From: hamrick@milton.u.washington.edu (Mike Hamrick)
Newsgroups: alt.music.alternative
Subject: Re: DIDs (Desert Island Discs)
Date: 29 Jul 92 00:16:10 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

Hi, this is Mike's good friend Andy, with some DIDs of my own.  DID fans might
want to check out the book STRANDED, edited by Greil Marcus, where famous rock
critics write essays on what ONE album they would take to a desert island.  The
late great Lester Bangs picked Van Morrison's ASTRAL WEEKS; Dave Marsh, an in-
curable asshole, made up a very funny complilation of masturbation songs, 
called ONAN'S GREATEST HITS.  Good reading.  Greil Marcus also has an essay
in the current ESQUIRE, where he discusses the alleged death of rock and roll
in the context of three songs:  "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Blue Suede Shoes,"
and the Geto Boys' "My Mind Playing Tricks On Me," which we have on the player
here.  Stimulating.  Anyway, here's my DIDs, no particular order.

1.  Meat Loaf--BAT OUT OF HELL.  At my old job I played this over and over and
over and over again in the tape player.  Everybody got sick of it, except for
two fellows who love Meat Loaf as I do.  Songwriter Jim Steinman (lately seen
working with the Sisters of Mercy) likes to write big, ugly, overblown, shame-
less pastiches of 60's car songs, Phil Spector productions, and tenth-grade
lakanookie white male angst.  Mr. Loaf (ne Marvin Lee Aday) has the operatic
pipes to make it real, and Todd Rundgren (who produced) and members of the
E Street Band pump out the best ersatz rumpshaking skank you ever heard.  Best
line:  "Oh I know you belong/Inside my aching heart/And can't you see my 
faded Levis/bursting apart."  Best instrument next to Mr. Loaf:  Edgar Winter's
neat Clarence Clemons-cloned sax on "All Revved Up With No Place to Go."

2.  The Dickies--STUKAS OVER DISNEYLAND.  They recorded one side in 1981.  The
drummer quit after one song.  The keyboard player took over playing drums.  He
was really good.  Then they ran out of money.  The bass player quit.  The 
drummer, formerly the keyboard player, blew his brains out.  They finally went
back into the studio in 1983.  With three new members.  The result?  It rocks.
It screams.  It blenderizes.  Whoa.  Critics tend to prefer DAWN OF THE 
DICKIES with its classic cover of "Nights in White Satin," but the cover of
"Communication Breakdown" on this set is wilder, with a guitar solo that
sounds like an egg frying in your mind.  You also get "If Stuart Could Talk,"
a penis ode (not masturbation ode) that could be a peek inside Pee-Wee 
Herman's head, "Wagon Train," the inspirational theme to a TV western that
never was, and three shoulda-been hit singles:  "Out of Sight, Out of Mind," 
"Rosemary," and "She's a Hunchback."  And the title track, Lord help us,
is everything you ever feared about the Walt Disney/Hiter connection revealed.
Plus, Mike and I used to bug out to it in the consultant's lounge.

3.  Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention--WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY.
Forget NATIONAL LAMPOON; Frank, at least for the time it took to make his 
first three albums, was the true inheritor of MAD magazine's all-encompassing
savage parodic eye.  The title sums up what he thought (thinks) of the music
biz.  The cover art, a SGT. PEPPER parody, holds the Beatles to that standard.
And the music, a caustic mosaic wherein Eric Clapton says "God, it's God, I
see God," Jimmy Carl Black says, "Hi boys and girls, I'm Jimmy Carl Black and
I'm the Indian of the group," and Dick Barber says "*SNORK*," advises us that
flower power sucks, you'll be absolutely free only if you want to be, and the
ugliest part of your body is your mind (woo woo).  If your roommate wears
love beads and sings along with Joan Baez records, this works better than
arsenic in the patchouli.

4.  Steppenwolf--SKULLDUGGERY.  No, none of the (three) hits here, but it
is the record that taught me important values in life.  Always a biker
wannabe rather than a hippie wannabe, John Kay trashes the Joan Baez audience
with these simple lines:  "Come on play/me/a rock and roll song/AND DON'T GIVE
ME SONGS ABOUT FREEDOM AND JOY/I said play/me/a rock and roll song/Or don't
give me no song at all."  It's an update of Chuck Berry's "Rock and Roll
Music," a defense of the genre against all comers (Chuck didn't have Joan
Baez fans to worry about, so an update was necessary).  Elsewhere you'll hear
that life is a gamble (true) and the granddaddy of Big Black's guitar grrrr.
The wah-wah heavy instrumental at the end ain't half bad neither.  (A warning
though:  the band >does< get a little longhaired sentimental in "Pass It On,"
which I always pretend is about a joint rather than universal love.) 

