Kudgel - Alphabet Song

(Cinderblock, 1991)

For their debut, these Boston-area loudguys offer up a funny, foulmouthed take on ye olde alphabet ditty, with guitar-crazy choruses that call to mind what the folks in the Baker-fronted Mercury Rev were soon to be gettin’ up to themselves a few states over. The lyrical/compositional nuttiness of the song, however, perhaps places the tune more squarely in Cows territory – an equally fine place to be. B-side “Eskimo Pie” makes for a similarly intriguing Rev/Cows combo, its fucked sweet-n-gruff vocals and feedback antics balancing the melody and noise sides of the scales quite effectively. Winners both. And while the station sticker on my copy of this single, generously – ahem – “donated” to me by an obscenity-conscious WERS, warns “DO NOT PLAY,” you’d be something more than a fool to pass up any opportunity to check this one out should the opportunity ever present itself; unheralded though it may be in 2009, thing’s as good a piece of plastic to issue forth from the whateverground of the early ’90s as anything else collecting dust out there in record-store land.

Further: Cheeky chimpies, Kudgel packaged all 750 copies of “Alphabet Song” with “bonus singles” likely culled from local Salvation Army shops. Mine, long since gone, was Sonny & Cher’s “Baby Don’t Go.”

Kiss - Having Fun On Stage With Stanley

(no label, 19??)

Like the similarly-titled Elvis record before it, “Having Fun On Stage With Stanley” showcases the deep thoughts of a messianic dummy IN HIS ELEMENT by documenting the between-song stage banter of said goofus LIVE and RAW. Meaning that you’re getting prime Starchild here, buddy, as Paul shrieks and lisps his way through a series of passionate-yet-unconvincing spoken intros that touch on groupies, booze (COLD GIN!), Michael Jackson, and all manner of bizarre/gross penile innuendo. For kicks, a transcript of one of the tamer tracks:

“People! There are two ways, there are TWO WAYS I can talk to you people tonight. I can talk to you people like this is an audience at a rock and roll concert. Or I can talk to you people like you were our friends. Now, we have been to Los Angeles enough times to know that the people who came here tonight are most definitely OUR FRIENDS. Now I want to tell you a little story. But this is just between you and me. But I want to caution all you people: this story is a little bit… DIRTY. So if any of you people are offended by that kind of stuff, GET THE FUCK OUT. ARE YOU READY LOS ANGELES?! Because I’m gonna warn you one more time: this story has to do with S-E-X. This afternoon… this afternoon, we flew into Los Angeles, California, we landed in LAX airport, must’ve been about 3:30 this afternoon, and we was walkin’ through the terminal when all of a sudden a stewardess comes walkin’ over to me and says, ‘Are you in a band?’ And you know the way I dress. I looked at this girl and I said, ‘No, sweetheart, I am not in a band; I am a doctor.’ She said, ‘Really?!’ I said, ‘Baby, I am DOCTOR LOVE.’ Then she says to me, ‘You’re really a doctor, huh?’ And I said, ‘Baby, not only am I a doctor, but you see these guys over here? We are aaaaaaall doctors, and we are on our way to the Forum tonight to do a serious, major operation.’ Now, I’m lookin’ this girl upside down, I’m lookin’ her up, I’m lookin’ her down, I’m lookin’ at her sideways, and all of a sudden she says, ‘You know something? I know who you are. You are in a band.’ And I said to her, ‘Baby, I am not in a band, I am in THE band!!’”

…And cheers erupt, etc. At once hilarious, humiliating, horrifying, and hypnotic, this is in many ways the definitive Kiss record. Really: what sums the band up better than a series of crude, misogynistic, weirdly-compelling pimple-faced fantasies? This is IT, unfiltered, with no guitars/drums/bass to get in the way. The later appearance of the monster 70-track banter comp People, Let Me Get This Off My Chest (which doesn’t include everything found here) diminishes somewhat the importance of this 7”, but the disc’s still a very worthwhile find for the devoted, as Paul Stanley is undeniably a genius of... uh... well... sorts. And hey, if nothing else, these bootlegs are at least a whole lot more fun than the pitiful Live to Win and Sonic Boom travesties recently dumped onto the market. Get ’em, you!

Kinks - Me And My Brother

(Frog, 19??)

