Category Archives: steve

Since No One Else Is Home

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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.

Lawr, You Ignorant Slut

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Gotta clear up a few things here, etc.

1) Me saying the Bad Brains have as much chance of getting elected as Trump had everything to do with the very slim chance of Trump winning and nothing to do with any notion of me hoping he wins.

2) When I said the Bad Brains are superior to the Clash, Ramones and X, I meant purely in terms of power.

3) And it’s so ironic that in the company of 99 percent of shit-loving music fans, I’d be aggressively defending these three bands. I will say:

Clash – Great first album (both versions). Good second album. Kind of went off the rails from there, spotty at best, horrible by the end. Wish you guys would read Gene’s favorite, John Lydon, call out Joe Strummer and the Clash’s “smart” political lyrics as nothing but a cheap, cheesy marketing ploy.

Ramones – Great first three albums. Very good fourth album. Fifth album had moments. Horrible from there on. Certainly had their own kind of power, but not as white hot as the Bad Brains at their best.

X – Betting I had their first album before Lawr. Liked it a lot. Second was good. Lost interest after that. Agree with Gene on the “going through the motions” of that video. Can’t Billy Zoom even smile anymore? (And please, Lawr, if you like X so much, you owe it to yourself to read John Doe’s very good recent book.)

4) Would never, ever, never say any of these bands aren’t rock ‘n’ roll. And some very fine rock ‘n’ roll at that. My qualms are with the frequent “not sure this is rock ‘n’ roll but” articles on Remnants and stupid shit like Tupac leading the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall ballot for 2017. Like I’ve said before, if Tupac belongs in the Rock Hall, then the Beatles certainly belong in the Rap Hall (if there is one). “Icon of non-rock popular music” shouldn’t put you in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall.

And good God, Lawr, I certainly envy your happiness and the fact that you’re happily retired and have set yourself up well. A hearty and sincere “Good for you!” from me to you.

Finally, here’s that wasp in the pants song (can you guys seriously sit still and listen to this?):

And finally finally, here’s National Official Spokesperson Of Rock ‘N’ Roll Dave Grohl talking about the Bad Brains. Hell, if it’s about rock and Dave Grohl says it, how can it not be true?

Hmm. . .

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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.

A Gym Song I Can Stand

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I hear/see this at the gym and I can live with it. Although I’m puzzled why most everything that gets mass attention these days with any kind of heavy guitar sound must be of the Black Keys imitating The White Stripes imitating whoever variety.

I shouldn’t complain. At least it’s not fucking Cake By The Ocean for the trillionth Chinese Water Torture time.

I will say that, if we’re doing this kind of stuff, I’ll take this all day. From my pick for most underrated album of all-time, Masters Of Reality’s Blue Garden.

Punk Errata

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Almost finished with the John Doe L.A. Punk history book. It’s very good, although probably not intelligent and versatile enough for this audience. Ran into this interesting mistake in Charlotte Caffey’s (Go-Go’s guitarist) chapter about Jane Wiedlin (other Go-Go’s guitarist):

Jane had had a mad love affair with Terry Hall, the lead singer of Madness.

Terry Hall sang for The Specials, not Madness. Not quite on the order of saying Mick Jagger sang for The Beatles, but in the neighborhood. To top it off, Caffey mentions soon after that The Go-Go’s toured with Madness. I would imagine spending weeks touring with Suggs (crew cut footballer guy) to be much different from spending weeks touring with Terry Hall (floofy new waver guy).

Was this a senior moment brain fart, a lifetime of too much drugs, carelessness, ignorance, too much mad in the same sentence? Where was the editor?

Well, Madness was way better than The Go-Go’s and The Specials were way, way better than The Go-Go’s so who cares, I guess.

Turbonegro Must Be Destroyed

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Belated concert review from Monday, 6/27:

Everything started out well enough. I love Underground Arts. But I knew the Turbonegro set list had changed. You see, one of the greatest regrets of my life is having never seen the real Turbonegro with Hank Von Helvete. The last time I saw them (and the first time I saw them) a few years ago in New York, it was their comeback tour, with new singer Tony “The Duke Of Nothing” Sylvester. For that tour, they were more or less a Hank tribute band, playing all the household name Turbonegro hits. It wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty good.

Since then, Turbonegro has changed. Their new sound is way, way too poppy. The set list two Mondays ago was dominated by new stuff and Party Animals, my personal choice as the worst Hank Turbonegro album. And only one song from Ass Cobra, arguably the best hardcore album ever. That’s a toughie.

But nothing could prepare me for the very long encore. Each member of the band was introduced to an extended mostly-awful cover song. I remember Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting (the best), Van Halen’s Jump, and The Heat Is On (the worst – forget who does that and I’m not gonna go look either).

It was like a nightmare.

Finally, the band took a bow and left the stage to. . .I couldn’t make this up. . .We Built This City.

Typing this out, it seems like they were simply playing some over-the-top “let’s offend the audience as best we can” routine. If it was that, I’m really glad, but I don’t think so.

In any case, I’m completely through with Turbonegro until I have conclusive evidence things have gone back to semi-normal.

Here’s a video, of their latest crappy song that I posted a few weeks ago. You can see my fuzzy head in the bottom right corner, starting at about the 45 second mark.

Why? Some Boring Self-Indulgence

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Since it appears the fight is over after one round, I was thinking further about why rock ‘n’ roll discussion always has to include discussion of music that isn’t rock ‘n’ roll.

If this was Country Remnants, we wouldn’t be discussing disco. If this was Disco Remnants, we wouldn’t be discussing Black Sabbath.

What are Donna Summer and Miles Davis doing in the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall Of Fame? Does the Jazz Hall Of Fame feel obligated to induct The Beatles? Surely there were bits and pieces of jazz in Beatles’ music. (The Miles Davis Wiki listing says, “In 2006, he was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, which recognized him as ‘one of the key figures in the history of jazz.'” Huh? It ain’t “The All Kinds Of Music Hall Of Fame”, boys and girls.)

What is rock ‘n’ roll? It works like the porn test, when I hear it, I’ll tell you.

Was also thinking we should change the name of this blog to “Rock ‘n’ Roll Remnants – And Disco.”

Hooray!