who's been f@cking with bl*gger then ?

FICS 001.

Well, it's Halloween, brothers and sisters. Some people like to get dressed up; other bastards like to hide behind a mask. Make scary noises and waft a tortured sheet about. A bit like the Ku Klux Clan. Grand Wizards and monkeys scratching their red hairless bottoms.

Well. Here we go then. What else is new ?

It was always shit to begin with. A game full of bogeys played by handicapped humps. Grotesques. Arseholes just like me.

Scratch n' sniff. Bend n' flush.

Based, it would seem, on a rather famous novel by some minor writer or other by the name of Albert Camus. The illiterate PC brigade might well have a fit. In fact, they have already.

Censorship ? What censorship ?

And don't ask me about that f@cking party, either. The hacksaw might just slip and nick my ankle.

▼ THE CURE: KILLING AN ARAB from "Killing An Arab b/w 10:15 Saturday Night" 45 (Small Wonder / Fiction) 1978 (UK)

PURCHASE STARING AT THE SEA: THE SINGLES

spare the rod and spoil the child

In a manner of speaking. Vocal by Mia Farrow.

▼ KRZYSZTOF KOMEDA: MAIN TITLE (OPENING CREDITS) from "Rosemary's Baby" LP (Paramount) 1968 (US)

PURCHASE ROSEMARY'S BABY REMASTERED

tales from the crypt

publicity still from film adaptation of "tales from the crypt".
five part compendium; amicus, 1972.

"Screenplay by: Milton Subotsky.
Based on stories written by Al Feldstein, Johnny Craig and Bill Gaines, originally published in the Comic Magazines 'Tales From the Crypt' and 'The Vault of Horror' by Bill Gaines.
"Wish You Were Here" also suggested by "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs (uncredited)."























capitol T-2057.

Musical accompaniment from Ed "Big Daddy" Roth and his Philharmonic Jug and Juice Band. Vinyl rip courtesy of Dave's World. It don't sound right without them pops n' crackles.

Did The Cramps ever do a version of this ? They ought to.

▼ MR. GASSER & THE WEIRDOS: HEARSE WITH A CURSE from "Rods N' Ratfinks" LP (Capitol) 1964 (US)

PURCHASE TALES FROM THE CRYPT REPRINT CALENDAR
PURCHASE RODS N' RATFINKS
BIG DADDY & THE BEATNIK BANDIT ON BLOGORAMA!

warts and all

drew friedman and josh alan friedman. penguin books.

Featuring reprints from:

"Bad News"; "Blab"; "Heavy Metal"; "Magick Theatre"; "National Lampoon"; "Prime Cuts"; "Raw"; "Snarf Comics"; "Spy"; "Twist"; "The Village Voice"; "Weirdo".

Introduction by Kurt Vonnegut. Embossed cover.

PURCHASE WARTS AND ALL
DREW FRIEDMAN: OFFICIAL SITE

isgodaman ?

leonardo da vinci: vitruvian man, 1487.
a question of singular proportion.

An album I haven't listened to in over thirty years: the "Streets" compilation of "Select Highlights From Independent British Labels".
The first LP release for Beggars Banquet, BEGA 1 ; a swelter of fine British talent from The Lurkers and The Doll to John Cooper Clarke
and Slaughter & The Dogs.

The last time I heard this, I sported holes in the knees of my trousers and safety-pins on my shirt. Nothing much has changed.

Arthur Comix - or "Arthur Comics ?", as the band was credited on the back of the sleeve - were in reality none other than those infamous Snivelling Shits, formed by legendary 'Sounds' and 'Zig Zag' journalist extraordinaire, Giovanni Dadomo in 1977. Rumour has it that Beggars Banquet forced the name change to get the record into distribution, but given Dadomo's occupation - and reputation for spinning a line - the tale is more than likely apocryphal.

Rechristened as the Shits proper in time for their excellent debut 45 release, "Terminal Stupid b/w I Can't Come" on the Ghetto Rockers label, Dadomo hoodwinked Monty Smith from rival music rag, NME, into voting it 'Single of the Week'. The real joke was the record was a gem and thoroughly deserving of the hype. Such was the level of the backlash unleashed by the tabloid press in the UK, in the wake of the Bill Grundy and Silver Jubilee fiascoes, that the Shits were forced to tout themselves as 'The Hits' in order just to secure a paltry handful of gigs, but they did manage to record a session for The John Peel Show - and posterity - before disbanding to the sound of one hand clapping in 1978. Briefly then, the British equivalent of Lester Bangs' foray into making loud music with The Delinquents; "Jook Savages on the Brazos".

"The front cover photo [to "Terminal Stupid"] originally graced the front of
The Sunday Mirror newspaper, June 12th 1977. It's of a girl fan watching The Stranglers in Manchester and the headline was 'Punk Rock Jubilee Shocker'."

The fabulous Dadomo sadly died in 2002.

Giovanni Dadomo: vocals; Dave Fudger: bass; Steve Nicol: drums; Pete Makowski: guitar.

Produced by Ed Hollis and Steve Lillywhite.

▼ ARTHUR COMIX: ISGODAMAN ? from "Streets: VA" LP (Beggars Banquet) 1977 (UK)

OUT OF PRINT
GIOVANNI DADOMO: INTERVIEW WITH SYD BARRETT, 1971
GIOVANNI DADOMO ON TV SMITH, 1979
77 SULPHATE STRIP WITH BARRY CAIN ON PLANET MONDO

what time is love ? (bunnymen mix)

INT 125.790.

Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty of the K Foundation; who once burned £1,000,000 to ashes on a remote Scottish Isle in a misguided artistic statement. Featuring The Children Of The Revolution.

Discuss.

▼ THE KLF: WHAT TIME IS LOVE ? (ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN MIX) from "What Time Is Love ? (Remodelled & Remixed) 12" EP (Blow Up) 1990 (UK)

OUT OF PRINT
PURCHASE THE WHITE ROOM / JUSTIFIED & ANCIENT

the exploding inevitable

Well, well. It appears our last jaunt to the trip receptacles secured little in the way of favourable comment. Or any comment at all, in fact. Since I am nothing if not contrary, I don't for one second intend to allow that to impede us from alighting on a third trip.

Look on it as you might an especially intrusive flashback.

This one is not from the vaults of the Trip Receptacles. Rather, let's revisit Timothy Leary's notorious 1967 call to alms, "Turn On, Tune In, Drop It", fellow siblings.

Leary, of course, famously taught psychology at Harvard and from as early as 1960 advocated the unfettered use of natural hallucinogens in addition to the then perfectly legal synthesised compound, LSD. Less well known is the controversial nature of his earliest experiments; these initially targeted prison inmates as a control group well before he gained sufficient confidence to engage directly in self-experimentation.




ESP 1027.

Leary - alongside colleague, Richard Alpert - was dismissed from his faculty in May 1963 for allegedly distributing controlled substances to the student body. The official line, however, was his failure to attend contracted lectures. Undaunted by this and subsequent pressures from the FBI, Leary founded the "League For Spiritual Discovery" as a registered faith in 1966; an attempt to secure legal status for LSD as the holy sacrament underpinning their constitutional right to "freedom of religion". The government disagreed. On October 6th, 1966, LSD was effectively made illegal throughout the United States.

On January 14th, 1967, Timothy Leary made an invited appearance at the Human-Be-In in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, with a gathering of some 30,000 individuals attendant on his word. The phrase "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out" was officially born.

Rejoice. Engineered by David Hancock.

"All Girls Are Yours" ? If you say so, Timothy.

▼ DR. TIMOTHY LEARY: TRIP; ALL GIRLS ARE YOURS from "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out" LP (ESP) 1967 (US)

PURCHASE TURN ON, TUNE IN, DROP OUT

i'm so lonesome i could cry

cowboy's lament.

Recorded in Toronto, Ontario's Church of the Holy Trinity on November 27th, 1987. Which no doubt must have felt vaguely like bad news - from the pews - if your name happens to be Alan Anton.

But, my, what acoustics. What an eerie atmosphere of inconsolable loss.

Margo Timmins: vocals; Michael Timmins: guitar; Alan Anton: bass; Peter Timmins: drums.

Originally written and recorded, of course, by the inimitable Hank Williams back in 1949; a #1 position on the Billboard Country Singles chart, four years before his demise in the back seat of a Cadillac.

A cowboy junkie with a bad case of the blues.

▼ COWBOY JUNKIES: I'M SO LONESOME I COULD CRY from "The Trinity Session" LP (Latent) 1988 (Canada)

PURCHASE THE TRINITY SESSION

götterdämmerung

"The term Götterdämmerung is occasionally used in English, referring to a disastrous conclusion of events."

Well. Yes, Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883) was something of a pompous old f@ck. That much is incontestable. And given that those same hoary Norse ideals and mythologies form the cornerstone to the Third Reich's warped appropriation of an Ayran Valhalla, the spectre of jackboots and swastikas are also scarcely inescapable.

I am not, either, overly fond of Opera.

"Götterdämmerung" ("Twilight of the Gods") is the final installment in those four operas which comprise "Der Ring des Nibelungen" ("The Ring of the Nibelung"), composed by Wagner over the course of twenty-six years in total, between 1848 and 1874. It received its first public airing as summer drew to a close at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 17th August, 1876; the epic finale to Wagner's monumentally romantic vision of betrayal and sacrifice.

