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All those years of having a Never Mind the Bollocks postcard pinned to my bulletin board at work have finally paid off. When the news broke earlier this week that the British Punk stalwarts were finally being inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame, the editors at the magazine very kindly gave me a tap to write a couple of hundred words about my sweary heroes for the website. Click here to read!
I realize my last post mentioned that there'd be a temporary lull in activity here, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop plugging my weekly contributions to the "Goings On About Town" listings in The New Yorker. In this latest issue (with great cover art courtesy of Barry Blitt of Bush & Cheney as "The Odd Couple"), I wrote the bits on Yngwie Malmsteen, Dinosaur Jr., As I Lay Dying, Funeral For a Friend (and it strikes me that those are two bands who should really tour together), Beatallica, Morcheeba and the mighty Bob Mould. If you can't get to a news stand, you can always click here.
Ahoy readers. Please pardon what must seem like an interminable break in the othewise fast-paced, action-packed gushing of eye-popping, brain-stabbing, trouser-ruffling content. Metaphorically speaking, I'm juggling a few highly combustible projectiles at the moment, and haven't had enough of an opportunity to update this weblog. This is a temporary dilemma, I assure you. So long as I avoid any sudden metaphorical immolation, I'll be back with all speed to serve up more of the top drawer, thought-provoking fare you have naturally come to expect -- nay, demand -- from Flaming Pablum. Please stand by.
Sincerely,
- The Management
I'm actually going out of town for the next couple of days, so let me take this opportunity to wish one and all a happy Turkey Day.
GIVE THANX NOT ANGST!
Cheers!
- Alex in NYC
Oh, and to find out more about the bizarre picture above, click here.
This week, The New Yorker saw fit to permit me to type terse yet pithily informative tidbits about Journey, Lez Zeppelin (they're an all-girl Zep tribute band), The Magic Numbers, Arch Enemy, From First to Last, Bon Jovi, Ray Davies, The Dandy Warhols and The Out Crowd. Run -- don't walk -- to your nearest news stand to check'em out (they can be found in the NightLife section of their "Goings On About Town" listings). However, if you're simply not able to go outside at the moment, you can alway simply click here..
Hey there. Sorry for the lack of activity here in recent days. Been up to my eyeballs in various capacities, and hopefully I'll have some good news to report soon. In the interim, please download this a capella rendition of Motorhead's signature opus, "Ace of Spades" as performed by deeply deranged Finish person, Paska. If possible, enjoy.
Download paska_ace_of_spades.mp3
For more on Paska, click here.
As I've invariably mentioned in the past, I'm a great fan of the I Love Music Discussion Boards. Since about 2001, it's been a roiling hotbed of spirited debate for me, as there are few things I love to argue about more than music. Over the ensuing years, I've learned about artists I never would have normally come into contact with, much less deign to touch with a ten-foot barge pole. Refreshingly, I've been convinced time and again to re-allign my narrow parameters of taste, my horizons forcibly broadened by the compelling arguments and eloquent savvy of equally hot-headed music buffs. If you're a fan of music in all its permutations, I cannot recommend this forum highly enough.
That all said, there is also a staggering propensity on ILM for abject crap-stacking. For every illumating thread that exhumes long forgotten music for the purposes of detailed merit-extolling, there are ludicrous derailings of all semblance of reason, often solely posted for the purposes of enraging easily-riled pedants (and I, for one, take the bait every time). The quintessential example of this sort of thread is this discussion about deplorable pop attrocity, Ashlee Simpson, wherein several otherwise credible and respectable ILX regulars (and erudite journalists in their own right) strive to support the wafer-thin argument that the music Miss Simpson is instructed to perform qualifies as "Punk Rock." Suffice to say, I begged to differ. I'll spare you, dear reader, some of the uglier moments, but please feel free to click on the link if you want to immerse yourself in the sickly mudslick of WRONG that the thread ultimately wallows in. Ashlee Simpson's music is NOT Punk Rock.
