LOBBY LOYDE

Does a photo exist of LL sans ciggy?

Lobby Loyde is a legend! His guitar style is yet to be topped in Australia or probably the world despite the best efforts from the likes of Angus Young, Billy Thorpe, Deniz Tek, Ed Kuepper etc. You've also gotta love a guitarist who has a name for his guitar. Loyde's was called 'George' which is pretty funny, I reckon. He wasn't just an Australian legend though American hardcore bands such as Black Flag cited him as an influence, grunge act Nirvana acknowledged him as did Steve Malkmus of 90s indie darlings Pavement. UK's Stiff Records even wanted a Coloured Balls album in the Ball Power style but by the late 70s Loyde had moved on and wasn't interested.

After writing that article on the Sunnyboys release of the original tapes of their second LP Individuals, I realised I'd never posted any tunes off the best Australian rock record ever. That is Ball Power by Coloured Balls which was Lobby Loyde's early 70s rockin band's debut LP. As noted Lobby Loyde produced the first two Sunnyboys albums. Lobby Loyde at that stage was an older statesman of Australian Rock. He was a singer, songwriter and guitarist extraordinaire for many years before becoming a noteworthy producer. In the 60s he had been in hit groups The Purple Hearts who had a top 40 smash with Early in the Morning in 1966. The above clip Of Hopes & Dreams & Tombstones is from 66 as well and is soo good, I couldn't resist. Fun fact it was written by Joy Byers who mainly wrote tunes for Elvis. Anyway Lobby then joined Wild Cherries writing two of their classics Krome Plated Yabby (previously posted here) and their 1968 top 40 hit That's Life which became a hit after he'd left the groop. He briefly joined Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs and had quite an impact on the band's future development as one hell of a heavy blues inflected boogie band. Loyde played on The Aztecs1970 LP The Hoax Is Over. He soon left. I think even before that record came out. Lobby revived the Wild Cherries moniker briefly. They performed at the 1972 Sunbury Festival and subsequently broke up.

That brings us to Coloured Balls. The line up on Ball Power was LL on lead guitar & vocals, Bobsy Millar on guitar & vocals, John Miglans on bass and vocals and Trevor Young on drums & vocals. Ball Power was released in December 1973 on EMI. I haven't even mentioned Sharpies, violence, Box Hill or police harassment. You could write a book on that stuff. I'm tryin to stick to the music here not necessarily the bollocks that goes along with it.

Surely one of the greatest pop/rock songs of all time. This was released as a single but didn't even crack the top 40. Go figure that one.

OMG how good is this? Nothing was this good in 1973 rock I'm fairly certain of that. Challenge me on that and you lose.

Ten minute epic to end Ball power. I can't recall if i ever ended up doing that best last tunes on LPs list but hey this would have been in like the top one.

Now this is fucking astounding. 16 minutes of all manner of guitar goodness. The band would sometimes turn this into 30+ minutes of transcendental rock at their live shows. Actually I haven't come across a studio version of G.O.D.(Guitar Overdose). I guess they never captured the magic that you can hear and feel here. Sonic Youth wish they were this innovative. They couldn't have been though because all their future noisy guitar fuckery was right here at least 10 years before they had the ability to try to challenge Loyde's greatness but you could only ever come out second best.

Alright this was meant to be a short little trip but now it's turning into a Lobby fan site. Along with his Sunnyboys production triumphs are his other two production triumphs, the first two LPs by perennial outsiders X. X were originally a Sydney band and just didn't fit anywhere. Were they hard rock, garage, metal, punk, post punk, hardcore or none of these? When you don't care for fashion and just wanna rock as hard and raw as you can, categories are fucking meaningless. X didn't give a fuck just as long as they were awesome and they certainly were here on Delinquent Cars and the rest of their 1979 debut LP X-Aspirations.

Hey I could post the entire album really, it's that fucking good. Here's another bewdy from X-Aspirations. Funny song too.

One last one here from X. This time it's from their 2nd classic Loyde produced album At Home With You from 1985. This was when they had become a Melbourne Band with ace new drummer Kathy Green. Original crack drummer Steve Cafiero refused to go to Melbourne. He died a few years later in a bizarre medical accident. This wasn't the first time tragedy had struck the band. Ian Krahe their original guitarist when they were a Sydney four piece in the late 70s died of a heroin overdose before they made a record. From then on they would always be a 3 piece except when they were occasionally joined by a horn section like on this here classic TV Glue. 

