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

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.

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

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?

"Now that’s the essence of Mod" - Bowie Covering the Velvet Underground Before the First VU LP Released in US/The Deviants Covering "Prominent Men" 1965-1966? [Repost 2012]

Is the music game only about one-upmanship? Who was hep to who at the earliest? Do you really care? I do. Grady has recently pointed out that Bowie covered "I'm Waiting for the Man" as early as 1967, which turns out to be before the first VU lp even came out in the US! I even had the track on the Bowie "Rare and Well Done" cd but as boots go, it had the date listed as a 1969 demo. That boot also has the track "Litle Toy Soldier" with its Small Faces-ish rewrite of "Venus in Furs" listed as 1969 as well. According to this excellent and illuminating write-up, which lays out the timeline, the who and how, it demonstrates that the proverbial race to the courthouse door does matter if you care about such things. Or is it "first in time, first in possession"? “Now that’s the essence of Mod,” Bowie boasted [about covering the VU before the lp was even out]." Turns out "Little Toy Soldier" dates from 1967 as well, again with the Riot Squad. Not so fast flash. Mick Farren had an acetate of the 1965 VU demos (stolen from Joe Boyd!) that eventually became the first disc of the "Peel Slowly and See" box set around the same time (1965-1966) so maybe he can claim the hep crown from old carrot top. We need Mick to see if he can scrape up some rehearsal tapes to back up his claim! First lets hear Bowie tackle Lou twice in 1967: What I can say with absoulte certainty is that the British were among the first to "get" the Velvet Underground in a broader cultural sense, and that the influence was seeping into the consciousness of folks like Mick Farren and David Bowie as early as 1965-1967. Makes me want to dig out my original U.S. Sire pressing of the Deviants' "Ptoof" right now. I remember reading with some astonishment Ritchie Unterberger's interview of Farren back in 1999 right here and it would behoove you to remind yourself of what their approach encompassed.

Q: What were the Deviants' inspirations when you starting coming together around late 1966?

MF: We didn't know what we were doing, for a start. The most exciting thing at the time was probably the Who. Probably what Pete Townshend was doing. But that in a way was kind of big time major hit single rock'n'roll. The two rather diverse things that we were listening to was on one hand, we were getting the first ESP records by the Fugs. And at the other extreme, I was listening to a lot of... particularly the album Mingus [did], "Oh Yeah," with Roland Kirk, with "Ecclusiastics" and "Passions of a Man" and "Eat That Chicken" and all that stuff on it. Bob Dylan of course. We were trying to like blend it all into something that made sense, without very much money. The Fugs had a certain kind of jugband appeal, which fitted our income at the time. Joe Boyd [producer of Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, and numerous other late-'60s bands] brought over some tapes of the Velvet Underground, which we stole off him, and somebody immediately stole off us. That was the most interesting thing that seemed to be a similar kind of synthesis, coming from the same sort of background. [The tapes] were pre-first album (ED: i.e. predating the Velvets' famed "Banana" LP).. I was almost beginning to think I'd dreamed them. Everybody denied all knowledge of them. We performed a song called "Prominent Men" for a while that we took off those tapes. And suddenly they resurfaced. They're the very first tapes on the Velvet Underground box set. [The tape] was ["Prominent Men"], three or four versions of "Venus In Furs," the very strange acoustic version of "Waiting For The Man," "Prominent Men," "All Tomorrow's Parties." [We were] a bunch of guys who'd really come out of the sort of British North London art school R&B band scene. Like the Pretty Things; that was really our heritage. We were trying to like push it in simultaneously a more demented and more intelligent direction. 'Cause we couldn't really be spending our time recycling old Jimmy Reed tunes. So we were looking for something to do. I think basically Lou and Cale got in there first. It was very much a sort of parallel development, London and New York. That's where we felt things were happening the most. You know, we were pretty incompetent at the start. We were pretty incompetent at the end. But more money came in. The amplifiers got bigger. We all got ourselves fierce amphetamine habits, and at that point, kind of ear-bleeding noise took over for a while. Plus we were also kind of listening to Zappa, which definitely affected the way we made the first album.

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

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!!:

"Now that’s the essence of Mod" - Bowie Covering the Velvet Underground Before the First VU LP Released in US/The Deviants Covering "Prominent Men" 1965-1966?

