Saturday, May 30, 2015

As usual there's nothing to really roar about this go 'round, but given the ever-encroaching lack of FREE TIME around here what else is gnu? So expect yet another weekend (weakened?) post featuring a few oldies, a few rediscovered faves and of course the usual Bill Shute (ran outta Paul McGarry wares, I think) contributions that certainly light up my limpids. But as for hotcha new releases well, I sure can't wait for some classic exhumations to brighten up my next FORCED EXPOSURE order or better yet some hotcha gotcha musical aggregation to make me get all sis-boom-bah about sounds in the here and now (still waiting for someone to flesh out Wayne McGuire's New Musical Form ideas dating back to '68!), but even at this late stage in the game I doubt anyone or anything could return musical listening to its previous underground heights of glory no matter how hard they tried!

But until then I guess I'll just have to dig deeper into the archives to experience music as a way of life 'stead of music as background noise for socially-sanctioned thumbnosing, and considering the humongous collection I have (as well as the myriad asst. of musics available on line 'n for free!) I should be doing pretty good fending for myself for at least a couple of years.

Otherwise, I must admit that I am feeling even bouncier than an all girls shirts/skins basketball game, and of course the beginning of the summer season is at least bringing out a tad smidgen of those long-repressed kiddie feelings in me. Y'know, the kind you usedta get when school was out 'n you had three months to just goof off and do junk like you've been wired for ever since you were a turdler, eating penny candy for breakfast when no one was looking and watching World War II-era Bugs Bunny cartoons before the taste nazis lopped 'em off the air. Hope it's a good 'un with lotsa nice weather as well as those severe thunderstorms that used to scare the bejabbers outta me when I was a kid (and adult too!), though I don't get the feeling that the folks'll wanna drag me to the Reynolds Drive In to see SNOW WHITE and BAMBI like they used to back when us kids'd lay in the back of the station wagon and watch belly-side down. Some things are just too perfect to recreate lo these many years later.



 LOVE CRY WANT CD (newjazz.com)

I've blabbed about this 'un for quite awhile but as far as I can recall I never wrote it up on this here blog. So with so little new musical stimulation goin' on this week I figure why not toss this one out to the lions and see if they gobble it up. Jazz great Larry Young brings his Hammond in for this live show (which was recorded across the street from the White House at some antiwar protest) featuring an early synthesized guitar and a whole buncha other electronic treatments that picks up where everyone from Tony Williams' Lifetime to Quiet Sun left off. Great abstract spacial jazz true, but I gotta admit to getting a li'l snoozed out towards the end...dunno if that's the disque or me, but these warm spring afternoons really do take out alla the zap in ya.
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TIME BOMB! FLESHTONES PRESENT THE BIG BANG THEORY cassette (Skyclad)

When I first reviewed this 'un back during my "serious" rockscribing day I tore into it with a froth-mouthed loathing that I usually reserve for some of the worst turds to pass as rock 'n roll music (of which there was an abundance back inna late-eighties). At least in my so-called "blinkered" musicview the Fleshtones had forsaken their late-seventies basement jamz for MTV's 120 MINUTES and IRS label slickness, and considering what else was happening on the once wild and woolly world of underground rock it wasn't like the music on TIME BOMB! was exactly tingling my inner workings the way I sure woulda liked!

But then again in the late-eighties I was one mighty pissed off individual---come to think of it I was perhaps even more P.O.'d then than I am today though my own current pissed offness is of a different garden variety so maybe I am comparing my apple-y pissed offness of the late-eighties with my orange-y pissed offness of today which is a pissed offness that I sometimes don't even want to acknowledge myself!

By the time I wanted to give TIME BOMB! another listen (thinking that maybe I'd been a li'l hard onna thing and not as open minded or as all encompassing to various musical merits as Patrick Amory and the rest of those well respected rock critics) it had been long gone in my collection, and after more than a fair amount of years I decided to snatch up another copy to find out myself whether or not my head was up my hindquarters more than that one doof's on the cover of "jct"'s rather tepid publication SWELLSVILLE. So buy one I did (they're CHEAP now!) and whaddya know, I like it a whole lot more'n I did a good twenny some back. Only goes to show you that my mind is decomposing faster than the rest of me, or izzit?

The Fleshtones stuff rocks out a whole lot more'n I remember. 's not as gnu-wavey as I recalled it twennysome years back, and in fact their track approaches the heights of mid-Amerigan jamz just as tip toppy as anything that came outta the same seventies garage-y punk-y clique that gave us KICKS magazine, the Zantees, Alan Betrock and Todd Abramson for that matter. This rawk's so smashing that I was able to wash a good portion of my eighties loathing for what this batch had become away with one mere re-spin which is something that stodgy ol' me'd never 'fess up to admitting!

