Townsman Saturnismine briefly interrupted his baseball dreams to ask the following of us:
RTHers, I have been in the clubs, where the few in attendance gawk amazed at half-hearted post-rock pedal hopping. I have been to the record stores, where artfully designed cover art and requisite Look continue to scam the impressionable to empty their pockets. I have been to the Nether-regions of hipster cyberspace, where the soul-less look to their shoes with woeful, soul-less gazes.
And on this clear, cloudless day, I implore you: the world of rock needs US to put down all our worldly, reverent talk of jazz, Beatle covers, and “true German stereo,” regardless of the merits of such talk. It is a time to strip away all ponderings and embrace simplicity. It is a time to TAKE UP CHILDISH THINGS.
First, I want to know if what you’re about to watch is even possible in 2007.
Feel better? I thought you might. I also want to know what songs clean YOUR cobwebs by getting back to what matters most. These songs must be hard hitting, fun, dumb, maybe even RAUNCHY – and profound in their simplicity: no esoteric cobweb cleanings, please. I want viscera. Townsman HVB, I especially
hope to connect with you on this one.
To answer question #1, I’d say No, at least not with anywhere near that degree of commitment and sense of discovery.
Funhouse surely clears my cobwebs. The song “All the Way from Memphis”, with its long, outstanding fadeout, makes me want to pull the car over and pick a fight with somebody, in a loving way, mind you. I don’t have a ’70s cock-rock background like some of you, so my appreciation of this AC/DC stuff kind of stuff is never that visceral.
Stuff that I’ve always found liberating on a purely visceral level tends to be more along the lines of Arthur Conley’s “Sweet Soul Music” or Pere Ubu’s “Navvy”.
It’s funny that you posted this, Saturnismine: about an hour before I saw your words of wisdom I had my hand on AC/DC’s High Voltage CD, instead pulling out The Sensational Alex Harvey Band collection that McSnyds burned for me.
The Ramones, Rock n Roll High School
Like Sloan says “Iggy & Angus”.
Mod,
Thanks for indulging me. As I wrote offlist, I happened across that vid this morning and couldn’t stop laughing.
It’s a LONG tune, but the video delivers entertaining, silly, fun moments all the way through. I think my favorite moment might be with 2.32 remaining. But don’t sleep on the last few minutes, people!
mod, i think you nailed it: “commitment” IS the concept that represents the great divide between THEN and NOW.
Love this song and video and this was good cause to happily re-visit the excellent comments that went along with the Bon Scott thread from several months back. “AC/DC as therapy for [the] rock mind” seems like a pretty handy summation for why I like them and the spirit of this post.
But this is still only their second best video, behind the one for Jailbreak.
Man, that’s a long, long video. It’s great though. Those guys were way better with Bon Scott in the band. I think it’s because Bon knew it was dumb but he was having fun. With the other guy, I’m not sure he’s in on the joke.
Exile on Main St. always clears my cobwebs best. Outside of that, Street Fighting Man just has that monster riff I can ride all around town with. Lately, the big, dumb, cock rocker I like best is by girls. I haven’t been able to get I Love Playin’ With Fire by The Runaways out of my head for weeks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBegE14O-VE
Man, they looked so cool!
Then again, Wild Thing is like a rock n’ roll antibiotic that will cure anything.
alex! once again, we are of like mind. Jailbreak is fucking BRILLIANT.
The explosions, the bobby outfit, and the shoot’em-up scene at the end are a hoot, in comic book / clockwork orange way.
i urge rth’ers to take up magic’s recommendation and check out jailbreak!
2k, do you dig the runaways, post-Cherie, doing “wasted” on the old grey whistle test? pretty fuckin’ pointy guitar lita’s got there….and she gets, maybe, two inches off the ground when she scissor kicks at the top of the tune. but joan turns in a blistering vocal.
2k, here’s the link to “wasted”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQYWqYpoLPU
I too have often rhapsodized on “Jailbreak”‘s awesomeness. I watched it after “Let There Be Rock” this morning and discovered a new wrinkle — the maracas that come in on the first chorus. Awesome! I think maracas work as well if not better than cowbell in riffy rock tunes. Think “Tattooed Love Boys.” I guess because of Davy Jones, though, they’ll never get their due.
