Moscow Moscow Moscow "Hammer, Sickles, and Girls"

(Eradicator) I pay tribute to this -- an awesome novelty communism themed tribute to the Mummies drunken tribute to the Wailers! In Russia Tribute pays to you!

The Midwest Beat "Gone Not Lost," "Back to Mono"

(Dusty Medical / Eradicator) Made me move my Midwest feet! This band is getting more charming and enchanting, doing a kinda lo-fi country rock thing, like the Eagles recording for Rip Off Records. If you can listen to the whole LP and not want to be friends with these guys then you are basing all your concepts of friendship on Facebook and not face looks. Boy is this nice stuff!

Tunabunny "Minima Moralia," "(Song For My) Solar Sister" b/w "Airport"

(HHBTM) Like my grandma always said, you can tune a guitar, but you can't Tunabunny. Also, she was wicked into awesome, mournful indie pop. And dementia, but that last one doesn't relate to this single.

Retromania-Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past by Simon Reynold

(Faber and Faber) (GUEST REVIEW by THE RENEGADE TIME LORD [as told to THE SOUL REBEL])

"Be cruel to those who would keep you chained to your past."-Ken Knabb

"The problem isn't an in ability to innovate; it's an incapacity to come up with visionary goals to aim for."-Simon Reynolds

" (The 2000s may be)the first decade of pop music to be remembered by history more for its musical technology rather than the actual music itself." - Pitchfork writer Eric Harvey

"Once you want to place it in a museum,  rock n' roll's over." Steve Jones (Sex Pistols/Professionals guitarist and online dj during an NPR interview).

I'm the first renegade Time Lord  (not all of us are passing off as British "eccentrics"),  drunk on Earth's past and present enlightened troublemakers  (the situationists,  punks,  unruly workers,  Diggers,  radical hackers,  ranters,  pirates,  !Kung!Bushmen,  etc.) and their inspiration and innovation,  to review one of the more provocative tomes of the 21st century. I'm currently 300 years old, and in better shape than the ruling fossils I left behind on Galifrey thank you, and reading Simon Reynold's Retromania brings up nagging questions I've encountered in previous travels to places and times where pop culture flourished: if pop music is all about right now, what happens when the past refuses to go quietly? Is the present, well Earth's present, collapsing into the past and is obsessive nostalgia killing originality and distinctiveness needed for present efforts? Is retromania here to stay or will it too prove to be a historical phase?

I've seen some nasty results from these conundrums before (ex. Sauntarans seizing planets just to raid the rare record collections of intergalactic funkateers). However, I find I'm like many 21st century humans in my capacity to love both the immediate past (and older) and present in terms of pop music. In fact,  I tend to favor say 60s soul or 90s gabber over the majority of 2011 indie rock bands,  most of which are rehashing late 60s to 90s elements (ex. 90s shoe gazing,  80s house,  late 60s "beardism" i.e. noveau hippies doing folk and country, etc.); Reynolds says that it wasn't necessarily the failure of new movements and genres to emerge or the sluggishness of established ones in the 2000s that brought on the current stasis but"the way that recycling and recursion became structural features of the music scene,  substituting novelty (difference from what immediately preceded) for genuine innovation."

Reynolds, music critic and author of invigorating and incisive books such as Rip It Up and Start Again:  Post Punk 1978-1984, Energy Flash:  A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture,  and Bring The Noise: 20 Years of Writing About Rock and Hip Hop is one of the few people questioning the contradictions of hyper digitization and information overload through studying the fun

house mirror reflections of music producers and consumers. Effective criticism involves both the critic's personal feelings and precision surgery that cuts away layers of public emotional defenses that are actually miserable responses to the current organization of life's external misery. One of Reynold's main strengths is this ability to connect his life to the mass effects of high technology and retromania especially in chapters Total Recall:  Music and Memory In The Time of You Tube and Record Collecting and the Twilight of Music As Object.

Before we venture further, some concepts and definitions to note:  A. Where mass culture and personal memory meet is where retro is spawn. B. Retro focuses on stuff that happened in living memory. C. Retro involves an element of exact recall for the precise replication of an old style (ex. the Internet,  photos,  videos,  etc.)rather than marvelous mutated interpretations. D. Retro is strictly about pop culture as opposed to classical culture. E.Retro allows for playfulness with the past as hip material to recombine and recycle; it downplays scholarship and purism for irony and eclecticism.

