The Old Punks Blog

Oldpunks Now A MP3 Thing

2007-01-01T16:13:00.000-08:00

I've started a MP3 thing at the oldpunks.com site

Oldpunks.com

End Of The Line (Blog Edition)

2006-04-11T15:22:00.000-07:00

Exactly one year ago today I started this blog as a continuation of a web zine I wrote for five years (oldpunks.com). It's run its course so I'm stopping. I think I'll let the old site die too so I won't have to renew the domain name.

Whatever motivated me to write and review five-ish times a week has subsided. Whatever points I wanted to make have been made, and reviewing cds takes the fun out of listening to music. I'm not a political person and I have no agenda to push. I don't have the answers and I don't pretend to. My goal in life has long been to avoid what I see as negative people and situations. I wish more people were smarter, nicer and more considerate so the world wouldn't be as screwed as it is.

My politics vary depending on the issue, but I can say with certainty that the most evil figure in world history has to be Karl Marx, whose theories have led to more misery and wholesale slaughter than anyone could have imagined. It's a mental illness where Utopia is achieved through genocide, revenge, resentment and perpetual misery. Its followers know this, but it's their way of exacting revenge on a reality they hate.

Thanks for visiting and please hit the links to visit other sites I hope will still be around for a good long time.

Review: Cowboys International - The Original Sin

2006-04-10T14:46:00.000-07:00

It's amazing what you can find for 75 cents. I've seen this album for-figging-ever in dollar bins. Ah, the smell of old moldy cardboard, second only to mothballs. Cowboys International lasted for about two years, with this 1979 LP coming in the middle. They're remembered as an electronic pop group, which is wrong and the same false designation given many bands, especially Devo for most of their career. They had a keyboard player like everyone else. It was no more important in the mix than the drummer or guitarists. I wish more reviewers were able to distinguish between pop and electronic. Later in their career they were said to be moving toward dance music, but as far as I know by then they stopped recording. Lead singer Ken Lockie went on to Dominatrix, but that's a whole other project.

Cowboys International were a great pop band in the mid-70's sense, but very updated. You won't find a finer example of post-punk neo-pop than what's on The Original Sin. Lockie singing evokes both The Human League and David Bowie. The songs take on various styles of pop and new wave, each with its own quirky personality and nice touches. The cover art is more fey than the songs within.

I'd say their contemporaries would be Aztec Camera, The Bluebells, Orange Juice and Squeeze. But not really. There's an eccentricity to the songs that makes them less commercial and therefore better. No two songs are alike but they come from the same sensibility. It's a shame records like this are left to languish.

Terry Chimes was the original drummer for The Clash, given the name Tory Crimes. He went on to play for Johnny Thunders, Generation X, Hanoi Rocks and Black Sabbath (?!). Lockie's pal Keith Levine (PIL) appears on the LP. It's said Lockie was a member of the old Sex Pistols' original gaggle of fellow travelers. Good for him (I say as I put my pointing finger in my closed mouth to make a popping sound as I snap it out on the side).

Review: The Queers - Live In West Hollywood

2006-04-07T15:41:00.000-07:00

Live In West Hollywood is more of an accomplishment than it is a letdown, but you can argue either side fairly well. On the plus side the playing is tight and the sound quality excellent. On the down side it lacks a human quality and after any ten minutes on the 31 track cd you get the point and want to move on.

The Queers are a great band and everyone should see them live at least once. They're America's #1 choice for when you just want to turn off your brain and act like a pinhead. For better or worse Joe King writes songs on demand like a guy at a party who can take five pieces of information from the crowd and instantly writer a song about all five things. If not that, then Queers songs never get deeper than their titles.

Blog By Dolby

2006-04-07T01:13:00.000-07:00

Thomas Dolby has a blog. He's now as bald as the law allows.

Review: Teenage Bottlerocket - Total

2006-04-06T16:16:00.000-07:00

A major selling point for Teenage Bottlerocket is the once part and now full-time addition of Kody, who fronted The Lillingtons, one of the best post-Ramones bands. Teenage Bottlerocket have only a bit in common with The Lillingtons in sound, being harder and driven by the sweet one-note-at-a-time guitar leads made famous by Screeching Weasel and The Queers. The appeal of The Lillingtons, one of them at least, was how Kody strummed out hypnotic 4-chord riffs.

You can sample the only Teenage Bottlerocket song that sounds like The Lillingtons here as an MP3 sample. That would be "Stupid Games". As a matter of fact it sounds something like "I Saw The Apeman (On The Moon)". Needless to say it's the poop.

Teenage Bottlerocket ranks up there in the upper middle of the best of Screeching Weasel, The Queers, The Methadones and The Riverdales. They're not a revelation but they are carrying on a fine tradition that as far as I know lies dormant.

More Like Black Market Geezer Take A Nap Grandpa! (chortle)

2006-04-05T11:38:00.000-07:00

His children seem to have a difficult time picturing their father as a punk rock pioneer.

"The record company sent promo posters to the house," he recalls. "I put one on the fridge, and I've gotten so much grief -- 'Dad, what are you doing that for? You don't even look like that anymore.'"

The Clash = Terrorism

2006-04-05T08:51:00.000-07:00

London calling to the faraway towns, now war is declared and battle come down

Review: Saves The Day - Stay What You Are

2006-04-04T16:34:00.000-07:00

Time again to review a cd by a popular band that's loved/hated by the young and tragically hip.

Stay What You Are from Saves The Day is listed as their best so I placed it on my personal victrola and turned the crank a few times. The word I want to use for it is serviceable, which I don't mean as an insult. It's very good actually, and if I was of a certain young demographic I'd go for this in a big way.

By my account, Saves The Day would be a third wave emo band, correlating nicely with third wave ska. There's some third wave ska I like but for me it's a pale comparison to The Specials or Toots and the Maytals. Saves The Day are poppier than what came before it, evoking Weezer, a band that fits yet doesn't in the emo category. The melodies are tuneful and the sing-alongs fun, but my gawd, if Radio Disney played emo this might be it. That's my way of saying it's music for kids who could easily be MY kids.

In general I think emo is a great genre, at least musically. It's creative, sonically sweeping and usually pretty peppy. The "emotional" aspects fly over my head. Lyrics are mostly sounds to me and I can't make out half of them anyway.

Anarchy In The UK (sub-titled: It's Not Funny, 'Cause It's True)

2006-04-04T16:29:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of Little Green Footballs,

And a string of crimes including common assault, threatening behaviour, sex with an underage girl or boy, and taking a car without its owner's consent, should normally be dealt with by a caution, the circular said.

How Are The Old Punks At Home?

2006-04-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

The Old Punk's Home

Olde Punks

The Sex Pistols?

Review: Ray Davies - Other People's Lives

2006-04-03T14:07:00.000-07:00

Other People's Lives, I'm sad to report, is not that special. It was in the works for years so I expected more of the songs to be more than Ray reading the phone book (as it were). I love Ray and The Kinks, especially their cheesy mid-70s output of stage-oriented rock operas that never had a chance. Ray rhymes well but as a lyricist he's almost the opposite of poetic. He's a descriptive writer long on factual details. Half the songs on Other People's Lives are slow numbers with musicians providing slight backup to Ray, who in essence reads the phone book of Ray Davies-type lyrics.

The cd opens strong with "Things Are Gonna Change", and at first I thought I had the wrong disc because the backing band is kicking a bit-o-ass in a way The Kinks never did. Ray's singing at first also sounded alien. I was reminded heavily of when Fred Shneider hired decent bands to fire up his fascinating (as in a car wreck) cd Just...Fred. The Kinks had the worst drumming, with its plop, plop, plop beat, so it's odd to hear a Ray Davies album with pro-active, sweeping drum patterns. Other People's Lives does have its share of plop, plop, plop, so that may be dictated either by Ray's insistence or singing.

"After The Fall" sounds like a track from Misfits, most closely "Rock & Roll Fantasy". "Next-Door Neighbour" is a nice ditty that sounds like Colin Moulding's music hall contributions to the last two XTC cds. "All She Wrote" and "Creatures Of Little Faith" offer inventive instrumentation, then "Run Away From Time" finds Ray in nice old form. After that though the sameness of Ray's delivery wears thin, a break coming in the rousing "Stand Up Comic".

Back to the music hall, I think Ray Davies arrived decades too late. He was where he was born to be when he appeared on the very first VH1 Storytellers.

Let's Have A _______, So We Can All Die

2006-04-02T19:20:00.000-07:00

Dr. Eric R. Pianka and an unidentified woman from the University of Texas at Arlington following a recent speech before the Texas Academy of Science in which Pianka endorsed airborne Ebola as an efficient means for eliminating 90 percent of the world's population. Pianka received an enthusiastic and prolonged standing ovation. Later he received more applause from a banquet hall filled with more than 400 people when the president of the Texas Academy of Science presented him with a plaque naming him 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist.

Danzig KO

2006-04-01T19:14:00.000-08:00

In 2004 Glen Danzig pushed a fellow and was knocked out for his troubles. Here's the shove by single blow account of the event and the film itself. Danzig should have had his hands up after he shoved the guy. Nice traps and back for an old guy though.

Middle School Whip-It

2006-03-31T13:48:00.000-08:00

Behold

Payday Punks

2006-03-30T16:16:00.000-08:00

Payday Punks gets funnier the deeper you read into it. Hit the site map and start clicking.

No one is really sure why Don hates faxless loans so much. Some of the Punks got him wasted one night off aerosol cans and glue, and Don told them something about a Frenchman pushing a no fax payday loan on his mother right when she first stepped off the boat. But who knows, Dirty Don is just a pissed off punk with an artesian gift and enough spray paint to cover Egypt.

It's Superman!

2006-03-30T13:12:00.000-08:00

The Fleischer Brother's dark and frankly depressing Superman cartoon shorts from the early 1940's are available to be seen here for free. This was the same studio that created Betty Boop and Popeye. People die and Lois can't go eight seconds without getting into trouble.

The Fleischers were hit or miss but their best work equals Disney's best. I'm a sucker for their "Color Classics" sing-along cartoons, found here. I dare anyone to defy the charms of "The Cobweb Hotel", "Ants In The Plants" ("Make him yell uncle, we'll bust him in the snoot!"), "Small Fry" ("Small Fry, hangin' round the poolroom, Small Fry, should be in the schoolroom"), "The Fresh Vegetable Mystery" ("The yolks on youz guys. I'm hard boiled.") and "Play Safe", which should not been seen on LSD.

They mixed live action and animation, and I always see faces in trees and buildings because the Fleischers anthropomorphized like mad.

Book Review: Dance Of Days - Two Decades Of Punk In The Nation's Capital

2006-03-29T15:14:00.000-08:00

Dance Of Days is a decent enough book. It tells stories well and covers as much as it can through the political activist-colored glasses of the author, Mark Andersen. The book was co-written (read cleaned up) by DC alt-journalism staple Mark Jenkins, who probably and thankfully removed the tear-stained confessional aspects of Andersen's writing that moistens the book's beginning and end.

The subtitle is misleading to some because it's not hugely comprehensive of every band and scene in DC, but Andersen was not a writer by trade but an active participant in the Dischord scene as an organizer for Positive Force, a DIY activist group. The book is slanted heavily towards politically correct assumptions of what is right and real, but in that regard its saving grace is Andersen's compulsion to point out the good along with the bad. To his credit, and in defiance of the rules of political activism, he insists on reporting the DC scene warts and all.

In the world of Dance Of Days, "meaning" is really important. Lyrics contain the answers to all life's problems and banging pickle buckets in the park across from the White House accomplishes a whole lot. Shows are remembered in perfect detail, and the right word or note creates synergies between band and audience as close to a religious experience as most are ever going to experience.

The major players of the scene are creative types full of the euphemism "contradictions". Ian MacKaye is ok even though he's pushy with ideas. The DC scene would rank up there with Passaic, NJ if not for him. Henry Rollins is pathologically hypocritical in everything he does and says. HR of Bad Brains is clinically insane.

It's safe to say Dance Of Days is not a history of the DC punk scene but a well researched set of remembrances of what one person found exciting and interesting. It's where you can read the line "They were trying to survive, searching for a tribe, for family, for fun" and maybe not puke. Maybe.

Review: Rites Of Spring - End On End

2006-03-28T16:09:00.000-08:00

Here's as good as any if you want a band history on DC's Rites Of Spring, the wellspring of emo in the emotional sense. Sonically they were a bit jazzy and trippy, where modern emo is more a post-grunge phenomena.

