it's alright, Ma, I can make it

(I wrote the following piece last year on this date. The number of years has been updated to reflect the passage of time, but the rest of the sentiments still stand.)

Today is the eighteenth anniversary of my mother's death. I knew I was going to make note of that here, but until a few moments ago I wasn't sure how.

I debated typing out the full events of that day, since even the smallest details been permanently etched into my gray matter, but that seemed pointless. Yet replaying those small details in my head (I wore a Yankees t-shirt. I ate a sandwich made from homemade bread for lunch. My art teacher gave me a lame lecture about joining the Army.) made me realize one important thing:

That day, probably the worst day I've ever lived through, began like any other day, but by midnight, my entire life had been upended and permanently changed.

It's probably the most miserable object lesson ever, but it's one that has stuck with me through the years. Live in the now. Appreciate what you have while you can, because a shitstorm can strike at any moment and take it all away. My mother just wanted to go back to bed and sleep off a port wine binge, and ended up lying on the attic landing with her head cracked open.

Belly – Stay (from Star, 1993)

The Monkees – The Porpoise Song (from a 1968 single, collected on Greatest Hits, 1995)

Roger McGuinn – It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (from the Easy Rider OST, 1969)

I sense a rhythm that science can't feel

If the UPS website is to be believed, my shiny new PC should be arriving on my doorstep sometime tomorrow. It hasn’t been that long since my last upgrade, but my present box, a current gen Dell Dimension desktop, turned out to be a severe disappointment totally unsuited to a house with a high pet population. (The huge recessed cooling grill on the front may look cool in the ads, but only serves as a powerful cat fur magnet in practice.)

I was debating whether or not to scratch build a new machine, but I’m a lazy sort who vents his tech frustrations through violence toward inanimate objects. It’s very difficult to return an incompatible motherboard to CompUSA when it has been snapped in half and covered in bootprints. In the end, I compromised and went with a custom built machine, cutting corners by leaving out the parts I already have while optimizing the core components.

When all the swapping and tinkering is done, the new rig will be a Systemax box with a 3.4 GHz P4 processor, 2 GB RAM, a 256MB GeForce 7600 GS videocard, an Audigy sound card, a Memorex dual layer DVD burner, and three stacked HD with around 400 GBs of storage total. It may be a bit behind the curve, but it was very reasonably priced and will enable me to properly play Neverwinter Nights 2 and Oblivion without massively compromising on the gameplay and graphics.

Of course, this upgrade doesn’t effect Armagideon Time at all, except as the inspiration for today’s musical celebration of the new.

7 Seconds – New Wind (from New Wind, 1986) – Yeah, it’s a bit wussy, but it’s a positive, MassPIRG kind of wussiness with better music than the emo scene’s “nobody wuvs me” identi-drone nonsense.

Blitz – New Age (from the New Age EP, 1983, collected on Best of Blitz, 1994) – An interestingly odd bid for pop success from a punk/Oi! band’s whose earlier work included the violent terrace chants of “Someone’s Gonna Die” and “Razors in the Night.”

Boyskout – New Black (from School of Etiquette, 2004) – I came across a compilation of San Francisco “garage revival” bands not too long ago, and was a little puzzled to see a track from Boyskout on the disc. I’m assuming it had to have been a shared label or venue thing, because their sound has more in common with 4AD than fuzztones and farsifas.

INXS – Old World New World (from Shabooh Shoobah, 1982) – Poor Michael Hutchence…

Polysics – New Wave Jacket (from a 2001 Japanese single, collected on Polysics or Die!!!! 2005) – Black or black and white checks, no lapels, superthin collar with band buttons pinned to it. Or spasmodic Japanese noise pop. Either one will do.

portents dark and shining

The stretch of time between Thanksgiving and the first week of December has traditionally been when Providence sees fit to make with the life-changing events. My mother’s death, my grandfather’s death, the worst break up I’ve gone through, my first date with the woman who would become my wife – that two week period is apparently my rollout date for heavy personal developments. Although the past few years have been blissfully uneventful, it’s hard to shake the feeling that something’s going to happen…

Ribzy – Why Did It Happen? (from The Valley Within compilation, 1983) – It’s always nice to discover a piece of hardcore punk that tries to reach past the louder-faster-harder assembly line template.

The Undertones – It’s Going to Happen (from Positive Touch, 1981) – Northern Ireland’s The Undertones crafted some really fine punk pop material in the late 70’s and early 80’s. That said, I really don’t understand the extreme reverence and awe that music critics hold for the band.

Oingo Boingo – Nothing Bad Ever Happens (from Good for Your Soul, 1983) – This is from my wife’s collection. She likes this track for it’s eighties apocalypticism; I think it’s a bit hollow, the pop equivalent to vacuformed plastic.

