The "New" Metallica

Nothing is quite so difficult to digest as hype. A few years ago, Metallica was preaching loud and proud about how'd they'd changed the face of their music and still kept their legions of fans and were still and ever growing. Then they split with Jason Newsted, went to war with Napster, and fiddled around for a few years while James Hetfield battled with the demon liquor. Next on "Behind the Music," the end of an era...


Now they've got a new bassist from Ozzy's band (Ozzy has a band? I thought Ozzy just walked around in a confused daze, mumbling like the village idiot), who looks like one of Saruman's Uruk-Hai from Lord of the Rings, and a new album that's supposed to evoke the rip-roaring, speed-metaling, Motorhead-worshipping Metallica of Yore. And in true form, everything that's happened to the band since the Black Album is now being mocked in the music press. Load and ReLoad, formerly mere annoyances to old-school metalheads, are now shameful sell-outs to Alternative Nation (The "Alternative" scene was well and truly dead by the time Load was released, but never mind). Garage, Inc. is now a lame attempt at re-kindling the magic. And S & M, the band's double-live album recorded with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, is now so embarrasing as to cause legions of fans to weep quietly in the night, clutching their bruised copies of Master of Puppets. Please.


S & M sucks? I didn't get that memo back when it was released in '99. Back then it was a bold musical experiment, that, unlike earlier rock-classical fusion attempts by the likes of Chicago, actually rocked. Nor do I recall the music critics throwing the hunks of dung at the other 90's albums that they pretend to have now that St. Anger is out. Consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds, but it's a hobgoblin that could make some sense of our cultural narratives. Get that, you faux-intellectual wankers?


Incidentally, I've seen the video to the "St. Anger" and it's not bad. Maybe if Lars stops talking like a corporate drone, I may believe these guys are serious.

The Monks -- Black Monk Time

Because of cd-discounter's treachery, my goal of subsuming myself in mid-sixties garage rock was delayed by a month (I got my refund today, and promptly re-ordered The Sonics from a seller I know to be trustworthy). But my dissatisfaction is minimized, because now it's Big Time, it's Hop Time, it's Monk Time!


Picture this: five army draftees stationed in Germany in 1965, sick of the cutesy melodies of the Beatles and their clones. One guys plays guitar and sings, one guy drums, one guy plays bass. So far, so good. The fourth guy plays an organ. Interesting, but not too interesting. Ray Manzarek did that for the Doors, and several bands in the sixties messed with that. The catch is the fifth guy. He plays banjo, with a microphone stuffed in it. Then they all give themselves tonsures -- the reverse mohawk that's been the symbol of the monastic lifestyle since the Dark Ages -- and wear black gowns with white hangman's nooses.


Exactly.


Some folk call the Monks the first punk band, which is taking it a bit far to me. These guys have the abrasiveness, the repeated riffs, the joy in being nasty, but they're missing the crucial element: speed. Granted, the Velvets didn't play all that fast either. It's a conundrum best left to the individual listener.


This stuff is truly demented. The songs lurch along like broken machinery, tearing themselves apart in their bumping fury. My favorite track would have to be "I Hate You," which highlights the band's sense of humor. It's a simple joke, but I haven't seemed to get tired of it yet. Nor of the Monks. Bring it on, Sonics.

Joy Division -- Closer

This arrived with the Monks CD in Amazon's usual timeliness. When I first spun it, it didn't impress me near as much as Unknown Pleasures had. I blame rising expectations, and the fact that I'd read that the aura of Ian Curtis' suicide supposedly hangs about this album like an albatross (it doesn't). But repeated listens have allowed it to grow on me. I hear JD expanding their palette on this one, working with different rythmns and textures. I would say that it's a shame Curtis killed himself and left us with no more Joy Division, but the rest of the band soldiered on and became New Order, which still records and tours today. So the tragedy is minimized.

Returning once more

There really aren't enough hours in the day for me to do all the things I want to do. I've spent three days preparing a packet to submit a short story I've written. It wasn't supposed to take this long, but it has. Such is the way of things.




I've got a couple of entries to blog today, but first I'm gonna use this one to test Blogger's new stuff...See you on the other side.

Gloom

The Orwell-weather persists. Last night I was driving home from class in a bucket-storm: wipers flailing at top speed, visibility down to nothing-plus, afraid to go faster than 45 mph. And then, just as I turn off the highway and onto the road that leads into my neighborhood, it just stops, like somebody turned off a faucet. The dog nearly died after foolishly trying to tangle with a cottonmouth. Suddenly the desert seems a very appealing clime.

Right, soooo...

Post-graduate classes are deceptively difficult. All the work is done on your end. There's no exam, but you're constantly producing documents. I basically wasted my day doing my homework (HOMEWORK, for the love of peanuts) for my education class. It all got done, but it was touch and go there for a while. Especially since my new printer hasn't arrived yet. Thursday's assignment may prove daunting indeed.





Bottom line, I'm mega-super-productive this summer, but I'm not getting done what I really want to get done. I think I need to play Civilization and contemplate this matter.

Updates and Short Takes

Transferring my address book from Hotmail to Earthlink was rather more tedious than I would have imagined, as it had to be done manual. It's amazing how soon we tire of repetitive tasks, even when they are not physically strenuous. Anyway, it's done.





