This week on my Throwback Thursdays Retro Video Project; Wire.
One of the first generation of Art-Punks (along with Siousxie & The Banshees, The Fall, Ultravox, Subway Sect, Alternative Televison, Soft Boys and Desperate Bicycles), Wire quickly gained a different approach from the basic three chord thrash on their three albums from 1977 to 1979, plus a live album in 1981. After breaking up for a decade they reformed in 1987 and took up right where they left off and they're still at it to this day, albeit sometimes with a different drummer.
WIRE ~ "LOWDOWN";
For this classic from the 1977 second album, "Pink Flag", I used a clip from a 1920's western starring Jack Hoxie which seemed to fit the almost Ennio Morricone feel of the song. Too bad the last few seconds of the fadeout got cut off. I also used this vid for a Fingerprintz vid.
WIRE ~ "STRANGE";
WIRE ~ "FRAGILE";
This one uses some 1920's aerial footage of Wiemar Berlin
Another song off "Pink Flag" this time using a 1907 film by Spanish film-maker Segundo De Chomon, a contemporary of French director George Melies whose style he built upon. I used this film for a Siouxsie & The Banshees song but could decide which I liked better so I kept both.
WIRE ~ "STRAIGHT LINE";
A song off the first album using an early Edison Studios film with a crude attempt at special f/x.
WIRE ~ "A TOUCHING DISPLAY";
for this song off the "154" album I used "Bob's Electric Theatre" by Segudo De Chomon
WIRE ~ "FIELD DAY FOR THE SUNDAYS";
This song from the first album uses a short Dada art film made for the Fluxus Film Collective by George Maciunas circa 1967.
Showing posts with label Wire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wire. Show all posts
Thursday, 2 November 2017
Monday, 25 August 2014
Calgary's AMP FM Sez Size Doesn't Matter
DEAD KENNEDYS ~ "I LIKE SHORT SONGS" (live);
This past week as if to prove once again that not only is commercial radio the enemy of music but also that they have essentially given up it's battle for relevance with the interwebs, Calgary radio station 90.03 Amp FM announced they would be unveiling an exiting new concept in radio; ruthless editing.
AMP announced that henceforth they will be using a computer editing program to cut songs down to two minutes max in order to allow them to squeeze in twice as many songs in the same amount of time. To do this editing AMP uses a program called "Quickhitz" developed by a Vancouver company. Makes me proud to be Canadian.
AMP Radio's program director Steve Jones (who we can safely assume is not to be confused with the guitarist from the Sex Pistols) claims this allows for more hits for our fast paced times. In fact the songs are actually improved by taking out all that extraneous stuff those silly musicians left in like intros and solos and bridges and codas and stuff. Who's got the time to sit through all that? Don't bore us, Get to the chorus and wrap it up already. Time is money.
Media reports describe the reaction from listeners and musicians as "polarized" which assumes that there is anybody out there not actually employed by AMP who actually thinks this is not an incredibly stupid, arrogant, cynical, soulless, patronizing and thoroughly asinine idea.
Jones claims that "Radio is using archaic logic to decide its programming,” he said. “When you think about why songs are the length they are it goes back to the ’50s and ’60s when radio stations demanded three-minute songs and artists provided them. In order to be on a 45 RPM record with any sound quality your song had to be around three, three-and-a-half minutes. If you wanted to be on the radio or you wanted to be in a jukebox, which is how people heard their music back then, you had to be on a 45 RPM record. So that was the way it was done.
We sort of came to the conclusion that maybe it was time to rethink why songs are the way they were. As we look to people’s changing habits and changing attention spans and watch people on their iPod listening to half a song and forwarding on to the next one we sort of came to the conclusion that maybe it was time to rethink why songs are the way they were.”
Like all corporate douchebags Jones claims that "research" shows that people are changing the way they listen to music due to the internet and apps and stuff.
And like all corporate douchebags Jones has learned that type of smug corporate-speak that enables him to paint himself as a bold innovator, a visionary even;
"It struck me that we are using logic that is 60 years old in an era where communication has changed dramatically in all it's forms"
OK; first of all commercial radio has been around for over ninety years, not sixty, but I assume he edited a third of that time out for brevity. And as for for all the buzz words about Youtube and file sharing I point out that the biggest Youtube based pop hits ("Gangum Style", "I'm Sexy And I Know It", "What Does The Fox Say", "Blurred Lines", Weird Al, OK-Go) are not any shorter than "traditional" songs, whatever the Hell that might mean. While one might make an assumption that Youtube may be encouraging people to watch shorter film and TV clips there is no absolutely no evidence that it is creating a demand for pop songs that any shorter than the usual three and half to four minutes that has been standard since before the days of the jukebox. That basic time was originally came about mostly due to the space restrictions of records, first 78's then 45's. But even pop songs from the earlier era were about the same length, a fact we can estimate from the existing sheet music that was used to promote music in the Victorian era. It would seem that humans are quite happy with that basic time for a catchy song. It gives you enough time to establish a mood or a groove, establish a catchy riff and chorus, embellish it with a solo and resolve the song in a satisfying way. Most pop/rock/country/blues singles don't really have a lot of excess baggage. That's why they're singles. Longer, experimental pieces, mood setters or flashy instrumental showcases are album tracks which are avoided by commercial radio anyway.
Like all corporate douchebags Jones can bolster his case with a grain of truth pointing out that radio has edited songs down for brevity for years. And this is true; "Stairway To Heaven" (Led Zeppelin), "Time Has Come Today" (Chambers Bros), "Money For Nothing" (Dire Straits), "All Tomorrow's Parties" (Velvet Underground), "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" (Meatloaf), "Little Johnny Jewel" (Television), "Tainted Love" (Soft Cell) and of course "Inna-Gadda-Davida" (Iron Butterfly) were all edited down for radio airplay. The difference of course is that these were all long songs (in some cases very long) to begin with and the edited versions were done by the producers, with the band's knowledge and consent, not by some talentless radio hack with no concern for the integrity of the song. And the edited versions were still longer than two minutes.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND ~ "THE EXPLODING PLASTIC INEVITABLE";
For all his "we're living in fast paced times so we need two minute songs now" rhetoric and his claims that he is on the cutting edge of radio in fact for most of it's history radio always did insist on short songs. It wasn't until the late sixties that FM radio started playing the longer songs now being put out by artists like the Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, Who, Hendrix, Paul Butterfield, Ten Years After, Byrds, Doors, Buffalo Springfield, Arlo Guthrie, Black Sabbath and Jefferson Airplane. It would be hard to argue that we would have better served if some radio hack had been allowed to cut them down to two minutes. And these were all artists who actually got played on the radio, I'm not even talking about artsy or jam band types of the time like The Greatfull Dead, Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa, Yes, Red Krayola, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Pharaoh Sanders, Sun Ra or Tangerine Dream.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND ~ "SYMPHONY OF SOUND";
Like all corporate douchebags Jones has mastered the tricky art of pretending to praise his listeners while actually insulting them saying; "We choose Calgary because it's a progressive, young, forward thinking city".
