Armagideon Time HQ's new house band has become a huge hit with the regulars...
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs - Calaveras y Diablitos (from Los Fabulosos Calavera, 1997) - That would be "skulls and little devils" en ingles, but you don't need to be fluent in Spanish to appreciate this soothing cut of latinized ska from Argentina's finest.
Showing posts with label ska. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ska. Show all posts
Monday, October 20, 2008
Halloween Countdown: October 20 - ska'd to death
Friday, September 12, 2008
a cowardly, superstitious lot
Forget the O'Neill/Adams run. Forget the Englehart/Rogers stories. Forget the issue when the Caped Crusader tossed a car battery at a thug. Here is the greatest Batman story ever told -- a public service announcement from late 1949:
Seriously, what the fuck happened to this country's moral conscience in the past sixty years? (That's a rhetorical question. I know the answer all too well.)
The Special AKA - Racist Friend (from In the Studio, 1984) - It's a great bit of socially aware ska, I'll grant you that, but the group lost something crucial after Terry Hall's eyebrows left to join Fun Boy Three.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
dispatches from the front
Yahoo may currently be a corporation under siege, but that hasn't prevented its ever-sagacious staff from addressing the burning questions of the now...
Remember: It's not a bailout. The current administration doesn't believe in bailouts. It's a gentlemen's agreement that uses taxpayer money and a minimum of accountability in regards to the mismanagement that caused the failure in the first place, okay?
Should you lack access to the circles of crony capitalism's largess, or if you or someone else in the financial services supply chain chose to forgo the FDIC's safety net because the program smacked of dirty Bolshevism, here are some other potential courses of action to take after your assets have evaporated:
- Take a drive up to the mountains with a loaded shotgun and a bottle of whiskey in order to "meditate" upon the situation.
- Check the various blood banks to get the best quotes per pint on sales of plasma.
- Learn to appreciate the taste of uncooked ramen noodles washed down with store-brand mouthwash.
- Cash out the tattered remnants of your 401k and invest in ten-dollar scratch tickets.
- Read up on the insulative properties of newspaper and which large appliance boxes are most resistant to rain damage.
- Explain to your children that college is for effete snobs, and that "true blue Americans" sign up for unbenefitted minimum wage service jobs as soon as they drop out of high school.
Rubella Ballet - It'll Never Happen to Me (from At the End of the Rainbow, 1990) - The playful, day-glo side of anarchopunk, bouncing out with some very danceable beats and a song title that effectively serves as the mantra of the American theory of disaster capitalism.
...and when all else fails, perhaps a change of career is in order:
While the world lurches toward economic, social, and environmental collapse, it's gratifying to know that science is doing its damnedest to answer the hard questions...like whether or not it would be feasible for man to dress up as a flying rodent and throw explosive boomerangs at petty criminals.
Fuck clean drinking water or ecologically sustainable fuel sources, this is the shit that really matters -- taking discussions usually reserved for the dank stinky basement of fandom (i.e. the CBR and Newsarama forums) and elevating them to the level of infotainment in service to the current overhyped blockbuster movie of the moment.
The Selecter - Three Minute Hero (from Too Much Pressure, 1980) - Though often overlooked (in favor of The Specials or The Beat) when I'm looking for a quick fix of second-wave ska, The Selecter's Too Much Pressure and Celebrate the Bullet never fail to impress me when I do make the effort to give them a spin. That's the problem with having an extensive music collection and not a lot of free time -- I tend to gravitate to that handful of perennial favorites within arm's reach instead of keeping a representatively diverse playlist.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
jam or butter
Behold the apex of human technological achievement...
I did briefly consider writing a longer piece dealing with this wonder of the modern (meaning "1971") world, and its significance in terms of consumer capitalism's twin tenets of planned obsolescence and creating demand for unnecessary products, but what more could I really add that isn't right there in the advertisement?
