Oh, my. Just keep handing me the jokes. This is (as Jeff Tartakov put it) "would be First Lady Marcus" displaying his *ahem* technique. Considering this "de-gaying" crusader is likely the next overly vocal homophobe due a savage outing, this pic's an even bigger gift that the first one!
Ohhh, Michelle Bachmann! You really shouldn't have! Giving me such prime comedy material, and all of it aged 14 and entering junior high! Oh, how I am struggling not to sink to the humor level this begs for! I knew that when I started seeing the level of clowns the GOP would be putting up against Obama in the 2012 race, the jokes would all start writing themselves. But this is TOO easy, TOO hilarious!
We're all thinking the same cheap shots, which Mrs. Bachmann just handed us on a silver tray. I say let's just keep thinking them. ;-)
Thank you for making this day so hilarious, Mrs. Bachmann. Keep it comin', girl.....
Last night, whilst stumbling around half-asleep on the internets, I made a curious/fun discovery about a record I've loved for years. Sometime in the early '80s, The Saints, one of my favorite Australian punk bands of the day, issued a tough little record called "Gypsy Woman" that I absolutely adore.
It wasn't until the last few years that I realized the track was a cover version of a song now considered an Aussie '60s garage punk classic. The band was called The Allusions, and "Gypsy Woman" was a big local hit for them in their native Sydney in 1966.
Now here's where it really gets fun for me: I discovered last night that "Gypsy Woman" didn't even originate with The Allusions! Seems the cat who originally made the track famous, earlier in the '60s, was none other than my favorite underrated '50s rocker, Ricky Nelson!
Nice, tough James Burton guitar break, eh? It gets even better than that: Look at the writer's credits, you'll see the tune was penned for Ricky by his bassist Joe Osborn and Dorsey Burnette. Yup, brother of (and band member in the Rock 'n' Roll Trio with) Johnny Burnette. And remember: Those two penned many of Ricky's toughest hits, such as "Believe What You Say" and "It's Late."
Yeah, maybe I'm a total nerd for getting so excited about this stuff. But I live for this kinda detective work, and love sharing it with you.
The second cup of coffee is just about done. Tune in soon: I'll be writing about Bob Mould's book. Cheers!
The Dirty Lookers: Somewhere, the front cover for the first New York Dolls album beams proudly. *smiles*
I've been a Denver-ite (Denverian?) for four months now. As of two weeks ago, I've moved into my first apartment here, and began training at job I feel optimistic I can hang onto awhile. It looks like I won't struggling so much. (That is, unless the House Republicans wake up a week from this coming Monday and realize, "Oh, shit! Guess the President WAS right about raising the debt ceiling and all that, huh?" But it's too soon after breakfast to be thinking about potential disasters, isn't it...?)
*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!
To the members of Congress: This game of 'tis-'t'ain't you're playing over the budget is complete and utter bullshit. You are holding our future as a nation hostage. Threatening to allow default is fucking criminal. If this happens, I suggest we, the American people, start a drive to have each and every one of you removed from office and vote in high fiber people who can do the job right and not put our future on the line.
To President Obama: You're not going to get any cooperation from these smug bastards. Just issue an executive order to raise the debt ceiling. Just do it. It's in your power. Then you guys can hammer out a budget. If you get threats of impeachment? So what? America will not begrudge you trying to save our skins. Trust me.
I'm so over this tug-of-war. I think we all are. This is what happens when we place our votes in the hands of politicians, rather than human beings. Maybe I'm being simplistic. But it sure seems simple to me. *shakes head* Silly earthlings....
P.S. - R.I.P., Amy Winehouse. You were the one pop singer out there who could actually sing, actually had good songs. So sad to see such talent go.
Okay, enough is enough! It was bad enough I lived through the '90s, which gave the world really crappy one-word band names like Tool and Helmet. It got to the point where a friend and I would sit around making up fake grunge band names, like Godpussy. (Actually, that one is pretty good, come to think of it.)
But every time I turn around lately, some young indie band comes along giving their band a really annoying name. Like Get Cape Wear Cape Fly. Or the one I saw this evening, Snake Rattle Rattle Snake.
WHAT THE FUCK?!! ARE YOU TRYING TO BE MAJOR NERDS AND LOSERS?!! DOES YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING GENERATION HAVE NO GODDAMNED CLUE WHAT IS COOL AND ACCEPTABLE AND WHAT IS NOT?!!
Okay, looks like I have to take you titbabies by the hand and SHOW YOU HOW TO NAME YOUR SHITTY LITTLE BANDS! Just so I can stop sounding and feeling like the cranky old guy yelling at you to get off my lawn. It won't make your music any better, nor will it make you cool or worth a damn. On second thought, maybe that's why your band sucks: BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT A CONSTITUTES A GREAT ROCK 'N' ROLL BAND NAME!!!
STEP ONE: NO SENTENCES - I'm sorry, but writing a book when you're trying to name your band is instant loserville. It didn't work in the '80s for Hornets Attack Victor Mature, Fishing With Elvis, or Duck Duck Goose. It really isn't working for you. You suck. And you will never be the exception to this rule.
