Posts Tagged punk
Shonen Knife | S/t
Shonen Knife Day. They got a new record out. I don’t have it yet. Next paycheck. But time marches on, and with so many horrible things in the world, there’s this band. It’s maybe kinda dumb that there is a Shonen Knife Day. I didn’t say that. Did you say that? I’m glad there’s an excuse to write about them just now, myself. And listen to the album. I’m gonna listen to the album, then write about it, that’s the order of things that I will be doing. Then maybe I’ll listen to it again but that doesn’t concern you.
This is not strictly a real album released by the band. It compiles their first two albums from the early eighties on Zero Records, Burning Farm and Yama-no Attchan and also includes tracks from the Zero comp Aura Music. Apparently these tracks are on the reissue of Burning Farm as well as the K Records cassette so maybe this is too much information. I’ve never bothered getting these other more official versions, but I’ve heard them and they just don’t seem as good to me. I mean the sound quality’s probably better, but I just love how this thing is sequenced. It really feels like one long album; it’s the definitive early history imo. It’s not like breaking up the two albums restores some kind of distinct conceptual arcs, they are just collections of songs they had at the time. And the level of songwriting and recording had yet to progress so it all matches. (They have a technically have a demo album before all this but that is really raw and not that great to listen to.)
The members of the band themselves may disagree but the recordings as they appear on this release are perfect. (They even re-recorded Dali’s Sunflower, I love that one in particular. Maybe there’s a guest on it they can’t credit?) It’s not exactly an Albini-type puritan affair of strictly live recordings, there’s some studio experimentation and sound effects thrown in here and there, but it accurately records (unless it doesn’t, I wasn’t there) what the band was at the time, which is what any band starting out should strive for. Altho I admit when I first heard it I was shocked at the difference in sound from the very modern Rock Animals and polished surf-punk of Let’s Knife, it grew on me pretty fast. It’s like instant nostalgia for something I never experienced before, there’s just a weird mood to it. Right from the version of Watchin’ Girl that sounds like the tape is changing speeds. It’s just as good as the later version but for different, unexplainable reasons. And I could be remembering this wrong, but I think it’s the first album I heard that’s all in Japanese. I remember falling in love with the sound of the language. It has a certain unique rhythm. Supposedly they prefer singing in English because all of their influences do, but before they learned English, they found it way to make their native language fit naturally in this early punk/pop soundscape. (Unusual song topics may have helped.)
Plenty has been written on Shonen Knife’s song topics, but what about that early soundscape? Ramones and Buzzcocks are the obvious precursors whose influence is carried on more or less to today. But here there’s the trebly, minimalist sound of the late-70s girl post-punk like Delta 5, Kleenex/LiLiPUT, maybe even The Slits. There’s an unmistakable reggae vibe to several of the songs which they really never went back to. In their book Shonen Knife Land they each have a top 20 albums list and the closest thing mentioned is a Beat Happening’s You Turn Me On, which is really not that close! That was from departed bassist Michie’s list and I talked about her contribution to the band before. But Naoko tries a lot of weird stuff too on this record: the cartoon industrial of A Day at the Factory, the tribal jam of Burning Farm, the melancholic Bye Bye—obvious album closer that ends Yamo-no Attchan, but the tacked-on Parrot Polynesia with its upbeat island vibe is an even better way to sign off. Seems totally planned.)
A whole generation of SK fans now is probably not familiar with the old stuff and/or just listens to streams and doesn’t care so much about the feel of an album. You are objectively wrong, first of all, that whole system is on it’s way to crashing and burning and does not care about you. Second—there is no second, this is their best early album and you need to listen to all of it.
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Numerical Notation: A Minor Threat
Hoo boy. Year of the Sheep, right? Some people only seem to notice when it’s a “cool” animal like a dragon or a snake. We have a name for these people: DILETTANTES. There’s nothing cool about sheep, except this Minor Threat cover, so get used to seeing that I guess. But wait, it’s the Year of the Ram, isn’t it? Rams are cool. What with the head-butting and…that’s it. It’s enough. Give rams a chance. Or goats, who cares.
But I’m not here to review Minor Threat. Or talk about astrology. I’ve listened to enough Minor Threat for a lifetime (since I bought the Complete Discography on CD, in 2006) and it’s unlikely to make it back in rotation, unlike the Chinese Zodiac which repeats every twelve years…of course.
Forget all this happened.
