Give The Drummer Some Dept. - Billham Cobly

My man Billham, smackin' th' traps!

 

The first drummer I heard who had an immediately recognisable signature sound wasn't Ringo Starr - he was the first I knew by name - but Keith Moon. I didn't know if he was technically any good or not (still don't), but his full-on style was his alone, like he loved the drums but also wanted to beat the shit out of them. Scary guy. But the one I came to worship was Billy Cobham, first heard on the first Mahavishnu Orchestra album. He was busy, but never unnecessary, every faster-than-thought beat in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, and he sounded like nobody else, that tash-tash-tash cymbal. He drove the beat but never rushed it, and he was all over the kit, which is what I like to hear. Not for me the *cough* motorik minimalist metronome, I want value from my album investment. I paid for those drums, and I want to hear them.

He's also a first-rate composer, and his solo albums have always had melody at the heart of them. It's like he's playing chords on his kit. Spectrum and Crosswinds are both pinnacles of musical excellence, no matter how you label them, and I listen to his solo works far more than I listen to McLaughlin's. Today's deliverable is a sweet pair of albums he recorded in rsrch date pse ed [pse fuck yourself - Ed.], featuring luxe arrangements of older tunes and a few new ones. His Panamanian roots are showing in the steel pans and the Caribbean lilt, and there's nothing too brow-furrowing here, which is a good thing. Pure enjoyment.

I'm guessing this was designed by Stevie Wonder

 

If you know what this is about, Billham may have to kill you

This post made possible by funding from the Old Guy Underwear Xchange, Pork Bend, Alaska

Library O' Books Dept.

If you have the interest and attention span to read this screed, you might click on through to the comments, where you can download the book, if you're the quiet, bookish type.

The Back Story

I wrote the first version of this book soon after I moved to Paris, back in the Last Century. I moved in a ragged circle of arty types (featured in the book, some pretty much directly from life), drank a lot, talked a lot, the whole boho thing. I wrote it in a fever, convinced of my genius, and it was unworthy of both the idea and me. Got nowhere, and deservedly so. Since then it's passed through four versions, each quite different from the previous, with a new title but the same idea (or concept, if you like). They followed the first down the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. This is the final one - I really don't think I could write it better.

The Literary Agent Is Not That Passionate About Books

The people I knew in the book trade back when Helium was published (the little book that changed my life) are all either dead or retired. I need an agent to get this on a publisher's desk. To get an agent you first have to research those who claim to be interested in the type of book you're submitting. Then you make a submission by email, following specific guidelines. They may trash a submission if it doesn't conform to these guidelines. Generally you write a covering letter (what kind of book it is, what it's about etc.), add a synopsis, a short bio, and attach the a sample of the book. Some especially irritating agents ask for an "elevator pitch". This was a thing waaayyy back in the Last Century, and I made a few myself in Hollywood. You have to sell the book in the briefest way possible, which is impossible. But some agents think it shows them to be dynamic and finger-snappy.

Agents aren't that interested in books. That's the first thing to remember (they can't write, they're not authors, they're in Sales and Networking). Their first and overriding consideration is their career. They don't want to appear to fail by backing the wrong horse, so they place as few bets as possible, and then only on favourites. Risk management is everything. I have so much working against me - everything except quality - that no agent is going to go out on a career limb just because I can write. Are you crazy?

I made individually-formatted submissions to over twenty agents (in the UK and the US), who said they were interested in exactly the type of book I'd written.

I haven't heard from any of them. Not so much as one single boiler-plate rejection. My submission was trashed. For whatever reasons, I don't tick their boxes. Fine, times change, and an ugly old white guy isn't at the top of anybody's Christmas list. But the book should be, regardless of who wrote it.

Self Publishing Is A Bust

"Hey!" you say, suddenly inspired, "pretend to be the author they're looking for!" Yeah, no. This has been tried and the ruse never lasts, and only backfires on you. "Self publish!" you cry enthusiastically. "It's the publishing model of the future, today!" And again, yeah, no. Do you know how many books are self-published on the Am*z*n platform? Millions. Literally, millions. Thousands of new titles every day - some of them not even AI-generated. You'll only get traction if you already have a social media presence. Then you can shill your book to your followers. I have no social media presence, and I don't want one.

So what, then?