STEP TWO: DEFINITIVE ARTICLES ARE YOUR FRIENDS - There's this word. It's called "the." Learn it, use it. Put it at the start of your band's name. You will thank me later. Oh, and always make sure it's capitalized.
STEP THREE: PLURALIZE - Dear Snake Rattle Rattle Snake: Your band would rock 100 times harder if you were The Rattlesnakes. Ask The Ramones, The New York Dolls, The Yardbirds, and so many others. Yes, there have been exceptions, like The Who, Buzzcocks, Big Black, Sonic Youth, etc. But remember, you suck. You're amateurs. I'm having to show you how it's done, because I've left you alone for this long, and look at the mess you've made. Trust me: The Rattlesnakes. Get Cape Wear Cape Fly? Either become The Capes or The Flies. Actually, I'd go with The Flies, even though two older bands cooler than you'll ever be used that in the '60s and then the '80s, respectively.
Okay, I'm done. No, you don't need to thank me. Just please stop giving your bands such shitty names! Enough, already! And while you're at it, maybe buy a Ramones record or two? Those '70s folk albums you're basing your careers on sucked back then. Thank you
Let's continue on with my very personal series on The Other '80s, the one which you'll never see anthologized in '80s necrophilia shows like "I Love The '80s." (See Part One here.) This is about an '80s that spoke more to alienated American kids who wouldn't be caught dead with an alligator on their chest. Who'd rather be in a sweaty, dark club on a Friday night slamdancing with 50-200 of their closest friends as they damaged their hearing, rather than seeing what wacky hijinks Uncle Jesse and the Olsson Twins were getting up to. Who were sure Ronald Reagan and Wall Street greed culture were destroying America, but were powerless to do anything about it except shout out loud, and maybe buy a Dead Kennedys record. It's a time that is not too different from the one we inhabit, which means we could use music and philosophy this loud, this abrasive, this independent, this different, wrapped in a lifestyle that emphasized breaking off and living in a self-sufficient, economical, ethical, and community-minded fashion.
That way of life was termed, in their unique parlance, "jamming econo" by one of its foremost practitioners, San Pedro's Minutemen. Much has been made about how these guys lived up to their name in song lengths. But they really cut across the prevalent hardcore grain: Going funky when they could have thrashed, and having jazz-worthy chops. And as lefty as they were, their's was more the populist politics of someone like Jim Hightower rather than Crass-style anarchism. And it got couched in George Hurley's explosive drums, a bottom-end from Mike Watt's "thud-staff" that is everything Flea wishes he were, and the passionate bark and nagging-itch, trebly guitar of this bouncing, 200 lb. ball of energy named D. Boone. The Minutemen knew what was up, they knew how we were living, as opposed to the images on TV of how we were living. They knew "This Ain't No Picnic."
Also on Greg Ginn's SST Records was the band who inspired the Minutemen to record a competitive double LP,Double Nickles On The Dime. That band was Minneapolis' Husker Du. Once they matured into their post-Zen Arcade work, they'd gone beyond the ringing metallic thrash that made their initial name into a burly and loud classic pop sound that leader Bob Mould would spend an entire solo career refining and expanding (including a highly successful [if brief] foray into leading a second band, Sugar). 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' "Eight Miles High", where they now sounded like a far more brutal and dangerous Buzzcocks. 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.
SST also, for a time, hosted a band who really rewrote the standard guitar vocabulary, Sonic Youth. This might partly have to do with guitarists Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore having served in the avant-rock ensemble of of composer Glenn Branca, who composed around masses of alternately-tuned electric guitars played really loud. Or blame it on the fact that Sonic Youth initially could only afford cheap guitars that only worked if they weren't tuned in standard fashion, and then had a drumstick jammed under the strings and got struck by screwdrivers. They found a beauty and a whole new way to write songs working in this fashion, resulting in music that could chime as well as scream and cry. There was certainly a time I thought they were the new Velvet Underground, and it thrills me they exist to this day as a prime example that you can thrive in a long-term fashion as a totally outside, self-contained art enclave.
Time to wrap this up and get on with my day. More to come, obviously. So long, and be inspired!
, one of my favorite Australian punk bands
of the day, issued a tough little record called "Gypsy Woman"
that I absolutely adore.
classic. The band was called The Allusions, and "Gypsy Woman" was a big local hit for them in their native Sydney in 1966.
!
guitar break, eh? It gets even better than that: Look at the writer's credits, you'll see the tune was penned for Ricky by his bassist Joe Osborn and Dorsey Burnette. Yup, brother of (and band member in the Rock 'n' Roll Trio
with) Johnny Burnette. And remember: Those two penned many of Ricky's toughest hits, such as "Believe What You Say"
and "It's Late
."
's book. Cheers!
-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.)
. That band was Minneapolis' Husker Du. Once they matured into their post-Zen Arcade
work, they'd gone beyond the ringing metallic thrash that made their initial name into a burly and loud classic pop sound that leader Bob Mould
). 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' "Eight Miles High"
, where they now sounded like a far more brutal and dangerous Buzzcocks
. 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.