Memorized an entire poem while raking.

Victorian Halls, Charlatan.
I’m sure there’s a whole genre of this out there—synthesizer-type beats and rhythms juxtaposed with deliriously out of tune vocals and askew guitars. But it’s escaped my ears until now, and I find it quite fetching, the way I first fell for Bow Wow Wow. “Lucky 16” has a music-hall opening, then wild screeching declarations, then a sing-along, then… it’s over, and followed cleverly by “Dear, This Is Desperate,” a more complex tune build around similar melodies and energies. When this stuff clicks, it whacks you right upside the head.

Yet another batch of clever rhymes, alliterations and just plain catchy phrases from the titles of stories and gags in Archie Comics.
From Archie… Archie Andrews, Where Are You Comics Digest Magazine #44 (June 1986):
Wet Fret
There’s This Girl, See?
The Jargon of Jealousy
Scheme Scream
The Star
Blowup
Sea Spree
The Measure of a Man
Weight for Me!
Gift Rift
Red Letter Day
We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby! (an Archie I story, when the gang live in promised times alongside dinosaurs)
Strange Change
A Real Snappy View
Let Your Fingers Do the Walking
Guile Wile
Chip Quip
Tennis Racket
Flip Quips
Once Upon a Time
Hot Stuff
Calamity Jones (note: Jughead’ s surname is Jones)
Wear & Tear
Sell, Sell, Oh, Well
Gift of Gab

Sound effects in the “Tennis Racket” tale: Wap!, Womp!, Rap!, Bop!, Boink!, Boink! and Boink!– plus Big Moose says “Duh!” seven times.

There’s nothing like seeing an arrogant fathead fall on his ass onstage. The only thing better is seeing him do it twice.
We’d never seen Angelo and the Temp Kings before now, but the asshole’s rep precedes him: How he gained control of the band through subterfuge, how he dumped two girlfriends after getting them pregnant, how he wears T-shirts with gay slurs on them, how he makes lewd gestures at women during Temp Kings sets.
Angelo spent his shaky time onstage at Hamilton’s last week bitching about the sound system, the lighting, the too-good-for-his-ego opening band…
Then he slipped. On ice, we suspect, which he’d spilled from his own drink. Tried to turn it into a joke, but a minute later he tripped. Actually fell down the stageside step. Lay there, seething and waiting for assistance, as if we should care if he was all right.

Bro/sis duo Claudio & Isabella are at the Bullfinch with Disguised Monk. They’ve just been freed from one of those mock-jail fundraisers… The Pompeys at Hamilton’s… D’ollaire’s is dark; they’d been holding the night for a major act which is hitting clubs with a comeback attempt, but it didn’t happen…

There was a new guy today, so there were two of us raking. The rest of the guys just lie around.

Bird By Bird, While You Sleep.
West Coast pop that wants to seem aggressive as well as stylish, while singing about sunglasses and “Simple Days” and “Making Music.” I say it’s warmed-over ‘80s AM pop and I say the hell with it.

They did it up right. For years, the corner of Park and Chapel streets in New Haven had been marked by a small area at the base of the bulding housing Dunkin’ Donuts which spelled out, in mailbox-sticker letters, “GAG JR.’S CORNER.” A few months ago, a petition circulated asking the city to improve upon this recognition. As of last week, there are not just two hefty new metal plaques marking the corner by a shiny green streetsign.

I haven’t run across him in eons, but I’m told by his tenants that Mr. Gagliardi is still with us, still overseeing his properties and occasionally visiting them.

His name is already emblazoned on Gag Jr.’s Liquor Shop at 1183 Chapel. But this latest encomium is welcome. Those of us who’ve been in the neighborhood since the 1970s or 1980s fondly recall that corner of Gag Jr.’s old breakfast joint, adorned with mugshots of actors who’d eaten there—everyone from then-Yalies such as Mark-Linn Baker to bigwheels like Sammy Davis Jr.

I remember getting the sad scoop that Gag Jr.’s was closing, sometime in the late ‘80s. I was covering a whole different story about the restaurant, and Mr. Gagliardi casually mentioned that he was giving up the daily grind. The announcement was met with the same sort of panic which arose when the Yankee Doodle Diner closed on Elm Street more recently.

A relative took over Gag Jr.’s and made changes, and it didn’t last long after that, becoming the Dunkin’ Donuts it still is today.

Having housed one comics shop or another for a couple of decades now, plus the amiable package store, it remains a cool corner, where the gregarious gather in gaggles.

Say a prayer—or rather , curse an oath—for the band we’ve known all these months as the Rock Pirates, or equally piratical (and pirated) variations thereof. That name, perfect for their buccaneering, show-stealing manner, had been taken ten times over by other bands. Some of those priar Rock Pirates were more

So, long gangplank short, our local RP went as long as they could without a name to their names. They became known for unannounced, hit-and-run shows. They went on tour (and sent us a postcard) with the same anonymity. But now they have an album due and have to ante up with a monicker.

So here it is: THE ACROBATS OF ETIQUETTE.

We know, we know. We tried to talk them out of it ourself.

Luckily they haven’t changed their songs, attitude or talent. The, um, Acrobats of Etiquette album-release bash is still weeks away, so we all have time to mull this over and readjust how we once thought this was a band with all good ideas.

Better-named bands on the horizon: Ride On to Die and The Bacchus Dykes at the Bullfinch… Wondering Eyes, Power & Reign and Squadrons of the Sky (the middle band made of members of the other two) at Hamilton’s… Meek Head and Last & Fiercest Foe at D’ollaire’s—which, if they keep booking bills like this and offering beer specials besides, we might have to stop mocking for a while…

I was the only one raking again.

Jim Jones Revue, Burning Your House Again.
Finally, an affordable domestic release, a North American tour (Sept. 1-18) and hopefully a welcome burst of stateside hype, for this antic album, the British release of which occurred almost a year ago.
Not that timeliness is a huge factor here. JJR deals in roots rock with an uncanny Jerry Lee Lewis edge. More jaded ears might wonder why this sound is getting such worldwide acceptance now, when slews of worthy punkabilly and ‘50s-rebel-revival bands of the past couple of decades have been consigned to mere cult status. I would suggest it’s because Jim Jones Revue is on the faster, louder side of even that heady genre, and they know their way around a studio better than than a lot of “purer” acts. Also, though I’m personally immune, there’s a Steven Tyler/Axl Rose wail evident in the vocals, which will suck in lots of mainstream rock fencesitters. Something for everybody, as long as everybody is still rolling their packs of cigarettes up inside their T-shirt sleeves.