Sunday, July 30, 2017

"friday morning 21 july 17 sunrise over borin' ass ohio, how to kill a couple hours til Chicago? watch straight outta compton on my direct tv app with headphones on my $90 each way amtrak ride! SO between "rude" lyrics, police hassle and all-around attitude, NWA is "Winner By Elmination" surpassing Gizmos/MC5/GG Allin at their own game - as in "who's mo' punk?". I'm Straight Outta Brockport (NY) but watchin' Easy E at the record pressing plant and then getting discovered by a goniff manager....a common tail, otherwise the beatles would be drivin' lorries and reminiscing about the Cavern! Ice Cube is actually QUITE the lyricist and he tells it EXACTLY how it is re: Compton vs. me re: Brockport. I was hassled by the cops back in '75, weed, long hair (and using Sabbath's Paranoid gatefold cover to roll, man! this was one year pre-Gizmos, two years pre-Rat). So, like they warned GG Allin, "dont sing or say this or that" and then they DID IT ("fuck the police" live in Detroit)....hmmm....nuthin' I, Ken, Straight Outta Brockport, Highland wouldnt do? Fans of gangsta rap: those Rockabilly Yobs, Highland and Flowers, whose only 'hood, as Chris Rock joked, "yo, trailer parks is the 'hood fo' white folks!" and also Lydia Lunch, Sicilian-American family growing up in Rochester NY's 'hood, though she gets the dates of the riots wrong since my cuzzins were livin' there; it was '64, when she sang "light my fire" re: the riots as a young lass, that woulda been equal to Detroit riots '67. (it's in one of her books. Lydia Lunch fan: Metal Mike Saunders lookin' for her stuff at a Newbury Comics in ye Harvard Square, mid-80s, Angry Samoans in town on tour and who's my house guest?)....either way DO watch this movie and let ME say when the Gizmos played Chicago, this BIG bruthas that coulda played for Da Bears LOVED "Amerika first", loved my early '70s guitar playin' and would vote for me AND weed if i ran for president! ok, aint nuthin' change since I were guardin' the NSA in the '70s and to requote Cassius Clay: "aint no brutha ever call me Gizmo!" (MY APOLOGIES to Greg "Iron Hand" Tate for coppin' his writin' style from village voice; he really IS the black Lester Bangs, NWA was the black MC5 and as usual, I. M. Wright!".....

Monday, July 31, 2017

"saturn's day, 29 july 17 most folks wuz down the Midway watchin' the Real Kids but I got a big ole lamb plate from Butterfly in Roxbury (Somali owned!) and sat down for an Ice Cube double feature on BET. ($10 for that direct tv app; even my mama hasnt heard from me and had to call! just a-watchin' the "Mean Screen"!). So I never saw Boys N the Hood, but let me just say it's almost Rebel without a cause! only using automatic weapons to blow away rival gangs (West Side Story only used switchblades!) but premise is the same (or do I still have a contact high from last Gizmos gig?) I AM glad the football player got out of the car before the drive-by since he ended up with a happy life and the gangbangers ended up dead. on a lighter note Lottery Ticket was funnier'n hell, Ice Cube playing an ole boxer in the projects and Bow Wow speak talkin' the church goin' grandma like a re regular eddie haskell. Reading further Cube seems to have quite the acting career besides rapping which I will have once the Gizmos documentary comes out!

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

"sunday 30 july 17 AXS tv, $10 direct tv app, i caught an intimate evening with willie and waylon and also willie live at billy bob's texas. after the chicago Gizmos gig seeing the Rockabilly Yobs as white bearded senior citizens with Southern ancestry, I decided: this is me and Eddie Flowers in years to come! Merle's an Aries and "fightin' side of me" WAS the lyrical inspiration for "amerika first"; PLUS he's had six wives and a bio joked "next tyme you get married, Merle, y'all better GIVE your wife a house!" I even did hard tyme in Indiana for hitchhikin' back in '75! (if I were in NWA, I'd rap about it! Leadbelly was in prison too! I'm merely....BIG belly!). Merle also talked about some "we're gonna rumble" he was almost in: "do i have to tie one hand behind my back and kick yo' ass?". as for Willie/eddie: "Roll me up and smoke me when i die!". as for the Willie Texas show, "we're all like family, we all get along"; quite Gizmoesque! as teens we coulda been the Beach Boys! (more beardage of course; I'm cuzzins to three Wilsons and M.Love!). another good joke; harmonica player sits in, finally "how much we payin' this guy?" "nuthin" "well then double his salary!". lastly "to play with willie (Kenne), you gotta be a fan of the music" and what IS Mel C. (Coffee, not Spice Gurl!), Kelsey Simpson, Sam Murphy? FANS OF THE FUCKEN MUSIC! when i croak, I DO hope the remaining Gizmos "roll me up and smoke me when i die"! one last fact as my dunkin donuts kicks in: willie and Merle, the both, fans of Django Reinhart just like Tony Iommi! playin' more with two fingers than I do with five, that's a damn fact....to cross country with RAP: "I'm proud to be....Straight outta Brockport! Straight Outta Brockport!" a mashup no turntablist could top, yo!"....

