeling to it. And don't let the name Robin Lee and the Lavenders fool you...these guys are 100% straight country music with an emphasis on the "straight"! It's even got a Jackie Gleason instrumental which falls into the time-honored category of "tit-squeezer", and you can bet that one listen to "Violet Mist" is way more erotic 'n sexual'n the entire PMRC list of explicit baddies that Tipper Gore lined up for extermination back in those dark and nefarious eighties!

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! SO SWEET, SO DEAD a.k.a. THE SLASHER starring Farley Granger (1972)

Who could it be slitting the unfaithful wives of well-respected businessmen types over there in dagoland anyway? Well, it's Farley Granger's job to find out in this early-seventies sleaze film, and ya gotta admit that the guy did a good job of it given the low budget and general dinge of this crime drama that was filmed during the Hollywood star's European sojurn.

As a boffo soundtrack (including some surprisingly atonal free jazz) careens about we see the bored wives hitch up with their young paramours for the usual early-seventies on-screen sex (with the upper thigh so firmly in place so we don't see any patchwork) giving you young wacker offers just enough time to flibben the jib before the scene's over. Of course that's right before this creepoid Shadow-like guy who knows what evil lurks in his heart bops into the mix and knifes the naughty ladies to death before sprinkling the crime scene with photos of them in flagrante delicto with the faces of their luvver boys scratched out, and if you don't think that Granger has his work cut out for him then you certainly got another thought comin'!

Creepy to be sure, and the acting seems up there in early-seventies tee-vee cop series fashion only with loads of female boobs 'n belly buttons being displayed for your entertainment pleasure. The ladies assembled look good enough for wopadagos while female lead Sylva Koscina has this rather spooky aura about her that gives me more irks'n Phyllis Coats as Lois Lane ever did. And just about everybody in this one has some sorta fault or defect that makes me want them all to die...if you want to get a good case of the creeps just take a gander at the assistant coroner who restores the murdered bodies to their rightful beauty and grace before snapping photos of 'em and pasting said pix up in his apartment pin up style!

It's a good enough switch that'll please the sleaze in ya, but try not to watch it in front of Aunt Mabel because well, sometimes a fella just can't control his nether-region workings as anyone who hadda sit through a sex ed film in high school will tell ya.

Considering that this post is, just like last week's, a rather sick example of what a respected (hah!) blogschpieler like myself can whip up for your dining and dancing pleasure, I thought I'd review a few more of the sites linked up on your left and give my own personal opines regarding what I think of 'em and why I decided to slap 'em up here inna first place. Yeah, this portion of today's blog might just be about as exciting as looking at photos from your gay brother's latest proctology exam and mistaking it for slides from the family's Mammoth Cave vacation but remember, one mere WORD spewed forth on this blog packs a more potent punch than the competition's last year of rock "writing" combined so shut your mouth for once, willya?

I've written before about just how much I didn't give a rock critic's ass for CRACKED, SICK, CRAZY and a good portion of the various MAD swipes that were cluttering the satire portion of your local newsstand throughout the sixties and seventies. If the motto for these collected knockoffs was indeed "dare to be dumb" they surely lived up to their reputations, what with their pilfering past and future MAD regulars to crank out reams of comparatively uninspiring art and sneaking in the visage of Alfred E. Neuman whenever they could get away with it in order to do a little good natured nose rubbing. The results were mostly worthless, and all of that dismal writing just made the turds smell even stronger, if you know what I mean.

Therefore it might seem peculiar that I would link up the CRACKED magazine website on my own beloved blog. As usual, there is madness in my method because frankly this site has just about as much to do with CRACKED the magazine as MAD the magazine has to do with---what MAD the magazine used to be during its long drag through the years.

Don't worry about cringing through all of those obvious MAD swipes, for CRACKED the site is actually a halfway decent sarcastic site filled with humorous stories and top five lists that actually do have a certain relationship with your otherwise mundane existence. The ones dealing with old time gulcher and comic goo are the ones that appeal to me the most, and if you're the kinda guy who likes reading about the dark underbelly of long-gone cinema or just have a strong hatred for Walt Disney, you just might like it. But I sincerely doubt it.

And surprisingly enough, it does do my heart good knowing that such an entity as CRACKED, no matter how convoluted and trite it could have been, exists in some form these sorry days. But then again, it's kinda like the same feeling I get knowing that BEETLE BAILEY, BLONDIE and DICK TRACY are still up and about and how many times do any of us read those comics anymore?

I'm sure that any suburban slob who's poured through an import bin back '77 way and saw that dark grey copy of Iggy and the Stooges'METALLIC KO remembers the strange Skydog label from whence this demi-above ground bootleg album appeared. Soon after more'n a few of us began noticing Skydog albums as well as singles popping up all over the import/back-door record shop scene, and that coupled with the fact that this company seemed like the kind of label custom made for us subteen sputum all agog over those early seventies 99-cent cutouts really did something as far as stimulating our work ethic if only we could afford the $$$ to purchase as many of these platters as we could.

If you like reminiscing about those days, or (like I do) try to kid yourself into believing it's still 1978 even if alla them creeps out there are trying to drag us into the 21st century kicking and screaming, the Skydog site linked above certainly does help. A nice tribute to a label that seems to be going strong, even in a world that couldn't give two whits about punkism or intensity anymore which is really saying something positive. Could be a little more thorough in the history department but you might fill a few gaps in your mind if you care to peruse the thing for but a few minutes.

THE DAILY RASH ain't as funny as the DIVERSITY CHRONICLE blog but it still comes off with a few snickers and guffaws. Funnier'n THE ONION even, especially since they've become too defensively uberprog for my own tastes. Prime targets include Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton and the ever-lovin' Joe Biden. Sometimes the president himself makes a surprise appearance like he did in the over-the-hills-and-far-away funny "Obama Welcomes First Transgender Baby to White House". If you don't find this really roll-on-the-floor high-larious, I truly do hope you are offended.

Well, enough of that blab---on to the part you've been waiting for lo these many paragraphs...

The Dave Clark Five-HAVING A WILD WEEKEND CD-r burn (originally on Epic)

Compared with the last Dave Clark album reviewed, not bad at all. These guys coulda used a few lessons from the Sonics in sax-laden high energy, but they fare well not only on their better known material but the instrumental chiller "No Stopping". Of course there are the two string-laden 'n gloppy to the nth degree tracks to contend with (which I assume were used as incidental music for the moom pitcher of the same name...I mean, what else?) but you can woosh those outta your system faster'n Fleet after givin' the more rockin' tracks a steady listening or two.

Southern Culture on the Skids-DIG THIS CD-r burn (originally on Kudzu)

I usually don't go for these neuvo retrobilly type platters that much, but this one is slightly better'n the usual crew. At times authentico enough to sound like real-life early-sixties loco radio spin fodder which is a startling surprise. And while a good portion of this Cee-Dee does have that Cramps-ish rear-view mirror gazeback that only the Cramps seemed to do with any authenticity, I can't see why this shouldn't appeal to all of those new wave-o types who tired of the stuff 'round '82 way and were looking for something a li'l rootsier yet not quite the real deal. The karaoke tracks tagged at the end should be a hoot at your next party, as long as you don't invite Aunt Martha to sing along with some of the selections present.

Jackson Beck as PHILO VANCE CD-r burn (old timey radio series)

I'm sure a whole lotta grandpas 'n grandmas out there will get them zoom back memories listening to these old mystery radio shows Bill has been shooting at me, but whenever I hear 'em I merely recall those adolescent days when WPIC-FM would run this one spook series whose name I forget (Saturday night at 9:30) with some local horror host type doing the usual cornballus gags along the lines of calling the then-recent Sinatra album LIVE AT SLAUGHTERTOWN...typical har-de-har-har gags like that which probably were funnier when you were an elevem year old but nowadays go over worse than a Porky Pig cartoon at a Bar Mitzvah.

Maybe I did mention this interesting bit of autobiographical goo in a previous post but dang, there's only so much you can say about these radio mystery/detective/comedy shows other'n they're kinda like I LOVE LUCY and ARMCHAIR DETECTIVE w/o the picture.

Two good 'un's here, the first having to do with noted detective Philo Vance on the tail of some guys holding up various society page get togethers using a strange code that Vance was able to crack like potrzebie (and the reasoning behind the code crack is even stranger'n the code itself!) while the second has to do with this young political reformer out to bust the local machine who gets threatened with his life, shrugs it off and of course gets what he was asking for like any doofus out there in radioland coulda told ya. Both tales are solid 'n smooth, though I was wondering why Philo's arch enemy Onions Oregano wasn't in either of these episodes considering just how much this gadfly was Moriarity to Philo's Holmes...oh wait, that's Philo KVETCH! Well, for a kid who used to get not only ARCHIE and FRECKLES but DICK TRACY and FEARLESS FOSDICK (not to mention BUGS BUNNY and MOE HARE) mixed up, it is an honest mistake!

Thee Oh Sees-DROP CD-r burn (originally on Castle Face)

You may remember that I didn't really care for this group's earlier (debut?) effort, but DROP seemed to settle in quite well with my own sense of suburban slob addledness. Yeah this sounds as 2014 as the latest hog caller to make his way to AMERIGA'S GOT MEDIOCRITY, but the echoes of mid-sixties garage band psychedelia does lend a tasty edge to it all. And dang it if Thee Oh Sees will surprise you what with their crafty emulations (OK---swipes) of everyone from the Thirteenth Floor Elevators to the Move! A surprise sleeper that I have the feeling's gonna get shoved to the side even in these internet-conscious days where just about anyone can be a star, even if it is in the privacy of their own bedroom.

Various Artists-WHISTLING BURGERS AND BEETLES CD-r burn (Bill Shute Productions)

Being in a particularly turdsville mood when I wrote this (last Monday to be exact), the arrival of Bill Shute's latest Care Package didn't quite pep me up the way I thought it would. However, I found that listening to WHISTLING BURGERS AND BEETLES a whole lot more fitting a way to cap off the worst day (so far) in the year that had I spent the final hours of twilight's first gleaming spinning THE FARTING CONTEST. Starts off swell with the Blisters''63 shot outta nowhere "Shortnin' Bread" (the famed toe tapper done up with loads of hot sauce dumped on it) which really woulda fit in with the refreshing blend that year's top 40 was noted for, along with old radio ad spots (the kind where they tone down the music so's the local announcer can hype the rubes) and the standard garage band (Daily Flash) 'n country twang (Jerry Smith) Bill loves sooooo much. High points...Montreal Burger Stand lowdown, Robyn Hitchcock doing Syd Barrett which is better'n Robyn Hitchcock doing himself if you ask me, and the Edison Military Band's 1908 rendition of "The Whistler and his Dog", a song you won't know by name but sure will by toon! Sheesh, I wonder why I'm still in a keyed up, pissed off mood after spinning this classic set but man, I am!

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII starring Steve Reeves (1959)

Sheesh, another wopadago Pompeii film for me to peruse! Well, like the Brad Harris effort reviewed earlier this 'un's a pretty good afternoon lollygagger starring Steve Reeves in a action-packed winner featuring wild bandits working through the auspices of the local Isis temple (funny, I thought Isis was an Egyptian goddess!) and the emerging Christian movement who are getting blamed for the recent rash of murderous pillaging because the bad boys paint a red cross on the looted home in question. And that's not even mentioning the last big burst o' mountain goo itself which just happens to pop up at the right time, which is what we were all waiting for throughout the entire dad-blamed film!

A lot more interesting than the 79 AD moom reviewed a few months back, but just as Sunday afternoon nothing-else-to-do mindnapping as it ebbs and flows milking the same ol' plot for all it was worth. And really, when films like this were airing on those lazy summer afternoons it was either this, CHAMPIONSHIP BOWLING on the other station, or an extended romp in the bathroom with the wrong issue of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC snatched up meaning you hadda get all aroused reading about the aluminum industry in Bahzramain 'stead o' them hula gals who looked like they breast fed the entire seventh fleet!

Again the historical inaccuracies might have given Eddie Haskell a run for the moolah, but it's still fun to watch even though star Steve Reeves, seen with a full set o' brannigans on the poster, is actually clean shaven here (maybe the distributors thought nobody would notice him w/o a beard!). And while I'm at it, I was wondering if there was gonna be any mention of that recently-unearthed painting found in the molten ashes of that doomed Eyetalian city that's up for restoration showing a guy engaged in sexual bliss with the goat of his choice?!?!?!? Unfortunately nada was said about this peculiar Pompeiian practice (which, from what I have read was more than a common practice between a man and his consenting cloven hoofed one) though considering the film was made a good fifty-plus years ago I'm sure the puritanical tastemongers would have definitely nixed anything so sweet and so pure as inter-species romance. Now if it were made in TODAY'S open and easy-going cline I'm sure that such a subject would not only be mentioned but in fact heralded as concrete proof of the all-inclusive nature for which we must now all strive. C'mon you Hollywood Big Bucks mogul, re-make THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII as it should be presented for today's sophisticated audience, and do it like YESTERDAY!!!

Sorry to take soooooo long (Sunday nite even!) to get this post out to you, but I was way too busy havin' fun celebrating the death of Robin Williams to drag myself in front of the ol' computer! Well no, not really (after all, I never did have any contact with him whether it be personal or via the various social networks), but let's just say that I am one ol' stinkin' turd of a human being out there in sowhaddaboudit land who ain't joining the choruses of hosannas 'n rendered garments that could be heard on many a tee-vee show this past Tuesday sniffing on about this "great loss" of a worthy human life. (And believe-you-me, when Ozzie Nelson died back '75 way all he got was a quickie mention as if his mere existence had nada social significance!) Now, I could be a smartass about it and say that I was "choked up" over his suicide 'n all, but that would be so typically tasteless of myself so why should I bother. But I will say that I am one guy who won't be claiming to High Heaven that Williams was one of the greatest comedians and emotive actors since Charlie Chaplin, and everyone knows what a twat he was!

Hokay, I will admit that I was one of the many suburban slobs who used to tune into MORK AND MINDY on a regular basis during the show's first season and that it was, from what I remember, watchable enough that during my budding Asperger's Syndrome days even I mighta blurted out a few "na-noo na-noo"'s during a fambly get-together or two. Of course this was during the big slide from seventies Second Golden Age of Tee-Vee revival to eighties flounder, and eventually I bailed out on the series like I was wont to do with a whole lotta programs that just didn't measure up to the high quality and standards of just one episode of LEARN TO DRAW WITH JOHN GNAGY. Maybe life just wasn't funny anymore...heaven knows that SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE wasn't once 1980 rolled around and neither were a good portion of the sitcoms that I had been tuning in to for quite some time. Anybody care for another round of ARCHIE BUNKER'S GRAVE* reruns??? Thought so.

If I ever got a laugh outta some Robin Williams stand up routine it must've been so rare I totally forgot about it. Ditto any of his film appearances, every one of which I've seen just reeking of post-hippie glop 'n ennui. For some of us (didn't take count at the last curmudgeons meeting) Williams had become just another eighties relic and reminder of a time in my life when everything from music as an overbearing force (a la the sixties/seventies non-hippoid credo that gave us everything from the Stooges to Lester Bangs) to life as a celebration of youthful anger and justified revenge was either far beyond my reach or dead as a doornail, and if anybody could laugh or sigh or moan at the man's comedic or acting "abilities" they really must have either a dull sense of humor or had just recovered from that surgery where they remove your skull and stick weird metal probes on it that make you utter nonsense syllables.

It may seem callous to some, but for me Robin Williams was a guy who had everything anyone could have wanted in the world but didn't have enough sense to seek the mental help he obviously needed. Mind was probably too clouded from alla dem drugs those Hollywood types take, which is perhaps another reason we jackasses shouldn't worship the jackals in our lives. The newscasters and papers may mourn the passing of a guy who mirrored their own sick sense of what is supposed to be the new normal or whatever they call it, but all I could see was an unfunny guy who pandered to humorless people who always go about with a look on their faces that says they know something I don't, and personally I wish they'd keep whatever it is they do know to themselves!

Also rip to Lauren Bacall, who looked rather nice when she was younger unlike the androids they call females these days. But again, I really couldn't say much else because well, she was more like something from my parents' generation 'n all, and although I like old mooms as much as the next insomniac it wasn't like she was yukkin' it up with the Three Stooges 'r anything like that. And anymore it's things like that which mean all the more to me as the years creep on.

As you can tell, this "Special Report From BTC News" has postponed the planned post that was to have appeared here this week. That of course will be rescheduled at a future date just like all of those tee-vee programs you wanted to see only John Kennedy got his Excedrin Headache and ruined a fine weekend for us. In its stead I'm going to fill the rest of this 'un up with the post I had been planning to present next week, which of course I hadda do a whole lotta extra work on just so's to make this thing look "presentable". Between you and me I don't think I did that hotcha of a job getting this up to BLOG TO COMM standards, but considering the way life is going these days who gives a whit about standards anyway???

The big surprise these past few days was the discovery of a bonafeed crapload of new FIGURES OF LIGHT releases that are available via where else by CD Baby. Even more surprising is that none of these recent releases are available via the Norton label of fine fanablas leading me to believe that there may have been a falling out between the two parties at hand. Maybe not (after all, some of the material on these platters is not exactly up to the musical ideals set forth by the likes of Billy Miller and Miriam Linna, as you will see), but it's sure great knowing that this recently-revived act is still up and about making music (some of it good) while the rest of us are more content to sit around in our fart-encrusted bedrooms typing about it on our blogs. Anyway, here are the most recent releases from the soon-to-be-reckoned-with FOL label that you just might know about, and in case you're wondering why I didn't review the download-only selections it's because with a computer like mine, who knows where those files will end up!

LOST& FOUND is the sturdiest of the batch, a long-playing platter which contains a number of old, new and even newer tracks in varying qualities and the standard no-chord playing. A nice li'l sampler which introduces us to some new trackage of worth not forgetting some live cuts from a 1972 show at Vorhees Chapel where you can actually hear the vocals (and who out there would not believe that "Strawberry Jam" from this very show sounds almost exactly like that blues jam from THE CHELSEA GIRLS soundtrack????! Not a duff cut to be found (and thankfully it all sounds suburban ranch house 1966, especially the mid-six-oh Beatles swipe "You Better Wise Up"), though I'm still puzzled as to why the inclusion of that Belladonna and the Decimators "Death Metal Cover" of "It's Lame"! What a strange sense of humor these guys have!

