OK, shoot me, but this was the view on my way back home from work this afternoon, and it just happened to make my day...

This month's releases from Ace Records.

COMING SOON

monks: the transatlantic feedback

documentary film | USA, Germany, Spain | 2005 | color & b/w
96 min | DVCAM, Digibeta

SYNOPSIS

The monks were 5 American GI’s in cold war Germany who billed themselves as the anti-Beatles; they were heavy on feedback, nihilism and electrical banjo. They had strange haircuts, dressed in black, mocked the military and rocked harder than any of their mid-sixties counterparts while managing to basically invent industrial, punk and techno music.

The genre-overlapping documentary film not only illustrates the pop music phenomenon in its political, social and cultural historic contexts, but also reveals the monks project as the first marriage between art and popular music and this months before Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground.

The five protagonists of the film came to cold war Germany in 1961 as soldiers and left the country in 1967 as avant-garde monks. For more than thirty years they were not able to talk about their strange experience. In the film they recount for the first time their adventure.

So I guess Sunday is playlist day, time to hip you to what's happenin'on HQ's hi-fi, with no other intention than to "share" my current digs with alla you NBT readers. Here goes: Any of you remember Geordie for anything else besides providing AC/DC with a new singer after Bon Scott died?. Well, you should. These guys offered some solid mid 70s glam stomp. Equal parts Slade, T. Rex and Led Zep, I've been really diggin' their Hope You Like It LP lately. All Because Of You is as good as anything by Slade in their prime, and I can't stop spinnin' Don't Do That, a Hooker-ish boogie that's just waitin' to be tackled by a band like the Dirtbombs or anyone else on In The Red. Thanks to both the Boonaraaas and the recent Rousers CD (see below) I've also re-acquainted myself with the Roulettes' Bad Time. Penned by Chris Andrews this is the kinda merseybeat song I was hoping to hear as a youngster when buying Gerry & the Pacemakers 45s. Easily as good as anything the Beatles ever came up with!. It's just great when current bands turn you on to tunes like that. I mean, I love Suzi Quatro and have done so since way back when, but I'm friggin' thankful to the Sirens who recently hipped me to Glycerine Queen of her first album, a song that always took a backseat to hits like 48 Crash and Can The Can, but turns out to be equally worthwhile.
Just yesterday I was readin' some magazine and, almost absentmindedly, threw on a Box-Tops comp and became completely mesmerized by I Pray For Rain, a song so perfect it could have been part of the Left Bank songbook. Sonny Boy Williamson's KIng Biscuit Time (an old Arhoolie LP comp) has been makin' an equal impact on my long fried brains, makin' me wonder why people bother with the Queens Of The Stonage (Sabbath fans so lame/ordinary they wouldn't even merit their own real-life soap) and their ilk. As I'm reading Legs McNeil & Jennifer Osborne's The Other Hollywood at the moment, I've also been spinnin' plenty o' lushly orchestrated disco/soul discs from the 70s as they serve as the perfect soundtrack to this book. Favorites include; The O'Jays Back Stabbers, Three Degrees' Dirty Old Man, Love Unlimited's Walking In The Rain, Isaac Hayes' Ike's Mood and Walk On By.

The Primevals will open for The Saints this coming Thursday (March 3rd) at King Tut's in Glasgow. Look out for a release date for their Last Call imprint retrospective. Coming soon...

Check out THE FLASH EXPRESS... our crew in GROMKA - METELKOVA, ljubljana / SLO can get a taste of what they're capable of tomorrow night. They're blazing a trail throughout Europe but not the UK. On the other hand why would they? This country wouldn't know a good band supposing it fell on top of it. Other combos headed for twhat seems like an Eastern European utopia for live music include Nine Pound Hammer and the now Mr Nancy-less Fabulous Disaster.

It's coming on dvd already and the extras are:

End Of The Century trailer

Deleted scene -- Clem Burke as Elvis Ramone

Joey Ramone radio interview excerpts from FM 106.3

Marky Ramone drum technique

Johnny Ramone interview excerpts

Richie Ramone interview excerpts

Dee Dee Ramone interview excerpts

Joe Strummer interview excerpts

Tommy Ramone in Forest Hills interview excerpts

Debbie Harry and Chris Stein interview excerpts

Neighborhood friend Ritchie Adler interview excerpts

Who Wrote What On The First 3 Albums by Tommy Ramone

Also check out this from Scotland on Sunday...

