The G.R.O.D.D. Initiative: Day 5 – ook ook ook

Consider it a testament to my powers of restraint that I’ve made it past the halfway mark of my pro-simian theme week and not used the hoary “G.W. Bush = smirking chimp” comparison….yet.

I’ll admit that there’s a certain resemblance between the head of the executive branch and a shiftless little monkey. (Try a Google image search for “bush chimp” for many compelling visual references.) It’s unfair to chimpanzees, though. I know that chimpanzees, like most other primates, are prone to violent behavior, but name me one example that has done as much harm to the world as “The Great Decider.”

No, Bush isn’t a monkey. He’s a deeply flawed human being who happens to occupy a position where those flaws have had very real and tragic impact on the lives of millions of people. When criticizing the man’s policies and behavior, there’s an odd tendency for pundits and commentators to qualify their statements with “He’s not a stupid man.” Fine, but what difference does that make when he continually pursues courses of action which could only be labeled as stupid? At what point does empiricism trump intellectual credentials? Functionally, there is no difference between being dumb and being smart and consistently doing stupid things, except that the sin is greater in the latter case because they should have fucking known better from the start.

Besides, what evidence have we been shown that Bush isn’t lacking in some critical mental faculties? The man (and, by extension, his administration) is so guarded, so secretive that no illumination escapes that hasn’t been vetted, packaged, and marketed with clinical (or cynical) precision. What’s left for public consumption is the odd paradox of a pampered child of the establishment fronting as some cornpone-spouting evil doppleganger of Will Rogers (minus the sharp wit).

There’s that old story of the monkey that gets its hand stuck in a jar because it refuses to let go of the piece of food inside. Bush’s hand is similarly stuck, clenched tight around what he perceives to be his legacy, pretty much guaranteed to be of dubious value at this point, but that won’t stop him from tossing more bodies into Iraq’s meat grinder if those deaths can salvage his reputation (or postpone the inevitable until 2009, when it won’t be on his watch).

Monkeys may not be perfect, but they are capable of adaptive behavior…unlike the current president.

The Downliners Sect – Too Much Monkey Business (from The Sect, 1964) – This Chuck Berry composition was very popular among the 60’s UK beat groups, and was covered by the likes of The Beatles, The Kinks, and The Yardbirds (among many, many others). This version by the lesser known Downliners Sect is my favorite one, due to its sheer rawness.

Tom T. Hall – The Monkey That Became President (from a 1972 single, collected on Storyteller, Poet, Philosopher, 1995) – Tom T. knows the truth. A real monkey in the Oval Office would be a massive improvement over its current occupant, although certain cat-faced aliens beg to differ.

The G.R.O.D.D. Initiative: Day 4 – hairless apes with technology

Today’s entry is on the short side, due to the fact that I’m writing this at the office, in between work assignments. My home machine has started to act a bit wonky, with XP choosing to revert my display settings out of the blue and my external hard drive forcing a reboot on hot-swapped power ups. I can think of several potential reasons why these things are happening, but in these days of cheap as dirt PC upgrades, it’s easier to swap in a bigger, better boot drive and work from a clean OS install.

In other words, tonight I’ll be too busy monkeying around with the install processes (and trying not to go ape shit over the inevitable complications) to write something more substantial from home.

The crusade must go on, however…

The Hellacopters – Monkey Boy (from Rock & Roll Is Dead, 2005) – Everything I’ve read about this band describes their sound as “garage rock,” but on this track I can hear echoes of Elton John’s rockier material from the seventies as well as snatches of Nick Lowe and Dave Edmund’s style of proto-new wave pub rock. Highly recommended.

Ian Brown – Dolphins Were Monkeys (Single Version) (from The Greatest, 2005) – If dolphins were monkeys, Sea World’s awesomeness factor would increase by a zillion orders of magnitude. I remember Ian Brown’s old outfit, The Stone Roses, being huge among the college set during my freshman year. Then they just sort of vanished off the face of the earth when the grunge fad hit.

The G.R.O.D.D. Initiative: Day 3 – but you’re so damned ugly

See that man in the picture on the right? That’s George Taylor (aka “Bright Eyes”), a representative of the human military-industrial-aerospace complex, and the embodiment of everything a decent simianocentric sentient abhors. Like a human serpent in ape Eden, Taylor’s arrival on the Planet of the Apes marked the end of its inhabitants’ previously carefree lifestyle…and of the planet itself.

Like many of his kind, Taylor could not accept that the world had changed, and the position of privilege he was used to holding was his no more. His response was to initiate a campaign of anti-ape aggression with horrible repercussions. Even the kind but misguided chimp couple who sought to help Taylor acclimate to life among the apes was not spared from the blowback caused by his actions, which allowed the less savory elements of monkey society to seize power under the pretext of “fighting humanist terrorism.”

Reports that Taylor’s anti-ape prejudices had begun to mellow (symbolized by a poignant interspecies kiss between Taylor and chimp scientist Zira) appear to have been premature. Taylor was last seen triggering a planet-wrecking doomsday device, a final act of spite all too typical of his brutish species.

UNKLE – Ape Shall Never Kill Ape (Original Mix) (from a 1998 single) – It’s open season on lemurs and Aye-ayes, though, the sneaky little bastards.

Adam and The Ants – Picasso Visita El Planeta De Los Simios (from Prince Charming, 1981) – Yes, that translates to “Picasso Visits the Planet of the Apes.” This wouldn’t be Adam’s only foray into simian-themed pop. A few years back he got it in his head to rework “Stand and Deliver” into the conservation benefit track “Save the Gorillas.”

I wish I was making that up. Here’s the video, for those brave (or crazy) enough to watch it:

Why, Adam, why?

The G.R.O.D.D. Initiative - Day 2: Anyone can see, she made a monkey of me

While Kevin Church continues his hard hitting series of posts dealing with anthrophobia in comics books, I’d like to use this opportunity to discuss similar trends in music. Case in point: Lancelot Link and The Evolution Revolution.

When the cast members of Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp were offered the opportunity to perform musical interludes between sketches, they had little idea of the creative constraints the network would place upon them. The members of The Evolution Revolution were extremely progressive and eclectic in their musical tastes. Lance drew his musical inspiration from the avant-garde rock of Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa, and Mata Hairi’s love of The Velvet Underground and Nico was well documented. (Some detractors have since insisted that this affection was merely due to the album’s cover art, but their assertions should be dismissed as barely cloaked anti-simian hate speech.)

The fruits of the band’s recording sessions were played to the network executives, who were horrified by the raw, jungle-inspired, primal beats they heard. The suits then went behind the band’s back and called in legendary bubblegum producer Archie Andrews to remix the tapes into something more friendly to middle America’s homo sapien-centric ears. The band’s more experimental sounds (ambient fecal impact noise and atonal screeching vocals) were either buried in the mix or discarded entirely. Legend speaks of a lost acetate pressing of the material from the original recording session, but its existence is still unconfirmed as of this writing.

