Run away from The Runaways

This weekend I finally got around to watching Floria Sigismondi's movie The Runaways. I've been a huge fan of the band since I discovered their Live in Japan album when I was 13 or 14. In a rare fit of fandom, I even got Joan Jett to sign my vinyl copy of it 15 or so years ago (I brought it to a Bikini Kill show that I'd been tipped off she would attend). I read Cherie Currie's memoir, Neon Angel, when it first came out. I watched Edgeplay, the doc about the band directed by one-time bassist Victory Tischler-Blue, aka Vicki Blue.

All this to explain why I carefully kept my expectations low in order to thwart disappointment. Epic fail: The new movie really bugged me.

Not only did Jett not contribute to Edgeplay, but she prevented Tischler-Blue from using the band's music. No doubt because she wanted to focus on a more high-profile biopic. And in fact Jett exec-produced The Runaways, which is based on Currie's book. Needless to say, Jett comes across very well in the new movie — she even does the DVD commentary with Kristen Stewart (who plays her) and Dakota Fanning (Currie). What a cool rebel she was! It was only about rock & roll for her! She was the driving force in the band!

Except I doubt anybody would remember the Runaways if they hadn't been, you know, a band, and not a Joan Jett vehicle with special contributions from Cherie Currie. But those two completely dominate the movie, and the only other person to be fleshed out is Kim Fowley (played by Michael Shannon, who really looks like Eddie Izzard in the role). We get a lot more Fowley than any of the other Runaways.

Fine, so apparently Jackie Fox (the longest-serving bassist) didn't authorize the filmmakers to use her in the movie, so we get a composite bassist named "Robin" instead. I understand, legal stuff, etc. (Fun reading: Fox's blog about Runaways reminiscences.)

But what about drummer and cowbell master Sandy West, or guitarist Lita Ford? West gets some lines and air time. Ford gets to pick a brief fight with Currie. Weird, I heard that the animosity was between Ford and Jett.

And then there's the lame music-video aesthetics. Too many hazy, dreamy shots of girls walking lost in deep thoughts — because that's what girls do, even the ones in a rock band. Okay, I exaggerate here because we do get snapshots of life on the road. But the live music scenes have no zest, and Stewart applies her usual indolent slouch to everything. Typical is Stewart and Fanning's underwhelming version of "Dead End Justice." The Runaways' own "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," the song requires dramatic singing for its completely over-the-top "girls in juvie" storyline; in the movie, it's not half as intense as on the record. Where is the rage? Where is the desperate energy? Currie has a great snarl when she sings this song, you can just hear it. So awesome.

To add insult to injury, the movie ends with the obligatory "what happened to them" info. But we only hear about Jett, Currie and Fowley! I seem to remember Lita having quite a career as a hair-metal guitar goddess in the 80s. Rings a bell? West died of cancer in 2006 — that didn't warrant a note? Perhaps it went by so fast that I missed it. This is especially galling since West had a really rocky post-Runaways life and was the one former member who really wanted the band to get back together, something she poignantly expressed in Edgeplay.

Oh well, we'll always have this.

Cranked up

I had forgotten how good it feels to feel your innards melt, to get your eardrums pulverized. The rawk, it lives!

At least it did on Friday night, when my friend Mike took me to the Chrome Cranks reunion at Santos Party House. Now even though I followed the East Village/Lower East Side scum-noise scene pretty closely from the moment I moved to the NYC area in 1988, that band completely eluded me: I don't have any of their records and never saw them live. At least I had seen and heard the ferocious rhythm section in various other bands: drummer Bob Bert with Knoxville Girls, Bewitched and Action Swingers (not to mention late Pussy Galore and early Boss Hog, though I never caught him with Sonic Youth), bassist Jerry Teel with KG and Honeymoon Killers.

On Friday the time had come for my first encounter with the Cranks, 12 years after their last local show. As soon as the first song hit, I broke into a huge grin. A loud but sharp PA, a band in complete control of its sound, even a red strobe light: perfection.

As Mike put it elsewhere, there were quite a few bands doing the Chrome Cranks thing in the 90s, but there are close to none these days: intensely focused and controlled aggro rooted in a punk-blues groove.

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of people putting on memorable rock shows these days, from Lightning Bolt to Monotonix, but they tend to go for a more spastic, all-over-the-place energy, whereas Chrome Cranks are rooted in songcraft and the aforementioned groove. They're playing Glasslands on Friday 15, and I may just go back for seconds.

