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8/1/2016

Monday, July 18, 2016

Kenne
Kenne at Hops n Scotch
Photo: Miss Lyn

"Club Bohemia "summer soiree": club linehan-ago-go opened 9 pm, yardbirds "psych-o-daisies" extended was a good excuse for me to do Pagey's 1968 Live at the anderson theatre via Jim McCarty of Cactus on a Korean Les Paul copy gave me by Patricia Ragan's husband. a "woman of colour" all dressed for church, in red requested from MJ Quirk some "Prince" or "earth wind and fire"; Mike was polite but that IS the upstairs band at the Cantab whom jam SO fucken good! Her husband, also stylin' and profilin' "likes Jimi hendrix", BUT "lady is red" was up and dancin' to "he's waitin'", so,

ida May: JIMI WAS a big Sonics fan

and item B: was it my gospel-inflected Jerry Roslie vocals?

either way, ending with an MC5 cover ALWAYS kicks out the jams, so I put Dusty "Numnuts" Hixx on guitar, I sang, Jody Moore and "lady in red" was onstage doin' the Holy Dance as the "reverend Kenne Highland" belted out a gospel/r7b version of "black to comm". was i George Clinton via the Gizmos with seven people onstage? or was it Sly and the Family Gizmo?

either way, next up was Jody Moore with a crack band, Cal Cali from Jetset ("combination of the two"-Wool covered it for ABC they're from Judd Williams neck of NY!) and speakin' of Cream Ale country: Drew Johnston (fueded with the Maxwells!) Townson, Buffalo Bills fan, was awesome on guitar. what i remember now was a little bluesy lick in "when things go wrong" more piercing on an SG than the Robin Lane original. all kindsa New Wave covers, "Miss Jody Starr" was "resplendant" (is that a word?) in hot pants; perfect attire for said songs! lastly was Hixx unplugged soundin' like Black Oak unplugged on High on the Hog. the Allston Guns drummer, Bob Daley, had a tambourine around his foot and Dusty Numnuts Hixx began playing "mister bojangles", Bob began dancing and Jeddeiah Hixx said "git back to your cage!"; another drummer-wanna-be-frontman and comedian! though sparse, a good tyme had by all and the bands all went to I-HOP; I bowed out to do something different; falling asleep in kitchen chair listening to COAST TO COAST AM! (gotta check my APP to see what i missed....ALWAYS plug COAST TO COAST facebook page! which has more fans than I shall EVER have!)"...

"met Miss Lyn at 'ops and scotch inman square, Sox beat Yankees 5-2, then we pub crawled to the Rising (weren't we just there 4 July?) when the MTA "took me back 'ome", WRKO had their oldies show on and "sgt pepper"/"little help from Joe Cocker" IN MONO was a treat...

Sunday morning radio: Skippy White saying business is slow at the record shop, send money but dig THIS gospel toon: a man owned a buncha businesses, lotta money was gonna jump out the window, saw a "raggedly-lookin' man eatin' out the garbage can, all dirty" ;rich man says to homeless person; "why you so happy?"; homeless person: "because I got Jesus!" so next tyme you see me lookin' all raggedly BUT smilin', it's a cross of "I got Jesus!" and canned heat's 'down in the gutter but free". the roots-rock don't stop and I DAMN sure woulda won trivia on it: Bob Bittner's country memories, send money to WJIB also! hearing Hank Williams do "mind your own business" in mono; "if me and my wife fightin' baby that's our right/coz me and that sweet woman got a license to fight"...THE FUCKEN HILLBILLY SHAKESPEARE, next fucken trivia question eh?!?!?!? EVERY VERSE OF THIS SONG BRILLIANT! just as is 1961 Gladys knight "every beat of my heart""....

