Cool Band Names

OR SONG NAMES!!




I could go on and on and on about how cool some names are. Today, 'My Life With The Thrill Kill Cult' came to mind, and I listened to a cut of theirs I have on a comp disc.


One of my 'steady rotation' bands, Interpol is a group I had never even HEARD of when I was strolling down 9 Mile Road in Ferndale ... passing the Record Collector?!? Anywho, I normally would scour the used cd's, when I saw 'Turn On The Bright Lights', though it was full price new, I bought it.


Since I like 'Britpop' bands like Blur and Oasis, I figured with the name 'Interpol', that I would take a flyer on them as well. This was a superior, superior CD. As far as I am concerned, they have not disappointed me at all, and with their last CD, 'Our Love To Admire', they are in the 'rarefied air' of groups that I really like. I try to wait until a band has a body of work before I put them above the rest atop the 'music mountain'. Groups like Ministry, Tribe Called Quest, Nirvana, and KMFDM are the bands that I would buy and note have to hear a note.


'Iowa' by Slipknot is a one that I bought because I liked the cover. The scary symbolism of the goat, his horns shadowed ominously, caught my eye. The song 'Everything Ends' was the one that I enjoyed listening to.

You are wrong, f*cked, and overrated

I think Im gonna be sick and its your fault

This is the end of everything
You are the end of everything

I don't know if anyone else can really, really understand the need to listen to that kind of stuff, going from the dreamy melodies of Spritualized to stuff like this but I do it all the time.

For instance, I have always liked Ministry. At first go though, it took a second to listen to. I was not around any of the 'folks' that listened to that stuff on a regular basis, so I bought '... Rape and Honey' and 'The Mind is ...' mainly off reviews and what 'looked' like I would listen to. Between throwin' papers and working at the 7-Tel Party Store (where I am still recognized, thank you very much!!), I had the disposable income that a comic collecting kid needed to have a nice tape collection. Then came Psalm 69.

DON'T GET ME WRONG

I do remember the Ohio Players. P-Funk and all of the George Clinton bands (after all, if you move your mind, your a$$ will follow!!) ... and no doubt I liked Motown stuff. But my Mom listened to Herman Hermits and a lot of Billy Joel ... so I never once felt out of place in my house when I would play the music I liked.


But what gets me about being ethnically tied to cultural interests, is the two faced properties that come with it. For instance, folks around these parts could dig Bob Seger, but not enjoy any of the other fine artist of his era. Didn't make sense to me and it still doesn't.

Nor do I understand how someone can't be 'enough' of anything. At any rate...

THE WAY TO SUCCEED OR SUCK EGGS

Jan, the elder sister and I were on fairly good terms when I finally got around to purchasing this release. And from the first song to the last, it blew me away. While I have never been one for trying to figure out what the artist was trying to say, the message was never lost on me, when it came to some of the tracks, like N.W.O . Then you would have a track like my fave, 'Jesus Built My Hot Rod'. The line, 'No man with a good car needs to be justified' is a pillar of thought for me. I think the notion is simple ... you got a good plan, something you believe in, go ahead and BELIEVE IT. You don't need to get no okay, save the okay you give yourself!!

But in one of the examples of something 'not being enough', when Tribe Called Quest came out, they weren't 'enough' of whatever I may not have been for some folks. But I remember liking them a lot, and their song 'Left My Wallet In El Segundo', is one that moves the wanderlust in me, the way that 'Call Of The West' by Wall Of Voodoo does, and with lyrics like these, is it any wonder why?

he got the high sign so he jumped a bus

and along the roads that wind on through

the hot mojave and the jericho / he'd start his whole life anew

and what he'd left behind he hadn't valued

half as much as some things he never knew

That makes so much sense in general, not just for my current situation. I am surprised that more people don't understand the wisdom of those words. I mean, I can imagine running into 'stuff' in Nebraska that makes as much sense as JoAnn Watson's property tax bill, but what they are and what they will be, I don't know ...

