And then the chimney spoke....

for your dancing pleasure...

2008-06-20T20:26:00.000-07:00

wow... i guess it has been some time. i must admit, i have had a god awful spring. i mean really bad. uh, take care of your health, kids. that's all i'll say about that! and yet despite my own skewed perspective as i lay in bed for 3 months, the entire country seems glassy eyed as well... the last gasp of the bush idiocracy, the great gasoline malaise, when will this seasick cruise end? i don't want to dwell in the muck, but i have to admit that's where i've been... one thing i can take great pleasure in, however, is a great lounge record. and here friends, is a GREAT lounge long player...! i have to admit i cannot play this LP without, 1) cracking a smile, 2) busting a move, especially during "listen to the music" and "short people", 3) forgetting every thing i was worried about that day, and 4) wishing i could rock this hard if i ever had a band! imagine happy kyne and the mirthmakers on ether at your highschool prom circa '76 and i guess you're half of the way there! the drummer on this LP is so sick. totally not "hip" at the time... accordion/trumpet/etc. put this one firmly into a geezerish zone but makes such a scene for people into wiggy lounge sounds - they play their hearts out, and it shows!! their cover of "Shangri-La" is up there for me as far as these things go, just so freeking good. i hope people dig on this LP, if so i think you can still find these for pretty cheap, i got this one for $6 last year! without further ado...

...Roundup...

2008-05-26T13:45:00.000-07:00

Recently I spent some time with a few quality reissues... seems in the past year a load of stuff came out that were already personal favorites and a classy reissue was sorely needed!! Here are a few thoughts...

Jade Stone and Luv
maybe my favorite of this batch, gets the full treatment it deserves from Subliminal Sounds. really an untoppable LP the more lounge/rhinestone/weird stuff that I hear. this is just miles beyond the rest as far as charisma, creativity, wildness, and fun are concerned. on my old copy of this I would always get sad when 'reality' came on because it meant the voyage was over, but now you are treated to a KILLER track from a rare 45. i mean rally good. great inner sleeve interview with Jade, which if you had any doubts about how real this one is/was, sends them flying out the window. Mr. Stone lived it! sounds great, feels great... get one before they're all gone!!!

Peter Grudzien
another massive all time knock down the walls favorite of mine was released by Subliminal Sounds this year... cool thing is, the reissue is a double LP!! the Grudz's 2nd LP is included in this package and man, you do not want to miss this. "The Garden of Love" may be even further out than "the Unicorn" and well, fans of the seminal gay psychedelic masterpiece know just what that really means. I wouldn't rate one above the other, they're both totally unique and totally excellent. grab this before it gets tucked away into every crowded sanctuary this side of Paducah...

Rayne
i don't know if these are still kicking around, as the Shadoks label releases tend to get grabbed pretty quickly, but suffice it to say they did a really good job, and usual complaints about off sound quality from the label are not in evidence here. great insert with the band's story, and if you haven't heard this one yet in this lifetime, well, you're in for a treat. my favorite rural outlaw thrash ever.

Patron Saints
a very early favorite of mine as i began smelling the flowering buds of home-town american psychedelia... so i was very excited to hear its availability now in a beautiful reissue from the Time-Lag label. some say this issue loses a bit of atmosphere, as it draws from the master tapes and not the more compressed sounding original vinyl issue, and while i hear the difference, i think you can still love this one even if it sounds a little more 3-d... the songs are still gorgeous and the original cover art is lovingly reproduced with a lyric insert and a bonus 7" which has material as good as any song off the LP. i say GO GET ONE!

Raven
i was so pumped to see this one back on the shelves, and re-released by the man himself!! presented in a new cover(mr. R looking ready to take heads - look out J. Winter!), for a minute i feared a 21st century re-mix or some other infringement on the original Ohio basement biker blowout, but thankfully it is still as raw as ever and remains a fabulous slice of smacked out 70s dementia. on a musical level this has gotta be the single greatest biker private rock LP... if you find the right guy on ebay Raven will sign it for you! yow!

Mayo Thompson
love, love, love this record to death, and always kinda dreaded 200+ going prices for an original. this was a perfect solution to that problem... one of my all time favorite weirdo ssw/folk/??? records, and justly so it is just really hard to put into words what is going on here. Drag City just put this out with a bonus 7" that is also killer. a special one for the right ears... don't miss.

Bobb Trimble
a very anxiously awaited reissue of both of Bobb's lofty 80s mindbenders was found to be a cup half empty by those who had been reared on original copies of these masterpieces. complaints about tinkering with the sound and production circulated and while they do sound way too cleaned up, i would have to argue for the accessibility of these to ALOT of new ears. Secretly Canadian (a major indie label with wide distribution) put them out, Bobb is getting a nice cut of the loot, so ya know what? i can dig it... bonus: is the super cool first time issue of color jackets for these. check it out!

otherwise...
excited for the Farquhar repro on Shadoks to hit my doorstep, and the summer ought to bring several other long awaited things to greet the public domain, so stay tuned!! as a last note here, i currently have some titles on eBay that may interest readers of this site... folk/lounge/psych, etc. you can check them out here. i also have a bunch of things in the pipe for posting here. i will try to get to a few things up here before i drift out again... best, CG

Interview: Crystalaugur's Howard Kukla

2008-05-22T05:32:00.000-07:00

Hello again!! Proud to present another interview, with another favorite musical act (well, their venerable rhythm guitarist!), a record I only heard for the first time last year, but quickly grew into a favorite, a great piece of cosmic teenage hard rock from a bunch of American kids letting their hair grow long, geographically way far off the traditional Southern axis of fast and loose ripping guitar leads and stoned grins... hailing from Singapore of all places!! The record was once hyped as Vietnam Vets taking a break from the sweaty jungles to blast an inner city auditorium (oh the spin!!), in reality the boys in Crystalaugur were high school
students living abroad in Singapore. Nonetheless, its a lot of fun no matter what way you come at it, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone picked this up for reissue in the next few years. Without further ado, Howard Kukla!

