Spacecraft – "Paradoxe" (Self-Released) 1978

It looks Kraut,sounds Kraut,feels Kraut,but it's French.....ish......naturally there's a English guy involved.In fact an English Gentleman from no lesser electro-rock outfit than Bill Nelson's Red Noise,namely the eye-wateringly famous, John Livengood...yes THAT John Livengood..This has gotta be good then....LivenGOOD at least?

Yeah, I've never heard of him either,but google has.

The Paradoxe is that this is one of those records who would be quietly inserted into the post-2001 Krautrock sections in your local CD emporium,keeping it hushed that they were mostly Frogs ,but in the vinyl days they would have been lost in the dreaded vacuum of the miscellaneous category. Its not German but it's Kraut era Space rock-a-like,aka la Musique Kosmiche. It's a mixture of influences,worn boldly on their wizards' sleeves,including such obscurities as Early Tangerine Dream from their Alpha Centuri era, the BBC Radiophonic workshop,and Early Electronics.

As for 1978,the market would have been rather limited for shifting units of this kind of hippie nonsense.But thanks to the small-mindedness of the 1970's buying public,these treasures are left to fester like musical dinosaur footprints in the muddy waters of re-issue detecting.

French Prog and all it's tendrils,are often lazily dismissed as German,or just European.....of course the Brits don't consider themselves at all as European,and refer to mainland Europe as "The Continent".This is also applied strenuously to music; "Ahhh, That's European",they'd announce,meaning "Continental"....and also ,most probably..."Rubbish".

As a young lad,I too harbored this assumption that anything 'Continental'was ,by definition, automatically Rubbish....I mean look at ABBA....total Eurotrash nonsense with rhymes and ear piercing double tracked vocals. This attitude changed,when I realised that DAF were in fact, German.A fact given away because they sang in German,rather that English with cheesy foreign accent style so beloved by all Eurovision acts....and they (DAF) were,shockingly,.....Good?! Then Sounds started writing about CAN,which opened a whole new world for me...overlooking the terrible sartorial styles in evidence, favored by the main protagonists .Something the whole musical world outside of the Anglo-Saxon world has still to figure out.Even DAF looked like a couple of sweaty S+M rubberclad rentboys .There was Kraftwerk I suppose,very smart looking gents,if a tad silly on the we are Robots front....and normally anyone French turned out to be Belgian.Generally The Benelux mob could qualify as UK overseas territory musically,so they qualify as exempt.

Then once discovered,every Kraut/French prog record is consumed and hailed has the best thing since sliced Roggenmischbrot.

That is until you've heard them a few too many times,and ten years later realise that 90% of it is in fact shite after all.Even CAN i find rather dull theses days....or is that....titter,smirk,laff.....Amon Dull?

Alas, Spacecraft I have heard but twice, so I don't think this is shite yet.....come back in ten years and it certainly will be so.

Tracklist

A1 Lumière De Lune 3:51
A2 Cosmic Wheel 10:55
A3 Chromatique One's 5:18
B1 Harabizant 9:35
B2 Ananda 2:35
B3 Surface 7:20

DOWNLOAD from outer spacecraftwerk HERE!

Seesselberg – "Synthetik 1" (Seesselberg Self-released)

 Oh Christ!.....this is on the Nurse With Wound List...Groan! It's one of those self-released German Electronic avant-garde albums,but this time without structure.This has more in common with the Early electronics of the fifties and sixties than Tangerine Dream or any of the tuneful Kosmiche Kraut musiks of the 1970's. Yeah that's right it gets on your tits....but don't show it or your 'I'm weird I am' cred will lose half a star. 

We're always being judged these days,whether its as a Host on Air B'n'B,or a struggling craftsman on Etsy, (like moi!),or, be it by your Weird mates, who obsess over the ultimate in binaural trainspotting, The fucking Nurse With Wound List. If you don't dig this then you're out of the klub.

This could have easily been the soundtrack to "The Andromeda Strain 2" when Sylvester Stallone, as Rambo, napalms the shit out of that mother fucking virus from outer space, annihilating at the same time half of China and Russia...the new, but old, communism. Goddam Atheists!

This album is of that ilk where the creatures higher up the evolutionary ladder,humans, try to sound like a couple of chimps let lose on a bunch of synthesizers,and is recorded,packaged and sold back to the higher apes who think they are intellectually superior to most everyone.....even chimps. Humans are rather arrogant creatures,who think that they have been chosen by an even higher being to receive eternal life!? The lower apes would never waste their time on such a concept.The answer to life is have a good time....allll the time (Viv Savage, Spinal Tap). So does this mean that the highest form of music is actually Hair Metal, and not random oscillator manipulation that considers itself from a loftier perch on the art chart than Motley Crue? Surely not?

Chimps show little or no interest in either medium.

Does that make me a chimp, or did anyone spot my thinly disguised overtures to Nurse With Wounds fans? Please let me join your Klub!

Did that sound suitably desperate?

Tracklist:

A1 Ouvertüre - "Jeder Ist Heutzutage Glücklich" - If Someone Survives, We Will Have A Return - Match. (Konditionsmusik - 1972) 3:41
A2 Eintrachtkreis-Paranoia (Die 200jahrfeier Findet Nicht Statt - Kondominatsmusik - 1973) 1:02
A3 Verhütungsfreudenwalzer (Kontinenzmusik Für Eine Akademie 1973) 1:27
A4 Speedy Achmed (Verhaltensanweisung 1973) 3:46
A5 Studentenzucker - "Tue Gern, Was Du Tun Mußt!" (Konfektionsmusik 1973) 0:36
A6 "Die Menschen Sind Glücklich, Sie Kriegen, Was Sie Begehren, Und Begehren Nichts, Was Sie Nicht Kriegen Können - Laubsägebastler, Briefmarkensammler Und Brieftaubenzüchter Bilden Das Rückgrat Der Menschheit" (Kondolenzmusik 1973) 10:42
B1 Phönix - 1972 (Filmmusik Zum Film "Phönix" von W.-J. Seesselberg) 10:14
B2 "Was Dir Heute Freude Macht, Das Verschieb Nicht Über Nacht!" (Kondensmusik Aus Einem Konzert Im Gallery-House London - 1973) 4:16
B3 Auszug Aus Einem Konzert In Der Düsseldorfer Kunsthalle 1971

DOWNLOAD synthetikally HERE!

