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Jesus and the
Mary Chain |
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"Ghosts of people I have been turn
around and shout obscene..."
"I'm a stone dead tripper dyin' in a fantasy" "I think I'm goin' out of style...I think I've known it for awhile..." "And we tried so hard and we looked so cool and we lived our lives in black..."  Mook metal morons sadly mistaking this
FLASH METAL SUICIDE endeavor for
still another nostalgic pusheaded hairband handjob are urged to seek their
daily fix of redundant spandex arcana elsewhere, try
Headbangersballs.com
or something if yer achin' for all the latest updates on Whitesnake,
Winger, Warrant, White Lion, Twisted Sister,
Quiet Riot, etc., as I got no
time for strict adherence to genres, I always despised the genre monger,
the genre hags, the followers-you know-the pretentious assholes who wanna
endlessly categorize and debate say, which of the formulaic skinny tie
power pop bands are most "Beatlesque" or, like, who was most influenced by
Harrison's "Wonderwall" noodlings: XTC or
Jellyfish? Badfinger or Klaatu?
Blah Blah Blah...My dear friend, the "Great Songwriter" often accuses me
of being this very character, a blind aficionado of what he refers to,
disparagingly, as "junkie glam" (Jim Carroll? junkie, no glam...uh...Patti
Smith?) and even that's really splitting hairs, y'know-yeah, of course I
obviously dig a buncha bands influenced by the NY DOLLS and Johnny
Thunders, I guess, but I feel more like a connoisseur of songs with heart,
and have always preferred the groups who DEFINE their own genres. The real
voices, the originals, more than their copycats. Like classic Van Halen,
one of the greatest rock groups of all time, but I never liked none of the
singers who tried to copy DLR or the guitarists who tried to copy
Edward.
Whenever someone emerges with a genuine identity, everybody tries to cop
it, dumbly mimicking whatever cosmetic trappings or musical gimmick they
misguidedly see as the originator's appeal. Likewise, I loved the
originality and tormented soul and hedonistic rock'n'roll heart of the
JESUS & MARY CHAIN, but I got zero patience for the Black Leather
Motorcycle Drones who try to imitate them. Ain't got the faith, don't
make- believe; and like you, maybe, I know way too many scholarly,
bourgeois, record collecting killjoys with their rooms fulla old jukeboxes
and peachcrates full of "can't play" vinyl who are hell bent on anal-yzing, dissecting, top-tenning, shit-hoarding, rare-find
flaunting, and "got mining" all the fun and soul right outta rocknroll,
but I try not to let the vicious greedheads with the empty lives spent
carefully turning yellowing pages of old Goldmine magazines or the
20-sumpthin disposable income squandering, MOJO readership with all their
fifth-generation, twelfth hand by the book bigmouthed opining ruin the
rock for me. It's hard, though, having to encounter these legions of
mop-topped, suede jacketed, urban outfitted,
snot-nosed rich kids everywhere I go, always wanting to debate with me about
some kinda obscure Pink Fairies or Holy Modal Rounders or Andre Williams
or Esquerita geek arcana. I'm Trouser Depressed (TM), already. Zero interest
in any discourse or imported beer pissing contests based around the fact
that somebody suddenly owns more Mud or Cockney Rebels or Phil Ochs or
Serge Gainsbourg albums than I do. I don't have any records you, little motherfuckers.
Maybe a scratchedup copy of "Combat Rock" somewhere. _____________________________________________________________________________________ |
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SOME CANDY TALKING...
