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...the dolls in 1975 were an interesting proposition when put into perspective with present day rocking circumstances of retro touring going on for a fix of pensionable stock in the future days when dwindling reserves are all that's on the horizon for ancient rockers...back in the day we see the dolls managed by one malcolm mclaren, dressing them in red patent leather, hoping to bait the liberal hippies and right wing patriots into some media outrage, maybe he can whip up some communist fervour and fever in the recession struck seventies...here we see the dolls repeating the then unknown future by recycling their past glories as dorian grays mirror stays young and reflects outward the desired image, in this case the dolls in pursuit of significance in a climate of recline, an enforced reclination that threatens the very fabric of the empire...the dolls imagine themselves as young urban early rolling stones as seen through the eyes of mott the hoople in a back alley drug haze, wrapped in their red leather bad boy outfits they strut their heroin delusions on a high wire, a vaudaville act in teetering platform shoes come to save rock'n'roll from pretentious dullards and simpering teenage pop stodge, to give the noise back to the streets where it has always belonged...by the time this was recorded in early 75 they'd lived the low rent / high life with adulation from underground skanks and impressionable teenage fodder, high flyers who just could not escape the gutter (real or imagined) that they had supposedly come from, the dolls here are a cover band of their own past material, recycling for future use keeping the trash floating on the surface with the scuffs and scrape of sidewalk living thrown to the acid burnouts of a post glitter world...the dolls give life to the theatricality of pose, the group are posuers in their own dream, onlookers at the window of their own selves as they regenerate into new skin, alluring and dangerous red devils making trouble in society, rabble or rebellion is the question that is posed as the mid seventies swallow up another hot rocking combo...
...here we're privileged to have access to an early gig from these NYC gutter chemists which sees the whole of this set list as a virtual greatest hits already, proving these cats had it in the bag right from the getgo...even if they had given up the rocking and stayed in the pharmaceutical business full time this would be a perfect snapshot of mid 70's urban basement scuzzball rhythm noise...perfect for those times when some HOTCHA rocking action is called for...
...it seemed at the time that going to see a johnny thunders show was getting to be rather ghoulish, would he last out the show, would the skag he'd shot up earlier prove to be the ultimate rush, the ride to oblivion as mere spectacle for any layabouts who could be bothered to check out said show...this disk to an ultra conservative (though recorded in japan in 1988 shows the good news that johnny gets through the gig in one piece, giving out with some swaggering rock'n'rollundoubtedly appreciative) audience, their respectful quietness seems to give johnny an uneasy feeling but he's a trouper so the show must and will go on...starting out with the rocking surf explosion known as 'pipeline' lets thunders get the show moving in fine and traditional fashion, the twang of the surf gives the audience the metaphorical rush they need to get in the zone with johnny, to maybe go on that one last ride...well now, that last rush has to be postponed at this juncture as johnny shows fine mettle on this outing in the east, he goes through the motions with some aplomb, it's more than could sometimes have been expected, johnny holds his end of the bargain up, he will entertain the crowd with some rocking and some moody blues, urban junkie style, a lazy righteous slow grind sleaze from NYC gutters of desire and lost hope...there's some surprising jazz moves with some of the interplay between guitars / drums in momentary trance jams that happen more than once, this could be down to chemical enhancement of artistic worth or a juxtaposition of involuntary movement from spazz junkies, either way its an excellent find of ability keeping the thunders name in the press for at least another week...its on some of the late eighties dates that show johnny as urban street musician, the wondering minstrel ever on the watch for a new connection, a chance to be heard and more importantly for johnny to way to get that nirvanic rocker feel that he always surmised was the state keef richard existed in, a blissed out awareness of mortality, this was the quest at that time, a hard line troubadour who paid the price for adulation by working himself into a self perpetuating circle of a 'jones for jones sake', to cop the rock was payment for being allowed on stage, these are the vibrations that come from this disk and others that document the times of a modern blues man struck down by circumstance of being able to buy what maybe was not enough, that the eventual outcome is being 'born to lose'...
