You know what this page hasn’t featured in a long time? A genre-melding rock band from Chicago. Frontier (guitarist Steven Wessley, bassist Kevin Ireland, drummer Michael Tsouios) formed in the early nineties, and quickly garnered buzz for their intense live performances, which would include a blinding light show followed by the trio’s choking out everyone in the room with liberal use of smoke machines. Never underestimate the power of a smoke machine at a rock show. When attempting to bring an audience into your world of dub-infused, feedback-drenched postmodern rock music, I suppose there’s no better way to achieve your goal than to subdue your audience before dragging them into whatever aural chasm you’ve created on stage. Frontier featured a killer rhythm section, upon which some amazing ambient, textural guitar parts were spread. Pull out any of the band’s work from their 1995 self-titled LP to their live recordings from The Empty Bottle, and you’ll swear you are listening to two distinct albums layered on top of each other, two parts experimental guitar noise with lots of time-delay effects, and one part drums ‘n bass.

In 1997, the band recorded Heater with Steve Albini. Not to be confused with the album of same name recorded by Louisville underground legends Crain three years earlier (bonus cool points if you knew that album was also recorded by Albini!). Spaced-out, abstract guitar feedback ensued. The sound of Heater — if one were to disregard the bass and drums — is what it must feel like to be sucked into a vortex. It is so very far out there. Some call it a mixture of Pink Floyd, Brian Eno and Kraftwerk. I just prefer to call it wild. They would have made a perfect twin-billing with The Complex. Long live The Complex.

Frontier
Heater
MediaFire DL Link

Tracklist:
01. Heatstream
02. Now
03. Space Invaders
04. Automatic
05. Manual
06. G.F.A.
07. Lakewood
08. Rival
09. Dualflame
10. Bundesbahn

I thought about writing a top ten list of the ten worst albums of 2009 (January-to-June) this week, but decided against it when I realized that there were way too many albums to list, and I’d probably offend or insult a people I know with my choices, thus ensuring passive-aggressive bullshit and evil eyes wherever I go. It’s not worth the annoying responses my bashing of local acts normally brings. That was before I thought about how amazingly insulting all the reader comments would be when I made fun of Wavves and whatever atrocious, soul-deadening records Matador and K. are releasing these days. I shouldn’t get into it. I like receiving promo CDs in the mail. I don’t want to waste my valuable press contacts at those labels. Please keep pushing on me your wares so I can keep giving ‘em away to my readers when they make donations to the site.

While I try to think of an idea for an interesting Top Ten, please enjoy this mini-list of the ten most absurd Google searches which directed people to Swan Fungus today:

10. fuck gails
09. human and ape sex
08. ape sex.org
07. hipster girl waco
06. how many people should you have at your birthday
05. is bono full of himself
04. little russian kids porno
03. massage stories
02. fart sex
01. puerto rican pussy

There, that wasted a few minutes. Now, let’s see…what can possibly inspire me to write a top ten list that doesn’t involve slagging on bands…hmm…I know, I’ll slag on individuals, not bands!

Now…what’s about the furthest thing from college rock music, because I would so very much hate to ruffle the feathers of people who listen to Radiohead and the Pixies. Oh, I know! Classical music!

Excuse me for a moment while I slip into something a little bit more…erudite.

The Top Ten Worst Classical Composers Of All Time

10. Claude Debussy - While this is a rather unfair inclusion, as Debussy’s own musical philosophies were incredibly insightful and rather unusual for a French post-Romantic Impressionist composer, it is still true that much of his compositional catalogue is comprised of either overly simple sentimental pieces or entirely ornamental pieces without any real structural backbone–and this list is about compositional honesty, after all. Methinks the reason for his lack of backbone had something to do with the fact that he was the the town man-whore, letting any homo with a taste for Frenchmen perpetrate the deviant sexual act known as “blowing his back out.”

