Timbo's TeeVee Party, 1st Edition

Greetings, Irregulars! I've certainly been feeling irregular this week. Really in a funk more lowdown than a James Brown outtake. Can't figure out why, unless it's just triggered by the allergy attack that's been attacking me this week, as well. But, suffice to say that this week, I can't be satisfied (to get quite Muddy Waters about it). And I can't seem to shake it, despite life being better than I can remember it being in about 3 or 4 years: A job that's working out nicely, my first apartment in Denver (and hopefully, my last), a new laptop, new musical prospects on the horizon, and "RADIO NAPALM" about to be removed from the mothballs. Now if only I could get laid....

*ahem* Moving on from that bit of TMI....

Maybe a little TV watching is in order? First up are two clips I already posted at my Facebook wall. Why not begin with The Avengers? One of my favorite West Coast bands of the late '70s, I've often said these guys and The Weirdos were the cream of the California crop, punk rock-wise. Solid songs, great image and sound, and a really charismatic front-person in Penelope Houston. Here, we catch The Avengers at L.A. punk rock ground zero The Masque, days before they opened for the Sex Pistols' last stand at SF's Winterland, ripping the room apart with their classic "We Are The Ones":

Next, we have that *ahem* master thespian, William Shatner. He's been working on an LP of space-themed heavy metal hits (including, reportedly, Hawkwind's "Silver Machine," with Wayne Kramer on guitar; yes, the sound you just heard was Lemmy's moles falling off his face and running for the hills). And now I shall present a work-in-progress clip of Capt. Kirk attempting Black Sabbath's "Iron Man," made even funnier by the fact that we don't hear the instrumental track being pumped into Bill's headphones!

And just to recover, here's part one of 7 of a documentary easily findable on YouTube on one of my favorite characters from UK punk's classic era, John Cooper Clarke. Looking for all the world like a praying mantis in Bob Dylan's 1966 wardrobe, he was a poet who opened shows for the likes of the Sex Pistols and Buzzcocks, ranting his hilarious and witty verse at a Ramones tempo. At the time of this Channel 4 documentary, "Ten Years In An Open Neck Shirt," Clarke was enjoying some forward momentum with a "ranting poetry" scene he'd clearly inspired, touring rock clubs with skinhead bards who'd clearly heard him like Attila The Stockbroker, as well as with fellow traveller/dub poet Lynton Kwesi Johnston. Start with this, and work your way through all 7 parts at YouTube. It's a fun look at life on the road, and Clarke's poetry is always amusing!

And before I go, I must thank two longtime fixtures of my blog roll for their recent props paid. First to my old pal and colleague Chris Stigliano, both for writing some kind words about A HEARTFUL OF NAPALM and including it in his own blogroll at his fine BLOG TO COMM, an internet continuation of his longtime underground rantzine Black To Comm (where some of my earliest writings were published). Then, not least at all, to Jim Marshall and his always amazing THE HOUND BLOG, where all manner of rock's past glories get re-aired and appreciated. It's good to know scribes I respect are tuning in, and even directing some traffic my way. Bless you both, and thank you.

I must be off. Thanks for tuning in.

Real Life Book Reviews 3: Byron Coley 'C'est La Guerre'

Man o' the hour Byron Coley: He always stays in focus as everyone around him gets blurry.

When word reached me of the publication of Byron Coley's C'est La Guerre: Early Writings 1978-1983 (145 pages, L'Oie de Cravan, Montreal, 2011, French and English, introduction by Mike Watt), I was hoppin' all over this joint like a goddamned chimpanzee on meth-spiked Skittles. Which is a badly Coleyesque way of saying, "I dug the idea immensely."

This is par for the course for me. As a young rock journalist in the '80s, my initial fanzine writings were very much cut-rate Coley, the way 1960s American garage rock was bargain basement Rolling Stones-n-Yardbirds-isms filtered through a heavy hand on the fuzzbox. Coley was very encouraging of me at the time, until my obnoxious pestering ways forced a final "fuck off." Which I needed. I'd have never developed my own voice without this scission.

