take a look at this from top to bottom

A friend pointed this site out to me the other day, with the comment that I "shoulda done this." I get respectable number of emails every day hyping and promoting some band or another. Some are slick PR pieces, complete with attached digital presskits, whipped up by professional promoters. Others are sent directly from the bands themselves. Even though most of the material really isn't to my tastes or not easily contextualized as an annotation to an old Captain Marvel story, it's flattering to be noticed...though given recent events, maybe willful obscurity is a wiser course of action.

In any case, I've never been able to bring myself to publicly pillory any of these desperate contenders for my listening attention, no matter how lousy the music or how overblown the hype. (Well, except for that one time where I redacted the names of the parties involved.) As I said then, and many times before, I am not an arbiter of public taste. Do you really need me to tell you that jam bands are antithesis of all that is good and decent?

This is all ground I've covered before, except for one enigma which I finally believe I have resolved. An astonishing number of the acts represented in the promotional emails hew very close to the AOR template established by the Dave Matthews Band/Maroon 5/circa 1996 Goo Goo Dolls. I find that style of music to be aggressively bland and unlistenable in the extreme, but that's beside the point. What baffled me was that someone would be actively and unironically pimping the spiritual heirs of Phil Collins and Michael McDonald to the hipster-heavy music blogging scene. Or that anyone would earnestly hitch their wagons to that particular tired genre star in the year 2008 in the first place.

It eventually dawned on me that what I was seeing were working bands, ambitious lads and lasses with residencies at the local college bar or crab shack, seeking to crack into the big time. It's an understandable dream, but while their inoffensive sound might go well with a plate of softshells, a bottle of microbrew, and some inane conversation, it doesn't carry well to the world outside the realm of soft rock radio.

It's like choosing practical over theoretical study -- the former will likely net you steady work, but the latter offers the better chance of making a massive breakthough and universal acclaim. There is no shame in choosing either path, but transitioning between the two can be difficult. Easier, I think, to just accept the situation and carve a profitable niche in Mix 98.5's AOR ghetto*. Today's hipster darlings are tomorrow's forgotten heroes, but Michael Bolton's stream of royalties is eternal.

If folks do intend to keep sending me info about new artists, however, here's a prime example of what I am interested in listening to...

Statues - Living in Lines (from New People Make Us Nervous, 2008; also available on eMusic) - Top-notch Canadian punk/power pop pointed out to me by a reader (to which I will forever be grateful). The rest of the album is in the same fist-pumping, boot-tapping vein and fills my bitter heart with hope for the future of hooky, well-crafted power pop.

If you go the eMusic route in picking this one up, swing by and nab the Tranzmitors' eponymous 2007 album for more killer punk pop from the Great White North...or if you're low on downloads for this month, just pick up "Alma Blackwell." You won't be sorry.

*I will always remember Mix 98.5, one of the Boston market's many lite rock stations, for the TV ad they ran featuring Janine Turner a few years back. In the spot, the GOP shill-slash-actress let potential listeners know that the station playlist did not contain "lyrics that will embarrass you in front of your kids." Y'know, the same kids who are grooving to "Do Me in Da Butt," by Ephebe Jailbait. Come to think of it, the ad might have been for Magic 106, after all...

expanding locally

My media micronation expanded today with the launch of pronounced WOO-BIN, a blog created to bring the majesty of the Boston accent to the starving masses.

So if you're morbidly curious or just want to put a voice behind my words, check it out.

Or don't. I'm not pushy.

In any case, I'm commemorating the event with this track, in which Boston's neurotic new wave legends do their take on a 1966 Detroit soul classic by The Capitols...

Human Sexual Response - Cool Jerk (from Fig. 15, 1980) - Not bad. Not bad at all.

there's still parties to be hosted

Amidst the trips to the home and garden store, the long sessions of Grand Theft Auto 4, and my ongoing existential crises, I seem to have let Armagideon Time's second anniversary pass by without marking the occasion. For some reason, I was thinking that it fell on May 11, the due date for webhost's annual bill. It wasn't until this morning that I remembered that I used free file hosting services for the first week of AT's existence, and that May 3, 2006 was the date of my first post.

Two years (and three days) of Armagideon Time, and all the awkwardly written posts, embarrassing personal revelations, and off-the-cuff musical selections that entails. Can you believe it? I'm having a hard time with the concept myself.

I honestly didn't think I had it in me to last a month, much less twenty-four of them, yet here I am -- two years older, not much wiser, and only feeling moderately burned out. And despite the occasional urge to pull the plug on the site and walk away, I do enjoy doing whatever it is I do here.

Even though the final written results rarely match my initial intentions, there seems to be a not insubstantial number of you out there who enjoy them nonetheless. I'm always taken aback when someone tells me that they follow AT because of the writing (rather than the prospect of getting some cool tunes) because I fairly well wince whenever I go back and read my crimes against clearly phrased English.

So, thanks, everybody (except Anonymous Q. Shitheel and that spam commenter who used to write epic poems about his digestive problems and the One World Order. Those two fuckers can go hang). Here's to the promise of a fresh new year of posts concerning my lackadaisical concept of dental care, self-conscious nostalgic reveries, and vintage Captain Marvel stories.

Now for eine kleine anniversary celebration repost musik:

Billy Bragg - Waiting for the Great Leap Forward (from Workers Playtime, 1988) - Folk rock and socialism!

David Bowie - Changes (from Hunky Dory, 1971) - Glam rock and diaper commercials!

