My internet-radio show, Kill the Head, “airs” every Friday, 5 to 7:30 p.m. (eastern), on Asheville Free Media.
Here’s the playlist for 04.23.2010.
Apr 232010
“Classic Rock Crate Digger” is a column I write for the Rhapsody Blog.
The Crate Digger has defended The Doors more times than he’d care to count! What a divisive band. Their most violent detractors, the ones who would rather dive naked onto a rusty garden weasel than hear “Touch Me” one more time, are almost always children of punk and hardcore. In The Doors, they see everything they were brainwashed to hate about mainstream rock between 1968 and ’76, the era when dirty hippie jams devolved into fatty arena rock.
I’ve always found their venom terribly ironic. The Doors are a foundation of classic rock, it’s true. Morrison is the template for the longhaired frontman with sexy mojo (see also Robert Plant, Paul Rodgers, Burt Cummings, etc). Yet for every punk who hates The Doors, there are two who worship them. The group’s most profound influence, believe it or not, is to be found not in classic rock, but in the world of modern alternative music (punk, post-punk, New Wave, synth pop, goth, space rock), where bands moved far beyond merely imitating Morrison and actually listened to what the bad was doing musically. I know certain folks are going to find this assertion hard to swallow, yet Lester Bangs acknowledged as much when he described Jim Morrison as a “father of New Wave” in his 1981 essay “Jim Morrison: Bozo Dionysus a Decade Later.” In this sense The Doors shared more in common with The Velvet Underground than anybody who played Woodstock. While they certainly belonged to the 1960s zeitgeist, both groups also explored ideas, sounds and themes that reached far beyond it.
Here I’ve compiled 13 killer albums that attest to the Doors’ impact on rock ‘n’ roll’s outer fringes.
The Stooges, The Stooges (1969)
Elektra signed The Stooges hoping they’d become the next Doors. Morrison’s influence on Iggy is common knowledge. There was even talk of Pop taking Jimbo’s place a few years after his death. But let’s talk music: the knotted mechanical pulse powering now-legendary rockers such as “I Wanna Be Your Dog” and “No Fun” can in part be traced back to The Doors’ first two albums. There’s something wonderfully inorganic about tracks like “Back Door Man,” “Soul Kitchen” and “Twentieth Century Fox.” At the time, critics dismissed The Stooges as sonic primitives, but they were simply inspired by The Doors’ ability to take garage rock’s crunchy stomp and sculpt it into a precision timepiece.
Can, Tago Mago (1971)
At first blush, Can’s Krautrock feels dimensions removed from what The Doors were up to. But it seems to me there’s a lineage connecting the two, and it has to do with the idea of building an extended hypno-drone from jazz-informed finesse, touches of Eastern music, spacey guitar effects, classical minimalism and keyboard-derived atmospherics. This is something The Doors pioneered, particularly on the infamous “The End.” It’s a concept this piece returns to over and over. Just about any alternative rock band interested in creating hazily undulating atmosphere primarily through the use of keyboards, synthesizers and/or electronics is — directly or indirectly — influenced by you know who.
Patti Smith, Horses (1975)
Believe it or not, Patti Smith is one of those canonic artists the Crate Digger has failed to explore in any appreciable depth. However, when I do hear a track from Horses, I hear a poet-punk goddess who understands the genius of Jim Morrison more than anybody. The only other contenders are Suicide’s Alan Vega, Ian Curtis of Joy Division and a young Glenn Danzig (all of whom we’ll soon get to).
The Modern Lovers, The Modern Lovers (1976)
Squeaky-clean Jonathan Richman seems like the unlikeliest of artists to be influenced by Jim Morrison and The Doors. After all, this is the guy who penned the lines, “I’m certainly not stoned like hippie Johnny is/ I’m straight, and I want to take his place.” Let’s set that aside for a moment. The Modern Lovers’ proto-punk sound was straight-up Doors drone-pop filtered through the Velvet Underground’s choppy minimalism. Jerry Harrison’s organ solo on “Roadrunner” is pure Ray Manzarek.