It would be another three decades before the raw power of simian music would reach the listening public, and it would take a quartet of (non-ape) cartoon characters to make the those infectious beats acceptable to the listening public. While the members of the Gorillaz chose not to incorporate the more radical methods of their simian predecessors (i.e. no ambient fecal noise), one has to admire their rather excellent efforts all the same.

(Editor’s Note: Please do not confuse the above ravings of a fever-ravaged lunatic with anything remotely associated with “the facts.”)

Lancelot Link and The Evolution Revolution – Yummy Love (from Lancelot Link and The Evolution Revolution, 1970) – In truth, this group was pretty close to a Grass Roots (“Midnight Confessions”) side project, using material (including rejected GR songs) by the same songwriters and session musicians employed by that band.

Gorillaz – Tomorrow Comes Today (from Gorillaz, 2001) – When I listen to this track, or anything off of Daft Punk’s Discovery, it triggers bittersweet feelings of nostalgia to the summer of 2001, before 9/11 gave G.W. Bush the opportunity to graduate to “dangerous idiot” from “pathetic joke.” It sad how much this country has changed since then; that horrible tragedy brought out the worst in a lot of people…or rather, it emboldened them to go public with their ugliness and find a receptive audience.

The G.R.O.D.D. Initiative – Day 1: Baby monkey, I ain’t so hard to please

What started off as an online discussion of a bizarre, borderline offensive golden age comic book panel has blossomed into a long overdue, righteous crusade. Too long have our primate cousins been portrayed by the media as monstrous threats or humorous caricatures. Whether they sported diapers and tricycles or city-killing Kryptonite eye beams, the apes in question were reduced to banal stereotypes by an unspoken, anti-simian conspiracy.

It for this reason that I’ve decided to launch the Gorilla Rock On Dubious Demand (G.R.O.D.D.) Initiative, a theme week entirely dedicated to monkeys, apes, and other primates misrepresented by an callously anthrophobic entertainment industry.

Before we begin the show, the management would like to ask that the audience refrain from throwing their feces during the proceedings, and to keep in mind the sacred dictum, “Ape shall not harm ape.” Chimpanzee on orangutan violence will not help the cause, comrades.

The Dickies – You Drive Me Ape (You Big Gorilla) (from The Incredible Shrinking Dickies, 1979) – As my interest in hardcore has waned to near nothing over the years, my affection for cartoon punk, as exemplified by The Rezillos, The Dickies, and the Toy Dolls, has grown. Maturity can manifest itself in the strangest ways.

Toots and The Maytals – Monkey Man (from Reggae Greats, 1984) – The Specials’ version of this track is great, but sometimes it’s best to go back to the source.

is there anyone prepared to tell me why

It was a balmy 70 degrees today in our little suburb northwest of Boston. My wife opened up some windows to let the fresh air in, and I started sweating from the heat while working though my weekend chores, even though I was only wearing jeans and a t-shirt. It was preferable to digging out from under a January blizzard, but it just didn’t feel natural.

A ferocious wind picked up after the sun sank behind the western hills. I was out on the patio just prior to writing this, watching the silhouettes of the trees behind our back fence twist and sway violently against the violet backdrop of the twilight sky. I could hear the dry bone rattles and snaps of their branches even above the howl of the wind. It was muy creepy, and I’m thankful that none of the trees are within falling distance of our house.

(The winds have died down completely since I began typing this, adding another layer of disturbing unreality to this day's meteorological antics.)

Pylon – Weather Radio (from Gyrate, 1980) – A nice bit of instrumental postpunk out of the legendary Athens, GA scene. It’s sad that Pylon’s material is out of print and largely forgotten while R.E.M. went on to become (boring and overrated) college rock legends. (Am I being too harsh again? You try spending a semester in a drawing class where the instructor, an MBA student slumming for supplemental income, accompanies each ninety-minute class session with the Out of Time album on repeat. Yes, R.E.M. is directly responsible for killing my desire to draw.)

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry – Talk About the Weather (from Talk About the Weather, 1985) – A latecomer to the postpunk party, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry sound is an odd convergence of influences. Traces of gothic rock, indie gloom, and an embryonic from of goth metal swirl around in the mix, as if some mid-80’s art student distilled one of her ninety-minute mix tapes into a single four-minute song.

Crass – Dry Weather (from Penis Envy, 1981) – Penis Envy, the Crass album even Grandma enjoys! I kid, but it seems like every time Crass comes up in a conversation, that album is the only work by Crass that people say they’ve listened to. It makes sense, I suppose, since it is about as close as the band ever got to a “poppier” sound, relatively speaking.

The Radiators – Let’s Talk About the Weather (from Ghostown, 1979) – Also known as The Radiators From Space, this early Irish punk band included future Pogue Phillip Chevron. This track is from their second and (until their 2004 reunion) final album, where the band put aside ther punky roots in favor of a mellower, melodic power pop sound.

anything ragged or rotten or rusty

Today’s post was inspired by a pile of cat poop.

When it came to assuming responsibility for household tasks, my wife and I ended up with an Edward Bellamy-inspired socialist arrangement where the odiousness of the task counts as much as its required time commitment. (This is not to be confused with Ralph Bellamy-inspired socialism, which involves wagering Don Ameche a dollar that one can take a Philly street hustler and turn him into a commodities trader while turning a privileged Ivy Leaguer into a common criminal.)

Because I’m a man who values his time more than his sensitivities, I ended up opting for the less time-intensive, yet thoroughly disgusting, set of chores. When the pups have the occasional accident, I’m there with the paper towels and Febreeze. I’ve become a master at changing the cats’ litter boxes, and my special deodorizing formula is a treasured secret that shall be passed by deathbed whisper to the next generation. I spend part of each Saturday afternoon on hands and knees, making sure our bathroom is free of E. coli and wayward strands of hair.

…and I’m fine with that, really, because doing these tasks means I don’t need to learn how to operate the washing machine, dryer, or vacuum cleaner. The only down side to this arrangement comes on garbage collection day.

Every Wednesday (or Thursday, when there’s a holiday) morning is a mad rush to collect, bag, and carry all the household garbage, indoor and out, to the curb before the trash truck arrives. It would be easier if the sanitation folks decided on a set time for swinging through our neighborhood, but they operate under their own mysterious timetable, decided by the gods of refuse and communicated to their mortal servants via the entrails of a virgin seagull ritually sacrificed on an altar of non-biodegradable used diapers. Thus I am forced to drag my sorry ass out of bed at 6:00 AM one day each week in order to ensure that, yes, our trash is out front when the truck passes our house, be it at 6:45 AM, 8:30 AM, or 4:45 in the afternoon.

It’s not an easy task, either. In the summer there are swarms of bloated maggots to contend with. In the winter, I have to fumble around in the morning darkness to liberate the garbage cans from the snow drifts that form along the side of the garage. Some mornings I go out and have to deal with a debris field of banana peels, cat food cans, and other aromatic delights left behind by an itinerant raccoon or skunk (the reason why I don’t simply put the trash out front the night before). Even when I think my task is accomplished, my wife will holler out a reminder that there’s a bag of trash from when she cleaned the rabbit cages the other day hidden behind the weight machine in the back of the cellar, not to mention ancient foodstuffs in the fridge that “really ought to be tossed out, but I’m too grossed out to handle them.”

