(Germs from left to right: Pat Smear, Lorna Doom, Darby Crash and Don Bolles)
Back in 2000, I vaguely remember the documentary Rage: 20 Years of Punk Rock, West Coast Style coming out, but never caught up with it—my gut told me it wasn’t gonna be no Decline! (plus, doesn’t the math seem off? 2000 - 20 only equals, like, what…1980?) Anyhoo, thanks to YouTube, I can now present to you a few of its highlights.
Next up, here’s Dead Kennedy‘s frontman Jello Biafra discussing how it felt to be first a witness then a player in San Francisco’s exploding punk scene:
If you’re in or near San Francisco you still have a few days to catch Sonny Smith‘s extremely fun looking show 100 Records at Gallery 16. My first reaction to this was “Hey ! That’s a total Mingering Mike rip-off !, but then I noticed that he’s a contributor, so I suppose it’s all good. Indeed this whole idea tweaks my vinyl fetishist/record maker pleasure receptors in a big way. Can’t wait for the book !
Before she became the International Nerd Goddess in “The Fifth Element,” Milla Jovovich was a minorly-famous alt rock diva whose 1994 album “The Divine Comedy,” released simply as “Milla,” weirded the hell out of the MTV 120 Minutes crowd. They used to play her songs after midnight, for the most part, largely because clips like “The Gentleman Who Fell,” the first one below—a haunting tribute to Maya Deren’s “The Meshes of the Afternoon” combined with a lyrical invocation of the Gnostic Lucifer—were a lot more Kate Bush than Bush, and certainly not the flavor du jour. I’ve spent the last couple of days digging out her album and playing ad infinitum, and remembering that, for the most part, it was Really, Really Good, a lost gem from the labyrinth of 1990s alternative radio. The album was released in 1994, but the bulk of the songs, including the ones below, were recorded when she was only 16. Now that is a formidable talent and one I wish we’d seen more of. How many action stars can you point to who could beat This Mortal Coil at their own game? Only one, my dears.
In our supposedly post-racial world (not counting you, tea-baggers) it’s difficult to conceive of the indignities thrust upon Lena Horne for the crime of being of undetermined race, but her luminous beauty and mellifluous voice made her the “negro” who was safe for white America. She used this inroad to criticize the treatment of black soldiers during her many USO tours which led to her being “blacklisted” by Hollywood for many years. Of course civilization eventually evolved enough to begin celebrating her for her actual talents and not for her potential to pass as a white woman. Goodbye, gorgeous.
When I read that Lou Reed and others were staging concerts of his infamous 1975 fuck you to RCA, Metal Machine Music, as if it was truly a piece of avant garde modern classical music—as Reed claimed—and not just speedfreak manipulated feedback, I thought this sounded like a terrible idea. After seeing a YouTube clip of one of the performances and reading Dangerous Minds pal Skylaire Alfvegren’s eyewitness report, I’m thinking this looks like a must-see the next time it gets performed in Los Angeles:
Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music is often blamed for spawning the ear-throttling genre collectively known as noise. While musique concrète, city traffic and various 20th-century avant-garde composers were Reed’s inspirations as well, his 64-minute monsterpiece was largely improvised, and the fact that anyone — in this case, CalArts professor of Composition and Experimental Sound Ulrich Krieger (with help from Luca Venitucci) — would take the time to transcribe it into sheet music is both baffling and historic.
In the program, Krieger stated that “Metal Machine Music is a missing link between contemporary classic music and advanced rock,” and, hearing an even number of rock and orchestral elements in it, he figured out how to transpose Reed’s reel-to-reels and detuned guitars to the instruments of his own outfit, Sonic Boom, as well as those of the California E.A.R. Unit, an orchestral repertory ensemble which has been in residence at REDCAT since 2004.
Sans conductor, and with the music written in time notation, the musicians’ eyes darted frantically to a digital timer (a method first employed by John Cage in the ‘60s). MMM came across as far more musical than it does on disc; the transcription was madly inventive. Never had a trumpet player broken such a sweat onstage, nor had a tuba packed such a Mac truck wallop. Distinct bits stood out among the wash, which sounded like the inside of a barb-wired sea shell. Stringed instruments were amplified with pickups and microphones, and the rapidity of movement shredded bows. One viola player was so convulsive it looked as though she was going to fall out of her chair. Styrofoam was mic’d; velvet stretched like a trampoline and assaulted with lengths of heavy chain served as percussion. The effect — what an amplified pile of writhing nightcrawlers on amphetamines might sound like — was bliss or torment, depending on the lobes, an unholy din, an avant-horror movie score, hairraising in that maniac-around-the-bend kind of way. And like the music in Hell’s dentist’s office, it was uncomfortably soothing.