Suicide, The First Album (1977)
In the Age of Aquarius, when the children of Woodstock made primitive love in the mud, The Doors were static-age futurists extolling the joys of mechanized sex. Morrison wasn’t a hippie; he was a character straight out of a J.G. Ballard sci-fi novel that had yet to be written. These are facts Suicide’s Alan Vega and Martin Rev totally understood. On their debut album they took “Hello, I Love You” and drowned it in a post-industrial nightmare that felt so good — pain as pleasure and all that arty biz. “Frankie Teardrop” was punk rock’s “The End.”
The Stranglers, Rattus Norvegicus (1977)
TOTAL. DOORS. WORSHIP.
The Misfits, Static Age (recorded: 1978)
The most immediate connection is just how much Danzig sounds like Morrison. Jimbo taught Glenn how to shift from a riotous punk bark to a smooth, Sinatra-like croon in a single tune. (Morrison’s love for classic vocal craftsmanship is way overlooked.) Then there’s lyrical content: “Last Caress” — which contains the incendiary lines “Well, I got something to say/ I raped your mother today” and “Sweet lovely death/ I am waiting for your breath/ Come sweet death, one last caress” — was torn from the Morrison playbook. On the other hand, a more fundamental influence exists on the instrumental level. The early Misfits, as documented on Static Age, a collection of demos recorded in 1978, rocked like a stuttering funny car. They were basically accentuating the gnarly robo-pulse dominating The Doors’ middle period: Strange Days and Waiting for the Sun.
Joy Division, Unknown Pleasures (1979)
Ian Curtis fans are just as rabid, if not more so, than Jim Morrison fans. I’ve met more than a few who bristle at the notion of The Doors exerting an influence over their beloved Joy Division. But it’s true. It has been reported several times over that Curtis loved The Doors. The brooding baritone aside, his ability to orchestrate the band’s funereal-rock rituals, full of negative-space and a claustrophobic heaviness built from implication, is in many respects very neo-Morrison/Doors.
X, Los Angeles (1980)
X sounded like The Doors only vaguely. Yet there’s a reason why Ray Manzarek, who produced the group’s first four studio albums, freaked for them. Both groups created raw poetry-rock that stalked the crap-stained streets of the L.A. night. Dig Los Angeles’ “Soul Kitchen” cover, and the way the line “learn to forget” so easily translates into punk-rock incantation. (Patti Smith also covered “Soul Kitchen” on her 2007 covers album, Twelve.)
Echo and the Bunnymen, Heaven Up Here (1981)
The flaw with many Doors haters is the way they focus way too much attention on the band’s shaman-boogie shtick. The group did produce its fair share of white-boy blues rock. However, bands like Echo & the Bunnymen were more about channeling Morrison’s ability to mix dark/desolate imagery with the ethereal beauty of Robby Krieger’s guitar and organist Ray Manzarek’s mesmerizing repetition. Compare, say, “I Can’t See Your Face in My Mind” or “Strange Days” with just about any track off Heaven Up Here, and you immediately hear what I’m yapping about. Then again, my Rhapsody cohort Stephanie Benson recently reported that Echo & the Bunnymen covered “Roadhouse Blues” at this year’s Coachella festival. So apparently, New Wave Brits dig The Doors’ white-boy blues shtick as well.
The Damned, Strawberries (1982)
The Damned’s discography contains better albums (Damned Damned Damned, for instance). But Strawberries contains historical significance directly tied to The Doors’ legacy. The 1981 release of Danny Sugerman’s Jim Morrison bio, No One Here Gets Out Alive, ignited an intense Doors revival. Elektra’s Greatest Hits package, released a year prior, quickly went platinum (amazing). Though The Doors’ influence on punk’s first wave was apparent, the full-bodied resurgence Sugerman’s book invoked helped sell The Doors to a new crop of post-punk bands who were smitten with the group’s ability to conjure both dread and beauty through atmosphere, ambience and phantom reverb. Strawberries, which saw The Damned starting to explore Goth, is one of the first high-profile albums to reflect these inherited traits.
The Birthday Party, Junkyard (1982)
There’s not much difference between Nick Cave flopping about the stage and howling “Release the Bats” and Morrison flopping about the stage howling, “Break on Through.” OK, so The Birthday Party were a bit more… violent.
Wooden Shjips, Wooden Shjips (2007)
Want to hear Doors drone-pop taken into the 21st century? Then check out one of San Francisco’s best modern-rock bands, Wooden Shjips. Pay special attention to the guitar on “We Ask You to Ride”; it totally nails “When the Music’s Over”-era Robby Krieger via Suicide, Spacemen 3 and Loop.
