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AUGUST, 1995 (Issue # 3)
============================================================================
DJ Johnson.........................Taker of the heat for this
Cai Campbell.......................Graphic layout god & writist
coLeSLAw...........................Art, poetry & cool name
Louise Johnson.....................Picky person with red pen
James Andrews......................Member of columnist party
Scott Wedel........................Writer not popular with MTV execs
Hunter S. Thompson.................Not involved. Ha! Made ya look!
With contributions from Steven Leith, Lisa Peppan, J.C. Hendee, Alan
Wright, and this really trippin' guy we've never met named Magthorn
who sends us stuff in e-mail that blows our minds.
===========================================================================
AUGUST, 1995
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
* MEET THE BASEMENT BRATS - Interviewed for the first time in an American
publication, singer and spokesman Ole "Magnum" Olsen discusses the
Norwegian music scene and The Basement Brats' place in it.
* WHAT'S BLACK AND WHITE AND DIFFERENT ALL OVER? - According to Scott
Wedel, the answer is MTV's censorship policies. Is there one set
of rules for black performers and another set for whites?
* THE ONLY SHOW IN TOWN - The true story of what happened when two young
men tried to stage a punk concert in a small town.
* REVIEWS - Records a'plenty, reviewed by Cai Campbell, DJ Johnson, Alan
Wright, coLeSLAw and Scott Wedel.
* A SYMBOLIC GESTURE - Political writer Steven Leith explains how the GOP
is gaining ground without talking about the real issues.
* YO' MAMA! - Mother Jones is a magazine that educates. It exposes those
who abuse power. It clears up confusing issues. And it's online.
Cosmik Debris introduces you to one of the net's greatest resources.
* THE DEBRIS FIELD - Our new monthly feature. Just call it "Stuff."
Poems by coLeSLAw, Lisa Peppan and J.C. Hendee, a collection of Spam
Haiku, and a mind-trip, courtesy of Magthorn.
* URBANIA - This month, James Andrews, armed with a web-browser, goes
looking for all that juicy hot pornography the media and politicians
are always going on about.
* SHARP POINTED STICK AWARD - DJ Johnson christens his new column. The
first award winner? Some poor schmuck who apparently couldn't tell
an ass from a...well, you'll see.
============================================================================
E D I T O R ' S N O T E S
Welcome to issue number three. This is our first issue with our new
spelling, "Cosmik Debris." As you may remember, we found out there was
a sci-fi/fantasy fiction anthology zine called Cosmic Debris, and we made
the switch. That's fine with us, too, because this is the way Frank Zappa
spelled it in the song that inspired this name. And so, we happily welcome
you to Cosmik Debris.
I want to thank the dozen of you who sent e-mail about our last issue.
We had hoped for more feedback, considering it was read by hundreds of
people, but the twelve responses we DID get were very encouraging. Those
people all got our point. Well, actually, eleven of them got it, one of
them just wanted to know if we were going to interview Frank Zappa soon.
I'll count him as a "probably didn't get it." Subscription requests shot up
quickly after that issue, though, and no cancellations came in, so I'm going
to boldly assume that most people got it. What we want to know now is...
did you DO anything about it? Did you register to vote? Or link up to
Project Vote Smart and start looking up voting records of your senators and
congress reps? Did you do some reading at Mother Jones Interactive? We
hope so. That's what we did it for. PLEASE take the time to drop us a
quick message at moonbaby@serv.net and let us know what you did about it.
Onward. This month, we take you to Halden, Norway, to meet a great
melodic punk band. The Basement Brats have the distinction of making the
last vinyl record in Norway. Now, on the eve of the release of their
"Curse Of The Basement Brats" CD, lead singer Ole "Magnum" Olson talks
about their music and the scene they live and play in.
There are two major changes to mention this month. First, the poetry
section has been swallowed up by "The Debris Field." We wanted to bring
you poetry and random bits of weirdness in the same place, so we did.
The second thing is that we've expanded the review section. Alan Wright
has done all the reviews until now, but Alan has his own project going on,
which we will give you the details of as soon as they are available.
So Cai Campbell, coLeSLAw, Scott Wedell and Yours Truly have all jumped in
and joined the fun. As I've said before, we're not strictly a punk or
surf magazine, so don't be shocked to find a review of Pink Floyd next to
a review of Los Hornets. We hope you enjoy the diversity. That's about
all I can say that the table of contents can't say better. Enjoy.
- DJ Johnson
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M E E T T H E B A S E M E N T B R A T S
Norway has many well kept musical secrets. Among them, The
Kwyet Kings, The Yum Yums...and The Basement Brats. Ole
"Magnum" Olsen discusses the scene, the band, and life as a
Norwegian punker. Interviewed by DJ Johnson.
* * * *
I wonder how many fantastic punk bands are out there in Europe, and
elsewhere, that have never been heard by Americans. Norway, for example.
I had no idea there was such a great scene there. The Yum Yums and The
Kwyet Kings, certainly, have what it takes to make it in this country.
Melodic punk influenced by British invasion bands like The Beatles and
The Kinks, but powered by the punk influences of the 70's.
The Basement Brats, from Halden, Norway, are up there with the best
of the Norwegian bands. They have a natural energy in their playing,
favoring balls-out melodic punk draped with their trademark wall-of-sound.
Now, with the lineup of Ole "Magnum" Olsen (Vocals), Egil "Pineapple" Pinas
(Guitar & Vocals), Nils "Nuthead" Olsen (Guitar & Vocals), Ulf "R.C.
Rasken" Larsen (Bass & Vocals) and Mads "Bratman" Husvik (Drums), The
Brats prepare for their third release, "Curse Of The Brats," on the
Japanese label 1+2 Records (who has arranged American distribution through
Get Hip Records) in August. The CD-only release contains 25 tracks, 16 of
which were previously released on the first two Brats records, the 7 inch
"Blast Off" EP and the mini LP "Tales From The Basement." The remaining 9
tracks are new or previously unreleased gems.
We wanted to be the first American zine to interview The Basement
Brats. Lead singer and band spokesman Ole "Magnum" Olsen was kind enough
to oblige.
---------------------
CD: Tell us about 1990 in Halden, Norway. What was the music scene
at the time?
Magnum: Not very exciting, really... About ten years earlier, around
1980, Halden - which is just a little town, really, of about
30,000 people - got a reputation as Norway's "rock'n'roll city
number one", sort of. This was both because of good Halden
bands at the time, like Front Page, the Young Lords and
Saturday Cowboys, who gained a bit of popularity country-wide,
and also because Halden was, I think, the first Norwegian town
in which the city provided the rock'n'roll community with an
own house for bands to rehearse in. But later in the eighties,
there was not a lot of exciting music coming out of Halden.
When we formed the Brats in '90, and started rehearsing at "the
Rock House", which that house was called, the rest of the house
was occupied by more or less shitty pussy metal bands. Some
good musicians there, but not a lot of good music.
There were a couple of exciting bands at that time as well,
most notably a band called Rovers, an eight man folk rock band,
or "rock folk", as they called it, but they were definitely
in a minority. In a cellar on the other side of the town,
though, some skaters formed a punk rock band again - sometimes
known as the Missing Loved Ones, sometimes as Hille Valla, and
a whole lot of other names - and this started the snowball
rolling again...
CD: Has it changed much from '90 to now?
Magnum: It's changed dramatically, I'd say. The Rock House is on hiatus
at the moment. It had to be moved - not the house itself, of
course, but the activities taking place in it, so to speak -
and the city and the others responsible for that have been
really slow in getting the new Rock House ready. But when we
moved out of there last summer, there were none of those shitty
heavy metal bands left, and quite a few young, exciting bands
in their place. As I said, the Missing Loved Ones really started
the snowball rolling - they were the pioneers, sort of, and
probably inspired other people who were also fed up with boring
heavy metal to start playing some energetic rock'n'roll again.
And then WE started, without any direct connection to them, at
about the same time, playing more rough, simple rock'n'roll. And
then we've had some success, sort of, with a couple of releases
and really a lot of attention, world wide, even, for a band of
our genre, and that was an inspiration for some as well, I
believe. And now there's a lot of good music around here, of
all kinds. There's a band called Poppets - we rehearse at the
same place as they do, by the way, at the place of a mate of
ours who usually cranks up his stereo so loud that the neighbours
don't hear the difference when there's a band playing in his
living room instead of his stereo. And there's a couple of bands
with, among others, old Missing Loved Ones and Basement Brats
members - Chinese Saxophones and Burnouts. All of these are of
the...rougher variety, more or less. And Rovers are still going
strong - better than ever, but unfortunately without a record
contract at the moment. Hair of the Dog is a good country/roots
band with a couple of Rovers members thrown in for good
measure. Cornflakes, who by the way just got a contract with
Norwegian Polygram a couple of weeks ago, is a pop group, I'd
say, with members taken from some of those old, crappy heavy
metal things. And there are even a couple of promising all-girls
bands. So all in all, I'd say things look a lot better now than
they did five years ago.
CD: Who influenced the sound and the writers in the band?
Magnum: Well, if you look at the name of the band, you might guess that
the Ramones have definitely had something to do with it.
Without the Ramones, there would never have been a Basement
Brats. But the same can really be said about the Devil Dogs,
'cause it was after seeing a show with them, in Halden, in May
'91, that we finally really saw the light and started playing a
"surf punk" kind of music. We were due to support the Devil
Dogs the next time they played Norway, by the way, but then
they broke up... Apart from those two big shining stars, there
are numerous other influences... I guess about everything we've
been listening to up through our lives has influenced us more or
less. I could list up a lot... like the Sonics, the Beach Boys,
the Stooges, Johnny Thunders... Motorhead, even... and of
course the Norwegian garage 60's scene. Our "guardian angel",
sort of, Arne Thelin, who released our first record, landed the
deals for the others and got us into touch with about everybody
we know... he seems to have had a lot to do with that, with
bands like the Cosmic Dropouts, the Lust-O-Rama and the Kwyet
Kings. We're not trying to copy anything, though, the way we
play or the way we write or anything. When I write lyrics, for
instance, I'm influenced by even music that doesn't really have
much to do with the kind of music WE play, but which I've been
listening to a lot myself - like Simon and/or Garfunkel and
Frank Zappa. It may not be visible to anyone other than me,
though...
CD: Egil's song, "Fed Up," may be the only song ever to talk about
Christmas AND have a line like "Hey, girl, I don't need your
fucking cunt!" Do you ever feel the effects of censorship
there?
Magnum: Not yet, anyway. We haven't played in any English speaking
countries yet, though. If we ever get big, they'll probably put
the idiotic "parental warning" label on our albums...
Despite that one line, you'll notice that there's not really a
lot of swearing in our lyrics. Personally, I think I've only
used swear words in my lyrics once or twice, when I felt there
was really no way around it if I wanted to be able to say what
I wanted to say. That's not because I'm afraid of being
censored or anything, though... rather because I haven't found
it necessary. We're not the Sex Pistols, you know...
I'm really glad we don't live in the States... If the bloody
CDA (Ed. Note: Communications Decency Act) gets passed in the
House, I guess the lyrics for "Fed Up" would be censored off our
Web site... It's insane! Have you seen the list of the senators
who voted in favor of that bloody thing? Did you notice that not
ONE of them had an e-mail address? They don't know what the
bloody fuck they're voting for! They're quite utterly clueless!
And then bloody TIME jumps on the wagon with that "cyberporn"
article, which by the way is based on a flawed report. sometimes
I long back to the days, a couple of years ago, when it was
possible to get into an FTP site almost any time you wanted, the
AOL babies had to keep their "me too" posts on AOL and power
hungry politicians who couldn't use a bloody word processor, and
probably still can't, had never heard about it. Remind me to get
one of those "The Internet is full - go away!" T-shirts...
CD: But the Internet brings you new fans. People find your WWW
site, get curious, and seek out your music. Wouldn't your
wearing that shirt be a lot like Kurt Cobain saying "Fuck you
for buying our records! We don't wanna be famous" while he was
living in a mansion? Not on that scale, of course, but still
biting the hand that feeds?
Magnum: No, I don't mean it that way, it's just a personal thing, really,
from a spoiled old-timer. Well, four years or so, anyway.