"The title is a translation into German of the Old Norse phrase Ragnarok, which in Norse mythology refers to a prophesied war of the Gods which brings about the end of the world in Völuspá. However, as with the rest of the Ring, Wagner's account of this apocalypse diverges significantly from his Old Norse sources."

Eminently enjoyable theatrical pish nonetheless; quite appropriate for the Halloween season, I feel. Ed Woods would have made a choice candidate, too, as director-in-chief on a budget civic production, with your local high school orchestra lending said event unwelcome gravitas. Assuming you have time to waste.

And, of course, if one happens to be somewhat intoxicated - on nefarious substances or not - it has the potential to change in tone to something altogether less comedic.

▼ RICHARD WAGNER: SIEGFRIED'S DEATH & FUNERAL MARCH from "Der Ring Des Nibelungen: IV, Götterdämmerung" 1848 - 1874 (Germany)

PURCHASE DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN

christ, you'll never know

"...an event organised by city lights in san francisco 1972."

Christ. Microphone hum and grating applause. Laughter. And over it all, haltingly - caged and singing like a sparrow - a man sitting at a table with the spotlight flaring on his reading glasses. Seized with fright at the prospect of not making it to the end of the sentence, as much as the fear of not making it as a published writer. And not making the rent.

After Bukowski finally threw in the towel with the Post Office, public readings and appearances became pivotal as a means of cementing his reputation as a 'serious' literary presence.

Recorded at MCCC-TV Studio, Detroit, Michigan; 31st October, 1974.

"You don't have a tv ?...
You got to look once in a while. You never know what's going on."

I've heard it said that Detroit - like Glasgow - was a seriously tough gig in those days. Despite the nerves, Bukowski was a natural.

A more entertaining way to idle away a halloween I cannot imagine. Trick or Treat, brothers and sisters. Hecklers too.

▼ CHARLES BUKOWSKI: CHRIST, YOU'LL NEVER KNOW / THE CLOSING OF THE TOPLESS AND BOTTOMLESS BARS from "Totally Corrupt" LP (Giorno Poetry Systems) 1976 (US)

OUT OF PRINT

this pack has nothing to declare

Progressive jazz with an electronic edge. Recorded at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg, on September 15th and October 1st, 1970. Produced by Manfred Eicher. Composed and performed by Wolfgang Dauner.

Eberhard Weber: bass; Eberhard Weber: cello; Eberhard Weber, Wolfgang Dauner: flute; Wolfgang Dauner: piano; Wolfgang Dauner: keyboards; Wolfgang Dauner: clavinet; Wolfgang Dauner: main performer; Wolfgang Dauner: modulator; Fred Braceful: percussion; Fred Braceful : drums.

The countdown to part 2 of E4's "Dead Set" is on.

▼ WOLFGANG DAUNER: NOTHING TO DECLARE from "Output" LP (ECM) 1970 (Germany)

OUT OF PRINT

sand

photograph by ken heyman.

A huge vote of thanks to Wim for responding to my plea regarding any info on Dutch group, Alabama Kids, a band whose sonic narratives I was fleetingly exposed to while living in Holland in 1992/3.

I should remember more, but - sadly - I don't.

"Schemer operated out of Schagen and was one of the labels from a distribution company called Semaphore, now long defunct."

Written by D. Thung. Recorded live at the Slash Club, Berlin on 26th March, 1992.

▼ ALABAMA KIDS: SAND from "The Lid" EP (Schemer) 1992 (NL)

OUT OF PRINT

doctor blyss is in the house

no, not beatle john.
peter cushing as dr. blyss, aka captain clegg, "night creatures", 1962.

"Sasha reminds us that psychedelics do not always lead to God and enlightenment. Callers advise on proper dosages of psilocybe cubensis."

If you like this shit, brothers and sisters, there is always more. You know where to reach me.

"Christ, you know it ain't easy. You know how hard it can be..."

▼ ALEXANDER 'SASHA' SHULGIN / RADIO KPFA: FOLLOWING 100mg OF 4-TASB from "Instant Insanity Drugs: The Trip Receptacles" MP3 archive (KPFA Berkeley) ? (US)

VISIT THE TRIP RECEPTACLES

mr. ed

I do not gamble.

Yes, you heard it right.
I realise that, in many
people's eyes that
might seem odd, not
even
remotely conscienable.

like a twelve year old
waiting
for his balls to drop. But.

Consider this. I have
fucked up in so many other
ways, it is small wonder
I have something going
for me at all;
an opportunity to atone.

Still.
I am a long odds wager.
A dark horse.

faust = fist

Werner Diermeier: drums; Hans-Joachim Irmler: organ; Gunter Wusthoff: synthesizer, saxophone; Rudolf Sosna: guitar, keyboards; Jean-Herve Peron: bass.