"DO catch the Jackie Chan Real Weird Brattle that they have Saturday night, sunday noon; trailers look good. Harvard coop has John Popper bio Suck & Blow, blues traveler dude; he was 400 pounds before gastric bypass! but for a guy born in 1967, he liked all the good hippie music, hey...favourite harp record was paul butterfield live, so that DOES impress me, even if he kinda never heard of punk rock (or dieting, though I should talk!) ok, brattle double feature, angela weirdo at door, 230 pm til 8 pm and I "wanna take the sun and blot it out of the sky" (or at least it, Lou reed, "cool it down")...there was, in both films, a lady who could kung fu AND do sword play even if you could see the guy wires. both films quite camp but "winner by elimination" was second film. 1457 china, a eunuch has taken over (his dye blonde hair very valley of dolls), everyone looks like Kim Kane of slickee boys, lotsa badass swordplay/kung fu (that lady kicked five guys ass at once!)...need to research more but Brattle got it goin' on, get a membership, beat the heat, enjoy the summer!"...

"alan Vega, RIP. I had a pen pal in Manhattan back in '73, Lillian Roxon was her mentor, used to tell me how "terrible" they were (she also wrote it in ink with a pen and I replied in quill by candlelight; long time gone!) MAYBE about this tyme my homegurl LYDIA ANN KOCH ran away from Rochester to NYC and I believe Alan took her in! Miriam Linna also writin' (she was L. Lunch's roommate! yikes! that's like living with Kenne Highland!). so Miriam saw Suicide, she's fresh out of Ohio, early '77, by end of year they're signed to Red Star; i still dig the "sister ray" of "Frankie teardrop".

lastly 30 sept 15, lilypad The Korps told Grex Suicide opened for ramones/runaways in jersey (? january '78); Suicide got BOOED and WOUDNT LEAVE THE STAGE! as the Ulster Scots say "No Surrender" and alan vega died age 78! what a book shoulda been wrote!".. (You can check out a GREAT selection of Alan Vega books here!!)

Alan Vega
Alan Vega at 77

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Billy Name
Billy Name

"Now a lotta folks git upset coz the baby Boomers have outlived their shelf life but if there werent so many post-WWII babies bein' born, these senior citizens wouldnt be a-goin' on to Glo-ree, as the reverend Kenne Highland say. anyway latest is Billy Name, RIP, i know Jim Condon, RIP usedta mention him, Jim being an avid follower of all things Warhol. Besides the republican convention, two of my fellow rockers DID mention Mister Name, they being Jayne Rogers (County) and Michael Layne Heath aka MIKE LIVEWIRE (as "underated guitarist" Ken Kaiser should know). Since Amerikkka is going through a 1968 rerun at present moment, Mr. Name left at the right tyme! world goin' to hell in a handbasket, just let me headline Rat Beach party saturday 1 october, then if it blows up, I'll be 60 1/2 like my Detroit grandmother (who was also my seventh cousin; to paraphrase the Flaming Groovies: "gonna make my seventh cousin my sixth bride!" 'course i caint die yet, i still got four more marriages to go to equal 'en-eree....'ENER-REE! new years eve '77, cantone's was packed, heard "do the boob" but went back to 85 (Ted) Turner (or ike and tina) road, holliston and played my 'erman 'ermit 45 of "got a feelin'"-James Patrick Page on fuzz guitar! ace frehely cant hold a candle to him or jeff beck; gulcher with Kiss interview late '75, Kiss alive tour, TR Niemiec saw them in indiana and in Rochester: 16 year old Lydia Ann Koch! (Lunch!) RIP billy name, how come me and lydia lunch are still living?".

"merle colby allin junior has THE best kevin allin memorabilia, which he should since it's his brother. 6 october newspaper clipping, kevin allin to be married in saint johnsbury vermont catholic church. "Rack My Mind" (third yardbirds album) and "underated guitarist" Ken Kaiser and i debuted as the Heroes tuesday 9 sept 80 (met soundman Mark Davis! a very underrated soundman! underrated is word of the day!). Saturday 13 sept 80, Heroes played with the Runes and 007 at boston college. i believe we played the underground with a rhode island power-pop band right around the tyme GG got married. but november '80 is the BEST: Runes were playing Cantone's when Reagan got elected and later that month: the Heroes (Highland/Kaiser) and the DARK!!! lemme check BGN club dates, which is brilliant; figured out i met erik lindgren one night, THEN Sting, all as 175 pound L/Cpl KE Highland USMC on 30 days leave!"...

