#skinheads are not real punks there i said it

[safety-pin-punk]

hi, baby punk here ! regarding your latest post about informing people on the punk scene: what exactly is the praxis?

OKAY OH BOY! THIS IS GONNA BE A RIDE!!

To start, I already have a post written about what punk even is. I'll link that right here for anyone who wants to read it.

Moving on to what Praxis is for those who don't know: Praxis is the customary practice or conduce. Teachers have a praxis. Cops have a praxis. Doctors have a praxis. And yeah, punks have a praxis too. But uuhhhhhh, ours can get a little messy.

Why is punk praxis messy? Easy. There are SO Many different types of punks. Straight Edge, Folk, Riot Grrrl, Sista Grrrl, Solar, Anarchists, C Punk & Sick Punk, Skinheads, and SO many more. All of these groups have different things that they value, so there is no real strict 'you have to believe or do this' to be a punk.

That said, there are things that the vast majority of punk groups agree on

Take care of your community and genuinly care about people

DIY as a cheap and sustanable alternative

Use critical thinking skills rather than following a bandwagon

Stay true to yourself

Activism

Activism is probably the easiest one to expand on, and probably the most important. Through out the different groups of punks, activism can look a lot of different ways. That's because punk ideology is really just a group of varied social and political beliefs. So what do the beliefs that activism is based on look like? Mutual aid, anti-consumerism, anti-capitalism, anti-cop, environmentalism, socialism, standing with disadvantaged groups and minorities, non-conformity, animal rights, equal human rights.

Some groups find different things more important. For example, Anarchists tend to place importance on direct action while solarpunks are very heavy into environmentalism.

One last thing I want to point out (a really good quote I stole from Wikipedia actually): "Punk does not necessarily lend itself to any particular political ideology, as it is primarily anti-establishment". Essentially meaning you can't simply be part of a specific political party and be punk. Punk doesn't support the full views of ANY political party.

[hoodienanami]

fantastic article from original London punker Vivien Goldman about the not-so-secret but often forgotten Jewish role in the early UK punk scene

In a classically angst-ridden Jewish ambivalence about identity, the New York punk Richard Hell – of Television, the Heartbreakers and the Voidoids – has said he doesn't like to be defined by the fact that his father is Jewish. But he's one of many Jewish (or Jewish-ish?) artists on the New York scene, such as Joey Ramone, Lenny Kaye of the Patti Smith Group and Blondie's Chris Stein, who overcame his Holocaust paranoia by collecting Nazi artefacts. (The concerns of punky American Jews are documented by by Steven Lee Beeber in his book The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's). In a documentary I made for BBC 6 Music, A Tale of Two Punk Cities, Talking Heads bass player Tina Weymouth recalled that New York punks thought people who talked politics were a bore. But to us, the ideas expressed in Anarchy In The UK and White Riot were real. The G2 or Second Generation theory, whereby children of Holocaust survivors are often socially conscious activists, could have had something to do with it, however it was never discussed. But the Yanks were trying to forget Vietnam, while we were still living among bombsites in our own civil war zone, fighting teds, skinheads and rockers as well as the sus law and the National Front. Our punky Jew experience was also different because British punk mostly inhabited a shared political landscape, as well as views of the kind that McLaren and Rhodes helped to spread, which manifested in organizations such as Rock Against Racism.

[its-a-rat-trap]

my huge fixation on the rats has come back again so out of curiosity, what are some of your favorite tracks, and why?

Oh man sorry it took me so long to answer this! It ended up being harder than I thought to narrow down a list of my favorite songs but here’s (some) of my current faves at least!

Lookin’ After No. 1 - A bit of a cliched inclusion but it’s still (imo) the best example of their early punk/post-punk sound, and you can really hear how well Garry and Simon meshed with their playing. Plus I’m an utter sap and it makes me very emotional to think of Bob going from writing “Don’t give me love thy neighbor / Don’t give me charity” to. yknow. putting on the entirety of Live Aid. 

(Also don’t eVEN talk to me about the Music Machine gig, every time I think of Bob singing “Don’t wanna be like you / Don’t wanna live like you / Don’t wanna talk like you at all / I’m gonna be like me” in the face of the neo-nazi skinheads who just punched him in the face I go INSANE)

Joey’s On The Streets Again - Look I know that if we’re picking “Top songs Bob wrote about the Ireland of his childhood” then Rat Trap is understandably always gonna be at the top of the list but consider: Joey is just a better song, especially the last verse of it.

Also the Self Aid Joey performance? SO FUCKING GOOD genuinely my favorite live performance of this song that they’ve ever done

Wind Chill Factor Minus Zero - The lyrics just do it for me. I feel like a lot of people don’t think of Bob Geldof as a great lyricist but he really is and this song is just full of little clever lines like “You start to laugh (No) / You say you’ve won (No) / It’s just I lost (No) / That’s not the same (No)” that just make it SO satisfying to sing!

Also gotta put a shout out to “Real Different” for the same reason, every time I hear Bob sing “I'll fill my pocket full of stones and I'll throw 'em at the light” I just go feral asldkfjals

The Elephant’s Graveyard - You know that quote about (I Never Loved) Eva Braun that describes the song as something like the happiest most upbeat song about Hitler you’ll ever hear? The Elephant’s Graveyard is exactly like that but for police brutality and the Rats fucking made it work. 

Obviously if we’re talking about social justice themes in their songs Mondays and Banana Republic are gonna top the list but listen. Listen. Bob wrote a song specifically about anti-black police brutality in Florida that calls out the double-standards of the US justice system (“Justice isn’t blind / It just looks the other way”), made the campiest beach-themed music video for it, and somehow they completely nailed the combination. 

House on Fire - IT’S JUST A FUCKING BANGER OF A SONG! Seriously between the brass instruments and Bob’s voice it’s just such a fun and funky song, and it’s a great example of the Rats playing around with their sound in their later albums in a way that just works perfectly for them. 

Also it has more good mouth-feel lyrics in it, like the line “Doing halo hula-hoops, executing loop-de-loops / Takes a lot of skill and bad taste” is just sooo satisfying to sing !!!

Trash Glam Baby - Obligatory COB inclusion alksdjfklas I almost went with She Said No instead but they really nailed that old-school rock sound with Trash Glam Baby and I absolutely adore it. I love the little references at the start of the song, I love the reprise at the end, the video absolutely fucks, this was everything I needed from 21st Century Rats and more!

Do The Rat / D.U.N. L.A.O.G.H.A.I.R.E. - Because I couldn’t pick just one, special shout-out to both Do The Rat and D.U.N. L.A.O.G.H.A.I.R.E. for being fantastic b-side tracks! I love that Bob and the rest of the band were having fun fooling around with their releases like this. I love all the puns in Do The Rat, and the little convo at the start of D.U.N. L.A.O.G.H.A.I.R.E. both makes me laugh and makes me a little emotional now that Garry’s gone.

[nottobeadickoranything]

I like all music except these genres:

- Pop Punk. Worst genre of music all-time, a waste of everything. Not one riff or worse, "sex offender" riffs. I love how we are making it socially unacceptable for people over 25 to be into this genre in 2024.

- Ska. Second-worst genre. A genre that exists to make music school nerds feel cool. They aren't.

- Midwest Emo. I cant fw slower music with no groove and dislike almost all the vocals. Being so high school-coded is beyond cringe to me.

- The Smiths/Morrissey. I cant stand that fascist idiot, but then again, I was writing poetry in high school, so maybe Im not his intended audience. The Cure did everything The Smiths did and better/with more riffs/trax. The Smiths are the most overrated band ever, I always feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone with how many people still enjoy and pay him/them even though Moz has been a proud, open far right fascist over at least the last 20 years. Make it make sense!!!

- Shoegaze. A genre I nerded out over with the 2005 Russian blogs that appeared and had like, literally every album ever. First "genre" I checked out purely online and that experience of checking out these dozens upon dozens of releases worldwide all in one easy place is a fond one. But time has not been kind to this genre in my eyes/ears. It really is just 1 classic album, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless LP, and then a million and one ripoff bands. Shields himself always talked about progressing the genre and apparently made some straight up techno records intended to be "My Bloody Valentine" records, but it ended up the most cookie-cutter genre in existence while Shields proved time and time again to be all-talk, less-rock(or anything, really), with none of these supposed techno records ever appearing, just another Loveless ripoff LP entitled mbv.

- Country/Americana. Again, if its slow and has no groove that doesnt make me feel something or dance, gtfo. I don't believe in or relate to a single one of these lyrics or visuals. Barns are never cool and are a place I never want to be.

- Oi/Skinhead. Third rate power pop played by unemployed dudes who look like plummers who swear they aren't racists, they just enjoy dressing like them! Dude, why tho? Put your Vans back on, its not 1979 UK outside, its 2024 and you live in California bro, and Californians are factually cooler people than British people! Why are you handicapping yourselves!? Just be from CA, its literally the tightest place anyone can be from!!

- Black Metal. I hate racists and this is the genre packed to the brim with them. Also the riffs are bad and the music truly borders on unlistenable unless mixed with other genres. The snuff film of music genres, and Goreslam exists. Not for me, not interested, I'm from California this shit has always been worthless to me. We got real riffs out here and real riffers worldwide always came through The Bay. I grew up watching like, Annihilation Time and Iron Age live, amongst literally hundreds others of sick ass riffers. Iron Age said straight up they would rather tour The Bay over everywhere else, because their riffs were most at home there. Give me riffs or get lost...

I like or can tolerate every other genre there is. I especially enjoy Footwork, Slam Metal, Bay Area Rap, Powerviolence, Krautrock, Bay Area Thrash Metal, Experimental music of all kinds, Hardcore Punk music from California only, rare/roots Ambient music, and like literally everything else. I'm sure theres a techno/electronic music genre I don't like, but I haven't found it yet, they all suit a specific mood for me...

[hardestgrove]

Inbetweener (Fuck Titles Aite)

Rating: E/G Warnings: N/A Length: 1,348 Author’s Note: A short thing set between s1 and s2 around april. was gonna be the start of the s2 based fic but just... nah doesn’t make sense anymore. However it still works okay as a shorter bit and it gives some info on Emily and her family so I thought “eh why not keep it and post it as a one shot?”. Written from Steve’s pov and it’s my first time writing him so lemme know how I did on that.

The fact that Steve was sitting at the dining table of Emily King’s house with Nancy was frankly weirder than the fact he’d fought an interdimensional demon with them only like 4 months ago.

He wasn’t much for homework but it was important to Nancy and Emily. So he opted to try and do his best as a boyfriend to help Nance out where he could and do his own damn work and not bother her when he couldn’t. To his surprise, Emily was cool with letting him copy her work or notes if he asked so that really lightened the load a lot.

The joke in their grade had always been that Emily was super serious — borderline psycho sometimes — and had absolutely no sense of humor. That she was nice and stuff most of the time sure, but that at the end of the day she just this intense machine of a person. And well knowing her better now, she kind of was.

Emily was top of all their classes, a beast on the soccer, volleyball and track teams. She’d been the defacto class president for years to the point where people just didn’t try to compete against her anymore. She argued with so many people in class! All the time! It was like a compulsion!

Emily was frankly, really fucking scary and had only gotten scarier since they’d gotten older. Getting to know her better had only cemented this fact for him since he now knew her parents were like, MIA 90% of the time so she was basically raising her four siblings by herself and working on this house renovation thing with her brothers for money when she could. On top of all the other shit! Oh and? She could set shit on fire with her mind. What the fuck!

After all the freakiness at the Byers house with the monster they’d hung out more— well, at all. Cause hey, what were his options right? He was so done hanging out with Tommy and Carol and well, the only other people he could talk to about what had happened that night was Nance, Jonathan and Emily and her younger brothers David and Jackson. And the kids he guessed but he was thinking more you know, his own age. Like actual real friends or whatever. And he’d wanted to talk about it a LOT because hey, why the fuck wouldn’t he right? It was insane! Totally impossible! Only that it wasn’t and it was real and the Byers house still had the smoke stains to prove it.

It wasn’t really something he’d had done intentionally, befriending her, it was totally a friendship of like, fate or convenience or whatever. Like how did you come out of that kinda bullshit without at least being cool with getting lunch sometimes right?

Okay so, knowing her better had frankly not done much to change his original opinion of her but he did have to revise the “no sense of humor thing”. She was also pretty cool about a lot more stuff than he’d first anticipated. She didn’t give a shit if he cheated or didn’t do his homework, she didn’t care about like, most of what he did or said so long as it was PG around her younger siblings and she actually like, knew about popular culture? He wasn’t sure why but he’d been convinced that she was like, some dour academia robot or something which was insane thinking about it because her brothers were a skinhead or punk or whatever and heavy metal freak. She just had a lot of responsibility to deal with and he guessed that would make anyone kinda serious.

He looked up at Emily where she was doing their history homework from his place next to Nancy. Looking at her now, having hung out with her outside of school, he could see how artificial her whole preppy jeans and sweater thing was. Away from the confines of school where everything contributed to her chances of success a free ride out of Hawkins her wardrobe was about 99% more black and Siouxsie Sioux-esque. He’d thought it was weird she was in all black when she’d gotten between him and Jonathan in the alley but after months of movie nights, study sessions and hang outs he realized that it was her actual normal and the persona she was putting on at school was just a veneer. And a thin one at that since she couldn’t seem to tone down the scary. Honestly she was less scary when she was just herself. When she was trying to be a girl like Nancy there was just something wrong about it, like on top of all her usual intensity was this extra layer of weight or…. Something...

Look he was’t a poet or whatever. He just knew she was loads easier to deal with when she wasn’t being all Clark Kent. It’d been a shock at first to hear her cracking some —admittedly dark— jokes but now it was cool. And it was nice to have someone to hang out with in his own grade. He loved Nancy but Emily was fully in the trenches with him as juniors. The pressure around applying for college was getting super intense now that winter break was over. Emily already had her shit together and knew exactly who she was applying to early and was planning her application ahead —of course.

Another perk of hanging with Emily though was he could get stupidly far just coasting in her wake. Back in November, he’d only really had a loose idea of where he’d wanted to apply to and what he’d actually need to do. By just going through all the shit she’d already done or looked up he’d cut out like, 2 months of bullshitting around, hemming and hawing about his list. She already had all the SAT shit so he just bummed it off of her here and there when they weren’t studying for it together.

There really was something to dating a someone who actually studied and befriending the lead brain of your grade and he regretted not doing one of these sooner. Especially since he realized now in hindsight that Emily probably would’ve done like, most of his work for chem class with Mrs. Hinkle in sophomore year if he’d just paid her a couple bucks and he wouldn’t have gotten that D. Live and learn or whatever.

Being in her house was still weird though. It felt like somewhere he shouldn’t be, like he’d walked into an interior design shoot by accident. The Kings had moved here from New York City when he was 12 and it had been a huge deal back then, not just because of the whole big city mystique but because they built what was kind of a mansion by Hawkins’ standards. He’d been seeing it from the outside for years just living his life, never expecting to be in it despite the parties his parents had been to here. It was all sleek and modern inside, lots of white and shiny stuff— glass, mirrors, metal.

It was only when you got to what they called “the kids wing” that it felt like an actual house people lived in and even then it was like they were under siege hunkered down in their little corner of the house. There was a second den up there that acted as the start of their territory then it was all the kids rooms and a bathroom. David and Jackson were up there now watching tv or whatever the hell they did. Her little sisters Stacy and Alison were at the table with them so they (okay, Emily and Nancy) could help them with their homework. He noticed Alison looking at him and he smiled at her, she smiled back and him and giggled before going back to her worksheet her blonde hair falling all around her face. She was a cute kid, totally the opposite of her older sister.

Turns out he liked the King Kids. Crazy.

[tenaflyviper]

I might as well tell the whole story, for those who care, and just to get it off my chest. I'll tag it with "long post" so people can avoid it.

So...I unfollowed and quietly drifted from these guys around 5-6 years ago (by "these guys", I mean the ones that later started acting toxic. There are good folks mixed in with them, and yes--within them. I sometimes wonder if maybe covid hadn't happened, perhaps things would have been different. It fucked with all of our lives--made many folks anxious, pent up, frustrated, and depressed. Social media is also the worst place for anything political, especially when there's an unfair imbalance/bias that shouldn't be ignored. Morty got flagged on Facebook for a covid meme). I did the mass unfollowing because I didn't want to see discourse on my dash for my own well-being. At the time, I had nothing against them. Others had left before me (I won't name names, but there was one guy that got pretty popular and pulled away from the pack). I watched how they were treated, never thinking it would happen to me. "He must have done or said something wrong", I thought.

Before that, I spent years getting threats and insults for sticking up for these guys--and constantly being asked to look at posts and get involved in their arguments--all while they otherwise rarely acknowledged my existence. Still, I truly believed we were in the right. I even got caught up in what was basically bullying the hell out of a teenage girl for not wanting to see creepy shit in the fandom of a show made with little girls in mind (yes, many of them are bronies, and the exact kind that made people hate bronies. There are nice people that just enjoy the show and reblog wholesome art).

Before I left KF for good (having originally been invited by someone from the TF2 community that I'd known from before I'd ever heard of tumblr--she has since left KF behind as well), I looked at the thread about Takashi and those closest to him, and saw that things had gotten worse. They had even become the subject of memes (Kung Pow Penis anyone?). Without thinking, I expressed that I was glad I moved away from them. Obviously, they were still watching the thread. I can't blame them, but they seem too preoccupied with their image online, despite that it means jack in real life. When the thread first began, I went in with the sole purpose of defending Takashi, which I did for many pages (without success). I tried countless times thereafter to urge him and others to move away from discourse: It's a waste of time, especially when people are so divided.

At some point during lockdown, I agreed with some things I saw on Twitter (Twitter can be even worse than tumblr. I try to avoid looking at what's "trending", but 99% of HorrorFam, and every horror actor, director, and musician I follow--Jeffrey Combs, Dee Snider, etc.--are very left, so it's hard to never see anything political, and these were my childhood heroes who helped shape my values growing up. I was raised listening to skinhead-hating punks and anti-censorship metalheads, and hating conservatives that kept trying to ban and censor my favorite horror movies and games). It didn't take long for others to start throwing around terms like "sjw", and saying things like "how the mighty have fallen". It was all too familiar--the exact same things they used to say about/to the guy that left before I did.

I never wanted to be "mighty" to anyone. I'm being very honest when I say I'm naïve, and I'm not proud of it. I don't know much about how politics even work--I just want to be a decent person. I'm someone who'll bend over backwards for others at my own expense, and is always eager to make friends--a combination that's made me susceptible to being used ever since I was a kid. I had some "friends" in grade school that hung around me because I'd share things like candy. They later tried stealing my bike out from under me (guess they really dug my cheap, turquoise baby bike with a cartoon puppy on it).