Basically, I think it would be quite practical if EVERYBODY was
connected to the Internet, 'cause then I could e-mail people
instead of calling them. I hate phones... Anyway, the thing that
irritates me the most is all the BBS's and other commercial
online services, like the infamous America Online who have
suddenly connected to the Internet without giving their users
much information on what it's about and how it differs from a
BBS - for instance that a simple news posting is taking up a lot
of bandwidth while it's being sent to thousands of news servers
around the world and taking up disk space on all of those servers
afterwards, so you have to consider if what you have to say is
worth that. I don't want to throw anyone out of the Internet, and
I'm not the flaming type either, but I'd like educated users. A
lot of people jump on the Internet bandwagon simply because it's
presently trendy to do so. But of course, it's never so bad
that's it's not good for anything. They might find the Basement
Brats site...
CD: ...And hear the cool music clips! Let's talk about your music.
One of the things that I love about the Basement Brats is the
simplicity of the lyrics. Good old fashioned rock and roll,
with the occasional twist thrown in, like "And I'm Drunk - And
I'm Pissed!" Or when you profess your love by declaring "That
right now I don't care if I'm messing up my whole life."
Magnum: That line about "and I'm drunk - and I'm pissed" in "My Baby
Left Me" was originally going to be "and I'm drunk - and I'm
stoned", but I feared censorship. (Laughs). "I'm In Love" is a
very true story. Every line is true. And I knew I was messing
my life up, but right then, I couldn't care less. Regarding our
lyrics in general... I used to write more complicated lyrics in
the old days, before we moved to a more punky kind of style,
when I started writing more simple lyrics to sort of suit the
music better. A lot of the time it's just old rock'n'roll cliches,
which I nevertheless try to do my best to put together in a good
fashion - but I really prefer to write about things I've
experienced and felt myself - like "I'm In Love". I find that
easier, too, than putting together a lot of cliches, and I'm
usually a lot more pleased with the lyrics afterwards as well.
That may be why I have never liked "Stay Away From My Girl" as
much as some of the crowd seems to have. Egil (Pineas, Basement
Brats guitarist) writes the lyrics to his own songs... I think
he's more concerned, conciously or not, about making the words
sound good melodically and fit well with the song than writing
great poetry. Not to say that his lyrics aren't good. sometimes
they're very good. sometimes they're quite funny.
CD: Egil writes alone most of the time, is that right? Is there a
competitive spirit for the band, healthy or otherwise?
Magnum: No, I wouldn't say there's a competitive spirit, really... We
just write songs when we feel like it. Egil writes alone
because that's the way he likes to work, I guess. He comes to
the rehearsals with a finished song or three - chords, riffs,
lyrics, melody, solo and everything, usually - and we just have
to spend a week or three learning to play and sing it. His
songs aren't usually that difficult to play, really, although
they're sometimes difficult to sing for my limited voice, but
there's a lot of different stuff in them that you have to
remember and get right. The other songs are sometimes done by
individual members at home, and sometimes develop at a rehearsal
from a riff or something that one guy starts playing and the
others jump into. Then, if someone else hasn't already done the
words, I tape the song at rehearsal and go home to write some
lyrics to it. Or if I'm really inspired one day, I may sit down
in a corner at rehearsal and jot something down.
CD: What's the typical Basement Brats show like? In America, we
have a tradition of tearing the concert hall down before the
show's half over. Do you have any good riot stories?
Magnum: No, I don't think so. People are usually quite well behaved.
There's been some stage diving and stuff at times - which we
rather like, really - but noone's torn the hall down. The
most common story from a Basement Brats gig is us not getting
paid. I don't really know how to describe "the typical Basement
Brats show". It's us getting up on the stage playing some songs,
putting up a show and Nils breaking some guitar strings... I
think we do quite a good show now. We should, after five years
of practice.
CD: I'm guessing you and Nils played in other bands together.
Magnum: You're wrong. We didn't play together until I "auditioned" with
the Brats, about a week after the others had started up. The
Basement Brats was Nils' first real band, although he had been
playing a bit with some other guys at that time. Myself, I was
the bass player in a band around '87/'88, when I was sixteen,
and Nils was about thirteen and just learning to play the
guitar. I was really supposed to be the singer there, but
obviously I didn't sing too good at the time, so I had to learn
to play the bass instead. After two years of singing along to
Art Garfunkel records, my voice seemed to have improved
somewhat, so the Brats never had another audition for a singer.
(laughs).
CD: How does the brother-bandmate thing work out for you guys? I'm
sure you've heard about the brutal fist fights that Ray and
Dave Davies had on those long Kinks tours.
Magnum: There's been nothing of that, really. We don't see each other
that much out of the band either, 'cause we live at different
places and stuff, so we're really just mates. And it works out
fine. We used to be two couples of brothers in the band, you
know. Nils and I, and Ulf and his brother, Frank Kaare, who
played lead guitar - and wrote most of the songs - before Egil.
But he quit, because he didn't feel too comfortable in the band
personally. So we got Egil instead, which has worked out
excellently, and now there's only one brother-bandmate couple
to worry about.
CD: What's your insiders opinion of the Norwegian scene right now?
Magnum: I don't know how much of an insider I am, but... well, there's
some great stuff out there in our... "environment", so to
speak, like the Kwyet Kings, the Yum Yums, the Abusers and
others. We've never had anything to do with the big scene, the
big record companies and the famous rock'n'roll stars. That is,
famous is relatively speaking; famous in Norway, at least... So
I'm just a listener there like everybody else. There's some
good stuff, and of course a lot of shit, because, curiously,
with the exception of the Beatles and some others, it always
seems to be shit that sells the most. They may make more money
than us and get more airplay in Norway than we do, but how many
of them have been around for five years, are getting an album
released in Japan, have sold forty percent of their last record
in Spain and have been played regularly on a Chicago radio
station? Few of them even have a Web site, ha ha!
CD: The new CD begins with "Monster", which isn't credited to any
of the Brats, but there's a line in there ABOUT the Brats.
What's the story there?
Magnum: "Monster" is a cover song, by one of those old Halden bands I
mentioned earlier, Front Page, who were quite popular in Norway
at the beginning of the eighties. "Monster" was one of their
first singles, I believe. It's even included on a compilation
album of old Norwegian punk rock which was released a couple of
years ago, called "Anarki & Kaos" - which I suppose I don't
have to translate - even though they were not exactly punk
rock. They were very energetic, though, and of course a "result"
of the punk rock period. We chose to start the CD with this song,
not to cash in on their success or anything - I doubt many people
remember them now anyway - but just because we thought it was a
great opening track. Never mind the lyrics, though, they're
completely wrong. I wasn't able to hear all that Morten Milde was
singing on the original record, so I had to make up my own
version of something that sounded approximately like it. The line
about "the Brats were singing out of tune" is purposely wrong,
though. It was originally "the birds..." A bit of self-irony
there. (Laughs).
CD: The Brats' collective writing talent seems to have a great pop
sense, but always with an edge. Is that difficult to do
sometimes, or is it just like "hey, this is how it comes out
when we start playing"? I mean, a great melodic punk song like
"End Of Time" could have been pure pop.
Magnum: Isn't it? That's one of Egil's vocal numbers, and he's the
great pop genius in the band. We others aren't that good at
writing good pop tunes, so that's more straight rock'n'roll.
But we don't specifically try to sound like anything in
particular, it IS just the way it sounds when we start playing.
That's probably why it DOESN'T sound like pure pop, 'cause it
wouldn't be any good if we tried to make it sound like that.
"Garage pop" I suppose you can call it. That was the headline
in the local newspaper after our show here in town last weekend.
CD: It's those songs that I notice the harmonies in the most. "Too
Close" for instance. Are most of your harmonies overdubs of you
singing with yourself, or one of the Brats?
Magnum: Egil does most of the harmonies, with the others, mostly Ulf,
doing bits here and there. It wouldn't be as good if I tried.
Egil is really a better singer than I am. He's got a broader
vocal range than I have, doesn't have the tendency to sing out
of tune at times that I have... but they tell me that I've got
a more powerful and "tougher" voice than he does, so I guess
that's why they don't kick me out. Anyway, he sure does great
harmonies!
CD: Is "Big Burden" also a cover?
Magnum: Yes, it's another cover of an old Halden band, the Young Lords,
featuring classic Halden rocker Henning Kvitnes. We had been
playing this song live for some time when Morten Henriksen of
the Yum Yums, at a stop at a MacDonald's at Reperbahnen,
Hamburg last year suggested that we record this and another old
Halden song, and he'd release them as a single. So we learned
"Monster" and recorded them, but they ended up on "Curse of the
Brats" instead, since things seemed to take longer than
expected with the single. There's a Brat line in this as well;
"But I was such a spoiled young Brat" - originally "boy" -
"didn't want no decent job".
CD: I like the fact that you guys cover bands from your own
country. When you break in the States, people are going to get
curious about those bands.
Magnum: "When" we break in the States!? Thanks... Anyway, I think
they're gonna remain curious, 'cause it's almost impossible to
get hold of those old records, even here in Norway. But if it
should make people interested in checking out some newer
Norwegian music, then that's great! I'm sure bands like the
Kwyet Kings and the Yum Yums wouldn't mind that. And, if I may,
I'd also like to recommend the Vikings, featuring a guy each
from the Yum Yums, the Kwyet Kings and Turbonegro - plus Steve
Baise from the Devil Dogs. They've released a couple of great
singles so far and have an album on the way right about now.
CD: "I'm In Love" has a dead-on perfect harp solo at the end. Who
was that?
Magnum: That harp solo is played by a mate of ours, Lars Ivar Borg.
He's really a bass player - been playing for years - but he's a
mean devil on the harp as well. He'd been to one rehearsal with
us and played on the song once or twice - in other words, he'd
barely heard it - went into the studio and did a fantastic harp
solo. To everybody else, it would have been bought and sold
that minute, but he wasn't quite pleased with it and did it
once more, and it was even better.
CD: "Sucker" is the only instrumental... well, almost instrumental.
You did manage to get two words in there.
Magnum: Yeah... It's more or less a rip-off from a Lust-O-Rama track
called "Trasher" - originally written for a radio commercial
for the pub where the drummer worked, Rockall in Oslo. The only
vocals on "Trasher" are a scream and the words "Shake it!" so
we put in a scream and a "Suck it!". Hm... do I smell
censorship bait here? We haven't played "Sucker" very much,
though. We used it once or twice as a kind of "Durango 95" intro
to our shows, but it was more or less just recorded and put on
the "Blast-Off" EP for laughs.
CD: I was saving these questions... "C'mon Li'l Baby" seems to be
about a 14 year old girl, and "Drivin' My Car" seems to be
about reckless and drunk driving. Are the stories behind these
anything we can legally print?
Magnum: Depends on the CDA... Just kidding. Well, "C'mon Li'l Baby" -
which is an old Kaare tune - is really about an old mate of
ours who had - and still has, actually - a tendency to go for
young ladies of about that age. "Drivin' My Car" wasn't really
intended to be so much about reckless and drunk driving, although
it may sound like it is. It was really written because we'd kept
saying in interviews and elsewhere that we were singing about
"the things that really mean something - girls and cars". But we
didn't actually have any songs about cars - in fact, only two of
the members of the band even have a driver's license - so we had
to make one. So I wrote some lyrics, really about those people
here in Halden, and there are far too many of them, who spend
their weekends driving up and down the streets playing AC/DC or
bad dance music on their car stereos which are worth three times
as much as their cars. Myself, I'm cycling past them where
they're parked at the marketplace, occupying two parking places
each, on my way to the pub to have a few pints of lager...
CD: Now that you've gotten exposure in Germany and Japan, have you
got plans for America?
Magnum: Uhm... We've never really had any plans at all, we've just taken
things as they have come, and I guess that's what we'll continue
to do. We're not really in a position to make much plans either,
it depends on what people want to do FOR us, really. But we've
gotten a couple of raving reviews for our first two records in
Maximum Rock'n'Roll, and we got some responses from the States
because of that. And, fortunately enough, 1+2 Records in Japan,
who are releasing the "Curse of the Brats" CD, have a distribution
agreement with Get Hip Records in the States, so it'll be possible
to get the CD there for those interested. But if we're ever going
to the States to play or anything depends on whether someone is
willing to pay for it. But it's not like we're out of things to
do just because we can't tour the States or anything. Just a few
days ago, we got a new record contract with a Spanish record
company, and we're gonna record that album within the next two
months or so already. And early next year we'll tour Spain and
France and make a live album in the process, so it looks like
things are really rolling for this little band from a small town
in Norway, a band which the pussy metal bands just laughed about
a few years ago.
(Interviewed by DJ Johnson)
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WHAT'S BLACK AND WHITE AND DIFFERENT ALL OVER?
Answer? The two faces of MTV's censorship policy. Are
there different rules for black and white artists?