White Heat - Nervous Breakdown (from a 1979 single) - Note-perfect power pop and hormonal angst!

no one knows what it's for

I'm very possessive of my Saturdays. Because Maura spends the better part of the day grocery shopping and checking out yard sales, Saturday is the one day of the week where I'm free to do work around the house or goof off for long stretches without having to worry about pending obligations or inconveniencing the wife in any way (not really an issue, but I work better when I don't have to second-guess others' intentions).

As both my roster of household chores and backlog of games/books/movies has grown over the past three-and-a-half years, every minute of my personal sabbath is precious and an hour spent talking shit on the phone is an hour NOT spent doing something I had intended on doing.

Posting to Armagideon Time on the weekends has also become something of a wasteful expenditure of time in recent months. The site's weekend traffic is always anemic and it's a pain to take the time to come up the idea for, then compose post that amounts to more than just a "funny" out of context image and a music link.

And yet here I am, typing away about it, when I really want to be downstairs rampaging through Liberty City's virtual streets. When I last posted something along these lines, some asshole commenter made a crack about my having an OCD.

That assessment was pure bullshit (and no one's forcing you to read AT, Mr. Anonymous Q. Shitheel). The reason for the weekend posts is quite simple: an awareness of my own sense of inertia. It's easier to keep with the daily schedule than to let my deep-seated sense of personal complacency creep into the mix.

The above serves as a long-winded introduction for the solution to my dilemma:

AT's Saturday Mixtape

This inaugural edition contains a selection of favorites from the driving mix CD-R's I used to cobble together before Super Lumina's CD player shit the bed and I started using our Zune instead. One of the tricky parts of compiling tracklists for driving mixes was negotiating the subtle, yet important differences between Maura's musical tastes and mine...because that woman is not afraid to let her opinions be known in the most brutal manner.

This mix runs heavy on the punk/powerpop, with some token electronica and alt-rock tracks tossed in to break up the monotony. Also included is the requisite "Yes, I know she hates it, but I'm the one making the disc" track, which should be fairly easy to spot.

what's a tortoise

To those of you wondering what was up with yesterday's post, there's a very simple explanation...

(I bet you didn't realize how good I look in a form-fitting black jumpsuit.)
Yep, Skrulls. It may sound a little far-fetched, but the conspiracy stretches far wider than you could possibly imagine.

Dave Campbell? Skrull. Kevin Church? The hardest-drinking Skrull in the comics blogging biz. In fact the only comics bloggers who don't pledge allegiance to the Skrull Empire are Mike Sterling (who is actually a Space Phantom), Chris Sims (secretly a Life Model Decoy with wonky logic circuits), and Dorian (who is, appropriately enough, a Manhunter).

It's been the reality for some time now. In fact, every mistake -- grammatical, factual, or typographical -- that has appeared in Armagideon Time was actually the result of Skrullian intervention. Every post, joke, or musical selection that has been less than inspired? Same deal.

The moments of pure genius are entirely my handiwork, however.

Tubeway Army - Are You Real? (from Tubeway Army, 1978) - Ideal mood music for those long Voight-Kampff sessions.

oh, the places you will go

Remember when I said that I wouldn't ever do a linkpost?

I lied.

Geez, Thor, it's not that big a deal....

A planet well worth exploring.

Dave reviews Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha in its entirety; as a consequence, Andrew now wants to read Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha in its entirety.

Say it ain't so, Kylie!

You have until Sunday to enter Ken's Oscar Oscar Revolution contest. So hop to it, kids!

I'll work all week to buy you things, even if I'm too tired at the end of the day to remember what you look like.

An old salt recounts his epic journey through the Shoals of Twenty-something. (I burned my boat on Underachiever Island's tropical shore long ago.)

The link between Defender and Deutscher new wave revealed.

Better than the Sears Wish Book. (Alternately, I can dream about you, if I can't hold you tonight.)

I would just like to point out that my birthday is coming up in a matter of weeks.

The B-52's - Roam (from Cosmic Thing, 1989) - Senior year was a long, long time ago, but this song doesn't seem to have aged one bit. It's all in the cheekbones, I'm told.

make no mistake

I'm taking a break today, for reasons I may or may not discuss tomorrow.

Here's something to tide you over until then:

tonight I can't hold a pen

Following up on yesterday's post:

I've scheduled a consultation visit for tomorrow afternoon, with the procedures to be performed on Wednesday. The discernible sense of urgency in my dentist's voice was a little alarming, but there's nothing I can do about it but hang in there for the next 72 hours. I never thought I'd ever type these words, but I'm actually looking forward to having a root canal.

Because I'm presently distracted by the pain-related lack of sleep and dark thoughts regarding the pair of vice grips in my tool box, I'm going into low-content mode for the next couple of days.

First up, I'm going to write up a prescription for a topical lowbrow palliative...

(from "All the World's a Stooge," 1941)
...to be followed with administration of a soothing musical balm:

The Replacements - Can't Hardly Wait (from Pleased To Meet Me, 1987) - Wester-borg speaks the truth. I'm looking forward to Wednesday like it was Christmas, only with fewer presents and more pulpy nerve tissue scraped out my pearly off-whites.

12 Days of Christmas - Day 4: goofs of the magi

There are a few reasons why Halloween gets an entire month's worth of posts on Armagideon Time and Christmas gets a measly week (and change). The primary explanation is that Halloween's spooky vibe appeals to me more than the retail industry-driven insanity that Christmas has become. There's also the fact that the Yuletide holiday season has long-since bled through the Black Friday (and, oh, how I hate that descriptor for the day after Thanksgiving) boundary, so that candy corn and toxic light-up skulls immediately segue into artificial evergreen trees, NASCAR^TM ornaments, and Christmas music played 24/7 on the local "oldies" (if by the term you mean Billy Joel's body of work and "Muskrat Love") station.