Salvation Army – Happen Happened (from the Mind Gardens EP, 1981) – LA punk pop with leanings toward the Paisley Underground 60’s revival movement. It reminds me a bit of Hüsker Dü, circa Candy Apple Grey, but I can’t put my finger on why.

jive turkey

No real update for today, just a linkback to an appropriate song from my 100th post anniversary and the bitchin' example of my mad MS Paint skills featured above.

Sam and Dave - I Thank You - I'd like to dedicate this one to my wife. Not a day passes that I'm not thankful she's part of my life.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

We’ll raise a glass to JFK

On this day in 1963, President John F. Kennedy had his date with destiny (and a rifle bullet) in Dallas, Texas.

I have mixed feelings about the man and his legacy. My parents revered the man, whose election presidency symbolized the unbridled promise of a new decade and a new generation of leaders. My father especially took JFK’s vigorous brand of Cold War liberalism to heart, and to this day will not tolerate any criticism of the man.

As I grew older, and my political awareness developed, the notion of JFK as a saintlike figure I inherited from my parents was gradually eroded away, not from the right, but from the left. I held onto my parents’ progressive idealism, but moved toward a more radical antinomian perspective. The nuclear sabre-waving over a fictitious “missile gap,” the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and the shenanigans that set the stage for America’s futile and protracted engagement in Vietnam -- not to mention the sleazy alliances with corrupt party machines and mob-front labor organizations – paint a much darker picture of a president I had been taught to believe was the Ideal Democrat.

Such is the danger of idolatry; it’s far better to acknowledge the “warts and all” from the get go, rather than deal with the shocking disappointment over clay feet down the road. I had professor in college who tried to reconcile his Chomskean politics with affection for JFK by insisting that had Kennedy lived, he would have turned on the CIA and military-industrial complex. That’s why he was assassinated, according to my professor. His argument struck me as an attempt to buttress a collapsing façade with Popsicle sticks, but it also demonstrated the manner in which JFK captured (and retains a hold on) the imagination of that generation.

The Misfits – Bullet (from Static Age, 1978/1997) – “Texas is the reason that the president’s dead.” It makes better sense than either Oliver Stone’s or James Ellroy’s explanation.

Human Sexual Response – Jackie Onassis (from Fig. 15, 1980) – Yet another band tainted by mental association with a former girlfriend of mine. It’s a shame because they’re really good and they were from Boston (which is always a plus with me, unless the band in question is Morphine or Extreme).

The Pogues - Thousands Are Sailing (from If I Should Fall From Grace With God, 1988) – JFK is only mentioned in passing, but I remembered it’s been almost seventeen years to the day since I first saw the band live at the Opera House in Boston, and felt like commemorating that event.

in theatres today

This ain’t no Chatty Cathy art film, folks. AT:TM is an overbudgeted cinematic juggernaut jampacked with gratuitously implausible CGI effects and plot holes wide enough to accommodate a fleet of tricked out Hummers.

This film has it all:

Action!

Naz Nomad and The Nightmares – Action Woman (from Give Daddy the Knife, Cindy, 1984) – This is The Damned, posing as a forgotten sixties garage rock act for a one off album of period cover songs. The Litter, a Minneapolis garage band, first recorded this track in 1967, and Vanian, Scabies and company manage to pull off their own authentic sounding version that doesn’t simply clone the original.

Danger!

Rough Cut – Danger Boy (from a 1981 single) – Pretty good femvox punk out of Detroit. Have I mentioned that I'm a pushover for this kind of stuff?

Excitement!

Le Tigre – I’m So Excited (from This Island, 2004) – I’d lump This Island in with Fischerspooner’s Odyssey as examples of how certain bands can be too slickly produced for their own good. Both albums are entirely listenable and even enjoyable to a certain degree, but the sparks of genius that originally drew me to the acts’ earlier works have been blanched out in the mix. The end results are agreeable but fairly generic. This excellent Pointer Sisters’ cover was a welcome exception.

A killer movie deserves a killer theme song, and nothing beats “Bravely Folk Song,” the Cervantes Stage BGM from the 1996 fighting game, Soul Edge (Soul Blade in the States). This track, from Namco Sound Team’s Super Battle Attack Soul Edge, would be my choice of anthem should my dreams of world domination ever come to fruition. (This would be after my global purge of any and all snarky fanboys bold enough to point out where I lifted the theme from. Absolute power has its rewards.)

Edit: I almost forgot -- every blockbuster flick needs plenty of explosions....

been waiting so long to be where I’m going

(This is one of those creepy autobiographical posts. You have been warned.)