"Cosmic Journey"

Ok, I guess we should start at the beginning. Your musical tastes and
history. What'd you grow up listening to? What were you doing in Asia?

OK.
My personal musical tastes are Southern Rock - Allman Bros, Lynyrd Skynyrd, etc. I like anything with good guitar! My dad brought us to Singapore. He was civil service with the Air Force working on planes out of Vietnam.

The band got together in 1974 just like any other garage band. We were all high school students at Singapore American School. I lived there for 3 years. Most of the families were either in oil or electronics (TI, and such were just up and coming).
We did not have the best of band equipment, but we did it for the love of the music. We'd play anything from Led Zepplin to Grand Funk Railroad. We played at school dances and often just played and hoped people would show up to listen. The school operated on a semester calendar, so we had 2 weeks in January 1975 off. Actually, the school sponsored a number of events that students signed up for and participated in. Such as scuba diving trips to Thailand, excursions to Malaysia, cruise to Borneo and such in order to take in the culture all around us. The students had to do something constructive. So the band went to the administration with a proposal to make an album. We would write our own music, record it, have it pressed to vinyl and
distribute. The result was Terranaut. It is our own work. One of our classmates recorded it on a TEAC or AKAI 4 track reel-to-reel with over-dub of vocals and other sound effects. The artwork was done by the bass player's mother. We had the recording pressed by BMI Ltd in Singapore. Only about 200 copies were pressed. We gave them away to friends and family. It was never meant to be a money making venture. Just meant to get us through the 2 week semester break.

"You Got to Rap"

What is a Crystalaugur?
Where did Crystalaugur come from - it is a fancy term for clear light. Hey, it was the 70's! And a "Terranaut" is an earth man as opposed to an "Astronaut" - space man. He is supposed to be the last man on earth. You can understand my surprise when I start seeing copies of CD recordings for sale on various websites 30 years after the album was made. I feel quite humbled it was noticed and people actually like it. We had a blast making it. We recorded mostly in the school auditorium (horrible echo) and the teacher's lounge (muffled). And here we are now. The bass player lives in San Francisco, the lead singer is in Arlington, TX, I do not know where the drummer is any more and I am also in Texas. Our sound guy lives in Australia. And the girl "Pam's Song" is written for lives in Austin, TX.

"No. 4"

The sound effects were a great touch, and I love the "Cosmic Journey"
song. Did you authorize the CD copies?
I'm glad you like the record. We did not authorize any of the CD copies. But, then again, I never thought much about it. We are glad people still enjoy listening to this music after 33 years. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to see this album do what it has done. It's a reflection of the staying power of good old rock and roll. As for a reunion of the group, I am all for it. Perhaps Guy, Kim and Bryan will read this blog and the wheels put in motion to get us back in the same town for a while.

Thanks again Howard! All the best from the Chimney-dome!!

Interview: Dennis the Fox

2008-04-17T19:33:00.000-07:00

Hello friends! I'm pleased to present to you, the one and only Dennis Caldirola aka Dennis the Fox in a recent interview I did with him. His LP "Mothertrucker" is a magnificent slab of 70s wildness, great in every way, whether you're coming to it from a psychedelic/lounge/underground musics perspective, or just looking for new and interesting unheard sounds + stories from days gone by. One thing I love about the LP is where your mind will wander with it, epic moments of wacky hardboiled grit as he describes in the song "Piledriver" - 'when it comes to really livng or somewhere in between there's a high steppin side steppin' life outside you ain't never seen', which has inspired true wonder and a perverse glee. Sampled by DJ Shadow, championed by the legendary Psych Mafia, fawned over by those who have plumbed the depths of the private press world, this one friends, is one for the ages. SO without further ado.... Dennis!

What kind of stuff were you listening to that influenced your music? I hear alot of different sounds in the mix.

Exactly. As I explain on my MySpace page, the project was originally a demo tape to try to get a record deal.. In our naivete, my manager and I tried to make it as versatile as possible to show the genres I was comfortable with - all the stuff I had been playing since I was a kid. Big mistake from a marketing point of view. For example, did you know "Nellie Was a Lady" was published by Stephen Foster in 1849 and made famous by the (original)
Christy Minstrels? I learned it from a local band called "The Magic
Fern."

Was this project your first, or had you been in bands, etc. before this?

No, I started playing in bands when I was 16. (DTF was recorded when I was 24). My first band was called "The Rum Runners." The DTF project was an outgrowth of a rock opera I wrote when I was with HUGG.

What kind of places did you play at? What was your biggest show?

Mostly teen dances, frat parties, that kind of thing. The Rum Runners opened more than a few big concerts, once at Eagles Auditorium for the Yardbirds. On that date, of course, the promoter skipped w/the funds and we got stiffed. It wasn't until I went back to Italy and founded Dennis & the Jets, that we actually played big concerts w/screaming fans, etc.

The cover art on "Mothertrucker" is totally fantastic! It almost reminds me of stuff you would see on Sci-fi books back then. Who was the artist?

A 25-year old artist named Robert Barbarus. You're right, he dabbled a little in comic book graphics back in those days. Now he teaches art at a local high school, sad to say.

Why "the Fox"?

Damned if I remember. My manager and I were trying to come up with a catchy alternative to "Dennis Caldirola" which is (was) unwieldy to say the least. Dennis Carlo (my father's first name) was floated for awhile.

A song off the album that totally blows my mind is "Like A Stone Man" ... what is this song about?

A guy who's so macho, he's impervious to emotion - conquering as he goes. Of course, in the last line, he gives in as his "walls come tumbling down."

Alot of people refer to your LP as lounge, or "lounge rock"... do you take offense to this term?

I've heard of the "lounge rock" designation. I guess the versatility of the project (discussed earlier) might've thrown some listeners (too many folk songs and ballads, for instance) but judging from the bootleg compilations coming out of Europe at least, many consider it "country-rock."

Is Gunther Haydees a true story?

Gunther Haydees was a band from San Diego (I think) that I met one day - never heard them play - and they had just made up the name. They pictured "him" as some kind of a troll or ogre or something. A few months later, I wrote the song in the studio in about 1/2 hour.

Have you ever been to the Barbary Coast?

Well, I've been to Morocco but not, of course, as a pirate.

What was the gist of the rock opera "Whistle Stop" was from?

Daily adventures of an unknown band on the road. Unlike "Still Crazy" or "Spinal Tap" it was more cute than funny. Like "The Commitments," the group breaks up at the end.

Piledriver is an awesome song. Did you know it has been sampled by hip-hop DJs? It almost reminds me of an old James Bond theme song... Is there a real woman behind this song?

Well, the worst part of it (the various compilations) is I've never received a dime from any of them - they never even ask for permission! Which leads me to sampling: who? when? where? Not that I ever expect to collect, I'd just like to listen to them. No, "Piledriver" was just the product of a 22 year-old's fantasy...

It's funny, because in a review of said compilation, the reviewer laments exactly what you just expressed: "Best of them all is the extraordinary countrypolitan funk of Dennis the Fox's "Piledriver", on which Dennis uses his laconic Fat Elvis drawl to exalt "a mean mother-trucker of a girl" before the female back-up singers swoop in to hi-jack the payload. It's enough to make you question a world where Kenny Rogers gets to make five movies based on "The Gambler", while Dennis the Fox gets squat. Where, I ask you, is the justice?" [Matthew Murphy]

To wrap things up, do you keep in touch with any of the old bandmates/back up singers etc? Any stories on where they wound up?

Yes, I'm still in contact with a few of the musicians from the project and most of them are still playing music one way or another. A couple of the others have passed away and nobody ever really got famous. But if they all had as much fun as I did, playing rock n' roll and being "in show business" for twenty years, they don't regret a minute of it.

On that note, many thanks to Dennis for stopping by, and as an aside, anyone who sees their work written about here is welcome and encouraged to share their thoughts! Please drop in!
See you next week…. -CG

P.S. If anyone out there has a copy of this they'd like to sell please let me know: carygrant_is_yer_fairy_godmother@yahoo.com

Weird Mix

2008-04-06T19:01:00.000-07:00

Hey there! Just uploaded kind of a wacky mix I made a while back and never got around to sharing. It's mostly kind of funny stuff I found on thrift store/dollar bin records, with one or two songs from albums that are actually worth it for the whole LP. I've forgotten alot of the names, and the mp3s are mostly unmarked, so you'll have to use your imagination! Hope you enjoy!

Context '70

2008-03-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

Since initially hearing this one, I have suffered through a smattering of other "heady" high school and project LPs, almost none matching the effortless charm, peculiar wit, and undeniably zonked vibes of South Side Senior High School's Context '70 LP. Unless there are some stragglers still hiding out under the bleachers, I wouldn't really hesitate to call this one the best. In an attempt to draw out some of the original members of this collaboration in the digital realm, I decided to re-post the LP. Any and all involved are welcome to share their stories, memories, and miscellaneous impressions 38 years later in the comments section. Please drop us a line! And for those who haven't heard the record yet, it's right here, and awaiting your hungry ears!!! Best, Cary

records for sale

2008-03-14T16:52:00.000-07:00

hey friends! sorry things have been a little dead. I recently moved into a house without internet so I am on a little bit slower of a schedule these days. Don't worry I plan to revisit the Context '70 LP from South Side Senior High School next week. Also look forward to the real story about the legendary Crystalaugur LP! Until then, I have a fun and kooky batch of LPs for sale on ebay. Mostly privately issued stuff from the 60s and 70s. Some lounge, some folk, some exotica. All kinds of music really. There are some gems in there so make sure to dig around. Next week there will be a whole nother batch too, with lots more memorable personalities from the past... Anyhow, here's the LINK.

Hope you're all well, seeya next week!

uh this is my book... i have sent it to you...

2008-02-14T11:36:00.000-08:00

yes it's been forever, and you probably thought i had thrown in the towel for good... but i have a half dozen things i'd love to share, so here goes...

***Satan and the Deciples***

this record rules!!! deep supernatural organ-rock kitsch from Louisiana. i could see how this might suck if Satan wasn't such a turned on NUT. imagine a David Allen Coe style vocalist rambling at length on all kinds of spooky ancient mystery cult esoterica. it IS campy, but it is also fantastically weird and right-on if you are into this kind of thing. the "Book of Alpha" is my favorite cut, a sort-of underground Bible-belt journey into inner space and beyond, as he explains in a sort of bayou hallucination the evolution of man from reptiles! "Satan on Universe" is also remarkably out-there, as Satan proclaims the existence of the United Staes and the year 1968 before the Big Bang! i flash Dr. John, and a bit of Sam the Sham, but this is truly a local and personably freaky odyssey. the band is like a toned down version of the Sir Douglas Quintet or the Pharoahs, southern accordion rock with some wah and wacky homemade sound effects, but really suprisingly mellow and sensitive to Satan's eccentricities. i can imagine about a dozen people truly enjoying this one. good luck.

happy new years!!!!