▼ FAUST: GIGGY SMILE from "Faust IV" LP (Virgin) 1973 (Germany)

PURCHASE FAUST IV

fingers

Clouds intrude. Tubercular fingers
seizing up the blue. Pinching in
from the south-east on a mission
of little mercy. Harbingers of hard
cheese. Errand boys of slothful
mistrust; creeping pillars of rain.

Watch out for rainbows. They sneak
in from the north, winsome smiles
that inoculate and provoke confusion.

more sorcery

pablo picasso.

Gabor Szabo: guitar; Jimmy Stewart: guitar; Louis Kabok: bass; Marty Morell: drums; Hal Gordon: percussion.

A huge performance from the 31 year old Sazabo, recorded live at The Jazz Workshop, Boston on April 14th-15th, 1967.

Produced by Bob Thiele; engineered by Ed Begley.

▼ GABOR SZABO: LOS MATADOROS from "More Sorcery" LP (Impulse!) 1967 (US)

PURCHASE MORE SORCERY REMASTERED

stormy

sometime in new york city.

From the album named after the Ballstaan river crossing through the suburbs north of Stockholm, his second release in Sweden. An act of solidarity with Emmett's posting on Wednesday, last week.

Gabor Szabo: guitar; Janne Schaffer: guitar; Wlodek Gulgowski: piano and synthesiser; Pekka Pohjola: bass; Malando Gassama: congas and percussion; Peter Sundell: drums.

Recorded at one of two sessions in Europa Film Studio, Stockholm, on January 6th and 7th, 1978. Written by B. Buie and J.R. Cobb.

Produced by Lars Samuelson; engineered by Leif Allanson.

This one is for Löst Jimmy who is currently weathering the same inclement north Atlantic front. Apologies for the dodgy stereo panning near the end of the track; either that or a fault with the gain.

▼ GABOR SZABO: STORMY from "Belsta River" LP (Four Leaf Clover) 1978 (Sweden)

OUT OF PRINT

american girl

Spirit of Roger McGuinn. And Rickenbacker guitar.

"Petty is a graduate of Gainesville High School. Petty did not have any musical aspirations until Elvis Presley came to Ocala, Florida, 25 miles south of Petty's hometown, to work on a movie; and Petty went down there to watch him."

Produced by Denny Cordell.

▼ TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS: AMERICAN GIRL from "Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers" LP (Shelter) 1976 (US)

PURCHASE ANTHOLOGY: THROUGH THE YEARS

no static at all

MCA 374 .

Drums and percussion: Jeff Porcaro; Bass: Walter Becker; guitar: Walter Becker; steel guitar: Cosmo Creek; piano: Donald Fagen; tenor sax: Pete Christlieb; percussion: Victor Feldman; backup vocals: Tim Schmit.

Written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. Strings arranged by Johnny Mandel. Produced by Gary Katz. A fine cheese.

▼ STEELY DAN: FM (NO STATIC AT ALL) from "FM (No Static At All)" 45 (MCA) 1978 (US)

PURCHASE CITIZEN STEELY DAN: 1972 - 1980 (4 x CD)

mayo: hurricane fighter plane

mayo thompson. or the bad lieutenant.

Texas calling. I am standing in line. I am on the way to a second coronary. The bitch with the smudged mascara and tobacco stained teeth sneers at me over greasy stainless steel and goes for the tried and tested cock-shrink script:

"You want mayo with that ?"

No. I want her brains - assuming she fucking has any - pooling on the slippery floor where infants skid before meeting their maker on a Friday afternoon jaunt to what will soon be affectionately known as the Tombs. Fucking imbecile. Stupid bitch.

Let's not fuck about. I have had my share of moronic paid occupation. I do not like her. In fact, I want to reach out over that stainless steel canopy and dip her fucking face in a fryer. I kid you not. I am weary of playing games. "Twister". Scissor Sisters on parole. Fuck her. Stupid, IQ challenged c*nt. I am not making this shit up. I have dressed 'poor', and paid through the nose to eat badly, for far too fucking long. I am poised on the lip of taking her down for good. Stupid bitch.

Hey. Checking my hair out in the mirror. Don't get me wrong. I'm one of the good guys. Harvey Keitel on his fucking honeymoon.

Why is it I get the impression no-one likes Richard Hell ?

▼ RED KRAYOLA: HURRICANE FIGHTER PLANE from "Epitaph For A Legend" LP (International Artists) 1980 (US)

PURCHASE EPITAPH TOR A LEGEND

deaf, dumb and blind boy

design variant #cd3 by ib.

Behind blue eyes; from Pete's own Eel Pie label.