09. Frederic Chopin - While Chopin indeed possessed of a knack for indisputably magical-sounding right-handed tinkling, and while he did indeed compose a number of tolerable (and possibly even beautiful) works, Chopin’s ultra-Romantic sound is almost nauseating under the right (or would they be wrong?) conditions. The bulk of his compositions were made either as teaching devices (he had a number of young, and usually female, pupils) or as salon accompaniments meant to serve as admittedly fitting background to hedonistic bourgeois prancing, dancing and flirting; the small part of Chopin’s catalogue which is preferable to these former pieces still have yet to live this fact down. His works are best suited for those of the male species who enjoy “stopping to smell the flowers,” and for little girls who play MASH all day and incessantly draw pictures of how they think their future weddings will appear.

08. Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert [tie]. Both of these composers are so over-rated and so dull that I can’t even think of anything they’ve composed outside of a few “indispensibles” which, even then, still aren’t worth mentioning. Perhaps it is not ironic that in East Germany during the year 1956, the country issued a pair of postage stamps featuring Schumann’s picture against an open score that featured Schubert’s music. You can read all about it on Wikipedia if you’re that much of a loser.

07. Jacques Offenbach - Having written one of the most unremarkable operas of all time in “Tales of Hoffman”, and considering that the aforementioned is generally conceded to be his masterpiece, Offenbach is typically given fourth chair to the greater talents (which is indeed unarguably as it should be) which both preceded him and served as his peerage. He died in Paris in 1880 at the age of 61, never having known the joys of being considered “cool” by anyone he ever met. In fact, it is tradition in Paris now that all boys turning thirteen years old must visit Offenbach’s grave and piss on any flowers that have been left by mourners or admirers. This is because the nation of France has since realized that Jacque was no more than the Burt Bacharach of his era: Jewish-born and oft-derrided by anyone with half a brain.

06. Johannes Brahms - Brahms, while undoubtedly widely loved (for he did indeed create some truly beautiful works–such as a few of his Intermezzi, a Scherzo for violin and piano, and various other sundry), really turned out–and let’s be honest here–some blithely traditional (which in itself is not necessarily a crime) and tepid material; most of his symphonic output (usually mocked as aping the Beethovenian style), his walzes, and his well-known variations (those on Paganini being the most vapid of all) fall into this latter category. Additionally, he was on the wrong side of the Wagnerite boundary, and for this a large faction of Romantic followers still has (rightfully) yet to forgive him. He was fond of nature, and often brought penny candy with him to hand out to children. In other words, he was the Michael Jackson of his generation, only he never got caught with a child’s penis in his mouth.

05. Franz Liszt - Liszt was truly a shameless showman, and a terrible composer to boot; while his transcriptions (such as entire Beethoven symphonies for piano) are marvelous, his own compositions tend to be so very basely technically-oriented that they don’t even approach the blends of technique and art so perfectly attained by J. S. Bach or Arnold Schoenberg. Liszt was far too busy trying to impress people, and far too unconcerned with musical integrity; fortunately, these egregious tendencies were made up for by his fathering Cosima Liszt-von Bulow-Wagner, who came to be the inspiration behind such beautiful Wagnerian masterpieces as “Siegfried Idyll”. You will not find Liszt’s name on the “Top Ten Lists Of All Time” list previously featured on Swan Fungus, though you will find a man named Fredrich List. No relation.

04. Karl Maria von Weber - Pompous, hollow, and lacking of any real content, von Weber’s work is easily summed up as being the “elevator music” of the early Romantic period. Von Weber was a key figure in the institutionalisation of virtuosic display of the most shameless kind; this element is easily evident in his Konzertstück in F minor, and the same piece handily displays the boring, nothing-special-if-capable style he utilised most frequently. I also hear he used to blow dogs in the parking lot at his local 7-11. It’s not heresy if I heard the rumor myself from a guy who used to hang out at the same 7-11 as Weber.

03. Johann Strauss, Jr. - Strauss’s widely-overplayed and over-loved catalogue of waltzes is truly insufferable; it is truly worth nothing that no-one else of such small merit has attained such worldly reknown for what is, like it or not, an unnotable collection of what should have merely been mildly popular nineteenth-century parlour music. While many know (and perhaps even love) the still-unquenchable Blue Danube and the Emperor Waltz, these same listeners are making a grave mistake in perpetuating such truly undeserving repertoire. He was his generation’s Elliott Smith, only he didn’t go out in a blaze of glory and two stabs to the chest; he quietly succumbed to double pneumonia in the Spring of 1889 at the age of 73. Also like Smith, several years after his death, Strauss Jr.’s sister tried to sell his Volkswagen on a very crude, very early incarnation of Craigslist.