When all is said and done, when the scrambling and searching and lugging and dry heaves are dealt with, I ought to be able to catch my breath and start to relax, content in my knowledge that I’m free of this burden for another seven days. That is usually the case, but not today. As I was finishing my preparations to head off to work, I looked out the window to see if the garbage had been collected yet. It had been, but during the process the collectors had torn open one of the bags, leaving behind a small mountain of used kitty litter and cat shit on the street in front of our house. Etiquette isn’t really my strong point, but I’m fairly certain that leaving a stinking pile of animal feces and urine-soaked clay by one’s front step is a sign of being a bad neighbor.

As I was clearing away the pile with a snow shovel and push broom, thinking to myself how much I hate trash day, I decided to write a post about it.

Glancing back on what I’ve written, I’d like to say that I’m truly sorry about that lapse of judgment.

The Stranglers – Thrown Away (from The Gospel According to Meninblack, 1981) - The Stranglers are another band where each time I hear one of their songs, I think to myself "I ought to listen to them more often," yet somehow never do.

The Doll – Trash (from a 1978 single, collected on Beggar’s Banquet: The Punk Singles Collection, 2002) - Not the Doll(s) you were expecting and not the "Trash" you were expecting, either. It's because I want to keep you on your toes.

The Cramps – Garbage Man (from Songs the Lord Taught Us, 1980) - Butch Vig? Steve Marker? Duke Erikson? Oh, I know, Shirley Manson in the "Androgyny" video!

Oscar the Grouch – I Love Trash (from Oscar's Trashy Songs, 1997) - Because I'm not afraid of dissenting opinions, as long as they come from green furry puppets that live in garbage cans.

poetic justice will come in time

I had another post planned for today, but after spending the better part of this morning swearing at the TV, the local paper, and various internet newsfeeds, I decided to work out my anger here instead.

What’s got me all riled up? The results of the gay marriage vote in the Massachusetts legislature, which means that a constitutional ban on gay marriage in the Commonwealth is one step closer to becoming a reality. The issue will now be voted on in the next legislative session, and should it pass again, it will be decided by ballot question in 2008.

It appalls me that a question of basic human rights and equal protection by law is subject to a referendum by lumpenproletariat, most of whose members I wouldn’t trust to know how to wipe their own asses. Rights are rights. They are not “earned,” they are not “given,” they should not be subject to the whims of popular opinion…unless we open up the whole shebang to that process. If the government is going to get into the business of legislating relationships between two consenting adults, then I want to be able to weigh in on every pending union, gay or straight. “Sorry. You have a beak nose, and she has beady eyes. Your children will be hideous-looking. Petition denied. And you two? He’s a bore and you drink too much. Denied. Next!”

As committed as I am to the idea of participatory governance, the initiative process of legislating via referendum has been corrupted by the basest, ugliest sort of populism. Originally intended as a way to bypass the graft-ridden political machines and their self-serving patrons of ages past, it has long since become a tool of the same special interest groups it was designed to thwart. The public interest takes a back seat to demagoguery and hidden ulterior motives, and even on the rare occasions when a nobly intended progressive measure passes, it ends its life as an ignored, unfunded mandate or gets reshaped as a post-dated Trojan Horse on behalf of some moneyed concern, at the expense of those it was posited to supposedly benefit.

So a coalition of out-of-state groups working alongside their Bay State counterparts wants to use the initiative process to strip a group of their rights, and for what? To “preserve the sanctity of marriage”? Because heterosexual marriages are special and wonderful and doesn’t crash and burn more than half of the time? What kind of insecure idiot bases the worth of his or her marriage on those of others? I’m a straight, white male who married his partner of thirteen years in 2004. The only parties that matter in our marriage are my wife and I, and rightly so. If the rest of the world doesn’t like it, they can fuck off. There is no just reason why that “club of two” status shouldn’t be enjoyed by same-sex couples.

It’s not about the “sanctity of marriage,” it’s about sanctioning bigotry by enshrining it in the state constitution, and there is no religious sleight of hand that can hide that ugly truth. If people were really serious about “saving marriage,” then maybe they need to start looking into legislation to criminalize divorce, or to rescind tax benefits for anyone who remarries...

…or we as a society could put these useless distractions behind us and get on with living our lives without feeling the need to persecute others. Seriously, this culture war bullshit has gotten tiresome.

In lieu of footnotes, please accept this little sampler of relevant tracks which span several decades and multiple genres. Diversity matters.

Neal Ford and the Fanatics – Shame On You (from Garage Beat ’66, Vol. 1: Like What, Me Worry?! 2004) – This one’s dedicated to all the state reps who voted in favor of the gay marriage ban, including that one asshole from the next town over who was the only rep from this area who cast a “yes” vote.

L7 – The Masses Are Asses (from The Beauty Process: Triple Platinum, 1997) – Indeed they are, ladies. Indeed they are.

Dead Kennedys – Religious Vomit (from In God We Trust, Inc. 1981) – It's a mix of cheap red wine, stale crackers, bile, and half-digested lumps of hypocrisy.

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – Ain’t Nobody’s Business (from Feast of the Mau Mau, 1988) - Damn right. It ain’t.

The Caravans – Know Your Rights (from This Is Rockabilly Clash, 2003) – It started off as just three, but the list keeps getting longer and longer as time passes.

I heard you on the wireless back in Fifty Two

The switch from posting every three days, instead of every two, wasn't intentional, but that's going to be how it is for the immediate future. Because I feel guilty about leaving my regular readers in the lurch, I decided to make use of YouTube's vast resources before their impasse with Warners brings the whole thing crashing down.


Manfred Mann - The Mighty Quinn - I have a really funny story about this song that I can never tell anyone, ever.



Modern English - Someone's Calling - They'll always be remembered for the immortal "I Melt With You" (a song whose magnificence has not been diminished by its use in commercials or by that abysmal 1990 version), but the rest of the material on their After the Snow LP was also exceptionally good.

should something something be forgot

2006 has just about run its course, and all the cool bloggers are posting retrospectives and predictions. I could try and follow suit, but seeing as how:

1. this is a music blog
2. much of my attention is focused on the past rather than the present

…a “Best of 2006” post would be rather absurd. Unlike 2005, where several favorite bands released albums – some great (Ladytron’s Witching Hour, The Epoxies’ Stop the Future), some disappointing (Franz Ferdinand’s and Fischerspooner’s sophomore efforts) – musically, 2006 really didn’t unleash much that caught my attention. I won’t rule out that five years from now I’ll give the Scissor Sisters’ Ta-Dah another spin and hail it as a modern classic, but at this moment I’m content with my playlist of things culled from decades past.

The year wasn’t totally bereft of musical bright spots. Two of my favorite bands, The Clash and The Byrds, got excellent box sets of their material released in time for the holidays. I was also able to locate and cross off several much-wanted albums on my want list, mostly punk, cowpunk, and synthpop from the early 1980’s. There were even a couple of contemporary releases I found myself enjoying…with certain degrees of hesitation. Here’s the short list:

The Grates – Lies Are Much More Fun (from Gravity Won’t Get You High, 2006) – A swell bit of quirky indie pop out of Australia. I wish the rest of the album sounded like this track, instead of settling into a derivative mid-90’s Veruca Salt/Letters to Cleo vibe.

