Complete credit/big-ups/whatever to Clayton S. for digging this one out. Imagine Robert Johnson (the caucasian close personal crony, not the Mississippi crossroads soul seller) meets The Pop! by way of Arlis!. ...or any other inparticulate prairie powerpopper with an exclamation point in their name for that matter.
Classy beyond belief with great words, great Mark Campbell vocal, great Soulshaker guitar, great sleeve; so much so that it moved a known Texas punk collector to distraction, describing it blithely as 'Awful b/w Worse.'
WHATTA PUNKS KNOW ANYWAY! Good music is wasted on bad (wasted) ears. And now I'm reeling in the years (which is just 'So It Goes' by Nick Lowe with different words five year earlier anyway).
DIG ON MARK CAMPBELL & SOULSHAKER, FEEBS! This blueberry wine tastes great! Mark is still out there too and available to meet all your Humble Pie and Bad Company cover band needs as they arise; don't be a stranger! Also, if you can't get with these lyrics, you for sure can't get with me.
As I'm still getting settled in here in the land of the brain-eating amoeba, I thought I'd cheat a little and recycle something I wrote and originally posted over on waxidermy last year. It's not much, but I truly hope this meager repast finds favor in both in your ears and your innards.
DAVID CRAWFORD, 'CEMENT CITY' b/w 'HARD TIMES' (Phase Two Music, 197?/198?)
Waxidermy BRAVE OLD WAVES READERS likes to rock; there’s no denying it. Aerosmith, AC/DC, maybe even a little Queen – it is still Rock ‘N’ Roll to them! So let’s keep on rockin’ in the US of A! From the Frisco Bay to Nags Head, VA, all the way down to Lake Charles, LA with David Crawford & Phase II!!
Times are hard in Lake Charles – the Cement City – if the a 'n' b-side to this record and Dave’s strikingly homemade t-shirt are to be believed. And I do (believe). In fact, I didn’t know they issued nicknames to towns this lousy. I thought they were just called dumps. Dave and Phase II aren’t exactly local boosters overflowing with civic pride either. There’s nothing on the street or in the record store, the night time’s shining, but the daytime’s blinding and even the phone is out (which is just as well as there’s no next of kin or friends to call). So sequestered in the cellar Dave and the Phase stay and – happily – have a taut and tasteless rocker to show for it.
The guitar rampage on ’Cement City’ reeks of Motor City residue; the gymnastic histrionics of Sonic’s Rendezvous most particularly. …which is likely just an off-target result of aiming for Ted Nugent. A bleak take on bleak living. The A-side’s good too, but ’Cement City’ is the real star. …well, co-star, if you count the photo insert. Phase II is Fortune Teller sick! And I don't even want to guess what Phase I must have looked like.
To my faithful readers - all three of you - I will be going on short hiatus as I establish residency in my new home-base of New Orleans, LA. Once on my feet, I will, as they say, be going hard, out in these streets, stacking up mountains of the raerest black mould. All day, every day. Yaheard? ...or something like that. In any case, enjoy some actual good music from me for a change and see you when my long march concludes.
DAVEY DOOLITTLE, 'ANIMALS' b/w 'DANCING MALARIA' (New Wave, 1978)
When you are a no-selling, fringe figure on the margins of a major American new wave scene, you have three possible long-term career arcs (none of them dignified).
You can (A) attempt to ret-con yourself into the prime real-estate of the official histories through embarrassing reunion shows, catalogued citations of how many times you played with the Zippers and Pearl Harbor & The Explosions or (more often) over-taxation of the poor saps who bite into your bait and actually want your crummy 7'' at approximately the same rate Virgil might try and gouge you for an autographed photo (READ: $40 and up).
Alternately, you could always (B) tape your dick back and make sweet synthetic love to Patrick Cowley and find fame as both as a Hi-NRG dance pioneer as well as an early victim of GRID...I mean, AIDS...assuring a type of immortality amongst both drag queens and hanky code crackers.
Or (C), frustratingly most often, maintain a web presence making tantalizing mention of your unimportant musical past while focusing or rather fixating on the sort of tin-foil hat, U.N. black helicopter, politburo ponzi scheme babble usually confined to the waiting rooms of free clinics or flea market tables selling records.