*This youtube picture has nothing to with X. I couldn't imagine a more incongruous image. Youtube eh?

**RIP Ian Rilen 1947-2006. The best bass player I ever saw live.

CONRAD SCHNITZLER

Conrad's self-released 6 90 minute tapes
put out in 1982

Well it's been a bit hard to listen to anything but Conrad Schnitzler recently as I discovered quite a bonanza of his music over at Electronic Orgy. The post I'm referring to is from October last year where they uploaded his entire Container project which must have been originally released in 1983 as it contained material recorded between 1971-1983. I'm confused. Information on Schnitzler is sketchy at best. Even David Stubbs's underwhelming book on experimental German music of the 70s Future Days didn't shed any new light on the great man. Details from different sources are contradictory. It really doesn't matter, though. I'm trying to not get too bogged down in conflicting information because at the end end of the day its all about the music not trivial pedantic matters like titles, renamed records, bonus tracks, recording and release dates. Schnitzler self released Container as a six tape package. It got a reissue in 1983 and it was notoriously rare until Vinyl On Demand pressed it for the first time on vinyl in 2012. I think they only pressed like 550 copies. It's now a set of 9 discs well 8 and a half. Anyway I never managed to find this collection which I'm pretty sure sold out. So having it available online is very cool. It's not just a cool archive or something to obtain and be smug about, the material is of such a high and consistent standard you often find yourself rather astounded at the vision and talent of this musical maverick. Some of these future musical visions are yet to arrive. Schnitzler puts artists like Brian Eno into perspective. 1971-83 is part of Conrad's golden era. A couple of releases beyond that point were good too but what stopped me going beyond 1988 was his double tape set Contrasts with Wolfgang Hertz under the name Con-Hertz which had me baffled. A previous collaboration from Con-Hertz, two years earlier was good stuff so what happened, I don't know? Who cares? I don't wanna be negative about quite possibly the best electronic artist of last century. He had a a great run of 15+ years so whatever! I mean there's even a recent choice Kluster 6 cd set of unreleased archival material from 1969-72 issued by Vinyl On Demand as well. Where do they keep digging this shit up from? Would you believe Schnitzler has another mammoth archival release this time in conjunction with Wolfgang Seidel titled 10 Kw/H . This is another 10 cd set of material that was unearthed in 2010 containing music from 1973-1977 that is high quality too (perhaps I'll write about that another time). But this here piece I'm writing is about Conrad Scnitzler solo and there were many excellent albums he put out at the time ie. not really archival. Many of these are 20th Century electronic masterpieces.

An article on his collaborations is
in the works. 

What's most striking about Container, apart from its ridiculous length, for me is Conrad Shnitzler's transition and progression from abstract, sometimes atonal and experimental shadowy electronics to more proto-techno electronica and disorientating sonic ambience then onto pioneering industrial soundscapes but next toward the last few discs he begins an unexpected transformation from unorthodox electronic pioneer to some sort of esoteric purveyor of electro pop.

The LPs of Schnitzler's that I love (9 of which are listed below) don't really delve into his forays into almost conventional NDW. I mean Neue Deutsche Welle (er..that's German Post-punk-new-wave-schtick) was hardly chart pop fare Scorpion's stylee but all the same NDW did become generic. This usually happens when a bunch of loosely affiliated like minded arty individuals set themselves apart from the mainstream to try and create some kind of musical environment where strange and uncompromising music can develop and thrive. This usually in turn, if successful, creates a scene where the music if not particularly sonically similar often prides itself on its reluctance to be categorised. Once someone, usually a journalist (well in the old days anyway, now it could be anyone on social media etc.) identifies this loose bunch of outcasts doing something artistically different the Utopian dream starts to go pear shaped. These disparate artists all end up thrown into a category and become co-opted by corporations and major labels and cracks start to appear. Then as a flow on effect a second of wave of groups who are usually less innovative and less talented begin to homogenise the sound palettes used by the original milieu of artists. This then creates a dwindling affect where a conventional set of rules regarding sounds, production styles, art, fashion, performances etc. are set up. Subsequent waves of artists following in this wake then begin the 'revival spiral' of further diminishing returns.