Nouvelle Vague – Dance With Me (from Bande a Part, 2006) - I’m not sure the world needed a second Nouvelle Vague album. The central conceit – new wave and punk classics redone as old school Euro pop – was genius the first time around, but it’s dodgy business trying to make an ongoing concern out of a single gimmick. (The same applies to fellow re-imagineers Richard Cheese and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes.) At least they were clever enough to cast their nets a little wider for the source material on their second album, and not merely rely on the familiar standards. A Lords of the New Church cover? Ok, count me in.

The Checkers – The Invitation (from Running With Scissors, 2006) – The Checkers’ won’t win any awards for originality, but there will be a place in my heart for tightly executed, catchy punk pop.

Speaking of killer punk pop, swing on by the Deranged Records website and check out the two sample tracks they’ve posted from Vancouver’s The Tranzmitors. In these days where “punk pop” has become synonymous with whiny, corporate play-by-numbers product, it’s gratifying to know that someone out there has a bit of fire in their belly.

second-person of the year

Who is Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2006?

You are, my fellow peers of the “new internet,” majordomos of a realm where user-created content is king and proportionality and restraint have gone the way of the passenger pigeon.

I understand where Time is coming from with this selection, even though it seems like the beleaguered Old Media establishment is trying to kiss the ass of the new wave. (On a related note, I can’t tell you how bizarre it was to see a quote from my James Brown tribute used in the print edition of yesterday’s Boston Globe.)

Neanderthal: “Mr. Cro-Magnon, I just want to let you know I have always respected the direction you’ve taken the species.”

Cro-Magnon: “LOL! PWNED! u r teh suxxor!”

Yes, the amount of user-created content has mushroomed in the past couple of years, but the noise-to-signal ratio is staggering. For every item of real value, there are countless examples of trollery, half-assed ranting, and other forms of ugliness. There is a difference between being entitled to one’s opinion and being entitled, period, and that point seems to elude the comprehension of far too many people online. One starts to get the impression that the lunatics (i.e. that one guy who writes long rambling letters about fluoridation and Vatican II to the local paper) have taken over the asylum. Just read the comments section of any given YouTube video, and you’ll get the point. (Nods to Kevin for the link.)

It is very difficult to gauge revolutions in progress. That’s why I prefer to stay one step behind the curve where “Big Things” are concerned. They always start off with a horde of wildcatters staking their claims under the wide open sky, and end with a handful of powerful concerns controlling the field. MySpace was bought up by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in 2005, and Google acquired YouTube in earlier this year. Neither company is likely to piss away their investors' money running a non-profit public service.

The above musings were just an excuse to post today’s featured tracks, three songs sharing the same title, recorded by three female/female-fronted postpunk groups between 1979 and 1980.

Delta 5 – You (from a 1980 single, collected on Singles & Sessions: 1979-81, 2006) – A little relationship advice from Uncle Andrew: It’s always best to keep petty spats localized. If it’s about how you don’t unroll your socks before putting them in the hamper, don’t bring up how you hate the way your partner chews his or her food as a defense. Otherwise you could trigger something like the lyrics to this song, and that is not a place you want to be. Trust me.

Au Pairs – You (from a 1979 single, collected on Stepping Out of Line: The Anthology, 2006) – I wrote about the Au Pairs at length a while back. This track comes from their first single and has a rawer, punkier sound than their more ambitious later material.

Kleenex – You (Happy Side) (from a 1979 single, collected on Liliput/Kleenex, 1993) – From Switzerland, home of the Cabaret Voltaire (no, not the guys behind “Sensoria,” but rather the early 20th century Dadaist hotspot), comes this little gem. I especially love the way they squeal-shout “YOU” at the end of every other line.

One of the difficulties in writing about postpunk stuff is that is atypical song structures don’t lend themselves to standard terminology that well. One could take the Greil Marcus route, and do a free association piece linking the song to an obscure medieval sect of Cathar heretics and a 1930’s circle of Ugandan poets, or just fall back on the tried and true “sounds like Joy Division/Gang of Four”. Kleenex (later “Liliput”, after Kimberly-Clark put its corporate foot down) sounds nothing like either band.

requiem for a hard workin’ man

Great talent and moral rectitude do not necessarily run hand in hand. Peter Schaffer’s 1979 play, Amadeus, used a fictionalized version of the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to illustrate that fairly obvious point, but there are still folks out there who want their entertainers to do more than entertain. They need to support the right causes, whether it’s a well-intentioned, but quixotic quest to “save” Africa or advocate on behalf of hybrid cars, hemp, or homeless wallabies.

I’m pretty strident in my political beliefs. If some rich celebrity wants to shower money and or attention on a worthy cause, that’s more than fine with me. It doesn’t make them better at their craft, however, and it can be downright ludicrous when someone like K-Fed feels obligated to mention he really wants to do something “for Africa” (the current cause du jour, which only reveals to me that most celebrity advocates lack even the most rudimentary sense of historical and geopolitical awareness). From a pragmatic standpoint, it’s great, although it brings to the fore a whole other set of issues about the state of public discourse when celebrity status becomes equated with moral authority. From an aesthetic standpoint, it means jack shit.

Reprehensible conduct by a performer can impact how one views his or her work, of course. Evaluating work solely on artistic merits, and not on the personal credentials of the author, is something every critic should strive for, but it can be exceedingly difficult to accomplish. Artists whose work is capable of totally rising above the less savory aspects of their personal lives are rare indeed, especially in these times of total information awareness where a celebrity can't spit on the sidewalk without TMZ.com uploading a video of the act within fifteen minutes.

James Brown, “the hardest working man in showbiz,” has moved on to that all-star venue in the sky. While his personal “eccentricities” have long been fodder for the tabloid media and jokes of varying quality, there is no denying that few equaled his skills as a musical visionary and consummate showman.

“He made an impact on so many people,” my father said today, trying to explain the man’s greatness to some of my unhip relatives. “Some quite physically,” I deadpanned.

Even though I favored the Stax roster of “Memphis Soul” musicians during my stint as a soul boy in the mid-1980’s, I still maintained a large affection for Brown’s music. This was partially because the DJ’s hired for our junior high dances couldn’t be bothered to make room amongst their assortments of bland, big 80’s pop 45’s for something by Otis Redding or Wilson Pickett, but could be counted upon to have a copy of “Living in America” or “I Feel Good” handy, due to the songs being featured in Rocky IV and Good Morning Vietnam, respectively.

My fondest memory (my only fond memory, come to think of it) of junior high is of the time I got to bust out some of my nerdy, sixties-inspired dance moves in front of an adoring crowd while “Living in America” blared in the background. At the end of the song, I leapt off a cafeteria table and into the hands of my cheering classmates. For a brief moment, all the petty bullshit of junior high life faded away, and I felt invincible.

Because of that, I’ll always feel indebted to the Godfather of Soul. May he funk the hell out of the great beyond.

