Waitakere Walks

Don and Jan 1970/"I'm not even here I just stick around for my friends"/RS 14 May 1970

2012-02-05T13:49:00.000-08:00

Photo by John Williams, then Art Director at Bizarre/Straight records.

Mike and Mike

2012-02-03T13:56:00.000-08:00

Countless hours of enjoyment came from this particular film, arguably the beginning and end of all films on the early LA punk/Masque era, either fictional or documentary. Great performances all around and both Watt and Kelley's comedic performances overlooked in the scheme of things. This film and the DAM Ecstatic Peace box set currently and always on heavy rotation at hq. Very sad news.

1976 ESL Proto-Punk/I Just Don't Have "the Touch"/Movie Instead - Repost from March 2010

2012-02-01T16:10:00.000-08:00

Buried under with comparative legal studies for the time being, a golden oldie from March 2010:

A rustic Jonathan Richman lp cover photo. Check. Clanking Scotty Thurston piano playing. Good. Warped misanthropic lyrics to rival JW Farquhar on that sub-basement psych lp "The Formal Female." That too. There was point last decade where I was compiling an lp of non-native English speaking proto-punk and this track ("Movie Instead") was in the running. So maybe not the crusher you were hoping but I can safely say that this is the best proto-punk track from the Middle East from 1976 CE. The rest of Ariel Zilber's lp "Rutzi Shmulik" you can pass on like the b-side to Freestone's "Bummer Bitch." Trust me on that one.

In the meantime, it turns out that "Movie Instead" had a single issue in France of all places. See it here.

Critic's Choice: Black Flag/Meat Puppets at Perkins Palace, May 5, 1984

2012-01-25T14:26:00.000-08:00

Jay Babcock at Brown Study has posted his excellent Black Flag pieces from last decade in their unexpurgated form, originally featured in Mojo ("Their War: Black Flag - The First Five Years," Dec. 2001) and the LA Weekly ("A Twelve-Step Program in Self-Reliance: How L.A. Hardcore Pioneers Black Flag Made it Through the Early Years," June 22, 2002). In addition, he has put together a nice compendium of video clips featuring Pops Staples, who on some days to my ears is the foremost influence on Sandy Bull's playing, other days just in the top five.

I ripped out the note below from the LA Reader in '84 for the live shot, probably not realizing that in the future there would be coffee table books of photos of bands like the Stooges, New York Dolls, Black Flag and the Ramones. Thus, from the barn comes a short note urging you to get in the tardis and head to Pasadena, CA. 1984.

Lastly, anyone know how to get ahold of Earl Liberty of Saccharine Trust? I know he is on twitter but need an email address.

"I Keep a Good Friend on Videotape"/"Bang Bang" Euro TV 1981 etc/"Cold Metal - Sounds Lovely Like a Hendrix Tune"

2012-01-23T17:49:00.000-08:00

This clip of Iggy on European television is a favorite Iggy performance art piece - just watch with the sound off if you don't believe me - and the song itself possibly my original introduction to Mr. Pop based on its heavy rotation on KROQ during the summer of 1981. Although it could be a new wave Fowley track at certain moments ("Bad News from the Underworld" era), what speaks to me most are the Marnie Weber-esque "Spirit Girls" - or did Iggy wander into a J.C. Penney catalog photo shoot with raining ping pong balls. Obviously, the Ig's favorite golf balls were out of the question with young children around. Now, I have not seen it broken down before, but Iggy's use of baritone sprechstimme (e.g., "phone calls I take by machine") and borrowed from Morrison perhaps, is really one of his signature vocal devices. When my book comes out, you can cite me. The outfit - a post-Johnny Thunders/Edwardian pirate look? I love it and find it inspiring. I swear I saw Stiv in person with this look several years later (similar shirt, tight pants etc) so the influence continued. Or is the real rock and roll look untrademarkable? The whole look is almost something Jack Grisham sported during the "Beneath the Shadows" era and of course, one could picture Darby co-opting the entire look.

I am still waiting for my old friend Tim to write his book on post "Let's Dance" Bowie. One of these days he is going to do it. By then, Bowie will have pilfered the entire Iggy catalog. Can't wait though till David gets to "Cold Metal," "Butt Town," and "Wild America."

A whole post could be devoted to the filming of this on Hollywood Blvd. Blink and you could miss Waitakere Walks pal Damon:

I somehow forgot that Rollins is on this:

Hullo America! Man, this captures the late 80's in a big way. Maybe a post is in order of Monoshock and pals heckling Messers Pop and Jones at this tour. "Let's hear it for the singer!"

The Night the Misfits met Mötley Crüe/The Misfits and the Flesheaters at the Whiskey a Go-Go April 13, 1982

2012-01-08T00:23:00.000-08:00

The Misfits’ April 1982 West Coast tour is still pretty fresh in my memory. A short book about that tour needs to be written given that there are so many funny anecdotes and great photos to work with. The ad below was on my bedroom wall at the time and also possibly that of Rubin Fiberglass as well, who kindly donated his copy to the barn archive well over twenty years ago, thus doubling its number in my possession. Though we both claim to be the first to grok the Misfits among our junior high classmates at our respective schools, a trip to any mall today within a ten mile radius of Canoga Park – nay, anywhere in the English speaking world based upon my own southern hemisphere observations – will demonstrate how deep the entrenchment of Danzig’s vision among 12-15 year olds of all ethnicities. Mind you this is simply based upon my own accounting of both the bootlegged and unbootlegged paraphernalia of the band. Clearly, Danzig’s vision is omnipresent. Remind yourselves though that the 30th anniversary of the April 1982 jaunt is coming up! Too young to attend the show, I only recently found out that the Flesheaters did not actually play.

I have written about Byron Coley's Motley Crue book before, but how this particular story was missing will need to be corrected in the next edition. According to none other than Misfits Central writing about this very show:

Before The Misfits' show at Whisky A Go Go in Los Angeles, the band allegedly chased the members of Motley Crue (as documented by Eerie Von in The Misfits Box Set liner notes) down the street. According to Henry Rollins, Motley Crue vocalist Vince Neil walked into the bar while The Misfits were doing their soundcheck and Jerry, Doyle, and Danzig began heckling him from the stage. At that point, Neil supposedly turned and ran out the door. The scheduled opening band, The Flesheaters, were replaced by Saccharine Trust. Both Earl Liberty from Saccharine Trust and Rollins (who provided guest vocals on "Bullet" that night) appear on one of the covers of the Evilive 7" EP, in a photograph taken that night. Also in attendance for The Misfits' set was Rick James.

Glenn confirmed it a 1997 interview and still gave high marks to Black Flag, dissed Kiss etc. There is a whole article on how intertwined the Black Flag/Misfits Pete Frame rock family tree is forthcoming on this site:

SECONDS: Is there a story of you and Henry Rollins chasing Motley Crue down a street ?

DANZIG: Not down the street, but we ran them out of The Whiskey when The Misfits first played there. It happened and it was pretty funny. You know, Motley Crue got a lot from The Misfits -- so did Rick James. Up until then, Motley Crue was a Dolls imitation and then all of a sudden they were into "the mark of the beast." So many bands have stolen from shit I've done -- I don't care anymore. The only one I really hate is Stone Temple Pilots. They out and out stole "Snakes Of Christ" and renamed it "Sex Type Thing." I did Lonn Friend's radio show and he goes, "You know this song?" and puts on what I think is "Snakes Of Christ" and all of a sudden I hear this doofus going, "I am, I am, I am," and I'm going "Who's this?" "Oh, this is Stone Temple Pilots. This song sounds familiar, doesn't it?" We played them back to back and they were exact.

SECONDS: What was the real deal with the notorious Misfits incident in San Francisco in 1982?

DANZIG: All night people were getting hit with bottles and beer cans. These kids had singled out Doyle and were hitting him with full beer cans. Finally, Googy jumped in the audience in the middle of a song and started a fight with one of the guys throwing beer cans at him. It was a big fight, Googy started getting his ass kicked, and Doyle saw one guy throwing beer and hit him in the head with his guitar. It just went crazy after that, a big riot basically. I remember when Maximum Rock N' Roll did their story, it was one-sided that everybody wanted The Misfits gone but that's bullshit because a lot of people had come there to see The Misfits play. It was typical yellow journalism from Maximum Rock N' Roll.

There was no shortage of zine ink spent on that tour. I have already posted a review of the Chicago leg of that tour ("Misfits at Misfits" in Coolest Retard here). There is of course the We Got Power April 13, 1982 interview by Jordan Schwartz, Dave Markey and "Ru" at Rachel's house right after the very show the advert is from - read it here. Mere hours after heckling Vince Neil! If I could find my copy of Flipside I would scan it but this will have to do for now. Al and Hudley's interview - which I probably had not read since its publication - made me remember how unflatteringly neanderthal the Lodi crew was in their belief system. Check out Glenn's "ju-ju bone" video for further proof and a belly laugh. The '82 SF show pictures were something else, like right out of one of those 70's pro-wrestling magazines. A lot of blood, make-up and fake menace.

I also found this short note in the barn with the show advert. I received it probably some time in late 1983/early 1984. I was a teenage hardcore nerd, and it was a bummer to be told by father x-mas himself that the Misfits were over (though the merch would live on!):

Lastly, Rollins interviewed last month, where he has some funny stuff to say about his old friend Glenn.

Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco Top 10 Winter 1973-74/"Star Rated Singles"/Motorboat! with Steve McDonald

2011-12-16T17:29:00.000-08:00

I grew up listening to Rodney and his top ten lists in Flipside were always a kick (as well as the celebrity photos accompanying those lists). I always wondered what the top songs played at his English Disco were. In Bob Gruen's essential "All Dolled Up"(or is it the original 30 minute film?), we have a brief, tantalizing clip of the New York Dolls at the club dancing to the Velvet Underground (c.f. Television goofing to the Dolls in the Terry Ork video from the same year!) Well, here you have the very first of Rodney's published lists in the 70's from Marty Cerf's always entertaining Phonograph Record Magazine. Did Barry Blue's 45 even get a US release? I have to say I was surprised to not see the Jimmy Jukebox "Motorboat" 45 on here. As far as I am concerned that song is Kim's origin of the title to the Quick's "Mondo Deco" lp? I have chosen to highlight the lesser known numbers in the states. Based on Suzi's and the Sweet's placement TWICE, they ruled the roost at Rodney's - small consolation I guess as the Dolls ARE rock royalty as much as the Stones and Bo Diddley. Jimmy Jukebox shoulda been on there and because I really enjoy Steve McDonald channeling Uncle Kim to maximum effect, I have included that as well in the mix. Love that opening beat of Suzi's stomper.

Roy Wood at his Wilsonian finest:

Not quite up there with Legs & Co.'s take on Be Bop Deluxe's on "Maid in Heaven" seen here, but not bad Pan's People:

Speaking of all things Red Kross, one of the best powerpop songs of the 90's hands down and fantastic guitar (RIP Eddie) and bass playing. Nice keys by Gere and check out her 70's Runaways styled band in Japan here:

"What the Velvets Never Were, and What Dylan Never Could Be, All This and More is Television" - Alan Betrock, 1974

2011-12-14T03:45:00.000-08:00

Rummaging in the barn, I never know what may turn up. This is what I found out today: by early 1974, Alan Betrock had already identified the greatness of Richard Hell-era Television and its historical import during the band's initial residency at CBGBs. Writing in the May 1974 issue of Phonograph Record, in a multiple-page spread featuring at least 15 writers discussing local venues and clubs, Betrock manages to give the highest praise possible to Television, as well as giving ink space to Andy Shernoff of the Dictators! Mind you, none of the other writers provide band commentary except for Betrock or even feel it appropriate. Somehow I think Betrock knew what kind of easter eggs he was planting for future historians - the man knew it all along as we have written about before here and here! Pantsios unfortunately does not score too well as I sit with cup of tea in hand scratching my beard in late 2011. Sadly, she gives no mention to either Rocket from the Tombs or Mirrors in the CLE write-up, though she manages to slag Left End not once but TWICE in the issue. Though this is the shortest of excerpts, Betrock says enough about Television and CBGBs:

Little Diesel and the Weasels/"5 Powerful Punks on a High-Energy Hellride"/Where is the Ratz Vein Band?

2011-12-04T15:45:00.000-08:00

I ask you, how many minor league, private press, hard rock lps from the 70's does one need to hear to match the proto-punk greatness that is found on Little Diesel's "No Lie"?" Sadly, you are in denial friends. You can listen to those boring but collectible releases which you have to impress your friends, but it is a fool's game to even glean the slightest influence of ANY high energy combo on those grooves. They don't exist no matter how hard your record dealer grafts on the adjectives. On the other hand, try to imagine yourself in early 70's Winston-Salem, North Carolina going to R.J. Reynolds (Tobacco) High School and having a band influenced by (and even knowing about) the MC5, Move, Big Star, Blue Ash, Bowie, the Stooges, the Velvet Underground and the New York Dolls. That band is Little Diesel and it is time to set the record straight. Right out of Waitakere Walks central casting, "No Lie" is a teenage take on Kama Sutra-era Flamin' Groovies and "Back in the USA," mixed in with just the right progressive FM covers. Just dig the "I Can Hear the Ants Dancing" vibe offa this great photo from July 4, 1974.

Yes, Mojo (sic) had a proto-punk feature but where was Little Diesel? Little Diesel was Bob Northcott, Peter Holsapple, Will Rigby, Phil Thomas, Tommy Eshelman, Chris Chamis and Chris Stamey. Some of the those names should be familiar to you. Will Rigby says he remembers Little Diesel's "slow-Stooges version of "Yo-Yo" (Osmonds) with Bob (Nothcott) oozing down the stage steps, Ig-like . . . and Bob's suggestion to call us the Hard-ons." That is NOT unfortunately on the lp. One of the last shows I saw before leaving the USA was Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey in LA. I have been following what those two have been doing for three decades now. What may have escaped you is that while the dBs and Let's Active - hell even Rittenhouse Square and Sneakers - gather all the press, here is ground zero.

Little Diesel were omnivorous rock animals similar to those that were springing up in small burgs coast to coast prior to the 1977 punk history re-write. According to Peter Holsapple:

We were all into music as listeners at some depth, devouring Creem and Phonograph Record magazines whenever we could get them. Will was a consummate Beatles collector for a long while. He and Bob loved Dylan, who I saw as a singles artist. Bob listened to Lenny Bruce, Streisand, the Velvet Underground, and the Stooges. We all adored the MC5, who performed in Winston-Salem at a legendary show the year I was away. My tastes were in the Roxy Music/Eno/Can school, with a nascent fascination with Fairport and Richard Thompson. We saw lots of shows together in Greensboro, like Alice Cooper/Free/Todd Rundgren. I think we went to see the J. Geils Band every time they played in NC.

The tracks that comprise "No Lie" (Telstar Records) were originally "released" in 1974 on homemade 8-tracks in a total run of 20. Here is the great Dolls homage of "Kissy Boys" and a cover of "American Ruse":

Check these great photos from the band's page showing them playing and setting up at the Winston-Salem Fairgrounds.

The cd version even contains a "hidden" bonus cover of "Sweet Emotion."

Check out the correspondence where a teenage Holsapple is trying to get some writing work with Bangs. Ah, how the pretenders have cashed in with their own place in hagiographic movies about their LOW energy careers. Surely you too gagged at the five minutes you spent watching "Almost Famous" on the telly at the bar. I know I did. Also, we MUST hear the Ratz Vein Band! Nice logo in an Imperial Dogs fashion.

Now for the video, some notes. When the MC5's "Babes in Arms" cassette came out in '83, it registered that Peter Zaremba of the Fleshtones did the artwork. I played that tape incessantly in 1984. I also watched the Cutting Edge all the time. The start of the feature on Let's Active totally made me move as the band is playing "Shakin' Street" outside their barn with Zaremba. I had not seen it since the original broadcast but always remembered it. Now that Little Diesel's material is out, it makes total sense that Mitch Easter would cover it. I will also argue that this may be the FIRST time any MC5 material was played on ANY network prior to various "history of rock" type shows in the 2000s. Readers, correct me if I am wrong on this.

You also get the Osmands doing "Yo-Yo" though we need the Stooges-bubblegum version. Lastly, the MC5 as Little Diesel would have seen them in 1970 in W-S. Note that Holsapple was at boarding school at Andover that year (at the same time as Benmont Tench of Tom Petty's Heartbreakers) and missed it!

Thanksgiving 1974/"Whatever Gets You Through the Night"/Mister Pop (2009)

2011-11-24T16:37:00.000-08:00

I was able to see the Clean last night for the second time this year. Easily one of the best live acts on the planet, with three equally great and compelling frontmen/singers. Is Hamish not one of the best singing drummers outside of Don Henley, Rubin Fiberglass, Dennis Wilson and Ringo when he takes his turn? Which had me thinking about other great Thanksgiving shows. Thanksgiving of 1974 should probably remind you of the second to last live appearance of John Lennon. Madison Square Garden on November 28, 1974 to be exact, joining Elton for an encore after losing a bet that "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" which Elton played on would hit number one. Also the night that Lennon began his reconciliation with Yoko. Heavy night on multiple fronts. See photo below. How do you describe Elton's favourite outfit during this era? Take a boiler suit, cut off the shirt part, add sequins and suspenders and an optional sequined beanie cap without a shirt?

This dude smuggled in the 8mm camera thankfully and you can see it here though he really needs to do a proper sound synch to the bootleg of the show and not the cheap and obvious dub of "Funeral for a Friend." Which had me thinking about the Beatles/Elton connection, which of course leads to Ringo's involvement in Born to Boogie, and then the Elton/Bolan connection. And of course, is there a better Beatles/VU-inspired act that has been together for more than thirty years than the Clean. I need to write up a buyers guide to post-1990 Clean recordings (one on Robert Scott's equally great and monumental Bats is in the works as well as David Kilgour's solo work). The Clean's most recent record, 2009's Mister Pop is a great listen, and features a nice 12-string Harrison/McGuinn homage in "In The Dreamlife You Need A Rubber Soul," which still sounds like nobody other than the Clean. If you have been asleep, Mister Pop, Mashed, Syd's Pink Wiring System and Getaway need to be acquired post haste. At the bottom is a video for "Too Much Violence" from 1994's Modern Rock, another gem in the back catalog you may have passed on to your detriment due to the release date.

At the Born to Boogie premiere December 14, 1972. Some days I am partial to the Mick Rock photo of Lou/Iggy/Bowie and some days to this one. Back Off Boogaloo!

I may be partial to the Mickey Finn version below:

Dig Ringo's "Back to Mono" button as well as his monstrous 'do.