02. Sergei Rachmaninoff - Rachmaninoff’s pianistic works are far too “virtuosic for the sake of being virtuosic”; his crescendi, glissandi, and sforzandos all smack of an insufferable show-off’s penchant for performing concerto cadenzas of extremely unlistenable character. Grossly overrated, his works are far too full of technical conceits which make for rather unmusical machinations. Had he lived another fifty years, he would have been privy to seeing Bill Murray’s character learn Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini during the film Groundhog Day. So torturous is hearing that vile composition, surely Rachmaninoff would have been subject to re-watching that film over, and over, and over, until he finally admitted to us all that he totally sucked.

01. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Mozart’s writing style was entirely frivolous; his later works, while “serious” only inasmuch as Mozart could summon seriousness, are still full of ineffectual writing which mainly seems as though it is trying to invoke a spritely-if-Beethovenian attitude. Additionally, his writing calls to mind an amalgam of other (and more meaningful) composers, using as his own signature only the most smug Alberti bass and flippant “tunes”. Even worse, he was the originator of a game of musical dice, making him an irresponsible forefather of aleatoric “music”. The “severe miliary fever” that took his life in 1791 wasn’t nearly deadly enough to wipe away the public’s collective memories of his music. That Eine Kleine Nachtmusik has been reduced to no more than incidental television commercial music proves the bland and impotent nature of his “works,” if you can even call them that.

Thanks for your help, Jet!

Ken Nordine - Mauve
13th Floor Elevators - Dear Dr. Doom
Dianogah - Puma
Young Widows - Delay Your Pressure

Cue the temporarily non-ironic ’80s nostalgia kick — now on steroids! — where people actually pretend they were “moved” by songs like “Bad” and “Thriller” as children in 3…2…1. Let’s not forget that the guy molested children for fuck’s sake. Move on already…

Saturday night after her performance, Nicci and I met at this new mexican bar on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. It’s owned by the same person who owns Delancy and Bowery. It’s called Mission Cantina. For the most part, it’s a tequila bar with scant seating, but their menu was enticing enough to draw our attention. Plus, Nicci said the place was less than a year old, so we’d be relatively “new” clients. Sounds good enough for me!

The tequila list is really extensive, but I’m not a woman or a fan of Alexander Pope’s, so I don’t drink that swill. I had a Mexican IPA that was decent if not better than the other watery options on the menu. Nicci had a gin and tonic. I was hoping she’d tried their margarita because I sure as hell wasn’t going to order it on my own, but oh well, there’s always next time.

The menu features some great options. Nicci ordered shrimp over white rice, which was fervently supported by our waitress. The shrimp are slathered in a generous and spicy combination of chipotle, tequila, tomato, lime, garlic and cilantro. I had a couple pieces and some of the rice, and it went quite well together. We both would have thought that the shrimp would have been served over mexican rice, but the white rice complimented both the seafood and the sauce. They also offer a simple quesadilla dish, burritos, a nacho plate with optional meat, a light salad, and a mole poblano with free range chicken, jasmine rice and jalapeno cornbread that also sounded delicious.

The main food item is the taco, which comes two-to-an-order with a side of mexican rice and beans. I ordered one of the beef barbacoa (slow cooked) and one of the smoked pork (hickory slow smoked). The best part of the dish is that you can pick any choice of salsa and garnish. They offer roja, verde and habanero salsas, so I picked the roja and the habanero. The garnishes include pico de gallo, chopped onions with cilantro, pickled jalapenos, finely sliced onions with vinegar, queso fresco and sour cream. I asked for everything except sour cream. They came served on a flight in small cups. It was very cool that all the garnishes and salsas came on the side so that I could stuff the tortilla with whatever I wanted in whatever proportions I desired. The meat was cooked perfectly. The pickled jalapenos were also good, and the habanero salsa — even though the server warned us it was very spicy — was a perfect blend of flavor and heat. The beer helped.

