Flaming Pablum

Sleepless

Charlotte was up at again 5:30 this morning. For the past couple of weeks, it seems our little girl has turned some sort've unfortunate corner and isn't sleeping quite as well as she used to (see earlier report here). To add insult to injury, she's also developed a new variety of cry that sounds as painful to make as it is to listen to; a sort've low, chord-straining note that she extends for as long as her little lungs and larynx can push it, bookended by hiccupy coughs. Imagine, if you will, the sound of someone attempting to bisect a marble column with a diminutive chainsaw and you're on the right track. According to the book, From Contented Baby to Confident Child by Gina Ford, this kind of episode is not unheard of. Being that Charlotte has just started at a day care program twice a week, it's evidently not at all uncommon for a little person in her situation to react this way. She loves going to day care, but the changes in her routine periodically send her into a frothy-mouthed tailspin. Ford's methods of dealing with these sorts of outbursts, however, seem pretty dubious (she suggests circumventing tantrums via baking pastry --- rather a tall and unlikely order in our household). We've been attempting to placate her with bottles of milk, but that's already problematic, being that we're trying to get her off the bottle and exlusively onto the dreaded "sippy cup" (and offering her a sippy cup when she's in this sort've strop is somewhat akin to handing her a blunt projectile, as she will use it accordingly). So, failing everything else, we're just dealing with it. When she angrily greets the pre-dawn with her new throaty yawp, we simply let her cry. Or at least we let her cry for as long as we can stand it. We'd close our door, but that's both callous and impractical. It's like trying to sleep with someone in the next room sporadically pressing an air horn. But if you relent and go in too soon, you're sending the wrong message (i.e. all she has to do is cry and you'll come running). Go in too late, though, and she'll have worked herself up into such an impenetrable state of stiff-backed inconsolability that you'll have to spend the next forty-five minutes talking her down as she spiritedly voices her pronounced displeasure with the current management. It can be draining and discouraging.

Somewhat paradoxically, throughout the rest of the day, Charlotte behaves absolutely angelically. I just heard from the wife that despite Charlotte's one-baby invocation of Hell this morning, she's currently in the cheeriest of little moods, chirping and babbling happily as she toddles about the playground. Here's hoping that she got whatever it was that had been bothering her off her chest this morning and that tonight she'll sleep. Sadly, it is an inexact science. Stay tuned.

Punk & Post-Punk Exhumation

I've been quite bad lately about finishing books. In the last few weeks, I'd started reading a number of diffferent things that I'd picked up, only to swiftly lose interest in each in relatively short order. Not to name names, but the worst example of this came via Sean Naylor's promisingly titled Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda. I'd heard Naylor interviewed on WNYC on the Leonard Lopate show, and the book sounded like it would be a really interesting read. Naylor himself started off as a rock critic who later took a gig working for the Army Times covering the mujahideen's war against the Soviets. In any case, Not a Good Day to Die started off well, but seemed to get bogged down in very dry military lingo with all speed, prompting me to get sleepy after only a couple of pages. I may pick it up again, but no time soon.

One book that has maintained my evidently evasive interest is Brit rock journo, Simon Reynolds' exhaustive tome. Rip it Up and Start Again: Post-Punk 1978-1984. Though I'm a complete sucker for these types of books, documenting one of my favorite eras of music, I'd held off on this one for some reason (possibly due to Reynolds' inexplicable fondness for -- in my opinion -- overrated also-rans-turned-saccharine-pop-replicants, Scritti Politti). I finally relented and picked up Reynold's chunky book (via Amazon.Uk...it's not out in the States as yet) and am hugely enjoying it. I'd love to give a sweeping review of it here, but truthfully, I'm only a third of the way into its 576 pages. That said, Reynolds' admirably scrutinous depiction and floridly British writing style really make the largely unsung subject matter come alive, and I'm finding the thing hard to put down. So hats off to Simon for that.

