The new rules of growing old gracefully

I was reminded an old post I made here, back when I could write. It’s not that I’ve forgotten how to do it, or magically been zapped by some wicked witch, but I’ve just run out of time and enthusiasm. I wonder if that’s what happens to everyone in the end. When was the last good Metallica album you heard? Isn’t the best recent Ministry album a pale copy of Psalm 69? I might hope for a good new NIN album, but we’ll likely get a dull slab of corporate dad-rock with some tinkly bits.

What happened to us all?

We got old. Rock ‘n’ roll comes with a deadline, and when you reach it, time to die or move on. You’re not supposed to still be there at 50. 

Top 100 singles of all time: 58 – Toto Coelo – I Eat Cannibals (and other oddities)

I’m going to have to start skipping these, several at a time, because there’s just no time to fit them all in before this blog closes. I do want to mention this one, though, because it holds a particular charm for me: when I was little, my sister convinced me that there was a family of cannibals living down the road, singing this song by way of illustration. 

Lydia Lunch & Rowland S Howard – Black JuJu

Just stumbled upon this at Tumblr, and was so impressed that I had to share. It’s a cover of an Alice Cooper song. That surprises me, actually – you’ll get that when you hear it.

The song comes from Cooper’s 1971 album Love It To Death, produced by Bob Ezrin. This cover ramps up the tribal drum sound and squealing guitars, magnifying that era’s transition between psychedelia and hard rock. It’s from the 1991 album Shotgun Wedding, which was one of several collaborations between Rowland S Howard (The Birthday Party) and Lydia Lunch. It sounds like the soundtrack to a trashy exploitation flick, but in a good way – like a Robert Rodriguez movie. It’s that kind of cool.

#musicmonday : Gallon Drunk and Lydia Lunch

I just thought of this song – The Last Gasp – and suddenly wanted to hear Gallon Drunk again. I was just mischievously wondering which part Nick Cave played

#musicmonday : Bauhaus – Bella Lugosi’s Dead / Lydia Lunch – Spooky

Undead! Undead! Undead! Gaaah! So I’ve had this post cued for a week but Collapse Board chose this as one of its 10 Songs for Halloween. Brilliant minds think alike, eh?

Bela Lugosi’s Dead was the first single by Bauhaus, released in August 1979. You could hold it responsible for gothic rock, but unlike its fey and foppish cousins, there’s something a little unnerving about this genre-setter.

5 Random Favourites

Regular readers of this blog might have noticed a dearth of lengthy, thoughtful articles of late, and that’s because I’ve been channeling my energies elsewhere. Take today, for example: I spent the energy I would have spent here on shopping for pushchairs. Any spare energy that wasn’t taken up with that was focussed – as usual – on trying very hard not to throw up.

Long and short of it: I’m too damn tired to blog! Well, at least today. At least properly. So instead I’ll link to five random videos I’ve favourited on Youtube. Starting with …

1. Snow Bud and the Flower People – Killer Bud

Collapse Board

Having read a bit more of Collapse Board, I’m re-editing this article to wibble more about the blog, which is really bloody good.

Everett True and Lydia Lunch have a lot in common: I love the idea of them a lot more than I like most of anything they do.

Once in a blue moon, though, they come up with something that reminds me why they were so bloody essential in the first place. Today, it was catching up on a few of True’s posts on new blog Collapse Board, and his link to this Sonic Youth ft Lydia Lunch track in a review of new band 8 Eye Spy. Somehow the blend of Sonic’s droning, pummelling noise with Lydia’s yowling actually works, creating a life-affirming racket that’s quite catchy in its own noisy way.

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