Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Aloha, Already!


Feeble fistbumps and arthritic high fives to all th' Four Or Five Guys© what made this place so copacetic over the years with comments and contributions an' stuff. It was only ever about that.

This link has lots of beautiful, helpful shit about what Aloha means, should youse bums be desirous of acquirin'. And you might find time for a slight return to the very first post at th' IoF© for more elucidatory exegesis.

https://babssez.blogspot.com

https://web.archive.org/web/20110420031316/http://rebuddha.blogspot.com/


This post, this place, made fungible thru th' continued participation of th' Four Or Five Guys©. If you're ever floating down the Mekong River, look out for th' House O' Foam©, where welcome is assured!



Thursday, August 10, 2023

Last Post Dept. - The Deaf, Dumb And Blind Kid Is A Cork On The Ocean




Right from the start,
The Who sprang from youth culture in the way the Beatles never did. Mod was the first truly indigenous UK youth culture, and The High Numbers were its house band. Rockers - pitted in tabloid-staged seaside battles against the Mods - were greasemonkeys abetted by Teddy Boys - ageing dandruff dandies clinging to scratched American 78s, the fag-end last gasp of the dying decade.

At the birth of the 'sixties the USA was in youth culture limbo, black origins being whitewashed into the family values that would attract TV sponsors, so the Mods took their tailoring cues, as did Motown, from Italy. Cutting-edge, finger-popping sharp. Meanwhile, the Beatles were doing their show band schtick, affecting rebel leather (yeah, ri-ight) or beat group uniform, completely out of touch with street level London. But they were cute and pretty and happy in a way The Who could never be, never wanted to be, and the lovely lads were welcomed into the cosy coal-fire parlours of an England in dire need of a knees-up. The Who were ugly fucked up pill-poppers, and fucking furious. They smashed stuff up. They were a pre-psychedelic explosion of colour and wildness, living Pop Art, not appropriating it, and their look was their own, not the artifice of a Hamburg stylist. Their music offered no comfort to the mums and dads who'd lived through the war, but confronted them with noise and shock value that still holds its edge; My Generation is the definitive fuck you to the nine-to-fivers. For this they fought on the front lines? Had their houses bombed? Where was the gratitude? The respect?

Townshend was obviously aware of the Fab Four, but it's tough to point at any overt musical debt. Check out Ol' Bignose with his record collection [left - Ed.]; face out in the stack is Surfin' Safari. He was an admirer of the Beach Boys, influenced more by the California of Paul Revere & The Raiders than the Liverpool of Gerry And The Pacemakers. The Beach Boys were also embedded into their own youth culture, inseparable from it, and sang about cars, the beach, school, surfing, clothes ... and girls. The Beatles were self-isolated from cultural context, a kind of magpie nest to display stolen glitter. They mostly sang about ... girls. Brian Wilson had another link with Townshend - he wasn't embarrassed to express his interior life, and it's this rare balance of intro- and outro-spection that makes them both sensitive songwriters and documentary journalists. Pop as celebration and psychotherapy, without being self-conscious or ironically removed - accurate reflections both of the times and the soul of the artist. Go to the mirror! Smash the mirror!

Where Wilson was the suburban teen dreaming of love and marriage, Townshend struggled with the twisted legacy of his own childhood in the ruins of WW2, uprooted, abused, and searching for redemption and meaning. Brothers in spirit, both performing for the party happening outside their bedroom door and locking themselves away from it, shut out, shut in, shut down. My Generation and I Get Around are the same song - this is us! youth anthems without a Beatles equivalent. People try to put us down, just because I get around, round, get around ... Similarly, In My Room and Pictures Of Lily are polarised views of the same interior space. Brian finds spiritual comfort in his lair of solitude while Pete rubs one out under the sheets. When I grow up to be a man is drawn from the same dark well as hope I die before I get old - the deaf, dumb, and blind kid is a cork on the ocean.

As of right now, both these guys are still, blessedly, alive, and their music will live as close to forever as makes no difference - that is, longer than you and me.







Wednesday, August 9, 2023

Disappeared Albums Undisappeared Dept.- Viva Saturn's Ships Of Heaven

Artwork by IOF© Department of Art Dept.

Do your own research
, it'll take a minute, max. Ships Of Heaven is only mentioned on the internet a handful of times, in passing, as Viva Saturn's final album that Restless Records shelved, bafflingly, in 1998. There was, I think, a single released from it, Ships Of Heaven b/w Angel Sister, but that's not on Discogs, or anywhere. Nor is the artwork, which I only have at thumbnail size [left - Ed.].

