Moe's Reading Recap

Moe's Books, Berkeley, last Monday night was the scene of a Lost in the Grooves extravaganza, as Bay Area contribs (and a few stray Angelenos) convened to read, spin discs and wax prophetic on the state of collecting in a post-vinyl world.

To begin, David Smay and myself shared some treasured discs from his collection, among them this Star Wars disco album which, as they guy at the record store said, “is actually pretty good.” We also spun an apocalyptic Osmonds number from The Plan and of course a little bit of Lancelot Link and the Evolution Revolution.

Then David shared his tale of the sad legend of Buck Naked and the Bare Bottom Boys.

Kevin Carhart read his essay on Dogbowl’s Flan and played us a singularly lovely song from the album.

Max Hechter was on a roll (but since he set up the reading at Moe’s we cut him some temporal slack) as he read an expanded version of his Cock Sparrer essay from the book, followed by his ever-popular presentation on Silver, the world’s worst pre-teen Finnish punk band. Here Max is putting their single on…

And here’s contributor Jacqueline Zahas giving her honest opinion:

Brian Doherty read his pieces on Appaloosa, Vulgar Boatmen and a local legend, Ron Nagle.

Alec Palao’s theme was “What were they thinking?”--the "they" being the artists who recorded such atypical tracks as Randy Newman’s hard rock 45 “Last Night I Had a Dream”… Mike Nesmith’s big band gone Monkees freakout The Wichita Train Whistle Sings… Wayne Newton’s gleefully Wilsonesque pop single “Comin’ On Too Strong” (a Terry Melcher/ Gary Usher production), Freddie Cannon and the Strawberry Alarm Clock taking on the Doors, Pat Boone’s version of “Song to the Siren” and… {shudder}… Hugh Masakela… singing!

Editrix Kim read an expanded version of her Roky Erickon essay from the book, with a little help from “L’il Roky.”

Jay Hinman presented a thought-provoking treatise on The Future of the Music Dork in the Digital Age, which can be read here.

Chas Glynn, an old pal of whom we see too little, shared some underappreciated yet groovy slabs of wax (Ultravox! The Bags from Boston) and riffed on some of the records he wrote about in his “File Under: Other” piece in an old issue of Scram, among them this guard dog on disc LP with two speeds, “Big Dog” and “Little Dog.”

Then Chas introduced John Trubee, whose The Communists are Coming to Kill Us he wrote about in Lost in the Grooves, and John went on tell the insane, inspiring story of how a fake suicide note was all it took to get a record deal (ah, the eighties).

Richard Henderson’s piece was called “The Golden Age of Anglophillia,” and included memories of being corrupted by late night early seventies radio and forced to trek into strange neighborhoods to buy weird little records without big holes in their centers. Among the items Richard shared was Pete Townshend & Angie’s mildly pedophilic “Peppermint Lump.”

We closed the show with Phantom Surfer Mike Lucas reading an excerpt of his unfinished book about record collecting adventures south of the border, with musical accompaniment from Carlos of the Mothballs (bravely playing sans amp) and the horrible wet snarfing sounds of Peanut the Dog.

Thanks to everyone who read, attended or bought a book, Cathy Lynch for the great pix and to Owen at Moe's. See ya next time!