Musical Miscellanea---Forgive the tidbits

* I indulged in a guilty pleasure yesterday, Hole’s Celebrity Skin. I heard Hole for the first time back in the day when their first album, Pretty on the Inside, came out. I was working at Tower Records with a bunch of noise punk kids and we all took great liberties with... well, you can imagine what happens when you work at a large record store when you’re 19.
Anyhoo, a friend, Jon (where the hell is Jon Lewis? Lurch? The Solid Gold Dancers? Massive amounts of pot brownies at your ex-girlfriend’s parent’s A-frame in Tahoe complete with throat singing and communications with the Dogstar?), turned me on to Hole and I also happened upon Babes in Toyland’s Fontanelle album at the same moment. I liked the Hole album but at the time my ear hadn’t developed enough to appreciate the grittiness of it. I was fonder of Babes, primarily because Kat sounded like such a badass and that made her hot.
Jon and his friends were into Hole, as well as Sonic Youth, Neurosis, No Means No, Steel Pole Bathtub; that whole echelon of late 80's to 90's punk/spazz/anger/grit core was their bacon and eggs. There was some crossover, some items we could agree on: KK Null, Schlong, Zeni Geva, Crash Worship, Buzzoven, to name a few. But that other scene they were into, well, they were the first to expose me to it and I was slow to adapt.
As far as Hole went, they ended up on some back burner. Sure, I shoplifted it as it was on a list of bands they would reference, and I knew enough upon hearing it to realize that something was there. I stuck with Babes in Toyland but eventually Hole came into focus for me and I started to dig it.
Everything past that first album though seemed, I don’t know, forced. I know that’s not true, there’s no doubt that Ms. Love had reason to be screaming and throwing fits, but compared to that first album it all sort of paled. Unfortunately, that happens a lot with me, I’m not sure why it is. I assume it has something to do with hearing something for the first time, the newness of it. It may not be groundbreaking or push any envelopes, but you know it fits nicely on the shelf and will be there to fulfill a mood that you know will surface someday.
Damn, these are a lot of words for a band that essentially exists in my peripheral vision. I don’t buy their albums when they come out, don’t go to see them if they come through town, don’t much care about them. Hell, I sold the first CD years ago, the one I like, and haven’t been compelled to buy it again. Sometimes I’d like to hear it but not so much so that I have to hunt it down.
But I did pick up Celebrity Skin at a pawn shop or something for 3 buck on one of those days when you’re digging with no agenda, just killing time and you want to buy something, HAVE to buy something (am I the only one who has those moods? Doubt it) and you just grab the best thing you find. I took it home and put it on and really liked it. It is a pretty damn good pop album, all of the grit of the early years had been sluiced from the studio and poured into the tabloids and Courtney’s extracurricular antics and tantrums. They were no longer the beast that I had encountered so long ago, they had aged, as we all had, and gotten softer around the edges. Your world view, if your lucky, changes, priorities shift, your ears get moody, the years can polish you or ruin you (unless you’re Slayer. How in the hell does Tom Araya stay so pissed off? He needs a hug). No, this album had been put through the studio wringer, and came out crisp, clean, and even a little sentimental. Courtney, at some point, learned how to sing. I’m sure Billy Corgan’s hand had something to do with it. As much as I don’t like the Smashing Pumpkins, you’ve got to give the guy credit for crafting a song, forming a good melody and knowing when and where to stay quiet, when and where to start screaming.
Celebrity Skin? I don’t want to say that it could be our generation’s Tapestry, but really, stranger things have been said.

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* According to a blurb in the glossy 87-pound advertisement calling itself a magazine, Vanity Fair, Tom Waits is dropping a 3 CD set of songs he’s done for various tributes, soundtracks, and such. It’s currently titled “Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards.” Rejoice! Now we can all get rid of our copies of the American Heart soundtrack.

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* Had a nice small gathering last night. A few folks, some hors d’oeuvres (that’s French for “Your Mom’s tongue tastes funny”), everyone going through the vinyl picking and choosing and putting on sounds. It was an all vinyl night, with everyone participating. The Clash, The Specials, Queen, Elton John, Tom Waits, Dexy’s Midnight Runners (I don’t care what anyone says, Dexy’s version of ‘Jackie Wilson Said’ kicks Van Morrison’s up and down the boulevard, like a pimp whose bitch don’t be having his money), X, Stevie Wonder. The only CD that got dropped was at the end of the night when I had to hear ELO. There were no protests once ‘Showdown’ kicked in, but we all agreed that we didn’t need to hear their version of ‘Roll Over Beethoven.’ Even Jeff Lynne dropped the ball every now and again. Along with the vinyl we plowed through two loud, vulgarity ridden games of Pictionary and a few rounds of Twister. A warning: Playing Twister while drinking heavily can cause serious injuries.

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* What is your best CD to get people out of your house, quickly, when you just get fed up or someone pukes all over your kitchen? I’d have to say Nurse with Wound’s 150 Murderous Passions or Controlled Bleeding’s Phlegm Bag Spattered. I’ve had both for about 10 years now and I’ve only succeeded in getting through them in one sitting maybe, and it’s a big maybe, once. They are albums you keep around for dares, or to shut someone up, or to counter when someone tries to tell you that Tiny Tim has recorded some of the most obnoxious and unlistenable music in the entire history of the universe. It’s music you play for your mom when she tells you that the Napalm Death you’ve been loving at high volumes is hellish noise. They are albums, in your judgmental and passionate youth, that you throw at black trench-coated, heavily made up goth dweebs who insist that Ministry is ‘industrial’ music.
Come to think of it, these words jog the memory and I recall one specific incident where I did get through one of them without cutting my own head off. Yes, 150 Murderous Passions I did pull off one night after spending the previous 12 hours laughing like a maniac and staring at the walls listening to Skinny Puppy with some friends under the watchful gaze of copious amounts of LSD. The sun was going to be putting in its daily appearance in an hour or so. I was sore and destroyed, tired but not able to sleep, and really didn’t want to toss about in a strange bed or couch, so I dragged my friend Scott up and we drove home, no words, no glances, both willing our crispy brains to heal themselves, hoping that this time wasn’t the one that put us over the edge into severe mental retardation, adult onset Down’s Syndrome. I put the album on and it sounded just like my brain felt: jagged, unnatural and unholy frequencies crashing about in an dumpster filled with glass bottles, sounds that were birthed with only one goal, to make your ears bleed. Under normal circumstances I would have been over it in seconds, but not tonight. It was as if it were resonating in my head, and the harmonies were, strangely enough, working to clear out all the shit that just piled up in my brain, flush all the bad chemicals I had just spackled onto it.
It’s a short album so it ended before we got home. I ended up putting on a static station and turning it all the way up. We pulled up to Scott’s house, somehow, the ride was a bit of a blur, and he got out without a word and walked away. The next time I saw him he mentioned that he would prefer to never hear that album again and that he thought I was mad at him and was punishing him for something, seriously, and he wanted to know what it was that he had done so he could apologize. I could only laugh.
One man’s treasure is another man’s torture.