The Dead Milkmen – RC’s Mom (from Beelzebubba, 1988) – Irreverent? Certainly, but being a self-professed James Brown fan in a crowd of hipper-than-thou art students circa 1988 meant having to hear bits from this track quoted ad nauseum.

L.A. Style – James Brown Is Dead (Original Mix) (from a 1992 single) – True, but he outlived L.A. Style by more than a decade.

James Brown – Living in America (from the Rocky IV OST, 1985) – Rocky IV is the film where Stallone fights an ideological straw man for the Jingoistic Arrogance Heavyweight title of the world. It also suggests that decadently soft Americans need to toughen up in order to face down Communism. Yeah, the country went a little batshit during the Reagan era.

cold, so cold, without you to hold

Christmas Eve is upon us, and so I’ll close my holiday theme week with Carter USM’s rendition of “Lonely This Christmas” from a 1994 promo single. Mud’s version of this Chinn and Chapman (the Boyce and Hart of 70’s bubbleglam) number went to the top of the UK charts back in 1975, and has become something of a holiday standard on that side of the Atlantic.

This version drops the faux Presleyisms and verses of the original, and instead delivers a brief quasi-acoustic rendition of the chorus that sums up the feeling that many of us have experienced at some point during this time of the year. (But not this holiday season, I hope.)

God Jul och Gott Nytt År, folks! I'm off to leave some tin cans and potato peelings out for the julbock.

I think that that right jolly old elf better make out his will

Pre-Christmas preparations have got me swamped, but that isn’t going to stop me from making a short post laden with holiday cheer and loads of ass kicking. I think Chris from the ISB has become a bad influence on me.

You’ll know I’ve gone past the point of no return when I do a theme week featuring songs about getting kicked in the face.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 – (Let’s Have) A Patrick Swayze Christmas (from Clowns in the Sky, 1997)

this is your conscience speaking

What’s this? Two posts in a single day? Yeah, because I felt the anniversary of Joe Strummer's death deserved more than a couple of lines appended to a hastily written clarification of intent.

I don’t gush about much of what I post here. For one, I’m a WASP, and as Mystery Science Theater so eloquently put it, “emotions are for ethnic people.” Another reason is that I am painfully self-conscious that distinctions between good and bad, great and awful ultimately rest in the eyes and ears of the beholder. I don’t care much for Morrissey or The Smiths, but their music means the world to some people. Boston’s “More Than a Feeling” evokes strong feelings of wistful nostalgia in me whenever I hear it, while others only hear the epitome of bland corporate 70’s rock.

It’s not a conscious rational process, for the most part. I can give reasons why I think White Heat’s “Nervous Breakdown” is one of the best songs I’ve ever heard, but none could ever fully explain the chills I get down my spine when the chorus starts. It’s what makes music mean so much to us, that visceral connection between the work and the listener. The best I can hope to achieve is to trace the outlines of the Platonic shadows the songs cast….

…and make fun of songs and performers I can’t stand with gleeful abandon.

When folks ask me, “What’s you’re favorite band?” I usually respond with “Right now I’m listening to…” and leave it at that. Being a novelty junkie means that my tastes are in a perpetual state of flux. There is one constant though, and that is The Clash.

It was my punk rock mentor, the cook at the hospital I worked at in high school, who convinced me to pick up the band’s first album instead of another LP of the standard hardcore dreck I was listening to at the time. It was the best music purchase I’ve ever made. From the opening chords to “Clash City Rockers” (lifted, I later discovered, from The Who’s “Can’t Explain” to the abrupt cutout at the end of “Garageland,” I was completely blown away by the mix of killer hooks and indignant sense of conviction delivered by the band. It was the music I had been waiting to hear, but didn’t realize existed. It seemed so perfect…

…until I purchased a copy of London Calling and got schooled all over again.

While he shares credit with Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, and the various drummers who cycled through the band for making The Clash “the only band that mattered” (for a short time, at least), Joe Strummer will always be, in my mind, the soul of the band. You can see it in the live performance footage. The conviction he radiated was tempered by a trace of uncertainty in his facial expressions, as if he was considering the meaning of each line as he sung them, or wondering if the message was being obscured by the medium.

He lost the thread for a good while, and paid the price for his arrogance, trying to rekindle past glories while Jones (through Big Audio Dynamite) kept up with the now. Others copped onto Strummer’s rebel rocker formula and rode it to massive success, while he was left on the sidelines to mutter and rant to an audience that long since moved on.

In the years just prior to his death, Strummer seemed reenergized. He was more humble, willing to acknowledge his past mistakes, and prepared to go forward with his new band. It was a welcome return to form, cut short by his tragic passing on this day in 2002.

The Clash – Safe European Home (from Give ‘em Enough Rope, 1978) – Fuck “Planet of Sound.” My anti-Pixies bias aside, this track outrocks that noisy excuse for a song by a good dozen orders of magnitude. The opening alone, which swoops down on the listener like a Spitfire on a strafing run, is proof positive of my claim. Any piker can throw a cat on a fretboard and call it art, but I’ll take airtight precision and killer hooks over that nonsense any day of the week.

Here’s The Clash performing the song at the 1983 US Festival:

keep your hands off her stockings, fat man

…and we slide back into the holiday groove with a super-saccharine historical footnote, Lene Lovich’s version of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” from a 1976 single. This was Lovich’s first solo effort, from when she was transitioning from the soul-funk act The Distractions to her role as an idiosyncratic new wave pop diva.

Fans of Lovich’s post-punk Marlene Dietrich vocal stylings won’t find any of that happening here. Taking her cue from Wayne Newton’s version of the song, she adopts an ultra-cutesy tone, reminiscent of Shirley Temple…..if Shirley Temple fronted a Holiday Inn guest lounge house band where the musicians couldn’t decide between a reggae, country, or mellow pop style and agreed to split the difference.

How can we say goodbye if you don’t leave?

Ah, crap.

I was all set to switch off the lights and lock this place up for good, but no sooner did I post my goodbye and clear the files off the server than two wise friends of mine made me reconsider my decision. I wish they spoke to me before I started breaking shit down.

Speaking to my friends and explaining my reasons for wanting to call it quits made me realize how fond I’ve gotten of this place. It’s a hassle at times. It burns up too much of my free time. I hate having to expend the effort to block assholes who hotlink to my files.

But I didn’t realize how much I’d miss doing this.

I’ll restore the music files for December later, but for now here’s something to tide you over. It’s a mission statement and tribute to Joe Strummer, dead four years tomorrow, all in one.

The Clash – Capital Radio Two (from 1979’s The Cost of Living EP, collected on Super Black Market Clash, 1994) - That new box set of The Clash's singles looks fantastic, although the one single per CD gimmick is a little impractical for casual listening. I'd pick it up for the "Justice Tonight/Kick It Over" 12" dub mixes of "Armagideon Time" alone.

a pop standard’s Christmas in Wales

Today’s holiday selection features the all-Cymric duo of powerhouse crooner Tom Jones and Catatonia’s Cerys Matthews performing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” Or as I affectionately call it, “Am I Going to Get Laid Tonight, or What?”

