31 Days of Horror (Sorta)

So I'm working on watching 31 Horror Movies (preferably one a day, but that hasn't worked out really) from Oct. 1 - Halloween.  It's been a trip, lots of good, some pretty bad, and more than a few boundary blurring movies with RiffTrax :)  Anyways, here goes the movies I've watched so far with some comments:

1.  Q (aka "The Winged Serpent" or "Q the Winged Serpent") -  Larry Cohen flick with Michael Moriarty, wonderful, psychotic, random yet sense making.  One of my favorite old horror flicks.

2.  Witchfinder General (aka "The Conqueror Worm") - Vincent Price is evil witchfinder who pisses guy off when he fucks with his girlfriend and thereby revenge is sworn.  Based on a real person the movie is totally fiction as nothing that happened in the movie happened to the guy in real life.  One of the most intense endings ever.

3.  Blood and Donuts - Canadian vampire movie that's sort of not horror, but is, and well, there are vampires and it's scarier than Twilight but more of a comedy and character piece, nice stuff though, excellent flick, kinda happy about it to be honest, improbable ending gets better if you look at it right.
Has David Cronenberg in it!

4.  Basket Case -  Ahhhh oh yes, if you haven't seen it watch it ASAP, super scurry.

5.  Runestone - Trainwreck of a film that has something or other to do with a blond clock maker, a sorta dorky young boy a cop that says "fuck" alot and a Norse demon.  Stupid is the word for this one, but it still counts. 

6.  Hellraiser - The Cliver's finest hour, or maybe not, there is always "Rawhead Rex" to consider, but great movie as always, Julia is creepier now than she ever was and Frank...well...he's Frank.  Poor Kirstie, why did they torture her so?  Not since Nancy (Nightmare on Elm Street) has a girl gone through that much shit in a horror flick....

7.  Altered States - It's sorta horror and VERY Ken Russell.  Trippy, weird, and somehow still not as disturbing as Lisztomania.

8.  Kingdom of the Spiders - William Shatner is a veterinarian in this creep apocalypse of tarantula hell with a hell of an ending.  Personally I like it in a very good unironic way, awesome flick.

9.  Paranormal Activity (plus RiffTrax) - I'm not sure how much it counts to watch movies with RiffTrax for Halloween Horror Fest, but this is a movie that is just fucking awful, some of the most boring horrid people in the world standing around being stupid fighting a demon and being mostly boring, a couple kinda creepy parts, but honestly having seen it without the RiffTrax a while back (when everyone swore it was actually good for whatever reason) it's much better with them.  I have a tendency to love lots of MST3K and RiffTrax stuff, so it's only natural that several of my movies are actually RiffTrax versions. 

10.  The Quest (aka. "Frogdreaming"  or "The Go-Kids") - Not EXACTLY a horror movie, but a good scare for the kids.  Australian happiness trip film starring the kid from E.T. some aborigines and a monster in the water...great movie though.

11.  Martin - George Romero movie from 1978 about a vampire told in a very awesome way, supposedly Romero's favorite movie he made and supposedly also originally over an hour longer than the version that exists, too bad the original print is gone because I'd love to see the director's cut.  Truly twisted, scary movie that isn't really like anything else I've seen.  Wonderful.

12.  Twilight (plus RiffTrax) - Twilight is the stupidest movie ever.  The Twilight RiffTrax are the funniest things Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett have done.  If you like RiffTrax/MST3K you absolutely owe it to yourself to watch these.  There are no words to describe their hilarity. 

13.  The Room (plus RiffTrax) - Not strictly "horror" again, but scarier than "Twilight" and just about as dumb (maybe not quite as dumb) but definitely a horrific movie and a hell of a good Riff Track, not as funny as "Twilight" but disturbing for the sheer grossness of all the characters (sort of like "Twilight...")

14.  The Stuff - Larry Cohen and Michael Moriarty again and again awesome.  Kid from some 80s soap opera (Brian Bloom) and his little brother who sees moving yogurt and winds up on a whirlwind with Moriarty and a woman trying to kill the moving yogurt.  Awesome but sort of badly edited.

15.  From Beyond - Stuart Gordon at his most Lovecraftian, seriously fucked up and wonderful movie.  Kinda scary.

16.  Repulsion - OOOOOhhhhh boy!  Early Polanski, disturbing, scary and honestly maybe the most horrific thing I've seen all season (besides Twilight)....must watch!

17.  R.O.T.O.R. (Plus RiffTrax) - Really stupid ripoff of RoboCop that takes place in Dallas, one of the more unappealing casts I've seen, really really stupid dialog, great jokes.

