Saturday, December 3, 2005

Catching up on headlines

Here are some articles I have missed recently and are worth taking a second look at.
First, finally, the Sex Pistols will be acknowledged for their "legacy": ["Sex Pistols, Black Sabbath, and Lynyrd Skynyrd finally in US rock hall of fame"]. Finally, finally, finally .... Yes, yes, yes! Rock and roll baby! Kerraaang!
Speaking of the Sex Pistols, Johnny's fave trousers have been banned in Winona: ["Minn. high school bans 'bondage' pants"].
First, there was the death of the LP. Then, live bands and freeform radio. Then, the record business in general. Now, it is the DJ: ["Jukeboxes, DJs being pushed out by iPods"]. In some ways, this is a cool thing because it empowers people to be creative. On the other hand, it is costing a DJ a job. But, on the flip of that, DJs put a lot of live bands out of work so ...
Guess who likes to fly on the cuff, paid for by big business?: ["Sen. Bayh ranks 4th in privately paid trips"]:
"Bayh reported a total of 44 privately paid trips since 2000. Twelve foreign trips accounted for more than 60 percent of the private money spent for Bayh's travel.
Trips to China cost $40,524."
Eh, what the hell is he doing in China? Oh yeah, he's a man of the people. I forgot.
Speaking of men of the people, here's one challenging Hillary: ["Ex-Green Party Member to Challenge Hillary"]. It's pretty good that this guy even got on AP.
Then, there is this, about an aggressive [female] reporter covering a local beat here in New Hampshire and being driven out of her job: ["A small-town tale"]. What is interesting about this is that most newspapers would KILL to get a reporter like this for the local beat! There is so much corruption on the local level and exposing it sells papers. Plus, Mark Jurkowitz does a really good job of telling the story here - although no one seems to want to tell the whole story.
Fifth, ah, the tracking issue again: ["CDC Proposal Would Help U.S. Track Travelers"]. I don't understand why we just don't ban people from infected areas from coming into the country! That seems like the simplest solution.
Lastly, who says you can't succeed in this world? Lisa Carver ... zine publisher, mom, and now, a published author for the third time. What a shock: ["A scum-shock queen grows up"].
I first met Lisa back in 1985 or 1986 when she was this crazed teen fronting her own band Suckdog. She would run around at all ages shows in ripped up pantyhose, screaming into microphones like she was on some sorta psycho rampage. Her sexually-charged performances were dark but kind of a turn on at the time [Hey, I was 22, OK?]. But I wouldn't go near the girl because she was clearly disturbed. Plus, she was always stomping on my gear which really ticked me off! Not a good way to make friends.
At the time, I was "playing" guitar in Jim Hildreth's noise band called Insanicide. I say "playing" because actually all I would do is kinda stand there, chain-smoke clove cigarettes [no alcohol was allowed in the halls; we drank from our cars], strum some chords or pluck the strings, and let the guitar sound just kinda wash over everyone, through these weird effects and this really cool Roland Super Cube amp I had at the time. This little 60 watt amp used to shake the walls it was so loud. The amp had this really great distortion and reverb patch which gave it this deafening howl of a sound. And after going through the rack mount I had, there wasn't much left of the actual music. Imagine if whales were soldiers being tortured at the Hanoi Hilton. That is kinda how I would describe the sound.
Insanicide had two or three demo tapes released which were destine never to be played on radio. But the layered feedback noise thing we were doing at the time was actually pretty original and cool. Andy Smith, the other guitarist in the band [Jim played bass and "sang"], would later put out this brilliant seven inch single of noise called "Boneyard," which I think I still have somewhere. In fact, I believe I still have some of the Suckdog performances from those shows on tape somewhere [I'm notorious for saving just about everything audio]. Maybe I will have to find them and send them to her. Yeah, I'm gonna buy Lisa's book. Why not? She's a mom now and has to pay the rent like everyone else!
Also, Jim Hildreth, if you are out there, please touch base with me!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey Tony,I enjoyed reading yr reminiscences! Hildreth has a website here:
http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/tesla69/
I emailed him a link to Politizine, you'll probably hear from him soon. Glad you liked that Boneyard ep, I'm still doing solo noise shows...