Video Friday is Noisy
Guitar Wolf – ‘Jet Generation’ (3:29)
I wish there were a better copy of this floating around, because it’s objectively the rulingest thing in the history of the world. That isn’t a judgment; it’s scientific fact.
Dr. Bérubé, over at Bérubé Online, has been trying to puff up the Ramones lately — and truth be told, while his band of Columbia University new-wavers opened for the Ramones in 1982, my band of minimum-wage Jersey-suburban hardcore idiots opened for them in ’84 (at City Gardens, in Trenton). And what Bérubé forgets to mention is that the Ramones were wusses, afraid of competition: Their soundman had standing orders to turn the volume way down for the opening bands so that nobody could upstage them. The thing about Guitar Wolf is that they could have challenged the Ramones with the PA totally shut off and nothing but a couple of cranked Fender Champs in the backline. They only seem louder when you turn the volume down. Try it.
Bad Brains – ‘Attitude,’ live 1979 (1:29)
Hardcore punk isn’t a white-guy genre, but equally a black one. The Bad Brains were Washington DC’s all-black punk band, circa ’79, while New York and Philadelphia each had their own (The NY Niggers and Pure Hell). There are a few West Coast bands who sounded like this a year or so earlier, but nobody remembers them. And a year or so later, the Bad Brains’ DC white-guy fan club had become Minor Threat, Government Issue, Youth Brigade, and all that whole Dischord Records thing that everyone agrees is historically foundational (Henry Rollins, singer of SOA, migrated to Black Flag in 1981).
An ongoing research topic. Which brings us to…
Blitz – ‘Someone’s Gonna Die Tonight,’ homemade vid by Danish skinhead soccer thugs (2:26)
As with Rush, Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, and a lot of bands like that, the real issue isn’t whether the music is any good (it often pretty much is), but whether you can stand the other fans. Blitz were actually very moderate politically, and later morphed into a decent synthpop band. If you can believe that.
(More, somewhat later, super-excessive live Bad Brains after the jump.)
Bad Brains – Target Video footage, 1985 (recorded 1982-83)
This is how they were when I saw them. You came into the show with high expectations, but when they hit the first cadence the entire room detonated, and it was like, ‘What the…?’ An hour later you were in the parking lot like, ‘What the…?’ Henry Rollins says there’s never been a band like this, before or since. I’m less sure about that, but the vid tells the story.
Guitar Wolf is pretty cool. They sound like a Japanese Stooges.
Rush!?
Without the excessive noodling, annoying time signature changes, and Geddy Lee’s nasally wail, you might be on to something there, but…damn, Rush.
Rush!
I suppose they’re better than Yngwie Malmstein.
As are the fans.
On the other hand, Blitz’s Second Empire Justice and Fatigue are indeed surprisingly good.
Hell yeah, Bad Brains!
The song “Soul Craft” is the shit!
that blitz vid is CRAZY.
and bad brains WAS crazy – those shows were insane.
Do tell your band’s name? Because — as I posted chez Bérubé — I saw the Ramones at City Gardens in 1984.
Oh! You do. I am not a careful reader in the late afternoon.
Um. The band that isn’t either remembered or Love Battery.
http://foe.firstpress.net/circlejerks_gang_green_bip.jpg
Actually intresting watching. the skinheads neads to be dropped of in the middle of jamaicas ghettos for a while though.
What an assmunch I am today. Thank you.
Hmmm… a Friday without a Sparks video? Maybe ‘Nothing to Do’ would have fit in with this theme. (Russell Mael said that Joey Ramone always wanted to cover it but the others wouldn’t bite.)
Seriously, I’m not a huge Rushhead, but they haven’t donne time sig changes and mad noodling since…oh, about 1984. Geddy Lee’s voice also got quite reasonable from about Power Windows onwards and Counterparts is in parts an entirely kickass album.
Ah, good ol’ Target Video. For the longest time they kept the huge Crass logo I graffitied on their wall. Saw Flipper there once. Yum.
I still think BB were a tad overrated, and evidently they were major homophobes, which just sucks.
Oh, and Grateful Dead? That stuff isn’t good even if you are face down in the mud wasted. Trite Blues Rock that has been extended to last as long as Prog tunes but without all the, you know, innovation, things happening and actual content?It’s like somebody made a full length movie out of an episode of Full House and then getting praised for the hypnotic emptiness of it. No, it’s not even that good.
“It’s not the band I hate, it’s their fans”-
name that tune.
Anywho, even though the Blitz was used for some neo-fascist cobags, and of course the vid was equally hypnotic- they have the sound of tonight’s offerings that is closest to my id. Bad Brains never did it for me. He sounds like Dean Ween fronting a more muscular young Replacements with a couple of Dischord type touches. Although….I am like this speedier one…where he’s doing his not nasal thing…sounds like a sped up Damned in a way- definitely the best of their offerings tonight. I love video Fridays!
holy crap! you’re that gavin? my crappy band AOD played with the ramones at city gardens a few years after you. i think you may know my wife, jennifer? we we’re just looking at old pix this week, including you guys on tour.
how dare you besmirch the ramones.
I smoked up HR after a Bad Brains show in Chapel Hill back in the late 80s. At the time, it felt like drinking shots with Hemingway.
By my calculations, that’s our little boy in the flannel shirt leaning over the amp in the background.
Blitz – ‘Someone’s Gonna Die Tonight,’ homemade vid by Danish skinhead soccer thugs (2:26)
That would of course be “Swedish skinhead soccer thugs” – to nitpick.
I loves me some Bad Brains. I never caught their show, but HR lived in my ex-girlfriend’s basement for a while. She says he enjoyed writing sappy love poetry.
Hey, fuck you; Rush is only the greatest rock band of all time.
Okay, so, the Ramones. Everybody of the right age is crazy about them, right? Saying they’re the best band of all time and shit.
What I want to know is, if they’re so good, why do all their singles sound exactly the same?
Rock and Roll Highschool, Blitzkrieg Bop, I wanna Be Sedated, The KKK Took My Baby Away… These are all the same damn song.
And while it’s a good song, if you hear it under one of its titles, you don’t really need to hear the others.
Is all their good stuff on the albums?
The essence of rock and roll is not simply the earnest application of a bohemian disregard for skill. Yeah its wonderful to feel like you’ve ssen past all the hype, but the masses picked it right on this one. The Ramones were an energetic novelty. Rush — they could compose and play. Lifesong put more coherent dynamics in one song than… you really do know the rest.
Rush…a band that makes Yes seem good.
They do perform for their fans, I’ll give them that. The are pros.
who really cares how well they can play.
Can Rush inspire acts of violence? I thought not.
Punk rock has more in common with classical composers then Rush/Dream Theater; “Whoa I’m stoned” wussy Canada boys.
Stoners need to fuck off.
Except for using more than one mode for compositions, more textures than guitar string and drum kit and the emphasis on melody as opposed to an overall sonic “experience”, then yeah, punk has more in common with classical as opposed to Rush/Dream Theater. What does that leave us with again?
yeah, ok.
Those who deny history are exasperating.
There can never be too many cartoons on.