"One Set of Words For Me and One Set of Words for Mummy"/Roy Harper "How Does It Feel" live 1970

2011-11-20T16:22:00.000-08:00

Who knows how the LA singer-songwriter scene would have played out if people paid attention to Roy at the height of his powers instead of sitting back at the bar. Who did he play with in February of 1970? Flat Baroque and Beserk from that year just sounds better and better as the years roll on and is probably the Harper lp I have revisited most often in the past ten years - the underrated Valentine probably comes next. There is a biting edge to Flat Baroque and Beserk which is few and far between other lps from the same year, and it sits nicely on the shelf with yer other faves from '70. So it is a nice surprise when live footage from the era finally turns up after over 40 years:

Harper's Valentine from 1974 features one of the the most rocking, high energy tracks which Jimmy Page performed on in the 1970's, "Male Chauvinist Pig Blues." Not too dissimilar to The Who's appearance without Daltrey on Mike Heron's solo lp Smiling Men With Bad Reputations on the track "Warm Heart Pastry." Just raises the energy level up a notch. Nobody has posted the actual lp version of the track but here is a live version which does not do the studio version justice though has some excellent work from Page and Harper. GREAT cover on the bootleg, no?

"Commune" from Valentine:

International Hello/Monoshock's "Walk to the Fire" in Mojo/"Steel Wheels" Revisited

2011-11-15T16:05:00.000-08:00

Fifteen years goes by quick don't it? Fifteen years between "It's Only Rock n' Roll" and "Steel Wheels." Fifteen years between "Walk to the Fire" and "International Hello." Driving around West Auckland is about as close to an experience of driving around Van Nuys or Reseda as I can get these days. I distinctly remember blaring an early cassette of what became for the most part, "Walk to the Fire" as I drove around the valley on an oven hot day around '95. So when I hear "Someone's Coming" from the International Hello (Holy Mountain) lp blaring on the car deck as I cruise down Railside Avenue on a hot, spring day, it is like having old friends back again - not unlike when you first heard "Mixed Emotions." So, does it surprise me when Monoshock makes the recent Mojo with the George Harrison cover? No, not really - I only wish it was a Macca cover.

"One of America's Outstanding White Guitarists" [sic]/John Fahey in Rock Scene 1973/Blues on Acid: Blind Owl Blues

2011-11-10T13:59:00.000-08:00

Can we break down this great photo? Entire case of Dewars White Label Scotch, Schlitz can (or possibly glass tumbler) and a pack of hand roll smokos. Early 70's Takoma logo revamp t-shirt which definitely needs a short run re-screen if we have the time. Ricky? Clothesrack and holding what - a drumstick? Nice setting possibly in Santa Monica? Barry Hansen's place in the Valley? Note talks about Reprise but we all know that "Fare Forward Voyagers (Soldier's Choice)" was about to be unleashed.

On another note, late last year I finally got around to reading Rebecca Davis Winters' great bio of Alan Wilson of Canned Heat entitled "Blind Owl Blues." Let's just say that for Faheyologists, it is an essential entry in the canon. The Blind Owl is there in the critical early to mid-60's era with John (Boston, UCLA, etc) and there are heaps of Fahey-related anecdotes.

Anyone familiar with Fahey's contribution to "Parthenogenesis" on "Living the Blues" will want to check it out. Winters digs out that Fahey wanted to put out Wilson's solo record on Takoma and recorded a bunch of it in 1966. Harmonica master Wilson had recorded a bunch of ragas on chromatic harmonica. Here is the great photo from "Voice of the Turtle" of from left Fahey, Rev. Rubin Lacey, Wilson and David Evans, Ridgecrest, CA 1966 - more on the background to the photo in the book.

Winters also digs out that on Fahey's "Old Girlfriends and Other Horrible Memories" from 1982, that Wilson's harmonica playing is on there uncredited. Winters fails to note which track so I will do it for ya: "Fear & Loathing at 4th & Butternut." I will post that track when I get some time. Now Glenn Jones was assistant engineer on the lp so maybe he could describe the circumstances of the use (which is truly because Fahey loved the guy). When Winters asked Fahey about the lack of credit, Fahey stated in typical John fashion that "I didn't think Wilson would mind." Here is a choice excerpt from the book:

While they were living together, Fahey felt the need to make Wilson improve his level of cleanliness. 'Wilson refused to take baths very often,' he explained. 'And he usually stunk. When he lived with me, I had to frequently fill the tub with water and soap, and then threaten him, force him to take his clothes off and take a bath. And I'd buy him clothes and underwear and stuff. But he didn't smell too good. Very bad . . .

This is only scratching the surface of what is really a great piece of research for the unacknowledged true masters of the era. Maybe we can kickstart the Fahey bio or Dr. Demento can publish his 50-70's memoirs which would be a goddamn hoot.

The Captain on American Bandstand 1966 . . . who knew [repost]

2011-11-03T17:02:00.000-07:00

Faster than you can say Dick Clark productions, the clips get taken down from the net. I am not sure how long this one will be back up for:

And all this time I have been waiting for the performance of Sparks on American Bandstand from 1972 to materialize.

Gun Club Interviewed 3/11/82 Madison, WI/"a silver lame type dinner jacket over his small beer belly"/Coolest Retard May/June '82/Misfits at Misfits

2011-10-25T16:45:00.000-07:00

Coolest Retard was one of the more comprehensive punk zines to come out of the Midwest. Some of the coverage was a bit dodgy in a "new wave" way, and the ghetto-ization of the nascent hardcore coverage reeked of condescension to my teenage eyes. What snagged my interest at Tower Records was its pro-Black Flag coverage (no doubt influenced by the return of the Effigies back to their Chicago mothership). The review of Damaged below states that "it's so hard to put a Black Flag record or show into words." I also would have noticed the contemporary reviews of Bad Religion, Huskers, Hell Comes to Your House, Wild in the Streets and the Misfits live - all bought and listened to obsessively in real time. Did I really sell back my post '74 Who lps to get store credit to get some of these. I only managed to put my mitts on one copy of Coolest Retard in real time which is the May/June '82 issue excerpted below. Did all those records come out in such a short, six month time frame? A GREAT time period for American music for sure given all the Vegas punk from the UK being churned out and covered in the US zines for some reason. It seemed that any band on Punk & Disorderly could come out to LA and headline Godzillas. Gun Club coverage is pretty fascinating to see how they were received outside of LA. Record collector rock ("RCR") is maligned for some reason. The Cramps and the Gun Club are progenitors of two strands/genres of music that one could say did not exist previous to their existence and is in part due to their record hound excavations. See also John Fahey, Tim Gane and Thurston Moore for similar RCR genre-creation. Medals all around.

There are some great quotes from JLP. Fer instance:

"I can't stand [45 Grave]. It has nothing to do with Rob [Ritter]. I just think horror rock is a waste of time." Three words come to mind on looking back when I saw JLP live: Screaming Lord Sutch.

"[The Fire of Love] is not produced well enough. Not enough balls." Uh, thanks Chris and Tito. I kinda remember Danzig saying something along the same lines with Walk Among Us though probably he insinuated using violence. Best representation of either band IMHO.

"I knew [Kid Congo Powers] before the 'punk rock thing'."

"[Chis Stein and Debbie Harry] knew me before any bands." True though a nice understatement JLP - you were Los Angeles PRESIDENT of the Blondie fanclub c. 1977. Thank you Chris and Debbie for Animal Records and Miami and The Las Vegas Story. Not unlike the patronage of Ocacek on the Bad Brains and Suicide. At least they tried.

Lastly, a excerpt from a Black Flag interview in an earlier Coolest Retard from 1980. I am guessing the same tour that gives us the great Flag rehearsal photo on a Chicago day off - what a work ethic - on the second edition of the essential Rock and the Pop Narcotic. I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall the first time Dez and Chuck got to rap with the Kirkwoods and Bostrom over their shared affinity for the great Tres Hombres lp. Also, some interesting comments on their influences and early LA scene:

JOHN: Do you guys consider yourself a second generation band from LA?
GREG: No, well that may have been kind of how it worked out. We've been aroundfor a long time. Since it had started in LA. We come from the suburbs of LA and we were kind of shut out of the scene in the city.
CHUCK: You weren't a punk if you're from the suburbs.
GREG: They wouldn't give us gigs.
DEZ: We were written up in all the LA magasines when all the second generation bands were getting written up--doesn't mean you're a second generation.
GREG: We were around since early '77.
DIANE: Who would be considered a first generation band and who would be considered a second generation band?
GREG: In LA? The Weirdos would be first generation. The Zeroes, the Germs, the Bags.
KAREN: Are they still together?
GREG: Some of them are.
JOHN: If you were looking for converts. What kind of crowd are you looking to play for?
GREG: We think everybody should be subjected to us, if they like it or not. A lot of bands and people have an attitude of, "OK we're going to have our little crowd here and we're gonna keep certain people out...We're gonna have our own private club," and that's bullshit. Everybody should be dragged in and subjected to it. Go out and make an effort--hitting people on the head, whether they like it or not.
DEZ: For years and years they've been saying in LA that our scene is this and our scene is that.
GREG: Allow everyone in.
CHUCK: That's just like a bogus punk attitude they have in LA which I think is garbage. If the band is for change, then they can have an effect in varying degrees on all kinds of different people. If you're gonna change anything you're not gonna by sitting in your living room, no matter how big it is.
GREG: For example, this club here is great right now. No age limit.
JOHN: How long is it going to stay like that?
GREG: Well now you see.
DEZ: That's what kept it alive from where we're from.
GREG: That's important if someone in Chicago should make sure there's a place without an age limit that anybody can go to. No restrictions, you don't have to look a certain way. Open to any kind of taste which means putting up with some assholes.
JOHN: Do you think a lot of energy you have up on stage is put down on record the way you like it?
GREG: We think it's been done good on record and it could be done good on video.
JOHN: What kind of bands did you listen to before you got into this?
CHUCK: Years ago, I use to listen to Black Sabbath, Iggy Pop all kind of bands
DEZ & GREG: All kinds of bands.
CHUCK: Alice Cooper
CHUCK & DEZ: ZZ Top
DIANE: What do you think of them now?
GREG: We like them. Ha. Ha. Ha. We don't have to agree with their stuff to listen to their records.
JOHN: Would you buy their latest stuff?
GREG: No, like Iggy Pop, people should listen to his early stuff. Raw Power. Fun House. Metallic KO. I Got a Right. Since then he's got really burnt out stuff out. It's kind of a sheme alot of people would consider Iggy Pop by his later stuff.
CHUCK: It's an excuse for new wavers to be like that. He still has some type, sort of personality.
KAREN: Reminds me of Johnny Thunders.
GREG: Someones who's off in that kind of quasi-adult burnt out world. He can support that fantasy. People are captivated by his personality rather than the emotion he use to put out.
DIANE: A lot of press releases that I've seen said you were coming here "straight from the Tomorrow Show" like that's your only claim to fame. What do you think of that?
CHUCK: That was ten minutes
GREG: The promoter, I guess, picked up on that. It has very little effect on people coming to see us.
CHUCK: It was just me speaking my mind.
GREG: It was not something we went out to do. They asked to talk to us and said they have the best intentions.

"Hard Attack" '78/"C'Mon Hilly More Senders, Erasers, Feelies, Mars, Teenage Jesus"/You Geeks! Part 2

2011-10-21T01:53:00.000-07:00

Review of MX-80 Sound's classic "Hard Attack" in real time from NYC, USA circa 1978. Issue Number Three from the barn archive of J. Gorton's Beat It! Heavy Stiff Records/pub rock coverage but also great NYC punk coverage as well. That is Eddie and the Hot Rods singer Barrie Masters in the middle of the review. The MacManus cover is a bit misleading as there is a more rockist angle to the whole zine than the cover would indicate. Handwritten note on the back cover indicates a run of 300 copies. There is a mention of a Mumps television news clip (with photo stills in the article from a TV set - those were the days) that I have been trying to track down for a couple years with no luck.

A much needed re-post of the great Rich Stim Esq. "rock star" ad from an old Gulcher in the barn. Other than the waaay, way off comment re Rich's vocal abilities - one he hopefully cringes at in 2011 - Gorton really nails the review without having heard the "Big Hits" ep at the time he reviewed the lp. Beefheart, Beefheart, more Beefheart, with a little VU, humor and some Lumpy Gravy. C'mon, in my mind, Stim's vocal styling is droll, sleepy, funny and laconic all at the same time. Try that on for size. "Catch the usual (for the mid-west it seems) Velvet's touches on 'Summer 77' and 'You're Not Alone."

"I Wanna Bite Your Hand"/"The Essence of Teenage Pre- or Post-Wasteland American rock 'n' Roll"/Rendezvous!

2011-10-12T21:16:00.000-07:00

The last time I saw Andy Paley, he was playing keys with the Patti Smith Group at the Santa Monica Pier a few years back. Leigh was last heard playing bass live with Blondie. The Sidewinders eponymous debut from 1972 had so much going for it. Great songs that hearkened back to the golden age of rock and roll, the first band to have a residency at Max's since the Velvets and signed by RCA around the same time as Bowie, the Kinks and Lou Reed. Not enough promotional dollars to spread around to the Sidewinders, eh? Some nice cover snaps from the Chelsea Hotel below.

With a very sympathetic and warm production from Lenny Kaye and no lack of positive ink - see Bangs' glowing 1972 review from Creem and Billy Squire-era article in Rock Scene (though Squire is not mentioned other than as Billy) from the barn archive, we can only ask why the album didn't really chart. I know Joey Ramone wondered that as well. A short, positive review of the Sidewinders debut from the May 24, 1972 issue of Billboard:

One of the best tracks from the lp, "Told You So," with some slight (to my ears anyway), Flamin' Groovies influence?

Here is the great Spectoresque production of Bonnie and the Treasures' "Home of the Brave," no doubt a big regional hit in the Boston area. A favorite of Andy Paley and a great showcase of the Wrecking Crew.

And lastly, here is Lester's favorite, "Rendezvous" off the lp. There is rumbling we may yet get to hear the live 1971-1972 Sidewinders that Lester was so fond of. Really essential as we have two first hand accounts here that the Sidewinders were the equal of the Yardbirds and/or MC5 live !

Welcome to the Faabulous Seventies!

2011-09-27T18:00:00.000-07:00

One of the best and most influential record reviews of the 1970's by Nick Kent. Holds up to this day. Archived by thirteen year old Steven Morrissey and reproduced in his slim tone on the New York Dolls originally published in 1981. From the 25 August 1973 NME.

All the Hipsters Go to the Movies/"his sense of space and time was slightly science fiction"/Sandy Bull 1974-75 NYC

2011-09-25T15:35:00.000-07:00

On the Richard Dreyfuss-inspired backyard Mount Rushmore of 1960’s American guitar explorers that I am making, Sandy Bull stands as my Abraham Lincoln - Fahey as Washington and Basho as Teddy Roosevelt? Who other than Sandy Bull could be there playing with the original Patti Smith trio and then sitting in with the Don Cherry Group within the span of about six months in late 1974 to mid 1975. Who says the mid-70's were the lost years for Sandy? Not lost, just undocumented.

Lets pick it up in 1972 with Patti's review of the great "Demolition Derby" entitled "Keeping Time" from a 1972 issue of the NYC Metropolitan Journal. The whole thing is worth reading for the context/scholarship of what Sandy deems his "homecoming . . . a resurrection":

Maybe I'm a sap. Who can say for sure? When I was 18 I was living in a cabin down south. All the people played was Bach or Bartok. A slew of classical B's. Even the opera was Madame Butterfly.

No rock 'n roll ya understand. And no Billie Holiday. No blues at all. And what better B is there?

Christ how I craved a radio. 3 miles down there was an all night diner. The jukebox there just drove me insane. It ate up my quarters like some carniverous bird, chomp chomp. To me it was money never wasted; you can never get enough--music.

One rainy sunday I found some weird record stuck behind some Beethoven. Sandy Bull. Well it was B. It wasn't rock 'n roll it wasn't. Well I could run all night and say what it wasn't. But I couldn't say nothing on what it was. Fantasias. On Vanguard. Well I played the shit out of that record but the boy on the cover was completely foreign.

Sandy Bull. Some said he was dead, car crash. 3 notches under James Dean. Some say his end was more decadent. More Paris in the twenties. Slain in some alley. A fizzled goofball brain.

Well either way the record was a refuge and as about as elaborate as a Frankie Lymon fan could take. By mistake I left it down south when I headed for the big city. Often I regretted it. But like any fickle fan I soon forgot. Lost in the stars. Bob Dylan. The Doors. Smokey Robinson. The Empire State Building. The Soft White Underbelly...

And now. Outta nowhere. Seven years later he's back. I first seen him in a bar. Him and Bobby Neuwirth. He was recruting lucky suckers to check out the Latin stuff at the Cheeta. It's hot he said. Latin whoo whee it's next. you'll see, sex. he kept spinning words out around. juicy Lucy. got to be. Tennessee cream.

I just couldn't handle Latin night. I went to a spanish bar instead and drank tequila and a few bloody marys. That was about as hot blooded as I was feeling.

And later that week I checked him out. Live at Max's Kansas City. I went there with Tony Glover. Master of the harmonica and hard edged humor. That night he was real respectful. It was was more than just a gig he told me. It was a homecoming. A resurrection.

Sandy rose up and faced the music. It was the strangest thing I ever saw. His sense of space and time was slightly science fiction. A left over junk space. Passing of several moments never bothered him. And what I seen was so insane. He had this tape playback system all set up. It looked like a million tape recorders. They were all set up to spin out pre-recordings of himself. Track after track of rhythm guitar and percussion. He'd set them off and grab up a "live" instrument and play along like mad. Maybe I'm naive. But I just never seen nobody do that. What if Smokey Robinson came onstage with a cassette of the Miricles singing back-up vocals.

It seemed like he was bootlegging himself. I really dug it understand. I was just amazed. I got real nervous that everybody would feel cheated or think he was nuts. But the room was filled with fans. Tony was at the bar and I didn't want to act like I never seen Sandy before. But I didn't and everybody else was caught in his slow motion swirls and long-winded latin rags.

I gotta admit I was having trouble getting the beat. But the kid totally fascinated me. I mean nothing bothered him. Nothing meaning time and silence. If a tape snapped or a string broke he'd take his time. He'd fiddle around with the machines til he figured the problem out. A slightly mongoloid handyman. On the audience's time. And no one seemed to mind.

Me I couldn't relax. Having a speeded up city pulse, I kept looking around at everybody. Wondering what they were thinking. True to his night at the Cheetah he was playing some quick hot latin stuff. But all that party beat was coming from one long necked blond and ten machines. Sandy Bull and his robot band.

Finally I settled down. Remembering my early southern upbringing I pumped a little southern langor in my veins. Then, after a rather textured swim in the Bull brain, I got real effected. He done two things that just knocked me out. Hit me so deep I nearly got sick. Knee deeep in the heart.