GIMME A QUARTER only clocks in at sixteen minutes, but those seconds are well spent with these recent recordings that showcase the band's various aspects. Seems as if a certain Stuart Pendergast is now a member of the act on guitar (Dixon and Downey handling the rest of the gear), and they do swell on such toonz as "Arrested Adolescent" and "Frustration". Some of these tracks, like the title one ("Totally Insane Remix" version) remind me too much of mid-eighties new wave for comfort, but since I can still work up a bit of a froth over some of the things my favorite post-seventies NYC outfits (or their survivors) could pull off then maybe I can enjoy the pre-programmed drum track'd offerings for what they are. But please don't go tellin' my 1985 self this turgid fact!

I dunno what you think about CD singles, but I'm sure you know what I think of them myself! Still, I did like the precious few minutes that the double-tracker "l;eave Her Alone" and "Dreams of the Past" unveiled before my very ears...dunno how this could qualify as a Figures of Light release proper consiering that Wheeler W. Dixon's main role in this release was as producer (Downey playing guitar with the aforementioned Pendergast handling everything else) but the instrumentals to be heard on this 'un are thankfully typical of the wild surf-y sounds that the Figures have been releasing on their previous and widely available platters so there's nothing really to fear from plunking down the moolah for this 'un.

Now, there may be something to fear from buying the group's THE OPEN DOOR four-tracker since it sounds about as far from the garage band-y Figures of Light sound that had me bidding a hefty $127.85 on their original single and getting outbid within a few minutes. The title track ("for Lou Reed" as it says) sounds more like a backing track for some 1982 Roxy Music cum new wave act that got stuck in limbo after the lead singer dislodged both tonsils during an extended holiday in San Francisco, while the "It's a Scream" mixes remind me of something a really masochistic bedroom-level bunch of budding musicians woulda sent to FORCED EXPOSURE ca. 1987 just so they could get off on the scathing negative review their efforts would surely render. Dixon plays synth and nothing but on these instrumental sides and really, I never thought that anybody even remotely associated with the Norton label past present or future even touched one of the things!

For a better mix 'n match you might wanna try GREAT! NOW WE GOT TIME TO PARTY! But then again maybe not. Again, most of the sounds contained within these grooves have nada to do with the Figures of Light sound that I've cared for, and in fact the title track sounds more like some easily-enough whipped out computer-generated number I'm sure any astute middle-aged daddoid coulda cranked out with the aid of his seven-year-old son. One track, "Heading For The Sky", even sounds more like a Mobius/Plank track than a garage band standard, but at least there's a 2013 "remaster" of "It's Lame" that will at least jolt you back into rock 'n roll reality.

Of which there is very little on THE POWER, perhaps the weakest of the batch. Starting off with yet another electronic flub-a-dub, the title track is painful to sit through but at least the Downey/Pendergast instrumentals are relaxing enough. But then again it's back to a "Super Ballistic Version" of "Gimme Gimme Gimme" which once again comes off like pure electronic effect jagoff that irritates me to no end. Dunno what got into these guys bub, but talk about the sharp dichotomy between teenage garage fun and post-gnu wave ahtzyness...

Also clocking in on the short end of things yet packing a (thankfully) much better wallop's TOO MANY BILLS, NOT ENOUGH THRILLS which contains some leftover Norton-era recordings produced by one-time Gorie and Light Figure Mick Collins, along with a newer number once again featuring Pendergast. The earlier tracks might just be outtakes but what a nice batch they are what with that patented A-Bone-esque sound that gets the punk rock drill down hard 'n good as if it were still 1976 filtering 1966 vibrations as if 1971 and the Peace Train got derailed for good. The last song tho is once again just Downey and Pendergast cooking up a pretty decent instrumental number that doesn't exactly zoom you back to some bikini scene in an AIP moom pitcher, but wh' th'hey...

What I guess would be the latest Figures of Light release "proper" (or "improper" if you prefer) would be BUY BEFORE YOU DIE, a full-length feature with this year's copyright date on it and Dixon and Downey joined by even newer members, this time an Andrew Nicodema and Alex Berserker, the latter of who has one of the better rock 'n roll names heard in quite awhile. And it's back to the great ol' teenage sound here with the band cranking out in that fabulous Ramones meets the Real Kids cum six-oh style that really sounds dated, but in the way alla us ranch house suburban slobs like our datedness anyway. If you expect to turn on the tee-vee and see an episode of SGT. BILKO pop up, this is the one for you!

And finally on today's schedule WHAT'S THIS???, fiftysome minutes of nothing but atonal and perhaps even immoral guitar feedback in the grand tradition of "Loop" and all of those other attempts to get the guitar to play the amp! Here's da scoop..."On January 24, 1971, three original members of Figures of Light - Wheeler Winston Dixon, Michael Downey, and Phil Cohen - presented a concert of feedback music at Brecht West Theater in New Brunswick, NJ. Unlike their other concerts, this performance consisted entirely of feedback from the band's electric guitars, thus anticipating Lou Reed's 1975 METAL MACHINE MUSIC LP by several years. The tapes of the concert, however, were lost, only the poster remained to mark the date." So what did the team of Dixon and Downey do about the missing recording---pout and cry about it??? No, the recreated the entire shebang in the here and now making for an extended one-track romp that takes alla that gab about electronic music you've heard for eons and puts it in its proper place (which, in case you didn't know, was your laser launching pad). Listen hard enough and you too will enter into the fabled "cloud" that Lou Reed once talked about, and if you hear trumpets and Renaissance choirs in this stew I wouldn't doubt you one bit.

And (of course) if you wanna buy any or all of these rarities, you know where you can go ('n it ain't FYE that's for sure!).

INTRODUCING THE ELEVENTH HOUSE WITH LARRY CORYELL, LARRY CORYELL & THE ELEVENTH HOUSE AT MONTREUX CDs (both on Vanguard)

Sometimes I do tend to take rockist kismet for what its worth, like the time, and the reasons I snatched these two fusion slabs up was just because of the same innate drive that'll have me slipping on an Amon Duul side after reading a Velvets = krautrock article or tearing through a pile of John Cage platters after his particular brand of free splat is compared and contrasted with Yoko Ono. This time I followed through on my whims to give Coryell and co's early releases a try after coming across too many fusion refs. in my rockist reading, especially a positive review of Return to Forever by Charles Shaar Murray in some old NME not to mention former Man-ster bass guitarist Tommy Gee referring to his earlier combo as being "jazz fusion" which does put an interesting spin on what was going on underneath the underground at CBGB if you also consider the reams of jazz-oriented rock strut that was taking place in the various En Why clubs at the time. (Still looking for tapes of the Boston-area teenage jazz rock combo Yarbles if anyone out there is willing to comply...)

INTRODUCING is the better slab even with the various slick and processed numbers...at least this one could whip up somewhat of a noisy storm when prodded somewhat. Overtly mid-seventies jazz-guitar.synth-laden true (perhaps Coryell's work with Gary Burton would be more up my ever-expanding alley?) but still solid enough despite the patented electronic whirrs and heard it too many times before hot flash guitar lines. At least it can conjure up spasmodic images of typical jazz-bred tension and angst when needed, which is more than I can say about the pallid musings of the bowtie schmooze that came in the Eleventh House's wake.

And without the airy-fairy conjuring of Return to Forever or the trendy bump 'n grind of way too many mid-seventies jazzbos out for the moolah, this 'un does tend to satisfy even if it is only because it doesn't end up sounding like the aural equivalent to an ad for a synclavier to be found in the pages of DOWN BEAT magazine.

Big thumbs down for the live 'un though, which has the House playing at the Montreux Jazz Festival and losing much in the translation. As far as live albums go, this is way too sterile and fly-spec-less for my own personal sense of sonic crunch. Maybe if Vanguard had released an album from one of the group's appearances at Max's Kansas City from around the same time this woulda been easier to sit through because hey, something about Max's as well as CBGB used to really bring out the scuzz in a man's music, y'know? But until somebody does decide to release that Man-ster album maybe this is about as close to a non-aerie faeire jazz rock sound we can dare to get as far as mid-seventies tastes go, outside of the title track on RADIO ETHIOPIA.

Sun Ra-CHURCH ORGAN, 1948 one-sided LP (no label)

Dunno if this 'un was put out by the same stroon who released that boffo Agents of Misfortune single-sided album that came out late last year, but it sure looks like the same mad method that was put into that 'un was dumped into this strangity as well. According to the spoken introduction, Ra had purchased an early "paper" tape recorder in the late-forties and recorded a number of tracks in some unnamed church which I guess hadda be reconsecrated after the music of Blount was performed. Two jazz standards and an original, all kinda sounding like the soundtrack to a silent movie being played by Mrs. Muriel Carter of Tupelo Miss. who had been tippling at the punch bowl during the intermission to TEN NIGHTS IN A BARROOM. Lotsa "roots" of future accomplishment to be found, no doubt.

Various Artists-ROCK BOTTOM SCATTY BULBS-A-GRIZZLY CD-r burn (guess)

And last as usual here's the latest Bill Shute spin that I plucked outta the pile and slapped into the Cee-Dee launching pad during a Sunday afternoon of utter boredom. And hey, it's a pretty goody good toe-tapper and that's not only because of the old radio spot ads that'll zoom you back to 1951 whether you wanna go back there or not.** Exemplary selection here,. from the mock Beach Boys of Greg Mihran's "Grab-a-Grizzly" to the Off Set doing their darndest mid-sixties West Coast folk rock best to topple the Turtles and Association at their own game. Of course if you want something a little less professional there's always Barbara Gorman and Sister Viv sounding like Big Ethel and Sugar Bea from PONYTAIL (or was it the off-center spindle hole?) singing "8 O'Clock Date".

But the bestest off all happens to be a couple of NEW numbers, and both of 'em are from modern living and breathing modern day bands as well. The New Mystikal Troubadours'"Nature's Way " (not the Spirit song) is unbelievably wowzy, sounding like an unholy cross between the Velvet Underground at their droniest mixed with the best San Francisco had to offer before hackdom ensued slapped onto the b-side of a 1972 obscure self-produced single. The Peter Kerlin Octet's "Bulbs" reminds me of the late-sixties free jazz cum rock of acts like the Charging Rhinoceros of Soul and Carnal Kitchen. Both really affected this old fanabla in a way that kinda reminded me of back inna mid-eighties when I was looking for some then-current signs of 60s/70s accomplishment being made in the proper eighties mode...and FOUND it usually in the most obscure places one could think of. Gotta look out for more by these acts, though I do get the stinking suspicion that they ain't gonna live up to these superdupers, certainly not to be confused with superdopeers!

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*hokay, that was swiped from some early-1980 ish of CREEM I only perused via the stands, but I'll bet you never even read the thing so why not swipe from a mag that was also in the throes of early-eighties agony?

**though I gotta admit that the five-second "Park Free Save More" sounded like a mid-seventies Philip Glass vocal composition!

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! HOOK, LINE AND SINKER starring Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey (Radio Pictures, 1930)

Wow, whatta surprisingly funny offering from the team of Wheeler and Woolsey, one that I gotta say is much better'n their previous romp HALF SHOT AT SUNRISE. Now that one, although delivering on some rather good guffaws if you paid attention hard enough, was bogged down by musical numbers and a rather weak script that just couldn't hold the attention span of this mental adolescent occupied long enough but you don't get any of that here...heck, there ain't even an opening musical theme to accompany the titles so you know that this 'un ain't one of those high-falutin' comedies custom-made for the fru frus who go for sophisticated high class comedies with Katherine Hepburn in 'em that's for sure!

Wheeler and Woolsey play a couple of lovable ne'er do well types (what else?) who come to the aid of the cute as a button Dorothy Lee, a lass who has inherited a sleazebag hotel which (thanks to the quick thinking of Woolsey who places a bogus article in the papers) becomes a four star resort for the rich and classy types on the lookout for a li'l getaway. Strangely enough Woolsey's ingenious idea bungles the plans of Lee's old boyfriend, a lawyer who is also working as a smuggler using the hotel to hide his goodies.

A lotta advance publicity regarding the hotel's extra-secure safe also bring out the criminals including a phony duke and duchess, and after the usual funtime plot twists it all comes to a shooting conclusion during a power outage which (believe it or not!) is a whole load funnier'n any preconceived notions you might have accrued after years of watching b-movie crankouts on weekend television during your kiddie upbringing years.

W&W in their typically years of vaudeville experience fashion spew the lines out at quite a rapid pace, and even the cornballiest of jokes work when they're rat-a-tatted your way to the point where they're almost toppling all over each other. The standard plot (I mean, how many films both comedy and drama have used that over-squirted premise?) actually is improved thanks to the talents of the two, and it's so good to the point where even the misfires don't make you wanna switch stations and watch DICK CAVETT like you probably woulda hadda do way back 1972 way. And just because Dick Cavett liked Wheeler and Woolsey doesn't mean you have to hate them, though frankly I don't know what Cavett thought of 'em one way or the other!

A surprise winner from this still-remembered comedy team that just might suit even the most jaded of people who troll this blog. Might be the one to catch next time it pops up on your local low-wattage "antenna" station in between DANNY THOMAS reruns, but you rich kids who get Turner Classic Movies might wanna check your tee-vee schedules as well.

Yeah I know---yer all SICK AND TIRED of me blabbin' on about just how great of an album the LIVE AT CBGB's double platter was 'n all,. But gosh darn it if I don't still (after thirty-five-plus years) think that set was one swell slice o'MID AMERIGAN ROCK that featured eight acts who, given the right time 'n opportunity, coulda created a sonic masterpiece of instant cutout $1.99 pleasure to rival the Flamin' Groovies, Hackamore Brick or even the Stooges themselves. Sure the few fanablas who did get signed perhaps on the basis of this album usually ended up making platters that didn't always gel in the rock out department, but the promise, energy and talent were there. And, after all's said and done, why should I blame 'em just because they got a duff producer and got signed to a label that didn't quite know what to do with these types of acts in the first place?

I get the humongously strong feeling that Stuart's Hammer woulda put out a particularly potent set of rockers had they gotten the Big Label treatment, but they didn't and all we have to judge 'em by right now is their sole offering via the CBGB set, the marvelously decadent for its time "Everybody's Depraved". Kinda reminding me of none other'n classic Wayne County, this 'un's got not only the in-tune for the smart set sickoid lyrics ("Everybody's depraved, the whole world over/So take morality and throw it over your shoulder") but a driving mid-seventies punk rock sound that evoked the Velvets, Groovies around the time of FLAMINGO and maybe even some Dictators (!) in a way that represented the heart and soul of mid-Amerigan teenage slob living more'n the top 40 or FM band of the day ever could. It's too bad that Stuart's Hammer didn't get that chance because hey, I sure would have loved to have been combing through the cheap bins of 1978 finding that little gem of an album for a mere $1.99!

Needless to say, the Stuart's Hammer saga needs to be preserved for future generations (and for seventies underground rock obsessives like myself) just like the recordings, sagas and travails of all of our other old time rock faves both noted and otherwise most certainly need to have their tales told. So when I discovered the presence of a Stuart's Hammer (btw the name of the band is a ref. to the E. B. White [of CHARLOTTE'S WEB fame] novel STUART LITTLE!) website more'n a few alarms popped off inside my head to the point where I was contacting just about everyone that group...got in touch with Michael Insetta (bass guitar) who was a tremendous help setting up a few things while group leader and guitarist Jordan Chassan even sent a brief bio. But Tom Cartwright, group guitar and mandolin player, consented to an email interview which follows below. Big heap thanks to not only Cartwright for sharing his memories but Insetta for his help...if it weren't for them you'd probably be reading yet another review of the LIVE AT CBGB's album this week!

You can find photos like this and others (much better reproductions---didn't wanna swipe alla the good stuff even though I did have permission) on Stuart's Hammer's own website where you can also catch up on what's going on in the Stuart's Hammer sphere these days (and there is much!). Believe-you-me, your time will be well-spent perusing the snaps and clippings that are available for your edification.

BLOG TO COMM-Any interesting early musical endeavors of yours we should know about???

TOM CARTWRIGHT-Well, let's see......

In 1964, I begged for a drum set after seeing The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Many years of garage bands later, I became the drum captain of my high school marching band. Into college, I picked up guitar and mandolin did the usual gigs. Right out of college, I met Mike Insetta over at Montclair State University and briefly joined up with his band, White Lightning. We both quit upon meeting Jordan Chassan and immediately formed Stuart's Hammer with a chap named Steven Evers. That's my back story!

BTC-White Lightning....was that the same group (sort of Aerosmith/Led Zeppelin inspired) that plated the CBGB Summer Festival in 1975?

TC-I seriously doubt that's the same White Lightning Band - but, hey......some recollections are a little fuzzy these days, eh?

BTC-As for Stuart's Hammer, around when was the band formed?

TC-We first formed in early 1975 - Jordan, Mike, Steve and me. Four piece outfit playing all original music written by Jordan. He had some terrific songs for a young guy! Plus, he was the best non-pro guitarist I had ever met at that point. We rehearsed at Jordan's father's house in Montclair, NJ for years - I remember a lot of complaints from the local police. We got a respectable number of gigs at local bars and college parties. However, the all-original nature of our repertoire was not a strong selling point with the clubs that were transitioning to disco in those days. In 1976, we realized we needed to expand the talent, so we hired John Placko, a college friend, as our lead singer. That way Jordan could focus more on his song writing. Soon after, we decided that I would switch from drums to guitar and mandolin, and so we brought in Steve Pellegrino on drums. Steve had spent some time out in Colorado playing in a Genesis-type band, but was back in NJ to help out in his father's Pizzeria. Oh, and John Placko worked with Steve as well. They made some wonderful Italian food for us during the days when we were low on dough, believe me. One gig lead to another, and soon we were doing showcases in NYC. What was the question?

BTC-I get the impression judging from the use of a mandolin that there was a country influence?