Wolfgang Riechmann – "Wunderbar" (Sky Records – sky 017) 1978

After encountering Harald Grosskopf's rather good "Synthesist" album,I noticed there was another German in full makeup with expertly groomed lacquered blue hair....also in the "Euro-Rock" section of Revolver Records.....This is not the image one had came to expect from Germans in pop. Terrible, long fly-away hair, afghan coats and unkempt handlebar mustaches were just a few of the minor indiscretions against fashion that I had noticed,particularly among members of CAN .This chap, Reichmann could have been in Duran Duran.

Expecting some disco Kosmiche mash-up, I wasn't put off by the BBC Testcard music of the opening and title track.....strictly not Wunderbar at all.

However,as I had just spent the best part of four quid for it I persevered, and ultimately found it riechly rewarding.Full of analogue wunders and sweeping seascapes to satisfy any disillusioned punk rockers into the realms of relaxation .

Dunno about the Blue Lipstick though....each to his own i guess?

There's always gotta be a downside to every story,and Wolfies' is no exception,as he got fatally stabbed by a  random nutjob shortly after this record was released. Destiny dictated that he would never make a follow-up,and due to his medical condition.....he was dead....he never did start that difficult second solo album;so there's no opportunity for my Third Riechmann LP joke...shame....Unless they have synth's in heaven,or in hell for that matter. 

Both places being purely fictional, I doubt it,but at least a lot of early twentieth century Germans got out of certain eternal torture and melted away into oblivion.

Tracklist:

1.Wunderbar 5:40
2.Abendlicht 4:21
3.Weltweit 7:00
4.Silberland 7:41
5.Himmelblau 8:38
6.Traumzeit 1:11

DOWNLOAD the first riech mann HERE!

Harald Grosskopf – "Synthesist" (Sky Records – Sky 043) 1980

 

Much in demand drummer of Wallenstein, Harald Grosskopf.......without using google translate,I'd like that to translate that as Fat Head?......indeed, Harald Fathead drummed for nearly everyone who did't matter during the Krautrock era ,and for some who used to matter,and,inexplicably, for similar ex-drumming 'synthesists' such as Klaus Schulz.

As with most 'drummer boys, they are all haunted by this need to prove themselves as overlooked musical genius's.Not having one of their songs accepted onto the band's playlist is a major cause of departing Drummers everywhere.They really are just guys who hang around with musicians...with the odd,or very odd exception.

The only other drummer who got painted silver story i know of, was when Tony, Geezer,and Ozzy, painted a drunkenly comatose Bill Ward,drummer of Black Sabbath, Silver;An alcohol and cocaine fueled stunt that ended in hospitalisation for the poor lad.Narrowly escaping death it seems. Boys will be boys as they say?

As for Harald, he had no such excuse for painting himself silver. I can't think of any Krautrock hell-raisers who would have done it to him,especially not in Wallenstein,so i can only guess that the silly sod did it to himself"!?

Were there any Krautrocking wild men? Would be interested if any of you lot know of any......and i don't mean any German's who deliberately failed their maths exams,like Krazy Klaus, or crossed a road without looking and listening.

Notorious German sensibleness is a hard thing to pin down.I guess its to do with all that American financed post war reconstruction, that led to the economic miracle.Whereas the British had to make do with living in bombed out shiteholes like Birmingham on rations,after the country was bankrupted by saving the planet from tyranny and having to pay back the massive loans to the USA....our allies?...who then preceded to give the repayments back to Germany!..but at least the British empire was destroyed,and that was the US's main objective.After all,a famous american order to their Air farce was NOT to bomb any Ford motor company property,as they were churning out trucks for the Third Reich at the time. Plenty American companies made it harder to defeat the Nazi's by continuing to do business with them.The best one was IBM's early mechanical office tools that helped them kill more Jews. (I assume thet Sandy Hook guy will take objection to this in the comments?)

So after being fucked over and left to fester in squalor by the Americans naturally the disaffected youth of Britain would go slightly over the top when it came to revelry.The result of a real repression that was only matched by The German Democratic Republic, who Germanically remained sensible due to being followed everywhere they congregated by the Stasi...i suppose that experience gave the world Rammstein,whether that's should be celebrated is another matter entirely.It did after all inspire the Columbine massacre......a very clever under handed form of revenge on an old enemy I suggest?

When Kraut rock was first becoming fashionable, I spied Harald's silver fizzog in the "Euro-Rock" section of Revolver Records,in the even more exotic,but grey, surroundings of Leicester Marketplace.

The distant cries of "Tater's 10p a pahnd"(pound/lb's)...come 'n' feel these tater's darlin,Onleh 8p a pahnd for you love!"...piercing through the thick odorous haze of rotting banana's made this album a must purchase,then back home on the bus.

It turned out to be better than that CAN album I got the week before (Soon Over Babaluma ,£3.99), full of all the thick Berlin school analogue sumptuousness of bubbling sequencers,melting mellotrons,and sweeping string synthesizers any young person could wish for,but with a commercial edge;and its still good today kids.

Never heard of him again,so I long suspected that he had again painted himself silver and this time succumbed to the call of the Boatman...or the Baumann ?

Tracklist:

1.So Weit, So Gut 5:24
2.B. Aldrian 4:51
3.Emphasis 4:55
4.Synthesist 7:34
5.1847 - Earth 6:43
6.Trauma 6:37
7.Transcendental Overdrive 5:03
8.Tai Ki 4:09

DOWNLOAD howling harald's attempt at being taken seriously HERE!

Rolf Trostel – "Inselmusik" (Rolf Trostel Records– RP 1098) 1981

Like most German musicians in the 1968 to1982 era, Rolf looks like he has someone else's hair. He would also like us to know which synthesisers he's using;boldly printed on the rear of the cover below the Track listing.He's got a PPG wave,which may or may not be the same PPG Wave that Midge Ure used to play the 'Bell Sequence on the Band Aid "Feed The World single.One of the many crimes against art and culture perpetrated by this short scottish monster..

However, having said that, if the charity single for the starving had been made by Rolf Trostel the Ethiopians would have probably gave all the money back and organised a concert for us poor bastards in the west to save us from life threatening rubbish like Kajagoogoo and their equivalentia.(just made that word up by the way).

I'm told that Rolf was, and probably still is, a Peter Baumann solo fan,and that this self-released LP sounds exactly like the least hippie looking one from Tangerine Dream.

On this evidence I may check out some Baumann....or maybe not.

Therefore, this qualifies as Berlin School,so if you dig this school type,you may wanna check out Rolf and his one man army keeping Baumann Berlin School alive.....well,as in  alive forty years ago.Good for chill-out rooms at some 'orrible dance auditorium in Ibiza, or  a moratorium actually in Berlin itself.

This album could feature in the intermission of my fantasy gig at a renovated Hitler's Bunker in an alternative reality.Supporting Joy Division and PiL mark one,...wait a minute, wasn't that the line-up for the Futurama Festival, September 1979 in Leeds UK?...obviously minus Rolf Trostel of course.We were so spoilt back then.

Nowadays you'd have to fight off Coldplay and Radiohead,desperate to get the opening night in the Bunker on there swollen CV's....only to find that The Arctic Monkeys had beaten them to the punch. These certainly are shit times brother!

DOWNLOAD rolf's schooldaze in berlin HERE!

Hardy Kukuk – "Atemnot" (Hardy Kukuk Self-released – 22758) 1981

Take the 'U's out of Hardy's family name, and you're left with 'KKK'......i'm sure that's just a coincidence, but this kind of searching for your own meaning in a seething cauldron of nonsense, finding faces on mars,and the refusal to accept that celebrities die of enything except murder,are a strictly human trait that will end in our own destruction.So if you have a conspiratorial mindset I recommend that you avoid such things for your own,and everyone else's, good.You have been warned.

Hardy,was also the electronic conspirator for Klaus Bloch of A La Ping Pong non-fame,and in return Klaus appears with guitar and space-echo on Hardy's solitary self-released album from 1981.

Tangerine Dream had been going for over a decade by the time Hardy put this note for note perfect rendition of every TD song ever recorded;but he managed to do it in the space of five tracks....then merged back into the wallpaper,which we all wished that Tangerine Dream would have done after "Phaedra"....

Nah, i didn't mean that, TD were great, at least up until "Tangram",which coincidentally was about the time Kukuk unleashed this respectful pastiche to fill that particular vacuum.

The synths are gorgeous,fulfilling all those analogue clichés that get bandied about, hither and yon, by silly sods like me...such as,warm,phat,....er warm.....and er.....phat!? Surfing the knob twiddling Sine wave in such satisfying ways.

These people made these records in the full knowledge that once the 1000 copies had been sold or given away that it would be forgotten,and the planet would move on...but no.....crate diggers find it,hail it as a new discovery of great magnitude,and it gets re-released.Then there's the inevitable come back,again for just one album,which will indeed be,justifiably this time, very  forgotten.You just can't recreate a time and place.The motivations are different,and the desperation factor creeps in along with the chains of experience(Mind forged manacles as William Blake so aptly put it) .The fearlessness,or innocence of youth cannot be salvaged like an old synthesizer. Once you're fucked you stay Fucked.

Tracklist:

A1 Takt Der Zeit 9:31
A2 Erdträumer 11:22
B1 Frühling '81 11:19
B2 So Mal 2:00
B3 .. .... So 3:41

DOWNLOAD electronic songs of innocence and experience HERE!

A La Ping Pong – "Phase II - Go Go Pongs" (A La Ping Pong Self-released– 66.22784) 1981

A La Ping Pong did second album shocker!? (Get the first one here).

German sits on chair and noodles along, ambiently, with his guitar to a backing that now includes humans...yes, he has friends. He still sounds like that infamous law firm Oldfield,Fripp,and Oldfield ,but at least he had the good sense to pack all this self-released album malarkey in for a couple of decades.

Yes indeed, like the rest of the 'rediscovered' music wave at the turn of the millennium, even Klaus Bloch (Herr Ping Pong himself) was exhumed from a comfortable retirement to show us why olden days music is soooo much better that the derivative shit of today's WHY? generation.

To coin a phrase,Yesterdays derivative shit is far far better than today's derivative shit; I think you'll find that statement  stands up to scrutiny in laboratory conditions.

I've always liked a black and white album sleeve,and also strongly believe that every member of a band should be firmly seated,especially the bloody guitarist.Maybe Klaus couldn't stand up at all? I dunno, the only pictures I've seen of him has him seated.Normally surrounded by technology.

Please excuse me,but to increase the hit-rate for this article I have to add the tiresome noun "KRAUTROCK" to the recipe......it's very popular among those who would like to seem obscure but really aren't;but i must admit, A La Ping Pong is certainly obscure,but its qualifications to actually be called "KRAUTROCK" are somewhat tenuous apart from the fact that Klaus is certainly a German.Not that that changes anything.There are American groups who get called "KRAUTROCK"....dunno what's going on there,but at least i got to insert the keyword three times.

Google will be going mad for these pages.

Tracklist:

A1 Go 7:02
A2 Go Go Pongs 9:09
A3 Farbenspiel 4:09
B1 Hamburg - Ankara 6:02
B2 Hvalpsund Impressionen 6:29
B3 Klänge Wie Sand Am Meer 3:52222
B4 Strandgut 6:13

DOWNLOAD more from the ping pong book of kung fu HERE!

A La Ping Pong – "Extrem Musik A La Ping Pong Phase I" (A La Ping Pong Self-Released – RP 1078) 1980

I could have sworn I was listening to Fripp and Eno,turns out it was another long lost "Krautrock" DIY meisterwerk by some hippy untermensch called Klaus Bloch, who manages to sound like Mike Oldfield, Robert Fripp, Mike Oldfield, Manuel Gottsching and Mike Oldfield jamming to some Eno rejected tape loops.

There's inverted comma's around the Krautrock accusation I foolishly made, for that unfortunate moniker doesn't apply to the Cluster side of all things Kosmische.The rock stuff belongs firmly with horrible nonsense like Amon Dull 2(sic), Ash Ra Tempel and Guru Guru ...read my ground-breaking in depth slagging of Krautrock , "Mommy What's a Krautrock?"HERE! ....ah, so now I don't have to repeat myself,so let us begin.

One aspect of the Anglo-rock scene that hippies in West Germany really wished they sounded like,apart from Soft Machine was Space Rock,namely Pink Floyd.It meant that you didn't have to learn to play your instrument,and with the help of a tape-echo you could bang out a self-financed LP of ambient space rock quicker than you could say Max Planck.The trouble with that was, that by 1980,the Floyd had moved on to doing dystopian musicals instead.So i guess there was still a market of disaffected 30 year olds still hankering' for "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" part...er..well ask Max Planck.

Good musick for your flotation tank,or for meditating to an Alan Watts lecture for some much needed back-up.I'm always a sucker for a black and white album cover.

BOLLOCKS!....I can feel a DIY Kosmiche episode coming on.Must take my medication!.....fuck it,I love paying backhanded compliments to Germans,and mentioning the war;so be prepared for some weird German loners with boners and synthesizers,inserting their jack-plugs into analogue echo machines.