You see what he just did there? He flatters Calgarians as hip and savvy while at the same time insisting that they are too dumb to sit through a song for more than two minutes and need some soulless corporate bean counters to dumb down some pop songs that were not exactly Schoenberg pieces to begin with. Gee thanks Steve, you're a real prince. Not Prince of course because he actually has done a number of long songs, but what does he know about music? Isn't he like sixty or something?
A more valid comparison might be Ted Turner. You may recall that when the owner of CNN started the Turner Classic Movie channel he bought up the rights to thousands of classic black and white movies like "It's A Wonderful Life" and "Scrooge" and proceeded to colorize them. He did it with the same smug self assurance as AMP, claiming he was improving these dusty old films and exposing them to a new young audience who he claimed wouldn't watch a black and white film. He was wrong. Turner was met with universal scorn, outrage and ridicule and he eventually backed down. Colorizing is now remembered as a marketing disaster on the scale of New Coke, The Star Wars reboot or the Edsel. Sometimes, albeit not very often, our corporate overlords get what they deserve.
Another case that came to mind was when sculptor and jazz pianist Micheal Snow sued the Eaton Center for tying bows around the necks of the Canada Geese mobile during Christmas. The court ruled that by doing so The Eaton Center had cheapened his copyright even though the Eaton Center had bought and paid for the work. Then there's the matter of a Christian group in America several years back who announced that they had an new exiting idea for "family friendly" movies. They would buy videos of Hollywood movies then edit out all the sex, violence, swearing and gay or "occult" references, then rent out the new improved versions. This would make many movies last as long as the preview reels of course but that was a small price to pay for "our children" right? Wrong. Movie producers and directors put a quick stop to this with a few dozen cease and desist letters. A case could easily be made that AMP is doing the same thing. And unlike Ted Turner AMP clearly does not own these songs they are butchering. Of course someone with standing would have to file a suit. I would really love to see that. But then AMP would just respond by banning such an artist.
"TORONTO JAZZ" ~ 1963 DOCUMENTARY INCLUDES FOOTAGE OF MICHEAL SNOW:
Of course our corporate overlords really don't like being called on their shit, as Jan Arden found out. The pop singer and CBC TV guest host led the pushback against AMP in interviews calling the move an "insult" and saying "It's like a TV station saying we're going to show "Titanic" but we're going to cut out the end cause we already know what happens and our viewers are to stupid to sit through a whole movie". Along with several Twitter posts like "Can anybody recommend half a good book I can read?". AMP responded by announcing that she was henceforth banned from not only AMP but all stations owned by the parent company Newcap who also own over ninety other radio stations in Canada. Because nothing shows your commitment to music like censorship. Then it got nasty. Some internet trolls to the opportunity to attack Arden with such clever insults as "fat bitch", and "hasbeen" while she responded with some insults of her own which included Jones having a small dick.
So naturally like all corporate douchebags Steve Jones played the victim card, calling Arden's mocking criticism "cyberbullying". Because a few rude jokes directed at a corporate drone is totally like hounding a teenage girl into suicide. He even played the "How am I going to explain this to my kids" card. I don't know Steve; try telling them that you're a whiny patronizing asshole who defaced songs you don't own, treated artists and your audience with contempt and then got called on it. Oh; and incidentally I notice Jones didn't even pretend to call out those internet trolls who attacked Arden on his behalf. Explain that double standard to your kids while you're at it. I know corporations are supposed to be "people" now but do they have to be such fucking crybabies?
(A personal aside; After I reposted a story on Facebook about Jones whining about Arden I got a response from some idiot insisting on his right to call Arden a "fat bitch" and a "pig". Not recognizing the person I checked his page and was not surprised to see that literally every single post for weeks was a hateful rant or reposting of same about lazy blacks, Muslims, "liberals" and Obama. What is wrong with these guys? Why is everything a conspiracy to keep the white man down? Isn't it exhausting to be so paranoid and outraged all the time?)
Incidentally back in 2011 when the 88.1 FM signal went up for grabs Newcap was one of those in on the resulting feeding frenzy with a proposal for another one of their oppressively bland pop stations. Which is another reason to be glad that INDIE 88 got the spot instead.
Anyway in the interest of radio brotherhood I'd like to offer my services to Steve Jones and AMP Radio. No really, I can offer some free advice here. The genre of "absurdly short punk songs" is a much beloved if inherently limited one. Remember the first album by DRI where half the song were less than 30 seconds long? Actually some were less than 20 seconds long. Then Napalm Death once took this sort of thing to it's logical conclusion by having a one second song called "You Suffer". In the immortal words of Napalm Death singer/guitarist Justin Broadwick;
"We played that song in front of 30 local kids, like, every weekend. We played that song 30 times."
There is even a word for this; "Micro Thrash". Therefore in the spirit of radio brotherhood I offer up for further research some bands known for songs 90 seconds long or less (this list is by no means exhaustive);
The Accused
Adrenaline O.D.
The Angry Samoans
Black Flag
Cabaret Voltaire
The Circle Jerks
The Descendants
Destroy All Monsters
Discharge
D.R.I.
The Feederz
The Germs
Glue Gun
Government Issue
The High Fives
The Middle Class
Minor Threat
The Minutemen
The Mr.T Experience
The Misfits
The Mono Men
Muck and The Mires
The Mummies
Napalm Death
The New Bomb Turks
Operation Ivy
The Ramones
Rancid
7 Seconds
REO Speedealer
Screaching Weasel
Social Unrest
State of Alert
The Subsonics
The Teen Idles
T.S.O.L.
The Undertones
Verbal Abuse
The Vibrators
Voorhees
Wehrmacht
Wire
Need some Can Con? No problem;
Beyond Possession
Bloodshot Bill
Bored Stiff
The Brutal Knights
Cub
Death Sentence
Dementia 13
DOA
The Evaporators
Danko Jones
Deja Voodoo
Thee Goblins
The Gruesomes
The House of Knives
The Last Patrol
The Leather Uppers
Maow
Maximum RnR
Molested Youth
The Rocket Reducers
The Sadies
The Screamagers
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet
The Sick Boys
The Smugglers
The Sophisticatos
The Subhumans
The Ugly
Unbelievers
The Vapids
The Viletones
These actually range in quality from the obviously stoopid and proudly goofy to those who surprisingly managed to come up with proper songs, with a beginning, middle and end, sometimes even a solo, in under 90 seconds. Some of these are classics, all should be required listening for any aspiring rocker. Less is more.