Reynolds mentions that people he interviewed for this book made itexplicit that they had nothing to do with retro even if they were against all modern pop culture; he found a parallel to their serious commitment vs. trendy ironic retro in recent hipster bashing critiques, meta critiques of hipster bashing, and the journalistic subgenre that asks,  "Whatever happened to innovation?"

Reynolds divides Retromania into Now, Then, and Tomorrow sections. Some of the more absurd moments of the Now section include re-enactments (artists painstakingly re-staging unique musical events such as the Cramps 1978 Napa State Mental Institute concert and Einsturzende Neubauten's 1984 Concerto for Voice and Machinery at the English Institute of Contemporary Art which included attempted drilling through the auditorium floor)and the "museum-ification" of rock's history. The former,  the art world trend of re-enactments,  was an out growth of the tribute band. Neubauten's original concert was also a confrontation with authority literally over low level destruction and violence that resulted from their performance (it is still questionable to whether a band member or audience member attempted drilling)and symbolically as their drilling was to get at subterranean tunnels provided for royalty in case of nuclear attack. Reynold's asks "what does it mean to make that clash happen 'again', this time with the permission of the authority in question?" He concludes that re-enactments are "doomed to be an absurd ghost,  a travesty of the original...yet the reenactment may still have the power to remind the audience that Events (philosopher Alain Badiou's term for dramatic historical breaks such as political revolutions and scientific and cultural breakthroughs that also irrupt newness)are still possible." The museum-ification of rock n' roll history sucks the life out of the music as museums are the final resting place of "objects to which the observer no longer has a vital relationship and which are in the process of dying." Reynolds also wonders, "when Huyssen asks rhetorically, 'Why are we building museums as if there is no tomorrow?, 'if the answer is that we can no longer imagine tomorrow."

The hardest hitting Now sections, the Total Recall and Lost In The Shuffle chapters,  re-examine vices I share with millions of 21st century Earthlings. After saving the universe and cleaning up messes that other Time Lords,  renegades or not,  made,  I end up spending VAST amounts of time in You Tube land and adjunct portals SUCKING IT ALL IN like the bio-cyber jungle plants of  X-003 that live off satellite transmissions and videohydrate a toxic yet sweet smelling atmosphere. Reynold's calculates that since the summer of 2010,  You Tube attracts two billion views per day with every minute another 24 hours of worth of video is uploaded and it would take an individual 1, 700 years to watch all of them! Even a Time Lord would have difficulty enduring that amount of time despite the relative strength of our regenerations. You Tube exists neither as passive diversion nor illicit drug but as a field of practice; You Tube allows remediation, people re-post mass media entertainment and news in excerpted form,  and "post" broadcasting,  leaving behind the dominance of big tv networks and entering consumer driven narrowcasting as well as being post modern (cut and paste collage like expression with citations). You Tube practice,  the time display at the bottom of the You Tube videos allowing you to drag it to jump to the "good parts",  and the sheer tidal wave of up to the minute news and persistent nostalgic junk piles on the Web in general "make us restless,  erodes our ability to focus and be in the moment. We are always interrupting ourselves,  disrupting the flow of experience."

Two noxious effects of rampant digital restoration and redistribution of what once existed in its own specific past zones,  trapped in specific objects,  and locations include loss of "cultural appetite" (ex. stockpiling large volumes of  retro blogs' rare recordings only to find yourself burnt out before consuming half of them taking up lots of space in your computer) and the cultural paradox of simultaneous high tech speed acceleration and standstill or what Reynolds calls hyperstasis- individual and cultural paralysis from too many choices and skipping and skimming.

The Lost In The Shuffle section tackles the impact of mp3s on people, business (especially the Long Tail theory that basically says the Internet makes it easier for cheaper retail operations without the need for space records require and the need to turnover lots of new product for shelf space so they can delve deeper into back catalog products that cost effectively outweigh new releases),  and the act of record collecting. The i-Pod also gets taken apart for its role in shifting music as a social activity to a more private one and ironically as being used more by rock listeners as a classic rock radio station or oldies station that you lug around avoiding radio's surprises, connection with people you might have nothing else in common with,  and strange social alliances.