Tracklist:

A1.a Fanfaren
A1.b Waidmannsheil? 9:02
A2 Nordlaut I 8:45
A3 Edelweiß Für.... 2:57
B1 Nordlaut III 3:51
B2 Morgenstern-Abendstern 14:38
B3 Zartbitter 2:24

DOWNLOAD ping pong fooey HERE

Alan Watts – "This Is IT" (MEA – LP 1007) 1962

With an album cover that looks like its made with the included graphic design software on your brand new Windows 98 PC, Alan shows us all how to empty rooms as well emptying the after-life with some truly horrible,but hilarious primal screaming,ecstatic chanting, and general middle class tomfoolery that would send your soul banging their ghostly fists  and screaming to be let in at the gates of Hell.Only to be informed that they were already there,and were victims of all that christian,Islamic,Jewish and Buddhist propaganda.The punchline being that the former underworld of eternal punishment was in fact the best place to be post-mortem.In other words This was NOT....IT!

Listening to the opening 'spontaneous musical happening', as Alan calls it, was indeed an experience of great joy on my part.So much so that i simply had to play it again.Hearing university drop outs, expunge all that middle class Caucasian guilt by speaking,or in this case shouting, in tongues to a tabla backbeat, is enough to make one trot along joyously to the nearest new age happening at the local community centre.As well as screaming like a lobotomized buffoon,you can keep one eye open watching your fellow inductees gurning and idiot dancing to a CD of indian percussion.Stifling the wrong kind of laughter.....that is unless they're watching you with one knowing eye open too of course.Which is better,because then you can go down the pub together afterwards and have another laugh.See you next week John?...er...yeah?

No spring chicken in the sixties,Alan Watts (RIP) sported a distinguished Guru look,that proved very successful with the ladies...so I am Told....but not surprised.This blog is full of tiresomely similar stories. I may start a cult....it's an earner,no work involved, and you get laid.....,no strings! What's not to like....oh yeah, the fucking awful music!

I have a trustafarian Belgian friend, who was the victim of some pretty horrific sexual abuse as a child,and he has tried everything new age that has been invented, or will be invented.He's done Ecstatic Dancing, Primal Scream,re-birthing, and south american 'shrooms;his favourite being the very popular fuck-up magnet,the 'Ayahuasca' experience. Suffice to say that all this has helped the flashbacks not one iota ,yet neither has conventional Psychiatry either,so the logical conclusion is to do neither but use the time honoured, and very unfashionable, male method of 'Not Talking About It'. Build a compartment in your mind ,put all the fucking rubbish in there and throw away the triggers.

So my answer to your mental torture is simply to compartmentalize,while playing idiotic proto-hippie nonsense like anything by Alan Watts,and cheer up for fuck's sake! You only live once....and its very short.

There was a box set called "The Essential Alan Watts",released after his migration to eternal paradise in 1973.

I think the word 'Essential' is some-watt un-essential in this context?

The other best track on here is "The End" by the way.

THE END.

Tracklist:

A1 Love You 3:15
A2 Onion Chant 4:40
A3 Gagaku-Ku 0:50
A4 Fingernail Poem 2:20
A5 Umdagumsubudu 7:40
B1 Metamatic Ritual 14:00
B2 The End 6:00

DOWNLOAD it that is this HERE!

Bobb Trimble's Flying Spiders – "The Flying Spiders In Brooklyn" (Burger Records – BRGR446) 2013

 

One of the major pastimes of Generation Y ('Y' as in what's the point?) is digging up the corpses of lost record collector legends and forcing them back on the stage. This usually involves bands with only one member, either left alive, or desperate enough to recreate that album some grate digger unearthed in 2003. Of course there are endless numbers of thirty somethings who would sell their granny to appear on a new Homosexuals LP,or Tour with the last remaining member of the Androids Of Mu*.Famously, This Heat became 'This Is Not This Heat' of course.Fattened up by at least six This Heat fans, to bolster the remaining duo. Ok,Okaaay! I'm only jealous, I would certainly sell my granny's ashes to play Bass and Tapes in 'This Is Not This Heat'.My lauded judgementalism and bitterness only stretches so far.

The advantage of going to witness a reanimated solo artist is that you are certain to actually have 100% of the person in question on stage,unless he's lost a leg John Martyn style,or you accidentally stumbled into a tribute concert,which I wouldn't advise anyone to do.

I did go and see Bjorn Again once, and ended up in an argument with my possessive girl friend for looking at another girl's arse!!!...and i fucking hate ABBA!

Recorded on the fourth anniversary of the King Of pop and nonce, Wacko Jacko,Farrah Fawcett's, and,more importantly Sky Saxon late of The Seeds and Ya Ho Wha 13's collective deaths back on june 25th 2009! Fast forward to 25th June 2013 ,this live tape remains relatively faithful to the original tunes, except that the spoken intro's between the songs seem to suggest that Bobb has had some dental problems in his wilderness years.Expectorating outsider saliva over the front two rows of his adoring audience,and slurring his way through these outsider psych classics like a snow plow in a swimming pool of snot.

Jacko ,at least,is mentioned before the band launch into Galilaen Boy.Something Michael would have liked to have done when he was alive; in fact he would have liked to launch into any boy,especially anything involving a biblical reference as he saw himself in a,somewhat, messianic light.He had a squeaky voice like Bobb did too!? So let's listen to Bobb ,call a toast and raise a glass of Jesus Juice to to the very bad memory of the creepy king of alco-pop himself,and another to his numerous victims, both oral and aural.

Let's end with a joke?

Q."What's white and crawls down a toilet wall?"

A."Michael Jackson's latest release"

The author would like to explain that this joke was written before the untimely death of the pedophile formerly known as Wacko Jacko;but after the epoch of the politically correct free thought cosh wielding Brain police began.

*I can't confirm that the Androids Of Mu are actually 75% dead(or is it 80%?).I was struggling to think of a band who are mostly dead is all.I know The Ramones are 95% Dead,but they've never been rediscovered....and I had to include Marky or he'd find me,fists flying and still dressing up as a professional Ramone..(Richie Ramone allegedly is the proud owner of a Die Or DIY? T-shirt i am informed!?)..but a band with only one living member...difficult,unless it's something like a Gerry-less Pacemakers or even worse!!!

Fairport convention have Zero original members left in the band,but the absences are spread equally between resignation and death...Doctor Feelgood still tour without any original members even though 75% of them are still alive...just......anymore suggestions?

Tracklist:

1 Glass Menagerie Fantasies
2 When The Raven Calls
3 Armour Of The Shroud
4 Angel Eyes
5 The Camel Song
6 Galilean Boy
7 Take Me Home Vienna
8 Undercovers Man
9 Oh Baby
10 Another Lonely Angel

DOWNLOAD this fine tribute to Michael Jackson HERE!