The various 'tones offshoots fare a whole lot more'n I remembered. They mostly consist of what I would call neo-garage band rock outs, maybe a bit more commercial and attuned to the geekier amongst us but nothing that I would turn off if it would only have popped up on the ol' AM back when we thought music like this would ever make a grand return to the dial. Of course it ain't anything that really rushes to my high energy resensified mind the way a good Stooges song does, but next to a good portion of the late-eighties college radio ginchy goo it sure comes off snat!

So what's the verdict---is this a case of Chris scrubbing his past in order to look like less of a turdburger, an honest reappraisal of a platter that got wooshed under a ton of subpar amerindie sputum, or just the ramblings of a guy who's really hard up for new 'n exciting grub who has to once again turn to a past he'd prefer not to return to? If YOU dear reader have an opinion please do send it in care of this blog, but don't be surprised if I ignore your comments l00% like, which I will most certainly do anyway.
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The Jet Black's-TWIST CD-r burn (originally on Chantecler, Brazil)

Really, who woulda thunk that the early-sixties twist craze woulda made it as far south of the US of Whoa as South Ameriga? I guess the existence of this album proves that it did, and for a buncha south of the equator types the Jet Black's did a good enough job mimicking North Amerigan concerns. Some of it is a li'l too cooshy comfy for my tastes, but the standard guitar tracks please about as much as one of those latterday Duane Eddy numbers that nobody seems to talk about anymore. Nice 88-cent supermarket bin feeling to it, and I'd bet that twist record collector Eddie Haskell woulda bought a copy if one had only crept his way.
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T. Rex-UNCAGED Enhanced CD (Pilot, Germany)

I've been on a Bolan kick as of late (multiple spinnings of John' Children 'n so forth) so this buried behind the rest of all the other T. Rex Cee-Dees was like a refreshing change after years of ignoring the thang. Marc 'n crew live '71/'73 doing a whole buncha the old time faves like "Ride a White Swan" and "Baby Strange" for the same audience who, with a little twinging here and there, would be listening to some pretty gut-wrenching music once the eighties got in gear. Comes with a whole buncha visual files you can watch on your computer if you wanna ruin it, so don't and just look for the same material on youtube because someone was surely bound to upload all of it, including the weird interview where Marc lays out the plans for a porno T. Rex feature film!
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The Rationals-TEMPTATION 'BOUT TO GET ME CD (Total Energy/Bomp!)

Another one that might've gotten the royal BLOG TO COMM treatment in the past, but since I tried googling myself (sounds dirty, don't it?) and nothing came up (ditto!) mebbee I dint. Still a goodun recorded at the Grande Ballroom October '68 a few days before the MC5 recorded their KICK OUT THE JAMS on the very same stage. Not too bad for a buncha guys who got pegged into the local teenybop white soul category too, with enough hot jazz approaches and downright hot white soul here to classify 'em as bona fide Detroit high energy rock types. And don't let the disclaimer fool you, this sounds a whole lot better'n many of those recordings of the same strata that sound so dismal but we listen to 'em anyway because hey, why not?!?!?!
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Various Artists-SASSY HYGIENE DELUXE UNDERSTANDING CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Duh-no why Bill included a whole buncha ads for Roma Wines in between many of the cuts---either he took out stock inna company or he wants to get me sloshed! But hey, these ads along with the ones for Schlitz Beer and Turtle Wax are just want the docturd ordered for this olde tymey ad-starved ozob. The rest of it ain't anything to guffaw at either what with the Velvet Underground doing "Guess I'm Falling in Love" from the Gymnasium show, some guy named Steve Palmer oozing out a nice jazzy drone-on thing called "Cassini", more song poems from Rod Rogers as well as a whole batch of rarities including some Spanish punk rock that sounds more sixties garage than seventies spike and even some rare enough for me Fats Domino.

 For you seventies tee-vee fans there's Carlton the Doorman from RHODA doing yet another one of those commercial cash-in singles that, like the rest of those tee-vee oriented novelty records, never went anywhere making you wonder why these small screen stars did 'em inna first place! The entire shebang ends with a special message for you female readers regarding your very own personal hygiene (or better yet how to not knock out your boyfriend ifyaknowaddamean, or for that matter the family dog who happened to get hold of some of your old soiled panties), so if you all wanna be dainty and fresh-like you know what you gotta do! (In other words...PLEASE PASS THE NORFORMS!)

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