▼ PETE TOWNSHEND: BABA M2 (1971) from "Lifehouse Chronicles: Themes & Experiments" CD (Eel Pie) 2000 (UK)

PURCHASE LIFEHOUSE CHRONICLES

has anybody heard of the motherf@ckers ?

Like somebody once said just before he got fired from a local radio station here in Glasgow:

"Fuck it, let's have a quiz..."

I'm not sure where this one comes from exactly. I think it may be from the "Give Apple A Chance" bootleg, but it's something I picked up somewhere down the line. Answers on the back of a motherf@ckin' postcard, please.

The first sibling to correctly identify the mystery track gets to make a no holds barred request; but who will assess the winning entry's veracity ?

▼ THE FAB FOUR: JOHN RAMBLES IN THE STUDIO WHILE MACCA TINKLES ON THE IVORIES WITH NONCHALANT ABANDON

sixty seconds to what ?

sarah palin and senator john mccain.

As to whether there is any substance to the allegation that Palin's designer broomstick is hand-crafted by Colombian orphans plucked off the streets in a fare trade deal, that is up to the American voting public to decide. What's $150,000 between good friends ?

The countdown to November 4th is underway.

That's just four days after she gets to make an incantation, and a little over a month before she escapes through a rift in time and travels back to 1980 - in drag - to blast away at Beatle John in a Creationist frenzy.

▼ ENNIO MORRICONE: LA RESA DEI CONTI from "A Fistful Of Dollars & For A Few Dollars More" LP (RCA Camden) 1970 (US)

PURCHASE A FISTFUL OF FILM MUSIC:
ENNIO MORRICONE ANTHOLOGY ON RHINO

birds on the wire

Mick Farren: vocals; Russell Hunter: drums;
Sid Bishop: guitar; Duncan Sanderson: bass.

▼ THE DEVIANTS: SPARROWS AND WIRES from "Disposable" LP (Decca) 1968 (UK)

PURCHASE DISPOSABLE REMASTERED

soda

I watch the raindrops
fizzing against the
window like carbonated
soda.

All that's missing is
the bars.

Photograph by Andrew Scharlott.

that was then, this is now

lewis pain: conspirator (with john wilkes boothe) in the assassination of abraham lincoln.
thanks to gentlebear for the accreditation, and for clearing up the mystery.

I landed on the image above quite accidentally during a recent web trawl looking for something or other. I believe it is from the cover of a recent edition of 1975's "Rumblefish" by S.E. Hinton, originally published as a short story "in the University of Tulsa literary journal Nimrod [1968] and later expanded into a novel." And Francis Ford Coppola's cinematic adaptation in 1983.

I first read Susan Eloise Hinton as a kid in primary school. That book was 1971's "That Was Then, This Is Now", and I fell as hard for it then as any book by any author I have encountered since; and I drift inexorably towards senility. As an author for young adults, she was as relevant in the 1970s as J.D. Salinger was to an altogether earlier period. Salinger, let's not forget, has not published anything new since 1965. Strange as that might seem, given "Catcher In The Rye" has never been out of print and continues to sell in excess of one quarter of a million copies each and every year.

Let's agree not to mention Mark Chapman....

Damn. Too f@cking late.

"Rusty-James... You're just like a ball in a pinball machine."

I first heard Harvey Mandel over on Art Decade. There is some oblique relevance here. Detroit born Harvey cut this - his first album - in the same year "Rumblefish" was issued in its more concise form. In 1975, when S.E. Hinton successfully published the expanded version, Mandel auditioned for The Rolling Stones as Mick Taylor's replacement; recording "Memory Hotel" for the album which would eventually be released as "Black and Blue". You may also recall the Motorcycle Boy's own imperfect imitation of Christ as he strives to return a handful of flailing fish to the river on the east side in the climax to Coppola's film of the book. Tenuous, maybe, but I was unable to source Stewart Copeland's score, and I've already inflicted Stan Ridgway on you all.

▼ HARVEY MANDEL: WADE IN THE WATER from "Cristo Redentor" LP (Philips) 1968 (US)

S.E. HINTON (OFFICIAL SITE)
PURCHASE CRISTO REDENTOR REMASTERED + BONUS TRACKS

the library ticket

The unlubricated machinery of unsound mind
refuses to grind. The collected grist of random
recollections; those undigested inventories of
the recently dead and just departing. It
seizes on threads - jitterbugging cousins
dolled up in shrouds - the unwashed
laundry of unsuspecting honeymooners,
and screams out for a drink. It scrapes and
jams, fits and starts; a backfiring of all the do's
and don'ts, the jigsaw fruits of monkey
puzzle trees throwing shadows on the landing
in the full bloom of forgetting, of turning
out the lights. 60 watt bulbs dimming then
imploding. Tried patterns failing. Limpet
mouths on wounds already purpling. Bruised.