THE MISFITS ~ "RETURN OF THE FLY" (this video has a long intro which pads out the song length which is only about 90 seconds);
THE SHADOWY MEN ~ "SHADOWY COUNTDOWN";
FIZZY BANGERS ~ "SHORT ATTENTION SPAN":
MAOW ~ "MS. LEFEVRE";
THE GRUESOMES ~ "MY BROKEN HEART WILL NEVER MEND";
THE JAM ~ "BATMAN THEME";
THE ANGRY SAMOANS ~ "THEY SAVED HITLER"S COCK";
THE VIBRATORS ~ "YEAH YEAH YEAH";
THE DESCENDENTS ~ "I DON'T WANNA GROW UP";
THE VANDALS ~ "TO ALL THE KIDS";
WIRE ~ "FEELING CALLED LOVE";
THE FORGOTTEN REBELS ~ "ELVIS IS DEAD";
THE UNDERTONES ~ "SMARTER THAN YOU";
ADRENALINE O.D. ~ "SUBURBIA";
THE RAMONES ~ "CRETIN HOP";
THE CIRCLE JERKS ~ "WASTED";
SCREECHING WEASEL ~ "I HATE LED ZEPPELIN";
OPERATION IVY ~ "BOMBSHELL";
BEYOND POSSESSION ~ "NO RELIGION";
TSOL ~ "ABOLISH GOVT";
DRI ~ "Who am I?";
DISCHARGE ~ "HEAR NOTHING SEE NOTHING SAY NOTHING";
VOORHEES ~ "KEVIN KEEGAN";
NAPALM DEATH ~ "YOU SUFFER";
And then here is of course an entire compilation called "Short Music for short people" which has 99 songs 30 seconds and under.
Want some thing a little less punk and obnoxious? How about Elvis Presley, Duane Eddy, Hank Williams, Ersal Hickey, Chan Romero, Mac Wiseman, Ray Campi, Link Wray, Arch Hall jr, Cliff Richard, Glenn Glen, Merle Travis, Roscoe Holcomb, Hobart Smith, The Byrds, Bluecaps, Wilbur Sweatman, Tiny Hill, The Swingin' Blue Jeans and Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs? There are also demos from Johnny Horton, Willie Nelson, Elvis (again), Cliff Richard (ditto), and Buffalo Springfield. Then there's the Alan Lomax collections which have a lot of really short tracks by blues, folk and gospel singers including Josh White, Jimmie Strothers, Moses Clear Rock Pratt, May Fortune and others.
Putting my money where my mouth is on my CIUT radio show tomorrow (Tuesday Aug. 26, 5pm) I'm going to do a show full of nothing but songs under ninety seconds long. You're welcome AMP Radio.
UPDATE; Even as I was writing this Steve Jones and AMP were already back-pedaling faster than a unicycle backing down a hill. Releasing a bland statement announcing they were withdrawing their "Exiting New Format" while they "reconsidered" things. Jones played the victim card again claiming there were threats of lawsuits (that Micheal Snow precedent I mentioned perhaps). They insist that they may bring it back.
"Our plan is to go back to the drawing board, maybe work a bit closer with some of the various stakeholders in the industry and try and bring this back at a later date."
Right. Kinda like how Mitt Romney is considering running again. That'll totally happen.
This only confirms what some thought, that the whole exercise was a sleazy publicity stunt. Hard to see how looking like cynical incompetents helps their image though.
Monday, 16 June 2014
Pages Turned And Stages Seen
This has been another hard spring for bookstores in Toronto. In April the iconic World's Biggest Bookstore closed after thirty four years while in the same month Book City on Bloor also closed. Before they had even shuttered their doors the giant flagship Indigo/Chapters on John st announced they would be closing up at the end of May. Another Chapters at Runnymede closed in February and yet another, albeit smaller store, NDJ on Younge south of Wellesley will be closing at the end of June.
LAST CALL AT WORLD'S BIGGEST BOOKSTORE
World's Biggest has always had a special place in my heart. I know it was garish and tacky but growing up in Scarborough it (along with various indie record stores and head shops) was one of the reasons I would trek all the way downtown, regardless of the weather, just to look at, and sometimes actually buy books.
World's Biggest was started up in 1980 by Jack Cole who owned the Cole's Books chain, then ubiquitous in Ontario shopping malls. It was like a mall store on steroids, big, ugly, tacky, with constant sales. Purists sniffed that it was like if Honest Ed opened a book store. Read the rave reviews;
“A short, brassy dropout.”
“A crass money-maker.”
“Schlockmeister.”
"A sharp merchandiser whose only interest is to make the largest profit possible for himself.” (that one from Pierre Berton)
(hey; I have that Naval Warfare book)
It may well be true Cole was only following the lead of Sam The Record man who similarly used the "everything but the kitchen sink" approach of "volume, volume, volume" to sell culture to folks who might have been put off by the traditional small cluttered bookstores scattered about. Assuming they could find one. Berton himself would have to admit he sold a lot of books there. And what is the point of writing them if you can't sell them? Canadian book publisher Mel Hurtig certainly saw that.
"Source: the Toronto Sun, November 4, 1980.
Inhabiting the former home of the Olympia bowling alley on Edward Street (the last set of lanes downtown until The Ballroom opens next month), Cole proceeded to create a seventy-thousand-square-foot bookstore which contained seventeen miles of shelving to house a million books divided among one hundred thousand titles. The store would be bathed in bright colours and contain enough lighting that, Cole hoped, it would never be necessary to turn on the heat (a situation already in effect at the Yonge and Charles Coles). An electronic map was installed, inspired by one Cole had seen in the Paris Métro, employing an array of lights to point customers toward the section they were looking for. Rather than label the store as just another Coles, the company bestowed upon it a modest name: World’s Biggest Bookstore. Whether it really was that was debated in various ways—even Cole admitted it probably wasn’t the record setter, but he figured it was at least in the top five in the world in terms of selection. When the doors opened on November 5, 1980, the first thousand customers were given silver dollars courtesy of Hurtig Publishers. Four days of festivities followed, which included numerous giveaways and entertainment ranging from clowns to a jazz band. Globe and Mail writer William French suspected that “during lulls in the din, the ghostly echo of crashing 10-pins and the muted curses of pool hustlers could distinctly be heard as the building’s previous tenants protested the invasion of culture.” French also noted that “outside, the store is trendily done in the Toronto architecture style known as Honest Ed’s; inside, the influence is more Dominion store,” and that the lighting was bright enough “to permit a surgeon to perform a cornea transplant right in the aisle, if he weren’t too distracted by the rippling red neon and flashing white bulbs that frame some of the display stands.” Despite his reservations, which included a sense that book lovers who preferred quieter, more atmospheric independent stores would feel that World’s Biggest lacked “a certain element of breeding and class,” French was impressed with the range of titles and the organization of the store.
As customers poured into World’s Biggest Bookstore on opening day, nearby Coles locations resembled ghost towns. While lunchtime saw lineups ten deep at the half-dozen cash registers at the new store, The Star found just four customers at the branch on the southeast corner of Yonge and Dundas. The staff didn’t mind the quiet—as the assistant manager admitted, “It certainly gives us a chance to collect our wits.” Coles management planned to convert Yonge-Dundas into a specialty shop for business, technical, and academic books, while a branch in the Eaton Centre would continue to serve shoppers who never left the shopping center."
