It’s funny to consider how mercenery those accountant/weirdos were if you take into account how they mangaed their kitchen, so to speak. Azerrad covers that pretty well in Our Band Could Be Your Life.

Perhaps those of us who saw StM as being weird back then did so because we were suburban white teens (preteens, whatever).

For that matter, Gabriel was pretty damn weird. Check out those Genesis costumes. Even the other guys in the band were creeped out by him.

I also remember being baffled by that Talking Heads video. And by all accounts, Byrne is totally weird. I thought that song was way bigger a hit than Monkey though, no, Justin?

Fuck, for that matter, the 80s were chock full of all sorts of weirdness, intentional and otherwise.

But it’s pretty hard to quantify weird anymore in a world as retarded as this one.

By the way, who here detested the whole “new weird America” sham?

Palin was called “Barracuda” in part, it appears, due to her shamelss way of crushing her opponents without mercy. And that wasn’t just on the court.

That woman is scary.

I also can’t write off Butthole Surfers so easily since Paul Leary’s de-tuned guitar work was a huge influence to me. They had sonic value not just shock value.

Butthole Surfers and Violent Femmes were much more products of the time. They were both reactions against the prevailing conservative culture. They may have been marching to the beat of their own drum, but they both set out to shock the audience, rather than developing a genuinely weird idea. I don’t think either of them would be popular today, as we are pretty inured to shock now.

And to be clear, I’m not talking about being weird for the sake of being weird or trying to shock people. I’m talking about following an idea that interests you and taking it to ridiculous places, just because that’s the natural progression of the idea’s development. I wish the music buying public would reward this kind of independent thought by making it popular more often.

The “Country First” thing does annoy me, but that shouldn’t be surprising because it’s designed to. As soon as you say that it sounds empty or jingoistic, then you are an elitist who hates his country. It’s like a political bear trap, so just walk around it.

In a similar vein, I’ve been thinking that the easy disprovable lies in Palin’s speech (which she didn’t write, but rather only read, like a good former sportscaster) were put there intentionally so that the media will do its job and make a big deal about her lying (and probably make some exaggerations of its own along the way). Then Republicans can call the media elite and have more ammunition for their “us against them” strategy. Again, just walk around it.

I was at a high school football game yesterday. Sure the kids are as self-absorbed and blunt as ever; and the few who step out of the football-dance squad-cheerleader mold still wear their “non-conformity” like a uniform. But I saw some indie label shirts, some I didn’t even recognize – the point being the kids embrace this ever thinning/spreading industry’s new face even as it is formed. And they are in a great seat to figure it all out as it comes about.

Okay you guys are now reminding me of a long lost feeling. I have become a snob. I no longer even think about the greater population’s tastes. I know that no matter what I’ll be looking for something outside of that taste zone because that will always be the challenge. If the greater population likes it then it’s too safe. I like being a snob.

Speaking of snobs and taking us back to one of your secondary themes. Does Johnny Mac’s “Country First” motto annoy anybody else? This whole thing the Repub’s do – making the Dem’s out to be snobs – seems so demeaning to the intelligence of their own base. And if Obama is a snob because he has the audacity to think the country deserves him – what is it that McCain thinks? That he deserves the country?

What interests me about “Shock the Monkey” is that it’s not just lyrically weird; it’s also musically weird. And the accompanying video is visually weird. Despite all these things, which must have seemed like strikes against it, the song was hugely popular. Why? Why in the intolerant Reagan eighties was the music listening public so willing to accept this kind of thing?

I was young and in my musical formative age then and I think I thought music would continue being just that weird, or maybe even weirder. It made perfect sense to me at the time, but of course, that never happened.

There certainly is art rock around now, but most of it isn’t very popular. I think Radiohead fits this description, though, and they are pretty popular. But while they may be arty, they really aren’t that weird. They never really let it get too out of control. This is a band who named themselves after a Talking Heads song and Talking Heads definitely had their weird moments. Maybe it’s just that Radiohead are British and more reserved.

I just think it would be really cool if the music listening public were more tolerant of stuff that isn’t familiar. But, as far as I can tell, the weirdest that popular music gets now is an ironic sample and a heavily Autotuned vocal. And if something is even slightly popular there a hundred imitators because nobody wants to get left off the gravy train. Anyway, maybe that explains my fascination with weird.

As far as comparing it to popular music of today – I’d look at what’s big because StM was big. I think there’s plenty of weird going on that isn’t big. I don’t know what is and isn’t big like that now but I don’t disagree with you that there isn’t as much – what would you call it? – Art Rock on that level right now.

On “Heart of Gold” – sure to recapture that classic sound would be as impossible (and undesirable) as recapturing Cowboy Junkie’s “Trinity Sessions.” I’m not saying that. I’m saying if you have an open sparse song, you don’t need a wizard of an engineer to get that thing on tape and sounding good. The instruments just don’t get in each other’s way.