I’ve been recently spending my free time playing the excellent Bully for the PS2, and the experience has induced some not entirely welcome flashbacks to my high school days. Not that I attended some posh boarding school; Woburn Senior High was (and still is) a typical, unremarkable example of a northeastern suburban high school. The Social Darwinist shark tank elements were still in force, but full on feeding frenzies were rare. I was fortunate enough to avoid them. The bite I delivered to an upperclassman’s arm on the first day of my sophomore year served as an ugly message that I would not be assuming the role of the weak pigeon for the next three years.

I spent the early part of my high school career being ignored by my peers for the most part, aside from the occasional taunts. I fell in with a crowd of other marginalized souls - role-players, comic book geeks, and videogamers – and was content passing the time discussing various aspects of nerdity with them, counting the days until graduation.

In the November of my junior year, my mother passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, and in the shitstorm that followed I went to live with my maternal grandmother. As horrible as it was to lose my mother, it was even worse that my previous home life, a Bukowski-like downward spiral where both my parents had lost all control, became public knowledge. As a consequence, the same folks who had taunted or ignored me started to approach me and make the effort to invite me into their little cliques. “Oh, he’s not a freak. He’s had a freakish home life.” It was a mistake for all involved, like trying to domesticate a rabid raccoon.

My social skills, long turned inward due to a natural shyness and situational guardedness, weren’t up to dealing with “normal” folks. It also didn’t help that my primary male role model was a master of emotional cruelty and manipulation. But where he wielded his talents like a surgeon’s scalpel, I flailed around like Leatherface at the end of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The threads that bound these poor kids together were easy to discern, and even easier to twist, tug, and knot. The imp of the perverse called the tune and I played the notes to chaotic perfection, causing fights and killing friendships simply because I could.

These tendencies were only gotten under control in the early 1990’s, after I started dating my future wife. She figuratively beat them out of me, and I owe her much for doing so. “I want someone who is an asshole to everyone but me,” she said, and so I settled into my comfortable present role as a low key, sardonic smartass.

Musically, my tastes underwent a massive change during the 1988-1989 period. Prior to my mother’s death, I had been a quasi-mod with an ash blond mop of hair and an extreme devotion to The Best of Sam and Dave and Roger McGuinn-heavy Easy Rider soundtrack. After her death, my tastes shifted toward speed and thrash metal, due to working with a group of metalheads at the local hospital kitchen. Eventually, I fell under the tutelage of the hospital chef, a thirty-something ex-punk rocker who took me along on his lunchbreak record-buying expeditions and would pull classic punk and hardcore discs out of the bins and convince me to give them a try. His relentless evangelism paid off. By the summer of 1989, my long blonde mop had been buzzed out of existence and replaced with Vaseline-slicked orange spikes. Not long after, “Andy” would also go by the wayside in favor of the much more acceptable “Otto Erotic” (which still haunts me to this day, years after I began introducing myself as “Andrew” again.)

Cream – Sunshine of My Love (from Disraeli Gears, 1967) – I can’t estimate how many hours I spent in my bedroom listening to the local classic rock station (before it switched to the execrable “songs by classic artists” format) and reading stacks of books I brought home from the local library. This song must have been on heavy rotation when I read Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror and Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon, because my association between them and the song is unshakeable to this day.

Anthrax – Among the Living (from Among the Living, 1987) – During my brief thrash metal phase, Anthrax were my band of choice, probably because their interests meshes well with my nerdist heritage. They wrote songs about Judge Dredd and Stephen King stories, and avoided the beer buzz suicide ballad ghetto entirely.

The Circle Jerks – Coup D’Etat (from the Repo Man OST, 1984) – The Repo Man soundtrack was the first punk album I ever bought, and I was blown away by what I heard on it: all the anger and aggression of metal, but with a better sense of humor and far less pretentiousness.

pictures came and broke your heart

I've been meaning to do a post like this for some time now, so it's probably best to get it out of the way before YouTube mutates into something corporate and sinister.

The Byrds - I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better


The Soviettes - Multiply and Divide


Robert Hazard - Escalator of Life


bis - Eurodisco

I’ll fight for the latest model

So the nanny-staters turned out to be right. Videogames can cause real-world violence, just not in the way the professional killjoys had always claimed.

Contrived scarcity as a marketing tool -- it’s a surefire method of convincing wild-eyed early adopters and aspiring eBay price-gougers to line up outside the nearest Best Buy for the privilege of being fleeced out of six hundred bucks. But, hey, have you seen the Playstation 3 version of Call of Duty 3? It’s like the previous two installments, but with (cue drumroll) better graphics!

My days in the Gotta-Have-It Brothers’ Circus are long over. My deep pocketed clown pants have been packed away in the attic somewhere. My bucket for tossing disposable income at faceless corporations is now used to store bird food. I still dabble in some Situationist commedia dell'arte now and again, though. Down with the spectacle-commodity society!

Gang of Four – Return the Gift (from Entertainment! 1979) – Entertainment! is one of those rare albums for which my affection grows, rather than fades, over the years. There is so much going on – musically, lyrically, politically – that each listen brings forth new things to ponder and appreciate.

Action Pact – Consumer Madness (from The Punk Singles Collection, 1997) – While it’s a little long at three minutes and forty-two seconds, this 1984 b-side is still a pretty decent effort from a time when most other Britpunk acts were either in the process of imploding or turning into Discharge clones. I can’t decide which fate is worse.

Robert Hazard – Escalator of Life (from a 1982 EP, collected on New Wave Hits of the 80’s: Volume 8, 1994) – An excellent summation of Reagan Era attitudes by the Philly-based Hazard. He was also the man responsible for writing Cyndi Lauper’s überhit “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”.

Lene Lovich – New Toy (from the 1981 New Toy EP, collected on Flex…Plus, 1991) – Thomas Dolby penned this song for Lovich during his brief stint with her band. In one of those delightful cases of ironic licensing, this satirically anti-consumerist track ended up being used in Target’s 2005 Christmas ad campaign.

an internet jerk’s best friend

A certain beagle/boxer/chow mix by the name of Adeline Random went for her annual physical today. Apart from some minor dental issues, she passed with flying colors. She’s a bit spazzy (having spent six weeks of her puppyhood living on the shoulder of Interstate 93), eats all the cats’ food if not watched like a hawk, playfully torments Oscar the pughuahua mercilessly, and thinks it’s great fun to whack her people with her big clomp paws, but she’s an extremely loving and devoted creature. My wife calls her “the Original Child,” as she was the first pet we brought into the house as a married couple.

Marvin Gaye – I’ll Be Doggone (from Anthology, 1974) – “Every woman should be/what her man wants her to be” – Damn you, Marvin, for making blatant sexism sound so sweet and smooth.

The Hoax – Sick as a Dog (from the Blind Panic EP, 1981) – The forgotten “Manchester Sound” that has fuck all to do with either Fall or Factory.

Christian Death – Dogs (from Hell Comes to Your House: Volume 1, 1981) - I didn’t realize Christian Death’s frontman, Rozz Williams, had hung himself until a couple years ago. I was flipping through a copy of Hollywood Death Scenes I bought as a gift for the wife when I came across his entry, complete with a photo of the closet door his roommate found him dangling from.

Belly – Slow Dog (from Star, 1993) – A guy I used to hang out with once asked me to explain Belly’s lyrics and I tried my hardest to do so but his idea of musical greatness was “Carribean Queen” and only wanted to know enough to flirt with scenester women from Boston University and remembering this makes my head hurt…

Lobo – Me and You and a Dog Named Boo (from The Best of Lobo, 1993) – The first person who makes a snide comment about this track gets kneecapped.

sweet perfume was your endocrine

Before I got on the mp3 blogging kick, there was a brief period of time where I contemplated joining the ranks of the comics blogosphere. Inspired by some of the cool folks I met while posting lame quips in response to Fanboy Rampage posts, I got the entirely misguided impression that I, too, could set up and maintain a comics-themed blog. That idea died a quiet death after I realized that comics and I are destined to be fuckbuddies, at best. The occasional four-color booty call and some fond memories are about as good as our relationship will ever be.

Besides, the comics blog scene is already well-served. I didn’t see the point of half-assedly covering the same ground that folks like Kevin Church, Ragnell, Dave Campbell, Dorian, and Mike Sterling (to just name a few) do so wonderfully and eloquently on a daily or near daily basis. Of all the comics blogs I frequent, though, none have consistently and successfully anticipated my vague, aborted notions of what I might have done as Chris Sims’s Invincible Super-Blog. Legion of Superheroes craziness? An in-depth exploration of the Fury of Firestorm? He has a knack for independently bringing up concepts and ideas that had been bouncing around my head, then adding racing stripes, chrome fins, and a horn that plays “La Cucaracha”.

Case in point, yesterday’s ISB post dealing with Brave and the Bold #115, where Batman dies and the Atom reanimates the Darknight Detective’s corpse by shinking down, crawling inside his cowled head, and jumping around on Batman’s brain. It’s necromancy via bemani, and the comic was one of the first I ever read as a kid. When the whole Identity Crisis flap -- with its darker, more sinister micronized brainstomping -- was happening a few years ago, I kept thinking about Bob Haney’s goofy 70’s version. Nothing came of it, however, and just as well, because such topics are best left to folks with PhDs in Headkickology.

The preceding overwritten and fulsome passage was my special way of setting up the theme for today, brains, without actually having to discuss the subject directly. So, yeah, brains. Enjoy.

MC 900 Ft. Jesus – If I Only Had a Brain (from One Step Ahead of the Spider, 1994) – Who knew Scarecrow had such mad skillz? Rumor has it that Mark Griffin is now a pilot. Too bad, because I’d take this over Beck’s similar white boy hip-hop experimentation any day.

Roky Erickson and The Aliens – Creature with the Atom Brain (from The Evil One, 1981) – Erickson is one of those wonderful characters that populate the fringes of the music world, the sort of fellow Marilyn Manson or Rob Zombie aspires to be, but minus the calculated-for-MTV nonsense. This track is an excellent bit of acid casualty garage rock run through a 50’s horror movie filter.

The Art Attacks – Take Your Brain Out for a Walk (from Outrage and Horror: 1977-1979, 2003) – The original line up of this band included Robert Gotobed. While he departed before this track was recorded, one can still pick out similarities between it and Wire’s brand of seminal art punk.

The Observers – When I Held Your Brain in My Arms (from Clowns in the Sky II, 1998) – Superior beings who keep their brains in pans, and seem to have a fondness for the Ink Spots. It’s the work of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew, from the later Sci-Fi Channel seasons of the much missed series.

you only live but once, and when you’re dead, you’re done

The lovely Klah, Queen of Books, tossed out a challenge to me in her comment on yesterday’s oh-so-controversial post: What do I consider the five worst bands of all time? Lost in the all the snark and musical puppy kicking of my previous post was the point I was working toward but never got around to directly stating. It’s all relative, and the finger of condemnation can find pointing room in any direction. I just happened to direct it toward some targets with extremely defensive fanbases.

If I were to make a list of the five worst bands, I could just dig into the archives, pull out some regional 45’s or compilations, and finish up in the space of five minutes. The entertainment world isn’t exactly lacking in the area of painful ineptitude. Sturgeon’s Law, and all that jazz. It’s the unimaginative triteness of “worst of” list that galls me. Picking a track by some terrible 80’s hardcore band from Connecticut might be too insular for the general public, but seriously, does the world need another cookie cutter joke about Starship?

So I’m not taking up Klah’s challenge. It would make a great conversation topic among friends, but wouldn’t you rather hear some music I do like? Because that’s what you’re getting today, a little palate-cleansing mix of some tracks that have given me some listening enjoyment lately.

Louis Jordan – Let the Good Times Roll (from Let The Good Times Roll: The Anthology 1938-1953, 1999) – Classic blues: the perfect antidote for a cold, dark, and damp November afternoon.

808 State – Cubik (from 808:88:98, 1998) – Is it possible to get nostalgic for a scene one hardly remembers? This 808 State retrospective album has got me flashing back to memories I never knew I had. I only brushed up alongside the early acid house/rave/dance material back in the day due to a minor flirtation with the industrial scene.

Lush – Mannequin (from Whore: A Tribute to Wire, 1996) – Better than Wire’s original version? Definitely, and that’s no small praise.

Mint Royale – Don’t Falter (from On the Ropes, 1999) – For the past few nights I’ve been listening to this album in bed while reading Ken MacLeod’s The Star Fraction. The resulting dreams have been…unusual.

The Clash – Capital Radio One (from The Essential Clash, 2003) – Just because. It's everything I love about the band boiled down into a two minute punk stomper.

Finally: "Skippy"? What's that about? Like choosy moms, I choose Jif. Stay away from the low fat stuff, though, it tastes like peanut-flavored chalk.

c-c-c-cucumber, c-c-c-cabbage

I was struggling to find a suitable topic for today when the Boston Globe’s webpage dropped this gem into my lap. I don’t really get the point of these “worst song” lists as they’re executed at the above link and in places like Blender. Apart from the same targets being hit over and over again (I hear airline food is horrible, by the way) by the various listmakers, there is something else at work that irritates the fuck out of me.

My maternal grandfather served with the occupation forces in post-war Germany, and my grandmother went with overseas with him to live in what was left of Frankfurt. Every German male my grandmother came across -- the postman, the butcher, and so forth – admitted that they served in Hitler’s armed forces but never fired a shot at the Americans. Honestly. One wonders where all those white crosses in Normandy came from.

I get that same sense of guilty personal revisionism from the folks who put together the “worst song” lists. “I was listening to My Aim Is True in 1985! I never lip-synched along to the video of ‘We Built This City’!” Most of the songs listed were huge hits. Someone must have been buying the records. Just not them, unless they were being ironic. Irony: the guilty conscience spackle for the po-mo generation.

