P.S. This tidbit was recorded live.
P.P.S. Does Chicago think it is strange that Dan the Fan celebrates his 50th as we debate the merits of live music?
P.P.P.S. Watched We Jam Econo last night. It’s terrific and I’m not just saying that because it was a nice walk down memory lane. It was, but it would be a great movie for any musician or music fan unfamiliar with the Minutemen. Anybody who owns “Pet Sounds” (for example) – because she wants to study classic creative outbursts caught on tape- owes it to himself to pick up the Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime which is well discussed in this documentary among other things.
P.X.Y.Z. Things change. The Stradavari of our time?
P.P.S. Does Chicago think it is strange that Dan the Fan celebrates his 50th as we debate the merits of live music?
P.P.P.S. Watched We Jam Econo last night. It’s terrific and I’m not just saying that because it was a nice walk down memory lane. It was, but it would be a great movie for any musician or music fan unfamiliar with the Minutemen. Anybody who owns “Pet Sounds” (for example) – because she wants to study classic creative outbursts caught on tape- owes it to himself to pick up the Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime which is well discussed in this documentary among other things.
P.X.Y.Z. Things change. The Stradavari of our time?
Part I: Mans. Mans have been banging things together (sticks, heads, d*cks, other things) to gain things (attention, snatch, d*cks, beer, rain) for well over five years. These mans who bang things together have faced back breaking reverence ever since mans has been named for their most reverence-worthy ticks (Kilian the Pig Farmer, Carlos the Goat F*cker, Justin the Wisenhiemer, John the Baptist, Heidi the Woman, And the SoForth). In this limited perspective, the entire history of recorded music is not even a sixteenth note and here at the end of the recorded music era we can look back, remove our oxygen masks for a sec, and laugh at all its flaws and at how amazing the technology appeared at one time. 
Take the origins of recorded music – if one had only the old recordings to go by, one would think that all people listened to at the beginning of the Organized Death Century was brass bands and hillbillies with head colds. Of course nasally sounds were the only things that projected from early recording/playback thingys. But people in their misled real lives were also listening to military marching bands an awful lot. The Germans particularly loved this stuff. It was difficult to get them into a studio however -the Germans I mean, the marching bands were easy because they took orders well. We know that now and laugh heartily into our carbon monoxide filtering masks but at the time people were not laughing, they were dying mostly but before that they were saying ooooo how real-a-list-ic-acal while listening to thin scratchy recordings of inbred Appalachian families singing about the sunny days they’ll know when they’re dead. Two days later ribbon microphones came along and better recording devices and the phenomenon of the Crooner came to pass. One would think that heavy breathing was the only thing wetting panties back in the age of the Bestest Generation Ever, EVERRR! but really people were so sick of hearing recorded chalkboard scratches that they couldn’t get enough of these new deep sounds coming out of particle-board boxes against the wall in their living rooms across from a pile of clean underwear on the sofa that still needs folding. — Correction, the underwear needs folding, not the sofa — Suddenly, the Germans discovered sterEO® and War broke out and people were so amazed to hear Jimi Hendrix’s guitar in one ear and a whistle pop in the other and then footsteps that pan from one ear to the other that they totally freaked out and started an entire decade that we now call the Summer of Love. Then along came the blessed vinyl. Vinyl was the opie-pity-me of the recorded music era because the vinyl was nice to hold and the vinyl had pretty pictures and when you were done with the vinyl you could turn the vinyl into a clock or a bowl. But towards the end of the vinyl era the vinyl started to get shitty because the people in charge of the vinyl were also in charge of the suckiest of recorded music contraptions, the compacted disk. These people wanted their new money-sucker to succeed and so they suckified the vinyl by making the vinyl too thin and they further suckified the cd by overpricing it thereby replacing the dagger into the heart of the entire era. 
