Ghost plane war machine piss bag · Oct 30, 10:21 PM by Don
Want to see new places? Meet new people? Travel the globe on a private jet? (Live in a coffin-sized jail cell for ten months?) Simply get yourself kidnapped by the CIA as a terror suspect! You’ll be living in a foreign country in less than 24 hours! In all seriousness, a recent Fresh Air piece in which Terry Gross interviews British journalist Stephen Grey about his book, Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program, is essential listening for all you patriots out there. Click here.
I recently saw the documentary American Hardcore. If you were a teenager in the early eighties, there is a chance you listened (or were at least exposed to) to hardcore music. The film is informative, but it tends to drag. In particular, I grew bored of all the macho self-congratulation (a complaint I had about the skate doc, Dogtown and Z-Boys). A clear theme in the music is rebelling against Ronald Reagan. I think the current equivalent to hardcore may be the music made by bands like The Locust and An Albatross, who skewer anything even remotely safe or predictable. I saw The Locust at a 2001 show at Rice University in Houston. The band’s music – a piercing nightmare blend of hardcore speed, screeched vocals, and highly incongruous synthesizers – somehow simultaneously repulsed and entranced me. An Albatross employs a similar formula. The television analogue might just be MTV2’s Wonder Showzen with its queasy blend of the Cute and the Grotesque. Sometimes this music is the perfect soundtrack for a world that feels like it’s falling apart.
mp3: The Locust – Wet Dream War Machine
mp3: The Locust – Earwax Halo Manufactured for the Champion in All of Us
mp3: An Albatross – Hairobics
During a recent visit to my local record store, I grabbed several old issues of CMJ New Music Monthly in the “free” box. It was fun to sift through and find a few songs to add to the iTunes library (like “Hairobics” by An Albatross). Mike Watt’s song, “Piss Bags and Tubing” from The Secondman’s Middle Stand, came on as I was driving. It took me a bit to recognize that it was the voice of Mike Watt (featured in American Hardcore). I always liked his loose, general definition of punk, that punk is less a genre and more of a mindset. To be punk was to be different. If you’re doing something different, than you’re punk. This hypnotic song about his recent bladder infection betrays Watt’s love of jazz while building to a rock opera climax. It is so different from the music that earned him a spot in American Hardcore, so it must be punk, right?
mp3: Mike Watt – Piss Bags and Tubing
Mea culpa: I’ve been severely lax in posting about concerts I’ve attended, the last four being Jenny Lewis, The Evens, Lisa Germano, and Negativland. I shall remedy that soon.
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