Above: Excerpt from Asphodel’s release of ‘Metal Machine Music’ performed by ZEITKRATZER.
“Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music may be the most misunderstood work ever created by a popular musician. The original two record set, released in 1975, was mostly noise: feedback squalls, amplifier hums and the tortured screech of electronic gadgets. Directed by Reinhold Friedl, the 11-member ZEITKRATZER ensemble from Berlin gave Reed’s album a thorough listen and and Ulrich Kreiger, the group’s saxophon transcribed the sounds to create an acoustic music score for their ensemble to play live.”
Below: An excerpt from the original Metal Machine Music:
How can it be that we haven’t yet covered Blondie on this blog? What a tragic oversight! One that I must redress immediately…
I absolutely loved Blondie when I was a kid, after discovering them on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert when I would have been about ten. I recall being transfixed by how beautiful Debbie Harry was and thinking how cool she dressed. I had never seen a girl who looked like this before… and I was quite impressed. Debbie Harry made a strong impression on my young mind that a keen and idiosyncratic fashion sense most probably signaled a female creature of high intelligence (nearly, but not always, true). I was a fan from that moment on, believe me when I tell you…
The first Blondie song I heard on that day was In The Sun. I danced and pogoed around my grandparent’s living room in my socks, sliding on the floor as I did so. Watch the clip below. It was an exhilarating thing to see something like this back then. I was a kid very attuned to rock music—the way most ten-year-olds today are into SpongeBob SquarePants—and Blondie was a real sit up and pay attention change of pace from Foghat, Uriah Heap and REO Speedwagon, the groups normally seen on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert.
Completely aside from the insanely sassy gorgeousness of Debbie Harry, Blondie really stood apart musically from everything else that was going on at the time. Their songs were catchy, upbeat and fun. Despite their CBGBs pedigree, they really were never punks. There was a knowing calculation behind their persona, a campy, cabaret vision of ‘60s girl groups and Farfisa-infused garage pop.
For my money, the greatest artistic statement made by the band is 1980’s Autoamerican, an album reviewed poorly when it came out and that has never really been properly re-evaluated by either critics or audiences.
Autoamerican has aged very, very well. It doesn’t sound like anything else other than Blondie and so is a bit timeless in that sense. The opening track, Europa, a brooding modernist instrumental that dissolves into a spoken word rant from Harry extolling the virtues of cars. It’s an amazing song and a cool way to open the collection. The album contains both The Tide is High (originally a late ‘60s rocksteady hit in Jamaica for the Paragons and U-Roy—I bow to their genetic coolness for knowing about this song then) and Rapture, the song that, more than any other piece of music introduced the world to the concept of what rap music was. It’s a masterpiece of pop. I listened to it three times today—quite loud—and the skill, charm and verbal dexterity with which Debbie Harry casually rattles off her dada-hipster rhymes still astonishes 30 years later. It’s got a groove as funky as one written by James Brown, Prince or George Clinton, a feat almost no other white group can lay claim to.
My favorite moment on Autoamerican is T-Birds, a soaring piece of road music featuring angelic backing vocals courtesy of Flo and Eddie. If you’ve never heard Autoamerican before—and you call yourself a music fan—get your hands on it and give it a chance. Truly Autoamerican is one of the great lost albums of the New Wave era.
Bonus clip: Blondie do a cover of Goldfinger on German television’s Musikladen show: in 1977:
rip-off !, but then I noticed that he’s a contributor, so I suppose it’s all good. Indeed this whole idea tweaks my vinyl fetishist/record maker pleasure receptors in a big way. Can’t wait for the book !
, as if it was truly a piece of avant garde modern classical music—as Reed claimed—and not just speedfreak manipulated feedback, I thought this sounded like a terrible idea. After seeing a YouTube clip of one of the performances and reading Dangerous Minds pal 
a few years ago for this amazing tune from one of the best Beatles solo 
. Tears.
, an album reviewed poorly when it came out and that has never really been properly re-evaluated by either critics or audiences.