20 years ago, the whole country was different, the social climate was alot more inclusive. There was indeed a counterculture, a thriving subculture still alive, those were different times. A lot more people were able to inhabit living wage jobs strictly reserved now for the connected middle class. There was no E-Bay, no internet, and thus no music geek websites, downloading/I-podding/file-sharing, the techno toy of the day was yer imitation Sony Walkman with a cool compilation tape in it your girlfriend's older sister sent home from college. Lloyd Cole and the Smiths. Let's Active and some forgotten Country Dick cowpunk bands and Athens jangle pop bands-maybe Mitch Easter, Style Council, The Jam, Tones on Tail, "Bela Lugosi's Dead" and the Monkees outro theme, maybe... There was no Hot Topic then. There were not tattoo/piercing franchises on every corner. They didn't sell spiked punk rock belts at WalMart. There was a real rawk underground not owned and operated by the rich. There were print fanzines galore (Black To Comm, Flipside, BucketfullOf Brains, Anorexic Teenage Sexgods, Noise For |
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| Heroes, Sonic Iguana, Dumpster Dive, Whiskey For Breakfast, Ready To Snap, Full Blast, etc.), loads of real indie record stores, and dark, draft-sticky music venues booked by people not completely determined to only ever book the latest corporate rehash bands of bouncing rich boys garbed in yesterday's fads. Rock culture was not dominated by all the elitist, power mongering, money grubbing, trend chasing careerists. Obviously, I've been feeling completely alienated for years by the spirit of the age, maybe, in part, due to geographical dislocation, but I can't relate to the culture right now-the government, the TV shows, the music, the war, the styles, the hypocrisy, and thoughtless, pre-scripted dialogue all my acquaintances feel compelled to rehash from commercials and TV. I'm fast becoming an embittered old curmudgeon who's yet to make a comfortable transition into middleclass adulthood, much to the shame and disgust of my former acquaintances who are seemingly still convinced they're just about to finally grab that carrot, the job title, the paycheck brass ring, it's so close...me, I'm just characteristically unable to abandon my haughty idealism and mirrored shades in exchange for some votive candles from Pier 1 imports and one of those big military humvee jeep things, esp. while your military's warring for the Carlyle Group and Halliburton's oil stash. I can still remember who I was, who many of you were, back before the Alternative Marketing Hoax, before the slackers turned social climbers, before the Clear Channel Monopoly, when songs were still regularly being composed and produced that touched my heart, before the Patriot Act fascist Clampdown, before the Nightly News was Whole Hog Right Wing Propaganda, back when I felt a genuine connection and camaraderie with the real rock n' roll people. We were all easily able to recognize one another, before we were divided by class, jobs, wive's mothers, before all bets were off, and the race was dumbly on to claw yer way to the top of some imaginary shitpile. I'm goin' back to bed. Fuck you Carson Dailey, Urban Outfitters, Spin Magazine, Michael Eisner, Oprah, Low Carb Lifestylers, Sex & The City, Simon Cowell, MTV, the Strokes, Jack White, P. Diddy, Doctor Phil, Billy Bush, etc. FAKKOFFF. _____________________________________________________________________________________ | |
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THE LIVING END... Man, the Jesus And Mary Chain's "Psychocandy" (1985), in spite of being redundantly overrated by a zillion academic record store clerks who never kissed a girl, really WAS thee quintessential rocknroll landmark for a generation of kids who missed the Velvet Underground. Brothers Jim and William Reid were teachin' us gloomy outcasts all about Bo Diddley, Arthur Lee, Lou Reed, and Brian Wilson. Their sweet as Peach Nehi soda surf melodies and crystal meth driven walls of Einsturzende Neubacten avalanches of metallic clanging and superfuzzed distortion and heartfelt yearning, obsessive lyrics about unattainable ingénues with names like Candy and Cindy, were complimented by their self-destructo, neurotic boy outsider fuck you Sex Pistols punk attitude. |
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The perfect soundtrack and iconic image for
our own fleeting little glam/goth motorcycle moment when
the beautiful girls with the nose rings and velvet dresses, the ten
thousand silver bracelets and Texaco-spill eyeliner danced over-dramatically
to the throbbing, pumping strains of Sisters Of Mercy and draped
themselves seductively over one on black couches in big fun city goth
hangouts. Those chicks were cool, too. They liked Bowie and Alice Cooper.