Too much of a good thing is bad enough. Too much of something that is already ambiguous in nature (not so much Christmas, but the foul dust that preys in its wake) is nigh unbearable. I'm hardly a standard bearer for traditions, but there was a natural, comfortable cadence to the flow of fourth-quarter holiday celebrations -- Halloween's ghoulish revels, Thanksgiving's harvest-tide feast, Christmas's whatever, topped off with New Year's clean break. I'm aware of the cui which bono from the present extended yet accelerated arrangement, but the net effect has been to utterly leech whatever charm the season once possessed.

Yes, I know there are movements to reclaim the "true meaning of Christmas," whatever the hell that's supposed to mean, but the omnipresent crush of marketed holiday cheer is capable of insinuating its way through all petty boundaries. Even the tinkle of my piss off the porcelain plays out the tune of Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmas Time," such is the season's insidious, unrelenting ubiquity.

The final reason why I keep the Christmas holiday festivities here limited to a shorter period of time compared to Halloween's is because of the dearth of material, or rather a dearth of material that hasn't already been posted recently elsewhere. Finding unique Halloween-related material was easy, even with a couple dozen other folks out there working in a similar vein. There's a greater latitude for selecting "spooky" -- which encompasses entire genres -- than for Christmas music, especially after I add the "I like enough to post" qualifier and my desire not to poach on others' turf. So no "Christmas Bop" by T. Rex or Oscar the Grouch's sublime "I Hate Christmas" this time round, even though both tracks made the final cut. I won't even bother with The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York," because it's almost a given that the song will occupy at least half the slots on the Hype Machine's Top 50 as the 25th of December draws closer.

I was horrified to discover that The Damned's "There Ain't No Sanity Clause" had already been posted last Monday over at the always excellent Planet Mondo, which I would have known if I hadn't fallen behind in keeping up with my favorite blogs. Sorry about that, PM. Your write up was far superior to mine, if it's any consolation. John over at Punks on Postcards has also put up a rather nifty Christmas Oi! compliation, which I had debated picking up at a used vinyl store back in the day, but the extortionate price and the presence of tracks by Splodge and The Gonads caused my to stay my hand. AM, Then FM, Mostly Ghostly and Wonderful Wonderblog are all presently offering excellent selections of music from Christmases past, and are well worth checking out, as well, because the odds of seeing OOP Perry Como holiday material here are pretty much nil...

Guys in luchador masks working elements of The Chantays' "Pipeline" and Del Shannon's "Runaway" into a surf instrumental version of a holiday standard? That's more my speed, by far.

Los Straitjackets - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (from 'Tis The Season For Los Straitjackets, 2002)

they're all dancing to a drum machine

Every so often I'll hit upon a potential topic, only to find that it rapidly spirals into utter unwieldiness. Yesterday morning, I was lying awake in bed, looking at the ceiling and contemplating the sentential logic behind Rick Springfield's assertions that universally "we all need the human touch" and specifically Rick himself "needs the human touch," and how it all leads somehow to an art-directed and choreographed pop version of Beckett's Endgame, when I got the idea of doing a post focusing upon touch-related songs.

With a couple witty comments already forming in my head (including a requisite dig at Phil Collins and "Invisible Touch" that didn't turn out to be as witty as originally envisioned), I booted up the PC and ran some archive searches to appropriate songs that I might have missed while compiling my mental list. What I got back was enough material to create a double disc themed compilation. Being so spoiled for choice made the process of selection that much more difficult: Do I go for cheap and cheesy novelty? Or do I pick songs I actually like? For the briefest of moments, I considered making a theme week out of concept, but being a WASP by birth and New Englander by nature (I was born in North Carolina, but on occupied territory), such a focus on physical contact runs counter to my core ethos. (It's all about the personal space, kids!)

I was on the verge of shelving the whole idea when I finally stumbled upon a workable angle to address the tactile sensation that's sweeping the nation. Can you figure out what it is? (If you can't, I pity you, though you may have a bright future ahead of you as a Newsarama board commenter or Amazon.com user reviewer.)

Hugo Montenegro - Touch Me (from Moog Power, 1969) - Why go with The Doors' original version when there's a perfectly bizarre moogified cover version just waiting to be inflicted on the listening public? It's that kind of thinking (along with all the comics-themed posts and copious amounts of self-loathing) that sets me apart from other music bloggers. Granted the whole "Switched On" concept loses something when the song being reimagined is organ-heavy to start, but the stereophonic gimmickry and the Tom Jones-meets-Up With People vocals more than make up for it.

Samantha Fox - Touch Me (I Want Your Body) (from Touch Me, 1986) - I can't hear this song without thinking of my high school best friend, who had a largish framed poster of Ms. Fox on the wall of his bed room. He may have even been a fan of her music (though it was tangential to her appeal as a pop star). He also had a white leather jacket, snakeskin boots, and a feathered mullet. (No Pontiac Firebird, though.) Alas, our friendship did not stand the test of time, as other forces -- punk rock for me, live action role playing for him -- conspired to come between us.

