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Friday, February 3, 2006

This Kind of Thing was Once Cool

[transmission from... Tyler Sonnichsen]

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, lived a group of magical musicians who would leave an indelible imprint of the world of popular music. Surely, if you've taken notice of that esteemed musical work encapsulated to the right, you understand that I'm speaking of the city of Minneapolis, and the "time" being that awkward period as the mid-80's approached. Boys were gradually becoming men. The local Replacements and Husker Du's were beginning to take the indie music world by storm, and a dimunitive, superhumanly talented freak named Prince Rogers Nelson was one of the biggest stars in the world on the heels of a ridiculous self-eggrandizing film and it's outstanding accompanying soundtrack. Surely, if one Prince were to rise to the top of the world, as he did, then others would have to take the fall. And one other did.

Jesse Johnson was a good man. He once fronted a heavily influential funk-rock group called the Time that, while it wallowed in Prince's shadow for most of its existence, generated some sweet, sweet funk in the early part of the 1980's. After The Time split, Jesse formed his own group and released the opus "Jesse Johnson's Revue" in 1985. Twenty-one years later, February 1, 2006 to be exact, I spotted the man blazing across this cover in a $1.00 bin and couldn't stop laughing.

I'm not kidding. I laughed like a motherfucker and it only got louder when flipped the album over to reveal the men who Jesse Johnson brought with him when he "went there." Below you will see those five men, their signs (because, yes, the liner notes listed their astrological orientations) and their accompanying stories, which I am about to fabricate. Enjoy.

	The group's lone Virgo (though certainly not a virgin if you catch my drift), spent most of his life trying to find both Nick Cave and Little Richard, of whom he was the anorexic love-child. He moved to Terre Haute, IN and started a non-profit. Something about the moon.
	An avowed Aquarius, Mark has actually been living in your garage for the last two weeks. You told yourself that you'd clean out that area behind the trash bins, but those leaves make a fine bed for the man who spent years battling Tim "The Man" Bradley for keyboard supremacy.
	Hey, your little brother ever been molested by a guitarist born under Leo? No? Ask again in...five minutes. ZEBRA TIE!!!
	"Okay, are you going to take the goddamn photo or not? No, I WILL NOT put the smoke out. It's either I smoke in the photo or I'm not in the photo. I mean, I have to keep the beat for Jesse, man! Yeah, and I know that Mark's an aquarius, too. Have him tell that to my killer 'stache and rippling chest hair." - something Bobby Vandell should have been saying.
	Little did this Leo bassist know that while he never quite resurfaced, his hair would a full decade later. I think he said it best: "Please don't tell Jesse I'm blind. Without him, I'm nothing."

You may ask if I'm actually listened to this yet. The answer is no. I didn't spend that hard-earned dollar on this (actually, it was more like 70 cents, the store was having a sale) for the depth of such "jams" (nowhere are the tracks referred to anything but as such) as "Be Your Man" and "Let's Have Some Fun." Clearly, "Let's Go Crazy" had already been taken. Thank you, Jesse Johnson's Revue, for reminding us how much more there is to music than music itself. Stay tuned for more classic forgotten vinyl treasures.

1:10 am | link Comments

Monday, January 30, 2006

The 60 Greatest Punk Bands

[transmission from... Tyler Sonnichsen]

In my constant quest to outnerd all of the hipster publications, my friends, and even myself, I have put together this list during several boring Metro rides to and from work. I think that most genres of music deserve equal attention and respect, but at the end of the day for me, I’m not going to lie- there’s nothing quite like a solid, three-chord punk song. Taking all of that into consideration, the following list was originally going to be something like 25, but it poured over into sixty because so many bands that I really couldn’t see excluded altogether that fell all the way up the list. And, inevitably, I had to exert my own views on what bands I ultimately judged as “punk.” Ultimately, to make things simpler, I decided to exclude all the great bands who fell in with the said crowd but ultimately transcended what was accepted as ‘punk’ (Talking Heads, Television, The Fall, The Replacements, Sonic Youth, Public Image, Ltd., etc.). Also excluded were the bands whose attitudes were unquestionably punk as fuck but would have thrown things off a bit (Violent Femmes, The Pogues) as well as those awesome denizens of rhythmic post-punk abrasiveness Joy Division and Gang of Four. And, sorry to the founding fathers/mothers of punk, but what most people consider “proto” was also hard to factor in (cya, Velvet Underground, Stooges, MC5, New York Dolls, and Patti Smith). I also dropped Nirvana and other so-labeled “grunge” acts because, well, it's somewhat complicated, but as grunge went, it's hard to put them in the same league as a lot of these bands, though Soundgarden, Mudhoney, et al deserve just as much respect. Ska bands, too, though all of the best bands have played traditional stuff more in line with ska's second wave (The Specials, The Slackers, The Toasters, Hepcat, etc.). I think I got a vast majority of the bands that people are going to be asking “Where were ______?”

So here’s what I did judge the bands on- the overall quality of their music, obviously (timelessness, innovation, and simply how it rocks), the polarizing or mobilizing effect of their music or message, their commitment (while they were together, regardless of whether they existed for 2 years like #9 or others, or twenty years like #17 and others), how many bands have ripped off their music, and many other minor things. Without further ado, I give you, my list of the 60 Greatest Punk Bands of All Time.