The place was empty at 11:00pm on a Saturday night, but I imagine during hot summer months it’d be a great place to sit outside and enjoy some well-prepared Mexican food over several beers with friends. Also, I have nothing else to write about today so the idea of reviewing an eatery I ate at last week a day after writing a post entirely dedicated to pizza seemed like a good idea. I guess it’s Food Week at Swan Fungus.

*Side note*: Last evening this website received its 1,000,000th page view. That’s right, one million pages on this website have now been accessed by people across the world. The next big milestone will be the 1,000,000th unique visitor, but who the hell knows when that’ll happen. Even if it says 712 people per day view this website, I’m convinced it’s the same 7 people returning here over and over again because they have nothing better to do during their work day. Soon, though, we’ll have a big “Million Douchebag March” party to celebrate the blog’s millionth visitor.

From Julian Cope’s Head Heritage, as written by The Seth Man

“‘High Tide’ is putting it lightly: it’s an extremely apt description of where this group’s muse was at when they recorded this rollicking and utterly distorted screech out. And where they were at was to approximate the feel in every track of a Flying Dutchman pitching uncontrollably on heavenly seas. Furthering this connection is not only the title, but also the beautiful Peter Whitehead colour gatefold painting of a cosmic sailing ship, complete with superimposed photograph of a nude woman as masthead in open-mouthed ecstasy as her bow receives the breaking waves beneath, while the fully-caught sail above her reads ‘PAX.’

From beginning to end, “Sea Shanties” is a mammoth and early UK power trio trip despite the fact they had future Hawkwind keyboardist/violinist, Simon House as a fourth member. But the absolute dementedness of the guitar-based energy field is so high throughout that the goodly amount of the violin and organ passages are practically wiped out. And the guitarist responsible was none other than Tony Hill: his fierce outings here exhibit at least a degree of influence from Glenn Ross Campbell, the steel guitar player from his earlier band, The Misunderstood. Campbell mutated his indigenous country instrument into a truly hectic domain gone haywire and Hill likewise pushes his entire guitar into a grinder of wah-wah, fuzz and supreme tearing at its throat distortion in a revolving fever dream kept barely grounded by Pete Pavli’s bass and Roger Hadden’s explosive Keith Moon-like drum presence, which is everywhere at once effortlessly. In fact, excepting the slight opening finesse of “Missing Out” (which hurtles headlong into a massive power trio jam by the end, anyway) the entire album is track after track of unrelenting, screeching guitar and muscular backing like Sabbath and The Groundhogs joined by Dave Swarbrick during the highlights of a messy methedrine binge. There’s an abundance of ever-screeching guitar work from Hill, and his vocabulary of distortion and interplay only surpassed by its volume. It SCREAMS of the hardest rock, although the cover barely allows for this to be perceived. In fact, it looks the entire world a low-rent Fairport Convention/Flock fizzle-fest, with its Arthur Rackham-esque monochrome cover, the old tymey title and Simon House’s violin credit on the back cover. Never was sleeve art more deceptive.

”Futilist’s Lament” begins with incoming mail from the overblown stacks of Tony Hill, and he’s singing like someone else’s version of Jim Morrison minus the range, over which violin and organ hover overhead and often intertwining with the guitar until they become a single Gordian knot of sound. And yes, the amps are already smoking, and they start to really fry them out on the next track, the 9:10 instrumental opus, “Death Warmed Up.” More roiling currents, this time in the appearance of Hill’s totally over the top heavy, heavy, heavy guitar coloured even heavier by Pavli’s bass engine. But then THAT wah-wah cuts in, and you’ve never heard such a fucking ugly yet awesome din in all your life. But that’s not to say it’s not musical (because it is) but it’s so fluid, heavy, buzz-sawing for all its worth and at a pace too fast to be progressive, but too shifting in time signatures and tempos to be hard rock. So High Tide are an example of going for it with your guts, and let everybody else figure it out…if they still left standing after this pulverising epic. Everything is pulsing around a centrally-located beat and Tony Hill’s demented leads, and it only ends because the producer probably allowed them only nine minutes to get it all out and not because they couldn’t continue it into the far side of next week if they wanted.