It's a toaster, only instead of cooking bread-related items, it cooks meat. Not Pop Tarts, but porterhouses. Not bagels, but bacon. Not scones, but sirloin. To reiterate, it is a toaster designed to cook animal flesh -- in short, a meat toaster.
That the shell-shocked consumers of the early 1970's failed to embrace the manifest greatness of a device that utilized the costly inefficiency of electric heating coils to perform in three hours what would otherwise be a twenty minute task with a conventional oven does not surprise me. Very rarely (no pun intended) is a prophet appreciated by his contemporaries, especially when he seems likely to cause accidental household fires (or is fundamentally incapable of accommodating sliced onions, mushrooms, or peppers within his sizzling, juicy message).
The Toasters - Fire in My Soul (from Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down, 1997) - Sadly, a cool blast of ska is no substitute for a CO2-based flame suppression device.
The Meteors - Meat Is Meat (from Monkey's Breath, 1985) - From the musical meat locker comes this raw slab of 100% USDA certified psychobilly. Remember: The OTMAPP seal is a guarantee of eternal freshness.
Richard and Robert Sherman - Music To Buy Toasters By (from Retro Shopping Vol. 1, 2006) - How they rocked it out in Caldor's home appliance aisle back in the day. Muzak version of "Mahogany" not included.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
reverts to pure female
In wake of the cultural and social upheavals of the 1960's, it became a common enough practice for popcult entertainments to acknowledge, if only grudgingly, the heightened awareness of egalitarian principles that permeated the era. Not surprisingly, this trend resulted in a number of stories where ostensibly laudable sentiments were presented (intentionally or not) in the most gratingly patronizing or condescending manner imaginable.
Which brings us to "The Powderpuff Run" from Hot Wheels #4 (September-October 1970). As the title suggests, the series was a licensed tie-in to Mattel's popular line of die-cast toy cars, which also spawned a short-lived Saturday morning cartoon series. "Short-lived" because it had the misfortune of airing at a time when the FCC actually had teeth in matters not directly related to "wardrobe failures" and has-been Irish rock stars uttering four letter words, and the cartoon was yanked when it ran afoul of the restrictions on advertising time. (Those restrictions would later be lifted during the Gipper's administration, thus paving the way for a flood of terrible, cheaply-produced toy cartoons and infomercials for questionable products. Yay, progress!)
The only thing that set the Hot Wheels comic apart from the mass of forgettable and forgotten kid's fare from that wild era when kids actually read non-manga comics was the participation of Alex Toth, whose outstanding powers of illustration were capable of elevating even the most pedestrian plot material. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) Toth was not involved in crafting "The Powderpuff Run," which was a Len Wein/Ric Estrada collaborative effort. (Talented men both, and I won't fault anyone for not bringing their A-game to a short back up feature in a licensed toy comic, but I gotta call 'em as I see 'em...)
The story begins with the member of the Hot Wheels racing team puttering around the Metro City Speedway. When team member Ardeth (no relation to Bernadeth) asks why the team isn't planning to field an entrant to the women-only "Daisy Derby" event (because there is no vocation so dangerous or skill-intensive that it cannot be diminished with a girly descriptor when women are involved), tempers begin to flare...
Before Ardeth can deliver Mickey's well-deserved braining, the arrival of a mysterious driver of exceptional ability captures the attention of the team. And guess what, she's a WOMAN!
She's not just any woman, either. She's Alexandra, cousin of the Hot Wheels Team's hated rival, Dexter Carter. Carter's gloating (coupled with his disturbingly misaligned nostrils) is too much for Mickey to take, and changes his mind about Ardeth's participation in the Daisy Derby...
Supporting a colleague's dreams and career aspirations? Whatever. Winning a dick-waving contest by proxy? COUNT ME IN!
With little time to waste, the team members commence burning the midnight oil to kit out a suitable ride for Ardeth to use. Because they're aiming for performance over aesthetic appeal, the final product ends up looking a bit rough around the edges, so Ardeth and Janet, the Daphne Blake to Ardeth's Velma Dinkley, take it upon themselves to do a little impromptu customization...