Still the era went on another millennium in this dagger replacement phase but its fate was set as if a dagger had been replaced in its heart. In fact the only reason cd’s stuck around as long as they did is that touring bands couldn’t figure out a way to display their mp3′s on a folding table at the back of the club. We look back at this time in Hungarian history and we laugh directly into our laughy laugh laugh masks and we remember how people used to say silly things like “they didn’t sound anything like their record” and “I wish they would just stick to playing their hits so I could remember the young me the way I want to and not the fat pimply mess that really was me” and we remember how radio stations were once dedicated to playing the same four songs over and over for twenty-five year cycles and how you could still hear (mainly in vintage clothing stores) the ridiculous “poetry” of a 19 year old Jim Morrison thirty years after he himself had checked out because he never wanted to hear himself again. Soon none of this will matter but right now it is a matter of life and death so pay attention. After all it has only been two minutes since the Great Live Music Crisis when once gentle live music fans finally took back the music which had been hoarded by an ugly conspiracy fronted by the Doofus Triumpherut (Paul the Sucker of John Lennon and then Michael Jackson’s d*cks, Ticketmaster the Every greedy bastard who ever decided live music would be a great business, and firstly Professional Roadies the Who decided these people should have families and full medical when they hardly deserve the back stage d*ck sucking they were already contracted). Personably I don’t think it was necessary to throw these people to the Fatal Flying Guillotines; knowing now what we don’t that they were just tools of an even greater “Stay At Home” conspiracy started by frumpy Victorian housewives and then taken over after Sex in the City by their anus infatuated husbands. It’s fantasticable really that the music was taken back from the Doofuses because for a while the only viable rebellion was headed by Pearl Jam who nobody liked. But when people realized they didn’t have to like Pearl Jam in order to dislike paying 50,000 pesos to watch Mick Jagger jiggle around Keith Richards’ d*ck it was only five seconds later that they realized they didn’t like the Rollingstones anyway and they could go down to the corner bar which actually has a really good open mike night For Free! Even then it was not until the Greater Cleveland Live Music Directory Riots when thousands of people came to shout “Down with Live Music!” And twelve other people, carrying a scarecrow with “What would Jizzle Dizzle?” scribbled across his shirt, were there to say “What the F crawled into your pants?” And it looked like it was gonna be a really disorganized end to the Organized Death Century, when a guy in the back started to shout “Down with the vinyl, Up with CD’s!” Then the entire crowd stopped shouting and stared at this guy and said in unison “you are so living in the eighth decade of the Organized Death Century.” Then there was a lot of “pinch poke you owe me a Survival Tablet®” and this made them all laugh and Fred Frith was there and I’m pretty sure that’s where he came up with the laughy laugh laugh mask and so we are barely here to tell the story. Soon all music once and future will be available by satellite for a one time fee of your nose and you will say ooo it sounds so real-a-mull-istic (because that’s how good kind folks will talk in the future) and you won’t even have to leave the confines of your personal hell to hear all of this stuff that you never put on anymore anyway but at least it isn’t cluttering up the den. One side note very small like a sixteenth note but played only by the first chair flute is that some people still exist that collect all that old clutter like LP’s and singles and what not but they have no real historical importance other than to preserve history and to point out that Captain Beefheart and the Stooges were playing punk rock well before some English pricks came over here just to be spit on but really jeesh they sound so pretentious it’s hard to care about anything those guys say anyway even if it’s true. Those of us who still slap d*cks and boobies together to gain things (attention, poontang, d*ck, beer, rain) will not know any better not even that there will always be limitizashunums to recording thingys. After all, it’s still hard to believe that unbelievably at one time studios were limited to one hundred thousand recordable tracks plus fifty-five more if you ping pong them. 
This is hard to believe, or rather unbelievable, because it was never true, they just said that but nobody knew any better because they dropped it down to two iPod speakers anyway. They also became very confused as to which “they” was doing what or who “they” were even. Let’s just say that one “they” was the people who manufactured fake one hundred thousand-track recording devices and the other “they” is nobody important really. It’s also unimportant to remember that there will always be something to gain from getting out into the world and creating for the moment as any Puerto Rican will tell you but that’s just because they are stuck on a small island which couldn’t support all the Puerto Ricans in the world if they only ate pop rocks and they should just get on with it and stop waving flags around like that’s going to make the island any bigger. Sure, rather than go see live music, many people watch a lot of silly things on telifizzles (and they will continue to do this until the end of the Miller Lite Age) but that doesn’t mean the idiots watching live music want those couch potatoes to come out and get in their way. It’s hard enough to get a drink around here as it is. Besides, it’s the way of the world and it has been ever since The Way of the World was recorded by Cheap Trick (in Dolby® SterEO® mind you). Besides watcha gonna do when they come for you?
