WHEN BEAUTY MEETS ABUSE

Listening to Marquee Moon while I mow the lawn makes me feel infinitely cooler than the lawn.

NYC, bitch. What?

But then of course I finish, and I realize that the lawn is infinitely cooler than me...

BORN INSIDE THE BELLY OF ROCK ‘N ROLL

Fifty percent of what there is to know about me can be extracted from this simple fact: The video for Memphis, Egypt by the Mekons brought me to tears last night.

Why?

-The fact that there is such a thing as a Mekons video.
-The fact that in said video they are simultaneously taking the piss and touchingly earnest, because they didn’t give a shit and they most certainly did...
-“Destroy your safe and happy lives before it is too late.”
-The fact that my three-year old had slept with me the night before and through some wild somnambulistic gymnastics managed to kick me in the head at least twice, leaving me past exhausted come the morning.
-Sally Timms dancing.
-Rock ‘n roll!

WHEN UPTOWN COMES DOWNTOWN

The New York Dolls got me into grad school.

One of the pieces of supporting documentation that I sent with my application was an essay on Frankenstein I had written for a Romantic lit course. The piece took in Shelley’s book, Whale’s movie, and the Dolls’ song, with a few words spared for the Edgar Winter Group.

It was, um, lightly researched, but I suppose it had a certain brio/moxie.

Little did I know that the director of the program was an old-school New York punk fan, and had spent many formative hours at CBGB and Max’s in the company of the Dolls, Patti Smith, Ramones, Television, et al. We had an enthusiastic discussion about it at this pre-semester meet-and-greet cocktail-party type thing.

He seemed to think that I might add a bit of topspin to an entering class heavy with Lacanians, Foucaultites, and Derridaistes.

It is one of the few measurable regrets in my life that I instead spent my time quietly harvesting A minuses...

TRASH

Or it can kill you if you want to die...

That guitarist who was sharing the mic on the choruses in yesterday's clip? With the hair that looks like a Breck girl gone for a couple of spins on the Cyclone? That was Johnny Thunders.

Waiting for Johnny to die became a sort of sick sport in the early 80s. (See Johnny's Gonna Die by The Replacements for some further context.)

Here's the sad spectacle of Johnny attempting to perform Sad Vacation, his paean to another formal nihilist, Sid Vicious.

Watch it once, never watch it again, and never forget it...

LOOKING FINE ON TELEVISION

Here's the essence of the Dolls, in 3:36.

Cack musicianship, gutter fabulousness, and gristly semiotics. And a pink drum kit.

It can save your life if it needs saving, and if you'll let it...

SOMETHING MUST HAVE HAPPENED OVER MANHATTAN

On the eve of the release of a new New York Dolls album, we are left to ponder the fate of a name...

Which is appropriate, because if the Dolls were “about” anything, it was identity: losing it, finding it, and holding onto it.

By 1975, the Dolls name was industrial-strength commercial poison.

So David Johansen’s first solo album sported a look-at-me-I’m-a-regular-guy-no-fishnets-and-mascara-here-no-siree-bob cover and a bunch of look-at-me-I’m-a-regular-guy-no-fishnets-and-mascara-here-no-siree-bob tunes.

The best of those tunes were the ones written by Johansen/Sylvain.

And here we sit in 2006— with Nolan, Kane, and Thunders having gone to that great plastic bordello in the sky— awaiting an album full of new Johansen/Sylvain songs.

A New York Dolls’ album.

It is a New York Dolls’ album because the Dolls name has evolved into a viable brand: The epitome of scuzzy cool, but with the real scuzz scrubbed away.

Much like New York, New York itself, I guess.

So tomorrow, I’ll pop on my CBGB t-shirt (available in a wide variety of colors and styles), and hit the local Best Buy for my copy of One Day it Will Please Us to Remember Even This.

I’ll get back to you on that title...

KIPPERS FOR BREAKFAST

Welcome to the jungle, bitch.

This liquefies my narrative brain...

COULDN'T HIT IT SIDEWAYS

This shouldn't crack me up, but sweet Jiminy Fucking Cricket it does...

CIGARETTES WHERE THERE WERE SUPPOSED TO BE EYES

OK, my little hoodrats-- here's a taste of The Hold Steady, in case you're not familiar with them.

And if you are familiar with them, here's a chance to recall that the singer dude looks nothing like you thought he did...

NIX

Memo to The Hold Steady:

The Humbert Humbert stuff is fine-- it's the clever clever stuff that palls.

Like, in a blind taste test I can barely tell if this is you or the Barenaked Ladies on their period:

"Silly rabbit, tripping is for teenagers..."

So just be careful out there, OK?

Sincerely,

sliced tongue

HORNETS!

Forgive a latecomer, but I've been spending a fair amount of time with The Hold Steady's Separation Sunday over the last couple of months.

The Springsteen comparisons are duly noted, and classic rock fans will indeed have much truck with the music.

But what I'm taking away from it is the assonance, the flow.

Like this:

“You came into the party with a long black shawl, and the guys from the front lawn were making jokes about the white swan.”

The shawl/lawn/swan triptych is faceted, and made brilliant in its setting of long shiny surrounding vowels and sharp en sounds.

I haven't heard words roll out of a white guy with such seeming ease and apparent connection since peak Eminem...

FUCK THE MAN

A component of the Sex Pistols' creation myth is the story of young John Lydon skulking down the streets of London with the words “I HATE” scrawled on a Pink Floyd t-shirt.

But watching that interview clip from yesterday, wherein the right Hans Keller larded the discussion with condescension and disdain, helped draw for me a straight line from Floyd to the Pistols...

GAMES FOR MAY

In my zeal to get the best of Pink Floyd up yesterday, it seems I elided Pink.

It wasn't until today that I realized that Syd is not even in that See Emily Play promo clip.

So, to redress the oversight, I give you this. Skip past Astronomy Domine if you must, but be sure to catch the interview at the end...

I HATE PINK FLOYD

Fuck Nick Mason.

Fuck Echoes.

Fuck Dark Side.

Fuck David Gilmour.

Fuck Wish You Were Here.

Fuck Animals.

Fuck Rick Wright.

Fuck The Wall.

Fuck The Wall again, for good measure.

Fuck The Final Cut.

Fuck Roger Waters.

Fuck drugs.

Fuck mental illness.

Fuck death.

Fuck all that.

Fuck all that.

Rest in peace Syd...

MERRIWEATHER REPORT

About the show itself...

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists had the power-trio thump of The Jam, the working-class humanity of The Jam, and twice the sense of fun of The Jam. Good stuff.

I want Broken Social Scene to play for two hours in my basement. (OK, I don’t actually have a basement, but you get the point...)

Belle and Sebastian struggled a bit with the venue.

Stuart Murdoch noted that he felt like they were playing to three disparate audiences at once: the Saturday-night dancers up front, the cinema folks in their seats, and the picnic crowd on the lawn.

As a result of this somewhat schizo setup, the group never really found the right pace. When they soared, they soared pretty high (If You’re Feeling Sinister, Sleep the Clock Around, I’m a Cuckoo), but when they were pedestrian, they were footsore...

KIDS IN AMERICA

Boy, was it heartening to see 17-year-old kids jumping up like Jacks-and-Jills-in-the-Box, with favorite-song glee, for the likes of Ted Leo, Broken Social Scene, and B&S...

MY GENERATION

Tomorrow: A summer night out with mr. and mrs. brain coral, brain coral's brother, a couple of their friends, Ted Leo, Broken Social Scene, and Belle and Sebastian.

It's enough to make a boy not give a fuck about being 40...

KNOW RETURN

The earnestness.

The hair.

The earnest hair.

The dry ice.

The creamy oval frame.

The fun picking and easy strumming.

The pink tuxedo shirt.

I say again: The pink tuxedo shirt.

Best. Dagblasted. Video. Ever.

LIVING IN THE PAST

I come not to bury Jethro Tull, but to praise them.

Well, not really. But I did hear the Tull parody No New Tale to Tell the other day...

And would anyone really be willing to join the argument that Love and Rockets were in some intrinsic, verifiable sense a “better” band than Tull?

I imagine that the mid 80s Love and Rockets kids were basically the same as the late 60s Tull kids: White, comfortably middle class, and longing to be a part of the Alternative or the Underground (take your pick). Just so long as the Alternative didn’t alternate too much, and the Underground didn’t run too deep...