TC-Country influence? Oh, yes indeed. The early 70's were packed with "countryish" acts - major acts, like The Eagles, Poco, The Band, The Grateful Dead, etc . We all sort of cut our chops on that LA Country feeling. I know Jordan was huge admirer of Clarence White and Gram Parsons and all the post-Byrds line-ups. Mike was a great banjo player in addition to bass, and I had dabbled on the mandolin in college doing jug-band stuff ala The Holy Modal Rounders. We approached the early Stuart's Hammer music more like Electric Hot Tuna meets The Kinks than anything else. It just felt comfortable and was totally unique in the Jersey Club Scene of the day. People either loved us or didn't. Which, I guess, is the first indication that you may be on to something solid. The name CBGB embodies the country, blue grass, blues idea. Hilly was a big fan of any type of urban/folk music - as long as it was totally original. Which we were. Hilly seemed to recognize our sincerity and was very supportive of our style. In fact, Hilly's daughter Lisa recently mentioned that the appearance of the electric mandolin was a part of why he invited Stuart's Hammer back after our audition. I remember a couple reviews of Stuart's Hammer in the local underground press that referred to us a "Country Punk". I guess we were.

BTC-Speaking of CBGB, when did Stuart's Hammer audition?

TC-When did we audition? Hard to recall......I suppose Mike or Jordan arranged to set us up for a Monday or Tuesday night with a couple other bands. The only thing I recall is that we brought our own PA system, which was huge and heavy. Lucky we had a truck. That plus our discovery that CBGB was the filthiest room we had ever played - or would ever play. OMG, the facilities in the early days were astoundingly awful! The CBGB movie only touches the surface of that issue. Anyway, the beer was plenty and free. I guess we played a good set that night, cause Hilly booked us for a follow-up. There really wasn't "scene" yet at that point. But soon......

BTC-And not too soon after you guys ended up on the LIVE AT CBGB'S album. How did that come about?

TC-I'm not really sure how Stuart's Hammer wound up on the Live at CBGB album. I do recall that one day, I got a call from Jordan, and he said Hilly wanted to have a live recording session and include us as one of the stronger/regular bands. We didn't understand the scope of the project at the time, so we simply did a lot of rehearsing to prepare. I thought we had a good solid set - maybe 8 songs. Anyway, the recording dates were announced, and the bands were divided up between 3 or 4 days when the mobile recording unit could be on site. We did our best and that was that. Later, we heard that a number of the groups that recorded were pulled because major labels wanted to start outside projects with them. At the end, Hilly and his advisers agreed to allow one Stuart's Hammer song on the final recording. Since we had limited resources, lets say, we didn't really have any chance to take advantage of any post-production or overdubs. "Everybody's Depraved" went down like it was: lean and real. Hilly hooked us up with his lawyer to set up our publishing. Then, the whole project was snapped up by Atlantic, and they did what they wanted.

BTC-Did Stuart's Hammer get any label interest after the CBGB album came out?

TC-No. Nothing. There were a few individuals who showed interest in managing us, but we never got any further. I don't believe we were ever really accepted on the NY scene as it was. We did a lot of shows in and around New York and New Jersey, and a few small tours with some of the CBGB bands that were on the album. Colleges seemed to like our act and we made a little money on that circuit. Believe me, we tried hard to capitalize on the Atlantic Records connection - but the combination of the unstoppable disco surge and the huge British new wave was a lot to contend with. Stuart's Hammer was a great band. We grabbed some good opportunities and I'm sure we missed some, too.

BTC-Speaking of the CBGB LP tours, where did you play

TC-I recall we did a handful of shows with The Laughing Dogs, Mink DeVille, The Shirts and Nicki Buzz and Sun. This was 1976, so there were some outdoors concerts for the Bicentennial that we played. We did a show in Boston, something out on Long Island, and a huge number of colleges. Max's Kansas City, The Other End, The Dirt Club, Kenny's Castaways, Folk City...I don't know....we played a lot of places and made nothing to speak of. That was the New York scene.

BTC-What was the CBGB package tour like? The CBGB book made it out to be a disaster!

TC-I'm sure there were a few CBGB package tours set up around the release of the album. The hype was instantaneous and I imagine there were a number of good reasons for the CBGB administration to try to cash in. Stuart's Hammer was included on one tour to Long Island - for the bicentennial, and another to Boston for a long weekend .Also, there was another held out at My Father's Place in Roslyn, NY. I remember a lot of confusion, sleeping on couches - or wherever, and bad food. If you remember the CBGB moving van from the movie, THAT was what we toured in. Kind of romantic in a way, but nevertheless uncomfortable. Again, Stuart's Hammer had little to say in the planning of these events - we were along for the ride. Funny thing was - when we were all away on the tours, other acts were booked at CBGB as substitutes. Acts like Tom Petty and The Police. Wonder how those guys ever made out?

BTC-The groups that were playing the clubs back when Stuart's Hammer were around, did you have any favorites? Were there any other acts playing CBGB that were pretty good but never got the attention they deserved?

TC-A list of my personal favorite groups that were playing CBGB in 1975-76 would have to include - Mink DeVille, The Laughing Dogs, Television, and The Patti Smith Group. Mink DeVille was a solid, well conceived act with tons of charisma and street appeal. I made every attempt to get to see their shows. They had a good run of albums and success after their CBGB start, but never really hit it big in the mainstream. Television , too, was a wonderful act that got an early recording contract and had the critics on their side. Tom Verlaine on stage in a small club was about as good as it got for me. The Laughing Dogs, I will tell you, were probably the finest musicians and songwriters on that scene. They had a strong sense of humor and managed to carry that through into some excellent pop songs. That combined with a musical delivery reminiscent of The Rascals, made them so exciting for me. Again, they had some great albums, but never really got what they deserved. I only saw The Patti Smith Group once, cause she was a standing room only/sold out performer. Between Patti Smith, Talking Heads and The Ramones, you pretty much got everything you expected from CBGBs. Their recorded live performances endure in every media imaginable.

There were dozens and dozens of other one shot groups I got to see while Hilly was "auditioning" them. Some destined to burn out immediately, others pushed on year-after-year, never getting any further than 215 The Bowery. These are the personalities I most identify with. The heart and soul of underground rock & roll.

BTC-How about Man-ster? Seems that they had a strange cult all their own.

TC-Man-ster, eh? Now they were what I would call a cult band if there ever was one. I was only able to catch their show a few times, but I must say, they were straaaaange indeed. Excellent musicianship, intriguing stage act. Creepy vocals. I think I related to them in the way we were both, while fully qualified and worthwhile, to be just a little outside the CBGB border. If they did develop a following, as you mentioned, I guess they must have released some product over the years. I'll look into that. Maybe our paths will cross again someday. I hope.

BTC-And what did you think about the other acts on the album like the Shirts, Sun, Mink DeVille, Tuff Darts...

TC-The Shirts had something good going, not only musically, but visually - with the wildly animated stage interplay between Annie Golden and Artie. I've listened to their album work, and can't understand why they didn't meet with more success. I remember that Hilly was their manager at the time, and that they were known as the " house band". I hear they are still performing in one way or another in and around NYC. I need to look into that. Sun was a four man band that sounded like ten. The energy emerging from Nikki Buzz gave me shivers....these guys were ready for the big stage, but, again....what happened? So much of it is just plain luck and opportunity. True then and true now. Mink DeVille and The Laughing Dogs I talked about prior: both were wonderful acts with so much potential. I was so pleased when they both went on to produce some really good album work after CBGB. Tuff Darts, eh? Now, there was a fully formed, Hollywood-ready ensemble if there ever was one. The finger-wagging songs, the wardrobe, the gangster poses, combined with an air of social defiance rendered them unapproachable. I never met or spoke with anyone associated with Tuff Darts. Ever. Finally, I must give a big salute to The Miamis - probably the most fun band you could imagine. These guys kicked out the rock and roll like no one's business - and had a thrilling sense of humor to boot. East to listen to, easy to meet and as sincere as pie. Great people and focused artists, even to this day. There was just so much talent, enthusiasm, and potential in that one little club in 1975, that I can't believe I had the fortune to be a fly on the wall. No offense to the the other flies!

BTC-Did Stuart's Hammer do any studio recordings?

TC-Stuart's Hammer never had the opportunity to do any further studio recording after "Everybody's Depraved". We toured, did some live shows on WFMU and gigged constantly for a couple of years, and then broke up. Immediately though, Michael, Jordan and myself reformed as "It's The Hendersons", with the addition of Ed Pastorini on vocals and keyboards (Google him - he's had a vast career). Under this new group we did release a single on Uptown Records (Hoboken) - as I recall it was Baby Happy backed by The Merger. Both good pop songs - and, The Merger had some success in England, I'm told. Michael eventually went off to other projects, and Jordan, Ed and I carried on with a succession of bass players until somewhere in 1981, when Ed started his 10,000 Crusteaceans project, and Jordan formed The Young Hegelians. I became a chimney sweep.

BTC-So, what's up with Tom Cartwright these days?

TC-Me? I'm still active in music....just finished my fourth solo album - self-published. Once I can get the entire catalog mastered, it's on to Bandcamp. Mike Insetta and I play together a lot - sometimes electric and sometimes acoustic. I still can hold my own on the mandolin, and Mike is an avid banjoist. In fact, here's the real news: Stuart's Hammer has reunited recently and we are going down to Nashville in early June for a recording date at Jordan Chassan's studio. SoundBarn is the name at it features all-vintage analog tape facilities. Jordan has produced some excellent recordings for a variety of artists, and has an extensive reputation in the industry as man you can trust when you're extra fussy about first rate recording. Let's see what the old country punks can whip out!

Can't wait to hear that 'un, which I suspect and hope will be every bit as good a straight-out rocker as if it were recorded a good thirty-eight years back!

Anyway, here's a bit via group bassist Michael Insetta (whose cousin Paul Insetta was a songwriter, studio guitarist and manager of Jerry Vale!) telling about the time Stuart's Hammer were mulling over letting a certain someone who would become famous in another artistic realm join the act (as well as some other informative tidbits):

And before we go, here are a few just under the wire reminiscences from group singer John Placko!

Need anything else, oh rabid followers of seventies underground esoterica???

BOOK REVIEW! POPEYE CLASSICS VOLUME 1 by Bud Sagendorf (IDW 2013)

I gotta admit that I did have a bitta trepidation opening the cover of this 'un not only because most of the POPEYE aficionados I've met up with loathe the post-Elzie Segar THIMBLE THEATRE strip with a stark-drooling passion, but because I thought that artist Bud Sagendorf's strip work from his 1959 debut until he got edged out in favor of Bobby London's "updating" of it in '86 was strictly grade-z turdsville myself. And for someone who obviously has better things to do like talk to Don Fellman and pop delicate nose blackheads (at the same time!) like, maybe a book like this is taking up too much spare time that could be put to better use!

But then again, I've learned long ago that snobs, whether they be of the cinematic, comedic or even the "rock music" variety, usually have their heads so far up their asses that they can personally greet their polyps with a hearty "hey" on a daily basis! Why should I let their crusty-nosed better-than-thou attitudes affect what I like in a comic anyway, especially when their tastes would generally veer closer to the likes of CATHY than they would a live-reaffirming, suburban slob strip like the Ernie Bushmiller-period NANCY. It's kinda like basing your record purchasing choices on what the numnuts at ROLLING STONE tell you is "cool", and since yer more likely than not ain't in high school where ya have to make brownie points with the other kids in order to be "accepted" anymore maybe its time ya thunk for yerself about these things 'stead of letting some college paper patsy, or ME for that matter, go around and set your modes of measuring kultural pleasure for you! Only remember, at least """""I""""" have my rockism controls set for the deepest center of your brain which is nothing I could say about any college paper turds I've had the displeasure of reading for years on end!

I should at least give Sagendorf credit for learning his POPEYE craft straight from the originator of it all (even though you'd never believe it looking at those sixties-era strips), but I'll proudly admit that when he was up-and-running with these late-forties comic book-only stories Sagendorf still had some of the old fire and energy associated with the original firmly in hand. Now these particular sagas don't exactly hold up to what Segar was cooking up over a decade earlier, but they're funzy enough in their own surprisingly snide and (dare I say) creative way, and the man still managed to capture the fun and even cut-throat antics of the entire cast thus sparing the wild-eyed rage and anger of thousands of Saturday Afternoon Barbershop Kids who only wanted a little bitta excitement 'n ten-cent thrills in their otherwise drab lives.

The art's still comparatively Segar-esque, and while the comic book version seems to (as usual) veer somewhat away from the newspaper and (definitely) the animated POPEYE galaxies I can't see anybody who peruses this blog not finding these various adventures worth eyeballing. Really, these sagas dealing with Popeye putting up with nonagenarian lookalike dad Poopdeck Pappy's antics or Olive Oyl joining an anti-violence society are so against the grain of 2010's thinking that I can see just why uppity social planners would (had they only the power) want to have alla these old comics banned just because they seem to go against the "get along" grain of current kiddie entertainment and socio-political brainwashing. Yes, the uplifters from those old D.W. Griffith films are up and about in a new guise, and the antiseptic dross that permeates live and culture these days (thanks to these moral and intellectual superiors) makes me wanna latch onto a bunch of these collections, don the ol' raincoat, and hang around schoolyards after dismissal goin'"hey kid, ya wanna buy a real hotcha book???"

And for this kid who spent a lotta time in front of the set watching the POPEYE cartoons that were flooding up the schedule for years (at least until my sister grossed me out by telling me that the famed sailor got his moniker because he had an eye gouged outta him!) and cherished his freebee "March of Comics"POPEYE shoe store giveaway for years on end (I still guffaw over the line where Popeye, seeing a soaked-to-the-bone Olive, mutters "you're all covered with wet!"), this does dredge up the good memories of early pre-socialization days when morn to night was a bigger fun adventure than anything since. It even reverts me to my early days like nothing since Playtex Living Bra commercials, though for some strange reason I can't get anybody to wipe me like I was accustomed to back during those days of worry-free kid-dom. Whassamatta mom, shirking your doody (as well as mine)???

IT'S BACK TO SCREWED TIME!

Continuing on the fine tradition of noting the various fiftieth anniversaries of importance in our suburban slob upbringing existences (the JFK assassination and the Beatles arrival in the US of Whoa amongst 'em) I thought I'd mention (or better yet, "bring up" [..........gurgle..........] another one that's almost upon us (and no, I don't mean the rather boffo 1964-1965 tee-vee season which gave us a few notable hits along with some rather expressive flops) but that of my entrance into---society so to speak. 'n no, I don't mean the "social whirl" of martinis and snack crackers at the Jonesies at eight, but that dark day in human history (at least for me) otherwise known as my first day of (shudder!) school.

Before I entered into Kindergarten that sunny if breezy day in very early September 1965, life was like, fun. In fact it was a daily adventure just as exciting as any episode of LASSIE that might have being airing at the time. Sure, turdler me had to contend with frightening nightmares usually having to do with the skeleton falling out of the photo of my dead grandfather that was hanging in grandmother's basement and butterflies eating me alive, not to mention the fact that my folks coulda been a whole lot less strict with me given their penchant to swing first and ask questions at the same time. But otherwise I was living through the kinda existence that I sure wish never woulda ended. Wake up, snap on the tee-vee and watch the morning cartoons, get dressed in time for the LITTLE RASCALS short or old TALES FROM THE RIVERBANK that always ended the cartoon hour (or maybe the Lowell Thomas station freebee having something to do with the United States Air Force) before playing with my toys while the tee-vee kept me company, or going shopping with mom or maybe even getting some toy outta a department store visit if luck would strike. Then it was more tee-vee and more playing with my toys until suppertime, and then even MORE tee-vee only with my dad reading the paper in the same room until it was time for bed. I could even get a snack of soda pop and Fritos to help me make my way through that episode of THE DEFENDERS that some wizenheimer put on! I mean, that's the kinda life I wish I could live now especially if the same sorta hotcha programs that were airing then (even THE DEFENDERS!) were still being shown giving a guy a good reason to stay up past seven o'clock!

Naturally that all would come to an end with my entrance into school, and what a depressing lifestyle rearrangement it was---BOOM like a lead curtain slamming me right on my tender five-year-old noggin! Or better yet a psychological dumping of the kid in the deep fat fryer and seeing if he comes up batter-fried fish or KFC!

The first thing that got to me was having to socialize with kids the same age I was---not that something like that wasn't exactly new to me albeit it seemed as if each and every attempt at playing with others usually ended up with said brat taking advantage of me and but good! (I remember one overcast autumn evening when my father and I were visiting a neighbor who happened to work with my dad'n I was more or less relegated into playing in the back yard sandbox with said neighbor's kid---dear little "Kevin" for no reason other'n I grabbed his dump truck threw a fistfulla sand in my face thus causing the folks to rush me home in order to squirt a few bottles of Murine into my eyes! When I heard years later that the very same kid had died [story has it either via AIDS or an accident] you can bet I felt justified to the max!!!) Now I hadda spend six hours in a room with a good twentysome more of these monsters, and you can bet that the experiences that I hadda endure with these monsters was nada like the fun 'n games ya used to see on DING DONG SCHOOL that's for sure!

Now I will remember that my kiddiegarden teacher Mrs. Carter was in fact quite a nice lady. She kinda looked like a cross between Rose Marie and that lady who used to hawk Cool Whip on tee-vee (she even popped up in a commercial with Bill Cosby who was pushing "pudding in a cloud" in the late-seventies!). Mrs. Carter used to wear a rubber band around her wrist and for some reason I thought that she had a removable hand she could take off and put back on for whatever reason she needed (grownups are funny about things like that!). I even asked my mother to ask her if in fact this was true, that's how interested I was in her hand! I also remember asking her if she was related to Sgt. Carter of GOMER PYLE USMC fame and she told me to move it, knucklehead which was especially fitting of her!

But still I hadda get up early three days a week and miss my morning cartoons and that was bad, and what was worse was a whole year later when I actually had to enter first grade, get up early FIVE days a week and endure even more snooty, pushy classmates (cunts all) as well as teachers who I believe were hired on the basis of how much they hated children. Now that was bad (and how I used to sit in class thinking about which LITTLE RASCALS short I'd already seen a hundred times was being aired right at that very moment). And what's worse is that the same pattern pretty much engulfed my entire living patters for my entire formative years.

'n yeah, I will admit that I used to get all giddy and excited over going back to school (a giddiness which did not last long mind you), but years later I think that was only because of my parents' pushing the school agenda just like tee-vee pushed the new fall season and the auto manufacturers hyped their new models (all around the same time which did lend a certain excitement to life in general!). It took me a long time to realize that I was being "had" but hey, when you're a kid you have no right to think, and shut up is your only option so like why bother even living???

