Jon Cogburn's Blog

navel gazing after friends' reports from tour

For all my kind of pseudo-punk rock wingeing, I'm forced to conclude that U2 is one of the handful of big acts who actually are keeping the banner of rock waiving.

Whose it going to be next? Billy Joel? Abba?

Wait a minute, I already decided those guys wrote some pretty good songs.

At least: (1) I still don't like progressive rock (though, disturbingly, two friends whose other aesthetic judgments I put a great deal of creedence in are big fans of the form), and (2) I'm irrationally exuberant about the fact that James Williamson and Iggy Pop have made peace and the former is resuming his rightful place with "Iggy and the Stooges" (to be differentiated from "The Stooges," for whom Ron Asheton, R.I.P., played lead guitar).

devil in my pocket youtube playlist

I just figured out how to make a playlist for the weird videos I've been making using public domain content and music from me and Emily's rock band. The playlist is HERE (the one's that work best video-wise are probably Santa Sangre, Zombies, and the Zoo). The general webpage for the band with lots more MP3s of songs  is HERE. I"m decent at playing guitar and writing melodies, barely adequate at singing, bad as a lyricist, and even worse at getting a decent mix and timbre when recording these things on my computer.

When playing live I can keep an audience's attention if I am wearing a wrestling mask. Once it comes off they start drunkenly talking to one another and ignoring me. There's probably some Levinasian reason for this.

Music has mostly been on a hiatus with very young children. During the sabbatical year I could be a decent father to a baby, play music, and write philosophy. When we came back to Baton Rouge and I had to teach again while trying to be a decent father to a toddler it took me a year just to figure out how to write philosophy again (as much as possible do it two hours every morning very, very early- then the rest of the day is grading, teaching, prepping lectures, administrative stuff, helping students, and being a dad). I think it's going to be another year at least before I can work realiably rocking out back into the mix. Other musician friends of mine with full time jobs tell me that when your youngest hits three things open up in a way that gives you one or two hours a day rocking out time without being a bad father.

Devil in My Pocket - Babylon; Devil in My Pocket - Snake

These are the last two I'm going to do for a while. All the rest of the ones on the band web page in the second set are just acoustic demos (and they are harder rock songs so it does not work very well). The first set are all non-demos, but I'm going to let making movies for them be rewards for getting papers finished.

Devil In My Pocket - The Zoo

The theme here is borrowed pretty liberally from Adam and the Ants' "The Idea." If the lyrics irritate, please note that Johnny Cash didn't really kill that man in Reno, Nevada.



The reason I've been up to so much mischief with Windows Movie Maker this week is that I have a philosophy-I.Q.-reducing cold and it's something to do instead of think about Schopenhauer and modality. I also did some redesign on the band webpage HERE. This school year, I'm going to make little movies for most of the songs that are available there.

In the next couple of years I want to record decent versions of all the songs through the set I wrote in Oklahoma (the "third set" on the web page), then I'm going to take up piano again and learn Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine, P.J Harvey's White Chalk, and the White Stripes Get Behind Me Satan. I'd like to write a set of songs around the piano instead of guitar. That will take a few years, at which point the kids will be old enough for Emily and I to practice regularly together again and maybe perform some.

It's very nice for a whole host of reasons to have hobbies that you are passionate about but on which nothing whatsoever hangs.

Devil In My Pocket - Zombies

I just started reading Noel Carroll's fantastic Philosophy of Horror, so I thought I'd do a video for this song.

Devil in My Pocket - Santa Sangre

This song rocks my socks. It's one of only three things I've recorded with backwards masking (a guitar track), and the only song where it really works. [I realize that the vocals are bit too loud and the overall sound is tinny. I'm not very competent at getting decent timbre. Someday I'd like to move up to protools and maybe also take a class in how to record things.]

The song is about the movie of the same name. I initially used footage from the following trailer for a video, and it was perfect. But I did not want to violate copyright law so I used a public domain Superman movie instead. I think this works pretty well though. Anyhow, you can run the below without sound while running the above and see what I would have liked to do.

Devil in My Pocket - The Twist

Possibly the worst song I've written. Next time I'll eat me some spinach first.

Devil in My Pocket - Prelude

I made this in two minutes on the free Windows what-you-see-is-what-you-get movie utility. Sorry the song title is pretentious. I should have called it "Itchy and Scratchy." These old public domain cartoons are ridiculously sadistic.

music for April, 2008

Baton Rouge
I miss Baton Rouge tonight (in a few months I'll miss Edmond).

Here's a song I wrote about Baton Rouge.

Key lyrics:

my hometown // nobody frowns // we just smile and pray

sometimes we fall // into the wall // but only at the end of the day

Columbus
And here's a song I wrote about Columbus, Ohio. All true! If you can hear past my ham-handed singing (and over-literal lyrics), the melody is pretty nice.