In 1985 they released their LP Rites Of Spring, which at the time I barely got into because I still wanted Dischord bands to sound like Minor Threat's EP's. I'm bad at growing along with bands and scenes. I came across End On End and figured since it was released in 1991 it was later material. I listened and it paled in comparison to my memories of the original album I haven't put on in ages.

Well, the joke's on me because End On End is the first album plus an EP and an added song. I'm surprised how timid (a relative statement indeed) these songs sound now, especially compared to Beefeater, who ripped into their album with a lot more fury. I also heard what Dag Nasty stole from them and made their own, but I also think the latter wrote tighter and more melodic songs. I guess it's about the lyrics, which I understood only a little without a handy lyrics sheet.

This memory from a reviewer on Amazon cuts the core of the matter with Rites Of Spring and emo in general: "20 years later, I can listen to the songs on this album and remember vividly the deep impact that some of them had on my life between 1985-86. "Drink Deep" was a song that had particular meaning to me because I listened to it a lot during a brief, but intense romance while on a European trip in June 1986. The girl broke it off near the end of the trip for fear of becoming too involved with me, and I can remember making her listen to "Drink Deep" in an desperate attempt to get her to apply the message of the song to our relationship. The message to me was live in the moment and don't let chances pass you by. Alas, she dumped me, and for the rest of the summer, I would tearfully listen to "Drink Deep" and the rest of the album when I pined for my lost love."

The EP tracks, which came out some time after the LP, sound like tentative demos. I like the EP better than the LP. I suspect Rites Of Spring is a band you need to know something about before you just go off and listen to them. They were important and influential, but I doubt this has aged as well as people's memories of them and "the day".

Alec Baldwin Hates Construction Workers From Long Island

2006-03-28T13:49:00.000-08:00

I don't pay much attention to either Alec Baldwin or Sean Hannity, but in this transcript Baldwin seems to think it's an insult to call Hannity a former construction worker from Long Island. And if this line doesn't cut like a razor, "You should go back to building houses in Hempstead."

With debating skills like that, how can the guy lose?

The Ballad Of Saint Pancake

2006-03-28T02:16:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Little Green Footballs comes this seemingly improvised Billy Bragg re-write of a Dylan song, celebrating the life and death of rich girl, terror-abetting, violence-loving, game of tag-losing uber-martyr Rachel Corrie, shown here burning a home-made American flag and raging, raging against the machine to teach the next generation of suicide bombers why their own lives are of no value compared to The Struggle. Here's Rachel now in hell for the karmic crime of living a life of hate and calling it love.

She died trying to protect tunnels used to smuggle arms into Gaza, weapons used to kill Israeli men, women and children such as in this great "resistance strike" when a pregnant woman and her four young daughters were repeatedly shot in the head at point-blank range, an act the Voice of Palestine called "an act of heroic martyrdom".

Review: Fire Engines - Codex Teenage Premonition

2006-03-27T13:49:00.000-08:00

Live from the men's room at the Edinburgh, Scotland Holiday Inn, it's Fire Engines! As I was listening to this repetitive set of repetitive songs I was thinking it may have been somehow worthwhile around 1980, but not today. Codex Teenage Premonition was released in 2005 but it's demos and live tracks from around 1980, so one point to them. I'll take somebody's word for it that Fire Engines were a great band, but this cd seems like a fanatic's only affair.

They came from the same scene as Josef K and Orange Juice, which doesn't bode well for those who like, respectively, coherent songs and staying awake. A fan on Amazon notes: "their modus operandi was NO BAR CHORDS, an approach that gave their kinetic dance-punk a wire-thin guitar sound perfectly complimented by cowbell percussion and funky, clunky drumbeats."

I'm a fan of asymmetrical, jagged, asexual funk as long as the funk comes last, and the cd opens well enough with "Sympathetic Anaesthetic". It got into 5th gear right away and never varied, making it to me a swell piece of math rock. But, most of the tracks not only sounded like the first, they held no surprises at all after the first six seconds. "The Untitled One" mixed it up a bit and "Discord" was decent, but the onslaught of sameness wore me down and I barely sampled through the second half.

I'd give Fire Engines more credit for being noisy if they didn't play the same song over and over again. I see how Pussy Galore might have been influenced by them. It's an interesting aesthetic that soon worked more like an anesthetic.

Screeching Weasel Live

2006-03-27T09:58:00.000-08:00

Concert from Youtube.com

I Can't Pronounce Baccaruda

2006-03-24T12:31:00.000-08:00

Ben Weasel linked to a video of The Barracudas performing "Summer Fun" in 1980, featuring the worst lip-sync job of all time. It's a great song but the old car ad that intros the vinyl is a classic slice of comic genius. It involves a beatnik and a professional yet stiff radio announcer, and it goes something like this:

Announcer: I'm a Plymouth dealer. I'm a dealin' man, and right now I'm giving the best deal ever on that fast moving fastback the Plymouth Baccaruda.
Beatnik: Hey man, the name of the Plymouth fastback is the Barracuda.
Announcer: I know ... I can't pronounce Baccaruda.
Beatnik: Oh well, look man, try this ... Say Ba
Announcer: Ba
Beatnik: Ra
Announcer: Ra
Beatnik: Cu
Announcer:Cu
Beatnik: Da
Announcer: Da
Beatnik: Now put it all together!!
Announcer: BA-BA-RA-BA-CU-CU-DA-DA!
Beatnik: Well, it ain't Barracuda, man, but I think we got a hit record!!

Son Of Rube Goldberg Device

2006-03-24T11:36:00.000-08:00

Done in real time on the 606th take.

Review: Space Cookie - Your CD Collection Still Sucks

2006-03-23T14:38:00.000-08:00

I lent this to someone maybe seven years ago and never saw either again. There's a 99.65% chance it was sold for drug money. I bought it last week on ebay for $3.01 plus $3.00 postage. It's a cd few know about but I like it a lot and if you see it used it'll probably be selling for about $3.01.

This 1997 collection of 7"s and stuff is great because Space Cookie not only write catchy tunes, they play each song like it's the last they'll ever play. Everything distorts either by cheapness or design, adding to the chaos. Space Cookie songs are like having a cattle prod shoved up your wazoo. The urge to spazz out is strong. I put them up there with The New Bomb Turks and The Automatics.

Some tracks that stand out are "The Kicks Wanna Rock (On Elvis' Grave)", "Rina" and "Concubine". The lead Cookie ran Reservation Records. Check out his presidential facial hair. Where's Bill's left hand, and why is that woman smiling?

Moral Equivalence As Mental Disorder

2006-03-23T09:50:00.000-08:00

Moral Equivalence is a debate tactic that enrages me since in practice it's a pretend way of sounding fair before you argue there really is no moral equivalence. It's Orwellian, and by the way, Orwell was anti-socialist. Hitler was a socialist and everything derived from Marx and Engels has proved to be a shitebox of human suffering. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Marxists are so fugged in this regard. You can't approve of genocide and be well-meaning, and as a last act of honor nihilists should all commit suicide before they hurt others.

The demented moral equivalence by Reuters is staggering:

ROME - The strong Western response to a threatened death sentence for an Afghan convert to Christianity looks something like a mirror image of the Muslim reaction to the Prophet Mohammad caricatures printed in the European press.

There have been no riots or sackings of Afghan embassies, unlike the violence that marked the uproar in Muslim countries after the Danish cartoons were published, but the shock and mutual incomprehension expressed in both cases are similar.

The difference lies in the issues at stake. In the cartoons row, Muslims stressed the sanctity of Mohammad, whom they say nobody, even non-Muslims, can criticize. The subtext was resentment against perceived Western prejudice against Islam.

Now, Western governments and societies are speaking out for religious freedom and against the death penalty. The fact many Western troops now help defend the Afghan government against al Qaeda and Taliban remnants heightened the outrage in the West.

Review: The Lawrence Arms - Oh! Calcutta!

2006-03-22T16:07:00.000-08:00

The Lawrence Arm's sixth cd since 1999, Oh! Calcutta!, should not be confused with the long-running Broadway musical kept alive single-handedly (literally) by Asian businessmen who went to see the nudity. Japanese men will crawl to Saturn to see nudity.

Chicago is America's most underrated punk rock city. I won't go down that road again, but Chicago bands usually don't suck so if presented with a choice between Podunk and Chicago, go wit da Bears.

The Lawrence Arms feature two singers who thankfully avoid the screamo-metal-hip hop traps. The music itself is as hard, fast and noisy as you can get and still be pop-punk. Not always, but often, I'm reminded of Jawbreaker played loud and fast. That's a good thing. The next to last track, "Old Dogs Never Die", is the only song I can point to as a single. I remember when every record had at least one or two singles. After that there's the kinda-country, kinda Social Distortion ditty "Like A Record Player". The first ten tracks are of a similar style.

I'm not saying I'm too old for this, but I remember it took me years to get used to The Bollweevils, another Chicago band I felt too old for in 1994 since I was a Naked Raygun fan. Oh! Calcutta! will grow on me I'm sure.

Review: Dig!

2006-03-21T16:01:00.000-08:00

This film should have been called Bathe! (Thank you!). Dig! is the tragic story of what happens when twenty-something stoners cut their own hair. The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols could have used some of that sweet record company scratch to get a shampoo and style at Supercuts.

Director Ondi Timoner did an excellent job mixing textures and styles, making much of the hand-held digital camera work look substantial. Many events are captured on film, and between both bands there's nobody with enough class to keep their mouth shut or not act as dumb as possible, so the narrative is pretty much always backed up with visual evidence. It's a fun movie to watch even if you couldn't care less for neo-psychedelic 60's nostalgia (The Joneses) and alternative pop (The Dandies).

The major players are lead members Anton Newcombe (Jonestown) and Courtney Taylor (Dandies). Anton is a loathsome prick, an insane genius if you like the crap music he writes, otherwise just a mental case who whines on stage and off like a child in the back seat of a car when his brother touches him. The movie ends on the note that Anton is not allowed to see his newly born son. He's of the "I'm Jesus and my farts are new rock classics" school, while Courtney is a nice enough but gap-toothed pretty boy who let's his record label blow $400,000.00 of his future earnings on a video so hysterically wrong there's Busby Berkeley dancers with cardboard hypodermic needles for bodies above the waist.

Between the two bands there hasn't been so much tambourine shaking since The Partridge Family weekend marathon on TV Land. The Joneses have a member, Joel Gion, who goes by the title "Spokesman For The Revolution". He plays the tambourine, sings (I think) and wears women's oversized plastic sunglasses. I kept imagining a "kick me" sign on his forehead that's a command, not a suggestion.

Genesis P'Orridge takes a break from hormone treatments to say The Brian Jonestown Massacre are the greatest thing since collagen injections. Dig! is very funny if you like to watch bad things happen to stupid people. There's a number of Spinal Tap moments, and enough idiocy to satisfy any reality show junkie. The Massacre's first album for a major is rejected because it doesn't have any "songs". Anton intentionally ruins an industry showcase gig by screaming and fist fighting his own band members. Then there's the horrific "Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth" video by the Dandies.

In the end The Dandies, the "lesser" of the two bands even in the eyes of Courtney Taylor, prove the commercial and charismatic winners, touring Europe after a song of theirs appears in a foreign commercial (another Spinal Tap touch). Their music isn't even that bad, whereas Anton strums a sitar, blows a harmonica and plays guitar like Dylan to create a whole lot of nothing certain people find amazing. His big comeback finds him unable to play because he's too busy complaining, and then he's arrested for kicking some audience dude in the head in what has to be the most telegraphed move in martial arts history.

My money was on the film ending with Anton dying somehow. He's still alive. What an anti-climax. Great, more crap from a genius for who knows how long.

Review: Ultravox - Ha! Ha! Ha!

2006-03-20T14:22:00.000-08:00

An unexpected blast from left field, Ultravox kicked major post-punk booty in 1977 on their second album while punk was still burning. Ha! Ha! Ha! is a far departure from the glam rock and melodic constructions of Ultravox. Ha! Ha! Ha! probably didn't sell well only because their audience was primed and ready for Roxy Music+, not loud fast rules. Joy Division fans have long pointed to the Warsaw demos as the band's punk experiment. Few know it, but Ultravox kept up with them step for step on Ha! Ha! Ha! (both sessions were from 1977).

What drives Ha! Ha! Ha! is a pounding Boogie Woogie pub rock feel and chaotic walls of noise. It's like Jools Holland arranged most of the songs but never bothered to record his keyboard parts. The walls of noise are part Velvet Underground, part No Wave. Together it's manic and quite danceable.

On a few tracks you get a whiff of "Sleepwalk" from their fourth record, which is a great riff to use when needed. The few mid-paced tunes end with an added panicked intensity as if making up for lost time. "Hiroshima Mon Amour" is the best known song from the album, and it's lushness did set the tone for their future works. At this point Ultravox is not yet a synth band by any means. They beat the crap out of standard instruments while using keyboards mostly for harsh drones and pounding rhythms.

They have their Eno moments but Ha!Ha!Ha! is not a pretty record (as in weak). It's a great punk record more people should know about. This ain't your puffy shirt new romance crap here, folks. This is great noise you can pogo to till dawn.

Punkymoms.com

2006-03-17T12:17:00.000-08:00

Punkymoms.com was featured in the O.C. Register. It's under new ownership, whatever that means. Check out that logo! Everybody knows an American faux UK '77 punk would never wear a Minor Threat shirt with that outfit. Get real! And what's that midget skinhead doing?!

They auction things on what they call Babybay. The Punky Pico de Gallo Platter in the food section was rated highly. The zine itself is very good, and the whole project looks very ambitious. Good luck to Punkymoms!

Compared To Skinheads?

2006-03-17T08:43:00.000-08:00

Sen. Schumer, Dubai Ports and "Skinheads"

Review: Stan Ridgway- Snakebite: Blacktop Ballads & Fugitive Songs

2006-03-16T16:05:00.000-08:00

I'd take a bullet for Stan Ridgway. I worked security for Wall Of Voodoo one night in 1982 and Stan sat next to me, asked my name, and then said, out of the side of him mouth as always, "So, tell me something about yourself." The nicest guy, hands down.

Snakebite, from 2004, is his best album since 1985's The Big Heat. I think his best songwriting was with Wall Of Voodoo, before his solo career as the great American storyteller of the imaginary, anachronistic noir west. "The Big Heat" and "Drive, She Said" were engrossing tales, but Stan didn't and couldn't write to that level all the time. Each song was expected to be a Raymond Chandler, James Ellroy and Raymond Carver masterpiece all rolled into one, and not even Stan could pull it off.

What one should expect from Stan is a group of songs you wouldn't mind hearing him play live. The big appeal of Stan Ridgway is Stan Ridgway, sitting at a piano lit by a single spotlight as cigarette smoke snakes to the ceiling, singing stories in a small club on a small stage. That's the stuff. I don't know if this is how he performs, but if not, he should.

Snakebite finds Stan with a catchier set of tunes, fascinating arrangements and a beautifully recorded cd that sounds organic and analog. The Delta Blues and a bit of roots country permeate the work, making this the first disc in a while where I imagine Stan and the whole band, not just Stan and a few musicians better kept in the dark. Here's the non-standard instruments found on the cd:

Jazzmaster guitar, squawk box, harp, wurlitzer piano, efx drums, sunblock, bug repellant, reed organ, fiddle, siren, harmonica, organ, handclaps, 2 string jawbone, french horns, mellotron, farfisa organ, celeste, flute, slide guitar, cello, viola, wooden swamp flute, dice, elka strings, sci-fi machine, violin, brass & monsters, brushes, angry birds, stylaphone, glockinspiel, trombones, carny drums, underwater bells, nylon & octave guitars, piano, PPG Wave, cocktail drums, banjo, tape loops, shovels and rakes, bamboo flute, bo guitars, tap shoes, beercans, spoons, baritone sax, hammer dulcimer, samples, hand drums, rhythm ace, train whistles, dustpan, trash compactor, saxophones, wurlitzer, mellotron, accordian, mandolin, nylon guitar, woodwinds and brass, cinema string quartet, popcorn box, marching drum, snake guitar, melodica, oberhiem, juno 106, moog bass, reed organ, mellotron, autoharp, marching percussion, woodwinds, hi- strung guitar.

Stan writes a great history of his involvement with Wall Of Voodoo, "Talkin' Wall Of Voodoo Blues, Pt. 1". I would still like to know what exactly went wrong. At times I detect a Lou Reed type delivery. Stan often sings like he's talking in tones. The lyrics are top notch all around. It's numerically impossible to top lyrics like "Oh, the people in the carnival, they all act just like kin / And you can't be in the middle when you're sleepin' with a Siamese twin / Oh, the dog-faced boy lifts his leg out in the pourin' rain / When you're travellin' with the carnival, there really is no shame / Nope, no shame". That's from "Running With The Carnival", which steals the happy riff from "Feelin' Groovy". Then there's this line "I gotta hang up now and crash into this house / Daddy's home!" Freakin' sweet.

Stan is the man, and I hope nobody's gunning for him because I hear bullets sting.

Lazy Day Photo Funnies

2006-03-15T15:35:00.000-08:00

Karate Punk

Not Punk Enough

Punk Jumps The Shark, Part 3.5 Gazillion

New Wave Pins

Skate Punk Zombie Costume (don't just take my word for it. Here.)

Punk Yoda Kitty

Child Abuse

Ass Pennies

2006-03-15T09:10:00.000-08:00

My favorite comedy sketch of all time, by The Upright Citzens Brigade.

Ass -Pennies

Added Bonus: I commute to and from work 25 miles each way on a motorcycle. This film scares the crap out of me. I would feel no pity at all if he died while riding like this.

Review: Gigantic (A Tale Of Two Johns)

2006-03-14T16:08:00.000-08:00

I like They Might Be Giants. I like them a lot actually, but at this point (and especially in 2002) I don't think they warrant a feature length film. Gigantic (A Tale Of Two Johns) is an hour-long appreciation stretched to avoid short film status. The same can be said for the Fugazi documentary.

Gigantic is a love letter to a band that deserves a bunch of hugs and kisses, so I don't fault it for that. Still, it reminds me of a 60 Minutes segment that lasts 102 minutes. Celebs sing the band's praises and speak song lyrics, Senator Paul Simon gives a lecture on President Lincoln, videos prove their cleverness, John and John participate fully and Joe Franklin, a god of NY kitsch, speaks of them with wide emotion, which for him is like a rock crying. Ira Glass and Sarah Vowell appear a lot, and it hits me that TMBG are a perfect NPR band.

The history of the band is interesting but I wonder if anyone would come away from it thinking TMBG were (and are) innovative in ways never seen before. Maybe in the context of alternative music of the mid to late 80s, but definitely not before that. The new wave era is littered with clever bands with clever gimmicks. TMBG rate highly on the clever-meter but they didn't invent that wheel. That's just the old guy in me telling you kids you don't know nuthin'!

Here and there I got the impression they were trying for the same eccentric vibe of True Stories, with the East Village of NY standing in for Texas. My favorite factoid from the film is that many of their early songs didn't have long sustained notes because they tended to shut off or rewind the thrift store answering machine they used for their free Dial-A-Song service. 718-387-6962 just keeps ringing but they have a website now.

There's no story arc, just a story. There's no tension, no conflict and no tragedy that had to be overcome. It's a nice movie about nice people who record nice music. Weeeeeeeee!

Find Chester In Your Town

2006-03-14T12:46:00.000-08:00

Remember, it's a sexual preference!

Added bonus: click on the squares to see photos of convicted rapists and child frickers in your area. Be sure to say howdy when you see them at the store!

3/16/2006 update: Toddzilla's comments are great. And I quote "Her face looked like a clenched fist."

Review: Manic Hispanic - Mijo Goes To Jr. College

2006-03-13T14:25:00.000-08:00

Manic Hispanic's third cd from 2003 is a little better than the last one, The Recline Of Mexican Civilization, but it's all good from where I stand. Not only are they great musicians who "get" the originals, the enhanced Spanglish lyrics and comical vignettes make their records much more than mere gimmicks. I've never heard the other big covers band, Me First And The Gimme Gimmes, but when I read "Me First and the Gimme Gimmes continue with a flood of covers done the in the usual Fat Wreck Chords fashion" I'm glad I missed out. Manic Hispanic rule the covers wasteland.

Here's the track list: 1. Trippin on Mi Ruca (Drinking About My Baby) 2. Brand New Imapla (Brand New Cadillac) 3. Tio's Got a Secret (The Germs) 4. Cruise (The Brews) 5. Barrio Love (Barbed Wire Love) 6. Creeper Is a Lowrider (Sheena Is A Runk Rocker) 7. My Homeboy Is a Joto 8. Big Heinas (GBH) 9. Menudo Morning Nightmare (Sunday Morning Nightmare 10. I.N.S. Took My Novia Away (The KKK Tok My Baby Away) 11. Crusher (The Crusher) 12. Get Up Your Late (You Drive Me Ape) 13. She Turned into Llorana 14. Lupe, I'm Free (The Damned) 15. Code Brown (TSOL) 16. I Want to Be a Cholo

I wish I knew more Spanish. I'd like to learn but I'm a tired, middle age man.

Punk Was Rubbish

2006-03-11T13:47:00.000-08:00

I found this article by accident but it addresses what's been going on in my mind as I read Dance of Days. I'm up to where Rites Of Spring, Embrace, Beefeater and others are creating a renaissance in the DC scene, the endlessly referenced Revolution Summer (aka Revolution Summer Camp). I can't stop laughing.

The scene is nth power earnest and really, really super important. It's desperately working to keep things peaceful, exciting, meaningful and real. Still, it can't keep itself from exploding, imploding and losing members to adulthood. It's the word "yearn" as a course, guttural sound, like a hissing whine or when last night's Mexican buffet insists on leaving the next morning.

"Jon Kirschten - Chris Bald's younger brother, who had started coming to shows in the last year - confronted some slamming skinheads in exasperation. 'I was nearly in tears', he remembered. 'I just took a lyric sheet and pushed it at the guys, saying 'Here, please read this.' Instead one of them gave Kirschten a hard shove, the usual prelude to a fight."

Printed lyrics soothe the savage beast! Maybe that's what Grizzly Man needed. Damn, I lived there the whole time and somehow missed out on this endless parade of teenage numbnuttery. The harDCore scene was a kidz only clubhouse but some great records came out of it and I gave them credit for being organized. Who knew they were also so goofy and hopeless.

One more thought. The book refers to an incident where Lefty, (get this) the black, female and psychotic leader of a gang of teenage racist skinheads, almost starts a rumble with bikers when her crew knocks over a row of motorcycles because they aren't American made. Riders of Japanese motorcycles are not "bikers". Bikers ride Harleys, and the day DC punks knock over a row of Mongol's bikes is the day their remains are found spread out over twelve counties.

Sloppy Dan Is Dead!

2006-03-11T11:23:00.000-08:00

Aged bag-o-crap Slobodan Milosevic died in his prison cell. Sadly it was from natural causes and not painful, slow torture like Action Jackson got.

Sloppy Dan oversaw a systematic rape campaign against the Muslim women of Bosnia, along with the regular menu of genocidal war crimes. A number of American Peace and Anti-War organizations are actually Stalinist front groups or fellow travelers, and they've offered legal and moral support to Sloppy for years. There's a seeming contradiction here but who knows what that could be.

If there's a hell, Miloseshit is ain't gonna be loving death.

By the by, when Bill Clinton was heckled as a war criminal it was in reference to him stopping Sloppy Dan and saving the lives of countless Muslims.

3/15/06 update: Of course Gnome Crapsky was a supporter of Sloppyshit

Review: The Mayor Of The Sunset Strip

2006-03-09T16:10:00.000-08:00

If I wrote this review twenty times it would come out twenty different ways. Let's see what happens.

KROQ disc jockey and scene maker Rodney Bingenheimer gets no respect. He's done so much for modern music, has asked for so little and has little to show for it except memories and an apartment full of memorabilia. Framed on his wall is Elvis' driving permit, given to him by the man himself. Director George Hickenlooper shows nothing but contempt for Rodney. The Mayor Of The Sunset Strip is a hit job from start to finish. So Rodney doesn't have a great radio voice. He's not forthcoming with information. He's had the same haircut since the 60s when he doubled for Davy Jones on The Monkees. He's a celebrity junkie. He has odd friends. His mother and father were shmucks. He wants to be loved but the object of his affection isn't interested. Big deal. Big effin deal.

Rodney was the John Peel of the United States. He played the original UK and NY punk records before anyone. His Rodney On The ROQ records were fantastic samplers of the original L.A. punk scene. He boosts bands he loves with the fanaticism of a pure fan with no agenda except to share his favorites with others. Still Hickenlooper chooses to make mock Rodney for his Zelig, Andy Warhol and Forrest Gump qualities. Worse, his attempt to reveal uncomfortable truths like in Crumb comes across as cruel and unusual punishment for a man whose only crime seems to be that he's the ultimate outsider type who somehow made himself the center of attention in the insider's world. Good for Rodney.

Special cruelty is saved for Ronald Vaughan, a.k.a. Isadore Ivy, an obviously mentally challenged man who yearns for fame with a passion you have to find touching (and also delusional). The camera stays on his cheap, worn out shoes for a few seconds and the only point I see is that the director finds this relevant. I was going to write he seemed harmless, but his infatuation with Jennifer Love Hewitt led to stalking and a restraining order. This was two years after the film though.

Kim Fowley litters the film too and I was constantly fantasizing him getting hit in the head with a brick. What a prick. Nancy Sinatra and Cher sing his praises endlessly, while David Bowie seems too aware of the camera to do anything more than act polite.

The Mayor Of Sunset Strip, for all its malice, is still well put together and an interesting history. Rodney deserves better though.

Review: Sleater-Kinney - The Woods

2006-03-08T16:05:00.000-08:00

Sleater-Kinney are an amazing band. Corin Tucker is the most interesting female singer in punk and for a three piece they manage to create intense walls of complex and emotional music larger bands can only hope to replicate. There's nothing bad I have to say about Sleater-Kinney. Now, why is it I can only listen to a few songs at a time before changing any of their discs?

2005's The Woods is their seventh studio release in ten years, and when critics lauded their new maturity I knew something was wrong. The general gist was that Sleater-Kinney learned to "rock", which often can only mean they slowed down, wigged out and, excuse the irony, cock-rocked. The Woods starts fast and ends slow, which means I can finally listen to every song I want to on a Sleater-Kinney cd before turning it off.

There's a psychedelic feel to some of the songs, and the complexity of the structures are more intricate, which is easier at a slower pace. In the middle of "What's Mine Is Yours" there's a psychedelic metal guitar wig-out so out of character I wondered if this was a bow to No Wave. My favorite tracks are "Jumpers" and "Entertain".

Before writing this I went back and listened to both cds of the Liliput compilation. There's a line here, Sleater-Kinney progressing way beyond what Liliput was capable of, but a line still the same.

Music Is Better Off Seen As A Commodity

2006-03-07T16:10:00.000-08:00

'Doc, my brother's crazy, he thinks he's a chicken,' and the doctor says, 'well why don't you turn him in?' And the guy says, 'I would, but I need the eggs.'

I'm 1/4 through Dance Of Days, an engrossing history of the DC Punk scene. I'll probably stop once it gets to years/bands I don't care about. Where I'm up to, Ian Mackaye is feeling really hurt again because someone said bad things about him, HR of Bad Brains is a Rasta prophet who gives a note to Biscuit of The Big Boys that reads "Burn in hell, bloodclot faggot", hate-machine Henry Rollins leaves the DC scene after a member of his SXE gang takes a baseball bat to the head in Philly, women are treated like non-entities, outsiders are shunned, heroin is a major reason why things don't happen... I could go on for a while.

Ian and Henry formed a crew to beat people up for fun after seeing firsthand an episode of the O.C. Reich destroying the L.A. punk scene. Let me type that again - the jock, suburban fuggknuckles who destroyed the original L.A scene inspired the prep school SXE gods to create a violent mob.

Dance of Days, while a decent book, is another collection of stupidity, rationalizations and royal fugg-ups. So-called creative people as a group are damaged goods, and maybe instead of idolizing them we should just humor them as long as they provide us entertainment. Maybe art is an insanity/genius thing, a savant thing or a cry for help thing more than about natural talent. Singers, writers, painters and poets are not better than those of us whose only skill might be to show up to work every day.

I, by buying a book, record or DVD, or by seeing a concert, am as important in the process of culture as the people who create the works. I help make it happen with my cash, and I validate them by paying attention to what they're doing. I pay their salaries, so give me my packaged goods and spare me your many personal failures.

I read books on music history so I can write about them. On one hand they give me information, but on the other they lead me to believe I'm better off not knowing how the sausages of music are made. It's really ugly.

Review: Hawthorne Heights - If Only You Were Lonely

2006-03-06T15:25:00.000-08:00

Every so often I check in on what the kids are listening to. Today found me with the latest from Dayton, OH's Hawthorne Heights, an emo-screamo band. There's two album covers the label, Victory, claims you have to own to get "the whole story". My favorite amazon.com review notes, "They have so much less screaming than their last album, which would normally have upset me..." Their homepage is teen-centric and angst-tastic. As long as emo kids bathe I'm all for it.

Each generation has its own emo. Mine included 7 Seconds and The Hated. In the 90s I loved Building by Sense Field, and others like Seven Storey Mountain, The Promise Ring and Jimmy Eat World. That lasted a while and now I focus on silent noise bands like Screaming Silence and Chorus Of Zilch. These are not real band names.

Like Molly Hatchet, Hawthorne Heights has three guitarists. It probably makes a difference live. If Only You Were Lonely is clever until a few songs in when you realize each song is just a rearranged version of other songs. The only change of pace is "December", which has prom night slow dance written all over it. The cd is designed to appeal to everyone at the same time, from headbangers to crybabies. It's a delicate balance and they seem to do it well.

The best is the screaming guy who makes himself heard here and there. The regular singing is delicate, hurt and melodic, and then all of a sudden the screaming guy belts out a line like he's both puking and gargling. It's not an evil scream like death metal, it's just funny. I'd love to know more about the screaming man and why he do what he do.

Post-Punk Defined, Finally

2006-03-06T12:50:00.000-08:00

Slate started an ongoing exchange about a new book on Post-Punk, a term as vague as Punk. The first entry has some timeline things off in my book, but hey, we all can't have my massive, swelling, itching brain.

A Riot Of My Own

2006-03-05T07:19:00.000-08:00

White Riot

3/7/06 update: In the comments section I posted a few first-hand accounts I found at the fine MP3 blog 7 Inch Punk. Nobody will ever forget The Great San Bernardino, CA Punk Rock Show Riot Of 2006.

Emo Lyrics Demystified

2006-03-02T17:07:00.000-08:00

From Videosift

The Worst David Bowie Superhero Comic Ever

2006-03-02T15:46:00.000-08:00

Look!

Vivienne Westwood, Still Sewing Truth To Power

2006-03-02T10:26:00.000-08:00

Vivienne Westwood, the oldest looking UK '77 punk, went from designing clothes made from plastic garbage bags to tea cozy head burkas.

Westwood told reporters she wanted to raise attention to the case of Leonard Peltier, a American Indian activist convicted for the 1975 killings of two FBI agents. "Leonard Peltier is innocent. He's been in jail for 30 years now," Westwood said, pointing to the invitation letter for her show, featuring a blue penis with wings and the word "Innocent."

Review: The Skatalites - Foundation Ska

2006-03-01T16:30:00.000-08:00

I know The Skatalites are the Beatles, Stones and Hootie & The Blowfish of Jamaican Ska, but the 2-disc Foundation Ska is too boring to be anything but archival. Only four (by my count) tracks have vocals, and "Dr. Kildare" is missing the lyrics I have on a great mix tape. Instrumental Ska is nice every so often, but not one after a fricking other.

If there's a Skatalites cd of all vocal tracks, please let me know. The Skatalites are great, but if you point to these repetitive instrumentals as the best 60's ska you'll turn off a lot of potential fans. Here's a great place to start your journey to the wonders of the first wave. Take it from me, Dr. Ring-A-Ding, the Great Wuga Wuga. This cassette I know by heart.

Review: MC5*: A True Testimonial

2006-02-28T16:26:00.000-08:00

So, ya see, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers started a band and...

This 2002 documentary isn't on dvd yet, a surprise. MC5*: A True Testimonial is a band-friendly history that tells a one-sided story fairly well. With a band few people remember you can't have a rise without a fall so the last third details the destruction of the band and the self-destruction of its members. Behind The Music made it ok for Wayne Kramer to choke up at what went wrong and could have been, but there's so much more negative craziness to the story it would have obliterated the happy nostalgic message. Rest assured whatever is hinted at was a lot worse in reality.

Kramer hosts the film, taking us on a scenic tour of the MC5's Dee-Troit. He's well spoken and the best preserved of the remaining band members. It's beyond strange that he refers to the MC5 wanting to "kick out the jams" 35 years ago, as if Gene Simmons would remember a time they couldn't play and all KISS wanted to do was "rock and roll all night and party every day".

Early on the MC5 played psychedelic hard rock driven by heavy use of LSD and pot. In the studio they could sound like the Grateful Dead. Some of it is really good and the MC5 were immensely inspirational to bands more directly related to punk rock as it's done today. Has their sound aged well?.....

MC5*: A True Testimonial is also a slice of the hippie revolutionary 60s, and what Kramer and the rest don't seem to get is that the revolution was a crock of crap. Nihilistic Marxism and LSD truly are a deadly cocktail, and between the gun-loving White Panther Party and John Sinclair's Trans Love Energies hippie commune the lessons of this film can only be to learn from other's mistakes. Why it's revisited as if it were a great thing is a mystery, at least to me. That's where Kramer butters his bread, but at some level, under the dogma and ego, he has to know the MC5 never had a chance and had only themselves to blame.

Drummer Dennis Thompson is as bitter and angry a person can be without their head exploding. He sits, surrounded by MC5 memorabilia and an unloaded rifle, raging against the machine that stopped the MC5 from being the most popular band in history. When asked why anyone should care about the MC5 story since it's only rock and roll, he verbally stumbles, gasps for words and then aims his unloaded rifle at the director and pulls the trigger. That's telling 'em, Dennis.

In music, history is not always written by the winners.

Review: Last Resort: A Way Of Life (Skinhead Anthems) & The Best Of

2006-02-27T15:17:00.000-08:00

Somewhere between The Shaggs and Spinal Tap lingers Last Resort, a first wave UK Oi band who managed to do most things wrong and still be popular. They grew musically as time passed (so did The Shaggs) but I'd say they have to be the worst Oi band to have a greatest hits collection. They're probably still around, releasing their last album in April, 2005.

In a 2003 interview, Singer Roi Pearce says "We have all learnt a lot musically over the past 20 years or so. So expect improved timing, phasing and pitching." The timing and phrasing are horrendous on their 1982 debut A Way Of Life, with lyrics so D.U.M.B. there should be laws against rhyming "free & society", "proud & crowd" and "fight & right". Their most famous song is "The Warriors", based on the film, and the lyrics compare Skinheads to a pride of lions. The Last Resort wrote songs for the dumbest and most violent of the non-racist skins. They're anthems of idiot pride with all the cleverness and insight of a Tom Green movie.

The Best Of is a bit better because the band either learned to play a bit better or they switched a member or four. "Soul Boys", "Rose Of England" and "Red, White and Blue" are the only tracks I can recommend to people who already like Oi. All others should avoid this like a Tom Green movie.

Oi kingpin Gary Bushell wrote: The Last Resort were a skinhead band from South London via Herne Bay, Kent, based around the Last Resort shop in Petticoat Lane, East London and financed by the shop’s owner Michael French. They too saw Oi as being bigger that skins. “Oi is uniting punks, skins and everyone,” growler Millwall Roi told Sounds in their first interview. “Now we’ve just gotta get away from football.”

Sex Pistols Just Say No

2006-02-24T14:51:00.000-08:00

You may not have read it here first, but if you're reading this than you're at least reading it here at this time.

"They're being the outrageous punksters that they are, and that's rock 'n' roll."

Review: Eraserhead

2006-02-23T14:29:00.000-08:00

David Lynch is Rainman with a movie camera and a large vocabulary. He's nucking futs but seemingly quite harmless - plus he's a great filmmaker. For years he was the only source for a Eraserhead DVD, and it sold for $40! Damn you Capitalism!! For some reason probably not fully understood even by Lynch himself you can now walk into (your local retailer here) and buy it for $20. Sure it doesn't come in the 8"x8" box with a 20 page booklet, but life is about choices.

Eraserhead came out in 1977. I saw it a number of times as a midnight show at the Mini Cinema on Long Island. I always managed to stay awake somehow, and at the time it made little sense because I never dared consider it might have an actual plot. It was just a series of weird events I experienced at the face value of its strangeness. Looking at it now it's really a very simple story expressed weirdly. After decades of watching strange and senseless movies the WTF factor is gone and the symbolism of Eraserhead is easy to figure to the extent that any simple Freudian theory is pretty much as good as another. Lynch claims nobody has interpreted the film exactly as he envisioned it, but the guy's so out there if he did explain it you'd think he was lying.

