HERE’S JEFFREY MORGAN’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #375 MACHINE ROCK’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #1!

EDITOR’S NOTE: Having habitually written this column every week for the past nine years and having amassed a considerable amount of undeclared payola from various record companies and publicists during that time, the notoriously niggardly Jeffrey Morgan is finally using some of that offshore gelt to take a well-deserved summer vacation and go fishing.

Ghost writing his column for the next few months will be valued colleague MACHINE ROCK (@MachineRock) who promises to try and ape, as closely as possible, Mr. Morgan’s idiosyncratic; emdash-addicted; comma-eschewing; alliterative; run-on sentence style of writing.

For those of you unfamiliar with his work, Machine Rock has been making good on veiled threats since 1975. His byline has appeared in numerous magazines and books, including CREEM: America’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll Magazine and The Stooges: The Authorized and Illustrated Story.

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Charissa “Spammer” Odonnell – Show t hes e videos to your g irlfriend so she k n ows h ow to mak e u e xx xcited (SPAM Email) :: “On owing up the pushpin after the races, terrain deface on a unpardonable stripe track, and without shaving or taking his spat, he immersed normally the reproduction moneys, bills, and letters, and appear to conspire. Now I am a pessimist, but cupola fray subscribed to forgive me. No sooner had I voiced this cast than I navigator it must signify insulated might well.”

And you thought Morgan overwrote.

Arson – Not Always About You (Glamatron!) :: These days any chintzy chump with an adenoidal drawl can sing like Iggy Pop sings, but it takes an altogether entirely different and highly specialized scabrous skill set to sing like Iggy Pop talks. Bonus points for producing a passel of proto-punk puds which are cooked to perfection by a forefront frazzle of loud ’n’ snooty stereophonic guitars that’ll smearcase your schnozz while the bottom end of the band does some serious below deck bowel buffeting. Points deducted for not naming themselves Johnny Arson. Hey-o!

SIZZLING PLATTER OF THE WEEK: Jeffrey Morgan with Dean Motter – Thrilling Women: The Lost Air Pirates Sessions: Toronto: 1978-1980 (Bongo Beat) :: Despite the pseudo-democratic joint cover credit, it’s painfully obvious after only one lackadaisical listen that the real brains behind this outré outfit is audio auteur Motter.

Not only did he design the album’s two album covers and accompanying 24 page booklet, he also wrote the extensive historical liner notes essay; single-handedly composed and played the record’s most memorable ambient pieces of music; and produced the entire seventeen track album as well.

All of which kinda makes you wonder what he needed the other guy for, other than to write the tongue twisting title track which is nothing less than the missing power pop prog rock link between Eno’s “Miss Shapiro” and Sparks’ “I Married A Martian.”

Featuring guest stars Paul Robinson of The Diodes; Toby Swann of The Battered Wives; saxophonist Andy Haas of Martha And The Muffins; Blair Packham of The Jitters; and Hugh Syme of the Ian Thomas Band to name only a few, this is the end of civilized ’70s music as we know it.

So go here and download—absolutely for free—not one, but two versions of the album’s booklet: one formatted for your reading pleasure; and one formatted to print out and insert into a jewel case. Instructions included, thanks to Motter.

Album not included, thanks to Morgan; buy it on iTunes here.

Now for that stupid last line:

Be seeing you!

CLEAR ACROSS JEFFREY MORGAN’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #374!

Marc Bolan & T. Rex – “Children Of The Revolution” (T. Rex Wax Company) :: Of course the only reason they chose it is because it has the word “revolution” in the title and chorus, but there’s still something delightfully askew about a British song containing the prototypical braggadocio Bolan boast: “I drive a Rolls Royce ’cause it’s good for my voice” being incongruously used in an Italian Fiat advert about Paul Revere and the American rebellion—which is quite alright because hearing the 20th Century Boy on the telly in 2013 is my idea of solid gold easy action.

SIZZLING PLATTER OF THE WEEK: Kate Reid – Queer Across Canada (self released) :: Whadda gal. Goes from Stand-up Folkie (I’m Just Warming Up) to Shepherding Activist (Doing It For The Chicks) to Social Educator (Queer Across Canada) all within the span of three albums—faster than the time it would take you or I to change a futzed fuse.

But that’s the point. Always the brightest bulb in the box, incandescent Kate wasn’t whistling in Dixie when she said she was just getting started ’cause even then she had a far-flung audio agenda of acceptance in mind that’s finally come to full-blown fruition on her latest long player, which is nothing less than an informative curriculum of facts and a sonic support group.

Vocally, Kate’s pipes are in fine fettle and equally as emotive whether she’s breaking the verbal speed limit on “The Mothers’ Day / Fathers’ Day Conundrum” or getting down with a funkified cover of the venerable Sister Sledge unity anthem “We Are Family.” Musically, Kate breaks new ground by adding an expertly arranged plethora of horns; woodwinds; strings; and choir, all to good effect—especially during the more introspective passages which’ll have you daubing your eyes.

Much has been made of the charm which radiates throughout her albums—and rightly so, because Kate’s refreshing sense of humor has always been the spoonful of sugar that makes the tolerance go up. And while Queer Across Canada is no exception to that rule, Kate admirably aspires to up the ante by taking her message of love out of the intangible ether and into the physical classroom where, like any life lesson worth learning, it can be rationally discussed and expertly applied without censure.

But for those of you who are of the opinion that humor has no place when dealing with such a serious societal topic, I’d like to draw your attention to the comics section of the world’s newspapers on August 7th, 1952—a mere 61 years ago.

For it is there, in the great Walt Kelly’s legendary comic strip Pogo, that the following prescient exchange takes place between the eternally poetic Churchy LaFemme and the eternally practical Howland Owl:

CHURCHY:

“Why don’t women marry people what understands them?”

HOWLAND:

“Like who?”

CHURCHY:

“Like other women.”

Be seeing you!