Entry Ninety-Three: 11/15/2008: Happy Hidden Hardcore

Cub: "Not What You Think"

The Parasites: "Carve Your Initials" (punky part starts at 9:51)

Back in the daze of yore if a band wanted to hide audio on a record they were fairly screwed. For yucks you could have two separate grooves on a side, making it a crapshoot what track you're on, or you could add a snippet of sound to the records' inner run out groove, where clever vinyl etching could also be found. You could do something with cassettes but they were pretty much cheap and horrific sounding transfers of what was on the record. CD technology blew all that away, and over the years I've found a few hidden tracks, usually debris of little worth. Punk's stellar rock opera, The Vindictives' Hypno-Punko, ends with a 44:39 minute track that's with some variation a loop of the fadeout chorus from the song before it. It's a great sing-along until you realize it's never going to change or end.

I know of two poppy punk bands who hid thrashy hardcore tracks on their CDs. Cuddlecore veterans Cub buried "Not What You Think" at the end of Box Of Hair, doing their best to be The Anti-Scrunti Faction. The Parasites, the nation's best source for power pop punk songs about love not realized, added a slice of early HarDCore to the acoustic "Carve Your Initials", after 5:30 of soft snoring. Joe Strummer once said The Clash branched out into other sounds, starting with London Calling, because they'd already proved they could rant, scream and thrash around on The Clash and Give 'Em Enough Rope. I guess some bands want to prove they can rant, scream and thrash around as well as anybody

Entry Ninety-Two: 11/07/2008: Analog CyberPunk - Further Readings For The Ears VI (+ bloggy stuff)

Here's this week's edition of Analog CyberPunk: Further Readings For The Ears VI (download zip file at Rapidshare)

700 Club: "Smog Heaven"
The Actor: "Gentlemen & Pettycoats"
Artificial Organs: "While The City Sleeps"
Baby Budha: "Robot Police"
Don Bartnick: "Gefährliche Karriere"
Futurisk: "Meteoright"
Gregor S.: "Floh"
Im Namen Des Volkes: "Raumkrank"
Jeff and Jane Hudson: "Operating Instructions"
Los Iniciados: "Isis Y Osiris"
Mydolls: "The-Rapist"
Pink Industry: "State of Grace"
Soft Cell: "Tupperware Party"
Trommerfrauen: "Glasaugen"

  I don't get a lot of e-mails. I used to get more, but this was before most sites had comment sections. I'm glad I don't, because most of them are insults or rants about who the hell knows what. I did recently get one from a 'lil rich kid from a pricey tourist trap, an 18 year old with a pretentious name raised by arty parents who, based on his e-mails and picture alone, never imposed rules, values or restraints on their 'lil snowflake. He wrote to inform me that Sid Vicious was wholly half responsible for punk as a viable music form, and that I'm a so-and-so because I write "f--k" and "s--t" instead of spelling it out like in the dictionary. I could only write back that the studded leather bracelet I bought retail back in the day is twelve years older than he is. 98% of my records are older than he is. Seriously, how can I take seriously someone who's younger than shoes in my closet?

  I find it a bit unnatural, if not fake, to like pretty much everything from a band or style of music. Maybe it's easy and open-minded for many, but not for me. I especially don't see how you can write about music if everything's great. I could never work in promotions or public relations, pushing boring music as mandatory or scumbags as humanitarians. What brings this on is someone asked me why, for my Analog CyberPunk project, I compiled and posted a list of songs I felt were unworthy of consideration for the project. Well, if I'm trying to define a music sub-genre I figured I should indicate what it's really not as much as what it really is. If I don't, then the sub-genre isn't defined at all and anyone can dilute it with crap. 90% of any broad art-form is either average or really bad, and I can't see how you can promote everything under a given heading as super-duper when you know most of it isn't worth a second consideration. Everyone has their own tastes, but still.

  Reason 47 I'm glad I don't go to shows anymore.

Entry Ninety-One: 11/1/2008: Review: Sloppy Seconds - Endless Bummer

Sloppy Seconds: "You Can't Kill Joey Ramone" (from Endless Bummer)
Sloppy Seconds: "PO Box 33046" (from Endless Bummer)
Sloppy Seconds: "Radio On" (from Knock Yer Block Off)
Sloppy Seconds: "The Queen Of Outer Space" (from More Trouble Than They're Worth)

Holy Carpoli! It's been ten years since the last Sloppy Seconds CD, More Trouble Than They're Worth. Indianapolis' kings of Junk Rock pick up where they left off, the years not changing their music but giving B.A. the opportunity to write some of his best lyrics. They always been clever with verbiage, starting with 1987's 7" of the year The First Seven Inches, on Alternative Testicles. They're released their share of dumb songs ("Pop Your Dick"), but amongst all the drunken numbnuttery is a well of insight that makes itself known when nobody's looking. The original lineup featured the masterful Danny "Roadkill" Thompson on guitar, a morbidly obese fellow who couldn't handle stairs well. He was replaced by the morbidly thin Ace "Spice" Hardware, who required some time to fill the big man's shoes but has proven himself to be just as good even if he's still less than half the man Danny was.

I've been thinking about punk bands I'm still interested in enough to buy their new album, and the list comes down to Leatherface and Sloppy Seconds. I'd buy a new Meatmen CD only if I knew it wasn't cock-rock grandstanding. The Sloppy sound is a combination of The Ramones, Chuck Berry, The Professionals and Cock Sparrer, with whom they share a drunk's sentimentality of what once was yet may never have been in the first place. You listen to Sloppy Seconds for both the music and the standard themes, in this case, song by song: We Are Who We Are / Kids Like Beer / Another Crazy Punk Rock Chick Gets Dumped / Joey Ramone R.I.P. / Crazy Punk Rock Chicks Should Expose Themselves / The USA Is AOK / The Band's PO Box Usually Disappoints / Life Sucks Right Now / I'm A Drunk, So What / High School Girls Fulfilled No Fantasies / Underage Girls Need Not Apply / Lois Lane Hits Bottom / She's In A Coma But Still Sexy / Ray Has Neither Hygiene Nor Social Skills / Drugs Are Bad (Said The Alcoholic) / Alone Again With Bad Horror Movies / You've Changed For The Worse / A Vague F.U. To Somebody.

They toss in the usual assortment of audio clips from bad movies, my ears dancing a happy jig upon hearing one from Street Trash. I mentioned lyrics, so here's a sample from "You Can't kill Joey Ramone" - "Well now somewhere on the Bowery / There's a gathering of drunks / With a bottle in a brown bag / But not for all the punks / 'Cause down at CBGBs / Everybody drinks alone / But save your prayers for Dee Dee / 'Cause you can't kill Joey Ramone". Damn that's good! The best songs on the CD are loaded up front, with the end stocked with songs inspired by UK punk rock. The song that might make you go "huh?" is "This Is Your Brain On Drugs", a straightforward anti-drug message delivered by someone who might be a chronic binge drinker, or he might be a full-blown alcoholic.

Endless Bummer is all-in-all a great record, once you get over that most Sloppy Seconds songs are stitched together from other Sloppy Seconds songs. It's the lyrics that stand out, backed by an incredibly tight band. They've had ten freaking years to write good material, and I hope they do just as well sooner rather than later. Ten years from now I'll be 57, and waaaaay too old for this punk rock s--t!

Entry Ninety: 10/25/2008: Analog CyberPunk - Further Readings For The Ears V (+ bloggy stuff)

Here's this week's edition of Analog CyberPunk: Further Readings For The Ears V (download zip file at Rapidshare)

Boptronics: "Another Life"
Brian Brain: "Unexpected Noises"
Broken Tables: "The Ruins"
Collin Potter: "In The Hall"
Conceputol: "Bulk Fiber" (Song Of the Week)
Croox: "Moderne Krankheiten"
Dark Day: "The Metal Benders"
Kaa Antilope: "Rise Up Helicopter, Like A Bird"
Men 2nd: "Transition"
Metronomes: "Regular Guys"
The Naughtiest Girl Was A Monitor: "Front"
Pas De Deux: "Lits Jumeaux"
Snowy Red: "Never Alive"
Vono: "Im Schein Des Neon"
The Wake: "Patrol"

My computer's been partly taken over by a virus that redirects all searches for ways to stop it, and it's also disabled anti-virus updates, system restore and disc defrag. I better do this while the gettin's good. Here's today's output of bleeps, bloops and other electronic fart noises. Enjoy!