18.  Scanners - Cronenberg, heads blow up, people die (alot of them) and then there's Ephemera...oooh boy!  Remember when Howard Shore was creepy?

19.  Twilight New Moon (with RiffTrax) - More pale people (except the Native American werewolves, they aren't pale, just hairless) stand around and sigh and occasionally say some stuttered line and look forlorn into the distance before shambling across the screen.  Some really nice screams that manage to be alarming, and a great line or two (great as in fucking hilarious.)

20.  Hellraiser II - Hellbound -  Again with Julia and Kirstie and lots of moist dead people, the maggot/straight razor scene has always fucked with me and I'm glad to say it still does.  Yay for not being completely bored with life. 

Updates soon! 

Bless the monkey!

About Kittens

Kittens are often small, sometimes silly.  Kittens smell good.  Unless they go roll around in poop, then they don't smell good at all.  Kittens have a tendency to get in trouble.  Kittens are purry furballs, full of love or downright stupidity.  Kittens, they are baby cats. 

Savatage - Fight For the Rock

Another total debacle for cuckoo land sayeth I to the Lard, and verily the Lard doth reply:
"What?  Would you not fight for the rock?"

I remember being horrified by this album.  I'd never heard it until one day in a local record store I decided to shell out about five bucks, and just by the cover I knew this was no "Dungeons are Calling," "Hall of the Mountain King," or "Gutter Ballet."  But it IS a Savatage record after all, and one from 1986 and therefore it must have something worth hearing on it?  Mustn't it?  I mean no matter what it sounds like it'll still be better than that copy of "Life's a Bitch" by Raven that I paid three bucks for that one day because I was utterly mad with the need for some new metal on vinyl?  Surely it's not as terrible as its reputation and there must be something good about it?

The album kicks off with the title track, about what you'd figure I guess, "You better fight for the rock n roll!"  "Don't live your life in a frustration/Get rock dedication!"  with shouty choruses and and these lyrics you can imagine what it sounds like...except for the killer riffs and beauty of the Oliva brothers' instruments, and that's the hook on this album.  Yes, some of the songs are slow and kinda glammy ballady, and the title track is a silly fist pump metal track...but this is SAVATAGE making a record like this and no matter how much it's tarted up with what will soon be the biggest sound in the land, it's still a Savatage record, which means metal, true metal and not much more (at this point). 

Living in the American South during the Satanic Panic of the 80's, which was spearheaded by the Washington Wives led by Tipper (the other reason Al lost the election) Gore, and shows like Geraldo and Oprah with their "Rock is Evil" very special episodes, and shows like "Diff'rent Strokes," especially the episode where Arnold's friend Dudley was kidnapped by an evil clown who crucified him on an inverted cross over a pit of alligators to feast on his blood, but luckily Arnold remembered the address through hypnotism and they rescued Dudley just as a 12 footer was about to bite his head off...well, maybe that wasn't in this reality, but still, fighting for the rock was most necessary even if it seems a little cheesy now.

Get this straight.  Some busy body "concerned" bitches (of whom there were many in the mid 80's in the US) decided that the music a select group of mostly teenage boys were listening to was "bad for them," and took it to court, had hearings, had to call people to the stand to testify, etc...and inadvertently gave many of us our first taste of the stupid, surreal soap opera that is American politics.  I had no idea the lengths and levels of depravity, stupidity, and lying for the "greater good" the hounds of morality would commit without batting a perfectly elongated eyelash.  About the same time the books started appearing everywhere, the books about the evils of rock n roll and especially metal, written mostly by evangelical preachers who themselves had once been under the influence of the terror of rock n roll.  In fact it was so disturbing that the authors often had to spend hours listening to this depraved music so they could tell others how truly evil it was.  And then over the course of a long, scary paragraph about how evil Black Sabbath really are, they would misquote the lyrics (like anyone who read it would ever check these things, I knew these books were crap when the line to "Paranoid" was misquoted as "Can you help me/ Yea Blow out my brain!") and draw conclusions about how your favorite band really wants you to commit suicide because that's actually their goal because the Devil wants you to buy a record and kill yourself, go to hell, because he is a harvester of souls and hates us, which is why he wants us in hell with him.  Guess it makes sense if you really buy into the whole Christian thing on that knuckleheaded Jesus Camp level, but probably doesn't make sense to anyone else though.

