punk rock

Bearing Witness to the Survivors

C. Jefferson Thom — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 21:38:02 +0000

Bearing Witness to the Survivors C. Jefferson Thom September 7, 2023 - 17:38

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The Melvins, In Concert

The Showbox, Seattle

If I'm being completely honest, The Melvins have always been a band that existed more in Rock lore than in my personal CD collection. I've known of them for decades and while their reputation certainly proceeds them (particularly stories about frontman King Buzzo) I can't say that I had listened to any of their numerous albums from beginning to end until preparing for this 40th Anniversary concert. They always felt like a band for fans cooler than I; more knowledgeable, more hip, more versed in the Rock catalogue… fortunately for me, I have a number of friends who fit this description. However, upon asking around, I was surprised to find that I was not alone in my ignorance. Even life-long musicians, well into their 40s and several albums-deep in their own careers, knew of The Melvins but weren't much more familiar with their work than I was. This left me wondering who is this legendary band celebrating 40 years of making music…

After doing some long-overdue listening and a little bit of research, one of the first words that comes to mind is survivors. Between drug abuse and the Rock lifestyle in general, there are few bands from the late '80s and early '90s that are still alive and fully functioning, yet in a sea of tired reunion tours The Melvins stand out as a legit band that never stopped. Instead of resting on yesterday's hits to pay today's bills, they seem to carry on composing original music that they are inspired to create and whoever wants to listen is more than welcome. Regarding those who might want to listen… it turns out there are a few. With a capacity listed as 1,150 rocking souls, The Showbox was sold out and those who made it in were undeniably familiar with the band they were coming to see. So, despite the scarcity in my own personal world, The Melvins clearly have no trouble attracting an audience.

Speaking of survivors, The Showbox itself qualifies. Founded in 1939 as a Jazz spot and then playing its part as an important venue during Seattle's Grunge Years, in 2018 a Vancouver-based organization had plans to replace it with a fancy-pants apartment building (because housing the exceptionally wealthy has been a real problem in Seattle in recent years). It was only saved by persistent local efforts and an eventual landmark status hopefully solidified those protests in 2019. Seeing this storied band play at this hallowed venue was a perfect alignment of the starts haunted with echoes of a time gone by.

Now, finally, a few words about the concert… there was power and there was joy. After 40 years of doing what he does, Buzz Osborne still seems to genuinely love it. His guitar playing was tight, his vocals were passionate, and his energy was high. He plays and sings like he's alone in his room, performing for his own enjoyment… fortunately we got to peak in. Steven Shane McDonald is having fun too, masterfully handling his bass while playing with the audience, and Coady Willis of Big Business does an impressive job filing in on the drums for Dale Crover who's out recovering from back surgery (Get well soon, Dale!). For a three-piece with a last-minute charge-out drummer it's amazing how seamless their set was. Though their roots may be in the world of garage bands, these are seasoned, professional musicians who know their craft and have ample bandwidth to accept adjustments on the fly while all making it look oh so easy.

In a world where Rock music more commonly finds itself in the realm of nostalgia than at the top of the charts, The Melvins are still here. They've never left. Instead, they continue on doing what they want to do in the way they want to do it in a world of their own where there is no room or reason for compromise.

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Song of the Week: "Second"

Dusty Wright — Fri, 08 May 2020 14:00:00 +0000

Song of the Week: "Second" Dusty Wright May 8, 2020 - 10:00

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I hail the UK-based electronic duo Sleaford Mods -- vocalist Jason Williamson and beat meister Andrew Fearn. They've been making beautifully executed punk-hop with spoken-shouted diatribes for the more than eight years; like the '70s punk duo Suicide meets Henry Rollins ranting over hip hop beats. And, if it matters to you, public kudos from The Godfather of Punk, Mr. Iggy Pop! Brilliant lyrics married to insanely simple, but hooked-filled beats. "Second" is from their new carefully-curated retrospective All That Glue. The epically affected/effective "staged" video was directed by Simon Parfrement and features the UK actresses Kate Dickie and Emma taking over the roles of Jason and Andrew while they watch from the audience.

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Song of the Week: "Have You Seen My Son?"