The entire album is one of highlights and the last track, “Nowhere” is one of the most complex of the album. With a skewered intro guitar piece that runs into a jamming fit at top volume, it slips neatly into a plateau of simmering dynamics with segued vocals into a crazy, cymbal-filled, violin-led hoedown. Hill is now cramming those crazy screech-ola bursts into every crack, whether they exist (and if they happen not to) doesn’t prevent him from bulldozing straight ahead. House’s violin breaks square into a heart-opening violin passage, and when the passage is restated a second time after the final vocals, Hill falls in with interlocking penetration guitar crosstalk. This coda evokes a Wyeth-animated seascape as High Tide’s careening galleon rocks into the far horizon, into the sun and a shining oblivion beyond this world, and all words.

Their endurance is apparent and their stamina is downright frightening.”

High Tide
Sea Shanties
MegaUpload DL Link

Tracklist:
01. Futilist’s Lament
02. Death Warmed Up
03. Pushed, But Not Forgotten
04. Walking Down Their Outlook
05. Missing Out
06. Nowhere

CD reissue includes 5 bonus tracks.

Photos by Gary Mecija

It all started with a simple top ten list. Now many months later it was finally put to the thest. After several botched attempts and weeks of poor planning, the first annual East Los Angeles Pizza Off took place last evening at Nicci’s house in Echo Park. A lot of planning and a lot of hard work went into creating this event, so before I even begin describing exactly what happened, I would like to thank Nicci, Nate, Ilya and Tom for hosting the event. I’d also like to thank Pat, Shaun, Nate (again), Nicci (again) and Erin for pitching in and buying pizza pies. Thank you to Quiggs, Mark, and Gary for supplying alcohol. Thanks Gary for photographing the event. Thanks to whoever else I’m forgetting for casting votes and making this the first of what will surely become an amazing annual event. We couldn’t have had a better, livelier crowd. Everyone was there to serve a higher purpose — I think we were all cognizant of that fact — and it helped the competition run smoothly and efficiently. Most of all, everyone had fun chatting and bantering about their favorite and worst slices, and if we’re going to change what pizza in Los Angeles is, open dialog is definitely the first step towards realization of a common goal.

The rules were simple: find the best pizza in the Echo Park / Silverlake / Los Feliz / Eagle Rock / Highland Park area. We had seven competing restaurants/parlors. We tried our best to hide the identities of the pies, but hardcore fans can always tell their favorite pizza, even when its box is covered in torn out pages from a phone book.

We tried to ensure that all the pies arrived at the house simultaneously so that they would be judged under the same conditions, but late guests to the party caused us to slow down the process of beginning the next round of taste tests. As we approached pies five and six, we realized that they had become quite cool, so we threw them in the oven for a few minutes, just to get them close to the freshness of the other pies. I don’t believe that this skewed the results of the competition. Pie seven arrived fresh at the tail-end of the contest, so that might have had something to do with its scores. Nevertheless, it was a much sought-after pie we could not procure earlier in the evening, so we didn’t want to exclude it from the event.

That said, here are the logistics: We had 12 judges tasting seven pizzas. Our palates were cleansed with three types of beer (Samuel Adams Cherry Wheat, Stella Artois, and Peroni), and two wines (white and red). The pizzas were judged on the following criteria: appearance, sauce, crust, consistency, and an overall grade. The first four categories were scored on a scale of 1-to-5, and the overall grade was on a scale of 1-to-20. In hindsight, I think this turned out to be a really bad idea, because some people were extremely lazy in their grading approach. For example, on pie seven, one person circled all fives and then twenty. That just shows a lack of a objectivity (or someone was under the influence of too much pizza to think clearly). Similarly, there were some ridiculously stupid scoring choices, like the person who gave a pie a five in one category, but their overall score was only a 2. Since this was the first event of its kind ever, we were sure to have some flaws in the system. Hopefully these kinks will be worked out the next time around. And there will be a next time. And you will all be invited.

