To Andy Hawkins
Andy Hawkins is a guy I grew up with. I still consider him a friend even though there has been a rift in the friendship. But, hell, Kenzie drew his name out of the hat so it's fair that I dedicate these videos to him. When we were growing up, politics didn't matter in our peer groups. I didn't even have politics when I was a teenager. But today we're adults in a different world. Andy likes to talk about his right wing views. I respected that he had a right to his own opinion, but he didn't respect me. If I expressed any political view on Facebook - which I hardly do anymore, I'm kind of sick of it - he'd get on there to "debate" (read: fight with) me. (A high school or college debate team is what debating really is.) That was an annoyance. But when he started commenting over what I said on somebody's wall whom he didn't know, he crossed the line from just being annoying to being creepy, from being a pest to being a stalker. I called bullshit on him, simply stood up for myself, and it was the end of our Facebook friendship.
Still, I know Andy from the old days. He's a good guy. Andy's worked as a teacher. Taught science to kids, which is a nice thing, I know most right wingers don't believe in science. Actually, Andy and I are in the same unfortunate club - middle aged people who've lost a parent. He lost his dad around two years ago and it's been a year since my mom died. We haven't talked or seen each other in a few years, but I know he's shown kindness to people who've lost parents. I wish him well.
While politics and religion tend to create divisions, music brings people together, builds bridges where there were walls. For Andy, for all my readers out there, here are some tunes.
(The above video was made a year ago before COVID-19 emerged and we had to wear masks.)
"Girl U Want" - Devo
I was in fifth grade when I first saw Devo on TV in 1980. I thought they were the future, what the '80s would be. They wore space suits, they wore nerdy pots of their heads, had nerdy short hair (for then) and danced around on stage like nerds - all at a time when the word "nerd" lacked even a modicum of cool, but behind the surface nerdism, there was a rebellion - against the entire cheap, plastic, war making de-evolutionary system. A year later MTV would come along and for a brief time it was cool, featuring personalities like Andy Warhol and Nico. But MTV soon abandoned the artsy vibe for crass commercialism. The artsy, space high of Devo and early MTV didn't become the future. Instead, the future was crass capitalism, Reagan and all the nastiness this grandfatherly Great Communicator would spawn, ersatz cock rock bands and "reality" TV trash.
"Bulls on Parade" -- Rage Against the Machine
Rage Against the Machine formed in Los Angeles in 1991, played their first gig at California State University & right away they were something special. They recorded a 12-song cassette tape that became their first album. "Bulls on Parade" is from their second album, Evil Empire, released in 1996, the title taken from Pres. Reagan's famous name for the former Soviet Union. The song, "Bulls on Parade" is a response to the "hate talk" coming from the United States and the move to build a wall at the U.S./Mexico border as soon as Germany tore the Berlin Wall down.
The band famously performed the song on Saturday Night Live in '96 with American flags turned upside down to protest that night's guest host, billionaire Republican Presidential candidate Steve Forbes. SNL officials responded by escorting the band out of the building and banning them from performing their second song. Forbes, unaware of what had taken place, would thank the band as the closing credits rolled at the end of the show.
It's sad. SNL started as this hip, post-Watergate era, cutting edge comedy show for the first generation that had grown up on rock n' roll. But, as was the case with banning Elvis Costello, the show's producers showed they were willing to kiss the asses of billionaires and corporate sponsors.
"Whiskey in a Jar" -- Metallica
It's an old Irish folk song dating back to 17th century. Set in the southern mountains of Ireland, it's the tale of a rapparee (highway man) who robs an army captain, goes to a bar, drinks, then takes the money to his lover who betrays him. The guy ends up shooting and killing the fellow he'd robbed earlier and goes to prison and the "ball and chain." But I first became aware of the song when my friend, Adam, introduced me to Metallica's version.
When I first heard the song and saw the video, I thought it was just about a bunch of low lives getting fucked up and trashing up a house. Actually, Metallica was paying tribute to one of their influences, the Irish rock band, Thin Lizzy, who had a hit with the song in the early '70s. Metallica's version of "Whiskey in a Jar" is my favorite, but to really get a feel for the song, I say read up on it, read the lyrics and listen to older versions by the aforementioned Thin Lizzy and folk music groups like The Dubliners and the Highway Men.