I will quibble -- somewhat predictably -- with one point, however. Out of 576 pages, no less than ninety-someodd are devoted to Scritti Politti, whereas my belovedly impossible to accurately categorize Killing Joke are only spared a paltry nine. This will not do, Simon!

In a similar vein albeit a different medium, I also recently picked up the DVD of Don Letts' latest documentary, the somewhat embarassingly titled Punk: Attitude. Now, let's be honest, shall we? The world needs another documentary about the origins of Punk Rock like the American South needs another hurricane, but to Letts' credit, this one at least tries to be as all-inclusive as possible, gamely throwing a bone to the No Wave and Hardcore scenes (most rock docs depicting punk leave a huge gap between the implosion of the Sex Pistols and the rise of Nirvana, as if nothing at all happened in the 1980's.) That said, Letts' choice of spokespeople for the Hardcore era (basically, Agnostic Front's Roger Miret and Shelter's Ray Cappo) leaves a bit to be desired. For a better documentation of same, I strenuously recommend Steven Blush's oral history, American Hardcore. I actually accosted Blush on the street a month or so back and sung his book's praises to him. Blush related that he's currently at work on a film on the same subject, so look out for that.

Back to Letts's piece, though, Punk: Attitude initially airred earlier this year on the IFC channel. The newly released DVD, however, comes appended with a second disc chock full of extras, notably a mini-documentary about the Los Angeles punk scene by the fabulously named Dick Rude. For those unfamiliar with the estimable Mr. Rude, he played Otto's eminently quotable pal, Duke in Repo Man. Kudos to Letts, once again, for trying to be as wide-reaching in his encapsulation of the constantly shifting, amorphous definition of Punk. If you're at all interested in the subject, I recommend seeking it out (despite its rather idiotic, stereotype-reinforcing cover art).

I'd also suggest checking out Don Letts' first film, the somewhat clinically titled Punk Rock Move (1978). Book-wise, many folks are quick to extol the merits of Jon Savage's sprawling England's Dreaming, but I've always found it a bit too textbooky. I much prefer Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil & Gillian McCain, a compelling and often hilarious oral history. Seek that one out, if you haven't already.

I'm still waiting for an authoritative book exlusively devoted to the New York music scene between No Wave and today, documenting the trajectories of bands like Swans, Rat at Rat R, Prong, Helmet, Surgery, Barkmarket, the Honeymoon Killers, Borbetomagus, the Unsane, the Voluptious Horror of Karen Black, and, of course Cop Shoot Cop. Not holding my breath on that one, though.

Noo Yawker in The New Yorker - September 19, `05 issue

This week, for the NightLife section of the "Goings On About Town" listings, I wrote the blurbs regarding The Tubes, Wolf Parade, the Proclaimers, the Arcade Fire, Kaki King and the dB's. If ya can't get your mitts on a copy of this latest issue, you can read'em here.

In Praise of...White Noise by Cop $hoot Cop

There are certain albums that have made an indelible mark on my subconscious, and as such, bubble into my head more often than not. White Noise is one of those records. It was the first I'd heard by the band in question, and though I've gone onto become friends with their lead singer who is normally loathe to discuss the band (let alone utter its name), I cannot help but maintain my one-man-campaign to vault Cop $hoot Cop into as many music discussions as possible. I dug White Noise out earlier in the week and and it practically made me weep bitter tears that no one seems to make music like this anymore. With the sole exception of "Empires Collapse" (which, I believe, is wilfully unlistenable), there is literally not a bad song on this record. It would benefit hugely from a remastering, I must say. Holding my breath I am not. I fear Cop $hoot Cop will go down in history as merely a blip/also-ran as far as the record company powers-that-be are concerned. So, in tribute, herewith a thread I initially posted on ILM in October of `04.

Sometimes it seems that I rub very few shoulders in the Cop Shoot Cop hallelujah choir, and that's a damn shame, as I think they were one of the few great, original, intense, visceral bands of the last two decades. Second only to my beloved Killing Joke, COP $HOOT COP were virtually the perfect band for me. Intense, angry, needlessly hostile, loud, cynical, unconventional...what's not to love?