Let’s talk about the pizzas and the results. If you don’t care about comments or individual scores, scroll down to see the result matrix.

Pie #1 - Casa Bianca (Eagle Rock) - I think some people graded Casa Bianca a bit too conservatively, because it was the first pie of the night, and no one wanted to overrate the first pie they tasted. That said, Casa Bianca’s slice scored a 1.92 in appearance, which earned it last place overall in the category. It scored a 2.33 in sauce, good for 5th place overall (tie). The crust was a solid 3, which gave it 3rd place. A slice’s consistency scored 2.8, which gave it 3rd place. I’m pretty sure this is because no one knew what the hell consistency meant. I described it as “mouthfeel,” while Mark described it as texture. The overall score for Casa Bianca was 9.08, which in my opinion is way too harsh on a scale of 1-to-20.

Pie # 2 - Folliero’s (Highland Park) - The scores for Folliero’s were very consistent across the board, which is something that cannot be said for any of the other pies in the competition. Considering some people were very harsh, the scores were very uniform. The appearance of Folliero’s slice scored an average of 2.42, ranking it fifth. The sauce was 2.67, good for 3rd place. Crust was a 2.67 as well, but only good enough for 5th place. Consistency was 2.75, a 4th place score. Overall, the score for Folliero’s was a 9.23, which in my opinion was also criminally low for any of the pizzas we tried tonight. If the average score on a scale of 1-5 was between 2.5 and 3, one would expect the overall score to be closer to 12 than 9. Oh well. Comments on the Folliero’s ballots included, “Tasty!” and “Mmm…cheesy”.

*Note* This raises a good point that, in hindsight, exposes a fatal flaw in the judging. People simply did not understand the weight that each number actually had in determining the results. For example, it’s baffling that Casa Bianca had top-3 finishes in two categories, and was voted the second-worst pizza of the night, while Nicky D’s had only one top-3 finish and yet it placed 3rd overall. Liberal use of 1s and 5s, and especially low rankings in the overall category, ruined the chances of some of these pizzas to see even moderate results. In my opinion, it was a shame that so many pies finished with overall scores of less than 10 (or 50% if you’re grading on a 1-100 scale). None of them were that bad, and I expected to see many more scores in the 13-16 range than the 7-9 range. We will get these kinks worked out for the next competition.

Pie #3 - Tomato Pie (Los Feliz) - Pretty much everybody who helped plan the event assumed Tomato Pie would score the worst of all the pizzerias in the competition. Admittedly, I quite enjoy their “Mr. White” pie, especially when topped with Italian sausage. I’ve never had their plain pie before, but the general distaste for the eatery definitely led us to believe that it would not fare well in the competition. We were all correct in our predictions. The average score for appearance was 2.25, putting it in 6th place. The sauce averaged a 1.83 — last place. The crust averaged a score of 1.91, which was also a last place ranking. The consistency scored a 2.08, which gave it 6th place. The overall score for Tomato Pie’s pizza averaged a 7.27, which if you were grading it on a scale of 1-100% would be roughly a 36%, or the same score I got on my 8th grade Algebra I final exam. Again I find that to be a low score, even though I thought it was the worst pie of the evening. Comments on the Tomato Pie ballots included, “Tastes like the Little Building,” which I believe is an Emerson College-related response, and one person just wrote “Fail.”

Pie #4 - Il Capriccio (Los Feliz) - Il Capriccio was a bit of an underdog in the competition. Many of the judges had never eaten there before, and quite frankly we didn’t even know its pie was going to compete until a few hours before the event. So, how did it fare? The appearance was 4th best overall with an average score 3.08. The sauce averaged a rating of 2.5, or 4th place. The crust scored a 2.54, sixth place. Consistency was 2.71, good for 5th place. Overall, the average score for Il Capriccio was a 9.83. Here’s where the low scores really come into light. There was one comment written on an Il Capriccio ballot. It said, “Blah!”