Back to those "formative years"....here in my aged state I get the strong feeling that them days woulda been put to better use had I just stayed home and got my education sitting like a lump in front of the television set (as if you remember everything you learned about mathematics, grammar and citizenship from that harridan you had as a teach all them years ago!) 'stead of being dragged to school during the weekdays. And Greg Prevost was RIGHT...after all, what good is the stuff being taught to you in third grade when you have to go out and fend for yourself in that megalomonster that we all call reality?

So now you know why I am the antisocial, mankind-hating person that I proudly proclaim myself to be these days. But I always wasn't like that, and if you want to see just what kind of a fun, everyday go-for-a-walk and watch tee-vee normal kid I was just hop in your own Wayback Machine and set if for a good fifty years or so back. And if you wanna see what a bitter, hate-filled loathsome wretch could be, just tune it back forty-nine!

On to other subjects at hands or fritzes for that matter. After that all-too-potent edi-TOO-real I just dished out let me welcome you to this latest in hopefully a long line of BLOG TO COMM posts which I get the "funny" feeling you'll dig to the utmost. Just happ'd to get some really find wowzers o'er the past few days (some courtesy Bill Shute, others P.D. Fadensonnen, one thanks to Paul McGarry and a few I even paid for myself!) and I know that this week (and maybe even next!) will be pretty potent as far as delivering on the high energy goods to all of you rockism-deprived readers just drooling for that latest tip for a trip to your nearest record emporium! (Which may be thousands of miles away but hey, you always got FEET!) Surprisingly enough, it seems as if the reissue/exhumation market has been perking up a tad as we speak, and with some of these new releases making their way to your turntables and laser launching pads we might just have enough good jamz to kick out at least until...the next batch of hardcore rock 'n roll recordings make their way out of the dresser drawers and into the streets!

One more thingie---there are some things I'd really like to know and know a whole lot more sooner 'n later. Is it true that some cop in Ferguson Missouri really shot an English progressive rock group? And what's all this talk about an all-woman seventies horn-rock act of questionable sexuality (or was it a recent post-metal band) wreaking havoc in the Middle East?

THE MAGIC TRAMPS PRESENT "MENTAL MORON" AND "CHILDREN OF THE KINGDOM" CD (Whiplash Records, available via CD Baby)

Wow, after almost ten years a new Magic Tramps release has made its way out of Sesu Coleman's closet! Of course, clocking in at just a li'l over twelve minutes doesn't exactly make this 'un an especially smart buy especially considering the price tag placed on the thing, but since it's a taste of what's in store it ain't like I'm gonna complain about having to purchase this 'un like one iota!

The opening track entitled "Mental Moron" was recorded by a new version of the group featuring a fellow named Crow Weaver banging a guitar and singing along with Coleman's drumming and Lary Chaplin's violin. It's a cover of the old Corpse Grinders number which I believe was originally called "Rites 4 Whites" but since I haven't played that 'un for years I can't be certain whether or not it is. But whatever the status of this track may be it's a killer that proves that maybe only the oldsters can still play gritty, down-to-earth seventies-styled punk rock these days. Kudos must definitely go to Chaplin for the searing electric violin line that flows in and out of the tune like one of Wayne Kramer's better MC5 solos.

"Visions of the Temple" is one of those long and meditative Magic Tramps instrumentals the group used to do back when they were wrestling under the name "Messiah", and although it sounds like one of those repeato-riff drone-rockers that help ooze me into beddy-bye time I really can't tell---y'see, Colemen talks over the number (which is way down in the mix) making it all but impossible to hear. However, the exemplary drummer's saga about the group's history and development is mildly amusing even if nothing we didn't already know is revealed, and considering this platter is more 'r less a "teaser" for the upcoming platter I ain't gonna stomp my feet in righteous self-indignation. In fact, I'm counting the days 'till it finally does make its way out on the infamous Whiplash label, also home to the likes of the Corpse Grinders, the Brats, and maybe even a few more groups you ignoramuses haven't heard about yet!

Closing out the disque's a recently-discovered 1970 Tramps recording with one-time frontman Eric Emerson singing away...sound's not too hot and you have to crank the thing quite a bit to get the proper effect (mind-numbing brain-damaging energy!), but it still rules like nothing else in 1970 did 'cept for LOADED, FUNHOUSE, FLAMINGO and precious few others. "Children of the Kingdom", despite having a title that conjures up images of Melanie albums wasting away in your older sister's attic, really is a surprisingly powerful full-blast rocker with an easily-identifiable Velvet Underground riff (Chaplin's violin adding to the rhythm rather than careening over it a la John Cale) that perhaps proves the oft-touted theory about just how wide and expansive the VU's grasp was on the better rock 'n roll of the day. If the rest of the album's gonna be like this then I'm gonna stock up not only on the vinyl version but a few Cee-Dees in case my turntable conks out on me. Gotta be prepared, 'specially in these sordid rock-deprivation days!

Fadensonnen-PD5 CD (Fadensonnen Records)

Lessee...did I use this one?..."sounds like the last minute of Jimi Hendrix's existence as he choked to death on his machine head"??? I think maybe I did...howzbout "WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT rammed through Chrome's sphincter and these are the sloppy seconds"???? Even worse..."Controlled Bleeding making the soundtrack to a new Conelrad alert"! A li'l better if I do say so myself, and if you're bound to disagree why don't YOU come up with your own corny and oft-used rockcrit comparisons that just about every fanzine snob dished out in order to hide the fact that they didn't exactly comprehend the sounds at hand (unlike I) back during those tired and retread eighties!

Chrome-LIVE PRIMAVERA SOUND 2014 CD-r burn (courtesy P.D. Fadensonnen)

Maybe it ain't so coincidental that I namedropped Chrome in the above review for in the same package the above offering arrived in I also received this li'l representation of the recently-reconstructed band as they stand here in the mid-teens. I might have had more o' that legendary "trepidation" I often blab about when I plunked this 'un down on the laser launching pad...after all I never thought that the eighties/nineties works of the Damon Edge/Helios Creed team were as potent as those late-seventies disques...but this one rocks just as good as if ol' Edge was still alive and inflicting his demonic influence on the solar mess. Hot flare in the Siren tradition as the old faves are given new reworkings and sound just as feral as they did back when only a few of us fanablas were in on the massive push courtesy BOMP! and a handfulla worthy fanzines. I guess the mere existence of these recordings prove that Von Lmo was right all along (as if you didn't know that already).

Simply Saucer-BABY NOVA 12-inch EP (Schizophrenic Records, Canada)

It's about time these 2011 recordings (done up at the aptly named Ghetto Studios in Detroit MI) were pressed up because if there's anything we really need here in 2014 it's SIMPLY SAUCER!!!! Of course we also need Rocket From the Tombs, Mirrors, Ex-Blank-X, Von Lmo, Stuart's Hammer and Figures of Light...and come to think of it we got 'em all as well. We even got the Magic Tramps as you can see from the review above!

Let's face it, there's nothing more rock 'n rolling than a buncha sixty-plus guys reliving teenbo treble tantrums now that it's fortysome years later and all of a sudden the music these guys were SHUNNED for playing is in fact the hippenest thing around! Even more satisfying is know that all of those cubeoid Pantsios types who once upped crustoid nostrils at these "primitive" acts are now comin' off as if these acts were the bee's knees all along and that they were in on the whole underground rock shebang from the get go! Yeah I hate bandwagon jumpers too but at least acts like Simply Saucer are now getting a whole lot more press 'n who knows what else than they were way back when, and why should they or their bankbooks for that matter argue?

Great re-dos of a buncha Saucer classics both familiar and not, and although singer Edgar Breau's voice sounds pretty rough and ragged these days it still fits the music like swell. And the music sure is potent enough to stir those teenage underground throb thrills up just like it was 1979 and you just got the latest BOMP! catalog in your crustoid mitts.

Not as "electronic" even in a sixties Velvet Underground sense as I thought it was gonna be, but still powerful enough with its Television ca. 1975 filtered through 1976 Gizmos with maybe a tad touch of Chad 'n Jeremy to Anglo it up a bit swerve! Definitely one that was worth the wait and I know that it does seem out of place here in the truly cyborg teens but hey, it sure beats the heck outta listening to 2014's answers to Ann Murray and the Sasoul Orchestra and believe-you-me there are plenty of those around to make this rock 'n roll feel all the more potent!

John Oswald/Grateful Dead-GRAYFOLDED 3-LP set (Important Records, available via Forced Exposure)

Gotta hand it to Plunderphonics creator Oswald...only he could take a snoozy noodling track like "Dark Star" and turn it into something that's actually worth sitting through and enjoying as an actual form of creative musical expression 'stead of as an enhancer to some addled mystical experience which can only be experienced once the guy sitting next to you passes a li'l something your way ifyaknowaddamean...

Taking over a hundred different recordings of the extendo Dead number and overlaying, mixing, matching, adding extraneous tracks and who knows what else, Oswald managed to create a (believe it or not!) engrossing extended (over three platters!) version of the aforementioned jam track which spanned a good portion of the Dead's career. And heck if I get my headband out and turn freak brother on you, but (if you can believe it) GRAYFOLDED takes the comparatively staid music of the Grateful ones to an even further out level that never did get captured on their recordings, some of which I've had the (mis?)pleasure of hearing these past few decades. And thankfully the resultant stew ain't on a level of boring hippie grooveed hackdom either but something that hearkens back to early San Francisco accomplishment just before Jerry Garcia began believing all of that press hype about how much of a "spokesman for a generation" he was.

At times it sounds as if a dozen Deads are playing at once, and the music goes off into the usual tangents but for once you don't mind as the currents cross-connect and your mind seems about as overloaded taking it all in a whole lot more'n the doof tripping outta his mind inna audience's was. Surprisingly avant garde enough to somehow recall not only the Dead-not-in-name-only album SEASTONES (which I thought was a pile of turd upon first listen back '78 way but just might be due for a li'l re-eval if I can latch onto a cheap copy somewhere), but the likes of some admitted Dead influences as Sun Ra or maybe even that mythical old kraut himself Karlheinz Stockhausen.

For a respected rock aficionado whose loathing of the Dead is known far and wide, I must admit that this project might bring out just what it was that made the Dead during their space rockiest so appealing to millions of malnourished hippies doing weird dances o' ecstasy in public parks. Not that I feel like doing those Gumby routines any day soon, but if you're game to some of the more atonal heavy duty avant garde sounds that made their way outta of the seventies soundswill you might just find this enticing enough to latch onto.

The Safes-RECORD BEAT CD-r burn (originally on O Brothers)

Hmmmmm, more good 'n recent poppy rock 'n punk that doesn't sound as retread as I thought it would have given the track record of many a similar-minded bunch of re-creationists. Nothing that I'm gonna spin on a daily basis, but fairly interesting trash-compactor mooshing of poppy Beatles ideals and late-seventies power chord fanzine rah. And dare I say it, but it gives me great hope that the future of this country is in the hands of such fine, upstanding gentlemen as the Safes who are leading the youth away from the evil and decadent sounds of Justin Timberlake, Kate Perry and that notoriously amoral fiend Sam Smith! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Roxy Music-11-27-1974 - PARIS, PALAIS DES CONORES CD-r burn (courtesy of P. D. Fadensonnen)

I wouldn't call this 'un spectacular but it is a must for the rabid Roxy Music kinda fan who spent more'n a few hours thumbing through import and bootleg bins in the tri-state area. Sound quality is fab for what I can detect is an audience recording, and although the selection of songs leaves a bit to be desired (not enough tracks from the then-current COUNTRY LIFE alb and only two from the Eno days and they ain't "Virginia Plain" or "Remake/Remodel" either!), the sophisti-deca feeling that made Roxy one of the more talked about groups of the day still seeps through like syphilitic pus outta Iggy's main vein. Ferry and company cook up that jaded art sound in a fashion that would make any teenage ball o' confusion wanna don a tux 'n tie,.and although it may be hard for you to believe it but this was the music that was to be heard outta the suburban slob bedrooms of many a sad and lonely boy back in them days!

ON STAGE WITH THE DAVE CLARK FIVE CD-r burn (originally on Capitol, Canada)

I guess this 'un'll be interesting enough for the collector snob types and hardcore DC 5 fans alike since it only came out in Canada and thus was probably not readily enough available at your local Zayre's. Mike Saunders and the rest of the rabid Dave Clark fans'll probably cherish a flesh 'n vinyl copy of this in their collections but frankly I find it, like all of the platters I've heard by these British Invasion heavies, rather roller-coasty with a few bright spots overcome by the band's generally lower energy output. But hey, if you want your bedroom to sound just like your older sis's did a good fifty years back just spin ON STAGE (which ain't even a live album making me wonder how they get away with such blatant misrepresentation???) and get a buncha young adolescent females to jump up and down and giggle a whole lot on your bed. And don't come crying to me when the cops bust down your door!

Various Artists-DEWDROP NYMPH HEARTACHE CD-r burn (courtesy of the largess of Bill Shute)

Lotsa fun stuff here from two "song poems" to some gal group sounds (the Date with Soul as well as the Flirtations' snappy hit "Nothing But a Heartache") and the usual early-sixties trackage that really sends me back to my pre-memory days which I only wish I could remember. Bill even remains true to form by fitting a couple of country and western numbers that were country even when country wasn't stodgy enough to admit the likes of Barbara Mandrell to its ranks. Even the foreign legion in the form of Lebanon's Sea-Ders and Turkey's Maut Isiklar are represented, as is Forest of Harvest Records fame who sound true enough to their post-Barrett style to rate a seek out for one of the group's LP for that famed "progressive" label! And it's all topped off by a Vox Wah-Wah Pedal demonstration that I kinda get the idea was heard by every garage band kiddoid rockstar wannabe back in the sainted days of the mid-sixties!

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! DAYTON'S DEVILS starring Rory Calhoun and Leslie Nielsen (1968)

Considering how pussified manhood has become over the past forty or so years it's sure great seeing yet another one of these hot action-drenched movies where the guys are crazed and sadistic and the woman pretty dainty especially when compared to the bulldozers you see passing as members of the female gender these days. At least this film represents things like they oughta be, but if course if you doth disagree I can always direct you to some M*A*S*H rerun that's lurking about in the ether somewhere.

Sorta like a cross between THE DIRTY DOZEN and WHO'S MINDING THE MINT, this 'un's got Leslie Nielsen (who's second billed probably because Rory Calhoun demanded the #1 spot) as a disgraced former Air Force officer leading the standard motley bunch of down and out losers on a mission to rob an air force payroll worth that's undoubtedly worth a huge hunka dough. The aforementioned Calhoun plays the wizeass guy in the bunch always butting heads with Nielsen while the others come straight outta central casting, from a typically constipated Nazi officer to a suave Frenchman, not to mention an ex-army psycho in the Telly Savalas role (he being played by real life psycho Barry Sadler!) and future tee-vee reg Georg Stanford Brown doing the Jim Brown role. There's even a standard late-sixties TV-type hippie nutjob here who, when refusing to get his long locks raped, gets the scissors treatment while the older guys laugh and smirk at the sight! I'm sure this particular scene put a huge smile on the faces of alla them tough he-men in the audience who were settling down for this 'un hoping for some rough 'n tumble action and not some hippydippy love fest that's for sure!

And if you do happen to get overcome by it all at least there's the scene where female leadLainie Kazan sings "Sunny" while wearing a low cut dress, and the part where she changes outta her civvies into some scuba gear might also get a rise outta you men who haven't seen a female form that wasn't decked out in tattoos and shiny piercings for well over a decade!

The moom does pack a lotta action whether it's between a couple of the guys fighting it out over some seemingly small infraction or during the actual crime, and thankfully the energy keeps on going even when the story slows down even a tad bit. Whatever, this 'un the perfect Sunday afternoon slab of entertainment that'll keep you engaged and remind you of the days when action on the screen did speak louder than words (mostly those being talked at you by do-gooders who are nothing more'n the uplifters outta some D.W. Griffith film updated for a new and frightening future) and hey, aren't you glad you were born a MAN???.

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*'n whatever you do, don't be scared by the appearance of then-soap opera actor and future sandalista Mike Farrell as an officer, though keen eyes will be able to spot the once-omnipresent seventies character actor Bo Hopkins as a sailor who gets offed about two minutes into his appearance.

If you think my writing generally sucks the Big Juicy Lactating Teat of Mediocrity you should just try reading this week's offering! Although it's admittedly packed with a nice slab o' reviews and of items that I have the feeling many of you will be selling various body orifices for (if you live in New York City that is), I felt myself struggling to whip up that expected zest and oomph to rise to the levels of journalistic aptitude and integrity that I usually strive for with these things. Unfortunately, I fear that the resultant gush from my mind to my fingers to the computer keyboard just doesn't translate into high energy printed jamz the way that I hoped it would have. Sorry to say so, but that's the Turd's Truth and you better believe it!

Now I could be a typical pantywaist about it all and give you my reason as to why I feel that I have shortchanged you readers with my failing writing abilities, ranging from the horrible back 'n ribcage ache I've suffered during the middle of the week (doin' fine now so no get well cards please!) to the middle-of-the-night stomach inflation of Hindenburg magnitude brought on by a knockwurst and cabbage supper. Or better yet a general lethargy and tired, run down feeling brought thanks to that overwhelming malady known as REAL LIFE which has been catching up with me no matter how hard I try to avoid it. And given my good excuses maybe I will...after all, if anybody in this world deserves the hearts 'n flowers treatment it's me, and after going through a rough bowel movement that feels as if you've just given rectal birth to a giant Douglas Fir like I have (and I'm not kidding...after wiping myself after a particularly painful and gut-wrenching dump I thought that the assembled poop remnants clinging to my overworked sphincter had the sludgy texture of wet sand with a few twigs and seashell bits tossed in!), just try cranking out a blog chock fulla etapoint writing and opinions you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere else on this sick planet of ours!

So soldier on I must (and did) in my usual devoted way, and I'll admit that even if the resultant spew comes off as if its got its own case of the flu there might be some tasty shards of info that will pass your rather sharp scrutiny with ease. So maybe eh, I wouldn't write this 'un off totally and even if it does have a slimy coating to it maybe one or two of the following writeups just might end up in my posthumous collection of critical pearls entitled ANY OLD WAY YOU SODOMIZE IT, available via Limp Arrow around the time my earthly remains become the biggest smorgasbord the worms have seen in ages!

(As you would have expected me to say after having read ten years of this blog....) what I'd said a few weeks ago regarding Robin Williams' own passing goes for that of "funnyperson" Joan Rivers as well! Shit, I really don't know what is worse, the fact that some overpraised media puppet has passed on, or the reams of sniffles that are coming from the same people who somehow couldn't find anything of worth in a Three Stooges film. And as you've already guessed by now, the pundits have been in full swing with their lionization of someone who was nothing but another insult comic, but since she insulted the same people the manipulators at hand loathe she most certainly got a free pass in life. You never saw any of the grief or torn garments you're seeing nowadays when any of the Stooges died, and I should know because I for one remember it all quite well (fifteen minutes into ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT, right after the latest on Gerald Ford farting in Congress).

Of course (as you would also have expected me to say all along) I will admit that Rivers was a comedienne who may have caused me to emit a few hearty guffaws during her various early-eighties tee-vee appearances, but as time crawled on and the entire comedy industry turned from all-around bad taste to a socially-charged onslaught rampage against voiceless targets who never could fight back (after all, where are alla them daring Muslim jokes these new ~~social critics~~ comedians could be popping out with relative ease?), the lady seemed to be as funny as a gay rights protester at a Marine Corp recruiting station. Just another tool of that ol' multi-million dollar steamroller known as "progress" that's been doin' their best to keep lower-middle class Polish plumbers and Southern farmers in their place while crying crocodile tears for the same folk they've been trying to obliterate all these years. Har-de-har-hars for people who get a kick outta feeling superior to others because of their unique value systems the same way down on their luck losers have nothing better to do than hype themselves up over their ethnic/racial/religious identity. Sheesh---at one time comedians used to tell funny jokes that made you chuckle and/or groan, but today all they do is castigate all of the proles who are smart enough not to pop up at any of their dissertations otherwise known as concerts!

(And really, if you do want to feel like a hotshot next to the average Joe Blow all you have to do is be like me, and judge others not by their skin color, yearly income or body rankness but by the number of Velvet Underground albums they have in their collection. Works every time!)

As I suspected, the obits that this face-life freak has been chalking up o'er the past few days are even more high-larious'n all of those other recent ones which try to tie in some haughty socially-conscious angle to the person's life no matter how tenuous it may be. In their usual try to say the nicest things about people whether or not they fit the current PC mode of what's righteous, these new obit screeders strain to come up with some of the most tenuous if guffaw-inducing angles to make their subject come off more attuned to "the cause". As such, the always way-off-kilter pundits have been hailing Rivers as a groundbreaking standup comic in a world of men breaking down all barriers that have kept female standup comediennes suppressed etc., and while that may have been true in the standup realm I certainly could have thought up a whole slew of ladies who have come and gone long before Rivers began sullying the scene with her haughty bitch routine. In no way would I have expected a REALLY funny lady like Vera Vague to have gotten even one spec of the notice or adulation that a comparative droop like Rivers has received (and I'm sure her mid-seventies passing slipped by the collected consciousness of the same folk who now dribble tears over Rivers' 86-ing), especially in these Marcusian times when some pigs definitely are more equal than others. Ditto Gracie Allen or any number of laugh merchants whose preserved work passes my muster while the likes of Rivers only induce me to pass gas. Of course Lucy got her share of fond farewells back when she passed on, but the lady was larger than life and y'know, how could they afford not to report on her own capsize?

But I will admit that it was fun reading about Rivers' crashing of the standup comedy "glass ceiling" almost as fun as finding out that Shirley Temple was a pioneer in the Civil Rights Movement because she acted with those of the black persuasion, or that William F. Buckley had at least some redeeming qualities because he jettisoned the more "extreme" members of the "right" (including Murray Rothbard, a guy who makes more sense twenty years after his death than anybody writing for NATIONAL REVIEW does today) from the pages of his definitely non-mainstream publication. Sheesh, it almost made me feel bad for Fred Phelps since his own obit in the pages of TIME didn't rate even one li'l huzzah for this oft-scorned religious leader which I'm sure really hurt his precious feelings wherever he may be in the afterlife!

Another one for the "rest in piss" category that's for sure, and you can guess that I'll be mourning the ol' biddy just about as much as I mourned the cancellations of NORTHERN EXPOSURE and I'LL FLY AWAY! May you met up with your old stubbleface of a nemesis Elizabeth Taylor who I hope has swelled back up to 400 pounds, and may she sit on you for life everlasting, amen!

Yeah I know, you want the reviews and you want them NOW!!! Won't keep you waiting because I can just hear all you readers with your recently-cashed welfare checks just champing at the bit to know what to do with alla that money, and as we know the essentials must take precedence over alla 'em luxuries like stale doritos and toilet paper now, don't they!

MADRIGAL LP (Lysergia, available through Subliminal Sounds)

This album is gonna set you back quite a bit but hey, if you're in the market for rare home-cooked underground rocking maybe it's best you give up on a few week's groceries in order to save up the shekels for this messterpiece! Long desired on the big bucks collectors circuit, the Madrigal platter has been rumored to be one of the last great finds in the home-produced, heavy drone Velvet Underground sweepstakes that enveloped the teenage punk mindset of the seventies (at least until every suburban slob got in on the act thus creating the monstrosity known as "amerindie"). Now that it's available to a wider audience maybe you too should find out exactly what all the fuss was with the mighty few who were able to get hold of this 'un at the local garage sale back when you were still looking for that elusive copy of George "Goober" Lindsey's I LIKE UGLY GIRLS.

Quite a melange here not only with a decidedly Velvets ping to the thing but with passages that recall just about everything from Suicide to Amon Duul I with a few side treks into the late-seventies variety of industrial music that really made YOU feel top dog back when you were listening to the dark strains. A tad bit of them ol' experimental bedroom hijinx do seem to make their way into the mix giving you the idea that you're experiencing yet another one of the less-enthralling "OP""cassette culture" items prevalent during the early-eighties, but any feelings of college student pretension are soon swept away when all of a sudden Madrigal stretches out into total high energy bliss that is in such short supply these days. And given just how hard those kicks are getting to find, maybe its like you better snatch this one up regardless of the pricey tag on it!

Sheesh, at times Madrigal sound just as late-sixties innocent as many of those former flea market finds that got Greg Prevost all hopped up in the pages of FUTURE, and if your mode of the music changes from late-seventies hard-splat to post-garage band teen pop with a little freaky flavoring man, you'll really wanna be up, front and center for this!

Only 500 of these have been unleashed so hurry up and grab one while you can. Or if you're the really cost-conscious type you can wait a good ten years for a Cee-Dee reish to make its way to your door. But if I were you I'd try to grab this platter up more sooner 'n later because hey, in ten years time who knows if we'll even have any hearing left intact and I doubt this 'un'll translate well into sign language.

And we dig you too, Miriam!
Muchos thankias!

Miriam-NOBODY'S BABY CD (Norton)

Gawrsh, I sure didn't know what to expect from this 'un! Y'see, I thought that the vocalese of one Miriam (formerly Miriam Linna, as if you thought Miriam Makeba was making a comeback) was gonna be akin to the kind of Granny Clampett sounds she was emitting on those classic A-Bones sides like "Sham Rock"---real raw 'n guttural---but on NOBODY'S BABY it sounds as if she's gobbled a few bags of Fisherman's Friends because her voice is nice 'n smooth and real teenage-like! In fact, a few spins of the latest in a long line of Norton Records masterworks had my mind playing them usual tricks on me to the point where I thought I was listening to some obscure mid-sixties record made by some weaselly mid-aged Phil Specter wannabe! Y'know, some long-forgotten private pressing thing that got buried for years until Tim Warren dug up a copy thirty years later, and although Mary Weiss (queen of the sixties femme emoters and yet another Norton Records signee) ain't gonna be losing any sleep over this it just might just get her up a coupla times during the night to take a few pees.

The production coulda been more Phil, but I woulda been satisfied even if Abner Specter of Jaynettes fame had the honor of translating the Miriam sound to wax or aluminum in this case. Thankfully, this does sound pretty funzy mid-amerigan suburban slob in that ripe '65 folk cum gal pop way, and like the best works of pure rockism extant it has me visioning back to all that great past teenbo culture that I was trying to gobble up second hand via a slew of early-seventies flea markets. In fact, I coulda seen twelve-year-old myself snatching this 'un up with some old SUPERMAN 80 Page Giants on a Sunday afternoon garage sale romp and going home to spin it on the fambly stereo while doing weird spazzy interpretive dances like I did with Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog", and don't tell me you didn't act like a jerko like that when you were the same age because I know you all did, and you should be PROUD of it!

In all, a boffo platter outta that famed left field we've all heard about that does capture a long-gone era back when women actually used Norforms and didn't go outta their way to nauseate men. In fact, they made records that really appealed to the male s-x just like this latest in a long line of femme emoters most certainly does. And the only reason that I'm mentioning that the likes of such decidedly non-KICKS approved artists as Neil Young, Tim Buckley and Bobby Darin (let alone the Ramones, who I guess were OK with Billy and Miriam but not as much as Jerry Lee!) are covered is so I could crank out a "hip" namedropping review connecting the reader with some "cool" hooks for them to relate to! Y'know, just like the kind that woulda graced the pages of STEREO REVIEW or maybe even that granddaddy of hipster spunk ROLLING STONE back during their lost in the haze of post-hippie hackdom days. Did I do a good job of it guys, hunh...did I????

Dane Clark in CRIME AND PETER CHAMBERS CD-r burn (NBC radio show 1954)

These old radio shows Mr. Shute has been sending my way really know how to make this particular suburban slob feel like its the early fifties and Red Ball Keds still matter to my sense of sartorial elegance, and CRIME AND PETER CHAMBERS is no exception! One time tee-vee perennial Dane Clark stars as the private eye who, as you'd expect, manages to solve some of the toughest and nut-crackinest cases anybody could come up against, and in less than a half-hour t'boot, which for one reason or another reminds me...

...about my seventh-grade teacher used to tell us repeatedly that, given us dumbass kids were growing up under the influence of television, we thought the world's problems could be solved in the course of an hour (something he probably perused in a READER'S DIGEST---these teachers have no cognitive function and you know it), but since Chambers could solve the most complex cases in less time I'm sure said teacher would have had this show BANNED! Can't argue with a man who can't even handle a class of unruly doofs custom made for the ritalin market now, can we???

But sick teachers aside there are two good 'uns here with my fave being the second that deals with a bank teller who absconds with a nice $100,000 for use in an interesting bank scheme I was kinda hopin' he'd actually get away wit given how neat the idea he had was! For once wouldn't it be just DUCKY if the writers let him because hey, he did put a whole lotta craft and work into his rather devious plan and like he shoulda been rewarded somewhat for it now, dontcha think??? Yeah I know that this has gotta play in Peoria, but still it would be nice if the sneaky guy with the good idea got away with it at least once!

The Buzzcocks-THE WAY CD-r burn (originally on Pledge Music)

The Buzzcocks??? Dint even know they were still around but its obvious they are, and the Mancunians' (izzat the right term?) latest is really a platter to, as they used to say, contend with. Well, not en toto 100% but it's good enough for this fanabla, kinda sounding like one of those hard-thunking proto-punk singles that came outta England in 1973 (albeit maybe not crunchy enough, though "Dream On Baby" coulda been a Mustard track if it were only heavier) with vocals that sound gruffer'n that crime dog that you still see doing Public Service Announcements on UHF-TV. And boy have they aged, not only with their finer sense of punkitude firmly on display but definitely age-wise. They're English frails no more as is obvious from their pic onna front cover which leads me to think sheesh, who ever thought that the Buzzcocks woulda eventually turned into the Stranglers!

The Zobo Funn Band-LIVE AT THE HAUNT JANUARY 28, 1980 CD (Studio Records)

These Zobos first came to my attention via a listing for the 1975 CBGB Christmas Fest as well as some '78 Max's gigs that must have been very successful if you're the type of guy who believes everything you read in a group's press release. As for me well, I figured that they just hadda've been part of the first wave of local talent that was creeping its way to the En Why See clubs right around the time the upper-crusts at THE NEW YORK TIMES began paying attention to the likes of Patti Smith, so hey why not plunk down a few and find out whether or not they wee worth the gamble!.

Turns out that I was right once again at least on one aspect of the quest, for the Zobo Funn Band from Ithica were undoubtedly typical of a lotta the home-bred groupage that could be found in just about any burgh throughout the seventies. They're nothing that will light up the typical BLOG TO COMM reader's fancy being more of a standard jazzbo rock cum prog act, but in some ways they remind me of Tin Huey with a heavy AJA-period Steely Dan influence which'll only matter to you if you like Tin Huey and/or AJA, I guess.

To be truthful about it, there's little use you discerning types'll have for a disque such as this. Now you might enjoy the jazzy lines and find the soprano sax not as upchucky as it was in the soprano saturated seventies, but the lead singer does come too close to Terry Kath for comfort which of course make me wanna play a game of "Polish Roulette" more sooner than later. And face it, a lot of the Zobo's rep is nothing but uberslick jazz refuse that sounds as if it were made just for your favorite female college radio deejay with a terminal case of perioditis which reeks from every nuance in her whiny if flat voice, amongst other holes that is.

But on the plus side this release does have a fairly creative spark at times (which you can count on your right hand if you're Jerry Garcia) and comes with an FM broadcast immediacy to it that'll remind you of sitting by the radio ca. 1978 waiting for the "new wave" hour to come on your local college station. And since I haven't found the desire to smash the bugger against the wall yet maybe it's gotta be good!

One huge caveat...guitarist David Torn of the group later went on to gnu age fame with albums on Windham Hill and ECM, not to mention his chalking up mucho studio time backing everybody from Cyndi Lauper, k. d. laing and maybe even some females for that matter! If you listen hard enough the roots of eighties musical slickdom may be discerned, but if you're interested in experiencing a slice of what was considered "Amerigan Underground Rock" in the seventies that li'l fact might not affect you that much. Knowing you readers, it probably will.

Pharoah Sanders-LIVE KEYSTONE KORNER, SAN FRANCISCO 6/6/71 CD-r burn (via P. D. Fadensonnen)

For folk like me who struggle with the fact that Sanders, when he coulda been making albums of pure sonic structure, ended up going the disco route to the point where even his earlier entries into music making seemed tainted, this does help kill the pain somewhat. Dunno exactly who Sanders is performing with on this '71 outing but they're definitely copasetic (wonder if that's a pre-Scientologized Stanley Clarke on bass, and that surely is Lonnie Liston Smith on piano, right?) but he's still got that power and might which made everything from TAUHID to THEMBI must-spins for anybody who would dare consider themselves fans of the 1958-1977 underground jazz sphere. Beautiful guttural screams make it worth the price of admission (mainly a good search via your local search engine). And like those actual flesh and blood Sanders platters that were in ample supply during the seventies this does have that driving rock sound that might even appeal to more than a few of you Stooges aficionados who still tune into this blog...dig?

Various Artists-GREEN-EYED JUKEBOX MANSION CD-r burn (via Bill Shute)

This 'uns mostly got late-fifties/early-sixties popster sides ranging from yet another bunch who were goin''round under the Temptations moniker (and really, it woulda been funny to hear this white group from New Jersey wrap their tonsils around "Ball of Confusion"!) to the gal group-y Bleu Belles not forgetting a load of femme soloists the likes of Gloria DeMarco and the New Breed. The English get their digs in via Hedgehoppers Anonymous and the Mad Hatters (with a single that dates back to '76 which is a surprise because it sounded '69/'70 cusp to these ears!) The ads for Sears Warehouse and WABN "What's Happening" clip are of course always welcome (they make me feel like I'm a li'l kid inna car pestering my mother to take me to Mason's for a new toy!) and the experimental improv via "Trans-Idio" and "Idio-Savant" added that certain oomph that jolted me outta a sixties sensibility right into a seventies one! Great gunch here, and to think that you too can snatch it all off the web if you only had the intelligence and savvy unlike me!

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! SOUL HUSTLER starring Fabian Forte, Casey Kasem, Tony Russel and Nai Bonet (1973)

Well, if Frankie Avalon could milk an acting career for all it was worth well into the seventies (and beyond), why not Fabian? Yes, the Hound Dog Man himself pops up as a hippydippy ne'er-do-well in this early-seventies crankout drama, driving along the Californian environs in one of those old panel vans that haven't been made in years looking a whole lot looser than he did back when he was cranking out those "Boys of Bandstand" teen hits that's for sure.

After getting busted at a revival meeting (Fabian hands the crowd a sob story about being robbed of his wallet the night before then unconsciously pulls it outta his pocket when presenting the local gendarme with his driver's license!), Fabian is bailed out by the preacher himself who lets him in on the biggest scam to lay a whole lot more bread on 'em 'n the time the Schweibel's bakery exploded.

And the preacher's evil plan actually works! Soon Fabian is dressed up in a white robe calling himself Matthew, Son Of Jesus and is wowin' the crowd with his early-seventies singer/songwriter schmooze while everybody's raking in the cash in one of the biggest religioso blitzes seen since Aimee Semple McPherson. Naturally (I mean, what else) Fabian's still leading one o' them naughty lives behind the scene, hot for the tramp trade wherever he goes while his junkie Vietnam vet buddy scores heroin for him, all the while presenting the Mr. Clean Jesus Freak image to the adoring populace who wouldn't guess in a millyun years that their substitute savior was acting like an even bigger hippie 'n alla those scuzzballs you used to see pull up in a Volkswagen camper buying cheap wine at the local stop 'n rob.

Kinda like an updated version of THE WORLD'S GREATEST SINNER for the seventies, SOUL HUSTLER just ain't as good as that legendary exploito what with its more laid back '72 SoCal feeling that makes you wanna blow up a granola factory not forgetting quite a few loose ends (such as the whys and wherefores regarding the death of one of Fabian's Great Danes) that just don't get tied up leaving you to go "wha???" Not only that but the introspective music only reminds me of why the Stooges and Alice Cooper were oh so needed during those decidedly energy-starved days when it seemed as if many teenagers were eating their 12-string guitars for roughage as Flo and Eddie once said. But still it's entertaining enough perhaps thanks to the b-movie acting and general low-budget feel which always was one of the better assets of these funtime crankout features.

