Sunday, April 7, 2013

How To Clear Out A Room In 10 Easy Steps

In my 50 years of listening to music, I have listened to just about everything that tickled my fancy, beginning with scratchy records then onward to albums, 8 Tracks, cassettes and CDs, I don't think I've heard it all before but then again I'm sure I'm missing a few things that sneaked  passed me.

There have been things that I enjoyed that some of my friends and folks never did.  The MC5 Starship pissed my dad off to the point that he almost threw that in the garbage and Mom banned Guns And Roses from the residence too, basically meant nothing since I didn't like their first album anyway.  Throughout the course of life there always been the avant garde that tends to try people's patience or the crapfest autotuner garbage that is Florida Georgia State Line and whatever KDAT is playing.  I never want to hear Sheryl Crow's crap again either or continued to get overplayed Train Hey Soul Sister which the distinctive mark of being played five straight times when I went to Cost Cutters and got my hair cut.  When I hear Bon Jovi Slippery When Wet at selective record stores it was time for me to hit the bricks.  Any Cumulus Radio Station playing at local businesses means a very short stay and makes me want to spring for a Smart Phone and listen to net radio.  Let's face it, FM radio is a root canal without novacaine and Train makes me want to take a shotgun and paint the walls with my brains (what's left of them).

But, say if you're having a party and want to call it a evening and your guests are not co operating.  Well time to pull out ten versions of  "closing time, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here".  Play these 10 songs and I guarantee you, that will get the point across that the party is over.

Unless they're freaks.

LOU REED-Metal Machine Music (Buddha/RCA 1975)  A two record set of guitar feedback in different variations but the record is much more fun including an infinite groove that ends side 4. Actually had this on vinyl years ago (used to be part of the KUNI or KCOE record library at one time but I traded it in along with a 100 more LPs to get the seldom played Led Zeppelin box set).  But even I didn't play it much and it was worth a few dollars anyway.

CROMAGNON-Cave Rock (ESP Disk 1969)  The album that gives Tad nightmares but I find it somewhat entertaining in its ugly way and there really wasn't much out there you can compare it with either, perhaps the first true industrial rock album in its own wake, the primitiveness of the first track and the rest featuring odd snippets, kiddies screaming freedom and other weird vibes, this is not one album you listen to while dropping acid.  This will give you nightmares, even on too much caffeine you'll see the real weird scenes inside the gold mine as you fall deeper into the abyss.

THE STOOGES-L A Blues (from Fun House) 1970  A Stooges fan is somebody that has to shift through the violent punk imagery of the first side and Mr. McKay's screechy saxophone on side two but the final track is 4 and half minutes of drum bashing, guitar feedback, sax screeching and Iggy screams and grunts. Basically by the time you get to the third example of this list most of your guest should be gone for good but if not, we still got a few more examples.

ASH-Sick Party (the bonus track to 1977) 1996  When I hear crap like this final excursion into bad bowel movements and puking up to the point you think the dude is going to die or have his inners turned inside out, it defeats the sense of purpose of me even keeping the rest of the album to which would have been the album to get till you come to this buried about 5 minutes after the final song.   I never did buy another Ash album again.  It's bad.

Alternative Press Presents Industrial Strength Machine Music (the framework of industrial rock 1978-1995) Rhino 1999  Everything you want to know about Industrial Music is summed up in 16 slabs of abrasive steel and keyboard beginning with the unlistenable but influential Throbbing Gristle to which I had their TG Greatest Hits for about a week before unloading it on EBAY.  Not suitable for work is this comp either to which on a fateful Friday, I broke my headphones trying to fix a cutter problem and ended up having the damn cabinet stuff being stuck on a tool box before it came open and everything went flying including my headphones off my head which cracked in two, which happening on a KMFDM song here. A who's who of Industrial Metal (Ministry, Meat Beat Manifesto, Revolting Cocks, Skinny Puppy, Front 242 you get the picture) this is not to be played at work and not around machinery either.

VELVET UNDERGROUND-White Light/White Heat (the album) 1968  I love the Velvet Underground and most of the banana album and the more quieter third album but number 2 is a noisefest that will guarantee to piss off the over 40 crowd.  What stands out in my mind while 3rd shift one night at NCS processing Pell Grants was we were listening to KRUI, the Iowa City college station and they played the full 17 minute version of Sister Ray and watching the reaction of the old ladies to this song was priceless.  I think they would have prefer Metal Machine Music instead.

JOHN COLTRANE-Om 1965  Let's face it, John could try many a people's patience when he started noodling into that avant garde noise that started around Ascension and continued till his death, like Albert Ayler or Ornette Coleman and others, if you're looking for melody and don't like chaos, this is not for you. In fact it could be considered the first grunge album ever since it was recorded in Seattle. Starts out with and odd poem to which J.C and company start moaning Om over and over before Pharaoh Sanders starts screaming out of nowhere like a deranged duck.  Many critics consider this the be the least of Coltrane's output although him dueling Rasheed Ali on Interstellar Space can be trying as well.  Tests have shown that houses that did have this album and Albert Ayler's albums didn't have cochroaches in a two block radius. It's that powerful and better than Raid.


MC5-Starship (From Kick Out The Jams 1968)  Sun Ra probably fits into the last entry but The MC5 was radically different from your noise bands, they knew their John Lee Hooker, somebody knew Ramblin Rose and Wild Thing and turn it into a bunch of noise and they loved Sun Ra to include something called Starship and gave him credit too.  You had to be there to see it in its glory and most who did ended up with ringing of the ears for life but I will forever name this song to the number one most hated song from my dad.  I'm still surprised he didn't take a shot gun out and turned the long player into a cracked 45.