The first four pies of the night all “failed,” as none of them received an overall grade better than what amounted to a 50% score. Either that says a lot for the sub-par quality of pizza in Los Angeles (which it probably doesn’t), or the judges were unusually harsh towards these pies. Personally I think it’s the latter, but who the hell am I to say, I can find something good in pretty much any pizza.

Pie #5 - Hard Times Pizza Co. (Los Feliz) - Hard Times has many fans among the judges, so we knew it would be tough for some people to put aside their biases and vote objectively. The scores for Hard Times slice were generally positive, either because it really is good, or because it was recognized by those who enjoy it. Furthermore, this pie was re-heated and served warm, which may have affected its scores. It earned second place votes in every category. The appearance scores averaged 4.0, the sauce averaged 3.17, the crust averaged 3.08, the consistency 3.46. Overall, it averaged a 13.13 total score. One person wrote on their Hard Times ballot, “Tasty!”

Pie #6 - Nicky D’s (Silverlake) - Nicky D’s was another pie like Il Capriccio. Not many people judging the contest had tried it before. Again, it was served slightly re-heated, which may have affected its scores. Nicky D’s appearance earned it 3rd place with an average score of 3.7. The sauce was 5th place with a 2.33 score, the crust was 4th place worthy with a 2.83. Somehow, its consistency managed to drop way down to 2.17, which gave it the worst “mouthfeel” of all. But it’s overall score was 11.92, which is pretty high given the results of the first four pies, but really low in the grand scheme of things, considering the range of possible scores went as high as 20. Conservative judging? Or bad judging? You decide. One person wrote on their Nicky D’s ballot, “Spit and then shit.”

Pie #7 - Two Boots (Echo Park) - People might have been tired at the end of the competition after eating so much pizza, but our fresh “bonus” pie managed to score exceedingly high marks from all the judges. It swept the competition, winning every category. Appearance scores averaged 4.36, sauce was 3.54, crust was 4.54, consistency was 4.0, and overall was a 16.45. One person wrote on their ballot for Two Boots, “I am going to throw up,” but I think that was a response to all the pizza they’d eaten, not specifically the Two Boots slice.

No matter how you calculate it, the results are the same. If you add up the individual scores and average those, or average the averages we came up with, they still all rank the same. No, the irony is not lost on me that a middle-of-the-road (if that!) New York pizza chain absoutely demolished all these start-up pizza places in Los Angeles. This sweeping victory for Two Boots says horrible things about West Coast pizza.

In case you’re wondering how I voted, my individual ballot looked like this: Two Boots (5, 4, 4, 5, 17), Folliero’s (3, 3, 3, 4, 15), Casa Bianca (4, 2, 4, 4, 13), Nicky D’s (3, 2, 3, 4, 13), Hard Times (4, 2, 2, 3, 13) and Tomato Pie (4, 2, 1, 2, 9).

So there you have a it. A lot of confusing numbers and a lot of information to process. As I stated earlier, I think the competition was very well received by all those who attended, and we’re already planning how to improve next year’s pizza-off. As for those pizzerias that didn’t win this year, now is your chance to step up your game. You see what people liked and what they didn’t like, this is the best and most-detailed customer feedback you’re going to receive, perhaps ever.

Oh, and by the way, if you’re one of the places in the competition and you maybe get a phone call on this date next year ordering one cheese pie, and someone instructs you to “make it good and get here quick,” you might want to think twice about where your pizza is heading…next year is going to blow this year’s competition away. New rules, new format, new scoring system. We’re gonna take this thing global…in East LA terms, I guess.

This is one of those rare LPs that you usually only see once in a lifetime. It’s been repressed and bootlegged and made available on CD, but to find an original is near-impossible. The number of copies in existence is said to be extremely low following an incident which led to the destruction of many copies before they could be sold. Whoever had the idea to shrink wrap the albums on a meat packing machine helped deprive more of us the opportunity to own this fantastic record.

Much like the Dandelions LP I posted earlier this year, Jr. And His Soulettes are a young group. Harold Moore Jr. (age 10), his sisters Denise Marshall (7), Jacquelin Carol (6), and Vinta Marie (9) record some amazing child-funk jams. They were like the Jackson 5, except from Oklahoma and born on the wrong side of the tracks. Psychodelic Sounds, released privately in 1971, is treasured among collectors of funk, psych and garage music. We had an original copy at the store recently, but I don’t think any photographs of the back cover or label exist in our database. Believe, I’ve looked.

