RodentCityReviews
Music
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Certificate Of Distinction (by Crude) (from Crude - "Inner City Guitar Perspectives" LP/CD [Flying Nun])
I do not have any background information about this song; I can only guess that it was recorded in the mid-/late 90s. It has all the elements you could wish for in a song; the kind of drumming that sounds like a drum kit being thrown down the stairs, a reedy and distorted organ sound, guitar playing that sounds like a bass version of the organ, and a guitar solo that is too loud and too simple, and a title.
Dilated Peoples
Dilated Peoples - "The Platform" CD (Capitol)
(Note, June 2003 : I bet I wouldn't think this was nearly that great now but I don't know, it's like 3 years since I heard it. Should we even leave this "reviews page" shit up any more? it's not like we're gonna take it anywhere further @ this stage. Oh well I suppose it's sort of a snapshot of a moment in time, sort of thing.)
Limp Bizkit
the idea of them in general...fuck it already, you've heard it all already...But the one thing I ever thought seemed cool about 'em was the title "3 Dollar Bill Y'all" 'cause what's a 3 DOLLAR BILL represent, only the 2 main no-no-no-no-NO's of the "scene" that they most aspire to (that is to say, the hip-hop scene): (#1)INAUTHENTICITY & (#2)HOMOSEXUALITY. That title seemed proudly affirmative of those things, which would've been the most bold-ass move possible for a crew of wanna-be-black white boys..."We don't care what people think is cool...not even BLACK PEOPLE...we're PUNK FUCKIN ROCK". From what I can make out about this band - & I may be wrong, I mean you wouldn't wanna get in too close - that ain't the case tho. Oh well, at least they're offensive to older people, that's punk or something like it I guess. (I mean, I'm older than them & they offend me .)
Hurt, Love and Fire (by Chris Malcolm) (Original Format Unknown - From a Compilation Tape (email info to tedium2000@hotmail.com.)) I do not have any background information about this song; I can only guess that it was recorded in the late 60s. It has all the elements you could wish for in a song; the kind of drumming that sounds like a drum kit being thrown down the stairs, a reedy and distorted organ sound, guitar playing that sounds like a bass version of the organ, a guitar solo that is too loud and too simple, and it's called Hurt, Love and Fire. - Maryann The Moving Sidewalks - I Wanna Hold Your Hand (from "Flashbacks Vol [?]" LP [Antar])
Did you ever wish that you could torture the Beatles, not too roughly
of course, but just enough to make them REALLY WANT SOMETHING, like really? Or, did you ever wish that one of the Beatles could be your boyfriend, and then you'd be really mean to them, and show them that
you were their boss? Then THIS SONG IS FOR YOU. Torturous moments in between the key lines of slow guitar playing - you'll see - and the guitar player Billy someone was in ZZ Top after - you can hear that a bit in a good way of course. Most of the time you listen to songs, and
they just don't work, just like most boys don't - but this one DOES.
And if it doesn't work on you, guess what? You'll never know. Cos when
he says in this song 'I think you'll understand' he says it like,
just between you and me, the falling intonation that expresses something
that's going to tickle.
Royal Trux (The Royal Trux musical theory is available on their personal website.) These ideas are pretty disappointing: it seems like in the realm of music, great things can result from being (admittedly perfect and beautiful) fashion victims, but when it comes to literature and philosophy . . . that doesn't work. You can easily see that this is just cool sounding noise copied from (Duane pointed out to me) the jazz theory of Ornette Coleman (called harmolodics) . I don't like it when people adopt fashionable IDEAS, because it seems such a betrayal of the ultimate task of humans, which is to unite beneath a transcendental Idea: 'Every Thursday [Michel, aged 12] bought 'Pif' . . . unlike most children of his age, he did not buy it for the gadget, but for the adventure stories. The dazzling sweep of history and costume of these tales did little to mask the simple moral values they played out . . . Later, when he read Nietzsche, he was only briefly provoked, and Kant only served to confirm what he already knew: that perfect morality is unique and timeless. Nothing is added to it and nothing changes in the course of time. It is not dependent on history, economics, sociology, or culture; it is not dependent on anything. Not determined, it determines. Not conditioned, it conditions. It is, in other words, absolute.' (Michel Houellebecq 'Atomised/Les Particules elementaires').
Do you see what this means? You don't 'use' ideas; they come upon you from outside yourself - they're like visions - and when you receive an idea in a vision, that's how you know that it's Real . . . The Seeds - The Seeds The Seeds - "The Seeds" LP (GNP Crescendo)
The nasal uncontrolled pleading in the voice Sky Saxon, singer of unknown intelligence but known otherworldliness, makes him deep-and-smarmy Jim Morrison's doppelganger; considering the Seeds' liberating influence on Mark E Smith and Billy Childish, we can only hope that some day the rest of the world will wake up. Thanks to the comfortable patient drumming of Rick Andridge, who's happy to keep time while Sky suffers agony for his followers, the Seeds marry 60s seaside idyll to drug induced urban panic; they almost out-stupid the Troggs and out-simple the stupored 13th Floor Elevators. Lyrics about eyes and pointing fingers infect what should have been songs about dying for love with nursery rhyme doggerel style intimations of schizophrenia. Kim Fowley jumped in later - but they didn't need his stamp to be considered quality freaks.
Sky Saxon The Seeds (sic) - "Bad Part Of Town" LP (Eva) (France,mid-'80s) ...it says The Seeds but BUYER BE WARY 'cause for a start the whole of side one is not even them but in fact Sky Saxon's (or RICHIE MARSH's, that's what he was called then) early shots in the early '60s honky teen idiom - typical stuff from the pre-Brit-Invasion/post-Chuck-Berry-Mann-Act-Violation-Imprisonment era as far as I can gather from only bothering to listen to the 1st song, I mean sure it rocked at least as hard as Fabian or Bobby someone-or-other or any of the memorable greats of that period but right now,right now let's PTO to side 2 for the stuff I was actually was interested to hear - that's the obscure late period Seeds singles, a warped & scratchy pile no doubt.Couple of decent psychodelphic pieces recall the breathless psychodelphic wonders of the "Future" LP - perhaps worth buying the LP for, but maybe even better is "Shucking & Jiving" which is where the Seeds went Heavy Metal...see no-one ever told you there was a heavy metal period of The Seeds,huh? It's not in the history books.Who knows tho', 'cause truly, this doesn't even sound like them, doesn't even sound like him (Sky) singing.Maybe someone else inherited the name like what happened with the Electric Prunes (& The Runaways. & Paul McCartney.)? Anything's possible with creepy old Kim Fowley hanging round like I know he was at the time, but hey even if it's fake it's GOOD. *Consumer Advisory - they're all good except - I'm told - "Full Spoon of the Seedy Blues" (never heard it)...but here's my order of preferability if your budget is tight - [1]eponymous 1st album, [2=]"Web of Sound" & "Future", [3]"Raw & Alive" (a.k.a. "Merlin's Music Box"). So Alone Johnny Thunders - "So Alone" LP (Real,1978)
What I like about Johnny Thunders is that he's such an emotional guy. I'm so sick of being here in this country around all these boys that we've crushed and murdered; I want to leave here really badly, but not alone . . . it's hard to be alone. Johnny Thunders is an emotional guy, and he's smart; it's a mistake (that I made) to throw him into the 'good looking rock junky' toybox. It's not that I think this type of simple stereotyping is invalid in itself: so much music can be summed up that simply. But Johnny Thunders is something more - I never realised until I actually listened to the New York Dolls. I expected another poor junky band with overblown hype like the Flamin' Groovies; so I never bothered at all. But now I understand that he's the guy who made all the other ones think that his rock and roll sneer and strength came from making rock music and being a junky; when really it came from ... ambiguity and self awareness, sorry guys.
- Maryann TV Personalities Television Personalities - "Now That I’m A Junkie" 7" (Little Teddy,1996)
On the TV Personalities website I found the other day there was this song lyric from the Mr T. Experience (if you don’t know ’em they’re a pretty OK Californian pop-punk band...I mean if there is such a thing they are it...Jon Von from the Rip-offs use to be in it way back) & it was called "I Don’t Know Where Dan Treacey Lives"...Haven’t heard it, but I wanna, ’cause it's a great lyric...better, in fact, than "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives" (I know that song’s one of lots of people's main reasons for liking the TVP's, but not mine) ’cause it’s real & sad & poignant..."Now That I’m A Junkie" isn’t Dan Treacey’s greatest lyric ever either, but it’s one of his greatest songs anyway ’cause it, too, is real & sad & poignant, ’cause now that you know that it’s the last record they did & it was done in ’96, you know what’s happened. Underdogs The Underdogs - "Sitting in the Rain"/"Shortnin’ Bread" 7" (Zodiac, 1967) This's gotta count as 1 of the top 3 or 4 NZ singles of all time, right? ’cept for that it isn’t actually a NZ composition…it’s a John Mayall song, in fact, & the original is really very dull…yes indeed, it’s the singer not the song. Or in this case the guitar player - he’s the guy who makes this one hum…It’s not Harvey Mann (most famous guitar player associated w/ the ’Dogs), it’s the other guy they had - Lou Rawnsley, & he kicks much ass. It’s just a sorta no-big-deal laid-back blues shuffle that’d be boring if most bands did it - cf. the original - but the guitar guy gets this perfect guitar sound, treble & fuzz & reverb turned right up I guess is how you’d do it, & like I said it’s that as much as or more than the vocal performance here that tells the story.(The story = my baby left me, dunno what to do, I’m sittin round smoking a big ol’ pile of pot). It struck a chord with people here in NZ 'cause something about it really evokes the time-warped cut off from the rest of the world feeling this place has - so it was a big hit & they got to go on TV & act bored, like young guys who make a great rock'n'roll record deserve to.
