Why this popped into my head at the gym this afternoon with my daughter I’m not sure. Best guess is because I’m reading another hardcore oral history and Ism gets a decent mention and I loved Ism back in the mid-8o’s and always thought they were way underrated. (Please don’t follow this with the song they always get mentioned for, a mediocre cover of Partridge Family’s I Think I Love You.)
Like Dylan, The Residents are best when someone else is doing the song.
“I know this site favors smart, funny and sexy (and not even rock ‘n’ roll – a lot), but man, the feeling in my sizeable gut knows what it knows. If you don’t get it, I feel sorry for you.”-Steve Moyer
“They probably have about as much chance as Trump of getting elected.” (re: Bad Brains getting into the R&R HOF)-Steve Moyer
I think nothing better exemplifies the “battle” of the populists against the media and “educated” class as do these comments from my mate Steve, in defense of the Bad Brains, but at the same time decrying the likes of The Clash, The Ramones, and X, suggesting:
“…Clash, Ramones and X are minor leagues compared to the best the Bad Brains have to offer. Smart? Funny? Sexy? Who gives a shit when there’s a wasp in your drawers?”
Well, really. In politics, I find it interesting that the right–primarily those affiliated with the TEA Party, Sara Palin, and now Trump–decry the supposed left-wing media as elitists and snobs.
Well, like it or not, the bulk of members of the news industry are indeed college educated, and that means some years of classes with professors invoking things like library research and application of critical thinking. Depending upon, such a degree also often involves some kind of exposure to the humanities and arts, thus giving a college graduate a pretty good cross-referenced education that opens the assessment of new and potentially challenging situations.
In essence, this is considered job training, for college should train to complete assignments (projects), on-time, answering a specific question or questions, and coming to a reasoned and reference supported conclusion.
That means sentences like “Who gives a shit when there’s a wasp in your drawers?” become a sort of false equivalency. That is because, for one, I would never solicit any creature armed with a stinger inside my briefs in the first place, and believe me, I did not need to go to college to figure that out.
But, the sort of judgmental reaction to X, or the Ramones, as not Rock’n’Roll is as specious as Donald Trump saying he knows more about ISOL than do our Generals.
Surely music, and art, and apparently politics, are subjective, but, I do need to remind that out of gut reactions come the denial of Climate Change, the certainty that trying to control assault weapons means eliminating the Second Amendment, and that somehow simply killing all the terrorists will solve the issue (I actually heard this from a couple of conservatives just prior to the Iraq invasion).
Certainly, logic is both relative and subjective, but, virtually no one who is educated and understands research ascribes meaning to any such statements, meaning apparently going to college is important, but to a certain portion of the population, those exact motions and processes that helped us learn and make intelligent choices are actually crap.
Well, ok, then why even bother to learn? Or better, to all of you who decry us as elitists, if you are so much wiser, why go to a Doctor or Lawyer or educated professional if you really are so much smarter when push comes to shove?
My partner, Diane, has a friend Jean who is several hundred pounds overweight. Jean is a sort of prototypical Trump girl, thinking Donald just saying “I will make better deals” is all that is necessary to “fix” what is perceived as America’s terrible state of affairs when the reality is, things are actually pretty good.
Not that our country could not improve, or money and justice better meted out, but all-in-all our recovery from years worth of Bush has been pretty good. Not perfect, but not just on a solid path. However had McCain or Romney won the election we would never hear the end of what a great job they did rebuilding the stock market and reducing unemployment and at least pushing our GDP. (Gas prices are down too which is not even a presidential issue, but when prices went up in 2008, John McCain said in an ad, “Who can you thank for rising gas prices? Obama”).
But Jean suffers from Type-B diabetes, along with the requisite maladies that come with overeating and not exercising that fell people who suddenly find themselves in their 40’s, obese, with a failing body. Jean does go to the Doctor, and the Docs always say the first thing she needs to do is change her eating habits, lose some weight, and start, slowly, an exercise program.
Jean has seen at least four Doctors for the over the ten years I have known Diane, and every time Jean responds after seeing the physician, saying, “what does he know, I am older than he is?”
Well, this is like saying the media has a liberal bias (it isn’t, it is a researched and educated one) or that the Clash or Ramones are not rockers.
Or, more important, that smart and funny and sexy have no business in a form of art (hmm, but KISS can dress up in ridiculous costumes, because ideally their music is another hornet in our skivvies).
I can understand loving music, or even art because it is visceral. I mean, that is part of what makes Mapplethorpe, for example powerful because often his outrageous images haunt and that is what pushes our thoughts into “what is the meaning of things?” and that, at least to me, pushes towards understanding being part of a bigger universe that binds us.
But, really, how narrow-minded are our accusers? Or, how ironic is it that while knowledge is to be revered, just as readily it is to be dismissed when a certain portion of the population doesn’t buy in? Mind you, this is not new shit. Ask Copernicus about almost being burned at the stake for suggesting the earth rotates around the sun (did you know that Donald?). Ask Pasteur, who was vilified for suggesting disease was carried my micoro-organisms.
Just for fun, I am finishing with a fantastic cut from X’s brilliant-and-a-half Wild Gift, an album that made my essentials list. It is funny. It has teen angst. And well, if you don’t think it rocks, well then I guess you think the Chinese really did “invent” Climate Change.
Better, however, a bee in the bonnet than a wasp in your drawers.
Here’s the Yugoslavian band Električni Orgazam in 1981.
Pretty good, no? Kind of a darker take on the Talking Heads 77/Modern Lovers.
I learned about these guys, and a record company called Moonlee, that is dedicated to releasing new rock music from the former Yugoslav republics, from a Cuepoint survey of the scene.
