Friday, October 22, 2010

Talking Back to Punk Rock #9

"Race Against Time? More like Race Against Diction, amirite? LOL C whut I did thar?

No but seriously, can't understand a word. Oh, you're Scottish...never mind then."

-The Exploited, "Race Against Time"

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Rating My CD's: The Squarest Thing On the Jukebox

21. The Fiery Furnaces -- I'm Going Away

The Book of Daniel tells a story (Dn 3) of the Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar, conqueror of Jerusalem, destroyer of Solomon's Temple, building a Golden Statue and demanding that all his subjects worship it. Three Jews refuse to do so, and Nebuchadnezzar throws them into a fiery furnace to be burned to death. Instead, an angel of God comes to the rescue, and they stand in the fire unharmed, until the king notices. He then proclaims that the God who could do such a thing is the greatest of all gods, and showers the three Jews with riches and favors.

I mention this because the actual band the Fiery Furnaces seems unaware of it. In a deeply uninteresting "In My Room" feature in the October 2007 issue of Spin (Golly! Rock Stars have kitchens! With stuff in them!), Eleanor Friedberger claims that "Our band name comes from a line in the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." Although other web sites have claimed a double-reference to CCBB and the Bible, this review of Rehearsing My Choir, the FF's 2005 album, sticks to the initial story. And while I'd like to believe that the Brooklyn hipster duo behind this album know obscure stories from Old Testament Prophets, somehow that first story rings the truer.

RIP Ari Up

I never was the world's biggest Slits fan, but I've got a DVD copy of Punk: The Early Years, featuring a gloriously incompetent set from the early Slits and Ari screaming her fool head off to something like "Split": (Content Warning: Adolescent punks using dirty words)



They may have got better than this, but they were never more punk. She ought bury Lydon, not the other way around.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Chart Attack! ...um, Attacks

Poor Kings of Leon. I wondered if they really did peak with Because of the Times.

Halfway through the album is also the point where you realize Come Around Sundown is simply too long. Right when you're thinking it's going to end, it just keeps going, becoming as worn out as the elastic on a really, really stretched pair of sweat pants. This makes it a curious contradiction; one would think it would be impossible to make an album that sounded completely thin, but looks dense in terms of its length. But Kings Of Leon have seemingly done the impossible here.
Ouch.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Friday, October 15, 2010

Bad Band Names: a Drive-By Commentary

I'm putting myself on a new music diet until I finish at least one of my Rating My CD's categories, so Magnet's Which Album Are You Most Looking Forward To This Week? feature is utterly meaningless to me. However, I'd rather not consign myself to irrelevance, so I'm going to introduce a concept I've been meaning to discuss by making fun of the names of the bands in the poll.

Full Disclosure -- Aside from the first two, I haven't heard a note from any of these:

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Talking Back to Punk Rock #8

"You're not getting it. You can't ask someone to rape you. If you ask that means you're giving consent, which means it's not rape. It's one of those Catch-23 things. Or 22. I don't know; I've never read it. I already know the punch line, so what's the point?"

-Nirvana, "Rape Me"

Monday, October 11, 2010

It's Sasquatch! Stop It Before It Gets the Children!

James Murphy is a hairy, hair man. Who appears to have just eaten a hipster:

Get in mah belly!

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Rating My CD's: Ain't No Room for a Guitar Man

20. Elvis Presley -- Elvis 75


[Yes, this should be filed under P for Presley. I don't care. Over the decades Elvis has shed his surname.]

When Elvis died in August of 1977, a bereft fan asked his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, what they were supposed to do now. "Why, nothing son," replied Parker, "It's just like when he was in the army!"

Elvis fans act under an obligation to treat Parker as the villain of Elvis' saga, the grasping Svengali who trapped the King behind walls of money and pills. But time has proven him right. Thirty years has passed since the King's death, and a minor industry still labors to ensure that we never forget him, that we never quite put another onto his throne. As with the Beatles, repackages of the same hit songs reappear with predictable regularity. Considering that such made up most of his albums for the last decade or so before his death, it's hard to say hat Elvis' career arc has greatly changed. Like the villain in Gibson's Count Zero, his actual corporeal existence is largely secondary to the corporate life of his money.