All reviews by douglas
Ashcroft & Bacon / Truth (Volume One)I’ve never heard this gospel record by our former Attorney General, but I’m pretty sure it stinks.
Bobb Trimble / Iron Curtain InnocenceIf you were in punked out Wormtown (aka Worcester, MA) in the early 80s you might have known Bobb Trimble as the out of touch Monkees / Cheap Trick / Elvis Costello / and BEATLES fan who also enjoyed the Three Stooges and The Wizard of Oz, who made strange, haunted music that had almost […]
El Rodeo / USC 1970-71 Audio YearbookHere’s a cool record. Side one consists of an audio collage covering a year in the life at the University of Southern California. Some of it is predictable — marching bands, football games, stuff like that. But then you’ve got clashes between student protesters and administrators, a glee club type song (”we will have these […]
Inside SINA, the Society for Indecency to Naked AnimalsThis is easily the funniest and most inventive non-standup comedy LP I’ve ever heard. It’s a one-joke record, but what a joke and what a execution. It never gets old. The basic idea is that all animals […]
J.G. Weir / Exploration OneThis is a one-sided guitar drone record from Orange County, 1998. I picked it up from a dollar bin because it was limited to 250 copies and I thought “what the hey.”
Listening to this excellent slice of reverb zen, which I can only liken to a redux of Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music one would […]
Norman Ezell / Resurrection DayEasily one of the greatest record covers of all time, making use of a painting called ‘Rapture’ by Charles Anderson. I also found a different shitty gospel record using the full, uncropped artwork on the cover. Just off to the left of the picture you see here? A 747 smashing into a skyscraper.
Patrick Haggerty and Eve / Lavender CountryDescribed somewhere on the internet as “the first gay album,” which is of course nonsense (this was 1973), this is nonetheless a milestone and beat Peter Gruzden’s The Unicorn for the title of first topically gay private […]
Paul Ott / A Message to Mankind“Paul Ott Carruth has captured the sheer music of nature in a blend of song and sound with the simplicity of a single guitar, a soft voice and natural sounds heard only in the great outdoors.” (liner notes, A Message to Mankind, circa 1972)
“To thousands of wildlife conservationists in all fifty states, the name Paul […]
Ron McFarlin / self-titled 3rd LPAny discussion of Hollywood-based country rocker Ron McFarlin by a snotty record collector like myself will get around to Kenneth Higney comparisons pretty quickly. Same burnt, boozy sound; same peculiar sense of rhythm; similar downer lyrics that don’t always make sense; hell, they even look alike. Well, there’s only one Higney, but I like Ron […]
Starfire / StarfireI found an original copy of this rare prog rock item in a Los Angeles thrift shop. It was thrashed but I could tell it was rare so I said what the hey and bought it. Later I got $150 for it despite its G/VG condition.
The Hellers / Creative FreakoutThe best thing about this record is the packaging. I don’t just mean its physical packaging, a 10″ record in a paper sleeve that fits into a larger cardboard folder, but its trappings as a collectable record. Promotional only industrial item? √ Command Records “psych” connection? √ Wiggy weird 60s spoken word pop culture kitsch? […]
The Slits / American Radio InterviewThe Slits’ brief catalog is full of oddities bookmarked by two full-length LPs, their acknowledged dub/punk classic Cut and the misunderstood and very underrated Return of the Giant Slits. (If you have not yet done so, get these albums now.)
This 1981 7″ came packaged with the (Europe only?) Return LP, and it’s a perverse piece […]