Oats, in my book, maraccas are king. the rolling stones told me so, in Jumpin’ Jack Flash.
good call on “tattooed love boys”!
Based on the greatness of both videos, maybe Angus should have continued changing up his costumes as the band went on. What is he wearing Jailbreak, anyway? More videos by any band should have had Jailbreak’s “Muppet Show explosions.” Also huge points for breaking out guns for the climax instead of going for the cliché “shoot him with a guitar” pantomime.
I usually think of the spoken word break in Jailbreak among all-time spoken word segments in rock, but to be fair, the whole song is damn near spoken. Really, though, any question of what it was that Bon brought to the table could probably answered with the way he delivers “but he made it OUT…………..mmmmmwith a bullet in his…back!” I think they called it ‘phrasing’ for Sinatra.
As for the maracas, I never noticed them before, either. Which probably speaks well to your point about maracas vs. the cowbell: they never try to steal the show, they just get results. In Davy’s defense, though, he was playing with the handicap of having hidden microfilm in his.
Oh, man — where do I start? For me, I guess all rock viscera unwind in the general direction of AC/DC, so I find myself gravitating to either them or soundalikes like the Upper Crust, the Donnas, or Supagroup. But (no surprise here) there are times when I take a slightly more melodic path with some ace Lizzy or Sloan, or a more rebellious one with the better tracks off of “Fun House.” There’s also a short list of Top that gets the juices flowin’ — “Beer Drinkers…,” “Heard It On the X,” “Tush,” and others. Even a few of their slower, bluesier numbers, will make me bob my head in trance-like fashion: “Have You Heard?,” “Jesus Just Left Chicago,” and a couple more. ‘Course, you can’t go wrong with a steamin’ servin’ of prime Halen, either.
You know, the other night, I was watching Uma, the Pain-proof Rubber Girl walk across a bed of razor-sharp swords, and she chose as her soundtrack music the AC/DC number “Honey, What Do You Do For Money,” and I was just bowled over by how fucking incredible that song sounded in the context of all the other undergroundy crap they were serving up to that point. I turned to my buddy Ivan and said something to that effect, and Ivan, who’s actually more of a psych/prog guy at heart, nodded in complete agreement. That “Back In Black” album may not have my *favorite* AC/DC sound (gotta go with the Vanda/Young combination of clarity and dirt there), but it may be the best sounding “mainstream” classic rock album out there. I got my share of problems with Mutt Lange, but he hit the ball out of the park with the two AC/DC albums he produced.
Also, saturn, we reach on the maracas bit — but the song that makes the maraca case isn’t “JJF” — it’s “Problem Child.” Or maybe “Brown Sugar,” per Velv’s opinion on the matter.
Gotta bow out on the ACDC discussion. I don’t get it, and I never will. Childishness is hard for me to get behind. Even as a child I was a geezer. But a stoopid cartoon of immaturity like Singles Going Steady or the Ramones would be more my speed if I need to cleanse my system.
Speaking of the Ramones, I keep hearing the opening of Blitzkrieg Bop in MLB coverage. When did this start to catch on, and is it associated with a particular team?
BigSteve, you crack me up. You write a whole paragraph about what a stick in the mud you are, and then you come up with one of the best possible answers to my query.
hvb! thanks for ringin’ in. i bow everything you said, but i’ll always privelege the JJF maraca moment over the other fine ones you’ve mentioned, because it predates them, and juices me just as much if not more.
i can’t get over the unpretentious enjoyment that permeates “let there be rock” vid. other details: the cardboard cutout BLACK halos; the unabashed shit-eating grin on bon’s face during the first guitar solo; angus’s slack jawed goofing while rocking out.; bon’s totally unselfconscious airguitaring; the slow-mo for his dive near the end, and then finally, the AWESOME footage of angus TRULY rocking out at the end. i can’t name a sillier song that actually sends a chill up my spine, but this one does, cuz…you know…i LOVE rock. and that’s an ALL OUT ASSAULT of guitars. and … i love guitars.
also, i know i’ve already mentioned the moment at 2.32 remaining. but if you haven’t watched it yet, please do. i’m still laughing.
alex, thinking of those explosions as “muppet” explosions made them even funnier to me than they already were. and for this, i thank you.
right now, the only other song i can think of that juices me into a spazzy frenzy like “let there be rock” this is “sister anne”, by the mc5. what a groooove!
speaking of grooves, has anyone out there heard Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings’ version of “what have you done for me lately”? gracious.
ermmm…in case it isn’t obvious…that should’ve said “I bow [to] everything you said…”.