An aside, then I'll talk about the record again.  I was rather tolerant of the zealous conservative Christian folk around me before the PMRC stepped in.  I didn't consider myself a satanist or anything of the nature, I knew I didn't "get" Christianity, but it was a part of life that I couldn't separate as it surrounded me like the sea, I swam in the piss warm waters of Jesus every day and didn't even realize I was drowning...until they tried to take the music away.  To me, before that part, the metal was really no different than a horror movie, most of the songs were about nuclear war and hypocrisy, some were about the devil, but I read William W. Johnstone's horror books and I was steeped in Satanic Evil Horror all the time.  It wasn't that scary, and was kinda silly but entertaining.  The music and the books together with the movies were like this tripod on which I could rest my rather disturbed acne headed life, but they attacked the music on the most basest of level, and what was weird of course is that they didn't attack the books, they didn't attack the movies and by far the least offensive of them all was the music.  Yes you get songs like "Angel of Death" or "South of Heaven" or "Feel the Fire" with some pretty racy parts, but the books I was reading had hordes of demons coming out of the ground with giant engorged cocks going around raping virgins for the devil until the great God sent (literally) hero came and vanquished the demons and their huge phalli.  So what happened next?  I realized that the religious freaks around me were all a bunch of hypocritical liars, a bunch of fucktarded assholes who "knew" they were doing "what was best" for me, and I also stopped being able to put up with them.    

***A Day Later***

It's funny, I started this early yesterday before the SCOTUS decided to push us back years in the whole human rights category.  I wanted to finish this up with an actual review of the record, but what with political stupidity and a weird night last night that was rather fun but left me somewhat drained, I can only sort of stare blankly at the universe and try to comprehend the news.  Life?  Eh, yes, here we are and look at where we are!  So much good happening on one hand and now an understanding that no matter how much progress we make, this SCOTUS will never, ever pass marriage equality, they will never, ever do anything "good" for the humans who are actually humans who live in this here piss boot we call the USofA.  While disheartening, I must insist that we keep ourselves up as well as we can because there is always hope at the bottom of the box of tricks. 

Anyway to finish the review, yes, this is not a "great" album by any standards, a pretty bad cover of of a Badfinger song, a pretty good cover of a Bad Company one, a few pretty decent rockers, some middle of the road crap.  Overall worthy of a listen, but nothing to write home about.

Because I Felt Like It...Again!

Audience – Lunch 1972

I don't always do what my records tell me to do. Let's get this straight, I might be crazy but I'm not THAT crazy. Yet, there was this one day when I was standing by the door whilst listening to this album, because, frankly the first track on it is more or less a command to do just that, so I decided to play along to see what would happen. Well, what happened was...exactly...nothing. But, another time I was standing by the door and listening to this album and I saw an incredibly beautiful sunset, sky all pink and purple and yellow and orange, fluffy stringy clouds hanging over the mountains, all marshmallowy and then there was the moon lording over the whole thing and I felt truly blessed that I had, in fact, stood by the door because this record told me to. That story has absolutely nothing to do with the record and what it sounds like and if I think others would enjoy it, or even more importantly, if I enjoy it. Well, here's the answer to those most important questions of all....

I enjoy the bejeezus out of this album. No, it is not nearly as good as "House on the Hill" and it probably isn't as good as the first two either, but it's a decent album, still light years beyond alot of other things and at least darn interesting.
See, the problem I have with Audience, that no one ever points out on here or anywhere as far as I can tell, is that this band is not strictly speaking "normal." Well, what do I mean by that? First of all whatever form of this music is, what it was when it came out, to my ears this sounds like a grunge band, think Soundgarden or Mother Love Bone specifically, and that it's very pop and seventies instead of dank and nineties, but the gist of the music is very similar. Which is kind of weird to think since Audience weren't exactly an electric guitar band. I guess this isn't exactly a problem, just one of those other things, like doing what my records tell me, that make me feel a little touched, ya know? THEY DO SOUND VERY GRUNGE! I promise it's not a delusion!
Also, they sound less grunge on this album than on "House on the Hill" which is roughly 3.1415926 times better than this album. Still a good record though, a spin every couple months should be enough to charm the pants off a camel and the toes off a sloth. Works good with substances should also be another disclaimer (raises glass of kool-aid and tokes on a hookah filled with a non tobacco herbal mixture of basil, oregano, sage, and ((sigh)) hair...) Honestly close to a 3.5.