Scott Wedel points out a few things you might have missed.
* * * * *
You know, I really used to like MTV. I used to like it a LOT. I can
remember times at my grandma's house way back in 1982 when I'd stay up all
night long watching it. You see, grandma had cable, and we didn't - so I
used to just love those weekends we'd spend at grandma's place. I'd stay
up all night with the volume turned down real low so as not to wake anyone,
and watch great masterpieces of video artistry like "Photograph" by Def
Leppard. The VJs were fresh, witty, and attractive - and what they were
saying didn't seem canned and commercial. Man, I loved those weekends.
You know, now I really hate MTV. In fact, I prefer to refer to it
nowadays as eMpTyV. It's empty, pure and simple - completely devoid of
any social or intellectual value. I still watch it at times, but it's
like having a bad taste in my mouth - until I change the channel to ESPN
or some other equally insipid, canned, made-for-the-average-mid-American-
citizen-with-the-intellectual-agility-of-a-small-soap-dish network.
Another thing I really loathe (and that's far too mild a term) is
racism. I firmly believe that it's what's between the ears that counts -
and what's in the chest - and NOT the color of someone's skin, their
sexuality, or any one of what seems like a thousand OTHER things that we
humans discriminate against each other over.
This is the reason that when I see eMpTyV practicing blatant racism,
it just gets my blood boiling - and you gotta understand that I'm a very
laid back kind of person. It takes a LOT to make me mad enough to speak
up - and still more to make me write about it in an e-zine that's
(hopefully) being distributed netwide.
MTV is racist - plain and simple, with a double standard for black
(especially rap) artists and white artists. But hey, don't take my word
for it - consider the examples that follow.
First, let's examine the censorship of rap videos. The best example
I can think of is "Gin and Juice" by Snoop Doggy Dogg. Now, I like
gangsta rap - if the grooves are excellent and well-thought out, even if
I don't always agree with the lyrics. Bottom line is that it's excellent
music to kick back to if you need to relax. (A little herb never hurts
at the same time, but I digress.) Here are the lyrics to the chorus of
the song:
"Rollin down the street
Smokin indo
Sippin on gin and juice
Laid back
With my mind on my money and my money on my mind"
(For those who may not be aware, "indo" is a reference to marijuana.)
Now, those are the lyrics that are on the album. For the video, MTV
forced Snoop to change "smokin indo" to "smokin smokin" (which COMPLETELY
ruined the flow of the song - it's disjointed and makes no sense) - to
ostensibly remove the marijuana reference because they "did not want to
promote drug use". Right. A famous comedian - I think it was George
Carlin - once said that everyone against drug use ought to take all their
records, tapes, and CDs, and destroy them - since 95% of the really GOOD
music is influenced by some sort of drug. (Ever noticed that all the
bands in the laughable "Rock Against Drugs" SUCK??)
There's a song called "Low," by Cracker, that was popular recently.
The chorus of this song - the HOOK, mind you, that gets repeated over and
over again - is:
"Hey, hey, hey - like being stoned"
Why didn't MTV censor this? Why didn't they force Cracker to completely
change their song in order to get into that fabulous "heavy rotation"
slot? It looks like racism to me. You can go one step further with
Green Day. Some of the lyrics in "Longview" are "smoking my inspiration"
and "I'm fucking stoned". Why, again, wasn't Green Day forced to remove
these references from their song to get onto eMpTyV?
Similar double standards exist when talking about guns. In every
gangsta rap video you see, if you've heard the song from the original
disc you'll notice that EVERY reference to guns is censored in the video
- either blanked out entirely, or the lyrics changed (again, usually to
the detriment of the flow of the song). Why, then, can Aerosmith get
away with "Janie's Got A Gun"? Granted, the subject matter is different.
In the Aerosmith video, the girl, being abused by her father, gets a gun,
and blows him away. It's very much an "adult theme," however. Is a 10
year old kid going to be able to understand WHY Janie shot her dad? I
doubt it.
Cracker, Green Day, and Aerosmith are all white bands. Snoop is a
black gangsta rapper. You be the judge. In my opinion, what happens for
one artist should happen for all. Snoop is not the only gangsta rapper
to be censored; Cracker, Green Day, and Aerosmith are not the only white
bands to NOT be censored by MTV. Is it the image of the gangsta rapper
- or is it his color?
What about the image of the grunge rocker? Is it that different,
when you get down to brass tacks? Sure, the gangsta's are carrying guns
around, drinking 40 ounce beers, driving around in mid 60s cars with
hydraulic switches - but then the grunge guys are walking around in
dirty, ripped clothes, doing smack, killing themselves.... It seems to me
both groups are setting similar examples. So why is it OK for the white
groups to talk about smoking a fat spliff when the black groups are being
censored? Ludicrous!
What I'd really like to see is NO censorship whatsoever on ANY band.
How about parents taking a little more active role in their childrens'
upbringing - and hey, here's a concept - controlling what they watch on
TV? If parents don't think their kids should be watching a Snoop Doggy
Dogg video, then hey, why not turn off the damned TV when it comes on?
My parents sure as hell did when I was growing up.
Think about it the next time you turn on MTV and you'll see that
it's true. Sit down and watch MTV for a couple of hours and you'll
probably end up with the same sick feeling in the pit of your stomach
that I get. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
- Scott Wedel
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T H E O N L Y S H O W I N T O W N
(The story you're about to read is true. Only first names were used, and
the town wasn't identified. In a case where concrete truth isn't always
easy to prove, it's best to avoid the wrath of those with lawyers).
* * * *
"There ain't a lot that you can do in this town
You just drive down to the lake and then you turn back around"
- Steve Earle & The Dukes - "Someday"
* * * *
Mind numbing boredom has its own facial expression, but Norman
Rockwell didn't choose to explore that aspect of small town living.
The quest for "something to do" is approached with a touch of fatalism.
On any other summer night, the youth of this town would be out looking
for something to happen. Anything, really. Getting drunk, getting into
a fight, getting laid. Anything's better than nothing. But "nothing"
is what they're used to in this small town. Then one day this kid named
Greg got sick of all that and decided to have a punk show. Greg is the
town's only punk, or so he claims, but he'd been chipping away at his
friends for years, sneaking some of the good stuff into their ears whenever
he had the chance. Now he was going to show them what it was he'd been
yelling about for so long. In a town where, as Greg puts it, "punk rock is
still thought of as being either drunk mohawked Sex Pistols fans or Green
Day," the idea of the show was still something great to these kids. It was
something to do.
Greg got five bands to come to his town. Breakwater, from Victoria,
British Columbia, Canada. Nothing To Lose, also from Victoria (who are
changing their name, but don't know to what). Refuge, from California.
I Spy, from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The Jack Trippers, from Bremerton,
Washington. Nice lineup! Greg sold the bands on the idea of the show,
arranged their lodging, took care of the timing of the show, and arranged
for the concert hall. Greg's best friend, and co-conspirator, Cruiser,
spent the better part of a week trying to find an insurance broker who
would cover the show. The most reasonable deal he could find would still
cost him an entire paycheck, but he decided it was too late to give up.
They planned carefully, and all systems were go. But the best laid plans
don't take into account people like Nancy.
Nancy is a promoter, of sorts. She books events into one of the two
halls in town, and the punk show was one of those events. Greg and Cruiser
had every detail worked out. They went by the book, and the show was set.
The kids of the town were primed and ready for something new and exciting.
The older folks might have been a tad worried, though. Can't prove a word
of this, you understand, but here's the sequence of events in any case.
You draw your own conclusions. It's the week of the show. Suddenly, good
ol' Nancy says she needs a list of people 19 years of age and older to work
as security. Bouncers, you understand. Okay, fine. Short notice, but
that's life. Greg and Cruiser went to work on the problem. Then, the day
of the show, she changed the demand from "19 and over" to "Parents," and
made it clear she was going to call them all to make sure they really WERE
parents. Hmmm. You'd almost think there was a...well, no. Not gonna
suggest it. This is a world where "consipiracy theorists" are burned at
the stake. Nancy was probably anxious to help the guys bring this show off.
But wait. The original deal included free set-up time in the hall,
but come show day, Nancy suddenly demands 17 dollars an hour for that
set-up time. How are Greg and Cruiser supposed to come up with the cash?
Ask the kids in line to fork over more money than they had planned to?
Yeah, there's an idea. Without getting into the technical subject of peer
group dynamics, let me simply state that the human body requires more blood
to maintain life than either of the guys would have had left after the
crowd got through with them. Nancy must not have understood the difficulty
of such a task, or surely she wouldn't have made that demand. After all,
it put the show itself in serious jeopardy. She wouldn't do that.
As the guys contemplated their next move, Nancy dropped another little
bomb on their heads. She told them she had forgotten to inform the hall's
maintenance man that there was a show that night. Seems there wasn't even
enough time for him to get a crew together to work the show. Poor Nancy
was having what we call a "bad brain day." She must have been heartsick
when she realized this could prevent the show from happening. Oh well,
what can you do? Shit happens. It also floats. As a matter of fact, a
LOT of things were about to float to the surface.
The Car Show really was a cold slap in the face. Imagine Greg's
surprise when he saw people setting the hall up for that. A little bit
of investigation turned up one juicy little bit of information: the hall
had been booked far in advance by this other group of people. One of these
good old boys was nice enough to clear things up for Greg. "You know,
doncha, that you ain't gettin' in here." Yeah, he was starting to figure
that out, but thanks for clarifying anyway, asshole.
Wow, you know, that conspiracy theory is starting to sound pretty
convincing. Especially when you throw in a few other little facts.
* Nancy told a bunch of kids from the town that the reason the show was
cancelled was simply because Greg and Cruiser hadn't paid for the hall.
True enough. She hadn't told them they had to pay in advance.
* The other booking seemed to go off without a hitch. Hmmm...what about
the lack of a maintenance crew? Strange... Or maybe not so strange.
Seems it was some sort of car show to benefit a youth organization that
Nancy is heavily involved with. Mmmm. Okay.
* When Greg got angry and told several of the waiting kids that Nancy had
"screwed up the booking," word travelled back to Nancy. She called
Cruiser the next morning and made some oblique threats, suggesting that
he put a muzzle on his friend.
There are some classic US versus THEM stories in the history of Rock
and Roll. This might and might not be one of them. It's hard to tell.
It could be that Nancy simply "screwed up," as Greg suggested, and instead
of being honest about her mistake, threw obstacle after obstacle into the
path of the show. If that's the case, she's simply guilty of being a lame-
brained promoter with a fragile ego that she protects with scapegoats.
The other possibility is that she shanked the whole punk ideal in the back,
as a result of her own distaste for the form, or as a result of pressure
from others in the town. Which one? I don't know for sure, but I DO think
Nancy may have been behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll. I may not
be the person to ask, as you can see.
In the end, it was just another summer night in a small town. The
lucky ones ended up getting laid...again. Or stoned...or drunk....again.
The very very bored ones were happy to get into fights. Might as well,
y'know. Nothing else was going to happen.
- DJ Johnson
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* Across the spectrum of sound, from Pink Floyd to The Mummies *
* * * * * * * *
Pink Floyd - "Pulse" - Columbia CD
So, I was in the record store searching for some new aural candy when,
out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a red flash. I blinked
and turned my head to where the hallucination had emanated, and it
happened again. I focused on a deep, brilliant blue CD long box and
knew I had found the source of the red beacon. There was a flashing
LED embedded in the box! How clever, I thought. Who could have
produced such an intriguing cover? I read the title and almost lost my
lunch. It was a brand new Pink Floyd release!
What really took me by surprise (besides the flashing light) was the
fact that I had heard absolutely nothing about a new release by my all-
time favorite band. I practically giggled as I picked it up and
examined the richly detailed cover. Then my heart sank as I saw that
it was yet another double live CD. Just what we needed, I thought,
another "Delicate Sound of Blunder!"
As I pored over the song selection, I perked up, but only a little. They
had chosen to cover a vast array of material from Pink Floyd's thirty
year career. My primary criticism with "Delicate Sound of Thunder"
was the fact that they chose not to play anything older than "Dark Side
of the Moon." But here was this new release with "Astronomy
Domine," a great song off their 1967 debut, "Piper at the Gates of
Dawn!" Still, the song selection focused mainly on their two post-
Waters releases. It smelled too much like another blatant attempt to
milk the cash cow.
But wait, that was just the first disc. The SECOND disk had "Dark
Side of the Moon" in its entirety! Now, THAT was a ballsy move. I
had to wonder, could they pull it off? My other main beef with
"Delicate Sound of Thunder" was the fact that the performances were
totally uninspired. I could only hope that this wouldn't be another
uninspired wash. I figured there was only one way I was going to find
out, so I plunked down my twenty-seven bones and walked away with my
package, pulsing red all the way home.
After taking the album out of the long box, I was delighted with the
packaging of the CD case itself. It featured a thick, sturdy slip case
holding a quality bound CD booklet, which held the two discs and
featured twenty-one thick pages of stunning concert photos. The graphics
on the slipcase and book cover are truly astounding. It is literally one
of the most beautiful CD packages I have ever seen. This was starting
to feel like something very special, yet still, I was hesitant. No matter
how wonderful the package may be, all that mattered was the music.
I listened to the second disc first. I just had to hear their treatment of
the old classic, "Dark Side of the Moon." Was I ever surprised! The
performance is tight, passionate, and inspired. I'd rate it right up there
with their best performances of this work, and I have heard more than
a few. The great thing about live recordings of "Dark Side of the
Moon" (and many of their other works) was that they were always
different. Pink Floyd approached each performance as if it were a
work in progress, experimenting with different approaches to the same
piece. This "older" Floyd does not attempt to explore the boundaries
anymore, but are content to offer a sonically rich, professionally
executed facsimile of the original. This is certainly not meant to be a
criticism, because the piece is varied in that the extra players add
dimension and life to the performance. The players on "Delicate
Sound of Thunder" came off as nothing more than studio hacks
earning their living plunking away for their bosses, but this time
around it seems like a truly collaborative effort, where each individual
comes shining through. The passion they put into their work is
genuine and the quality of the work sparkles as a result.
Disc one is delivered just as successfully, with an exquisite blend of
songs from both recent and faded memories. The performance comes
off as one seamless, exhilarating, thoroughly enjoyable ride.
Performances of material off the recent "The Division Bell" seem to
have been fine-tuned over the course of their tour, and as a result, are
injected with a richness of life that seemed lacking from the studio
release.
In my book, Pink Floyd have been forgiven for their bloated,
haphazard double live effort seven years ago. "Pulse" not only shows
that Pink Floyd are alive and well as we approach the new millennia,
but that they have renewed their commitment to their craft. I cannot
thank them enough for that. - (Cai Campbell)
Los Hornets - "Barrymore" b/w "Bloody Knuckles" (7 inch) IFA Records
"Oh little Drew, you know we still love you
You were our babe in toyland
And ET's lover too
Start a fire in my heart
I saw it on the screen
I know it wasn't all your fault
I know you aren't that mean
Oh little Drew...Look what they did to you
All the money that you made your mom and daddy blew
Straw up your nose and a bottle in your hand
I know you did it all for me, and I will be your man"
What else do you need to know about this song? Y'v gotcher twisted
vocals and y'r psychotic guitar melody and a rhythm section that's just
sloppy enough to make it all work. Then you have the lyric.
"You were a slut in Poison Ivy. It gave me quite an itch.
Sleep with me now baby. Be my evil bitch!"
Move over Bob Dylan. These guys have no problem speaking their minds.
The flip is called "Bloody Knuckles," and it's just some good old rock
and roll instro. The vocalist, Slim, not wanting to be left out, put
some of his trademark washboard playing on this track, as well as a few
other percussion oddities, from the sound of it. This is a hopping little
single all around. I saw Los Hornets at Crock Shock this year, and that's
where I first heard "Barrymore." They had a ton of energy, and they had
the crowd going, but I think the singer was a bit tipsy, and his washboard
playing was kinda throwing everything off kilter. Here, he sounds sober,
and it works. I recommend both the record and the live show. See 'em.
- (DJ Johnson)
The Statics - "Rat City" (Rip Off LP)
The Statics have really come of age with this, their debut LP.
Previous 7" releases were great, but lacking somewhat in identity.
Shrugging off some of the Supercharger/Headcoats infatuation for this one,
The Statics have become a fine Rock 'n' Roll band. It's not like they
have abandoned their punk rock roots in favor of some new slick sound,
either. They just sound more rockin'.
New drummer Bryant really tightens up the sound, and they sound, well,
rehearsed or something. It's still pretty raw sounding, as they did record
it in mono on four tracks, but you don't need much more for these guys.
You know, you can make almost all of the song titles into a continuous
sentence to read: The Scourge of White Center comes to Rat City in Jerry's
Red Camaro to Do The Russel Quan, and I Don't Know Why they're at The Police
Station doing The Delridge Boogie for Burgers and Fries from Jellystone
National Park so Take Me Out and Don't Mess With Us, Goodbye. Ha!
- (Alan Wright)
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - "Bellbottoms" b/w "Miss Elaine"
Matador 7" single
These guys just have a knack for awakening the amphetamine-driven
beast that lays within us all. With their song, "Bellbottoms," they take
their expertise one step farther (backwards) and succeed in rolling 70's
funk, electric blues, Elvis' overindulgence, and acid-head freak-out
flim-flam together with 90's retro-glam orchestrated weirdness into one
big, fat doobie. One toke of this stuff and you'll enter a time warp
without any exits. Whether that is a good or bad thing will be left up
to you to decide.
The flipside, "Miss Elaine," is not their best effort by far. It
sounds like a drunken, psychotic bluesman trying to escape from the pits of
hell. If you just want the one ass-kickin' song, this single is great, but
if you are after more quality material from this great band, pick up
their full-length CD, "Orange," which features this single. - (Cai Campbell)
The Trashwomen - "Live! From Tom Guido's Purple Onion & Other Swinging
Places" (Repent LP)
The surf music revival is in full swing these days, and The Trashwomen
would be on top of the heap, if they hadn't broken up already. After one
7" EP and an Estrus LP, the female trio cashed it in, but with this
posthumous live LP and a further LP release of leftover studio sessions,
there could be a reunion in the works. If they concentrate on the cool surf
instros, they might just be totally enjoyable. Like their other LP, the
vocal songs are pretty intolerable. I mean, their version of "King of the
Surf," here titled "Queen of the Surf," almost makes Dick Dale's vocal
original palatable! Actually, a couple of the vocal tunes on this, like
their cover of The Milkshakes' "Pretty Baby" are okay, but when the
Trashwomen break into that instro surf stuff like "Catwalk" and "Space
Needle," with Elka Zolot showing off her true surf-guitar prowess, they
really can cook.
Due to the use of different venue live recordings, including some live
on-the-radio material, sound quality varies, but is overall pretty good. I
enjoyed the interview snippets where Trashwomen creator Michael Lucas tells
of how he decided that "instead of chicks playing Trashmen covers, it should
be uh...women. (laughing) I mean instead of guys playing Trashmen covers it
should be chicks." Yeah, right. - (Alan Wright)
The Kwyet Kings - "Don't Put Me Down" b/w "Self Important Girl"
(7 incher, Get Hip Recordings)
The Kwyet Kings are a Norweigan band in the same vein as The Basement
Brats (See interview in this issue). This single leans toward the power-
pop end of the spectrum, and it's pretty damned good. The A-side is
"Don't Put Me Down," and the mix of influences is...well, fun...because
it's such a thick mix. Beatles, Ramones, and a couple dozen 60's bands,
including (okay okay, in my opinion...) The Monkees. The vocals, both
lead and backing, are vintage 60's, which is a good thing, because the
lyrics seem to jump right out of that era too.
"You got me where you want me
I'm hanging on a hook
You are the only one for me
Well I can't live another day without your love
So hold me tight through the night
It's the way it's meant to be"
I know I'm harping on this 60's thing here, but it's just such a
perfect example of retro-pop. Lead singer Arne Thelin wrote this one
on his own, at least that's what it says here in small print. So Arne?
Love the groovy tune. Peace, babe. Now on to side two...
Uh oh. I must have put on side one again. Noooo...this is side
two. "Self Important Girl." But it SOUNDS like "Don't Put Me Down."
Okay, not exactly like it, but close enough to make me grab my guitar
and check out the chord structures of both songs. Almost the same chords.
There's that Monkees lead guitar sound again. Hmmm. It's not a bad
song. This one is credited to Knut Schreiner, one of the guitarists.
Wonder who wrote which first? Oh well, it's still a nice little
retro-track. - (DJ Johnson)
Live - "Throwing Copper" - 994 Radioactive Records CD - RARD-10997
Every once in a while I'll buy a CD that I've heard a couple of great
songs from, expecting that the rest of the disc will probably be mediocre. I
bought Live's "Throwing Copper" with this in mind, but, boy, was I surprised.
Simply put, this is one of the most well put together albums I've heard in
recent years. It's got great hooks, interesting and varied songs, and
thoughtful lyrics - all performed with a raw abandonment that makes it hard
to keep this CD out of the player. Live chose to start the disc off with
"The Dam At Otter Creek". I agree with this choice as it shows just about
all the facets of the band - soft, mellow sections with interesting melodies,
and Edward Kowalczyk's powerful, descriptive lyrics, leading into sections
where one can just picture them live on some small stage, beating their
instruments with reckless abandon and giving everything to the performance
of the song. The next two tracks, "I Alone" and "Iris", are the best cuts on
the disc. "I Alone" contains their best hook, something you'll be humming
to yourself for hours, even days, after you hear it for the first time.
"Iris" has the most compelling chorus melody, and is the most interesting
song on the CD.
The first MTV single, "Lightning Crashes," is where Throwing Copper
falls off a bit. It's a good song, entertaining - but a little bit too
obviously commercial, though the story itself is quite compelling (indeed,
based on a true story - Live, in the liner notes after the lyrics to this
song, have listed a woman's name with her birth and death date; she was
very young). The musicianship on this disc is very good; the drumming, in
particular, is outstanding. In fact, Neil Peart has singled out Live's
drummer, Chad Gracey, as (in his opinion) one of the best of the new crop
of drummers. The only real problem I have with the disc is that there aren't
enough lyrics - Kowalczyk is rather repetitive in some songs. It's not
obtrusively annoying, though. Call it a pet peeve. The lyrics that ARE
there are so good that I'd like to hear more of what he has to say. Overall,
Throwing Copper is an outstanding CD, one that should put Live over the top,
as it were, and entrench them in the alternative music scene for years to
come. - (Scott Wedel)
Steel Wool - "Lucky Boy" (eMpTy CD)
Steel Wool are indeed "lucky boys" with their second full-length
endeavor, because it's going to garner them some great reviews, and probably
some new fans. Once again, this was recorded under the guidance of fifth
member Phil "Cha Cha" Eck and boy, does it rock! There's walls upon walls
of heavy fuzzy guitar wail to power most of the songs on this. There's
weird short snippets of "songs," like "Skratch (sic) Your Ass and Bark at
the Moon" which kicks off the CD before hurtling you into "Combine." Bluesy
harp dominates "Candy Man," and "Flog That Horse" shows a downer, more
melancholy side of the band. "60 Pound Wharf Rat" starts off like a surf
song, then rapidly becomes something that sounds like The Cramps mixed with
early Black Sabbath. This has quickly become one of the most frequent
things to find itself in the CD player, it's that good. - (Alan Wright)
The Goldentones - "Atlantis" (Bigmom CD)
These guys play instrumental surf music that has much in common with
Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet. Like that group, they take the basic surf
sound and update it without it sounding lame. They also add elements of
other musical stylings for variety's sake. Their first full-length CD,
"Atmosphere," was a mostly surf-oriented affair, but on this one they expand
a bit. Not that the surf element isn't still predominant on songs like
"F-Forward," "Praying Mantis" and "Freestyle," but they mine a more rock
territory with tunes like "Spitfire" in which they forgo the reverb for some
harder-edged chords. "Departure" finds them in a moody, waltz-tempo mood
with some shimmering guitar work. Being an instrumental band, they
understand the importance of not fitting into one genre too much, and on
this CD they do a fine job of proving that they can express themselves with
just guitar, bass, drums and some fine tunes. - (Alan Wright)
Johnny Webelo - "Johnny Webelo" - CD released by BANDS WE LIKE
Lesbians, bullet-ridden adulterers, lemon candy, and the Treasury
Department; what more do you want from a band, merit badges? The self-titled
full-length debut album from the Webelos (Derek Horton, Ben Sharp, Sean
Sippel, Bruce Wirth, and a handful of special guests) is solid proof that
blue-grass is not dead. Hell, as far as the scouts here are concerned, it
ain't even sick yet. Johnny Webelo (a fictional deranged boy-scout) is the
brain-child of Derek Horton, the lead gutarist and vocalist. Heavily
involved in the dramatic arts, Derek brings a flamboyant, other-worldly
charm to the songs, using anything from blue-grass to psychotic circus
music to Shakespearian poetry to tell his twisted tales of lost loves,
cross-dressing, obesity, and other things that I haven't nearly figured out
just yet.