2008-01-01T12:59:00.000-08:00

hey howdy hey chimney friends! i hope new years finds you beautiful, wise, and always listening to wild and happening sounds! i wish i could have more time for the speaking chimney, but my travels have taken all of my time. i may be able to share a thing or two this week, but really i am often nowhere near a computer, and even further from my record collection. i'm also broke and delightfully unemployed, but none of this is a problem, its just how things are for the time being. sorry if i can't get to the requests for re-uploads, perhaps people can connect that have already downloaded the files. i am trying to write about music, when something really strikes me, here.
drop by if you feel like it! otherwise, here's to 2008, whatever that may be!! yers in SSSSOUNDDDDD, cary G

miami motel tragedy

2007-11-11T19:21:00.000-08:00

flying colors glammy hammy hard rock album out of late 70s Tejas. maybe most famed for their stunning take on neil young's "after the gold rush" which is a standout for sure, but most of their originals are aces up the sleeve as well. really the only boner is the title track that kicks the album off, but then after that its stoned redneck rave-ups with varying degrees of gritty subject matter and inebriated pseudo-wave. it's straddling alot of fences for sure, but it mostly soars in kind of a proto-art-punk-gone-AOR way. they were hip cats for sure, and remind me of lurking characters in Linklater's Slacker, or if the Meat Puppets' flashier older brothers had tried to score a record deal but ended up goofing around a little too much and fucking themselves luxuriously, blowing tons of money on cocaine and hookers, back on the street with essentially a fantastic demo and a bloody nose. simultaneously goofing on rock star dreams, and declaring their place in the rock'n'roll lifestyle, this is one for the '79 year book, and darned if you can't feel the 80s looming mere minutes away ...

music never stays the same...

2007-10-31T11:18:00.000-07:00

This is the only one of J.D. Brennan's Lps I have, or have heard, but I have really grown to love it. On this adventure in lounge band rockabilly rumpus, J.D. decides to guide us on his own sonic history of rock'n'roll: from doo-wop, to gospel, to the British invasion, to psychedelia (which his take on sounds like nothing i have ever heard before) ...

He introduces every song in a heavy Boston accent with his own personal anecdotes about the music as if he is on a public access TV show, and then launches into a no-fi caucophony of his own design, in the said style. But they aren't covers, but perhaps one or two.

The cumulative cultural effect is like a missing scene from Twin Peaks, or some sort of strange twilight zone hallucinatory transmission coming out of your car radio on a late night drive to nowhere. The guy has a huge heart and puts alot of himself into this whole presentation, but at the same time there is a strange dark edge that has to be experienced to understand. If anybody has any of his other LPs, I'd love to hear. This is the real deal.

put yer hand in the hand

2007-10-22T08:24:00.000-07:00

So I'm not ultra-deep into the lounge scene or anything. There is alot I haven't heard. However I picked this one up based on several positive passing remarks, and it is all there! Mid-western Illinois croon fest with psychey production tricks, horns all over, fake jazz, a Hair Medley that rocks!, Moog rockets burning, egos running wild like a triceratops crashing through pre-cambrian foliage, and the over-all sensation that these guys were having a fucking blast making this thing. It is not as delusional as say the Kaplan Brothers, but it definitely tried to be as BIG as it could for what it was. It has become one of my faves. You should probably take a listen.

gotta roll on, gotta get strong

2007-08-22T05:39:00.000-07:00

so it's been quite a while my friends ... i've been out in the woods for several months and after a short respite i'm leaving again! look forward to some good posts in october when i suppose i'll sit by the stove for a few weeks and revisit my record collection. anyhow, REALLY wanted to share this total masterpiece of an album. called "the 695 tour" by Bob Zamber ... basically this is a rural singer-songwriter folkie via early dylan currents and hometown loner / biker vibes MONSTER. a deep heartfelt dig, and from smackdab in the 80s. you wouldn't guess it though. other than the casio accompaniment on a few songs!! the guy, admittedly, has a dylan thing going on. but the songs are all really well-written (the lyrics just jut out at you like sunswept cliffs, etching themselves in your mind - pieces of sediment poetry, like all those great Dylan songs, and you keep going what is this?), he sings with a voice of his own, and the whole thing just sweeps you off your feet. i think this has easily, through many listens in the past week or two jumped to be one of my favorite records ever. don't miss it friends, zamber speaks the truth. and if you want the vinyl, it shouldn't be too hard to find ... i got mine for $6 on ebay! also Bob if yer out there, please drop a line! i love you!

trax:

Eastern Sunlight

Been Shut Down

Woblin' and Rollin'

695 Tour

Like a Simple Song I & II

A Time to Carry On

Two Minutes Late

Dusk to Dawn

Rock and Rollin' Around

Roll on Thunder

bob zamber

ALONE AGAIN OR ...

2007-03-07T09:45:00.000-08:00

ALONE AGAIN OR

bob brown

2007-03-05T18:26:00.000-08:00

i found this record for a buck in a used clothing store and bought it cause the fella on the cover looked just like a close friend who is also a musician. little did i know it was a fairly sought after 70s folk record of some cachet. Bob Brown's "The Wall I Built Myself" is many things, and i like most of them. for one thing he is depressed, but sort of looking towards some kind of levity. it's a mournful dark album, but perhaps framing this in within "new age" might better help to lend you clues to the sound. there's violin, and probably some cellos too. pianos dote, and the acoustic guitar often picks wandering leads. if anything slightly grates on me its his voice. when he goes for it he sounds really good, when he tries to be quieter than a mouse he comes off a little too fey for me. this is really strong all over tho. not totally my bag, but many will enjoy. so i present to you here!

goodbye, Melissa

2007-03-04T20:10:00.000-08:00

i sold this record for relatively small change. i will miss it. it only hit me right before she went ... and then ... gasp. she's a four cylinder winner, that is fer shure! she is 15. she loves to sing. she wants to move and groove. she is in highschool but is reaching towards the future. she is from nova scotia. she is heart + soul. i guess she'll come around some other day ... as she says in one of her songs, "hey boy, i hope you'll be alright, i'll help you if i can" ... gawd they don't make em like this anymore. cherish this. best, CG

feature/interview: Rich La Bonte!