Cathy Dennis - All Night Long (Touch Me) (from Move to This, 1990) - Before she embarked on a successful career of penning appealing (Kylie's "Can't Get You Out of My Head") and appalling (Britney's "Toxic") dance pop numbers for other performers, Cathy Dennis recorded a string of dance pop hits back in the early 1990's, which I've become rather fond of with the passing of years. Ah, the wonders of nostalgic dementia.

(I was surprised -- in a good way -- when my wife confessed that she was briefly into the dance pop scene back in the day, and bought a number of singles by Dennis, Neneh Cherry, and Technotronic during that brief interval between her first and current punk rock phases.)

if power's all they really understand

There was a time when I made an active effort to keep up on the various comings and goings on in my areas of interest across the world wide web, but as my free time has dwindled over the past couple years, I’ve gotten to rely more and more on a handful of trusted linkblogs to pre-separate the wheat from the chaff for me. This is especially true for comics-related blogs and websites. There are simply too many to keep track of, and even Google Reader isn’t much help in organizing and prioritizing the endless flow of posts.

One of the most useful comics-related linkblogs is When Fangirls Attack, a well-curated and regularly updated clearinghouse of links to blog posts and articles dealing with feminist and gender-issues in the comics scene. Ragnell and Kalinara do a great job in presenting an inclusive collection of views, kept free of their own personal biases (which is how topic-themed linkblogs should ideally be. I’m an avid reader of Antiwar.com, despite the paleo-conservative/libertarian ideology of its maintainers because they make the effort to include a wide range of articles and commentary on the subject from across the political spectrum).

So when Dorian, the man behind the always-entertaining Postmodernbarney, started up Comic Gays, a linkblog along the lines of WFA, but with a focus on LGBT issues and subjects in the comics scene and related areas of fandom, it was welcome news, indeed. Even if the actual reach of the comics blogosphere is far smaller than what many of its members assume, it’s great to see new avenues of discussion open up, especially in areas where they intersect with egalitarian principles. There’s a strong current of knee-jerk conservatism in fandom which needs to be roiled from its ingrained opinions. Besides, a flippancy-free discussion of homosexual subtext in Silver Age romance comics makes for far more interesting reading than yet another shrill “DC is raping my childhood (by not publishing stories mirroring my fanfic)” rant.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before the linkbaiters crawled out of the woodwork. For those not up on hip ‘net lingo, linkbaiters are the Japanese beetles of the blogosphere’s rose garden -- folks who write deliberately provocative posts in hopes of getting their site/post referenced by the relevant linkblog. If one were to create a widely-read linkblog dedicated to ham sandwiches, five will get you ten that there will suddenly be a marked increase in blogposts concerning that particular comestible. It’s a quick and dirty means of generating attention (and hits) closely related to that “NOTICE ME” fan pathology I discussed yesterday. It wouldn’t be so bad if these attention-starved voices had something to add to the discussion, but all too often their remarks tread into the realm of outright trollery, being either contrary for the sake of getting attention or just skitching behind the issue du jour. The sincerity of writer (and in too many cases, sadly, the views expressed are sincere) matters less than the ready-made opportunity for virtual face time.

The Rondelles – Pay Attention to Me (from The Fox, 1999) - Sure, as long as you're communicating though femvox indie pop, and not through incoherent rants about why "femisitim" or "guy marrige" is harmful to society.

I’ve had a few of my posts linked to on When Fangirls Attack, but never did I sit down and begin writing with that being the express purpose of the piece, although I can usually predict what will get picked up by the site. (The exception being the Satin Satan post.) I write a lot of comics-themed posts and I’m a strong exponent of egalitarian principles; it’s a given that the streams will cross every so often. That said, I’ve been trying out to figure a way to get a post linked to by Comic Gays. I don’t watch Torchwood (though the ads are intriguing), I tend to steer clear of out-of-context “OMG Batman is SOOO gay for Superman” vintage comic panel humor (because only a rare few can do it right), and the posts I have made about gay rights issues are straightforward political polemics. The trollery route is right out, as I really don’t have it in me to convincingly play the part. (I can’t even bring myself to take the Dark Side path in the Knights of the Old Republic games.)

What’s a poor aspiring link-baiter to do except discuss Carol Channing’s performance in the 1968 flop Skidoo and its lingering effect on my psyche? Skidoo was Otto Preminger’s attempt at the most failure-prone of genres, the counter-culture comedy. Many ambitious directors tried their hand at pulling off such a feat, but even the best of the lot (Head, a bizarre and confusing self-skewering of The Monkees) fall into the category of “interesting failures,” and Skidoo doesn’t even reach those modest heights with its mix of familiar character and comedic actors (Jackie Gleason, Groucho Marx, Carol Channing, Mickey Rooney, among others) and very 60’s drug culture humor.

A critical and financial bomb upon its release, Skidoo became a legend among aficionados of cinematic trash, with the lack of a VHS or DVD release boosting its allure. I managed to acquire a copy a few years back, and finally got a chance to compare the legend to the real deal. It wasn’t the worst film of its type -- an honor that goes hands-down to The Phynx, an attempt to combine The Monkees with an endless parade of celebrity cameos. Skidoo didn’t so much pain me with its incompetence as cripple me with a sense of embarrassment for everyone involved. The feeling I got watching Jackie Gleason trip out on LSD and Groucho Marx smoking reefer was the same one I felt when my mom got tipsy on port wine and sang an out of key rendition of “Smooth Operator.” (Or watching Street Fighter: The Movie and realizing that this was Raul Julia’s last film role. Or seeing Robert Vaughn in TV ads for ambulance-chasers.) It’s a painful, but not an insurmountable experience for the hardened schlock enthusiast familiar with the mortifying sensation of witnessing People Who Should Know Better doing terrible things on screen.