Thrift Store Singles Action (part #1)
The Searchers - "Kinky Kathy Abernathy"/"Suzanna" 7" (Liberty, circa 1969) The idea was codified by John "Beard Rock" Allen of Harlem, NYC (by the way if you know him, tell him to get in touch w/ me, his email address doesn't work no more), - the later, forgotten (or never-known-in-the-1st-place) stuff by semi-well-known bands is the happening area for finding obscure classics that haven't all been scarfed up by the collectors who bought up all the already famous "obscure" "classics". (He backed up the idea convincingly enough with tracks from Kaleidoscope's "Bernice" & the Blues Project album with the blue cover.) Going by this theory I'd figure that when you find a single by a band whose known output is on a certain label (Searchers = Pye, Steppenwolf = Dunhill/Stateside, Probe) & it's on some label you never even knew they were on, it might be cool. I'm sure it's worked for me a couple times here & there, but not these ones, they both stink. Too bad 'cause some sources have the Searchers doing good stuff as late as their late-'70s tenure with Sire, & Steppenwolf....well, one never knows.The entire lyrical content of the B-side of the Steppenwolf single goes : "Angel/won't you pull down your drawers"...actually that's a pretty cool track, lotsa sweaty snorting organ in the trad. of great Steppenwolf B-sides from the Mesozoic era...but all else is so forgettable that, uh, I forget.
Wild Angels Various - "FROG RECORDS PRESENTS THE WILD ANGELS: NEW YORK GIRL GARAGE GROUPS OF THE SIXTIES" LP (Distortions) This record is more than a bunch of songs, it is a testament to the weaknesses which made humanity great - once. There are three bands on the record - The Wild Angels, The Sassy Ones, and The Renaissance. All of them are managed by a producer called Capt. Joe Buser. They are backed up by bands including The First Grade and The Chozen Ones. Mostly, these songs withstand the onslaught of hippiness and thus can still produce the emotional charge of jealous, irrational love that existed before individualism or so-called 'free love' came along and made everything boring. The paradigm song of a particular type of early rock feminism is 'Don't Ever Say No,' where the lyrics demand that the object of the singer's affection 'never says no' to her. I really think that mid sixties hippiness represented a step backwards for most women. If you read biographies of bands like the MC5, they ran with sexual liberation as excuse for keeping a harem of women who cooked big pots of vegetables for them and so on. I'm not saying that most women in the early sixties weren't in this position anyway (you know, cooking big pots of vegetables for the MC5), but if you became sexually liberated before the hippy movement it seems like you became liberated from society altogether - the bad girl image of bands like the Wild Angels is one of girls who won't obey ANYONE, and certainly wouldn't be part of anyone's 'harem.'
This record is, in conclusion, a great historical document. It includes several versions of four songs recorded before 1966 by The Wild Angels and The Sassy Ones - then, at the end, two of these same songs recorded by the Renaissance, an attempt by The Sassy Ones to become a psychedelic band in 1967! A strange collision! A horrid mishmash! Nothing Kim Fowley did could equal the innocent strangeness of these two songs!
We can't be there anymore, it's too late for us, we live after Bill Gates and Ronald Reagan and Jimi Hendrix and it's all the same thing even if you don't know it . . . but these records can help intensify your disgust . . . Well, I've basically used up all my ideas about everything now.
Hey i just thought of a good name for a Smog record - Smirky Smile. i wonder whether i could get some kind of job . . .
Poor Man's Thing (by Rickford Zieckowsky and the Sheppards) (From "Pebbles vol. [?]" LP [AIP])
I do not have any background information about this song; I can only guess that it was recorded in the mid 60s. The individual elements of the song are not particularly interesting, the drumming is straightforward, the guitar playing is arpeggiated, but that is satisfying in itself, overall. OK so the music is good to start off with and then I love this genre of song; the fuck off I'm poor and that makes me badder than you but secretly I'm filled with anguish kind of song; in this genre are also 'Play With Fire' and 'Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White' but I like this song better than those two.
GET ME OUT OF THIS VERSCHLUGGINNER PLACE! |