Take the origins of recorded music – if one had only the old recordings to go by, one would think that all people listened to at the beginning of the Organized Death Century was brass bands and hillbillies with head colds. Of course nasally sounds were the only things that projected from early recording/playback thingys. But people in their misled real lives were also listening to military marching bands an awful lot. The Germans particularly loved this stuff. It was difficult to get them into a studio however -the Germans I mean, the marching bands were easy because they took orders well. We know that now and laugh heartily into our carbon monoxide filtering masks but at the time people were not laughing, they were dying mostly but before that they were saying ooooo how real-a-list-ic-acal while listening to thin scratchy recordings of inbred Appalachian families singing about the sunny days they’ll know when they’re dead. Two days later ribbon microphones came along and better recording devices and the phenomenon of the Crooner came to pass. One would think that heavy breathing was the only thing wetting panties back in the age of the Bestest Generation Ever, EVERRR! but really people were so sick of hearing recorded chalkboard scratches that they couldn’t get enough of these new deep sounds coming out of particle-board boxes against the wall in their living rooms across from a pile of clean underwear on the sofa that still needs folding. — Correction, the underwear needs folding, not the sofa — Suddenly, the Germans discovered sterEO® and War broke out and people were so amazed to hear Jimi Hendrix’s guitar in one ear and a whistle pop in the other and then footsteps that pan from one ear to the other that they totally freaked out and started an entire decade that we now call the Summer of Love. Then along came the blessed vinyl. Vinyl was the opie-pity-me of the recorded music era because the vinyl was nice to hold and the vinyl had pretty pictures and when you were done with the vinyl you could turn the vinyl into a clock or a bowl. But towards the end of the vinyl era the vinyl started to get shitty because the people in charge of the vinyl were also in charge of the suckiest of recorded music contraptions, the compacted disk. These people wanted their new money-sucker to succeed and so they suckified the vinyl by making the vinyl too thin and they further suckified the cd by overpricing it thereby replacing the dagger into the heart of the entire era. 
Still the era went on another millennium in this dagger replacement phase but its fate was set as if a dagger had been replaced in its heart. In fact the only reason cd’s stuck around as long as they did is that touring bands couldn’t figure out a way to display their mp3′s on a folding table at the back of the club. We look back at this time in Hungarian history and we laugh directly into our laughy laugh laugh masks and we remember how people used to say silly things like “they didn’t sound anything like their record” and “I wish they would just stick to playing their hits so I could remember the young me the way I want to and not the fat pimply mess that really was me” and we remember how radio stations were once dedicated to playing the same four songs over and over for twenty-five year cycles and how you could still hear (mainly in vintage clothing stores) the ridiculous “poetry” of a 19 year old Jim Morrison thirty years after he himself had checked out because he never wanted to hear himself again. Soon none of this will matter but right now it is a matter of life and death so pay attention. After all it has only been two minutes since the Great Live Music Crisis when once gentle live music fans finally took back the music which had been hoarded by an ugly conspiracy fronted by the Doofus Triumpherut (Paul the Sucker of John Lennon and then Michael Jackson’s d*cks, Ticketmaster the Every greedy bastard who ever decided live music would be a great business, and firstly Professional Roadies the Who decided these people should have families and full medical when they hardly deserve the back stage d*ck sucking they were already contracted). Personably I don’t think it was necessary to throw these people to the Fatal Flying Guillotines; knowing now what we don’t that they were just tools of an even greater “Stay At Home” conspiracy started by frumpy Victorian housewives and then taken over after Sex in the City by their anus infatuated husbands. It’s fantasticable really that the music was taken back from the Doofuses because for a while the only viable rebellion was headed by Pearl Jam who nobody liked. But when people realized they didn’t have to like Pearl Jam in order to dislike paying 50,000 pesos to watch Mick Jagger jiggle around Keith Richards’ d*ck it was only five seconds later that they realized they didn’t like the Rollingstones anyway and they could go down to the corner bar which actually has a really good open mike night For Free! Even then it was not until the Greater Cleveland Live Music Directory Riots when thousands of people came to shout “Down with Live Music!” And twelve other people, carrying a scarecrow with “What would Jizzle Dizzle?” scribbled across his shirt, were there to say “What the F crawled into your pants?” And it looked like it was gonna be a really disorganized end to the Organized Death Century, when a guy in the back started to shout “Down with the vinyl, Up with CD’s!” Then the entire crowd stopped shouting and stared at this guy and said in unison “you are so living in the eighth decade of the Organized Death Century.” Then there was a lot of “pinch poke you owe me a Survival Tablet®” and this made them all laugh and Fred Frith was there and I’m pretty sure that’s where he came up with the laughy laugh laugh mask and so we are barely here to tell the story. Soon all music once and future will be available by satellite for a one time fee of your nose and you will say ooo it sounds so real-a-mull-istic (because that’s how good kind folks will talk in the future) and you won’t even have to leave the confines of your personal hell to hear all of this stuff that you never put on anymore anyway but at least it isn’t cluttering up the den. One side note very small like a sixteenth note but played only by the first chair flute is that some people still exist that collect all that old clutter like LP’s and singles and what not but they have no real historical importance other than to preserve history and to point out that Captain Beefheart and the Stooges were playing punk rock well before some English pricks came over here just to be spit on but really jeesh they sound so pretentious it’s hard to care about anything those guys say anyway even if it’s true. Those of us who still slap d*cks and boobies together to gain things (attention, poontang, d*ck, beer, rain) will not know any better not even that there will always be limitizashunums to recording thingys. After all, it’s still hard to believe that unbelievably at one time studios were limited to one hundred thousand recordable tracks plus fifty-five more if you ping pong them. 
This is hard to believe, or rather unbelievable, because it was never true, they just said that but nobody knew any better because they dropped it down to two iPod speakers anyway. They also became very confused as to which “they” was doing what or who “they” were even. Let’s just say that one “they” was the people who manufactured fake one hundred thousand-track recording devices and the other “they” is nobody important really. It’s also unimportant to remember that there will always be something to gain from getting out into the world and creating for the moment as any Puerto Rican will tell you but that’s just because they are stuck on a small island which couldn’t support all the Puerto Ricans in the world if they only ate pop rocks and they should just get on with it and stop waving flags around like that’s going to make the island any bigger. Sure, rather than go see live music, many people watch a lot of silly things on telifizzles (and they will continue to do this until the end of the Miller Lite Age) but that doesn’t mean the idiots watching live music want those couch potatoes to come out and get in their way. It’s hard enough to get a drink around here as it is. Besides, it’s the way of the world and it has been ever since The Way of the World was recorded by Cheap Trick (in Dolby® SterEO® mind you). Besides watcha gonna do when they come for you?
Ah, you might as well jump.
As always I sign out now with a traditional human-thingy expression of goodwill – go, go now and slap a d*ck (or boobie)!
Preface: You can order a copy of this written oral history on cassette tape, compacted disc, streaming mp3, or cardboard for $25 in cash – write to info@disclexington.com for details OR you can hear it for free (in stereo provided you have two good ears) live at Bernice’s Tavern on Chicago’s Southside most Thursday nights upon request or at Rudyard’s Pub/Poison Girl in Houston during the holidays most every night of the week.
~~~Any idiot can have an idea. The hard part is making it happen – A re-usable quote from your favorite gift-wrapping artists Jeane-Claude and Christo.~~~
I reviewed WE JAM ECONO for Space City Rock a while back. It’s a powerful documentary, and the Minutemen are personal heroes of mine.
Also, holy shit did you just raise the bar for writing in what was already a blog with pretty high standards. I’m going to go spend four days reading Lester Bangs, watching Korean monster films, and drinking amaretto, and we’ll see if I can keep up.
Ha! Doug, funny enough, I just was reading your review yesterday of We Jam Econo.