If that were all the film had to dish out, it would be just another seen it/survived it/bragged about it bad cinema experience, but just when you think you’ve survived the worst, it pulls out a particularly nasty shiv from the waistband of its BVD’s and proceeds to twist it repeatedly in your gut.

I don’t have an opinion of Carol Channing one way or another, except as one of the familiar popcult presences of a 1970’s childhood, but her performance of the Harry Nilsson-penned “Skidoo,” at the film’s finale is the raw stuff of which nightmares are made. Something about the way her trademark raspy voice wraps itself around the chorus unlocks a deep-seated sense of primal terror within me, especially in conjunction with the manic choreography, relentless grin, and pirate costume with which she accompanies the song. It all leads to the bedroom, where it is implied that her character and Jackie Gleason’s will bump ugiles.

Sweet Blessed Providence, I’m going to have to sleep with the lights on tonight, and I just know that won’t hold off the night terrors.

Carol Channing & Harry Nilsson – Skidoo/Goodnight Mr. Banks (from the Skidoo OST, 2003)

please stand by

My webhost is having issues, so today's official post will have to wait until things get straightened out. In the meantime, here's Lene Lovich being Lene Lovich in the video for "It's You, Only You." This was one of "our" songs my wife and had played at our wedding reception.

Vacation II: Day 1 – Lazy Saturday Afternoon

My second scheduled vacation for 2007 has begun with the roar of a cantankerous lawn mower and the rumbling of thunderstorms headed this way. As the morning’s yardwork has left me feeling completely thrashed and the potential for nasty motherboard-frying surges is limiting the time spent on the computer today, I figured I’d use this opportunity to give my answers to the “Name five to ten songs that have impacted your life” meme AC tagged me with.

This was harder to compile than expected, as “significant” is a much different creature than “favorite.” Most of my favorite songs have had little impact on my life outside the enjoyment they have brought to me, whereas the songs that I can recall making an impact aren’t what one would necessarily expect, given the impression of my tastes inferred from my various posts.

First up in this roughly chronological list is a tie:

Dexy’s Midnight Runners – Come on Eileen (from Too-Rye-Ay, 1982)

…and…

Styx – Mr. Roboto (from Kilroy Was Here, 1983)

The awakening of my individual tastes in pop music came occurred somewhere between my tenth and eleventh birthdays. It’s not that I was unaware of pop music or didn’t have favorite artists prior to that, but my preferences were shaped by received wisdom, handed down by or picked up from my parents, my teenage aunt, or the older kids in the neighborhood.

Then, in 1982-1983, I made the evolutionary leap to an independent consumer of pop, aided by the plethora of local music video programs put together to cash in on MTV’s success as well as the debut of WHTT, “Boston Hit Radio,” which played the “hottest Top 40 songs” every hour on the hour. The goofy concept rock of “Mr. Roboto” and the faux Celtic soul of “Come on Eileen” struck a chord with young Andrew, and I would camp out next to the boombox waiting for both songs to crop up on ‘HTT’s extremely tight rotation cycle.

(Thank Providence I came of age when I did, while new wave pop was still in full swing. If I was born a few years later, I might have been scarred for life.)

Jumping ahead a couple of years:

Sam & Dave – Soothe Me (from The Best of Sam & Dave, 1969) – The better part of my junior high and high school years were spent as a soul boy, with a look and musical tastes akin to an independently invented version of mod revivalism. It was this track, discovered through The Blues Brothers (where it plays on the Bluesmobile’s 8-track during the fateful traffic stop), that ignited my burning passion for sweet Memphis soul and opened my eyes to a musical world outside the classic rock and heavy metal ghetto of my immediate circle of friends.

Circle Jerks – When the Shit Hits the Fan (from Golden Shower of Hits, 1983) – The first punk album I purchased was the Repo Man soundtrack, and so impressed was I by the Circle Jerks’ tracks on that LP, the second punk album I purchased was Golden Shower of Hits. My affection for California-brand hardcore (and hardcore in general) has waned over the years, but upon listening to this track again I found myself flashing back to junior year, staring into the bathroom mirror, preparing to make a personal paradigm shift by spiking my hair up with glob of petroleum jelly.

Crass – Sheep Farming in the Falklands (from a 1983 single, collected on Best Before...1984, 1986) – I came to the anarchopunk party late in my punk career. (Indeed, the music and message played a big part in my ditching the rigid fashion-punk template and making the Great Leap Forward.) More than anything else the band ever recorded, this blistering howl of righteous indignation and anger (for a war that had been over for nearly a decade at the time I first listened to the song) struck a chord with me, and echoes of the profanity-laced rant that closes out the piece can be observed in many of my political posts at Armagideon Time.

…and finally:

Rubber City Rebels – Brainwave (from a 1979 single) – In the spring of 2006, I was reading the copy of Simon Reynolds’s Rip It Up and Start Again that Maura had given me for my birthday. I got to the bit about Cleveland/Akron scenes of the late 1970’s, which provided a list of some of the lesser known participants. Most of the acts were known to me, if only through individual tracks on obscure punk and new wave compilations, but one act, the Rubber City Rebels, I’d never heard of before.

My curiosity led to a Google search, which in turn led me to this post at Something I Learned Today featuring a representative selection of the band’s material. Prior to my stumbling across the site, I was almost completely ignorant of the concept of mp3 blogs apart from Fluxblog and a couple others dedicated to more recent material (which really didn’t interest me that much). I spent the better part of a weekend exploring all Something I Learned Today had to offer, then embarking on a whirlwind linkjumping tour of similar sites.

