Gary Pig Gold:
December, 2004

It's Beginning To Sound Alot Like Christmas: Sonic Suggestions for Only the Most Musically Discriminating.

You bet, it's that time of year again! Time to get out the Best Buy gift certificates or, for you more technologically deviant out there, fire up the ol' burner in order to amuse and amaze all those annoying audiophiles upon yer Yule list.

For your humble columnist has just spent yet another sleepless night googlin' high and very low indeed on your behalves, and my virtual garage crawl has unearthed several rare true gems I can most fitfully recommend to even the collector out there who can't stop after amassing all forty-one Jandek albums.

So call over Dasher, call Dancer and even Prancer, on Cupid, Wenner, and even Blitz Magazine! Coz here comes my very own Almost All Music Guide for what to buy the Fufkinite out there who's heard and purchased absolutely everything … almost, that is:

Son Of Sun Box (A Talking Album Only)
Lovingly compiled by the one and only Rev. Ken Burke, this five-CD (or, for all you retro-truckers out there, nine-cassette) set chronicles the often colorful, always comical between-song chatter as pioneering producer Sam C. Phillips talks shop with his stable of Paleolithic rockstars. Yes, hear Sam swap fashion hints with Elvis, fishing tips with Carl Perkins, argue rhythms with Jerry Lee Lewis, argue theology with Jerry Lee Lewis, argue the merits of rifle-versus-revolver with Jerry Lee Lewis...

The Compleat Beatles Hamburg Sessions
Originally released to compete with that Fab Anthology series, this set conveniently collects, in one sleek Teutonic metal box, everything captured on fellow Merseybeater "King-Size" Taylor's portable recorder during JPG&Pete's New Year's Eve 1961 engagement at the infamous Star Club. Diagnosed Beatlemaniacs will already own the on-stage selections contained herein, but nobody's ever heard Parts 3 thru 7 of this collection (and you'll soon hear why). These surreptitiously-recorded, fraulein-soaked post-performance, ah-hemm, "party tapes" feature George Harrison's plaintive take on "There Was A Young Girl From Nantucket," a definitive McCartney reading of "Your Baby Has Gone Down The Plug Hole" (compare with Cream's version on Disraeli Gears), and John Lennon's chest-rending medley of "Knees Up Mother Brown" with the King's own "Dirty Dirty Feeling." I can't wait for the accompanying DVD!

Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series, Vol.s XVI - XIX
After the alarming success of "The Cough Song" off the initial Bootleg collection (Bob's first overseas chart-topper since "Lay Lady Lay"), CBS/Legacy unleashed this ear-threatening collection of eighty-two takes... and mistakes... covering every facet of the genius' career. Comes complete with a 106-page book crammed with essential doodles, napkins and phone numbers compiled by long-time Dylan hounder A.J. Weberman. Among its audio stand-outs: the numerically-aborted "Rainy Day Women No.s 15 & 47," a stunning nine-minute run-through of "Da Doo Ron Ron" from the
Nashville Skyline sessions (proof positive of the Girl Group influence Johnny Cash brought to Bob during their work together), and the piece of resistance: an oddly moving reading of The Gettysburg Address recorded during the Rolling Soy Bomb tour (Dylan's obviously had better nights, not to mention better wine, than this, though Roger McGuinn's tasteful 12-string accompaniment nicely drowns out Joan Baez's caterwauling). First 500,000 pressings come with a "Mystery Bonus CD-ROM" of
Masked and Anonymous bloopers.

Steam: Live and Unreleased
This three-CD, five-vinyl-record, one-song retrospective proves that even half-hit wonders deserve their very own boxsets in this Makeover Millennium. Volume I follows the birth and development of "Na Na, Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)" from the laugh-strewn songwriters demo through all seventy-seven takes it took Steam to lay the damn thing down and out in the studio. Disc Deux alternates live versions of the song by both Steam (yes, they actually did wrangle a gig or two it seems!) and hockey audiences the world over (which leads one to wonder when the NHL will get around to releasing
their box set), and the final volume sums it all up with many of today's biggest stars paying tribute with their very own renditions of The Song That Wouldn't Die (most impressive? Neil Young's blistering "Na Na, Hey Hey (Rock 'n' Roll Is Here To Stay)" recorded live at the Toronto Skydome during last year's Stanley Cup play-offs).

The Biggest Hits from the Grassy Knoll
No, not more blog-fodder for all you Oliver Stoned buffs, but a gigantic boxed retrospective from Rhino/Warner Archives that is as revealing as it is pointless and utterly redundant. Rhino, who've expertly re-released entire back catalogues for the likes of Peter Tork and Don Adams, pay the ultimate tribute to Sixties esoterica by unearthing and restoring 102 recordings by an obscure Rhode Island frat combo who never even made a record, let alone had one released, anywhere, at any time. Until Now, that is. Legend has it the Knolls' lead guitarist, someone who calls himself Teddy Kent Poe, traded in a carton of his band's taped noodlings (for a crossbow set) at a bake sale years ago, and said tapes apparently found their way onto the desk of some senior Rhino, as it seems all such tapes do sooner or later. As a result, Available Now For The First Time Ever, ream upon reel of no-fi adolescent stabs at surf rock ("Alaskan Guitar"), folk rock ("Poetic Injustice"), protest rock ("I'm White, You're Not"), proto-punk rock ("Venus Envy"), and even rip-off rock ("You Got Me, Really"). Actually, the Grassy Knoll, particularly the so-loose-they're-tight rhythm section of bassist Toho Savales and drummist "Half-Dump" Daley, shine best when toying with their own special brand of psychodelic mutant raga'ing that puts even The Shaggs to shame (...but then how can you possibly go wrong with titles like "MacArthur's Parts," "Butterfish Meadows" and "Dayglow Nerf Sticks"?!!). Rumored to have resurfaced circa 1971 as Demon Cheese, Rhino threatens their box sometime in the too-near future too... but will they dare to sub-title it The Second Gunmen?

Every Memorable Hit of the Eighties
One can only begin to imagine the contractual (not to mention musical!) nightmares the folks at K-Tel went through to assemble this four-song, nine-minute extravaganza (especially annoying is the extended "snooze-mix" of the Bangles' "Eternal Flame"). Their 1990's compilation promises to be even shorter.

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