Um...Yeah...Whatever

Another day. Another post.

Civil Rice (1983)

I'm not sure what I'm actually supposed to make of Einstein's Riceboys. They're kind of an odd gumbo of contemporary ideas in a single package that missed the mark a bit more often than it hits it. A bit of punk rock, some synth nonsense. Post-rock, New Wave, Annoyance. It's all in there.

Maybe I'm being harsh. I haven't really listened to this very much. But the initial impression was that I really didn't need to. Perhaps at a future date I will revisit it and change my mind, but for now it's an interesting period oddity out of Milwaukee that may or may not appeal to the average consumer.

I don't know. You listen to it. Tell me what you think for once.

Very Pleasant Surprises

 Cruisin' Ann Arbor II (1984)

Under normal circumstances buying these unknown compilations from local scenes is almost always a gamble. Usually the bands are obscure and short lived for a reason with an occasional nugget of awesome or at least listenable thrown in.

So I wasn't expecting much from this live compilation of Ann Arbor, Michigan groups from 1984 but found myself wonderfully surprised how good it is all the way through. Plus it bucks the contemporary trend of having a lame Jam rip-off band, a shitty ska band and/or out of place random reggae band.

Instead we are treated to Power Pop, something more Rockabilly, a fine cover of Link Wray's "Jack the Ripper", some punk rock, a dash  of the New Wave and some actual fucking Jazz.

Highlights for me are the Map of the World & Evaders tracks, but you may disagree. Maybe you will hate the whole thing. I can't help that, but I'm listening to it again as I type this and I'm still satisfied with my vinyl Lp purchase.

Google preview has some contemporary words to say about the making of this record.

 01 - the Watusies - (Because I'm a) Jaguar

02 - the Slang - Not Even With You

03 - Map of the World - Stop Thinking Now

04 - Jack Nardella's Rock & Roll Trio - Jack the Ripper

05 - Azreal - Broken Dreams

06 - the State - Desire

07 - the Lunar Glee Club - Olduvai Gorge

08 - the Evaders - Just a Thought

09 - Aluminum Beach - Sliding Off my Pillow

10 - the Buzztones - Little Boy Blue

11 - Ron Brooks Trio Plus One - On Green Dolphin Street

12 - Kathy Moore-Stephanie Ozer Quartet - A-Flat Song

Lost Classics of an Era Long Gone

I have no intro here. I'm kind of hungry.

Let's just get on with the show...

Bob (1980)

"Hey man, what's your band's name, dude?"

"uh,...Bob."

That in itself is enough to endear these San Franciscans to my tiny crunchy black heart. But then you apply the flat vinyl  disc to the turntable and I'm totally smitten. Two sides of wonderfulness.
Side one beginning with the immortal words "You always want to go to discos/I want to go to cheap motels/Keep trying to teach me how to jerk off/ And your name ain't Isabel..." while the flip is a 2:49 love letter to Thomas Edison with a great guitar noise solo.

I don't know anything about them beyond this record. I don't need to. It's enough.

Keith Richards' Dead (1978)

I don't know what's more unbelievable, that this record by Cincinnati's Ed Davis Band  hasn't been more widely celebrated and comped and beloved by record collecting scum of all stripes or that as of the time I am typing out this post, the premise of the A side still has not come to pass forty fucking years later.

I mean, just ponder that for a bit.



Bowie's gone. Lemmy has passed but Keith just keeps on and on and on...

(The B side "Asshole" has been comped on one of those "Bloodstains Across..." collections, but really.)

This one's money...

Multi-tasking.

I'm not sure if that's one word or traditionally uses a dash.
I really don't care. I'm really only paying half attention to this while I type. I'm also listening to and digitizing other records at the same time. It's a lot of things to try and focus on at once. So you'll cut me some slack on the word "multi-tasking" if it's incorrect.

 Radio Dial (Don't Touch That) (1982)

There's really nothing I can come up with approximately five solid minutes of googling about the particulars of this Chicago band that called itself Broken English except that this their second single  before being swallowed by the aether of time. Both sides are pretty solid late era Power Pop that really don't deserve the dustbin of history where they are currently residing.

Punksation (1981)

Here's another power pop styled oddity rescued from the ash heap of eternity.

Coogie and the Zebra were from the Pittsburgh area of Pennsylvania and put out this sole single on a local label that otherwise only seems to have a handful of old time folk and country records to its credit. Strike one against them.

Strike two is naming themselves "Coogie and the Zebra" which sounds more like the name of a morning zoo crew radio team than a band that anybody with any self respect might want to associate with.

Then there's the song called "Punksation" which owes more than a bit of its guitar riff to Bowie's "Fame". The song itself feels like a very suburban concept of punk rock in a glam power pop wrapper. Even now, I'm unsure of how I feel about it.

The B-side feels like they've been studying the first couple of Cars lps in the meantime. It works better for me.

Let my ambivalence be your enlightenment.

My Old Neighbor

I turned the coffee on a little while ago. Right after I woke up for a little midnight nap.

I should make a coffee. It would be nice. I'm still a bit groggy.

the Blue Up? Now (1987)

At one terrible low point in the middle of the 90's I lived in a really sketchy apartment. The kind of place where you knew that security deposit was forfeit because the landlord was never going to return it without a court order. Where every Christmas the heat would mysteriously go out for a couple of days. Where a former building super still had keys and went into random apartments and pilfered things to sell. (He skimmed a few cds off the top of various stacks I had in milk crates so I didn't notice that my Faust imports were all missing until I went to listen to one.) Where walking home from work after the bar closed you'd get cruised by cars with baby car seats in the back and lone creepy suburban guys slowing down as they drove past looking you over for sex.

Yeah, it was a crummy little studio shithole.

But one of my upstairs neighbors knocked on my door one day when I was playing my guitar and doing some crappy home recording to see who I was and what was up. That was Rachel Olson who would go on to be known as Ana Voog.

This was her band. They'd just released a cd on Columbia Records.

We chatted for a while and I played her some of the stuff I had been working on. She was very polite about it. She said I should come and knock on her door sometime. But I never did.

That wasn't the sort of thing I did.