Home Blitz [no label 7" EP, 2005] I've been dreaming of a new R&R for awhile now--something that bows in the direction of the form itself circa 1950-1980, but understands all that's happened during the past generation. And outta the blue, here comes this unsolicited chunk o' vinyl in the mail a few months ago--a three-song 7" inside a super crude sleeve with a drawing of a flaming third eye. Hmm. Noise? Psych? Punk? Improv? The image of the third eye, I must admit, brought to mind the 13th Floor Elevators. I was almost scared to play the record--I figured it's just gotta be another clanky noise record that I've already heard hundreds of times over the past 15 years. That shit's great 'n all, but how many NZ drone records can a human hear before you feel like, uh, moving again?
***
So, what'd this mystery record sound like? Dig this: Big Star's Radio City, early Modern Lovers, Flamin' Groovies circa '72-'74--but with a casual no-fi fuck-all vibe that's closer to the first couple Harry Pussy singles. Huh? Does that even make sense? Yeah. Fuck yeah! "Apocalyptic Grades 2005" is an unlikely power-pop/post-punk hybrid which finds its gurl-lust coming apart with guitars that sound like the Fall circa '78 covering the Flamin' Groovies!----? It reminds me of hearing the Flamin' Groovies' Grease EP back in '74: 60s-style rockin' but drenched in somehow exciting muck. Except the Home Blitz guy is goin' OFF on guitar--a hyper-strum, no-key, high-energy explosion unthinkable by mid-70s R&R standards. Sonny Sharrock meets Alex Chilton?! On "AC S.S.," things get very bratty and snatty--like the early Screamin' Mee-Mees crossed with the early Modern Lovers.
***
Now I'm excited! Flip it over! This side is just called "Hey!" It comes on as if Big Star's Radio City had been recorded under the more addled conditions of Alex Chilton's Like Flies on Sherbert. It starts like a great noise-drenched power-pop anthem--"I got the gift that keeps on givin'/It's called electric guitar!"--but soon stops mid-stream. "I gotta get some gum," the singer complains. It picks up again after the song's imaginary bridge. A second guitar comes in--real magic shit--melodic and overloaded like a perfect 1969 Lou Reed guitar fill. Screeech! Record's over.
***
Sheee-iiiiit! I play the record again. And again. Once more. It's still workin'! "The magic's in the music and the music's in me," as John Sebastian said back in '65. It turns out this whole Home Blitz thing is the work of one 20-year-old dude named Daniel DiMaggio from Princeton, New Jersey. He wrote, sang, played guitars and drums, did the artwork, and released it in a pressing of 200 copies. Ain't that the way it's supposed to happen? And it's happened again!

Home Blitz -- Live Outside [no label 7" single, 2006] Oh boy, Daniel DiMaggio returns with his second serving of Home Blitz free-pop. This time he dragged his instruments and battery-powered amps onto the street in front of his house and "performed live w/o audience on the corner of Mercer and Hibben Streets, Princeton, NJ." Is this the first power-pop field recording?! The A-side, "Stupid Street," has Daniel narrating his own song, describing the recording situation. He's playing the whole time. Following the narrative set-up, he suddenly spits the first line of the song, "Hey girl, I'm gonna cut your spine!" Wow. So sweetly vicious. The bridge features a duet 'tween spastic Chuck Berry guitar and extremely overloaded keyboards. It breaks down completely, and the song slowly resumes. There's another cool guitar thing towards the end that sounds like L. Reed stun-guitar as excuted by the hands of a 1975 proto-punker--yet somehow brand new! The flip side, "Feeling Cold," again documents the Home Blitz street scene, this time purely in song. Like, it's November in Jersey, and yer freezin' yer ass off recording on the sidewalk! It's a perfect Modern Lovers/Half Japanese-style pop tune, with maybe one of the all-time great fallen-apart guitar solos. "I feel like ridin' bikes tonight/But mine's been in the shop all day."