Industrial killed goth, y'know, for those of us that dug the more song
oriented, pop and new wave side of death rock, or mope rock, or gloom, or
whatever it was we were doing back then, in the ripped up fishnet
stockings and safety pins we wore as gloves, and all the eggwhites in the
hair and the girls with the pancake ghost white makeup and glossy
Propaganda magazine sticking outta their triple oversized black leather
purse. I was never into the Skinny Puppy/Ministry/death disco side of goth
that turned into the industrial rape rock and nu metal of today. I mean,
besides Clint Ruin, who was always a song and dance man at heart. |
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CHOOSE YOUR DELUSION It's ashame Kurt Cobain handed his nuts to that clown faced publicity freak Courtney cos while I'm loath to extoll the virtues of Axl's seedier streaks of misogyny and racism, etc. If Kurt had had even a TASTE of the "It's So Easy" fun side of rocknroll kicks maybe he wouldn't have taught a nation of teenage boys to lay around in fetal position hating themselves and feeling guilty, maybe he'd still be around mumbling melodically, you gotta bang a supermodel every once in awhile or what's the point, y'know? Fuck these emo sissies and their man hating college girlfriends. All Kurt did was shoot dope and apologize and what did that get him? |
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Brains on the wall and the merry widow still banged each of his jock rock
imitators like they do. Velvet Revolver are covering "Negative Creep" in concert and
Curdt never even got to admit to liking "Mister Brownstone", so invested
was that poor sap in the apologist shell game of riot girl empowerment and
p.c. gender role swapping. Man, all the last standing fire breathing
genuine article stardog champions of real rock got brought down by the
Lilliputians to make way for these obedient clone rock manikins. It's been
years since a real band was allowed to crack the mainstream. Anybody else
remember the days when rank outsiders and different drummers with drug
problems and fucked up haircuts were bankable assetts allowed to freely
express their selves? I remember a time when even fey Anglo leatherboy
deviants and anti-social incorrigibles like the Bros. Reid, Andrew Eltrich,
Julian Cope, Nick Marsh, Daniel Ash, and Ian McCullough were post punk
pin-ups in spite of being pasty freaks, dopers without gym memberships or
gold watches, y'know? A lot has changed in the past decade, here in the
Divided Red & Blue States Of Generica. Saudis took down those towers so
Halliburton and Co. invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and dismantled the Bill
Of Rights. Corporate mergers and deregulation of anti-monopoly laws have
resulted in five or six companies controlling the entire media-record
companies, radio, the venues, music television, etc. Mousketeers and jocks are
in. Rebels and truth tellers are banished. The airwaves are muddied with
puddles of limp post grunge piss, boy bands, rap lite, and emo Bert N Ernies
and geek pop. The police state's clamped down on protest, dismantled all
our basic rights, browbeaten us non-stop with their radical rightwing
disinformation, busted up all the unions, and squeezed out the
independents. Poorer neighborhoods are crack infested. When there are no
jobs, families split up over money and spiral, children grow up without
their parents in the home and why do you think they keep building jails?
The circle of opportunity gets smaller and smaller. Low income housing is
disappearing driving poor folk outdoors, man. The economy is so fucked and
they just lie to us about the statistics so we think we're the only one
struggling. Even jobs like factories and driving ambulances are only
paying $7.50/hr. now. Delta pilots just took a 23% pay cut to save their
jobs and these elite CEO's just pocket billions brazenly, and we're taught
to applaud and respect them. Fuck you, Starbucks. Fuck you Enron. Fuck You
Donald Trump. Give me back my freedom and the pursuit of happiness. Man,
we've been dupes. How the fook did all the class climbing Sex In The City
former strippers turned Milf Soccer Moms trick us non jock gold toothed
pimp playa fratboy gangstas into packing up OUR peacock feathers and self
entitlement in the first place? What were we thinking turning in our
leather strides, and Lou Reed shades, thinkin' a job at the bottom was
gonna buy us security and selling ourselves so short? It's like
everybody's ashamed to believe in real individuality, ashamed to be
poor, afraid of being called a liberal or a loser, everybody's renounced