The only addiction worth hanging on to
is that one you left standing in the closet. A
jumble of hooks. A tangle of skins. Unreturned
books on a library ticket. Unpaid fines.

music to retire to

wall of voodoo

SP 70401. cover photograph by scott lindgren.

Written by June Carter with Merle Kilgore, and made famous by husband-in-waiting, Johnny Cash.

Stanard Ridgway: vocals, organ; Marc Moreland: guitar; Chas Gray: synthesizer; Bruce Moreland: bass, piano; Joe Nanini: percussion.

I first heard this version on a porn soundtrack in the early 80s. The video footage featured cowgirls with unholstered dildos in a studio rigged to resemble a campfire on a midwestern range. Cheap and rather nasty; it nonetheless did persuade me to go out and buy their LP. Produced by Phillip Culp & Wall Of Voodoo. Engineered by Jim Hill.

▼ WALL OF VOODOO: RING OF FIRE from "Wall Of Voodoo" 12" EP (Index) 1980 (US)

PURCHASE GRANDMA'S HOUSE ON WAL-MART FOR $0.88

ding-dong, the witch is dead

left to right: andy hummel; jody stephens; and alex chilton.

Three-piece suite: "Radio City" era Big Star - minus Chris Bell - doing exactly what it says on the tin. Contrast the fresh-faced Chilton from the Mala / Bell publicity shot in today's previous post with the wasted cadaver taking a back seat in the above photograph. A vacant stare seven long years in the cultivating, and a portent of a holocaust yet to come. No picture credit, sadly; but for some nicely detailed observations on John Fry's Ardent Studio in Memphis, where he recorded and engineered both "#1 Record" and its successor, follow the yellow brick road via the link provided below.

'SEPTEMBER GURLS' ON SOUND ON SOUND, CLASSIC TRACKS *
* Article by Richard Buskin.

twin shades of whiter than pale

both sides of the atlantic, 1967, "leaving for the coast".



Memphis boys, The Box Tops were nominated for two Grammy Awards in 1967: the first, 'Best Vocal Group Performance', for their 45, "The Letter" but also - perhaps less well remembered - 'Best Contemporary Group Performance' for their cover of Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade Of Pale", produced by Dan Penn.

It is Chilton's vocal, though - blacker than black - which seals this performance as something worthy of serious reinvestigation.*

Alex Chilton: lead vocals and rhythm guitar; Bill Cunningham: bass and keyboards; John Evans: guitar and keyboards; Danny Smythe: drums; Gary Talley: lead guitar.

Lyrics, of course, by Keith Reid over a J.S. Bach improvisation provided by Gary Brooker and Hammond organist, Matthew Fisher. Recorded at Olympic Studios, London. Produced by Denny Cordell; engineered by Keith Grant.

Gary Brooker, voice and piano; Matthew Fisher, Hammond organ; David Knights, bass; Ray Royer, guitar and Bill Eyden, drums.

▼ PROCOL HARUM: A WHITER SHADE OF PALE from "A Whiter Shade Of Pale b/w Lime Street Blues" 45 (Regal Zonophone / Deram) 1967 (UK)

▼ THE BOX TOPS: A WHITER SHADE OF PALE from "The Letter / Neon Rainbow" LP (Bell) 1967 (US)

* For the record, on reflection that's not entirely fair to the rest of those Tops. A solid group performance with some excellent understated guitar licks and percussion.

PURCHASE PROCOL HARUM REMASTERED + BONUS TRACKS
PURCHASE THE LETTER / NEON RAINBOW

el monstruo!

milwaukee's reginald 'the crusher' lisowski, 1926 - 2005.



los shain's.

No. That apostrophe is in the right place; do not write in with corrections, this is how the name appears on the original LP jacket.

Originally a hit for The Novas, and covered most famously by The Cramps on their IRS EP in 1981, this is from a Peruvian group of teenagers who released an album of Rock n' Roll & Garage staples on their Odeon release, "El Ritmo De Los Shain's" in 1965: LD-1483. Band leader, Geraldo Rojas, later went on to form a psychedelic collective with the delightful Beatles flavoured moniker, St. Thomas Pepper Smelter. Not surprisingly, original vinyl copies of this album regularly change hands at quite exorbitant prices.

Written by Bob Nolan & The Novas for the Parrot label, 1964.

If yesterday afternoon's post was hard-boiled pulp - with the accent on genuine disgust - then this is Abbott & Costello vs. The Munsters.

▼ LOS SHAIN'S: EL MONSTRUO from "El Ritmo De Los Shain's" LP (Odeon) 1965 (Peru)

PURCHASE EL RITMO DE LOS SHAIN'S (REPSYCHLED)

trigger

Lou Reed (vocals, guitar); Robert Quine (guitar); Fernando Saunders (bass, background vocals); Doane Perry (drums).

