zom-zom wrote:

Steve V. wrote:And Less Talk, More Rock is the greatest punk rock record of all-time. Period. Exclamation point. Cash that fucking check, brotha.

Years after Punk Rock ceased to be important, some stupid kids decide to keep flogging the dead punk horse. Useless. Stupid. Crap.

Granted, there is a lot of truth in that statement.

But Propagandhi is the definite exception. They seriously are the most intelligent, interesting, and consistently astounding political punk rock band around. They could call it shabadoo goth folk and they'd be the best shabadoo goth folk band in the world.

Punk may've become unimportant, but that doesn't mean that every single band calling themselves punk rock is terrible. If it weren't for bands like Propagandhi, I may not have discovered "underground" or "independent" music. Propagandhi's formula for music is unlike any other punk rock band, and is also everchanging and challenging (politically)...

I disagree with you Zom.

Steve V. wrote:

sphincter wrote:

Ishmael wrote:

Steve V. wrote:

Have you actually heard this record?

This record is total CRAP.

I'm pretty sure we can assume that he's heard it if he's listing it as one of his perfect albums.

I quite like that record, relaxing poppy stuff, really warm. Lyrics are almost funny in a strange way.

Thank you Sphincter.

This was a direct attempt at going commercial, and also marks the disintegration of the last of the Magic Band; that in itself, means that it is going to be radically different than the earlier stuff.

Now think about it...Captain Beefheart was still driving that big fucking truck. So there is a difference, but it is a good difference. It marks a change, but can also be a testament to the ability of Beefheart to be a well-rounded composer. This record is very good, in the same way Bluejeans and Moonbeams is a very good but different record. Expecting old Beef to make Trout Mask Replica four or five dozen more times would have meant he was a one-trick pony, which he surely was not.

Still has those jagged edges we expect from the Cappy, yet the songs are more elegant...don't forget he was also madly falling in love with his wife, which explains the love songs.

A perfect album. Really calm...in a Beefheart way.

I will type it more slowly.

This record is total CRAP.

trilonaut wrote:

sphincter wrote: This decade has been amazing musically.

...you guys care more about clothes and fashion and whatnot than these scene kids you make fun of.

yep, a lot of great music has come out, and technology has allowed us to immerse ourselves in masses of it for cheap. i think it's cool, i'm not complaining. i'm just responding to minotaur's notion that we're too sterile to be dated, and his quote of stanhope that this decade's fashion is so "normal" that it's fashionless and impossible to be emulated by future retro.

my point is: no decade is normal or fashionless, there's always a fashion, it seems normal because you're in the midst of it and you define it in hindsight.

and while it may seem horrifying, 20 years from now there will probably be bands named "top 8" or "top friends" or "friendster or myspace" just like there's "vhs or beta". there may be people deliberately going for the swishy cymbal sound of 128 kbps mp3s or low-res youtube files. there will be further transfigured imitations, imitations of imitations -- there'll be the 2025 version of the 2005 version of the 1985 fashion. there'll be books retelling the early "true underground" of the furvert scene, which seems on the verge of being as mainstream a clique as goths or ravers or hippies. "you had to be there!" actually, probably won't be in book format... probably just some long-ass blog post. there'll be people who first fell in love on the im. hell that's already happened. anyway i'm babbling now but my point is:

things that seem new and/or sterile will absolutely become imbued with nostalgia and get the full retro treatment.

I am curious to see how things will change. This decade doesn't seem terribly different from the '90s.

One thing I think will become dated: iPods and iPod "buds" as a fashion accessory.

I'm also curious as to how the internet will date itself. The internet of today will probably have a different look and feel than the internet of 15 years from now. The biggest question when it come to this whole "dated" question is, what will be ripe for parody?

Steve V. wrote:Granted, there is a lot of truth in that statement.

But Propagandhi is the definite exception. They seriously are the most intelligent, interesting, and consistently astounding political punk rock band around. They could call it shabadoo goth folk and they'd be the best shabadoo goth folk band in the world.

Punk may've become unimportant, but that doesn't mean that every single band calling themselves punk rock is terrible. If it weren't for bands like Propagandhi, I may not have discovered "underground" or "independent" music. Propagandhi's formula for music is unlike any other punk rock band, and is also everchanging and challenging (politically)...

I disagree with you Zom.

Still, saying this late-to-the-game band made the Best Punk Rock Record ever when we already had, as an example, Never Mind The Bollocks, Rocket To Russia, The Clash, Young, Loud and Snotty to name a few is just crazy talk.

Jawbreaker-Bivouac
Minor Threat
The Rolling Stones-Let It Bleed
John Coltrane-Giant Steps
Nick Drake-Pink Moon
Bob Dylan-Highway 61 Revisited
The Clash- London Calling
Wilco- A Ghost Is Born
Sonic Youth-Dirty
The Beatles-Revolver

ask me again next week

Funkadelic - Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow
Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention - Freak Out!
Meat Puppets - II
The Beatles - Revolver (Although I like the charmingly flawed White Album better.)
Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
The 13th Floor Elevators - Easter Everywhere
Os Mutantes - Mutantes
Tom Waits - Bone Machine
The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
Can - Tago Mago

Yeah, but Zom, what do you mean by your contention that punk has "ceased to be important"? Because those albums, while among my favorites, are only part of what made punk rock "important" to me -- & musically, those albums are still being released today (under different names by different bands). So elements of what those bands did are still important to some folks.

