Sarre-Chasm – Hello, I’m a Bitter Reactionary – Column

Sarre-Chasm

Hello, I’m a Bitter Reactionary (And Here’re Some Records I Like)

by Jon Sarre

“You like everything that comes out on 4AD, you like everything that comes out on SST, like almost everything that comes out on Homestead, I like everything I get in the mail for free.”
Great Plains, “Letter to a Fanzine,” 1985, Homestead

Welcome to the end of the last issue of the second to last year of the last century of the millennium that’s gonna plunge us into the new dark age cuz all our machines are gonna fail us. So anyway, I recently noticed that my caffeine rant in the previous issue (and maybe the issue before that) was another one of those “everything today sucks” nostalgia tantrums. Then the guy in charge ’round these parts, Teflon Scott Hefflon, pointed out that he and I both are usually guilty of such blatant old fogeyism. We rewrite the same piece, holding up different examples perhaps, but firmly enmeshed in a ’56 or ’68 or ’72 or ’77 deathtrip-skipped groove.

“So what?” was my immediate response, as I’m sure is yours, the reader’s (if y’all’re still here). It’s all the promos that do it: free stuff in the mail, see? Understandably, a CD that shows up in a package from some record label ain’t necessarily gonna mean the same if ya didn’t haveta buy it with money ya filched outta yer girlfriend’s purse.

Ya get used to the steady supply (hey, used discs make great gifts, or even sources of income in a pinch) and familiarity, as they say, breeds contempt; contempt leads to cranky, hand-bitin’ tirades against the corporate, indie, home-taping, DIY or thrift-store machines and everything they’ve stood for since like [your date here, it doesn’t really matter]. Or, to quote one of the less quotable sources in my reference library:

“Observing the 1978 World Series, [Hall of Fame Outfielder] Joe Sewell offered the opinion that only two members of the ’78 Yankees would have been able to make the Yankee team in 1932. And he thought those two, Thurman Munson and Ron Guidry, would have been in the bullpen.” (Bill James, Bill James’ Historical Baseball Abstract, Villard, 1986)

What I’m sayin’ is, the fact that I wouldn’t trade one Johnny Thunders, Johnny Ramone, or even a Steve Jones for a hundred of the hack axe grinders who learned how to riff off their records is admittedly reactionary, probably spiteful, and definitely neglectful of the reality of today’s situation (i.e. Thunders, Ramone, and Jones are dead, retired, or just not any fuckin’ good circa now). Furthermore, even though I know sayin’ so makes me sound like I oughtta be coachin’ first base at an Old Timers’ game, I still believe it, free promos or not. By the same token, I’m not gonna stick Tim Armstrong up there in Joe Strummer’s radical punk high-chair, just cuz The Clash is what Rancid aspires to be (albeit with a better sense of accessorization) – although Chuck Eddy in his Accidental Evolution of Rock’n’Roll (DaCapo, 1997) wrote that Rancid’s ...And Out Come the Wolves was his favorite release of 1995, cuz in his words, “the Clash don’t get wannabe-ed nearly enough (italics mine).” Point well taken, but then again, this comes from a guy who’s wasted way too much ink on Debbie Gibson.

I dunno what Chuck’s favorite release of this year is, but mine’s Estrus’ re-issue of Supercharger’s first record (originally released in 1991 and Estrus actually put it out last year). “America’s Worst Rock’n’Roll Band – Ever” they brag on the back cover, and maybe they are, or maybe they just pretended to be. Conventional wisdom (well, some guy at Your Flesh) says they were that bad; can’t sing, can’t play, on vinyl their Ramones-like riffs never reach da brudders’ state of inspired amateurism (which, if their hack-job fan bio Ramones: An American Band is accurate, Johnny, Tommy, and DeeDee actually were kinda proud of their chops). Supercharger is pretty sludgy, almost absurdly rudimentary, but then drummer Karen Singletary covers a dead spot in a song with the simplest fill imaginable or singer/guitarist Darin Raffaelli recounts the last moments of Sal Mineo (“Stab the motherfucker in the back” he hollers repeatedly in “Sooprise Package For Mr. Mineo”) or comes up with a priceless line like “I pack my stuff and I grab my gear/ You’re the only bag I’m leavin’ here.” Garage pharaohs The Mummies knew how great Supercharger was, they hocked their stuff with damn near every release, or so it seemed. Supercharger released an equally great second album, Supercharger Goes Way Out (Estrus, 1993) before givin’ up the ghost.

My favorite record actually released this year was Silky by Andre Williams, backed by two ex-Gories (Forgive Thee, The Cheater Slicks’ late ’97 double record is a close second and the Slicks are also the number one off-kilter drunken live band that plays an entire set while the audience throws plastic cups, full and empty, and cigarettes, lit mostly, at ’em, ta boot!). I didn’t buy either of those records, though, it’s them damn promos again. Let’s see, someone bought me the mighty Zen Guerrilla’s latest, Positronic Raygun (Alternative Tentacles), and that’ll land in my top five. Ditto for Gaunt’s newest, Bricks and Blackouts (Warner Bros.), which I bought and paid for like a week before I even got the promo (which ended up being someone’s birthday present). Sure, the Gaunt boys didn’t etch out anything as flawless as their previous indie releases and that “professional gloss” is there, no matter what they say. You’d think great songwriting and energy to the nth would move product, but I’d wager you haven’t heard “Pop Song” on the radio, so chalk another one up to market failure.

’68 Comeback’s Monsieur Jeffery Evans seems to know a little ’bout that stuff. “I’ll never win a Grammy,” he wrote in the liners to ’68’s A Bridge Too Fuckin’ Far (Sympathy For the Record Industry). “It’s rigged. You think they don’t know who I am?” Later he adds, “I wish I could suggest a fresher way to look at life.” If they gave out a Grammy for “Best Liner Notes Wherein the Writer Rants Ultra-Personal About Ex-Girlfriends Sleeping With Ex-Bandmates When Notes in Question Are Purportedly in Tribute to Former Lead Guitarist,” well, Evans’ testament, which accompanies his Ozzy/Randy Rhoads-style fare-thee-well to the late Jack Taylor (Monster Truck Five founder/’68 Comeback mainstay, passed on in ’97) would win hands down.

The record itself (which I bought, cuz ’68 is great and that rhymes), a double album, is as disappointing as the notes are weird. Maybe it’s the fact that Evans can no longer say the magic words “Jack Taylor” and have the song light up with a feedback solo so intense that you’da thought you just heard a V-2 take off. This go-around, sans Taylor, the music is just kinda stuck in second. I started a longish piece about it, but then scrapped it. Lack of interest, I figure.

Oh well, R.I.P. (belatedly) Jack Taylor… And while I’m on the subject, Junior Wells, Junior Kimbrough, Tammy Wynette, Frank Sinatra, and Charlie Feathers… And Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.