"Blastitude"
is a word coined by Angus MacLise, original drummer
of the Velvet Underground and quite possibly the
coolest hippie of all time. (cf. track four of his
posthumous CD release The Invasion of Thunderbolt
Pagoda, released by Siltbreeze/Quakebasket.
Click HERE
for immediate cf'ing.) |
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(or
click on Angus) |
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Blastitude
#9.
ON
THE COVER: Check out Joe Bouchard's bass stance!
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Hi Larry.
You
know, the American volume of Love, Peace, and Poetry
is mostly rock bands, but there are four tracks on it that
might qualify in your "real person's folk" category. Actually,
I wouldn't call them folk records. They're all psychedelic
rock records with full band backings. Two of them are seemingly
included for kitsch value. One is a group named Arcesia
that featured a guy who, it is said, had been a big band
singer in the forties, but in the '60s became psychedelicized
and made a Doors-influenced album. There's also a track
by this guy Damon who somehow thinks of himself as a gypsy
and put out a psychedelic rock record called Song of
a Gypsy.
The other two are less kitsch-oriented, though. One of them
is this guy Darius, who did what you might perhaps think
of as a very dramatic lounge/freakout-psych. The other is
by a guy from Kansas City named "Michael Angelo." His record
is from 1977, and, I would say, comes closest to your description
(with a weird painting behind him in the picture on the
front cover and all). He doesn't sing about butterflies,
though. It's not a Rod McKuen type of thing. His track is
really good, actually.
I've never known much about the story of the Bull of
the Woods album. I always wondered if it was partly-made
at the time when Roky got arrested. The production is a
mess, really. There's some terrible distortion on the guitar
at a number of points, and a really amateurish overuse of
the Echoplex. Also, why are the drums distorted on "Til
Then?"
To me, that doesn't sound like Stacy singing at the beginning
of "Dr. Doom," actually. (Who is it?) I'm sure it's Roky
on "May the Circle Remain Unbroken."
Tim
Ellison
I
don't claim to be an expert on "real person's folk"--everything
I know about it, including the term, comes from a brief
thread on the drone-on list. Thanks for further elucidation.
I've heard strange things about the Damon _Song of the
Gypsy_ album. People seem to end up liking it in spite
of themselves. _Bull of the Woods_ works that way for
me too--something keeps me coming back to it, despite
its production and other flaws. Really, all of the Elevators
albums had terrible production. _Easter Everywhere_ is
probably in my all-time top ten albums, but there's times
when I'm listening to it where I just go "Man, this recording
just ain't too hot"...and I NEVER say that.
AND
THIS JUST IN ON THE "REAL PERSON'S" FRONT:
"A hopelessly rare and obscure 1970 private pressing
LP from San Diego, California entitled "DUSTY" on the
local Hiltop label. The condition of the very primitive
looking cover (see scan) is a very nice VG+. The disc
is a very decent VG with some light marks, nothing too
deep, and plays with a bit of surface noise but no skips.
Side one of this LP was recorded live on August 30, 1970
and includes Dusty on electric guitar with occasional
bass back up singing the the hits of the day "Proud Mary",
"Jet Plane", "Summertime", "Everybody's Talkin" and "Bottle
Of Wine". Side two is a studio effort, again with Dusty
singing and playing acoustic and electric guitars on "Lodi",
"If I Were A Carpenter", "Mr. Bojangles", "Evening Medley"
and "Get Back". A bit of a "real people"/loner vibe permiates
this super obscure U.S. private pressing LP. There will
be no reserve and a low, low minimum bid of $1.99. Bid
with confidence! GOOD LUCK!!"
Yeah,
alright, this "hopelessly rare" collector's
gem was still going for $1.99 with just 20 hours left
last I checked...
Hello,
this is Matthew of New Port. I wanted to say thanks for
your nice write-up of our track. The idea for the AI LP
comp was to provide something that no one would expect
in terms of what people perceive of us as a band. Everyone
expects the 'head-clearing' aspect, (I truly just love
the EFCSSCDR track, it almost sounds 'pop' to me).
You've definately got the damn Negro derivitave DOWN,
hell yes, we are like Negro2. In fact the very first NP
performance ever was using THEE negro guitar, a totally
fucked fender jag through Clint Simonsen (Carburetor recs)'s
amp which very often was used for Negro performances (this
line-up of NP was the first me and Emil Hagstrom of Cock
E.S.P., and we were aided by Patrick Marley that day (of
Giardia/Muck). Hagstrom went on to leave the band, but
we still have an unreleased lp of the stuff that we did.
REAL fucking intense shit. The band is now me and Andrew
Morrow. We still do not use FX pedals, and now are moving
into a no-wave country sound. I'd like to send you our
unreleased materials to tell me your thoughts. I also
run the Freedom From label and will send you some of our
releases for review. I just wanted to say thanks cuz most
people seem to hate us when we do NP (it's mainly 'oh
it's New Port, let's go outside so we can listen to it.)
We are opening for Lightning Bolt in one day, will report
on the festivities.
[...]
LB and
P+B stayed at my house and are still here, might skip their
show in moline, been serving them gormet food and washing
their bodies and clothes. Brian played last night with 1/4
of his speakers working, both bands were fucking BRUTAL!!!
just amazing, flat out, no doubt hands down amazing. New
Port slayed as well, we had our best show EVER. I got it
recorded and we actually are way louder than both LB and
P+B, the recorder just bleeds with overdrive, and we don't
use any FX, it's great. We played 2 songs 9 minutes. P+B
was just AWESOME, really active (Jeff the guitarist/singer
was everywhere, watch-out); this stuff holds more of special
place in my heart than LB if I had to choose, but fuck LB
was much more power, just watching Chippendales nuts flying
everyhwere drumming to brian's solitary fast pickless bass
fuck was the best. I think it's the production values on
the records is what detracts to how fucking amazing these
two are live..
They
were amazing in Chicago too, the first live show I saw
after moving here. The two-bass-guitars-'n'-drums trio
Flying Luttenbachers played just before them and "slayed"
as well. This was at the Fireside Bowl.
Hey Larry.
Just got done reading your "Heavy Metal Vomit Party" tape
review, and wanted to first beg you for a copy at some point
in the variable future, and also to tell you an anecdote
just told me by a co-worker that coincides so well with
the content of that tape, it's kind of eerie. A friend of
his just told him that he was the winner of something called
the "Crazy Train Promotion." Happened here in Chicago just
after the release of "Blizzard of Ozz." The first 50 people
here in town to buy "Blizzard" at some store won the promotion.
They got to ride the "Crazy Train" with Ozzy. The Crazy
Train was a two car train on the Brown Line (which you will
soon see, if you haven't already, is easily the least crazy
of all the lines on the CTA, probably then too), which drove
around and around the loop for 45 minutes, while the winners
got to meet Ozzy. To top it all off, all the winners received
a free box of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Co-worker Sam summed
the whole scene up in just one sentence, as evocative as
any Hemingway I've ever heard. "Ozzy and a train full of
50 13-year old metal kids, giving greasy-fingered devil
signs to cameras." My
eyes are misting over, so I gotta go. RAWK!
-C
oops--my
bad, there's no such thing as FOR real-- only faux-real
and more-real / mo'real, like mo'better... there's nothing
but 'virtualreality' so therefore there is no need for VR
tag, unless its used as disinfo to kling-on the notion that
the real now/here is not nowhere, which is excatly what
it is now-here=nowhere, dig? --carl ashford for the deleuzeans
ov grandeur (the nu-DOGz)--OV Power!
oh yeah-- and ... faux-real: more real than realism: faux-realism---the
fau(x)vism-schism, gnome sane?
Aaaaaah!
Cassavettes. Faces is truly amazing. It's a nice
indictment of a certain class of people with none of the
stupidity or unguided hate of something like Happiness.
Plus characters never seem more real even when being obscenely
terrible people as they do in a Cassavettes. He's the savior
of my No Resolution! Exist! world view which is why I had
problems with Gloria, because the resolution is tacky.
I need to see more, primarily ...Chinese Bookie.
I saw the extended version of Apocaplypse Now and
thoroughly enjoyed myself. All the new stuff allowed you
to view the entire movie as a comedy. And it is funny. Also
saw Baise Moi cuz you know how fun it is to watch
lots of fuckin' and killin'. I wish I was a porn star babe
from hell taking it out on the world that's been rapin'
me or just to do it out of sheer boredom would be fine too.
When I left the theater I imagined myself ripping my underwear
off, fucking like crazy and then shedding some blood. Speaking
of boredom, 101 Reykjavik is definitely not boring
but its lead character really is boring even if he fucks
his mother's lover, kinda like me (should I clarify I mean
boring and not the mother's lover's fucker part?).
BLASTITUDE
will be published bimonthly from now
on. Next issue November 1st.
Letters, recommendations, complaints,
submissions: blastitude@hotmail.com
Any music/tapes/books/artifacts/records/documents
for consideration should be mailed to Blastitude
@ 2158 N. Mozart St. #2, Chicago, IL 60647
USA
editor,
designer, collater, curator, writer: Larry "Fuzz-O"
Dolman
"Living Like Burt Reynolds On A Mac Davis Income"
by Tony Rettman
"Supplement to 200 LB UNDERGROUND" by Tony Rettman
"Inklings and Musings" by Brad Sonder
"Only Seat in the House" by Christopher Dean
Heine
Portrait of Brad Sonder by Michael French
BLASTITUDE #9 © 2001
Published by Tiny Press
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