The Internationale Music Report

Our Man in Prague: Garrick H.S. Brown
Illustration by Timothy Walker

Greetings comrades, continentals, and fellow expatriates! Welcome to the inauguration of The Internationale Music Report. This is where I will keep you abreast of all of the latest happenings in the vital and thriving Euro scene. Don’t believe the hype when lame-ass music magazine types try and tell you that The Continent hasn’t produced any meaningful music since The Jam! These are the same propagandists who’ll try to tell you that Elvis Presley was talented, the Rolling Stones ripped off little old black men, and that Serge Gainsbourg was just a plagiaristic, chain-smoking, child molesting drunk… Things we ALL know to be inherently false, and simply part of the diabolical plot by American cultural imperialists to force their lowest common denominator way of life down the collective throats of The Workers of The World!

But have no fear! Through this monthly report you will hear of the exciting happenings in the true cultural centers of the world… London, Paris, Berlin, Prague, Rome… the true homes of rock’n’roll. Whether it’s the thriving world of Yugoslavian rap, or the wild world of Finnish ska, I’ll be there to keep you posted on all the important happenings that are bound to eventually filter down to your gutter culture anyway…

First, we’re off across the Channel to see what our Limey friends are up to:

The disgusting success of Brit-pop sluts, The Spice Girls, has finally succeeded in generating a backlash amongst the gloom-‘n’-doom set in foggy old London town. The now-elderly Siouxsie and the Banshees contingent has poured forth from their nursing homes at an alarming rate to purchase the debut album,Handful of Swallow, by new pasty-faced Limey whiner, Jordan Whimsical.

The catchy but doleful “Even My Underwear is Black” has hit number one on the London pop charts, and a follow-up single, “Fiancée, Run Over by the Double-decker,” will likely match its success with darkly-clad despairing teens. Even geriatric Robert Smith (can you even remember The Cure?) is said to have been so pleased with the initial release, “Woe Is Me, Where’s My Lipstick?,” that his spokesperson at the Kensington Rest Home claimed that “(he) popped his bloody catheter!”

Due to Whimsical‘s Manchester origins, as well as his distinctive style of crooning (described by one Brit music hack as “the lullaby of a pregnant cow…”), comparisons to ’80s sensations The Smiths and Morrissey have been inevitable. The success of his first album on London’s progressive Poofter label would seem to suggest that he is bound to take over the temporary title of “King of the Tortured Teenage Vegan Crooners” from the BIG M himself. But then again, there were those of us who never bought Morrissey and all his “I’m a celibate, asexual vegetarian” horseshit all those years ago. After all, who didn’t secretly know that, while earnest little 16 year olds everywhere were planning their group suicides to the lush strains of “There is a Light That Never Goes Out,” Mr. Moaner himself was probably in the south of France – sprawled naked across a bearskin rug while some naked 15 year old Algerian boy swabbed up chicken gravy from his scrawny body with balled-up slices of roast beef? Who didn’t know that?

Anyway, you may have detected my lack of worry over the existential suffering of this serious young artiste. Don’t sweat it – his blues will hit the fan the second his first royalty check clears.

And speaking of the blues:

In interviews, quirky Icelandic sensation Björk has often referred to her idyllic childhood in Reykjavik. Growing up in the wild, bohemian hotbed of the Eskimo quarter, she was intimately aware of – and influenced by – the indigenous music of her countrymen. “Kind of like American Negro gospel,” the perky sexpot-of-intellectual-choice has described it, “but sung very slowly – as if they were very, very cold.”

And so, it was only a matter of time before Europe’s intelligentsia finally discovered “Northern Blues,” and, in particular, the music of the man that most Icelanders refer to as “The Leadbelly of the Arctic Circle”: Mukkus Bilatuundra.

The first release of Bilatuundra‘s music in nearly fifteen years,The Times They Are A-Freezing, is a veritable greatest hits collection for fans of this unsung legend. Touted as his second-to-last recording, this rare acoustic set was reportedly recorded on a primitive hand-held unit in the Reykjavik drunktank. According to the liner notes (by famed British folk archivist Peter Paul Bunsen), this masterpiece of grit was saved for all posterity only a few days before Bilatuundra‘s tragic death from sleep apnea in May of 1994.

From the infectious boogie of “Whale Blubber Gets Ale Thirsty” (loose translation) to the stark and woeful lament of “I Got Drunk Last Night (And It Lasted Six Goddamn Months)” (even looser translation), this is the type of groovin’ down-home indigenous music that’ll allow you to sit back with your bespectacled white friends… enjoy a cappuccino… and pretend that you are nothing at all like the racist American slave-driving crackers that you really are! BUY IT NOW!!! – half of all proceeds are being donated to Bjouml;rk‘s own favorite Icelandic charity: F.A.D.E. (Foundation to Assist Drunken Eskimos).

On to the continent, where some truly exciting things are happening!

Parisian gangsta rapper Pierre Conard returns with his first release in over two years. Always controversial,Straight Outta Vichy is notable for being his first studio album since his recent six-month incarceration for self-abuse. It seems that prison has not mellowed this bad-ass frog. He’s back and leaner-and-meaner than ever – applying his unique street punk tough-guy stylings to such Continental concerns as bad wine, stale cheese, Princess Stephanie, and all those “sucker ass poets.” This release (on Paris’ Forty Bottles and A Corkscrew label) keeps up the French tradition of meaningful (and biting) social commentary á la Apollinaire,Céline, and Jerry Lewis!

As usual, American rock critics have complained that Conard‘s work is derivative of stateside rap heroes Ice Cube and Dr. Dre. But it’s the same old whines from cultural imperialists who are still operating under the belief that American rap is some sort of vital, thriving force. We all know that American rap has been dead since The Fat Boys split up. Their denial that Paris is the current center of the rap, and, indeed, music, world just goes to show how myopic Yanks can be. Besides, who can deny the undoubtedly French flavor of Conard‘s mellow prison rape slow-jam, “Le Shanks des Bastille,” with lines (loosely translated) like:

“I’ll pop a cap in yo’ beret!

Take a piss in yo’ lat-te!

Shove a big, fat loaf up yo’ heh-heh

Make you a bitch like Jean-Paul Gaultier!”

Elsewhere on the continent:

Czechoslovakia’s Country Bear Jamboree attempts to bounce back from its disastrous 1995 album of Roy Clark covers,Yesterday When I Was Thin. This godawful outing (released on the obscure Blue Jean Hamburger label) is entitled Banjo Shaft, and attempts to answer Isaac Hayes‘ immortal question, “Who’s the private dick who’s a sex machine to all the chicks?” with the inbred hillbilly retort: “Squeal like a pig for me!” The concept of redoing an entire soundtrack album to a ’70s blaxploitation flick with an Emmet Otter Jug Band approach is so out there that it borders on the visionary. Unfortunately, stupid is what lies on the other side of that border – and that is the side where these three drunken Czechs dwell. It doesn’t work, and only demonstrates further the destructive effects of blind American trash culture worship. Witness the visible deterioration of Bono from being an important musical force in the 1980s to his current status of meaningless, leather-clad trailer-park-resident-wannabe.

And, finally, our pick of the month!

So you thought… hoped… prayed… that the concept album was dead. Just when you thought thematically-linked discs of pretentious 30 minute long prog-rock/free jazz tunes were gone for good… along comes Denmark’s Rula Lenska’s Boobjob. Their new opus,Vegas, Meine Leibschen, is a veritable Euroslime tour-de-force. Swede pop goons,The La-La’s, show up to sing demented back-up on the carnival-in-hell disco excursion of “Circus Circus Buffet.” Berlin’s Nipple Ring Infection joins in on the bizarre beatjazz meltdown of “On A Clear Day I Can See My Wallet.” Other guests include teutonic sensations Hitler and the Aztecs, and Dieter’s Scatpage. It’s even rumored that Roger Waters (Pink Floyd‘s brain – when it had one), may in fact be the uncredited voice of the liontamer in the eight-minute gay calypso drug fantasia: “Siegfried, Touch My Tiger.”

Though shamefully reverent of our yahoo friends across the pond, one can’t help but be moved by the sheer exuberance of The Boob Job. Though a little heavy-handed on the 18-minute opus, “Liberace Hot Pants Oratorio,” the rest of Vegas… is a veritable masterpiece of European cultural know-how. Comrades, give Rula a listen and be transported back to the glory days of the early 1980s when The Continent produced all of the significant music of the world! Sense the rich musical heritage of our ancestors… it’s a veritable banquet:ABBA…Boney James…Falco… Right Said Fred…A-ha… and, of course,Nena AND every last one of her 99 Luftballoons!

Garrick H.S. Brown would like to remind uppity rockabilly Yanks that guitar genius Link Wray has lived in Amsterdam for years and, is – in fact – a citizen of Holland. Therefore, technically his music is Dutch.