Gin and Tonic, Parts and Labor, Sharks and Sailors, and Satin Hooks.
You know it’s a good bill when I’m willing to take my lumps and suffer a huge hangover the following workday in exchange for a proper rock pummeling the night before. In my enthusiasm, I arrived way too early as, while I knew that LAWS (Ex-Gay Marriage with Lucas on bass) had canceled, the last bulletin I received still listed the show as starting early. The good news was that at least I was able to put my thumb twiddling to good use and drive Dunnock over the Numbers for some wristbands. While it wasn’t necessary, Dunnock was very kind to provide me with a small number of drink tickets as a much appreciated thank you. Given the choice of light beer or well drinks, that meant well drinks which meant particularly gin and tonics which in turn meant I got pretty bleeding plastered and my enjoyment of the show may have been less than objective. So thanks for the hangover Dunnock!
The Satin Hooks opened with another decent set. Lucas had a particularly fat and dirty sound that was great and Kerry did a fine job on rhythm guitar but the set (barring one new song which rocked) just never caught fire. Given how good this band has been in the past, it’s honestly a bit frustrating to see them play a mere good set. Maybe it was the fact that it was a weekday, maybe that they were playing first, or maybe it was that, given some of the shows I’ve seen them pull off before, I may have set the bar too high for them but I thought about it and as I watched them and I think I really figured out the problem – the puny kick drum. The new Satin Hooks drummer plays on a kit with an unusually small kick drum – that tepid cheese covered cardboard that the pizza guy hocks at the Proletariat I think is about the same size. Someone told me it was a Jazz kit but I’ve seen a lot of Jazz shows and never seen something so small and there is a damn good reason for it. Here is the thing, let’s say this is a jazz kit for the sake of argument but Satin Hooks is a rock band and a damn good one at that. Unfortunately for the Hooks, in Rock, the drummer is the muscle that carries everything and everyone; while this new drummer may have his chops, he’s playing Atlas with puny muscles. This kick just doesn’t have any force behind it and it sounds as puny as it looks. There is no wave of sound that hits you and, as a result, the guitar and bass overwhelm the kit.
Now I say all this out of personal experience as I was in less than inspired band with a drummer who (while he had a massive kit) he played everything with his wrists and his arms – all cymbals and light rolls. I took one of the discarded riffs that never took off with that band and put them in front of the LP4 drummer Larry Liska and, voila, instant balls! Now why was that? Larry may not have finesse or the music school techniques but he’s never been afraid to put his body behind it and hit the shit out of the drums. The new Satin Hooks drummer just needs to use his already solid skills, get himself a kit that can propel the music and take the right Rock drummer attitude: “Stand back! I am the heaviest and loudest motherfucker on this stage!”
One band that understands this very well is Sharks and Sailors. I think I mentioned in the blog about their show at Numbers that Phil had bought this new kit with a massive kick drum. Well, this night you could actually feel that kick drum with it’s waves pushing against your eardrums and it shoved everyone aside! Damn straight, Phil was the heaviest and loudest motherfucker on stage! In sharp contrast to their Numbers appearance the sound was pristine and powerful. Kudos Domokos! Mike and Al layered their intricate guitars over Melissa’s heavy bass and there underneath it all was Phil and his kit carrying it all like Atlas!
In the audience was Whorehound‘s Trevi* (a bass god in his own right) and his wife Becky. Becky, leaned over to me and said “You know what’s great about these guys? Everyone is doing something interesting so my attention keeps jumping between the members.” I’d always said that about this band and it was really nice to have that confirmed by someone else. Suffice it to say that on this night The Sharks & Sailors brought it home with the tunes, sweet and heavy tones, bad ass skills, and planet hurling rock from which mere mortals merely cower.
Parts and Labor closed the night and just killed! The drummer (with a solid drum kit) just pounded the kit into oblivion! The other two keyboard, guitar, bass, and electronics toting members just turned it up. I mean loud. I mean goddamn banshee loud. I mean this show was as much about the sheer physicality of sound waves as about anything else. The downside about a band like Parts and Labor is that the physicality just cannot be replicated in a studio. It was chaotic and loud and brutal and hell raising and inspiring and just a very real physical concrete force in that small club. You cannot box that up into a CD, an LP, or an MP3. It’s too big for that. That means that to really appreciate a band like this you have to be there. Not in your cushy home, not with your home theatre, not with some THX surround sound bullshit – in a goddamn stinky ass club! “Oh I heard them on Myspace and I guess it was OK.” Fuck Myspace! You didn’t hear the band! Stop staring at shadows on the wall and walk out of that goddamn cave! There is no better excuse to do this than the next time Parts and Labor shows up in your town!
Intermission – SAT Prep Exam:
The Politics of Prog
Now, I have a particular love for Proggy bands by which I mean bands who love to play odd time signatures and have no shame in dropping technique. Maybe it came from smoking a lot of dope and growing up listening to King Crimson and Rush. Maybe it came from playing with Kurt Mackey for years – a drummer who, to Scott Grimm’s infinite annoyance and my amusement, loved to play around the beat. Maybe it’s seeing Dyn@mutt struggle alone in the Houston scene with their Mathrock aesthetic or hearing the Minutemen for the first time! So to me, when the musicianship is matched with solid tunes that are more than mere technical workshops, I tend to embrace it pretty heartily.
So this week a punker friend of mine was explaining why he abhors Prog. I didn’t follow his logic entirely but the basic thesis was this: Rock and Punk are by nature liberal whereas Prog is by nature conservative. Now I guess I can extrapolate from that statement the following ideas:
Rock and Punk are about embracing chaos and danger whereas Prog is about control and safety. Rock and Punk comes up from the Plebs whereas Prog comes down from the Patricians. Rock and Punk’s embrace is Situationist whereas Prog’s is Objectivist.
Now, that’s an interesting idea so how can I respond? I think all of this comes from the fact that Rock’s comes from a of blue collar working class roots. Prog on the other hand, with it’s embrace of technique likely seems a bit suburban and bourgeoisie. I guess the analogy is that my punker friend’s take on Prog is that Prog is the food of fancy restaurants but what you really want to savor is the peasant food – that’s the real stuff. My take (and this may be a cop-out) is “It’s food! If it’s good, let’s eat!”
Rock and Roll Stork Club
This week, within a day of each other, we had two more rock and roll babies brought into the world. First on Tuesday, Carol and Clinton (LP4) saw the birth of
IKE
Happy Bastille Day everyone.
* Sorry I missed your show last night Trevi – I lost the coin flip. : (
The Prog vs. Punk analysis would be more compelling if it wasn’t for the fact that “punk” or things called punk have probably made more money for The Man than prog ever did. Sure, Rush and KC have their fans and they sell records and fill stadiums. If you include Pink Floyd, then all bets are off. But “punk” or things masquerading as punk, like Green Day, have got to exceed the prog output financially, yes?
Or maybe not. It would be an interesting question to have a definitive answer to, and of course it all depends on what you define as prog or punk. I mean, where would Fugazi go, for example?
If you’re purely talking about the aesthetic, then fine, i can kind of buy the guy’s argument. But if you’re talking cash, simoleans, dough, dinero…it isn’t so clear.
This calls to mind something John brought up a long while back, about the commoditization of dissent.
Little Ike may already have more hair than his namesake. He’s doing pretty good and so is Carol. So far, he hasn’t learned to play Eruption on the guitar, but then neither have I, so I guess that’s OK.
ramon may be referencing a conversation we’ve had about my not liking proggy stuff. not that i don’t like angular stuff. it’s just not the kind of stuff that reaches in and grabs my heart yanking it out while it still pounds. but that’s a tall order no? i actually used to think not liking King Crimson was because i didn’t score high enough on the SAT like every other kid i know who likes KC. turns out it’s just cause i think it blows, that all. the world isn’t going to end because i don’t own any rush. i also don’t own any three-quarter length tshirts.
when *I* say ‘punk rock’ generally you can insert ‘things-that-sound-like johnny-thunder’, btw.
and apologies to trevi from me. i got there too late to catch them. however i DID see amplified heat who did a set that sounded like pschy-zz-top-cum-stooges. ramon i’d like to call dibs on their shows for the next ten years.
Congrats Clinton and Carol!
As for your prog/punk debate, i tend to agree with your friend. Prog is intellectual, academic, burgouise and all that, while punk is populist, dumb, emotional, etc. which of course is the reason why punk made more money and has been appropriated as a term the way it happens with things that make lots of money. (I bet those few Sex Pistols records have made more money than all the King Crimson put together, maybe.) Anyways, still, even though i agree wiht your friend, the bottom line is, as ramon said, and i think at least john has said as much before too, if its good, then its good, who cares about the rest of that noise. One thing that bugs the shit out of me is when people choose their music based on some political or intellectual parameters, like they never smiled while listening to a madonna or (insert favorite corporate pop song from youth here). I never liked king crimson much either, but it wasnt cause they were on wahtever side of the a political or social spectrum, I just never really liked it that much, but play me some Rush and i’m all over that. And anyways, politics are bullshit in music, Johnny Ramone is as conservative as they come while Joey was as liberal as they came and they played in the same band (doesn’t LP4 have a similar situation?). Anyways, bottom line – if its good, its good, the rest is peripheral crap.