At the time, I had been mulling over the idea of starting a blog, but my initial choice of focus -- comic books -- was already overserved with clever folks doing what I was thinking of doing, and better than I ever could. The discovery of the mp3 blog scene was a major revelation to me, and I discovered what my true calling was. Thus was Armagideon Time born.

I'm not big on tagging folks, so anyone who wants to take up the meme-baton and run with should feel free to do so.

arf arf effing arf

What’s that, Addy-girl? Andrew is buried under a bunch of household chores, made more time-consuming than usual by an unexpected trip to Medford? And as much as he’d have liked to have put up one of the long form essays he had planned for today, he had to cop out and opt for a really lame gimmick post?

Wow, Addy, that sounds…

The Primitives - Really Stupid (from a 1986 single, collected on Thru the Flowers: The Anthology, 2004) – Breezy, cutesy indie pop that I love just fine in small doses. More than two or three tracks at a time though and the sweetness gets unbearable.

many have tried and failed to shake my apple tree

I had another post planned for today, but in between some frustrating network problems at work and an unshakeable feeling of histamine-induced sleepiness, I couldn't give the subject the attention it deserved. Barring another unforseen crisis, it should go up tomorrow.

In the meantime, I'm just going to take the quick and easy route and let slip the hounds of nostalgia...



The Rock Flowers - It Takes a Real Man (to Bring out the Woman in Me) (from a 1971 promotional pack-in single) - One of these days, I'm going to find an intact Rock Flowers doll with accessories and record at a reasonable price on eBay and surprise my wife with an unexpected gift. This track came courtesy of Mondo Daddykin's much missed blog, which was a phemomenal source of cartoon/bubblegum/retro rare vinyl rips until he got tired of the petty bullshit from the peanut gallery and closed up shop. The song was ripped from a 35 year old plastic record, so the crackles and hisses are excusable ...considering that the song is so damn fine.

I would make a snide comment about how a disposable effort recorded to promote an early 70's doll sounds far better than the serious efforts of present-day Top 40 acts, but I think I'll just listen to this track again and let my surge of bile abate.



Mr. T - The One and Only Mr. T (from Mr. T's Commandments, 1984) - "You can pretend that Mr. T is real tough and mean." Wow, dissed by his own toy commercial. Or was it one of those truth in advertising deals where Galoob wanted to avoid any lawsuits about the doll's actual level of bad attitude and resilience?

I never meant to become an afficionado of all things Mr. T, it just sort of happened (long before all the other piteous fools hopped on the bandwagon). It's one of the dangers of retrology; ironic gestures, if repeated often enough, can develop into sincere appreciation despite one's best efforts to maintain an aura of detachment. It's a nostalgia-related varian of Stockholm Syndrome. I still can't sit through an entire episode of the A-Team though. It's way too much foreplay to go through for a generally unsatisfyling climax.

say yes to one and let the other one ride

Yesterday, friend CJ used my ice cream post as means of sliding past a bit of writer’s block. (I’ll never look at a creamsicle the same way again.) Today I’m referencing his post as a lead in to a brief look into the process – as much as there is one – I use in putting together theme posts. It’s all part of the 24/7 ouroboros buffet that is the blogosphere. Let the meta-goodness commence!

It all begins with a theme. Generally speaking, there are three ways that themes occur to me:

- inspirational – “Bolt from the blue” stuff.

- procrustean – Sometimes I’ll hear a song that I want to spotlight, and will weave an entire post around a certain aspect of it.

- opportunistic – This includes time-specific posts such as obituaries, tributes, commemorations, and holiday specials.

For some reason, I do better when I work on the fly. The ice cream and April Fool’s posts were conceived and written in the space of a half hour. If I put too much thought into creating a long form post, I tend to get bogged down by minutae, creating a sitiation akin to Leibnitz’s history of the House of Brunswick (i.e. excessively detailed and never completed). There’s a post I’ve been working on for the past week that’s been languishing in my documents folder because of tangential drift issues.

Track selection can be a tricky affair. While there are rare occasions where I’m able to figure out which songs I wish to use from the get-go, most of the time the process involves a bit of digging. The Windows file search utility and a glance at my archive spreadsheet, plus ample use of AMG, Wikipedia, and the Flex database are invaluable in this. When those fail, it’s time to make a trip to the attic and sift through my non-digitized music collection, which due to environmental hazards, is not the most pleasant of experiences.

(On a related note, for some inexplicable reason, any time I have to go upstairs to search for something, my bladder reflexively sends a burningly urgent “MUST PEE NOW!” signal to my brain, no matter whether I relieved myself before the expedition or not. Does this happen to anyone else, or is it just another irritating aspect of being Andrew?)

There are other factors to consider when selecting songs. Did I use a song by the same artist in the past month? I try to avoid dipping into the same wells too frequently for ethical and aesthetic reasons. (In all honesty, I could easily do what I’m doing here using the collected discographies of only a half-dozen acts – bis, The Clash, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Carter USM, The Byrds, and Lene Lovich.)

On occasions when there’s a wide selection tracks pertaining to a given theme (i.e. ice cream), I have to cull the pool down to a reasonably postable number. Some themes could easily warrant a four CD box set and I know folks who relish the task of putting such things together for their own use, but it’s not what Armagideon Time is about. When deciding which song make the final cut, I factor in both my personal tastes with the various songs’ levels of obscurity. There’s no point in my posting a song by UberSuperIndieBand if everyone is already familiar with it, and I’m apathetic about it.