...roaring out of the mean streets and back alley public houses of manchester, this northern england blues band kicked it like the end of the world was happening...apocalyptic rent party scrounging loud and proud swill mongers whose only concerns were running down the manx voodoo for the onlooking hippys who sometimes got on the receiving end of the singers wrath if they didn't get in the groove...stackwaddy took blowing up a storm seriously, they had no time for cats who don't go the 'full mile when it comes to rocking...this first wax was out on the dandelion label in 71 and it holds plenty of covers (including van vliets 'sure nuff'n yes i do', a very popular tune in albion underground circles) that get a thorough mangling in bleating stackwaddy style...'roadrunner/rollin' stone/bring it to jerome/suzie q' all great tunes get warm beer and cheap wine poured over them, then ritually smoked up in a ounce of hash...robert johnson may not recognise this refried later version of his beloved music but possibly someone like tommy mccllennan, the whiskey headed cat might, he'd recognise that 'goin' for th'one', bowling over everything that gets in a cats way, keeping the festering choogle going for as long as possible...stackwaddy prowl the lost highway looking for the midnight bar with the blinding neon glow that burns for the annointed ones, the layabouts who dig a real funky portion of backdoor R&B slops... 
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...this second wax from the mighty stackwaddy proved once and for all that these cats were kings of the festering slag heap when it come to laying down the mutating fried over boogie sludge...from the first tune it's obvious these layabouts have been partaking with mighty sniffs from the cauldren filled with voodoo swamp gas and washing it down with warm boddingtons ale, until the mix is complete and the stackwaddy sweaty R&B trance groove is ready to roll...this whole shebang is recorded live with amps squeeling and ringing, tape hissing and cats talking of many wonderous things in the background...basement level (non)production gives the authenticity needed to carry the heavy back alley vibes, the messy swill that was the 'waddy...beered up aggression pounding its way to freedom, breaking on through to other side, escaping the social gravity thats holds a lot of true cats back...one of the best ever blue rock combos because this is from the heart, they're playing this music because its the only way they know, its not note perfect true to the original art and its that non adherence to strict and resticting authenticity that makes them that very thing, authentic and no real exaggeration to muse that its authentic enough to play maxwell street in chicago back in the day and see the local cats know this is the real deal (T-model ford would give this the thumbs up if he'd ever cop an earful)...these motorway cafe hooligans make the edgar broughton crew look like nice middle class boys, maybe jesse hectors crushed butler came near to emulating the 'waddy way with their dirty R&B jams, but not too many others...over 40 minutes of top class swill oozing its way into the consciousness of any cats willing to see the light and know the 'waddy could have been contenders...
...oh yes indeed, very much indeed this is some nice gear from the mods early forays into the rock'n'roll game...this silver coaster is well sprite and chipper with his first demos from 64, some solo singles, duet with pat arnold and the eventual smash hit with python lee jackson...real hep and groovy, real nice exploitational hodge podge, the way we like it...
...the question is, how many times has the planet gone round the sun and the answer is less times that these demos have been reissued by every exploito / huckster label in every land for nigh on 4 decades...recorded at the marquee studios in olde london town they capture this blue eyed soul club pop revue before they imploded due to top heavy egos...this is a groovy 30 minutes of westend R&B that whizzed hepsters and first class tickets will get a buzz off...well spiffing...
...legally dodgy late six oh LP cash in on jools quick collision and largely unforseen encounter with the general citizens hit parade, this wax is made up of the giorgio gomelsky sessions from 1965 when jools was finding herself groomed for stardom, if only as a fleeting popstar, (they did get an airing on the parlophone label) plus to make up the time as always a couple of steampacket numbers...nice club mod pop/big beat for hep tickets to dig...very cool and magnificently chipper...
...freakbeat and flower power spelled the death of R&B in hip cat urban locales as a live enjoyment, for now audiences somehow sensed there might be something more to the 'new' live scene as indicated by floyd, soft machine, crazy world of arthur brown, deviants who had all lately been playing havoc with temporal and optical vibes... jools, auge and the trinity sensed some jazz that was in their club sounds they were knocking out could be brought more to the fore and as a consequence helped fashion the cerebral/beatnik end of what came to be known as prog rock...
...ace slab of post club R&B/jazzbo proto prog stylings...very sussed and hip workout that caught a lot of cats attention and not just because of 'aceface' jools getting plenty of ink from underground and cubes alike...came at the right time when the new vibes and counter cultural unrest were rushing the whole planet...jools in great voice, funky keyboards and super solid backing make this one double wax worthy of such extravagance...
...one of the handfull of combos that have come to define the albion late sixties sound that was the logical end of the R&B explosion that had happened eight years earlier...combining post R&B / club soul / hornrock and riffing jazz inflected hard rock they fell between jools / auger on the proggy jazzbo front and pesky gee! on the post club soul tip...this end of the progressive rainbow didn't really get past 1970 / 71 before most of its practitioners fell away to mainstream / 'funky' jazz in continental cities or into paid pop group/session slog...this being the only LP released during the life of this combo, it's a great example of the above hype and contains a nice and cool workout on bob's 'watchtower' jam...
...top form and tasty swirly post club-soul horn rock...some nice R&B shouting from the femme vocalist take this just beyond the normal prog sound and keep it well in the london westend jazz vibe...some cool covers and original material make for a good 40 minute lobe full with more going on than it first appears...very nice and a sound that just can't be replicated any more (probably due to 'progress' in studio technique)...
...this is some real good orchestral art-pop from two swinging london hipsters, crafting some of the best ethereal stereo fazed outpourings from that whole pychedelic era...perfect summing up of the summer of love high minded teatime sike, a pinnacle of velvet suited dandyism, decadence for its own sake adrift in a haze of absinthe and reefer...what more need be added, this speaks for its own self, it is what it is, built to its own alchemical posibilities to weather all storms of mediocrity, to sail into wonderland forever more...
...after saying his good riddances to the velvets john got euroavant with nico and garage skrunchy with the stooges, producing two of the finest wax from that period, he decided to give pop-singer-song-writer grooves a whirl...recording the tracks a few days after writing them he kept the original ideas fresh and eclectic, not moldy and homogenized like a lot of that 'talented artiste' mob were becoming back at the tail end of the swinging 60s...a bit of cod reggae and some country give a couple hints at some of the trends that would crop up in the rock and pop merging of the seventies (that cover image is kind of precient krautrock visual)...didn't set the popworld on fire but listening in the next century see's this sounding remarkably up-to-date...more than one young cat would love to get hold of the recording equipment and studio baffle to recreate whats happening here...
...marble index and desertshore with extras (demos/alt.vers) is just what a cat needs to journey outer-spaceways into serious hepper most euro avantsville way beyond the known dullest nothiness of the peripheral usual...anyways a cats checks this double coaster, whether it be as vast vistas of bleak desolation or havens of hope and beginnings these are cool trance vehicles for leaving time behind and entering a different area of being that don't open up too often...droning folk noise from dimensions unknown to most, only the select few shall ever venture near to where this sound emenates but they can revive the livin dream many fear may be crushed by the relentless onslaught of twenty first century amerikkkan empiracal machine that imposes demands from free thinking layabouts worldwide with its constant mediababble of 'doubletalk' and poisonous drugs peddled through dupes who know not what the master holds in store for their carcass of indifference...so in the end all that is desired to be known is when the janitor of lunacy comes to visit on the lawns of dawn a cat must withdraw to the dusty garrett, close the crushed velvet drape, prepare the leaf and sail forth on harmoniums agogo to a place of frozen warnings far beyond the borderline where the roses in the snow appear near the desertshore...
...icy cold and lonesome, dwelling in the outer reaches way beyond the mortal definitions of existance, from the darkest past to the uncertain future nico inhabits a time and place not on any map or in a time period known to the keepers of chronology...drifting on the ether, motionlessly sailing through celestial winds under the watchful eye of the guardians of chaos nico speaks from the temporal gap that runs between dreamtime and the unconcsious, the hazy untouchable landscapes that few ever glimpse let alone wander freely and unperturbed...nicos everpresent harmonium is backed by phil manzanera/eno/john cale so a fine stew of ever unfolding avant noise is effortlessly swirling with squeaks, croaks and moans all meandering through, weaving hypnotic patterns from the netherworld...the last in a loose trilogy that began with marble index and desertshore a few years earlier all truly beautiful albums that continue to offer new ways of thinking, ways of viewing the familiar from unfamiliar positions, late night listening indeed...
...the avant euro wing of the velvets and the poesy from the soft machine plus chart visitor (w/roxy music) all get together at the rainbow in old london town to make there presence known and sell some wares (they're all on island records)...the LP was released a month after the gig and for that time that was quick, almost like picking it up as a souvenir...eno kicks things off with a couple of wobbly poprock tunes followed by john cales singular take on 'heartbreak hotel' whilst nico brings the side to a close with her version of 'the end', the jimbo morrison song from the first doors album...side two belongs to kevin, it was supposed to be his evening with island records holding out most hope that he'd be the money spinner, with five groovy decadent ditties...overall its a cool look at these refugees from the nether-popworld who were all looking for some kind of way forward, from the past into the light...
...the year is one thousand, nine hundred and seventy four and we see kevin getting funky on a few of these tracks, complete with club femme vocals grooving the air molecules in the background...this was new record co. tactics at work, the idea being to try and shift a few units of their new 'underground' signing, it was seemingly a fancy notion to take kevin away from 'decadent-beatnik-in-garret', banish ethereal longings of the lounging lord byron on a mediterranean beach sipping from a large and majestic glass of absynth and get some pop parade action with him...didn't work, the entire concept of kevin as pop star is flawed from the very outset not least because kevs a singular artist, appealing as he does to a certain type of head, a cat not generally mixed up with the day to day runnings of cuboid living...side two sees a long track divided into sections of trancing bliss with nico trading off on vox...this is horizontal hep reefer grooves of the highest order...nicely nice...
...when eno parted company from roxy music it was basically the end of that combo from a future rocking point of view...they may have gone on to sell a stack of wax but was it any good, worthwhile hearin? the answers got to be a BIG-FAT-NO, blander and blander lounge crooning and anemic disco not fit for any heads consumption...this wax is just one example of how enos self confessed nonmusician noise was way out in front of his former colleagues...mixing in some dollops of primo soft machine/some solo style kevin ayres absinthe vocalization on some glam looking pop all smeared with his squiggly moogy-woogy noodling...an excellent start to the next thirty years of recording (though a cats on his own when it comes to some of that ambient stuff, thats another deal completely)...
...second go round for eno in his quest for pop stardom, although this would be pop stardom in some parallel world because even though these tunes are very accesible their avant streak is going to leave them just outside the pop sphere in the mid '74 times, when by now glam has been codified and the winners seem to be the sweet and bowie so no need for eno because the dame himself, the old chameleon of pop has the avant-pop star gig sewn up...most of this is highly amusing off centre clever pop with nice instrumental interplay bopping about in the mix, happy visions of syd barrett arise occasionally giving a cat to wondering about roxy music spearheaded by syd and eno with brian ferry as a teacher back in newcastle...again this wax reminds one of earlier underground pop doodlers soft machine, theres a most enchanting/disturbing quirky village atmosphere permeating the vibes, a place where nothing is as it seems, weird reflections that alter landscapes so each footstep is an unwitting adventure into the heart of otherness, a place where everything is understood by the initiated without communication in normal channels, telepathic signals from a reality just under the horizon...guests include robert wyatt/phil manzanera/portsmouth sinphonia, a nice little mix of sideways lookin talent...
...the dolls in 1975 were an interesting proposition when put into perspective with present day rocking circumstances of retro touring going on for a fix of pensionable stock in the future days when dwindling reserves are all that's on the horizon for ancient rockers...back in the day we see the dolls managed by one malcolm mclaren, dressing them in red patent leather, hoping to bait the liberal hippies and right wing patriots into some media outrage, maybe he can whip up some communist fervour and fever in the recession struck seventies...here we see the dolls repeating the then unknown future by recycling their past glories as dorian grays mirror stays young and reflects outward the desired image, in this case the dolls in pursuit of significance in a climate of recline, an enforced reclination that threatens the very fabric of the empire...the dolls imagine themselves as young urban early rolling stones as seen through the eyes of mott the hoople in a back alley drug haze, wrapped in their red leather bad boy outfits they strut their heroin delusions on a high wire, a vaudaville act in teetering platform shoes come to save rock'n'roll from pretentious dullards and simpering teenage pop stodge, to give the noise back to the streets where it has always belonged...by the time this was recorded in early 75 they'd lived the low rent / high life with adulation from underground skanks and impressionable teenage fodder, high flyers who just could not escape the gutter (real or imagined) that they had supposedly come from, the dolls here are a cover band of their own past material, recycling for future use keeping the trash floating on the surface with the scuffs and scrape of sidewalk living thrown to the acid burnouts of a post glitter world...the dolls give life to the theatricality of pose, the group are posuers in their own dream, onlookers at the window of their own selves as they regenerate into new skin, alluring and dangerous red devils making trouble in society, rabble or rebellion is the question that is posed as the mid seventies swallow up another hot rocking combo...
...here we're privileged to have access to an early gig from these NYC gutter chemists which sees the whole of this set list as a virtual greatest hits already, proving these cats had it in the bag right from the getgo...even if they had given up the rocking and stayed in the pharmaceutical business full time this would be a perfect snapshot of mid 70's urban basement scuzzball rhythm noise...perfect for those times when some HOTCHA rocking action is called for...
...it seemed at the time that going to see a johnny thunders show was getting to be rather ghoulish, would he last out the show, would the skag he'd shot up earlier prove to be the ultimate rush, the ride to oblivion as mere spectacle for any layabouts who could be bothered to check out said show...this disk to an ultra conservative (though recorded in japan in 1988 shows the good news that johnny gets through the gig in one piece, giving out with some swaggering rock'n'rollundoubtedly appreciative) audience, their respectful quietness seems to give johnny an uneasy feeling but he's a trouper so the show must and will go on...starting out with the rocking surf explosion known as 'pipeline' lets thunders get the show moving in fine and traditional fashion, the twang of the surf gives the audience the metaphorical rush they need to get in the zone with johnny, to maybe go on that one last ride...well now, that last rush has to be postponed at this juncture as johnny shows fine mettle on this outing in the east, he goes through the motions with some aplomb, it's more than could sometimes have been expected, johnny holds his end of the bargain up, he will entertain the crowd with some rocking and some moody blues, urban junkie style, a lazy righteous slow grind sleaze from NYC gutters of desire and lost hope...there's some surprising jazz moves with some of the interplay between guitars / drums in momentary trance jams that happen more than once, this could be down to chemical enhancement of artistic worth or a juxtaposition of involuntary movement from spazz junkies, either way its an excellent find of ability keeping the thunders name in the press for at least another week...its on some of the late eighties dates that show johnny as urban street musician, the wondering minstrel ever on the watch for a new connection, a chance to be heard and more importantly for johnny to way to get that nirvanic rocker feel that he always surmised was the state keef richard existed in, a blissed out awareness of mortality, this was the quest at that time, a hard line troubadour who paid the price for adulation by working himself into a self perpetuating circle of a 'jones for jones sake', to cop the rock was payment for being allowed on stage, these are the vibrations that come from this disk and others that document the times of a modern blues man struck down by circumstance of being able to buy what maybe was not enough, that the eventual outcome is being 'born to lose'... 
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