Shit, that’s still the title isn’t it. Look, I’m gonna explain.
I’ve made a system of numerical notation. I call it Numerical Notation. The notes of the chromatic scale are given the number 0-11, starting with A.
In this system, if you care about the Modes (which you should, if you care about why there is a lettered system) the Aeolian mode, or A Minor, is the base scale, not C Major(the Ionian). It’s debatable that A Minor was historically, originally the more important. I think it sounds better. That’s not important. The important thing is to make this a non-vague point. Because I have noticed some other examples using notes for numbers starting with C as 0. I even said in earlier posts that you might as well do this if it makes more sense, but it doesn’t, in the big picture, and I’m gonna make the case that this is not some kind of arbitrary nerd bullshit dicking-around.
Here we are then with example one:
The sharp/flat system has been primarily designed for use in the major/minor system; when speaking modally, it’s a lotta look, to quote a famous fashion designer. All the flats and sharps tend to obscure the simplicity […] We need a different system of talking about melody. If C is assigned the number 0, C# the number 1, all the way up to B = 11, we can study the system numerically, and also universally, as any tonic can be assumed. Zero can just as easily be G#, or E. Also, since the tonic can never change by our definition, it’s not necessary to include it. Here’s an example to show what I’m talking about.
C Mixolydian is C D E F G A Bb C. If we assume that C = 0, and continue from there, then C Mixolydian can also be described as 0 2 4 5 7 9 10 12.
This post is excellent and you should read the whole thing. I should read the whole thing. The point is that here is someone making essentially the same point as me, naming the notes 0-11 (12=0), but starting with C. (Note that is doesn’t predate my initial posts.) Not saying he stole it, but I also said it was an “open source” idea, which is a pretty dumb way to talk because it is not a computer program. But I guess that can be interpreted as “feel free to steal this idea”. I was drinking a lot at the time. It’s not like you can patent this kind of thing anyway.
But let’s run with the open source concept and say he explained the idea better. I’m gonna bring it back around and explain why it’s easier for everyone if A=0.
But first(second), example two:
This is from a video that goes on to explain a new type of keyboard layout for an experimental instrument called a Terpestra. Now this is the kind of thing you can patent and even sell. Good luck to him. Again, not saying he stole the idea. Even if he did, can you really expect drop-in citations in a video like this? It’s not relevant who came up with each idea in this kind of presentation. It’s also kind of an obvious idea once it’s out there. Not as obvious as starting with 1 tho.
But it’s about to get even more obvious. Check this out:
Ａ ａ# Ｂ Ｃ ｃ# Ｄ ｄ# Ｅ Ｆ ｆ# Ｇ ｇ#
０ １ ２ ３ ４ ５ ６ ７ ８ ９ １０ １１
Ｃ ｃ# Ｄ ｄ# Ｅ Ｆ ｆ# Ｇ ｇ# Ａ ａ# Ｂ
Which one of these makes more sense? You might still pick C if you are already trained in music, but how would you explain that to a student? The letters and numbers should be going in the same direction. It’s intuitive.
If you never start, you can never branch out into other things, like the higher concepts these other guys are talking about and the simplest way is the best way to start.
So while you are thinking about all this, here’s a video of GWAR covering the Pet Shop Boys:
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Screaming Females | Chalk Tape
Here’s a nice little EP that made my “to get to” list in the 2013 post (I have since purchased all these records but still have yet to listen to all of them…holy shit.)
This band is way too cool to call this the Poison Arrow EP and put that song first but it’s clearly the hit and worth the price of admission. In fact, I’m a little bummed they didn’t put it on a full album. Because I don’t have any of their full albums, and I feel a little guilty. Cause they’re from New Jersey, not even simply New Jersey but New Brunswick and I kinda feel like “that’s my scene, man”, even though clearly it’s not anymore and even was it ever? Not really. But I’ve heard them, and I like them. Which should be enough to buy a band’s records. I shouldn’t have to feel obligated because I might run into them at a party or something. It could happen. The kind of party I don’t really expect to be invited to, but then when I am, I don’t show up anyway. Because I got some stuff to figure out, man. There’s just so many bands. And so many old records by old bands. This may even qualify for some people in both of those categories. I never really got that attitude.
But this is hardly a monolith of relevance as a release. It’s good as a starting point, but I’m going to have to get more if I really claim to give a shit. I mean, come on, me. We got a tracklist with 7 songs, but everyone that isn’t Poison Arrow is under 3 minutes. They’re just collecting the songs that don’t belong on a proper album, maybe they don’t even consider them finished. You got midtempo groover Sick Bed, the quick melodic hardcore-ish Crushing the Kingdom, acoustic ballad Bad Men, angular noise rock of Wrecking Ball—some great screams here, frontwoman Marissa has a great singing voice but the moniker’s not too ironic—also the quieter but still tense bongo rock of Into the Sun and a nice little end ditty feat. Shellshag, another one of those bands I should know real well from 10 years back, but I do just barely.
And the artwork doesn’t merely look like a demo tape as a retro gag, it really came out on tape. Only a hundred copies. I never really got that either, I’m not that kind of collector. Download is fine. %
Minutemen | Project: Mersh
My long overdue mission of owning all of the Minutemen records that are not Double Nickels on the Dime begins with this, the cheapest one. When I set out on this mission, I realized why I did not already own these records: they are not readily available as dirt cheap used copies. (A large bulk of my collection.) It’s not hard to figure out why. People who buy Minutemen records tend to know what they are getting into, first, and once they have the records, they are actually good, second, and third, the band is consistently well-regarded over decades by fans and critics alike, so their records are non-embarrassing to own and therefore resistant to purge, even if you never listen to them.
This is not a very typical record for the band, it’s more of a proof-of-concept EP, which I like. In particular the opening track The Cheerleaders, because it illustrates perfectly why I hate the band Cake so much. Here they take all of the political message of their earlier work over a much simplified and easy to swallow version of their music. The band Cake would then take this kind of sound, with the semi-funky clean guitar and the trumpet, and remove the political message, which is not the worst music in the world by any means, but what’s the point? I guess the point is that is the kind of thing that could get mainstream radio play. Not this so much. It’s like they took all the notes that people had been telling them was “wrong” with their music and applied them literally. No one really wanted to say they didn’t agree with the message, or the overall package so they would pick apart the rough edges of the music. Remove all those rough edges and there should be nothing holding it back!
There’s some other songs—they cover Steppenwolf, they were a good band, it’s not entirely ironic. C’mon.
Tour-Spiel is my favorite track. The words alone, repeated as a mantra, could almost be any words without reading along. I heard “torch me out” the first several times. I dunno what it means, but it seems evocative of what happens when you jam econo too long. The jam turns literal(ly figurative) on More Spiel, which seemingly runs the concept off the rails, but is similar to the ‘Bonus beats’ tracks of the day, which also turn up on Watt’s collab with Sonic Youth The Whitey Album, but that’s something else entirely.%
buy mp3s on amazon 4 cheap or I guess it's regular price, there's only 6 songs
Shonen Knife | Top 10 Michie Songs
Happy Shonen Knife Day. It’s great that Shonen Knife has kept going for 30+ years and that is all due to main member and primary songwriter Naoko Yamano. Obvs. But for new fans of the band, and for those who don’t read liner notes, it may have been possible that the contributions of former member Michie Nakatani has been overlooked. She’s the George Harrison of the group. Not only because she only had a few songs per album, but she was also important as a player. Although not exactly a prodigy as a bass player or a singer, the group is structured so that the bass is almaboost equal to the guitar. (She also sometimes played keyboard.)
So she was a big part of most of the songs, but some more than others. Thus shall these songs be named “the Michie Songs”.
