WOEBOT

The TWANBOC Rock Pack.

(in rocking chair on elevated porch, glass of bourbon in hand)

Hi y'all! You can't serve up rock music mixed down like dance. Ugh! (spits out chewing tobacco) Here it is, the TWANBOC Rock Pack! A ready-assembled Jukebox. Hip folk may have these. Just add cold beer, loose women and a turbo hot-rod. Failing that a cup of tea will do. The general idea is to convince dance-centric Europeans of the validity of ROCK! This (ahem) is the quintessential rock experience, proving there's nothing more illuminating in any instance than the real thing. My Dad once took me to Madame Butterfly to impress on me the value of opera. He would have done better to tying me to a chair for The Ring Cycle (the first record he bought as a 12 year old!) Omissions, well yes, but it's about inclusions no? Neal Hegarty and John Spencer have been emailing me, begging to be included, but I'm like CHILL!

1) Numbers: I'm Shy
"Slap that Nu No Wave sticker on it" as lovely Nathalie Nixed might say. This band actually lack No Wave's cold hard abstraction. You'd think otherwise from the PR. Brilliant staccato punk boogie. This is brand new last year. Buy the CD off Tigerbeat or Artrocker.

2) Scars: Horrorshow
This is off the classic FAST records compilation. Victorian gothic post-punk from Edinburgh. Gravediggers to a man. Once again post-punk's fusioneer-ing trans-cultural progadelica is absent. This ROCKS. Scars later did an okey-doke mascara-laden LP. Only noticed today that the lyrics are some 6th form Clockwork Orange drivel. Whatever!

3) Minutemen: Cut
Check my bro' Scott Somedisco's pithy Minutemen review. Cut is my fave track of theirs. Hear what the fuss is all about. Alot of the SST classics are still (somehow) available on CD or LP. Why the Minutemen seem important to me is that they manage to be supremely ARTISTIC without referring to the cliches of art music. No sitars, No studio trickery, just plain 'ol dynamic RAWK.

4) Shellac: In a Minute
Albini's got a firm handle on "The Aesthetics of Rock" As in what makes it function. Post-Big Black his idea was Rock as hard boogie. Hence Rapeman covers of ZZ Top's Just Got Paid. This makes perfect sense. Rock works through IMPACT. Twin that with pared down "turn on a dime" riddim and you're in hog heaven.

I guess we're talking *funk* but outside of Black Rock, self-conscious funk in rock tends to come over lame. As in Red Hot Chili Peppers. Actually I wonder (in turn) whether James Brown thought what he was doing was Rock. Funk is a teleological invention yunnuh. I always liked the argument that Reggae slowed down in response to the American Hard Rock of the seventies. Certainly records like Scratch's Blackboard Jungle Dub are very HEAVY. All this spools down into the issue of Hip-Hop feeding crunchy rock samples into the mix. I don't mean The Beastie Boys coercing Bonham. Diamond D uses plenty of hard-boogying rock breaks.

5) Gary Glitter: Rock'n'Roll Part 2
Just great. There's an interesting connection between this and Konga's leopard-skin Hoodoo Afro-Funk. Same producer. Toop spotted this. Oh and the KLF built blah blah blah.

6) The Waitresses: Slide
Off the superb Akron Ohio punk compilation on Stiff. Great scratch'n'sniff rubber tyre on the cover! Once again serious boogie!

7) Moby Grape: Omaha
Spence's motorcycle wall of death ride. Love the way it all gets skip-py at the end.

8) The Charlatans: Codeine
Not Tim Burgess's outfit....you'll be relieved to know. This lot were hanging in San Fran circa 1966, pre-The Grateful Dead. Seminal Haight-Ashbury stuff. The Charlatans used to dress as period American gents. Handlebar moustaches, wide brim hats and double-barrelled shot guns.

9) Crazy Horse: I'll get by
Crazy Horse's first alluded to in Albini's epochal review of Slint's Spiderland in Melody Maker. Forget Neil Young!

10) Led Zeppelin: When the Levee Breaks
Amplification innit. Is it just me or is this hugely psychedelic music? Harmonicas the size of fridge freezers. Maybe Lester Bangs didn't like it, and yes it's pompous but I think history's been kind to the Zep. I always remember Robert Plant talking about his favourite records in Q (!) and there, spread on the floor was Big Black's Songs about Fu***** and Neu! 75. I said Hi to Jimmy Page in the Windsor branch of Our Price in 1987. He signed my twin-necked strat (not).

(sun sinking behind the desert horizon, silhouetted joshua trees, cicadas) Well I hope y'all enjoyed the Rock Pack. This'll be the last *SPECIAL* for a while. Be sure to come back now! Peace.

Posted by Woebot at June 10, 2003 03:33 PM