current top ten records (and some thoughts on rock n roll).
1 Nirvana - in utero
The band that changed my life. I thought I was Kurt Cobain for over a year hallucinating and psychotic. A band that is in my DNA that I am still trying move passed. from he symmetrical melodies droning post industrial riff and amateurish anti-hero solos.
I made every kid in the 90s think I could do that and of course we couldn't... Kurt executed rock n roll for being the unobtainable dream that only madness and purest pursue nowadays as the rest of the rest of the world samples those old hits or plays in similarly sad cover bands.
2 Slipkot - All hope is gone.
The maggots on the corpse of rock n' roll was Heavy Metal where all the worst tendency's of rock n roll are what you aspired to. Cliche extremes of horror film imagery and pornography's emotional complexity. A nightmare that swallowed the dreams of a generations looking for the party... though with understanding we approached it like Jason approached a victim in Friday the Thirteenth. and that it is why people bought the tickets.
"'He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man"
3 the Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street
Where the first step in decadent in selfish wallowing that rock n roll became. A kind of love of the lie over any kind of reality. Where the only thing to aspire to is being fucked up. The damn it if we could only keep the groove and drop the emotional S&m underlying the party. No though, this was the last real hurrah of a cultural energy that shaped the summer of love and it's hangover. everything was pirates being romanticized by people who who heard rumors of Robin Hood. like the gangsters of old they live in a world where we were the extras living sacrifices to false idols. Would hold the door open for there escape root yet we were just a likely to get shot. It's best not to leave a witness.
4 the New York Dolls - One day it will please us to remember even this
5 the Wild Hearts - Renaissance Men.
Life goes on with or without you. Rock n roll the song your sings when it no longer aspires to joy but lives it. I think of it as a perspective on the blues that utterly apposed even if it is from a place of privilege. The idea that you take your Blues and keep going. You carry that weight. And you Rock on.
Ginger Wildheart, has the rite idea you fall down you get up. Rocking on in not killed by irony but only the crown of thorns that every aspiring journeyman must embrace. You carry and hurl the molotov cocktailinto into the night and become the light you wish to see. There may be no victory lap or prize at the end of the tunnel but a life lived well is it's own reward. A love worth aspiring too is worth living for and we can only hope it is not fade away.
6 Devin Townsend - Ocean Machine: biomech
Simple droning octaves drowning in reverb. A freak of nature in the best way. a man who confronted everything I typed and found his tribe. His people. his love. His friends. He is to be envied.
What is a ocean machine? the biomechanics that is humanity watery carried from the abyss to the unsafe of not knowing on land. It's me and you. these efficient machines will fail at nearly all they aspire to but there will be beauty and music.
"My life is all that I've known
And it's all that keeps me here
My time is all that I own
So I won't let it slip away..."
Devin Townsend
7 Ministry - Sphinctour.
I want to put a marc bolan record here but it would be a lie. Al is all the proof we need of the failures of rock-stardom.
A system where people would offer up there daughters and wives or resent them for escaping as groupies from the boredom of a modern housewives life. They overdosed, lost long term relationships so they could be a hood ornament on a rock star codpiece. its a absurd to watch people in the modern age treat junkies waiting around the outside of a gas station like the living dead. well... that is how rockstars treat there groupies.
8 Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a madman
strangely mystical bullshit from the great singer of the Heavy Metal. I never know which I prefer the more obvious blizzard of Ozz or this beast. listen to believer and get confused at the nuance the poor madman articulates and some of it verbal (not just emotional subtext).
-Ozzy Osbourne and his song believer.
9 Motorhead - another perfect day
Motorhead shtick were they were the dirtiest rock n roll band in the world. They wrote good songs. had driving car engine of a racket that propelled them forward. I think there best is is dancing on your grave or the definitive though from a less consistent album rock n roll self titled track.
dancing on your grave has that haunting leaf riff surrounding lemmy's pummeling bass it's noisey and loud pea-cocking for chops that were NOT there there. But did can you bang your head tot hat loud and fast.
Lemmy was rock n roll.
Ugly, humble and wild as boredom will allow.
10 Pentagram - First Days Here
Bobby Liebling has had rough go of life. and is living proof it's hard way to the top if you want to rock n roll. but damn it he keeps trying and the proof is in the vinyls grooves.
Allegedly selling his soul to Satan then spending fifty years fighting to get it back. that is the metaphor for that age. that era. he is a cavman frozen in ice for those looking for what a rockstar was. only the probably a neurotic.
he is the missing link between metal and punk. that seatle later claimed to discover and called grunge
. but no it's it was just hard rock.
Comments
Post a Comment