Black Randy The Metro Squad - Pass the Dust I Think I'm Bowie [LP]

Limited vinyl LP repressing. Pass the Dust I Think I'm Bowie was the only full-length wax put out on the short-lived but highly influential Dangerhouse Records in late '79 and it's full of short, sharp funky revue style tunes with some avant touches here and there, with Black Randy reminiscent of a punk rock David Peel. Numbers about sleeping in arcades, Idi Amin, narcs, laundromats and sperm banks plus anything else to do with the messed -up life he was living needles and too much alcohol. This great version of "Shaft" has to be heard to get a full understanding of the workings of Randy's thought patterns. Dig the budget organ sound that fits right in with the overall sleazy grooves that his Metro Squad is laying down (it was made up of the cream of LA punks on sabbatical from their own combos such as the Eyes or Randoms) all played with a tight but loose abandon. (Black Randy & The Metro Squad appeared in 1981 satirical punk rock film Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, performing "I Slept in an Arcade".) Black Randy is one of the lost voices of the punk revolution, though by no means is he any way near a punk in the accepted commercial sense. Black Randy (John Morris) died on November 11th, 1988. He still has no peers, amen to that.