(insert here the unrecordable live sound of two appendixes clapping together joyfully while introductions laugh heartily and subtext and overtext whimper together in fear of the innevitable deafening colapse of expressions.) Very well done Mr. Pig Farmer, I look forward to Part 2. And in future historics, please, it’s Mr. Goat F*cker (y tambien chupo cabras).
Man, Kilian, that reads like Kyle Phillips on speed. : )
Oh and the geek in me has to point out that the thin Lps of the 70′s were actually a reaction the the Oil Crisis of the era – you remember, OPEC and all that. Poor Issac Hays being relegated to thin Vinyl always seemed an injustice.
OOOOh but don’t get me started on RCA – now that was some shitty Vinyl. After grinding it down to nothing, would it really have hurt them to make another master of that Bowie or Lou Reed LP?
Oh crap my pen just tore my pocket protector gotta run.
P.S. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were taken out.
P.S.S. The Dan the Fan link seems to be dead. Is he Dan the Fan of The Dan Band?
My name is spelled “Wisenheimer.” Stupid Pig Farmer.
It appears that Ramon and Doug are “And the SoForth,” the way the Professor and Mary Ann were Gilligan’s Island’s “the rest.” Maybe when Kilian re-writes his theme song he’ll see fit to include you two. Until then, you can fight to see who gets to be Mary Ann.
DD – Glad to hear you’re going to catch up on some history soon. I’m gonna look for your SCR thingy now, oops couldn’t find it; can’t get past the first page for some reason -what’s going on there? I didn’t know that site was still in action anyway. Besides I hate that site because they don’t give de Schmog it’s due.
Thank you Mister Goat F*cker. Are you sure it’s not Seňor Goat F*cker? By the way if you find the usage of the words Puerto and Rican in this essay offensive please replace in your mind with “the Dirty Irish.” Oh and the Dan The Fan link has an extra space in it that I will correct but here it is until I do.
Ramon – I heart Kyle even after all the pain he’s given my ears over the years especially since he hooked up with Don and Dommer. I didn’t know that stuff about vinyl and OPEC. Thanks for learning me that. At least we can agree that vinyl had pretty pictures.
Justin – That is all the correcting you are going to do? I’m hurt. First you come to Chicago when you know I’m out of town (am I suspicious yes) and now this. Please tell Ramon and Doug that I think no less of them than I do Carlos the Goat F*cker it’s just that my mind is weak and couldn’t come up with clever Reverence names in the one minute time limit it had set for itself. If I had given it the 45 minutes that I am now giving it the names would have been Ramon the Guitar Worshiper and Doug the Maorian Shell Carver.
Offensive? What does that mean? Is that a Dirty Irish euphemism for “Lord of the Dance”?
Doug – your Minutemen write up is GREAT. I didn’t get to it at first because I went to space rock city instead of space city rock.
We should get one of them Peglegasus boys to guest write and talk about those days when they used to hang out with Mike Watt and George Hurley out at their Bay House.
Carlos – you are absolutely correct “Lord of the Dance” is a euphemism for offensive.
Dyslexic is Kilian.
That is indeed all the correcting I’m going to do. But since the “Wisenheimer” bit involves my name, I felt compelled to at least tackle that (since that’s obviously the most important part of the piece). Any more correcting is too large a task. And I’m too lazy for that.
To sum up: narcissistic + lazy = Wisenheimer.
Bravo for Dan the Fan! I feel sad for towns that don’t have their own Dan the Fan. In Houston my old bands could always count on Bill. Here in the Triangle area we got Dancing Tony. I’ve seen Dancing Tony do full calistenic dance routines incorporating push ups, jumping jacks, etc, thru 3 straight sets of music.
Narcissitic and lazy are my traits but I suppose we can share. It sounds like Dancing Tony stole my churchbus calisthenics routine, oh well I’m pretty much through with it (not the band just the routine).
Hey Houston! Go see my man Johnathan’s band tonight at the Proletariat. They are playing with my “must see” Houston band of the Holidays, Casino!!!
I hear Casino wears tight trousers.
Everybody wears tight trousers in Chicago including me but I had to grow into mine.
I’m not even sure what that means, Kilian.
It means I have a big – er no it doesn’t it means I’m fat.