Pretty harsh, I admit, but it’s one of those songs where the creepiness of the concept gets a pass because it’s considered a “classic.” I understand that different eras had different mores, but, seriously, “no means no,” buster. Mr. Wolf’s (the man in the song is called “The Wolf” and the woman is called “The Mouse” -- make what you will of those choices of nomenclature) reluctance to break out the roofies is duly noted, but that just means he’s being a manipulative asshole rather than a criminal.

I think too much about this stuff, don’t I? Still, Jones is in his native element (old school pop, not creepy sexism) here, and while I found Matthew's raspy-cutesy voice off-putting in the material she recorded with Catatonia, It works perfectly within the context of this track. I still think she ought to just phone a cab and call it a night, though.

Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews – Baby, It’s Cold Outside (from Reload, 1999)

sipping eggnog with the Struthioniformes

I think my first hardcore experience with the roiling black sea of message board insanity was when I was scanning the SegaSages forums and came across a post asking whether or not chocobos, the emu-like flightless birds used as mounts and draft animals in the equine-poor Final Fantasy games, could be used as a foodstuff. The resulting discussion was as long as it was ferociously contentious.

Anime freaks bitched about how chocobos were cheap ripoffs of the horseclaws from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Final Fantasy purists bitched about intolerant anime freaks, and were outraged that anyone would even consider discussing the edibility of their sacred totem ratites. Trolls and would be wits flocked from all corners of the world wide web to weigh in on the subject, provoke others, and generally prolong the agony.

As I scrolled through the hundred-plus posts, my head shook in disbelief. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. It was too morbidly fascinating, like watching rival ant swarms devour each other over a bread crumb that turned out to be a pebble.

Besides, everyone knows that the bigger the bird, the gamier the meat.

Nobuo Uematsu – Christmas De Chocobo (from a 1997 single) – This is a holiday remix of the chocobo theme music, familiar to anyone who has ever burned away dozens of hours playing one of the installments of the venerable console RPG series.

the elves are back in town

Today’s featured holiday track comes from the Greedies, a short-lived punk-slash-rock outfit assembled by Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott. The group’s roster was extremely fluid, and consisted of Lynott, some of his Thin Lizzy bandmates, and an ever-changing roster of musicians including Rat Scabies of the Damned, Chris Spedding, Bob Geldof, and Ex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook.

More of a diversion than a serious attempt at creating a hybrid supergroup, the Greedies only played a handful of live shows and their recorded output was limited to a 1979 holiday single, a stomping rock medley of “Jingle Bells” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” titled “A Merry Jingle”. Lyrically, it’s a bit on the slight side, but Steve Jones milks that wonderful descending guitar riff (familiar to anyone who has bothered to listen to the post-Lydon Sex Pistols material) for everything it’s worth. You won’t get that on Enya’s new holiday album.

The Greedies – A Merry Jingle (from a 1979 single, collected on Punk Rock Christmas, 1995)

Here's a video of the group "performing" the song on Top of the Pops:

jingle bells make money, everybody sing

Halloween got a full month of posts. Christmas is getting a week and change, mainly because I’m sick to death of seasonal overkill. The entertainment and retail combines don’t even wait for the candy corn and cobwebs to get cold before rolling out the balsam-scented, red and green juggernaut, whipping the public into a state of consumer debt-fueled hysteria.

Peace on earth? Good will toward men? Fuck that shit, there’s an open parking space right by Target’s entrance, and if I have to run down a family of four with my Escalade to get it, then so be it. No one stands in between me and a sale-priced portable DVD player.

(In all seriousness, I nearly got hit three times today while crossing the Target parking lot. In each case, the vehicle in question was a minivan driven by a suburban soccer mom, eyes blazing and face contorted with the terminal stages of Yuletide consumer madness. All I wanted was a bag of potato chips and some toilet paper.)

Bad News – Cashing in on Christmas (from Bad News, 1987) – A z-grade heavy metal act whose members’ ambitions far outstrip their talents, Bad News were the subject of two mockumentaries aired on The Comic Strip Presents… British TV series in 1983 and 1988. Their lineup consisted of Vim Feugo (Adrian Edmondson), Den Dennis (Nigel Planer), Colin Grigson (Rik Mayall), and ‘Spider’ Webb (Peter Richardson). Yep, that's three cast members of The Young Ones in the band, so you pretty much know what to expect.

Queen fans take note: The above track (and album it appeared on) was produced by Brian May.

Bog bless us every chelloveck

'Twas the nochy ‘fore Kringleraz, when all thru the domy
not a creature was skriking, not even a kot.
The toofles were hung by the chimney with care,
in hopes that Ded Kringle soon would be there.

The malchicks were nestled all snug in their beds,
while visions of sakar plums plesked in their heads.
And Em in her tashtook, and I in my shlapa,
had just settled our mozgs for a long winter's zaznoot.

When out on the roof arose a zammechat clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the okno I flew like a flash,
razrezed the shutter, and threw up the sash.

The luna on the groody of the new-fallen snow
gave the lustre of midday to veshches below,
when, what to my wondering glazzies should appear,
but a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.

With a malenky ded driver, so lively and skorry,
I knew in a moment it must be Lord Kring.
More rapid than eagles, his gruppa they came,
and he carked and creeched and called them by eemya:

"Now Dasher! Now Dancer!
Now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid!
On, Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch!
To the top of the shest!
Now ookadeet! Ookadeet!
Ookadeet all!"

We best leave it there, my droogies, before the ultraviolence begins. Kringle’s brooko may shake like a bowl full of jammiwam, but he’s still a master at delivering a noga to the yarbles.

(When I was in college, a friend made me a copy of his VHS tape of A Clockwork Orange, originally taped off HBO sometime in the early 80’s. He included the lead-in bumper, which featured a Muzak rendition of “Jingle Bells” and Malcolm McDowell’s face superimposed over a Christmas tree while the announcer delivered – with no trace of irony – “Stay tuned for our special holiday presentation, Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.”)

From The Moog Machine - Christmas Becomes Electric (1969):

Carol of the Bells
O Come All Ye Faithful
We Three Kings

If you kopat what you sloosh here, itty by Ernie (Not Bert) and sobriat the full album.

Oh, some like it hot, but I like it really hot

Did anyone else catch NBC’s live-action remake of the Rankin-Bass stop-motion animation classic, The Year Without a Santa Claus, last Monday night? Wow, was it lousy. It took me back to the days when Fred Silverman, desperate to placate Gary Coleman and keep him on Diff’rent Strokes, greenlit several mind-numbingly trite TV movies featuring the sassy, cherubic child star, abetting the network’s cash-hemorrhaging nosedive during that era. Can Supertrain 2K7 be far behind?

Based on the talent involved, and the utterly batshit promo that popped up on YouTube, I was holding out hope that if the remake wasn’t going to be good, at least it would be delightfully terrible in a campy sort of way.