Wishbone Ash – Argus 1972

When finally the world comes to an end it will surely be a spear holding Darth Vader, obviously deserted on Earth by his drunken buddies, who will do it. I mean, he must be irked, look at 'em they're leaving him down here all to himself, poor rascal, and no one will ever understand anything about the Death Star even if he sings a beautiful twin guitar song in the hard rock vein about it, even if he sings loud and proud about kings coming and warriors coming too, in fact everything on this record is coming or passing by, or blowing, except Darth Vader who seems to be a little reticent to come, or go, or blow for that matter, anywhere. In fact the main character of the second side, Darth Vader, seems to be a little perturbed about being left here on Earth by his drunken buddies, and he starts trouble, meditates, starts more trouble, finally sees the error of his ways, stops being a baddie and just tosses his sword away, though it would have been better if he threw the sword into a stream after impaling a leaf, for dramatic purposes, you must understand.

All Joshing aside, this is a wonderful album filled with neat hooky songs that flirt with being metal and post Beatles pop goodness at one time, beautiful and thrilling guitar interplay that falls just short of Thin Lizzy's heyday and the first works of bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden.
The production is sort of weird, murky and raw. I personally love it with a humming desire, but I do understand many people might not like that level of rawness (or Doobie in their funk, even) and would consider it "tinny" or "something" but, really, if you are into the rawer side of music, "Argus" has a very nice biting sound that can soothe the little soul inside the teacups we call our bodies.
Track by Track: (Side by Side)
The theme of Side 1 is very loose, in fact non-existent. This is not a concept album, though I one time thought it was, but I was in a very literary mood that month. A collection of upbeat wonders for those who want to jiggity jog and bounce all the way through the wormhole.
1. Time Was : Long and interesting, very mellow opening, nice blast of rock after a couple minutes. Overall a very filling song, makes you shake a tail feather in parts.
2. Sometime World: Full on Prog! Total masterpiece of a song, makes the toes curl and the joy spew like pea soup.
3. Blowin' Free: Really good driving music for when you want that whole "I'm in my car, the road goes on forever, the party never ends and each mile of blacktop eaten is like a buffet in Heaven" feeling.
Side 2 has the "Darth Vader left on Earth by his Drunken Buddies" theme.
All the Bruhaha about this album comes mostly from this side (though the first side is fantastic!) and it's oddly peculiar storyline sort about Darth Vader (maybe) that might or might not have something to do with the sterling reputation this album carries around like a sock full of silver bars.
4. The King Will Come: My favorite song on the album, by far. Check out that guitar at the beginning, one of the best riffs ever written by simple mortal humans and a good song too, all apocalyptic, guess Vader's PO'd that he's been abandoned and wants to take his subtle, yet flaming, revenge upon all the unbelievers. Magnitude of ten-thousand as proto-metal as a breadfan and twice as pretty.
5. Leaf and Stream: If we consider this side to tell a "story" or be "thematic" this is either an interlude or Vader is sitting by a stream, mask off, crying into the water as he reminisces about space flight.
6. Warrior: Another great. More proto-metal, very Maiden-y, but not as fast. If there is a complaint about this album it is that there are songs that could have used a little more speed, a bit more heaviness, but heck, this was 1972 we aren't all that far removed from "Goin' up the Country." I guess this song is about Vader being a warrior or something. Wonder if Jedi tricks work on Earth?
7. Throw Down The Sword: Where the hero decides to give up the warring ways, great track, meltingly beautiful guitars and a whole hand basket of pretty other things too. The album ends, Vader accepts his plight and sorta makes peace with himself. Great stuff.
Overall, the truth about this album is that it's wonderful, surprising things happen and it seems much shorter than it really is.
Truly an original record that nothing else in the world sounds much like (not even other WA albums) so do yourself a favor, listen, and if it helps you can pretend that the guy on the cover is a Roman Warrior who saw a space ship instead of Darth Vader...