SIN-ATRA 2011  A metal various artists trying to pay tribute to the Great Frank and making a poo platter of craptastic metal farts that even makes me what the fuck I bought this piece of shit in the first place. Only Geoff Tate could make any sense out of Summer Wind and metal hack Bob Kulick got raked over the coals for even putting this together in the first place.  One of those rare albums so bad, that there are more one star ratings than any other one in Amazon.  http://www.amazon.com/Sin-Atra-Various-Artists/dp/B004LSJCPQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1365226615&sr=1-1&keywords=sin+atra

KING OF KINGS 1992  Crappy Prog rock that came out on Geffen in 1992, so fucking bad you can't find it listed on Amazon and I wrote a bad review about that one.  I think by now on this list I'd be gone. To quote Steve McDonald who had to listen to this rubbish crap.

This album was produced by Roy Thomas Baker -- and certainly sounds like it, from a recording standpoint. The drums sound terrific, the guitars sound massive, the mix is crystal. Unfortunately it's utter rubbish, despite some interesting side trips. I'm not sure what Desmond Horn (guitar, vocals, songs) was attempting to do here but the directionless writing and poor performances, along with Horn's untrained and toneless voice, indicate that somebody lacked a few ideas -- even if Baker's production is big shiny stuff.

So by now everybody you wanted to be gone should be gone by now and after the 9th suggestion it's obvious that I would have been long gone from your party as well.  The Tenth and final suggestion

BONZO DOG BAND-Slush (from let's make up and be friendly) 1971  Their stuff influenced Myton Python but by the time they did the failed comeback album, the dryly titled Let's Make Up And Be Friendly nobody cared and judging by the songs here they didn't either.  Odd ball ending to this record of a laughing loop over and over, this too ended the History Of The Bonzo's best of when United Aritists put that out in 1974.  Fucking weirdness that somehow influenced Pink Floyd's conceptional Dark Side Of The Moon (Dick Parry the sax player plays on this album as well).

If all else fails, put on KDAT!


you're welcome ;)



4 comments:

TAD said...

Crabby: This is THE BEST thing you've written in awhile, & I'm not kidding. I was laughing my ass off....
Right on about CAVE ROCK, of course, & I find parts of Coltrane's LOVE SUPREME kinda hard 2 put up with, so I doubt I'd survive OM or INTERSTELLAR SPACE. & I can't TAKE Ornette Coleman, even when he's hanging out with my hero Pat Metheny. ...I've always wanted to hear METAL MACHINE MUSIC.... Xcept 4 "All Tomorrow's Parties," I really don't have much use 4 the Velvets....
A few more suggestions:
*David Sancious and Tone's TRANSFORMATION: THE SPEED OF LOVE -- '70s keyboard-based jazz-rock, I actually HAVE used this 2 clear unwanted guests out of the house. Something about the off-time synthesizer notes & the beats never landing where you expect really messes up people's bodily rhythms -- it's great. & 2 tracks are really very pretty -- the side-long title track & a 5-minute solo-piano piece called "The Play and Display of the Heart." None of Sancious' other albums are anywhere near as good, but it's not worth the $250(!) being asked-for on Amazon....
*Borbetomagus's 1ST -- Punk-jazz from NYC, 1980. Screaming saxes, shredding guitars, chainsaws! There are no melodies or any real music on this CD. Neat sounds of chipmunks getting chewed-up in blenders, tho....
*Pat Metheny's ZERO TOLERANCE FOR SILENCE -- 1 of my heroes, the king of easy-listening melodic jazz goes all noise-rock. The 1st track is 12 minutes of screaming feedback with NO melody. The rest follows in the same vein -- no tunes, just lotsa noise, 1 long loud crescendo. When you start with the amps set at 11, where is there to go? About 4 trax in, he throws in an acoustic guitar for contrast. But there's still no tunes. What possessed him?
...Anyway, you should write this kinda stuff more often -- it lets the anger out & it's REALLY funny. Keep it up....

R S Crabb said...

Thanks Tad!

I've been trying to come up with an idea list of these songs and I'm sure there's always something out there that we missed and this has been on the backburner the past couple months before I finally got a decent listing and added the Bonzo Dog Band song at the tail end. You probably will not like Meditations either from Coltrane either, it's much schizo than Love Supreme ever was and I can listen to Free Jazz from Ornette Coleman but Song X, his noisefest with Pat Methany I could only take one listen.

I also can tell you Metal Machine Music you wouldn't like either. Better to check out You Tube for I'm sure some sick person will have that up and running like they did with Ash Sick Party.

No accounting for taste! ;)

TAD said...

Hey Crabby -- I know someone who gave a listen to Cromagnon after reading your post -- & SHE didn't like it EITHER. So no new converts there, & I doubt I can sell her my copy for $50....
Oh, more London Andrews pics, please!
Cheers!

R S Crabb said...

And she's still with you after hearing Cromagnon? ;) Just Kidding!

You might get five bucks out of it off Amazon but it's not exactly selling there either.

London is pretty sexy looking but have to be careful what I post for her pictures since she likes to take it all off. And somebody at blogspot censored one of my pictures of that crazy chick with the sign that says she gets more P***y than anybody in congress, she might be right on that.