Von Lmo, "This Is Poprock"
Instead of selecting a tune that sounds like it's from another world I've chosen a song performed by a man from another world. In this case it's Von Lmo, who claims he was born in the black light dimension in 1924 (and not in Brooklyn in the 50's as others maliciously report). Several years later he built a balsa wood rocketship and crash landed on Saturn, eventually studying music there under Sun Ra. While there he befriended a music student named Juno who told Von Lmo about the planet Strazar. So they used suspended animation to travel there and found it to their liking, residing there for several centuries.
Sometime in the 60's he made his way to Earth, ending up in Coney Island. He began working with various art-rock combos, including the power-tool weilding Pumpo, Red Transistor (with Rudolph Grey), and Kongress. During this time he was banned from pretty much every club in New York (except Max's Kansas City) for his on-stage antics, including out of control pyrotechnics/smoke machines, equipment destruction and violent behavior towards other band members.
In 1981 with help from Juno of Saturn and long-time art-rock conspirator Otto Von Ruggins, Von Lmo recorded the album Future Language from which this cut is taken. Supposedly dissatified with either the result or the cover picture of him without his trademark wig, many of the copies were destroyed. The eventual CD re-issue had to be taken from an unopened LP. After playing the final Max's Kansas City show Von Lmo was called back to Strazar to help solve an ecological disaster, and he was not heard from again until 1991 when Ecstatic Peace issued the long-lost Red Transistor 7". Between 1994 and 1997 Von Lmo released several other discs of skronk/noise and made some live appearances on both coasts before disappearing again, probably to help Strazar avoid some other calamity.
While this particular cut was not a top 40 hit here on Earth, I'm sure it blew up huge on Strazar. My favorite song by him is the Cosmic Interception version of "Leave Your Body" but unfortunately at 5+ minutes I can't include it here. Please seek it out if you enjoy "This is Poprock."