Birth Control - Count on Dracula 1980

I'm really surprised to see how unwelcome this album seems to be here. Why? Why? I ask as I shake my fists at the heavens and try to remember that there really is no place like home. But really such a low rating for Count on Dracula? I don't understand, but I do have a theory, and that is that very few people actually do the one thing that is required for a pure love bond with this record to occur: I can only assume the average listener doesn't REALLY *trust* the count. I suppose to make such an incredibly assumptive and arrogant statement like this means I must back it up, so I guess I will do that now.
Bullet Point One: This album is given most of it's incredibly heavy weight through the inclusion of three songs. These three songs of heaviness are:
1. Count on Dracula 2. The Rescue (Sometime in the Future) 3. Caterpillar
From the opening moment, the snarling organ, the awesome mixture of hard rock and funk, the absolutely bizarre lyrics that assure you that Bern really does trust the count, all the way through to the very end, this song just plain rocks. And maybe the plainness is what turns off many, I don't know, but I like the rocking rollicking quality of the song and the great vocals. A good opener that will soon be surpassed by probably the best song on the record...
And so the rescue went according to plan/ safe and sound safe and sound....The world is about to be blown up and someone somewhere is doing something to help someone get off it (maybe Ford and Arthur?) but it is a great tune, an excellent rocky almost danceable number that usually shakes my groove thing whether I want it to or not. It is true that the next couple songs are a little less exciting, but are they really? That, my friends, is not for my silly little self to decide because they do all rock nicely, groove ferociously and seem to be pretty wonderful in their own special way. "Pick on Me" was actually the single from the album and that they chose it as their single instead of either "The Rescue" or the (I'm about to talk about and gush all over) wonderful and quite gorgeous in its own way "Caterpillar" is a mystery to me and makes me think that Birth Control's lack of popularity had more to do with bad planning than any lack in the band itself! Because, whoa, what a song "Catepillar" is. Awesome lyrics, great music, a super fantastic better than anything Phil Collins ever made kind of song, that makes people who have never actually thought start smoking (from the ears) and people who have thought too much want to lay down on the ground and hurl donuts at the feet of the Virgin. Or that's what it would be like for me if I ever thought or didn't think.
The last two songs are rather nice if not the epic quality of the three I mentioned earlier. Plus, I mean, really it does have THAT cover...and nothing else really matters.

Because I felt like it...

Stuff I wrote on a website.  Not sure why the formatting is weird on a couple of them, please suffer the mistake! 

UK-UK 1978

UK were a super group that really weren't all that super. In fact this album is, to these

well-honed, musically elastic and other wise epic ears, possibly the worst thing I've ever heard.

The album bothered me so much that I used it as a frisbee and threw it into the woods (the only

other frisbee used record I ever tossed was a Petra album, which was actually better than this piece

of rancid tripe.)

What makes this so bad? Well, first off I appreciate the numerous and overblown talents of every

single member of this band! I love them all, and would listen to "Feels Good to Me" by Bill Bruford

over and over again whilst whistling Dixie in the shower every day for the rest of my life as long

as I didn't ever have to experience a single second of this wretched growth of a record again. In

fact when I finished listening to it, I had to go to the doctor to get checked out to make sure the

lameness wasn't contagious.

There are some good parts of course, but as the whole thing is so forgettable and I had to undergo

shock therapy shortly after hearing it I can't remember what they are.

That said, this review shouldn't keep you from buying said album, absolutely not! If you love Asia

and Bill Bruford's solo work, this is a MUST HAVE. If however, like me, the thought of Asia makes

you want to sort of get ill, then you should avoid this like the plague it is.

That this was the core of the last incarnation of 70's King Crimson made me have ridiculously high

hopes for it, but what was nestled in these grooves had no resemblance whatever to "Red" or even for

that matter the 80's stuff. Worst album ever, IMHO, and would rather have my lips removed with a

straight razor before I put my poor ears through this one again.

No video, thank you, but if you want to...I guess you can go here! 

Henry Cow-Legend 1973

And with a great reeling squonk, the Mighty Henry Cow are born, and it seems to have been a rather difficult birth, of course there's tons of weird facts about how it came to be, and there are many discourses upon how difficult a band the Mighty Henry Cow are, but to my ears the very first time I heard the Mighty Henry Cow, they sympathized and stretched in to fit so perfectly that the only thing I could say after the ravishing was "Where have you been all my life?"

as I lit a Kool Mild and took a slug from my bottle of Olde English.

It's like John Coltrane sometimes, other times not so much (Coltrane is better than the Mighty Henry Cow but only because he happened to be a walking god among men) mostly because the Mighty Henry Cow ARE a rock band of some stripe, though the stripes might be vertical or horizontal, depending if you are knocked on the floor by their brilliant beaming ugliness.

Also there's guitars. Coltrane had no guitar. the Mighty Henry Cow would make two really wonderful records, then acquire Dagmar, of whom I'm not incredibly fond, and remain not quite as good as this before disbanding. I can't give either this or the next album Five stars because they aren't quite five star affairs, but for what it's worth, This record kicks asps, and rattle snakes too. Try it and you may I say listen to 'the Cow every day.

Van Der Graaf – Quiet Zone/Pleasure Dome 1977

I'm into lizards and I'm into snakes and I'm into Peter Hammill probably more than I should be. But

I can't help it, see, he amazes me with his quixotic weirdness and those wonderfully wubulous words

that sort of make me feel like a sandwich at Karen Carpenter's bedside. I want to be eaten by this

music, see, I want to be devoured by it, and yet it NEVER quite does more than nibble or pull off a bit of crust.

