just not enough

Mitchell's academic record was good, extremely good. Excellent. But the arc wasn't there. The arc was something Turner had learned to look for in the dossiers of research people, that certain signal curve of brilliance. He could spot the arc the way a master machinist could identify metals by observing the spark plume off a grinding wheel. And Mitchell hadn't had it. - William Gibson, Count Zero

Eh, whatever. I'm quite content with this comfortable little niche I've carved out for myself.

Dow Jones & The Industrials - Ain't Good Enough (from the Hoosier Hysteria split LP, 1980) - There ain't nothing inadequate about this slice of art-damaged Indiana punk rawk.

coming home to roost

The present financial crisis, as explained and resolved in six panels of a Golden Age comic book:

(from Captain Marvel Adventures #112; September 1950)
A fundamental weakness in the underpinnings of market capitalism? Pshaw! It's all about telepathic waterfowl seeking to undermine our entirely sound and totally rational system of unrestrained greed, long since freed from the petty shackles of effective oversight. Thankfully, we have a government that is compassionate enough to insulate the titans of finance from their own self-destructive tendencies and is willing to commit as much of the taxpayers' money as is required to cover the speculators' losses.

Hey, it's an emergency. We can discuss accountability and regulatory issues later, after the the wheelbarrows full of cash and lines of low-interest credit have been dispensed to the poor, poor plutocrats who have already suffered so much. Please, pay no mind to the restructuring of the banking regulations that were created to prevent commercial banks from dabbling willy-nilly in the investment banking sphere. We need to be grateful that these entities were willing to buy out their failing cousins in a time of crisis, so just put aside any worries that this will pose an even greater economic risk down the line.

When the worrybird cackles, a quick response is required. As for those of you who will ultimately foot the bill for the bailout, and who have been suffering the most from the turmoil....well, you should have been more responsible with your financial affairs. Next time, don't take out a subprime mortgage to buy a home -- buy the firm that uses such mortages as security to game the markets. Then the government might be willing to slip you a share of that sweet $700 billion.

The Rare Breed - Beg, Borrow, and Steal (from a 1966 single; collected on the Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era box set, 1998) - This single was re-released in 1967 and credited to the Ohio Express, one of the many faceless bubblegum proxy groups used by songwriters and studio wizards of the period, though the actual touring line-up of the "band" hadn't yet been assembled. So don't expect to hear any similarities between this respectable slice of garage rock and "Yummy Yummy Yummy."

Action Pact! - Who's to Blame (from Survival of the Fattest, 1984) - It's a shame the 80's Britpunk scene imploded when it did, as there were a number of bands that were on the verge of breaking away from the formula (while not falling into the standard hard rock/metal/grindcore career trajectory) before it all came crashing down. You can hear it in the studio side of The Partisans' The Time Was Right LP, which sounds like nothing else recorded before or since, and you can hear it to a milder extent in Action Pact's second album, from which the above track was taken.

Wire - Let's Panic Later (from an EP included with, and later appended to 154, 1979) - It is impossible to calculate the creative debt indie rock owes to Wire....unless you're talking about Elastica, in which case the exact sum has been recorded in an out-of-court settlement.

Note: My other project, pronounced WOO-BIN, celebrates its second week of existence with a recital of the most sublime verses ever penned by human hands.

it's not animosity

From the March 1978 issue of Pizzazz, Marvel Comics' attempt to crack the tweener mag market:

Writing music reviews is easy when your target audience is a bunch of starry-eyed twelve-year-olds who think that a Big Mac constitutes haute cuisine. Nice work, if you can get it, though I suspect the psychic toll involved in writing lines like "an infectiously appealing little charmer that rocks, rolls, shakes, and boogies" in regard to such musical luminaries as Jimmy Osmond, Leif Garrett, and Cassidy the Younger on a regular basis would inevitably lead to a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the roof of one's mouth and parts beyond.

Here's the "smash single" that the reviewer issued the severe groove damage warning over...

Shaun Cassidy - Hey Deanie (from Born Late, 1977)

This Eric Carmen cover (three words I never imagined having to string together) did peak at #7 on the Billboard Top 100, though my wife, who briefly participated in the Shaun-o-mania craze, claims that she doesn't recall it at all. That's not surprising, as the music, along with running around in the dark with Parker Stevenson on prime time television, was just one facet of the teen idolatry package -- scaffolding by which best to display the dreamy, marketable image.

