you will reap everything you sow

After an Israeli air strike killed 56 Lebanese civilians, mostly women and children, the government of Lebanon told Condi “Way Out Of Her Depth” Rice to fuck off until a unconditional cease fire is agreed to. Ms. Rice is trying to spin the event in a Pee Wee Herman over the handlebars fashion, claiming that the cancellation of her trip to Beirut was her decision, but most reports cite her as being shaken and caught off guard by these recent developments.

As it stands now, the Israelis have agreed to a 48-hour halt to air attacks, presumably because the Bush and company have belatedly realized that images of dead Lebanese children might have a negative effect on their quixotic crusade to turn the Middle East into Des Moines with minarets. In the absence of an real cease fire, however, this halt amounts to little more than a temporary stay of execution for the people of Lebanon.

In the spirit of usual schadenfreude-fueled glibness where the Bush administration is involved, here are some songs dedicated to poor Condoleezza’s Big Misadventure.

Chronic Disorder – Leave Us Alone (from Chronic Disorder, 1985) -Sloppy midtempo hardcore out of Connecticut. I used to have a cassette of one of their later albums, which had a wimpier, 7 Seconds-influenced sound, although I did like “This Could Be Your Stage.”

Holly & the Italians – Tell That Girl To Shut Up (from a 1980 7”, collected on Holly & the Italians, 2002) – Ellen Foley, Pearl Harbour and the Explosions, Martha and the Muffins – there sure were a lot of these forgettable female-fronted early new wave acts.
I prefer this version over the later Transvision Vamp cover of the song. Holly Beth Vincent’s vocals have a toughness to them that fits the material better.

REO Speedwagon – I Do’Wanna Know (from The Second Decade of Rock and Roll, 1991) – Anyone else remember the video for this song, where an Ed Grimley-like punk rocker faces judgment at the hands of Kevin Cronin-God and his satin-jacketed heavenly host? Thinking about it still gives me the willies.

The 1910 Fruitgum Co. – Go Away (from Best of the 1910 Fruitgum Co., 2006) – I love vintage 60’s and 70’s bubblegum pop in small doses, but too much can make me physically ill. Seriously, I found out the hard way after trying to listen to a four disc bubblegum box set from beginning to end. It was worse than the time I ate a pound of Lemonheads and washed them down with a bottle of grape Zarex.

The Tubes – Talk To Ya Later (from The Completion Backward Principle, 1981) – The vapid pop rock “She’s a Beauty” might have been their biggest hit, but this track will always be the definitive Tubes song, a catchy, driving track that straddles the line between arena rock and the new wave.

win some, lose some, it’s all the same to me

The World Series of Poker began today, and even Jim Rockford got himself a piece of the action, although I don’t think his beef-powered shrewdness has a ghost of a chance against fellow participant Tobey Maguire. That guy is an emotive black hole from which no tell can ever escape.

While my personal code of conduct explicitly prohibits gambling, I’m not above using the event as the inspiration for today’s post. Here’s a royal flush of musical goodness.

Banner of Hope – Ace of Spades (from Behind a Banner of Hope, 2003) – Terrible, just terrible, and I think the band knew it as well, as they seem hellbent on speeding through this misguided Motorhead cover as quickly as possible. The rest of the album isn’t half bad, though. It reminds me of Vice Squad’s early stuff, but minus the murky production.

Echobelly – King of the Kerb (from On, 1995) – I saw Echobelly open for Electrafixion (featuring the animated corpse of Ian McCullough) at Axis in the fall of 1995. Their catchy brand of feminist Britpop totally blew both the headliners and the other opening act, the Dandy Warhols, off the stage.

The Horrorpops – Drama Queen (from Hell, Yeah!, 2004) – Great female-fronted punkabilly (with pop leanings) from Denmark.

The Smoke – My Friend Jack (from It’s Smoke Time, 1967) – “…as long as people are still having promiscuous sex with many anonymous partners without protection while at the same time experimenting with mind-expanding drugs in a consequence-free environment, I'll be sound as a pound!” – Austin Powers

The Plugz – Reel Ten (from the Repo Man OST, 1984) – This spacy instrumental track regularly finds its way onto our driving music mix CD’s. My wife considers it to be perfect summer music. I’d love to see a release of the rest of the incidental music the Plugz composed for the movie. The music on their previous LP, Better Luck, was ok Latin-inflected roots rock (think a Chicano version of the Blasters), but it doesn’t hold a candle to the Repo Man score.

The WTF Files: Volume #1 – How will we beat the Russians?

Over the course of decades spent sifting though popcult debris, I’ve managed to acquire a largish assortment of offbeat, unusual, or otherwise unclassifiable tracks. As my collection has gone from physical media to the digital variety (largely due to space considerations), these songs have ended up populating a desktop folder labeled simply “WTF”. Some of the songs are more outlandish than others, but cumulatively they make for a very…interesting…listening experience when queued into Winamp with the shuffle mode turned on.

Here are some choice WTF selections for your edification and enjoyment.

Cookie Monster – Lost Me Cookie At the Disco (from Sesame Disco, 1979) – Those were the days, Cookie partying till dawn at Studio 54, fueled by the lines of pure uncut Betty Crocker mix he’d snort off Bianca Jagger’s bare midriff. He later got banned for the club after a savage slap fight with Liza Minelli over an unopened package of Double Stuff Oreos.

Buck Truck – How’d I Get This Way (from The Rappin’ Trucker, 1990) – Blame my friend C.J. He’s the one who pointed this bit of cornpone freestylin’ out to me. A quick Google search reveals that this cheapo truck stop wonder made the “OMG, you have to hear this insanity” message board rounds a few years back. If you happened to miss out on hearing it then, you’re being given another chance.

Drumble Wedge and the Vegetation – Bedazzled (from the film Bedazzled, 1967) – Peter Cook made an excellent mod-ish Satan. Here he poses as the world’s most apathetic pop star. I still can’t figure out why this film hasn’t gotten a DVD release yet.

Paul Lynde – Kids (from the Bye, Bye Birdie Original Film Soundtrack, 1963) – Paul Lynde is something of a holy figure in our household. He represents childhoods spent watching 70’s game shows and reruns of 60’s sitcoms, where Lynde’s snide bitchiness made him first among equals in a pantheon of classic comedic character actors. My wife, who is a wonderful voice mimic, does a fantastic impersonation of Lynde as the Jack Nicholson character in The Shining (inspired by my observation that Nicholson seems to channel a more macho version of Lynde’s persona in his acting).

Serge Gainsbourg – Aux Armes Et Cetera (from Aux Armes Et Cetera, 1976) – A reggae-fied piss take of La Marseillaise that outraged French rightists upon its release. It’s a brilliant prank as well as a great listen, though it doesn’t hold a candle to Gainsbourg’s earlier sleazy masterpiece, “Je t’aime, Moi Non Plus”.

Crispin Hellion Glover - Clowny Clown Clown (from Big Problem Does Not Equal the Solution. The Solution = Let It Be, 1989) - Ever wonder what kind of music the man who played George McFly would make? Me neither, but here's a taste, and it's mighty strange.

you hold the key to love and fear

“Only pop music can save us now!” – Rick, The Young Ones

I wish that was true. In a pop music utopia, instead of watching Dubya and Condi fiddle while Beirut burns, we could gather all the principal players together…

Siouxsie & the Banshees – Israel (from a 1980 7” single, collected on Once Upon a Time: The Singles, 1981) – I wonder if this was Siouxsie’s way of making up for the swastika armband she used to wear and the anti-Semitic line in the original version of “Love in a Void”?

The Human League – The Lebanon (from Hysteria, 1984) – “Yvonne Burgess had said that about a fella in the army who’d gone off to the Lebanon without telling her. –I hope he’s fuckin’ kilt, said Yvonne. –By an Arab or somethin’ D’yeh know wha’ his ma said when I phoned? He’s gone to the Leb. The Leb! I thought it was the name of a pub or somethin’…” – Roddy Doyle, The Snapper

Specimen – Syria (from a 1983 EP, collected on Wet Warm Cling-Film Red Velvet Crush, 1997) – Oh, so decadent, oh, so British goth pop.

A Flock of Seagulls – I Ran (from A Flock of Seagulls, 1982) – Phasers set to PUN! Anyone who objects my punnery gets a kick to the shin. Anyone who makes a tired joke about Mike Score’s hairdo gets their eyes gouged.

…and find a better solution than bombs, bullets, and bloodshed.

Bob Marley and the Wailers – War (from Rastaman Vibration, 1976) – I didn’t give a shit about Sinead O’Connor ripping up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live; it was what preceded that ill-conceived gesture, her pretentiously brutal mutilation of this classic song, that really pissed me off.

The Youngbloods – Get Together (from The Youngbloods, aka Get Together, 1967) – I remember hearing this on the local classic rock station on the afternoon of September 11, 2001, during the long, depressing drive out of Boston. Sandwiched in between news updates chronicling the unimaginable horrors unfolding in Lower Manhattan, the song no longer felt like a naïve, dated hippie anthem, but became an earnest plea for compassion and solidarity. Too bad the nation ended up settling for paranoia and vengeance instead.

and I’ve been shirking my duty

My vacation is almost at an end. Last weekend’s wide open vistas of possibility have narrowed to a short dark passageway with an overflowing “To Do” box at its terminus. Such are the vagaries of wage slavery. At least I have another week off coming up at the end of August to look forward to.

In the meantime, it’s back to work for me – commuting through a potentially unsafe and partially shut down tunnel, and trying to find a parking space now that my employers have decided to close down the garage.

Magazine – Model Worker (from The Correct Use of Soap, 1980) – “This one is full of moral fibre.” Uptempo new wave pop that plays around with Marxist-Leninist jargon. Here’s a video of the song being performed as part of Urgh! A Music War:



Tennessee Ernie Ford – Sixteen Tons (from Greatest Hits, 1993) – The ultimate wage slave anthem. My grandmother, who took me in after my mother died, used to listen to a station that played nothing but old school, pre-rock and roll pop standards – Perry Como, Ray Conniff, Frank Sinatra, and the like – and over time I grew to appreciate, if not actually like, that style of music. My wife finds that incredibly depressing.

The Farrell Bros. – Career Opportunities (from This Is Rockabilly Clash, 2003) – A great Clash cover from a Canadian rockabilly outfit. The entire compilation is pretty damn fine and worth checking out by anyone who loves the Clash and/or rockabilly music.

The Godfathers – Birth, School, Work, Death (from Birth, School, Work, Death, 1988) – This is a solid, guitar-driven alt-rock song that gets a few points deducted for sounding like something from a beer commercial. “Birth! School! Work! Death! All go better with a Heineken!”

The Mekons – Work All Week (from The Quality of Mercy Is Strnen, 1979) – A far cry from the sloppy DIY punk of “Never Been in a Riot,” this song could be mistaken for a lost Gang of Four track.

The Specials – Rat Race (from The Singles Collection, 1991) – I adore the Specials. They run a close second to the Clash as “my favorite band ever”. That said, I must confess that Terry Hall’s eyebrows scare the bejeezus out of me.

he’s got something to quench your thirst

So events in Lebanon have led some fundamentalist Christians to believe that Armageddon is nigh, and they’re awaiting the Second Coming with unrestrained glee. I already wrote about it here, but it put me in mind of something from my childhood, an event that imprinted itself on my six-year-old consciousness and stuck with me in the decades that followed. I am referring to the Jonestown massacre, where Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple cult community in Guyana self-destructed in a well-rehearsed mass murder/suicide event after killing Congressman Leo Ryan, three journalists, and some cult defectors who hoped to accompany Ryan back to the United States.

Many of the cultists, who had been through several of Jones’s “white night” mass suicide practice runs, willingly drank the cyanide-laced Flavor Aid (not Kool Aid, as often reported. Chalk it up to the Liberty Valance dictum). Others, including young children and the elderly, were force fed the lethal soft drink or simply injected with the poison. Some refuseniks were gunned down by Jones’s men. Jones himself died from a gunshot to the head, although it’s still uncertain whether it was a suicide or he was killed by one of his followers.

My parents were progressive sorts. They didn’t believe in sheltering their children from the “real world”, and I remember sitting with my mother as she flipped through the Time Magazine article about the massacre and explained it to me. It was a horror movie made real, those aerial shots featuring a carpet of dead bodies ripening in the tropical sun and close-ups of stiff bluish limbs protruding from clusters of tangled corpses. It was my introduction into the warped world of dogmatic beliefs and blind loyalty.

On November 18, 1978, that type of thinking wiped out over 900 people. In 2006, it has the potential to lay waste to the entire planet. But, hey, we need a strong leader in times like these. So sit down, shut up, and drink your damned Flavor Aid! It has been laced with an assortment of tracks referencing Jim Jones and/or his massacre.

Black Box Recorder – Kidnapping an Heiress (from England Made Me, 1998) – BBR is one of those bands I forget about for months, hear one of their songs, then wonder why I haven’t listened to them recently. This track is a fine piece of haunting, low key indie pop that reminds me a lot of the theme song to the first Silent Hill game. (That’s a very good thing.)

New Model Army – White Coats (from Great Expectations: The Singles Collection, 2003) – Crass with better musicianship? Billy Bragg with no sense of humor? Some random 80’s goth act gone political? Nope, it’s just New Model Army.

The Vapors – Jimmie Jones (from Magnets, 1981) – Yep, the “Turning Japanese” Vapors, from their totally ignored second album. It’s decent enough melodic new wave pop, maybe a little too down tempo to qualify as power pop, but who cares?

Psychic TV – White Nights (from Dreams Less Sweet, 1983) – I read in Spin a few months back that Psychic TV (and Throbbing Gristle) frontman Genesis P-Orridge and his wife are undergoing cosmetic and b-mod surgery so that they can resemble each other and become a single “pandrogenous” entity.

The Judy’s – Guyana Punch (from Washarama, 1981) – This is a quirky, minimalist (bass, drums, vocals) track from an obscure Texan new wave band. “Freshen up!” Mind the tempo shifts.

Manowar – Guyana (Cult of the Damned) (from Sign of the Hammer, 1985) – This song is what people who don’t listen to heavy metal think heavy metal sounds like -- overwrought guitar work and pretentious yet stupid lyrics with factory-mandated “shocking” parts. This song is a more hilarious send up of the genre’s excesses than any deliberate parody could ever be. “Guy-an-aaaaaaaaah!” Rock on, dudes!

and I feel the sweat rolling up my neck

It is hatefully hot outside, with conditions outside approximating those found within Satan’s armpit. I have therefore retreated to the sanctuary of the AC room, where I’ve been playing Neverwinter Nights and selecting appropriately sizzling tracks for your listening enjoyment.

Wall of Voodoo – Ring of Fire (from the Wall of Voodoo EP, 1980) – Before making their mark on the listening public’s consciousness with their novelty hit, “Mexican Radio”, Wall of Voodoo released an EP and album of brilliant, spooky music that wove synth, spaghetti western, and Latin music elements into a fascinating tapestry of tracks that radiated feelings of isolation and apocalyptic dread. Shamefully, the self-titled 1980 EP and 1981 Dark Continent LP are both currently out of print.

Billy Lee Riley & His Little Green Men – Red Hot (from Red Hot: The Best of Billy Lee Riley, 1999) – Raw, throaty, raucous fifties rockabilly. No Jordanaires are needed here.

The Minds – Hot (from Plastic Girls, 2003) – Here’s some great synthpunk from Portland, Oregon (home also to the Epoxies). The genre may have died on the vine (despite the release of the Epoxies’ near-perfect Stop the Future LP in 2005) but it was fun while it lasted.

I’m living for giving the devil his due – Guilty Pleasures File #1: Classic Rock

Fuck indie cred and ironic hipsterism; it’s a gorgeous summer Friday evening, and I’m on vacation next week. It’s time to break the seals on my Chest of Guilty Pleasures and unleash the power of good ol’ fashioned rawk music. A bottle of Boone’s Farm and a burnt orange Camaro (or custom van conversion) are not required, but are recommended to complete the experience. The parking lot by the baseball fields beckons; will you and your leather vest answer the clarion call to party?

J. Geils Band – Must of Got Lost (from The Best of the J. Geils Band, 1979) – When I brainstorm ideas for posts, I often use my wife as a sounding board, and her input has been invaluable. When I mentioned to her that I was going to include this track in my classic rock round up, her only response was, “I don’t like that song.” 70’s J. Geils’ music is a lot like Jell-O shots -- removed from a party time atmosphere, they become fairly nauseating to ingest.

Slade – Cum On Feel the Noize (from Get Yer Boots On: The Best of Slade, 2004) – Accept no substitutions. I don’t need a metallic sheen on my bubbleglam.

Blue Öyster Cult – Burnin' For You (from Fire of Unknown Origin, 1981) – “No Cult. I ate twenty-four pairs of Blue Öyster Cult tickets last time around. I was this close to working at 7-11. No Cult.” – Mike Damone, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, 1982

Electric Light Orchestra – Don’t Bring Me Down (from Discovery, 1979) – Jeff Lynne joins the ranks of rockers trying to cash in on the disco craze, and with spectacular results. While similar efforts by the Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart, and Kiss produced some of the most embarrassing music of the era, this song is a throbbing masterpiece of seventies futurism (its last gasp, really) which evokes the lurid electric sleaze of T-and-A pinball machines and dodgy carnival rides.

Ten Years After – I’d Love to Change the World (from A Space In Time, 1971) – I first heard this song on the legendary Freedom Rock compilation sold via TV in the late eighties. Despite the extremely mockable commercials (“Turn it up, man!”), the comp itself had a damn fine mix of tracks from the late sixties and early seventies, as the Summer of Love gave way to the long, dark Winter of Self-Absorbtion. If you listen close, you can hear a generation’s idealism die.

oh my!

If you go in the woods today, you better watch your back, because Armagideon Time has been overrun by:

Lions!

Lee “Scratch” Perry – Dread Lion (from Super Ape, 1976) – There’s an unsettling creepiness to dub reggae that no other musical genre is able to match. That’s probably the reason that several early gothic music bands used dub structures (slow pulsing bass lines, strange audio effects) in their songs (Bauhaus’ “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”, UK Decay’s “Unexpected Guest”).

Wire – Ex Lion Tamer (from Pink Flag, 1977) – What a thing of wonder Pink Flag is, with tracks ranging from the crude straightforward punk of “12XU” to the forward-looking art-punk of “Mannequin” and this number. The LP is an essential document of both the transition from punk to post-punk and the opportunities missed as the initial punk revolution began to backslide and settle into a clearly delineated rut. If the Sex Pistols didn’t descend into self-parody and take the genre with them, if the Clash didn’t sell out to CBS, I wonder where things might have gone.

Tigers!

Depeche Mode – Easy Tiger (from Exciter, 2001) – This is a short instrumental interlude that also happens to be my favorite track on the album. My affection for Depeche Mode mirrors the affection I have for the Cure, in that I love both bands’ early material, and can’t stand the later stuff that brought them wider attention.

Jah Wobble – Tyger, Tyger (from The Inspiration of William Blake, 1996) – Here Wobble, an early London punk scenester and former member of Public Image Limited, takes Blake’s oft-quoted poem and sets it to some interesting electronic-dub hybrid music.

..and Bears!

The Damned – Edward the Bear (from Phantasmagoria, 1985) - Guitarist (and Captain Sensible replacement) Roman Jugg takes a turn behind the microphone on this track and delivers a dreamy bit of gothic-influenced pop. While both post-Sensible albums get routinely slammed by the critics and fans for not being punky enough, I think Phantasmagoria and Anything are excellent albums that showcase the band’s long fascination with sixties rock and pop.

The Descendents – I Wanna Be a Bear (from Milo Goes To College, 1982) – Forty-two seconds of SoCal hardcore fun. “You’ll get old and have a wrinkled ass”. Sheer poetry, that.

drop it!

KA-BOOM! Today we have a selection of explosive songs packing a variety of payloads for your enjoyment and enlightenment. Remember, bombs don’t kill people. People kill people…bombs just make it easier to do it in volume.

The Weirdos - (We Got the) Neutron Bomb (from No Thanks! The '70s Punk Rebellion Box Set, 2003) – You ever hear of the neutron bomb? Destroys people - leaves buildings standing. Fits in a suitcase. It's so small, no one knows it's there until - BLAMMO. Eyes melt, skin explodes, everybody dead. So immoral, working on the thing can drive you mad. That's what happened to this friend of mine. So he had a lobotomy. Now he's well again. – J. Frank Parnell, Repo Man

Fluke - Atom Bomb (from Rizotto, 1997) – Fans of the WipeOut series of games will recognize this track. The video is a wonderful artifact of a time when electronica briefly flirted with mainstream success.

