Kajun SS

Think how much better Leaving Las Vegas would have been if KajunSS had provided the soundtrack. With Nick Cage weaving down I-15 with two bottles of Smirnoff between his legs and "Bored of Life" then "Shit City" blasting from his stereo, every motherfucker in that audience would leave the theater on the thanatos train.  Sadly, Figgis chose the treacly jazz deathtones of Sting, and the world lost one hell of an opportunity to say hello to King Louie at his angry best.  Louie's greatest vocal asset is that he repeats a few key phrases and by the end of the one-minute blast of loathing, you fully believe him. "I got psychological problems," for instance, in that voice, is compelling evidence for the statement. "You can eat my ass" sounds more like a command than a metaphoric putdown. Even "Eat me alive" is ambiguous.  Perhaps my favorite line comes from "Back in the Ring" when, after several unintelligible verses, we get, "Get back in the limo, you fucking whore." Without an ounce of context, that stands as a defining statement.  Darn catchy, too.  The closer is, naturally, "I Got a Drug Problem," which brings to mind the great Derelicts' anthem, "My Dad's a Fuckin' Alcoholic," clearly one of the great musical testaments to the age-old question:  alcoholism: nature or nurture? I'm not sure Louie is pushing the boundaries of psychological inquiry, but I sure do dig his song. Hey, I really would like to own this masterful EP on vinyl, so if you're holding, I'm holding something of wondrous value that you simply must have.

Sailors

The Aarght record fest continues with the Sailors' single, "Guilty Please Blues b/w Lets Go Chromin."

It sez on the back of this 45 that "Guilty Pleasure Blues" was recorded in Taiwan. I've been listening to punk and garage for decades and have NEVER heard of anything coming from Taiwan. The flip is the sloppy loud "Let's Go Cromin," which I'm sure is code for doing something bad. That hit was recorded at the "Bakehouse." Uh huh.

I'm getting bored with the high quality of music from Australia. This single ain't no exception. "Guilty Pleasure" has a vocal that sounds a lot like Johnny Thunders (!) to my ears. The guitar is some sort of weird thing with effects. Quite cool. "Let's go Chromin" is a sing-a-long rant that barely holds it together. I'm working on my second dirty martini as I write this and I'm guessing this tune is going to sound even better in about 3 more. Solid.

I have one more lp from Memphis that could disappoint. Certainly this Australian generation has its share of shitty bands? Somewhere there has to be another Midnight Oil, right?

Country Joe and the Fish- Electric Music for the Mind and Body

This is how groovy ought to sound. Like you, I wildly presume, I assumed that Country Joe was just that "Fixin' to Die Rag" song you see on every documentary ever made about the 60s. Ho hum another Berkeley wannabe radical denouncing the man and protesting the war in the most direct way possible. And that's fine. But I had no idea that the band actually made some tremendously interesting music before it was delivering the hippie-rap for a generation. A few folks had mumbled things to me in the past that these guys were actually quite good, but who can get past those images? Well, the old one dollar purchase, that cheapskate's window into previously closed worlds, confirmed those mumbles.  Much of this is gorgeous, some of it has the rich psychedelic glow of a good porch buzz at dusk, and a bit meanders in that too much acid in the studio kinda way.  No matter. If you see this cheap, snatch it. You might just be surprised, and can the aging vinyl hound hope for much more than that?

Bill Fay- Time of the Last Persecution

Bill Fay channels damaged folk that hits most of the right dark spots, but he might make you a tad uncomfortable with that whiff of crazy coming from the lyrics and the maddest guitar solos this side of Lou Reed's on "The Blue Mask." Easy listening for the apocalypse, as Sr. Fay seems obsessed with the Second Coming, whether that's Jesus or Hitler. But those melodies, that's the thing in the end, right? What's a synonym for haunting? Plug that in. I actually enjoy this more than Skip Spence's "Oar," which is probably sacrilege in some back room of an English pub where wild-eyed goateed men debate the relative merits of insane folkers. Me, I'm just a lurker on the fringes, searching for late-night sounds to make the hootch go down gently. This helps.

The James Arthur Manhunt

Holy shit. This record is a trip. Heavy damaged guitars, squawking seagulls and all kinds a weird outer space stuff. And yet it's really beautiful.

This lp came from my recently arrived Aussie related stash. I think it was released by Aarght back in 2010. Man, I dig it. I think the closest I could pin it down comparison wise is very early Flaming Lips before they crawled up their ass and thought they were Brian Wilson. Remember that Pasta Skull clear EP? That's kinda sorta what this is about.  But then at other times a bit JAMC.

Whatev. I could go through each of the songs, but really you gotta listen to it all the way through.  Five stars all the way from here in San Fran. This made my Friday night home with a bourbon buzz. Thanks, brother man.

Nasty

A 45 recently arrived to my house from Memphis Thom. What I got was a dose of misanthropic Aussie rock n roll. And as you might have gathered from the cover, the band has got a nasty name and its tunes more than match the sentiment. Side A starts with "Complicated Meditation Class," a Saints-style ripper. Nothing you haven't heard before, if you know your Oz p-rock. It's over before you know it and we're on to "Day Off." Here's where it gets more interesting. The Unfuckable's guitars and drums get much looser, almost losing control. The singer spits out what seems like scary venom until making the declaration that he's going to...just take the Day Off.  The flip is named after the band. Its sad chorus finds the narrator recalling others pronouncing him "unfuckable" in single bars, large crowds, etc. A plodding, humiliating tale that occurs with a monotone vocal over Beasts of Bourbon-esque guitar work. Nice.

In short, no new ground broken here. But you could do a lot worse for someone who is so....unfuckable.

Quick movie review

This movie is evidently up for an Oscar, so I thought I should check it out. It's rare that a book I read gets turned into a movie, and its subject matter is my favorite: baseball. And of course my wife was only too happy to watch a Brad Pitt movie. So we saw it last night. Couple of things...

1) The A's owner is played by Bobby Kottick, CEO of Activision. I used to cover that company in my equity research days. I even met him. It's really weird to see someone you've met in a movie. This is especially true when they're acting but in real life they have a corporate non-acting job. Kinda threw me for a loop. I thought for a second he was going to talk about gross margin expansion or sales of Call of Duty. Weird.

2) Brad Pitt is just an OK actor. He gets the job done, but he never really let's you forget he's acting. When I told this to my wife, she didn't look away from the screen and just mumbled "um, wha?...."

3) Why do you own a pro team and not be willing to lose money (at least initially) for it? At the beginning, the owner tells Beane he won't raise the payroll, which is 1/4 the Yankees. I understand not wanting to lose money in business, but this is not just a business. It's sports. If you wanna ensure you're always cash flow positive, go buy a laundromat. In sports you're supposed to try your best to win. Letting parasites like this owner into MLB is another reason to hate Bud Selig.

4) Jonah Hill can act. I didn't know this.

5) It's clear to me now that my biggest mistake was not getting a job in baseball. The whole time I watched the movie I was thinking how much I wished I worked in baseball. Damn it!

Can San Francisco Compete?

Video- Leather Leather

Oh happy Soulseek- apparently, the new server delivers every record ever made, and now I'm back on the old treadmill, having once found SS sterile and unsatisfying, I now find access to every record in the world a joy.  Hurray for recycled pleasure, but call me in three months. And that brings me to Video's Leather Leather, who challenge my predisposition towards hyberbole and hype, which my cortex will once again fail to monitor. If we were to hop in the time machine and head back to the drunken hour of top ten lists, these guys would shove some top contenders to the sidelines. The previous bands of these guys make no sense, because this is the stomping, inventive punk rock you always wanted this shit to mutate into.  Simplicity delivered smartly, and the timing is just right. Put the right pieces in all the right places and who needs a guitar lesson? I'm just on the upturn of the listening dig cycle, so if you know where I can secure a vinyl copy, do tell. Otherwise, it's just smiles and sterility, baby. This shit wins.

OZ by way of Memphis!

Check it out! A hot package arrived today from The Bilby. All kids of Aussie stuff to check out. Many thanks to the Great Tom Jones. You are a gentleman and a righteous dude. Hopefully myself and Sonny will get out to Gonerfest this fall. I'd love to buy you a Schmidts and say thanks again in person. Anywho, I am now going to deep dive into my vinyl haul. Reviews to come! 

No Talk- Leather Discipline

Well, hello, and happy New Year! Let's talk about Erotic Asphyxiation, because that's the first song on No Talk's most enjoyable album, Leather Discipline. I don't know about you, but the occasional trip to homo joke punk island, a la early Turbonegro, is a refreshing holiday from the mounting responsibilities of aging rockheads everywhere. I say bring on the black leather jackets and the guttural vocals and let those three chords ride along the melody tracks. Just be careful with those singalong choruses when the kids are around, especially when the rousing anthem that is "Sexcop" spikes those dopamine levels and all of a sudden it's 1985 and you feel compelled to blast it and your cracking voice brings gasps of horror from the family. This is a basement album,  and what you wear while listening can remain your little secret.   I can't wait until Little League season, with the crowd hushed during a pivotal late-inning moment, and I begin involuntarily screeching out a few verses of Levi Leather Uniform. Good fun for the whole family! Did he just say "masturbate him"? Well, now I've got that stuck in my head, so don't say I didn't warn you. Straight talk with No Talk. Sexcop. Right.