I just want to move on, and try to be a better person. I say "try" because I still fumble at it. I overreact to things. I keep slipping into an "all or nothing" mentality, which I've since found is part of having ADHD. I'm crap at wording things, and have trouble being concise. I'm not perfect, and shouldn't have been expected to be. I just like making movie lists for people (I'm starting to use my Letterboxd account), talking about horror, sharing weird things I've learned, and posting dumb fat unicorns. It doesn't matter to me if they don't get a lot of notes--the fun is sharing them with others. Making even just one person smile is a worthwhile achievement.

I could have stayed in that crowd, and kept going along with everything they said and did. I'd have an entire group willing to reblog my long, rambling text posts. But, it just didn't feel right. I didn't want that, especially when it was hurting others for no good reason. I felt bad for everything I said and did, and I still do.

Sorry again for the TL:DR, but I can't use cuts on mobile. I am speaking from the heart, no matter what anyone tries to accuse me of. Like Morty told me, I know myself better, as do those around me that love and care about me. I'm blessed to have a job that I love that also benefits my community, with people that are more like family than coworkers.

I deeply appreciate every person that's stuck with me through even my worst, and who actually talk to me about either of our interests. I'm also thankful for those who patiently explain their criticism for my dumb monkey brain, even when I don't always listen. I have a tendency to be stubborn, but I would not have changed at all if I never took anyone's words to heart. I guess that's all I have to say.

[memes-saved-me]

You know the scene where Billy tells Max to stay away from Lucas? Well, I just watched it and completely forgot he asked why she was upset and if he was the cause of her mood. She asks why he cares and he doesn't say that he doesn't, no he says that even if they don't get along they're family and that he's "stuck looking out for you (Max)."

He then gets angry when she's not taking it seriously. I genuinely think this is because as others have said Max doesn't realise just how much of an impact she has on Billy's wellbeing. That's not her fault at all but if Neil is a racist it would make sense he would be pissed to see her hanging around with one of the only black kids at her school, and that anger would be redirected at Billy for not stopping their friendship/relationship.

Throughout the series Billy shows no other signs of disliking people of colour, he's from San Diego which from a quick Google is apparently more than 50% non-white. I don't know about during the 80s but it can't be far off today's statistics. He's poor so probably went to a pretty diverse school, meaning he has grown up around other cultures and races. It doesn't make sense for him to be suddenly to against them...

Also this isn't really a massive point but Rock/Punk/Metal music is anti-racist as hell, I've never met a racist who listens to that sort of stuff and I've been to old school Punk gigs with real (not boneheads) skinheads.

I'm not defending his actions towards Lucas at the Byers or the way he treats Max but I do not think he was a racist. I think he's covering for Max so he doesn't get into shit, just as he does everytime she misbehaves.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk xx

[newmusickarl]

Top 50 Albums of 2021

4. Prioritise Pleasure by Self Esteem

Experimental pop artist Rebecca Lucy Taylor returned with her incredible new solo album back in October under her Self Esteem stage name and it seems to have been all the music world has spoken about since then. Rightfully receiving widespread critical acclaim, Taylor’s aim for Prioritise Pleasure was quite simple – build on her debut album, Compliments Please. In her own words, she wanted everything to be “bigger and bolder” in the production of this new record, turning strings into orchestras and back-up singers into choirs. The result? Undoubtedly the finest pop record of 2021 and an album that I think will ultimately come to define 2021 over time.

Whilst I wasn’t as immediately enamoured as some music critics, this is an album that grew on me in a very short space of time, and I found myself returning to an awful lot. In fact, it is another album released at the end of October that has found its way into my Top 10 most played of the year and it’s easy to see why. There is no doubting this is a mightily impressive and utterly intoxicating listen, with Taylor exploring themes of love, self-care, sexuality, misogyny and toxic relationships across the album’s grand 13 tracks. The lyrics are meaningful, the instrumentation is extravagant and most importantly the songs are just downright excellent. After 2020 and the COVID pandemic had given everyone’s mental health a battering, this was the open and honest pick-me-up record the world needed in 2021.

Beginning on a rumble of acidy synths, I’m Fine is quite the statement-making opener where Taylor makes clear no man is going to tell her what to do or how she should behave. It then ends on the darkly humorous yet poignant note of:

“Everyday, I have my keys in my hand. This is like… and it sounds so stupid but it's genuinely something that me and my friends actually do; if we are approached by a group of men we will bark, like dogs. And people always laugh and they're like "Haha, that's so funny" but there is nothing that terrifies a man more than a woman that appears completely deranged.”

It is the perfect tone-setter for the rest of the album, with Taylor making it clear that she isn’t going to hold anything back, sonically or lyrically, on this record.

Prioritise Pleasure also contains probably the strongest three track run you’ll find on any record this year, with Hobbies 2 the track to kick it off. With its playful drums, groovy synths and wonderful gospel-like chorus, Taylor has said she was influenced by Kate Bush when writing this track and that inspiration comes through strongly. The title track is then probably my favourite song on the whole album. Boasting a euphoria of distorted synths, some stunning string arrangements and more gospel-like vocals yelling the liberating chorus of “I’m free”, it’s an addictive track that will have you immediately pressing the repeat button. 

I Do This All The Time then arrives for a real star-making moment that has rightly been heralded as one of, if not THE finest song of the year by numerous music publications. It is just utterly fantastic, a spoken-word R&B groove where Taylor acts as an Agony Aunt to both herself and the listener, offering inspiring advice and words of wisdom. As the line “It was really rather miserable trying to love you” rings out and a flurry of orchestration flutters in, it is a true goosebump-inducing moment.

Those three year-best songs aside, the rest of the record is just as enthralling. Still Reigning is a soulful sequel to Compliments Please track She Reigns, built around more stunning gospel-like vocal harmonies singing out “the love you need is gentle, the love you need is kind, I figured that out after all this alone time.” This powerful soul number is then followed by the contrasting acid-punk sounds of How Can I Help You which recalls the thunderous drums and energy of Kanye West’s Black Skinhead. The string-drenched majesty of ballad John Elton then sees Taylor showing a slightly more melancholic and vulnerable side of herself, describing her struggles with loved ones coming in and out of her life at different stages. 

The album is then brought to a triumphant close through the pure-pop majesty of You Forever and string-tinged conclusion of Just Kids, where the central theme for both tracks is that it’s ok to be on your own and you will be ok on your own – so stop trying to make a relationship work for fear of isolation. In a year where a lot of people have felt isolated and alone in some way due to the pandemic, it is once again an uplifting message that needs to be heard.

All in all, there is no doubt this is a towering work from Taylor and it is absolutely no surprise to see it clean up in the Album of the Year polls, gain her a Brit Awards nomination and, most likely, earn her a Mercury Prize nod sometime next year. With Prioritise Pleasure, Taylor has crafted a daring and exciting pop masterpiece that has plenty of wit, words of encouragement and moments of sonic splendour. Most importantly though, this is an honest, unconventional pop record that says the things other modern pop artists might be too afraid to say – and for that, Rebecca Lucy Taylor deserves the highest of praise.

Best tracks: I Do This All The Time, Prioritise Pleasure, Hobbies 2, Still Reigning, John Elton

Listen here

[littleeyesofpallas]

I was on about this as an aside back when the Young Justice vol.2 tpb hit shelves, as I wasnt keeping up with YJ issue by issue. But what a missed opportunity their little earth-3 excursion was. I get that it was just a quick dip in and out of Earth-3, and there wasnt time to go into the specifics of who the Crime Syndicate is and how they're different from the Justice League, so clearly the idea was to keep it simple and stick to "evil versions." But other than the fact that having them keep the Wonder-, Super- and Robin motifs just being kind of a big continuity error, a proper set of Earth-3 "Young Criminals" just would've been so cool.

Luthor-El is actually a fun angle for an evil Superboy. It's a shame they gave him kind of a counter intuitive backstory as the son of Kal-Il and Lana Luthor; having him keep the clone background wouldve been fine, and having him take more after Luthor than Kal would have been interesting. Plus, Connor already has the punk thing going in with the studded leather jacket, giving Luthor-El a mohawk as an "evil" trait feels kind of silly. You know what couldve been cool to counter Connor's look though? Making Luthor-El a skinhead; shaved head to harken back to Lex(even though Earth-3 Alex isnt bald, I know), jack boots, and keep the leather jacket but zip/button it up to give him a distinct look, spray paint a big "U" onto it for Ultra/Uber and make him a real elitist shit head.

Sadly, Superwoman of Earth-3 is a weird case...  She’s actually evil Lois Lane? But an Amazon?  But also has like, heat vision sometimes?  And Diana is just nowhere to be found on Earth-3?  She’s also just a frustratingly written mess of a character, with all her major plot points involving her sleeping with Ultraman, and secretly sleeping with Owlman, and secretly sleeping with Alexander Luthor, and being pregnant, and lying about who the father is, etc...  it’s all just wildly unimaginative and poorly motivated, and just bad writing.  Honestly so much of it scans like the plot of some lame 40s pulp drama.  it really doesn’t give an evil Cassandra much to work with as some kind of implicit Superwoman sidekick, although I think they tried to play with it by having Amaxon Thunder leading the team with Luthor-El and Drake both in love with her...  They don’t talk about the whole thorny lasso of submission thing at all.

and then there’s Drake.... For one, if he was going to have any of his old outfit, he’d have been a Talon, not a Robin, so there’s that.  But there’s also just so much to be said for a Talon legacy under Owlman.  Did he also have a Jason Todd?  Did he also die?  How?  What prompted Earth-3 Drake to become Talon III?  If he joins of his own accord like Tim as Robin, then that makes him kind of an interestingly self-motivated villain, unlike a lot of other sidekicks, thrown into the role by birth or other circumstance.  An evil Tim ostensibly chose to be a villain.

But all in all I really just wish they’d had more interesting outfits

[fugandhi]

What Ska Means & Why It Matters

‘What Ska Means & Why It Matters’ (A Film Review) by Adam Wękarski

I recently went to check out a brand new documentary called “Pick It Up! Ska in The ‘90s” at the local Enzian Theater (literally the only showing I think I saw in the central Florida area). For anyone who was alive in America in the 1990s - you may or may not be familiar with the incredibly energetic and upbeat explosion of Ska music in the 1990s. The “Third Wave of Ska” had officially arrived in the U.S.A. thanks to a lot of younger people having grown up listening to all of the previous (and totally awesome) acts of the second wave of Ska (up in the U.K.) and of course the original wave of Ska in Jamaica back in the 1960s (and then forming their own bands with the ‘90s vibe and flavor of the time).

This documentary goes well into detail over many aspects of the first & second waves of ska (aptly narrated by Tim Armstrong of Operation Ivy & Rancid notoriety). For anyone who loves (or has loved) Ska music - this documentary is for you! I speak as someone who very happily (and very thankfully) had got to experience the Ska movement of the ‘90s (which absolutely without-a-doubt helped shape me into the person I have become today), and without the third wave of Ska music I wouldn’t be playing music. Having said that, it must be mentioned that this documentary is a smorgasbord of all of the big players in the Ska scene (throughout all generations of ska) and is a real reward for any devoted lovers of Ska music.

This documentary has a very informative take on Ska music (which honors the style of music) and a wonderfully-animated historical story or two of Jamaican Rude Boys crashing Ska shows in the ‘60s and English Skinheads in the ‘80s adopting Jamaican attitude through style and expression (in addition to a ton of other stories from first-hand accounts). The documentary also has the best sense of humor exuded through every person on screen who gets that Ska music is kind of a butt-of-a-joke to a lot of people who listen to other styles of music. The unfortunate reality is that Ska did have a rise and a fall in the mainstream due to the eventual lack of interest and appeal (and in my own humble opinion: especially after “9/11” - after that happened, everyone got really angry & miserable and the music industry bought into that and kept feeding that negativity).

When Ska was at it’s height in the ‘90s, it was indeed everywhere and everyone had at least heard a Ska band on the radio or had known what Ska music was (due to the rising popularity of the genre). I truly enjoy how the documentary does show all of the people who made the Ska scene happen in the ‘90s, and who brought SO MUCH INFLUENCE to people like me (I was also TOTALLY in my band program in school and felt like Ska music gave people like me a CHANCE - Band Kids Unite! Hahaha). It was truly refreshing seeing a ton of photos and video footage of all of those bands, and then having everyone pretty much “sit around the campfire” so-to-speak to talk about how their experiences were being a part of that movement in music. The positive atmosphere cultivated due to the most energetic and dance-friendly (and jump friendly) bands with the raddest shows had never really happened in such a manner before (with exception of The Specials and The English Beat and the like during the second wave) - at least certainly not in USA.

The somewhat bizarre and unorthodox nature of the musical instrumentation of Ska bands even gets discussed in this totally excellent documentary. All of the borderline awkwardness of Ska music and how it’s basically the ultimate party music (while at the same time being a party for dorky, dweeby, unwanted, unnoticed group of people who really love to have a good time despite going through ups and downs in life just like everybody else). I think that it’s also very commendable that YES Ska music has values and convictions (i.e. Ska Against Racism), and something I always noticed and appreciated was how so many Ska bands had a variety and DIVERSITY of people on stage. You’ll see all people come together unlike any other style of music - and it’s all good - there’s no isolation or hatred when the party is on - people in the ska scene “have arrived” in terms of understanding one another. This is a genre for the enlightened.

Ska music is the one place where you can find unity & fun and a lot of people with really awesome styles or outlooks. The genre itself is full of a unique variety of bands and people who have been around for a long time and typically know a great deal of the in’s and out’s of Ska. ALL of the AWESOME bands of the Ska scene are featured in this documentary: Operation Ivy, Sublime, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Reel Big Fish, Save Ferris, The Aquabats!, Less Than Jake, No Doubt, Chris Murray, Hepcat, The Slackers, Skankin’ Pickle, Rx Bandits, The Hippos, Buck-O-Nine, Mad Caddies, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Five Iron Frenzy, Dance Hall Crashers, Rancid, Goldfinger, Mustard Plug, The Suicide Machines, Big D and The Kids Table, The Pietasters, Mephiskapheles, The Toasters, Spring Heeled Jack, Fishbone, The Selecter, The Wailers, The Skatalites, Madness, The Specials, Oingo Boingo, Pilfers, Bim Skala Bim, Kemuri, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, Catch 22, Streetlight Manifesto, Bomb The Music Industry! (and plenty more! - Seriously).

Watching ‘Pick It Up!’ truly brings out the overall sense of a person who listens to Ska (as well as dabbles a bit with a hilarious remote done with Scott Klopfenstein asking people on the street if they know Ska music - SO Funny!). This documentary has an undying sense of humor (and sense of heart) throughout telling the entire story of Ska in the ‘90s - especially when learning about how these people were working day-jobs prior to their break-out in their respective bands. It was fascinating watching that human story behind the show and understanding a bit better the effort that was put in behind the scenes while these bands were getting rejection letters from record labels that didn’t believe in their sound (despite the success of those of whom had kept going strong through the years to keep the Ska sound alive & well).

“Pick It Up! Ska in The ‘90s” does go over a lot, and pretty much covers all you need to know to become a true Ska scene aficionado (if you haven’t lived like all of us who have been to a sh!t ton of Ska shows since way back when).

There are, however, a few things that I did notice weren’t necessarily covered: 1) The term “Ska” originates from the sound of the guitar having that upstroke “scratch” sound on the “off-beat” in a measure of music (as opposed to the downbeat) - hence, “uhn-ska, uhn-ska” which did indeed originate in Jamaica in the 1960s. 2) Ska music is correctly described as “fast reggae”, and “The Godfather of Reggae” - but it must be mentioned that the reason why Reggae birthed from Ska music is due to the Jamaican weather of the late ‘60s. As it’s said, there was an overwhelming heat wave in Kingston, Jamaica during “The Orange Street Sound” around ’68-’69 which wore down the dance halls so they would begin jamming a bit slower and a bit easier and smoother - thus the Reggae boom in the 1970s. 3) The real reason why the Ska scene dissipated and eventually dissolved (as far as “mainstream” styles go) was primarily due to big business getting involved and trying to make all of the Ska (and Ska/Punk) bands basically become the same carbon-copy acts that were already “industry standards” or “successful acts”. 

So, there were Ska bands that did drop their horns (which was lightly gone over in the documentary) due to either economy, or not wanting to sound like Ska anymore, or just simply transforming their sound. There were some bands that completely sold out - and then there are other bands that stayed true and have kept Ska music and the dance scene FUN & AWESOME this entire time and never gave up in the true power of music and the possibilities that come with creativity, fun, and optimism through adversity (coughcoughREELBIGFISHcoughcough).

Aside from all of the fun facts, familiar faces, and excellent music throughout the entire documentary - there is a moment when the documentary goes into the heart & soul of the sound of Ska music and how it provided such an important & positive outlet and release for people (of all types) who would simply put on a good Ska band or album or song to replace any sense or feeling of sadness, frustration, anger, loneliness, or problems and by the end of the experience can have a form of newfound happiness or refreshed outlook. There was actually a moment when viewing the documentary (at least in my own humble opinion) where I could completely and whole-heartedly relate to the underlying message of Ska bands and Ska Music and what it means to people now who experienced it (and still push for the scene to thrive to this very day).

I still believe it can literally save lives. Ska music saved my life and I know that if it wasn’t for all of the people who have been working hard through the years to perform their hearts out - I wouldn’t have worked so hard in my own life to keep fighting for my dreams, and, in a greater picture - keep working towards more unity, fun, and good times in the world around me - because that’s what Ska is really about at the end of the day. I never thought Ska was a joke (despite how humorous the style can be) - I always knew Ska was a really big deal and it’s still the best style of music (in my own opinion) and I still think the music industry has failed music-lovers and music-listeners by not developing more of an open mind to Ska music (which is the only style of music that can use all styles of music to express itself amidst the traditional formula of the genre). It’s literally the most interesting music to experience (melodically, lyrically, rhythmically).

Despite the reality of Ska music and the judgmental stigma towards the genre - there are still a ton of people in the world who believe in having Ska music and Ska bands and Ska shows. There’s a reason why people love Ska music and there is a totally awesome reason why Ska will never die - because it’s THE MOST FUN STYLE OF MUSIC EVER! I have always been proud and fearless with my admiration for Ska music and Ska bands and people who still believe in having a really good time and sweatin’ our asses off dancin’ at shows and singin’ along to the party. There is no other style of music like it - it’s completely unique & completely awesome. It’s not for everybody, and that’s all good because the people that “get it” will always sing along and dance their hearts out - I know I will!

I give “Pick It Up! Ska in The ‘90s” a Perfect 10 out of 10. It is the best music documentary I have seen. This documentary does for the ‘90s what “American Hardcore” did for the ‘80s. 

This is the Perfect Documentary for any fan of Ska.

“...Take me back to my happy land, take me back to my happy land, take me back to my happy land, take me back to my happy land...” ~The Aquabats!

[kalluun-patangaroa]

BRETT ANDERSON

The Beat Juice Magazine (exclusive interview)

16 May 2011

Written by: Daryoush Haj Najafi

Growing up in the nineties, Suede opened my ears to guitar music. Suede were the first indie band I remember kids talking about at school, maybe because their records were teaching us what chasing the dragon and amyl nitrate were. The first time I ever went for a coffee I’d just bought Dog Man Star, the day it came out, and needed to talk about it and smoke the French cigarettes I’d bought to really get into the mood. I had my first pop star crush aged 19, when keyboardist Neil Codling joined the band and the first night I saw Suede perform at the launch of Head Music was also the first night I had sex. At the interview Brett looks exactly how you’d imagine an early-forties version of Brett Anderson to look, in a suit, side parted full head of hair and super skinny. He’s also super polite and mostly un-starry, although there’s definitely an unspoken air of professional pop star distance.

Suede were this huge pop band, we were fourteen and the kids in my class who weren’t even that into music were talking about your first few records.

Brett Anderson: We were always very ambitious - that’s where the pop comes in. I never wanted to be part of the indie ghetto. We were keen to almost subvert the mainstream, not just be some weird indie band that the indie kids are into and not just be some obvious pop band. We wanted to say interesting things to real people and reflect the murkier corners of life. But to do it to an interesting tune. I love indie music and I love obscure music, but I always thought indie was quite smug and ambition-less in lots of ways. Especially when I was in my twenties, I was very, very arrogant and very ambitious and wanted to break out of that world.

I’m sort of obsessed with class. Do you think that is a function of coming from a council estate? Brett Anderson: I don’t think you can be English and not be obsessed with class, can you? I’ve never ever fitted into any stereotype. I’m an educated, artistic kid from a working class background, and I wasn’t part of an art school clique. I studied architecture at University, but that’s very different from going to Goldsmiths. You know, my dad was a taxi driver, I’m from a very working class background, but not a conventional working class background. I always felt sort of beautiful in-between, stateless, nation-less. That’s where the constant references in songs to these sort of nowhere places come from, because I never really felt that I belonged anywhere. Suede was partly a real desire to form an identity, and sort of virtual family, and sort of place to belong, I never really felt I belonged anywhere, growing up, even our sense of family wasn’t particularly strong. I’ve always felt this constant search in life to belong to something and Suede is the closest thing that I found, until I was in my late thirties, to actually belonging anywhere. What the later parts of Brit-pop lacked, which you and maybe early Verve had, was this extraordinary vision of beauty. Where did that come from? Brett Anderson: Yeah, well, I’m glad you picked up on that, it’s an element to Suede that people tend to - not ignore - it’s easy to focus on the sort of brasher side. It’s very seductive to talk about the Brits performance, and Animal Nitrate, and all those references to drugs and sex and stuff like that - for me they were almost like an entry point for people. But beauty and songs like Sleeping Pills, Wild Ones and Asphalt World, they were the message of Suede. A song like Metal Mickey was a great song and has an amazing energy of it’s own but that was never the song I really wanted to write. It was always the darker, more atmospheric, moodier, murkier things that I wanted to write, songs that really dragged people into some sort of emotional landscape. There was always the duality seeing the world as an intensely beautiful place but also an incredibly threatening place at the same time, where you could find the murky corners of life too. A lot of your songs seem to have this sense of tribalism. Brett Anderson: As a teenager in the early eighties it was an incredibly tribal time, everyone at school was either a mod or a punk or a skinhead or a headbanger. Which gang you belonged to said who you were as a person. This was when I was thirteen or fourteen, when I first started buying records and I suppose that influences the sort of band I wanted Suede to be, I wanted them to be the sort of band people would get tattooed. I just wasn’t particularly interested in Suede just being liked; I was only really interested in Suede being loved. Suede was about the intense passion of being loved as a band and constructing a universe for people to dive into and that was all part of the iconography of the sleeves and the worlds I sang about, and possibly the overuse of lots of the imagery was all part of it. Maybe it was all part of my need to belong somewhere. We established a Suede landscape and I always loved those bands that did that. Maybe it’s a very much overused reference point but I did grow up loving The Smiths records, and loving what they did, and the kind of tribalism they created. You were never as miserable though. Brett Anderson: No, definitely not, I never wanted to be The Smiths, emulating people shouldn’t be about wanting to sound like them. I was talking to Jamie from Klaxons and he said he was a huge Suede fan when he was growing up and that Suede were the reason he wanted to be in a band. You listen to Klaxons and they don’t sound anything like Suede, and that’s the biggest compliment. That they took something of the spirit of Suede, they didn’t rip off the cord sequences, they didn’t rip off the words, and they didn’t dress like Suede. They just took something of the spirit and sense of aiming to achieve something that was meant to be a little bit unachievable. And they created this incredible, very original band. I’m really proud of that sort of influence. It’s the same with Bloc Party. There’s all these bands that have told me that Suede have been incredibly influential, but they don’t sound like Suede, that’s almost like a double compliment for me. There’s a huge difference between Suede’s second album Dog Man Star and Coming Up. Brett Anderson: Yeah, it was our attempt to make a pop record. When Richard Oakes and Neil Codling joined the band, it was essentially a different band. We just happened to have an old name, so it was bound to sound different. But also the whole experience of making the second Suede album was incredibly intense, you can feel it in the music - it’s a very dark, tortured, and almost psychotic record. I almost had a mental breakdown making that record. I suppose I didn’t want to go that extreme again, Dog Man Star was as far out as I could go in those terms. For my own sanity I wanted to make something that was a little bit less pretentious, I suppose. Hopefully, it’s the right side of the line, good and not bad pretentious, but it is definitely ambitious and all of those kind of things. And you know, making Coming Up was much more communicative, for want of a better word, it was a fun process, but I’m incredibly proud of that album as well. It’s a lot less introspective than the first two albums, but it’s still got some great pop songs. My stepson absolutely loves Filmstar, he’s like 6 years old and just dances around, it somehow communicates something primal. Songs like Beautiful Ones and She and all of those songs, they’re just very, sort of, simple songs. My one beef with Suede was that maybe you were a bit retro. If you weren’t a dance act, could you really be a nineties band? Brett Anderson: Every band of the nineties has to accept that dance music was the defining genre of the nineties. Even though, to be honest, most people with taste look back at guitar music as being defining, guitar music in the nineties wasn’t a new form of music and I think you have to accept that. It was the last defining music of any decade. Suede weren’t part of that, definitely not, because we were a guitar band. It wasn’t so much about being retro, just about being honest to the music we played. There’s a struggle between wanting to be as super modern as possible and wanting to be beautiful, right? Brett Anderson: I know what you mean, beauty for its own sake maybe isn’t very deep. All I know is that a lot of music is about instinct and less about theory. The dominant force for me was always, ‘is this a great song, does this move me emotionally?’ Rather than ‘does this move me mentally?’ It’s like when you look at art, you know, when you look at paintings, like the impressionists people, like Gauguin and Manet, people like that, great artists. I’m very conscious that I’m just looking at a pretty picture, but it doesn’t mean I’m any less emotionally engaged with it. Let’s talk about being a massive popstar as well. You were really good, really good at manipulating the media. Brett Anderson: It’s incredibly easy to manipulate the media, I always found it strange that the media were so shocked about Suede, the sex and drugs were just references to everyday life. Obviously I did want to get Suede noticed and, looking back, I don’t think I was that good at talking to the press. I think I could have been cleverer and I fell into lots of traps. I overdid it and created a bit of a hate figure in myself, the legacy of which I’m still paying for. All that was an entry point for lots of people, but I also put people off the band. I do regret that. What’s your favourite Suede song? Brett Anderson: The Wild Ones. It’s just instinctive really, it’s just a great song. The dominant force for me is trying to be a great songwriter rather than trying to be some sort of artist/musician. The melody has a very captivating emotional beauty, the words are not the best words I’ve ever written, but they work in the context of the song. Your quest half the time as a song writer is trying to make the words work with the music. Writing a lyric for a song isn’t writing poetry. You’re very much trying to make the melody do something to the power of the words. It’s like sometimes the glibbest, stupidest pop lyrics can acquire a real power with a certain melody. I learnt what chasing the dragon was and what amyl nitrate was from your songs. I don’t think you’d get away with that now. Brett Anderson: We did get away with it quite a lot, to have the song Animal Nitrate to be a radio hit and to be a top ten song. The biggest achievement wasn’t charting at number seven, but sticking at number seven the next week, meaning it had reached a completely different class of record buyer. It was a very risqué song, you know, sex and violence in its most ugly form. It was a real personal victory for me that song, one of the points of my personal manifesto and Suede’s manifesto was to get a song in the top ten that was basically an homage to deviancy. And we’d always wanted to write a song that irresistibly worked as a pop song, and pulled you in emotionally, and then (click of fingers) threw this lyric at you. And we did that with So Young and the chasing the dragon lyric, it’s there and you can’t do anything about it. You’re one of those bands that taught me how to ‘be’, in a way. If I sit next to a boy, I’ll forever feel like a Pet Shop Boy, and if I sit in the back of a black cab, I’ll forever feel like I’m in the Asphalt World and remember that line “drive to the end of the city”. Brett Anderson: I always wanted to create a world, all the best bands do. A lot of it is idealised, the reason I created such a specific world is probably because I felt excluded from that world. I grew up in a council house in Haywards Heath, but it wasn’t like a sprawling council estate, it was just little matchbox houses, you know the kind of thing, suburban hell. It wasn’t a dark, oppressive environment, it was much more subtle than that. There was drugs, alcoholism and deviancy, but it was all hidden. Suede was very much my paean to the London that I had felt excluded from when I was younger. I used to go to Haywards Heath railway station and look up the railway tracks to London and dream. I think there’s a sense in suburbia and outside London that you fail if you stay in these places. There’s a sense of achievement just being here and living here [in London]. It’s the only place where I sense life means something. What about the whole heroin thing? How useful was it for a songwriter? Brett Anderson: Interestingly enough I was never taking a lot of that drug during the early nineties. Cocaine was much more… To be honest, the most influential drug during peak Suede was probably ecstasy, lots of the androgyny and all the questioning of my sexuality was all born from ecstasy culture. Growing up in the late eighties and going to parties and raves, ecstasy broke down the sexual barriers, and made who you are sexually less important and who you are emotionally more important, and confused all of those barriers. My whole desire to sort of be androgynous and all of those things was all a response to ecstasy more than anything else. Why was everyone so fussed about you being androgynous? In the eighties loads of pop stars were. Brett Anderson: Exactly, it’s not like I was Boy George! I don’t know why it was so outrageous, I think because we were from an indie background and so that made it iconoclastic, because the indie world was and still is about guys staring at their feet in grey t-shirts, playing their Rickenbackers. It’s very conservative. When you said you were a bisexual who has never slept with a man, was it more about empathy with your fellow man? Brett Anderson: That’s exactly what it’s about. In fact that statement - which has come to haunt me - was taken completely out of context and I was actually talking about songwriting and how I use my imagination to go within other people’s bodies. I’m basically a writer, but people always think songs are written in the first person, and I’m a writer of fiction sometimes. So this empathy, is it, you know, a spiritual thing? Brett Anderson: It was very much about empathy for the human race rather than just specific narrow constrictive things. That sounds very general and slightly meaningless, but like I said, I was talking from an emotional point of view, so it’s difficult to talk about empathy without it sounding empty, you know? But yeah, of course, that’s what you plug into when writing songs, that’s what playing in front of 10,000 people is about. Partly the will to power, wanting to belong to something that’s bigger than, and more powerful than yourself, that’s partly what empathy is, isn’t it? How important was Justine? Brett Anderson: Meeting Justine was an incredibly pivotal thing for me. Justine is incredibly creative, urban and urbane, and introduced me to art. Though not so much music, because I was always the one in our relationship that was sort of like introducing her to music. When I first met Justine she was listening to Joni Mitchell and Astrud Gilberto, and I said, ‘we’re not listening to that, this is the Happy Mondays and this is what we’re listening too.’ In the band she was very much the tastemaker, when Bernard and I played Pantomime Horse for Justine, she said that she hated it. If Justine had stayed in the band, Suede probably wouldn’t have been able to write the Asphalt World, because she wanted to write the sort of songs she started to write for Elastica, that were spiky and unpretentious and all of those adjectives you’d apply to Elastica. And she didn’t like the epic, tragic, tortured side to Suede. How into Goth were you? Brett Anderson: I loved some things that were technically called Goth, though I hated the whole image to do with Goth. This morning I was listening to The Cure’s Pornography. I just love it. I was thinking of doing something like that for my next record. I wasn’t into it at the time because Goth came with a whole package that I thought was clichéd and hackneyed and kind of a bit rubbish, but I always loved bits of The Cult and The Cure. Didn’t Justine have something to do with M.I.A? Brett Anderson: Hang on, she didn’t just have something to do with M.I.A, it was her and Mia working on the project. In fact, to be honest, when I first met Mia it was Justine’s project that Mia was a part of. I remember being on holiday with Mia and Justine in 2001 in the Caribbean and this is when Justine and Mia where both sort of working together. This abiding memory I have is of Mia coming into the kitchen with her groove-box, and me and Justine would be smoking dope or something, and she’d play something and we’d be like, ‘yeah, yeah, that’s really nice Mia, run along’ sort of thing. Justine was the dominant force in their relationship at the time and suddenly I didn’t see Mia for a year or so, and suddenly she’s becoming massive and gone from strength to strength, and it’s amazing what she’s done, really hats off to her. Amazing… What’s your take on Bernard Butler? Brett Anderson: If you’ve got a spare few days, I’ll tell you. What’s my take on it? I wrote an essay about it the other day that took me two days to write. Wow, who for? Brett Anderson: Myself. It’s a huge question, it’s huge. What did you write in the essay? Brett Anderson: (Phewwssssh) A lot of the breakdown - it’s not the right word, but I was disintegrating as a human being. Partly because of fame and all the things that come with it. As a pop star, you simultaneously are more able to communicate, but become more isolated. I was increasingly less able to connect with people and one of those people was Bernard, and that’s partly why the relationship broke down, but it’s such an incredibly huge question, it really is, and one that needs a huge forum to do it justice. Basically I was incredibly lucky to meet him. It was one of those things that just came from the Gods. I actually put an advert in the NME, that’s how I met Bernard. It read, ‘Must like Pet Shop Boys, The Smiths, David Bowie and Lloyd Cole, and The Commotions. No musos, no beginners, some things are more important than ability’. Like any great writing partnership, you’re the day to their night. We kind of completed each other and somehow, in a strange little ball of energy, we came up with these songs. I always responded to Bernard’s very intricate musicality. He always did very interesting things with the music that enabled me to put detail into songs, and always had a very strong head for big choruses, but was also good at the very simple pop gestures. He was always able to master both sides and that’s a mark of a great songwriter. Why the Pet Shop Boys? Brett Anderson: I think it was the reference to The Smiths and the Pet Shop Boys that made Bernard answer the advert, because he loved them as well. There’s something very real about them and their almost risqué lyrical landscapes. The Pet Shop Boys were documenting specifically gay London urban life, but doing it very stylishly. I think because of that they just seemed real. It was a great combination of being modern and incredibly detailed, they were quite classic in a way. The words to West End Girls are just genius. Amazing words. I just thought it was brilliant and very individual. What’s your function? Brett Anderson: I certainly don’t see any point trying to be this controversial figure that I possibly was in the early 90’s, because it would show a remarkable lack of intelligence or personal growth for me to want to do that again. Boringly enough, it comes down to honing my craft and the purity of the music. Every time I get up on stage I still feel like this is my last hour and a half on earth, I still burn with that kind of energy. I mean, who doesn’t like Bowie, but does being compared piss you off? Brett Anderson: Like you say, you can’t be a music lover of any taste and not be influenced and I guess we shared a sci-fi sensibility… Yeah, and a similar nose!

