Never Underestimate the Power of Stupid

Hating what comes out of the mouths of fools.

This is a legacy worth pursuing. I dedicate great resources to just that principle.

I’m negative. I’m sarcastic. I hate everything.

Or so it would appear. Ask anyone who has decided they don’t like me and they will tell you that I hate everything.

Don’t let these idiots taint your view of reality. Hating everything is retarded. I don’t hate close to everything. Having said that, though, I think it’s fair to say that there is a lot to this life that I do hate. Like people who are little more than trash with feet. I hate that shit with an undying passion.

What I do not hate, is early AC/DC.

Ever since Warner Cable got the fuck out of Dodge and moved on to greener pastures, Comcast has been pillaging its way across the Houston cable TV landscape like a hoard of Mongols on meth. What this means to me is that I am now an unwilling member of yet another corporate monolith and their hold on not only our wallets but also our imaginations. Whatever, I’m not cool enough to really go off the grid like you all keep hoping I will actually do one day. Since the takeover it has come to my attention that we have acquired a stable of new stations on our already bloated lineup of shitty shopping channels, pituitary sports wankathons, and channels with no discernable function other than to hawk worthless wares to an ever-growing army of impotent morons. Among the new channels is VH1 classic. Among the Bon Jovi Unplugged performances, and barely-closeted homoerotic 80s hair band videos is a little show called BBC Crown Jewels. The show is basically a trip down memory lane to the late 70s to the mid 80s, or so. All the show is is generally poorly shot semi-professional videocam recordings of bands from the aforementioned eras doing their thing before a live audience. In one week I’ve seen Siouxie and the Banshees, the Smiths, Crosby and Nash, James Taylor, and best of all, AC/DC. Drop the Crosby and Nash, and the fucking James Taylor and you’ve got yourself a fairly entertaining show. But none of it was worth a shit once I had the chance to see the AC/DC episode last night.

This was the Bon Scott AC/DC. This was the AC/DC that could smoke just abound anyone that was dumb enough to bring their guitar anywhere near the same venue as the minute Aussies monsters. The set included songs like Let There Be Rock, Jailbreak, Whole Lotta’ Rosie, Sin City, and others. It was a blistering performance from a band that delivered on every cylinder. Goddamn, they were fantastic. While I was watching this show for the second time I began to think about other bands that try to do a similar thing with their sound and how nobody really gets it right quite like Scott era AC/DC: for instance, the fucking Ramones.

Truth be told I have never really liked the Ramones. Ever since my burgeoning punk-rock days I always found the Ramones to be clowns heavy on attitude and light on talent. And I’m not talking about technical chops either. AC/DC plays like they are using sledgehammers. Their technique is marginal at best, but their execution is spot on. The Ramones always sounded like retarded monkeys bashing out uninteresting garbage. There is a focused energy that threatens to burn the building down whenever Bon Scott sang in that nasally squeal of his. And Angus Young always sounded like H.P. Lovecraft’s demons would be sure to engulf him were he not able to maintain his boiling intensity. They just pulled it off like their lives depended on it. The Ramones always seemed to be auditioning for the next spot on the “Look How Cool We Think We Are” show. For all the prattle about how balls out and in your face the Ramones were supposed to be, I would love to see a showdown between the two in each band’s prime. AC/DC would mop the floor with those no-talent circus clowns in about two seconds and then immolate them upon the coals of rock. It would not be pretty.

For all this ridiculous talk of prog’s conservatism versus punk’s liberalism, which is at best, stupid, the real arguments ought to be about why people are so stupid as to overlook AC/DC as being almost a quaint sort of deceit over a band like the Ramones who in all honesty were simply in the right place at the right time.

The only, and I mean only, reason the Ramones weren’t burned at the stake was because they showed up right at the exact moment in time that would be receptive to their brand of complete sham and posturing. The only crowd sillier and more boring to read about in American underground history that the LA punks is the fucking New York ones with their impeccably placed aping and cloyingly self-conscious arty pretense.

Fuck all of them. I love a lot of that stuff, but fuck ‘em. AC/DC beat them without even trying and didn’t care one whit while they did it. In fact, AC/DC was virtually the embodiment of what those fags in the Ramones wished they could be despite being neither the least bit aware of this. At heart, AC/DC played a proto-metal boogie that incorporated elements of blues and turned it all into the quintessential expression of pure electric rock.

Stupidity is something that runs rampant over the land like a plague sent from the skies. The Ramones took stupid and made it even more stupid, and this didn't help their cause at all. At least it didn't help their cause in the eyes of those with actual taste. Everyone else bought it lock and fucking stock.

As for the Sydney midgets, they took stupidity and turned it into something so primal and base as to render it reptilian, but they also injected it with an authenticity that lent it the ability to be considered ingenious. Only a true imbecile could take the roots of sex and youth and turn it into a palpable sound. AC/DC personified stupidity in all its beautiful glory. The Ramones were just plain dumb. And worst of all, they sucked.

So take that, bitches.

I don’t hate everything, but I probably hate you.

Let the party begin.