It couldn’t even manage that level of inspired incompetence, and ended up being merely boring and stupid. Carol Kane and Harvey Fierstein, two actors who can usually be counted upon to deliver the goods, were utterly wasted in their roles as Mother Nature and Heat Miser. I’m not sure what was going on with Fierstein, who spent his time onscreen trapped in a limbo between total scenery-chewing madness and simply phoning in his lines. The guy has won several Tony awards and seemed like a great choice for the part (although I would have went with Tom Bosley), making me suspect a degree of directorial or network interference at work. Or maybe he realized how ludicrous the project was and went into thespian cruise control.

The final product turned out to be a sappy, yet generic Hallmark Channel “family” movie with non-matching tissue grafts taken from the original, stunt casting (as the 90’s Batman movies have shown, never a good sign), and a sickening amount of product placements. Seriously, a bound volume of the special’s product placement agreements would be thicker than a complete five borough set of the New York City white pages.

The scheduling of the special also baffled me. 9:00 PM on a Monday night? Not 7:00 PM on the Sunday before Christmas, which would have made more sense for a remake of a children’s holiday special? The strange time slot makes me wonder if NBC’s target demographic for The Year Without a Santa Claus wasn’t children, but instead grownups around my age who have fond memories of the original. If so, it was a move boldly poached from superhero comic book publishing’s realm of diminishing returns, which limps by through pandering to a graying fanbase. I’m not going to start bitching about NBC “raping” my childhood, like many obsessive comic fans accuse DC and Marvel of doing. It’s not a matter of “how dare you!” More like, “why’d you even bother?”

Now that I’ve gotten my token rant out of the way, here are today’s musical selections: The original Heat Miser and Snow Miser themes from 1974 and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s medley version from 2004. Nothing says “Merry Christmas” quite like high camp lyrics and music lifted from a Gypsy Rose Lee performance.

George S. Irving – Heat Miser (from Nick at Nite: A Classic Cartoon Christmas, Too, 1977)

Dick Shawn – Snow Miser (from Nick at Nite: A Classic Cartoon Christmas, Too, 1977)

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy – Mr. Heatmiser (from Everything You Want For Christmas, 2004)

with one magic word

Go, Rock-a-Billy Batson, go! The raw vocal power of Zeus and hip-shaking speed of Mercury drive the ladies wild with adoration and the menfolk crazy with envy. It’s just one more reason that Captain Marvel will always be superior to that strictly squaresville Superman, no matter what some killjoy Kryptonian sympathizers might say.

I’m still coming off my Big Red Cheese buzz from last night’s journal post. Instead of fighting this feeling, I’m going to see it through to the bitter end, no matter how many visions of godlike rabbit beings or talking tigers I encounter along the way. It’s the Rock of Eternity or bust for this hepcat, daddy-o!

Fred – Reactor Lightning (from the All Rights Reserved 7” single, 1982) – More lost and forgotten minimalist synthpop. I love the song title. It’s so perfect.

Toyah Wilcox – Thunder in the Mountains (from Anthem, 1981) – Ms. Wilcox’s (or is that Mrs. Robert Fripp’s) idiosyncratic punk rock diva routine felt rather pretentious and lacked the spark of mad genius possessed by Lene Lovich and Nina Hagen, although she did shine through on occasion with some good, bombastic new wave pop like this number.

Duane Eddy – Shazam! (from Twang Thang: Anthology, 1993) – I personally don’t associate Captain Marvel with wild twanging guitar instrumentals with Benny Hill-ian saxophone riffs, but there’s no denying that Eddy was a master at his craft, and one of the most influential rock guitarists of all time.

everybody is an icicle

Damn, it’s cold outside. Not as cold as last night, when I intended to write this post but instead passed out watching Battlestar Galactica, but still cold enough. Just three days ago, the temperature in Boston brushed close to the 60 degree mark. Very strange, but it 2006 has been a strange year weather-wise from the start. Cold and wet, then hot and wet, with an on-again off-again Indian summer that extended into the first week of December, it’s just not right. Whether one chalks it up to global warming or a statistical anomaly, having three “hundred year” storms in a decade is a tad disconcerting.

The funky weather played havoc with my wife’s ambitious gardening plans for 2006. At least half of what she planted rotted in the ground, due to the heavy rains. The vegetable garden, especially the tomato plants suffered something fierce, and what was shaping up to be a huge raspberry yield slipped away and went to seed. Next year will be different, though. I’m going to invest in a ice cream maker and a box of Mason jars, and put the berries to good use, even if it involves going out and picking in the middle of a hurricane.

A Blaze Colour – Cold As Ever (from A Blaze Colour EP, 1982) – Obscure minimalist synthpop from Belgium. If you’re the kind of person who would enjoy this track, that’s all you need to know.

King Missile – Frightened and Freezing (from Mystical Shit, 1990) – Most folks associate King Missile with John S. Hall’s surreal deadpan monologues on tracks like “Detachable Penis” or “Jesus Was Way Cool,” but the band did record a number of bona fide songs, like this no wave-y bipolar spaz attack. It's not as good as "Margaret's Eyes," a sweet love song about S&M, or "Mr. Johnson," a piss take on 60's love-in nonsense, but it does fit with today's theme.

Magazine – Permafrost (from Secondhand Daylight, 1979) – Punk, synth, and post-punk collide in this creepy, downbeat track. Sample lyric: I will drug you and fuck you/on the permafrost. I wouldn’t be surprised if it showed up on the soundtrack to CSI: Juneau (coming this fall to a CBS affiliate near you).

give us this day all that you showed me

I do a lot of autobiographical and personal anniversary posts on Armagideon Time. For one thing, they’re a convenient frame to cobble some relevant tracks together when I’m feeling lazy. Plus, it has become clear to me that this site has turned out to be more Laurence Sterne than Greil Marcus in tone -- an unending stream of digressions and observations set to music. Based on the traffic logs and user feedback, I guess it works well enough.

Fifteen years ago, on December 7, 1991, Maura (my lovely wife and co-conspirator) and I went on our first date. We saw Beauty and the Beast at the Copley Plaza cinema, and ate greasy pizza at Quincy Market afterwards. (I remember Maura telling a Margaret Dumont-like matron at the next table over that her fur coat looked like a dead dog carcass.)

We parted ways at the Orange Line entrance across from North Station. She gave me a goodnight peck on the cheek, and I crossed Causeway Street to wait for the commuter train back to Woburn. I spent the next half hour on a cold wooden bench trying to concentrate on reading the King Solomon’s Mines paperback I had brought with me, but my mind wouldn’t stop replaying the night events and analyzing them in minute detail.

The Partisans – White Flag (from The Time Was Right, 1984) – The tracks on the studio side of this exceptional LP deal with themes of betrayal, compromise, futility, and frustration. Fitting, considering the album was released while the once vibrant 80’s Britpunk scene began to collapse in on itself. “White Flag” is the sole exception, a love song couched entirely in military terminology.

Ultravox – Hymn (from Quartet, 1982) – One of Maura’s favorites, this track has a strong anime feel to it, evoking images of azure-haired, big-eyed mecha jockeys scrambling to face down the planet-killing dreadnoughts of a sinister alien empire. The song shares its melody with the Zones’ 1979 powerpop song, “Mourning Star.” The Zones evolved out of Silk, a Scottish 70’s teen pop outfit that Ultravox frontman Midge Ure had been also been a member of before joining the Rich Kids and, later, Ultravox.

