Ozzie - The Parabolic Rock, 1975 - 1982
 | NOW AVAILABLE from S.S. Records... This double album vinyl release features 24 songs covering the career of one of Sacramento's most iconoclastic eclectic obscurantist proto-punk-art-rock bands (and, yes, I know that's too many mouth mumbling words). From their ground-breaking rock opera, Berlin 1990 to their historic opening for The Talking Heads to their years in Los Angeles, competing for attention with spandexed hair-bands and mohawked poseurs, The Parabolic Rock tells the story of a Sacramento band's eccentric adventures on the blurred periphery of obscurity and cult status. Available at R5 Records or visit the S.S. Records website to find out when, where and how to get your copy. |
| Ozzie "The Parabolic Rock" 2XLP Review by Rich Kroneiss, Terminal Boredom Scott Soriano pulls a skeleton out of Sacramento's closet, unearthing perhaps the finest rock band to ever hail from the Capitol City, at least in the "Late Seventies Weird Rock" category. Yeah, maybe even better than The Twinkeyz, for real. So, you can imagine the story...SSR is scouring the dollar bins one day 10+ years ago after getting his weekly pedicure and comes upon Ozzie's "Android Love" single and one thing leads to another....and here we have this 2XLP chock-fulla nuts and pics, fliers, liner notes and everything you want (but often don't get) out of reissues. So, the band existed from 1975-81, released a couple records, gigged around, and I'll save all the bio so as not to ruin the luxurious liner notes for ya. I will tell ya that "Android Love" is one of the best mutant-glam songs you'll ever hear. Those drum fills! Great vox, slinky bass, rippin' solo...this thing's got it all. I can see what blew SS away on first listen. The tough part was to filling up the rest of these two LPs, but Ozzie do a valiant and entertaining job. Never short on ideas, they absorbed and regurgitated just about any excessive musical possibility at the time. Overly theatric glam-prog opuses ("Child of the Reich"), humorous cosmic rock ("Old Fart From Arcturus"), ridiculously goofy Zappa-isms ("Faunamania"), proto-punk ("I'm So Stupid")..."Big Body Build" almost sounds like the Birthday Party a few years ahead of schedule and "Beach Girls" approaches Dictators (West Coast Chapter) levels of good times. I won't continue to go on rambling, but this thing ventures into a dozen permutations of proto-glam-prog-punk styles, veering from Roxy Music-partying-with-The Gizmos to The Mothers-meet-The Styrenes. And they look like fucking Tin Huey! Over two LPs they only get on my nerves a couple times when they get too hopped-up on Zappa-goofballs and start playing loose with the mumbo jumbo. Other than that, they can rock it out when they want and are proficient at the more glitter laced side as well. Not too over-the-top sci-fi ala Zolar X, but just sort of toying with conceptual futures with a healthy sense of humor and irreverence. This thing looks and feels like a reissue should. Heavy, well designed, brimming with info and music, and little if any of it filler at that. An exceptional job on this one, bumping the Endtables LP off the top of the reissue-of-the-year heap by sheer magnitude. (RK) http://www.terminal-boredom.com/ |