Is it an attempt to subvert traditional perceptions regarding gender? Or to unironically embrace them? The text is ambiguous on this point.
Race day arrives, and Ardeth discovers that winning might be a harder proposition than she had previously anticipated. Not only is Alexandra a skilled and aggressive driver, but she has also had her car outfitted by the same firm that does automotive customization work for Matt Helm and Penelope Pitstop. Even though she is in full view of thousands of (granted, mostly shitfaced) spectators, she doesn't think twice about employing these non-street legal modifications...
As Ardeth struggles to regain the lead, Janet hatches a little scheme of her own to neutralize Alexandra's decisive advantages on the asphalt...
Other signs Janet had considered using included "Your attitude scares potential mates," "Work or family? You can't have it all," and "Your biological clock is ticking!"
Alexandra's fall to the inexorable forces of biological determinism leaves a clear path to the checkered flag for Ardeth, who nets the Daisy Derby Cup (which is just like the Metro City 500 Cup, but decorated with plastic flowers and pink ribbon and stuffed with a $25 certificate for a pedicure instead of a check for $5000) with no further complications.
Feeling empowered? I know I am. (Wait, I meant "confused and slightly queasy." I confuse those all the time.)
The Bodysnatchers - Ruder Than You (from a 1980 single; collected on The 2-Tone Collection: A Checkered Past, 1993) - We named one of the local feral cats (the mother of Lil' Baby Setz and Nubby, and therefore the grandmother of our kittens) "Rude Girl," in reference to this song and The Clash's "Rudie Can't Fail." How's that for insular personal trivia?
As for the song, it's a swell bit of all-female 2-Tone ska. Singer Rhoda Dakar later went on to work with The Specials and other members of the band eventually formed the Belle Stars.
The Dictators - (I Live for) Cars and Girls (from The Dictators Go Girl Crazy! 1975) - An admirable philosophy, I suppose, providing the car in question isn't a 1985 AMC Eagle and the girl isn't Sally Kern.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
there's no hurry
While I try to sort out what I'm going to have for dinner on this fine Saturday evening, here's a simian-themed dish ideal for those amongst you who feel that they aren't getting enough cholesterol in their diets:
Honestly, I think eating a real monkey would be both tastier and healthier, though I'm told the meat can be rather gamey.
A quick bit of googling revealed that "English Monkey" was a bit of gastronomic payback by the Cymric crowd, who were a tad peeved over the implied classist snub of the English naming a similiar dish "Welsh Rabbit" (later "Rarebit"). In that sense, it could been seen as the culinary forerunner of the "diss" rhyme, only substituting soggy bread crumbs for drive-by shootings.
Madness - Cardiac Arrest (from 7, 1981) - A very palatable fusion of British and West Indian pop cuisines, with a distinct nutty overtones.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
you know you're wasting your time
Mr. Morris, the owner of radio station WHIZ, finds himself in dire financial straits:
"Well, you see, Billy, there's this place called the Emperor's Club, and..."
Shrugging off Billy Batson's optimistic bromides as the empty platitudes they really are, Morris decides to flee the country before the inevitable subpoenas start arriving. He decamps at a South Sea island refuge popular with other fugitives from life's petty hassles...
"The natives call the place Enewetak. Don't mind those warships moored offshore; the Navy boys are supposed to be doing some kind of 'test' or something."
...and Morris becomes quickly enthralled with his new low-stress lifestyle, which is refreshingly free of FCC hearings, incipent ulcers, and impossible-to-please sponsors.
Before Morris can get too comfy, however, Billy dispatches his superheroic alter ego, Captain
Marvel fails to convince Morris to quit his hedonistic idyll, and even begins to succumb to the island's seductive allure himself...
