RISING

KEATS RIDES A HARLEY ( various ) a review of the CD .  geez, I barely remember this one. (looking for a picture or something to add, now)   But there it was at STRAND, for $1.95 ..   I did a quick check to make sure it wasn't poetry (yuck..) or spoken word (yuk!), and away we go.    Quite reminiscent of Red Spo t , or Chunks , if those Compilations are familiar.   And apparently Keats was the guy's goldfish.    Great, old tracks   by   LEAVING TRAINS ,   MEAT  PUPPETS ,   the URINALS ,   TOXIC SHOCK , and... ( yes, its a west coast comp .). Actually, it says here, it's all from the nascent Redondo Beach 'scene' of, like 1980, 1981. Many of the recordings were done in like parking garages and places like that.  Great, Uneven sound quality, and No Spoken Word ! Rating :****** 💙💙💙💙💙💙 Six stars and worth it all  Later, I may write a proper review....

This is an excellent analysis of the Spanish Anarchist/Syndicalist movement in a couple essays that outline the organic agrarian origins of the movement in Spain, and paint the context for us. Spain's civil war was not merely a prelude to World War II, because besides the armed conflict with Franco's forces there was an extensive and spontaneous collectivization process occurring throughout the country. There was, in fact, a real social revolution occurring in the countryside. This book has some discussion of the liberals' fear of the working class and the treachery of the Communist Party and Comintern. The late Mr. Bookchin also characterizes Spain's revolution as the last of the great, classical worker-peasant revolutions. A small book worth looking at.

Long ago in the late 70's/early 80's there were synth bands using electronics (the Casio,I guess? anyway, this was later than the time of the m00g) as well as conventional electric guitar/ drums/bass and producing a kind of antsy,agitated type of pop that was sometimes labeled as avant garde or 'alternative'. well, here in America we always need a label for everything. Anyway, this stuff was a lotta fun in small doses. Some great outfits that spring to mind now are VOICE FARM, the MONDELLOS, LOS MICROWAVES, and PINK SECTION. At the time I thought of much of this genre as very..West Coast. At around this same time there was a band, XEX, that had a cassette circulating called "Steel Negro Music". I never hear this tape, but the mail -order house that was carrying it had a lot of San Francisco music, so I must be forgiven for assuming that this was a west-coast band. Much time passed and the Frisco underground of 1979-1983 passed into legend. Now I get this...