Getting back to Conrad. It's pretty weird to hear him singing and perhaps not being as outre as usual. Disc 8 & 8.5 are the ones on Container I'm struggling with. It might very well be good, perhaps great, interesting and even innovative. I do also have the Auf Dem Schwarzal Kanal EP from 1980 but I'm not sure I'm ready for Schnitzler's forays into NDW after years of knowing him as my favorite German experimental sonic guru from the 20th century. It's a bit like if Elvis started doing avant-garde classical midway through his career perhaps. Lets forget about all that for now.

Lets backtrack a little now and discuss the great man. I think I first read about Schnitzler in the early 90s as he played on that rather crappy first Tangerine Dream LP. He was also a footnote in the history of the terrific duo Cluster. But this guy ain't no bloody footnote. He's a genuine innovator and one of the best sound artists period. Is this where I mention West Berlin's The Zodiak Free Arts Lab? This was a melting pot of musical activity where many future legends of Krautrock and experimental synth music congregated in the late 60s/early 70s. Schnitzler co-founded with Hans Roedelius and some other chap. Anyway I can't understand why a handful of Schniztlers's solo LPs didn't make it into Julian Cope's Krautrocksampler top 50. He could have got rid of a few records from the likes of Cosmic joke(ers) and Amon Duul II post Yeti don't you think? Next I encountered Schnitzler in that brilliant book from 1996 on German rock, experimental, electronic, Kosmische and progressive music titled The Crack In The Cosmic Egg written by Steven & Alan Freeman. I was into the usual suspects back then...er still am actually... such as Can, Neu, Harmonia, Faust, Cluster, Kraftwerk, Amon Duul II and more, but Conrad Schnitzler I noticed had the most absurdly lengthy discography in the entire book. The Freemans wrote good things about him as well so his name stuck in my brain. He was originally in Kluster with a K in the late 60s with future members of Cluster with a C not a K, Moebius and the aforementioned Roedelius. Cluster went on to critical and cult success while Conrad remained an outsider pretty much for the rest of his life. I did used to see the occasional Kluster cd around in Melbourne record shops in the 90s & 00s but never bothered to check them out. Now living in the desert city I wish I'd bought them. I'm finally getting around to them now though. I got into Cluster with a C in the 90s in a big way though (more on them another time perhaps).

The first record I found by Conrad Schnitzler solo though was Con released in 1978. This is an absolute fucking classic record, one of my favorites of all time and a great place to start if you're not ofee with Conrad. On Con he travels a great path with no cheese and nothing too similar to what other (un)popular electronic German acts were doing at the time. This is electronic art that's not too academic therefore quite listenable. The amount of space in the music on Con is incredible and by that I don't mean outer space. I mean room like in King Tubby's 70s dub reggae. This is a beautifully recorded all electronic album with great attention to detail. It was produced by Tangerine Dream's Peter Baumann. Some of the sounds here were so far ahead of their time that similar timbres were not heard until the mid 90s in dance music genres such as techno, jungle, doomcore, darkside and tech-step. Upon hearing Con Schnitzler rapidly became one of my favorite electronic artists of all time, up there with The Primitive Calculators, Suicide, Severed Heads, Ilitch, Cabaret Voltaire, John Foxx, Kraftwerk, Cluster and er....Depeche Mode.

The next one I came across was Rot which was released in 1972 and was his 2nd solo outing. Man this LP was good too. Rot was no Switched On Moog record, which were all the rage at the time. Rot is the antitheses to that sub-genre. This LP was full of thick synthesiser textures that wouldn't be out of place on like a PCP or Cold Rush release from the 90s. Germans know a thing or two about getting voluminous squalls of sound from their electronic machines. I wouldn't say this was particularly melodic, its more like a mental cacophony that's intensely visceral. Sometimes it ends up in a dark abyss but always remains riveting as the music continuously mutates into other spheres. Rot is a fine otherworldly noise that must have alienated most people that came across back in 1972. It would have been great fun to play this to a James Taylor or Jackson Brown fan back in the day wouldn't it? Actually it'd be good to do that today.

1981's Control was reissued in the mid 90s and contained the T5 tracks from the aforementioned Container as bonus tracks. This was the first time I was alerted to the legendary 6 tape pack The Container. Anyway Control was the first Conrad Schnitzler album from the 80s I'd heard. It starts off in kind of a nice melodic almost conventional musical manner but by track 5 we're into his idiosyncratic synthesiser darkness. Untitled 5 is one of his most incredible tracks, with its clusters of doomy modulations comparable to no one. Untitled 6 wouldn't be out of place on say a hauntological or strange ambient LP from the last 20 years or so. Untitled 7 & 8 contain soundtracky vibes but in a Schnitzler universe of course. The remaining tunes (yes tunes! previously I couldn't really have used that term) are wonderfully mysterious and surreptitious.