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

was cruisin' about on youtube for BELFAST COMEDY (dad's stepfather was from belfast) and found Foreign Bodies. 1987, a comedy set during "the troubles", two catholic nurses from dublin come north t' bel-fist and one falls in love with a Prddy mechanic. research says one of the nurses, Hilary Reynolds was in EDUCATING RITA; was this a Miss Lyn film? byproduct would equal me; why? (it all goes back to ME, lads!): ma's great-great-grandmother was a devout catholic born on boat coming over from scotland; dad's great-great-grandfather was a Methodist from county Tyrone, ulster (where Miss Lyn's Maxwells hail from). or the other humorous portion and i had it on a clancy record: "i'm the biggest mix-up you ever see/me father he was orange, me mother, she was green". one funny youtube segment is when they cross into ulster and start waving the Union Jack, beforehand: "bluidy put thet thing bock in the cair!" I Laffed Out Loud, my grandfather McCutcheon's accent still there AND you can even hear it in '60s Van Morrison interviews; in fact Van's father woulda been in Detroit same tyme as my grandpa, only Van's dad collected r&b records and a fella name John Lee Hooker was recording then..a little song called "baby please dont go"? to "wrap it up" like sam and dave, nuthin' beats youtube on the i-phone Five (I could even watch the Count V or MC5!) and i don' 'ave t' pay fer a bloody telly! (the scots-irish being notoriously "pocky" (keepin' mooney in their pockets) coz they came from scootland, thinn ulster, thinn Appalachia, the "Alternative Ulster"! (WMBR trivia question: take THAT Rex Reverb!"....

"so oi'm lissenin' t' BBC radio ulster, th' steve macauley show; dinner at 5 pm but it's 10 pm there; so pushing 11 pm our tyme, final track led off with "we lost alan vega this week, this song covered by Springsteen, but nothing beats the original, blew me away first tyme";we're talkin' bluidy TRIBUTE!!! so "dream baby dream" on th' fookin' BBC in Van Morrison's hometown roit fookin' NOW, Alan Vega, truly restin' in peace, glad he WOULDNT leave the stage January '78 as the Korps watched in Joisey"....

Thursday, July 21, 2016

with my I-phone 5/MC5 and youtube, google Belfast comedy and you get: OUR JIMMY, who has a Wikipedia page. James Young born Belfast 1918, dad's stepfather left for Detroit 1920, but maybe Van Morrison watched him (why! i'll ask him when I do the Van the Man BGN interview with his monsymbolic answers just like me Ulster granddad!). What is mostly funny is when Our Jimmy dresses in drag and favours Jayne Rogers (County), whom had me work on her family tree (lostsa scots-irish, so no DNA test here!), results which I mailed to Angie Bowie, another facebook friend. or as Blowfish said back in 1978: "oh yeah ANOTHER close personal friend of yours". so google-ate these and if ye kin dissect the ox-cent, gud luck t' ye, yill larf out loud! (and nae be prood)"...

Friday, July 22, 2016

"ok using my tune in app on I-phone five/MC5, BBC radio ulster, i awaken to them simulcasting CNN and Trump speech and in my daze I swore I heard the crowd (yes, I DID date somebody there who this year met both the Gizmos AND Trump?!?!?!?!) the crowd started chanting "amerika first" and it sounded like a bluidy Nuremberg rally! "I DONT know how things can get any worse" so it being 11 pm, tuned into danny stiles (RIP) on WRCA (Mass. ave.!) in mono, man and let's hear some world war II music! Now I KNOW my radios are talking to me, in a Roky Erikson style, coz Danny played a 1941 air check by Kay Kyser! and his singer were the Kollege Kittens! so, before club linehan-a-go-go plays Ribageddon (Kenne on MTA= they're busing a white guy into Southie!!!), let's list all the gigs I have with K. Kaiser, celebrating THIRTY-NINE years of mental torture:

