I haven’t posted a show for a wee while, and for that, my apologies. The following kicker of a radio show takes as it’s focus teenage psychosis and the scars of Junior High. Enjoy.
Some talk of Buñuel here at the Paltry Sapien prompted me to put this clip together. Luis Buñuel made this strange film L’Âge d’Or in 1930. When I first saw it, I had a eureka moment as I thought I had discovered the cradle in which Monty Python had been birthed. The inception point comes earlier in the movie, when the protagonist becomes enraged at the site of a blind beggar, runs over and kicks the man in the belly for no apparent reason. Tennis anyone? Watch how he sneaks into the party the second time, bristling with craven pomposity, and tell me that John Cleese would have played it any different.
The song I,Showbiz comes from The Sound And The Jerry (1997), a late album that may lack the power of the Sons of Rhythm band but contains some of Jerry Jerry’s best and funniest writings. If a forlorn girl sucking the toe of a cold, remote statue isn’t a perfect icon for Rock-and-Roll stardom, well then I guess I don’t understand imagery. I wonder if anyone ever tried to clamp their lips on the end of Jerry’s cowboy boot.
Apologies to all loud-mouth liberal clueless kumquats.
This show was largely inspired by the spectacle of various Occupy encampments getting rolled up with varying degrees of brutality. Else-wise the show explored Iggy Pop’s strange line that he is ‘Doing the things a 5’1″ man can do’.
Four-string, no-cymbals sludge-a-billy duo of Montreal Deja Voodoo put Viet Cong on their third album, Swamp of Love in 1986. They also ran Og Records which played an essential role in allowing Canadian indie music to flourish. A lifetime of kudos is owed them (and perhaps a couple of seats in our appointed senate).
In 1989, Peter Jackson, now of Lord of the Rings fame, released Meet the Feebles, his audaciously tasteless and utterly brilliant assault on the Muppet Show (and The Deer Hunter).
It occurred to me that these two works really did belong together and any liberties I may have taken are more than justified by the fact that there is a band wandering around New Zealand calling themselves Deja Voodoo.
Despite having a lock on a spot near the top of the best Canadian bands of all time shortlist, Jerry Jerry and the Sons of Rhythm Orchestra have a decidedly small Youtubular footprint, so I set out to change that with The Drift (1987) – the swift-running shit-kicker that tended to send the live gigs smashing through the guard rails, back in the day – a pair of scissors and a copy of Sean Penn’s Indian Runner (1991). Yes that is Aragorn with the tattoos, David Morse with the shotgun, and Dennis Hopper as bartender Beelzebub. If you’re inspired to check out the film (which I strongly recommend) watch for an unknown Benicio del Toro in a tiny role with a ludicrous hairdo. Watch the entire Penn cycle, with the Crossing Guard and the Pledge if you feel like spending the holidays bummed out and grim in a what’s-yer-take-on-Cassavetes sort of way.
Here’s hoping Sean Penn doesn’t show up and punch me – hmmm, actually I’d be cool with that.
Here’s my first fan video. It’s for the tune Oh Be Joyful by the Pack AD, from their second album Funeral Mixtape (2008). I learned from Maya, when they last came through town, that they had indeed gotten the title from Ken Burns’ the Civil War (Oh Be Joyful was one of many colourful names the soldiers gave to their DIY hooch), and so I open with a soundbite from that series. I thought about using clips from Ravenous – which was also a source for the song – but opted for moonshine over cannibalism. The rest of the video is comprised of a how-to-build-a-still montage, courtesy of Hamper McBee and some pals. I strongly recommend viewing the whole of Hamper McBee: Raw Mash (1978) (See also, Rich Hall’s Dirty South, he’s got plenty to say on the subject of home brew in southern culture.)
Building on the last show’s it’s the end of the Anglosphere and we know it vibe, this week we melded dustbowl laments with fear of the modern Moloch for one the best shows in many a moon. It didn’t hurt that we were playing more NoMeansNo and related material in anticipation of their show at the Pawnshop (it was FANTASTIC).
We need also to note that we are in the midst of the CJSR annual fund drive. If you like thee Ipso Factory, please dial 780-492-2577 or visit the station Web site and make a donation. The fund drive edition of thee Ipso Factory will take place this Wednesday, Nov. 2 at 3 PM. Do please tune in or listen over the Web, we’re running low of our targets this year, so please do what you can, be generous and support this great radio station. We will reward you with some pretty cool swag. Love those ‘texting’ gloves!
Here, out west, it’s hunting season, and typically that means that NoMeansNO should be passing through the territory. I take a gander at the band Web site and see that, yes indeed, the best Canadian band ever set off on a countrywide peregrination just yesterday.
See them while you can, fellow sapiens, for the season will come when that wizened trio gaze out onto the vastness of the Hardcore Logo circuit and judge it no country for old men. That’ll be a sad day for Punk Rock, implacably sad like the end of the Selfish Giant (which reminds me not to pogo so much this time; this is no country for old knees).
We don't quit on a tour poster just cuz it's got a little wear and tear
If this week’s show turned on any one thing – other than a prevailing atmosphere of gloom, tribulation and doom, it would be the concept of turd polishing, which came to us courtesy of the Supersuckers. One fresh bright spark was provided by the Polymorphines of Ottawa. They opened here for Bob Log a few weeks back and put on a stomper of a warm-up show. Not as druggie-sounding as their name might suggest, they play bourbon-soaked roadhouse boogie (think The Band’s Up on Cripple Creek cranked up to 45) with a crazed enthusiasm that had me thinking of Muppet biker gangs.
And yeah, you would think that by now Nick Cave would have figured out that it’s a good idea to have a plan for getting rid of the body (I mean it’s 25 years since Kathy’s Kisses and Deep In the Woods), but hiding under it, while novel, does seem a singularly bad idea.