ON THE OTHER HAND, my argument is obviously formalist and therfore, bugrouise, intellectual, academic and all that. Guess i’m a prog thinker at heart… still i’ll take the ramones over rush almost any day. oh well.
Yes Clinton I think we are talking aesthetics not economics.
Yes, Rosa I was referencing our conversation the other day. I just left the part out where I got beat up by skinheads after I suggested that “Larks Tongue in Aspic” was actually a pretty good record.
And on Rush, I think Rush probably inspired more punk rock bands than you realize. Who hasn’t heard Geddy Lee sing and thought – “I have go tot start a band. I mean, no matter how bad I sing, I can’t sing worse than this guy!”
You have to listen to the right KC records. Personally, I enjoy the early stuff up to Red the most…it’s more emotional, with more dynamics and texture, and less mathematical. But when you get to Discipline, for example, you are amazed by the novelty and artistry of it but it leaves you a little cold.
Actually, Rosa I think prog is less about SAT scores and more about how much dope you smoke. Prog sounds REALLY good when you’re high. Or so I hear. Whereas punk rock is a little too excitable for stoner folk. This isn’t always the case, of course, I am just speaking in generalities.
That’s one reason why the Austin early-mid 80s punk scene was so awesome, because it blended in some of that angular stuff and weird time signatures (Scratch acid) along with textural freakery (Buttholes). Stoned people could listen to that stuff and not be “like, uh, dude I think the record is stuck, man…”
As a member of Dyn@mutt, I can say I neither really smoked pot nor listened to King Crimson.
What this proves, I’m not sure, but I offer it as evidence.
The Minutemen, on the other hand …
true i think i have a wider bridge to cross when it comes to enjoying enjoying proggy stuff since i didn’t/don’t do ANY drugs other than booze and cigarettes. not that i’m square (arguable) but drugs just require more prep work than my ADD brain can handle. plus pot makes my tummy hurt.
but good points all. i’m ok, you’re ok.
I should absolutely think about this before I write (and read everyone else’s posts first), but if I think about it, I won’t write anything. So prepare yourself for some rambling:
“…Punk [is] by nature liberal”
Are you insane? Punk is liberal? Do you mean in a musical sense? Because Classical music is more liberal than punk. Can you really think of ANY genre of music that follows a more rigidly codified set of rules? Think about the fact that bands like Sonic Youth and Butthole Surfers were as much a reaction to how stultifying punk had become in the 80’s as it was to the crap in the mainstream. When I first became aware of hardcore, EVERY band looked and sounded like crappier versions of Minor Threat. You can walk into almost any friggin’ mall and buy your clearly defined punk rock fashions and products at Hot Topic.
Prog is way more punk rock than punk rock ever was. All the Sex Pistols and New York Dolls EVER did was play to the media. I mean, when you sit down and try to imagine a commercially viable band, Geddy Lee and Robert Fripp are the LAST two people I would think of.
I think we’re compartmentalizing /segregating the aesthetic part from the commerce part of the genres. So whether or not the band is commercially viable may or may not affect the thrust of the argument. But it’s not my thesis so I don’t know.
I remember Thurston Moore said Gary Young (Pavement’s former drummer) was the most punk rock guy he knew because his favorite records were Fragile and Tarkus. That’s pretty funny.
I like when solid punk/psychedelic bands venture into the prog fold. It seemed like Hum took the best elements of Rush (the drumming and the stop-rocks ala Limelight) and amped them up for a more steroided out math rock sound. Of course, their diet of music was all over the place but Rush was an obvious influence. And the Flaming Lips’ At War With The Mystics sounded like Steven Drozd stole Rick Wakeman’s cape and wore it full time during the making of the record. Capes rule.
As much as I dislike Tool, I do respect the fact that they pilfer the King Crimson catalog and repackage it for the mongoloid steakheads they call fans. Too bad they’re not doing more interesing things with the music. Aren’t they just covering Red and having their bald midget singer vocalize stupid shit over it? Prolly.
More NAP diatribes regarding Prog. Great post.
thesis? who said anything about a thesis? i’m the dumb one of this camp remember? punk is not overthinking ie not educated. working class. liberal in a not-oft-used traditional sense. that’s where the generalization came from.
Well shit then I’m totally lost now.
I’m lost too. I think when the term ‘punk’ starts being used for anything that goes against the grain it becomes sort of meaningless.
punk is dead. let’s move on.
haha, I’m still here. Ok, so I had to look up prog rock, and then realized that is exactly the type of music I have never learned to like. I like almost every other type, but that is a complete turn-off. It may have been what these guys looked like though, and since I haven’t revisited to the entire genre, sound and look, in at least a decade, it could be that I might like it.
punk, on the other hand, was instantly a hit with me. the first time I was exposed to it was when my dad took me to the theater to see Rock N Roll High School and I think my jaw literally dropped open and I was hooked. So, talk about partnering with commercial and making money. what was the quote I saw just last week? Punk music was made to sell clothes? Something like that.
And also, this touches a bit on all the punk bad boys and girls I always thought were liberal but then turned out to be conservative. And I naively had always thought that conservative was bad. So how could this be?
Live and learn.
Speaking of living and learning, one of my degrees is in library and information science so was always all about cataloging carefully all data. But you know, heretically speaking, I think all these buckets of information we like to put things in are really causing all sorts of issues never before thought of.
Punk, Prog, Liberal, Conservative – it’s really much more complex and bizarre than those four words.
I like what Scott said, and I like Paul’s use of the word “steakhead”.
I don’t think
punk : prog
as
liberal : conservative
is the correct answer. Was it multiple choice? I’m looking for
populist : elitist
and since both parties have been accused of both interchangeably, it’s not quite as political a statement.
Punk as DIY/self sufficient attitude vs. punk as codified religious tribe with tightly defined musical parameters vs. punk as fashion signifiers bought and sold by international corporations = multiple contrasting meanings for the same signifier and no possibility for a meaningful discussion prior to clearing up the epistemological confusion of what exactly the hell we’re talking about.
sorry, I just woke up.
Brian from Seed told me I was punk rock when we were on tour and I had bought a green pepper (capsicum for any kiwis reading this) and ate it like an apple. I felt a bit proud, because I certainly wasn’t trying to be punk, and most certainly didn’t look punk.
I just wrote a great post and my flaky wireless ate it. But basically was picking up on what Ramona and Scott said: punk is as much about fashion as it is about music, prog is all about the music. I like a lot of punk music still, but even back in my day it was mostly an edgy, rebellious, working class image marketed to bored middle or upper middle class white kids. Maybe some of it had a political payload, but that payload was being delivered to future stockbrokers, lawyers, marketing execs, etc.
The irony of this has not been lost on me over the years.
Sparrow
Prog wasn’t solely about the music, it had fashionable moments too. Maybe prog’s fashion just sucked donkey dicks and no one in their right mind would wear that shit without a headfull of prog-rock drugs.
For instance why would Alex Lifeson sport these pants, or why would Peter Gabriel look like this and why would Rick Wakeman present himself like this if it weren’t for some incredibly potent bag of crazy assed drugs.
Prog’s fashion sense just didn’t work for anyone other than elves, mathamaticians and teenage suburban bong hitters.
Congrats on the bambino.
this is a bit of an aside, but I’ve always wondered why punk goes along with diy? what does one have to do with another? and, basically, thinking further down the road, is it because the punk movement happened that we now have so many DIY places like Home Depot?
I’m not a big fan of punk rock, but it seemed like most of it was on major labels until Black Flag and Minor Threat came along. Those were two pretty monstrous bands in terms of influence, and their DIY aesthetic kind of became part of the creation myth of punk rock. Part of being a punk band was pressing your own 7” (which usually contained 12 songs) and distributing it yourself.
I think it’s funny that punk bands now are these artificially manufactured major label creations designed to sell sneakers and video games, and that prog bands are the underground rebels with no real commercial prospects.
But, on the other hand, part of the Sex Pistols legend is that they were really just an advertisement for Malcolm McLaren’s clothes shop, so I guess punk has a long history of merchandising tie-ins.
I could have gone my whole life without seeing that Rush glamour shot again. yeeesh.
I think Paul’s links make it abundantly clear that prog was most DEFINITELY not about fashion…
ah, thank you.