their own right to rock. Look around you/all around you/riding on a copper
wave/Do you like the world around you? Are you ready to behave. Don't
worry about being kicked off the reality show island, kids. Like the
Sleazegrinder said to me once, "What are you listening to psychiatrists
for? LISTEN TO ZODIAC MINDWARP!" Nothing is impossible. All this wanker
rock is beneath us. When was the last time YOU listened to "Psychocandy"
or the B-Sides comp., "Barbed Wire Kisses"? The Jesus & Mary chain
celebrated all the ups and downs of uppers and downers and over the counters, the confusion of love and sex, and all the melancholy and
confusion and heartbreak and ceaseless vainglory of being an outsider. The
garish din of 80's teen cool. Like Chrissie Hynde said of us rock for life
outlaws, "We may be ugly ducklings, but we're proud." ______________________________________________________________________________________ |
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I'M IN WITH THE OUT CROWD When 120 Minutes, MTV's Sunday Night pre-"alternative" new music show made celebs outta won rakes and gothic pouters, call me naff, but the world seemed like a much groovier place. There was still ample space alotted for us bohemians, new romantics, glue sniffing hoods, little dreamers, pirates, gypsies, self-abusers, holy barbarians, and uncatorizable space hoodlums to thrive. The broads weren't reduced to being hootchie springbreak mamas or plastic blow up doll surgically enhanced material girl lap dancers for auction to the highest bidder, either! Remember Cyndi, Siouxsie, Texacala, Exene, Lydia, Perri, Inger, Phoebe, |
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Nina, Iris, Pleasant, Jane, Wendy,Brigitte,
Mandie, etc. The goths and glammies freaked freely without violent
repercussions, heavy
scrutiny, or economic sanctions being imposed against them by jealous
hearted squares, s'long as we steered clear of sporting events-y'know
Nuremberg football rallies. Hot babes still loved jetboys and dandies,
eccentrics and beat poets. Bauhaus, Specimen, Gene Loves Jezebel,
Guns N
Roses and Hanoi Rocks were sex symbols. People openly mocked
phony lifeguard metal and formulaic soulless weasels manufactured by robber
baron major label suits and shysters. Ian Astbury was always cool.
David Coverdale was always a joke. Either you get it or you don't. 101:Upper
class shoegazing low-fi (sounding like shit on purpose) dweebs
experimenting with rap, dance muzak, irony, and any of our shit have
always sucked ass, and always will, forever. Let's all rally together to
reclaim our rock n roll sovereignty and get rid of W, his C.E.O.'s, and all
their fortunate son's crap music! Lets band together here and give the
finger to the meat-drunk, war crazed, dumb fuck, greedhead, dominant bully
culture that worships plasticity and mediocrity and punishes truth and
soul. This is the Bush Era, the Bizarro Dimension, when wrong is right and
everything is upside down, but you, me, them, people have the power to
change it anytime we want. Here's the raw deal, though: Rik Slave and the
Phantoms rock. All those O.C. nerd punk bands with the put on, whiney
voices, do not. The COMATONES rocked. Lenny Kravitz can't get near it.
The
Favors rock-those jam band business hippies do not. Sadly, we have to keep
spelling this out for everybody. Even Papa Rollin' Stone, Keith, himself's
been singin' about "Losing My Touch", and as you
Flash Metallers know,
that's the one thing you can't never pawn: "That Feel") These are dark
times for outcasts, underdogs, anybody different, who stands out and hates
that garbage on TV. The bad guys are winning, the good guys get set up like
clay pigeons and it's nearly impossible to tell the difference anymore.
Leonard Cohen's song "The Future"'s become eerily prophetic. DLR's a
morning zoo drive-time dork D.J. radio punchline while that silly
Republican goon in the Capri pants tours the nation with "Van Halen". The
Lords tour with a "replacement" singer. The Dead Kennedys tour without
Jello Biafra?! All the kids think this redneck dick rock is the same as
punk, love rock, glam rock, or flash metal. They've never even been exposed
to Thin Lizzy, Ian Hunter, Gunfire Dance, or Rose Tattoo.
Joe Strummer's
dead. Killer Kane's gone, too. Z's in the hospital. Nobody noticed the
brilliant hard pop of the 60 Ft. Dolls-they do like Jet, though, which is
encouraging. Wonder what Francois' thinkin'....Urban Outfitters and E-Bay
killed thrift stores and neighborhood junk shops. People ignored the Beat
Angels and American Heartbreak. Nobody struts around my neighborhood
showing off their Tsar, Diamond Dogs, or Silver black concert t-shirts, y'know?