I don’t want to stay in

Today’s post features music from the forgotten 1986 film, Modern Girls. My wife, who tends to be more in tune with the times than I am, has no recollection of seeing or hearing of this film when it was released. It has been heavily repeated on the lesser cable movie channels, which is where we first encountered it. Modern Girls is not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but we’ve adopted into our “if there’s nothing else on, we’ll watch it” category of movies.

The film covers the night in the lives of three clubhopping roommates: the tough-yet-goodhearted Margo (Daphne Zuniga), impulsive sprite Cece (Cynthia Gibb, who has no upper lip, according to my wife), and the judgement-impaired Kelly (Virginia Madsen). The women are reluctantly accompanied by male viewer identification figure Clifford (Clayton Rohner, who also plays the part of Bruno X, a pouty Billy Idol-inspired rock star), a poor schmoe who Kelly has been stringing along.

The tone of the movie is what you’d expect -- insubstantial romantic comedy with some big 80’s art direction and costuming to match-- but it occasionally veers off in weird directions. There’s one scene where Kelly, off on her own and tripping out on ecstacy, passes out on a pool table in a dive bar. A crowd of skuzzy looking male patrons closes in around her, making the viewer wonder if the film’s editor hadn’t accidentally switched reels with The Accused.

That’s only one of the two times that Kelly faces sexual assault in the film. She also nearly gets raped and murdered by a clean-cut stalker dude who resembles an off-brand Billy Baldwin. This provides the agon for which the other characters must put aside their differences and reaffirm their loyalties to each other. (That’s my pretentious way of saying that things work out in the end, with all the requisite melodrama and lame comedic bits we’ve been conditioned to expect.)

One thing that struck me about Modern Girls, and thus inspired this post, is the sense of historical dislocation it radiates. The overall feel is unquestionably 80’s, but in an abstract sense. The fashions, the music, and the forced manufactured slang (“Lounge out!” should have entered common usage.) don’t mesh, and it’s impossible to fix a specific moment in time to what’s shown on the screen like one could with, say, Fast Times at Ridgemont High or any given John Hughes film. It’s a fairly common occurrence in modern films that look back on a given era, but unusual to see happen in an actual period movie.

The soundtrack for the film reinforces this sense of dissonance. The club scene, circa 1986, would seem to suggest material by Madonna, Janet Jackson, and the many and varied HiNRG acts that dominated the dance charts at the time. Instead, the film’s soundtrack is a sampler of Sire Records’ then-current roster of college rock/alternative bands. Sire’s influence (see the “But Not Tonight” blurb below) aside, my wife suspects this might be due to a lag time between when the screenplay was written and when it was filmed, leading to an early 80’s script getting a cursory mid 80’s facelift.

Depeche Mode – But Not Tonight (from Black Celebration, 1986) – This song was specifically commissioned by DM’s label, Sire, for use in Modern Girls. The result, coming on the heels of their very dark Black Celebration recording sessions, is one of the most devastating songs about being happy I’ve ever heard. The song was appended to the US release of Black Celebration, and Sire went so far as to re-label the “Stripped” single to make the track the a-side, even though the band didn't care much for the song and considered it a throwaway effort. The promo video features footage from the movie, which makes me wonder who in the chain of command had that much faith in Modern Girls' success….



The Jesus and Mary Chain – Some Candy Talking (from Psychocandy, 1985) – I’ve listened to Psychocandy several times. I can unerringly ID the band’s material when it plays on the digital music channel. Yet every song of theirs sounds like college rock muzak to my ears.

The Belle Stars – Iko Iko (from The Belle Stars, 1982) – This cover of an old Dixie Cups classic started off as a single that was later included on the Belle Stars’ first and only LP. It was used in Modern Girls for a limbo dancing scene at a Coconut Grove-style night club (minus the horrible fiery death), and ended up cracking the US pop charts in 1989 after being used on the Rain Man soundtrack. Ah, the life of a catchy pop song.

Kommunity FK – Something Inside Me Has Died (from Close One Sad Eye, 1985) – This is what people who have never listened to gothic music think that it sounds like -- gloomy, theatrical, and so over the top, it parodies itself. The song title doesn't help by laying it on a bit too thick, but, hey, that’s what the target audience expects.

it’s a trickle-down theory

The pressure tank on our water heater sprung a leak last night. My wife called her very handy father. Her father called a plumber friend. The plumber capped off the feed until we could pick up a replacement tank, which was installed this morning. Our cats had a blast playing in the artificial warm water pond created by the leak.

I sat on the cellar stairs watching all these events unfold, and came up with today’s theme in the process.

The Frogmen – Underwater (from Rock Instrumental Classics, Volume 5: Surf, 1994) – Crow T. Robot was right – surf music makes everything better. This track bridges the gap between early rock’n’roll instrumentals like Dave “Baby” Cortez’s “The Happy Organ” and the guitar-driven surf rock of Dick Dale and his imitators.

Split Enz – Six Months in a Leaky Boat (from Time and Tide, 1982) – A dizzying new wave sea shanty that reminds me of Sparks’ “Angst in My Pants,” minus the neurotic tongue-in-cheek humor.

Chumbawamba – Drip, Drip, Drip (from Tubthumper, 1997) – Danceable anarchism, as opposed to Crass’s “caustic enough to strip paint off steel” variety of anarchist expression. If the system has to be smashed, there’s no reason it can’t be done with a degree of pop sensibility.

I belong to the _____ generation

I tried to come up with something ambitious for today’s post, but I ended up drawing a complete blank. It’s better than shooting blanks, I suppose. Or stealing an experimental forcefield belt, becoming The Blank, and drowning while fighting the West Coast Avengers.

I am such a freakin’ nerd.

The Dils – You’re Not Blank (from the b-side of a 1977 single, collected on Class War, 2000) – The Dils tried to be the American equivalent of The Clash, but were held back by muddy production and excessively earnest politics straight out of Vulgar Marxist Sloganeering 101. If you can get past those two hurdles, this track is a great piece of melodic punk bristling with hippie hate. Some of the members of The Dils later tried their hands at roots rock/cowpunk with Rank and File. The results were…soporific.

ADULT. – Blank Eyed, Nose Bleed (from Anxiety Always, 2003) – I never get nosebleeds. I also hardly ever vomit. This has been your Too Much Information About Andrew moment of the week.

Voodoo Glow Skulls – Blank Expression (from Spare Shells: A Tribute to the Specials, 2001) – I admire bands who pull out all the stops when it comes to doing cover songs. On this track the Voodoo Glow Skulls crash through one of the slower numbers from The Specials’ debut LP with manic abandon.

Richard Hell and The Voidoids – Blank Generation (from Blank Generation, 1977) – One of my fondest wishes is for Richard Hell and Screaming Jay Hawkins to team up and record a cover of “Do Wah Diddy”. It would blow Nick Cave and Shane MacGowan’s “What a Wonderful World” clear out of the water as the best duet performance ever.