Bizarre... very bizarre. A book-length paranoid delusion spy fantasy that reads very much like a warped cross between THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY and an obscure but semi-legendary (at least in certain circles, anyway) wonkfest called THE BIG U. The action centers around computer-wizard Pairnoy, the affable yet intensely paranoid son of a now-deceased CIA agent, who gets sucked into a twisted conspiracy when his wife "disappears." In between her disappearance and the book's somewhat abrupt ending, the action is spiced up by surreal paranoid delusions, hot android women, a brief trip to hell, spies with helicopters, malicious goons, strange computer hijinks, and much more more, all spewed out in one giant mishmash of weirdness.
This is Swain's first effort, which shows sometimes -- there's a tendency to wander off on a tangent (particularly in the surreal moments) and ramble on at length before getting back to the main point of the story, and sometimes there's too much talk and not enough action, especially when whole chunks of exposition get dumped into the mix as a method of plot advancement. But on the whole, this is not bad for a first shot, and shows promise for future books, should they ever appear. While it's not as consistent as it could be, it's funny enough in the places where it's supposed to be funny (although it has a high "cute" quotient sometimes, usually the kiss of death for me) and fast- paced enough in the action parts to keep things interesting. Besides, it's so so LOOPY that it gains many bonus points right there... I'll take loopy over polished any day of the week....
PANIK (Vol. 2, No. 1)
These fine, perverted people sent me this magazine ostenstibly to convince me to throw $$$ at them for Monotremata advertising. I dunno if I'll be doing that (no $$$ in the coffers lately, so sad), but I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for the magazine in the future. Slim and oversized but full of interesting articles, such as the interview with the eternally-controversial Leni Riefenstahl (director of TRIUMPH OF WILL, now forever associated with the Third Reich propoganda machine), an interview with Psywarfare, a review of Whitehouse's reissue of TWICE IS NOT ENOUGH that turns into a full-on interview, and other entertaining goodies. My favorite item must be the cartoon "Valentine's Day Haiku Cycle," courtesy of Jim Goad, in which we learn just how the ANSWER ME! publisher came to be a resident of the Oregon Prison System, and we see that incarceration has not improved Mr. Goad's attitude. The reviews are also kind of useful, since a fair number of them were of items/bands/etc. of which I wasn't previously aware... the magazine makes a good source of information on many levels. Now if they'd just print the damn thing in a more convenient size, arrrrgh!
Hey, now THIS is a "fun" book... judging from this, apparently everybody who ever had anything to do with punk spent all their time diddling with needles and puking in gutters and just basically being walking fuckups. Wheee! Of course, this particular "slant" on the whole punk thing becomes a bit more understandable when you realize that the man behind the wheel here (with help from Gillian McCain) is none other than legendary scumbag Legs McNeil, one of the founders of PUNK magazine and essentially a scary, sick human being, if even half of what you hear about him is true. I'm impressed that he somehow managed to convince Grove Press, of all publishers, that it would be A REALLY GOOD IDEA to publish a 424-page book crammed full of first-person anecdotes about shooting up, puking on people, stealing their shit, firing guns at each other, stabbing each other, desperate pleas to "shit in my mouth," depraved sexual behavior, depraved sex with teenagers, chicken-hawking, blah blah blah... at least it's interesting reading....
The format of the book is brilliant in its simplicity -- McNeil and McCain stick tape recorders in everybody's faces (the "everybody" being, essentially, anyone who had anything to do with punk from the Velvet Underground's beginnings up through the death of Johnny Thunders) and just, ah, let them ramble. Those rambling are quite often entertaining, although just as often contradictory, but hey, that was kind of the whole POINT of punk -- it wasn't SUPPOSED to make sense.
As histories go, this is a wee bit one-sided to really be all that useful -- it reads more like a laundry list of the drug habits of the punk and famous than an actual "history" -- but it's certainly illuminating as a picture of how the participants all interacted behind the scenes, something you don't really get in more scholarly books like ENGLAND'S DREAMING. It would have been nice to include some bands who DIDN'T spend all their time scamming drugs and fucking; the Talking Heads are mentioned, I think, twice in the entire book, and Joy Division are never mentioned at all. In fact, calling this a history of punk is a bit inaccurate -- it's more expressly a history of NYC/English punk. West Coast and Midwest luminaries like Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat, Fugazi -- or even Dust, for that matter (original home of Voidod/Ramones drummer Marc Bell) are totally ignored, so it's really only a partial, regional history... oh well....
There are some interesting (and juicy) revelations, though. Foremost is the depiction of Patti Smith as a manipulative, self-obsessed shithead, which kind of confirms what I always suspected... and then there's the interesting speculation on what really happened between Sid and Nancy to end up with her stabbed to death. Word from many participants in the scene (according to this book, anyway) is that she may actually have been killed by a dealer who had come in earlier that night, while Sid was crashed out from one of his massive junk binges. Is it true? You got me, but it's entertaining to speculate....
PRESSED TONGUE # 1 by Dave Cooper (Fantagraphics)
Lots of hippies and perverts running around in an apartment as the walls mutate and weird, inexplicable stuff happens around them, even as they remain largely oblivious. The art style is heavily derived from Basil Wolverton's school of the grotesque and the main focus is on really disgusting bodily functions and fluids and I can't say much more about it without wanting to heave. The art detail is incredible, though... perhaps TOO MUCH SO... yeek!
PSYCHOTRONIC VIDEO # 34
I'm glad that this 'zine is as good as the book written by its editor, Michael Weldon. While it's oriented toward the American Obscura slightly (which isn't in itself a bad thing), it still hits many other areas, making it one of the best all-around underground film 'zines. It's broken up into various review sections, as well as articles reviewing or covering various films (some of which make Me wonder why they didn't just place them in the review section to begin with!). The best piece, in My opinion, is on the mouth-watering Sybil Danning (THE HOWLING II in particular) article, which appeared to be fairly concise. To make things even more complete, there is a section entitled "Never To Be Forgotten," covering the deaths of all the famous and not-so-famous explotation actors. I was rather shocked ot discover that Nancy Parsons, who starred in MOTEL HELL and all three PORKY'S films, died of heart failure. (While those sequels stunk, she really played a great role in the first, and MOTEL HELL was in itself killer!)
There's also a DVD section, which was pretty good, although not useful to Me as I don't own a DVID player. [tmu: i hear you there, brutah. i feel your pain....] One of the things that I didn't particularly get was why in the "Letters to the Editor," the replies to questions didn't seem to make any sense. Maybe I was missing sometihng? Probably the only thing I could have cared less about in the 'zine was the section on Ohio rock bands. Why is it that people into extreme/obscure film don't like truly extreme/obscure music? [tmu: O, they do... they're just hiding under rocks....] If nothing else, this 'zine could just serve as a reference for literally dozens of underground film distributors, who have placed detailed ads within it. [FCW]
PUSSY POW WOW by mr. pottymouth [chronoplastics]
What a pleasant surprise -- mr. pottymouth, formerly given to bleating such lurid phrases as "they caught him givin' a hand job to a cop" and "i've unloaded enough population glue into your hairy parachute" solely within the context of jaw-tightening noiserock hooligans Arab on Radar, has now graced us with a book full of... of... pottymouth. Yes, mr. pottymouth comes by his name honestly....
I like this book a lot. I've never heard of chronoplastics before, but i give them a hefty ass-up for putting this out. It's not real big -- 86 pages of eye-opening, semi-pornographic (occasionally totally pornographic) vignettes and phrases and diseased mental drippings. -- but its very brevity gives it way more punch than it would have had otherwise. Besides, i'm not sure the world is ready for extended doses of the powerful mojo that comes from mr. pottymouth's pen -- you can only do so much acid washed down with Everclear before you spiral into the abyss, you know. As for the book's contents, it's basically divided into three sections, each one equally juicy but for different reasons: the stories (including "All the Whores on the Mayflower," "This Pissing Contest Is Still in the News," "My Favorite Puberty Instructor," and "What the Fuck is Stumpy Park?"), the lyrics (mutant exercises in schizophrenic anal-stage haiku -- "she spread her legs for me in detention / she asked me to be her teacher's pussy pet / but i had to blow the principal to earn money / for my Corvette"), and some extremely disturbed "letters" to mr. pottymouth. Trying to describe exactly why mr. pottymouth rocks like a sweaty sac swingin' in the wind is sort of on order with attempting to explain why the Mona Lisa works to a blind man's guide dog, but i will give it a shot anyway -- unlike dipshit rappers/nu-metal dorks and the like (the inexplicably popular and over-defended Eminem comes to mind) who employ dirty words and scatalogical themes, mr. pottymouth's rants are rooted in something deeper than just pissing people off or being "naughty" or shit-stirring for attention. No, his foul declarations are generally couched in the terms and situations of people caught in the act of caving in to really gross (or politically incorrect) sexual desires, along with disturbing hints at what spawned those deviant desires in the first place. These stories, lyrics, and essays disguised as letters often come across as grotesque and scary confessions of sexual deviancy by unbalanced people who were once victimized the same way. While the rappers and metalheads deal in surface shock, mr. pottymouth's observations cover the kind of people you see in real life and find creepy (if not outright frightening), in a way that's more lurid and (within the context of said confessions) unintentionally revealing than just shouting "I'm a BAD muthafucka 'cause my mama's a HO!" or something equally silly. This is more like a combination of Beefheart's sense of meter, Burroughs' cut-up shock-tatic literary moves, and Ken Kesey's surrealism, all from the perspective of an endless series of deviants.
Probably the best way to grok mr. pottymouth is to visit his site, which features a few hep selections from the book. Be sure to check out "tummy tucked prostitute" and "the pissing contest" for the purest essence of what wafts from the potty after the aborted training session. Then buy albums by him and his bandmates in Arab on Radar, who make the kind of radioactive antimusic best suited for tales such as these.
My, but this is incredibly depressing. The true story of Anchee Min's life growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution and the horrors she witnessed -- and sometimes even participated in as a member of the Red Guard -- before being chosen to play the lead role in the propoganda opera RED AZALEA, this is a really bleak account of life under oppressive Communist rule. Min goes through numerous tribulations to end up with the coveted role, only to have everthing disintegrate when Mao dies and she is branded politically incorrect for being a "follower" of Mao's wife, Jin- Quiang, who was arrested in the Gang of Four purge just days after Mao's death. Eventually she is sentenced to reform labor and toils away in squalor until actress Joan Chen (of TWIN PEAKS fame) helps her leave China to come to America. In between everything is just a hair short of hopeless. A beautiful, tragic book, but definitely not recommended for those prone to playing with razor blades....
Well, you already KNEW that the world's going to end soon, but did you know the EXACT DAY? I think not. For your information, it's July 4, 1998. That's the day the Xists will arrive to beam up the radiant SubGenii who kept up with their dues and scrub the rest of the planet, leaving behind smoking cinderblocks and mortal terror as the remaining "survivors" of the apocalypse loot and pillage and kill each other for the last warm beer in the fridge. At that doesn't even INCLUDE the pending invasion of the Yacatisma (the Hells Angels of interstellar space, who want to EAT you, but only after setting you on FIRE first), or the aliens who walk among us, or the television sets in your room being used RIGHT NOW by the Conspiracy to SPY on you, or the Men In Black, or Slack, or even that damn grinning monkey with the pipe... they call him "Bob" by the way....
This is a sick, sick book. This is not for the weak. Read it and TREMBLE with FEAR... if even 1% of it's true, then we're all in DEEP SHIT. Of course, MOST people think the Church of the SubGenius is just a JOKE... right... go ahead and laugh, we'll see how humorous it is when the world cracks like a china plate during the coming invasion.... But it's also a vastly humorous artifact, crammed with more words than any page should rightfully be able to hold, along with mind-bending illustrations that could only come from truly perverted minds, astounding rants, deranged paranoid conspiracy lunacy, and just sheer full-tilt WEIRDNESS. This book (and the one before it, THE CHURCH OF THE SUBGENIUS) should be on every bookshelf in America, although in SOME houses it probably shouldn't actually be READ.
This is either the product of seriously deranged minds or the most amazing con-job in the world (probably BOTH), but either way, it's most entertaining. Even if you don't believe a single word, even if you fail to discern the deep and bitter kernel of TRUTH hiding between the lines of rant, you can't fail to be amazed by the overflowing "imitation" of paranoid schizophrenia bleeding from every page in this massive tome. Plus the pictures are really cool too. Besides, the Church would APPROVE of the First and Only Church of the Pregnant Trinity Loren (and are probably kicking themselves for having not thought of it FIRST), so they must be all right... in a positively fucked-up sort of way, of course....
This li'l quickie book on How To Be A Rock Band has two things going for it: a) it's by someone in an actual band (Kathryn Lineberger is the bass player of the suavely-named Fluffer), and b) Lineberger has a sense of humor. If DEAD ANGEL were to write such a book, it would probably read much like this (only there would be many more references to groupies in rubber dresses and other equally tasteless stuff). Basically the book covers (in brief fashion, for the most part) all the fundamentals of starting and maintaining a rock band -- how to get your shit together, picking out and playing instruments, writing songs, getting gigs, how to conduct yourself at soundcheck, going to the recording studio, blah blah blah. The real treat is not so much in reading all this info, it's how Lineberger puts it -- she's a real sardonic smartass, and quite frequently her observations are most amusing, especially where soundchecks are concerned (having been there myself, i'll merely note that every caustic observation she makes about the art o' the soundcheck is absolutely true). This is the book to read in between all the heavy-duty, o-so-serious tomes about "how to succeed in the music biz" and all that jazz.
SALT # 2 (UK)
An interesting UK zine with plenty of b/w art, reviews of indie/experimental bands (some more obscure than others, and interviews with the likes of Makoto Kawabata and Chris Yambar, an article on wrestler Mick Foley, and more. I really like the perverse art scattered almost randomly through the pages. My only complaint is that it was too short! Bring on more....
SALT # 3 (UK)
The third issue of one of the UK's better zines features bands like Keiji Haino, Kepler, East River Pipe, and the The Promise Ring, includes an interview with the head of Tumult Records, and devotes interview (and cartoon) space to the creator of JOHNNY HOMICIDAL. As if that weren't enough, there are plenty of reviews, including a lengthy one of Harvey Milk's COURTESY AND GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN, and lots of black 'n white art. The zine may be small in its number of pages, but it's huge in its variety and range of taste. This is the kind of zine where you can find something interesting even if you're unfamiliar with or don't even like the bands, books, and other stuff mentioned. Most hep. Issue # 4 is already in the works, so keep your eyes open....
SALT # 4 (UK)
This came out a while ago (in fact, it should have been reviewed in the previous issue, but it drifted away into the piles of paper in the Hellfortress Reading Room and was only recently rediscovered), but it still must be mentioned, for SALT is a most hep publication and this issue in particular is full of interesting juju. As with all other issues, it's heavy on art -- full-size pix by the likes of Jimmy Trance and Sever are included, along with lots of li'l incidental tidbits floating throughout the issue -- and interviews with fab musical acts (this time it's Boris, Kawabata from Acid Mothers Temple, Burmese, Gary Smith, BORIS, The Summer In Between, Chris Yambar, and Aufgehoben No Process). There is also an interview with the head of RockandRolePlay Records and the idjit who runs Monotremata Records (perhaps the name rings a bell?), and -- my favorite moment -- a really peculiar-looking mutant on the inside page of the back cover. Swell, swell stuff, and you should investigate....
SALT # 5 (UK)
This has actually been out for a while and floating around the Hellfortress, but it didn't get reviewed in the last issue because we're a pretty spaced-out bunch. Nevertheless, the issue is still available and is filled with much whole-grain goodness. Highlights include interviews with scary cartoonist Renee French (mainly known for the creepy series GRIT BATH), the peculiar "Educore" band Bloodhag (from Seattle), tUMULt noisemakers 7000 Dying Rats, Joachim of Ideal Recordings (who have released stuff by Merzbow, Arab on Radar, and a bunch of others you've never heard of), the heavy drum / guitar duo Croatan, and the Japanese band Syogonari. There's also extensive coverage of the pleasures of wrestling, lots of outsider art, and a handful of fairly lengthy reviews of releases by the likes of Acid Mothers Temple, Damon & Naomi, and the Confederate Mack. A powerful amount of entertainment from across the pond, and for only four smackolas. The next issue promises to be even more swank, with interviews with AC/DShe, Antiseen, and others, along with a tribute to Bon Scott and AC/DC (inspired by the swank new cd reissues). Don't miss it.
SEX MONEY KISS by Gene Simmons [Simmons Books]
It turns out Gene couldn't resist another opportunity to talk about himself (imagine that), so here he is with another book. In some ways this is actually not even a book about music, or even KISS, or even Gene; rather, it's a cleverly-disguised motivational book, philosophy primer, and economics course rolled into one, all using Gene's experiences as examples. It's a brilliant idea, and even if you don't agree with Gene's ideas (I largely do, myself), there's no question he's got the makings of a brilliant motivational speaker. (Judging from his tentative and largely successful foray into public speaking engagements, detailed near the end of the book, I'd say that thought might have already crossed his mind.) The KISS tie-in comes with his explanation of the business end of KISS -- a brilliant idea, since everybody gives him so much grief about the subject in the first place. As with the first book, he makes it crystal-clear up front that he believes that more is always better, especially where money is concerned, and he doesn't understand people who can't get with the program. The beautiful part is that he includes a lot of documentation (KISS-related letters, business deal memos, art from the childhood fanzines he published and sold for cash, etc.) that's fascinating to look at in its own right. If you liked the first book, you probably should check this one out too. In some ways I think this is actually the better of the two books, and I'm kind of hoping Gene continues in this vein....
SEXWISE by Susie Bright (Cleis Press)
This is Susie's third book, the most "accessible" (meaning it contains articles that might appeal to people who aren't lesbians), and as with the the previous one (VIRTUAL SEX REALITY), it's kind of scattershot. Which is not necessarily bad, it just means that it's not very "focused" (if that matters to you). It covers ground as diverse as critiquing Stephen King's GERALD'S GAME (she didn't like it; i didn't think it was all that hot myself), getting hate mail from Camille Paglia (practically a badge of honor at this point), making love to a woman (use your hands!), sex lives of the rich and famous (she wants to blow Dan Quayle, how scary), porn director Andrew Blake (his movies are too "soft" for her taste), Jimi Hendrix (she proposes some interesting theories about Jimi's sex life), and former Black Panther Elaine Brown (apparently the Black Panthers were both sexist and really horny). She occasionally makes some intriguing and unexpected observations, but for the most part the prose is fairly breezy, not terribly surprising in light of the fact that most of these articles were originally printed in fairly mainstream magazines like ESQUIRE and PLAYBOY.
Still, it's interesting enough to recommend -- Susie Bright is still way cooler than almost anyone else reporting on what's left of the sexual revolution -- and at least she has a sense of humor, although there's less of it in this book than in her previous ones. Plus she doesn't like Kitty McKinnon either, which is mighty fine where DEAD ANGEL is concerned.
SECOND-RATE HEROES by Chris Gronlund / Cynthia Griffith / William Traxtle (Foundation Comics)
This is a superhero comic book -- sort of -- which means i NORMALLY would not be reading it (superheroes kind of bore me), but this is not a NORMAL superhero book. It's a superhero book with an IRONIC SENSE OF HUMOR, which is a good thing. It also has a zamboni in it, always a good way to get in DEAD ANGEL's graces... zambonis are cool... i... i wish i had a zamboni.... Anyway, the story somehow manages to tie together hockey, zambonis, many ska references, a rasta guy who's part lemur, art, car crashes, family reunions, and retired superguys with an endless fascination for WHEEL OF FORTUNE into an unusual variation on the standard "origin story" theme. It helps that Chris Gronlund has a BIZARRE sense of humor and is most funny, although not in a quick-joke kind of way (meaning i can't provide zippy quotes without quoting a page at a time, so you'll just have to TRUST me on this one).
This first issue serves to introduce the characters who will presumably be united as a crime-fighting group in further issues -- pro-hockey player Nicole Claudel, superhero-turned-ska-trombonist Mighty Mighty Lemur, artist Kate Stuart, an inept superhero (Brian) and a retired superhero (John), plus Marie Baker and her sister (although what they have to do with anything remains a bit unclear -- one assumes that will be addressed in the later issues, eh?). The highlights of the issue are mostly the coherent writing (rare for this genre, believe me), skewed humor, and clean graphics. Way better than the usual pap one finds in this field, to be sure... and another fine example of why independent comics make the Big Boys look like the lame, cookie-cutter losers that they are. The only thing that could make this EVEN BETTER would be to incorporate much full-tilt out-of-control MAYHEM like my favorite comic of all time, MILK AND CHEESE (famous primary for being the only comic in which the characters are REQUIRED to assault someone or break something at least once within every three consecutive panels), but then it just wouldn't be the SAME... so... i guess it's a good thing that (no not THAT) Ogre has RESTRAINT, eh?
At a time when female musicians are becoming more prominent in the business every day, this exhaustively-researched book serves as a handy primer for the history of female contributions to rock music. It also points out just how much more work there is to be done before women in music are universally given the attention and respect they deserve, rather than being categorized as novelties or part of any kind of "movement," rather than as individual performers.
There's lots of interesting information in here. Did you know that some of the guitar parts on Bo Diddley's manly hits "Who Do You Love" and "Hey Bo Diddley" were recorded by Peggy Jones (the "Lady Bo" who toured with Diddley before leaving and being replaced with "Lady Duchess")? Or that the septugenarian female rockabilly artist Cordell Jackson-- the guitar-slinger who battled with Brian Setzer in a Budweiser commercial a few years back-- has been playing and recording since the 1950's? Or, in one of the book's many disturbing allusions to sexism, that Janis Joplin left the University of Texas at Austin after being voted "Ugliest Man on Campus" by her fellow students? I didn't know this stuff either, and there's lots more equally surprising revelations to be found here.
The book's pretty exhaustive in its coverage of female artists all throughout the century-- sometimes a little too exhaustive; the sheer number of artists mentioned means that the book has a tendency to skimp on details, which is it's major flaw. When details are presented, however, they're pretty illuminating: a considerable amount of time is spent explaining the rise and activities of Olivia Records, the importance of the lesbian/feminist axis in helping push women's music to the forefront, the dominance of female artists in the punk/new wave era, and successful efforts of industry women like Lisa Fancher (founder of Frontier Records, who released the Circle Jerks single "Group Sex" early in its career) and Celia Farber (the AIDS columnist for SPIN, among other things).
Unfortunately, there's a depressingly high number of examples highlighted dealing with the hassles endured by female artists, both from record company henchlings and equally sexist music fans. From the truly obnoxious (such as the recounting of the time when Ariel, an early incarnation of the band Deadly Nightshade, was discussing a record contract one day and a record company executive stopped in just long enough to say, "Eddie, don't sign an all-girl band, you'll just have to pay for their abortions!") to the more subtle forms of sexism (the fact that women in the business behind the scenes are rarely paid as well as men, and are rarely taken seriously by their male colleagues), there are plenty of anecdotes and telling observations about the sexism rampant in the industry, more than enough to make anyone cringe.
The bottom line: Impressive, informative, and essential. Anyone interested in the role of women in music ought to pick this up. Maybe it should even be required reading in the schools. As for how we'll know when women are really starting to make serious progress in terms of being taken seriously in the business, I offer here my own yardstick: when you start seeing transcriptions in the guitar magazines of songs by female guitarists and bands. While Gaar doesn't mention this in her book, the guitar magazines seem to still be stuck in the past when it comes to women and guitars (if you don't believe me, go look at any one on the stand right now and notice that women and guitars mainly appear together only in cheesy advertisements where the woman are vapid-looking babes in as little clothing as possible), and as far as their transcriptions go, women as a species--not mention as musicians-- might as well not even exist. Books like Gaar's are a step in the right direction; maybe someone should send a few copies to all the editors of said guitar magazines.
From the bootlike land o' Italy comes this black and white metal zine, and a nice zine it is. (And yes, it's in English. Sometimes garbled English, but English. Actually, the translation is pretty good... certainly no worse than most metal zines that actually originate in the United States, which probably says something less than flattering about the state of education in this country... but i digress....) It's mostly interviews with the likes of Japan's Sabbat, Esoteric, Inferno, Hellhammer (from 1984! the band that mutated into Celtic Frost), Thy Sinister Bloom, Penance, etc., etc. The zine's tone is chatty without ever getting terribly pissy, which is nice; all the U.S. metal zines seem to get cranked up about ripping everybody they don't like to shreds and quite frankly, it's annoying to anyone over 13, so i'd much rather read this. The graphics are pretty good, the layout (courtesy of computer design) is excellent, and the reviews (of albums, singles, demos, and books) are pretty straightforward (even bluntly honest, ouch!). Well worth the effort of tracking it down, assuming you have a taste for doom/death metal. Of course, i have absolutely no idea how much it costs (not much, i'm sure).
SO WHAT! THE GOOD, THE MAD, AND THE UGLY
By Steffan Chirazi [Broadway Books]
So this is it -- the (more or less) official Metallica biography, as taken from the pages of the band's fan magazine SO WHAT! and edited by Steffan Chirazi, who puts out the magazine and has been clinging to the band almost since their inception. It's broken into six long chapters that chronicles the band's upstart beginnings and continues through the Napster debacle, Jason Newsted's departure, Hetfield's rehab sojourn, and the making of the eternally hideous ST. ANGER. In a sense it's really a companion to the movie SOME KIND OF MONSTER; probably half the book is related to the recent upheavals in the band's existence and the material covered in that movie. The book is actually pretty good -- well designed, full of pictures (many never seen before) and commentary from the band that's never been seen anywhere else, along with a lot of behind-the-scenes info that clarifies a lot of questions that have been swirling around the band for a while now. It still doesn't explain how the band convinced themselves that ST. ANGER is actually a good album, but it does make a powerful case for the idea (one that I advanced a while back ago) that the album's quality is beside the point -- the manner in which they made the album, and the new process of reinventing the band, made it possible for them to continue when they otherwise would have had to call it quits. (Whether or not they should have continued is another question altogether.) It could be better -- there's very little info about any members of the band prior to the lineup that started with the black album and the latest lineup, for instance -- but it's a hell of a lot better than any of the biographies of the band that have appeared so far. Worth reading if you're interested in the band or the whole process of disintegration that began when Newsted left.
If you're looking a definitive accounting of the mysterious Sun Ra, who was regrettably called back to Saturn in 1993, this is probably it. There is another book (whose title I forget, alas) that was previously cited as "the" Ra reference, but this is more current....
Sun Ra remains one of the most enigmatic figures in not just jazz but all of modern music -- this was a man, remember, who changed his name more times than a cat has lives, claimed to be from Saturn, and was incorporating noise and chaos into his music long before there even a term for such antics (the book's accounting of his "non-duet" with John Cage is amusing) -- and while this book doesn't exactly demystify him, it does go a long way toward explaining where he came from (Birmingham, Alabama or Saturn, depending on whose view you lean toward), how he was educated, how he came to be one of the most singularly innovative figures in free jazz, and his relationship to the members of the various (endlessly various) incarnations of the Arkestra. It also provides some insight into their admittedly chaotic discography (Ra had a tendency to tape everything, then send the tapes back to El Saturn headquarters in Philadelphia, where the songs would be issued in puzzling configurations across dozens of records many years later, making the issue of discography placement a real headache) and working methods (basically they rehearsed and played all the time). The book is liberally sprinkled with many colorful anecdotes of Ra wandering the streets of New York in only a toga and wild hat (wild, festive hats figure prominently in the Sun Ra saga), his battle with the authorities over being drafted, encounters with the likes of Coltrane and Sonny Sharrock, and tons of other interesting stuff. If you're only dimly aware of what all the fuss is about, this is the place to start. (As for where to start listening, good luck -- there's about two hundred albums to choose from....)
Bizarre musing about the "new generation" growing up in Japan -- not the polite, blank, servile people who have served in the past as the general Japanese stereotype, but more the type of people the official Japan would probably prefer not to discuss, namely the speed freaks, cycle gang lunatics, the Yazuka, dope fiends and hustlers, porn star "Choco Bon Bon", etc., etc. The stories are all interesting, and it's illuminating to learn more about the inner workings of the Yazuka, the right-wing nationalists, and the bored/disenfranchised youth who appear and sound remarkably American (only with a better grasp of grammar, oddly enough), but the book fails in what I think was its intended purpose -- to shock the reader with a sense of "look at what scandalous things are happening in Japan! See, it's really a WILD place after all!" Well, it may indeed be wild by Japanese standards, but to read this book in AMERICA... well, their antics seem almost quaint by comparison. The book talks about the Yazuka having to get tough with bill collections by beating up blubbering old men; hell, in this country they would have just shot him up (and anybody else in the room with him) with an AK-47 just for grins. Collecting the bill would have just been an EXCUSE to fire that big shiny weapon! And their biggest juvenile delinquency problem is stealing motorcycles? Gee, that sounds real badass... over here we just have to worry about the under-18 set firing MAC-10s indiscrimately and committing acts of rape and torture in the school bathroom.
The best illustration of this principle comes in the section about the cycle gang, where the de-facto gang leader acquires an American pistol and uses it to shoot up... HIS OWN CAR. Huh? Over HERE, he would have tested it out by shooting his TEACHER and then using it to coerce a couple of students to give him a blowjob or something. If that's their version of "tough" I can see why Japan is so much safer than this country....
Nevertheless, the book is indeed interesting, mainly because it illustrates (unintentionally, I think) how much American and Japan are actually alike. The two aren't that far removed -- both are media-oversatured, consumer-driven countries with a lot of disenfranchised youth, meaningless work in schools, and crazy mafia-like goons controlling right-wing politics and everything else. Just one more thing to consider as the two countries continue to butt heads over everything from trade sanctions to the usual waffling over Hiroshima....
SUBURBAN VOODOO COMICS # 1 by Matthew Guest (Fantagraphics)
Imagine if Harvey Pekar (AMERICAN SPLENDOR) wrote exclusively about scary white trash and you'd have something very much like this. In "The Devil's Consort," the rednecks gather for beer and barbeque and having a good old time until Cindy is apparently possessed by the devil (oooo!) and sticks her hand in hot coals, pokes out someone's eye, beats up several people, and basically behaves in a fairly scary manner. "Ritual Initiation" is a teenage slice-of-life thing that follows a group of boys from a weird initiation club rite in a sewer tunnel to their fucked-up relationship with a couple of girls and draws the usual conclusions (namely, "life sucks, doesn't it?"). The comic's main strong point (aside from the art) is its bizarre, cyncial streak of black humor (VERY black indeed). Recommended, but only for fans of all that is truly disturbed about ordinary, mundane life in suburbia.
THINGS THAT NEVER WERE: Fantasies, Lunacies, and Entertaining Lies
Matthew Rossi [Monkeybrain Books]
In his introduction to Matthew Rossi's THINGS THAT NEVER WERE, noted SF author Phil Di Filippo trumps us reviewers by stating, "Matthew Rossi may have invented an entire new art form in THINGS THAT NEVER WERE. Call it speculative nonfiction, or cryptojournalism, or historico-literary ranting, or guided daydreaming, or collective-unconscious channelling, or edutainment disinformation, or fabulaic mimesis, or polymorphically perverse media-jamming, or any other semi-oxymoronic term you care to employ, so long as the new phrase conveys the proper sense of daring, erudition, obstinate refusal to accept consensus reality, playfulness, willingness to go out on a limb and then saw the limb away, and all the other qualities traditionally associated with humanity's greatest rebels, outcasts, eccentrics, visionaries, saints, madmen, and plain old bullgoose loonies." * [TMU: Is this the dude's long-winded way of saying Rossi is the new Ballard?] (Yes, that is all one sentence. Eat your heart out, Roy.) [TMU: I must say that I'm definitely impressed with Di Filippo's near-Dostoyveskian approach to the vast and limitless plains of overly ornate sentences, and I had indeed taken note of his boundless verbiage and its lengthy construction, much like an endless chain of pop-can tabs linked together -- similar to the work of a bored eight-year old girl waiting in the bathroom with the roaches for her mama to come back with the crack she needs so desperately to smoke -- but he lacks a certain, how to say it, elegance to his lurid and self-serving pop-culture bullshit, plus he builds such a monumental case for Rossi that there's almost no way he can live up to it, although if you say it is so then obviously it must be so, like birds on the wire; on top of that, he steals gratuitously from Ken Kesey and doesn't even acknowledge it, the ungrateful swine, plus he sounds like a swinging hipster with his pants on too tight and teeny-tiny balls, and he can blow it out his cosmic wazoo, and as you can clearly see, I still smoke him without even trying in the Department of Writing Really Long and Terribly Convoluted Sentences That My Former English Professor Would Frown Upon, although he would tell me about his displeasure over smokes, and even allow me to bum one of him... help, help, I can't finish this sentence, O Ra, mighty Ra, help me Ra, I have become like Sisyphus and now I don't even remember what the goddamn point of this was in the first place... "I'm serious, call me delirious..." (a little taste o' the bass for you from Public Enemy)... can I stop now?]
The thing is, Di Filippo is dead on. In this collection of essays, Rossi posits, among other things, that the Tunguskua blast of 1908 was either the result of magickal tampering by the Order of the Golden Dawn via Jack the Ripper or, alternately, an attempt by Rasputin at dragging an angel (or equivalent being) from the Heavens ("Tunguskua I"); paints Doc Hiliday as the Fisher King ("The King Bears His Wound"); sends Harry Houdini, H. P. Lovecraft, and Robert E. Howard on a mission to counter an invasion from the Hollow Earth ("The World Below"); states that "California is Aztlan melded with Avalon, and it all began with the magi of Persia, before the birth of Christ," and does it in such a way that it sounds more like reportage than speculation. Rossi is able to do this because he seems to have an ecyclopedic knowledge of mythology (Sumerian, Greco-Roman, Egyptian, Norse, Celtic, you name it), occultism, conspiracy theory, and mysticism; a solid grasp of the more esoteric branches of physics; string theory, quantum theory, and the theory of morphic resonance; and a thorough knowledge of the pulps and their offspring -- and he gives them all equal weight. The Greek pantheon stands side by side with Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, King Arthur next to Harry Houdini, the Qabbalah next to quantum theory, or Robert E. Howard next to Mark Twain. He ties it all together with a manic, almost gonzo style of writing that draws the reader in -- even if you know nothing about morphic fields or have no idea why Zeus and Typhon were at war, Rossi will have you thinking, "Yeah, I can totally see that." The other thing that comes through is Rossi's enthusiasm. Rossi had a great time writing these pieces, and it comes across. The only real problems I can point out are the skimpy index and the lack of a bibliography. ** Other than those minor quibbles, this collection is awesome. Mr. Rossi is a freak in the best possible sense of the word, and THINGS is the most imaginative thing I've read this year. [N/A]
* Of the terms listed, I prefer "speculative nonfiction."
**I queried Mr. Rossi about the lack of a bibliography and he was kind enough to post a reading list on his website.
THE THOMSKY FLUKE AND OTHER TALES by Jay Davis [This Starcraft]
An odd and disturbing little document, to be sure. The slim volume's minimal collage art recalls the Situationist movement, but the short stories -- fashioned more like dark monologues, reports, and eyewitness accounts of absurd (yet unnerving) incidents -- are something else altogether, like a dark and uneasy fusion of Ligotti, Ballard, and some of the better visionaries of the original DANGEROUS VISIONS series (in fact, if Master Ellison ever gets his goddamn thumb out of his ass and puts out the third one, the Holy Grail nobody even believes in anymore, he'd be wise to ask this fellow to pony up a contribution). "The Unlovelies" is the bizarre explanation, straight from the mouth of a dangerously violent lunatic who has just commited a gruesome crime, of how he found his course of action the only reasonable one; "The Thomsky Fluke" is the disturbing "report" of a bizarre side-effect found in children subjected to high doses of a drug contained in abnormal amounts in a favorite kiddie cereal (itself popular because of incessant television advertising), presented in such a fashion as to recall one of the better stories in Ellison's original collection (I think -- it's the story of parents who can't pay the hospital bill, so they leave the girl there to grow up in the hospital). Most of the rest of the book is taken up by the eight short pieces of narrative reporting thinly disguised as fiction that make up "The Bellero Shie," itself a series of interlocking tales revolving around various sordid employees and events pertaining to the Finkle Blasting Company. The final story, "Harry Higgins," is about... a lecherous mummy and the cuckolded men who fear and despise him. Yeah, it's not your standard BORDERS fare, that's for sure. This reminds me (not so much for the writing, but the whole feel of the package and its alien otherworldliness) a lot of a disturbing self-published book of the 80s called THE NEUTRON GUN. Definitely powerful and psychoactive in the wrong hands. Hep to the naked mindfuck of Ballard, Burroughs, Ligotti, those kind of guys? Check it out (see EPHEMERA for how to contact author Jay Davis). Clueless about such dark, morbid stuff? Kafka give you hives? Maybe you want to pass on this bleak vision of our impending doom, then. "Freedom of choice! It's what you want...."
This is an interesting book. Outside of the exceptionally Factoryesque design and a bunch of nifty photos, the main meat of the book is in discovering that -- assuming you believe the widow Curtis -- Ian was apparently a paranoid, possessive, adultering, drug-swilling shithead. Well, that would hardly surprise me... there are no heroes anymore....
Consider this the more grounded-in-reality parallel to AN IDEAL FOR LIVING, then (the other main Joy Division textbook, one that more or less deifies them), in which the Joy Division history is laid out from an intimate perspective that reveals the band (and particularly Curtis) as human beings with excesses and failures, just like everybody else. All the history you would expect is here, and then some -- from Ian's early childhood all the way through Deborah's gruesome discovery of his self- inflicted death. It's all pretty interesting, needless to say, probably even for those not already acquainted with the JD mystique.
The real treat for JD fanatics, though, is in the appendix. In addition to a so-so discography and a "complete" gig list, the book reproduces the full lyrics to all the recorded songs, lyrics for a great many songs that were never recorded, and a smattering of unfinished lyrics and notes and stuff. As you'd expect, it's all pretty bleak. Viva le death disco....
Finally... the fifth edition of the obsessive record collector's essential guide to obscure tuneage. (A side note: It's a testament to Tower Records' ongoing cluelessness that when i asked to see their copy so i could look up something about Polvo, they had never even heard of it.) The new edition differs a fair bit from the previous editions, though: with the advent of bands crawling out of the woodwork to document their own progress and a general upswing in recorded product, Robbins decided to make this a listing of almost entirely new reviews. The only holdovers are bands listed in the earlier editions who are a) still around and making records and b) still making RELEVANT records; even then, the listings of such bands largely restrict themselves to the more current catalog (for example, the Butthole Surfers section lists the entire discography, but only reviews everything from PIOUGHD onward, referring the reader back to the fourth edition for earlier stuff). The rest of the reviews are pretty much of bands that came into existence after the last edition, and my are there a lot of them.
The good news is that a lot of the important bands that were left out of previous editions (Yoko On, L7, Last Exit, John Zorn, Richard Thompson, etc.) have been included this time around; unfortunately, there are plenty that got left out of THIS one (Barkmarket and Skullflower come readily to mind, and there are plenty more). Another good thing is that there are a LOT more reviewers this time around, making for more variety in the reviewing process; of course, that's also problematic for those of us used to figuring "Okay, i know Robbins hates these bands i already like and he's comparing this other band to them, so even though he says it's poo i'll probably like it" -- now you have to multiply that by all the other reviewers. Oh well, nothing is perfect....
My biggest complaint is (naturally) the short shrift given to the likes of Null, Skullflower, and noise/experimental music in general; beyond that, though, there's very little to whine about. You really DO need to have the fourth edition to bracket this one, though... a wee problem for me at the moment, actually, since my fourth edition is packed away in a box somewhere never to found again until the next move.... [th-scg: Actually, it's sitting in plain sight in his closet, where I put it, which he'll figure out eventually the next time he bothers to change clothes.]