The feature length video of Lynch talking about Eraserhead is a treat. A slight wind sound blows the whole time. Lynch wanders from thought to thought and I finally understood why he's never recorded a commentary track. You might as well have Edith Massey discussing Desperate Living. Hearing Lynch explain his fascination with dissecting a dead cat I can fully believe the internet rumor that the baby was a puppeteered cow fetus. The baby is great.

Eraserhead was shortened 20 minutes after a test screening and it really did need it. Why he didn't keep most of the extra film is a mystery even to Lynch. His mother's reaction to the film was "Oh, I wouldn't want to have a dream like that." In Eraserhead, everything is fine.

Morrissey In The News

2006-02-23T13:26:00.000-08:00

The guy's huge in Mexico and a threat to both the US and the UK.

What the hell does he mean about music being an "untouchable platform"?

Review: The Church - Under The Milky Way (Best Of)

2006-02-22T12:00:00.000-08:00

I know it's unfair to judge a band on a greatest hits cd when their most popular song ("Under The Milky Way") sounds like just another track on a John Hughes soundtrack. Sometimes the hits packages lean toward the same vibe as much as possible. Still, half of this weighed down my eyelids, just like Echo & The Bunnypersons, and I'm not sure if the songs I did like were really that good or I was just happy they were faster and louder. Nothing here is bad - let's just say I can't imagine standing up to see a concert by The Church. I picture tables, toe tapping and staring into space when the mood strikes. Maybe it's thrash muzak with vocals.

Under the Milky Way: The Best of the Church collects 17 tracks, and while I don't care enough to see if they're in chronological order I noticed the best tracks were bunched directly in the middle. These were "Electric Lash", "A Month Of Sundays", "Shadow Cabinet" and "Myrrh". Vocalist Steve Kilbey sounds very much like Al Stewart. I don't mind Al Stewart but I never imagined anyone else had his voice, like a butch Tiny Tim.

Review: The Vindictives - Hypno-Punko

2006-02-21T14:13:00.000-08:00

I guess The Vindictives are still around since they recently started a website that promises a whole lot of something to come. Their first single came out in 1991, a few years after Sloppy Seconds so you could say they were another junk rock band. The Automatics came years later and as I saw it they had their own genre. The lyrics were snotty, the sound hyperactive pop-punk and the vocals bratty and obnoxious like Jello Biafra without the post-nasal drip.

1995's compilation The Many Moods Of The Vindictives is a definite classic, filled with funny lyrics and hooks aplenty. Party Time For Assholes, an album of covers, came out the next year, and it pissed me off to no end that all the songs were on one track. I don't like practical jokes and like even less paying for the privilege. When Hypno-Punko came out in 1999 I passed because I felt the odd track list was another setup for disappointment. This morning was the first time I put on Hypno-Punko. I listened to the whole thing four times in a row and can state, with no equivocation:

Hypno-Punko is one of the greatest punk records of all time

Hypno-Punko is a rock opera dealing with Joey Vindictive's victorious fight against illnesses that almost killed him. It's a bit like Joey Ramone's Don't Worry About Me (released a year later) except it was written after the fact and Vindictive is still alive. I forget the exact details but a few years back Vindictive wrote a long explanation in a punk zine as to why he had to quit music for a while. Whatever disease he had was turning his insides to jelly, and he passed out while driving and suffered a horrible crash. I'm really glad he survived because the man's a freaking genius.

I think some of the "eh" reviews for Hypno-Punko would change if they knew the story is real. I won't analyze each song because I could for a long time, but there's so much greatness of so many types here you won't believe it's all in one package. The vibrating vocal harmonies on "I Will Not, Pt. 3" are pure freaking genius. The last track is 44:39 long and is a loop of the fadeout chorus from the track before it. It's hypnotic, punko and as catchy as "Row Row Row Your Boat". I made it 7:45 before turning it off.

I give very few records a score of 100. Leatherface's MUSH is one. The DK's Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables is another. I'm putting Hypno-Punko on that list. It's perfect.

Alien Loves Predator - The Kosher Edition

2006-02-20T15:48:00.000-08:00

This hebe approves very much of this comedy classic. It's #171 in case it gets moved.

Review: Reagan Youth - A Collection Of Pop Classics

2006-02-20T14:23:00.000-08:00

New Red Archives packaged both Reagan Youth studio albums into one disc. It's hardcore's finest example of a band that went from hero to zero in the space of two records. The first album from 1984 is the fastest melodic disc to come out of an 80s NYHC scene mired in speed metal, hip hop stage antics and multi-racial white-power thuggery. The recording sounded enhanced mono, the drums hollow and the guitars cheap. It's a very, very good record.

After they broke up a second record was compiled in 1990, and it's hippiecore for Dead fans who also love Hendrix. The notes I took on these later tracks read along the lines of "hard rock hippie", "hippie metal" and "psychedelic hippie". I imagine Dave Insurgent had dreads by this time. Some people like it but some people also enjoy cutting themselves.

You must read this page to follow the wacky hijinx of Dave Rubenstein, who founded Reagan Youth with his pal Paul Bakija, who called himself Paul Cripple. Punk names are even dumber than mafia ones. As far as Dave goes, what a complete loser. I'm sorry, but anyone who sticks a needle into their arm to get high is a fugging loser to me. Read between the lines of this, "By now, between the violent assault and his continued drug use, he was no longer an energetic anarchist. He had become a bit disheveled, and many of his friends from the punk scene no longer associated with him." Imagine what it takes to be "a bit disheveled" in the NYC crusty scene. That couldn't have looked or smelled pretty.

Look, here comes rock bottom: "David began dating Tiffany B., a prostitute who worked on Houston Street. David had told his parents that she was a dancer. Tiffany supported the couple and their drug habit by turning tricks. David would often hang out on the street with Tiffany, waiting while she serviced a customer, and then going with her to score drugs."

I'm sorry. I find this all funny. Punks love their heroes to be losers, the stupider the better. Dave killed himself. What a tragic loss... excuse me a moment while I don't give a s--t. Today the news brought this report of a guy who hated life so much he kidnapped, raped and then murdered an 11 year old girl. He has a sad tale to tell too. We're all beams of light, perfect in our own way no matter our faults. (Sigh).

2/21/06 update: it just hit me that the New Red Archives history of Dave's life and death spiral shows no pity for him. He must have really been a prick to everyone. The word "disheveled" probably also referred to his personality since hygiene is a non-factor here.

2/22/06 update: It's funny that on the New Red Archives' Reagan Youth page they use "Ha Ha Ha" instead of the "Heil Heil Heil" actually sung in the song.

Kevin Seconds Pops A Gasket

2006-02-17T12:16:00.000-08:00

On an issue affecting literally TENS of people!

If it weren't absolutely true this claim might seem a little ego-aggressive:

"But honestly, when it comes to this kind of music, I not only play it and love it but I LIVE it and have helped pioneer the s--t and that’s not something anyone else who has ever done punk rock music on local commercial radio can really claim."

I Know It's True Because I Thought Of It First

2006-02-17T12:11:00.000-08:00

"Either there are a bunch of phantom females out there, or somebody is lying."

I always thought this meant there were a few women in every locale who offered, like Vegas casinos, the loosest slots in town.

Rock The Cashbar

2006-02-16T13:42:00.000-08:00

At least once a week someone finds this blog by searching for "Rock The Cashbar". The zombie of Joe Strummer is not pleased.

Review: Nine Pound Hammer - Kentucky Breakdown

2006-02-15T15:38:00.000-08:00

Nine Pound Hammer remind me of both The Lazy Cowgirls and Doo Rag. Like the Cowgirls they create a whopping wall of Chuck Berry/Ramones guitar and the energy never wavers. Like Doo Rag they're a punk band playing warp-speed indigenous music with authenticity and, yes, respect. Given the chance both could win over genre purists. For Doo Rag that would be delta blues while Nine Pound Hammer play poop-kicking, chicken wire roadhouse country rock. Doo Rag were from Tucson so they had to be respectful at all times, but Blaine Cartwright (he also led Nashville Pussy) and Scott Luallen of NPH came from a small Kentucky town, so while they do write hysterically funny songs they're celebrating their way of life, and no sissy city-fugg can think they're better.

Kentucky Breakdown from 2004 is almost as good as their 1995 opus Hayseed Timebomb. Sometimes I think they're ZZ Top played at 78 rpm. I love this stuff. Not only do you want to scream "Yee-Haw!" throughout, it boasts a ton of memorable lyrics:

"So roll me a joint, fix me a turkey pot pie
It's just another damn day on the long wait to die
I'll pretend to care about all the things you tell me
If you just come on over, Rub Your Daddy's Lucky Belly"

I Must Buy One

2006-02-15T07:44:00.000-08:00

Damn those kids!

Review: Punk Attitude - A Film By Don Letts

2006-02-14T15:39:00.000-08:00

Don Letts is a fairly historic figure in punk history for single-handedly introducing reggae and dub to the nascent UK punk scene. In 1978 he put together The Punk Rock Movie, which boasts the production values of a Mexican snuff film. In 1995 he released Punk:Attitude, a beautifully assembled and fairly expansive overview of punk history. It's probably as objective as you can get for a genre that loathes objectivity. It leaves out some things, relies on unreliable sources and was led by the nose sometimes by available sources and footage, but all-in-all it's worthwhile and not a bad interpretation of history.

Punk is the most subjective of all genres. It insists it's "about something", anything can be punk as long as a self-proclaimed punk says it's punk and the people involved are many times the least mentally equipped to give honest assessments. Punk:Attitude repeatedly turns to Henry Rollins and Jello Biafra as authoritative sources. Jello is functionally insane and Henry is as bitter as raw horseradish. Having a lot of strong opinions doesn't make you an expert, especially when you have axes to grind. Jim Jarmusch is the most level-headed of the bunch and when he appears the film feels like a documentary and not a profile of talented kooks. The hook of the film is that punk is all about having an F.U. attitude, as if the music it grew out of didn't. Right.

The film's website claims "PUNK:ATTITUDE takes a highly original look at this movement." Actually it's very much like Volumes 8, 9 and 10 of Warners' History Of Rock and Roll, a truly great series from 1995. I wish the film dealt less with horrid cliches such as punk was a rebellion against the 20 minute guitar/keyboard solo and everybody at an early Sex Pistols/Ramones show started a band. While they may be true to an extent the ideas were beaten to death in the last ten punk documentaries I've seen. I also quickly tired of everyone saying this and that was "punk rock". My favorite was "The Internet is a punk idea".

Punk:Attitude could have been new and innovative in a field of study stuck in the same old punchlines, but it's not possible when everyone has an agenda. I'm convinced only a true outsider can make the definitive punk documentary. Up till now they've mostly been alike and about as objective as the Manson Girls on Charlie. It has to be somebody outside the scene who can sort through the lies, propaganda and self-promotion.

Siouxsie Sioux is aging into Al Lewis. John Cale looks like he could pick up a truck. John Cooper Clarke appears to have the same clothes, glasses and hair he did almost 30 years ago. It's like a Batman villain aimed a prune ray at him. Put a mullet wig on poor Mick Jones and he could play Riff-Raff in Rocky Horror. David Johansen looks like an old transvestite ape (no offense). I want to rub Howard Devoto's massive, shiny and perfectly round head for luck. Captain Sensible looks healthy. So does Steve Jones. Ari Up is nuts but she has that Jewish Rasta Hippie thing down to a science.

Review: On The Road With The Ramones - Book

2006-02-13T13:23:00.000-08:00

Hopefully this is the last book I'll ever read that's composed mostly of quotes. It's a lazy way to write and a lazy way to read. It's not writing, it's editing. I could do it, so that's how I know no skill is required.

2003's On The Road With The Ramones was compiled by Frank Meyer with direct assistance from Monte Melnick, the Ramone's tour manager for their entire career, from pre and post. It ends just before Johnny dies but covers Joey and Dee Dee's deaths pretty well. Always the diplomat, Monte doesn't slash and burn but he can't help but be truthful, and he doesn't need to anyway since everyone else is cutting each other to ribbons as usual.

This is my fifth Ramones book so I know the story fairly well. I forgot that Bruce Spingsteen wrote "Hungry Heart" for the Ramones but was turned down. I also didn't know the first three albums, the trifecta of greatness, were written in the same period and recorded in chronological order for reasons only known to Johnny. I found most of it to be pretty damn interesting so I'd recommend the book to anyone with even a passing interest.

What Monte refreshingly brings to On The Road With The Ramones is an aura of believability since the band members have axes to grind and fish to fry. Tommy might be a reliable source but he didn't live it every day for the whole run like Monte. The books' worth it just to read the anecdotes of Joey's obsessive compulsive disorder. Touching down in the UK he flips out because he HAS TO fly back to NY and touch something, anything, at the airport. Poor Monte.