You can get the results of thirty years of literary endeavour free, gratis, and for nothing, right here. I'm not submitting it for your consideration, and to be honest, if you don't like it you can stick it up your ass. I wrote it for me. At least this way it will get read by three or four guys. And if you enjoy reading it half as much as I enjoyed writing it, then, as I'm fond of saying, I'll have enjoyed it twice as much as you. Which seems about right.

Oh - and Stephen King? Knock yourself out.

 

The cover: I did this in about ten minutes. Could be better, but the mood is right. No, agents aren't interested in seeing your cover design idea. Go away.

Roots N' Dub Dept. - Bim Sherman

My knowledge of roots and dub is nowhere near as deep as my love for what I am familiar with. I can't explain why it made an immediate connection with me where (say) the blues never has. I'm as white as Navin Johnson in my musical DNA - Perry Como is my soul brother - so it's strange that a culture so alien to my own whitebread suburban seemed such a natural fit. I'm not claiming that even the finest set of white rasta dreads would make me welcome at a Kingstown chalice party, or that I found the whole Black Starliner thing particularly convincing, but the music ...

John Peel, inevitably, gets the credit. I heard Two Sevens Clash on his show, my first roots album, and after that Bob Marley sounded, well, a little thin. Chris Blackwell deserves all credit for introducing Jamaican music to the UK, but he left something behind - he couldn't pull out the roots, and they were hard to find. And I'd kind of moved on by the eighties, filing roots and dub as a geo-historical [is this a word? - Ed.] phenom. New reggae seemed to be burping with synthesisers, and even worse, drum machines.

So learning about Bim Sherman recently has been a revelation. Long story short - brought to the UK by Adrian Sherwood, recordings fall into Jamaican and post-Jamaican. The album that turned me on (man) was the recent reissue of Ghetto Dub ['88 - Ed.] which doesn't feature his incredible voice but struck me as the true heart of dub, and sent me scurrying back through his extensive (and it has to be said patchy, in later years) catalogue.

 

Today's deliverable is Ghetto Dub and Across The Red Sea ['82 - Ed.], both pretty fucking amazing. If you're unfamiliar with Bim, this is as good a place to start as any. Speaker-rattling, bowel-churning bass, space as deep as the Mariana Trench, heavenly vox, mind-warping FX, this is the real deal. Nice tunes, too!

 

(This post has generated the lowest page hits and least interest in IoF© history)

Squeez Whiz Dept.

 

Just gawjuss. You'll want it to play twice the first time you hear it.

Wilf Brimley's Psychedelic Psunday Pstash! Dept.

Wilf at the top of his game, yesterday! Copyright Foam-O-Graph©

You'll know lovable curmudgeon Wilford Beauregard Brimley as TV's Corporal Crustypants from NBC's short-lived sitcom Ass Patrol! But did you know he's an enthusiastic advocate of the psychedelic experience? A regular visitor to th' Isle O'Foam© [here and here and here and here and here and here and here and also here, and those are links fuffucksake - Ed.], Wilf has agreed to be your host this and every Sunday in what will be a do-not-miss diary date for th' Four Or Five Guys©!

So leave us let th' Brimster get this multicolored ball o' wax rolling!"Howdy, Foameteers®! It's sweet Sunday here on th' 'I Love Home' and here's some swell music to file alongside all them other downloads you never got around to listenin' to! Back in the day, grabbin' these elpees was trickier than pullin' eels from a mudhole, but what with this new-fangled electric radio technology you can be diggin' the sounds in the twitch of a possum's whisker! So throw back a tab of backwoods acid and join in the fun while it's still here to be joined in with!"

Today, Wilf Brimley's Psychedelic Psunday Pstash is a whole mess o' first-class second-tier psych on the ever-optimistic Mainstream label; twelve albums I haven't the energy to paint the covers for. Here's FoamFavorite™ Kreemé [eighteen my ass - Ed.] to introduce those albums in full:

✌🏻December's Children
✌🏻Freeport
✌🏻Lacewing
✌🏻Superfine Dandelion
✌🏻Tangerine Zoo (x2)
✌🏻Tiffany Shade
✌🏻Jellybean Bandits
✌🏻Art Of Lovin'
✌🏻Growing Concern
✌🏻A Pot Of Flowers (bonus)
✌🏻Bohemian Vendetta(bonus)

 

 

 

 

 

No serious collection of second-tier psych is complete without these swell recordings! Everything upgraded to @193, incorporating audio frequencies beyond the human ear's capacity to hear! (Last two albums are late additions with a separate link, in comments).

This post pre-sprayed with Auntie Em's Antipossum Antidote™