The Acid Archives writes that the music “approaches that cheesy Sunset Strip b-movie exploito psych sound but this is the real thing. When they sing, this beast approaches Shagg’s territory. Great tunes like, “Momma, Love Tequila”, “Waw-Waw Rock”, and “Rock ‘n Roll Santa”. The incredible cover shows three shots of them in action including one with Jr in a failed split playing licks behind his head!”

The six year old sister, Jacquelin Carol, plays wah-wah organ. You have to hear it.

I’d upload my own rip of this album but I’m in a huge rush today, so thanks must go out to Allegory Of Allergies for letting me hijack their rip.

Jr And His Soulettes
Psychodelic Sounds
MediaFire DL Link

Tracklist:
01. Thing, Do The Creep
02. Momma, Love Tequila
03. Pimp
04. Waw-Waw Rock
05. Love From Above
06. Flip WIll
07. Do Your Funky Thing
08. Slow
09. Sweet Little One
10. Kewetha
11. Kat-Walk
12. Rock ‘n Roll Santa
13. Rock Blues
14. Pop Junior Pop

Here’s the recap for last Thursday’s heartbreaking loss. In the bottom of the final inning, Bunch Of Guys beat us on a walk-off one-out double. It stung.

Top 1: Nate K’s one batter and gets through the inning without surrendering a single run.

Bottom 1: Pat homers in is first at-bat, hitting one off the base of the wall and racing around the bases, knocking home Pete to give us an early 2-0 lead.

Top 2: Nate K’s his second batter and gets through the inning without surrending a run. Is this going to be a monumental blow-out? A shut-out!?

Bottom 2: Mitch hits a bomb over the left-center field fence to give us a 4-0 lead.

Top 3: The other team scratches together a few runs to make it 4-3.

Bottom 3: I lead off with a ground-out to second. A number of singles/doubles follow bringing our lead to 6-1.

The fourth inning is hazy. I know somehow we went down 11-6 or 11-8. This must have meant that we scored two in the top of the inning (I think we scored on a sacrifice fly and the other came on a ground out by myself, my second RBI on the season). Poor defense allowed them back into the game, and enabled them to take a lead. It would be a sign of things to come. Things were clicking for us until the fourth inning, but our usually high-powered offense wasn’t scoring bunches of runs as it is accustomed too.

Top 5: We stormed back in the fifth, almost batting around. I singled to start things off and came around to score several batters later. No one had any big bases-cleaing hits, but consisting RBI singles and doubles led to a big inning. We could have scored more, but Nate was thrown out trying to go from 2nd to 3rd on Ed’s single, which stranded me in the on-deck circle. At the end of the inning it was 14-11. I wish I could say more, but I’d need a score sheet from the game in order to get this shit totally correct.

Bottom 5: Nate holds them scoreless, pitching excellently. Their general lack of speed hurts them, as they have difficulty running out pretty much anything that is kept in the infield.

Top 6: Comfortably ahead 14-11, we anticipate a big inning. I lead off and show horrible plate discipline, swinging at the first pitch and grounding out to the second baseman. After me, the first two spots in our lineup also make quick outs, squandering a great opportunity to add some insurance runs to our lead.

Bottom 6: Defensive lapses and timely hitting propel Bunch Of Guys to a come-from-behind victory. A walk-off double wins the game. We go out for drinks to drown our sorrows. Last night in the Monday Co-Ed league, Nate pitched a 3-run gem as his team slugged their way to a 15-3 victory. We can only hope that Nate’s arm will also help us attain an important victory Thursday. No Pete. No Duffy. Someone’s gotta step up in their absence. I hope it can be me, but I’m sure we’ll all be happy for anyone who has a big game.

Michael Yonkers - The Big Parade
The Gentleman Losers - Bonetown Boys
Collie Ryan - The Giving Tree
Oorjak Hunashtaar-Ool - Reka Alash