Review: Editors - The Back Room

2006-02-10T15:32:00.000-08:00

Hey, a band from that British city Johnny Rotten sang about with the woman who terminated her pregnancy and then it screamed "I'm not an animal!", just like the Elephant Man did, whose real name was John too.

Editors are so much like Interpol you can make a mixed cd of their music and nobody would know the difference. If I wasn't such a sucker for this modernized and mostly peppy take on Joy Division I'd deride someone's (anyone's) lack of originality, but as it is I'm just happy the extra product is out there. What the Editors add to the equation is a tad more New Order and guitar like U2's The Edge.

Most of the eleven tracks on The Back Room start me up nicely, "Munich"and "Bullets" my favorite. The bass guitar steps up and drives the songs like lead guitar usually does. This earns extra e-points with me. Their EPs are also great. The lead singer's favorite color might be blue. I'll update this review if the pope ever gets back to me.

Devo 2.0y Vey

2006-02-09T15:44:00.000-08:00

Oh my god! Have you heard?! Disney is destroying the legacy of Devo!!! No, wait, Devo did that themselves in 1984 with Shout, which yielded the classic hit, uh, hey look, a shiny object!

Devo 2.0 is a kid-friendly and kid-populated band who play Devo songs with lyrics cheered up and toned down for four to eight year olds. I've laughed hysterically at comments from the cool-crowd mafia either offended or sure it's a subversive plot on the part of of Devo to destroy civilization through the wee ones. "Subversive" is getting thrown around a lot. It's the self-centered ego-hump of paranoia applied to popular culture.

It's a quaint venture with nice songs kids should enjoy. There's nothing else to see, folks. Don't listen to anything Casale has to say about it since he's the king of the hipster doofuses. There's probably no person on this earth who feels his greatness has been slighted more than Gerald. De-Evolution is real, man!

Mark Mothersbaugh is also a general on the psi-ops war against conformity. Without him nobody would think for themselves:

Mark Mothersbaugh, Devo's lead singer, currently at work on a new CD, "When Pigs Fly," has just come forward to admit that he and his fellow bandmates put subliminal messages in their music. They have, he tells Wireless Flash News, instructed people to buy jeans because they're "the uniform of the proletariat."

But that's just the tip of the subliminal iceberg. Mothersbaugh says he's sneaked the message "question authority" onto the soundtrack of "Rugrats, " for which he wrote music. And says it's "entirely possible" that a cereal commercial he worked on secretly featured the phrase "sugar is bad for you," just to be subversive.

Review: The Soviettes LP, LP II and LP III CDs

2006-02-08T16:24:00.000-08:00

When you look up The Soviettes on Amazon the list page also offers The Epoxies, which is the wrong comparison except to say by the third cd Annie of The Soviettes learned to control her voice in a similar fashion as Roxy Epoxy, or maybe Martha Davis of The Motels. Roxy is the better singer, but no offense.

If you listen to these three discs in a row there's a progression through the short history of Grrrl punk from Bikini Kill to more recent Sleater-Kinney with stops for Cub, The Donnas, The Buzzcocks and even a Joy Division guitar lick thrown in for yuks. It's mostly based in power chord pop-punk, and they make every song rousing and interesting on some level. The Soviettes are also good at rendering "emotional" guitar chords, which I trace back to Cock Sparrer and always loved on Sloppy Seconds records.

I like Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill and their ilk like The Soviettes but never find myself putting them on for entertainment. I do love Cub though and will never part with my Anti-Scrunti Faction LP. Pretty Girls Make Graves are a few times more interesting to listen to but you should sample a few tracks from each cd and see what you think (you can do this at both allmusic.com and amazon.com)

Review: Hey Is Dee Dee Home? DVD

2006-02-07T14:57:00.000-08:00

Hey Is Dee Dee Home is mandatory if you want to see Dee Dee Ramone talk about Johnny Thunders and his own tattoos for an hour. Released to cash in on the death by heroin overdose of Gummy The Stabbing Hobo the year before, it's an interview of Dee Dee by director Lech Kowalski for an unfinished Johnny Thunders documentary, whose other finished work is Story Of A Junkie. There's a theme with this guy.

The Dee Dee who sits for this might be the drug-free one he claims to be, but who knows. He's president of the good posture club for sure, and the way his body and face moves reminds me of Charles Nelson Reilly. Dee Dee was always fun to read, look at or listen to -- in a sadistic way since he was always only moments away from some kind of insanity. Better this than sticking a finger up GG Allin's fudge tube. Recounting a domestic dispute, his psychotic girlfriend Connie pulled a butcher knife from her purse and Dee Dee was lucky enough to bat it out of her hand with a broom handle. Then, as the maestro tells it, "I went to go cop. I thought I'd make her happy.. and I got stabbed that day. I came home all bloody. Then we made up." Then he gives the standard Dee Dee look of extreme innocence, a gentle soul stranded in a crazy world.

If I had a nickel for every time he uses the word "cop", as in buying drugs, I'd have maybe $1.25. Buying drugs seemed to be his full-time job. He tells how Thunders demanded he cop drugs to earn the right to hang out with such an important rock star. I don't know, Thunders looked like a small, strung-out ferret to me so I take Dee Dee's side. Dee Dee also wrote better songs, including "Chinese Rocks", which Thunders stole.

Dee Dee was clinically nuts and on a psych 101 level you can enjoy this as an exercise in mental pathology. Dee Dee the reluctant heroin addict. Dee Dee who can't be within a mile of H without falling off the wagon. Dee Dee the passive-aggressive knife nut. He never portrays himself as pro-active, it's always Dee Dee taking abuse until he can't take it no more. The "good person" Dee Dee whose revenge fantasies might shock even Jack The Ripper. Oh yeah, he talks about himself in the third person, as in saying the shirt he's wearing is "Very Dee Dee-ish".

Hey Is Dee Dee Home is a chore to get through even at an hour but it ages well in the mind. His two autobiographies are definitely worth reading.

Rube Goldberg Device Caught On Video

2006-02-07T11:46:00.000-08:00

I'm constantly referring to Rube Goldberg and constantly being looked at like I'm making this stuff up. Here's proof Rube lives!

Review: Department S - Is Vic There? CD

2006-02-06T15:35:00.000-08:00

In the future, every band will have their 15 minutes of website. There are two cd collections of Department S tunes, the longer one with live tracks called Sub-Stance. Mine is this one - Is Vic There? The band history is worth reading as an example of the spirit of the day - especially the spirit of Stiff Records. Here's a good post-mortem interview with guitarist Mike Herbage. I'd take the swindle aspects of their tale with a shaker of salt because everyone's filled to the hat-line with poo.

Department S are best known for their 1980 single "Is Vic There?", but I remember 1981's "Going Left Right" being just as popular were I was standing. Hearing this collection it's obvious they did most things right but did drift into the shallower end of the new wave pool, culminating with band members wanting to copy ABC. They cut their loses just in time. Is Vic There? collects the 12 tracks from the recorded but non-released album Sub-Stance and adds single b-sides. The album tracks start with post-punk new wave and drifts into funky dance numbers. The best songs are front-loaded but the last two tracks are solid. The b-sides go left right too.

At their best you can compare them to The Teardrop Explodes, The Psychedelic Furs and Wall Of Voodoo. Herbage's guitar is killer but I still prefer WOV's Marc Moreland. At their weakest they're Haircut 100, Duran Duran and Bow Wow Wow. As a low-point they blow disco whistles on "Somewhere Between Heaven And Tesco's".

Department S deserve more recognition than they probably get and for fans of post-punk new wave I highly recommend this. The keeper tracks are fairly mandatory.

Are These The End Times?

2006-02-04T15:45:00.000-08:00

A punk e-store is selling a belt-buckle with a knight mask that flips up to reveal a dead guy's face.

Imagine the visual on that gag, won't you?

Cookie Monster Vomiting

2006-02-04T12:11:00.000-08:00

I recently described the singing style of my friend Seth's favorite bands as the Cookie Monster vomiting. Well, it seems the Cookie Monster thing is old hat. Here's some metal-speak that flew over my head at the speed of "wha?":

Before going further, it's important to clarify exactly what constitutes genuine Cookie Monster vocals. Really, the only genres in which vocalists use that particular style are death metal and its close cousin, grindcore – bands such as Napalm Death, Carcass, Obituary, and Suffocation, whose focus is, or was, death, decay, and other such existential dilemmas. This vocal style is not to be confused with the rasping, higher-pitched shriek of Norwegian black metal bands such as Darkthrone, the thick-necked barking of weight-lifter metal bands like Pantera, or the anxious roar of current Headbanger's Ball favorites like Shadows Fall.

Fashioncore Is Out Of Fashion

2006-02-02T14:39:00.000-08:00

My pal Ratface posts a very special episode of her blog today, speaking truth to power about the #1 cold sore on the lip of the underground hardcore/emo scene -- Fashioncore, which started with men wearing women's jeans but spread to eyeliner and gawd knows what else, taping it down for a smooth crotch? Boys Keep Swinging, boys always work it out.

Rat's witnessing what might be her first natural cycle of a music scene created, developing, rising, growing fat and old, and inevitably dying. My little girl is becoming a woman (weep). Like the Byrds sang:

There is a season - turn, turn, turn/ And a time for every purpose under heaven/ A time to be born, a time to die/ A time to plant, a time to reap/ A time to kill, a time to heal/ A time to laugh, a time to weep/ A time to build up, a time to break down/ A time to dance, a time to mourn/ A time to cast away stones/ A time to gather stones together/ A time of war, a time of peace/ A time of love, a time of hate/ A time you may embrace/ A time to refrain from embracing/ A time to gain, a time to lose/ A time to rend, a time to sew/ A time to love, a time to hate/ A time of peace, I swear it's not too late!

Review: Propaghandhi - Potemkin City Limits CD

2006-02-01T13:38:00.000-08:00

I have no idea why Propaghandhi put Potemkin in the title of their latest cd since it references deceptions of prosperity and happiness put on by communist regimes to dazzle foreigners. In this context it's like a German calling Bush a nazi. Maybe it's one of those lies that reveals a greater truth. ok.

A staple of the Fat Wreck Chords lineup, Propaghandhi until recently were a snotty and goofy slappy-drum, reverse circle rodeo pit pop-hardcore band typical of the label. This new record is, as a fan points out on Amazon, "Progressive Trash". To me it's more like, "Hey, you got speed metal in my pop-punk", "And you got hardcore in my emo." I can't stand metal in any form but it's not the featured sound of the disc, and I actually like half of this a lot. There's a good amount of emo in tone and pacing, and the added hardcore elements only make it that much louder. Here's where I plug Seven Storey Mountain, who also did this very well but without the metal.

On humanistic principles I'm automatically against political pedophilia but the lyrics aren't as in your face stupid as Anti-Flag, and they're dumped towards the back. In a recent interview one of them laments past shows where dogma was endlessly preached between songs. Perusing their site I can accept they're sincere in their intentions, and even though they reference Marxist scumbags Noam "Gnome" Chomsky "Crapsky" and Howie Zinn, they at least have the good taste to not link to the usual Stalinist front groups.

Original Propaghandhi singer John K. Samson left the band in 1997 to form The Weakerthans, one of the most boring bands in alt.rock history. Their debut cd flew out of my collection faster than a vegetable out of Al Bundy's mouth.

Review: Wire - Send

2006-01-31T13:06:00.000-08:00

Wire has a website. Excuse me while I look at it........and..done. 2003's Send is comprised of seven tracks from the two Burn and Read EP's (2002) plus four new ones, appearing after twelve years of side projects, DJ work and fizz-widdling. It's a great record and about fricking time.

In the last few years a number of great bands decided to put their self-indulgence on the back-burner and release albums with relevance beyond the usual suspects of record store clerks and kool-aid drinkers. I thank The Rentals, The Strokes and every other band who enhanced nostalgia for a time when punk and new wave were variations on the same theme, and it wasn't a crime to dance and enjoy yourself. Wire were strict followers of the anti-art creed that dictated a band should never cater to the desires of their fans, and better yet to avoid all eye contact and give 'em what they least want. Send is exactly what the people want, and Wire had to be aware that if their first album after twelve years was another The First Letter they might as well pack it in for good.

Grounded in walls of noise and straight ahead song structures, Send recalls the trifecta of their first three albums and adds the pounding intensity of Killing Joke. Drummer Robert Gotobed (no relation to Holly Golightly) is really a drummer here, as opposed to the percussionist of earlier albums. "Comet" and "Read And Burn" are my favorite tracks. "Being Watched" has a funky Peter Gabriel feel but the lyrics are lame ("You like to be watched and be the watcher too"). "Nice Streets Above" and "Spent" have that Killing Joke zeitgeist while "You Can't Leave Now" is slow and gothy. "Half Eaten" sounds like the "The Name Song" ("Banana-fana-fo-fada"), which is great if you can do it with your friend's names. Be the hit of any post-punk progressive pop party.

Send is great. It's everything it should and needed to be. It's today, 1977 and next Tuesday. Buy it, copy it, and cut off people's heads with it like the alien bad guy in the Dolf Lundgren film I Come In Peace. Dolf has a master's degree in chemical engineering. So there.

Review: The Frighteners (Director's Cut) DVD

2006-01-30T15:38:00.000-08:00

I felt compelled to pick this up because the theatrical cut of The Frighteners always seemed to be missing something, and after the Director's Cut of Leon: The Professional blew me away with its extra 15 minutes I figured Peter Jackson wouldn't let me down. He kinda did because the film is still a confused mess - one I see maybe once a year because I love Dead Alive beyond human measure.

The making-of documentary is four hours long. This edition provides the first Peter Jackson commentary, and once the deluxe Dead Alive dvd comes out with all deleted footage, a making of, commentary and a hat with this guy on top, I'll crap my pants and cry like Mrs. Alito.

On the plus side, the cast is great, especially Jeffrey Combs, whose extra few scenes should never have been cut. Jackson is great at filming action and he knows just how far or close to shoot a scene. The interplay of live and "ghost" actors looks great considering the sheer complexity of making it work.

On the downside the script veers away from sense and some of the CGI shots don't work. After seeing this and Hellboy (ten times) I'm convinced CGI should mix with by never replace live actors in scenes with live actors. In an obvious sizing error The Reaper goes from taller than normal human size to what must be twenty feet tall and wide. Frighteners has a scene where the police shoot wildly in a crowded room, which they'd never do. The worst script error is the scene where three babies fly around the room and when Michael J. Fox comes in to save the day he's exposed as a con artist in a newspaper article. But what about the freaking flying babies!??!!*&%^#!!

I like this movie but they shouldn't have written it as it was being filmed, ya know what I'm sayin'?

Review: Bloc Party - God Bless Bloc Party DVD

2006-01-28T14:48:00.000-08:00

Warning: really bad pun at end of review.

God Bless Bloc Party is a bit of a gip because half the listed songs are seen in the documentary and not very much live at all. The concert portion of the DVD ends just as it's warming up. Show's over folks, drive safe (lights flicker off). I'm going to trade this back in for credit.

Bloc Party are themselves a great band and Silent Alarm a treasure if you like The Cure, Joy Division and Gang OF Four condensed like milk. I just sampled the Remix album of Silent Alarm and it's bad - bad bad not good bad.

I watched fifteen minutes of the documentary because Bloc Party aren't that interesting and whoever put this together took random/mundane footage and combined it with concert clips blender fashion using every visual effect on hand. No offense but most bands are not worthy of a documentary, and if I want to watch a skinny shirtless Asian kid who looks like both a Jewish accountant and Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite eat a lot of food I'd join the fetish site.

Singer and guitarist Kele Okereke has personality plus and is fun to watch. Matt Tong on drums eats and doesn't like talking about influences. Gordon Moakes (bass) and Russell Lissack (guitar) are from that planet of skinny pale guys who seem personality free but friends swear they're wild men once you get to know them.

The concert footage in the doc is so disconnected and artificially flavored it doesn't seem live at all. The short and sweet concert portion is much better, even with 47 cameras in place, both static and swooping, with cuts so quick it's more subliminal than real.

If Bloc Party were anarchist vegetarians the hidden message might be to Smash The Steak.

Today's Fancy Word Grouping

2006-01-27T09:22:00.000-08:00

Contained in this nerd-wonk article on changes at the State Department is a great saying. The phrase I like is in bold letters:

The institutional culture of the State Department is frequently contrasted unfavorably with that of the Defense Department. Whereas the dominant ethos of the latter, being of a military outlook, is said to be "action," especially in danger zones around the world, that of the State is contemptuously said to be "talk," mostly in posh European capitals. One observer who worked with both departments relays a common, but telling stereotype: "Defense takes in ordinary people and achieves the extraordinary; State takes in extraordinary people and achieves the ordinary."

Hot Butter Popcorn

2006-01-26T14:08:00.000-08:00

I've always loved the 1972 Moog classic "Popcorn". You can hear it here in enough versions to make you puke. Written by Gershon Kingsley in 1969 and recorded by associate Stan Free under the name Hot Butter, it pre-dated the guh-oofy Hooked On Classics records but came way after Muzak. It sits alone in music history as an odd little creature neither fish nor fowl, like "Video Killed The Radio Star". I think it's pretty cool and radical for 1972.

It opens with a solid tone neither warm nor cold, like a pleasant emergency broadcast signal. The moogs kick in along with a live drummer who works over his kit like Buddy Rich before he's about to have an organized seizure. Cheesy yet lush strings come in later but I focus on the single note progressions of the popcorn sound, which move up and down the scale like muzak emulating vocals with the piano. At first it's clumsy, like each note is a major effort, but soon Free's hitting each note true. And in muzak fashion I make up lyrics like:

"I love popcorn, yes I do, I love popcorn, how 'bout you?..."

Kingsley was a Moog pioneer: "Kingsley continued to experiment with the Moog, recording two Moog albums for Audio Fidelity. Impresario Sol Hurok, fascinated by Kingsley's work, hired him to lead a Moog quartet at Carnegie Hall in early 1970. There were two catches, however. First, Kingsley had to convince Robert Moog to build the three other synthesizers he needed. Then he had to hire and train four musicians to play them. He ended up auditioning 150 players to find the four he needed, and the group's initial performance drew a range of responses, from an outright slam by The New York Times to an enthusiastic call from Arthur Fiedler. Fiedler asked Kingsley to write a Concerto for Moog that the quartet performed with the Boston Pops Orchestra in 1971."

I bet you can trace a line from "Popcorn" to the Silicon Teens.

Review: The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike

2006-01-25T15:45:00.000-08:00

The Go! Team are from the UK, so the Go Team must be from the USA! (Spinal Tap reference). Thunder, Lightning, Strike is a fun record but there's a hipster cuteness to it that sometimes turns me off. They create an impressive array of cacophonies that creep up on you like The Arcade Fire (the latter less in your face about it) but I'm just not a fan of scratching no matter how infrequent, and the old soul record horns they toss in are a bit too precious, like claiming your favorite movie of all time is an ABC After School Special.

The Go! Team do have an interesting shtick: They cook the dials so the high end distorts like a sizzle, the drums are muddy and muted, they sing in a style that combines cheerleading and schoolyard jump-rope, and they bang a lot of instruments junkyard style. About half of this is instrumental, and it's not all funk by any means like some reviews indicate. I really, really enjoy about 95% of this, and so much happens in each song it's not just a matter of saying I like this song but not that one. The allmusic.com review is my thoughts exactly without the total enthusiasm.

My favorite tracks are "Panther Dash", "Feel Good By Numbers" (sounds like the Snoopy theme), "Get It Together" (very pleasant flute), "Friendship Update" and (especially) "Huddle Formation", which packs as much energy as any Agnostic Front single.

Bass Player With A Hook

2006-01-25T03:14:00.000-08:00

For Dr. John, here's a video of a bald guy wearing sunglasses wailing on the bass guitar with one hand.

The Zen Of Garfield

2006-01-23T15:41:00.000-08:00

Listed at Portal Of Evil, this site randomly selects 3 panels of Garfield comics. The more you refresh the page the more brilliant it becomes.

Review: Chixdiggit! - Pink Razors

2006-01-23T13:38:00.000-08:00

Canada's Chixdiggit! took a five year vacation before coming out with Pink Razors , a fine record probably made even better by the time off. Chixdiggit! sound like Chixdiggit! the same way The Groovie Ghoulies sound like themselves (they're touring together), and annual records from either might be too much of the same too soon. I love the Ghoulies too, but let's be honest on the point.

The 13 tracks weigh in at less than 22 minutes, which isn't a big woop because they make their points and get the hell out. You can always hit repeat. As an added bonus the band sits down to record a full-length commentary on each track, and not only are Chixdiggit literate, they're not flaming assholes. Hoo-ray!

The signature Chixdiggit! sound is pretty sweet. They sound something like The Descendents meets The Groovie Ghoulies but truly do have their own sound. I saw them years ago and the whole show they stood in rock god poses and hammed it up. I loved it. The guitar licks are consistently clever without being cock-rocky and the sing alongs are easy to sing along with.

Every song has its charms and I'm surprised "J Crew" hasn't made it yet to heavy rotation on whatever stations play Fountains Of Wayne, who violated the Chixdiggit! patent on singing about moms.

Fitness Trend My Arse!

2006-01-22T08:10:00.000-08:00

Forbes left Punk Rock Aerobics out of their Hottest Fitness Trends article. THAT'S why I don't trust the MSM!

My New Che Shirt Idea

2006-01-20T17:18:00.000-08:00

I always write curse words as s--t and f--k. It's just my thing. Here's a dirty joke I wrote: Did you hear Lois Lane won't go down on Superman? Yeah, she's afraid she'll blow her brains out.

I can't do photoshop so here's my great new t-shirt idea. On the front it'll have this picture of dirtbag mass murderer Che Guevara dead on a slab in Bolivia. On top it'll read "S--T Guevara" (except it'll be the real curse word) and on the bottom there will be a little head shot of Moe from The Simpsons and he says his famous line first applied to a monkey knife fight, "He ain't pretty no more."

So, whatta ya think?

What's Wrong Wit Chew?

2006-01-19T09:54:00.000-08:00

Whilst enjoying cockney poetry yesterday I had to ask myself if I had a double standard with my general hatred of rap music, whose simple rhyme structures and convenient bending and manufacturing of words reminds me that illiteracy shouldn't be celebrated. Word has it Layer Cake should be subtitled for American audiences while The Harder They Come is subtitled from Rasta to English. I have no problem with either of those because they're dialects. Is ebonics a dialect or slang? I lean towards slang when it comes to rap, which makes up words to fit and works to create new expressions with an overreaching desperation.

At my gym, L.A. Crapness, they now play a music channel that continuously repeats 20 songs. They've bettered the mendacity of the top 40 by half. Twice a workout I get to hear "Dirty Little Secret" and a slow-jam, loud clap hip hop song where the woman keeps singing "Wit Chew" (upon which an angel gets his wings). Sometimes I'll respond by saying "Bless You" to nobody in particular. So, as I hear "Wit Chew" this morning I realize it's wrong of me to enjoy an Oi poet saying Ree-Nay-Since instead of Renaissance while looking down on wit chew. Then, then, she croons the most beautiful "with you" I've ever heard and I know it's a lie. Street my ass.

One more rant about rap. The KKK couldn't have come up with a better scheme to keep minorities uneducated, poor and angry. Only the Taliban treats women with more contempt. Excel!.. I mean, Word!!

1/20/06 update: People dare debate my rightitude on this issue?! Well!! All I need to know about (c)rap I learn from sitting at traffic lights next to cars blasting it.

Review: Son Of Oi!

2006-01-18T15:30:00.000-08:00

Another from Captain Oi, a reissue of Son Of Oi! from 1983, the fifth of the Oi comp series originated by journalist and musician Garry Bushell, whose site is worth a visit for the long history of Oi, a violent comedy of contradictions that could only be made into a film using Punch and Judy hand puppets. The only skin I know now works the door at a Goth club and screams that he wants to beat somebody into a coma. But he's not a nazi!

Bushell claims that by the time of Son Of Oi! the scene was ending. Maybe as thinly defined by Bushell, and maybe it's surprising it lasted at least two years to begin with. Padded with a bit of filler, Son Of Oi! is a great collection of punk music and poetry in styles including goth, roadhouse blues, country and synth pop, all with a working clarse bent. The cover reads, "The Oi organizing committee presents a raccous resurrection of rebellion, rumination & rumbustious revelry......"

Cock Sparrer opens with a live version of "Chip On My Shoulder". Other highlights are "Generation Landslide" by Prole (a bit of Clash), "Violent Playground" by Clockwork Destruction (sharp chords), "Andy Is A Corporatist" by Attila and the Newtown Neurotics, "On The Streets" by the Four Skins, "Out In The Cold" by The Business (their best song ever), "Make Mine Molotov" by Maniac Youth (a boot stomper if there ever was one) and "Manifest Oi!" by Oi The Robot (steals an Ultravox riff).