Cristina forever

How could I forget? My interview with Boss Hog's Cristina Martinez is in the current issue of Time Out New York. The show itself is on Wednesday and you have tickets, right? Right?

For those about to rawk

Boss Hog has just announced it's playing Bowery Ballroom on December 17. I dashed out a little something on the Time Out New York blog about it, so I'll just add here that Cristina Martinez has got to be one of my absolute favorite rock singers ever. And I won't undermine her achievement by saying "one of my absolute favorite female rock singers ever."

The band hasn't played here in eight years, which kinda neatly coincides with the Bush administration. Yeah, I would have taken a leave of absence, too.

Feeling authentically bluesy

Mixed returns on my last two outings.

Catherine Baÿ's The Snow White Project, part of the Crossing the Line fest on Tuesday, was a total wash as far as I'm concerned. Essentially we milled in front of the Diane von Furstenberg store in the meatpacking district, watching women dressed as Snow White hold placards bearing inscriptions such as "On strike" and "I am an everyday consumer product" inside the store. Suddenly it really felt like the 80s again: a financial meltdown against a background of overpriced doodads, while an artist trots out tired slogans and blindingly obvious concepts. It was a rather smug example of vacant cooptation—and I loathed half the people I was standing next to. I admit that I left after half an hour so I missed the one seemingly dynamic element that came at the end, according to the Times' review. Life is too short.

Then last night I was in the mood for some rawk so off to Bowery Ballroom I went, where Swedish retro masters Graveyard and Witchcraft were sandwiching local act TK Webb and the Visions. The Swedes don't have an ounce of originality between them, faithfully playing a late 60s/early 70s psych- and blues-flavored rock, with a hefty dose of Black Sabbathism in the case of Witchcraft. But they do have that Scandi sense of craft and they threw themselves wholeheartedly into their music. Plus the Graveyard drummer was amazing in an octopus/Keith Moon/Animal kinda way, and Witchcraft has enough great riffs to easily fill a set.

But TK Webb and the Visions…It's almost a bummer to see these guys come across like such a bunch of wankers because Webb at least has been a downtown fixture for a while now, so his commitment seems beyond question. But what's with the second guitarist, the guy in white showing off his tats and striking poses? He looked as if he'd rehearsed every single move in front of the mirror for hours; there was not an ounce of honesty in what he did.

Speaking of which, let's go back to the Celine Dion show for a minute. The Times reviewer wrote of a particular song's interpretation that "instead of connoting feeling — there is not a whit of blues in Ms. Dion’s voice — it felt like a technical exercise."

Whaaaat?

Is the blues the only way to show feeling? Isn't it just one of many performative devices one can use to evoke feeling? TK Webb's gravelly pipes sure made him sound like he felt things, man, for real, but does that make him a better singer? Or even just an interesting one? Furthermore, can't one have technique and emotion? I'm sure those highly trained classical singers would say yes.

In addition, you can think and say many things of Celine Dion, but one thing she does have is feeling—it's just that her version does not fit some people's definition of how it's meant to be expressed, and of realness, authenticity or taste (all dubious words anyway). The last element is the most important here, I think, getting into what the Times' readership think it's okay to mock.

Jeezus, I can't believe I've become a Celine Dion defender…

Dateline Stockholm, part 3

I've been living in New York for 18 years now, and while I have visited the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, I'd never seen Patti Smith live until yesterday evening. She plays regularly in town, including popular New Year's Eve stints, but somehow I'd always managed to miss her. Well actually I did see her once a few years ago, but it was a poetry reading in Central Park, one of her first public appearances after her husband's death. I guess I lacked the motivation to catch an actual show because the whole poetic-priestess bit kinda bored me. But I loved her covers album from last year, Twelve, which really drove home the point that she's a fantastic rock singer.

The crowd at the Stockholm Jazz Festival, where Smith was performing, was much larger than the previous day, and the average age higher (I didn't see any babies in sound-blocking headphones this time). The show got off to a great start ("Dancing Barefoot," a 20-minute version of "Are You Experienced") but then fell into a kind of maudlin, slow-paced rut. Things picked up again, however, with a series of absolute punches in the gut: "Pissing in a River," "Because the Night," "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Rock and Roll Nigger"--she blazed through them all, the band (including classic PSG members Jay Dee Daugherty and Lenny Kaye) pumping mightily behind. And I'm sorry, but you just can't fake that kind of charisma.