2007-02-24T19:52:00.000-08:00

it gives me great pleasure to present to you one of the more overlooked and astonishingly BRILLIANT cat on the 70s DIY scene ... both an
accomplished sci-fi writer and musical eclectic ... Rich La Bonte! back in 2006 or so i wrote all 'bout him here and the material he had posted on his website [www.flatdisk.net] from long gone 70s eps and an album or two as well. he had posted his favorite tracks in an order of his own choice, and i found the whole mess totally mind blowing. imagine a singer, a REALLY GOOD singer, i mean the man performed in the original Godspell, doing homespun pop mellowisms that float yer head right off into never neverland back to back with insanely hep and speedy punk/new wave ditties that crunch and buzz round the room ... and his voice works just as well
on these too ... like a less pretentious tom verlaine ... and on the psychy ooze he sounds both turns lou reed after whippets and john lennon's airier moments which in american form through all kinds of looking glasses come out sounding like pure BOBB TRIMBLE which is crazy in and of itself, but i'll bet you one could be easily fooled by a few of these tracks. but various comparisons aside, Rich is a way-cool songwriter and musician crossing all kinds of 70s boundaries firmly embedding him in my chimney shrine to other heroes of a similar stripe like Todd Tamanend Clark, R. Stevie Moore, and George Brigman. they all lived it from the hilts of
their living rooms and the bad assness of this flows forever on every thing they cut. Rich gets the least recognition of any, and it still surprises me. this shit aches for a JUICY 2-cd reish set like the todd clark ish ... like whoa ... so anyhow ramblings aside, i'll let the man open up his vaults for all of you as we discussed his musical past over e-mail the past week. and i encourage a plundering of his uploaded mp3s here ... my favorite collection is the "We Are All Experimental Models" one which plays like an album ... and a gorgeous
stirring one at that. without further ado, here's the words from the man himself:
1) how would you classify your music in the spectrum of sounds that was the 1970s? i hear such an array of styles in your work, face melting psychedelic folk rock that soars into the sky, and oozing proto-plasmic punk material that totally demolishes - what were your influences?
2) did you play live much? if so did you have a standing band for any period of time?
3) how did your work as an author affect your musical creativity?
This is for a blog, right, because I started to answer the first question and I realized I was answering all three, so here goes. (Minimal editing on my part. Feel free, etc.) I am born eclectic. My influences started in the 50s. By the 70s I was pretty much formed. I got a tape recorder from my dad when I was 11 and figured out how to record a piano backwards. That's true and I still love that sound. The first two singles I bought were Bird Dog by the Everly Brothers and Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis, and both were a big leap for me. Before that I liked what I heard on Top 40 radio and saw on TV. Later, a jazz drummer named Dick Kilgore got me into Monk and Mingus and Art Blakey. I bought an electric guitar at that time and started
playing, mostly singing in garage bands. I had a pretty good voice and as no one I knew could cut Beatles, or any of the vocal oriented stuff of the
day, I did Jagger and Eric Burdon and Dylan covers. In 1965 I went to Ithaca New York and joined up with a band called the huns (always lower case.) Playing in the huns gave me working capital, so I bought every album and single I could get my hands on. The group was a Stones / Kinks cover band at heart but we matriculated into six part harmonies and folk rock and
originals. We played 40 songs with a play list of 80, three hours, two times a week on the average and it was a union band, by which I mean
AFL-CIO American Federation of Musicians. Ithaca was owned by the union and you couldn't play there unless you joined. There were 40 venues within a ten mile radius and I don't know how many bands, and we all got union scale. The band went through two incarnations and dissolved. I left Ithaca and got a job as a gopher for an industrial film house in NYC and eventually became a film editor. The film job tanked and Gordon Furlong got me into a band in NYC with a girl singer named Joanne Jonas. The band tanked and Jonas got herself a part in the original cast of Godspell and me an audition for the Godspell band. Steve Schwartz hired me because I could hit a high C in falsetto. Godspell gave me enough money to buy a Teac 4-track SimulSync 15 / 7 ips recorder and a slightly used EMS Synthi A. I owned more than one instrument too. (Big man in the head!) By then I was listening to everything from Apple Records (there was no Apple Computers) to Zappa. I regularly saw major and minor acts in small venues in the Village, where I lived through most of this while playing Godspell six nights a week. Jimi Hendrix, Frank and his boys, Muddy, John Lee Hooker, Blues Project, Youngbloods and local bands like The Magicians and The Flying Machine. Not
to mention the Fillmore East. I remember seeing the Kinks and the Airplane - the rest are a blur.
In the late 70s I moved to Hollywood with 500 LPs and Shari Famous to become the Patti Smith Group of the West Coast but we really got into the local bands instead and I started writing reviews for local rags and FlipSide a couple of times. Shari and I became Rich & Famous and started CMI Records Newsletter to take a poke at a friend of ours who worked at
BMI. (ClassAss Music Industries, with the first two words run together all computery.) Later I changed it to fLAtDiSk because we decided to start a label with Dave Gibson (Moxie Records) doing the pressings. All the groups around us were doing it, so we decided to do it too. Vinyl heaven. Shari and I met Kim Fowley and he was amazed when I knew who his father was. I hung out with him for five years in the mid 80s and we had fun in the studio at all hours of the night, etc. I like Kim. He's a genius and anybody who says otherwise doesn't know the guy. A little outrageous from time to time, maybe. Rich & Famous had no live act for at least the first three years. FlipSide kept ragging us so we got a good band together eventually and did the
rehearsal halls but never played out. I didn't care and she did. After Shari and I broke up, she put together a band with Larry Alcorn and played
out for a while and then worked with Pat Bag (The Bags) in a group called Buffy's Ghost. (There was no BtVS at that time. The name was a Family Affair / Anissa Jones reference.) I think she was a Chili Pepper for a while too. I was in a band called The Clones with Chuck Wada of The Motels who wrote and played great but couldn't sing. He thought he was the next Darby but Darby had better words. FlipSide came to see us and told me I could do better. Only time I ever played bass in a three piece and I never did it again. Play live for money, I mean. Big anglophile, BTW. My record collection, when I had one, was very English. Anthrax to Wire. But also big on Brian Wilson and Beach Boys (separately, please.) West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. Agent Orange. Still have some of the old records, transferred from vinyl to cassette to CD. I got my first computer in the early 80s. It was a VIC-20. I could never
afford an Amiga, so I went from there to a C64. Did chip tunes on both. Learned BASIC. Got a job with a system integrator and into PCs at the same time. (The Commodore pays off!) Got into mods. Learned HTML. Wow, this is so too long. Last question: I wrote fiction before I played
an instrument, but after the backward piano. I read everything science fiction when I was a kid. I learned guitar to write songs. I didn't start
thinking about writing actual books until the late 80s. Yes, I'm writing another one now. Once you figure out how, it's hard as hell.