The poetry is just as good, my favorite by Phil Sexton, which starts "Every Thursday evening, the wallies watch the box, settle down in their rainbow gowns and watch Top Of The Pops." He pronounces Renaissance as "Ree-Nay-Since". I'm also pretty good at lip-synching the Garry Johnson poems, "Loves to revel in the boot boy glory, but when he's in his closet he's a typical Tory...."

I like most of the b-tracks probably just out of nostalgia. I firmly believe most music ages poorly and it's hard to teach an old ear to like old songs of little current merit.

Review: The Violators - The No Future Years CD

2006-01-17T16:26:00.000-08:00

Captain Oi!, gawd's gift to 2nd wave UK punk, has released (finally) the sum total of the 1981+ era career of The Violators, who released a handful of singles and a 12" on No Future Records before changing their name to Taboo and recording post-post-punk songs, some included here. They were a decent band who recorded one of the best Killing Joke songs that band never wrote or recorded. More on that later.

I'm having a hard time finding out who their band members were and what they had for lunch today. One dressed like a droog as did The Adicts. When the songs are sang by the female singer(s?) the tunes lean heavily towards Siouxsie and Vice Squad backed by Killing Joke. The male singer fronts very heavy Killing Joke pound-fests. "Summer Of 81" is credited with reflecting the political mood of the time, but then again what song didn't. The reason to buy this cd is to own "Gangland", like I said the best Killing Joke song not by Killing Joke. No matter how many times I hear it my eyeballs still roll into my head and like in Scanners somebody's head explodes.

With this cd I now own the best quality recording of "Gangland" I can find. Me happy.

Cute Overload and Death To Millions

2006-01-13T15:58:00.000-08:00

I really, really enjoy the nice pictures of animals at Cute Overload. I'm old enough, big enough and mean enough to not care if that doesn't sound cool to anyone. I can't say I even took notice of all things cute until my niece was born years back. Whatever she liked I liked and whatever she thought was adorable I did too. The math was and is that simple.

I often wonder how many of the worst people on the planet would have to die in order for there to be a noticeable improvement in the world. I mean the worst scumbags - serial rapists, child frickers, heroin dealers, murderous gangs and the like. My friend Dave says 90% but he's a nihilist. I learn more towards 10%. Do you have an opinion on this?

My motorcycle license plate was stolen this week. It only cost me $17 to replace, which for theft/vandalism is cheap. My previously stolen side panels cost $250. Unless he did it to buy bread for his starving family I hope the fugg loses an arm and a leg in an industrial accident. "Bye, honey, I'm off to my job of committing crime!" F U.

That's me, protect and cherish cute things and wish horrible pain and suffering for scumbags. Ain't I cute?

Review: Dischord 1981: The Year In Seven Inches

2006-01-12T16:31:00.000-08:00

In 1993 Dischord Records released this 48 track collection of first wave HarDCore ditties from five bands – four and a half if you consider the Teen Idles the rough draft for Minor Threat. In 1981 I was living in Maryland and attending college, and even then I was older than most of the kids in that scene. It flew under the radar even in DC. They seemed like a tight bunch well organized, and if you wanted to see the bands in person you could drive to Rockville and they’d sell you records at Yesterday & Today Records, the local musician’s workfare program.

Dischord proved that with artistic talent and a few bucks you could put out records and sell them cheaply. Y&T’s Skip Groff showed Ian Mackaye and Jeff Nelson how to do it and the fellers took it from there. Minor Threat led the way and they were by far the tightest and most talented band of the lot.

I have a theory the local scene’s hardcore at the time was the Ramones played at 78 rpm, and under all the fast and furious are actual melodies. I didn’t think that then because it was so loud and fast I thought they’d be lucky just to make it through a song without breaking something internal. Minor Threat hit like a train the same way the Ramones did when they started. My theory doesn’t work so well with Youth Brigade and either Faith or Void (I never knew what side of their split I was listening to), who tended more toward slow metal played fast.

The Teen Idles are average. Neck Rollins fronting S.O.A. are great, sometimes steaming along like D.R.I.. Minor Threat rule. Government Issue were great early on even though the vocals suffer from sameness and also sounding like a dog barking. Youth Brigade were also great even though they were heavier than I like.

The People's Progressive Truth Generator

2006-01-10T14:41:00.000-08:00

Todd brings to our collective attention this great time-waster from The People's Cube:

The People's Research Institute (PRI) has found a way of stopping right-wing ideology in America and ending our losses at the ballot box: we need to face our opponent's "facts" and "logic" by learning how to frame the debate. The Progressive Truth Generator™ will help you to set the terms of debate on issues in your favor and quickly terminate all discussion!

Attention progressive, socialist, liberal, pacifist, anarchist, feminist, or environmentalist debaters! Whether you are fighting class enemy over the Internet, in school, or at your parent's house over dinner, this tool is for you. No more awkward mumbling or looking for the right word!

Review: Elvis Costello - Blood & Chocolate

2006-01-09T15:21:00.000-08:00

By my reckoning 1986's Blood & Chocolate was Elvis Costello's last hoorah before trailing off into a career more Burt Bacharach than Patsy Kline. Backed by The Attractions and produced by Nick Lowe, Blood & Chocolate retains the anger of This Year's Model but throws in some of the raw pep of Get Happy! and some soul from Punch The Clock - along with the usual tunes that could be performed by either Burt Bacharach or Patsy Kline in their own style. The new element in the mix is some wiggy psychedelic guitar lines. All in all it's a great album.

My favorite tracks are of course the fast ones ("Tokyo Storm Warning", "Honey Are You Straight Or Are You Blind", "Seven Day Weekend" and "Blue Chair", the faster version!) The slower "Blue Chair" and "Battered Old Bird" also work for me. I'm a sucker for the farfisa organ and a strong bass line, and The Attractions never let me down.

This is the third paragraph where I sum it up and try to be witty.................How'd I do?

Why I Hate "Art", Part 36B

2006-01-06T09:16:00.000-08:00

Exhibit A:

A 76-year-old performance artist was arrested after attacking Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" _ a porcelain urinal _ with a hammer, police said.

Duchamp's 1917 piece _ an ordinary white, porcelain urinal that's been called one of the most influential works of modern art _ was slightly chipped in the attack at the Pompidou Center in Paris, the museum said Thursday. It was removed from the exhibit for repair.

The suspect, a Provence resident whose identity was not released, already vandalized the work in 1993 _ urinating into the piece when it was on display in Nimes, in southern France, police said.

During questioning, the man claimed his hammer attack on Wednesday was a work of performance art that might have pleased Dada artists. The early 20th-century avant-garde movement was the focus of the exhibit that ends Monday, police said.

A 2004 poll of 500 arts figures ranked "Fountain" as the most influential work of modern art _ ahead of Pablo Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," Andy Warhol's screen prints of Marilyn Monroe and "Guernica," Picasso's depiction of war's devastation. "Fountain" is estimated at $3.6 million.

Exhibit B:

Killing cats isn't art — it's pure evil

These two young men — Wennekers was 26 and Powers 23 — made a video of themselves mutilating a cat, and then called it performance art. During much of the 17-minute tape, which is too gruesome to describe, the cat remained alive, screaming and meowing in pain.

Parody: Sweet! The Onion put this up again. I guess their archive service didn't make money.

Performance Artist Shocks U.S. Out Of Apathetic Stupor

Bob Mould's Body Of Song's Bonus Disc's Worthiness

2006-01-05T16:06:00.000-08:00

I'm a big fan of this, which I've had for a while, but just heard the bonus disc found on this. Don't blow the dough, Joe, unless you love both Black Sheets Of Rain and disco-fried club dub remixes. There's a reason why none of the songs on disc two made it to disc one. What the hell kind of titles are these?: (Shine Your) Light Love Hope [Morel's Pink Noise Mix] [Mix], (Shine Your) Light Love Hope [Morel's Pink Noise Dub] [Dub] and Paralyzed [Loudbomb Club Mix] [Mix].

I hope I never come to understand the secret code language of the disco world. Oy and Oi!

Review: The Queers - Summer Hits Vol. I

2006-01-04T15:30:00.000-08:00

I'm having a hard time thinking of this as a review since Summer Hits Vol. I is product no matter how swell it might be. It's either an excuse to tour or something to sell on tour. I've loved these guys through all their phases (Angry Samoans/Screeching Weasel/Beach Boys) and while it's nice to hear songs old, new, borrowed and blue, I have to ask why. It's none of my business but there's something missing here, like waiting for the latest episode of your favorite show and finding out the next few weeks will be reruns.

Singer/guitarist Joe King's guitar is nicely tuned to where the chords chime like tones. The Who's "The Kids Are Alright" make a nice transition to fast and fuzzy while their take on The Angry Samoans' "My Old Man's A Fatso" is an acknowledgment of a debt beyond measure. The Samoans get the short shrift in punk history with Green Day getting credit for what the Samoans did much earlier. A Effin A on that.

This also can't be a hits collection because "I Only Drink Bud" isn't on it. Feh.

New Year, New Schedule

2006-01-03T14:39:00.000-08:00

For nine months I wrote a daily entry for every business day, as part of my evil master plan. In phase two I won't be writing every day but only when I have something to say or to review. No more deadlines for me!

That said, please tell me why my gym plays Kiss 21. It alternates between commercial alt.rock and slow jam hip hop where every song is set to the same hand-clap beat. That people like both at the same time is beyond my comprehension. Every time a rapper sings "Wit Chew" instead of "With You" and angel gets his wings.

Review: The Confessions Of Robert Crumb

2006-01-02T15:31:00.000-08:00

1987's The Confessions Of Robert Crumb is an odd juxtaposition to the superior 1994 documentary Crumb. Written by Crumb, financed by the BBC and logging in at 55 minutes, it's confessional as usual yet not that revealing since straight the man's too Freudian and on drugs too hallucinogenic. He doesn't hold back or lie about himself but there's something missing. He's both a cipher and the most influential (and prolific) underground artist of all time, which the latter film revealed much to Crumb's regret.

The Crumb Museum is worth a long visit. My sentimental favorite is A Short History Of America while the juvenile in me will always treasure Tommy Toilet. The guy who flushes himself down the toilet is also nice.

You wouldn't think Crumb would agree to dress up and undress to act in skits about himself, but here he does. That can't be cool in anyone's book. He's a successful failure and a loser whose talent makes him a winner. He's fascinating as a man only to a point because in spite of all his talent and eccentricities he's smaller in life than in his work. The Confessions Of Robert Crumb is a diminishing dog and pony show you'd never think he'd participate in, especially as its creator.

Review: A Dirty Shame DVD

2005-12-30T16:57:00.000-08:00

When John Waters lost Divine an era of great bad filmmaking came to an end. The Woody Allen of Baltimore, Waters manages to scrape together funds every few years to make a film that will most definitely suck, yet still must be watched out of counter-culture obligation. A Dirty Shame is his best film since Serial Mom and a hundred times better than the career depths of Pecker and Cecil B. Demented, but the party ended years ago for the shock value of John Water's bad taste.

Waters has a puritan streak that comes out in his mostly faux-shocked amazement at what people do for pleasure. He's a reserved voyeur in the cultures he embraces, and I'd say he's more like his parents than he'd admit to, but he's always admitted to being a closet upper middle class square. A collector of sexual phraseology, Waters waters A Dirt Shame with every nugget he could find, and while on one level it's funny it's also less of a script than a laundry list. The best perv tidbit in the film is the "Upper Decker", rivaling "Tea Bagging" in my heart as the funniest thing in the universe.

A Dirt Shame is shocking I guess but not to anyone I'd hang around with. It's true to its camp vision but the lesson of it is known before the film even starts so it just plays itself out and then ends. Thematically it's a lot like Hairspray but I don't envision a Broadway run for this one. Does the world need another John Water's counter-morality play? Probably not.

Technically A Dirty Shame is Water's Citizen Kane. The lighting is perfect, the acting good across the board and the endless reaction shots from extras finally achieve correct timing. Nobody mangles Water's stilted dialogue, which makes me miss Edith Massey that much more.

This film proves once again that most people look good in layers and layers of clothes. Patti Hearst is either addicted to botox or face lifts. David Hasselhoff makes a weird cameo in the same year he made a strange cameo in The Spongebob Squarepants movie.

Here's some funny trivia on this NC-17 film:

"When the MPAA were asked what would needed to be cut to obtain an R rating, they replied that if everything the MPAA objected to were to be removed, the movie would only be 10 minutes long."