At last, the final BEST OF 2012: FILMS

Mick, Keith, and Brian on the road in 1965: "Blimey! Is Tim gonna write about shepherd's pie again?!"

This might be the most difficult list for me to compile. I haven't set foot in a cinema since 2010, when I went to see The Runaways at whatever that theater is a block over from Amoeba Records on Sunset, the one that used to be the Cinerama. The ticket, the "artisan" hot dog, and the soda were all overpriced as fuck, and the film was a TV movie of the week on a big screen, despite the actors playing Joan Jett and Kim Fowley really nailing those characters.

Besides, I've got no interest in most of the crap being pushed outta Hollywood. Increasingly, I'd rather watch something indie or a documentary, if I watch new films at all. 

Which is why the only new films I can recommend from last year have to be a pair of Rolling Stones documentaries: The new edit of Charlie Is My Darling and Crossfire Hurricane.

I had seen a bootleg video of Charlie Is My Darling nearly 20 years ago. I'd picked it up at friend's record shop in New Orleans when I was playing there with The Hormones. It was a legendary, unreleased documentary the Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham commissioned, capturing the band on the road in Ireland as "Satisfaction" made huge stars of the band in 1965. That was all fine and well. But the new version of this unreleased film? Superior in every way: Sharper picture from the digital remastering, for one. And this edit is much better cinema. There's some of the best vintage performance footage of the Stones this side of The TAMI Show, for one. It totally captures the amphetamined sex storm they kicked up with a live audience in their heyday. Then it captures the distinct lack of glamour on the inside of the Rolling Stones: This was work. This is a working band. Ultimately, what really makes Charlie Is My Darling pop is extensive, candid, revealing Brian Jones interview footage used throughout. You truly get a sense of what the Rolling Stones lost when they pushed Brian away.

Crossfire Hurricane, however, is an epic. The band's story gets told for the umpty-umpth time, through current interviews and vintage footage both, most of which has never been seen before. The band do not appear onscreen at all for the interviews; you get these disembodied, elderly voices narrating in their cracked, phlegmy glory, a marvelous contrast to the youth unfolding onscreen. Yes, you really do mostly get The Rolling Stones Legend And Myth here, with the attendant varnish and ego-maintenance you don't get in Charlie Is My Darling (which also provides much of the early footage). And The Ron Wood Years are barely a blip on this radar - you'd be forgiven for thinking the band ended with Some Girls, going by this. But this is the first time the story of the Stones has ever made the cinematic sense it deserved. Which makes this a great movie, even if it's a bit self-serving as a documentary. Ultimately, I dig Crossfire Hurricane, and watch it often. And you're talking to a guy who has watched a lot of Rolling Stones footage in his time. Excellent.

BEST OF 2012: BOOKS

Feburary 2nd, and I'm STILL working on my Best Of lists for last year?! What the hell is my problem, anyway?! Guess life is too busy being lived to think about it. Plus most of my stuff is still sitting in a pal's garage in Denver, waiting for me to work up the scratch to have it shipped back to me. (And THAT will take awhile, as I found the solution to What I Will Do To Replace The Temporary Holiday Job At The Book Store is Getting A Two-Day-Per-Week Retail Gig And Finding Myself Inadvertantly Becoming A Full-Time Freelance Rock Journalist again. Which means I'm busy as hell and not going to see much in the way in cash until maybe a month from now. But it's all good, as certain annoying sorts like to say....)

So, since I've now got my brain properly hyper-caffeinated and Johnny Throttle's excellent England's-Finally-Got-Its-Answer-To-The-Devil-Dogs debut LP for the wonderful Dirty Water Records imprint damaging my hearing further, all I can do is search my fevered brain and attempt piecing together what books I read last year, keeping in mind I read on average a book per week. And not all of those I read are new. And I couldn't afford a lot of new books last year. Nor could I always find what new ones I wanted to read at the public library nor in my friends' private collections. Nor that I really want to keep digressing into the ozone like I appear to be at the moment.

No, this isn't a fucking book, you silly twit!

Among the new books I remember liking was certainly Johnny Ramone's posthumous memoir, Commando. A fast read, mostly due to its intended form (Johnny's brief reminiscence accompanied by others' voices), it neither misses the intended other voices nor needs them, nor feels skimpy. In many ways, Commando reads like both Johnny's right-ward politics and highly influential guitar style: Loud, fast, brutal, fun, funny, terse and economical. It also gains bonus points for its unusual packaging, which is reminiscent of a grown-up punk rock version of a Little Golden Book.

Then there's the literary debut of my long-time pal, the Rev. Norb. Besides becoming my favorite podcast DJ with his “Bubblegum Fuzz” show and a professional Trivia Night host in his native Green Bay, WI, the former Sick Teen/Sic Teen editor and MRR columnist and bandleader/frontman (Suburban Mutilation, Depo Provera, Boris The Sprinkler), Norbie became an author last year. It apparently was the best way for him to cope with being snowed in during a typical Green Bay winter. He decided to simultaneously tell the tale of Boris' history and explicate his hilariously dense lyrics for the band. What The Annotated Boris ended up being was as hysterical and smart as you'd expect Norb to be if you have even the thinnest familiarity with his work. It's also the most hilariously-overannotated book ever written! Seriously: The footnotes are as equally weighted as the text! It also reveals Norbie to be the seriously great lyricist I never really thought about him being (and unfairly so, I'll admit): Over-the-top funny and intelligent as you expect him to be, densely-packed with cultural references and in-jokes, and surprisingly angst-filled. I never thought I'd be saying this of my friend, as much as I admire him. But with The Annotated Boris, Norb could stake a claim to being a spastic American answer to John Cooper Clarke!