4) did you consider yourself apart of the punk movement? 5) to what
extent were drugs involved? (don't feel obligated to answer if you wish to
be private in this regard - simply, i enjoyed the song Weeds very much.)
6) were all of your records pressed on fLAtDiSk? 7) if you weren't
playing live so much, were the records just sold mailorder then? 8)do you
still keep in touch with kim fowley? how did you know who his father was?

I considered myself apart from the punk movement but Shari Famous is younger than me by about a decade so I always considered her a part of it and I was along for the ride. We were champions of "new wave" when we first arrived in Hollywood - which I saw as a return to the minimalism of 60s rock and folk - but we adapted when we realized that the punk
subculture in LA was much further along than NYC. They were really a very friendly bunch of punks anyway, Geza's "Kill the Hippies" aside. I started smoking pot in Ithaca and did some 60s psychedelics, but never got into the harder stuff. I was pretty alcoholic for a while in
Hollywood, but I also gave up hard liquor in 1980. Nowadays I drink Guinness socially and Diet Coke at home. Weeds is dedicated to my pal Kronos (Kronos and the Felching Vampires on Moxie Records - good luck finding a copy of that one!), who was Dave Gibson's sidekick while Moxie was around. I must have been pretty ripped when I recorded it because I "found" it while listening to old cassettes a couple of years ago. ("What the hell was that!?") My records came out on the Moxie, CMI and fLAtDiSk labels. fLAtDiSk wasn't so much an entity then as an alias. They were all Moxie Records. Like most independent labels in LA during that period, we were distributed by Bomp and another company (Greenway, maybe? I forget the name.) We also
placed them ourselves at stores like Rhino Records on Melrose and took frequent ads in FlipSide and Slash. Shari did all the placing. She could sell anything. Incidentally, she later married Richard Foos, one of the two owners of Rhino Records and is now a practicing psychologist in
Beverly Hills. Who woulda' thunk? I haven't kept in touch with Kim in this century. He left LA for a long while in the 1990s and he doesn't do email. I hear from my friend Deborah Patino (RasZebra, Ringling Sisters, etc.) that he's back there now. We parted as friends and despite his reputation I don't have a bad word to say about the guy. He is every bit the living legend and he's worked with everybody from Doris Day to The Plastic Ono Band. When we did the Son of
Frankenstein LP he told me that I was the first person to produce him since Phil Spector. (Another challenge for rock historians because I don't know what record he was talking about.) Kim is the consummate rock independent.

Kim's father was Douglas Fowley, a character actor in the golden age of Hollywood with a list of credits a mile long. The old man first appeared uncredited in The Thin Man in the early 1930s and continued to work steadily well into his eighties. Usually played gangsters and bad guy
western saloon owners, but he did comedy too and he is probably best remembered as the distraught movie director in Singing in the Rain. Kim and his dad were very estranged when we met, but I think he told me that they reconciled before the old man died. I noticed a likeness watching an old Mr. Moto movie late one night in my Hollywood apartment. Kim went dead
silent when I told him and no wonder: rock and roll mythology had Kim pegged as the illegitimate son of Howard Hughes at the time.

9) what is your connection to r. stevie moore/wfmu (i remember hearing
that song for irwin)? 10) what is the story behind the mayan canals part
of mayan canals? 11) tell me a little about your new stuff (music wise
and literature)?

