Greg Shaw Reviews Clap's "Have You Reached Yet?"/Who Put the Bomp! Summer, 1974

I have been a huge fan of Clap’s 1973 lp “Have You Reached Yet?” lp ever since the first time I heard it on a kinda muddy sounding bootleg, and have mentioned them a bunch. Just a perfect out of tyme - or ahead of your time - lp for the 70's (kinda like Fortune Teller's "Inner City Scream"). "Have You Reached Yet?" was clearly one of those lps you didn’t think you would ever get to hold in yer hands, let alone a new vinyl edition of the lp in MONO (which sounds fantastic). So, I finally landed an out-of-print copy put out by perhaps the best reissue label in the world, Sing Sing outta NY. What jumped out in the new liners by Phast Phreddie Patterson is that he says: “around 1976, I gave my copy of “Have You Reached Yet” to Greg Shaw, who wrote about it in his Bomp! Magazine – thus igniting the legend of Clap.” Well, while I was researching to find real time reviews of the lp, I found that Greg Shaw reviewed the lp as early as the Summer 1974 issue of “Who Put the Bomp!” when the lp itself may have only been a year old (even though Greg says the lp is from 1971 in the review - perhaps said in the grip of "Love It to Death" comparisons). Did he end up reviewing the lp twice? What is intriguing is also that the review says “the cover’s great too – its got a photo of a lizard-skin platform boot on a stool with a flashlight beam on it!” Does anyone know whether there was an earlier press of the lp with that cover? The boot photo is on the back cover as a small snap, even smaller than the band photo or logo. Anyway, another essential purchase if you can still find it.

La Libre Expresión in México Canta ("The Magazine of the New Wave"), October 1970

A recent find in the D.F. has been México Canta, an underground Hit Parader of sorts. Heavy Beatles coverage in the two issues I have from 1970, and little did I know how big CCR was in Mexico ("Lodi" was #1 on the charts in the issue below from 1970) and the non-Fogerty CCR Revisited is playing at the awesome Auditorio Nacional in March. What jumped out was a feature on La Libre Expresión (assuming it is the same band). I have had a repress of the 1968 (or is it 1969) lp by this great Mexican psych-garage band for about a decade. Almost entirely covers (Creedence, Blue Cheer, Hendrix, Zombies X2, Bee Gees and the totally underrated (Young) Rascals - who need a post of their own - it just flows like an slightly mersh u-ground jukebox of the day (in Spanish of course). The same issue has a nice feature on Quicksilver Messenger Service as well. So, possibly reprinted for the first time in 43 years, una entravista con La Libre Expresión:

Slade en el D.F.

Made in Cuernavaca in the state of Morelos, 197? A recent find at one of the best Sunday outdoor markets in the world, El Mercado de La Lagunilla.

"But no dilettante filigree fancy beats the plastic you"/Chris D. on Roxy Music's "Mother of Pearl"

About six years ago I approached Chris D. about publishing a collection of his music writing (from Slash and elsewhere) and sent him a dvd of James Frawley's The Christian Licorice Store. Never heard back from him though I was happy to see the publication in 2009 of A Minute to Pray, A Second to Die: A Collection of Writing by Chris D (New Texture, 2009). I have written about the collection previously here but the collection itself is not oriented towards his writing on music and film, though the book is loaded with enough references to both to keep you busy for a while tracking them down. The intros to the various sections (on poems, dream fragments, screenplays, lyrics, novel excerpts, etc.) remind me somewhat of the super dense (albeit short) film reviews that Chris used to publish in Forced Exposure. How many would he cram into an issue, fifty? Though in this collection, there is a lot of memoir contained in the short intro write-ups (generally 2-3 pages) to make the collection stand out from a mere compendium of work. So while I have never had a chance to ask Chris about Roxy Music, I figured like everybody else he would find the first five records unassailable. Who knew that he should have been interviewed for that doco on the band a few years back given his great articulation of why that period is/was held in such high esteem. In the discussion of his still unpublished first novel with the Ballard-esque title Sacred World (an influence on the novel along with Genet, P.K. Dick, Diamond Dogs era Bowie, Burroughs, noir, euro art film and his own "romantic 19th century literary damage from high school and college), he writes:

The title Sacred World was taken from a lyric phrase from Roxy Music's "Mother of Pearl" from their Stranded album. That song perfectly captures the kind of transcendental modern romanticism I was going for here, and it is perhaps Bryan Ferry's shining moment as a singer and lyricist (before he descended totally into artifice). It is a masterpiece of testimonial love that updates the type of high society amor fou found in 1940's films like Gilda, Humoresque and Notorious to profound tragic 1970's melodrama - a sung monologue of obsessive love which raises the object of affection to fetishistic heights, elevating glamour to a surreal cosmology, yet still miraculously retaining a heartbreaking poignance. Disturbingly confessional when the listener can easily interchange the love object: with one line it is the ideal woman, with the next, is it the narcissistic singer himself? Let's put it this way ... is the ideal woman really meant only for the ideal man? Thus making this a double whammy of interlocked circular obsession? That's basically what I was striving for in my elliptical fashion (though you would have to read my whole unevenly-written novel to really get that.

Second that Dr. Chris about "Mother of Pearl." Maybe add in some then contemporary Fassbinder period melodrama damage into Ferry's cultural mix (from the same 1973-74 period of the Musikladen performance below) and stir. Enjoy the screen caps and dig Sal Maida from Milk 'n Cookies on the bass.

The Droogs and Plug n Socket Present a Special Edition in Salute to Sky Saxon (1977)

An odd/inspired public relations move to publish a fanzine/press release dedicated as much to your inspiration Sky Saxon as your own band, the Droogs. We salute ‘em as the zine captures the first Seeds revival in full force. Sky had I guess by 1977 drifted back to LA from Hawaii after the Source family implosion, and the Droogs’ fourth single “Overnite Success,” was “dedicated to the epitomal punk rocker, that lost legend of the mid-sixties, Sky Saxon, and of course his Seeds.” I have no idea whether the distribution for this thing was anywhere outside the San Fernando Valley. Blink and you missed picking up a copy at the Gramophone record store next to the La Reina Theater. What I can tell you is that it acts almost as the prototype for the lost (Ken Barnes calls it “mythical”) issue of Mark Shipper’s Flash III. It includes Ken Barnes’ Seeds piece which ended up in part in Who Put the Bomp No. 12 (November 12, 1974), though the Bomp piece only included a small portion of what was published here, and was intended for Flash III as Barnes states in the postscript. What is intriguing for historians is the appearance in the zine of former Droogs impresario Mark Shipper's “Flash” column, that is actually a one page dry run version of his 1977-78 comedic/fantasy novel “Paperback Writer” with the Seeds replacing the Beatles in the fantasy reunion realm and 18,000 fans (including Jack Nicholson and Jackie Onassis) waiting for the return of Sky Saxon and the Seeds to the stage of the Los Angeles Forum.

Norma Jackson's Winning Photo of the Byrds 1968, Tacoma, Washington

So looking through my October 1968 copy of Flip Teen Magazine (Monkees, Raiders, Sajid, Star Trek, Bee Gees cover), I came across this new to me amatuer photo of the Byrds with Gram at the front of the muy serio McGuinn, Hillman and Kelley. Roger (Jim) thinking about how to wipe Gram's vocals off more of the nascent "Sweetheart" tracks before they get back to LA? I can't seem to find any actual tour date in any of my Byrdmaniax sources though this guy was there (and he seems to think it was after the lp release of SOTR though there was a lot of touring outside the US after the release so who knows):

I saw [Gram] with the Byrds sometime in '68 at the University Of Puget Sound fieldhouse (gym) in Tacoma. Don't remember the exact date, but I believe Sweetheart had been released. They did several songs off that album plus some Byrds hits. I remember them doing You Ain't Goin' Nowhere twice - once in the first set and then again in the set after the break. Opening act was local band Merilee Rush and the Turnabouts fresh off their hit Angel Of The Morning. Went with a few guys from high school (I graduated in '68) that had an band (The Obsolete Lampshade) and we all stood right in front of the stage for the whole show. Good times! This is probably the show I wish I could go back in time and see again the most.