...though he is fortuitously saved by the giant stick wedged up his ass. Unwilling to give up his missionary work on behalf of stifling conformity, Marvel again approaches Morris about his un-American behavior. This time, however, the Big Red Cheese makes use of visual aids to prove his case, confronting Morris with his eventual fate should he decide to remain on the island...
"DEAR LORD, NOOOOOOOO!"
....devolution into a smelly hippie. A fate worse than death, indeed. The shocking revelation convinces Morris to violently repudiate his slacker ways and return to whatever fate awaits him back in the civilized world:
As it turns out, the music Morris must face is the "Crony Capitalism Rag," a perrenial plutocratic standard composed by the Old Boy Network. I haven't been personally privileged enough to hear the piece performed live, but I believe the first two lines are "If you're rich and white/it will turn out all right":
(From "Man's Worst Enemy" from Captain Marvel Adventures #91, December 1948; by Otto Binder & C.C. Beck)
Deadbeats - Kill the Hippies (from a 1978 single) - A fine piece of early L.A. punk that pits the hollowness of trangressive nihilism against the self-righteousness of narcissistic "enlightenment."
The Specials - Rat Race (from More Specials, 1980) - "I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that." - Lloyd Dobler, Say Anything
Monday, February 25, 2008
obligatory Oscar post
In keeping with current trends, Armagideon Time presents our own Oscar wrap-up..
...or is that "a wrapped up Oscar?"
A tense moment on the red carpet between Adeline McGillicuddy, Oscar Xavier Giuseppe Guevara, and the Plastic Dog.
Oscar celebrates his (half-)Mexican heritage.
An awkward encounter between Oscar and his estranged long lost twin brother.
Score! Oscar lifts a baby carrot from Maura's sack of swag...
...and efforts by the security staff to retrieve the purloined vegetable fail miserably.
"Hey, pal, are you planning on finishing that hamburger?"
Oscar responds to Ryan Seacrest's inane questions.
The Specials - Do the Dog (from The Specials, 1979) - Let's see if I remember the steps to the dance. Left-right-left-sniff your partner's ass, left-right-left-knock over the trash barrel in the kitchen, left-right-left-bark madly at anyone who passes by the house.
Boards of Canada - Oscar See Through Red Eye (from The Campfire Headphase, 2005) - Oscar see through googly eyes, actually. As a dog who takes his downtime very seriously, Oscar has a strong appreciation for well crafted chillout music and this track in particular.
Oscar & The Majestics - I Can't Explain (from Pebbles, Vol. 7: Chicago, Pt. 2, 1994) - Let me try to, then. As 60's British beat and mod groups took their cues from American soul and R&B music, American garage groups took their cues from the British beat and mod groups. It's a process akin to making a sloppy mimeograph of a grainy photostat, which sums up this wonderfully awful cover version of The Who's 1965 classic.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Meet Mr. Nutt
Mr. Nutt is an architect of the Morris Lapidus school.
Mr. Nutt is not happy when The ManTM orders the demolition of Mr. Nutt's "masterpiece."
Mr. Nutt is apparently either a devout Freemason or a big fan of Robert Anton Wilson.
Mr. Nutt is the type of fellow who saves jars of his own urine.
Mr. Nutt is not "down" with the "teen scene."
Mr. Nutt will show them all...oh, yes, he will...
Mr. Nutt cannot prevent his glorious dream from crumbling when faced with some teenage android superheroes.
Mr. Nutt would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids.
From Dell's Superheroes #2 (April 1967), the title of which only hints at the unrelentingly generic nature of the stories within each issue. Even in a medium and genre where deadline-driven, work-for-hire drek was the historical norm, it's a depressingly extreme example of creative endeavor as stock commercial product.