For some reason this record really does come close to pushing my baby carriage over the cliff,

though, and I like it...alot. It is a "pop" affair, as far as VDG/G could be POP but that's really

not saying much because this is as far away from a Donna Summer/Michael Jackson duet produced by

David Foster as it is from England's Newest Hitmakers. This is exceedingly weird music, though I

guess it's not as weird as the earlier stuff, but what about the way "The Habits of A Broken Heart"

just sort of melts away from it's rather catchy beginning into a...well, whatever that is? I also

love the "Sphinx" song, sounds like Bowie meets a Narwhal in Hell, and I'm personally glad that it

does, I needed that sound in my life when I first heard this album, and I still do for that matter.

It isn't the most played VDG/G record I have, but it gets rotation a few times a year (which is

about all anything gets at this point) and I always enjoy it thoroughly, except that one part...you

know the one I mean, where that one thing happens and other things that shouldn't happen happen too?

Oh, and also there's a violin. Really, a violin! Makes you almost not miss the saxophone, but not

quite. Good stuff, probably not going to make anyone's top ten albums of all time or anything (but

it really probably does make someone's list of awesomeness) but a good, solid record from a raving

lunatic about the effects of Space. Listen without prejudice was the name of a George Michael album.

Lou Reed/Metallica –Lulu 2011

Ahhh, Lulu. One of the main reasons I decided to begin writing reviews again was to touch upon this benighted object. It's an awful album, right? I mean it must be. It sounds not much at all like Metallica, and Lou, oh dear Lou (RIP) sounds like Eddie (the zombie mascot from Iron Maiden) making obscene phone calls in the middle of a drunken, drug fueled night of debauchery with the Marquis de Sade's shrink. But there's just SOMETHING about it that I can't quite shake. There are parts that grab me by the lovehandles and sort of throw me around and kick me in the face, and maybe I like that a little more than some listeners, but it doesn't sound nearly as "bad" as everyone makes it out to be even when I'm not in the mood to be tossed around like so much potato salad.

What's the problem here? Well, for one thing I believe this is an album made by two incredibly well beloved musical forces who share very few fans. I can't imagine many fans of Lou (especially those left after his last few efforts including the bland and pointless Hudson River album) were quite open to the chug chug thrump "YEAAAAAWWW" of Metallica anymore than many Metallica fans were really looking forward to the three chord progressions and Lou gasping like Leonard Cohen's dad about how he's an abused prostitute who loves her man.
And that's what makes this record great. Out of all things I've ever heard I can't imagine anything recorded more for the fuck of it than this. I don't believe anyone involved thought it would be really well received and I don't think Lou or Metallica were looking forward to it catapulting them to an even higher level of fame and glory. I really do believe Lou wanted to make the ugliest and most disturbing thing he could with the last sparks of energy he had in 'im and I believe he pulled it off quite well. The man who irked the music press for the last forty years by releasing Metal Machine Music (genius or total tripe?) got to go off doing what he did best, which is bothering people who don't know how to take him.
Plus "Iced Honey" "Junior Dad" "Pumping Blood" and "Mistress Dread" are all pretty great songs.
THE FUTURE OF MUSIC STARTS HERE! (and i'm not really kidding about that!)

Univers Zero – Heresie 1979

To My Favorite Univers Zero Album

Dear Heresie,
I commend the high level musicianship contained within your dank and wicked grooves. I really like the way you creep me out if I doze off whilst listening to you. I also really like the sexy cover.
From,
A friend
But seriously, this is one album I love utterly. Not a bad second on it and everything about it makes me shiver. This was the first real RIO album I heard, and it made me fall in love with the whole genre even though, to me, there is nothing else in the genre I've heard (yet) as good as this.
What makes it perfect? Well, for one thing if you sorta let yourself wander around with it, there's something about being in the smoke filled Bedouin tent, ignoring the bleating animals as the music takes you out and over the sand all aglow 'neath the perilous full moonlight. There's a dancing woman with her flowing skirts hitched down beckoning you to come...INTO THE PIT OF CTHULHU WHERE YOU WILL BE EATEN BY A THOUSAND FACELESS SHARP FANGED ELDRITCH HORRORS!
But the whole thing isn't that way, of course, and you could very intelligently argue that really it does sometimes sound like cheesy 70's horror flick music, and that it has this certain quality that maybe doesn't transcend, etc...but for my money, it's actually one of the most wonderful and fleshed out albums by a very strange and wicked band that I still can't quite believe exists.
A five? Absolutely, even though I would recommend you preview it before you plop down the cash (youtube or something) because this really is a taste thing, but oh what a taste it is!
ARRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrr......(dang Eldritch Horrors!)

