New York Dolls - "One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This" (LP, Roadrunner - 2006)

At the time of "One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This" release, I had with my buddies still the zine and I got in contact with Kevin K for an interview. Among the other stuff we discussed, I couldn't resist myself to ask him 'bout the new then New York Dolls line up and album... He answered to have a listen to it before proceed, but it was good one though even if he doesn't liked the idea of a "New York Dolls" stamp on it without Johnny, Jerry and Killer Kane. "A Las Vegas Dolls title it would have fit more I think..." Kevin told me and I laughed quite loudly as I remember.
I have bought the CD a few weeks before the concert with the Sex Pistols here in Greece and it was very good indeed just as good they were on stage and for sure better than Johnny Lydon's sad caricatures...
So, after all these years I'm having the same opinion about it: A very cool record, perhaps the better one of the many comebacks we witnessed at the time (do you remember the crappy Stooges' "Weirdness"..?) and definitively equal with the Rolling Stones "A Bigger Bang" for instance which I though of it as a descent record too. But just like in Stones case, adds nothing to the myth both the bands have.
Anyway, so why we bother posting it? Because it sounds superlative on vinyl, especially if the rip comes from Jean Philippe's hands and it contains as well the last recorded music by Bo Diddley, no less... Dig!

The Damned - "The Peel Sessions of 30th Nov 1976 & 10th May 1977" (12" EPs, BBC Enterprises/Strange Fruit - 1986/1987)

 

"The Damned and the Mopeds were punks from a strictly rock 'n' roll background, without the glam bit. Which is where I come from. It's got free spirit and a lack of worry that I like."

Billy Childish

PS: Legendary Sessions, by the most legendary Brit rock & roll DJ with one of the best punk rock bands of the era. Strong sizzling sets of a gang at its most ferocious peak, just before to become some goth caricatures... "Neat,Neat,Neat" - "New Rose" - "Stab Your Back" - "I Fall" - "Fan Club", they're all here!

Thanks for the Kicks! Paul Revere, RIP

-Vox Guitars ad with Paul Revere & The Raiders, 1966-

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion! - "Orange" (CD, Crypt - 1994)

Ahhhhh, The Blues Explosion! Still much controversy about them, right? OK right from the start, I dig them and I dig them A LOT! They're in many ways responsible for the younger generations to turn their heads into black music again (rock & roll, blues, funk, soul etc). And they were awfully sexy once upon a time... Actually just as sexy and raunchy will get black music, which is again, A LOT! Hmmmm, come to think of it, actually ONLY black music is sexy but anyway, I think you got it!

So, purists are fuckin' jerks - period! They always were. They're nazis in everything and their thinking is similar if not the identical to those bastards but life and art luckily had taught us that without mixing bloods, no wonder's going to happen and those stupid "purists" attacked/accused the Blues Explosion in the beginning at least, for not being "authentic". Andre Williams, R.L. Burnside and Rufus Thomas though had no problems as history proved just like Bo, Muddy or Chuck had no problems for the Rolling Stones back in the 60s.

Nevertheless I'm still scratching my head in oddity with this record... I mean, is sooooooooo brilliant but quite extremist as well for people like Tim Warren, don't you think (here as you can see for yourself in the original Crypt jacket and not the lame aluminum of Matador!)? With "Orange" the Blues Explosion added scratches and dance beats to their "Meters going Stones having James Brown and Lux Interior" formula with an enormously marvelous end result! Still fresh, neat and funky as fuck as it was 20 years back when at first came out... This is Blues Power!!!