5.  Various Arists--REPO MAN SOUNDTRACK.  Yes, it's short, and the Plugz'
"Reel Ten" is filler with a capital F.  But where else can you find the
Burning Sensations' "Pablo Picasso," which blenderizes the original by
J. Richman, or the Juicy Bananas' "Bad Man," which is filler with a capital
FANBLOODYTASTIC, a fine tune to smoke dope by.  And yes, Iggy Pop, Suicidal
Tendencies, and Fear get their licks in.  The Circle Jerks' "When the Shit
Hits the Fan" is especially appropriate in this economic climate.  80's
nostalgia?  Not quite...

6.  Killdozer--FOR LADIES ONLY.  The bassist is the good-looking one.  He
sings like he's already thrown up twice.  The guitarist and drummer are
brothers.  They look like chain gang refugees in designer shirts.  And just
dig this set list:  Deep Purple's "Hush," Bad Company's "Good Lovin' Gone 
Bad," Conway Twitty's "You've Never Been This Far Before," Steve Miller's
"Take the Money and Run," a full-eight minute rendering of Don Mclean's
"American Pie," and more.  This was my second favorite tape at my old job.
My so-called friends delighted in switching it off during allegedly fun
parties.

7.  The Replacements--LET IT BE.  Gary's got a boner.  Gary's got a...BONER.
Gary's got a boner!  Gary's got a...soft-on.  That's the greatest song
on this record.  Let no one tell you different.  Okay, "Tommy Gets His
Tonsils Out" and "Androgynous" come close.  Okay, "Seen Your Video" really
rocks.  Okay, it's Bob Stinson's last shot of glory before alcoholic La-La
Land pulled him under.  Okay, they may very well be the greatest rock and
roll band in the world.  But I like PENIS songs, 'kay?  (See "If Stuart
Could Talk" above.)  "C'mon little kid gets your head on right."  Don't look
for a DeWar's profile on Paul Westerberg anytime soon, though...heard that
crap he wrote for the SINGLES soundtrack?

8.  Happy Flowers--MY SKIN COVERS MY BODY.  Two guys.  One guitar.  One bass.
Some tom-toms.  One guy screams and smashes the tom-toms and stomps his foot
on the bass.  The other guy skreeks on the guitar and screams.  They
brilliantly pretend they can't play.  Song titles include "Jenny Tried to
Kiss Me at Recess," "If It Was Broken You'd Be Screaming," "I'm Bored," and
the redoubtable "Mom, I Gave the Cat Some Acid," recorded live at CBGB's.
They may be the FUNNIEST rock and roll band in the world, because they 
practice complete regression--back to the terrible twos--and because every-
thing they try, on this album at least, works to sidesplitting ends.  (Except
for one thing:  the instrumental "Love Theme From KISS" cover is mere noise,
and conceptually, it shatters the preschooler illusion; they are postmodern
wiseasses after all.)  Subsequently they switched over to pretending that
they COULD play--quick death right there--and doing Yoko Ono covers, but
this album, I CRUSH BOZO, and MAKING THE BUNNY PAY are landmarks in rock
history.  (CD enthusiasts [YUCK, PTUI] may care to acquire the compact disc
anthology TOO MANY BUNNIES, NOT ENOUGH MITTENS, which has some of all three
albums plus rarities.  You haven't lived until you've lived through "Charlie
Got A Haircut.")

9.  Warren Zevon--EXCITABLE BOY.  The title track is my life story.  "Were-
wolves of London" is the coolest shit, as measured by the does-it-piss-off
your-friends-if-you-sing-it-all-the-time index.  (Love that "ni!" towards
the end, right after "...and his hair was perfect.")  "Roland the Headless
Thompson Gunner" is another good commercial for vodka and pills--they're not
in the song, but they shore as hell helped create it.  "Veracruz" is the
most wistful shit.  Let's not forget "Lawyers, Guns and Money," in which a
member of the idle rich >almost< comes off as sympathetic.  Dave Marsh says
the second side is "terribly weak."  He can suck my dick.

10.  Wilson Pickett--A MAN AND A HALF.  You heard him do, "Mustang Sally,"
"Land of 1,000 Dances," "In the Midnight Hour," and "Everybody Needs Some-
body To Love," now you get all that plus "Hey Jude," "Sugar Sugar," and
more.  Proving, once again, that it is the singer, not what s/he sings (some
of the time anyway).  Didn't matter where the song came from--Solomon Burke,
the Beatles--it was a Wilson song when he got done with it.  Didn't have
enough cash to get it yesterday at Beehive.  Anybody wanna treat me?
Newsgroups: alt.music.alternative