Recorded at RCA Studios, New York, New York in October 1981. Produced by Lou Reed and Sean Fullan.

A slow burn and a party for one, best savoured if you can provide your own brittle kindling. And a measure of pure, cobalt contempt. There are seven open doors straight in front of you; only one mirror. Enjoy.

▼ LOU REED: THE GUN from "Blue Mask" LP (RCA) 1982 (US)

▼ LOU REED: THE BLUE MASK from "Blue Mask" LP (RCA) 1982 (US)

PURCHASE BLUE MASK

all this and more

stiv performs with lords of the new church, october, 1983.
photograph by dave collins.

Out of the ashes of the same funeral pyre that spawned Pere Ubu - Rocket From The Tombs - Dead Boys moved to NYC from Cleveland, Ohio in the summer of 1976 on the fraternal advice of Ramones sibling and nasal stick insect, pal Joey; their ubiquitously anthemic, "Sonic Reducer", was co-written by David Thomas with Johnny Blitz and was previously an RFT staple, still circulating on those Cleveland tapes from 1975 - repackaged by Smog Veil and produced by Richard Lloyd.

Stiv Bators: vocals; Cheetah Chrome: lead guitar; Jimmy Zero: rhythm guitar; Jeff Magnum: bass guitar; Johnny Blitz: drums.

Handclaps a-go-go and plenty of attitude. "I wanna be a dead boy..." Stiv finally got his wish when he was run over by a taxi - intoxicated while crossing the street - in Paris, 1990, at the ripe old age of 38. According to medical reports, he "died in his sleep as the result of a concussion"; a terminal injury endured for the best part of 20 years.

Recorded at Electric Lady Studios, NYC. Produced by Genya Raven; engineered by Dave Wittman. Released in October 1977.

▼ DEAD BOYS: ALL THIS AND MORE from "Young, Loud And Snotty" LP (Sire) 1977 (US)

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PURCHASE ROCKET REDUX FROM SMOG VEIL

sibling whispers #16: slipping the tongue

sonic reducer ? stiv bators admires a prize winning entry; john mccain's crash economy diet. cheetah chrome seems bemused.*

I noticed there have been few sibling whispers of late. There is plenty happening out there, so perhaps I am simply growing hard of hearing.

Meanwhile, as token to remedy my chronic negligence in this department, you might want to head over to WFMU's Beware Of The Blog and catch up on some returning votes from their Photoshop Contest in celebration of Senator John McCain's recent supervised outings on American tv. The final closing date is today, 5:00PM ET,
with the winner(s) to be announced some time soon, I expect. Ciao.

* WFMU Photoshop Contest entry by Bob W.
EXPERIENCE THE FULL BUFFALO BILL EFFECT IN GLORIOUS LIVING COLOUR!!!

seems so long ago, nancy

detail from a photograph by will farrer.

▼ LEONARD COHEN: SEEMS SO LONG AGO, NANCY from "Songs From A Room" LP (Columbia) 1969 (Canada)

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a cowboy in sweden

out of bullets, but still firing on all cylinders.

▼ LEE HAZLEWOOD: IF IT'S MONDAY MORNING from "Requiem For An Almost Lady" LP (Viking / Reprise) 1971 (Sweden)

PURCHASE REQUIEM FOR AN ALMOST LADY
REQUIEM ON THE RISING STORM

with a little help from my friends

no go show. photograph by brad elterman, 1978.

Recorded at the Chateau d'Herouville and Hansa Studios, Berlin. Written by Iggy Pop. Mixed by Tony Visconti. Produced, arranged and recorded by David Bowie. And a bit of a debt to Mike Leander, I tend to suspect.

▼ IGGY POP: NIGHTCLUBBING from "The Idiot" LP (RCA) 1976 (US / UK)

PURCHASE THE IDIOT

vote for miles

There. That was easy, wasn't it, brothers and sisters ?

Oh, shit. Is there a doctor in the house ?

Engineered by Stan Tonkel and Russ Payne. Additional musicians include: Herbie Hancock; Chick Corea; Jack DeJohnette; John McLaughlin; Billy Hart; Collin Walcott; Dave Liebman; Badal Roy; Badal Roy; Carlos Garnett.

"It is, in fact, pretty cold everywhere, but it is a coldness of rage at the very heart’s death. If Miles seemed to be losing his capacity to feel, he only predicted what would soon begin to happen to all of us."

- Lester Bangs, revised opinion on "On The Corner", 1981.

Inspired, it now clearly seems, by it coming to my attention that a man was shot three times in London, England for having the temerity to wear a t-shirt proclaiming his support for U.S. Senator Barack Obama.

Outside a shop on the corner.