I trust you, reader. I know if you give a shit you can find whatever album. I’m also tired of putting a bunch of links that no one clicks on. So I’m just going to put one big Amazon link HERE
And heeere’s the top songs that are pretty much all Michie (written and sung):
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Banana Fish
Shonen Knife are famously thought of as being a mostly Ramones-punk band which has in turn inspired other similar bands, but early songs show influences from other girl post-punk bands of the late 70s/early 80s. (Find out more that here.) This song however, comes out of nowhere. As far as I know it has no influence and has influenced no one. Also, the lyrics, unlike Naoko’s which are mostly wonderfully devoid of metaphor, are based partly on the story within a story by J.D. Salinger about a guy that’s kills himself because people are horrible. (That’s what you get with Michie songs. There’s a hidden darkness and ironic self-awareness. Sometimes. -
Catnip Dream
This is the song has some interesting things going on. The chorus has been described as 15/8 but it sounds like alternating bars of 7/4 and 8/4 to me. The harmonized guitar is great and Michie plays the mellotron. And it’s about drugs. Cats talking drugs, right? Ok. There was supposedly another Michie song that was more explicitly about pot that got banned, but I have never been able to find out more about it. Maybe it was just a rumor. This song does seem very free of judgement of the “cat” in question, who unlike most “cats” takes “puffs” of this substance. He is even called “very smart”. Hmm. No, wait, there some cat sounds. Only about cats. -
Animal Song
The is another one that sounds very happy and bouncy but is also weirdly creepy. The refrain “what is this?” perfectly captures the feeling of the listener. There’s a version all in English on the Get the Wow EP. But the lyrics are basically nonsense. She may have been messing with Naoko from the very beginning. Pure speculation. -
Devil House
Altho never mentioned by name, this song retells the plot of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. At least the first half of it. A lesser songwriter would have tried to take you through the whole thing. I like the original Japanese version a little better, but you’d never believe it was literally scene by scene. There’s that generic horror movie soundtrack intro just to throw you offfff…ahg! I just spent an hour trying to look up what that is. Wasn’t it used in a Bugs Bunny cartoon? I can’t find anyone that even mentions that this song contains contains an exact quote of another song, but a million that think it kinda sounds like a Buzzcocks song. Right, the Buzzcocks song that quotes the Bugs Bunny Haunted House episode. One reviewer said that like 20 years ago, it’s not that close. Please leave a comment if you know what I’m talking about. -
Butterfly Boy
Yeah, Thurston Moore plays some guitar on this one. It’s easy to forget because he’s pretty subdued in the final mix. The solo is Michie on keys. It’s sounds a little like she’s saying “Butt Fly”, so what, grow up. -
Fish Eyes
If this song isn’t about eyelid surgery…there’s not really an if. But framed in a Kafkaesque fantasy about literally waking up with giant fish-like eyes and the ensuing internal torment, of course. The kind of Kafkaesque parable of modern angst you expect from…Shonen Knife. I like the old locomotive rhythm. And there’s a nice bridge. -
Johnny, Johnny, Johnny
I used to like how this song came after the Very Metal “Cobra vs. Mongoose”; it’s just gratuitously cheery. But it’s also a pretty good song on it’s own. It’s just so goofy it’s genius. Even if you were fully accepting the whole Shonen Knife package when you put this record on, when you get to this song it’s like you can’t believe what you’re listening to. Shonen Knife is still good and all, but with two writers pushing each other like this it reached amazing levels or ridiculousness in the best way possible. Naoko’s really playing with that guitar line, bending it around like that. But I’m going on. -
Another Day
This is the first attempt at a serious ballad. It must have been someone at the label’s idea to have some serious songs. I believe it was Page Porrazzo who thought he was Phil Spector with this group. Some people must hate it, but I thought it came out great. It’s not that far off from early ballad(ish) song “Bye Bye”, just alittlelot more straight lyrically, and almost guitar at all. I remember when I first heard this song and feeling very nostalgic, which is the intention of the song of course. I used to feel a lot more nostalgic about stuff when I was younger. It’s weird. Anyway, I like how certain words like “bottle” and “shadows” kinda fall out of her mouth, she has this same way with pronunciation in Japanese too, some syllables are almost spit out or rushed, or she picks words with certain combinations of consonants that are odd. Maybe it’s an Osakan thing, but Naoko doesn’t do the same thing at all. -
Ice Cream City
This song is another one that has a version on the Get the Wow EP. I guess the label was still hoping to sell some copies of that when it put out the Birds and the B-Sides comp, which has this live version. There’s nothing wrong with the live version I’m just telling you that’s how it went down. (The comp was also not approved by the band according the their book Shonen Knife Land but that’s a little off topic.) The original Japanese version of this one is not as good because Michie could not quite pronounce “city” correctly yet. Some mispronunciations you can ignore, but that one’s pretty tough. I’m not trying to laugh at them. The English lyrics are pretty good: funny-weird and abstract, not anything dark here. Except the Soft Serve King is “melting with happiness”. He gonna die. Too far? Well maybe the whole thing is hallucination someone is having while they during a heatstroke on the beach. Makes sense. -
The Perfect World
Judging by the lack of availability of this song on youtube, I would say it’s one of the least popular Shonen Knife songs. Which is a shame because it’s one of my favorite but it also makes sense because it in no way resembles anything like a Shonen Knife song. This is an unabashed love song. There’s not even any other subject matter that you can pretend it’s about. And it’s not even the “yay, I’m in love, I’m happy” type of thing which itself is barely mentioned (closest to that is their cover of “Top of the World”), no, this song is languid, even sultry. This is not just a song about love, but sex:
Over my head, really
Never felt like this before, maybe
Can’t say the reason clearly
the rhythm beats meAnd this is from the 1997 album Brand New Knife, which looks like this. It features Michie on droning mellotron and an eye-rolling solo from Naoko who does not know what to do in this situation. It’s not a bad or mocking solo, but you can sense the awkwardness. (Naoko is on record as being “embarrassed” by love songs, altho she is married and has kids.) Michie only stayed with the group one more year after this and it was shocking when she left but looking back, I kinda get it.
✿✿✿✿✿
- Cycling Is Fun (would have made top 10 at one point but doesn’t hold up as well as the others)
- An Angel has Come (Such a weird song, I really like it, but it’s pretty similar to Animal Song)
- Catch Your Bus (corny but genuinely uplifting, I’m a little angry no one uploaded it)
- Jackalope (half-dumb, half-brilliant)
UPDATE: I forgot 3 songs from Yama no Attchan, which are pretty good but apparently forgettable:
- Chinese Song (totally odd)
- Cannibal Papaya (bass drops! one of the best choruses)
- Dali’s Sunflower (one of their ‘most punk’ songs)
2ND UPDATE: I forgot another one, thanks, eris.
- Merman (b-side on the the Wonder Wine single, which never had a physical copy of. Has a pretty cool underwater psyche vibe. I’m just now listening to it more than once I think and it’s growing on me. That’s a really forgotten one. A not quite fully polished gem.)
Semi-Honorable Mention:
- The Moon World (just an ok one)
- Frogphobia (something bugs me about this one)
- Gomi Day (cute idea, not that great a song)
- Planet X (a demo they never finished)
Most Honorable Mention:
- Miracles and Watchin’ Girl are probably my two favorite SK songs. I have to fit that in while preserving the integrity of the list format. Carry on.
Songs written by Michie, sung by Naoko (or both):
- Miracles (Naoko verses)
- Watchin’ Girl (Naoko verses)
- Summertime Boogie (Michie verses)
Songs written by Michie, sung by Atsuko:
- Fruits & Vegetables
Neon Zebra
Atsuko did not sing lead on Neon Zebra. I don’t know why I thought that.Co-written songs: [sung by Michie]
- Neon Zebra (w/ Pat Fear)
Couldn’t find either studio version, but here’s a live video of it from ’91. It’s a little rough! They were only a band at this point for…10 years? You’ve gotta appreciate the tenacity. - White Flag (w/ Steve Davis)
- Expo ’90 (w/ Steve Davis)
I like these two songs (esp. the fuzz bass) but have never been able to find out who this “Steve Davis” is. Maybe she was dating this session dude and he was down for whatever. Little much to give him writing credit. But if it’s this guy that had nothing to do with punk maybe that made sense to him. It’s weird. The two songs have nothing to do with each other. Maybe he helped with the lyrics, but the lyrics are not even very good English. Bah! Expo ’90 is not even as good as The Moon World, which now I’m thinking was pretty good. White Flag, tho. Pretty hardcore. Doesn’t really make any sense but whatever. - Loop-Di-Loop (w/ Naoko & Atsuko)
This was the only SK song ever credited to the group as a whole and the result was kinda meh.UPDATE 2015.01.20:
- Mysterious Drugstore (w/ Naoko)
B-side of the quite difficult to find It’s a New Find EP. Only found out about this from the defunct (but informative) Rock of Japan as it appeared on the mostly needless comp Millennium Edition. Not exactly a classic, but there it is.Written by Naoko, sung by Michie:
- I Am a Cat
Could be a mistake in the credits since it’s the only song like that.Covers:
- Saboten
It’s Delta 5’s “You” with Japanese lyrics - Hokey Pokey
You might like to forget that SK did a completely faithful version of the Hokey Pokey, what with the legitimacy and the post-punk and the mellotrons and the time signatures and the adult(ish) themes and whatnot. But it happened. (Personally I think she was messing with the audience at this point.)
Honorable Mentions:
In the course of making this list, I have gone through the original liner notes for each album (it’s been a draft for over a year). So I might as well list every single song Michie wrote or sang:
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