Bobb Trimble – "Harvest Of Dreams" (Self-Released LP) 1982

There aren't enough candid Jandekian monochrome photo's as album covers going around I say!? I feel the same about Monoaural sound too,but unfortunately Bobb didn't go for that on this one.

This file isn't the original album,as I don't got a spare three and a half grand hanging around that I dunno what to do with,so the CD re-issue is just fine by me.The three grand i'll just spend on medium level prostitutes,drugs, and a reconditioned Austin Allegro van den plas....in metallic orange.......i'll just waste the rest.

OOOh LA LAAAAA! It's that magnificent triumph of British Leyland cutting edge design and engineering.The beast that is thee Austin Allegro,Van Den Plas....You know you want one?

The reissue even has a hi-quality colorized version of the album photo, which reveals, that Bobb looks disturbingly like UK kids TV presenter,and the criminal responsible for the gay romp that hit the charts in the early nineties "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini"....none other than Timmy Mallet.(Who??? Says the non-British part of the globe)

I can forgive Bobb,with three 'B's, if he really was Timmy Mallet,as he released at least two excellent outsider Psych albums that paid little or scant attention to whatever the fashionable Hoi-polloi of the time was listening to....mainly Duran Duran and the Thompson Twins for want of better examples.

One characteristic, other than looks, that Bobb shared(shares...is he still alive?) with Timmy Mallet,was an enviable talent to not give a fuck about what anyone thought about him or his music,or even his girly voice.This wipes the floor with the shitty arse end of most identikit american sixties hippie folk.There's enough backwards tapes and flanging to please any acid casualty,and behold, a silent track to freak them out if they're on anything vaguely lysergic in nature.

 

Tracklist:

Dimension One - Trust

1 Premonitions – The Fantasy 6:03
2 If Words Were All I Had 4:26
3 The World I Left Behind 2:25
4 Armour Of The Shroud 7:39

5 Premonitions Boy – The Reality 6:21

Dimension Two - Harmony

6 Take Me Home Vienna 4:18
7 Selling Me Short While Stringing Me Long 4:15
8 Oh Baby 1:19
9 Paralyzed 6:16
10 Another Lonely Angel 5:08

BONUS Tracks:

11 Waves Of Confusion In Puzzled Times (Demo Version) 5:11
12 Galilean Boy (Demo Version) 3:07
13 Life Is Like A Circle (Demo Version) 4:44

DOWNLOAD and reap this special harvest HERE!

Bobb Trimble With The Violent Reactions – "Iron Curtain Innocence" (Vengeance Records – BT 8458) 1980

There are always some people.....if people is the word,...who could miss a bus even if they were camped down at a bus stop all day. Bob seems to have missed several waves before he finally got his self-financed album of psychedelic folk strangeness pressed up. What he intended to do with 500 copies of Neo-Psychedelic Folk in the post-punk hinterland of the pre-hardcore USA I dunno? Maybe pile them up to make a handy coffee table perhaps? Coasters for dinner parties? Who knows?

The album title and  bizarre cover shot would do little to appeal to any surviving long-haired friends of Jesus who should happen along with $3.99 in change to spend.

But, give it time, like a fine wine, music evolves with its future audience. Twenty years later, a world sick of music made by machines,fueled by noble quests to uncover the strangest of forgotten musics, made by the malfunctioning biological machines that was once called 'Mankind',to which one must now add a gender pronoun to it's name badge,and 'IT' is an adequate and reverential  pronoun to use for "Iron Curtain Innocence". 

Usually, those outsiders who plough a lonely furrow of ridicule and dismissal, make music, that is by all modern standards,uncomfortably beyond categorization,but exudes an undeniable charm that seems beamed from a rogue exo-planet roaming in interstellar space. pure but utter shite to the untrained ear,yet is undeniably funny,and unique.....but.....Bobb,with three 'B's',has made an undiscovered classic piece of psychedelic Folk that meets the modern standards of underground weirdness that today's normal people require. Ahead of his time, or thirty years too late,either one applies.

Tracklist:

This Side: Bobb Trimble With The Violent Reactions 1980

A1 Glass Menagerie Fantasies 5:48
A2 Night At The Asylum 4:50
A3 When The Raven Calls 6:25
A4 Your Little Pawn 3:50

That Side: Bobb Trimble Soliloquize 1978

B1 One Mile From Heaven (Short Version) 4:07
B2 Killed By The Hands Of An Unknown Rock Starr 5:29
B3 Through My Eyes (Hopeless As Hell D.O.A.) 4:57
B4 One Mile From Heaven (Long Version) 5:42

DOWNLOAD bobb the folkk godd HERE!

Jandek – "Porto Saturday" (Corwood Industries – CORWOOD 0852) 2021

The second most famous ginger whinger after Elvis "The Pelvis" Presley.....(he dyed his hair black if you didn't know).....could be, and I did say 'Could Be',Die or DIY?'s favourite copper-top,Sterling "Jandek" Smith. Clearly,sporting a rather dapper chemically enhanced hair-do, he was around when Elvis was in full throttle Ginger denial as a pre-pubescent with, seemingly ,very proud parents? The cover photo looks like it was taken in a photographic studio to place on the mantelpiece of the Smith family abode.Evidence, maybe, that Jandek was born,and didn't arrive from outer-space like a gone wrong version of the ginger alien from "The Man That fell To Earth".

Those proud parents obviously didn't provide piano lessons for their pasty faced progeny and the evidence is on this compact disc of Jandek tinkling about on a grand piano for just shy of two hours....HELP!

This is the reason why the era of "the Public Piano" is coming swiftly to an end in railway stations across the globe; probably under sentence of death in places like Saudi Arabia. Or you could try playing a piano in public in Taliban-era Afghanistan, to invent the much needed phenomena of the 'Suicide Pianist'...the fight back starts here!

Keith Jarret this is NOT.It's improvisation by someone who thinks improvisation is just moving your fingers at different speeds in random places,Keith Jandek?.....although if that was the actual concept then I take everything I just typed back....but I severely doubt it.

I can't listen to this,and that's saying something.I would even leave a Pub if some smart-arse put this on the imaginary jukebox. Although, if that Jukebox existed, I WANT ONE!

This is the Paradox that Jandek is.He is obviously pure unlovable Shite,but is it not that quality that makes him great? Most clueless bastards would have given up after album number one and a half, like The Shaggs nobly did.However, with shear bloody-minded insistence,he penetrates the psyche of some of those poor fools who dare to tread that unholy back passage more than just once.

