old punks web zine

MP3 Blog Archives Page 3 (song links mostly dead)

Entry Sixty-Five: 04/19/2008: For My Benefactor Shane I Equate The Big Boys With OMD

The Big Boys: "Sound On Sound" (From The Fat Elvis)

OMD: "Time Zones" (From Dazzle Ships)

The Turd-log Cinder-Poo project is chugging right along thanks to blogs that cater to the synth and minimal wave markets, populated predominately by the gravely pale and deathly frail. Shane of the most excellent Soundhead one-man cyber-cabal has been nice enough to link to me, causing my internet traffic to spike from flatline to the line you get when you use an old wood ruler. The internet monies are rolling in like the Reverse Funnel System Scam, where for an initial investment of $8,000 you must spend your days defending the Reverse Funnel System Scam in hopes the next idiot who visits your carbon-copy site, by an act of god or the devil, decides to be an internet millionaire by making an initial investment of $8,000.

Shane hails from Denton, TX, with a population somewhere between 80,537 and 109,561, making it the eleventh largest city in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. Located 16.8 miles from the nearest Vietnamese restaurant, Denton is 227.30 miles north Of Austin, TX, home of the legendary Big Boys, hardcore's first and best skate/funk/punk/post-punk outfit. 1983's "Sound On Sound" comes from the out-of-print 1983 album Lullabies Help The Brain Grow, easily found on The Fat Elvis compilation. This version differs from the one on The Wreck Collection.

OMD were my favorite synth pop band until 1983's "Dazzle Ships", at the time a bit of a letdown after their classic Architecture & Morality, but it still had a few good punches left ("Genetic Engineering", "Telegraph" and "Radio Waves"). Listening to it now it's probably just as good as its predecessor, but at the time the sound experiments felt more like noodling than songwriting. According to The All Music Guide Dazzle Ships was ahead of its time. Maybe as a major label release but most assuredly not in the underground.

OMD = The Big Boys. May I rot in hell for all eternity.

Entry Sixty-Four: 04/12/2008: Analog CyberPunk: Transmission Six

04/12/2008: Begin Transmission Six: All's going as planned at the Analog CyberPunk HQ. Sorting through the digital stacks to pick weiners I've learned a few things that I probably already knew. The genre's famous for songs that start one way and then become something else. Slow buildups are also favored. As is the way with many of the best songs, new sounds are added into the mix as the song progresses, with bleeps, bloops and other digital farts stopping by for a visit. Some songs I like except for an errant repetitive sound or an annoying dance beat that doesn't need to be there. Remember kids, disco sucks. Some tracks that seem like instrumentals turn out late in the game to contain lyrics. When the vocals fail on a song they usually do so spectacularly. I wager these tend to be the one man band deals. End Transmission Six.

Zwischenfall: "Tausend Jahre" (Category: Analog CyberPunk)

Zwischenfall is German for "Incident", and they ran from 1983 to 1995. The song title translates into "Thousand Years". In Germany smurfs are called "schlumps".

UV Pop: "Sleep Don't Talk" (Category: Analog CyberPunk)

A second selection from UV Pop. Hit that funky buzzer, (what I assume is a) white boy!

Trek With Quintronic: "Zolian Space" (Category: The Unheard Synth New Wave)

Hailing from snowy Buffalo, New York, this two-piece released two albums in 80-81 on what was probably their own label. The Mutant Sounds blog nailed this as influenced by Bowie and Scary Monsters (the album, not monsters that are scary).

Ti-Tho: "Die Liebe Ist Ein Abenteuer" (Category Analog CyberPunk: New Wave Edition)

Here's info on this German duo. Nice and weird, with a subdued yet insistent rhythm..

Surplus Stock: "Let's Kill Each Other" (Category: Rez Eyeballs Wink: Some Weird Ones)

Abrasiveness has never sounded so pleasant. From 1980 and Germany.

The Units: "Digital Stimulation" (Category Analog CyberPunk: New Wave Edition)

The Units get a little too much respect in underground electronic circles, with a career paralleling Our Daughter's Wedding. At times it seemed they didn't know what they wanted to be, and while I have a soft spot for new wave-cabaret-art school shenanigans I don't for the kind of line dance music where you clap your hands, turn in a circle as you move in a line, clap your hands, then turn in a circle on the way back, once again ending with a hand clap. The earlier on the discography the better they sound, as is the code of the universe. Their "Bug Boy" stands as the most awkward and heavy handed metaphor I've ever heard fail as music. "Digital Stimulation" gets it right. Digital means both electronic and manual. Huh. If you like this, please do seek The Epoxies.

The Party's Over: "Crash" (Category: Honorable Mention: Analog CyberPunk)

I found nothing on this but it's filled with great and assorted oddball riffs and noises. It's an honorable mention because I find the vocals aren't on par with the music.

Systematics: "Pulp Baby" (Category: Rez Eyeballs Wink: Some Weird Ones)

Here's info on this Australian band from back before you were born... remember kids? It's gets weirder the more times you listen. Dig those clogged sinuses! The synth and vocals chase each other well.

Low Class: "Alienation Ballade" (Category: Analog CyberPunk: New Wave Edition)

There's not much to be known about Low Class except they appeared on a cassette compilation in 1984. It's a charming song of little consequence but I find it immensely pleasant and happy. I want to do the Keep On Truckin' walk to it.

Kaa Antilope: "The Break Of Day" (Category: Analog CyberPunk: New Wave Edition)

From Belgium in the year of 1981. The drum machine is set to "Mexican Radio", and that's fine by me in twelve ways. The horn sounds are soothing and soaring at the same time. Yikes.

Moev: "Cracked Mirror" (Category: The Unheard Synth New Wave)

Canucks Moev recorded a bunch of stuff and are giving some of it away even as we speak! Short term member Madelaine Morris has a lovely voice. This grows on you like a cold sore on the lip (so says Gravis Mushnick).

Les Georges Leningrad: "Georges Five" (Category: Rez Eyeballs Wink: Some Weird Ones)

Canada's Les Georges Leningrad were famous for being strange. It's impossible not to laugh (in a good, approving way) at the dueling incomprehensible vocalis on this. From 2002 or so. Or so I say.

Plus Instruments: "Big Man" (Category: Analog CyberPunk)

Don't know much about Plus Instruments beyond this. They might have been from New York. I'm from New York but we've strangely never met.

G-Spot: "Idol Worship" (Category: Analog CyberPunk)

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of G-Spot? The Shadow knows, but not me. Nice.

Higher Primates: "Living In A Vacuum" (Category: Close But No Cigar: Analog Cyber-Punk)

The music works well but the singing isn't up to the task. Close but no cigar. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but other times it's a code word for something else altogether. Take THAT, Sigmund!

Entry Sixty-Three: 04/05/2008: Run For You Life, Civilian And Military Style.

Five Iron Frenzy: "Cool Enough For You" (From Upbeats And Beatdowns)

Screeching Weasel: "Burn It Down" (From Television City Dream)

A year ago I posted the first of what I hope will be an annual tradition of sharing two songs I listen to whilst jogging around town, twice weekly before sunrise, attracting unwanted attention from police cruisers and scaring both cats and dog-walkers with my wheezing and lumbering gait. Thankfully at 4AM I'm pretty much legend. Last year's picks were "Gangland" by The Violators and the extended version of "Temple Of Love" by Sisters Of Mercy. With the correct song mix I know I could run longer and faster than I do now, but I usually just drag over some of this and a little of that. The worst is fiddling with the forward button of my MP3 player until something good happens. My feet get confused easily.

The best running songs are ones you can run slow or fast to, a magical quality indeed. 1996's "Cool Enough For You" by Denver natives Five Iron Frenzy fits that bill nicely. Holy crap, third wave ska's been around at least a dozen years. I found their first CD in a dollar bin with a sticker that read "It's Ska!", so you wouldn't think it's techno-rave crap like the cover more than suggests. The only thing third wave ska really proved was that high school band geeks need groupie love too, but here and there was some decent music. Five Iron Frenzy boasted a flawless horn section and a load of melodic shift changes. They were a Christian band, who along with The Huntingtons caught crap for ultimately being twelve times less didactic and condescending than most secular punk bands. The lyrics of "Cool Enough For You" ask "can't we all just get along?"

There's regular running and then there's the fast military march thing I do when I hear Screeching Weasel's "Burn It Down", tragically buried at the end of 1998's half-effort Television City Dream. It takes me back to the night I worked security at an arena show featuring DC area Go-Go bands, back in the earliest 80s. Street gangs marched in formation around The Cap Center, their best fighter in front, each with one hand on the shoulder of the man in front of them and the other a fist in the air. At one point a dumb cracker mozied over to drawl out there was something going on at gate 5. Hell, a street gang was trying to break into the arena, throwing cinder blocks at the security glass of the doors. Security used clubs to smash at hands trying to push open the door bars while I stood back holding the only weapon I could find - a mop. They eventually broke in and we chased them into the bowels of the arena. I was holding a nobody, having no idea what to do next, when a fist landed on my mouth. I later required stitches. As I walked around with my shirt covered in blood I remember everyone stared and got the holy f--k away from me, like I had just killed someone and was looking to do it again. Good times, good times.

Anyhoo, before the fun started I was guarding a door to nowhere when all of a sudden people looked scared and created a wide path for the riot squad of security wearing combat pants, combat boots and white security shirts, march-jogging in formation like you see in army movies. They were each like Judge Dredd, enjoying the violence more than they should but getting the job done. I was told that by the end of any given night their shirts were stained with the blood of others. If you've ever worked security at an event filled with absolute zeros you'll know why this image made me feel good. Listen to "Burn It Down" and you'll see it's not a song you run to but a fast march that gets you from Point A to the Point B where you beat the living s--t out of someone who deserves it. What great drumming.

My favorite tune to run to right now is Fear's cover of Joan Osbourne's "One Of Us" (One Of Us, One Of Us, Gooble Gobble Gooble Gobble, One Of Us, One Of Us), re-titled "What If God's Not One Of Us". A most magical running song indeed as it's both civilian and military.

Entry Sixty-Two: 03/29/2008: Analog CyberPunk: Transmission Five

03/29/2008: Begin Transmission Five: Dancing By Myself Vs. Dancing With Myself. I'm an old fart around for part of the proto-punk era, every second of the new wave era, the punk era, the post-punk era and the hardcore punk era, and a handful of the other errors calling themselves alternative music. The only time I'm sentimental about is the original new wave era, which for me ran from about 1978 to 1982. I watched it slowly grow and I watched it slowly wither and die at the parasitic hand of disco culture and the puffy shirt revolution of new romance. I loved dancing to new wave music. I was there when discos hosted "New Wave Nights" where cartoon disco pricks with huckapoo shirts and John Travolta hair were barely restrained from starting riots with us freaks and losers, we of the thrift store skinny ties and asexual dance moves. For one bright, shining moment I danced all the time and worked up a horrible sweat to songs I loved one after the next. You danced whenever you felt like it and for as long as you had wind and strength. Dehydration was also a factor.You didn't need a dance partner, and often you didn't want to because they just held you back and in place. If you did dance with someone it was often a formality where two people did their own thing next to each other. In retrospect I'm not bitter about losing my good thing because I had a good run and this is no country for old losers. At the time I did hate seeing my scene become a something else I had no interest in being a part of. I won't explain the title of this paragraph except to say one looks outward while the other is about the self, always reflected in mirrors. End Transmission Five.

Nine Circles: "What's There Left" (Category: Analog CyberPunk)

Nine Circles were from the Netherlands and this comes from 1982. It's a slow track that packs the wallop of detached euro-gal singing, strong synth lines and a bunch of other electronic weirdness. Be sure to note the foley artist-like rendering of the sound of two hollow coconut halves being hit together to sound like a galloping horse.  .

Berlin Express: "Die Russen Kommen" (Category: Analog CyberPunk: New Wave Edition)

Berlin Express were from Germany and they put out one album in 1982. I can't take the singing seriously but it's a fun song all the same.

AKA: "Mental Timebombs" (Category: Rez Eyeballs Wink: Some Weird Ones)

Here's what I found on White Rock, British Columbia's AKA. From between 1978 and 1980 this strange and glorious track cometh from.

Blue Sound: "Berlin" (Category: Honorable Mention: Analog CyberPunk)

Nothing on Blue Sound comes up on the intertubes. I'm not tossing it into the main category because of the singing, which isn't bad in itself but it's not of a kind with the rest. The guitar reminds me of early XTC records.

Central Unit: "Saturday Night" (Category: Honorable Mention: Analog Cyber-Punk: New Wave Edition)

Hey, finally a band with a website, and it's in Eye-talian. They formed in 1980, over there in Bologna. Their MySpace page says they're now a Nu Jazz /Progressive / Psychedelic band. Yikes. At first I had this as a Close But No Cigar selection a little because of the sing and a lot because of the swingin' salami disco lyrics, but mostly it's ok, so here it is as an honorable mention. And pastrami makes it a trifecta.

Chandra: "Kate" (Category: Analog CyberPunk)

This one creeps up on you before it knocks you over and dishes out an atomic wedgie. Chandra Oppenheim was twelve when she recorded this in 1980, showcasing a jaded old soul trapped in a skinny pre-teen's body. Her website is dead, so who knows what she's up to know. I've only found a few references to her doing anything musically.

Chromagain: "Spot" (Category Analog CyberPunk: New Wave Edition)

Chromagain were an Italian band who put out a 12" in 1985. I love the keyboardist working overtime tapping out individual notes.

Dalek I Love You: "Freedom Fighters" (Category Analog CyberPunk: New Wave Edition)

I remember Dalek I (also Dalek I Love You) fairly well from 1980 or so, but they were a band I knew mostly from two singles I found in used bins. Living in New York I suspected they were a UK band with a big following there but not where I was. The Dr. Who reference gave them a few extra lines of media attention. I find them uneven at best (and that's being generous), but "Freedom Fighters", their first single from '79, finds them full of focus and punk energy. The original UK punk movement inspired a lot of bands to forget they were fops for a while and to go out and rip it up a bit. Vice Versa later became ABC. Ultravox belted a few out of the park before they became a new romance band. I'll stop before I get started.

Do-Po: "Rhythm" (Category: Honorable Mention: Analog CyberPunk: New Wave Edition)

Italy's Do-Po released one single in 1981. I find this track a bit silly so I've added it as an honorable mention. Otherwise it does everything right.

Gerry And The Holograms: "Gerry And The Holograms" (Category: Rez Eyeballs Wink: Some Weird Ones)

An odd little tune, wouldn't you say?

Jesus Couldn't Drum: "I'm A Train" (Category Analog CyberPunk: New Wave Edition)

 Jesus Couldn't Drum were a two-piece band from Brighton. From an eBay sale, "Original 1986 3-song 12” EP from brighton-based duo, one of whom later joined wacky indiepopsters THE CHRYSANTHEMUMS.  Title track is a great slab of electronic indiepop with a driving groove and a bit of a MORRISSEY influence on the vocals.  Rare 12”, and long out of print." I like how the singer holds notes. It also gots a flute!

Entry Sixty-One: 03/22/2008: Dopplegangsters (Yo!)

PJ Harvey - Rid Of Me

Devo - Mongoloid

Until today I've restrained my compulsion to tell the world PJ Harvey looks like Julie Kavner, and that Jerry Casale resembles Dave Thomas. Oooohhhh, it feels good to shrug that weight off.... what's that, screaming voices in my head? Kill them? Kill them all?! No, voices, no! You promised!!

Someone somewhere at some time posted a link to the above PJ Harvey video, a perfect rendering of the demo version of "Rid Of Me". Harvey, whose Wikipedia entry includes "Steve Albini claimed she ate nothing but potatoes while making Rid Of Me.", has never been a favorite of mine, probably because she hit when I was neither looking nor cared to look, but there are nine of her songs in the oldpunksglobalcorp © permanent collection. It wouldn't surprise me if she has an eating disorder, the polite way of saying she either starves herself, swears by the two-finger diet plan, or only eats potatoes. She could also use a visit by the Posture Police. Julie Kavner is of course best remembered for her role in Rhoda.