Sean Sippel has re-affirmed my faith in drummers as musicians, often
using brushes rather than sticks to create some amazingly rich, jazzy
textures. Ben Sharp (John Paul Jones' long lost brother) keeps the
heartbeat thumping steadily along, throwing in the occasional vocal textures.
Bruce Wirth lends his support on anything he can get his hands on, including
lap steel guitar, organ, harmonium, thumb harp, accordian, violin, mandolin,
and a bunch of other "in's". Musically, the album shines in its creativity,
mockery, and beauty. The album features a generous 18 tracks, including a
tasty cover of the Bob Willis and the Texas Playboys' tune "Gnu Grass" and
their own infamous "Lesbian Sex Rave".
This album I would classify as revolutionary in its power of
resurrection for a style that never was fully given credit for its charm.
Honor scouts?...maybe. Good band?...definitely. Released by "Bands We Like"
contact: Jeff Stuhmer/ Peter Ramburg, P.O. Box 9499 Seattle, Wa. 98109
#BWL008 c&p 1995 - (coLeSLAw)
The Cramps - "Flamejob" (Epitaph LP)
After the somewhat disappointing "Look Mom, No Head" LP of a few years
ago, those veritable inventors of kitsch-sleaze rock are back with a new
studio LP. Faring so much better than the aforementioned due to a great new
drummer named Harry Drumdini, Lux, Ivy and Slim Chance have bounced back with
a very rocking record. "Flamejob," which in its initial vinyl pressing is on
blood red wax (the CD version is on the Medicine label), features a PVC
covered Ivy holding an acetylene torch (photo by Lux Interior). Preparing to
do a little light welding, perhaps?
From the opening chords of "Mean Machine," you know The Cramps are back
on the right track, with a full, big "Crampsian sound." Abandoning slightly
their obsession for the last few LPS with the 1950s/60s "sexploitation"
themes, The Cramps instead are forging ahead into the world of "surrealist
rock." Liberally sprinkled throughout this release are references to various
Surrealist works, and they quote Man Ray on the record jacket. Songs such as
the incredibly catchy and garage-rockin' "Nest of the Cuckoo Bird,"
"Naked Girl Falling Down The Stairs" and "Swing The Big Eyed Rabbit" are all
based on Surrealist works of art and film. Salvador Dali, Marcell DuChamp
and others are the inspiration behind great numbers such as those, but The
Cramps add some of their own as well.
Lux is an intelligent guy, and his lyrics reflect both a knowledge of
and appreciation for the Surreal. That combined with some fine Rockabilly
cum Garage-Punk attitude makes for some seriously catchy R.O.C.K. No Cramps
release would be complete, of course, without some cover tunes thrown in for
good measure. On this one they tackle "Route 66, " slowing it down to a
bluesy drawl, and finally commit their excellent version of "Sinners" to
wax. The other four covers are so obscure you'd be hard pressed to have
heard the originals before, but The Cramps have always been ones to expose
their listeners to their musicology. Espousing their unique brand of
personal philosophy has always been important to The Cramps, and so this
release includes a new anthem, "Let's Get Fucked Up," a crazed blast of
raunchy guitar and howling vocal mayhem. Take that advice and get fucked
up by this record NOW! - (Alan Wright)
Mono Men - "Beer * Bowlin' * Booze * Broads"
Estrus Bowling Leagues, Ltd. CD or 10" LP
Who but the veritable Mono Men would release an album of songs
recorded live in a bowling alley? To make the mix even more insane,
add the fact that they were playing for a buddy's bachelor party. Oh
yes, there were most definately Beer, Bowlin', Booze, and Broads,
including a stripper by the name of Tammy "Boom-Boom" Mercedes.
As if the Mono Men needed more than one of those reasons to cut
loose!
The kings of fuzzed-out balls-ahead garage rock waste no time in
cutting loose and letting it all hang out. The guitars are thick, fast, and
furious. The vocals drenched in sweat. The drums beg for mercy. Yet
the mix is melodic and intoxicating. You can't help but shake your
head and stomp your feet while listening to this gem! Mono Men fans
will recognize most of the songs, but the festivities of the evening bring
it all home in a manner that will leave you crying for more.
The chatter is sparse and chummy, and when one beligerant onlooker
demands, "just play the song," they not only comply, they blow the
fucker down the alley and score a strike! In the words of our bachelor
friend whom we can thank for this ride, "...crack open a six pack, lace up
those bowlin' shoes, and turn that stereo up, pal. It's time for a little
Strip & Bowl!" - (Cai Campbell)
Thee Phantom 5ive - "Jump Start" b/w "Surf Party" (7 inch). Solamente
Records. (On green vinyl)
What's Creepshow-evil on the outside and Christian-Coalition-fanatical
on the inside? The packaging of this seven incher from Tennessee natives
Thee Phantom 5ive. The insert even decries mixed bathing. Woo woo! Ah,
it's GOTTA be a joke, right?
Side one is a nice medium tempo surf tune called "Jumpstart." It's a
SHORT little puppy, at 1:49. About midway through the song, the drums
go into overdrive, and a spaceship takes off right in the middle of your
headphones. Niiiiice. I admit to being a sucker for cool sound effects
in surf music. Hell, my music room is starting to look like a shrine to
Man Or Astro-Man. But like that amazing band, these guys are damned
good surf musicians. Side two is a cover of The Astronauts 1963 classic,
"Surf Party." Now, purists are going to want to kill me for this, and
I swear I'm a serious Astronauts fan...but I like this version better.
Scores higher on the "kickin' butt meter." The lead guitarist has a bit
of a Dick Dale influence (what surf guitarist doesn't?) and he uses that
as opposed to copying the approach Bob Demmon used on the original.
Nice single. I need to find more of their records. And by the way,
what's with great surf bands coming from Tennessee? Impala and Thee
Phantom 5ive. The Tennessee invasion begins. - (DJ Johnson)
Various Artists - "Beyond The Beach" (Upstart CD)
With the instrumental surf scene thriving as it is, what better way
to celebrate than this CD compilation of instrumental rock. The thing
that all these bands have in common is that they have at least one foot
firmly placed in the surf. Some have both feet, actually. Jon and the
Nightriders are perhaps one of the most "purist" in their surf sound, and
doing "Depthcharge" drives the point home. Other bands take the surf sound
and update it. Huevos Rancheros are represented by a track off of their
C/Z CD, "Drive Through at Molly's Reach," showing off their Link Wray-
meets-Ramones prowess. Estrus faves Man Or Astroman? turn in an incredibly
blistering and raw version of their ode to race car driving, "Nitrous
Burnout 2112." The feedback and fuzz in this one is most impressive!
Fellow Estrus labelmates The Woggles also gain inclusion with their
short "Flash Flood," certainly a worthy surf attempt. For the most part,
this is really good. Excellent tracks from bands I'd not heard like Laika
and the Cosmonauts (from Finland!), Spies Who Surf, Hillbilly Frankenstein,
Southern Culture on the Skids, The Goldentones and even a contribution from
original Belaires guitarist Paul Johnson! There's a few dogs in the mix,
though: The Aquavelvets psuedo "lounge surf" song is terrible, and why the
hell are Tin Machine on this? Their song sounds more like King Crimson than
surf music!
Program your CD player, leaving out the bad cuts, and you've got a
swinging background beach party to dance to. (Upstart, PO Box 44-1418, W.
Sommerville, MA 02144). - (Alan Wright)
Gwen Mars - "Magnosheen" - Hollywood Records CD
I have to squirm when a press kit for a band draws comparisons with
Nirvana. It doesn't do much for my willingness to give the band half a
chance. Not that I don't like Nirvana. I love Nirvana. I just don't care
for those comparisons being drawn. Especially when they are not
warranted.
That's right, Gwen Mars is not Nirvana. Not even close. What Gwen
Mars IS, however, is a band of three very talented musicians who seem
to be desperately seeking their place in the corporate "scheme of
things." If I had to draw comparisons, I'd say they lean more towards
Soundgarden without Chris Cornell. Okay, their style goes well
beyond the Soundgarden mold, but if I HAD to draw comparisons...
Mike Thrasher is the mainstay of this group, and if his vocals DID
sound like Chris Cornell's, he would at least be able to pull these
otherwise enjoyable songs out of the mud. Thrasher's voice is
electronically treated in such a way as to add an obnoxious vibrato
to his singing throughout the entire CD. He seems to have a very good
singing voice, so why he feels the need to drown it in a sea of electronic
distortion is beyond me. He comes off sounding like a bad impression
of Perry Farrell from Jane's Addiction. The effect worked for Farrell
but it does nothing for Thrasher.
This band has serious potential. The song-writing is solid, the talent is
abundant, and the interplay between the three members works very
well. All they need now is to be themselves. - (Cai Campbell)
The Mummies - "Party at Steve's House" (Pin Up LP)
"Tales From The Crypt" (no label LP)
The Mummies, after numerous 7" releases (later compiled unto an Estrus
LP), and one full-length LP (released simultaneously on Hangman in the U.K.
and Telstar here in the U.S.), broke up. Then a funny thing happened. They
got offers to tour Europe, and so they reformed. While they were in Europe,
they cut an LP for the German Pin Up label, which despite its title is not
really a live LP. What it is, in fact, is a studio recording with crowd
noise overdubbed to give it that "fake live" sound, not unlike those "fake
live" Kingsmen LPs that came out in the 1960s. As purveyors of a "northwest"
style of garage rock, the cheesiness of this effect only helps to add to
The Mummies' unique charms.
Actually, for a band that has a reputation of being completely mental
and out of control on stage, this record is pretty damn rockin' and even
more "Frat Rock" sounding than previous releases. They do some great covers
of songs like "Shake," "Big Boy Pete," and "Zip A Dee Doo Dah," plus demented
originals like the hilariously titled "Don Galluci's Balls" (Don Galluci was
the Kingsmen's first organist, and later leader of his own Don & The
Goodtimes). The sound is a little thin, but there's more sax playing than
usual, and it's a pretty good representative of The Mummies "sound."
Somewhat more dubious is the "Tales From The Crypt" LP. With no label
info or address, and a simple photocopied sleeve, this LP is rumored to be
the rejected Crypt Records sessions that were never released because The
Mummies apparently thought the result was "too produced." When no agreement
could be reached regarding the recordings, The Mummies re-recorded what
became the "Never Been Caught" LP (called "Fuck CDs" in the U.K.). Oddly
enough, it's these recordings which really shine and show that The Mummies
could really rock. Overproduced? Hardly, as this LP (also rumored to be
available on CD, with extra live stuff!) kicks some serious butt! Despite
the shortness of the LP (11 songs clocking in at under 30 minutes!), this
one is well worth checking out for unreleased wonders like "F.U.C.K.,"
"She Don't Care" and "Wild Mutha." You may recognize their versions of
Cannibal & The Headhunters' "Land of 1,000 Dances" and Roy Junior's "Victim
Of Circumstances" from a Sympathy single a few years ago, but rest assured
you're not gonna find the other stuff anywhere else. This is killer shit,
babies, seek and find a copy by all means! - (Alan Wright)
The Ramones Songbook As Played By The Nutley Brass - 7" on yellow vinyl.
Vital Music Records.
WAIT!!! WAIT!!! Where's my dad? I gotta get my dad to listen to this!
When I was a kid, and The Beatles were my heroes, my dad HATED them. One of
the greatest triumphs of my youth was the day my father told me they were
hack songwriters, and "THIS is what good music sounds like!" By "THIS," he
meant the elevator music coming from the wretched radio station he liked.
(KSEA...Music to die by!) You've probably already figured out that the
reason it was my triumph was that the song he was pointing out was none
other than "Good Days Sunshine," by the Fabs. Of course, it was being
performed by an orchestra, and you had to really listen to tell what it
was, but the point is, I was able to say HA! to the old man. That was about
20 years ago. Before I discovered The Ramones. Now, I just gotta play this
record for my dad. The Nutley Brass, it says here on the sleeve. Four
Ramones classics. "Chinese Rock", "Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment", "Beat On
The Brat" and "Havana Affair". ELEVATOR STYLE! Orchestrated instrumental
versions of classic punk songs.
You think I'm kidding, don't ya? Nope! And you haven't lived until
you've heard the happy sounding pizzicato strings and chimes whirling above
the tuba bass lines in ""Chinese Rock"". It's just so incredibly...happy!!!
