twinkle twinkle twinkle, blah blah blah

It's D. Boon's birthday today so I played a good hour's worth of Minutemen this morning, something I haven't delved into since the college years and occasionally during the regular radio slot and I forget just how amazing this band was and how little they sounded like anyone else.

My first exposure to them was on a really quite good K-Tel of all things compilation of 80's indie rock that was the first inkling to my suburban warmed-over grunge self that there was this whole other world of music just waiting to be discovered, and it was my first introduction to Black Flag and the Melvins and the Chills and Squirrel Bait and Husker Du and other bands that had their heyday while I was somewhere between in utero and starting kindergarten.

john doe is 60 today

so I played two hours of X, solo material, and such. I got requests for "Blue Spark," "The Once Over Twice" and "Country at War." I sometimes forget just how good this band is.

I and I survive

It's HR's birthday today so I played a bunch of Bad Brains and realized there's a whole lot of overlap between the first tape and the Ric Ocasek-produced Rock for Light and that later output just isn't quite the same lightning-in-a-bottle swank. Anyways, the station library had quite a bit in the way of live bootlegs to flesh out two hours of the jazz-fusionists-turned-Rasta-hardcore-punkers, and I pretty much played every song on the iconic albums, skirting the solo records since I hadn't had the chance to see if they were good.

I saw him play at the punk bar up the street a few years ago but only stayed for three songs when it was clear that it was an off night for him. His struggles with mental illness have been well-documented and I knew this going in, and fended off drunk aging punks with claims that I was only here for the reggae, knowing that the last time he was this charismatic, I was probably a newborn.

Part of my love of this band stems from driving around Parmastan with hardcore kids, pogoing around someone's living room to these albums at 2am when everyone else was passed out except for formerly-straightedge-me and someone's drunk girlfriend, playing softball on summer afternoons with the Clevelandian punkers, wearing their t-shirt in DC and random people on the street wanting to be my friend in a land of J. Crew and politricksians, and how these records have gotten me through every hard time in my life. That combination of righteous fury, apocalyptic screeds, the frustration with the wrong and the focus on the right, the skepticism about human nature and the thirst for the divine. Not much music does that for me, but they do.

ivory towers and reflective powers

a friend of mine from way back when is in college now, and like me, reads a lot of blogs, and like me in my early twenties, quite the idealist with other earnest friends. I was kind of an older sister figure, introducing him to Fugazi and zines and other underground kind of things.

I take things more seriously than a lot of people, but even in my younger years, I didn't have much patience for those conversations about race/class/gender that were more theoretical than anything else, and often profoundly disconnected from the dynamics of the real world in any real sense. Not that things shouldn't be thought about or are unimportant, but sometimes I feel like these conversations, mostly between us people socioeconomically privileged to go to college and be connected to the internet, tend to get extremely circular and self-indulgent.

When you get off the Internet, most people aren't losing sleep over the things that young people care about on Tumblr, aren't arguing about tasteless Halloween costumes or something clueless that some guy posted on his Facebook page, but I guess it's always fun for people to feel smarter and more enlightened than others, hence Internet haterade. I still don't have patience for the competitions of the Suffering Olympics variety, if you trace back anyone's history you'll find out that their ancestors were screwed over by someone, and that everyone's felt disrespected or had judgments made about them because of how they look or whatever.

Evidently to total strangers this makes me an awful person full of white privilege, which if you know me, is kind of ridiculous because I geek out on history and anthropology and the ins and outs of others' worlds, willing to be the uncomfortable and awkward minority, to the point where I have empathy but only to a point, that everyone's got their issues, and to focus on just one place's is kind of myopic. If you go anywhere, people are racist and classist and judge by the gradient of your skin tone or what religion you practice or who your parents are. Not to invalidate anyone's experience, but it's a human problem not an American middle class cracker problem exclusively. Jerkitude is universal.  Besides, such conversations are always better had over caffeine or booze as it is.


And so I wonder if this is why, in tandem with my companions with whom I snark about all things brainy (Pynchon, Shakespearean English, obscure medieval history), I find maybe I prefer these things with those in my world who are older, because we've got less to prove and we've seen more of life and there are other stressors like how are we going to pay the heating bill this winter and what are we doing with our lives since we're perpetually underemployed and there are fewer and fewer open doors.

And I love eating dinner with someone else again, cooking the proceeds of our gardens, talking about how our days went, these life things that are so simple, the things that I miss about roommates and friends who worked on my side of town who used to drop in at the old apartment. It's so good to geek out over history and play music and listen to records again and laugh, I don't think I realized how much I missed this kind of companionship until it started happening again, it's hard to believe that it's 2 in the morning and I have to go to work the next morning, he's laughing as I back out of the driveway and almost run over his datura plant, but all that coffee would have kept me up as it was, and despite the tired eyes and the continued drinking of tea, I feel so alive.

this margin walker wants a clear view

Guy Picciotto is 47 today, and therefore it gave me a good excuse to do a Fugazi/Rites of Spring/One Last Wish set of two hours of swank. Some people called in for "Smallpox Champion" and "Waiting Room" and another friend of mine tried to prank me but didn't realize we have caller ID, but it was a fun show.

I'm surprised at how many longtime Fugazi fans didn't know the previous projects existed, and maybe it was just having a friend in high school who was obsessive and my own need to be encyclopedic, but I'm glad at least I got to let people know this exists so they can track it down themselves. 

the way you treat each other really makes me feel ill

 Sometimes I wish I could tell other people they're being myopic when they harp on their pet issue and don't see the larger picture of ye olde shite being messed up muchly. But that's a fool's errand, and therefore I get the catharsis out in big riffs and taut punk rage.


echobelly - scream

REM - crush with eyeliner

the verve - so it goes

radiohead - lucky
ride - howard hughes

lush - superblast

wire - mannequin

mission of burma- progress
stiff little fingers - suspect device
the pagans - street where nobody lives

the wipers - D-7

the gits - beauty of the rose
the clash - I'm so bored with the USA
X- the phone's off the hook (but you're not)
soft boys - I wanna destroy you

the ruts - dope for guns
the undertones set - you've got my number (why don't you use it), teenage kicks, family entertainment, hypnotised

billy bragg - to have and to have not / help save the youth of america
the adverts - no time to be 21

sleater kinney - turn it on
discount - sleeping motor boy
tomahawk - waratorium
torche - in pieces

50 foot wave - long painting

nirvana - lounge act
fugazi - burning/give me the cure
jawbox - lil shaver

god machine - tremolo song

quicksand - how soon is now?
screaming trees - witness

fulfilled a promise made of tin

I walked down to the land of yuppiesque entertainment after work on Friday night, wandered through the mall in search of a new shoulder bag since the straps on mine were falling off, met up with the good people, heard east side stories, and tales that indicate that Cleveland still sucks as a tourist destination unless you know someone. There was some earnest singer-songwriter action going on, a lot of Bright Young Things, and the occasional black-clad fellow concert-goer.

The show started late, which is weird for such a well-oiled machine that is the House of Blues, and you know an opener isn't doing it for you when you turn to each other and go wow this is a long set, aren't they done yet. It wasn't so much that they were bad, and I dig noisy wooshy rock and or roll, but there was a lack of soundcraft that wore the jams thin after about half an hour and there were still songs to go and the crowd began to pack in.

The Cult's never really been big with my generation, and before one of my friends suggested going, I had only a cursory background in their back catalog. It took some time for Astbury to get warmed up, his phrasing was a little off on some of the songs, but he seemed to be in a good mood. The rest of the band looked like they were having a good time, especially Billy Duffy who was on the whole night. After the first set, I was able to move up front a bit and away from the woo-girls and their type A boyfriends trying to barrel their way to the front row, and dudes with sunglasses and gelled hair and napoleon complexes, and the girls with their damn iPhones. Not the greatest fanbase, but a chivalrous tall dude let me go in front of him so that was considerate.