Books were my first love as a kid, even before music, and I would cheerfully spend literally hours at bookstore buried in a book. Still can actually. World's Biggest was so big in fact that it was actually quite easy to find some out of the way place to sit down and read without calling attention to ones self or ever once being kicked out for doing so, unlike some other stores I can think of. Some might say that the purpose of a store is after all to sell stuff not lend it out and so chasing out nerdy kids who have no obvious cash is only sensible. But books aren't like clothes, tools or appliances, they aren't essential in any practical sense. But once you have cultivated a love of reading those kids will always come back to buy once they get some actual money to spend. I did. And books are like potato chips, you can't stop at just one. People will eventually grow up and stop going to clubs and buy music. They will stop going to sports. They will stop keeping up with fashion. They will get married and not have the time, energy and spare cash to do so. But they never grow out of books. I haven't.
Technology however has been a challenge;
(from the same article);
"When asked, shortly before World’s Biggest opened, about the future of bookselling, Cole sounded optimistic. He bragged that his low-cost, highly commercialized approach to selling had helped publishers and played a part in creating an audience that supported a far larger number of independents than when he entered the business in the 1930s. Predictions during the 1950s that television would kill books never came to pass. Visions of a “wired city” world where computers ruled didn’t faze him: “Books will provide the basis of information to be programmed.”
Cole couldn't foresee the extent of downloading, or online buying. However the real deciding factor in so many bookstore closings has been the rising costs of rents in Toronto. World's Biggest has been bought by a developer who intends to change it into a restaurant. I am truly going to miss this place and so is my fifteen year old self.
On the other hand least this is one piece of Younge street that Ryerson didn't get it's Borg-like claws on.
Rising rents were also cited as the reason Indigo/Chapters is closing it's giant flagship store opened with much fanfare in 1999.
(from CTV.ca);
“After lengthy negotiations, we have made the difficult decision not to renew our lease for Chapters Festival Hall,” Janet Eger, vice-president of public affairs at Indigo, said in a emailed statement.Egar said the company is “actively looking for new real estate options in Oakville, downtown Toronto and Bloor West Village” that will better suit its needs.
She also said Indigo will help its employees through the transition process. It’s not yet known what will be built at the location.
The Chapters store, which opened on July 15, 1999, is located beneath the Scotiabank Theatre in the city’s downtown’s core near the busy Queen Street West and across from the iconic MuchMusic building, now owned by CTV."
This store was almost as big as World's Biggest but more upscale with comfy chairs and a Starbucks (of course). By contrast World's Biggest once had signs bragging they had "No comfy chairs", which has to be first in marketing. I could usually find an out-of-the-way (if hard) spot on a rarely used staircase in the extreme north-east corner to read in peace. World's Biggest also had varied selection with lots of history books as well as music, film art and a good kid's section. True if you wanted something rare and exotic you would have to look elsewhere, but who can afford that when you're fifteen? World's Biggest had stuff you could actually afford.
Chapters was airier and carpeted but had less actual books. I can't imagine it having the same memories as World's Biggest, and not just because it wasn't around for as long. Still I while I rarely went a special trip down there I did enjoy camping out there in a comfy chair with a pile of books more than once.
Book City on Bloor also went back to the 1980's and had a coterie of loyal followers (including many past employees) who posted fond farewells. Unlike World's Biggest it never had detractors. It was a cosy two story indie store with a good selection and knowledgeable staff, unlike World's Biggest and Indigo who often hired students who weren't necessarily bookworms. However the farewells were somewhat sated when it was announced that Book City will be reopening at another locale, so that's good.
At the other end of the spectrum NDJ on Young was another one of those tiny independent used bookstores that used to dot Young, Bloor and Queen streets. I'm not sure how long it had been there, years definitely. It was cluttered, disorganized, dusty and sometimes overpriced and may not be a huge loss but I often stopped in there over the years and stumbled onto some cool finds.
Speaking of disappearing landmarks; another big, gaudy eyesore I spent way too much of my youth in will be closing at the end of the year.
The Guverment/Kool Haus was a huge warehouse turned night club down by the docks that was an important live venue throughout the 1980's (when it was called The RPM Club) and 1990's. I saw a lot of bands there over the years including;
BAUHAUS ~ "STIGMA MARTYR";
Bauhaus, The Ramones, The Gun Club & The Lawn, Killing Joke, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Skinny Puppy & Severed Heads, Iggy Pop, The Sex Pistols, Wire, Rancid, Bad Religion, Motorhead, Motley Crue, Screaming Blue Messiahs, The Fleshtones, Jack Grishom (of TSOL) & The Joykiller, Bouncing Souls, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Nick Cave, The Butthole Surfers, Anthrax, Fishbone, Sturm Group, Breeding Ground, Nina Hagen, Sick Of It All, H20, The L.A. Guns, Life Of Agony, Circus Of Power, Speedball, The Dik Van Dykes, The Blue Hawaiians, The Bolshoi, Groovy Religion, and Type O Negative (who sucked BTW) plus more I can't recall right now or didn't save ticket stubs from. I also was supposed to see The Virgin Prunes but they broke up before they got there, and Offspring but I had to work that night for a CKLN benefit as I recall.
KILLING JOKE ~ "EIGHTIES";
It was a bitch to get to since you had to basically walk down from King street under the Gardiner Expressway which could be quite a trek in the snow or rain. Especially if you were not exactly sober. It was also a pretty barren place at the time since the giant Lablaws next door did not get built until sometime in the 2000's.
The place was too cavernous to really have good sound, although Bauhuas managed to sound great. The ceiling was so high that they were able to hang dioramas from it including at one point a recreation of the Kennedy assassination complete with an actual vintage convertible car.
THE GUN CLUB ~ "JACK ON FIRE";
A few random memories;
The notorious Jesus And Mary Chain "riot" in which somebody threw a bottle at a drunken Jim Ried who responded by clocking the guy upside the head with a mic stand making a satisfying clunk which I could hear from well back. We emerged to find a dozen cop cars to deal with the resulting ruckus. Reid and the bottle thrower were both charged and the whole silly mess ended up with a judge ordering the two tipsy twits to apologize to each other. That is so Canadian.
THE JESUS & MARY CHAIN ~ "NEVER UNDERSTAND";
Dee Dee Ramone dealing with a fan who was spitting on him by merely stopping and pointing so the Ramone's large roadies could drag the punter out.
Interviewing Fishbone and trying and failing to make any sense out of them.
Interviewing the singer of Life Of Agony who wasn't much better.
Jack Grishom (of TSOL) giving the crowd a lecture on how to properly stage dive then demonstrating only to have the crowd back away so he landed on the cold hard pavement with a loud splat. Then he got right back up and finished the show. Although he did say the crowd were pussies. Fortunately I had already done a great interview with him earlier.