As for the musical annotations for today's post, here are two much-loved tracks from the archives that are decidedly not standard template products:
The Call - The Walls Came Down (from Modern Romans, 1983; collected on The Best of the Mercury Years, 1991)
Madness - Tarzan's Nuts (from One Step Beyond, 1979)
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
a tale of a tree
In the woods across the street from my childhood home stood an enormous dead tree. It must have been quite the sight when it was alive, and it still managed to dominate the westward view from my backyard even in death, resembling a giant's skeletal hand reaching up though the sumac and scrub.
The inexorable tag-team of entropy and the elements eventually stripped the hand of its gnarled, twisted fingers, leaving just the amputated spike of the trunk standing on the high bank by a bend in the brook. On a spring afternoon in 1982, having nothing better to do, my friend Artie and I decided that we would bring the rest of the tree crashing down.
It was one of those examples of impromptu self-amusement that comes naturally to children and is envied by adults. Equipped with an arsenal of busted, rusted, or broken tools scavenged from the junkyard or "liberated" from unlocked sheds, we proceeded to chip away at the rotted base of the trunk.
It wasn't an easy task; even adjusting for kid's-eye-view inflation, the trunk had to have been about five to six feet in circumference and around twelve feet in height. The outside layer of wood was thoroughly soft and rotten; it had the texture of damp foam rubber and infested with all manner of grubs and small black beetles (who likely were irritated by the two snot-noses encroaching on their turf). Underneath the mush, however, was a solid hardwood core that shook off all but our most determined efforts. We were in no hurry, though, and toiled away a couple of hours a day over the next few weeks.
Eventually we reached a point where the trunk could be shifted by a series of enthusaistic kicks delivered through Sears' brand boys' workboots. A creak-groan of snapping cellulose, a cry of "TIMBER", and the tree came crashing down, the top of the trunk clearing the brook to flatten the bushes on the opposite bank. (It would have made a nice bridge if the undergrowth on the other side hadn't been impassable. It did provide a nice place to sit and dangle one's feet over the water, providing one didn't mind the occasional beetle bite on one's hindquarters.)
It was wicked cool to witness, but once the giddy high-fives and repeated utterances of "Did you see that?" were done with, we felt a bit lost. We had achieved our goal, but had invested ourselves so intently in making it happen that we never considered what we'd do afterwards.
We didn't try to do something more productive, like pick up litter or start a petition to make the woods into a city park. We just wanted to knock down more trees.
On the way home from our Sunday shopping trips, I occasionally take a detour through the old neighborhood, inflicting my stock set of nostalgic rambles upon my poor wife. The woods across from my old house are gone, gobbled up by suburban sprawl's insatiable appetite for open space and replaced with a subdivision. All traces of Artie's and my childhood handiwork have been excised from the landscape.
There's a message in there, I think.
Metro Stylee - Destroy (from Metro Stylee, 1998) - I posted the Girls Gone Ska version of this track back in September '06. This is the slightly different version which appeared on the N.Y. band's debut (and, as far as I know, only) album and it's a catchy little number dealing with karmic retribution, negationism, and pacifism.
Paul van Dyk feat. St. Etienne - Tell Me Why (The Riddle) (Radio Edit) (from a 2000 single) - Why? Because I said so. And because I think this track is rather nice.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
12 Days of Christmas - Day 12: the last noel
Christmas Day is finally upon us, and to say that it feels profoundly anti-climactic would a large understatement on my part. It's to be expected, I suppose. Nothing drilled so loudly and incessantly into one's consicence over the space of eight-plus weeks is ever going to live up to the expectations. I'm told it's different when you have kids. Even so, I'm in no rush to find out empirically.
In the "plus" column for today was this present from my wife...
...a USB-ready turntable. 2008 bodes to be an interesting year for Armagideon Time. I spent some time in the attic this morning sifting through my record collection, my mind fair to bursting with potential post ideas. (It also means I'll need to purchase a better computer desk to accomodate my new toy, but that had been on my to-do list for a while already.)
Of course, Providence is notorious for caressing with one hand and sucker-punching with the other, and today was no exception. I was out back walking Oscar the Grumpy Pughuahua, distracted by thoughts regarding what record I should rip first, when I slipped on a patch of ice and came down hard on my left (dominant) wrist.
