STINKROCK

Did I ever explain where Stinkrock came from? Let's start a new Top 10!

Top 10 songs that readily define the genre Stinkrock*.

*(Music doesn't have genres. Music marketing has genres. A quick lesson in determining if a band is worth its salt: do they know where they fit? If they do, they're worth nothing. If they do what they do and let the listeners and critics catch up, then they're worthy. They're worthy of salt.

The following ten songs are venerable salt licks. I'll break them up so I can eventually forget about this list like all the other lists I've started.

#10.

NEGATIVE CREEP - NIRVANA.

The link is to a fan video, but it's perfect. When Frances Bean Cobain marries Jack Nicholson in 2015, "daddy's little girl ain't a girl no more" will speak volumes. It will also reference Mudhoney's 'Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More.' Which brings us to

#9
HATE THE POLICE - MUDHONEY.

This wasn't my first choice by this band, but I like it because it shows this band at their best, before 'Singles', pearl jam, 'Evenflow' and starbucks ruined the pacific Northwest. This is more sleazerock than stinkrock, but it gets grandfathered because Mark Arm sings so.

#2.

LIGHTSABRE COCKSUCKING BLUES. - MCLUSKY.

Too often, the internet is all about finding the new shit. I play mop-up. If you haven't seen cats sing the ballsiest rock song of the last 7 years, this clip is for you.

9-3 and #1 coming up.

Because it's Christmas...

Let me post a link to The Jesus Lizard. This band was so good they didn't even need a lead singer. And then they had a lead singer who showed his testicles.

The clip is from Thunderdome (aka CBGB).

Here Comes Dudley, the leadoff track from Goat, which recorder Steve Albini qualifies as the best album he ever worked on during his reign of Pouty Post-Punk Dictator (which is saying something, considering he's made 3 of my favorite 50 records ever; In Utero, Surfer Rosa, and the Wedding Present's Seamonsters.) into...

Gladiator. If rock and roll could've been frozen at any point in time, I'd choose this moment: when this song came out, so bass players and drummers would've realized how to play together. The Jesus Lizard rhythm section is unheralded in all the lands.

Don't worry about the words or the frontman. Drummer's creed.

WHITE BEAR

My ten favorite clips from Trigger Happy TV on youtube. I mostly missed this show during its brief Comedy Central airing, but my brother called my attention to it earlier this year. It's Jackass for Scrabble players. It's chess for wrestlers. It's prog-fighting.

#5. Bowling Lessons

#9. Kung Fu Dogs

#4. Snail

#8. 1,000,000th Sex Shop Customer

#10. Internet Cafe (I had to include one of these)

#6. Sliding on Floor in Gallery

#3. Dog + Flower Stand

#7. I'm sorry, I have no tables.

#2. Badger. Rarely does a TV show make a 1 minute badger clip look like Orson Welles directing an episode of Dawson's Creek.

#1. Secret Agent + Train

Uncle Tupelo

One of the great insecure pleasures of being a fan of non-radioed bands is discovering them before someone else did. So you can say you knew them when, back when they were just another band. It's pretentious I know, but you know there's a chick in South Carolina who says she used to go out with the guitar player from Hootie and the Blowfish who's charging an extra $20 for a blowjob ($10 if you can beat her deadbeat boyfriend at darts).

Anyway, my moment was with Uncle Tupelo. The second wife of alt-country, the founders of the sound soon-to-be-called 'No Depression' (after their first record title, the song of which was a Carter Family song from way back yonder), these guys were still a fucking amazing band. Jeff Tweedy, who'd go on to be the bigger star in Wilco, was an eager bassist, the kind of guitarist who isn't as confident as the other guitarist in the band. Jay Farrar, who'd go on to be the ursa minor in Son Volt, had this extreme, soulful, gritty voice. And he'd play the guitar like it was Husker Du or Dinosaur Jr., two of my favorites.

I discovered this band on a cable access show, airing at 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday nights in St. Louis. It was called 'Critical Mass' and it was hosted by this gorgeous woman named DeDe Scofield, who also worked at a prominent shop in the antique district of Soulard, over whose environs the Anheuser-Busch plant churned. She showed music videos that MTV would never show; one of my favorites was 'This Gift' by Mudhoney, which they used to open the show. Best video I ever saw was 'Good Guys and Bad Guys' by Camper Van Beethoven.

So along with the music videos, DeDe would feature one local band a week, playing a couple songs. The first week I tuned in, she had Uncle Tupelo in their rehearsal space, which looks like a basement/bedroom in Belleville. I liked the two songs I heard a lot.

And I remember they just looked like nervous kids playing rock. They looked down at their guitars, and they believed in their songs. And they looked nervous as hell. I remember that now, being about 15, not having ever experienced a band like that before. I hadn't even thought about being in a band yet. I didn't know what being in a band was. This was not only a look at Uncle Tupelo when they were young, it was probably my first look at a band that had no profession. Just drive.

Well every now and then, the Internet comes through. The clip I saw when I was 15 is now on Youtube. Judge for yourself.

Devin Davis/The Police/How well do your myspace songs represent you? Episode 1 of 430

For the last 4 years, I've made a mix cd for friends with new music from the year. Not necessarily music released in that particular year, but pulling from a pool of all songs I heard for the first time. I'm still debating whether to make one this year; I didn't get around to a lot of new music, and albums by bands I used to love, well they left me a little cold. Left it on my front stoop, all wrapped up in a basket covered in a gingham cloth. I named him 'Chilly'.

But here's a song that would make that mix--except it's only playable on myspace. Let me set it up--it's from a dude from Chicago named Devin Davis. He looks like a cross between Luke Wilson and 'Donde Esta Waldo?'. But his first album 'Lonely People of the World Unite'!' was a quality record. He recorded it all himself blah blah blah Stevie Wonder Bright Eyes but his hooks are sharkworthy, and his lyrics are noticeable. I never notice lyrics, that's a large compliment. These are inventive and hooky and fun to shout at strangers. And he shouts them , so you know he knows they're good. I saw him play in 2006 at the Mercury Lounge, and he's no Iggy Pop live, but he closes his eyes and thinks he's Iggy Pop, which is even better. No glass.

Anyway, the song I'd include on this mix is called 'When I Turn 99' and it's here. If it grabs you at all, stick around for Giant Spiders and, especially, Cannons on the Courthouse. What other song refers to the famous incident (thanks TD) where Willie Nelson smokes pot on the top of the White House? That's a rhetorical question.

Actually, listen to 'When the Angels Lift Our Eye' too. I like Devin Davis even more. He actually puts the best songs on his album on his myspace page. That's the way it should work. I mean for god sakes, what the ground chuck are The Police thinking? Have you seen the four songs they chose for their myspace site? Wait, wait, wait. Don't look. I'll tell you.

ROXANNE. ok. first well-known single. very popular. Fine.

CAN'T STAND LOSING YOU. ok. second well-known single. and quite an amazing little song. maybe we're over-representing the first album, we know there's a Regatta de Blanc track coming, or Don't Stand..., and we haven't even got to Ghost in the Machine. Still, good stuff.

SPIRITS IN THE MATERIAL WORLD. Oh, so we have got to Ghost in the Machine? Ok, that's questionable. I can see leaving out Zenyatta. But no Regatta? The bottle has no message? The moon has not been walked upon?

I occasionally try to iron the wrinkled image of your wife giving birth (I'm speaking directly to Sting now) off of my memory, but unfortunately you put the footage into a movie entitled 'Bring on the Night'. That song's good enough for a feature length film, but not good enough for myspace. O--kay. Well, I thought it was one of your best. But hey, there's still one spot left, and we haven't even got to Synchronicity...

WRAPPED AROUND YOUR FINGER. Are you kidding me? This is the track from Synchronicity? This is the pinky toe of Police singles. Is there's anyone except the guy who sells candles to MTV who would put this in their top 4 Police songs?

We have to be ready, people. We have to prove the intelligence of our society. The aliens/dolphins are coming. And we will be judged. Anyone who knows the Police, please ask them to get Synchronicity II up on myspace right away.

GET HELP

I just got home from another landmark Get Help recording session at Smoke and Mirrors. While Jackson was off doing body shots of tequila off of Neil Young's tits, Chrispy, Tony and I continued on our relentless pace to make an entire record in a very short period of time. (In Jackson's defense, it was very good tequila.)

With no exceptions, every session has been not just productive but an adrenaline shot, an adrenaline IV. I've never made a record this fast in my life. On a couple of previous occasions, I've birthed a few Replacements knockoff eps that took a week or two. But this is painful in its progress. It's what childbirth must feel like. And like a woman in childbirth, a band at this pace screams for the epidural. (Jackson, you have empty bottles greeting you tomorrow. sorry.)

Tonight I got to use my Micro Synth pedal, which makes the scariest sounds I've ever heard come from my person. With it, I made the two finest-smelling noisetrack tulip fields I've ever tiptoed through. All for the gianthem 'Growing Circles'. It has eight guitars and counting, but five of them play the exact same thing. Chrispy suggested that Billy Corgan might like to introduce us at our R&R Hall of Fame induction.

Later on I stuck a microphone into a kick drum to record a guitar. And then I realized my favorite thing about Smoke and Mirrors - no one really gives a shit. I mean, they care immensely, sincerely and passionately about what they do there, and it shows. But they don't particularly give a shit about how it gets done. They're up for anything. And you know what? It almost always works out just fine that way.

The same holds true of the bathroom down their hallway. The cleanest thing in it is the toilet brush. Slooowww whistle. Wipe brow.

BACK?

Telecasting has updated its much-missed blog after a few dozen fortnights, and the internet is much warmer for it. So we don't overload the circuits, I've been inspired to (attempt to) cool off the warm spell with a rekindling of my icy zaniness.

What do I have to write about? I have no idea. Nothing. I experience very little these days. I rewatched 'Midnight Run', which was fantastic yet again. What the fuck happened to Robert DeNiro? I'd like to staple him into the Clockwork Orange movie chair, force his eyelids open, and make him watch his last 20 movies. And then, when he thinks the torture's over, I'll show him 'The Fan'. Icing on the cake. Who wants cake?

I've been out of work the last few months and had all the time in the world to write, but nothing to write about. Same thing with music; I've gone to great lengths to set my apartment up as a two-dollar whorish wreck-ording studio, so I could come home, flick a switch and make sauce. But it hasn't happened.

Hopefully I'm clawing my way back into the pre-Ronin DeNiro era. This post shows no signs of that. We'll see.

Ok, that covers most of it. Uh, see New Country for Old Men in the theater, and take a bump in the last 20 minutes or you'll miss important stuff at the end. Remind me to finish my top 10 favorite movie characters.

Peter Gabriel is currently the most underrated writer of incredible melodies in rock and roll history. Everyone thinks he's an oddball (odd-ball). I wrote a jingle for that while I typed that, I'm really sure it's stolen. Otherwise, if anybody out there has designed a 'Peter Gabriel Oddball' Action Figure, please contact me at once. I have marketing ideas.

I'm going to free associate a lot. Stinkrock's going abstract. If I get my temperature up, we may shift into Surrealism. Then, expect a lot of poop jokes.

Ok then.