Black Sabbath – Born Again 1983

Born Again, for the first time!

Black Sabbath! Ian Gillian! YES! (not the band) or, is it NO!
Well, I've seen many fellow reviewers pigeonhole this one, and rightly so. It is a sort of bad that very few things manage to pull off. The production is pretty anemic, the lyrics are kind of silly, the music itself is sort of underwhelming and yet I can't say that this album is actually "Bad." More like enthusiastically misguided at best, delusional at worst, and really what would rock n roll be without the occasional ugly step child to smack around? This album is made for that purpose, however accidentally.
First problem is, of course, the cover. With that image, one can not really imagine what it sounds like. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for red satanic babies with green eyes on a purple background, but really it should sound like Celtic Frost or at least Manowar with that cover, not a (pre-dates, of course) cross between Guns N Roses and Van Halen (the only valid Guns N Roses comparison would be the weird similarity between "Zero the Hero" and "Paradise City") But the overall purpose of that comparison is that this album is not really all that heavy by any standard that could be used by any band that would foolishly call themselves "Black Sabbath" and think that they could easily get away with tepid pseudo-metal/hardrock of the 80's style.
That said, if this album were an 80's Uriah Heep or Wishbone Ash album it would have been their best of the decade. It's not terrible like "Abominog" is terrible nor is it horrid like...Actually I just realized the only 80's Wishbone Ash album I got through was "Nouveau Calls" and the cover of "Born Again" actually ate my copy of it. But you get the point.
This album isn't a real Black Sabbath album (but at least it doesn't have Joe Lynn Turner on it!) and it's not at all a Deep Purple album. Sabbath and Purple together sound like a great mix on paper but the reality was, I think, that these guys were all recovering from the seventies and couldn't quite drag their carcasses through the motions required for this to be truly successful. There's a weariness, a sort of half excited half underwhelmed quality to the album that they never quite shake. The songs sound like they started off okay, but the band just decided to call it a day instead of making them really great so what you get are a bunch of songs that are *almost* really good a few that are "pretty good" and a few that just stink. The overall result is a level of mediocrity that later Sabbath albums would kill for and earlier Purple albums wouldn't tolerate.
Not terrible, but often times boring and lacking quality control. The story is that they wrote "Disturbing the Priest" because they were recording close to a church and the priest came over to ask them to turn it down, they had tea with him and agreed wholeheartedly. That is absolutely NOT metal.

Roy Harper – Folkjokeopus 1969

It's nice to see a true English giant with a monkey on his shoulder and not on his back (the cover of this record) and the slightly death glazed look on his face makes one question whether or not this is going to be in any way a friendly, welcoming, warm record to visit. Oh, boy, welcome to the wonderful world of Roy Harper!

SUNRISE! And off we go into a weird warped worldview that's intent on taking us all over the map of human experience (and will come closer than anyone I can think of, eventually) until we settle into, some forty-odd minutes later, tomorrow. In the meantime we get the long-before-they-existed REM sounding "Sargent Sunshine" and Roy's on a roll, and before we can even think of what this natural force of a song could possibly be about it's over and in comes "She's the One" which is the lynchpin of Side 1, if you can't deal with this one you might as well get out of the water now. The song is about a friend of Roy's who has, in Roy's opinion, a quite lovely wife he treats with very little respect. Roy is upset by this and spends the next near seven minutes telling us-and presumably the subject of the song-why he feels that way. With a beautiful ear splitting falsetto on the "Sheeeee's the OOOOONNNNEEE" part that could make bats crash, Roy might be implying that if old boy don't get himself straight he might just waltz right off with his "wonderful wife." Side 1 continues with ditties "In the Time of Water" and "The Composer of Life" both of which are great little tracks that do little other than sound neat and ends with the mighty "One For All."
Then we get to side 2 and things get very odd indeed. With only three songs this side contains many firsts for Roy including first song about a bulldog who bites a cop and causes its owner (Roy) to go to court for exercising some control, then IT happens. Oh yes, it does. The cute dog/cop slightly subversive but comic track is over and we are down deep in the river of Roy Harper (We are kinda there with "One For All" at the end of side 1) and as (another first Roy's first huge epic) McGoohan's Blues starts, so does it continue for nearly FOURTEEN acoustic, repetitive minutes, building somehow this incredible dramatic tension that is almost unfelt as verse after verse strolls by, each one more interesting than the one before bridged by variations on the "Oh how the Sea she roars with laughter/ and howls at the dancing wind/ to see my....(here the lyrics change making this "chorus" not quite one)" each verse slightly more sinister, slightly more deranged until finally--are you ready for this--it breaks out into some of the most beautiful Nicky Hopkins fueled piano boogie music that strangely enough sounds again like REM to me, and Roy SINGING with a hoarse voice and being all cryptic and whoa! Suddenly the blood rushes to the head, the endorphins release and life makes more sense than it ever has (or hasn't) and for a little over three minutes (maybe closer to four) one of the most beautiful "pop" (non derogatory term for catchy 60s/70s Beatle influenced type music) gushes out of the speakers and caresses the listener, lovingly, and sort of harshly at once. Chocolate and peanut butter for the ears, and then it ends...with Manana...a sort of goofy track, not unlike Self Control at the beginning of the side, genuinely dark lyrics, but sort of funny, that's a wrap. Kid giggling at the end and you are free to go.
When you really get down to the meat of Roy and his music, I do think a very large part of whether one likes him or not has to do with how comfortable or uncomfortable you are with his words. The lyrics on a Roy Harper album are always going to be somewhat "controversial" to say the least, or actually have guaranteed, in a less enlightened time, a nice Roy-b-cue. Roy offends ME sometimes and I have a shrine built to him in my bathroom. If you can "get" his ground, sort of let him just yammer on with whatever he needs to say then you will be richly rewarded...or not.