On a sartorial note, Ms. Smith spent most of the set in a long coat, explaining at some point that she had a cold. She did take it off a couple of times, revealing not one of her trademark Ann Demeulemeester button-down shirts but a white T and mom-ish jeans (tucked into brown boots).

That was a fitting cap to a day spent exploring the neighborhood of Kungsholmen, then taking the tram around parts of Djurgården. The weather is a bit iffy today, which may provide appropriate atmospherics for a visit to the cemetary of Skogskyrkogården, where Greta Garbo is buried. More later.

The fresh sounds of hardcore

If you're in New York, set your dial to 93.9FM Monday at 2pm; you can also listen live on the web on the WNYC site. I will be on Soundcheck to discuss why it's so hard to find women who rawk hard these days. Oooh, incendiary!

Speaking of rawk, it erupted as if from some broken sewer pipe at Southpaw this past Wednesday when the reunited Negative Approach hit Brooklyn. And hit it did. Holy cow! NA was a classic Detroit hardcore combo that formed in 1981 and released an album on Touch & Go in 1983. For me the main draw in seeing the band now was singer John Brannon, whose post-NA project was Laughing Hyenas. I saw them a couple of times back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and back then I loved the interplay between Brannon's vocals and Larissa Strickland's guitar; they were uneven (and could get too dirgey for my taste) but at their best, the Laughing Hyenas were a worthy American answer to the Birthday Party. Unfortunately they also had a similar penchant for self-destruction, with heroin abuse turning into a big problem. Strickland, who had started as a singer in Detroit's L-Seven (not to be confused with LA's L7), died in November 2006 of a prescription-drugs overdose.

Brannon seems to be doing fine now, and he still has one of the most amazing sets of pipes in rock, a sandpapery growl that can strip paint off walls. On Wednesday, NA showed it had lost nothing of the ferocity that made them a dangerous band 25 years ago. The pit was a chaotic mess and I had to fumigate my clothes after getting home—the beer had literally been flying. I have to say, however, that the guys slamming into each other weren't in the flower of youth. Either NA hasn't turned into a cult that can attract new fans, or the newbies didn't dare face off with the middle-aged meatheads pawing each other in front of the stage (and sometimes on it). The biggest of them all was a humongous mohawked steroid case who at one point seized the bassist's mike to sing along—and turned out to have a little pipsqueaky voice, even though he tried his darnedest to sound tough.

Here's the opening song in its entirety:



Opening band Clockcleaner, a bit of a Dilettante fave, did a short but efficient set that included the awesome "Vomiting Mirrors" and ended with a Negative Approach cover. Nice. Also nice: When frontman John Sharkey, being his usual obnoxious self while testing the reverb on his mike, was pelted with a full cup of beer. It was that kind of night.

Negative Approach "Can't Tell No One" (from Negative Approach EP, 1982)
Negative Approach "Tied Down" (from Tied Down, 1983)
L-Seven "Clear Vision" (1983)
Laughing Hyenas "Candy" (from Merry Go Round CD, 1987/95)
Laughing Hyenas "Hitman" (from Life of Crime, 1990)

No reunion is impossible!

Last week my colleague Mike Wolf asked me what show I would love to see even though it was highly unlikely to happen. "Dusty Springfield!" I yelped. No, a show by someone alive—picky, picky, picky. "Kylie Minogue!" No, more rock. I couldn't think of anybody at that moment and he couldn't hold it anymore: "Teenage Jesus and the Jerks are playing the Knitting Factory in June!"

Okay, I have to say that on the cool scale, that one's an 11. Teenage Jesus, of course, was the ultra-abrasive no-wave band that unleashed the young Lydia Lunch on the world. They played short songs, recorded a couple of EPs and disappeared. Now they're back for one night, with Lunch handling both vocals and guitar.

Mike has more details on the TONY blog. The only question right now: When am I going to find the time to go to the Knit's box-office and buy tickets.

P.S. Teenage Jesus' shows were brief: 15-20 minutes. Which is the way it should be. Too many bands now, full of egotistical self-regard, go on forever. I was reminded of that sad state of affair Saturday, when the utterly mediocre Bodies of Water, opening for Sons and Daughters at Bowery Ballroom, rambled on for an unconscionable 45 minutes. And another note for Bodies of Water: Vocal harmonies doesn't mean four people singing at the same time but in collaboration. Which, you know, requires some actual work.