Ya know when somebody strikes a chord in you that brings up your past like puke? Real human memories. Not just nostalgia or bringing up baby stuff. The creepy memories that lurk behind your brain like dogs. Well Sandy started hitting all those chords in me. I felt I was some drowning singer going through all the greatest hits of his past. The greatest hit flops that is.

Sandy cut with the fancy stuff and moved into the Floyd Cramer classic "Last Date." I don't know if you remember that song. It was an instrumental and I hated it when it was out. It made me feel like a creep. They used to play it at dances. I was a real wallflower. Nobody ever asked me to dance, I'd wait all night for a "ladies' choice." But when a boy boy saw me coming for him he always got lost quick. Or else he'd bend down to tie his shoes (even if he had loafers on). Even worse, some guys would pretend they didn't hear me. I'd stand there waiting for a yes or no until the silence was so deadly I'd be forced to slink away.

Well I hated that music. "Last Date." It was real square. And I hated the word "date" Especially cause I never had any. Plus the last time I remember hearing that song was one hot summer night in Camden, New Jersy. It was at the Roxy Ballroom and as usual I wasn't dancing. I was standing near the window blending in with the wallpaper.

Anyway two South Philly guys pulled knives on a few Camden greasers. A fight broke out. Chairs were flying as well as screaming girls and limp corsages. Some guy named Chico threw a chair my my way. I started picking up the pieces. At that moment a bumblebee flew in and stung me in the neck. I fainted. I came to but nobody had even noticed. Pointed shoes were ripping round my head. The bumblebee was hanging out of my neck but the music playing was no Bumblebee Boogie. It was "Last Date" droning on and on. Like forever.

All that shit was floating around me while Sandy Bull was twanging it up on that little red-light stage. But I liked it a lot. I was feeling queezy and suddenly "Last Date was my favorite song. It reminded me of what will be never again.

After he finished that one he started wandering around the stage. Sorta mumbling to himself. Then he picked up an acoustic guitar, sat down at the apron of the stage, and without warning started singing "The Tennessee Waltz."

Well I nearly fainted. First cause he was singing. See I don't know much about his history so I never knew he had vocal chords. It shocked me like it must of shocked people when their silent film heroes started talking. Valentino or Nureyev. You just don't expect it. He sang neat and all...like Dylan singing "Corinna Corinna" in 1965.

But it wasn't just that he was singing. It was what he was singing. "The Tennessee Waltz."

Now I done time, in my youth, down in Chattanooga. I got two favorite memories. One was Daddy Frank knocking out "Star Dust" boogie-woogie style from his tin-pan piano. The other was Aunt Ethel Maye.

Good ole Aunt Ethel. Ethel of the fire engine red hair and the electric movements.. The little honey that shocked the entire south by pinning 100-dollar bills in the cups and cleavage of her showy imitation leopard skin bathing suit. Everyone said that she had once spent a rather turid night with Hank Williams in a road side motel. Out of wedlock!!!! When she was out the door she was wild. But the reason I loved Ethel Maye so much was because of those nights she'd stay in, turn up the victrola, and cry herself to sleep.

She always listened to the same song "Tennessee Waltz" I think it was Patti Page singing it. It was nearly worn down. The grooves were getting slick. God how she played that song. Over and over til her heart would break. Her dyed henna hair spilling all over Grandma's baby blue satin comforter. I was too young to understand why she played that song and why it made her cry. It was a sweet pain I just hadn't learned.

You remember that song don't you? About this couple that were dancing to the "Tennessee Waltz" The girls best friend comes up and cuts in. She watches helplessly while her sweetheart and best friend fall in love while they're waltzing. One of those songs that reek of chiffon and clean bare shoulders. A completely white tragedy.

I suspected that Aunt Ethel Maye, in spite of being a hot number, had been burned pretty bad once.

Meanwhile Sandy Bull was still singing. Slow and southern. Tears were running down my cheeks. I thought cause of Aunt Ethel. Me being very sentimental. But not. It was me crying for me. For much the same reason. I was all grown up. Once burned myself. I ordered some mint gin quick.

I was sorry Sandy Bull was no victrola. I could have listened to him sing all night. But he finished it up. People were cheering and he meandered off stage and went to the bathroom. I was getting sloppy drunk. The kind that isn't hip at all. Tony and his girl Sue were talking soft to each other. A lotta people were daydreaming. Some were begging for an encore. I went downstairs and hailed a cab. The cabbie dropped me off three blocks from my house cause I was puking in the back seat. When I finally fell in the door of home sweet home I put on Chris Connor singing "Stella By Starlight" and other lullabies for lovers.

Seven months later his record comes out. His fourth I think "Demolition Derby." On which he plays the guitar, electric guitar, electric bass, oud, cowbell, conga, sandpaper, spare change, bass drum, foot cymbal, Indian bass drum, dumbeck and steel drum. whew.

Theres a lot of Latin in that record. "Sweet Baby Jumper" is my favorite. It's like being at a Puerto Rican block party. "Gotta Be Juicy" is just that. Real sleezy stuff. Sandy Bull is no goody-goody. I ain't hot for long instrumentals. Especially India stuff. I got western movement. That's why I can dig Sandy's stuff. Even at its most "cosmic" its still sleezy...juicy...American. Yeah its a real cool record.

But best of all it's got a pretty haphazard version of "Last Date" and "Tennessee Waltz." Not sounding much better than when live at Max's Kansas City. And just as powerful! Matter of fact. The funny thing about the record is that it seems live. On the spot. Take one only. Sandy Bull and his robot band turning on the switches once, just once.

I'm not too good at reviewing stuff. I don't know any technical shit and as you might have noticed I'm not hot on the adjectives. But the record is neat. No Bullshit.

Its especially good if you've had a heartache like Aunt Ethel. Like Bette Davis. Like Ida Lupino. Like Kim Novak. Like Me. Late at night I put on a black silk slip, smoke a million cigarettes. Just fall to pieces on that baby blue satin comforter that Aunt Ethel sent me when I turned sweet sixteen. I cry and cry. Wondering when my man is coming home. As Sandy Bull is crooning long and southern that "Tennessee Waltz" on my old hi fi.

This is the context in which Patti, Lenny and DNV had Sandy not only open the historic "Rock n Rimbaud III" at the Blue Hawaiian Discotheque at the Hotel Roosevelt in NYC on November 10, 1974, but he joined them as a fourth member (founding member of the PSG?!) on the opener and close of the set.

The early Lenny, Patti and Richard trio recordings need to be released properly! I know there is b&w video footage which has never seen the light of day. The "Rock n' Rimbaud" set itself is awesome, and here they are with Sandy on oud ("All the Hipsters Go to the Movies" - dissertation forthcoming on Patti's "poem") and on bass(?) for "Land"). Does the Bull set exist on tape somewhere?:

Next is a taste of the Don Cherry Group live at the Five Spot in NYC on June 7, 1975. Cherry's "Brown Rice" is possibly the best Can album of the 70's, no? Don't have a track name here but you get Don on trumpet, electric piano and vocals, Sandy (mostly on guitar), Frank Lowe on tenor and soprano, Roger Blank and Ed Blackwell on double drums, Hakim Jami and William Parker on bass, and Selene Fung on ching. Not too far off the line-up on the string of Cherry lps from the era like "Relativity Suite."

Good News From Beantown/It's the Simple Story of a Boy in All His Glory/Reddy Teddy and Matthew MacKenzie [Repost]

2011-09-15T17:38:00.000-07:00

I recently discovered that the May 1974 issue of Creem had a pretty noteworthy item about Reddy Teddy (and the great Sidewinders). Sidewinders as the next Kiss or is that the next Dust? In retrospect, both should be included in the class of '74 winners, no? Another one of those items with a lot of "what if" possibilities. Given how great those demos sounded, the lp would've been a monster. Guys, how about pressing up some tapes of the 1972-74 era? Kinda reminds of what would have happened if the Weirdos did sign with a major label in 1977 instead of telling them to take a hike. Such is life . . .

With that note below, and the re-up of several audio files - including the essential cut of "Teddy Boy" from 1974 - here is the original post on Reddy Teddy from about two years ago.

The early to mid-1970’s greater Boston area music scene was unparalleled by its wealth of proto-punk greatness. The Modern Lovers, the Sidewinders, the Count, Fox Pass, Thundertrain, the Third Rail, the nascent lineups of the Real Kids and DMZ, Willie Alexander and the pre-Cars Cap n' Swing. To my ears, the real unknown gem is Reddy Teddy and the late Matthew MacKenzie. If your idea of classic rock is mid-60’s Who/Kinks/Yardbirds/Pretty Things/Byrds and pretty much every original rock n’ roller who influenced those folks, you get the picture of the Reddy Teddy ethos.

Back in 1972, in Winchester, Mass, Reddy Teddy was causing a NY Dolls styled ruckus that matches anything Clap, Streak, Rags, Milk ‘n Cookies, Shady Lady and the Berlin Brats recorded in a high energy vein. Reddy Teddy shared bills with the Dolls in this period and liked to party with Aerosmith at Kilsyth Manor - a locale with debauched tales that apparently match those of the fabled Canterbury apartment complex in Hollywood several years later. Courted in 1973 to sign a major label deal with the same A&R rep Paul Nelson that signed Blue Ash to Mercury, Reddy Teddy cut some great demos in Boston and went to NYC and recorded an lp that was never released - purportedly due to the oil shortage. The photo of Matthew MacKenzie recording in Boston was taken at the session which gives us the blistering version of “Teddy Boy.” I usually wouldn't repost something but I have noticed that the audio files of several older posts were deleted as well as finding something new to add so here it is again:

Unable to get their tapes, in 1974 they put out a killer pre-punk independent 45 of “Novelty Shoes/Goo Goo Eyes.” I have included my own vinyl rip of the single below:

In 1974, we have Patti’s “Piss Factory” and Crème Soda’s “(I’m) Chewin’ Gum.” If you haven’t registered Reddy Teddy as part of the class of 1974, please do so now. I guess we could have had the major label pre-punk, power pop lp like those of Blue Ash, Artful Dodger, Piper (the VU/Squier connection will be the subject of a later post) but it is all left to rotisserie baseball conjecture. Here is a photo from the "Teddy Boy" session:

Not to get into all the minutia of the 1975-76 era (let the clippings from the barn archive flesh out the story – Gene Sculatti writing to Matthew, Ken Barnes great lp review in Phonograph, the amazing triple bill at Harvard of Patti Smith/Sparks/Reddy Teddy).

While their buddies Aerosmith rose to the top in 1976, Reddy Teddy put out an independent lp. To me the 1976 lp has its moments of greatness. What everyone should track down is the Not Lame label archival dig that has plenty of the 1972-1976 era and is of the most interest here. Is there a better cut of prime, Dollsian-street punk than “Teddy Boy” and the demos for the 1976 lp are ace as well. Reddy Teddy’s last show in the 70’s was opening for Van Halen in 1978.

Below are two of the better tracks from the '76 lp - "Shark in the Dark" and "Boys and Girls":

The story of Matthew MacKenzie is contained in part in the Not Lame release but lets hope some early 70's live stuff materializes. My guess is that the studio did not do them justice. Reddy Teddy continues today - go check them out on the web and see John, Scott, Joe, Ted and Jeff live.

Very 'eavy... Very 'umble/He Wrote "Chatterbox" All By Himself/The New York Dolls Are the Most Overrated, Dreadful Band I've Ever Heard

2011-09-04T16:03:00.000-07:00

The critical reappraisal. So I guess we can all have a laugh that in 1974, Dave Byron of Uriah Heep warranted the cover of Circus instead of the New York Dolls. Other than inspiring Spinal Tap, is Uriah Heep still credited along with Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin as being a source of "very 'heavy" music? When I fist moved to NZ, I found a dusty, Vertigo swirl copy of "Very 'eavy... Very 'umble" at a demo yard in Henderson (along with a VG+ copy of "Burning Up Years" for you record nerds - probably sourced by the yard from some bikers). Snatched both up for under $10 NZD. As you do. At least Gary Thain made it back to NZ and Western Springs with the Heep before the end . . .

I have ridiculed Circus in the past but I seem to find that there was some great coverage of underground favorites. Reproduced below from the barn is a nice feature on the Dolls promoting the second lp. Also included is Janis Schacht's harsh review of "Too Much, Too Soon" from the same issue. As Richard Hell has stated, the New York Dolls were the first pure rock and roll band. Lest we forget as noted in the article that Johnny wrote "Chatterbox" all by himself, is a performance from Gruen's brilliant "All Dolled Up" as the lead in. Is Bob Gruen the only one affiliated with punk other than Bangs to be able to wear a 'stache amongst the punks without derision? Back to Uriah Heep. The famous 1970 Uriah Heep review by UCLA Bruin and Metal Mike pal, Melissa Mills. From the October 1, 1970 Rolling Stone, take it Melissa:

If this group makes it I'll have to commit suicide. From the first note you know you don't want to hear any more. Uriah is watered down, tenth-rate Jethro Tull, only even more boring and inane. UH is composed of five members: vocals, organ, guitar, bass, and drums. They fail to create a distinctive sound tonally; the other factor in their uninteresting style is that everything they play is based on repetitive chord riffs.

According to the enclosed promo information, Uriah Heep spent the past year in the studio, rehearsing and writing songs. No doubt their lack of performing experience contributed to the quality of the record; if they had played live in clubs they would have been thrown off the stage and we'd have been saved the waste of time, money, and vinyl. (RS 67)

MELISSA MILLS

On a related note, possibly my favorite proto-punk/glam French combo, the Frenchies, whose lp "Lola Cola" is an all time fave, here on the live slow burn, though not as high energy as the Dolls. Contemporaries with the Dolls, Imperial Dogs, Streak, Daddy Maxfield, Zolar-X, Hollywood Brats and Clap, the Frenchies live:

And lastly, here we have Uriah Heep live at Budakon, 1973, doing their Sha Na Na thing:

Twist & Shout '77/Legs & Co./Northern Dreamin'/Before You Were New Wave

2011-08-31T04:09:00.000-07:00

I can thank Ricky for originally introducing me to the Holyground staple of records by dropping A-Austr on me several years ago. Next, I stumbled upon a Canadian fanzine from 1977 in the barn, Twist & Shout, which had some excellent crossover coverage of material that 1977 "punks" getting whole heartedly behind the new wave probably pretended they never listened to just twelve months before. What is pretty great about Twist & Shout is that it lacks that insularity that comes from a lot of year zero punk zines. Dude, you did like all the Chinn-Chapman singles and you may have even had a Yes record at one point. Hell yes, Twist & Shout liked Status Quo, Sparks, Be Bop Deluxe and pub rock as much as any current import punk 45 from south of the border or the UK. At least they didn't lie about it. In 2011, I guess we can proudly call people like the Twist & Shout folks record nerds. What A-Austr and the cover story of Twist & Shout had me curious about was the involvement of Bill Nelson in the whole Holyground enterprise and his shaggy, bearded and sneaker wearing self before the takeoff of Be Bop Deluxe. He may look like Bill Fay's relative, but "Northern Dream" aint "Time of the Last Persecution." That said, it is worth checking out to see how far Nelson came in such a short time before "Axe Victim." Not so sure about that dodgy cover cartoon cover art - I would have opted for the photo on the side of the bed writ large.

As has been pointed out, there is something Thin Lizzy-ish about this great 1975 single. But it is clearly in that the band is incredibly tight. Was there another Kiwi musician with as high a profile in the UK at that time as Charlie Tumahai. Gotta say that Nelson cleaned up pretty nicely by ditching both the early 70's beard and 60's mustache. Can you touch the guy sartorially? "Landed"/"Unlimited Edition" Can comes pretty close - Exhibit A from the barn below. Compared to the 1975 other pop hits, this one is pretty classy.

I have to say, that this oddball Top of the Pop clip clip will give you newfound appreciation for Be Bop Deluxe's crossover appeal.

A great 1974 live version of "Sweet Jane" sounding as good as Laughner's Cinderella Backstreet version of the same year?

Here is the whole Twist & Shout interview. The Sparks interview is great and needs a full reproduction here soon.

Heavy Metal Thunder/(Back to the) Future Blues/The December 18, 1972 Showdown Between Clap and Sugar Boy

2011-08-15T04:03:00.000-07:00

A little known secret about American proto-punk is that some of the greats morphed from "blues" bands led by omnivorous rock animals who embraced (at one time) the ballroom rock led by their British brethren. Or, at the very least, they dipped in the same wellspring originating in Chicago in the 1950's . An entirely different strain of British fiddle proto-punk (Cockney Rebel, Doctors of Madness etc) will be the subject of a future post and seemingly come from a mutant strain altogether. It was a given that these American folks loved the VU, Stooges, Doors, Nuggets-era garage bands (and actually played in them in real time), early rock n' roll/r'n'b and rockabilly etc, and of course the string of Stones 45s from 1964 onward. Cleveland had Laughner's Mr. Charlie (c.f. Laughner's lyrics to "Cinderella Backstreet" about playing them blues learned "from the Engish dudes"). In Boston, Matthew MacKenzie, Scott Baerenwald and Willie "Loco" Alexander's Bluesberry Jam mined much of the same inspiration that early Aerosmith took from (Jeff Beck Group, early Humble Pie, Yardbirds, the Who, Stones, etc). In Texas, certain of the pre-Nervebreakers had a serious "English" blues band going prior to adopting a slightly glam/Alice Cooper bent. Baltimore's great George Brigman as we know lived and breathed British blues killers and all around heavies the Groundhogs (as do we all). Add in some serious Faces worship (as acknowledged by Steve Jones and Killer Kane), and yer gettin' warmer. And now, Don Waller - god bless him and why not support the man and buy the Imperial Dog's dvd here or from Forced Exposure - has given the info we needed not only on cross town rivals, Clap, but laid out, as a public service of sorts, the covers the pre-Imperial Dogs Sugar Boy were playing. All I can say, is that I dig it. May not be everyone's cuppa, but I gotta say there are some favorites here, from Black Pearl's post-Barbarians, muscular MC5-styled, three guitar white soul to Peter Green-era Mac. As you can read on the Imperial Dogs page, the blues bent was soon ditched in favor of the darker, amphetamine-tinged, master race rock that we have come to know and love.

According to Don, the set included stuff from the Move, BOC, Black Pearl, the Climax Blues Band, Crazy Horse, the Faces and Eddie Cochran. What they had been playing prior to ditching their blues hound rhythm guitarist were covers of Z.Z. Top, Free, Fleetwood Mac, Savoy Brown, Willie Dixon, Earl King, Chuck Berry, Dylan, the Small Faces, Stones and Who. When are the tapes of that expanded Sugar Boy set(s) gonna be released?