Entry Eighty-Nine: 10/18/2008: Review: The Residents - Bunny Boy

The Residents: "Boxes Of Armageddon" (from Bunny Boy)
The Residents: "My Nigerian Friend" (from Bunny Boy, included because a song about e-mail scamming is WTF?)
The Residents: "Lottie The Human Log" (from Bad Day On The Midway)
The Residents: "Mr. Wonderful" (from Demons Dance Alone)

It's been another few months, so time for more official The Residents © product. The most current offering is Bunny Boy, which allmusic tries in vain to explain (or even understand themselves). Bunny Boy is better musically than a lot of what they've released in a while, but it's as big a pile of an incoherent mess as anything they've ever recorded, and they've made plenty of messes in their long history. Their last truly great works were 1988's God In Three Persons and 1989's The King & Eye, followed by their best tour, which in residential fashion they didn't bother to film, a failure they've tried to correct by filming everything since with off-putting camera techniques. The Residents have always tried to be cutting-edge and multi-media, but they make bad technology choices and have either spread themselves too thin, didn't have a good idea to start with, or couldn't maintain interest long enough to make it work. At best Bunny Boy is an effort to get back to a more cohesive and better sounding time in their career. Still, it's hard to keep up with a story barely explored and told randomly if at all, and with music that's often interesting but also often not.

Here's a discography. After The King & Eye they dived headfirst into the beta-tape technology of CD-ROMs, releasing Freak Show in 1991. It was a big deal then only because of the ROM, whose graphics were nicely rendered, and if you had time it was the Myst of Resident weirdness. The extras of facts and images from the real American freak show era was more evidence The Residents were experts on American cultural history, and as so you wanted them to continue exploring forgotten alternative culture. Musically Freak Show was average, but at the time it was almost forgivable considering how much was on their plate. 1995's Gingerbread Man was a great experiment they could have toured with. The stories were engaging and the fabricated Gingerbread Man mythology could have been fleshed out to something significant. The CD-ROM for this was limited by a strange head-spinning gimmick but it was still fun. 1996's Bad Day On The Midway was a great achievement for CD-ROM technology but was also restricted by the technology. The images were great and some of the songs worth a second listen, especially "Lottie The Human Log", sung by the inimitable Molly Harvey, whose later departure seemingly left The Residents no choice but to become an artists collective, leading to the horrible singing choices found On Animal Lover and The Voice Of Midnight, the latter featuring a male singer I can only imagine as looking like Waldo from Where's Waldo. 1998's Wormwood was conceptually sound but it suffered from music that sounded like an off-Broadway musical and a stage show featuring Big Rez and Molly stomping around the stage trying to make simple stage props look interesting. 2002's Demons Dance Alone corrected that last mistake by including an entertaining dancer in a red body suit and demon mask. Musically it was equal to Wormwood, which is a good time to explain that it's been forever since The Residents have recorded a mostly satisfying musical experience. It's as if the music is secondary to something else, yet that something else is incomplete, unknowable and not planned out to the full extent.

2006's Tweedles was their last major work, and while the music is better the plot is once again incoherent if there at all, and it once again falls back on the hope that Big Rez's insights into the human condition will carry it over the finish line. Lacking a real story it doesn't. Here Big Rez crosses another line by cursing at will, which isn't any more real than not cursing, and it does degrade them since everyone assumes they can do better than that. Big Rez's insight is that a penis is like a gun, about as creative as a sixteen year old stoner's third-eye readings of the universe.

Bunny Boy is an all-front attack to make The Residents valid again. They've posting videos (a typical smooth move making them only playable on Nero), being interactive on the internet, and touring, which based on the few clips I've seen on Youtube is unambitious and most probably as boring as Disfigured Night, a WTF moment if there ever was one. I hope they get their act together and do it right the next time. I want to be proud of The Residents again.

Entry Eighty-Eight: 10/11/2008: Analog CyberPunk - Further Readings For The Ears IV (+ bloggy stuff)

Here's this week's edition of Analog CyberPunk: Further Readings For The Ears IV (download zip file at Rapidshare)

AG Geige: "Kosmonauten"
Epoxies: "Synthesized"
Experimental Products: "Sweet Rejection"
Fehlfarben: "Apokalyopse"
Fiction Technology: "In The City"
Hessen Ganz Gross: "Unter Der Achsel"
Klack Klack: "1919"
Liquid Sky Soundtrack: "Alien's Theme"
Odd Stories: "Dance"
Portion Control: "Better Place"
Rational Youth: "I Want To See The Light"
Robert Lawrence: "Heart Finds A Home"
Tempo Di Marcia: "Russian Dream"
Wall Of Voodoo: "Full Of Tension"
Z.S.K.A.: "Keinen Teddybar"

I wanted to write something about punk music but had nothing in mind this morning. I made my quarterly trip to Interpunk to once again find I don't know and I don't wanna know what's going on with punk these days. The lead singer of a screaming anarchy band has a new solo acoustic album for sale. Signs of the Apocalypse are getting stranger and stranger. Exiting my crappy gym this morning an employee said of my Ramones shirt "Wow, I didn't know anybody remembered The Ramones anymore!" Then she sang "That's what I like about you...." I nicely said she's thinking of The Romantics. We smiled at each other and I got into my car.

41 years ago, on October 9th, the Bolivians "Did the Work American weren't willing to do" and killed S--t Guevara before he could open new franchises of the death squads and gulags he set up in Cuba, a paradise of vintage cars and free health care in facilities maintained to death camp standards. I have no idea why anyone would idolize a serial killer, besides the usual oddjobs, but it must have something to do with his dedication to kill everyone that stood in the way of a Marxist heaven where people only did what made them happy and were acknowledged as geniuses and given everything they need for free. Oh yeah, and he also rode a motorcycle and wore a jaunty hat. Check out S--t's wiggling pigglies on this page.

I'm forced by circumstance to belong to a chain of health clubs unmanaged by design and staffed by an army of the otherwise unhirable. I'm so repulsed by the place I try not to socialize. Instead I have names for people I don't know and don't ever want to know, and the fancy name for that is Familiar Stranger. Here's some I've come up with for my gym: Neck, Angry Asian, Grunty And his Lover, Grandma Moses, Inconsiderate Old F--k, Grizzly Adams, Captain Caveman, Cruella DeVille, The Striped Shirt Gang, Pug, Speed Bump, Surfer F--k, Suburban Contractor and Lump.

Entry Eighty-Seven: 10/04/2008: Country New Wave: Rubber Rodeo and Rank And File

Rubber Rodeo   Rank And File

Rubber Rodeo: "Anywhere With You"
Rubber Rodeo: "Jolene"
Rubber Rodeo: "The Theme From Rubber Rodeo"

Rank And File: "The Conductor Wore Black"
Rank And File: "Amanda Ruth"
Rank And File: "Sundown"

I've never been a country music fan but there's some songs I like. New Country I'll never get into. It's the 80s hair metal of C&W. In the early 80s there were two new wave country bands I really liked - Rubber Rodeo and Rank And File. You'll read they were Cow Punk or some such thing, but they weren't. Blood On The Saddle, Tex And The Horseheads and a few others were dive-bar punk bands with poop-kickin' country roots, but Rubber Rodeo and Rank And File were new wave bands playing country. Maybe the other way around. Rubber Rodeo was campy and fun, while Rank And File was more straightforward. Rank And File released three albums, the first I recommend highly and the last I'd avoid at all costs. Rubber Rodeo peaked early before settling into writing more conventional songs that weren't as fun or inspired. 1984's Scenic Views did yield their best song, "Anywhere With You".

