Allyson Shaw has just published a mindfuckingly-great cyberpunk novel entitled The Desperate Ones. It’s an intensely poetic, darkly fantastic dash for an apocalyptic finish line in a futuristic cityscape that will be recognizable to many of you. Lemma tell ya: it’s a madcrazy ride fr sure. But as this is a music blog, I thought I’d talk a bit about a few of my favorite versions of the Jacques Brel song that cued off her entire project. I am aware of at least a half dozen versions of this song, the best of which remind me of characters and themes throughout the novel. In no particular order I give you:
NINA SIMONE – “The Desperate Ones” (from Nina Simone & Piano!, RCA Records, 1969) Nina was a master at infusing other people’s songs with an urgent passion that spoke not only to individual battles but of much larger cultural and political wars still relevant today. This isn’t the first song most will associate with Nina, and for good reason. There’s a certain unhinged quality at work here many won’t be able to relate to. The pain fueling this sounds more rooted in Nina’s struggle with bipolar disorder, rather than any attempt to comment on wider sociopolitical issues.
But lord knows, even a single howl in the void can be powerful. Such quiet isolation parallels the perpetual state of forgetfulness of Professor Clymenus Bell in Ally’s novel. It’s the kind of burden that must be shouldered privately, but it’s one that crowds both the past and future into a present in a way that’s more than a little unsettling.
GLYN SYTLER & LYDIA LUNCH – “The Desperate Ones” (from The Desperate Ones EP, Atavistic Records, 1997) Glyn and Lydia’s take is unusual as it’s not based on the Brel original, but on the maudlin American version writer Eric Blau and Brill building employee Mort Shuman came up with for their 1968 stage review known as Jacque Brel is Alive and Well and Living In Paris. It’s not unlike how your 80’s teen hardcore band might’ve covered MINOR THREAT’s reimagining of WIRE’s “12XU” – twice removed from source material and hence infused with meaning never intended in the first place. In this case, it’s a beautiful thing they’ve concocted, indeed. Brel’s sadness remains, but the camp, whispered innocence of Alive and Well becomes darkly humorous in the hands of these two doyens of The Hate Generation.
It’s a wonderful example of just how to bring dead culture back to life again, and echoes the way Ally’s character Rabine taps into lost beliefs, vision, and directed will to save her world from the edge of near extinction. Yep it’s only fiction, but dammit if this shouldn’t be the focus of your Great Work too.
MARC ALMOND – “The Desperate Ones” (from the Brel Extras EP, Sin Songs Ltd., 2008) Don’t think I’m not aware: “The Desperate Ones” is one overwrought song, that’s fr sure. But few in recent decades have tackled overwrought as frequently and effectively as Marc. As if to counter all the others who came before, Marc emphasizes not the tragedy but the singular hope shining through the lyrics. He’s recast it from damning to redemptive.
Like everything else Marc has ever done, it could easily go horribly wrong . . . but I’d reckon it’s this version that most closely matches the overall tone of Ally’s The Desperate Ones. It’s a novel that not only contemplates total destruction but actively steps into – and through! – the apocalypse. And if that ain’t a hopeful thing, I don’t know what is.




CLAWHAMMER - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are NOT Devo! (Sympathy For The Record Industry, 1991) What do you get when one of the original Fullerton
VARIOUS ARTISTS – Our Band Could Be Your Life (Little Brother Records, 1994) No no my SST Records bias is not getting the best of me here. Yes there’s a busload of
MEDIUM COOL – Imagination (Rough Trade/New Routes, 1991) This is actually nothing but a quiet, unassuming tribute to 50’s counterculture icon Chet Baker, and many of you will find it too straight-up/EZ for comfort. But since the project was led by ex-PANTHER BURN Ron Miller and most other folks involved have trod crooked paths for longer than many of us have been alive (Alex Chilton, Adele Bertei, James White/Chance, and some other ex-CONTORTIONS) this never feels anything less than totally individual and heartfelt. My hero James White effortlessly takes the cake with his sweetly off-key versions of “
VARIOUS ARTISTS – Matter Dominates Spirit?: A Jim Shepard Tribute (Meta Records, 2001) – The passing of long-time Columbus, OH resident Jim Shepard (VERTICAL SLIT, V-3, LAQUER, EGO SUMMIT, etc.) left an ugly, gaping wound on the face of underground rock that I don’t imagine will ever heal properly. But as tributes go,
JOHN PEEL’S DANDELION RECORDS DVD (
ASYLUM – The Earth Is The Insane Asylum Of The Universe (
GOTHIC HUT – Big Holes! (Show Me Records and Tapes, 1989) Always avoided their Posh Boy Records LP from ‘82, as I imagined it might sound horrid like CATHEDRAL OF TEARS or somebody. Whatever their origins, by the late 80’s John Dyer’s GOTHIC HUT weren’t gothic at all but as singular an underground art rock act as you might find in LA at the time. They’d layer on effects-laden, surf-inspired gtrs thick and sometimes impenetrably atop a laidback rhythm section, then cut it with vocals that were alternatingly humorous or cooly detached. There’s also an appealing soporific quality to the proceedings that makes me think everyone involved was ordered to pop a few benzos before walking into the studio. All this somehow lent an accessibility to what otherwise would be called avant chamber rock. Los Angeles Free Music Society alum Rick Potts is a big part of the sound here, and in fact some of these tunes turned up (in slightly different versions?) on that sprawling 10-CD LAFMS box the Cortical Foundation released in the ’90s. But this doesn’t necessarily mean you gotta wear your LE FORTE FOUR ears to appreciate this;
FREE – Live! (Island Records, 1971) Just to prove I don’t spend all my time listening to obscure and out-of-print records, I give you FREE. Simply the best hard rock band England will ever give the world. That’s EVER. Yeah ZEPP & SABBATH were cool as shit and all, but ohhh man nobody but nobody could beat the bros Paul (Rogers and Kossoff) when backed by this strong a rhythm engine. Unlike in spinoffs BAD COMPANY, every member here was a fullbore believer in the cause, living the beat day-in, day-out. Didn’t hurt that at this point no one had yet to succumb to liver burnout. The way these guys’d crawl all over often the quite simple melodies in that hard, slow, and precise way of theirs, with Koss divebombing in with those intensely restrained, soulful solos . . . it’s blues rock made by a whole band of 6 Million Dollar Steve Austins, who’s collective sense of hearing/playing is so finely tuned they’re attempting music to rock even itty-bitty cicadas. We all know ”All Right Now” stuck but this entire record hammers home dozens of subtle points to the body/mind/soul if you let it. 
No reason to blog about the great WITCHCRAFT, GRAVEYARD & WOLF PEOPLE gig we saw last night in London, when 
1. AMBROSIA – “
2. CHAKRA – “
3. 5UU’S – “
1. THE LEOPARDS – “
2. MAD MONSTER PARTY – “
3. LOVE – “
4. THE MAYDAYS – “
1. VARIOUS ARTISTS – Going Places: The August Darnell Years 1976 – 1983 (
2. VARIOUS ARTISTS – Thank You Friends: The Ardent Records Story (
3. VARIOUS ARTISTS – Bold Beginnings: An Incomplete Collection of Louisville Punk 1978 – 1983 (