MP3s removed due to re-release.
Pass The Dust I Think I’m Bowie
OK, I’m gonna assume that you have read “We Got The Neutron Bomb” and “Lexicon Devil”. If not, go read them. I’m gonna assume that you know who Black Randy was and that The Metrosquad were a veritable who’s-who of local punk luminaries in late 1970’s LA. Instead, I’m gonna give my thoughts on what I think Black Randy and The Metrosquad were all about.
In my opinion, BR and the MS were on purposely creating some sort of agit-prop, performance art musical statement. The fact that BR was a huge drug fiend, dulls the impact of this a little bit. However, the recurring theme of race baiting on the album can either be taken as the work of a racist (i.e. Skrewdriver) or as some sort of drug fueled post-modernist prank. By all accounts, Black Randy would have loved to have you think it was simple racism because he loved to offend and didn’t seem interested in artisitic justifications.
On the album BR baits James Chance. He says
James Chance
Take down your mutherfuckin pants
you stealin my act
it ain’t no goddam romance
I don’t think James Chance was stealing Black Randy’s act. I think that like a lot of things that happened in the late 70’s, great ideas just seem to come out of nowhere and oftentimes more than one band was doing something brilliant and unique , while being unaware of someone else doing it elsewhere. I think Black Randy and James Chance were doing the same thing. Anyway thats enough of my expounding. Needless to say, this album is NOT for the easily offended. Bare Footin’ On The Wicked Picket is the only song I have ever heard about an orgy where people pass around an elctric eel.
The image is from Break My Face.
01. I Slept In An Arcade
02. Marlon Brando
03. I Tell Lies Everyday
04. Down at the Laundrymat
05. I Wanna Be A Nark
06. Give It Up Or Turn It Loose
07. Idi Amin
08. Sperm Bank Baby
09. Barefootin’ On The Wicked Picket
10. San Francisco
11. Tellin Lies
12. Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud
13. Theme From Shaft
This album is very hard to find, and I just wanted to thank you for uploading it.
Thanks Breanna…Its nice to get some feedback every now and then!
An excellent post Joe! Thanks alot!!!!
thanks a bunch! this is an awesome upload. wish i had high speed so i could get it quicker.
dangerhouse were a greeeaaaat label…95%spot on witheverything they touch…wozzup w/howard werth???
appreciate the upload a lot…
hey I dig Howard Werth!
James Chance & Black Randy, both of whom i’ve grown to appreciate immensely, are quite different in my estimation, despite perceived similarities. JC seemed to be working toward a synthesis of several musics with a trained ear while BR was apparently drawing almost exclusively on life experience and appropriation of admittedly similar styles to arrive at his musical end; the slide rule versus the gutbucket, if you will. in addition, and perhaps more importantly, BR applied an acidic wit and humor that one could not detect in JC’s output, leading one to the potential conclusion that JC was engaged in what he viewed as serious artistic/musical composition, while BR may have just been “sending up” or parodying the idea of such pretension. either way, both great artists and both quite original from other artists in their immediate environment or “scene”. thanks for the “…Dust”, and thanks for the enjoyable blog (my first visit).
Dude…now thats a friggin post!
We will have to agree to disagree…I definitely hear a streak of dark humor in James Chances output (i.e. “he’s the king of oral sax, “The Natives Are Getting Restless”). Its also important to note that this similarity was pointed out by Black Randy himself in “I’m Black and I’m Proud”…I didn’t come up with it on my own. I’m not that smart. I don’t think anyone would say that James Chance and Black are identical, but there are similarities with regards to musical style and the inverting of conventional racial roles for shock value.
I doubt Black Randy had a clue about Chance when he started out. When the first BR Dangerhouse 45 came out, no one on the west coast knew who the fuck Chance was. Not to say that Chance was aware of BR, they were just on parallel paths. BR’s embracing of funk, no matter how unauthentic, was unique at the time, at least in the SoCal scene. I partied one night w/the Middle Class, BR and Alice Bag in a hotel room in San Diego and he was a riot. At one point, he put a lamp shade on his head and said “Look! I’m John Denny!” [Denny was/is lead singer of the Weirdos] alluding not only to the Weirdos’ habit of dressing like walking pop culture collages, but his own status of life of the party/in-joke of the early LA punk scene. He was a nice guy though, gave me cab fare to get home to my mom’s house. The next day when thay came to pick up their equipment (which was stored after the gig in my mom’s garage) it was surreal, my Mom meeting Black Randy: the colliding of two worlds…..
Yeah “parallel paths” thats what I was trying to say in my post. As far as embracing the funk, didn’t BR at one point put on some shows on a double bill with Rudy Ray Moore?
Don’t know about the Rudy Ray Moore double bill thing. One more comment: Regarding the earlier comment by booblikon about “an acidic wit and humor that one could not detect in JC’s output”, he [Chance] may not have had an obvious sense of humor, but he did have one. I saw him live in a tiny place in NY in 86. Just before he was to have a sax solo, someone in front knocked over the mike stand and, rather than wait to have someone put it upright, he laid down on the ground to play his solo into the mike. In that incident at least, his sense of humor was evident.
