Somehow the promise of some sort of mechanical redemption, untapped technological magic, is hidden in the bowels of a junkheap. I really liked these little 360-degree views of Apex’s store and yard treasures. Drag your pointer over the window in any direction for some fun.

It’s always been a mental struggle to part with ex-devices. If I was to allow the psychosis to roam wild, my apartment would look just like that.

Devo – “Timing X”

Century-old cemetery, Sonora, CA, December 2009. Photo by Rick S. Hall.

The Walker Brothers – “No Regrets”

Well. Okay.

This transparent sham comes at a convenient time, anyway, since I have extra time on my hands. Enough to slavishly roll onto my back for a virtual tummy rub. And enough to fulfill the requirements of the One Lovely Blog Rules Committee (also known as the Council of Nine), which is to pass the “award” along to 15 deserving blogs which as far as I know have not yet received it. Yes, that’s right – this is one huge, exponentially-growing pyramid scam that can end only after every blog on the Web has got the same award… or, the people at the top start receiving kickbacks, Herbalife™ style. I really hope it’s the latter.

Some of these folks are my friends; some have not updated in a while. All these sites are worth the most sparkly, blinky, kitchy animated gif that a person can bestow:

Unremitting Failure

American National Standard

Monstruos Calientes

Like…Dreamsville

Everything Is Terrible

Eccentric Cinema

I Love Hot Dogs

Celluloid Slammer

27b/6

Ephemeral New York

Obsessive-Repulsive

Hoopty Rides

Squirm

Why Don’t You Kill Yourself?

Three Frames

This list purposely left out strict music/mp3 blogs (sorry, Killed By Death Records) or political blogs (else The Agitator would surely be gettin’ some too). Tried to stick to humor and/or general movie/art/sleazy interest blogs. Now it’s time for our Lovely new winners to pass on the confusing good vibes to their own 15 favorite nominees – the sooner for me to start raking in that cash!

If you are looking for more good time websites, we have finally cleaned up the sidebar at the right, where you can enjoy perma-links that actually work for a change.

Sonic’s Rendezvous Band – “Electrophonic Tonic”

Instead of that, let’s hear “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” from Roberta’s exquisite First Take debut LP.

If you ask me, this song was the blueprint for Angelo Badalamenti for his synth-weirded “Mysteries of Love” in the movie Blue Velvet, sung by Julee Cruise and a military-grade reverb generator. This fact is at least as obvious to me as the classic “My Sweet Lord” kerfluffle. But one can’t blame the guy. Both are beautiful in their own way. Listen and see.

Roberta Flack – “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”

Angelo Badalamenti – “Mysteries of Love”

Clearly we’ve come a long way since the ED-209 enforcement droid. One day soon, I expect that this site will be written in its entirety by the Boston Dynamics Big Dog or one of his mechanized cohorts. Kudos to the humans who are making this happen.

VOM - “Too Animalistic”

Recently, Michael “Mickey Crash” Oakleaf was kind enough to write. He was the drummer on the infamous The Nothing 45 which was reviewed here a couple of years back. The Nothing is one of those bands that’s been a big mystery to many learned scholars of early New York punk rock. As I mentioned in the old post, singer Trixz Sly had a tiny background role in the movie Driller Killer, their only record is impossibly rare (though it has been reissued on compilations, most notably the Killed By Death series)... and that’s about all the direct info I could find at the time. Let’s get the real scoop from Mickey Crash hisself:

“I was in touch with Trixz up until a few years ago when he passed away in Miami, Florida. I’m happy that people like the record after all these years. At the time it was made, we had a very hard time and ended up giving most of the 45s away to fans, etc. We were banned from Max’s and The Mudd Club. Most people thought Trixz was a troublemaker and no record companies were interested.

“There’s a video on YouTube of the band’s second incarnation (after Angel left to join the Rockats) playing at The Showplace in Dover NJ in early 1980… The keyboards were by Webster Smith (Rex Smith’s brother). He joined along with Phil after Angel left in February 1980. Eddie Spit (Fields) replaced Angel on guitar.” ...

... “The bass player, Phil Shoenfeldt, and I left to join Disturbed Furniture a few months after the video was shot by Al Zero. Bobby B. Wild (guitar) left in August of ‘79 shortly after the single was made.

“The record was recorded at Bernard Fox Studios in NYC by an engineer named George(?). An intern there named Judy DiBerardino adopted the band to record for her senior high school project. It was recorded in one afternoon, in July or August of 1979, and mixed a few days later by George and Trixz. The crazy tambourine part was overdubbed by Trixz, and the rest of the band wasn’t happy about it. I remember when we were recording that George used every pad available to cut down the hot mic levels, but all the meters were still pinned. He gave up and rolled the tape despite the distortion.

“I went on to a career in audio, and currently manage Kampo Cultural Center which has several recording studios and an art gallery/performance space not far from where CBGB used to be. Before that I worked at Sony Studios. I’ve played in many other NYC bands and still play drums (most recently with Brett Smiley)... Angel and I have been talking about putting out a CD of the remastered 45 plus some unreleased tracks. With any luck it might happen before we kick the bucket too.”

The video (above) suffers a bit from poor technical fidelity (probably in part due to loud-as-fuckness), but to Nothing fans, it’s certainly worth seeing, for context and for some unheard tunes!

A very sincere thank you to Mick for taking the time to set the record (ahem) straight on this amazing artifact.

And here’s the music again, for a brief time…

The Nothing – Scream ‘n’ Cry

The Nothing – Uniformz

This blog (if you can still call it that after five months) is no stranger to Japanese TV and movie themes, and, well, I did promise, oh, let’s see… five goddamn months ago… to post up some of these 7-inch records I purchased abroad, so let’s pretend this is the first in a series.

Jinzoo Ningen Kikaidaa was based on a comic book, and it falls squarely in the Tokusatsu category of action TV shows – or, if you prefer English, “nerds in funny costumes.” Jiro is a young guitar-playin’ man driving a sidecar-equipped motorcycle, who is, in reality, a crazy-looking robot android, Kikaida. With a bizarre half-semi-translucent head with pupil-less baby-doll eyes, rocket feet and super-strength, he battles the varied creatures/robots of the Dark Destruction Corps using space age weaponry and fancy karate techniques. If I was ten years old, I’d be all over that shit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stuart has an information-rich webpage devoted to the Jinzoo Ningen Kikaidaa television series. Unfortunately, it’s one of those sites where an mp3 suddenly starts playing really loud, and you have to make a split-second choice: do I scroll down in a panic while the page is loading and try to locate the player and hit PAUSE, or hit the Back button and hope my browser doesn’t trip over itself and freeze for the duration of the song? It’s nervewracking, that’s what it is. Be reassured that Toestubber Dot Com will never do that to you. On the plus side, after you silence his HTML, Stuart will tell you much more than you thought you ever wanted to know about our mechanical hero, even providing these hilarious drawings Stuart made when he was a young fan!

If you find you’re hooked, the DVD box set is for sale from this otaku store.

A very enterprising former kid (“Inframan”) translated the mighty words to Yuuki Hide’s rendition of the title theme song:

The guitared Jiro, our hero
He’s a gentle and strong robot
Battling with evil once again today
With a guitar punch, strikes them down
Finish off the Dark Robots

Kikaida is an android
Like a jet, he flies in the air
The sure-death move is the Giant Swing
With the Double Chop he smashes
Finish off the Dark Robots

‘Nuff said.

On Stuart’s tribute page, the aforementioned translator delivers an amazing list of Kikaidaa episode titles that sound like a cross between a Chinese seafood menu and sci-fi hentai schoolgirl porn: “Making Babies Cry Red Devil Tigerfish,” “Sponge Green Lives Thrice,” “Blue Electric Eel The Evil Hands Glisten!” and “Madder Red Squid Targets The Pretty Girl Scholar” should whet your appetite.