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Joe Trippett

monday 31 july 17 was Joe Triplett's birthday, age 72 and the more i read about him the less Hopelessly Obscure (BGN did a young snakes interview) he should be! wikipedia and perfect sounds tell it better'n me; him and drummer bob berberich, the future Mr. martha Hull, were in a band called the Reekers. Joe "Pete Best"ed himself to go to college (ala Kenne Gizmo and Marines!) and same recording, a few different folks, but not Martha's future husband, became the Hangmen, youtube and "what a girl cant do". That IS Joe Triplett singing, admittedly Beatles-esque and early '66 (M. Hull almost my favourite number then) the Hangmen outsold "we can work it out" by some Scouse-speaking blokes whom were covered better by Stevie Wonder. But again, "Hopelessly Obscure 45s", it's the FLIP side i am currently diggin' plus lotsa old soul: "The Girl who faded away" is SO fucken Zombiesque, we have my facebook friend Joe Triplett as Colin Blunstone! (Ken and Gee Julie at Zombies c/o Jimmy Jay WMEX! saw Johnny Rivers too!). Now, 1977 Music to Kill By, Slickee Boys have covered "what a BOY cant do" versus "what a girl cant do" and Joe Triplett now doing John Lincoln wright-type country after leaving a washington DC type grateful dead band. IF I do my turntablin' skills at Vinyl Acres, frederick md., owned by hangmen's drummer and slickee boys singer, I'd mash-up Music to Kill By and the 1977 adelphi Rosslyn mountain boys album! i may also brag that april 2008 I DID jam on "what a boy cant do" with slickee boys martha hull/marshall keith and damn if bob berberich didnt have his original drum intro down exact! (kinda of a "she lied" DC5 intro kinda....hey, I only drummed in O.Rex!). Perfect Sounds article seems like Joe Triplett QUITE a performer but I missed him when stationed in DC coz it was all slickee boys/ramones/real kids, nothin' wrong with that, but i still hadnt gotten into george jones (booze and d-i-v-o-r-c-e then YES!) so I REALLY missed out on some....Slickee Boys level performances! (well I DID see martha Hull but she ALWAYS mention Joe Triplett!)....as usual: "Give my flowers while i'm livin'"-slim and the supreme angels!"....

Thursday, August 3, 2017

as the theme from Midnight Express played as Coast to Coast ended 0500 today, I had cup of coffee #1 (now on my THIRD!!!!!! "Him like Keroauc"!) and caught, HBO, $10 direct tv app, Vigliante Diaries. I remember when Monica Lewinsky was in the white house that videosmith or some such would have $1 rentals (VHS!) as the "Golden Turkey"; thus I turnt onto Jeff Healy live in patrick swayze's roadhouse. well this movie GETS that award also; predicatable dialogue, rouge black-ops agents, half-nekkid wimmen who cant hold a candle to Ursulla Undress (sorry, too much Mad magazine as i kid; shit; shoulda told that to caleb Garcia!) but what makes the movie interesting is....Armenia?! one of the bad guys or they good keeps wondering how the Armenians would feel about whatever; the Godfather with lemejeun? But the rustic scenes, the priest with the incense (same as Greek orthodox), flocks of lambs, ethnic flute music....then they cut to Glasgow Scotland and i hear pipers! and a good/bad guy drinking a big-ass pint, messed with by skinheads who look like inbred Trainspotting rejects, but he kicks ass on THREE of them! well, what better way to watch the sun rise do YOU have, huh? and dont you fucken look at me, you fuck! when i start morphing into Frank Booth, tyme to end this weeks column! "Raymond! candy coloured clown!"".....