As I remember it, I was living in West Orange NJ and editing film in NYC working as an assistant to Mark Rappaport for a film Ted Steeg was doing for United Technologies (or somebody like that) and I was writing songs with Shari Famous and she introduced me to Irwin Chusid at WFMU. This is 1976, maybe? Irwin let us do some little bits for his show on tape and we recorded Drums Along the Maple Wood later when we lived in Hollywood and sent him a
copy. (Irwin lived in Maplewood, NJ. That entire Moxie "release" was like 12 acetates in color Xerox sleeves.) Time passes. We either heard R. Stevie on Irwin's shows or Irwin sent us R. Stevie Moore stuff, I don't remember which. Anyway we decided to ask Stevie if he might want a West Coast single on Moxie / CMI if we paid for it. We were trying to help Dave Gibson elevate Moxie and pick up legit acts and we figured we had something in common with Stevie as we were all working out of our living rooms. We went east to meet him and his manager and we signed paper. Stevie sent us his tape and we loved it and decided we should give it the best mastering possible so we took it to Gold Star in Hollywood (Phil Spector was in the house but we did not meet.) Then we took it to Dave and told his pressing plant guy that we wanted bright red vinyl and we R. Stevie Moore's New Wave b/w Same on CMI Records. Got some very nice reviews fromTrouser Press, Rodney played it on KROQ, etc. Time passes. Stevie and Igot back in touch a couple of years ago and even jammed a little up inNorth Jersey with my pal Gordon Furlong. I've done some recent CD coverart for Stevie too. He's got about 300 CDs out, so he's always looking forcover art.Mayan Canals. I'm into the Maya. My family has a distant native NorthAmerican bloodline (Menomonee) and when I was a kid I was puzzled aboutnative origins. The Maya were a genuine mystery at the time and they wereobviously victim to white anthropological prejudice - in the 1920s it wascommonly believed that Maya cities and temples were built by whites whosomehow found their way to Mesoamerica and that the Maya were nothing butignorant slash and burn farmers living in the jungle. Now we know that theMaya had hundreds of cities, many with populations over a hundredthousand, ocean-based trade routes that stretched from Belize to the Bajaof California, etc. One night in the late 70s, Walter Cronkite announcedthat NASA satellites discovered the vestiges of intricate ancient man-madecanal systems in Guatemala that could only have been created by the Maya.The (now rather silly) title tune of the Mayan Canals record was an essayI wrote about the accomplishments of the Maya and their civilizationagainst a Synthi A track. It's silly now because we know so much moreabout them and I was certainly no expert at the time.The mostly instrumental stuff I do today started with mod files in theearly 1990s. I got pretty good at writing mods once Impulse Trackerarrived from Australia, but it was a DOS program so eventually it was notcompatible with my machines. Writing mods was all in the editing - modfiles are created with samples of real instruments as opposed to midigenerated sounds - and I found more modern wav-based editing software tohelp me create MP3s. All of it is an outgrowth of my early interest inelectronic composers like Cage and Stockhausen and my years editing filmand sound. I stopped playing guitar for years and dived into it. I'vesince reunited with my 65 Gibson SG and wrote an actual rock song for thefirst time in decades just last month (sort of Kinks / The Jam tune) but Ihaven't recorded it yet. My voice is still there but not what it used tobe and I'm in no hurry musically.My hardcopy books are science fiction and fantasy. I wrote the first twoin the late 80s and sent them both at once to Ballentine Books, which wasmy favorite sci-fi publisher. A reader at Ballentine sent me a politerejection that said: "Keep trying." I decided not to and the first two released languished for years. In 2000, I put them out myself as ebooks. In 2001, I started Simple Deities and even though I still couldn't get a publisher or literary agent to actually read it, I did enter a Cinescape Magazine literary contest and Simple Deities placed as a finalist. I continued with The Greater Future, which falls into the rather unique sci-fi fantasy
detective mystery genre, and introduced my detective Mike Fixx and his cohorts. Mike returned in Many Teeth (2005) and I decided to take a year off from writing. I officially started the new one in January. From 2002 to 2005 I tried to get publishers and agents to read them, but the book business is strictly pay as you go, much like the so-called major record labels. My attitude now is the same toward both: they are dinosaurs who
will pass away in time because they are no longer needed. The web makes it possible to self publish anything, music, books, movies and even a television series. All you need in the 21st Century is product and a web connection. You can only buy my books online but they are available all over the world thanks to Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Well, I'd definitely say that is a wrap (or rap, at least.) I do want to add that my daughter Aimee encourages me in all my arty pursuits and that keeps propelling me forward. Where I am headed I have no idea, but it's a cool ride :o)>

stay tuned folks ... i'll be out of the loop til march 2nd ... seeya later!

dame abrigo!

2007-02-21T08:10:00.000-08:00

i'm proud to present this monster latino teen smash LP full of southwestern heart and soul ... its records like these that keep you coming back for more ... 15 year old kids loving rock'n'roll and playing it in the way their own corner of the universe shaped it for them ... half of this is covers of big name rock stuff like Hey Jude, Gimme Shelter, a tear jerking Let It Be, + more ... and then for the other stuff they whip out ace mellow desert folk rock moves. at both ends they keep this immensely real (what more could you expect from a band who's name translates as: Enchanted Hope???). pretty much just a record you need to hear and that i don't need to blather on about. this photo from the back cover pretty much sums it up:

sideswiped

2007-02-20T17:43:00.000-08:00

snowstorm really threw everything into the jumbletron ... lots of fun to be had tho ... alas all non internet (lately i've been receiving subconcious rumblings that seriously dislike computers) but i love ya'll and love sharing MUZAK ... so that's the ups to the downs. i had some rips i wanted to post but that stuff is all jumbled, and i can't seem to get my head straight for 10 minutes for the life of me ... BUT really cool thing = feature/interview on Rich La Bonte, famed sci-fi writer and 70s lo-fi HERO! like r. stevie moore? dig bobb trimble? stay tuned Pleaze! so tonight cause i'm hella (wow all kinds of lingo sneaking in here) faded, i decided to bring back ye olde feature of FUCKIN' BALL RIPPIN' ONE SONG MUTHAS from lps of which the rest of the material doesn't do too much fer my brain ... in said tradition i proudly present "Love Me Again" by Marble Phrogg (from Tula, OK) ... who's long player is kool they do teen rev versions of yer favorite jimi and cream blasters (kinda like Smack, but i don't think the covers are near as good as on that one) ... like a hundred other kids, and you gotta look for the song or two they really connected to some anguish beyond sounding '68 hep ... and they nailed that to the railroad track here like a dying paen of hopeless love ready to be put out of its misery. add to that a mysterioso surf riff, thick dirty fuzz, a slightly out of the garage guitar solo that slices threw the murk in those last seconds of pure wayward abandon and lifts it all to that higher place that brings all of us back for more and more and more ... that's what it's all about folks ... hope you dig ... ;-) yers, cary

the old is not so old, and the new not so really new ...

