What Hath Lenny Kaye and Greg Shaw Wrought/Underdog

I have to say it pleases me to no end that unnamed greedy Euros have decided to perform the public service of comping great glam singles on various glam comp lps ala Killed By Death. The first one of these I was able to track down from the UK was "Glam Sandwich and Electric Flares." It cost a fortune to get and was housed in a flimsy thin cardboard cover of the quality of a takeaway chips holder. The music itself, yes the music, was topnotch.

The junk shop glam cds that came out several years ago ("Velvet Tinmine" etc) were among my favorite reissues of the last decade. As Robin at the always great Purepop site wrote a few years ago, these junk shop glam singles ARE the new freakbeat (my paraphrase may be slightly off). Which brings me right around to an lp and single Robin featured a few years back as well and which has been sitting in the barn archive waiting for a spin: Giorgio Morodor's "Son of My Father" from 1972.

There are just some tremendous moogy-synth-glam tracks which as an entire lp holds up really well (with a great cover to boot). The title track has always had that great glam chug that made "Spirit in the Sky" jump out on AM transistor radios worldwide. This ain't your mama's "Terminal Jive" or "Midnight Express." Morodor also produced the Chicory Tip cover of his song which became the bigger hit. As you can see below, Giorgio ain't no Bryan Ferry so we can be thankful he didn't become a teen idol. "Underdog" has great anti-authoritarian lyrics and is pure bubble gum - it will stick in your head like the best of early 70's glam pop.

Here is Chicory Tip (with the great simulacrum of Morodor's accent!!) mooging out on the beach though not quite Magic Band "69 style if you know what clip I mean - this version replaces a non-karaoke version that was pulled by youtube:

Television Pollution

To shift gears to Italian prog, Franco Battiato’s output (along with that of Claudio Rocchi and Lucio Battisti), has long been a favorite around these parts. From his krautrockesque experimental pop to his Terry Riley-inspired electronic music to his 80's synth pop star days, we like it. Producer, composer, musician etc.

Battiato had an incredible run in the early 1970’s with lps such as “Fetus,” “Pollution,” “Sulle Corde di Aries” and “Clic.” Check out Franco during the “Pollution/Fetus” era taking over Italian television in 1972 on “A Tutto Pop.” Great on a lot of levels and I imagine what the tropicalistas in Brazil would have done in 69/70 without a military state and national television exposure:

The Last Heard/The System

All of the early Seger tracks were booted and comped in the 80's and these tracks were front and center. From a much maligned performer who did cut some GREAT 45s. Hat tip to the Boogaloo Omnibus of Brooklyn for the original tip in Los Angeles some time in the mid-80's. The drumming (coupled with the fuzz) KILLS:

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

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.

South Bay Surfers

I remember reading an interview with Iggy around the time Blah Blah Blah came out that said that he and Bowie were getting their heads cleared by surfing a lot. I guess that's why I like the fact that Iggy currently has that leathery tanned look of some surfer/beach comber in the South Bay who is riding his rusty (and probably stolen) beach cruiser by the bars near the Strand. Thanks to Waitakere Walk's old friend GR, we have been able to enjoy several South Pacific viewings of the Imperial Dogs dvd and it is a corker. Paul Therrio, guitarist extraordinaire of the Imperial Dogs, is a life long avid surfer. In my foggy vision of the 70's, beach denizens came in several camps - one genus looks like Paul and another looks like Sam Elliot in Lifeguard. This snap from Rodney's English Disco captures a ground zero moment of Iggy checking out Paul and the Dogs perform. It appears both had been hitting the beach. It is a proven fact that Iggy likes the beach (Miami is his home) and he did check out the Screamers command performance in Malibu a couple of years later at a beach house but I digress.

Sparks 1972/Just Another Band From L.A.

Seeing that the 1972 Sparks American Bandstand performance is not likely to appear on the net anytime soon due to Dick Clark productions, we searched if any of Sparks MK1 was captured on video on a European tour that same year. Paydirt. I saw Ron and Russell in the audience of a Brian Wilson show a couple of years ago – do you think Ron and Russell like Holland and Sunflower? I have also seen Sparks live in three decades. Wonder Girl is new wave ten years before new wave.



Historical note, in 1966, Ron & Russell appeared for a few seconds in "The Big T.N.T Show" watching the Ronettes. They also got to see at that same show Ray Charles, Petula Clark, The Lovin' Spoonful, Bo Diddley, Joan Baez, the Byrds, and Ike and Tina Turner. Hat tip for this great screen capture to Mr. R. Steevie Moore (who also graciously provided the Half Nelson demos to me some years ago).

Zooom! glitter/teenybopper/top forty band

Can we get these Zoom tapes released! Roger "Flash" Mansour was the drummer for the great Vagrants, whose role in the life of a young Johnny Ramone is documented here. The Vagrants as everyone knows were at one time the kings of Long Island. Check out a young Leslie West ripping it up poolside.