I acquired this record (on clear blood-red vinyl, with 10-page cardboard booklet) for about six bucks, probably ‘cause the former owner scribbled on the cover here and there, as you can see from the scans. Don’t curse the Japanese child. You’re getting 3/4 of it for free.

Jinzoo Ningen Kikaidaa Opening Theme (MP3)
Robot Drama: Track 3 (MP3)
Jinzoo Ningen Kikaidaa End Theme (MP3)

Anyway, the city was awesome, as predicted. I love this place. When I was younger, I would dream of traveling. Idle dreams. It didn’t become clear until later that international travel doesn’t just happen to you – you actually have to do things.

Of course, these days it’s a little harder in some ways. At LAX, on the way to my flight, an eagle-eyed, superstitious DHS airport screener literally yelped with glee to see my half-drunk bottle of water going through the xray machine.

Her: Oh! What’s this? You’re not allowed to bring this in here.

Me: There weren’t any signs saying that.

Her: It’s been on the news.

Me: Yeah, I just really thought we’d be over that stuff by now.

Her (deadly serious): Oh, no. It’s going to get worse! They tried to blow up a plane. As long as they can make bombs with this stuff, it’s going to get worse. We can’t let you take liquid on a plane.

Me: But that’s not true. It’s scientifically impossible…

Her: It is true, sir.

Naturally, I wasn’t allowed to drink the remainder of my potentially explosive dihydrogen monoxide on the spot, in front of her. This rule might seem kinda counterintuitive if – as I had assumed – the purpose is to screen out toxins and liguids other than water! But that’s some pre-9/11 thinking right there. Who knows if terrorists have figured out a way to combine a colorless, odorless liquid with stomach acids to form a time-released explosion with the power to depressurize a cabin at 35,000 feet? I think it was in that 24 episode where Jack Bauer’s adversary had the really awful diarrhea.

Apparently, Kip Hawley isn’t the only idiot around here. And here I am bitching about our Homeland overlords; that’s so 2003.

Anyways, back to the fun stuff: Japan! Please check out my 130+ gallery of memories... and don’t judge me for photo-stalking the Singapore Air hostesses. You haven’t flown a mile in my pants.

In the weeks to come, I will be sharing rips of some great-looking records I scored in Tokyo. I also got a lot of old weird japanese pop stuff from the bargain bin at punk store NAT Records in Shinjuku (Shinmei Building 2F, 7-33 Nishi-Shinjuku, Tokyo 160), but trust me, I made the rounds. This is only about half of the 7-inches that I nabbed, and we’re not even talking about all the magazines, comix and CDs. Just what I needed! (Sarcasm.) However, your gain is my loss, or will be, or something.

Anyway, I’d like to thank all my Tokyo pals for the warm welcome they gave me in spite of my rude ways and Western odor. Shout outs to Onoching, Masami, Wild OX, Terumi, Elizabeth, Mike, Nori, Atchan, Rockin’ Jellybean, Shaku, and all the other cool folks whose names I cannot recall right now. Special thanks to Kazuha for letting me crash in her Nakano manshon, among her literally priceless collection of 1950s porcelain, Funny Face and Weird-Ohs premiums, Sailor Jerry flash art, and her handsome tomcat Sue.

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Miami soul singer George McCrae is mainly known for this monster disco hit from my childhood. There’s probably a good “A Star is Born”-style film drama to be drawn from his former romantic/management relationship with his hitmaking ex-wife Gwen McCrae (I like her records, too), but George was there first in 1974, riding the crest of the disco wave with some smooth crossover soul for those of us too young to Hustle. The steady rockin’ backing group is none other than KC’s Sunshine Band!

George is still going strong – check out his rather primitive webpage that makes my browser crash. Read his grandiose bio that, with its superstar hyperbole, deserves an audiobook reading by the guy from J&H Productions! No matter, this is still a great song. Now let me get back to my nihongo benkyo o suru. What? Oh, that’s French, baby. It means, “You are incredible.”

George McCrae – “Rock Your Baby”
George McCrae – “Rock Your Baby (Pt. 2)”