I saw Rubber Rodeo play in their prime at DC's 9:30 Club, and it was literally the most fun I've ever had at a show. Their cover of Glen Campbell's "Wichita Lineman" stunned me a bit. I think I stood there with my mouth open in astonishment. They were from Rhode Island and featured Trish Miliken (vocals/keyboards), Bob Holmes (vocals/guitar), Doug Allen (bass), Gary Leib (keyboards) and Mark Tomeo (pedal steel guitar).  Originally part of The Asphalt Cowboys, they split to form Rubber Rodeo and The Peregrins. Bob Holmes once described Rubber Rodeo as; "a cross between Gene Autry and Devo", which may sound cute but there's no Devo in the final equation. Bob also said that although their music is slightly satirical they don't mean to make fun of Country-and-Western music.

About Rank And File I found this piece of Rhino Records Review propaganda and elsewhere this nice summary: "From Austin, Texas.  Led by Chip Kinman (vocals/guitar) and brother Tony Kinman (vocals/bass) with Alejandro Escovedo (guitar) and Slim Evans (drums).  A firm So. California punk heritage, the Kinman brothers were members of legendary Los Angeles bands The Dils and The Nuns.  This band embraced the cowpunk sound and let their Texas surroundings guide them.  Escovedo would later form the True Believers and is currently enjoying a solid solo career.  He is also the uncle of pop star Sheila E.  Surprisingly the Kinmans went on to form industrial band Blackbird before returning to their roots with the country flavored Cowboy Nation. 1982-87."

Entry Eighty-Six: 09/26/2008: Analog CyberPunk - Further Readings For The Ears III (+ bloggy stuff)

Here's this week's edition of Analog CyberPunk: Further Readings For The Ears III (download zip file at Rapidshare)

1000 Mexicans: "Diving For Pearl"
A Blaze Colour: "Or Lie Again"
Adaptors: "Trust In Technology"
Anne Cessna & Essendon Airport: "Lost In Madagascar"
DZ Lectric: "A Very Dirty A.W.B.Y.D."
End Of Data: "If I'm Not A Killer"
Kaa Antilope: "Rise Up Helicopter"
The Limp: "Pony Club"
Marie Moor: "Pretty Day"
Moev: "Obituary Column"
P-Model: "One Way Love"
Product of Reason: "Active Repetition"
Steven Grandell: "Burn My Eyes"
Surplus Stock: "Slide Guitar"
The Young Lions: "Mary & Jane"

  I recently discovered Mark Underground’s blog, Down Underground, with a backlog of available downloads that rivals Mutant Sounds. Mark’s MySpace page has a graphic of The Scream that would send Mr. Butter Salesman flopping like a fish. Among other things I yoinked the Bouncing Babies comp, the Horror Planet 7” and Party Or Go Home, a holy grail for me just for the F—k-Ups “Bacon and Eggs”, my favorite short and concise burst of hardcore punk. All I need now is Meatjoy’s LP, a lo-fi punk band featuring Gretchen Phillips and John Hawkes, and I’ll have a rip of every old song I’ve been searching for. Only then does my “Mission Accomplished” banner go up.

  I used to collect punk zines the same way I did comic books and records – obsessively. I moved them with me every time I changed zip codes. I’ve gotten over the need to collect anything except what the internet drags in, which makes my wallet heavier but my life a little more boring. I miss the excitement of record and comic book shows, running around in a panic to find who the hell knows what really. I’ve pruned my LP collection down to three feet wide, and my singles shelf is four feet wide, but they’re small, cute, and don’t take up much space. I donated four feet of zines to the Operation Phoenix Records Zine Archive. The world assigns a value to everything, and if there was a punk zine price guide maybe what I had was worth something, but good luck finding buyers, getting what you think its worth and not having the transactions make it not worth doing in the first place. If I feel like looking at my old zines I can do it easier online anyway.

  Saturday morning I’m off to Las Vegas on family business. I lived there for 18 months around 13 years ago, and it was great for a year. The alt.culture scene was small and friendly so it was easy to fit right in and get to know as many people as you wanted or could handle. The bad part about Vegas was that many people were trying to leave this desert hellhole overrun with waddling tourists and a literal undead army of the homeless, so there was no feeling anything would last. Las Vegas is one of America’s drains where people go to die or die trying. The only two seasons are too hot and too cold. I wrote a joke about Vegas: “All the casinos put up billboards bragging they have the ‘loosest slots in town’. That means you’ll barely feel it as they f—k you out of your life savings.”