I’ll never forget how hard I laughed when I first read that there was an album out there called “Pass the Dust, I Think I’m Bowie.” Mind you, I laughed even harder when I read that the Boredoms had a song called “JB Dick and Tin Turner Pussy Badsmell (sic),” but hey…
Thank you so much for making this LP available. It ain’t “Buy the Contortions,” but it’s still cool.
Found this post on a random blogsearch - thank you so much for sharing this album, I’ve never heard the whole thing.
Voodoojoo — I was going to reply to your entry and I deleted it! There’s no undo!
which sucks…cuz yr words were very entertaining.
I totally agree with not getting it the first time. The first track i heard by Black Randy was Trouble at the Cup on a Dangerhouse comp and I thought it was total shit. When I got the album I liked a few tracks but some just seemed stoopid. I decided at that moment too that this was not a failure on Black Randy’s part but a failure on my own. Over time this has grown to be one of my favorite records ever. Glad you like it!
I remember hauling some girl I met in early 1981 out to a gig somewhere on the west side, with Black Randy performing his less politically correct version of “Barefooting” which went by the name of “Black Dick and White Pussy”. The last number of the set had Randy singing “Ziggy Stardust” while another member of the entourage (perhaps Joe Nanini) shaved Randy’s head with an electric razor. Afterwards we hung out at Kendra Smith’s place, and this girl made the comment “uh, you have some interesting acquaintances”… Last time she ever consented to go out with me.
Yes taking a girl on a first date to see vintage Black Randy is probably not a ticket to success. But I bet YOU had a great time.
BR’s brilliant Art wreckage was equal parts David Brown and Black Randy. The point being
that, armed with a delectable sense of skewer, no one was above being strip searched for posing credentials. They were satirizing the music scene the second it self-annointed itself. Not the obvious bloated targets, instead the newborns high on there own placenta. The ultimate check your head and laugh your ass off. He mostly loved all he lampooned, yet if they perceived themselves too seriously, ready aim, takedown. It was Saturday night live for the local set. Musically born of a love of Funkadelic and JB, scatologically shat to the wind as a square wheeled carnival dervish. I was fired at least three times and asked back.
. Although he enjoyedaltered experiences, even if it was only Beer bingeing, I would not call him a druggie. He was a huckster, an entertainer, a con man, a really fun guy.
Wow, KK Barrett, you would definitely know if he was a druggie or not, you were there. It probably goes without saying that your commenting on this post is a big deal for me…thanks!!!!!!!!!
The Black Randy post was an early one for me and I don’t think I was as comfortable writing in public at that point as I later became. A few of my points I was trying to make with it were:
1. That listeners would be really doing themselves a disservice by writing Randy off bc of the scatalogical stuff he says.
2. That BR would probably find it funny if listeners did exactly that because it would kinda prove his point.
I guess, to a degree, this is the essence of satire. Would you agree?
Nice blog. Very interesting. Any chance of making the mp3’s available again?
It seems that only “I Slept In An Arcade” is unavailable, but the same ? applies. Thank you.
i d/l’d this a while ago and finally got around to appreciating it… and boy do i ever.
it’s great stuff. thanks for making it available!
Thanks for this post. So hard to find this album
I first heard about Black Randy from the movie “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains.” I’ve been looking for this record ever since. This is the most useful thing I’ve found on the internet in the history of the internet.
Great post! I was born too late and too far away to experience this firsthand and finding stuff like this is like a little Christmas present.
Black Randy was a friend of mine,actually a boyfriend too. he was a gentle beautiful lover…. I will never forget him
Even though he was from SF, us in the LA punk scene couldn’t ignore Black Randy - a legend in the minds of those who don’t matter.
Thanks again for posting this - worth it just for “I Slept In An Arcade.”
Contrary to his public image, Randy was really just a big teddy bear.
funny, I always thought he was saying
“…take off your muthfuckin’ pants,
your skinny white ass,
ain’t no goddamn romance”
Listening to it again though, I guess I was mistaken.
I just stumbled over Black Randy while binging on 45s over at Killed by Death Records. The almost tuneless wailing with a manic back up reminds me a bit of the New York Dolls. All in all ex-cel-ent!
I too became hip to Randy via The Fabulous Stains movie. Just saw it again a couple of nights ago. Randy was interesting to watch, but the rest of the act seemed contrived. Jerking about arrhythmically, like some low budget parody of a DEVO conception. It was as if they put Black Randy in front of Kid Creole’s back-up band, and told them to “act all punk”.
If anybody knows anything about a Black Randy death certificate or burial site please let me know. It would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Love this album, I agree it grows on you over the years.
I read the original version of the LP had a cover of ziggy stardust but it got recalled for legal reasons, has anyone heard it?
Duuuuuuuude. I sold toner to unsuspecting zerox owners with Black Randy for “a quick minute” back in the day in Hollywood. He was one fast talk’in, toner sell’in champion to be sure!!!! He was also a frigg’in genius and should be an awful lot more well known then he is for all his contributions to the L.A. Punk scene!!!!!
RIP Black Randy!!!!! Viva Metro Squad! Viva! Viva!!!!
Anyone know what happened to David Brown? Spent some time with Terry Brown and Black Randy in his last days in SF.