And so is "Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment". Oh, and you can imagine how fun it
can be to listen to the happy little arrangement of "Beat On The Brat",
can't you? It's fun because your father (or grandfather) will say "Now,
THAT'S the way music was written in MY day!" Gabba Gabba GOTCHA!
- (DJ Johnson)
Armitage Shanks - "Takin' The Piss" (Damaged Goods LP)
I'm glad that bands like The Armitage Shanks are keeping the spirit
of 1977 punk alive. They're British, this was produced by Mr. Billy
Childish, and they're really funny! Sounding like a bunch of '77 British
punk combos, the Shanks are sometimes off-key, and completely out of
control. You've got to love a band with a really British sounding and
obnoxious singer who belts out lines like "I heard the other day/that she
moved (indecipherable expletive) away/with some hippie guy/I'll kick him
in the eye." Yow! Fans of bands like Thee Mighty Caesars, Headcoats, etc.
will eat this stuff up because of great songs like "You Don't Destroy Me,"
"Primary School Punk" and the hilarious "Shirts Off." Plus they dedicate the
platter to Jimi Hendrix! - (Alan Wright)
Various Artists - "Johnny Hanson Presents Puck Rock, Vol. 1" (Wrong CD)
Hockey is Canada's national sport. Okay, actually La Crosse is, but
let's face it - no one plays La Crosse in Canada. Everyone grows up playing
some Hockey at some point in their life when they grow up in Canada, and so
Johnny Hanson of the legendary Hanson Brothers (a.k.a. NoMeansNo) decided to
get a bunch of Canuck bands, and one Australian band, together to do songs
about Hockey for this compilation. So what you get is a fairly silly but
fun and sometimes rockin' CD of ridiculous odes to Hockey in a variety of
different musical styles.
For instance, there's Ramones-style punk from the aforementioned
Hansons, balls-out Hardcore from SNFU, pop-punk from The Sweaters and
garage-rock from The Smugglers. It's nice to see Toronto, Ontario's UIC
back in action with their ode to on-the-ice scrapping, "(Do You) Wanna Go!!"
and Jughead's hilarious Canadian send-up "The Hockey Song" with it's refrain
"I play air hockey, ball hockey, barn hockey, bubble hockey, field hockey,
floor hockey, ice hockey, road hockey....hockey all the time!" Geez, on what
other compilation would you find Joey Shithead of DOA fame pairing up with
the "cuddlecore" sound of Cub? Or Huevos Rancheros doing an instrumental
tribute to Lorne "Gump" Worsley? Or an Australian band called Front End
Loaders singing about Hockey? Only on this one, my friends, available from
the fine folks at the all-Canadian made Wrong Records!
(P.O. Box 3243, Vancouver, BC V6B 3Y4, Canada) - (Alan Wright)
The Phantom Surfers - Orbitron 7" EP
Estrus Records ES713R
The Phantom Surfers are one of the hottest bands to cruise the instro surf
circuit, and this new piece o' wax will show you why. It features five fat,
reverb drenched numbers guaranteed to send you runnin' for the beach. All
but one of the tunes clocks in at under two minutes, evoking images of a
short but exhilerating shoot through the tunnel.
The record label says to play this puppy at 33 1/3, but don't let that fool
you or you'll be doing the morphine shuffle. Crank that baby up to 45 rpm
and catch the wave to Endsville!
If you are new to the retro-surf movement or are just plain curious, this is
a great place to start. The Phantom Surfers ply their craft well, and this
little package offers you a great taste of what the whole scene has to offer.
So what are you waiting for? Go daddy, go! - (Cai Campbell)
Impala - Kings Of The Strip (10" 8-song EP) Estrus Records - ES106
I'm listening to King Louie Stomp, Impala's purest rock and roll moment
from their 10" release Kings Of The Strip. Sitting still during this song
isn't as easy as I'd thought it would be. The feet just go. Right now,
they've just slipped effortlessly into a hypnotically slow piece called
"Nothing More Than Murder," which would be the perfect music for an old
black and white private eye flick. John Stivers' haunting and slightly
askew melody sticks with you, and in fact, three songs later, I'm still
able to remember that odd melody. Even while I'm hearing and loving the
next few songs. Stivers has a very cool sound in his head, and he's
not too bad at translating that sound onto vinyl.
"Incident On The 10th Floor" starts the show off with some good old
fashioned muscle rock. The reverb starts to thicken with "The Hearse,"
and this is where Stivers starts to show his chops. "King Louie Stomp"
is loaded with great Farfisa and sax work from Justin Thompson. Blutto
woulda danced his ass off to this record. The above-mentioned "Nothing
More Than Murder" closes side one on an ethereal note.
Side two begins with the surf classic, "Penetration." The song suits
them quite well. Heavy duty reverb lovers will freak out on this one.
It's drowning in it. "Venus Flytrap" picks the energy up another notch,
leaving the reverb setting at 10. Great riff, great keyboards. I love
that old Farfisa organ sound, and this one is made for it. I'm assuming
the guy behind this sound is Justin Thompson, though the liner notes do
credit bassist Scott Bomar with some farfisa work. They just don't say
which is which. Ah hell, who cares? Great Farfisa, whoever.
"In Transit" uses the sax to create an unusual illusion of distortion
in the song's undercurrent. Either that or my stereo's screwed up. And
if it is, I don't wanna fix it, cuz this is a great sound. Slam bang
bass and drum work by Mr. Bomar and Jeff Goggans, that great saxaphone
current just above them in the mix, and more great Stivers riffs.
"Epilogue," the closing song of the record, is a spy-music lovers wet
dream. Great groove, provided courtesy of Goggans and Bomar. Of course,
with some incredible surf-riffing by Stivers. But the real stars
of this track are Justin Thompson (Sax, Farfisa organ, Guitar) and guest
artist Chad Fowler (sax), both of whom are kick-butt sax players. The
horn section is the thing on this track. The melody they play is first
rate spy. The way their tones work together is great icing. There isn't
a bum track on this EP. Fans of 'verb will love this...dragster rock fans
will love this...instro-surf fans will love this...I can't imagine who
wouldn't. Estrus really knows how to pick 'em. - (DJ Johnson)
Roy Loney & the Longshots - "Full Grown Head" (Shake CD)
Roy Loney is a legend to many. He spent the first eight years of his
illustrious musical career as lead singer of the Flamin' Groovies, appearing
on such classic LP's as "Flamingo" and "Teenage Head." After retiring for a
few years, he came back with a new band, The Phantom Movers, releasing a few
LPs in the late '70s and early '80s. In the last few years, we've seen him
teaming up with various modern garage-rock groups, including New York's A-
Bones for some righteous rock. This release, on a small Canadian indie
label, finds Loney paired up with The Long Shots who are comprised of Scott
McCaughey, Tad Hutchinson and Jim Sangster of The Young Fresh Fellows, and
Joey Kline of The Squirrels. Loney couldn't have found a more able backing
band for his brand of R & B and '60s influenced Rock 'n' Roll fodder,
recorded at the infamous Egg Studios. For the most part, this CD rocks,
only falling into a sort of sub-barband motif for a couple of songs. They
play a few covers, such as the old Lulu hit "I'll Come Running" and a
particularly rockin' version of "Tobacco Road." The title track of the CD is
a fine testament to Loney coming "of age," and as if to pay homage to his
past, the band finishes things up with an almost obligatory version of the
Groovies' "Slow Death." - (Alan Wright)
The Fall Outs - "Sleep" (Super Electro CD)
With their original line-up now restored, The Fall-outs return with their
third long-player, and their second for Super-Electro. Once again, Conrad
Uno was at the helm and captures The Fall-outs' punky-pop sound better than
before. This is the best Fall-outs release yet, and Dave Holmes, who sings
and plays the guitar, has written some great songs for this one. The
production is a little "punchier" on this one, too. "Zombie," and "I Wish
You'd Come Back," both co-written by Holmes and drummer Dino Lencioni, are
two stellar examples of the band's ultra-catchy garage rock sound.
Bassist Shannon McConnell contributes "Spies," a fine throwback to the
band's early days of modism. Those seeking some of the band's trademark fast
pop-punk with scratchy guitar will surely enjoy the title track, "Sleep," and
"Worthless." I should perhaps mention my personal favorite track, which is
"Think of Something Else," a melancholy song for broken hearts everywhere.
Also worth checking out is a 7" single release with "Sleep" and two outtakes
from the same sessions, also available on Super Electro. - (Alan Wright)
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A S Y M B O L I C G E S T U R E
While the GOP is hypnotizing us with symbols,
the real issues are being left for dead.
* * * * *
I would like to leap into the fray and harangue you about
the utter nonsense the GOP is spouting, but I won't. Why?
Because what they say and do is not as important as why they
are believed.
Any political party is comprised of people who share certain
symbols. What the right wing has done with the Grand Old
Party over the last several years is to expend a great deal
of intellectual and economic capital to redefine the symbols
of America's political landscape.
Whoa! What the hell is this guy talking about. OK, lets
back up. Politics works as an engine for society because
politics is the art of using (and abusing) symbols. Without
broad symbols to mute differences in individuals you can not
build a majority or create consent.
Couple the mechanism of politics to its goal of
redistribution of material wealth and you have a general
definition of the nation state. How that redistribution is
handled varies from nation to nation, but the use of symbol
to maintain the nation does not.
The symbol of Louis the 14th as head of the state was
replaced by the state of his severed head. The symbol of
the crown was replaced, for a time, by the guillotine. But
without these powerful symbols all the intellectual
scribbling in the world would not sway masses of people one
way or the other.
It is the power of right wing opinion makers that they speak
in symbols not in facts. It is a fact that symbols work on
everyone. Humans rarely think in details. We think in
symbols. The more abstract the symbol the easier it is to
work with.
We don't understand quantum mechanics, but we have a
symbolic model of little ball-like atoms. That symbol lets
us sleep at night secure in the knowledge that we won't
phase through the mattress.
Politics is just this sort of thing. The larger the group
of people you want to attract to a political faction (party)
the more abstract the symbol. That is why the flag is such
an important symbol to government, especially governments
that are losing the support of the governed.
A flag is the most abstract political symbol around. It
means nothing. Thus, it can mean anything. As long as you
can link the symbol to what someone personally likes about a
government, you can manipulate large masses of people.
What are your symbols? Chances are they have changed over
the last several years and that is the power and perversity
of the post modern right wing.
The media pundits and presidential hopefuls are eager to say
that Americans are ready to turn the clock back to a time
when our values (symbols) were more like the ones espoused
by the Heritage Foundation. This is nonsense. The
political symbols that mobilized a nation, and created one
of the largest middle classes ever, are about as far from
the current conservative dogma as one can get.
Let's look at an old symbol that has been altered. The
symbol of the freeman farmer as wise steward of the land,
symbolized by amber waves of grain, blew away in the harsh
winds of the dust-bowl and was replaced by the concept of
managed use, symbolized by agencies like the Bureau of Land
Management.
The symbol has undergone another change in the crucible of
right wing think tanks. The new and improved symbol has
been taken up as a banner by agribusiness and resource
extraction companies. The new symbol is: "Jobs can only be
created by destruction of resources." The poster child for
this symbol is the out-of-work logger.
By equating jobs with resource depletion the old symbol has
been transmuted from worthless lead to profitable gold. The
symbol has about as much reality as the Alchemist dream of
transmutation of base metals.
Logic dictates that resource depletion eliminates jobs while
it allows for a redistribution of wealth from the earth into
the pockets of the exploiters. By redefining that one
symbol the right has managed to negate all the logical
arguments that can be mustered.
You can not argue with a symbol. Regulations protect
resources. Resource depletion creates jobs. Ergo,
regulations are bad. Not just bad, evil.
This bit of legerdemain is reinforced by a shift in the
symbolic notion surrounding work itself. We once held that
in a free society people should not be prevented from
finding a job. They should have equal opportunity to prove
their worth.
Now they want us to believe the symbolic notion that if you
can't find employment you are worthless. It is a subtle
difference, but very important to the direction of the new
conservative order. Personal value has shifted from the
person to the job.
Person is redefined as worker and citizen as consumer. The
reason there is a rush to commercialize the Net is because
they know the workers found there are good consumers. They
have computers, the symbol of high order consumption. Other
workers are not such good consumers for the very reason that
their wages are kept low to enhance the salary of underpaid
chief executive officers.