Montgomery

And one about Montgomery, Alabama. Again, all true after a fashion, but still obviously not John Prine (in case you are wondering, this is a picture of me from the 1987 Jefferson Davis Highschool Yearbook). I used to play this in a cow-punk band and it works pretty well with electric guitars. In this performance I speed it up halfway through and the acoustic guitar ends up sounding like background music for late 1960's bad comedy movie "zaniness,"  the presence of which ruins otherwise good movies like The Mouse that Roared.

Incidentally, I think the first use of fast traditional music (in particular banjo) to connote zaniness was Bonnie and Clyde. The scene in Bonnie in Clyde that features it is actually a great piece of art. It's all comedic and then  suddenly someone gets shot in the face. The juxtaposition is powerful and disturbing, more disturbing than in Jackie Brown where De Niro's character shoots one of Samuel Jackson's girlfriends and you initially laugh and then stop, realizing what you are doing.

After Bonnie and Clyde it became a trope that banjo music was cheerful and fun (Steve Martin even had a great routine about how the banjo could have saved President Carter because all banjo music was happy; something he knew to be false), and every horrible bit of sixties comedy broadcasted "zaniness" by using banjo music. The omnipresence of this destroyed the aesthetic sensibilities of a generation of Americans (which had been in the process of being revived by Harry Smith's astounding Anthology of American Folk Music and then the return to folk musical darkness typified by the Doors and Leonard Cohen), not to be repaired until the Coen Brother's Oh Brother Where Art Thou showed people the depths of Appalachian Music (albeit, the Brothers Coen get a demerit for the dancing bit and costumes during "In the Jailhouse Now").

There's less zaniness in popular film now, but it's been replaced with laughing-merely-to-show-you-get-the-joke where the joke is demonstrably unfunny. "Getting the joke" for many people just involves registering that a joke is intended in that part of the movie. But the joke itself is often not really a joke, but just some stupid reference to another cultural turd floating in the toilet bowl of American television, music, film, and general celebutardation.

Sorry, I didn't intend for this to turn into a rant. The thing bugs me the most about cultural illiteracy and damaged aesthetic sensibilities in an American Idol nation is that geniuses like Mike West and Danny Barnes have had to scrimp for money. These guys have written songs for the ages. The universe comes aware of itself by way of their music. And yet, the part of the universe that compromises the rest of us is not doing its job. It is quite possible that West and Barnes' catalogs will go out of print and their music will stop being played after they are gone. This chills me.

After the shameful way we treated Melville and Poe (and how many Melvilles and Poes have disappeared from history because nobody ever thought to take their music out of the "nonfiction- whales" part of the library after they were safely dead?), you'd think the universe would get it's act together. . . One more sad bit of evidence that Hegel was not 100% correct about everything.

Austin

I have one about Austin called "She's Coming Back to Texas," but that song descends to such depths of over-literalality that I can't stand it.

I played it on a beach once in one of those trade-the-guitar around things where nobody listens to anyone else's songs because everyone wants to be the center of attention.

I did learn a valuable song writing lesson from all of that.

Never mention in what is supposed to be a sad song that your beloved left you for the man who created Brad Pitt's smile (true story!). People will laugh (I now realize with justification).

Even then Brad Pitt's glamour was such that his very teeth conferred magical powers upon an otherwise shlubby dentist.

In real life the reason my then beloved came back to Texas (but not to me) was because the dentist died of cancer. It was actually horrible and I am a bad man (and worse musician) for putting that in the song too. It was only funny in a thoroughly cringing worse-than-songs-by-Ricky-Gervais'-character-in-the-office (and see here) way.

I'm serious, it's the same damned song

My crack research team has uncovered a horrifyingly dark truth, one indicative of all that is wrong with contemporary academic philosophy.

The crappy zombie song that has set the web afire is not only non-rocking and lame, it also plagiarizes a beautiful and moving cloud song called "Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell.  He even says "I thought of minds that way" instead of "I thought of clouds that way."

You fools!  One arose from among you, penning a zombie classic that managed to use both the diminished and augmented fifth chord in the same song without sounding forced or atonal.  One from among you presented a song whose Chalmeresque lyrics were not overly obvious and yet also deeply evocative.  One of your own sacrificed himself to the vocal art of the "dying-cat" style without once plagiarizing Joni Mitchell.  And when he came down from the mountain (or rather the tape recorder in his living room), what did he find?  Idolators, worshipping at the feet of derivative bit of wimp folk, just because it made you feel smart.

Well, all I have to say is that you won't have Richard Nixon to push around any more.

music for December, 2007

12/28/07- Dammit, my zombie song is better

The music for my song about zombies, written while reading big chunks of The Conscious Mind, is here (all of the songs from Devil in My Pocket's legendary Baton Rouge "living room sessions" can be accessed here). 

I have suffered for this song.  First, with a horrific nightmare (described here) where David Chalmers beat the crap out of me because the lyrics didn't have anything to do with two-dimensionalism.  Then my friend Neal Hebert excoriated me for my bad production and mastering (no bass guitar, the vocals are too loud, everything's too compressed, etc.).   

But none of that suffering compares to the blow my ego has taken by the fact that all the web is awash with discussion of this song, which as far as I can tell makes absolutely no attempt at rocking out!  None at all!  And I think Abba is perhaps the most rocking out band in history, so my standards aren't even that high.

In February after the book is done I'm going to make my own stupid Youtube video with pictures of Chalmers and Frankenstein and crap.  That will show all of you.

12/15/07- Thirteen (non-classical) Box Sets You Get to Meet in Heaven

Your fine new efficiency apartment in Paradise has enough room for thirteen box sets of popular (non-classical) music, each of which includes everything recorded and released by the artist in question. Which ones do you select (in alphabetical order please)? Mine really suprised me.

1. Adam Ant
2. David Bowie
3. Leonard Cohen
4. Miles Davis
5. Greg Ginn
6. P.J. Harvey
7. John Lennon
8. Paul McCartney
9. Ozzy Osbourne
10. Jimmy Page
11. Iggy Pop
12. Lou Reed
13. Jack White

12/12/07- new favorite band

Hey check out the band "The Bang Bang" from the indie mockumentary "Brothers of the Head."  Unfortunately, some of the best songs aren't on youtube, but you can get Two Way Romeo, as well as a trailer that has bits and pieces of some of the best songs. Amazon has both the soundtrack and the movie.

This and Hedwig and the Angry Inch are my two favorite new bands. Is it indicative of our age that bands put together just for movies are better than any actual bands?  And that both movies instantiate what was best about 70's punk and glam-rock?

Music for November, 2007

(November, 16, 2007) Ten soul destroying band that the Baby Boomers at Rolling Stone have force fed rock fans until their musical livers are proportionally bigger than those of the fois gras ducks of Montreal

Please discuss and add your own.

1. Eric Clapton (elevator music "blues" before it was ubiqitous)
2. Bob Dylan (infantile, sexist rich-kid boomer anger expressed in bad poetry; like Nixon and Bush Jr. mostly just exists to make bad people feel better about themselves; note to Robert- people who "use a little too much force" (among other things) deserve to be beaten black and blue, not be "tangled up" in it)
3. The Eagles (if I have to explain, go read someone else's blog)
4. Lynyrd Skynyrd (the paradigm example of the Republican party dishonest invocation of a pastoral past that never existed; all recorded just after automobiles and air-conditioning allowed the "the South" to finish paving itself over into a giant, ugly strip-mall)
5. The MC5 (the music is somehow as stupid as the "White Panther Party" political ideas)
6. Paul McCartney sans Lennon (if I have to explain, go read someone else's blog)
7. Public Enemy (manufactured for white people who don't know what "punk" means when Chuck D says it in a concert (hint, go watch season one of HBO's Oz); the band's grotesque antisemitism and 60's revolutionary posturing, combined with lack of talent, makes this successful bit of niche marketing unbearable to all people of genuine refinement and taste)
8. Radiohead (is a little melody too much to ask for? "O.K. Computer" refers to them selling their souls to our robot overlords)
9. Patti Smith (like Wagner, I guess it's supposed to be better than it sounds)
10. Bruce Springsteen (more bad music for bad people; the only thing clear from his (to be fair, horrible) lyrics is that this hypocrite not only never worked a day in his life, but also doesn't really know anybody who has; his obstinate refusal to pay his roadies union wages during his "Born in the U.S.A." tour is one more example of "The Boss" manifesting the worst aspects of the Bossman; plus (though, considering everything else, it's to his credit), the music sucks and the production value is abysmal)

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(November, 11, 2007) twenty most essential albums for rocking out (in alphabetical order)

You get to bring twenty CDs to tide you over between this life and the next.  To avoid being reborn as factory farmed livestock, you have to Rock Out as much as possible during your layover in limbo.  Which ones do you bring?  Please put them in alphabetical order, so debate is just limited appropriately to the important metaphysical issues.  For me, my ontological suitcase is always packed with the following.

1. AC/DC- Back in Black
2. Abba- Gold
3. Adam and the Ants- Dirk Wears White Sox
4. Angry Samoans- The Unboxed Set
5. The Beatles- The Beatles ["The White Album"]
6. Black Flag- My War
7. Black Sabbath- Black Sabbath
8. David Bowie- The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
9. Johnny Cash- Live from Folson Prison and San Quentin
10. Chopin- The Complete Nocturnes and Mazurkas
11. Woody Guthrie- Smithsonian Recordings
12. Metallica- Master of Puppets
13. Misfits- Earth A.D.
14. Willie Nelson- Red Headed Stranger
15. Charlie Patton- Screaming and Hollering the Blues
16. Pink Floyd- The Wall
17. Harry Smith- Anthology of American Folk Music
18. The Stooges- Funhouse
19. The Velvet Underground- The Velvet Underground and Nico
20. The White Stripes- Elephant

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(November, 12, 2007) I'll never get out of this world alive

Oh lord my hatred of Brittany Spear's tinny, phlegm-infused voice knows no bounds. It's like aural sandpaper.

Is her throat so deformed that she can't take singing lessons or something? Madonna did at a comparable moment in her career, to great effect.  I can only gather that people's tastes are so debased that singing lessons wouldn't make anybody any more money.

If we had a press worth a damn, they'd be focusing on that, which is by far her greatest moral failing.

I almost said her throat was froglike, but I refuse to insult Kermit, who is a musical genius- see the incredible duet with Debbie Harry on Rainbow Connnection (get through the two minutes of arty black and white footage of Austin to Willie Nelson's fantastic interpretation of this song), Kermit's breakthrough hit It's Not Easy Being Green (which Morrisey shamelessly plagiarized over and over again), and Kermit's great new post Muppets-era-demons cover of NIN's Hurt (for more Kermit plagiarism, check out Johnny Cash's version).

My point is, Kermit is an actual frog, born with a frog voice, and look what he accomplished through hard work.  Unless the plan of our robot overlords is far more advanced than I'm aware, Spears is a human being.  If Kermit can learn English and write and interpret great songs (a much harder task than a human being learning to compensate for being born into this cruel world with a tinny, phlegm filled throat only to be sold into Disney child slavery by her parents), is too much to expect Spears to take vocal lessons? 

It's an insult to Kermit's memory, dammit!

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(November 1, 2007) Devil in My Pocket set list for gig, as well as link to fun satire

Notice the cool late-period New York Dolls gratuitous use of hammer and sickle here (sorry Christopher Hitchens!). The band art was done by my colleague Chris Blakely's wife Carolyn.  She totally rocks out at graphic design, albeit I had to insist on the hammer/sickle thing. 

We've pared down the set-lists for tomorrow night.  What we have now are-

First Set [originals]-

(1) Thirteen Bridges, (2) Little Black Goat, (3) Rabbit, (4) Zombies, (5) Death By Cool, (6) Snake, (7) Little Man, Part II, (8) High, (9) Lo, (10) The Robot, (11) Gods and Monsters, (12) All Hail the Spider Queen, (13) Werewolves in their Youth.

Second Set [covers]-

(1) Twenty Eyes (The Misfits), (2) No Fun (The Stooges), (3) Out Cold (Black Flag), (4) Real Cool Time (The Stooges), (5) I Turned into a Martian (The Misfits), (6) Bella Lugosi's Dead (Bauhaus), (7) Halloween (The Dead Kennedys), (8) Come Back (The Misfits), (9) War Pigs (Black Sabbath), (10) Mother of Mercy (Samhain), (11) Sympathy For the Devil (Rolling Stones), (12) Halloween (Samhain), (13) The End (The Doors).

Em and I (grainily pictured at left) are hosting Em's sister and Em's sister's fiance (sorry that I have yet to figure out how to get diacritical marks in this blog, without the diacritical remarks you have to pronounce "fiance" the way Holly Hunter's character does in Raising Arizona) the next few days, so I won't be doing any blogging until next Monday. Em's sister and Em's sister's fiance are fantastic house guests and more generally just really fun to be around.  So I'm not going to screw around with this while they are here.

Anyhow, absent any new blog posts, please enjoy a retrospective of my rocking out satirical posts which I categorize under superfunpack. And to further please our great brother Dionysus, please enjoy the links to the vastly superior satirical columns by my friend Neal Hebert that you can find here. If you scroll to the very bottom of the superfunpack link you'll find a tiny arrow looking thing in the middle of the page, which is a link to earlier superfunpack posts (or you can just get there by clicking here). The third post down on that page is a political acceptance speech that I had the privilege of helping Neal construct over Mexican food.  When he delivered it to LSU Student Senate it went over like a lead balloon, but it did have a second life serving as the first superfunpack post on this blog.  Most importantly, the muses were well pleased that we listened to them.   

march of glam, march of Angus

I get obsessed about all sorts of weird things (e.g. the evolution of dental care of my favorite rock stars).  One of my recent obsessions is the strange trope in most glam rock where guitar players march in place while playing, and how this trope only fully flowered with the advent of AC/DC's brothers Young.  Here are some fantastic classic glam bits (and one from the great new self-identified glam band Jet), with varying levels of marching in place.  [note: I didn't link to any Suzi Quatro, because my post of a couple of days ago has the relevant links there; needless to say, Quatro is a fantastic marcher in place!]