"I Used to Sing With a Group Called the Zombies"/misty roses and wings over america/Neil McArthur Never Died

2011-08-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

Looking through the March 2, 1972 issue of Rolling Stone (Dylan cover, natch) in the barn, I came across the article below on Colin Blunstone and the upcoming release of his first solo lp "One Year." I can't remember if Tim or Rubin Fiberglass was the one to first tip me off to its sublime greatness. A premier interpreter of the likes of Tim Hardin, Zombies-mate Rod Argent, Denny Laine (!) and others, the record is over before you know it. The image shows Colin recording a track for the Old Grey Whistle Test with a string section which presumably was his version of "Say You Don't Mind." Unfortunately, while that OGWT appearance has not yet surfaced, the original of Denny Laine's has (in full "Sgt. Pepper"/"Piper At the Gates of Dawn" mode), as well as a short performance by Hardin of "Misty Roses" with a brief appearance by Twiggy on her show Twiggs. Sam Rockwell as Hardin in a biopic?

Brian Wilson Arrives at Auckland International Airport

2011-07-30T17:52:00.000-07:00

We have previously posted Roxy Music's 1975 Cleveland airport arrival here. Not sure why New Zealand didn't field a bigger fan arrival at Auckland International. Maybe "Love You" was not that big a chart hit here? Photo by Murray Cammick who founded "Rip It Up" in 1977 and still writes and shoots though is mostly concerned with soul reissues.

Some Toy Love Love (and Tall Dwarfs)/Toy Love Week in Dunedin

2011-07-24T23:07:00.000-07:00

Gotta love Chris Knox's favourite lps circa 1979: "Help," "Strictly Personal," "Wee Tam," "Plastic Ono Band" and "I'm Stranded." He adds in the single of "Heroes and Villains" and the b-side of Napoleon XIV "They're Coming to Take Me Away." Chris has been pretty consistent since day one. Alec names John Cale's "Paris 1919," the Beatles and Bowie. Both Chris and Alec are on the same artistic level as their influences no doubt about it. Toy Love was great and the Tall Dwarfs even better, and they were together even longer than the Beatles! Recently was listening to both of the Chris Knox and the Nothing cds and watched "Let it Be" on dvd and was wondering how Chris was doing. Clippings from the barn archive for the most part - most are not on the Toy Love webpage. The Toy Love clip was from Aussie show Countdown during the Sydney sojourn as seen on the "Sydney postcard." Other Toy Love clips are out there but that may have been the oddest given the lip synch. Incredible String Band for its influence.

These outfits are outstanding and they are the only guys to get away with it:

SST at the Masque aka the South Bay Hits Hollywood/Corporate Rock Still Sucks/Unpacking My Library

2011-07-17T20:04:00.000-07:00

For some reason I have always drawn dividing lines between the early Los Angeles/Hollywood punk scene at the Masque and the SST revolution that followed. History is more fluid than that and in fact, the brain trust that changed my musical landscape and that of scores of others in the 1980’s was there as well. I know from my own many, many viewings of the Decline, which has its own fair share of lane changing what with the arrival of the hardcore and all, that you can blink and miss for example Watt and Baiza enjoying the show in Hollywood just post Masque. Then of course there is Kira. Kira was totally there, and her brother Paul played in one of the greatest bands that Seattle, Oklahoma and LA has produced since the 1960’s, otherwise known to you and me as the Screamers. Kira was one of the first 100 punks right? Or is it 200? They had Masque reunions, alternate Masque’s etc, almost as soon as the original location was shut. I remember a Masque reunion in the early 80’s based on the photographic evidence in Flipside at the time. I got to go to another Masque reunion in the 1990’s for an eastside political fundraiser where I was lucky enough to actually see a Screamers reunion performance (though minus Tommy). Truly outstanding live.

All of this is an elaborate lead in to the SST/Masque connection. There was another Masque reunion back in 2008 at the Echo (there have been these reunions in each decade over the past 30 years). While I sadly missed the show itself due to a personal meltdown, what heralded the 2008 reunion was the publication of a book that I could only have fantasized about when trying to track down all the Dangerhouse 45s but which is now validated as a real-deal, historical moment. It has only taken me the space of a few years to unpack my copy here in the bush but man was it worth the wait. The late Brendan Mullen with Roger Gastman’s “Live at The Masque: Nightmare in Punk Alley” (Ginko Press and R 77, 2007) is a jaw-dropping coffee table photo book (with essays, ephemera, lists ) that is just such a visual treat if you have any interest in that particular era of Los Angeles underground culture. Beautifully done, with great photos of nearly every act of the era you can think of as well as candid scene shots taken by just about every rock chronicler of the day. Cue music: the Go-Go's "Living at the Canterbury." If you haven’t tracked down the book by this point in time, put it down on your holiday list and start saving. I haven’t had such eye popping visual enjoyment since, I dunno, the Satchmo art scrapbook that came out a couple years ago, where they captured all of his folk art and collages. Let’s just say that Kira, Keith, Greg, Chuck and Raymond are all accounted for.

Is Chuck not wearing one of the best t-shirts of the late 1970's here? Photographer unknown. Can we read into Chuck's hierarchy of the billing for his own rating of his contemporaries' worth vis a via the Flag? No Wurm? Where is that shirt today as I need to copy it. Though I have to say that many SST acts presumably in 2011 may have actually enjoyed the Nuge and Aerosmith Cal Jam II sets if given the time machine. I know I would have.

The crowd shots are among my favorite images in the book. The authors have identified Greg Ginn and Joe Nolte of the great Last checking out unidentified action either at the Masque or the Masque benefit. At first I thought it was Greg in full-on Ramones regalia with a "Sally Can't Dance" t-shirt. Fuck yes! But no. After some sober reflection, it must be Greg that is next to Joe on the right and not the guy back in the leather jacket. Readers thoughts? The other part of the same crowd spread has Rock Bottom from Rock Bottom and the Spies, Karla Maddog and Al Flipside at the lip of the stage. Checking out the Weirdos is my guess. Photo by Gabi Berlin. There is another reet photo in the book by Gabi from the same night of Al Flipside, Nickey Beat and Rock Bottom all together. This book is too great and this is only the scraps.

Thee Morrisons/Let's Hear It for the Singer/G-L-O-R-I-A!/L'America

2011-07-07T17:40:00.000-07:00

Done with comparative law study for the moment and back to more important things. In 2011, are there still any rockist types who dislike the Doors? Are the Doors (and the Velvets) not the wellspring for most of all that is good in music since their inception, i.e., erase the Doors and we have no Stooges. Plaintiff rests its case and asks for a directed verdict NOW! I still meet people who are taken aback by my avowed fandom. Do you not like the band because you think Jim was pretentious as a poet, or is it because your girlfriend thought he was a (dead) stone fox? You probably also don't like poets Dylan, Hell, Kristofferson, Buckley, Smith, Cohen, Desjardins ad infinitum. Is it an LA thing, where you are bred in your DNA to listen to the Doors loudly when you drive around? No, maybe that is just my own boorish, bogan behaviour. It can't be an LA thing anyway. The Australians are a people who deeply understood the Doors and the Stooges down to their bones - witness their torchbearing in the dark ages of rock music churning out band after band inspired by the Doors and Detroit madness when the world turned to pretty boy synths. Do yourself a favour, and track down one of my favorite rock reads of the 1980's, Danny Sugerman's "Wonderland Avenue: Tales of Glamour and Excess." Not only do you get a great LA tale but to me one of thee Bildungsroman tales of the late 60's and 1970's coupled with true tales of the Doors, Iggy and the Stooges, Rodney's English Disco and a cameo by Brian Wilson. I told Sugarman that myself in the pre-Fawn Hall era at a book signing. This is really something which is great that you need to check out pronto, especially the first two sets in the volume. A true labour of love and any fan that has not heard the 1965 World Pacific demos or 1966 Sunset Sound demos is in for a big treat and to have them rounded up like this is a tremendous public service for researchers. Is "Go Insane" a proto-Stooges track for all of Jim's Iggy/Greg Prevost-styled caterwauling at the end, the child-like piano plonking not unlike something off the first Stooges lp? Or is a sub-Pebbles track that without the pedigree we couldn't care less about? Readers? Hear below and see Sugerman on Jim twice.

The Modern Lovers Sign With Warner Brothers! David, Ernie, Jerry and Jonathan

2011-06-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

Flush from all that cash from "Billion Dollar Babies," Warner Brothers takes the plunge (sort of) . . . .

The Kings of LA circa 1981-82: Flesh Eaters, X, Gun Club, Minutemen/Non Plus Magazine

2011-06-25T16:24:00.000-07:00

If I can figure out how to post these tapes I will. State of the art technology in the early 80's = cassette magazine. Based on the $.94 tag from Rhino, I must have grabbed these at one of the old Rhino parking lot sales. Chris D without a shirt by the side of the LA River as good as Jimbo posing without his shirt in Venice a decade plus earlier? Yes, it's a poet thing. JLP looking healthy and babyfaced. Did Black Flag feature on one of these Non Plus things?

"Velvet Underground: Music and Mystique Unveiled" in June 1970/When Mel Brooks met Mel Lyman by Proxy

2011-06-21T14:37:00.000-07:00

I swear when the Velvets decided to reform and tour Europe in 1990, it was pretty tempting to sell everything I had at the time and go follow them around. Friends can attest to that aborted plan. It didn’t happen and I thus still own the June 1970 issue of Circus below. I have derided Circus in the past, but occasionally, there were some astute pieces. The cover story on the Airplane was set to go to press almost at the exact time Spencer Dryden was being ejected/retired from the group. Luckily, the editors found that photo of Joey Covington to slap on the cover as Dryden is still mentioned in the pages as drummer. That said, Covington’s contribution “Thunk” from the underrated “Bark” is one of the better Nashville Skyline/doo wop/funk hybrids out there and a reet track to boot. Unfortunately, when Dryden left so too did all of his early Zappa-inspired creations ("no man is an island!"). As I have said previously on these pages re early JA up through "Bark": file next to Royal Trux. And why the fuck is the Howling Hex not hitting these shores this year? A future post on the greatness of even the concept of a Victory Chimp audiobook when I hear it.

But I digress. When Clinton Heylin published his Velvets reader All Yesterday's Parties, he did include the great piece below on the Velvets just on the cusp of releasing “Loaded.” In the end, Chris would have been a better choice to edit the thing and methinks Heylin knows that in his bones. But as I have said before, it is far better to SEE and read the primary source. It must have been weird in that spring of 1970 to now have all these folks claiming they were always fans of the Velvets. Nothing could be further from the truth but just look at the critical consensus gaining speed when you read them all together in All Yesterday's Parties. Where were all these hacks when Cale was around? At least Gleason reprinted his SF Chronicle VU swipe in his Airplane book. And why is Richman so prissy as to not have his Velvets juvenilia reprinted in Heylin’s book – I may need to scan it myself and post. I have been listening again to the essential “Fully Loaded Edition” from a few years back and the outtakes are fantastic to hear in better fidelity than the late 1970's boots. The whole thing just warms you up like that Plastic People of the Universe live tape of all Velvets covers from 1971 (or '72 or is it as late as '73?) which reeks of broken pint bottles sloshing around the floor - the atmosphere is that good and thick as to rival the Live at Max's lp . This Circus article hit the newsstand and drugstore racks in June 1970, Brigid Polk records the band at Max’s on August 23, 1970 and Lou is out of the band within weeks. Go figure.

So the back cover of the June 1970 Circus is an ad for the soundtrack to Zabriske Point. You would get the impression after reading How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life that Fahey would at least get a mention in the ad. This is all the excuse I need to post the Mel Lyman "cult stars" of the film Mark Frechette & Daria Halprin schmoozing and doing the creepy crawl with the irrepressible Dick Cavett – and Mel Brooks and Rex Reed (most action post the 7 minute mark). Enjoy.

Someone Saved My Life Tonight/Iggy, Elton and the Gorilla Suit/"I Simply Can't Understand Why Iggy Isn't a Huge Star"

2011-05-29T17:51:00.000-07:00

Some of the more interesting rock reads are those where there is on the surface an incongruity between the writer and the subject material. Oddly enough the results are usually as fascinating if not more so than the material. Case in point is Byron Coley's Motley Crue book I recently wrote about, as well as Bangs' Rod Stewart and Blondie books (interestingly, Bangs did not rate very highly Blondie's later records in much the same manner of his dislike of most of Rod the Mod's solo career). Thankfully Seymour Stein and Sire Records in the mid-70's sponsored a slew of rock bios and today we feature Greg Shaw's "Elton John: A Biography in Words and Music" - nice cover shot, no? In the 70's, if you wanted an lp that was the antithesis of Luciano Cilio's "Dell 'Univero Assente," look no further than Elton at his most bombastic.

I remember seeing at least 10 copies of this for peanuts years back at a shop and passing on it. So, back in LA earlier this year prior to the return to the NZ bush, the time was right as I had just finished the essential "Bomp 2: Born in the Garage" - (a public service by Suzy Shaw and Mike Stax if there ever was one). So, Michael Gira, thank you and Alice Bag for the inspiration to reinvestigate the John catalog. You are dead on that there is something in the austerity of those early records and Greg Shaw perfectly articulates that "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" is "a powerful, hard-rocking single in the style of Slade." I couldn't have put it better myself. Greg even proclaims the single "the party record of the year." Strangely enough, "Daniel" had been the previous single. The schizophrenic nature of those first 6-8 records all within a relatively short time period is fascinating and the volume of output obviously fueled by some serious substances. The singer-songwriter with strings v. the glam/pop hits. Can't really make up our minds. Do we thank Elton for inspiring some of the lesser junk shop glam cash ins? Not unlike people who hate the Doors/Jim Morrison but lavish praise on those undeniably inspired by that font of greatness. For some reason when I see the Creem greatest hit below, I am now reminded of Nick Kent's great anecdote about luckily being confused with Elton's guitar player.

Elton gets a lot of slams for the "persona," but who else knew both Nick Drake (and demoed Drake's and John and Linda Martyn's great early songs with Linda Thompson) and Iggy Stooge - and championed them both - in real time while both Drake and the Stooges were recording. The only other Drake/Iggy connection I can think of and which I have been writing about to post here soon, is Francoise Hardy, whose 1971 lp, "La Question," I usually rate in my top 10 records.

Last time I was at the Hollywood Bowl, it was checking out John Fogerty perform an awesome 4th of July show a couple years back - man, is his guitar playing underrated. However, there were not five pianos on stage nor Groucho, Elvis and Beatle impersonators. It would have livened it up. And Linda Lovelace was not the emcee. As Gira asks, where is the audacity of the performer today and why are they hiding under rocks. I quote: "creatures like him are what make the rest of us retreat and slink away into the murk of daily existence, cowering and furtive, only to emerge again when the light and sound and magic of an Elton John lures us, hypnotized, out of our dismal caves." NB: I always thought that "Philadelphia Freedom" was a bicentennial ode but in fact, Greg Shaw notes that it was a simultaneous tribute to Gamble & Huff - thus the Philly connection with strings - and his favorite tennis player Billie Jean King. Poor Booby Riggs. Not even Bowie on "Young Americans," ripping off the same sound, could pen him a tribute.

Ask Henry Rollins "What's New for '82?"/Real Bands and Fake Bands/"People Are Going to Get Smarter"/"No More Robot Skaters"

2011-05-26T16:38:00.000-07:00

From "lifestyle" magazine Action Now, January 1982. Same issue which features a review of "Damaged" and calls it "Damage"(sic) three times.

Juncosa!

2011-05-22T16:24:00.000-07:00

Found this one in the barn and figured it would look pretty great on a t-shirt. Ok, I'll admit it. I saw SWA countless times during the 1980's and in particular '85-'87 or so. Also saw To Damascas and the Sylvia Juncosa Band heaps of times. SST bbqs at the Anti-Club. Yep, I was there. All the mid to late 1980's SST stuff needs a real critical reappraisal. Fer example, Always August's "Black Pyramid"? The best dollar bin buy you will make this year. As to SWA, Dukowski is a fucking master. So too is Sylvia. At the time, all those hair metal mags were covering shite and published close by in Hollywood. Right there at the Anti-Club, Raji's etc., Sylvia was ON. Sorry you missed her live, but it ranked up there for pure brain fry with the early Equidimius show I caught at some high school on the westside. I haven't seen Sylvia this century but reports are that she is back. I hope she is still surfing as well . . .

Claude Bessy Sings the Beatles

2011-05-10T21:18:00.000-07:00

As a follow-up to the recent post on Claude Bessy, some additional pieces for Bessyologists are floating around the web.

The first Bessy clip is a sort of stop gap from the time window post-Masque and prior to Jimmie "Original Tap Dancing Kid" Spheeris little sister's "Decline of Western Civilization." From a 1980 Showtime program entitled “What’s Up America,” you get Claude briefly in his sartotial splendor. Not only that, but you also get a brief soundbite from R. Meltzer. Also on board are the Angry Samoans, Phranc, the Chiefs, Suburban Lawns and the Dickies among others. More non-Decline footage from Blackies as well as the OC's "Nu-Beams" (looking like the cover of the first Tin Huey 45).

Joe Carducci, author of arguably the best post-Meltzer book on rock music in the past 25 years, the essential "Rock and the Pop Narcotic" (Redoubt, 1st ed.; 2.13.61, 2nd ed.) (also known as the Bible in this household - ed.), has pointed out on the New Vulgate site that you can see the Claude Bessy/Paul Williams Hardy Boys appearances on youtube. For your ease, watch part of it below. Worth following all the parts with Paul Williams and Claude - the first clip has Claude as part of the band "Circus" singing "White Album" Beatles acapella in the back of a VW microbus (at around 3:30 and following):

Now, while someone has uploaded portions of the lifestyle show that captured the Weirdos live at the Masque in early 1978, what they haven’t uploaded is the portion where the leisure suited host interviews Claude off camera and where Claude rightly predicts - and is resigned to the fact that - the magic of the spectacle being flimed (incl. Bobby Pyn, Carla Maddog, Terry Graham and Wiedlin acting like swooning teenagers before the Denney's), i.e., the whole Hollywood, post-glam, somewhat older Masque scene would be over in six months. It took slightly longer for the jocks to glom on to Black Flag, but Claude was a pretty fucking astute observer and it was over soon enough. We cant hold it against the entire old-Hollywood guard for the the SST-booking ban in Hollywood can we? If someone puts that up, I can get those posted here. I may also periodically start posting some of Claude’s features and reviews from Slash for scholarship purposes and to start a dialogue on his work. Does anyone have any copies of Claude's 1973 reggae zine "Angeleno Dread" so that we can read that?

Now this one is pretty unpalatable given the various music that Claude himself championed just years earlier. That said, would Claude have gone to the epic SST "The Tour" that hit UCLA in the summer of '84? I am not so sure of that either. As Spira and Long's lyrics detailed, "Reagan's In," and by that time Claude bailed LA.