TSOL ~ "DARKER MY LOVE" & "WASH AWAY";
Seeing some long forgotten shock-rock glam band from Florida called The Impotent Sea Snakes who had a clown on stilts juggling flaming dildos while a midget barbequed hot dogs at the side of the stage. They also had strippers and fireworks. I think there may have been a few songs as well.
The Fleshtones taking to the stage by dancing through the audience tossing packs of Lucky Strikes to the crowd. And later leaving the same way, carrying their instruments.
THE FLESHTONES ~ "SHADOW LINE";
The singer of Sturm Group mooning the audience.
Nina Hagen with her squirt-gun bra.
Meeting Wire and getting them to sign my import 12 inch which was so limited edition they didn't even have a copy.
WIRE ~ "HEARTBEAT";
The Severed Heads with their giant video screens and elaborate industrial projections.
THE SEVERED HEADS ~ "DEAD EYES OPENED";
The Butthole Surfers with enough screens, lights, smoke, fire, strippers and noise to cause acid flashbacks in people who never take acid.
Skinny Puppy opening the show by staging a hanging of the singer and thinking to myself "I wonder what they do for an encore?"
Finding out it included the spraying of various unidentifiable fluids.
SKINNY PUPPY ~ "ASSIMILATE";
Thinking; "You know what? Motorhead really are too fucking loud".
Thinking; "Boy; Type O Negative are really boring".
I have to admit I haven't been there for several years since it was being used as a dance and rave club rather then a live venue but RPM was a valuable venue for a while. It's place as a mid size live venue has been filled by The Opera House and as well as the equally venerable Phoenix.
No word yet on what will become of the site but everyone assumes it will be waterfront condos.
STURM GROUP ~ "TO THE BALTIC";
LAST CALL AT WORLD'S BIGGEST BOOKSTORE
World's Biggest has always had a special place in my heart. I know it was garish and tacky but growing up in Scarborough it (along with various indie record stores and head shops) was one of the reasons I would trek all the way downtown, regardless of the weather, just to look at, and sometimes actually buy books.
World's Biggest was started up in 1980 by Jack Cole who owned the Cole's Books chain, then ubiquitous in Ontario shopping malls. It was like a mall store on steroids, big, ugly, tacky, with constant sales. Purists sniffed that it was like if Honest Ed opened a book store. Read the rave reviews;
“A short, brassy dropout.”
“A crass money-maker.”
“Schlockmeister.”
"A sharp merchandiser whose only interest is to make the largest profit possible for himself.” (that one from Pierre Berton)
(hey; I have that Naval Warfare book)
It may well be true Cole was only following the lead of Sam The Record man who similarly used the "everything but the kitchen sink" approach of "volume, volume, volume" to sell culture to folks who might have been put off by the traditional small cluttered bookstores scattered about. Assuming they could find one. Berton himself would have to admit he sold a lot of books there. And what is the point of writing them if you can't sell them? Canadian book publisher Mel Hurtig certainly saw that.
"Source: the Toronto Sun, November 4, 1980.
Inhabiting the former home of the Olympia bowling alley on Edward Street (the last set of lanes downtown until The Ballroom opens next month), Cole proceeded to create a seventy-thousand-square-foot bookstore which contained seventeen miles of shelving to house a million books divided among one hundred thousand titles. The store would be bathed in bright colours and contain enough lighting that, Cole hoped, it would never be necessary to turn on the heat (a situation already in effect at the Yonge and Charles Coles). An electronic map was installed, inspired by one Cole had seen in the Paris Métro, employing an array of lights to point customers toward the section they were looking for. Rather than label the store as just another Coles, the company bestowed upon it a modest name: World’s Biggest Bookstore. Whether it really was that was debated in various ways—even Cole admitted it probably wasn’t the record setter, but he figured it was at least in the top five in the world in terms of selection. When the doors opened on November 5, 1980, the first thousand customers were given silver dollars courtesy of Hurtig Publishers. Four days of festivities followed, which included numerous giveaways and entertainment ranging from clowns to a jazz band. Globe and Mail writer William French suspected that “during lulls in the din, the ghostly echo of crashing 10-pins and the muted curses of pool hustlers could distinctly be heard as the building’s previous tenants protested the invasion of culture.” French also noted that “outside, the store is trendily done in the Toronto architecture style known as Honest Ed’s; inside, the influence is more Dominion store,” and that the lighting was bright enough “to permit a surgeon to perform a cornea transplant right in the aisle, if he weren’t too distracted by the rippling red neon and flashing white bulbs that frame some of the display stands.” Despite his reservations, which included a sense that book lovers who preferred quieter, more atmospheric independent stores would feel that World’s Biggest lacked “a certain element of breeding and class,” French was impressed with the range of titles and the organization of the store.
As customers poured into World’s Biggest Bookstore on opening day, nearby Coles locations resembled ghost towns. While lunchtime saw lineups ten deep at the half-dozen cash registers at the new store, The Star found just four customers at the branch on the southeast corner of Yonge and Dundas. The staff didn’t mind the quiet—as the assistant manager admitted, “It certainly gives us a chance to collect our wits.” Coles management planned to convert Yonge-Dundas into a specialty shop for business, technical, and academic books, while a branch in the Eaton Centre would continue to serve shoppers who never left the shopping center."
Books were my first love as a kid, even before music, and I would cheerfully spend literally hours at bookstore buried in a book. Still can actually. World's Biggest was so big in fact that it was actually quite easy to find some out of the way place to sit down and read without calling attention to ones self or ever once being kicked out for doing so, unlike some other stores I can think of. Some might say that the purpose of a store is after all to sell stuff not lend it out and so chasing out nerdy kids who have no obvious cash is only sensible. But books aren't like clothes, tools or appliances, they aren't essential in any practical sense. But once you have cultivated a love of reading those kids will always come back to buy once they get some actual money to spend. I did. And books are like potato chips, you can't stop at just one. People will eventually grow up and stop going to clubs and buy music. They will stop going to sports. They will stop keeping up with fashion. They will get married and not have the time, energy and spare cash to do so. But they never grow out of books. I haven't.
Technology however has been a challenge;
(from the same article);
"When asked, shortly before World’s Biggest opened, about the future of bookselling, Cole sounded optimistic. He bragged that his low-cost, highly commercialized approach to selling had helped publishers and played a part in creating an audience that supported a far larger number of independents than when he entered the business in the 1930s. Predictions during the 1950s that television would kill books never came to pass. Visions of a “wired city” world where computers ruled didn’t faze him: “Books will provide the basis of information to be programmed.”
Cole couldn't foresee the extent of downloading, or online buying. However the real deciding factor in so many bookstore closings has been the rising costs of rents in Toronto. World's Biggest has been bought by a developer who intends to change it into a restaurant. I am truly going to miss this place and so is my fifteen year old self.
On the other hand least this is one piece of Younge street that Ryerson didn't get it's Borg-like claws on.
Rising rents were also cited as the reason Indigo/Chapters is closing it's giant flagship store opened with much fanfare in 1999.
