Buzzcocks – Flat Pack Philosophy (Cooking Vinyl)
Their second-straight pretty corking record; not bad for a band celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and still way better than all the bands half their age that have stolen and cheapened their style to mass success and big bucks. This one is out in March, and hopefully will lead to another round of touring, which is where they really shine.
Buzzcocks – Live at Shepherds Bush Empire 2003 (DVD) (Music Video Distributors)
See above comment. This is 32 songs of pure adrenalin, wall of guitar might, hooks that stun, and melodic wit and force to stop a train. And nary a pause, too. Buzzcocks were the greatest group of the late 1970s, hands down, and even without their key original rhythm section, they remain one of the most thrilling live groups today. There are some funny moments in the bonus material, too. Released this week.
Comsat Angels – Sleep No More (Renascent U.K.)
As someone who has long put this album in his “Top 10 all-time” list, I am of course, glad that it’s being reissued on CD a second time this coming April. (Though this time it will be without my liner notes I did for the last round of reissues a decade ago!!! Bummer!!! But the music is the important thing…) All of you who love Joy Division? I say to you: Sheffield’s Comsats were contemporaries, and were the better of the two bands, no doubt about it. This is perhaps the most affecting, moody, challenging, yet exciting music I’ve ever heard on one album. Is it possible to be scared by music that’s so subtle? It is literarily impossible for me to put all of my feelings about this 1981 second LP in words. But this band’s first three albums (and eighth album, My Mind’s Eye!) still hold me entirely in their power a quarter century later, and this was their out and out masterpiece.
Comsat Angels – Waiting For a Miracle (Renascent U.K.)
The band’s 1980 first LP, while less thematic and cohesive, was just as powerful. “Postcard” and “On the Beach” were probably their two greatest songs along with Sleep No More’s “Eye Dance.” This new reissue, along with the usual non-LP bonus tracks from before, comes with five demos previously unheard, too! Jump all over this in April, you hear me? All those current U.K. post-punk bands should worship at The Comsats’ shrine.
Carl Perkins – Original Sun Greatest Hits (Rhino)
We have a visitor from China (the fascinating and friendly JUN WUNG) staying with us this week (that’s a first!). He just arrived today, and since he teaches English and Western Culture back home, I thought I would teach him about rock ‘n’ roll to give him an idea of the American culture I am most proud of (that and jazz and old silent movies). He’s never heard of most of our rock artists (fair enough, I’ve never heard of any Chinese ones, either). But he’s heard of THE BEATLES, so I spent the evening playing him 1950s songs by black American rock ‘n’ roll pioneers, and then the Beatles’ coves of the same songs, to show him that it was such a unique American black cultural product that the English took as their own and British-ized (and often improved) several years later. And after we got through with LITTLE RICHARD, CHUCK BERRY, LARRY WILLIAMS, THE COASTERS, and FATS DOMINO, you better believe the “lesson” included this one white guy in today’s bunch’s “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby,” “Matchbox” and “Honey Don’t.” Perkins was a gracious and down-home southern cat on the original Sun Records roster, whom I had the honor of meeting many times after his gigs before he died. (He once even signed a picture of him I had taken at the Lone Star Cafe in an old issue of The Big Takeover, which I thought was a unique autograph!) The Beatles did a bunch more of his songs in their BBC sessions, too, like “Lend Me Your Comb” which is also on this LP. They knew an American original when they heard one, for he was probably the best mix of rockabilly and straight country there was. (1986 vinyl)
Little Richard – Here’s Little Richard (Specialty)
Speaking of the gent, Little Richard will tell you he’s the architect, the originator, the inventor of rock ‘n’ roll. Well, you better believe him. No one knows where the genre started, but this guy sure perfected it first. Of course, I had to play his original of “Long Tall Sally” and then THE BEATLES astonishing cover for my Chinese friend. Pretty much every British Invasion band worth a darn covered this later, too. (For example, it was THE KINKS’ first single the next year. When I think of Little Richard, I think “Mr. Energy.” It’s still amazing how much he poured into these records. Flamboyant, out of site, and incredible, it’s all steak and all sizzle too. (vinyl; I have a really bad-sounding CD best-of that made me despise CDs for a while in the late 1980s. You can’t do that to Little Richard!)
Fats Domino –
I Miss You So (Liberty)
Because New Orleans is still on my mind. Reading the latest sorry stories about what’s going on there is hard to reconcile against The Fat Man’s buoyant, ceaseless optimism on this 1961 LP, and his poor 9th Ward neighborhood is just the kind that will likely not be rebuilt. But he’s still Mr. New Orleans to me, wherever he is right now, and I have never met him but I feel like everyone else does. I love the guy like he’s my best friend. Fats belongs to everybody that way. It’s one of the greatest things about him. (Last I heard he had come back from Baton Rouge after the flood and found his house had come through OK but his gold records and pianos in ruins, and would probably be staying in a hotel down there somewhere. Anyone heard of where he is now?) (vinyl)
The Monkees – 40 Timeless Hits From The Monkees double-LP (EMI Australia)
My missus is on a “Pleasant Valley Sunday” jag, so I pulled out this old Aussie double-LP with some of the most exhaustive liner notes ever seen on vinyl. Can’t go wrong with The Monkees. Hey, I’d like to have the cream of Tin Pan Alley writing my songs, too! But then again, many of their best tunes turned out to be the ones they wrote themselves, so…
The Coasters – Greatest Hits (Atco)
What’s more fun than “Young Blood,” “Charlie Brown,” “Poison Ivy,” “Searchin’,” “Yakety Yak” and the unknown classic “That is Rock ‘n’ Roll?” Novelty act? Hardly. JERRY LIEBER and MIKE STOLLER, you could sure write a great and amusing tune in the 1950s, and these 20-something boys could sure could sing them. (vinyl)
Iggy Pop – Raw Power (CBS U.K.)
Another request from the missus. She wanted to hear “Gimme Danger,” and who am I to say no to what I still regard as the finest example of a rock ‘n’ roll LP ever made? (I know that says a lot. I mean it to.) Naturally, I had to listen to the whole LP. And not once, mind you. You can’t listen to this LP once. I guess it’s like Lays potato chips, or something.
(original vinyl, DAVID BOWIE mix; this is an import version because when I bought it in 1978, it was only available here—and barely at that—on U.K. import!!!! So many classic records were totally out of print when I first started looking for them. Kids, you don’t know how much easier it is to find music today than it was then… Lucky duckies!)