The Then section encounters five of my favorite loves (I can't speak for my other two regenerations):  60s mod revival, the Northern Soul scene,  70s punk (and reactionary roots),  70s pub rock,  70s 50s rockabilly revivals,  & 70s glam (the "atavistic-futuristic brutalism" that spiritually drew from 50s rock n' roll but was a new sound for the 70s and also the first post modernist rock n' roll moment). He gets SPIRITED interviews from Roctober friends/fave raves Miriam Linna of the The A-Bones and Norton Records,  Tim Warren of Crypt Records,  Billy Childish of The Pop Rivets,  Thee Headcoats, The Milkshakes,  and numerous other bands,  books,  and artwork as well as a co-founder of the Stuckism art movement (read the No Future chapter for more on it),  and the late great Lux Interior of The Cramps. In contrast, the Tomorrow section deals with, among other things,  post and post post modernist  dj oriented subgenres as British Hauntology and mash ups as well as American cousins of sorts the purveyors of what is known simultaneously as chill wave,  glo-fi,  and hypnagogic pop. Hauntology and hypnagogic pop share a common approach for finding strangeness as well as elements discarded by other generations' "hipness" (New Age music and 80s cop show music for example). The clash of views on the immediate past and uses of it shows the nuances and generational differences of how retromania manifests itself; the older rock n' roll devotees refuse to deal with culture after the mid 60s and the younger ones tend to make artier uses of 70s and 80s material.

Of course culture is also political in its functions. After all cultural spectacles,  whether mainstream or co opted from more radical and subversive elements,  can be used to get you to buy all the other spectacles of capitalism (i.e. endless wars,  political campaigns, corporate crime,  national [in]security,  etc.). Yet as I compose this review,  the planet is experiencing an upsurge in collective direct action against aspects of capitalism,  against the rich minority and their schemes of grabbing more money and political power at the expense of human needs and accountability. The #Occupy movement is globally drawing on a wide range of people,  surpassing the 60s US movement,  and its strength comes from grass roots autonomy and direct democracy in general assemblies.

My old friend Sigmund (yes I met the young Freud, he helped me save the world from horny huge space worms trying to mate and colonize,  and our experience drove him to his cocaine habit and some of his famous theories)might say that the two main cultural opposites Reynolds addresses,  the retromania boom and the drive towards uncritical mainstream assimilation of what is popular and "safe" are both driven,  in part, by insecurities with dealing with the present; my other friend Karl,  yes that Marx Brother who was a drinking partner for a week during the Paris Commune,  would say these tendencies are both sides of the same coin of  bourgeois consumerism even though retro is largely amiddle class phenomena and hard mainstream assimilation is largely poor and working class including immigrants and/or ethnic groups historically excluded from big government and business decision making. I say that

while these are bitter truths these drives are subject to the historical moment's global effects. The longer and deeper the #Occupy movement continues the more optimism,  already felt by participants and increasing supporters momentarily outside of it,  will spread due to the power in direct action that contains more potential than the clunky armoring of cynicism and complacency (compare what is happening now with the hopelessness felt last year...this has been a year of awakening for the international proletariat).When optimism shines more the more the confidence and enthusiasm to innovate,  first as a necessity in the streets and then in culture,  become revitalized. The visionary goals Reynolds opines for are being worked out in direct democratic (democracy is direct not the bourgeois/corporate dumbocracy the majority of Earthlings historically tolerate) experiments and "strange alliances" of direct action participants and music producers will continue creating conscious,  confrontational,  and innovative music to make up for a long period of  relative absence in popular culture. Reynold's book , although focused on music,  might ultimately serve its purpose better as a tool examining excess,  limits,  perceptual hierarchies,  high technology,  and consciousness to add to the discussions and debates over what the future can be by making things happen NOW!