"Convoy" -- C.W. McCall
[CB Radio Chatter]
Ah, breaker one-nine, this here's the Rubber Duck
You gotta copy on me, Love Machine?
Ah, 10-4, Pig Pen, fer shure, fer shure
By golly, it's clean clear to Taco Town
Yeah, we definitely got us the front door, good buddy
Mercy sakes alive, looks like we got us a convoy
[Verse 1]
Film reel Arizona, noon, on the seventh of June
He's ten on the floor, stroke an' bore
Seatcover's startin' ta gain
Now beaver, you a-truckin' with the Rubber Duck
An' I'm about ta pull the plug on your drain
I've met people who can still recite the spoken word lyrics. And why shouldn't they? It's catchy. "Convoy", a novelty hit from 1975, is cool as hell. It went all the way to #1 on the country and pop charts. With its CB radio slang, reaction to the '73 oil crisis, 55 mph speed limit and protest against government regulations on a struggling trucking industry, this song has 1970s written all over it. CB (citizen's band) radio was all the rage then. Even non-truckers had them. My ex-wife's late grandpa's handle was Lucifer. For a brief period, I was known as the Coca-Cola Kid.
And the slang was what we today would call "the bomb." It was totally dope. "Shakeytown" - Los Angeles. "Smokey" - highway patrol. "Bear" - police. "Chicken coop" - weigh station. "Long-haired friends of Jesus" - Jesus freaks.
"War" -- Edwin Starr
My friend, Andy, once said the country couldn't pull together again like it did in World War II because too many people would protest it. Well, maybe so. People can't even be persuaded to wear a mask to prevent their fellow citizens from catching a potentially lethal virus because it "violates" their "individual rights."
Anyhow, war is evil. It's a tragedy. These song lyrics, a protest against the Vietnam War, captured that perfectly. I'd like to believe humankind will one day evolve to the moral point where we say, "This is stupid, this is wrong" & eradicate all war. I don't see that happening in my life or my children's lives. It will take hundreds of years if it even happens at all, but only if we start trying now.
"Both Sides Now" -- Leonard Nimoy
This song was played during one of the most poignant scenes from the modern classic TV show, Madmen except it was the Judy Collins version not this spectacular version by the man who played Mr. Spock on the Starship Enterprise -- Leonard Nimoy. I ask you, can we ever have enough Leonard Nimoy? Guys like me and friends like Andy, Adam and Eric grew up watching reruns of Star Trek in the '70s. Like Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, it was one of those reliable shows that aired on Saturday afternoons.
In Search Of, hosted by Nimoy, was one of those shows. It was cool how these scientists and historians were always searching for evidence of Bigfoot, Amelia Earhart or Noah's Ark. I was at my grandma and grandpa Guys' house in Marshallville, Kan. (pop. 1,000) when an episode about ghosts and all that paranormal stuff scared the shit out of me. I loved getting scared. I think it was an endorphin rush or something, but I had a lot of fears and phobias from early childhood.
At 3-years-old, I was given a book about Pinocchio, not some watered down Disney version, but the original folktale by 19th century Italian writer Carlo Collodi. He was influenced by Homer's Odyssey, Dante's Inferno and unrest in his own country. The illustrations scared me, but I couldn't stop looking. My imagination beamed out in billions of directions in those tender years. I think all the anxiety and depression I've fought as an adult had its origins then. Oh well, we could get a bottle of whiskey and talk about that all night, but for now, I give you...Leonard Nimoy.
"Eruption" -- Eric
A school talent show. A bunch of drunk, babbling moms in the audience. A junior high kid named Eric. (Don't know his last name.) Covering the great Eddie Van Halen's piercing solo, "Eruption." Every dad in the place must have held up his lighter. I bet that kid lost his virginity that night to a drunk mom or hot teacher. He killed it. The video was shot 12 years ago. That kid's gotta be playing in bands and recording today. I'd like to think Eddie is somewhere in the afterlife, listening.
"The KKK Took My Baby Away" -- Marilyn Manson
Powerful cover. The original version by The Ramones is just a fun two-minute, nonsensical, punk and retro rock n' roll tune. Marilyn Manson made it grim, ghastly and phantasmagoric. He turned it into himself. It's like legions of darkness. The candles are par for the course, but the view outside the windows looks like a dystopian city. When Manson sings, "says she's going to L.A...she never got back," you feel a loss, a void. Unlike the upbeat Ramones version, this cover is nihilism. It's a dirge. It's Marilyn Manson. Antichrist Superstar.
"Wynona's Big Brown Beaver" -- Primus
This is funkification and horror, grossness and a fatness that I love. Dufusly jokermen cowboys from hell. Les Claypool's dope thudding base. This song appeared on the band's Tales from the Punchbowl album in 1995 -- a good and and at once tragic and fucked up year. Last year when people could still crowd together I saw Les with Sean Lennon as the Lennon Claypool Delirium at an outdoor concert in downtown Wichita. I liked them better than the act they were opening for, The Flaming Lips. No disrespect, though. I love the Lips' songs, "She Don't Use Jelly" and their cover of "Plastic Jesus."
"The Straw Hat Song" -- The Mothers-In-Law w/ Desi Arnaz
I always loved the scenes on I Love Lucy where Cuban bandleader Ricky Ricardo sang with his orchestra. Desi Arnaz was indubitably suave and polished. He had the accent, the charisma, the on-stage poise. And the hair. The above video from a decade later is more campy than cool, yet still a delight as campiness always is. Desi Arnaz, Jr. is dynamite and dazzling on drums, and the comical smh looks he gives his dad in this video give it a lot of charm. The son definitely inherited his old man's talent, as well as his propensity for womanizing and substance abuse. I've seen Desi, Sr. as a guest on Carson and Letterman in his final years and it was obvious the years of hard drinking had worn on him. Years of cigarette smoking had left him short of breath and he died in 1986 from emphysema. Fortunately, Junior has come out on the other side of addiction and continues to perform today.
"Lola" -- The Raincoats
In 1977, London art school students Ana da Silva and Gina Birch saw the Slits perform and discovered that girls can play in punk bands too. The Raincoats self-titled first album was released in 1979 on the indie label Rough Trade records while members of the band were still squatting and rehearsing in various districts of London.
Their cover of "Lola," composed by the great lyricist, Ray Davies, may be the only version to give The Kinks a run for their money. They didn't change the lyrics. "I'm glad I'm a man" didn't become "I'm glad I'm a woman." They brought this jokey, queer twist on the classic song about a transvestite. The Raincoats had this ordinary sound that was irresistible. Sonic Youth, Nirvana and Hole were influenced by them.
"No Sleep Till Brooklyn" - The Beastie Boys
Back in 1987, I heard some old guy, probably in his 30s, say, "The Beastie Boys -- I think those guys are the biggest assholes." "Exactly," I thought at the time. All these years later, I realize that guy just didn't get it. There was a lot more to The Beastie Boys than someone like the old guy could ever realize anyway. Who did he like? Herman's Hermits.
"You Gotta' Fight for Your Right to Party" wasn't some anthem for teenagers getting fucked up. It was a parody of party rock songs like "Smokin in the Boys' Room" -- a song covered by cock rock band Motley Crue, whom The Beastie Boys parodied brilliantly in "No Sleep Till Brooklyn," easily the best song from their debut Def Jam record, License to Ill. They emerged brilliantly. I mean, were they post-punk? Rap? Heavy metal? Like The Clash's self-titled first album or The Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, License to Ill was one of the great debuts of all time. I loved how they combined their East Coast Jewish roots with punk, black hip hop and blings.
If founding member Adam Yauch were still alive, the Beastie Boys would be producing social commentary aimed at Trumpism. Yauch was an activist who advocated for non-violence and spoke out against the anti-Muslim rhetoric that's been a thing since 9-11. He became a Buddhist in 1996, supported the Tibetan Independence movement and became friends with the Dali Lama. It was cool when Adam Yauch Park was dedicated in Brooklyn, NY in 2013. In 2016, the park was vandalized with painted swastikas and pro-Trump messages.
That's so not what this band was about. The Beastie Boys gave to AIDS awareness charities, the ASPCA, the Food Bank of New York and Habitat for Humanity. It was never about partying, sexism, custard pies or cheesy videos. The Beastie Boys had depth. They weren't assholes.
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