(from CTV.ca);
“After lengthy negotiations, we have made the difficult decision not to renew our lease for Chapters Festival Hall,” Janet Eger, vice-president of public affairs at Indigo, said in a emailed statement.Egar said the company is “actively looking for new real estate options in Oakville, downtown Toronto and Bloor West Village” that will better suit its needs.
She also said Indigo will help its employees through the transition process. It’s not yet known what will be built at the location.
The Chapters store, which opened on July 15, 1999, is located beneath the Scotiabank Theatre in the city’s downtown’s core near the busy Queen Street West and across from the iconic MuchMusic building, now owned by CTV."
This store was almost as big as World's Biggest but more upscale with comfy chairs and a Starbucks (of course). By contrast World's Biggest once had signs bragging they had "No comfy chairs", which has to be first in marketing. I could usually find an out-of-the-way (if hard) spot on a rarely used staircase in the extreme north-east corner to read in peace. World's Biggest also had varied selection with lots of history books as well as music, film art and a good kid's section. True if you wanted something rare and exotic you would have to look elsewhere, but who can afford that when you're fifteen? World's Biggest had stuff you could actually afford.
Chapters was airier and carpeted but had less actual books. I can't imagine it having the same memories as World's Biggest, and not just because it wasn't around for as long. Still I while I rarely went a special trip down there I did enjoy camping out there in a comfy chair with a pile of books more than once.
Book City on Bloor also went back to the 1980's and had a coterie of loyal followers (including many past employees) who posted fond farewells. Unlike World's Biggest it never had detractors. It was a cosy two story indie store with a good selection and knowledgeable staff, unlike World's Biggest and Indigo who often hired students who weren't necessarily bookworms. However the farewells were somewhat sated when it was announced that Book City will be reopening at another locale, so that's good.
At the other end of the spectrum NDJ on Young was another one of those tiny independent used bookstores that used to dot Young, Bloor and Queen streets. I'm not sure how long it had been there, years definitely. It was cluttered, disorganized, dusty and sometimes overpriced and may not be a huge loss but I often stopped in there over the years and stumbled onto some cool finds.
Speaking of disappearing landmarks; another big, gaudy eyesore I spent way too much of my youth in will be closing at the end of the year.
The Guverment/Kool Haus was a huge warehouse turned night club down by the docks that was an important live venue throughout the 1980's (when it was called The RPM Club) and 1990's. I saw a lot of bands there over the years including;
BAUHAUS ~ "STIGMA MARTYR";
Bauhaus, The Ramones, The Gun Club & The Lawn, Killing Joke, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Skinny Puppy & Severed Heads, Iggy Pop, The Sex Pistols, Wire, Rancid, Bad Religion, Motorhead, Motley Crue, Screaming Blue Messiahs, The Fleshtones, Jack Grishom (of TSOL) & The Joykiller, Bouncing Souls, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Nick Cave, The Butthole Surfers, Anthrax, Fishbone, Sturm Group, Breeding Ground, Nina Hagen, Sick Of It All, H20, The L.A. Guns, Life Of Agony, Circus Of Power, Speedball, The Dik Van Dykes, The Blue Hawaiians, The Bolshoi, Groovy Religion, and Type O Negative (who sucked BTW) plus more I can't recall right now or didn't save ticket stubs from. I also was supposed to see The Virgin Prunes but they broke up before they got there, and Offspring but I had to work that night for a CKLN benefit as I recall.
KILLING JOKE ~ "EIGHTIES";
It was a bitch to get to since you had to basically walk down from King street under the Gardiner Expressway which could be quite a trek in the snow or rain. Especially if you were not exactly sober. It was also a pretty barren place at the time since the giant Lablaws next door did not get built until sometime in the 2000's.
The place was too cavernous to really have good sound, although Bauhuas managed to sound great. The ceiling was so high that they were able to hang dioramas from it including at one point a recreation of the Kennedy assassination complete with an actual vintage convertible car.
THE GUN CLUB ~ "JACK ON FIRE";
A few random memories;
The notorious Jesus And Mary Chain "riot" in which somebody threw a bottle at a drunken Jim Ried who responded by clocking the guy upside the head with a mic stand making a satisfying clunk which I could hear from well back. We emerged to find a dozen cop cars to deal with the resulting ruckus. Reid and the bottle thrower were both charged and the whole silly mess ended up with a judge ordering the two tipsy twits to apologize to each other. That is so Canadian.
THE JESUS & MARY CHAIN ~ "NEVER UNDERSTAND";
Dee Dee Ramone dealing with a fan who was spitting on him by merely stopping and pointing so the Ramone's large roadies could drag the punter out.
Interviewing Fishbone and trying and failing to make any sense out of them.
Interviewing the singer of Life Of Agony who wasn't much better.
Jack Grishom (of TSOL) giving the crowd a lecture on how to properly stage dive then demonstrating only to have the crowd back away so he landed on the cold hard pavement with a loud splat. Then he got right back up and finished the show. Although he did say the crowd were pussies. Fortunately I had already done a great interview with him earlier.
TSOL ~ "DARKER MY LOVE" & "WASH AWAY";
Seeing some long forgotten shock-rock glam band from Florida called The Impotent Sea Snakes who had a clown on stilts juggling flaming dildos while a midget barbequed hot dogs at the side of the stage. They also had strippers and fireworks. I think there may have been a few songs as well.
The Fleshtones taking to the stage by dancing through the audience tossing packs of Lucky Strikes to the crowd. And later leaving the same way, carrying their instruments.
THE FLESHTONES ~ "SHADOW LINE";
The singer of Sturm Group mooning the audience.
Nina Hagen with her squirt-gun bra.
Meeting Wire and getting them to sign my import 12 inch which was so limited edition they didn't even have a copy.
WIRE ~ "HEARTBEAT";
The Severed Heads with their giant video screens and elaborate industrial projections.
THE SEVERED HEADS ~ "DEAD EYES OPENED";
The Butthole Surfers with enough screens, lights, smoke, fire, strippers and noise to cause acid flashbacks in people who never take acid.
Skinny Puppy opening the show by staging a hanging of the singer and thinking to myself "I wonder what they do for an encore?"
Finding out it included the spraying of various unidentifiable fluids.
SKINNY PUPPY ~ "ASSIMILATE";
Thinking; "You know what? Motorhead really are too fucking loud".
Thinking; "Boy; Type O Negative are really boring".
I have to admit I haven't been there for several years since it was being used as a dance and rave club rather then a live venue but RPM was a valuable venue for a while. It's place as a mid size live venue has been filled by The Opera House and as well as the equally venerable Phoenix.
No word yet on what will become of the site but everyone assumes it will be waterfront condos.
STURM GROUP ~ "TO THE BALTIC";
Monday, 11 July 2011
Blink and you'll miss it.