Ecstasy in Weird Places

this will probably be edited some :)

Ecstasy in Weird Places

The poet's goal is to please the goddess

by writing words to let her know

how he feels about her, how he loves

and is moved by her, this is done with nature

and swooning words to describe flowers

and swaying words for trees

cloying words for fruit

and fuzzy, rambling words for animals and beasts.

I tried to go to the desert

and sit with a cactus all day,

my guitar in hand waiting

to play what it has to say; but the cactus is mighty quiet

just as quiet as the rocks, and the birds that fly

are plump and silly, and usually they just run.

Oh, sun! It beat down on my head and browned my arms

gave me a ratty desert tan, and who knew this would be

the life for me? Who knew this place was the place

where weird ecstasy would reveal itself?

So tonight I sing songs, desert songs, long lonely and dry

filled with prickles and thorns and poisons

that delight and derange the eyes, the nose, and even the ears

with all the quiet going 'round, and the occasional flutter

or distant howl being enough to bring the moon to crest.

Ahhh, the moon so big and clear along with the rest

of the black velvet night, pinpricked with stars

and the milky way itself jizzing all over its cloth;

I trust those stars to guide my mind, the big dipper is always there,

to the right, the east, scooping and dumping

dry air, for very rarely does the rain come and wash away

the grit and grime from the beginning of time

that covers everything.

When coyotes start wailing it's a symphony of trickery

and a cold shard of fear pokes in the heart

where it's quickly transformed into love. Listen and wonder

feel the power of the thick petaled flowers, the leaves so tough

and greasy, with the smell of creosote and other astringents

the best nights are when there is threat of rain

and the petals exude waiting for the cloud

to burst and let them drink to fill, yes that's how they work

the desert's will. I have seen already the frogs come from the ground,

round and fat, golden brown and how they hopped and called

and were everywhere three whole days, then they dug their new holes

to sleep a few years again. I wonder if I will see them

next time they come, if I'll still be here alive and around.

Yes it's true she's magic this land, but not magic in a way

magicians understand, a kind of magic that soaks and seeps

and spreads across the rocks and cacti the tarantulas and sand.

Everything has barbs and the sky's filled with lights

that hover bright orange then disappear at once,

I suppose this is heaven to some demon spawn of hell

but even though hellish, it's heaven to me as well.

The Wolfking of Desire

The Wolfking of Desire

Because Magpie said something about writing

a poem about the first thing you see

I wrote this silly poem

about Bob Dylan and the cover of “Desire”

and how he obviously got the idea

from John Phillips' “The Wolfking of L.A.”

and how this happened when Bob was being a bad, bad boy

just like John always was a bad, bad boy.

But why write about something so silly

as an internal self-made conspiracy

that Bob was wanting to channel that dark

and primal energy that was just John

because he has to experience as much of all

as he possibly can? Isn't that why Street Legal

and the Christian phase? Afraid of the darkness

in others? Fear it in yourself!

But Bob was busy at the time, putting on white makeup

and dancing to the Rolling Thunder

and John was under that harsh white rock

that he never quite got out from under

while Bob went on through his 80s has-been phase

so he could come back and play folk songs again

before hitting the stride that turned him

into the venerable and old post-apocalyptic bluesman

singing variations on the same everything

as time winds down to a stop.

c 2014