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

Tribal War in Pomona

(From my manuscript, “Nobody Rules”)

“This all happened in the fall of 1982”

By..

Stephen Jay Morris

©Scientific Morality

October 17, 2019

 Late in the afternoon on a smoggy Saturday, we loaded our vehicles and drove out to Pomona.  It was an hour and a half drive from Pasadena.  We drove along the outskirts of L.A. County, made up primarily of flatland and miles upon miles of industrial cities with lower middle class neighborhoods.  You wondered why people lived in those places until you realized that California real estate is historically overpriced.  So, if you want to live in the Golden State, anywhere is still California.  Places like El Monte are much cheaper than West Los Angeles.

But, where we were headed was in middle of nothingness. We, as the Traitors, had played there two years earlier, at a storefront in the Pomona Mall.  It was the only gig we ever played where we got paid!  Back then, the so-called punk scene in Pomona was nothing more than some goofy white kids pretending to be British punks!  It was innocent fun.  They were our audience and the only distasteful thing they did was to spit on and heckle us.  Nothing I couldn’t handle.  It was messy and disgusting, though.

Now, two years down the line, things got ugly.  The gig was again at the Pomona Mall, but this time in some art center.  We were opening up for these punk and post-punk bands.  There was no stage; we played on the cement floor with a cheap sound system.  Bill used to put on these concerts so the local kids wouldn’t have to travel all the way to Hollywood.

We were up first.  At 8 o’clock, the art center doors opened.  Most of the kids, who were dressed punk to the core, came piling in. This was a big deal because nothing ever happened in Pomona.  Suddenly, a group of these mean-looking skinheads came in as a gang.  They were bald and Jack-booted—trying too hard to be big bad thugs.  They literally shoved people out of their way.  I knew all about these types and I wasn’t afraid of them.

My hair was long and my face was unshaven because I was lazy. No, that’s not true.  I intentionally looked like a hippie because I knew it annoyed punks!  Our whole band looked like the Grateful Dead.  I got tired of getting haircuts and shaving everyday, so I just let it go. I was in my late twenties and I had a lot of testosterone in my balls and adrenaline in my belly.  I was a barbarian!  An anti-racist fanatic and these puny dicks represented everything I hated!

When I hit the stage…uh…the floor, I mutated into this wild man.  I don’t what it was.  Rock and roll brought the primordial animal out of me.  Rock and roll will do that. In a modern day warfare situation, before engaging in battle, the commanding officer will yell out, “Okay, men! Let’s rock and roll!!”  I was about to go into battle myself.  In the depths of my Id were visions of Klansmen hanging southern blacks from trees and memories of white hardhats beating up anti-war protestors!  These shaved kids were just misguided delinquents who romanticized the British skinheads.  In my little way, I was going to make a statement against them.  At this time in my life I was not a pacifist, but I wasn’t a street brawler, either.  I had a microphone stand and I was going to use it!  I was ready for them.

We went into our first song, which was a hardcore grunge-slash-punk tune that was fast and loud, “Barrio!”  The crowd of regular punks liked it.  The skinheads were mocking my movements and facial expressions.  They were flipping me the bird.  Strange thing though:  there was this invisible line between the audience and us.  The skinheads never crossed it!  They started to heckle me.  I retorted.  I tired to be as obnoxious and insulting as I could.

“WHY DON’T YOU CUT YOUR HAIR, YOU HIPPIE FAGGOT!”

I responded, “WHY DON’T YOU CUT YOUR THROAT!”  I shouted some real verbal bombs:  “KILL ALL PUNKS!!!”  “HIPPIES RULE!”  “I’M JEWISH!”  “IT’S SURE NICE TO BE HERE!” “GAY POWER!”  “MOVE OUT OF YOUR MOMMY’S HOUSE!”  “GROW YOUR HAIR LONG FOR JESUS!”

A couple of skinheads invited me to cross the invisible barrier to fight them.  “You come here, you hairless queer!” I said. By our second song, “Quicksand,” they realized they weren’t going to intimidate me.  Pat stood beside me and gave them cold stares.  Tom was laughing and Mickey looked nervous.  Tim was in his own drummer world.  The skinheads got frustrated.  By the third song, they started to beat each other!  The room cleared out into the parking lot.  The skinheads went on a rampage!  When the last kid left the room, the door was shut and locked.

Bill told me that the skinheads were a local gang called, “The Manson Gang.”  They liked to go to concerts and parties and disrupt them.  They’d start shit for their own amusement!

Outside, the skinheads set a Salvation Army collection box on fire.  Man, talk about goofy vandalism!  The windows were covered up, so we couldn’t see what was going on outside.  I peeked through a keyhole.  The Pomona Police showed up in squad cars, their sirens sounding.  Helicopters were hovering over the area, their lights beaming down onto the parking lot.  Finally, they cleared the area.

We were left standing in this room for an hour. During our third song, Tom had stopped playing and hid behind his girlfriend.  Mickey hated this incident and said he never wanted to play in Pomona again.  Pat thought it was amusing. So did I.  Pat had played in front of these types of crowds before. Tim wanted to kill the skinheads! He was pissed!  Someone later told me that that night’s riot became legendary in Pomona.

I went home feeling energized.  We took the rest of the year off.  The holidays were looming.

[frecklesandpoverty]

My 31 Nights of Halloween Horror: Night 31!

Finally! I watched a horror movie I had not seen yet every night for the entire month! It was super easy, then it kinda got repetative about halfway through. These last few days were super easy though lol. My final movie for the month is one that I had held off on watching for 3 years, because my absolute favorite actor, who is in the movie died, and I couldn’t watch anything new of his without wanting to cry. So my choice for this Halloween night, and the final night of October was: Green Room

This movie was SO SO GOOD. I gave it 8/10! I hadn’t watched the movie yet because I loved Anton Yelchin, and when he suddenly and terribly passed away, I couldn’t bring myself to watch any of his new movies. I actually did end up tearing up a few times during this movie, just seeing him and wishing he hadn’t died. I always thought he was a PHENOMENAL actor, and I was excited for the future roles and films he would star in, because I just knew he would be one of the top actors as he got older. He was just incredible at what he did, and everyone said he was an absolutely nice caring individual. It’s tragic what happened to him. Okay I got off tangent about this movie lol. 

It was great! I loved all the punk band members, and other than Anton, Alia Shawkat and Joe Cole are some of my favorite actors. I really felt for them when shit started getting real, but a few dumb decisions kept me from rating this a 9. ***SPOILERS*** When Pat goes back for Sam’s phone, why the fuuuuuuck would you just walk into the green room? Like, courtesy knock? My ass would have stayed alive and kept my band mates alive, because I would have knocked before entering, those dudes would have stopped me from coming inside, handed me the phone, and we would have been on our way lol. 

And then once they were in the room with the skinheads, why not just try and talk your way out of it? “We don’t know this dead chick, we don’t give a fuck, we don’t care what you did to her. We just want to leave. We don’t even live in this state, we won’t ever say anything, we don’t give a fuck what happened here. Just let us leave.”  While my ass would have covered my eyes immediately, like “Nope I didn’t see any incriminating things. I would like to go now” lol. That was the only thing that bothered me. Otherwise the movie is just great. I loved it. It still made me sad seeing Anton, and wondering what things he could have gone on to do, if he hadn’t been killed. And in such a freaky, Final Destination way too. That’s the worst thing. Just a freak fucking thing, and an incredible young man and talent, gone. Okay I’m getting off topic again lol. I just really really liked him. I 10/10 recommend this movie, as long as you’re fine with a lot of gore, and dogs eating people’s throats. (Also there’s a sad/nice sort of? dog scene at the end, that actually made me say “Aww.”, which I then felt weird about feeling sympathy for the 2 characters lol.) Definitely recommend the movie though!   https://www.imdb.com/list/ls040538201/

[smithanon]

The only real punks left are Skins. The trads, the boneheads, even the antifa skins are still punk as fuck. Regarding lace code, however, Almost nobody gives a fuck outside of California or Texas, most skins don’t even give a fuck. That said, I have green laces on my docs because they have no political connotations to them, except maybe Irish Pride. Being of Scottish/Irish descent here in Canada, it seemed more appropriate to me. Blue denotes having killed or injured a cop and being proud of it(aka a fucking knobend), purple denotes gay pride(despite being bisexual, I do not like or agree with the modern LGBTBBQwhateverthefuck community and feel it has overstayed its’ purpose now that most elements of society entirely accept people for being gay or bisexual), red laces indicate willingness to spill blood “For the cause”, and seeing as I think both racists and antifa types are fucking douchebags, I do not want to be associated with them. White laces indicate KKK affiliation or “white pride”, and we don’t have the KKK up here in Canada, so fuck that. Yellow laces, which I used to have on my boots are often a signifier of Antifa association, and since I fucking hate Antifa and their dumbfuck ways that are just as ignorant and poorly thought out as Neo-Nazis, I got rid of those laces as soon as I knew.

All of that said, again, very few people outside of California or Texas actually give a tenth of a fuck about the laces code, so it’s entirely up to you which colors you want to wear on your boots. It was ONLY ever a thing in Skinhead circles, other punks were considered more-or-less exempt from the code unless they were known to run in skin circles. 

I personally chose to not wear the colors that are in lace code because I personally know about it and do not want people to associate me with any of that crap that I strongly disagree with, even though here in Canada it’s not really something anyone, even skins, give a fuck about. My choice.

If you choose to strike someone because you don’t like their fucking shoelaces, you’re a cunt among cunts, and I hope they beat you into variegated shades of fucking purple, you fucking cockweasel.

TO PUNKS/PPL WHO WEAR DOC MARTENS, SPECIFICALLY BLACK ONES: please follow lace code. i don’t care if it’s dead. if you wear red or white laces and you KNOW lace code, it’s your fault if you get punched. we do not tolerate nazis or white supremacists in the punk community. shut up and follow lace code.

[ericleo108]

Reconstructing Racism

The following is how we have to reconstruct racism to be mutually beneficial in the new millennium. It’s important to know sociologically that race doesn’t exist, it’s socially constructed. The difference in the skin comes because black people have more melanin. Hating someone for black skin is just as arbitrary as hating someone for their eye color. A good example of this is Jane Elliot’s Color Blind Experiment. If you hate another “race” you just show your ignorance.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink,” he takes the test about black and white faces and he tests positive for bias against blacks, but he’s not white, Malcolm is Hawaiian. The experiment in the book “Blink” shows everyone is inherently a little racist against black people. The question is, what are we to do about it?

Institutionalized Racism

Black people do have it worse off. The cards are not stacked in their favor. There is the percentage of black people in the population, 11%, and the disproportionate population in prison 50%. Black people have to deal with DWB, driving while black. Then we have the real problem of institutionalized racism where blacks are less likely to get a loan. They are likely to experience job discrimination, housing discrimination, or racial profiling in their lifetime. Everyone knows about the Black Lives Matter movement against police violence against blacks. Due to America never giving proper reparations and institutionalized racism, blacks are still disproportionately poor. Affirmative action helps to correct this but it’s still not good enough.

The statistics to make it to adulthood are so bad that a high percentage of blacks don’t make it past 25. 25 is a magic number in criminal justice. If you don’t have a criminal record by 25 you’re likely never to have one. Same goes with surviving. This has everything to do with the Kanye West’s lyric “We wasn’t supposed to make it past 25, jokes on you we still alive.”

Institutionalized Racism

I can understand why black people get so offended by the word nigga if it was used against them negatively as a derogatory slur especially due to modern socio economic conditions. What I don’t get is why they perpetuate a self-detrimental economic ideology when economics is the real problem with racism. If you have a million dollars as a black man and I call you nigger it’s way less effective than if your impoverished.

Kanye West talks about how “four hundred years later, we buying our own chains” in Saint Pablo. I often wonder what he means by this because it seems like behavioral poverty.  Ask anybody who is rich and most will say its due to financial discipline.  Meanwhile all these black rappers wear chains and flash cash when they should be emulating the opposite to their community. Read The “Love Myself” Treatise to see how Kanye also mess up with “Black Skinhead.”

🍇

Whose fault is that? And is this a self inflicted, self deprecating affliction of control? Basically, is the the double meaning of of the word “nigga” black people thinking they control so little in a white man's world that what they can control is how white people address them or rather how they can't address them? I just wanna know if the black community honestly thinks it's worth it because that's what you're clinging to. I honestly don't think the word nigga is about race but (rather understandably) control or power in an otherwise white centric world.

In this respect, racism is a mental cage with an ingroup morality where whites are not invited into black people’s world. This creates contempt and resentment that results in different “races” like whites and blacks fighting amongst each other. This harboring of discontent is deliberate and purposeful by wealthier interests in America to keep us from focusing on classism which is the real problem in America and why institutionalized racism exists.

Are You In The Ingroup?

If black people could they should just stop saying nigga all together, but that's never gonna happen. The NCAA buried it a long time ago. The good part is that the meaning of words change. Like many other words nigga no longer has the same meaning. Punk used to mean burnt corn and linked is a list of words that changed from positive to negative and vice versa.

I think the fact that white people can’t or shouldn’t say the word nigga is more racist then the use of the word now. It creates an ingroup morality that excludes people based on “race.” The word nigga is positive for blacks but negative to whites. Only white people can't say nigga but it’s also nationalistic because white looking rapper Fat Joe can say it.

Black people are highly intelligent, just watch “Hidden Figures.” But my favorite is when black people don't think they can't be racist. There just like everyone else that makes arbitrary distinctions and “black people” not only differentiate skin tone but also a difference between nigga and nigger. Nigga is more friendly where nigger is more vindictive. The historical relevance to nigger is prominent in black people's minds as a racial slur where nigga is traditionally used for endearment.

The Solution

The solution I have found to fixing the ingroup/outgroup morality of the word nigga is for white people to say it to each other as a term of endearment. White people need to say nigga among their white ingroup/white friends as if the word meant “friend.” Just imagine, I started referring to all my white friends as “my nigga” to the point my black friends want me to call the “my nigga” but I won’t because their black. That’s what I’m talking about, then black people would see how white people feel and if they were truly friends everyone would start calling everyone nigga to be inclusive.

To put it another way, this could be done by white people relentlessly calling their white friends nigga. This achieves two things.  It avoids or rejects referring to black people (solely) as niggas so they won't be offended if they're sensitive to the word.  Second, it can be used as a tool for empathy,  forcing black people to feel excluded from a word that is essentially theirs and makes them desire to involve white people so they don't feel excluded like white people do. This would dissolve the in group morality and make the word inclusionary instead of being exclusionary.

Acceptance

If you like how the word nigga divides black and white people by all means hate me for what I'm trying to do here.  But if you wanna help bridge the divide understand what I'm saying and help to transform how everybody sees this word then I would seriously consider a societal effort to change the meaning of the word nigga.

This could be encouraged by black people calling white friends nigga and white people accepting it as a term of endearment. This would also dissolve or disembody the word nigga as a negative racial slur if it came to be known as friend. Black and white people would no longer use it in a derogatory sense because it would counteract the intent if it was used pejoratively. I think white people are just too afraid to do it.  Good white people wouldn't want to offend their black brothers and sisters and look racist while black people are still too proud, stubborn, and attached to the control that word brings to encourage the change.

The Native Americans

With all that said, the most marginalized group in America has got to be the native Americans.  We took their land, genocided their people, and took their culture and unlike African Americans they “can't go back home” to their continent.  And I never heard any black person talk about how bad the Native Americans have it.

To be clear and fair, many black people are into self-preservation not racism and don't care about the marginalized, outcast, disenfranchised, or even minorities. This is why Martin Luther King was so influential and focused on civil rights for all based on the individuals content of their character. Pretty soon everyone alive will not have lived through the civil rights era.

Dark Racism

Dark Racism is essentially treating others with respect and dignity using traditional racial slurs with an ultimate goal of repurposing the word from a negative to a positive connotation. It’d be like having your black friend over for his birthday, you got him an awesome gift, so you tell him “happy birthday nigger” when he goes to thank you. It’d be like your black friend got out of debt so you said “congratulation nigga.” It flips the meaning on its head.

It’d be like your friend winning the strategy game and saying “You won because you’re a nigger,” meaning smart. It’d be like giving a black person the best interest rate you’ve ever given anybody as a salesman and saying “that’s because your a nigger.” Again, giving a positive connotation and, I know, we have a long way to go to fix institutional racism before we could say things like that as a culture. Again black people use the word nigga as a term of endearment while white people automatically say it negatively. We need to correct the linguistics so it’s always positive and it doesn’t even have a negative connotation.

[charliejrogers]

The Green Room

The indie horror flick The Green Room is a very solid addition to the horror / survival-horror genre of film. It’s a quick, 90-minute romp that sees its protagonists of young indie hardcore-punk rockers try to outwit and outlast a cult of skinheads somewhere in the remote Pacific Northwest. The movie is always just shy of engaging in politics, which is probably for the best as it would have bogged down the real reason people sign up to see horror films: to get scared and to be grossed out. Still, the film does leave the viewer with a lot of questions as to what the fuck this cult of skinheads actually believes, why they are so well-organized, why does Patrick Stewart run the cult, and why is the cult headquartered at a club that houses shitty hardcore punk music concerts. Often when a film leaves viewers with many unanswered questions, it’s touted as a challenging, artful, even provocative film. Here it just feels like lazy worldbuilding.

But, as I’ve hinted at, as a horror film, the purpose of this movie is to provoke intense emotion/fear, not necessarily be the brainiest movie you’ll see this year. To that degree The Green Room, I’d say, is a moderate success. To some degree, the success of horror films has much to do with the psychology of “this could happen to me!” It’s why home invasion films are so spooky! Here, though, I don’t plan on joining a hardcore-punk band, and certainly have no intention of playing concerts for a bunch of skinheads in the middle of the woods. So the central psychology of easily relatable horror is missing. (In fairness to the movie, the band members are desperate for money and wouldn’t choose to play for this crowd otherwise). But once we put that aside and let ourselves be taken in by the film, what we have is the story of four young twenty-somethings locked in a room where a murder just took place, knowing full well that those who committed the murder have no intention of leaving any witnesses. What proceeds from there are various attempts by the band members to escape their make-shift prison, and the subsequent attempts by the well-organized near-militia that runs the place to kill them.

As I said, this is a gruesome film. While guns are here, I think more people die by dog or knife. The movie toes the line with the gore, showing you just enough to make you squirm without ever feeling like a gore-porn flick. Probably the best part of the movie comes towards the end when the surviving bandmates hatch an elaborate plan to entrap some of the unassuming cultists, but all in all the movie is at its most fun (and at its best) when the band mates leave the safety of the titular “green room” and try to make a run for it. My adrenaline would start rushing since the movie makes it very clear that not everyone will make it out alive, so you never quite know who of the bunch will kick the bucket on each attempted escape.

Our protagonists are likeable enough. The prologue establishes them as full-of-themselves punk rockers. The don’t do social media because they find it fake. They are the real deal, unwilling to “sell out,” even when that means they subside on near-starvation-sized meals and siphon gas to get to gigs. Even if we as the audience don’t see the value of their dedication to “pure punk,” we can appreciate that they are no hypocrites. They live what they preach and as a result are generally a likeable, lively, and rambunctious group. Plus, the film establishes them early on as being firmly anti-Nazi, which always helps when the only other people in the film are firmly pro-Nazi. Still, there’s no strong, distinguishing personalities among the four other than Pat (Anton Yelchin) who’s a little more quiet than the others (essentially the “quiet one” of any great band) and Sam (Alia Shawkat), the lone female of the group. Also, due to circumstances I won’t explain due to spoilers, the band is aided by a pro-Nazi-sympathizer, Amber, whose character confused me but is played by an actress whose name is fun to say: Imogen Poots.

But that’s ok. Much like a Final Destination film, we only need to care enough about these people such that we are perversely interested to know what gruesome fate awaits them or we cheer them on hoping that they come out on top! And we do care about them… if for no other reason than they are up against Nazis… and despite what our president may say… there are no good people on that side.

What elevates this movie from being completely frivolous with a few great bits is the bizarre casting of Patrick Stewart (yes, THAT Patrick Stewart) as the leader of the evil Nazi cult. I say “bizarre” not in the sense of “poor,” but in the sense of… “how the fuck did they get Patrick Stewart to do this movie?!” He’s great in the role, lending an air of scary legitimacy to the wacko world of this Nazi cult much in the same way he does to the X-Men.

But that’s really all I got to say about this one. It won’t blow your socks off by any means, but it’s short, it’s gory, it’s fun on a Saturday night, and it’s cool to see talent on the caliber of Patrick Stewart displayed so prominently in a movie that has no aspiration or need to meet it.

*** (Three out of four stars)