But while I agree that the spirit &/or the politics of punk has been watered down/dispersed via co-option by corporations (etc., etc., Hot Topic mall punxx, yawn), I'm still really not on board with the whole "punk is dead" school -- or even the school that sees it as having truly/totally lost its importance. I 100% agree with Steve V. that LTMR is a really excellent punk rock album -- not "in spite of" any shifts in the socio-political landscape that might encourage some to write the band off as also-rans or johnny-ramone-come-latelies -- but because it articulately embodies both the musical impact & energy of punk rock, as well as the sense of philospohical & political inquiry/statement that was an equal part of punk's origin.

Not to be picky, but listing Pistols, Ramones, Clash & Dead Boys as the first 4 out of the box does a disservice to punk rock's legacy & the raw breadth of it as a genre. Much as I love the Dead Boys, Propaghandi ends up higher on my list in terms of longevity & musical palette (come on -- Dead Boys basically played Rolling Stones songs faster & louder; even rock can offer more than that, never mind punk rock!). After the 3rd or 4th Dead Boys live-album reissue/rehash, I'd be wondering myself whether punk wasn't dead after all.


Mr. Graham

zom-zom wrote:

Steve V. wrote:Granted, there is a lot of truth in that statement.

But Propagandhi is the definite exception. They seriously are the most intelligent, interesting, and consistently astounding political punk rock band around. They could call it shabadoo goth folk and they'd be the best shabadoo goth folk band in the world.

Punk may've become unimportant, but that doesn't mean that every single band calling themselves punk rock is terrible. If it weren't for bands like Propagandhi, I may not have discovered "underground" or "independent" music. Propagandhi's formula for music is unlike any other punk rock band, and is also everchanging and challenging (politically)...

I disagree with you Zom.

Still, saying this late-to-the-game band made the Best Punk Rock Record ever when we already had, as an example, Never Mind The Bollocks, Rocket To Russia, The Clash, Young, Loud and Snotty to name a few is just crazy talk.

I understand why you say that. Maybe I meant the greatest punk rock record of all time to me.

This isn't a dig, but between you (and others like you) and I (and others like me), there is a substantial age difference. The passion and intensity of those records affected a young Zom probably like records by Propagandhi affected a young me.

That being said, in the grand scheme of things, could Less Talk More Rock really hold a candle in terms of significance to Nevermind the Bullocks? Fuck no. But I heard LTMR first and it made me interested in finding about records like Rocket to Russia and so on. To someone who saw first-hand (or felt the immediate reverberations) of the intial explosion of some thing called punk rock, Less Talk... is a piece of poppy, dialed in, dumb shit. But to someone like me who grew up musically (if that is indeed possible) in the age of "punk rock," Less Talk was my first flirtation with underground, independent music and tried and true punk rock. It is a very complex equation, but somehow I got from Less Talk More Rock to Nevermind the Bullocks to Damaged to Songs About Fucking to Goat to No New York to Suicide to Acre Thrills to Double Nickels... to Dub Housing and so on and so on until my whole record collection is sprawled out across many floors of my home with plus and minus signs drawn with marker on the carpet.

It's all perspective.

So...Less Talk More Rock is the best punk rock record of all time...to me.

And Ishmael, nothing Beefheart ever did sucked. Have a nice day.[/i]

I'll buy that, Steve V. If it means something to you, that's great.

I won't buy what Mr. Graham, King of The Turntables, says though. Obviously he hates the Dead Boys and most likely wasn't around when any of the original Punk Rock albums hit the shelves. Funny though, the comments about Dead Boys music sounds like what the old hippies and flare-wearing rockers who hated punk were saying at the time.



Punk completely ceased to be important right around the turn of the decade. Just because you kids "rediscovered" it and started your own bands doesn't mean that it continued to have the initial impact that it indeed had on the rock scene in general.

Don't talk to me about doing a "disservice" to punk rock's legacy. Just play with your smash 'n chop or whatever it is you do.

zom-zom wrote:
Punk completely ceased to be important right around the turn of the decade. Just because you kids "rediscovered" it and started your own bands doesn't mean that it continued to have the initial impact that it indeed had on the rock scene in general.

I can get behind that.

Also, how could I forget to mention one of the greatest punk rock bands of all time...

CRASS

By now, they have reached this sort of legendary status, but unlike many other "punk rock" bands of that era and immediately thereafter, CRASS deserve it. Interesting, challenging, passionate, and tirelessly wonderful. Probably one of the first rock bands to have a visible effect on more than just the music scene.

Their latest biography by George Berger as well as Penny Rimbaud's "Shibboleth" (and "the Diamond Signature") are ESSENTIAL.