Thanks to Martin P for the info.

So, this box has gone through some kinda electronic transfusion and is working again. I'm utterly sickened at the fact that I seem to be so dependent on it but wodjagonnado? Here is some news for LA readers about Fur Dixon revisiting her Hollywood Hillbilly roots... info courtesy of Trashy Ashell from the Staysick board.

From this week's LA Weekly. One time Cramp, Fur is doing a show next week!

THE WESTERN BEAT KRIS KRISTOFFERSON TRIBUTE

Very few modern country songwriters have made as great an impact as Kris Kristofferson, the onetime Columbia recording studio janitor who set Music City afire with a lyrical style that mixed graphic realism and forlorn atmospherics. In the Nashville of the early 1970s, "Sunday Morning Coming Down"’s key lyric ". . . wishing Lord that I was stoned . . ." was equivalent to getting jabbed by a cattle prod. His blunt poetics also kicked open a door through which renegades Billy Joe Shaver and David Allan Coe happily passed and, despite his subsequent descent into a swamp of mediocre movie roles, the Kristofferson impact cannot be denied. Tonight's homage, with the capable likes of Mike Stinson, the hardscrabble charms of folk insurrectionaries - Steve Werner and Fur Dixon, and much more, should provide fitting honor.

Highland Grounds, 742 N. Highland Ave.; Thurs., March 3. (323) 466-1507.

THE ROUSERS - A TREAT OF NEW BEAT (AGM CD).
Now here's a band that loomed large in my life way back in the early 80's, I must have seen 'm at least a dozen times at the time, and it's great to see their long lost debut finally appear on CD. The Rousers' tool of trade was a solid mix of punk energy and six-o tunes (call it powerpop if you like) that holds up surprisingly well. Lyrically they might be part of the long standing Dutch tradition of teenage exuberance, cheesy accents and misunderstood slang, but there's no denying the strength of the actual tunes. No less than 11 bonus cuts round up the picture with only a version of She Loves You inducing a shrug of the shoulders, but the previously unreleased take on the Roulettes' Bad Time (recently also tackled by the Boonaraas) is a nice surprise. 8 out of 10, even after all these years.

Visitors with a penchant for Scottish Pop will be sorry to hear about Edwyn Collins. Hopefully he'll pull through...

OK, so the short of it is this... home contraption still goosed, no' able to post and communicate as normal. Hope to have this situation under control soon but who knows... other than that, much as I hate driving, I'm looking forward to the drive home this avo (that's afternoon to those who maybe ain't familiar with that particular lingo). A half day on a Friday ain't nothing to be sniffed at and adds afew minutes to the lull before the storm that is the Monday dread. As opposed to Mikey Dread.

Gearclub at Debaser, Stockhom - Friday March 4, 20.00 - 03.00 - 80SvKr



Grande Ballroom:
THE HIJACKERS 22.00
THE GILJOTEENS 23.00
DJ's Mike Barbwire & Baby Diamondback

Lounge:
One String King 21.30
Gearclub Quiz 20.45 (win a free set of drinks)
DJ Reverend Billy Hill (100% Hillbilly & Roots music)
REAL TIKI Drinks 20.00 - 22.00

Also we have a new website

"Hey Folks

We're impossibly sad to announce that this Saturday's edition of Sonic Reducer (Feb 26) will be the last at The Boogaloo, due to circumstances (waaay) beyond our control.

However, it's gonna be one helluva wild-assed, day-after-the-DKT-MC5/Sun Ra-gig kinda blowout, replete with all of the serious garage, soul, punk, R&B, blues, soundtracks, reggae, reefer jazz, Nederbiet, and gen-u-wine skronk 7"s that you've come to know and lurve over the past year or so ... Joining us from the pulsating heart of Bristol's clubland will be dear friend and beat cosmonaut supreme, Steptoe, who'll be dishing only the finest deep funk and beat groovers ...

We'd like to take this opportunity to wholeheartedly thank y'all for being such a lovely crowd, and it's been a real honour to spin 45s for ya! To those who tapped a foot, or were in danger of knocking over the decks while dancing like a mad fule, we salute ya!

Looking back, it seems amazing that we've had such guest DJs as Michael Davis (MC5), Ben (Cornershop), Tim Rogers (You Am I), Andy Perry (The Telegraph / Intensive Care) and CherryStones (Twisted Nerve), and the capper has gotta be Ray Davies' regular visits ... Who could wish for more?

