to celebrate our long-awaited first encounter with 80's hardcore punk, i present some bonus material: the amazing poolside chats episode with TSOL singer and punk veteran jack grisham.
black flag's awesomeness is completely self-evident. but just in case it's lost on anybody, let's do a little bit of lyrical analysis:
"see if you can find the key to your mother's liquor cabinet" -- thirsty and miserable
this is obviously a statement about the berlin wall and the locks that political disagreements create, keeping each of us from truly connecting with other human beings. the depression of isolation inherent in the tone is notably striking, as is the desperate longing for personal connection.
"i got a six pack and nothing to do/i got a six pack and i don't need you" -- six pack
here rollins & co. turn the lens inward, exploring the importance of emotionally rejecting those who have already rejected us. haunting images of hatred as a coping mechanism contrasted sharply against a realistic landscape of substance abuse, this song is the lyrical equivalent wyeth's 1999 "long limb."
"we're gonna have a tv party tonight (alright!)/we're gonna have a tv party alright (tonight!)" -- tv party
marking yet another radical tonal shift, black flag moves to whimsical word-play, adding back-ground vocals to break the pentameter line structure while "giving away" the AA rhyme scheme. it's best not to deconstruct this one too much, however, but just accept it as a fun exercise, akin t.s. eliot's "gus the theatre cat," one of his better-known delvings into children's lit. below:
Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door. His name, as I ought to have told you before, Is really Asparagus. That's such a fuss To pronounce, that we usually call him just Gus.
"gimme gimme gimme" -- gimme gimme gimme
if ever there were a post-modern reaction to the globalization of american consumerism in the '80's, this is it. compare to the following passage from Heiner Muller's play Hamletmachine:
Hope of the generations Strangled in blood cowardice stupidity Laughter of dead bellies Heil COCA COLA A kingdom for a murderer
even more striking than the thematic similarities is the fact that, while Hamletmachine was written in 1977, its american premier wasn't until 1984, nearly three years after the release of Damages. it's unlikely that rollins even knew of the play, yet he seems to produce his art from a very similar worldview as Muller.
seriously, tho, black flag rules and rollins is rad. but they are too fucking angry, man. this whole album is less than 40 minutes, but the intensity makes me check out about 20 minutes through. as a younger man, i appreciated punk as punk needs to be appreciated. i lifted weights in my friend's basement and screamed my ass off to shit like black flag and danzig and megadeth.
as an old man, i sit around bitching about my slipped disks and wondering when the next coldplay album hits stores...
if i ever went back in time, my younger me would kick my ass.
hey, y'all think i could be a professional music critic? from rollins' wikipedia entry:
During the Unicorn legal dispute, Rollins had started a weight-lifting program, and by their 1984 tours, he had become visibly well-built; journalist Michael Azerrad later commented that "his powerful physique was a metaphor for the impregnable emotional shield he was developing around himself."
so schnit basically wins, and i consider the party over after that minor masterpiece. but since he asks:
punk for me began with cognitive dissonance. when you're an 8 year old middle class kid who hears nothing but classical music and effete electro ballads on the radio, your understanding of the world gets seriously challenged when you sit in a graffiti-covered subway car across a kid with a spiked mohawk, torn up leather jacket with weird logo patches and metal spikes around every limb. when you get a little older and your parents sit you down with a map of the city and point out areas they strenuously suggest you not visit, your fragile little mind gets curious about this weird alter dimension which is seemingly juxtaposed over my sensitive, cultured world where monty python was the edgiest shit conceivable.
so it wasn't until i got older, and turned into the fuck-you, fuck-everything kid i continue to be, that i learned about what punk is, which led me to learn about what punk WAS, which meant i finally had some clue about what was going on in the LES while i was listening to human league.
in addition to sharing a basic identification with that central ethos (as much as a person CAN identify with punk culture without growing up in circumstances), there's also the strange and mysterious allure that punk represents, describing as it does the hidden world of early-80's new york city that continues to exist for me in only a half-imagined state. and from an artsy fartsy point of view, that's really big.
don't doubt it sons, if i never went into classical music i'd have been a pretty hardcore punk. a rodentuous, loser jew punk in hand-me-down punk clothes from my loser new jersey punk cousins.
as for how the ramones is different from blag flag (which schnit asked in private), jesus christ i don't even know where to begin. ramones are BUBBLE GUM. their music was dopey and dancey. i absolutely accept that in their time, they played a critical role in punk culture. but ramones at their most elemental and thrashy can't possibly hold a match to black flag or bad brains or minor threat at their MOST RELAXED. there is just no comparison. hardcore is HARDCORE.
great post. only i have to say, if you have ever been to a ramones concert, you would know that despite the band's obvious bubblegum influence and pop aspirations, there is nothing not HARDCORE about the ramones, the music they play or their live performances. i'm talking genuine, deep fear for your safety type of shit. since you mention it, though, it doesn't at all come through in their music and that's very strange that i never could see that...
yeah man i seriously believe you that in person it was absolutely hardcore. but it's as you say, no matter how loud i blast the ramones, i don't get it on this end.
by the same token, holy cocks, the album cuts off Damaged are PANSY compared to their live shows. going to a hardcore show, you didn't fear the possibility of personal injury, you COUNTED on it.
i dont have much to add about the music on this album. like you kids said, its fast loud and ANGRY with humorous moments occasionally thrown in...but even the humor is angry. when bush jr. became president, i expected to hear way more outrage in music. i was actually disspointed to hardly hear any, because i knew that in the 80s, everyone who was even remotely a punk HHHAATTEEDDD reagan. i guess there was just way more anger and rage back then. i have no idea why. any album that came out like this today would probably be ignored by the music press and deemed cliche. i would like to add a few things, though, about the band in general. their influence was huge - they toured relentlessly throughout the states, even to little nooks and crannies that might have had 1 or 2 punks in the entire town. and anyone who was a punk knew about them. they started a record label, SST, which signed many other great bands. for a little while, SST was the most important indie label in the country. some of those bands were the minutemen, meat puppets, sonic youth, husker du, even early soundgarden. what most of these bands have in common is that they started out playing the loud fast hardcore punk that was in vogue at the time, but were not afraid at all to grow musically, sometimes within the course of one album. A quick look at pfork's list of the top 100 albums of the 80s reveals 9 that were released on the SST label. the number one album, sonic youth's 'daydream nation,' was only released on enigma because they left SST, who released their previous 2 albums [both are on this list]. basically, 1/10 of the top 100 albums of the 80s were released on black flag's label. i think that fact alone is either a testament to the quality of the music on that label, or the biases of the pitchfork voting staff.
pitchfork's top 100 of the 70's + top 100 of the 80's, considered, scrutinized, explored, assailed, defended, appreciated and deprecated, fussed over, held up high, kicked to the curb and held back up again. education by fire and a middle finger to disdain. tea, anyone?
i will wait for schnit to express his incredulity at my love for this music before commenting. come on, let it out, you know you want to.
ReplyDeletealso, American Hardcore is available for download from my directory. yo los recomiendo.
ReplyDeleteblack flag's awesomeness is completely self-evident. but just in case it's lost on anybody, let's do a little bit of lyrical analysis:
ReplyDelete"see if you can find the key to your mother's liquor cabinet" -- thirsty and miserable
this is obviously a statement about the berlin wall and the locks that political disagreements create, keeping each of us from truly connecting with other human beings. the depression of isolation inherent in the tone is notably striking, as is the desperate longing for personal connection.
"i got a six pack and nothing to do/i got a six pack and i don't need you" -- six pack
here rollins & co. turn the lens inward, exploring the importance of emotionally rejecting those who have already rejected us. haunting images of hatred as a coping mechanism contrasted sharply against a realistic landscape of substance abuse, this song is the lyrical equivalent wyeth's 1999 "long limb."
"we're gonna have a tv party tonight (alright!)/we're gonna have a tv party alright (tonight!)" -- tv party
marking yet another radical tonal shift, black flag moves to whimsical word-play, adding back-ground vocals to break the pentameter line structure while "giving away" the AA rhyme scheme. it's best not to deconstruct this one too much, however, but just accept it as a fun exercise, akin t.s. eliot's "gus the theatre cat," one of his better-known delvings into children's lit. below:
Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door.
His name, as I ought to have told you before,
Is really Asparagus. That's such a fuss
To pronounce, that we usually call him just Gus.
"gimme gimme gimme" -- gimme gimme gimme
if ever there were a post-modern reaction to the globalization of american consumerism in the '80's, this is it. compare to the following passage from Heiner Muller's play Hamletmachine:
Hope of the generations
Strangled in blood cowardice stupidity
Laughter of dead bellies
Heil COCA COLA
A kingdom
for a murderer
even more striking than the thematic similarities is the fact that, while Hamletmachine was written in 1977, its american premier wasn't until 1984, nearly three years after the release of Damages. it's unlikely that rollins even knew of the play, yet he seems to produce his art from a very similar worldview as Muller.
seriously, tho, black flag rules and rollins is rad. but they are too fucking angry, man. this whole album is less than 40 minutes, but the intensity makes me check out about 20 minutes through. as a younger man, i appreciated punk as punk needs to be appreciated. i lifted weights in my friend's basement and screamed my ass off to shit like black flag and danzig and megadeth.
ReplyDeleteas an old man, i sit around bitching about my slipped disks and wondering when the next coldplay album hits stores...
if i ever went back in time, my younger me would kick my ass.
hey, y'all think i could be a professional music critic? from rollins' wikipedia entry:
ReplyDeleteDuring the Unicorn legal dispute, Rollins had started a weight-lifting program, and by their 1984 tours, he had become visibly well-built; journalist Michael Azerrad later commented that "his powerful physique was a metaphor for the impregnable emotional shield he was developing around himself."
so schnit basically wins, and i consider the party over after that minor masterpiece. but since he asks:
ReplyDeletepunk for me began with cognitive dissonance. when you're an 8 year old middle class kid who hears nothing but classical music and effete electro ballads on the radio, your understanding of the world gets seriously challenged when you sit in a graffiti-covered subway car across a kid with a spiked mohawk, torn up leather jacket with weird logo patches and metal spikes around every limb. when you get a little older and your parents sit you down with a map of the city and point out areas they strenuously suggest you not visit, your fragile little mind gets curious about this weird alter dimension which is seemingly juxtaposed over my sensitive, cultured world where monty python was the edgiest shit conceivable.
so it wasn't until i got older, and turned into the fuck-you, fuck-everything kid i continue to be, that i learned about what punk is, which led me to learn about what punk WAS, which meant i finally had some clue about what was going on in the LES while i was listening to human league.
in addition to sharing a basic identification with that central ethos (as much as a person CAN identify with punk culture without growing up in circumstances), there's also the strange and mysterious allure that punk represents, describing as it does the hidden world of early-80's new york city that continues to exist for me in only a half-imagined state. and from an artsy fartsy point of view, that's really big.
don't doubt it sons, if i never went into classical music i'd have been a pretty hardcore punk. a rodentuous, loser jew punk in hand-me-down punk clothes from my loser new jersey punk cousins.
as for how the ramones is different from blag flag (which schnit asked in private), jesus christ i don't even know where to begin. ramones are BUBBLE GUM. their music was dopey and dancey. i absolutely accept that in their time, they played a critical role in punk culture. but ramones at their most elemental and thrashy can't possibly hold a match to black flag or bad brains or minor threat at their MOST RELAXED. there is just no comparison. hardcore is HARDCORE.
great post. only i have to say, if you have ever been to a ramones concert, you would know that despite the band's obvious bubblegum influence and pop aspirations, there is nothing not HARDCORE about the ramones, the music they play or their live performances. i'm talking genuine, deep fear for your safety type of shit. since you mention it, though, it doesn't at all come through in their music and that's very strange that i never could see that...
ReplyDeleteyeah man i seriously believe you that in person it was absolutely hardcore. but it's as you say, no matter how loud i blast the ramones, i don't get it on this end.
ReplyDeleteby the same token, holy cocks, the album cuts off Damaged are PANSY compared to their live shows. going to a hardcore show, you didn't fear the possibility of personal injury, you COUNTED on it.
i dont have much to add about the music on this album. like you kids said, its fast loud and ANGRY with humorous moments occasionally thrown in...but even the humor is angry. when bush jr. became president, i expected to hear way more outrage in music. i was actually disspointed to hardly hear any, because i knew that in the 80s, everyone who was even remotely a punk HHHAATTEEDDD reagan. i guess there was just way more anger and rage back then. i have no idea why. any album that came out like this today would probably be ignored by the music press and deemed cliche.
ReplyDeletei would like to add a few things, though, about the band in general. their influence was huge - they toured relentlessly throughout the states, even to little nooks and crannies that might have had 1 or 2 punks in the entire town. and anyone who was a punk knew about them. they started a record label, SST, which signed many other great bands. for a little while, SST was the most important indie label in the country. some of those bands were the minutemen, meat puppets, sonic youth, husker du, even early soundgarden. what most of these bands have in common is that they started out playing the loud fast hardcore punk that was in vogue at the time, but were not afraid at all to grow musically, sometimes within the course of one album.
A quick look at pfork's list of the top 100 albums of the 80s reveals 9 that were released on the SST label. the number one album, sonic youth's 'daydream nation,' was only released on enigma because they left SST, who released their previous 2 albums [both are on this list]. basically, 1/10 of the top 100 albums of the 80s were released on black flag's label. i think that fact alone is either a testament to the quality of the music on that label, or the biases of the pitchfork voting staff.