One more Kinks review, and it’s a four-song collection of audience recordings from post-Think Visual tours, taped at various locations between May, 1987, and April, 1988. Happily, the rougher sound quality (and career-spanning song selection) makes this hodgepodge much more enjoyable than the band’s bland, glassy studio albums of the time, with a clunker like “How Are You” benefiting noticeably from a snappier tempo and cruder taping. The other three tracks are interesting novelties in that they’re all songs sung by Ray on the LPs and here handed off to Dave in the live setting. I’m certainly no rah-rah fan of the younger Davies’ voice, but he acquits himself well on both “Sleepwalker” and a raw “You Really Got Me,” even if he can’t quite give “Too Much on My Mind” the delicate treatment it needs. While hardly a spectacular boot, this is a nice companion to the not-as-awful-as-it-should-be The Road live alb that was recorded around the same time. Heck, if anyone’s dumb enough to ever reissue that unloved disc, these tracks would make for real fine bonus tracks. Worth considering, richie riches of the world.

Kinks - Lost And Found

(MCA, 1987)

BREAKING! Kinks in adult-contemporary autopilot-hackery shocker! Yup, “Lost and Found,” which lent its name to an MCA comp that was a cutout-bin mainstay in my formative years, has all the clichés: a midtempo plod, sleek synths, two lame guitar solos, and screaming saxophones. Practically comes off as a parody of such late-’80s nonsense; thing could’ve easily featured on the soundtrack of a cheesy Top Gun-style movie. Oh, and “Killing Time” makes another appearance on the B-side, where it continues to stink.

Sigh.

You know, grumping about lousy Kinks records for the last few weeks has ceased to be much fun, so I’ll inject some positivity by mentioning that the reunited Jesus Lizard is terrific in concert. And that Andrew Loog Oldham’s symphonic Rolling Stones Songbook album is a must-hear. And that John Bellairs remains a pleasure to read. Yeah: hooray for stuff!

Kinks - How Are You

(London, 1986)

Two midtempo mediocrities from Think Visual, though, to be fair, these are two of the better songs on that abomination. Whee! “How Are You” is a mature response to a relationship gone bad, crooned in a manner reminiscent of mid-’80s Bowie, and “Killing Time” sounds surprisingly like a period Jeff Lynne production. Which raises this point: aside from the fact these simply aren’t very good songs, it bugs me that the Kinks, in their final years, have not only tried to become JUST LIKE everybody else on the dinosaur circuit, they’ve also failed miserably at it. The result is boring cookie-cutter rock for old people that sounds like it was created by a bunch of disinterested session hacks.

Kinks - Rock 'N' Roll Cities

(MCA, 1986)

You know what my Kinks reviews have in common with the band’s career? Both are interminable and depressing. Crikey, “Rock ’N’ Roll Cities”? What is this shit? I can’t imagine there’s a worse single in the Kinks’ discography than this appalling turd, which lays out the age-old laundry list of touring-band gripes in the most generic fashion possible over humiliating bar-band backing. Oh, wait! Ha ha! You made up some jokey radio station call letters, one of which is K-O-N-K!! Truly, you’re both a wit and a visionary genius, Dave! Also: FUCK YOU. And “Welcome to Sleazytown” is as bad as its title, a slow, bluesy lump of a song that once again demonstrates Ray’s near-total inability, by the late 1980s, to write – as he once did so easily – lyrics or music capable of moving his audience. Pathetic stuff. Here’s where the Kinks become a joyless, characterless, mindless husk of a band. This is bad music. It really is.

Kinks - Do It Again

(Arista, 1984)

Word of Mouth – drum machines and all – is an improvement over the putrid State of Confusion, but it’s pretty clear that Ray’s already-suspect creativity is sapped when the album’s single bites the opening chord of “A Hard Day’s Night,” morphs into a bad Pete Townshend impression, and then, inexplicably, rips off 1968 B-side “She’s Got Everything.” Maybe the whole thing’s a stroke of brilliance meant to illustrate the “nothing is ever really new” mopery of the lyrics. Or maybe Ray’s just out of new musical ideas. And given how little of his songwriting during this decade stands out as anything resembling MEMORABLE or EXCITING (or even WORTH OWNING), I’m putting my money on the latter being the case. Brother Dave’s not faring too well here either, with “Guilty” blaring forth as yet another boring, riff-by-numbers rocker – albeit with an OK chorus – that’s further sandbagged by Dave’s rotten vocals. Always strained and weak-sounding going back to the ’60s, his nasal yowlings are by this point brutal on the ears.

And just to kick the Kinks while they’re down, can anyone out there think of a band that had nearly as “impressive” a run of hideous album covers as these guys did from ’83 through ’88? I mean, good gravy… State of Confusion, Word of Mouth, Think Visual, and The Road are spectacularly ugly artifacts. Eyeball obscenities, all of ’em.