▼ MILES DAVIS: VOTE FOR MILES from "On The Corner" LP (Columbia) 1972 (US)

PURCHASE ON THE CORNER REMASTERED
LESTER BANGS: "FREE JAZZ / PUNK ROCK"; MUSICIAN MAGAZINE *

* Lester Bangs, "published by Musician Magazine towards the end of 1979, and included in neither Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung (edited by Greil Marcus and published by Vintage Books in 1987) nor Mainlines, Blood Feasts and Bad Taste (edited by John Morthland and published by Anchor Books in 2003)."

mixing up the medicine

photograph by jeanloup sieff.

Like a lot of people, I spend much of my time looking out my window. Like a lot of people who live more than twenty floors above street level, I spend more time looking out my window than most.

It has not always been this way. For a period of time I lived in a basement flat, like Johnny in Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues". Most of the time all I was able to see were people passing from the waist down. The view was much better in the summer. I probably have that bedsit to thank for my appreciation for a well-turned ankle. Or the development of something approaching a foot fetish.

I did not idle away my time hatching revolutionary plots. On the contrary, I whiled away the hours drinking red wine, white wine, cheap cider and the cheapest of spirits. Sometimes I banged away on a typewriter. When I was lucky, I banged away on the mattress on the floor which served as a double bed. When I was sober enough to even think about getting it up, that is.

And through it all the grind of the job. The monotony of servitude. Which seems much healthier in retrospect. And unobtainable.

Of course. The view from on high is much different. Things take on an altogether eyrie hue; events unfold in minute detail like scenes from a painting by Hieronymus Bosch. Sometimes one can't help but feel a little like a general surveying the battlefield from a distant hill. Or a refugee in waiting for the tsunami to roll in through the valley, laying waste to one and all. I have dreamed that particular recurring nightmare since I was a child. A delirium born out of I don't know what.

Another thing. I have lived in a number of apartments overlooking railway lines. Three now in succession, over the past sixteen years. Each apartment higher than the last. Why is that, exactly ? What a strange turn of events.

Edward Hopper was a master painter of lives lived furtively behind windows. I began this post fully intending to host a detail from his "Hotel by a Railroad", 1952, to illustrate that very point; but I changed my mind at the last moment and chose something else instead. I am weary of the window frame. And the drafts which creep in between it and the glass.

The east winds do not trouble me unduly. It is those gales which blow in from the west which cause me the greatest concern.

▼ BERT JANSCH & JOHN RENBOURN: EAST WIND from "Bert And John" LP (Transatlantic) 1966 (UK)

PURCHASE BERT AND JOHN

fiasco

halloween falls early this year. the alfred e. smith hammer memorial horror.

Yesterday was not a good day for me. While some Americans appear to be confused or fearful that they are slipping into Socialism by slow degree, or that Barack Obama is perhaps a communist or the son of the mad arab, Jor-El of Kal-El, I caught a programme on Channel 4 about the seemingly ever present "Muti" murders and mutilations which plague the most economically deprived rural regions in South Africa.

Muti is traditional African herbal medicine, but there is a darker side where human body parts - particularly the lips and genitalia of children - are prized as ingredients in ritual potions and talismans used to fleece the ignorant or sociopathic. There was an incident in London six years ago, too, where a young African boy's torso was recovered from the River Thames. If I remember correctly, the child's aunt was later charged in connection with his senseless slaying. Anyone who saw this episode of "Unreported World", ably presented by Ramita Navai, could not fail to have been crushed to some extent at the plight of the traumatised young boy, Fortune, as he posed awkwardly on his bicycle for the cameras while his father recounted how his son had been dragged into the bushes and mutilated at the hands of a predatory thug. All the more poignant as the father spoke in hushed English; as falteringly protective as any parent covering his child's ears.

I did not feel much like drinking or - most unusually - listening to music.

As I settled down to sleep later last night, I flipped on BBC Radio 4 - which after midnight rolls out in synch with the BBC World Service - and was treated to a forty year anniversary special on the Vietnam war's My-Lai Massacre from 1968. You are no doubt familiar by now with the awful chain of events which ignited international outrage. No matter how many times I hear a new account, there is always some freshly emerging horrific detail.

I could have simply flicked the channel, of course. It would not make much difference. Since then as international spectators we have endured countless other crises and atrocities. From the genocides in Yugoslavia and Rwanda to the ongoing madness in Darfur. It is not that nobody gives a shit, precisely. It is just that it keeps on occurring over and over again as part of the human condition.

All the more appalling then, to watch Obama and McCain exchange anecdotal pleasantries - to delighted applause - at the fiasco which was the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner.

▼ CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: SKELETON MAKES GOOD from "Skeleton Breath, Scorpion Blush & Other Readings" CD (Bootleg) 1982 (US)

PURCHASE ICE CREAM FOR CROW