I think the next one I got into was Conal which I must have found on a sharity blog back in the day when they were still a big thing. This one was recorded in 78 but not issued till 1981. This is more classic electronic transmissions from the mind of a genius. On side one's track N1 Schnitzler creates great atmospheres and synth swirls that despite not really being tunes as such or conventional ambient electronics are a very enjoyable listen and almost relaxing. Conal's second side N2 is like a delirious yet subtle 70s urban update of Forbidden Planet's OST with the sounds of rocket exhaust vapour trails mixing with dipping electronic lines that become siren-like at times making it slightly ominous in places. It feels like there's trouble afoot in the nerve centre of a future metropolis. A gentle rhythm flows in and out of the sound of rocket ships and spacecraft coming and going. Then there's little electro motorik pulses, like the baby sized aliens have landed and are driving around in mini toy vehicles. But it's like you're looking down at this future precinct from the safety of a mountain range a long way away. So it never becomes too intense and is quite unreal and mirage like. Splendid stuff.

Blau was my next discovery and was originally released in 1973 or 74 depending on who you believe (Discogs or The Freemans) making it perhaps his 4th album. Side one's Die Rebellen haben sich in den Bergen versteckt is all gentle cyclic electronic rhythms that become incredibly hypnotic. This is way before hypnotic was commonplace in music and I suppose is now a cliche. I think there's even a guitar towards the end of side one. Blau isn't a hundred miles away from Cluster or Harmonia on a superficial level but Schnitzler has such an individual way with synths and home made electronics that this record could only have come from him. Side 2 Jupiter is more intense than side 1 but this is still the gentler side of experimental 70s German music and I think its time is still yet to come. Fucking amazing when you think about it, as it was recorded 40 years ago. While Neu and Can have a thousand and one imitators Schnitzler has such a specific sound he's not such an obvious influence. All I can say is try imitating him suckers and you'll come off worse for wear.

Gelb was formerly known as the Black Cassette and originally released privately in 1974. Then in the 80s it got renamed as Gelb? Conrad's convoluted catalogue can get irritating at times so lets just go with this one as Gelb that is sometimes subtitled 12 pieces From 1974. This 2006 Captain Trip reissue has three bonus tracks from god knows where? Anyway this was his first foray into shorter pieces instead of side long odysseys and it suits him immensely. On the LP we've got proto-industrial, embryonic techno, gloomcore sounds 20 years early, stuff David Lynch and John Carpenter would like, evocative atmospheres and even the occasional piece of enchanting melodic synth goodness similar to 90s idylltronica. Schnitzler's electronic music is really charming and enjoyable as opposed to difficult electronic academic music. The twats who made that music may have been innovative but they didn't seem to have a clue about the aesthetics of music and were more interested in doing it just to be pioneers. You didn't necessarily want to listen to their music more than once or, lets face it, even once, which kind of defeats the purpose of making music in the first place doesn't it? Conrad made groundbreaking music that wasn't tedious, which I suspect was a much harder thing to achieve than what his scholarly contemporaries were doing. Making such alluring music that was also trailblazing was a hell of a feat from Mr Schnitzler, not that it was particularly popular but hey that's like a marketing/business thing innit?

Silber contains previously unreleased material from Schnitzler's prime era of 1974/75 that didn't see light of day until 2009 and this Bureau B version came out in 2013 adding a further 3 tracks. I'm known for my dislike of bonus trax but these are great. Silber made my best reissues list of that year. We've got some primo pioneering proto-techno here and gear that would later be known as electronica. This was way ahead of its it time once again by like 20+ years. I mean this sounds like a record I would have bought in the mid 90s like Mouse On Mars, Lithops or something but way fucking better. He heads off into pitch black zones on some tracks, dark ambient eat your heart out. I'm sure on track 7 he even uses a guitar or a very good electronic facsimile. If you told me some of these tracks were Ekoplekz, The Mover or Coil without me knowing I'd believe you. Schnitzler remains relevant 20, 30 and 40 years later and still sounds futuristic. What a man!

Now Grun is a cracker. If Cluster or Harmonia ever made a record with modern beats this is what it would have been like, on this first side anyway (don't get me wrong Cluster & Harmonia are 2 of my all time favorite groups, fucking love them!). Again this was so far ahead of the game it was absurd. Grun was released originally in 1981 and contained material from 72-73 and once again got reissued by Captain Trip and later Bureau B in late 2014 thus missing my end of year reissue round up. Side 1's Der Riese Und Seine Frau is pretty much 32 minutes of amazing ambient techno that predates the likes of Basic Channel by many, many years. It's minimal, hypnotic, beautiful and some of the greatest art of the 20th century. Conrad Schnitzler makes every other cool German musician, sound artist and composer seem just not up to scratch. I've got Stockhausen records but they lay dormant and unplayed most of the time whereas I could put on a Conrad record at any time and in any kind of mood. In my mind he is the king, THE innovator. Side B starts with the first version of Bis Die Blaue Blume Blüht, this is only a short one at 20 minutes. More happens in the first 2 minutes of this tune than in the entire previous track. This has its own kind of internal logic. Improvised Synths splatter, chirp, swirl, throw weird shapes and splash added colour and texture, a bass of the synthetic variety throbs along in its own world, a drum machine beat quite low in the mix tries to get the momentum going but the rest of the instruments seem quite content to meander in their own time. They might get a move on or they might take a different path for a while. The other part of the tune I guess is the part which is a composed repetitive keyboard melody which is probably looped or Conrad would have had severe RSI after this session. Nobody else is as good as this with regard to accessible experimental electronic music from the 70s. Oh... I nearly forgot the bonus track which is the second version of Bis Die... Musically nothing has changed its just played at 45 rpm instead of 33/3. Maybe someone said 'hey mate this would be awesome if it was a bit faster!' and yeah if you thought the first version meandered a little this version tightens it up and makes it nice and compact. This was a trick that Neu also used on their 1973 LP Neu 2 but that was more out of economic concerns not artistic endeavour. Neu went one better though and sped two tunes up to 78 rpm. Now that would be interesting to hear Bis Die... at that speed. It would possibly have invented speedcore or gabba 20 years early. Anyway just a thought I suppose.

Lord Of The Rings - Bo Hansson

On The Hi-Fi Part 43

Bo Hansson - Lord Of The Rings

For years I've avoided this album for some reason. I mean I love me kosmische and synth based gear but I think it was the title that put me off. I thought it was probably music for Tolkien nerds and trainspotters. Anyway I finally took the plunge and hey, due to my ignorance, I've been missing out. There's way more guitar than I imagined but it's got plenty of Moog and organ too. Guitar-wise it's a little reminiscent of the more outre moments from Robbie Krieger, like if he'd been tripping on acid in the desert for five days straight sweltering in the hot sun. I guess for me this sound conjures up images of arid dusty plains, scorching heat, sand dunes and cacti rather than middle earth. In amongst the beautifully evocative atmospheres it even gets a bit groovy in places. Lord Of The Rings is just the right side of good psych prog. This is another Swedish gem from the early 70s along with LPs from Algarnas Tradgard, Harvester, Trad, Gras Och Stenar and Handgjort

Industrial By Alessandroni

Totally love the cover.

I think I have about 8 of Alessandoni's solo library records, some Spaghetti Western soundtracks and a horror OST. He was also behind Braen's Machine who have two albums Underground (1971), that one is a particularly great groovy fuzz rock monster of an LP, and Temi Retmici E Dinamici (1973) and of course he was a frequent collaborator with Ennio Morricone. He also used the alias just Braen on the occasional collaborative library LP like two of my all time favorite library albums Biologia Marina (1973) on the Rhombus imprint and Ittiologia (1973) on the Cardium label. So it turns out he's in my record collection way more than I ever thought. I think the record company Dead Cert are claiming that Industrial is unreleased stuff from Alessandro. He did have an LP on Coloursound called Light And Heavy Industry from 1982 and Ritmo Del Industria from 1969. This LP does appear to be from 1976 and no tracks as far as I can recall I've heard before but I have a feeling this material was circulated in 76, probably in a very small quantity as I think I've seen copies on the interweb. Anyway this was a happy little surprise waiting for me in the morning. It's good stuff too. Industrial is a soundworld where acoustic and electronic instruments collide to create a wonderfully unique record. From start to finish the edgy intensity never dips below maximum. This is not easy listening library music which Alessandro Alessandroni is quite capable of and exceptional at. It's the opposite ie. not for the faint of heart or listener not willing to be challenged. Intense swirling electronic pulses, mental pianos, dissonant scrapes, repetitive violins, distant clangs, bubbling synthesisers, wayward dark bass throbs, weird percussion and tense guitars all add to this dramatic and incredible LP. Avivcendamento sounds like 3 different tunes playing at once and it's fabulous. A bit of atonal noise here, a little bit of discordance there. Horror motifs raise their zombie heads as do minimalism's, all with a Euro/Italo vibe and then some of it is quite uncanny, unlike anything he'd ever done before. This is incredibly outre and innovative music. His guitar playing in particular is mesmerising, strange, suspenseful and idiosyncratic. It's beautifully recorded and produced. Only a few listens in but its gotta be one of the best archival releases of the year already.



