Kiss My Ass……..

…is what I would say if I spoke Gaelic, or was just telling people what my band’s name meant. Omaha folk-punkers Pog Mo Thon will be at Louis Liquor in the Benson neighborhood this Friday at 7 pm. Get out there if you can. Yes they do kind of look like pirates.

 

Summer’s over, huh? Good.

Summer is a season I’m pretty “meh” on, because frankly I could care less about beaches and sandals. Give me the crispness of fall and better still, Halloween. It’s the only time of year people feel comfortable getting freaky, before they get all uptight again and wish for everything to be “wholesome.” It makes me want to puke, really. Thankfully though the stores are already rolling out the fall colors and Halloween items, and I can flood this blog with horror related articles and music. Like the Misfits, for example. This is actually mid-90s Misfits with Michale Graves.

Here is the OG Misfits with “Evil Elvis” on vocals:

 

Bad Religion Keeps the Faith

One of the most important American bands in the last, well, 30 years has crossed an arbitrary threshold this summer, that of an anniversary, but think on it: Bad Religion is pretty damned important to the American music canon, not to mention the punk one, and isn’t it just a bit special that they’re still around? Something one can appreciate is a band that, on its own terms, and with little to no help at all from corporate money has built a fanbase, kept it and stayed true to what made everything great about it work in the first place. There’s always been a troubadour-like nature to Bad Religion I’ve personally always appreciated. Not every record is stellar, but the core of what makes the band great, that of amplifying a folk music nature with punk rock, and augmenting it with well-placed harmonies when needed, is ever present. I’ve never seen it personally, but I think Bad Religion songs can work without the electric guitars and drums, and with just a bunch of guys and acoustic guitars. It would lose some of the ruckus but retain its earnest urgency.

If you’ve never heard any Bad Religion music, it’s worth your time. They will go down in history as one of the best we’ve ever had, and their music expounds on many ideas and feelings not even glanced upon by pop music. You can start with a simple bit of trivia, or even look up their Wikipedia entry. Or you can check out this video here, where they made the very strange choice to act like Gamma for some reason on the album Into the Unknown:

Really, they made this album in 1983. No one is sure why. Did you notice the long keyboard section? Yeah that’s never happened since. This one’s a better example of how they sound. It’s off 1988′s Suffer, which the Offspring liked so much they decided to ape it for about three albums of their own. Being a kid from the ‘burbs I’ve always thought Suffer is one of the coolest album covers ever.

 

Saucy in Oakland

If you liked that piece about neo-burlesque, are in the Bay area, and want to see Michelle Mynx in person, then July 15-17 is the opportunity. She will be there with Katrina Doll as “Gravity Plays Favorites” at the Crucible. They are part of the show called Heat: A Fire Cabaret.

There looks to be live jazz and blues, acrobats, burlesque and more at this show, so it’s a feast for the eyes and ears. Kinda wish this sort of thing would happen in Omaha, but oh well.

More info here, and Michelle Mynx’s Facebook is here.

 

Walking Dead

When AMC’s Walking Dead TV show comes out, someone on YouTube damn well better make a clipshow with this song on it.

 

Everybody Sell Your Body

Knutsky from Turbonegro successfully recovered from lymphoma well over a year go, but all is quiet on the Turbonegro front. It’s a shame. I really hope the band reconvenes at some stage. Maybe they’ll come over and kick America in the ass. It’s a shame all the good rock bands are in Sweden and Norway, when all we get here are Bieberdroids.

 

Punkmobile

Jalopnik has a cool little piece on punk rock cars. The Jalopnik users didn’t let me down, posting beat-up station wagons, old vans, hatchbacks and coupes aplenty.

My own contribution to what a punk rock car looks like? What I saw many a punk, hardcore or ska musician driving around in the late 90s – the classic Chevrolet Cavalier. Nothing says “punk” like a car known for its poor safety record, terrible build quality and abysmal resale value. I can’t count on two hands the amount of punk musicians I knew who drove these, because I’d run out of fingers too fast. It’s like they were drawn to it just because it was cheap, even though keeping the thing running would amount to more than if they’d just bought a better set of wheels in the same class, like a Toyota Camry, Nissan Sentra or Honda Civic. I guess you gotta suffer for your art though, even if that means being stuck off the side of the interstate, calling AAA.

From Wikimedia

 

Stolen from SWAK

SWAK Studios

SWAK Studios

SWAK Studios

SWAK Studios

I stole these pictures from SWAK Studios. Because they are cool. Here’s their Facebook page, by the way.

 

Going down to Mexico (NSFW, You’ve been warned)

Yowsa.

Burlesque, once the entertainment for “gentlemen,” providing bawdy showcases of striptease, nudity and comedy, has like a lot of fallen fads become property of a DIY-centric, punk-rock movement. Pole dancing has been claimed by neo-burlesque. Revamped by its retro-fetishist participants as a kind of acrobatic art, this kind of theater leans heavily on physicality but dresses in 40s and 50s chic. A great example of what burlesque and pole dancing are doing these days is Michelle Mynx’s Academy of Pole Dance, based in St. Louis, MO.  In Omaha Nebraska, Adena Cleary features pole dance as a part of a greater yoga and dance program at Yogadena. The most famous burlesque artist going is of course Dita Von Teese, who did a lot to resurrect the form and place it within its new context. Others like Gigi LaFemme have come up also to broaden and support the neo-burlesque movement.

