Chaka's Great Rock & Roll Screamers, Part One · Sep 29, 05:20 AM by Chaka
Reason I wished I live in New York #412: Jeanine Pirro. God damn, do stories of Republican self-immolation entertain me.
It dawned on me the other day that one of the key ingredients that separates rock & roll from other musical art forms is the scream. Let’s take a moment to celebrate three of my favorite bloodcurdlers and a handful of other appropriate tracks.
Loud, fast, rude, faster than a rolling O, stronger than silent E, the Sonics were responsible for some of the greatest rock & roll ever recorded. Throw your pets and your bible in the fucking trash, because both of the Sonics’ first two albums, Here Are The Sonics and Sonics Boom, are truly essential items all households need in order to become a home. Praise be to Bush’s Heavenly Buddy for bequeathing us rock & roll, because Sonics singer/keyboardist Gerry Roslie possessed (pun intended) perhaps the most unholy shriek in music history, and nobody yet has achieved the kind of immortality Roslie deserves by working in a haunted house. The idea that a rock & roll Hall of Fame exists without the Sonics being charter members really says it all about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Gerry Roslie makes just about every singer that came after him sound like Georgia Engel.
*mp3: The Sonics – The Witch*
Has any other band in rock history fallen as far as quickly as Le Tigre? Moby Grape, maybe. Soul Asylum, I suppose, though they never put out anything half as good as Le Tigre’s debut. Status Quo could be on that list, but they really morphed into a different band after their fab first record. Le Tigre’s second and (especially) third albums are so cluelessly awful that they’ve made me question the anomalous quality of their debut. What is beyond question, however, is Kathleen Hanna’s place among the Greatest Rock & Roll Screamers of All-Time. College Chaka once blew off a Bikini Kill show because it was at a venue deemed uncool by College Chaka, logic really only understandishable by College Chaka at this point. Enjoy Bikini Kill’s classic single, which prominently features Ms. (whew, almost said Miss!) Hanna’s slasher movie-quality scream.
*mp3: Bikini Kill – Rebel Girl*
Incongruous with the rest of the mid-80s Alternative Tentacles roster, gangbanging keglers the Part Time Christians were just what the doctor ordered for Adolescent Chaka. I can’t imagine being able to sit through both sides of their sole, brief EP, Rock & Roll Is Disco, nowadays, but one can’t deny lead screamer Cosmo’s full-on yell, which I assure you he maintains at this intensity and volume (and pitch, for that matter) record long. I couldn’t find a damn thing about PTC online, and their EP is long out of print. I imagine Cosmo probably died during one of their gigs after his guts prolapsed right out his ass because he was screaming so hard. Me, I’m gonna stay young until I die-eye-eye.
*mp3: Part Time Christians – Gutterball*
What if Michael Jackson said ‘fuck’ on a record and nobody cared?
*mp3: Michael Jackson – “Scream”
Enik and I saw D.C. hardcore legends Scream back in the day as part of a package show that also featured, if memory serves, Agent Orange and Soulside (a favorite of Teenage Chaka). I’ve wondered if Dave Grohl was at the traps for that show. If I ever meet Dave, that’ll be the first thing I ask him.
*mp3: Scream – Fight/American Justice*
A quick aside about Nirvana. I guess I’d have to say that overall I consider Nirvana an overrated band (though I like both of their Geffen studio records a lot). But one totally underrated aspect of Nirvana’s ascent was the fact that they rendered pop metal and other associated hair band acts completely irrelevant for ever after. Nobody, and I mean fucking nobody ever took bands like the Crue, Poison, Kiss, and that kind of tripe seriously again after Kurt Cobain showed up on the scene. Post-Nirvana, hair bands’ only option after regrouping was to embrace the irony of their bullshit. Hey, you guys, we’re camp! It was all an act all along! We were in on the joke, just like you were, right? Don’t forget – cock rock was the dominant commercial rock & roll movement at the time Nirvana broke. All of that was laid to waste by Hurricane Kurt. Whether you liked Nirvana or not (working at an indie label at the time, believe me that Nirvana was quite a polarizing act among hipsters), you have to admit that Cobain deserves a special place in the rock & roll pantheon for that alone.
After hearing about Screamin’ Jay’s offspring, numbering at least 75, it became clear to me what caused the former Jalacy Hawkins to wanna scream so much – his weiner was killing him. Screamin’ Jay used to emerge from a coffin at the beginning of his live shows a good thirty years before Glenn Danzig kicked himself for not coming up with the move on his own. An archived NPR piece outlines the triumphant story of Screamin’ Jay’s indefatigable DNA, but the website set up shortly after the coffin door closed on Jay for real to gather all the fruits of his loins (jayskids.com) is, alas, as dead as Screamin’ Jay himself.
*mp3: Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – I Put A Spell On You*
Don’t touch that dial – we’ll be right back with more great rock & roll screamers after these words from Super Sugar Crisp.
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