This is from his terrific Light & Heavy Industry LP from 82 and sounds not dissimilar to some of the tracks on Industrial By Alessandroni (couldn't find any of them one the youtube).

Future Days Part 3 - Eroc

Not mentioned in Fututre Days: Krautrock And The Building Of Modern Germany by David Stubbs (well in the index at least I'm only up to page 327) is Eroc's classic Eroc 1. What happened there Dave? No lost Krautrock classics eh?.......

Funnily enough a band Eroc (Joachim Heinz Ehrig) played drums for during the 70s Grobschnitt get some coverage in the book for all the wrong reasons. Stubbs gave Limbus (another obscure act signed to Brain) a listen but failed to check this treasure out. Recorded between 1970 & 75 and released on Brain records in 1975.

Future Days...again.

Something is really irking me about the cover of Future Days by David Stubbs. It's the faux fadedness of the background colours. Should this book go with my mock 50s radio, my new retro toaster and my brand new football shirt that looks like I've been wearing it since the early 80s? Faux fadedness is something I've come to detest particularly in fashion, art and furnishings. In the case of Future Days it feels like a crass statement of "Yes these were once Future Days but... ha... now everything is old even the ideas and music contained within this book." The thing with this music, modernist architecture and some other Avant Gardes of yesteryear is that some of them still have a shiny futuristic relevance. I haven't seen a David Bowie book come out looking old already, so it does seem peculiar and something I'm surprised Mr Stubbs let slip by him. I would have had the cover as modern as possible in the spirit of the music being covered in this tome. They got the graphics and cover art sort of right. Musicians in 70s Germany weren't dreaming of shabby chic as the future though were they?

*Note to future editors of future editions: Fix up the future bloody cover.

KRAUTROCK

Funnily enough I was listening to Faust and Eroc's Eroc 1 today and hello to make my bad days a little brighter here's David Stubbs and his book Future Days: Krautrock And The Building Of Modern Germany. There have been other good books on this topic of course. Particularly gonzo rock guru Julian Cope's KrautrockSampler, which is long out of print. Then there was The Crack In The Cosmic Egg by Steven & Alan Freeman which has also been out of print for some time but is a fabulous resource for the more obscure side of the genre. A scaled down internet version of this encyclopedia by the Freemans is available here in pdf form. Stubbs is of course a legend from the Melody Maker in the 80s. He wrote an excellent book a few years ago Fear OF Music about how modern music isn't given the same respect critically, culturally and monetarily as modern art is. Simon Reynolds really revs up the book with an astonishing  quote "Future Days does not capture Krautrock so much as unleash it. At long last the definitive book on the ultimate music." Now that's saying something. As I recall a highlight of the 90s Reynolds & Press book The Sex Revolts was a chapter on Can which blew my mind. The best writing on the German group Can ever or any other group for that matter. Maybe there's better to come. Stubbs seems to show up at  times in my life when I'm in bad health. There's a picture of me reading Fear Of Music on a hospital bed from a few years ago. It's like he knows when I need cheering up.

Any reason to play Can is a good reason.
You really need to listen to this LP as a whole.
It's Genius (and I hate that word's over use!).

David Bowie Glam One Two

The best final track of an album then the first track of the follow up LP. I'm tryin to think of others but this is a great double! Of course The Bewlay Brothers ends Hunky Dory and Five Years opens The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars.  Does it get any better than this for this combo?Anyone got any others?