The new symbol says that you are valueless if you don't
contribute to the redistribution of wealth from the earth
into the pockets of the upper 1 percent of this nation. To
get some personal value you will do whatever it takes, even
fish a river to extinction, graze grass lands into a dust
bowl or poison the water table with cyanided run off from
chip manufacture.
It has never been easy to find prosperity, but one of this
Nation's most enduring symbols is explained thus: "We had
better all move up together or we won't move at all." That
idea was reinforced when business practices in the late
1920s contributed to the great depression. The symbol had
at its root solid economic truth. If workers are prosperous
then businesses can prosper.
Now that logical symbol has morphed into the cult of the
entrepreneur and the glorification of personal greed.
Prosperity is no longer a national ideal; it is a personal
triumph. Are you on the winning side?
The new symbol grows from the myth that every person can be
an owner. Success in business is seen as the only real
virtue. The fact that the kind of success the media likes
to dwell on is about as common as winning the lottery is
beside the point. We are talking symbol after all.
As bad as this distortion is, it has a darker side. Witness
what has happened to the venerable symbol of the Republican
President Abe Lincoln emancipating the slaves. It has been
replaced by the symbol of Willie Horton safely behind bars.
We are asked to view prosperity in terms of us or them.
Either I prosper or you do. In that world you had better
be an owner, not a worker. Prosperity is no longer thought
of as a national ideal. It is thought of as something that
can only be attained at the expense of your neighbor or your
customer.
The frightfulness of the new right is not that their agenda
is dangerous. This nation has seen a parade of ideas
dangerous to freedom, equality and dignity, but generally
those ideas have been revealed for what they were.
In the new day of media manipulation old symbols can be
hijacked. If we allow ourselves to adhere to symbols
without demanding more, an Orwellian (war is peace, ignorance
is knowledge) mind set will prevail.
Can we demand more than the vague symbol of a sacred flag?
Can we require an accounting of the real issues behind the
symbol? If we can not, expect to see the nation slip
further and further from the ideal of representational
government to a reality of government by manufactured
consent.
- Steve Leith
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Y O ' M A M A !
Abusers of power beware! Mother Jones has you under surveillance.
* * * * *
"Listen to your mother!" Yeah yeah, okay. You heard it too many
times growing up, and now here's this bozo in a zine saying it to you
again. "Listen to your mother!" Why should you? Because your mother
sees all. Everyone knows what a bitch it is to sneak anything past her.
And she knows a lie when she hears it, and she'll tell you so. Well,
your mom let go, finally, and now you're floating around this society of
ours trying to figure out who you shouldn't drop the soap in front of.
And if you're an active voter, you get to try to sort out the pros who
should be cons. They're really GOOD liars. Who do you listen to?
Listen to your mother. Mother Jones Magazine is a life raft in a
sea of corruption. Let's see...how else can I put that...Mother Jones
is a beacon in the foggy skies of American Pol...uh, no. Got it. Mother
Jones takes no shit off of anybody. With so many of these criminals on
the hill, being less than careful about how they carry out their personal
agendas, it's nice to know Mother is there to spank them silly. And the
thing that is most comforting is that Mother Jones doesn't seem to be
playing favorites. Sure the magazine would have to be called "very
liberal," in that they care about the human aspect more than the big
business side of the coin, but they aren't afraid to take President
Clinton to task for his infuriating habit of blowing with the prevailing
wind. At the same time, they want YOU to know where Newt Gingrich got
his campaign funds. And they tell you.
Mother Jones Interactive is a very cool place. It's on the World Wide
Web (what isn't?), and it is arguably the greatest single spot to graze
on political knowledge. Current and back issues can be read online. With
a browser, you get the entire magazine effect. Want to do some research
into Newt's aforementioned financial helpers? The new "Mojo Wire," a great
addition to the web site, has a spiff feature, "Coin Operated Congress,"
that has the contributors listed by state in 6 alphabetical files. Want
to talk about the issues with other readers of the magazine? They have
online chatting. We at Cosmik Debris are very jealous of that one. Shhh.
Don't tell 'em. Online chatting on a WWW site. They're not the first, but
it sure is a perfect fit.
In just about a day's worth of browsing and reading, I managed to learn
quite a lot about some of the people who make decisions that effect our
lives. Jesse Helms, who many of you will remember as the uptight moron who
seemed to want to put pants on the sculptures in the museums, has a very
important job indeed. He's the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Now,
in case you've never heard, Jesse is Rush Limbaugh's long lost twin. He's
a master of the misdirection trick. You've seen magicians who make things
disappear into thin air? Well, it's called "misdirection," and what they
do is get you to look in another place while they make the switch. Jesse
and Rush both do that. When Rush does it, a bunch of people, who seem to
have wandered into the studio after a faith-healing taping let out in the
NEXT studio, hoot and holler and make Rush richer. You can deal with that,
because...so frickin what? We know that if Rush were at the bottom of the
ocean, these people would just latch onto Pat Robertson. No big diff.
But when JESSE does it, things happen. Or DON'T happen. Things that have
an effect not only on the American people, but on the people of other
countries. That's not a comforting thing to know.
You need to know, so listen to your mother when she tells you the facts
of politics. Many publications would say "Jesse Helms uses dirty tricks to
get what he wants." Mother Jones gives you concrete examples, like when
Helms, as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, interupted Dr. Sidney
Weintraub, of The Center for Strategic and International Studies, right in
the middle of his testimony in favor of bailing the Mexican government out
with a 40 billion dollar loan. Helms says "Would you feel differently
if you were informed that the president of Mexico has declared in a press
conference yesterday and again this morning that he will accept no
conditions on this loan?" That stopped Dr. Weintraub in his tracks.
"No conditions of any kind," he asks? "Yes, sir," says Jesse. Weintraub
was stuck. "If he would accept no conditions, then I would not support
the loan." This made Jesse pretty happy. "Well, I think that is important.
I am not saying he has." WHAT? Where the hell did that rabbit come from!?
I was looking over there! Jesse Helms, as chair of that committee, abused
his position. He made something up, got Dr. Weintraub to say what the
Helms crowd wanted to hear, and then enjoyed watching him argue from a
defensive posture for the rest of the afternoon. Mother Jones reported on
it, and gave you that entire exchange (plus some) verbatim. Instead of
making the accusation that Helms uses twisted truths and flat out lies to
get what he wants, they let Helms tell you himself.
Newt Gingrich can't fool Mother Jones for one second. They're on to
him like Republicans on a social program. When Newt pushed through an
obscure bill that just happened to be the pet project of the head of the
ethics committee, Mother Jones was there to point out that congresswoman's
sudden reluctance to investigate GOPAC, Gingrich's campaign contribution
machine that deserves more than a little suspicion. In fact, Newt has been
dissected to the bone in the pages of Mojo. Good thing, too, because his
little brainwashing act on television might have too many people voting
like zombies. The Contract With America is exposed by Mojo for what it
is...a distraction from the real agenda.
In recent months, Mother Jones has taken to task a great many public
figures who keep the pork rolling in, but they've gone a step further and
informed us of private parties who, as Mojo puts it, feed at the public
trough. CEO's of mega-companies who use shady tax breaks at the expense of
the lower classes. They've gone after corporations who abuse the campaign
contribution laws to stuff the barrels for Newt and Company in return for
favorable votes on their pet projects. They've educated us about medical
insurance fraud (which has added 100 billion dollars to our national health
bill), racism, mafia activity in the former Soviet Union, and the secrets
to keeping your family together. It's hard to catagorize a magazine with
such a wide variety of topics, but "watchdog" would have to be one of the
prime candidates. If you're being naughty, Mojo will tell everybody.
So if you want to find out who's been naughty and who's been nice
before you go off to the polls next time around, I suggest you take a
trip over to Mother Jones Interactive and do some studying. An uneducated
voter is as dangerous as a person who doesn't even bother to vote. Maybe
more so. The trick is to find sources that give you quotes to draw your
own conclusions from. Mojo does that. And the writers present their
findings in a no-nonsense way everyone can understand. Need more reasons
to check into this? Okay, are you into checking out cool new WWW sites?
GO! It's loaded with great features. If none of these reasons are enough
to get you over there, here's one final fact. They have Paula Poundstone
writing a monthly column for them, and yes, it is a very funny column.
- DJ Johnson
Mother Jones Interactive can be reached on the World Wide Web at
http://www.mojones.com
============================================================================
============================================================================
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Random stuff for your entertainment. Happy scrolling!
NEVER PAINTING
never from the son of sky
do crabs and fish recover my
my penchant for some acrofusic
metamorphic hateful lie
and never does the jasper one
inspire me to turn and run
away from places cold with shame
put there by the blazing sun
never remember
never forget
never resolve
never repent
never enclose
never expose
never devour
never i know
never embers burn away
they all remain as if to say
do not confuse the here and now
with then, tomorrow, yesterday
never releasing
never let go
never unfolding
never to grow
never reborn
never to die
never to come from the son in the sky.........
............goodbye.
- coLeSLAw
A COLLECTION OF SPAM HAIKU
Pink tender morsel,
Glistening with salty gel.
What the hell is it?
Ears, snouts and innards,
A homogenous mass.
Pass another slice.
Cube of cold pinkness
Yellow specks of porcine fat.
Give me a spork please.
Old man seeks doctor.
"I eat SPAM daily", says he.
Angioplasty.
Food in name only
Lipo-suctioned from the can
None for me, thank you
Highly unnatural,
The tortured shape of this "food":
A small pink coffin.
Sliding from the can
Fully saturated fat
Makes me want to retch
*** Authors unknown ***
JOURNAL, PAGE 1222
(Another day in the book)
Dear Diary,
Today's been most strange.
The sun rose up in a purple haze to the west,
While far out to sea a red sandstorm blew.
I lit a cigarette and smoked my last match,
Perched high atop a deep hole.
Wide-eyed, I watched the day unfold,
With my eyes clamped tightly shut.
The trees grew down,
The rain fell up into
A cloudless sky of bright green.
A million comets fell
To the earth so hard,
They made not a sound as they fell.
My mind worked hard,
As I lay comatose,
Sitting tall in my hole.
I snuffed out my match,
And walked to the top of the mountain below.
They're waiting
Dear Diary
Quietly shouting my name so loud.
I must go to them now,
But I'll leave you here beneath this tree,
And in my pocket carry you with me to them
Sincerely, yours truly, Dear Diary.
copyright 1980 Lisa Peppan
* * * *
What I Got
an abstract rave by Magthorn
My name is Robert. Not Bob, not Rob, not Robbie. I'm
not a software program that nobody needs to use to do things
they don't need to do. I'm me and What I Got, You Got to
Get It Put it in You.
You pump today? Why not. Special agent couch potato -
you? That stomach creeping over the belt. No way? Good.
You watch yourself and only drink light beer. Hey, no prob
with the pint of Haggen Daz - it's non-fat sorbet.
Pell Mell read the Swell Maps and beat Vein Melter to
the Wire using a Fad Gadget. Meanwhile, In Flagranto
Delicto, The Hafler Trio ate A Thirsty Fish. But It's All
Right Ma, We're just two lost souls living in a fish bowl,
year after year.
Everything you do is seen by someone. Every dime you
spend contributes to the database. You're a demographic,
Zippie. Snorted a ton of The Brady Bunch and shot up more
Speed Racer than you could handle? No wonder your brain is
fucked. You did the wrong generation, Zippie.
Your folks never home and didn't give a shit when they
were? Yeah, I know. They ALL claimed to be hippies. What
did you expect? That they would admit they supported it?
It's easy to change your past, just tell the future what YOU
want it to know.
Those history books you used to cover the popcorn bowl
when you sneezed while dreaming about doing Marsha? That's
all they were. History retold, reupholstered to fit the
image. Hell, men have always respected women. Whites have
always respected blacks. The red, white, and blue has
always hated pink. Pink is communism. Pink is sex.
America hates sex. Give us a good bloodbath any day but
keep that tit covered and let your kid go hungry till you
get home - bitch.
When a monk asked, "What is the Buddha?" Ummon
replied, "A shit-wiping stick."
Ummon could say that in 900 ad. What is YOUR God, Zippie?
There is no need to run outside
For better seeing, . . .
. . . Rather abide
At the center of your being;
For the more you leave it, the less you learn.
Search your heart and see
. . .
The way to do is to be.
What did you learn in school? How to flip hamburgers?
Do you know what the Lao Tzu is? Or is it a who? Don't know?
I Was Born in a Laundromat. No Sisters of Mercy saved
me from the Floodland. I watched Pictures of Matchstick Men
Cloudbusting. When the Levee Breaks I Shall Be Released. In
My Time of Dying Fortune Presents Gifts Not According to the
Book. O Freunde, nicht diese Tone!
You bare your chest to accept the blackened needle.
Are you more yourself for the pain? Is the message you will
send the rest of your life going to always ring true? What
you are now may bear little resemblance to what you will be.
You may be the same as THEM. You may get religion. You may
care more for money than for yourself. You may sit and
force your kids to watch Greg and Marsha while telling them
how relevant they still are.
My name is Robert. I know who I am. Who are you?
* * * * *
ONEIROMANCER
Wandering grey asphalt
Twisted crevices
Wet and genetic.
Searching lost divinity
On a path created by some "else."
He asks you
"Am I mortal, or bastard offspring
Of some long forgotten god, demon...
Of heaven, earth...
Faith, science...?"
Vision of the immediate says "neither."
"Just flesh, nothing more," you lie.
"Child and parent,
Sibling, mate."
"Is this enough?" he asks.
His roots are known to you
But so far removed and twisted
Like dead grass,
Crushed flat cracks
At the roadside.
He cannot see the initial spark
Of origin.
His words have affect...
The straining of his hands
Cause change...
But for how long?
Are those miracles
Or illusions? You no longer have
A need for a god
When you become your own deceiver--
He'll dream his own world,
His own beginning,
His own end.
As he has dreamt you...
Whole and real,
Long before
His nightmares ride you...
--J. C. Hendee
FLOATILLA
lemon dew drops kissed before the moon fell down in shame
as pearls rained down the sky again in sheets of atom bombs
the penny in the acid pool lies face down
and around this time
imagine what would happen if we gave it life again
listen to the silence while the leaves fall down like dominoes
and all the puppets dance and laugh while you tell a picture perfect story
that you will have to share again before sun has set
so sigh it won't get any slower
and cry you'll just get wetter
so try it couldn't hurt
sigh and say goodbye
to the small flotilla in the sky
(c) 1995 coLeSLAw
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ATTENTION PLEASE
Columns printed in Cosmik Debris contain the opinions of the
individual writers. In other words, we, the wimpy quivering
bunch of editors cowering in the corner & wetting ourselves
in a shameless display of cowardice, take no responsibility
for any of it. Not one single word. So don't try it, bud!
It won't hold up in court! Now go away! GO!
----------------------------------
U R B A N I A
Hello, fine readership! You may be proud of yours truly when you find
out that I actually did...RESEARCH for this month's column! Now, I'm
trusting that you won't tell DJ about this, as he is still operating under
the belief that I'm not able to conduct research, due to a horrible injury
I suffered as a librarian during the war.
This month, folks, we're off in search of the much ballyhooed NEEEEWdity
and general disgustivity on the World Wide Web. Oh, it was with the
greatest of anticipation that I loaded up the trusty browser and headed
down this, the road to sure ruin. To hear Good Ole Jesse Helms tell it,
before I'd have a chance to avert my virgin gaze, I'd be watching Madam X
boinking a boxer terrier.
Alright, let's go. First off, we head to the trusty Web Crawler, since
it was invented here in Seattle. BOUND to have a good nose fer smut, that
Web Crawler. First entry...hmm...well, let's not beat around the bush
here, type "NEKKID PEOPLE" in there 'n LET 'ER RIP!! YEEEEEHAAAAW!! Gawd,
I can almost SMELL them pictures loading in here. Ok, so I've got the
thingy on the widget set to return 25 documents, that oughtta keep me busy
for awhile. Uh, as they load, we see a bunch of meaningless URL's (I
never go anywhere that doesn't have a REAL title) and "NetBrat's Explicit
Home Page." That sounds promising!
Ok, as it loads up, nothing particularly nekkid scrolls across my screen.
It starts off with the redundant message "This page looks best when viewed
with Netscape." Well, I'm using Netscape and I don't see anything that
strikes me as particularly unclothed yet (although, the word "explicit" in
the title is blinking! God bless Netscape for the <BLINK> tag!) As I
scroll through, I find a picture of an attractive, yet clothed, blonde
woman, who I presume must be "NetBrat." AHA! Underneath the picture, it
says "Click here to see a NEKKID picture of NetBrat." WOOOOOHOOOO!! With
trembling fingers, I "click here" and wait for the ol' 9600 to pipe that
beauty onto the screen. Oh, but wait. Instead of a naked picture, that
wacky NetBrat has put, in a big ol' Level One Heading, the words "You
Pervert!" and then a kind offer to return us to her home page! Oh, the
irony! HA HA HA HA HA HA!! Oh, truly a brat you are, NetBrat.
Well, as much as I would have liked to wander around in NetBrat's
demesnes all day to see what OTHER naughty pranks she could stuff in her
HTML, I had a column to write, dammit. So back to the Web Crawler. This
time, I'd better be a little bit more "racy" (ooh, I feel naughty just
SAYING it!) Alright, let's see what this baby brings back when I send it
to fetch "HOT BABES." THE FREAKIN' MOTHERLODE!!!! YEAH! Ok, we got "The
Pink Pages," we got one that just says "ADULTS," and we got a Gopher Menu,
bound to be STUFFED with Hot Babes Galore.
First stop, "The Pink Pages." That one sounds like an underground phone
book for brothels. Has a nice ring to it. Hey, hey! The first thing we
get is one of those "This page is for adults (wink, wink) so if you're NOT
an adult, you better (wink, wink) turn around and go away. There is ADULT
(wink, wink) content here, so if that offends you, or if you're not (wink,
wink) old enough, GO AWAY!!" screens. Yeah! I tell the widget that I'm
25 years old and it pipes me off further down the screen (It's all on the
same page! Do they think that someone who's under 18 can't use the scroll
arrows? Oh well, I guess that's why they make adult material instead of
joining that think tank down the block.) Now, HERE we go! There is a
picture of two Hot Babes, both dolled up in that lacey-gartery-high-heely
stuff, that stuff that all Sexy Women wear around the house while doing
the things that French Maids do. Babe #1 has her leg propped seductively
on Babe #2, and they're both looking seductively at the camera. Upon
further inspection of the page, it turns out that they're waiting
seductively at the other end of a 1-800 number, and they (or some of their
"girlfriends") would like nothing more than to share their wildest
fantasies with us. Well, I used to work at an answering service, and there
were two women who worked there that used to work at a phone sex line. Uh,
let's just say that I'm not really interested in knowing what their wildest
fantasies are, especially if my name is used in a sentence with 'em.
Alright, now frustration is setting in. I'm gonna try ONE MORE Web
Crawl. Gotta be something good. Something sure-fire. Let's see...HERE WE
GO! Ok, with surety and confidence, I tell the widget to go find "PEOPLE
DOING IT." Now, if that don't get me a 'puter full o' porn, then there
ain't none to be had here no-how.
What the hell is THIS??? We've got "FREEDOM ASSOCIATES," which doesn't
exactly conjure up the image of a couple of sweaty people in itself; we've
got "At the Time of Jesus, The Truth about Hillel and his Times," uh,
unless somehow that page backs up my Bible-as-porno-mag theory, which is
doubtful, I'm going to assume there aren't any good pictures there; and
finally, we have the "ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY and JUDAISM." Well, no shit.
"People doing it" is pretty much the origin of the WHOLE FUCKING HUMAN
RACE, dumbass.
Well, Ok, to HELL with this. In my opinion, this whole debate started
when Mrs. Helms walked in on the honorable Jesse Helms in the den and he
had the latest delivery from the "Traci Lords" mailing list up on the
screen, and when she got mad, he told her that he found it on a page
called "For Kids Only" so now he's gotta put on a good show of indignation
in the Senate so she'll believe him.
So, to wrap this dead fish up, I'd say that the only REAL obscenity out
there is whatever Sen. Jesse Helms utters on the job, and the only REAL
pornography is what he does with Mrs. Helms with the lights out (eeew).
Now, THAT'S disgusting.
Well, I'll see y'all next month. For now, I'm off to the Circle K to pick
up this month's issue of "Hooters on Harleys."
- Jim Andrews
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
IT IT WEREN'T TRUE, WHO'D BELIEVE IT?
This month's Sharp Pointed Stick Award, by DJ Johnson
When I was a naive young man of 19, I met an older woman who made
my toes shake. Our affair was brief and inconvenient. It seemed very
difficult for her to find time for our encounters, and when she finally
would come up with a time and place, there was a good chance something
would happen in her life to make her cancel. Not wanting to BE naive,
I said to her "Look, I can take a hint. Goodbye!" But she jumped me
right then and there, so I was back on the ride. Came to find out,
eventually, that she was married and had three children, and the reason
for her scheduling troubles was that her husband was suspicious, jealous,
and very very overdeveloped in the bicep regions. God, I felt stupid!
I lived with that opinion of myself for a long time, but today I'm free.
Because today's paper brings proof positive that I'm smarter than some.
This guy in Bountiful, Utah, filed a missing persons report on his wife.
Things worked out just swell. They found her. Only she was a he. Even
though Bruce Jensen and Felix Urioste were married for three and a half
years, Bruce never suspected that Felix was a man. Seems they had one
sexual encounter, from which Felix claimed to have been impregnated with
twins. I want to know how that encounter could happen without Bruce
becoming suspicious. I also DON'T want to know that. Bruce did "the
right thing," marrying Felix in a Mormon church. I'll spare you the
forty or fifty jokes that started tap-dancing on my mind over that one!
Felix told Bruce they couldn't have sex anymore due to the pregnancy.
Bruce bought it. I'd make fun of him for that, too, but I have also
fallen for the same line on a few occasions.
Eventually, he told him the twins were stillborn. THEN he claimed to
have developed cancer, saying he had to go away for treatment. There
is no hard evidence to suggest Felix also told Bruce that if he stuck
his tongue on the metal rack in the freezer, it would taste like a
popcicle, but the chances are good he pulled that one as well. Bruce
eventually filed the missing persons report, and boy howdy, did they ever
find Felix! Living it up with 33 stolen credit cards in Vegas! Then
they found out Felix had run up $40,000 on Bruce's credit cards during his
adventure! One can only assume poor Bruce never questioned the strange
names of the hospitals on the charge slips. Bally's. Circus Circus.
"Man, that Donald Trump is into EVERYTHING!" So now Felix is in jail in
Las Vegas, his bail is $20,000, and his marriage is probably in a lot of
trouble.
Not everyone thinks it's over. Felix's sister says they belong
together. She says they had a very happy marriage. Bruce says he never
really saw Felix naked during their three and a half year happy marriage.
Bruce says he feels really stupid. We dunno what Felix says, because
he's in the slammer, and so far, he isn't talking. And I say that I'll
bet you Bruce finds a way to bail Felix out. I can picture him, tears in
his eyes, driving toward the courthouse with the local country station
blasting "Stand By Your Man" from the car speakers. And if he DOESN'T
take Felix back, you just know the con-man/woman talent will be lining
up to take a crack at the guy, so to speak. It's gonna be "The Crying
Dating Game" for sure. Well, I don't want to be TOO mean to poor Bruce.
After all, if not for him, I might still think I was the most naive
schmuck in the universe. Bruce scores a THREE on DJ's Sharp Stick
Meter. For future reference, a score of ONE indicates a person who can
be left alone with a sharp stick, but he or she is apt to hurt someone.
A TWO is a person who will require Bactine and guaze if left alone with
a sharp stick for any length of time. A THREE is a person who will
somehow become impaled and pinned to a nearbye tree if left alone with
a sharp stick for more than thirty seconds. There is no FOUR, or Bruce
would have been one. I guess a FOUR would be a guy who would also be
immasculated by the stick, and that would just be too much confusion
for this story.
DJ Johnson
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* * * * * * * * * * * *
That about wraps up our August issue. Special thanks go out, as
usual, to Don Dill for the use of his cartoon character, Stress Man, in
the "Editor's Notes" icon in our graphic/sound version. Also to Blair
Buscareno, editor of Teen Scene (a great zine for fans of garage, punk &
surf music. E-Mail blairb@eden.rutgers.edu for subscription info), for
continued moral support, and to NeoSoft Corp, for use of their incredible
programs, which make the graphic/sound version of Cosmik Debris possible.
Be sure to check out our homepage.
http://www.greatgig.com/cosmikdebris
You will find lots of links to help you become politically educated,
links to great music sites, and our Featured Band Of The Month page.
This month, The Basement Brats images and sound files will be made
available there. They become the second band to be featured on the
page. By the way, thank you's to The Mel-Tones, for being the first.
A lot of you checked out their music in the past month, so we'd like
to thank you, as well. See you next month.
- DJ
Editor