Entry Eighty-Five: 09/20/2008: Looking Back At Moving Targets

Moving Targets:
"The Other Side" (from Burning In Water)
"Faith" (from Burning In Water)
"Falling" (from Brave Noise)
"Car Crash" (from Brave Noise)
"Taang! Intro" (from Fall)
"Away From Me" (from Fall)
"Last Of The Angels" (from Take This Ride)
"The Story" (from Take This Ride)

When you're my age you get to do stuff like wonder about that first prostate exam, make young people laugh by reminiscing about your full head of hair, and doing a mental triple-take when you do the math and realize the first Moving Targets album came out 22 years ago! I remember it like it was only 1,144 weeks ago, clutching Burning In Water in my widdle fists and paying the nice degenerate minimum wage scumbag at the record store with paycheck money. After yelling "Thanks Mister!!", I breathlessly skipped to my car and drove all the way home to play it on my new-fangled victrola. Memories, like the corners of my mind...(sob)

It's been a few years since I've listened to an entire Moving Targets record so I thought I'd compare how I remembered them with how they sound to me now. Here's their MySpace page with new tracks by songwriter/guitarist/singer/big in Germany Ken Chambers. The band history is very good. Boston's Moving Targets were on Taang! Records, long before that label became a retail-store shed hidden on a San Diego beach concrete bike path. Along with The Lemonheads they were a provincial Husker Du appreciation society, in Moving Targets' case with an additional worship of local legends Mission Of Burma, at the time America's Wire. Their albums were Burning In Water (1986), Brave Noise (1989), Fall (1991) and Take This Ride (1993). I can't say I agree with Allmusic's assessment: "Moving Targets are a little-known but seminal link in a chain that joins hardcore and other early-'80s Boston music strains like collegiate art rock and folk-rock to '90s alternative rock." Not that I know for a fact this is a false statement, but Moving Targets were not that successful and I don't recall anyone saying they were influenced by them. My money goes on that they were a link in a chain that leads to Husker Du and Mission Of Burma, but were not an end to themselves. I saw them play a hallway alcove in DC when I thought the entire punk world was as big a fan as I, but sadly it was mostly me along with a few others mostly standing around. I felt bad for them and embarrassed that DC couldn't show the love I thought it had. If I was rich I would have bought them a big steak dinner and refueled their van.

Before listening to their four cds again I had a theory to test that Moving Targets were mostly an instrumentals band that added vocals to many songs seemingly not made to support them. This wound up being true for Brave Noise and Fall. On these albums especially the urge is to play air drums along with them, not because they're the most amazing thing going but because it's what stands out the most. Burning In Water was their initial burst of youthful hardcore energy, while Take This Ride refocused itself on singing + instruments for as long as it lasted, as it lost steam the same way The Lemonhead's Lick did (and probably for the same reasons). The only bad Moving Targets song is "Take That Away", on Take This Ride. It's not a bad song except for the horribly strained vocals, which I blame on, with no proof, Chamber's association with Bullet LaVolta. Listening again I noticed drummer Pat Brady slapped at the drums more than I remembered, making him like Husker Du's Grant Hart. I thought he had more military precision, but I was wrong. On Brave Noise he's adding fills and hi-hat strikes like he's being paid by the note, which mostly works but he's sometimes straining to make it work. J. Arcari drums on the last album and his playing is tighter. It's also interesting to note that at various times a second bass player was brought in to play more difficult songs. That must have been tough on someone's ego.

Above I mentioned the drumming seems to dominate the middle albums, which led me to the discovery that Ken Chambers plays lead guitar more like it's the backup guitar. I'm not a musician (I play one on my stereo) but to me Chambers is not playing lead guitar. As an analogy he's the second guitarist on Leatherface's Mush, and there's no Frankie Stubbs. Maybe that's part of the charm of Moving Targets, that it's not a wanking guitar band. That it's lead by the percussion and often delivered as instrumentals with words. Moving Targets are a great band and I hope more people discover them. Start from the beginning and work your way up.

Entry Eighty-Four: 09/13/2008: Analog CyberPunk - Further Readings For The Ears II (+ bloggy stuff)

Here's this week's edition of Analog CyberPunk: Further Readings For The Ears II (download zip file at Rapidshare)

Baard: "Life In A Goldfish Bowl"
Baby Buddha: "Little Things"
Bene Gesserit: "American Orphan Girl"
Blago Bung: "Hans Kyss"
Christian Lunch: "Joke's On You"
Confusional Quartet: "Bologna Rock"
End Of Your Garden: "Celebration
Familie Hesselbach: "Die Wilden Kossachen Reiten Auf Der Autobahn"
Picture Book: "Success"
Plastic Domingo: "Alles Geschmacksache"
Roy Finch: "Fear Of Death"
Short Wave Mystery:" Nice Girl"
Spizzenergi: "Soldier, Soldier"
The Systematics: "Die For My House"
Volkstanz: "Regulation Comedy"

Here's a great site that proves there's a map for everything: STRANGE MAPS

Gather 'round, kids, it's Story Time! Today we have the tale of the little logo that could. Jello Biafra (real name Reginald Portnoy III) was once in a lo-fi band called Picnic Table. Their logo looked like this:

In 1978, after Jello was released from his annual "away time" where he worked on curbing his extreme mental deliciousness, he declared he was electro-shocked to discover the world was filled with evil people who populated every conspiracy theory he'd ever had. He knew something had to change. Having no neck muscles to speak of, Jello's head would fall to the side when not perfectly balanced. One day his head plopped over to the right as he was looking at the Picnic Table logo, and he screamed "Dee Kay!" "What's that, Jello?" asked his bandmates, who instinctively jumped behind couches whenever Jello lost his s--t. "Dee Kay!!" Jello screamed again, pointing at the Picnic Table logo which he had turned a bit to look like this:

East Bay Ray covered his face and asked "Why is the picnic table on its side, Jello?" Jello foamed the words "Dee Kay!" while stabbing out the letters D and K with a knife he promised everyone he didn't have just ten minutes earlier. "I see it Jello, D-K. It's right there" whispered East Bay Ray. "Shhhh, shhh, easy now..." One more visit for "away time" and Jello was ready to destroy the world even though he sounded like Cindy Brady with bad post-nasal drip.

Nobody remembers how they came to be known as The Dead Kennedys, and it's not important anyway, because on that special day, when a picnic table was knocked on its side by Jello's lack of neck muscles, a new cash-cow corporate logo was born, joining The Misfits' skull and The Vandals V + Rifle into a solid 24% of all profits for Hot Topic and Spencer's Gifts.

The End.

Entry Eighty-Three: 09/6/2008: Review: The B-52's - Funplex

The B-52's:

"Pump" (from Funplex)
"Funplex" from (Funplex)
"Planet Claire" (From The B-52's)
"Give Me Back My Man" (From Wild Planet)
"Whammy Kiss" (From Whammy!)

When I first read there's a new B-52's cd my first thought was "Why?", not in a bad way, but at this point they need new material as much as does Jimmy Buffett. They're both nostalgic fun-time party bands, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, and nobody has expectations of hearing an album track off Bouncing Off The Satellites. Listening to this it's immediately obvious Funplex is comparable even on the existential level to Bob Mould's Body Of Song. Both are reconciliations of seemingly incompatible old and new sounds, and are bookends of the adaptability of asexual new wave and melodic hardcore punk to innovation. When projects like this fail they can do so spectacularly (see Billy Idol's Cyberpunk and Neil Young's Trans). Modern dance music intrusions are kept at a minimum, which is still a little too much for me, but the B-52's come "this" close to recording a great album. Out of it they got a  few more songs for their next greatest hits collection and a handful of club-friendly crowd pleasers to use live on tour. Not too shabby.

Funplex is front-loaded with the songs that best defined what made them great in the first place. Few remember this in context, but their first two albums are minimalist surf/spy masterpieces. Focus on the drums and guitar alone and you'll hear it. The upgrade on the first few tracks are the alterna-rock influences last heard on Fred Schneider's beautiful mess of a record Just...Fred. Their greatest strengths are the vocals and (especially) vocal harmonies of Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson. A good dance beat is the easiest thing to stumble upon. The trick is building on it, and nothing makes a B-52's song soar more than when the girls belt it out.

Fred gets his own paragraph because he's both a great asset and also the reason why Funplex drags down a few times. He always makes me think of John Waters, but that's not important. Fred should not be allowed to slowly talk-sing. It's that simple. I also find his slow faux-rapping just as ineffectual. Don't get me wrong. I love Fred for the kitsch genius he is. I just think he has weaknesses and should avoid them plague-like. His ability to dance The Pony alone makes him, to me, a god.

"Juliet Of The Spirits" reminds me of Bob Mould's "I Am Vision, I Am Sound", and "Eyes Wide Open" sneaks in part of a chorus that sounds like Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill". Does anyone know why there's an apostrophe in "The B-52's"?

Above are two songs from Funplex and a few more for flavor. "Planet Claire" opened their debut LP, and as such it's their mission statement. It's a great example of their eccentric, southern-fried, minimalist approach. "Give Me Back My Man", from the second LP, corrected a universal wrong by giving Cindy Wilson the chance to prove that while she was not as great a singer as Kate Pierson was she was at least 98% as good, and that's more than enough. "Whammy Kiss" is the most fun the band's ever had, and it's The B-52's at their best.

The B-52's were one of the first, one of the best, and one of the most popular new wave bands. They did for quaint eccentricity what the recently departed Estelle Getty did for loveable old curmudgeons.

Entry Eighty-Two: 08/30/2008: Analog CyberPunk - Further Readings For The Ears I

The now intermittent Perry Bible Fellowship offers a strip that's so perfect in every way the universe has folded over onto itself.

Here's this week's edition of Analog CyberPunk: Further Readings For The Ears I (download zip file at Rapidshare)

(Hypothetical) Prophets: "Fast Food" (PICK OF THE WEEK!)
2+2=5: "Meeting Mc. L."
20-20 Systems: "Dresden"
BOB: "The Things That You Do"
C.O.M.A.: "Femme Robot"
Comix: "Pomme D'Api"
Enzo Kreft: "I Don't Understand It"
Fall Of Saigon: "She Leaves Me Alone"
Family Fodder: "Savoir Faire"
Fault 151: "Radiation Man"
Fun With Animals: "The Test Of Love And Sex (stereo)"
Jacket Weather: "Trust"
X-Quadrat: "Kauf Dir Die Freiheit"
Yppasswdd Daemons: "Bin-Ksh"
Jirkel Junger Musiker: "Michael Neufeld"

With these Analog CyberPunk updates I'm going to write random things as if this were a blog and I was deluded enough to believe people wanted to know what I think about things specifically and in general.

I own a Buzzcocks t-shirt, the by-product of trading in a ton of records and not wanting any records back. If you google "What Is A Buzzcock?" the first choice is an entry from my my old blog. When I wear my Buzzcocks shirt I'm itching for someone to ask me if I'm a fan of The Buzzcocks, to which I'd reply no, I never knew they were a band, but I do enjoy a large vibrating dildo up my wazoo every now and again. Then I'd smile, cross my eyes a little and look off into space.

Fedor is the man. Any MMA talk that there's better than my fellow Ukrainian (my heritage, his hometown) is baby gibberish. His last match (first in the US) was sponsored by Affliction, another in an endless parade of small clothing manufacturers here in SoCal. In my day we vandalized posts and signs with punk band stickers - today it's small run designers of sunglasses and hoodies. It's now gangsta to turn your neighborhood into a ghetto by promoting designer belts and hats from companies you don't even work for. Affliction's HQ is in Seal Beach on my way home from eastward hither and yon. The landlord posted a wood sign reading "Welcome Affliction", which always makes me laugh. An affliction is a state of continuous suffering (as with a disease), anguish or torment. Clothing companies can't give themselves unpleasant names fast and hard enough. My favorite brand name is Ambiguous, because who doesn't want to advertise their confused sexuality. Every time I pass by the "Welcome Affliction" sign I picture the next few buildings having banners declaring "Greetings Tapeworm Larvae" and "Hooray for Debilitating Depression!" I crack myself up. The Chrysler Crossfire is a great looking car, but in battle the worst place to be is in the crossfire. Hey, let's call it the Chrysler Kill Zone instead!