I'd heard about them first via their flyers haphazardly plastered around the Lower East Side. Sometime in the fall of 1991 or so, a NYC free weekly named New York Perspectives assigned me the task of interviewing a local, up'n'coming band. I chose Cop Shoot Cop. The band were about to release their second record, White Noise and were touring with then-incongruous Brit labelmates, Carter USM and opening at the Roseland Ballroom in midtown Manhattan for the then band of the moment, EMF (of all bands).

The band were a filthy, black, vindictive smear on an evening of otherwise sunny, banal pop, and christ how I adored them for it. White Noise was such a fresh blast to my ears (despite obvious nods to Big Black, Swans, Pussy Galore, the Birthday Party and a dash of Gang of Four) that it swiftly became my favorite album of the moment. The halfway point between their wilfully dissonant origins and their comparatively poppy faux-industrial suck-up days (which I also loved), White Noise is the perfect orgy of wit, abbrasion, noise and even a dash of swing. No guitars. No conventional rhythms. No apologies. A twelve salvo middle-finger to posers, religious fanatics, corporate whores, scenesters, and authority figures of all shapes and sizes, White Noise is a dizzy celebration of depravity, violence, sincere suicidal tendencies, and all-around loathing. It was the ideal soundtrack to walking around a snowy Lower East Side (when it still had a whiff of danger, drugs and squatter's riots about it).

It's also the album with the band's strongest tunes. Between Tod [A]'s lyrical pastiche's and black-humored one-liners, the guitar-less ensemble clatters and rattles away in ever-throttle-shifting herkajerk motions, grinding and whirling like a rusty, broken machine about to throw a spoke and bulldoze through the wall.

Between its bevvy of quoatably bleak mantras ("CHANGE WHAT YOU CANNOT ACCEPT/DO NOT ACCEPT WHAT YOU CAN'T CHANGE!", "THE EARTH WHICH FED YOU NOW CONSUMES YOU!"), the dueling bass bouts (Tod on "high-end" noise-making and Nasty Jack Natz on "low-end" rhythm batttery), Cripple Jim Coleman's arsenal of bizarrely disarming samples and Phil Puleo's stiff-backed, precision drumming, it's as cathatrtic a noise as could be found in its day and a welcome antidote to the then-percolating grunge phenomenon which would eventually overtake and drown NYC's then-thriving scene of like-minded bands.

They may have traded in "noise rock," but underneath the trappings of same, the band always knew when to cut away, creating space for Tod's sardonic wordplay. And beneath the buzzing samplers and grinding bass guitars, these songs were intricately pieced together. The time-signatures of "Heads I Win, Tails You Lose" are way beyond the realm of your workaday "noise rock" band. There was order to this chaos.

Cop Shoot Cop hail from a largely unsung chapter in this New York City's musical history. Most rock tomes seem to close the book on New York after the era of Blondie, the Ramones and Talking Heads and don't open it again until the Strokes. As a result, Cop Shoot Cop are all but forgotten. They made a a handful of striking albums before imploding. Tod changed direction entirely and went onto form Firewater, and the others soldiered on briefly before moving onto other projects. Their story didn't end happily, but for a brief while, they were unstoppable. Hear tracks from White Noise and the rest of the band's back catalog here.

Four Years Later

Being a native New Yorker, I feel compelled to address the anniversary of September 11th (today) here, but honestly speaking, what can one really say to do it justice? It's been four years without any real semblance of closure. The "War on Terror", to paraphrase the New York Times Magazine, has lost its direction with no real fruition in sight. Recent events suggest that we are just as vulnerable and unprepared today as we were back then (regardless of how many times I've had to take my sneakers off before boarding a plane). I can't say I feel that there have really been great strides towards making this country safer. You may beg to differ, but hey....start your own weblog then.