I should be happy I didn't end up with a compound fracture, but it's hard to accentuate the positive when it feels like I've arm-wrestled a belt sander (and lost).
Even given the painful abrasions and the underwhelming feel of this year's festivities, Christmas 2007 did turn out to be rather decent day. I scored some very nice and desired gifts, which also included slick Penguin editions of Fantomas and M. Lupin material, a Blue Devil JLU figure, and the DC Showcase collections of the Metal Men and Aquaman (and few things alleviate the tedium of family gatherings like Ramona Fradon panels of bank robbers getting bit in their asses by telepathically controlled sharks and/or pufferfish).
And so concludes our holiday countdown. Our final musical selection falls outside the expected genre boundaries, but I'm sure the handful of you that are still reading to this point won't mind too much. It's a track which has the capability to slide past my formidable barriers of cynicism and cleave directly and unerringly into the nostalgia cortex. Not nostalgia for the Christmas holiday season, mind you, but for summers spent reading comics while hanging upside down from the tire swing in my back yard -- a perfect refuge from the junior high blues.
I have no idea why I felt like posting it today of all days, but here it is just the same:
General Public - Tenderness (from All the Rage, 1984)
Friday, December 14, 2007
Friday Night Fights: O Holy Night, Batman!
For this week's contribution to Bahlactus's Friday Night Fights, I opted for something with a little Yuletide flair.
..because it just wouldn't be Christmas without a little seasonal holiday aggression. (I hope Robin kept the receipt for that kick to the face, just in case the recipient wished to exchange it for a different cause of severe head trauma.)
Bad Manners - Christmas Time Again (from a 1989 single) - Yet I haven't been feeling it at all this year. O bittersweet holiday-themed ska song, can you help me rediscover the Christmas spirit?
Monday, December 03, 2007
the disease of the century
I think it was Clifton Fadiman who once claimed that it was impossible to reconcile a world that gave us Shakespeare with one where The Gong Show was runaway success. While I'm sure Cliffy's bon mot elicited a few wry chuckles from the likes of John Charles Daly and others in their small circle of panel show wit-erati (which was for all intents and purposes an inferior and ossified imitation of the Algonquin Round Table), the highbrow-lowbrow dichotomy being employed conveniently ignores the fact that Shakespeare frequently took the low road in his plays. His works are full of bawdy puns and dirty jokes (e.g. Falstaff's "copper ring," the cross-lingual dildo puns in Henry V, among many others) which, due to the evolution of the English language and changing cultural touchstones, are lost on the casual audiences of today, who've been conditioned to associate thee's and thou's with literary loftiness.
I spent a portion of my childhood watching syndicated repeats of The Gong Show. I spent three years of my college career studying Shakespeare and his works. It's all great as far I'm concerned. Lowbrow, highbrow -- they're just meaningless tags applied for the benefit of the beholder's own insecurities. I imbibe what human culture has to offer for my own sake, not with an eye towards the ages. All I ask from my entertainments is that:
1. They don't bore me.
2. They don't make me feel like I'm wasting my time.
In the end it doesn't matter to the worms that munch on one's decomposing remains if a particular clump of gray matter once held some ruminations on Stephen Dedalus's travails or a fond memory of Moe breaking a hammer on Curly's noggin. Tastes are a subjective affair, though I'd add that broader is better and that one's perspective ought to be focused both inward and outward. Just because shit is the only smell one has encountered does not mean that it's the be all and end all of olfactory experiences.
...or you could just follow the example of this jovial fellow:
The excitable Mister Snootwick (and when you've been saddled with a name like "Marmaduke Snootwick," professional snobbery is the only viable career choice) made his appearance in the pages of Captain Marvel Adventures #137 (October 1952), in a six-page epic tale titled "Captain Marvel and Mr. Tawny's Culture Craze."
Boy reporter Billy Batson and his suit-wearing talking tiger pal, Mr. Tawny, are enjoying a relaxing afternoon in the park, when a magazine quiz causes Mr. Tawny to experience an existential crisis. No, not the typical Cosmo "Are you a good lover?" adequacy issues, but rather a deep seated insecurity over his level of cultural sophistication. You would think a tiger who has mastered speech, reading, and the zippered flies would feel pretty proud of his accomplishments, but not Mr. Tawny who feels that he's not experiencing the finer things in life.
Billy, playing Gallant to Tawny's Goofus, tries to placate the inconsolable cat with stock "be true to yourself" platitudes and a game of checkers, but Tawny won't be sold on that bill of goods...
When Billy next bumps into Mr. Tawny, he notices a change in his friend's demeanor. Tawny has become more haughty, more arrogant, more...old school Republican.
Billy's attempts to discover the source of Tawny's new-found snobbery lead him to the local art museum, where a secret "Culture Club" holds court after closing time. Billy is forcibly rebuffed by the doorman, but Captain Marvel, Billy's superheroic alter ego, is able to strongarm his way into the meeting. Inside he discovers a gaggle of George S. Kaufman clones led by the previously mentioned Mr. Snootwick.
Disgusted by the snobbery on display, Marvel attempts to break up the meeting, only to be reminded of a little thing called the First Amendment. Fortunately for the plot's momentum, the museum director bumps into Marvel as he's leaving and asks him to evict Snootwick's gang from the premises. It's a task Marvel dives into with a physical gusto that would give the most hardened strike-breaker pause, with a liberal application of superhuman boot to scrawny backsides.
Even though Marvel spares Tawny from his disproportionate wrath, Tawny fails to grasp the elegance of Marvel's physically violent rebuttal to high-handed snobbery. Taking a different approach, Billy suggests that the group meet at Tawny's house. They do, and it doesn't take long for Snootwick to reveal his true colors...
So he wasn't so much a snob as absolutely batshit insane, apparently. With the truth revealed, there's only way this can go down -- with more ass-kicking, this time with Captain Marvel and Tawny unleashing tooth, claw, and the power of Atlas on a bunch of pasty chain-smoking psuedo-bohemians.
I must confess that I don't really get the message of this story, what with the confusing straw man of Snootwick simultaneously representing the contradictory reactionary classicist and antinomian nihilistic attitudes. For all their book burning and nonsense about "degenerate" works, the Nazis had a warped baseline by which to judge what was or wasn't art. No baseline is offered for Snootwick, whose ideology is simply "everything sucks" (which does predate the internet community's peanut galleries by a good few decades, I'll grant you).
Even in broad caricature, the concepts are muddled to a point where there's no identifiable moral, apart from justifying violence against so-called "culture vultures" (which I can get behind in theory). Unless, it's a case of writer Otto Binder or artist C.C. Beck grinding a private axe in public...
Marv, Tawny, what's your take on it?
"Grinding axes" it is then. Tune in next time for "Captain Marvel versus Billy Corcoran, That Kid Who Stole My Pants and Shoved Me in the Girl's Lavatory"!
Suburban Lawns - Intellectual Rock (from Suburban Lawns, 1981) - You know how you can tell it's intellectual rock? It's wearing bifocals and reading Schopenhauer.
Like Wall of Voodoo's Dark Continent, the Suburban Lawns' self-titled LP is outstanding album of classic Californian new wave/weirdpunk released on the IRS label and now depressingly out of print.
Reel Big Fish - Everything Sucks (from Turn the Radio Off, 1996) - A catchy bit of third-wave ska, though I am not in complete agreement with the title. My cat Jem doesn't suck. Cheddar cheese-flavored pretzel chunks do not suck. The Sega Master System, flannel sheets, and Yotsuba&! do not suck. I guess "Almost Everything Sucks But a Few Cool Things" wasn't as catchy a song name.
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