Gerald Casale, he of the variant name spelling, co-founded Devo as a singer, songwriter and bass player. It wasn't until I read his chapter in In Cold Sweat: Interviews With Really Scary Musicians that I realized he's the angriest, most pretentious and most impotent figure in modern music. To this day he insists De-Evolution is real, specifically the variant he helped introduce in such cutting edge videos as "Whip It" and whichever one had them wearing toilet seats on their shoulders. Of all the bands that should known when to call it quits, Devo needed it most. If you do only one thing today, let it be listen to Casale on Devo: The Complete Truth About De-Evolution lose his mind in misplaced rage as he defends "Disco Dancer" as a pinnacle of western culture. He's desperate to be given credit for his deep insight of our twisted reality, but if you watch till the end of Devo Live you'll notice he's also desperate to be liked, like the fat kid at summer camp. Some of his commercial work is here, the best being "The Flea Master". Jihad Jerry is his alter-ego, doing for political commentary what The Grand Wizard Of Wrestling did for the repatriation of lawn gnomes. In other words, absolutely nothing. The songs on his MySpace page are better than I expected. Dave Thomas was in SCTV and now specializes in voice-over work, the easiest money in Hollywood.

Entry Sixty: 03/15/2008: Analog CyberPunk, Transmission Four

03/15/2008: Begin Transmission Four: Whenever I (or you, for that matter) log off Windows XP or NT the computer signs off with four notes from Gary Numan's "Cars", the ones that go along with the words "Here in my car". At least it does for me. Here at Analog CyberPunk Central I've divided the original song pool into a Yes Folder (903 tracks) and a No Folder (413 tracks). For the most part the Yes Folder has anything I could tolerate. In the second round the No Folder will embiggen. The androids who put together the various Minimal Wave compilations have no qualms about adding songs that at best have an electric piano in the mix. Mine is a pure, delusional vision of a time when punk, new wave and electronic music marched shoulder to shoulder down the dirty back alleys of popular culture, before new romance loosened the fist of alternative music into limp waves of the hand, and disco, supposedly on its death bed, infected good dance music with its evil clown spores. Punk became hardcore, but that's another tale involving a nasty case of heavy metal that lasted years and required many shots in the ass. End Transmission Four.

Ash Wednesday: "Love By Number" (Category: Analog CyberPunk)

I hate math but I seem to love any song with a lot of numbers in it. Ash Wednesday is a person's name, and he has both a website and a wikipedia page, where I learned he's in that noisy German band with the name that babblefishes into "Collapsing New Buildings". This Australian winner is from 1980. It reminds me indirectly of "The Name Game" and "Dancing With Myself".

John Paul Young: "The Monster In Ed" (Category: Close But No Cigar: Analog Cyber-Punk)

There's not much info on Canada's John Paul Young except that his band was called "The Cardboard Brains". Thankfully he's not the same person who sang "Love Is In The Air". "The Monster In Ed" is great but the singing is horrific - what I'd expect from an off-Broadway production of Hunch; The Musical! . The best part is an ongoing noise somewhere between a ray-gun and the baby from Eraserhead. Life is about choices, and his choice to sing like this both sucks and blows.

Men Without Hats: "Telepathy" (Category: The Unheard Synth New Wave)

Men Without Hats were a one-hit wonder with four great records in their catalog. They were not a synth band by any account but a new wave band with keyboards. No Hats Beyond This Point came out in 2003, a whole twelve years after the disappointing rock album Sideways. 1989's Adventures Of Men & Women was equally lacking. No Hats takes up where Pop Goes The World left off in 1987, and while it's not as good it's pretty close. "Telepathy" is an update on The Buggles' "Video Killed The Radio Star", and it's fun to croon along with Ivan Doroschuk. I CAN say enough nice things about Men Without Hats, but it would take a long time.

Pink Military: "War Games" (Category: Analog CyberPunk)

I'm a fool for military drum rhythms and the sound of British police cars. 1980's "War Games' can be found on the album "Do Animals Believe In God?". I dare you to tell me it doesn't kick tushie.

Those Little Aliens: "Sentimental" (Category: Honorable Mention: Analog CyberPunk)

Info does not abound on Those Little Aliens, and the singing is a bit weak, but listen to that cacophony of wonderful other-worldly electronic bleeps and bloops. The best sounds are the ones you can make with your mouth, which guys know as the sounds of a money shot. Oh yeah, YOU know what I'm talking about!

UV Pop: "No Songs Tomorrow" (Category: The Unheard Synth New Wave)

UV Pop (more here) recorded from 82-96. And I quote... ahem: "UV PØP, a one-man group from the Sheffield area. John White is the mastermind behind UV PØP, a twenty-odd year old Yorkshireman with a whipcord body and a casque of oily black hair. Onstage he looks vaguely out of control, as if he might suddenly launch into an aimless destructive charge, knocking over mikes and amps."

Entry Fifty-Nine: 03/08/2008: DVD Review: We Jam Econo - The Story Of The Minutemen

The Minutemen: "History Lesson" (From The Punch Line)

The Minutemen: "Joe McCarthy's Ghost" (From Paranoid Time)

We Jam Econo - The Story Of The Minutemen is a phenomenal band documentary, jamming everything it needs to show, interviewing everyone it needs to hear from, and thankfully avoiding agendas, all in an econo ninety minutes. Nineteen deleted scenes extras (thank Gaia), along with a full interview and extra disc of three live shows. It serves as a humanizing counterpoint to their music, which I spent a maddening week with before viewing this today. The music and film explain a ton in intriguing ways which connect and divert almost as willy-nilly as their music.

Everyone reminds me of someone else, often a celebrity. Here bassist Mike Watt plays the same role as Wayne Kramer in MC5: A True Testimonial, driving around the old neighborhood (in this case, San Pedro, CA) visiting old scenes of the crimes. Where Kramer is likeable enough even with a self-serving agenda, Watt is eminently likeable and devoid of pretense. Guitarist D. Boon passed away in 1985, and when he's seen in interviews he's mostly quiet and reserved. He was a beloved figure in the hardcore scene and made friends easily. Being a fan of the E! Hollywood Story I see more than one parallel between Boon and John Candy. Drummer George Hurley as a youth looks like Tesco Vee meets Jeff Spicoli. As a middle age man he looks like a younger "Classy" Freddie Blassie. It must be the hair. Re: hair, in 1984 Hurley has the same long perm in front as members of Our Daughter's Wedding, which he swings around for the same effect.