Based on the feedback I’ve gotten, it’s my personal touch that sets this place apart, and I try to reflect that in the song choices. It’s not that I’ve necessarily “forgotten” or “shown no love” for an omitted track, it’s that I picked what resonated with me and what the readers might not have been aware of.

Throw in some rambling commentary and purchase links, find a vaguely relevant panel or sequence of panels from an old issue of Captain Marvel Adventures or some random DC comic book, and you’re good to go!

Big Drill Car – Freedom of Choice (from Batch, 1987) – Oh, no, it’s a Devo cover…and a very nice one, too.

The Lovin’ Spoonful – Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind? (from Do You Believe in Magic, 1965) – Remember when Dylan drove Nat crazy by repeatedly playing this song on the Peach Pit’s jukebox? That was a stunningly subtle way to show his inner conflict over having to choose between Kelly and Brenda. The early 1990’s were my personal “lost (part-of-a-)decade.”

In case anyone asks:

Hüsker Dü – Indecision Time (I used a Dü track a few days ago.)

Scissor Sisters – I Can’t Decide (Great song, like a raunchy outtake from The Phantom of the Paradise soundtrack, but no.)

Black Flag – Can’t Decide (Listened to this way too many times in college. My War was the worst choice for a breakup album ever.)

Twisted Nerve – Indecision (Interesting, but not the group’s best work.)

and I haven’t slept in days

It has dawned on me that I should have come up with some kind of plan before going back to daily posts. Granted, it’s taken me two months before I began to feel the burn, but I am feeling it in spades tonight. For the past hour or so, I’ve been reviewing various half-finished topics to see if there’s anything that could be completed with a minimum amount of effort. Then I realized that the obligation to post every day was self-created, and I shouldn’t rush something out the door for the sake of updating when the topic deserves better than that.

So, in lieu of anything weighty, here’s a much loved track from my library that perfectly captures my current state of being.

Alien Sex Fiend – Now I’m Feeling Zombified (from a 1990 single, collected on Drive My Rocket, 1994) - The undead like to boogie down, too. It's just that the putrefaction issue makes it harder for them to do so.

I am no one, no one!

Exorcist references and Emily Dickinson poems – they go together like Doritos and chocolate. There’s novelty for you.

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—Too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise—you know!

How dreary—to be—Somebody!
How public—like a Frog—
To tell one's name—the livelong June—
To an admiring Bog!

- Emily Dickinson, “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?”

One of my worst miscalculations in college happened during a New England Literature & Culture seminar. The professor was polling the class for its opinions on Emily Dickinson, and I said I thought her poetry was irritating and shallow, and that her proto-gothy introspection set a bad precedent for generations of aspiring young poets. How was I supposed to know that my classmates were all female English literature majors who revered Dickinson as a god? I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sound of twenty-one skinning knives simultaneously being drawn from twenty-one German army surplus knapsacks. It still sends a cold chill down my spine.

I should have realized that the incident was an indicator of my unresolved issues with women, a problem that went undiagnosed for almost thirty-five years until it was brought to my attention last night by a snarky asshole would-be internet psychoanalyst. The diagnosis came as quite the shock to my staunchly feminist wife, who has spent fifteen years in my company and never suspected the evils that lurked under my placid exterior. I think her exact reaction to the revelation was, “What asshole son of a whore said that about you?”

As if it mattered in the slightest. In some circles, being described as “somebody most of you have never heard of” could be taken as a compliment. In the circles I’m alluding to, it most certainly is. There are worse things than being a nobody, especially a nobody who has had his work referred to by some high profile online and print media outlets. If I could find a way to market myself to the lower tier comics blog demographic, my future would be assured.

Human Beinz – Nobody But Me (from Nobody But Me, 1967) – Ohio frat rockers take on the Isley Brothers.

Portishead – Sour Times (from Dummy, 1994) – Another track for that retro-spy-electronic mix CD I keep planning to assemble, but never get around to making the effort to do so.

The Nips – I Don’t Want Nobody to Love (from Only the End of the Beginning, 1980, reissued as The Tits of Soho, 2000) – Previously the Nipple Erectors, The Nips were Shane MacGowan’s pre-Pogues punk/mod band. It’s amazing how clear his voice sounded back then. When the wife and I caught a Pogues reunion tour last year, he was nigh-unintelligible and we had to reconstruct the words to the songs from memory based on musical cues.

gaining fame and claiming credibility

So, about the whole “nerdity” kick I’ve been on lately? It started off as an easy springboard for putting together ready-made themes, but I’ve come to enjoy the opportunity to pontificate upon and discuss the various related topics (fan entitlement, the nostalgia trap, and so forth) that come with the territory. Before settling on the mp3 blog gimmick, I had considered starting a comics-themed blog, but realized that there wasn’t a hell of a lot I had to say that wasn’t being stated more effectively elsewhere. The nerdity posts have allowed me to scratch that comics blogging itch without risk of infection.

It’s just as well I didn’t create a comics blog. How would I be able to live with myself if it turned out that Dick hated my blog? Or worse, put me on his “enemies list”? I’d probably cry myself to sleep -- not due to being hated (I’m used to that by now), but because I’d spent enough time blogging about comics to be hated for something I’d said.

If you happen to be reading this, Dick, I’d just like to state for the record that I’ve discussed Primal Scream with Graeme McMillan. I know Graeme McMillan. Graeme McMillan is a friend of mine. Kiddo, you're no Graeme McMillan. Hell, you aren’t even an Avi Green.