Apr 212010
This show preview originally appeared in the Seattle Weekly.
Shelby Lynne’s versatility has always been her greatest gift and exactly what fans have always loved about her. After turning heads with 2008’s Just a Little Lovin’, a finely crafted collection of Dusty Springfield classics, Lynn returns with Tears, Lies, and Alibis. Her new album finds the Virginia-bred diva making a seemingly effortless transition from country-soul crooner to Americana troubadour. In support of Tears, Lies, and Alibis, Lynne’s current performances are stripped-down acoustic affairs. To catch one of these is real treat, as her powerful and husky voice will surely take center stage.
“Classic Rock Crate Digger” is a column I write for the Rhapsody Blog.
Dave Grohl’s cameo on Slash’s new album has the Crate Digger reminiscing about the hair metal/grunge culture war of the early 1990s. Despite the fact that I mainly focus on rock ‘n’ roll from the 1960s and ’70s, I was one of those pimply teens whose life changed radically after exposure to the “Alive” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” videos. I quickly tossed my Skyscraper tour shirt in the trash and purchased an entire closet full of used flannel. An awakening of epic proportions was clearly underway.
All across America lines were drawn in the sand, as other pimply teens were asked to choose sides: Seattle dirty or L.A. cokehead? The war’s pinnacle came with Axl and Kurt’s infamous backstage dust-up at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards. For us, this wasn’t some trivial rock-star silliness, but a major victory for “alternative” over “mainstream.”
Looking back, it’s all rather silly, right? Pop fads, rock ‘n’ roll, youth rebellion… it’s all part of the record industry’s scheme. Throughout 1989 and ’90, as hair-metal traded sleazy rock for frosted power ballads, its record sales began to sag. Newbies like Steelheart, Warrant and Trixter sounded tame compared to vintage Ratt, Hanoi Rocks and The Crüe. The kids were in desperate need of something new. As a result, the very labels that helped make stars of these hair-sprayed wild men were now killing them off in one of the record industry’s great coups. Though grunge’s rise within the world of alternative music was a genuinely organic development, it was impresarios like David Geffen (whose label released records by both Nirvana and Guns N’ Roses) who helped make it a pop phenomenon.
Nowadays, I live without allegiance. I appreciate the cream of both, as each one made vital contributions to my childhood soundtrack. Too Fast For Love and Appetite for Destruction are just as important to me as Ten and Dirt. It’s all killer hard rock in the end. This is why Grohl can jam with Slash: both musicians understand that beneath pop trends they have always shared more than a few commonalities.
In honor of Slash and Grohl’s recent collaboration, here are 17 other reasons why hair metal and grunge weren’t nearly as adversarial as we initially believed.
1. Mr. Hardcore, Joe Carducci, Gives Winger Props
Yes, it’s true. In Rock and the Pop Narcotic he kinda-sorta defends Winger! Though I read the book while still in my anti-hair-metal phase, Carducci was the first to change my assumptions about the hair metal/grunge culture war. As he points out in the book: not all corporate rock is bad and not all alternative rock is good.
2. Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, The Doors, Sabbath, The Stooges, New York Dolls, The Runaways, Aerosmith, Kiss, The Sex Pistols, The Nuge …
Survey the top 10 musicians in both categories and chances are they share a lot of the same faves.
3. Velvet Revolver
Long before Slash teamed up with Grohl for the track “Watch This,” he and fellow GnR pals Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum announced the end of the hair metal/grunge culture war by forming Velvet Revolver. Fronted by Stone Temple Pilots’ Scott Weiland, V.R. were more than a mere supergroup. They found common ground between the two genres by more or less paying homage to the influences I just mentioned. Then again, I’ve always suspected that Weiland rocked the Aqua Net in the 1980s, then made the jump to grunge after he realized it was going to be the next big thing.
4. Frank Black Jams with Gilby Clarke
Obviously, the Pixies aren’t grunge. However, when Black appeared on Gilby Clarke’s underrated solo debut, 1994′s Pawnshop Guitars, it was a big F-U to the larger underground vs. mainstream dichotomy. Here was one of the godfathers of the “alternative nation” hanging with a graduate from GnR High.