Even worse than the folks who insist on hiding pop skeletons in their closets are the 20/20 hindsight hipper-than-thou crowd who have permanent residencies on VH-1’s unending torrent of nostalgia and list shows. Exhibiting toxic levels of smugness, they pass marginally witty judgments on the follies of previous decades. It takes a very ballsy man to mock eighties fashions while wearing a faux-retro, artificially distressed t-shirt with an Alpo dog food label on the front. You said it, one guy who was on two episodes of the final season of Caroline in the City, big shoulder pads are indeed “whack,” but you’d better hurry if you don’t want to miss the DVD release party for Snakes on a Plane.

I’m not trying to pull a Klosterman here and posit a passionate defense of crap. I’m perfectly fine with seeing K-Fed get a critical beatdown, and I’ve argued many times that “My Humps” is the actual manifestation of the first trumpet blast from Revelation:

"The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up." - Revelation 8:7

There ought to be more to a “worst songs” than simply dragging out a bunch of vapid pop ditties (preferably recorded by overreaching celebrities) and that one Journey song. Personally, I have a hard time picking either “best” or “worst” songs. My moral objectivism doesn’t extend to my entirely relativistic personal tastes. I acknowledge only two categories: stuff I can listen to and stuff I can’t. There are some songs and bands I enjoy more than others, but the pool is in a constant state of flux, with The Clash being the only constant (and even they have stuff I don’t care for much). My wife, though, is far more sanguine in her musical tastes, and has helped me pick out some painful tracks for today. It’s a little game we call “sacred cow-tipping.”

Shampoo – Trouble (from We Are Shampoo, 1994) – The twisted underbelly of Britpop. I put this track on a recent driving mix CD. Here’s a timeline of my wife’s responses:
Week 1: Bemused “Huh.”
Week 2: “Ugh, I’m going to have this stuck in my head! Their accents are horrible!”
Week 3: Having memorized the CD playlist, she hits the skip button before the song can begin.

Echo and the Bunnymen – Crown of Thorns (from Ocean Rain, 1984) – This one’s a real tragedy, marring an otherwise perfect album. Imagine enjoying the most wonderful hamburger on earth, then getting an undetected human hair tangled on your tongue three bites in – that’s what it feels like when you’re listening to Ocean Rain and this track starts playing. There is a time and a place for vegetable-themed stuttering – no, wait, there isn’t.

Joy Division – Atmosphere (from a 1980 single, collected on Substance, 1988) – I like Joy Division a lot, but I won’t even try and defend Ian Curtis’s vocal stylings. For the most part, his angst-ridden croaking meshed well with the band’s cold, minimalist sound. On this posthumous single, though, his limited abilities fail to the match what the material – a haunting and beautiful synth ballad – requires, and the results are pretty painful to listen to. It’s like attending a drunken karaoke night in some Manchester punk dive. Sacrilegious as it may be to say this, but imagine if The Damned’s Dave Vanian, who has a similar vocal range but better set of pipes, had handled the singing chores.

The Smiths – Girlfriend in a Coma (from The Singles, 1995) – Between this track and the last one, I guarantee I’m going to make some folks’ shit lists. Here’s a question for you: What’s the difference between one teenager sulking to this track and another getting all maudlin over Journey’s “Separate Ways”? Answer: Their parents’ annual incomes.

Some Morrissey-loving friends of mine insist that the whole miserableness thing is a big shtick, a sign of some deep sense of humor that Moz supposedly possesses. But if a joke lands in a forest of creative writing majors, and it’s taken dead seriously, is it still amusing? Not from where my Winnebago is parked, chum.

The Cure – Close to Me (from Staring at the Sea: The Singles, 1986) – As far as my wife is concerned, the Cure’s career ended with The Top, a drug-fueled foray into quasi-psychedelia that pretty much laid the band’s melodic post-punk roots to rest. It was at that point that Robert Smith the musician became Robert Smith the caricature. His hair (and waistline) got bigger, his makeup got thicker, and his melancholy warble became insufferably exaggerated and precious.

“Close to You,” with it’s lazy keyboard noodling and proto-emo lyrics, was the first step on a road that would lead to places I’d rather avoid entirely. It also doesn’t help that I can’t hear the song without confusing it with George Michael’s 1987 hit “Faith.” The two songs are only a half-step removed from each other musically, if you think about it.

I’ve been waiting hours for this/If I could touch your body/I’ve made myself so sick/I know not everybody/I wish I stayed/has a body like you…

So hop to it, mashup maestros, and while you’re at it, could you put together one combining Smashmouth’s “All Star” and the Barenaked Ladies’ “One Week”? I know someone just dying to hear it.

the raspy voice is now silent

Another showbiz legend, the Oscar winning actor Jack Palance, died today. His menacing demeanor and gravelly voice could be counted on to liven up even the most dubious cinematic projects. Whether taking on a bunch of T&A commandos, conspiring to seize control of Gor, or having to share hosting duties with Marie Osmond, Palance always made the best of even the worst roles, possibly because he never had any illusions about why he took the parts.

Adios, Jack. The world is a poorer place without you. Believe it...or not.

Van Dyke Parks – Jack Palance (from Discover America, 1972) – A very short version calypso number originally recorded by the legendary Mighty Sparrow. It’s not about Jack per se, although he (or rather his face) is cited in the piece. This album is odd -- American ephemera explored via Carribean rhythms, packaged in a sleeve that screams "gas station promotional giveaway".

senators, congressmen, please heed the call

This is what hope feels like? It’s been so long I can’t tell anymore.

It might be a little premature to celebrate yesterday’s victory over the forces of darkness, as the question of which party will control the Senate is still up in the air, but I don’t care. The Republicans have lost their grip on the House, Rick Santorum crashed and burned, and the people of South Dakota shot down their state’s draconian anti-abortion law – all reasons enough to be happy this morning.

I notice that many of the talking heads on the right are complaining that last night’s election results will only result in legislative gridlock. So? Better a congress where the Bush cabal’s attempts to turn America into a petit-fascist surveillance state die a slow procedural death, instead of getting rubber-stamped into law by a bunch of self-serving solons who put party unity ahead of the Bill of Rights. Based on what the legislature has accomplished since 2001, gridlock is an acceptable minimum alternative.

The Byrds – The Times They Are A-Changin’ (from Turn, Turn, Turn, 1965)

Priss and the Replicants – Victory (from Bubblegum Crisis: Complete Vocal Collection, 2000)

The Adverts - New Day Dawning (from Crossing the Red Sea with the Adverts, 1978)

I pull my shirt off and pray

This is a short reminder to my American readers to go out and vote today, preferably for Democratic candidates. To quote Crass, “It’s time to turn the tables. The future must be ours.” (I'm finding it hard to be too optimistic after decades of disappointment.)

The Soviettes – Multiply & Divide (from LP III, 2005)

Arcadia – Election Day (from So Red the Rose, 1985)

A couple other shoutouts, while I’m here:

Friend Dave Lartigue of Dave Ex Machina is running a contest, and the prize is a signed copy of Bryant Paul Johnson’s minicomic, Teaching Baby Paranoia. The extremely simple contest rules can be found here.

Friend CJ has started up a new blog, 8-Bit Gadfly, dedicated to old and unusual videogames. First up, an import NES title based on Dio’s “Holy Diver.”

drive me fast, crash me crazy

“The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.” – Miller, Repo Man

It’s a fickle romance we have, my automobile and I. It started out as a blast, having the mechanized freedom to come and go as I pleased, but the charm faded pretty fast after being cut off by some cell phone-using asshole in an Escalade for the umpteenth time. All pretenses about being a rational animal slipped away, and the lizard brain took control. Defensive driving? Well, the best defense is a good offense. If that means matching speeds to keep some fuckhead on my left from getting across to his exit after he nearly sideswiped me, so be it.

I got my driver’s license just before I graduated high school in 1990, but it wasn’t until the November of 2001 that I became a car owner, and even then it had to be forced upon me. My brother got married and moved to an apartment in Allston, where parking is extremely hard to come by. He and his wife decided to hold on to her later model Ford Escort and shed the 1990 Olds Cutlass he bought from my grandmother a couple years previous. He offered the car to me, but my natural state of inertia led to the poor machine lying idle in my grandmother’s driveway for three months, with no steps taken towards getting it registered and insured. At the beginning of November, he issued an ultimatum: either I assume ownership or he’d have the car towed to the scrapyard.

Even though I ended up sinking most of my savings into keeping up the old heap (six hundred bucks off the bat for new brake pads, rotors, and calipers), Supercar and I had some really fun times together. She only had a four-cylinder motor, but she could beat most rice rockets from the stop line, at least for the first hundred yards before she topped out. She’d turn over on the first try, even on the coldest days, although her heating and cooling systems were always problematic. The poor girl had a hard time holding her antifreeze, and would spring coolant leaks every couple of months.

She wasn’t much to look at, either. The paint had peeled off to the bare metal in several places, and she had rust spots in several places, including a huge one on the center roof that looked like Supercar was sporting a bindi. My wife’s nephew referred to her as “the Stained Car”, as in “Someday, you and me and Otto can go to Toys’r’Us. But not in the Stained Car.” It was the rust that did in Supercar. When I tried kicking the driver side door shut with my boot, and it left a gaping foot-shaped hole in the metal, I knew that the poor car’s day had come.

Before I had Supercar towed away, my wife and I swung by my grandmother’s place to sit inside the old heap one last time. I cut the red plastic Oldmobile insignia out of her steering wheel, to keep as a talisman. It now resides in the glove compartment of my current car, a 1998 Chevy Lumina that used to belong to the retired police chief. Super Lumina has more horses, more interior and trunk space, and plenty of options, but will never match that 1990 Cutlass in terms of personality.

Rust in peace, my old, sweet chariot.

The Go-Go’s – Speeding (from the Fast Times at Ridgemont High OST, 1982) – My wife was quite the Go-Go’s fan in her tweener days. She used to listen to Beauty and the Beat over and over on her brother’s record player. One time, she didn’t notice she put the record down over another one on the turntable. When it wouldn’t play, she cried. That story made me simultaneously chuckle and feel sad.

The Dugites – In Your Car (from Hisstorical: The Best of the Dugites, 2004) – Cute (maybe too cute), catchy Aussie new wave pop from the early 1980’s.

Vince Taylor & His Playboys – Brand New Cadillac (from a 1958 single) – I love the Clash’s cover version, but it doesn’t come close to matching the raw menacing power of the original.

The Toy Dolls – Tommy Kowey’s Car (from a 1980 single, collected on Ten Years of Toys, 2002) – It took a while to convince my wife that vocalist Michael “Olga” Algar was indeed a man.

saturday afternoon slammasters

Today’s post is in honor of Chris Sims, the bear-punching mastermind behind the always entertaining Invincible Super-Blog, and it deals with something near and dear to his heart: pro wrasslin’.

Being an elitist Massachusetts liberal, I’ve never understood the appeal of that particular brand of sports entertainment; although my brother and I had some pretty fun times creating avatars of ourselves in the old PSX WWF Attitude game back in the late 90’s. There is something both wonderful and disturbing about seeing uncannily accurate likenesses of two skinny, pale comic book fans taking on Stone Cold Steve Austin and the Incredible Hulk in a steel cage royal rumble, and winning. In real life, I require my wife’s assistance in getting a 50 pound bag of cat litter out of the trunk of my car.

There have been numerous attempts to mix pop music and pro wrestling, the pinnacle achievement being Macho Man Randy Savage’s sublime rap album from a few years back. Rather than cover that well-trod ground again, I put together a more esoteric cluster of tracks for this post. Some approach the theme directly; others are more associative in nature.

Decadence – Slam (from This Is Boston, Not LA, 1982) – While it’s technically about the mosh pit, I think it also lends itself well enough to the wrestling ring.

The Turnbuckles – Super Destroyer Mark II (from a 1979 single) – A side effort by Minneapolis proto-punks Suicide Commandos, in honor of a local hero of the ring. Right after the single was released, Super Destroyer ditched his persona and shortly after resurfaced as the legendary Sgt. Slaughter, much to the chagrin of Cobra sympathizers everywhere.

J. Geils Band – Rage in the Cage (from Freeze Frame, 1981) – Don’t get any wrong ideas, I only picked this because of its title. I don’t think it’s possible to explain how huge (and hugely overplayed) this album was to someone too young to remember. I swear the Top 40 stations in the Boston area played “Centerfold” at least three times an hour during the first half of 1982.

The Foreign Objects – (Who Will Dispute the) Genius of Lou Albano (from The Squared Circle, 1985) – The title alone should be enough to sell this track by western Massachusetts’s answer to The Dictators.

bis – Dead Wrestlers (from the Music For a Stranger World EP, 2001) – I wear my love for bis on my sleeve, and this track is one of their finest moments.

Remember kids, Jumbo always win.

no more mister nice guy

It has been brought to my attention that there’s a Vincent Furnier fan amongst my readers who did not appreciate my mockery of the man in the October 31 post. I’m a reflective sort who is willing to admit to his mistakes, so maybe I was a little harsh on poor Alice. I was raised to respect to elderly, after all. It's just that I prefer listening to Shampoo.

My use of “dragged off” was not indicative of my wife’s attitude, but of my usual, surly disposition when it comes to being left holding the (candy) bag. She enjoyed the experience, based on what registered on my consciousness before I entered one of my fugue states.

As a gesture of reconciliation, please enjoy these two delightful covers of Alice Cooper songs.

Eater – Fifteen (from The Compleat Eater, 1999) – Teenaged ’77 punk rockers go to town on “Seventeen”

The Epoxies – Clones (We’re All) (from the "Synthesized" single, 2002) – A killer synthpunk rendition of the “forgotten” Alice Cooper song. He performed it on an episode of Pink Lady and Jeff while wearing a very Numanesque outfit. Only in 1980, I tell you….