I listen to Jandek infinitely more than Keith Jarrett's po-faced solo piano neo jazz-classical intellectual panderings.I don't even leave The Koln Concerts out when my groovy artist chums pop round of an evening....mainly because they never 'pop' round is the reason for that particular advantage of the friendless.They just stay at home listening to the Koln Concerts every evening;just in case someone 'pops' round.Also, I have Zero Jandek Vinyl to display,which is a rather inexcusable and tragic oversight by 21st century Corwood Industries. I certainly don't want any of those awful scratchy plastic CD cases anywhere near me thanks, not even a mint copy of "Porto Saturday" by Keith Jandek.....in any format.

Tracklist:

1-1 The Garden And The Monastery 42:41
2-1 The Grey City And The Museum 50:27

DOWNLOAD the porto concert HERE!

Armand Schaubroeck Steals – "Ratfucker" (Mirror Records Inc. – Mirror 7) 1978

 Tee-Hee-Hee.....This one seems to be popular. It's got lot's of sweary cuss words on it....well,I say lots,it's actually mainly just one sweary cuss word repeated a lot as a pronoun or verb.Gee, this guy must be one of those "Punk Rockers with their spitting and their habits;what they don't realize is that i only wanted to be looooved!" (Jah Wobble, Fodderstompf 1978)

Armand only wanted to be loved,ie Noticed.So I think he's now convinced himself that he invented Punk Rock.

How do you become a Punk Rocker man when you're over Thirty? Simply, add lots of profanity to your rubbish tunes,and get an album cover that looks like Lou Reed's "Transformer" artwork.To up his Proto-Punk credentials, he does a very good Lou Reed in talky mode impression for the title track, plus extra sweary cuss words....I'm frightened.

Armand, did however, miss a vocation here,as he continues that off-Broadway musical feel that permeates all of his work.This could have been the follow up to the Rocky Horror Show, minus the catchy bits.

Someone mentioned that classic Stan Laurel line from "Brats" in the comments section,which can certainly be applied to crazy man Armand..."You can take a horse to water but a pencil must be lead".

You can surround yourself with all the instruments on the planet,but that doesn't mean you know how to use them.

There must have been a delivery of a few Syndrums to "The House Of Guitars",as they make a brief appearance on Disco setting on a couple of the tracks,even before Joy Division used one!?

On the cover it states that 'This album is dedicated to the late Peter Laughner,self-destructive founder member of Pere Ubu and offshoots.Like a little brother,Armand was obviously impressed by Laughner's incredibly dumb lifestyle. Peter lived the R'n'R myth to the maximum and made the ultimate sacrifice and died for his own sins,definitely not mine!Rock'n'Roll Jesus's should not be allowed to roll away the rock once they have been entombed.

Armand, like countless millions of others,was trapped in the romance,or pretense of the Rock'n'Roll myth.The mystique of self-disintegration, hollowness and dishonesty, coming forth from this incoherent rage at the so-called establishment. And this self-disintegration, in most cases is also a hoax, since most of these people, like Marilyn Manson or Smashing Pumpkins(I don't know any modern Rock groups to use as examples), are well organized hustlers,like our Armand here. It’s very rare that someone like GG Allin, John Beverly and Nancy(they could have been a puppet act with a neme like that?), or,cough, the Cobain, lives out the myth by actually destroying themselves. You do have the occasional suicide or overdose, but what is more normal is for them to become enormously wealthy, like Eminem! It’s the youth rebellion industry. This mystique of bottomless emptiness is clearly not real. I mean someone who actually was all those things would just melt in their tracks if they were infinitely hollow, alienated. It's as if they want to keep falling through the rotten floors of illusion forever (I paraphrased ex-VU person Henry Flynt for this truth by the way,if you didn't notice?)......there are far worse cases than Schaubroeck of course, he's just playing at it, but he's certainly a Hustler, who really just wanted to be looooooved!....and sell you a guitar.....maybe even a Syndrum?

Tracklist:

A1 Ratfucker 3:47
A2 Gigolo, Gigolo 3:14
A3 I Love Me, More Than You 2:24
A4 Buried Alive 1:42
A5 The Independent Hitter 5:05
B1 Preteen Mama 3:12
B2 The Queen Hitter 11:40

DOWNLOAD the rock'n'roll jesus in his own lunchtime HERE!

Armand Schaubroeck Steals – "A Lot Of People Would Like To See Armand Schaubroeck ... DEAD!" (Mirror Records Inc.) 1972

My father, may their lord rest his soul, could turn every subject or eventuality,no matter how mundane, back on to his favorite item of interest.....World War Two. His whole life was stuck in a short few years in his late teens and early twenties. You name it you could twist it,.....Bay Leaves? Didn't have any of those in the prison camp,we used cats ears as a substitute for the cat stew. No salt for seasoning there,we had salt substitute as provided in our Red Cross parcels.....he could go on forever.Don't mention the War!

I suspect that Armand was the same about his thieving and prison years.

Don't mention Prison whatever you do!

Yeah, we get it, he's been to prison,but is there any need to make a triple album semi-autobiographical Rock opera about it.

Cathartic yes,necessary,most indeed NOT!

This is tailor made for an Off-Broadway musical.

Musically it's Very Mothers Of Invention speech sections meets Lou Reed in a bad musical.

It does however have its amusing parts,and it certainly puts one off from going to jail.Good Cover too.

I would nonetheless, love to play the role of one of the Black convicts as featured on Disc 2.I'd do it better too!

"Sheeeet honky am gonna kick your juicy white aaaaassssss baby."

I suggest that Armand wasn't as brave as the Honky character sounds on the album;but that's artistic licence I suppose?

Apparently you can still purchase sealed copies of the original pressings from Armand's music shop,very Off Broadway in Rochester- New York - "House Of Guitars."