In our musical arsenal, we have two “sex bombs”, assembled using widely divergent schematics.

Utilizing the donut-and-plug Campsleazium-269 design: Tom Jones & Mousse T – Sexbomb (from Reload, 1999)

Opting for the imploding sphere of Abrasivodium-282: Flipper – Sex Bomb (from Generic, 1982)

The Gap Band – You Dropped a Bomb On Me (from The Best of the Gap Band, 1994) – There was a fellow member of the As Yet Unknown comedy troupe in the mid-90’s who insisted that this song and Billy Ocean’s “Loverboy” represented twin pinnacles of mainstream pop music. He may have been crazy, but as the only member of the group who actually went anywhere, it must have been the right kind of crazy.

Girls Aloud – Love Bomb (from Sound of the Underground, 2003) – Music for people who like the Spice Girls, but thought they weren’t pre-fabricated enough. Like modern day Midases, these canny pop music producers turn utter shit into gold records.

Crass – They’ve Got A Bomb (from The Feeding of the 5000, 1978) – My brother knew a girl who said that she liked Crass for the music, but not the politics. Fifteen years later, that statement still lies undigested in the “What the fuck?!?” portion of my brain.

reading is fundamental

So, read any good books lately? Today’s theme, suggested by Ed Cunard, one of the dashing and dapper gentlemen behind the exceptional Graphic Language blog, focuses on literary references in popular music.

It was by no means an easy task; it involved mentally reviewing hundreds of song lyrics, several Google and Wikipedia searches, and some outsourcing to certain friends and associates. It’s easy to note a certain bias in the songs/works chosen. It can’t be helped; I’m a man of certain tastes.

Bomb The Bass - Bug Powder Dust (from The K&D Sessions, 1998) - Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs - His influence looms large on the punk/post-punk/electronica scene, but I’ve never been able to get into Burroughs’ work. Maybe it’s a generational thing, but it seems rather quaint and dated to me.

Led Zeppelin - Ramble On (from Led Zeppelin II, 1969) - The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien - And it all went downhill from there, as countless hippie folk rockers discovered electric guitars and synths, and began churning out terrible faux-medieval prog rock concept albums by the chariot-loads.

Six Finger Satellite - The White Visitation (from The Law of Ruins, 1998) - Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon - A bit of a cheat here; this is an instrumental track whose title refers to a former mental hospital where the psyops unit in the novel is headquartered.

The Cure - Killing an Arab (from Staring at the Sea: The Singles, 1986) - The Stranger by Albert Camus - Very controversial, this track. It’s been dropped off remasters and reissues, been flagged with warning stickers, and had its title and lyrics changed to accommodate various outraged parties who wouldn’t/couldn’t check the source material. Existentialism is out of vogue, I suppose.

The Normal - Warm Leatherette (from the Warm Leatherette 7” single, 1978; reissued on CD) – Crash by J.G. Ballard - Ballard did his best (as did Cronenberg in the film adaptation of the novel) but the core premise – the eroticization of auto accidents – is a non-starter. There may be “good” sorts of pain out there, but getting gut-pierced by a steering column doesn’t strike me as sexy for some reason. The automotive eros-versus-thanatos concept would have worked better in a poetic format or as a short stream-of-consciousness piece.

Tubeway Army - Listen to the Sirens (from Tubeway Army, 1978) – Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said by Phillip K. Dick - This is early Gary Numan, before he went solo and switched entirely to a synth-based sound. He hit his peak on Replicas and The Pleasure Principle before devolving into a sad parody of himself. (His Mad Max-inspired look from his Warriors period was embarrassing. It was like he and Adam Ant were racing each other to the bottom.)

UK Decay - For My Country (from the For My Country 7” single, 1980; collected on Punk and Disorderly, Vol. 1) - “Jerusalem” by William Blake - UK Decay was one of the pioneer gothic rock acts, and this track captures them in transition from their second wave punk roots to the dark theatrical majesty of the later For Madmen Only LP and Rising From the Dread EP. (Side note: The words of William Blake’s “London” are painted on the sleeve of my old punk jacket. Pretty high-minded of me, don’t you think?)

I told you I’d always love you, I always did, I always will

‘You bet I’m a patriot!’ I exclaimed. ‘It’s because I’m a patriot, that I can’t bear our country.’ – Colin MacInnes, Absolute Beginners

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. – Abraham Lincoln (attributed)


Happy 230th birthday, America!

My original plans for this 4th of July post involved uploading a selection of songs dealing with America’s missteps and shortcomings, but I realized that might give folks the wrong idea about my attitude towards my country. I love America. I am proud of the high ideals upon which it was founded, as imperfectly implemented as they may have been.

The concept of America as a bastion of freedom, hope and tolerance, embodying good governance through the rationalist ideals of the Enlightenment, is as valid and praiseworthy as ever. The problem lies in the shirkers and scoundrels who have laid claim to “Americanism” and twisted it to suit their own perverse and ignoble ends. Like parasitic heartworms, they gnaw at the country from within, poisoning its lifeblood with their noxious creeds. They hoodwink the masses into thinking that patriotism is a superficial act, like slapping a bumper sticker on a car or waving a (Chinese-made) American flag. Faith unexamined is merely hollow idolatry.

That’s not patriotism, this notion that place of birth somehow ennobles and enables behavior associated with schoolyard bullies, while shouting down dissenting ideas and uncomfortable truths. America is not about “us versus them”, and recent moves by demagogues on-high encouraging sanctioned bigotry against homosexuals and immigrants are nothing short of evil. The politicians who cynically pander to these basest of instincts are the real traitors to the nation.

Fuck the bastardized Herrenvolk myth that masquerades itself as patriotism, we need to bring back the real deal, with the uncertainty, introspection, and hard work it entails.

I left my town with a pain in my heart

Today we’re going to take a look at the ambiguous aspects of urbanism, the paradoxical feelings of isolation and loneliness associated with living in the dense population clusters of the modern urban core. In other words, here’s an assortment of songs with “city” in the title. When picking these songs I avoided the most obvious choices (“Suffragette City”, “Union City Blues”, “I Love Livin’ in the City”) and went with some personal favorites mixed in with material from off the beaten path.

The Jam - In the City (from In the City, 1977) - Paul Weller may be a bit of an ass, but I think the Jam’s first album is one of the best records to come out of the initial punk explosion. I’m not as keen on their later efforts, with the exception of the wonderful “Going Underground”. It’s pretty obvious that the Sex Pistols (consciously or unconsciously) cribbed the opening riff from this track for “Holidays in the Sun”.

P-Model - Sunshine City (from In a Model Room, 1979) - Offbeat punk-pop from Japan. This track reminds me a little of the early B-52’s stuff, minus the harmonies.

Soft Cell - Fun City (from Erotic Non-Stop Cabaret, 1981) - Classic synthpop only slightly tainted by association with wannabe libertine club goers who take Marc Almond’s dark decadent persona too seriously.

The Glove - This Green City (from Blue Sunshine, 1983) - A side project from Steve Severin of Siouxsie & the Banshees and Robert Smith of the Cure, the Glove released a single LP in 1983. The results sound like a collection of outtakes from the members’ regular bands. Not as terrible as some might lead you to believe, it’s still a disappointment considering the talents involved. My copy of the LP was pressed on clear blue vinyl, making it a much more impressive physical artifact than a musical one.

The Pogues – White City (from Peace and Love, 1989) - My wife and I saw the Pogues play at the Orpheum during their brief 2006 tour. Shane MacGowan was in pretty rough shape and his voice was almost entirely shot, reduced to an incoherent mumble. It didn’t matter much to the audience, though; as they were either too boozed up to care or knew the songs so well that they could reconstruct them from memory.

Trick 17 - City Nacht (from A Tribute to Flexipop, Volume 10) – Another one of those Flexipop-comp mystery synth bands. While trying to do some research on them, I found out that “trick 17” is an idiom referring to an unorthodox solution to a problem, and was derived from the game of whist. You learn something new everyday, even if it isn’t what you were hoping to find out.