In fact Fabian is pretty boffo in the lead (makes me wish he had stuck around doing these drive in films 'stead of popping up in disco mooms a few years later) while Tony Russel as the devious career-guiding preacher who takes him in is also top notch even if the guy tends to look like one of the Gardner brothers from the old Mothers of Invention. Larry Bishop as the doomed vet is perfect for the part even if you think the guy's dreaming "God I gotta get a best supporting actor nomination" during his big emotional scene, and dee-jay bigwig Casey Kasem as the sleazy PR man is...well...about as real life biz as they come. Special note should go to Nai Bonet as Helena, a particularly hot dish who actually worms her way into Fabian's lust-filled heart and kinda makes you wish they woulda made this 'un an "R"'stead of a "PG" ifyaknowaddamean...

Without spoiling things for those who actually do want to see this movie despite the tepid review I will say that SOUL HUSTLER does have one of them endings that kinda makes you go "hunh?" because it happens so fast, but naturally I ain't gonna ruin it for you by getting into any great detail ene though I get the feeling that few of you are interested in seeing this film due to the religious subject matter. But you might be shocked, saddened, or even go "wha' th'" when you get to that point in the flicker. Maybe it was deigned to be that way, or as some would say maybe they just ran outta money but anyway this is one I think just might suit you on one of those muggy summer nights if you put your tee-vee in the back yard and pretend you're at the drive in, only don't let the neighbors catch what you're doin' in light of the fact you don't have a gurl wit'cha, right (I know, old habits are hard to break)?!?!?

Life for me has been akin to a gerbil winding his way through one of those dark, dank and mysterious San Franciscan labyrinths after the tether broke, but sometimes a few curveballs can be tossed my rather sorrowful way. Curveballs that'll give me that ol' neato surprise that I've been craving ever since the Big Beat took a humongous fall way back inna late-sixties, or was it early-eighties? And thankfully (due to the keen workage of one P. D. Fadensonnen) I got a nice trio of said balls tossed my way in the form of some killer Cee-Dee-Ares which lay down to aluminum some of the racket that had been produced by the reunited legendary "cannon fodder" (copyright Anastasia Pantsios) group Mirrors over the past year or so! And true, I might have had a tad bit of trepidation (a word I've been overusing these past few posts, and with good reason!) wanting to hear the musings of a batch of sixty-plus guys trying to either relive past glories, but since the only other option I had for cheap thrills this evening was stare at my nude body in the bathroom mirror I figured that maybe I should go the least sickening route for once.

Obviously I did make the better choice, because the reformed Mirrors here in 2014, alive and kicking as if the past forty years was just...well...more cold storage are shall I say THE MOST KNOCK-OUT HARD ROCK FUZZ THRILL HIGH-ENERGY ROMP I'VE HEARD IN AGES!!! Rilly, I didn't think that anybody could revive the long rotting corpse of seventies underground rock successfully but Mirrors certainly do on this trio of platters which come off like a three-way asteroid collision of Stooges, Pink Fairies and Can proportions splattering rock-hard shards of atonal pleasure upon the masses. After surviving the sensory-overload of these recordings I am speechless, and as close associates can tell you there's hardly a moment in this life of mine when I ever am!

First on the list...WRUW STUDIO-A-RAMA 2013, live at Mather Courtyard at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. The grand return and wotta return it is what with 4/5th of the original group and who knows what else proceeding to blast a few braincells with their rock in overdrive approach. From the opening "She Smiled Wild" (unfortunately missing the fantastic psychedelic extended guitar passage but wha' th' hey) to the set closer "God Sells" (a recent addition to Mirrors' set that had been recorded under proper conditions a few days earlier) Jamie Klimek and company overload the digital phones and whatever else was used to record this, sounding as if ten Blue Cheers were playing simultaneously wiping out every microphone and headset in the process. The overbearing distortion always lends the proper "ambiance" to this kind of performance (which makes WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT come off like one of those 24-bit remastered albums so in vogue in the late-seventies), and frankly I'll give a listen to Mirrors even if they were recorded on wax cylinder since their energy and might is bound to overcome whatever technology is stacked up against it.

The Beachland Ballroom show from this Janvier might lose something considering the sound quality does reach a more respectable standard...about the same quality as one of those live Mirrors tapes from the old Clockwork Orange days that've been floating around for years...but I ain't complainin'. It's nothing that would have gotten any of those old time STEREO REVIEW creeps palpatatin' but you can make out the melodies and vocals a whole lot easier if it does matter to ya. (But then again I rate METALLIC KO as a recording masterpiece and even find the debut Siouxsie and the Banshees performance at the 100 Club just the right quality for a recording of this stature.) The overall performance is akin to the group during their mid-seventies romp upon the terrain, and the revival of Mirrors melodies unheard since the group's '75 breakup (including the boffo cover of the Captain Lockheed classic "Ejection") really does infuse a whole load of long-decayed rock forms into a world that has been needing 'em ever since Max's Kansas City closed up shop! I gotta admit that the two additional guitarists (including one-time Styrene Money Band member David Franduto, a guy who I thought looked more like Lenny Kaye than Lenny Kaye did when I saw him live) adds even more tension to the already unbelievable Mirrors sound. The effect of the three lead guitars weaving about on "I Saw You" is enough to drive you to sanity. Brilliant move on your part Mssr. Klimek!

A li'l over a month later Mirrors were back at the Beachland Ballroom for a Lou Reed birthday celebration bash, and although Lou was nowhere to be seen his spirit surely moved through the band's entire set since all they did that night was play nothin' but Velvet Underground songs! And hey, I gotta say that it's sure great hearing Velvet Underground songs done up in the here and now that aren't being performed by overly-pierced gals with tattoos galore and a body odor that could overpower a dungpile. Klimek and his guitar onslaught performing old VU songs that hadn't yet been vinylized until the eighties really is a earful to behold, and it's even fabber hearing their version of the legendary "Sweet Sister Ray" with that multi-guitar drone cum lead entanglement that weaves its way in and outside of your psyche like nothing since PARADIESWARTS DUUL, a Velvets-stoner classic in itself. The best of the sixties filtered through a seventies consciousness being presented in the teens, a time when I thought that I was the only idiot out there standing against a bulwark of subpar sputum screaming at the top of my lungs LISTEN TO THIS BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE, AND IT ALREADY IS YOU TURDBURGERS!!!!

What's even better about these new slabs of live energy is Klimek's between-song banter. If you can believe it (and why not?), the guy sounds really glad to be up on stage again, this time playing to an audience (and maybe even world) that finally caught up with him after all those years of bitter loathing. (Heck, ol' Anastasia Pantsios herself is now on-board as a Mirrors maniac and although she's been claiming to have been a front and center fan for years [???] it just goes to show you just how much of a bandwagon jumper on the dame can be when it suits her own purposes!) Rock fans like you 'n me who are appreciative of not only Klimek but Jim Crook, Craig Bell etc. can at least be glad that finally they're gonna get their just dues, and although it took a pretty long time well...they say revenge is sweet, and nothing really could be sweeter'n being recognized by the same idiots who wrote you off long ago! Now it's HIP to love those long drones even though you readers knew that all along, eh?

Once again a hearty muchos gracias to P.D. Fadensonnen for the burns, and if you too want to hear some of the better rock 'n roll that's being made today (not to mention the best releases of the year that haven't even been released properly!) go to youtube, gather all of the videos in question, and burn 'em onto a Cee Dee yourself! Or do what luddite me did and have someone do it for ya! Either way you're gonna experience some music that at least gets me up and goin' in a world that does its best to put a damper on everything and anything I like and believe, and in this day and age it's sure a cleansing experience listening to Mirrors whether it be in their original form or the new and expanded edition. And you just know these'll make a great teaser for the upcoming release and when's the battle of the bands between 'em, Figures of Light, Simply Saucer and even the Imperial Dogs (and Umela Hmota if they can make it!) gonna transpire anyway???? Oh so many loose ends that need tied up before it's too late!!!!!

Now that I finally got the latest bitta hot off the presses nooze outta the way, lemme say welcome to the latest Blog to Commpost! Gotta say that I've been feeling a little better this week, perhaps due to the arrival of the above platters as well as some (if not all) of the ones reviewed below. A hearty thanks to everyone who contributed those burns like Bill Shute, Paul McGarry, Bob Fo'ward and of course P.D. Fadensonnen himself. Also thanks to me for being able to hold down a job so I can at least afford a few of the recordings that I scarfed up via the usual sources. Anyway I got some pretty nice newies as well as some oldies that'll curl your straighties and since I know you're just champing at the bit to read about 'em all, so without further ado...

Lou Reed-EARLY LOU, PRE VELVET UNDERGROUND RECORDINGS 1958-1965 LP (Andy Records, Germany, available from Forced Exposure)

When Lou Reed finally thanked God that he just couldn't care didn't you think that the floodgates of unreleased Velvet Underground recordings were gonna come rushin' their way to our doorstep faster'n you could say "tai kai ko"??? Me too, and although it's been a good year since the guy departed this mortal coil for alleyways unknown STILL we haven't gotten a proper send off in the form of rare archival recordings for the guy. Well, at least other'n this thing which ain't exactly gonna get you bustin' into your piggybank to send for, but it still serves its purpose which is why I'll give it credit where credit is do, savvy?

You've heard most of it already and for years on end from the Jades single to that Lewis Reed demo which had him ridin' the early-sixties well-groomed boy singer merry-go-round, but you haven't heard 'em sound as good as they do here! Well, I gotta say that the rare "Intimates" version of "I've Got a Tiger in My Tank" with the overdubbed roars does sound a bit muddy, but otherwise these tracks have got that sparkling early-sixties Hi-Fi sound that made sneaking into your dad's den to spin your Rolling Stones albums so fun. And it's sure nice having these rarities (including the Donnie Brooks version of "Why Don't You Smile Now" which I've never lent ear to) gathered in one place 'stead of spread out on a variety of albums and tapes you've gathered over the years.

One big surprise in the batch is the inclusion of that Lou Reed "Heroin" demo that Ritchie Unterberger told us about years back but had yet to surface until now. Recorded at the Pickwick studios of all places, Reed's Dylan fixation is in full form here as he folksies this favorite up the way any broken-tooth wannabe troubadour from Hibbling Minnesota woulda done it. Not only that, but the end results are as soul-wrenching as Lou's best to the point where you wanna hear alla 'em Falling Spikes and Warlocks tapes languishing in John Cale's mineshaft which only makes me wonder why the people at Polydor are dragging their feet the way they are!

This one's also got a typically nice Europeen-styled sturdy collectors sleeve as well, and the liner notes from one "Doctor Rawk" do lend me to believe that perhaps thee Lenny Kaye himself wrote 'em. To which I say "HEY LENNY, IF YOU'RE SO KEEN ON PRESERVING THE ROCK 'N ROLL PAST LIKE YOU THINK, HOWZBOUT RELEASING A MAN RAY ALBUM OR TWO?????"Really, I've been waiting for it for quite awhile, and although it ain't gonna be the 1976 bargain bin/flea market platter find I so hoped it woulda been at least you can help warm out that oft-unlit pilot light in my rockist soul by making those recordings public!

Crime-MURDER BY GUITAR CD-r burn (originally on Superior Viaduct)

I'm sure glad that this collection of rare slabs by the infamous San Franciscan punk rock group Crime came out (actually, I'm more'n glad that Bob Fo'ward sent it to me so's I wouldn't have to dish out any hard-begged for it), because if there's anything that we need in the here and now is more there and then! Fantastico rumblings on these late-seventies sides that really show that there was more to SF than then hippoid dreams that ROLLING STONE tried to keep alive for ages. The roaring onslaught of these tracks (which tastefully squoosh various mid-sixties punkisms and then-current trends together) definitely make for a tasty main course music meal that'll have you begging for seconds (and there are---another Crime Cee-Dee's worth of demos is also available if you act fast!). Not surprisingly I can even hear a load of early (and even mid)-seventies Flamin' Groovies influences in Crime's musical make up, something which doesn't surprise me a bit not only because both acts spurted forth from the same location but because they even shared a member, none other'n Lost and Found-era bass guitarist Ron Greco.

The Muffs-WHOOP DEE DOO CD-r burn (originally on Burger)

Sheesh, didn't know that the Muffs were still around. I'm sure they're all greying by now, but these once-lassies sure do sound as poppy punk fresh as I'm sure they did around the time they first met up with Mr. Massengill. This has got some rather nice Beatle-swipes that'll warm the hearts of you oldsters who'd like to know that the music of fifty years past still resonates this far down the line, and its also got a good production and performance which make this 'un the spiritual heir to alla that Kim Fowley-hyped new girl group huzzah that was going around in the pages of BOMP! back in the mid-seventies. But if I ever listen to this 'un again it's gonna be because I'm on a deserted island and the only other platter that's washed ashore is Cliff Richard's LET US PREY, LIVE AT THE BILLY GRAHAM REVIVAL (though if you ask me, the entire story seems like a cheap ploy to scam loads of moolah outta the once-huge singing sensation...even if the stories "have" been flying around for years!).

Ned Lagin-SEASTONES cassette (Ryko)

My mention of this Grateful Dead-related rarity in my review of the Plunderphonic'd "Dark Star" two weeks back NATURALLY had me scouring ebay to scoop up another copy of this oft-ignored side project, dedicated sufferer that I am. However, after giving the thing a few scrutinizing spins I figured that hey, maybe SEASTONES wasn't as turdly as I remembered it to be back during my shoulda-been-misspent-better teenage years. True it has the usual tinges of burnout "haughtiness" that you would expect from these things, but at least the vocals of guests Gracie Slick and David Freiberg are modulated to the point where they're unrecognizable and Jerry Garcia doesn't take up the entire platter doing one of this "cosmic" guitar solos that you have to smoke the same Persian heroin he indulged in to appreciate.

In fact, even though the credits make this out to be yet another one of those Dead spinoff projects (Lagin on keyboards and electronics, Garcia on guitar, Phil Lesh on bass guitar, Mickey Hart and Spencer Dryden on percussion, David Crosby on twelve-string guitar and of course the Jefferson Airplane vocal choir) which'll conjure up many images of hippies jamming on the front porch, there's hardly a noticeable beat nor any discernible rock music (no matter how spacey it may be) to be found anywhere in this project. In fact this album glops and slithers like just about any New Music Distribution Service offering you would have found at the same time SEASTONES hit the racks, and by the eighties just about any college kid with the right amount of tape and access to a sewing machine could've created music to equal it on just about every level. All I gotta say is I can just see alla the remnants of the unwashed sixties social experiment slapping down their Boone's Farm money for this, truckin' on home and discovering that even with a copious offering of whatever mind-stimulation might be available...man, this music sucks!

But I can enjoy this one even without the additional inspiration if only because 1) this does not sound like a Grateful Dead exercise in hippie excess and 2) the music does sound like real classical avant garde instead of youth culture whackoff. It's nothing that really rates with the actual works of the leaders in electronic computer music, but at least on a suburban slob level SEASTONES is akin to the likes of Stockhausen what the Stooges ca. FUNHOUSE and STARSAILOR-era Tim Buckley were to the likes of Ornette Coleman.

The '90 Ryko edition features a bonus, mainly a later-on version (in six as opposed to nine parts) recorded a few months after the original session that varies enough to rate a mention, even featuring (in part one) this weird synthesizer/string passage that recalls none other than something the reformed Faust easily could have whipped up on one of their many releases! Maybe because of this strange fact that I don't find SEASTONES the steaming pile of hippie turd that I thought it was upon my first spin oh-so long ago, even if the presence of San Francisco's finest does add a certain taint that still has people conjuring up all sorts of strange, huggabunch images in their minds.

New Cat's Pajamas-CBGB 1974 CD-r burn (courtest P. D. Fadensonnen)

I thought I'd give this very-early CBGB-era band (so early that they broke up before THE VILLAGE VOICE began accepting ads from Hilly Kristal again) a try, especially considering how they billed themselves as a "free blues jazz avant rock garde" act which is something that certainly tickles my tootsies! At first I wasn't that impressed with what I heard, but subsequent spins had me thinking this was some mighty good fusion-type rock that was closer to the likes of Good God rather than John McLaughlin's Shakti. Intense and dare-I-say even exhilarating at times. Kinda wonder whatever happened to 'em anyhow, and if you're interested in hearing what these "scene pioneers" sounded like you too can go to youtube and scarf these three tracks up for practically nada!

Various Artists-TALLAHASSEE MADISON EARTHQUAKE CD-r burn (via Bill Shute)

Another one of the Bill Shute grab-bags filled with alla that music he's gonna play day after day once he retires and has nothing else to do! Naturally Bill slipped some of his favorite country stuff on here (Herb Gale and Red Foley) not to mention some South of the Boudoir spice ("Ponchita") as well as the mid-sixties mayhem I remember listening to via other people's radios (Paul Revere and the Raiders doing "BFDRF Blues" which I assume stands for "Being Friendly Daily Returns Favors"). Of course Bill just hadda slip in an instrumental schmoozer like Eddie Harris'"Alicia" into the stew but hey, I guess there just ain't no accounting for taste anymo'! And being the most tasteless guy on the planet I should know!

Watching this burnt DVD offering of THRILLER (disque 7, episodes 25-28) made me wonder---how ever did this series get forgotten among the same spiritual adolescents who still go gaga over the umpteenth ANDY GRIFFITH and TWILIGHT ZONE rerun to hit the ol' cathode tube! Yeah, I know that many of those kinda kids still exist if only in aging bodies (and I should know, I have one!) but really, I haven't read or heard any of the aging pre-teen twats I know blabbing about these old shows the same way they do every other once-biggie now appearing on one of the myriad assortment of small channels popping up on the dial even as we speak.

Rilly, I don't know hardly a soul that remembers THRILLER other'n maybe Bill Shute and this guy who bobs around the place with a one-week Poopdeck Pappy growth on his chin that looks like my aging scrotum who mindlessly babbles on about life with a brain syntax that makes Zippy's look like Isaac Newton, and I don't even think the guy has been in front of a boob tube within the last thirty years, y'know?

Sheesh, for years I wondered why Boris Karloff would warrant his own Gold Key comic book 'n after seeing this show, now I know! As far as anthology hosts go I would rank him up there with Rod and Alfred teasing you into sticking around for the subsequent saga that guaranteed to fray at least a few nerve endings. And, for a series on NBC, a network that perhaps came off third-rank because they tried to be so "Tiffany's", the production and general clarity does not get in the way for once. And the stories...well, in this day and age when even discovering a mass grave filled with crushed skulls doesn't even bat an eye maybe they ain't as creepazoid scary as OUTER LIMITS, but they sure got me glued to my seat and that ain't because my sweaty flesh got stuck to the Naugahyde either!