Dusty Wright — Tue, 02 Sep 2014 05:33:01 +0000

Song of the Week: "Have You Seen My Son?" Dusty Wright September 2, 2014 - 01:33

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The afro bluesy punk rock 'n' roll stylings of New Orleans-based singer-songwriter Booker are a breath of fresh air. (Think The Black Keys meet The Strokes.) Produced by Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes, Hurray for the Riff Raff), this lean 'n' mean guitar/bass/drums track is a gut punch to the over-processed pop crap currently being force-fed by automated DJs. His self-titled debut album was released a few weeks ago via ATO Records. Buy it now! And my wish is that he and Ty Segall record and/or tour together. Now that would be one badass collision of rawk!

New York Punk Rockers - 1, 2, 3, 4!

Dusty Wright — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 11:21:55 +0000

New York Punk Rockers - 1, 2, 3, 4! Dusty Wright July 15, 2014 - 07:21

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Hard to believe that The Rolling Stones, half of The Beatles and The Who, and a dozen more bands that started a full decade before The Ramones (1974) have outlived them, and in many cases are still touring. They were one of my favorite punk bands ever... and with the recent death of Tommy Ramone (nee Thomas Erdelyi), all four original members of one of New York's finest bands ever, we are not "glad to see you go." The first three -- lead singer Joey (nee Jeffrey Hyman, died 2001), bass player Dee Dee (nee Douglas Colvin, died 2002), and guitarist Johnny (nee John Cummings, died 2004) -- all died only within six years after calling it quits.

They did not go gently into the night. Their off-stage dramas kept them from maintaining their once shared friendships.

Ironic isn't it? The original Ramones, the guys from "Rockaway Beach" that wanted to be sedated, are all gone. I saw their very last U.K. show ever, February 3, 1996 at the Brixton Academy, as a guest of rock photographer Tony Woolliscroft. It was the final year they would ever tour together -- even though only Joey and Johnny were founding members -- ending in early August in Irvine, California. Quite remarkable that the band had soldiered on for nearly two decades and with only Joey and Johnny as the original members. Still the band was firing on all cylinders in that sweaty venue in Brixton. Any acrimony that may have existed in previous years, every gig since who knows when, was left on some Forest Hills stoop and/or garage that cold, winter night south of London. It was a relentless assault on the ears and senses. But the melody of any of their songs was always bubbling under, easy to digest, easy to sing along with, "Hey, ho, let's go!"

Beat on the brat / beat on the brat

Beat on the brat with a baseball bat

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeeeaaahhhhh

Twenty, twenty, twenty-four hours to go-o-o-o-o

I wanna be sedated

Nothin' to do / no where to go-o-o-o-o

I wanna be sedated

There would be no CBGB legacy without The Ramones gracing the grimy confines of that legendary club. There would be no American punk rock movement, or even a U.K. movement, without their hyper-accelerated primitive garage rock.

You could argue that their first four albums -- Ramones (1976), Leave Home (1977), Rocket to Russia (1977), Road to Ruin (1978, with Marc "Marky Ramone" Bell replacing Tommy on drums) -- are all essential, a true blueprint of the DIY punk ethos. Actually their first album cost all of $6,000 or so to produce. And even though it met with critical acclaim, it sold poorly. Sire Records must have been thinking that they'd signed a real turkey. But many of the era's most beloved punk anthems were penned by the lads -- "Blitzkreig Bop" and "Rockaway Beach" and "I Wanna Be Sedated" and "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker" and "Beat on the Brat" and "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" and "Rock 'n' Roll High School" and....

Safe to say that there would be no Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Social Distortion, Metallica, Pearl Jam, Green Day, Nirvana, The Strokes, et al. without The Ramones before them.

Who will soldier on in the spirit of The Ramones, one of the world's greatest rock bands? What new band of boys and girls thrashing away in some faraway basement or garage have what it takes to become a legend? We shall see...

Rest in peace, Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, and now Tommy, rest in peace.

1, 2, 3, 4!!!

Video of the Week - "New York"

Dusty Wright — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 11:16:04 +0000

Video of the Week - "New York" Dusty Wright September 28, 2012 - 07:16

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Check out this epic new video from Joey Ramone's posthumous solo CD ...ya know?. Very touching. It features cameos from Tommy Ramone, Anthony Bourdain, 30 Rock’s Scott Adsit, John Lutz, Kristen Schaal, Andrew WK, and others.

Zero Boys' Classics & Rarities

Steve Holtje — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 07:41:46 +0000

Zero Boys' Classics & Rarities Steve Holtje December 13, 2009 - 02:41

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Zero Boys: Vicious Circle History of the Zero Boys (Secretly Canadian)

Recorded in 1981 by a bunch of Germs-idolizing hardcore kids in Indianapolis, Vicious Circle is a punk classic. If you haven't heard this band before, it's definitely the place to start, powerful yet brutally clean-lined punches of hardcore from back when it wanted to be understood, with a singer (Paul Mahern) who enunciated and sterling recording quality that lets Mark Cutsinger's drum barrages and the nimble bass blast of David "Tufty" Clough (one of the greatest rhythm sections the genre ever generated) cut through with sharp-edged clarity while guitarist Terry "Hollywood" Howe's slabs of sound add even more heft. The songs may be tough and tensile, but they're also well-crafted and, unlike a lot of hardcore to come, don't blur together. And now the album comes with two more songs from the same session that were never released before. Don't be fooled by its title: History of the Zero Boys is not a best-of. Instead, it brings together tracks the band recorded before (1980 EP Livin' in the 80s) and after (unfinished second album) Vicious Circle. The five-song EP (the title track's a classic) finds their tempos less frantic, more Ramones than hardcore; the barely released later tracks (previously only on a limited edition cassette or on long-gone compilations, plus one "new" item, "Amerika") take the hardcore direction of their first LP into more varied areas that even include piano and metal. Everything their classic lineup recorded is worth hearing, so pick this album up too. You've got a choice of vinyl or CD for each release.

Graciously Wasted

Dusty Wright — Sat, 30 May 2009 15:00:16 +0000

Graciously Wasted Dusty Wright May 30, 2009 - 11:00

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Peter Doherty: Grace/Wastelands (Astralwerks)

Who knew that UK rocker Pete, er Peter Doherty would reach thirty and actually still be capable of vital and dynamic music? Few in the music press thought that he'd live so long. Or that the best album of his career would be his first solo CD -- part shaggy romantic on a displaced busker's holiday.

I never bought into the over-hype of his first punked-out band The Libertines, but I saw the potential in Pete's songwriting. For me their self-titled second release in 2004 was the better of the two. Along the same time came the spiral into Dante's Inferno, with young Pete adding his own rings of damnation. Having burned bridges with his original band, Babyshambles would follow and the future looked potentially sunnier even with scared shades thanks to rehab, run-ins with the law, and tabloid-fueled shenanigans. But little did we, the character-forgiving music press, expect that his solo effort could offer us anything but a feeble outing.

These acoustic-based songs are well-constructed microscopic examinations of life through Pete's fractured looking glass. Think Morrissey filtered through early Ray Davies. It's produced by the great Stephen Street with sensible sonic flourishes and orchestrations that leave the jagged edges of Doherty's vocals and acoustic guitar breathing heavy from the emotional expenditure.

Along for the ride is fellow rehabber and tasty guitarist Graham Coxon from Blur. They seem the perfect foils for each other. This reflective music never feels forced nor over-produced. These are romantic story songs illustrated with poetic images and sung with earnestness.

It's rare that contemporary acts can cobble together a full CD that can hold my attention past one or two potential singles, but Doherty has fashioned a compelling 12-track collection. Standouts include the jaunty, skiffle-like opener "Arcady," the first single "The Last of the English Roses," which percolates with a dub beat and melodica throughout, and the gorgeous, Biblically inspired romantic ballad "Salome."

Vocalist Dot Allison guests on the autobiographical "Sheepskin Tearaway," revealing vulnerable and heartfelt sentiment. Elsewhere the dark yet majestic "Palace of Bone" has a Pogues-meets-Americana vibe that would make a terrific Nick Cave cover. Pick this up for late summer night listening.

ANNIVERSARIES: The Clash's UK Debut Released 30 Years Ago

Steve Holtje — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 23:50:24 +0000

ANNIVERSARIES: The Clash's UK Debut Released 30 Years Ago Steve Holtje April 30, 2007 - 19:50

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No less an authority than Jon Savage, the most thorough chronicler of British Punk (his book England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond is a must), has proclaimed The Clash "the first major Punk statement." That it is excellent (Robert Christgau declared it "the greatest rock and roll album ever") certainly helped, but it achieved that status partly because the Sex Pistols' first LP was delayed by the controversy surrounding the group, which resulted in several record labels dropping them.

The Clash, by contrast, worked quickly and without impediments, laying down the album in three weekend sessions in February 1977 (costing only $4000) with producer Mickey Foote. In March it was delivered to CBS; it came out in April and reached #12 on the British album chart.

CBS' refusal to issue the album in the U.S. resulted in the British edition setting the record for biggest-selling import LP. Four tracks on the U.K. version were omitted when the album finally appeared, two years later, on Epic in the U.S. The blistering accusation "Deny" is so powerful that it's hard to understand why Epic wouldn't want it. "Cheat" contains the phrase "fucked up," which presumably scared U.S. label execs. "Protex Blue" is titled for a brand of condom, which might seem to make it a minor song, but it's about resisting the temptation to use a woman solely for sexual gratification. Another track whose omission was unfathomable is "48 Hours," a desperate-sounding declaration of the importance of making the most of the weekend.

They were replaced by later tracks, mostly singles: "Complete Control" from later in 1977 and then a bunch of 1978 tracks, "Clash City Rockers," "Jail Guitar Doors," and "White Man in Hammersmith Palais" plus a cover of "I Fought the Law." Original drummer Terry Chimes -- credited on the LP as "Tory Crimes," a political joke -- had left the band (that's why he's not in the LP's group pictures) before this later material was recorded. The timekeeping of his replacement, Topper Headon, gave the music a more tightly wound feel. In addition, arrangements and production were different as the band evolved. When Legacy did its most recent remastering of the Clash catalog, it made artistic sense to put out the original LP program unadorned, letting its 14 songs across 35 minutes deliver a snapshot of that musical moment in a particular time and place.

The LP kicks off with "Janie Jones." It's named for a former minor pop star who changed career paths to become a madame (five years later The Clash backed her on a single), but it's about someone who patronizes her brothel as much out of sheer boredom as anything. Boredom is a big theme on the album, its underlying meaning being that life in England pushes people into dead-end lives that reduce their opportunities -- for fun, for advancement, for political choice. Some of the most memorable tracks -- "Career Opportunities" ("the ones that never knock"), "London's Burning" ("with boredom now," because "Black or white turn it on, face the new religion/Everybody's sitting 'round watching television!"), "I'm So Bored with the U.S.A." (containing the immortal couplet "Move up Starsky for the C.I.A./Suck on Kojak for the USA") "Hate & War" ("the only things we got today") -- continue this thread.

With the racist National Front making headlines, some people saw just the title of "White Riot" and stupidly assumed it had some kinship, but a reading of the lyrics made it clear that Joe Strummer was calling for a pan-racial revolution: "Black people gotta lot a problems/But they don't mind throwing a brick/White people go to school/Where they teach you how to be thick." (The LP's back cover shows the Notting Hill Carnival riot, the event that inspired "White Riot.")

In some ways, the most brilliant track is the album's only cover, "Police and Thieves." Penned by Lee "Scratch" Perry, it was a recent hit by reggae artist Junior Murvin, whose album of the same name (another epochal 1977 release) is a must-own. Think of what a cutting comment on England it was for the Clash to include this song: the chaos of a small former British colony, with police and thieves both "scaring the nation" and thus on one level equated, is posited as an equally applicable commentary on the volatile English political situation. And musically it showed that, unlike the Sex Pistols and some other punk bands who had removed all R&B from their influences, The Clash were drawing on black music.

But this is music, not poetry, and it's the power of the music that makes The Clash so great. The throbbing basslines (one note repeated per chord change) and fast tempos snapped out by lots of snare hits are straight from the punk template of the Ramones, while the trebly guitars channel the powerchording of The Who but more jaggedly. Strummer venomously spits out his lines in a ragged voice that's more yelling in the street than singing; Jones's deliver is a bit less acidic but still far less smooth than people were used to back then. Both project an urgency that (aside for the American punk scene of the past two years) had seemingly gone missing from rock for the past decade. The Clash served notice that directness and intensity were back and couldn't be ignored.

Henry Rollins - The Dusty Wright Show

Dusty Wright — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 18:19:14 +0000

Henry Rollins - The Dusty Wright Show Dusty Wright March 20, 2006 - 13:19

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Punk rock stud and spoken word guru Henry Rollins waxes poetic with host Dusty Wright. This is part one of the interview. Click here for Part 2 of the interview.

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