James Dean Pop/Tyranny and Mutation/"A supernova in the stardust. It's a HARD ROCK band"/Radios Appear [repost October 2009]

The Stony Brook mafia cast a wide net in the pre-punk days. Its influence ranged from the shores of San Pedro, California to the bowery of Manhattan, to the coasts of Australia and as far north as Finland. As another piece of the pre-punk universe, I present for your consideration, straight out of Helsinki and fronted by likely Gulcher/Creem approved frontwoman Annika Salminen, Dead End 5. It was a world away from Helsinki to Bloomington, but Annika and the crew would have been right at home chomping burgers with the Cutters, downing Rolling Rocks and listening to the Dictators. Their 1976 lp “Dead Ends” features covers of BOC, ZZ Top and even “Let Me Go Rock n’ Roll” by KISS. A BOC and Kiss-lovin’ proto-punk, female fronted band. Would it have rated the Back Door Man seal of approval?

Methinks so given the rarity of such acts in 1976. On “Dead Ends” there may be a few too many Deep Purple moves for your tastes but it sounds fine to these ears.   The blurb on the back cover (penned by their svengali manager) sums it all up:

DEAD END 5 is English. It's the street you live in. Your mental state. A nuclear charge in the atmosphere. Your insane self. A supernova in the stardust. It's a HARD ROCK band. It's DEAD END 5.

Roger that. Their manager was also the manager just prior to Dead End 5 for Finnish proto-punk glam heads Virtanen. Dig these clips.


Was the “Dead Ends” lp a fluke? Not after the first Ramones lp. Move over E. Bloom and welcome to the master race rock of Jeffrey Ross Hyman. Dead End 5’s early 1977 single "James Dean Pop/ Teräsneitsyt" is Finland's first punk rock record, with the a-side a cover of "Blitzkrieg Bop". The second LP, "Läpilyönti" (1977) also had another Ramones cover "Judy is a Punk" ("Judy et Jackie Punk"). How All-American is that baseball cover art - do I detect Thurman Munson in the image? A Gabba Gabba Hey cat? These guys put together that the Ramones would be played in sports arenas as jock jams a good thirty years ahead of the rest of the western world. That cover art also rates nicely to the baseball themed cover art of the Jon Tiven (and Ivan Julian) led Yankees lp. Are they the Finnish Shakin’ Street? Not quite the same deal. Annika put out a solo 45 following "Läpilyönti" which has a turgid cover of Buddy Holly’s “It’s So Easy” (Ronstadt arrangement) backed with “Nobody Does it Better” from "The Spy Who Loved Me." Awful stuff but then again Patti used to sing “You Light Up My Life” in much the same manner.

So for the tunage. First up on deck is a cover of BOC’s “ME 262” from 1976's "Dead Ends." Second is the cover of “Blitzkrieg Bop” now christened “James Dean Pop.” Woulda gone down well at the Masque as does the entire second baseball lp. Now not to get into too much of a side tangent, the other great early Finnish punk band Briard (which featured Andy McCoy pre Hanoi Rocks), also had a tune called "James Dean Pop" which is NOT a Ramones cover or even a Dead End Five cover. Go figure these crazy Finns and their James Dean/punk rock fetish. Third track is Briard doing the “James Dean Pop.” Batting clean-up, and bring us all back to tyranny and mutation, we have Radio Birdman covering “Transmaniacon M.C.” live in Sydney 1976. Lastly is "Judy et Jackie Punk" from 1977.








With divshare dropping most of the old sound files, here are some of the missing tracks: