What We Do Is Secret

About five years ago I saw a listing on Craigslist looking for punk rock people to come out to L.A. and be extras in the movie they were making about the Germs. Now, I have no particular affinity for the Hollywood punk scene, though as a punk rock historian I appreciate it quite a bit. Still, it was convoluted and short lived, in its original form. In New York in the 1970's, after a couple months in, the press was just picking up on it, so you didn't get less intelligent, less creative, less tortured kids coming out of Long Island after seeing it on the 5 o'clock news and inventing hardcore before the scene could gel. That happened later. But out in Hollywood, they had a comparative scene about a year lagging, so the Sex Pistols had been happening, etc... and fashion punkery had already been engaged. Sure, there were luminaries like X and the Germs, and notable the Weirdos and the Stranglers, but even their best music was deliberate and dirge like, angry and rarely tongue-in-cheek, lacking in the pop sensibilities of their East Coast and English counterparts. You know, albums full of major-chord progression power chords. Worse still was the influx of Orange County, suburban beach punks that dumbed it all down. But still, the Germs, right! When Tit Patrol was living on North Street in Newark, the walls were all spray painted, my breakfast, lunch, and dinner all came in 40 oz. containers, and Video Showplace rented eight VHS tapes for eight dollars for eight nights, so one of our most frequent pick-ups was Penelope Spheeris' "The Decline of Western Civilization", the documentary about the turning of the Hollywood scene from the older artistic nihilists to the younger "get fucked up" crew. The Germs, X, and Black Flag performances are awesome, and the time spent with the bands off stage is even way better, even though the famous scene in which Darby makes breakfast and his "roommate" talks about the dead painter they found was a ruse. Darby's actual roommate was Tony the Hustler, but he didn't want the documentary showing him being gay in any way. In "Decline" Darby Crash is definitely the hero of the movie, but it's a facade. I tried to get Karl to drive me out to Hollywood to audition for the movie, but he had to work, so we didn't do it.

Years later, I'm listening to G.I. and get an inkling to check the Germs movie out. Now, some movies make you uncomfortable in a way that takes away from the film. Todd Solenz's "Storytelling" is a great example. That scene with super-cutie, flat-chested Selma Blair and the large black dude is, for my money, too exploitative and gross. And I like exploitative and gross! "Kids" also is unbelievably sucky in that same "aren't we real, so real and bad" way. Some movies make you uncomfortable in a good way that engages you, "Psycho" being the obvious, and way out of the league, example. "What We Do Is Secret" is not uncomfortable in either of these ways, it's not uncomfortable at all. It's kinda like the Germs meets "Mean Girls." They kept pretty close to the Germs plot as I know it: Two kids gets kicked out of an L.A. hippy Scientology school for "mind control", convincing the other students that they were God and his son, Jesus, they decide to start a band to enact one of their's "five year plan", they recruit valley girls to fill out the band, rename themselves Bobby Pyn, then Darby Crash and Pat Smear, become the Germs (after Nietzsche's "germ of an idea"), play a terrible first show at the Orpheum with the Damned in the audience at which Darby does his best Iggy Pop, gain popularity after Darby cuts the shit out of his chest (also like Iggy) at the Masque, start to draw and incite their audience into riots, make a record produced by Joan Jett, can't get booked due to reputation, Darby breaks up the band and goes to England where he becomes a New Romantic, comes back and forms the Darby Crash Band, who suck, does one more Germs show reunion to make a lot of cash, reveals the telos of his five-year plan as suicide, an intentional heroin overdose, meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, on that same day John Lennon was shot, dooming Darby to obscurity. The whole thing is framed by a pre-suicide Darby interview, conducted by Slash Magazine's Kickboy Face, and Darby narration which is him reading from Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil". He reveals in the interview that his motivation is political, not on a nationwide scale, but on the level of personal relationships. His Germs lyrics are his message, that the only way to succeed on a national or personal level is through fascism, and he is the ideal fascist leader, to his "circle" of friends. Darby is also obsessed with the cyclical nature of things, as shown through the blue "Circle One" Germs logo that he and his band and extended followers wear on armbands or spray paint on the wall or burn into your arm with a cigarette when you are family.

