Lookin' Fer Trouble? Well You Found Me! Pt. 2

(Reprinted from the Hic-Up #7, January 2008)

"Sense surround sound in a two inch wall. I was waitin' for the communist call. I didn't ask for sunshine, and I got World War Three. I'm lookin' over the wall, and they're lookin' at me!"
-Sex Pistols

Everything's filtered. For instance the first wave of English punk bands didn't exhibit much if any of the tabloid inspired Bristish Punk Look. No mohawks. But the very next wave, which was inspired by the first wavers, were also filtered through the media blitz; so the Exploited and Sham 69 have a much more cliched look by today's standards. In 2008, there is over thirty-five years of filters upon filters. The reason my position is an enviable one is that through fifteen years of study and practice, I can fully comprehend and see through all filters, I mean, as far as rock and roll music is concerned.

"I see the velvet zippies in their bondage gear. The social elite with safety pins in their ear. I watch and understand that it don't mean a thing. The scorpions might attack, but the system's stole the sting. PUNK IS DEAD."
-Crass

That being said, it may be logically impossible to play punk rock today. Maybe the label can only truly be applied to the handful of original CBGB bands (Television, Richard Hell, Patti Smith, the Ramones, the Heartbreakers, the Dead Boys, not all of which actually play Punk music) and their Bristish prodigies (the Pistols, the Clash, the Damned). This filter disincludes many usual suspects, like the Stooges, MC5, Velvets, and the New York Dolls, and also means that everything that followed was something else, including the Angry Samoans, the Queers, and Explosive Kate. But, if those bands aren't playing punk rock, what the fuck is it? And what of the Dictators! I guess it's kinda semantical. None of those original bands really wanted to be called "punk" anyway, but everybody since has.

"Yeah you little copy cat, who do you think you are? You copy everything I do right down to my Jaguar. You little copy cat. Who do you copy, me. You copy everything I do, but you just can't cop my stuff."
-Johnny Thunders

Well screw it! In my band, the Headies, it's simple. We play rock and roll like Chuck Berry, but willingly embrace the filter of all the great punk (or whatever it was - Ramones, Vindictives, Plow United) I've listened to over the past long time, so, our rock and roll comes out undeniably punk rock, cause that is all I wanna do. We play it faster and louder, and have catchy and mean tunes that one can shake one's booty to. This, while a very broad template, can be found at the base of all the really good music. And conversely, if it ain't there, then the music ain't good, no matter what yer heathen ears tell ya. If it's quiet and slow, toss it out the window! I thought this was supposed to be America! "Experimental" style of punk a.k.a "indy" (such as scream-o, sonic thrash, hybrid metal, math rock, etc...) or whatever can't be seen as musical experimentation, but rather experimenting on who can stand around acting like it doesn't suck the longest. No post-modernism in rock and roll! B.B. King was experimental! I don't need to tell such erudite readers that the REAL GOOD comes from inside three chords and bringin' it fresher and bigger and prettier and meaner and cooler and that's what we're in it for, and that is punk rock.

"Robert Plant, a slimy fuck! John Bonham man, he really sucked! Those greedy fuckers. Those phony shits. They made their money off idiots. I hate Led Zeppelin."
- Ben Weasel

To be painfully clear, 99% of new music and old music suck dick. The filters upon filters have turned most American underground "musicians" brains to Swiss Cheese to the point where rock and roll is on life support, plugged directly into me. One filter says that Miles Davis was talented... ha! One filter says that Led Zeppelin was just a band and not a right wing dumbing-down conspiracy, (by the way, there was never such a person as this "John Bonham", I don't know where you got that one!) One filter says that the wheel needs reinventing. Well, guess what. They already did that. In 1973 the country's leading skateboard scientists introduced polyeurathane wheels to the populace, allowing America's youth greater speed and mobility whilst skateboarding. You could use 'em harder without breaking them. Also in 1973 the New York Dolls eponymous debut LP hit stores allowing America's youth greater speed and mobility in rock and roll. At this point, the invention phase concluded, and the wise need only to ride.

"Last week I was watching Saturday Night Live. There was this band, their singer had bleached hair. They were singin' about stuff I could relate to, so I put Bon Jovi in the trunk and taped the lock."
-Third Year Freshmen

Filter 1996: Act like you've been involved in punk rock since you were two years old. Filter 1999: Act like you've never been involved in punk rock ever. Filter 2001: "Maturely" accepting yourself and many facets of yer personality, water yerself down, "it's ALL good." I SAY NO! Any number of horrors can come out of this unholy dork-fuck formula, this catalyst for mediocrity and boring, atonal garbage. You can like whatever you wanna, but it might make you an idiot or a bad person or a waste of life, don't you agree?


"I gotta letter from Uncle Sam today. Grabs what he wants and he just won't stay away. I went down to the hop, the local disco show. Cause they won't ever stop, oh no. Go go go!"
-Angry Samoans

It's like the socio-political sitch in Iraq (stay with me please!). Under my main-man Saddam Hussein, you'd get yer tongue cut out for swearing and yer dick cut off for rape, etc... but under the Christian USA troops, you can't really even leave yer house without gettin' shot at. So, Sid Vicious was a brain-dead British teenager, heroin user (mark of the truly retarded), murderer, and Johnny Thunders (my musical hero) was a horrible junkie opportunist, and let's face it, racist. However, somehow I'd still rather have either Johnny, Sid, or Saddam baby-sitting my kids than you and yer boxing glove-fingering, I'm talkin' 'bout you Cursive and Mineral, From Autumn to Ashes and all the rest, shady hipster mutherfuckers!!

Lookin' Fer Trouble? Well You Found Me! Pt. I

(Reprinted from the Hic-Up #5, March 2007)

"I am right!" - Handsome Dick Manitoba

After a minor annoyance at work today got my sleepy brain to thinkin', I came to a shocking illumination: Libertarianism is fer suckers. Or maybe even worse. It was obvious to me that the only viable way to be is facist. Here's the deal: I want my freedom, damn it, and i sure as hell don't trust anybody or especially any group of people to get it for me.

"I'll be a pharaoh soon. Rule from some golden tomb. Things will be different then. The sun will rise from here. Then I'll be ten feet tall. And you'll be nothing at all." - Stiv Bators

So, I feel about the Ramones the way jihad-style dudes feels about Allah. And punk rock records are my Holy Book, not thematically devoid of my heroes desiring to be the only boy in an American ruling class. But, where Stiv and Handsome Dick only went so far as conceptualization, i will be the Pharoah Boy of the 21st Century, Benevolent Despot of the USA. The reason it's me is because i know something you don't.

"If you wanna do something right, you gotta do it yerself or someone else will fuck it up." - Ben Weasel

Libertarianism, in the classic John Mill sense can be summed up as miding one's own buisiness. This sounds great and what not, but minding one's own business never gave forth to anything affectual outside of one's own self, and what's more, I simply can not do it! I have negative and aggressive opinions about fucking everything and have a hard time not expounding upon them. Anyhoo, libertarianism is thusly essentially selfish (and therefore exclusive), whereas facism is the ethos that cares about you! I may fancy myself a misantrope but i love my team! I am a utopian, but only my utopia, because, seriously, yer not up to the job.

"I hate freedom. I pine to be enslaved" - Lewis Black

I hate normal people, and think they should be phased out. The hive mind that diseases most humans, indicated by college degrees, office work, marraige, glass-jawed, spineless nerds should not be ignored or tolerated! They used to say "Live and let live," but I say that ain't livin' and neither is standing by and letting mediocrity goose step its way down Main Street. So here it is... if yer cool, yer cool and if yer not, all we need is a written or video-taped admission that you are just waiting to die. You hook it up and we check you off and all is good. If not my Secret Police will take you in yer sleep.

"I wanna be loved!" - Johnny Thunders

After all of this, for some reason I still don't wanna be a jerk. In the kitchen I work in, if I ever told people what they should do in order to make the kitchen work like a Swiss watch, and if they actually listened and did it, then, you know, it would. BUT i never tell nobody nuthin'! And not because i have libertarian tendencies blocking my will, but simply because i want everone to like me.

"Oh, Weekend. In his room he'll have to stay. Dreamin when he's king he'll say, Everyday is Saturday!" - The Dictators

I will redevelop America into a scientific futurist society with and kick-butt scientific board to keep me abreast of cryptozoological findings. I will disarm the populous, because the only legit reason to carry firearms is to fight an oppressive government, and i don't want nobody shootin; at me! I will name trusted Murphazious to be my Reverend of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Alcohol to handle to disarmament. I will introduce African Big Cats to America's forests and mountains to keep population issues under control. I will study the human brain to determine how learning takes place and develop a device to increase said function, increasing my already stellar detective skills and those of the People. I will fund Mexico's military and give them nuclear capabilities and they will forever have our back, USA + Mexico=Best Friend Countries.

"I'm the King... the King Cry Baby." - Wade "Cry Baby" Walker

My only concern is that I may have turned that dreaded corner. Like in that recent issue of Ultimate Spider-Man when Nick Fury told him that he was more-or-less a bad-guy waiting to happen, with all the psycological b.s. he'd been through, he was likely to have snapped and lashed out on the fakockta world that doesn't understand him. But he didn't and Fury was proud of him. So I worry, have I snapped? It feels to me like i'm just hangin' on.