"Monsters of Metal"/"Sincere Apologies to All of the Women in the World"/Black Flag and the Crüe/"Rock 'half measures'"

2011-05-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

Do Kim Salmon, Scott Miller and Ginn/Rollins/Dukowski know that they get a special dedication in one of the first tomes solely dedicated to Mötley Crüe? Straight from the barn archive, I present to you, "Monsters of Metal" from 1986 written under Byron Coley's nom de plume, Billy Dwight. Yes, the subject matter of this one is dodgy (the same year Byron published another book on Chuck Norris though under the Coley brand name - post on that one down the line).

Not quite sure how I missed it in real time, but it is one of the funnier music books of the 1980's even if it was a quick money maker. I found this one sometime in the 90's after I heard about it. Dig the ace 80's bubblepop design:

While living in Santa Cruz, Forced Exposure was really one of the main taproots into the various streams of '80s culture. Much entertainment was had by the reviews, and I believe that a letter was sent to the magazine by me asking if one Billy Dwight would be supplying more film reviews. Here is a "photo" of the Dwight family that ran in a 1987 Forced Exposure (G. Haynes cover). Did Byron swipe this photo from a copy of Ina May Gaskin's classic from the Farm? I'm too lazy to rifle through the copy of "Spiritual Midwifery" staring at me from the family bookshelf.

The influence Forced Exposure had among my peers for a few years there in the mid to late 80's - until publication ceased really - (along with Phuud/Black to Comm, Ugly Things and a couple others) was heavy. The 90's opened up the game a bit for others as I have written about previously. I guess I can say that Billy Dwight was responsible for sending me and my mates to see Derek Bailey record the live lp at LACE that came out later on Emanen based on a FE review. I think I now know the real reason for the lapse in time between issues of FE based on the extracurricular writing of books. Byron was responsible for a lot of lexicon that folks I know used (along with Thirsty a lot of funny spelling for words we knew).

Most likely the only Mötley Crüe book, or any book for that matter, with special thanks to Black Flag, the Scientists and a Game Theory record.

That this was done in 1986 no less should really lead to the re-write of that decades history. I mean, is this fact in that Azzerad book for crissakes?

Here is a single random excerpt - you need to know more about Mick Mars. Now, why did Byron not delve into the crossover back in Indiana between Mick Mars and the nascent Lazy Cowgirls?:

This is NOT Mick Mars:

To get back to chronological order, I bought Black Flag's "Damaged" the week it came out in December 1981. At the time, I was somewhat unsure of what to make of Rollins as "Jealous Again" (and the previous singles) had been my most played music that year apart from some cantorial practice tapes. While I don't play "Damaged" too often now, I still rate and respect it and am really more of a fan of their music that followed. You caught Gira's recent comment on hardcore, right? Yes, I still join the chorus of "RELEASE THE TWO-GUITAR '82 FLAG DEMOS! However, "Side 2" - as the original Pettibon "My War" t-shirt I wore much of 1984 and have now passed on to my son says - Side 2 of "My War" is still the era I where I come down push comes to shove. Sorry knuckleheads.

When I purchased "Damaged," I did not know that also in December 1981, Mötley Crüe released "Too Fast For Love" on their own Leathur Records. I finally heard the self-released version of "Too Fast For Love" in 1986 when living in Santa Cruz.

I was unwittingly forced to listen to "Too Fast" ad nauseum by collegiate pals enamoured by acts that Carducci has politely referred to as '"rock" half measures." Pop metal in other words. Mind you I diverge with Carducci in his rating of "half measures" such as Van Halen - VH's pop and DLR's tin pan alley instincts are in part of what make their first four records palatable to my ears. Eddie Van Halen is incapable of producing a statement anywhere near "The Process of Weeding Out" and why even try.

This one is in three parts from Anarchy TV! - 1985 fuckin' live. Heavy and unstoppable:

This Game Theory album from 1985 has a pretty great Big Star cover. They did not play "You Can't Have Me" when I saw them with Rubin Fiberglass in 1985. Is "Sister Lovers" from the D. Crosby lyric in "Triad"? Can someone clear that up for me.

A gratuitous Huskers drop here? You be the judge.

Shaun Cassidy, Claude Bessy and Philip K. Dick/Fly Jefferson Airplane/Easy on Paul Williams

2011-04-14T15:18:00.000-07:00

A couple of random facts about the late, great Claude Bessy. Claude Bessy's first acid trip was seeing the Jefferson Airplane in 1967 ("Cocktails With Claude," LA Weekly 1979 interview w/ R. Meltzer). Second fact: there was a late 70's meeting(s) between Claude and P.K. Dick with Germs manager Nicole Panter and artist Gary Panter at Dick's Orange County home, with photographic evidence that ranks up there with the great 70's photos including the Nixon/Elvis photograph and Iggy Stooge and Robert Plant c. 1973. Third, Claude had a recurring cameo on the Hardy Boys tv show playing bad boy rocker "Frenchie" (hey Claude - easy on Paul Williams there!)

Seeing Claude 20 feet high with fucked teeth spewing his rock philosophy (and with Catholic Discipline - get that great Artifix cd) - at the Sherman Theater (RIP) in Sherman Oaks during the spring 1981 original theatrical run of the Decline of Western Civilization was one of the more indelible memories of my pre-teen years. Claude is clearly someone who needs both a compendium of his writing and a critical biography.

I had originally thought I would do a big write up on the Jefferson Airplane given how much time I had spent listening to everything up through "Bark" and live recordings up to that time as well. Figured out what Kantner was on about with Pooneil. Duh, he likes Fred Neil and A.A. Milne. I reread the Ralph J. Gleason 1969 paperback "The Jefferson Airplane and the San Francisco Sound" (Ballantine Books, New York, (1969), which reprints excerpts of his 1966 slam of the Velvets and the Tamarkin book (even the Slick autobio - did she actually type any of it?). Watched the great "Fly Jefferson Airplane" dvd. Godard and the pre-Let It Be NYC rooftop shoot was a revelation.

But in the end, I just think I was wrong to skip the records other than "Takes Off" and "Surrealistic Pillow" until now. Make no mistake, Skippy WAS really one of the creative forces in the band - they even cut his tunes after he left the band. I think I have to thank Haggerty for forcing me to stick it out through "Bark" via the cover of "Law Man." Those first six records - including the live one - have golden moments. Maybe hearing "Miracles" in the 70's so many times forced a reaction to shun them. Thank the Coen Brothers as well for inspiring a recontextualizing/revisitation of what those records meant at the time and Coley's PSF interview last year.

I always felt that Byron Coley was kidding when he wrote of Marty Balin's "crooning hambone essence," or referred to him like an "underground" version of Bob Hope. See Spin, Jan. 1993, Blue Light Special: Jefferson Airplane. After reading Jeff Tamarkin's book, I kinda felt sorry for the guy for having his band practically taken from him by a science fiction obsessed ego-maniac and a totally soused, limo liberal. I mean, the guy could have been considered an east coast pal of Meltzer at the height of the JA's creative and commercial peak circa '67-68. See Meltzer, R. "Marty Balin: Artist as Madman" (Rock, 1970). That said, I am deep enough in to keep an eye out for "Blows Against the Empire" and "Sunfighter" in the dollar bins. Here is JA at the Filmore '66 with Signe (looks like Dryden and not Skippy on drums) doing a number from "Takes Off," an lp that Meltzer I think correctly referred to as "post" folkrock:

Marty's lyrics are not Dylan's, but hey, the guy could write a great simple love song. For some reason, I think I had always steered clear of the band owing to the stench of the forced agitprop as well. But, like I have said before, "Volunteers" sounds great today and Jorma's Fahey-esque playing on "Embryonic Journey" on the Jerry Garcia coined title "Surrealistic Pillow" is near perfect.

Is the creative peak "After Bathing at Baxters"? George D. Henderson of the great and underrated NZ band the Puddle cites "Crown of Creation" as a top 10-er. I can imagine George having his mind blown in 1970 Invercargilll in his off time from the movie theater job. My vote for best Great Society cover is the Salvation Army's cover of "Grimly Forming." Here is the Grace Q&A from Hit Parader 1967.

The Great 1973 Sonics Revival/"The Closest Thing to Heavy Metal Until the Advent of the Zep and MC5"/Morock ("Moronic Rock")

2011-04-06T16:49:00.000-07:00

Of the many places that could claim the mantle of pre-punk or proto-punk headquarters (for even a few minutes), let me introduce the San Fernando Valley circa 1972-1973, or more specifically Panorama City. That is the location of Mark Shipper’s BuckShot Records and the great compilation of the Sonics called “Explosives.” Then we have the Valley’s own Droogs practicing and releasing their first single in 1973 covering the Sonics’ “He’s Waitin'” on Plug-n-Socket, beating certain high profile “punk” folks to the pressing plant. I don't think there is any dispute these days to the Pacific Northwest's right to claim its place in the history of punk via the Sonics, Raiders, Wailers etc.

Now, do we even get into the ethics of reviewing one of your own releases in a trade publication? See RPM, June 1973, below. Naw, as RPM was itself a mouthpiece for a particular label and when the review is this over the top (and spot on 38 years later), and includes high praise from Metal Mike, we let it slide, no? Then, what do you do next? You have your friend Ken Barnes flog the thing in Fusion the next month, followed by a sweet Sculatti review of the second BOC record (along with a NICE photo of the Soft White Underbelly/Stalk-Forrest Group), wherein he talks about picking the Sonics of the 70’s. Great review, great record. This is how back in the day you created a real critical consensus! Don, the Imperial Dogs coulda been (are) the true Sonics of the 70’s! Decided not to crop Bangs’ review of Sun Ra’s “Atlantis” or Meltzer’s Spheeris reviews for your enjoyment. Oh yeah, a couple of pages of Sculatti/Saunders/Shipper’s 1974 “Brain Damage” as well. Mark Shipper phone home.

Father Yod and Cisco Pike/The Source on Film Part 1 and other stuff from Cisco Pike

2011-04-05T03:46:00.000-07:00

If you blink you may miss the sign, but as Kristofferson (Cisco) and Viva (Merna) drive down Sunset they pick up Merna's friend Lynn played by Joy Bang at the corner of Sunset and Sweetzer, i.e., Father Yod’s vegetarian restaurant, The Source.

Here is Kris performing one of his many standards written at the time of Cisco Pike and included in the film - this over the opening credits and here on the Johnny Cash Show:

Another detail from Cisco Pike that needed a still was Waylon's 1971 engagement at the Troubadour.

After seeing Kris' Cash show clip, I had to see this one. Which of course had me thinking that this era of Waylon may be another influence on King Loser (other than the obvious Lee and Nancy), based on Waylon's Heazlewood to the organist's Celia with O'Reilly on the double-necked 6/12 string guitar in this '70 Johnny Cash show clip. Did Waylon put out a single bad record from this era - I sure as hell haven't heard it.

Some other worthwhile images to share from Cisco Pike including one with foil HDS:

The scene with Doug Sahm in the studio is pretty over the top - that is Doug is over the top in all his "Dougness" - though it did remind me and Damon of certain musician friends years ago.

Yes, the business conducted in automats and Alan Arbus' office!

Blondie & Pleasant/A Small Circle of Friends/The Non-Beatles Paul and George/Spider - "America's REAL Rock n' Roll Magazine"

2011-03-28T16:00:00.000-07:00

Pleasant Gehman always loomed large as I was getting into music as a teenager, firstly from her association with the Germs and Go-Go's, then from her LA Weekly by-lines and performances with the Screamin' Sirens. By the time I became aware of who she was, Lobotomy magazine was long gone. She features in so many iconic images of the era, mostly shot by Jenny Lens but I am sure Donna Santisi has quite a few we haven't seen yet. She was as much the "it" girl of the early LA punk scene as Trudie Plunger or Alice Bag. Pleasant was a great link between the NYC bands of the era and LA, whether it be visits by the Ramones, the underrated Mumps (who need their own post), or case in point here, Blondie. Was Jeffrey Lee Pierce still the president of the Blondie Fan Club as late as July/August 1979? Man, those early shows in LA by the NYC bands would have been amazing. The handful of folks at that first LA Ramones show included people like John and Dix Denney of the Weirdos, Brian Tristan (aka "Kid Congo Powers"), Phast Phreddie, Plez and who else? Did Iggy show up with an "appearance" like on Patti Smith's "Teenage Perversity" bootleg at the Roxy in early 1976. Blondie and Tom Petty would have been quite a show as Pleasant recounts. Did Dwight Twilley attend that show? Sometime in late 1978, Pleasant and Kid Congo moved to NYC for six months and lived with Teenage Jesus drummer Bradly Field and Kristian Hoffman of the Mumps.

Pleasant came to LA in 1975 from New York and landed at Uni High where she fell right in with Paul and George before they became Bobby and Pat. Plez's dad was a "new journalism" guy as well as penning liners for jazz records. Hep, no? Ditching school to attend Runaways rehearsals always seemed like a good idea. Hanging out with Belinda after she drove into Hollywood from the DEEP valley (Newbury Park) unlike the Denney Bros. original sojourn from North Hollywood over the hill. Maybe the genesis for the Blondie profile kicked in while Plez was living in NYC and seeing how big Blondie had by then gotten? In any event, no last name is given for the article but it only makes sense that it is Ms. Gehman. Bangs' quickie book was from around this same time. We wait for Pleasant's memoir if she takes enough time off from belly dancing. We offer our services to edit.

As to Spider, it came from of all places Ventura. Not exactly an epicenter for high energy rock and roll until Grady's Record Refuge opened - unless board sports is your thing. Mea culpa, I saw the Dead a number of times in Ventura and I swear I saw Ginn at a show but I may be wrong! I love the fact that it bills itself as "America's REAL Rock 'n' Roll Magazine." The coverage is a-ok for the time though Slash it ain't. Spider was really a photo magazine, given that Spider took photos and published others by Donna Santisi and David Arnoff. Anyone know how long Spider ran for and if they can locate the other issues for me. The editing could have been tighter (spell check, etc), but hey, it's mostly about the photos.

Are Those Iggy Stooge - Judee Sill Rumors True?/"Kinda Chipmunky"/"Where I Came From I Was a Legend"

2011-03-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

I had never really given it much thought, but I guess we can thank the alignment of Judee Sill and Iggy Stooge with providing the title of the Dead Boys' debut "Young, Loud & Snotty." Is it some mere coincidence that Iggy provided the phrase in early 1973 and one of his biggest disciples - he of the apocryphal peanut butter handling and rated second only to Jim Morrison as rock vocal stylist by Mr. Pop - usurps the term for the lp. Maybe Cheetah Chrome can confirm that the phrase was from Iggy - I'm guessing in a contemporaneous interview it may say so. Judee Sill triggered it in a contemptuous way possibly by the very OGWT performance posted here a few months back.

"I've Always Thought the Stooges Were ok"/"Elitish Crapola"/Peter Crowley v. "The Dean"/Self-Designated Avant Garde Savior of Mankind

2011-03-21T01:45:00.000-07:00

You all have read Meltzer's account of the trials of publishing "Dolphy Was Some 'Weird' Cat." Meltzer, Richard. A Whore Just Like the Rest. Cambridge: Da Capo 2000. How was Bob the editor of the Voice with opinions such as this from August 1973: "but like all theoretical hard rock, [The Stooges] music was accessible only in theory." Read on as it only gets worse or more cringe inducing. Wrong in oh so many ways on the Stooges that this one is more for the 2011 peanut gallery to laugh at. Great quotes though. Oh yeah Bob, I guess you didn't really grok Peter's other fave Von Lmo either. Time has shown that Crowley's taste was pretty classy and timeless. I guess you didn't ask him to contribute to Stranded. Roll on!

“This Song Isn’t a Goddamn Square-Dance – It’s a Tragedy”/The “Blank Generation” Recording Sessions March-April 1977

2011-03-15T21:25:00.000-07:00

“It sounds like one of those records that should’ve been made years before, and will undoubtedly be admired for years to come.”

"Eddie Cochran meets Freddy Cannon meets the Shadows of Knight meets the Strangeloves meets Richard Hell . . . a composer, lyricist and vocal eccentric of tremendous verve and capability”

Alan Betrock on witnessing the recording of Richard Hell and the Voidoids “Blank Generation” at Electric Ladyland’s Studio A, March 1977.

“It’s like fuckin’ Little Richard” - Quine

Certain recording sessions are of such historical import that they need to be released in their entirety for research purposes. Scholars and independent historians demanded for over 25 years that the Stooges “Funhouse” sessions be released in their entirety. Market pressures be damned and Rhino Handmade stepped forward to fill the void. Now generations will be able to debate and parse the merits of the various takes of “L.A. Blues” for all time. I have been listening to the “Funhouse” box set for over ten years now and it rewards the listener with a richer experience as one gets deeper into the various takes, certain details unfurling at most unexpected places. Are these the equivalent to another generation’s big band airchecks directed straight to shellac and then traded reel to reel?

We have written before of both Richard Hell and Alan Betrock on these pages. That the late Betrock chose to briefly document the behind the scenes of the makings of one of the best lps of the 1970’s, nay, the last three plus decades, “Blank Generation,” well, we can only thank him. Robert Quine, as time has shown, is and was the equal of any of the various guitar greats he emulated from Ohio to St. Louis to San Francisco and back to New York again. What we need are the entire “Blank Generation” sessions released. Read on . . .

If Not Exactly a "Trips" Festival/Now Go Listen to Charlie Patton/"When Rock Implied Danger"

2011-03-02T16:34:00.000-08:00

Richard Meltzer is going to be 65 this year. When the oracle chooses to write about music, one needs to pay close attention. Even his toss offs are great. Case in point is this column for the San Diego Reader from June 1999. Too late for inclusion in "A Whore Just Like the Rest," Richard still riffs on his favorite Doors, Monterey Pop versus Woodstock, the Byrds and the Association. He is a bit too harsh on the Monkees for my liking - their records have aged nicely. As Eddie Flowers has said (or a paraphrase as such): "Headquarters"= summer! Growing up those lps were some of the only "rock" lps in the house. But what the fuck do I know - I wasn't at Monterey. I came across this barn archival piece in connection with research on Meltzer's take on the Jefferson Airplane. According to Tamarkin's book, the Monkees' "Headquarters" was firmly lodged at Number 2 on the charts after the Beatles "Sgt. Pepper" in '67, thus keeping "Surrealistic Pillow" blocked permanently from the top spot. Though a no show at Monterey, Macca did head to SF in '67 and spent a day being shown around SF by Marty, Jack and Jorma, and also did acknowledge the incredible playing of Jack - did Jaco Pastorius copy prime Casady or what. Apparently, Jack jammed with Hendrix till dawn the night of Monterey whilst both were tripping. Meltzer where were you and Pearlman hanging out? Anyone sat through the entire Moneterey Pop Pennebaker dvd box set to report whether it is worth seeking out?