Elsewhere in the comics blogosphere:

Dorian’s “How Not To Blog: A Primer Born Out of Many Years Experience Blogging” is, by his own tag’s admission, “a thin veneer of satire hiding the rage underneath,” and as such, it’s right up my alley.

Ragnell has courteously provided a handy field guide to “The Twelve Levels of Comic Book Fan Agreement.” Forewarned is forearmed.

In the absolute “must read” category is Kevin Church’s “We Need To Talk: A Open Letter to Comics Fans.” It’s a highly articulate, well-composed howl of rage regarding dysfunctional fandom and how it affects the medium as a whole, and it’s something that really needed to be said. Change won’t happen unless we make it happen, people, and that applies to more than just comic books.

Here are a few tracks to watch the inevitably shrill fallout by:

Essential Logic – Wake Up (from the Wake Up EP, 1979, collected on Fanfare in the Garden, 2003) – To all those misguided souls who use the term “postpunk” to describe this year’s variant of whiny alt rock, this is what real postpunk sounds like.

Teenage Head – Ain’t Got No Sense (from Teenage Head, 1979) – The band’s mix of power pop, punk and rockabilly was very popular in their native Canada (that nation’s first “punk rock riot” occurred at one of their early shows), but never caught on in the States. Foolish Americans.

Christmas – Stupid Kids (from Ultraprophets Of Thee Psykick Revolution, 1999) – Underrated indie pop/rock out of Boston. The members of Christmas later went on to form neo-lounge act Combustible Edison. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around that fact.

Pet Shop Boys – How Do You Expect to Be Taken Seriously? (from Behaviour, 1990) – The answer does not involve impassioned defenses of Marvel’s Civil War or creating a blog specifically to piss and moan about other comics blogs.

everything we crave will be inside

First off, I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to comment on my last post. I felt a little dizzy from all the praise, but the consensus was that whatever I’m doing here is working for you folks. That’s nice to know, as I’m too complacent and old to change my ways at this point.

No real theme for today’s posts, just a collection of random thoughts with musical accompaniment.

-----------------------

Concerning last night’s Grammy Awards:

I’m not a fan of The Police, as I consider them the kind of “new wave” music that my parents would listen to (also see The Eurythmics). However, for all the hullabaloo surrounding their reunion appearance, I was expecting something other than “Roxanne,” a song so overplayed and over-referenced that it has become more of a punchline (Scrantonicity! Woo!) than an actual song.

It would have been nice if, instead of pandering to public expectations, the band came out swinging with something a bit more unexpected and challenging, like this track:

The Police – Synchronicity II (from Synchronicity, 1983) – My love for this song has nothing to do with musical aesthetics, and everything to do with its ability to act as a mnemonic macro capable of calling up all the wonders and terrors of an early 80’s childhood. I don’t know why my brain chose to place a nostalgia trigger in this song, and not a better-loved track from that era, unless it’s somehow linked to the way I associate certain 70’s TV actors with the smells of various deli meats and cheeses.

-----------------------

Speaking of 70’s TV, some kind soul has uploaded a condensed version of the notorious “punk rock” episode of ChiP's to YouTube. It’s a panic-mongering mainstream take on youth subculture (as pioneered by Jack Webb and countless “educational” films with titles like “Hippies: Smelly Red Dupes”) that would have had me seeing red back in my full on punk days, but now I think it’s hilarious as fuck, and as a bonus features a woman dressed like a streetwalking Raggedy Ann doll. Here’s the first part:



The rest can be found here and here. KEEP ON PUNKING!

-----------------------

This might be old news to some of you, but Irdial-Discs has made The Conet Project, a four CD set of shortwave number station recordings, available for free (with a .pdf of the accompanying booklet) at their website. I first found out about these mysterious transmissions and other shortwave anomalies through William Poundstone’s Big Secrets, but lacked the means to listen to the actual thing until I stumbled across these recordings. The written descriptions don’t do the genuine articles justice. There is something fascinating and unsettling about these multilingual alphanumeric recitations and electronic blip tones, leaving one with the feeling that they are eavesdropping on the static-distorted conversations of upper band phantoms.

Here are two sample recordings from the set:

The Swedish Rhapsody

High Pitch Polytone

-----------------------

While I’m digging into my bag of odds and ends, I’d like to put a plug in for The Dents, a local punk band that my wife has been raving about since she caught them during the intermission of last Saturday’s Boston/Philly roller derby bout. The Dents play tight melodic punk rock with some killer harmonies; just the sort of music my wife goes ga-ga for. You find out more about band (and score some sample mp3s) at their website.

-----------------------

…and finally, because I feel like it, here’s some nifty bubblegum pop and rock courtesy of the Saturday morning cartoon universe.

The Banana Splits – I’m Gonna Find a Cave (from We’re the Banana Splits, 1968) – How is it that four guys in psychedelic animal costumes, fronting for some session musicians (including Al Kooper, Gene Pitney, and Barry White), managed to create music that exceeds the entertainment quotient of current Top 40 artists by a factor of ten?

Josie & The Pussycats – Stop Look and Listen (from Josie & The Pussycats, 1970) – The slightly scatterbrained Pussycat drummer, Melody, was my first childhood crush, along with the girl who played Becky Thatcher on The New Adventures of Huck Finn. “Blondes, always blondes,” says my very dark-haired wife. Hey, it’s not the girl you bring to the dance; it’s the girl you leave with that matters.