Complicated Camaro Situation

BLOOD, 'FLY ALL NIGHT' b/w 'BOMBED AT THE BEACH,' 'CAMBODIAN BLUES' (Blood, 1985)


I foolishly sold this record years ago when I had to move back in with my parents.  Luckily for me, that didn't last long.  AND, triply luckily for me AND FOR YOU, I reacquired the record in question AND the ebay listing of our unsweet particular parting survives like an ebay wrinkle in time.

So!  As I don't think I could describe this record any better now if I tried, I'm just going to copy and paste my old ebay pitch.  PLEASE NOTE THIS RECORD IS NOT FOR SALE!  YOU'LL NEVER GET THIS ONE OFF ME AGAIN, SUCKERS!

More private-label mystery-band action, this time from Hauppauge, New York’s BLOOD – Long Island’s answer to the mighty Flying Sixty-Nine!  And despite its relegation to the single’s b-side, ‘Bombed At The Beach’ is the obvious stand-out track, earning the green-light of approval for its utterly bone-head lyrics and crude almost Dicators-esque narrative approach.  Select lyrics include: 

‘At the spot, It’s a wild scene,
The girls are hot and the guys are mean,
In the sand, The world in my hand,
Living in the fast lane in this great land.’ 


The chorus similarly succeeds by rhyming ‘beach’ with ‘unleashed.’  The verse following continues in this vein, primarily concerning driving fast and laying chicks; all over a skuzzy, lo-fi, metal grind (the part where the singer tries to sound crazed and scream is terrifically unconvincing as well).  The other tracks are average to fine; split between an ineptly atypical AOR/glam rocker with - I think - an anti-drug message and a humorous ‘blues’ about the Cambodian genocide.  Borneo Jimmy would be blushing with pride.

Not sure if this ever came with a picture sleeve.  Judging from the extremely primitive label design and the overall lack of sophistication to the band’s attack, it seems unlikely.

Now I really wanna hear their second single!  Anyone holding???

DON'T MISS OUT, FANS!

'FLY ALL NIGHT'


'BOMBED AT THE BEACH'
;

'CAMBODIAN BLUES'

A Wink Is As Good As A Nod

WINK, ‘I FEEL FINE’ b/w ‘LAST CHANCE’ (WINK! Records, 1979)

This band has everything that I like – Mott The Hoople looks, finger-tapping, mustaches and a fan club I can join!

I don’t have any idea who Wink were or why they chose to do this to the Beatles, but their treatment is a winner. Nick Gilder take notice – these guys can sing high, harmonize and look stupid almost as good as you can!

Probably from California. Probably their lone release. Probably gonna want to buy it the next time you see it (if you can afford it that is!). And probably gonna keep you up late at night wondering why these guys ever bothered writing original songs at all (the group original B-side is probably closer to the journeyman AOR capabilities of the quintet’s combined perspirations than the stellar A).

Also like that the lead singer’s last name is FUNDERBURK. WHAT A COUNTRY!
Enjoy Wink!

‘I FEEL FINE’ ‘LAST CHANCE’

It's A Blue Morning

BLUE RAIN, 'LIFE' b/w 'NEW MORNING' (Blue Rain Records, 1986)

Since the local weather lately has resembled nothing quite so much as an Ernest Hemingway death-dream, I figured I would go on with the flood-plain flow and post up this late Louisiana mystery disc produced by a group of Baton Rouge weirdos who previous-to had slogged and smogged their way in unrecorded combos with such arcane names as Vacation Bible School and probably many others.

It's Nineteen Eighty-Six (okay) and only the synth drums give it away. Otherwise no jury in the world would convict you if you had subtracted a few years off of that sum or even reversed the order of the final two digits. I can't decide if Blue Rain were left-over punks, siphoning-off and shooting-up the bad trip residue of such loser antecedents as THE SHIT DOGS or THE ZOOMERS or if they were just hippies who accidentally smoked their way to success.

And success is obviously what they had in mind - why else would they think to include a paste-on map of their home-town on the back of the primitive, over-size picture sleeve? Why, so the major label record companies could come visit them, of course! Also, the combo of business card and the 'thanks to everyone who made this record possible' dedication is always a good local look.

While the A-side of this effort, 'Life,' is cool in its primitive repetition and druggy delivery (did he just rhyme 'Sea of Saragossa' with 'John Dos Passos?'), it's the jumpy, fake U.K. D.I.Y. sounding B-side that here wins honorary Latin distinctions. I only were it was longer.

A cool single still available in mass quantities cheap on ebay from the guy with the seemingly limitless supply of Boyz and Whizz Kids 45s. REAL HEADS KNOW THE DEAL!

Also, for anyone ever in the vicinity of the Red Stick and clutching a copy of this record to their bosoms, make sure to make use of the map on the back and take time out to visit Carville, just to the south: the nation's leading and - to my knowledge - only Hansen's Disease Museum (that's leprosy for those of you not up on the current PC-isms - also, the birthplace of identically-surnamed political pundit James).

Enjoy, but before that, a short ode to the greatest left-handed pitcher of all-time.

'First we'll use Spahn 
then we'll use Sain 
Then an off day followed by rain 
Back will come Spahn 
followed by Sain 
And followed we hope 
by two days of rain'

LIFE

NEW MORNING

My Works Cited Pages

CARL JOHN SATTLER, 'WHEN THE LEVEE BROKE' b/w 'ONE PAGE, ONE PAUL'  (LINK, 1985)

I'm not sure I possess the right amount of letters following my surname to properly interpret the AOR tea-leaves of Carl John Sattler's 'Pictures At 23 (Link)' single.  You thought they only gave titles to albums?  We-he-ll, you obviously don't know Carl John Sattler!  He's so high-minded that he not only named this private-press single, he also thought it proper to include a parenthetical in its dubbing (No Augustus Pablo).  Think of it as a chaser or an after-dinner mint.

I'm not fooling, I really don't know what to make of this record besides the fact that it rules in an extremely ideological fashion.  Beatles interview snippets, semi-locked groove, profanity, whispered backwards lyrics, total Rundgren/Cheap Trick guitar.  An intricate label design and a one sided picture sleeve only adds to the mystery. 

I'm also not sure if Carl John Sattler is the performer or the songwriter here.  In any event, I think the b-side 'One Page, One PAUL' totally rules. A proper paean to the clearly better Beatle.

One year past Orwell:  here we are.  This is Bobb Trimble with a perm and a degree in the humanities if his life's ambition was to to be a guitar tech for Boston or Crack The Sky.  Enjoy then and please make sure to circulate your papers before next week's seminar and to be prepared to discuss romantic facts of musketeers and the mongrel dogs who teach.

"WHEN THE LEVEE BROKE"


"ONE PAGE ONE PAUL"
EDIT: Uh Oh.

No Anti-Christ Devil's-Child Left Behind

GYPSY SAVAGE, 'NEVER DROP OUT' b/w 'GOODBYE NOW' (World Records, 198?)

April is the cruelest of months. So cruel in fact that me and t.s. had to take the entire month of May off to recover.

But now we're back and we're here to show you that we can really shake 'em down!

Thinking of changing the title of this blog to Bad Heavy Metal Records I Like And Buy. Cos I like and buy a lot of them. So, without further adieu or delay, here's another fine example in an incompetent and shitty series. AND, these boys are local!

GYPSY SAVAGE - Gretna boys allegedly, though captured here in full flight on the front steps of McMain High off S. Claiborne - may not have been the hey-bras-most-likely-to in their headband and poodle mullet heyday. However, time, slavishness and pure boneheaded naivete has done much
to rehabilitate the mighty GS's rep and to amplify their charm immensely.

It also may represent a lyrical first for a genre notoriously infamous for its attitudes disdainful towards the benefits of a classical education. No smokin' in the boys room or ringing hell's bells for Gypsy Savage. Nope, school is in and on! Complete with parental guilt-trip fear-mongering and PSA/school assembly-style moves.

And if the music is budget Motley Crue, so what? Since when is that a bad thing?!?!?!

The b-side, 'Goodbye Now,' is only so-so, but, even if it wasn't, the chances of it bettering 'Never Drop Out' are lower than the aggregate state test scores of the Recovery School District.

Gypsy Savage later recorded a full-length, self-titled LP which I haven't heard, featuring the same excellent cover 'art' as their earlier 45 rpm. Why mess with success when you're batting 1000 and the aesthetic altiplano has been secured?

Enjoy then the mess and mediocrity of my writing, my blog and these total losers.  Long live the local bin.

'NEVER DROP OUT' 'GOODBYE NOW'

Two Pints Of Lager And A Increased Risk Of Heart Disease

FAT BRUCE, 'GOT TO GET IT' b/w 'NEST IN A FALLEN TREE' (Brewtown, 197?)


Richard Hell's ex-girlfriend might well have been speaking about me and not Terry Ork in cautioning any and all who would listen to not make promises that they can't keep.

What did I every so recently declare vis-a-vis this blog's temporary direction?

ALL WISCONSIN ALL THE TIME UNTIL EASTER?

And what have I managed?

Quoth The Sleepers' Ricky Williams:

'NOT MUCH!'

So...full confession in. I'm sorry.

Hopefully then this offering will soften the blow and encourage me - in the future - to lower the vaulting bar to more realistic heights and move my full digital expiation down the highway.

Though I lack any pictorial evidence to substantiate my claims, from the grooves on his lone single it's clear Fat Bruce was the Brat Champion of Brewtown boogie. Now, Bruce ain't husky, nor is he pleasantly plump or big-boned. Naw naw: Bruce is FAT, BABY!

Similar to the New Cactus or Rebel Band, this is retard waistband-expansion swill-mongering-by-numbers that shimmies and stomps along memorably, if not particularly stoutly (though don't tell that to Heavy 45s).

Not sure of the year, but likely mid-to-late-70s. I can imagine the first few rows of Fat Bruce performances being the hirsute sweat splash-zone when they cut into 'Got To Get It' while on 'Nest In A Fallen Tree' one can practically smell the mildewed carpet and Blazt B.O.. Unsure as well what Bruce is up to these days, but hopefully he's watching his cholesterol and triglyceride levels and leaving the cheese curds alone.

Also curious to know what projects producer BETH ENTERPRIZE is busying herself with too.

A decade earlier Bruce might have been Mitch Ryder; a decade later George Thorogood. Yet further proof (if at this time any was needed) that Homer Simpson was correct in his assertion that rock attained perfection in 1974 A.D.

So, I have said all that to say this: Chubby chasers and porky prime cutters rejoice, it's boogieing time!


'GOT TO GET IT'


'NEST IN A FALLEN TREE'

Objectivist Pop For Beach People

In keeping with the Lintian theme prescribed and proclaimed by me - unwitting to workload and scheduling conflicts - here IS Kenosha Wisconsin's finest proponents of conceptually dum dum new wave/power pop/punk rock, MUS-SUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-LE BEACH!



Muscle Beach existed from roughly 1978 to 1980 and, during the course of their rough three-year lifespan, marked time at nearly all of Milwaukee's major punk and new wave haunts (Zak's, the Palms, Starship, etc). Conceptually distinct and lyrically fully-formed, Muscle Beach were a cut above 90% of the 77-year-zero Midwestern milieu for which they were inevitably stuck opening. However, despite their obvious compositional superiority, the M. Beachers recorded and issued only one now very rare single on their own DUMB imprint in 1980 before atomizing and dispersing to the four winds forever.

A shame. ...as Milwaukee was then forced to bear both the Bo'Deans and the Violent Femmes in the decade to come.

ENJOY THEN AND LISTEN AND WATCH WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN!

LET'S GET DUMB AND HAVE SOME FUN!