Is the music game only about one-upmanship? Who was hep to who at the earliest? Do you really care? I do. Grady has recently pointed out that Bowie covered "I'm Waiting for the Man" as early as 1967, which turns out to be before the first VU lp even came out in the US! I even had the track on the Bowie "Rare and Well Done" cd but as boots go, it had the date listed as a 1969 demo. That boot also has the track "Litle Toy Soldier" with its Small Faces-ish rewrite of "Venus in Furs" listed as 1969 as well. According to this excellent and illuminating write-up, which lays out the timeline, the who and how, it demonstrates that the proverbial race to the courthouse door does matter if you care about such things. Or is it "first in time, first in possession"? “Now that’s the essence of Mod,” Bowie boasted [about covering the VU before the lp was even out]." Turns out "Little Toy Soldier" dates from 1967 as well, again with the Riot Squad. Not so fast flash. Mick Farren had an acetate of the 1965 VU demos (stolen from Joe Boyd!) that eventually became the first disc of the "Peel Slowly and See" box set around the same time (1965-1966) so maybe he can claim the hep crown from old carrot top. We need Mick to see if he can scrape up some rehearsal tapes to back up his claim! First lets hear Bowie tackle Lou twice in 1967: What I can say with absoulte certainty is that the British were among the first to "get" the Velvet Underground in a broader cultural sense, and that the influence was seeping into the consciousness of folks like Mick Farren and David Bowie as early as 1965-1967. Makes me want to dig out my original U.S. Sire pressing of the Deviants' "Ptoof" right now. I remember reading with some astonishment Ritchie Unterberger's interview of Farren back in 1999 right here and it would behoove you to remind yourself of what their approach encompassed.

Q: What were the Deviants' inspirations when you starting coming together around late 1966?

MF: We didn't know what we were doing, for a start. The most exciting thing at the time was probably the Who. Probably what Pete Townshend was doing. But that in a way was kind of big time major hit single rock'n'roll. The two rather diverse things that we were listening to was on one hand, we were getting the first ESP records by the Fugs. And at the other extreme, I was listening to a lot of... particularly the album Mingus [did], "Oh Yeah," with Roland Kirk, with "Ecclusiastics" and "Passions of a Man" and "Eat That Chicken" and all that stuff on it. Bob Dylan of course. We were trying to like blend it all into something that made sense, without very much money. The Fugs had a certain kind of jugband appeal, which fitted our income at the time. Joe Boyd [producer of Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, and numerous other late-'60s bands] brought over some tapes of the Velvet Underground, which we stole off him, and somebody immediately stole off us. That was the most interesting thing that seemed to be a similar kind of synthesis, coming from the same sort of background. [The tapes] were pre-first album (ED: i.e. predating the Velvets' famed "Banana" LP).. I was almost beginning to think I'd dreamed them. Everybody denied all knowledge of them. We performed a song called "Prominent Men" for a while that we took off those tapes. And suddenly they resurfaced. They're the very first tapes on the Velvet Underground box set. [The tape] was ["Prominent Men"], three or four versions of "Venus In Furs," the very strange acoustic version of "Waiting For The Man," "Prominent Men," "All Tomorrow's Parties." [We were] a bunch of guys who'd really come out of the sort of British North London art school R&B band scene. Like the Pretty Things; that was really our heritage. We were trying to like push it in simultaneously a more demented and more intelligent direction. 'Cause we couldn't really be spending our time recycling old Jimmy Reed tunes. So we were looking for something to do. I think basically Lou and Cale got in there first. It was very much a sort of parallel development, London and New York. That's where we felt things were happening the most. You know, we were pretty incompetent at the start. We were pretty incompetent at the end. But more money came in. The amplifiers got bigger. We all got ourselves fierce amphetamine habits, and at that point, kind of ear-bleeding noise took over for a while. Plus we were also kind of listening to Zappa, which definitely affected the way we made the first album.

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."

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!!:

new faces, new sounds on the ROCK SCENE/Planets 1976 Demos

Binky Phillips has one of the better names in rock. Kicking around since the early 70's, the Planets were one of the mainstays of the early to late 70's NYC scene. Picked as one of the ones to watch by Rock Scene in 1973 (see barn archive image with early lineup), we coulda, woulda, shoulda had one of the better mid-70s high energy rock lps. These demos featuring singer Tally (who was compared to Arthur Lee by the broadcaster in DC playing these demos on air in '76), has some good power pop moves straight outta Artful Dodger. I suggest that the rhythm section's freakbeat execution in "Come on Up" is so good to be confused with its English brethren which at that time was only about ten years away from its heyday. Here are two demos - "Come on Up" and "Lexington Avenue" from (unbelievably) 35 years ago: