Author: kim

THE VIRGIN PRUNES – YES, THOSE VIRGIN PRUNES

Maybe it’s old hat to you, but I just heard this 1981 EP from arty, goth, big-haired doomkings THE VIRGIN PRUNES this month, and I gotta say, one song in particular just knocked my friggin’ socks off. That would be “Twenty Tens (I’ve Been Smoking All Night Long)”, the lead song of their debut EP, the rest of which is just abominable. A stuttered, totally wacked-out PUBLIC IMAGE-esque dance macabre, with this whomping bassline & creepy-crawl guitar that’s near-perfect. I remember these guys found a home in the hearts of some hardcore punk heavyweights back in the day – Jimmy Johnson at Forced Exposure & Tesco Vee of Touch and Go fanzine – and now I know why. It certainly can’t be for the other stuff. The haircuts – maybe.

WHITE PRIDE – “ILLEGAL ALIENS”

I can dimly recall the kerfuffle this particular fake-o xenophobic stomper generated back in the early 80s, thus proving how successfully the joke was employed. WHITE PRIDE – now there’s a name to get the typewriters tapping – were roundly criticized for the “Peace My Ass” EP in the pages of Maximum Rock N Roll and virtutally everywhere else, and taken literally, that’s understandable. My take is that the knuckle-draggers responsible for this, who included amongtheir number Mike Doskocil (later of DRUNKS WITH GUNS), probably were very anti-PC before their time, and chose to “make mirth” with the concept by going ridiculously over the top, all the better to stir up the hysteria of the anti-Reagan left so stridently strident at the time. A bonus is that the song itself is funny – at least to a humorless reactionary like myself. It’s also a meatheaded punk/metal romp somewhat reminiscient of POISON IDEA as they slowed down, with barked, eye-bulging vocals that are a gutbuster in & of themselves.

Then again – covering myself here – if it was serious? Well, it’s just too stupid for words, as are most current commentaries of the subject. As a supporter of “the money machine”, I say: Tear down the walls, baby! Let ’em in!

Play or Download WHITE PRIDE – “Illegal Aliens” (from 45)

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon by Crystal Zevon (Ecco)

A cult artist dies, after experiencing a burst of increased celebrity as a direct result of calculatedly marketing his own impending demise. Old fans are reminded of how much they always dug his work, and a few new ones arrive to explore the back catalog. Then comes the book, an oral history compiled by a long-suffering, long-forgiving former wife, the result of a promise to the dying man. And for Warren Zevon’s fans, be they diehard or more casual, everything changes forever. For in addition to his undeniable gifts as a wordsmith and piano fighter, the delicate character studies and the self-mythologies, the werewolves and the pot roasts and the neo-noir visions of Los Angeles, it turns out Warren Zevon was something of a monster. And his shenanigans—born of cruelty, drug abuse, family skeletons, egomania and OCD—are revealed here through the words of those who loved and suffered alongside him, coloring the music with broad strokes of memorable misbehavior and strangeness. The result is a big, messy, sad and rather moving piece of mass biography in which the various players move in and out of Zevon’s orbit and reflect upon their mutual impact. Perhaps inevitably, given the damage done, this is less of a creative biography than a psycho-chemical one, and at times it is relentlessly dark and repetitious. But anyone who finds Zevon of interest as an artist will appreciate the guts and care Crystal Zevon exhibits in assembling these tales, and it’s a must for fans of rock and roll horror stories. (Who could have imagined that this thoughtful, intellectual fellow who hobnobbed with Stravinsky as a teen would personally surpass the excesses of any half dozen cock rock idols? Only everyone, it seems, who ever met the man.)

Deadbeat Poets “Notes from the Underground” CD is LITG’s featured release

Deadbeat Poets' Notes from the Underground is a featured Lost in the Grooves release. To preview and download single or multiple tracks, or to purchase the CD, click here.

Deadbeat Poets press release:
The Deadbeat Poets were formed in Youngstown, Ohio in the summer of 2006. The band consists of veteran Ohio musicians with eclectic credentials: Frank Secich (Blue Ash, Club Wow, Stiv Bators Band), Terry Hartman (Backdoor Men, Napoleon In Rags, Terry & The Tornadoes), Pete Drivere (Infidels, Pretty Demons) and John Koury (Infidels, Slackjaw). Their debut album (which was recorded over the first few months of 2007 at Youngstown's Ampreon Recorder) is now released on Pop Detective Records and is available online through Lost in the Grooves and MMG, and in Japan on Vivid Sound Records. Also, making guest appearances on the album are Bill "Cupid" Bartolin on guitar and Chris Leonardi on piano and organ.