As mentioned in an earlier post Toronto radio station CKLN was finally, deservedly ordered off the air in April. Refusing to take "fuck off" for an answer CKLN's stubbornly inept management recently announced that hey had gotten permission to broadcast again as a "micro broadcaster" with a less than 1 watt signal. No that's not a typo, not even one whole watt with a range of about 700 feet. No that's not a typo either, 700 feet. Wow. That should carry clear across the street. Thus reaching that much coveted "people who happen to be driving by for a split second" demographic. They could literally reach more people by putting the speakers out the window.
My reconstruction of the conversation in a car of loyal CKLN listeners driving down to listen in on their car radio;
(sounds of static)Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.."You're listening to.." Bzzzzzzzzzzzz
1st CKLN fan; "Wait! Back up!"
(gears shift and..)Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...."CKLN.." Bzzzzzzzzzzz"
1st CKLN fan; "Wait! Go forward!"
(gears shift and...)Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz...."88.1fm" Bzzzzzzzzz
2nd CKLN fan; "This is stupid"
I'm guessing they are going to have to play a lot of really short songs.
That's where I can help. No really, I can offer some free advice here. The genre of "absurdly short punk songs" is much beloved if inherently limited one. Remember the first album by DRI where half the song were less than 30 seconds long? Actually some were less than 20 seconds long. Then Napalm Death once took this sort of thing to it's logical conclusion by having a one second song called "you suffer". In the immortal words of Napalm Death singer/guitarist Justin Broadwick;
"We played that song in front of 30 local kids, like, every weekend. We played that song 30 times."
There is even a word for this; "Micro Thrash". Therefore in the spirit of radio brotherhood I offer up for further research some bands known for songs 90 seconds long or less (this list is by no means exhaustive);
The Accused
Adrenaline O.D.
The Angry Samoans
Black Flag
The Circle Jerks
The Descendants
Destroy All Monsters
Discharge
D.R.I.
The Feederz
The Germs
Glue Gun
Government Issue
The High Fives
Minor Threat
The Minutemen
The Mr.T Experience
The Misfits
The Mono Men
Muck and The Mires
The Mummies
Napalm Death
The New Bomb Turks
Operation Ivy
The Ramones
Rancid
7 Seconds
REO Speedealer
Screaching Weasel
Social Unrest
State of Alert
The Subsonics
The Teen Idles
T.S.O.L.
The Undertones
Verbal Abuse
The Vibrators
Voorhees
Wehrmacht
Wire
Need some Can Con? No problem;
Beyond Possession
Bloodshot Bill
Bored Stiff
The Brutal Knights
Cub
Death Sentence
Dementia 13
DOA
The Evaporators
Danko Jones
Deja Voodoo
Thee Goblins
The House of Knives
The Leather Uppers
Maow
Maximum RnR
Molested Youth
The Rocket Reducers
The Sadies
The Screamagers
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet
The Sick Boys
The Smugglers
The Sophisticatos
The Subhumans
The Ugly
The Vapids
The Viletones
These actually range in quality from the obviously stoopid and proudly goofy to those who surprisingly managed to come up with proper songs, with a beginning, middle and end, sometimes even a solo, in under 90 seconds. Some of these are classics, all should be required listening for any aspiring rocker. Less is more.
THE MISFITS ~ "RETURN OF THE FLY" (this video has a long intro which pads out the song length which is only about 90 seconds);
WIZO ~ "The Count";
FIZZY BANGERS ~ "SHORT ATTENTION SPAN":
DEJA VOODOO ~ "STOP";
DUANE EDDY ~ "SOME KINDA EARTHQUAKE";
SHADOWY MEN ON A SHADOWY PLANET ~ "INTERLUDE/COUNTDOWN" (TWO SONGS);
MAOW ~ "MS. LEFEVRE";
THE GRUESOMES ~ "MY BROKEN HEART WILL NEVER MEND";
THE JAM ~ "BATMAN THEME";
THE ANGRY SAMOANS ~ "THEY SAVED HITLER"S COCK";
THE VIBRATORS ~ "YEAH YEAH YEAH";
THE CYNICS ~ "BUSINESS AS USUAL";
T.S.O.L. ~ "SUPERFICIAL LOVE";
THE NEW BOMB TURKS ~ "I WANT MY BABY DEAD";
THE DESCENDENTS ~ "I DON'T WANNA GROW UP";
THE VANDALS ~ "TO ALL THE KIDS";
WIRE ~ "FEELING CALLED LOVE";
THE MINUTEMEN ~ "POLITICAL SONG FOR MICHEAL JACKSON TO SING" (live);
THE FORGOTTEN REBELS ~ "ELVIS IS DEAD";
THE UNDERTONES ~ "SMARTER THAN YOU";
ADRENALINE O.D. ~ "SUBURBIA";
CAUSTIC SODA ~ WELCOME TO DUMPSVILLE, POPULATION YOU";
MR.T EXPERIENCE ~ "SPEEDRACER";
THE RAMONES ~ "CRETIN HOP";
THE CIRCLE JERKS ~ "WASTED";
DEAD KENNEDYS ~ "I LIKE SHORT SONGS" (live);
BLACK FLAG ~ "REVENGE";
SCREECHING WEASEL ~ "I HATE LED ZEPPELIN";
OPERATION IVY ~ "BOMBSHELL";
7 SECONDS ~ "NOT JUST BOYS FUN";
GLUE GUN ~ "THE SCENE IS NOT FOR SALE;
DEATH SENTENCE ~ "FEEL FUCKED";
BEYOND POSSESSION ~ "NO RELIGION";
DRI ~ "Who am I?";
DISCHARGE ~ "HEAR NOTHING SEE NOTHING SAY NOTHING";
VOORHEES ~ "KEVIN KEEGAN";
NAPALM DEATH ~ "YOU SUFFER";
And then here is of course an entire compilation called "Short Music for short people" which has 99 songs 30 seconds and under.
Want some thing a little less punk and obnoxious? How about Elvis Presley, Duane Eddys, Hank Williams, Ersal Hickey, Chan Romero, Mac Wiseman, Ray Campi, Link Wray, Arch Hall jr, Cliff Richard, Glenn Glen, Merle Travis, Roscoe Holcomb, Hobart Smith, The Byrds, Bluecaps and The Swingin' Blue Jeans? There are also demos from Johnny Horton, Willie Nelson, Elvis (again), Cliff Richard (ditto), and Buffalo Springfield. Then there's the Alan Lomax collections which have some really short tracks by blues, folk and gospel singers including Josh White, Jimmie Strother, Moses Clear Rock Pratt, May Fortune and others.
Of course CKLN could also just play some of those Cabaret Voltaire, SPK, Throbbing Gristle, Nurse with Wound, Ramleh and John Cage records that sound like static anyway.
I actually did that once; while doing an overnight show I played John Cage's "HPSCHRD" which is basically 20 minutes of three or more harpsichords playing randomly buried under mountains of distortion. Eventually somebody called in;
Caller; "Are you on the air"
Me; "Probably"
Caller; "It sounds like I'm going under a tunnel and I'm not"
Me; "Well let's see (turning up volume);
JOHN CAGE ~ "HPSCHD";
Me; "Sounds fine to me. I'll be playing some Cabaret Voltaire later, you may want to stick around for that."
