Chica Beauty

Any of you ever bother with punker bands in the mid 90’s? I didn’t, really. Ok so this one girlfriend back then once took me to see PENNYWISE someplace in Huntington Beach – got to meet gtrist Fletcher (ex CON/800) in person! She also took me to see THE OFFSPRING at the Hollywood Palladium, when TSOL’s Jack Grisham joined em on stage to do a rushed version of “Code Blue”. Yep I smiled alot watching all these clean cut guys struggle to recreate better bands from a more mythic era, but I admit left feeling, well . . . pretty damn cheap. I felt I’d spent an entire evening sipping a Michelob on a stool at a local chain restaurant, feigning interest in the chatter of the idiot on the next stool and the shitty ball game on the big screen TV. The corporate-sponsored, extreme sport adrenaline-pop thing these bands flogged couldn’t even begin to approximate what had so excited me about HC punker stuff when I’d been a kid.

But a good one once did sneak up on me, unawares like . . . managed to creep past all my bogue art rock pretensions and faux-hippie affectations to dig sharp fangs into my jugular. It was a little ol’ band from Fort Wayne, Indiana who called themselves THE BEAUTYS.

THE BEAUTYS were a trio of drunken but actually head-screwed-on-right hicks from nowheresville, led by fearless gtrist/singer named Chica Baby. They played a brand of raging and totally infectious surf poppunk tunage in a manner THE LEAVING TRAINS might’ve, had Falling James been an actual girl, a decade younger, and a couple thousand miles east of LA. Could all of their burning speed and histrionic screaming been a vain attempt to piss off all the meathead jocks out in their audience? Maybe. In ‘81 this woulda worked like a charm, but in ‘98? No fucking way. By then, meathead culture had fully embraced Loolapalooza and Warped Tour mania, if only on the off chance they might get to oogle a stray boob or two.

But my ears told me Chica wasn’t bothered all that much. Like her punk forefathers/mothers, she just found louder n faster to be the best, most natural way to get it all out of her system. Her not unsubstantial pipes could give pause to whatever testosterone dumbshits decided step up, and then some.

I really don’t got alot more to say about em, other than this: despite all the current short-sighted nostalgia and foolhearty longing for the economic boom years of Bill Clinton America, the later 1990s were a time when a lot of us were edged out of economic running for fucking ever. And THE BEAUTYS were integral to articulating what this outsider perspective was all about, in a language that got me up off my jaded ass, pumping my fist shamelessly to the beat. Chica, we’re still waiting for your next move, it’s gonna be a doozy.

THE BEAUTYS – “Some Things Never Change” (from Liquor Pig, Beeb Records, 1998)

THE BEAUTYS – “Don’t Show Me That” (from Thing of Beauty, Cheetah’s Records, 2001)

THE BEAUTYS – “Sweetheart, Sweetheart” (7″ 45, House O’ Pain Records Records, 1997)

Where Were You in ‘72?

1972. It was the year of Watergate, the year of the Munich Massacre at the Summer Olympics, and the year I turned the respectable age of 2. It was also an awesome year for rock ‘n’ roll: THE STONES’ gave us their most naturalistic LP ever, Exile On Main St.; BLUE ÖYSTER CULT and CAPTAIN BEYOND’s first records succeeding in spinning heads wherever they were heard; and ALICE COOPER’s School’s Out and BOWIE’s Ziggy Stardust gave us dudes the right to sulk in eyeliner, forever more. Creem magazine acknowledges it, glam freaks give it props, and even lost 90’s alterno-rock webcritic Piero Scaruffi recognizes it’s importance to the evolution of Kraut Rock. And 1972 was it.

So I’m gonna talk about a few recordings you might not bother with but from that year, but that I do and frequently. Starting with:

CARGOE – “Come Down” (from Live In Memphis!, Lucky 7 Records, 2004) The best band Oklahoma ever gave the world, and hardly anyone knows about em. Stop bringing power pop/BIG STAR chat to the table when talking about these guys! Yes they put out a great Terry Manning-produced LP on Memphis-based Ardent Records in 1972, the same year as BIG STAR’s #1 Record. And yes they could layer sweet vocal harmonies behind soaring melodies in MOVE-like fashion. But these guys weren’t from no cloying, pansy-ass school of whinypop – what CARGOE produced was organic, twin gtr rockin’ that could move from boldly flowing, ALLMANesque hippy jamming to tight, EDGAR WINTER Texas BBQ boog in a blink of an eye. And while there is some sort of a Christian lyrical thing at work here, they rock without any Dixie flagwaving and gracefully deliver a sound that speaks of years of collective experience. Their enigmatic Ardent LP was more intricately produced but this live set from 1972 reveals a power only hinted at on their studio stuff. Listening to this now so makes me wanna get stoned, kick off my shoes, and go running around the soft, rolling hills outside Tulsa.

EMITT RHODES – “Tame The Lion” (from The Emitt Rhodes Recordings, 1969 – 1973, Hip-O Select, 2009) Speaking of whinypop . . . ok ok so what if Emitt sounded like Paul M. and THE BEATLES? He couldn’t help it. Thankfully there’s none of that hokey “Yellow Submarine” humor here to gum up the works. Emitt took total responsibility for everything within his grasp: the writing, the playing, the producing, even the engineering, creating a hermetically-sealed world of consistently beautiful, otherworldly gorgeous pop. Unfortunately, there were factors outside his grasp – promotion, legal contracts, label pressure, lawsuits, etc. – that effectively sledgehammered his world in ‘73 or therabouts.

Ahh but we’ll always have Emitt ca. ‘69 – ‘73! This set collects it all: 2 discs, 48 cuts, 4 albums + stray b-side, and barely a dud among em. From his early work with THE MERRY-GO-ROUND in a lush, baroque ZOMBIES/LEFT BANKE vein, through his rightfully acknowledged first album highwater mark, and on to his later jazzy singer-songwritery stuff that wouldn’t've sounded out of place reworked by the mid-late 70’s Electra/Asylum stable, ya can’t help but wonder why at least a couple dozen of these songs aren’t more well known today. “Tame the Lion” is a personal fave, his non album anti-war single from ‘72. Hawthorne, CA really oughta be calling this guy – not them overrated Wilson bros. – their No. 1 son.

WHITE WITCH – “Parabrahm Greeting/Dwellers of the Threshold” (From White Witch, Capricorn Records, 1972) That WHITE WITCH aren’t remembered more fondly today is one of those unfortunate, fucked-up accidents of history. They wrote great pop songs, swung convincingly between light ‘n’ sweet balladry and tough, hard rockin’, and had a singer with an expressive vocal range that any early 70’s band would’ve killed for. But although they wore theatrical face paint and had a name that suggested any manner of sinister, metaloid alliances, WHITE WITCH didn’t gender-bend enough to be revered by glam fanatics and didn’t turn it up to 11 (or evoke the Black Mass) enough to be remembered fondly by younger, fringe subcultures.

I suspect these Floridans were just too diverse for their own good: they’d open with a histrionic CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN sounding number, segue through any number of pretty TODD RUNDGREN piano affairs, burp up some choice DEEP PURPLE and make you eat ALLMAN BROTHERS peaches all by the end of the evening. While I can dig it, I ain’t everyman. But hey that don’t stop me from wondering what kinda kinda crazy beautiful planet this’d be, if we could all appreciate such wide reach.

JOE WALSH – “Turn To Stone” (from Barnstorm, ABC/Dunhill Records, 1972) There’s a side to Barnstorm I don’t particularly like. It has something to do with Joe’s nasally, thin vocals, those Back Up The Country cliches he’s singing, and that casual confidence of his so common to big deal major label rocker types back then. So I can understand those who can’t deal with this corner of the 70’s. And yes, this did feed straight down the gaping maw that was THE EAGLES. But then . . . there’s that other stuff: the odd keyboard figures, the near John Bonham-esque drumming on a couple choice cuts, and oh man! all that furry distortion emanating from just about every instrument on this recording. The trippy thing is how that Joe’s old JAMES GANG rock core remains buried beneath all the mellow West Coastisms. Yep this is actually really strange stuff, esp. that near-experimental use of gnarly gtr fuzz on a cut like “Turn To Stone”. It’s densely heavy in a way David Crosby’s first solo album wasn’t, hard rocking in a way Neil Young achieved on like every 3rd record or so, and spacier than both put together. We like, yes we do.

Black Flag live at Polliwog Park, Manhattan Beach

Blag Flag 1979, Live at Manhattan Beach, originally uploaded by Legendary Classic.

First published in The Easy Reader newspaper ca. 1979, proving without a doubt that the suburbs weren’t anything close to the idyllic havens our parents always professed them to be. And truly, this was the beginning of everything that would come to blow my everlovin’ mind as an adolescent and teenager. A great South Bay elder punker named Steve Vargas (he’s the one wearing shades up front on the right) showed me this photo back in the 80’s when I was 15, pointing out Ron Reyes and Dez Cadena wrestling on the ground, maintaining that BLACK FLAG was always at their best with Keith singing. I still believe him to this day.

The Desperate Ones

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.