Saturday 13 august 16, midway, frank rowe's 65th; Saturday 27 aug 16 hotel Vernon, worcester, mass. Saturday 23 sept that bowling alley in Portland and Saturday 1 October, hull, rat beach party. never thought I'd live that long to see any of this and if world war III breaks out...well, at least we'll have gud Music to Fiddle By, as Rome Burns. (Jim Rome IS an incendiary sports announcer and rumour has it, Nero played bagpipes)."....

"this just in from house of guitars! besides having live bands there every Saturday, GENE CORNISH of the young rascals wrote "see you thanksgiving"; reply: "we cant wait Gene"...Gene though born Ottawa Canada DOES have Rochester roots, i think the boyhood home was north east of Lydia Lunch, but south of wendy o. Williams. he even lived east of the Genesee river when Kim Gordon's dad taught at U of R! I shant get onto a Rochester ramble, but Gene Cornish IS on facebook, though TOO many friends and rightly so, so I'm merely "following" him...shit, the sound of that Gretsch on "love is a beautiful thang"...RAVE ON!!! ROCK ON!!! quit lissenin' to the primary, I had my head in the speakers at 8452 ridge road, brockport in both '68 and '72 during Richard Nixon (whom has the same Pennsylvania Deutsch ancestor as Alice Cooper, thus making them CUZZINS!)...as they said in mr. Harold Madison jr.'s obit: "he tuned in, turned on, dropped....and stayed that way"! when I was hangin' out in front of Macy's liquor with Mr. Butch and Rafe from Blackjacks, was Ronald Reagon on OUR minds? Butch and me diggin' some Bunratty's band playing Mountain's "never in my life" back in '81!"...

check this BBC ulster three-fer! "you really got me" (the bluidy Kinks!) "tainted love" (soft cell) and "we got a request for a gud guitarist...Hank Marvin...'ere's the SHADOWS with..."Apache"!!! soundin' REAL good!"....

Monday, July 25, 2016

Rib-a-ged-don. this is Southie deadhead friends of Mike Quirk having a Memphis-style rib fest, so that's CARNIVEROUS DEADHEADS IN SOUTHIE directed by Highland Gordon Lewis, coming to the mendon drive-in near you. the first fella that went on "in your own backyard" (Mott the hoople covers DION!) was solo/unplugged and DID play "roundabout" just like Steve Howe or as the late great Solomon Gruberger would say "note for note". next up was a two-man band; feller sittin' playing open tune guitar, slide, harmonica in rack AND drum (did Slim Harpo do this?) plus a bassist replete with Dead t-shirt that coulda been ein Phil Lesch doppelganger (though I DID read the Phil Lesh bio, quincy library and when the Dead were in Deutschland, i believe HE saw HIS doppelganger...hmmm, i'm part Kraut, i DO need to research this!) a lot of the chess blues were c/o the first five (my favourite) Stones albums so these guys won points with me, but fucken "hustled down in texas" off of SECOND WINTER? HOPELESSLY obscure! this woodstockian bbq (if this were beyond our control '73, i'd say there were "good vibes" and folks "rappin'" about John Mayer and the Dead) did indeed get RAIN, so moving equipment inside, MJ Quirk and I had a "sing-song" (to quote Mick Box of URIAH HEEP when I saw them at BB King's NYC last year). THIS was like a Highand Somerville living room party jam ca. 1995 only sober. folks walkin' in: "who's playing the Monkees"? (where was Jody Moore?); shit, i even figgered out "sundown" by Gordon Lightfoot; 1974 hangin' with the "winner by elimination" and her sister and her boyfriend we all was listening to fucken Gordon Lightfoot, her sis sang along, then guzzled Genesee Cream Ale out of a quart bottle....and you wonder why I moved to Bloomington...besides "winner by elimination" didn't like Kick out the Jams; that's it!! grounds for fucken divorce!