Welcome back

Looks like Your Flesh, a zine I used to read with great interest back in the late 80s and early 90s, is back in action as an online publication. Okay, it's not really new news, but I'm happy enough to give them a belated shout-out. One of the reasons I so enjoyed the mag back then is that it plugged a lot of so-called pigfuck bands, which overall I much preferred to the concurrently happening—and much more successful—grunge acts.

Even better, Amphetamine Reptile, one of my favorite labels ever, is back in action. Cows, God Bullies, King Snake Roost, early Boss Hog: AmRep classics. (It's not a coincidence that the word "noise" was pretty much part of AmRep's logo.) Not only that, but flagship band Halo of Flies, led by label boss Tom Hazelmyer, is back as well! Watch out for a forthcoming three-song 7" by Lydia Lunch backed by…Halo of Flies! Oooh mama!!! I was lucky enough to hear a burn and it oozes bile. Just fantastic stuff—I listened to it five times in a row this afternoon, then went on and ordered the vinyl from AmRep mail order. You should as well.

I'll never forget that time in the early 90s when I went to the Park Slope food co-op (just visiting!) wearing a T-shirt bearing AmRep's signature slogan "Dope, Guns and Fucking in the Street." A woman stared at me and said, sotto voce, "You know you have a bad word on your shirt, right?"

Fortunately some brave souls are keeping the flame alive. There's Clockcleaner in Philly, for instance, and White Drugs, a quartet of mad Texans I know nothing about except their album Harlem is messed up in all the right ways:

White Drugs: "I Hate Yr Face" (note the righteous spelling of "your")
White Drugs: "Surrounded by Studs"

Girls gone wild

What a sad state of affairs that now tales of girls going wild tend to be about drunk college juniors baring their perma-tanned flesh during spring break. Let's go back instead to the darker times of the 1980s and 90s…

Coincidentally I just read back to back books by Lydia Lunch (Paradoxia—A Predator's Diary) and Lisa Crystal Carver (Drugs Are Nice—A Post-Punk Memoir), in which they describe what it really means to go wild when you're a creative girl who's had a pretty screwed-up childhood. Lunch's book is mostly about her sexual adventures, which disappointed me a bit because I wanted more about her musical adventures. But the writing is extraordinary, sucking you up in a churning vortex of sex and violence, limned with New York nights in abandoned Tribeca buildings, pick-ups of horny Puerto Rican teenagers on the 6 train, tricks with frustrated men and morning shifts in titty bars.

Carver's book does deal with the music she recorded as Suckdog and her creating the influential zine Rollerderby, along with her misadventures with the two pretty unstable guys she had long relationships with—which shouldn't come as a surprise from someone who had a teenage crush on GG Allin. First, there was French performance artist (for lack of a better word) Jean-Louis Costes; then, all-American extremist and 60s pop revisionist Boyd Rice—also, as it turns out, a kinda pathetic, alcoholic mama's boy, which puts a bit of a damper on his carefully constructed image as a natty provocateur and author of such albums as Music Martinis and Misanthropy.

Both Lunch and Carver come across as completely idiosyncratic and remarkably strong-willed. It's really hard not to think that if they had been guys, their rollercoaster adventures would be legendary and they'd be invited to do readings and happenings at the Guggenheim. As it is, Lunch has earned some respect but remains a relatively marginal artist, and Carver is seen as a bit of a joke, even though her influence on a certain white-trash-aesthetic revivalism, the birth of confessional zine-writing and no-limit rock & roll performance is, for better or for worse, beyond question.

Phantom of the Nightwish

Yesterday evening, the Dilettante, her friend Tristan and a special representative from Night After Night trekked to Nokia, the serendipitously named—and located: half a block from the theater presenting Phantom of the Opera!—venue hosting Finnish band Nightwish.

The charms of Nightwish had eluded me for years. I just couldn't get into to the mix of power metal and operatic vocals. This all changed when the band unceremoniously kicked out singer Tarja Turunen, replaced her with a Swede with a pop background named Anette Olzon, and released the album Dark Passion Play. One listen and I was hooked. Actually I should specify: One listen to the first track, the 14-minute-long "The Poet and the Pendulum," and I was hooked. So many things I love are crammed into it: Abba and Metallica, Jim Steinman and Lord of the Rings, blastbeats and a ginormous orchestra. Also a singalong chorus, a Celtic gig interlude and a children's choir, because why not? ("Because why not?" is my favorite rationale for art.)