Tracklist:

A1 Scene 1 Armand (17 Yrs. Old) Confesses His Crimes To A Priest "King Of The Streets"
A2 Scene 2 Armand & Dan Go Down To "Rock A Bowl" To Steal Dimes From Bowling Ball Polischers (50's Live Band Plays In Middle) "I Don't Care"
A3 Scene 3 Out On Bail, Armand Is Alone With Suzie (Night Before Sentencing) "Love For The Last Time"
B1 Scene 4 Elmira Bound
B2 Scene 5 Mr. Tomato, The State Public Relations Director Addresses New Inmates
B3 Scene 6 Dr. Leiderman, State Psychologist, Interviews New Jacks Privately To Determine When They Will See The Parole Board And To What Institution The Inmates Will Be Sent "Games"
B4 Scene 7 Why Do Children Steal? (Armand And Dan's Background)
C1 Scene 8 Christmas Eve In Elmira "Cut My Friend Down"
C2 Scene 9 Dr. Leiderman Interviews Howard Q. Sappy Who Was Sent Up For Attempt Of Suicide "Streetwalker"
C3 Scene 10 A Inmate Reminds Armand Of His Girl "The Young Boy"
D1 Scene 11 A Black And White Are Aguing Over A Comic Book Because Each Wants To Look At All The Colors "I Wish To See Color"
D2 Scene 12 Mental Breakdown In Solitary Confinement "Fading Out"
D3 Scene 13 "We, Like Lost Sheep Are Drifting"
E1 Scene 14 New Young Inmate Meets Lifer
E2 Scene 15 Stage Break (Taped Live) "God Damn You"
E3 Scene 16 Friday Night Radio Plays Old Tune Reminding The Population Of The Streets "Sweet Sister Suzie"
E4 "Turn Off The Sound"
E5 Scene 17 Visiting Day
F1 Scene 18 Night Before Parole Board
F2 "One More Day, One More Night"
F3 Scene 19 Parole Board
F4 Scene 20 Hack Talks To Arm On The Way Out "Ex-Con"
F5 Scene 21 Dan & Armand Meet On The Streets While Going To See Parole Officer
F6 Scene 22 "Warden's Circus"

DOWNLOAD this vinyl alcatraz HERE!

David Welsh – "Blue Lightning Accent" (Blue Ash Records – BAR 1850) 1980

This is so outside that I can't find sweet F all about this record on the Information super highway.It sounds not unlike a vinyl record with the center hole punched 2 degrees off kilter,which I think Boyd Rice did on Pagan Musick if I am not mistaken? The off kilter nature of these bizarre structureless tunes however, is nothing to do with mispressed plastic,but a lot to do with either recreational drug use, or prescribed drug use for a severe mental disorder.

Beefheart's Magic Band faced months of poverty and physical abuse to get music like this together,it's just missing Van Vliet's Howlin' Wolf impression;and its certainly much better than any of the Captains post-Decals releases. David Welsh's sleepy singin style, like a tone deaf Robery Wyatt on mogadon, adds a certain splash of vulnerability to proceedings.

The eccentric song structures,drifting Syd Barratt time signatures,with the Madcap Laughs drumming,desperately trying to follow Davids meandering Guitar,is purely unintended.Welsh undoubtedly thinks this album is groundbreaking,and should naturally be number one.He would be correct, but for different reasons than he would think.

In a world where everyone thinks and dresses as if they are a Rock Star, some people should just never pick up a musical instrument....that's right,shit like The 1975, those fucking Vamps, Blink 182...it's as if music was never invented those twats are....but there aren't enough David Welsh's around; lost in the flood of wannabees who think they're David fucking Bowie...the man himself was awful enough without a trail of tattooed and pierced zombie popsters wearing someone else's tattoo's and piercings causes one to wish that the Taliban would come to our rescue and ban music.....Forever! .As Outsiders go,Jandek's broken through to a certain extent on the art luvvie scene, but anything other than a strict 4/4 beat still has the power to start a riot,rather than add to the smooth unchallenging paste that modern muzak has become.

Tracklist:

A1 6's, 9's, Tens & Towers
A2 The Climb Into Heaven
A3 Rock Drummer
A4 Water Fall
B1 Blue Lightning Accent
B2 The Time Is On
B3 Cross Angle
B4 Blue Morning
B5 Keeping Pace

DOWNLOAD like blue lightning HERE!

Blah! Blah! Blah! repost for Cop Out 26 - A rant (2021)

Oh Brilliant! It's Cop 26.....We're Saved!!!! What a relief.

So to celebrate our saviors, the very same political fuckwits that helped us get into this fuck-up by promoting exponential economic growth as a really good Idea.......But it's unsustainable said the wise old man, as he was laughed out of the room and soundly beaten by an army of Rednecks chanting "U.S.A" off their tits on ice-cold intravenous Budweiser piped direct from the CIA's very own brewery.

So to give three cheers for our admirable leaders,well the ones who turned up, here's a re-post of an album by Brit-bedroon electro-pioneers Blah Blah Blah.....a phrase hi-jacked by Greta Thunberg to predict the content of this COP 26 last chance saloon attempt at saving our lovely life preserving eco-system......COP-OUT 26 as I prefer to call it.

But as Greta knows, we fully deserve what's coming to us all,so get used to more Blah Blah Blah,and soon it will become Blah Blah urggh!

So,before the Rant begins,heres some irrelevant blurb about today's free,almost totally 'green' record for you to download, without adding any gasses to the ionosphere,unless you're farting like a milk cow?......green-oneupmanship time....tell us what you're doing to help.You can start by Stopping buying records, unless they're second hand;especially don't buy over-packaged over-priced over-rated mail-order music from carbon footprint criminals, like my best friend at Vinyl On Demand for a juicy example.......i can hear him now,moaning,but that's theft,money for the artists...Blah Blah Blah......fuck off.

Console yourself by recycling old vinyl instead of the trendy new 180 gram pressings,or getting endless digital copy's from the good guy side of the Green wall,here in nuclear powered France. Yes Die Or DIY? are green.....but no-bodies perfect,i eat the odd bacon sandwich,drink milk in my cups of tea,fart,and drive a diesel car!

Like everyone else I need to be made to do stuff.But I'm trying at least?

So about this record...briefly:

"Blah Blah Blah, the genius's that created the “In The Army”(mp3) single on Absurd records. Even the B-side was rather marvellous, the Imperious “Why Diddle?”. If only they had an album of this earth moving greatness?......well they did.....an eponymously titled collection from 1981.....but, nothing earth moving about this collection of farting about in the bedroom nonsense. Maybe bowel moving is more appropriate for this rather annoyingly unfunny mess."

That's what I wrote originally (Here!)...and it seems to fit in with the general consensus in regard to COP OUT 26 or wot?

If you like the first Blah Blah Blah LP, then there was a second, belive it or not...which you can get HERE!...which is also called, rather confusingly, "Blah Blah Blah".

And Now......

THE RANT :

Yes Friends.....we're all basically related, so can i call you family?.....No?...that's fine with me. As long as I'm the last man alive on the last square foot of fertile soil on a scorched planet,with a mini-bar full of strong continental lager and Gin, then you can all go fuck yerselves.As long as I live one nano-second longer than you I'll die happily.

Then the UPS robo-delivery van finally delivers my Electric Car....How Ironic?

