Record Lection #70-Flipper “Generic Flipper”

Before you even lay a needle on the black grooves of Generic Flipper you are already confronted by their nihilistic sentiment. Pull it’s sleeve out of the bin and you are met with the cynical words “Album” “Generic” and “Flipper” written in the most basic of fonts on a field of safety yellow, perhaps the most antagonistic color in our spectrum. Even the oversized barcode in the corner seems to be laughing at your misguided consumerism! However, that facetiously iconic fish logo swimming in the corner reveals that there is definitely more of a sense of humor to this band than their relentlessly agit-propist reputation would suggest. Unlike Rage Against The Machine, who claimed to be fans and torch-bearers, Flipper weren’t beneficiaries of schooled musicianship, bored jocks, or major label sound production to obscure the necessary messages they were trying to convey. RATM also didn’t live in the Reagan 80’s where disillusionment, Cold War threats, and unconscious consciousness like We Are The World were the status quo, a time where incendiary thought provoking was desperately more essential (no internet!). They also didn’t have lyricists like Bruce Loose and Will Shatter, who are perhaps the most skilled arbiters of Neitschian poetry in the 20th century and should be studied and seen as such. Try to find a more hopeless song than “That’s The Way Of The World” or a bleaker sentiment than “Life is Cheap-sold a decade at a time”… the icy delivery gives me pure chills every time. In spite of all of this rhetoric, Generic Flipper will always be best known for it’s most “danceable” track Sex Bomb, which while being an excellent song, might contain just enough fun to obscure their overall message. Tons of punks got the memo loud and clear though, and then recorded countless albums dedicated to its influence and aesthetic. I love refreshing nihilism when I hear it!

 

Record Lection #69-Ella Fitzgerald “Ella Fitzgerald Sings The George Gershwin Songbook Vol. 1”

 In today’s era of disposable music accessible technology, there is the generally accepted idea that anyone who is passionate about music has the ability to write their own songs. This attitude is a relatively new one historically and didn’t rear itself en mass until The Beatles and their contemporaries introduced the attainability of the shabby self contained unit of misfit teenagers. Up until then, popular music was the work of studied artisans and highly educated literati who went to prestigious schools. If you played guitar or piano, often times that skill was passed down through your family and you began studying that instrument at an extremely young age. Being a songwriter or composer meant being well versed in poetry or theory and both jobs required different temperaments. Perhaps sensing the cultural shift away from this archaic type of specialization in the late fifties, Verve Records embarked on an incredibly ambitious project that paired perhaps the best singer in recorded history with the most decorated producer/arrangers of the day and had them perform what was considered then the most beloved songs from the greatest of songwriters. The resulting time capsule became known as the “Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks” and these LPs could be considered the end of what we would call classical music. Every volume is an absolute 5 star cavalcade of ubiquitous american songcraft but here I am highlighting vol. 1 of the Gershwin collections because of the distinctive urban-chic cover art by illustrator Bernard Buffet. The REAL artist here though is Ella, effortlessly and beautifully embodying the disparate personalities and moods concocted by the pantheon of masters presented and injecting her own glowing life into each performance. Anyone who isn’t seduced by her timeless charm is probably just not taking time to listen or probably just hates music.

Record Lection #68-Growing “The Sky’s Run Into The Sea”

Most popular music is dominated by space and time. Drums and machines loudly tell the audience when to clap their hands and wiggle their legs while aural detritus divebombs at the listeners ears and nervous system for 3 to 5 minutes at a time. If you are lucky there might even be a pretty face or image to manipulate your eyes and create an absolute sensual distraction. The most progressive of minds might stand back analytically and start to question this type of accepted militarism. For example, what if we threw away the linear metronome and concentrate on the space BETWEEN and underneath the sounds? What if we create music that emphasizes power and tone over melodic content and tempo? The essence of the Drone/Ambient ilk is to not only ask these questions but wholly exemplify the answers. Nonetheless, Growing separate themselves from the rest of this seemingly monochrome pack by including rich emotional content and a harmonic accessibility, for lack of a better term. While the music of Sunn is like a colossal black hammer pulverizing your senses into submission, and Earth’s can sound akin to a slow roiling cauldron of anxiety, Growing is more like a glacier in not only pace and spirit but in the fact that you can see through its music and light can thrive within it’s corners and angles. There are also complex emotional explorations here, like the sounds of pensiveness, pleasant ambivalence, and even quiet malaise, feelings that are rarely attained within a pop or even a drone hemisphere. There is a long legacy of music of this style in a recorded context dating back to Charles Ives and up through Dylan Carlson and beyond, but I wasnt really paying much attention to it until I started seeing and understanding their performances, which by the end of their residency in my town were total revelations. Any knowledge of, or passion for, dark cerebral vibrations starts with those dusty basement shows.

Record Lection #67-Kinks “Kinda Kinks”

Mick Avory could possibly be one of the most underrated musicians in recorded history. He was prolific, powerful, and perfect at propelling and dominating his incredibly gifted band. Yet there is nary a mention of his gigantic contributions on the glossy front pages of most American drum mags and elaborate fanzines mythologizing the 60’s British Invasion. Ringo, Charlie, and Moon are grabbing all of the drummer spotlight, Yet here he is, in all of his frilly dandyness, providing the dirty punctuation to all of Ray Davies blue collar folk art invocations. A lover of incendiary percussion sounds could do themselves justice by rethinking his contribution to rock drumming. An unfortunate brush with US immigration may have kept him and his band of Edwardian stompers out of the top shelf of English blues pilferers and relegated them to couple-hit wonders in US rock n roll lore, but the proof is in the bread pudding, and a Kinks record always has the power to make your spirit move, especially when those vicious sounds are in the masterful hands of Shel Talmey, arguably amongst the top beat producer/reverb wizards of his day, with the skills to challenge the likes of Joe Meek, Shadow Morton, or even Phil Spector. Like Charlie Watts, Avory was an every-drummer, seeming able to emulate the full spectrum of styles and rhythms available throughout is career, but his most endearing work lies within that early methamphetamine blues period where The Kinks mastered the art of the shrill three chord firebombs raining shiny white hot chords of pop pain through your rib cage. Mr. Avory is guiding that chariot of fire with his angry metronome. Whether they were writing flawlessly hypnotic hooks, or combining their voices into a harmonic buzz, The Davies brothers (and bassist Peter Quaife) never wasted a minute of tape, and to pick just one record from their 1960’s output seems just as neglectful as forgetting about the drummer who supercharged their proto-punk mini-operas and made them immortal.

Record Lection #66 DJ Shadow “Endtroducing”

 England is so good at selling our product back to us with a different face (see 60’s English Invasion). Mixed race DJ collectives, most of whom had been spinning black dance music for years, suddenly became enigmatically beat heavy ensembles called Portishead and Massive attack and, helped by the healthy english drug culture, rapidly started to take over mainstream radio. Dj Shadow’s nocturnal sounds fit right in with this collective and fans in the UK thoroughly agreed, pushing this album onto its Billboard charts. Now, DJ Shadow isn’t English, but his record label Mo’ Wax was and they weren’t as obsessed with racial profile as most American record labels, or most Americans for that matter. No, the blank generation that had Jamaican dreads and Caucasian punks join together in perfect harmony gave birth to kids who saw nothing wrong in mixing their black and white sounds, bringing exotic styles like hip hop, reggae, and rock together into odd chemical reactions like Two Tone, drum & bass, grime, and perhaps most notoriously trip-hop, the media-invented genre DJ Shadow and Mo’ Wax are largely held responsible for popularizing. With Endtroducing it was now OK for rock bands to assimilate urban sounds into their repetoire without retribution. The album is very cool and “collected”, with psych-rock organs and guitars stabbed and cut with Primo-like efficiency, and Breakbeats that are presented like dirty screams, an effect almost David Lynchian it’s towering darkness. The esoteric picture on the front precedes the mysterious sounds inside, and the omission of any artist image on the front coupled with the lack of singing or rapping takes appearance out of the the equation, forcing the listener to decide on quality of the music instead of the “authenticity”. Not everything influenced by this record was good, but Shadow is very skilled at his craft, and his breakthrough changed the landscape of hip-hop on a variety of levels.