Being here, I try not to complain about things, but those are observations that are for another time, another place. This is about how I am letting some songs 'Eli Stone' me into where I need to be.

KEEP THIEVES HOURS WITH SOMEONE LIKE YOU ...

That is who I hope to find on some farm, bringing in eggs from the hens out in the coop!! Really though, I have folks in the general vicinity, and it would be neat if someone from the days of Junction City and Ft Riley ran into me somewhere around there ... after all, it could happen so you'd better watch!

Anywho, the Morrissey song, 'Maladjusted' had the right blend of poetic, melancholy self-pity and yearning for me. As he 'starts from before the beginning', I let the lyrics pick me up and in some striving for a better life car, driven by someone who urgently wants a better life, and is determined to get it, 'with someone like you'...

When you wind through some of the streets in Rosedale and especially Palmer Park, you can really see and feel what it is like to look into the windows of 'safe, and stable homes' that are but a facade for the aimlessness behind them. 'Ghetto American Beauty' you could say.

But the scene could be anywhere, and the duo could be any pair of 'Desperate Youths ...' that are spending stifled Friday nights in another epic bout of frustration. Frustrated because they can't find a way to reach that something that is in them, or what to do with it once it gets let out. Frustrated because frustration is all they know, etched on their Mother's face from working two jobs for too little pay, in the face of their teachers who are assaulted from the administration, the apathy of the students, the low morale and motivation to keep doing their underfunded, under appreciated jobs.

Everyone else seems to have a 'why me' look in their lives ... so they say 'why not me too.' Why not say yes to teenage sex, or get involved trying to sell drugs. Anything, anything would be better than this, wouldn't it?

WELL I WAS FIFTEEN, WHAT COULD I KNOW?

I am getting a little lost in 'Maladjusted', to be sure. But it isn't that I am off my mark. But who wouldn't be ...

With a soul full of loathing

For stinging bureaucracy

Making it anything Other than easy

For working girls like me

Those lyrics absolutely 'get' to me. I wonder at times, why does things have to be hard, particularly the things that are supposed to help you? Sometimes it seems like the stuff that you are trying to bring yourself up with, is worse than leaving things as they are ... but that is what it can seem like. It is hard to change the thinking that something that initially is difficult is for your own good, for real. Another reason sports is such a perfect metaphor ... but that would be a big digression.

That is her, up on the left, 'with my hands on my head, I flop on your bed ... with a head full of dread, for all I've ever said ... Maladjusted, Maladjusted,

Maladjusted ...'

Not that we can ever know it all, but when does 'knowing better' translate into 'doing better'? That is what seems to be in this song. I wonder what it is that folks in the hood hear in the destructive, anti-social and purposeless (or purpsoseful, depends on one's perspective) of the music that air on the pop stations and flood the TV screens in videos and promos for ads ...

... this is a typical Morrissey song, but I kept coming back to the 'loot wine, be mine, and let's stay out for the night' part. That and the fact that someone wasn't alone as they rode 'via Parkside, semi-perilous lives' was the clue that there was two along for the trip.

THE GULF BETWEEN THE THINGS I NEED ...

... and what I receive is an ancient, ocean wide, wild, lost, uncrossed. Sounds like someone is ready to move on, doesn't it? Sometimes, I find it difficult to related to women who are in bad relationships, because they eventually settle for these 'artificial gulf' to spring up, and they don't dare venture out.

That is part of why I liked the movie 'Castaway' so much. Because when self pity wasn't going to help Chuck Noland out, he managed the best way he couldn and he found reason to keep going on ...

But this is a music entry. Getting back on message ... I really got the notion of changing where I was headed in life with this song. I would love to hear the songs that mean something to anyone who reads this, and if they didn't mind, leave a little of themselves with it. Hope everyone has the best weekend ... THE ICE CREAM MAN IS COMIN'!!!