The story ends with the story of Bernays Propaganda, a Croation band that is working these days sometimes with Mike Watt. Their tune Provekje is more indie than punk, but the story says their early stuff is angular, like Fugazi.
Another contemporary band, Serbian I think, is Replikator. This tune struggles to escape the murky bottom like that 90s mainstay Come.
As I’ve noted here a few times, I’m on Bob Lefsetz’s mailing list. Lefsetz is an older (as old as me) recorded music professional. I don’t know his bio, but I like his posts because they’re passionate and informed about a wide range of issues, and he loves the classic rock music (far more than me, but he really loves it).
I didn’t read his original post, but tonight he posted a letter from a musician named Jesse Dayton, who responded to a Lefsetz post by describing who he is:
Hey Bob. Dig your blog. Here’s the skinny. Old Texas family. Recorded w/ Waylon, Cash, Willie & slew others playing guitar after 10,000 hrs of moving the needle on Jerry Reed vinyl. Did hillbilly music for 3 Rob Zombie films which did good enough for me to buy a house in Austin which is now worth quite a few shekels. Just filled in for Billy Zoom while he was getting cancer treatment on 40 show tour w/ Doe, Exene & DJ in X which reintroduced me to a national audience. Wrote/directed a Cormanesque B-movie creature feature w/ Malcolm McDowell that sold & I made $ on & is now a cult thing. Just released new record The Revealer w/ a batch of songs that I didn’t just write, but opened a vein & let them bleed out of my insane childhood & all the desperate characters I was subjected too along the way. It’s all there…civil rights issues, conned hillbillies not voting their interest, being unworthy of real love…you name it. Right now I’m in the middle of nowhere living by my wits w/ 3 piece band on a never ending tour in a motor home. Thx for the shout out amigo. Onward JD
Now, I’m not a big Rob Zombie fan, but Corman, Malcolm McDowell, and Jerry Reed stroke my strings. I’m into open veins pouring, too, if it isn’t suicide.
The great thing about the modern world, a really great thing and I don’t think we’ve absorbed how this has changed us, is that after I read this email note I could immediately listen to Dayton’s record (on YouTubeRed, in this case). And I could judge.
And I judge, meh. Here’s a song I like more than others.
Very Jerry Lee Lewis, and that’s not bad. But as it goes on this guy seems to more marketing to me about his deep roots than actually rocking. The rock feels too organized for someone truly crazed by that wacked out background he describes. In fact the whole idea of the Holy Ghost Rock ‘n’ Roller seems, by the end of the song a pretty fail marketing ploy.
Dayton touches all the bases of apostasy, but starting with the album image and ticking through the tunes, the hi jinx of rural religion is used to denote authenticity. And the music of rock ‘n’ roll is used to denote authenticity.
And the music? Fun, if you’re will to suspend your belief in legitimacy.
I recommend listening to all of Dayton’s tunes. This isn’t bad music and is mostly not bad thinking, but from the album image to the calculated lyrics, this seems more intellectualized than rocked.
Bottom line, I can’t keep listening to it. If I want to hear this music I listen to Joe Ely, to Hank Williams III, to Steve Earle. If I don’t want so much testosterone I listen to Lucinda Williams and, on the sweet side, Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins.
But I am going search out that Malcolm McDowell movie.
As I go to bed, some truly bleak HW III:
What I didn’t know before today was that Brian Epstein, the Beatles manager, discovered these guys. He changed their name, and John Lennon suggested alternative spelling.
Plus their biggest hit was co-written by Paul Simon. He still gets royalties.
They played as an opener on many of the Beatles last stadium shows.
After the well ran dry they wrote jingles, and produced Foghat albums. Kind of crazy, like a red rubber ball with spin.
New to me. Detroit youths in 1971 decide to play rock rather than funk. Maybe they took some cues from the Stooges. They say Alice Cooper was a big influence. In 1975 Clive Davis funded recording sessions which yielded seven songs, but he insisted they change their name. They refused and he walked away.
In 1976 the band released a 45 with two songs in an edition of 500 copies.
Life was lived, and moved on. Fast forward 20 years, the children of members of Death form a band playing Death’s songs. They sign with Drag City and the record is finally released. The band reforms, though on original member has passed, and they record a new album and tour. A film is made about them.
Nice.
Thought I may have imagined seeing this last weekend, but youtube confirms it’s a thing.
The Keith Morris book tells me this is the first band Keith managed. I knew nothing about them, so I had to check it out. This is pretty damn good.
I love:
1) The Gibson/Marshall sound and the sound in general,
2) The little guitar riff that drives the entire song,
3) The Chuck Berry solo,
4) The drummer.
Drove me nuts for a while trying to squeeze who the singer sounds like out of my brain. It’s Leonard Graves Phillips from The Dickies.
I have a feeling I’m gonna be disappointed, but I need to do more investigating.
This is what pop/punk should be.
The Black Crowes came to me at an interesting crossroads of my life. I was just finishing graduate school, while working full time. My son, Joey, was a handful of years old, and I saw the Crowes, touring behind their first album, along with Jellyfish, also hot locally at the Warfield in San Francisco in March of 1992.
A month later I would have a Masters Degree in English, have completed a novel, and my marriage was over.
It was all very strange, and it was a tough time, but it all led to where I am today, and for that I could not be happier.
Anyway, while building up my playlist the other day, I was thinking of songs–just cuts, not necessarily albums–that were fun and this song by the Crowes popped up.
It is indeed a pop rocker, but quite tuneful, and really well executed. And hey, talk about upbeat.