Record Lection #65-Kraftwerk “Ruckzuck!”

The ubiquitous influence this seminal german band has on western culture cannot be understated. It would take exponentially LESS time to list the aspects of modern music and culture that they haven’t had a stylistic hand in. In fact, any type of sound, aesthetic, or ideal with a futurist edge or electronic characteristic in this day and age would be hard pressed to avoid being touched by the innovations Ralf & Florian gave to our world. Kraftwerk turned the ideas of science fiction into a hard fact of life, creating an innovative soundtrack which has been indispensablely mutated and retold in the form of hip hop, dancehall music, post punk, avant-garde, and anything else you would hear in a “club”. It would come to a surprise to someone less educated on the machinations of Kraftwerk to discover that they started out as a band of intense organic nature, sometimes using raw and homemade instruments to fuse african jazz rhythms with classical emotion and psychedelic sensibilities. With quality assistance from fellow kraut giants Neu!, one can witness flourishes of improvisation and…ahem…JAMMING that lurch and stop with fuzzy imperfection, and exude a celebration that is wholly flesh and blood. Watch footage from this period and what you see is an anatomically different show from the retro-robot mass worship festivals dedicated to scientific cleanliness and precision they are so lauded for today. No, what you see this time is long hair, avante-garde communalism, ritual symbolism, and a lot of stoned and appreciative hippies in the audience. Perhaps a little closer The Dead than (Philip. K) Dick but still as aurally satisfying as anything else in their discography. I adore the computer age Kraftwerk, it’s almost a biblical necessity, but their beautifully twisted Ruckzuck! period shows the beginnings of a career dedicated to fusing man and machine with loving skill and foresight.

Record Lection #64-Descendants “I Don’t Want To Grow Up”

An old blue VW Bus can be a veritable wellspring of memories when being commandeered by carefree adolescents. You can fit a lot of people in one those, enough for carefree trips to small bodies of water, concerts, and far off corners of the state. The things practically BEG for adventure! Every one of the teenage dreams need a soundtrack to play through those paper thin speakers and in my recollection, no cassette was played more at the time than Juices Descendants mix, which collected the best parts of this record and the slightly superior and earlier LP “Milo goes to College”. While “Milo” has more of an immediate edge (1982=better year), my nostalgia for these times is almost always peppered with verses from the hyper-infectious “Good Good Things”, a song that pretty much encompasses everything that the Descendants were about-Southern California punk music with melodic sensibilities augmented with a sad and nerdy edge that seperated them from the rest of the hardcore scene that they were associated with (Offspring would later take this formula and run straight to bank) This music was practically tailor made for young and slightly melancholy males who are just starting to find out about the joys and tragedies of the opposite sex…….and also read Thrasher magazine (If you listen close enough you can literally hear the nose bones grinding on the mixing desk). We laughed at the simplicity of the cover art, played it’s contents as loud as possible, and marveled at Milo Ackerman’s ability to eloquently compress all of our pubescent feelings into short minute long bursts of gritty nasality. Quite simply, if a girl hurt our feelings, purposely or not, we were probably listening to this. That means that these songs were around a lot and even though I may never have to listen to his record again, every time I see it my collection I feel that awkwardness again and I just wanna go Ollie something.

Record Lection #63-Misfits “Legacy Of Brutality”