Rockpile "Live at Montreux 1980"

(Eagle Rock) (Guest Review by Gentleman John Battles) The short-lived supergroup Rockpile has two kinds of fans. Those who didn't see them live and those who did, and LOVE to bury it in our faces. Around '79-'80 , the group toured the states , often as support for the likes of The Kinks, Blondie and even (Dave Edmunds' labelmates) Bad Company. What's interesting to note is the band began life in 1976, fronted by Edmunds, Nick Lowe, and Billy "I coulda been a Pretendah" Bremner, but weren't allowed, by their respective record labels, to tour as Rockpile. Even when the shackles were broken they often performed as either "Dave Edmunds and Rockpile" or "Nick Lowe and Rockpile." The band still recorded together on Edmunds and Lowe's solo albums without using the name. Their lone LP release in 1980, while good, barely hints at what this band was capable of. An official live release was never available, until now but tapes I've heard , e.g. from The Park West in Chicago (A WXRT Radio broadcast, which I've never heard of them replaying as part of their popular concert series. I know Blues Traveler and Poi Dog Pondering are far more exciting, or could it be the highly combustible Ramones-paced set would alienate listeners today?), and a not quite as wild, but still rockin' on all four cylinders, New York show (with a guest appearance by Keith Richard on "Let it Rock"), only prove one thing. THE BRAGGARTS WEREN'T BRAGGING ENOUGH!! This set, like the others  is dominated by Dave and Nick's personal catalogue, with a few favorite cover songs (including "Let it Rock " and a frantic "Let's Talk About Us"), and only draws from their album "Seconds of Pleasure" on "Teacher , Teacher" (written by Eddie Phillips and The late Kenny Pickett, of Creation fame. In fact, this version is so cranked up really high it gives one an impression of what The Creation could have done with it, themselves). Tight, concise, but with plenty of Pub-Punk Rock agression, Rockpile "Got it" just like The Blasters "Git it." It was Roots music looking forward. Genius songwriting with no delusions of songwriting genius. OK, only two songs written by, and one co-written by Nick Lowe appear here, while Dave Edmunds only co-wrote one, but knowing a great song is a talent unto itself. "So It Goes," " I Knew The Bride," "Girls Talk,"  "They Called it Rock," "Crawling From The Wreckage," "Queen of Hearts" (later a hit for Juice Newton, followed by Peggy Hill), and the aforementioned "Teacher, Teacher" (which the liners inform us got to #51 on the US singles chart, though the only thing resembling a Rockpile jam that I ever heard on the radio was Robert Plant's live version of Elvis Presley's "Little Sister"  backed by Rockpile from The Concerts For The People of Campuchea (sic), which got a little play in 1980) all fit in comfortably with a strong reading of Edmunds' only major U.S. hit (unless that awful "Misinformation" actually charted. It was so bad, I guess it did.), the Smiley Lewis/Fats Domino classic "I Hear You Knockin'." Edmunds took to touring the states again after a buggering long hiatus. He was performing entirely acoustic renditions of his best loved work. I have heard that Rockfield Studios, in Wales, where he recorded and produced profusely in the 70s and 80s, has a volume control that actually surpasses "10." Instead of "11," it says "Dave Edmunds." That probably explains why, barring an electric "Sabre Dance," his last two U.S. tours were acoustic.  In this generation, when EVERYBODY is hitting the reunion trail, this is as close as you're going to get to seeing Rockpile live. Enjoy it. 

The Cynics "Spinning Wheel Motel"

(Guest Review by Gentleman John Battles) (Get Hip) In a recording career that's already passed the 25 year mark, The Cynics tread more familiar ground, the meatgrinder fuzztone Psych/Punk of their most highly acclaimed releases, "Rock'n'Roll,"  "Get Our Way" and "Living is The Best Revenge" to the more acoustic Folk Rock-oriented sounds of their last album. The songwriting skills of singer Mike Kastelic and guitarist Greg Kostelich are are sharp as ever. Mike and Greg are The Cynics. In recent years , they've borrowed from other bands , such as San Antonio's Uglybeats and even Chicago's own Last Vegas to supplement the rhythm section, but now they're a most solid unit, with bassist Angel Kaplan and drummer Pablo Gonzalez. This is easily the strongest lineup since "Get Our Way " 15-plus years ago. Forgive me, Mike Stax, but , the production remains as RAW as ever, possibly moreso.  It goes in different directions that'll satisfy longtime fans , as well as bring in new ones , I'm certain.