New York Dolls- Personality Crisis (if they weren't falling down, they'd be marching in place)
New York Dolls- Lookin' For A Kiss (falling down and marching in place!)
T Rex- Get It On (Bolan is sometimes subtle about it during singing, but notice how the dominant leg sometimes shifts every half measure)
T Rex- Jeepster
David Bowie- Queen Bitch
David Bowie- Starman (watch Mick Ronson for the marching)
Arrows- I Love Rock and Roll
Slade- Mama Weer all Crazy Now (no subtlety here!)
Slade-   Cum On Feel The Noise
Sweet- Ballroom Blitz (actually, they don't do it, but maybe they are so glamorous they don't need to?)
Gary Glitter- Do You Wanna Touch Me
Roxy Music- Editions of You (here it's really Brian Ferry's happy feet doing the marching, but check out the guitarist's feet during the sax solo)
Roxy Music- Do the Strand (ibid)
Alice Cooper- Is It My Body (really just the bass player doing it here)
Alice Cooper- Under My Wheels
Brownsville Station- Smokin' in the Boys Room
Jet- Cold Hard Bitch (when you can see the band, make sure to notice their legs)

I hypothesize that the marching in place is part of why glam rockers are so good at penning triumphant anthems.  That's what you want to play while marching in place.  But this is not my main point. 

Both guitarists in the greatest, most rockingest, most triumphant rock band of all time do the glam rock march.  Again, watch the legs!  Malcolm does a restrained version, while Angus weaves his seamlessly into his duck walking and Angus skipping across the stage whilst rocking out.  Note how the brothers Young alternate with two beats on each leg.  If you watch the above videos after noting that, you see that Angus really gives you the Platonic form of guitar player marching in place, and the glam band guitarists approximated it to varying levels. 

AC/DC Can I Sit Next To You Girl (this is so old that Bon Scott isn't their singer yet; Angus looks like he's twelve years of age, and Malcolm does the opening solo; I only put it here to because it irrefutably shows how AC/DC's roots are glam rock, and that they were right to replace poor Dave Evans; it still rocks out, they can't help it)
AC/DC- Livewire (not their best song, but the beginning of the video illustrates the Angus march very well)
AC/DC- T.N.T.
AC/DC- Whole Lot of Rosie
AC/DC- Let There Be Rock (one of the many AC/DC classics shamelessly ripped off by those posers in Spinal Tap)
AC/DC- Highway to Hell (Bon's last concert; he died ten days later, and if that doesn't make you cry I don't have much to say to you)
AC/DC- Back in Black (in some places here you can see Malcolm do the march really well)
AC/DC- Stiff Upper Lip  (the last days of Angus' hair and I don't care!  The hair told Angus' Dutch wife right before she put the clipper to him, "if you strike me down I will  become more powerful than you can even imagine," then instead of falling on the floor it just disappeared. . .  When Angus went on world tour after that, he rocked out twice as hard, all without the hair.)

If Angus has a great commission for us, it is for all of us to rock out this much and with this much joy at whatever we do.  I know that's cheesy, but there you go.

the first, the original, the leather clad Queen of Rock

In her prime, Suzi Quatro rocked out just as much as any creature in the history of the universe.  In addition to her sheer rockness, she illustrates really well how part of glam rock was (1) a rejection of both hippie wimp folk and pretentious progressive rock in favor of return to the underground 1950's sensibility. 

Anyhow, check out Quatro just rocking out in the below youtube videos. 

Daytona Demon
Can the Can 
48 Crash
Devil Gate Drive
Evie
Your Mamma Won't Like Me

I realize the backing vocals detract from some of these songs, and also that the choreographed dancing on the "Devil Gate Drive" video will make some ironic hipster readers of this blog reflexively reach out for a stupid quip.  Resist the urge!  Give Quatro a break; it's the early 70's and there is no precedent for what she's doing.  Look at the glazed look on the faces of the kids in these videos.  The crappy hippy and prog. rock of their older brothers did not prepare them for this onslaught, and they are missing an historic moment to rock out due to their stupid terror of being uncool.  Check out Quatro's drummer too, he's one of the great unsung heroes of Rock and Roll.  His rhythms were used to great effect by the punk and post-punk British drummers for whom punk and post-punk didn't mean being discharged from the army of Rock.

The other two legs of the glam rock triad are: (2) catchy melodies inherited from sensibilities that appreciate classic musicals, and (3) the sort of celebratory Nietzschean triumph-over-suffering that (prior to the massive depredations of post disco techno music) characterized post WWII gay culture at its highest [Of course, added to this in high glam are the Bowiefied thematic obsessions of the space race and evolution into post-humanity.].  Quatro, Slade, and Iggy Pop probably did (1) best and Queen, Elton John, and Roxy Music did (3) best.   Bowie in his prime (Hunky Dory, The Man Who Sold the World, Ziggy Stardust, Alladin Sane) hands down did (2) best, and probably was the best synthesis of all three factors throughout (all great glam bands embodied all three to varying degrees). 

Quatro did all sorts of stuff when glam faded out.  Her best efforts might be Stumbling In with Smokie, and If You Can't Give Me Love, really beautiful gems from the disco era. She also had a couple of hits in Australia in 1981 (example of continuing power to rock here).

For a couple of episodes in the 80's Quatro played Pinky Tuscadero's older sister Leather on the indescribably awful T.V. show Happy Days (cringe-worthy, albeit reluctantly rocking, clip here).  The HD people offered a huge amount of money to become a regular on the show, but she passed it up, not wanting to be typecast.

Recently, (Russ?) Chapman (one of the great 1970s era songwriters that worked with her back in the day) wrote Back to the Drive for her, and her performance is fantastic.  The song was used to open a recent great yet depressing documentary on the Runaways, Edgeplay: A Film About The Runaways (Joan Jett was obsessed with Quatro as a teenager).  Listen to the song and rock out.  You wish this was the story of your life, damnit!  I'm serious, turn it up and rock out!
 
She still has all her chops (bass solo here) and is capable of massive rocking.  Unfortunately, the touring band she used in the Leather Forever D.V.D. a couple of years ago was riddled with Disneyfied pseudo-1950's-rock-tropes: overuse of alto saxophones, overly mannered 1980's studio drumming, wimpy overproduced guitars with thin strings, keyboards, etc.  It breaks my heart a little bit, because Quatro herself is still the real thing, a genuine hurricane of rock.  Yet in that DVD this hurricane is somehow put inside a tea-cup of our aesthetic sins.  I think she might me moving away from this though, as her recent recording of Desperado has that Rick Rubin stripped down feel that was key to Cash's final resurgence.

The ex-Runaway (Victory Tischler-Blue) who directed Edgeplay has directed and produced a documentary about Quatro called Naked Under Leather, to be released on DVD within the next year.  It's myspace page (with cool promos) is here.  Rock on.

In closing- Black Flag's (and later dos') fantastic bassist Kira Roessler used to hypothesize that someday there will be Neurenburg trials of Rock and Roll.  In those days all the crap producers and executives who have done their best to kill Rock in the last thirty years with horrible production and no melodies will then have to sit in the docks and try to defend themselves. 

No doubt they will tell us that they were just taking orders, just pushing buttons, etc.  Well it's not going to work.  Humanity doesn't buy that one any more, and in fact on that very day I see a supergroup arising in the West to reclaim the world for Rock.  This group consists of Quatro on Bass and backing vocals, the brothers Young on guitars, Iggy Pop on lead vocals, and Meg White and Micky Finn (the conga guy from T Rex, who may actually be deceased now, but who can in any case be revived by the wonder working powers of Rock) on drums.  They will stand up and rock out for the prosecution.  And in my official role as this blog's prophet I say this unto you, it will have been better for Sodom and Gomorrah than it will be at Virgin Records, Sony, BMG, etc in those days.

horrible covers of AC/DC songs on youtube

I think there are probably more ways to do something badly than there are to do something good.  The following covers are each horrible in their own way.

Celine Dion's “You Shook Me All Night Long” [Anorexic French-Canadians should not attempt to rock out with the big boys.  Jeez Louis, there are some really nice restaurants in Vegas now (Thomas Keller even has a place there!), and Celine Dion can't put on a few pounds?  Maybe she has a genetic condition that makes her that thin.  If so, I'm sorry for picking on her, but I will not bow into political correctness on this.  She should not be singing decent songs.  In addition to her repulsive physique, the gods blessed her with the unique ability to make terrible music for people with terrible taste.  That's her job and she needs to stick to it.]

Foo Fighters with Special Guest Jack Black's “Back in Black” [This is yet more evidence that the execrable gum-smacking Dave Grohl (who I now pronounce anti-Bon and excommunicate from the Church of Rock) is cryptonite to Jack Black.  Grohl makes the mistake of having his band unimaginatively ape AC/DC.  That's a contest no-one living or dead can hope to win.  The cosmic balance of karma is not disturbed by a uber-tool like Grohl showing he and his homies can't do as good a job as the brothers Young.  What upsets me is that a result of Grohl's all too predictable hubris, poor Jack Black is forced to show the world that he's not as good a singer as Brian Johnson (which is no insult to Black).  For proof that this is the nefarious influence of Grohl, compare this performance to the great School of Rock take on "Long Way to the Top," which is properly deferential and actually manages to harness the spirit of rock in very difficult circumstances.]