RIP Alexander Shulgin

Simon Reynolds tribute to Alexander Shulgin here. Well I didn't know much about him until today. He rescued MDMA from historical obscurity in 1976 and is now a legend. Somewhere along the way MDMA became known as Ecstasy. I'd like to thank him for the hits and the memories. In my teens I remember first reading about Ecstasy in The Age (Melbourne equivalent to The Guardian/New York Times) in an article that featured S'Express and 70s fashion. I recall being fascinated by this drug and the subculture surrounding it. I'd probably only ever been pissed previously and never even been stoned. I think I cut this article out. Then a few months later there was an entire expose on Ecstasy and it's effects on its users in like The Age's weekend magazine (probably sourced from The Guardian actually). It had all these great modern fried psychedelic graphics of people being wasted on E. I cut that one out as well. You'd think I was well on the way to being a total E head but I reckon it would have been five years at least until I tried it. Maybe Shaun Ryder and Bez, from The Happy Mondays, put me off trying it any earlier. I was a very infrequent user of the substance but I gotta say I enjoyed it every time.

Then there's the music it helped create. Wow, Shulgin couldn't have foreseen such a flourishing musical movement being created for and by this drug. Ecstasy has been the catalyst for some of the greatest genres of the modern music era of the last 30 years and still continues it's influence today. MDMA was revolutionary and that's an understatement. I've possibly listened to more music created for and by Ecstasy than anything else. It's a testament to the drug that you don't even have to be on it to enjoy this music. Rest in Ecstasy Mr Shulgin.

I could go on probably forever posting E related tunes. Oh hang on this captures something about E-ing. That moment when you think you've been ripped off and bought a dud. Then minutes later it kicks in big style.

It's Glam Party Time II....With Suzi Quatro

To be quite honest I don't recall this one from childhood. Maybe it wasn't a hit in Australia however I was only a toddler at the time. Actually it got to no. 4 here but the other 3 here were number ones. I think she was bigger in Australia than anywhere else, having hits long after this little run of gold.

To me these are the 4 classics that were released in succession. The next couple I didn't like so much (but others rate them). That's 4 classics though. The Buggles only managed one.

Gene Clark's No Other

The Best LA LP of The 70s?

What I've been tryin to get to for a while now is this: Gene Clark's No Other. Here's another record I don't really need to talk about as some of the greats have written about it here and here. Anyway this is a record that is still building its cult. It'll probably be 5 to 10 years before he gets to that stage that, I dunno, someone like Nick Drake ended up in 10 years ago. A sort of saturation point where you've gone from cult figure to everyone who's ever gonna know about you knowing about you. I guess Rodriguez is reaching this position now, sure a doco helps! As does an Academy Award for said doco. Anyway David Geffen apparently pumped a hundred grand into Clark's magnificent 1974 opus and upon receiving it in the flesh promptly chucked it in the bin in a hissy fit because it only had 8 songs. Geffen refused to promote the LP and it came and went in a flash. Clark's career never recovered and he allegedly became a tragic figure until he died in 1991 before the No Other cult had gained much momentum. This LP is up there with the best 70s West Coast records by Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan, Sly Stone and Dennis Wilson and could possibly be the best of the lot. I reckon we definitely get our $100,000 worth. It's lush. It's sublime. This album is the perfect amalgamation of songs, performance and production. It does not get much better than this if indeed it does at all! There's something intangibly magic about this LP and framing it in Gram Parson's term 'Cosmic Americana' doesn't do it justice. This ain't no hippy hillbilly record. However there is a dichotomy at work here. Clark wrote this album during a deep spiritual time but then recorded it in the grips of out of control cocaine use/abuse. An interesting footnote to Australian readers is that Venetta Fields, yes she of John Farnham's band, sings backing vocals on the trax Life's Greatest Fool & Some Misunderstanding.

I is diggin those 1974 threads man.

Tommy Ugh!!!!

Tommy's gotta be the worst fucking shite I've ever seen (I'd never watched it till tonight)! Academy Award nominations?? Ken fuckin Russell! I know with his name attached I should have seen it coming. It makes me hate The Who. It makes me hate the 70s. It makes me wish Video/DVD had never been invented. Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide gives it 3 stars out of a possible 4, That's 7.5 out of ten, 75 %! More like minus 75% and that's being generous. It's so bad it's just fucking bad. More fuel for my argument that film is ultimately a failed art form. Ugh!!!

I'm So Agitated!...................

Who would have thought? Here's my theme tune of recent times. Shrinks! What the fuck do they do again? Oh yeah they make a shit load of money off vulnerable people while pretending that they are somehow helping them. The word scum comes to mind. Is there any lower human form than a psychiatrist/psychologist? Thanks to Derrick in the 90s for getting me into The Electric Eels!