The prudes will always say sex is bad, moving your body makes people think of sexy time, and it shouldn’t be done. That’s bunk. As opposed to your regular stripclub, neo-burlesque features women who aren’t doing it for money. They lack that distinct, dead-eyed look brought on by low self esteem, cynicism, drug use and shitty, melon-smelling lotion and body glitter. In an effort to reclaim the pornographic arts and reclass them as erotic punk art, neo-burlesque artists use pole dance in conjunction with a wide breadth of music to cater towards crowds who’d otherwise abstain from the usual strip joint. Neo-burlesque is typically held in punk rock clubs and other venues which feature eclectic acts. The dancers are usually intelligent, educated and hold down normal jobs, using this kind of theater as a hobby and creative outlet. Often the dancers are self-proclaimed feminists, and others just like a safe way to get naked and indulge in their own, particular kinks.

The style and beauty standards of neo-burlesque also differ vastly from typical strip clubs. Here the dancers are less ashamed to break from mainstream beauty standards and restrictions, where the plus-sized are as welcome as the rail-thin, and often get louder cheers. Neo-burlesque favors the curvaceous woman, upholding the beauty ideals of old, before someone in Paris, New York or Milan decided women needed to be a size 2. Retaking control from perceived foes is a central theme to this kind of theater. Sex is in the hands of the performers, who put on their shows for joy, not dollar bills. They are rarely enhanced by surgery, and employ pin-up style fashions and makeup. Thus neo-burlesque wraps itself in the retro-fetishism of the psychobilly and punk rock scenes that have also claimed things like roller derby for their own.

Backing all this flying flesh is a wide variety of music, often left to the dancer’s own choice – another thing a stripper has no control over in comparison to the neo-burlesque artist, whom dictates the details of her performance down to the last application of eyelash extensions. It can literally be anything, but music with a swagger and slow rhythm is preferred. Thus at a neo-burlesque show old standards by Peggy Lee are likely to be played to capture that “Gypsy,” mood, but industrial, heavy metal, doo wop, rockabilly, psychobilly, jazz, r&b, blues, classic rock and electronica can provide the setting for the routine.

Here’s the  headmistress Michelle Mynx herself gyrating to the Coasters’ “Down to Mexico.” This video is not safe for work and if you have young kids around, tell ‘em to scram.

And this is Lola van Ella, another St. Louis-based dancer doing “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” She engages in a more typical burlesque routine. Also NSFW, watch it at home, shoo the kids away.

 

How to Tell if You are a Music Nerd

1. When you listen to a song you like, you don’t just enjoy it aesthetically. You also think about which lineup of that band recorded it, how many members of the group are dead now, and if the remastered version will finally put the high hats where you think they should be in the mix.

2. You know the difference between Boss and Z-Vex pedals, and can carry on a 2 hour conversation about the differences between the two.

3. You prefer dead formats to current ones, though you are constantly forced to use the current ones because dead formats, like vinyl, are obsolete for a reason.

4. You actually believe there’s a difference between Monster cables and other cables, and have spent time proving this to others.

5. You own 7″ singles made after 1988.

6. You have had arguments, on multiple occasions, about whether or not Rush is a great band or the greatest band, or the shittiest band ever.

7. Your Youtube searches for Michael Manring do not have any relation to a different bassist that played the Super Mario Bros theme, and you are in fact looking for his live performance videos.

8. You think Yngwie Malmsteen is an egotistical shredder, but have no problem when Michael Hedges did the same thing on an acoustic guitar – in fact you considered it pure artistry.

9. You believe being a better songwriter and more heartfelt musician requires being terrible at your instrument.

10. You also buy into the myth that getting off the junk makes musicians lose their creativity, and have defended this point multiple times on the internet.

11. You look at record stores as the last stalwarts of dying culture, not as atrophying business models.

12. In the same breath as #11, you never actually go to record stores and buy anything (Except for vinyl), because 99% of your music was downloaded.

13. And relating to both #11 and #12, you think the RIAA are a group of untethered, corporate fascists, without exception, no matter how many terabytes of music you stole.

14. You collect only specific brands or types of instruments – or you hoard all kinds.

15. You know what a tube amp is and can explain why it is sonically superior to solid state, in spite of its antiquated technology and growing maintenance costs, and refuse all arguments to the contrary about “personal taste.”

16. If you notice a drummer using triggers, you first of all know what triggers are, and you look down on that drummer for using them.

17. You have admonished someone with the word, “poseur,” on an internet message board.

18. You know the differences amongst emo, screamo, post-emo, post-hardcore, crust-punk, post-punk, metalcore and deathcore, and can explain why no band calling itself by these labels actually belongs to any of these genres.

19. You scoff when someone tells you they like jazz, and then tells you they like Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” period and Diana Krall.

20. You claim “real country,” was the time period when corporate, big label acts like George Jones, Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson ruled the airwaves and not corporate, big label acts like Toby Keith, Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss.