True West always lurked a bit in the background during the early ’80s heyday of the Paisley Underground scene, though guitar fiends gravitated to their twin leads and rural Television vibe. This expando reissue/remaster of the band’s album and a half (“Hollywood Holiday” EP, “Drifters” LP and unreleased Verlaine-produced demos) reveals an angst-ridden act that in retrospect sounds a lot closer to post-punk than garage, with thick, tribal drum patterns and distant howls in the mix. The songwriting is hit and miss, too often showcasing a sparkling hook wrapped in droning verses, but the title track and cover of “Lucifer Sam” are efficient, sinister gems. With Drifters, the band moved farther from the retro realm into artsy guitar pop, rangy yet precise. The package includes reminiscences from guitarist Russ Tolman and a history from Bay Area psych scholar Jud Cost.
Category: Television
Eight Questions for The Perfectly Imperfect Girl
Chock straight full up of her very own grand brand of supremely potty-mouthed pop (i.e.: “U Suck” …”dirty” version especially) and powered by the ever-percussive spirit of no less than Our Friend Ficca (as in Billy, of Television, Waitresses, Dave Rave Conspiracy et al deserved fame) Rew sweetly took the time to answer, for us all, once and for all…..
1. Munsters or Addams Family: Which one’s for you, and why?
I secretly alwayz wanted to be Wednesday …the Addams were always so classy & BLACK…my favorite color…….but in real life herman munster lived on my street & i use to hang at their house…sometimez…my brother’s babysat for the kids..i wanted to but i was too young…the house was kind of creepy…but they were really kool & eccentric…they had pugs{dogs} everywhere…& NO rules …cobwebs everywhere…art everywhere…it was very surreal…we alwyaas thought it was a modern day muensters…cause it was in color!!!
2. Who in the world, living or dead, would you most like to play a game of Twister with?
john john kennedy
3. How many Sid King & The Five Strings records do you own?
ummmm….who?…but i do luv texas!!!…all my records got soaked up in a flood while i was out of town once a few years back…the albums actually saved my apartment by absorbing all the water…thank heaven for cardboard…
4. If you had been working the front gate at the Dakota that night back in 1980 when nasty Mark David Chapman showed up, pistol in hand, to avenge the chief Beatle for his "bigger than Jesus" wisecrack, what would you have done?
seduce him in any way possible…& then spin him around by his hair like a lasso until his eyes popped out of his head & then leave him until he could see again cause i think his vision was gone to begin with along w/ his mind so i guess he’d still be lying there…
5. "Gilligan" or "The Professor": Which one’s for you, and for How Long?
i do luv getting into trouble so i guess i have to pick gilligan cause he is alwayz getting into trouble & the professor would always be getting out of trouble…& who needs that? gilligan would probably get me so crazy too..& i luv crazy…just pissing me off & making me laugh… how long…well would we still be on the island??
it is Gilligan’s Island so i’ll stay forever cause maybe he’s the King by now & that would make me the Queen…rite??? we’d be royalty…
6. What single song, living or dead, do you most wish you’d written… and why didn’t you?
it would have to be the R KELLY ‘Trapped in the Closet" opera…cause damn..that is the longest single i ever heard..& you can never ever believe all the twists & turns that go on & the brilliant writing…it’s pure crazy entertainment & pure genius….i didn’t write it cause as twisted as some may believe i am ,i am an innocent baby next to this man’s imagination…or experience…
7. Whose heart-shaped, purple guitar would you most like to be reincarnated as?
funny i have a heart shaped purple guitar…but i sure would LUV PRINCE having it & playing it…if it were me!..i know he’d treat me rite…
8. In 2000 words or less, your hopes, aspirations and goals, musical or otherwise, for your life and your country?
Wow…hopes..aspirations & goalz..that’s a lot to ask…I HAVE many of these for me & my country….i am basically an optimist or i say i live in total dillusion…i do believe that this world with all it’s ups & downs can be a place for everyone to live somewhat peacefully…all the cops & robbers & extremeists i believe should get their own planet & they can go off on each other all day & all nite non stop…
& all the people in the middle should get their own planet & BE who they are w/out harming their fellow man…
I WOULD LUV my humble honest songz to get thru to masses of people & let them know that we all basically share a lot of the same feelings & desires & ups & downs & heartaches & dreams & surprizes & disappointments…
i for one am an avid believer in mistakes & wishes and dreamz coming true..i love fairy tales & i believe in happily ever after…
i wish i could sometimes tell certain people how i feel …fortunately i write songz about it instead & at least i can purge my innerds outwardly thru this medium…
i want to live in hotels & i want to tour & have some hit songz to support my life style…
i have always been the type of person who literally loves BOTH sides of the track…
i can hang out on either side …& enjoy both places…cause to me people are people…
i work HARD & want to work hard & keep being disciplined & keep dreaming & succeeeding & i wish all this for everyone else too…
i wish the person i think about too much thinks about me too…& i wish everyone gets to feel & LIVE life to the fullest…
now did i even answer the question>>>???