I took a whole roll of film on the fateful day, but I'm not putting any of those pictures up here. With a single Google search, one can easily access pictures of the event from countless, horrific angles. And I could tell the story of where I was and what I was doing when it all happened, but there are millions of stories to that same effect out there. Mine isn't especially different. People seem to wear September 11th like a shiny badge on their lapel, and I find the people who are the most righteously indignant about it tend to live nowhere near New York City. These also tend to be the same sort of folks who invarialby denounced the entirety of New York City as a hotbed of immoral carnality and effete liberalism on September 10th, but I digress.

What strikes me the most about September 11th (I really don't like bandying the term "9/11," around, incidentally....why must everything been encapsulated into a soundbyte?), is that a friend of mine from high school died that day. His name was Mike Armstrong, and as clichéd as it sounds, he really was the nicest of possible people. Mike greeted all and sundry with a big smile and a kind word, from the most popular kids in school to the lowliest of hapless geeks (like...umm...myself). He had a remarkable ability to remember names and had the most inclusive, gregarious and thoughtful manner imaginable. Mike and I initially bonded over a mutual love of metal (we went to see AC/DC together at Madison Square Garden on the Flick of the Switch tour in 1983), but he swiftly became a friend and the perfect "goto" guy (as he was for many people). Mike was always available for help, advice or simply a joke. After everyone graduated, Mike remained the glue that held our class together, constantly organizing get-togethers. Mike would painstakingly seek out far-flung members of the class years after we'd all left high school just to remind them of upcoming class events. I still have the letter he sent me reminding me of our fifteenth reunion. That letter was dated September 11th, 2000. A year later, he would die in unimaginable circumstances.

Mike became a vice president of sales at Cantor Fitzgerald. His office was among the upper floors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Since that day, some buddies of Mike's who owned a bar that Mike used to moonlight/bartend at in midtown opened up a new bar on 19th street and 1st Avenue, and named it in his honor. MJ Armstrong's. Go have a beer there and raise a toast to my friend. You can read more about Mike Armstrong here.

Hurricane Photography...or possibly not.

My good friend, Ed, forwarded these truly striking photographs of Hurricane Katrina. While purportedly taken somewhere in Louisiana, no one seems to be able to vouch for their authenticity. In any event, they are truly stunning, beautiful and terrifying images. I would cite the photographer if I had that information. Once I find the answer, I will post credit accordingly.

*addendum*: I flew these by the learned folks over at ILX, and the general consensus says that these are probably not photographs of Hurricane Katrina, but rather they are photographs of "supercell" thunderstorms (that normally precede tornadoes). See the entirety of that conversation by clicking here.

Click on each to enlarge.

Bush on Vacation

This was too funny -- albeit in a very dark way and in exceptionally dubious taste -- not to share with the rest of the world...or at least the infinitesimally tiny fraction of the world with enough idle time on their hands to visit this weblog . Click on the photo to enlarge it.

Noo Yawker in The New Yorker - September 12, `05 issue

In the NightLife section of the"Goings On About Town" listings in this issue, I wrote the blurbs regarding The Spin Doctors, Krokus, the Moistboyz, Apocalyptica, Nouvelle Vague, Lene Lovich, The Rolling Stones and Bloc Party. Care to read'em for yourself? Simply click here!

Diggin' "Dig!"

Once again, those swinging hepcats at Culture Catch have seen fit to post another installment of Digital Vidiocy. This review concentrates on Ondi Timoner's award-winning documentary, "Dig!", capturing the complicated rivalry between two retrophillic American "alt.rock" bands from the 1990s, the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols. Even if you've never heard of the artists in question (for the record, I've always preferred the more tune-friendly `Warhols), Timoner's film is a surprisingly compelling depiction that is far more engaging than your workaday "rock doc". Please feel free to read my review and tell me how insanely wrong I am after clicking here.

NYC Shutterbuggery

If you're at all like me -- and if you are, you have my very sincere condolences -- you are a complete sucker for cool photographs of New York City. One of my fellow contributors to Dusy Wright's Culture Catch, one Paulina Paczkowska who handles the site's graphic design, has her very own site devoted to her inventive shots of this here fine city. Do please check it out by simply clicking here.