The College Crowd Digs Me

"NEU!" - NEU! (1972 - Rei 2020) "There's no excuses, my friend. Let's push things forward."  (The Streets) And that is exactly what Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother  were doing with their debut album.  Hailing from Düsseldorf, Germany, the duo left the early incarnation of Kraftwerk and created a wonderfully experimental, hypnotic, trippy, and very proto-atmospheric feast.  Variations of some avant-garde goodness, for sure.  But it's the driving hypnotic German "motorik beat" of "Hallogallo" and "Negativland"  that puts the lead in your pencil.  Everything else is just delicious brushstrokes of trippy weirdness.  " NEU!"  wasn't necessarily the first album to take this direction, but one can certainly hear the influences this one had on later artists. Since picking up this album, I've dropped the needle on it almost daily.  It's gotten under my skin.  The album might have been recorded in 1972, but ...

From Hell by Alan Moore (writer) & Eddie Campbell (artist) Eddie Campbell Comics (1999) Softcover Graphic, 564 pages NO SPOILERS: Since 1888, five gruesome murders in London, maybe more, ascribed to the killer known as Jack the Ripper have remained unsolved.  To this day,  Ripperologists  all over the world, professional and amateur, have been trying to solve the mystery.  Plenty of theories have been laid out, but none have quite satisfied the unquenchable itch. From Hell is Alan Moore's attempt at offering into the pot his two cents in what is already an amalgam of ideas and theories.  And Moore  isn't just playing.  He has researched and heavily footnoted his claims to the "whodunit" quest and offers an interesting plausible if not possible explanation to this serial-killing puzzle.  And it's a good read. From Hell (inside) At over 500 pages,  Moore's  writing and  Eddie Campbell's  artwork are dark, grizzly, and fore...

"Jack Scott" - Jack Scott (1958) The music is cool, and the cover pleases me to no end!  Looking like Nicholas Cage from “Peggy Sue Got Married” and Kramer from the NY Fab Four... Jack Scott  red sweaters the bejesus out of this photo.  A Canadian rockabilly singer/songwriter,  Scott  was kind of a big deal once upon a time.  At least in Canada and Detroit.   Scott's vocals are not nearly as smooth as Elvis, not as polished, but this actually works in Scott's favor giving the album a coolie-cool cool that's real and often missing from other spins.  There are 12 songs on this square, 9 originals, split between the faster rockabilly burners and semi-ballad tracks.  I definitely enjoyed the faster tracks the best, but the ballads were by no means a chore.  Adding to the cool factor just a smidge, this square includes the original Jack Scott penned  "The Way I Walk"  later recorded by The Cramps  helping to give...

"People certainly didn't know what to make of us, let's put it that way." ~ David Surkamp ~      There is a fierce and fearless determination in the musical path David Surkamp has chosen to discourse throughout his long music-laden career.  Lead singer and songwriter for the Midwest prog-rock band Pavlov's Dog ,  David Surkamp  often delivers his songs with aching urgency and melancholic desperation in a wonderfully unique timbre that begs no quarter.  Only to be aided by a fantastic, underrated band of musicians who carry his message along with equal confidence and calculation.   Pavlov's Dog first introduced themselves to the world with their debut, "Pampered Menial" in 1975.  An album that has only gotten better with age.  Mojo ranked... "Pampered Menial" ...#26 among their list of 40 Cosmic Prog-Rock albums and is certainly a square to give another listen.  From needle drop to label, no lifting is required.  We are ...

"Unchained" - Elias Hulk  (1970 - Rei 2023) Elias Hulk's..."Unchained."   One look at the cover and I knew I had to have it.  I was treading into dangerous territory purchasing a new album sight unheard.  I was just crossing my fingers hoping I didn't get burned.  Fortunately for me, the music has that early 70's bravado that I like with vocals betwixt Michael Stipe and Captain Beefheart.  The first two tracks have acid blues rock swag.  The good kind.  And then Elias Hulk  becomes 'fat-guy-in-a-little-coat' stretching out their arms for the rest of the album delivering various amounts of heavy psych rock spankage and prog dust.  The spin's fun, fearless, and entertaining without drifting too far away from ground zero. In other words, "Unchained" doesn't cast its line in the same spot of the lake for the entire album.  Before breaking up, the band was sharing stages all over England with bands like Hawkwind, Caravan, and Migh...