The Minutemen's influences aren't that hard to figure out. That they were so different from their contemporaries in the emerging U.S. hardcore scene is the source of their monumental uniqueness. The most direct connections are Wire and The Urinals. The Minutemen forty second cover of "Ack Ack Ack Ack" is twenty seconds shorter than the original. If you watch Wire: Live On The Box 1979 you can see The Minutemen followed Wire's determined approach to music as an attitude and set of ideas. With both Wire and The Minutemen the driving force is the drums. Wire's Robert Gotobed played almost evasively as a percussionist. Hurley pounds away like Buddy Rich as the Incredible Hulk. Sonically Hurley can be half the band, if not at least a third (ka-zing!). Another take to their sound was that early on they added a little funk to free jazz and fed it through a hardcore blender via bass, drums and guitar. Later on they diversified and the funk came up more in the mix. The Minutemen wrote jams and songs, and I greatly prefer the songs to the jams.

The politics of their lyrics are barely touched upon. Boon's political lyrics often bogged down into standard U.S. working class (read Middle Class) kid with too-much-time-on-my-hands unlived marxist political nut-scratching. From "The Big Stick":

Now over there in Managua Square / With American made bombs falling everywhere / They kill women and children and animals too / These bombs are made by people like me and you / And we're told that we hold a big stick over them / But I know from what I've read that peace is in our hands

Now over there in Guatamala my friend / We're making mistakes there once again / Uncle Sam supports a fascist regime / That doesn't represent the people over there / We learn and believe there is justice for us all / And we lie to ourselves with a big stick up our ass

Now if we stand and yell it out / That war isn't what we're all about / Then someone will come and bring us back  / To get the peace train back on it's tracks

This is what I'm singing about / The race war that America supports / Indians will never die / They'll do just fine if we let them try / Though we hold, we're never told that peace is in our hands / If we stop there is time to heal the scars we've caused / To heal the scars we've caused...

Politically The Minutemen might be U.S. hardcore's Gang Of Four. The issue is dealt with here mostly by mentioning it in passing as if nobody knew why or where the politics came from. It's odd that people seek political insights from musicians. How is a guitarist any more qualified to know about the world than a truck driver, and how is writing lyrics any more of a skill than building furniture or baking a wedding cake? It isn't.

The band name was originally intended to mean they were of small stature, the adjective definition of "minute" sounded as "my-noot". When Boon and Watt first started playing they didn't even know there was such a thing as tuning - they thought players chose between tight and loose strings. Reminiscing about his first meeting with Boon as a child, Watt trails off by saying he was "smitten by him", an endearing thing to say.

This is a great tribute to The Minutemen, a band I respect and admire more than I actually like. I like them, but I never listen to them intentionally. I'm mostly a melody guy with little use for funk or Coltrane. You can't dance to The Minutemen, but it's the perfect soundtrack for an epileptic seizure!

Entry Fifty-Eight: 03/01/2008: Analog CyberPunk, Transmission Three

03/01/2008: Begin Transmission Three: "You know, you remind me of a poem I can't remember, and a song that may never have existed, and a place I'm not sure I've ever been to." This is taking a while because I love silence. I never listen to music at home, and in my car it's mostly silence or talk radio. I listen to music at the gym or when I run. The only time I can focus on these songs is while running in the middle of the night, where I have no idea what I'm listening to and can't write notes. What I can do is imagine myself back 25+ years when Analog CyberPunk-type songs were an elusive yet beloved part of my music life. I'm also tripping up while trying to quickly sort 1,300 songs into initial Yes/No folders. I'm torn between keeping everything I like and only keeping songs that fit into this project, even if I hate a particular track. Poor widdle 'ol me... huh? wha? Oh yeah, ALL ROBOTS REPORT TO THE DANCE FLOOR!! End Transmission Three.

Causey Way: "Geological Lust" (Category: Analog CyberPunk: New Wave Edition)

I almost included this as an honorable mention as it was probably written around 2000. It's a real toe-tapper though. Brian Causey was in Man Or Astroman? and is better known for writing music for Jimmy Neutron. Causey Way had a bit of a Church of The SubGenius thematic thing going, which would have impressed me more if more of their songs weren't inside jokes. Servotron had a better gimmick and a sweeter catalog.

Tuxedomoon: "Incubus (Blue Suit)" (Category: Analog CyberPunk)

I couldn't post "No Tears" without also including "Incubus (Blue Suit)". There's a law. Tuxedomoon records more meandering Mediterranean soundtrack music than they should. Let's leave it at that.

Dark Day: "No, Nothing, Never" (Category: Analog CyberPunk)

It took me many years to get over the fact that  while a Dark Day song is original, most Dark Day songs sound pretty much the same. Exterminating Angel came out in 1980, and the dry, disaffected talk-singing of both Robin Crutchfield and "Mystery Woman" on "No, Nothing, Never" is a cornerstone of my love for this kind of music. What sounds like a violin is I guess a synth, since no string instrument is listed in the album credits.

Boyd Rice & Daniel Miller: "Cleanliness And Order" (Category: Analog CyberPunk)

Daniel Miller of Mute Records and The Normal joined with self-impressed noisemeister Boyd Rice to record what I call "Son Of No, Nothing, Never" around 1980. It too is a great talk-sing song. The ghost of Rex Harrison is pleased.

Rational Youth: "Coboloid Race" (Category: Analog CyberPunk: New Wave Edition)

Rational Youth (more here) recorded the wonderful Kraftwerk-influenced album Cold War Night Life, equaled only by Komputer, who I'll get to later. This track was released in 1981.