Of course, we'll continue to dish beats aplenty, and next from the Sonic Reducer Tag Team DJs is:

Mar 2 - 'Sure Trakings Trio' aftershow party

Mar 11 - Bassholes & Monsieur Jeffrey Evans @ The Dirty Water Club

Apr 2 - Top secret blowout!

Apr 28 - The Buccaneer, Memphis, Tennessee

For further details of where we'll turn up next, send an email to joss.hutton@talk21.com ...

But for now, it's sayonara, tattie-bye ... just remember to be good to your peoples, and have a drink for good old HST!

Much love

Joss & Joe xxx

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Dr Hunter S Thompson (1937-2005)

Sonic Reducer- The Final Conflict

The Boogaloo, Arway Road, London N6
Highgate Tube
7.30pm-1.30am
free before 10pm, £5 after"

Yowza, yowza! Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and join Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co. for an evening of the naughty and the bawdy at the "Wasabassco Cabaret Burlesque" (www.wasabassco.com) on Wednesday, February 23rd, at the space-aged Sputnik lounge. The SIT & Die boys will kick off the racy revue at 10:30, followed by a scintillating stream of the city's best burlesque beauties -- saucy sirens guaranteed to quicken the pulse and liven the libido -- and with free frankfurters for all! All for a mere $5.00 admission. Sputnik (www.barsputnik.com) is located at 262 Taaffe Place in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

For the more puritanically minded, please remember that the following night, like every Thursday night, SIT & Die Co. preaches the gospel of their patented "Ballads, Boogies & Blues" from 8:00 until 10:00 in the morally upright confines of Otto's Shrunken Head, located at 538 East 14th Street in the Eastern Village of Manhattan.

For all the explicit details, kindly visit www.SITandDieCo.com, won't you?

Sincerely,Michael

P.S. Just so that there are no secrets between us, please know that SIT & Die Co. takes to the Rodeo Bar stage on Wednesday, March 2nd. Thank you, that feels much better.

Fear or loathing? Pioneer of "gonzo journalism", Hunter S. Thompson shoots himself.

OK, OK, time for a short update from NBT's Dutch HQ. 05 got off to a very bad start so far. First I got stuck with not one, but two variations of the flu myself in January, and just last week my one year old son Bastiaan suffered from a severe bout of pneumonia. Bad as that is, there's the day-to-day stuff that seems to be taking up more time every week. I'll stop right here, and spare you the wall-to-wall moanin' 'n groanin', and instead focus on some kinda playlist of stuff that kept my spirits up (as far as possible) in recent weeks.
First off, Bob Marley's work with Lee Perry from the early 70s has hardly left the hi-fi here at HQ. Sparse, soulful, uplifting, this is just about as good as it gets. Forget all the blah-blah that's all over the music mags currently and dive straight into the heart of the matter. Trojan has the perfect introduction available right here. If reggae seems hardly the usual standard NBT fare, I have no idea what you will make of 40's big band sounds, but Lucky Millinder's Apollo Jump LP (Affinity) is another recent mainstay on my hi-fi. This disc features the earliest recorded work of the great Wynonie Harris, plus reknown gospel vocalist Sister Rosetta Tharpe singin' 'I Want A Tall Skinny Pappa'. Some songs: Pere Ubu - Final Solution, Dr Feelgood - Back In The Night, Duke Ellington - Take The A Train, Skeletons - Very Last Day, Bobby Womack - Woman's Got To Have It, Big Star - 13. And no matter what happens, I always listen to Creedence, Miles' Kind Of Blue and the Groovies. So there you have it...

Music and plenty else for NIMRODS!

Nice piece on Arthur Kane by David Johansen on the DOLLS site.

Check out this great little label based in Switzerland... Feathered Apple.

I'm pretty sure this computer is taking the piss outta me. Now that might sound like paranoia and even a little obsessive, compulsive but I can't shake the consideration that this bloody box in the corner across from the other one is extracting the ol' urine. Anyway, on a somewhat related note, my favourite TV show at the minute is MONK. It's on BBC2 here on a Saturday afternoon so while everybody else is at the mall, or getting on with their lives. We watch MONK. He's obsessive compulsive to a point beyond the call. It also takes place in San Francisco and there are great locations that just make you wanna be there. It's quite a gentle piece with an inherent sick cool that just doesn't make it to our screens too often these days. You should check it out if it appears on your schedules.