I went outside to grab another O'Doul's and it had cleared and host Robbie Lynch was solo acoustic doing "mama tried"; i know it by merle, but yes I DO like those Dead country albums... club linehan rhythm section of Kev Linehan and "The Mighty" Quinn (no relation to bluesman Mighty Joe Young) said this was a FIRST where there were TWO stages of live music going (backyard and living room) but my life IS an elvis movie: just throw an in or out of tune guitar and "that's alright mama" done by request! saxist/photographer/party animal John Keegan decided to go to the Willie gig on north shore but my leg was swelling up so I laid down for some WRKO oldies...in the end: HELL YEAH I HAD FUN so I would surely go again! plus this morn got friends requests from folks from the party! as bob the bear Highland, canned Highland sang "it's the same all over/good people everywhere you go"! and it WAS "a lovely evening for a boogie""....

Deneunve
Deneunve with Gorilla

"Sunday 24 june 16 was the last day of French film festival at MFA, so, since John Powhida now has TWO kids, I saw TWO movies ($9 per, members discount!). The Brand New Testament is "surreal" like all Flemish films (cf. "Manequin Pis") and a 10 year old girl lives locked up in Brussels with her angry Old Testament GOD father figure, Jesus on a cross "brother" and quiet, suffering earth "Mother". escaping through a laundry machine going down an Alice in Wonderland-type tunnel, she lands in Brussels and decides to gain six apostles so it would be "18, like a baseball team". a homeless guy becomes scribe coz they're writing a Brand New Testament and besides catching this and reading Wikipedia, the most bizzare/surreal part is Catherine Deneuve as a lonely ole rich lady; everyone knows EXACTLY what day they gonna die, so Catherine leaves her husband for a GORILLA ("because everyone has inner music and yours is...circus music!"). there's a still where Deneueve's husband finds her in bed with gorilla, so maybe even I might have a chance!".....

Our Women
Our Women

"Our Women, another French farce (imagine that!) has "three amigos" that are inseparable but for their card game, one is late coz he killed his wife (not giving away more bizarre ending). to quote John J. Pusateri, everyone is being "expressively Mediteranean"; i.e. screaming match and then "would you like coffee?"; "oui"...le Taz!!!! ok, let's make it ROCK: one guy is a MAJOR record collector BIGGER'N Eric Law where he can open the door to another room with his rack of albums which he DUSTS on a ladder (this actor kinda favours Pierre le Coutre, known to pose with Hello World in Deutschland!). the Gerard Depardieu looking guy yells at his record collecting friend: "you only like dead singers!" (but with a dave Brubeck/kay starr and more soundtrack am I complaining?). finally just to de-tazzify the situation, the collector says: "but I do like rap!"; has ONE rap cd hidden at CEILING HEIGHT of his collection and seeing a 50-something year old French doctor "bustin' a move" is, as they say, a riot. regret I missed the other French films but between work and le musique...c'est la vie!"...

 

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

"surfin' on youtube on the ole I-phone five (I actually still haven't listened to the MC5 on I-phone 5 but chocolate watchband in mono, man, this morn on that lil speaker is da bomb, yo!) found THE BLACK BRIGADE also carter's army. it was abc movie of the week 27 jan 70; ma had gave me abbey road a month previous, Boxing Day, it was, lil Lydia Ann Koch was only ten, probably a Jackson five fan as she referenced Motown in her Lydia lunch "race riots" essay....aaron spelling, king of schlock and this is a blackplotation dirty HALF dozen with bridge over river kwai tossed in. an Rhett Butler-type officer from "Jaw-ja" name CARTER has to take a segregated black company through Germany 1944 to avoid a bridge being blown up by the Krauts. for those not knowing their history, blacks in WWII only were in "service battalions" (building latrines etc.) NO COMBAT. 3 years with NO combat. Now they get to prove themselves (shades of GLORY, civil war!) but look at this cast: rosey grier, billy dee Williams and...RICHARD PRYOR!!! Richard pryor, borderline coward/deserter, is a HERO ("just for one day") after a pep talk from Rosey Grier! well worth watching on youtube if it's 95 degrees and you have 90 minutes to kill in the cool of the evening (versus Bowie's "Heat of the Morning"! a reference so obscure even I don't know why I said it!)"....

