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.
Recent Comments