Francois Rabbath
My early forays in record collecting were strictly economically determined. With little pocket money, I sought my treasures in out-of-the-way places and bought them cheap. Happily, this led to some life-enhancing discoveries: The Who Sing My Generation and Sell Out, right there at the corner drugstore. The Man Who Sold the World, a remaindered Mercury copy alongside full-price RCA reissues at the local head shop. A Beard of Stars, complete with “Ride a White Swan” 7”, from an overstock sale at the college bookstore, and a promo copy of Marquee Moon among the rejects outside the college radio station. With the possible exception of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, all were under a dollar; the Television album, otherwise impossible to find where I lived, was free—and, as the ad says, “priceless.”
But even closer than these to the core of my musical being is a flukier, more improbable find. One day my mother brought Bass Ball by François Rabbath home from Woolworth’s for my brother, who played string bass. Information about the record stopped with Dom Cerruli’s provocative liner notes, which place Rabbath among a nouvelle vague of French jazz. Rabbath and his drummer, Armand Molinetti, serve up twelve elegantly arranged, sonically adventurous tracks. Some are live; others feature bass overdubs—up to three, but generally no more than one. Maybe it’s that Bass Ball is on Philips, but to me it’s oddly reminiscent of Vincebus Eruptum. Rabbath is far subtler than Blue Cheer, true, but his multi-tracked basses are sludgily akin to Leigh Stephens’ guitars. In Rabbath’s hands the bass is a protean creature of moods: a gentle flamenco guitar on “Ode d’Espagne,” a cell of screaming lunatics on “Basses en Fugue.” Heavy metal starts here.
Needless to say, we wore Bass Ball out. Themes from the record soundtracked my dreams. My brother learned to approximate the songs on string bass; he was particularly effective peeling off keening arco harmonics and coughing up abrasive gutturals on “Walpurgis.” Eventually picking up bass guitar, he evoked Rabbath immediately, effortlessly, unconsciously.
When Spalax’s 2003 New Sound of Jazz turned up among Forced Exposure’s current releases, it was like running into an old friend. The disk compiles stereo versions of Rabbath’s 1964 debut and its follow up. (The CD lacks the impact of my mono vinyl, so crank it!) The songs from Bass Ball anticipate absolutely everything: Cale’s viola (“Prelude a l’Archet”), the Yardbirds’ stop-time concussion volleys (“Hesitations”), Hendrix’s technical feats of strength (“Impalas”), John Theodore and Neil Hagerty’s workouts in The Royal Trux (“Western a la Breugel”). It’s still unclear where Bass Ball belongs in the jazz canon. It’s new, all right, but it’s not free. The word “skronk,” however, aptly describes its more extreme tonalities. I’m happy to report that the tracks from Rabbath’s second album don’t disappoint. Cut from the same cloth as Bass Ball (though lighter on electronic enhancement), the seven titles are longer and, consequently, even further out.
Given its rainbow-tinted, strobe-lit cover and gag-inducing title, I was never entirely satisfied that Bass Ball wasn’t cornball stuff. It’s good to hear that Rabbath is a respected, if obscure presence in French jazz history. Of course he used drugs, as the supremely eerie “Bitume” always suggested. Spalax’s somewhat amateurish packaging does include pictures of the man himself. Not quite the mad hipster of my imagination but no square either: A balding, monkish guy closing his eyes and setting his bow for the heart of the sun.
For my money, New Sound of Jazz is our era’s King of the Delta Blues Singers. (Re)introducing a troubled young virtuoso whose shadow falls quietly across the music of the last forty years, illuminating his story while leaving intact just enough mystery, this reissue is like a portal to a world of howling ghosts. I don’t even care if it popularizes a treasured childhood secret. I doubt Rabbath’s will ever become a household name. But in a time when a young person can pick up Funhouse, Marquee Moon, and White Light/White Heat from a single aisle at Circuit City, it’s nice to know there are still further frontiers—new sounds in jazz, if you will. Buy this disk and be haunted.