still one place to go

If you happen to be visiting this humble corner of the internet based on JC's words of high praise (made even more flattering by the fact that I consider The Vinyl Villain the platinum standard of music blogs), I'd like to apologize for not bringing my "A" game at the present time.

In a rare reversal of the Armagideon Time status quo, I have a backlog of workable post ideas, yet very little time to execute them because of things currently going on at the day job. I'm juggling the prep work for a move with my everyday responsibilities while trying not to crate up anything I might need for the same.

Things should settle down by Friday afternoon, but it's going to be low-content mode around here until that bridge is crossed.

In the meantime, I guess I'll just continue with the original version/cover version juxtaposition theme from yesterday, with a classic cut from The Doors (which the wife hates) and a punked up Ray Manzarek-produced cover by X (which the wife absolutely adores). It's all in the translation.

The Doors - Soul Kitchen (from The Doors, 1967)

X - Soul Kitchen (from Los Angeles, 1980)

the valet of the infantile

It's been an unusally hectic Sunday and yet another massive thunderstorm is bearing down upon the northwest suburbs of Boston, so I'm going to have to leave you to puzzle out this following sequence from "Poison Ivy," a gag strip from the rich vein of material that is Feature Comics #98, on your own...


The Units - Tight Fit (from Digital Stimulation, 1979) - Together in electric nightmares.

Sounds Incorporated - Sounds Like Movin' (from Rinky Dink, 1965) - I have made it clear in my will that this track will be used as my funeral march. Don't mourn, comrades, shake yer tailfeathers!

Vacation 2008: Epilogue - Just a matter of time

RIDE TOGETHER, DIE TOGETHER.
...and just like that, it's all over.

It's not like I didn't accomplish anything during this past week or so. I built a compost bin. I finally managed to get the patio table out of the basement and onto the patio. I bought a ton of retro-junk that will almost certainly figure into upcoming posts. I got to enjoy New England's first monsoon season (not that Al Gore is right about global warming or anything) from the comfort and safety of my home in the Woburn Highlands.

As bad as playing catch-up as work will be, it's nothing I haven't handled a dozen times before, yet I still can't shake the feeling that my stay of execution is about to elapse. Does the condemned have any last requests? Yes, dispense with the last meal and bring me some fine, fine L.A. power pop to comfort me in my indolence's dying hours...

The Plimsouls - Zero Hour (from The Plimsouls, 1981)

Vacation 2008: Day 4 - The orders are in

(from Howard Chaykin's American Flagg! v1 #2, collected in this handy forthcoming omnibus)
The life of a retrologist may be spiritually rewarding, but it doesn't really pay well...or pay at all, actually. To meet my many and varied financial obligations, as well as to support my useless crap habit, I also work as a flagman for data streams at a public university.

It's a perfect job in many ways. It's unionized, pays well, and is generally low stress -- barring the occasional meltdown on the IT end of things. The only catch is that while the flow of work may slacken at off peak times, it never stops and will start to clog things up for the rest of the office without my semi-expert guidance.

This is why I'm getting ready to make the hectic commute into Dorchester to pull a half-shift during the middle of my vacation. I'm hoping by going in late and leaving early I can avoid the usual traffic hassles on I-93....which is a lot like hoping that I'll find a strongbox full of Confederate gold buried underneath the azalea bushes next to my patio.

Black Flag - Clocked In (from The First Four Years, 1984) - It's always time for classic L.A. hardcore.

Wall of Voodoo - Back in Flesh (from Dark Continent, 1981) - The anthem for Generation Avoidance, to be sullenly muttered under one's breath during the long walk from parking lot to cubicle.

Vacation 2008: Day 2 - The world shines for me today

While the skies above Boston's northwestern suburbs indulged in a pageant worthy of Wagner, the wife and I chanced the torrential rains and thunderbolts in order to indulge in some nerdspicuous consumption at the comic/used book shop two towns over.

I was specifically searching for copies of Twilight Zone Magazine from the early 1980's and the frustratingly elusive issues of Date With Debbi and Debbi's Dates I need to fill out my collection. Though I came up empty-handed on those fronts, I still scored a respectable trove of items of retrological importance -- the Burning Sensations' mini-LP, The Brains' eponymous 1980 album, a vinyl copy of the Xanadu OST in its gatefold cover glory, and a small stack of Dynamite and Pizzazz magazines from the 1970's.

Total price: Just a shade over twenty bucks.

When we got home from our shopping trip, BBC America was playing a block of episodes from the second season of Spaced.

This is what vacations are supposed to be like.

Mint Royale - Space Farm (from On the Ropes, 1999)

Electric Light Orchestra - I'm Alive (from the Xanadu OST, 1980)

Vacation 2008: Day 1 - Ain't gonna gamble

Witch Baby stops the world and melts with you.
The weather has entered devil's armpit territory, so I've decided to postpone my usual roster of Saturday chores and sequester myself in the air-conditioned bedroom along with a choice selection of books, music, and DVDs.

Yes, it's a tragic situation, but I'll just have to learn to live with this meteorologically enforced leisure time.

Sly & The Family Stone - Hot Fun in the Summertime (from Greatest Hits, 1970) - Eternally cool.

Giorgio Moroder - Too Hot to Handle (from From Here to Eternity, 1977) - What the Human League dared to emulate and the basis of Daft Punk's famous discovery.

The Minds - Hot (from Plastic Girls, 2003) - In which we discover the boiling point of raucous, hooky synthpunk.

here we are stranded

Doll Man lives in a little universe all his own.
After missing work on Friday (because I hate working Commencement) and Monday (because we had to make an emergency vet visit for Fergus the rabbit), I returned to the office on Tuesday to a whopping backlog of work (because the database waits for no man or sick bunny). A couple of my co-workers were out sick, the reason being that one of them chose to stay on the job most of Monday despite having a ferocious illness. Germs being the restless little busybodies that they are, the illness leapfrogged though the maze of cubicles to offer Grandfather Nurgle's benediction (Andrew = nerd) to most of the other people in my department.

"Watch out," I was told, but I figured I'd be fine since the primary vectors weren't around to spread the infectious joy.

So imagine my glee this morning when I woke up out of a sound sleep to discover that some playful pixies had run a power sander along the tender flesh between my sinuses and my trachea, and had also replaced the lymph nodes on both sides of my lower jaw with PGA-certified golf balls.

Yes, it has been one fuck of a week so far, though I did manage to score a much coveted LP from eBay this morning which will be featured in an upcoming post that could very well cement my reputation as the antichrist of Boston-based music bloggers. In other good news, Maura and the good folks from the Woburn Feral Cat Coalition managed to round up Tess's orphaned kittens (as well as a litter of Pepi's, which was a surprise that shouldn't have been) last night.

I'm still trying to figure out why Maura, who went gallavanting around in the rain and cold, and had more social contact with the folks in our office, dodged the sickness bullet while I, the cubicular hermit who spent the evening playing videogames, took it right between the eyes. Maybe there is something to that vegetarian business she's always going on about, after all.

Japan - Quiet Life (from Quiet Life, 1979) - "Hi, we're Duran Duran, and we were wondering if we could borrow a pint of your sound and a couple slices of your image? Thanks!"

deep scarred for life

My appointment with the endodontist is at Tuesday at 11:00 AM, which means, Providence willing, that everything should be sorted out by this time tomorrow. Curiously enough, I'm not feeling the usual sense of dread that accompanies such events, only a feeling of weary resignation coupled with inexplicably having "Philadelphia Freedom" stuck looping inside my head. Very unsettling, indeed.

One 1970's nightmare deserves another, so today's minimal content post features a 1972 advertisement for the Blythe doll. Poorly received upon its debut, the hyperencephalic Keanesian homunculus with color-changing saucer eyes has since gone on to become a prized totem among both doll collectors and camp-addicted hipsters. The dolls also have a large fan following in Japan, which, given that nation's well-noted fascination with the hellish zone where adorability and terror overlap, should surprise no one.

(click to induce a larger mental trauma)
Blyth Power - God Has Gone Wrong Again (from the 1985 "Chevy Chase" single) - No kidding. At least these anarcho-folk punkers are there to put things right.

His Name Is Alive - Her Eyes Were Huge Things (from Home Is in Your Head, 1991) - More of an ethereal interlude (from a 4AD band? The Devil, you say!) than a complete track unto itself, but the title was too perfect to pass up.

days of wine and roses

I'm too busy tossing paperclips at my current sword of Damocles to cobble together anything substantive at the present time, so I hope you won't be too disappointed if I gear down into low content mode until next Wednesday.

And so, without further ado, I present this pair of advertisements culled from Young Love #112 (October-November 1974):

Lesson #1: Write a short paragraph in which you promise easy money in exchange for minimal effort.
Lesson #2: Run the paragraph as an ad in a periodical where the audience is known to be somewhat impressionable and lacking better judgement.
Lesson #3: Kick back, rake in the cash, and read up on offshore banking schemes.

Placed directly underneath the above ad was this minimalist appeal to "the kidz":

LIKE GUNZ? HATE EVERYBODY? WANT YOUR FACE ON THE TEN O'CLOCK NEWZ? You'll LOVE Schoolstoppers Textbook 2008 Edition! You pay us 25 cents, then you make them all pay!

A Popular History of Signs - Halcyon Days (from Comrades, 1984) - Some subdued synthwave for a rather cold and gray day. This is April, right? Because I am sure as heck not feeling it.

the game he plays, he plays for keeps

Take one of the oldest gags in the comedic lexicon, add Samuel L. Jackson, and I think the result would go something like this:

(from Binky #79, June-July 1971
A little advice, Percy -- don't skimp on the gratuity.

(Yeah, I'm passing up on making any number of Sam Jackson jokes/references regarding this comic strip because I'm feeling lazy today. Feel free to make your own.)

Curtis Mayfield - Superfly (from The Very Best of Curtis Mayfield, 2000) - So damn perfect, in so many ways.