Home Blitz / Friends and Family [Leaf Leaf Records split cassette, 2006] A cassette release in 2006?!! I had to hook up my old deck just to listen to this! The Home Blitz side is a bit of a surprise. The Jonathan Richman/Alex Chilton noisy pop thing of the two HB singles is mixed up with other approaches. "Benches" has Daniel DiMaggio just playing acoustic guitar and singing, with some electric leads overdubbed. The song reminds me of Big Star's version of Loudon Wainwright's "Motel Blues." Dig that toy-piano outro! The cover of Public Disturbance's "Bored" sounds nothing like the punk-rock you'd expect. Instead, it comes across like a darkly shimmering psychedelic ballad. "Yard" has de-tuned Jandek-style acoustic guitar, with in-the-red electronic squiggles, a bit of recorder (I think), and a clankin' noise section. I remember being slightly surprised when I saw Daniel mention Derek Bailey as an influence. Well, here 'tis! "Marquand Park" is just voice and piano, with a bit of electronics at the end. It could almost be a demo for The Beach Boys Love You, Brian Wilson's strange and underrated 1977 LP. Finally, "Gt Performance" seems to be three pieces under one title. Or am I confused? The first section (?) is a full-blown noise piece--and a good one. It's hard to tell what he's using to produce the sounds--turntable, pounding on walls, various ambient sources, guitar? The results are varied--loud, soft, mostly sparse--musique concrete? And then! ROCK! Guitar, drums, and voice combine to do something pretty close to the power-noise-pop of the two Home Blitz singles--except maybe a little punkier. Then everything moves freely outward--bitchen guitar stuff--until we get another little rocker (no noise) about "takin' chances and makin' friends." Hey, real good job, Daniel! The Friends and Family side has a similar primitive no-fi approach to making sounds--mostly songs with touches of noise--but it's folk-psych-loser stuff that wears its pathos a little too boldly for my taste.

[Dig Tony Rettman's Home Blitz interview HERE]

Bon Vivants -- Soul Action [Old Gold 10" EP, 2006] Oh wow, here we go again! This is a new band led by Ben Young, who runs the avant-noise-improv label Old Gold in Atlanta. In the past, Ben has also headed a couple of song-oriented art-pop bands (Bad Poet and Forever), but this time around the rock is way out front. Although definitely post-punk in form and attitude, it's hard not to hear bands like the Raspberries and Big Star at the heart of what's happening here (and the Beatles at the root). If you're used to listening to shiny digital sound, my first suggestion here is that you turn up the volume on this platter. Bass player Ben Lawless's 4-track cassette production is brilliant, but it still sounds thin and murky if you don't boost the output. Personally, I think a few bottles of Bass pale ale also helps a lot!
***
It all kicks off with "Mercury and Cream," which sounds so much like Big Star playing Eno's "Burning Airlines Give You So Much More." Then the boys use a modified "Sweet Jane" riff for "Highway," highlighted by excellent spazz-guitar leads. This segues nicely into "Basketbakers," a tune filled with delicious outta-kilter hooks. "The Bells" begins with flying saucer whoosh, which quickly yields to a groovy pop riff and vocals with the reverb turned up to 11. Just beautiful--it should already be at the top of the hiss parade. Flip over the record and dig guitarist Rob Parham's oh-too-brief "Pink Sangria," a nifty blend of Voidoid slither rock and power pop. Then they pull out another "Sweet Jane"-like riff for the intro to "Infinite Surprise," gliding right into a song filled with the spirit of Midwestern pre-punk circa 1974. "The Lake" reminds me of the Beau Brummels from their mature Bradley's Barn/Triangle period. The Bon Vivants dangle that jangle better than anybody since at least the 1980s (and I don't mean R.E.M.!). Ben Y. sez "The Mall Song" was influenced by Simply Saucer, and who am I to argue? But it's Simply Saucer at their most concise. To my ears, it has that sweet Syd Barrett/Soft Boys thing that a lot of bands did so well in the 1970s--but not much since then.
***
How'd a band of noise lovers from Georgia get back and down to such an unpretentious approach? Well, I think part of the "secret" is exactly that the outsider improv mindset has once again embraced something that's even more basic to American cultural consciousness: R&R. No irony either. Everything old is new again, and you can hear excitement in these grooves that mere retro rockers always miss because they've spent too much time listening to the same music. Ben Young, who also plays guitar and keyboards, has an unpretentious vocal style with the same sort of mild Southern drawl and slightly geeky whoop that once made Alex Chilton sound so special. And he's aided by a fine band: Ben Lawless (bass, percussion, guitars), Rob Parham (guitars), and Tim Genius (drums). Hey man, these guys are for real, and not even slightly full of shit. How many rock bands in 2006 can pull that off? Well . . . maybe more than a few years ago, but it's still no mean feat. And speakin' of feets, let's roll the rug off the floor and . . . I think you know the next part: boogie!

Times New Viking -- "War"/"Love" [Columbus Discount Records 7" single, 2005] Here's a very cool, unexpected thing from a young trio outa Columbus, Ohio. "War" has a wavering, liquid riff that sounds like a cross between two different Roky Erickson songs ("Bermuda" and "Creature With the Atom Brain"), but builds into something like post-punk--Mark E. Smith and the Aliens?! Weird but totally bitchen--this makes so much (non)sense. On the flip, though, is the killer: "Love" is built around a fabulous grinding riff dominated by garage-rock organ and overloaded guitar. Great lyrics too:  "The summer won't be long/So let your hair grow long." Dig the unison vocals--one "normal" voice, and one in a panic-strangled yelp--nice touch. It's all "lovingly fucked with" by Mike Rep, which means you get Rep's trademark tin-can stone-buzz production. Just about perfect! These guys have a full-length album, but I haven't heard it.

The Flamin' Groovies -- Grease [Skydog Records (Holland) 7" EP, 1973] The stuff above (Home Blitz, Bon Vivants, Times New Viking) somehow reminded me of this record. I got it in '74, about a year after it was released. The murky sound quality kinda threw me at first. The record consists of rehearsal tapes, not professional recordings, and it sounded weird to my 16-year-old ears. I was used to the bad sound quality of live bootlegs, but this had a different vibe--loud yet distant, the vocals almost buried, strangely exciting. Now it's easy to hear that they're in a crappy rehearsal studio with a bad P.A., and that it's not a bad recording for what might have been a cassette deck. I figured out the secret to listening to this record not long after I got it: turn up the volume! And it still sounds exciting! The EP consists of recordings by the short-lived '72/'73 Detroit-style version of the Flamin' Groovies. I remember right after Chris Wilson replaced Ron Loney as singer, there were fanzine rumors that the Groovies had changed their name to the Dogs. I'm not sure if there was really talk of a name change, but the first side of this platter sure sounds right for a band called the Dogs. "Let Me Rock" is an amazing MC5/Stones/Beatles combination! Great riff, great heavy bass, great slide guitar, great rockin' greatness! And then "Dog Meat"! Doesn't that title just scream Stooges!? And indeed, it has a Stooges/Chuck Berry thing going on--a monotonous, throbbing riff hammers away while an ancient R&B lick sails on top. Plus some Byrds! The B-side is not as revelatory, but is still pretty boss. They do Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Rock 'n Roller," again mixing MC5 high energy and Beatles pop. Finally, there's a kill version of their anti-junk anthem "Slow Death" (studio version released on English UA in '72). Grease was one of those early 70s records that hinted at something new-yet-old, so-called punk-rock in its formative stage. Or you know, just R&R at one of its many, many stages of re-development and re-vital-i-zation (like the more recent records above).

Jackwacker -- . . . Things from Inside Your Body [Black Velvet Fuckere Recordings CDR, 2006 pre-release of material recorded 1993-1995] Wanna hear some hot shit? Here's some hot shit. It's from more than a decade ago, and it's still steamin'! These recordings were done by a guitarist and drummer from Bloomington, Indiana, in the mid-90s. I can't find their names on this CDR I was sent, although the type is so small I might've missed 'em. Jackwacker used the basic Harry Pussy approach to create some pretty incredible sounds. They actually had more "chops" than Harry Pussy, though, so they often sound closer to the bass-and-drums duo Ruins, or a very stripped-down version of early MX-80. This album contains 18 bursts of Jackwacker. What's it sound like? Um . . . 1982 HC crossed w/ Trout Mask Replica, white-hot lava-blues, post-everything destructo-rock, yelpin' speedcore, the Ramones forced to tango with Napalm Death, beyond-rock raw tongues and incineration, Bo Diddley Is A Shredding Machine, pummel 'n shriek, Slayer as a Midwestern art-rock duo, freedom - - - ROCK! (This is due for LP release on November 1.)

Sun City Girls -- Montreal Pop [no label LP, 2005] Wow, this "bootleg" of a 2004 Canadian radio broadcast is already one of my favorite SCG records! It has a nice blend of wild sounds and bizarre humor, performed in front of an enthusiastic, sometimes confrontational audience. It opens with a lengthy, inspired rant/jam called "21st Century International." Then we get a scrambled mix of three darkly comedic tunes: "Six Kids of Mine" (a guide to killing your offspring!), Charles Gocher's "Man Destroys the Things he Loves," and "Aristocrats of Impertinence." The latter ends with a long section of SCG musical improv at its highest--who is that on the sax?! Then a tasty version of Rick Bishop's classic instrumental "Abydos," in all its Middle Eastern/surfadelic glory. Flip the LP for a pretty straight cover of Bloodstone's 1973 R&B hit "Natural High"! After that tune ends, there's an exchange with an audience member. Alan Bishop: "He just called me a half-nigger, motherfucker. I'm a sand-nigger, all right? Let's get that straight right now. . . . Sand-nigger's where it's at right now--public enemy number one. . . . Don't fuck with us, baby. It's not over till the skinny Arab lights the fuse." Then, as if to prove some point, they do a just swell li'l medley of "My Painted Tomb" (muddy desert music) and Duke Ellington's "Caravan" (crusty river music--slow burnin' with added angles). "Cafe Batik" features Alan Bishop's female-Asian-pop-vocal thing. And it all ends with the incredible "Without Compare," a highly structured composition that has room built in for rant and jam.

Sun City Girls -- Carnival Folklore Resurrection 14: Static from the Outside Set [Abduction CD, 2006] The three-headed beast known as Sun City Girls raided its vast archives for a 2005 edition of the English radio show On the Wire. This disc is that hour of wild music, strange thoughts, and radio disruption--29 selections of total (in)sanity. The music covers a wide range of SCG approaches: angular guitar freak-out, straight-up jazz, Rick Bishop rippin' it up Django-style, performances that references Balinese music and other ethnic sounds from 'round the globe. There's also a disturbing monologue on human sacrifice, a Dogon limerick, a fake 50s-beatnik radio show called "Lester's Dictionary" with word definitions ("Arson: Christian incense"), a series of radio-dialin' collages called "Radio Neocon," and lots more. Plus they do three covers: Brian Wilson's "Summer Dream" (kinda touching!), Lambert Hendricks & Ross's "Gimme That Wine" (is this based on the Blood Sweat & Tears version?! very goofy!), and a cool take on Paul Giovanni's version of "Gently Johnny" from The Wicker Man.

Sun City Girls -- Djinn Funnel [Nashazphone (Egypt/Algeria) LP, 2006 release of recordings from 1999-2001] This mostly instrumental LP has the same sort of tripped-out quality as most of their Majora stuff from the 90s. If anything, though, this seems more ferociously focused than their recordings from 15 years ago. The LP begins with "Nites of Malta," a totally bitchen Krautrock boogie with big bass pulse, cave-echo vocal screech, groovin' drums, and guitar that occasionally spirals outward. "Dukun Degeneration" opens with just the sweetest bit of guitar wah, leading into a "typical" SCG instrumental. On "Dark Nectar," the trio plunges into the depths, and they don't return for the rest of the album. Flip over the platter . . . "Red Sea Blues" sounds very relaxed, finely zoned, truly psychedelic. "Grand Trunk" has a simlar mood, but thing are darker. Voices enter singing chanting ominous erotic. Charles Gocher's drums lope. Alan Bishop's bass throbs. And here comes Rick Bishop--guitar slowly blooming, shining in the darkness. Yeah, everything's still melting. Heh . . . heh.

Sun Ra & The Blues Project -- Batman and Robin [Universe Records LP, 2001 reissue of an LP originally released by Tifton Records in 1966] Originally released at the height of Batmania as being by the Sensational Guitars of Dan & Dale, this was really anonymous session work for the unlikely group of Sun Ra (Hammond B-3 organ) with Arkestra members John Gilmore (tenor sax), Marshall Allen (alto sax), and Pat Patrick (bass) joined by Al Kooper (organ), Danny Kalb (lead guitar), Steve Katz (guitar), Andy Kulberg (bass), and Roy Blumenfeld (drums) a.k.a. the Blues Project! And if that's not weird enough, it's produced by the legendary Tom Wilson (Dylan, Zappa, Velvet Underground, etc.). Wilson would have also been the link between the Arkestra and the Blues Project, because he had worked with both. The results are loose, fun, and exciting in an odd way. They do the obligatory version of Neal Hefti's theme from Batman, but the rest of the tracks are obviously ad-lib compositions done in the studio. The style is roughly fake go-go music--the kind of thing you might indeed hear in the background of Batman or at least a low-budget teen movie. It's interesting to hear Ra playing like an inspired lounge organist! Most of the material is pretty generic, although always fun. "Batman and Robin Over the Roofs" is one of the better tracks, clocking in at almost seven minutes (strange for an album that would have been mostly bought by kids). It's a tuff R&B/jazz choogler with ragin' guitar by Danny Kalb and a cool organ solo by Sun Ra. "Joker Is Wild" uses a stoned-sounding echo-drenched harmonica to drive a jam that seems custom made for hot chicks dancin' in cages! There's a sexy, gritty black female vocal on "Robin's Theme"--wonder if that's Arkestra singer June Tyson. Not to forget "Batman and Robin Swing" (!), "Penguin's Umbrella," "The Bat Cave," "The Riddler's Retreat," etc.!

Jan & Dean Meet Batman [Liberty Records LP, 1966] This is one of the strangest records released by a major rock act in the 60s. With surf music and hot rods fading, Jan & Dean were desperate to find a new pop-culture vehicle, so they hopped on the Batman craze in that wonderful year of 1966. Yes, they do a version of Neal Hefti's TV theme, and write a few Batman-themed songs themselves. But they take it one step further. In between the songs are comedy sketches with the duo as Captain Jan & Dean the Boy Blunder--short radio-style plays with elaborate, often whacky sound effects and background music. In their "secret identities," the crime fighters are, yes, pop-singers Jan & Dean. They're granted their super powers by the Little Old Lady from Pasadena, who seems to be a strange sort of fairy godmother. The "titanic twosome" fight super villains like Garbageman and Fireman. The humor isn't even sophomoric--it's infantile! There are bad puns, stupid ideas, silly sounds, and a general buzzed sense of the absurd. As for the music, there are vocals and instrumentals, mostly pretty disposable but not bad. I do like their original "Batman," which tells the literal story of the super hero, including quotes from the comic-book origin story. "I don't know who he is behind that mask/But we need him, and we need him now!"

ABBA [Atlantic Records LP, 1975] ABBA's self-titled second album sealed their status as full-blown gods and goddesses of international MOR pop and bleached-out disco. Although what came after was mostly bland even beyond the attention of this white guy, the album in question is, how ya say, fabulous! Most of the obvious 60-isms that made their first album Waterloo so wonderful are gone. But we get something almost as tasty: wide-eyed pop decadence . . . the chilly-yet-moist aural thighs of a nooner in Stockholm. Just look at the cover: you can almost hear the rustle of stockinged-legs moving against one another. "SOS" and "Mamma Mia" are slices of top-forty heaven--perfect in their mid-70s way--beautiful dreck. But Bjorn and Benny did still have a couple of bubblegum tricks left in their bag: "Hey, Hey Helen," which mixes in some Stevie Wonder funk, and especially "Bang-A-Boomerang." The latter is just about my favorite ABBA track: late-60s bubblegum crossed with Shirley & Company's early disco classic "Shame Shame Shame." The ABBAs still had a little room left for guitar-heavy glam-rock too. "Rock Me" does it Elton style, while the closing "scorcher" is a Suzi Quatro-ish thing called "So Long." With its slinky marriage of girl group and disco grind, "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do" would've been great as the theme to a 70s porno starring Gloria Leonard and Candy Samples. And "I've Been Waiting for You" could've been the theme for the romantic three-way! Um, anyway . . . just to let you know things are starting to go wrong, they throw in some real clunkers: "Tropical Loveland" (sounds as bad as the title), "Man in the Middle" (anti-capitalist guilt from rich pop stars), and "Intermezzo No. 1," an instrumental "featuring Benny Andersson" that sounds as bad as Zappa in the mid-70s!

Jams Brown -- Sho Is Funky Down Here [King Records LP, 1971] JB "plays and directs the James Brown Band" through six loose, funky, instrumental heavy-guitar jams. The title track is a heavy-riffing slow blues with fuzz guitar and JB's clavinet playing freely on top. It's not too far from Maggot Brain-era Funkadelic. "Don't Mind" is a Sly/Hendrix-influenced funk-rocker with spaced-out guitar strained through a Leslie speaker. "Just Enough Room for Storage" could easily be from the soundtrack to a biker flick--a cool mid-tempo rocker with double distorto leads on the break. There's lots more heavy riffin' throughout the album, with fuzz guitars that would've already sounded "dated" by '71, and occasional bursts of keyboard funk from Mr. Brown himself.

Tommy Jay -- Tommy Jay's Tall Tales of Trauma [Orange Entropy Records CDR, 2001] Tommy Jay plays drums with Mike Rep & the Quotas, and this disc is steeped in the same sort of Midwestern proto-punk vibe that permeates everything from the Rep universe. But this is different too. It has an unpretentious small-town folk-psych vibe--really tall tales of dark humor and giddy weariness that makes it come across like a Midwestern version of Lou Reed's Street Hassle. Things are generally stripped down--lots of acoustic guitars, recorders and autoharps, folkie percussion--and kinda pretty in a kinda ugly way! "Tough Luck Roy," the first of the tall tales, is about a murderer who's rotting behind bars. "Village Idiot," which appeared in a more revved-up version on the Quotas' Black Hole Rock, is another tale of a two-bit loser: "He thinks he's a small-town marauder/But right now I'm all strung out on blotter/And I ain't thinkin' the way I oughta." And Tommy tackles a big-time loser on "Old Hemmingway" (co-writ by Mike Rep): "Old Hem . . . shooting sharks with a machine gun." Mr. Jay manages to turn the simple act of getting out of bed into another mini-drama: "Little black jelly bean and several cups of caffeine . . . I take a quick peak at the latest Penthouse spread." Then he rolls out of bed in the afternoon and heads for the bar! Like a lot of the stuff here, the Velvets loom large, albeit it in a middle-Amerikan hetero sorta way. As if to prove the point, there's a great echo-drenched cover of the VU's "The Ocean." And there are a bunch more tracks of equal quality. Real nice stuff here.

Wolfmother performing "Woman" on the late-night talk show circuit: David Letterman / Jimmy Kimmel / Carson Daley / Conan O'Brien / Jay Leno. This is definitely my favorite one-hit wonder of the recent moment. The young Australian trio did the same song on every show. It's a perfect blend of Electric Warrior T. Rex, Sabbath riffs, '72 Deep Purple-isms, and Troggs-like grunt-lust. Unfortunately, the other songs I've heard are pretty bland, and often veer towards the "classic rock" of post-Barrett Pink Floyd and other non-heavy 70s snooze.

LATEST FAVES AT YOUTUBE.COM

The Collins Kids "Rock Boppin' Baby" and "High School Confidential" live 1958 on Town Hall Party. Two different clips. My heart skips a beat when I hear Laurie sangin', "Open up, honey, it's your lover girl me who's knockin'!"
Wanda Jackson "Rock Your Baby" live 1958 on Town Hall Party.
Louis Jordan "Let the Good Times Roll" movie clip from the 1940s.
MC5 "Ramblin' Rose" from a live show broadcast on Detroit Tube Works 1970. This is from the same outdoor gig used for the performance of "Looking at You" in A True Testimonial. Full song, kickin' hard--is the entire show in the can somewhere?
The Saints "I'm Stranded" 1976 video.
Robert Wyatt "I'm a Believer" Top of the Pops 1974.
The Creation live TV appearance 1966. Holy crap! 8:30 of the Creation in their prime!
Fear from The Decline of Western Civilization. I hadn't seen this shit in 20+ years.
Labelle "Won't Get Fooled Again" 1972 TV show. Yeah, Patti and the ladies do the Who!
Carl Perkins / Johnny Cash / Derek & the Dominoes on The Johnny Cash Show 1970. Clapton and company do "It's Too Late." Cool. Then Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash join the party for "Matchbox." Way cooler! I remember seeing this as a kid. It was one of those things that made me start to realize the original American shit was THE shit--Carl Perkins kicks Clapton's ass!
The Monkees & Johnny Cash on The Johnny Cash Show 1969. J.C. starts out with a bit of the Monkees' '66 hit "Last Train to Clarksville," which is then taken up by Mike, Micky, and Davy with just Mike on acoustic guitar. They break down quickly, and then go into a live acoustic version of Mike's "Nine Time Blues," showing that these dudes really could make it happen (on occasion) without studio musicians behind them. Then Johnny joins the boys for a suitably silly version of J.C.'s own '66 hit "Everybody Loves a Nut" ("The whole world loves a weirdo").
Tony Joe White & Johnny Cash "Polk Salad Annie" live on The Johnny Cash Show 1970.
Tony Joe White "Lustful Earl and the Married Woman" TV appearance circa 1972.
Crabby Appleton "Go Back" 1970 lip-sync from some TV show. Fuckin' real weird seeing this band after listening to them since the mid-70s. One of THE perfect pre-power pop jams from Michael Fennelly and the boys--kinda like Badfinger meets the MC5!
The Buzzcocks "Ever Fallen in Love?" live at Lesser Free Trade Hall 6/78. My favorite Buzzcocks tune!

--Eddie Flowers

* * *

SLIPPY TOWN TIMES online #2:
Editorial
Home Blitz Interview by Tony Rettman
Music I Dig
Movies I Dig
Comix Section
Outro

FROM THE ARCHIVES:
Gulcher #0 (1975) online reprint


SLIPPY TOWN TIMES online #1