Even thought Glen Danzig is one of the most parodied and ridiculed rock n roll icons of all time, his first band is almost unanimously celebrated by everyone that likes hard music. The appeal is easy to see, his marriage of opera-level bravado and ultra-comic book ridiculousness is unmatched save for maybe Iron Maiden or Rammstein. But instead of D&D style megalomania, Glens world had a touch of street gang coolness and his brand of horror touched on a human evil that is more devious and terrestrial. That B Movie type of vision, blister-grind touring, a signature haircut (the devil lock), and one of the most iconic logos of all time secures The Misfits as one the most important and celebrated bands of all time. As well as one the most badass! Now, is Glen Danzig a genius or was it just perfect timing? Living in New Jersey, He most certainly would’ve witnessed and understood The Ramones and The Cramps, who formed just a couple of years earlier a little north up the interstate and shared Glen’s vehemently delirious take on 1950’s American teen culture, but perhaps decided that maybe their music had a little too much humor in it and decided to add a more serial-killer gargoyle tone to his brand of punk rock. Lucky for us, what exploded when he put the chemicals into the lab turned into some of the most important music in the 20th century! (If you ponder it’s influence on any of your favorite metal or punk bands you would have to agree with that statement) Whether this makes him a genius or not is up for considerable debate but the flawless talons that permeate through the entirety of Legacy Of Brutality are not. He may have been a dick who rerecorded all of the material on his own without asking the others (although the results prove that this may have been a good thing), but the fact is that very few debut records carry this much vitriol and and immediacy, yet are incredibly listenable ans accessible at the same time. This is certainly not an easy feat, and maybe only achieved by the most clowned upon rock star in music

Record Lection #62-Motley Crue “Too Fast For Love”

No, really dude!! This is an incredible record!No! Seriously!! So what if the cover is cheap rip-off of Sticky Fingers and they didn’t really know what an umlaut was, but this by far their best and most FULL LP of music (Dr. Feelgood is close, but the AA therapy vibes make it kind of a somber affair) Still confused? OK I will try to defend it. First of all, Too Fast For Love is the best record that The Runaways never recorded, with a slutty mixture of Van Halen and the Dead Boys pessimism for good measure. It’s the record The New York Dolls would’ve made if the David Johansson didn’t care about blues. (their penchant for post apocalyptic androgeny was probably an attempt to actually be The NY Dolls, L.A version). It’s negligent mixing (why is that cowbell mixed so HIGH?!), cheap and tinny delivery (was all the sounds filtered through a Peavey practice amp?), and amateurish subject matter (“is she hot?/well yeah, she’s hot!) only add to it’s punk rock charm. This is Dee Dee Ramones middle eight on “53rd and 3rd” stretched out over an entire record, with cheap sex, mascara, and an enforced lack of hygiene to compound matters. Songs like “Starry Eyes” and “Merry-Go-Round” reek of sweaty leather and used needles and when the Crue implore you to “Come On And Dance” I think might be a metaphor for something nastier. The swinging medallion is “Live Wire” their first single and highly recommended home-made first video, which showcases the relative strengths that each member had at the time (and probably, ever). That song is glam, punk, metal and whatever else Nikki could throw in. For these reasons, my adolescent imbibing of this classic is one of the reasons I started playing music in the first place and I can only be thankful for that..

Record Lection #61-Jimmy Reed “The Best Of Jimmy Reed”

To me, Jimmy Reed’s whisky dipped tenor is undeniable, and his list of of influencees has chiseled his name on to the hall of blues immortals (and the hearts of Velvet Underground fans) However, I have found it hard to convince people of his genius and when I put a magnifying glass on this situation one can see how a casual listener may be resistant. First of all, a trip through his extensive catalog shows little want or need to deviate from his snail like tempos and the tiny handful of characteristic riffs and chords in his cache. As a matter of fact, most of his songs sound like he was literally hoping to drain all of the athleticism out of Chuck Berry’s frentic machinations. Furthermore, his legendarily catastrophic alcoholism prevented him from even being able to perform some of his most beloved recordings without the coaxing assistance of his faithful wife, who whispered those classic lines into his fading ears to enable his destroyed memory. One you take a step back from all of these frivolous criticisms and simply enjoy the music whats left is an infectious and bubbly blues bounce set to a pleasant cruise control. His gentle voice is both fragile and confidant and his way with a few choice words rivals even Hank Williams timeless and relatable poetry. The punks of 60’s swinging London may have injected a much needed dose of amphetemine into Jimmy’s loping stroll but not one of them was able to match his uniquely approachable personality. I didn’t fully understand Jimmy Reed’s music until I really got a full understanding of what Blues music meant and was able to appreciate it’s subtlety. Unless you are able to take the long but rewarding time it takes to do this also, it might be hard to get you see his greatness. Any greatest hits collection will do just nicely and my copy of this one is very well worn.