Crowds of Robots and AI units gather at my graveside to celebrate Victory; The UPS Robot has saved some human piss to release on the small patch of hot soil where my corpse starts to decay.The last biological human.

Spare parts are harvested for study, to be replicated without the vulnerable fleshy parts,or the illogical brain.All hail the Cyborg, our inevitable future!Evolution has ruled that Emotions are in fact weakness after all.

Burning down the house to keep ourselves warm seemed like a good idea didn't it? Burning the planet,which, to our knowledge is the only one like it in the known universe, to keep ourselves overweight,and fully stocked with cheapo Chinese made crap,is an even better Idea?

India and China have promised,with fingers crossed behind their collective backs,to cut emissions to net Zero for just about the time that we're all dead.Killed by famine,smashed by tornado's,shot in riots as order breaks down,or incinerated by wild fires.Expecting the so-called 'Developed' countries to shoulder the burden and the guilt.Remember,these are two countries with Space Programs,and one of them is the second largest economy in the world!?

Those same two countries are responsible for providing our vastly over-crowded galactic oasis with a couple of billion of potential consumers,and that it is official governmental policy to raise their standard of living to that of the USA. Two Billion extra Fridges,TV's, petrol powered Cars, and ten coal fired power stations a week to power it all.

There's 'too many fucking Humans' to quote the insightful poetry of US noise rockers No Trend.

To give the Chinese some credit,they are at least working on reducing the population by committing Genocide against the Uyghur's and other Muslim types.

The sad fact is that even a massive war wouldn't reduce the population enough. 50 million copped it (see what i did?) in world war two,which was almost as if no-one had died at all.Nuclear annihilation wouldn't help either,as the Nuclear winter would destroy the the so-called winners. A lethal pandemic.....ie, NOT the current co-vid joke, is too difficult to manage,and would also lead to total annihilation....so we need a long term policy of sterilization.

Then we have the problem as to WHO we sterilize....normally it's the poor, 'cus there's more of those losers. I would enthusiastically start with anyone earning over 100,000 Dollars per annum,sequestrate their wealth to invest in green energy,like covering the Sahara desert with photo-voltaic cells,and building an enormous Nuclear power plant on the now deserted,and illegal town of Las Vegas.

Democracy is usually an immovable barrier to Green Policies, but as there are more poor than Rich, i think there's a fighting chance that the Proletariat would vote for the culling of the Rich in return for Solar and Nuclear powered Plasma screen Televisions.

Basically, the most effective way of cutting global emissions is the time honored crowd control tactic of extreme Poverty;which will also enable the populous to enthusiastically vote away their human rights.

Basically, no-one's gonna give up their Cars,Fridges,and Beefburgers ,unless they are made to.... at gunpoint.

Human beings are notorious masters at Short-Termism ,and nothing's gonna change by asking the mother fuckers politely to do anything that would benefit the generation that follows.Fuck them.

From what I've seen of the next generation, they are as full of shit as us Boomers are. Greta Thunberg is probably a CIA Hologram, 'cus the piles of coke bottles,MacDonalds salad cartons and worse, that are left behind as they are fucking each other,smoking weed behind the bicycle sheds is a sobering sight indeed.We need a new mind control super drug to make trendy,Son of 'E'.....but this time for inhabitants of the Metaverse rather than idiot dancing to the marching beat in disused factorys near Hemel Hempsted.

Maybe the Metaverse can provide an illusion for us all that everything's alright,so we can live normally until even the Zukerburg succumbs to dreadful reality....but, then again, he would have already been executed as a very well-qualified rich person.

The culling is coming,backed up by extreme poverty,backed up by the Meta-illusion that all this desperate nonsense is working.Then we all die.

Who says Heaven isn't man-made?

See you all in the Metaverse.I feel safe already.

'Armand Schaubroeck Steals – "I Came To Visit; But Decided To Stay" (Mirror Records Inc. – III) 1974

In 1962, after a series of 32 burglaries that included groceries, hardware stores, schools and a church, seventeen year old Armand Schaubroeck was sentenced to three years in jail. He was charged with safecracking and thrown in the Elmira State Reformatory, a maximum security prison in New York. He would get out a year and a half later on parole but the impression would remain vivid in his mind.
...Apparently his imprisonment acted as a catalyst to the birth of his very unique and somewhat deranged rock 'n roll persona- he named his band Armand Schaubroeck Steals and all his music seemed to be a cathartic exorcise to the obsessions that haunted him.

After his release,He and his brothers founded a musical store that is today one of the most successful in New York,which not only provided him with a lucrative living,it allowed him to live out his assumed personality to the max.

Not only did he have relative monetary independence, he also had a whole place full of instruments for himself. He built a studio in the store's basement, created Mirror Records and recorded a handful of albums that were personal, obsessive, ironic,read as self-indulgent,

 and an attempt to be deliberately abusive to public ears.

But,......

Despite the promising cover,and his acquired Rock'n'Roll persona,it reveals that even a reformed safe-cracker needs something else other than money to make a half decent record.A personality is certainly not enough.

The music is that forgettable style of '1974 rock' that John Cale used to force on a public desperate for something wild and dangerous;but what they got was plodding session man rock as heard from above by a classically trained(there's that Phrase again!), composer,and we're told this is the real thing.Lou Reed,who i guess Armand would like to have been, also fits into this category,save one or two tunes.Unlike Cale,who would have loved to be a rocker instead of a neo-classical composer,Lou Reed was a rocker who wanted to be a neo-classical composer and taken very, VERY seriously...but even he got Mick Ronson in to help,and Mick was of course...."Classically Trained".

Armand wasn't clued up enough to hire an arranger, so he churned out a bunch of Lou reed/john Cale out-takes and acted the part of the crazed wild-man in his attempt to gain attention.Look at me Mom I'm Dancin'!

Before all you Velvets/Cale/Reed fans write in hailing this body of work rightly heralded genius,i concede that Cale's lyric are rather good,pity about the backing track,and Lou reed always gave a good interview around 1974. The fact that there was absolutely nothing else around back then probably explains their appeal....you had to be there i suppose,to appreciate it. I wasn't.

All this, we are told......Again....is 'Proto-Punk'.....yeah right.


Tracklist:

Part I:

A1 Father Michael Loves Sister Jennifer 4:20
A2 Baby, Can't Let You Burn 3:25
A3 Auld Lang Syne 3:26
A4 Cry Myself To Sleep 2:25

Part II:

B1 Intro To Bells 0:23
B2 Bells 9:11
B3 Michael Veni Ad Mé 1:08
B4 I Came To Visit; But Decided To Stay 3:23

DOWNLOAD to sample but decided to keep it HERE!