Boy Can I Dance Good

DENNIS CARLETON, 'FILL IN THE BLANK' b/w 'SOMETIMES I WONDER' (Green Light, 1983)

Jesus Christ...talk about KBDM (Killed By Dot Matrix): whoever GREEN LIT the no-budget sleeve for this release by ex-CHOIR-boy NE Pagans converso DENNIS CARLETON ought to be immediately drawn and quartered by an aesthetic Inquisition/Court Of Star Chamber all their own. Seriously: the FLASHCUBES first single is fuckin Hieronymus Bosch by comparison.  Cool hype sticker though.

For the unversed and uninitiated, CARLETON, D. rubbed shoulders and likely shared curlers (and maybe more) with our own American Madhi Modhi E. CARMEN back in the Small Face Sixties. Following upon the collapse of flower power and the less than welcome reception of Woodstock Nation in the Buckeye state, Carleton wandered akin to several other good scion sons of Cleveland (KRISS, CLARK, BEHEMOTH, HYNDE) before returning - prodigal-like - to their original points of departures (ad fontes).

I'm doubtful that RICHARD HELL ever thought his theme-song would receive a rejoinder of this variety. But really, one cannot argue with Carleton's cant - in the 60s it was this and in the 70s it was indeed verily that. Is that a fucking recorder on the b-side?

The inside (typed) interior of this sleeve is very sad, taken up mostly with schills and advertisements for CARLETON's GREEN LIGHT label's menu of cassettes. I've never heard any of them, but if it's on cassette how can it be worth more than the sum of two fucks?

Morethantwofucks-worth is this single. Trash 80 hair-suit graphics not withstanding, D. CARLETON manages to salvage and channel and inject just the right amount of residual RASPBERRIES pop on both sides of his solo single to put him - at least - in the same league as SCOTT MCCARL or JODY KOENIG(maybe even DAVID BRANYAN depending on who's keeping score).

Fizz-pop modern rock best enjoyed with a nose full of duster and a stomach full of cheez-it's, this is the Cleveland pop aesthetic not quite ready for the Reagan prime-time.

 'FILL IN THE BLANK'

 'SOMETIMES I WONDER'

Cleveland Is The City

BOBBY SULL, ‘HAVE TO BE MY LOVE’ b/w ‘ONE MORE THING’ (Tema Records, 197?)

Not sure on what planet this constitutes modern or even crossover soul (read up on your c-frenzy read-ups).

In any event, fairly OBVIOUS Cleveland Caucasian cast towards Brother Records shores circa ‘Surf’s Up’ or ‘Holland’ two-to-three-years late.  Reminds me most of ‘Darlin’’ or ‘Sail On Sailor.’ 

But there’s no surf in Cleveland USA, so Bobby Sull – whoever he was – has to vamp it up and fake the breakers like so many coastal and/or Anglophile poseurs before him  (Eric Carmen please stand up).

If Jon Tabakin is Beach Boys meets ‘Threes Company,’ then Bobby Sull is at least Brian Wilson cameoing on an episode of ‘Phyllis.’

YES, FANS, IT’S THAT GOOD! 

Basically, it’s a power pop tune that fits well within the atavistic M.O. of metro Cuyahoga County.  In a better world, Don Kriss and Bobby Sull may have been homesteading center-stage at Farm Aid in 1985 instead of Waylon and Willie.

No sleeve that I know of issued and no follow-up neither.  But, instead of lamenting this paucity of material, let us be thankful that B.S. even recorded this at all.

I love this record and wish that anyone who could share knowledge would open up their pocket-books of info so that all of us could loave-up and out on sunny Sull-y know-how.

HAVE TO BE MY LOVE

ONE MORE THING

I Dreamt Of Goth Clubs...

ANODYNE, "ANACELICA" b/w "THE SEA"  (GRIG Records 45, 1985)

...I truly did.  In Jr. and High School I REALLY wanted to be Goth.  I occasionally wore pink scarves, hung out in front of mall book stores well after closing, pretended to read Nietzsche.  I even spurned high school graduation to lie on a mattress at a friend's house, eat cucumber sandwiches and listen to Kraftwerk in the dark (and, to my later credit, The Louvin Brothers' 'Satan Is Real' which we borrowed from his mom cos it had the devil in the title).