Then there's Punk Rock: An Oral History, from my boss at the Louder Than War punk site, John Robb. John's kind of my English cousin: A long-time punk rock musician in The Membranes and Goldblade and a respected rock journalist with Sounds and other publications. And this is not really a new book, but the long overdue American publication of a 2006 book of his. It takes the form of other punk histories like Please Kill Me and We Got The Neutron Bomb in allowing the participants' voices tell the tale, and yes, this is strictly focused on the UK. But unlike nearly every other book on the subject, Punk Rock: An Oral History DOES NOT presume punk died with Sid Vicious' last breath and the story there. Robb takes in UK punk's 2^nd/3^rd/4^th waves without sneering (another thing these sorts of books never do), and also takes in post-punk and offshoots like 2-Tone. Voices that frequently get drowned out in these books by John Lydon and the usual suspects also get their volume knobs boosted dramatically, such as Charlie Harper, most of The Damned's membership, TV Smith and Gaye Advert, Penny Rimbaud, etc. It's a truly worthy, fine, necessary addition to the punk rock bookshelf, very welcome.

And that's all about all I can stand of this exercise, for now. Now I have to wrack my brains and try to think of what movies I liked last year. 'Til then....

Best Of 2012, Part 1: Personal Bests

'Tis December, when us cultural commentators (even those, like me, whose opinions  no one really gives two shits about - I'm not delusional about how small my audience is: I look at Google Stats!) turn to summing things up in some sort of list. Which is really a load of masturbation. Who honestly cares what ANYONE thinks was the best record of the year was? I mean, really? It's all a matter of opinion, anyway. No one's an authority....

Still, taking some stock is good for the soul. And it keeps me occupied. I think the best action for me would be to post a list of the good things that happened in my personal life this year. Count your blessings and all that, right?

So, what made the busted ankle, living in vermin-infested motels, barely eating, and fleeing Denver by the skin of my teeth worthwhile? How about:

• Playing Music Again

(l-r) Tim Napalm and Dave Mansfield, Colorado Springs, Sept. 2012 (pic: Leslie Stoneburner)

2012: The year I was able to finally buy an amp and return to rock 'n' roll trench warfare.  I found myself in Dave Mansfield's Roxy Suicide, playing lead guitar to some smashingly glamtastic punk rock thoroughly steeped in Ramones/Dolls/Cramps seasoning. In the process, we played some storming dates, including some shows opening for Wednesday 13 and those power pop sleaze-rockers supreme The Biters. And I have to say: Dave's a fine songwriter and front-man who really knows how to work a stage and a crowd, while Mike and Olivia were as tight and powerful a rhythm section as I've ever had the pleasure to work with. I also took on a pair of unusual solo dates playing birthday parties, including a set of '80s new wave covers suitably retooled for my punk rock approach, and another set of Hormones/Napalm Stars hits rendered by just me, my Les Paul, and my Fender Super Champ as if I thought I was Billy Bragg or something. 

But the best thing to come from returning to rock 'n' roll was....

• The Alice Bag Gig 

(l-r) Me and Alice Bag, Wax Trax Records, Denver, CO., July 2012 (pic: Mike Carr)

A seminal punk rock performer you have immense respect for writes you at Facebook and asks if you'll play guitar for her. Do you take the gig? Wow, how silly are you? Alice was on the latest leg of the indie tour she's undertaken to promote her excellent book, Violence Girl, pulling into the local indie punk rock record shop and reading select passages, then performing a corresponding song with a local guitar player of her choosing. In this case, it was Denver's Wax Trax Records and me. This was an honor and a real pleasure. Alice is a real sweetheart and a powerful performer, her voice having lost nothing over the years. We enjoyed such a great personal and musical chemistry, we agreed we need to work together again. So, be looking for a duet or  two in the future. One of the greatest musical experiences of my life, seriously.

             
Besides, it meant I got to play "Babylonian Gorgon" with the original artist:

• Moving Back To Austin - Swore I wouldn't live here again, after the hash I made of things the last time I was here. But this is turning out to be the wisest move I've made in awhile. The community really stepped in and helped me in getting back on my feet, and my transition back has been smooth. If things can just keep on their current track, all will be fine.

          Besides, had I not moved here, I might never have had the following opportunity....

• Meeting Johnny Rotten  

Yup. It Happened! (pic: Chip Crowley)

NEVER thought I'd see this day! Yes, I had a very pleasant telephone interview with this major hero of mine in 1996, for The Austin Chronicle.  And I went to PiL's Fun Fun Fun Fest gig merely thinking I was seeing Lydon's fine new reincarnation of PiL, and seeing my old friend (and Napalm Stars producer) Tony Barber, ex-Buzzcocks bassist and now-Pil bass tech. I did not realize I would be led to John Lydon's backstage tent! Nor that I would have a very pleasant, wide-ranging, 2-hour conversation that ran all over the map. He bade me a warm farewell at the end. I genuinely felt I'd made a new friend. Not anything I expected from the evening, or from Johnny Rotten. Very pleasant, indeed.


Well, time to get on with my Mayan doomsday. I have a job to go to, apocalypse be damned! Stay tuned as I try to think of the best CDs, books, movies, etc., that I enjoyed this year. Ta!