Hey it was 3:30 in the morning.
My reconstruction of the conversation in a car of loyal CKLN listeners driving down to listen in on their car radio;
(sounds of static)Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.."You're listening to.." Bzzzzzzzzzzzz
1st CKLN fan; "Wait! Back up!"
(gears shift and..)Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...."CKLN.." Bzzzzzzzzzzz"
1st CKLN fan; "Wait! Go forward!"
(gears shift and...)Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz...."88.1fm" Bzzzzzzzzz
2nd CKLN fan; "This is stupid"
I'm guessing they are going to have to play a lot of really short songs.
That's where I can help. No really, I can offer some free advice here. The genre of "absurdly short punk songs" is much beloved if inherently limited one. Remember the first album by DRI where half the song were less than 30 seconds long? Actually some were less than 20 seconds long. Then Napalm Death once took this sort of thing to it's logical conclusion by having a one second song called "you suffer". In the immortal words of Napalm Death singer/guitarist Justin Broadwick;
"We played that song in front of 30 local kids, like, every weekend. We played that song 30 times."
There is even a word for this; "Micro Thrash". Therefore in the spirit of radio brotherhood I offer up for further research some bands known for songs 90 seconds long or less (this list is by no means exhaustive);
The Accused
Adrenaline O.D.
The Angry Samoans
Black Flag
The Circle Jerks
The Descendants
Destroy All Monsters
Discharge
D.R.I.
The Feederz
The Germs
Glue Gun
Government Issue
The High Fives
Minor Threat
The Minutemen
The Mr.T Experience
The Misfits
The Mono Men
Muck and The Mires
The Mummies
Napalm Death
The New Bomb Turks
Operation Ivy
The Ramones
Rancid
7 Seconds
REO Speedealer
Screaching Weasel
Social Unrest
State of Alert
The Subsonics
The Teen Idles
T.S.O.L.
The Undertones
Verbal Abuse
The Vibrators
Voorhees
Wehrmacht
Wire
Need some Can Con? No problem;
Beyond Possession
Bloodshot Bill
Bored Stiff
The Brutal Knights
Cub
Death Sentence
Dementia 13
DOA
The Evaporators
Danko Jones
Deja Voodoo
Thee Goblins
The House of Knives
The Leather Uppers
Maow
Maximum RnR
Molested Youth
The Rocket Reducers
The Sadies
The Screamagers
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet
The Sick Boys
The Smugglers
The Sophisticatos
The Subhumans
The Ugly
The Vapids
The Viletones
These actually range in quality from the obviously stoopid and proudly goofy to those who surprisingly managed to come up with proper songs, with a beginning, middle and end, sometimes even a solo, in under 90 seconds. Some of these are classics, all should be required listening for any aspiring rocker. Less is more.
THE MISFITS ~ "RETURN OF THE FLY" (this video has a long intro which pads out the song length which is only about 90 seconds);
WIZO ~ "The Count";
FIZZY BANGERS ~ "SHORT ATTENTION SPAN":
DEJA VOODOO ~ "STOP";
DUANE EDDY ~ "SOME KINDA EARTHQUAKE";
SHADOWY MEN ON A SHADOWY PLANET ~ "INTERLUDE/COUNTDOWN" (TWO SONGS);
MAOW ~ "MS. LEFEVRE";
THE GRUESOMES ~ "MY BROKEN HEART WILL NEVER MEND";
THE JAM ~ "BATMAN THEME";
THE ANGRY SAMOANS ~ "THEY SAVED HITLER"S COCK";
THE VIBRATORS ~ "YEAH YEAH YEAH";
THE CYNICS ~ "BUSINESS AS USUAL";
T.S.O.L. ~ "SUPERFICIAL LOVE";
THE NEW BOMB TURKS ~ "I WANT MY BABY DEAD";
THE DESCENDENTS ~ "I DON'T WANNA GROW UP";
THE VANDALS ~ "TO ALL THE KIDS";
WIRE ~ "FEELING CALLED LOVE";
THE MINUTEMEN ~ "POLITICAL SONG FOR MICHEAL JACKSON TO SING" (live);
THE FORGOTTEN REBELS ~ "ELVIS IS DEAD";
THE UNDERTONES ~ "SMARTER THAN YOU";
ADRENALINE O.D. ~ "SUBURBIA";
CAUSTIC SODA ~ WELCOME TO DUMPSVILLE, POPULATION YOU";
MR.T EXPERIENCE ~ "SPEEDRACER";
THE RAMONES ~ "CRETIN HOP";
THE CIRCLE JERKS ~ "WASTED";
DEAD KENNEDYS ~ "I LIKE SHORT SONGS" (live);
BLACK FLAG ~ "REVENGE";
SCREECHING WEASEL ~ "I HATE LED ZEPPELIN";
OPERATION IVY ~ "BOMBSHELL";
7 SECONDS ~ "NOT JUST BOYS FUN";
GLUE GUN ~ "THE SCENE IS NOT FOR SALE;
DEATH SENTENCE ~ "FEEL FUCKED";
BEYOND POSSESSION ~ "NO RELIGION";
DRI ~ "Who am I?";
DISCHARGE ~ "HEAR NOTHING SEE NOTHING SAY NOTHING";
VOORHEES ~ "KEVIN KEEGAN";
NAPALM DEATH ~ "YOU SUFFER";
And then here is of course an entire compilation called "Short Music for short people" which has 99 songs 30 seconds and under.
Want some thing a little less punk and obnoxious? How about Elvis Presley, Duane Eddys, Hank Williams, Ersal Hickey, Chan Romero, Mac Wiseman, Ray Campi, Link Wray, Arch Hall jr, Cliff Richard, Glenn Glen, Merle Travis, Roscoe Holcomb, Hobart Smith, The Byrds, Bluecaps and The Swingin' Blue Jeans? There are also demos from Johnny Horton, Willie Nelson, Elvis (again), Cliff Richard (ditto), and Buffalo Springfield. Then there's the Alan Lomax collections which have some really short tracks by blues, folk and gospel singers including Josh White, Jimmie Strother, Moses Clear Rock Pratt, May Fortune and others.
Of course CKLN could also just play some of those Cabaret Voltaire, SPK, Throbbing Gristle, Nurse with Wound, Ramleh and John Cage records that sound like static anyway.
I actually did that once; while doing an overnight show I played John Cage's "HPSCHRD" which is basically 20 minutes of three or more harpsichords playing randomly buried under mountains of distortion. Eventually somebody called in;
Caller; "Are you on the air"
Me; "Probably"
Caller; "It sounds like I'm going under a tunnel and I'm not"
Me; "Well let's see (turning up volume);
JOHN CAGE ~ "HPSCHD";
Me; "Sounds fine to me. I'll be playing some Cabaret Voltaire later, you may want to stick around for that."
Hey it was 3:30 in the morning.
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