Psyche Pscene News/The Kaliedescopic Eyes of Alice Cooper/FM Classic Rock

2011-02-23T00:13:00.000-08:00

Last month in LA I found Psyche Pscene News out of Chicago which billed itself as "Chicago's First 'Rock' Newspaper." Says so right on the masthead so it must be true. None other than 1971 "Love It To Death"-era Alice stares at you on the cover.

Psyche Pscene News grew out of Psyche Pscene which started at least as early as 1968. Psyche Pscene claimed that it was "for and about Young Chicago" and covered your usual head bands of the day. Apparently editor Joe Gino (also one of Tiny Tim's favorite photographers), either founded or owned the Chicago area rock club Elysian Fields.

Looking at the listings for Chicago in January of 1972, did I know that Judee Sill opened for Bread? Was Sonny Sharrock still playing with Herbie Mann into 1972? The Allmans are a no brainer as are "Fireball/Machine Head" era Deep Purple and the Hag.

Does Ian really claim that "Highway Star"is going to be our opening number for the next year or two? Deep Purple toured the US four times in 1972!

Nothing really out of the ordinary with Psyche Pscene News. The Faces review is dead on if you like the Faces. Recently finished Arthur Kane's GREAT autobiography "I, Doll" on the founding and first few years of the Dolls and he gives his unqualified Dolls approval to the Faces. Steve Jones played many tracks off this album on his radio show with some great teenage anectdotes. Bangs' Stewart book made me buy all the Faces lps when I was a teenager and I still like to think that he wouldn't have disowned his opinions on those lps in the end even with the horrid background to the writing of that book.

Though it ain't Rock Marketplace or Who Put the Bomp, Psyche Pscene News did try to have a historical column like the one here on Fairport Convention. Man, did Fairport have great taste in covers early on! Richard and Mimi, Tim Buckley, the Merry-Go-Round etc etc. Iain Matthews is the one who really kept up that kinda taste in Southern Comfort and his early solo lps. Digging that first Fairport lp without Sandy and seeing Thompson doing his best Avalon Ballroom/Filmore/JA styled modal soloing. Yes, Lydia, Television were kinda like the Dead or JA with haircuts but whoever said that was a bad thing. Enjoy, Sandy performing solo from the timeless The North Star Grassman and the Ravens which is from around the same time. There is a longer clip from the same session well worth tracking down. Following on the Fairport Merry Go Round cover, some solo Emitt as well.

Link 'n Jerry/Be What You Want To/Black Peter/Those Who Know History Are Doomed to Repeat It

2011-01-28T20:37:00.000-08:00

Lenny Kaye on reviewing the Dead's "Live/Dead" in the February 7, 1970 issue of Rolling Stone: "if you'd like to visit a place where rock is likely to be in about five years, you might think of giving Live Dead a listen or two." He also stated that "[the Grateful Dead's] music touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists."

Skeptical? PSG opened some shows for the Dead in 1979. And I can tell you, anytime I have have seen Patti in the past 15 years, she has included her and Lenny dishing up a reet Garcia cover or two (much to the howling derision on some folks in the audience). Lenny worked on the great autobiography of Waylon Jennings with Waylon. The guy knows a thing or two about American music. No doubt Link Wray rates pretty highly in his book. Now, I understand that Miriam and Billy may not be great fans of this era of Link's music, i.e., 1970-1973, but to those of us - such as Henry Kaiser - who like the Dead as much as Les Railles Denudes, this photo is a keeper. From the sessions for 1973's "Be What You Want To." The Dead subject matter inspired in part by Kaiser's SST years including "Those Who Know History Are Doomed to Repeat It," both the lp and tour we saw supporting the lp at McCabes.

Reading Rainbow/New Jerusalem/Spark to a Waiting Fuse/Never Learn Not to Love

2011-01-26T22:19:00.001-08:00

Waitakere Walks is currently back in the City of the Angels near the mothership soaking up the ambiance. A heavy read from 2009 which may or may not have registered in the Northern Hemisphere. I read it around the same time as the Source Family book. Two totally different trips mind you. As for the Source Family, I guess I will stick to the grooming styles and music for now. As David K. would say: highest possible recommendation. Has Bill Maher read the Father Yod book? Possibly. The James K. book, not a snowball's chance.

Interphase 1/100% Impure Punk/A Warholian Freak Show/A Mutant's Eye View of Black Oak Arkansas

2011-01-06T01:05:00.000-08:00

I must have tracked this one down in the late 1980’s based on the $2.99 price. From Wilmette and Chicago/DeKalb Illinois comes Interphase 1, edited by Cary S. Baker, Jeff Silberman and Harlan Hollander. What interests us most about this 'zine is the unbelievable who’s who slice of pre-punk Americana straight out of 1975. This includes the writing crew that would coalesce into Gulcher the magazine, and the brilliant uber-teenage Gizmos, prior to their March 1976 recording debut. During the 1990’s, when there were a slew of must read magazines and zines, including Forced Exposure, Jewish Beatle, Black to Comm, Modern Rock Mag (later Rock Mag), Superdope, 200lb Underground, Wipeout, Feminist Baseball, Popwatch, Bob Bert’s BB Gun, Opprobrium and others, one of the best and hardest to obtain, i.e., least distributed, was Eddie Flowers’ digest size Slippy Town Times. Slippy Town Times was really the only one that could link you directly to the primordial days of original, early 70's high energy rock criticism which still included righteous coverage of current stuff such as the latest avalanche of Sun City Girls releases. You may know Eddie from his time fronting one of the best and unheralded free form rock bands of the past (what is it 25 years now and running?), Crawlspace. But Ed had a previous incarnation as one of the more astute music writers among the generation after Bangs, Meltzer and Tosches et al. Slippytown went online with a mailorder side as well sometime in the 2000's I think.

Included in Interphase is a great tag team interview of Black Oak Arkansas’ Jim Dandy by Ken Highland, Bob Richert and Eddie entitled “Jim Dandy to the Recluse” aka “Talking With Jim Dandy: A Mutant’s Eye View of Black Oak Arkansas in Middle America.” Sounds like a title to swipe for my cultural studies dissertation, no? Richert’s “Beyond Our Control” gets some repeated mention so it does pre-date Gulcher.

Also of note are write-ups on both the Dictators and Crème Soda PRE “Go Girl Crazy” and “Tricky Zingers.” Eddie wrote the piece reproduced here with the only available release at the time being “I’m Chewin’ Gum.” Eddie has put this on the Slippytown site though not in its original incarnation.

The “Innerfazing” list is a hoot. Claire Panke of “Prehensile Tongue” fame is described as “Chicago’s most curvaceous Anglophile, and believes that Alex Harvey is God,” David Newberger who gives the you are there account of the Dictators is described as “a rock enthusiast, a friend of Blue Oyster Cult’s and quite a nice dude.” Of course, “Eddie Flowers is to Southern rock what Ken Kesey is to acid” and Ken Highland is “a very enterprising rock and roll punk.” Amen. While special thanks go out to Lester Bangs, Adny Shernoff and Murray Krugman, who is Tim Love, described as “DeKalb’s top roadie, a Jim Dandy/Iggy nut and an expert on Mississippi River Rat Rock.”

Art Schaak of “Roller Reader” is the zines LA correspondent, but I have to say provides some very low energy rock and roll wattage given the total lack of Zolar X coverage and inclusion of Tull’s “War Child.” I will give a thumbs-up breakdown on the first JT lp at some point in 2011. Probably more I could scan but this should do. There are some sweet live shots of Steven Tyler by Claire Panke and a short MC5 write-up which I think I will post at some point: “the MC5 are deified Motor City rockers. Their three out-of-print albums go for anywhere from $1.99 in the bargain bins or $10 on the black market.”

Love Over Gold/To the Hawk Who Prays in His Sleep/The Spotlight Kid

2011-01-03T13:48:00.000-08:00

A poster from the barn to air out on a warm summer day and a nice day to think about the Captain - what with all the birds out and about doing their thing (tuis, mynahs, kererus, tomtits etc). Did Peter Max design the poster and if so, why not use Don's own artwork? How did Don feel about it? Any readers know the designer? The "Clear Spot"/"Spotlight Kid" 3 cd outtake set is the holy grail up there with the "Funhouse" boxset. I first heard them on the great "Another Chapter From the Lives and Times of Captain Beefheart" 2 lp set (the first lp BBC sessions, the second outtakes). A whole book could be written on those sessions and if you search the web, it kinda has.

Here is the cover of the "Life and Times" lp. Well worth tracking down.

Michael Gira on Elton John etc/The Murk of Daily Existence/Give Me the Cramps Any Day/Take Me to the Pilot of Your Soul

2010-12-26T14:42:00.000-08:00

When did Patti Smith stop wearing B.O.C. t-shirts? After she and Lanier broke up? Anyway, one before the fall. A barn archive photo from left: Clive Davis, Elton, Patti, Peter Frampton and John Reid. Elton holds a ribbon present from Patti prior to performing before 20,000 fans at Madison Square Garden. John-ologists will know John Reid as none other than president of Elton's Rocket Records, his personal manager for Dick James Music and a member of the Rocket Board of Directors along with Bernie Taupin and Gus Dudgeon. I plan a Frampton Humble Pie era write-up in 2011.

I recently read a great and intriguing interview with Michael Gira in Self-Titled that made me laugh out loud. Who knew that Gira and Alice Bag bonded over Elton John while Gira was in LA? Here is Alice, Michael and Rick Jaffe in late '78 or early '79 at Alice's parents' house from Alice's excellent webpage.

This of course being prior to Gira's leaving for New York to found the Swans and world-wide fame. Did I mention that he is coming to Auckland early next year and has asked Pumice personally to open the show. In the interview, Gira waxes upon his love of the Mothers, early Yes, "No New York," Dylan, Willie Nelson and Elton - in short, a sweet read:

Elton John. I listened to Elton John, David Bowie and Roxy Music obsessively when they came out. I haven't heard it in years, but the austerity of that second Elton John album stands out. In the early days he was more earnest and low-key, but I like the way he turned into Liberace. . . [a]nyway, I saw a special on Elton John on TV maybe a decade ago, and I was in awe. Creatures like him are what make the rest of us retreat and slink away into the murk of daily existence, cowering and furtive, only to emerge again when the light and sound and magic of an Elton John lures us, hypnotized, out of our dismal caves.

There are a lot of great quotes to break down, but for my pals Damon and Darren, here is Gira on "punk" - not revisionist, but let's say, honest:

Any straight-down-the-line punk rock. Anything by the Clash. Ha ha! I hate the fucking Clash! I'm sure they are (or were) nice fellows, but they always seemed like temporary rebellion music for college students. And Gang of Four--don't get me started on them. Blaaarrrgggghhhhh! Give me the Cramps any day. "Anyway, I think, ultimately, though it erupted at the right time and was an assault on complacency initially, and at least nominally aggressive and virulent--all qualities I applaud-- punk rock was music for joiners, for people who needed to be a part of something, and inevitably it became very claustrophobic and stylized. True punk rock would be Throbbing Gristle or SPK. "Then again, to contradict myself, I liked-- though I couldn't listen to them now--Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys, the Germs, and later even the Buzzcocks, Magazine, Wire, the Fall, etc. Hardcore??? [It's] veiled homo music for jocks.

Philosophical Conversations/Hide with Mirrors/CLE #3/Fauvist Music 1975/See Me on the Bigbeat show

2010-12-23T13:36:00.000-08:00

Nothing like seeing John Morton and Dave. E's lyrics Hit Parader style. Just the words you know as well as any school poem you memorized. From CLE Magazine #3 found in the barn. How could I have missed the Elton John reference in "Cyclotron" until now though I did know about Mirrors?

Oh, I forgot the important thing, the group's record is excellent/Big Star "When My Baby's Beside Me" 45/UA Records "House Freak" Marty Cerf

2010-12-18T01:33:00.001-08:00

Name checked in Marty Cerf's February 1973 Big Star 45 review: Paul McCartney, Emmit Rhodes, the Count Five, the Yardbirds, the Guess Who, Alice Cooper, Albert Hammond (Snr.), the Troggs, Roy Head and the Traits, Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, Vince Taylor, Elvin Jones, Sonny & Cher, the Hollies, the Beatles, the Honeycombs, the Doobie Brothers and the Byrds. For some reason, Marty never really gets his due as a writer. He and Greg Shaw were responsible for making Phonograph Record Magazine so great during its brief and golden run. Meltzer even said that Marty was one of the few editors who let the writers write. Always nice for an excuse to look into some of the referenced artists - maybe some records you need to dig out yourself. From the barn archive and the PRM stash purchased from the Shaws.

PRM Magazine, February 1973

And a little gratuitous Guess Who - first a Neil cover and then a ripping "Shakin' All Over":

Rockcritocracy 1970-1971/Jonathan Richman on Schmucky Stage Performers/The Great 1970 Fusion Funhouse Debate/Ben Edmond's Perfect Hair

2010-12-14T01:15:00.001-08:00

The socratic method of teaching was in full force when I was in law school last century. In rock criticism, not so much, eh? However, we do have an example of some serious Paper Chase styled socratic battling - by honest to goodness Bostonians no less - slugging it out over perhaps the greatest lp of 1970. At some later date, I will argue with one and all that pre-mustachio Gordon Lightfoot's "Sit Down Young Stranger" captures the ennui of 1970 on personal terms just as valid as Iggy's or Altman's Brewster McCloud. Some forty years on, I equate 1970 with Johnny Bench, "L.A. Blues," "If You Could Read My Mind" and the Astrodome.

Who are these Bostonians tackling the Stooges in real time? Well none other than Jonathan Richman and Ben Edmonds. For historians, these are primary source documents. I have included them many times in bound readers for my pre-punk history of American music course. I haven't seen the Robert Matheu Stooges book and unless a copy is going to be air dropped into the bush and/or money lent, I won't see one soon. This "debate" may in fact be reprinted therein so do let me know. From the barn archive, Fusion Magazine 1970, courtesy of Chris over twenty years ago, and boat freighted to the other side of the planet for your enjoyment NOW. Chris always seemed to take Richman's review as a total pan. I guess it turns into a mild ad hominem attack on Iggy at the end but even that is tempered somewhat. American icon Ron is given much praise. WHOA Jonathan, not many people can say that they got off the Stooges bandwagon by 1970 because they didn't like "Funhouse" as much as the first lp and because Iggy's "schtick" got old. Jonathan is one smart cookie as he reads the tea leaves and sees the the blowback excitement of "Metallic K.O." three years early. As to the Christopher Milk ad, yeah Mendelssohn is pictured in the great rock crit shot from an early 1971 Phonograph magazine and I dug the first half of the "I, Caramba" book. A Davies fan for all time.

"The Psychic Starship that is Called Can"/O.D.'d On Life Itself 1977/Psychic Guerillas/Teenage Depression/Michael Karoli’s Cheekbones

2010-12-01T20:40:00.000-08:00

There were a couple of ways to go with your Can fandom in 1970’s Britain. You could be like the Godfrey brothers, spectacularly harnessing the Can canon into something completely new. They fully assimilated and mutated “Full Moon on the Highway” off the underrated and essential avant-garage classic that is “Landed” like none of their contemporaries. That Epic Soundtracks could later record such heartbreaking solo tracks that wouldn't have sounded out of place on "Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren" or a Brill Building compilation is just proof of how far reaching and omnivorous their musical consumption.

There was another path to follow if you liked Can. As a time capsule of the sensibility of a particular group of young persons circa 1977 (Oxford), you could do a lot worse than to examine the particulars of “OD” magazine. OD adheres to the three "H's": Hammill, Hillage and Harper (also known as "psychic guerillas" to the OD crew).

Remnants of a post-hippie but staunchly "progressive" mentality coming to grips with punk and dedicated to underground comics, krautrock and “freek festivals,” there is no real counterpart in the states. Here is what Steve Lake said in 1977: “The way I see it there are two versions of Anarchy in the UK 1977. There’s the Mark P. blueprint which consists of everybody producing magazines and posing in fashionable clubs while sipping expensive government drinks. And there’s the alternative view which says you go out and take your freedom . . . if a few weeks of alternative living in rural Britain’s cosmic countryside, dropping loads of acid and warming up around firey chillums, appeals to you – then any one, or several, of the following events could well be your ‘cup of tea.’” Uh, thanks Steve, but I think I would rather hang around and see the Heartbreakers with drinks than sit around "fiery chillums" with the great unwashed.

Stonehenge is listed as the June 18th-26th site and even better, at 1976's Meigan Fair in South Wales, Steve Hillage AND Nik Turner turned up to jam! Did I mention that this was written by a the same guy who helped found Crass-anarcho styled rockers Zounds! Who knew?

OD magazine decided in a stroke of Solomonic genius to print two covers to the same issue. On one side you get a “reet” cover of Irmin Schmidt. Flip the magazine over and you get the Eddie and Hot Rods cover. What is of interest here at Waitakere Walks, and the source of much amusement, is the shaggy dog story of the two Oxford free-festival minded heads trying to interview the uber-classy Irmin Schmidt of Can. The setting is the “Saw Delight” tour in 1977 after travelling to London from Oxford with some elaborate theory of the I-Ching to drop on the “psychic starship that is called Can.” The sophisticated continental style which cares more for the adoring blonde fans and "scoring" chocolate bars than the two loon pant clad interviewers is in such contrast to the “freedom” ethos of the zine that these two guys don’t gather that they don’t breathe the same air as the rock elite whose music they adore and take copious drugs to.

Here is "Saw Delight" era Can live:

We had to keep the gratuitous shot of Roy Harper who really deserves a future write-up.

Even though it is two years earlier, a track from what to me was the best avant-garage lp of 1975 - at least until I heard the Rob Jo Star Band lp recently. My guess is that OD rated "Landed" as too mersh and/or simple - their term is the backhanded "patent ordinariness." Fucking hippies:

I have no idea who these guys are but they may be on to something – dig the vocalists slippers. This will do until I can post Crawlspace with Ed Flowers and now joined by guitarist Grady Runyan tackling this classic in the way that only the 'space can do. Joe can tackle Rosko any day and Bobzilla is a modern day Jaki if there ever was one.

More antics from O.D. - almost Savage Pencil-esque in the photo booth hi-jinks.

What is a bit of a wake-up to the OD folks is that their other cover stars, Eddie and the Hot Rods, give them much the same treatment via the press office of Island Records: “5,000 people are phoning me up every day asking if they can speak to the Rods.” We do like "the Rods" in 2010 and find the lyrics to "Teenage Depression" a-ok despite the TV "clean" version and "Do Anything You Wanna Do" a great pop number as well. The Seger cover rocks as much as a Seger track can (and some clearly rock).

