Destroy All Monsters - Swamp Gas (USA 2001)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

Another obscure item from the aptly named Mutant Sounds Blog, This strange release consists of some weird sound-scapes used as background for extended spoken monologues and other tracks of strangeness without singing or monologues at all. Some humorous and some interesting but mostly doesn't really hold my interest and although there are also some interesting sounds therein I find my self loosing patience with this. But don't take my lack of interest as a bad sign, as this is a quality and worthwhile release of this sort of thing and the industrial/minimal synth and overall tripped-outness of this release will bring enjoyment to others.  Rating 2.5/5

Demon Fuzz - Afreaka! (UK1970)

An Uncle Roddus Album review

This release has really caught my attention over the last week. A seven peace, all black, progressive  rock band from England, releasing this, their only album in 1970 and this CD reissue also included 3 bonus tracks from a maxi- single they also released, which appears to be their complete recorded output. Although I have read about the supposed Latin and African influences on this album, this, to my ears sounds pretty much like Prog, and very good prog it is too. Long, extended, mostly instrumental numbers with plenty going on, like tempo changes and stylistic changes within a track and some nice jazzy breaks as well. An accomplished set with track one, "Past, Present and Future" being the stand out track for me. A highly recommended album and I give it a Roddus rating of 4/5.

Chewck this out over at Rare MP3 

Well we Survived the end of the world again but we almost didn't survive the Rugby World Cup Final, which would have really been the end of the world, but thankfully the All Blacks downed the French 8-7. So all in all a successful weekend.

The End Of The World! Again.

Due to the impending end of the World, Again, this Friday, this blog will take a short recess. See Ya Monday, After we win the Rugby World cup.

VA - Absolute Funk Vol 1 (2005)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

What with all the Afro funk I enjoy so much, it stands to reason that I would also groove to the original funky sounds that came out of the USA from the late 60s. I have quite a large collection of these funk compilations, many yet to be explored. This first volume from the recent Absolute Funk series is chock full of excellent funk and is a very enjoyable listen. A well selected compilation and looking forward to checking out the rest of the series.3.5/5

Axolotl - Abrasive (France 1981)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

Travelling across to the other side of the musical universe with this release of some avant-garde free jazz from France. Free form random sounding horn blowing with some other random sound effects thrown in for good measure. No song structure, no melodies, boring and pretentious. I don't mind this sort of music incorporated into other music or the occasional track blended into normal sounding music on an album, i.e John Zorn or even Frank Zappa play this stuff but a whole album of this just leaves me cold and board and wondering why?

Rating 1/5.

Jake Holmes - The Above Ground Sound Of Jake Holmes (USA 1967)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

What a surprise this one has turned out to be. The surprise being that this guy is the original composer of the mighty "Dazed and Confused" from Led Zeppelins first album. The depth if their thieving appears to be bottomless. A sort of Psych/Folk  album with some pretty cool sounding psych guitar infused into these powerful folksy songs .A Fairly lo-fi recording but that doesn't take away from the quality of these tracks. Jake sings with plenty of emotion, these strong lyrics and although this is not very commercial music it is powerful. This guy is up there with the likes of Nick Drake and Tim Buckley in the Singer/Songwriter stakes and I highly recommend this set. An interesting surprise and worth a Roddus Rating of 4.5/5.

Stack - Above All (USA 1969)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

More obscure psych rock from the US with this ultra rare sole LP from Stack, an above average Psych/acid rock outfit from Los Angeles. Re issued on CD in 1999, it is still available online and definitely worth checking out if you are into this sort of thing. Kicks off with a good version of the classic "Poison Ivy", "Da Blues" is a cool slab of acid blues that could only come from the late 60's and the highlight of this set is the awesome "Everyday", which is so good that I put it on one of my Roddus samplers some time back, a Classic of  underground late 60s rock. Blue Cher is another reference point for the music on this release and overall it is a fine release of it's genre. Rating 3.5/5

Head,Hands & Feet - Head, Hands & Feet (UK 1971)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

01. I'm In Need Of Your Help (1:51)

02. Send Me A Wire (3:54)

03. Look At The World, It's Changin'/You Beacuse You Know Me (8:42)

04. Green Liquor (5:45)

05. Country Boy (5:32)

06. Tryin' To Put Me On (3:21)

07. I Wish You Knew Me (4:26)

08. Devil's Elbow (5:02)

09. Pete Might Spook The Horses (5:18)

10. Everybody's Hustlin'/Hang Me, Dang Me (8:09)

11. Delaware (4:55)

12. The More You Get, The More You Want (6:54)

13. Song For Suzie (7:12)

14. Tirabad (3:30)

15. Little Bit Lonely (2:22)

Another excellent find on the Roddus hard drive today, this wonderful debut album by this short lived but much regarded country rock group from the UK. This is another great rarity from the awesome Rare MP3 Blog. Had this on repeat for the later part of the day and for a double album by such an obscure act, it sure holds up well throughout and has also aged very well. Alt country or Americana was alive and well in England  with this bunch way back then, with some nice jazzy bits and plenty of great pop/rock and a bit of prog thrown in for good measure. Plenty of great guitar licks and the impressive and beautiful guitar break in Song for Suzie foreshadows Dire Straits. A quick review as the rugby is on, rating 4/5.

VA - The Keine Experimente (Germany 1983)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

It's great having so much unexplored music on my hard drive. A big change of pace with this German punk compilation and it is amazing what a difference 12 years made to the German rock scene. This is one of the best Punk Compilations I have heard in a very long time. Full on hardcore punk of the second wave of the style and if it weren't for the singing in German, I'd swear this was a London comp. Really enjoying this lot and glad that this type of music still impresses me. Rating 4.5/5.

Haze - Hazecolor Dia (Germany 1971)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

Very good German Progressive rock with some wonderful guitar melodies happening throughout these extended musical musings. The singing is the albums weakness with the singer hitting some cringe inducing notes. Apart from that I am enjoying this a lot, with the music staying consistently good throughout. Rating 3.5/5.

Haystacks Balboa - Haystacks Balboa (USA 1970)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

Early 70's heavy psych rock is the order of the day for this obscure release and a damned fine example of the genre it is too, definitely one of the better ones I have heard so far. Plenty of cool here, rocks out with great fuzz guitar playing and totally cool rockin' songs. That describes the first three tracks . "Auburn Queen" starts with a quantum shift to something a lot slower and a lot lamer for the first 3 minutes before turning into Deep Purple and blasting off to the stratosphere for the middle section and then going a bit weird for the last part.

"Sticky Finger" gets us back on track with some straight out psych before we get to the second epic of the set  "Ode To The Silken Men", another organ driven progressive number and perhaps the weakest track here. The last track is an acoustic pop number and finishes the album on a much tamer note than the way it started. Good on them for not just sticking to the formula but mixing it up a bit, but they don't quite pull it off  and the album looses momentum on the second half. Rating 3.5/5

Asakawa Maki -Maki II ( Japan 1971)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

1. shounen (3:29)
2. nemurunoga kowai (3:40)
3. gin house blues (4:16)
4. hanaichimonme (5:05)
5. govinda (4:02)
6. shounen(part 2) (3:22)
7. mekurabana (3:32)
8. yuki no umi (3:24)
9. minato no higanbana (2:53)
10. watashi ga shoufu ni nattanara (3:45)
11. godown moses (2:26)
12. asahi no ataru ie (6:08)

Sticking with the Japanese scene for this release and this set fits very well with the last review I did, except this one is a far superior album than the previous one, to my ears. Maki has a lovely voice, smooth and clear and easier on my ears than Kiyoko Itoh. A real interesting mix of styles with a strong jazz flavour and blues on some tracks, alt pop on others and even a fairly heavy psych number to make it really interesting. A couple of surprises with the last two tracks, with track 11 we are presented with a very good version of "Go Down Moses", a Spiritual I know quite well and even more surprising is a live Japanese folk type version of "The House Of The Rising Sun", which is brilliant. " Govinda" is very Indian sounding with Sitar and Maki sounds very authentic with her singing. "Shonunen" sounds like something out of the soundtrack to a Western movie, with that melancholic harmoniker in parts before straying into more Blood, Sweat and Tears territory. The Western theme belongs even more strongly to "Yuki No Umi" and to make sure they didn't miss out incorporating every style of modern western music into this album, track ten has a real jazzy funk vibe to it. A wonderful musical journey and worthy of a Roddus rating of 4/5.

Kiyoko Itoh - Woman at 23 hour-love In (Japan 1971)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

01. Goji kara juji made no watashi

02. Poem: "Moshimo ryuusei ga..." Shiroi mori

03. Check Mate

04. Kiken kashira

05. Watashi ga michi o aruku toki

06. Chinmoku

07. Onna no sengen

08. Poem: "Papa oboeteiru?..."

09. Crayon

10. Dekigoto

11. Kyoujo

12. Poem: "Hitoribotchi no kokoro ga..."

13. Itsumo to onaji asa

A quick one tonight as time is short. Entering the deep, dark and mysterious world of Japanese music is a journey for the brave and adventurous. This  weird piece of oriental Chamber pop was found on the excellent Mutant Sounds blog. Album consists of quirky off kilter pop weirdness, with hints of jazz overlaid with the silky smooth and sugar sweet, slightly girlish vocals  and poetry of Itoh. Although interesting and unusual, the music failed to grab me and her high Japanese whisper got to annoy me a bit after several listens, not one to keep and gets a rating of 2/5

Aztec Two-Step - Second Step (USA 1975)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

01. It's Going on Saturday (3:14)

02. Our Lives (3:22)

03. I'm in Love Again (3:18)

04. Faster Gun (3:49)

05. Humpty Dumpty (3:27)

06. Move up to Love (3:43)

07. Cosmos Lady (3:03)

08. Walking on Air (2:26)

09. Lullabye on New York (5:03)

10. Hey Little Mama (2:41)

Uncle Roddus has got his hands on another Laptop, finally, and so am back to more regular reviews, hopefully. I start of my random reviews again with this obscure little nugget posted over on Rare MP3 Blog some time last year. This was the second album from this folksy duo, who are still active today. The music contained in this set is pleasant  Pop/folk with a good nod to CSN&Y. Enjoyable enough and consistent, with nothing really standing out and pretty much rooted at the AOR end of the musical spectrum. A Roddus rating of 3.5/5

Clarence "Gatemouth"Brown - The Man (USA 1994)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

The other Gitanes release I picked up last week from Gatemouth-Brown, this one also has a very large line up of musicians and again is very well recorded. The Man was entering his 70s when he recorded this set and his playing and singing sounds like someone still in his 40s. The album starts off well enough with some excellent blues number,s both covers(Louis Jordan's "Early in the Morning") and self penned ( the cool slow blues of "You Can Disagree"). Unfortunately for me, Gatemouth doesn't feel restrained by just one style of music and although I usually really enjoy albums that incorporate diffrent styles, I am not really a fan of Cajun or Zydeco, of which there are several examples here. "I Wonder" is a pretty straight Country song and not one that I enjoy too much, I don't like Gatemouth's country singing either, although Tommy Moran's Steel guitar solo is quite nice." Unchained Melody" takes half the song to get into gear before becoming an uninspiring instrumental. The self penned "There You Are" gets us back to some seriously excellent slow tempo R&B with the Hammond B-3 giving it a serious Jimmy Smith feel. Another blues is enjoyed before we go all country again and it is quite amazing the difference between Gatemouth's country singing and blues singing. I like some country music and I respect the talent of The Man to have a go at this stuff, but it just fails to move me.After the Zydeco version of  "Jambalaya" another great self penned slow blues, just proves again what an awesome blues composer and player Gatemouth really is and the album finishes with a much more enjoyable old fashioned, fiddle lead country hoe-down. Some better choice in country covers and doing away with the Zydeco songs would have made this an excellent album, all the Bluesy numbers are excellent, but the rest don't do it for me.Rating 3/5 

Johnny Copeland - Catch Up With The Blues (USA 1993)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

I had to make a quick trip to the Earthquake ravaged city last week and while there had sufficient time for a quick browse at my favourite CD emporium, of which there are not too many left now, and was fortunate enough to come across a couple more of those Gitanes releases, of which I mentioned a few reviews back, in the second hand blues section. Another quality contemporary blues album with full band including brass section and  backing singers. This is the second Copeland release I have found on Gitanes and I am finding this one as enjoyable as the other one. There is not too much to say about this album as it is a fairly generic example of the genre and Copeland is an accomplished exponent of the style. So if you like well recorded, well executed, standard modern blues then I give this the thumbs up. Rating 3.5/5  

VA - Smells Like Bleach: A Punk Tribute To Nirvana - Cleopatra Records

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

1. Come As You Are - Vibrators

2. Smells Like Teen Spirit - Blanks 77

3. Stay Away - UK Subs

4. On A Plain - Agent Orange

5. Breed - Total Chaos

6. Nagative Creep - Dee Dee Ramone

7. Lithium - Vice Squad

8. Something In The Way - Burning Brides

9. Scentless Apprentice - Flipper

10. All Apologies - DOA

11. Aneurysm - Dr. Know

12. Dive - I.C.U.

Got this one from the same place as the last one and were at the other end of the quality spectrum with this one. First point of note is that all the bands that I recognise on this collection were around well before Nirvana   and some of them were influential for Kurt Cobain and the boys. Second point of note is that many of these bands were well past their use by date when they recorded these songs. Third point of note is that this is a punk tribute and so doesn't give much scope for creative interpretations of these songs  as was the case on the last comp I reviewed. So what we have is mostly second rate, straight covers of some pretty awesome songs that none of these artists have really added to and some of them have actually butchered the songs they have chosen to destroy. Quite often the shear quality of the music that these tributes try to cover, lifts the interpreting artists to new levels of creativity and gives us some great versions of already great songs, sadly this set is not one of them.Rating 2/5 and will be deleting, would rather listen to the originals.

VA - Star Power! K-Tel Hits Of The '70s - Pravda Records

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

1. Venus - Southern Culture On The Skids

2. Welcome Back - Rex Daisy

3. Spiders And Snakes - World Famous Blue Jays

4. Mama Told Me Not To Come - The Silos

5. Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia, The - Vic Chesnutt

6. Kung Fu Fightin' - Fig Dish

7. I'm Not In Love - Red Red Meat

8. Popcorn - Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet

9. Don't Give Up On Us - Brown Betty

10. How Do You Do - Wanna-Bees

11. Ode To Billy Joe - Susan Voelz

12. One Tin Soldier - Dick Nixons

13. White Bird - Love Battery

14. Rock The Boat - A-Bones

15. Half Breed - New Clear Clouds

16. I Am Woman - Big Fish Ensemble

17. Give Me Just A Little More Time - Falstaff

18. Horse With No Name, A - Loud Family

This very obscure curiosity was something I obtained from Emusic quite sometime ago and had not actually listened to it as it was buried somewhere in the deep dark recesses of my hard drive. I found it again while loading all my music into Itunes on the new laptop.

This release was volume three in a set of compilations released by Pravda Records back in the early 90s and consists of a bunch of  alternative types, ranging from Grunge through Punk to Alt Country and a few unclassifiable versions as well, doing their own warped versions of  all these well known K-Tel chart hits from the 70s. Most of the songs were familiar to me and  several  are well liked in their original versions and others are quite impressive in their reinterpretations even though I'm not a fan of the originals. Overall I am enjoying almost all that is on this set, although I can't stomach "One Tin Soldier - Dick Nixon's", some of the highlights are Southern Culture On The Skids minimal rockabilly version of "Venus", Rex Davies version of the Theme to "Welcome back Kotter is a bit of a giggle and a trip down memory lane and an enjoyable version."Spiders And Snakes" by the World Famous Blue Jays is a cowpoke version of a song that I don't recognise and so they make it their own. "Popcorn is another giggle and very well done in a cooler version than the original and the highlight of this set is the brilliant Low inspired version of my old fave "Ode To Billy Joe". Also worth a mention is a grungy spacerock version of the fabulous "White Bird". A very interesting and surprisingly good  compilation and I am curious to hear the other two volumes, which are still available to buy.Rating 4/5