5. Guns N’ Roses
Before diving any deeper, we need to put Guns N’ Roses in their proper perspective. Though generally considered a hair-metal band — and rightly so — they rocked with an intensity that was closer to Soundgarden and the Screaming Trees than Poison or Slaughter. This is why Frank Black hooking up with Clarke wasn’t as radical a thought as, say, him forming a supergroup with the lead singer from White Lion. In fact, months before Axl called Kurt a “homosexual,” he asked Nirvana to open for them. Had that happened, rock ‘n’ roll history would not have unfolded the way it did. This I am sure of.
6. Mother Love Bone
Boasting ties to Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog and Green River, M.L.B. are considered one of the founders of grunge. But let’s face it: their track on the Singles soundtrack, “Chloe Dancer / Crown of Thorns” sounds a lot like one of Axl’s piano-driven epics: “Civil War,” “Estranged,” “November Rain,” et al. Lead singer Andrew Wood (RIP) even shares with Axl that neo-Robert Plant screech.
7. Ugly Kid Joe, Faith No More, Green Jelly and Painter’s-Cap Rock
The hair metal/grunge culture war opened up a power vacuum just large enough for painter’s-cap rock to sneak into MTV’s heavy rotation for a short time. Not a true fusion of the two (more like schizoid offspring, actually), this novel-driven sub-sub-genre possessed traits from both camps. Ugly Kid Joe, for example, scored two major hits: “Everything About You” and “Cat’s in the Cradle.” The former had a real “Talk Dirty to Me” sense of trash ‘n’ sass, while the latter, a Cat Stevens cover, coincided with “Daughter,” Pearl Jam’s stab at earnest folk-rock.
8. Jane’s Addiction
One could argue that Jane’s Addiction is part of No. 7 (painter’s-cap rock). But I like to think they share more in common with grunge forefathers Mother Love Bone (No. 6). Both are more or less hair-metal bands shot through with eccentricity. Look at it this way: Jane’s Addiction and Guns N’ Roses, two of L.A.’s biggest bands in the mid-1980s, share a love for classic rock, punk, foundation and frilly scarves. This is why Perry Farrell recently replaced bassist Eric Avery with Duff McKagan.
9. Duff McKagan
Duff McKagan — who has lived in both Seattle and Los Angeles — just might be the common link between hair metal, grunge, hardcore and punk. The opening track to Sick, the latest album from Duff’s Loaded project, is all four genres smashed together. How is this even possible, you ask? Well, simply take a peek at the dude’s resume: Guns N’ Roses, Fastbacks, Jane’s Addiction, The Fartz and so on. What a wild ride through modern hard rock’s myriad tributaries! And let’s be honest: a good bassist is hard to find.
10. Masters of Reality
If you know anything about the Crate Digger, then you know he tries to work the Masters of Reality into nearly every column. Def American marketed the Masters’ masterful debut album, originally released in 1988, to both fans of hair metal and grunge. Yet it flopped. Nowadays, it’s considered one of the foundations of stoner rock. Go figure.
11. Creed
Creed were one of the very first bands to prove that grunge could devolve into abject lameness just like hair metal had. Once “Higher” began to dominate the airwaves, claiming grunge was somehow more artistically valid than hair metal was no longer a tenable position to maintain. Both were equally capable of fraud.
12. Stone Temple Pilots
See No. 3 (Velvet Revolver); S.T.P. were grunge’s first bandwagon stars — at least that’s what I’ve always thought. There was just something about them when Core first hit that screamed “We were listening to Mötley Crüe just a week ago.” The fact that they could make the transition so effortlessly speaks volumes about supposedly entrenched differences between hair metal and grunge.
13. The Black Crowes, Tesla, Drivin’ N’ Cryin’, The Four Horsemen and new-breed Southern rock
Roughly a year or so before the rise of grunge, the first serious challenge to hair metal’s hegemony hit MTV: new-breed Southern rock. Groups such as the Black Crowes and Tesla basically played hair metal but with more of an earthy feel for 1970s classic rock. It was a sound that inspired bands like Cinderella to strip the plaster from their faces and get all Stonesy. Of course, hair metal without the makeup is not too far removed from a major label Screaming Trees album — right?