And, if you're at all curious, one may take the most cursory of google stabs to quickly discover which flavor of filling flows inside our boy Davey. The one and only single by Mr. Doolittle - on NEW WAVE RECORDS in you case you hadn't heard! - shows definite sonicness kinship to the style of Larry Lazar, however, this is not so much the sound of the LONE ROCKER, but rather the LONE OFF HIS ROCKER!
'Three blind mice, man. Think about it. We're the animals, bro. See how they run. Just look at the sleeve...it's all there.'
Moving on...unsure just what nursey rhymes and malaria have to do with each other, but I'm sure Davey knew (a revelation which I'd just assume he keep to himself as the b-side is unlistenable Neil Diamond drivel with horns). Whatever the matter, it's clear that Double D, like Saint Vitus or Wesley Willis, was scarred by the heavy burden of possessing THE REAL TRUTH.
...access to which can be yours for only the most nominal of investments, guaranteed to triple your initial amount in less than six months. Let me show you some figures...
TERRY HUGHES, 'TIME TO TURN' b/w 'SO GLAD' (Rubber Ball, 1982)
It’s a good thing there are several states separating Terry Hughes and Justin Trouble, otherwise I’d expect there’d be a Johnny Thunders imitation showdown at the Loveland corral (winner earning a one-way trip to New Orleans and death). Fairly inexplicable and simply irresistible shirtless guido junk rock plus Stones-y pop moves circa 'Between The Buttons' with definite ideological nods (tambourine, Jagger vocals) towards the late 60s. The first of three single-servings along Mr. Hughes’ rather unpredictable flight-path - his second is hesher-lite party rock, while the third is total G.G. Allin worship with the lyrics to ’Don’t Talk To Me’ changed to insult some skank from Bayonne. After Damian & The Criterions, I think Terry Hughes is definitely my second favorite New Jersey rock loser. And he’s STILL GOING STRONG!
IT'S A TERRY HUGHES RIOT!
Also, would like to dedicate the b-side of this record to my friends Daniel and Megan who got hitched over the weekend and whose wedding I only slighted ruined by forgetting the rings to their ceremony. Thanks for allowing me a chance to redeem myself guys! Have fun in the DR!
THE RESPONSIBLE TEENAGERS, 'TEMPORARY FEELING' b/w 'OUT OF MY HEAD' (Responsible, 1980)
As the great soul-patch philospher and unmatyred monochrome t-shirt saint Aaron Lewis of the band Staind might say:'It's Been A While.'
Been a while since my last real post and definitely been a while since it was fashionable for good, long-loined, round-eyed American wimp rock to garner any attention round the roost of this here blog.And to that I say no more!No more!With this post I demand a return to North American normalcy!A risorgimento of suburbanity!A return...to responsibility AND an excuse to post both sides of the Responsible Teenagers' excellent lone single!
Familiar to most from their track on Teeline (and to Evan Dando enthusiasts for containing a couple of pre-Lemonheads), this was the Responsible Teens' lone NYC bow from 1980 on their own Responsible imprint.Despite the 'R & R Warhead' tagline, the R.T.'s keep it short and play it clean; two beer limit cos they borrowed mom’s Volvo.And while the presumed A-side to this double B-side single has hogged the majority of the Hyped2Death spotlight (thus far), I'll stump like Stephen Douglas and go to my grave believing forever that it is the faux-Byrds-y, out-of-tune D.I.Y. flipper that is the true Most Likely To.Also, if you harbored any illusions as to the dwindling amounts of cache remaining within the reservoirs of Max's Kansas City's back- room at the dawn of the Nineteen Eighties, you need only glance at the rear-side of the sleeve and catch the trio of dweebs slack-assing (bespectacledunabashed) to realize that the well had long since been wrung dry.
Hop in the new wave car pool lane ahead for both spotty sides:
....that is the approximate speed at which my computer is currently moving. Sludgier than Lilian Roxon at a truck-stop buffet. Still, I VOW - like MacArthur - to return with more bountiful offers of bad music very soon. In the meantime, here's a snapshot of L.A.'s favorite Punk Rock jock in happier times.