Soon, you'll be able to sit back and relax (pop the top and set the sail) as the Deadbeat Poets take you on a timely journey. To such places…. romantic places like Beaver Falls (via Mahoningtown) you'll go. You'll travel to the exotic northside of Youngstown, Cleveland, the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, Toronto, Geneva-On-The-Lake, New York, LA, London, the far reaches of outer space, Paris, Mt. Pilot, The Bering Sea, St. Paul and of course Buffalo, NY. You'll meet fun lovin', sex-crazed aliens in "The Truth About Flying Saucers". You'll hear the tale of the legendary Ray Robinson who once roamed the dark, back-country roads of Western, PA in "The Green Man". You'll encounter semi-romantic mountain men and their passions in "Ernest T" and ride along with Stiv Bators as he once terrorized the western world in "The Stiv Bators Ghost Tour". You'll find out the connection between Ernest Hemmingway and Gertrude Stein and French bidets in "Where Was I When I Needed Me?" You'll raise glasses and bottles with the lads in "No Island Like The Mind, No Ship Like Beer" and be sadly disappointed by gangsters and thieves as "The Goody Wagon" never arrives. If floating in a psychedelic flutter is your inclination then "What Part Of Cognitive Dissonance Don't You Understand?" will probably be your cup of tea. Then again, you may find that after all of this …..well that "It's Nothing" to you. Then again, you may start getting "A Funny Little Feeling" that you will enjoy the Deadbeat Poets.

TWO 1981 BONUS TRACKS FROM THE FALL

Certainly it’s not news that there are new live CDs out from THE FALL, even when they’re from the hallowed 1979-1983 period. I certainly can’t keep up with the flood of releases, but I’ve been buying some of the live discs from this era, along with the “repackagedâ€Â versions of old LPs, complete with alternate versions, demos, live tracks and the like. Remember when the only live FALL stuff you could get from the glory years were the “Totale’s Turnsâ€Â, “A Part Of America Thereinâ€Â and “In A Holeâ€Â LPs? Man, I paid a pretty penny for those last two as well, but then again, THE FALL are one of those half-dozen key bands in my musical development. Once I locked in with them, they earned their place in my head as the single greatest & most influential British act of the last thirty years.

So here are two previously-unknown-to-me live tracks that made their way onto the 2xCD reissue of “HEX ENDUCTION HOURâ€Â, which as I’ve stated before, is the finest of all FALL records. Don’t believe me? Just listen to it. “Session Musicianâ€Â and “Jazzed Up Punk Shitâ€Â are certainly not of the caliber of anything on the original LP, but as stand-alone extras – and as songs that never got waxed into studio versions – they’re great, and are “must-havesâ€Â, as they say.

Play or Download THE FALL – “Session Musicianâ€Â
Play or Download THE FALL – “Jazzed Up Punk Shitâ€Â

Some entertainment in lieu of writing an actual post….

The inbox this week had a few YouTube suckerpunches.

Hey look, it’s the check fraud version of GBV/Bob Pollard!!

Make sure to watch this interview. Not allowed: Do not view these and respond with some sort of “this is so inept that it outsider art/savant/experimental!!â€Â No, this is exactly what it looks like.

Now, the mirth disappears. Reason 561 why I stay within 500 yards of most indie films. I can’t bring myself to comment.

And reason 781 that I’m glad to be a writer.

XXX Scumbag Party: Volume II of the Collected Angry Youth Comix by Johnny Ryan (Fantagraphics)

Just when you think the universe of J. Ryan, boy sicko, could not get any more deranged and disgusting (yet endearing!), he comes up with a character like Retarded Hitler, whose wee temper problem is offset by his exception anal love skills. What I like best about AYC is the giddy drawing style and the unbridled imagination that feeds the tales, which whip back upon themselves spewing bodily fluids, solids and unidentifiable filth. This second book-length compendium features a range of Loady McGee and Sinus O’Gynus misadventures, a cameo by Baby Johnson and his, uhm, baby johnson, Boobs Pooter the comic who’s kind of like Neil-Hamburger-as-serial-killer, the erotic thrill of a man in a shit wig, a selection of color cover and back panels, and dozens of spot cartoons your mom won’t be cutting out and putting on the fridge. If you’ve read this far without wincing, you know this is for you.

A public apology for a really stupid mistake.

The new issue of Harp Magazine just hit the stands, and boy was I excited to see myself featured (in a big way) in the masthead. Boy was I looking forward to reading my lengthy spread on Scharpling and Wurster, plus my smaller piece on David Cross. Boy was I horrified to learn that, in the “History of the Comedy Duoâ€Â sidebar, I made a HUGE mistake. As David Greenburger (of Duplex Planet fame) was quick to point out in a letter to the editor, my entry for Coyle and Sharpe contains quite the error.

I listed the wrong one as being deceased.

I can be a frustratingly oblivious person. I forget keys, I forget to buy cat litter, I forget appointments, I forget to write shit down, I forget birthdays, I forget people’s names….

The horrible thing is, I know the work of Coyle and Sharpe. I KNOW WHICH ONE IS DEAD. It was a quasi-dyslexic mistake. I flipped them for a split sec….in my mind.

It’s foul-ups like these that pry my brain apart. I will obsess over it for days.

Therefore, this is an open apology to the alive-and-well Mal Sharpe. Absorb their official website here.

So, follow my saga as every previously cracked or open freelance door slams shut, as e-mails and pitches to editors are not returned, as my ten years of writing leaks any of the remaining water that it held.

Be sure to catch my byline in future issues of American Jail, where I’ll be reviewing indestructible phone receivers and tables that can be thrown around a room.

ÂÂ