14. Mötley Crüe Goes Industrial-Grunge
My Rhapsody cohort Chuck Eddy pretty much wrote the book on hair-metal bands that carried on despite the grunge revolution. However, I do want to touch on 1994′s Mötley Crüe. Though panned at the time, the album is a more-than-decent stab at industrial-grunge. Had it been released by anybody other than The Crüe, I’m sure it would’ve become a staple of modern-rock radio.
15. Cheap Trick
You could argue that Cheap Trick belong up in reason No. 2 (influences). But their influence possesses a scope that’s pretty singular. Outside of possibly AC/DC, is there another band that is as universally loved as The Trick? Everybody worships these guys: hair-metal brats, indie rockers, punks, grunge dudes… the list goes on and on. Their continued success reminds us all that rock ‘n’ roll is at its very best when it unites, not divides.
16. Alice in Chains
Alice in Chains were never hair metal. However, the band’s full-length debut, 1990′s Facelift, was marketed toward the Headbangers Ball crowd. Then, once grunge became a pop fad, the group’s subsequent albums were framed as “alternative.” It’s the kind of promotional switcheroo that proves just how arbitrary all these genre tags really are.
17. Chickenfoot
Though a bit off the beaten path, the fact that Red Hot Chili Pepper Chad Smith parties at the Cabo Wabo Cantina with Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony surely says something about the power of tequila to erase the demographic divide between Lollapalooza and the Monsters of Rock. Bam!
Apr 162010
My internet-radio show, Kill the Head, “airs” every Friday, 5 to 7:30 p.m. (eastern), on Asheville Free Media.
Here’s the playlist for 04.16.2010.
Apr 092010
My internet-radio show, Kill the Head, “airs” every Friday, 5 to 7:30 p.m. (eastern), on Asheville Free Media.
AshevilleFM recently added a playlist builder to its website. Very cool. I will still post weekly playlists on my site, but instead of building a grid, I will simply add a link. So yeah, here it is.
Here’s the new artwork/flyer for my Internet-radio show Kill the Head, which “airs” every Friday, 5 to 7 p.m. (eastern), on Asheville Free Media. It’s a total hoot; I play a ton of minimal techno, experimental electronics, dubstep, noise rock, vintage industrial and various percolating oddities.
A huge THANK YOU goes out to the amazing Witchbeam who designed the illustration. You can see more of his work here and here. Also, check out his band Telecut Powers.
Apr 022010
My internet-radio show, Kill the Head, “airs” every Friday, 5 to 7:30 p.m. (eastern), on Asheville Free Media.
| ARTIST | SONG | ALBUM | LABEL |
| Emeralds | “Diotima” | self-titled | Hanson |
| The Field | “Sun & Ice” | From Here We Go Sublime | Kompakt |
| Charles Curtis | “Ultra White Violet Light” (sides one and three simultaneously) | Ultra White Violet Light | Beau Rivage/Squealer |
| Jack Sparrow | “Torment” | “Terminal” / “Tormented” (twelve-inch) | Tectonic |
| Pyrolator | “Der Volksmund Wird Beatmet” | Inland | Ata Tak / EFA |
| Sleeparchive | “Track 4 (Recycled)” | Recycle EP (twelve-inch) | Sleeparchive |
| Scott Tuma | “Free Dirt” | Dandelion | Digitalis |
| Sapat | “Lovely And Free” | Mortise And Tenon | Siltbreeze |
| Einstürzende Neubauten | “Energie” | Stahlmusik | Ruck Zuck Records (Eisengrau) |
| Ancient Methods | “The Whip” | “The Whip” / “Eat Like Hawks” (split twelve-inch w/Bjørn Svin, Karsten Pflum, Jonas Olesen and Copyflex) | RSB |
| The Cosmic Jokers | “Cosmic Joy” (part b) | The Cosmic Jokers | Spalax Music |
| Neu! | “Hallogallo” | self-titled | Astralwerks |
| Steve Reich | “Come Out” | Early Works | Elektra / Nonesuch |
| Obtane (Francesco Baudazzi) | “Waterstorm” | Waterstorm (twelve-inch) | Sonic Groove |
| Emptyset | “Episteme” | Doxa EP | Caravan Recordings |
| Mood music during talking breaks: Maurizio Bianchi – Armaghedon CD (EEs’T Records) | |||