Here is Eddie and the Hot Rods. Come on guys – one of my favorite 70’s pop lyrics CHANGED: well im spending all my money and its going up my Nose!!!!

This front man ain't no Ricky Williams:

When Alice Met Stevie and Lemmy/Hawkwind at the New York Academy of Music 1974/Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together!/"Local Talent"/Planetarium Rock

2010-11-22T17:02:00.000-08:00

Folks said they wanted more Hawkwind so back into the barn archive for a look around. Let's see. Warhol superstars. Check. Alice Cooper. Check. Danny Fields AND Lee Black Childers. Double check. Stacia. Yep. Stevie Wonder, Cherry Vanilla and Spencer Davis. The collaboration between '74 era Wonder and Hawkwind makes the mind boggle. The competition was always interesting and the Coop was there as usual to check them out (or poach Stacia for his own stage show). Most impressed by the "local talent," uptown from checking out the Stilletos, Harlots of 42nd Street or Magic Tramps and hoping to get close to Dave Brock, Nik Turner or Lemmy. Dig Nik in full Arkestra mode! Rock Scene's bold assertion that it featured the "the stars backstage" was never truer.

Rock Scene (June '74).

UA's Attempt to Sell Hawkwind to US Teens Circa 1972-73: Space Poet and Intergalactic Chanter/A Mindblower in the 1967 Tradition

2010-11-11T14:21:00.000-08:00

“Like the early San Francisco bands, Hawkwind are vitally linked to the community that spawned them, the hip subculture of London’s Notting Hill district. Also in the tradition of their mid-60’s San Francisco progenitors, they’re as eager to play for love as for money, having performed free more than any other group in Britain . . ." (emphasis added). Whoever came up with this ad copy at least got it right that SF possibly peaked in '65-66. Been working on an upcoming short post on the much maligned Jefferson Airplane - just finished Gleason's 1969 trade paperback on JA in which he repeats his insipid VU trashing (why out yourself AGAIN as a MORON on the subject of the VU for a NATIONAL book as late as 1969 when nobody outside of the Bay Area read your 1966 bash in the first place and could have left it at that - was that one syndicated like his other columns?). Not a horrible book all in all but a bit fawning and self-congratulatory (surprise surprise when the subject is the JA). And yeah, please don't lump in Hawkwind with the self-important crew that RUINED the reputation of the JA try as I might to disassociate the music makers from the music (Volunteers even sounds as good to my ears as Briggs-era Royal Trux at the moment.) Anyway, as to the barn scans, I remember buying a box of various issues of Phonograph Record Magazine from 1972-1974 from Greg and Suzy Shaw about 20 years ago. Before they all fall apart, I copied some and hope to post more of my favorite reviews and ads here soon.

File Next to Rock and the Pop Narcotic, Get In the Van and Enter Naomi/Rock My Religion

2010-11-03T16:06:00.000-07:00

Stop the presses as it has been pointed out to me that Byron and Thurston have published Dave Markey and Jordan Schwartz’s collected We Got Power run in far better quality than my scans can do justice to. We can’t wait to see the finished result entitled Party With Me Punker: The Early 80s Southern California Hardcore Scene. Not only that, there are apparently heaps of previously unpublished photos including the one below of the Flag and Carducci giving back to the scene with some attentive spectator participation. Let’s hope there are more candid shots of gig parking lot haircuts, Godzillas and RF7. We will see if a copy of this book makes it to the bottom of the world for a review prior to your Christmastime coffee table book purchases. You can order it here. Tip courtesy of the always interesting New Vulgate.

One of my all time favourite Thurston/Black Flag connections is of course Dan Graham's "Rock My Religion" and is excerpted below. I did not see it until the 1990's in its entirety but it would have connected a lot of dots vis a vis the SST/SY axis had I seen it around the time of "Evol."

Carducci - The Man, the Shirt/Try to Lower Yourself to Our Level/We Got Power 1981-1982

2010-11-02T03:04:00.001-07:00

I remember as a teenager buying all the issues of We Got Power in real time as they came out from the very first issue. I found the issues again recently in the barn archive and I have to think they may be some of the only copies of We Got Power in the southern hemisphere. It has been at least 25 years since I have looked at some of the issues. It was a little like looking at a yearbook (that is if you went to school with Watt, Rollins, Schwartz, Markey, the McDonald Bros. and Julie from Sin 34). Countless hours were spent looking at them in the early 1980’s, often accompanied by the music covered in the magazine itself. I remembered all the “scene" photos/collages that were featured in early issues, that guy’s hand-stencilled Husker Du symbol on his army jacket (when all we all could find in the Valley was “Land Speed Record” w/insert for the upcoming tour dates), a youthful, pre-shaman Merrill Ward wearing a striped shirt, Danny Spira as a “prep,” full page photo of John Macias in tartan pants, Pettibon artwork, early Ed Colver photos including a memorable one of the Meat Puppets where they all looked a little like Bill Gates but more handsome and poorer.

At the time, I noted that the first issue or two originated from Isla Vista, even though the coverage was mostly, or so it seemed, West LA. One image that really stood out was an SST ad for “The Punch Line” (SST 004) and “Pagan Icons” (SST 006) both of which were bought in real time prior to seeing the ad and to this day evoke many memories of being 13-14 and discovering the pure joy/intensity and intricacies of the music which opened wide other musics like free jazz and Beefheart in the near future. Air guitar to Ginn w/walkman was easy enough – Baiza was now another matter. That ad featuring the Carducci shirt was an inside joke that I didn’t get until Rock and the Pop Narcotic (the first edition) fell on me like a ton of bricks. It was an articulation of an SST-centric worldview that I held privately and shared with all but had not yet seen in print and to which I could now point others to. In retrospect, I have to acknowledge that We Got Power played a role in shaping my SSTphilia now in its third decade. When people talked about “the year punk broke,” I directed them to Rock and the Pop Narcotic, the We Got Power film empire and the review of the first Meat Puppets lp in We Got Power. It only confirmed what we already knew to be the case of the historical import of what Ginn had started in the 70’s. Enjoy Overkill live in Goleta, a collage with Watt and the always entertaining Misfits in great form from Issue No. 2 in 1982.

Iggy Stooge Came as Himself (1974)/The Great Kiss Party/Lisa Robinson's "My Latest Fling"/Richard Creamer’s Negatives

2010-10-26T15:29:00.000-07:00

Ah, the 70's. Neil Bogart threw quite a party that launched his Kiss goldmine. I don't think such a party would/could exist in the shambles that is today's "record" industry. From his stint at the delisted Cameo-Parkway, somehow Bogart just knew that there was gold in them hills. The movie "Casablanca" was the theme. Hugh Masekela came dressed as a Nazi, Iggy Stooge as himself! Now we normally don't associate Iggy Stooge in any way with Casablanca records. Yet his band did share the stage with Kiss (and BOC) just months earlier on New Years Eve 1973 at NYC's Academy of Music. Thanks to Lisa Robinson we have evidence of both Alice Cooper and Iggy checking out the scene/Kiss at the launch party of the weird label that was Casablanca. Again, we ponder who has Richard Creamer's negatives. I volunteer to edit the coffee table photo book for free. Even stranger for any Los Angelenos out there was the locale - the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City. At the Century Plaza hotel!! That hotel is the basecamp for political campaigns on election night and not for dressing in Nazi finery (even if was for Casablanca the movie). Now all we get at the Century Plaza is the stage where the likes of the Reagans, Andy Williams and foreign fundraisers are held. Wow, the 70's were weird and the money was crazy in the music biz and only about to get bigger for Casablanca. Beyond the weirdness of the photos, the hypocrisy of the costumes should not be lost on any Stooges historians out there. So, let me get this straight, Ron gets heat for wearing his, um WWII "collectibles," but Hugh gets a pass. Ron was ahead of his time on all fronts and fashion forward. I still try to emulate the guys style in 2010 to no avail.

At least the Coop came in a newsboy cap with beer in hand to see who would soon dethrone him in the teenage camp. Come on Alice "Muscle of Love" to "Welcome to My Nightmare"? Sorry dude, but I have to say the string of "Kiss," "Hotter Than Hell," Dressed to Kill," "Destroyer" "Alive" and "Rock and Roll Over" - in the span of two years - kinda trumps the dancers and cyclops. Bonus points are given for the great "Only Women Bleed." In my book the Coop's 1969-1973 run (earlier if you include the AZ singles) beats anything Batliz or the "Demon" scraped together. There was time when it was ok to like the Dictators, the Coop, early Kiss AND the Stooges. See what too much exposure to these folks courtesy of reality television can do to your place in the teen rock canon.

Pose for the camera Iggy.

Knox on Cave/Flying Nun 1982/"Do Not Buy This Product"/Who is Bobzilla?

2010-10-25T15:01:00.000-07:00

One of my all time favourite musicians is Chris Knox. Chris is also a great music/film critic and illustrator. Here is a 28 year old review of the Birthday Party's "Junkyard" from the barn archive which kinda says it all in approximately 200 words or less. Don't get Chris started on the Beatles or the Incredible String Band or we could be here all day. I know if Rollins reviewed this lp in '82, he would have had a hard time keeping it under 1,000 words. Please support Chris and purchase "Stroke" here.

From "Rip It Up" (November, 1982).

Roxymania Cleveland Airport 1975/Non-Alignment Pact

2010-10-18T15:59:00.000-07:00

Certain cities seem to embrace foreign artists and out of town acts like hometown heroes. It just seems that Cleveland had the best taste. See Exhibit A above. CLE were amongst the "early adopters" (to borrow the parlance of the cigarette profiteers) of the Roxy/Eno axis. Exhibit B, the various live tapes of the VU at La Cave recorded by Klimek and crew.

Judee Sill/The Outside Man/Weisberg 4/Hit Parader

2010-10-15T20:18:00.000-07:00

Not many people bridge our love of Masque-era punk and the golden age of the Los Angeles singer-songwriters. Judee Sill did that via her fleeting relationship with Brendan Mullen in 1975.* I remember reading Mullen’s first hand account of his brief affair with Sill several years ago (before her recent critical reappraisal, reissues and popular ascendency), and it really registered with me. The perfectly formed music almost mathematical in its construction coupled with crystalline religious/personal lyrics – nearly the only religious lyrics I can stomach in popular music outside of born-again Dylan - made by what Mullen likened to a huge, reptilian "serpentine cadaver" into Rosicrucian manuscripts and Aleister Crowley's "Snowdrops." Mullen could be describing a seduction right out of the Jimmy Page 70's playbook? And no, I am not even considering your private press, thrift store, religious lps or xian psych records. Forget the late night, “higher key” gold, “Ladies of the Canyon” folk singers. Start naming those lps and who recorded two back to back that hold up with such a consistency? I can recall not so long ago when you could still find the Sill lps in the fifty cent bins of record stores. What other Asylum artist (other than perhaps the first J.D. Souther and Clark’s “No Other”) warrants your hard earned dollars in 2010?

But I am getting ahead of myself here. I have been working on a biopic script of Sills life. The casting I have pitched so far includes Warren Ellis and Seth Rogan as Flo and Eddie (for "Lady-O" era Turtles) and James Franco as David Geffen. Ricky has decided I will play Graham Nash based upon my current resemblance to "Wild Tales" era Nash and my propensity to collect and take photographs. The role of Sills is the tricky proposition. I do know that whoever plays Sills will likely score Oscar gold. The story has such a tragic element to it and for me personally, the locales are all so familiar: the San Fernando Valley, bank robbing arrogant junkies, reform school musicians, prostitution, the Association and the Turtles, Encino, Echo Park, the Trobadour, Souther, Geffen, Mama Cass, Nash, Crosby and a pit stop at the Source. Think "Cisco Pike" meets "Dusty and Sweets McGee" with a sideswipe at Jacques Deray's "Un Homme est mort" (the Outside Man).

Speaking of “The Outside Man/Un homme est mort,” the Jesus freaks of Hollywood Boulevard in the early 1970’s were real and slipped into popular culture worldwide via the then current music and films. "The Outside Man" has some of the best footage of 1971 Los Angeles outside of "Cisco Pike" and "Dusty and Sweets McGee." Starring Ann-Margret, Roy Scheider, Jackie Earle Haley, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Angie Dickinson, the film goes from downtown to LAX, Beverly Hills to Hollywood Boulevard, Santa Monica to Ventura Boulevard. The still below, right there at Hollywood and Vine, shows Jean-Louis Trintignant unknowingly picking up a cartoonish, Jesus freak hitchhiker clad in all denim not long for this life.

How prevalent were these folks on Hollywood Blvd, Santa Monica Blvd and the Sunset Strip? So prevalent that Bernie Taupin after EJ’s Troubadour run latched onto it with the lyrical turn that you couldn’t keep off the radio in 1971: “Jesus freaks out in the street/handing tickets out for God/ Turning back she just laughs, the boulevard is not that bad." Of course, you won’t admit knowing those lines (though Alice Bag might), but they are from “Tiny Dancer" from “Madman Across the Water." Did Geffen think that Sill could clean up with a whole lp of similar lyrics for the jesus and junk crowd?

By chance I recently read a fascinating and wide-ranging 1973 interview with David Geffen and Elliot Roberts in Hit Parader, the sister publication of Rock Scene, and was struck by the image above of Judee Sill, which I don’t think I have seen reproduced since. Seeing that image in the barn archive is what inspired the whole post really. The photo of Sill above is captioned as a Geffen signing for Asylum with no mention of her in the article at all though Geffen in the interview has some harsh words for Grand Funk Railroad and already has dollar signs in his eyes for Frey and Henley who were finished with work on their sophmore lp. GFR deserves their own post for "owning" the rock and roll world along with the Coop circa 1972-73 but are also written out of the history books or derided as mere cartoon rock. Here is a gratuitous scan of my euro 45 from the barn archive:

Then I finally finished Fred Goodman's "The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen, and the Head-on Collision of Rock and Commerce," which is highly recommended for an insight into those artists and at other times a nauseating mash note to some of the Boss' handlers. Great Dylan anectdotes and a fuller picture of Landau, John Sinclair and “Back in the USA.” I kept asking myself where the hell was Judee Sill. She's not even mentioned at all in connection with Asylum or Geffen-Roberts management which only merits mention of Young, Henley, Frey, Souther, Jackson Browne and Ned Doheney. While Goodman's tome is highly recommended for those interested in how we get from Albert Grossman to Geffen to the producer credits on "Avatar," the book by now is already totally outdated by the developments in the record industry (a footnote even discusses the profits of the consolidated dinosaur industry where the suggested retail price was $15.98 for a cd - where was Tom Petty when that price was laid on us!) Sill captured the zeitgeist of that time like few others ("Raw Power" among others). She meant it man and she lived it. The records didn’t sell, and as Goodman recounts without mentioning Sill, Geffen was mostly into personally marketing his pretty boy Eagles and Browne, rebuffed her personally as we know and the downward slide to 1979 began. Sill is also absent in the semi-recent "definitive" tome on Laurel Canyon. Where the hell is Judee Sill? Everyone pays homage to her now but she is erased until the recent reissues.

For Sill completeists here is a leftfield source. A&M recording artist and flautist Tim Weisberg is not someone I thought I would give any spotlight to on this page, but nevertheless, he had Sill and Mr. Tommy Pelteir appear on Weisberg 4. Watch how these records disappear from the 25 cents bins. What a beatific glow off that hair and backlighting!!

Not looking unlike the Jesus freaks out of The Outside Man," these folks allowed Sill onto their record. The results clearly speak for Sill as auteur. She owns these tracks and they sound like instrumental interludes off "Heart Food." Enjoy:

Just a couple of extras. Sill on the OGWT 1973:

Two covers of "Jesus Was a Crossmaker." I guess Graham still had some pull with the Hollies on the "Romany" lp and then there is Mama Cass:

As soon as I can rip a version off the Hollies lp I will post it here as it is the superior cover version.

* Mullen's account has been removed from the net in recent years. Hoskyns quoted from it in his 2007 Sill profile in the Guardian. Another individual who links the Masque and the LA introspective singer-songwriter is Beck Hansen. His own work and his grandfather naming the Masque and witnessing his dad record the likes of the Screamers and the Controllers will be the subject of our future interview with Beck .

Dangerhouse is bitchen!/Future Direction #2/Nick Gilder

2010-09-30T01:54:00.000-07:00

Not to be confused with Greg Prevost's fantastic and iconic east coast fanzine "Future," writ presumably when Greg was not rocking, here is a real time, 1978 fanzine in the truest sense of the word. Straight out of South Pasadena/Arcadia/Covina/San Gabriel Valley. Written by two gals at their best, Chere and Janaee, with contributing writers Kimberlee and Tami Dingle. I guess 1978 high school or college students given their clear disdain for midterms. Not sure how many of these freebies would have even slipped out of Southern California given the home mimeograph quality to the thing and price (3 stamps). Not unlike the "real people" music genre: a "real person" fanzine. Slash/Flipside/Search & Destroy it aint. No Samioff or Vale art design creds. The pages ooze the push-pull some people felt about going public with their love of punk/high energy music aka "new wave" to mall denizens in these banlieues. Interestingly, the zine itself is totally in the punk camp with Chere and Janaee having to deal with the occasional lunkhead band locals still into the Gazzari's covers scene (hello Diamond DLR!) Not always the case though. In an interview with local band Item (together since 1975!), when asked which local bands they like, Joe said "I like the Screamers , the Alley Cats." There is some mersh coverage like pre-"Ticket to Paradise" Eddie Money but clearly it may have provided some free tickets and drinks on the Sunset Strip. Their hearts are totally in the right place as the record of the issue is Patti Smith Group's "Easter."

Cover stars: Alley Cats, Nick Gilder, Gen X, Eclypse, Grand Ave, the aforementioned Money – a lot of South Pasadena, Arcadia locals (who all look a little like Rapid Fire versus the “new wave” Cotton Candy).

Straddling the local tug and pull of hard rock versus punk, the coverage varies between full page Dangerhouse salute (below) to interviews of the local kingpins whom the gals like. I can relate as per our "Over the Edge"/Cap n’ Swing post, i.e., we like the first Van Halen and Cheap Trick lps as much now as those Dangerhouse singles. The Copemeister would agree m’lud. Other reviews include UK music that was in vogue circa 1978 before people hepped to the fact that the LA music was just as valid as anything the UK could churn out (review on Boomtown Rats, Costello, Nick Lowe, Gen X, Sex Pistols status as a viable band). But you also get a review of yanks called White Hot on Casablanca Records (the label itself tangentially the subject of a forthcoming post here).