Nightwish "The Poet and the Pendulum" (from Dark Passion Play, 2007)

I'm sure Night After Night will comment on the musical side of the show so I'll just expand a bit on some side aspects. I can't remember, for instance, the last time I saw men sing along so lustily at a gig; I suppose the power riffage and brute drumming allow them to distance themselves from the fact that they're singing along to very pop choruses. Still, it was impressive to watch all those dudes mouthing long stretches of verbose lyrics.

Another surprising thing was the band's amiable stage presence. Mastermind Tuomas Holopainen played the part of tortured artiste to the hilt behind his keyboards, but the rest looked very happy to be there, particularly guitarist Emppu Vuorinen. It was actually a bit jarring at times, considering the lyrical content ("I cannot die, I, a whore for the cold world," etc.). I'll quote Tristan's suggestions for Anette:
- Avoid smiling. We realize that given your genetic and ancestral makeup this may be impossible. In that case, perhaps a black veil could be considered, maybe one decorated with silver spiderwebs.
- Do not wave happily at audience members. Try instead to look malevolent and resigned.
- Please avoid making any gesture whose meaning is “I encourage you to applaud!” Instead, gestures in the category of prayer, anguish or ritual sacrifice could be substituted. We can provide helpful examples for you to emulate. You can also fold your arms Pharaoh-style.

You can tell Tristan regularly goes to the Met.

Insterstellar overdrive

Space rock has never really been my cup of lysergic tea; it certainly has something to do with my abstaining from mind-altering substances (unless you count chocolate, but somehow I don't think you do), but also with the genre's hippie connotations. Too much noodling, too much babbling.

But I kept reading intriguing tidbits about a newish Brit outfit called Litmus that's said to play super-heavy space rock—so heavy, in fact, that the band's second and latest album, Planetfall, came out on Rise Above, the label run by Cathedral's Lee Dorrian and the home to Dilettante sludgy/doomy faves like Grand Magus, Witchcraft, Orange Goblin and Electric Wizard. Plus Litmus was being championed by Julian Cope, who has a pretty good ear for these things.

Well, Planetfall really is all that. It's heavy. It's fast. It's dense. Sure, like much of the Rise Above roster it's also unabashedly retro, and the mellotron whizzes are a bit conventional, but oh my god does it rock! It's got to be the headbanging-with-your-eyes-closed album of the year.

And in a super-rare occurrence, since I tend to believe 180 seconds is the ideal length for a song, my favorite tracks here are two of the longest ones: "Far Beyond," clocking in at eight minutes, and "Under the Sign," which goes on for 15 over-the-top minutes and just never lets up even as it piles on busy-busy-busy bass runs, atomic drum fills and endless guitar soloing—things start at full speed and just stay there.

Litmus "Under the Sign"
Litmus "Far Beyond"

Look back in wonder, part 3

I realize I said this would be an occasional series and I just wrote about seeing Saint Etienne a few days ago, but I could not let this particularly anniversary go by: On September 29, 1989, I saw the Jesus Lizard for the first time. Oh mama!

Back then I was in grad school at Rutgers in New Brunswick, so I saw a lot of shows at the Court Tavern, a local dingy, super-low-ceilinged basement venue. Of all the good gigs I caught there (Mudhoney, Laughing Hyenas, Tiny Lights, the A-Bones, Beme Seed), none made as much of an impact.

According to the Touch & Go site, the Jesus Lizard played its first-ever show on July 1, 1989, in Chicago, so the band must have been on its first tour when I saw it. And maybe a band can only have that sense of unhinged mania on its first tour; later, you learn that it's probably a good idea not to get wasted—in every sense of the word—every night. The Lizard mixed a sense of threatening, quasi-psychopathic rage with a surprisingly disciplined reptilian crawl forward (the band wasn't big on BPMs). The explosive rhythm section of Mac McNeilly and David Sims plus the economical Duane Denison on guitar plus one of the best frontmen ever in David Yow: These guys were the perfect rock unit.

It's too bad that Yow is now remembered, if at all, as that guy who used to drop his pants during shows. And yes he did expose himself during "Tight ’n Shiny" at the Court, but it's not like he was just letting it all hang out, as it were: Like everything else the Lizard did, he went further by pulling and stretching and choking himself in a way that would have been painful if he hadn't seemed to be in some kind of trance. Some people speak in tongue, others become rock singers.

Another thing about Yow: He was a man, not an overgrown boy indulging in rock because it's a cool thing to do. He was around 29 in 1989 (he'd already been in Scratch Acid in Texas), and he had a kind of beat-up gravitas. When he got in your face at a show, it was scary because you felt that he was old enough to know better—he just didn't care to know better.

The next time I saw the Jesus Lizard was on April 28, 1990, at Maxwells, where it was opening for some new Seattle band called Nirvana. Nirvana didn't stand a chance following up the Lizard; I left after maybe four or five songs by Cobain & Co. In retrospect of course I regret not staying longer for Nirvana, a band I never saw again, but that night in 1990, nobody could play after the Jesus Lizard.

That particular bill illustrated a dichotomy very much of its time: grunge vs pigfuck. I preferred pigfuck, especially in its midwestern incarnation, which included the Lizard, Killdozer and pretty much the entire Amphetamine Reptile roster. I just loved that amorphous genre's violent misanthropy and its strong strain of elaborate artiness, for lack of a better word (best example: Killdozer); the music was a lot more fucked-up, aggressive, and complex—and a lot less predictable—than grunge, which relied way too much on tension-and-release dynamics that quickly became generic. Plus pigfuck didn't wallow in self-obsessed misery: Pigfuck was all about taking it out on others!

The Jesus Lizard released the Pure EP in 1989 but I'm going to forego historical purity and post tracks from its 1991 album Goat, the studio album that to me best captures the mix of genius precision and batshit abandon that characterized the band live, and one of the best albums of the 90s. Here's a sensational three-track consecutive sequence from it.

Jesus Lizard "Karpis"
Jesus Lizard "South Mouth"
Jesus Lizard "Lady Shoes"

Look back in wonder, part 1

Being on the anal-retentive side has its benefits. One of them is that since 1989 I've been keeping records of every performance I've attended. At first I wrote down only rock shows, then I added theater, dance and opera, along with films and videos for good measure. "You might as well use this stuff" said the Sheila, looking at my old notebooks. And so here it is: the first installment of an occasional series in which I will look back at something I saw on the same date x number of years ago. I hope this won't be mere nostalgia but a look back at a thin slice of time, often in a now-gone venue, with a now-gone band.

Ten years ago exactly, I saw Joan of Arc and Danielson at Brownies; on September 4, 1998, it was a triple bill of Magnetic Fields, My Favorite and Kiki & Herb at the Knitting Factory, while in 2001 it was Urinetown on Broadway. But it's September 4, 1996, that kicked the most ass.

Thread Waxing Space, a performance/art gallery space that used to be on Broadway and Broome, felt like a furnace that night. There was no air conditioning and a small fan only churned the fetid air around. I vividly remember stepping in the main room and feeling as if I'd just hit a wall of heat; many people just fled. I was there for the High Llamas (who may even have been making their eagerly awaited New York debut), but I don't remember much from their set because they had the misfortune to play after Prolapse, whose show that night was one of the best I've ever seen—we're talking all-time top ten here.

Prolapse was a band from Leicester whose existence almost neatly coincides with the 1990s. (Typically for a band with such a surreal sense of humor, someone—either a former member or a dedicated fan—has set up a Prolapse MySpace page that announces a reunion for 2073.) Musically it mixed the locomotive drive of krautrock mixed with quasi-psychotic unpredictability and a My Bloody Valentine–like wall of sound, but the group's most distinctive trait was the volatile, highly theatrical interaction between its two singers, Mick Derrick (he of the impenetrable Scottish accent) and Linda Steelyard; together, they turned Prolapse gigs into Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf performed by Mark E. Smith and Rita Tushingham. The best recorded evidence of their unique rapport remains "Tina This Is Matthew Stone," which explodes/devolves into a barrage of insults.

They were so incandescent that night that I returned to see them two days later, opening for the just-reformed Raincoats. The Raincoats were absolutely fine, but once again Prolapse walked away with the show. YouTube has a small but decent selection of Prolapse videos, with some choice live performances like this one from 1995; even though it's shot from afar, you can still tell the band produces thermonuclear energy.

Here's a small selection of songs covering the span of Prolapse's career:
"Tina This Is Matthew Stone" (from Pointless Walks to Dismal Places, 1994)
"Flex" ((from backsaturday, 1995)
"TCR" (from the US version of backsaturday, 1996)
"A Day at Death Seaside" (from The Italian Flag, 1997)
"Fob.com" (from Ghosts from Dead Aeroplanes, 1999)

A cold wind blowing down

It's not that long since my last Swedish post but what can I say, it's Pavlovian: I'm drawn to Swedish music. Doesn't matter if it's mainstream or obscure—I love it all. And so in addition to gigabytes of new discoid acts, I end up with, say, a box set of Agnetha Fältskog solo albums or archival recordings of never-were proto-doom bands . The latest arrivals on my player are the two-CD set Svensk Postpunk (Klassiker) and the reissue of the one and only full-length by 1970s hard-rocking combo Solid Ground (Mellotronen). Sigh…

I have to admit I was initially disappointed by Svensk Postpunk because save for a few exceptions the overall vibe is closer to Echo and the Bunnymen, Joy Division and early Cold Wave than Kleenex or Gang of Four. But after getting back in touch with my inner goth, I was able to enjoy the music; even better, the only band I already knew in the batch was Leather Nun, and so the compilation is an ear-opening introduction to a specific little music niche.

Stockholm combo Kitchen and the Plastic Spoons certainly counts as a real discovery, for instance, and so I ordered the recent CD collection of its entire output from Aquarius. Göteborg's Camouflage really reminds me of Xymox, a band I hadn't really thought about in a while; relistening to its 4AD oeuvre, however, made me realize it has aged rather gracefully—like quite a bit of gothy stuff, come to think of it. Are we due for a revival? Fortunately, the Swedish Punk site helped with a crash course on some of the bands—turns out Tant Strul was one of the very few girl groups on the scene for instance.

MP3 Camouflage "Syster Sol" (1985)
MP3 Ståålfågel "En dag i varuhuset" (1980)
MP3 Kitchen and the Plastic Spoons "Liberty" (1981)
MP3 Tant Strul "Amason" (1983)

Solid Ground was a short-lived combo from Stockholm that released only one album, Made in Rock. Pretty typical mid-70s riffage here, though this being a Swedish band, they can't help being super-melodic as well. The CD's liner notes explain that in the studio the band used an Orchestron, a synth along the lines of the Mellotron—automatic extra bonus points for the use of an obscure instrument!

MP3 Solid Ground "Oh Lord" (from Made in Rock, 1976)
MP3 Solid Ground "Tombstone Kiss" (from Made in Rock, 1976)

Jailbait!

When they were around, in the late 1970s, the Runaways were often perceived as Kim Fowley's puppets (because young girls couldn't possibly write their own songs) and described as jailbait (they were all in their teens and total bad girls—ie, they taunted boys and played rock & roll). But their influence has outlasted the middle-aged male critics who used to make fun of them, and their music has aged surprisingly well, as I was reminded at a fun, affectionate tribute by the Stay-at-Homes at Magnetic Field Saturday night.

The Stay-at-Homes are made up of local vets who recreate almost all of Live in Japan—which, luckily, happens to be my favorite Runaways album. Tammy Faye Starlite, who goes through three costumes as singer Cherie Currie, even included the stage banter. But things really hit a high point at the very end, when the Stay-at-Homes tackled the awesome "Dead End Justice," an epic story-song that matches "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" in overblown rock-osity ("On the planet Sorrow/There is no tomorrow"—amazingly enough, this poetry did not seep out of Jim Steinman's brain). I never thought I'd hear "Dead End Justice" live one day, but there it was, in all its tawdry glory.

MP3s The Runaways "California Paradise" and "Neon Angels on the Road to Ruin" (both from Live in Japan, of course)

Coda: While Joan Jett is looking increasingly sad as an aging fetish mama playing Bud Light rock, Cherie Currie's now a professional chainsaw carver. She sells her sculptures, so if you're wondering what to give me for my next birthday… (Hint: think raccoons).

The singles hour

The Village Voice has just published its annual Pazz & Jop Poll. Dylan comes up on top (yawn) with TV on the Radio nipping at his heels (zzzz…), while "Crazy" wins the Golden Toaster for single of the year.

You can look at my own poll here, with the caveat that the results change every week. For the sake of convenience, I'll post MP3s of my top ten singles of 2006 as they appeared in the Voice. Here they are, in alphabetical order.

1. Margaret Berger: "Samantha" Berger was no. 2 on Norwegian Idol, which tells you everything and nothing. A typical Scandi-stomper, "Samantha" is from her second album, the unusually (well, not for a Scandi-pop album, actually) good Pretty Scary Silver Fairy.

2. Bodies Without Organs: "Temple of Love" Yet again BWO entered Melodifestivalen, the Swedish selection process for the Eurovision Song Contest, and yet again they didn't make it through. A shame, for I bet this gloriously old-fashioned explosion of homo energy would have done better in Athens' than Carola's tired entry. And speaking of tough competition, the Ark is entering Melodifestivalen this year, with a peppy Bay City Rollers–style number titled (despite the fact that it suggests anything but) "The Worrying Kind". Go Ark!

3. Cassius: "Jack Rock" Acid lives with this track from Cassius' latest album. Every time I listen to it, I picture an expedition going up Mount Everest: The track climbs up to a plateau and takes a rest at base camp 1; then it climbs some more, and settles down at base camp 2; more climbing, more resting, and so on. The wonky piano and Rolling Stones woo-hoo's take it to the summit. A perennial treadmill tune.

4. Girls Aloud: "Something Kinda Oooh" I included all three of Girls Aloud's studio albums on their respective years' top-ten lists but had to interrupt that impeccable run because their 2006 release was a greatest-hits collection. Fortunately it did feature this new recording. As usual with Xenomania productions, the song has an unpredictable structure: very brief vocal intro, then the chorus, then the verse, and of course a pneumatic bridge to die for. And also as usual, we get the best genius/stupid lyrics a mega-selling girl group has to offer: "Something kinda ooooh/Jumping on my tu-tu/Something inside of me/Wanting part of you/Something kinda ooooh/Makes my heart go boom boom/Something inside of me/Wanting what you do/Something kinda ooooh/Bumpin' in the back room."

5. The Gossip: "Standing in the Way of Control (Soulwax Nite Version)" The Gossip has always shot itself in the foot with the cruddy sound on their recordings. I don't care what people say: It's their refusal to hire a decent producer that's hampered their career, not Beth Ditto's weight and politics. Last year they finally scored a semi-club hit thanks to the Belgian brothers in Soulwax—and an actual bass line.

6. Jamelia: "Beware of the Dog" One of two 2006 hits to cannibalize the synth-pop 1980s. Ruthlessly efficient.

7. The Killers: "When You Were Young" Like the other big drama queen in Vegas—that'd be CSI—the Killers are big, bloated and self-important, with a teeny-tiny ounce of winking self-awareness. This song is U2 for those who loathe U2.

8. Melody Club: "Last Girl on My Mind" A few years ago, Melody Club was slated to play a Swedish showcase at CBGB; they cancelled at the last minute because they got the opening gig on Kylie Minogue's European tour. Still no US release for Sweden's all-male answer to Blondie, but its third release is full of nuggets like this one. The lyrics make the latest Arcade Fire and Decemberists albums sound like the work of fussy librarians: "You're keeping your legs crossed, honey/Like a good girl should/Who's smearing your lipgloss, honey/ Come on take me by the hand." Any guy who mentions lipgloss in a song ranks high with me.

9. Rihanna: "SOS (Rescue Me)" I hesitated listing both this and "Beware of the Dog" because they're so similarly exploitative and so similarly exemplary of a dearth of ideas. Alas, both were lodged in my head in 2006. Rihanna also contributed to the canon of great pop lines with "I'm the question and you're of course the answer/Just hold me close boy 'cause I'm your tiny dancer."

10. Kate Ryan: "Je t'adore" Textbook Europop. The biggest shocker of 2006 for trü-pop fans is that Kate Ryan didn't make it past the semi in the Eurovision Song Contest. "Je t'adore" is so good that in the weeks leading up to the showdowns, us fans were taking bets as to whether she'd win it, place in the top three or in the top five. I was certain that at last Belgium could step to the podium. Oh well… Take it away, Katrien Verbeeck!

Squeeeeal like a pig!

Coming out of a rock show half-deaf, I'm familiar with; but emerging half-blind as well, that was new. Not only did Clockcleaner play loud at Cake Shop on Friday night, but they also turned off the stage lights and turned on a couple of blue strobes. My ears! My eyes! It was sensory-
overload agony, and I was in ecstasy. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't all because of some nostalgia trip either: Sure, the Philly trio sounds like it's listened to the entire AmRep catalogue back to front, but it's already developed a live power that's all its own. And bassist Karen has a sturdy, no-nonsense presence that reminds me of the glory days of Kim Deal (not a coincidence I guess, since I hear Clockcleaner did a Breeders cover at its WFMU appearance earlier this month.)

The band has recentish MP3s on its website, so here's a couple of older tracks, from its 2004 debut EP The Hassler: "Walking With My Lady Friend" and "Shingles/Black Baby."