It was hard not to be under that guy's sway, so strong was his voice and so prominent was his presence in the mid- to late-'80s fanzine (and pro-zine) world. Across his co-editorship of the 'zine of the day, Forced Exposure, and into far-ranging freelancing spread across publications as august as The Village Voice and the inaugural Spin (or even as odd as teen music mag Smash Hits!), Coley displayed uncanny musical taste (the more obscure, the better, in his mind) in a fast-n- flashy style that was equal parts Richard Meltzer's dadaist syntax and grammar games and wiseguy humor, as well as Lester Bangs' keen analytic and contextual mind. And he'd just as likely tell you a tall tale to get you to the truth. (I cherish a memory of a Spin Underground piece introduced with a dialogue between Byron and his dog, where the dog mocked Coley's musical taste as Byron "rubbed warm peanut oil" into the dog's coat, as a way of introducing America to the avant swamp-Stooge-isms of Australia's The Scientists.) Along the way, he introduced many of us young'uns to the joys of Sonic Youth, prime-era SST Records, Einsturzende Neubauten, Australian garage punk, Lydia Lunch, Nick Cave, and The Flesh Eaters. (Truly, no one wrote better about that band or leader Chris D.'s poetic songwriting genius.)

Still, Coley had to journey from somewhere to get there. And that's the subject of this very-limited-edition anthology: Byron's baby steps, journalistically-speaking. Interspersed with hilariously autobiographical correspondence with pal Angela Jaeger, just to give these reprints some personal historical context, are Byron's earliest print forays for New York Rocker, Take It!, LA Reader and LA Weekly. You get a hilarious Devo tour diary from '78, brilliantly insightful criticism of the Minutemen ("Guitar Warrior, Dennis Boon, shakes his (not inconsiderable) booty like a cement mixer full of bowling balls, his guitar spewing gas like a pint-size St. Helens..."), Husker Du, Suicide, The Germs and Lydia Lunch. There's also potent slaughter and butchery of sacred cows ranging from the "definitive" Jim Morrison bio No One Gets Out Of Here Alive ("Anyhoo, if you ever find yourself taking a college course called, 'Jim Morrison: Many of the Facts,' this will probably be the text book...") and David Bowie. In fact, no one wrote (rightly or wrongly) with more venom and bile about Bowie:

If you're gonna be a style proselytizer, wouldn't it be sensible to at least pick/choose a good style to promote? Yeah, it would. But Bowie's so feeble-minded and has so little conviction in his beliefs that he's always prepared to hop on the next bandwagon that promises to have an extensive dress code. You can call that progress and exploration if you will, but I'll call it the vacillation of a man who has no center. Davie's a swirling black hole that you've deigned to place near the center of the musical universe and his voracious appetite's already sucked much light outta the sky. "His master's voice" robbed Iggy of his juice much more efficiently than years of heroin addiction could; Lou Reed's official break with the legacy of the Velvets (Transformer) was so effectively nambified that it's taken him over a decade to even begin shaking off its cutesy-pie dynamics; and what about Hunt Sales?

Wrapped in a block-printed raw cardboard cover and limited to a 750 copy first edition (apparently a second edition is imminent, so huge has been the demand), this is as much a fine art object as a book. This is underlined by the inclusion of some crude Coley drawings, collages, and visual poems. Which likely emphasizes why Byron ultimately limited his pro-'zine presence: He's as much artist and poet as rock critic. He'd probably rather be listening to his extensive jazz record collection than writing about rock bands (although he continues with publications like The Wire and the recently-ceased Arthur, in addition to self-publishing poetry chapbooks, and doing record projects and running a record/bookstore with long-time pal Thurston Moore). Even 30-some-odd years later, this early work shines and thrills, and excellently foreshadows what Byron did in his heyday. You couldn't find a finer read if you tried. Good shit, dad. Good shit....