Tone Set: "Slim" (Category: Analog CyberPunk: New Wave Edition)

Various Devo songs are leaping out at me as I listen to "Slim" by Tempe, Arizona's Tone Set, from a 1982 cassette. Of what I've heard this is their fastest and most melodic number, as they usually worked with what I assume are found vocal tracks from the Ironic School of stuff you find in musty old libraries or the basement of your grandfather's house.

Snowy Red: "Nowhere" (Category: Analog CyberPunk: New Wave Edition)

Snowy Red might still be around as there's a Myspace page about them. This is one of their peppier tunes, from 1982. It's fun to sing along with one of the synths by going "Wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah".

Our Daughters Wedding: "Airlines" (Category: Honorable Mention: Analog CyberPunk: New Wave Edition)

When their 12" EP Digital Cowboy came out in 1982 I was already a huge fan, as "Lawnchairs" was at the time the best selling import single of all time, or something like that. The first time I saw them at the Malibu Night Club there were lawn chairs hung from the ceiling. The Long Island club was on the beach, so it was a pain to do but at least cheap to pull off. I later saw them on the pier in Manhattan, where they opened for The English Beat and the Go-Gos. I have a picture of me talking to the singer and I'm wearing a military surplus jumpsuit with my feathered 70's hair-don't on top. Nice. I do miss my original hairline though. I give this an honorable mention only as it doesn't fit well into the main categories.

Kitchen And The Plastic Spoons: "Fantastic" (Category: Analog CyberPunk)

Kitchen and the Plastic Spoons (Myspace), from Sweden, formed around 1980. Vocalist Anne Taivanen sings a bit like Siouxsie Sioux, who's an amazon in person, by the way.

Ken Clinger: "Carla West (The Human Bird Nest)" (Category: Close But No Cigar: Analog Cyber-Punk)

Ken Clinger (more here) sounds like a basement savant, but as a fan of M.O.T.O. I've dealt with this species before. The instrumentation on this is great but the singing is silly in the worst way. I imagine Dr. Demento has it in a drawer somewhere.

Entry Fifty-Eight: 02/23/2008: DVD Review: What Poor Gods We Do Make - The Story And Music Behind Naked Raygun

Naked Raygun: "I Don't Know" (live) (From What Poor Gods We Do Make)

Naked Raygun: "Suspect Device" (live, with Jake Burns) (From What Poor Gods We Do Make)

My first irrelevant thought while watching this was being a tad disappointed it was shot on video instead of film. On film it's a movie, while on video it's a video. In my mind Naked Raygun is worthy of film stock. As the documentary ended my first relevant thought was about how it had a lamentful (not a real word) and almost desperate tone to it, as if Raygun woulda-coulda-shoulda ruled the wasteland of popular music. As I pondered this later at my gym (L.A. Crapness) the piped-in music played a song so close to commercial Bad Religion I winced. Could the Naked Raygun sound ever be commercially popular? Do you want it to be popular with every other fuggwad in Stupidtown? I hope not for your sake, and I pray not for Naked Raygun's legacy. They're American hardcore punk gods, not also-rans from the era of Nirvana, a band whose lineage goes back to Led Zepplin, not the Bad Brains.

My only other complaint is that What Poor Gods We Do Make hits its closing credits at 1:41:48. John Water's 90 minute rule applies to band documentaries exponentially more than it does to theatrical films, and 11:48 of the repeated assertions of Naked Raygun's greatness and legacy could have been easily exorcised. Jeez, was this made for Naked Raygun fans or some bored kid at a video store who picked it up because he thought it was porn in the music section?

Now that my spleen's been vented, Naked Raygun are like really, really super, and without them life might still be worth living but the suckitude of it would suck that much more. I took notes but there's not that much to discuss. Raygun got together like most bands do, played clubs and toured like many, unified their scene like some, and are legends as only few can ever be. Their last two records aren't the best, but the best of their catalog easily matches the best of any punk band in the world. To know Naked Raygun is to love Naked Raygun, and if you know Naked Raygun yet don't love them, you're as punk as Avril Lavigne.

The documentary mixes new and old concert and video footage with interviews of the band, music critics and Chicago bands both contemporaries and followers. All praise Naked Raygun, which they should, but whoever put this together lays it on thick. You show people why a band is great, not just beat the idea into their heads with surreal repetition. The only snark is directed at former guitarist John Haggerty by singer Jeff Pezzati, who seems to be wading through a sea of Nyquil. Says Pezz, "It was sad to see him go, but, you know, he went on and did his own thing... I guess." I guess? That "thing" was Pegboy, who kicked ass like Raygun did in their prime. Bitter much?

The DVD comes with a 22 track CD of live material from their 2006 reunion shows, which they reenacted well when I saw them in January. The geezer treat of both the DVD and CD is Jake Burns coming in a fraction of a second late on the opening of his own "Suspect Device". This is a steal at the list price of $19.98. As a Raygun fanatic there was no way I wasn't going to own this, but I wouldn't suggest it right away to Duh Kidz. It's filled with (otherwise) boring inside-baseball stuff and it pushes the band's legacy to a new generation with slight whiffs of insecurity and desperation, not from the band itself but by others, and how the whole shebang's edited together. For the kids you put together a compilation of their best studio work and send them off with the one piece of information that what they'll hear is among the best punk rock the world's ever had to offer. That comp should contain "I Lie", "I Don't Know", "Metastasis", "Peacemaker", "The Strip" and "Home Of The Brave". That's all I'm sayin'...

Entry Fifty-Seven: 02/17/2008: Analog CyberPunk, Transmission Two

Begin Transmission Two: Whenever I hear The Normal's "Warm Leatherette" I imagine Daniel Miller standing on a bare, brightly lit stage with a cheap drum machine and an over-wired piece of plywood populated with salvaged push-buttons, each producing either a science-fiction bleep or a jarring tone, a few defective buttons giving back an electric shock that makes Miller's face twitch as he presses them.

My initial collection of songs for possible inclusion in the Analog CyberPunk project contains 1,353 tracks, and sampling proves the 10% Rule never fails. The 10% Rule states that only 10% of any general category is of real worth. The 10% Rule applies to people, places, things, concepts and theories. There's also the 80/18/2 Rule, or more accurately, the 1/9/80/9/1 Rule. The top 1% is the creme de la creme, while the bottom 1% is the crust de la crap. The other 9% of the top and bottom round out the 10% Rule, which on the low end is a musical kick in the groin either way. The remaining 80% is mainly bulk ranging from the acceptable to the Pavlovian response of forming spittle while reaching for either the off button or a baseball bat. End transmission Two.

Das Kabinette: "The Cabinet" (Category: Analog CyberPunk)

1983's "The Cabinet" is a legendary hit that surprised no one more than Das Kabinette themselves. Enjoyable to no end, it owes its lunch money and a few dimes extra to Bauhaus' 1979 dub-driven stare-at-yourself-twirl-fest classic "Bela Lugosi's Dead".

Vice Versa: "Riot Squad" (Category: Analog CyberPunk)

Before becoming the craptacular New Romance crapmeisters ABC, the core of the band formed Vice Versa (MySpace) in 1978, releasing two singles and lasting two years. "Riot Squad" is their best and most focused track.

Voice Farm: "Modern Things" (Category: Analog CyberPunk: New Wave Edition)

Voice Farm (more here and here) released a few albums on Ralph Records, so rest assured they were generally scatterbrained and sometimes brilliant. Not a band to take themselves (or to be taken) seriously, I generally like them as long as they don't go overboard with campiness. "Modern Things" has great lyrics, and for extra laffs I imagine Pee Wee Herman singing them. "It's not imitation anything / It's real plastic!" Ha!

Modern things from Germany
Modern things from Japan
Modern things from Italy
Franoise Sagan...

Entry Fifty-Six: 02/09/2008: DVD Review: Bob Mould - Circle Of Friends

Husker Du: "Chartered Trips" (From Zen Arcade)

Bob Mould: "Paralyzed" (From Body Of Song)

The minutia of Bob Mould's life is chronicled in his blog. He's a legend and also a working musician, so if you enjoy the process you should check it out. 2005's Body Of Song was a great record, with Bob coming to terms with his legacy and his love of electronic music and manipulations. Bob Mould: Circle Of Friends is a beautifully recorded document of a show he put on only a few months after the release of Body Of Song. It came out in October of last year to set up the release of his latest CD, District Line. Samples are here.

I saw this tour in Los Angeles, and Circle Of Friends is an exact rendering of what I saw that night. The DVD itself is technically perfect and the sound-sync is flawless. The set list of 23 tracks yielded only 4 fillers, and at the crazy low retail price of $19.99 you can't go wrong. Still, Bob and his band aren't tight and the show could have been better. The disc includes a video short on how Bob put his band together, and all agree that Bob was once a scary character but is now generally happy. Can a content Bob Mould still write great Bob Mould music? Why, yes, he can.

D.C. legend Brendan Canty played on Body Of Song, and he works the drums in a fashion not dissimilar to Grant Hart, which works well enough on the Husker Du songs but not the Sugar ones, where Malcolm Travis' playing is compact and powerful. Electronica/Alternative/House musician Richard Morel hits a lot of keys but half the time it's hard to make out any sounds coming from his seat on stage. He comes to the foreground on Body Of Song tracks but is a third wheel on others. Then again, when it came to Mission Of Burma everyone made a stink about Martin Swope's tape manipulations, yet I wasn't hearing much from him either. Jason Narducy is decent on bass and is younger than the rest by a generation. Bob's in decent form but I wish his guitar was amped clearer.

For the first time Bob resurrected some of his best Husker Du work, and it's always a thrill to hear "I Apologize", "Chartered Trips" and "Celebrated Summer". If I had a nickel for every time I've screamed along with the screamy parts of "Chartered Trips" I'd have $1.65 in my pocket. I'm compelled to point out a great line in "Paralyzed" that always gets my attention, and it goes exactly like this: "I wish for things that sadly have come true." I also have to say that Bob sometimes looks a whole lot like the older Pete Townsend.

It's a missed opportunity that little if anything is added to or improved on, and the playing should have been tighter. There's a few times when random notes fly into the ether for no reason. Still, it's a good enough show by a personal hero and guitar god, so if you have any inclination to buy this I suggest you do.

Entry Fifty-Five: 02/02/2008: The Present Is The Past's Future

The Normal: "Warm Leatherette" (From 7" single) (1978)

Tuxedomoon: "No Tears" (from 7" single) (1978)

Begin Transmission One: Welcome to the first installment of the Analog CyberPunk Project, to be mixed in with the usual nonsense. The main page for it is here. In the ACP Project I'll be compiling songs, mainly from the late 70's to early 80's, that I remember from my young-adult years listening to college radio and dancing in new wave clubs. It's a narrow sub-genre of my own creation, but it's as real and distinctive to me now as it was almost thirty years ago when I first heard it and fell for its charms. I get to make it up as I go along, and if I do a good enough job it might become a fact and not just my opinion. "Analog CyberPunk" is silly yet accurate, so I use it both with confidence and a slight twitch of embarrassment, and I won't use it that often.

