Consumer Guide Album

Bongwater: Double Bummer [Shimmy Disc, 1988]
The whole two-record set teeters on the edge of in-joke, avant-bullshit, and not-for-profit self-indulgence. But where the found tape documentaries w/ neoexpressionist noodling are exactly as interesting as their sources (surreal pre-Watergate Nixon, the standard radio evangelist), Ann Magnuson's rock dreams and Chinese "Dazed and Confused" and Monkees cover and straight satirical Tuli Kupferberg chantey have the unjudgmental plasticity of the best camp. Can't quite claim she's worth the price of admission--a talent to watch, say. B