First 'un's a trio of weirdo sagas set in Olde Tymey England including one eerily Jack The Ripper-based tale where the nefarious ne'er-do-well hides out in a strange museum filled with stone relics of famous murderers and becomes a pillar himself when he gazes upon the face of none other than thee actual and it turns out to be non-mythical Medusa! A strange one that I'm sure got Stan Lee on the horn to Steve Ditko within a few minutes with an idea for a new AMAZING ADULT FANTASY saga, though frankly the face that turns men to tone kinda reminded me of Reba from THE SOUPY SALES SHOW!

The second episode featured John Ireland as a big band leader on some Caribbean isle who discovers the sacred voodoo rhythms and incorporates them into his latest work. Of course the outcome to this plot's telegraphed well in advance, but I kinda get the idea that the writer of this 'un was not familiar with Chano Pozo, the Afro-Cuban conga player who was offed because he used some real-life secret signals to the beyond in the classic Dizzy Gillespie track "Cubano Be Cubano Bop".

After that comes this tale having to do with a younger brother's attempts to save his sibling (played by Edward Platt from GET SMART) by framing bro's murder of his cheating wife on the guy wifey was sluttin' around with. Of course you get all of the patented false alarms and actual close calls to contend with, before it all comes to a conclusion that really doesn't satisfy and frankly makes you feel lower'n your mother's boobies. At least the bad guy on ALFRED HITCHCOCK got away, at least until Alf came back after the commercial break and tells us all that the murderer was eventually caught and thusly punished just so's everything will play well in Peoria wink wink nod nod.

Closing out the disque's yet another Jack The Ripper-based saga which might seem strange considering how the matter was dealt with only three episodes earlier, but then again these television series were never known for spacing out similarly-themed programs between months or even years. This Jack The Ripper's a modern fellow though, and although he must be about ninety by the time this program hit the tube he's still at it, this time in Ameriga. John Williams plays the Scotland Yard detective on his trail while zilch-movie fave Donald Woods helps him, and eventually himself out heh-heh-heh!

Did I have funzies this past Sunday afternoon watching these? I most certainly did, re-living those blessed seventies-era feelings of lounging in front of the tube while some long-forgotten (by most attention-span-of-a-flea types) mooms and tee-vee shows would unveil themselves in front of my eyes. And all I hadda do was make sure that Sam wasn't prowling the kitchen nearby on the hunt for food to swipe off the counter. Of course I must have gained at least thirty pounds during those rather halcyon days when the only thing that seemed to get to me was work and humidity, but given the satisfaction of just being a layabout watching the local UHF maybe it was worth enlarging the ol' pectorals to at least a Sandy Duncan configuration.

'n now, if somebody would only dig up Karloff's '62 OUT OF THIS WORLD series and make it available again!

So howz be you on this rather rainy Sunday afternoon??? Hope you're all doin' fine, and I'm sure you'll all be digging my reality via this latest post where, as usual, I write up the best of this week's batch of platters to make their way to my turntable and/or laser launching pad and let you groove at my uncanny abilities to relay my opinions to type. And, as you will eventually see, I have done my best to keep a positive and uplifting spin on things even thought at this point in my life I can hardly give a whit whether I come off more upbeat'n the entire run of Johnny Mann's STAND UP AND CHEER with a few LAWRENCE WELK SHOWs tossed in for good measure. And to be honest about it, I really don't care if you're all doin' fine. The way I really feel right now I'd probably sneer at you all if we happened to meet at the local flea market THAT'S how I feel about you and your lowly sorry existence. Bleh!

As far as current events go, I gotta say that the recent Scottish Independence vote that the locals rejected last week really did set me on an even gnarlier path of loathing than I had been on already. Really, I gotta say that the recent 55% "no" victory was one that I certainly had not been hoping for ever since I read about the SNP's Alex Salmond's success in getting the referendum on the ballot, and just knowing that Great Britain remains about as "great" as it was last week really does send me into a grumpoid stupor that nothing short of an exhumation of Stooges rarities can get me outta...really!

Y'see, I am a HUMONGOUS fan and follower of whatcha'd call "succession". I believe that Sicily should secede from Italy, the Basques from Spain and even the Amerigan South from the Amerigan North. About the latter, its like what Lysander Spooner, the great abolitionist libertarian said, that the Southern States didn't have the right to legalized slavery (and what about the Northern ones who kept their slaves yet remained faithful to the union???), but they sure had the right to skeedaddle if they so desired. And really, it would have been just GREAT if more Scots felt that they should be outside the United Kingdom not only so's they could keep things more "local" but hey, why bother sucking up to the British royalty who are nothing but a buncha inbred horse carcasses who are basically living on the dole while the people who have to support them and the rest of the loafers over there are getting taxed outta their gourds! And really, once you get down to it what has being British done for the Scots 'cept buy into the prejudices and bigotries of the few snobs over there who think they're oh-so-superior to the rest of us turds!

Lew Rockwell said it was the parasite vote the toppled any plans for independence in Scotland and I would tend to agree. After all, it seems that no matter where you go anymore the entitlement mentality is in full swing, with more and more folk coming to the conclusion that if somebody's going to work twice as hard to support me why should I have to do it for myself? Maybe Rockwell's wrong on this 'un, but I'm sure even the most jaded reader out there can get the impression that the lazybones in the land o' kilts thought they'd get a better bargain had London kept passing out the freebees 'stead of Edinburgh, perhaps due to the fact that the Scots have a reputation for being stingy penny-pinchers while the English are more'n happy to circulate the wealth taken from people who weren't even that wealthy to begin with!

Whatever the situation regarding why people voted the way they did, all I gotta say is Scotland, ye blew it! Now we're gonna hafta hear all of this sappy sweet talk about just how one big happy fambly the United Kingdom is and how the British never will be slaves (as if any of 'em would dare get their hands dirty in the first place) and the rest of that rot, just like we here inna U.S. of Anxiety always get that united we stand schpiel at the end of every Civil War documentary that pops up on the tube. To any of you Scottish readers (or actual Scottie Dogs for that matter) who may be tuning into your local media outlets, watch your glycerin levels.

Well, after that heartfelt if inchoate edi-too-real maybe I should switch gears'n blab on about some a li'l more fun 'n jamz oriented. Like one of my favorite fallbacks, none other'n my dream! Now I ain't been havin' many of them whatcha'd call "rock 'n roll" and related dreams recently, but oddly enough I had not one but two last night which is makin' me wonder about the potency of alla that melatonin that I've been pumping into my system. Won't bore you with the one where I'm in early-eighties England and I actually witness members of the female rock group the Raincoats taunt and humiliate a punkette of rather short and bulky stature before prancing away from the scene, but the other one I had was...well one for the dream archives if you ask me, and why not???

I'm back in high school, a freshman to be exact, and while in the school gymnasium who do I see but none other than Roxy Music saxophonist/oboe player Andy Mackay! I believe he's at the school to scout about for an upcoming Roxy concert there (!) and, after noticing him sitting atop the bleachers within rather close proximity of where I was, on the uppermost row of seats (this must have been during some school assembly although nobody was talking to us a tall!) I ask him if there were any new Velvet Underground-influenced acts over there in Ol' Blighty that I should know about! Immediately Mackay starts to tell me about this new group that I believe was called "Slipstream" (which not surprisingly was the name of a real-life cover band our high school club booked for a Friday night dance around the same time this dream was taking place!) as well as another called "Woodchopper's Ball" who I don't think had anything to do with either Woody Herman or Ten Years After but from Mackay's description (which of course was lost in the ether of my subconscious) they sure sounded swell! By the way Mackay was talkin' all of the groups you can bet that I was more'n apt to google the names spouted even though the internet as we know it was still a good twennysome years away, but who says that dreams (as well as real life) necessarily make any cognitive, linear sense!

Mackay was waxing eloquent about all of these acts in some of the most esoteric speak one can imagine (almost in Glade Air Freshener terms), but even though what he was blabbing was, like I said, quickly forgotten I recall having clung to his every word wishing that I had a pen and paper to jot them names down. And yeah, there was an pounding to my pulse almost to the point where I thought I was gonna have one of "those" dreams conjuring up the unbridled excitement that I was gonna be in for if I were only to hear these obscure musical endeavors! I also asked him if he knew of any new Stooges-influenced acts that were up and about but I can't remember the one name he popped off at me regarding that query, which naturally would figure.

I know I know---you wanna read less blab about dreams and more about actual records right? Well fine and dandy, but considering your rudeness don't start writin' in to me with YOUR rock-related dreams if you don't wanna hear any more of mine!

The Mothers of Invention-WOLLMAN RINK, CENTRAL PARK, NY, AUGUST 3rd, 1968 CD; Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band-LIVE 1966-67 CDs (Keyhole Records)

I guess that these rinkydink labels like Keyhole are pleased as punch that 1) either the copyrights on these classic have expired or 2) even if they haven't nobody's gonna come after 'em because nobody cares this late in rock moozic history! But whichever way this equation goes, there's gonna be more of these once-rarities heading our way more sooner'n later and for that maybe we should all rejoice more'n the time we got a nice big plump A+ on our Wasserman tests!

Unfortunately a good portion of these releases are gonna be about as interesting to us as a Lester Bangs-inspired lecture on the whys and wherefores of rock music appreciation would be to Anastasia Pantsios, but the ones that do tickle our particular callus-tough hide well---what's keeping you with splurging with your hard-begged shekels anyway????

This pair of platters by those infamous sixties freakout moneyrakers Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart do come at a fitting time when frankly, I wouldn't mind hearing more of the former's earlier mutters and the latter's entire career being presented for my edification or mortification for that matter. And after giving these two a spin all I gotta say is...howcum it took so long to get these recordings out considering just how big I was on both of yez back during the final years of my high school existence!!!

As some of you more astute followers of the form already know, there have been more than a few good Mothers of Invention bootlegs o'er the years including a trio of platters for the aptly named and in no way related to the original "Bizarre" label in the mid-eighties, not forgetting the more recent batch coming out via a company known as Mr. Natural being amongst 'em. I'm sure there are many more out there as well, though given their scarcity and the lack of a load of $$$ on my part I doubt that I'll ever make my way through whatever was, is and shall be out and about from here to infirmary.

Where the WOLLMAN RINK release figures in I don't really know given just how lacking I am with regards to everything that is floating about, but frankly I find it a comparative snoozer. Sound's good but thin, the vocals are buried and the jams are some of the more rote if not fatigued to be heard from the MOI catalog. The playing does tense up about seven or so minutes into "The Orange County Lumber Truck" and Don Preston cranks out a rather nerve-wracking organ solo which is cool, if you want to wait that long for your jollies to hit that is. No doubt in my noggin that this was recorded during a real off night which is strange considering the prestige that Zappa and Co. got from being top billed and raking in a whopping $4000 for just a few hours of acting like a buncha whackoffs!

Buddy Beefheart does better on his disque which is divided between that same r&b-infused 1966 Avalon show that's been bootlegged previously as well as some first-album period radio station seshes that're (surprise!) new to me. The sound's so-so yet plenty enjoyable and the performances historic enough to send those same chills down yer spine that ya got back when you (and I) first gave the original mulch a listen to back during your young 'n impressionable years. So if you wanna pretend you're a good fifteen/eighteen (my early years of intellectual impact) again maybe ya'd better slip this 'un on and relive those bargain bin days even if this one certainly ain't of a bargain bin price!

It is recordings like LIVE 1966-67 that make me wish I was a mid-sixties teenbo with an electric guitar, lotsa money to buy records, good looks and a severe back injury. After all, I'm not gonna have a whole lotta time to play records stationed in Vietnam now, am I???

LSD UNDERGROUND 12 LP (Lysergia, available through Forced Exposure)

Like with them Acid Trips albums that seemed so revealing and mystical and alla the other righteous goo your adolescent mind can conjure up, LSD UNDERGROUND 12 promises a whole lot but really comes off self-satisfying to everyone involved but the listener. Kinda reminds me of everyone from the Thirteenth Floor Elevators to the Blues Magoos and early Pink Floyd, if you took the rock 'n roll outta their music and just let them play the effects. Mostly jag-off, though ya do get the feeling that the musicians involved were having a fun time at least until they came down and started throwing up all over each other.

Well, there was one good thing about this 'un and that is had it ever made its way outta the back page ads of THE LA FREE PRESS and actually did get pressed up back then you can bet that the kids'd be shocking more'n a few parents by bringing this 'un home and scaring the wits outta 'em with the cover alone! Almost scarier'n the David Peel HAVE A MARIJUANA one, and tastier too!

The Thirteenth Floor Elevators-KAZZ BROADCAST-AUSTIN, TX 1966 CD-r burn (courtesy P. D. Fadensonnen)

At least when Roky and his Friends took to imbibing in extraterrestrial stimulation they created a rock 'n roll that seemed to transcend the usual heady appraisals of psychedelic pleasure that were going around back 1966 way. In other words, THEY ROCKED OUT!!! unlike a good portion of their orbiting brethren, and really can one do anything more important or as life-reaffirming than that in this miserable existence of ours?

Dunno if this 26-minute radio broadcast is available legitimately, but you can easily enough find it somewhere online and download the bastid for yourself (if I were you I'd try youtube). As you longtime Roky Erickson fans already know, its a hot slice of mid-sixties garage band rock done up right around the time rock 'n roll as an intellectual concern was beginning to take on airs of college professor snootiness, yet groups like the Elevators, amongst many others, actually came off even better because hey, it was like they were suburban Texas kids out on a lark and hey, how innerlectual can people like that get???.

The performance is as tippy-top as the rest of those Elevator live tracks you have floating around in your collection, the announcer's annoying yet "authentic" enough to "date" this appropriately, and even if this sounded as if it was recorded live in the vast open spaces of Chuck Eddy's colon you'd know enough to getcherself a copy and like right now, eh? And although its stuff like this that woulda made an eighteen-year-old me slobber uncontrollably had this only gotten around back then, I don't find it shameful to dribble on even this late in the game!

Tetsu Akiyama & Che Chen-COLD SOUP CD-r burn (originally on Incunabulum Records)

After hearing this I kinda got the idea that Henry Flynt oughta be suin''em for taking his entire whackoid violin stylings to even more absurd heights! Heavy duty catgut grate mixed in with noisy post-Derek Bailey blast makes for one of those free splats that had many a miserable teenage turdball such as myself scouring the New Music Distribution Catalog for the latest in "free expression", only to pass up stuff like this because the money was tight and the spirit wasn't quite willing. Taking their Japanese credo of inscrutableness to even further realms, all I can say is that Tetsu Akiyama and Che Chen are gonna have more'n a few of us occidentals trying to figure this 'un out for years on end!

Cluster-SOWIESOSO CD (Sky/Caroline)

Like the title says, it's "so-so". Not the best these Germans hadda offer, but considering they were doing this in '76 when the original thrust of krautscapading was dying down it sorta figures that its a little more candy coated'n their previous efforts. Still beats listening to the latest underground flash peter out right before your very ears, but if you're looking for the hard-Velvets-freeform-avant jazz-thrust of it all listen to the earlier K/Cluster offerings as well as the choicest in krautrock one can find in the auction list or download of your choosing.

Various Artists-CARAVAN TO NOWHERE CD-r burn (via Bill Shute)

Not quite the usual Bill Shute poppin'-on-all-cylinders kinda disque that helps me make it through yet another boring Sunday afternoon, but it'll do. Starts off big w/Muddy Waters and there are a few numbers by the likes of the Plunkett Family and Chu Reyes that come off like something Barney Fife would have had playing on the radio while making Chili in his boarding house room. Hmmmmm, maybe it ain't as downer as I thought it was.

The Monarchs'"Sauce and Tea" single made for some good early-sixties Jamaican fun and games as well, while Gelu's "Y Yo" coulda been straight outta some foreign film running on tee-vee back inna late-sixties. However Al Horn's country & western didn't quite settle well in this mix while Roberta Shore ain't ever gonna make it to Kolob squeakin' around like she does here! Come to think of it that E-Z listening platter that closes this thing out better skedaddle back to the flea market bin from whence it came which leads me to believe that maybe Bill was thinking about his future colonoscopy when slapping this one together!

In all a mixed bag that can tend to irritate once the schmooze groove gets too grating on yr nerves, but it's not like I'm losing any plasma over it'r anything!.

Well I gotta go...think I'm gonna hit ebay now and see if I can pick up a record or two by Woodchopper's Ball, but until then stay cool until we meet again sometime mid-week!

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! SANDOK (1965) starring Richard Harrison!

Well, stranger things have happened, and they sure do in this Italian moom about an Amerigan guy who, under threat of death, steals a multi-million ruble diamond known as "the Mountain of Light" from the forehead of an idol with the assistance of a local fakir, and not only that but the Amerigan as well as everybody else in the film speaks perfect Italianese! Thankfully the results come off like the rest of those sword 'n sorcery import timefillers that used to fill out Sunday afternoon tee-vee schedules back inna seventies, and like a whole load of those crankers this'll keep you glued to the imitation Corinthian Leather at least until you have to take a quick pee break during the Smokey Bear PSA.

Not bad at all. The locale shots done up in Ceylon have the entire Southern Asian region looking cleaner'n even a Howard Johnson's, while the acting and adventure keep up a good enough pace that your mind doesn't start wonderin' as to whether or not you have an advanced calculitis test that you're supposed be studyin' for 'stead of just goofin' off in front of the tee-vee. In fact, this 'un's so good that with a change from Rome to Hollywood fifty years in advance and the usual big name acting bonanzas in the deal this could be one of them current day blockbusters that really rake in the cash. But, thank goodness, it sure ain't, it's just an Italian adventure film sans any duty other'n to entertain which is why I give the once-titled LA MONTAGNA DI LUCE all the stars in the world!