Nervebreakers "Girls, Girls, Girls, Girls, Girls" b/w "I'd Much Rather Be With The Boys”

(Get Hip) Guest Review by John Battles) This, the third in a complete set of reissues of the Nervebreakers' three original singles, finds a band on the brink of implosion, with a drastically altered lineup but, still as wild as a tomcat with three balls. In 1981 I was living in Arlingfun, Texas. My brother, Tom was being considered as 2nd guitarist in what would turn out to be the top punk band in Dallas' last lineup (until the classic Nervebreakers five-piece regrouped, in earnest , just a few years ago, after the odd reunion gig in The 90s). He played this record for me, and I was quite impressed. I hadn’t been into Punk Rock for that long, about a year, but I knew piss and vinegar when it hit me in the face. My Brother didn’t end up joining the group, though he did play guitar, later, with 'Breakers vocalist T. Tex Edwards, in The Swingin' Cornflake Killers. The band managed to tour New York and the West Coast around this time, but the end was nigh. "Girls, Girls, Girls, Girls, Girls" kicks off with a raw ramp of a riff, similar to the one that closed out "Capital Radio" by The Clash (two years earlier, The Nervebreakers opened for The Clash in Dallas, and, reportedly, blew them off the stage). From there, it's unbridled teenage lust in a horny, hormonal horror show. DJ George Gimarc accurately drew comparisons with The Troggs, a major influence on the band. Naturally, still being a teenager myself, I thought Edwards was saying "I just can't FUCK myself!" ("Stop myself") and "Leather! Leather! Oh! Oh!" ("Let Me! Let Me! Oh! Oh!"). But the message is clear, without resorting to words like doo doo caca poopoo.  It's remarkable that it took so long for someone to do a rocked-up take of The Stones' obscurity, "I'd Much Rather Be With The Boys", rescued from the abyss by the "Metamorphosis" album (which some people find abysmal.  I, for one, disagree.). Even Johnny Thunders (whom The Nervebreakers met around this time in New York. No, they just had a drink at Max's) did a pretty sedate reading of a song that begged for some fire and fury in the mix.  This version plays the anger and misogyny angle for all it's worth, with basically none of the implied homoerotic tendencies of the original. The band emerges confident and aggressive in what would be it's last ditch coup attempt. But, it wasn’t over. Still isn’t. Five years later, an offshoot band, Same Old Bastards, featuring T. Tex Edwards and guitarist/vocalist, Barry Kooda, was coerced into billing themselves as a Nervebreakers reunion when they opened for Johnny Thunders, who reportedly wasn’t seen doing any street drugs, but asked if there was a store where he could buy some pot. In the 90s they played two songs at The Buddy Magazine Music Award Show, and a full set at The Bronco Bowl, which, with mild irony, The Clash rechristened as a rock venue (after a long dormant spell) in 1982. The more recently-reformed Nervebreakers have gigged sporadically in Dallas and Austin, including a SXSW show at Antone's Records and headlining at the Second Hot Klub Reunion. An album of newly recorded material, "Face Up To Reality" has been awaiting release for a few years. SOMEBODY pick this up. 

Fever Tree "Live 1969"