Guns ‘n Roses’ “Whole Lot of Rosie” [Yes Guns 'n Roses deserves all of our thanks for (together with Beavis and Butthead) killing that unfortunate footnote to Led Zeppelin known now posthumously as "hair rock."  But, as Nietzsche said, those who fight monsters are in danger of becoming monsters themselves.   After playing this, G'nR promptly threw out the guy who wrote all their good songs (I don't know his real name, his superhero name was just as retarded as "Axl Rose," I think maybe it was "Izzy Stradlin"?) and then padded out "Use Your Illusion" so that it was a double album with slightly less than a regular LP's amount of decent songs (the ones penned by the guy they threw out).  O.K. why does this cover suck?  The vocals are full of the irritating tropes that would come to define "Axl."  Enough said.  However, for added craptitude, you can imagine "Axl" doing that stupid dance he does where he waives his hips back and forth.  Because of his important work in the service of Rock, I want to end this note on a nice tone though.  The leaked song from "Chinese Democracy" is pretty impressive.  Maybe the newer and fatter "Axl" has been maturing for the last fifteen years into someone who can cover AC/DC songs.  That would be a life well lived in my book.]

Marilyn Manson’s “Highway to Hell” [Marylin Manson is our generation's Adam Ant, and I intend that as praise.  Unlike the the above three, Manson wisely tries to make this song his own.  Unfortunately, he succeeds.  For all of Adam Ant's brilliance, he would not have done justice to it either.]

Old Manner’s “Hell’s Bells” [This has the right spirit, a garage band killing themselves to rock out.  Unfortunately the bass is either massively out of tune, or the language barrier resulted in the bass player misunderstanding the guitarist when he told him that it's in the key of A.]

Six Feet Under’s “TNT” [I hereby declare a moratorium on this kind of singing.  Anyone who violates this moratorium will be excommunicated from the Church of Rock and have to spend all eternity in a small room watching Dave Grohl open-mouthedly smack bubble gum.  Every time they try to punch him in the face their fist will pass through his ghostly idiot-boy visage.]

Stain’s “TNT” [There is kind of a quiet nobility to this guy, unfortunately not quiet enough.  I suspect that if Stain could actually beat-box (see note above!) I would like it even less.]

why haven't Bauhaus been more influential when they rock out so much?

This may be heresy on these shores, but by my lights The Damned's first single "New Rose," (promotional video here) is an even better example of how great punk rock is also great rock than the Dead Boy's "Sonic Reducer" (CBGBs performance here). 

Thus the Damned's post-punk "goth" move to keyboards (Eloise here, Grimley Fiendish here), is I think just as terrible as Queen's move to keyboards a few years earlier.  Bauhaus' guitar driven post-punk "goth" music is infinitely better as far as the music also instantiating the form of Rock (Dark Entries here, Stigmata Martyr here, Bella Lugosi's dead here).

This raises an interesting question.  Arguably, jazz guitar would be much better if jazzers used Django Reinhardt as their main inspiration instead of Charlie Christian.  Can something similar be said for goth, which seems to have been much more informed by The Damned's keyboard approach than by Bauhaus' rocking out approach?

One would expect the genre of horror-punk to be heavily influenced by Bauhaus, but as far as I can tell it's all a footnote to the Misfits.

How plausible are these conjectures?  Moreover, can anyone name any good bands strongly influenced by Bauhaus (as, for example so many good bands are strongly influenced by Bowie, The Velvet Underground, and the Stooges)?  If not, why not?

best of all of the "college bands"

Youtube has some really great classic Violent Femmes songs.  The first two show what an astoundingly good live band they were in their prime.  The last three are videos made by fans.  Warning, three of the songs below are pretty disturbing, though no more disturbing than classic American music (especially 1920's bluegrass and blues) was prior to the post Great Depression hegemony of popular culture phoniness.

Add It Up
Blister in the Sun
Country Death Song
Kiss Off
Mirror Mirror (I See a Damsel)

backstory of new backstory for Devil in My Pocket's Halloween rock opera (possibly plagiarized)

We wanted to write a rock opera this year about a space alien, but the Muse is delivering songs about a vampire instead. 

This vampire was a Roman soldier captured by Druids during Caesar's Gaul depredations.  The Druids force him to drink the Devil's blood and stick him under the roots of an Oak tree to go crazy from blood hunger for a year.  They take him out on the eve of Samhain with the intention of putting him in the heart of the Wicker Man (a huge wooden statue of a man that holds Roman prisoners) where his blood lust and craziness will make him suck the blood of all the other Roman prisoners prior to dying in the burning Wicker Man.  The vampire soldier didn't play his assigned part though and manages to get away and live off of the blood of rats and wolves until he is powerful enough to come back and get major payback on the Druids.  This payback changes the balance of power enough for Caesar to win.  Maybe in the end it turns out Caesar was behind the whole thing, and the vampire goes to Rome and turns the young Augustus into a vampire for revenge?  I don't know, the Muse hasn't spoken yet.

Laugh if you want, but most good rock operas have goofy stories.  In fact, goofiness of back-story is probably the only think in common between The Who's Tommy, Pink Floyd's The Wall, and David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust.

new song by my favorite contemporary band

Youtube has the new White Stripes video for the song "Icky Thump," and you can see it here.  The first time I heard this I rocked so much that my socks disintegrated into a cloud of awesome.

thoughts about God and Melody in response to Neal and Brandon's thoughts about Nick Hornby

I have to strongly agree with Brandon that Hornby's thoughts don't apply to Bach and an awful lot of Christian musicians.  However, vis a vis abomination such as "Christian Rock" (which Brandon wasn't defending) I have to agree with Hornby.  First- popular music explicitly niche marketed as "Christian" is in part so bad because the performers have a captive audience so it ends up in effect being affirmative action for Christians without dignity.  Second- a lot of this depends on what you mean by "honoring God"- Jesus' first foundation for the law.  Any reasonable God would be much more honored by Bach's pieces without lyrics praising God than some no-talent (and compared to Bach the number of people with talent at anything is vanishingly small) clown singing about how much Jesus rocks or how God is that much stronger, gooder, and more knowledgeable than anybody else.  Bach's pieces honor God by getting the listener to view creation in an exalted and joyous manner and perhaps more importantly channeling God to add to the beauty of creation.  This is consistent with Hornby's animus against people who abuse music to attempt to brown-nose their way into heaven.

Hornby sees himself as defending the tradition of pop music where a major part of the aesthetic point was that the melody was catchy.  In one of his articles he contrasts the Billboard top ten albums from the time of writing (2003 I think) with those of 1970 something.  He listens to all twenty albums and it was just astonishing how melodically non-catchy the songs on the best selling albums are today. 

While there are still great people writing songs with Beatles level catchy melodies (e.g. Mike West, Danny Barnes), we now live in a culture where they are for the most part not the top sellers.  At some point after the advent of midi and computer mixing the studio executives (perhaps subconsciously) came to the conclusion that music's main functions in our society((1) aural wallpaper that helps people think less, and (2) a way for adolescents to individuate themselves against their parents and against other groups of adolescents) didn't require melody.  And more importantly they realized that such melody free music was very, very easy to engineer with computer aided recording.  Instead of finding someone in touch with the muse who could thinking of great melodies and refine them through the songwriting process, now you only need to get a trained chimp (very cheap!) to play a few bars into Cakewalk, then you cut and paste to your heart's delight, then you get some horrible yet good looking dancing clown to croon and or rap over said abomination.  As a lover of true pop, and all the great things pop can accomplish at its best, Hornby mourns this societal evolution.

With Hornby, I share an animus against most jazz and most classical after Bartok (or perhaps really after Grieg).  Early jazz and classical through the early twentieth century all accepted the importance of melodies that stick in the human brain.  It's no accident that these musical forms became merely status symbols for effete snobs once they abandoned melody! 

The truly crazy thing about current R & B and American Idol style pop is that for the first time in Western history a majority of people are listening to stuff with such bad melody (check out old blues, bluegrass, and country, as well as classic Motown and Memphis era R & B, the melodies are great).  This being said, it is surely no accident that record sales get lower each year in this climate!  I suggested as much to a Vice President of Virgin Records during a trip to L.A. a few years ago, and he grew extremely livid and wouldn't shut up about how it's all file sharing's fault.  I told him that people were just as furious about cassette tapes in the 1970s and it didn't hurt the industry at all, the difference being that all the A & R people in all the companies were aggressively pushing good songwriting in the 1970s, unlike now.  But the idiot wouldn't even admit that the songwriting was better then.  I then tried to get him to fund a study at LSU where our music theorists (the main tool is called something like Schenker or Schecter analysis, it's very cool, I used to know a bit of it) could do Hornby's task, but he wasn't even interested.  I asked him to compare sales of jazz records in the Louis Armstrong melody driven era versus the post Bop solo, ambiance, playing fast scales over and over again for no fricking reason, and pretension driven era, and he wasn't even interested!  Even though the overall loss in sales is exactly analogous to what's happening to pop music today!

That was the point I decided to start playing rock and roll again, and to put the songs on the internet for free.  Our attempts in this regard are still somewhat laughable, but I still in my own insignificant way want to be part of a movement that is returning Melody to her rightful place in the pantheon of the muses.

My biggest hope is that with the internet melodic music is becoming a legitimate folk art again, and crappy American Idol style R & B, Rap, and pop music will as a genre continue to sell less and less until it finally goes the way way of modern classical and jazz- genres that only exist to give the pretentious yet unrefined one more phony way to individuate themselves from the masses.