You're probably wondering why I'm doing another Fanzine Fanabla post so soon (having cooked one up only a few mere months back and like, I usually go years between the things). Well, I'll tell you why! Y'see, back in the days before the gift of internet gave us instant information to whatever we wanted at the tips of our booger-laden fingertips, there were a buncha guys out there who for whatever fan-inspired reason they may have had, actually saved their monies, worked extra hard, and put their opinions regarding a whole slew of musical ideas, forms and styles that just weren't getting the "hipster"ROLLING STONE coverage to PRINT if only because they had a great LOVE for the music being created and produced that couldn't be expressed by merely listening to the things! These people, besides being especially thrifty with their already scarce lucre, toiled above and beyond the call of duty to make their opinions known to the common man (or at least a few people who they happened to know) as well as lay out pages and clip photos from other mags to use, and many times these idea-driven beings collated and stapled their publications in the privacy of their fart-encrusted bedrooms and WHY??? Just so you could read what they wrote about some long obscure album by some long forgotten group or even a new act with a new platter out who you probably never did care about and never would in a million years!
And so you, in your smugness and oneupmanship snitty little way, IGNORED every blasted word and every ding dong issue these kids, who knew they were not going to make a profit or even break even publishing these things, wrote up if only for the express purpose that you might be inspired enough to go out and pick up a Seeds album at the local National Record Mart 'stead of the latest Bonnie Raitt blahzer you most certainly had your sights set on!

And yeah, I can hear you saying just like Ed Norton did after he told Ralph Kramden he wasn't gonna vote "Well, if they only knew that I wasn't going to read it they coulda SAVED themselves alla that money an' time printing the fanzines up!" but that ain't the point. The "point" is that these fanzine publishers and contributors are just as much the REAL heroes of rock et roll as the one-shot garage bands and musical miscreants they were writing about, and if somebody (like me) doesn't mention these home-produced publications that might have topped 200 copies max who will other'n their mothers! And THAT is but one reason why I'll occasionally set some time aside and detail these long-ignored publications of the past even if it ain't "cool" to educate rock 'n roll fans as Patrick Analream once writ to my utter amazement.

Besides, I find reading a good cranked out fanzine with a powerful gonzoid approach just as invigorating as listening to a 1969 side by some guys in their knotty pine basement who just discovered the Stooges yesterday and found the true meaning of rock 'n roll happiness, and even though I should know better I kinda get the feeling that you would feel the exact same way too.

Starting off today's 'zine bash is this European import, one which has been hailed as an important home made rag in the annals of home made rags yet I get the sneakin' suspicion that most of you people don't know a blasted thing about it. That's because this rag was printed in France and is thus written in the local vernacular, and as we all know that nobody who reads this blog knows the French language because nobody who reads this blog was stupid enough to take the language as an "elective" while in high school. Naw, it was advanced jackoff 101 for you guys, but don't let that stop you from getting hold of this glossy mid/late-seventies fanzine because hey, you can always look at the pictures!

And given that I've been looking at a lotta pictures in these fanzines because I am not familiar with the mother tongue they were written in, it ain't like I'm at any loss to settle back and enjoy these issues of ATEM which gave us the lowdown on a whole slew of interesting experimental rockist excursions from the mid-to-late seventies! What EUROCK was to the United States and IMPETUS was to England, ATEM was to France and I must admit that these people did a pretty slam-bang job in writing about a whole slew of artists and acts nobody else wanted to touch with a ten-foot pole, even if the staff's tastes did tend to sometimes seep into the gutter of Southern California country rock as an Eagles feature would testify to!

But Hotel Californication or not, ATEM certainly was what you would call a great fanzine effort what with the slick paper and professional printing, and you'll have to admit that hardly anyone else at the time was tipping off their readers to everything from the likes of the Rock In Opposition groups to Magma or Peter Hammill let alone Philip Glass, who during his pre-Dalai Lama days wasn't exactly getting much hotcha press anywhere on the globe. ATEM even digged deep into the well of punk rock proper as well making this one of those magazine offerings for just about everyone in the entire family, which really would have helped if the family just happened to be Mel Lyman's.

There's also a book which collects the choicest nuggets that this 1976-1979 publication had to offer that is available somewhere in this world of ours, but then again those collections never were as good as settling down with the real artifact in your hands perusing the best you can while some choice side was spinning on the turntable right next to you...

Well, what do you know! Another issue of NEW AGE, and one from the early-eighties at that. Hmmmm...its got interviews with the Stranglers' Hugh Cornwell and U2's Adam Clayton which I won't hold against 'em, as well as some local Connecticut scene reports but WAIT!!!!! NEW AGE emanated from the green pastures of North Carolina so like what's all this Connecticut stuff doin' here anyway???? I guess that this magazine is not the Nancy Foster-edited classic after all but another fanzine which just happened to have the exact same title which really did lead to a whole lot of confusion on my part!!! You'd think there would have been enough fanzine titles to go around, but then again I guess not! Awww, it really ain't that bad and in fact is a whole lot better'n many of these "crudzines" that were proliferating the mailboxes of the day, and despite the name I give it a whole load of high marks that I probably would not have if only out of spite of being punk'd like this!

Some people might have thought, given the mind-addled capabilities of some of the participants on the late-seventies English punk rock scene, that the fanzines that were coming outta that particular area and timescope were about as readable as my sophomore high school term paper on electronic music (y'know, the one with "Sien Ra"!). Frankly, I've discovered that the vast majority of the ones I've read were of a rather high quality both in production and execution. It's pretty obvious that the people who were cranking out these fanzines knew their rock history as well as based their writing style on the likes of Nick Kent and Charles Shaar Murray if not Mick Farren and Jonh Ingham, something which was truly a welcome relief from the "mainstream" college paper hacks of the day still wallowing around in Jann Wenner's hippiedippieland values thinking about music in terms of flowery flamingos and the like. And if you dare ask me, I would say that most of these fanzines were every bit the equal of the likes of BACK DOOR MAN, DENIM DELINQUENT, THE NEXT BIG THING and many more as far as delivering those heart (and mind)-felt missives regarding those various rock 'n roll acts that still get my heart palpatain' even a good thirtysome years after I was supposed to be too old to let this trivial goo matter to me anymore.

NEGATIVE REACTION's a fanzine that certainly ranked as one of the better reads that were comin' outta Ol' Blighty during them late-seventies days of high energy rage. I wonder how this one slipped by me the way it did, but at least this issue (#4, November 1977) delivers on the goods what with the space given to some of the better acts of the English punk scene (like Savage Pencil's Art Attacks) not forgetting precious space on everything and everyone from recently kicked outta the Sex Pistols Glen Matlock to Stiff Records faveraves Roogalator, not forgetting a not-so-outta-the-place interview with Phil Manzanara regarding a now-Enoless 801. NEGATIVE REACTION has that proper blend of fannish yet intelligent writing coupled with the kinda rockist sensibilities that would naturally appeal to the breed of person who regularly tunes into this very blog, and one's gotta marvel at the quality and oomph that went into this particular magazine which (as all good fanzines do) makes me wanna read more and more from this particular stable.

Not only that, but there's a review of the very obscure Fellini's Hideous Mutations single which hasn't surfaced since those halcyon days, so you know that editor Jon Romney and crew knew where their true rockist values lied!

(Pssssst! Hey kid, if you want a FREE copy of the first issue of NEGATIVE REACTION just click here 'n do a li'l downloadin' yourself! It's a doozy of an ish if you ask me, and not only that but there are more fanzines of an English variety to be had if in case you are so inclined to read some of these rags that never did get out 'n about as much as they shoulda. Considerin' the nosedive in rock scribe screeding these past few decades, it's not only a public service that ESSENTIAL EPHEMERA is doing but a blessing because the more time ya spend reading these boffo old time fanzines the less time you're gonna spend reading Joel Selvin (is he still around???).

Whereas NEGATIVE REACTION shows just how interesting, past-connected and fresh the early English punk rock scene could have been, IN THE CITY, at least judging from this 1980 copy featuring the Poison Girls on the cover and on the free flexi, shows just how battle worn, weary and generally un-fun the now-politicized scene had become. I can hear some of you saying "well yeah, with all of the bad things that were going on in the world like the threat of nuclear annihilation and grilled steaks wouldn't you TOO feel inhibited by the culture at large and want to rebel, only being able to enjoy yourself once the enemy has been VANQUISHED??? I can hear what you're sayin' Che, but that doesn't mean these punques hadda become a buncha tireless updates on the whole Carrie Nation dogooder mentality to the point where I could see a whole buncha 'em storming into my house and smashing my George Foreman Grill with a passion!

Sure it's got a nice layout, nice slick paper and a look and style to kill for (not forgetting that flexi!), but IN THE CITY also has that dire dank feeling of the eighties is already beginning to creep into the mix what with two pages by Crass' Penny Rimbaud giving us the ol "part of the problem or part of the solution" rap while fellow bandmember Steve Ignorant reviews the competition hating everything handed before him except Adam and the Ants. The lettercol sports something from the local Animal Liberation Front types who may have been sincere, but somehowin the back of my fevered imagination I wouldn't mind seeing 'em all infected with diabetes and then denying them any treatment that may have been gained by animal experimentation.

It's still a worthwhile read, if you want to know just how flaccid the English (and Amerigan, and Canadian, and...) scene could have been in the post-Sex Pistols era. I have the sneaking suspicion that the earlier issues of IN THE CITY were popping on all cylinders perhaps with the same sense of high energy fun 'n jamz that typified the music that was being produced at the time. And remember kids, it was only three years between this issue and some representative from Existencil Press telling the folks on the MRR radio show that in no way was the music being performed by Crass and associated bands within their sphere meant to be taken as "entertainment"...it was highly significant social commentary and nothing but, and if you DARE enjoy if for totally puerile purposes somebody was gonna come over to your place and give you a lecture and lecture you but good!

As far as the rest of the English fanzines of the seventies went well...surprisingly enough a good many of 'em were not whatcha'd call p-rock oriented at all, and I mean not one iota! Oh yeah, many of 'em might have featured a piece on the likes of Television or the Flamin' Groovies along with the West Coast fave raves who were still making an impact on the head scene over in Blighty, and I must admit that quite a few of these types of 'zines were rather good even if they weren't exactly covering my particularly cup of java. COMSTOCK LODE was one of these self-produced wonders that comes to mind, while I've been told that DARK STAR woulda been fine had Steve Burgess took over the thing and dumped alla that dope 'n Dead worship that made up the publication's meat 'n potatoes. And besides, with covers as hippydippy as theirs I'd be embarrassed to be caught inna bathroom with a copy to keep my company during my frequent doody duties!

Anyhoo, here are a coupla more English kinda-sorta pre-punk yet rock-y enough fanzines that I'm sure you might wanna know about when building up your own collection to show off to your mother. I have two other issues of FAT ANGEL other'n the one seen onna left...the first 'un's from '73 and features Iggy Pop on the cover and a story written by 'zine editor Andy Childs apologizing to his New Riders of the Purple Sage-bred readers for liking the Stooges so much when he most definitely shouldn't...after all, leave that punk worship to those nimrods at THE NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS and let's concentrate on the real heavy stuff, y'know? The other issue was from '79 and, along with the usual smattering of whatever was left of the hippie remnants there was a rather in-depth and appreciative piece on Jonathan Richman as well as the same interview with Crocus Behemoth of Pere Ubu fame conducted by Jim Jarmusch that popped up in THE NEW YORK ROCKER a few years earlier. If there ever was a mag that bent with the prevailing tide of underground tastemongering, FAT ANGEL certainly was it!

Nothing especially different from this particular FAT ANGEL than there was with the others. Lou Reed adorns the cover, though the piece of the Velvets that appears within ain't exactly groundbreaking the way those other pieces where Lou would talk about entering "the cloud" and how it would take a day to do "Sister Ray" with all of the preludes tossed in. Naturally there ain't that much else here to interest a hardcore rock 'n roller, but I ain't knocking these guys for giving it a hearty go of writing about music on an independent, stay away from the mainstream of fetid ideas level.

I didn't care that much for the issue of O.D. that I scarfed up about two or so decades back...too staid in the worst aspects of late-seventies British hippie mystical whooziz for my own personal tastes. But buy another one I did, and I gotta say that although it ain't as bad as I thought it would be it still lacks a certain warmth and funtime feeling that I certainly got reading DENIM DELINQUENT or many of the similar-minded seventies fanzines that I've had the please of coming across lo these many years. Well, I did like the piece on Van Der Graaf Generator even if I never really did cozy up to a good portion of what I have heard from them (outside of the oft-hyped NADIR'S BIG CHANCE) while the Man piece was a pretty good introduction for a guy like myself who was always scared off by their West Coast reputation.

And for the Man fans who were scared off by those punkian rumblings that were cropping up at the time well, the "introduction to punk" article presented here is yet another one of those roundups for the uninformed that reads just like every other piece written for the hippoid amongst us who was in such an induced coma (from too many sips of Boone's Farm no doubt!) who was totally unaware of everything outside of his private li'l commune. Nothing revelatory, but it does bring out the warm 'n toasties in ya. A nice reminder of a simpler, more pleasant time no doubt, but still rather tame compared with many of the fanzines, both punk and general, that were popping up with an alarming regularity during the mid-to-late seventies.

Remember that old saying "but will it play in Peoria"??? Well, I get the impression that HOOPLA played really well in that esteemed burgh because hey, HOOPLA originated from that very city and if the tastes these homegrown writers were any indication as to what the tastes of the rest of the populace held near 'n dear they the place must have been the swinginest spot in the entire Midwest!

Definitely in the same kultural strata as all of those other post-BACK DOOR MAN'zines like TEENAGE RAMPAGE et. al., HOOPLA had that smart sense of where rockism stood in their mid-amerigan existences not to mention things like tee-vee, humor (or humour...y'see these guys were big Monty Python aficionados) and alla those other things that the intellectuals at MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL used to tell us was bourgeois and thus deserving of being crammed into the nearest oven! But we knew better now, dint we???

Naturally a lotta the then-hotcha new wave before it traipsed into "gnu wave" style of rockism gets covered...I mean, it wasn't like these guys were ROLLING STONE wannabes concerned with the plight of Jerry Garcia's missing finger 'r anything (and believe-you-me, being stuck in the decidedly anti-rock 'n roll clime of the Youngstown Ohio area I used to see people get giddy over the latest issue of STONE hitting the stands well into the nineties!), and I gotta admit that it sure is refreshing reading reviews written by people who remembered the great acts of the past (Velvet Underground, Roxy Music) and related them to the music that was busting out all over the map even though Jann Wenner's head was way too deep up his lover's hiney for him to notice!

Smart writing, entertaining analysis and a general ability to convey exactly why rock 'n roll was such an exhilarating mode of life juice for many a person back during the 1964-1981 period in world youth kultur. I for one wouldn't mind knowing more about this particular rag as well as the minds behind it, because the whole project comes off a whole lot more tastier than knowing the whys and wherefores behind the dolts at TOO FUN TOO HUGE that's for sure. And of course I wouldn't mind picking up all of the issues that unfortunately haven't made their way to my door (in case any of you happen to be cleaning your rooms out and are in need of a li'l filthy lucre to make your way through life or whatever else they're calling it these days...)

Did you have a small-run rock 'n roll fanzine in the seventies that might have gotten lost in the shuffle of alla the rest, a mag with a run of anywhere from three to thirteen that, although jam-packed with reviews and reminiscences on all of your favorite acts past and present got laughed at by any and all who espied it? Did you consider yourself a bedroom Bangs or Meltzer wannabe who had something to say and only a few bucks to say it? Well if you were, boy do I feel sorry for you!

It's been awhile since I gave any of these downright funny 'n classic Lupino Lane comedies a go, so you can bet that I jumped at the opportunity to snatch up a couple of DVDs that have been made available by the indispensable folk at oldies.com. And a nice selection of shorts these mid/late-twenties films are...complete with that old-tymey cracked film flicker and chop-up editing, they certainly do bring back more of those great long-gone memories of sipping diet Shasta (which was some of the rankiest soda to be found on the planet during the mid-seventies) while chomping down sour cream 'n onion potato chips on a muggy summer night watching old mooms being beamed in from distant television stations I could only get during tornado warnings. And lemme tell you, some of the stations I'd watch for rarities such as these were so distant you think they originated on Jupiter but hey, it was either that or sitting through Pat Robertson and his disingenuous grin on 700 CLUB so what's it gonna be, shorty?

Some def. Lane classics appear on these disques such as "Maid in Morocco" which I gotta say showcases Lane's athletic stunts to the max what with the way he actually loop-de-loops the Moorish arches in this middle-eastern laugh fest---and I'm not kidding when I say that Harold Lloyd comes off like Karen Quinlan next to this champ! Also hotcha is 1929's "Summer Saps", one of those family sitcom-styled shorts where Lane plays the frazzled husband marooned in his abode during his time off from work having to not only put up with his crabboid wife and brat kids but an annoying pianist next door not forgetting the dyke who lives directly below. Another top notch one has Lane playing a galley slave rowing away on a big ship setting the stage for a whole slew of sitegag fun later to be found on THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW (y'know, the Harvey Korman/Tim Conway skits) but I wouldn't hold it against him.

Also included is a nicely well-worn tee-vee print of Lane's talkie short "Purely Circumstantial" which might take getting used to considering the over-emphasis on sound as a way to elicit cheapoid laughs (plus it does take time to become acquainted with Lane's cultured English accent, not to mention brother/foil Wallace Lupino's ridiculous "ha-hoo-hoo-hah"!), but it does give you an idea of what might've been had Lane stuck around in Hollywood a whole lot longer and developed in comedy shorts 'stead of scrambootched back to England to make films nobody in the United States has seen for ages, if ever. (Also be on the lookout for Stanley Blystone as the "heavy", he best known as a sometimes Stooges foil who once got his armpit hair ripped out by Larry Fine himself!)

Can't do better and well worth the time and all that rot, and a much better example of what silent-era comedy coulda aspired to when all of the no-holds-barred rules were really taken to heart. And hey, you can either watch these visual wonders tonight or flick on TCM to see Charlie Chaplin milk a whoile lotta cheap emote outta New York snoots who only like him because he was a red who liked to ball underage girls!

For just a taste, here's an edited version of "Summer Saps" that might give you at least an idea of what you will be in for in case you do wanna splurge for both volumes, and if I were you I'd SPLURGE ON, you ol' fanabla you:

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TOM CARTWRIGHT, MICHAEL INSETTA AND JOHN PLACKO TALK ABOUT STUART'S HAMMER

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IT'S FANZINE FANABLA TIME AGAIN (and boy do I feel sorry for you having to miss out on yet another info-packed post on all of the recent recordings and gunk I've been listening to lo this past week)!!!!!!

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