(Sundazed) (Guest Review by John Battles) Fever Tree is so closely associated with their one hit (which only reached #91 on the charts) "San Francisco Girls (Return of The Native)", that many people think the Houston-based group was actually from Frisco. Even musical encyclopedia Peter Zaremba, from The Fleshtones, once introduced a live version of the song as "San Francisco Girls .....By the Fever Tree, from San Francisco...." But, The Fever Tree never even PLAYED in San Francisco (Bill Graham, perhaps, thought them too "Teenybopper" or something?) though they did make quite a name for themselves on the Sunset Strip. While their dalliances with Classical music in a commercial Psychedelic vein might seem dated today, this, the last performance with original singer, Dennis Keller, is largely a rock album. It was 1969, Psychedelia was going the way of hard rock. The band manages to straddle the line between the two on their only known live recording (which gets a pretty solid 8 out of 10, soundwise). Keller's vocals, considerably more macho and shredded than on their best known recordings, are complemented by the fuzz, wah - wah, sustain and overall crunch of the late Michael Kunst on lead and rhythm guitar. It's not too far removed from the emerging sounds of fellow Texans The Bubble Puppy, or even Iron Butterfly or Steppenwolf. Even the longer songs are tastefully rendered, but, if you're not already a fan, this album may not change your opinion. Like the recent Human Beinz "Live in Japan " set, or the Sundazed live Moby Grape collection, this is a rarity that's become an accessibility. The show was recorded at Mt. Carmel High School in Houston. Can you imagine that?!! But, a lot of established bands played gigs like this for gas, grass or ass money in those days. In Arlington, Texas, where I went to high school, the only bands that played at my alma mater (Looking forward to missing my 30th Reunion) did Journey or Kenny Rogers covers. Their foot-in-ass rendering of Wilson Pickett's "Ninety-Nine and One Half (Won't Do)” (Already an asskicker on it's own, but, it's not too P.C. to like aggressive, hard-hittin' Soul, these days) and a tuff sendup of Donovan's "Hey, Gyp," are standouts in a set that's free of any bum tracks, with "San Francisco Girls" being the real show-stopper, and, for Dennis Keller, it was the song that stopped the show....until a few years ago, anyway, when he put together a new version of the group (the less said about the Fern Bar Jazz Rock late 70s Fever Tree, the better. If you see their live CD, take a pass, and get this, instead) calling it Fever Tree Rising. He's backed by younger, less seasoned musicians, but they seem to know their way around the songs, as does he. I'm not sure if they're still playing, but You Tube springs eternal.    

The Bee Gees "In Our Own Time" DVD

(Eagle Rock)  Guest review by Gary Pig Gold

We recently marked the Fiftieth (!!) Anniversary of the Bee Gees’ career as fully professional all-singing, all-playing musicians, songwriters, and performers.

This coming January 12 marks nine years since self-styled “man in the middle” Maurice Gibb’s tragic passing. And in this here year of 2011, remaining Gibbs Barry and Robin are actually threatening to continue recording, and perhaps even tour the globe, beneath the hitherto-mighty Bee Gee moniker.

This is a proposition I frankly find quite incomprehensible to fathom, let alone purchase three-figure tickets to witness in person. Though with Messrs. Pete and Roger insisting on conducting business both on stage and off as [sic?] “The Who,” I do suppose anything is possible (if not exactly practical and/or ethical).

Nevertheless, I’m far happier to report that 2011 also sees the appearance of a grand new five-decade-plus DVD retrospective on Barry, Robin, Maurice and even Andy Gibb entitled In Our Own Time. And from its very opening ultra-decibel, fire ‘n’ flashpot-festooned montage of “You Should Be Dancing” footage spanning ’76 clear through ’96 – which then cleverly cuts far back to a ’56-vintage Elvis and his similarly dance-crazed “Blue Suede Shoes” – it’s clear this is going to be one of those far too rare roc doc’s which actually has a wise and sharpened sense of socio-historical pop perspective. I mean, who was Tony Manero after all than simply Vince Everett in polyester white as opposed to jailhouse black?

Our ride duly launches out of post-war Manchester, England as Barry, Robin and (via interview footage culled from David Leaf and John Scheinfeld’s equally

adept This Is Where I Came In documentary) Maurice describe years spent as pre-teen Everly wannabe’s who eventually emigrate all the way to Australia, where they form a singing act to perform for spare change at a local race car track. But such is this young trio’s charm and already obvious talent that they soon blossom into bonafide Down-Under Beatles:  the televised performance herein of a circa-’64 Bee Gee “Please Please Me” alone makes In Our Own Time nothing short of Required Viewing. Yet the fully airborne promotional footage we’re treated to next for their first Number One hit, 1966’s still-buoyant “Spicks and Specks,” displays a far more Monkee as opposed to Beatle-like mastery of the lip-sync’d absurd.

Returning to their homeland and soon after magically hooking up with none other than Fab sub-manager Robert Stigwood, a recording contract and string of (self-written and purposefully “melodramatic,” it is revealed) classics appear in typically Sixties warp-speed. Colourful “New York Mining Disaster,” “I Can’t See Nobody,” “To Love Somebody,” “Massachusetts,” “Idea” and “Words” clips follow, and even a glancing view towards each should erase all doubts that The Bee Gees were one of that genius-packed decade’s surely most accomplished by far. Case closed.

Caution: What shoots way, way up must of course fall down. So as Sixties become Seventies our heroes found themselves struggling beneath the weight of red velvet-ensconced rock operas, mutinous solo projects, meddling better halves and even their very own ill-fated television spectacular, Cucumber Castle (which may indeed be much more fun than Magical Mystery Tour, though it’s certainly no Monkees’ Head). Once the audio-visual wreckage cleared however, the brothers found themselves chastened enough to not only fully reform, but come up with two unashamedly allegorical gems, “Lonely Days” and “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart,” which appeared to all concerned to be their career swansongs.

But! We’re less than half-way through our show! And so what exactly did spare The Bee Gees at this critical point from a fate worse than Oldie Goldie residencies near Clacton-on-Sea?

Two words: Arif Mardin.

Luring them to the decidedly more sympathetic climes of Miami’s Criteria Recording Studios, then cleverly steering the brothers towards their previously unexplored r’n’b leanings (via Barry’s falsetto most pointedly), the result was a slow but steady climb both back onto their feet and then extremely high back up the international sales charts. No further explanation is really needed by me here: At least 100 million of you out there bought the ensuing records.

The backlash, of course, was instant and fierce. “Bee Gee-Free Weekends” on radio stations the world over. “Bee Gee Bonfires” of Saturday Night Fever soundtracks in Chicago baseball stadiums.

“The enigma with a stigma,” as Barry still brands The Bee Gees to this very day.

And I’m sure he doesn’t just mean the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band movie either.

Yet for anyone who tuned away from the tale right about here, In Our Own Time continues on through subsequent years of Gibbs stubbornly continuing to craft monster hits …only for other singers (Streisand, Celine, The Divine Miss Ross and Kenny and Dolly, for example:  why, there’s an additional twenty-or-so million in sales right there). Unfortunately, this otherwise platinum period also saw the loss of a severely over-self-medicated Andy Gibb, and the frightful near-exit of a similarly lost “Brother Mo” to boot. Most thankfully indeed though, Maurice eventually bounced completely back to help create what, tragically, would be his final Bee Gee masterpiece, “This Is Where I Came In,” before death on January 12, 2003.

Well, the story perhaps does not end there. One hour and fifty-one minutes into Our Own Time finds a stoic Barry insisting, and I quote, “The legacy of the Bee Gees MUST go on, one way or the other.” Cut to contemporary footage of he and faithful brother Robin, recently reunited before twin microphones in some faux-recording studio setting, crooning “To Love Somebody” and “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart.”

Fade to black. One can only hope.

 

Acid Witch "Stoned"

(www.hellsheadbangers.com) There is nothing as awesome as whimsical Satanism -- which is not to imply that this brutal Detroit stoner metal (with Death-Metal-on-Sedatives tendencies) duo is a joke or a novelty act -- they are the real deal! It's just that songs like "Witchfinder Finder," "Trick or Treat," and "Metal Movie Marijuana Massacre Meltdown" are just too damn joyful to be genuinely scary (even if those songs do include, respectively, rape, child murder, and listening to Fastway). I'm also feeling a contact high due to this amazing record featuring not only the greatest exorcism-themed cover painting ever, and an amazing band photo (of the dudes lighting up with the Acid Witch herself in their dungeon full of Walgreen's Halloween decorations, Eerie comix, vintage metal vinyl, and a VHS copy of Rocktober Blood), but also an actual die-cut, luridly colored Halloween decoration of the Acid Witch taking bong hits! It is hanging in my window right now, making false promises to jonesing teen trick or treaters. Did I fail to mention the music? Slow, evil metal incantations that never sounds like a Sabbath ripoff or those countless Man's Ruin stoner 10" records that you never take out of the sleeve after the first spin. This is fun, weird, heavy, spooky black magic! I declare it Treat!