Towards the end of the discussion, I introduced a somewhat poorly constrcuted scenario, suggesting that if a visitor from another world were to turn up and ask for examples of Punk Rock, no one in their right mind would cite either of Ashlee Simpson's albums. One album I would cite that would handily do the job is a record I listened to on my way to the office this evening and one that sounds as vital and fresh today as it did upon its initial release in 1980. Dusted off from an ILM thread I posted in the summer of `03, I give you....Group Sex by the Circle Jerks....
Oh sure, they made other records....but do you really anything more than this beautiful slab of high velocity Punk Rock and dysfunctional paroxysm (especially when it's this fun)? I'd even take that a step further and suggest that you'd be hard pressed to find a more definitive document of early 80's American Hardcore than this album (I can hear the purists and the pedants clicking their tongues, citing selections by Minor Threat, Black Flag, Bad Brains and the DK's, but whatever...let them start their own weblogs). Group Sex is a prototype!
Having quit Black Flag, diminutive shouter Keith Morris assembled a new gaggle of n'erdowells (notably Handsome Greg Hetson on guitar, formerly of Redd Kross and later of Bad Religion) and the alliteratively-monikered rhythm section of Lucky Lehrer and Roger Rogerson (the latter taken to sporting a swastika armband onstage, much to the chagrin of Morris). The Circle Jerks were arguably dubbed a "party band," so long as your definition of "partying" involved ranting `til red in the face about persecution, youthful angst, fatuous Hollywood culture, isolation, goverment hypocrisy, sexual frustration, self-loathing and nihilism. The songs are usually very short, blistering, pointed but still very hooky and played with a stealth and dexterity lost of many of their peers (though that does not include the Bad Brains, who remain unsurpassed in that capacity).
There are throwaway "cheap laff" tracks like "Deny Everything", "Don't Care" (essentially a Ramones appropriation) and "What's Your Problem" ("got a date/can't be late/if she don't show up/I'll masturbate!") alongside veritable anthems like "Behind the Door," "Paid Vacation" the vehemently nihilistic "Live Fast Die Young" and the furious sprint through Black Flag's "Wasted" (which Morris had sung for the band on the Nervous Breakdown ep). Nevermind today's faux-punk pabulum like Good Charlotte, New Found Glory and Simple Plan, Group Sex by the Circle Jerks is the goddamn definite article.
Later albums were hit and miss (though Golden Shower of Hits has some classics on it) and they're still going today (though Lehrer and Rogerson are long gone). Group Sex, however, remains their finest hour. THIS is Punk Rock, and respect is due.
This week, the benevolent editors of the "Goings On About Town" listings let my keyboard run amuck regarding Dead Kennedys, Echo & the Bunnymen, Front 242, Coheed & Cambria, Bad Religion, Pennywise and Brave Combo. Should you care to read them for yourself, you'll find them by clicking here.
This was too odd not to mention. Got a call a little while ago from one of the public affairs folks at the magazine I work for. Earlier in the day here at the office, there was a lot of activity surrounding the promotion of our new cover story on The Most Amazing Inventions of 2005. Anyway, it seems CNN did a bit of a profile on the whole thing, but evidently forgot to shoot one item for their package. Being that it's a slow Monday here at the News Desk, I volunteered my services and carried an ornate plate of Tattooed Fruit (pears, specifically) down to 50th Street so that CNN's Jeanne Moos could be filmed taking a bite. The story behind the tattoos is that they're laser labels, putting an end to irriating stickers (learn more by clicking here.) In any case, if you see Moos chomping on a red, tatooed pear on CNN anytime soon, know that I carried it to her.
"Clocks Go Slow at the Place of Work/Minutes drag and hours jerk!"
- The Clash
The late Joe Strummer penned that particular maxim. While I'm normally not in the business of refuting the great man, I have to say -- he's wrong. Work is a stealthy cakewalk compared to looking after a nineteen-month-old on your own. There cannot be a slower increment of time known to this earth than when minding a toddler. An hour can seem like a week, especially when that hour is an early one. Charlotte picked the hour of 6:00 am to annouce her presence to the world this morning, and there was simply no convincing her that a later hour would be more prudent, let alone preferrable to her old man. No siree, the sun was up...sort've....and so was she. The day had begun.