Came back and slept, and drove up to the lake to play softball and camp, and got a speeding ticket after getting lost that made me cry because country driving with no signs freaks me the hell out. I'm glad my teammates still love me and eventually I got out of the dark funk somewhere around dinnertime when my comrades stuffed the sports bar digital jukebox with Maiden, Van Halen, Sabbath, and Husker Du and I got to hear customer service hell stories and laugh a lot. Somehow the melancholia dissipates and I decide to stay the night, accepting the offer of a borrowed tent.

I wasn't in the mood for drinking games or volleyball but me and a couple of other people ended up going out at sunset in search of the beach to hang out by the water. We didn't get there, but we ended up at some picnic tables overlooking the march where water lilies shimmered in the murk and herons flew around us as the sun set. The sound was incredible, that hum of nature where we could feel far away from the world for a few moments. When the bugs made their presence known we kept walking through the almost-complete darkness until we reached the water and the rocks and sat out there gazing at the stars that were so numerous and infinite and I felt so blissed out as if everything that happened earlier had melted away.

We came back to the campsite, sat around a fire we'd made with a downed apple tree that smelled incredibly fragrant, we kept stoking the fire, throwing in twigs and beer boxes, basking in the warm glow and indulging our inner pyro geeks. I tried to sleep but the talk was too loud so me and the other sober guy sat by the fire and talked until the coals got low and we got tired.

We woke up earlier than everyone and drove back, stopping at a diner full of vacationers for food and coffee, wandering through the flea market full of nautical tchotchkes, easy listening records, and a strange assortment of DRI and Throbbing Gristle cassettes mixed in. He found a Mott the Hoople record for a dollar, I detoured for fragrant peaches, and we took the longish way home back along the lake and through the Metroparks listening to the Smashing Pumpkins, hanging out at his place, with its Chinese sculptures and bicycles and garden where the pool used to be, talking about punk rock and childhoods and life. I used to wonder if I'd lose this part of my life as I got older, but I'm thankful it hasn't yet slipped away.

things I never thought would happen

As mentioned in the previous post, there were two awesome shows going on in Fair Clevelandia on Wednesday night. As such, I went over to the gallery in Chinatown because my friend putting on the Evens show said he might need some help getting everything ready. So it doesn't seem so weird and awkward when I'm shaking hands with one of my early-adulthood heroes, because we're moving a wrought-iron canopy thing to the side, figuring out the logistics of the stage, and loading equipment and merch up a freight elevator.

I felt a little embarrassed when it was disclosed that I might be seeing someone else play that night but I ended up sticking around, sent his sister down the street to my favorite source of pad thai, watched the soundcheck, drinking cans of coconut water instead of eating dinner, working the door, taking money and distributing wristbands and then watching the show.

The fans were almost all my age or older, a few straightedge kids, a couple of families, people wearing t-shirts of 80's punk and hardcore and metal bands. I got to watch the show, sang along with the songs I knew, songs that were tightly wound on record and full of intensity live and relevant to the troubled times that we find ourselves in, of increased paranoia and surveillance and instability.

We were encouraged to sing along though I think a lot of us are way more familiar with the old bands, but everyone knew better than to say so. And he went on a digression about how awful drones are and how awful our powers that be are for continuing to use them to traumatize Pakistanis so mad props for that. He gave shoutouts to Charles and me and I'm glad no one knows who I am, because I'm pretty sure I blushed because this is something I never imagined would happen, ever.

Afterwards, I ended up running into a fellow congregant from church, of all people, the guy who is 75 and a former southern baptist minister from Alabama whose son is friends with a bunch of Dischordians and who invited him to the show. I always wondered why he liked my Billy Bragg take on the trad hymns and it makes way more sense now. The smallness of the world is kind of mind-blowing.

We marvel at this, and trade stories of DC and Cleveland with Ian's sister while I watched a line of kids take pictures and get their albums signed. I picked up the records too, but felt too shy there but got a parting shot in the parking lot because I want to remember this. We helped them load up at the end of the night, exchanged goodbyes, and hugs and I drove home too euphoric to sleep, so I hung Christmas lights on my balcony and talked on the phone because it was so beautiful out.

