January 30, 2006

Bitch

Maybe you haven’t been following the James Frey saga. Maybe you’re sick of it, and it’s old news and you can’t believe I’m wasting valuable Toestubber real estate on such a non-story.

See, I used to inject heroin and cocaine into my veins, and now I don’t. After spending most of my twenties high, and going through a lot of ugly shit it’s not necessary to burden you fine folks with, I stopped using most dope, with the exception of caffeine, aspirin, Axert and some assorted vitamins. I happened to do it with the help of some folks in Narcotics Anonymous, but I encourage any of you with an addiction that’s making life hell to do whatever works to get out of the exhausting cycle of dependency. Really. Whatever works. I found that getting honest with myself was a good start.

The preceding unsolicited confession is only to establish that I have a dog in this hunt. I’m someone with a personal reason to be offended by a creep who writes wretchedly awful fiction and hawks it to millions by pretending he was the world’s worst junkie alcoholic outlaw badass criminal motherfucker - hunted by the authorities and persecuted by the straights. If you’ve ever been to 12-step meetings, you’ve seen this type, a lot. It’s the most popular line of bullshit among those poor pampered blowhards who just never seem to get it together, who can’t stay sober for any significant length of time - perpetual victims. Somehow, they must always one-up the last loser’s war story by painting themselves as the biggest, the baddest, the most rip-roarin’ dick-swingin’ crazy drug addict there ever was. These jackoffs never escape the romance of “livin’ the life” and impressing complete strangers with their toughy streetiness.

What Frey did was turn this banal stance into a crappy Hollywood screenplay-cum-novel where he wages bloody battle against fat, moustache’d cops and French pedophile priests, stops his addiction by force of his own superhuman will and some Eastern-style mysticism, and is befriended by cliches like the “sensitive mob boss” and the “junkie hooker with a heart o’gold” and other characters straight out of a Steven Seagal movie. He peppered it with inappropriate Capitalized Words, loads of sentence repetition and lots of crying and hugs. When his manuscript wouldn’t sell, he packaged it as a “memoir.” Oprah bought it. The rest is history.

Okay, I haven’t read his two bestselling books. I have read the finest book review ever written, and plenty of excerpts now that the scandal has broken, and lemme tell ya, this stuff rings so false, it buggers the brain. It makes Go Ask Alice look like Hubert Selby, Jr. Let’s put it into perspective: James Frey the writer is tattooed with the letters FTBSITTTD, which stands for “Fuck The Bullshit It’s Time To Throw Down.” No, I’m serious. This privileged fratboy imbecile insisted he was all about the Truth, man - on Oprah, in magazines, on his tough-guy blog (which he’s mysteriously shut down), in every public forum - and it continues to make him very rich.

Meanwhile, out here, there’s an enormously destructive Drug War still going on, with real people getting sent to real prisons. Clueless morons fan the deadly flames of prohibition in this country, every time they believe that crap like Jimmy Frey’s books accurately describes addiction or recovery therefrom. The Troy Duffy of American letters deserves every kick to the face he gets from now on. Pardon me if I can’t resist putting a boot in.

======================================================
Are the Stranglers punk? Who gives a shit? Long before I ever heard the term “Eurotrash,” I was a big fan of their thuggish image and evocative rock sound. Back then it was difficult to find so-called punk rock records in the suburbs, so I consider myself lucky to have heard ‘em, and stuck by them even after they took a turn into bizarro-world with the album Men in Black. That first album Rattus Norvegicus had a cool, creepy cover. They weren’t exactly fresh-faced kids. Jet Black, their drummer, looked like a friggin’ child molester.

Here’s one of my faves: “Bitching.” It’s the second tune offa the second LP No More Heroes, and doesn’t have the sheer menace of some of their hits, but in another way it’s emblematic of the earlier band’s bouncy, snarling pubrock with JJ’s bass growl pumping away and Dave’s agile keyboard taking us off on swift flights of fancy like a floating, glittering turtle dove. Too fucking right, squire.

The Stranglers - “Bitching”

Rick at 10:21 pm

Comments (7)

January 29, 2006

12 Gauge Reaction

Why do I love the Hookers? Mind your own business.

Full disclosure: I received my rare copy of the first Hookers 7″ from Noel Reucroft a.k.a. Stoney Tombs in the mid-’90s when my old group came through Lexington, KY. First we set up in the tiny main street bar and performed a nice, well-received set to the few locals in attendance… then the Hookers came onstage and raped the air. The drummer started kicking his drums around during the first song. Mic stands went flying, the room shuddered. They were loud and threatening and fun and didn’t give a shit. It was awesome.

The Hookers rode that razor-sharp line between garage punk and metal yet kept from devolving into a lazy-ass hardcore band or generic “hard rock.” In other words, fire & ice, without the lukewarm water. They put out a number of singles after that, and with the release of their first LP Devil’s Highway they’d already mutated into a strange but decidedly non-false metal style that alienated one or two garage fans. (Not me; I really love that record. It’s hyperactive without being speedmetal, and laced with the sounds of Noel urinating and creepy audio clips stolen from old Coffin Joe movies.)

Maybe a year after this came out, some corporate band took the name (there were actually even more bands calling themselves the Hookers) and when our boys were looking at the possibility of being signed to Crypt, Tim Warren, in fear of a possibly lawsuit, briefly switched their name to the “Fayette County Hookers.” That didn’t take. The Hookers toured a lot and put out a lot of fine product, but never got what they deserved out of the rock industry. Some things I’ve read make me think that the guys might be a little bitter about it, like this Stoney Tombs interview from last May. Can’t blame ‘em.

Singer Adam Neal, a.k.a. the Rock ‘n’ Roll Outlaw, had previously played drums in primal cuntry-punk outfit Nine Pound Hammer (who have recently reformed, recorded an album and are touring everywhere but here!) After the Hookers hung it up, the Outlaw released a solo album called Ridin’ Free on a German label in 2002 [turns out I’m all wet; see Rich’s correction in the comments], but I haven’t tracked it down. He also formed the band Brothers of Conquest that put out an album that I never did thank Artie Philie for sending me two years ago. Artie, consider this a substitute for actual human interaction; it’s the closest I get sometimes.

There’s a greatest-hits collection called Casting the Runes: From the Battle of Clontarf to the Gates of Valhalla you can get from one of those download sites. The ridiculous name beats that of their second LP Black Visions of Crimson Wisdom - which keeps its silly status by referring to two colors in a five-word title!

Anyway, back to this, the 4-song debut. It’s noisy, sloppy, careless and catchy, punk as all fuck, and funny ’cause it’s true. Start with the magnificent “Get It Tonight,” which jabs itself inside your head like an absolute original, even though it’s almost a chord-for-chord ripoff of “Blitzkrieg Bop.”

The Hookers - “Kiss My Fuckin’ Ass”

The Hookers - “Get It Tonight”

The Hookers - “Broke My Heart”

The Hookers - “Do That Dance”

Here’s a gem from Satan’s Highway:
The Hookers - “Baby, You’ll Regret Me”

The 8-minute video clip below consists of four songs from an unpromoted afternoon show at Hollywood Moguls in May of ‘98 with an audience of roughly ten or so L.A. people. You can tell the band is a little pissed. Do me a big favor and save it to your computer first, if you know how.

“Everybody Get Down,” “Get Fucked,” “Welcome the Beast” & “Rock ‘n’ Roll Riot” (.MOV file, 17.8 whopping MB)

UPDATE: Well, that movie thing didn’t work out so hot. Give me some more time, I’ll figure it out.

Rick at 12:21 am

Comments (3)

January 24, 2006

A Stiff Wind

I remember reading about how the last factory that made flexidisks (sometimes a.k.a. Evatone Soundsheets) closed its doors a few years ago. Nonetheless, I have a whole bunch that I collected over the years, along with the cardboard variety you see here. (Let me come clean and admit that I personally stole the “Head of the Class” flexi from my old employers when I was managing editor of HIGH SOCIETY. For that, I apologize. So sue me. Uh, what I mean is, don’t sue me.)

Sex is funny. When you’re a young horny buck, you’ll put up with any ol’ crap just as long as it has something to do with orgasms - preferably yours. But as my adolescence recedes into the background, I’ve grown very intolerant of fake eroticism. Why won’t they just shut the hell up and do it, without all the showbiz? I’m sure my attitude’s just a side effect of hearing “oh yeah” and “fuck yeah” over and again, all the livelong goddamn day. Urgh. Give me something real.

But, like I said, the kids don’t know no better. If your fantasy of a woman fellating you was not ruined by the fact that she obviously can’t do anything of the sort when she’s simultaneously describing what it might be like if she didn’t have to keep talking about it, then this endless logical paradox of unconsummated oral love might suffice for you to enjoy [putative HIGH SOCIETY Editor] Gloria Leonard saying things like “I kinda like the challenge of an unconscious penis.” Then again, if your fantasy was being sexed by a skeevy grandmother with cartoon tits, why then you’d flip for the record that came with an issue of VELVET TALKS, in which overripe matron Candy Samples grapples with an obviously gay male employee (oops, reader) - in a limousine, ’cause that makes it sexy - who at one point murmurs “Fabulous!” as he squeezes Candy’s huge styrofoam-filled knockers.

The 1980s stuff might seem weird and creepy to you, but if you watch any modern pornography you know that this sort of stilted, unsexy, “me so horny” talk has never gone out of fashion. If, somehow, insincerity could be used in place of lubricant, these professionals would end up saving a limoful of cash.

Gloria Leonard on blowjobs from HIGH SOCIETY Magazine, 1980

Candy Samples w/”contest winner” from VELVET TALKS Magazine, 1981

====================================================
Extra: Former Midnight Blue lackey Ivan Lerner sure knows a lot of phony assholes.

Rick at 11:03 pm

Comments (18)

January 21, 2006

This is What Happens to Assassins Around Here

Okay, this guy isn’t really an assassin, more like a bandit. He’s like a lot of bloggers these days, in that he scours the Web for other peoples’ original content and then reposts it with an inane kind of “hear, hear! I agree!” Except he doesn’t attribute the source, he doesn’t know what quotation marks are, and every single image on his Blogger site is hotlinked from somewhere else. (If you don’t know what I mean by these terms - direct linking or hotlinking - basically he’s using images somebody else put up, without hosting them on his own site or using photobucket, flickr, imageshack, etc. Everytime someone visits his page, I get charged a few pennies, because his server - Blogger.com - retrieves that same image from my server. Over and over again.) None of his sources are given the common courtesy of a page link, natch.

Everyone “borrows” images and ideas. That’s not what pisses me off. Mister g4jima came to my attention because I noticed my host was getting lots of referrals from his page. Then I poked around his site and noticed the rampant plagiarism and shitty netiquette and the fact that he not only reprinted my entire post without linking back, he even copied my “Illegal Disclaimer” from the sidebar over there on the right, verbatim. I mean, come on. Imitation is the sincerest form of flabbiness, I know, but stealing from me is the sincerest way to get a new rectum installed. Speaking of rectums, I changed the photo he’s using to a picture of a lady making a doo-doo (NOT SAFE FER WORK) and I hope his mom visits his website before he figures it out.

UPDATE 1-22-06: I guess he figured it out.

Rick at 9:51 pm

Comments (4)

January 20, 2006

Turn Up the Volume

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. Is that enough for you bums? Yes, I took a few weeks off with minimal posting so that I could indulge in some unspectacular adventures: got depressed, visited family, got a promotion, went to Vegas, played around with my ex, got more depressed, started working out again and decided to return here and give you rocking fools some more tidbits of street knowledge.

What’s crackin’? Between games of Sudoku, I watched quite a few music presentations on the home screen, such as:

Alison Krauss & Union Station: Live DVD
A very cool, “family friendly” concert by this sweet modern bluegrass quintet/sextet, filmed in Louisville 3 1/2 years ago. I venture to say that most music fans would probably like to have sex with Alison Krauss, but that could just be projection on my part.

Black Oak Arkansas DVD
This disc is a bootleg that Sfumato sent me off of a VHS tape, which includes an amazing full performance from Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert, the horrifying 1980s Ready As Hell video and a brief tour of the Arkansas redneck commune conducted by Jim Dandy and the boys. Totally inbred and awesome; I hope to present some clips here after I get past the technological hurdles.

Inside the Sensational Alex Harvey Band DVD (UK import)
Pretty much useless. Mike Desert showed me this one, and he claims that the Kinks doc made by the same company is even worse! There’s some decent SAHB footage that, unfortunately, you can’t fucking hear because of nonstop voice-over jibber jabber from random self-styled rock critics and the doddering remnants of the Band who still survive. Honestly, this is a terrible job: half-assed editing and interviews that barely go past “Hmmm, how did that song go? Let’s see - doot doot doola doo…”

=========================================================

If I still lived in NYC, I’d want to go out and see local treasures the Little Killers playing every other night, but who’s kidding who - I’d probably just take ‘em for granted and stay home like most everyone else these days.

Andy used to be in the Sea Monkeys with Dave the Spazz. He has a unique chugga chugga guitar sound that really hits the spot and talks his lyrics out with a compelling, sloppy swagger. Sara and Kari are a dynamite rhythm section, reserved onstage, but cool people… not to mention real nice to look at. The Little Killers were one of the first new bands in forever to come out on Crypt Records, a label not known to have a craving for flavors of the month. Dean Rispler produced their first album (from whence these two songs), and it oughtta just blow you away.

The Little Killers - “Butterfingers”

The Little Killers - “How Do You Do It?”

…also, check out the live video!

UPDATE 2-4-06: Mister Sfumato kindly redirects us to some primo clips that someone posted on YouTube of Black Oak on Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert that I mentioned up yonder.

Rick at 12:35 am

Comments (7)

January 19, 2006

Welcome Back, Cockblocker

Some of youse have been asking what happened to all the updates. I suppose if I was a real man I’d apologize. What the hell - there’s a lengthy mea culpa on the way that will be posted before tomorrow. Until then, here’s a picture of Hiroko pointing at a TV.

Rick at 9:13 am

Comments (0)

January 4, 2006

Boogie, Real Low

I frankly admit I’m not a scholar of the obscure when it comes to Blues/R&B/Soul music. I surely have my favorites, but there’s such a wealth of arcane knowledge I’m happy to leave to the experts like Soul Sides and #1 in Heaven and Norton Records and the people who do things like this & this.

But sometimes you come across a great song and it leads you into unexplored territory. Frankie Lee Sims has been on my “to check out sometime” list since years back when the Black Rock ‘n’ Roll compilation came out on Savage Kick Records. More of the guy’s music, please. Let’s exhume that grave right now! Who’s with me?

Frankie Lee Sims - “She Likes to Boogie Real Low”

Rick at 10:09 am

Comments (3)

January 1, 2006

The Turning of the Year

The month of December pretty much kicked my ass. In fact, the last part of this last year could really use some revisionist history. It hasn’t been all Haagen Dazs and Katamari Damashii, I’ll tell you that much. It’s been kind of lonely, and that’s why you haven’t seen an update in more than a week. First, my baby moved back to NYC back in June, around the same time that my kitty cat died. Some rich asshole dilettante ran a red light and hit my car and near-totalled it. And I got a sudden promotion last month - which basically just means I’ve had to start giving a shit again about what happens at work. Oh, poor me!

Wait a minute - I think I hear the world’s smallest violin section playing. It’s good to know you care, even with that hangover.

I thought about making a public New Year’s resolution to post more frequently, but then I mentally kicked myself for cooking up one of the dumbest cliches in the blogger’s handbook. Then I kicked myself again, using my real foot this time. Ouch. I predict more, better and less painful times to come.

========================

Here we are, six years after the dawn of 2000 A.D. The Rezillos foresaw the end of cool happening way before this. Who’s to say they were wrong? Maybe we’ve all been living on borrowed time, like some second-rate glammed-up episode of The Twilight Zone, you know, like the ’80s version.

All but one of the following songs are from the essential, definitive, classic studio album Can’t Stand the Rezillos on Sire, which you should definitely buy. (I stupidly traded my original heirloom copy long ago to Jon Spencer for a Whitehouse record.) Their cover of the Kinks’ “I Need You” comes off the posthumous 1979 live LP Mission Accomplished…But the Beat Goes On.

For those not familiar with the Rezillos, they were a bunch of high-energy, fun, aggressive, theatrical Scottish rock’n'roll punks, with male/female vocals, dolled up as sci-fi villians and mod heroes. Their heyday was short (1978-79) but sweeter than breakfast cereal. Unfortunately, the later offshoot bands (the Revillos and Shake) just didn’t have the same oomph.

The band’s big “hit” on these shores (not really) was an awesome cover of “Somebody’s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked in Tonight” which later got used for the touching golf-cart sequence in Jackass: The Movie (I didn’t include that tune here because it’s easy to find, and you’re getting spoiled, you lot). Behind all the rave-up noise, the Rezillos have thoughtful lyrics dealing with issues of social paranoia and the price of fame, amid all the usual yucky stuff about love.

Of course, this being the age of punk fogeydom, there’s a revised/reformed version of the Rezillos touring about now that they no longer hate each other. Even though the group still sports the searing guitar punch of Mr. Jo Callis, the perky pipes of Fay Fife and the growling attack of Eugene Reynolds, nothing can live up to that first album. Not if you live in the future.

The Rezillos - “2000 A.D.”
The Rezillos - “Glad All Over”
The Rezillos - “It Gets Me”
The Rezillos - “I Need You (live)”
The Rezillos - “Cold Wars”

And for Michelle:
The Rezillos - “I Can’t Stand My Baby”

Rick at 5:23 am

Comments (5)