A request in the comments to the Rain Parade piece [below - Ed.] prompted 4/5g© Geriatrix to rummage in his underwear drawer, and lo! Wrapped in an old pair of drop-seat BVDs he discovered a CD given to him by name redacted, containing eight songs from the unreleased album! You probably don't care, because you're distracted by an active shooter in the crack house across the hall, but I've been hunting this sucker for, like, decades. I mean, among other shit I had to do, but this was always on the list.

Eight songs was a little meager for an album-length album, but the CD was mysteriously missing the title track, which when added bulks the whole deal up to acceptable length, for back when albums were an acceptable length. Unfortunately, the tracks weren't named, so if you can help, help!

It's as swell as I hoped. Maybe as swell as Bright Side, which is super-swell. Psychemelodic, guitars out th' ass. And it's a beautiful link to the astonishing Last Rays Of A Dying Sun. Plus, at no cost to you, th' freeloadin' bum scratchin' yer balls, I researched the original cover illustration (from a 17c alchemical text which also supplied the art for the cover of the Third Ear Band's Alchemy album, but you knew that) and crayoned up a new cover [above - Ed.].




This post made possible thru the divine intercession of Geriatrix, who shall be carried aloft by oiled Nubians in procession around the IOF©, while slender doe-eyed dames strew petals in his path.

Sunday, August 6, 2023

Paisley Overground Dept. - Rain Parade

Yup, they got the cover right, too

Did you ever buy an album on the strength of the band's name and title? Without hearing or seeing it? Back in the early 'eighties, I grabbed anything with even the most vestigial whiff of patchouli about it. Even then - forty years ago, fercrissake - I was ahead of my time, already living in the past. Where all the good stuff is. Where everything is. Just choose what you like. Don't be fooled by the marketing initiative of "now". So when I saw a couple of import albums listed in the NME small ads my Psychey Psense tingled. Rain Parade? The Three O'Clock? Emergency Third Rail Power Trip?? Baroque Hoedown?? I just knew these people were getting it right. Take my money! TAKE MY MONEY!!

I wasn't disappointed. Rain Parade seemed to have done the impossible, magicking up music that distilled the late 'sixties without actually sounding like any of the standard reference bands. That gorgeous, swimmy melancholy ... yes, yes, yesss ...

So here they are again, with their first album for since when. It sounds like there's no yawning chasm of time between it and Crashing Dream (and that was a good album - here on th' Iof©, good is always good enough). Maybe a year has passed in the Rain Parade substack. Max. Thirty-eight, you say? You're kidding. You must think I was born yesterday. You'll make up your own minds, but it's shaping up a close second to their first. And for why? On account which songs. This isn't an exercise in style; the songs have something to say and a seductive way of saying it, recognisably Rain Parade, the chordal hovering, the curling leads ... yesss.

Nobody has to buy an album unseen and unheard in these collapsing times. Nobody has to buy an album. Last Rays Of A Dying Sun is worth your fungible tokens. We're not going to be around for the next one, at this rate.


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Saturday, July 22, 2023

Thirty Minutes Dept. - To Slumberland - Slight Return


This took me, uh, like, gee ... a while. It's refreshingly different, yet the signature qualities of the other Thirty Minute curatorial initiatives are present in abundance, to whit: a commitment to entertainment excellence in on-time deliverables, with consumer satisfaction prioritized to the max! And that's the FoamGuarantee© of a swell time!

If you enjoyed the others, you'll enjoy this half as much as I did! If the whole concept leaves you meh, well, that's cool too, dude! It's your trip, and, cordially, fuck you!

You'll recognise maybe a couple of sources, but it will prove a mildly diverting thirty minutes nonetheless. I'll provide a Gemstone File later for your elucidatory cognisance.


SEE NEW LINK AT END OF COMMENTS


This post would not have been possible without generous sponsorship from the following non-profit organisations, to whom I am indebted:

Bunty Cupcake's Blowie n' Burger, Pork Bend, WIS

Frank 'n Furter's Fart Magic (cruise ship bookings only)

The Wizard's Sleeve pub, Nether Frotting, Bucks, UK

Peggy Guggenheim's Nympho Planet, Redondo Beach, NY ("walk-ins welcome!")