I saw the Wigfield show last night. (background - Wigfield is a book by Stephen Colbert, Amy Sedaris, and Paul Dinello. It's about a fictional town that has to prove it exits [it wasn't a legal entity, formally, to the state] in order to avoid being destroyed by a diverted river. The pretend-author, "Russell Hokes," is a pretentious blowhard who is bankrolled to find out the quaint human story of the town...only to find it consists of strip clubs, used auto part stores, morgues, and psychos of various stripes.) I sat RIGHT BEHIND TODD OLDHAM ! ! ! Eeeek! ! ! Todd did the photography for the book.
It was a fun show...although the bits are sort of hard to separate from the story, and I don't have the book yet, so I can't quote tons of it. My favorite bit was by Amy as the mayor's daughter-- "People say the town is full of psycopathic killers...but I don't believe it. I think someone's running around killing people just to scare everybody..."
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Had on some old Motorhead today. AAAHHHH. God and Jesus, I love it...the very first stuff they did, the demos with Lucas Fox and Larry Wallis, and the first album stuff. My Favorite Metal Album Ever is either Sabotage, Paranoid, or whichever version of the Larry-Wallis-Motorhead demos was available. I originally had them on vinyl, on a German album called Born to Lose. I have them now off of a CD that, um, I forget the name of. I got it off Ebay since it was outta print and burnt it to CD with the first album. Did I mention AAAHHHH??
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I discussed books with friend Eric this afternoon. He says Victory is the best Joseph Conrad book; didn't like Heart of Darkness, he said. He recommended The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and War and Peace (he's the only person who's ever told me they read it). I was reminded, as I wrote in Morgan's journal, that How Late It Was How Late was one of the worst books I've read to the end. I think it was worse than the Navratilova mysteries...prob not as annoying as Lupica's book. I guess I read it to the end cuz 1) Kelman writes good short stories, 2) it won the Booker Prize. It is awful because it goes nowhere in particular and it's a stream-of-consciousness book where the guy is miserable, rambling, and constantly using the words "fuck" or "fucking" to the point where it is intolerable. And the ending is kinda sudden and resolves nothing.
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I read the section in Our Band Could Be Your Life about The Minutemen. I looked at bits of the Black Flag chapter too. Henry and Greg come off as dicks from what I read....I'm wondering if I want to read more. I LOOOOOVE LOOOOOOVE Black Flag. Particularly The First Four Years and Everything Went Black. I don't want to read that Greg is a iron-fisted jerk or Henry wants to "get girls" on the road. Ugh. I might as well read Gene Simmons's books...but this is the reality, I guess.
Conversely, the Minutemen seem like really, really nice guys. Smart, thoughtful, vibrant...but I can't imagine I'll ever like them as much as The Meat Puppets, let alone Black Flag. I got Double Nickels last year. It just.....um, I think the book adequately explains what happened. They heard Husker Du was doing a double album so they RUSHED TOGETHER a bunch of songs to compete with them. Which would explain why I love "Toadies" but....don't think much of the 12 songs that sound like demo versions of "Toadies". "Corona" (aka the JACKASS theme) and "History Lesson pt 2" are great too...but the rest...I dunno. They're such interesting guys, though, I would like to check out some of their other stuff.
It was a fun show...although the bits are sort of hard to separate from the story, and I don't have the book yet, so I can't quote tons of it. My favorite bit was by Amy as the mayor's daughter-- "People say the town is full of psycopathic killers...but I don't believe it. I think someone's running around killing people just to scare everybody..."
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Had on some old Motorhead today. AAAHHHH. God and Jesus, I love it...the very first stuff they did, the demos with Lucas Fox and Larry Wallis, and the first album stuff. My Favorite Metal Album Ever is either Sabotage, Paranoid, or whichever version of the Larry-Wallis-Motorhead demos was available. I originally had them on vinyl, on a German album called Born to Lose. I have them now off of a CD that, um, I forget the name of. I got it off Ebay since it was outta print and burnt it to CD with the first album. Did I mention AAAHHHH??
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I discussed books with friend Eric this afternoon. He says Victory is the best Joseph Conrad book; didn't like Heart of Darkness, he said. He recommended The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and War and Peace (he's the only person who's ever told me they read it). I was reminded, as I wrote in Morgan's journal, that How Late It Was How Late was one of the worst books I've read to the end. I think it was worse than the Navratilova mysteries...prob not as annoying as Lupica's book. I guess I read it to the end cuz 1) Kelman writes good short stories, 2) it won the Booker Prize. It is awful because it goes nowhere in particular and it's a stream-of-consciousness book where the guy is miserable, rambling, and constantly using the words "fuck" or "fucking" to the point where it is intolerable. And the ending is kinda sudden and resolves nothing.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
I read the section in Our Band Could Be Your Life about The Minutemen. I looked at bits of the Black Flag chapter too. Henry and Greg come off as dicks from what I read....I'm wondering if I want to read more. I LOOOOOVE
LOOOOOOVE Black Flag. Particularly The First Four Years and Everything Went Black. I don't want to read that Greg is a iron-fisted jerk or Henry wants to "get girls" on the road. Ugh. I might as well read Gene Simmons's books...but this is the reality, I guess.
Conversely, the Minutemen seem like really, really nice guys. Smart, thoughtful, vibrant...but I can't imagine I'll ever like them as much as The Meat Puppets, let alone Black Flag. I got Double Nickels last year. It just.....um, I think the book adequately explains what happened. They heard Husker Du was doing a double album so they RUSHED TOGETHER a bunch of songs to compete with them. Which would explain why I love "Toadies" but....don't think much of the 12 songs that sound like demo versions of "Toadies". "Corona" (aka the JACKASS theme) and "History Lesson pt 2" are great too...but the rest...I dunno. They're such interesting guys, though, I would like to check out some of their other stuff.
VIEW 7 of 7 COMMENTS
All the fucking football player types loved Rollins 'cause he was like one of them...stoooopid and full of testosterone-fueled rage. They were basically considered a total poser band that could barely even play until Damaged came out. Damaged was sorta like GI (the first Germs album) when it came out. A total shock outta left field from a band that nobody really believed would translate to vinyl. Obviously, since Darby died, the Germs never followed up on GI. I would assert that Blag Flag never meaningfully followed up on Damaged either. I really don't think they ever recorded another decent album. I personally, find Rollins to be a joke. His "poetry" is hokey in the extreme and he has has no real musical talent.
D. Boon would have matured into a major artist if he had lived longer. The self-imposed strictures of the Minutemen's style (ultra-short songs, no production, etc.) prevented the full realization of D's songwriting vision. I believe that as he matured as an artist he would have grown more comfortable with a more "professional" approach and would have recorded his own "Nevermind" eventually. Plus, the Minutemen were supporters of the L.A. scene and were genuinely cool and unpretentious people. Just my opinion (of course, I'm always right