The storytelling of the movie is actually really good, though how accurately it portrays how the characters enacted is in question. They all act like kids, and I guess they were. Unlike the older, more sophisticated New York scene led by artists, poets, and addicts who then made music, these guys were right out of high school, emulating artists and once in a while, becoming one. In Darby's case, relying on the direction of inner demons, and as for the rest of the Germs, it would seem, relying on their belief in Darby and their love of the Germs, in a classic "we're all in this together" mentality. They are all portrayed as wildly naive, babes at Darby's teet, and though he could talk a big game, he was just as naive as anyone. Richard Hell was a manipulator concerned with art and by extension, himself. Darby Crash was a manipulator concerned with himself, and by extension, art. So, they do all this well, and make it well worth watching, but the problem for me lies in this being a movie about punk rock, but not being a punk rock movie. Everybody is a lamb, so tame and self-questioning. The Germs come off as as nice as, or nicer, than me, and far more conservative. When I first heard the story of Darby Crash, it made me uncomfortable. This highly, highly charismatic dude who uses his power to manipulate everyone around him into thinking he is a genius, knowing the whole while he was gonna abandon them all. In real life, he used real-deal mind control techniques derived from L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology, which his high school was theoretically based on, to coerce a group of friends and admirers into a cult-like clique young Darby named Circle One. He idolized Charles Manson, and Circle One was primarily female, and when punk came to Hollywood, this became the Germs fan base. See, in the time elapsed since the seventies, since the first punk rock movement, alot has changed. For one, nothing is musically shocking anymore. The most shocking thing is Lady Gaga because she is pop as fuck but says way iller shit, better said, than Britney Spears or even Saves the Day ever would. What I would consider shocking is a fully functioning real rock and roll band that is all new, all now, but fully aware of their place in American Cultural history. What else has changed is that it is definitely not cool to have minions anymore. It is very not punk rock. Using your charisma to manipulate yourself into a darling persona, no matter how deconstructed, is passe, and not fun at all. What's cool is a non-self aware self-derivative persona that would organically line up and be accessorized by one's own grasp of recent history, (re:pop culture?), and may the best person prosper. This movie is just fun. It doesn't really take you to any given dark side, or give you insight into the depths of Darby's depravity. It just has him as the best writer in his group of friends who managed to pull of some antics, and ended up taking himself too seriously, but it's, you know, based on a true story and so it works.

Interestingly enough, after the movie was made, Shane West, the dude playing Darby, changed his name to Shane Wreck and officially joined the remaining Germs (thirty years older!) to tour and play big corporate events like Warped Tour. I'm pretty sure that that is one big reason why Darby offed himself, so such lameness would never occur with the Germs moniker. If the real Darby Crash had any semi-spoken lyrical theme, anti-institutionalism would be a big one. Even though West looks like a prettier Darby and can emulate the sounds he made, it is a pretty big disgrace. Unlike the Ramones, who I would have happily seen at any age with any bassist (Dee Dee forever, though!), I would only wanna see the Germs with Darby Crash, preferably younger than 22. It's really not the music or lyrics that made the Germs so awesome, it was the conglomeration of what they were saying, when they were saying it, how they were saying it, and who was delivering the message. I like Darby's lyrics, but this is one subject on which I am jaded. I mean, I've heard it said over and over again so many times since, were the Germs really the first to lay that style of lyric down? If so, he definitely has a wildly distinctive lyrical voice that may rank as the most imitated in punk rock, and if so, and it would have been a brave artistic move to expose your pain and especially anger in such an open and vulnerable and visibly poetic way, especially when disco ruled the airwaves. So many years later, these themes and techniques Darby pioneered have been made crude, but his lines are still elegant and the work of a natural. I won't undersell him on this point: Darby Crash was hyper-intelligent. From a very young age he read Hitler, Nietzsche, Hesse, Crowley and crafted his philosophy, or non-philosophy. The real Darby Crash explains, "It's a way of life. Fascist is totally extreme right. We're not extreme right. Maybe there's a better word for it that I haven't found yet, but I'm still going to have complete control . . . One day you'll pray to me." The movie shows Darby using typed lyric sheets as his most frequent form of promotion. Such as:

I'm a lexicon devil with a battered brain
And I'm searchin' for a future-the world's my aim
So gimme gimme your hands-
Gimme gimme your minds
Gimme gimme this-
Gimme gimme tha-yea-yea-t...

I want toy tin soldiers that can push and shove
I want gunboy rovers that'll wreck this club
I'll build you up and level your heads
We'll run it my way-cold men and politics dead...

I'll get silver guns to drip old blood
Let's give this established joke a shove
We're gonna wreak havoc on the rancid mill
I'm searchin' for something even if I'm killed...

Empty out your pockets-you don't need their change
I'm giving you the power to rearrange
Together we'll run to the highest prop
Tear it down and let it drop...away...

There are some good scenes in the movie though. The Germs on air with Rodney on the ROQ is mega-cheesy and funny, and Darby dealing with his homosexuality is precious. This movie would have me believe that he died a virgin! One of the best, most punk aspects of the movie is the near inability of the actors to act. They are at like "Saved By the Bell" levels of acting ability, and that is one thing that makes it more real. Like in Chuck Klosterman says in his "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs," anything important is inevitably a cliche and probably doesn't reflect reality, but in (not) doing so it actually does reflect reality, which is not very real at all. Maybe the film makers are right on after all. If you watched the movie on YouTube (as I did) and you read the comments (like I did), you're bombarded by the holier-than-thou and punk-as-fuck who voice their insignificant opinions based on their punk rock pedigree that you would assume involves getting shot up by Darby himself, based on their self-righteousness, with Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong as their sacrificial lamb. Don't mind their crassly-typed psuedo thoughts, they're neither here nor there. Some legitimate gripes would include that the Germs all look like models, with Lorna Doom being played by Bijou Phillips. The Germs were young and good-looking, but this layer of gloss would be an example of the bone of contention between the filmmaker and the wannabe complain-o punks. They paint drummer Don Bolles as a happy-go-lucky moron, but I understand he was the compulsive bad dude himself. More to the point, the movie has Darby singing into the mike whenever on stage. I think that the Germs are more well known for Darby's avoidance of the microphone than they are for Darby's suicide or their music. Plus, you could easily get thrown off by the ludicrous dialogue and its hackneyed, amateurish delivery, but why? This is a movie about the Germs, not "Pet Sounds".

"Annihilation Man" by Brendan Mullen

Watch "What We Do Is Secret"

The Headies @ Mojo 13 on Friday the 13th

Come out to Mojo 13 on Friday the 13th for more spoooooky fun with yer pals the Headies! Four bands total, but two of which had names far too long to cut out of the News Journal and Wizard Magazine.

S.H.O.T. @ the Spot 7/25/09

You know I wear my heart on my sleeve and rarely play the cool kid game like my elders before me, so I say straight up: I love S.H.O.T. and feel very fortunate to have them! Please keep up the great work! Even the Main Man says they are tops!

Pro Shot Headies!

Here's some shots that my adored kid brother, professional photographer Paddy Robinson, took of us Headies at the Spot for Deco Design's segment of the Wilmington Art Loop. Great job Pat... and come dig the Headies at the next Art Loop, July 3, 2009!

The Tao of Boogie

When people begin to identify themselves with a type of music, particularly if it has an accompanying fashion or lifestyle, they get real exclusionary. I should know, outwardly I have portrayed a "punk rock or fuck you" mentality. Blame my upbringing if you must, not by my parents, but the scene I came up in, and my own superiority complex. This is a front, of course, and is in direct violation of my doctrine of infinite possibilities, and my boss would tan my hide if she thought I was for real. The best stuff is always a conglomeration. Sure, the Ramones are the Platonic Form of punk rock and the best band there will ever be, but they are just a mix of the Beach Boys, girl groups, bubblegum and rock and roll (played louder and faster, duh). So if you say "punk rock only, fuck bubblegum" then you are contradicting yourself, and the web gets more tangled with the more statements or commitments you make, and you'll surely end up liking something you don't want yourself to like. One may identify his illusory self as a punk rocker, and anything that threatens that illusion might be combated. Now, I am a hard-ass for what is good, in my opinion, and if it ain't good in my opinion, it ain't good. But blanket statements are for Republicans, and there is a way, a path, a thread of the good that stretches from it's inception in American blues music all the way to me, and is exemplified in the near 17,000 songs in my iTunes, and in my Meta-Pop band the Headies.

1994 featured the perfect storm for Pop Punk music. First and foremost, Kurt Cobain, the lead singer from Nirvana and main figurehead/proprietor of the Grunge branch of Alternative music, had recently blown his brains out. The Northwest branch of Underground music had gotten huge during the Synth-Pop soaked nineteen eighties and from '88-Cobain's suicide had offered, in conjunction with major American recording labels, especially Geffen (in an attempt to be the 1990's answer to Seymour Stein/Danny Fields Era Sire Records), an "alternative" to the obvio-pop of Michael Jackson. But the caveat was that everybody had to take themselves so seriously that the only way out was suicide. I was a tween before that word existed and had some vague recollection of listening to "Never Mind the Bullocks" on a Fisher Price turntable in the previous decade, knew that that was called "punk rock" and that maybe their was something even better than WMMR playing "Ziggy Stardust" if you were lucky. I knew that I liked WOGL, Oldies 98.1 best of all, specifically "Johnny B. Goode", "Walk Like a Man", "Hang On Sloopy", and "Wild Thing". I knew that there was something these songs were offering that not Nirvana, nor any of their contemporaries, from Seattle or Elsewhere, were not. Something melodious and genital oriented.

Grunge and Alternative was originally played by members of Generation-X, in my estimation those born between 1965 and 1976, children of the Baby Boomers, children of divorce and the cold war and feeling sorry for yourself. But then we all became teenagers and he killed himself and were named Generation Next by Bubblegum heroes the Spice Girls and we needed something that sounded happy but indeed was not. Hence the Pop-Punk boom and everything getting (musically) good for a little while before giving way to Emo (Dashboard Confessional, Thursday, Thrice, Jimmy Eat World), Bro-Core (Limp Bizkit, Korn, Rage Against the Machine), and Nuevo-Pop (Brittany Spears (no offense Brittany!), N*Sync, Christina Aguilara, Backstreet Boys). So, I had found the thread of the good and began the process of doing my homework, following it back as far as it would go and examining every fiber along the way. Easier said than done though. For instance, who do you listen to? Not which bands, but which opinions. Plow United was the best of the best West Chester/Wilmington band ever, and those dudes HATED Rancid, but I sure liked 'em! But Sean's dislike probably backed me off of the street punk sub genre and their mascot Tim Armstrong, just a little bit. Rancid's new album "Let the Dominoes Fall" just came out, or is about to, but I've listened to it five or so times and still can't get a grip on it. They milk their blue-collar image with songs for and about military people, people fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. The opener is a new Rancid classic, be it on well-worn territory, "East Bay Night" is a 10 out of 10, all there great punk song. I still love Tim's vocals, but I can't believe, as I did on the first three Rancid albums, that he is not completely self-aware of his unique mumble-growl delivery. When I thought he just couldn't help it it worked better. That's the downfall of Rancid. "And Out Come the Wolves..." is the masterpiece and all else pales in comparison to that unaware, all-natural, all-real, can't even tell that their trying punk rock record, which Sean Rule hated. It's gotta be hardest on the true believers. I was talking to Dave Wrighteous the other night, bonafide legend in my eyes, taught me so much about punk rock, and I respect and love him very much. Dave is actually extra-spectacular as a dead in the middle member of Generation X who is a no-nonsense punk rocker and always has been. He was telling me how he saw 1994 as a real downturn in Pop Punk, as his favorite bands put out, in his opinion, their worst albums, citing Mr. T Experience's "Love is Dead" and Ben Weasel's then-new The Riverdales first album. These are, of course to me, two of the best albums of all time and my favorite MTX record! It's that kind of quantum criticism that makes the grey areas so crystal clear and possibility reaffirming.

Perhaps the biggest victim of the Pop Punker's (all of us by the way just figure we are straight up punk rockers and the Pop is implied) cool kidness and pariah inflictability is Ska music. Specifically Third Wave Ska became the grandest scapegoat, the red-headed step child of the punk scene. I guess ska zigged when America's youth zagged, the "Let's Go Bowling" sticker came off Joel Tannenbaum's bass, and Operation Ivy (featuring Tim from Rancid, then Lint, duh) became the only acceptable ska-core to listen to. So, like an asshole, I didn't do my homework. So I didn't know there was a reason that OPIV song is called "Sound System". See, in the beginning, the very beginning of ska music, before their were those kinds of bands in Jamaica, big shot impresarios like Duke Reed and Clement Dodd would utilize giant roving sound systems on trucks for mobile dances playing American R & B singles they had shipped in. In this way Jamaican youth got way hip and into the sounds of Black America. In order to maintain the superiority of their own business, these dudes would hire Rude Boys to go screw up their competitors dances, and these disruptors became known as "Dance Hall Crashers" who would three decades later be featured on the Angus Soundtrack along with the best ever Green Day song, "J.A.R." the prospect of hearing which kept me glued to my radio and WDRE 103.9 Modern Rock all summer long. Anyway, ska is another one of those magnificent conglomerations. These Jamaican hip cats had a great knowledge of R & B and even Modern Jazz due to their Sound System heroes and took what they learned, like the twelve bar blues and boogie bass, and mixed it with the indigenous Mento's off-beat syncopated rhythm guitar and piano, playing it faster and louder, and ska music was born.

In 1962 Jamaica regained it's independence from the U.K. and the Jamaican government used ska as a diplomatic tool to represent it's people. And indeed it was the music of the people, heavily infused with the street-level politics of Jamaica as often as it was about gettin' high on ganja or the rub and squeeze. The people referring in part to the original Rude Boys, which like skinhead, ended up being more than one incarnation of ideals. Jamaican Rude Boys were characteristically out of work and reactionary towards economic tensions, rebel kids who emulated American Hollywood gangster movies with black suits, thin ties, and pork pie hats. It is said that the aggression of the Rude Boys and their dance moves drove ska into a more aggressive less boogie driven area. Ska faded in popularity in its native Jamaica and made way for Rocksteady, which reflected the more polished sounds of American Soul being imported at the time, and then to Reggae, but continued popularity abroad, specifically England, with it's large Jamaican population and a British Youth scene in the 1960's that craved that which was hip. At the end of the next decade ska made a comeback in popularity in England, now infused with the still fresh Punk Rock sound. British Ska became known as Two-Tone, due to the British bands emulation of the black and white Rude Boy style as well as the characteristically multiracial line-ups in the genre's bands, like The Beat, The Selector, The Specials, and Bad Manners. It was during this time period that Ska achieved it's ultimate perfect sound, perhaps only topped by Operation Ivy themselves.

OPIV is probably responsible not only for the Third Wave Ska revival but also Pop Punk's elevation as well. I mean, Chrimpshrine wasn't gonna be the band. the Dead Kennedy's and Black Flag and Minor Threat could never do what OPIV did, pave the way for good clean punk, guaranteed to stick. but really that's just part of the thread. It's interesting how much of an umbrella term punk has become. It's been argued that the only true punk bands would be the CBGB's guys and their British prodigies. And certainly ska happened in the 1960's and was revived in the late seventies and early nineties, due to it's close proximity to the ideals and temperaments of punk rock fans. Tied closely with the two is Mod. Mods in England were many of them ska fans, and the Mod Revival correlated with the Ska revival, but like punk, can you really be Mod if you aren't existing in mid-1960's England? No. Can you really be rock and roll if you aren't existing in the mid 1950's? Probably not either, but that's not really a bad thing. You're something more than any of those, you're a conglomeration. By existing within the Tao of Boogie and fully living and breathing American Blues, R and B, Rock and Roll, Ska, Soul, Girl Groups, British Invasion, Mod, American Garage, Bubblegum, Punk, 2-Tone, Hip Hop, Underground, Pop Punk, and especially the Hyper Pop manifestos of Lady Gaga, you are the new hip, not the what's next, the what's now.

Count von Count @ Last 46 Madison Show

Here they are, the only band around that can rock as hard as Tit Patrol, J-Vav, Chris Crust, and Tommy von Count, Wilmington's own: Count von Count!

Performance of the Day - GREEN DAY!

Today's performance of the day, the biggest punk rock band in the world, GREEN DAY! Performing songs off their stellar 21st Century Breakdown album at a secret show in Berlin. This is, in my oppinion, a high quality live video. Except for how they cut off the end of 'em and some beginnings. Included for your convenience, lyrics to all the songs courtesy of 21stcenturybreakdownlyricsgreenday.blogspot.com. Though not too convenient if you want to read and watch at the same time. This is just to whet yer whistle though, as I am working on an all new confessional religio-document concerning Green Day, the Ramones, and me. It's posts like this that make me glad no one can comment!

"American Eulogy"


Sing us the song of the century
That sings like American eulogy
The dawn of my love and conspiracy
Of forgotten hope and the class of 13
Tell me a story into that goodnight
Sing us a song for me

Mass Hysteria
Mass Hysteria
Mass Hysteria
Mass Hysteria

Red alert is the color of panic
Elevated to the point of static
Beating into the hearts of the fanatics
And the neighborhood's a loaded gun
Idle thought leads to full-throttle screaming
And the welfare is asphyxiating
Mass confusion is all the new rage
And it's creating a feeding ground
For the bottom feeders of hysteria

Mass Hysteria
Mass Hysteria
Mass Hysteria
Mass Hysteria

True sounds of maniacal laughter
And the deaf-mute is misleading the choir
The punch line is a natural disaster
And it's sung by the unemployed
Fight fire with a riot
The class war is hanging on a wire
Because the martyr is a compulsive liar
When he said
"It's just a bunch of niggers throwing gas into the hysteria"

Mass Hysteria
Mass Hysteria
Mass Hysteria
Mass Hysteria

There's a disturbance on the oceanside
They tapped into the reserve
The static response is so unclear now
Mayday this is not a test!
As the neighborhood burns, American is falling
Vigilantes warning you
Calling Christian and Gloria

I don't want to live in the modern world
I don't want to live in the modern world
I don't want to live in the modern world
I don't want to live in the modern world

I'm the class of 13 In the era of dissent
A hostage of the soul On a strike to pay the rent
The last of the rebels Without a common ground
I'm gonna light a fire Into the underground

I don't want to live in the modern world
I don't want to live in the modern world
I don't want to live in the modern world
I don't want to live in the modern world

I am a nation without bureaucratic ties
Deny the allegation as it's written

I want to take a ride to the great divide
Beyond the "up to date" And then neo-gentrified
The high definition for the low resident
Where the value of your mind Is not held in contempt

I can hear the sound of A beating heart
That bleeds beyond a system That's falling apart
With money to burn on a minimum wage
'Cause I don't give a shit about the modern age

I don't want to live in the modern world
I don't want to live in the modern world
I don't want to live in the modern world
I don't want to live in the modern world

"21st Century Breakdown"


Born into Nixon, I was raised in hell.
A welfare child where the teamsters dwelled.
The last one born, the first one to run,
My dad/town was blind by refinery sun.

My generation is zero.
I never made it as a working class hero
21st century breakdown
I once was lost but never was found.
I think I'm losing what's left of my mind.
to the 20th century deadline.

I was made of poison and blood.
Condemnation is what I understood
From Mexico to the Berlin Wall
Homeland security could kill us all.

My generation is zero.
I never made it as a working class hero.
21st century breakdown,
I once was lost but never was found.
I think I'm losing what's left of my mind.
to the 20th century deadline.

We are the cries of the class of 13
born in the era of humility
we are the desperate in the decline
raised by the bastards of 1969!!!

My name is no one, your long lost son
Born on the 4th of July
raising the bygones of heroes and cons
left me for dead or alive

There is the war that's inside my head
that questions the results and lies
While breaking my back til I'm damn near well dead
When enough ain't enough to survive.

I am an agent, a worker, a pawn
my debt to the status quo
the scars on my hands are a means to an end
it's all that I have to show

I'm taking a loan on my sanity
for the redemption of my soul
well I am exempt from this tragedy
and the 21st century fall

Praise, Liberty
the freedom to obey
it's a song that strangles me
well, don't cross the line

Oh, dream American dream
I can't even sleep/see
from brainstorms/rainstorms til dawn
Oh, bleed America bleed
believe what you read
from heroes and cons.

"The Static Age"


Can you hear the sound of the static noise?
Blasting out in stereo
Cater to the class and the paranoid
Music to my nervous system
Advertising love and religion
Murder on the airwaves
Slogans on the brink of corruption
Vision of blasphemy, war and peace
Screaming at you

I can't see a thing in the video
I can't hear a sound on the radio
In stereo in the static age

Billboard on the rise in the dawn's landscape
Working your insanity
Tragic a'la madness and concrete
Coca Cola execution
Conscience on a cross and
You're hearts in a vice
Squeezing out your state of mind
Are what you own that you cannot buy?
What a fucking tragedy, strategy
Screaming at you.

I can't see a thing in the video
I can't hear a sound on the radio
In stereo in the static age

Hey hey it's the static age
This is how the west was won
Hey hey it's the static age millennium

All I want to know
Is a God-damned thing
Not what's in the medicine
All I want to do is
I want to breathe
Batteries are not included
What's the latest way that a man can die
Screaming hallelujah?
Singing out "The dawn's early light"
The silence of the rotten, forgotten
Screaming at you.

I can't see a thing in the video
I can't hear a sound on the radio
In stereo in the static age

"Last of the American Girls"


She puts her makeup on
Like graffiti on the walls of the heartland
She's got her little book of conspiracies
Right in her hand
She is paranoid like
Endangered species headed into extinction
She is one of a kind
She's the last of the American girls

She wears her overcoat
For the coming of the nuclear winter
She is riding her bike
Like a fugitive of critical mass
She's on a hunger strike
For the ones who won't make it for dinner
She makes enough to survive
For a holiday of working class

She's a runaway of the establishment incorporated.
She won't cooperate
She's the last of the American girls

She plays her vinyl records
Singing songs on the eve of destruction
She's a sucker for
All the criminals breaking the laws
She will come in first
For the end of western civilization
She's an endless war
Like a hero for the lost cause
Like a hurricane
In the heart of the devastation
She's a natural disaster
She's the last of the American girls

She puts her makeup on
Like graffiti on the walls of the heartland
She's got her little book of conspiracies
Right in her hand
She will come in first
For the end of western civilization
She's a natural disaster
She's the last of the American girls

Band of the Day - the MC5!!

If you got lame in yer ears, blast that stuff out with the MC5, arguably the band where which it all started. When you look at pre-Ramones rock and roll music, their is a definite schism between the hardest bands of the sixties like the Who, Jimi Hendrix, the Yardbirds, or even the Sonics, and the dangerous intensity that the MC5 brought to the game. They started as a psychedelic rhythm and blues rock and roll band out of Detroit with all its music history, and they echoed it with hard riffy jams and excellent dance moves. Kinda sorta hand in hand with the Five was New York's the Velvet Underground, who played a nearly diametrically opposed form of anti-pop, and also specialized in dangerous intensity onstage. These got hyper-distilled and filtered through amateur musicians to creep closer towards perfection in the form of Iggy and the Stooges, and then one more step with the New York Dolls. As these bands directly followed the British Invasion/Girl Group era, their sounds may have held rejections of most of the melodic lessons therein, but one of the strands that connects these bands I've mentioned is their natural adeptness at rock and roll, that is they are rock and roll fans with big hearts and sharp minds, who distilled their own selves, embracing every right step with angry sentiment, and vehemently casting aside that which strays from how that rock and roll music is supposed to be, and taking it very seriously and personally.

The MC5 started with a couple of very thrashy rockin' singles that set them apart as the hardest band in the world, and so thoroughly American that no Led Zeppelin nor Black Sabbath could ever hope to match them. And though punk rock may have officially been recorded for the first time on their live LP "Kick Out the Jams" when on the title track Rob Tyner exclaims, "Kick Out the Jams, Motherfuckers!", the rest of the album is good at best, still bogged down by the remnants of psychedelia in the Five's writing. As much of a detriment as that may have been, the MC5's involvement with stereotypical 1960's left wing political organizations is part of what made them so cool. They were members of the White Panther Party, committed to aiding the Black Panthers if need be. They played for eight hours when riots broke out at the 1968 Democratic National Convention because no other bands showed up. They set a precedent that if you're gonna be involved or play this kind of rock and roll music, you'd better be down, or you're probably not really cool. But, they don't fully step into musical modernity until their second LP "Back in the U.S.A." It starts with a Little Richard cover ("Tutti Frutti") and ends with a Chuck Berry cover ("Back in the U.S.A.") and in between are eight two and a half minute teenage epics played catchier and harder than they had been before or since. The gem of the album is "High School" ("They only wanna shake it up baby!") as heard in the Ramones movie "Rock and Roll High School", but each one sounds entirely different from the one before, and help to reshape the youth of the world's idea of rock and roll after Sgt. Pepper bent it all outta shape. "Back in the U.S.A." is by my estimation the first full punk rock records, and an inductee into the Danthology Hall of Fame!

When picking out which videos to feature, there is no doubt that this one is the greatest, due first to our host, Gail, and second because it's the stellar opening track off "Kick Out the Jams", the rave-up cover of Nat "King" Cole's "Ramblin' Rose" with Wayne Kramer's falsetto and crotch grab! Live from Detroit 1970.
"Ramblin' Rose"

From the same show, out comes one of the greatest white front men of all time, Rob Tyner, and...
"Kick Out the Jams"

One of my favorites off "Back in the U.S.A.", it's pretty clear they're lyp syncing, but it's still cool. I want the Headies to cover this one!
"The American Ruse"

One more off "Back in the U.S.A.", it's a little later from 1972, I wish there was a lot more of the Five to see... luckily there's always new Tit Patrol!
"Tonight"

Super Crucial Information

Ha! I did some digging and found the rest of my 1990's flyers! Starting with the first Anomaly Show put on by Brian and Josh from the Shoplifters at the Brandywine Blvd. VFW. Still to this day the best show I've ever been to... and somehow Joel Tannenbaum thinks that is lame.