Below is a review of a triple bill I would have liked to have seen on the Strip: the 1978 line-up of "Hawk Wind" (sic), Nick Gilder and MDB's Detective. Yes, you read that right: Hawkwind and this ain't your momma's "Hawkwind Show" (thank you Rubin, Grady and Scott). After splitting Sweeny Todd and thus paving the way for the world of Bryan "Cut's Like a Knife" Adams, Gilder released the most excellent first solo lp "You Know Who You Are." Glamtastic, bombastic and catchy as hell. Here are "Tantalize," "Roxy Roller" and "All Across The Nation (The Wheels Are Rolling)." One of the worst lp covers of the 70's means it is doomed to be found in dollar bins "all across the nation" for lucky crate diggers. Really an undiscovered post-glam gem.

Know Your Rock Writer: Alan Betrock/Lou Reed in a Nudie suit

2010-09-24T03:24:00.000-07:00

We can only speculate who came up with the great column idea in Rock Scene of "Know Your Rock Writer." My guess is that it originated with Lenny Kaye aka Doc Rock but even money says Richard Robinson or Lisa Robinson. Does it really make any difference? They only featured the best writers in the column and this prime example from January 1976 just makes it seem sadder that the much missed Alan Betrock is not around to introduce us to greatness that was right there under our noses. We know him from Jamz, Rock Marketplace, New York Rocker and Shake Records. As per usual, you have to click on the image to actually see the whole thing. Gotta love the PSG/Television flyer there on the back wall. And the beefcake pose? Brilliant move. Try that one Mr. Record Nerd. Personally, Betrock is responsible for my introduction to the Neon Boys and possibly to D.Boon and Watt's first listen to the Hell classic "Time." Not many of the great rock journalists and fanzine writers of the 1970’s ever published books worthy of their hard earned reputations - reputations based upon yards of written periodical space and all night sessions editing, writing and typesetting. Alan Betrock was one who did, writing what may be considered the definitive book on girl groups. Let's just say that there were a lot of music books published by hacks who did not have anything near the taste that Alan had and who now get read in college sociology classes as decoding punk's early 20th Century roots in various European movements. Uh, I think I will take a pass and just hand me my copies of Jamz and Bomp thank you very much.

From the Lou Reed in a Nudie suit issue of Fusion, comes this great letter from Alan setting the record straight. Other than Who Put the Bomp, Jamz was the ultimate record nerd guide. Enjoy Alan's good hearted take down of Jon "Prix" Tiven and David Newberger and their lack of erudite knowledge on Van the Man's back catalogue. Mere mortal, do you really think you can outsmart me. Apparently New Haven Rock Press was a good fish wrap if you wanted actual recording data and details. Makes me wonder what Alan's take on the great 1974 lp "Veedon Fleece" was? First is the great Lou cover then Alan's "take that" letter. If anyone would like it, I can post the Lou article.

Amazing Little Boxes/The Godz 1966/Amplified Freedom!

2010-09-15T19:40:00.001-07:00

Like the great but seldom seen short film of artist Ronnie van Hout entitled “One Minus One” - yes, the Godard reference is tongue in cheek - of the Gordons live in their rehearsal space on the South Island in 1981 or thereabouts, Stanley has kindly supplied a link to a film by Jud Yulkut of the Godz jamming and partying live in 1966. Man, who knew such great footage existed. Only solidifies my take on the No-Neck Blues Band being one of the great heirs to harnessing that locale (NYC, Harlem to be exact for NNCK) and sound. God bless Dave Nuss for birthing both Metal Blade artists Angkor Wat in Texas and then moving to NYC to give the world NNCK in 1992. Which is why Stanley’s link dovetails so nicely with what I had intended to post today about one the 20th Century's unsung greats: Peter Stampfel and a shameless product plug. Hell, I would have gladly done the same as we are enamored of the product as well. First live show I saw in NYC I think was Gary Lucas and Peter Stampel as a duo so always have a soft spot. Did anyone else catch the Fugs flyer in the Godz footage? Ad courtesy on the mostly execrable Circus Magazine (July ’72, “Manassas” cover). More on that in the future.

Jonathan Richman's 60's Favorites/ What Do Rat Scabies and Lester Bangs Have in Common

2010-09-12T15:44:00.001-07:00

Was August 1977 a changing of the guard moment for the British rock press? I am not sure. That was the month that Kris Needs took over the editorial helm of Zig Zag from Pete “Rock Family Tree” Frame. I have two gems from the last issue of Zig Zag that Frame edited in July 1977 (the one with a most excellent Lee Black Childers cover design with a photo of Johnny Thunders holding a switchblade and looking like one of Keitel’s buddies outta Mean Streets). Just click on the image to make them at least legible. Here we present Jonathan Richman’s Sounds of the 1960’s - at least Jonathan didn’t drop the Spoonful like a lot of the counterculture based on the rumour about Zal. In fact, we need to revisit those albums and Zal’s solo lp again. The second item is dedicated to my friend Tim who was responsible (along with Grady), for starting the West Coast Godz revival in my household. Tim wrote one of the best pieces/interviews on the Godz in his Rock Mag (or Modern Rock Magazine) in the 1990’s and other than Bang’s article mentioned herein, it is essential reading on one of Thirsty’s favourite bands as well. If someone wants to compile the Richman tape and post it in the comments, hey – we would be pretty grateful for the heavy lifting.

Stooges/Cherry Vanilla Party pix 1973/Who Has Richard Creamers’ negatives?/Torreyson Drive

2010-09-09T20:37:00.000-07:00

The guest list is pretty astounding: Kim Fowley, Sable Starr, John Cale, Lee Black Childers, Shady Lady, Z-Man, Cherry Vanilla, the great LA Times critic Richard Cromelin, Le Petits Bon Bons, the “Raw Power” era Stooges and every pal of Sable’s from the Sugar Shack in the Valley. Where is Zolar-X?

Each picture is worth a long, long glance. After reading Nick Kent’s excellent account of another party thrown in the Stooges honor in “Apathy for the Devil,” it makes sense to me after all these years (37 exactly) why none of the Stooges crashed their own party. Were they living in Lee’s house at the time or staying at the Riot Hyatt? Kent’s book is highly recommended to any rock aficionado. I know some have questioned the veracity of the whole thing. Who gives a toss if you cant put the book down! There are some serious hoots in them pages. The Stooges on the Sunset Strip in 1973-74 is the stuff of legend now. Among the crowd witnessing the amazing run of shows were pre-Weirdos John Denney and Cliff Roman, Don Waller and co., the Denim Delinquent crowd, all of the South Bay intelligentsia including Phast Phreddie Patterson and the rest of the Back Door Man crew, Kid Congo Powers, Claude Bessey, Danny Sugarman and Manzerek, Silverhead, etc etc. Obviously we can now add Z-Man to the equation as well! Was the only actor or actress the Stooges could pull in 1973 Z-Man? Was Mackenzie Phillips there hiding in the back? We all know about who witnessed the Velvets in their final Max’s days but these LA Stooges shows (and the Dolls LA invasion documented so well by Bob Gruen), laid the groundwork for the late 70’s LA music scene which is still today lionized around the globe. Who else saw these show? We need to know.

Other than the party taking place at the Source Family house in Los Feliz about 20 minutes away that night, the party Souther and Henley were throwing in Laurel Canyon celebrating the fact that “Desperado” was climbing the charts ("ka-ching$") or even the Cher/Geffen soire on the westside, this was THE epicenter that late summer night in 1973. At least I can say I was in the same city at the same time. Enjoy the barn excavation.

Source: Rock Scene (September 1973), “Hullo t’ Slade” issue

'Nuf Said

2010-09-06T19:48:00.000-07:00

Television in Terry Ork's loft 1974/That's All I Know . . . Right Now/Poor Circulation

2010-08-30T18:03:00.000-07:00

I am not one for awards but in my mind Richard Hell should one day be considered our poet laureate if that title actually means anything. My guess is that he will be awarded the French National Order of Arts and Letters before that happens. I have written here before that 1974 was a great year for videotape. Here is Exhibit B. What can I say. One of my favorite bands of all time with their greatest line-up. I could paraphrase what Patti Smith said about Television in the October 1974 Rock Scene but instead I have scanned and resurrected the original from the barn archive below. I also have finally figured out how to take still video captures so you get a few images from the barn video archive as well. There is something quite amazing about the quality of this video. It is in black and white and has the same feel as a lot of the early installation video pieces or of some black and white surveillance camera tape. One of the last two clips on the 60 minute tape are 1974 era Television doing a number that really was a Neon Boys tune carried over to the new band. Called “High Heeled Wheels” on the 90’s Overground reissue, this really is the just what the tail end of the Nixon-era needed – a hyped up Beefheart-Dolls garage band hybrid. That could describe late 80’s Claw Hammer but that is the subject of some future post. What a fantastic tone they got on those guitars, true authenticity to the 1966 sound.

Was it thee Terry Ork filming this thing? Whoever it was just thinks Richard is the bees knees and cant take the camera off the guy. Thing is, based on his charisima on the video – even while getting a passive aggressive beatdown by Tom Verlaine while being taught Venus de Milo, Hell really is deserving of the attention he gets. You know who my favorite nouvelle vague film star is. Not Belmondo, Karina, Delon or Deneuve et al. No, in the alternate time machine it is Richard Hell nee Meyers. Yeah, he never was in one of the films, born in Lexington, KY (1949). He should have been a huge screen star. In my mind he is. What do I base that on? Not that much really. Lemmee see Smithereens, Blank Generation, Amos Poe’s short film. I blinked and missed getting my mits on the Rachid Karouchie film “Final Reward.” Can some reader help me out with that. The entire rehearsal video tape (of which I have several audio variations) should be in the Smithsonian one day – as rich a US cultural artifact from the second half of the 20th century as any.

I guess it has been said a million times previously but not only does Hell possess a beat sensibility, but also a European one with a mirror reflection back on the best of Anglo-American 1940’s-60’s pop culture. His cultural signifiers are analogous to the Cahier Du Cinema writers on classic Hollywood form/film noir who then influenced the New Hollywood of the 70’s. His stance is the poetbreakthrough of the 60’s/70’s via Dylan, certain of the Beats, the New York School poets and perhaps foremost the French Symbolists, filtered through the transcendental act of writing alone in a spare room (with or without substances) and venturing out to see the Max's era Velvets and the Dolls. Why Todd Haynes did not cast Richard in I’m Not There is beyond me. For Richard, its not like the hippies never happened but the only hippies who grokked the 1880’s, the Charlatans, were looking to Reno, Nevada and Carson City, and not Paris and Algeirs. He is the last of the breed, art house cinema by way of the worldview of Iggy Stooge. I don’t hear/see the nihilism that Bangs writes of. To me, it is a love of exploring the boundaries of consciousness with words. The 1970’s that Bresson depicts in “The Devil Probably,” and which I have written about here before in connection with Hell, speaks more to Hell's early 70's mindset than something as empty as the kinda dismal Blank Generation film (other than the great live clips with Bob Quine). Is Hell nostalgic for this initial youthful period of inspiration? He has written about that period (or published his diaries) in the Hanuman book and Godlike touches on the period as well. It obviously still transfixes him (and us). We are a fly on the wall to one aspect of that time period with the Ork tape. He was making some of the most important music of the last century. As much time has passed from the recordings of the Neon Boys/nascent Television to the present day as from the first electric Muddy Waters recordings to the early 70’s. Is one more deserving of serious critical appraisal than the other? I think not. Time is moving forward and we cant stop it.

Last time I saw Richard Hell in person he was then working on (finished?) his latest novel set in the early 70’s NYC poetry scene. Richard had come through LA probably 2 maybe 3 times in the past decade to read. Last time (at least that I know of) when I was still living in there, he did a great reading at Beyond Baroque in Venice. Anyway, at that reading, Richard read a chapter from the novel that became Godlike. It was the tail end of that historical time frame that the Ork video inhabits and one thing I was thinking about when the word spiel was coming down from the mike that night.

Finally, here is Television live in Terry Ork's loft in NYC 1974 performing "Eat the Light" (for some reason excerpts get taken down as quickly as they go up):

Smile for the camera Neil!

2010-08-17T02:52:00.000-07:00

If I wanted to, I could probably string together another 25 more of these bad Neil photos the bootleggers decide they have to use. What gives you morons? The guy is a fucking genius.

Roy Wood/Ella James

2010-07-31T18:54:00.000-07:00

The Move performing one of the most rocking Roy Wood tracks off their great last lp “Message From the Country” in 1971, right before the morph into ELO:

Just as interesting to these ears is the Nashville Teens' junk shop glam, non-workmanlike version on UA from 1972. This is a far cry from "Tobacco Road." Gotta get this one for the dj gig.

Roy Wood has one of rock’s great voices and is the real deal English eccentric in the way that they just don’t make them anymore. Who doesn’t love the Move and Wood’s 1973 solo lp “Boulders.”
I am pretty sure it was Falling James Moreland who first clued me to what a return to form Cheap Trick’s 2003 “Special One” and 2006’s “Rockford” are. “Rockford” has some especially fine moments if you like vintage Cheap Trick. Other than the obvious Beatles influence, the template is the Move, the Move and more Move. “Message From the Country” and the first ELO lp. The Cheap Trick guys are kinda contemporaries of the Move as Fuse started in 1968. Nielsen formed Cheap Trick in 1972 with Tom Petersson but they had been even touring with some ex-Nazz members before that. Dig Roy's turn on "California Man" - that gettup is fantastic:

Dear Gulcher 1977

2010-07-06T05:07:00.000-07:00

Gulcher. One of the epicenters of proto-punk America (I'm talking the non-drugstore/newsstand distributed variety) along with Bomp, Back Door Man and you name it. About twenty years ago I sent this to Sonic Death the fanzine when it was still active. Some anonymous person wrote back saying they had never seen this letter and were going to print it. Never did. I used it as stationary for a long time so a few of you have seen this one but I haven't seen it on the net. I forgot to ask Thurston about it when I met the band at Rhino Records on the Daydream Nation tour. More Gulcher-related posts to come soon.

Baby Jane's in Acapulco, We are Flying Down to Rio/Dan Flavin and Stairway to Heaven/The Pensioner

2010-05-27T19:43:00.000-07:00

For the past several decades, I keep coming back to the first five Roxy Music lps as a highwater mark of seventies popular music. Can you name another group or artist who had as good a streak during the 70's who can claim the VU as a front and center influence (other than the Ramones) and put out five great albums in a row? For most critics, Eno gets a free pass for his 70's solo work. When he moves past his suppressed rockist tendencies, the music goes limp. It seems his extracurricular activities gives him the high grades. He records Television with Richard Williams at their near height and then co-opts an entire scene a few years later (thank you for the document though). However, Ferry as person and solo artist is ridiculed. Here is Bryan at CBGB's in 1975 catching the Ramones pre-lp (photo courtesy Danny Fields) - where were you:

What drives the hatred? Is it as Iggy said off the cuff: "you can throw any thing at me but your girlfriend will still love me you jealous @@*&$$$#s!" Succint. I think the 70's rockcrits deeply felt this is panning the solo lps. Devo had another possible theory - in my mind likely derived from spending too much time with Eno:

We first got those blue firemen's jumpsuits and we wore those masks that took your faces away, cause what we decided that what we hated about rock & roll was STARS -- we watched Roxy Music, a band we liked, slowly become Bryan Ferry & Roxy Music. If you got a band that's good, you bust it up and sell three times as many records. Take the Beatles for instance, the magic was in the combination -- nothing that any single Beatle did after that matches up. (Search & Destroy, 1978).

Well I can argue that one with Mothersbaugh till I am blue in the face but it won't change his mind. Eno is lionized for his solo lps (rightfully so in some cases) and Ferry is accused of being a STAR. And, as anyone who knows me well, I can talk the merits of "Beaucoup of Blues" as ranking up there with Beatles '65. (Aquarium Drunkard image of first four post-Beatles solo singles).

Here is Ferry paying his respects as only he can (with Spedding on guitar). Dig the great Dan Flavin/Powell & Pressburger homage. Eno can only wish he could grow such a beard!!:

Saturday Night Pogo 1978 KROQ Radio Ad/Radio Free Hollywood/The Berlin Brats 1976/Rhymes With Seltzer

2010-05-15T14:58:00.001-07:00

Is Richard Meltzer embarassed by the 1978 Saturday Night Pogo cover? As a teenager, I was embarrassed by the image. Meltzer was 33 years old when he posed for the cover. At 34, he lionized the Germs (GI) lp in a rave Los Angeles Times review which demonstrated he hadn't lost all his marbles. In fact, it is among his best reviews of albums he actually listened to. Courtesy of Dr. Riff Buttons, you get to hear the LA radio ad for the lp plus some added Rodney bumper commentary:

The Saturday Night Pogo lp would seem to be a b-team of the LA punk era, right? Well yes and no. The Radio Free Hollywood crowd never really got their due with all the revisionist history of what constitutes year zero of LA punk. I agree it is no "Tooth & Nail" or "Yes LA" but there are some shining moments. Who among the best of the old guard Hollywood punks pre-Masque have not gotten their due? Well, let's see. The Droogs are from the Valley (and worthy of their own post) and the Dogs are originally from Detroit. So I guess that would leave Saturday Night Pogo stars, the Berlin Brats. Rubin Fiberglass and I would both agree going back to our Santa Cruz days, that "Tropically Hot" off that lp and the 45 are among the great unsung Dolls/trashy songs you never heard. At Waitakere Walks, that sort of thing is our bread and butter. Both the A and B side of the 45 are among the best pre-hardcore punk 45s to emerge from Los Angeles - that is if you like the Dolls, Stones, early rock n' roll etc. A battle royale of Clap, the Berlin Brats and the Imperial Dogs could get pretty bloody (Daddy Maxfield had already split the scene). As a pre-teen, the fact that the Berlin Brats were in "Up in Smoke" did not register. The Dils later did, but I swear, so brief is the appearance of the Berlin Brats that it is missed if you so much as sneeze. Just as memorable may be the image of Rodney with his glam mullet wearing a Sex Pistols shirt at the side of the stage with Cheech Marin. I wish Fowley had made the cut. Somebody get Lou Adler on the line so we can get the full footage released!! Here is all there is:

Here is the great 45 of Tropically Hot/Psychotic:

What has been a real revelation at headquarters are the 1976 Berlin Brats demos and some live shows of the same era. Here is the demo of "Tropically Hot" slowed down with some very sweet acoustic overdubs, the great "Do I Love You Today" and a live cover of the Animals "It's My Life" from Hollywood 1976 - we need the 180 gram pressing of this stuff:

Back to Saturday Night Pogo, here is a clip of VOM at Malibu Beach (?) performing their track from the lp. Meltzer does undo some of the damage from the lp cover here and we do love Gregg Turner's vocals which he used to great effect in his next project: