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

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

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

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

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

“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

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

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.