What shouldn't astonish me so much, but does, is that the song and album were released around the same time (the second half of 1977) as this track:

Wire - Mannequin (from Pink Flag, 1977)

It's a loaded comparison -- disposable teen pop product versus a phenomenally influential piece of art punk -- but it amazes me how well "Mannequin" has retained its freshness over the past three decades while the shelf life of "Hey Deanie" can be measured to the picosecond. It's as quaint a historical artifact as a shellac 78 RPM recording of Flip Pringle and His Liberty Orchestra's "Let's Set Fire to the Kaiser's Mustache," while the hooks and jangles of "Mannequin" retain a sense of immortality.

It's not simply a matter of being a work "for the ages." There are many classics pop songs -- including quite few songs I like more than "Mannequin" -- that have endured, yet operate within clear historical moments. "Mannequin," apart from its association with the early British punk scene, exists outside history. It could have been released in 1983, 1995, or five minutes ago and still sounded fresh and of the present age, immutable, eternal, and radiant.

when I'm over the pain

I'll be at the dentist's office today. Normal service will resume tomorrow.

Wall of Voodoo - Good Times (from Dark Continent, 1981) - Of the the Stan Ridgway kind, not the Jimmy Walker variety. I'm still waiting for a reissue of this album, one of the finest to come out of the SoCal punk/wave scene.

Halloween Countdown: October 24 – come out of the garden, baby

When I was writing Monday's Prince of Darkness post, I kept thinking of another film made two decades prior that incorporated many of the same elements, and to much better effect. The film is Quatermass and the Pit, released in America as Five Million Years to Earth, and was a Hammer Studios adaptation of a 1958 BBC television serial.

Professor Bernard Quatermass, the quintessential man of science and reason, was the creation of writer Nigel Kneale, and made appearances in various media from the early 1950's to the late 1970's. Kneale himself wrote the screenplay for the big screen version of Quatermass and the Pit, which is one of Hammer's finest efforts and probably the most aesthetically successful attempt in capturing the essence of cosmic horror on film, despite technically falling under the science fiction genre tag. (John Carpenter acknowledged his debt to the franchise in Prince of Darkness by crediting the screenplay to a "Martin Quatermass" as well as featuring a "Kneale University" in the film, much to Nigel Kneale's displeasure.)

The discovery of prehistoric remains and a strange rocket-like craft during subway construction beneath the reputedly "cursed" neighborhood of Hobbs End sets off a jurisdictional dispute between the transit authority, the archeological community, and the military's unexploded ordnance group. Quatermass, as a member of Britain's Experimental Rocket Group, finds himself drawn into the puzzle of the mysterious vessel's origin and how it connects to ancient myths and the origins of humanity.

It all culminates with the arrival of this fellow, the psychic manifestation of an alien race's will to mass suicide -- a popular pastime on the insectoid beings' home planet -- which they generously bequeathed to humanity via the genetic manipulation of our ancient ancestors.

Welcome to Swingin' London, hepcats! This party's not stopping until there's nothing left standing.
As I said, it's an excellent film; the writing and acting are strong enough to keep one from noticing the high level of talkiness (a common flaw in Hammer productions), and the ending is nothing short of remarkable. (If I could explain it in more detail without spoiling it, I would. Suffice to say, its impact lies in its unusual execution.) I give it my highest recommendation.

The DVD of the film is currently out of print (and commands extortionate prices on the secondary market), but it is available to rent though Netflix. So what are you waiting for?

Defuser - World Suicide (from a 1982 single) - San Francisco art punk/wave with a darkly humorous sensibility. I only rediscovered the song recently, but I swear I remember hearing it on local college/aternative radio back when I was a wee lad.

Tristam Cary - Quatermass and the Pit (from Hammer Film Music Collection, Vol. 1, 2000) - Atmospheric and effective, but it doesn't hold a candle to Moon Zero Two in the best Hammer film theme sweepstakes. (That's an unfair comparison. Nothing holds a candle to the Moon Zero Two theme, period.)

Halloween Countdown: October 5 – hear us howl in the evening

The children of the night --

-- what music they make...


Nash the Slash - Children of the Night (from Children of the Night, 1981) - Reminiscent of Suicide, if Suicide was a one-man show fronted by the Claude Rains version of the Invisible Man.

The album, a true lost classic of the postpunk/synth/new wave era is currently unavailable from the official website, but eMusic has a veritable cornucopia of the enigmatic performer's material available for download. The covers of "Dead Man's Curve" and "Smoke on the Water" are alone worth the (quite reasonable) subscription cost of the service.

I lay my head on the railroad track

Maintaining Armagideon Time has been an extended spin on the Wheel of Dread and Pleasure for me. (That’s another Warhammer reference, for those of you keeping score.) There are times when I’m able to put together a week’s worth of posts in a single afternoon, and feel confident in whatever it is I’m doing here. At other times, I feel a crippling sense of insecurity about my writing, the quality of the material, and the validity of the entire project. The past couple of weeks have been more of the latter for me, for whatever reason -- fatigue, perhaps – like I’ve peaked and it’s all a slow tumble down from the little plateau I’ve built for myself from here.

Then I came across this….

…and all was well with the world again. It’s the cover to the February 1978 issue of Pizzazz, Marvel’s attempt at grabbing a bit of the tweener mag market share from periodicals such as Dynamite, and it became my own Lady of Fatima or Angels of Mons, reaffirming my faith and rescuing me from the clutches of despair with its symbolic power. I shall not waver again. (For a while, at least.)

I make the effort to pick up issues of Pizzazz and Dynamite if and when I come across them. My efforts have been hampered by the fact Dynamite has become something of a hot property among the hipster set, thus driving up the prices of individual issues past what I’m willing to pay for them. Pizzazz, though lesser known by the camp affectation crowd, featured serialized Star Wars comic stories in an attempt by Marvel to boost sales by capitalizing on an already held license. Because of that, I find myself playing Jonathan Winters to the Acolytes’ of Lucas Phil Silvers in the quest for the Big W (in this case, a longbox at my local comic shop marked Magazines – P – Misc).

I could care less about the poorly drawn further (and apocryphal) adventures of Luke, Leia and the usual gang of idiots. The draw for me is the articles and features, popcult moments flash frozen in time and in their contextual environments, rather that the cherry-picked camp chosen for ironic effect that passes for retrology these days.

As a document of a specific moment, there’s something off about the issue of above issue of Pizzazz. There’s a tangible feeling of incongruity between the implied target demographic and the contents of the magazine; presenting Linda Ronstadt as a “rock superwoman” is only part of it. The featured movie review is for Goodbye Girl (the kids, they love the Marsha Mason) and the album review is for the second volume of Elton John’s Greatest Hits (that opens with a Leon Russell reference, of all things), both of which bear the unmistakable thumbprints of out-of-touch adults trying to reach “the kids” without having a clue about what the target demographic is actually interested in. In other words, it reeks of high school guidance counselor.

Other highlights include the best Star Trek trivia quiz ever, “Are You a Trekki (sic)?”:

Sample question:

2. Bones is the nickname for:
(A) Orson Welles
(B) Leonard McCoy
(C) Farrah Fawcett-Majors
(D) Jimmy Walker

Oh, how I wish the answer was (D). “Your inhuman logic’s got you way too uptight/Relax those pointy ears, you’ll feel DYN-O-MITE!”

There’s also an interview with a former DJ from Atlanta (I don’t get it, but Maura, a couple years my senior, says that DJ’s were a bigger deal back then. I’ll take her word for it as I was too busy playing with my Hot Wheels to notice such things) which unequivocally demonstrates the sheer and utter nightmare that was 1970’s male fashion. Think about it. That is how one dressed and styled one’s hair in order to get laid back then. It’s a mystery to me that the birthrate didn’t drop to zero from 1974 to 1979. (Some sources credit Hai Karate and Jovan Sex Appeal for preventing such a decline.)

OK, on to the music:

Linda Ronstadt – Poor Poor Pitiful Me (from Simple Dreams, 1977) – Written and originally recorded by the late Warren Zevon in 1976, Ronstadt’s cover version (with slightly altered lyrics) became a minor hit in 1978.

It’s not that I think badly of Ronstadt; I rarely think of her at all except as one of the many soft rock/pop acts played on the ultra-mellow radio stations my parents listened to during car trips. At the time the Pizzazz article ran, she was at the peak of her mainstream pop success, but she seems like an odd choice to spotlight in a publication aimed at tweeners, whose axes of musical interest ran along the lines of Kiss, Shaun Cassidy/Bay City Rollers/Leif Garrett, and the disco scene. Even a write up about the Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac would have made more sense. (Maura's answer to my musings was simply, "Marvel has always been out of touch with reality.")

The Screamers – Magazine Love (from Demos: 1977-1978) – Techno-punk, synthpunk, art punk… The subgenre label doesn’t matter, only the beautiful noise these fellows made. It’s a shame that they never recorded a proper studio album, and left only demos and live performances as a testament to their (highly influential) legacy.

le peuple ne veut que son dû

It’s May Day!

Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose that isn’t about to be outsourced anyhow…

I try to retain a modicum of empathy, but I must confess to certain feelings of schadenfreude when the same white collar and tech sector workers who spent much of the 1990’s as cheerleaders for globalization find themselves getting poked with the shit end of the outsourcing stick. Did they seriously think the trend was going to limit itself to manufacturing jobs?

Class war ain’t what it used to be. There was a time when burly men in workman’s caps and fierce women in headscarves took up hammers, wrenches and farm implements in open rebellion against the capitalist oppressors. Today’s service economy has reduced these archetypes to a random office prole in Dockers or a beige pantsuit banging his or her head on the cubicle desk and weeping gently. Even if the motivation was there, the tools are lacking. Not many offices keep a cabinet full of sickles these days, though one can fashion an effective bola out of an optical mouse (which explains management’s push toward cordless peripherals).

The idea of a proletarian revolution has never been an easy sell in America, anyhow. The “Land of Opportunity” myth has retained its allure though several bank panics, bread riots, and corporate scandals. Dialectic materialism and the theory of historical inevitability aren’t going to shake the masses’ confidence in that dream any more than knowing the dismal odds of winning will stop a habitual gambler from buying a scratch ticket. After all, if you work hard and bear the millstone of capitalism without complaint for a couple decades, there’s a better than 50% chance that your company won’t go belly up after the CFO blows the pension fund on hookers and blow, and that you won’t end up standing by the curbside, mournfully watching your $600,000 McMansion go for pennies on the dollar at a bank auction.

The unionization moment may currently be a very sick beast, but it hasn’t died yet, though the non-trade segment has been reduced to conducting an extended holding action (and occasionally successful small raids) to avoid losing even more ground. Today’s union meetings are hardly fonts of radical agitation. Any given meeting is likely to consist of two hours spent deciphering obtuse legal jargon split with two hours of listening to the guy from the next office over explain why the seagull who shit on his Prius represents a legitimate grievance against management.

The Red Army Choir – The Internationale – Poor socialism, you have been so roughly used by opportunists and ideologues all too willing to reduce humanity into abstractions and equations.

The Proletariat – Another Banner Raised (from Soma Holiday, 1983) – The Proletariat were the odd men out on the legendary This Is Boston, Not LA compilation. Their stridently Marxist artpunk/postpunk stuck out like a sore thumb amongst some of the rawest, fastest hardcore ever recorded, but it's pretty interesting (if rather humorless) stuff.

Gang of Four – To Hell With Poverty! (from the Another Day/Another Dollar EP, 1982 ) – We’ll get drunk on cheap wine? Sounds like a fine short term plan, but it will only make things worse in the long term.

the original sinners are religiously praying

I can’t remember the exact circumstances why, but a while back I made a list of the most depressing places I’ve ever had the misfortune of visiting. It’s all relative, of course. I’ve never set foot inside a hospice for terminally ill children, for example, so my definition of “depressing” could very well differ from yours. I just wanted to get that out up front, lest someone think I’m a callous son of a bitch.

Some of the places on the list are self-explanatory, like the psych ward of the Bedford VA hospital or the nursing home for head trauma patients where my grandfather spent the last couple years of his life. Others require some clarification, like the reception area for my previous dentist (before I lucked onto a job with a dental plan), a man who built his practice around ruthless efficiency and affordable rates. As a result, his patients tended to be a wide cross-section of folks who had been kicked in the teeth, literally and figuratively, by the American Dream -- purple haired punk rockers (take a guess who that was), haggard looking middle aged women wearing too much makeup, non-English speaking immigrants, and impoverished senior citizens.

And then there is Keno Mart.

“Keno Mart” is the nickname the wife and I use for the convenience store a couple blocks over from our house. I don’t even know what the place’s real name is, though it gets regular mention in the police blotter of the local paper. It’s a pretty standard suburban convenience store in most respects, selling discounted cigarettes, microwaveable junk food, and overpriced household essentials to folks with neither the time nor inclination to travel to the supermarket a mile down the road. That in itself wouldn’t qualify it for my list, but as the nickname suggests, Keno Mart also happens to function as the local Commonwealth-sanctioned betting parlor.

As it’s just a stone’s throw from my house, I visit the place often enough to pick up the paper or a bottle of tonic. The parking lot is always full of cars, from immaculate black Cadillacs, to dinged up minivans, to older model European luxury jobbers whose status symbol luster has since rubbed off through a lengthy succession of owners. It’s not a gallon of milk or a pack of Camels their owners have all come for, though. They’ve come for the chance against all reason that this will be the day that their dreams come true.

I’ve spent enough time around aspiring creative-types to be familiar with the stink of desperation, but nothing could prepare me for the pure, uncut variety that permeates the atmosphere inside the store like an ionized mist. The crowd is diverse; soccer moms and chubby retirees rub shoulders with long-haired biker dudes and skinny guys wearing unlaced sneakers and sweat-stained work clothes emblazoned with the logo of a company that went under five years ago. (Yesterday, I was in line behind a gentleman in his sixties with a massive facial tumor who peeled several twenties off a decent sized roll to pay for a bundle of Daily Numbers quick picks.) They all radiate the same aura of hunger, and possess the same willingness to drop a hundred bucks on scratch tickets (the very essence of a “loser’s game”) while still managing to keep one eye on the big screen that projects the Keno results.

It’s an insatiable hunger, too. The rare winner never cashes out and leaves happy, but always chooses to let it ride, plowing their meager winnings back into the grand game. As someone with a staunch aversion to gambling (the only bit of Protestantism that has stuck with me over the years, unless you count my judgmental and elitist tendencies), I find the environment fascinating even as I feel my soul start to erode within its confines.

Keno Mart, where the American Dream, reduced to a means without end, goes to die (taking as many desperate souls as it can with it when it finally croaks). If you weren’t too lazy to drive the extra mile to the grocery store, you’d never even encounter the rotting smell.

For today’s musical bill, here are some other tales of quiet desperation:

Nick Lowe – Marie Provost (from Jesus of Cool, 1978) – Based on the sad story of this actress, this song perfectly balances pathos with black humor with sparkling pop music.

Anti-Nowhere League – Streets of London (from The Complete Singles Collection, 1999) – They look like they could be Vyvyan Basterd’s favorite band ever, but the tough exterior masks a sensitive side, honest.

Carter USM – A Prince in a Pauper’s Grave (from 30 Something, 1991) – They should have been the biggest pop band in the world, and at one point, it seemed like the could have been, yet something went wrong somewhere. (Also see this.)

just to be alive, just a’one more day

Today’s post is about immortality, of a sort.

When my mother was a teenager she dug up a clump of the little blue wildflowers that grew on nearby Bucky’s Hill and transplanted them at the edge on my grandparents’ yard.

My mother is gone, a victim of an untied shoelace and the balance-inhibiting affects of port wine. Bucky’s Hill is gone, a victim of real estate developers who bulldozed the land flat and filled in the neighboring peat bog in order to drop down a rather prison-like condo complex on the site.

The little blue flowers in my grandmother’s yard have thrived and spread over the past four decades. From mid to late April, the side of the yard by the driveway becomes a cerulean carpet of tiny blossoms, a memorial far more suitable for my mother than any inscription on a slab of cold granite could ever be.

When my wife and I moved into the new house in 2004, I brought some of the plants with me, as a sentimental gesture in honor of my mom. I tried planting them in several locations around the yard, but with no success. I assumed that the soil up here on the hill just wasn’t suitable for that type of plant, and gave up trying after the fourth or fifth round of failures.

Yesterday, my wife and I were out on the patio surveying the storm damage and how our perennials were faring in the cold, wet weather, and my wife called for me to check out something in the bed where the lilies and bleeding hearts are planted. It was a solitary little blue flower, peeping up through the mud and the husks of last year’s annuals. I certainly didn’t plant it there, yet there it was – a random wonder in a random universe.

electric eels – Cards and Fleurs (from God Says Fuck You, 1992) – A swell bit of Cleveland proto-punk that begins like a fever dream and ends like a punch in the nose.

Los Abandoned – Como la Flor (from the Los Abandoned EP, 2004) – My wife has a cluster of friends in LA who keep her abreast of the local pop and punk scenes, and occasionally send her CD’s of bands she might enjoy, which is where I first came across Los Abandoned’s excellent brand of bilingual punk pop.

Here’s the video for their equally outstanding “Van Nuys Es Very Nice”:



100 Flowers – 100 Flowers (from 100 Years of Pulchritude, 1990) – Originally LA punk pranksters The Urinals, following a Maoist-inspired name change and a switch to an art punk sound reminiscent of Wire, The Fall, and/or The Minutemen.