I've ordered the June CD's, and I've ordered them from Amazon. Half.com seemed the way to go, but I've had a really bad experience with one of the sellers. So here's my warning: do not, I repeat, do not, buy anything from the ebay/Half.com seller cd-discounters. The link will explain why. Still no Sonics. I am grossly annoyed.

SOOOOOOOOOOO.....

The week's hiatus was necessary. Around June I feel the need to just walk away from everything that's been driving me nuts (checked the blood pressure in one of those free machines in the supermarket. 142 over 84. Yikes.) But I'll be posting daily from now on, that I can promise you...





In other news, a website I used to write for, Punk Fix, seems to have resurfaced, so I've posted the link. It's the work of basically one dude, and he's very laid back but with a great deal of experience in all thinks punkified.





Also, I done went and bought me a new computer, and got myself a new email address in the process. Please direct your questions, comments, obscene remarks, expressions of outrage and/or righteous indignation, difficulties, doubts, scruples, inarticulate grunts, and childish attempts to call attention to yourself to dukebikerider@earthlink.net. If I like you, I might even explain the "dukebikerider" part.

Coming up for Air...

Anne's blog from a few days ago struck a chord in me. She writes about the crack violence in Baltimore, which is but an hour up I-95 from me. Most of all she mentions the impotence of the city government, even when citizens want to remove the baddies from their neighborhoods. None of which surprises me in the least, but it certainly begs a question or two.





First off, is municipal governement really a viable thing? Can a city hall ever do anything but burden its residents with regulations? Can there ever be enough cops? Can there ever be enough money to pay for all the things a city is required to pay for? How many of those things can safely be privatized?





Secondly, to whom does a society owe its moral obligations? To its productive citizens or its parasites? John Derbyshire wrote yesterday in NRO about the lunacy of British gun laws, and the lengths to which the British government goes to punish citizens who would defend themselves. It's maddening enough, but Derb closes with a reminder of the legal hoops waiting even in our gun-happy USA if a citizen shoots back without all the proper mother-may-I's. Let's see here, scumbags vs. hardworking senior citizen. Can the law really see these two as equal? Deserving of the same rights and priveleges? Do we truly think that creating more and more restrictions on the freedoms of all of us is going to change the behaviors of those who have opted out of our social contract? Why?

Sorry to be Clandestine...

But I'm grading exams. 'Tis the season. I assume the world will still be there when my head rises above the burrow...

Well, Smack My Behind and Call Me Susie...

Allzah.com, the web site I write reviews for, has been updated! You can find my reviews here. There's also a picture of me in my Flock of Seagulls Halloween Costume, but I'm not going to show it to you. So n'yah.

Undercutting

On the one hand, it's hard to stay cheery in the face of the CIA report (here quoted in the Washington Times) that says al-Quaeda is ready to launch further attacks against us: biological, chemical and possibly nuclear. If this is true, then what good has it done us to take out terrorist-friendly regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq? Is it possible that maybe we're missing the head of the hydra?





On the other hand, what further evidence do you need that this is an ongoing struggle? If I saw a way to honestly negotiate with the Islamo-fascists, it might be worth doing. If I could believe that Arab states were to be trusted when they pledged to fight terror, then I might advocate a different approach then the one we are currently engaged in. But I don't see reason to believe in either. As a result, we must carry on, carry on.

By the Way...

Music links updated for the new month. And no, I haven't got my damned Sonics album yet. If it doesn't arrive today, someone's gonne be getting a mighty bitchy email....

The Sullivan Act

I should have known that Andrew Sullivan would wig out about Eric Rudolph. If I were a gay man, I'd be really uncomfortable around fundamentalists of any stripe. As it stands, I hope they string Rudolph up, or at least lock him up in the deepest, darkest cell they can find. But today the old boy really overreacts. Entitling his entry "Christo-Fascism," Sullivan seems to want to have it both ways, arguing that of course "the concept of a christian terrorisr" is an oxymoron, but then points out that "the crusades were a form of terror. So was the Inquisition at a state level."





Really? I was under the impression that the Crusades were a series of wars designed to take back lands that had been gained by Islam through military conquest in the 7th century. As with many wars of that (or any) era, civilians were directly, often deliberately, harmed. To call this terror is to call all warfare up to (and perhaps including) the Iraq war terror. One could say that the religious aspect of the Crusades grants them special calumny. But then how can one say that "christian terrorist" is in any way self-contradictory?





As to the (Spanish) Inquisition, it wasn't terror. It was tyranny. There is a difference. A subtle one, but it is there. Terrorists are extrapolitical, they exist outside the state. They may be in line with the state's goals (such as the Ku Klux Klan), but there is a line of seperation for the purposes of plausible denial, and just as often terrorists are engaged in overthrowing an established power. Terrorists are guerrillas who target civilians. The Spanish Inquisition, on the other hand, was an endowment of the Kingdom of Spain, established for the express purpose of carrying out Ferdinand and Isabella's instructions regarding conversos, those Jews and Muslims who had converted to Christianity at the state's prodding. It enjoyed the state's full and open support, and crushed opposition with the mechanisms of the state (The Pope's sole involvement in this enterprise was to appoint a Dominican friar -- the notorious Torquemada -- as its head later on, to rein in the abuses of the system. He did so, but insincere converts were still punished). This is tyranny, and that word exists so that we can use it. Let's not start calling everything terror, shall we, Sully? Keep this up and before long you'll be calling tax cuts a weapon of mass destruction.