But, like so many other things pre-matriculative, I lacked fluency in the social cues that would have opened & allowed me to rub clove-smelling shoulders with the jnco jean goth jet set. SO, instead, I had to settle for standing invitation Saturday nights spent playing AD&D and getting good grades.

So lame.

Thankfully, some 'rich college twentysomethings' - to quote people who saw them live - from near my neck of the woods (Mobile, Alabama) were much more successful in affecting a death rock southern pose.

Anodyne - for those less quick on the wikipedia-draw - is not only a (good) song title by the Cocteau Twins and a (dumb) album by (fake rural dumbos) Uncle Tupelo; it is also a generic term for late 19th century patent medicinal concoctions believed to ease pain.  Laudanum and the like.

Which is fitting as Anodyne's attack is patent Chameleons UK guitar-goff with a dash of Bauhaus.  ...which is probably inadvertent unless the import bins in the Port City circa 1985 were A LOT more adventurous (which I highly doubt).  Dudes probably thought they sounded like poo2.

Aspirations notwithstanding, if I had heard this in H.S., you can best believe I would have added it to my solo ethereal spotlight dance fantasy mix.

Can you believe girls weren't lining up to date me?  Maybe Anodyne had better luck with the ladies (or men) in Mobile.

SO!  Pile up your hair and close the blinds and dance like only Daniel Ash can see you.

'ANACELICA'

'THE SEA'
 

It's A Swift Kick Life For Us

KICK, 'KICK' (private press, 1980)

In which I offer zero excuse for my absence and give up any semblance of a regular posting schedule and instead commit to continue to upload retarded hard rock and heavy metal records as I find them or, as in the case of Kick, they find me.

People make up fake genres all the time - ye-ye, acid-folk, biker-punk. And if they can get away with it then so can I. ...cos - the way I see it - KICK - along with mono-syllabic cross-coast plasma brothers BLOOD - may be the torch-bearing vanguard of 1980s BEACH METAL! I'll scan in the back cover tomorrow at work (NO I WON'T!), but you should see 'em: not one, but TWO dudes in creased white chinos, matching color flying V, one dude with a sailboat on his shirt, everybody with patented business-casual styled coiffs. All centered against a black and white backdrop of tasty waves.

Kick get mega credit for rocking so hard and keeping things t-totally beach-centric from their inland home-base of Atascadero as well as for parodying the Annie soundtrack with their cover-art AND - not least - for including the word 'HOT, 'ROCK' or 'ROCKER' in three out of the eight tunes on offer: all of which move in a pomp/late 70s hard rock direction akin to early RATT and a million other opening-act, satin-jacket scuzz-dispensers.

That said, KICK's lone LP smokes pretty much all of the way through; the dedication to their craft attentively reflected in the AUTOGRAPHS my copy bears. Lead vocalist Chuck Lynch states 'I LIKE ROCK N ROLL HOPE YOU ENJOY IT!' Thanks Chuck, I will and I do! Lead guitarist Ed Blackburn advises that the listener and former owner of this record might perhaps 'ROCK IT OUT!' Huh - I might just do that, Eddie; thanks! Drummer Vaughn CASTLE, on the other hand, is more succinct, simply signing his obviously fake and awesome name.

'KICK' is beer-and-beach, top-down-turf-and-surf satisfaction, the only misstep arriving in the form of the proggy, one-bong-hit-too-many 'Wake Me When It's Over.' Kick have no business talking or playing for over six minutes at a stretch, but they do it anyway; use this track as a piss-break or pop out to check the mail and you'll be fine.

Found this record for the sum of one dollar in a flea-market in Meridian, MS. when I should have been visiting my aged grandmother. Well, I'm no Gram Parsons, but in his immortal cornpone accent, I'll dedicate this blog:

THIS ONE'S FER YOU GRANMA!

UPDATE:  Perhaps fittingly, moments after typing this blog post I spilled half a can of Coors Light over this record.  Where was my autograph warning to drink responsibly guys?!??!

'LOVE HOT'


'ROCK 'N' ROLL RAMPAGE'

'JUST FOR YOU'


'GONNA BE A ROCKER'

'HOKY POKY MAMA'

'IF I SAIL AWAY'


'WAKE ME WHEN IT'S OVER'

'ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD'

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