2007-02-12T07:59:00.000-08:00

genius xian songster with a voice for the ages (does he sound like a vampire or is it just me?)! you should all know his "Who Cares for the City" ... and this just keeps the same spirit alive, with little flourishes of flute and organ, and maybe a slightly more open ended sound. my favorite song is "The Old Man and the New" which is as timeless as the message it conveys ... he compares LSD takers to the ascetics of old and laughs cosmically about how nothing ever changes! there are rockers too, "The Man for Me" is pure xian bumblebee organ and secret agent man fuzz guitar garage blast. "Joseph" is like a missing track from the Search Party album ... in fact it has to be the exact same organ they're using. "The Camel Swallowers" is like a lost Dylan song sung by Dracula circa '66 and so happening it kills me. i had wanted to hear this for a while, and i have timsky to thank for it. if ya'll in the hinterlands got some john ylvisaker, i'm also looking for:

-Don't Cut the Baby in Half

and: -Recorded At A Housewarming For Fritzie

also: -Follow Me

i will pay good dough for any of these! or swap/trade cd-rs!

and John if you R out there surfing, we LUV you!!!

hit me up here: carygrant_is_yer_fairy_godmother@yahoo.com

i will also take this opp, to say i'm always down with trades for desireable items. i have most common psych items, and some of the rarer ones too. folk music is also cool, weird records, and ethnic fun.

i have a list. you have a list. let's talk. cheers, CG

calling the high commissioner of cyprus...

2007-02-11T16:42:00.000-08:00

thanks to mr. sevier for these hot promo shots of what promises to be the coolest band ever if somebody could hep me to a copy for sale or trade or whatsis ... cause i need to hear ASAP (proto-punk backwoods country digs!). even would love to connect with the band, if you guys are out there surfing the internet. so cheers, and some johnny ylv manana ... ! ...

p.s. nice shot of the lp:

and in case you're the type that needs the professional opinions to entice you, here's the AA blurb: SUNDOG SUMMIT (IL)
"On Sundog Hill" 1976 (Audio Mixers)
This bizarre artifact is the missing link between rural rock and punk (I bet you didn't think such a thing existed!). It starts out in mundane fashion, as the second song is a dumb backwoods barefoot ode to dope-smoking, but after that they rip loose with some hot rootsy minimalist rockers. These songs have a cool counterculture edge that can appeal to freaks of all varieties. There's no distortion to the guitars, but certainly the music has the energy of punk (which was a year away from being noticed) while still retaining a hippie vibe…ne'er again would the twain meet. Surely they're the only band who could put a Johnny Cash song and a Velvet Underground song side by side and make them sound like two of a kind. This is a good start, but the real secret weapon here is Lee Groban, the self-appointed "high commissioner of Cyprus." His rantings and ravings are scattered throughout the album (and in the great liner notes), and take full fruition at the end, where we're treated to seven and a half minutes of jaw dropping "recitations" and "incantations" of a completely insane nature, backed by a driving rhythm. This is a wonderfully unique, fun album. They also released a 4-track EP. [AM]

I lived in a chimney for seven nights ...

2007-02-10T13:44:00.000-08:00

priceless spoken word LP from the inimitable ken nordine. probably my fave of his ouevre, though i haven't grosped "Talks to Plants" (if you got one to share, drop me a line!) ... but anyhow this is Robert Shure's surrealist poetry read in a Nordine's ultra classy beatnik hepcat patter but transcends whatever expectations you might have of such a session. lots of flute and chimes and groovy beat sounds going on in the back ... vibraphone lending a rainy day in San Francisco vibe in parts. so hard to really put your finger on what is going on here ... but whatever it is, i love it. this is a top personal fave of mine, and i hope you like it to. i mean, i guess it has as much to do with Shure's poetry (so many lines continue to run through my head from this - "Does sex bother you? I know a zebra it bothers immensely..." "I lived in a chimney for seven nights ... What did you do during the day? Cough." "I was lying on the sky last night. How did you find it? Excellent for thinking. What did you think about? About how nice it was not having to smell people's breath."), as Nordine's delivery ... it will be years before people are making records this endlessly hip on major labels. cherish it... and may you wear your new envelope in good health!

escher stairs = turned on thoughtz

2007-02-06T18:44:00.000-08:00

suffice it to say ... T-Kail's "Somewhere, Sometime" is probably the best 80s psych record you can find that actually has something in common with the original article. i mean duo vox femme harmony soaring ballroom jeff airplane shit but dancey and loveable and totally yesterday's news in 1980 despite the disco track which somehow works and fits despite all odds making this record, really, a minor miracle. i love bobb trimble's work, dearly, but he is harking back ... i'm not sure t-kail ever thought their kind of party stopped ... which is interesting, and always a plus. this record has a lot of heart. you need it. it needs you. go to it now...

for la hudala

2007-02-04T20:15:00.000-08:00

tonight i offer you one hell of a southern lp westcoastin' in style laying down those fat and langorous lines on their guitars, sangin' in espanol, givin' each other funny animal names on the back a their's LPee... poppy and danceable yet undeniably stoned and lascivious. i dig the SWIFT RAIN and their COMIN' DOWN bag. not the most pristein copy ever but its only a little ruff in one or two places, and still gets the job done. from el paso in '69 .... it's RAINin' ....

FOREVER ANGELS PROUD!

2007-02-01T18:31:00.000-08:00

well, requests were in for this one, and its time is prime. pretty much the sickest biker rawk lp in my opinion ... we can pit this against RAVEN for the ages ... and while there are others most are a wee weak in the musically proverbial knees ... blues rawk ... too drunk to sing rawk ... too greased in meth to write songs ... etc. Circuit Rider nails the conceptual and the musical and the RAWK and the dude's got massive tonsils like a Beefheart on skag and waxes oh so poetic on the moon in june and other freakish biker concerns. i hope you enjoy this low rent granddaddy of midnight speed transmissions ... i give you ... CIRCUIT RIDER