Exclusive DANGERHOUSE Recording Artists: Black Randy and His ELEGANT Metropolitan Squad, X, Alley Cats and the Deadbeats/Amanda Lear and the Pack 1977!

Better than Sparks' appearance in Rollercoaster but perhaps not as great as the Pack in a 1977 Amanda Lear exploito film, is Black Randy's appearance in The Fabulous Stains. That Pack lp from 1978 just sounds better and better every year. Who woulda guessed? Also, from the barn a great DANGERHOUSE exclusive ad:

The Turtles Cover Judee Sill's "Lady-O" (1969)/Flo & Eddie Interview Lou Reed on the Midnight Special/Turtlesmania

Is the Turtles cover of "Lady-O" not one of the best pre-solo Sill covers out there and a great early promo film to boot (what ranch is that?). Flo & Eddie in the early 70's were on such a great roll: Mothers, T.Rex (Slider, Electric Warrior), Alice (Billion Dollar Babies) and their own 1973 lp with a GREAT Small Faces cover ("Afterglow"). I recently came across the Lou Reed connection again which I had forgotten about with the barn archive Bottom Line clipping and the Midnight Special interview (a sceen capture for you as well!). Also digging the Turtles "Outside Chance" with one of the best "Taxman" lifts outside of "Start."

"Five Really Gone Gone Girls Direct From the Canterbury"/Black Randy's Soul Sister

I was recently wondering what Van Nuys, California's Rock Corporation was like: a "valley biker joint with a TV dinner tray for a stage" that's what. Possibly the earliest (non-gossip) coverage of the Go-Go's in Slash, 1978. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see them until the fall of 1981 with the Fleshtones at the Greek Theater (LA). By that time, quite a different proposition. GREAT descriptions of the Middle Class as well. Photos by Steve Samiof and Melanie Nissen. Review by . . . .

So Kickboy, How Do You Really Feel About VOM/"Some of you are very clever people"/"It was reaching terminal boredom proportions"

Richard Meltzer and Kickboy Face aka Claude Bessy. Both born in 1945 (May 11 and June 20 respectively) and among the select group of music writers whose work transcends the genre. Both based in Los Angeles during a golden age of American music (approximately 1976-1983) and both with pretensions to act as rock frontpersons in their thirties (not that there is anything to fault with that). So who knew that the Metal Mike/Brendan Mullen spat dates back to at least 1978? I have previously written about it here. It's like Bessy drafted Mullen's talking points a couple of decades in advance. In the present day I like both Catholic Discipline and VOM, though given Catholic Discipline's VU/Can/Nuggets hybrid it would have produced one of the finer lps to come out of post-Masque/pre-hardcore Los Angeles if someone had dragged them into a studio. One could assume that Meltzer felt no animosity to Bessy by 1979 (see "Cocktails With Claude," LA Weekly 1979 interview of Claude by Meltzer, Meltzer’s review of the Germs “G.I.”). What Bessy writes is really about more than VOM. What were his thoughts on the Dictators fer instance - did they get a pass even though a writer was in their midst? Mind you Chris D. and Ranking Jeffrey were on the Slash staff.  How harsh is this: "they couldn't be naive enough to think that even on the fringe of that fringe phenomenon there is room for a bunch of would-be satirists with resentment and bitterness in their hearts, pot bellies behind their their tattered stage costumes and panic at their sudden irrelevance behind their contrived aggressiveness. They couldn't be vain enough to hope that the punx might fall for it and actually (irony of irony) make them into heroes or villains." No really Kickboy, how do you feel about VOM? An hey, enough with the slams of would-be satirists with resentment and bitterness in their hearts, and pot bellies behind their their tattered stage costumes and panic at their sudden irrelevance behind their contrived aggressiveness. Hitting a little too close to home buddy!

Over to Metal Mike in his attack on Mullen and Spitz' We Got the Neutron Bomb : The Untold Story of L.A. Punk:

Not once in this book is there a mention of the March 1978 Dickies/VOM 2-night, 4-sets stand at the Whiskey, which was one of the wildest,craziest, most chaotic spectacles of "punk rock," anyplace, anywhere, anytime. Re: Paul Grant's 2-page article describing the opening night show in national slick-mag NEW WAVE ROCK...I was there (at the Whiskey), it was that hysterical/nutty/wild and then some. Never laughed so hard in my life. Ah, wait, wait, wait, back up the truck-there is no mention of 1977-78 LA punk band VOM (with rock critic and brilliant Blue Oyster Cult lyricist Richard Meltzer) anywhere in this book.Now this is getting interesting. 

Uh, "wildest,craziest, most chaotic spectacles of "punk rock," anyplace, anywhere, anytime." Are we talking about the same set of shows here?

Let's Head to the Rock Corporation

Can you believe this lineup from 1978 in VAN NUYS! Currently the location of a panel beater/body shop.  Like Van Nuys needed another one!  The Valley and punk. I remember a lot of shows at the Country Club and later at BeBop Records but that was the next era. So were the shows at Devonshire Downs and Godzillas.  Technically, I lived closer to the Rock Corporation (great name that one!) than Fiberglass, but it would have been close as to who could bike there first.  What was so great about first wave LA punk were all the weekend MATINEE shows!  The Whiskey had them as well.  What comes to mind when I think SFV punk hall of fame are the Dickies, Shock, FEAR, Bad Religion, RF7, Killroy, etc. What I don't think of when I think of Van Nuys are following folks heading there (intentionally): the Eyes, F-Word, Simpletones, Controllers, Plugz, X, Middle Class, Bags, Flesh Eaters, etc.  Did the Germs play the Rock Corporation? Claude Bessy in the valley, please. Can any readers share what the venue was actually like.

$2 Checks Payable to Chris Desjardins/Available September 21 (1978!) from Upsetter Records

Was 1978 the highwater  mark for punk singles in LA - lps are another story? Let's see - the street date for this EPIC release was September 21 (ad swiped from a barn copy of Slash September 1978 - Peter Tosh cover).  The following month, October 1978, Black Flag's "Nervous Breakdown" e.p. is released though recorded well before that.  What else came out in '78: the Weirdos double A side "We Got the Neutron Bomb"/"Solitary Confinement," the Bags "Survive," the Germs "Lexicon Devil," X "Adult Books"/ "We're Desperate," the Middle Class "Out of Vogue" and on and on . . . 

Baby Jane's in Acapulco, We are Flying Down to Rio/Dan Flavin and Stairway to Heaven/The Pensioner [repost from May 2010]

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 and claims the VU as a front and center influence and put out FIVE great albums in a row (other than the Ramones)? 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. Below 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!!: