the defeatists!

Kathy, Cathy or Magdalena, looking for adventure in the city in the darkness and the house of 1000 guitars

Odd how the mind moves, and why I think this is England...but, it probably is, i guess. Or maybe, just maybe, any place can be England in the rain... On the other hand, maybe it's really about a Cathy, somewhere rural and southern who wandered to the big city and found, I'm not sure, Mary Poppins/MaryQuaint bondage.. Or maybe, just maybe it was New York...Or what the hell, they're all the same...

Seriously, you people are crazy...or tonedeaf! (or, I don't know what a great frontman is, but I know it when I see it!)

The Independent (UK) published a list recently of the Top Ten Rock Frontmen. Amazing insight into rock and roll criticism and probably solipsism. Liam Gallagher? Really? Johnny Rotten beating out Jagger for number 1? You think so? Seriously, I have no idea of their criteria but how they got these confused me as well as the inimitable, insightful and actually kind of modest  Andrew Loog Oldham on Little Steven's Underground Garage. I got into his reading of the countdown late, and was dumbfounded when Jagger came in number 2. But, Johnny Rotten? What were they shooting up over there?

This is about taste, I guess. But still, epic rock Frontmen, and Women, are a helluva lot more interesting than Oasis or The Sex Pistols. Listing Hendrix at 3 as a "frontman" is absurd. Although the Jimi Hendrix experience was an honest to goodness band, there was only Hendrix's vision. Joplin and Grace Slick were actual fronts; Joplin left too early and Slick stayed around too long, but Hendrix was clearly something else than a front. Why list women with Hendrix...no good reason, except he probably slept with both. I did see Hendrix and Joplin perform the same weekend in Syracuse back in 1969, so who knows? How about Lou Reed? He's done a lot of interesting stuff since, but the Velvet Underground defined New York Rock and Roll.

Mark Bolan of T-REX? Why? Maybe they were infinitely more influential or interesting than I thought, but that's actually kind of creepy. Shane McGowan of the Pogues comes to mind here, as does the fellow who led Dexies Midnight Runners, Kevin somebody. If they have to be well-dressed, well, "Suggs" McKenzie of Madness should qualify. Or, how about Elvis Costello? Going back a bit further, why not Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere and the Raiders? Or, a bit later, Adam Ant? I'd tie Bolan with Ant...

They threw Iggy Pop up next. Or, threw up Iggy Pop next. Ok, he does some interesting, proto-punk garage rock, but shit. Southside Johnny. I can understand skipping over Springsteen, since he's infinitely more than just the frontman, but really? Peter Wolf maybe? How about Rober McGuinn? Burton Cummings? Sheesh...Iggy really is sort of a water carrier for David Bowie; hell, in my experience with his music, I can't think of anything really interesting, exciting or memorable. Who would you rather go see at the top of their game -- J.GeilsThe J. Geils band 4.25.09
Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes? The Byrds? The Guess Who? Or, Iggy and the Stooges? Well, process of elimination probably eliminates Iggy and the Gang pretty quickly.

Bono is number 8. Interesting...especially since before him are Freddie Mercury and the aforementioned Liam Gallagher. Gallagher is easily dismissable with two words -- Chrissie Hynde.They describe Mercury as " another who aped Mick Jagger, although Mercury's performance was more outlandish in almost every way. His untrained voice was one of a kind, rolling from heavy rock baritone to soaring falsetto with ease, while image wise Liza Minnelli-inspired flamboyance was key." Ok, I can kind of see Queen as a self-mocking, gayer version of the Stones, except that Jagger can sing, the band has always been ready to play as well as anyone else and they're interesting. Queen? Yeah...which would you rather see, Jagger doing Letter to Turner or Freddie's Metropolis? As for Gallagher, Tiffany loves Oasis. These twits don't -- the Independent Twits, that is...."Liam Gallagher is nothing but a frontman. His own songs are awful and his personality vacuous but when Liam Gallagher takes the stage something very silly and slightly magical happens." Silly and magical, huh? Ever see the U2 Red Rocks video of "Bloody Sunday?" That's a little silly, and Bono's stage movements are less wearying in some respects than Jagger's, but damnnit, that rocks. His religiosity and self-righteousness get in the way, but he has to be in the top five. Numbers 9 and 10 are Kurt Cobain and Joe Strummer. Shit. If you have to put somebody from Grunge in this list, Eddie Vedder is far more interesting, and Pearl Jam does things Nirvana never thought about doing. As for Strummer, the Clash was a real band. The frontman was indistinguishable. Strummer was the leader, but the collective was the thing. I see his role in the Clash as similar to Henley's and Joe Walsh's in The Eagles, even though they aren't at all similar. You want a sorta contemporary to bump Mercury?-- Ric Ocasek of the Cars. Or, Debbie Harry of Blondie. Want an over the top Brit type? Well, from 1968 through the early 80s, there was always Ian Anderson fronting Jethro Tull. I'd have to compare him to Mercury, but he's a far superior musician.

Jethro Tull - Nothing is easy, Live at the Isle of~ sélectionné dans Rock / Pop

Let's take a look at some of the most influential. I can't agree with Jagger as number 2, and I have no argument with Bono, except he should be higher. And, there's been so much great music that any list is going to be problematic. Still, how do you leave out people like Carlos Santanna? How about Eric Burden? Ray Davies? Graham Parsons? Steven Stills in Buffalo Springfield and Mannasas? John Mayall has been not so quietly but ever so influentially fronting a band since 1960. Stevie Winwood in Traffic? While he did great stuff with Spencer Davis, and his work in bands like Blind Faith as well as his independent work has been wonderful, how do you not chart him and Traffic?

Obviously, I think these guys are deranged BritTwits. They probably are like flaming queen designers of clothing for women who really don't like women. Or, not. However, that's the joy of talking about rock and roll. No safe place for us; we're all deranged Twits...

But seriously: How, how does a Britlist forget Robert Plant? Led Zepplein? Remember them?

Someplace, late Boomers are having existential moments while Farah joins Lily

Farah Fawcett has joined Lily in the memory of a lot of men in their forties... as memories of old posters rampage through the cortex. 

And Elizabeth Taylor, Dianna Ross and Lisa Marie have a mass of mixed emotions. But, who's going to worry about the monkey? Ultimately, it was all about money...just money.

Keith Richard has outlived two more people...

Most people hate what they do or most of what they do...

  Quiet desperation, anyone?

"She was this blonde bombshell...great quote from Ayn Rand, "tell me what a man finds sexy and I'll tell you his whole philosophy of life.." ."

"I am inspired by everything. I wish I could narrow it down to a more palatable muse. But the fact is, the shape of a ripped piece of paper, or the edge of a cloud can affect me in the same physical way.

Silk threads, twisted wire, the paper like skin of an iris....the turquoise and gold in the eye of a peacock feather, or in a tube of indigo, haunt me, until only the layering and layering of color, texture and image can erase its echo from my mind."

 

>Yeah  it would be great to like most of what I do...

Why didn't they do Layla together?

However, Clapton and Beck doing Take You Higher is what GuitarTuningGear Heads live for...

Somethings are more insane than others...There is only one Doctor Duke!

I occasionally visit the Southern Poverty Law Center's blogsite because they do an excellent job of tracking the nutcases. There, I happened on this gem...David Duke, aka Dippest Shit in Louisiana, is now contending that he's an artist. Well, as SPLC's editor points out, not quite. He takes purty pictures, and then enhances them with photoshop. His twitship presents among other things a shot of the gorgeous city of Salzburg that he tinted rather oddly...like he was trying for that Obama poster look on a city and just blew it terrible. I've been to Salzburg numerous times -- strongly recommend the Columbusbrau -- and have taken pictures back in the days of 35mm actual film as cutting edge tech of the same view; doesn't make me think Salzburg. It makes me think, I don't know, Zanzabar, only with fir trees and the Salznach river flowing through it. The Festung Salzburg has no salmon hues to it...

Of course, this might be in Duke's mind the sort of thing Hitler might have done had he had Photoshop and a Sony digital camera. 

However, what got my attention was the gall of the asshole. He went to some Ukarainian place, thing, diploma mill, whatever called "Ukrainian Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (MAUP)." I'm surprised that this guy, who makes David Vetter look "smoooooooth," can read in English let alone in Ukrainian what with the Cyrilic Alphabet and all. They also hired the dipshit to teach there, which he did for a term. Oh, his thesis was on "Zionism as a Form of Ethnic Supremacism" which means he based his doctorate on the empirical truth of the Secret Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  Oddly enough, while MAUP is the largest non-governmental university in Ukraine (one of my secretaries is a Ukrainian immigrant. She's married to an African American. She would definitely think this guy is an asshole...) it's diplomas aren't recognized in Poland or pretty much anywhere else. Saudi Arabia, maybe. I guess a degree from this place might get the guy a gig teaching in a Madrassa in Pakistahn or some such place, if it weren't for the whole "the only thing you need to know is the Koran" thing that makes madrassas such dull places for football weekends and panty raids.

Now the degree he got is something called a "Kandidat Nauk" which appears to be a degree created so Russian flunkies hoping to get gigs someplace besides Sverdlosk. It requires a dissertation and a defense, supposedly. I'm sure Duke does really well in Ukrainian or Russian. After all, wasn't the Klan a commie plot anyway?  The degree is sorta, kinda, almost a Ph.D. I guess it's like a DBA or an Ed.D. It's a practical degree -- in the science of racism, in this guy's case.

My problem is that he call's himself Dr. Duke. There is only one Dr Duke, Hunter S. Thompson using his nom de plume in Fear and Loathing Days. Metaphysically, I'm pretty sure that in some metaphysical hinterland, Hunter is filling a briefcase with a fifth of Tequila, a case of Red Stipe Ale, a couple of boxes of amyls and a fucking .50 Desert Eagle loaded with Isreali hotloads to go take care of this idiots geist. Gonna shoot him right in the zeitgeist, and we'll all applaud. Metaphysically...

Now, this is the sort of book they should be reading in English Lit 101

Because, after all, isn't this what all great literature is about? 

And everybody needs one of these...don't they?

Wanted, evil twisted genius for coffee in Barstow

I saw this piece over at IOZ and was immediately amazed. While Parsifal is not my least favorite opera -- anything in Italian trumps it, as well as well, most operas. It's not that I hate opera in general, I hate operas in specifics. Anyway, combining Bye-Bye Birdie with the Aryan nonsense of Wagner is so wonderful as to deserve continuous praise. Seriously, anonymous evil, twisted genius, your imagination and your technical editing skills are absolutely...awful and awesome.

Inherent contradictions and infernal affairs

I'm working tomorrow. Actually, I'm going to go in, take a class on export control that really doesn't have anything to do with me, and fiddle around with some stuff. May hang some new art in the office, possibly bring along a guitar and jam by myself, read crap. Dinner last night was breakfast at Cocos...I find it odd that they have sold more Harvest pies this year than the total pies they sold last year. I had a lobster asparagus omlet, which substituted brocoli for the asparagus...figure that one out. Anyway, they had run out of pumpkin for their pies by 6PM; is it just the Crossroads of Opportunity that decided to splurge on pie this year? Or are people cutting back on heating things like oven? Lots of turkey TV dinners, maybe?

I've been thinking about a lot of nonsense. However, the Hegelian in me is coming out -- the inherent contradictions of whatever you want to call our economic-government-political system are spiraling. Had a long talk with my sister this morning; she said that in Michigan, the autoworkers are going around in tears, and really getting pissed. They watched the entire congressional hearings, and it appears that Carl Levin had a moment or two, as did the President of the UAW going up against Shelby of Alabamdama...seems that Alabama paid over $175K per worker for training for the four foriegn car companies that set up shop in Alabama. Where the hell did that come from? Taxes on Crimson Tide T-shirts? I know a guy who is in Workforce Development in Alabama, and he described the training for the Hyundai plant -- they basically put people on the state rolls and trained them completely so that the day the plant opened, all the workers were already so well trained they knew exactly where to go and what to do...So, to listen to the radicalization of my lifetime Republican sister and brother-in-law is both enraging and interesting. It is not gratifying...being right about how badly the country has been run in this right-center-right way since 1980 doesn't gratify me. Schadenfreude, perhaps, but not a lot...

I then flipped on the TV. Obviously nothing, but I did catch the last half of Standing in the Shadows of Motown. I was really amazed; I knew that the band was hot, but it was a three guitar band, which I had never realized. While I never liked My Girl, I had never been able to play the rif...which is a classic and iconic rif, right up there with Louie Louie and Beethoven's Fifth. Incredibly simple, since the guy who played it showed about three times. His name was Robert White, and he died in 1992. Shortly before his death, he had dinner with another musician, and that rif started playing on the Muzak. He started to tell the waiter that that was him, and then stopped. When asked by the musician why he didn't say that it had been him, he said that he was just an old loser, and the waiter would never have believed him...Sad stories abound in this film...

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Anyway, then I saw this piece.Rioting chinese workers who have been laid off by a nerf toy supplier to Hasbro trash the factory...in Donggan.  This is big. The Chinese don't like to announce this kind of stuff until it's soooo big you can't ignore it. 

The latest violent protest to rock China's export machine was still simmering Wednesday at the massive plant, which makes Nerf toys for the U.S. company Hasbro Inc. ...The volatility underscored the urgency of China's efforts to keep stoking an economy weakened by the global financial crisis...To protect jobs and social stability, the government recently signed off on a multibillion-dollar stimulus plan. Officials have also been urging factories to avoid large layoffs and to try retraining employees to keep them off the streets..."When times are bad economically, a small incident can rapidly become a big one," said local Communist Party official Guo Chenming, who was monitoring the situation Wednesday outside the toy factory in Dongguan.

  It's not like Dongguan is a big tourism site. "Dongguan is a must-pass-by locality from Guangzhou to Hong Kong by road or waterway." It does have a pretty cool bridge and is right on the Pearl River...but, most Americans including probably Hasbro haven't heard of it. Oh, it has 7 fucking million people...

So, oddities abound. I wonder if the rioting workers threw nerf balls at the cops...

Well, again, we do have inherent contradictions here at Defeatist Central...

Fucking hobbits are doing in their own, ehh?

The Church of England, particularly in Bath and Wells, has decided to take on a subject that Jesus was really, really clear on and do the truly Christlike thing--ban gnomes from graveyards in Coventry. ...Gnomes. Obviously they are Priceline afficiandos... I can think of no better example of the irrelevance of Church hierarchy.

Now, I find garden gnomes repulsive. This is not a pro-gnome sort of blog. Look to Shakespeare's Sister and related sites for that. But, this really comes under the heading of "who gives a fuck?" Dad died, and liked gnomes. Actually, this is a great argument for cremation and scattering of ashes. Or, making the ashes into a sculpture. Of a gnome.

Part of their argument is that gnomes are not real, so why depict them in a cemetary? Well, dragons aren't real, but tell that to St George. Angels are pretty interesting; I've seen a lot of them wandering around, wings aflutter? And burning bushes...well, a marvelous thought, but not lately.

One of the many advantages we have over Britian is that we have, despite the best efforts of the Bush administration and allies, no established Church. The idiots worrying about this as opposed to -- I don't know, the poor, hungry, alone, suffering, naked, afflicted, those people -- are civil servants, in fact. Clerical bureaucrats...so, when you go to the UK and buy something and pay their VAT, you are financing this kind of nonsense.

Feel better about the bailout? No? While I think Keith Obermann needs to get on to heroin or something to calm him down, he is probably dead on -- we call it a bailout, but in the future it will be known as "why daddy went to jail!"