The black haired hoodie teens all seem to think Davey Havoc IS
Andrew Eltrich and Reznor's Jim Foetus. All the soul survivor once revolutionary
real rocknroll comets and super heroes are either kinda sucking or
retreating into seclusion, retirement, compromise, or exile. Tyla tours
with his wife--as if that's the same thing as the Dogs D'Amour. Ricky and
Gary, impressed with themselves for working with Jesse Malin and Brigitte,
refuse to reunite Circus Of Power, even though they know we need them.
Urge Overkill reunited and no one noticed. Frankie Starr is dead. The Cult,
the Jesus & Mary Chain, Roth, Idol, Axl, I don't blame 'em for not wanting
to lower themeslves to competing with backpack dorks or commodified pimp
rap. Dylan sez if he was coming up today, he wouldn't even get involved
with music, cos the hierarchy is such a corrupt, heartless sham. The good
news is, well...you'll have to ask the Sleazegrinder, cos it all looks pretty
bleek from where I'm cryin'... _____________________________________________________________________________________ |
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STARDUST REMEDY... The Jesus & Mary Chain were like this damaged, drugged out, Scottish Hit Factory producing simple, catchy, song after brilliant song. Innovative albums like "Honey's Dead" (1992) and "Automatic" were brimming over with hooks, revelations, poetry, sex, true confessions, sneering non-compliance, cultural dissonance, and all their personal rock fantasies and 'luded out ego trip issues revolving 'round religion, acid, and cunnilingus, and motorcycles and the blues- all that heady stuff of romantic delinquent inspiration! "I get head on my motorbike/my mood is black when my jacket's on/and I'm in love with myself/and I'm in love with myself" Maybe you need a script of Vicodin to fully dig it, but "Darklands" (1987) was where the boys put the breaks on the formula, shrugging off all the trademark sonic metal slabbage, throwing all their clueless bandwagon chasers for a loop, by abruptly taking this violent left turn into a more earnest, soul searching, acoustic based, folksy melodicism. "I... go to the Darklands/ to talk in rhyme, with my chaotic soul..." Yeah, yeah, Darklands was a downer, but it was a soulful, righteous downer - genuine introspection, real growth and development was taking place. And grieving. "I have ached for you/I've nothing left to give/ for you to take/ I've no more empty heart or limbs to break...", not merely the affluent malaise of redundant, spoilt poseurs laundry listing their complaints and affecting that "I'm so jaded" copout ennui. By the time the blue bloods and khaki clad mainstreamers got hip to this shit via the Pixies cover of "Head On", and regular rotation of the "Happy When It Rains" video (no, not to Vig/Manson cadge) the Reid Bros. knew the jig was almost up. A glut of copy cat shoegazer bands were getting hailed by the N.M.E/ Melody Maker British tabloid press as the "new Jesus & Mary Chain". Dreampop bands, Pavement geeks, out of tune shitty Sonic Youth pretensious noise pollution, rave, the Stone Roses, My Bloody Valentine, Madchester, X, Black Grape, blah blah blah. Brit Pop (Oasis, Pulp, Verve, Blur - in that order...) was on the horizon, and our glum heroes knew they'd nearly had their day... ___________________________________________________________________________________ |
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GOD PLEASE HELP ME THROUGH THIS DAY... The Mary Chain released the timelessly gorgeous but sardonically resigned "Stoned & Dethroned" (1994) to minimal fanfare, a treasure trove of Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra / Pet Sounds influenced yearning folk tunes that gave birth to still more fads and pale imitation vicodin-influenced musical sub genres. Man, I hate college rock. It guest starred Shane from the Pogues on a gospel song, if my blurred memory serves me correctly, as well as Hope Sandoval, the now famous sleepy eyed ingénue from Mazzy Star and the Warm Inventions. Their songs were as usual seeking redemption or serenity or some remote kinda rest for the weary, wrestling with the ghosts of heartache and addiction and the hangover of the soul that's seen too much in too few years. The Reid Bros., were facing down mid life crisis and searching for some kinda spiritual consciousness. These cats were the original sulking-wounded enfants terrible of eighties underground rocknroll, feuding onstage, getting too drunk, forgetting the lyrics, refusing to face the audience, breaking up all the time. |
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I saw 'em on that tour, but my
memory's vague, cos I was on heavy medication for the flu, but I think I
remember Hope and Jim duet-ing on their hit "Sometimes Always", before I
was physically removed from the venue by a bunch of meathead frat boy
bouncers for drinking backstage while stamped low cos I'd lost my wallet,
I.D., and rent money in a little old man bar the week before, so I didn't
get to meet my childhood heroes, even though I had a backstage pass courtesy
of the Four Horsemen's old road manager. "You took a part of me that no one else will ever see..." The Mary Chain had grown with me from my first kiss , my first acid trip, courtships, domesticity, bands, breakups, kids, estrangement, etc., but after "Stoned & Dethroned" it started becoming clearer and clearer that cats like me were becoming sad relics. Our heyday was over and the goons and goobers of sporto-grunge were being fed all the wrong information by the magazines and their corporate paymasters annd it all became a locker room, a country club, a Gap commercial, a reality show from then on out. William Reid released a disappointingly halfhearted EP called "Tired Of Fucking". They both had to witness their former "drummer" exalted rock crit Bobby Gillespie ascend to European glory first by aping Chris Robinson and later on the Manic Street Preachers in Primal Scream. The Mary Chain continued to breakup and reform with new sidemen all the time before releasing their last ditch leftovers compilation, "Munki", their cardboard epitaph. MUNKI was a definitive, despairingly great Flash Metal Suicide. Song after song about alienation, abandonment, defeat, heartbreak, and broken dreams. What happens after you fall. You know-all the fall out of lost youth and post stardom when the girls are gone, yer stuck with the ceaseless echoes of all that could have been, and you find yourself rotting from the inside out. When bad habits, self loathing, disconnection notices, bad obsessions, drug debts, yellowing reviews stuffed in bios of dead rockstars, scrapbooks, writers block and a personality crisis from hell are what you've got. Conflicting, fractured self images that come from listening to the press and sensing how people are enjoying watching you suffer. Loneliness, futility, when the money and the goodtime friends are long gone, the party's over, when you've been used up and discarded and your former peers have all moved on, when the willowy women won't answer your calls and nobody's on your side. Kinda like Joy Division or the Manic St. Preachers' "Holy Bible". Grating, harrowing sorrowful ruminations about love and glory lost. Contemplating a life gone wrong and facing death with a heavy conscience. It starts out with an anthemic rocker called "I Love Rocknroll ":(more Lou than Joan) and takes you on a rocknroller coaster rise and fall, "I'm a mean motherfucker now but I once was cool", co stars their sister on a tune called "Moe Tucker" and climaxes with "I Hate Rocknroll", "All the people with nothing to show..." Last I heard, Jim & William were trying to reconcile themselves with their declining fortunes and dwindling cult fugure-dom. I Hope they're finding some serenity, peace, love, and prosperity. How hellish must it be to be that famous and then seemingly forgotten, having to resign yourself to a reclusive life as former icons and fallen stars, longing for lost loves who might not ever be coming back, no matter how beautiful their songs are. Whoa. Nobody cares and nobody remembers real rocknroll, do they? It's all been co-opted, y'know? But for 120 Minutes, the Jesus & Mary Chain were the coolest cats in the history of underground rocknroll , and that's why I'm happy when it rains... -The Man On The Moon |
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Further: (Post Script: I was typing this entry at the library yesterday and I got hassled by a spinster librarian, who didn't like the looks of me. She actually sicked a cop on me because I was checkin' in on the Sleazegrinder msg. board and she noticed a picture of some broad's bared breasts and accused me of perusing porn sites in a public forum. Marc Spitz and Chuck Klosterman aren't subjected to these types of indignities, aw well. Story of my life!) |
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