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| The Dirty Lookers: Somewhere, the front cover for the first New York Dolls album beams proudly. *smiles* |
*AHEM!* Anyways, I've firmly fallen in love with my new adopted town, and am setting roots apace. I've even been enjoying some tentative explorations into my town's sounds. Denver is hardly Austin in the '90s (nor Denver in the '90s, for that matter), nor is it even NYC in the late '90s/'00s. But no place is, including Austin and NYC. But I am finding some crackin' rock 'n' roll here, though. One fragment of which actually rehearses right outside my bedroom door.
The Dirty Lookers comprises four long-time vets of Denver's punk scene (Pam Puente [who, full-disclosure, is my housemate], Sara Fischer, Gerry Feit, and Chris Kieft), crankin' out a juicy, bluesy New York Dolls
-moving-into-the-garage punk rock grind. Puente knows how to weave a three-chord ode to waking hungover and stinkin' of cigs and sex, and has a whiskey-and-tobacco-stained wail that would have done Kat Arthur proud in Legal Weapon
's heyday, or even Lynne Von in Da Willys
/Trick Babies
. If you're wondering where The Dirty Lookers are coming from, covers of Blondie
and Irma Thomas
should tell you a lot. (Even "Cry On" author Allen Toussaint
has given The Dirty Lookers' version his stamp of approval.)The rest of the world gets to meet The Dirty Lookers next week, when they release their eight-song mini-LP Audio Voyeur, followed shortly by their maiden tour of the east coast and midwest. Whatever Denver readers I may have can check the band out tomorrow, July 31, when they throw a free record release party at longtime Denver record store institution Wax Trax. Meantime, enjoy this clip of The Dirty Lookers ripping through Pam's "I did WHAT?!" anthem, "Whiskey, She's A Liar." Ciao!
. That band was Minneapolis' 
work, they'd gone beyond the ringing metallic thrash that made their initial name into a burly and loud classic pop sound that leader 
would spend an entire solo career refining and expanding (including a highly successful [if brief] foray into leading a second band, 
). The first indication any of us had of how the Huskers were changing and developing was a pre-Zen Arcade 45 of their cover of The Byrds' 
, where they now sounded like a far more brutal and dangerous 
. This clip, despite the rather low fidelity, really shows what a breathtaking, surging and dynamic arrangement Husker Du gave the song. Note how adeptly it whips the slam pit into fits and starts, too.
's 30-year-old protest classic "
," here taken at a slower, more classic punk rock pace than the more hardcore version on their 2nd 45. Still, 
knew this well when he penned "
" for his then-band, 
. I still can't figure out why he didn't include punk rock in the roll call of great musics America has given the world. And I could add a shitload of great artists (
, etc., etc.), poets (
, 
, 
, 
, etc.), and authors (
, 
, 
, 
, etc.):
took the stage at 
and played the national anthem. Here he was, a man whose country had long crushed his people, and he rose above that and became an artist of unparalleled vision and force. Then he applied that force to a song written by a pair of slave owners, which had become his nation's rallying cry. And as he played the national anthem in the midst of a brutal war we had no reason to be in, this former US Army veteran added a crying, wailing tone to 
as well as all the rockets redglare and bombs bursting in air we'd sung about all these years. It's hard to ever sing this, after hearing how Jimi did it:
and 
) and a parallel career as a rock journalist (check out his excellent recent histories of both 
and 
). (Actually, I haven't read the latter yet, so perhaps I shouldn't be calling it "excellent." John, think you can send me a signed copy so I can check its' excellence?) Anyway, before I get too Rev. Norb in these diversionary, parenthetical tangents, the point of this now-rambling paragraph is that John has asked me to do a blog for his excellent musical/cultural site, 
(or whatever) and learning to cook on your pitiful resources. (I've even been teased, in my search for recipes from my more talented-in-the-culinary-department pals, that I should start a series here called "Cooking With Napalm." Give me a chance to actually get good at this first, please.)
But now and again, my body tells me otherwise....
, who some authoritative rock critics like 
feel were 
had an impact, and his later band 
.") This whirling dervish of obtuse pop melodics, crushing volume and noise, and rhythmic thrust, Burma, like many bands I adore, never received their due until after they were gone, sacrificed to guitarist Roger Miller's worsening tinnitus. And like some seminal bands, Burma reformed in the past decade and played to larger and more adoring crowds than they enjoyed in their heyday. You can see why in this clip from their dawn, 1979, ripping into one of their best, "Peking Spring":
, the nasty mojo children of future recording studio genius 
, as controversial a figure as the American underground has seen. Big Black, Albini's introduction to the world at large, were gloriously explosive and dangerous: Sheet metal guitar tones, cement mixer bass, and the relentless hammering of Roland The Drum Machine (which was a big fuck-you to the then prevalent technopop and dance culture, as well as to naysayers who felt you couldn't rock with a drum machine). And to match the unrelentingly ugly sonic mood, Albini as a lyricist pulled back the rock that was American culture and scooped up the worms and bugs crawling underneath and rubbed them in your face: Racism? Check. Domestic violence? You bet. Small town boredom turned to petty destruction? Absolutely. An entire small midwestern town populated by pedophiles? Uh-huh. This was the sound of the 
gone mean and nasty and direct....
LP really touched a nerve in me. They sounded to me like a louder, nervier 
with 
as musical director on one hand, and what I always had wanted heavy metal to sound like on the other. And guitarist/songwriter Greg Ginn's knack for clawing at his own nerve endings and turning his own neuroses inside out in a painful fashion offered a different take on punk rock angst, one only implicitly political and less preachy. This was emotional, committed, explosive, intense rock 'n' roll that still stands to this day. Here's the lineup that created Damaged, with a young 
who had yet to see many gyms or tattoo artists....