In my eagerness to praise Jailbreak earlier, I did a disservice to how truly awesome Angus going off for that last minute in Let There Be Rock is.
Oats may be responsible for the initial Muppets/Jailbreak connection, I honestly can’t remember anymore, but he missed his shot to take credit for it, so I’m claiming it in print.
I haven’t seen/heard that combo yet, but this did remind me of a music/sports moment from this weekend. During either halftime or late in the Eagles/Lions game on Sunday, Fox trotted out a new time filling game review bit that resulted in a still shot of Calvin Johnson down on the field, grimacing in pain from an injury of then unknown seriousness while “Freeze Frame” jauntily played.
This really bugged me at the time, not so much for the odd juxtaposition of injured athlete and up-tempo song, but because “Freeze Frame” is one of those songs that belongs to televised baseball coverage and not televised football coverage. It’s not like using “Centerfield” for a hockey game or something, but I know I’m right on this matter of sports music misappropriation.
I think both the Mets and Yankees have tried to cash in on some NYC Punk Cred with use of that “hey-ho-let’s-go” bit. Then there’s that ESPN miniseries on the ’78 Yankees, which used Ramones songs liberally.
As I spent my day tooling around listening to my latest record store finds (all new stuff or at least this century), I couldn’t help but think that there’s one song by someone else that can truly compete with AC/DC for sheer stupidity and sonic assault.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkA9k6lDags
Ram Jam. Black Betty. Dig its bearded gloriosity and 70’s uber coolness. Polaroid glasses to hide high eyes? That’s so cool. Muscle shirt for the bass player? Of course! He’s the strong man in the band. Chicks on motorcycles. Top it off with some great guitar faces and you’ve got a classic for the eons.
I dare you to keep the Bam Ba Lam out of your head. It will stick even if you don’t watch the video.
I love those tinted stoner-dork glasses the singer/guitarist wears. Nice find, 2000 Man. I knew that song but never checked out that band’s Look.
I got a few more thoughts to share here:
1. Moddie, this “Let There Be Rock” track is (I guess obviously) off of the album of the same name; the *one* Vanda/Young AC/DC album Sethro never made you listen to — and, for my money, it’s their best! You gotta check it out, bro!
2. Saturn: look, we’ve had our differences in the past. But I am so genuinely happy that there’s at least one other Town Baller who can understand the beauty of this video, and isn’t ashamed to get all wiggy with the tongues of praise. Don’t feel like you’re alone, rhapsodizing about its honesty, its we’ll-never-see-its-like-again lack of pretension, its zest for LIFE, its busted-incisor ugly-beautiness, and its good old fashioned, knock your teeth down your throat, home-made molotov cocktail incendiary rock guitar power. This shit was *real*, brothers, in a way that 95% of all the kaka folks like around here never really was.
3. You forgot to mention the fact that Bonnie actually falls flat on his face after his Big Rock Leap off the organ platform — and they include the ignominy on the tape! Nowadays, that would count for some kind of bullshit post-ironic reality points, but in the context of this 1976 video, it’s just other-worldly.
Anyhow, thanks for reasserting our Rock brotherhood through the promulgation of this slab of sweaty rock history. Brilliant!
HVB
Couple more things:
1. For crying out loud, has there ever been a more accurate, fundamentally egalitarian read on the potentially explosive racial politics behind the formation of this thing we call “rock and roll” than this: “the white man had the schmaltz; the black man had the blues…”? Bravo, Bonnie!
2. BigSteve, you gotta come forth with a defense of your position that AC/DC were (the argument for “are” is much easier) “stupid” or “dumb.” I don’t see it!
Hrrundi wrote:
The music for this track is really good, but I still can’t help thinking that I’d be better off spending my time jerking off than listening to Bon Scott’s RE-TARD-ED lyrics and vocal style. Really, man, the thing I don’t get about Cock Rock is how pathetic the vocals inevitably are. Do I want to please myself or get off watching some other moron please himself? When I hear the likes of Bon Scott, I’m confronted with the second option, which is not my cup of tea. Believe me, I GET how GOOD Bon Scott is at working this genre; I simply don’t have any connection with it.
I got just one question about that excellent Ram Jam vuh-deo: check out the dude at stage right. What the heck is he up there for? He kind of dances around, and… that’s about all he does!
I didn’t say ACDC was stupid. I said the acts I like were/are stoopid (sic). What I like is self-conscious, ironic arrested development, not just willfull immaturity.
BigSteve, I gotta laugh — I think you give the Ramones, the Buzzcocks, the Stooges and a bunch of other “artier” bands *way* too much credit for their supposed command of irony and such. You *might* convince me that that was Pete Shelley’s game, but the other bands you give Hall passes to? Naaaah.
hvb, after reading your last comments (section 2, addressed to me), i had to watch it AGAIN. i couldn’t agree more. glad for the bonding moment!
I had no idea what Ram Jam looked like, and yet somehow it turns out I always knew exactly what Ram Jam looked like. It would probably be impossible to have a better video for “Black Betty” than that.
It’s important to note that the dancing guy has a mic, but doesn’t appear to ever actually sing, so I have to assume he’s there because he’s the one providing the handclaps, which you can catch him doing a few times in the background, once with support from the bass player.
Ram Jam doesn’t fly in handclaps. Ram Jam keeps a full time handclapper on staff. And when Ram Jam gets a handclapper, Ram Jam gets the best.
Ram Jam really is funny. I’ve had that stupid song stuck in my head apparently overnight, as I woke up with a Bambalam in my head this morning. I think the guy stage right is there for boogie purposes, as Ram Jam is so pure in their southern rockiness. I’ll say this much for both AC/DC and Ram Jam – I was never a huge fan of that whole 70’s lunkheaded rock scene (Molly Hatchet is in there, along with Ted Nugent), but the parties people threw where that was the soundtrack were the best. They never ran out of beer and they lasted forever.
Watching the Ramones documentary, End of the Century, I was amazed at how carefully planned their songs and look were.
I don’t think they were going for irony, as much as trying to bring something new to a bloated and complascent rock scene.
Pince nez time: The mini-series is on the ’77 Yankees.
Nice, Berlyant!
Dr. John, I had the same reaction as you to that Ramones doc.
To be fair, I haven’t watched the ESPN mini-series since we don’t get that channel. With that said, I remember a comment that someone (I think it was you, Mr. Mod) said on here earlier about how they’re using a bunch of Ramones songs. While on one level, this is cool, on another one I agree completely with Mr. Mod’s assertion that this definitely didn’t represent what most Yankees fans were listening to in 1977. Sure now everybody cites them, they’re in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and they get huge displays at the Virgin Megastore or whatever, but as we all know, they were all snubbed commercially back then.
Of course, this isn’t that different from Van Gogh or other artists whose work wasn’t appreciated in their lifetime but whose influence and stature in the art world grew over the decades and centuries.
With that said, it still bugs me as I feel like it’s ESPN’s attempt to be hip and with it and what not. This also reminds me that recently on VH1 Classic, I caught part of a documentary on “New York 1977” that features the hip-hop and punk scenes as well as Studio 54, the blackout, The Son of Sam killer, the Yankees, etc. I realize that it’s the 30th anniversary of all that stuff, but again, it just feels like petty, cheap nostalgia. I love how they just skipped straight from 1977 to how New York is now in the last 5 minutes with a few off-hand remarks as if nothing happened in the intervening years.
So the song Teenage Lobotomy, for example, is actually a tender song about a real teenager who has literally had a lobotomy?
I haven’t participated in this thread because I’ve been too busy at work but I don’t know why viscera automatically has to be dumb. I mean, I can crank a totally dumb song like Nazareth’s “Hair of the Dog” and a much smarter one like SLF’s “Gotta Getaway” and experience more or less the same visceral fist-pumping cobweb clearing reaction.
In fact I may give the nod to SLF over a lot of bands that have been mentioned here. I love some of AC/DC, but I can’t love any song of theirs without also smirking at them a bit; same with that Nazareth song. The SLF tune on the other hand I can fist-pump to without a trace of laughter or irony.
Great point, Mwall! SLF’s “Suspect Device” gets my blood boiling, in a healthy way.
Teenage Lobotomy is referring back to teen-exploitation films like I Was a Teenage Zombie. The Ramones’ appreciation of this genre is heartfelt, not ironic.
Oh, please … the genre itself is ironic.
Speaking of that Yankees series on ESPN: Oliver Platt used to give me noogies when I was a tow-headed youngster. I was best friends with his crazy-ass little brother Nick, and we drove poor, pot-smoking teenager Oliver to distraction with our nine year-old antics.
Okay, then, the genre is camp, which is a form of irony.
But it’s not the irony that was prevalent at the time, which for better or for worse, songs like “Hotel California” epitomized. The idea that celebrity and success was some sort of seduction never crossed the Ramones’ minds. They had no need to issue ironic defenses for the excesses of their rock lifestyles.
This reminds me of a quote that was recently attributed to Craig Finn of The Hold Steady. He said something to the effect of “how angry can you be when you play sixteenth notes” or something like that when referencing really technical, yet heavy and angry death metal.
I think this is total bullshit as it implies that music that is truly emotional (or “visceral” if you will, though I think that’s mostly about the experience that a listener has and has nothing or very little to do with the creation of a piece of music) if it’s simple and easy to play. Sure, for instance, people say that AC/DC’s songs are easy to play and you can say the same about The Ramones, Motorhead, Chuck Berry and others with similarly simple chord structures, but few, if any, can play their songs as well. It’s about feel and a lot of practice, which also relates to how regimented The Ramones were (mainly due to Johnny’s control; it makes sense when you look at the uniform look, etc.).
With that said, I love “Suspect Device” and “Gotta Getaway” (and other SLF songs) more than any AC/DC song (probably for the same reason as mwall) except for maybe “Big Balls” or “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap”, though I also acknowledge the awesomeness of the Bon Scott era and Back in Black.
I don’t see anything in common between my quote and Craig’s, so I’ll be damned if I know what you’re talking about. I didn’t say jack about complexity or simplicity, so what’s eating you? It’s gotta be tough arguing against a point that hasn’t even been made.
Or maybe you’re just arguing against Craig and don’t quite make that clear?
Hotel California is ironic? I didn’t even know we were talking about rock star excesses.
I find it disturbing that so many of our threads devolve into a discussion of “Hotel California.”
I know what you mean, hrunndi. The beast is unavoidable, apparently. I’ve tried my best to convince everyone of that dark truth.
Sorry, I should’ve made it clear that this entire discussion (and more to the point, this specific idea of something that’s “visceral” with its presumed opposite being something well-crafted, composed carefully, etc.), not your specific point, reminded me of Craig Finn’s recent quote.
Yes I’m arguing against him because I find the notion that, for instance, Funhouse (one of the albums mentioned previously in this thread as “visceral”) is just a bunch of guys screwing around to be complete and utter horseshit. All the evidence, mainly on that Rhino Handmade 5 disc outtakes box set, points to the contrary both in terms of how the material was composed and how often it was practiced/rehearsed.
I guess that then my point is that for something to SOUND visceral, it can (and often does) have tendencies that might be called “prock” on here by some. Unless, of course, I misunderstand the “prock” thing completely. I mean, all artists have to get up their own ass to create something great every once in a while. Sorry to bring this back to Elvis Costello (I know, how unusual for me, right?), but this reminds me of when he stayed awake for 36 straight hours listening to nothing but The Clash’s first album (or so he’s said) to write “Watching the Detectives”.
i’m the one that popped the “v” word in there in my initial post, so i should weigh in.
Matt, “visceral” should not be thought of as being contrasted with “carefully crafted”. rather, it means “of or relating to the viscera, or visceral nervous system; relating to deep inner feelings as opposed to the intellect”.
i was asking for music that provokes a visceral reaction. i don’t give a fuck how it was crafted. carefully crafted music can be visceral. don’t you think that planning and thought went into “let there be rock”?
by the same token, and not that it really matters much, but since you brought it up: music that appeals primarily to the senses, music that sounds primal like “funhouse” can also take care to make, though not necessarily “careful craft”. in fact, in my experiences, achieving that elusive feeling on “funhouse” is usually harder to do than making a nice, little, multi-tracked gem. but that doesn’t mean it was ‘carefully crafted’. let there be no mistaking multiple takes for careful craft. they’re not always the same thing.
shite, my friend. i was asking for a cleaning of the cobwebs, not all this theoretical bullshit.
now look what you’ve done.