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

outside of labour Day (going to Newport, yesssss.....), I have a gig EVERY weekend til 1 October. so: Saturday 6 august: geezer's cookout club linehan-a-go-go. 13 august-frank rowe's birthday midway hopelessly obscure. THIS JUST IN: Friday 19 august: hopelessly obscure, TSUNAMI OF SOUND and TOKYKO TRAMPS at Sally O'Brien's! 27 august-hopelessly obscure club Vernon Worcester. Saturday 17 sept: Gizmos Bloomington, PLEASE do go fund me it was $298 for Amtrak ticket, oy! 24 sept, the bowling alley in maine and 1 October, rat beach party, club linehan-a-go-go at noon, the Count at 6, headliner is Moose and mudbugs, then hopelessly obscure, the MC-2 Highland and John Keegan are REALLY gonna roast Moose Mudbug; sample joke: "Moose, you drove all the way down from Lynn to play for FREE?!? WHAT KIND OF A SCHMUCK PLAYS WITHOUT GETTING GELDT?" "I'm being followed by a Gruberger, gruberger, gruberger"...and wait'll Ken Kaiser hears HIS introduction"... "notice on my wall from Doug Geer, guitarist in THE PERFORMERS whom hopelessly obscure play with in Worcester 27 august; he also born in Brockport NY and a Buffalo Bills fan (I know his cousins);NO reference here to Lydia Ann Koch but Gregory Prevost DID recently say "with all this fuss about what bathroom to use, i wonder if the Bills will ever be a good team again!" anyway, on my wall, Doug has a post that GENESEE CREAM ALE sales at Ralph's diner has swooned (like, to the moon?) and his Cream Ale quip: "must be the Brockport conection between Kenne Highland and the Performers""......

Thursday, July 28, 2016

"let me say my PAPER copy of VULCHUR arrived from folks in Indiana whom I have done Gizmo VINYL with and my hype is: "best rock mag out of the Midwest since Creem or Gulcher!" and always remember, if a Gizmos e.p. hadn't gone from PO Box 635, bloomington, indiana 47401 to Boston Groupie News PO Box 450, cambridge mass. 02138, i wouldn't be here in Boston, lovin' that "Dirty Water" (a 45 I bought in Dee-troit in '73!) "I AM in love with Ken Highland and think he's beautiful";I'm also in love with the Modern World....route 128 when it's late at night! I LIKE TO PLAY "ROADRUNNER"....radio Ulster on! I got the BBC....too much Koffee for Kenne!!!!!".....

Friday, July 29, 2016

"I COULD almost write an essay for Vulchur (coz Lydia LUNCH says "don't read facebook quotes! write an essay!" an intellectual from Rochester; dang!) on tuning into the BBC with my tune-in app on the I-phone five but THAT is for the Kim Kommando show (Saturday mornings WRKO after COAST TO COAST AM, which has been brilliant all year; I have a gig with Ken Kaiser almost every week as the Hopelessly Obscure and I KNOW der poltergeist ist JIM CONDON (RIP))....ok, so me final joke o' the week: Australian broadcast company, ok, we got a bluidy ABC also...BUT there IS RADIO TAZMANIA!!!!! though it's all moderated BBC news tones like if you listened to WBUR FM the same tyme as coast to coast; i discovered Coast to Coast, havent listened to BBC in a fortnight, sorry, mate)...they DID play "Born to run" whch sounded glorious on a mono phone speaker, BUT a good cartoon is the Tazmanian Devil takes over Radio Tazmania and all you hear is: "rizzza razza spazza razza!!!!" I would sit there eating my carrot with Stewie Kaiser and go "gee, Doc, what's 'e sayin'?""....

Taz

 


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