And then I wake up, clean the apartment, hang out with the family, and head over to the neighbors across the border to watch the fireworks, which I missed because my beater was turned away at their nice apartment building, so I missed most of the pyrotechnics but got to watch 'The Warriors' and talk tuneage so all was good. Eight hours of sleep in the past two days. It's a good thing it's dead at work today, though I think I'm still running off of afterglow and caffeine. 

blood and roots

A late afternoon dentist appointment led to the discovery of a nice little fistula beneath one of yours truly's molars, which meant that yesterday morning was spent in the dentist chair rather than the office chair and there's a dull little throb there now. I guess it could be worse if it continued.

It hovered between rain and sun this weekend, and I hung out with the neighbors, slacked by the lake with my parents, and ended up at a baseball game where I watched the Indians lose of course. On the way back from the islands to Fair Clevelandia, the sky was that amazing combination of dark clouds and intense sunlight and at one point I was driving beneath this rainbow that started at the highway median and arched over into the farmland on the other side. It was so beautiful and I wish I could have stopped and snapped a shot to even try to express it but it's hard to do that kind of thing when there's no place to pull over.

As the swelling and the numbness went down, I ended up in the garden most of the day, rearranging and putting in everything that I hadn't gotten to before, with an in-law of one of my neighbors, who expounded on theories involving religion, homeopathic medicine, and the current state of affairs as a giant C-O-Nspiracy ala Dave Mustaine and Alex Jones, and while I can agree to some extent that things are really messed up in this world, I found myself inevitably punching holes in said narratives about conflict between people (because I believe that the Irish would still be mad at the English and that Shia & Sunni would still be going at it whether or not the CIA existed),  because while our meddling doesn't help, people seem to do a good job finding reasons to go to war with each other on their own.

I don't think the CIA or whoever is behind everything, or that they're poisoning the water/vaccinating us to self-destruct early/whatever. I'm sure that the building I work in and the computer I sit in front of and the cell phone I own aren't doing wonders for my health, but I don't know what the point is in living forever as it is.  It's not that what's going on isn't important, it's just that there's battles I don't see the need to fight and I figure that if the state wants you gone, it's pretty evident that the constitution these folks value so highly isn't going to be one's salvation or protection.

In theory we have similar religious leanings, but I wonder where the trust in God is when it's all about ME AGAINST THE MAN or how one heals oneself or flipping out so much about the guvvermint. I remember my dad saying something similar when some of his friends were going into survivalist mode for the inevitable Clintonian Martial Law Y2K Takeover and would argue about paying taxes and such, that last time he checked, first-century Rome was some lousy overlords and that the religious folk were generally law-abiding citizens paying taxes to an imperialist state that wasn't averse to setting them on fire or throwing them to beasts, and that they didn't run off to the woods with a bunch of weapons waiting for the end to come and for everyone to get theirs. So I listen, and occasionally interject, and the theories grow increasingly more bizarre, but it is what it is, and she is generous with her plants and who am I to judge.

So we get the garden plots done, I've got kale and tomatoes, eggplants and peppers and herbs, hills of squash and rows of beans waiting to germinate, a bucket full of Jerusalem artichokes by my back porch and flowers that will go somewhere, plants that I'm sharing with other enthusiasts for digging in the earth and growing things. 

And I wish I was out there instead of here, because there's something so life affirming about it, nurturing is so addictive. I have so many other things on my mind that social interactions get awkward because I'm less concerned about saving an old building on the other side of town, or the politics of fiefdomery, isn't life more than, food, isn't the body more than clothes? Especially when there's drones laying waste to other lands and people getting shot by cops and kids can't read. I don't know, I don't know what I'm trying to say here.

I'm on a mission to never agree

someone on the Internet let me know that it's Ian Mackaye's birthday today so I decided to unleash my inner Dischord Records fangirl and play his bands' music for an hour an a half on my show this morning. I've done previous birthday tributes for Kristin Hersh and Bono, but I got some frustrated callers who begged me to play something besides U2, so I did. This time, I let the good people of Clevelandia and the Internet know, and that they could request non-Ian stuff but one caller assured me that he'd be more than happy to hear a whole bunch of Minor Threat and Fugazi so I felt validated enough to carry through.

Back in my straightedge days, I had mad respect for Ian and dreamed of doing some kind of regional label as awesome as Dischord. That came to nothing, I enjoy the occasional glass of wine or beer now and then, but the music's held up wonderfully. I got a copy of Minor Threat's complete discography in the mail from a friend who gave up his earthly possessions and it immediately conjured up memories of riding shotgun in my high school homie's beat-up Honda cruising aimlessly around Parmastan. I put Fugazi on every punk rock mixtape I ever made but no one shared my enthusiasm nearly so much, and I guess the vocals can be an acquired taste.

I find I still listen to 13 Songs, The Argument, and Repeater the most, but some of my most favorites on Red Medicine and End Hits. Red Medicine used to be on the jukebox in the bar below the student center at Kent and I'd inflict that noise-punk that gave me such pleasure on the ears of bros and watch them clear the room to that and Surfer Rosa. Times have changed, but the songs almost seem more powerful than ever now.

scary monsters and super creeps

While the east coast prepares for the storm of doom, we just get a lot of rain, and I was running through the West Side Market Friday night a few minutes to closing time in search of a bag of sweet potatoes and some cilantro. Hung out at the usual spot with the usual suspects talking music and sundry geekery, listening to punk 45s. Kids were running around and playing with balloons among aisles full of records and CDs covered with ersatz cobwebs.

Helped decorate for the big radio station party we throw every year with a night of free tunes and general revelry. Did lots of random finishing-touch kind of stuff, last-minute runs for art supplies and lighting and rock band tour rider items, by the time we were finished, it was time to start, and I didn't bother wearing a costume, just the flannel shirt and the black leather jacket, no makeup, nothing weird. A few people said something to me but they were drunk anyway.

The people-watching was of course fabulous, I had to wonder if some people are just really like this all the time or if they were just playing up that other part of their nature. Not as many unoriginal skanks as a Kent Halloween, a few of the local creepers, enough people I knew that I could mingle freely as both Glenn Danzig and Beavis shilled for votes.

And The Avengers sounded great. I'm a huge sucker for female-fronted punk rock though after taking a hit to the sternum by some crusties, I got out of the pit area after four songs, being too old for this kind of thing. 

The end of the night, we were caffeinated and some of us were buzzed, plans to go nighthawking at the diner down the street deemed irrelevant with the presence of leftover pizza, swank soda, and booze. Conversations about the existence of God, colonialism in Africa, and life, the universe, and everything ensued that kept us laughing and loud until 4am in the dark theater.

And now the daily grind, and bailing my sister out of her apartment situation so that she's not stuck living with some real jerks, and wondering what to do if we've got Halloween shindigs planned for The Kids and the city's decided to cancel it. I fell asleep in class today, but there was so much good time with good people that I'm still buzzed on all the love.

I'm on a mission to never agree

When argument becomes pointless, because delusion and tribalism and More and Better Democrats is the god of my other nonbelieving compadre, only choice four letter words saved for special occasions in the theatre of the absurd can really suffice at this point, with disdain being too much to really say much else. It's only ok for heads of state to have kill lists, not high school janitors. That's completely different, pot calling kettle black, some straw men are more substantive. Same as it ever was. In Russia it's just another gulag and re-education, here we get the endless repetition and drone away in conversation and practice.

 

clumsied

All glitched up on the show this morning, found my stride with the doomerific jams later on which made at least one listener extremely happy. A little more incoherent than usual, wishing the afternoon receptionist hadn't called off because my car's rattling more and more each day like the bottom will drop out.

Looking forward to watching the local baseball team lose tonight, watching the gloom slowly abate hoping against hope that we get a day off when the self proclaimed bringer of hope and change rolls into town this weekend. I'm sick of hearing about that and non-rocking boomer music to the nth degree and it makes the swears fly out.

One of my bloghomies sent me a huge box full of Arvo Part and sundry punk rock and books about politics and mystics and such. I haven't rocked out to Minor Threat in the car in way too long.

there is no "I" in street gang

All of these bands I saw last night were active back when I was in my late teens just discovering college radio and crawling out of the especially deep corporate rock abyss. My partner in grunge was a huge fan of the Chargers Street Gang, a local punk band that he saw open for Mudhoney that he said changed his life. After finding the CD in the dollar bin at the Exchange, I understood as well. By that time they'd broken up and reunited once every couple of years usually around Christmas when family obligations made it hard to get over to the east side.

Ten years in the making, he says when I get there last night, as we try to explain this era of our life to his girlfriend, who's really nice and perfect for him but more into going to Browns games with him than shows where the music's really loud and by the end of the night doesn't want to go up front with us when they get onstage.

It was probably a good thing since the usual suspects were getting their mosh on and the inevitable muscle memory kicks in and my hands are up shoving, my feet maintaining balance, and the blood gets moving in ways it hasn't in ten years. Someone's throwing beer around and my hair is soaked and then kind of sticky. I see a chunk of broken glass by my feet and pick it up wondering what I should do with it but there's nowhere nearby to throw it away, nowhere to toss it without it hitting someone and I don't want it in my hand, so I set it back down on the floor and wonder if I should have worn my old combat boots instead of Converse high-tops as I'm shoving people away and feeling bad that my body's being thrown into everyone else's. But these songs are best in a context like this somewhat chaotic, our favorites, Tom Waits for No One, Every Light on Euclid, belted out by us and others.

And when the stage is chaos, we're feeling like we're ten years younger again, but also too tired to stay for the rest of the headliner's set. Now that I've crawled out of the introvert shell more, I'm recognizing people that I've seen at past shows, running into familiar faces, it's funny how that works, how small this town is but how glad I am to still be here.

we're in a rut

Back in the halcyon days of Soulseek before my computer crashed, I binged on the Throwing Muses back catalog, sundry obscure East Bay and UK punk bands and Pacific Northwest also-rans of various quality and different degrees of rage and despair. That first semester I borrowed all my friend's old CDs from high school and listened to a lot of pre-guyliner AFI when Davey still looked like a dude and Sick Of It All, because I guess I had a lot of abstract frustration with The Man and such. That abstract frustration has given way to some degree of resignation coupled with a righteous fury but that's a whole other story.

Maybe it's the climate of the election season that I've been very good at tuning out this year (my roommates could tell tales of me swearing and throwing things at the TV when Cheney and Edwards went head-to-head), or the general ennui of mission creep both abroad and at home, but finally finding a best-of comp of The Ruts (being frugal and not prone to instant gratification means that I wait until it lands in an actual store that a homie works at instead of clicking through at Amazon) at the Exchange (which my friend who works there describes as being a step above a pawn shop in these times) hit my punk rock sweet spot this week. That and an odds-and-sods comp of The Gathering's b-sides for a dollar, incongruous maybe but so is most of the record collection as it is.

Anyways, The Ruts, beloved by Henry Rollins and a big influence on Fugazi, one of my favorite bands ever. I had a few tracks that I compiled onto a CD, the top ten hit "Babylon's Burning" and the dubtastic "Give Youth a Chance" that's probably responsible for sending me down the old-school roots reggae rabbit hole. Those sinuous and menacing basslines, the skittering of cymbals, so perfect for late night driving through the dark streets of Clevelandia, that fire and brimstone apocalypse, Babylon emblematic of everything gone wrong in Thatcher-era England, with the class and ethnic tensions roiling.

It kind of amazes me that the Sex Pistols got most of the press when there were so many better bands writing really good songs and putting out solid albums, where there were some technical chops evident but less of the accompanying wankery. Paul Fox's guitar work is all over, driving and textured and reverberating over a rhythm section equal parts skank and Sabbath. Malcolm's voice is the perfect gruffness over such tunes.

Don't get me wrong, I love The Clash and the early work of the Police muchly, but The Ruts took that punky whiteboy reggae fury to another level.

Sadly, Malcolm's death by heroin overdose led to their being a footnote or a choice cut on a compilation rather than any kind of iconic status except about college radio dorks like yours truly. And that's a damn shame, and without further ado, I'll let the music continue to do the talking, since it's pure gold.