I was born in 1961 in New York, and as teenager in the '70s I fought both the Disco Wars and The Hard Rock Cold War. As a rock and roll man I hated disco for all the obvious reasons and cheered our side's victory on July 12, 1979. As a new waver I hated the dirtballs into Led Zepplin and Black Sabbath. Both genres seemed dead, if not mortally wounded, by 1980, when new wave nearly took over the radio as popular entertainment. Sadly, as disco gasped its initial last the music establishment, from labels to clubs to magazines, did what they had to do to mutate new wave into the next disco, as in the next disposable music. It wasn't the conspiracy I thought it was at the time but the logical business thing to do, and my time in the sun lasted at least five years so I'm not complaining. I must point out that new wave and punk were interchangeable terms, and at a new wave club you'd hear everything from reggae to rockabilly to The Sex Pistols. It was all good and it seemed to mix well. I officially became a "punk" by the time Culture Club began their craptacular career around 1982.

The reason for the Analog CyberPunk Project is this: There were underground electronic new wave songs of a similar ilk I heard here and there and loved with a passion, the whole while never knowing who the bands were or what the songs were called. In recent years, thanks to the work of a later generation of disco culture, collections of songs with ACP potential have been compiled and distributed on the internet. Here's a page devoted to them. Most of these tracks will not apply, but now most everything I'll need to do this will be readily available, and when I'm finished the last of the good unheard music of my life will have been discovered, dissected and internalized. After this my hunt for music ends. The itch will have been scratched and I'll have enough great music to keep me busy well into old age and its associated dementias and physical breakdowns.

The template for Analog CyberPunk can be found most readily in "Warm Leatherette" by The Normal and "No Tears" by Tuxedomoon. I can either explain what you'll get from these two songs, or you can listen for yourself, and since I ain't 'splaining until next time you'd better take a listen. I will say this: Analog CyberPunk was what it was, not what it later became or what others think it should include. Associate Justice Potter Stewart knew hardcore pornography when he saw it, and I'll know Analog CyberPunk when I hear it. End transmission One.

Entry Fifty-Four: 01/26/2008: Title: Mid-Stream Change Of Direction. Subtitle: Back To The Future

Elvis Costello & The Attractions: "Radio Radio", live on SNL, 12/17/1977.

Dead Kennedys: "Pull My Strings" (From Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death)

As a long time two-bit record collector there was always a fear that no matter how much I bought or borrowed there would always be a plethora of stupendous songs I'd never hear or know about. Record collecting is gambling's geek-hipster cousin. Thanks to the intertubes I've been able to explore everything I've heard about and everything else even remotely related. My fear of missing out is now almost completely gone, and good riddance. Compulsive leisure activities fill up time and keep the economy humming, but it's still a compulsion which leads to both nervousness and poverty.

Next week I'll be mixing in a new project involving me identifying a sub-genre (and sub-sub-genres) of an old style of music I remember from many years ago. It involves songs partly or mostly electronic in nature, of a time when new wave supplied the melodies and punk the manic energy. In the meantime I'm collecting possible candidate tunes using track lists of the many compilations of similar and dissimilar music compiled over recent years. The candidate pool starts with about 1,000 songs. When I'm done my quest for the unheard music will end completely, for what has to be the better.

Seeing Elvis Costello stop "Less Than Zero" on Saturday Night Live 29 years ago to rip into "Radio Radio" helped make me the socially maladjusted individual I am today. So did Devo on SNL in October of '78. My first confirmed act of alternative music weirdness was in 1975, at fourteen, being able to lip-synch all of David Live. I accept what Elvis did as a deliberate if not spontaneous act, while the generally excellent History Of Rock And Roll asserts otherwise. Jeez, he was banned from the show for a dozen years! The Weird Al homage lacks punch but it's still funny.

The Dead Kennedys' "Pull My Strings" only exists as audio and lacks that video kick, but it's a fun song which I doubt ruffled as many feathers as we've been led to believe. It was performed in the capital of The Land Of Fruits And Nuts, and they were going to play the hardcore song "California Uber Alles" anyway. The crowd reaction seems great, and if they weren't invited back it was probably because nobody likes their chains jerked. Civil society wasn't brought to its knees by an off-color parody of "My Sharona". Oy.

Entry Fifty-Three: 01/19/2008: Second Firsts For My MP3 Blog's First Birthday (w/bonus birthday song)

The Damned: "New Rose" (From Damned Damned Damned)

Devo: "Fountain Of Filth" (From Hardcore Devo Vol. 2)

It seems like just a year ago I started posting weekly MP3s. To celebrate, here's "Birthday Boy" by The Residents, a song you can play for friends, relatives and your shrink to prove you're more than just a little nuts. This year I'll be defining a new (as far as I know) music sub-genre and hopefully filling CD-length compilations of said sub-genre and sub-sub-genre tracks. It's all very exciting...

The Damned weren't the first UK punk band but they were the first with a single and full-length album. I rate "New Rose" the best song of that time and place. I'm not a big fan of The Damned because they wanked a lot, especially live, and the double vocals annoy me proportionally to the amount of time I have to listen to them. I also sometimes confuse them with The Stranglers.

Devo was the first new wave band almost by definition, in their career a proto-new wave, new wave and post-new wave unit. They should have quit after Oh, No! It's Devo!, and bassist Gerald Casale is so bitter and impotent it's always fun to read or listen to his angry complaints about everything. "Fountain Of Filth" is to my ear the earliest example of  a purely new wave sound you can dance to in a purely new wave fashion. It's also one of their best songs. The copyright says 1977. The Hardcore Devo collections are a great resource for both Devo demos and their dated Captain Beefheart fetish.

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