Though I'm loathe to admit it, I am guilty on occasion of employing the dreaded "cathode ray babysitter". This morning was one such occasion. Honestly speaking, when there are showers to take and coffee to brew, there are precious few alternatives to strappin' her into her stroller and parkin' that sucker in front of the tube. After buying myself a little time to bathe and summarily caffeinate myself (a crucial step in the process), I realized it was still too early to actually do anything/go anwhere. And as Charlotte was still enjoying her morning milk, I somberly convened with her on the couch to catch up on my children's programming.
I can vividly recall taking needlessly strenuous pains to inform friends and family back in the day that upon the birth of my child, there would be absolutely NO schlock kiddie crapola tv tolerated in the house. Maybe a little "Sesame Street" now and again, but zilch otherwise. No "Spongebob Squarepants," no "Pokemon" and ABSOLUTELY NO goddamn "Barney," that big purple pile of creepily sanctimonious dinosaur shit. Unsolicited proclamations of this kind are ridiculously simple to make when you're a single man with a bellyful of Budweiser and countless hours of underappreciated free time. Fast forward a couple of years and you'll be damn surprised what compromises you'll make in order to buy yourself a few, fleeting moments of motionless calm. Children's programming now plays a significant-if-adversarial role in the household. As necessary, I've exposed my child and myself to all manner of dubious edutainment, invariably at hours of the morn when even a rooster would flip you the middle-feather for being up. By this point, I've sat through them all. The good, the bad and the cloyingly insipid. I'm not proud of it, but here's the rundown.
"Thomas the Tank Engine," while somewhat insufferably twee is at least well done, as is "Bob the Builder." I was genuinelly bemused to learn that none other than thanklessly snarky comedian Greg Proops supplies the voice of Bob the Builder. "Jakers/Pigglywinks" is spared my ire as it's inexplicably set in Ireland (although Mel Brooks -- who is about as Irish as Moshe Dayan -- supplies the voice of a sheep). I've enjoyed what little I've seen of "The Backyardigans," but only because they featured a diminutive penguin supervillian who called himself "Yuckyman!" Stuff like this I can more or less tolerate. The "Teletubbies" and "Booh Bahs" (odd, rotund cousins of the `tubsters, it seems) are actually quite intriguing for their striking bizarreness. They are also refreshingly devoid of anything even remotely educational. It's basically just silly people in surreal outfits running around a day-glo set makeing strange noises. What's not to like?
The stuff I really can't fuckin' stand, however, remains "Barney & Friends" and "Elmo's World," both on PBS. "Dora the Explorer" can go fall in a damn hole as well, but to a lesser degree. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something so cloying about Barney's show that it borders disconcertingly on EVIL! And it's not just that giggle-happy bastard in the big purple suit, it's his goon squad of preening, hammy moppets who sing every bilious jingle along with him. If they showed this shit to the prisoners at Guantanomo Bay, it'd make Abu Ghraib seem like Plato's Retreat. THIS is torture, people!
Similarly, Elmo is a vile, reprehensible character. Purportedly supplied by an incongruously strapping, broad-shouldered man, Elmo's voice is far and away the most grating sound that can be subjected to one's ears first thing in the morning. When I hear that furry, crimson gremlin chuckle, I want to plunge screwdrivers into my skull to quell the piercing tintamar. It is quite inarguably the voice of Satan, and if I learned anything in my fourteen arduous years of Catholic education, it's that such things should be shunned.
So, anyway, that's been a sizable chunk of my weekend. I'd like to thank those who voiced their concern for Charlotte these past few days. Her cough has largely dissipated. Her mood is up and down, but that might be the work of the ear infection. Thanks so much for your concern. We're both doing fine.
.....so long as I don't have to watch anymore "Barney," that is.
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